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FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
 ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY S. WATTS 
 
 AUTHOR OF "NATHAN BURKE," " THB 
 RI8B OF JENNIE CU8HING," ETC. 
 
 NetD gorft 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1919 
 
 AU righia reterved 
 
COPTEIGHT, 1919, 
 
 By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published June, 1919, 
 
 ***** « 1 I i 
 
 J. S. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 403422 
 
\ 
 
 Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
 
 in 2008 witii funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.arcliive.org/details/fromfathertosonOOwattrich 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 PART I 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE train trundled eastward through a landscape now, 
 at last, after something like twenty hours' travel, 
 beginning to show the austere graces of New England. 
 There were the evergreens, and the lean hillsides set with 
 apple-orchards; the white houses and stone walls uncon- 
 sciously picturesque; the clean tangles of wild growth, ber- 
 ries, herbs, vines, brambles alien to inland soil; and in the 
 air, now and again, a hint of adjacent seas. The September 
 day was hot; a fine bloom of dust had settled over the 
 sleeping-car plush; the through passengers who had turned 
 out quite spick and spruce for breakfast at Albany, now 
 appeared somehow bedimmed like the window-panes. 
 Promenading the length of the train one received a general 
 impression of valises, of rumpled pillows, of old jaded maga- 
 zines that were fresh yesterday, of vagrant umbrellas, and 
 little whorls of hair-combings, and furtive crumbs lurking 
 under the heating-pipes. On the rear platform of the rear 
 car there were camped two young men, and an older one 
 who might have been their father; the boys talked together, 
 the other sat with folded arms, surveying the retreating 
 scenery with half-closed eyes from under his hat which was 
 pulled down in front over his thick whit€ hair and his fore- 
 head so that it rested on his eyebrows. In the smoking- 
 compartment behind there was sporadic conversation be- 
 tween two or three commercial travellers, voyaging in the 
 interests of wholesale carpets, underwear-mills, distilleries 
 or what-not, and another man who had the air of being a 
 broker, banker, senior partner in a firm of attorneys or 
 
 B 1 
 
2 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 some such person. That is to say, he was tall and heavily 
 built, upwards of fifty years old with iron-gray hair, strongly 
 marked features, quick, steady eyes, and noticeably good 
 clothes and cigars. 
 
 " This part of the trip gets to be very tedious," he had 
 said in assent to some remark from one of the commercial 
 gentlemen. 
 
 " Yeh, you're not on the train long enough to settle down 
 to it. Me for the long jumps. It tires you less going from 
 Chicago to San Francisco or Mexico City, three — four days 
 on the train, than these little twenty-four-hour runs." 
 
 *' That was Quinnehasset we passed just now," the carpet- 
 salesman volunteered. " Seventy miles more." They all 
 mechanically looked at their watches. There was sonae 
 stretching and yawning; the porter came around with his 
 sad-hued rag and made perfunctory passes at the window- 
 sills. 
 
 " What does Quinnehasset mean, does anybody know? " 
 asked the banker-broker-lawyer-looking man, casually. 
 " It's Indian, of course, but has it ever been translated? " 
 
 They variously answered that he could search them, or 
 that they passed, or that if it was some kind of a sell, he 
 could go ahead and spring it on them. 
 
 " No; it was a straight question. I was just wondering. 
 All these Indian names have a meaning. I've heard some 
 of them. There's Alabama, for instance. Means, ' Here we 
 rest! ' It's interesting." 
 
 " It's mighty suitable," said the drummer opposite him, 
 grinning. " Alabama's the state for the colored population. 
 ' Here we rest,' huh ! They sure do ! " 
 
 " I suppose Connecticut means ' Here we get out and 
 hustle!''' the carpet-man said with a lazy laugh; and he 
 added irrelevantly: ''Say, this is the silly season, sure 
 enough! Any idea what Coshocton means? " 
 
 " I haven't made a study of it," said the first speaker, 
 good-humoredly. '' There are people that think it worth 
 studying, though. I've heard them contend that all our 
 American names of towns and so on ought to be Indian." 
 
 " Well, a good many of 'em are, and they're jaw-breakers 
 for fair. Ever hear that story about the fellow that calls 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 3 
 
 in the stenographer to dictate a letter to a party saying that 
 he'll meet him in Schenectady such and such a date, and the 
 girl wants to know how to spell Schenectady, and he makes 
 two or three stabs at it, and finally gives up and says: ' Oh, 
 hell! Make it Troy!'" 
 
 The big man laughed obligingly, and confessed that he 
 himself felt none too secure about the spelling of Schenec- 
 tady. '' I think the Middle Western Indian dialects must 
 have been better sounding than these Atlantic coast ones, 
 anyhow. Maybe it's because of being born and brought up 
 in the IMiddle West; maybe I'm prejudiced. But these 
 Maine and Massachusetts places have all got names like 
 squeemash and pebunksquot. Now Miami, Muskingum, 
 Shawnee — those are pretty! " 
 
 " Sure ! And Gallon and Youngstown, they're elegant," 
 the whiskey-drummer agreed in jocular irony. 
 
 " They get eleganter the farther away you get from 'em, 
 hey, Jakey? " suggested another; and then unintentionally 
 put a stop to the interchange of wit, by remarking in sur- 
 prise that they were slowing down. " What's that for? " 
 He peered slantwise through the window. " Hadley Junc- 
 tion. Quite a little berg, Hadley. Three switches ; fourteen 
 milk-cans, an old woman, two boys and an Airedale terrier 
 on the platform ; two Fords and a wheelbarrow — " 
 
 '' Two Fords in a wheelbarrow, did you say? " 
 
 ''Ain't you the bright boy, though! Here comes the 
 station-master. What's the excitement? Let's ask the por- 
 ter. Hey, George! " 
 
 But the porter had vanished, whisking off his white jacket, 
 and buttoning himself into his dark uniform coat, and look- 
 ing tremendously important and busy. And in another 
 moment, the two boys and the older man came inside. 
 
 '' We're hitching on a high muck-a-muck in a private car," 
 one of the youths announced. The other spoke to the tall 
 man. 
 
 " It's the Stillmans," he said in an undertone, but his 
 companion overheard, and turned on him in surprise. 
 
 " Do you know them? " 
 
 "Why, I — I — yes, I know them," said the other boy 
 awkwardly, flushing all over his face, which was thin and 
 
4 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 sensitive, with rather high features. One would have inferred 
 that it embarrassed him to acknowledge acquaintance with 
 the Stillmans. But the first boy remained quite unmoved 
 by the revelation. 
 
 " Gee ! " he commented airily, and bestowed his entire 
 attention, or as much of it as could be directed through the 
 car-window, on the mancEUvres by which the railroad mag- 
 nate's personal conveyance was now being attached to the 
 train. This was not done without considerable shoving and 
 shunting, backing and filling, with resultant shaking-up to 
 travellers of less consequence, and even, it may fairly be 
 supposed, to the exalted Stillmans themselves. The train 
 crew might be observed running, shouting and waving arms ; 
 all the porters flourished up and down ostentatiously. At 
 length with one final dislocating jolt forward and back, a 
 kind of long wheezing sigh and universal settling down of 
 trucks, the train moved on; Hadley Junction wheeled out of 
 sight around a curve. 
 
 The white-haired man had gone forward meanwhile, pre- 
 sumably to his berth, in which direction the boys presently 
 followed. The whiskey-salesman addressed the big man 
 with some curiosity: '' Which of those two is yours? " 
 
 '' Those two? What two? Oh, the boys! Why, the one 
 that spoke to me just now. The tall one." 
 
 '' They're both tall," said the other a little contentiously, 
 eyeing the man who knew Stillman with a species of involun- 
 tary hostility. He felt a certain resentment, utterly without 
 foundation, yet somehow not unnatural, against this big- 
 bug — such was the whiskey-salesman's phraseology — this 
 fellow of Stillman's own crowd, some corporation-counsel 
 probably with a bank-account as long as your arm; riding 
 in an everyday Pullman and acting like a plain man. As 
 he phrased it simply, it was as if the other had put one over 
 on him. " Stillman's president of this road," he said 
 accusingly. 
 
 "Wake up, Jake! Stillman's president of all the roads, 
 ain't he? " said the underwear-drummer genially. He, at 
 least, was sincerely indifferent to Stillman's status, financial 
 or otherwise — to anybody's status, for that matter. " I 
 thought both of those young fellows belonged to the old 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 5 
 
 colonel with the white goatee," he said. " They've been 
 sticking together so." 
 
 " What makes you think he's a colonel? " 
 
 " Heard 'em call him that. He and the boy got on at 
 Columbus, and some of their folks were down at the depot 
 to see them off." 
 
 " I don't see how they happened to let 'em through the 
 gates. They don't, as a usual thing," Jake said, still more 
 or less sourly. 
 
 " Well, army-men, you know — I guess they've got some 
 — now — prerogatives, as you might say. They don't have 
 to pay when they travel, do they? Or else they get special 
 rates. How is that, do you know, Mr. ? " 
 
 He looked inquiringly to the big man, who replied that he 
 wasn't sure ; he thought they had to pay their own expenses 
 when going anywhere on their own private business. Other- 
 wise he believed Uncle Sam footed the bills, or made them an 
 allowance of some kind. " And in conscience it seems as if 
 the Government ought to do that much," he added. " Their 
 pay is very small." 
 
 ''Well, I guess it's all it's worth — for most of 'em any- 
 how," the carpet-man said. " It's an idle life." 
 
 '' It wasn't so idle down here in Cuba ten or twelve years 
 ago. And I shouldn't wonder if what with fever and hostile 
 natives and one thing and another, our soldiers aren't some- 
 times kept fairly busy in the Philippines and here and there. 
 Then again they're generally on the job in times of floods 
 and cyclones and so on," said the big man in the manner of 
 an impartial observer. " Of course I haven't any use for a 
 great expensive military establishment. That's all nonsense 
 these times; nobody's going to jump on the United States 
 anyhow. But I don't believe in running down the army." 
 
 " I wasn't running it down," retorted the other. " I just 
 say it isn't anv life for any man that's got any enterprise." 
 
 " Well, say,^it's too hot to start an argument," the under- 
 wear-man interposed pacifically. As he spoke, with a time- 
 liness comparable to the pre-arranged effects of the stage, 
 there strolled in from the private car a second big, forcible, 
 well-dressed man whose quick gaze canvassed them all, 
 brightening with pleased surprise as it lit upon his twin. 
 
6 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 "Hello, Lawson! " he said; and the other got up and 
 responded: "Hello, John! " and they shook hands. 
 
 " What are you doing here? I thought you'd be down at 
 the place, getting ready for the festivities. Cutting it 
 pretty short, aren't you? " Stillman said. 
 
 " Well, I had to go back home unexpectedly on a business 
 matter. Steven's been in the office all summer, and of 
 course while Galway was there everything went along 
 smoothly, but he went off on his vacation the first of the 
 month, and directly this thing came up, and the boy didn't 
 feel quite equal to it, so — " 
 
 " So he wired for Dad. I see," said Stillman, and smiled. 
 " Mrs. Rudd with you? " 
 
 " Oh Lord, no ! Nothing could persuade her to leave the 
 Clear Harbor place, with this wedding coming on. She never 
 goes home until November, anyway. Steve's here, though. 
 He's on the train somewhere. He fell in with some college 
 acquaintance." 
 
 They sat down, with two of those excellent cigars going. 
 It was now to be seen that in reality, feature for feature, 
 they did not look alike. The railroad president was much 
 the older man, for one thing. It was only that in their strong 
 and purposeful faces, their movements, their voices and 
 manner, not domineering, not aggressive, yet the voices and 
 manner of habitual authority, one recognized a kinship as 
 marked as that of blood — the kinship of the American 
 business man. His is as truly a race as any of the dozen 
 and one from which it is made up, and possesses a racial 
 type resembling none of them, emphatically his own. 
 
 " Well, how do you like the feeling of having a daughter 
 married, Lawson? " 
 
 " She isn't married yet. Why, it's hard to realize that she's 
 that old. But Edith's twenty -two; they will grow up, in 
 spite of you! That was a very nice thing you sent. Edith 
 and all of us appreciated that very much. You've heard 
 from her? She said she was going to sit down and write, 
 right away — " 
 
 Mr. Stillman made a deprecatory gesture. " The girls 
 have heard, I expect. They picked it out. Glad you like it," 
 he said, diplomatically refraining from more specific ref- 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 7 
 
 erence to the gift, wherein, indeed. Mr. Rudd had set the 
 example. As a matter of fact, neither father had the slight- 
 est recollection of what it had been! They had their 
 aesthetic tastes; Stillman's collection of ancient armor and 
 weapons including our own Indian or aboriginal relics, had 
 a considerable renown; the gardens, greenhouses and arbor- 
 etum of the Rudd estate, dow^n on the New England coast 
 whither the owner was now being conveyed, were most beau- 
 tiful. '' Journey's End," Mr. Rudd called his summer home 
 and loved it, played with it, petted it, tried experiments and 
 spent money on it with a royal hand. But since one does 
 not make wedding-presents of antique cross-bows or of new 
 hybrid orchids, both gentlemen on such occasions felt them- 
 selves ill equipped for a selection, and moreover not greatly 
 interested; they invariably delegated the business to the 
 women of the family, and paid the bills without a murmur. 
 
 [' George must be down at Clear Harbor already," Rudd 
 said next. " They were expecting him when I left." 
 
 '' Yes. He timed his vacation so as to take in the wedding 
 and then go on up to that little place in Nova Scotia where 
 he's been the last two seasons. He likes it up there; and let 
 me tell you George earns his rest. He's very hard-working, 
 very conscientious," said the older man, allowing himself to 
 be betrayed into a warmth of which the next instant he was 
 visibly ashamed. '' My own son, of course — still — " he 
 diffidently mumbled, actually reddening a little; " Never has 
 given me the least anxiety. Lots of men have trouble — 
 you know — " 
 
 '' George is all right! " said Rudd, with sufficient hearti- 
 ness; but a momentary absent look in his eyes that were 
 ordinarily so alert, caused the other father to condemn him- 
 self inwardly with strong words. " I don't know whether 
 that young Steve Rudd is making good or not. And here 
 I've got to start in gushing over George! " he thought. " I 
 must be getting old." And aloud, precipitately: " The ladies 
 are back in the car. I mean Mrs. Ballard and Mary — 
 they're with us now — and Clara, of course. Come on back 
 and see them, don't you want to? " 
 
 " Why, I've got this cigar — " 
 
 " Oh, they don't mind that. Come on. Here, we'll leave 
 
8 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 word with the porter to tell Steve to come back, too." Which 
 was done forthwith, and the two old friends departed to 
 the rear. 
 
 " That must be the Rudd Chemical Company Rudd. You 
 know? Back home," observed the carpet-salesman after a 
 while. " I kept thinking I'd seen him before." 
 
 " At a directors' meeting, one of those boards you big 
 fellows are all on together, I suppose? Or maybe you had 
 a little session with him, cutting coupons," said Jake in 
 sardonic raillery. 
 
 The ladies of the Stillman party were taking the air and 
 incidentally an icy-cold, delicious compound of lemons, pine- 
 apple, Apollinaris and so on, in an observation compartment 
 at the end. All three got up with an agreeable little chorus 
 of " Oh, Mr. Rudd! '' and wondering and questioning ejacu- 
 lations. A sooty black poodle shaved into the semblance of 
 a lion, with a tuft of burnt-orange velvet ribbon tied into the 
 curls over his left ear, burst into terrific yappings which he 
 kept up until Miss Stillman's French woman who had been 
 napping privately in a corner over her novel — somebody's 
 " Amours " or " Mysteres " or " Intrigues '' — came and 
 took him away. 
 
 " We supposed you'd be at ' Journey's End ' up to your 
 ears in flowers and telegrams and silver tea-trays and 
 things," said Clara, expressing — with some difference — 
 the same idea as her father. Miss Clara Stillman was a tall 
 woman of about thirty -two, and she was dressed in a cling- 
 ing violet linen gown, of the style which at this date was 
 called '' Princesse " or sometimes " Empire," accompanied 
 by a loose, half-long violet linen coat, both garments pan- 
 elled with intricate embroideries ; there were cuffs and a col- 
 lar and jabot of incredibly fine needlework; there was a 
 dashing little travelling toque of crushed violets ; there were 
 violet silk stockings to match showing above her elegantly 
 slender patent-leather pumps. It was a creation. The color 
 accommodated itself well to her fair, accurately arranged 
 hair, and her rather pallid, sprightly face. 
 
 Mr. Rudd repeated his explanations. "They don't need 
 me. The only man that's ever really wanted around at a 
 wedding is the groom, I expect," he said with a laugh. '' But, 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 9 
 
 anyhow, Edith's got the whole thing worked out to the last 
 detail. It's a wonder she hasn't had spots chalked on the 
 floor where every member of the bridal party is to stand, or 
 a schedule printed to tell us all just in what order we are to 
 do everything. Figured it all out herself, you know. Per- 
 fectly determined there shan't be any hitches. Seriously, it 
 shows executive ability. I was amazed." 
 
 "Oh, Edith's always been so clever — original — ! '* 
 Miss Stillman murmured admiringly. " I do hope she'll have 
 nice weather." 
 
 Everybody in unison hoped she would have nice weather. 
 A man-servant of uncertain rank, being out of livery, ar- 
 rived unobtrusively with more tall glasses filled, however, 
 with an appreciably stronger refreshment. Only the gen- 
 tlemen took it, but Mrs. Ballard, perhaps stimulated by 
 the atmosphere, ventured circumspectly: ^' Mr. Rudd, do 
 tell us! This young man, Edith's futur, is he German or is 
 he Italian? The name — you know — it seems to be a — 
 a — mixture, somehow. Brother John and I had a fright- 
 fully high-pitched discussion — neither one of us would 
 give in. I offered a compromise on the theory that his father 
 and mother were of both nationalities — I mean either — 
 you know what I mean, so you needn't laugh — " 
 
 " Why, Gherardi's an Austrian, Mrs. Ballard. He's one 
 of the military attaches at the legation; she met him last 
 summer at Newport; that's when this thing started," said 
 Rudd, circumstantially. " Curious, several people have 
 asked me that same question, and I can't see myself why 
 there should be the least doubt about it. Rudolph, you 
 know. That's anything but Italian." 
 
 " That's what I said, Lawson," cried his friend, trium- 
 phantly. *' I told Ellen nobody ever heard of an Italian 
 named Rudolph. It would have been Rodolfo, or something 
 on that order. And as to the Gherardi, they sometimes have 
 names like that in Germany — or Austria, it's practically 
 the same. There was that — let's see — what was his name, 
 Ellen? The man that succeeded Bismarck — ? " 
 
 " Von Caprivi," said Mrs. Ballard. 
 
 " That's it, Von Caprivi. That's the same kind of a 
 name." 
 
10 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 *' Mr. Gherardi hasn't any von, though, has he? " 
 
 " No, no title. I rather like that. His not having a title, 
 I mean," said Rudd. " There's too much of this title busi- 
 ness. In Germany, as I understand it — and maybe every- 
 where on the continent — if there's a count or a baron in the 
 family, all the sons are counts or barons — might have 
 half a dozen brother counts. Whenever IVe been over 
 there, I've noticed how thick the titles were, and I suppose 
 that explains it. Seems absurd to an American — and 
 rather cheap, rather cheap. Gherardi's people are more like 
 ourselves. They're bankers in Buda-Pesth; very solid 
 people." 
 
 *' Pesth? Oh, I know somebody there. Count and Count- 
 ess Jascha — charming people. We met them in London, 
 and afterwards when she heard we were in Vienna, she 
 wrote and insisted on our going to spend a week with them 
 at their summer home, their wonderfully interesting old 
 castle in the Tyrol. I wonder if Mr. Gherardi knows them. 
 I'll ask him. Don't you remember the Jaschas, papa? " 
 
 Mr. Stillman grunted. '' That was one of the times when 
 you and your mother were over by yourselves," he said, 
 swirled the whiskey and water around in his tumbler, and 
 finished it. It was five years since his wife's death ; she had 
 been a highly ornamental person in her day, and as useful, 
 probably, as Mr. Stillman desired her to be. Very likely he 
 was not exacting about his womankind, what they did, 
 spent, wore, or where they went ; he never had the time. Un- 
 like his friend Rudd, he had not begun life by stepping into 
 the shoes of an extremely well-shod parent. Stillman came 
 up from the ranks, came up from the bottom, came up from 
 nothing; the sixty-odd years of his life had been passed in 
 that savage and precarious business of coming up; and no 
 incident not directly connected with it, not even the inci- 
 dents of marrying and of burying his wife, impressed him 
 much or abode significantly in his memory. 
 
 " I daresay Captain Gherardi — it's Captain Gherardi, by 
 the way, so he has a title after all, he's in the army like all 
 the rest of these foreign young men — I daresay you and he 
 will find some mutual friends. He seems to know a great 
 many people everywhere, the diplomatic corps generally 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 11 
 
 do," Rudd was saying, in reply to Miss Stillman. And here 
 young Steven came in. 
 
 He spoke to Mr. Stillman rather shyly, and refused the 
 highball, and sat down eagerly by the Ballard girl, as was 
 natural, considering that she was the only person of his own 
 age in the company. He must have begun at once telling her 
 about his late companions, judging by the scraps of their talk 
 that reached their elders — " Jack Burke " — " Awfully nice 
 chap " — '' Why, class of '07. Yes, ahead of mine, but he 
 came back for the law course. Boiled it down to two years 
 instead of four. That's going some! " — " His father's been 
 stationed at Panama " — " Lived all over everywhere " — 
 and so on, and on, with the two young heads, the boy's sleek 
 fair one, and the girl's loose, wavy mop of chestnut brown, 
 close together. Mr. Steven Rudd's shyness ceased, as one 
 might say, conspicuoush^ to trouble him in Miss Mary Bal- 
 lard's society; but then it would have been ridiculous for 
 anyone to feel shy with so round, dimpled, short-nosed and 
 obviously unimportant a person. 
 
 " Why didn't you bring your friend back here, Steve? " 
 said Stillman hospitably. '' Go and get him now, why don't 
 you? " 
 
 " Oh, thank you, Mr. Stillman, it would be jolly, but 
 they're getting off this next stop — Clam Beach. Mrs. 
 Burke's there — " He went on talking to Mary. '' Do you 
 know, it's only twenty-five or thirty miles from our place, 
 no^ more than an hour in a machine. You can go straight€r 
 than by the railroad; it winds all around. And the roads 
 are fair. I'm going over. Look here, I'd like awfully well 
 to have Burke meet you. Can I bring him over to the 
 hotel? After this everlasting wedding's over, of course. 
 How long do you think you'll stop? " 
 
 ''Why, I don't know — " said Mary, in a slightly lower 
 voice, hesitating, glancing at her mother; and the latter 
 lady, who was perfectly capable of listening to two con- 
 versations at once, and of joining in either absolutely d 
 propos, immediately struck in with the information that 
 Clear Harbor was a delightful place — such a nice hotel — 
 she had always liked it so much, partly, no doubt, because 
 of having so many friends whose summer homes were in the 
 neighborhood — 
 
12 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " I wish we could have asked everybody to the house," 
 said the elder Rudd with genuine regret. " But you know 
 how those things are. We've got all the family, naturally. 
 I never before realized what a posse the Rudd connection 
 made when you got them all together. And there's the 
 bridal-party — " 
 
 '' All the men are going to bunk on the sleeping-porches, 
 or in the big room over the boat-house," Steven broke in 
 gleefully. '' I don't know how Edith's arranged for the ' 
 girls; they need more dressing-room accommodations than 
 men." 
 
 " Oh, they'll have loads of fun. You always do when 
 you're all crowded in," Mary assured him. They went on 
 talking, leaving the question of the Ballards' stay at Clear 
 Harbor hanging. 
 
 Clam Beach was reached; the Burkes, father and son, 
 descended, and Steven rapped on the window, and the two 
 saw him and uttered a wordless farewell, smiling with lifted 
 hats from among their valises and golf-bags and fishing 
 gear. The train bowled on; and erelong arrived at the Clear 
 Harbor station in a resounding melee of baggage-wagons, big 
 motor-cars, middle-sized motor-cars, little motor-cars and 
 some few horse-vehicles, of house servants, hotel servants, 
 young men and girls slouchily stylish in every known variety 
 of sporting- costume, numberless dogs, bicycles, yachtsmen, 
 sailors on shore leave from the Government cruiser down the 
 bay, and summer residents or vacationists from half a dozen 
 less select resorts scattered along the neighboring beaches. 
 It was among these latter gentry that the Stillman party 
 augmented by the Rudds, happened to disembark; and now 
 an odd, uncomfortable encounter took place. That is to 
 say, as they were exchanging final civilities, and just as the 
 Rudd chauffeur had come up and touched his hat and taken 
 the Rudd bags, and while some Stillman satellite with 
 equally impassive good manners was performing the same 
 office for the Stillmans, and a second after George Stillman, 
 big and clean in nice white flannels, had come shouldermg 
 through the crowd and got up to them — just at this moment, 
 there caromed into Mr. Rudd's immediate presence — quite 
 unintentionally, as was at once evident — a seedy person 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 13 
 
 with an ill-used hat, who began to apologize, and interrupted 
 himself to ejaculate: "What! Laicson! " 
 
 Mr. Rudd ejaculated too, but unintelligibly, and stared, 
 out of countenance in a surprise so perceptibly hostile as to 
 put the others out of countenance, too; one and all, except 
 Stillman senior, they began to look elsewhere and to be very 
 busy, scattering off in haste, and reuniting farther away. 
 The boy Steven stood looking from his father to the stranger, 
 wonderingly. 
 
 "I — I hadn't any idea you were staying here — I — 
 er — " Mr. Rudd fairly stuttered. ''I — um — er — " 
 
 " I'm not staying. I'm going," said the man, recovering 
 much more promptly. " You live around here somewhere, 
 don't you? Seems to me I recollect hearing you had your 
 summer place in this neighborhood. I'm at Clam Beach; 
 just ran over to the Harbor this afternoon for the sail." All 
 of which speech, he uttered not glibly, but with a kind of 
 deliberate fluency, as if in the humane desire to give the 
 other time to get over his embarrassment. And to be sure, 
 Mr. Rudd, by the end of it, had himself in hand again, 
 though he could not strike the newcomer's admirably casual 
 tone. 
 
 ''My son Steven," he said stiffly, with a slight gesture; 
 and with another: " Steve, this is your — " Here he halted 
 as one who sits down reluctant to a distasteful dish. What- 
 ever it was, Lawson could not make up his mind to swallow 
 it. " This is Eugene," he announced at last. 
 
 Steven, thus enlightened, muttered some sort of howd'ye- 
 do, in a miserable uncertainty as to whether he was expected 
 to shake hands or not, and reddened painfully before the 
 other's comprehending grin. But " Eugene," who, however 
 disqualified otherwise for polite society, appeared to possess 
 a real intuition about sparing people trouble, settled the 
 young man's difficulty by thrusting both of his own fists 
 deep down into his trouser-pockets, and giving him a brief 
 nod. 
 
 John Stillman, meanwhile, after one quick survey of the 
 stranger, walked off with a meditative expression to where 
 the family awaited him. He had some idea of who this 
 " Eugene " was; a retentive memory and unusual powers of 
 
14 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 observation had been valuable assets of Mr. Stillman's all 
 his life. Clara, from the automobile, expressed warm 
 approval as her father advanced without either undue hurry 
 or undue deliberation. 
 
 '' Papa, you're a wonder! It must have looked dreadfully 
 pointed the way all the rest of us scurried away without a 
 word. But I didn't know what else to do. It was so awk- 
 ward—that impossible-looking man! However, Mr. Rudd 
 was so upset himself, I don't believe he noticed." 
 
 " No, I don't believe he noticed," her father agreed drily. 
 *' Have a cigar, George? " 
 
 " Your taking it in such a matter-of-fact way, though, 
 smoothed everything over," Clara pursued. She caught at 
 another thought: '' Oh, you know him. You know all kinds 
 of people." 
 
 After the short pause which Mr. Stillman had formed the 
 habit of making before he answered any question definitely, 
 he said: "Why, yes, I think I know him. I think I re- 
 member him, that is. He's some relation of Rudd's — a 
 cousin or something. Name's Rudd, too, as I recollect. He 
 hasn't been around for years, though — fifteen years any- 
 how." . . , 
 
 " What was the matter? Did he do somethmg? " mquired 
 
 Clara brightly. 
 
 " I never asked," said the railroad man. 
 
 George Stillman made a cryptic remark. " I didn't know 
 they allowed it to be brought into the State of Maine," he 
 saii 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE foundations of the Rudd fortune, by this present 
 date a solid and stalwart edifice, were laid as far back 
 as the decade of 1840- oO by that fine old family 
 remedy, Rudd's Specific. Ante-bellum shelves were crowded 
 with the tall, rectangular bottles it came in, with a label 
 gummed up and down each of the wider surfaces, setting 
 forth its virtues as a cure or preventive for so many human 
 ills that the list might almost have served for a medical 
 dictionary, beginning as it did with Anthrax and Asthma, 
 Biliousness, Bleeding of the Nose, Cancer, Consumption, 
 Catarrh. Dysentery, Diabetes, and so on down through such 
 occult troubles as Ricketts and Shingles to " all Zymotic 
 diseases," with which it victoriously wound up. David Rudd 
 was the patentee and sole owner; he w\as a young man in 
 his early twenties when he first conferred the benefits of 
 Rudd's Specific on a suffering world, and for upwards of 
 thirty years, he continued the humanitarian labor of making 
 and dispensing it under that name, until the taste of the new 
 generation required a change. Other times, other manners. 
 The Specific became the Pancurata in a round bottle inside 
 a cylinder of corrugated pasteboard, lined with a leaflet of 
 printed directions for its use, wherein, it may be noted, not 
 nearly so many, or such diverse and magical qualities were 
 ascribed to it. Scarcely one person in ten remarked the 
 inconspicuous statement that it was manufactured by the 
 Rudd Chemical Company; but by that time, that is about 
 the year 1878, the Specific or the Pancurata — a patent- 
 medicine by any name smells just as sweet — had ceased to 
 be the main output of the Rudd concern; drugs, toilet- 
 w^aters, soaps, salts, perfumes, facial creams, or the ingre- 
 dients of all these things were what the firm now purveyed 
 to a vast and constantly increasing clientele, both w^iolesale 
 and retail. And not long thereafter the Specific followed 
 its creator into what may be called a respected oblivion. 
 
 15 
 
16 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 But meanwhile, David not only made a great deal of 
 money with the medicine and other ventures, he also got 
 married and raised a family of five children — or tried to 
 raise them. David junior, the oldest boy, ran away to join 
 the army at sixteen years of age and died of typhus in 
 Andersonville prison in 1863, after only a few months of 
 soldiering. Hester was another who did not live to grow up ; 
 but Elihu and Susan and Lawson — they came in the order 
 named — had better luck. They were all the children of the 
 first Mrs. David Rudd, Eliza Perry that was. 
 
 Lawson Rudd enjoyed the distinction of being the first 
 member of the Rudd family to be photographed; there 
 existed daguerreotypes of all the rest — Mrs. Rudd in a 
 plaid silk dress and black thread lace shawl, and a bonnet 
 with bunches of flowers over each ear ; David of the Specific 
 in trousers plaided too, terrifically plaided, and a double- 
 breasted waistcoat of crimson velvet with cut crystal but- 
 tons, and a velvet collar to his coat, and that ministerial 
 expression common to all our ancestors of that date when- 
 ever they posed; Hester, a meagre child in tarlatan flounces 
 and a satin bodice, her little thin slats of arms distressingly 
 obvious ; little David and little Elihu with round collars and 
 sleek hair. They were all stacked away in their embossed 
 morocco cases, in a seldom-visited corner of the attic 
 shelves; there was really no other place for the old things 
 in the elegantly ornate or elegantly severe " period" rooms 
 of the present Rudd house. For that matter, Lawson's own 
 likeness taken by the new process at a time when he himself 
 was still quite new, only served now as a means of entertain- 
 ment, arousing ribald laughter rather than filial respect. 
 Could that pudgy, solemn kid with the preposterous visored 
 cap, and the rows of buttons all over him — could that really 
 be Dad? Pipe the laced shoes and the white stockings on 
 him, will you? Some sport! 
 
 Nevertheless, Lawson looked at you straight from the 
 blurred, sallow bit of card with the same look, resolute, self- 
 confident and unafraid if a good deal harder and minus the 
 innocence and openness, with which he met the world to-day. 
 If he harked back to that baby at all, or to the headstrong, 
 high-tempered, cocksure, intolerant boy who had succeeded 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 17 
 
 the little fellow, it was probably with the wonder, the con- 
 temptuous sympathy, the lurking shame you and I also feel 
 for our younger selves. He could not remember much 
 about him except that he had been very fond in his dumb, 
 boyish way of his mother and of his sister Hester who died ; 
 he used to pull her about in her little carriage, and play with 
 her ; and of a dog named Gyp that died too. He remembered 
 wanting to be a pirate, and later on actually having dreams 
 of being a missionary! And he remembered very distinctly 
 the day his brother David took him around behind the wood- 
 shed and told him about his design to run away and enlist; 
 Lawson was not to breathe a word about it until it was all 
 over; and then he must say to Ma and the folks that David 
 left good-bye for all of them, and that he wouldn't have gone 
 off without saying it himself if he could have helped it; and 
 that he would write. The small eight-year-old promised 
 and performed all this faithfully, and took a thrashing for 
 his part in the crime without a whimper. 
 
 " How long was it before Grandpa and Grandma found 
 out? " Lawson's own son asked him upon hearing this tale. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know — a week perhaps. They missed him 
 at once, of course, but they thought he had gone to see your 
 grandmother's brother, Uncle Jed; he was living in Chilli- 
 cothe at that time. It took longer for news to travel around 
 in those days." 
 
 " What did you say when they asked you? I mean all that 
 week before they found out? " 
 
 " I expect I lied, Steven. It was all very wrong, you see. 
 Children ought not to disobey or deceive their father — or 
 their mother, either, of course," Mr. Rudd interpolated 
 hastily by an afterthought. " Your uncle died afterwards, 
 and I suppose I was partly to blame. So you see I got worse 
 punishment even than the whipping, and I deserved it," said 
 Lawson. anxious to point a moral. 
 
 " Huh! " said little Steven thoughtfully. The father who 
 unwillingly knew deep in his heart that if he had the thing 
 to do over again, he w^ould have acted precisely as on that 
 first and only time, wondered uneasily if the boy knew it 
 too. 
 
 But this conversation took place years later. We have to 
 
18 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 consider now young Lawson Rudd, who was growing up 
 and going to school and getting ready for college, all during 
 the grave years of secession and civil war and reconstruc- 
 tion. David Rudd's money must have doubled, quadrupled 
 through that time. He set Elihu, who like his father was a 
 man of action with no turn for book-learning, up in business, 
 sent Susie to Europe, lavished diamonds and seal-skin 
 sacques and rich equipages, those classic desires of Victorian 
 femininity, upon his wife. Lawson had a riding-horse, he 
 had a tutor, he had pearl studs, he was entered at Harvard. 
 There was a billiard-room at the top of the house, which had 
 besides a marble bathroom; there were double-parlors all 
 festooned with brocatelle, all glittering with mantel-mirrors 
 and cut-glass prisms. There were expensive oil-pamtmgs, 
 fruit and game pieces for the dining-room, landscapes and 
 Holy Families for the parlors; Mr. Rudd commissioned a 
 friend who was in the business to select them for him regard- 
 less of cost. The stately regiments of books drawn up 
 around the library walls were furnished him in like manner. 
 Lawson was the sole person who ever tried to read them, 
 and he did not get far, seeing they were mostly encyclo- 
 paedias, sermons, and treatises on various subjects of an 
 equally profound depth and dryness, with never a word 
 about gardening, or farming, or raising live-stock, which 
 were things of real interest to him. 
 
 Mrs. David Rudd died in 1870. She had been a good wife 
 and mother, an earnest church-worker, a fine cook, a man- 
 aging, efficient housekeeper, and so, of course, must have 
 been greatly missed and regretted. The family, however, 
 bore up under their loss philosophically, as we all must, 
 whether or no. David kept on turning over dollars. Law- 
 son went to Harvard, Susan married after two years or so, 
 and went to Denver to live. This last event must have left 
 the house rather lonely for the two men; but what would 
 you have had the young girl do? Neither her father nor 
 brother were so selfish as to want her to give up her life to 
 making a home for them; or, looking at it in another^and less 
 amiable way, they may have been each so occupied with 
 his own life that they were not over-interested in Susie's. 
 Lawson being away at college for the better part of four 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 19 
 
 years, and David completely taken up with business. At 
 any rate, Susie married, Lawson graduated, David Rudd 
 was a hard-and-fast widower for almost half a decade, the 
 world was getting ready for the Centennial celebration at 
 Philadelphia, when the next blow fell on the Rudd family. 
 Mr. Rudd married again. 
 
 It need not be referred to in this dramatic metaphor, but 
 for the melancholy fact that David did not select an earnest 
 church-worker this time, or a fine cook and housewife, or 
 a person who gave the slightest promise of being a good wife 
 and mother. The second Mrs. Rudd's recommendations 
 were youth — she was twenty-three or -four, only a very 
 little older than her bachelor stepson — a buxom figure, 
 fresh complexion, big bright eyes, abundant glossy black 
 hair, and so forth. It had been a long time since the first 
 Mrs. David's complexion was fresh, or her eyes bright; 
 good works do not necessarily contribute to good looks, and 
 perhaps there is not much real satisfaction to be got out of 
 hanging jewels and opulent garments on a faded woman of 
 fifty with a switch, and a well-established snore. Are we 
 not all poor creatures? The new lady, before her marriage, 
 was a Miss May me Bell, a positive nobody from nowhere; 
 that is, she was reported to be the daughter of some rooming- 
 house woman down among the tenements which constituted 
 part of the Rudd real estate. That must have been where 
 David ran across her; the w^hole affair was entirely respect- 
 able, naturally. Far better to land him outright, and acquire 
 a legitimate, indisputable title to at least a third of that 
 same real estate, than to risk any other connection. She 
 might be harmless enough ; but unsuitable was no word for 
 the match. It was a ghastly piece of folly. Society sympa- 
 thized sincerely with that poor young Lawson upon whom 
 it was bound to come harder, so people said, than on the 
 other members of the family. The brother and sister had 
 homes of their own ; they need have nothing to do with the 
 interloper unless they chose; but Lawson's home was spoiled, 
 and he had to stand it. It was a shame, about which they 
 declared themselves to feel more deeply because nobody 
 could condole with him. Nobody could even mention the 
 deplorable event to him unless he himself introduced it. 
 
20 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 And there were not wanting those who pointed out the 
 strangeness of the fact that it was the father who at sixty 
 or thereabouts had made a fool of himself, instead of the 
 twenty-year-old son. They said, however, that Rudd junior 
 was a noteworthy example of the old head on young shoul- 
 ders; a cautious, stubborn lad. 
 
 For once society was right. His father's marriage did 
 come harder on Lawson than on the rest. Elihu received 
 the disastrous news with a sort of philosophical levity after 
 the first stunning shock of surprise. "Well, after all — ! 
 You can't blame the old gentleman for wanting to have a 
 little fun before he passes on," said he. " Why shouldn't he? 
 He's worked hard, and he's entitled to his play. I suppose 
 he just realized all of a sudden that he'd better hustle, or 
 he'd be too late? Can't live but once." 
 
 " Oh, it's all very well for you to laugh now,^^ his wife 
 rebuked him. " You may not feel so much like laughing 
 after a while. That woman will probably get everything he 
 has away from him. That's what she married him for." 
 
 '' Not everything, 'Stell, not everything. Father's not in 
 his dotage yet, by any manner of means. And anyway 
 haven't I supported you in pretty fair comfort this far? I 
 guess we'll always be able to scratch along on what we 
 have," said Elihu, who indeed was a chip of the old block, 
 and it may be a little proud of his success as a money- 
 maker. 
 
 " Oh, yes, but you know what I mean. I'm thinking about 
 the children's rights. Here she'll come in with her claims, 
 and I suppose there won't be any way to get around giving 
 her a share, if she doesn't get the whole. It's abominably 
 unjust, if it is the law. I don't see why — " 
 
 " Damn it, Estelle, I believe you'd rather this girl had 
 gotten hold of him without any marriage! " said Elihu 
 Rudd; he was rough in his speech at times. " I believe you'd 
 be glad if it had all been disreputable — " 
 
 " Well? " said Mrs. Elihu, savagely. " I don't see why it 
 couldn't have been. Then it wouldn't have made any differ- 
 ence, or any trouble." 
 
 "Don't you believe it! I don't want any common-law 
 complications, after the old man's dead. Will-cases are 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 21 
 
 jury-cases in this state, and the juries invariably side with 
 the woman. I tell you we're lucky as it is." 
 
 Susie expressed herself with even more vehemence than 
 Elihu's wife. She called it a disgrace, marriage or no mar- 
 riage; she wrote intimating that a guardian should be 
 appointed for old David; she orated about her children's 
 rights, and prophesied the direst calamities in store for 
 every Rudd to the ultimate generation; she proclaimed the 
 entire family disrupted and herself estranged from her 
 father forever, and in fact did everything in her power 
 towards the disruption and estrangement except to refuse 
 the very handsome allowance Mr. Rudd continued to send 
 her month in and month out with an exasperating magnanim- 
 ity — or indifference. It is doubtful if he ever read her 
 letters; when all was said, David was still, even as his 
 elder son had gauged him, a shrewd and tolerably hard old 
 man, who knew the world and could make a close guess at 
 what his children thought of him. Nor should anyone con- 
 demn them off-hand for being mercenary or selfish. Estelle 
 and Susan were no Lear's daughters; Elihu was as right- 
 minded as the average man, and no more self-seeking. They 
 wanted to do their duty; and their indignation, their anxi- 
 eties were wholly natural. 
 
 But for Lawson, the thing was an intolerably grotesque 
 tragedy. With the distorting self-consciousness of youth he 
 felt himself the target for sneers and ridicule equally with 
 the two chief performers. His father's foolishness some- 
 how reflected on him, in Lawson's perverse judgment; it was 
 his pride that writhed. There was perhaps something physi- 
 cal which he could not have controlled, had he tried, in the 
 young man's revolt. His father was an old man; he ought 
 to be over and done with all things fleshly ; it was disgusting. 
 Lawson hated his stepmother, not because she had taken 
 his mother's place, nor because he grudged her any share of 
 the property; he hated her merely for existing at all, for 
 being a gross, good-looking, good-natured, bouncing animal, 
 mortally afraid of himself; he hated her calling him abjectly 
 " Mr. Lawson," fully conscious that he would have hated 
 her just as much for daring to call him Lawson. When the 
 nauseating fact became evident that there was going to be 
 
22 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 another Rudd added to the family, the young man escaped 
 in desperation by getting himself transferred to their New 
 Orleans office. He had already displayed the inherited apti- 
 tude for business; those changes from the Specific to the 
 Pancurata and the elimination of the name of Rudd were 
 due to Lawson's taste or sagacity, and he now began a 
 course of other well-considered reforms, improvements, 
 alterations of policy. The new plants at Mobile and Kansas 
 City were his idea, and it was he who took the first steps 
 towards extending their trade to Mexico and the South 
 American states, during the four or five years of his stay in 
 New Orleans. When his father died, it seemed natural that 
 Lawson, young as he was, should be called home to assume 
 the management of the company, jointly with Elihu; the 
 brothers amicably divided the country by the Rockies, and 
 each controlled the section of his choice. They left the 
 widow in unquestioned possession of the Rudd homestead, 
 and of the just and suitable but not at all lavish provision 
 which that canny old David, vindicating Elihu's judgment, 
 had made for her and for her little boy Eugene. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE automobile rounded to before the " Colonial " 
 fagade of the house which was brick of a mellow 
 ruddiness with ranges of small-paned windows rimmed 
 with cut stone alow and aloft, and a mathematical distribu- 
 tion of chimneys. Lawson and his son got out and passed 
 between the round barberry bushes simulating ancient box 
 on either hand of the door, which was a door in strict keeping 
 with a fan-light and brass knocker. His house, like every- 
 thing else with which Lawson had anything to do, like his 
 clothes, his amusements, his way of life, was unpretending 
 yet obviously expensive, with a peculiarly thorough expen- 
 siveness extending to the most minute detail. The approach 
 to it was through a kind of informal farm-like park; the 
 celebrated gardens lay to the rear so that they could be 
 looked upon in privacy from the terraces and breezy bal- 
 conies, pergolas, and so forth, which the best-known archi- 
 tect of the times in conjunction with the best-known land- 
 scape artist had constructed at a cost which Mr. Rudd 
 would have deemed it the extreme of purse-proud silliness to 
 mention. No man ever made so much money who was so 
 genuinely indifferent to it merely as money. What Lawson 
 craved was beauty and complete physical comfort ; and with 
 him the dollars were a means, never an end. 
 
 They had had a rather silent ride from the station, the 
 father scowling a little over what were perhaps unwelcome 
 memories roused by the late meeting, and the son revolving 
 a dozen questions, not one of which could he bring himself 
 to ask. Steven was not afraid of his senior ; it was a char- 
 acteristic obedience and deference that restrained him. " If 
 Dad wanted to tell me, he'd tell me," the young fellow 
 reasoned. He knew Eugene Rudd only as a name; he had 
 always known that one member of the older Rudd generation 
 was a step-brother, many years younger than the others, of 
 whom they scarcely ever spoke, though when they did they 
 
 23 
 
24 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 never said anything derogatory — before their children, at 
 any rate. Steven recalled a saying of some old-country 
 nurse he had once had about its being an evil bird that fouls 
 its own nest; he thought he understood the family reticence, 
 now. He was nearing twenty-four, had gone through col- 
 lege, and spent a year travelling in Europe by himself, com- 
 ing off from these experiences with a clean slate; and he 
 had now been in business six months. In fine, like many 
 another gentleman of his years, young Mr. Rudd was of the 
 opinion that he had seen the world, and knew a thing or two ; 
 nobody needed to tell him what sort of a chap this Eugene 
 was, Steven said to himself shrewdly. 
 
 In spite of the event imminent, everything was quiet as 
 they drove up; the caterers, expressmen, and all the rest 
 would be coming and going by the service entrance around 
 the corner of the north wing; busy enough there, probably. 
 And probably it was there also that Edith was to be found. 
 Even supposing the Elihu Rudds and Aunt Susie with the 
 Denver relatives, and all the Chillicothe and Chicago and 
 Washington, D. C, cousins, and Julia Thatcher and the other 
 bridesmaids — even supposing that they had all arrived and 
 the house was simmering with them, Edith would not be 
 bothering her head about their entertainment. She would 
 capably tell off her mother and Hester for that duty; and 
 like as not, she herself would be perched on a stepladder 
 with her head done up in a towel, bossing the decorators, and 
 occasionally taking a hand with the hammer and nails when 
 they failed to get her idea. Mr. Rudd sketched this expo- 
 sition humorously, and Steven agreed to all the items except 
 the last. 
 
 " No, Edith doesn't ever do anything herself," he said 
 sagely ; " she's great at getting work out of other people — 
 and she doesn't make them mad either. I don't mind doing 
 what Edith wants; she's generally right somehow. But 
 then Edith and I have always been pretty good pals," he 
 added, with a certain regret. 
 
 " Well, we've got Hester still, anyhow," said the father, 
 valiantly cheerful. 
 
 Everybody had arrived, and the house was simmering with 
 them sure enough. Looking down the long centre-hall to 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 25 
 
 where a suave archway framed the distant view of the ocean, 
 they saw the terrace busy with moving figures, bright-col- 
 ored amongst the pretty painted iron tables, against the 
 background of striped awnings, cushions, rugs, tiled floor, 
 tall jars, potted plants, white balustrades silhouetted on the 
 sky. Tea was being served; two children and a fox-terrier 
 romped across the scene; a nursemaid with an armful of 
 embroidered lawn which was evidently somebody's baby 
 recently on parade, came through the screen-doors. " Mollie 
 Shaw's," said Lawson, recognizing this apparition. '' She 
 got here just the day I left. I'd forgotten all about her hav- 
 ing a baby already — only a year, you know. They've 
 named it Rudd — Rudd Pennyfeather Shaw! " 
 
 '' Wow! '' said Steven appreciatively. 
 
 Mrs. Rudd advanced to them through the screen-doors in 
 her turn, and both saluted her dutifully. ''Well, Lawson! 
 Stevie! Why, you both look quite clean! " she said in 
 accents of fatigued surprise. " Wasn't it terribly hot inland? 
 It was eighty-five here yesterday. I thought about 3^ou on 
 the train. That awful five or six hours between Cincinnati 
 and Cleveland! Will you come out now and see all of them, 
 or go and change first? " 
 
 Lawson elected to go out and see all of them, Steven to 
 change first. " Where's Edith? " asked the former. 
 
 " Why, she's superintending — " Mrs. Rudd began, and 
 stopped mystified as her husband and son exchanged glances 
 and burst out laughing. 
 
 Family-parties are not likely to be a dish to everyone's 
 taste, unless flavored, to keep up the metaphor, by some 
 alien ingredients; and this one followed the rule. So Mrs. 
 Rudd disjointedly confided to the head of the house as they 
 moved towards their guests that although she was nearly 
 worn to shreds, with so many people and so much running 
 around — really the breakfast -trays, merely to mention one 
 thing, it looked like a hotel in the mornings, every servant 
 in the place galloping up- and down-stairs with a breakfast- 
 tray ! — but what she was going to say was that in spite of 
 the crowding and confusion and waiting on, she was glad 
 all these young people, outsiders, you know, were there. 
 The girls and men kept one another busy, so you didn't have 
 
26 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 to worry — the darlingest, sweetest girls, every one of them! 
 But with so many strangers always within hearing, it kept 
 the family from — well — making remarks — criticizing — 
 you know? Really those two little Potter children — those 
 two little grandchildren of Susie's — were awful. Perfect 
 little hoodlums; nobody had the slightest control over them; 
 they must have been allowed to run perfectly wild. Of 
 course one couldn't say anything ; Susie was simply wrapped 
 up in them — much more so than she had ever been in her 
 own children! The little girl was rather pretty; Susie had 
 suggested her being flower-girl, but Edith — well, you know 
 how Edith is. She always knows what she wants, and at her 
 own wedding she certainly ought to have everything her own 
 way, so Susie couldn't say anything, though anybody could 
 see she didn't like it. And oh, Lawson hadn't heard the 
 latest, it happened while he w^as away. Captain Delaney, 
 he remembered that nice Englishman at the Legation last 
 winter, Captain Delaney? — Well, it seemed he couldn't 
 get leave, or something, so he couldn't come, and George 
 Stillman was going to take his place — very nice of George 
 at the last minute that way, but then he always had been 
 the kind of person you could ask to fill in. Clara might not be 
 best pleased, particularly as she hadn't been invited to take 
 part in any way, but of course she couldn't say anything. 
 
 " Clara Stillman is too old for Edith's set — or Hester's 
 either, for that matter. Of course that's the reason she's so 
 anxious to go with them all the time; but she's been out at 
 least ten years. And Gertie Bryce is another, only she's 
 beginning to look her age. If she just wouldn't wear those 
 girlish clothes! One can't say anything, or I should tell 
 her they make her look older instead of younger. That's 
 she over by the steps in the bright egg-yellow. No, not that 
 one, that's Hester. Mercy, Lawson, don't you know your 
 own daughter — ? " 
 
 " There's Elihu," said Lawson, pushing open the door. 
 " I'll bet he doesn't want any breakfast-tray sent up for 
 him. Hello, El! "he shouted. 
 
 Elihu Rudd got up a little heavily and shook his brother's 
 hand. Hester, very charming with her black eyes and hair 
 and brilliant color in a pale yellow frock and a wide droop- 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 27 
 
 ing hat wreathed with wheat and forget-me-nots, came 
 running up and threw her arms around her father's neck 
 and embraced him with an abandon which sundry young 
 men and women witnessed admiringly or appraisingly 
 according to the sex. Susie captured the unspeakable grand- 
 children, one in cither hand, and presented them wriggling 
 and hanging back, to their Uncle Lawson. Susie was now 
 the widowed Mrs. Alonzo Lambert, gray-haired and of 
 somewhat dumpy, unstylish, grandmaternal figure; and Mrs. 
 Elihu Rudd had likewise acquired girth and crows'-feet; so 
 that her appearance offered some difficulties even to the high- 
 priced milliners and mantuamakers whom she patronized. 
 They were both older than, and in strong contrast to, the 
 resolutely slender and youthful Mrs. Lawson, who had been 
 considered a beauty in her day, and by a caressing lamp- 
 light, with what her younger daughter Edith ruthlessly de- 
 scribed as her " face fixed," and a becoming toilette, might 
 pass for under forty still. One may be sure that the lamp- 
 light, the toilette and the face-fixing were never neglected; 
 the proceedings connected with rejuvenation and reconstruc- 
 tion occupied arduous hours — so many of them that Mrs. 
 Rudd, to tell the truth, had not much time left for anything 
 else. II faut soufjrir pour etre belle! 
 
 The wedding-party sat down to dinner that night some 
 twenty-five strong, at what the lady of the house pro- 
 claimed to be the unearthly hour of six o'clock — '' Edith's 
 arrangement, you know, to give plenty of time for the re- 
 hearsal afterwards," And punctually to the minute the 
 bride-elect herself, who had scarcely been seen all day, 
 owing to her manifold activities, descended to the drawing- 
 room, perfectly costumed, without a trace of fatigue about 
 her, taller, cooler, and more composed than any other person 
 present. To some of the older people, there was a kind of 
 effrontery about this composure of Edith's. " Nobody would 
 ever guess that she was the bride," one matron whispered to 
 another; "the most matter-of-course — ■! But then girls 
 know all about everything nowadays — simply everything! 
 They don't think any more of getting married than of hav- 
 ing a shampoo and manicure, actually! " 
 
 There was, however, one moment when even Edith be- 
 
28 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 trayed some disturbance; it was when the butler, after re- 
 ceiving some communication from a subordinate, and after 
 hesitating perceptibly between the master of the house, 
 Mrs. Rudd at the other end of the table, and the young lady 
 seated midway, finally approached the last named, defer- 
 entially imparted a piece of information, and stood back 
 awaiting orders. 
 
 " Oh — tst! " said Edith, with annoyance. She shrugged, 
 grimaced, made a movement to rise, and changed her mind 
 in the act, sitting down again resolutely. '' It's a reporter. If 
 there has been one of them here, there've been five hundred ! 
 I've told them over and over I won't have any stuff in the 
 papers. Yoii'd think they'd all know by this time — " 
 
 '' Why do you mind? " '' You might as well." '' They'll 
 have something in anyhow, and it would be better to have it 
 correct." " Everybody does." Suggestions were offered 
 from various quarters, which Edith apparently did not 
 think it worth while to notice. She raised one shapely 
 shoulder again, and looked towards her brother. " Steve, 
 will you go and — ? " 
 
 '' You bet! " said Steven, with humorous alacrity; he had 
 thrown down his napkin and was pushing his chair back, 
 when Mr. Rudd unexpectedly intervened. 
 
 " Never mind, Steven. I'll see him," said he authorita- 
 tively, rising; and on the w^ord, departed. The young man 
 resumed his seat obediently, though a little red in the face, 
 with a look of discomfiture which perhaps no one noticed — 
 but family parties are notoriously argus-eyed. 
 
 The groom arrived somewhat late, by motor from Clear 
 Harbor in company with his best man. Lieutenant Ernst 
 von Sternberg, who with divers brothers-in-arms had been 
 helping him celebrate his approaching entrance into the holy 
 state of matrimony on board His Imperial Majesty's cruiser, 
 the Eisenfeldt, just now at anchor in our waters. George 
 Stillman came over, giving a lift to the minister on the way; 
 George was an obliging, thoughtful fellow. There was 
 plenty of champagne, and the night was hot and stuffy, pre- 
 saging a storm, but the rehearsal under Edith's competent 
 direction, went off very smoothly — one might have said 
 the rehearsals, for she put them through it several times, 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON ' 29 
 
 until everybody was letter-perfect. The wedding was to 
 take place the following morning at eleven o'clock in the 
 little parish church of St. James, which had been founded 
 and was largely sustained by the munificence of her father 
 and other wealthy summer residents. Of a romantic, Nor- 
 man style in architecture, rough gray stone overgrown with 
 creepers, it stood at no great distance from the Rudd gates, 
 adding considerably to the charm of the Rudd landscape. 
 
 '' The machines are to drive up to the east door, and go 
 around in order and come up again. There will be men 
 stationed to direct everybody," Edith announced in her 
 clear, pleasantly firm voice. ^' Dr. Stanley, you will already 
 be here, of course, and Mr. Gherardi will be in the vestry. 
 Mr. Prather, the organ a little slower, please. Everyone's 
 so used to Lohengrin, some of them can't get in step to this 
 — it's a little hard. I think we ought to try walking in 
 again — if none of you mind? Dad — ? " 
 
 Lawson gave her his arm once more, and for his part 
 walked up the aisle in exact time — to the Allegro from the 
 Seventh Symphony, of all tunes in the world! He had an 
 ear for music and a nice sense of rhythm. " Sounds to me 
 like a funeral march, but if Edith wants it — ! " he thought 
 resignedly. He was perhaps beginning to be a little tired, 
 what with the railroad journey, the heat and chatter, the 
 smell of the flowers which were already in place ; and found 
 himself wishing irritably that Steven could take his place, 
 that it was all over, or rather that it did not have to be at all. 
 Carefully weighted-down uneasiness suddenly rose to the 
 surface of his mind; all at once he bitterly did not want to 
 hand over his girl to this blond, good-looking, spick-and- 
 span young German officer with his close-clipped head, his 
 impervious blue eyes, his chain-mail of manners. Natural, 
 racial distrusts and prejudices whispered in his ear. Why 
 couldn't Edith have pitched upon one of our own men, if she 
 must marry? But that was the rub, after all; why should 
 she marry? Why should a man's daughter leave him just 
 when she had reached an age to be a companion to him? 
 And Edith was a first-rate companion; she was bright; she 
 had her own bank-book and kept her balance to the last 
 cent when she was only ten years old ; she — 
 
30 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " When I come to the words : ' Who gives this woman to 
 be married to this man? ' you step back, allowing the groom 
 to advance, as you say: ' I do,' Mr. Rudd," the clergyman 
 admonished him. Lawson relinquished the girl, withdraw- 
 ing as directed. 
 
 He went back to the house, sitting in the front seat along- 
 side his chauffeur, so as the more easily to evade conversa- 
 tion with the ladies in the car ; and said good-night to them 
 rather curtly in the hall and escaped to the terrace with a 
 cigar. There was Elihu with another cigar, recumbent in 
 one of the long chairs, with, shocking to relate, a pair of 
 loose, downtrodden, old slippers on his tolerably massive feet, 
 his dress-pumps having begun to " draw/' as he explained 
 unabashed. Elihu had declined the rehearsal on the incon- 
 trovertible argument that he did not need to rehearse any- 
 thing, and preferred to see it all as a novelty the next day. 
 He gave a companionable grunt at sight of his brother. 
 
 ''All through?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Lawson sat down. The scraping of his chair was the only 
 sound between them for a long while. Remotely, from the 
 region of the dining-room they could hear laughter, bursts 
 of mock applause, jingling of ice and silverware. Down in 
 front, across stone retaining-walls, parterres and reaches of 
 lawn, the tide rustled ceaselessly in the tiny harbor. There 
 was no fog, but the clouds hung low. 
 
 " Overcast," said Elihu at length. " Looks like rain. I 
 expect that's what makes my feet hurt." 
 
 " I hope it will hold off till after to-morrow, at any rate," 
 Lawson said. 
 
 " Yes. It would be a pity if it rained, after Edith's taken 
 so much trouble to have everything go all right," said Elihu. 
 After another pause, he cleared his throat, and made the 
 same remark, prompted by the same good intention, in the 
 same non-committal style as all of Lawson's business 
 friends. The latter recognized it with a kind of resentment, 
 a kind of grateful understanding. " Nice fellow, this young 
 Gherardi that Edith's marrying, Lawson. Seems to be all 
 right." 
 
 " I'd like it better if he was an American," said Edith's 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 31 
 
 father, frowning in the darkness, though his manner was 
 carefully off-handed, as expressing a sentiment wholly nat- 
 ural and comprehensible. 
 
 " Why yes, of course. But some of these foreign matches 
 turn out successfully — I mean most of them, most of 
 them!" said the elder brother correcting himself hastily, 
 and not skilfully, as he was conscious. He searched his 
 memory in something of a panic, and finally produced: 
 " There's Hank Meigs's daughter, for instance, that married 
 this young Englishman — I met him but I can't recall his 
 name just now. That must be ten years ago or more, and 
 they seem to be happy together." 
 
 '' It's a lottery anyhow," said Lawson. 
 
 They were silent again; then the younger brother said 
 abruptly: " I don't believe you know it, El. Eugene's here." 
 
 Elihu's chair emitted a creak under his sharp movement. 
 ''Eugene?" he ejaculated. But for the lack of light, his 
 large countenance might have been observed to change ex- 
 pression with a vivacity almost ludicrous, considering that 
 ordinarily it was anything but mobile or responsive. After 
 a second or two, he inquired cautiously: "You mean he's 
 coming to the wedding, Lawson? " 
 
 " No," said the other with impatient emphasis. " No. He 
 isn't asked. Why, my children don't know him; they've 
 never even seen him — " 
 
 " Well, I thought it would be queer," said Elihu, rubbmg 
 
 his ear. 
 
 Lawson went on talking: " I had to tell Steven who he 
 was to-day — had to introduce them — " He gave the older 
 Rudd some account of the late meeting on the Clear Harbor 
 platform. " Annoying, the whole business. Perfectly unm- 
 tentional, on his side, of course. Eugene doesn't want to see 
 me any more than I want to see him. It appears he's stop- 
 ping at this little resort. Clam Beach, down the harbor." 
 He paused. " Well — " And here Lawson paused agam. 
 " Of course Eugene has a right to go anywhere he wants to, 
 even if it's occasionally where the rest of us happen to be. 
 We don't own the earth. Still — " 
 
 " Uh-huh," said Elihu, assentingly. There was a medi- 
 tative silence. " Was he sober? " 
 
32 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " More or less," said Lawson. Then he amended the 
 statement with a sort of grudging justice. " Oh yes, he was 
 sober enough. I don't want to give you a wrong impression. 
 You can see he's kept it up — drinking, I mean. It shows on 
 him. But he hadn't had anything this afternoon." 
 
 " Uh-huh," said Elihu again. His questions seemed to be 
 animated by a negligent curiosity rather than genuine in- 
 terest; one might guess that the answer was a matter of 
 indifference to him, even when he said: ''What's Eugene 
 look like now, Lawson? I haven't seen him for — oh, it's 
 going on fifteen years; I never saw him but once after the 
 split-up. What's he look like? " 
 
 *' Why, his hair's gray — " 
 
 The older brother exclaimed, startled: '' Gray? Why 
 Eugene's too young to be gray! He's — wait a minute — 
 he's not over thirty-five," said Mr. Rudd who, of late, had, 
 insensibly to himself, begun to look upon a person of any age 
 short of forty as barely emerged from the kindergarten. 
 '' He'd just come of age when we had that time in the office. 
 He can't be gray ! " 
 
 " Well, he is all the same — gray as a badger. It's his life. 
 I told you it showed all over him. He's got lines in his face 
 — all around his eyes, thick. A man can't go along that way 
 fifteen years and not have the marks on him. I don't know 
 how he dissipates outside of drinking, and I don't want to 
 know," said Lawson forcibly; " but I judge Eugene's a regu- 
 lar now. He probably couldn't break himself of his habits 
 if he tried. He was pretty shabby — awful old hat. What's 
 the reason all these bums have that kind of a hat? Haven't 
 you ever noticed it? It's like the diseases plants have, that 
 always show first at the top — get all ratty, you know! " 
 Both men guffawed with sudden amusement at the idea. 
 
 " What's he doing now for a living? " Elihu asked, with a 
 return of his first indifference, however. 
 
 *' I don't know. The last I heard he was writing for some 
 paper. I suppose he gets one job after another and gets fired. 
 He looks like it. We didn't have any time to talk to-day, 
 and Eugene wouldn't have told me anything about himself, 
 anyhow. That's one thing about Eugene, Elihu! He might 
 be down to his last cent, and we'd never hear anything from 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 33 
 
 him about it. Lots of people have shady relatives; there's 
 one in pretty nearly every family, I believe. Think of the 
 men you know that have to be putting up all the time to 
 keep some fellow out of the penitentiary, or to look out for 
 his family, or just simply to save him from starving to 
 death. I tell you it might be a good deal worse. Eugene's 
 never bothered us that way, at least, one minute. That's 
 one thing about Eugene ! " 
 
 Elihu agreed that that was one thing about Eugene. They 
 smoked for a while silently, no doubt revolving old memories 
 about which they were in complete accord ; the brothers were 
 good friends, each one sharing the other's opinions and prej- 
 udices, or able to see his point of view. The sympathy be- 
 tween them could not have been better exhibited than by 
 their next action. Elihu, coming from the past to the present 
 by a certain sequence of mental processes, was removing his 
 cigar to ask a question — with active interest this time — 
 just as Lawson, similarly impelled, turned towards him, 
 about to speak. 
 
 " How's the boy doing in the office, Lawson? Is he taking 
 hold? " 
 
 ''Why, I was just starting to speak about Steve! " said 
 the father. " Funny thing how people will fall into the 
 same line of thought ! He's getting along fairly well. He's 
 pretty young, you know; but I think he'll learn." 
 
 " You were holding up your end all right when you were 
 his age," said Elihu. " Didn't need to ask the old man for 
 orders when you were around." 
 
 " Yes, but men got started earlier in those days. El. Mar- 
 ried younger, and took up their responsibilities sooner, some- 
 how. You did, too. Everybody did." 
 
 " Everybody that amounted to anything," said Elihu, not 
 without a touch of arrogance, one quality of his, which, by 
 the way, did not enter into the other Rudd's composition. 
 Elihu's own sons had not been above the average; they 
 were both dead, perhaps fortunately for their father's pride. 
 The name would be carried on, it was hoped, in that branch 
 of the familv, by several sturdy little Rudd grandsons, of 
 one of whoni, little Elihu, Mr. Rudd was particularly fond. 
 
 '' Well, it's different now," Lawson said, with a small 
 
34 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 restless movement, indicative of some restrained dissatisfac- 
 tion which his brother may or may not have noted. " The 
 young people are different; they seem to me to be more — 
 more immature. One mustn't expect too much of them. 
 When Steven began, I thought to myself: ' Now I must try 
 to look on the boy just as if he were somebody else's boy, 
 just as if he were any boy. I don't want to favor him, or 
 make it easy for him. That wouldn't do him any good.' 
 Of course I gave him some advice ; I gave him a serious talk, 
 the same as I did when he was starting off to college the 
 first time. ' Steven,' I said, * there 're a great many things in 
 business that you'll have to find out for yourself. I can't 
 help you, and nobody can help you. Experience will do it, 
 and nothing but experience. But,' I added; ' you're here in 
 a subordinate position. Now, as to that, I can tell you 
 something. There are four classes of people that take orders. 
 Class Number One doesn't listen. Class Number Two 
 doesn't understand. Number Three goes off and forgets it 
 all in five seconds. And Number Four thinks he knows more 
 about it than the one that's ordering him. Now that's all the 
 classes there are, and the chances are that you're in one of 
 'em; or you may be in all of them. But that's all the classes 
 of people that take orders; the minute you get out of 
 those classes, you're giving orders, you're not taking 
 them.' " 
 
 Elihu made appreciative sounds. " Did he get you? " 
 " He got some of it, I hope," said the father. " Of course 
 you have to remember that he's pretty young," he reiterated, 
 defensively, with a strange and pathetic mingling of worry, 
 defiance, frank relief at disburdening himself to an equal — 
 for it was the naive belief, once in a while naively betrayed, 
 of both Elihu and Lawson that they two were the only equals 
 in the family! The others, wives, children, relatives in law 
 near or distant, they cherished or liked or tolerated in vary- 
 ing degrees ; but it was only one to the other that they spoke 
 on even terms. 
 
 " One reason I got away earlier than usual this summer 
 was to give him a taste of what it would be like with no Dad 
 around," Lawson went on: " Of course Galway was there — 
 I couldn't risk leaving everything to Steven all at once. I'm 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 35 
 
 trying to do what Fve done with other young men — feel 
 'em out, feel 'em out by degrees, you know how that is. El. 
 That's always been my way." 
 
 " Uh-huh," said the older Rudd. " Well, I guess he did 
 all right, didn't he? " he asserted rather than asked, with a 
 confidence assumed in pure good- will, for if there was a 
 thing on earth of which Elihu was beginning to feel morally 
 sure, it was that his young nephew had not " done all 
 right"; something had happened which Lawson had not 
 liked. 
 
 " Oh yes, he didn't have much chance. That is, until here 
 the other day. After all, it's not so very important; no use 
 making a mountain out of a molehill. I don't think Steven 
 will make the same kind of mistake again, anyway; he's had 
 his lesson, and perhaps it's just as well. Galway went on 
 his vacation the first of the month, and that left just Jim 
 Dickerson in the office with Steve — " Here Lawson, who 
 had been fidgetting about in his reclining chair, rose to a 
 sitting posture, wheeling to set his feet on the ground and 
 bring his face nearer to the other as he continued the tale. 
 " First thing you know. El, I had a wire from Steven, and a 
 letter from Dickerson, and it looked to me that there had 
 been some kind of a ruction, so I took the next train out of 
 here. Do you know what w^as up? " 
 
 He halted, though obviously not expecting a reply, but 
 Elihu signifying by a rumble from somewhere within him 
 that he had no idea what was up, and was waiting to hear, 
 Lawson pursued: "We have a correspondent down in 
 Havana — man named Ginn that runs some kind of a 
 notion-store, I imagine — it has one of those high-flown 
 Spanish names. Anyway he buys a bill of goods of us once 
 in so often, not very much, five or six thousand dollars at 
 intervals of a year or so, probably. I don't know anything 
 about him, except that he's always paid his notes promptly, 
 and we've never had any trouble with him. W^ell, it seems 
 he was up touring the States this summer, and when he got 
 around to our neighborhood, he thought he'd drop in and 
 make our acquaintance, and do a little business personally 
 for once. Of course I wasn't there ; but Steven and he made 
 out all right, and everything was going smoothly until they 
 
36 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 came to close up the deal, and then this Ginn drops a pretty 
 broad hint that it wouldn't be any harm to shade the invoice 
 a little — make up two sets, you know, on account of cus- 
 toms charges being exorbitant, and so forth and so on — " 
 
 " I see," said Elihu. 
 
 " Well, El, I've known men to do that before — " 
 
 " Uh-huh," said Elihu. 
 
 *' The trouble was it was Steven's first experience, and 
 what does he do but get furiously insulted, and bawl the 
 fellow out, and call him a scoundrel and the Lord knows 
 what besides ! Dickerson interfered to try and smooth things 
 over, and all he got for his pains was that Steven lit into 
 him! I don't know what kind of a circus they had in the 
 office, but it must have been beautiful! " ejaculated Lawson 
 ironically, wagging his head. " Ginn went off in a huff, 
 naturally — " 
 
 " No great loss," said Elihu, judicially. 
 
 " No, certainly not, but that's no way to treat that kind, 
 you know, Elihu. That's what I said to Steven. ' Why, 
 Steven,' I said, ' when a man comes at you with a proposi- 
 tion like that, there's nothing for you to get mad about. You 
 don't have to tell him what you think of him. It's no affair 
 of yours what he wants you to do; he can't make you do it.' 
 Well then, he blazed away, and said it was abominable, and 
 he wanted Ginn to know that he wouldn't countenance cheat- 
 ing the Government — And right there I said to him: ' Oh 
 piffle ! As if your countenancing anything was so important 
 to Ginn!' Well, then he quieted down a little, and wanted to 
 know in a very tragic way what I would have had him do? 
 It wasn't possible that I would have wanted him to accept 
 such a suggestion? I spoke to him pretty sharply then. I 
 said: ' I'm an honest man. You know very well I wouldn't 
 alter an invoice. Nobody but a fool would, anyhow; because 
 they always get caught sooner or later. But all you need to 
 say to people like that is that you'd rather not do business 
 that way, that you never have, and you think it's best to be 
 on the safe side. That's every word you need to say.' " 
 
 " Sure! " said Elihu in full approval. " After that if he 
 wants to take his account somewhere else, why let him take 
 it, and to hell with it! " 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 37 
 
 " Yes, but I could see that Steven thought that was a con- 
 temptible, middle-of-the-road policy," said the father in his 
 worried voice. '' He's so young! And then, too, his idea in 
 the abstract was all right. I tried to make him understand 
 that I wasn't condemning the principle, merely this perfectly 
 futile row he'd made. He stormed around about it's being 
 liis duty to make his position clear and to stand up for mor- 
 als, or something. I said, ' It's all right taking care of your 
 own morals, Steven, but who made you the guardian of the 
 other fellow's? ' He hadn't any answer for that, and then I 
 went on and told him I was distressed to find out how he had 
 spoken to Dickerson. I said to him: 'Mr. Dickerson has 
 been with us twenty-six years, since before you were born. 
 He is absolutely upright and trustworthy, and has always 
 put our interests before everything else. He knows more 
 about the business in a minute than you will in five years. 
 He was only trying to tell you exactly what I've been telling 
 you about how to treat men like Ginn, and here you turn to 
 and abuse him like a pickpocket!' And I said: 'What's 
 more, Steven, I want you to know that Mr. Dickerson has 
 not uttered a single personal complaint to me. He merely 
 wrote and asked me to come out and adjust certain difficult 
 matters that had come up in the office, which he felt nobody 
 was competent to deal with but myself. He never even 
 mentioned your name, because he realized that you were 
 very young, and he was too generous and too forbearing. I've 
 picked up the facts mainly from your own report.' That 
 made an impression on him, I was glad to see. He felt very 
 badly to think he'd been unjust to Dickerson." 
 
 '' Did you make him apologize? " 
 
 " Why, no, Elihu, I didn't say anything to him about 
 apologizing. I thought I'd leave that to his own common- 
 sense and right feeling — if he had any. And he had! " said 
 Steven's father, thankfully. " Dickerson told me the boy 
 came to him, and told him he was sorry in a very straight- 
 forward way, and they shook hands and agreed never to say 
 another word about it. I told him that Steven did it on his 
 own hook, without any prompting from me. I was glad I 
 could say that. It was more satisfactory all around." 
 
 Elihu made no comment; perhaps to his mind there was 
 
38 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 not much satisfaction to be got out of any of these events, 
 though looked at in the most favorable light. " Reminds me 
 of that time with Eugene," he reflected. ^' I don't wonder 
 Lawson feels uneasy." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 NOTWITHSTANDING the bride's repeatedly stated 
 objections, and even certain sharp preventive meas- 
 ures she had taken, the emissaries of those periodi- 
 cals which make a specialty of such matters turned out in 
 considerable force in the neighborhood of St. James the next 
 morning. They could always take snap-shots of the crowd 
 even if the principals w^ere unapproachable, and possibly 
 counted on the fact that some members of it might not be 
 averse to answering a question, or giving some harmless, 
 petty details — though, of course, they would never consent 
 to be interviewed, never ! Somehow or other the rumor had 
 gone abroad that Miss Stillman, for instance, or even Miss 
 Hester Rudd could be persuaded into these confidences. 
 And, in fact, as the machines drove up to the church door, 
 some enterprising journalists got speaking likenesses of a 
 number of elaborate parasols, half a dozen chauffeurs, sec- 
 tions of sundry limousines, the base of the monument erected 
 to the memory of the Clear Harbor volunteers who fell at 
 Santiago, and Mr. Elihu Rudd's top hat. No one could pen- 
 etrate within the church itself without a card, however; and 
 upon the exit of the bridal-party. Miss Rudd — we beg her 
 pardon! — Mrs. Rudolph Gherardi, was powerfully backed 
 up in her design of securing privacy, by a not wholly agree- 
 able ally, a dashing downpour of rain, that drove all the out- 
 siders to cover, and kept the wedding-guests roosting 
 amongst the pews, or packed into the aisles and porches for 
 fully ten minutes. The storm had been threatening all morn- 
 ing, and burst just as the groom handed the bride into their 
 car; he had to plunge in unceremoniously himself, with his 
 gilt-braided uniform, and his sword and spurs fairly on top 
 of her veil and satin train which were stuffed in any way and 
 every way; the engine stalled with much futile uproar and 
 presently a boom of back-fire like a cannon; the other cars 
 
 39 
 
40 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 had got out of alignment somehow ; chauffeurs were running 
 about frantically buttoning up the storm-curtains ; the Rudd 
 automobile had to jockey for position, and by the time it 
 finally rolled off, the rain had so increased that nobody could 
 follow. All the rest of the bridal procession were temporarily 
 marooned along with the guests, and naturally broke up in 
 disorder. It was a hurly-burly of gauze hats, shower bou- 
 quets, frock coats, excited laughter, squealing exclamations 
 and dodging of the drenching gusts, window after window 
 swinging and slamming as several youths heroically ruined 
 their brand-new gloves and immaculate cuffs vainly at- 
 tempting to close them. Cascades of water gurgled down 
 the steps, the gargoyles spouted, tall wind-swept wraiths of 
 rain went tottering across the landscape; but there was very 
 little thunder or lightning, fortunately for the nervous. Most 
 people voted the experience rather picturesque and amusing, 
 for all it spoiled or at least disarranged the preparations 
 which had been so painstakingly planned. 
 
 " I wasn't sure at first whether I ought to converse out 
 loud in church, but everybody seems to be, so I suppose it's 
 not sinful. Now my trouble is that I don't know whether to 
 go and speak to Mr. and Mrs. Rudd, or not. Ordinarily 
 you don't offer felicitations and compliments and all that 
 sort of thing until you get to the house and everybody is 
 standing in line to receive them. It's a terrible position; 
 none of the books about behavior in society tell you what 
 to do when you're all mixed up with a wedding-party in a 
 rain-storm. Don't you think that's a very grave oversight, 
 Mr. Cook? " one guest said. 
 
 Mr. Cook agreed with her. " But brides are always sup- 
 posed to have fine weather. The writers on etiquette prob- 
 ably don't like to assail such a popular pretense," he sug- 
 gested. " For that matter, I myself am not superstitious, 
 but it seems to me that this rain is very ill-timed. Absit 
 omen! '* 
 
 The lady eyed him. " Do you know Captain Gherardi? " 
 she inquired irrelevantly; and then, on a common impulse, 
 they exchanged warning glances behind a pair of shoulders 
 in an impeccably tailored coat which just at that moment 
 had been wedged or shoved into their neighborhood — the 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 41 
 
 coat and shoulders of young Mr. Steven Rudd, who here- 
 upon turned around, smiling and apologizing and hoping he 
 had not amputated a foot of either one of them. 
 
 " — Or done anything to your dress, Miss Grace? I came 
 down on something that seemed to give a little. No? 
 That's a relief! I stepped on Mrs. Thatcher's a minute ago. 
 I heard it go zip, and made a perfectly lightning get-away, 
 and I don't believe she's found it out yet! You won't tell, 
 will you? " 
 
 ^' Not I ! I have some dark secrets in my own life," said 
 Cook, solemnly. 
 
 He was a short, slight, unnoticeable, middle-aged man, 
 with his beard trimmed closely to a point and eyeglasses on 
 a black ribbon; nobody could have looked less the 
 adventurer and more like a retail dry-goods clerk — in the 
 gent's underwear department, for example — and Steven, 
 surveying him, wondered for a brief moment if he realized 
 how funny his words were, taken with his appearance. Of 
 course he meant to be funny, but still — I Here Steven re- 
 minded himself that Mr. Cook was not a retail-clerk; he was 
 a novelist and playwright of some reputation, and might 
 be presumed to know quite well what he was saying, whether 
 in fun or earnest. Steve had read some of the stories, and, 
 to be frank, considered them pretty slow^ stuff; nevertheless, 
 the feat of writing them and getting them into print, and 
 making a living thereby, commanded respect — even a little 
 en\'y, for the young gentleman remembered certain efforts 
 of his own in that direction while at college and later which 
 had not met with conspicuous success among the editors. 
 
 " I went to see Days Like These in New York last spring. 
 It's corking! " he said with enthusiasm. 
 
 '^ Thank you very much. It ow^es a great deal to the 
 actors." 
 
 '' Lorraine Ha\\i^rey was fine in the leading part — the 
 girl that runs away, you know. She can act anything, 
 though — er — that is — " Steven floundered, inwardly call- 
 ing down anathemas on his own head; what did that last 
 tactful piece of criticism sound like to Mr. Cook? The 
 author had not moved a muscle, but little Miss Bessie Grace 
 w^as trying to keep from smiling. " It must be interesting 
 
42 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 to write plays, and — and get them presented," he said 
 desperately. 
 
 " It is, very. In a number of ways," said Mr. Cook, ad- 
 justing his eyeglasses and looking at the young man thought- 
 fully. 
 
 Steven began to wish he could get away politely — evap- 
 orate somehow before making any more blunders; but there 
 was no moving in any direction now. The bulky figure of 
 Mr. Stillman was under way down the aisle, like one of the 
 new Cunard liners leaving port, and persons on either side 
 were obliged to perform the action known to childhood as 
 ^' scrooging back " to make room. 
 
 '^ I daresay you meet all kinds of weird characters — stage 
 people, musicians, art-students, all that? " he said lamely. 
 
 " Mr. Cook knows everybody, it seems to me," said Miss 
 Grace. '' All sorts and conditions of men." 
 
 " It's my trade, isn't it? " said the novelist. 
 
 Some feeling which this time was not a mere desire to 
 make talk prompted Steven to ask him: " Did you ever run 
 across a man named Rudd in New York? " 
 
 " Rudd? " 
 
 " Yes. He's a — a kind of relative of ours. He writes — 
 or at least he used to write — for the papers, I believe," 
 Steven explained, not much surprised at the blankness of 
 Cook's expression. " Oh, I don't mean he's one of the — 
 the big ones, the big WTiters. It wouldn't be strange if you'd 
 never heard of him. New York's fairly seething with news- 
 paper-men, I suppose. I hardly know him myself — I've 
 barely met him. But I thought you might possibly — ? " 
 
 " Why, yes, I used to know a Rudd — " 
 
 " There, didn't I say he knew everybody ! " Miss Grace 
 threw in triumphantly. 
 
 " Only I haven't seen much of him recently, as it hap- 
 pens," said Cook. " He was on the Planet some years ago 
 at the time that I was writing some articles for them — " 
 
 *' The Planet? That's Dana's paper," said Steven, a little 
 vain of his range of information. " One of the fellows in my 
 class went on it. It gets all the bright men, they say." 
 
 '' Mr. Dana was a little too soon for me," said Cook, smil- 
 ing. " He was before my time. Why, I don't know about all 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 43 
 
 the bright men; maybe there are a few left for the other 
 papers. Your — er — your cousin did very good work, I 
 remember. We met occasionally. I don't know why I 
 never connected him wdth your family, in spite of the name 
 being rather unusual; perhaps he never happened to talk 
 about his people in my hearing. Did he come from Ohio? 
 Almost all the Western and Mid-W^estern men in New York 
 know or know of one another — " 
 
 And at this juncture the arrival of Mr. Stillman saved 
 Steven the embarrassment of answering or of not answering. 
 He thought the other's manner had been a trifle guarded; 
 nor was the reason far to seek. Mr. Cook had not seen much 
 of this relative recently, eh? No, Mr. Cook was not the 
 kind of person ever to have seen much of that derelict, 
 Steven guessed knowingly, unless indeed he chanced to be 
 studying a type from among the needy and dissolute mem- 
 bers of his profession. Steve himself had been a good deal 
 intrigued by the unwelcome and more or less mysterious 
 Eugene with his tell-tale voice and complexion, his dis- 
 armingly agreeable manners; for that matter, the simple 
 fact of his being so far the only disreputable Rudd to appear 
 above the family horizon was enough to arouse curiosity. 
 
 He lingered for the sake of appearances long enough to 
 hear Mr. Stillman's, "Ah, Mr. Cook! Writing anything 
 now? " and squeezed out at the other end of the pew and 
 in and out through several more pew^s, to speak to Miss Bal- 
 lard and her mother. Momentarily alone in the places 
 just vacated by Mr. and Miss Stillman, they had an odd air 
 of standing guard over the latter's resplendent lace-and- 
 chiffon wrap and her bejewelled mesh-bag thrown down to- 
 gether in a priceless heap, delicately glowing against the 
 dark wood bench. It struck Steven that the Ballard ladies 
 were frequently to be seen in this watchdog pose. They, 
 for their part, were not at all resplendent, or only very mildly 
 so, the older, in gray, the younger in a mauve flowered 
 organdie, each toilette suggesting to alert feminine eyes that 
 it might be a year-before-last or even a five-years-before- 
 last inheritance from Clara. Young Mr. Rudd, however, 
 possessed no such gift of divination; he thought they looked 
 very nice, just like everybody else; and if questioned, while 
 
44 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 disclaiming any particular interest in Mary except as a girl 
 whom he had known all his life, he would have freely 
 avowed that he liked her awfully well, and was almost as 
 fond of her mother, and that there was nothing on earth 
 he would not do for either one of them. Mrs. Ballard turned 
 a face of fatigued vivacity upon him, as he edged nearer. 
 
 " Well, how about this rain? " said Steven buoyantly. 
 " Won't Edith have it in for the weather-man, though? " 
 
 " It really hasn't spoiled anything," Mrs. Ballard assured 
 him with the promptness of long social experience. '' No- 
 body ever minds a little rain, and we are all having a very 
 good time. She made a lovely bride. Generally the girls are 
 too tired out to look their best." 
 
 "Oh, Edith's a perfect pine knot. She never gets tired. 
 I thought she looked corking, too, and that's rather funny, 
 because she's not really pretty. She's too long and thin," 
 said the brother with true brotherly candor. He checked 
 Mary's reproaches with a laugh. '' Pshaw, Edith doesn't 
 care; she doesn't give a pin whether people think she's pretty 
 or not. Why you know that! Do you know I believe that's 
 the reason she — well, gets away with it so well — her looks, 
 1 mean, you know. She never gives it a thought! " 
 
 " Oh yes. Anyone can see that she is absolutely uncon- 
 scious," said Mrs. Ballard, accommodatingly. In her pri- 
 vate judgment, if ever there was a girl who knew how to 
 make the most of herself, it was Edith Rudd. She actually 
 capitalized her homeliness, accenting rather than trying to 
 conceal her lanky height, her washboard of a neck, her arms 
 like hinged laths; Edith was never seen, no, not even to-day, 
 with a single dab of color on her thin, sharp-featured face, 
 with the high cheekbones, that all summer was always a 
 mask of tan and freckles; her small, keen, light-blue eyes 
 were innocent of shading; she dressed her straight hair with 
 a defiance of style that achieved stylishness. Never gave 
 her looks a thought, indeed! The older woman could have 
 laughed aloud. It was true that Edith never wasted time; 
 she knew her own mind too well, and was altogether too 
 efficient, cool-headed, thorough and calculating, aware to 
 the last detail, of the qualities of her defects. Mrs. Ballard 
 admired her for it, and, as has been seen, loyally supported 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 45 
 
 the popular illusion to which Steven had just given utter- 
 ance. Edith had something that was better and more 
 durable than good looks, her friend thought. Lo, the proof 
 of the pudding was the eating: here was Edith, easily the 
 greatest favorite in her set, getting married at twenty-two 
 or so, while Hester, acknowledged on all hands a stunning 
 beauty, was still hanging on the Rudd tree, in her fifth sea- 
 son ! To be sure, she was probably holding off for some spec- 
 tacularly rich or brilliant match, but even so — 
 
 Steven was speaking: " We all think that George was a 
 pretty good scout to come in and fill up this way. Nobody 
 ever really wants to ush, you know; they just feel it's com- 
 plimentary to be asked to, and they can't get out of it, 
 anyhow." 
 
 " Oh, George doesn't mind not being first choice. He's 
 having the time of his life," Mary said. They looked over 
 to where George, with one hand against the stone pillar 
 behind her, was bending down over the maid-of-honor, 
 manifestly having the time of his life to such an extent as 
 to render him completely oblivious of everything and every- 
 body else. The maid-of-honor was Miss Hester Rudd, she 
 of the black eyes, the dazzlingly white teeth — you could 
 see her palate every time she laughed, the other girls said — 
 the flower-like textures, the fruit-like contours. Hester was 
 not too long and thin, Hester, whenever and however you 
 took her, was a satisfyingly beautiful sight, as even her 
 brother Steven would admit; and George Stillman would 
 undoubtedly agree wdth him. She leaned against the pillar 
 under the young man's arm, flashing an occasional glance 
 upward at him from beneath the bridesmaid's hat, pulling 
 pink petals out of her bouquet and nibbling at them between 
 pink lips tantalizingly. Her white shoulders and slim 
 white ankles glimmered through diaphanous pink. The cos- 
 tume and attitude and occupation were a deliberate chal- 
 lenge to all the senses, and sufficiently characteristic of this 
 young lady, as her brother realized in a sudden and most 
 uncalled-for mortification. " Hester overdoes that goo-goo- 
 eyes business," he thought. " Now she's trying to make a 
 fool of poor old George; she tries it on with all the men. 
 • All right if a girl wants to, of course — only she overdoes 
 
46 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 it. Everybody's noticing. It's damn bad taste!" thought 
 Steve, permitting himself an expletive in his annoyance. 
 
 " Doesn't Hester look perfectly lovely? " said Mary. 
 
 " Yes. She has all the looks in the family. My mother 
 says that Edith and I are ' all Rudd,' " said Steven. " I 
 think Edith's more attractive, though," he said savagely. 
 He went on talking, he even plunged into petty gossip to 
 distract Mary's attention from the lamentable spectacle of 
 poor old George being made a fool of before everybody! 
 " Between you and me, I'm dead certain that's the real 
 reason Delaney ducked the wedding. Because of Edith, 
 you know. He was tremendously taken with Edith." 
 
 " Oh, do you think he — ? " 
 
 " Well, if he didn't, all signs fail! She never said a word 
 to me about it. Edith's too good a sport, she'd never tell," 
 the brother declared with pride. " Some girls do, you know. 
 They like to count up the scalps." 
 
 Mary did not argue the point; perhaps it was too well- 
 established in their circle to be worth an argument. " Is he 
 nice? " 
 
 " Oh, top-hole! Got a decoration, D.S.O., or somethmg m 
 the South African war — awfully nice fellow. I suppose 
 she liked Gherardi better. Between you and me," said 
 Steven again, lowering his voice: ''I can't see why. 
 Gherardi's all right, of course. Well, anyway, it's all over 
 now. Only I wasn't the least surprised when the other one 
 flunked this business; he must have found that he couldn't 
 stand seeing another man get her. I don't think he|s such 
 a friend of Gherardi's anyhow — just knows him officially, I 
 
 daresay." 
 
 ''I do believe the rain is slackening off a little! Mrs. 
 Ballard said. There began to be a definite movement 
 towards the doors; one of the bridesmaids stood on tiptoe 
 and beckoned energetically to Steven; George Stillman, with 
 a start, " came to," as sundry observers bitingly remarked, 
 and offered Miss Rudd his arm instead of putting it around 
 her, which, they opined, was what he would have infinitely 
 preferred. The automobile with Mr. and Mrs. Lawson and 
 Mr. and Mrs. Elihu, rolled off; Cook got ready an umbrella 
 to hold over Miss Grace; Miss Stillman — in a Paquin cos- 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 47 
 
 tume, a hat misted with floating fronds of bird o' Paradise, 
 and her wonderful necklace of filigree silver and paste 
 jewels that had once formed part of the stage parure of 
 Mademoiselle Mars — came back to get her wrap. 
 
 '' Mother and I are going over to Clam Beach Thursday," 
 Mary was saying. 
 
 Steven halted, turning back. ''Clam Beach? Why, aren't 
 the Stillmans staying at the Harbor for a while? I 
 thought — " 
 
 '' Oh yes! " Clara told him; she had the effect of not see- 
 ing the other two ladies at all. '' We'll be at the Ocean 
 House just as usual. They save that suite every year for 
 us at this time — so nice ! George ivas going to his beloved 
 camp, but — I don't know — " she smiled archly and mean- 
 ingly. " Clear Harbor seems all at once to have developed 
 powerful attractions — perhaps I ought to say 'Journey's 
 End' — " 
 
 " If you don't get started, the bride and groom will be old 
 married people before we tell 'em howdy," Mr. Stillman 
 interrupted. " Are you ready, Ellen? Want to put this 
 
 on? *" 
 
 He spoke to Mrs. Ballard, picking up her shabby silk y 
 cape which was almost as much of an antique as Made- ' 
 moiselle Mars' necklace, with an attention which his daugh- 
 ter seldom showed her. Indeed, Miss Clara was upon many 
 occasions, as upon this one, airily indifferent to what became 
 of her aunt and cousin. " Aunt Ellen and Mary are always 
 there, you know. I feel I can call on them whenever I need 
 them. They're both so sweet! " she would say. 
 
 By the time the main body of the guests reached the house, 
 Edith, that incomparable genius at organization, had gen- 
 eralled the members of the wedding-party, maids, grooms- 
 men, parents and all, into their proper places and a 
 resumption of their proper functions; and thenceforward 
 things moved without a hitch. Considering that it rained at 
 intervals all day, so that the lawn and terrace, Mr. Rudd's 
 beautiful gardens, the sea-wall and fountain that had been 
 photographed so often, the pine-grove, the bay-tree walk, 
 were none of them available as a background, or a means of 
 entertainment, and that the whole point and purpose of the 
 
48 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 summer-home wedding were therefore lost, it was a remark- 
 ably successful occasion. Indoors, it was too close and 
 stuffy with the casements shut, too damp and windy with 
 them open; but the champagne, the jellied bouillon were iced 
 to perfection, the filet de piiitade en cloche a triumph ; there 
 was an apparently bottomless supply of cigars and high- 
 ball materials, both of prime quality, in the men's dressing- 
 room. Mrs. Rudd in lace and pearls with her face marvel- 
 lously " fixed," was charming in the role of hostess, explain- 
 ing from time to time that they had been determined to have 
 everything absolutely simple — a seashore wedding, you 
 know, and so small and quiet. The groom made a good 
 speech in his pleasantly foreign accent, the military men and 
 the young secretaries of legations who had come up from 
 Washington and Newport imparted a flavor of distinction 
 and of the unusual; and Hester Rudd caught the bride's 
 bouquet. 
 
 Steven was so busy seeing everybody that he had no time 
 really to see anybody, as he once or twice noted, during some 
 brief respite from his activities, with a vaguely satirical 
 amusement. About half-past four, 'as he was running up- 
 stairs at his mother's behest to rout some missing male 
 relatives from the billiard-room (or the other remote retreats 
 whither the lady of the house divined they had stolen off to 
 smoke and discuss the stock-market) and warn them that 
 the new couple were about to depart — as Steven ran up on 
 this errand, one of the servants apologetically intercepted 
 him on a landing: if he pleased, Miss Edith, — that is — 
 beg pardon, sir, Mrs. * Gherardi, would like to see him a 
 minute. 
 
 '' Me? Where is she? Oh, in her own room? All right! " 
 He turned off down the corridor. The door stood ajar into 
 the familiar room which was oddly still though people were 
 scurrying past every moment, and there were loud talk and 
 laughter and glimpses of confusion through the other 
 doors. It did not surprise the brother; Edith's room was 
 always a cool, ordered place; nor was he much surprised, 
 reaching the threshold, to see her alone. She was standing 
 before the long mirror, putting some finishing touch to her 
 hat and veil. 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 49 
 
 " Hello, Ede! Here I am! Where's everybody? " 
 
 Edith went on making expert motions with her long, firm, 
 slender hands; she revolved slowly before the glass with 
 her head over one shoulder as if studying the hang of her 
 skirts, then at last faced him. " I made them all go away. 
 I wanted to say good-bye by ourselves. Can't do it down- 
 stairs, with everybody around, you know," she said col- 
 lectedlv. But some unwonted slurring of her speech which 
 w\as naturally very clear, penetrating and musical, one of 
 her few real attractions, filled him with consternation. The 
 stark Edith who never was known to get into a temper, or 
 to shed a tear, it couldn't be possible that she — ? 
 
 "Here, don't!" he urged, appalled. 
 
 '' I'm not going to! " said Edith with a sound that might 
 pass for laughter. In fact, her features were steady as she 
 went up to him and put both arms around his neck and 
 put her head in the ultra-smart travelling-hat, against his 
 shoulder; she was almost as tall as he. Steve hugged her 
 close. Good old Ediel Always such a good pal! Like one 
 of the fellows ! Always understanding you — always square 
 
 — always keeping her word — never giving anything away 
 
 — never talking — it startled him to find out how fond he 
 was of Edith, how much he was going to miss her — ! 
 
 '' Here, don't ijoii, Stevie! " said Edith, with another un- 
 natural laugh. 
 
 " I'm not going to ! " said Steven, trying to echo it. " Any- 
 way, we don't need to get wrought up, and pull the farewell- 
 forever stufT," he said with resolute lightness. '' Even if you 
 and Rudolph have to go and live over there, you'll be coming 
 back to this side every little while." 
 
 " It won't be the same," said Edith. " I won't be the 
 same, somehow." 
 
 ''Well, it — it'll be all right — it's going to be all right, 
 said Steve, embarrassed, conscious of a certain inadequacy 
 in this effort at reassurance, but unable to think of anything 
 better. 
 
 " Can't be helped, anyhow," Edith said. She moved out of 
 his arms, and stood looking at him; then spoke impulsively: 
 " Steve, remember that ridiculous way you alw\ays wanted 
 to play when we w^ere little — fairy tales out of books, and 
 
 E 
 
50 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 nonsensical things like that? Remember how you were 
 always wanting me to be a poor abused Cinderella, or a 
 princess chained up in a castle, so that you could come 
 prancing in and have a grand fight with a dragon or a 
 sorcerer or something, and rescue me? And I never liked it. 
 Don't you remember? " 
 
 Steve nodded and began to chuckle, glad to feel the tension 
 relax. " Yes, you always wanted to rescue yourself, and do 
 your own fighting, I remember. We generally ended by join- 
 ing forces and defending Hester. Hester liked to be the op- 
 pressed heroine; she used to tease and sulk when we wouldn't 
 have her." 
 
 '' Steve, I think you're always going to be like that. Get- 
 ting up and defending somebody, or protecting somebody, or 
 something — like those everlasting old knights in armor, in 
 the fairy-books," said Edith, not too lucidly — yet some- 
 how she made the central idea clear. " And Dad is, too — " 
 
 Steven broke into genuine laughter this time. " Dad? 
 Oh, come now, Edie! Think of Dad in a sheet-iron vest 
 riding around knocking people on the head when they didn't 
 behave right! " 
 
 " He would, though! And you would, too, if you ever had 
 to," the girl insisted. *' You needn't make fun, because it's 
 
 — it's fine. I've often wished I was a man, so I could, too. 
 Steve, I hope you won't ever give it up — I hope you won't 
 ever stop feeling that way. I — I — " All this she had been 
 saying with a good deal of vehemence, but now hesitated. 
 " It isn't mean or tittle-tattling to say it, because I daresay 
 you feel it yourself. Dad's got an idea that you're — well 
 
 — idealistic, and all that sort of thing, you know — rather 
 high-flown — " 
 
 " I know," said Steven, flushing. 
 
 " Well, he is, too, Steve! Right down in the bottom of his 
 heart — only he doesn't know it. You and he are exactly 
 alike. You don't see it yourselves, but I can see it all the 
 time." 
 
 " Maybe that's the reason we don't invariably agree. 
 They say that opposite temperaments get along together 
 better," suggested her brother, determinedly flippant. 
 
 She shook her head at him, drawing her straight light eye- 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 51 
 
 brows together with a look of wistfulness and perplexity, 
 strange on Edith's face. " You needn't make fun," she said 
 again; and with that constraint which so commended her 
 to the masculine mind: " A person doesn't want to talk about 
 — about this sort of thing. But just this once — Steve," 
 she said earnestly; " what I'm trying to say is that Dad has 
 sort of — of — high-up things, spiritual things, I daresay a 
 clergyman would call them, that he has to live up to, just 
 like you. If he heard me, he'd say it was all nonsense, but 
 he — he has his ideals, just the same, and I don't believe 
 they're so very different from yours. I wanted to tell 3^ou, 
 because I'm afraid you and he will get to misunderstanding 
 each other, and you'll have fusses, and — " 
 
 " And you won't be here to manage us, and set us right! " 
 said Steven, good-humoredly, affectionately. " All right, 
 Edie! I get you! " 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 CLAM BEACH differed nowise from dozens upon dozens 
 of resorts scattered up and down the seaboard of 
 these United States, where congregate considerable 
 numbers of seekers after rest or pleasure whose purses are 
 not quite so long as those of the Rudds and Stillmans. The 
 little harbor would have been commonplace if any spot on 
 earth where salt tides run, and ships and dories lie at 
 anchor, and tall piers strut out from shore, now high above 
 the water, now barely showing on a level with its surface, 
 could be commonplace. There was a single street, ankle- 
 deep in sand, with meagre little shops and sailmakers' lofts 
 and a blacksmith who was on the way to fortune since the 
 rise and spread of the automobile habit; and there were two 
 or three light wooden hotels, erected to all appearances in 
 the expectation of being blown or burned down. One came 
 here and there to reticent New England cottages, the tiny 
 gardens about their door-steps blooming to the admiration 
 and despair of the inland-dwelling gardeners. Farther out, 
 abandoned farms with dilapidated, silent buildings and 
 lengths of stone wall beautiful in ruin, provided a forlornly 
 picturesque approach. Steven's runabout made heavy 
 weather of the last few miles what with the sand and chuck- 
 holes; up to then the roads had been good, but Wiscasset 
 was a poor county; the population made their living off of 
 the summer visitors — a pathetically lean living at that. 
 
 " It's a shame! " said Steve aloud, serpentining around the 
 fiftieth boulder and surging into a low thicket of blueberries 
 on the other side. He was not thinking of the highway, 
 however, but of another victim of Destiny's neglect or hit- 
 and-miss attention, as it seemed to him, namely: Miss Mary 
 Ballard. They had been children together, going to kinder- 
 garten, going to Sunday-school, going to parties, picnics, the 
 circus; Mary and Edith were just of an age. In those days, 
 
 52 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 53 
 
 either there had not been so great a disparity in worldly 
 goods between the Rudds and other members of their circle, 
 or, what is far more likely, the youngsters had not noticed it. 
 Even later, at fifteen or sixteen, when the youthful Rudds 
 could not help but perceive that they had more and could do 
 r.^ore than almost any of their friends, and that the establish- 
 ment was conducted upon the same large and easy scale as 
 those of people whom they knew to be constantly referred to 
 in the newspapers as millionaires, even then it is doubtful 
 if they gave the matter any thought. Steven, like any nor- 
 mal, healthy-minded boy, valued his companions by their 
 deeds and qualities, strictly for what they were, not for what 
 they happened to have; and, when all is said, there is no 
 judgment more sane, more just, than that of an honest boy; 
 maturity cannot better it. As much can scarcely be said for 
 the girls; but in this instance, Edith shared her brother's 
 views, as was usual with the two. They both liked Mary; 
 she could dance, she could ride, she could swim, she could 
 play any game, she was always ready to amuse or to be 
 amused, she had no mean little tricks, she knew everybody, 
 vvTnt everywhere, and always seemed to be enjoying herself. 
 If she was skimped in clothes or pocket-money, if unable to 
 pa}^ social debts in kind, if continually obliged to rely on 
 somebody's motor-car, somebody's hospitality, they savv 
 nothing of it. Onh' of late, last month, last week, had the 
 fact gradually obtruded itself on Steven that the Ballards 
 must be very poor, that they were clinging desperately to the 
 foothold in society afforded by their unquestioned claim to 
 caste, their elevated family connections, their old and well- 
 known name. 
 
 Mrs. Ballard was Miss Ellen Van Huysen of Albany, 
 descended from the patroon Dietrich Van Huysen who 
 owned half the land upon which the city now stands, having 
 bought it from Chief Skinned-Easy, of the Takeawiskies for 
 a bead necklace and a demijohn of Holland Schnapps; at 
 least, that may well be the story, for is not the same told of 
 all the patroons, yea, of the Pilgrim Fathers, the William 
 Penns, the whole body of pioneers? We may believe the 
 original estate had sadly fallen off by the time it passed to 
 patroon Dietrich's ultimate heirs. The other Van Huysen 
 
64 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 girl, Anita, married John Stillman, the railroad man; she did 
 well enough for herself, at any rate. Stillman was, in a man- 
 ner of speaking, without antecedents ; but one can get along 
 very nicely without antecedents on seventy-five thousand 
 a year. Ellen's husband, the late Quintus Curtius Laniar 
 Ballard, was one of the South Carolina Ballards, a family 
 whom the Civil War left with their name and probably not 
 much else. 
 
 But this last fact hardly accounted for the present low ebb 
 of the Ballard fortunes. At one time Mr. Ballard must 
 have made a handsome living at his profession, the law. He 
 was a man of fine presence, with a strong voice and a com- 
 mand of rhetoric, gifts which stood him in good stead during 
 the political campaigns in which he took a prominent part 
 beginning as far back as Harrison's first candidacy. And 
 republics are not consistently ungrateful for he became 
 Judge Ballard and served six years on the bench. What 
 happened after that? And why should his brother-in-law 
 Stillman say with a sort of philosophical contempt: " Poli- 
 tics spoil lots of men "? Q. C. L. Ballard had been dead 
 some time, so that Steven — who, for that matter, had sel- 
 dom seen him, owing to his frequent absences from home on 
 stump-speaking tours, or perhaps other errands — found 
 difficulty in recalling his appearance. The house where they 
 lived when, as a little boy, he first knew them, where he used 
 to go to play with Mary, he remembered distinctly, from the 
 attic where they kept their toys to the dining-room in the 
 basement with the row of beautiful old Bohemian-glass 
 decanters on the sideboard, from whence, no doubt, ema- 
 nated that fragrance of brandy that always hung in the air. 
 It was Number Two, St. Clair Avenue, next to AH Souls, a 
 dignified and comfortable home in a desirable, if not the 
 most fashionable, residence district. Then all at once they 
 began to move ; they kept moving, hither and yon, from one 
 house to another. Then they ceased to live in houses, 
 and took apartments for a season here, a season there. Mary 
 was sent east to stay with some Van Huysen or Rutgers 
 relative, or to Richmond, Charleston, Washington to stay 
 with some Ballard, Poinsett or Dunwoodie relative while 
 she went to school. When Steve wrote to her, he was for- 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 65 
 
 ever having to make note of a new address. She got through 
 with the schools at about the time her father died; and 
 since then she and Mrs. BaUard had boarded when they 
 were not visiting indefinitely those same Van Huysens and 
 Dunwoodies, or, intermittently, the Stillmans. 
 
 Steven frowningly speculated on the whys and wherefores 
 of all this, and came to the conclusion just quoted. It was a 
 shame. Mary and her mother had no home; they must be 
 more or less dependent on those other members of the fam- 
 ily — and it could not be a very secure or agreeable position 
 to depend on Miss Clara Stillman, for instance. He had 
 heard his sister Hester and indeed more than one of the 
 girls — never Edith, though ! Edith would not gossip — in- 
 terchanging slightly acidulated criticism of Clara Stillman. 
 Every now and then (they said) she got into a great fuss 
 about having a chaperon — a chaperon at her age! — and 
 sent for Mrs. Ballard. Then, when she got over the scare 
 about propriety, or tired of having the Ballards around, or 
 was afraid she would have to pay their expenses somewhere, 
 why, she dumped them out of the way like so much rubbish. 
 Must be lots of fun for Mary and her mother I But it was 
 not going to keep on much longer, they would opine with 
 shrewd looks; Mary was too popular, too attractive. Bye- 
 bye, dear Auntie, and cousin I Here's one of those lovely 
 gowns Mama bought at the Chicago World's Fair; you can 
 cut it over so that it will fit both of you. Bye-bye ! Have a 
 good time! 
 
 Thus had Steven heard the young ladies discourse; only 
 women relish such bitter trivialities, the young fellow would 
 think. Miss Stillman hitherto had seemed to him amiable 
 enough — but there was certainly something cold and cava- 
 lier in the way she shunted the Ballards off the other day. 
 She might just as well have kept them with her at Clear 
 Harbor; that famous suite that was set aside for her from 
 year to year was roomy enough, in all conscience. Steve 
 wondered if Mr. Stillman, if George, who was one of the 
 kindest-hearted chaps alive, realized the Ballards' position. 
 After all, maybe the two ladies themselves preferred Clam 
 Beach, though that resort was considered by Hester and 
 others abysmally " mucker." But the Burkes liked it; there 
 
56 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 were probably plenty of nice people there; Mary and her 
 mother might feel freer, if less comfortable, than when Miss 
 Stillman was making a convenience of them; and anyhow, 
 it was no business of his. 
 
 Something occurred at the moment that was distinctly 
 Steven's business. That is, as he bumped slantwise over a 
 granite escarpment, the rear right tire set up a continuous 
 minute hissing which he recognized with an ejaculation. 
 "Yah! There she goes!" said Steven, disgusted but re- 
 signed. He stopped the car and leaned over, attempting to 
 estimate the damage; and looked up and down, shaking his 
 head. The catastrophe had befallen at the bottom of a little 
 dip, the road scrambled over the rocks before and behind; 
 afar off there showed a V-shaped patch of sea between the 
 hills. It was hot in this hollow and incredibly still; not 
 a soul within hallooing distance, probably, although at the 
 top of the stair-like ascent on one hand, a gable and tumble- 
 down chimney pushed through the greenery. Fifteen min- 
 utes of uninterrupted going would have taken him into 
 town; but " she " would be in ribbons before the first five. 
 Steven, however, was a lad of stout muscle, and handy 
 enough with tools; it would not be the first tire he had 
 changed, so the prospect held no particular terrors. He took 
 off his gloves, took off his cap, took off his coat and slowly 
 descended. He went around to the back of the car, whistling 
 confidently '^ Everybody Works but Father " — an aria new 
 at that date — released the spare tire, and began to explore 
 the tool-box. The whistle died; he took out wrenches, ham- 
 mers, rolls of adhesive tape, extra nuts and washers without 
 number as it seemed to him; he prowled in the corners; he 
 investigated every square inch of the machine where a jack 
 could be hidden, all to no avail. Michael must have taken 
 it to use on one of the other cars, and forgotten to put it 
 back ; it was bowling along thirty miles an hour in the oppo- 
 site direction towards Clear Harbor, supposing Mrs. Rudd 
 were out — it was peaceably bestowed on the garage shelf — 
 it was anywhere you choose except where it was needed by 
 its owner upon his lawful occasions! Steven desisted from 
 the search, and stood back, debating what he should do 
 next, eyeing the inert car. He noticed that it was canted 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 57 
 
 up on the ledge so as to bring the injured wheel almost free; 
 an inch more, and he would have a natural jack. Steven 
 calculated, walked to the other side, applied his sturdy 
 young shoulder to what he judged to be the most practical 
 place, and heaved mightily — alas, without results. The 
 automobile, for all its look of leaden passivity, all at once 
 developed a kind of springiness which, setting aside its 
 weight, seemed to neutralize his efforts; it was impossible to 
 get a purchase on it. Steven remembered that the salesman 
 had displayed a moving eloquence about its resilient quali- 
 ties. He gave up at last, and stood back again, out of breath, 
 perspiring prodigiously. Everybody Works but Father, to 
 be sure ! Inward laughter assailed him, as he found himself 
 vindictively desirous of letting fly with a good sharp stone 
 into the middle of it, and completing the wreck! 
 
 If only some farmer, or fisherman, or berry-picker would 
 come along! Ordinarily, these ownerless pastures and wood- 
 lands were alive with them, he thought; but to-day there 
 was nobody in sight. As if in retort, he heard a distant 
 rimior of some one boring through the undergrowth on the 
 hillside above; and, directly, running his eye over it, made 
 out a man, a little way below the top, working his way side- 
 wise, crab fashion, from ledge to ledge; he had a pack on his 
 back, with two ends poking up over his shoulders which 
 Steven, after an instant, perceived to be a camp-stool, easel, 
 or some such equipment as a painter on sketching-tour might 
 carry. 
 
 ''Hi!" bawled Steven. "Hey! Hello — o!" And sup- 
 plementing this adjuration by earnest wavings of the arms, 
 he had the satisfaction of observing the man, arrested, hold- 
 ing to a young birch tree, and staring around alow and aloft. 
 Finally discovering Steven, after an attentive moment, he 
 waved his own arm in turn, and bawled back. 
 
 " All right ! Wait a minute 1 " And therewith laid a new 
 course straight for the road, or as nearly straight as possible 
 where the going was so erratic. It brought him out with a 
 rush and slither, and a dry cascade of twigs, pine-cones and 
 small fragments of rock, a dozen yards from where Steven 
 stood; and he shook himself, maintaining his balance with 
 an inarticulate ejaculation, looking towards Steve and grin- 
 
58 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 ning. He had on an old blue jersey, an old pair of corduroy 
 trousers, an unbelievably old slouch hat with a short- 
 stemmed black pipe stuck in the ragged band in the front of 
 it; the sketching apparatus lumbered behind him. The 
 young man's whole acquaintance embraced no such figure, 
 yet, as the other advanced, Steven was aware of a bewilder- 
 ing familiarity about his gait, his shoulders, even about the 
 cjuick and understanding eye with which he took in Steve's 
 own plight. The bewilderment cleared off in a flash ; it was 
 Eugene Rudd. 
 
 Ghastly embarrassment invaded Steve, who nevertheless 
 was sufficiently sophisticated not to be put out of counte- 
 nance by any ordinary mischance. The trouble was, that 
 this was not ordinary ; in one breath he hoped that the other 
 would not know him, recognized the cause of that puzzling 
 sense of familiarity to be a likeness between this Rudd and 
 his own father, faint and far-off, but discernible, and remem- 
 bered that he himself, too, was '' all Rudd." Indeed a sur- 
 prised recognition, duplicating his own, but without a trace 
 of any other feeling — or it might be that Eugene was more 
 skilful and ready at concealment — now became visible on 
 the latter's features. 
 
 '' What! Why, it's Steven! " he exclaimed. " Hail, young 
 Steven! " said he, with a laugh in the same unforced man- 
 ner; and he came up closer, eased his pack to the ground, and 
 moved slowly around the automobile, inspecting it, with a 
 gingerly experimental touch here and there. Steven experi- 
 enced a relief as disproportionate to the circumstances as his 
 discomfiture had been; common-sense returned; if the other 
 took their meeting in this everyday style, why should he, 
 Steven, get into a fluster over it? Why in the name of 
 reason, should he get into a fluster anyhow? 
 
 '' I don't know the first thing about motor-cars," Eugene 
 presently confessed with a kind of genial concern; " I'm no 
 good except as another pair of hands. You'll just have to 
 tell me what you want me to do." 
 
 Steven explained, finding it on a sudden astonishingly easy 
 to talk to Eugene — as easy as if he had been any passing 
 stranger. Furthermore, it prbV^ed easy to work with him; 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON ' 59 
 
 although he had truly described his ignorance of automo- 
 biles, he was handy, tolerably muscular, and very quick at 
 understanding. Together they succeeded in hoisting the car 
 up, improvising a sort of combination lever and support out 
 of a stout fence-rail, wedged with stones. Steven got the 
 fresh tire in place, and they took turns pumping it up, an 
 exercise for which the older man betrayed an unfitness which 
 Steve noticed with vicarious humiliation. The young fel- 
 low could have out-pumped his father, too ; but this was not 
 an instance of the advantage of youth over age, for his com- 
 panion was not more than ten or twelve years his senior, not 
 yet past the prime of life. No, Steven knew that it was no 
 burden of years that made Eugene's breath come gaspingly 
 after half a dozen strokes, and the water bead out all over 
 his face — his face that was a little blotched, a little puffy, 
 though still not unwholesome to look upon. He pumped his 
 spell gallantly, without any notion of crying for quarter, and 
 Steve's sensitive humanity would not allow him to hint at 
 it, even; instead he shortened his own turn, trying to make 
 the inequality between them less unmercifully obvious. It 
 was done at last, and in concert they heaved a long breath, 
 swabbed their respective foreheads, stood back to contem- 
 plate their work and found it good. The automobile no 
 longer resembled a loathly antediluvian with a sore hoof; 
 once more it was an able personality, finely contrived as 
 a watch, potential speed shaped in gracious and flowing 
 lines. 
 
 " What make is it? " Eugene asked. 
 
 Steven told him ; he was conscious of an awkward moment 
 which the other somehow relieved by taking down his old 
 pipe and beginning to pack it from an equally old and ram- 
 shackle pouch. Steven wondered if the act was deliberately 
 conceived to set him at ease; but everything Eugene did 
 seemed to be quite simple and natural. 
 
 " You don't smoke? " he said, cocking an inquiring eye- 
 brow towards Steven, as he tamped the tobacco down with 
 a forefinger discolored by many such operations. 
 
 " Cigarettes, sometimes." Steven hesitated, confronted by 
 the fact that he actually had no form of direct address for 
 his new-found relative. In hasty review, he dismissed 
 
60 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " Rudd " and " Mr. Riidd " as being only a degree less im- 
 possible than '^ Uncle Eugene," which, Good Heavens, was 
 not to be thought of for a minute ! The other suffered from 
 no such indecision, it would seem; he called Steven '^Steven " 
 tout honnemejit, which on the whole exhibited both good 
 taste and good manners, and Steve had a lurking fancy that 
 his own present quandary would amuse Eugene Rudd very 
 much, if he suspected it. " I'm awfully obliged," he said at 
 last. '^ I was stuck hopelessly, if you hadn't come along and 
 helped." 
 
 ^' That's all right. Glad to." He had got the pipe going, 
 and moved nonchalantly towards his pack. There seemed 
 to be nothing more to say or do, but Steven found that it 
 went strongly against the grain with him, to let the brief 
 acquaintance end thus, though Eugene appeared to be en- 
 tirely willing. They might never see each other again — • 
 blood is thicker than water — and — and hang it all, he was 
 so decent, drink or no drink, thought the young fellow. 
 
 " Er — I say ! " he called out, stuttering again over the 
 inability to give this amiable pariah a name. " Going in 
 town? " 
 
 The other who was in the act of swinging his sketching- 
 tools to his shoulder, paused ; for the first time, he lost poise, 
 betrayed a slight uncertainty. '' Wh}^, I — no — that is — " 
 
 " He's afraid of taking advantage of me," thought Steve, 
 in swift sympathy. " Oh, come along! " he insisted. " You 
 were heading in that general direction just now, weren't 
 you? I'll put you down anywhere you say. Come on! " 
 
 An odd expression came into the other Rudd's face at 
 the boyish cordiality of that voice and invitation; without 
 doubt it was a long while since anyone who called him kin, 
 had showed so much zest for his company. Blood thicker 
 than water, forsooth ! Eugene stood an instant longer dubi- 
 ously, then laughed, shrugged and walked up to the machine. 
 "Young Steven, I thank you! " he said, with a burlesque 
 gesture, tumbled his goods in and tumbled in himself. They 
 moved off, not very dashingly, the eccentricities of the road 
 preventing any display of class, except at the steering- 
 wheel. Perhaps Steven did not regret the necessity for con- 
 centrating all his energies on weaving around the ruts and 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 61 
 
 ridges; although the feeling of constraint was wearing off, he 
 could not be unaffectedly himself in this companionship. 
 Eugene at first sat silent, too, attentive to the road, with 
 eyes drawn up under the slouch of his hat, and teeth clenched 
 around the stem of the little black pipe. 
 
 " They c-call stones of that size d-dornicks at home," he 
 remarked joltingly, as the car caromed from one to the 
 next. " Very descriptive word, I've always thought. Dor- 
 nicks. Sounds j-just like them." 
 
 " I don't believe I ever heard it," said Steven. 
 
 *' It's a back-country sort of word — pure Ohioese. I still 
 call Ohio home. You don't know much about it, I suppose." 
 
 " About Ohio? Why, it's my home too. I'm from Ohio," 
 said Steven, surprised. 
 
 '' Yes, I know, but — " Eugene stopped, removed the bat- 
 tered hat, knocked out his pipe, and bestowed it scientifically 
 in its place again. " Not much satisfaction in a pipe while 
 we're leaping from peak to peak like the wild thunder, as 
 Lord Byron has so beautifully and poetically remarked. I 
 keep biting my tongue," he said, in parenthesis, and went on: 
 '' I know. But I imagined somehow that you had spent most 
 of your life away from the Middle West — here perhaps. 
 Or travelling, you know — Groton — Harvard — and so 
 on — ? " he finished on a questioning inflection. 
 
 " Oh, yes. But still home is home. We've never given it 
 up. At one time people rather urged Dad to make our place 
 here his legal residence — because of the taxes, and all that. 
 They're a good deal fairer, or lighter, anyhow, in this State. 
 But he said no, he'd always voted in Ohio, and preferred to 
 finish out there." 
 
 ^' That was like him," said Eugene, and smiled. " Your 
 father's changed very little," he added after a minute. ^' He 
 looked exactly the same to me the other day as he did twenty 
 years ago. There wasn't anybody else of the family along, 
 was there? You have sisters? That Miss Rudd that's just 
 been married — ? " 
 
 Steve answered him, marvelling again, inwardly, at the 
 ease of their talk. He willingly gave the older man credit 
 for the tact that guided it — not so much tact, after all, 
 Steven judged, as genuine interest. Eugene's inquiries and 
 
62 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 comments were more intimate than an outsider's could have 
 been, yet he stopped short at a safe distance from the con- 
 fidential; he not only kept away from that disastrous 
 brink, he kept his companion away from it likewise, having 
 perhaps mastered the valuable truth that we always dislike 
 the person to whom we have told too much. At any rate, 
 Steve, rehearsing the conversation afterwards, decided that 
 though he himself had certainly talked a good deal, he had 
 not talked indiscreetly. He had said, for example, that 
 Uncle Elihu and the family had come on for Edith's wed- 
 ding. Yes, they still lived in California, at Pasadena. Oh 
 yes, Uncle Elihu was very well and active, though he always 
 seemed to Steven so much older than Dad ; really there was 
 only a few years' difference between them. Dad and Uncle 
 El went out every morning and played golf together; they 
 could play, too. Either one of them could baste the ball a 
 good way ; they both stopped and put on their glasses when 
 they went to putt, and then if they didn't putt in, why 
 they could blame it to the glasses. Oh, they were a pair of 
 foxy grandpas all right! Natalie Rudd? Why, her name 
 was Carter, now; she had two children. Aleck? He was 
 dead. Yes, awful thing; he was killed in a railroad accident 
 here about three years ago. It was in the papers at the 
 time; they all felt so sorry for Cousin Judith; she'd never 
 gotten over it, of course. Dad had to go and tell her; he said 
 it was the hardest job he'd ever had to do in his life. 
 
 And so forth and so on, harmlessly. Eugene did not ask 
 after anyone by name direct; it was always "your Uncle 
 Elihu," " your cousin Mrs. Slade," " the Chicago relatives," 
 or some such phrase. Ishmael kept his distance; he would 
 make no claim to kinship with Israel ! 
 
 " I'm putting you through a catechism," he said apologet- 
 ically; and in his matter-of-fact tone, without a hint of 
 sentiment: " it's interesting to me, you know. I haven't 
 seen anything of any of them for so many years. Now 
 right here, please — if you'll let me out — ? " 
 
 They were just cresting a rise that commanded the town 
 and harbor and a wide, wind-swept circle of sea and sky; a 
 path crossed the road, zigzagging off to left and right. 
 Steven brought the car to a standstill, and the other climbed 
 down. 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 63 
 
 " I'm not staying at a hotel. Don't like 'em," he said, 
 answering Steve's glance around over the boulder-strewn 
 wastes. " I hunted up a nice, salt old retired mariner down 
 here at Thanksgiving Cove that has a cottage and takes 
 people in — Cap'n Nathan'l Howe." 
 
 '' Cap'n Howe? Why, that's where some people I know 
 are staying. The name's Burke. Have you met them? " 
 
 Eugene shook his head. ^' I may have, but I don't remem- 
 ber. Perhaps they are at one of the other cottages. There's 
 quite a little settlement at Thanksgiving Cove, and every- 
 body takes summer-boarders, and everybody is named 
 How^e. It's right over the hill, but you'll have to drive into 
 town and out again to get there with your machine. This is 
 a short-cut I'm taking, north-east by a half north across 
 Miss Betsy Howe's cow-pasture, which brings me out bear- 
 ing towards the Cove with Cap'n Howe's house about two 
 points on the port bow. Well, so long! " He went off, waving 
 a carelessly friendly salute, the pack on his shoulders, and 
 the outline of a flask in one hip-pocket, plainly to be dis- 
 cerned under the ragged jersey. 
 
 Steven drove on, perforce slowly, meditating on the unob- 
 trusive skill, the consideration for himself with which the 
 other had carried off an awkward situation; and on the 
 nicety with which, at the end, he had avoided any w^ord or 
 act that might be construed as an overture tow^ard further 
 acquaintance. No, he was decent, the young man thought 
 again, and proud, too, after his fashion, for all his reddening 
 nose, and the whiskey-bottle which, manifestly, was the 
 cause of his ostracism. " Father and Uncle El couldn't have 
 that tank around, of course," thought Steven. '^ I daresay 
 they stood him as long as they could. It's a pity, too, be- 
 cause he must always have been nice when he was sober, like 
 to-day, for instance." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE Ballards were staying at The Grandview, which 
 either actually was, or seemed to Steven in his mood 
 of concern for Mary, the gaudiest and flimsiest of 
 all the depressingly gaudy and flimsy hotel structures in the 
 place. It was built, like the rest, in a style of showy false 
 rusticity, with slight shingle walls stained green, encircled 
 by kindling-wood verandas and surmounted by a monstrous 
 roof at twenty different pitches. The stalwart landscape 
 disowned it; one might fancy it pinned there precarious and 
 temporary, to serve the needs of precarious and temporary 
 visitors. That, at least, was Steve's impression, as the 
 automobile toiled uphill towards it, along the sandy street. 
 " Looks just like a cheap place for cheap people," he thought 
 disdainfully, and with a fresh pang for the girl. To do him 
 justice, the young man had no thought of money in his mind; 
 the adjective, for him, merely connoted something which 
 Mary Ballard most emphatically was not, something shoddy 
 or unworthy — Steven himself would have had difiSculty in 
 defining it. 
 
 He came to a footpath debouching upon the street from 
 somewhere within the hotel-grounds, and drew up, perceiving 
 it to be a side-entrance or short cut. The legend, " Grand- 
 view Tennis-Courts," .with an arrow pointing the way, was 
 posted up on the brow of a pergola constructed of birch 
 saplings laid across a series of massive and powerful concrete 
 columns, two of which had come loose from their founda- 
 tions, yet still remained upright, contrary to all physical 
 laws, steadied by the crosswise poles! It was a miracle, but 
 like most miracles susceptible of a rational explanation, 
 some unaesthetic person having reamed out a hole in one of 
 the monoliths which revealed them to be hollow and of a 
 material resembling papier-mache. They were, besides, 
 fairly arabesqued with names, dates, monograms and 
 
 64 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 65 
 
 inscriptions executed with pocket-knives to commemorate 
 the passage of previous visitors ; Steven glanced at them with 
 another surge of distaste. Yet the fragrance of the pines 
 warm in sunshine was pleasant, and bright-berried vines and 
 small flowers twinkled in the undergrowth, and between 
 tree-trunks one caught classic perspectives of the sea. He 
 followed the path towards a sound of thudding balls and of 
 a voice calling the game with attendant outcry and laughter. 
 There was a hedge of evergreens around the little plaza 
 where the courts had been laid out, and searching an open- 
 ing through it, he unexpectedly beheld Mary on a bench 
 with another girl, looking on while two young men charged 
 and retreated on either side of the net. ''Thirty-love!" 
 Mary was in the act of proclaiming; she reached into a 
 candy-box on the seat between them, with her eyes still 
 watchfully fixed on the players, and in a moment cried out 
 again: " The other side, Mr. Pillsbury ! You have to serve 
 from the "right-hand court again this time! " she directed, 
 in an utterance somewhat obscured by the caramel. 
 
 ''Hey? Right? Oh, sure! I keep forgetting." 
 
 " Isn't it ever going to be my shoot again? " queried his 
 antagonist in tones of mock hopelessness. 
 
 "Ask her; she's the doctor!" retorted Mr. Pillsbury, 
 facetiously, taking his position. " Get ready now, Al ! " 
 
 " My, I don't see how you keep all those rules in your 
 head," observed the other girl, also helping herself to candy. 
 " Say, these are getting all stuck together." 
 
 It was this little summer scene that Mr. Steven walked 
 into, edging around the sidelines to keep out of the way 
 of the players, who, however, stood with arrested rackets 
 at sight of him. Mary wagged a hand, signalling welcome. 
 "Hello!" And: "Oh, I say, don't let me interrupt the 
 game! " were his remarks on reaching her. 
 
 " You're not," said Mary negligently, and waved her hand 
 again. " Miss Schlemmer, Mr. Rudd." 
 
 " Pleased to meet you! " said Miss Schlemmer in a loud, 
 clear and somehow extraordinarily conventional voice; her 
 eyes, which were very large and black, missing no slightest 
 detail of Steve's appearance. The other two men drew 
 near. " Mr. Rudd, meet Mr. Pillsbury and Mr. Strunk," 
 said the young lady, in the same high-pitched recitative. 
 
66 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 Steven met Mr. Pillsbury and Mr. Strunk accordingly. 
 " Please go on playing, or I'll feel awfully — " he began. 
 
 " Not so awful as you would if you watched us for 
 a while," said Mr. Pillsbury, epigrammatically. " We're 
 just beginners. Miss Ballard's been coaching us. She's 
 made arrangements to be received at the State Insane Asy- 
 lum when it's all over." 
 
 " You're doing all right," said Mary. 
 
 " Say, look here, what you after? More candy? " in- 
 quired Mr. Pillsbury, who was evidently something of a 
 wag. Miss Schlemmer lamented pointedly that nobody 
 ever wanted to teach her. 
 
 "■ You and Mr. Rudd play an exhibition game for us, 
 won't you. Miss Ballard? " she besought them, with some 
 manoeuvring of the black eyes. 
 
 '^ As far as I'm concerned, it would be an exhibition, sure 
 enough ! " said Steve, and was amazed at the immoderate 
 approbation with which so very mildly humorous a speech 
 was received. " I entered in a tournament once that they 
 were running on the lose-and-drop-out-plan, you know, and 
 I stayed till the third round. Some playing! The fellows I 
 was paired with all defaulted," he said soberly — too soberly 
 perhaps, for the others looked uncertain until led by Mary's 
 laugh. Steven began to be conscious of something artificial 
 in their manner towards him; Mary was herself, as always, 
 but the rest practiced a kind of ostentatious informality, 
 beneath which one sensed a strained anxiety about forms. 
 His arrival had broken up the game; do or say what he 
 would, not one of them could be persuaded to play in his 
 presence. Mr. Strunk said it was ripping weathah, and 
 wanted to know if Steven drove his own cah? And when 
 Steve said that he did and furthermore that he had had a 
 puncture on the way over which accounted for the fact that 
 he was late for his appointment with Miss Ballard, and the 
 other fact that he had a busted knuckle and sundry grease- 
 splotches — when Steve, in an attempt at lightness, had 
 recited all this, lo, it had an effect exactly contrary to his 
 intention, everybody listening as solemn as a hearse ! 
 
 *' You burst your knuckle? " said Miss Schlemmer, in 
 acute — and it may be observed, much more correctly- 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 67 
 
 worded — sympathy ; " How awful ! Docs it hurt? You 
 ought to put some peroxide on it right away." 
 
 '' Or dioxygen. Eyether one is good," said Mr. Strunk. 
 
 '' Oh, it's not so bad as all that," said Steve, mentally 
 registering a vow never to mention any sort of injury to any 
 part of his anatomy whatever, again — at least, not to 
 strangers who might take him seriously. He was relieved 
 when Mary announced herself ready, and parted from the 
 others, still feeling himself a species of target for civilities 
 which seemed singularly to lack spontaneity. 
 
 '* They didn't like it much, my coming along and taking 
 you ofif this way," he confided to Mary as they got into the 
 car, and he took the wheel. '^ Well, I don't blame them. 
 Then, when I saw they were — well, peeved, you know, 
 about it, I thought I'd be real clever and entertaining, 
 but — " he shook his head, grinning. '' Did you ever see 
 such a fizzle? " 
 
 " No, that wasn't quite what was the matter. The trouble 
 was they all knew you were one of the Rudds, and I think 
 they expected you to be terribly smart and offish, and all 
 that," said Mary simply. " Nearly everybody in the hotel 
 went over the other day to see ^ Journey's End ' — on 
 Thursday, you know — ? " 
 
 Steve nodded, with his eyes on the road. For some years 
 past his father had set apart Thursday afternoons at the 
 season when the gardens were in full flower, for the public 
 to be admitted and shown the lovely and unusual spectacle. 
 Mrs. Rudd made it a subject for much complaint to her 
 friends: it completely destroyed all feeling of privacy for 
 the family — perfect pandemonium the whole day long; 
 and the people were so unappreciative, swarming all over 
 everything, and trying to get into places which had been 
 roped off or placarded with polite requests to keep out — 
 you'd think they'd understand or have more consideration; 
 and they were forever scrawling their names, or worse still, 
 scratching them with penknives on those fine marbles, the 
 vases and terminal figures and the other things that Mr. 
 Rudd had sent to Italy for, and breaking off or pulling up 
 pieces of the flowers and shrubs for their silly " souvenirs "; 
 the gardeners had to watch them every minute. One day a 
 
68 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 little boy fell into the Victoria Regis basin, and was all but 
 drowned, only Angus McCrae — that was the head gar- 
 dener's boy, the crippled one — fished him out somehow, and 
 then his mother spanked him, instead of being grateful, and 
 never even dreamed of giving Angus anything, or even of 
 saying thank you! " Oh, you may laugh, my dear, but it's 
 one of the trials of my existence. Mr. Rudd is so democratic 
 and so public-spirited, I can't say anji^hing! " the lady would 
 conclude with a sigh. Cynics were not wanting, however, 
 who intimated that since the affliction classified " Journey's 
 End " with the celebrated ruins, county-seats, and abodes of 
 royalty of the old world, her annoyance might not be very 
 profound, after all. 
 
 ^' They went over and couldn't get in, because of its being 
 so soon after the wedding, you know — ? " Mary went on. 
 Steve nodded again. ^' That nice old Scotchman, McCrae, 
 went out and explained, and told them everything was at 
 sixes and sevens, so that Mr. Rudd had decided the place 
 must be kept closed for once. So they had to come back 
 disappointed, and there were some very crisp remarks 
 made." She smiled at the recollection of some of the re- 
 marks. '' Of course they didn't know that I knew you. 
 They'll be painfully careful after this, and I shan't have any 
 more fun," she ended with comic regret. 
 
 " I don't see why it should make any difference," Steve 
 said. She did not answer, and after a minute he asked, not 
 without diffidence: '^ What kind of a place is ' The Grand- 
 view,' anyhow, Mary? " 
 
 " Oh, it's — it's good enough." Mary paused ; if Steven 
 had looked at her he would have seen her soft, fresh young 
 features settle slowly and one might have fancied reluctantly 
 into an expression of decision, as of one who braces himself 
 to await the burning of a fuse, or of a poor swimmer making 
 up his mind to dive, or, in a less handsome, but more accu- 
 rately descriptive figure, a person about to swallow a dose 
 of hateful medicine. But Steve's attention w^as taken up 
 with the task of jockeying his car just then, and when she 
 spoke again, if there was a corresponding hardening in her 
 voice, it also escaped him. " We have to go to an inexpen- 
 sive place, and ' The Grandview ' is only ten dollars a week," 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 69 
 
 said Mary deliberately. " I really don't mind, though." 
 And as Steve turned a challenging eye towards her: " Really 
 I don't! " she insisted with a great deal of spirit and good- 
 huinor. '' I always have a good time wherever I am! " 
 
 ''You make your own good time! " Steve declared, not 
 trying to keep the note of admiration out of his voice. How 
 well she took it, was his thought; the place was as ''mucker" 
 as Hester had called it — anybody could guess that, not 
 so much from what Mary said as from what she didn't say 1 
 And she was not used to — to that sort of thing, yet she 
 was standing it, making the best of it, with the finest temper 
 in the world. Her mother, too; Steve called up the older 
 woman's resolute animation of voice and features, her whole 
 presence delicately distinguished — in Clara Stillman's 
 old clothes 1 — with a pang. The young man was not the 
 less loyal to his own mother for doubting if she would bear 
 adversity nearly so well. The Ballard women were a pair of 
 thoroughbreds, by George ! It was a shame ! 
 
 " We have to stay so7^?ewhere, and it's always interesting, 
 one way or another," said Mary, still with that heart-break- 
 ingly cheerful philosophy — so the humane young fellow 
 thought. " I've never minded a bit on my own account — 
 being poor, you know," she brought out bluntly, though after 
 a barely perceptible hesitation. " jVIoney isn't of any real 
 consequence, I hate not having enough for Mother, though. 
 She has all those old-timey notions, and it's harder for her. 
 She thinks I'm terribly free-and-easy. Oh, well!" And 
 with that, and a shrug, Miss Ballard sprang suddenly to 
 another subject, before Steven's slower-moving masculine 
 intelligence could act to pin her down, as it were, to the one 
 in hand. " Do you know, Steve, after you were talking 
 about your friend this Mr. Burke, the other day, I got to 
 wondering if I didn't know of him already. There was a girl 
 named Francie Burke at the Temple School in Washington 
 that winter I was there, and I know her father was in the 
 army. Washington schools are always crammed full of 
 army and navy girls. This girl had a brother Jack that she 
 was all the time talking about — " 
 
 "Jack Burke!" Steven shouted out; "That's the same 
 one. Must be! There'd hardly be two, with fathers in the 
 
70 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 army, and he has a sister, only I don't know what her name 
 is. Must be! Does she look anything like him? You saw 
 him standing on the platform, don't you remember? Isn't 
 that funny? The whole family are here staying over at 
 Thanksgiving Cove." 
 
 Further comparing of notes tended to confirm them. 
 Mary's Burkes, she thought, came from Ohio, too — that is, 
 if they could be said to come from any fixed point, army 
 people being perpetually on the move, accustomed to strike 
 or set up a home anywhere, on the shortest notice. " I can, 
 too, for that matter," the girl interpolated with a rather acid 
 little laugh. ^' I've lived in ever so many places. I was only 
 at that Washington school for one term, about five months, 
 so I really didn't have much chance to make friends, but I 
 knew Francie as well as I did anybody. I remember she 
 told me she was born at some way-off post up in Montana or 
 somewhere, and her brother down on the Mexican border. 
 But they came from Ohio to begin with. Why, I didn't get 
 a good look at your Mr. Burke the other day, Steve; I 
 wouldn't know him again. Francie wasn't very pretty, but 
 awfully sweet and wholesome." 
 
 The question was so interesting that to go over to Thanks- 
 giving Cove and settle it, seemed to be the next step in order 
 — imperative, really. Steven suggested it, but Mary was 
 ready; she was always ready for everything. They found 
 the road skirting the shore in passably good condition, and 
 erelong came upon an irregular gathering of houses, dories, 
 fishnets drying in the yards, and fences whereof every paling 
 bore an inverted stone jug; and after some inquiry drew up 
 before a sound-looking old clapboarded dwelling set a little 
 back and up, and approached by a paved walk — paved, 
 that is, naturally, by the granite outcroppings which here- 
 abouts conveniently occurred in a series of ledges or step- 
 ping stones. It was a quiet place, the only people in sight 
 being two ladies sitting under an old-fashioned arbor of 
 whitewashed lattice-work and wild grape vines, that made 
 a pretty pattern on their white dresses. The hillside yard 
 was not well kept; the grass showed only in sparse mats 
 between the rocks, and knots of golden-rod and wild asters 
 grew at random ; yet it had a character which moved Steven 
 to say: " Doesn't look much like ' The Grandview,' does it? " 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 71 
 
 They started up the path. The two ladies under their 
 arbor were occupied, one with a hipful of darning, the other 
 with some books or papers from which she was reading 
 aloud. They could hear her clear voice: "... Let us not 
 cease to do our utmost as good citizens, and whatever comes, 
 even the worst results of our adversaries' blind and reckless 
 
 policy ..." 
 
 ''Blooie! What have we struck? A suffrage convention? " 
 ejaculated Steve under his breath. But at that moment, hear- 
 ing footsteps, the reader looked up; she rose a little awk- 
 wardly, trying to hold a mass of some sort of manuscript 
 from sliding off her knees, and at the same time to put back 
 a flying strand of auburn hair from her forehead and eyes. 
 " I beg your pardon, isn't this Captain Howe's — ? " Mary 
 began to ask, and stopped short with an exclamation; they 
 stared for an instant, and then each one spoke the other's 
 name. 
 
 It appeared that Major Burke and Jack had gone fishing; 
 but Jack's mother and sister, thus stumbled upon, were sin- 
 cerely cordial to young Mr. Rudd, of whom, they said, they 
 had heard a great deal, and not less so to Miss Ballard whom 
 the other girl " placed " at once though it was five years 
 since their Temple School acquaintance; the army family 
 had changed posts as many times in the interval. '' But 
 we've actually had nearly ten months at home — the Colum- 
 bus garrison, you know — can't tell how much longer it will 
 last, of course. I had a grand winter, anyhow. We have 
 ever so many relatives there, and lots of Mother's friends, 
 that w^ere girls when she was; they all went to school to- 
 gether and came out together, and everything. It made it 
 lovely for Jack and me," said Miss Burke with enthusiasm. 
 She was, as Mary had reported, not pretty, but of a pleasing, 
 healthy, happy aspect, with unruly red hair, a good many 
 freckles, and a pair of bright blue eyes, very strong, stead- 
 fast and open. 
 
 " I think I'd have known you anywhere for Jack's sister. 
 I never saw such a likeness! " Steven told her. 
 
 She colored, looking extraordinarily gratified, and gave 
 her mother a triumphant glance. " There, Mother, you 
 
 seel 
 
 t " 
 
72 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 It was a piece of by-play which Mrs. Burke thought her- 
 self obliged to explain, with a smile. " They don't really 
 look like each other at all, Mr. Rudd — at least, that's what 
 / insist. Every time the subject's mentioned, it creates a 
 great schism in the Burke household. The fact is they both 
 do look like their grandfather Burke, one in a man's way and 
 one in a girl's way — " 
 
 '' Well, that comes to the same thing, Mother — " 
 
 " Not quite, my dear. Show him that picture, Francie, and 
 then he'll see what I mean," commanded her mother, turning 
 again to the darning. She picked up from the bench beside 
 her a big pair of tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles, put them 
 on without a particle of vanity or affectation, bit a thread off, 
 ran her hand into the toe of a sock, and set to work. " Sit 
 down, both of you, there's plenty of room, though it doesn't 
 look as if there were, with all this muss," she said, casting a 
 glance around over the tops of the goggles. " Just push that 
 old bandbox and the other stuff to one side, Mr. Rudd — or 
 on the floor will do. They can't be hurt much after all these 
 years, and what they've been through already." 
 
 Steven, obeying, cleared off the bench and deposited at 
 the feet of the company, first, a large, square old leather case 
 of a species somewhere between a valise and a portable desk, 
 with a lock and key, and a collapsible pocket at one side, its 
 pleatings cracked clean through at every crease; then a 
 miscellaneous stack of ragged newspapers, account-books or 
 journals, and letters with and without envelopes, bound up 
 in faggots and marked with names and dates; and finally a 
 stupendous round bandbox, of unguessed age but still stout 
 and intact, covered with a pinkish cream-colored paper, 
 with a medallion on one side, representing Battery Park, 
 New York City, according to the flourishing copperplate in- 
 scription underneath. The band was playing in Battery 
 Park, ladies in flowing, low-necked dresses were walking out 
 with little girls amazingly pantalctted, and being accosted 
 by high-stocked gentlemen ; and in the distance a full-rigged 
 frigate was to be seen making port. On top of the picture 
 was a spread-eagle with a streamer in its beak bearing the 
 motto, E pluribus unum. Altogether, it was a monument to 
 the bandbox makers' art, and Steve surveyed it with par- 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 73 
 
 donable curiosity, pausing before he set it down, though it 
 was packed full of more papers, books or what-not, and cor- 
 respondingly heavy to hold. 
 
 " I think that thing's a perfect gem, don't you? " Frances 
 said, noticing his interest. *' The decorations are so naive 
 and serious and ridiculous. But look how well it's made! 
 It's just as strong as it ever was, and it's been knocked 
 around like everything. That's the way the people them- 
 selves seem to have been in the old days," said the girl medi- 
 tatively, " a lot of fancy stuff in poor taste on the surface, 
 but always something sound and solid down underneath." 
 
 '' Francie's getting to be a profound philosopher since 
 she's been digging in these old ruins," said her mother with 
 amusement and tolerance. But the other two young people 
 had been rather impressed by this little dissertation, and 
 looked at the fragment of antiquity with a new respect. 
 
 " How old is it, do you know? " Mary asked. 
 
 " About eighteen-thirty-six w^ould be its date, I think," 
 said Miss Burke, cocking her head on one side profession- 
 ally; ''Not a very interesting period." And, seeing frank 
 non-comprehension on their faces, she added, coloring a 
 little, '' I'm studying up all that, you know — periods and 
 antiques and collectors' fads, and all those things. You have 
 to, if you're going to do interior decorating. I'm going to 
 take a course this winter." 
 
 Mary murmured something about its being awfully orig- 
 inal and interesting, looking somewhat dubiously at the sur- 
 rounding junk meanwhile. But Stephen was genuinely 
 roused. 
 
 '' Interior decorating? Something new, isn't it? It would 
 be just the thing a girl could do, though. But I shouldn't 
 have thought it would take so much study. Do you have to 
 go through all these old books and things — ? " 
 
 Both Burkes chorused an amused negative. " Oh no, no! 
 This isn't part of the course. This hasn't got anything to do 
 with it. These are just some old family papers I'm sorting 
 out," said Francie. 
 
 Steven eyed the heaps. " Must have been a good-sized 
 family," he ventured, with a soberness which by no means 
 misled Mrs. Burke, who laughed again. 
 
74 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " It's not all ours, sir! Some of it doesn't really belong to 
 the Burke tribe at all. That's one reason it has to be sorted; 
 it's the accumulation of years, part important, part worth- 
 less, I daresay. Those old newspaper-clippings, for instance. 
 Francie was reading one of them just as you came up — the 
 dullest stuff that ever was put on paper, but she has to go 
 over it all. It's a sort of biography of General Burke that 
 she's helping prepare." 
 
 " Somebody wants to write him up — he was my grand- 
 father, you know, or rather you don't know — for the 
 Pioneer Society, or the Loyal Legion, or something," said 
 Francie. " They came to the family for all the details, of 
 course. They'd found out somehow that he had started to 
 write his life, and then he died before he'd got it finished, 
 so it hadn't ever been printed. It was all in the garret of 
 my uncle's house. Father said a member of the family ought 
 to look it over, because some outsider might publish some- 
 thing that the old gentleman hadn't decided about, or that 
 oughtn't to go in anyhow; but he took one look and said he 
 wouldn't do it, and my uncle took a look and said he 
 wouldn't, and nobody would, so I pitched in. They all kept 
 telling me I was the antiquarian anyhow, and the best per- 
 son for the job! That's their crude idea of a joke." 
 
 " General Burke? Oh, he was in the army, too? " 
 
 " No, only for a little while. He was a lawyer. Here's 
 that picture, Mr. Rudd." She had picked out one from a 
 sliding pile of daguerreotypes, and now held it towards him. 
 
 " Oh, they've got oodles of those at my mother's old home 
 in Albany," said Mary, interested now, craning over his 
 shoulder. Between them, with some laughter, slanting the 
 picture this way and that, they captured the likeness of a 
 young or youngish man in mid-nineteenth-century costume, 
 with hair brushed back in a mighty, upstanding wave above 
 a mildly humorous face, to which Frances Burke's did indeed 
 bear some faint resemi)lance. It was not particularly at- 
 tractive, not striking in any way ; so that Miss Ballard and 
 Mr. Rudd, who were well-brought-up young people, found 
 themselves, as they confided to each other afterwards, more 
 or less floored for the proper thing to say. It was easy to 
 see that the Burkes were vastly proud of this ancestor; ^nd, 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 76 
 
 after all, Steve reflected, the old boy showed up as well as 
 his own grandfather, David, whose daguerreotype reposed 
 in the attic of the Rudd home. He was about to take a 
 chance — as he said later — on telling Miss Burke that she 
 was the living image of the general, when Mary had a better 
 inspiration. 
 
 " Oh look, somebody has WTitten something in the other 
 side of the case! May we read it, Mrs. Burke? " 
 
 " Why, certainly. It's a contemporary opinion. Nobody 
 ever liked that picture," said the lady. 
 
 The note was in a small, firm handwriting, legible as 
 print, on a square of cardboard fitted inside the case. 
 ^' Sorry, dear Nat. This thing is neither just nor merciful! 
 J. V." Steven read aloud. '^ That must have been somebody 
 that knew him pretty well," he said, chuckling. 
 
 '^ It was Doctor Vardaman," said Mrs. Burke, darning 
 away steadily. " Yes, he was a very old friend. Major 
 Burke is named for him — Jack too, of course. Doctor John 
 Vardaman." 
 
 " There're lots of letters from him," said Frances. '' Let 
 me tell you they're life-savers, too! Such a plain hand, it's 
 no trouble at all, and almost all the others are perfectly 
 ghastly — you have to puzzle them out line by line. That's 
 some kind of a diary he kept, that big lot of exercise-books 
 or whatever they are. How^ do you suppose that came to be 
 mixed in with Grandpa's things, Mother? " 
 
 Steven and Mary stooped together, and each picked up one 
 of the doctor's volumes. They were bound in pasteboard 
 covers, overlaid with marbled paper, curling and crumbling 
 at the edges, and bore labels: "J. Vardaman, 1845-1847"; 
 " J. Vardaman, 1849 " and so on, for some fifteen years. 
 Steven opened his at random, turning the leaves, and there 
 arose a faint odor, musty, not wholly unpleasant, as if to 
 the young man's quick fancy, it might have blown from 
 dead gardens ; with the thought, he came upon a mummified 
 flower, parchment-like in texture, dried and flattened be- 
 yond recognition, the very wraith of a flower. He caught 
 sight of some lines of verse: ^' To Louise wearing a rose," in 
 the same distinct handwriting. Only a short while, and 
 Steven was to know that handwriting and all the contents of 
 
76 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 the diaries better than he desired; but he had no suspicion 
 of what was in store as he closed the book hurriedly. All 
 very well for Miss Burke perhaps, but what was he doing, a 
 stranger, unauthorized, prying into the closets of the helpless 
 dead, raking over poor sentimentalities that were half a 
 century old when he was born? 
 
 Mrs. Burke was answering her daughter's question. 
 " Why, I don't know, unless the doctor gave them to your 
 grandfather to refer to, for dates or something. He knew 
 that General Burke was writing an autobiography, and there 
 must have been a great deal in the diaries about early days 
 and their own young life, that would have interested them 
 both. I wish now that when I had the chance while they 
 were alive, I had gotten them to tell me something about — " 
 
 " You knew them? Did you know them? " cried out Mary 
 and Steven in a breath; it was to them as if Mrs. Burke 
 had casually mentioned a personal acquaintance with the 
 Pharaohs! She burst out laughing at their ingenuous be- 
 trayal of astonishment. 
 
 " Of course I knew them. It's not so very long ago — at 
 least it doesn't seem long to me. To be sure I was only a 
 young girl — not so old as any of you. But General Burke 
 was living still when we were married. He died when 
 Francie was a little tiny baby; we were way off there at 
 Fort Missoula, and couldn't come home. Dear me! " She 
 suspended the needle with a short sigh, her eyes fixed on 
 some vista unseen by the rest; then fell to again philo- 
 sophically. " He was the dearest old gentleman. They 
 both were." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 IN the course of the next few days, Mrs. Lawson Rudd 
 went to call on the Burke ladies, whether acting on 
 a hint from Steven, or out of her own natural, maternal 
 desire to know the people about whom her son was so 
 enthusiastic, who shall say? Mrs. Lawson, to tell the 
 truth, was not very maternally-minded ; even when the chil- 
 dren were small with amusing kittenish ways, charming ob- 
 jects to exercise one's taste in dress upon, she had not been 
 over-devoted to the nursery. And to see them inevitably 
 and irrevocably grown up, which is a tragedy for all mothers, 
 was mainly tragical for Steven's by the hideous implication 
 of advancing years. No polite tarradiddles from her associ- 
 ates could veil their knowledge that a woman with two full- 
 fledged daughters, and one ditto son, of marriageable age, 
 and actually getting married, however fresh her appearance, 
 could not be far short of — ahem! " Poor Mama, how she 
 will hate her grandchildren! " Edith used to say, with her 
 precocious astuteness. 
 
 Whatever Mrs. Rudd had in mind when she went, how- 
 ever, she came back sufficiently well pleased to call Mrs. 
 Burke (who must be about her own age, but looked ten years 
 older) a charming woman; to pronounce Miss Burke (who 
 was not good looking and had rather abnormal bookish 
 tastes) very attractive; and to say that Major Burke (who 
 met her with boyish admiration, and an honest and openly 
 expressed disbelief that she could be Steve's mother) was 
 perfectly delightful. Army people were always delightful. 
 Besides, they had discovered so many mutual friends; the 
 Burkes knew everybody at home, in Washington, every- 
 where; Major Burke had been one of the army officers de- 
 tailed to represent our Government in some capacity at the 
 last Paris World's Fair; he was in the Engineer Corps, the 
 highest branch of the Service, etc., etc. She had them to 
 dinner and otherwise showed them such a number of nice 
 
 77 
 
78 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 little attentions that Miss Stillman who was invited to the 
 dinner, remarked to another guest that it was easy to see 
 their hostess had no fears for either Steven or Hester. " The 
 girl Burke is too homely, and the boy probably hasn't got a 
 cent of his own, so that settles them both," said Clara, kind- 
 heartedly. " Hester Rudd can be trusted not to lose her head 
 over any man without money. Steve isn't nearly so practi- 
 cal; any pretty face could catch him. But her best friend 
 couldn't accuse Miss Burke of having a pretty face. So it's 
 quite safe." 
 
 The other guest was Clara's aunt, Mrs. Ballard, and she 
 agreed readily that it was quite safe. She almost always 
 agreed, or disagreed only when she saw that it was expected 
 of her, and as she was a person of extended acquaintance and 
 experience, her judgment was seldom at fault. The habit, 
 contrary to what might be supposed, did not make her 
 society tiresome or monotonous, because of another habit, 
 native or acquired, of carrying on the conversation exactly 
 in the vein of the present company. If they were gossiping, 
 Mrs. Ballard gossiped; if displaying culture, who so cultured 
 as she? If exchanging housewives' information,^ she invari- 
 ably had an item ready. Chiffons, beauty-specialists, rest- 
 cures, the newest opera-singer, the newest scandal, the new- 
 est creed, all was one to Ellen Ballard. So that she now 
 said, with a little, meaning smile, a little, pointed, drawling 
 utterance: ''At any rate, Hester appears to be stalking 
 other game just now — rather big game." 
 " Oh yes. Isn't George perfectly fatuous? " 
 It was after the dinner that this conversation took place. 
 The Rudd family-party had all dispersed by this time, and 
 of the guests there remained only George and his sister 
 staying on at the Harbor because, presumably, they wanted 
 to, and the Ballards staying on at the Beach because they 
 had to, perhaps. Nobody knew how they managed to stay 
 anywhere. The seashore season was waning; autumn ad- 
 vanced; people with nothing to do had gone to the moun- 
 tains, people with something to do back to their desks and 
 offices. Outdoors it grew uncomfortable with fogs, sharp 
 gales, the first frost. To-night there was a fire of drift-wood 
 in the living-room; Mrs. Rudd, on a low sofa drawn up by 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 79 
 
 the hearth, was pouring the coffee, a rite which she would 
 never leave to the butler, insisting on performing it with her 
 owp. small, white, plump hands which looked very pretty all 
 twinkling with oddments of jewellery, hovering over the tray. 
 Mrs. Burke sat in a deep chair near by ; Mr. Rudd had taken 
 her husband into the glassed-in porch that lay beyond for 
 a view of nobody knows what botanical marvel that Mc- 
 Crae had succeeded in blooming, hybridizing or what-not 
 after countless patient trials. The army-man was himself 
 an amateur of gardening, it seemed; he hoped some day to 
 settle down on a little farm and spend the rest of his life 
 planting things and watching them grow, he told his host 
 optimistically. Lawson warmed to him from that moment. 
 
 In the adjoining room, the younger Burkes and Rudds had 
 wound up the Victrola and were essaying the latest dance- 
 step; they did not miss or humanely pretended not to miss 
 one couple upon whom Miss Stillman now directed a glance 
 of steely penetration. In a window-alcove her brother and 
 Hester probably supposed themselves unobserved ; the young 
 lady was kneeling on the cushioned seat, her light draperies 
 foaming all about, her feet cunningly tucked up under her 
 in the prettiest of attitudes with one finger upraised while 
 she put her pet cat through some trick. It was a large, coal- 
 black, heavily furred cat with the collarette and plume-like 
 tail of the Maine species called "coon-cats"; and, sitting 
 upright, he observed Hester with animal gravity. _ As a 
 rendering of the witch and her age-old familiar, it was 
 utterly captivating. George, lounging as near as he dared, 
 looked on with longing and delight. 
 
 " Now put your paw right in the middle of my paw. Ding- 
 bats! " cooed ^Hester with an absurdly commanding gesture. 
 '' You'll see, Mr. Stillman. he'll do it in a minute.'' She held 
 out her upturned palm, an invitation to which Dingbats re- 
 mained monstrously callous, though the sight sent a thrill 
 through the young man on the other side of him. Hester 
 crooked a finger around the cat's foreleg and lifted his paw 
 — against Dingbats' strenuous protest — and placed it 
 daintily in the pink hollow. " There, you see he knovrs 
 what I want! He's just stubborn and won't mind. You're 
 a naughty old squeeze-y Dingbats, sir! " She hugged him up 
 
80 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 against her white dress and neck, looking innocently at 
 George over the black mass of fur. 
 
 '' He's not very appreciative, seems to me," said George, a 
 trifle huskily. And in fact. Dingbats, struggling himself 
 free, jumped down, executed a mighty fore-and-aft stretch 
 with a yawn to match and stalked away, twitching his tail. 
 Cheap and facile moralists often affect to feel something 
 rebuking about the honesty of dumb beasts, even about their 
 decent indecencies; but the only result of the above sample 
 was to bring from Clara the comment that Hester made 
 such a pet of that cat simply because he was so becoming 
 to her — just like a big black muff. 
 
 " She'll have George sitting up and begging next," added 
 the sister with sisterly solicitude. 
 
 " Oh well, wouldn't it be a good match? " 
 
 " George would be a good match for anybody," said Clara, 
 wilfully misinterpreting the older lady. '^ Clam Beach is 
 very nice, isn't it. Aunt Ellen? I've been meaning to come 
 over to see you, only somebody told me the road was awful 
 — ruinous to a machine. Can't I take you back there to- 
 night, though? " 
 
 Mrs. Ballard successfully smiled. " Oh, thank you very 
 much, Clara, you're always so thoughtful! But we're going 
 back with Steve. He came and gathered up all of us, the 
 Burkes and ourselves, in that big car. Big as it is, I really 
 don't know how we all managed to pile in, but we did, and 
 were perfectly comfortable, too. Steve and Mary and little 
 Miss Burke were all in the front seat, and Jack junior hang- 
 ing on by his little finger somewhere! Young people love 
 that helter-skelter style, you know; you were just as bad 
 when you were their age. I'm glad you didn't try going 
 to Clam Beach, for you wouldn't have found us there. We've 
 moved to Thanksgiving Cove." 
 
 " Thanksgiving Cove? " 
 
 " Yes — a farmhouse where they take boarders, Captain 
 Eben Howe's. The Burkes are at Captain Si Howe's. Mary 
 liked it so much when she went to see them — she and 
 Frances Burke are old school-friends, you know — " ex- 
 plained Mrs. Ballard smoothly — " Mary thought it was so 
 nice that she persuaded me into trying it. It is more inter- 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 81 
 
 esting than the 'Grandview'; that's just like any other 
 hotel. At Captain Eben's everything is very plain, of course 
 — no conveniences, but one doesn't mind somehow — it's all 
 very quaint and typically New England — " 
 
 '' And Steve Rudd goes over there all the time to see those 
 Burkes, doesn't he? " Clara interrupted, possibly in the 
 benevolent design of evening the score, w^hich at the moment 
 stood rather in her aunt's favor. 
 
 A faint color rose in Mrs. Ballard's delicately faded face, 
 a light flared briefly in her fine, dark eyes that once upon a 
 time had been always bright. But she answered with a 
 smile charged with innuendo: " Between ourselves, he comes 
 over all the time to see one of those Burkes," upon which 
 simple statement, a singular look of discomfiture overspread 
 Miss Stillman's countenance! You would have said the 
 other had cannily cut the ground from under her feet, stolen 
 her thunder, taken all the wind out of her sails. The con- 
 versation — to complete the collection of metaphors — ap- 
 peared unaccountably without a leg to stand on, as far as she 
 was concerned; Mrs. Ballard continued uttering nothings in 
 her easy drawl, with her set smile, until the two fathers came 
 in with the tonic effect masculine society generally produces. 
 Major Burke picked up a photograph that was standing in 
 its easel on the table and studied it. 
 
 " Who is this? " he asked. 
 
 It was Edith, in a riding-habit, with all her greyhound 
 elegance, erect, straight-eyed, like a young collegian pranked 
 out in girls' clothes for a piece of mischief. That remorse- 
 lessly truthful engine, the camera, had extorted no supine 
 admission of homeliness from Edith; characteristically, she 
 had risen to the occasion. So that Major Burke said in all 
 sincerity: " What a striking-looking girl! Who is she? " 
 
 '' My daughter," said Lawson, with so much unconscious 
 pride, that his wife cried out in amiable reproof. 
 
 " Dear me, Lawson, you say that as if she were the Queen 
 of Sheba! It's only our little girl that was married the 
 other day. Major Burke, and I assure you she's just like 
 every other little girl. I think men are ever so much more 
 ridiculous over their children than women, don't you? " she 
 added confidentially to the major's wife.. 
 
82 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 Major Burke scrutinized the picture a moment longer, and 
 laid it down, looking towards Lawson with a smile. ''I'd like 
 to have her in my regiment — if I had a regiment just now," 
 he said. " My old father, who was a pretty good judge of 
 people, had a phrase for faces like that. He w^ould have 
 said she looked as if she w^ere ' clear grit.' " 
 
 " Edith ought to have been a boy," said her father, trying 
 with indifferent success not to look as pleased as he felt. 
 '' She's very good at things boys do — sports and all that. 
 She can actually throw straight, with a good free motion — 
 very unusual for a woman, you know," said Lawson, for- 
 getting his caution, as he recited Edith's gifts; and beginning 
 to fumble in the inside pocket of his dinner-coat. " I've got 
 a letter from her here — she shot a deer the other day, and 
 wrote to tell me about it. They — the young people, she and 
 her husband — are spending the honeymoon in the Canadian 
 Rockies, hunting and camping. Just a minute — I'll find the 
 passage — " 
 
 "Lawson!" cried Mrs. Lawson again, in pretty, well- 
 bred admonition. 
 
 " Don't stop him! We ivant to hear it," said Mrs. Burke. 
 The other shrugged resignedly. Lawson found his eyeglasses 
 and stooped to the light, scanning and shuffling page after 
 page covered with Edith's bold handwriting. Steven and the 
 rest of the youngsters came in from the other room, signal- 
 ling burlesque stealth to one another as the reading began. 
 
 *' ' We thought that . . .' Let's see, yes, this is it. . . . 
 ' We stalked him for about six hours, part of the time 
 crawling on our hands and knees through very thick, scrubby 
 undergrowth. . . . Had to go carefully, but never lost the 
 trail once, though in places it led over some rocky, exposed 
 ground, where of course it got very faint, and even Pete, who, 
 the other guides boast, can see a trail in running water, looked 
 doubtful for a minute or two. . . .' Pete and the others seem 
 to be half-breed Indians, the kind they always have in the 
 Northwest," interpolated Mr. Rudd, looking up. " ^ Fortu- 
 nately, however, the rain, which was falling steadily, and had 
 been all night, softened the ground enough for him to make 
 out signs of the buck's passing, besides the broken twigs, 
 mouthfuls of grass cropped here and there, etc. I confess 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 83 
 
 7 couldn't see a thing unless the men pointed it out. They 
 find three dun hairs clinging to the bole of a tree, and some 
 footprints further on and then they tell you that the deer 
 stopped to rub his neck, and either something frightened him, 
 or some insect stung him, for he jumped over to the othef 
 place; they know he jumped because all four hoofs are there 
 close together! And then I look and look, and can't even find 
 one hoof-print, let alone four! . . . Well, we came up with 
 His Hornlets about ten o'clock. . . / It seems they had 
 turned out at dawn for the expedition," Lawson sandwiched 
 in again. " She says the thermometer was at thirty- 
 seven — " 
 
 Steven and Jack Burke simultaneously uttered a chatter- 
 ing ^' Whoosh! " pretending to shiver convulsively, and blow- 
 ing on their finger-nails. 
 
 " ' . . . He was browsing on an open slope across a valley 
 . . . ' She doesn't say what the distance w^as. ' . . . An easy 
 shot, or I probably couldn't have got him. . . .' " And Law- 
 son went on with Edith's tale of how she despatched the 
 buck with a bullet behind the shoulder, and how Pete skinned 
 him and cut him up, and how she was going to have the head 
 mounted by a taxidermist in Calgary, and how finally — 
 this she reported with considerable humor — one of the 
 younger Indians had assured her that she was " heap good 
 squaw, worth heap pony," — Lawson went on with all this 
 to the edification, no doubt, of the entire company. '^ It 
 was pretty good for a girl ! " he said at the last, straightening 
 up, and removing his pince-nez, and fitting the letter back 
 into its envelope. 
 
 " I suppose her husband lets her shoot the deer, and he goes 
 after the wild-cats and things," said Francie. 
 
 " He wasn't along at all this time," said Steven. " In one 
 of her letters, she said Rudolph — that's his name — thought 
 our way of hunting was very funny. He expected there 
 would be a train of gun-bearers and people following along 
 with the luncheon, and a whole lot of beaters and so on to 
 drive up the game while he sat in some kind of a bomb- 
 proof and blazed away ! That would be European style, you 
 know." 
 
 Young Burke shouted with laughter; his father more 
 
84 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 decorously, only permitted himself a slight grin. As for 
 Lawson, he experienced a very definite annoyance underlying 
 his own amusement. A son-in-law whom he must be forever 
 explaining and interpreting — ! 
 
 " These foreigners, you know," he said a little awkwardly. 
 " They naturally don't understand that we inherit our man- 
 ner of hunting from times when it was a necessity, not a 
 sport — " 
 
 " Not much sport though, about sitting still, perfectly safe, 
 and having the game driven up for you to kill. You could do 
 that in the Omaha stock-yards," said George. '^ But after 
 all — " he added tolerantly ; " you can't blame Gherardi 
 much for not seeing the fun of getting up at three o'clock in 
 the morning and crawling around in a freezing rain and mud 
 for half a day." 
 
 " Well, he didn't, in point of fact," Steve said. 
 
 " Didn't what? " 
 
 " Didn't go. I told you. Edith and her bunch of half- 
 breeds got that deer all on their own. Didn't she say Rudy 
 didn't go, Dad? " 
 
 " Why — er — yes, I believe she did," Lawson assented 
 reluctantly. He had refrained from reading that part of 
 the letter. There was a silence, everyone present striving 
 more or less skilfully not to betray a surprise that was 
 coupled with some other feeling not easily defined. Mrs. 
 Rudd came to the rescue, trilling off a laugh. 
 
 *' Oh, Edith is so different — so independent — she's eter- 
 nally doing the weirdest things! " She turned to Mrs. Burke 
 vivaciously. " I do wish you could have seen her hunting- 
 suit! Dark green leather knickerbockers and a belted jacket, 
 and of course leggings and boots and a sport hat, all match- 
 ing. She had the w^hole thing made at MacTombly and 
 Twitchell's," said Mrs. Lawson, naming a shop of the most 
 altitudinous prices known to New York City, with a perfect 
 semblance of unconsciousness: "You've iDeen there, of 
 course. Don't you think they have the smartest things — ?" 
 
 *' My daughter's husband. Captain Gherardi, is in the 
 German diplomatic service," said Lawson to Major Burke 
 vaguely, feeling with another wave of resentment that an- 
 other explanation was incumbent, " An officer in their army, 
 of course," 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 85 
 
 *' Ah? They have different ideas from ours, as she says — 
 I mean as you say — that is, as your son says — " said the 
 other gentleman, rather confused himself, twisting the white 
 moustache, nervously. '' I have met a good many of them — 
 army-men, of course — here and there in Europe — very 
 nice fellows, and always very interested in military affairs 
 — eager to know all about our army and methods and so 
 on—" 
 
 " They've got such terribly strict regulations, it's no won- 
 der they haven't much idea of our kind of sport," said 
 Steven, anxious to help out. " Rudolph told me their offi- 
 cers weren't allowed to go in for any kind of athletics, polo 
 or tennis or anything. He said some of them were poor and 
 couldn't afford it, so they had an iron-clad rule to keep them 
 all as much as possible on an equal footing." 
 
 After a pause, during which an appreciation of the lofty 
 nature of German army discipline might be supposed, as it 
 were, to sink into everybody's intelligence, Jack Burke said, 
 not too admiringly: " They haven't got any regulations like 
 that in our army, have they. Dad? " 
 
 " Well, no. It — it hardly seems as if it should be 
 needed," said Major Burke, twisting his moustache again, 
 with a thoughtful expression. 
 
 The party broke up not long after, and Steve conveyed 
 his friends home, according to the programme. He had 
 gotten fairly well acquainted w^ith the vagaries of the road 
 by now, and moreover had discovered what he called a long 
 cut, a detour which added five miles or so but avoided the 
 difficulties of his first trip. George Stillman, who, it turned 
 out, had not known beforehand that his aunt and cousin 
 were invited, came and asked, and indeed urged them 
 warmly to be his passengers; the young fellow was fond of 
 Mrs. Ballard and not so careless or so occupied in mooning 
 after Miss Hester Rudd that he could not guess when his 
 sister Clara had " turned rusty," as he graphically described 
 certain of the lady's moods. 
 
 ^' I had no idea you were going to be here — Clara never 
 told me, I suppose she thought I knew — or I'd have sent 
 over for you," he said earnestly; " come on now, Aunt Ellen, 
 you and Mary ! Steve's got as many as he can take already." 
 
86 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " You shut up! " said the latter gentleman peremptorily. 
 " Don't you listen to him, Mrs. Ballard! You're both com- 
 ing with us, that's all there is to it! " So George had to 
 withdraw at length. 
 
 " I can help you in anyhow, if I can't do anything else. 
 Aunt Ellen," said he, and proceeded to do so gallantly, w^hile 
 Steven, sitting at the wheel, lighted a cigarette. 
 
 "That's right, Georgie! Be careful now! See that she 
 puts her paw right in the middle of your paw ! " he advised 
 maliciously. A premonitory outburst from the engine 
 mercifully smothered the other young man's startled 
 " Wh — what! " and it is to be hoped none of the rest heard, 
 or gathered the import of this bit of by-play. 
 
 Perhaps Mary had, however, to judge from a remark she 
 made to her mother just before they went to bed. " There's 
 going to be another wedding in the Rudd family before long, 
 I'm thinking," said the girl. '^ Didn't you notice? This 
 evening? " 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Ballard, lifelessly. She was sitting in 
 front of the little pine bureau, brushing out her hair for the 
 night; the bureau, in addition to its regular functions, per- 
 formed those of a desk, a washstand, and a work-table, 
 though somewhat cramped in size for any single one of those 
 articles of furniture. On its narrow top there were assembled, 
 besides a pitcher and basin, the hairdressing and manicur- 
 ing equipment of both ladies, a bottle of ink with pens and 
 paper, their last two laundry-bills, the shoe-polish, the tal- 
 cum, the cold-cream, a cluster of artificial violets from a hat 
 that they had been trying to re-trim, a glass hand-lamp, a 
 pair of scissors, needles and thread, and a morsel of pilot- 
 biscuit. Two wooden chairs, a bed with a mattress wherein, 
 Mary said, all the doorknobs in New England had congre- 
 gated and were holding Forefathers' Day exercises, and a 
 strip of worn ingrain carpeting gritty w^ith beach sand and 
 perpetually damp, completed the furnishings of their room 
 at Cap'n Eben's where, to be sure, the guests expected and 
 professed to relish a Spartan absence of comfort. Mrs. Bal- 
 lard, whose chameleon endowment enabled her to rough it 
 with a better grace than anybody else wherever roughing it 
 happened to be the prevailing mode, nevertheless eyed the 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 87 
 
 litter before her with a kind of passive disgust; she was 
 naturally dainty, ordered, exquisite. She kept up a mechan- 
 ical brushing of her thick, slightly silvered hair through 
 which there ran the beautiful ripple that Mary's had in- 
 herited, while she stared into the glass at a face that seemed 
 to have taken on years of age in the few minutes since she 
 brightly said good-night to the Burkes, at the other Cap'n 
 Howe's door. 
 
 ^' I remembered not to say anything about that other Mr. 
 Rudd," said Mary. 
 
 Mrs. Ballard started. " Eh? Oh, yes. That was right." 
 
 " But Steven must know he's staying here. Mother. It 
 seems silly to be so close-mouthed — " 
 
 " Wait until Steven or some one of the family mentions 
 him first," counselled the older woman. She picked up the 
 violets and fingered them; and perhaps they acted as a re- 
 minder, for when she spoke again, it was to change the sub- 
 ject abruptly. " I'm afraid you won't get any ' hand-me- 
 downs ' as you call them, from Clara this fall, Mary. It's 
 my fault. I made her furious this evening. I really couldn't 
 help it; she was intolerable. I'm sorry — " 
 
 '' Oh, stuff! I'm glad you did," Mary cried out buoyantly. 
 ^' I'm glad you got even with her. I never can; I'm not 
 quick enough to think of those sharp, little needle-y things 
 you say, right at the time; they always come into my head 
 about half an hour afterwards, and then I think I'll save 
 them up for the next time, and somehow there never is any 
 next time — I never have the chance again! But you're 
 always ready. Never mind the old clothes, Mother. It 
 w^ould probably have been the same even if you hadn't said 
 a word to her; she was in a black bad temper the whole 
 evening because the men weren't paying her any attention. 
 Never mind the clothes — " 
 
 ^' Well, but I don't see how you can get along — " 
 
 " Maybe Uncle John will come across," Mary suggested, 
 profanely, hopefully, after the fashion of youth. 
 
 '' He will if he thinks of it — he's very kind. But it doesn't 
 do to count on anything. I've learned that," said her 
 mother, in the same jaded voice. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 STEVEN had, of course, realized at the outset that 
 it would be impossible to avoid meeting again that 
 not altogether impossible person, Eugene Rudd, as 
 long as the latter abode at Thanksgiving Cove, rambling 
 the countryside, fishing or sketching; or anon shutting him- 
 self up for a space in his room at Cap'n Eben Howe's, whence 
 there would issue the sound of his typewriter clicking stead- 
 ily. That these were his occupations, together with one or 
 two other small facts about him, young Burke divulged 
 innocently enough, the very first time he saw his friend. 
 '^ Oh, by the way, funny coincidence, there's a man named 
 Rudd staying at the other Cap'n Howe's where your friends 
 the Ballards are — and here I thought there was only one 
 Rudd family in existence! " said Jack; " I remember your 
 telling me once that you were the only Rudds in the tele- 
 phone-book at home, so that I wouldn't have the least 
 trouble finding you, even if I forgot the address. This Rudd 
 seems to be a kind of a quiet fellow ; keeps to himself most 
 of the time, though he's very nice when you meet him. I 
 think he's literary or artistic or something — " And here 
 Jack outlined the other Rudd's activities as above. " He was 
 here when we came, and we saw him every now and then at 
 meal-times, or out somewhere, but it's only recently that 
 we've begun to speak. He looks rather interesting — only 
 you can see that he — " the young fellow went through an 
 expressive pantomime, with a look of vast shrewdness. 
 '' Pretty frequently, I should judge. Early and often! They 
 can get it almost anywhere around here, you know. Prohi- 
 bition's a grand success in this State! " And misinterpret- 
 ing Steve's expression as the latter began to speak, Jack 
 interrupted him in the same knowing and cocksure style. 
 " Why, yes! Didn't you know it? Any time you feel dry, 
 all you've got to do is to amble out to one of these rattletrap 
 
 88 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 89 
 
 old abandoned farms, and carelessly drop your flask with a 
 quarter of a dollar or some such matter alongside it on top 
 of a rock or a stump near the old buildings, and gently fade 
 off into some bosky dell, whistling ' Little Brown Jug,' or 
 some other Sunday-School tune. Then presently after 
 you've cruised around awhile, you all at once recollect your 
 flask! You hasten back — and you find it. That's all. 
 Nothing's happened. You haven't seen anybody, or heard 
 anybody, much less talked to anybody! No one has sold 
 you anything, no law has been broken. This Rudd gent 
 goes — " 
 
 " Hold up! " said Steve. " He's a relative of mine." It 
 seemed so necessary to announce the fact, that it all at once 
 became perfectly easy and simple, and Steven wondered 
 inwardly why he had not done it sooner, what he had been 
 boggling over. '^ I started to tell you just now, but you 
 didn't give me a chance," he said. " It's all right, anyhow, 
 Jack." 
 
 " Well, I can't take any of it back — only I'm sorry if I 
 w^as too personal," said the other, regretful but unswerving. 
 " I suppose I might have guessed — or I ought to have found 
 out before I did too much talking. It never occurred to me, 
 somehow! " 
 
 " He's a half-brother of my father's." 
 
 " As near as that? " 
 
 " Yes. But he's lived east nearly all his life, he hasn't 
 been home for years. We children — that is, I — I just 
 barely know him. It happens that way in families some- 
 times, you know, especially in big families like ours," Steve 
 explained; and whatever his friend thought, he said nothing 
 more. Steve found himself increasingly relieved that he had 
 come out plainly and acknowledged the connection; he had 
 an intuition that Eugene, on his side, would never so much 
 as hint at it. 
 
 A few^ days later, the expected, for once happened. That 
 is, driving over to the Cove with an outfit of net and stakes 
 and odd rackets picked up around the house, for the make- 
 shift tennis-court which the young people proposed to set 
 up on a level spot — one of the few thereabouts — which 
 they had discovered and pre-empted, he found the other 
 
90 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 Rudd with Francie at a table in the summer-house, both of 
 them up to their knees in General Burke's memoirs, en- 
 grossed in making notes, copying or comparing passages, 
 docketing this, laying aside that. Eugene looked up, and 
 then got up and shook hands, saying: " Oh, Steven! " and 
 Steve himself said: " Oh — er — hello! " and the momen- 
 tous occasion was all over ! From that moment he magically 
 ceased to feel the slightest embarrassment about Eugene 
 Rudd or his company. 
 
 '' He's helping me," Frances said. " Everything was in 
 such a muddle, and I went at it without any system. It's a 
 little hard, anyway, all by oneself." 
 
 ''I've done a great deal of this sort of work, as it hap- 
 pens," said Eugene. " And she lets me smoke." In fact he 
 had his short black pipe, a villainous-smelling utensil, 
 though probably not much worse than Major Burke's or 
 Jack's to which Francie was pretty well inured; and in 
 other respects, as Steve noted, he had doubtless, in honor of 
 the young lady, assumed a much more formal toilette than 
 that of their first meeting, to wit, a shabby business suit and 
 a neglige shirt with the fringe imperfectly pared from the 
 euffs — but it was clean. Eugene himself was meticulously 
 clean, and there was something in the movement of his lean 
 browned hands as they went competently through the masses 
 of papers that reminded the young man bafRingly of his 
 father. " All in this batch are of no importance. Miss 
 Burke," said Eugene authoritatively, with the pipe in the 
 corner of his mouth, jotting down a memorandum on the 
 outside of the packet. " Now I've sifted out all of J. Varda- 
 man's letters and got them arranged in chronological order, 
 tandem, at length, seriatim, in sequence, — one after another 
 — the last thing I worked on was a thesaurus — the scent 
 of it clings 'round me still ! J. Vardaman deserves consider- 
 ation. Better put his letters with his journal." And with 
 some further practical recommendations, he presently took 
 himself off, leaving the young people to themselves, yet not 
 too pointedly. 
 
 Indeed, as the days went on and the little colony of 
 Steve's friends at the Cove saw more and more of this other 
 Rudd, it developed that he had a knack of never being in the 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 91 
 
 way, of not outstaying a welcome, and of making himself 
 useful without being officious; they all liked him. The 
 men, and perhaps some of the women were quite aware of 
 his weakness, but — '' He never shows up except when he's 
 sober, anyhow. As long as he sticks to that, there's no harm 
 done," Steven decided. He himself felt that their acquaint- 
 ance had reached a stage where he could say to the older 
 man, a little lamely, it is true, but without fear of being 
 either foolish or offensive: " If you don't mind, I wish you'd 
 tell me what I'm to call you. I can't keep on you-ing you 
 forever. It's ridiculous, but — I don't know — there doesn't 
 seem to be any — " 
 
 He did not need to go any farther, for a look of compre- 
 hension, at once amused and concerned, had alreadv ap- 
 peared on the other's face. ''Vihy, of course! I ought to have 
 thought of that! " ejaculated Eugene. "You couldn't call 
 me — " He halted with an involuntary smile, so that Steven 
 guessed he was passing in review the grotesque alternatives 
 that had occurred to himself. " Better just say ' Eugene,' 
 hadn't you? " he suggested finally. 
 
 So ''Eugene" it became; and it seemed to Steven that 
 this black sheep had handled the question with a humane 
 tact that was characteristic of him. Taken with other 
 amiable characteristics, it justified the young man's liking, 
 which had at first somehow savored of disloyalty to his 
 father, or to some rather vague entity, the family or the 
 firm of Rudd, which had cast out Eugene, doubtless for 
 good and sufficient reason. Steve sometimes wondered 
 what the exact circumstances of the casting-out had been; 
 if there had been hard words, a scene. At any rate, he said 
 to himself, they had all behaved like gentlemen since — no 
 backbiting, no public laundering of soiled linen in the courts 
 or out, a decent and self-respecting reticence on each side, 
 an especial care not to prejudice the youngsters of his own 
 generation; not from his father, not from his Uncle Elihu, 
 had Steve learned that their half-brother was a drunken 
 scalawag; and had Eugene possessed an equally damaging 
 secret about the other two, Steven believed he would have 
 been equally scrupulous. 
 
 " Let's see now, jest what kin air you and this here young 
 
92 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 feller? " Cap'n Eben, who had a Yankee thirst for informa- 
 tion, asked them one day; he meditatively moved a small 
 light-blue eye, exhibiting true sailor-like keenness of vision, 
 from one to the other. " You air Mr. Rudd's son over to 
 the Harbor — the one that's got the big place near there — 
 you're his boy, ain't ye? " he said, fixing on Steven. " Ye 
 don't favor your pa as much as him, though." Here the 
 captain jerked his head towards Eugene. " How close kin 
 air ye, if it's a fair question? " 
 
 Steven hesitated, taken aback; but before the pause 
 could assume a significance, Eugene answered, with a kind 
 of mock gravity which disposed of the matter in the best 
 possible fashion: " Cap'n Howe, you'll have to figure it out 
 for yourself, it oughtn't to be any trick at all for a man that 
 can take a ship's position. His grandfather was my father." 
 
 " Hey? " said the captain nasally. 
 
 '' His grandfather was my father. The old gentleman was 
 left a widower rather late in life, when the children were all 
 grown up. He married a second time. Hope triumphs over 
 experience! " said Eugene, airily sententious; and that made 
 the ex-seaman (who was a widower himself) laugh. 
 
 '' Well, they do say there's no fool like an old fool," he 
 remarked — whereat Eugene, after a moment, laughed 
 heartily too. Captain Howe left them, his curiosity fully 
 satisfied. They sat for a while in silence. 
 
 " I didn't know what to say," Steve confessed at length. 
 
 *' It was awkward." 
 
 " Oh, of course, the only thing to do was what you did. 
 Family history — explanations — one doesn't want to go 
 into all that with strangers, but — " the younger man blurted 
 out. '' This time it — it — " 
 
 '' It couldn't be helped," said Eugene. " Quite so. After 
 all, it's not of so much importance to the rest of the world 
 as we think. Maybe you're inclined to take it too seriously," 
 he added kindly. And after another silence: '' I remember 
 how my poor mother used to worry over things that in the 
 long run didn't matter — or couldn't be helped, anyhow — " 
 he said, puffing at his pipe, staring straight ahead absently. 
 '' She taught me, with Heaven knows what pains, to say 
 ' Brother Elihu,' ' Brother Lawson ' " — Eugene reiterated 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 93 
 
 the forms of address with a grimace of wry mirth ; " ' Brother 
 Lawson,' 'Brother Elihu'! You may imagine how much 
 they relished it. She meant well. She just didn't know. 
 She was like any other woman, incapable of letting well 
 enough or ill enough alone. Always trying to tinker up the 
 hopeless situation. She never understood why ' Brother 
 Lawson ' " — he grimaced again — " ' Brother Lawson ' 
 didn't like me — " 
 
 Steven made some inarticulate sound of protest, but the 
 other overrode it, shaking his head with a philosophical 
 smile. " Why, your father couldn't like me, Steven," he 
 said reasonably. " Put it to yourself! As soon as I got to 
 be old enough, / understood. Well — ! " He raised one 
 shoulder, shrugging the whole unhappy history away. " Are 
 you in the office? " he asked suddenly. 
 
 Steven laughed. " Yes. This summer I was supposed to 
 be in charge! However, I'm not under any illusions about 
 my usefulness. I'm just learning." 
 
 " But you like it? " pursued the other, eyeing him. 
 
 " Oh, yes. I don't know that I've got a great turn for it, 
 like father. Everybody says he was a wonder. But 
 I like it. Anyway there has to be a Rudd in the 
 business, you know," said the young man, reciting the 
 doctrine in which he had been brought up, which so far 
 he had not dreamed of doubting or denying; on the contrary 
 he was not a little proud of the inheritance, and ambitious 
 to make a good showing under responsibility. 
 
 After this he rather expected further intimacies from 
 Eugene, and was not quite sure whether he cared about 
 them ; but, as it turned out, Master Steven might have spared 
 his anxiety. The next time they met he found himself on 
 the same agreeably impersonal footing with the outlawed 
 Rudd as before — the same footing that Eugene maintained 
 w4th everybody. Once or twice he went fishing with them; 
 and once or twice he had Jack and Steve up in his room. 
 It was a bare little room up the attic stairs under the roof, 
 with a cot-bed, a handglass hanging to a nail with a shelf 
 underneath it by way of dressing-table, and Eugene's manu- 
 scripts and proof-sheets heaped on the floor in a corner 
 pjongside his broken old valise. He was compiling some 
 
94 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 sort of text-book, hack-work for a New York publishing- 
 house, the kind at which apparently he made his living ; the 
 young men speculated as to how much he was paid. Not a 
 princely sum, as was very evident; Lawson Rudd's butler 
 would probably have disdained it; yet such is the glamour 
 enveloping the trade of letters that both of them secretly 
 envied this humble practitioner. 
 
 " Mr. Cook said he did very good work," Steven told 
 Mary. " I daresay there're dozens and dozens of them that 
 ' do good work,' though, and barely get along on it. We had 
 fellows in my class that we all thought were world-beaters 
 at writing — and they thought so themselves. They were all 
 going into literary work when they got through college, 
 and we fully expected one or another of them would make 
 the Nobel Prize in a year or so ! Well, out of all those men, 
 how many do you think have made good? Just one, and he 
 hasn't taken down any prizes yet. He's a reporter on a 
 new^spaper, and he has to work his head off to hold the job, 
 at that! " 
 
 " I thought you used to write," Mary said. 
 
 " Oh, I had the bug for a while like all the rest. Every- 
 body is pretty sure to think he can write; it looks like such 
 a cinch," said Steven, laughing though he colored. " That 
 year I was travelling around on the other side I had a good 
 deal of time and I thought I'd try it — see if I couldn't sell 
 something, you know. Nothing doing! " 
 
 '' Oh, you couldn't have kept on long enough. They say 
 everybody always has a terribly hard time getting started, 
 before they make a reputation." 
 
 " Yes — but I don't believe it's ever easy, reputation or no 
 reputation," Steve opined sagely. " I showed some of the 
 things to Eugene. He didn't say much. I suppose he didn't 
 like to discourage me, and couldn't reconcile it with his 
 conscience to encourage me, so he just temporized. Praised 
 it wdth faint damns, as you might say." 
 
 " Well, there 're lots of things you can do besides writing. 
 I wish I could do something," said Mary dispiritedly. " I 
 can't do anything. Anything worth while, that is." 
 
 They were sitting on the end of Luther Rodman's pier, 
 where the Boothbay excursion-boats stopped Mondays and 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 95 
 
 Thursdays, waiting for the moon to rise. Behind them 
 loomed Luther Rodman's warehouse, buttressed witli barrels 
 of a famous oil company's product — those blue barrels 
 familiar to the view at every port of call the world over; 
 the aroma of them, mingled with those of tar and fish and 
 salt water and ham frying for somebody's late supper hung 
 all around; below them boats lolled on the incoming tide; 
 to right and left there was a long curve of broken and rocky 
 shore; and at the rim of the horizon the light on Saddler's 
 Shoal went and returned in ordered revolutions. Mary had 
 a lame chair backed against a post, her feet propped on a 
 coil of rope; and Steve sat on the edge of the platform, one 
 leg swinging over the void, his arms hugging the other knee. 
 It was a sufficiently romantic hour, but the young people, 
 contrary to precedent, had not drifted into any sort of senti- 
 mentalities; for that matter the fashions, even in lovers' 
 talk, have radically altered of recent years, and sweet noth- 
 ings, we understand, are now completely out of date! If 
 Steven's thoughts had wandered into such personalities as 
 that Mary Ballard's feet were the smallest he ever saw 
 and that they looked very cute in her well-worn canvas 
 sneakers perched beside each other on the rope like a pair 
 of ragged little birds — if the young gentleman had been 
 occupied with this and other discoveries, he kept them to 
 himself, in the belief that Mary, in common with all the 
 girls whom he really liked, did not care for that style of talk. 
 Besides, of late he had noticed a restlessness, a kind of ab- 
 sent constraint in her manner suggesting that she had some- 
 thing on her mind — something that left no room for soft 
 speeches. Steve guessed what it was with a wrench of pity, 
 a purely masculine desire to protect, to be of service. It was 
 money that was worrying her — or rather the lack of 
 money, he thought, painfully conscious of his own helpless- 
 ness. He could do nothing; he must not even seem to sus- 
 pect what was the matter. Once he actually thought of 
 going to George Stillman and putting a vrord in his ear; 
 but Steve's saner judgment recoiled from that piece of benev- 
 olent meddling. It was no business of his to tell George to 
 take care of his own aunt, his own cousin — no, not even 
 when all signs pointed to George as an imminent brother-in- 
 
96 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 law. Steven saw the two women bound hand and foot by 
 conventions, absolutely without recourse. A man might go 
 and pawn his watch, he might borrow of another man, he 
 might even stand off the landlord and the laundry-bill, 
 Steve said to himself seriously enough, but these were 
 women, ladies, his own class. And, for the thousandth time, 
 it was a shame! The troubled note in the girl's last words 
 gave him another twinge. 
 
 " Oh, you could do anything you tried! " he said warmly. 
 
 ^' No. Nowadays you have to know how — you have to 
 be trained in some specialty, or you can't get anywhere. 
 You can't just take things up. They want people with col- 
 lege-degrees for everything — and I've never been to school 
 in one place long enough to get an education, let alone de- 
 grees and things! Look at Francie Burke, how hard she 
 works, and she's clever! I never could do anything like that, 
 not if I tried forever," said Mary wistfully; " I'm not bright 
 enough. Mother could — or she could have when she was 
 my age. Mother could learn anything. Those books on 
 architecture and all that sort of artistic stuff that Francie has 
 to study, why. Mother likes to pick them up and read them, 
 just as if they were novels! " said Mary with a rather touch- 
 ing pride and wonder. " I can't get interested in them. I 
 haven't got enough sense." 
 
 Steven found himself welling over with a compassion 
 which he dared not show; and otherwise without a word to 
 answer this na'ive self-arraignment, whether in sympathy or 
 rebuttal. In the end he was reduced to retorting violently: 
 " Oh, stuff! " and, strange to say, the wisdom of Solomon 
 could have achieved no utterance more comforting. Mary 
 swallowed hard, and changed the subject. 
 
 " I like the Burkes awfully well, Steve." 
 
 '' Yes, I thought you would. Jack was my friend, to begin 
 with ; I didn't know the others at all, but one could tell by 
 him what they would be like." 
 
 " They're so straight-out and — and sincere, I suppose I 
 mean," said Mary, knotting her brows with the effort to find 
 the right word. '' They seem to be just themselves. I don't 
 believe they ever think of doing anything just because other 
 people do it. Mother says people who make a point of being 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 97 
 
 different from everybody else, generally contrive to be 
 simply rude. She says it's almost always just a cheap trick 
 to get yourself talked about." 
 
 " Well, the Burkes aren't crazy to be talked about, I know 
 that," Steve interposed vigorously. " Imagine Major Burke 
 doing anything for effect! You can't. You simply can't! " 
 
 " Oh no ! But people do, you know, Steve. I met a woman 
 in New York last winter that everybody said had a press- 
 agent. She was one of the rich-overnight kind — loads of 
 money, and perfectly determined to get in, you know. They 
 said she was spending a fortune, giving perfectly huge 
 amounts to charities, and having photographs of herself and 
 her town-house and her country-house, and her prize Boston 
 bull and all that sort of stuff constantly in the smart mag- 
 azines, and notices of every step she took, and everything 
 she did — the same way they boom actresses. And she was 
 getting in, too! Everybody laughed at her, but they were 
 beginning to recognize her and invite her and accept her 
 invitations, just the same. Mother said she had managed 
 w^onderfully well — all except the charities. The climbers al- 
 most invariably overdo that part, she says. Mother has 
 seen a lot," Mary ended pensively. 
 
 " A person does, of course, that's been going around in 
 society as long as she has. But, Mary, / don't think it's so 
 rotten, after all," the young man argued. " Most people 
 just want to have a good time, and I suppose their idea of a 
 good time is like that woman's. If it makes her happy to 
 be prominent socially, why, there's no harm in it." 
 
 *' Yes, but she isn't happy. She's worried to a frazzle the 
 whole time for fear she can't stay in,'' said Mary with con- 
 siderable acuteness. " And Mother says those people are in 
 daily and hourly terror of some unpresentable relative turn- 
 ing up, or some friend who used to know them when they 
 didn't have anything. Anyhow I'm not talking about society 
 being rotten, Steve, I'm just saying I'd like people to stop 
 pretending. I'd like everybody to do what he liked because 
 he liked it, and not because everybody else did it. I'd like 
 to be real myself. I feel all the time as if I were two girls, 
 the one that everybody else knows, and the one I know. I 
 don't believe Francie Burke ever felt that way about her- 
 self for one minute." 
 
98 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " You'd find she has, if you asked her. Nobody is the 
 same on top that he is underneath," said Steven. 
 
 They talked on for a while in this grave, analytical strain, 
 quite forgetting the moon which had been up for an hour 
 before Mary — very likely with the whispered opinions of 
 " everybody " formidably menacing her — announced, jump- 
 ing up, that it was time to go in. Even then, according to 
 Steve, there was no need of hurry, so they loitered along the 
 shore road, though the night was growing cold, still trying to 
 settle the riddle of human character in its relation to human 
 behavior, with the preposterous and touching certainty of 
 youth that there must be some solution, some explanation of 
 the monstrous inconsistencies did they but search long 
 enough and earnestly enough. Undoubtedly most of the 
 time they were repeating catch-words and catch-phrases; 
 but they thought they were thinking. In fact, Mary had 
 just divulged the weighty and novel information that there 
 were moments when her mind seemed to work and move like 
 a muscle, now stiff and slow, now with unexampled ease, 
 speed and accuracy; and Steven was quoting as nearly as he 
 could recollect it, a passage from one of his professors at 
 college to the effect that it made scarcely any difference how 
 much or how little mind you had, provided you always kept 
 it ''on the job" — they had just reached this interesting 
 point when, turning an elbow of granite cliff where the path 
 dropped abruptly almost to the water's edge, they saw a man 
 sprawled out amongst the rocks and sea-weed and drift- 
 wood farther out, fast asleep — or insensible from a fall per- 
 haps, as they both conjectured the next minute, in some 
 alarm. It was no place for a nap, and besides the position 
 of his body was somehow not that of ordinary slumber; it 
 was too loose, too jointless, the arms and legs flung abroad; 
 his hat lay a few feet away. The two young people stood an 
 instant, appalled. Then Steven interposed as the girl made 
 a movement. 
 
 '' You wait here a minute," he commanded. '' I'll see 
 what's the matter first." 
 
 She obeyed, with an involuntary recoil, recognizing that 
 his fear was the same as her own. '' I hope he isn't — ! " she 
 ejaculated. 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 99 
 
 Steve scrambled over the rocks. Coming nearer, he caught 
 with inordinate relief a sound of thick and heavy breathing; 
 the man was still alive, anyhow. Nearer yet, he caught 
 something else — a whiff of something that, alas, was not 
 the clean sea-air; a hideous possibility flashed through his 
 mind, and became a certainty even as it passed. He went 
 close and bent over the prostrate body ; he took hold of it by 
 the shoulder; it stirred and muttered incoherently. Dead, 
 forsooth! Steven could have wished him dead in good 
 earnest; instead, here he lay, a log — a hog, the young man 
 thought in disgust and anger. 
 
 " Is he hurt? Badly? " Mary called. " He spoke then, 
 didn't he? " She started towards them. 
 
 Steven shouted at her in stark panic. "Don't! Don't! 
 You can't do anything. Stay there! Stay where you are! " 
 he implored. " He's all right — there's nothing the matter. 
 I can take care of him. Go on home! Don't, Mary! Please 
 don't ! Please go away — ! " 
 
 But she had reached them. She stooped over and looked 
 close, and said " Oh! " 
 
 Steve felt as if he were one furnace of shame from head 
 to foot; had she been another man, the adventure would have 
 been sufficiently distasteful, but a girl — a girl he knew — 
 Mary Ballard — it was sacrilege for her to look upon such 
 a thing. He wanted to snatch her away from the pollution, 
 he wanted to fall on his knees and beg her forgiveness for 
 the whole race of men and drunkards — and he could only 
 say wretchedly: " He's — he's sick! " 
 
 " No, he isn't, Steven," said the girl composedly. '' I know 
 what's the matter with him. We'll have to get him home. 
 He can't lie out here in the cold — " 
 
 " Mary, if you'll just go on — if you'll just go away — " 
 
 " You can't do it by yourself, Steve. It takes two to 
 handle them when they're this bad — " 
 
 " I'll run back and get some one. Mary, please! This isn't 
 any job for a girl. It's — it's horrible — ! " 
 
 " Yes, it's horrible — but it's got to be done," said Mary, 
 silencing him with a hand. She spoke rapidly with a clear- 
 headed decision drawn from some unguessed reserve of prac- 
 tical knowledge, or sheer courage and conomon-sense. '' You 
 
100 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 won't have time to get anybody; the tide will be up here 
 before you can go and get back. And anyhow it would make 
 a lot of talk all over this little place, and you can't have that. 
 Cap'n Howe might feel that he'd have to turn him out; or 
 we might get talked about ourselves. You don't know what 
 might happen. I'm pretty strong, and we can drag him be- 
 tween us, if he can't stand up. I think he can. They gen- 
 erally can if you make them try." And with this final bit of 
 uncanny wisdom, she stooped again, and shook the sleeper's 
 arm experimentally. '' Mr. Rudd! Mr. Rudd! " said Mary, 
 jogging him to and fro. '' Wake up! " 
 
 Eugene opened his eyes and rolled them at her stupidly, 
 uttering an inarticulate noise like an animal. 
 
 " Get up ! " said Mary sharply. " You can, you know. 
 Get up!" 
 
 She appeared to be absolutely unafraid, and stranger still, 
 unrepelled ! It was astounding, if Steven had had room for 
 astonishment, but the needs of the moment absorbed all his 
 energies. He got hold of Eugene by the other arm, and to- 
 gether they hoisted him upon his feet. 
 
 It was about a quarter of a mile to Cap'n Eben's house. 
 As the young woman had judged, Eugene, though he could 
 not have kept his balance without their support, could stag- 
 ger, roll, reel along somehow, with it. They did not have a 
 great deal of trouble with him, mainly because he was too 
 far gone to protest effectively. Less drunk, he might be very 
 ugly, Steven suspected, arguing from some few experiences 
 with drunken men. He was thankful on Mary's account — 
 though it seemed likely that she would have been able to 
 cope with the brutal phases of intoxication, too; she dis- 
 played, as they went along, so ghastly a familiarity with 
 the tactics of the situation! Luckily they met no one; the 
 lights were all out in the cottages, and it was too cold for 
 strolling. Yet the quarter of a mile lengthened to leagues ; 
 it took hours, years, an eternity, and the last part of the 
 journey was the worst, the path being so steep, the stairs 
 steeper, and the necessity for caution weighing heavily on 
 both young people. As it was, Steven wondered that the 
 whole house did not rouse; the noise of their entrance, and 
 of their laborious, shuffling, shoving progress to the first 
 landing seemed to him fairly to shake the universe. 
 
FROM FATHER TO SOX IQl 
 
 " I'd better take him from this on, don't you think? " he 
 whispered to the girl. '' It's only one more flight, and if 
 anyone sees us, they'll just see me — " 
 
 She nodded, relinquishing her hold. An oil-lamp, with a 
 tin reflector behind it, nailed on high, lighted the narrow 
 passage, and Steven saw a door at the other end of it, shut 
 quickly and soundlessly; Mary sped towards it; and even 
 in the act of taking a fresh grip and propping Eugene against 
 the wall, it came to Steve with a dart of apprehension, a 
 dart of relief, that that was the Ballards' own door. Her 
 mother must have waked, or perhaps was on the w^atch any- 
 how; and if there was a woman on earth who could be trusted 
 both to lie discreetly and to hold her tongue discreetly, it 
 was Mrs. Ballard. He was bracing himself for the struggle 
 up the next flight to where the next tin pharos burned dimly, 
 when Cap'n Eben came padding out, a weird, goateed figure 
 in night-shirt and pantaloons, and expressed himself in a 
 nasal expletive — subdued in tone, however — at sight of 
 them. 
 
 " Found him down on the beach," said Steven. 
 
 The captain contributed prompt and efficient assistance. 
 " Brung him here just yourself? " he queried, not without 
 approval. " I want to know! " 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 STEVEN went back to his car, which had been left in 
 front of the other Captain Howe's gate, and drove off 
 home in a more or less clouded mood. It should have 
 been midnight by the way he felt, but was actually about 
 ten o'clock — surely not a disreputable hour for a young man 
 and woman to have been out together ; but Steve recognized 
 the prudence of Mary's counsel. She was right; the whole 
 thing had to be kept as quiet as possible, more for their own 
 sake than for that poor miserable souse of a Eugene, who 
 had very little to lose in the way of reputation. But what a 
 girl ! To think, to speak, to act so marvellously to the pur- 
 pose in an emergency that must have been for her absolutely 
 without precedent! Even Edith, who represented to her 
 brother all that was most forcible in the feminine character, 
 could not have bettered the performance. In spite of that, 
 Mary's valiant services must go without praise, without 
 thanks, above all from the poor creature they had benefited. 
 For it was Steven's humane hope that Eugene, when he 
 came to himself, would not remember anything distinctly 
 about last night; it must have happened to him again and 
 again to have been picked up and escorted home by some 
 Samaritan Tom, Dick or Harry, so that circumstance by 
 itself could not deeply humiliate him; but Heaven forbid 
 that he should ever know of Mary's share on this last occa- 
 sion. It was bad enough for Steven himself to have to know 
 it. The young man reflected with a grim humor that a day- 
 long sermon on Temperance would not have affected him so 
 powerfully; he was not given to fleshly indulgences, being 
 by nature of a cleanly habit in mind and body; but now he 
 felt as if he would never want a drink of anything stronger 
 than water the rest of his life! He found, however, that his 
 anger with Eugene had faded to a kind of impatient pity. 
 Here was a man of brains and talents, an educated man 
 
 102 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 103 
 
 who in early life had had every possible chance given him, 
 a man moreover of fine instincts, humor, spirit, — above the 
 average, in short — and he must go and throw himself away, 
 debase himself to the level of the dullest degenerate that ever 
 came out of the slums. It was such a waste — such an irrep- 
 arable waste and loss. 
 
 He was just turning in between the ivy-bound gate-posts 
 which had been copied, brick by brick, from those at the 
 entrance to an old Virginia estate — everything about the 
 place exhibited Lawson's thoroughness, being " Colonial " 
 en suite, down to the very hinges on the doors — when he saw 
 two other headlights glancing around the curves of the drive 
 at a rather reckless rate of speed, and prudently checked up 
 a little, drawing to one side. It was George, he guessed, 
 coming away from an evening with Hester; and to be sure, as 
 the lights drew near, the driver suddenly slowed down in his 
 turn, and leaned aside from the wheel, shouting. 
 
 ''Hello! That you, Steve? " 
 
 "Hello!" Steven shouted back, preparing to pass. But 
 George brought his big machine to a standstill in the middle 
 of the road, and shut off the power, and jumped out; he 
 came over buoyantly. 
 
 '' Hey? Ami:hing the matter? " said Steven, continuing 
 to forge ahead by inches. 
 
 " Shut down your engine, you darned lobster! " said the 
 other young man, affectionately. '' Been over to see Mary? 
 Well, Steve, I've beat you to it! " His face was indistinguish- 
 able in the dark, but his voice and whole figure unmistakably 
 radiated content, happiness, a victorious excitement. '' Shut 
 off, I tell you!" 
 
 '' What's that? Beat me to what? " said Steven, com- 
 plying. 
 
 '' To the license, you! " All at once George's wild exhila- 
 ration gave way to some deeper feeling. His voice shook. 
 "She — she said she would — vou know? To-night. Oh, 
 Steve— ! " he blurted out, " I'm — I can't hold in — I feel 
 so — so — why, I never knew what it was to be happv 
 before!" 
 
 Steven behaved appropriately. " Why, George, you don't 
 tell me! W^hy, that's great! " he said, and shook George's 
 
104 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 hand, and thumped him on the back, exaggerating his cor- 
 diality a little maybe, touched, a trifle amused. In the 
 brother's eyes, though he was fond enough of Hester, all this 
 jubilation over winning her was somewhat out of proportion. 
 If it had been Edith, now — ! But Steven liked George, and 
 if he was satisfied, that was the main thing. 
 
 He was much more than satisfied; he was tremulously 
 exultant, deprecatory, wondering at his good luck. " Steve, 
 you know I can hardly believe it. She's such a glorious 
 girl — she — she — " 
 
 "Sure!" said Steve, pumping his hand up and down. 
 '' You — you're all right, too, George. Everybody in our 
 family will be pleased," he assured him awkwardly; but 
 George scarcely heard. 
 
 " I can't believe it," he repeated. " A girl like Hester — 
 hang it, you know, Steve, a man isn't fit — no man deserves 
 it — I know / don't deserve it anyhow. I — I feel as if I'd 
 give a year out of my life to — to wipe the slate clean, you 
 know — to be good enough, you know — " 
 
 ''Aw, g'wan, George!" said Steve in amiable raillery, 
 shrinking like any other young man, from these intimacies, 
 mortally afraid of further revelations, though they might be 
 entertaining enough from anybody but a prospective 
 brother-in-law. " When is it to be? " 
 
 '' She wouldn't say," sighed George, a cloud briefly 
 shadowing his ecstasy. " She made me promise not to tease 
 her about it. She can't bear to leave your father and mother, 
 you know; she's the only girl they have left now. She can't 
 make up her mind to it. But we're engaged, anyhow. Oh, 
 Steve, she's the most wonderful girl ! Of course you're her 
 brother; you know what she is! " 
 
 '' Yes. Yes, indeed I do ! " Steven agreed warmly — think- 
 ing meanwhile that Hester's devotion to her father and 
 mother was truly wonderful, about the most wonderful and 
 novel thing he ever expected to witness ! He said to himself 
 reprovingly that Hester was all right — he did not mean to 
 be cynical — she wasn't quite so perfect as George thought, 
 that was all. Supposing some fellow came around raving 
 this way to George over his sister Clara? Wouldn't George 
 feel just about as he, Steven, felt now? 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 105 
 
 " Well, see you to-morrow — " said George, going back 
 to his own car; " unless you go over to the Cove, as usual." 
 He got in and slammed the door, elevating his voice again, 
 as both automobiles began to move. " Say, Steve, why don't 
 you and Mary speed up a little? Come on in, the water's 
 fme! " 
 
 For once, however, Steven did not go to Thanksgiving 
 Cove; he might have beguiled himself with the argument 
 that Eugene needed looking after, if it had not been sadly 
 evident that the latter would be in no condition to receive 
 visitors, even on errands of mercy, for another thirty-six 
 hours, at the shortest; besides which, young Mr. Rudd had 
 something else on his mind, something that he considered 
 ought to be attended to before any more Cove journey ings. 
 Instead, therefore, of ordering out his car at the customary 
 hour next morning, he went in search of the senior Rudd, 
 who, they told him, would probably be among the green- 
 houses. And there, sure enough, Steve found him, in an old 
 suit of clothes, with earth-stained hands, and a fine, full- 
 bodied perfume of fertilizer clinging about his boots, 
 whistling '^ II mio tesoro," while he happily sorted bulbs, of 
 which a tremendous consignment for the fall planting had 
 just arrived. The place was pleasantly quiet except for 
 this low whistle, which was singularly sweet, penetrating and 
 true. They had cleared a potting-bench for the work, 
 mounding it where the soil had been, with brown paper bags 
 of all the tulips, jonquils and crocus in the world, it seemed 
 to Steven. At the other end of the bench, Angus McCrae 
 sorted diligently, standing and resting his left leg, the one 
 that was too short, on a coil of hose, and keeping his perfect 
 side towards Mr. Rudd. Apart from the leg, in spite of 
 which he handled himself surprisingly well, Angus was a 
 well-built, sturdy young man; his gravity and taciturnity 
 were probably native, too, uninfluenced by the deformity, 
 for there was no hint of melancholy about him. On the 
 contrary, Lawson often asserted that he was the best of 
 companions without ever opening his mouth. So now he 
 worked in tranquillizing silence as always. There was no 
 artificial heat in this glass-house, nevertheless the air felt 
 faintly warmer than outside; it was flavored with those 
 
106 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 odors of growth and decay about which there is something 
 pastoral and wholesome. 
 
 Steven's father looked up, and gave him a nod of greet- 
 ing, and went on sorting; Steven leaned against the jamb of 
 the door, and watched them for a few minutes. '' What a 
 lot of plants! " he said at length. 
 
 '' Going to naturalize these narcissus — plant big groups, 
 regular sheets, hundreds in a bunch, here and there in those 
 little open places through the woods. You must have noticed 
 every now and then there's an opening like a little pocket of 
 sunshine — an ideal exposure! " said his father enthusiasti- 
 cally; he was like a boy with his bulbs and his plans and the 
 manure on his boots. '' I thought we ought to have more of 
 these earliest flowers — ' Daffodils that come before the 
 swallow dares,'" he quoted, handling them fondly: ''Hey, 
 young gentleman, you can't tell me what that's from! " 
 
 " Yes, I can. I've taken a shot at writing a play myself; 
 it's from ' Winter's Tale,' " retorted Steven. 
 
 " Why, you do know something after all! " Lawson ejac- 
 ulated in mock surprise. '' Shakespeare says some beauti- 
 ful things about flowers. All those old Elizabethans had ideas 
 about gardening. I remember once thinking that I'd have a 
 garden such as Bacon describes in one of the essays, but 
 he had it laid out with some fantastic scheme of arbors with 
 bird-cages in 'em, that I decided wouldn't be very attractive. 
 These tulips are mostly for a Dutch garden I'm starting. 
 My own design, Steve. I'm going to make it like those I've 
 seen in the old country — in Holland — tulip-land itself. 
 There'll be vegetables and flowers all mixed in together; 
 they don't waste any space over there, you know. If there 
 isn't room for something useful, they put in something beau- 
 tiful, or the other way around ; but every inch must be made 
 to yield. Now for instance, onion-beds divided off with 
 ribbon plantings of pansies, say; and potatoes with clove- 
 pinks. I think I'll have a whitewashed brick wall enclosing 
 the whole business, with dwarf peach-trees trained on it, 
 and in front good-sized beds of iris. One ought to have a 
 great many pot-herbs in such a garden, too — thyme and 
 parsley ; and of course very bright brick-red geraniums — " 
 he paused, gazing speculatively. 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 107 
 
 " You'd have made a bully farmer if you'd ever had to 
 work that way, Dad," said the young man, not without 
 wonder. 
 
 " You wouldn't! " Lawson said, laughing. ^' You ought to 
 try and get interested in it, Steven. Every extra thing you 
 get interested in, is an asset for your old age. When you 
 can't work any more, you'll at least know a variety of ways 
 of playing." 
 
 '' But you always did like farming. You didn't have to 
 try. Suppose I suggested to you to take up the study of 
 geometry for a recreation! " 
 
 ''You'd be the first man that ever called it that!" his 
 father retorted. He began to segregate the bags again, 
 striking into " Angels ever bright and fair/' in a louder 
 whistle. The high notes soared pure and ringing as if from 
 a flute. 
 
 '' I can't whistle either," said Steven, with an envy that 
 was not entirely pretended; his admiration for his father, 
 which was a real and deep feeling, extending even to Law- 
 son's rather unusual whistle, always melodious and true. 
 
 " No, you can't ! And, Steven, that's one thing I don't 
 recommend you to try," Lawson said solemnly. " I've heard 
 you! 'Take vie . . . take me . . . take, oh take me to 
 your care! ' " He halted abruptly. '* You wanted to see 
 me about something, Steve? " 
 
 '' Why, yes, I — " 
 
 " Very well, I'm coming." Mr. Rudd wiped his hands on 
 a piece of burlap, and strolled toward the door. " We can 
 take a walk around the garden, and look at everything. 
 Smoke? " 
 
 " No, thanks," said Steven, a little nervously, finding all 
 at once that it was going to be more difficult than he had 
 thought to open up the two subjects he had in mind. Per- 
 haps his father, who was quick-witted and no second-rate 
 judge of men, had some inkling of the younger man's 
 trouble ; he lit a cigarette himself and continued the saunter- 
 ing in a receptive silence. 
 
 '' I saw George last night," said Steven finally, fishing for 
 a good lead. '' I suppose he'd spoken to you? " 
 
 " Oh yes. Of course I didn't raise any objection. I don't 
 
108 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 know a man that I'd like better to see a daughter of mine 
 married to than George." 
 
 '' I told him all our family would be pleased. He was 
 fairly running over with joy. Had to stop me at the gate 
 to tell me! It was funny, but you — you liked him for it 
 just the same, somehow." Here Steven suddenly made up 
 his mind to the first plunge. '' I was coming home from 
 Thanksgiving Cove. Dad, did you know that Eugene was 
 staying there? " 
 
 '' Hey? Eugene? " said Mr. Rudd, stopping short. " No, 
 I didn't. I thought he said Clam Beach. But it's of no conse- 
 quence to me where he stays, anyhow. I haven't thought 
 about him since that time we met him," said Lawson, re- 
 suming the walk. " Why, what of it? " 
 
 " Nothing. Only I thought you might not know. And I've 
 been going over there right along, and seeing him almost 
 every day." 
 
 " Yes? " 
 
 " Well, Dad, I — I like him. Everybody over there likes 
 him. If it wasn't for that — that one thing, you know, he'd 
 be all right." 
 
 '' Eugene^s a bright man," said the elder Rudd, in a man- 
 ner of complete detachment. 
 
 '' It -seems an awful pity his lushing that way. It must 
 have been pretty trying for you and Uncle El. Only he was 
 just a young fellow then, wasn't he? It couldn't have been 
 quite so bad as it is now." 
 
 " It gave promise of growing worse," said Lawson, after a 
 short silence. '' I've not seen him more than half a dozen 
 times since. As you say, it's a great pity." 
 
 " The doctors say that drink's a disease, sometimes." 
 
 His father uttered a slight grunt which might have meant 
 anything, and Steve went on: '' Well, all I wanted to say was 
 that I — I was beginning to be sorry for him, and to think 
 that maybe you and Uncle Elihu might have been unneces- 
 sarily harsh," he confessed, reddening and stammering but 
 honest — "when you — turned him out, you know — ?" 
 
 " Your uncle and I didn't turn Eugene out, Steven," said 
 his father, still impersonally; " he went of his own accord." 
 
 " Oh! Well, of course, I only guessed at the circumstan- 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 109 
 
 ces — I simply meant when he left home. I was beginning to 
 feel rather mushy and sympathetic — till I saw him drunk! " 
 Steven shook his head. " I understand now. You couldn't 
 put up with that sort of thing. Likely to happen any time ! 
 I daresay he realized it himself, since he left you of himself." 
 
 After another short pause, Mr. Rudd said, '' We acted to 
 the best of our judgment." 
 
 They walked along, Steven in some relief and with a fam- 
 ily pride reinforced by this small scene. He himself had 
 done an unnecessary thing, maybe, but at any rate, a decent 
 and straightforward thing; and his father had rigidly ad- 
 hered to the Rudd code of noblesse oblige — though not more 
 rigidly than the weakling, Eugene ; not a word to the other's 
 prejudice, a judge-for-yourself reticence. 
 
 Two men with a horse and cart-load of loose earth came 
 around a bend towards them, shepherded by the elder Mc- 
 Crae, who halted with a sort of military salute at sight of the 
 master of the place. The men, who were Italians, swarthy, 
 good-natured looking pirates, uncovered civilly, smiling with 
 glistening teeth. All the work-people about the estate liked 
 and respected the owner; they did not know his son so well, 
 and stared rather hard at the young fellow. 
 
 " That's some dirt for the tulip-garden, I expect," said 
 Lawson. " It's going to be over here to the right." He went up 
 to the wagon, and ploughed out a handful of the soft, brown 
 soil, and held it to his nose, sniffing luxurioush\ " I like 
 the smell of good earth," he explained, laughing to behold 
 Steven's amazement at the spectacle; ^' don't 3'ou, McCrae?" 
 
 " It's what we're a' made oot of, Mr. Rudd," said the Scot 
 gravely and with admirable caution. Besides being an ex- 
 pert gardener, he was a man of marked character, tenacious 
 of his opinions, prompt in judgment and action — but no 
 one had ever known McCrae to commit himself in speech! 
 Lawson described these traits to Steven as they passed and 
 got out of hearing, with immense relish. 
 
 ''Very funny! He's absolutely honest, and has been in 
 charge here fifteen years. All that time he's never left a 
 penny unaccounted for, or failed in a single one of his respon- 
 sibilities — and I don't believe he's ever said ' Yes ' or 
 ' No ' downright to anything ! That's another thing about 
 
no FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 gardening, Steve; there's nothing like it for getting you 
 acquainted with men — studying human nature." 
 
 " I thought any kind of business necessitated that." 
 
 '' Not to the same degree — that is — well, it's different, 
 anyhow," said his father with a half laugh, realizing that 
 his hobby was not to be effectively backed up by such argu- 
 ments. " That boy Angus — he's a sample of what garden- 
 ing does for a man — " 
 
 '' Seems to me you're going off on another tack. Dad." 
 
 " To be sure I am ! I say ohat boy Angus couldn't do any- 
 thing else nearly so well, and there isn't anything else that 
 would have developed him so much. He's going to take the 
 engineering course at Boston Tech, and make an all-around 
 landsca'oc-architect of himself ; he's had nearly all the prac- 
 tical experience necessary." 
 
 ''Fine!-'' 
 
 " Yes, isn't it? '"' said i /awson, omitting to mention that his 
 own liberality had made the ^mdertaking possible for young 
 McCrae. " Angus has ? real lOve for beauty. Have you 
 noticed that whenever you nappen to run across him he al- 
 ways contrives to keep his good side towards you? That's 
 not vanity; that's just a desire not to be a jarring note, not 
 to introduce anything that would suggest pain or ugliness 
 where everything else is so beautiful.'^ 
 
 "Poor fellow!" 
 
 " He told me so himself one day in his shy way. We have 
 gotten to be great friends, working together. I — I was very 
 much touched." 
 
 " It is touching." 
 
 They reached a little esplanade, paved with broken flag- 
 stones sunk in moss, and walled on the landward side with 
 a bank of late, bright bloom, amongst which here and there 
 the slender, dark spire of a juniper rose, as it were, unbidden, 
 like a somber thought in the midst of gayety. Across the 
 opposite side a weathered stone railing guarded the edge of 
 the cliff. There was a stone bench in the sunshine and they 
 sat down, facing the great, brilliant hollow of the sea and 
 sky. Now was the moment for Steven to begin on that 
 other matter; but all the approaches he had rehearsed over 
 night, incontinently departed from his memory! The most 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 111 
 
 he could do, conscious all the while that it was only a palter- 
 ing device to gain time, was to inquire with an inordinate dis- 
 play of interest what was the name of that bush with the 
 pink and white flowers, over there? 
 
 '' That? Why, that's a plant John Stillman brought back 
 from a trip he made to Norway, one summer," said Mr. 
 Rudd. " It's a — a — well, the name will come to me after 
 a while, probably. He admired it tremendously, and told 
 me he thought about me at once, and made sure to bring 
 enough so that I could have a root, too. Now to my taste, 
 it's not very beautiful or remarkable in any way, but I like 
 it anyhow, on Johnnie's account; it didn't thrive for a while, 
 but McCrae finally got it acclimated. Great triumph; 
 pleased me very much! Why yes — why not, Steve?" he 
 asked, meeting the frank surprise of his son's face. " To 
 have something from a friend's garden, to plant it and see 
 it grow — I think that must be about the least selfish of 
 human pleasures, the most innocent, anyway." 
 
 Steven sat dumb. He himself would have cherished a 
 gift in the same way and for the same reason — for the 
 giver's sake, to please him; but this exhibition of sentiment 
 on both sides between two such superlatively unsentimental 
 persons as he had always taken his father and Mr. Stillman 
 to be, was a revelation. It came upon him forcibly that in 
 all his life he had not found out so much about his father as 
 in this last half-hour — had never tried to find out. The 
 older Rudd had indeed ceased to be a remote controller of 
 destinies, a personage of Arabian Nights' resources, of incon- 
 ceivable powers and activities, inhabiting an unimaginable 
 realm called an ofiice, and visiting the nursery- world at set 
 intervals, like the sun. That awesome individual had given 
 place, at about Steven's freshman year to a bizarre combina- 
 tion of " cranky " old gentleman, public character and pri- 
 vate autocrat, with occasional flashes of a rather disturbing 
 insight and humor. Nowadays in his quality of '' Dad " 
 Steve felt for him the tolerance which with most children 
 passes for filial affection ; as the only other man in the house 
 there existed between them a bond of sex sympathy ; but as 
 Lawson Rudd of the Rudd Chemical Company, as the " big 
 man" in '' big business," Steve was proud of his father, 
 
112 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 vehemently desirous of following him worthily, hitherto at 
 heart uneasy about his ability to do so. This discovery of 
 an unsuspected treasure of gentleness in his senior encour- 
 aged him as much as it took him aback. '' Why, Edie was 
 right! Father and I are really very much alike! " he thought 
 with a glow of something like pleased vanity. But here was 
 Mr. Stillman, too, who had alwa^-s seemed not to have an 
 idea or an interest apart from his complicated affairs, re- 
 vealing a quaintly romantic feeling! Who would have be- 
 lieved it of those two, hard, busy old boys? They were 
 just like himself and, say, Jack Burke; to be sure, it was not 
 quite possible to figure them writing blank verse, or day- 
 dreaming together, or discussing solemn abstractions by the 
 hour, as he and Jack did; they were too old, too slow, prosy 
 and unimaginative, he thought pityingly, but they undoubt- 
 edly practised some equivalent form of fellowship. For the 
 moment, Steven found the gulf between the generations 
 bridged. '' Dad, I wanted to tell you — " he began without 
 any of those adroit preambles he had studied; and said 
 what he had to say becomingly. 
 
 Mr. Rudd repeated it — or rather gave a condensed 
 version of as much as he thought expedient — to his wife 
 that night, standing on the hearth-rug in front of the dain- 
 tily carved white wood mantel in the lady's fanciful little 
 boudoir, which was all rose-tinted silk upholsterings and 
 rose-flowered chintz, with rosettes, flounces, flutings, painted 
 tables, chiffon lamp-shades and what-not. In the middle of 
 it Mrs. Rudd bloomed like a rose herself — a somewhat full- 
 blown one — in a pink and lace neglige; and Hester came 
 in and sat on the foot of the gilt and ivory chaise longue, 
 cuddling Dingbats in her lap, and listening. At the end, 
 the two women exchanged a glance, but they made scarcely 
 any comment and that of a sweetly non-committal nature, 
 until the head of the house had left the room. It was a car- 
 dinal principle with both of them never to be anything but 
 softly appealing, acquiescent, and opinionless in the com- 
 pany of a man, even a husband, even a father; agree to 
 every word he uttered — and go your own way afterwards, 
 was their Golden Rule. 
 
 " Steve's awfully easy," Hester observed, breaking the 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 113 
 
 brief silence that followed Mr. Rudd's departure. " I knew 
 she'd get him. She had it all framed up — working on his 
 sympathy and — and chivalry, and all that sort of stuff." 
 " It wasn't Mary. She couldn't have thought it out for 
 herself. It was her mother; she's always done all the think- 
 ing, and then coached Mary. Ellen Ballard always knows 
 exactly what to say, and exactly how to take everybody. 
 She's very clever," said the older lady. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 ON arriving at Cap'n Eben Howe's, Steven was in- 
 formed by the captain himself that both Ballard 
 ladies had gone up to Cap'n Si's to say good-by to 
 the Burke family, who would be leaving next morning at an 
 unearthly hour in order to get the earliest train to Boston. 
 To Steve's expressions of astonishment and regret, he op- 
 posed a wooden countenance and the laconic reminder that 
 they were army folks. 
 
 " Oh, Major Burke got orders, I suppose? " 
 
 " I s'pose he did," echoed the captain, nasally. " Any- 
 ways they're packing up." As Steven made ready to go on, 
 he added superfluously; "Mr. Rudd's upstairs. Want I 
 should call him? " 
 
 " Why, no, thanks. I'll — I'll be back directly," said 
 Steven embarrassed and annoyed and avoiding Cap'n Eben's 
 remote yet penetrating gaze. 
 
 *' Wouldn't wonder if he'd be leaving pretty soon, too," the 
 latter remarked. " Not the same time the others do, though. 
 There's a boat from the Harbor at two this aft'noon." 
 
 Steven did not know whether this meant that Eugene had 
 been invited to go, or not; it made very little difference, the 
 young man thought sourly, the point was that he was going 
 and that it would be a relief. One such experience as they 
 had had with him was one too many. " Well, I'll be back 
 after a while," he reiterated, and drove off, leaving that an- 
 cient mariner, Cap'n Eben, standing at the little white picket 
 fence among the festoons of frost-nipped bitter-sweet, look- 
 ing after him and stroking his goatee with a dry smile. 
 
 The Burkes were too thoroughly seasoned campaigners to 
 make much of any move even as unpremeditated as this, so 
 that Steven found them in no confusion, spite of the open 
 trunks and stacks of clothing, spite even of the corded 
 bundles of the late general's biography with which Frances 
 
 114 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 115 
 
 and Mary were laboring energetically. Both girls gave him 
 an absently amiable welcome and kept on with their work, in 
 contrast to Jack, who threw open the window upon hearing 
 Steven's car, bellowing out that Fort Whipple was their 
 ultimate destination. 
 
 " ' With me bundle on me shoulther 
 Sure nobody could be boulder 
 An' Fm off for Arizony in th' mar-r-nin'! ' " 
 
 chanted Jack blithely, abandoning his stevedore duties to 
 execute half a dozen jig-steps in time to the melody, with 
 brilliant precision. " Arizona, that's where it is — darkest 
 Arizona. Don't even know how to get there! " he said. 
 
 " Well, you don't have to get there, do you? " said Steve, 
 finding a seat on the window-sill ; and Jack looked sober for 
 an instant. 
 
 " No. I've got to go back to Uncle Jim's office and get 
 busy with the Revised Statutes of the State of Ohio, or some 
 such light literature," said he. " Makes me feel kind of 
 lonesome. Francie will be in New York all winter at her 
 decorating joint. The Burke family is going to be all split 
 up in little splinters." 
 
 '' You'll be at uncle's, and I'm coming out Christmas, 
 Jackie," Frances called out. " This is ready to nail up now." 
 
 " Don't you want to leave it open till you get those other 
 things? " Mary began to say, looking up from a convenient 
 attitude on her knees and heels beside the box; she inter- 
 rupted herself, flushing as her eyes encountered Steve's. 
 
 *' Oh, that's so! " Frances stood a moment, pondering, until 
 Jack's brisk advance with the hammer and nails apparently 
 forced her into a decision. " Never mind them. It's all fixed 
 so nicely, and we couldn't get all that extra junk in anyhow. 
 Go ahead, Jack," she commanded; and to Steven: ''Would 
 you mind doing something for me? That old diary — don't 
 you remember? A great piling lot of books like exercise- 
 books that that old gentleman, Doctor Vardaman, Grandpa's 
 friend, had written — ? " 
 
 A terrific fusillade of blows from Jack on the lid of the 
 packing-box intervened; he and Mary were laughing, kneel- 
 ing together over it. 
 
116 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 "Doctor Vardaman's? Yes, I remember! " cried Steven 
 above the racket. " What about it? There were some let- 
 ters, too, weren't there? " 
 
 More hammering resounded ; everybody was laughing and 
 shouting by this time, and Francie shrieked in her turn: 
 " Yes ! Mr. Rudd has all of it, the whole business. He took 
 them to read over for me. We all thought there was plenty 
 of time — and now we've got to go off all of a sudden. Could 
 you get them from him? " 
 
 Jack's pounding subsided abruptly, perhaps by accident, 
 and he said without looking up, as he set another nail, and 
 aimed at it: " Mr. Rudd's been sick in his room for a day 
 or so, so he doesn't know about our going yet, and we don't 
 exactly like to disturb him. But I don't suppose he'd mind 
 if you — ? " 
 
 " All right! I'll do it now," said Steve, seizing his hat. 
 
 " Oh, I didn't mean right now — any time will do, any 
 time! He could express them to me for that matter. It's 
 only that I oughtn't to leave them lying around — I mean 
 I don't want to burden him with the care — " Francie began 
 to explain anxiously, but Steve had already reached the 
 door. And from that day to this he has never known just 
 how much the Burkes knew of the late calamitous episode, 
 or of the part Mary and he had taken at the close of it. This 
 was getting back to Cap'n Eben's in a little while, sure 
 enough, he thought with a smile; but there was no immedi- 
 ate prospect of seeing Mary by herself, and he might as well 
 get this miserable quarter of an hour — for it was bound to 
 be miserable — with Eugene over; not improbably, it would 
 be their last. 
 
 He went up the narrow steps, and knocked, and after a 
 moment, Eugene's voice, which had the quality not to be 
 described yet always recognizable of the drinking man's 
 voice, and this time sounded no worse than usual, bade him 
 come in. The other was standing at the little mirror, shaving, 
 with his back to the door, but as Steven entered turned 
 about, looking bloodshot and haggard and unkempt, with the 
 grizzling stubble pricking out on his chin, with his torn 
 undershirt, with his suspenders trailing and the soiled old 
 trousers wrinkling down around his hips, with the razor in 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 117 
 
 one hand and a rag of newspaper flecked with dabs of gray- 
 ish lather where he had been wiping it, in the other. They 
 stood looking at each other a second; then Eugene said in 
 his natural manner without either shame or bravado. 
 " Hello! Shut the door, will you? It makes a pretty sharp 
 draught through here, if you leave it open." 
 
 " Oh, all right! " said Steven, lamely echoing him; he shut 
 the door with an excess of carefulness, prolonging the action 
 so as to put off looking at Eugene again, put off speaking to 
 him, if only for an instant. The sensitive young fellow 
 writhed in spirit to see this man for whom he still could not 
 curb his liking, thus dirty and disordered, emerging from a 
 drunken spree in a kennel of a room that smelled obscenely. 
 Why couldn't Eugene be always decent and manly, he who 
 had in him so many of the elements of decency and man- 
 liness ! 
 
 Eugene went on with his shaving. " Sit down, sit down," 
 he said, over his shoulder. " Just tumble anything that's in 
 the way onto the floor. The place is all upset anyhow." 
 
 Steven dumbly went and sat down on the abhorrent bed. 
 In the middle of the floor, Eugene's battered valise was 
 spread open, with books and some clothing piled half in and 
 half out — two or three of those frayed collars, a shirt, a 
 string-tie most distressingly stringy; the coat of his blue 
 serge business-suit — he did not appear to own any other — 
 was carefully adjusted over the rounding back of the chair, 
 with a stubbed whisk-broom near at hand, which he had prob- 
 ably been exercising upon its greasily refulgent surfaces, 
 across the shoulders and elsewhere. There were also laid out 
 a pair of tan shoes recently half-soled, together with a round 
 tin box of somebody's Marvelline Shoe Paste. Evidently it 
 was as Cap'n Eben had reported; this Arab was about to 
 fold his tent and depart. The sight of his poor wardrobe, 
 his poor efforts to furbish it up, suddenly became to Steven 
 poignantly pitiful. He stared at the things with aching 
 eyes; how lonely Eugene w^as, he thought with a pang, how 
 un-cared-for! Very likely he had nobody but himself to 
 thank for it; very likely it was all his own fault; but still — I 
 His old slouched hat, its original blackness weathered to a 
 melancholy green where it was not defaced with all sorts of 
 
118 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 stains and blotches, lay on top of a square bundle of marble- 
 backed books which Steven might have recognized for the 
 Vardaman manuscript, but he had clean forgotten his errand. 
 
 The other looked around from stropping his razor, and 
 following Steven's gloomy stare, said: " I'm packing up. 
 Going this afternoon." 
 
 '' I know. Captain Howe told me," said Steve, trymg to 
 speak as casually. '' Can I do anything to help you? " 
 
 " Why, yes, if you don't mind. I've got some of that stuff 
 they clean up tan shoes with, but I don't know how to use it. 
 I don't seem to make mine look any better. Have you any 
 idea how? If you'll just show me — ? " 
 
 " Sure ! Yes ! I know how. I've often used it — or some- 
 thing on the same order. All those preparations are a good 
 deal alike," said Steve, voluble, in a queer relief at having 
 something to do, something commonplace to make talk. 
 '' Here, let me! I'll fix them for you." He fell to on this 
 plebeian task enthusiastically. He had come filled with the 
 inexpressibly repugnant expectation that he would be 
 obliged, perforce, to deliver some sort of admonition, re- 
 proof. Heaven knew what; that there would be a petty 
 scene; Eugene would attempt feeble and futile explanations, 
 or he would be abjectly apologetic, or perhaps merely sullen 
 and unapproachable. Instead, here he was polishing away 
 at Eugene's boots! And here was Eugene himself undis- 
 turbed by vain regrets, or recognizing no reason why he 
 should burden Steven with them, methodically scraping his 
 chin, as if he had never done anything to be ashamed of in 
 his life ! At the moment he uttered a mild expletive, arrest- 
 ing the razor. 
 
 '' Cut yourself? " said Steven. 
 
 " Yeah. There's a kind of a set-off, you know, under 
 your chin where it joins the rest of you. Hard place to 
 get at." 
 
 " I should think you'd use a safety." 
 
 '' I do as a general thing. But when I'm getting over a 
 time like the other night, you know, I always have a try with 
 the regular razor to find out how steady my hand is, the first 
 thing I do. It's a kind of a gauge," said Eugene with an 
 absolutely defeating simple openness; it was the more de- 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 119 
 
 feating because though there was nothing showy or arti- 
 ficial about it, it conveyed the certainty that with his 
 habitual facility he guessed exactly at Steven's thought, 
 and with his habitual consideration was trying to make the 
 situation easier for him. 
 
 Steven, at any rate, all at once found himself capable of 
 saying without being offensive either in his own eyes, or to 
 the other: '' Oh, why don't you cut it out, Eugene? The 
 booze, you know. Why don't you cut it out? " 
 
 " I don't want to. I like it," said Eugene tranquilly. 
 
 " You could stop if you tried." 
 
 " Perhaps. But I'm not going to try. Never mind talk- 
 ing to me, Steve. I know you came here thinking vou'd 
 have to. That's a measly job; a person's always afraid he'll 
 be putting on a holier-than-thou pose, and being insupport- 
 able, whereas in reality he's only trying to get through with 
 a disagreeable duty the best he can,"^said Eugene, and smiled 
 to see the species of thankful discomfiture visible on Steven's 
 face. " You hated it, didn't you? " said Eugene; " well, now 
 you've done it, and it's over with! " 
 
 In effect, it was over with; there seemed to be nothing 
 further to say — or Steven could think of nothing further! 
 Somehow he could not preach penitence and reform to a 
 sinner who seemed to divine in advance every thought in his 
 head, and to surpass him in sympathy and good feeling. 
 He was glad enough to abandon the effort, to keep on rub- 
 bing at the tan shoes which he presently brought to a superb 
 condition of color and polish, while they talked compan- 
 ionably about indifferent things. He took down Eugene's 
 New York address on one of the high-numbered streets 
 towards the east side of the city. '' It's a tenement-house, 
 but a model one, mind you! " Eugene assured him, laugh- 
 ing. '' The buildings were put up by the Astorbilt Estate 
 especially for the housing of the poor but virtuous. We're 
 all stone, fireproof, with a courtyard for the sake of light 
 and air in the middle of us, and a flat roof where we can 
 hang the wash and also go up and sit hot nights and look at 
 the river and the shipping and the stars. I'm on the first 
 floor — not so desirable as those higher up, but one has one's 
 reasons — " he shrugged. ''A policeman from the traffic 
 
120 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 squad on Lower Broadway has the apartment across the 
 landing from me. Mrs. Macarty makes the most heavenly 
 doughnuts. Come and see me some time when you're in 
 town." Steve promised that he would, and they parted 
 good friends. 
 
 He remembered Doctor Vardaman's diary at the last, and 
 coming downstairs with the parcel under his arm, encoun- 
 tered Mary. Mrs. Burke had sent her home — '' Canned 
 me," Mary said with a laugh. " She insisted that I was all 
 tired out, "but I'm not. I never get tired." Notwithstanding 
 which disavowal she did look a little pale, a little weary, in 
 an old gray silk jersey suit of Miss Stillman's which was not 
 becoming to her colors and fitted too tight across her round 
 little bust; but a bright spot of red came up in either cheek 
 as the young man looked at her. " I came away, though. 
 I thought perhaps they'd had enough of me, and would like 
 to be to themselves for a while," she added hurriedly. 
 
 " Then maybe I'd better not go back there just now," said 
 Steven with a promptness which visibly took Mary aback 
 for no reason at all; she began to stammer some remon- 
 strance which he did not heed. He opened the door into 
 the frigid gloom of the Howe parlor, illuminated by furtive 
 gleams from the nickel-plated trimmings of the stove, and 
 deposited his bundle of books on the horsehair sofa under 
 two vigilant crayon portraits of defunct Howes. " Let's go 
 and walk somewhere," he said; " I want to talk to you." 
 
 She lingered an instant, something in her attitude betray- 
 ing a desperate indecision that yielded suddenly to a des- 
 perate decision. "All right! " she said briefly, and struck 
 into step by his side. They walked along in silence past the 
 lines of whitewashed palings, and the dooryards with their 
 ravaged flower-beds, past the bleak church, which neverthe- 
 less possessed a wooden belfry designed in lines of admirable 
 quaint stateliness by some New England Cliristopher Wren 
 a century ago, past a bit of stony common where the school- 
 children were riotously flying kites in the noon recess, and so 
 on up to a jut of headland overlooking the bay. " Let's sit 
 down here," Steven said, speaking for almost the first time 
 since they started. 
 
 " All right! " said Mary again; and down they sat forth- 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 121 
 
 with on a fallen log from behind which a squirrel or some 
 other small animal scurried off with a prodigious disturbance 
 of dried leaves, upon their approach. They sat side by side, 
 but in a prosaic enough posture, with their hands in their 
 pockets, for the wind blew cold, though there was a strong, 
 clear sunshine. 
 
 " I don't know what to say to you, Mary — about the 
 other night, you know," said Steven abruptly. " I don't 
 know whether I ought to say anything at all. It was hor- 
 rible, and I can't get rid of the idea that I'm somehow 
 responsible for him because he belongs to my family — he's 
 another Rudd." 
 
 " Oh, that's all nonsense, you don't need to feel anything 
 of the kind. You couldn't help it." 
 
 " If it had been somebody else, some other man, I wouldn't 
 mind so much. He doesn't seem to care a great deal him- 
 self. That's ironic ! " 
 
 " Why, he doesn't know about me? " asked the girl. " I 
 thought he was too drunk to notice or to remember any- 
 thing." 
 
 Steven glanced at her, startled, recoiling inwardly. There 
 was something indefinably repellent to him in her placid and 
 literal reference to the ugly facts. No girl ought to know 
 anything about such things — or, at least, he thought con- 
 fusedly, no girl ought to talk about them in this familiar 
 tone. '' I don't know how much he remembers. I didn't 
 say anything about you," he told her. 
 
 '' Of course not," said Mary, nodding her head wisely, 
 again with that appalling manner of experience. " It 
 wouldn't have been any use. And after all, he wasn't so 
 very bad." 
 
 " Mary, for Heaven's sake — ! Anybody would think 
 you'd been handling drunks all your life! " the young man 
 burst out, in actual distress. "A girl like you! It's ter- 
 rible ! You're only putting on that air to save my feelings, 
 I suppose, but — " 
 
 ''Why, no, I'm not, Steven! I'm not putting on any- 
 thing! " she protested, in obviously genuine surprise, which, 
 the next instant, gave place to some impossible mixture of 
 resentment and resignation. " It's you who are trying to 
 
122 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 smooth things over on my account — and Mother's," she 
 said quickly in a sharpened voice. " You needn't, Steve. I 
 know you mean well, pretending to be so shocked, but you 
 oughtn't to have said that about ' handling drunks.' That 
 gives you away; you're overdoing it. Men oughtn't to try 
 that sort of thing; they aren't good at pretending. You 
 ought to take some lessons of Mother — or of me. Only 
 here lately I'm beginning to get tired of the pretending busi- 
 ness, myself. It looks to me as if being honest were better 
 in the long run. A person feels more comfortable." And 
 here the complete blankness of Steven's face arrested her; 
 gradually blankness overspread her own. '' Why, Steve, 
 why — you didn't know? You weren't pretending at all? 
 You really didn't knowf " she cried out, incomprehensibly. 
 
 '' I don't know anything, I think. I don't seem to have an 
 atom of sense. I didn't mean to pain you, but I've done it 
 somehow, I can see that," said the young fellow. 
 
 Mary slowly withdrew her gaze, fastening it on the hori- 
 zon. '' I thought everybody knew," she said. " I thought 
 you were just clumsily trying to be nice to me. Because of 
 my father, of course. I thought you were pretending you 
 didn't know about him; it seemed to be one of those kind- 
 nesses that are really unkind. Are you sure that you never 
 heard about my father, Steve? " 
 
 Steven shook his head, staring at her. 
 
 *' I thought everybody knew," Mary said again. She bent 
 down and gathered a handful of pebbles and began to fling 
 them, one by one, at a tablet-like slab of rock about thirty 
 feet off across the road, with an expert eye and motion. " He 
 used to drink," said Mary, deliberately aiming and taking 
 a shot. " Drank up all Mother's money, and all his own 
 prospects and everything. Drank himself into his grave at 
 last, which was a good thing — the only good thing he ever 
 did. Don't be horrified, Steve. It's the truth. I'm tired of 
 pretending." 
 
 She went on tossing pebbles, and telling Steven the simple, 
 wretched tale. She had begun to know about the late 
 Ballard's failing when she was ten or eleven years old; her 
 mother had tried to keep it from her, but the little girl waked 
 up at night when her father came home. " I used to go down 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 123 
 
 and help Mother get him upstairs and put him to bed. After- 
 wards he would be sick, of course," said Mary, without 
 visible feeling. '' Mother had to have somebody help her. 
 The servants never stayed after they found out. Mother 
 and I had to stay; we had to take care of him. And Mother 
 still loved him, in a way, I suppose; I didn't. But I never 
 said anything about him; she had me too well trained for 
 that. It got to be pretty bad, after a while, because there 
 wasn't any money. We were put out of places — oh, I don't 
 mean they got the police and had all our things stacked on 
 the sidewalk, like slum-people, you know. But we had to 
 get out just the same. Then Uncle John or somebody in 
 Mother's family — they've all got lots of money, luckily — 
 would come to the rescue and pay the bills and start us fresh 
 once more. Father would go straight for a little, and 
 then — " Mary delivered the final pebble, hitting her target 
 squarely in the middle — " then: same thing all over again!" 
 
 When the girl was about fourteen, Mrs. Ballard, by writ- 
 ing begging letters to Mr. Stillman, to the Van Huysen con- 
 nection, to other Ballards, even to old friends of her 
 husband's at the Bar, who had been obliged to drop him 
 because of his habits, by staving off tradespeople's bills, by 
 selling treasured heirlooms, by every kind of unhappy expe- 
 dient for scraping money together, had contrived to send 
 her off^ to school. It was the same story; Mary travelled 
 from pillar to post, as their miserable exchequer emptied and 
 was replenished. She had not been taught anything at all, 
 let alone anything useful, at these institutions of learning. 
 '' They were just fashionable schools, you know," she said 
 contemptuously. " Mother thought she was doing the only 
 thing possible for a girl of my family and position. Family 
 and position! Then Father died. That was five years ago, 
 and ever since we've been keeping up that same old stunt of 
 family and position. We're nothing but a pair of ladylike 
 crooks, the two of us, going around and living off of our 
 relatives, or off of anybody for that matter, and licking 
 people's boots, and putting up a front, and — and trying to 
 get me married off to some man with money — " 
 
 " Mary! " cried the young man in command and entreaty 
 at once. Everything she had said confirmed certain of his 
 
124 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 suspicions; but he shrank from any more revelations. Some- 
 how the}' liad the effect, not of debasing Mary, but of turn- 
 ing an unbecoming light on their whole world with its incred- 
 ibly cheap and incredibly costly labors, diversions, aims, 
 standards. And, Good God, he tliought, that nice women, 
 that decent men should be willing to bargain their pride and 
 honesty and the inestimable treasure of time, the irrevocable 
 years, for these things which he had had all his life — 
 money, ease, social prominence! But how if he had not had 
 them? Might not he, Steven Rudd, have done a little of the 
 same ignoble trading? He knew his mother would, Hester 
 would, without a qualm. " Don't talk this way ! Don't run 
 yourself down this way! You — you've got some exagger- 
 ated notions — " 
 
 " I should think I've told you enough to show that I've 
 got a truer notion about some things than you have, Steve ! " 
 she interrupted. " I ought to have, goodness knows! I sup- 
 pose at college and maybe other places you've sometimes 
 helped to put a drunken man to bed — swearing and calling 
 you names, or maudlin and slobbering, or just stupid like a 
 log — I suppose you've done that sometimes. Well, my 
 mother did it at least once a week for years — and dressed 
 herself and went out to teas and things the next day and 
 made believe nothing was the matter. And so have I. I've 
 done that, too, over and over again. Did you ever run 
 up a big bill at the tailor's, all the while not knowing where 
 your next cent was to come from? Did you ever have him 
 tell you he couldn't give you any more credit? Did you 
 ever have to take people's old worn-out satin slippers and 
 pretend to be delighted? Have you ever laughed at insults 
 and made believe you thought they were jokes? Did you 
 ever sell a lot of nasty stories to the editor of a rotten little 
 society paper about people that had had you in their houses 
 and been kind to you, just because you had to have money? 
 Well, I have. I tell you, Steve Rudd, I know more about 
 living in a minute than you do in a year, if you are a man! " 
 
 A silence ensued upon this fierce outburst, Steve sitting 
 and gazing at the girl, scarcely able to believe his own ears. 
 Mary was twenty-two, but looked younger with her big, 
 innocently trustful brown eyes, and round face and dimples, 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 125 
 
 and bright curling hair which had never grown very long; in 
 a short dress and pinafore she might have passed for a child. 
 Mrs. Ballard was the very figure of the grande dame, ele- 
 gant, reposeful, witty. To behold them, even to know them 
 intimately, nobody would imagine that either one had ever 
 had a care in her life. That they could have endured, be still 
 enduring these sordidly tragic experiences moved him to 
 groundless denunciations of the whole social fabric — ground- 
 less, Steve realized in a succeeding wave of common-sense; 
 for there was no compulsion upon the Ballard women to live 
 thus. If they would cling desperately to the skirts of Society 
 they must expect and submit to be occasionally trailed in 
 the mud. 
 
 Mary spoke again, unconsciously retorting upon him. 
 " I've made up my mind to end the whole disgusting sham. 
 I'm going to work, if it's nothing but scrubbing floors," she 
 said. 
 
 The moment and her mood were not markedly propitious, 
 but Steven nevertheless spoke out. " Look here, Mary," he 
 said. " I've — I've hated to have you tell me all this. I knew 
 before that you and your mother were — were in a — a 
 pretty hard position — " 
 
 " Why, of course! Everybody knew it. I daresay Mother 
 and I have furnished a lot of fun in our time," said Mary. 
 " Oh, I don't think you'd laugh at us behind our backs, 
 Steve. But it wouldn't have been any harm if you had. 
 We've earned it." 
 
 He put her words aside with a gesture almost angry. " Oh, 
 stop! You've brooded over the whole business until you've 
 got yourself all worked up, and now you're making yourself 
 out to be dreadful and to have done all sorts of dreadful 
 things, when in reality you've only acted as nine women out 
 of ten would have acted in the same circumstances. I hate 
 to hear you talk that way. And anyhow I didn't get you to 
 come here with me to-day to — to talk like this," said 
 Steven, beginning all at once to his own private astonishment 
 and vexation, to be rather red and flustered and incoherent. 
 "I — I wanted to tell you — I want to ask you — " 
 
 She got to her feet with a movement of panic. " Don't 
 say it, Steven, don't ! I don't want you to ! Please, Steven!" 
 
126 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " But I must. I — why, Mary, I — I love you — " 
 
 " No, you don't! " said the girl, maintaining her com- 
 posure by a strong effort. " You're just sorry for me. Wait 
 a minute ! Listen to me ! I — I hoped I wouldn't have to 
 tell you — yes, I did hope you wouldn't do anything like 
 this, because then I'd have to tell you — and I didn't want 
 to. But it can't be helped now. Steve, it was all a — a 
 frame-up," said poor Mary, her earnestness investing the 
 grotesque phrase with something like dignity. " You were 
 one of the men I was trying to catch. You're considered a 
 good match, you know. Mother and I wouldn't have to 
 worry any more if I could get you. Steve, it's horrid, but 
 it's the truth. Mother — well, she didn't exactly tell me how 
 to act. We never talked about it right out plain to each 
 other, but — I can't explain to you — any woman would un- 
 derstand — somehow I got an idea just what sort of things 
 you'd — you'd fall for. And you can't blame Mother, Steve, 
 she didn't want to see me make a mess of my life the way 
 she had of her own; she only wanted to see me all settled and 
 right and out of danger. And besides it wasn't all her doing ; 
 I — I tried myself. I — I thought of things that — that 
 would work on you. But, Steve, I hated it all along. I hated 
 to trap you. Steve, you believe me, don't you? " She was 
 not crying, but there was anguish in her voice, in her face. 
 
 " Well, but, Mary, you do like me a little — ? " began the 
 bewildered young man. 
 
 " That's just the reason — that's just it! It wouldn't be 
 right for me to — to marry you even if I — I loved you," 
 said Mary, with force. The subtleties of this argument 
 were beyond Steve; he stood helpless while she went on: 
 " Because you're only asking me out of pity. I played that 
 part of the mean game too well. I can't go on with it now; 
 all at once I found out I just couldn't go on with it. I'm 
 done! " said Mary, gesticulating violently. " I was begin- 
 ning to see things differently, anyhow; and ever since we've 
 been here with those nice people, those Burkes — ! They 
 don't care a thing in the world about everything we've al- 
 ways thought so important; and they aren't queer, or funny, 
 either. Mother and I can be just like that, if we choose. So 
 you see how it is, Steve. I can't marry you." 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 127 
 
 Steven did not at all see how it was; he grasped at the 
 only clue in sight. " Is it Jack Burke? Is it because of 
 him?" he asked; and caught himself quickly, ashamed. 
 " No, no, I had no business to ask you that. Forgive me ! " 
 
 Mary, however, first looked amazed, and then actually 
 smiled. '^ Jack Burke? Goodness, no! There isn't any- 
 body. I like you better than any man I know." 
 
 And with, that he had to be content. Perhaps the young 
 man had not looked very deeply into his own heart before 
 making his proposal; perhaps indeed he unconsciously 
 avoided looking. But the fact is, that as he climbed into his 
 car and drove off in grim solitude, Steven was beginning to 
 be much more in love than when he embarked on this busi- 
 ness! 
 
 Miss Ballard, meanwhile, went back to the boarding- 
 house, to her mother sitting haggard and watchful, in their 
 dreary room. She looked up as Mary came in, disciplining 
 her face to that gracious interest which was the strongest 
 feeling she ever allowed it to display in public ; as a matter 
 of principle she seldom relaxed even in private, and it may 
 have been somewhat easier than ordinary to preserve on this 
 occasion, for Mrs. Ballard was not without some by no 
 .neans unpleasant expectations. '^ Well? " she said lightly. 
 
 " 1 was out wdth Steve Rudd," said Mary, taking off her 
 coat. 
 
 " Yes? " 
 
 '' He asked me to marry him, and I told him no." 
 
 " Mary ! You — you — ? " 
 
 " 1 said I wouldn't. I refused him," said Mary. Illogical 
 remorse smote her at sight of her mother's features wrecked 
 with disappointment, for once open, for once uncontrolled. 
 She ran to her and put her arms around her, half crying her- 
 self. " Never mind. Mother, never mind. I'll find some- 
 thing to do; I'll take care of both of us. That will be ever 
 so much better than the other w^ay. I just couldn't take 
 advantage of him that way; Steve's too nice. Never mind! 
 I'll get something to do, and take care of both of us." 
 
 The other poor woman settled down in the chair with a 
 sob of defeat and despair. '' Oh, I'm so tired of this life — 
 so tired, so tired! " 
 
PART II 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MISS Hester Rudd's wedding took place at Easter, 
 attended by sundry pomps and ceremonies which 
 her sister Edith's had emphatically lacked. The 
 event was " featured " with photographs and vivacious 
 morsels of description in all the most conspicuously smart 
 of the smart journals that give space to this species of news. 
 There was a picture of the bride and her maids; another of 
 the bride alone, standing in profile at the top of a flight of 
 stairs, with her eyes cast down under a magnificent lace veil, 
 and at least six feet of silver brocade train from Paquin dis- 
 posed from step to step in the foreground; another of the 
 bride and groom taken together, George, frock-coated and 
 gardenia'd, very brave and conscious and smiling; the w^ed- 
 ding-party entering the church; the wedding-party leaving 
 the church; the wedding-party at breakfast, etc., etc. 
 " Everybody " — that is, some hundred and fifty carefully 
 selected persons — was asked and " everybody " went. The 
 house was decorated with bushels of f reesias and pink tulips ; 
 it is a little difficult to find anything in the way of flow- 
 ers sufficiently rare and costly to be original at this season 
 of the year, when the florists' shops are at their best, but 
 the mound of orchids on the bride's table helped out in this 
 respect. At any rate, Hester was satisfied, a statement of 
 more significance than would appear on the surface; she had 
 not Edith's taste and capacity for management, and changed 
 her mind twenty times over every single detail, hovering 
 undecided and keeping everyone else hovering almost up 
 to the last minute. 
 
 Mrs. Rudolph Gherardi, by the way, was the matron of 
 honor; she may be seen standing at the bride's right in the 
 group picture, in a toilette of ivory-colored lace and apple- 
 
 128 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 129 
 
 green, with a satin hat of sweeping lines a la Madame Le 
 Brun, lean and spirited among the other young women, like 
 a game bird caught with some pretty barnyard flock. The 
 Gherardis came on from Washington, but it was understood 
 were not returning there; that capable Edith having dis- 
 mantled their house, and having gotten everything, furni- 
 ture, servants, automobiles, stables, dogs, in shape for a 
 change of residence, on less than a week's notice. Captain 
 Gherardi's government had recalled him to Berlin whence 
 he expected to be re-assigned either to Rome or Vienna — a 
 step up the diplomatic ladder, as the military attache did 
 not hesitate to make known. '' The U. S. isn't quite so big 
 and important as those continental posts, eh? " said Elihu 
 Rudd, eyeing the young man from under his heavily thatched 
 brows. "' They wouldn't think of sending a real first-class 
 man here. I see, I see." And he surveyed his nephew-in- 
 law with an attention which might have seemed somew^hat 
 pointed to the casual on-looker; the captain, however, was 
 rather favorably impressed by it, if anything; he caressed 
 the ends of his little, blond, pointed moustache complacently, 
 glancing at himself askant in one of the pier-glasses of Mrs. 
 Lawson Rudd's Empire drawing-room. 
 
 Steven had to give the bride away, the head of the house 
 being most inopportunely laid up with a severe attack of 
 lumbago. Lawson was very savage, not at the pain which 
 he bore with exemplary patience, and not, to be truthful, at 
 his enforced absence from the wedding which he opined 
 good-humoredly could go along according to all the forms, 
 without him, but because of the delay in the conduct of an 
 occult matter known to all the firm as the '' Shepherd- 
 GafTney deal." He could not let it rest, though he could not 
 rest himself ; he had Mr. Galway up from the office ; he had 
 Jim Dickerson, that dependable old business war-horse; he 
 sent for the head stenographer, and sat propped up on the 
 bedroom lounge, smoking a strong cigar, his face twitching 
 off and on with pain, dictating resolutely. Any time you 
 passed the door, you might hear the heavy, deliberate 
 words, which he was scarcely ever known to alter. " Oh my, 
 no, it's not a bit tiresome! " Miss Parker assured Mrs. Law- 
 son in response to her polite sympathies. " I like to take 
 
130 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 the boss's letters. It's so easy; he always goes right straight 
 along. My, if you could hear some of 'em, going urr-urr, and 
 stopping and starting like an automobile engine when it won't 
 crank right, and ' Just-read-that-over-please ' about forty 
 times, till you'd think they'd know it by heart! Oh my, no, 
 honestly if anybody was to ask me, I'd say this was a snap." 
 
 Mrs. Rudd was much entertained and afterwards enter- 
 tained her friends equally with the story. " I'm sure Law- 
 son's manner would frighten me to death if I were trying to 
 do anything of the sort for him. He seems to me to be 
 simply growling one steady growl about shipments of magne- 
 sia and oxygen, things like that, in tanks or carboys, or 
 whatever they are packed in. He scarcely ever says ' Please ' 
 or ' Thank you,' except in the most perfunctory way — just 
 treats her like another man, or rather, like a machine. And 
 she says he's ' lovely '! Eh? Oh, mercy, no! A very nice 
 girl, of course, but at least thirty-five and not at all attrac- 
 tive. If I had ever worried over that part of it — about 
 Steve or his father — one look at Miss Parker would have 
 set my mind at rest," the lady would finish with laughter. 
 
 Indeed, neither of the Rudd men, father or son, was likely 
 to give any woman anxiety on the grounds Mrs. Rudd indi- 
 cated. With Lawson, it was not so much a matter of resist- 
 ing temptation as of never feeling it. His interests in life, 
 arranged on a sliding-scale, were: the Rudd Chemical Com- 
 pany; his wife and family; " Journey's End." The schedule 
 crowded out all other matters. And as for Steven, setting 
 aside temperament, he was absorbed in carving out, or in 
 a more accurately descriptive figure, in chipping out, some 
 sort of nook for himself in the business world, and the oper- 
 ation safeguarded him. The young fellow was in deadly 
 earnest about it. " I don't want to be just your son — Law- 
 son Rudd's son. That's too easy — being fitted into a nice 
 velvet case like a piece of jewellery. I want to be Steven 
 Rudd! " he declared to his father, reddening, a little ashamed 
 of his own vehemence, bracing himself to meet the other's 
 amusement. But Lawson did not smile. He merely 
 answered, a trifle absently: " Yes, of course. That's right. 
 1 see Mississippi Central and Gulf Coast has gone up two 
 points since the merger," and went on reading the mormng- 
 paper over his breakfast. 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 131 
 
 It was at such moments that Steven felt, along with his 
 admiration and respect for his father and along with a sense 
 of youthful inferiority, a certain contradictory dissatisfac- 
 tion. Every man of so strong a character and such large 
 achievements must have a vision, must have started out 
 with a vision, at any rate — a vision of great things to be 
 done, whether conquering a kingdom, or supplying the world 
 with sulphuric acid ; that was Steven's thesis. Without that 
 powerful imaginative or intellectual or perhaps spiritual 
 endowment, no man could succeed, the younger Rudd was 
 devoutly sure. But it was impossible to invest his father 
 with any such attributes; though he had unquestionably 
 succeeded as a very young man and was still succeeding be- 
 fore Steven's very eyes, there was no expanding him to 
 heroic proportions; he continued to be an active, hardy, 
 experienced, middle-aged gentleman, possessing, to be sure, 
 noticeable powers of concentration and ability to get through 
 an immense amount of work, but no vision, as Steven inter- 
 preted that term. Sitting at his desk in his office, dictating 
 letters, receiving people and sending them away, arguing 
 with brother business-men, making speeches and reading 
 papers before this or that board, committee and convention, 
 or at home in the midst of grinding suffering tenaciously 
 conducting the Shephe.'d-Gaffney deal to a brilliant conclu- 
 sion, he might be a big man in big business, but his bigness 
 still eluded the son. He could see that his senior thought 
 and spoke lucidly and to the point ; that about any course of 
 action he never seemed to hesitate or to be at a loss or to 
 make a false step; that his memory was extraordinarily 
 nimble and ready; that he understood other men and was 
 liked by them; that he was shrewd, resourceful, courageous. 
 But what had all these qualities to do with the indefinably 
 uplifting thing, the indispensable thing that Steven meant by 
 " vision"? He knew his uncle Elihu shared most of them, 
 but he did not believe Uncle Elihu to be the equal of his 
 father by any means. Sometimes he wondered if, after all, 
 this difference between the two men might not be a proof of 
 the existence in Lawson of the intangible gift. 
 
 Steven had solid doubts about possessing it himself. For 
 one thing, he discovered that he could not fasten his wits 
 
132 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 down to the daily, hourly tussle with facts and figures and 
 the matters on hand, with the ease which his father dis- 
 played; it looked like ease to Steven. Mr. Rudd would 
 arrive at the office about nine o'clock in the morning; he 
 would read his mail ; and for three hours thereafter he would 
 pursue whatever business questions came up with an un- 
 flagging attention, and absolute command and application 
 of every faculty. Steven, at his desk, with the moderate 
 amount of work allotted to him, constantly wrestled with 
 the difficulty of keeping his mind upon it! He was con- 
 vinced that this was not chargeable to lack of interest; 
 even if the work seemed to be routine stuff, mere drudgery, 
 he knew that he must master it, if he would learn the busi- 
 ness; and to learn the business was Steven's aim, because it 
 was a necessary preliminary to running the business, to 
 being Steven Rudd, in short, not Lawson Rudd's son, that 
 contemptibly negligible person. The young man was not 
 dull and not lazy ; he had the sense and the humor to per- 
 ceive that only in exceptional cases does anyone arrive at 
 accomplishing'big things without first having grappled with 
 and overcome an infinite number of little things. His ambi- 
 tion was on the whole more reasonable and more creditable 
 than the ambitions of a good many other youths in his circle 
 with whom he once in a while exchanged views. Like him- 
 self, they were getting their business training in their fathers' 
 offices or counting-rooms, but unlike Steve, they one and all 
 had much wider, deeper, loftier, more far-sighted ideas about 
 the conduct of their divers concerns than the older members 
 of the firms, oh, much! 
 
 '' Dad and Mr. Burch know all about business the way 
 it was handled when they started out," one would tell the 
 others in confidence. " They built up a mighty good busi- 
 ness, too, but it's not going to stay good, unless they cut out 
 some of the dead wood — abandon some of their cherished 
 old time-honored, moss-back methods, you know. That's 
 what I keep hinting to them all the time. If they'd let me 
 strike out once, I'd show them! As it is, the only thing that 
 keeps us from falling behind is my persuading them once in 
 a coon's age to try something new. Then they forget, and 
 think they've been doing it right along! " Or^ " The matter 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 133 
 
 with old people like my father is they're too conservative. 
 You can't run any business such as ours successfully, unless 
 you keep it up to date — for that matter being up to date 
 won't always bring home the bacon. You've got to be ahead 
 of date. They can't see that. They're always advising 
 going slow, cautious, making sure of one step before you 
 take another, as my father says. I tell him, ' That's all 
 right, but there are times w^hen you'd do better to shut 
 your eyes and jump for it. You talk about never leaving 
 anything to chance, and of course that's good doctrine as a 
 general thing, but you've got to take a chance sometimes. 
 You take chances every time you walk along the street, but 
 if you don't w^alk along, you don't ever get anywhere.' 
 Makes me tired! " 
 
 Steven used to listen to them, setting down the contrast 
 betW'een their vigorously asserted points of view and his 
 own, not to a difference in young men, but to the difference 
 in fathers. " No, I don't do any suggesting. I don't know 
 enough yet; and, anyhow, wx've all got a realizing sense of 
 who's boss in our office," he would say with a laugh. But 
 perhaps he secretly envied a little the others' cocksureness 
 and initiative. For, as time went on, most of these young 
 fellows, one by one, succeeded to the management, partial or 
 entire, of their several concerns; and lo, they ^Hook hold" 
 in the vernacular of the street; they poured new wine into 
 the old bottles even as they had promised; they did well and 
 justified their faith in themselves. Steven could not figure 
 himself equalling their performances, mainly because the 
 Rudd Chemical Company appeared to him to be outside of 
 all classifications. It had the air of an erection already as 
 complete and enduring as the pj-ramids, and as impossible 
 for him either to improve upon or subvert. " I couldn't 
 wreck it if I tried, and it seems to grow automatically ! " he 
 thought. 
 
 However, when summer came round again and he was 
 again left in nominal charge, Steven found out, to his own 
 surprise, that the position was, as he said freely, '' a lot less 
 nominal " than it had been the first time. He talked gravely 
 to Mr. Galway about the change in himself, feeling as many 
 another young man has before and since that it was much 
 
134 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 easier to be confidential with an outsider than with his 
 father. " I thought I knew it all last year. Now I know 
 enough to know that I don't know it all. I've learned that 
 much anyhow. Look how I handled, or manhandled rather, 
 that Cuban fellow that wanted us to make up two invoices. 
 I wouldn't do that now. And do you remember Mr. Walcott 
 taking luncheon with us one day at the club, and telling a 
 story about old Daniel Garrard being involved in some 
 transaction that wasn't exactly creditable although within 
 the law — " 
 
 " You bet it was! Imagine Oom Dan'l getting in bad with 
 the law! Not he! " said Galway, grinning. 
 
 " Well, but do you remember Walcott's story was that 
 somebody asked Mr. Garrard if he thought he had been 
 strictly honest? And he said: ' Mr. So-and-So, I consider 
 that I was as honest as the circumstances would permit ! ' " 
 
 Galway laughed again. " Sure ! Doesn't that sound like 
 him, though? " 
 
 " Well, Mr. Galway, do you know that when I heard that 
 story, I was secretly horrified? " Steven told him soberly. 
 
 " Horrified, eh? " 
 
 " Yes. I couldn't see how anybody could laugh. I thought 
 old Garrard was a tricky old man that we all ought to turn 
 our backs on! " 
 
 '' Oh, Mr. Garrard's all right, in the main. It's only that 
 he's a — a little near, you know," said Galway, rather 
 hastily. '' In business, of course, you come across all kinds 
 of men. You have — er — you have to make allowances. 
 We all know Oom Dan'l; you can't help laughing at that 
 kind of meanness." 
 
 '^ Yes, I know that now. But at the time I was too green. 
 I didn't see anything laughable about it. Quite horrified! " 
 said Steve, who was ready now to laugh not only at Mr. Gar- 
 rard, but at himself into the bargain. Galway looked after 
 him with a singularly dubious countenance, however. They 
 were all getting along harmoniously in the office, and cer- 
 tainly young Rudd had improved a good deal this last 
 year, certainly he was no fool — but he'd never be the man 
 his father was, Mr. Galway remarked to himself. 
 
 All this time, at the Stillman-Rudd wedding and else- 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 135 
 
 where, where were the Ballards? Scarcely anybody asked, 
 and nobody seemed to know. The indifference of Society to 
 the disappearance of two people who had been so popular 
 struck Steven as almost tragic. " What is the matter with 
 all of us? " he questioned himself. " We aren't heartless. 
 We care for one another and we do a lot of kind, charitable 
 things. I've seen cheque after cheque in Mother's book filled 
 out to the Home for the Friendless and the Working Girls' 
 Club and all those organizations. I know she's got besides a 
 whole regiment of superannuated servants like Hester's old 
 nurse and Annie Flanagan, that laundress we had for so 
 many years, pensioned off so that they can live in tolerable 
 comfort. All her friends that have the same means are 
 probably doing the same thing. Yet here two women we 
 know, in our own class, drop out all at once, and we don't 
 pay any more attention to it than if they had never been! 
 They might be dead, they might be starving in a garret — 
 nobody cares enough to find out. If they had money, and 
 chose to go away for a while, people wouldn't forget them. 
 Yet I don't believe we're all indecently fond of money. What 
 is the matter with us? " It was the dreary mystery of life 
 as lived by out-of-pocket gentility that he was trying to 
 fathom. The Friendless, for a paradox, have in reality 
 plenty of friends ; the Working Girls get all the sympathetic 
 notice expressed in cheques and otherwise that is good for 
 them. But who is doing anything, or who can do anything 
 for the Reverend Mr. Goodshepherd, rector of All Angels, 
 whose salary is twelve hundred a year on which he has to 
 support a wife and five children, and meanwhile keep up the 
 dignity of an Episcopal clergyman? There is little Miss 
 Seaworthy, Rear-Admiral Seaworthy's daughter, whom he 
 left without a penny, after carefully bringing her up so that 
 she wouldn't know how to do anything; there is my friend 
 Doctor Booklore, one time Professor of Dead Languages, 
 who, upon reaching the age limit, retires with next to noth- 
 ing saved up, dead languages not being a highly remuner- 
 ative calling; though I know that they are pinched to the 
 final degree^ the most I can do for them without insult is to 
 invite them to dinner and see that they get one square meal 
 at least. With all the good-will in the world, my other 
 
136 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 friend, Mrs. Lawson Rudd, cannot send these people 
 cheques; she can help her ancient laundresses and nurse- 
 maids, but she cannot help ladies and gentlemen. Not being 
 able to help them, perhaps the next best thing one can do is 
 to forget them; upon some such theory, at any rate, Society 
 seemed to proceed, in the eyes of young Steve Rudd. He 
 asked Miss Stillman and George, both of whom replied 
 rather vaguely: " Oh, Mary and Aunt Ellen? Why, they're 
 in New York. No, it isn't New York either, it's one of those 
 little suburbs." And both promised to get him the address, 
 and both forgot. Steven advised himself in a melancholy 
 mood that " she " probably would not care to hear from him, 
 anyhow; he could not quite make out her unwillingness to 
 marry him while avowing openly that she liked him better 
 than any man she knew, and all that fantastic stuff about 
 having laid a trap for him; but she had at least made it 
 plain that she wanted to be let alone, and to go her own 
 ways for a while. 
 
 He took a vacation in the Northwest that year, his inter- 
 est having been aroused by some See-America-First doc- 
 trine preached by his sister Edith, of all people in the world! 
 She and her husband had been visiting with tremendous 
 state and ceremony at a grand-ducal hunting-lodge in the 
 Carpathians, and Edith wrote in a lively strain, contrasting 
 the experience not at all favorably with that of her wedding 
 journey the previous year. For the week they had taken a 
 maid, a valet and half a dozen trunks; five toilettes a day 
 were the minimum ; the eating and drinking — Edith her- 
 self was by nature of a Spartan abstemiousness — fairly 
 wore out one's appetite; one of the guests was a celebrated 
 operatic lady towards whom everybody had to practise an 
 extreme courtesy, though she was more than suspected of 
 being au mieux with the Royal Highness himself. For that 
 matter there were all kinds of silly and scandalous intrigues 
 going on all around; she had no doubt they sneered at her 
 behind her back and called her stiff and prudish. They 
 sneered a good deal covertly or openly at Americans anyhow. 
 The scenery was magnificent, the air like wine, the sport 
 would be the finest imaginable — " wild boar, Stevie, splen- 
 didly fierce and dangerous. If they'd let you go after them 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 137 
 
 and stalk them decently and give the poor brutes a fighting 
 chance, you'd have enough thrills to put Stewart Edward 
 White off the map. As it is, the hunts are all set like a movie 
 scenario; the Highness can't be allowed to risk his precious 
 life, so to keep him in countenance, none of us can risk ours. 
 The women aren't supposed to have guns anyhow; we get 
 ourselves up in gorgeous furs and the most stunning English 
 tweed tailored creations we possess and motor out and meet 
 the men in a beautiful, romantic glen or on a terrace in front 
 of some old schloss, and the servants bring champagne and 
 pate de foie gras, and everybody flirts. I thought all the 
 men must be perfectly punk shots, till I found out that no- 
 bodv dares to bring in anywhere near as big a bag as the 
 Highness. If you did, you'd ruin your court career! " She 
 advised him with a kind of jocular seriousness to do his 
 hunting and everything else at home, in his own country, if 
 he wanted real sport in company with real men and women ; 
 nothing over there was any better than what America had to 
 offer, if as good; she didn't care how spread-eagle-ish that 
 sounded ! Steven thought it did not sound so spread-eagle- 
 ish as it sounded homesick and disillusioned. Something in 
 the tone of the whole letter obscurely disquieted him. He 
 spoke of it to his father. 
 
 " I don't know whether Edith's going to like it over 
 there any too well. Of course she's been around and seen a 
 good deal ; she's perfectly sophisticated and able to look out 
 for herself. But I don't believe Edie ever really gave a 
 whoop for the society stunt; she plays it well because she 
 does everything well. But I don't see how she's going to 
 stand the sort of life she describes here," he said. 
 
 Lawson vindicated his son's judgment by reading the let- 
 ter with a disturbed brow. " It doesn't give a very agreeable 
 picture — to an American," he said thoughtfully. ''We 
 have plenty of foolishness among our own people, but not 
 that particular kind of foolishness. Edith will get used to it 
 in time, I daresay. As you say, she'll hold up her end, any- 
 how. I always supposed most women liked it." 
 
 " Edith's different," said Steven. However, the next letter 
 from her showed the young couple back in town in their 
 apartment, which was as spacious, elegant and choicely 
 
138 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 located as was suitable to their wealth and elevated posi- 
 tion; and Edith gave the impression of being very gay and 
 busy, and as popular as any American woman could expect 
 to be. 
 
 It was after he had got back home, tanned and hearty from 
 four weeks of glorious roughing it, and with a diary full of 
 impressions and experiences which he privately meant to 
 use as literary material some day, that Steven, going up to 
 dress for dinner one evening, found a bulky consignment 
 just arrived by parcels post awaiting him. It bore an inde- 
 cipherable stamp; but his name and address had been 
 stenciled on in a notably legible and workmanlike manner, 
 and it was wrapped and packed to travel around the globe ; 
 never were there seen knots at once so neat, complicated 
 and secure. Steve had to operate upon them with his pen- 
 knife; within, the first thing to be disclosed was a letter 
 addressed to him in an unfamiliar handwriting, crabbed but 
 distinct. He thought it must be from one of his new ac- 
 quaintances on the upper reaches of the Columbia River, the 
 post-trader perhaps, or John Plenty-Feathers, or the other 
 guide, the one they called '' Docky," till he opened and saw: 
 *' Thanksgiving Cove, Nov. 30, 191 — " and that it was 
 signed " Yours truly, Ebenezer Howe." Steve began to 
 read, uttering a loud exclamation in the middle of it. 
 
 " Great governor! That was mighty careless of me! " he 
 ejaculated, with a rueful glance at the bundle. 
 
 " Steven Rudd, Esq., Dear Sir: " the Captain wrote. 
 " Herewith please find enclosed eight (8) written books and 
 one (1) parcel letters, as per list, left here last year by E. 
 Rudd, Esq., on or about October 27. Same were found when 
 parlor was opened on acct. funeral of Mrs. Sabina Howe 
 Littleford, December following. Owing to circumstances of 
 dec'd, she not having lived here, but just come back from the 
 West (Erie, Penn.) where had resided thirty years, for a visit 
 and dying suddenly while here, occasioning some confusion in 
 house, books, etc. after being removed from parlor were put 
 with dec'd trunk and other things, and supposed belonged to 
 her. Mistake not rectified until remains were shipped to 
 Erie for interment, with property. Heirs finding themselves 
 unable to determine ownership of books, etc., returned same 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 139 
 
 to me. After some time identified same as having seen them 
 m E. Rudd's room, but unable to locate him. However, 
 obtained your address from gardener (R. McCrae) and am 
 forwarding them with this. Invoice correct as far as known. 
 Trusting this will be satisfactory, 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Ebenezer Howe. 
 P.S. A receipt would oblige." 
 
 ''Great General Washington!" said Steven. He looked 
 over the enclosed slip on which Cap'n Eben had scrupulously 
 noted down: " 1 book, back loose, labelled Diary J. Varda- 
 man 1857." "1 book, top c'n'rs several pps. badly nibbled, 
 pres'm'bly mouse, ditto, 1862." " 1 pkg. letters, ditto, 1863." 
 '' That was mighty careless of me," said Steve again. What 
 must the Burkes have thought? Perhaps, however, they 
 themselves had forgotten the doctor's papers, since they had 
 made no inquiries. The family had been widely scattered 
 this last year and they were all busy people. It was to be 
 hoped that nothing had been lost during the parcel's journey- 
 ings; all the Howe family might not be so punctiliously care- 
 ful as the captain. But at any rate, Steven reflected with a 
 smile, it was likely that the Burkes did not know^ much more 
 about the manuscript than he himself, and were as little 
 qualified to say what was missing, if anything. He opened 
 the topmost book, that dated 1862, fluttering over the leaves 
 amid a small simoon of powdery paper crumbs from the 
 " c'n'rs nibbled, pres'm'bly mouse," and saw his own name m 
 Doctor Vardaman's clear and strong hand, "... jrom D. 
 Rudd, the same infernal quack that makes the patent 
 medicine . . . ■" Steven read on. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 TAKING the years it covered in their order, the latter 
 part of Doctor Vardaman's diary differed strikingly 
 from the beginning of it, in not being nearly so pro- 
 lix and detailed and in being concerned, generally speaking, 
 with matters of more importance. During its first decade, 
 the doctor appeared to have enjoyed that unwelcome leisure 
 which is frequently accorded to young professional men at 
 the outset of their careers ; and to have employed a good deal 
 of it in page after page of profound dissertations on nothing 
 of any moment, in transcribing reams of verse, some quoted, 
 some original, some rendered into English from the classics, 
 in minute notes on the weather, the garden, the political sit- 
 uation, Shakespeare and the musical glasses! But as he 
 progressed towards middle life, the times became less spa- 
 cious, the entries fewer and much briefer and more compact, 
 mere marking-stones along the path of a busy and hard- 
 working man. " Out all day, home three o'clock this morn- 
 ing, dog-tired. Afraid Mrs. Jeffries won't pull through. 
 Baby all right, though," he would scrawl. In the early '50's 
 there had been an epidemic of cholera — cholera morbus, the 
 doctor called it in the old fashion — all through one summer. 
 Like the other doctors he stuck to his post ; and working day 
 and night, at last came down himself with the malady. A 
 long gap between dates dumbly bore witness to the event 
 which Vardaman had only chronicled with: '^ Sick since last 
 entry." All along there were more or less technically worded 
 memoranda of out-of-the-way cases which had come under 
 his observation, accompanied with comments, theories, 
 guesses, some of which would be wild enough, no doubt, in 
 the light of present-day knowledge. And there were many 
 notes for his lectures, remarks on medical works just out, 
 on meetings and consultations with other doctors, and on 
 discoveries noised throughout his professional world. 
 
 140 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 141 
 
 At the opening of the Civil War, he volunteered, and saw 
 about a year of service in the field; but at the time Steve 
 Rudd, by the strangest of strange chances, encountered 
 him, the doctor had been assigned to Camp Mason which as 
 Steve gathered by turning back and forth amongst the pages 
 was a sort of depot or collecting place for army-supplies 
 and the newly-drafted troops from all over the State. The 
 hospital was probably as adequately equipped as any hospi- 
 tal in those days — a dispensary, some surgical appliances 
 and instruments, a personnel made up of soldiers detailed 
 for nursing duty, a few women volunteers, people picked up 
 at hazard, here, there, and everywhere. Vardaman found no 
 fault with it. His first notes dealt with cases of measles 
 and dysentery, evils only too common among the camps. 
 " Practically no surgical work here at all, as this station is 
 too far from the front to be available for the wounded," he 
 wrote. " Well, I had enough experience last year to be 
 willing to retire and give some other man a chance. By com- 
 parison, this is a lazy job. I have a good deal of tinie to my- 
 self, and should use it to expand these notes, I think. We 
 live in a great and stirring age, but who would suspect it 
 from reading my journal? '' 
 
 " June 18. The most great and stirring event since above 
 was a scare about Mrs. Macfarlane's (laundress) three-year- 
 old baby! Youngster got hold of some strychnine that the 
 mother had got at the dispensary to kill rats with, and swal- 
 lowed a good third of it. Mrs. Macf . found him playing with 
 the empty box, and proclaiming that it was goody-goody! 
 She didn't know how long the poison had been in him, but 
 it fortunately had not had time to take effect, and I'll war- 
 rant there's none in the poor little devil now. He's as weak 
 as a dishrag. Must warn dispensary-clerk about letting any- 
 body and everybody have poisons. There ought to be a 
 law " 
 
 "June 20. Two men down with malarial fever (?) in 
 Ward 4. Attendant's diagnosis, not mine. ' Old-time 
 bone-ache, Doc. Both of 'em chillin' off and on, and mighty 
 uncomf 'ble in their heads 'n' backs. Give 'em a hot mustard 
 bath, / would.' He's a good fellow, Enos Moffat by name, 
 and a very eflBcient nurse. Was a tinner in civilian life, I 
 
142 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 believe! Macfarlane child all right; must have the consti- 
 tution of an ox. Can't understand how it escaped in the 
 first place, the poison acts with such appalling rapidity. 
 There's a case on record of half a grain causing death in 
 14 minutes. He had had much more than that; it's so bit- 
 ter one would think he wouldn't have relished it after the 
 first taste." 
 
 "21. Malarial patients not improving; neither of them 
 seems to react to the quinine. A new case to-day. Saw 
 about having latrines cleaned ; lime and copperas. If I could 
 get hold of some bichromate of potash I'd make some tests 
 of that strychnine." 
 
 "25. It's typhoid meningitis. 7 new cases yesterday and 
 to-day." 
 
 " July 2. No use blinking the truth. We've got an epi- 
 demic on our hands. ..." 
 
 " July 8. Captain Harter's little boy died this a.m. The 
 other child will recover, I think. Mind probably affected." 
 
 The doctor's notes dwindled from this point to a mere 
 scratch at intervals. It could be gathered that he had got 
 another doctor, isolated the patients, used every precaution, 
 tried every treatment known to the times. The blanks in 
 the diary were eloquent of courage, endeavor, self-sacrifice, 
 and alas, of gruesomely frequent failure. " Poor Moffat's 
 gone. In his delirium he tried repeatedly to get up, talking 
 about this or that sick man that he must attend to. But 
 he always knew me, and I think the last coherent words he 
 ever uttered were: * God Almighty, Doc, they're dyin' on us 
 like flies!' 
 
 " If it would only spare the children! Adults don't have 
 the convulsions. ..." 
 
 " Aug. (Don't know what date) . All night with one of 
 the teamsters. He died at dawn. I must find out this man's 
 name." 
 
 The ghastly record went on for many pages, disjointedly, 
 with entries interspersed which sometimes bore no apparent 
 relation to the rest. " Bought quinine myself of Barton. 
 Told him about the other. He wouldn't say much, of course, 
 except that nobody knew what they were buying these days, 
 and that mistakes would be made, and one couldn't place the 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 143 
 
 blame always, etc. But wound up very emphatically by say- 
 ing that he made sure of his drugs " , . , , , 
 '^ Wrote to Nat Burke. Somethmg ought to be done. 
 '' Burke not encouraging. The damned murderers." 
 It was autumn before the disease spent itself. And now 
 at last Vardaman found time, not indeed to fill up those 
 breaks in his journal, but to piece out its meagre details with 
 the statement that young Steven Rudd was to read titty 
 
 ^^'^ Oct 22 I have been trying to get all my facts and dates 
 into some sort of shape for a report. Everything was all 
 higgledy-piggledy. To begin at the beginning: I realize now 
 that it was that business of the strychnine that first aroused 
 my suspicions. I had no time and no proper apparatus here 
 to make a conclusive test, the only vessel at hand, for in- 
 stance, to use in heating the pure spirits or chloroform would 
 have been an ordinary saucepan out of the kitchen. Mow- 
 ever, I got nitric acid and potassium bichromate; having 
 only the most elementary acquaintance with chemistry, am 
 unable to state positively the proportion of nux. vom. pres- 
 ent, but may fairly call it negligible. In plain words there 
 was not enough to kill a mouse. This led me to investigate 
 our store of quinine, of which I had been using large quan- 
 tities in attempts to check the fever, which was beginning 
 to gain on us frightfullv. This time, however, not wishing to 
 rely solely on my own judgment, I took a sample to a pro- 
 fessional chemist. In the meanwhile I got quinine from a 
 druggist (James D. Barton) whom I had known for years, 
 and considered a trustworthy man; it was perfectly satis- 
 factory These expenses, viz.: the analysis and the quinine, 
 I bore myself. The Government quinine was discovered to 
 be a compound of magnesia, common flour, powdered alum, 
 and a verv small percentage of the actual drug to give it a 
 slight flavor; there may have been other ingredients which 
 have slipped mv memorv, but I have the chemist's formula. 
 This was all I could do at this time (about the first week m 
 August) as we were very busy with the sickness. Later I 
 got an affidavit to the above facts from the expert I em- 
 ployed and after considerable inquiry found that the Gov- 
 ernment had made large purchases of quimne at various 
 
144 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 dates from D. Rudd, the same infernal quack that sells the 
 patent-medicine ; it seems that he has set up a wholesale drug 
 business. 
 
 '' I sent all the evidence to Burke, hoping that it would be 
 possible to bring Rudd to book. But he wrote me back in 
 that philosophical strain into which lawyers seem to glide 
 insensibly, I suppose from constant daily contact with the 
 worst and weakest side of human nature, and the necessity 
 to suspend judgment and look on all sides. He said in effect 
 that nobody would question my statements nor the proofs I 
 offered, nor the sincerity and justice of my indignation. But 
 getting a conviction in court, it seems, would be a horse of 
 another color! The Government had undoubtedly bought 
 quinine from a dozen different concerns all over the country 
 both before and since the Rudd purchase; and even if I 
 could undertake to swear {which I would!) that this was 
 Rudd's quinine which I had discovered to be bogus, and if 
 Rudd were put on the stand, he could easily swear and bring 
 proofs quite as good as mine that the quinine was genuine to 
 the best of his knowledge and belief, that he had had it 
 tested as usual, that he had never had any reason to doubt 
 the honesty of the South American agents from whom he got 
 his supply, etc., etc. As to his patent-medicine record, that's 
 neither here nor there, according to Burke. No judge and no 
 jury would take into consideration the fact that he has been 
 selling his vile, worthless cure-all for years, swindling poor, 
 ignorant sick people whose very ignorance and sickness 
 would have protected them against anybody but such a 
 merciless and conscienceless scoundrel; supposing such an 
 argument were advanced, all the opposing counsel would 
 have to do (Nat says) would be to remark with a smile that 
 Vardaman, being a doctor, shared the prejudices of his pro- 
 fession, and that however often and violently doctors dis- 
 agreed amongst themselves, they were naturally unanimous 
 in condemning any medicine or treatment that did away 
 with doctors altogether! ' In short, dear Jack,' Nat writes; 
 * though I say it with shame, in the present state of our laws, 
 nothing can be done to the fellow, richly as he deserves pun- 
 ishment. We have to let him go scot-free with his blood- 
 money. It's all of a piece with the paper-soled boots, the 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 145 
 
 shoddy overcoats, the mouldy rations which have been fur- 
 nished to our poor boys in the field, not seldom, according 
 to rumor, with the connivance of the Government officials 
 themselves. If the greedy wretches theorize about it at all, 
 they probably tell themselves that a soldier takes his life in 
 his hands anyhow, and that therefore it makes no difference 
 how much he suffers or of what he dies. Not the least de- 
 pressing feature of it is that these are instances in which 
 treason seems to be going to prosper, whatever assurances 
 we have to the contrary. Rudd and all the rest of them are 
 without doubt making money hand over fist, and laying the 
 foundations of fortunes that will last to the third and fourth 
 generations of them that hate Him and keep not His com- 
 mandments ! ' He adds that with all the pressure he could 
 exert, and pursuing the case to the Supreme Court, the ut- 
 most penalty — if any ! — inflicted on Rudd would probably 
 be a small fine — small actually, as well as relatively to the 
 immense sums he must have realized. I now have reason to 
 believe that he contrived in some underground way to get 
 several shipments through our lines into the Confederacy 
 where, owing to the blockade, they will pay for quinine or 
 chloroform at its weight in gold. Was that all this false 
 stuff, too? One would think that the mountainous profits on 
 the genuine drugs might have satisfied him ; but I daresay he 
 betrayed these helpless and suffering fellow-creatures, too, 
 without a pang. Jim Sharpless would say, in his reckless 
 fashion that it was this sort of thing that laid mankind under 
 the necessity of inventing Hell. I am not a free-thinker as 
 Jim is ; I have always believed in the existence of some Al- 
 mighty Force for good, though it were only spiritually, in 
 the souls of men ; I have always thought that Hell was a 
 mediaeval bogy ; but it would be a satisfaction to me -— I say 
 this in solemn earnest — to think that Rudd and all his kind 
 were to simmer intolerably in the fires of damnation through 
 all Eternity." 
 
 There was more of it; the doctor had probably found the 
 writing a relief from the sense of outrage and powerlessness. 
 One might have thought that he exaggerated, but for the 
 nature of the facts ; no upright and humane man on earth but 
 would have felt with and for him. Twenty years afterwards, 
 
146 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 when he was over seventy, and these things belonged to the 
 past, he had written on the margin of a page in script that 
 was still firm: ''Jan. 19, 1881. Have just been re-reading 
 these notes with the same impotent anger as the day they 
 were written. To be sure I don't feel now as if I would like 
 personally to conduct the lynching of D. Rudd and his part- 
 ners in evil ; at the time I would have been glad to go along 
 and haul on the rope ! But would that have brought back to 
 life those dead babies, those brave young men? Anyhow, 
 Rudd's gone home and ta'en his wages; there were notices 
 of his death in all the papers not long ago — quite a prom- 
 inent citizen, very wealthy and philanthropic! There were 
 liberal bequests to half a score of charities — two hospital- 
 beds endowed, for a piece of irony. What kind of a bed was 
 his own? Ferrei Eumenidum thalami! " 
 
 Steven sat over the journal for a long while; he was aware 
 that the butler had come to the door and knocked and asked 
 if he were dining at home and that he had answered that he 
 had an engagement, that he was going out, he scarcely knew 
 what. Later there had been the sound of the automobile- 
 door slamming, and of its departure, grinding on the gravel 
 under his windows; his father and mother must be going 
 somewhere together. After another while it began to be 
 chilly ; he found with a dull surprise that the fire had burned 
 down to nothing, there was only a handful of ashes in the 
 cold grate before which he was sitting, still in his shirt- 
 sleeves as when he had begun to read; and the dawn was 
 coming in through the windows. 
 
 He put the books aside, and got up and walked about aim- 
 lessly, pausing in front of familiar objects and staring at 
 them as if he had never seen them before. It was a big 
 room, appointed in a style which Mrs. Rudd imagined to be 
 appropriately masculine, severe and restrained. The young 
 man's own taste was not very definite or exacting; and the 
 only article that represented it was a dark, carved, wooden 
 chest which he had seen in Florence, and fancied and bought. 
 His mother had received it with mingled admiration and 
 concern. He remembered her pretty ejaculations: " It's 
 beautiful, Steve, I'm sure it's a superb old piece — but for 
 your bedroom! It's really much more suitable for a ball, you 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 147 
 
 know. Never mind, though. I'll make it look right, if we 
 have to build the rest of the room around it! " And that 
 was what Mrs. Lawson had proceeded to do, ruthlessly exil- 
 ing Steven to another apartment, bag and baggage, to his 
 profound amusement, and that of his father, while she con- 
 sulted architects and decorators, had drawings made, sent for 
 samples of this and that, and spent money with the unre- 
 mitting energy which she always brought to that task. 
 When Steve was at last allowed to return to his quarters, the 
 chest was fairly lost in the perfection of its setting! It had 
 become a mere incident in the gravely sumptuous chamber 
 along with the Italian walnut panelling, the floors artfully 
 blackened to simulate antiquity, the high stone mantel, the 
 wonderfully wrought iron fire-dogs and sconces, the heavy, 
 simple, incredibly costly furniture. Steve pretended to be 
 pleased, to please his mother; in reality he felt about this 
 little excursion in decoration very much as did his father, 
 who freely paid the bills. Both men were entertained, but 
 not greatly interested. 
 
 Now, however, it was with a gloomy eye that the grand- 
 son of Rudd's Specific surveyed his expensive belongings, 
 which that compound, no matter how distantly or indirectly, 
 had enabled him to own. And what other ghastly profits had 
 he to thank for not only his Florentine chest and these sur- 
 rounding follies, but for every comfort, every indulgence, 
 every advantage, in the whole of his pampered life, the 
 young man thought bitterly. He had had a hazy idea that 
 the Specific or the Pancurata had been one product of the 
 firm's activities in early days; but by the time Steven came 
 to the office, they had long ceased to manufacture it, and he 
 had never even seen one of those tall, square-sided bottles, 
 much less tasted the thick, dark, syrupy mixture of alcohol, 
 opiates, senna. Heaven knows what, which they contained. 
 Once indeed, in transient curiosity, he asked: "What was 
 that stuff my grandfather used to make that had such a 
 sale? Some kind of tooth-wash, wasn't it? " 
 
 " No, it was more on the order of a tonic." his father said; 
 and that had satisfied Steve, to whom his grandfather's times 
 were coeval with Adam's, and as devoid of interest. Yet now 
 this doctor, this honest John Vardaman, thundering his half- 
 
148 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 century-old anathemas, seemed as modern as to-day; the 
 sane counsels of this old Burke who must have been in his 
 grave before Steve Rudd was born, addressed themselves to 
 the young man's understanding as pointedly as if the ink 
 were not yet dry on them. He stood confused before the 
 discovery. Every generation sits in judgment on its prede- 
 cessors, and accords mercy on the plea that they knew no 
 better. But they did know better! If there were David 
 Rudds committing acts that by the standards of posterity 
 were monstrous, there were also decent men, Burkes and 
 Vardamans, who condemned them in their own era. And 
 how about David himself? Could anybody believe that he 
 knew no better? *' One would think that the profits on the 
 real drug might have satisfied him," Vardaman wrote, and 
 Steve recognized and shared the vain perplexity, the sense 
 of defeat with which honesty speculates about dishonesty. 
 Old Burke, who might or might not have been a brighter 
 man than either his friend the doctor or our friend young 
 Rudd, had had, at any rate, a certain illumination when he 
 said: "The greedy wretches . . . probably tell themselves 
 that a soldier takes his life in his hands anyhow and that 
 therefore it makes no difference how much he suffers or of 
 what he dies." No difference ! Steven thought of the 
 stricken camps, the children, the doctors haggardly perse- 
 vering, "poor Moffat"; he thought of those other camps, 
 south of the line, paying at its weight in gold for what was 
 not worth its weight in sawdust. He felt as if the mark of 
 Cain were on his forehead. 
 
 He made a plan to get his father alone and tell him of the 
 abhorrent discovery some time that day; and upon this got 
 to bed at last and slept fitfully, though unassailed by omi- 
 nous dreams, being too young and healthy, and on the whole 
 too well-balanced. The young fellow had, somewhere within 
 him, a reserve of common-sense; he realized that no part of 
 this ancient iniquity could be charged against himself or 
 his father, so long as neither one of them had had any hand 
 in it, or even knew of it. None the less, he was dominated 
 by the feeling that, charged or not, somebody must pay. 
 
 When he came downstairs in the morning with the Varda- 
 man book beneath his arm, ready to take to the office, he 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 149 
 
 unexpectedly found his father still at breakfast. Mrs. Law- 
 son was never visible, even to her husband and son, until well 
 on towards the middle of the day; she breakfasted in bed 
 and spent the rest of the time in scientific attentions to her 
 health and appearance, with the help of her maid, supple- 
 mented periodically, when the problems became too deep, 
 by professional experts from down-town. The sunshine 
 came brightly through the bay-window where the natty 
 white table was laid; there was a fire on this brisk wintry 
 morning, and above the handsome plain mantelpiece might 
 be seen a life-size portrait in oils of the late David Rudd, 
 gazing upon the world with a perfect air of righteousness. 
 His first wife presided over the sideboard. On another wall 
 there was a charming picture of Mrs. Lawson Rudd, dia- 
 mon_d-collared, with her fine neck and shoulders showing; 
 and one of Lawson himself, a good likeness though naturally 
 not nearly so decorative, faced it. The original of this last 
 looked up w4th a half-articulate good-morning. 
 
 Steve returned it and sat down opposite him, and the 
 servant brought him his grape-fruit; he began mechanically 
 to eat, feeling all at once the steadfast order of their lives 
 closing around him like a vise. The grip benumbed his 
 imagination; he could not figure what would happen upon 
 the bursting of his bomb-shell. 
 
 " Out last night, Steve? " his father inquired casually, 
 but with the mental comment that the boy's eyes looked like 
 two holes burned in a blanket. 
 
 " No. I was at home. I just didn't want any dinner." 
 
 " Not feeling quite right? " 
 
 " No, that wasn't it. I — I was reading." 
 
 " Reading, hey? Must have been one of those Sherlock 
 Holmes stories," said Mr. Rudd, and laughed. " I've sat 
 up pretty late over them myself, but I don't know that I 
 ever missed a meal — " 
 
 " You can read what I was reading, too. I brought it 
 down for you to see," said Steven, feeling as if he were set- 
 ting the match to his fuse. " There it is," and he shoved the 
 book towards his father with an unconsciously tragic ges- 
 ture. 
 
 Mr. Rudd noted the tone, the movement, the only half 
 
150 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 suppressed disturbance of his face, with wonderment. The 
 old covers of the diary left a trail of discoloration on the 
 table cloth. Bringing his eyes down to it, Lawson read 
 aloud: " ' J. Vardaman.' And who is J. Vardaman? Why, 
 it's written! It's in manuscript! " he ejaculated, as he fixed 
 his eyeglasses. '' What on earth is it, Steven? And where 
 on earth did it come from? " 
 
 Steven told him briefly, and Mr. Rudd nodded, turning the 
 pages. '' Here's a place with a book-mark. Is that where 
 you want me to read? " he asked, justifiably mystified. 
 
 '' I think you ought to know everything that's there. 
 You'll know what to do perhaps. I don't! " said Steven. 
 
 His father gave him another look of complete perplexity, 
 but began the task without further inquiry. Steven pushed 
 away his plate and sat back with folded arms, watching 
 him. Mr. Rudd read steadily, and after a page or two and 
 jm occasional word of explanation from Steven, showed in- 
 terest enough, though apparently he had no intention of 
 abandoning his breakfast ; Doctor Vardaman's tale had not 
 affected his appetite to that degree. Sometimes he sat with 
 the fork poised, while he read; sometimes he gave a slight 
 grunt quite impossible of interpretation; and it could be 
 seen that he went over some of the passages more than once. 
 But the whole process, which Steve had supposed must of 
 necessity be a lengthy one, took the older man only half an 
 hour. Lawson's mind moved rapidly and accurately by 
 nature, and he had acquired a fine facility at concentration. 
 At the end he sat for a full minute with the book still open 
 at the last entries, considering with a faint frown. 
 
 " Who was this Burke that the old fellow kept referring 
 to? " he asked at length. " Any relation to your friends? " 
 
 " He was Major Burke's father. You know I told you 
 about that biography of him they're trying to get up," Steve 
 managed to answer after an instant of helpless surprise. He 
 did not know how he had expected his father to act, but 
 that the elder Rudd should meet the revelations unmoved 
 except by a casual curiosity as to the identity of the Burke 
 quoted, was unthinkable. 
 
 '' I expect he was a pretty sound lawyer," said Lawson 
 reflectively, rubbing his chin, still gazing at the book. " There 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 151 
 
 were some very good men in the old days at the Bar up there 
 in the centre of the State. Ohio used to have quite a repu- 
 tation in that line." 
 
 " Vardaman must have been a pretty good doctor, too, 
 don't you think? " Steve suggested, with an effort. 
 
 '' Oh, I've no doubt. And he had a hard job, too — mighty 
 hard!" 
 
 Steven, staring at the older man's undisturbed face, ex- 
 perienced a flash of immeasurable relief. " All that he says 
 there about the quinine and — and my grandfather — I 
 suppose that's some mistake? " he said eagerly, hopefully. 
 He could almost have laughed at himself for not thinking of 
 that before. What a fool he had been! Doctor Vardaman 
 was not infallible. 
 
 But Mr. Rudd made a little negative movement of the 
 head. " No. It was all true, I'm sorry to say. That is, the 
 doctor had his facts correct in the main." There was no 
 doubting the sincerity of his regret. He shook his head 
 again as he added: " Not a pleasant or creditable business 
 to be connected with, or to think about, even at this distance 
 of time. Bygones are bygones, of course, but still — " 
 
 After a silence, Steven said: "You knew about it 
 already? " 
 
 " Oh, yes," said his father, shutting the book and pushing 
 it across the table. The look on the other's face may have 
 moved him to add quickly: ''Not at the time, of course^ 
 Steve. At the time, I was only nine or ten years old." 
 
 " How did you find out? " asked the young man. 
 
 " Why, your Uncle Elihu told me, after we were both 
 grown men. I don't believe I ever asked El how he found 
 out," said Mr. Rudd, visibly searching his memory, and giv- 
 ing up the question. ^' I've a kind of notion, though, that the 
 old gentleman told him himself, not long before he died. 
 Anyhow, your uncle told me, w^hen I came home from col- 
 lege and went into the ofifice, and I don't remember that 
 we've ever mentioned it since." 
 
 " What did he do? Uncle Elihu, I mean. What did he 
 do?" 
 
 " Do? " echoed Steve's father, staring. " Why, nothing! " 
 
 ^'Nothing? " the young man cried out harshly. " Didn't 
 you do anything, either? " 
 
152 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " No, Steven," said his father, still staring. 
 
 Steven started up, shoving the chair back with a violent 
 movement, so that it tilted over, clattering against the 
 window-sill ; he began to walk up and down the room. His 
 father eyed him attentively, with curiosity and a certain 
 concern. 
 
 " Was that what kept you up last night, Steve? " he asked 
 kindly. " Reading that old diary? " 
 
 Steven came to a halt in front of him. " This thing is 
 monstrous — it's monstrous! " he said, trying to steady his 
 voice. 
 
 " I'm not defending it, Steven," said Mr. Rudd. He had 
 no trouble with his voice ; thirty years of iron self-discipline 
 controlled it for him, almost without conscious effort. He 
 reached out, and set the chair in place again, as he was 
 speaking. 
 
 "But you haven't done anything! You've never done 
 anything ! You take it out in perfunctory regrets. You — 
 you — " Steve stammered incoherently. Suddenly he found 
 himself without words; a passion of outraged justice 
 possessed him, but, alas, it put no weapons into his hands. 
 He saw the older man almost as an enemy, sitting secure in 
 his superiority of age, his experience in dealing with men, 
 buttressed with the patience and reasonableness that some- 
 how build a stone wall in an instant. 
 
 " Don't shout! " said Lawson, raising a hand in warning. 
 ^' I can hear you without your shouting, and the servants 
 don't need to." He paused, humanely giving the young man 
 a chance to collect himself, studying him meanwhile, but 
 without offence; on the contrary there was something very 
 frank and manly and sympathetic in the look Lawson bent 
 on his son. He went on: " Let's talk this over, Steve. I 
 think I understand how you feel; at least I'm trying to. 
 You think your grandfather did a great wrong. Well, he 
 did. He did. But he wasn't the only one, nor the worst 
 one. Men thought and acted differently in those days — " 
 *' You can't tell me that, father — and you might as well 
 stop telling yourself that," said Steven. " There were honest 
 men and rascals fifty years ago just the same as now, and 
 anybody could have his choice which he'd be, the same as 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 153 
 
 now. Maybe they had different opportunities — bigger ones. 
 And maybe bigger chances beget bigger criminals. What's 
 that got to do with David Rudd? " 
 
 " Nothing at all, I admit," said Lawson. " If I try to 
 make excuses for your grandfather, and if I refrain from 
 calling him those ugly names you have just used, it is be- 
 cause — " 
 
 '' Because he got away with it, I suppose," Steve said 
 savagely. '' Because he was sharp enough to play safe. Be- 
 cause he fixed it so he wouldn't be found out, or couldn't be 
 brought to account, anyway." 
 
 " No," said the older man, still guardedly temperate. " It 
 is because he was my father, Steven." 
 
 There seemed to be no retort to this simple statement; in 
 fact, it did not pretend to be an argument, yet was far more 
 potent, calling up a host of ancient decencies and obligations. 
 Steven's father probably gauged its effect accurately; after 
 waiting a minute with obvious careful fairness for the 
 younger man to answer, and seeing — as he doubtless ex- 
 pected — that poor Steve was momentarily out of ammuni- 
 tion, he said: '' As near as I can make out, you think that as 
 soon as your Uncle Elihu and I found out about this dis- 
 creditable transaction, we ought to have done something by 
 way of expiation, or reparation. Is that it? " 
 
 " Yes, that's what I think," said Steven, trying, not very 
 successfully, to emulate his elder's impersonal calm. 
 
 " Well, what? What sort of reparation could we have 
 made, and to whom? " 
 
 " I don't know," Steven said gloomily. " It's just as 
 Doctor Vardaman said: nobody could give the dead people, 
 the children and all of them, nobody could give them back 
 their lives. But what I can't understand is how you could 
 complacently go on enjoying all that money after you knew 
 it was gotten in this vile way! You act just as if you had 
 a right to it — as if how it was made were of no conse- 
 quence. Oh, I know it isn't the very same identical dollars 
 and cents that the old man robbed and swindled and — yes, 
 murdered for — it's not that actual money, but it all came 
 from that. In the old days people would have been afraid 
 there was a curse on it. You didn't care. You kept right on 
 
154 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 with it, turning it over, making it breed more money for 
 you. How could you be satisfied, how could you go on — " 
 
 '' I don't see that getting rid of it in some fantastic fashion, 
 impoverishing myself and my family, would have been a 
 very practical measure," said Lawson. 
 
 '' Oh, you can out-talk me, of course! " said Steve, walk- 
 ing about in a desperate effort at self-command. " You've 
 done it before. You're a specialist in wire-drawn distinc- 
 tions between right and wrong — you can easily get me 
 muddled. I suppose your idea is that as long as a man 
 manages to keep out of the penitentiary, he's as moral as 
 they make 'em. Nobody needs to be any more honest than 
 the circumstances permit!" said the young fellow, fero- 
 ciously quoting old Daniel Garrard. '' Impoverish your- 
 self! Impoverish nothing! You could have started all over 
 again without a cent and inside of five years, you'd have 
 been just as well off as ever. Impoverish your family? Why, 
 don't you suppose that we'd all rather have gone without 
 than lived in luxury inherited from that old Judas? Why 
 didn't you tell us, and give us a chance — ? " 
 
 Mr. Rudd rose up in his turn, at last betraying something 
 like impatience. ''I'd ask you to be reasonable, only it 
 would be like asking you to have a sense of humor," he said, 
 bitingly. *' You're as childish as Eugene, working yourself 
 up into these hysterics over nothing — " 
 
 Steve stopped abruptly in his pacing; he looked at his 
 father hard. " This is enlightening," he said at length. " I 
 see now why Eugene broke with you. He found out, too! 
 Somehow I thought there was something more behind it — 
 something besides his drinking." 
 
 '' I am not going to discuss Eugene with you," said his 
 father with a kind of caustic deliberation. " I'm not going 
 to discuss anything with you, until you get into a frame of 
 mind more nearly resembling sanity." And hereupon the 
 head of the house of Rudd walked out of the room and 
 down the steps and into the waiting automobile which rolled 
 him away officewards with, in a manner of speaking, flags 
 flying and all the honors of war. 
 
 He could even laugh a little as he reviewed the encounter. 
 " Tainted money " was a phrase going the rounds of the press 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 155 
 
 just then, and Lawson told himself that the boy had merely 
 taken up that catchword. He was quite eloquent and enter- 
 taining on the subject at the luncheon-table at the irre- 
 proachable club where he and a handful of cronies gathered 
 every day. It was a dim, wealthy, fastidious place with 
 elderly w^aiters, a well-known cuisine, Victorian traditions of 
 exclusiveness. 
 
 '' The young people," said Lawson, over his sherry cock- 
 tail; '' are forever finding out all of a sudden tlmt everything 
 is not invariably for the best in this best of all possible 
 worlds, and without stopping to observe that human beings 
 can't be perfect — " 
 
 " Be a deuce of a tiresome place if they were! " somebody 
 grunted. 
 
 " Quite so ! But, without stopping to see that great funda- 
 mental truth, and without noticing that, as it is, w^e're a good 
 deal of an improvement over previous generations, and are 
 going on improving slowly but surely — without knowing or 
 noticing these facts, they immediately go screaming around, 
 wanting everything to be set right, and everybody to re- 
 form, according to their standards." 
 
 " Take off your coat and give it to your neighbor, hey? 
 There's something about that in the Bible, isn't there? " 
 said the other man. " And w^hat would the neighbor do 
 with his coat, logically? Looks as if there would be a grand 
 swapping around of coats! " He eyed Lawson's well-cut 
 suit appreciatively. " Would you throw in the pants, Law- 
 son? " Whereat the whole table grinned, and their talk 
 presently passed to other matters. 
 
 Steven did not turn up at the office, a fact which nowise 
 surprised his father. " The boy has some sense of humor 
 after all — and that's the next thing to common-sense," he 
 thought with a mingling of amusement, regret, tolerance. 
 When all was said, there was something fine and high about 
 the young man's fiery foolishness; if they must quarrel — 
 and occasional quarrels seemed inevitable between the aver- 
 age parents and the average children, Lawson told himself 
 philosophically — he would rather it were over this piece of 
 dead-and-gone knavery, than upon the ignoble subjects of 
 such quarrels in general: idleness, low dissipations, money 
 
156 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 or property. " He'll get over this Sir Galahad feeling di- 
 rectly. He'll realize that I myself have always acted 
 decently and been square, no matter what the poor old 
 gentleman did — which can't be undone at this date," the 
 father thought; and with a half-smile: " Fancy my telling 
 his mother! And all of us going and living in a tenement- 
 house until I got on my feet again! " 
 
 When he reached home, Mrs. Rudd was out as usual, at 
 a tea perhaps. Lawson did not see her until he came down 
 into the drawing-room dressed for dinner, a little early; 
 there was Mrs. Lawson, elegant as a Romney portrait, in a 
 trained afternoon toilette, with a great muff, and with a long, 
 eminently becoming fur scarf disengaging gracefully from 
 her shoulders, while she held converse with the butler. She 
 turned her amazingly fresh, youthful face towards him 
 with a little cry of exaggerated horror. " Mercy, Lawson, 
 are you ready already? I had no idea it was so late. I must 
 fly ! What's this sudden departure of Steve's about? Does 
 he have to go to New York on business? Why, he's getting 
 to be quite important, isn't he? " 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE Astorbilt model tenement called St. John's Build- 
 ings is situated, as nearly all the other half of the 
 world knows, on a street towards the upper end and 
 east side of Manhattan Island, within shouting distance of 
 either Avenue A or the river. It takes up most of the 
 square, and being of the latest fireproof and sanitary con- 
 struction, with w^alls of dressed stone, a great, broad-arched 
 entrance through which any number of delivery-wagons 
 may drive abreast, and an inner court whence iron stairways 
 ascend to the upper floors, it has a foreign, mediaeval look 
 not unpleasing and assuredly not often met with amongst 
 tenements. Mr. Steven Rudd, for whom that last word 
 evoked, as with most of us, a hazy picture of tumbledown 
 wooden rookeries, slatternly women, unhallowed garments 
 strung on clothesline, or festooned out of the windows, an- 
 cient garbage-cans, terrifically soiled babies — young Mr. 
 Rudd, I say, arriving one cold afternoon via the Third Ave- 
 nue Elevated and a walk across town, was infinitely sur- 
 prised and impressed by the spectacle of St. John's. To be 
 sure, there were milk-bottles and more or less dubious bed- 
 ding airing on some of the fire-escapes, and derelict papers 
 rustled about the enclosure where a push-cart man was 
 carrying on a thriving trade from window to window; but 
 these details contributed a local color without which, Steve 
 thought, the place would have been almost more of a model 
 than one cared to see — too good to be true. He had the 
 human dislike of perfection. Looking about, he found a 
 small, particular door, and a small round-topped window 
 with a grille, behind which might be divined some sort of 
 ofiice, where in more lordly institutions a janitor would have 
 been installed. Through the window he could make out a 
 desk, a high stool, a key-rack; and in answer to his ring there 
 appeared sure enough an authoritative-looking person in 
 
 157 
 
158 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 overalls, with a pipe and furthermore with that universal 
 badge and sign of the janitor's profession, a monkey-wrench. 
 
 " Good-morr-rnin' ! " said this official in a richly Hiber- 
 nian accent, adding, after an appreciable interval, manifestly 
 on that second thought which is rumored to be always best: 
 
 "Sor! " And meanwhile he promenaded his eyes, in the 
 highly descriptive Gallic idiom, over the young man from 
 head to foot. 
 
 " Does Mr. Eugene Rudd live here? " Steve asked. 
 
 '' He does! " said the other, winding up with an exhaustive 
 survey of Steve's Bond Street valise, standing on the pave- 
 ment alongside. " Sor! " he added, as before. " Up th' firrst 
 landin'; it's th' dure to yer rright." He replaced his pipe, 
 but as Steven made a motion, took it out again to remark, 
 with a manner nicely balanced between inquiry and accusa- 
 tion: " Ye know him? " 
 
 " Why, yes. Yes, of course I know him." 
 
 "Well thin, ye know him! " said the other cryptically. 
 " He's in. He's been in a matter of a coupla da-ays forbye. 
 Ye wouldn't be th' gintleman thot was phonin' two-three 
 times? " 
 
 " No. I'm a relative. I've just got here," said Steven, his 
 face clouding. For some reason — or rather for no reason! 
 — he had confidently expected to find Eugene sober, ready 
 with his tireless and boundless sympathy to listen, to be 
 interested, to agree, to advise ; and the hint conveyed in the 
 above statements was infinitely disheartening. Perhaps the 
 warden of St. John's read as much in the young man's face 
 for he said quickly, with true Irish good feeling, " He's all 
 rr-ight by now, I'm thinkin'. Sure ye'll foind him all rright. 
 Loikely as not 'twas wan of thim colds he has by times. 
 Turrible he has 'em! " 
 
 " He's lived here a good while? " said Steven. 
 
 The janitor said he had thot! Sivin years Mister R-rudd 
 was livin' there, and as fine a gintleman entirely — He was 
 still talking when Steve reached the door on the first land- 
 ing, having in his undue hurry omitted a small ceremony 
 which the other for his part probably had in mind very 
 distinctly, for it was not without disappointment that he 
 looked after the young man — a young man who, by his 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 159 
 
 appearance should have both pockets lined with money, and 
 to whom a bit of a tip would mean nothing! 
 
 Steven rang, and in a moment heard a steady enough step 
 across the floor inside; and Eugene himself opened the door. 
 " Laundry? " he called out, extending a hand with a coin in 
 the palm. " Got change for a dollar? " 
 
 His voice w\as reassuringly clear — as clear, that is to 
 say, as Eugene's voice ever was; it must have been many a 
 year since the poor scapegrace's tones or enunciation had 
 been those nature bestowed upon him at the beginning of 
 his ill-starred career. Steve, though he could see the other's 
 face only imperfectly in the half-light, felt a good deal re- 
 lieved and heartened, and said: "No, it's not the laundry. 
 Hello, Eugene!" 
 
 At the words Eugene started and peered at him and peered 
 again; he exclaimed aloud, falling back a step. " Steven! " he 
 shouted, and like the janitor, eyed Steve all over, but as one 
 unable to trust his own vision. He looked around the young 
 man, and down and up the courtyard with its serried win- 
 dows, as if expecting to find an answer there to the riddle of 
 this apparition. " Steven! What the — ? " Words left him; 
 he could only stand and stare. 
 
 *' May I come in? " said Steve. 
 
 Eugene mechanically held the door open, and as Steven 
 stepped within, mechanically closed it. In another second, 
 however, he recovered enough to ask: " For the Lord's sake, 
 Steve, what are you doing here? " 
 
 " Why, you invited me to come and see you any time I 
 was in New York, didn't you? " Steve reminded him. " Well, 
 here I am! " He set the valise down in the middle of the 
 floor. 
 
 Eugene's eyes followed the movement, then returned to 
 dwell on him a long instant. Then he said quite collectedly 
 now: "All right! But what's happened?" 
 
 Neither of them thought of shaking hands in the flurry of 
 the meeting; and it was now Steve's turn to be taken aback. 
 The quickness and accuracy of the other's intuitions some- 
 how caught him unaware. 
 
 " ' What's happened? ' " he echoed, with an attempt at 
 jocularity. " What makes you think anything's happened? 
 
160 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 Is it phenomenal for you to have a visitor in St. John's 
 Buildings? " 
 
 " A little," Eugene retorted, good-humoredly. " You see 
 I'm not under any illusions about the attractiveness of my 
 way of life, or the place where I live it. What's it all about, 
 anyhow, Steven? Here, wait a minute! Sit down, get your 
 coat off. I've got some coffee on the stove — " 
 
 He vanished abruptly into an inner room, whence there 
 issued at the moment a prodigious hissing sound of some- 
 thing boiling over, accompanied by a cloud of agreeably 
 odorous steam. Steven obeyed him, looking around mean- 
 while. Eugene's particular tenement appeared to consist of 
 three cubicles arranged side by side ; the main room in which 
 Steven was sitting, and by inference each of the others, 
 measured about eight by twelve feet, and had a single win- 
 dow at the outside end; next to it was the kitchen, as he 
 judged by Eugene's activities and by glimpses of a gas- 
 range, a sink, a laundry-tub, some shelving, all of doU's- 
 house dimensions; beyond, presumably, there was a bed- 
 room. Steven, taking stock of the immediate surroundings, 
 found them of monastic simplicity and cleanliness. There 
 were bare walls, a bare floor, a solid old black table, a case of 
 books, two chairs; but a row of geraniums flaming in their 
 stoneware pots enlivened the window-sill. 
 
 '^ Had your breakfast? " Eugene asked, coming back with 
 the coffee-pot in one hand and a tray in the other. 
 
 " Yes, thank you, on the train. Haven't you had yours? " 
 
 " I never take anything but this coffee," said Eugene. He 
 set the apparatus down on the table, shoving aside the pipes 
 and papers collected at that end, sat down himself in the re- 
 maining chair, and poured a cup. The tray and pot and 
 cream- jug were of pewter, possibly antique, meticulously 
 clean, winking with polish. " I had just finished dressing 
 when you came," he said. " Finished shaving — with the 
 edge-razor," he added dryly, and took a sip. " It's rather 
 lucky you didn't come a day or so ago." 
 
 '' That wouldn't have made any difference to me," said 
 Steven, awkwardly. 
 
 Eugene shrugged. " What made you come, anyhow? You 
 have an air of unpremeditated adventure. You look as if, in 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 161 
 
 plain language, you were completely and entirely on your 
 own." 
 
 '' Well, I am. It's queer how you guessed that right away." 
 
 Eugene eyed him over the rim of the cup. " Not so very 
 queer," he said with a grin. " But what's up? Have the 
 Rudd Chemicals gone bust all of a sudden? Chemicals are 
 unreliable explosive sort of stuff at best. Don't you know 
 where your next dollar is to come from? " 
 
 '' No, and I don't care so long as it's not one of their 
 damned dollars! " said Steven, with a violence which might 
 have been melodramatic if it had not expressed so genuine 
 and deep-seated a feeling. Eugene put down the cup, and 
 dropped his hands on his knees ; he was opening his mouth on 
 a question when Steve forestalled him with a torrent of 
 words. 
 
 '' I found out something. It was an accident — nobody 
 told me — I found it out. I mean Father and Uncle Elihu 
 didn't tell me. They would never have told me. But I 
 'don't believe it's ever any good to try to hide things like 
 that; there's that old saying, murder will out! I stumbled 
 on this — just stumbled on it. Eugene, you know what it 
 was ! Of course you never told me either ; you thought you 
 ought not to, in your position — or maybe you thought I 
 knew already, like the rest of them. I didn't. I never imag- 
 ined such iniquity — and for the sake of money! It's re- 
 volting. As soon as I found out, I felt just the way you must 
 have. I felt I couldn't touch another cent of it. ^ I told 
 Father. We had a sort of scene — the whole business is 
 unspeakable — degrading. He said I reminded him of you; 
 that's how I discovered you knew about the thing, too. So 
 then I got out. I've come here to you. I knew you'd under- 
 stand." 
 
 Eugene's features, which had reflected only variations of 
 astonishment and inquiry during most of this wild harangue, 
 brightened and softened indefinably towards the end of it. 
 There was tenderness, and fellow-feeling, too, in his look. 
 " You wouldn't stand for the Metaderma, either, Steve? I 
 thought they'd quit making that old stuff. But you wouldn't 
 stand for it either, hey? Well, well, poor Lawson! " he ejac- 
 ulated with a kind of whimsical and humane irony. 
 
 M 
 
162 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 '' The Metaderma? You mean the Pancurata. Why, they 
 have stopped making it. Of course that was a shameful 
 swindle, too. I didn't know anything about it — I never 
 thought about what it really must have been. But this has 
 opened my eyes. No, I'm not talking about that but about 
 the other, Eugene. The quinine — " 
 
 '' The quinine? " repeated Eugene, vacantly. But Steven 
 did not notice; he went on talking, going over the same thing 
 restlessly and miserably, making motions to get up and stride 
 about the room, but restrained at every impulse by the 
 patent fact that one stride would bring him up all standing 
 against a wall! There resulted a series of abortive jack-m- 
 the-box movements which might have been comic if the 
 young fellow's suffering had not been so real. At least 
 Eugene Rudd was not moved to laughter; he sat with his 
 hands on his knees, listening in a state of perplexity that at 
 last became visible and unmistakable even to Steven. 
 
 '' What's the matter? You look so — oh, I forgot I hadn't 
 told you yet how I found out," he said, halting in the middle 
 of another speech. " I didn't think how queer it would sound 
 to you, after my expressly saying that nobody told me. They 
 told you, I suppose." 
 
 '' They told me a lot of things," said Eugene, hesitatmg 
 slightly. "I — I don't believe they told me everything, 
 though." 
 
 " Yes, but you're so quick, you guessed, didn't you? 
 
 " I didn't have to do much guessing," said Eugene, grimly. 
 
 '' Well, I found out for myself, in the strangest way. You'd 
 never believe — ! It's as if some fate or destiny or — well — 
 the hand of God were in it," said Steven, bringing out the 
 last shrinkingly. '' I — I don't believe in religion — creeds 
 — all that, you know. I don't quite know what I do believe 
 in — a person doesn't talk about it. It seems as if there must 
 be Something higher than ourselves, but whether It would 
 interfere in this way — ? Too much like some kind of 
 juggling — and I'm not so important, anyhow. Only the 
 sins of the fathers do get visited on the children, once in a 
 while, maybe. But you'd think the best way would have 
 been to stop the wrong-doing in the beginning. Well ! — " 
 he gave up the problem with a hopeless gesture. '' Anyhow, 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 163 
 
 the way I found out was this: — " And he forthwith plunged 
 into the story of Doctor Vardaman's diary, to which Eugene 
 listened with even more interest than was to be looked for. 
 *' i couldn't do anything else, you see. I couldn't go on liv- 
 ing on that money! " Steven declared again at the end. 
 
 The other was not so responsive as Steven had expected; 
 indeed Eugene could scarcely be said to respond at all. He 
 merely looked thoughtful and more or less troubled, and 
 when at length he did speak, his words seemed startlingly 
 inadequate. '' Thev were a bad lot, some of the busmess- 
 men of that generation. Some, not all! This quinine cheat, 
 though — you couldn't go much lower than that. Still, I 
 don't see what's to be done about it now, Steven." 
 
 "Why, that's almost exactly what Father said!" cried 
 out Steven, after an instant of bewilderment. " You don't 
 mean to uphold him — after breaking with him for this very 
 
 thing?" ,, ^ ^ , 
 
 '* I'm older now," said Eugene. But, as self-absorbed as 
 Steven was, the studious indirectness of this reply, of some 
 of Eugene's other replies, perhaps some unguarded or over- 
 guarded expression on his face, struck a new idea like a 
 sword into the younger man's mind. ^ 
 
 " Eugene, you didn't know about this! You didnt know 
 
 about it after all ! " ^ , i ..x j 
 
 " Why, I — I — no, I didn't, Steven," the other admitted. 
 " I didn't mean to lead you on to talk and tell me about it 
 
 either, but — " . • ^ « v 
 
 Steven cut him short, gesticulating impatiently. ^ You 
 couldn't have stopped me. And you've got as good a right to 
 know as the rest of us, anyway. But do you mean to say 
 you hadn't any suspicion of it, even? " 
 
 Eugene shook his head. '' Nobody ever told me, either. 
 Thev wouldn't, naturally." 
 
 There was a dead silence while Steve adjusted his mind 
 to this new angle; what Eugene's was busy with, it would 
 have been hard to guess. He musingly considered the 
 younger Rudd, and finished drinking his coffee. 
 
 '' Well then, if you never found out about the counterfeit 
 quinine, what made you break away? What did you find 
 out? " Steven demanded at length. 
 
164 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 The other man answered with deliberate harshness. " I 
 didn't need to find out anything." He spread his arms 
 wide in a gesture that offered his entire self, body and soul, 
 past and present, to public scrutiny and valuation. " Do 
 you blame them? " 
 
 There might have been a time when Steven would have 
 been silenced by such a hint; but now the young man 
 doubted. Dormant memories sprang to life, thrusting upon 
 him scraps of his father's talk, of Eugene's own talk, changes 
 of expression, eyes that evaded his own. For that matter, 
 Eugene was not looking straight at him now. " They didn't 
 put you out. Father told me himself that you went of your 
 own accord," said he accusingly. " Father said — " 
 
 " Oh Lord, never mind what he said! I daresay he tried 
 to save everybody's face, mine included. What's the use, 
 Steve? It's all over and done with these fifteen years. Can't 
 you let it rest? " Eugene cried out disgustedly. Still, to 
 Steven's sharpened eyes, the pose was exaggerated; still he 
 sensed the over-acted dissimulation of an intrinsically 
 honest man. 
 
 '' Oh, cut out all that talk! You might as well tell me the 
 truth," he said, with a kind of irritated composure. " You've 
 given yourself away partly, anyhow, by trying so hard not 
 to give yourself away. I know it's a point of honor with you 
 not to say anything to me about the rest of the family ; but 
 there's no call to be quixotic. You can't poison my mind 
 now, and nobody can accuse you of it. You turned up some- 
 thing, too, and you might as well tell me what it was. Look 
 here, what was that you said when I started in to tell you? 
 You thought you knew w^iat I was talking about then. It 
 wasn't the Pancurata — 3^ou called it something else. What 
 was it you said? The derma-something? You began — " 
 
 Eugene arrested him with an uplifted hand. " Why, good- 
 ness gracious, of course I'll tell you," he said, with a resump- 
 tion of that manner of detachment, not without cynicism, not 
 without levity, yet not wholly unkind, which seemed natural 
 to him; if he had any other outlook on life, higher or lower, 
 he never betrayed it. '' I would have liked to get out of 
 telling, because frankly, the episode seems to me now to have 
 been rather trivial — a sort of tempest in a teapot. The 
 Metaderma was what I said — " 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 165 
 
 " Metaderma. Yes. What was it? " 
 
 " Why, Steven, it was a kind of hang-over from the old 
 gentleman's time. The old gentleman must have been a 
 bird! " said Eugene, wagging his head. '' My own father — 
 but still — ! After all, he died when I was only three or four 
 years old, so that I can barely remember him. Iron-gray 
 skilligans — " here Eugene swept a hand down either cheek 
 to indicate flowing whiskqf s — " iron-gray skilligans, and 
 false teeth! That's all I can recall of the late David, and 
 taken with various disclosures, it's not surprising that I don't 
 hold him in pious and affectionate veneration. The Meta- 
 derma was an off-shoot of the same idea as the Pancurata, 
 only — er — more so. Tliey were still making it along back 
 in eighteen ninety-seven when I went into the office. It was 
 a stuff designed to sell widely among the colored population, 
 because of its peculiar virtue of bleaching 'em out — turn- 
 ing them into white folks, you know. You took it internally 
 and externally, both; a bottle a week for six weeks did the 
 business — it was a dollar a bottle straight, five dollars for 
 six bottles. Money refunded if a complete transformation 
 was not effected — always provided you had followed the 
 directions implicitly — " 
 
 " For God's sake, don't laugh! " 
 
 " That's the way I felt too, Steve, w^hen I first heard about 
 it," said Eugene. '^ But being horrible doesn't keep it from 
 being grotesque. There's one thing to be said: I 
 believe the stuff was harmless; gallons of it wouldn't 
 have hurt one." 
 
 ''Well?" 
 
 " Well, I told you they were still making it when I came 
 along. But the sales had fallen off, particularly in the South, 
 where you'd have expected it to go like hot cakes. Maybe 
 the colored brother down there was too well educated and 
 didn't place any confidence in the labels and the advertising 
 'literature' — or maybe he wasn't educated enough, and 
 simply couldn't read them. Maybe he w\as self-respecting 
 and wanted to stay the way the Lord made him, and then 
 again maybe he was afraid to take any chances on getting 
 himself done over. Anyhow he wasn't buying the Meta- 
 derma. They were on the point of closing it out — quitting 
 
166 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 the manufacture — " He interrupted himself to rise and 
 search the table for tobacco and matches. Steven mutely 
 refused ; so Eugene picked out a pipe which he proceeded to 
 clean and fill with elaborate care. 
 
 " They were going to drop it when Brother Elihu — 
 Brother Elihu! " — Eugene interpolated, grimacing — '' had 
 a brilliant idea. Why not put young Eugene in charge of that 
 especial branch down in Atlanta? It would be a good open- 
 ing for the fellow — good enough for him, that is. He could 
 learn the business." He paused, blowing through the pipe- 
 stem. 
 
 " So that was why ! " said Steven. 
 
 " Yes. The plan itself was flawless — only young Eugene 
 refused! " 
 
 He spoke without venom, impersonally as if this bit of 
 biography related to someone else; and Steven told him so, 
 wondering. '' I don't know how they had treated you before, 
 but that offer seems to me the final indecency ! " he said. " I 
 suppose you've got used to the recollection somehow, you 
 talk about it so coolly. Anybody might think it had all 
 happened to another man." 
 
 " Well, it did, in a way. What's become of that Eugene 
 Rudd — that hot-headed lad of twenty-one or so? / don't 
 know! I daresay he's one of those stepping-stones of our 
 dead selves by which we rise to higher things — as what's- 
 his-name has so beautifully and poetically put it," said 
 Eugene, glancing about the bare room in cheerful irony. He 
 expertly tamped down a pinch of tobacco in the bowl of the 
 pipe, knitting his brows thoughtfully the while. " I will say 
 this for myself — since we're on the subject — that I've 
 never regretted or wanted to take back a single word of mine 
 on that occasion. And yet, Steve, if I had it to do over 
 again, I know I'd do it differently." 
 
 " What did you do, Eugene? " 
 
 " Oh, we had a violent time, of course," said the other, 
 striking a match. " I flew into a rage, and stormed away at 
 both of them. A mistake, Steven," he commented, shaking 
 his head. '' Natural, but a mistake. I wouldn't fly into a 
 rage nowadays. I'd simply say no, and let it go at that. It 
 would be much more effective — a kind of dramatic point. 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 167 
 
 They were reasonable men, intelligent men. They'd have 
 dropped it — the Metaderma, I mean. It wasn't paying, 
 anyhow. I'm sure they did drop it afterwards. It was a 
 mistake to assume right off the bat that way that they were 
 both arrant scoundrels. The trouble was," said Eugene, 
 drawing at the pipe with half-shut eyes, something like a 
 smile appearing on his face; '' the trouble was I honestly 
 thought they were scoundrels! " 
 
 " What else could you think? It was a scoundrelly busi- 
 ness," said Steven. He did get up at last, in a desperate need 
 of some sort of action, and tramped about the contracted 
 space. " I can't think what w^as the matter with all of them, 
 from my grandfather down. They — why, they don't seem 
 to have had the slightest sense of rectitude I They didn't 
 have any morals." 
 
 '' Why, Lord love you, Steven, they were all balled up 
 with morals — they just lacked a conscience," said Eugene, 
 rather amused. '* At least that's the way I've figured it 
 out. Take old David, the original sinner; I have no doubt 
 he was a good man, a man without vices. Would he have put 
 an>^hing into his mouth that would steal away his brains, 
 as — ahem ! — others have been known to do? Not he ! He 
 never took a drop too much in his life. Which of the Com- 
 mandments did he ever break? Never a one! He paid his 
 just debts, went to church, helped the needy, lived honestly 
 with his wife — his two wives ! — held up his head and gave 
 thanks that he was not as other men. AH the while he was 
 making the Pancurata and the Metaderma, and working off 
 bogus drugs on the Government. Somehow he contrived to 
 disassociate commercial success and common honesty. That 
 generation seems to have been more able in that direction 
 than the present. I don't believe there's nearly so much of 
 that sort of thing going on now. The sun do move. Man- 
 kind does creep forward. Now your father wouldn't do that 
 sort of thing, Steve." 
 
 " Only because they've got better ways of keeping track 
 of fraud and punishing it nowadays. Father is too prudent; 
 he'd be afraid of getting found out," said Steven bitterly. 
 
 " Shut UD, you young idiot! " said Eugene with entire com- 
 posure and good-nature, yet forcibly. " You know your 
 
168 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 father isn't afraid of anything on this earth. Any fool can 
 do wrong. Your father has too much sense." 
 
 Steven stopped in front of him, eying him perplexedly. 
 " You always talk about him as if you liked him, Eugene — 
 liked him and admired him. And yet Heaven knows you 
 have no cause to! " 
 
 '' Why, I do like him — and what's more, he'd like me, if I 
 were anybody but who I am," retorted the other. '^ That 
 time when we had the row over the Metaderma — " 
 
 ''Yes, I. was going to ask you about that," said Steven, 
 with frank curiosity. '' What did they say? I can't imagine 
 what they could find to say." 
 
 '' Why, each man behaved quite in his character. Brother 
 Elihu — Brother Elihu! — got mad, and cussed me out, and 
 told me some pretty unpalatable truths about myself, and — 
 and said some things about my mother which were not true. 
 My poor mother was not clever, but she was an honest 
 woman. Oh no, your father didn't do anything like that — " 
 he added, interpreting at once with his usual prompt finesse 
 the pained and reluctant inquiry of Steven's face. " Your 
 father wouldn't get down to any such mud-slinging level as 
 that. He has ten times the intellect of Elihu, and he has 
 imagination. He could see my point of view — put himself in 
 my place. Only I had angered him hopelessly. Brother Law- 
 son — Brother Lawson — was very quiet but cutting. I re- 
 member that at the last when I said I would go, intimating 
 that I shook the dust off my boots on to the place forever, 
 that Lawson said — ^' And here Eugene actually chuckled — 
 " Brother Lawson said that I could go if I chose, and go to 
 the devil for all of him ! He said he would not lift a finger to 
 save me from the jail which I might possibly escape! And 
 when I screeched out at him at take back that insult or, etc., 
 etc., Lawson said with the most admirable calm: ' Oh, very 
 well, the jail you won't escape! ' That was very neat, 
 Steven, very neat. No question of it, your father's a very 
 bright man." 
 
 " He said to me once that you were a bright man," said 
 Steve. 
 
 " Did he, did he? Did Lawson say that? " cried Eugene, 
 his dully mottled face suddenly reddening with pleasure; 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 169 
 
 then he controlled himself in some confusion. " Well, that 
 was all that happened, Steven. Nothing remains now but 
 to wash up these dishes — a sufficiently symbolic action! " 
 With which he gathered together the cofTee-service, and 
 went again into the kitchen. 
 
 Steven followed him, offering to help. '' Can't I do some- 
 thing? Make a bed or something? " he asked vaguely. 
 
 " No, never mind the bed. Better not go in there just 
 now — I'll tidy it up directly," said Eugene, rather hastily 
 interposing between his guest and the farthest cubicle. He 
 went on smoking over the foaming hot suds. " What are 
 you going to do now you've flown the paternal coop, Steve? 
 Got anything in mind? " 
 
 " Why, no, nothing very definite," the young fellow con- 
 fessed, feeling all at once both foolish and disconsolate. 
 " I've got some money — a hundred and sixty dollars, 
 I thought it would do for a few days — won't it? " he in- 
 quired in alarm at Eugene's countenance; " of course I know 
 all about New York prices, but — " 
 
 "A hundred and sixty dollars! And he wants to know 
 if it will do for a few days! " said Eugene, apostrophizing 
 the ceiling with melodramatic intonations. ^' What does it 
 look like, oh gilded youth? There be those who have never 
 seen as much in one lump all their lives. A hundred and 
 sixty? Can such things be? And he wants to do something — 
 he wants to work, with all that in his pocket! " 
 
 " Well, I have to. It won't last forever," said Steven, de- 
 termined to be practical. ''I — I thought of trying the mag- 
 azines again with some of those things I've written, you 
 know. I've gone all over them, and — polished them off a 
 little more. They aren't so bad, judging by the things that 
 do get published." 
 
 ''No, indeed! They're all right — but the magazines 
 aren't a very reliable source of income," said the other, 
 humanely enough. " If your stufT doesn't happen to strike 
 the editor-lad just right, it doesn't make any difference how 
 good it is as a literary production." He wiped the coffee 
 pot round and round, considering. " Tell you what, there's 
 a rich old whale over on Madison Avenue who's got a library 
 that I'm cataloguing — that is, I was cataloguing," he 
 
170 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 amended, with a grin. " I don't know whether I've still got 
 the job. Might try him. I could ring you in as my assist- 
 ant." 
 
 " But I don't know how to catalogue a library. I've no 
 more idea how to go about it than the man in the moon! " 
 protested Steve, horrified. 
 
 " Tut, tut, my son, you can learn. You've had a college 
 education, a degree. It's nothing in the world but a sort of 
 classified inventorying — takes some acquaintance with 
 books and writers, of course. You have to make a beginning 
 somewhere, somehow, and this is a good chance. Old Scads- 
 of-it wouldn't know whether you were doing it right or 
 wrong; he just wants a list of the books. You won't be 
 taking advantage of him," said Eugene, in some amusement. 
 " I say again, tut! And likewise, pish! You come along of 
 me, young Steven, and let's make your fortune ! " 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 MR. ADAM J. SACKETT'S house on Madison Avenue 
 was a brown stone monolith, four stories high, 
 counting in the ''English basement " with which it 
 was provided after the fashion of the decade 70-'80, during 
 which it had been built. At that time each side of the street 
 had presented an unbroken row of precisely similar mono- 
 liths; but twentieth-century taste in architecture had lately 
 been at work amongst these other '^ English basements " and 
 high front steps and batteries of windows. There were now 
 Italian fagades of cut stone, with balustrades, carvings and 
 a good deal of floriated iron- work in a severe and rich style ; 
 some of the old mansards had given way to steep-pitched 
 Gothic-looking roofs be-gabled and be-dormered, with in- 
 triguing casements; and nothing could surpass the successive 
 entrances for ingenuity and variety of steps, landings, ves- 
 tibules, lanterns, archways, grilles, miniature portcullises, 
 and what-not. The Sackett residence arrived at a kind of 
 distinction merely by retaining its erstwhile perfectly un- 
 distinguished front and approach. Within there were inter- 
 minable aisles of large, dark rooms heavily upholstered 
 rather than furnished, and apparently never aired. The 
 windows of the double-parlors were draped with obsolete 
 lace curtains and fringed red velvet over-curtains; a table 
 in the middle bore about half a dozen Royal Worcester or 
 Coalport cups and saucers, specimen pieces mounted on 
 diminutive brass easels; and a bronze peacock, life-size, pre- 
 sided over both rooms from the top of a marble pedestal 
 with a fat, spiral column. The effect of the whole was some- 
 thing between a Pullman sleeper and the stage-setting for 
 the first act of, let us say, " The Mighty Dollar," that for- 
 gotten masterpiece of about equal date. It would have been 
 difficult to imagine anything in the nature of a home more 
 
 171 
 
172 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 thoroughly un-homelike, even in that era of un-homelike 
 housing. 
 
 ^'Why, what could you expect?" Eugene said, upon 
 Steven's making the above comment. " It wouldn't repre- 
 sent Sackett's taste, even if he had any. He bought it as it 
 stands, with everything in it, lock, stock and barrel, at some 
 sheriff's sale in partition, when some other forlorn old geezer 
 without chick or child died and his estate came to be divided 
 up, you know. I suppose it was a bargain." 
 
 " ' Some other ' ? Why ' some other ' ? " 
 
 " Why, because Sackett himself is a widower or a bachelor, 
 maybe, and lives here all alone, except for the servants. 
 There's a whole tribe of them. I daresay he pays them 
 monumental wages, and I daresay they laugh at him and 
 sneer behind his back; his manners leave something to be 
 desired, you know; I fear he will never become a social 
 leader. Rather dismal — a middle-aged man who doesn't 
 know what to do with himself and his money. He made it 
 all in cheap whiskey — Sackett's Super-Rye, Sackett's Old- 
 Vatted Anderson County, Sackett's Tomahawk Brand. Same 
 blend all of it, a blend of God knows what — almost any- 
 thing but whiskey, I judge. He's out of the business now, 
 with a whacking fortune, and as I was saying, no way of 
 spending it. Never drinks a drop himself ! You'll see him — 
 a very plain, quiet, decent man." 
 
 It was some time, however, before Steven's first view of his 
 employer-elect. The servants indeed were abundantly vis- 
 ible, a crew of idle, overpaid and impudent underlings fully 
 vindicating Eugene's slight sketch of them; but it may be 
 worthy of note that after one essay in familiarity, none of 
 them comported himself otherwise than with due decorum 
 and as a well-mannered domestic should in the presence of 
 either Mr. Rudd. The fact is curious and instructive, espe- 
 cially taken with the other fact that neither Eugene nor 
 Steven had anything to bestow in the way of tips, or sought 
 to assert any kind of superiority — " giving himself airs," as 
 the kitchen and backstairs would undoubtedly have 
 described it. Yet the butler, instead of slouching around in 
 felt slippers, an ancient, spotted alpaca coat and Isabella- 
 hued linen, spruced up noticeably after only a day or so of 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 173 
 
 the two gentlemen; and the maids, who similarly had been 
 wearing all sorts of nondescript garments, with boudoir-caps, 
 over their uncombed heads all day long, now took to their 
 most dashing uniforms, aprons and attitudes, and displayed 
 a fervid industry all over the house, but more particularly in 
 and near the library! 
 
 This was the one livable spot in the whole dreary desert 
 of Victorian magnificence ; it occupied the entire front of the 
 house, on the second floor, its ceiling vaulted majestically, 
 and its high walls panelled with books; a mammoth stone 
 chimneypiece where nobody ever ventured to make a fire, 
 until Eugene profaned it with trash that had to be burned, 
 gloomed at one end. The black walnut cases and tables 
 and the wadded armchairs, and the saturnine marble busts 
 of classic authors suited the atmosphere of a library well 
 enough; and here the two Rudds labored day by day in an 
 increasingly good fellowship. There were something like 
 five thousand volumes, old and new, good, bad and indiffer- 
 ent, some few rarities, a first edition or so; but nothing 
 offered any clue to the tastes or personality of the collector. 
 
 " It would be more interesting if Mr. Sackett had a fad 
 for something — biography or poetry or caricature — any- 
 thing," Steven said; whereat Eugene hooted with derision. 
 
 "Wait till you see him! You'll understand then. He's 
 never opened a book in his life, not these nor any others. I 
 told you he bought the library along with everything else, 
 just because it happened to be here. The Police Gazette 
 and the liquor-trade journals are Adam J.'s staples in the 
 literature line — and he probably goes to sleep over them." 
 
 " Well, then, why does he want these catalogued? I 
 shouldn't think he'd care how many there were, or what they 
 were about." 
 
 " Wrong again, young Steven! He wants to know exactly 
 where he stands on the whole deal. I'm to value the books 
 as we go along, you know; and we're expected to see what 
 items are missing from the sets, if any, and in what condition 
 they all are. That's approximately what would be done if 
 this were a stock of whiskey he had acquired. If whiskey, 
 why not books? Mr. Sackett is a business man," said 
 Eugene with gravity. 
 
174 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 It was this same day, as they were busy together, Steven 
 calling off, and Eugene noting down in a loose-leaf system 
 of indices which he had himself invented, that the proprietor 
 of the library strolled in upon them, unheralded, and in a 
 not at all proprietorial manner, on the contrary rather like 
 a chance visitor at some museum of oddities. Mr. Sackett 
 was heavy-set, about the age of Steve's father, with gray 
 hair, a good-humored face, a very careful and prosperous- 
 looking suit of clothes, no diamond studs or cuff-buttons as 
 Steve had expected, but with a signet-ring on one little finger 
 and a double watch-chain and a Masonic charm, which more 
 than made up the lack. Eugene, warned by the suspension 
 of the reading, looked up from his notes and nodded, and the 
 other nodded back in a style of great friendliness. 
 
 " My assistant," said Eugene, jerking his head in Steven's 
 direction; "name's Rudd, too." 
 
 It struck Steve that he spoke in an unnecessarily loud 
 voice, but when the other man said " Hey? " turning one ear, 
 the reason became clear; Mr. Sackett was slightly deaf. Only 
 slightly, though, or else he had cultivated a habit of obser- 
 vation, for he caught the name almost instantly, repeating it 
 himself, before Eugene had time. '' Rudd? Another Rudd, 
 hey? " said Mr. Sackett, and shook the young man's hand 
 with a genial and also an eminently shrewd glance out of his 
 little, bright blue eyes. Then he asked Eugene how they 
 were "coming on? " 
 
 " Not that there's any hurry," he said agreeably; " only 
 I calculate from your finding you had to have an assistant 
 that the job turned out heavier than you looked for." 
 
 " No. It's just about what I thought," said Eugene. 
 
 " He doesn't have to have me. I'm just learning," Steven 
 cried out, painstakingly. 
 
 "Hey? Just learning? Well, now! " said the ex- whiskey 
 dealer, his eyes travelling over Steve's athletic proportions 
 with a certain mild surprise. "Well, now!" Mr. Sackett 
 very deliberately pulled up the widest and thickest easy- 
 chair, settled himself in it deliberately, and drew out a 
 brown paper envelope, which he tentatively extended to- 
 wards them both. "Have a cigar? No? Well, I didn't use to 
 smoke in business-hours myself," he said, selecting one. This 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 175 
 
 he proceeded to light and smoke, still with the utmost delib- 
 eration, and in the evident purpose of killing time the rest of 
 the afternoon with them. '' Don't let me being here inter- 
 fere," he said, observing them to hesitate, exchanging looks. 
 " I'm just looking on. I don't aim to tell you nothing about 
 your work. I don't know nothing about it myself. You 
 just go on same as if I wasn't here." 
 
 So said, so done! They took him at his word, continuing 
 to call off and write down as before, and by and by would 
 actually have forgotten him, had it not been for his exceed- 
 ingly strong cigar. On his side, Mr. Sackett had no appear- 
 ance, as might be inferred, of standing guard lest they waste 
 time or maltreat his books ; he sat quietly, comfortably and 
 unobtrusively, with wreaths of smoke curling around his 
 head, wide awake yet in complete repose, " looking on," as 
 he had promised, to the very letter. Occasionally he spoke: 
 " Them covers are real tasty," " I guess that picture of that 
 lady is what they call a steel-engraving, ain't it? " " If 
 you'd like more of a fire to burn them old wrapping-papers 
 and stuff up in, Mr. Rudd, I'll have the help fix it for you. 
 It's none too warm here, anyhow." Such were Mr. Sackett's 
 contributions to sociability ; and the strange thing was that 
 for all their terseness and fragmentary character, they did 
 convey a distinctly sociable feeling. 
 
 The afternoon wore along, and at five o'clock, Eugene 
 said to him: "Well, I believe we'll call it a day, Mr. Sackett." 
 
 "Sure! You musta put in your full union hours," the 
 other agreed readily. " There's a nice little wash-up place, 
 down in the hall, kinder in under the staircase. Did they 
 show you that? " Being assured that they had been shown, 
 he followed them to the head of the stairs, and remained 
 there — below in the wash-up place, they could hear him 
 moving about — until they left the house. 
 
 " He seemed to be wavering between a desire to see us 
 off the premises, and a reasonable doubt as to whether it 
 would look hospitable or mannerly," Steven said with a 
 laugh, as they walked away. " Has he ever come and sat 
 around that way before? " 
 
 " Two or three times. He never stayed so long, though. I 
 believe he's lonesome," said Eugene thoughtfully. 
 
176 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 The next day, when they arrived, there was, sure enough, a 
 fine fire blazing away under the great carved mausoleum of 
 a mantel, which did not look nearly so forbidding, being put 
 to its natural uses. " Makes the place a whole lot cosier, 
 don't it? " Mr. Sackett said in pleased accents, upon joining 
 them at about the same time as before. " That was a good 
 idea I had! " And again he sat by for several hours, smok- 
 ing contentedly, throwing in a word now and then, until 
 they finished up for the day. 
 
 This became a regular feature of the daily routine. It 
 reminded Steven weirdly of tales of fairyland or adventure 
 he had loved to read long ago as a romance-mongering boy. 
 He entertained both Eugene and himself endlessly with fan- 
 tastic inventions about Adam J. Sackett. As that the house 
 was a ghost-house; it really did not exist at all; some fine 
 morning they would walk over there only to find a city-park 
 or a huge apartment-building on the site, and upon inquiry 
 it would develop that they had been asleep forty years, and 
 only a few doddering oldest inhabitants would recall with 
 difficulty that there had once been a man named Sackett, 
 living there in a brown-stone-front. Or: Adam J. was a 
 modernized version of the Flying Dutchman, doomed to 
 spend a bootless eternity amongst legions of books, until he 
 read them all through — which he never could do owing to 
 having cursed the alphabet when he was set to learn it in 
 the primary grade. Or: he was a masculine Circe, sur- 
 rounded by and gloating over the souls of luckless librarians 
 whom he had turned into books, and only waiting the appro- 
 priate moment to ensorcerize Eugene and Steven them- 
 selves, after the same fashion! 
 
 " We must each wear an amulet, and make horns with our 
 fingers whenever we see him looking at us, the way the 
 Neapolitan peasants do to ward off the evil eye," the young 
 fellow said solemnly; '' also be very cautious in your refer- 
 ences to the Prince of Darkness. Haven't you noticed a faint 
 flavor of brimstone when he lights his cigar? He's just 
 waiting his chance. I distinctly saw the head of Lord Byron 
 nod in obedience to some secret sign from him the other day; 
 it nodded and grinned fiendishly. Eugene, I say to you, 
 Beware ! You have not been over-respectful to Lord B." 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 177 
 
 Eugene laughed, and they both laughed. The fact was 
 that, a day or so before, Mr. Sackett had asked, casually indi- 
 cating the row of busts, if they were supposed to be likenesses 
 of real people, or just fancy heads? " I should judge 'em to 
 be likenesses, if you asked me. Because heads would be 
 better looking," he observed acutely enough; and Eugene 
 confirmed him. 
 
 '' They are all portraits and quite recognizable," he said; 
 " excepting that one — " and he pointed to Lord Byron. '' To 
 represent Byron with a stone head is misleading," said Eu- 
 gene, without a smile. " In life he was a mush-head." 
 
 Mr. Sackett looked at him, looked at the bust, looked at 
 Steven, and gradually began to chuckle. " Say ! " he said 
 finally, " You don't know what a jolt you give me then! I 
 didn't expect a literary man would say a thing like that — 
 make fun, you know." 
 
 Thus their days passed ; and it may be questioned if this 
 time were not, on the whole, the happiest of Steve Rudd's 
 life so far. He was doing what he liked better and indeed 
 may have been better fitted for by temperament than any- 
 thing he had ever done before; he was earning very little 
 money — but it was clean; he had moments of leisure for 
 ventures in the art of letters not all of which were unprofi- 
 table; he had hunted up or run across a friend or two, mostly 
 from college-days, young fellows like himself trying a hazard 
 of new fortunes; he was twenty-four years old, in good 
 health, and full of radiant expectations; what more could a 
 man want? Steve was never bored nowadays; he never felt 
 himself in the way, superfluous, only tolerated because of 
 being his father's son. Sometimes he thought of his days in 
 the ofiice with wonder and contempt. " I don't see how I 
 kept it up so long," he would say to himself. And could he 
 have gone on keeping it up with old David Rudd's accursed 
 money burning his fingers, burning into his conscience, 
 whenever he touched it? Never ! 
 
 There came a day, however, when his skies were overcast 
 by an event the shade of which, to tell the truth, always lay 
 along their horizon. Steven trudged to work alone, and 
 down at heart; and there Mr. Sackett found him at the 
 accustomed hour, getting on by himself with suiB&cient speed 
 and accuracy, but in the same depression, 
 
 N 
 
178 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " Hello, Where's your side-pardner? " Sackett inquired 
 naturally, glancing all about. " Sick? " 
 
 '^ Yes. He's home, that is." 
 
 Their eyes met. Sackett said, " Oh! " and sat down fish- 
 \ng out his eternal cigar. '^ Thars a pity," he remarked after 
 a few minutes of smoking and contemplating Steven's indus- 
 try. " About how often does he get those spells? Every 
 three months or so, hey? Yeah, that's what I thought. You 
 can't keep him off it, hey? Never mind, don't say nothing! " 
 he interposed quickly, as Steven was about to speak; " don't 
 explain. I knew about him, already, of course. It ain't 
 necessary to tell me, and besides, owing to me being hard 
 of hearing; why, somebody else might hear you^ — some of 
 these hired help, you know — and there's no call for that, I 
 guess. I'm pretty good at lip-reading, or face-reading — 
 that's the biggest part of it — account of having had to prac- 
 tice so much. Say, tell you what: you knock off for a minute 
 and set down here and less talk — not about your pardner, 
 I don't mean. Less just talk." 
 
 Steven Lccepted this invitation, seeing that it was prof- 
 fered, if bluntly like the rest of Mr. Sackett 's speech, in real 
 kindness of heart. He sat down and they talked. The young 
 man was surprised, on review, that they could find so much 
 to talk about ; he had not supposed they would have an idea 
 or an interest in common. To be sure his own part was 
 mainly that of listener; Sackett asked him only a few ques- 
 tions about himself, and those not at all pointed, not at all 
 searching, concerning only matters which might have come 
 within any young man's experience, and which any young 
 man might answer without embarrassment. As, where he 
 had gotten his " eddication," and what he proposed to do 
 after this present job, and so on. If the ex- whiskey-dealer 
 felt any curiosity, he restrained it, whether out of a certain 
 native courtesy or mere worldly wisdom, Steven did not 
 know ; but he liked Sackett the better for it. 
 
 Adam J. himself, as was abundantly evident, had had 
 next to no " eddication " whatever, a lack which he looked 
 upon as regrettable but not irremediable. Book-learning, he 
 said — in effect — was more of a luxury than a necessity; 
 you could get along and do well without it — witness his 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 178 
 
 own case; reading books didn't help a man in ordinary busi- 
 ness any. But he reahzed now that it was a fine thing to 
 fall back on, when you didn't need to work any longer. It 
 was a way of passing the time; and the trouble was that if 
 you didn't get it, the book-habit as you might say, when you 
 were young, you couldn't get it when you reached his age, no 
 matter how much leisure you had. Your mind wouldn't 
 work that way. 
 
 In the course of this and subsequent conversations he told 
 Steven a good deal more about himself, releasing impulses 
 which he had probably held in check for nobody knows how 
 many wary, patient, hard-working years. He was born in an 
 Albany slum and began life 'tending bar in that city at the 
 age of fourteen. For ten years or more thereafter, his career 
 embraced such various yet somehow related industries as 
 following the races, promoting prize-fights, running saloons, 
 going steward on boats out of New York on the Panama run 
 — " That was in the old yellow-fever days, too " — he inter- 
 polated reminiscently — and taking a fling at professional 
 billiards. Then at last he got into the whiskey-trade; that 
 just suited him; he began in a small way, of course, but he 
 made money right along — never had any set-backs. He got 
 out of it some two or three years previously, because he 
 thought he had enough for any ordinary man ; he knew when 
 to quit; no sense working himself to death; he wasn't going 
 to live forever, and he might as well rest up a little. Besides, 
 he might be mistaken, but it looked to him like there was 
 rocks ahead for the liquor-dealers. Prohibition or these here 
 Suffragists would come along and knock the props from 
 under 'em, one of these days. So he got out. 
 
 " And here I am, fifty-seven, though I don't feel that old, 
 and not a thing on earth to do! " he said, manifestly hold- 
 ing himself up to examination before his mind's eye. and 
 finding the spectacle one of serio-comedy, contradictory and 
 confusing. " A young fellow like you prob'ly has the idea: 
 *' Gee, it's easy enough to think up ways of spending money ! ' 
 Well, take it from me, it ain't — and what's more, it ain't so 
 much fun if you could think 'em up! Now I went and 
 bought this house, kind of expecting it would entertain me; 
 and it did, kind of, for a while. But I was getting tired of 
 
180 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 it already when I run across the other Mr. Rudd, and got 
 him to invoice these books. I knew all about him pretty 
 soon — right at first, fact is. But I didn't mind — I like to 
 have him around. He's company for me. There's nothing 
 the matter with him, except just that one thing. Do you 
 use any liquor, young man? " 
 
 Steven said no ; he had always been accustomed to seeing 
 it around the house, and took a drink sometimes — " But I 
 — I really don't like the taste of whiskey," he said, ingenu- 
 ously blushing over the confession. " And I don't believe I'd 
 ever care very much for the effect, either." 
 
 " You're right. There's nothing to it," Sackett said. 
 '' Makes you feel good for a little, and then what? 'Taint 
 worth while. Once you get that into your head good and 
 hard, you don't need no laws to keep you off of it. And say, 
 they talk about this dipsomania and drinking being a disease 
 like — like having chilblains. All poppycock! There ain't 
 any dipsomaniacs, but there's a mighty lot of damn fools! " 
 
 It was, to say the least, an unexpected pronouncement 
 from the owner and exploiter of Sackett's Super-Rye, Sack- 
 ett 's Tomahawk Brand and all the rest; nevertheless Steven 
 recognized that it came honestly. He found himself rather 
 sorry for Sackett, resourceless and occupationless, driven for 
 companionship to a come-by-chance couple like himself and 
 Eugene. For all his slum origin, his intimate acquaintance 
 with the shabbiest side of life, his own adventures in demi- 
 scoundrelism, there was a certain naivete and simplicity 
 about this elderly whiskey-seller; and his isolation moved 
 the other's quick sympathies. All sorts and conditions of 
 men and women must have drifted into Sackett's life and 
 out again; but he did not seem to have made lasting friend- 
 ships with any of them, being perhaps barred by his deaf- 
 ness, perhaps by the caution his experiences had bred and 
 fostered until it became second nature, perhaps by a queer 
 kind of shyness that was not without its standards. " If I 
 was married, I wouldn't be so kind of alone — even if we 
 didn't get along together first-rate," was one of the things he 
 said. "But I ain't ever known many ladies — nobody I'd 
 have liked to try being married to, anyhow. A good many 
 jingle mm when they get to my time of life take and marry 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 181 
 
 their stenographer or some telephone or candy-counter girl 
 they pick up somewhere. But that way of doing don't 
 appeal to me. It would be all right for you; but at my 
 age — " He shook his head. 
 
 They were well established in the safe friendliness which 
 is always conscious of reserves, by the time Eugene was 
 fit to come back, somewhat sallow and shaky but master of 
 himself again. The work was now very near done; another 
 week would see the end of it. Steven, visiting the book- 
 sellers and publishing-houses in his by-hours and acting 
 on the suggestions of one or two friends, had purveyed him- 
 self another job, on probation, with the well-known import- 
 ing house, Fulano, Tal & Company on Twenty-Eighth Street, 
 where a tolerable familiarity with the foreign languages, 
 classic and modern, would undoubtedly stand him in good 
 stead. The salary was even less than moderate, but Steve 
 could suit his wants to it; much as he would have resented 
 being told so, there must have been a strain of the grand- 
 paternal Rudd in him, some prudent and practical quality 
 strong enough to overrule the habits and tendencies of a rich 
 man's son. He told Mr. Sackett about the new position. 
 " I bet I'll make good with 'em," he said, not boastfully but 
 wdth ample confidence. And the other endorsed him with a 
 laugh. 
 
 ''Sure you will! But what are you going to do?" he 
 wanted to know of Eugene. 
 
 "Oh, I'll get something," said Eugene carelessly; "I 
 always get something." Which was no more than the truth, 
 notwithstanding his well-marked failing. He was seldom 
 out of employment; hack-work, to be sure, but drunk or 
 sober, he invariably contrived to get it done well. 
 
 As for Sackett, he viewed their approaching departure 
 with unconcealed regret. ^' It'll seem pretty quiet around 
 here when you tw^o go away," he told them wistfully. 
 
 '' You ought to have somebody else come and fix up some 
 other part of the house for you, Mr. Sackett," Steven said, 
 casting about for suggestions in sheer humanity. " I know 
 a lady that had a whole suite of rooms rebuilt — walls torn 
 down and put up again differently— new mantels — new 
 floors — new windows — everything changed all around, and 
 
182 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 made over so as to go with one single piece of furniture that 
 had been brought from Europe. It took two or three months, 
 and she had a beautiful time bossing it all." 
 
 Mr. Sackett looked interested, if faintly incredulous. 
 '' That's a good story, anyhow," he commented, cautiously 
 smiling. " One piece of furniture, hey? What was it made 
 of? Solid gold? " 
 
 " No, it was an old carved chest from Italy." 
 
 " Eyetalian, hey? You mean she had everything made 
 Eyetalian style to correspond? Well, there ain't anything 
 like that to start with around here — unless you took that 
 figger of a bird down stairs, and I don't know how you'd go 
 to work with a thing like that. I wouldn't want any more 
 birds on that order," said Mr. Sackett dubiously. ^' 1 might 
 have some papering done though. New paper would be sort 
 of cheerful." 
 
 He was a man of action; during the next two days they 
 missed him from the afternoon conference, but the next day 
 after that, heard him come in with a companion; and pres- 
 ently earnest parleyings rumbled through the rooms down- 
 stairs and here and there about the house, ultimately draw- 
 ing nearer. The houseman brought a step-ladder ; measure- 
 ments were being taken. It appeared that Mr. Sackett's 
 adviser was a lady ; they could hear her clear voice pitched a 
 little higher than was natural, probably, to carry her recom- 
 mendations — ''A color-scheme of rather high tones — 
 the drawing-room walls panelled, with perhaps two or three 
 pieces of lacquer and a Chinese screen — " " We have an old 
 Spanish embroidered cope that would be ideal for the grand 
 piano — perfectly stunning — " ^' Dessiis-des-portes for the 
 dining-room ... I know of four old Dutch flower- and- fruit 
 pieces — by Van der Douw, really excellent. I may be able 
 to get them — just a chance. In our profession, we have 
 exceptional opportunities, you know — " 
 
 *' You do! " murmured Eugene with relish. '' You've got 
 one right now! Dessus-des-portes! Sackett's Old-Vatted 
 Anderson County — Wow!'' He retreated into a corner, 
 turning his face to the shelves, suffocating with sup- 
 pressed laughter, while Steven struggled with a rapidly 
 strengthening impression that he had heard the voice before. 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 183 
 
 Even launched in this unaccustomed key at Sackett's ears, 
 it was familiar; drawling, gracious, filled with an interest 
 perfectly artificial yet perfectly assumed — 
 
 Mrs. Ballard appeared in the doorway of the library. She 
 elevated a lorgnette. ''Oh, but this is very nice, Mr. Sack- 
 ett — full of possibilities! " 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE recognition was simultaneous; Mrs. Ballard 
 dropped her lorgnette with a startled movement, 
 but she recovered it and her poise at once. For an 
 incalculably brief moment, a mere speck of time, Steven was 
 aware of a questioning uncertainty in her attitude, as if she 
 would have said: " Do you want me to know you — or not?" 
 It was conceivable that upon the faintest signal, she would 
 have looked at him and accepted whatever incognito he went 
 by, with the countenance of an utter stranger; at least, 
 Steven felt that, in the familiar phrase, he would not have 
 put the feat past her! In a lifetime of practice she had 
 brought the art of suiting herself to other people's whims to 
 a perfection rarely encountered in this world of failures. 
 " Shall I know you, meeting you in this bizarre place and 
 employment? Or would you rather I didn't? " she tele- 
 graphed. But before he himself could act, Mr. Sackett un- 
 knowingly settled all doubts. 
 
 " These are the two gentlemen I was telling you about 
 that's been fixing the books," he said. " Two Mr. Rudds, 
 Make you acquainted with Mrs. Ballard, gents." 
 
 "Oh, but we've met! We've known each other a long 
 while. How do you do, Steven? " said Mrs. Ballard, sum- 
 moning a charming smile instantly ; and she went up to them, 
 and gave each one a hand with exactly the appropriate de- 
 gree of warmth. " Such a surprise ! For a minute I had to 
 stare — of course we were likely to meet any time, neverthe- 
 less I wasn't expecting it! " 
 
 Steven and Eugene mumbled something; upon Sackett, 
 the incident did not seem to make much impression. The 
 average citizen of New York is essentially incurious. "Hello! 
 You don't say! Why, she comes from my home town, 
 Albany, and you're both from somewheres out West, ain't 
 you? Far enough apart! Artistic folks always know each 
 
 184 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 185 
 
 other, though; they kind of run together naturally, and 
 doctors and lawyers the same way," was all his comment. 
 " But don't it beat all how everybody gets to New York 
 sooner or later! " 
 
 And from that on Mrs. Ballard took charge of the conver- 
 sation; it should go without saying that everybody was 
 immediately put at ease. Mr. Rudd — Mr. Eugene Rudd, 
 that is — had been cataloguing Mr. Sackett's library? And 
 Steven was his assistant? It must be very interesting work! 
 She asked not one single question as to how Steve happened 
 to be there instead of in his father's office where she had last 
 heard of him ; and as to the family they might not have ex- 
 isted, for all Mrs. Ballard let fall about them. Why was she 
 thus reticent? Why, indeed! Contrariwise, she was quite 
 expansive about her own affairs, explaining her visit to the 
 Sackett house with a little air of humorous deprecatory im- 
 portance, very feminine, very pretty. She was now a profes- 
 sional decorator! What, didn't they know it? She would 
 have thought Steven, at any rate, would have heard through 
 his friends, the Burkes. Oh yes! Full-fledged! For the last 
 six months she had had her shingle out. Wasn't that what 
 you called it, Mr. Sackett, when you advertised? Wait a 
 minute ! 
 
 Here she fished around in her bag, and presently produced 
 from amongst an assortment of chintz and brocade samples, 
 bits of paper covered with notes and rough drawings, un- 
 mounted photographs rolled together in a rubber circlet, etc., 
 a little tea-colored card with old-English lettering in sepia, 
 setting forth that Miss Frances Burke and Mrs. E. Van H. 
 Ballard were now established in their studios at the Sign of 
 the Lanthorn, East 10th Street (upstairs). Antiques, lac- 
 quered and painted furniture, old lustre-ware, Waterford 
 glass, pewter, brass, filet lace and cut-work, petit-point, etc. 
 They would decorate whole houses or single rooms. Cor- 
 rect period-work a specialty. Visits made and estimates 
 furnished without charge. 
 
 '' That last clause, ' without charge,' is what got me," said 
 Mr. Sackett, with a solemn wink, whereat the lady laughed 
 most amiably. 
 
 " Indeed I ought to be attending to my own business this 
 
186 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 minute instead of keeping your two experts from theirs," 
 she announced briskly. And to the others: " Do come and 
 see us. Sunday afternoons, we have a cup of tea for visitors 
 — it's our only day, of course. I'll love to show you the 
 place." For once there was the note of absolute sincerity in 
 her disciplined voice; she looked at Steven with real enthu- 
 siasm and pride. '' We have some beautiful things. You 
 must come." 
 
 Steven guessed that she would keep clear of mentioning 
 Mary just as she had kept clear of any mention of his own 
 people, unless he himself introduced the subject. So, feel- 
 ing himself getting red but hoping that it would not be 
 noticed in the twilight of the big, gloomy room, he got out, 
 not too awkwardly: '' Is — is Mary with you? " 
 
 '' No. Oh, no! " said Mrs. Ballard, displaying — perhaps 
 feeling! — a maternally indulgent amusement. ''Fancy 
 Mary trying to decorate somebody's house! It's my daugh- 
 ter he means, Mr. Sackett," she explained — and it was a 
 lesson in the tactics of civility to see how she brought him 
 into the talk, without effort, without emphasis, spon- 
 taneously, as if reminding an old acquaintance, who might 
 not impossibly have forgotten the fact, that she had a 
 daughter. '' My daughter Mary is just like all the rest of 
 these modern girls; a house to her is not a place to make 
 beautiful; it's scarcely even a home. It's only where one 
 sleeps and takes an occasional meal! Why, Mary has a 
 position in the Mountaindale School for Girls, at Tarrytown, 
 you know, Steve. She is the physical instructor there." And 
 again Mrs. Ballard addressed Sackett with the camaraderie 
 of equal age and social experience. " They will do some- 
 things nowadays, Mr. Sackett. Girls and all, they're not 
 satisfied unless they are at some kind of work. It wasn't so 
 in our day, but times change and we must keep up with them, 
 I suppose.^' 
 
 With some other desultory remarks, this incident closed, 
 Mrs. Ballard leading Adam J. off, and the manservant with 
 the stepladder and footrule trailmg after them to the utter- 
 most fastnesses of the house, in an aroma of questions, sug- 
 gestions and diplomatic criticism. Eugene characterized the 
 whole affair as an excessively " queer start." 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 187 
 
 " Think of Mrs. Ballard tying up in partnership to that 
 plain, quiet, sensible, straightforward Miss Burke with her 
 sandy hair and her big front teeth ! " said he. " No two 
 women more essentially different ever existed. I'd like to 
 know how it came about. My guess would be that Miss 
 Burke puts in the coin and the ballast of practical methods, 
 bookkeeping, calculating, bargaining and so on, while Mrs. 
 Ballard does the ornamental talking." 
 
 Steven admitted that it looked that w^ay. " Francie must 
 have got through that course she was taking, and set up for 
 herself. That's pretty fine for a girl. But she's awfully 
 bright; she'd be all right for the business-side of it. This 
 other part seems to suit Mrs. Ballard, too." A desire which 
 Master Steven would have cut off a finger rather than con- 
 fess, even to himself, to bring in Mary's name, and hear 
 what the other would say about her, led him to add: " And 
 Miss Ballard's the physical instructor at some girls' school! 
 I wonder how she got into that! " 
 
 " Oh, she could do it well enough. She's a well-built little 
 thing, strong and active, and good at any kind of outdoor 
 exercise. That's probably all that's necessary. It can't be 
 a great strain on the intellect to teach g>^mnastics," said 
 Eugene callously. Steven put it down for the only ill-con- 
 sidered or unappreciative judgment he had ever heard from 
 him ; but somehow it did not seem advisable to take up the 
 cudgels for Miss Ballard and point out to Eugene how 
 grossly he had underestimated her. 
 
 Next Sunday afternoon found him roaming about the 
 confines of Greenwich Village; and erelong he came upon the 
 Sign of the Lanthorn, which was that article itself, a fine, 
 rough old specimen from some New Bedford windjammer of 
 the last century, swinging at the end of an iron arm from 
 the second-story front of a correspondingly fine and old 
 brick mansion recently restored, and made over into apart- 
 ments. There was a door of beautifully proportioned panels, 
 painted green, with a half-moon-shaped transom, and a brass 
 knocker and doorknob, and a scrolled iron foot-scraper. 
 Within, a rather steep curving staircase with the authentic 
 air of its period singularly outclassing modern copies, con- 
 ducted Steve to the next floor, where some interior partitions 
 
188 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 must have been removed, though with exceeding care not to 
 disturb what Mrs. Ballard would undoubtedly have styled 
 the " atmosphere." The landing had been widened; there 
 was a Palladian window with a little iron balcony; doors 
 opened on either hand, this into the rooms of Mr. Alfred 
 Popham, Stained Glass Windows and Church Furnishings, 
 that to Miss Frances Burke and Mrs. E. Van H. Ballard. 
 Voices and movements could be heard behind both of them ; 
 from some locality more remote there emanated the sound 
 of a ukelele and of a man singing; and Steven was aware of 
 a young woman in a linen crash smock of violent hue, with 
 hair cut short and hanging forward all around her face, 
 tiptoeing out to another landing higher up and leaning over 
 the banisters to survey him. Festoons of beads attached to 
 her somehow rattled against the railing as she leaned. 
 
 His door opened; the smock scuttled off. " Here you are! 
 I was hoping you'd come! " cried Francie heartily. She 
 looked older, taller, less girlish somehow, but as nice, as 
 wholesome as ever; her light red hair brushed up trimly, her 
 crisp blouse a marvel of both the tailor's and the laundress' 
 art, her neat-hanging skirt could have belonged to Francie 
 Burke and to nobody else. No smocks and tassel-like coif- 
 fures for her! The studio, at the first glance, seemed to be 
 two or more rooms thrown together into one large one, with 
 perhaps others, closets or alcoves really, ranged upon the 
 boundaries. Here were disposed in a picturesque huddle the 
 antiques, the painted furniture, the lustre-ware, etc., prom- 
 ised on the firm's card ; a score or so of mezzotints hung up 
 on the walls made an effect of soft brilliance among eigh- 
 teenth-century mirrors, empty frames and innumerable 
 sconces and brackets; strips of needlework, vivid embroider- 
 ies on parchment-colored backgrounds, and rococco cushions 
 of satin and lace encumbered the Adam settees and the old 
 oak dressers and benches that elbowed one another around 
 the wainscot ; and at his feet two or three Oriental rugs in a 
 tumble resembled the sweepings of many-tinted fragments 
 from a shattered cathedral window. In the middle of this 
 extravagant disorder, the super-orderly Francie in her 
 severe clerkly attire cut so incongruous a figure that it 
 arrested the mind in curiosity and speculation; she was not 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 189 
 
 out of place — nothing and nobody could have been out 
 of place in such a hodge-podge! — but, to borrow again from 
 Mrs. Ballard, she did not " compose " with the rest of the 
 picture. One felt that the linen-crash smock with her beads 
 would have been much more appropriately housed there. 
 
 " Isn't it in a muss, though? " she said cheerfully, trans- 
 lating correctly Steve's look of interested perplexity. '' We 
 keep it like this all the time. Everything's clean, though it 
 doesn't look so. Hang your coat and hat on the antlers, and 
 come over here to the fire." 
 
 Steven did as he was bidden, and weaving about amongst 
 the Burke-Ballard stock of goods, got up to the fireplace, 
 which itself obviously belonged to the collection; it was 
 supplied with a hob-grate, and an iron fire-back with some- 
 body's coat-of-arms stamped upon it. A little old fireside 
 sofa of faded red moreen, a wing-chair covered with flowered 
 and striped calico, a tea-table that reminded him of Cruik- 
 shank's illustrations to some first edition of Pickwick Pa- 
 pers, were drawn up to form a species of dyke against any 
 further encroachment from the shop properties. The spot, 
 cramped as it was, had all the inherent seclusion, comfort 
 and propriety of a hearth; the handful of coals glowed, the 
 kettle whispered to itself, there was a homely fragrance of 
 toast browning; somebody came from behind a high screen 
 of russet leather with dull gilding showing here and there 
 among its tooled traceries — and Steven's heart performed 
 an unusual caper, in the nature of a somersault. The some- 
 body was Mary. 
 
 She gave a jump and almost a scream at sight of him, and 
 the cups and saucers she was carrying on a small tray all but 
 went to the floor. Francie crowed with delight. 
 
 " Oh, Steven! " was all Mary could get out for an instant. 
 Then her voice and expression shifted from astonishment to 
 reproach as she ejaculated: " Oh, Francie! " 
 
 " I didn't tell her. I didn't say anything about your being 
 in New York," said Francie. Suddenly they all three began 
 to laugh. 
 
 The girls told him Mrs. Ballard was not there at the 
 moment ; she had gone out, giving the excuse of some slight 
 errand, but actually no doubt in the amiable purpose of 
 
190 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 letting them have the place to themselves for a while. " 1 
 thought Mother looked rather excited and mysterious when 
 I got in town this morning! " Mary said. " Of course she 
 wasn't sure that you would come to-day ; but she and Francie 
 kept the whole thing dark, anyhow." She faced him smiling, 
 frankly pleased, without a trace of embarrassment. It could 
 be no more possible for her than it was for him to forget 
 what had passed at their last meeting; but she had decided 
 to act forgetfulness at any rate, and Steve inwardly owned 
 that she was right. How else could they continue friends? 
 And to be good friends with her was all that he had any 
 business to expect. Mary did not look a day older, he 
 thought; she was as dimpled and fresh-cheeked as ever — 
 even more so. The life of a physical instructor must agree 
 with her, he said. Mary did color a little under his eyes, 
 but went on spreading jam on her toast, defiantly practical. 
 
 " Why, of course! I have to keep perfectly fit the whole 
 time, or I wouldn't look the part. I wouldn't be convincing, 
 you know. You can't go around preaching balanced rations 
 and regular hours for fresh air and exercise and all that, 
 without making yourself into a kind of sample of what it all 
 does for one," she said, waved the toast in the air and took 
 a bite. " This is an orgy, coming down to Francie's every 
 Sunday and stuffing on sweets," said Mary. " The rest of 
 the week I'm terribly strict with myself." 
 
 " Oh, you don't live here, then? " 
 
 '' Gracious, no!" Both girls shrieked hilariously in 
 unison; and both began to explain. If Steve could see the 
 accommodations — ! Mrs. Ballard had a cubby-hole to 
 herself; Francie bunked on any old lounge or divan or day- 
 bed in the studio ; if they sold it, she had to move to some 
 other piece of furniture. There was a bathroom, thank good- 
 ness! They had behind the screen a " one-hole " gas-stove 
 and with it and the grate- fire they sometimes got their 
 breakfast, never any heavier meal — " On account of the 
 cookiness/' Francie said seriously ; " Mrs. Ballard says a 
 studio is just like a woman's hair. It can smell of almost 
 anything, incense or cigarettes or even French perfume — 
 anything except cooking! " 
 
 *' / live at Miss Ogden's — the Mountaindale School. 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 191 
 
 That's where / live! " Mary announced pompously. " We 
 rather sniff at Bohemia and the Bohemians. Tuition 
 twenty-five hundred a year (payable in advance) and 
 extras. We can't really allow our girls to mingle with the 
 — the herd! " 
 
 Steven now recollected that his sister Hester had gone 
 there for two years. " Mother picked it out after looking 
 over about two hundred prospectuses. Hester liked it. 
 Edith wouldn't go there; she picked Bryn Mawr on her 
 own hook. She said your Mountaindale was too flossy; I 
 believe she thought all of them were." 
 
 Mary nodded. '' Edith wouldn't like it." she agreed im- 
 partially. " There aren't many girls, and the course isn't 
 very strenuous. I have them for horseback riding, hockey, 
 basket-ball, swimming — all those things. I like it — I 
 mean I like teaching, you know." 
 
 " They like you, too," said Francie. 
 
 Mary nodded again, affirming quite simply and openly 
 that they liked her. ''At least they've re-engaged me — 
 and that's pretty good proof," she said. '' I'm glad. I wag 
 so anxious to make good. Now let's talk about you for a 
 while, Steve." 
 
 " No, first I want to hear more about these interior-dec- 
 orators." 
 
 So Francie took her turn. She had got through her course 
 at the Art Institute; and, greatly fearing, greatly daring, had 
 taken some money of her own, a few thousands that had 
 come to her by her grandfather Burke's will, and gone into 
 the business — "Not here, at first, though," she said. "I 
 was up on Forty-Sixth, just off the Avenue. It was too 
 expensive — perfectly awful rent and everything else to 
 correspond. I've learned a lot since then — and it's not 
 quite two years! But one learns fast in New York. I was 
 as green — ! " She shook her head with a pitying smile. 
 It appeared, however, that she had really acted all along in 
 what even much older and wiser heads would have supposed 
 to be a practical enough manner; that is, she had bought out 
 a Mrs. So-and-So, a person of some repute, the owner and 
 manager of what was on the surface a " going concern " in 
 trade parlance. Alas, as Francie soon found out, nothwith- 
 
192 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 standing her efforts, some of which owing to youth and inex- 
 perience were doubtless misdirected, the concern did not go, 
 certainly not at any such gait as had been promised; it 
 barely limped. Perhaps it had never been so steady on its 
 feet as the former proprietor had represented, though Francie 
 made no charges or complaints on that score, being either too 
 proud to admit that she had been taken in, or too consider- 
 ate of the other woman. 
 
 " I don't know where I'd have been by this time. I'd 
 have hated to give up and get out — go back home. I wasn't 
 going to the family for help," the girl said, her young mouth 
 -settling momentarily into a line of unyouthful firmness. '' I 
 don't know where I'd have been if I hadn't come across Mary 
 and her mother. That was pure luck. They were living 
 down at Cos Cob then, and Mary was coming in town every 
 day to go to that Hygiene and Physical Culture place — " 
 
 " It was a kind of normal school," Mary interposed, paren- 
 thetically. " I had to learn how to teach, of course. And 
 then we had classes in anatomy, and first-aid work — jiu- 
 jitsu — some nursing. They give a diploma." 
 
 "We ran into each other at a Childs' place," Francie 
 went on. " Afterwards I got them to go around to Forty- 
 Sixth just to see it. I was blue and lonesome, anyhow. But 
 while they were there, the first customer I'd had for days 
 came in. It was all nothing but luck. Along came this lone, 
 stray man and saw a banjo-clock in the window and thought 
 he'd go in and ask the price, and what it was for besides a 
 clock! He thought it was some kind of a machine, and 
 really wanted to see it go, I do believe. Anyhow he wasn't 
 intending to buy it, at all. I was in the back of the shop with 
 Mary, so he happened to speak to Mrs. Ballard first — he 
 took it for granted she was a clerk — " 
 
 "Mrs. Ballard? He must have been one sure-enough 
 hick! " Steve commented forcibly. 
 
 '' No, he was all right — he just didn't know," said Francie 
 humanely, although she did smile a little at some recollec- 
 tion. '' The thing was that she had an inspiration and let 
 him keep on thinking so ! She says she made up her mind on 
 the spot to sell him that clock — she just wanted to see if 
 she couldn't! And, Steven," said Francie, in impressive 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 193 
 
 tones, " she did! She stuck the first price on it that came into 
 her head — it was twice what I'd put on — and she sold 
 it to him ! Then she went on, and sold him an old Revolu- 
 tionary belt and holsters and Washington Crossing the Del- 
 aware in a funny old Victorian black and gilt frame that I 
 thought I'd never get rid of in this wide world. Why he 
 wanted it I can't imagine, but she made him think he wanted 
 it, anyway! " 
 
 " You didn't interfere? " 
 
 " We got the giggles, and had to go and hide behind that 
 screen," Mary said, pointing to it. " Mother kept right on 
 just as if she'd been at it all her life, until it came to taking 
 his name and address and seeing about how the things were 
 to be sent, you know. And then she said: ' Jicst a minutey 
 please, I must ask the manageinent about that! ^ And didn't 
 she come back and call ' Miss Burke ' in the most business- 
 like voice ; and Francie marched out and they went through 
 all the proper motions without batting an eyelash! " said 
 Mary, rocking with laughter. '' The man never knew — he 
 never suspected a thing! " 
 
 " Why, we couldn't let him. It had gone too far by that 
 time; we had to act it out," said Francie, with some gravity. 
 " He might have thought he was being made fun of, and 
 gone off in a huff — my solitary customer ! But that's what 
 started this whole thing," she waved her hand around; 
 *' that's what gave us the idea. Mrs. Ballard found this 
 place; it's ever so much cheaper than the other, and we can 
 both live here — after a fashion. We don't mind; we're not 
 really uncomfortable. And people like it, somehow. Lots 
 more come than ever did at the Forty-Sixth Street shop; 
 and they don't seem to care if it is all cluttered up this way. 
 I like things in order myself. It was beautiful up at Forty- 
 Sixth," said Francie, with a faint sigh; " but we couldn't do 
 any good up there, and here we're getting along. It's slow, 
 of course, but we are getting along." She poked the fire 
 pensively, evidently regretting the Forty-Sixth Street place 
 still, against her better judgment. '' Mrs. Ballard is per- 
 fectly wonderful. I don't know where I'd have been without 
 her," she reiterated generously. 
 
 " Stuff ! Don't talk that way I " Mary cried out. " It's — 
 o 
 
194 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 it's all Francie's money, every bit of it, Steve. I don't see 
 why you shouldn't know it — I don't see why everybody 
 shouldn't know it. Mother thought she could do it, and 
 Francie let her try ; and then by good luck it turned out that 
 Mother could do it, sure enough. She was never so happy in 
 her life; she's told me so over and over again. She was 
 fairly withering away in that horrible second-rate Cos Cob 
 boarding-house, sitting around waiting for me to get through 
 my course. We wouldn't have had much of an outlook, even 
 then. I had great plans for supporting both of us when I 
 got a position, but you know how it is in New York, Steve 
 — " here Mary stopped short with a subtle change of expres- 
 sion. " Or do 5^ou know? " she demanded, eying him doubt- 
 fully. 
 
 " I do ! " the young fellow assured her, coloring and smiling 
 awkwardly, but with an accent that enforced conviction. 
 " Been scratching around myself for six months — that's 
 long enough to find out a few things about New York." 
 
 There was an infinitesimal pause, questions which neither 
 girl liked to ask point blank, passing through the minds of 
 both ; but Steven answered them unasked. " I had a fuss 
 with them at home and — and, well, I just up and got out. I 
 wasn't doing much good in the office, anyhow," said he; and 
 having got that far, found no difficulty in outlining to them 
 the rest of his experiences and activities. There was another 
 little silence after he had finished. 
 
 '' Why, we're all working, aren't we! Don't the strangest 
 things happen, though! " Mary exclaimed finally in a sur- 
 prise so open and naive, that both the others burst out laugh- 
 ing. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 A FEW years from now Steve Rudd will probably con- 
 cede upon a review of his debut in New York that he 
 had astonishingly good luck. The association with 
 Eugene would have been convenient and instructive, if noth- 
 ing else ; but, in fact, it set the younger man upon a certain 
 way which, left to himself and his own random experiments, 
 he might not have found. Later, at the house of Fulano, he 
 was getting along well enough, but might conceivably have 
 spent a good many more years and much labor without pro- 
 portionate profit, had not one of his superiors most oppor- 
 tunely broken a leg, tripping over a bundle of newspapers at 
 the foot of the Subway steps in the rush one night. Poor 
 Mr. Klingmann was laid up for nearly three months; Mr. 
 Rudd valiantly assumed his duties, carried it ofT well, and 
 the ensuing first of January " got a raise " to speak techni- 
 cally, both in salary and importance. The young man real- 
 ized that it was a windfall of chance such as he might have 
 waited a lifetime for in vain. 
 
 '' It doesn't make a great deal of difference how much abil- 
 ity you have, unless you're something phenomenal — which 
 I'm not! " he confided to Mary, valuing himself at once 
 shrewdly and humorously. " New York's full of ability. I 
 sometimes get to thinking that I can't go out on the street 
 and throw a stone without hitting some fellow that's got 
 more brains or a better variety of brains that I have. How- 
 ever — ! " Steve grinned and tapped his forehead. " ' A poor 
 thing but mine own,' " he quoted cheerfully. " I'm not dis- 
 couraged. But what I started out to say was that ability of 
 itself wouldn't serve; you can't get much of a foothold here 
 without some good luck. Right now, I'm having mine, and 
 I mean to make the most of it." 
 
 " Aren't you doing any writing any more? " 
 
 195 
 
196 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " Why — yes. Once in a while I try. And once in a while 
 I get something accepted. Verses, you know — " 
 
 " Oh, Steve, I think that's wonderful ! What are they in? 
 Can't I get the magazine? " 
 
 "Oh, they aren't anything — just little verses — light 
 stuff. Rondeaux and ballads, the kind of thing Locker- 
 Lampson used to do — only, of course, mine aren't in the 
 same class with his. Mine will just about pass," said the 
 young fellow, trying hard not to be conceited — or, at any 
 rate, not to show conceit! — over his achievements. In his 
 heart of hearts, Mr. Steven Rudd probably considered him- 
 self as good as any Locker-Lampson that ever held a pen. 
 As for Mary, she proclaimed that to be her opinion, openly; 
 she had never heard of Locker-Lampson, and a rondeau 
 vaguely presented itself to her imagination as something 
 written somehow in a circle — the name suggested it. But 
 her admiration and above all, her warm belief in him were 
 ineffably sweet to this rising author. 
 
 They had fallen into the habit of meeting at the Lanthorn 
 every week ; but this regularity was robbed of significance by 
 the fact that the studio on Sunday afternoons was gradually 
 coming to be a favorite place of gathering for any number 
 of other eager, fresh-spirited young adventurers among the 
 arts. They hailed from everywhere, except the city itself; 
 they had positions in church- choirs, or they were under- 
 studies in some theatrical company, or they painted at the 
 League, or they had gone into a broker's office on " the 
 Street," or they worked for one of the newspapers. It was not 
 Bohemia ; rather it might have been likened to an island off 
 the Bohemian coast. The girls invariably had some self- 
 effacing mother or some ungifted sister sharing the board- 
 ing-house back-bedroom, towing patiently along at rehear- 
 sals. The young men were never out-of-pocket or out-at- 
 elbows. They had homes where they sometimes went back to 
 visit, in Topeka, in El Paso, in Sandusky, in Knoxville; their 
 families wrote to them and sent them Christmas-boxes; 
 there were snapshots of Dad pushing the lawn-mower, and of 
 old Spot asleep on the front steps, and of Mother with Mat- 
 tie's baby, strung all around their cheap quarters, to say 
 nothing of photographs of their class, and of sundry " home 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 197 
 
 girls " to whom they referred with a bashfulness or a pains- 
 taking off-handedness equally tell-tale. If some philandering 
 went on amongst these young people, it was no more than 
 what might have gone on in their own homes, and of identical 
 quality; very likely they were all familiar with the charming 
 pages of Trilby and the Vie de Boheme, but something sane, 
 something manly and womanly, some peculiarly American 
 gift of humor made it plain to them that the whole charm of 
 the life therein portrayed resided in the portrayal ; the life it- 
 self, they discerned to be in the main very dingy, the people 
 who led it not too clever. Like Steve, like Francie Burke, 
 they were one and all too strongly imbued with the ambition 
 to " make good " to waste time on these hectic banalities. 
 
 Perhaps Francie was not the sort of young woman to at- 
 tract any other and freer kind of society, wherever and how- 
 ever she lived; she was not highly sophisticated, she was 
 merely upright and sensible. But had she been of an easier 
 fibre, "^there was still Mrs. Ballard, and the studio might 
 have had a worse chaperon. She moved among the young 
 people, an unconscious yet most eloquent exponent of her 
 only creed, that of manners, incapable of awkwardness, of 
 the least descent into bad taste. Sandusky and El Paso were 
 not at all familiar with her type, which belonged to an 
 older generation and possibly to a social order of which the 
 conventions were much more subtle and intricate; unde- 
 niably she set up a certain standard ; one could not witness 
 that spectacle of inveterate self-control without being im- 
 pressed by it. 
 
 '' I don't believe Mrs. Ballard ever lets go of herself for 
 a single minute," one extra-observant youth said to Steven; 
 *' of course it's your bread and butter to keep your temper; 
 you'd have to learn to, even if you didn't want to for your 
 own sake. But she never lets go in any direction — t€mper 
 or anything else. She's got it down to a fine art. You know 
 her and Miss Burke pretty well, don't you? You used to 
 know each other before you came here? Has Mrs. Ballard 
 always been like that? " 
 
 '' Oh yes, as long as I can remember," said Steven, and he 
 added further that she had been very prettv as a younger 
 woman. 
 
198 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " She's bright too; she has lots of sense. It takes sense 1 ^ 
 the other announced with deep conviction. He did not 
 specify what it was that took sense, but Steven understood. 
 Afterwards he reported this unbiased judgment to Mary, 
 with laughter. 
 
 '' Well, he's right. Mother is clever," said Mary, soberly 
 when her first amusement had passed. '^ I don't mean she's 
 clever like Francie; it's in a different way. I think they're 
 a wonderful combination; neither of them could get along 
 very well without the other. Francie has ever so much 
 character and originality, and she doesn't mind work and 
 trouble, and she knows her profession down to the ground. 
 But, Steve, she doesn't know people. Mother does ; Mother's 
 spent her whole life studying people. And that's just as 
 much a part of their business as Francie's end of it. It was 
 all Mother's doing when they went down to Tenth Street. 
 Do you know why she made that move? She had it all 
 thought out. She said to me: ' Francie will never make a go 
 of it, with that elaborate place she's got; it's perfectly un- 
 interesting, What people like is some little hole-in-the-wall 
 shop with everything higgledy-piggledy, w^iere they can 
 drop in and mouse around, and imagine they're ^' picking 
 up " bargains. The average person dearly loves to " pick 
 up" his antiques or curios; in a place like Francie's, he's 
 sure to think that she's overcharging and that the things 
 aren't genuine, anyhow.' Mercy, the people I've listened to 
 by the hour while they bragged about the gems they'd 
 'picked up'! Oh, you needn't laugh," said Mary, though 
 by this time she herself was smiling. " You know it's so. 
 Anyway, Mother finally persuaded Francie to move down 
 here — and the proof of the pudding's the eating! Why, 
 Steve, I've seen Mother let a set of old hammered iron hinges 
 go for less than they cost just so that a customer could go 
 around patting himself on the back for his remarkable taste 
 and keenness about ' picking up ' — and then she invariably 
 gets out even or better than even by selling him a lamp or a 
 basket or something, at a good big profit! He's in such a 
 good temper, you know." 
 
 Steven shouted with laughter over her ingenuous exposi- 
 tion of Mrs. Ballard's business methods. " But what does 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 199 
 
 Francie say to it? " he wanted to know. *' She doesn't work 
 the customers that way? " 
 
 '' Steve, she can't! " said Mary seriously. " She knows 
 she can't, so she just leaves all that to Mother. Why 
 shouldn't she? There's nothing wrong about it." 
 
 '' Oh, I didn't mean to intimate anything of that kind." 
 He meditated awhile. " But don't tell me they roped in — 
 er — that is, they didn't get old Sackett by those tactics? I 
 can't believe that." 
 
 *' No. That just happened. He saw their advertisement, 
 and liked it. But Mother did most of the — the managing, 
 afterwards. That was a splendid order; one or two more 
 like it would set them on their feet solidly. They haven't 
 quite finished with him yet. He seems to want them to go 
 ahead and do just what they please to the house, without 
 giving a thought to the money it takes. Mother says it's 
 delightful to be so free; it's a great experience. She says it 
 won't add anything to their reputation — it won't pay that 
 way; because the poor man doesn't know anybody, and 
 hasn't any friends to show it to ; and that's the best sort of 
 advertisement," said Mary, looking thoughtful. " But they'll 
 make money on it. Besides she's really interested. Mother 
 loves pretty things. She's had some before-and-after photo- 
 graphs taken, just to show what they can do with what looks 
 like a hopeless proposition." 
 
 It will be seen from the above fragments which were fair 
 samples of all their talk that Mr. Rudd and Miss Ballard, 
 whatever was in the mind of either, stuck to admirably safe 
 topics nowadays, though they were much more frank and 
 direct than ever before. Mary had spoken to him of her own 
 affairs, as well as of her mother's. It appeared she had bor- 
 rowed money of Mr. Stillman to embark upon the Institute- 
 of-Hygiene venture. '^ I went to Uncle John and told him 
 what I wanted to do," she said. " You see I'd thought and 
 thought, and it seemed to me about the only thing I could 
 do — go into athletics, be a professional coach at some game 
 or something like that. Men do it, I thought, and why 
 couldn't I? Especially as long as I hadn't any talent for 
 anything else, and couldn't take the time and didn't have 
 any money for a great long course of study. If I'd been 
 
200 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 brainy like Francie — ! But I'm not, so there wasn't any 
 use bothering! " said the girl, philosophically. " I went to 
 Uncle John, and he was very nice. He listened just as if 
 I'd been a man. When I got all through he asked me how 
 much I thought I'd need, and I told him, and he said all 
 right, he'd let me have it. But he said I must understand 
 that it was a loan; he wasn't giving it to me; I must pay him 
 back as soon as I got to making a fair living. He said it 
 didn't do anybody any good to help them too much. And 
 was I willing to go ahead on that understanding? I said: 
 ' That's all right, Uncle John. I may be pretty slow pay, 
 but I'll pay. I'd rather have it that way.' Then he said 
 that was the talk, and something about responsibility putting 
 backbone into people — I can't quite remember all he said 
 now, I was a good deal excited, you know — and then we 
 shook hands like two men, and that was all. It's so funny, I 
 was dreadfully afraid of him at the beginning, and it turned 
 out to be as easy! " 
 
 *' You've seen him since? " 
 
 " Oh yes, whenever he's in New York. He comes often, 
 you know. I haven't paid him a cent yet, but I'm going to — 
 I have a little of it saved up. Steve, do you know I've never 
 said a word to him about paying since that first time? I've 
 got a feeling that he doesn't want me to — " 
 
 " That's right," said Steven quickly. " He doesn't." 
 
 " Time enough to talk when I've got the money," said 
 Mary. '' He knows I can't do it right off." To another 
 question, she answered with a laugh that she didn't believe 
 Uncle John quite knew what to make of her mother. " I 
 don't think he had any confidence in her at all, until he went 
 down one day and found an old Swiss cross-bow and a rusty 
 old piece of armor, the kind they used to wear rather like a 
 sleeveless sweater, you know; Francie says they called it a 
 ' back-and -breast.' Well, Mother sold him the things, and he 
 seemed to be very much impressed! He sent Clara down, and 
 she bought something, too. Clara never did care anything 
 about us, though, you know. George is just the same as 
 ever; he's a dear! I felt so sorry about the baby." 
 
 " Yes, George was all broken up. He told me that he 
 could have stood the disappointment better if the poor little 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 201 
 
 thing had been born dead, or had died at once; but living a 
 month and then dying — ! He wanted to have a little girl, 
 and it turned out to be a little girl and everything seemed 
 to be going along beautifully. It was tough luck. But of 
 course they'll have others." 
 
 Miss Ballard made no reply to this last piece of prophecy, 
 maybe because the subject was one which even the astound- 
 ingly free-spoken young men and women of the present 
 generation avoid discussing together in too much detail; or 
 it may be that she entertained some doubts that the George 
 Stillmans would enlarge their family as suggested. Mrs. 
 George was not at all a maternally inclined person; on the 
 one occasion when they had talked in confidence since her 
 bereavement, she had been quite bitterly eloquent about the 
 disadvantages of motherhood. It w^as ''horrid"; you 
 couldn't go anyw4iere for months and months; they might 
 talk as they pleased about clothes, nothing looked nice; you 
 were terribly afraid all the time that you would never get 
 back to your natural figure again; and for that matter, 
 w^omen who had more than one baby never did; they never 
 looked the same; no kind of dreadful disease could be so 
 ruinous to your appearance. She was not going to let /ler- 
 self be spoiled that way, all dumpy and flabby ! Men were 
 so queer, so selfish; they didn't seem able to understand. 
 They actually thought you loved to go through all that suf- 
 fering, and be all out of shape and disgusting, etc., etc. Mary 
 could still hear Hester's excited little voice, ascending into 
 bird-like shrillness now and then, while she volubly 
 descanted on these wrongs, not abating one item in consider- 
 ation of George's presence. He sat by, troubled and awk- 
 ward, sometimes venturing a deprecatory mumble. 
 
 " You — you mustn't pay too much attention to what she 
 says, she doesn't mean half of it. Her nerves are — they're 
 all unstrung, you know — everything she's been through, you 
 know," he explained miserably as he took Mary down in the 
 little gilded elevator from their gilded hot^l-suite. '' The 
 baby was awfully cute, Mary, I — I wish you could have 
 seen her. She had such pretty eyes," said poor George wist- 
 fully. " But anyhow you mustn't attach too much impor- 
 tance to the w^ay Hester talks just now. It's been a pretty 
 Aad time for her." 
 
202 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 Mary responded with warm and comprehending words, 
 but she thought with a wrench at her heart, as she went off 
 in the taxi which George insisted on providing for her — out 
 of the corner of her eye, she saw him tip the chauffeur — 
 Mary thought that it had not been and was not likely to be 
 nearly so bad a time for Hester as for George himself. 
 Hester, to tell the truth, did not look much like the invalid 
 he represented her to be, and perhaps had persuaded himself 
 into believing her; on the contrary she was as blooming, 
 fresh and soignee as ever in an imported toilette, and her 
 much abused figure had lost none of its ravishing proportions 
 and pliancy. The room was piled with boxes from half the 
 milliners and modistes in New York; furs, lace negliges, 
 dashing sport shoes and coats disputed possession of all the 
 chairs. Hester had been shopping for three days, in prepara- 
 tion for Newport; it appeared that she hadn't a rag to wear 
 — impossible to get anything at home. They were going to 
 " Journey's End " later in the summer, when George might 
 run on up to that little place of his in Nova Scotia. None 
 of that for Mrs. George, however! According to her report, 
 it was a dismal hole, nothing going on, and nobody you eared 
 to know. 
 
 Numbers of the Rudd connection, of course, passed through 
 the city from time to time ; do not all roads in these United 
 States lead to New York? Steven saw Hester, too, and the 
 rest of the family once in a while, excepting his father; 
 somehow Lawson was always out of the hotel, or he had not 
 come with them on this particular trip; he had gone on 
 ahead, or would follow later. The father and son had not 
 met since that fateful day in December, more than two years 
 ago; if either one was sore at heart, he kept it to himself. 
 Eugene Rudd once asked Steven if he ever wrote home, and 
 if they knew what he was doing, how he lived. 
 
 '* Why, of course!" said the young fellow, stiffly. "I 
 didn't run away, and I'm not in hiding. They know all 
 about me. I — I don't hear from my father direct; that's 
 not to be expected. But I've a letter from Mother here now; 
 you can see it if you like." 
 
 '' Oh, I can see it if I like — and be damned to me for an 
 inquisitive busybody, hey? " said Eugene, with perfect good 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 203 
 
 humor. " Never mind, I don't want to see your corre- 
 spondence, Mr. Rudd." After which little tilt they dropped 
 the subject, nor, by tacit agreement, was it ever again 
 brought up between them. 
 
 Readers of this history, however, may care to know that 
 at this time Steve was living in another set of pigeon-holes 
 similar to those Eugene occupied, on a higher floor of the 
 same building. From camping with an iron cot-bed and a 
 kitchen-table and chair, he had gradually advanced to such 
 luxuries as a shelf of books, mostly in foreign tongues — 
 any member of Fulano's staff could get whatever he wanted 
 at cost — and sundry other furnishings acquired from 
 " real " second-hand shops of " real " junk-dealers, as he 
 informed the firm of Burke and Ballard with pointed empha- 
 sis. He had the ladies up to tea, and entertained Jack 
 Burke and Mrs. Burke when they came east to visit Francie. 
 Mrs. Burke made a famous Welsh-rarebit on the occasion; 
 and they all professed great surprise at the homelike possi- 
 bilities of this cramped corner in a tenement-house. Not 
 long afterwards Steven heard in regard to it from a totally 
 unexpected quarter, to wit: Mr. Adam J. Sackett! 
 
 " I'm told you've got a real nice cozy place of your own 
 up there to St. John's Building," this gentleman remarked, 
 encountering him one day on the street. '^ Hear it has very 
 marked atmosphere, and reflects your personality in a very 
 marked degree — " And seeing Steven reduced to inarticu- 
 late astonishment at the above expressions, which indeed 
 came with a weird and unnatural effect in strong contrast 
 to Mr. Sackett's ordinary style, he grinned, then chuckled, 
 then laughed outright. 
 
 " I got that from Mrs. Ballard. Why, I sh'd think you'd 
 have guessed right off! " he said. " Ain't it nifty, though? " 
 And here, while Steve was still speechless, Mr. Sackett tilted 
 his chin upwards, raising an imaginary eyeglass and survey- 
 ing an imaginary room in a grotesque yet entirely recog- 
 nizable parody. "Very nice!" he drawled mincingly; 
 " nice feeling in that panelling, don't you think? And it's so 
 diflScult to ketch the neo-classic spirits of the First Ompeere, 
 too — hoo, hoo, ho, ha, ha I " said Mr. Sackett, exploding in a 
 laugh that caused passers-by to turn and stare. He punched 
 Steven in the ribs. ** Ain't it great? " 
 
204 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " Why, you seem to appreciate it fully, Mr. Sackett," said 
 Steve, obliged to laugh himself. '^ I'm sure Mrs. Ballard 
 will be glad she has succeeded so well. She deserves to suc- 
 ceed; she's genuinely interested and very artistic — " he 
 halted, as the other, facing him, screwed one entire side of 
 his face into a wink of combined humor, sagacity and satiri- 
 cal import. 
 
 '^ Sure! She's all that — and then some! " he announced. 
 " Say, young man, I owe you something for tipping me off to 
 this house-decorating business. I haven't had so much solid 
 enjoyment since I quit work. D'ye know that Mrs. Ballard's 
 a smart woman? Yes, sir, that's what she is, a smart 
 woman. Look at all the money she's got out of me, what 
 with the dessoo-day-ports and the Chinese fiddle-faddles and 
 all the rest of it. I buy 'em all, you know, whatever she 
 steers me up against, just like a lamb — just like I didn't 
 know she got a rake-off on each and every one of 'em. Why, 
 why shouldn't she? " he asked openly, as Steven made a 
 movement of dissent. " 'S all right. She's got to live. And 
 I'm willing. It entertains me. I'm on all the time, only she 
 don't know it; she thinks I'm an easy old bird — and that 
 entertains me! Pretty woman, too — of course she's not 
 young any more ; but you know my taste. The young ones 
 don't appeal to me. The way they dress nowadays, you can't 
 tell half the time whether they're coming or going. In my 
 young days, they had some figure to 'em, and Mrs. Ballard 
 naturally belongs to that set — about twenty-five or thirty 
 years ago. Tell you, you knew what corsets were for in 
 those days." 
 
 '^ Well, I'd like to see the house when it's all finished," 
 said Steven, rather precipitately ; he was remotely disturbed 
 by the tenor of these remarks. " It must be very much 
 improved." 
 
 '' It ought to be at the price," said Sackett, with feeling. 
 "Why, I'd be glad to have you see it; and the other Mr. 
 Rudd too. You bring him along. Tell you what, we could 
 have a dinner. That's it, we'll have a dinner! I'll see if 
 Mrs. Ballard and the other young lady, the young one, I'll 
 see if they can come. We'll have a dinner — swallow-tail 
 coats and white ties and everything, like these society plays 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 205 
 
 on the stage. You've got one, haven't you? A dress-suit, 
 I mean? That's the kind of thing Mrs. Ballard's used to. 
 Say," he added, with renewed amusement; " you'd ought to 
 see the hired help stand around when she speaks to 'em. 
 And she don't speak rough, either. You'd ought to see them; 
 it's a circus! " 
 
 Amazing to relate, this festivity actually did come off 
 with the company indicated, excepting Eugene who, alas, 
 happened to be "sick" when the date — New Year's Eve 
 — arrived. Steven put on formal dress as required, and 
 went over to Madison Avenue, and was received in the trans- 
 figured drawing-room by the host, who looked not absolut€ly 
 comfortable, but pleased and eager in an obviously brand- 
 new suit of evening-clothes about which he urgently 
 requested Steve's opinion. " I give the tailor a hundred and 
 seventy-five for this outfit. You only get about one full 
 dress-suit in your life, so what's the use being a piker about 
 it? " he pointed out reasonably. " Do you think the back 
 sets right, though? " 
 
 " First-rate! " Steven assured him. '' The house is beau- 
 tiful. I'd never have recognized it." 
 
 ''Hey? Yes. Look here, these are the right kind of shoes, 
 ain't they? The young fellows are always up on points 
 like that. I just had to take the clerk's word for it. They 
 seemed to me kind of neat; thing is I don't want 'em too 
 dressy for a man of my age." Being assured on this ques- 
 tion, too, he took time to notice Steven's other remarks. 
 '' Yes, it {-s changed. I'll take you all over it after dinner. 
 One of the beds has a pink silk spread with lace over it and 
 these here little flowers like on a hat, you know. Three hun- 
 dred iron men! I says to Mrs. Ballard — she'd been talking 
 some more about 'atmosphere' — I says: 'My, my, you 
 wouldn't think air — just plain air, would come so high, 
 now, would you? ' She laughed — she has to laugh at my 
 jokes, you know! " said the ex-saloon-keeper, winking with 
 a sudden exhibition of his defeating shrewdness. " Always 
 laugh at your customer's jokes — that's a matter of prin- 
 ciple! Say, I sent a car down for the ladies. They'd ought 
 to be here by now, seems to me." 
 
 Steven reminded him that the holiday crowds and cabs 
 
206 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 were very thick; to which Mr. Sackett assented absent- 
 mindedly, walking about, fidgeting with his watch, furtively 
 examining himself and straightening his white waistcoat be- 
 fore the pier-glasses. Steven sat down on an '' Ompeer " 
 sofa, slim-legged, with brocaded satin cushions in tender 
 hues of blue, cream and cinnamon, outlined with silver 
 thread; the walls and draperies repeated the same shades 
 with an effect of pale richness ; peacocks, pedestals, Worces- 
 ter china, red velvet curtains, great lumbering chandeliers 
 had all been deposed, and in their place were Mrs. Ballard's 
 panellings, her Aubusson carpet, her severely beautiful white 
 marble mantel with the pair of Wedgwood vases, her sconces 
 in a delicate glitter of prisms. And presently here was Mrs. 
 Ballard herself, conspicuously suited to this setting, with 
 her gray hair dressed high and modishly, and a trained black 
 velvet dress, and a becoming twist of chiffon around her 
 throat which had once been as prettily round as Mary's, but 
 was now a little too thin. Steven wondered to see that she 
 quite outshone Francie, who had the air of a well-born young 
 page in attendance on some countess; but Francie had 
 not cultivated the social arts with Mrs. Ballard's assiduity ; 
 and perhaps indeed would never acquire the older woman's 
 suave distinction, no matter how hard she tried. It was 
 difficult to imagine her trying, however; as Mary had said 
 of her, she did not know people. 
 
 It was no doubt owing to the apparently effortless efforts 
 of the older lady that the ceremony of dinner went off so 
 successfully; yet in fairness it should be noted that Mr. 
 Sackett cut no bad figure at the head of his table. He was 
 rather silent, rather watchful of his own knife and fork and 
 of the others' methods of handling theirs ; he addressed Mrs. 
 Ballard scrupulously as '^ ma'am " and Francie with not 
 quite so much care and deference as " miss." But he was not 
 afraid of the servants and did not bully them ; he ate with a 
 moderation evidently habitual, and drank barely enough to 
 keep his guests in countenance, though the cooking was good 
 and the champagne above criticism, " Yes, I expect I ought 
 to know something about liquor," he said simply, in reply to 
 some appreciative comment. There were rich folk of 
 Steve's and Mrs. Ballard's acquaintance, of their supposedly 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 207 
 
 Brahmin caste, who might have profited by a lesson or two 
 from this old retired whiskey-seller upon such points as how 
 not to be pompous, affected and ostentatious. Whether his 
 manners were governed by common-sense, a certain right 
 feeling, or merely the wary study of his fellow-men, they 
 were good enough manners; and if his grammar was imper- 
 fect, he never failed to speak to the point and with essential 
 clearness. So Steven thought, and wondered if Mrs. Ballard 
 agreed with him. What Mrs. Ballard thought or felt, though, 
 was impossible of surmise; it was even likely that she her- 
 self did not know the actual woman, the true Ellen Ballard 
 was buried so deep beneath layers of caution, policy, self- 
 restraint, polite artifice. That she was sincerely interested 
 in her new profession could not be doubted, however; it was 
 manifest in the frankly critical, almost proprietary survey 
 she sent about the rooms. 
 
 " You see I was right, Mr. Sackett. For a little party like 
 this, you need this little place," she said not without tri- 
 umph, reopening some previous argument, it would seem, as 
 they sat about the table in the elegantly coquettish, painted 
 breakfast-room. '' The dining-room is perfect in spirit, 
 very gracious and hospitable in a splendid way — but it's 
 altogether too formal, too spacious; it's only suitable for 
 state occasions — when you give a dinner to the President, 
 for instance — " 
 
 " I don't aim to invite Woodrow yet awhile," said Sackett; 
 " He's not expecting it of me anyhow. I've always voted the 
 straight Republican ticket." 
 
 '' Well, when you ask Mr. Roosevelt, then," she retorted 
 briskly. " What I insist on your noticing is that we'd be lost 
 in that great salon to-night, so few of us. And on the other 
 hand see how intimate and charming this room is! " 
 
 " Intimate and charming. You said it! " assented Sack- 
 ett, with the faintest possible twitch of the eyelid on Steve's 
 side. He looked around the table, genial and satisfied. " I 
 call this a nice size party to have, two and two." 
 
 '' I wish Mary were here," Francie said. '' It must be ages 
 since she's been out anywhere." 
 
 " Who is ' Mary'? " their host asked alertly. And, on 
 being told, " Your daughter? " he said, eying Mrs. Ballard. 
 " I didn't know you had a daughter." 
 
208 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " Yes, indeed. She's only a year or two younger than 
 Mr. Rudd. Oh, I'm an old woman, Mr. Sackett! " 
 
 Mr. Sackett 's rejoinder was not the obvious compliment; 
 instead he said: " I'm not as young as I was myself." The 
 two seniors looked at each other companionably ; for the 
 moment they felt much nearer together than the young 
 people across the table. 
 
 '' Well, to-morrow's another year, anyhow! " said Steven, 
 feeling it incumbent on somebody to avert silences and 
 gravity. ^' They were beginning the regulation racket — tin 
 horns and all that — when I started up town, and the cab- 
 arets were filling up. Listen to that, now ! " 
 
 A siren on some boat anchored up the river had set up a 
 wailing salute, ending, by some deft manipulation on the 
 part of the artist in charge of it, in a series of staccato sobs 
 nicely diminishing in volume. " Old Nineteen-Thirteen's 
 hitting the trail! " said Sackett, when the final goblin ulula- 
 tion had died away. " We'd ought to have a drink to Nine- 
 teen-Fourteen. Somebody give a sentiment. Mrs. Ballard, 
 3^ou give a sentiment, won't you? " 
 
 " Nineteen-Fourteen ! Peace on earth, good-will to every- 
 body! " said Mrs. Ballard. 
 
 ''Peace on earthy good-will all around!" said Sackett, 
 with approval. '' That's all right, I guess. I thought you 
 could think up a good one, and you did! Nineteen-Four- 
 teen, good-will all around ! That's more likely to come true 
 than most New Year's wishes you hear. It's not so far- 
 fetched." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 ALL this while, this three years or more, it is not to be 
 supposed that Mr. Steven Rudd's family were sitting 
 in sackcloth and ashes because of the young gentle- 
 man's headlong withdrawal from home and their society. 
 His mother and his sister Hester, even had they known the 
 cause, would not have been greatly interested, much less 
 impressed; if there was a moral lesson involved, it would 
 have escaped them; they would have serenely lumped old 
 David's transactions in quinine with all commercial transac- 
 tions of all men everywhere. Such matters appertained 
 strictly to '' business," and were therefore not to be ques- 
 tioned or cavilled at, not to be understood and most em- 
 phatically not to be bothered over by any woman. Steven's 
 departure they explained to themselves after much the 
 same formula — if they took the trouble to explain it at 
 all; when it came to explanations to other people, outsiders, 
 both were ready; they would have been sincerely mortified 
 had they failed in the feminine accomplishment of explain- 
 ing, smoothing over, saving everybody's face. Steve? Yes, 
 he was in New York, writing. You know he always had that 
 turn; at college he was very good, really clever, people said. 
 Yes, he was in New York, that's where everybody that 
 wanted to do anything of that kind always went; they're all 
 the time looking for material, you know. Steve was just 
 like all the rest, the ones you read about — it must be the 
 most ridiculous, unconventional, Bohemian, happy-go-lucky 
 existence. Imagine: he pressed his own trousers! Oh yes, 
 my dear, he had written them about pressing his trousers, 
 and making coffee; and living in some weird, out-of-the-way 
 hole with a lot of other literary and artistic nuts — this was 
 Hester's version — like himself. Perfectly ghastly, but Steve 
 loved it; it exactly suited him; he was absolutely happy. Of 
 course they would have much preferred for him to stay at 
 p 209 
 
210 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 home; it was hard not to see him for such long stretches of 
 time — here Mrs. Rudd would look down with a little grave 
 air of maternal self-sacrifice highly edifying to see — but 
 you cannot have your own way about things like that; you 
 cannot live your children's lives for them, etc., etc. Steve's 
 verses and other trifles coming out sparsely in the periodi- 
 cals — not the most distinguished periodicals, I fear! — they 
 greeted and circulated in a pleased flutter, but without too 
 much enthusiasm, which they would have considered foolish, 
 if not underbred. Their attitude, in short, was admirable, 
 a pattern for all mothers and sisters of black sheep; for 
 that Steven was a black sheep, was what each one of them 
 believed in her secret heart. 
 
 As for Lawson, his friends and club companions noticed 
 that he began to look older during this time, to look his full 
 age, that is ; heretofore, strangers, and even old acquaintances, 
 had uniformly guessed him at half a decade younger. It 
 was a natural change, but not a few put it down to disap- 
 pointment over that boy of his; there was a general under- 
 standing that he had had trouble with that boy. But con- 
 trary to the mother's experience, Steve's father never was 
 called upon for explanations. The gray-headed brotherhood, 
 with their keen, tired faces, with their shrewd, practised, 
 combative wits, with the load of memories, regrets, old un- 
 realized dreams and resolute new ones, burned-out husks of 
 desire they every one carried, refrained with an instinctive 
 humanity from probing him; were there not questions they 
 themselves would have winced to answer? Even when some 
 rumor of Steven's literary achievements reached them via 
 wives and daughters, they did not consider the news likely 
 to cheer the senior Rudd; from their point of view, and as 
 they guessed reasonably, from Lawson's, it did not redound 
 greatly to the young man's credit, or promise much for his 
 future. 
 
 " Rudd's boy is writing poetry, I understand," Daniel 
 Garrard would say, slightingly — only Oom Dan'l pro- 
 nounced it " portry " after the artless style of his youth — 
 " Well, I'm not in a position to judge; I haven't an idea how 
 much they get paid, for instance. But even supposing what 
 he wrote was good — " said Mr. Garrard, with an expression 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 211 
 
 which would indicate that the opposite was probably the 
 case — " even say everything he WTote was good, and he 
 could get it printed, it's a mighty uncertain source of income, 
 seems to me. Just put it to yourself this way: you've got a 
 grown daughter, and one day some young fellow that you 
 never laid eyes on before comes into the office and wants a 
 private interview. And along towards the middle of it you 
 find yourself obliged to say: 'Look here, Mr. Saphead, I 
 want you to understand that I haven't got any prejudice 
 against you personally, and I should be the last man on 
 earth to stand in the way of her happiness. But I've got to 
 know more about you before I allow her to take any such 
 decisive step. Are you sure you can support her the way I 
 have — the way she's used to? Are you sure you can sup- 
 port her at all? And if so, how? In plain language, how 
 d'ye make your living? ' And suppose he tells you: ' I'm a 
 poet ! ' Now I leave it to anybody at this table — I leave 
 it to any man here what he'd say. Portry! Huh! I'm sorry 
 for Lawson Rudd! " 
 
 Had it been another man's son, Lawson might not improb- 
 ably have been of the same mind as Mr. Garrard, and 
 grinned with the rest at the above imaginative effort; nor, 
 for that matter, can it be denied that poetry writing as a 
 means of livelihood has an air of unreliability even to the 
 followers of the other arts, none of which are conspicu- 
 ously reliable. As it was, however, the elder Rudd took his 
 son as seriously as the latter could have desired; he said in 
 the family and to intimate friends that Steve's work ap- 
 peared to him very good — light, of course, but quite up to 
 the standard of the average magazine; perhaps as he went 
 along and his talent matured, he might do very well. In 
 the meanwhile he was not wholly dependent on his writing, 
 he had a position, a sheet-anchor to windward — that was a 
 sensible thing to do, in fact it w^as the only sensible thing to 
 do. With which impartial statements, Mr. Rudd would pro- 
 ceed to another subject. It was an attitude that defied alike 
 criticism and sympathy, as completely as did his wife's and 
 Hester's, not because it was so well assumed, but because, 
 unlike theirs, it was essentially honest. 
 
 For Lawson believed in his own judgment of his son's 
 
212 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 gifts; and he knew that Steven was no black sheep. The 
 father could see a wrong-headed justice in the younger man's 
 view, and Steven's consistency commanded a certain respect; 
 he had the courage of his high-flying convictions; he would 
 not bow himself in the house of Rimmon. His unreasonable- 
 ness was exasperating, yet there was something admirable 
 about the spirit of it. Lawson found that what hurt him 
 most was not Steven's condemnation of David; hardly from 
 the most liberal and easy-going of moralists would that 
 ancient sinner have obtained mercy; but his descendants 
 need not be excommunicate, too. Steven's assumption that 
 this unoffending second generation of Rudds should '' do 
 something " to atone for the long outlawed crime, and that 
 not having done '^ something " they were co-sinners with the 
 actual criminal, wounded his father to the quick. '' He ought 
 to know better," Lawson thought with anger and pain. " He 
 ought to realize — ! Perhaps he will when he gets a little 
 older. Elihu and I weren't pleased or proud ourselves when 
 we found out about this miserable business; we didn't like 
 it or approve of it. We simply couldn't help it. The thing 
 was done and past mending. What's the matter with the 
 boy? He has plenty of sense. Why can't he see? " A good 
 many times a day, but more often at night, would he re- 
 hearse the dreary argument, seldom escaping, by the way, an 
 unwelcome recollection of the other recalcitrant member 
 of the family, Eugene. He was a black sheep, if you choose 
 — a drunken fool. It somehow appeased Lawson's con- 
 science to recall that Eugene had begun his drunkenness and 
 folly a good while before that break over the Metaderma 
 which he thought himself too good to sell. Too good, for- 
 sooth! They were well rid of him, as his subsequent career 
 had amply proved ; and yet — *' We were all fools, the 
 three of us. There wasn't much to choose between him and 
 El and myself! " Lawson sometimes reflected with sour 
 mirth, visioning again the scene in the office, the shouting 
 and swearing and loss of temper on all sides. ^' I don't 
 know what got into us — or what got into me, at any rate. 
 The Metaderma wasn't worth it; Eugene was pretty nearly 
 right. At least there was something to be said for his stand- 
 point. If he had only not taken it quite the way he did — 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 213 
 
 and then we all got stubborn. I wouldn't act that way now- 
 adays. None of us would, not even Eugene, I daresay. 
 We're all twenty years older." The confusing thought arose 
 that he had not acted " that way " in Steven's case; he had 
 kept himself well in hand, conducted the unhappy affair 
 with all possible patience and kindness — and the result had 
 been precisely the same! 
 
 His mother and sister brought Steven's letters to the head 
 of the house to read, trying dutifully to avoid the slightest 
 hint of their suspicion that the father and son never heard 
 from each other direct. It was easy to see, the two agreed in 
 private, that something had happened, but men dislike so for 
 women to mix into affairs of that sort — quarrels, unpleas- 
 antnesses ; much more tactful to pretend ignorance ; Lawson, 
 for his part, played the game conscientiously, if in not nearly 
 so finished and convincing a manner; this is a branch of 
 the social arts wherein men cannot compete with the other 
 sex. " Well, this is quite interesting, what Steve says about 
 the book trade," he would remark, handling the letter with 
 a mighty effort to speak naturally. '' I see he's met Mr. 
 Cook again, our own Mr. Cook. I remember Marshall Cook 
 when he was a clerk with the Utopia Buggy Company, keep- 
 ing books, not writing them! Something new for Mrs. 
 Ballard to go into this decorating and house-furnishing. And 
 Mary teaching in a girls' school. What next? I noticed the 
 Ballards seemed to have disappeared somehow this last year 
 or so — " and so on, and so on, fancying that all this gossip, 
 in which he was never known to indulge on any other occa- 
 sion, diverted attention from his real eagerness for tidings of 
 Steven, what the young man was doing, how he fared. It 
 was a pathetic bungle, which Mrs. Lawson witnessed with 
 the tolerant contempt of an adept. 
 
 The Stillman family, one and all, were now brought into 
 closer association than ever with the Rudds, by reason of 
 the marriage. To be sure, Mr. and Mrs. George had an 
 establishment of their own ; in the beginning they had tried 
 the paternal roof which was wide-spreading enough, in all 
 conscience, to have accommodated any additional number 
 of Stillmans, a great stone erection with a feudal-looking 
 square tower at one corner of it, and acres of park all around. 
 
214 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 But, big as it was, there was not room in the same house for 
 the two ladies. Clara was charming; Hester was charming; 
 they were devoted to each other ; George and his father never 
 had a word; they all led an ideal existence together — in 
 spite of which they presently decided to lead it separately! 
 The young Stillmans went off and built a fascinating Eliza- 
 bethan cottage of fifteen or twenty rooms, where they enter- 
 tained hosts of friends, not one of whom ever met Clara 
 there, strange to relate, in view of that mutual affection 
 upon which both Hester and she so strongly insisted. 
 
 Stillman senior (whom people were now beginning to call 
 ''old Stillman ") was a frequent visitor; he was fond of his 
 daughter-in-law and petted her and loaded her with presents 
 of a cost and quality which seemed unconscionable even to 
 her own father. Lawson sometimes remonstrated. " My 
 goodness, John, Hester really didn't want that thing; it was 
 only a passing whim, and she'll tire of it before you can turn 
 around," he said at every fresh extravagance. " I believe 
 I've always been a fairly indulgent father. I've given her 
 everything she asked for, in reason, but I've always drawn 
 the line somewhere. You'll spoil her, if you keep on this 
 way." 
 
 " Oh, bosh ! Hester's the only young, pretty thing we have 
 around," retorted the other, with the bravado of conscious 
 guilt. '' Why shouldn't I spoil her? " 
 
 " But there's Clara — " 
 
 " Yes. There's Clara," Mr. Stillman assented dryly. 
 *' It's a good thing she didn't hear what I said just now! " 
 
 They had been asked to the Elizabethan cottage for din- 
 ner at eight that evening, and were standing in the drawing- 
 room before the painted and marble-topped console which 
 had brought forth Lawson's most recent expostulations. It 
 was a museum piece, bought at a museum price, but suited 
 its present setting well, for the drawing-room and indeed 
 the whole house were in a daintily flamboyant style, brittle 
 and expensive as — one might fancy — the mistress herself. 
 Hester had not come down yet, and Mr. Stillman looked at 
 his watch. The butler came in with circumspect tread, and 
 gathered up their empty cocktail-glasses. 
 
 '^ Isn't George home? " Lawson asked. 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 215 
 
 " Yes. I brought him. Hester was using their car. He's 
 had plenty of time to dress; I don't know what can be keep- 
 ing them/' said the elder Stillman, and he spoke to the 
 butler: " Where's Mrs. Stillman, Michel? " 
 
 Michel paused with the tray. He was a very prince of 
 butlers, skilful, impassive, experienced and sophisticated to 
 the point where, George used to say, you might let off a 
 string of fire-crackers without warning under his ear, without 
 causing him to turn his head, or spill a drop. But now 
 Michel actually hesitated, at a loss; he rearranged the 
 glasses with motions betokening uncertainty. " Mrs. Stillman 
 is — she will be here in a few minutes, sir — that is — " 
 
 " She's not sick? " 
 
 " Oh no, Mr. Rudd. It's — it's — " At this point Michel 
 appeared to make up his mind to resign all responsibilities. 
 '' It's the cat, sir," he said, with calm. 
 
 " The cat? " cried out both gentlemen. 
 
 " Yes, sir. It's quite sick, sir." 
 
 They looked at each other. " It must be that big cat she's 
 had so long," said Mr. Stillman at last. " What's the matter 
 with it? " 
 
 " I really couldn't say, sir. Mrs. Stillman sent for the 
 veterinarian. She sent Raymond with the car," said Michel, 
 his decorous imperturbability now entirely restored; he lin- 
 gered, deferentially awaiting further questions, and was 
 withdrawing as deferentially when Lawson spoke to him. 
 
 " Where is Mrs. Stillman? " 
 
 " She's down in the laundry with the cat, sir, I think," 
 said Michel, lingering yet another moment with supreme 
 good manners ; but they let him go this time. 
 
 " Hester's always been very fond of that cat — if it's the 
 same one,'' said Lawson. " It must be pretty old, now." 
 
 " Yes. I suppose that's what's the matter with it. Quite 
 a tragedy." 
 
 They sauntered aimlessly about; the house was very quiet, 
 save for doors shutting distantly, and a clock striking half 
 after eight. 
 
 ''I'm afraid it is going to be a tragedy," Lawson said: 
 " though it's not easy to kill off a cat. Nine lives, you know. 
 How d'you get to the laundry, John? " 
 
216 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " I think I know the way. You go through the pantry 
 somehow — " 
 
 They started off, the apparition of their portly middle- 
 aged figures, looking more portly and middle-aged somehow 
 in evening-clothes with wide fields of shirt-fronts, creating 
 some commotion amongst the maids and dishes. And after 
 various adventures from which each carried away a blurred 
 impression of carving-knives and corkscrews, of white tiled 
 surfaces and glass cupboard-doors, of smells of fish and 
 sauced entrees, of laughter and talking in the servants' din- 
 ing-room abruptly hushed as they passed, of blind leads 
 ending in dumb-waiters and broom-closets, they finally 
 brought up at the head of a flight of stairs plunging down to 
 a darkness made visible by one electric bulb at the bottom. 
 A man rushing up collided with them on the landing. " Huh, 
 beg pard'n!" he ejaculated without looking, shoved Mr. 
 Stillman aside, and rushed on. They saw what looked like a 
 hypodermic syringe in one of his hands. 
 
 *' Must be the doctor," said Stillman. 
 
 George came to the foot of the stairs. " Is that you, 
 father? " he exclaimed in surprise; and gave another excla- 
 mation at sight of Mr. Rudd. " I didn't know it was so late." 
 He turned his head, calling back: "Here's your father, 
 Hester!" 
 
 "Oh, do please make the doctor hurry!" said Hester's 
 voice, distractedly. 
 
 She was kneeling on the cement floor beside the prostrate, 
 black, furry figure of the cat, inert on a piece of carpet ; rags 
 lay near at hand, the veterinarian's satchel open, with steel 
 tools grimly gleaming within. There were cold, soapy, and 
 cellar-like odors. Hester, in a featherweight evening frock 
 with strings of beads across her bare shoulders, made a 
 fantastic picture as she hung over her pet with vain coaxings 
 and endearments. 
 
 " So sick, Dingbats? Did the doctor give him nassy old 
 med'cine? Never mind, Dingbats get all well now! Get 
 all well right away! Want me to stroke your head? Poor 
 Dingbats!" , , 
 
 Dingbats raised his head with difficult effort at the touch, 
 fixing on his mistress the brilliant and distant stare of 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 217 
 
 death. There was something appallingly human in it, in the 
 vacancy of his small, round, chinless face; dying, all 
 creatures are alike ; but poor Hester did not know. 
 
 '' There, he's purring! He tried to purr ! He must be bet- 
 ter. Don't you think he looks a little better? " she appealed 
 to the veterinarian as he came running back with the hypo- 
 dermic needle ready. He looked at the animal, and dropped 
 his hand. 
 
 " Hold him up on his fore-paws, Mrs. Stillman," he said, 
 kindly ; " it'll be easier for him — " But as she obeyed, the 
 little body drooped together between her hands. 
 
 Even Hester understood then; she burst into a genuinely 
 agonized wail. '' Dingbats, Dingbats! Oh, he's dying! Oh, 
 doctor, can't you do something? Poor little Dingbats, he's 
 gone, he's gone, he's dead! Oh, what shall I do, what shall 
 I do — ! " Her voice trailed off in sobs; she sank down on 
 the laundry-floor, in a huddle of lace, chiffon, flummery, 
 forgetful of dress for the first time in her life. The men stood 
 around awkwardly. 
 
 " Never mind, Hester, I'll get you another cat," said her 
 father-in-law in a well-meant attempt at consolation; but 
 it only provoked a new storm of sobs. 
 
 " I don't want another cat ! I don't want any cat ever 
 again! Poor, poor little Dingbats, he was so furry and 
 sweet! " She glared at the doctor vengefully through her 
 tears. " Why didn't you do something? There must have 
 been something to do. I don't believe you knew what was 
 the matter with him — I don't believe you know anything at 
 all — " 
 
 " Oh, come now, Hester — " Lawson interposed hastily, 
 glancing at the veterinarian with apology ; but that medical 
 practitioner remained quite unmoved. 
 
 " There's not much you can do for a cat," he explained 
 philosophically, beginning to repack the satchel. *' Every- 
 body feels bad to see their pets die — worse than they do 
 over folks sometimes." 
 
 '' Well, we don't need to go without our dinner anyhow," 
 said George in a harsh voice, which caused both the older 
 men to eye him wonderingly. He went to Hester and lifted 
 her to her feet. " Come, Hester, you can't do anything, you 
 know — " 
 
218 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 '' I don't want any dinner. I couldn't eat a thing. Go and 
 have your old dinner, if that's all you care about — " 
 
 '* I guess we owe you something, Mr. — Doctor — Er — " 
 said the elder Stillman, hastily, in fact, rather peremptorily 
 urging the other toward the stairs, as he felt in his pocket. 
 Lawson followed them, leaving George still arguing not too 
 gently with Hester, and Hester still hysterically refusing to 
 budge. 
 
 " I'll send a maid down to her, hadn't I better? " her 
 father suggested feebly ; and above stairs he did hunt up one 
 of them and despatched her to the chamber of mourning, be- 
 fore himself sitting down to their belated dinner. George 
 moodily joined the two older gentlemen, after a while; and, 
 the meal over, moodily took himself off again. 
 
 " It's very childish of Hester making so much fuss," her 
 father said to his old friend; Lawson was annoyed and some- 
 how humiliated, not able to divest himself of a feeling of 
 responsibility for Hester. 
 
 " Oh, she can't help it. One gets very much attached to 
 a. pet. They develop very attractive little ways; and often 
 show a surprising degree of intelligence," said old John, 
 not in the least aware that he was accurately describing the 
 cause and nature of his own regard for Hester! 
 
 They smoked a cigar or two together ; and Lawson took his 
 way homewards, earlier than usual, in an obscurely discon- 
 tented mood, which he accounted for on the theory that he 
 must be lonesome, although lonesomeness was a complaint 
 from which he had never suffered before, nor, to be plain, 
 would he ever before have regarded the society of his family 
 as an antidote for it. But just now he had a sense of isola- 
 tion which he decided must be put down to the absence of 
 his wife; Mrs. Lawson was at Palm Beach, whence she 
 might be expected home in another month, but meanwhile 
 it was gloomy coming back day after day to his great house 
 with nobody to welcome him. How scattered the family 
 was! How diverse their interests! The automobile came 
 to a halt before his door, and as he got out, Lawson was 
 struck by an unexpected stir within the house, rumors of 
 which even penetrated to the street ; lights were going to and 
 fro in some of the unused rooms; and before he could fit 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 219 
 
 his key into the lock, one of the servants, who as a rule were 
 not too punctilious about their duties when there was no one 
 to wait on but himself, came scurrying and opened the door. 
 In the hall, the spectacle of a mob of trunks, hat-boxes, 
 bundles of travelling rugs and what-not, arrested him; a 
 staid person, with the air of a housekeeper, trained nurse or 
 professional woman of some sort, was standing over the 
 luggage, apparently directing the disposal of it. Lawson 
 stared helplessly ; he had never seen her before in his life and 
 here she was giving orders in his house! He wheeled, ad- 
 dressing a look of interrogation to the parlormaid, who was 
 obviously in a great state of flutter and excitement. " Mrs. 
 Rudd? Has she come back? " 
 
 " No, sir — no, Mr. Rudd. It's Mrs. Gherardi. She just 
 got here — not half an hour ago. She wouldn't let us tele- 
 phone you." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IT did not require any great gift of penetration in Law- 
 son to guess what had brought his daughter home in 
 this abrupt fashion, unheralded, and without her hus- 
 band; for that matter, every servant in the house had a 
 suspicion, and a tolerably close one. That there had been 
 trouble between the Gherardi pair could not be doubted ; as 
 to what kind of trouble her family and indeed anybody that 
 knew Edith would wait her pleasure to hear, secure in the 
 conviction that she would tell the truth, any sort of mystery, 
 secrecy or pretence being utterly foreign to her. " We'll have 
 a talk to-morrow. Dad. It's too late now," she said, after 
 kissing and clinging to him with perhaps a shade more 
 warmth than usual ; she had never been demonstrative. And 
 Lawson, like the rest of the world, had to bide her time. 
 
 She was not yet out of bed the next morning when he left 
 the house ; but her father was not used to the appearance of 
 his womenkind at the breakfast-table, and her immediate 
 resumption of all the familiar ways pleased him. He liked 
 to think of her upstairs in her own room — a grave, gray, 
 ascetic room, which it had suited her to furnish with nun- 
 like simplicity, and which had been kept without change — 
 asleep under his roof ; once more she was the daughter of the 
 house. " Mrs. Gherardi is very tired. It's always a hard 
 crossing at this time of year — very rough. She's very tired 
 and I don't want her disturbed. Tell the cook to be sure and 
 have everything on the tray nice and hot, and — and the 
 way she likes it — er — muffins and things — when they 
 send her breakfast up," he said a little fussily to the butler, 
 as he was leaving. 
 
 " Thank you, sir. Mrs. Gherardi left orders last night, 
 sir," said the man, without moving a muscle of his well- 
 trained countenance. Lawson was divided between vexation 
 and amusement. He might have spared his pains; of course 
 
 220 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 221 
 
 she had left orders. Trust Edith! She never forgot any- 
 thing, and always knew exactly what she wanted. For the 
 first time in weeks he went to the office in good spirits; and 
 all through the day, opening the mail, dictating to Miss 
 Parker, holding council with his managers, going out to 
 luncheon and playing a game of billiards, and coming back 
 and starting to work again with all steam up — all through 
 his day, the thought of Edith at home warmed his heart. 
 
 It had seemed to him, after that one brief glimpse of her 
 the night before, that she looked pale, even a little worn; but 
 if so, it must have been merely the natural fatigue of a long 
 and trying journey, for in the drawing-room that evening, it 
 was the same Edith as of old who came to meet him with 
 her head up, her springy step, her daring assumption of 
 beauty that vanquished adverse judgment. Had there been 
 a dozen Helens or Cleopatras in the room, everybody would 
 still have turned around to look at Edith, the father thought 
 with fond pride. Lean and long in a black-blue dress, the 
 pailletted corsage flashing and flexible as a shirt of mail, 
 with a slender circlet of gold around her straight white tem- 
 ples ending in a crest of defiant feathers sprayed with bril- 
 liants, she was a Valkyrie — a Valkyrie from the Rue de la 
 Paix. with a flame-colored ostrich fan instead of a spear! 
 
 '' By George, Edith, you look stunning! " her father said 
 in boyish admiration. '^ That paint-brush thing on your 
 head is quite regal." 
 
 She named the celebrated French man-milliner from whose 
 atelier the whole confection had come, with a laugh. " He 
 says he likes to design for me; and he says, moreover, that 
 I am the only woman whose own designs he has ever con- 
 sented to carry out. ^ Madame connait si bien son genre! ' 
 That's a tremendous compliment — if he doesn't tell every- 
 body the same thing! " She turned with a slight gesture. 
 '' This is my friend, Miss Stannifer, Dad." 
 
 Hereupon there rose up from one of the brocaded drawing- 
 room chairs a short, spare, firm-featured lady, about forty- 
 five years old, in a sedate evening toilette of black crepe de 
 chine, with a black velvet band around her spare throat 
 whereon shone, also in an extraordinarily sedate manner, a 
 small diamond star — it shone, nobody could have said it 
 
222 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 sparkled. Lawson recognized the baggage-master of last 
 night. 
 
 " Miss Stannifer used to be secretary and governess for 
 the Grafin von Falkenberg — Alice Hilliard, you remember, 
 Dad? Then she came to me," said Edith, as if this informa- 
 tion would instantly clear up the question of Miss Stanni- 
 fer's status, supposing it needed clearing up; and in fact, 
 Lawson received a measure of enlightenment, though he 
 wondered mightily within him that Edith should have found 
 it necessary to employ either a secretary or governess. Miss 
 Stannifer, for her part, appeared to take this species of card- 
 index introduction as a matter of course. She bowed 
 calmly. 
 
 " Alice Hilliard? Oh, yes. I knew her father very well," 
 said Lawson, explanatorily. " Rather lost sight of Alice 
 lately, of course. She must have been over there for fifteen 
 years. Isn't she a good deal older than you, Edith? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. She was one of Clara Stillman's set of girls. 
 They all came out the year of the Spanish War — " 
 
 " Sh-h ! " said Lawson in tones of mock horror, at which a 
 reserved smile appeared on Miss Stannifer's somewhat im- 
 mobile visage, 
 
 " We've seen a good deal of each other, though," Edith 
 said, waving the flame-colored fan. '' Her girls are very 
 sweet — and quite like American girls. They'd had Miss 
 Stannifer for ages." 
 
 ^' Madame von Falkenberg was anxious for her daughters 
 to speak English — her native tongue, that is," said the ex- 
 governess, in a clear and sharply-defined utterance, like the 
 striking of a clock. One scarcely needed to be told that she 
 herself was English. 
 
 " They wanted me to teach them Americanese — our 
 slang, you know," Edith said, and laughed again. 
 
 There was a short silence ; nothing, apparently, remained to 
 be said about the von Falkenbergs; but, by a happy chance, 
 dinner was announced, rescuing the company from a discus- 
 sion of the weather. In past years, Mr. Rudd had been 
 accustomed to the presence of a governess about the house ; 
 his own girls had always had one, generally some black- 
 browed young French woman, whose speed and accuracy in 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 223 
 
 the use of her own language moved him to respectful sur- 
 prise. It was incredible that anybody should speak French 
 that well! Sometimes she would bring the children to 
 breakfast with him, but she never appeared at dinner. Miss 
 Stannifer, however, had the air of being perfectly habitu- 
 ated to handsome dinners in a handsome house; she was a 
 gentlewoman — an English gentlewoman, not entirely free 
 from the naive insular superiority. 
 
 " Those are hominy croquettes around the guinea-hen 
 fillet — a specialty of ours. I think you'll find them very 
 nice," Lawson said in his quality of host, observing her to 
 look a little askant at the dish. But at these words, she 
 adjusted a pair of gold pince-nez, and examined the hominy 
 croquettes attentively. 
 
 " Ah, I see. One of your queer American dishes. I sup- 
 pose one gets used to them, in spite of the way they look. 
 Thank you, I don't think I want any of it," she said, in her 
 distinct speech, waving it aside; and went on eating the rest 
 of her dinner — '' Just as if she had paid us a pretty compli- 
 ment, by George! " Lawson said, describing the incident to 
 his luncheon-club with chuckles. He did not fail to add, 
 however, that Miss Stannifer's manners were fundamentally 
 those of a person of good sense and good breeding, and more- 
 over displayed a thorough acquaintance with the world. " I 
 don't quite know how she managed it, but the minute Edith 
 and I felt ready for a little family talk — private affairs, you 
 know, things nobody cares to discuss before strangers — the 
 minute we were ready. Miss Stannifer somehow disappeared ! 
 Nothing marked about it, either; no excuses, no awkward- 
 ness, no stealthy creeping off. She simply wasn't in the 
 room! " he said, not without enthusiasm. "I never knew 
 anything to be better done." 
 
 The minute he referred to came not long after dinner, 
 while they were sitting over the tray of coffee and liqueurs 
 in the drawing-room. All during dinner there had been an 
 interchange of questions and answers about old friends — 
 who w-as married, who was dead, what had happened in the 
 four years or more of Edith's absence. And now she said: 
 " I heard from somebody that Eleanor Maranda — Eleanor 
 Loring — was going to get a divorce from that Loring man, 
 or else that she had gotten it, I can't remember which." 
 
224 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " Yes, I believe she did. Of course they kept it very 
 quiet. That can be done, you know. No need for publicity 
 or talk." 
 
 This piece of indirect counsel, like many other calculated 
 kindnesses, went calamitously wide of the mark. Edith 
 gave her father a straight look, momentarily setting her 
 straight lips. " I don't see why there should be any effort to 
 keep such a thing quiet," she said; and after an instant, 
 added deliberately: '' I daresay you know that is why I have 
 come back home this way, father. To get a divorce." 
 
 ''I — I was afraid so," he admitted. " I have been afraid 
 for some time that — that things were not going well." Law- 
 son had never liked his alien son-in-law, never entirely 
 trusted him, but a sense of justice, the desire to do his whole 
 duty, to observe those time-honored doctrines of patience 
 and moderation in which he had laboriously schooled him- 
 self, impelled him to add earnestly: "I hope you haven't 
 acted too hastily. But if you begin to feel that you have, 
 don't be stiff-necked about it, Edith. Don't let your pride 
 stand in the way of a reconciliation. Young people — and 
 old ones, too ! — often have misunderstandings, and between 
 two people who really care a great deal for each other, a 
 misunderstanding is the bitterest thing on earth. Now — " 
 
 Edith did not interrupt him; one of her gifts, sufficiently 
 rare in a woman, was that of never interrupting. Be the 
 matter great or small, the speaker wise or foolish, Edith 
 invariably heard all out with the strictest attention. So 
 now she did not interrupt her father; with her cool, light 
 eyes fixed on him, she moved her fan; ceased moving; re- 
 sumed. Lawson all at once felt his words and the thought 
 behind them to be running out, so to speak, as a river might 
 lose itself in sand. He halted, and after a proper interval, 
 she answered him. 
 
 " I know you think it right to give me that sort of advice. 
 It is right. But I have made up my mind. I have thought 
 of everything. You know I generally do." 
 
 " Yes, you do! " her father said. " Only this is — Have 
 you seen an attorney? " 
 
 " No, not yet." 
 
 "Well — er — can you get a divorce on this side? With 
 your husband over there in Germany? " 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 225 
 
 " I don't know as yet. That's a mere detail, however." 
 
 A mere detail! Well, perhaps it was, her father said to 
 himself, in comparison with the central fact of Edith's de- 
 termination; she was the embodiment of cold purpose. " Er 
 — ah — it will be incompatibility, I suppose? " he hazarded. 
 She couldn't very well allege desertion or non-support! 
 
 '' No. Statutory grounds," said Edith. The fan waved. 
 
 Lawson turned very red; his generation never mentioned 
 anything so ugly in a mixed company ; women were not even 
 supposed to know what this particular phrase meant. He 
 had to remind himself that Edith belonged to what was prac- 
 tically a new race; other times, other manners; and it might 
 be that the fashion of calling a spade a spade made for 
 decency in the long run more definitely than calling it an 
 agricultural implement, or pretending that there was no such 
 thing at all. Following up this reasoning, his next question 
 came logically, nevertheless he stammered and hesitated. 
 ''You — er — I — there can't be any doubt? You — you 
 have — the charges can be proved, in short? " 
 
 " Oh, certainly. I wouldn't make a charge that I couldn't 
 prove. I found him. I found them together." 
 
 Her father sat an instant benumbed. " You — you found 
 them together? " he literally gasped. " You found them — 
 you yourself? " 
 
 " Yes. The girl happened to be one of the maids. Frieda 
 Schuler; from Bremen, I believe. A very handsome young 
 woman," said Edith, with complete detachment. '' I had 
 engaged her only about six weeks before, so she had not 
 been in the house very long. Of course I don't know how 
 long it had been going on — between Rudolph and her." 
 
 '' You mean to say this — this thing occurred in your own 
 house? " her father articulated wdth diflSculty. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Lawson Rudd stood up, trembling all over; his strong, 
 ageing face turned gray ; between his set teeth he ground out 
 an appalling curse. Not in years, not in his whole life had 
 he known such a surge of anger; it was not merely that 
 generations of clean-living ancestors revolted within him; 
 a primordial instinct went storming through his blood. Of 
 the pair, Edith was the composed one! She gazed at her 
 
226 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 father a little apprehensively, and spoke part in soothing, 
 part in remonstrance. 
 
 "Why, father! Why, father! Don't look so! Don't feel 
 so! It's all over now." 
 
 He dropped back, a good deal shaken, controlling himself 
 with a severe effort. "I — I beg your pardon, Edith. I — 
 1 forgot myself. I said something — I beg your pardon! " 
 
 '' Never mind. I knew you'd be angry. Maybe I wouldn't 
 have liked it if you hadn't been angry; though, of course, 
 it's not really worth while," Edith said; and she repeated: 
 " The whole thing is over now." 
 
 She spoke with no slightest trace of feeling. It was all 
 over, Lawson thought, looking at her; Edith's youth was all 
 over; some zest of life that had been within her was done 
 away with, cut out and the wound cauterized. There was 
 nothing left but a husk of passionless flesh, a chilled-steel tool 
 of intelligence. And she was not yet twenty-seven years old. 
 After a while, she said: " Shall I tell you about it, Dad? " 
 
 " If you choose," said Lawson. '' If it isn't — " If it 
 isn't too painful, he was about to say, but stopped. It did 
 not seem as if anything would ever pain Edith again. She 
 made a little gesture with the fan, as if to put aside his 
 concern, began to speak and went on speaking with an im- 
 personal composure which was manifestly genuine ; there was 
 no hint of bravado, of emotions melodramatically held in 
 check about it. Her main, indeed, her whole anxiety seemed 
 to be to lay the facts before him clearly and in their proper 
 sequence. 
 
 " Of course I knew before — I had known for a good 
 while that Rudolph was — was not like an American hus- 
 band. There was always something of the sort going on. But 
 this time I didn't suspect. A servant-girl, you know. One 
 doesn't think of them in that connection, somehow. I found 
 out by the merest accident — the sort of accident that hap- 
 pens on the stage. Everything about it was utterly banal. 
 
 " We had been asked to a musicale. Rudolph came home 
 earlier than usual, and wouldn't eat any dinner; said he had 
 a furious headache and would have to chuck the party and 
 get to bed, but I must go by all means — to be seen in the 
 best houses, in the right circle, was always so important for 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 227 
 
 people in our position. It was as commonplace as that; the 
 oldest trick in the world — only it is generally the wife 
 getting the husband out of the way! In the meanwhile 
 Alice von Falkenberg had telephoned that she would stop 
 and pick us up; Count von Falkenberg had some kind of 
 business — he's in the Foreign Office, and all the diplomatic 
 service seem to be very busy just now — and she would have 
 to fetch him home later, but she didn't want to go by herself. 
 I was glad afterwards that everything happened just in this 
 way. Alice came for me. On the way she got to talking 
 about her governess, this same Miss Stannifer. She said 
 Hilda and Janet didn't need her any more ; they are almost 
 grown, and are going away to school in Geneva. Miss Stan- 
 nifer had been with them over ten years, and Alice felt 
 rather badly about her going, but at the same time didn't 
 feel justified in keeping her on, and Miss Stannifer herself 
 has a good deal of spirit, and w^ould not want to stay any- 
 where without a well-defined place and duties that balanced 
 her salary. She wouldn't be contented as a figurehead, or 
 pensioned off; she wants to work. Alice told me she had 
 even taken up stenography this last year, with the idea of 
 fitting herself for another kind of position, though her eye- 
 sight isn't very good; she's not young, you know. The whole 
 thing seemed pathetic ; Miss Stannifer is a lady — a clerg\^- 
 man's daughter, very well connected — all that sort of thing. 
 It means so much over there. Everybody that goes to Alice's 
 house knows Miss Stannifer. It was a good deal on Alice's 
 mind ; she kept talking about her — suggested that I might 
 take her for a companion. At the time, of course, I was a 
 little bored ; but afterwards I thought how fortunate it was. 
 Don't you want to smoke, Dad? You always used to smoke 
 after dinner." 
 
 Lawson took a cigar, with some idea of humoring her, 
 though conscious all the while that Edith was the last woman 
 in the universe to demand humoring. He was wondering 
 inwardly what Miss Stannifer had to do with the matter, 
 and where all this talk about her would lead; but that it 
 would lead somewhere, and was vital to the story, nobody 
 that knew Edith would doubt. 
 
 She went on. They had gone to the von der Schacht 
 
228 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 musicale, but came away early, before midnight; they were 
 the first to leave, Madame von Falkenberg's call for her 
 husband necessitating it. He bore some official title which 
 Lawson could not understand, though Edith reeled off the 
 intricate German syllables glibly, having, for her part, ac- 
 quired considerable facility in the language during these 
 years of residence. Her friend set her down at her own door, 
 at something past twelve; she let herself in and went 
 upstairs. 
 
 " They were not expecting me back so soon. And besides 
 they had had champagne. It made them reckless," she said, 
 her fan swaying gently to and fro. 
 
 There was a long silence. Lawson's cigar had gone out; 
 he discovered on mechanically attempting to smoke that he 
 had crushed it well-nigh to powder in his clenched fist. 
 
 '' Very^disgusting, all of it! " said Edith, in her cool voice. 
 
 Her father struggled unsuccessfully to imitate the same 
 coolness, as he asked: " Well? What did you do? " 
 
 " I went away and left them. I went to my own rooms. 
 I sat down and thought for a little. Then I rang my bell 
 and after a while — for all the rest of the servants were 
 asleep or gadding about somewhere, or had perhaps been paid 
 to leave the house — after a while one of them came. It was 
 not my own maid, but a sort of kitchen helper, a Bavarian 
 peasant-girl, smelling terrifically of potato-peelings and dish- 
 water. I don't suppose I had ever spoken to her before, or 
 even seen her very close. The poor thing herself was rather 
 frightened, and kept curtsying and apologizing. Really, 
 though, she suited better for what I wanted than my own 
 maid. I had her make up a bed for herself in my dressing- 
 room. ' You must sleep here to-night,' I told her. ' In the 
 morning early, we will get up and pack some trunks.' " 
 Edith paused reflectively. " They are perfectly astonishing, 
 those people. They obey like sheep. Fancy my giving such 
 an order to any servant over here ! She would have tried to 
 worm some explanation out of me, or else would have pre- 
 tended to do what I said, and then slipped off and sent for 
 help to the nearest lunatic asylum. But this one never asked 
 a question, or said a word; she did exactly what I told her to, 
 even to going to sleep on her pallet on the floor ! 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 229 
 
 " In the morning we got up and packed everything, and I 
 sent for a cab to take us to — " 
 
 " A cab? What had become of your own machine? " 
 
 '' It was reported to be out of order at that precise mo- 
 ment," Edith said tranquilly. '' I suppose orders had been 
 given to interfere with my going or to embarrass me as 
 much as possible. However, I went." 
 
 She had gone to a hotel, the largest and best-known in the 
 city, with her peasant hand-maiden, engaged a suite of 
 rooms, and telephoned to Miss Stannifer. The latter, who 
 had already left the von Falkenbergs and was en pension 
 in a humble quarter, came at once. " She has never left 
 me since, day or night," Edith said. 
 
 ^' I suppose, of course, you explained the situation fully 
 to her? " said Lawson, still in a fog about the necessity for 
 Miss Stannifer. 
 
 ''Oh, yes, she knows all about it. After she came, I sent 
 back the poor Bavarian. She went just as submissively and 
 unquestioningly as she had come. They are certainly ex- 
 traordinarv! " Edith reiterated. 
 
 " Well, then what did you do? " 
 
 " Nothing except see about steamer reservations. I did 
 think at one time of going to our Ambassador; they had 
 always been as nice as possible to me, and I had some idea 
 of getting advice from a man. But, on second thoughts, it 
 seemed better not. He is there for public affairs, not private; 
 and I didn't want to do anything that could bring in the 
 name of any official from this country. I might have put 
 him into an unpleasant or difficult position, some way. So I 
 never went near the Embassy. All of them called, though. 
 Alice came to see me, of course. And Rudolph came." 
 
 ''He did?" 
 
 '' Yes. I didn't see him. Oh yes, he came again and again, 
 and his father and mother — all the family. They were 
 quite wild — in a dreadful state of mind. Not because of 
 me, you know." A wraith of a smile passed across Edith's 
 features to see her father sit dumf ounded at this information. 
 " Oh, not about me at all ! They were worried over Rudolph. 
 They were afraid his career would be ruined forever. It is 
 ruined," said Edith without venom, simply as a statement of 
 fact. 
 
230 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 This, which she appeared to consider amply explanatory, 
 only served to puzzle her father still more. " Well, Edith," 
 he said at last; " if his career professionally or financially or 
 any other way has all gone to pieces, I am vindictive enough 
 to be heartily glad of it. But as a matter of fact, that's not 
 what usually happens, in these cases. You know the world 
 
 — you know what its judgments are likely to be about the 
 man and the woman that — that go wrong this way. The 
 man always gets ofT the easier of the couple. Monstrously 
 unfair, but that's what happens. It wouldn't exactly ruin 
 a man over here, unless — well, it wouldn't ruin him, gener- 
 ally speaking. I've always supposed that over there they 
 were much more lenient than we are." 
 
 '^ It all depends," said Edith, impartially. " In one way 
 they are distressingly rigid. Rudolph could have carried on 
 an intrigue with a brother-officer's wife, or with some woman 
 of title, or even with a figurante in the Imperial Ballet, or a 
 celebrated demi-mondaine — provided she were celebrated 
 enough ! — and nobody would have said anything. But a 
 chambermaid! Oh, impossible! Low! Vulgar! Stupid! 
 He'd be dropped from all the clubs, everybody would cut 
 him dead on the streets; and, pour comble, when it got to the 
 ear of the All-Highest, Captain Gherardi would presently 
 receive an official intimation not at all delicately or indi- 
 rectly worded that his military services were no longer 
 required by his chief or his country. That's what they 
 meant by my ruining his career." 
 
 " Your ruining it, hey? Seems to me he did it himself." 
 
 " Yes, but they wanted me to overlook it, to keep quiet 
 about it, and go on living with him, you know." 
 
 '^ Huh ! " said Lawson, in a snarl. 
 
 " Oh yes, they were all very tragic," said Edith, moving 
 the fan steadily. " His mother came to see me, and made a 
 terrible outcry." 
 
 " I don't see what she could find to say," said Lawson, 
 bafl^ed. 
 
 " Well, my mama-in-law — she's very stout and high- 
 colored and dresses in black silk with lots of passementerie 
 
 — started out by reasoning with me. She told me I was very 
 young, and didn't know anything about men, having been 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 231 
 
 brought up with such crude American ideas. Men — mar- 
 ried ones and all — must have diversions and variety. It 
 was the part of a good wife to shut her eyes to certain things. 
 Everybody had had some such experience as mine. Even 
 Rudy's papa — ! I said I quite understood about Rudy's 
 papa. We were sitting opposite a mirror just as you and I 
 are now." 
 
 Lawson's eyes travelled involuntarily to the glass whence 
 his daughter's reflection returned the gaze superbly. He had 
 enough imagination to visualize the scene, the little, fat, 
 excited German hausfrau, red-faced, tearful, middle-aged, 
 dowdy, a caricature; and Edith, ineffably cool and exqui- 
 site, assuring her that she " quite understood about Rudy's 
 papa! " 
 
 " She went almost into hysterics, and I think she would 
 have scratched me, if Miss Stannifer hadn't been there. It 
 was a very coarse exhibition," said Edith. ^' So strange! 
 They had all shown good enough manners before, neverthe- 
 less I had had a notion that down underneath they were — 
 well, rough, you know, violent — er — common, as Mother 
 says. And sure enough, they were, only worse than I could 
 have imagined! After that, Rudolph's father came. I was 
 expecting a visit from him, too, of course; they seemed to 
 think that it would make more impression on me if they 
 came one after another all day long, instead of all at once. 
 It was very tiresome. The first thing Herr Gherardi did was 
 to order Miss Stannifer out of the room — or to order me 
 to order her. I said, very well, and she went out. Then he 
 began in that loud, blustering, overbearing way they have, 
 as if by bawling and lots of words they could put you in the 
 wrong. He told me that I was a foolish, selfish, short- 
 sighted, high -tempered young woman. I must behave my- 
 self; what did I me^n by this outrageous conduct? I would 
 have to be taught a lesson; I would not be allowed to carry 
 this any farther, and so on. I did not say anything ; there 
 was no use, you know. I sat and listened, and looked at him. 
 After a while he stopped of his own accord." 
 
 Lawson thought he knew why the other father had stopped 
 " of his own accord," under that steely and measuring eye. 
 For the first time during this sorry recital, he felt a desire 
 
232 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 to laugh. He'd like to see anybody bluff Edith! "Well, 
 what did you say to him? " 
 
 "I said: *A little less noise, Herr Gherardi, if you 
 please!'" said David Rudd's granddaughter; and a certain 
 likeness to that flint-hard old worthy, flitted across her face, 
 startling her father not a little. '' That seemed to take him 
 aback, somehow. He hesitated and sputtered for a minute. 
 Then he went ahead on another tack, quite fatherly this 
 time. He said in a grave, warning, significant way that I 
 must remember what my own conduct in the past had been; 
 that I was in no position to criticize my husband for this 
 sort of imprudence, or to assume superiority — " 
 
 '^ What? He said — ? " shouted Lawson, half-rising, 
 gripping the arms of his chair. " He deliberately 
 hinted—?" 
 
 " Father! " said Edith, as before. "■ Do, please — ! What 
 is the use? " 
 
 He commanded himself once more. " To be sure ! But 
 what next? What was the next step in the persecution? " 
 
 " Oh, he kept on in that paternal-advice style for some 
 time. I didn't say anything. Finally he stopped ; I think he 
 was more or less flustered by my simply sitting listening and 
 watching him. I suppose he had expected me to get angry 
 or frightened," said Edith, speculatively. " I didn't. And 
 that must have upset his calculations. When he stopped I 
 asked him to please be more specific about when and where 
 and with whom I had erred as a wife in the same way that 
 Rudolph had as a husband ; I said I should like to know. He 
 wasn't ready for that, either, and fumbled around a good 
 deal, and at last wanted to know where I had been myself 
 the night I had come home and alleged that I had found 
 Rudolph. I said a person so well informed as he professed 
 to be ought to know already; but that I had no doubt the 
 Countess von Falkenberg would be glad to tell him. He'd 
 forgotten about that. Oh, they are so dull! Their lies are 
 the most childish things imaginable — it's an insult to one's 
 intelligence to be expected to believe such stuff. Then he 
 fumbled around some more, and said it was very suspicious 
 my leaving my husband's roof, and going off to a hotel by 
 myself. I said that I had literally not been * by myself ' 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 233 
 
 without a woman companion for one single instant since that 
 night, and that I would not have the slightest difficulty in 
 proving it to him or anybody." 
 
 Enlightenment flooded her father's mind. " Oh! " he 
 ejaculated. 
 
 '' He knew that to be the truth. For that matter he knew 
 all along that personally I was absolutely unassailable; he 
 just thought he could bully me. When he found that he 
 couldn't he rather went to pieces — lost control of himself, 
 and blurted out that it was easy to manufacture proofs; 
 that two could play at that game; that I had plenty of my 
 dirty American dollars to bribe people with ; but that he had 
 money, too, which he would not hesitate to use, if I didn't 
 come to my senses and abandon this attitude. So I could go 
 on at the peril of my own reputation — and a great deal 
 more in the same strain. By that time I was beginning to 
 be pretty tired of him. So when he stopped to take breath, 
 I said: ' Miss Stannifer! ' and Miss Stannifer came out from 
 behind a screen where she had been all the time. She only 
 went out of one door and came in at another! I said to her: 
 ^ Kindly read from your notes what Herr Gherardi has been 
 saying to me.' So she started to read, all about the bribing 
 and everything. Then he bounced up, shrieking that this 
 was a verdammt trick! I said, yes indeed, it was! With that 
 he went raging around, calling me names, perfectly crazy. 
 And when he got out of breath again, I said: ' Miss Stanni- 
 fer, have you taken all that Herr Gherardi has been saying?' 
 And she began to read again! " Edith paused with her first 
 smile; it was bright as a new sword. '' Oh, Dad, you've no 
 idea what a comedy it was to see Miss Stannifer with her 
 fountain-pen and her eyeglasses, and to hear her in that pre- 
 cise voice reading out all the things he had said, indecent and 
 all. She never balked at one of them ! He was almost petri- 
 fied. You know even he could understand, though it must 
 have gone awfully against the grain with him, that it would 
 be impossible for any sane human being to doubt Miss 
 Stannifer for a minute, or to associate her with anything 
 disreputable; even if one didn't know anything about her, 
 and a great many people do know all about her, on account 
 of her being in the Falkenberg house for so long. But one 
 only has to look at her, anyhow." 
 
234 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 Lawson gazed at his daughter in stark delight. He 
 chuckled; he swore again, this time without apology. " By 
 G — d, Edith, there's not a woman in creation that can 
 touch you! And mighty few men! " He drew a long breath 
 of satisfaction. '' He must have seen you had him bested all 
 around. He couldn't have had much to say after that." 
 
 Edith considered, with a slight perplexed wrinkle between 
 her brows. ^' Why, father, he did a very queer thing. All 
 at once he burst out stamping and raving and saying that 
 all Americans were verpfleuchter schweinhund — and worse 
 things than that ! — nothing but barbarians, who didn't know 
 how civilized people lived. And that we were just like the 
 English, a lot of upstart, unscrupulous, cowardly, hypocriti- 
 cal fools who thought we owned the world. And that we'd 
 all better look out; presently we'd find out who was who; 
 presently we'd come to the end of our rope; presently we'd be 
 taught something, and — oh, I don't know how much more 
 there was of it! He fairly foamed at the mouth. Even if 
 it had all been true, it had nothing to do with Rudolph and 
 me. I can't imagine what was the matter with him. They 
 don't like Americans, and sneer at us, and make it unpleas- 
 ant for us very often; but Herr Gherardi's talk was that of a 
 madman. Perhaps he simply had to have some outlet for his 
 anger, and took to blackguarding my country, since he 
 couldn't do anything to me. As soon as he held up for a 
 second, I said: ' Miss Stannifer, have you got all that 
 down? ' " 
 
 Lawson rocked on his seat with laughter. " You don't 
 mean to say that she'd been taking that, too? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. I had given her orders to take everything he 
 said, and she meant to do it. There she was, faithfully toil- 
 ing along after him with her note-book! She did say: ' Herr 
 Gherardi has been speaking so fast I'm afraid I've missed 
 a word here and there, but — ' and then she straightened her 
 glasses and began to read. He'd been so furious I think he 
 hadn't noticed her at all, but when she began he gave one 
 grand, final explosion and rushed out of the room. That 
 was the last of him. There were others of the family, mostly 
 the women; but it was just about the same thing over an4 
 over again. Not interesting." 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 235 
 
 In the silence that ensued, Lawson picked out another 
 cigar, feeling that he might smoke now with some relish. 
 He surveyed Edith with a keen pride, not all paternal ; there 
 entered into it, besides, something of race, something in- 
 herent in American ideals and traditions. " I wish I'd been 
 there," he said. 
 
 ''I'm thankful you weren't!" she retorted frankly. 
 '' You'd have been killing somebody — or horsewhipping 
 them, at the least. It was better as it was. I can take care 
 of myself." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 rHE return of Mrs. Edith Rudd Gherardi, and her 
 motives for returning — of which she made no 
 secret — created no such commotion in or outside 
 the family as might have been feared. Amongst most 
 American communities there exists a sentiment against 
 foreign marriages which does not exactly amount to preju- 
 dice, rather to a vague uneasiness, influenced by a not at 
 all vague conception of the worth of our own marriageable 
 population. Why should any American young man or 
 woman go seeking a spouse from another nation? Abana 
 and Pharpar are better than all the waters of Israel. As a 
 rule, it is not without a subtle satisfaction as of prophets 
 vindicated that we hear of such matches turning out fail- 
 ures; and Edith's case was no exception. There was not 
 much surprise expressed, and very little curiosity. Some 
 reporters called, of course; but were sent away defeated, 
 yet by good management on her part, not antagonized. Her 
 uncle Elihu, on hearing the story, uttered a single trenchant 
 comment. 
 
 " Why, Gherardi must be a damn fool ! " said Elihu. 
 " Their own house! He ought to have known better." 
 
 " Edith would have found out just the same, sooner or 
 later," said Lawson. " She had found him out, in fact; she 
 stood it till it got too rank. A man can't get away with 
 things like that forever." 
 
 " I haven't got much use for 'em anyhow," the older 
 brother remarked superfluously. '' Now a live American 
 business-man like George — that's the kind of husband our 
 girls ought to pick out." 
 
 Lawson was silent. The truth was that everything was 
 not running as smoothly in the George Stillman household 
 as might have been desired. The two families were aware 
 of friction somewhere, without being able to locate it. 
 
 236 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 237 
 
 George was taciturn and glum ; Hester inordinately restless. 
 There were never any clashes about bills or expenses; ob- 
 viously Mrs. George had everything she wanted, including 
 her own way; then what was the matter? Edith, with her 
 sharp, pale eyes and her fresh experience, may have had a 
 guess, but if so she kept her own counsel. 
 
 She herself was somewhat restless, but with ample excuse, 
 as everybody felt. So that when, after three or four months 
 at home, broken by nervous flights about the country, to 
 Pasadena, to Aiken, even to Panama and the Bermudas, 
 she divulged a plan for setting up a separate establishment 
 for herself, an apartment somewhere with Miss Stannifer 
 and a couple of maids, there was scarcely any opposition. 
 Her mother had some fears that the proceeding would " look 
 queer," but these were soon quelled. " Edith has always 
 been so original! Nobody thinks much of anything she 
 does," Mrs. Lawson sighed resignedly. To her father's ob- 
 jections, Edith replied with those frank and reasonable 
 arguments which always had weight with him. 
 
 *' There doesn't seem to be any place for a divorced woman 
 in our scheme of society, Dad." she said. " I never thought 
 about it before, I never noticed; but now I feel it all the 
 time. Everybody knows that I am perfectly all right; that 
 there's no scandal about me; yet look at me! I'm not Miss 
 Rudd, and I'm not Captain Gherardi's widow. My friends 
 are all married and interested in their homes and husbands 
 and babies and in one another's homes and husbands and 
 babies, but not the least bit in me. We haven't got anything 
 in common any more. The ones that aren't married have 
 all gone in for some kind of art or charity or something, and 
 don't miss me particularly. I'm too young for the oldest 
 set, and too old for the youngest. The debutantes and the 
 young chaps they go with bore me to death, and they don't 
 want me around, even for a chaperon. For that matter, 
 their mothers don't consider me entirely eligible as a chap- 
 eron, though they know I'm all right. Wherever I go, I'm a 
 sort of fifth wheel. I think I'd do better to take your allow- 
 ance and go away and make a new start somewhere, in New 
 York with Steve, or near him. He doesn't need me, either, 
 but Steve and I have always been fairly congenial." 
 
238 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 "7 need you, Edith," said her father wistfully; whereat 
 she kissed him with one of her flashes of tenderness, precious 
 because so rare. Nevertheless she held to her resolve, char- 
 acteristically ; and when the family started for ''Journey's 
 End " that summer, stopped off in New York, despite the 
 heat, and spent a week canvassing Long Island, the Oranges, 
 the Hudson towns, as well as the apartment-house districts 
 of the city itself, winding up triumphantly at last in the 
 neighborhood of Park Avenue. 
 
 "... The Montrose is really a small hotel," she wrote; 
 " but my suite is one of the housekeeping ones, with a 
 kitchen. Everything is on a two-by-four scale, of course, 
 except the prices, which seem to me monstrous after Europe. 
 But I remember how ridiculously cheap I thought everything 
 over there at first. I shall have a great deal of fun manag- 
 ing; and please don't take this for a hint and increase the 
 allowance. You know I always have plenty of money, and 
 yet somehow always have everything I choose, no matter 
 how much it costs ! I often think it would have been much 
 better for me if I had had to work for my living. I really 
 don't care much for money — though it certainly is con- 
 venient to have it." 
 
 Her father read this part of the letter with a smile which 
 faded presently as the late David with his ideas on the 
 same subject stalked unbidden through his mind. He won- 
 dered what Edith would say could she know what Steve 
 knew of this money which she handled so well; would she 
 share her brother's repugnance? Lawson had a kind of 
 reluctant conviction that Edith would do nothing of the 
 sort — reluctant because the hard common-sense that gov- 
 erned her made her seem altogether too much like old David 
 himself. 
 
 She had seen Steven, naturally, and reported him to be 
 looking well and in a modestly jubilant state over having 
 had a one- act play accepted by the management of the Rose 
 Players. "... One of the companies that have a tiny little 
 theatre and give their performances with hardly any scenery 
 or accessories, depending entirely on the acting. There 
 must be a dozen such here. The Rose people have set out to 
 be different from the others; for instance, Steve says they 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 239 
 
 have a hard-and-fast rule that any play submitted must be 
 in the present day and dress — otherwise they won't consider 
 it no difference how good it is. Nothing mediaeval or Ori- 
 ental or fairylandish goes! I suppose that kind has been 
 done to death; or maybe these people just want to be odd. 
 
 . . I met the director, a ]\Ir. Harding, a very nice fellow. 
 He dreams of a municipal theatre, and asked me ever so 
 many questions — most of which I couldn't answer ! — about 
 the ones abroad. . . . Steve's play is called ' Melodrama: 
 There are only about half a dozen people in the cast. I went 
 to a rehearsal, but it was all rather mixed up, none of what 
 they call the ' business ' arranged yet, and the actors obliged 
 to go over every scene several times, piecemeal, with con- 
 stant interruptions and suggestions from Steve and the man- 
 ager and everybody. . . . They all say you can't possibly 
 tell how any play is going to take with an audience, but I 
 was immensely surprised that Steve could do so w^ell; some 
 of the dialogue is awfully good. 
 
 '' He has some very nice friends. I don't suppose they will 
 exactlv take me in, as I don't do anything literary or artis- 
 tic, but they will at least tolerate me; anyway, the Ballards 
 are here, as you know, and every now and then somebody 
 else from home turns up. I don't think I shall be lonesome. 
 I never saw such a change in two women in my life as in 
 Mary Ballard and her mother. They look prosperous, for 
 one thing, but it's not that alone. They both have more 
 confidence somehow — seem to be more reliable and settled 
 than they ever did before. There always used to be some- 
 thing about Mrs. Ballard's smile that seemed forced 
 as if she were on some kind of strain all the time. Well, 
 every vestige of that is gone; when she smiles nowadays, you 
 feel that it's because she's amused, not because she wants to 
 be agreeable. I asked her if she would help me fit up my 
 rooms, and was simply astounded when she said: 'Oh, 
 pshaw, Edith Rudd, you don't need any help! You know 
 what vou want better than anybody can tell you! ' and she 
 looked straight at me and laughed. Imagine Mrs. Ballard! 
 She always used to have an axe to grind for Mary or herself, 
 and never missed a chance to grind it. So then I said: ' Well, 
 
 I have to buy furniture anyhow, and can't you steer me to 
 
240 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 the good shops? ' Because you see, Dad, I'm pretty sure she 
 and Miss Burke must get a commission on what they can 
 sell in that way ; otherwise there wouldn't be much in it for 
 them. She agreed to that. . . . Mary and Steve seem to have 
 settled down to a sort of good-fellows-all-around basis. 
 There's nothing sentimental going on in this circle, anyhow, 
 I fancy. Everybody has work to do, and they're all pals, 
 not lovers. Perhaps I notice it more because I've just come 
 from such a wretched nest of intrigue and sham emotion, 
 everybody making a business of being in love or pretending 
 to be. Pah! It was sickening! Here, it's all clean and 
 wholesome. . . . 
 
 " I've met that weird Eugene Rudd, by the way. Don't 
 quite know what to make of him, but Steve likes him." 
 
 It began to be very hot and New York closed its houses, 
 seeking the mountains and the seashore. Business was so 
 dull that the Lanthorn put up its shutters, too ; Miss Burke 
 going off to a resort in Michigan where her mother was stay- 
 ing, Mrs. Ballard with Mary to a farm-house up in Ver- 
 mont. "Journey's End" was knee deep in midsummer 
 bloom by the time Edith reached there, and Clam Beachers 
 were coming over in droves, as usual, of a Thursday after- 
 noon, for the spectacle, and Mrs. Rudd, as usual, was com- 
 plaining about them. Stillman, senior, was there for a few 
 days; all the country-houses in the neighborhood were full, 
 and there was visiting backwards and forwards. It was 
 very gay at Clear Harbor; the links were over-crowded, the 
 roads hummed with motor-cars, the smart yachts went flash- 
 ing along off-shore. Into the midst of this bright, careless 
 summer life dropped the news of War. 
 
 Though there had been rumblings and threatenings in 
 plenty beforehand, no one was ready for the thunderbolt. 
 They read the black two-inch-high headlines on the terrace 
 at " Journey's End," unbelievingly; it could not be true; it 
 was a rumor, swelled to giant proportions by these sensation- 
 mongering newspapers. Only a few nights before they had 
 seen afar off and low down on the horizon the lights of a 
 big ocean-liner standing out for Southhampton and Cher- 
 bourg. Everything was going on according to routine; it 
 was impossible that the sane, pleasant, orderly universe 
 should be so rudely and foolishly disturbed ! 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 241 
 
 Alas, it was only too possible! The guns boomed at Liege; 
 the liner came back; the yachts, one and all, scurried to port; 
 the telegraph and cable offices grew very busy. Old John 
 rushed ofif to the New York offices. George came down pell- 
 mell from Nova Scotia, where he had been roughing it in soli- 
 tude. Lawson began to talk as if he had better be at his 
 desk. Mrs. Lawson gave thanks openly that she had not 
 gone over as she had planned. 
 
 " Really, it was the most fortunate thing after all, about 
 Edith. I had expected to make her a visit, you know. Of 
 course, her — er — her coming back in — in just this way, 
 changed everything. I can't help feeling that it was provi- 
 dential. I should have been there now actually in the middle 
 of it all, and Heaven only knows what I should have done! 
 Everybody is having such a time trying to get home." 
 
 Edith's own comment was interesting to her circle, coming 
 as it did with a certain authority, and moreover in an ina- 
 personal style that relieved the audience as much as it 
 surprised. They said to one another that they had been 
 afraid of some embarrassment at first in mentioning the 
 subject before her; and as to asking questions — ! She was 
 in a position to know all about Germans — some Germans, 
 that is, the upper class, the ruling class; she must have had 
 perfectly wonderful opportunities! Still, you didn't like to 
 ask her questions ; you didn't know what minute you might 
 — you might — well, it would take a great deal of tact, that 
 was all. But she didn't seem to mind talking about them — 
 the Court and the Army and the Navy and their politics and 
 all — in the least; and never spoke with any spite or resent- 
 ment, just quietly told what she had seen and heard and 
 what her judgment was. It made you feel that everything 
 she said was true — not exaggerated. 
 
 " Oh, no, I don't think a German naval commander would 
 hesitate over sinking the Kronprinzessen Cecilie or any 
 other boat, if he had orders," she said; " and he would be 
 quite likely to have orders. The passengers wouldn't make 
 any difference; if they could escape by the ship's boats, 
 very good! But if not, if there weren't enough to go round, 
 or if everybody got drowned, I don't think the Germans 
 would care. They would reason that passengers had no busi- 
 
242 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 ness to be on board ; and that they themselves must do their 
 duty, regardless of any private feeling. Nobody has any- 
 business to get in the way of a German when he is doing his 
 duty; or if anybody does get in the way, he must take the 
 consequences. If some superior officer tells a German sol- 
 dier to cut all the women's heads off in any enemy town, 
 or to cut his own mother's head off, for that matter — why, 
 it's his duty, and he must do it, and it would be very silly 
 of the women or of his mother to object! Oh, I assure you, 
 it's quite true! I've heard them say so over and over again. 
 They're terribly literal and practical, you know." And in 
 reply to the outcry that this aroused, she merely smiled, 
 '< Wait and see! " 
 
 " Well, I'm glad we're out of it, anyhow," her father said, 
 " We're all going to have pretty hard sledding as it is, if it 
 lasts any time — " and added some remarks about dye- 
 stuffs, potash, and such recondite matters, which were unin- 
 telligible to the rest of the family excepting Elihu, who 
 assented gloomily. 
 
 The world waited and saw. And in the course of this 
 waiting and observation sundry members of the Lawson 
 Rudd domestic staff vanished therefrom, to the great dismay 
 and annoyance of Mrs. Lawson. First the chauffeur, who 
 was French ; then the man in charge of the water-works sys- 
 tem and the other engines of their private utilities outfit, who 
 was a Canadian and had been with them six years. Then a 
 skilled dairyman, an invaluable person scarcely to be re- 
 placed for love or money; he actually wept in saying fare- 
 well to a little black Kerry bull which he had raised from a 
 calf and of which he was very fond — but he went. Then 
 Walter McCrae, old McCrae's boy, already a gardener of 
 experience, the logical successor to his father ; it seemed that 
 Angus of the lame leg had already gone, surrendering a 
 promising position with a firm of landscape architects in 
 Philadelphia; he got himself accepted, lame leg and all, for 
 some sort of " meelitary duty " as the father told his em- 
 ployers — '' Though I couldna juist name it," he explained 
 circumspectly. " They made no pother aboot the lad's leg. 
 It's like they're takin' what they can get and thank the 
 Lord 'tis no waur! " Mrs. Rudd was not profoundly inter- 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 243 
 
 ested in Angus, but concerning the other desertions she made 
 loud complaint. 
 
 " I cannot understand it! Of course Antoine had to go. 
 He was a reservist, or whatever they call it, and, anyhow, 
 being French, it was natural that he should want to. I was 
 prepared to lose Antoine. But the rest — ! Why they 
 should rush off in this insane way, and leave us high and dry, 
 after we have always treated them so well! I make it a 
 rule never to talk about servants ; it's so tiresome — besides 
 being really underbred. But this is a little too much. There 
 are plenty of men without them, and they don't owe anything 
 to the old country. It doesn't seem to me that there w^as any 
 good reason for England to go into this awful war, any- 
 how— " 
 
 " England had to go into it, Lucille," said her husband 
 heavily. " She couldn't stand by and see these other coun- 
 tries destroyed; she knew she'd be just waiting her turn. 
 Might as well go in first as last." 
 
 " Not at all! If they just paid Germany enough — fifty 
 or a hundred millions, something like that — if the English 
 had only done that, they'd never have needed to fight at 
 all. And the fighting is going to cost them ever so much 
 more," retorted the lady, acutely and practically. It was 
 one of the few occasions when she abandoned her lifelong 
 principle of agreeing with the man of the house. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 SOME time in the autumn that rising young man of let- 
 ters, Mr. Steven Rudd, came before the public with 
 his first play. It was produced by the Rose Company 
 of Players at about the same date that the American wheat- 
 schooner William P. Fry was overhauled at sea off our 
 coasts and scuttled and sunk by a German raider — a glo- 
 rious exploit which somehow did not evoke either the fear 
 or the admiration which the Imperial Government most 
 reasonably expected. In the meanwhile another patriotic 
 and zealous Teuton was caught in an attempt to blow up a 
 railroad bridge between Canada and the United States at a 
 point upon our northeasterly borders, for which the authori- 
 ties callously sentenced him to jail and the stone-pile; true 
 worth which evidences itself by this species of activity is 
 seldom appreciated by the vulgar herd. The newspapers 
 expressed varying degrees of astonishment, perplexity and 
 indignation; there was a great deal of diplomatic corre- 
 spondence going on; the enemy's use of dum-dum bullets was 
 discovered by an Eminent Personage on one side and the 
 news transmitted to an Eminent Personage on this side with 
 appropriate sorrow and horror. The enemy did not retaliate 
 with like '' discoveries " of their own; it was not necessary. 
 " Wait and see! " had been Mrs. Edith Gherardi's advice, 
 and she now would have been amply justified in saying " / 
 told you so! '' only Edith never descended to anything so 
 obvious and easy. 
 
 Melodrama, coming on the boards at this time, was 
 encouragingly noticed — and notice of any kind, flattering or 
 the reverse, was held to be encouragement for a theatrical 
 offering in those crowded days. As the Rose Theatre never 
 put on a piece for longer than a week, its popularity could 
 not be gauged by length of run; nor, as Melodrama 
 shared the bill with two other plays, could the size and 
 
 244 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 245 
 
 constancy of the audiences be taken as a vindication. But 
 Steve professed himself satisfied to remain in doubt. The 
 curtain went down on it every night in applause as lively as 
 could be hoped for from an audience which was supposed to 
 consist entirely of those whom certain irreverent members 
 of the community have nicknamed " highbrows." There was 
 a superstition that it was not in the nature or habit of a 
 highbrow to become unduly demonstrative in either approval 
 or disapproval. 
 
 *' I've known all along that the real test would come not 
 with this play but with my next one," the author told his 
 intimates shrewdly. '' If, after Melodrama, Harding or 
 any other manager wanted a play from me, then I'd feel 
 that I'd made good — in a small way, of course. Well, they 
 do. I've heard from two men. That doesn't mean I'm 
 Young Shakespeare, but it means something. It means a 
 lot of hard work, for one thing," the young fellow added 
 soberly, yet incapable of repressing a certain elation. 
 
 " Go to it, oh youth! " said Eugene. '' Produce, produce! 
 Once I thought I could do it — but was undeceived. I did 
 not pipe the proper cadence — was out of tune with the 
 times or the fashion somehow. ' A Grecian poet 7, hut born 
 too late!''' he quoted with a laugh and a flourish. ''In 
 other words, I was a flat fizzle! But you seem to have 
 struck the right gait. Amble on, amble on! " 
 
 "You didn't have any luck!" said Steve awkwardly, 
 conscious that everybody in the gathering knew unerringly 
 what had mterfered with Eugene's succeeding; Eugene him- 
 self knew. " It's almost all in the acting and stage-manag- 
 ing, anyhow." 
 
 Mr. Sackett went and witnessed a performance, so that 
 the audience was not pure and undiluted highbrow upon 
 one occasion, at any rate. " Well I thought yours was real 
 good — just as good as either of the other plays, anyhow. 
 They weren't any of 'em exciting. I guess that's modern 
 style. Things don't happen right bang out before you like 
 they used to have in plays twenty-five or thirty years ago. 
 Like Two Orphans or The Mighty Dollar or Ingomar 
 — any of those old-timers," he said rather regretfully. " For 
 that matter, you take Shakespeare; there's almost always 
 
246 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 something going on, on the stage where you can see it and 
 hear it, in Shakespeare. He don't let you down with just 
 talking about it. Now yours being named Melodrama I 
 was sort of keyed up, expecting something to come off all 
 the time, so when nothing did come off, I won't say but 
 what it was a little disappointing. Not to the rest of the 
 audience, though," he added quickly, in an amiable anxiety 
 to save the author's feelings. '' Everybody around where I 
 was sitting, was on to the whole situation from start to finish, 
 and pleased to death when it turned out the way it did. I 
 heard one lady say it was ' soul-satisfying,' and I judge 
 that's how all of 'em felt." 
 
 Such is the perversity of the average literary laborer that 
 Steve winced a little at the above comment which should 
 have satisfied him deeply; the trouble was that he thought 
 he detected about it a faint flavor of cults and catchwords. 
 " Soul-satisfying " — gr-r-r! Eugene glanced at him, 
 grinning. 
 
 " You don't consider that the common, everyday events 
 of life have in them something piercingly dramatic, Mr. 
 Sackett? " he inquired gravely. 
 
 " Mine ain't had," said the other with simplicity. " I 
 only recollect one circumstance. It was when a man come 
 into my bar that I was running down to the Mobile race- 
 track in eighty-nine and shot another man that he claimed 
 had made trouble with his girl. The other man had a gun, 
 too. That was what you might call dramatic, both of 'em 
 shooting, and everybody else ducking, and lots of noise and 
 smoke. And singular thing: there was a nigger named 
 Jason round the place that I just kept to run errands and 
 clean up, empty the spittoons and so on, you know. Well, 
 sir, this nigger crept out and grabbed him — the fellow that 
 started the shooting — by the ankle, and threw him and sat 
 on him till we got the police. The other man was dead by 
 that time. Reason I say it was singular, I never heard of 
 any nigger before or since, having that much spunk. I 
 wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it. The jury found 
 manslaughter and they sent him up for life, but I expect he 
 got pardoned out after a while. They most always do. The 
 whole incident would have done for a play, in the old days, 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 247 
 
 just as it stood — barring Jason. People wouldn't have 
 thought that part true to life." 
 
 '' No. ' The actual is not the true/ as R.L.S. said," Eu- 
 gene remarked, wagging his head. 
 
 Mary came down from Tarrytown Saturday evening, and 
 sat with her mother and Jack Burke, who chanced to be in 
 town for a flying visit, and Francie in one of the boxes, the 
 most enthusiastic auditor the play had, not even excepting 
 the lady whose soul was satisfied. Phrases of that sort did 
 not enter into Mary's vocabulary, and it is possible that 
 many of Steve's well-wrought subtleties of dialogue and 
 suggestion escaped her. But she honestly though him won- 
 derful; wonderful to be able to write a play, wonderful to 
 get it put on a stage and acted, wonderful to have other plays 
 milling about his brain, waiting their chance, so to speak, 
 to be written and acted. In the long run a belief so devout 
 and unquestioning may well be to the self-doubting artis- 
 tic temperament of a worth beyond rubies, beyond the ap- 
 proval of the most discerning critics, and far more of a 
 stimulus. Steve, who nevertheless did not have too high a 
 conceit of his work and accepted adverse comment with 
 patience and attention, fairly warmed his heart in the glow 
 of Mary's admiration. On the other hand he felt no resent- 
 ment at young Burke's frankly delivered opinion. 
 
 " The play's all right, Steve, and, anyhow, you got it acted 
 — but it's a good deal of a gloom. I'd rather see something 
 more cheerful as a steady thing, though this is great once 
 in a while," said Jack; and he supported this judgment by 
 haling the box-party and the author himself to a roof-garden 
 after the Rose performance, whence, I am bound to state, 
 they all returned home in much higher spirits than Steven's 
 effort would have induced. Jack was a staunch patron of 
 the Oh, Take a Look! and the Airy Fairy school of 
 entertainment as expounded by various eccentric male come- 
 dians, several dozens of stunningly pretty young women, 
 magnificent settings and a powerful orchestra; he unblush- 
 ingly proclaimed himself, in this respect, a member of the 
 proletariat. " I can't even work up much enthusiasm over 
 Francie's .junk-shop," he confessed. "We're all tremendously 
 proud of her and of everything she's done, making good right 
 
248 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 here in New York in competition with the best people in the 
 country. We think Francie's some girl ! Trouble is, I can't 
 see that she fills a long-felt want exactly. It's all very funny 
 and picturesque and all that, but what's it good for? 
 And all that long-winded talk about 'values ' and ' tying 
 the decoration together ' — it gets met Mrs. Ballard's very 
 good at that, I notice. I expect considerable of the credit 
 ought to go to Mrs. Ballard." 
 
 '' Yes. She's done a deal of work. It's a kind, though, 
 that she's very well fitted for; nobody minds working hard 
 at a job they like." 
 
 " It certainly agrees with her all right," Jack said thought- 
 fully — so thoughtfully that Steven looked at Mrs. Ballard 
 the next time they met with sharpened interest. It was true ; 
 she seemed younger, fresher, he thought; he spoke about it 
 to Mary, and to his sister Edith. The latter agreed indif- 
 ferently; but it seemed to Steven that Mary flushed and 
 looked obliquely while answering with warmth that Mother 
 was perfectly wonderful; and that then she dashed along 
 talking about something or somebody else rather too 
 abruptly — yet all the while there was a gleam of uneasy 
 mirth in her eye. Or had he fancied that, too? 
 
 Edith was now a settled tenant at " The Montrose " where 
 her tiny apartment with its sparse yet adequate and thor- 
 oughly comfortable furnishings, its calculated illusion of 
 spaciousness, curiously reflected her personality. Her 
 father had a pied-a-terre there, when he came to New York; 
 and this winter he came much more often than ever before, 
 and showed the strain of the harassing times. " You will be 
 as free here as at any hotel," Edith told him, and it was the 
 literal truth. He was freer than in his own house! The 
 young woman had a masculine genius for companionship, 
 never solicitous, never obtrusive, yet invariably at hand 
 when wanted. Lawson fell into the habit of talking to her 
 about his affairs — where was the woman of whom he had 
 ever made a confidante hitherto? Edith heard in detail 
 how dead everything had been during the first months of the 
 War ; how things were beginning to look up now ; about the 
 munition-factories working overtime and the soaring prices 
 of chemicals. The Rudd Company could ship next to noth- 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 249 
 
 ing through to Germany; but the demand from England, 
 France, Russia — ! 
 
 " And I'd rather deal with them, anyhow. My sympathies 
 are all with them," he used to declare roundly. " We're 
 supposed to be neutral — but who is really neutral in his 
 heart? It's the nature of men to take sides; we can't help 
 it. I don't think that I'm influenced by personal feeling; I 
 think I'd have been against the Germans, even if you'd never 
 had your experience. The way they're conducting this war 
 has showed them up." He talked of going across in the 
 spring. 
 
 " You may be here in time for Steve's new play, then," 
 Edith said. " They're going to bring it out about Easter, I 
 believe. Who? Oh, the same people, the Rose Company. 
 If they keep on, they'll finally make Steve a fashionable fad 
 — among the elect, the cultured few, you know," she smiled 
 a smile of lazy irony. '' I haven't much patience with that 
 sort of thing myself. But for a writer, an artist — why, it 
 must be the very breath of their nostrils, and what's more to 
 the purpose, it's bread and butter in their mouths! Steve 
 deserves it; he is clever." 
 
 " You ought to have been a boy, Edith," her father said. 
 
 " I daresay I'd have made a pretty fair boy," she agreed 
 musingly. " I'd have liked w^orking. I couldn't go into any 
 sort of business now, because I haven't had the training." 
 
 " You could learn. I'm sure you could learn anything you 
 undertook," said Lawson — not too warmly, however. 
 " Only I hope you won't — I'd rather you didn't. I don't 
 like women in business." 
 
 " Oh, have no fear! I shan't learn. I'd want to be at the 
 head of things from the start, I'd rather bungle along my 
 own way than have anybody show me or order me. And 
 that's a very impractical spirit," said Edith, manifestly 
 amused at the spectacle of her own futility. It was not long 
 after this conversation that she asked him one day in another 
 moment of intimacy and sympathy: " Father, what was the 
 trouble between you and Steve? " 
 
 After a little pause, Lawson said: '' We didn't exactly have 
 any trouble ; I mean we didn't quarrel in the ordinary sense. 
 I suppose that's the general impression, though." 
 
250 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " The general impression probably is that Steve misbe- 
 haved in some way, and that you found it out," said Edith 
 coolly. " That's what Mother and Hester think. It's 
 natural." 
 
 '' It's very unjust, Edith," said her father heatedly. " He 
 didn't do anything wrong. Anybody that knows Steven 
 ought to know that whatever mistakes he might make, he 
 is incapable of anything low or unbecoming." 
 
 " Oh yes, I was sure of that," Edith rejoined, unmoved. 
 " But people will talk, you know. When they've tried to 
 pump me, I've always said that you and he didn't get along. 
 That's near enough to the truth, I daresay." 
 
 Lawson looked at his daughter, acknowledging to himself 
 that he was a little afraid of her, now that the time had 
 come to tell her this truth. Not of her condemnation, for he 
 knew in advance almost to a certainty that Edith would 
 not condemn either Steven or himself; it was her judgment 
 on old David Rudd that Lawson feared. His mind stood in 
 wonder before his own inconsistencies; he had found Steven 
 foolish, unreasonable, quixotic; Steven had angered and 
 pained him. Edith would be and do the exact reverse; and 
 instead of relief at the prospect a miserable anxiety invaded 
 him. Supposing she should admire her grandfather? — or 
 merely laugh? — or shrug the whole business away, as too 
 trivial for consideration? None the less, he braced himself 
 to tell her, impersonally, with a painstaking avoidance of 
 exculpation; and was confounded again at the relief with 
 which he heard her first comment. 
 
 " The old man must have been fond of money! " was all 
 Edith said; but it summed up the case against David, nor 
 had all Steven's heady indignation expressed a verdict so 
 final and so scathing. After a moment of thought she asked 
 one or two questions characteristically pointed. '' I suppose 
 there was no possible way of finding out how much he made 
 by these government contracts? " 
 
 " No. If there ever was any record, it had disappeared 
 from the firm's papers before your Uncle Elihu and I took 
 charge." 
 
 " He wouldn't have been likely to keep such a record," 
 said Edith dryly. " But I thought the Government might 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 251 
 
 have. There are places in Washington — official bureaux — 
 for things of that sort, aren't there? " 
 
 Decidedly Edith thought of everything! It had never 
 once occurred to Steven to make such an inquiry. '' Yes," 
 said Lawson unwillingly ; '' but, Edith, the plain truth is 
 that your grandfather covered up his tracks too well. They 
 all did. I don't think a single one of the men who — who 
 did that sort of thing was ever brought to account for it." 
 And answering her unspoken thought, he said earnestly: 
 '' If it had been a matter of making restitution in the exact 
 sum — handing it back to the United States Treasury — 
 well, we might have done it. Only that wouldn't have wiped 
 the slate clean. That money, of course, had entered into the 
 foundations of the business. Well, Steve thought, I believe, 
 that we ought to have wrecked the business in some way 
 and begun all over again ! That's ridiculous. But even sup- 
 posing we had been insane enough to do such a thing, would 
 that have squared things? Why, not at all! You can see 
 that, I'm sure. But Steven couldn't, and that's the sole 
 trouble, as you call it, between us." 
 
 " Yes, I can see it. Some scores can't ever be paid," said 
 Edith. She was thoughtfully silent for another instant, then 
 said: " Steve's all right, though, Dad." She made no attempt 
 at mediation; in fact, by tacit agreement, neither one of 
 them mentioned the subject again. 
 
 The winter w^ore along; and towards spring Steve's play, 
 The Toiling Masses, began to get in shape for production. 
 Meanwhile the staff at Fulano's had been thinned out by the 
 loss of sundry of its foreign members, and Mr. Rudd was 
 advanced once more in consequence. This, at least, was the 
 reason the young man himself alleged. ^' It's an ill wind 
 that blows no one some good," he said to Eugene cheerfully, 
 and was surprised at the lack of response from the other — 
 he who was, in ordinary, so responsive. 
 
 " If the wind that's blowing now in Europe takes to blow- 
 ing on this side, you'll have nothing to rejoice over! " Eugene 
 growled. And he discoursed fiercely upon the assurance 
 lately given to the country through the medium of the press 
 by a certain exalted official to the effect that were the United 
 States menaced by any foreign power a million men would 
 
252 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 spring to the defence between the rising and the setting of the 
 sun. " We think ourselves so sharp-witted, so practical, so 
 efficient — and yet we listen complacently to drivel like 
 that! Whatever happens will serve us right! " he would cry 
 out, stalking restlessly up and down his cramped quarters, 
 with the pipe dead between his teeth. *' We invite calamity. 
 We wash our hands like Pilate, without half Pilate's excuse. 
 We shirk every responsibility — and still ingenuously de- 
 mand to be respected and admired ! " 
 
 " Well, I never heard anybody say anything in particular 
 against Pilate," said Steven, wondering at his vehemence. 
 " Come, Eugene, we have troubles of our own, haven't we? 
 Mexico, Japan, Labor, Votes for Women, all the rest of it? 
 This isn't our quarrel." 
 
 " I'm not so sure that it isn't. I'm not so sure that it's 
 not everybody's quarrel," said Eugene gloomily. " Oh, go 
 along, Steve! You're young, you're occupied with your own 
 affairs. Some day you'll wake up — " with which he would 
 get back to work, though with obvious effort, driving him- 
 self. The work was of the same quality as ever, but alas, 
 such demand as there had been for it fell off notably this 
 winter, owing to his uncompromisingly non-neutral atti- 
 tude. The periodicals for which he was in the habit of 
 writing shied at sponsoring views so one-sided, and set forth, 
 as they hinted, so intemperately ; that they were set forth 
 also with great vigor and lucidity and were in the main un- 
 answerable, nowise commended them. Some of the editors 
 who knew and liked him, remonstrated; but by far the 
 greater number of the manuscripts were rejected with per- 
 functory phrases which Eugene interpreted with scoffing. 
 '- This fellow signs himself Herman Klumpf — strange that 
 there is no place in his valuable publication for any criti- 
 cism of German methods in Belgium! " he remarked. Or, 
 " The Uplift thinks me a little too ready to condemn the at- 
 tacks on the English coast-towns, which are ' perfectly justi- 
 fiable from the point of view of military necessity about) 
 which the layman is unable to judge/ But the chap that 
 wrote that is in all probability a layman himself ! I should 
 like to tell him that it is not important that a layman should 
 be able to judge, but highly desirable that he should be able 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 253 
 
 to think. I suppose they've got a heavy list of German ad- 
 vertisers. That's their real argument." 
 
 April came, and the window-boxes bloomed along the 
 upper reaches of the Avenue, as if war and rumors of war 
 were things belonging to another sphere. The date set for 
 The Toiling Masses arrived. It may have been a mere 
 coincidence that Steven's father came on to New York that 
 week ; the city was full of perturbed business-men from the 
 Middle West and indeed from every other quarter of the 
 compass, so the fact that Mr. Rudd's son was about to bring 
 out a play at this time should be of no especial significance. 
 Lawson's old friend Stillman was in town, too, waiting for a 
 steamer; the train which brought him from the Pacific Coast 
 had been held up by a belated blizzard crossing Wyoming, 
 so old John had missed the sailing of the Lusitania on which 
 he was booked, by half a day — a vexatious circumstance. 
 It was imperative that he should be in London before the 
 middle of the month, he told Lawson, frowning and fretting 
 a little. He had plans for going from thence to Russia; this 
 delay was most annoying. 
 
 Steven himself knew nothing of these visits; Edith, the 
 close-mouthed, did not tell him for some reason. The first 
 performance had been set for a matinee; and the young 
 fellow went down to the '' Rose " on the momentous after- 
 noon in a good deal of excitement. He waited in the wings 
 all through the first number on the programme, a charming 
 conceit entitled Death in the Pot wherein a lady of un- 
 certain—or perhaps too certain — morals inadvertently 
 poisoned the wrong lover. Steve knew the author, a lank 
 girl in a mediaeval-looking tunic, with black hair cut short; 
 and he watched her go out for her curtain-call, and shook 
 her thin, feverish hand when she came back with whispers 
 of applause, and the private aspiration that he would be 
 saved from making such a fool of himself, if the audience 
 accorded him a like compliment. His own play came next. 
 One of the actors, after a prolonged survey through the peep- 
 hole, came and stood by him with encouraging words. A 
 certain well-known exploiter of the drama on Broadway was 
 in one of the boxes, he reported. " And we may talk, and we 
 may talk, Broadway's the place! " he remarked emgmati- 
 
254 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 cally. " There're some of your friends in the box opposite. 
 Mrs. Gherardi and somebody else." 
 
 "Somebody else? Er — a lady? Ladies?" queried 
 Steven, thinking of Mary; but she had lamented not being 
 able to come on account of school-hours. He was not sur- 
 prised that the other man remembered Edith, after having 
 met her only once or twice; everybody always remembered 
 Edith, and whatever group she happened to be associated 
 with at the moment was likely to be pointed out as " Mrs. 
 Gherardi and somebody else." 
 
 " Yes, two men. You ought to go and take a look at them. 
 Typical Tweedledum and Tweedledee ! " 
 
 Steven went to the peep-hole; he came back wearing so 
 startled a look that the actor observed it, even in the half- 
 light of their corner. '' What's up? " he thought, but pru- 
 dently refrained from inquiring. 
 
 ''Why, it's — it's my father and a friend of his," said 
 Steven. " I didn't even know he was in town." 
 
 " He thought he'd surprise you, I daresay," said the other, 
 considerately dissembling his own surprise. There had been 
 some prince-in-disguise tales about Mr. Steven Rudd cir- 
 culating among the theatrical small fry whence they inevi- 
 tably penetrated to the greater; one by one the performers 
 went and inspected the two elderly, well-dressed gentlemen 
 in Mrs. Gherardi's box, and speculated as to which was Rudd 
 senior. A day or so later when a cut of John Stillman came 
 out with others in the papers at the top of a column with 
 the caption: " Railroad Kings Confer," they all recognized 
 
 it. 
 
 As for Lawson and John themselves, it is doubtful if 
 either one had ever enjoyed a dramatic performance so much 
 in his life, though both were enriched by menaories of the 
 most famous plays and players of two generations. Char- 
 lotte Cushman, Jefferson, Adelaide Neilson, Booth, Terry, 
 Salvini — whom had they not seen? And what productions 
 of Shakespeare, of Sheridan, of Sardou and Scribe! Law- 
 son found that The Toiling Masses in its one act, " com- 
 pared very favorably — " as he said, desperately feigmng a 
 critical detachment. " And the company seems to me en- 
 tirely adequate." 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 255 
 
 "Why, it's first-rate! It's fine!" old John rumbled in 
 accompaniment. " Why, Steve's way up, Lawson, right at 
 the top ! Always knew he was bright, but — Just see how 
 much better his is than that Borgia business, that poisoning 
 bee they started off with ! " 
 
 Edith looked from one to the other surprised and secretly 
 touched, for all her cool-heartedness. " How fond they 
 are of each other! " she thought. " Mr. Stillman is pleased 
 because Father is so pleased. And how much Father thinks 
 of Steve, how proud he is! " 
 
 It was just after Steven's curtain-speech — which Mr. 
 Rudd declared, with the same elaborately indifferent air, to 
 be in very good taste, really — during the wait before the 
 third and last piece that they began to be aware of some sub- 
 dued stir among the seats ; the ushers hurried about and there 
 were whisperings and questions, and people here and there 
 got up and went out. Lawson, who was naturally observant, 
 was the first to notice, and to call the others' attention. 
 " Something's happened," he said, alertly. '^ I think there's 
 an extra out. Another big battle over there, maybe." He 
 spoke to a passing usher, but the lad shook his head. 
 
 " I don't know, sir. They say the Germans have tor- 
 pedoed some ship." 
 
 ''Another sensational rumor! It must keep 'em on the 
 hop inventing them! " Mr. Stillman said with contempt. 
 They all agreed that it was unlucky for the third play to 
 have this conflicting interest aroused at this moment; the 
 restlessness of the audience was plainly to be sensed. 
 
 " Good thing for Steven that his is over! " said his father 
 contentedly. " It'll be hard to get people's attention fixed, in 
 competition with this other excitement." 
 
 " I sometimes wonder how we can be interested in any- 
 thing except what's going on over there in Europe," said his 
 friend. " Still we've got to have some distraction. They 
 say the soldiers on leave fairly crowd the theatres in London 
 and Paris and they can't get the entertainment too light and 
 silly for them. Slap-stick farces, tumbling, dancing, all that. 
 You can understand it. Poor devils! I'm curious to see 
 London; it w^ill be so different." 
 
 Outside with the rest of the crowd in the chilly spring 
 
256 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 twilight, Mr. Rudd got hold of a newsboy, as they struggled 
 towards their automobile. Everybody was getting hold of 
 newsboys, their unintelligible shoutings filled the air. " Here, 
 now we'll see what the excitement's all about," said Lawson, 
 unfolding the paper, as he took his seat. The next instant he 
 exclaimed aloud; they all exclaimed, and studied again the 
 tall black type in a silence of appalled faces. 
 
 " It's a story — it's a newspaper story, all exaggerated! " 
 said Stillman at last. " They wouldn't — " 
 
 " Yes, they would! " said Edith. 
 
 Her father said: '' The Lusitania! Why — why, you might 
 have been on her, John! You'd have been on her! " 
 
 '' Oh, pshaw, this isn't authoritative. See, down here it 
 says : ' It is rumored — ' " 
 
 *' Well, there was a lot of talk before she sailed," said 
 Lawson. " The Germans were threatening something of the 
 kind — " 
 
 *' They wouldn't do it, though. Nobody would," the other 
 persisted stoutly. 
 
 " Yes, they would," said Edith again, with her stiU face. 
 
 Steven, reaching St. John's Building later, with the taste 
 of his modest triumph still rich in his mouth, though dulled, 
 as must have been the personal thought and feeling of every 
 honest and decent man, by the overpowering tidings, stopped 
 for a word with Eugene. The latter had not gone to the the- 
 atre that afternoon; he was at home as the light streaming 
 through his transom, and sounds of movement within indi- 
 cated. When he opened the door, Steven stood in astonish- 
 ment at the tumbled and confused aspect of the rooms, 
 always so orderly. There was a packing-case, and papers 
 and straw were strewn about; Eugene's iron-bed, dismem- 
 bered, lay in a straightened heap of wreckage, and there in 
 the middle of the floor stood his forlorn old trunk and suit- 
 case with clothes and shoes and books, just as Steve remem- 
 bered them on another day, five years ago. But on the pres- 
 ent occasion Eugene was entirely sober and master of him- 
 self. He had taken off his coat and with shirtsleeves rolled 
 up and his pipe going comfortably, went back to work amidst 
 the dunnage as soon as he had let Steven in, without waste 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 257 
 
 of time. It struck Steven, before he could frame a question, 
 that there was something brisk, happy and decided in 
 Eugene's movements, as of a mind made up, definitely at 
 ease. 
 
 " I haven't been evicted," he said, looking up and grinning 
 around the pipe-stem at Steven's half-uttered interrogation ; 
 '*' I pay my debts and live cleanly, even if I haven't alto- 
 gether foresworn sack. No, I'm not asked to go. I'm go- 
 ing! " He rolled some wadding together and rammed it 
 down into a crevice of the packing-box with a victorious 
 gesture. " How was the play, Steve? New laurels? " 
 
 " It was all right. But have you heard? Have you seen 
 the paper? " 
 
 Eugene waved it away. " I've heard — I've seen. That's 
 why I'm going." 
 
 " Going where? " 
 
 " To Canada," said Eugene, in as matter-of-fact a manner 
 as if he had only announced a change of tenements. At 
 sight of the other's face he broke into a laugh. " You look 
 as if I had said I was going to Senegambia ! I don't expect 
 to make my home in Canada," he went on, busily packing; 
 *' so I am about to dispose of some of my property. Mrs. 
 Dugan across the way bought the bed, and himself will be 
 over in th' marrnin' as soon as he gets back from his job, 
 to ta-ake it awa-ay. Dugan's night-watchman somewhere, 
 yez know. Would you like the pewter tea-set, Steve? It's 
 the genuine old stuff. Ask Mrs. Ballard if it isn't — " 
 
 *' What are you going to Canada for? " said Steven, though 
 he knew before the words left his mouth. 
 
 " To enlist, to be sure. And after this, if questioned, you'll 
 kindly remember that I come from — from — let's see ! — I 
 come from Trasheap, Province of Ontario. Was born there, 
 in fact. I am a loyal subject of the English Crown — " 
 
 " They won't take you, Eugene." 
 
 ^' Maybe not, officially. But in that case, they will take 
 me unofficially," retorted the other, tranquilly. " There are 
 ways and ways." 
 
 " You wouldn't last a week in the trenches," Steve urged. 
 '' Eugene, do be sensible! " 
 
 " Who said anything about trenches? " said Eugene. 
 
258 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " What, I can pass coal in a stokehold, can't I? I can 
 hitch up a mule. I can scour a camp-kettle. Be sensible? 
 Where's the point of being sensible a time like this? I'd 
 rather be a fool and get a whack at a German! I tell you 
 I'm going. If you still think the fight is none of my busi- 
 ness — " he quoted Tom Sawyer with relish, '' ' I 'low I'll 
 make it my business! ' " 
 
 Steven looked at his drink-blotched face with a feelmg 
 balanced between pity and impatience and admiration; no 
 man on earth could be less fit physically, or show a finer 
 temper. He acquitted Eugene of any impulse of curiosity 
 or desire for adventure; no, this piece of crazy chivalry was 
 of the same fabric as the rest of his ill-fashioned character, 
 woven through perplexingly with the same strand of right- 
 feeling and manliness. Steve abandoned argument; he 
 helped him pack, remembering that other time, and wonder- 
 ing if Eugene remembered it. But the latter apparently had 
 nothing on his mind, least of all old shameful memories. He 
 whistled jubilantly as they worked, he made jokes about his 
 shabby belongings ; he drew all sorts of fantastic pictures of 
 the future, vowing that he meant to come back a field-mar- 
 shal at the very least, and strutted about, aping Napoleonic 
 attitudes with his hand in his waistcoat. " Think of our join- 
 ing hands with the French after all these years and bitter- 
 nesses ! " It was '' our " already with him. '' At any rate, if 
 I do stop a bullet, I hope to be finished on the spot," he said, 
 in a flash of seriousness. " I want to die all over, and at 
 
 once." 
 
 They went down to the train together. It was the night- 
 express for Montreal. Eugene had not had any clear idea of 
 where he would go in Canada; Montreal would do as well 
 as any place, he averred with boyish carelessness. The 
 through ticket took two-thirds of his money, and he elected 
 to sit up all night, rather than pay for the sleeping-car, 
 though Steven pressed the money on him. '' I can curl up 
 anywhere. And I'm too excited to sleep, anyhow," he said, 
 happily. They got into the crowded, malodorous day-coach, 
 and all at once the moment for parting came. 
 
 Neither one of them knew what to say; perhaps Steven 
 would have been more affected if he had believed for an in- 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 259 
 
 stant that the other could carry out his hare-brained scheme ; 
 but it seemed impossible that any recruiting-sergeant would 
 pass Eugene Rudd, and notwithstanding his boasting, his 
 pathetic eagerness, what could he really do, or in what way 
 be of any conceivable use? In a week, a month at farthest, 
 he would undoubtedly be back in New York. They shook 
 hands. The car was busy with people coming and going, and 
 a man near them leaned through the open window to shout 
 after a departing friend: " Well, so long, Jim! My love to 
 the folks!" 
 
 "There, that's just what I want to say, too, Steven! " 
 said Eugene, a sudden and quite transfiguring tenderness 
 appearing on his worn, ill-used face. "So long! My love 
 to the folks. Don't forget that! " The train pulled out, its 
 red tail lanterns receding slowly; and presently even they 
 too vanished into the dark. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE temper of the country was so belligerent for a 
 while that Steven made sure from day to day of see- 
 ing Eugene back, ready to enlist under our own flag, 
 instead of the British. The young man himself tingled 
 with anticipation, and chafed and wondered at the delays, 
 the discussions, when — as it seemed to him and to a very 
 considerable body, perhaps a majority, of our citizens — 
 there was nothing to wait for, and no point that admit- 
 ted of discussion. But the weeks wheeled around; public 
 sentiment calmed down ; and Eugene did not return. 
 
 He had promised to write; but Steve scarcely expected to 
 hear unless the impossible had happened, that is to say, un- 
 less he should have been accepted for some sort of service; 
 to confess failure in such a gallant quest would be too much 
 even for Eugene's ironic spirit. He had the cause at heart, 
 took his offer of himself seriously, and was pathetically con- 
 fident that others would take him seriously. In the mean- 
 while scores of literary and journalistic adventurers, ama- 
 teur and professional alike, were hurrying to the great 
 scene ; all of it they saw and part of it they were might well 
 have been their motto — or rather the motto they hoped to 
 earn. They took impartially risks and favors; gave an 
 immense amount of trouble, and no doubt corresponding 
 good cheer; were paid inordinately high, and would have 
 delightedly gone through the same experiences, hardships 
 and all, for nothing. Throughout the length and breadth of 
 the country, every public print teemed with their writings; 
 they came home and lectured; they travelled up and down 
 with lantern-slides; between them and the battered heroes 
 of the War who were doing the same thing, there never was a 
 time since the trade of writing — not to mention the trade of 
 printing — was invented, when it came in for such universal 
 appreciation. If Eugene Rudd had only bided his time, he 
 
 260 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 261 
 
 might have been of their number; Steven himself was ap- 
 proached often enough. Everything was always arranged 
 lor the correspondents, it was pointed out to him ; they went 
 everywhere and saw all there was to be seen ; he would have 
 no trouble — some hazards and discomforts, of course, but 
 think of the experience, the opportunities, the '' material " — 
 enough to last him the rest of his life! 
 
 " I am thinking of it," Steven would answer, stubbornly. 
 *' I don't know that I'm so keen to make capital out of 
 other people's losses and sufferings and hideous trials — 
 that's what it comes to, in the long run. There are plenty 
 who don't mind doing it, or don't see it in the light that I 
 do; let them keep on! I shan't be missed. If I ever do go, 
 I'll go on my own, and get along with the people of the 
 country the best I can." And when it was suggested that 
 some might say the real reason of his refusal was that he was 
 afraid: " They won't say it to my face," quoth young Mr. 
 Rudd, ominously. Nor, in fact, did they. 
 
 He used to meet Mary at the Lanthorn and talk over all 
 these matters with her. Not seldom they had the place to 
 themselves, for by this time the Lanthorn and what might be 
 called its allied industries were driving so rushing a trade 
 that the proprietors had scarcely a moment they could call 
 their own. Overnight millionaires, their purses bulging from 
 traffic in munitions, in automobiles and automobile-supplies, 
 in ores, in chemicals, in grain, in leather, were now crowding 
 into New York by the hundreds. And one and all they were 
 clamoring for clothes, jewels, house-furnishings, works of 
 art. They stopped at nothing, cost what it might, that would 
 enrich and beautify lives which hitherto had sadly lacked 
 so much of richness and of beauty. They were pathetic and 
 grotesque and also, as Mary profanely put it, they were a 
 gold-mine, a windfall, a god-send, to people like her mother 
 and Francie. And not only to these two, but to all the 
 musicians, all the painters and poets and costume-designers 
 and pageant-producers and cabinet-makers and landscape- 
 architects — " And actors and playwrights," she interpolated 
 slyly, " in New York City. They can't go anywhere else 
 to spend their money, and most of them seem to be crazy 
 simply to spend it. They buy the wildest things at the 
 
262 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 wildest prices — especially the women. You'd think they 
 would all be wanting Doucet and Callot costumes and pearl 
 necklaces two yards long, wouldn't you? Well, they do buy 
 ever so many things on that order; and then there seems to 
 come a time when they all suddenly take a notion to be 
 patrons of art! Mother says it's epidemic among them, like 
 measles. She and Francie had to go to work and dig in the 
 Library and the Museum, and cram up on Oriental rugs 
 and Chinese porcelains and Renaissance stuff, you know, so 
 as to talk the proper patter." 
 
 It was true. Honest Mrs. Newdollar from Oilville, Okla- 
 homa, who married Jim Newdollar on a thousand a year, and 
 who had been cooking meals and mending clothes — and 
 washing and ironing them too, sometimes, if the truth were 
 known — for him and the children these twenty years past, 
 whose highest ambition used to be a tiled bathroom or a 
 course in music for Mamie, or a Ford car, or a Swede maid- 
 of-all-work — what now to her were all these pitiful sim- 
 plicities? She was ashamed when she remembered them and 
 herself in those petty days. A tiled bathroom, indeed ! Her 
 new house had half a dozen or more tiled bathrooms ; Mamie 
 was going East to school at twenty-five hundred dollars a 
 term ; there was a car in the garage for every member of the 
 family; the kitchen and backstairs fairly pullulated with 
 servants. Somehow in a little while she began to tire of this 
 heaven; something was missing from it which she vaguely 
 suspected of being spiritual or intellectual ; and it was prob- 
 ably at this moment that the bacillus of aestheticism invaded 
 her. Why could she not have a cult or a collection? Jim 
 could afford it. Being an American woman she promptly 
 had one! Erelong photographs of the Newdollar sunken 
 gardens, the Newdollar music-room, the Newdollar gallery 
 of Italian landscapes, the Newdollar tapestries, enamels or 
 what-not filled the fashionable magazines, followed by 
 " write-ups " in the papers. It was a day of innocent tri- 
 umph for innumerable Mrs. Newdollars, and of generous 
 harvests for innumerable Mrs. Ballards. 
 
 '' I should think your mother would be very successful 
 with all of them," said Steven. " Judging by Mr. Sackett, 
 you know. He was very much pleased with everything she 
 did." 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 263 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Sackett was very much pleased with everything 
 she did," Mary intoned, after a second, in so odd an imi- 
 tation of his own words and manner that Steven was taken 
 aback, and eyed her suspiciously. Mary, perching in an old 
 stuffed chair with a cover of Victorian needlework, stirred a 
 marshmallow round and round in her cup of chocolate, eying 
 him back with a kind of determined blankness. She had 
 on the style of costume she affected, declaring it to be the 
 only one suitable for a physical instructor, a neat, trig, con- 
 summately tailored cloth skirt, a white blouse and smart tie, 
 a small watch in a leather strap around her slim, firm, taper- 
 ing wrist. But for the feminine suggestion of this last, and 
 but for her bright brown hair, which would wave softly in 
 spite of the stern intention of her coiffure, she looked like a 
 boy. And at the moment, a twinkle of rather boyish roguery 
 showed upon her features and vanished in a trice. But 
 Steven caught it. 
 
 *' What are you making fun of me for? " he demanded. 
 
 " I'm not making fun of you," said Mary, with the faint- 
 est possible emphasis on the last word; she appeared to re- 
 consider, and added: '' I'm not making fun of anybody." 
 
 " Well, what's the joke then? " 
 
 " There isn't any joke," said Mary. Then, after a pause, 
 meeting his still inquiring and dissatisfied gaze, she sud- 
 denly let loose incomprehensible words. " At least, it ought 
 not to be a joke, only — well, I suppose I'm awful, but 
 somehow I can't think of it seriously, that is, as seriously 
 as I ought. You're going to know before long anyhow, so 
 there's no particular harm in telling you. I should think 
 you might have guessed already. Haven't you noticed any- 
 thingf Men are so funny, they never do seem to notice! " 
 
 " Notice? " echoed Steven vacantly, staring all around the 
 room. There were no changes of any importance in it, or in 
 Mary, at whom he also stared exhaustively. 
 
 "Yes. Goodness, it's been plain enough! Mother and 
 Mr. Sackett — " Something in her expression told him the 
 Test 
 
 " WHAT? " he screeched. 
 
 '' Shh ! Why, yes. Why, he was tremendously taken with 
 her from the very first." 
 
264 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " My great governor! " ejaculated Steven feebly. Mra. 
 Ballard and Sackett! He realized with horror that he 
 wanted to laugh — that he was on the verge of laughing up- 
 roariously, and began precipitately to talk, to stave it off. 
 *' I don't know why I'm so surprised. Your mother is so 
 attractive it's easily understood — about him, I mean. But, 
 I — somehow I wouldn't have thought that she — um — 
 er — " He gave up in relief for Mary herself was smiling 
 broadly. "Oh, ho, ho! Ha-ha-ha! " The studio resounded 
 with their laughter. 
 
 It was not wholly unkind. To the two young people, this 
 belated romance was pretty and moving in spite of the comic 
 touch. They sympathized even while they laughed. " Poor 
 mother !" said Mary . " I didn't think she'd have him. But 
 after all " 
 
 ''After all," said Steven. ''Why shouldn't she? Why 
 shouldn't they both? When is it going to be? " 
 
 " This winter some time. They're going to Palm Beach." 
 She halted, and then said with guilty amusement: " Steve, 
 Francie and I heard the whole thing ! " 
 
 " What whole thing? Heard what? " 
 
 " Why, when he — he asked her, you know — " 
 
 " Here, you — you'd better not tell me," interposed 
 Steven, hastily, reddening. " You don't want to tell any- 
 body, you know." 
 
 " Why, Steve, we couldn't help it. We didn't mean to 
 hear. It was one afternoon here in the studio. We'd both 
 been in the bathroom, washing our heads, and we were just 
 starting to dry them by the fire when we heard somebody 
 coming in. So, of course, we went scrambling back, we 
 didn't want to be caught, in kimonos and hair hanging all 
 around, all wet and stringy. So we kept perfectly quiet, and 
 Mother thought that we'd gone out, and I daresay Mr. 
 Sackett never thought about us at all. He doesn't know to 
 this day ; Mother does, because she found us afterwards, but 
 she only laughed, or pretended to. You know how Mother 
 is. He began right away, the minute they got inside — " 
 
 " Why didn't you cough, or something? " 
 
 " We didn't either one of us think quick enough, and you 
 know if you don't do it right off, you'd better not do it at 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 265 
 
 all. We'd have gotten out of the way if we could; but you 
 can hear everything in this little place, whether you want to 
 or not. And, besides, Mr. Sackett's a little deaf, you know, 
 and doesn't always know what his voice sounds like, or just 
 how he's got it pitched, and Mother had to speak pretty 
 loud — " 
 
 Again they both sat lost in mirth. " He told her she was 
 the most elegant lady he'd ever seen," said Mary. " And oh, 
 Steve, what do j'ou think? When he — he came to the 
 point, you know, Mother said: 'This is so sudden!' just 
 like a girl, just like anybody! Did you ever? " 
 
 Steven didn't ever. " All the same, it's all right, and I'm 
 glad of it ! " he asserted, stoutly. '' He'll be good to her, 
 poor old chap! " 
 
 " Yes. And she'll be nice to him. Poor Mother, she'll 
 have it easy for the first time in her life." 
 
 Afterwards Steven, meeting Mr. Sackett on the street and 
 thinking to save embarrassment, went up and congratulated 
 him openly and shook his hand with warmth, attentions 
 which the bridegroom-elect received in a very becoming 
 manner; he had no idea of being embarrassed, as it seemed! 
 " I've always admired Mrs. Ballard highly. Of course 
 she's not young any more, but neither am I," he observed 
 liberally. '' You know my opinion on that point, anyhow. 
 The parties' ages should suit, I've always thought. Now to 
 some people we might look foolish going into this thing at 
 our time of life, but I guess that won't worry us any. She'll 
 have everything she wants, and I figure she's too smart and 
 too reasonable to want the earth. And I'm going to have a 
 real home, and somebody to leave my money to. Lemme tell 
 you, young man, you don't know how much that means! " 
 
 The bride-to-be, for her part, was far too accomplished a 
 woman of the world to allow anybody to suffer from embar- 
 rassment on her account; Steven noticed, however, that in- 
 stead of resorting to any of her sophisticated devices, she 
 merely took a leaf out of Sackett's own book, treating the 
 matter with a plain and simple philosophy. " The fact is, we 
 are both lonely, and we are on the way to being old and 
 lonely. It's not that there is nobody to care for us, but 
 that we ourselves have nobody to take care of. You really 
 
266 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 have to feel that you are necessary to somebody, if you want 
 to be happy. Now, Mr. Sackett is entirely alone, and while 
 I love Mary — well, Mary is a dreadfully self-reliant girl," 
 said her mother, with smiling regret. ^' I don't feel as if I 
 could do anything for Mary nowadays. Whereas I am look- 
 ing forward to managing Mr. Sackett's house and laying 
 down the law about what kind of ties he must wear, with the 
 most extraordinary pleasure! " She spoke in a manner not 
 too humorous, not too serious, which Steven found in very 
 good taste. He no longer laughed. 
 
 Indeed, strange as it may seem, nobody laughed; the 
 middle-aged couple had chosen their attitude so well that 
 it defeated ridicule. Even the exalted Van Huysens and, 
 Dunwoodies reconciled themselves to the match with 
 scarcely a murmur. Mr. Stillman, himself a man of the 
 people, met Sackett with cordiality; Clara was civil! She 
 and her Aunt Ellen may have had a tilt or two, but Mrs. 
 Ballard was not likely to come off second-best from that 
 sort of encounter. Perhaps if Sackett's bank-account had 
 not been calculated to inspire respect, the relatives might 
 have perceived certain disadvantages about his birth and 
 manners and previous career, but it is singular how com- 
 pletely an income of fifty thousand a year appeases hostile 
 criticism ! 
 
 Steven was not invited to the wedding; he heard about it 
 afterwards from Mary, who with two or three of the bride's 
 nearest relatives — the groom had none, which in every- 
 body's private opinion was most fortunate — made up the 
 wedding-party. ^' Mother looked lovely! " was Mary's en- 
 thusiastic report. " He was a little nervous. The whole 
 thing was pretty solemn, but nobody cried, though once I 
 rather felt like it. After it was over, we had luncheon at 
 the Ritz; everything was done well, in a nice quiet way. 
 Then they went to the train in that gorgeous new Rolls- 
 Royce he got for Mother. I feel as if they were going to be 
 very happy. They — that is, Mr. Sackett — spoke about 
 my going to live with them, but I'm not. I don't want to." 
 
 " Girls that do things always get so independent," said 
 Steven, experiencing a subtle dissatisfaction. " You all want 
 to live by yourselves." 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 267 
 
 Steven himself was not living alone nowadays; he had 
 lately moved from St. John's Buildings to similarly diminu- 
 tive quarters at " The Montrose," on Edith's representation 
 that they would be better ofi' nearer together now that both 
 lacked their accustomed companion. For Miss Stannifer 
 went back to England not long after Eugene Rudd's depart- 
 ure; indeed, the Englishwoman had been restive ever since 
 the outbreak of the War and only the hard necessity of 
 earning a living kept her on this side. It was more than 
 ever a necessity now, so many of her people were in the 
 service ; two nephews fell in the fighting around Ypres, fine 
 lads of whom she had been very fond. She got letters from 
 home full of sadness, of dogged British pluck. There were 
 tales of outrage and infamy the truth of which she did not 
 question — like Edith, she had lived too long in Germany! 
 It was Edith herself, at the end, who counselled her to go. 
 " If it were my people, my war, I'd go — sometimes I've 
 half a mind to go anyhow, only I don't believe in useless 
 women fussing about," said Edith, with more feeling than she 
 often permitted herself to show. '^ You go ! You can do 
 something in an office or a hospital, and they need every- 
 body.'' So Miss Stannifer packed up her meagre belongings 
 and went; she was attached to the cool, self-contained, hard- 
 headed young woman, odd as that may seem, and cried at 
 parting from her. There may have been a tear in Edith's 
 chilly, gray eyes, too. 
 
 So Steven moved over to ''The Montrose"; the brother 
 and sister had always been congenial in spite of, or possibly 
 because of, fundamentally different characters and disposi- 
 tions, so their menage was pleasant enough. And in the 
 meanwhile Steven heard at last from Eugene. The letter 
 was several weeks old by the time it reached him, and neces- 
 sarily vague as to names and places; for Eugene had not 
 only got to the other side, but actually to France, though 
 nowhere near the Front. He was working in a ba-se hospital 
 somewhere behind the lines, he reported, in the best of 
 spirits. " Had all sorts of adventures and set-backs getting 
 here, and I was expecting to write you all about everything 
 in detail, but find I can't for two reasons. Number I: writ- 
 ing in detail is not encouraged by the censor. And Number 
 
268 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 II: I'm so dog-tired whenever I get a minute off duty that I 
 generally just roll over and go to sleep where I stand, in my 
 habit as I live! . . . I'm billeted at a little farmhouse with a 
 manure-heap in the courtyard directly in front of the door 
 and under all our windows. The hospital is in some munici- 
 pal buildings — can't be more explicit. As it is the Boches 
 come over and drop a bomb in our neighborhood once in a 
 while. Red Crosses and other hospital signs are nothing to 
 them; they'd just as lief take a shot at a hospital as at a 
 battery of 75 's — much rather, in fact, because the hospital 
 can't hit back. I am still in hopes of getting even with them 
 some day, I mean in a scrap of my own up at the Front. 
 Of course we're going to be even, more than even! We're 
 going to beat them flat. ' On les aura! ' as these French 
 people all around keep saying. But I'd like to beat one 
 German flat, all by myself. ... I am regularly enrolled, but 
 have been assigned right along to this nursing-duty, or the 
 kitchen, or stretcher-bearing; that's the way they use the 
 kind of fellow I am. It's all right, and I don't resent it, 
 because it saves some fit man for the real work in the 
 trenches. At first the wounded were pretty bad, but one gets 
 used to it. And when I saw those Red Cross women nurses 
 standing up to it, the most horrible things, intestinal wounds, 
 things you can't speak of — I say when I saw those un- 
 flinching women, it made me so ashamed I took a brace. 
 The women are wonderful anyway; what do they want to 
 vote for, when they can do so much that's more worth while? 
 . . . Lots of Americans over here, some of them flying, some 
 ambulancing. When do you suppose the U. S. will get into 
 the fight? " 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 WE re-elected a President the fall of that year, moved 
 thereto, so many people thought, by the argument 
 set forth in a catch-phrase of wide circulation 
 that He Kept Us Out of the War. Lawson Rudd, of the 
 Rudd Chemical Company, voted for the opposing candidate, 
 maybe from habit — being an Ohio man, a native Republi- 
 can — and maybe out of some unformulated conviction that 
 to have kept us out of the war was not so creditable a pro- 
 ceeding after all. The Rudd Company was reported to have 
 earned fabulous amounts of money the last twelvemonth, 
 mainly in foreign commerce ; but the risks and uncertainties 
 of foreign commerce were increasing day by day, and per- 
 haps Lawson thought that hi» chemical products might well 
 have been kept at home to serve prospective needs of our 
 own. He had become a strong- voiced advocate of both con- 
 servation and preparedness; and warmly commended the 
 son-in-law for going up to Plattsburg to take military 
 training during August and September. 
 
 George himself displayed little enthusiasm about it; any- 
 thing was better than staying at home all alone, he said 
 glumly. But George had grown to be rather morose and 
 uncompanionable and difficult to please of late, in contrast 
 to the genial, easy-going chap he used to be; people remarked 
 the change and speculated upon it not too charitably, it is 
 to be feared. " He's not drinking. It's not that, anyhow," 
 Mr. Rudd said to his daughter Edith, in discussing the young 
 Stillmans, with a troubled brow. '^ I believe that's been 
 hinted around, but it's not so. I'm pretty confident in my 
 judgment about drinking men. It's much more likely to be 
 overwork ; these times are a good deal of a strain on every- 
 body. I feel it myself; we all do. We're all nervous and 
 strung up, in our different ways." 
 
 " Hester isn't," said Edith, smiling coolly. " Hester is 
 
 269 
 
270 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 perfectly serene. She was just saying the other day that 
 you and Mr. Stillman had made so much money out of the 
 War that you wouldn't have anything to worry about the 
 rest of your lives, and wasn't it wonderful? Too good to be 
 true! " 
 
 Her father did not answer. There had been times before 
 — perhaps many times — when certain aspects of his wife 
 and Hester had caused him a kind of leaden-heartedness. 
 He combated it by telling himself that they were only 
 women; that all women were 'Mike that." They didn't 
 understand; it was not fair to expect them to understand, 
 and hopeless to try to put understanding into them; let 
 them continue in their diverting and harmless practices and 
 ways of thought. Now he found himself repeating these 
 familiar arguments on behalf of Hester, but with conscious 
 insecurity. For there sat Edith, a living proof that all 
 women were not " like that." He even fancied he could 
 detect a note of lazy satire in her rendition of Hester's 
 views. 
 
 " Edith," he said suddenly. " Do you suppose that that is 
 really all that Hester thinks about the War? That it's been 
 a wonderful opportunity for us to make money? Do you 
 suppose that is the only way it touches her? " 
 
 " I don't know. I haven't heard her say anything else 
 about it," said Edith. " Hester is very literal, very direct, 
 you know, Dad," she said, not unkindly; "I'm sure she 
 doesn't want anybody to suffer; she would rather have 
 everything pleasant and happy. But as long as the War is 
 going to go on, anyhow — " Edith lifted one shoulder slightly 
 — "I suppose she thinks it's lucky that someone can get 
 some good out of it." 
 
 " I see," said Lawson. But he was in truth trying not to 
 see, trying to hide from himself something that repelled him 
 intolerably. 
 
 It was at the New York hotel where the family were in 
 the habit of stopping that this talk took place. Lawson and 
 Mrs. Lawson had just come down from " Journey's End "; 
 Hester, for whom Plattsburg or the resorts in its vicinity 
 had no attractions, as it seemed, had spent her summer be- 
 tween Newport, Bar Harbor and the paternal roof, and after 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 271 
 
 the stay in New York for the imperative duty of shopping, 
 would be going on to Hot Springs. George was coming from 
 camp; the Stillmans were in town, too. It would be quite 
 a family party; and was probably looked forward to, by all 
 hands, with the peculiarly tepid enthusiasm which family 
 parties commonly inspire. Edith, going up to see them late 
 in the afternoon, found only her father; but presently the 
 two ladies came in, sparkling and exultant from a round of 
 the shops, with tales of the most distracting uncertainties 
 between purchases, frequently solved by the decision to 
 '' take both and be done with it! " 
 
 "Fifteen hundred for the mink set and eighteen for the 
 ermine — and Hester simply could not make up her mind! 
 I said: 'Only three hundred dollars' difference, why don't 
 you have the ermine, since you haven't anything suitable for 
 evening wear? ' But she kept on hesitating and hesitating, 
 and finally there didn't seem to be any way out of it except 
 to have them both ; because, you know, she would have been 
 eternally regretting the one she didn't take. And one can't 
 have too many sets of furs, anyhow; they are always such a 
 wise purchase." 
 
 '' Then after that, we went to Tiffany's, and oh. Dad, we 
 found the most adorable way to have Mother's dog-collar 
 made over — !" 
 
 '' Well, I don't know whether I'll have that done after all, 
 Hester, it will take so many more stones. However, they're 
 going to submit designs. But show them what we did get — 
 show them your vanity-case — ! " 
 
 Their pleasant, excited voices made a charming hurly- 
 burly in the room; Lawson and his other daughter duly 
 looked, listened, admired, their posture resembling that of 
 the elders around a Christmas-tree. Neither of them prac- 
 tised a severe self-denial, but their extravagances acquired 
 dignitv by being purposeful — or so they thought. Hester, 
 as Edith used to say with a laugh, would go out to buy a 
 bathing-suit, and like as not, come back with a skating- 
 costume! They did not shop, she declared, they flowed in 
 and out of the Fifth Avenue doors, sweeping all manner of 
 unaccountable things with them, like any other flood. 
 
 In a pause of the chatter, when Mrs. Rudd rang for tea, 
 
272 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 and while she was giving the order, Edith inquired: 
 *' Where's George? " 
 
 There was a second of silence, all of them looking towards 
 Hester, who did not look at anybody, the animation suddenly 
 dying out of her lovely face. '' Why, / don't know. He 
 must have got here by this time, though." 
 
 '' What train was he coming on? " her father asked. 
 
 " Why — why, one of those trains from the North — from 
 the Adirondacks, I suppose." 
 
 "Didn't he say?" 
 
 " No. Oh, yes — that is, maybe he did, but I've forgotten. 
 I never can remember things like that," said Hester half 
 defiantly, half sulkily. There was another little pause. 
 Hester seemed to feel that it implied some sort of criticism, 
 for she flashed a suspicious look around. " What are you all 
 staring that way for? If anything had happened, I should 
 have heard long ago. But I don't believe anything has. 
 George is big enough to take care of himself, I hope," she 
 said sharply. 
 
 " Of course, of course, he's all right," said Lawson, think- 
 ing that she was secretly anxious, and meaning to soothe 
 her. Edith glanced at him with the shadow of a smile ; her 
 mother looked faintly disturbed. And just at the moment, 
 the elevator clicked discreetly at the other end of the hall ; 
 they heard footsteps, and in walked George and his father. 
 
 Without any dramatic intent on their part, the entrance, 
 falling so pat, took on a dramatic significance; all at once 
 the sense of approaching climax descended on the room. 
 George looked lean and browned and hard as nails from his 
 campaigning, but as sullen as before; and old John was 
 visibly worried. He and Lawson had had luncheon together 
 that very day, and having parted so recently, now exchanged 
 only a nod ; but Mrs. Rudd welcomed the two men with an 
 effusion which her better taste all the while condemned. 
 Somebody must do something, she reasoned with a feeling 
 approaching panic. The men were absolutely of no use; 
 there were her husband and Mr. Stillman standing dumb; 
 there was George glowering at Hester; there was Hester sit- 
 ting, swinging her foot, making no move to greet him; and 
 finally there was Edith, silent too, but self-possessed, rather 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 273 
 
 amused if one might judge by her expression. Yet anybody 
 could see that an explosion of some sort was imminent. Poor 
 Mrs. Lawson gallantly cast herself single-handed into the 
 breach. i 
 
 " Mr. Stillman ! How lovely ! I was so sorry we missed 
 you to-day! However, I daresay you and Lawson had a 
 much better time without us! George! Here you are at 
 last! We were just talking about you. Hester was just 
 saying — " 
 
 *' We were just talking about Hester — Father and I," 
 said George, not pleasantly. 
 
 " Oh, were you? " said Hester, also not pleasantly. Thus 
 did the Stillman couple greet each other after a separation 
 of weeks. Mrs. Rudd cruised, resolutely smiling, past these 
 speeches like a ship in a reef-strewn channel. 
 
 " Isn't Clara with you? Why didn't you bring Clara? " 
 she pressed them fervently. " We've missed each other two 
 or three times — so busy always in New York, you know — 
 so much to do! But I did hope to see Clara this afternoon, 
 at any rate. I do wish she had come ! " It was the solemn 
 truth; never before in her life had Mrs. Lawson desired to 
 see Clara so earnestly; Clara, in these circumstances, would 
 have been as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. 
 The younger Stillmans, whatever they did, would not let 
 anything happen in Clara's presence! Mrs. Lawson tele- 
 graphed appealingly to Edith, who actually did bestir her- 
 self a little in response. 
 
 '' You're looking fine, George! " she said cordially. " Why 
 are we all standing up? Won't you sit here, Mr. Stillman? 
 We're going to have some tea presently. Not that that is 
 much of a temptation to you, I know," she interpolated 
 good-humoredly. " But you can have a stick in yours, if 
 you like. It's not half bad that way." 
 
 *' Thanks, I guess I don't want anything to drink, Edith," 
 said old John. But he did sit down; everybody sat down, 
 the assemblage thereby momentarily assuming a specious air 
 of sociability like any ordinary informal gathering. Mrs. 
 Rudd breathed more freely; she would have breathed with 
 entire freedom, in fact, if only Hester had not continued so 
 dangerously nonchalant. George, to be sure, was lowering 
 
 T 
 
274 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 still, and the other men were still uneasy ; but you can always 
 manage men, they're so afraid of hurting you somehow, 
 thought the experienced lady not without contempt; whereas 
 other women — ! 
 
 " Had a good time, George? " said Lawson. 
 
 " Good enough. They kept us busy." 
 
 " Well, that — that did you good, no doubt. That's what 
 you went for," said Lawson, mechanically keeping his 
 tongue going while he sought some better inspiration. He 
 was not skilled at the double performance which any wonian 
 can conduct with ease; Edith' viewed it with perceptible 
 enjoyment, but his wife intervened, scenting catastrophe. 
 
 '' Exercise — fresh air — " she murmured. '' It must have 
 been ideal — " 
 
 George cut her short, getting up again with a rough move- 
 ment. " Oh, what's the use of our all talking around as if 
 nothing was the matter? " he demanded, in a loud and hard 
 voice. '' You all know. I'm sick and tired of it! " 
 
 " He means he's sick and tired of 7ne! '' Hester explained 
 to the rest, with ostentatious patience. 
 
 '' Well then, I am! " shouted out George. " If you'd act 
 right — if you'd act the way a man's wife ought to — ! But 
 you've worn me out. Damn it, there's not another nian in the 
 country that would have stood what I have, stood it as long 
 without saying anything — " 
 
 '' Hold up, son! " interposed old John, heavily. '' If you 
 keep on, you'll say something you'll be sorry for the rest of 
 your life." He turned towards his old friend. " Lawson, 
 we've been talking about this; we've talked about it before; 
 but we were talking again as we came along to-day. I've 
 tried to reason with him. I thought if you'd talk to 
 Hester—" 
 
 '' Oh, reason! " said George savagely. 
 
 " Oh, talk! " ejaculated Hester, with an hysterical imita- 
 tion of a laugh. 
 
 " W^hat has Hester done, George? " said Lawson. 
 
 " Done? Oh, mercy, what haven't I done? I've done 
 everything! '' cried Hester, in shrill irony. '' Oh, I'm per- 
 fectly terrible! " 
 
 " Please, not so loud, Hester, please! '' her mother im- 
 plored. " It's — it's not nice! " 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 2?5 
 
 This argument, notwithstanding that it was the weightiest 
 poor Mrs. Lawson knew, might not have availed much, but 
 for a timely reinforcement, namely : the arrival of a servant 
 with the tea, which acted upon the angry voices, the red, 
 excited faces like a charm. Ever>^body was silent while the 
 man rapidly and skilfully disposed his tray upon the table; 
 and being a well-trained menial, he himself was not only 
 dumb but deaf and blind to boot, until Mr. Rudd felt in a 
 trouser-pocket! After that little ceremony, he slid out of 
 the room, closing the door with disciplined noiselessness ; 
 the silence lasted yet an instant. 
 
 Mrs. Rudd began to arrange herself at the tea-service in 
 a desperate effort to restore the ancient sanctuary of con- 
 vention. It was pathetic and admirable to witness. " Now 
 won't you all have somethingf Mr. Stillman, a sandwich, 
 anyhow, even if you don't care for tea? They look delicious. 
 Edith, one lump? I've forgotten how you take yours! " 
 
 '' Just a minute, Lucille! " said her husband, scrupulously 
 courteous to her, as always. He had taken advantage of the 
 lull to reassemble his forces, as it were; the initial outbreak 
 had been so sudden, so violent as to shake even Lawson out 
 of his habitual readiness and steadiness. " Just a minute. I 
 don't think anybody cares for anything just now." He 
 looked from one to the other of the young people. " Let's 
 have this all out first — " 
 
 They accepted the invitation simultaneously! 
 
 " Mr. Rudd, she — " George interrupted. 
 
 " Father, he — " Hester began, stormily. 
 
 '' One at a time, now — that's how we'll get to the bottom 
 of this," said Lawson with all the persuasive authority at his 
 command. '' You haven't been getting along. Well, when 
 two people don't get along, it's almost always the fault of 
 both, isn't it? One can't make the trouble all by himself — 
 or herself," he interlined somewhat hastily. " I'd like to hear 
 o?^;h side separately. And maybe you'd better hear each 
 other — listen to each other, I mean." 
 
 "I told 'em all that, too," said the older Stillman 
 resignedly. " I suggested that there might be misunder- 
 standings. Why, the best of friends have misunderstand- 
 ings, let alone husbands and wives! " said John, guiltless of 
 satirical intent. He shook his head. '' No use! " 
 
276 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " We haven't had any misunderstandings," said George, 
 scowling. *' I've been made to understand, that's all! " 
 
 " You see how he is," said Hester, appealing — to the other 
 men, not to her mother and sister ! — for sympathy. 
 
 Lawson surveyed them both with a sensation of helpless- 
 ness such as he had never known till that moment. '' What 
 has Hester done, George? " he repeated. " Just what is the 
 matter. And then, Hester, you can tell me what George has 
 done," he finished, with an eye on her, which in childish 
 days, Hester had been wont to heed; now she only pouted 
 and looked aside. 
 
 " Oh, I can't talk about it," said the young man fiercely 
 and miserably. But in spite of that declaration, he went on 
 talking about it, all the while aware unhappily that the 
 arraignment amounted to nothing ; it was only an incoherent 
 protest against an injustice which no one but he himself 
 could feel. " She ought to stay with me, and she keeps going 
 away. Lots of the men up at camp had their wives staying 
 around somewhere so as to be near them. She could have 
 come — but she wouldn't. She never does go anywhere 
 with me — " 
 
 "Well, you go such horrid places," Hester interrupted. 
 " Like that nasty Nova Scotia. All mosquito-y and never any 
 bathroom to myself. I don't like places like that. I don't 
 see why I should have to go there." She appealed again to 
 the older men. " Why shouldn't he go somewhere I like? " 
 
 " I do, I have ! I've done everything she's ever asked me ! 
 I've done my best — " 
 
 " If you shout that way, George, they'll hear all over this 
 floor," Edith counselled calmly ; her voice was like a dash of 
 cold water ; but the conflagration — to continue the figure — 
 was too well under way now to be extinguished even by a 
 deluge of prudent advice. 
 
 " Now she's determined to go to Hot Springs, and I want 
 her to come home and stay home with me and she won't do 
 it. She doesn't care for me — " 
 
 " I suppose you think you're acting in a way to make me 
 care for you," said Hester, in silver-tongued sarcasm. She 
 regained her self-command in proportion as poor George lost 
 his. 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 277 
 
 " It wouldn't make any difference how I acted. You don't 
 care for anybody. You — you haven't any heart, you — oh, 
 what's the use! " He flung down before the others what 
 seemed to him the utter outrage; there was a proof, at least, 
 there was something they could understand. " Why, she 
 cried more over that cat of hers that died than for her own 
 baby — our baby ! She felt worse ! " 
 
 "Well, but the baby was so little — only a month old. 
 It didn't know anything," said Hester reasonably. '^ I'd had 
 Dingbats ever so long, and he was so dear! " Her lips 
 quivered. " He had the dearest ways! " 
 
 " And now she doesn't want any more children. She's 
 afraid, or she thinks they'd be too much care, or something. 
 I suppose it would interfere with her running around and 
 having a good time. That's the kind of wife she is," said 
 George bitterly. 
 
 '' Oh, it's all very well for you to talk! As if you had any 
 of it to go through — " Hester began; they were evidently 
 upon a familiar source of discord. But Edith now took a 
 hand, to the vast relief of the older generation present, who, 
 as has been hinted heretofore, could not get accustomed to 
 this up-to-date frankness. 
 
 " What all this comes to is just what Dad started out 
 with," she said judicially. " You aren't getting along. 
 Now, then, what do you want to do about it? Get 
 divorced? " 
 
 Put baldly thus, it cannot be denied that the thing had an 
 unhandsome sound; it gave them all pause. ^' I want her to 
 act right, that's all. We — we haven't got anything to be 
 divorced about," said George after a minute, calming down 
 now that his wrongs, such as they were, had been stated. 
 They waited for Hester, who however sat looking down 
 sulkily, and would not reply. It was indeed impossible to 
 guess whether the suggestion satisfied, offended or frightened 
 her; whether she was startled and confused by it, or 
 with feminine caution, would not commit herself for or 
 against. 
 
 " You don't know what you want to do — or you can't 
 make up your mind? " said Edith. " Well, one or other 
 of you will have to start proceedings — in court, you know, 
 
278 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 it's all very tiresome. I don't believe George wants to — ? " 
 She looked towards him interrogatively. 
 
 " We haven't got anything to get a divorce for," he 
 grumbled again; '' if she'd act right — if she'd stay with me 
 and — and — " 
 
 Edith waited patiently, but as usual with those who ex- 
 pended their eloquence upon her, George presently found 
 himself without another word, with scarcely an idea, even! 
 That steadfast attention fairly fettered the mind. 
 
 '^ Then you won't make any move? " said Edith at last. 
 '' Very well, neither will Hester. She's not going to try for 
 a divorce." 
 
 Hester flared up again at this cavalier announcement. 
 " You got one, Edith! " she snapped out. 
 
 " That, I suppose, is just what put it into your head," 
 said Edith unmoved. " You want to get into the limelight, 
 too. It's not a very agreeable place to be, however; you 
 wouldn't like it, Hester. Being divorced isn't pretty, before 
 or afterwards. You'd get tired of it very soon, and then 
 what would you do? " 
 
 '' Don't be hard on her, Edith, she's nothing but a child," 
 expostulated old Stillman, moved more by some steely and 
 ruthless quality to be felt in Edith herself than by anything 
 she said. She smiled. 
 
 " A child of twenty-nine — or is it thirty, Hester? " 
 
 " You k-know you're only s-saying that to be hateful! " 
 sobbed Hester, fairly quelled. George made a movement 
 towards her which he checked in embarrassment, meeting 
 Edith's glacial eye. 
 
 " Never mind, George, Hester won't get a divorce, and 
 you'll scuffle along together well enough, I daresay, after 
 she's got over this craze." 
 
 "Well, Edith — er — " her father began — and then 
 words failed him too ! 
 
 " We can't have Hester making us all ridiculous," said 
 his younger daughter inexorably; the disturbing likeness to 
 Grandfather David Rudd came out on her every feature as 
 she spoke. " People would be saying that divorces were 
 contagious or ran in the family, or that Hester was getting 
 in line, and Mother would be tlie next — " 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 279 
 
 "Edith!" cried Mrs. Rudd inexpressibly shocked. 
 ''Edith!'' 
 
 " That's what they would say. There would be all kinds 
 of cheap jokes going around. It's all silliness, and Hester 
 shan't do it. One divorce is enough for us," said Edith. And 
 every one of them felt that the fiat had gone forth I 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 HOWEVER high-handed Edith's method of settling 
 the differences between the Stillman couple, every- 
 one else in the family was devoutly thankful to 
 her; the end justified the indefensible means. For it was a 
 settlement; Hester went around with the airs of a martyr; 
 George went around with the airs — his friends said — of 
 that comic paper celebrity, Old Man Grump; but neither 
 one of them dreamed of re-opening the divorce question. 
 Perhaps in their hearts they were as glad as the others of 
 Edith's sledge-hammer decision; there is a certain peace in 
 defeat. As for that young sister to Solomon, she never 
 added another word to her ultimatum; she was instinctively 
 aware of the weakening effect of words. She went serenely 
 about her business, and her unquestioning self-confidence, 
 which was not without a hint of disdain, somehow enforced 
 obedience. 
 
 She did indeed give some account of the affair and of her 
 own despotic intervention to her brother, flavored with 
 acid comment. " I had no idea till I came back from Europe 
 this time what a number of fools there were at large in our 
 society. This divorce craze — ! People over here make a 
 business of getting married just to be divorced afterwards," 
 she said, with a cold impatience. " It's a fashion, it's a 
 game. We're always going to extremes, always running 
 things into the ground. Look at Hester and George: what 
 is the trouble? There isn't any, really. She is restless and 
 wants to be noticed. He has been over-indulgent and now 
 he's too tyrannical. It's absolutely childish. Hester is the 
 most to blame, though. Any foreign woman would think 
 George the most marvellous husband that ever happened; 
 she wouldn't understand what Hester was fussing about. 
 Over there one has to have a reason, at least. But they do 
 this sort of thing better over there, anyhow. I daresay it i8 
 
 280 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 281 
 
 because their society is so old; they've seen everything, 
 they've done everything, they've known everything; they've 
 been at it a thousand years. It's all a kind of grand novelty 
 to us; we're wild to try it. That is, women like Hester are. 
 I'm not, and never was. I like people to be decent — and I 
 was the one to have indecency forced on me! I believe Hes- 
 ter envies me the experience. She has an idea it must have 
 been thrilling to be at the centre of a scandal, and to set 
 everybody talking about you. What w^ould poor little Hester 
 have done in my place, though? What would dozens of 
 these other women that go running around doing anything 
 and everything they can think of to attract publicity? If 
 they only knew, it wasn't splendid and it wasn't romantic 
 the least bit; it was a dull dirty business. What do people 
 over here want to go into that sort of thing for? It doesn't 
 suit us; Americans are naturally respectable. But let me 
 tell you, Steve, I think w^e're all due for a good shaking-up 
 some day, and if the War comes over on this side we're going 
 to get it. We'll have to stop thinking about ourselves for a 
 while." 
 
 In the meanwhile she had foimd an outlet for the restless- 
 ness w^hich, as Edith herself would acknowledge with cynical 
 humor, beset her as persistently as it beset the rest of the 
 women. She was working on a number of charitable com- 
 mittees: Devastated Belgium — the French Orphaned and 
 Homeless — Persecuted Armenia — Servian Victims of the 
 War — Polish Relief, and so on. There was no lack of 
 opportunities to serve one's fellow-man; and Edith wdth her 
 energy, common-sense and thoroughness would have been the 
 most popular, but for possessing the defects of those quali- 
 ties. She displayed entirely too much initiative, too much 
 foresight, -was too given to short-cuts that disregarded red 
 tape and precedent; she cared not a jot for approval, much 
 less applause. The worst of it was that she was almost 
 invariably justified by the outcome; she had an instinct for 
 the expedient measure, the direct way; and people can over- 
 look any fault except that of being incessantly in the right. 
 However, she worked on, armored in her indifference, with 
 her eyes on the goal which she never failed to reach, no mat- 
 ter whose feelings and prejudices she overrode by the way. 
 
282 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 It naturally fell to her to do all the disagreeable things, to 
 tell all the disagreeable truths, jobs which she carried 
 through as impersonally and impartially as every other job 
 assigned her. 
 
 As all over the country Society does the same thing, Mrs. 
 Rudd and all her circle in her Ohio city were furiously con- 
 ducting good works also, that is to say, charity balls, charity 
 theatrical performances, charity art-exhibitions, charity 
 bridge-tournaments, dog-shows, rummage-sales. It is safe 
 to say that more money was spent promoting these philan- 
 thropic enterprises than ever was realized from them; but 
 what of that? No harm can possibly be done by getting 
 people into the habit of giving, whether of their money or 
 time or labor or mere good-will. Mrs. Lawson Rudd was on 
 the list of patronesses for a score of entertainments; she 
 personally bore hundreds of dollars' worth of expenses; she 
 nobly made the acquaintance of women to whom she had 
 never spoken before, yea, she invited nobodies to her house 
 (for board meetings) and smiled upon social climbers and 
 poured tea for them! It was heroic. Mrs. George Stillman 
 did her part, too; she paid Mademoiselle Mantegna, the little 
 Italian instructor in toe-dancing at Matson's Academy, 
 thirty dollars to teach her that Egyptian dance she per- 
 formed at the Benefit of the Fatherless Croats, and five 
 hundred more to the New York artist who designed and exe- 
 cuted her costume. This is to cite only two out of the many, 
 many instances of disinterested benevolence. 
 
 The head of the Rudd Chemical Company was down for 
 a round sum on all the subscription-lists, like everybody else. 
 Lawson had always been a liberal man. " This is a worthy 
 charity, Mr. Rudd," some petitioner once said to him in 
 recommendation. '' There aren't any unworthy ones, Mr. 
 So-and-so," said Lawson, filling out his cheque. If he gave 
 more nowadays, quite unheard-of sums, in fact, it was be- 
 cause he was making more; in mediaeval times he might 
 have built a chapel, or endowed an abbey. The profits of the 
 business were fair; it was not Lawson's fault that they were 
 increased by a barbarous necessity; the War with its mon- 
 strous demands, was none of his making. Then why did his 
 contributions assume to him, against his will, the guise of 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 283 
 
 conscience-money. Elihu Rudd gave in amounts propor- 
 tionate to his recent gains, too; Elihu was an honest and 
 right- feeling man — in the main. But we may believe that 
 he was not troubled by the recollection of the first Rudd's 
 transgressions, nor did the Pancurata and the Metaderma 
 ever break up a night's rest for Elihu. When all's said and 
 done, why should they? His younger brother was of a 
 slightly different mould. 
 
 All that winter, there was a sentiment in favor of France 
 and Great Britain growing and gaining strength over the 
 country; the keep-out-of-the-War motto, having served its 
 purpose, had been cast aside. And it may be said that those 
 who had enlisted our dislike, had no one but themselves to 
 thank for it. The average American may love to be hum- 
 bugged, but he exacts that the humbugging be well executed, 
 a fine bit of work; lo, the Teutonic humbug was the abso- 
 lute reverse; mortal man never invented trickery so 
 obvious and so stupid. It offended the national vanity, even 
 while it aroused the national sense of humor, a more formid- 
 able element of this race's motley composition than many 
 outsiders are aware. The country was getting restive, sus- 
 picious, testy. If the German agents, open and secret, were 
 active amongst us, their activities were set off by those of 
 the avowed apostles of the Allied cause who came frankly, 
 without lies, without bribes, not essaying to preach or teach, 
 simply telling the truth. They talked, they wrote, they 
 showed proofs. Society, in all its ramifications crowded to 
 see and hear them; the women's clubs listened with shrink- 
 ing flesh ; the big ball-rooms of fashionable hotels resounded 
 to the plain eloquence of their facts. Mrs. Lawson Rudd 
 and other ladies of suitable means entertained them one 
 after another: Madame la Baronne de Hautlieu, His Grace 
 the Bishop of Bath and Chelsea, Mr. Algernon Sydney- 
 Dysart of the British Commission, to name a few of the most 
 elevated. The lesser sort went to hotels or were looked after 
 by committees from the various organizations which had 
 invited them here. 
 
 Among the last was one whose name, duly advertised on 
 all the hoardings, with pictures of him in a Sam Brown belt 
 holding the little Malacca baton English army-ofiicers affect 
 
284 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 between the artificial fingers of the artificial right hand he 
 was reported to use so skilfully, caused some sensation in 
 the Rudd family. This was Colonel Sir John Geoffrey 
 Chandos Dulaney; he had been only Captain Dulaney in 
 the diplomatic service, the second cousin of some minor 
 English baronet, when they knew him years before in Wash- 
 ington. In those days he was as poor as Job's turkey, with 
 a pedigree that went back to Hengist and Horsa, and no 
 more expectation of succeeding to the title and estates than 
 the man in the moon. Now four or five stout Dulaneys had 
 come back — or perhaps had not come back — from Flan- 
 ders and the Dardanelles to lie in the little ancient Suffolk 
 churchyard. John Geoffrey himself had left a good arm at 
 Passchendaele ; and here he was, gray-headed before his 
 time, with his lined face, with his patient resolute eyes, going 
 up and down, telling the truth from fifty platforms a week 
 to whomsoever, in this careless and comfortable United 
 States, chose to hear it. 
 
 '' Do you suppose Edith met him? Of course he landed in 
 New York; she must know he is in this country," Mrs. Rudd 
 said. " She meets almost all of them. I do wonder if they 
 
 met." 
 
 Her husband detected the note of unusual mterest with- 
 out at all understanding it — so dense is the masculine in- 
 telligence. '' Oh, very likely," he said, callously consuming 
 potage printaniere. " Why? What's he done? Is he out of 
 the ordinary run? They aren't invariably interesting, and 
 their experiences are a good deal alike. But Dulaney used 
 to come to the house that winter you and the girls were in 
 Washington, by the way, didn't he? Seems to me I recol- 
 lect— " .^ ^ 
 
 '' Lawson, he was very attentive to Edith," said Mrs. 
 Lawson impressively. '' Come to the house? Why, he fairly 
 lived with us for a while — until she refused him. At least, 
 I suppose she refused him, Edith's so reserved you never can 
 get any satisfaction out of her. But he all at once stopped 
 coming, and that's rather pointed. I should think you would 
 have remembered." 
 
 '' I couldn't keep a card-index of the young men that 
 came to the house, what with Hester's and Edith's both. 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 285 
 
 And besides I wasn't with you three-fourths of the time," he 
 offered in exculpation. '' Well, if they did meet, again, what 
 of it? " 
 
 The lady surveyed him. " Oh, nothing — nothing at all. 
 I was only wondering." 
 
 A few days later, Mr. Rudd was not surprised, coming 
 home in the waning afternoon to see a man's calling-card, 
 though nowadays that was a sufficiently rare object with 
 them, among the mail on the console in his hall, nor to hear 
 the servant murmur, bearing away his coat: " Colonel 
 Dulaney is here, sir. Mrs. Rudd says will you step into the 
 morning-room? " 
 
 Lawson went accordingly into the little bright, cushioned, 
 chintz-y place; there w^as a fire burning in deference to the 
 evening chill of these early spring days, and a high silver 
 vase of jonquils on the tea-table; his wife looked very pretty 
 and animated and well-preserved over the cups and saucers. 
 The tall English officer with a monocle in his eye got up and 
 put out his left hand and spoke Lawson's name and his own, 
 amiling. 
 
 " Mr. Rudd ! I — aw — don't know whether you remem- 
 ber me? Aw — Dulaney." 
 
 "Good Lord, he looks twenty years older!" ejaculated 
 Lawson inwardly; he would not have known him. It was a 
 little awkward shaking his left hand; Lawson tried not to 
 show it, and not to look at the right which hung gloved by 
 Colonel Dulaney's side in a stiff position, but the other 
 caught him and made an apology ! 
 
 " Awf 'ly inconvenient, but my right's out of commission, 
 y'know," he said, simply. 
 
 " Oh yes, we'd — er — we'd heard about that," said Mr. 
 Rudd; his wife murmured sympathy. 
 
 " Everybody seems to have heard. I rather fancy your 
 newspaper-men must have published something about it," 
 said the colonel. " Most amazin' chaps! I remember when 
 I was over here before in nineteen-ten — " He went on with 
 some anecdote about American newspaper-men in his pleas- 
 ant English voice, chipping off a final syllable here and there. 
 They sat and chatted. It might have been any afternoon 
 years ago in the Washington drawing-room. There were 
 
286 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 half a dozen fresh-faced young fellows about the British 
 Legation in those days; now and again he would mention 
 one of them — " Poor Gifford got his, as you Americans say, 
 at Mons in the beginning. Nice fellow, Gifford! " '' March- 
 banks was in the Jutland fight. Eh? Oh, yes, on the Indom- 
 itable, y'know. They picked him up, but he died after- 
 wards." They were all gone, all those boys, and the War 
 thundered on above their graves; and more and more were 
 going now, this hour, this moment, while the fire crackled 
 behind the andirons, and the jonquils shone, and Mrs. Rudd, 
 in delicately rich draperies, dispensed tea-biscuit; and their 
 comrade called the roll of the dead with a kindly passing 
 tribute. As an attache at the Embassy he had not given the 
 impression of being a conspicuously brilliant young man; 
 good looks, good manners, and a good family had not im- 
 probably been his chief recommendations for the post. Yet 
 all at once it seemed to Lawson Rudd that not one English- 
 man but all England sat by his hearth, and without a word 
 said, expounded the creed of manliness, and loyalty to an 
 antique and noble tradition. 
 
 '' It makes us laugh the way the Germans blow about 
 having won that North Sea battle," he said. " If they won, 
 why don't they come out? Glorious victory ! You English- 
 men, even if you'd been beaten, wouldn't skulk in a corner 
 like that." 
 
 " It — aw — doesn't look well," Colonel Dulaney admitted. 
 
 " You're holding your own so well here recently that the 
 pro- Ally people on this side feel very much encouraged." 
 
 " Yes, you're quite all right, as long as we hold on," said 
 the Englishman. 
 
 " We aren't all pro- Ally, that's our trouble," said Lawson, 
 reddening slightly. " I think myself that it's about time for 
 us to get in." 
 
 '^ Well, there are a good many of you in," Dulaney said. 
 " And that reminds me — " He fumbled with that brave and 
 unconsciously pathetic left hand in the pockets of his tunic. 
 
 " He saw Edith and Steve in New York, Lawson — " 
 
 " Yes, I — aw — met Mrs. Gherardi at a reception that 
 was given us. And afterwards I took a little time off be- 
 tween speechifying — like this, y'know — and — aw — 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 287 
 
 dropped in at her apartment," tlie colonel explained — and 
 to Mrs. Lawson's active imagination, a little additional red 
 came up in his face. Sir John's complexion, to be truthful, 
 had weathered to about the hue and texture of saddle- 
 leather, so that any change in the color of it would have 
 been pretty difficult to detect. He finally fumbled out a thin 
 packet all over official stamps and seals which, however, had 
 been already broken, and handed it to Lawson, rising. " Mr. 
 Rudd — your son, I mean, of course — asked me to give you 
 this. It's the notification — about the other Mr. Rudd, 
 y'know. He said he thought you would like to see it. It 
 seems the other Mr. Rudd had given your son as his next of 
 kin, so naturally the company commander wrote him. They 
 always do when they can — when they know any of the — 
 aw — the circumstances." 
 
 " I see. Thank you," said Lawson, mechanically. He 
 took the packet. 
 
 " Vimy Ridge was months and months ago ; it's been a bit 
 long conaing," said Dulaney apologetically. '' Your son said 
 he didn't get it till after the first of the year. But we've had 
 a struggle to keep up the mail service." 
 
 '' Oh, I can understand that! " 
 
 " I gathered that this gentleman was not a very close 
 relative," the Englishman said, evidently feeling that some- 
 thing further in the way of sympathy or appreciation should 
 be expressed. '' But blood's thicker than water. At any rate, 
 he died like a man — doin' his duty — all that, y'know — 
 and none of us can do much better than that — eh, what! " 
 With which speech and in manifest terror of having said too 
 much or been sentimental. Colonel Dulaney rather precipi- 
 tately took his leave. 
 
 ''What was he talking about? I couldn't quite understand, 
 and, of course, I didn't want to make him go all over it again. 
 Is there a note from Steve? " Mrs. Rudd asked. 
 
 ''No. It's about Eugene. Edith told me he had gone 
 over there," said Lawson, still standing with the letter in his 
 hand, looking at it confusedly. " Dulaney seemed to take 
 it for granted that I had heard already. But I hadn't." 
 
 " Heard what? Anything important? " 
 
 " Why, he's dead. He's been killed, I suppose." 
 
288 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 She uttered a slight shocked exclamation — only a very 
 slight one! Mrs. Lawson scarcely knew Eugene; she had 
 all but forgotten his existence, which, for that matter, she 
 had always understood to be of no moment to his half- 
 brothers or to anybody in particular. " Oh! What a pity! " 
 she said, and rose, pausing an instant. " I ought to go and 
 dress. Lawson, you must, too ; this dinner of the Gardiners' 
 is to be very early. Don't forget! " 
 
 Left alone, Lawson at length opened the packet, but even 
 then did not at onoe begin to read. Instead he sat for a 
 while, staring into the fire. It did not seem possible that 
 Eugene could be dead; after all these years of being a sort 
 of skeleton in the Rudd closet. Lawson wondered to dis- 
 cover that one may miss even a family-skeleton; the old 
 wrongs, old scores, old hateful memories come to be a part 
 of our lives, not cancelled without regret. At any rate, one 
 must guard against thinking ill of the dead; the dead who 
 have no recourse. There had been some good in Eugene — 
 a good deal of good; plenty of sense, if he had but used it; 
 not unlikable he was, too, if only — It was all a sorry 
 muddle. Now he had got his, as you Americans say. Law- 
 son sighed and spread out the letter. It was dated the 
 summer of the year before, and signed " K. Thompson, 
 Capt." The writer explained that the number of the regi- 
 ment and its location, along with other intimate details, must 
 be withheld as a measure of military precaution which Mr. 
 Rudd would undoubtedly understand. He greatly regretted 
 having to report the death of Private Eugene Rudd (Ambu- 
 lance Squad No. — , — th Div.) during an advance on the 
 enemy's position. '' According to statements made by two 
 men of — Company, Pvts. James Bowers and F. X. Le- 
 baudy, as they were all three going forward over the terrain 
 just evacuated by the enemy, but still under fire, Pvt. Rudd 
 being several yards in front of them and a little to the right, 
 they lost sight of him over the rim of a shell-hole. When 
 they reached this place, they saw him at the bottom of the 
 crater, and also one of the enemy's wounded, an officer who 
 was crying pitifully for water. Pvt. Rudd had unslung his 
 canteen, and was stooping over to give him a drink when the 
 German raised up and shot him through the body twice, 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 289 
 
 killing him instantly. Bowers and Lebaudy both assert that 
 the German officer was lying with his back towards them in 
 such an attitude that he could not have seen them approach- 
 ing, that he must have believed himself to be alone with 
 this one adversary in the shell-hole, and resorted to this ruse 
 as the safest and surest way of despatching him ; and further 
 that there was no wound whatever on the body of the Ger- 
 man except the one which Lebaudy (who reached him first) 
 made in running him through with his bayonet. It must be 
 remembered, however, that both of the men were very angry 
 and excited, so that they may have been mistaken." 
 
 " Such bodies as were recovered after this engagement 
 have been buried in a cemetery near by and the graves 
 marked, Pvt. Rudd's among them; there should be no diffi- 
 culty about identifying it after the war ..." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 LESS than three weeks after Colonel Dulaney's call, 
 when that gentleman himself had not got as far West 
 as Denver on his speaking tour, the United States 
 declared war on Germany. Now — as the newspaper 
 humorists sardonically pointed out — was the time for that 
 million of springers-to-arms about whom a Secretary of 
 State — recently resigned — had been so confident. Dis- 
 comfiting to relate, the number that did spring, though 
 creditable, was not nearly so large; pacifists and 
 conscientious objectors suddenly came to the surface in 
 every community, very active in promulgating their doc- 
 trines and highly likely — but this may have been a mere 
 coincidence — to be named Schwartz or Schmidt. In spite 
 of them, the recruiting went on; in spite of them, conscrip- 
 tion measures were suggested, were argued over in Congress, 
 were passed. The first Liberty loan was floated; the Stars 
 and Stripes were raised in London, in Paris. Coming gener- 
 ations will not be able to understand the emotions with which 
 their forebears beheld and took part in these events, what 
 rooted beliefs we tore up, what time-honored prejudices dis- 
 carded. What had happened to us, who, six months earlier, 
 had been gleefully thanking Heaven and one man for keep- 
 ing us out of the War? If you had asked that individual 
 whose opinions are so often referred to, the Average Man, he 
 would have responded with characteristic American flip- 
 pancy that he guessed it was time to call Heinle's bluff, or 
 that every boy in the country wanted to see himself in those 
 nifty khaki pants, or that it was not every day you got the 
 chance of a free trip to Europe ; yes, he would have answered 
 thus even if that moment on his way to the recruiting-ser- 
 geant! Not for worlds would he have acknowledged, per- 
 haps indeed he had no words to explain the urge that 
 
 290 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 291 
 
 overcame his native aversion to the monstrous foolishness 
 of war. 
 
 The Rudd Chemical Company, like every other industrial 
 concern throughout the United States, now doubled and 
 trebled its activities; Lawson himself shuttled back and forth 
 across the country, almost without rest. He was one of the 
 few men capable of thinking and calculating in sums of such 
 staggering magnitude as the times demanded, and he entered 
 into it with relish. He spent only two weeks at '' Journey's 
 End " that entire season, and then his visit assumed the 
 aspect of a devastating natural cataclysm to Mrs. Lawson 
 who saw their stately stretches of turf, the care and pride of 
 years, ripped up and sown to corn and potatoes, as a priest 
 might have beheld the desecration of his temple. The poor 
 lady found it hard to adjust herself to these clanging days. 
 After one or two final spasmodic flourishes during the sum- 
 mer, Society ceased to manifest itself as an organization for 
 leisure and enjoyment. Normally there never had been 
 enough young men to go around, and now there were none 
 at all. They all went into the army at the first call; it was 
 not necessary to draft these debonair lads, not a few of 
 whose associates had been in France or England these three 
 years already. Polo-players, tennis-champions, young fel- 
 lows in their junior year at college, or just admitted to the 
 bar, or just beginning in Dad's office — off they all went to 
 the training-camps and troop-ships. Their sisters began to 
 knit, or rolled bandages, or took courses in nursing and Red 
 Cross work; some even cooked and gardened. The older 
 women were ofiiciating on boards, and struggling valiantly 
 with domestic problems that loomed more menacingly every 
 day — every meatless, sugarless, flourless day. Mrs. Rudd 
 — but exactly what Mrs. Rudd and her type did, evades 
 description for the reason that these charming women could 
 not learn to do anything except be charming. I am sure 
 they tried; I am sure Mrs. Lawson, who was as eager as 
 anybody to help, believed that she denied herself in the mat- 
 ter of dress and house-furnishings; I know for a certainty 
 that she had her automobile re-upholstered, and went with- 
 out a new one. She was forever anxiously explaining her 
 orders and purchases on the theory that the poor work- 
 
292 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 people must be encouraged, must have enough employment 
 to keep them in bread. Take the milliners and furriers, for 
 instance. Their circulars were pathetic, the personal letters 
 from those she had always patronized even more so; her 
 tailor had literally begged her to get a new suit, only one 
 new suit, and save him from bankruptcy ! 
 
 '' I spoke to your father about it, and he only laughed and 
 said to rescue Anatole by all means, the more solvent people 
 there were in the country the better! Now, you know, 
 Edith, it was two hundred and fifty dollars, and / should 
 have thought — ! They talk so much about thrift and econ- 
 omy — ! However, of course, your father knows," she said 
 to her younger daughter, in some perplexity. '' I was glad 
 he told me, because that always makes me sure of domg 
 right, and I want to do right. Still — Do you know, I'm 
 sometimes afraid your father is overworking — I'm afraid 
 he'll have brain-fag, or break down in some awful way. Now 
 laying waste, simply laying waste 'Journey's End' — you 
 haven't been there, you can't imagine what it looks like. And 
 he used to be so fond of it! The gardens are practically 
 destroyed — just a few clumps of hardy flowers left. It's a 
 great deprivation to all those people that used to come in 
 such crowds ; the place was as good as a horticultural show 
 to them without their having to pay a cent. I said to your 
 father that I thought keeping it that way for the poor things 
 as well as for ourselves was a real work of charity and self- 
 sacrifice, but he only laughed." 
 
 '' They were mostly summer visitors, and all the resorts 
 around there were closed," said Edith. '' There wouldn't 
 have been anybody to come and see. You used to complain 
 about them a good deal." 
 
 " Oh, but now it's different. One wants to do one's bit. 
 There are quantities and quantities of carrots and cabbages 
 and all those things in market all the time, and hardly any- 
 body ever buys them; a greengrocer told me nobody liked 
 them, and they fed them to the pigs often. I don't see the 
 use of growing so many," objected the older lady, practically. 
 " But your father seems to have gone perfectly wild on the 
 subject. You don't know half the things he's done, Edith, or 
 you would be as worried as I am. When we had that very 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 293 
 
 cold weather and there was so much trouble about getting 
 coal, he telegraphed to McCrae and actually ordered him to 
 let all the fires go out for the greenhouse boilers, and send 
 word around the country to all the Clam Beach people and 
 everybody to come and take the coal, all they needed! Of 
 course McCrae dared not disobey, and so everything froze — 
 all those orchids and wonderful things that he's spent years 
 in collecting. Every single thing was ruined ! " 
 
 '' Did Dad do that, did he? " cried out Edith. Her thin, 
 sharp face warmed and softened indescribably. " That was 
 fine! He loved them so. That was great! That cost him 
 something! " 
 
 " Indeed they did cost something," said Mrs. Rudd, not 
 entirely grasping the other's meaning. " He gave simply 
 fabulous prices for those plants — not to mention keeping up 
 the greenhouses. It was frightful! " 
 
 '' Well, now there won't be any of that expense any more, 
 so you see it's all for the best," said Edith, without a hint of 
 mischief appearing on her ably-governed features. If her 
 mother amused her at times, she conscientiously refrained 
 from showing it; Edith, on the whole, was a humane person. 
 Mrs. Rudd was indeed visibly staggered for a second by this 
 unexpected viewpoint, then she went on with her argument. 
 
 " Yes, but — but — He could perfectly well have had a 
 carload of coal sent up there, if he wanted to help the people. 
 It might have taken a few days, but they could have waited. 
 It's these things that he does occasionally, not all the time, 
 of course, that makes me uneasy. Now he's talking about 
 going to Washington and going into some of that Govern- 
 ment work w^here they get a dollar a year, you know. He 
 seems determined to give up everything he has! " 
 
 ''Oh, not everything surely ! He will leave enough for you 
 to manage the house and dress yourself and keep a few 
 servants and two of the cars, anyhow. Dad doesn't want 
 you to go without the necessaries of life, I'm sure," said 
 Edith as before; but this time she surveyed the older lady 
 with a certain lazy curiosity. 
 
 " No, of course not ! He thinks it's patriotic, I suppose — 
 but he doesn't need to be so extreme/* 
 
 " What does Uncle Elihu say? " 
 
294 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 " Well, I thought he seemed rather doubtful. He's much 
 more conservative than your father, anyhow. He didn't 
 say much one way or the other — just that it was all right 
 if your father could stand it — the terrific strain. Everyone 
 says it's a terrific strain." Mrs. Rudd's fair face, which was 
 beginning to wither delicately as a Testout rose, quivered 
 slightly. '' I think we're giving enough — Steve and George 
 and all those Liberty Bonds, and now your father — if he 
 breaks down — " 
 
 "He's not going to. Mother. Never mind! Nobody's 
 going to be killed or break down or go to the poorhouse. It's 
 going to come out all right! " Edith assured her comfortingly, 
 "■ Father just wants to be in it, you know. Everybody's in 
 it. One has to be. You know how that is! '' she added, 
 measuring her words to the other's understanding and char- 
 acter with unerring judgment. She was really sorry for her 
 mother, after a fashion. 
 
 " Yes, if everybody does, of course — " Mrs. Rudd sighed, 
 brightening nevertheless. " Those horrible Germans, why 
 couldn't they — ? Edith, I've never spoken to you about it 
 before, but I should think it would make you perfectly 
 happy if you could hear of Captain Gherardi's being k — at 
 least, I mean being taken prisoner or — or something," she 
 amended hurriedly, rather fearfully. 
 
 But Edith did not seem to be offended or repelled; she 
 considered, turning the wedding-ring which she had never 
 taken off, with her long, strong, supple fingers. " No, I 
 wouldn't be happy to hear of Rudolph's death. There're 
 things in the world that are ever so much worse than dying ; 
 and other things that are ever so much more important than 
 living. I don't wish Rudolph or any of them any evil. I had 
 the best of them, as it was; I beat them out. They know I 
 beat them. That was all I cared about," said Edith, looking 
 like Grandfather David transiently. ''I don't feel as if I 
 would ever care very much about anything again." 
 
 ** We thought — we hoped — perhaps Colonel — " mur- 
 mured her mother, and could get no further, aghast at her 
 own temerity in getting thus far. Edith, however, in her sur- 
 prising way, took up the unfinished sentence with a detached 
 and tranquil good humor. 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 295 
 
 " You thought perhaps Colonel Dulaney and I would 
 begin all over again? No, I'm afraid all that is done with for 
 me. Finished — out of my life for good and all. It's a pity. 
 But one can get along without it, you know, Mother. It's 
 not everything — it's not the whole of life." 
 
 Mrs. Rudd sighed again. ^' Well ! We couldn't help hoping 
 — we like him so much — and he's quite celebrated now. 
 But you always know your own mind." With which Mrs. 
 Lawson — who had been commissioned by Hester and was 
 moreover keenly anxious herself to find out how the old 
 romance stood, whether " he " had " asked " Edith once 
 more, and how she had answered — discreetly abandoned the 
 enterprise, plunging into other subjects — the Red Triangle, 
 Edith's war- work and what-not. 
 
 Hester, by the way, was also engaged in war-work. Why 
 not, since " everybody " was in it? Hester had the most 
 fetching olive-drab uniform imaginable, fitted to a nicety by 
 the best tailor in New York, and worn with a visored cap and 
 little stout boots, in which she went down-town every day — 
 when the weather was decent and she got up early enough — 
 to study wireless telegraphy. She belonged to Volunteer 
 Radio Corps, Unit Number One. The course presented 
 monumental difficulties which, however, she was in process of 
 overcoming with the assistance of every male instructor in 
 the school. One and all they took the greatest interest in 
 her, much more than in any of the other pupils; these she 
 reported to be about evenly divided between " weird " young 
 women in lingerie waists, cheap furs and excruciating high 
 heels, and " weird " middle-aged ones in run-down clothes as 
 far behind the mode as the others were in advance of it. 
 Hester thought both types distinctly common, and so, she 
 opined, did the men; at least, these latter did not take any 
 trouble to show them as they constantly did Hester. For 
 that matter all the common ones, the ex-public-school-teach- 
 ers, ex-shop-girls, ex-stenographers, and so on, seemed to 
 learn their business — and incidentally to mind it — with 
 characteristically common ease and rapidity. They were all 
 emphatically " on the job " — a phrase of theirs which Hes- 
 ter delighted to quote. 
 
 And who so happy and devoted nowadays as the Stillman 
 
296 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 couple, Hester in her uniform and George in his? We may 
 believe that honest George, who had rushed up to Fort 
 Benjamin Harrison within a week of our declaration of 
 war, with no idea in his head other than that which took 
 scores of loyal and conscientious men there, namely: a real 
 feeling for his country and desire to do his duty — we may 
 believe, I say, that George was as much astonished at the 
 reconciliation and as unable to account for it as any out- 
 sider and on-looker. It signified nothing to him that Society 
 had collapsed, and that Patriotism had become ultra-fash- 
 ionable. He only knew that Hester was divinely sweet, as 
 she had been in the days before they were married, and on 
 their honeymoon. No more denials, disappointments, small 
 hatefulnesses, teapot-tempests; it was heaven! And she 
 looked so pretty in her olive-drab; she was so adorably ab- 
 surd with her radio unit, her anti-Kaiser, anti- autocracy, 
 anti-frightfulness enthusiasm! As for Hester herself, she 
 was perfectly sincere ; her patriotism was as genuine a senti- 
 ment as any she ever harbored in her life. All her friends' 
 husbands were enlisting ; it was Lieutenant This and Captain 
 That at every turn; to be an officer's wife — maybe an 
 officer's widow, quietly distinguished in mourning with those 
 universally becoming sheer white collars and cuff-bands ! — 
 was dramatic, picturesque, le dernier cri. And George made 
 a fine, soldierly figure in his uniform, shouting orders on 
 the parade-ground in a voice of thrilling authority! He 
 had no occasion these days to complain that his wife would 
 go nowhere with him; when he was home on furlough he 
 could not stir a foot without her. During the first months 
 of his military apprenticeship she followed him to Chilli- 
 cothe, to Louisville, to Montgomery, setting up successive 
 establishments with a cortege of servants and household 
 goods which would have bankrupted any " poor lieutenant " 
 — Hester's favorite style of referring to their status — in a 
 week. It was only upon his appointment to Camp Hope 
 where the ground had scarcely been broken for the can- 
 tonments, and there was not a habitable house to be had 
 for love or money, that she was persuaded to remain at 
 home. Bless thee. Bottom, thou art translated ! George was 
 radiant, even though more or less bewildered; he seriously 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 297 
 
 thought of remaining in the service after the War was over. 
 
 Notwithstanding his wife's fears and predictions, of which 
 he made kind-hearted and reassuring fun, Lawson did go 
 into the Government employment at that official wage which 
 caused Mrs. Lawson to look upon the proceeding as an in- 
 comprehensible vagary on both sides — the United States' 
 and her husband's. A dollar a year! Why not be sensible 
 and ask and receive a salary worthy of the head of the Rudd 
 Chemical Company? Everybody was talking about the 
 enormous sums the Government was paying to mechanics, 
 shipwrights, day-laborers, and all that class ; but it appeared 
 that gentlemen would work for nothing. Indeed, Mrs. Rudd 
 was not the only person to be struck by this phenomenon. 
 *' Lawson even pays his own especial stenographer out of his 
 own pocket. I believe he would have provided all the rest 
 of the office-force and rented the office too, only he has to 
 be with the other heads of departments in the Government 
 building, or else travelling from one end of the country to 
 the other," Mrs. Rudd said. She would have followed him 
 about, taking a leaf out of Hester's book, if he had allowed 
 it. " But when he has to stay in New York at headquarters, 
 he's with Edith, and that keeps me from worrying. Eh? 
 My dear, I don't know. I never have understood a thing 
 about Mr, Rudd's business. He's not wdth the Food Admin- 
 istration, though; it's something else, the Bureau of Distri- 
 bution and Assignment, I believe. No, he doesn't wear a 
 uniform, and he's not a major or anything. He could have 
 been, but the idea seemed to amuse him." 
 
 It may have had ironic aspects of which Mrs. Lawson was 
 ignorant; Lawson sometimes surveyed himself and his 
 patriotic activities rather grimly. Financially he was giv- 
 ing up a good deal — what would have been a sizable fortune 
 to many men; physically the work was a strain, serving 
 notice on him every day that he was no longer a young man, 
 that he was even getting past middle-age; morally, he did 
 not know whether he was trying to satisfy the desire to 
 square a long overdue account — which, alas, could never be 
 squared for all his efforts — or whether he might not have 
 done the same thing, if David Rudd and his nefarious qui- 
 nine had never existed. " I don't want any credit for the 
 
298 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 little I'm doing. It's nothing more than what I ought to do, 
 and what hundreds of other men in my position are doing," 
 he said to his friend Stillman with energy. " Every man in 
 the country must get his shoulder to the wheel, in one way 
 or another. I don't want any credit for it." 
 
 ''Don't worry, Lawson, you're not going to get any!" 
 said old John, grinning a grin full of humor and worldly 
 wisdom. '' You're too rich. Any man with all the money 
 you have or are supposed to have, is next door to a rascal, 
 and if he goes to work for Uncle Sam, it's only because he's 
 — what's this new word they're using all the time? — Cam- 
 ouflage? He's only camouflaging. If you don't believe me, 
 go and ask these Socialists and I. W. W.'s and friends of 
 Labor, and the rest of the pop-eyes." 
 
 The railroads had all passed under Government control 
 by this date, so Mr. Stillman might presumably have been 
 without a care or a responsibility; but, as a matter of fact, 
 he worked as indefatigably and to as good purpose as ever. 
 The two old friends used to meet at luncheon, which was a 
 simple function nowadays, nobody having time for anything 
 but simplicity. Lawson had always been a man of plain 
 tastes in the matter of eating, and as for John, it reminded 
 him of the days when he was a ticket-seller behind the little 
 wire window in the dirty, ill-lighted railroad office down on 
 Third Street where the Kentucky Bridge came in; to grab 
 his hat and run across the street to the chop-house, to climb 
 on a tall stool and bolt down a piece of pie and a cup of 
 coffee, exchanging light banter with the waitress mean- 
 while, were no novelties to John Stillman. He re- 
 marked that these cafeterias were cleaner and better run 
 and that the stuff they served was of better quality than 
 on Third Street forty-five years ago ; his own appetite had 
 not fallen off greatly, considering. Lawson's youth had 
 lacked these experiences, a fact on which the other used to 
 rally him sometimes. ''You were one of these gilt-edged 
 boys, old man Rudd's son. But you didn't turn out so badly 
 after all. You're a pretty fair average American." 
 
 "Average yourself, and see how you like it!" Lawson 
 would retort, and then both would laugh as if they had ut- 
 tered consummate wit! 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 299 
 
 But it was the truth ; the}- were average Americans. Not 
 for all the money they had made, not even to be young again, 
 would they have exchanged the privilege of living and being 
 Americans in these times. Fears, regrets, uncertainties and 
 forebodings would have been proper to their age; they 
 felt none, sharing to the full the astounding national confi- 
 dence. They complained bitterly of costs, yet paid 
 promptly ; found acrimonious fault with the Administration, 
 but obeyed it to the letter. They were ashamed of the heroic 
 clap-trap that was being mouthed on all sides, yet perceived 
 that it veiled some organic truth, solemn and enduring. As 
 close as they were to each other, they were quite inarticulate 
 about their own brave deeds, or hinted at them with the de- 
 liberate levity practised by their race when most in earnest; 
 nor could anything have better displayed their average- 
 Americanism. 
 
 It was one day after he had been out at one of those 
 luncheons, going and coming with an indiscriminate mob of 
 office-boys, office-girls, elevator-men, mechanics and clerks 
 in the democratic companionship which was becoming more 
 and more popular nowadays, that Lawson, sitting down to 
 his desk, presently became aware of some stir at his door; 
 his stenographer — it was the faithful Miss Parker, not 
 quite so young as she used to be, but capable as ever — gave 
 a slight scream. There was a young man in uniform on the 
 threshold, no unusual sight about the Government offices, 
 where uniforms outnumbered civilian suits ten to one; but 
 Lawson, turning around at the noise, started up and his 
 swivel- chair trundled backwards, skreaking. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 BOTH father and son had undoubtedly rehearsed what 
 they meant to say, how they would greet each other 
 when they should meet again, many times over, and 
 were letter-perfect in their parts. But neither could get out, 
 or for that matter remember a single word of his carefully- 
 studied speech. Instead, after an instant of silence, Mr. 
 Rudd executed a clumsy parody of a salute, with the wrong 
 hand, and Steven said: *^ Hello, Dollar-a-Day! " And they 
 shook hands; and there the formalities ended. Miss 
 Parker, who was not without tact, slipped out quietly as they 
 sat down together; moreover, she stood guard outside the 
 door for half an hour, fabricating prodigious stories about 
 the importance of the interview to whomsoever applied to 
 see Mr. Rudd. '' I guess the Lord won't lay those few little 
 white lies up against my record," she said recklessly. " It 
 was important, anyway. His own son, all the boy he's got, 
 going over there to fight ! And they hadn't seen each other 
 in five years! " 
 
 Lawson put his hand on the young man's shoulder. '^ Is 
 that a lieutenant's bar you've got on, Steve? '^ 
 
 " Yes, sir. First." 
 
 His father put on his eyeglasses and examined the first 
 lieutenant's insignia gravely. Steve's shoulder felt big and 
 strong under the khaki. " I think you've filled out a good 
 deal. You're broader in the shoulders than when — than 
 you used to be. Is that the training, or were you getting that 
 way, anyhow? " 
 
 Steven said he believed it was both ; he soberly reached out 
 and felt his father's arm. They were really exchanging a 
 caress, though either would have died sooner than admit it. 
 '' I'm built something like you. Dad. I daresay you were 
 just about the same size at my age." He paused a moment. 
 " You knew I'd gone in, didn't you? " 
 
 300 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 301 
 
 " Oh, yes. From Edith, of course. And I've seen your 
 letters to your mother." It was Lawson's turn to hesitate; 
 then he said diffidently: " I was glad to hear that you'd en- 
 listed, right at the first, before there was any talk about the 
 draft." 
 
 " Well, I always meant to go if we got into the War. The 
 drafted men are all right, though. They're just as willing 
 as anybody. They want to get over there, and clean up the 
 job, and get back home as quick as they can, just the same 
 as all the rest of us." 
 
 " We've — we've been rather hoping, Steven, that you 
 might not be needed over there, after all. That is, we were 
 hoping until this last news — the German advance. Things 
 don't look very well just now, but I believe it's the enemy's 
 final effort. They can't keep it up long at this rate." 
 
 '* Well, I'm not supposed to talk, but talking to you ought 
 not to count — you're in the Service yourself. I'm pretty 
 sure that we'll start inside of another twenty- four hours. 
 We've got orders — the kind they always give just before- 
 hand." 
 
 ''Twenty-four hours! " echoed Lawson. Had the words 
 been lead, they could not have settled heavier on his heart. 
 ^' Twenty-four hours! " For the first time he realized what 
 incalculable agony War meant; all that he had heard, had 
 read, had said himself, he now saw as so much idle breath — 
 words, words — meaningless sound and fury. He wanted to 
 cry out: " Here, take me! I've had my life. Don't waste 
 my son's! He's just beginning. At any rate, don't take him 
 now! In a while — in just a little while — " 
 
 Steven went on talking; he w^as cheerful enough. His 
 father had observed the same cheerfulness, the same matter- 
 of-fact manner, and utter absence of hysterical enthusiasm 
 in all the young fellows. Was it because they were young, 
 and didn't realize, he queried inwardly; or was it that they 
 were young and did realize? They called it a job; unspeak- 
 able suffering, irreparable injury, death itself would be inci- 
 dental to it — and they still called it a job. 
 
 '' I've written to tell Mother," Steve was saying. " If 
 we'd had a little longer notice, I might have got leave, and 
 seen her, or she might have come on here. But it's too late 
 
302 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 now. We have to say good-by the night before anyhow, 
 you know. They won't let anybody go near the ships. I was 
 glad to find out you were here, though; I was afraid you 
 might be off somewhere, and then I wouldn't see you." 
 
 " Does Edith know? " 
 
 " Oh yes. We got in from Camp Dix this morning, and 
 I went up and told her the first thing." 
 
 '' We'll all go and have dinner somewhere to-night, to give 
 you a send-off," said Lawson, with assumed heartiness, emu- 
 lating the other's philosophy as best he could. 
 
 '' Well — er — " And now Steve's manner altered so mark- 
 edly that his father looked at him in new wonder. He red- 
 dened and even squirmed in obvious embarrassment. 
 Lawson jumped to a conclusion with an activity which would 
 have done credit to a woman. " It's some girl, of course," 
 he thought in mingled amusement, sympathy and sadness. 
 " It's natural, it's right. I'm only his father." And aloud: 
 " Made another engagement? " he asked easily. 
 
 '' Why — I — no, not exactly, but — " 
 
 Here, with a tap on the door. Miss Parker thrust in a face 
 of mystery. " Mr. Rudd — that is, both Mr. Rudds — 
 there's a young lady here — " 
 
 " A youQg lady? " 
 
 " I told her to come. We both decided she'd better meet 
 me here, so as to save time," Steve cried; and they rose auto- 
 matically as Miss Parker ushered in Miss Mary Ballard. 
 
 She had on some kind of a uniform, too, that of a Red 
 Cross nurse, Lawson guessed, though, in the confusion of his 
 other guesses, he could be sure of nothing except that she 
 looked very rosy and pretty and smiling and appealing. 
 " Engaged? Why, great Scott, they were going to be mar- 
 ried ! Steven had nailed a minister and he had the license in 
 his pocket all the time," he said afterwards, in giving an 
 account of these bewildering happenings. " Hey? Ask my 
 blessing? Ask nothing! If there was a thing on earth they 
 could get along without it was my blessing. They just 
 thought they'd drop in and let me know about it so that I 
 could go to the wedding if I liked. Most casual proceeding 
 I ever witnessed. But that's the way young people were 
 doing in those war times; and after all, it's their business, 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 303 
 
 they are the persons most concerned. I don't know if Steve 
 and Mary were even engaged at all. They'd known each 
 other a long while, and I rather think they suddenly found 
 out that they cared too much for each other to separate 
 without — without a definite settlement, in short; Steve's 
 going precipitated matters. It was a real war-wedding, if 
 ever there was one. Nothing to it at all ; easiest thing in the 
 world; you put on your hat and go around the corner and 
 get married! " 
 
 He could not remember later the exact order of events in 
 the hurry of this helter-skelter day ; all the conventional pre- 
 liminaries to a wedding went by the board. His own prep- 
 arations actually did entail no greater thought and effort 
 than taking his hat and going out with the pair of them. He 
 heard Steven pressing ]\Iiss Parker to go ! And he heard her 
 reply with unquestionably sincere regret that oh, my, Mr. 
 Steven, she'd like to the worst way, but she just couldn't, she 
 had so much to do, she wasn't the boss like Mr. Rudd; but 
 anyways, she'd think hard of both of 'em at half-past-three 
 (didn't he say that was when it was set for? ) and she wished 
 them just all the happiness in the world, and — and — and 
 he's going to come back to you, Miss Ballard, don't you be- 
 lieve he ain't for a minute! She was giggling hysterically 
 and wiping her eyes at the same time, as she ended. Lawson 
 had never thought of Miss Parker otherwise than as a won- 
 derfully dependable and satisfactory machine for which he 
 had the kindly feeling which we all have for good machines; 
 he paid her handsomely, was punctiliously polite, sent to 
 inquire when she had a sick day, and remembered her with 
 a substantial cheque and a box of candy every Christmas. 
 But Miss Parker, as a guest of his — at his son's wedding! 
 What would Mrs. Lawson have said? But why not, Lawson 
 asked himself in sudden impatience, in Heaven's name, why 
 not? All at once he remembered the little service-pin on 
 the front of Miss Parker's plain blouse, and that she had a 
 brother or nephew in the army ; just such another young man 
 as Steve, no doubt, just such another straight-eyed, practi- 
 cal unheroically heroic young man, who might easily be 
 Steven's superior ofiicer. 
 
 As they stepped out of the elevator, there was Edith, lall, 
 
304 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 homely, elegant, a little excited for her, in a smart spring 
 suit and furs, with violets in her corsage, standing at the edge 
 of the sidewalk by the door of an almost unbelievably splen- 
 did automobile; that is to say, its splendors would have 
 been wholly unbelievable, had they not been duplicated by 
 another drawn up a little farther along against the curb; 
 even case-hardened New York brokers and bootblacks 
 turned in passing to give these noble vehicles a second look. 
 Mr. Rudd caught sight of Miss Burke within one of them 
 and of Mrs. Ball — No! Great Heavens, what was her new 
 name? — with a man of about his own age, who, it did not 
 take the wisdom of Solomon to divine, must be Mr. Ball — 
 that is, the new one, whatever his name was. But Edith was 
 talking to the occupants of the other motor-car, a neat, 
 small, dressy gentleman with eyeglasses and a pointed beard, 
 and his neat, small, dressy wife — it was Marshall Cook, the 
 novelist, and Mrs. Cook, who used to be Miss Bessie Grace. 
 Lawson forgot and called her Miss Grace as they shook 
 hands. It appeared that the Cooks, being in New York, had 
 just happened along and seeing Edith, stopped to chat; they 
 had not known about the impending event, but now Steven 
 asked them, and Mary joined in! 
 
 "We're going to be married — You're just in time — Of 
 course it's awfully short notice — but we didn't have any 
 time to let anybody know, and we can't wait — Won't you 
 come? I wish some of the other people from home could be 
 here — There're probably plenty of them in town ; if we run 
 into anybody else, we'll ask them." They performed in 
 chorus. 
 
 The Cooks looked at each other, and at the young man 
 and girl; it was impossible to see or hear them without 
 warmth stealing around the heart. " Why — I don't know 
 — are you sure you want us? " said little Mrs. Cook. " Your 
 own families — ? " 
 
 " They aren't here — only Dad and Edith — Mrs. 
 Gherardi. It's to be at Saint Simon's, in the chapel — Why, 
 right away, as soon as we can get there. Do come — oh, 
 wait a minute! You make them come, Mary! " The pro- 
 spective groom dashed off after another young officer at that 
 moment striding by. " Kent! I say! Oh, Kent! " 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 305 
 
 Mr. Rudd found himself being taken up to the other auto- 
 mobile and being introduced to Mr. Sackett — in a perfect 
 necktie; and addressing the lady first as Mrs. Backard, and 
 then, correcting himself, as Mrs. Ballett. Francie Burke 
 nodded to him, smiling. Steven came back with the oflQcer, a 
 Captain Kent. 
 
 *' He's coming! I wish I'd had time to get some of the 
 other fellows. I'm in his company, you know. Dad." 
 
 The captain confided to Mr. Rudd seriously that it was the 
 best company in the division. Another automobile was 
 called, a taxi which trailed in the rear of the other two like 
 Cinderella in attendance on her step-sisters; and presently 
 they were all in the little chapel of Saint Simon's where the 
 decorations from some recent patriotic celebration were still 
 up, the colors of the Allied Nations making a brave show 
 along the dark carvings of the choir-stalls and the gallery. 
 Their party did not fill two pews. Captain Kent went on 
 duty as best man. Some one volunteered for the organ, a 
 young girl in the trig costume of the Women's Motor-Corps, 
 the minister's daughter, as they learned. Mr. Sackett was 
 to give the bride away; Lawson hoped that Steven had not 
 forgotten the ring. 
 
 He thought of the other weddings — sibilant crowds fill- 
 ing up the church, the overpowering flowers, his wife's dia- 
 mond dog-collar, the house redolent of roses, champagne, 
 hot entrees, an occasional whifT of gasolene from some recal- 
 citrant automobile stalling noisily among dozens of other 
 motors under the windows. He looked around on their 
 hastily gathered company, the plain service-clothes, the flags 
 grave and proud overhead. The young people were starting 
 out on their great adventure, high-hearted, undismayed, in 
 the shadow of the greatest adventure men had ever under- 
 taken. Well, that was right, that was as it should be; we 
 were down to essentials now. Just so had the forefathers 
 started out. Let men and women marry, raise up children 
 for the state, hand on the torch. 
 
 It took less than ten minutes, being shorn of those cere- 
 monious accompaniments about which Lawson had been 
 thinking. They all shook hands and there was some kissing 
 among the women. In the vestibule, Captain Kent excused 
 
306 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 himself on the plea that he had an appointment with the 
 regimental veterinarian to look over some mules. Mr. Sack- 
 ett remarked with a grin that a military man's life had more 
 variety in it than you'd suppose! " It's all in the day's work, 
 heh? Mules and weddings and guard-mount and revolver- 
 practice," said he. " And ain't it queer, anyhow, how we're 
 all of us ready for anything nowadays? We take whatever 
 comes along and don't think anything of it! " 
 
 They went down the steps ; some of the passers-by looked 
 up and smiled broadly at the strapping young soldier and 
 the girl, so obviously bride and groom, and half a dozen 
 street-urchins formed in line raising a piping cheer. Law- 
 son scattered a handful of small change among them. " Run 
 along, you little devils! " he shouted jovially. He was de- 
 terminedly sanguine; everything was going to be all right; 
 Steve would get through all right. " I don't know whether 
 you feel it," he said to the two older men; " but there seems 
 to me to be some kind of big irresistible movement all 
 through the world, something unseen. This physical force 
 we're all exerting wouldn't get anywhere without it. Just 
 as if the combined sense of right of all the people in the world 
 were somehow getting into action, making itself felt in some 
 '^^ay — ? " He looked at the others, tentatively, and saw 
 that both understood. 
 
 *' Going through everything kind of like yeast, hey? " said 
 Sackett, smiling himself at this homely figure. " That's 
 so!" 
 
 Cook fingered his pointed beard. " I remember," he said 
 thoughtfully; "reading somewhere in Stevenson's letters 
 some whim^sey of his which he put into a stage direction: ^ A 
 stately music. Enter God.' Sometimes I'm reminded of 
 that these days — " 
 
 Sackett looked rather startled at the reference. " I don't 
 quite get you, Mr. — ? I think a lot of the U. S. I'm as pa- 
 triotic as the next man, I hope. But I wouldn't say that our 
 going into the War was — was the equivalent of the — the 
 Almighty — " 
 
 " I wouldn't say it, either," said Cook. " Something 
 dramatic about it struck me, that's all." 
 
 Neither of the others followed this subtlety, though Law- 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 307 
 
 son, who had an imagination, thought he glimpsed something 
 of it. But Mr. Sackott good-naturedly asserted again that 
 he didn't get the idea. " You're another writer, my wife 
 tells me," he said, scrutinizing the little man closely but 
 without offence. " They're a good deal alike. Every now 
 :ind then they say things a person don't quite get on to. You 
 put me in mmd of the other Mr. Rudd — " here he glanced 
 at Lawson expectantly — " You know who I mean, of 
 course. Every now and then he'd talk like that." 
 
 '' I used to know Eugene Rudd," said the author. " He's 
 over there, isn't he? " He too looked at Lawson. 
 
 '' Yes. He went two years or more ago. He was killed. 
 It was at Vimy Ridge, I think — or while the fighting was 
 going on in that part of the country." 
 
 All three felt a little shocked that they should have fallen 
 upon such a topic at such a moment, and cocked an eye 
 apprehensively towards Mary. " He was an interesting 
 man. He wrote very well — those articles for the Planet — '' 
 Cook murmured lamely. 
 
 '' I liked him," said Sackett. It was all the epitaph 
 Eugene Rudd ever got; possibly he would not have asked 
 any better. 
 
 They went and had a luncheon somewhere, without wine, 
 on account of Steve's uniform. For that matter, wine would 
 have contributed only a little to their spurious gayety, 
 Lawson thought; he was sure that every member of the 
 party, except the bride and groom, was fighting down the 
 same depression as himself. But Steve and Mary were 
 happy; they were as happy as if there were no parting, no 
 war, iao horrid chances in perspective. It was the attitude of 
 all the youth of the country, not fatalistic, not resigned, not 
 spiritually exalted, simply the supreme expression of com- 
 mon-sense, right feeling, manliness and womanliness. Age 
 stood puzzled and profoundly abashed before it, asking 
 again and again the same question: do they know what they 
 are doing, or is it that they don't know? 
 
 It seemed to Steven's father that they knew very well. 
 " I've got my pay and there are no personal expenses that 
 amount to anything, you know," the young man told him in 
 their one moment of privacy. " That will take care of 
 
308 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 Mary comfortablj^; and then we're all insured. She'll get 
 that, of course." 
 
 "I — I hope not, Steve," said Lawson miserably, almost 
 in a groan. 
 
 Steven looked for an instant as if he did not understand; 
 then he laughed. '' Why, I hope not myself. Dad! But it'll 
 be all right, whatever happens! " 
 
 This was really the last word they had together ; the wed- 
 ding-party separated shortly after, the guests moved by a 
 humane desire to let the young things have some time to 
 themselves. Mr. Rudd, in his position, might without doubt 
 by some energetic manipulations have got permission to 
 see his son aboard ship, but Lawson made no effort that 
 way. " Who am I that I should be favored more than other 
 fathers? " he thought humbly. There was a strange comfort 
 in sharing the common heartache. The transport was the 
 Leviathan erstwhile the Vaterland, and she lay at her pier, 
 with her four great funnels in sight from Lawson's office- 
 w^indow, strongly guarded, to be sure, but making ready for 
 departure before the eyes of all the world, as if hostile spies 
 and plotters had never existed. They learned she was to 
 sail at noon the following day. 
 
 " Must make the Germans mighty sore to think of that 
 two-million-dollar boat taking our troops over by the thou- 
 sands! " Sackett observed with relish. " Maybe they won't 
 want to blow a hole in her because of the two million. But 
 if I was in Uncle Sam's place I wouldn't take quite so many 
 chances on 'em; no use making it easy for 'em, anyhow. The 
 boats have been going out of here in broad daylight, loaded 
 to the guards with our boys, bands playing and flags flying, 
 and the whole town turning out to see them go. You'd think 
 with all this talk of enemy aliens and bombs and so on, the 
 authorities would keep it quieter." 
 
 " You don't know where they go after they get through 
 The Narrows, though," somebody said. '' Nobody knows 
 but the captain and the Navy Department, they say. Uncle 
 Sam has the whole business pretty well thought out." 
 
 The office-day was over, and Lawson went with Edith 
 back to her apartment; and was presently sitting down to 
 table with her in her tiny dining-room, about which there 
 
FROM FATHER TO SON 309 
 
 was that modish austerity of which she alone had the secret. 
 Father and daughter rigidly adhered to their social code, 
 appearing in evening-dress, and going through the pre- 
 scribed ritual of their class, for which neither one of them 
 at heart cared a jot. " We mustn't break up our regular 
 habits just because we all happen to be doing things we've 
 never done before," the young woman said inflexibly. And 
 it was a fact that the small ceremonies of their daily life 
 somehow tranquillized them at a time like this. After dinner 
 she made his cofTee with the dash of orange- juice and burnt 
 brandy that he liked, and Lawson resolutely smoked a cigar 
 that seemed tasteless, and they talked about the day's news 
 Irom the Front. 
 
 In the morning there arrived an excited telegram from 
 Hester and a night-letter from Mrs. Rudd. Lawson said 
 he would give them to Mary after — after everything was 
 over; that would be better than breaking in upon them now 
 in their last hour or so together. Time enough when Steve 
 had gone. He walked down to the office, taking for a good 
 omen the bright, blowing spring day ; and he went up to his 
 own desk and signalled for Miss Parker, who came in dry 
 and quick and business-like as usual ; and they got to work 
 with their ordinary greetings. The morning wore along; 
 once in a while there would be a burst of noise, martial 
 music and hurrahing in the street twelve or fifteen stories 
 below; the offices were used to such demonstrations these 
 days. But at noon, Lawson got up and went to the window. 
 
 The four funnels were gone; the ship was out of her berth, 
 in mid-stream, moving slowly. He stood awhile watching 
 her; a number of the oSice-force congregated at other win- 
 dows, and somebody came and offered him a pair of field- 
 glasses. " You can see them real plain, Mr. Rudd, not the 
 faces, of course, but you can see the crowd on the decks — " 
 Lawson shook his head. He stood and watched in a haze of 
 unrelated fancies and recollections. His brother David's 
 face when he left a good-by for the family — fragments of 
 patriotic speeches, Lincoln's, Patrick Henry's, that he had 
 recited school-afternoons when he was a boy — " Lafayette, 
 we are here! " — Eugene, poor fellow, meeting death by a 
 treacherous trick — Steven, at ten years old, getting off his 
 pony to give McCrae's lame boy a ride — 
 
310 FROM FATHER TO SON 
 
 A band in the street struck up " Over There " blaring 
 raucously. A stately music! Lawson almost smiled, but 
 he remembered the rest of it. Enter — f The funnels were 
 out of sight now, but even at this distance, though faintly, 
 he could still hear the cheering as the transport dropped 
 down the bay. 
 
 THE END 
 
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