1085 (T 
 
 CLOS 
 
 FRANK H 
 SPEARM?
 
 UNIVERSITY OP 
 C N'A 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 3 1822 01085 0758
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANK H. SPEARMAN 
 
 DOCTOR BRYSON, THE DAUGHTER OF A MAGNATE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 MCMIY
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 Published January,
 
 So 
 
 HARRY DAW SPEARMAN
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGB 
 
 I. A SUPPER IN MICHIGAN AVENUE .... 1 
 
 II. THE HANDWRITING ....... 22 
 
 III. DOCTOR AND PATIENT 27 
 
 IV. A PHYSICIAN'S DAUGHTER 41 
 
 V. IN THE CHORUS 54 
 
 VI. THE MIKADO COSTUME 67 
 
 VII. AT THE DEVINNE 80 
 
 VIII. A SONG AND AN ACCOUNTING 99 
 
 IX. ROSES AND VIOLETS 117 
 
 X. GEORGE Ross 132 
 
 XI. A WOMAN BETWEEN 153 
 
 XII. ONE FLOWER 161 
 
 XIII. THE QUARREL IN THE WOODS 179 
 
 XIV. THE LAST BALANCE 186 
 
 XV. A REMINISCENCE 196 
 
 XVI. " IN NEW YORK " 204 
 
 XVII. ERRORS AND OMISSIONS EXCEPTED .... 216 
 
 vii
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A SUPPER IN MICHIGAN AVENUE 
 
 THE Sunday evening gatherings that be 
 came at one time so popular among a class 
 of Chicago bachelors may be said almost to 
 owe their origin to the small companies first 
 assembled by George Durant in the quarters 
 he occupied for so many years in Michigan 
 Avenue. 
 
 His rooms the inviting apartments in the 
 front, the famous oval dining-room with the 
 southern exposure, and on the second floor the 
 smoking-room with the fireplace will easily 
 be recalled not alone by the many who have 
 been his guests, but by those of the clubs in 
 which he was known and in which men, now 
 
 1
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 elderly, preserve the traditions of the begin 
 nings of the new life in Chicago; the life in 
 which taste and means brought to the West 
 the arts of living that had cost the East the 
 ingenuity of so many minds and the period 
 of so many generations. 
 
 The recent death of Durant, under circum 
 stances not commonly known, has been the oc 
 casion of some reminiscence concerning his 
 characteristics. To note but one of the numer 
 ous instances told of his tastes, it is remem 
 bered that Durant brought to Chicago its rar 
 est Oriental rugs. At the time his effects were 
 disposed of, confidence in his judgment was 
 well marked in the price obtained for his col 
 lections, and in the advertising that State 
 Street dealers gave to the examples they then 
 secured of his discrimination in pattern and 
 excellence. On the other hand, few of those 
 fortunate enough to possess one of his rugs 
 are aware that his knowledge concerning 
 them dated back to a trip taken when a boy 
 to visit an uncle, the Reverend Nathaniel Du 
 rant, long resident missionary at Kirman, 
 
 2
 
 A SUPPER IN MICHIGAN AVENUE 
 
 To connect the name of George Durant with 
 missionary effort of any sort would seem at 
 first surprising ; yet what afterward developed 
 into a wide and irregular course of travel 
 began for him with that visit early in life 
 to missionaries in Persia and Arabia. The 
 Durants of New York were not only great 
 merchants, but were leaders in the religious 
 and political activities of the period of the 
 civil war. 
 
 However, George brought from the Orient 
 not so much, it is to be feared, an apprecia 
 tion of the unselfish toil of its missionaries as 
 of the easy philosophy of its poets ; and the 
 quatrains of Omar, known then to a few 
 through Fitzgerald, were more to his fancy 
 than the colder precepts of his uncles. In 
 deed, he was a curious combination of these 
 antitheses in life the idler and the man of 
 action. 
 
 The coffee-house of Sloan, Durant & 
 Company, of New York, established a branch 
 in Chicago shortly after the fire. From that 
 time until of very late years, George Durant 
 
 3
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 was a familiar figure in the streets of the 
 wholesale grocery district of Chicago con 
 fined closely at that time to the portion of the 
 city bounded on the west by State Street and 
 on the south by Randolph. So clearly, in fact, 
 was the district then defined that in 1877 but 
 one jobbing grocery house stood outside it; 
 that of Grannis & Farwell, in Franklin 
 Street, near Madison. 
 
 Sloan, Durant & Company were in those 
 days the principal factors in Brazilian coffees. 
 With one other giant merchant, B. G. Arnold, 
 they made the market. It was before the 
 founding of the exchanges ; before the hourly 
 Hamburg and Havre cables ; before the day of 
 the Arbuckles and the Havemeyers in coffee. 
 It was then not a question of daily receipts at 
 Rio, at Santos: it was a question of whether 
 Sloan-Durant or Arnold were behind the 
 market. With their facilities and their capi 
 tal they set at defiance statistics and dealt 
 those frightful blows that gradually under 
 mined the resources of such clever statisticians 
 as White and Myron Barton. 
 
 4
 
 A SUPPER IN MICHIGAN AVENUE 
 
 George Durant, at twenty-two, took the 
 street for the Sloan-Durant branch in Chi 
 cago ; the best of those brokers that had pre 
 viously handled the consigned business, 
 George took into the office with him. The 
 accounting was under Thomas Seymour, a 
 very old employee of the New York house; 
 a man who knew only two things, the prestige 
 of the house of Sloan, Durant & Company, 
 and from long service in the New York office 
 the location of every crack in the pavement of 
 Front Street. There were old brokers of that 
 day who said that Tom Seymour had been sent 
 out by the elder Durant chiefly to keep an 
 eye on George, who was young, exceedingly 
 virile, and somewhat inclined to a free life. 
 They said that Thomas himself, afflicted as far 
 back as 1875 with a trembling, and painfully 
 near-sighted, had at one time given more at 
 tention to Front Street lamp-posts than to 
 pavement cracks; that something of the 
 glamour of Jim Fisk's,' career had unsettled 
 him, and that the senior Durant had straight 
 ened him out and made both a man of him and 
 
 5
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 a loyal servant to his interests; and that 
 Tom was expected to overlook, somewhat, 
 his son's tendencies to the freedom of able 
 and prosperous young men of his type. Such 
 prophets men rich in experience and with 
 out cares of a bank account predicted that 
 George would keep old Tom busy. If he 
 did, it is certain that Thomas never com 
 plained. 
 
 For twenty years Thomas Seymour was 
 faithful to his charge. Any one, he declared, 
 is liable at times to go too far. George, when 
 all was said and done, was a good liver; no 
 more. Was there a Sloan-Durant invoice of 
 goods sold and delivered, no matter how small 
 in amount, no matter how inscrutably accurate 
 in tare and detail, that left Thomas Seymour's 
 hands without the legendary reservation, "E. 
 and 0. E." 1 In like manner Thomas Seymour 
 argued with himself of George Durant. He 
 was as big, as generous, as fine a fellow in 
 every way one took him as could be found 
 anywhere on earth, and bar nor time nor place 
 errors and omissions excepted. And after 
 
 6
 
 A SUPPER IN MICHIGAN AVENUE 
 
 seventeen years of E. and 0. E. in Chicago it 
 was again Sunday night; it was again nine 
 o'clock, and after many similar experiences 
 Mr. George Dnrant was again sitting down 
 to supper. 
 
 He understood, among other things, the art 
 of lighting a room. The luxury of diffusion 
 he made his own before it had been seen by 
 those that talked of it. For the dining-room, 
 on the other hand, which was in bog oak the 
 rooni without a corner he studied obscurity 
 and let shadow procure the effects. The can 
 dles lighted softly the linen and the silver of 
 the table, no more. If in the gloom above and 
 away from the table an object reflected their 
 deadened rays, it was the brightness of the 
 plate on the sideboard or the prismed facets 
 of cut-glass or from the panels of the china- 
 closet a suggestion of pure white or of the 
 heavy reds of a dinner-set. The dining-room 
 was always quiet and restful, even if the 
 guests inclined at times to animation. On 
 this Sunday night, in 1895, seven sat with him 
 at table. Two were especial guests stage 
 2 7
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 people of whose society Durant was fond: 
 Sophie le May, a Parisian ballad singer, who 
 visited Chicago for the first time, and spoke a 
 hardly understandable stage English; and 
 Clara Nightingale, an American girl, a 
 dancer, who, with her special art, had in 
 vaded and, oddly enough, overcome Paris 
 itself. 
 
 Formality, there was none. They sat, men 
 and women, as they listed. The third woman 
 of the party, Mabel Anthony, a musical critic, 
 with a strong, clear face, and hair rolled 
 high, just showing gray, sat at the foot of the 
 table chaperon, she said, of these two young 
 women, cast among bachelors. The remain 
 ing guests were Clara Nightingale's manager, 
 David Stein; Frank James, a young banker, 
 one of Durant's friends on the street, and 
 Harry Lawrence, manager of theatrical en 
 terprises. 
 
 The eating was leisurely but the conversa 
 tion continuous. While Durant talked with 
 Clara Nightingale and with Lawrence, Mabel 
 Anthony listened to Stein, and the French- 
 
 8
 
 A SUPPER IN MICHIGAN AVENUE 
 
 woman engaged the banker with a fire of 
 questions. 
 
 "Tell me," she commanded, with Gaelic 
 bluntness, "about Mr. Durant. Is he such a 
 big man!" 
 
 "Length or breadth?" 
 
 "You must not make fun of my English. I 
 will not like you. I mean you know what I 
 mean in what you call business." 
 
 "Moderately big. The house he is the head 
 of are the largest importers of coffee in this 
 country." 
 
 "Since when?" 
 
 "For a good many years ; particularly since 
 George Durant has been the head of the 
 house." 
 
 "How does he make such a big business f ' 
 
 The banker laughed. "I'll tell you one way. 
 A number of years ago while he was in Egypt 
 there was a panic in the coffee market. The 
 coffee business, you must know, m'm'selle, 
 is a great speculation. All the big houses but 
 Sloan-Durant failed, and they were hard hit. 
 Sloan, the head of the house, ultimately went 
 
 9
 
 to the insane asylum. This man's father be 
 came a physical wreck; died shortly after 
 ward. A third partner, the financial man, 
 Ross, pulled out, but it killed him. When 
 young Durant came back everything was 
 in confusion. It took him a year to get 
 hold of the thing and straighten the tangle 
 out. All the time the coffee market was fear 
 fully sick. When prices got below the cost 
 of production George went to his banker " 
 
 "You!" 
 
 "My father. He borrowed of him every dol 
 lar he could, and began buying coffee. Spots, 
 afloats, options, anything, everything he could 
 pick up. The situation was against him. 
 Hamburg buyers, French buyers, the New 
 York roasters were all hammering the market. 
 But practically without a dollar of capital 
 because that of the house had been swept 
 away the year before he bought all the coffee 
 he could get, turned in the warehouse receipts 
 for his purchases, and every time the market 
 went off sailed in harder understand?" She 
 nodded intensely. 
 
 10
 
 A SUPPER IN MICHIGAN AVENUE 
 
 "Then like that" the banker snapped his 
 finger "the market changed. Coffee began 
 to go up. It went up and kept going up. 
 Brazil, Hamburg, France, New York, every 
 where. Sloan, Durant & Company had 
 practically the visible supply. When Ham 
 burg wanted coffee, it had to consult Sloan, 
 Durant & Company: that meant George 
 Durant. He unloaded as it suited him; 
 thousands and thousands of bags went out 
 at a profit of ten and twelve dollars; cof 
 fee he never handled or saw made his for 
 tune. That is one way he made the big 
 business." 
 
 "Did he make so very much money 1" 
 
 "Very much for the coffee trade." 
 
 "How muchf asked Sophie, with inter 
 est as glowing as if the money were her very 
 own. 
 
 "A million, two millions, I guess; ask 
 him." 
 
 "Two millions !" 
 
 "It kept the coffee trade guessing for a 
 while ; but that's history. For a while it kept 
 
 11
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 him guessing. It didn't all come at once. 
 Every one knows the story of the deal. What 
 every one doesn't know is how he carried the 
 load the worry while the market was going 
 against him, before the tide turned and swept 
 a million dollars at him so fast he couldn't 
 tell what to do with his money," smiled the 
 young banker from behind his sober spec 
 tacles. But the soberness of his spectacles, 
 like the soberness with which Chicago good 
 fellows surround themselves, could not, after 
 the dinner hour, always be depended upon. 
 There was behind the spectacles more light 
 than day indicated. 
 
 "Tell me about that." 
 
 "The excitement lasted about two months 
 November and December. You know here 
 on the lake November and December are rough 
 months. Almost every day for those two 
 months it was his custom to leave his office 
 at two o'clock sharp sometimes alone, some 
 times with his office man, Seymour walk 
 over to Clark Street bridge, charter a tug 
 and order it straight out into the lake for 
 12
 
 A. SUPPER IN MICHIGAN AVENUE 
 
 ten, fifteen, twenty miles. The worse the 
 weather the better he liked it. He would steam 
 out in some of the most infernal blows you 
 ever saw. Very often tug captains would re 
 fuse to take their boats from the harbor. 
 Durant would try one after another until he 
 struck the most reckless man in the fleet, and 
 would bribe him to the chin to scuttle down 
 the river and straight ahead out into the mix- 
 up. Wind, sleet, snow, water, riot they say 
 he took it as calmly as a Turkish bath. There 
 was something funny about it, too," the banker 
 went on in an undertone, the butler filling 
 his glass. "Don't be afraid of this wine, 
 m'm'selle," he added, interrupting himself. 
 "It's like you the flower of France. That's 
 right. Did you ever do any tug-riding in a 
 blow? Seymour didn't like that kind of fun 
 a bit ; he was greatly averse to water. Durant 
 would drag him from the office, get him aboard 
 a tug and head him into the lake without a 
 quiver. When poor Seymour got seasick 
 Durant would laugh like a pirate at him; 
 when he got scared Durant would curse him 
 13
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 roundly and force him to face the gale as grim 
 as a lion." 
 
 "How droll ! Why did he make such trips !" 
 
 "He once told my father it was to keep from 
 going crazy." 
 
 They left the table at twelve, but the curios 
 ity of the ballad singer was still unwearied. 
 In the smoking-room she attached herself to 
 Durant. 
 
 "They tell me!" she exclaimed, clasp 
 ing her hands over her knees as she sat 
 facing him, "how very much money you 
 make !" 
 
 Durant's eyes were gray and set a little 
 wide of a true axis. They gave him a serious 
 expression, which his face lost only in inter 
 vals. His manner was blunt, and his tone 
 escaped actual harshness only through a note 
 of honesty. 
 
 "Did they tell you," he asked without a 
 smile, "how much I lose?" 
 
 "Oh, no ; I like not very much to hear that ; 
 it is better to make. Tell me how much you 
 make." 
 
 14
 
 A SUPPER IN MICHIGAN AVENUE 
 
 "The winnings are not so easily figured as 
 the losses." 
 
 "It is very strange," she persisted, "that 
 you will tell me nothing and sometimes you 
 make one, two, three thousand dollars the day. 
 And poor I I must sing five, six, seven times 
 the week for one little thousand." 
 
 "You should change managers," suggested 
 Durant. 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Lawrence," sighed the artist 
 shrugging, "he says always the high ex 
 penses! Pray, where did you find buttons 
 like those?" she murmured, flitting from a 
 topic that would not go to one that caught 
 her fancy. "They look so old and Roman 
 and wicked." 
 
 "They are. They're from a wicked city," 
 replied Durant, as she examined his cuff. 
 
 "Paris?" 
 
 "Pompeii." 
 
 "Most rare !" she exclaimed. "Are you not 
 ashamed, you Americans, to come to our coun 
 tries with all your money and buy all the 
 pretty things t" 
 
 15
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "The prettiest are not always to be bought ; 
 but I'll have to try at you for a song. If you 
 will sing you shall take the buttons with you 
 when you leave Chicago." 
 
 She looked a horrified expression. "After 
 such a supper?" Then she looked at the but 
 tons and clapped her hands. "No matter ; in 
 an hour. I shall not give you the chance of 
 what you call it repent? Oh, no." 
 
 Within the appointed time M'm'selle le May, 
 curiously long-armed and sprightly, having, 
 with incredible ingenuity and the assistance 
 of a silk hat, top-coat and cane, rigged herself 
 as a Parisian swell, sang one of Richepin's 
 songs. To the warm applause she graciously 
 responded with a coon song that in her English 
 was irresistible. Afterward there was weird 
 dancing by Clara Nightingale, and a scene of 
 mock heroics between Miss Anthony and the 
 young banker who figured in other things 
 besides discounts from the Lady of Lyons 
 in honor, so they said, of their French guest, 
 who, cuddled far back in a Morris chair, 
 laughed to tears. When the gaiety had become 
 16
 
 A SUPPER IN MICHIGAN AVENUE 
 
 general, Durant, somewhat away from the 
 livelier part of the company, was having a con 
 fab with the little dancer, whose cheeks had 
 been flushed and whose breath had been short 
 ened by her own efforts to entertain. He took 
 from his waistcoat pocket a small square of 
 jewelers' paper and unfolding it under the 
 ray of a friendly lamp showed her a pearl. 
 The pearl was unmounted : in size as large as 
 a hazel-nut, but of a shape difficult to describe, 
 resembling more than anything else an egg 
 flattened at each end. Yet the shape was per 
 fect, and the pink as soft as a sky glow. She 
 repressed an exclamation. 
 
 ""Where did it come from? I never saw 
 anything so exquisite ! I know. India ?" 
 
 "Nothing of the sort," said he, bluntly. "If 
 it had come from India I shouldn't be show 
 ing it to you. There is a good deal more about 
 this to interest you than any Indian pearl ever 
 found. It came from the country you came 
 from. It is an American pearl from the Mis 
 sissippi Elver, and it was found not a hun 
 dred miles from your old home." 
 17
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "Tell me where you got it!" she exclaimed, 
 dazed. 
 
 "I was sitting at the desk of one of my cus 
 tomers yesterday morning talking coffee." 
 He spoke with the secure deliberation of one 
 that offers a good story. "One of the house 
 salesmen came up and took this pearl from 
 his pocket to show it to the man I was talking 
 to. The salesman's brother-in-law is a grocer 
 at Prairie du Chien, and this was brought to 
 him less than a week ago by a clam-fisher a 
 boy of fourteen and sent on to Chicago to 
 sell. I thought when I saw it of where it came 
 from, and thought of you. You used to say 
 you felt as if you were shut up in a clam-shell 
 out there in Iowa, and I remembered you had 
 promised to be here to-night. I thought if 
 you came you should have this just as it is 
 for keeping your word. No one has touched it : 
 it hasn't been polished or scrubbed. You see it 
 now just as the boy took it from the shell." 
 
 She gave him a look of amazement and grat 
 itude. "It is an awful thing," said she, hur 
 riedly, "to cast pearls before swine in this 
 18
 
 way. Do you really mean it? Hadn't you 
 better reconsider?" 
 
 "Whenever I reconsider anything I'm sorry 
 for it. Suppose we let it stand." 
 
 "Then I shall take it to Paris," she declared, 
 looking from it in her hand to him, "and have 
 it mounted there. I'll carry it all the way" 
 she put one hand to her throat "in my cha 
 mois sack. When I come back you shall see it 
 in glory." 
 
 "There's a trace of sentiment in it for me," 
 he replied. "I know something about the time 
 you had getting started. The first time I ever 
 saw you remember V ' She laughed, hiding 
 her head. "You were something in the state 
 of this pearl not long out of the Missis 
 sippi. But you've won your way. I like your 
 grit. That's another reason I thought you 
 ought to have it. They want you to dance 
 again." There was calling from the front 
 room. 
 
 "I will if you want me to but I'm so tired," 
 she pleaded, clinging with both hands to his 
 arm. "What shall I say?" 
 19
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY, 
 
 "Whatever you please." 
 
 "May It" 
 
 "Sure." 
 
 Catching up her skirts she ran to the por 
 tieres and waved herself at the company with 
 the ruddy vigor of a girl shooing chicks. 
 "Shoo ! Run home every one of you. Quick ! 
 Shoo ! Eun home and go to bed !" They de 
 murred, but she persisted till she drove them 
 all before her. The supper was over. 
 
 There were many delays in getting into the 
 carriages. Miss Anthony and Frank James 
 finally drove away. The carriage of Law 
 rence and Stein was delayed longer, for Sophie 
 le May would never be done bundling, and she 
 made good the sleeve-buttons before she left. 
 "When she and Clara Nightingale were tucked 
 in, Clara, just as Durant walked back into the 
 house, remembered she had left her flowers, 
 and slipped out of the carriage after them. 
 Tapping on the glass she stopped Durant in 
 the vestibule. As he opened the door she swung 
 it shut after her and threw her arms around 
 his neck. She kissed him. "There! That's 
 20
 
 A SUPPEE IN MICHIGAN AVENUE 
 
 for the pearl ! Now run, like a good boy, and 
 get me some flowers to carry out for an ex 
 cuse, will you?" 
 
 "See here, little girl. Somebody will clip 
 your wings if you fly too far. Understand ?" 
 She ran away laughing, and Durant closed 
 the door. 
 
 21
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE HANDWRITING 
 
 FOB nearly forty years George Durant, 
 whether entitled to it or not his missionary 
 uncles might have said not had slept the 
 sleep of the just, and on that Sunday night 
 he turned his face to his pillow with the confi 
 dence and content of perfect health and 
 strength. For as many years he had awak 
 ened refreshed and invigorated. That was the 
 old sleep. 
 
 But this sleep, begun unsuspectingly, was 
 to be in Durant's life a new sleep. He woke 
 not to the rebellious ease that resented the 
 searching rays of a late sun ; he woke before 
 it seemed he had closed his eyes. Woke sud 
 denly, confused, every sense clutched in pain 
 that left neither motion nor breath nor 
 thought, and he lay in a trance like one tor 
 tured to the limit of endurance. His mind 
 22
 
 THE HANDWRITING 
 
 asserted itself first with questioning horror. 
 He tried to move, and the effort cost him a 
 groan. Bound motionless by his agony his 
 mind gradually woke, and he tried to think 
 what had happened. The pain was convul 
 sive, constant, frightful ; moisture beaded his 
 forehead, and intolerable faintness and nau 
 sea crowded the short intervals that followed 
 keener twinges. He tried to move and lay like 
 a victim under a tiger's paw, stopped. He 
 kept perfectly still, hoping the torture would 
 forget him and wear away. He dug his fin 
 gers blindly into his pillow, bit it with his 
 teeth, and his face drew into a grimace of 
 helpless anguish. With ears painfully alert 
 he heard a church bell ring and cease, and 
 ring again, and cease and ring again ; then a 
 chime of bells took up the ringing. It was 
 the Angelus, and a bell far in the distance of 
 the night tolled six. He knew he had been in 
 bed two hours, and he tried once more to move 
 and the tiger's claws sunk into his chest. In 
 this pain he suffocated horribly. His heart 
 was pierced that was all he could think of. 
 3 23
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 Till eight o'clock lie lay motionless, dazed in 
 torture. 
 
 At nine o'clock his colored boy rapped, got 
 for an answer an inarticulate, choking call, 
 and, entering, found Durant with eyes closed, 
 rigid, cold and damp with sweat. The boy 
 ran for Doctor Ingraham, an acquaintance of 
 his master's. 
 
 "Why, for God's sake, George, what have 
 you been doing to yourself?" asked Ingraham, 
 in amiable surprise, sitting down beside the 
 sick man. To the monosyllables that Durant 
 answered he put questions with but slight re 
 sult. The sick man's condition seemed to par 
 alyze his organs of speech. The young 
 doctor, true to his cast of mind and environ 
 ment, thought first of a heavy supper. He 
 kept asking Durant what he had been drink 
 ing, and made the sick man angry. Durant 
 tried to explain that he had drunk nothing 
 but champagne for supper, and no more than 
 he always drank. The doctor sat at the bed 
 side a long time and administered narcotics ; 
 the pain eased, and, having corrected his first 
 24
 
 THE HANDWRITING 
 
 impressions of the case, the doctor told Durant 
 he was seriously ill ; that his case was one for 
 a specialist ; he suggested Randolph Sims. 
 
 Sometime later, Seymour, greatly alarmed, 
 came up from the office. Durant, propped 
 among pillows, had recovered a measure of 
 his composure. They discussed again the 
 matter of calling in a specialist, and it was 
 decided to summon Sims. For this purpose 
 Seymour and Doctor Ingraham went together 
 down-town. The noon sun was then beginning 
 to stream through the west bow-window, and 
 the colored boy drew the shades. Durant 
 heard the blowing of whistles, the striking of 
 clocks and the ringing of bells. He heard 
 again the queer intermittent ringing of one 
 deep bell followed by a clang of chimes, and 
 in the waves of it he fell asleep. When he 
 woke he was free from pain; the shadows 
 were lengthening in the room; there were 
 voices in the library. Ingraham, coming 
 in, told him that Sims was in the next room 
 and would now examine him. Some mo 
 ments of preparation followed, then Sims, 
 25
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 clear-faced, gray-haired, and accompanied by 
 a younger man walked in and was introduced 
 to his patient. Even in pain Durant did not 
 forget himself. Struck by the dignity and 
 strength of the man who had been asked to 
 examine him, he gave such directions as he 
 could to make his visitor feel that his reputa 
 tion had preceded his arrival. 
 
 "Will you give Sims that leather chair, 
 Bob," said he to the boy. "Ingraham, if you 
 will draw up the shades, the doctor can see 
 better." 
 
 Dr. Sims, with a laughing gesture, put up 
 his hand. "Don't bother about the shades, 
 Mr. Durant," he smiled, "I am blind." 
 
 26
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 DOCTOR AND PATIENT 
 
 RANDOLPH SIMS had then enjoyed for many 
 years more than local reputation. It was in 
 evitable that a case like Durant's should come 
 under his notice, and this acquaintance in the 
 sick-room was to grow until his counsel should 
 become for a few months the only definite 
 hold that Durant could lay on life. The men 
 became, in a measure, friends. Durant, better 
 sometimes and sometimes worse, was suffer 
 ing, Sims told him, from a disorder of which 
 the pathology was obscure. 
 
 "What's the common name for if?" demand 
 ed the patient one day, harshly. 
 
 "I am afraid there is no common name for 
 
 angina pectoris," answered Dr. Sims, resting 
 
 his head on his hand as he looked at Durant 
 
 with sightless eyes, "and it persists many 
 
 27
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 times stubbornly in spite of all effort. You 
 must look on it as an infirmity, Mr. Durant; 
 follow the simple rules I have laid down for 
 you and exercise patience." 
 
 "Patience?" roared Durant. "I don't want 
 patience ; I want relief. A man's better dead 
 a thousand times than alive with this hang 
 ing over him." 
 
 "Few of us escape all physical ills," re 
 turned Dr. Sims. "I thought when my sight 
 went that my usefulness had gone. I was 
 forced at fifty to abandon my general practise 
 and seek an entirely new field of work. You 
 are not exceptional in suffering ; merely com 
 ing to the common lot of mortals. Patience." 
 
 For six months the admonition and example 
 of his physician and counselor, rather than 
 any spirit of resignation on his own part, 
 steadied Durant in the earlier fits of his de 
 spair. The operations of the big coffee-house 
 at Wabash Avenue and Randolph Street were, 
 of necessity, curtailed straightway. The fail 
 ure of the health of George Durant, who was 
 practically the house, made this obligatory. 
 28
 
 DOCTOR AND PATIENT 
 
 For capital thus left idle, Durant was obliged 
 to look up an outlet, and the system of elevated 
 roads, then taking shape in Chicago, appeared 
 a feasible field for investment. The import 
 ing of coffees was not discontinued. First, 
 because of the pride of George Durant 
 in his standing as a merchant; and second, 
 because, although his operations were largely 
 to be transferred to La Salle Street, his pres 
 tige there as an operator would be greater 
 as George Durant, of Sloan, Durant & Com 
 pany, importers, than it would be as George 
 Durant, speculator. The decisive character of 
 his operations in grain are a part of the his 
 tory of the corn and wheat pits, nor were his 
 speculations there unprofitable ; it was the col 
 lapse of the South Side railway, the "Alley 
 L," that undermined Duranfs fortune, struck 
 a second deadly blow at his health, and left, 
 where on Sloan, Durant & Company's ledgers 
 solid hundreds of thousands had once stood, 
 only a blank. The reputation of the house 
 hardly suffered ; but it stood as a great shell 
 of which the kernel had been eaten out. 
 29
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 What that blow cost him none of his friends 
 ever knew. He made no confidants. The kill 
 ing strain of the days that saw his fortune 
 slipping from him the days when none would 
 buy and none could sell; when brokers went 
 hungry and the stock exchange was the ghastly 
 death-in-lif e barter of desperate men were a 
 part of him. Night after night Durant fought 
 in his room the physical torture of his disease, 
 aggravated by the frightful load of his mone 
 tary losses. Night after night he rose from a 
 sleepless pillow, strangling, choking, to tear 
 wild-handed at his neck and bare his throat 
 to an insane thirst for air. Once the window 
 could not be opened, and smothering, he 
 smashed the glass with his hand. 
 
 A man thrown continually up into the light 
 of publicity becomes an object of curiosity to 
 little men. So trivial an incident as the severe 
 cutting of Durant's hand did not escape com 
 ment. He was not a man of explanations. He 
 explained nothing, apologized for nothing. 
 There were men in the grocery district whose 
 capital of anecdotes centered almost com- 
 30
 
 DOCTOR AND PATIENT 
 
 pletely upon George Durant; indeed, it was 
 always easy to interest a buyer in a story 
 about Durant. When he appeared at the of 
 fice with his hand bandaged it was attributed 
 to a lively supper. Not even Ingraham, who 
 dressed the wound, knew how the accident 
 happened. Only Dr. Sims knew that there 
 were no more lively suppers; that George 
 Durant no longer drank champagne; that 
 he drank only the cup of broken health 
 mixed with the gall of crushing monetary 
 losses. 
 
 One night, late, Dr. Sims, dictating in his 
 library, was interrupted by a sharp ring. The 
 secretary answered the door. Durant wag 
 there. He had been sick for three days. The 
 doctor had left him at five o'clock, and it was 
 now nearly one. Durant entered unsteadily; 
 the constriction was on him. He stood, hol 
 low-eyed, at the mantel in front of the doctor. 
 The secretary, leaving the room, closed the 
 door. For a moment the two men, whose 
 names were familiar above the names of most 
 men in medicine and in commerce the one 
 31
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 distracted, the other blind faced each 
 other. 
 
 "I thought every one but me was in bed by 
 this time," said Sims. "How are you, my 
 friend?" But asking, he already knew from 
 the haggard voice and the cold hand what an 
 swer to expect. 
 
 "I ought not to disturb you at this hour," 
 said Durant, speaking with slow effort. "I 
 came because I could not stay away. I am at 
 the jumping-off place. The game's no longer 
 worth the candle. Unless you give me relief 
 I shall end it." 
 
 "You have no right to talk in that way." 
 
 Durant made an impatient gesture. 
 
 "Life, look at it in any way you will the 
 best or the worst of it is a man's game : sui 
 cide is a coward's." 
 
 "For three nights I have had no sleep," said 
 Durant, doggedly. "I will have sleep one 
 way or the other to-night. Will you give me 
 something to relieve this pain?" 
 
 "My dear Durant, you are under a load of 
 narcotics now that would stagger ten ordinary 
 32
 
 DOCTOR AND PATIENT 
 
 men. I know what your pain is physically. 
 I could conquer it if your mind were normal. ' ' 
 "I'm suffering the tortures of hell." 
 Under the shade of the lamp Dr. Sims stud 
 ied a moment. He realized that he had to do 
 with desperation. "Let me make one more 
 effort," said he, touching a call-button. 
 "What I give you now will not act fast. I 
 must follow its effects. The room off this is 
 my downstairs bedroom." 
 
 "But I won't go to bed in your house." 
 "You will go to bed now and here. It is an 
 experiment. If I am to succeed you must do 
 your part." 
 
 The secretary entered. Dr. Sims asked him 
 to prepare the bedroom, then to bring from 
 the dispensary, up-stairs, such medicines as 
 he privately directed. Durant, growling, was 
 compelled to go to the doctor 's bed. The medi 
 cine was administered, the lights in the library 
 turned low, the assistant sent to his room, and 
 Dr. Sims, sitting in a deep chair at Durant's 
 bedside, forced him to compose himself. In 
 half an hour the hunted man was sleeping. 
 33
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 When he opened his eyes it was day. At his 
 side, in the library chair, Dr. Sims, his face 
 wrinkled with fatigue, his white hair tumbled 
 and his blind eyes closed wearily, reclined 
 asleep. At the first move of Durant he woke 
 and put his hand into the greeting that was 
 denied his eyes. Durant caught his fingers. 
 "Doctor !" he exclaimed, his tone hoarse from 
 the relaxation of rest, "I am a brute. You 
 ought to be in this bed. It is I that should be 
 sitting up watching you !" 
 
 "How do you feel?" 
 
 Durant turned toward his benefactor. "Like 
 living again." 
 
 "The distress passed somewhat?" 
 
 "It is gone !" 
 
 "If you feel like it, sponge lightly with al 
 cohol right here where it is warm. When you 
 are dressed I will be back. You breakfast 
 with me this morning." 
 
 Durant demurred and protested. He could 
 
 not get away, nor could he bring himself to 
 
 consent to stay. He compromised at last by 
 
 telephoning his valet to bring linen to him. 
 
 34
 
 DOCTOR AND PATIENT 
 
 At eight o'clock they went in to breakfast. 
 Dr. Sims, a widower, introduced Durant to 
 his sister Mary, a fine-eyed old maid in spec 
 tacles. "Our housekeeper," he said. They 
 were joined almost at once by a girl of twenty, 
 Katharine Sims, the only child of the doctor, 
 fresh and lively in a morning gown of blue. It 
 was vacation time, and she was home from the 
 East. 
 
 "Your father told me, I think, you are at 
 Smith?" suggested Durant. To engage a col 
 lege girl in any talk that will hold her atten 
 tion for five minutes is a feat, but it was one 
 that Durant without apparent effort managed. 
 Katharine overflowed with life, and Durant, 
 out of the charm of his reserve, found topics 
 that she could spend her enthusiasm on with 
 out dispelling her impression that she was en 
 tertaining him. 
 
 The men returned to the library. 
 
 "You want to know what I used to put you 
 
 to sleep with!" said the doctor. "Nothing in 
 
 drugs ; you were full of drugs. I used your 
 
 imagination and my persuasion. You were 
 
 35
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 exhausted and I composed you. Your mental 
 condition frightened me last night, Durant. 
 1 speak plainly. I dread facing a man that 
 is ready to drop his part ; to give way to any 
 misfortune, I care not what physical pain 
 or mental agony. I speak to you now because 
 you may find yourself in such another crisis 
 when I can not be near. Since I have been 
 treating you, first and last, I have given you 
 everything in drugs but one the surest and 
 deadliest. It will put you to sleep when you 
 suffer as you suffered last night; but, for 
 what it gives you, it will take a mortgage for 
 time and eternity on your will and your soul. 
 How much better it is than the pistol I don't 
 know. As I grow older I make less distinc 
 tion between them. In some instances that I 
 have known, the pistol, bluntly at the start, 
 would have been better. But I shrink from 
 thinking of a bullet for a man under forty, of 
 such capabilities as yours. I shall not de 
 ceive you in the face of such an infirmity of 
 yours I am helpless. All my reputation, all 
 my art, comes once in ten thousand times 
 36
 
 DOCTOR AND PATIENT 
 
 against such a case, and I am beaten. I give 
 you now, when you reach the condition you 
 reached last night, your choice. When it 
 comes to the pistol, remember, you can bridge 
 over once with morphine. But when you do 
 so, recollect this in the end it will beat you. 
 Never make up your mind that your will 
 power or any man's, can stand against mor 
 phine. It will make your will its will : don't 
 forget it. Here is a little bottle of morphine 
 pellets for you, my dear fellow; I give 
 them to you not knowing but that sometime 
 you will curse me, curse my memory, curse 
 the day you ever met me. "When it comes to 
 the pistol or this, this drug will bridge you 
 over once, twice, possibly three times. 
 Then, if you take it again, you are gone 
 body and soul. When that time comes use the 
 pistol without a moment's hesitation, for the 
 game is played." 
 
 Durant took the tiny vial. The pellets 
 
 clashed smoothly in the thin glass as he 
 
 twirled them in his big fingers. As most 
 
 men hear of it, he had heard of morphine. 
 
 37
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 But to hear of morphine is one thing ; to 
 face it another. Durant faced it. He slipped 
 the bottle into his waistcoat pocket. 
 
 "Doctor, you had better ride down-town 
 with me. The carriage will be here in a few 
 minutes; I'll leave you at your office. This 
 will be your last chance behind the roans. I 
 shall be away a good deal this winter, and 
 I've sold my horses. I'm going to close my 
 stables." 
 
 Plans for financing the stranded elevated 
 system, in which Durant was then the largest 
 individual stockholder, kept him in New York 
 for the greater part of the winter and the fol 
 lowing spring. Telegrams passed oftener 
 than letters between him and Seymour, but 
 one day, called up on long-distance telephone, 
 he was told by the Chicago office that the city 
 ticker announced the death of Dr. Sims. There 
 were other matters that Seymour wished to 
 communicate; Durant heard no more. He 
 hung the receiver on the hook, turned from the 
 booth like a wounded man and walked out 
 and down Fifth Avenue. That night he took 
 38
 
 DOCTOR AND PATIENT 
 
 the train for Chicago. On the second morn 
 ing he stood in the little bedroom off the 
 library beside his dead counselor. 
 
 The funeral arrangements completed, and 
 in charge of brother physicians, appeared to 
 leave no place in which George Durant could be 
 of use. He sent words of sympathy by the doc 
 tor's secretary to the sister and the daughter, 
 up-stairs, and in the afternoon took his place 
 silently among the many strangers to whom 
 this man had been what he had been to him. 
 He took the long carriage ride to the depot, 
 the train to Rose Hill, and entered for the 
 first time the gates of a Chicago cemetery. 
 The ceremonies seemed very distant to him. 
 Only once, as the active pall-bearers, six 
 young doctors, lowered the coffin into the 
 grave, he started at a sob from the veiled 
 mourners. Returning, he sat in the car alone. 
 About him were the flower of the medical pro 
 fession of Chicago, so many of them young 
 men, he noticed, and as he considered them, 
 brimming with the fulness of the activities 
 of life, he felt a strange loneliness. He asked 
 4 39
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 himself for the first time what he had made of 
 life that the world should put him by fortune 
 and by opportunity above men and workers 
 like these. 
 
 40
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 A PHYSICIAN'S DAUGHTER 
 
 To the girl of gentle birth the problem of 
 earning a living may not be peculiarly an 
 American one: yet in its American aspects 
 such a problem is peculiarly our own. The 
 American girl is free born. There are classes 
 below her, but above her there is no class. 
 Educated, and educated always to ideals a 
 trifle vague, perhaps; possibly somewhat un 
 sound she comes to us as she is, and as they 
 are, a part of us we can put away neither 
 the one nor the other. 
 
 At eighteen, twenty, twenty-two, a queen 
 uncrowned, such a girl stands suddenly 
 forth reaching for her kingdom. To all but 
 the dowerless child there is a pathos in the 
 sunrise of such a day in her life ; but to her the 
 41
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 moment is too much fiilled with doubt and 
 cruel necessity to admit of sentiment. 
 
 The death of Dr. Sims left his daughter and 
 his maiden sister together without immediate 
 relatives. Dr. Sims had a predilection for in 
 vestment in real estate, and that in its dread- 
 est form, residence property. Capitalists 
 could have told him that flats are not, strictly 
 speaking, an investment, but a luxury. This 
 was reserved for his sister and for Katharine 
 Sims to learn in fruitless tears after losing 
 their protector. 
 
 Two or three times during the year that 
 followed the death of the doctor, Durant 
 found among his letters, directed in a feminine 
 hand, enclosures of concert programs. They 
 passed before him with the slight considera 
 tion that busy men give the unimportant mat 
 ters that cumber the mail ; but these programs 
 were sent by Katharine Sims. Durant had 
 nighwell forgotten her existence when one 
 day her card was brought into the office. It 
 was three o'clock in the afternoon. 
 
 "I fear you hardly remember me, Mr. Du- 
 42
 
 A PHYSICIAN'S DAUGHTER 
 
 rant?" said she, advancing with smiling un 
 certainty as he rose from his chair. 
 
 "On the contrary, I remember you very 
 well," he replied, easily. "I breakfasted once 
 at your father's house. You were home at the 
 time from school." 
 
 "Oh!" she exclaimed, brightening with re 
 lief, "you have a good memory." 
 
 "For some things ; be seated." 
 
 She was to be further surprised by his ask 
 ing after her aunt. Nor did he content him 
 self with formal inquiries, but launched 
 straight into definite remembrances of her 
 father's kindness to him and of the good name 
 he had left in Chicago. 
 
 The almost painful timidity that marked 
 her manner on entering fled her face like 
 a cloud as he looked calmly at her and spoke 
 so frank words. When her confusion had 
 passed and she had thanked him, she ran 
 hurriedly ahead to what was on her mind. 
 
 "No doubt you are surprised to have me call 
 on you in this way, but I have a favor to ask. 
 Papa's affairs were in such shape at the time 
 43
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 of his death," said she, with a freedom made 
 easier by the atmosphere he had put about 
 her, "that it became necessary for me to rely 
 largely on my own efforts. Not that I have 
 the least talent in the world for business ; but 
 I have always been able to sing, and, since 
 Aunt Mary and I have been together, I have 
 turned my voice to such account as I could." 
 
 "What is your voice?" asked Durant, with 
 the courteous interest that one expresses 
 whether quite sincere or not. 
 
 "Soprano. For the last year I have been 
 singing at the Apostles' Memorial Church; 
 besides that I have had some concert work. 
 What I am anxious to do now, even though it 
 looks ambitious, is to get into light opera work. 
 That's why I have ventured to call on you. 
 I know," she added, with a deprecating little 
 laugh, "that you are not a manager, but I used 
 to hear papa speak often of your wide ac 
 quaintance with professional people and sing 
 ers, and I wanted to ask whether you could 
 tell me something about how they get started." 
 
 Durant, leaning half back in his chair, gazed 
 44
 
 A PHYSICIAN'S DAUGHTER 
 
 at her in the mildly curious manner natural 
 to him when mentally at repose. He did not 
 at once reply when she had ceased speaking, 
 and she was conscious of a slight tremor of 
 embarrassment at what appeared his indiffer 
 ence. "Are you quite sure," he asked, pres 
 ently, "that you are adapted for stage work?" 
 
 "Indeed, I am not. The idea has come more 
 from the suggestions of others. My teachers 
 have told me several times I ought to try it," 
 she returned. "They seemed to think I have 
 something of a dramatic turn, though I know 
 it appears most improbable. Of course, it 
 would have to be an experiment ; one I should 
 shrink from if I had not learned to face almost 
 everything since I have been singing." 
 
 "Are you satisfied," he asked again, "that 
 opera is the best field for you ?" 
 
 She smoothed her glove with some hesita 
 tion. "Really, I am not very sure of anything, 
 Mr. Durant, except that the work pays well. 
 I imagine it would not be uncongenial." 
 
 In the leisurely manner that borders closely 
 on preoccupation he asked other questions 
 45
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 concerning her life, what she had done and 
 her ambitions, and she answered. He reverted 
 again with something of abruptness to her 
 father, and once asked bluntly whether she 
 knew what obligations her father's kindness 
 and counsel had placed him under. She left 
 with his suggestion that he should come and 
 hear her sing, and with a promise that if it 
 seemed best he would take up the matter of her 
 going on the stage and advise her in so far as 
 he could. 
 
 It was not until after dinner in the evening 
 that Durant again gave the subject thought, 
 but her coming had brought up strangely her 
 father's image and taken Durant back to the 
 days when his health and affairs were at the 
 blackest. 
 
 It was impossible for him not to feel more 
 than a passing interest in the anxieties of this 
 daughter of his dead friend. For that matter, 
 as she had sat before him in his office she was a 
 woman that might awaken any one's interest. 
 As the experienced man who does not express 
 his opinions, he had been careful to say little 
 46
 
 A PHYSICIAN'S DAUGHTER 
 
 to her concerning what her idea of going on 
 the stage meant to one who so well knew the 
 life ; who had not only opened but closed the 
 book of acquaintance with its worse side. 
 Pondering the situation with himself, bringing 
 to his mind the picture of Katharine Sims as 
 she sat before him in his office, her veil raised, 
 her face quick with youthful acuteness and ap 
 peal, the thought of wh,at she aspired to 
 seemed abhorrent; nor was he of the kind to 
 try to bring himself to view the matter in 
 milder light. She was like one who asks to 
 open a book the remembrances of whose pages 
 has not been altogether inspiring. One point 
 he had been careful to cover in the afternoon 
 before she went away: that she should call 
 no more at the office on him, but that to the 
 extent he could in any way help her he should 
 do the calling on her. 
 
 Within a week he made an opportunity to 
 visit her at her number on Dearborn Avenue. 
 It was a small flat building of good appoint 
 ments, well north. Miss Mary Sims, her aunt, 
 had the second floor apartments. 
 47
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 Aunt Mary, with her fine little eyes and her 
 gold spectacles, met Durant at the door in 
 the affectionate warmth of one who is both 
 Southern and in need of friends. Her caller 
 was calculated to revive in her the forgotten 
 graces of Virginia days. If he was inclined 
 to quiet while seated in the front room wait 
 ing for Katherine, it was the greater chance 
 for Aunt Mary's heart to overflow with the 
 effort of welcome. It was enough to have so 
 large and so distinguished a man to sit before 
 and to talk at, while he looked somewhat ab 
 sently at the asbestos twig that Aunt Mary 
 had lighted in the futile grate in honor of his 
 coming. The room was simply furnished in 
 the dry-goods furniture style, which made it 
 embarrassing for a full-sized man to sit down 
 anywhere. Happily, among the chairs was 
 one of the doctor's own, saved from earlier 
 wrecks, and to this Durant had turned with 
 confidence. 
 
 Aunt Mary could not disabuse herself of the 
 idea that his coming to their cramped quarters 
 meant a change in their misfortunes, and as 
 48
 
 A PHYSICIAN'S DAUGHTER 
 
 she eyed in profile what she called Durant's 
 noble face, her affections, always lively, over 
 flowed. When Katharine swept in, tall and 
 eager with winning hope, Aunt Mary, sitting 
 a bit out of the talk, mildly and imperceptibly 
 wept. Something in the absolute simplicity 
 of Durant's black and gray hair and the 
 straightforwardness of his mustache appealed 
 too strongly. 
 
 The conversation turned to music; Durant 
 asked Katharine to sing. With hardly a trace 
 of nervousness she began with The Rosary, 
 and followed with If I were Gardener of the 
 Skies and a Schumann song. It was Aunt 
 Mary's heart alone that thumped during the 
 trial. 
 
 "I like your voice," said Durant, as she fin 
 ished. "Will you let me hear some of your 
 exercises ?" She responded, and the exercises 
 went even better. 
 
 "Certainly, you have voice, Miss Sims - 
 may I call you Miss Katharine !" 
 
 "Oh, yes, please." 
 
 "What you tell me of your teachers' opin- 
 49
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 ions does not surprise me. With such a natu 
 ral gift as yours and you have worked, I 
 see there need be no question of ultimate 
 success." As she left the piano he shifted 
 his position so he could look directly at her. 
 "The only question is how to use your talent 
 to the best advantage. I incline to think," 
 he added, turning to Aunt Mary, who jumped 
 suddenly as his eyes fell on her, "that a young 
 woman that makes her own way should have 
 the lion's share of the earnings. You incline 
 toward the opera?" he said, tentatively, to 
 Katharine. 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "The road isn't altogether an attractive one 
 it is rougher than you have any idea of, 
 probably. It seems to me at the moment 
 that the field you are already in is immensely 
 preferable; I mean concert work oratorio 
 when it comes along drawing-room work 
 and that kind of thing." 
 
 "But there is so little to be earned in that 
 way, Mr. Durant." 
 
 50
 
 A PHYSICIAN'S DAUGHTER 
 
 "On the contrary, Wallace Hamilton, Mrs. 
 Hocknell " 
 
 "But they are so celebrated and well 
 known." 
 
 * ' When I first met them, possibly less known 
 than yon." 
 
 Durant spent the evening, his talk bearing 
 always in the same direction away from a 
 stage career for Katharine. It was done so 
 evenly there was hardly a chance for resent 
 ment, but when he had gone the trend of his 
 advice was plainer, and Katharine felt disap 
 pointment and restiveness under the recollec 
 tion. Within a week he called again fortified 
 with authorities. Wallace Hamilton, the 
 tenor, he quoted as agreeing with his view 
 of a career for a young Chicago singer, and 
 he dwelt again with quiet emphasis on the ad 
 vantages of the non-dramatic path. 
 
 Katharine was slightly ill at ease while he 
 spoke. His bluntness, sincerely friendly, car 
 ried such a weight of sound argument that she 
 trembled for its effects on Aunt Mary, and 
 51
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 under the pressure confessed to a step already 
 taken. 
 
 "You have been so kind, Mr. Durant," she 
 began, "in interesting yourself in my work 
 that I am almost afraid to acknowledge I 
 have crossed the Rubicon already. I've en 
 gaged to go into the chorus of the DeTamble 
 Company. You know they are to be at the 
 Caxton all winter, and there won't be any 
 traveling, so I thought if I were going to make 
 a trial this would be a good chance, don't you 
 think so f " 
 
 There was a moment of embarrassment all 
 round. Durant contented himself with ask 
 ing who the manager of the DeTamble Com 
 pany was. 
 
 "Mr. Stein. He's very pleasant indeed. Do 
 you know him?" 
 
 "Slightly." 
 
 "I could never have consented," interposed 
 Aunt Mary, fearfully, "if it were not that 
 there will be no traveling." 
 
 "Have you heard of the company, Mr. Du 
 rant f" asked Katharine, pleadingly. 
 52
 
 A PHYSICIAN'S DAUGHTER 
 
 "No." 
 
 "But you will hear of them now that I'm to 
 carry a torch in the chorus, won't you? I sup 
 pose I shall set fire to the scenery the very first 
 night." 
 
 53
 
 IN THE CHORUS 
 
 MATTERS in New York took Durant East 
 within the week, and it was December when 
 he returned to Chicago. In the interval he 
 had seen or heard nothing of Katharine Sims. 
 One night, after a dinner at the Auditorium 
 with the reorganization committee of his ele 
 vated road, he found himself in front of the 
 Caxton Theater and thought of his prote'ge'e. 
 He went in and bought a chair in the 
 rear of the parquet. It was at the moment 
 of an ensemble, and in the mass of people that 
 crowded the stage, the dash of the music, the 
 lively efforts of the director, and the confused 
 chase of the chorus about the principals, he 
 was at a loss for some moments to identify 
 Katharine Sims. When at length he recog- 
 54
 
 IN THE CHORUS 
 
 nized her among the chorus girls he was sur 
 prised to find her so slight in her make-up, 
 although among the tallest of the chorus. 
 Such scenes as that in which she was taking 
 part were so familiar to him that he could 
 have taken the leader's baton without diffi 
 culty himself and carried the finale to its close. 
 He noted, mechanically, the precision of the 
 principals, the attack of the chorus, and the 
 slighter evidences of a presentation well in 
 hand. But his thoughts centered on one in 
 whom he felt an interest, and, critical as his 
 eye had long become, her carriage and manner 
 were not displeasing. The applause and the 
 recalls at the close of the act, the acknowledg 
 ments of the singers, the restful sigh that went 
 over the house when the curtain hid the last of 
 the courtesies, the lights rising upon the audi 
 ence, were all of a character to reconcile him to 
 her situation. 
 
 A few nights afterward Durant, entertain 
 ing some New York friends at the Athletic 
 Club, was accosted by little Stein, the mana 
 ger. 
 
 5 55
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "Hello, Georgie; how?" 
 
 "Hello, Stein." 
 
 "I seen you down to our show the other 
 night." 
 
 "Stein, where's Clara Nightingale?" 
 
 "She's in Paris," answered Stein, with an 
 upward roll of his eyes and tone. 
 
 "You married her, didn't you?" 
 
 "Well yes." 
 
 "Then you deserted her?" 
 
 "No, not by a " 
 
 "Don't lie." 
 
 "Look here " 
 
 "I know all about it." 
 
 Struck momentarily dumb, the manager 
 swelled with rage. "Stein," drawled Durant, 
 "you're beginning well. I thought once you 
 were going to be half decent. You look now 
 like a damned scoundrel ; you are one !" 
 
 Stein swore a frightful oath. "You're a 
 fine fellow, turn't preacher on women, you 
 are; ain't you?" he choked. 
 
 "I never married a woman to rob her, Stein. 
 You robbed your wife to buy an interest in 
 56
 
 IN THE CHORUS 
 
 this DeTamble Company." Durant pointed 
 to a large pearl on his scarf. "You stole her 
 jewelry, did you?" 
 
 "I paid eighteen hundred for that pearl!" 
 shrieked Stein, tapping his breast like a mad 
 man. 
 
 "That's a good deal more than I paid for it, 
 and I gave it to Clara, myself." , 
 
 "I bought 'at pearl in San Francisco be 
 fore I ever saw Clara Nightingale or you, 
 e'd'er!" 
 
 "That's a fair issue. Come over here and 
 tell your story to the men," suggested Durant, 
 "I'll tell mine." 
 
 With an imprecation the enraged manager 
 scuttled away. He was small and bandy 
 legged, with keen, dark eyes, set close. Stein 
 always looked up, with his head cocked to one 
 side, and from the circular swing of his walk 
 and the upward reach of his arms he bore 
 the name of Spider. 
 
 Two days afterward Durant, walking up 
 State Street, was greeted by Aunt Mary Sims. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Durant," she said, impulsively, 
 57
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "Katharine has lost her position. Isn't it too 
 bad she is so worried about it." 
 
 "I am very sorry to hear it. She must not 
 be discouraged. Those things happen all the 
 time. I dropped in to see her one night, and 
 she did very well." 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Durant, if you would come and 
 see her and talk to her a little !" 
 
 "Certainly, I will." 
 
 Katharine brooded in a state of eclipse 
 confidence and gaiety extinguished, plunged 
 in the gloom of a first discharge. 
 
 Then came Durant, sat crossed-legged in 
 her father's chair, spoke but a few words, and 
 already the clouds lightened. Katharine told 
 in a crushed way how the stage-manager, 
 Axtell, had discharged her, and how she had 
 asked for a reason, and he had refused 
 to give any. She could not add the humiliat 
 ing details of how he had cursed when she 
 insisted on knowing; some bitterness we re 
 serve to our own hearts. 
 
 "I thought, Mr. Durant," suggested Aunt 
 Mary, timidly, "that perhaps you could find 
 58
 
 IN THE CHORUS 
 
 out from Mr. Stein what the reason was. I 
 don't think he would allow such a thing if he 
 knew it. Only the night before, Mr. Axtell 
 himself complimented Katharine on her 
 work " 
 
 Durant might have preferred to make no 
 comment, but the two women waited in the 
 hope that he would say something. 
 
 "I don't know Mr. Stein very well." 
 
 "He knows you," ventured Aunt Mary, "for 
 when Katharine was making her engagement 
 I was with her and I happened to say I knew 
 you " 
 
 "You said you knew me f ' 
 
 "I told him you wanted her to go into ora 
 torio work." 
 
 "Did you?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "He must have been surprised." 
 
 "He was a little," admitted Aunt Mary. 
 "But he spoke so highly of you and said he 
 knew you very well." 
 
 "Some years ago. Stein would not discredit 
 his stage-manager now by interfering," Du- 
 59
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 rant went on, "even if he knew Axtell were 
 wrong," he continued, quite understanding 
 that Katharine had been discharged to spite 
 him. "It's not worth while fussing about. 
 Sha'n't we see whether something else can be 
 done? Are you resolved to stick to opera, 
 Miss Katharine?" 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Durant," trembled Katharine. 
 "Yes." She looked a frail girl because tall 
 and slender ; but in frailness may lie stubborn 
 ness invincible. 
 
 Soon afterward, Durant called on Mabel 
 Anthony. 
 
 "It's mighty good to see you again," she 
 exclaimed, pushing back the papers on her 
 desk. "You have dropped completely away 
 from your friends and enemies haven't 
 you! Now, what have you come to see me 
 for? I know you've got a big heart, but it's 
 not that that's brought you ; is it ?" 
 
 Durant smiled, which was not common for 
 him. "No. You're right. I want something. 
 I want a place in DeVinne's Company for a 
 chorus girl." 
 
 60
 
 IN THE CHORUS 
 
 "DeVinne'sf 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Mabel paused. "It would be a heap easier 
 to put her in the Tamble troupe over at the 
 Caxton." 
 
 "DeVinne's is a better crowd. You know 
 Lawrence." 
 
 "They don't pay any more money." 
 
 "But I want her with good people." 
 
 "Oh, you do. All right. Now, I'll be hon 
 est. I don't know but that I'm used up over 
 there. I've had one or two favors " 
 
 "This girl can sing." 
 
 "That wouldn't make much difference with 
 Stein; but it would make a heap with Law 
 rence," reflected Mabel. "All right. I'll see. 
 Come again, Saturday, can you?" Then, not 
 quite able to extinguish femininity, she ad 
 ded, "Who is she?" 
 
 He told her the incident of his acquaintance 
 with Katharine Sims ; something about Kath 
 arine herself. 
 
 "Why, how lovely. It's awfully good of you 
 to do something for her," declared Mabel An- 
 61
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 thony. "Well, I'll help, too. But don't tell 
 her, for she would bother me, and I'm both 
 ered enough." 
 
 "Lawrence may have to be pounded pretty 
 hard ; he 's a bull-headed fellow, ' ' Durant went 
 on. "I'd better see him first about her. Then, 
 if you will try him afterward, I think between 
 us we can land him." He rose to go. 
 
 Mabel Anthony looked at him, smiling from 
 under her gray hair. "Hadn't you better leave 
 the whole thing to me?" 
 
 "I don't want you to do all the work." 
 
 "Oh, that's nothing. Did you really mean 
 all you said about trying to keep her off the 
 stage?" 
 
 "Yes. Why?" 
 
 She looked openly at him. "Might not your 
 interest in the matter of getting her on the 
 stage possibly be misconstrued?" Then, after 
 a pause, "You know it's thin ice for young 
 women behind the footlights," she added. 
 "Oh, you're getting angry." 
 
 "No, I'm not. I didn't think of it, that's all." 
 
 "Not that/ should misunderstand," she went 
 62
 
 IN THE CHORUS 
 
 on. "You know that." She took a step nearer 
 him and looked up with the sweetest, roguery 
 smile. "You know I'm one that doesn't believe 
 the devil nearly so black as he's painted ; but 
 such a young girl as you're going to help 
 and in the way you want to help her should 
 hardly make her initial appearance under the 
 patronage of quite so unconventional and 
 widely known a bachelor as my friend Mr. Du- 
 rant, should she?" 
 
 Why it cut him he tried vainly that night to 
 make clear to himself. He told Miss Anthony 
 at once that she was right; he begged her to 
 take the whole thing in hand; she said she 
 would. But in the evening, when the feeling 
 came upon him that came now sometimes with 
 the close of the day, he felt humiliated, and 
 sat by his fire a long time alone. 
 
 Miss Anthony wrote almost within a week. 
 
 "If she can sing send her down to Lawrence. 
 If she can't, it won't do any good. Tell her to 
 quote no names ; he will know her. Provided 
 you are really not angry, come again. 
 
 "M. A. 
 
 "P. S. Come anyway." 
 63
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 Durant wrote to Katharine. Aunt Mary 
 and she received the letter together. There 
 were tremors of expectation when they opened 
 it, and tears of hope when they had read. 
 "It is so hard to get into one of Mr. Lawrence's 
 companies," sobbed Katharine, softly, recov 
 ering. "But, oh, if I can get a start there, 
 Aunt Mary, it will be our fortune. I'm as sure 
 of it as I live." 
 
 One day a note came to Durant from Kath 
 arine the words penned in startling size, 
 aquiver with excitement. Lawrence had given 
 her a place right away, and she was in the 
 sopranos at the same salary she had received 
 at the Caxton, and liked her surroundings so 
 much better. Would not Mr. Durant gratify 
 herself and her aunt ever so much by coming 
 for dinner on Sunday? 
 
 The note reached him in New York, too late 
 even to send a regret, and Aunt Mary's un 
 usual leg of lamb went to the cold for several 
 days. However, in time, it all came in at the 
 late night luncheons that Katharine had begun 
 on, for Lawrence who seemed sorely disap- 
 64
 
 IN THE CHOKUS 
 
 pointed at being compelled by her voice to hire 
 her told her also to eat ; that to sing, women 
 must eat. Katharine Sims has recently said 
 that this, if not the first lesson, was by far the 
 first in importance of all the stage lessons she 
 ever learned. 
 
 Durant wrote from New York; later he 
 called to express his acknowledgments and to 
 hear how Katharine's affairs progressed. She 
 was genuinely happy over her prospects. 
 
 "And I am learning to dance, Mr. Durant," 
 said Katharine, after she had told everything 
 else she could think of, and she thought of a 
 great deal. "I never could dance. But there's 
 a young girl in the altos that can dance better 
 than she can sing," Katharine laughed. "So 
 I'm teaching her singing and we're helping 
 each other. Isn't that sensible?" Katharine 
 desired above all things to be esteemed sensi 
 ble. And Durant, begining to laugh with the 
 quietness of big men, rolled his eyes in some 
 thing like the old way. "Very sensible," he 
 said. 
 
 Every time he saw her it was something 
 65
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 new. She drank to the full the cup of stage 
 excitement and, of all, what cup is headier? 
 So fast did she grow that before he reached 
 the Calumet Opera-House Katharine had 
 been promoted; but that he learned only by 
 going after several weeks to see Lawrence's 
 production of Erminie. 
 
 66
 
 THE MIKADO COSTUME 
 
 AUNT MARY SIMS was not one to forget a 
 dinner planned, even in the lapse of months. 
 The dinner for Mr. Durant, spoiled by his 
 absence in New York, lay an indigestion on 
 her mind until he was brought to bar on an 
 April Sunday and made to eat. The dining- 
 room, no bigger than an old-fashioned market 
 basket, was at least sunny and warm in wel 
 come, when George Durant sat down at the 
 head of the table. Aunt Mary served duck, and 
 the tiny bone-handled carving set was laid at 
 Mr. Durant's place. The beaming of her face 
 asked more delicately than words that he 
 carve. Katharine, loose-haired, white hands 
 folded, her face already showing the content 
 of regular endeavor, sat gracefully between 
 the two, and, unobserved, admired the round- 
 67
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 ing breast of Durant's coat as lie went straight 
 to the joints of the bird and, with a relish of 
 real interest, filled and handed the plates. 
 
 When he stood at the door Katharine had 
 met him in a dress of brown, as soft as a 
 smile. She had not much money for dresses. 
 Out of her salary she had lessons in acting 
 to pay for, but she contrived, and her talk 
 was so intense with incident and excitement 
 and plan that she swept the dinner on with it. 
 
 "So much has happened since I saw you, 
 Mr. Durant. I never can thank you enough 
 for getting me into the DeVinne Company. 
 What do you think? I've had a rise in salary, 
 and I'm an understudy now." Durant's knife 
 over the duck paused an instant in compli 
 ment. 
 
 "I had duck to-day, Mr. Durant," inter 
 posed Aunt Mary, candidly, "because last 
 time we asked you for dinner you didn't come, 
 and it took us a whole week to eat up the leg 
 of lamb I roasted for you." 
 
 "Indeed, I'm very sorry, Aunt Mary," an 
 swered Durant, on impulse. "I promise I 
 68
 
 THE MIKADO COSTUME 
 
 shall never fail one of your dinners again. 
 If you had been real thoughtful," he went on, 
 "jfou might have sent the rest of the leg to 
 New York. It would have relieved you and 
 comforted me." He liked the cubby room; 
 the table so small he could pick up either of the 
 chairs across it, the mashed potatoes, the 
 gravy, and the rattle of Katharine's talk. It 
 was all new to the man of bachelor apart 
 ments and wines and clubs and muddy French 
 sauces. Never before, that he could remember, 
 had he compromised himself to the extent of 
 eating tame duck ; yet he began to forget his 
 troubles before he had dismembered the de 
 spised bird the bird that, set before him by 
 his own cook, he would have pitched into the 
 fireplace. And with the first mouthful he was 
 already enjoying himself. "Whom are you 
 understudying?" he asked of Katharine. 
 
 "Marquise Dahl. You know we're to have 
 a big revival of Patience in two weeks, and I 
 could have had Sophie le May to understudy 
 if I could act the part ; I can sing it, but Mr. 
 Lawrence said I couldn't act it." 
 69
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "Is Sophie le May in your company?" 
 
 "She's been in three months. She really 
 lives over here; do you know her?" 
 
 He barely paused before replying: "No." 
 
 "She's the airiest piece " 
 
 Then Durant added, "That is to say I met 
 her when she first visited Chicago ; not since. 
 Tell me about your dramatic teacher; who is 
 she?" 
 
 Everything Katharine had to tell she told 
 with zest. When Durant left it was five 
 o'clock, and he had given nearly an hour to 
 listening Katharine sitting by to Aunt 
 Mary Sims' troubles about the two flat build 
 ings that were supposed to afford her sup 
 port, but which in fact ate up everything she 
 had in the way of income. 
 
 The close of the season at the DeVinne 
 brought an engagement for Katharine in an 
 up-town summer production. It was a small 
 company and the salaries depended entirely 
 upon the wind. If it blew off the lake it 
 brought Katharine fifteen dollars a week. On 
 the other hand, a southern breeze brought 
 70
 
 THE MIKADO COSTUME 
 
 nothing but itself into the treasury. How 
 ever, Katharine played all sorts of parts in 
 nearly everything under the sun. The stage- 
 manager and musical director was a broken 
 English tenor named Scott Barlow, who had 
 done something at grand opera, and some 
 thing at the manufacture of laundry ma 
 chinery and understood something of the ho 
 tel business. But he took a liking to Katha 
 rine, cast her for everything, and worked un 
 tiringly. In three months he taught her more 
 than she could have learned ordinarily in 
 three years. 
 
 Durant looked in on her occasionally, and 
 once or twice Lawrence, who had a remark 
 ably long nose for everything in his line, saw 
 her. The summer engagement brought her 
 a new proposal from the DeVinne manager 
 for the winter, with a hint concerning minor 
 parts. September was supposed to be the 
 month of rest; but it was a month in which 
 Katharine worked harder than ever at her dra 
 matic lessons. Barlow, her summer friend, 
 was desirous of teaching her. She consulted 
 c 71
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 with Durant; he had seen enough of Barlow 
 to decide, and told her to take Barlow. 
 
 "But he drinks some," admitted Katharine, 
 fearfully. 
 
 "Under some circumstances that might be 
 dangerous ; he won't make a drunkard of you. 
 Then, again, if he didn't drink, he'd be draw 
 ing two hundred a week instead of hunting 
 for pupils. He comes to your house, anyway ; 
 try him." 
 
 So Barlow came twice weekly to teach, and 
 his shabby air so alarmed and interested Aunt 
 Mary Sims that she ended in a week by offer 
 ing him, after lessons at which he certainly 
 did work hard something to eat. Aunt Mary 
 began with a simple glass of milk and a plate 
 of three wafer crackers ; but Katharine, soft 
 and cool in summer stuffs, telling Durant of it 
 one night, related how the luncheon had grown 
 from milk and crackers to the proportions of 
 a feast, and added that Mr. Barlow in the end 
 had literally cleared out the refrigerator. 
 
 Rehearsals at the DeVinne began the first 
 of October. To open the second of Law- 
 72
 
 THE MIKADO COSTUME 
 
 rence's now famous two Chicago seasons a 
 grand revival of the Mikado had been planned, 
 with Sophie le May as Yum Yum. Katharine 
 was cast for Pitti Sing, and Barlow, when he 
 wasn't busy emptying the family larder, was 
 engaged in putting Katharine through the 
 subtleties of shrinking her height, so she 
 should not tower above the airy Sophie who 
 had long claws and in giving her extraordi 
 nary object lessons with his horny knees in 
 the mysteries of the Japanese shuffle. 
 
 There were all sorts of buoyant expecta 
 tions in the Sims' circle, and only one anxiety 
 that had to be dragged out late, after the 
 lights were low and the fingers were limp and 
 the hair down: that was a costume for 
 Pitti Sing. Lawrence was applying to 
 comic opera the extreme principles of mod 
 ern display, and chief among his advertising 
 methods were lavish appointments. "I pay 
 good salaries," he growled ; "I stage as operas 
 never were staged before anywhere on earth. 
 I want the costumes right." And Katharine 
 Sims, with a good salary coming and a good 
 73
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 opportunity, had no money for a costume 
 the real anxiety on the part of the Sims' 
 women lay in the most commonplace require 
 ment. As the time approached the worry 
 made itself more definite. Aunt Mary thought 
 of getting their renting agents to advance a 
 hundred dollars and take a quit-claim deed to 
 all their flats at once; but she knew they 
 would smile, even bitterly, on such a pro 
 posal. 
 
 None of their few friends knew anything 
 of their extremities. In the evening Kath 
 arine never fatigued, and when she was at 
 work, full of play, would rehearse for Aunt 
 Mary and for Durant, who began to drop in 
 evenings to sit informally in the doctor's 
 chair. One night, after one of Katharine's 
 prettiest little runs down the dining-room and 
 the living-room for the stage entrance, Du 
 rant asked a question. 
 
 "What's your costume!" Katharine, in 
 humorous despair, dropped on the piano-stooL 
 
 "Heavens! I wish I knew. I haven't a 
 thing yet, and the opening night only three 
 74
 
 THE MIKADO COSTUME 
 
 weeks away ! ' ' she replied, running to a cres 
 cendo of alarm. "I think I shall have to 
 wear this!" she exclaimed, more demurely, 
 looking at her tea-gown. * ' Wouldn 't Mr. Law 
 rence have a dear fit?" Katharine bubbled. 
 
 "I was just thinking," suggested Durant. 
 "In Yokohama, some six or seven years ago, 
 Jardine-Mathieson's representatives were 
 very courteous to me, and I carried away, as a 
 reminder of the hospitality of one of their 
 friends, a daimeo, a chest of woman's stuffs." 
 
 "Oh!" 
 
 "I've never opened it; but I've no doubt 
 there are a lot of things in that chest that 
 would come in for your Pitti Sing make-up." 
 
 "Do you think so? Aunt Mary!" cried 
 Katharine, "come here. Listen!" 
 
 "It's down at the office in one of the vaults, 
 with quantities of other junk," he continued, 
 after the story had been told to Aunt Mary. 
 "I'll have the box sent up. If there's any 
 thing in it you can use, use it." 
 
 "That would be too generous. I couldn't 
 do that." 
 
 75
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "It will lie there in the dust till the rats eat 
 holes in it if you don't. "What do you say, 
 Aunt Mary?" Poor Aunt Mary fluttered. 
 
 "It would help out like everything; but it 
 would be imposing too much." 
 
 He rolled his eyes. "The stuff is nothing 
 to me." 
 
 "Do you mean to say you have never opened 
 the chest?" exclaimed Katharine. 
 
 "No. But if you will promise to rummage 
 the thing and make up your costume out of it, 
 I'll send the chest and the keys up Monday 
 by one of the teams. Will you?" 
 
 Katharine swept back her hair with a sigh. 
 "I'm ashamed to say how welcome such a 
 chance would be like manna from heaven. 
 I'm so perplexed about a costume I'm nearly 
 sick." 
 
 "I'll gamble on the chest. Turn your worry 
 on something else." 
 
 "But I haven't anything else to worry 
 about." 
 
 Durant had said it was a small box, but the 
 entire apartment-house was alarmed before
 
 THE MIKADO COSTUME 
 
 the teamsters got the chest deposited in the 
 Sims' front hall. It was as big as a small 
 trunk, and when placed inside the door there 
 was no way of getting into the dining-room 
 without climbing over it. 
 
 When Katharine, after many ineffectual at 
 tempts, sprung the queer lock and raised the 
 heavy lid, they found within the rough outer 
 case a black lacquered chest. 
 
 Everything that a woman can love was 
 emptied out of that chest. Everything that a 
 woman can wear had been cunningly bestowed 
 in its modest depths. It was the far dainti 
 ness of a Tokio woman of rank disclosed un 
 der the distant skies of Chicago. There were 
 kimonas in it, and silk handkerchiefs issued 
 from corners that never emptied. Within, 
 were smaller boxes lacquered in gold for 
 jewels, and at the very bottom they found a 
 layer of obis. 
 
 Durant had promised to come up in the 
 evening and see what had been found. The 
 mantelpiece, the piano, the little table of the 
 living room were strewn with stuffs. 
 77
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Durant, our heads are giddy !" ex 
 claimed Katharine, as she greeted him. "Do 
 you really mean I am to have a costume out 
 of these lovely, lovely things V 
 
 "If you find anything you want." 
 
 She caught her breath. Everything seemed 
 to come so right when Durant spoke. Kath 
 arine gave one bound forward, as if she would 
 throw her arms around his neck, then she put 
 her hands over her face in confusion, turned 
 and flew down the hall. Aunt Mary found 
 Durant laughing softly, as he stuck his gloves 
 into his overcoat pocket. 
 
 "What are you laughing at ? All this mess ? 
 Did you ever see such confusion? Well, 
 really, Katharine is as near crazy as can be." 
 
 Durant headed for his chair in the front 
 room. It was some moments before Kath 
 arine, with moist lips and dewy eyes, reap 
 peared. He laughed again, as she spread on 
 his knees an obi and spoke, awed, of its fine 
 ness; and after the chest talk could be done 
 away he asked for a song. She sang the jewel 
 song of Marguerite. After more music, the 
 78
 
 THE MIKADO COSTUME 
 
 women, unappeased in their accounting, fell 
 again to the chest, and Durant, against in 
 clination, was made to follow the delving; 
 then a long evening went to planning, drap 
 ing, pinning, posing, selection and rejection 
 Durant in the big chair as judge till late in 
 the night. 
 
 79
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 AT THE DE VINNE 
 
 IT was on a November evening, slopping 
 villainously from the north and foggy, that 
 Lawrence's second season at the DeVinne 
 opened with the Mikado revival. 
 
 Katharine, hastening down early, saw only 
 the gloomy f agade of the big theater looming 
 up on the boulevard; the glory of its great 
 frame in electric blaze was reserved another 
 hour for those that paid. Opening night this 
 time meant as much as anything to Katharine, 
 a dressing-room, a first dressing-room, shared 
 with Peep Bo, of course chubby Anna 
 Weeks, the German girl with the wide throat, 
 from Diversey Street but, still, it was a 
 dressing-room with some privacy, some light 
 and some warmth. Aunt Mary, spectacled 
 80
 
 AT THE DEVINNE 
 
 and apprehensive, the chiefest Japanese 
 treasures clutched tightly in her hand-bag 
 and her emotions clutched in her mouth, sat 
 in the one available corner of the room exam 
 ining critically the lace edgings on Anna 
 Weeks' skirts hysterically jealous of any 
 body that was to compete even on the same 
 stage with Katharine for public favor. Kath 
 arine purposely spent a long time on her 
 face, for her companion was a rapid dresser, 
 and by the time Aunt Mary was called on to 
 disclose the stickpins and the fan and the 
 breath-taking obi the sweeping Japanese 
 sash that had been picked out to wear that 
 night Anna was dressed and up in the wings. 
 Katharine slipped into her soft silk kimona, 
 given so long ago by that ancient Japanese 
 daimeo to Durant. Then came the trinkets 
 from the bag with a flutter; the hair was 
 finished, the fan laid out, and Aunt Mary un 
 folded the obi like a benediction on the pretty 
 make-up, and began to bind it, sash-like, under 
 Katharine's arms. For a week Aunt Mary 
 had done nothing but tie butterfly knots 
 81
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 across Katharine's shoulders, and, thanks to 
 Barlow, who knew everything practically 
 everything, and what he didn't know was 
 never at loss to assume thanks to Barlow, 
 Aunt Mary could bow an obi with the best 
 Irishman among the dressers. 
 
 Katharine looked like a butterfly out of a 
 chrysalis, as she emerged timid and fluttering 
 from the dressing-room. Above, she heard 
 the music of the orchestra. A nervous chill 
 struck her, thinking she had spent too much 
 time dressing and that her stage entrance was 
 upon her. But, as she came above stairs, it 
 was only the men's chorus striving under the 
 terrific inspiration of the musical director, 
 and with a vocal earnestness that seemed to 
 imply they meant at every cost to hold their 
 jobs. 
 
 They were heralding the entrance of the 
 Lord High Executioner. Koko, ghastly in 
 pigment, stood in an upper entrance, com 
 plaining to the manager about the infernal 
 bias of the calcium man. The interval be 
 tween the time the squatty Koko rolled bow- 
 82
 
 AT THE DEVINNE 
 
 legged down the stage and Katharine's first 
 number seemed hardly a minute to her flutter 
 ing apprehension. Almost at once Sophie le 
 May started out of the recess and joined, with 
 out noticing, her two maid attendants. They 
 took their places, the cue passed, the girls' 
 chorus ran spreading out, the halting rhythm 
 of the opening bars of the Little Maids' en 
 trance sounded, and, flanked by the gorgeous 
 setting of the chorus, the three women 
 switched, simpering, out into the blaze of yel 
 lows and reds, into the burst of the blinding 
 light from the calciums, and shuffled artfully 
 coy quite down the big stage. 
 
 It was a whirl then, every minute, to the 
 close of the first act. The principals with 
 rapid, jerky lines, snatching at cues and airs ; 
 the chorus attacking with nervous precision ; 
 the weak spots unforeseen; the unlooked-for 
 in the rehearsal that developed in the trial. 
 Then came momentary intervals of dialogue, 
 that gave the musical director a chance to mop 
 his dripping forehead and his abject slaves 
 a chance to breathe it went so quickly, all of 
 83
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 it, and then the only moment that Katharine 
 took thought of was upon her. 
 
 Weeks had gone to work on that moment 
 the moment of the whole first half of the even 
 ing in which Katharine should have a chance 
 to show herself in the finale of the act when 
 Pitti Sing defies Katisha and, upbraiding her, 
 waltzes sarcastically across and across the 
 stage as she sings at the angry spinster. 
 
 "You'll have only a moment," Barlow had 
 said to her fifty times ; "but for that moment 
 the whole stage is yours. Take it as if it were 
 the hand of an old friend, and make your hit 
 in that waits song, so they'll look for you in 
 the execution song next act." 
 
 So Katharine had done the waltz for hours 
 together from the kitchen clear to the front 
 window of the flat and back again, and when 
 her cue came she was ready. With a sweep 
 of the big fan, that she threw into a running 
 bow of sarcasm at Katisha as she started for 
 ward, Katharine in a clear, confident tone 
 took her music, and, with her chin well up, 
 glided down the stage open-armed, floating, 
 84
 
 AT THE DEVINNE 
 
 as she sang to the perfect swing of the 
 music. 
 
 When it was done Katisha, who was big, 
 contralto, and friendly, looked her approval. 
 As Katharine, flushed with animation, swung 
 back to her place something else happened; 
 the eye of Sophie le May caught hers for an 
 instant an instant of cold, critical scrutiny. 
 Katharine, all open, successful and happy, did 
 not take its import at once, and not until the 
 opening of the last act did the jealous look 
 disclose itself in an actual scratch. While 
 Yum Yum's Sophie's attendants were at 
 tiring her for her bridals to the soothing 
 strains of the maidens' chorus, Katharine, as 
 Pitti, posed before her with a mirror. She 
 was not more than half in front of the dainty 
 Sophie, but the French eyes blazed. "Get 
 your place !" she hissed. Katharine, startled, 
 dropped the mirror; it broke on the stage 
 floor. Sophie's anger was an assault from the 
 last person on earth she expected trouble with, 
 and poor Katharine, tumbling from her point 
 of happiness, went to pieces. Her song near 
 85
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 the close of the act was yet to come, and when 
 it came she was so upset and so thoroughly 
 frightened at Sophie's rage that she sang her 
 song of Nanki's execution with a terror that 
 made an impression. Not with the big audi 
 ence that noticed only the principals: her 
 hit was not with the audience, but where it 
 counted with Benny Wilcox, the stage-mana 
 ger, whose business was to watch the 
 promise of the underlings and understudies; 
 she made a friend of the stage-manager with 
 her song, and with the one gorgeous obi out 
 of Durant's treasure chest, an enemy of So 
 phie le May. The next day she was told to 
 understudy Sophie. 
 
 Events crowded on her faster than work, 
 and the work came fast. Sophie le May's 
 jealousy became an open war on Katharine's 
 Pitti Sing. Durant was in New York, and 
 Aunt Mary and Katharine had to fight it all 
 alone. The whole company saw the persecu 
 tion, but most opera-singers have troubles of 
 their own, and the chorus girls were them 
 selves jealous of any one taken so unexpect- 
 86
 
 AT THE DEVINNE 
 
 edly from the ranks as Katharine had been. 
 Sophie exhausted the fineness of Gallic mean 
 ness. She appealed to the stage-manager, 
 complaining of Pitti Sing's gorgeousness and 
 of her attempts, so she declared, to take the 
 stage from her in her acting and her costume. 
 "When the stage-manager gave her no satis 
 faction she turned one night, as Katharine 
 sang up to her, and with one hand pushed her 
 back. Something of Aunt Mary and old Vir 
 ginia would not stand that. Katharine's sub 
 missive fear turned to wrath, and, fan in hand, 
 she flirted and swept and posed before the 
 angry Frenchwoman till Koko got to laugh 
 ing so that he put the manager in a rage. 
 Next morning Sophie brought things to a 
 crisis. She declined to sing again unless 
 Katharine was removed from the cast. The 
 quarrel went up to Lawrence. There were 
 hasty conferences in the manager's office and 
 a rushing of cabs to Sophie's hotel. She was 
 obdurate ; her ultimatum was that Katharine 
 be withdrawn. Then the skirmishing went to 
 the North Side. Benny Wilcox tried to get 
 7 87
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 Katharine to go down and make peace 
 with Sophie. Katharine, in tears, declared 
 she would die first. That night was a night 
 of gloom in the Sims' apartments. Katharine 
 had been told that if the thing could be patched 
 up a messenger would be sent for her. The 
 two women waited, miserable. The waiting 
 hour passed and no carriage wheels slowed 
 before their door. They crept, crushed, to 
 bed. At nine o'clock the bell rang ; the heads 
 of the two lone women left their pillows to 
 gether. 
 
 "Who is it?" demanded Aunt Mary, shiver 
 ing with excitement as she went forward, 
 while Katharine listened. 
 
 "All gone to bed?" 
 
 "It's Mr. Durant!" cried Aunt Mary. 
 "Oh, Mr. Durant, will you wait just a 
 minute?" 
 
 "No ; I won't disturb you to-night. I'll call 
 again " 
 
 "But we want to see you. Oh, don't go, 
 please; we must see you, Mr. Durant. Let 
 me light the gas, then I'll unlock so you can 
 88
 
 AT THE DEVINNE 
 
 let yourself in, and we'll join you in a jiffy. 
 Now you will stay, won't you !" 
 
 He opened the door on Aunt Mary's signal, 
 and going into the living-room sat down. 
 
 "You keep good hours," suggested Durant, 
 as Aunt Mary appeared and performed her 
 one extravagant welcome by lighting the gas- 
 log. 
 
 "I am so glad you've come !" she exclaimed, 
 rising. "Katharine's in the worst trouble 
 wait till she comes in, I want her to tell you 
 herself. How are you?" she exclaimed, ey 
 ing him critically through her spectacles, as 
 she sat down and pulled one sleeve into place. 
 "You haven't been ill!" 
 
 "No. New York ; just back yesterday," said 
 Durant. "I dropped in at the DeVinne last 
 night. Miss Katharine surprised me. She'll 
 run away from us all if we don't look out; 
 she's an actress. Lots to learn; but she's an 
 actress. To-night I went back and missed 
 her, so I came over to see what the row 
 was." 
 
 "Oh, wait till she tells you. It's dreadful." 
 89
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 Katharine, almost running, came with both 
 hands outstretched as Durant rose. She had 
 on one of the chest kimonas. "I slipped into 
 this !" she exclaimed, radiantly, as she stepped 
 back, half laughing, and with spreading arms 
 courtesied deep before him, "mindful of the 
 command of the Oriental traveler. Remem 
 ber? You said you wanted to see how some 
 of your spoil would look animated. Pray, 
 how do you like the effect?" 
 
 It was an instant before he answered, "Mag 
 nificent." The word was a whole tribute. 
 
 "And what do you think?" Katharine ex 
 claimed, reverting to her own troubles, as she 
 sank rue-faced on the piano-stool. ' ' Sophie le 
 May, that horrid Frenchwoman, has had me 
 put out of the cast !" 
 
 Durant laughed silently. "I'm not sur 
 prised." 
 
 "You're noW 
 
 "I should rather have looked for it." 
 
 "But I've never done a single thing to her 
 in my life." 
 
 "I think you have." 
 90
 
 AT THE DEVINNE 
 
 "Pray, tell me what !" 
 
 "You out-acted her and out-sung her only 
 last night. Other people haven't yet found 
 out you are doing it; but she's quicker than 
 other people." 
 
 "Oh, no; it wasn't that. It was my cos 
 tume, Anna Weeks says. She's insanely jeal 
 ous. It's away ahead of hers or anybody 
 else's for that matter. But no other poor girl 
 had so good, good a friend and such a chest 
 to help herself from as I had." 
 
 "I've been telling your aunt I saw you last 
 night. You act like a professional." 
 
 Katharine raised her brows. "Profes 
 sional ! Well, I should hope I'm at least that," 
 she protested. 
 
 "Not to me," returned Durant, bluntly. 
 "Anyway, I can't quite place you so." 
 
 "Pray, why not?" 
 
 "I suppose it's because I know you so much 
 better than I know professional people now 
 adays." 
 
 "And I suppose I must believe you," she re 
 torted, naively. ''Though Mr. Barlow tells 
 91
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 me your acquaintance with stage people is 
 wide." 
 
 "Tell me what the trouble is. This is get 
 ting interesting, even for outsiders." 
 
 Sitting on the stool Katharine, with the ut 
 most spirit, told her story. Her lessons in 
 expression showed now constantly in her man 
 ner, as they do in the earlier life of actresses, 
 and she could not relate a street-car incident 
 without fervor. 
 
 They talked a long time. Afterward Aunt 
 Mary found some chicken which she heated, 
 Virginia fashion, and the talk went to the 
 dining-room, where Durant, his stubby gray 
 hair falling short over his forehead, sat at 
 the head of the round table. Katharine, with 
 never-failing animation, did the talking. Aunt 
 Mary interpleaded considerably, and Durant 
 slowly buttered a cracker or holding a chicken- 
 bone in the finger and the thumb of one hand 
 shredded it thoughtfully with his fork as he 
 listened. 
 
 "If there are any new developments to 
 morrow " he began on leaving. 
 
 92
 
 AT THE DEVINNE 
 
 "I'll telephone you!" exclaimed Katharine. 
 
 ' ' Good night, Aunt Mary. ' ' 
 
 "Good night, Mr. Durant" 
 
 "Your chicken was excellent." 
 
 "Thank you." 
 
 "Good night, Miss Katharine. Keep me 
 posted, won't you f ' 
 
 At eleven o'clock next day Durant called on 
 Mabel Anthony. "My little singer is in trou 
 ble," he began, after her greeting. 
 
 "What little singer f ' 
 
 "Katharine Sims Doctor Sims' daughter." 
 
 "Oh. Your little singer is getting to be a 
 pretty big singer, isn't she?" 
 
 "Is she ? I hope so. Well, they've shelved 
 her for some reason." 
 
 "I know all about it." 
 
 "Help me straighten it out, will you?" 
 
 She made a despairing gesture with her 
 dark eyes. "It's an awful row." 
 
 "Women's rows usually are, aren't they?" 
 
 "Mistress Katharine is too lively for So 
 phie." 
 
 "Out-sings her, doesn't she ?" 
 93
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "Well, it isn't that. Katharine is an ag 
 gressive miss and she takes too much stage 
 for Sophie. Then she made up in a costume 
 that simply thunderstruck Sophie. Opening 
 night Lawrence said to me, 'There's a cos 
 tume that has never been approached at a 
 DeVinne presentation, and we think we've 
 seen some costumes here, too.' He talked for 
 five minutes about it. Where did she get such 
 stuffs ? They must be heirlooms. It's a pity, 
 really, to shab them out in that way." 
 
 "Did Lawrence like or dislike it?" 
 
 "A man that wears a plush jacket himself? 
 He likes anything sensational." 
 
 Durant mused. "I wish it were patched up 
 somehow." 
 
 "Patch it up yourself. Go and see Sophie. 
 You used to be good friends when she first 
 came over." 
 
 He shook his head. "I'll tell you!" ex 
 claimed Mabel Anthony, "Lawrence is to be 
 at a managers' luncheon to-day at the Riche 
 lieu. They're going to talk over the Actors' 
 Fund Benefit next month. I'm going. Come 
 94
 
 AT THE DEVINNE 
 
 along, and you may talk to Lawrence your 
 self." 
 
 "Sha'n't I be an intruder?" 
 
 She tossed her head. "They'll want you 
 on the general committee. I think I'm weighty 
 enough to stand for you, anyway." 
 
 Durant did not undervalue the opportunity. 
 He called early in a cab for Miss Anthony, 
 and in the Richelieu parlors they waited 
 for the arrivals. When Lawrence, tall and 
 fussy, and dressy and bald, stepped from the 
 elevator, Miss Anthony, under Durant's wing, 
 went forward, gloved and hatted. Greet 
 ings followed. The manager was cordial 
 to Durant. "We don't see much of you 
 lately." 
 
 "I'm in New York a good deal." 
 
 "You're working too hard you're not look 
 ing well. Come down with me to Mardi Gras 
 in February and get rested up. I'm going to 
 take a month if I can." 
 
 "I like that!" cried Miss Anthony. "That's 
 a great place to get rested. Don't you do it, 
 Mr. Durant. There's Mr. Stein and Will An- 
 95
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 derson. I want to see Will Anderson a mo 
 ment." She moved away. 
 
 "Have you seen the Mikado?" asked Law 
 rence. 
 
 "Havel? I've seen it twice. Lawrence, it's 
 a marvel. Sophie le May's voice, of course, 
 isn't precisely a voice for Sullivan's music 
 your staging is a dream." Miss Anthony re* 
 joined them. 
 
 "How's your row, Mr. Lawrence?" she 
 asked. He scowled. "I've been telling Mr. 
 Durant your troubles," she added. "Such a 
 shame, when you've spent such a mint on your 
 production." 
 
 "Isn't it an infernal begging your par 
 don," Lawrence interjected at Miss Anthony 
 "shame, Durant?" 
 
 "Won't she listen to reason?" 
 
 "Listen to reason ? She won't listen to " 
 
 "Is she running your company, or are you 
 running it?" asked Durant, quietly harsh. 
 
 "I'm running it ; but what can I do ?" 
 
 "What can you do? Who's that girl you 
 have doing Pitti Sing ? She's out-singing and 
 96
 
 AT THE DEVINNE 
 
 out-acting Sophie every night in the week. 
 What's the matter with billing her for Yum 
 Yum? Send Sophie to your New York Com 
 pany. It needs strengthening, from the way 
 they talk down there. When do you folks eat 
 here ? Are these people all managers ?" 
 
 The party went to the dining-room. Mabel 
 Anthony sat on one side of Lawrence, Durant, 
 taciturn, on the other. The nervous DeVinne 
 manager was soon fermenting. 
 
 "What do you think of that?" he whispered 
 to Miss Anthony, after a while. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Putting Sims up for Yum Yum next 
 week?" 
 
 "Can she sing it?" 
 
 "She has been understudying it right 
 along." 
 
 ' ' It would be a big ' ad., ' wouldn 't it to side 
 with the Chicago girl? If you think she can 
 do it, I shouldn't hesitate a minute. What are 
 you running in New York? You can use So 
 phie there just as well." 
 
 Careful to let Lawrence feel that he was 
 97
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 reaching his own conclusions, they hung near 
 him for an hour; then Durant drove Mabel 
 back to her newspaper office. He took her 
 hand in saying good-by. "You're the best- 
 hearted woman of them all." She shook her 
 head as she drew her fingers away, smiling 
 with a slight weariness. Then she appeared 
 about to speak, but her expression changed 
 and she said only, "Good-by. Come and see 
 me when I can do anything for any friend of 
 yours." 
 
 That night Durant had a telegram from the 
 North Side: "Mr. L. called this afternoon. 
 Was lovely. Stayed a whole hour. Am to 
 sing Yum Yum next week. 
 
 "K. S." 
 
 98
 
 CHAPTER VIH 
 
 A SONG AND AN ACCOUNTING 
 
 ON Monday night Durant sat in an obscure 
 corner of the DeVinne parquet. His sack 
 coat snugly cut, his arms folded, his close 
 mustache and his hair falling stubbornly, so 
 marked him that his features reflected the con 
 tained, grayish expression of his apparel. 
 Through the whole of the first act he sat im 
 movable, and any one of the singers would 
 have thought it a despairing matter to appeal 
 to such an auditor. The second act of the 
 Mikado opened with its chorus of girls, and 
 as they fled out of the blaze of brightness the 
 music ceased, the jets were sent very low, and 
 the recesses of the big stage were dimmed 
 into gloom. 
 
 The hush that follows a low lighting spread 
 over the house; the orchestra, under hooded 
 99
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 lamps, picked up very gently a strain of rock 
 ing music, and Katharine Sims, stealing, 
 alone, out and down the huge phantom setting, 
 lifted her voice in the Moon Song. 
 
 It was familiar enough ; yet to one man in 
 the big audience to Durant this stealing, 
 singing girl, with her halting feet, creeping 
 shyly down the stage, came like an assault. 
 She strangely moved him. In her make-up, 
 her mincing, her mimicry, came to him some 
 thing vague of the fragrance of the pagan 
 East. But in the honest sweetness of her 
 \ voice came mightier as reality is mightier 
 . than a dream all the pure traditions of his 
 better self, his own country, his people, his 
 blood and kind. With every step she took 
 toward him her eyes through the darkness ap 
 peared to seek his as she had said they 
 should. Her arm from the folds of her ki- 
 mona, following the play of her running 
 words, stole forth bare ; the turn of her wrist 
 sent a choking current through him, and his 
 breath struggled against control. Her song 
 he no longer heard ; to him she was a woman 
 100
 
 A SONG AND AN ACCOUNTING 
 
 like to no other, and he no longer denied his 
 being its impulse to love her with every 
 sense of life. 
 
 There was applause about him. It rose in 
 waves while he drew his handkerchief to wipe 
 a moisture of faintness from his forehead. 
 The hand-clapping increased ; she was bowing 
 and his throat was filling like the level of a 
 spring, rising or falling as she came forward 
 or receded. Heartier applause followed. Du- 
 rant watched her curtsy again and again. A 
 boy ran past him down the aisle, carrying an 
 armful of roses ; it went as a dream. He knew 
 only one thing that she was a sudden angel 
 to every desire and longing of his life. 
 
 The stage lighted, filled again ; the Mikado 
 danced in, Koko capered ; Durant, impassive, 
 sat consumed by his emotions. There was no 
 play, no music, for him. After the measures 
 of the last chorus had been thundered out, 
 he was pushed and crowded along in the cur 
 rent for the exits. Back of the parquet circle 
 seats he stepped out of the crowd to hunt up 
 an usher, whom he vaguely remembered he 
 101
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 had commissioned earlier in the evening. The 
 faces of the audience filing past were strange. 
 Society people such as he knew the people 
 who went to first nights and unusual stage 
 events were not of this big houseful. These 
 were ordinary people. But these hundreds 
 of strange faces, of well-dressed men and 
 women, who crowded to hear her sing, inter 
 ested him. Some one caught his hand and 
 called him enthusiastically by name. 
 
 "Say, isn't it great? By Jove! that Kath 
 arine Sims makes a Yum Yum for your life, 
 doesn't she, Mr. Durant? Isn't she a corker? 
 She's been singing Pitti Sing. She's all 
 right!" It was one of his clerks from the of 
 fice. 
 
 In a moment Durant's eye lighted on the 
 usher he was looking for. 
 
 "Did you take up the flowers?" 
 
 "Why, sure! In the Moon Song. Didn't 
 you see me?" 
 
 He gave the boy a card. "Come to my office 
 to-morrow morning at eleven. I want to use 
 
 you again." 
 
 102
 
 A SONG AND AN ACCOUNTING 
 
 He hardly turned when another spoke. 
 
 "Hello, old boy! What you doin' 'round 
 here to-night!" Stein stood at his elbow. 
 "I'm over here now; did you know that? I 
 quit the Caxton. Going to take this troupe 
 for Lawrence. He's going to New York next 
 week. Well, what you lookin' for 1 Oh, I for 
 got" and the man that never forgot apol 
 ogized for his stupidity "Yum Yum. She's 
 all right, eh, George?" he grinned. Durant 
 laid one hand on him. 
 
 "See here, Stein. Don't ever couple me or 
 my name with Yum Yum or any one else do 
 you understand?" The little man winced un 
 der the cruel fingers. "Understand, Stein?" 
 
 At the stage entrance Katharine, bundled, 
 was stepping into the carriage he had pro 
 vided ; Aunt Mary, behind her, stepping over 
 all the curb and into the gutter to find the 
 step. They had insisted when he said he 
 should send a carriage that he ride home 
 with them for supper, but he had said 
 no. And walking now down the boulevard 
 alone he was glad he had said no, for some- 
 8 103
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 thing seemed to loom between her and him 
 something crystallized in Stein's leer. 
 
 It was that if he paid to this girl even as 
 much as the courtesies of her father's friend, 
 his own too public, too careless name, the free 
 and easy name of old, would be coupled, to her 
 undoing, with hers. And now he loved her. 
 He walked alone that night, and his room 
 when he entered it was lonely. There was a 
 fire still in the grate. Seymour, who of late, 
 frightened at Durant's breaking health, had 
 slept near him, woke sometime in the night, 
 and, in passing to the bathroom for a drink 
 of water, found the boy Seymour always 
 called George Durant the boy in front of the 
 fire burning a litter of photographs. 
 
 The next day kept Durant close at the of 
 fice. It was a wild day in coffee. The sta 
 tistical position was bad. Eio had long been 
 swamped under daily receipts, Havre had 
 been uneasy for a month, and that morning 
 Herrman had begun smashing Sevens on the 
 New York Exchange. The terrific fight of 
 the roasters was beginning, and every day 
 104
 
 and day after day the market sagged under 
 the savage blows of the Havemeyers. Im 
 porters saw their holdings shrink till all low 
 records were gone, and men on the street 
 spoke under their breaths of a new order of 
 things of the passing of an old coffee mar 
 ket and of the facing a new one. 
 
 Every eye on the street was turned toward 
 the corner of Sloan-Durant. They were the 
 big people on whom the new order would tell. 
 
 Some talked of their holding out; others 
 said that this time Durant must go. Some 
 quoted the Santos cables with no rain for five 
 weeks and the poorest flowering in ten years ; 
 others declared it meant new factors in the 
 coffee business. Some recalled the stirring 
 pages of Sloan-Durant history the history 
 of the lions of the coffee market; the men 
 that fought in the open, never asked quarter, 
 rarely gave it: others shook their heads. 
 Salesmen with dramatic force recounted red- 
 letter days in George Durant's own career, 
 type of the fortunes of his house, and told to 
 reflecting listeners stories of convulsions in 
 105
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 coffee in which he had borne fierce part. 
 Others, joining groups at brokers' counters, 
 whispered, as the ticker clicked and messen 
 gers dashed up the street and down, that 
 George Durant was at his desk in Eandolph 
 Street. 
 
 Day after day he sat there directing the 
 fight for his existence as a merchant. No 
 body knew, nobody could guess his tactics. 
 Now, for the first time, he fought from cover. 
 The contest was between New York million 
 aires ; it was none of his. But it meant ruin 
 for him unless he could avert it, and in one 
 hour his policy was fixed : to sell every bag as 
 fast as it could be sold, and take the loss just 
 where it caught him. 
 
 So it was done. Brokers that never in their 
 lives had had a commission from Sloan-Du- 
 rant went on the New York Exchange loaded 
 to the throat with selling orders. Weakness 
 became confusion. Option after option was 
 thrown on the market, frightened and expect 
 ant, until every dollar of Durant 's specula 
 tive holdings had been liquidated. Apprehen- 
 106
 
 A SONG AND AN ACCOUNTING 
 
 sion grew into alarm and alarm into panic 
 but the Sloan-Durant coffee to the last bag, 
 future and afloat, was thrown over. Mean 
 time on the street the house were free sellers 
 at every step of the frightful decline. Every 
 man that would buy a bag of coffee was fol 
 lowed ; no offer was declined. On the day be 
 fore Christmas coffees stood three and one- 
 half cents off the top of the November selling 
 movement. Sloan-Durant were out of the 
 market, and had been for two weeks. To the 
 surprise of the prophets the enormous liqui 
 dation, the sudden and overwhelming shifting 
 of values had been accomplished without a 
 failure of consequence in the coffee trade. It 
 was known then who had taken the bull by 
 the horns and unloaded early on a market 
 that would have bankrupted him had there 
 been a moment's delay or hesitation George 
 Durant. 
 
 On Christmas Eve Thomas Seymour took 
 
 into the private office a balance-sheet. The 
 
 old accountant had stood this last of many 
 
 tempests badly, and the tremble had crept 
 
 107
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 more visibly into his walk. He stood for the 
 failing strength of the house whose fortunes 
 he had followed. Tall, stooping, shuffling; 
 uncertain in his step and in his eye, the eye 
 that when faced squarely he hid by fingering 
 his glasses; shrunken in his voice, which to 
 others had dried to a querulous treble, and 
 before George Durant was wholly silent, 
 Thomas Seymour laid on the chief's desk the 
 balance for the year. 
 
 The record for the first ten months was un 
 eventful enough; then came two frightful 
 entries November, December. The Import 
 ing Account ; the Option Account. Durant sat 
 looking out on the crush of trucks and teams 
 under the elevated, and at the whirl of peo 
 ple making for the Illinois Central. It was 
 growing dark, and in the dark he sat, unob 
 served, tapping mechanically with a lead- 
 pencil on the edge of his desk. He took up 
 the sheet as Seymour turned on an Edison 
 lamp, and, studying it, contemplated his ruin. 
 It was only for a moment ; the results had been 
 discounted many times within the month just 
 108
 
 A SONG AND AN ACCOUNTING 
 
 passed. The house was solvent; there was 
 no bankruptcy ; but there was no surplus. It 
 was the chapter which closed the book that 
 Mortimer, Sloan, Ross, and Simon Durant, 
 young men, had opened in New York, a thou 
 sand miles from that spot, fifty-two years 
 before. George Durant turned. 
 
 "There is only one thing to do, Tom." 
 His voice was kindly. Seymour's gray head 
 bent in his hands and a flood of tears rained 
 through his fingers. "It is your misfortune, 
 my dear fellow," Durant went on, slowly, 
 "that you have outlived the day of the joint 
 account. It made us rich ; but it is a thing of 
 the past. We are out of it, Tom. Im 
 porters we can no longer call ourselves. 
 Charge off this whole importing plant," he 
 said, with awful, deliberate emphasis "the 
 Eio branch, the Santos branch, everything 
 to profit and loss and never let me see a bal 
 ance-sheet of it again. 
 
 "To-morrow open a new set of books. We 
 will turn pedlers. We are brokers now, and 
 we will try to compete with our neighbors." 
 109
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 Outside, with the gathering darkness, the 
 stream of home-going people thickened, and 
 the crush of teams with the jam of cable- 
 trains deepened into an infernal uproar. But 
 where real ruin was, in the private office, Du- 
 rant spoke quiet words to the old bookkeeper, 
 and when Seymour rose, closed his desk, and 
 followed him between the desks of the ac 
 countants to the window counters of the sales 
 room. A messenger came with a note from 
 his florist, asking about the usual ordering 
 of flowers for Christmas. One after another 
 of names that had stood for years Durant 
 struck from the list. But one order he left: 
 the order for the DeVinne. It had stood at two 
 dozen long-stemmed American Beauty roses 
 for each evening. Reaching this order, the 
 last on the list, he struck out two dozen and 
 inserted four dozen, writing the figure and 
 the word four with the exactness he used in 
 telegrams, that there should be no mistake. 
 
 Durant put on his overcoat; another mes 
 senger boy entered the office. He brought a 
 note from Aunt Mary Sims asking him to 
 110
 
 A SONG AND AN ACCOUNTING 
 
 come at seven o'clock the next evening to 
 Christmas dinner. Katharine, she said, would 
 sing at the matinee, and they should be unex 
 pectedly free for the evening. 
 
 It had been the Sims' happiest Christmas, 
 the only happy Christmas since their father 
 and breadwinner had died. They possessed 
 money to do a few things with ; in spite of all 
 the demands for stage toilets, Katharine had 
 a new dress, a street dress, and carried her 
 head with something of confidence. 
 
 There had been callers during the last few 
 days. Some of the old church friends on the 
 South Side had hunted up the remnants of 
 the Sims family, which had so suddenly 
 dropped into obscurity after the doctor's 
 death, to satisfy themselves with their own 
 eyes if it were really so ; whether it was she, 
 and to congratulate Katharine on her aston^ 
 ishing success. Katharine smiled at such 
 compliments, for she thought she could af 
 ford to. Others had come with genuine in 
 terest and enthusiasm and hand pressures. 
 So the Simses were happy, and dinner was 
 111
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 just one half -hour late because Katharine had 
 a surprise. After all the day's dressing and 
 singing, she had planned when she got home to 
 put on her new costume for Erminie, in which 
 she was to sing right after the holidays, to 
 surprise Mr. Durant. For the first time since 
 Durant had been calling at the Sims' flat a 
 maid admitted him, and in the kitchen Aunt 
 Mary had a real cook preparing the din 
 ner. 
 
 The rooms were full of roses. There were 
 roses scattered everywhere about. It was a 
 quarter of eight when she came from her room. 
 But when she pushed aside the portieres and 
 stood forth, it was like a burst of light. She 
 looked the princess, and, as she stood, she was 
 a princess. Then she pattered through the 
 hall, carrying her creamy gown as she half 
 ran, like a college girl masquerading. 
 
 Durant wore evening clothes. She broke 
 into a little laugh as he took her hand. "I 
 didn't suppose you were going to dress for 
 this dinner!" 
 
 "I didn't suppose you were." 
 112
 
 A SONG AND AN ACCOUNTING 
 
 Aunt Mary looked in. "The turkey is 
 served." 
 
 "Then the honor, I trust, is mine?" sug 
 gested Durant, offering his arm to Katharine. 
 
 Her hair left high in her stage make-up of 
 the afternoon was a winning brown, and her 
 face took her flushes as apples take sunshine. 
 To her complexion she added clear eyes and 
 health. She was sudden, graceful, and her 
 decollete gown would take one's breath. She 
 won from Durant his deepest bow the trib 
 ute of one skilled in beauty to a child that 
 has unconsciously achieved it. With a pretty 
 raillery, a raillery without words, she took 
 his arm. When he seated her under the can 
 dles she began a running comment of opera- 
 house talk that followed his knife over and 
 through the turkey like a sauce. 
 
 "And that isn't the worst of it," she added, 
 when Durant had begun to eat and she was 
 finishing an account of her troubles with the 
 new musical director, who was inclined to 
 keep her to every encore. "I have an admirer." 
 
 "Many." 
 
 113
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "Oh, now ! But I have owe." 
 
 "I can understand it." 
 
 "A mysterious admirer." 
 
 "Mysterious to add zest like this gravy, 
 Aunt Mary. Is this a Virginia gravy I" asked 
 Durant. 
 
 "Oh, listen to the comparison! I've heard 
 of women being called geese and ducks but 
 I never heard of one being likened to a tur 
 key! Oh, now please stop. You needn't try 
 to change the subject. Don't you answer, 
 Mariana. He sends me roses always the 
 same American Beauty roses and such 
 quantities, and to-day think of it! That 
 great big, lovely centerpiece of them. Auntie, 
 unveil the centerpiece!" 
 
 Katharine had contrived to bank the Christ 
 mas offering of flowers into a huge pyramid 
 on the dinner-table, and had thrown over it 
 one of the exquisitely diaphanous squares of 
 silk from the chest. She reached to the cen 
 ter of the table, caught a corner of the veiling, 
 threw it back, and her aunt lifted it away from 
 the flowers. Durant exclaimed "Bravo !" 
 114
 
 A SONG AND AN ACCOUNTING 
 
 "I'm beginning to study effects," confessed 
 Katharine. 
 
 "You've already mastered them." 
 
 "But look at him, Auntie ! He doesn't even 
 blush. It's a total failure. I expected you 
 would be overwhelmed with confusion, and 
 you're not a bit." 
 
 Durant took a morsel of turkey on his 
 fork. "If you'll tell me what to do, I'll 
 do it." 
 
 "Tell me that you are the wretch that hides 
 his identity from a maiden's heart " 
 
 "Is that fair? Would you call yourself a 
 wretch to oblige me?" 
 
 "Confess you've hedged these flowers with 
 mystery sent no card, no word; pledged 
 your slaves to silence, prevented in every way 
 my getting at the truth." 
 
 "If you say so, certainly. I'm not going 
 to let the flowers go begging. If the fellow 
 that sent them is turkey enough to hide I'll 
 take the credit myself. To tell the truth, I've 
 been expecting you to thank me. Now will 
 you let me alone? Aunt Mary," he drawled, 
 115
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "is it justice to your dinner to involve me in 
 frittering discussions ?" 
 
 They had never spent such an evening to 
 gether. If there were moments of reflection 
 for Durant, that made the blows of the preced 
 ing month harder to bear ; no trace of depres 
 sion passed the mask of his feelings. To Kath 
 arine's spirit he was a foil, alert and ready. 
 When it grew late, and with the resting of a 
 wit long sustained, quieter topics took more 
 of the talk, their hearts opened all together 
 to reminiscent moods to Durant's early ac 
 quaintance with them, and to Katharine's 
 hard-earned advancement. He was thinking 
 still of that of the wonder of her daring and 
 her success when he reached his empty rooms. 
 
 116
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 ROSES AND VIOLETS 
 
 DURANT, at the beginning of the New Year, 
 on which he wound up his joint-account con 
 tracts and embarked in brokerage, had one 
 intense, definite aim in his affairs; namely, 
 to put on its feet a new business a small, 
 snug business, free from hazards of specula 
 tion to do this with the utmost celerity, then 
 to ask Katharine Sims to become his wife. 
 It is certain that he went about his new plans 
 with the method and thoroughness that 
 marked all his business efforts; one thing 
 only hampered him his shattered health. In 
 a business such as he proposed, his own per 
 sonality would of necessity be the chief factor 
 in success. 
 
 As soon as new connections could be formed 
 117
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 George Durant was out on the street with 
 coffee samples. It was a matter somewhat 
 of street talk, for Durant had not carried a 
 sample pan to a buyer's desk in many years. 
 Buyers often had sought him ; now he sought 
 the buyers. Breaking into the new work was 
 not altogether pleasant. The men Durant knew 
 intimately in his days on the street had gone 
 up-stairs to junior partnerships and like ad 
 vanced positions. New faces and younger 
 men sat at buyers' desks in the salesrooms of 
 the larger houses. Durant recalled the day 
 when the head of each house bought all the 
 staples himself; now the work was done by 
 boys boys, at least, to him, a much older 
 man than those whose attention and favor he 
 sought to enlist. Some of them treated him 
 with cordial respect ; some were flippant, some 
 busy, some short in their interviews. He went 
 about conscientiously to the big houses and 
 to the small ones. In one of the latter he got 
 a cutting thrust from a wizened old foreigner, 
 head of the firm. This man had an ancient 
 grudge against Sloan-Durant. In a dishon- 
 118
 
 EOSES AND VIOLETS 
 
 est claim for damage they had, years before, 
 convicted him of cheating and disallowed his 
 demand. He leered as Durant approached his 
 desk and spoke. He pointed to the coif ee pans 
 under Durant's arm. "The boys lit a fire un 
 der you, hey ? Got to git out and peddle. Ha ! 
 ha! ha! Veil, how goes it, Durant? Vat you 
 got?" 
 
 It was the hyena's only chance to revenge 
 the old affront to strike at the wounded lion 
 and he took it to the full. Durant knew per 
 fectly well what to expect. He knew that this 
 commercial thief would examine with scrupu 
 lous attention every pan of coffee he carried ; 
 that he would claw the berries, compare with 
 pretended interest, ask a price sneer in af 
 fected surprise shake his head, adjust his 
 spectacles and make an insulting offer half 
 a cent below the market. It could not be 
 helped; thieves sometimes succeed; their af 
 fairs become considerable. It is part of the 
 business, Durant reflected as he walked up the 
 street. The buyers of to-day, not those of 
 yesterday, are the ones that must be reck- 
 9 119
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 oned with. But he reflected also as he reached 
 the office after his morning round that he had 
 sold no coffee. 
 
 After a day of work such as this of con 
 tinual effort, a few bags of coffee sold, fa 
 tigue and sometimes exhaustion Durant had 
 for the evening one ever fresh stimulus, one 
 unfailing delight : a seat reserved in the quiet 
 of the DeVinne parquet, where he could listen 
 to Katharine Sims in any one of the round of 
 light operas that Lawrence gave Chicago that 
 year. With legs to one side comfortably 
 crossed, arms folded over his full chest, head 
 rather back, serious eyes, the pupils some 
 what wide, Durant would sit, on Katharine's 
 nights, like a statue from the beginning to the 
 end of the play. 
 
 Visibly there was nothing to signalize his 
 interest, unless, indeed, his unvarying quiet 
 should do so ; but from behind his folded arms 
 there rose continual incense to the woman that 
 he loved with the happiness of a constantly 
 growing conviction of her excellence in voice 
 and manner. The ensembles, the climaxes, 
 120
 
 ROSES AND VIOLETS 
 
 the finales in which she led became to Durant 
 quivering realities. When she stood forth and 
 raised her full, penetrating tones when her 
 arms swept impulsively out to point a sus 
 tained note Durant thrilled ; it lifted him out 
 of himself, out of everything around, and he 
 would go to his room recalling one expres 
 sion of her face or form of a full, round arm 
 carrying her sensitive hand raised only a 
 little from her side, in a gesture natural to 
 her alone and if, as in Erminie, the hand 
 sparkled with some of his old rings or brace 
 lets spoil of the travel of younger days, 
 which he had forced her to take for her make 
 ups he gave himself to a complete happi 
 ness as he walked out into the night. Much 
 that he would have loved to do for her in the 
 way of little attentions he denied himself, un 
 willing that it should even be remarked he 
 was attentive. 
 
 A few months seemed to lift Katharine 
 
 from obscurity. The papers began to speak 
 
 of her ; friends began to come to her ; enemies 
 
 to rise up. Each evidence of budding popu- 
 
 121
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 larity, in turn, presented itself in one brief 
 season. 
 
 During the Easter holidays a run of the 
 Grenadiers was put on. Crowded houses ruled 
 for the entire week. College men, home for an 
 outing, made the most of the DeVinne gaiety, 
 and boxes were alive with Easter girls and 
 brimming boys from Yale and Harvard and 
 Princeton. The company enjoyed the rout 
 the chatter that killed their duller lines, the 
 hush that met their ensembles, the guying for 
 the chorus, the uproarious applause for the 
 good jokes and the riotous encores for the 
 favorites. To Katharine it was an ovation. 
 The Easter girls, gay in flowered hats, and 
 flaunting college colors, took up Katharine. 
 It was her first experience with unquench 
 able admirers; genuine young people, whose 
 appetites for flowers and candy and for her 
 were stout beyond palling. One box on the 
 right had been taken the entire week for 
 Katharine's nights and for her Saturday 
 matine'e by a party of Smith College girls, 
 who had made her an especial fad and who 
 122
 
 ROSES AND VIOLETS 
 
 forced their young men to behave whenever 
 Katharine opened her mouth to sing. Thurs 
 day night the three girls sent a note in to 
 Katharine asking if they might meet her. 
 Thursday night, after singing Wednesday, 
 was always a hard night for Katharine. 
 She sent word that if they would wait till the 
 Saturday matine'e she would see them. On 
 Saturday they had their box made into a 
 bower of Smith and Yale colors, and the oc 
 cupants were as lively as the decorations. 
 
 At the curtain after the second act, which 
 closes with the famous ballroom scene, the 
 assistant stage-manager, entering the box, 
 told the young ladies that if they would follow 
 him Miss Sims would be pleased to see them 
 for a few moments. The leader of the three 
 girls, Bessie Ross, a tall, dancing-eyed miss, 
 sprang up. "Oh, thank you. Come on, girls, 
 quick. Come, George, and you, too, Mr. Cook, 
 come on." 
 
 To schoolgirls the mere crossing of the 
 threshold that leads behind the stage is awe 
 some. As they followed their guide fast 
 123
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 among the shifters and helpers and elec 
 tricians and stray groups of chorus girls and 
 men, the trip became wildly exciting to them. 
 The very haste, the confusion, the bewilder 
 ment of costumes and suspenders and shirt 
 sleeves, the babel of the strange and unfa 
 miliar, led their expectations in leaps and 
 bounds up to the meeting of the woman for 
 whom this whole infernal din and excitement 
 existed the star Katharine Sims. 
 
 As they approached she started from under 
 an electric lamp, just as she had left the stage. 
 Bessie Ross ran up with hands extended. "It 
 is so good of you 1" she cried. "This is Alice 
 Carpenter and this is Julia Carpenter " 
 
 "Sisters f smiled Katharine. 
 
 "No, not a bit of it. That's the joke no 
 relation at all, and everybody says they look 
 so much alike; but they're both Smith girls, 
 and so am I, and, oh, we saw your Smith col 
 ors at the guards' ball ; wasn't that nice of you, 
 and did you see our "box T Did you 1 Isn't it 
 right pretty now, and we've been here every 
 
 time you've sung this week " 
 
 124
 
 KOSES AND VIOLETS 
 
 "And, oh! we think you sing divinely," 
 broke in Alice, "and we're not going to start 
 back till Tuesday." 
 
 "So we can hear you sing Monday night, 
 and there's a whole lot more of Smith girls 
 will be here!" exclaimed Julia. "And we've 
 taken two whole rows in the orchestra for 
 them " said Bessie Boss. "Because we 
 couldn't get boxes enough," explained Julia, 
 "You're so fearfully popular," laughed Alice. 
 "And, oh, girls, we haven't presented " 
 
 "The men," exclaimed Bessie, turning, "I 
 declare I completely " 
 
 Katharine, smiling before the torrent, inter 
 posed a protest. "But I didn't understand 
 there were to be men. I don't receive men in 
 make-up, my dears." 
 
 "Dear Miss Sims, it's only brother George 
 and little Mr. Cook." 
 
 "Oh." 
 
 "You needn't speak to them ; just let them 
 bow, won f t you, please? Miss Sims, this is 
 Mr. Cook and this brother George. Brother 
 George, do step forward, please." 
 125
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 Mr. Cook, cursed with the frank epithet of 
 little, did not quite deserve it ; he was young 
 rather than little, and came in so quickly with 
 his "Very pleased indeed to meet you," that 
 one couldn't be angry. "I think you're simply 
 fine, Miss Sims !" he exclaimed, putting out a 
 boyish hand. "Christmas I saw you in Er- 
 minie and I saw your Yum " 
 
 "And this is brother George," burst Bessie, 
 pushing away little Mr. Cook. 
 
 Brother George made the best of an em 
 barrassment by walking forward. He was 
 tall and slight, with a large nose and a fringe 
 of mustache above his thin lip. It was the 
 slight spring of deference in his step as he 
 approached that saved his life. Katharine 
 felt she could hardly snub that kind of def 
 erence. 
 
 His forbearing manner and hesitating 
 promptness even made her conscious of her 
 high rouge and greased brows and thickened 
 lips. "Brother George, Miss Sims," ventured 
 George himself, "is aware, even if his sister 
 isn't, that he has no sort of business here. I 
 126
 
 ROSES AND VIOLETS 
 
 suppose an intrusion should never be apolo 
 gized for, but having been a Smith College 
 girl yourself," he added, nodding at her col 
 ors, "you know, I'm sure, how they boss their 
 brothers " 
 
 "Oh, Miss Sims isn't a Smith, Brother 
 George. She's just complimenting us, wear 
 ing the colors," corrected Bessie. 
 
 "I think Miss Sims, if you put it in that 
 way, is a Smith." 
 
 "Oh, no, she isn't." 
 
 "On that I venture to appeal to the highest 
 authority," he contended, mildly, indicating 
 by his look that Miss Sims herself could an 
 swer. 
 
 "Am I to try to recall you among the fac 
 ulty, Mr. Boss V ' she asked. 
 
 He lifted his hand. "Though my hair is 
 thin, my years even yet do not put me among 
 the great." 
 
 "I'm sure you were not a classmate." 
 
 "No. But your father, Doctor Sims, was a 
 friend of my mother's, and once when home 
 from the Tech I heard him speak of a daugh- 
 127
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 ter of his being home from Smith. And I 
 think you have no sisters, Miss Sims?" 
 
 "Why, brother George, you never told me !" 
 
 "You never asked me." 
 
 "Aren't men mean, Miss Sims !" cried Bes 
 sie. "Oh, if you are a Smith, won't you give 
 us your photograph to take back with us ! The 
 girls will turn green with envy." 
 
 "Oh, won't you!" cried Alice and Julia. 
 
 "Oh, Miss Sims," struggled little Mr. Cook, 
 earnestly, "if you'll give me one for Yale the 
 fellows will throw fits. I'll promise to write 
 my next thesis on it ; indeed I will." 
 
 Brother George did not join in the joking. 
 He was older, and, in spite of his retiring way, 
 he was in effect taking a place beside Kath 
 arine merely by keeping quiet; the sense of 
 companionship in his manner made it embar 
 rassing for her. She could not help thinking 
 how her bedizened face must look to this un 
 obtrusive and tolerably well-informed mem 
 ber of the party. 
 
 "I'm glad to meet Smith girls and Yale 
 men, ' ' said Katharine, shutting off every one ; 
 128
 
 ROSES AND VIOLETS 
 
 then, by sort of complusion, "and any who 
 remember my father " meeting brother 
 George's eye with such frank independence 
 as she could through her penciled lashes. He 
 bowed. "And," she added, turning again to 
 the chatterers, "you will all come to see me 
 again, sometime, won't you!" 
 
 "Oh, that means, 'run away, little dears !' " 
 exclaimed young Mr. Cook, wryly; "I know 
 that much." 
 
 "Time flies so," added Katharine, unmoved. 
 "See, the stage is nearly set, and I have a 
 change yet." 
 
 In a corner near them rose a violent dis 
 pute among three women in tights. 
 
 "Oh !" exclaimed the girls. 
 
 "Might I properly offer to arbitrate ?" whis 
 pered Mr. Cook, who was just coming into his 
 own. 
 
 "Don't mind them," said Katharine, wear 
 ily. "They fight every time Mr. Cory's back 
 is turned. There he comes now see how they 
 subside. If you must go, Mr. Cory will guide 
 you back." 
 
 129
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 The girls were already saying good-by ; but 
 after dismissing them Katharine used the 
 gracious trick of holding them a trifle longer 
 cordial envoy to the brief visit; then, 
 through the confusion, she sent them, wild 
 with excitement, back to their box. 
 
 In the evening the girls from Smith had 
 quite another affair on hand. They were 
 chasing like butterflies after other flowers in 
 other fields a Harvard Glee Club concert at 
 Central Music Hall with young Mr. Cook, 
 and others young, of the party. Their gay 
 box at the DeVinne, stripped of Smith plu 
 mage, was dim that Saturday night, although 
 Katharine entered and spoke and pointed 
 and grew defiant and laughed and sang and 
 danced just as before. The box was dark as 
 usual, but in its recesses sat a lone young 
 man, making no fuss whatever Brother 
 George. When Katharine was called out at 
 the close of the first act several offerings of 
 flowers went forward to her, among them a 
 basket of violets ; but George Ross, applaud 
 ing mildly in the storm that rose from the 
 130
 
 ROSES AND VIOLETS 
 
 audience, took no special note of that, though 
 Katharine did find, tucked among the violets, 
 his card. Beside the basket on her dressing- 
 room table there lay the great bunch of roses 
 that had come that night as they came so often 
 to her. She looked, through habit, to see if, 
 at last, they bore a card; but to-night, as 
 always, the roses, green-stemmed, thorny, 
 dewy, silent, were nameless. 
 
 131
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 GEORGE ROSS 
 
 AFTER their late dinner the next day, a 
 bright Sunday, Katharine walked with her 
 aunt in Dearborn Avenue. Something of 
 spring even in the chill air of the April sun 
 had tempted the carriages from winter quar 
 ters, and the rumble of summer's advance 
 guard, bound north for the Park, filled the 
 street. 
 
 Katharine was talking with Aunt Mary 
 about her irrepressible boxful of college girls, 
 and of Brother George, alone in the box the 
 night before. Aunt Mary had begun trying, 
 as she had been trying all day, to recall just 
 who the Boss's were when a gentleman, ap 
 proaching, bowed. Katharine returned his 
 greeting. After that she couldn't remember 
 132
 
 GEORGE ROSS 
 
 introductions or anything else until the three 
 were talking all at once; then she was con 
 scious of thinking of George Boss's nose. He 
 had asked permission to turn back. He was 
 walking with them, and his nose had become, . 
 in the course of the conversation, curiously a 
 part of it. Brother George's nose was at the 
 start courteously deferential ; presently mildly 
 benevolent; then it went with his voice into 
 action. It laughed queerly and alone, down 
 in the corners, when he said dry things. And 
 when he himself laughed, the point of his nose 
 drew oddly down over the smile like a high- 
 humored benediction. It was the effect that 
 might be imagined if a bird were to laugh, an 
 eagle, Katharine thought; provided an eagle 
 could ever be persistently good-natured and 
 disinterestedly attentive. 
 
 Meantime Aunt Mary Sims, asserting her 
 self for the first time in three sad, long years, 
 brushing up her memory for the first time 
 since her brother had died, was trying earnest 
 ly to recall this Mr. Ross, who so insisted on 
 knowing her. 
 
 133
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "I have been at your house twice that I re 
 member," averred Eoss. "Both times with 
 father. Once" his nose began to pucker as 
 he walked enough in advance to speak to both 
 "you, Miss Sims, had been having a birth 
 day party. Hadn't you a cousin or some 
 thing, a boy, visiting you one summer from 
 the South?" 
 
 "Hammie Neil !" cried Aunt Mary, looking 
 at Ross as if he were a mind reader. 
 
 "Neil I think that was the name." 
 
 "Oh, he was a mischief. Poor Hammie, 
 he's never been back." 
 
 "Well, he struck up a great friendship with 
 the Lightner boys ; they lived right through 
 from us on Calumet Avenue. Father called 
 one day to see Dr. Sims about some paving 
 matter or other " 
 
 "Special assessments!" exclaimed Aunt 
 Mary, with a heart-breaking roll of her eyes ; 
 but Ross's nose kept right on. 
 
 "You had just had a little girls' party and 
 an accident. Do you remember?" 
 
 "Katharine had so many parties," sug- 
 134
 
 GEORGE ROSS 
 
 gested Aunt Mary, with a touch of Virginia 
 artfulness, while still endeavoring to recol 
 lect. 
 
 "No doubt, but this time you had an acci 
 dent," amiably persisted Ross. Aunt Mary 
 shook her head. "Your freezer of ice-cream 
 disappeared from the back porch." 
 
 Aunt Mary Sims and Katharine exclaimed 
 together. Ross laughed eagle-fashion. "You 
 were telling father about the outrage, and I 
 was sitting by in the terror of my life." 
 
 "You don't mean to say you took that 
 freezer of ice-cream f gasped Aunt Mary. 
 
 "It is time, I think, to be brave, Miss Sims," 
 said Ross, appealing to Katharine. "I didn't 
 take it ; it was long the regret of my life that 
 I was at dancing-school when the job was 
 done. Hammie, if that's his name he posed 
 among the boys as an ex-Confederate Ham 
 mie and the Lightner boys did the job, as they 
 called it professionally, and I was called in 
 only to help eat the cream after it had been 
 hidden in the hay up in the Lightner barn. 
 They had a sort of palace barn, don't you 
 10 135
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 know, and there was a neighborhood row 
 about its facing on Harvard Place." 
 
 Aunt Mary appeared stunned. Boss 
 laughed mildly, and Katharine was growing 
 interested. She studied Ross. "Oh, I remem 
 ber that so well," she exclaimed. "And how 
 hard I cried. And the time we had getting 
 more." 
 
 "It was an outrage, but boys are savages. 
 I paid up for it. I was sick for a week. I 
 thought I was going to die. The cream was 
 full of hayseed and stuff when I got to it, but 
 I didn't dare tell for fear your father would 
 be called in to prescribe and I should be 
 forced to confess. Don't you remember 
 my being there when you told father that 
 night?" 
 
 "I suppose I was too excited to remember," 
 admitted Aunt Mary. Ross appeared loath 
 to continue, but determined to carry his point 
 of identification. "The second time I called 
 you will certainly remember," he declared. 
 "Among the various wickednesses of the 
 Lightner following that I mixed in was tying 
 136
 
 GEORGE KOSS 
 
 up one of the boys, leaving Mm on some one's 
 doorstep, ringing the bell, and running. When 
 the people came to the door the boy that was 
 tied would tell his tale of woe about being 
 assaulted, beaten, and gagged by wicked boys 
 from the Patch, and he would get sympathy 
 and cake. One day I was 'it.' They tied me up 
 and left me at your door, Miss Sims," he said, 
 addressing Aunt Mary, " and you took me up, 
 wretch that I was, and poured oil on my 
 wounds and gave me a glass of wine and 
 three doughnuts before you sent me home." 
 
 Aunt Mary halted. "Do you mean to tell 
 me you were that boy?" she ejaculated. 
 
 ' ' I hope this late confession may be of some 
 avail?" 
 
 "But that was a little bit of a boy." 
 
 "It was twelve years ago I was only thir 
 teen. We came to grief once, though," Mr. 
 Eoss went on, candidly. "We tied Hammie 
 up and left him on Mr. Lightner's steps, and 
 the old gentlemen came out; but he had been 
 worked once too often and he kicked poor 
 Hammie all the way down to the sidewalk." 
 137
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "Such boys as they had in that neighbor 
 hood!" 
 
 "Do you remember me now?" 
 
 "You must be Mrs. Birney Ross's son." 
 
 Mr. Ross lifted his hands and his nose 
 wagged. " 'I am, I am,' as the Filipino says 
 in the Grenadiers." 
 
 "Your father died " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And didn't your mother go abroad?" 
 
 "Yes. I was put at school in Glasgow. 
 Mother died in England. We have been back 
 in Chicago two years ; my older sister Julia, 
 and Bessie and I. I left Philadelphia six 
 months ago, and am back to Chicago to stay, 
 I hope." 
 
 "Are you in business here, Mr. Ross f " 
 
 "I'm a part of the deadly trolley system." 
 
 "Not you don't " 
 
 "Not a conductor, exactly no " 
 
 "Oh, I didn't mean that " 
 
 "I'm a sort of motorman ; I am the slave of 
 a large corporation. I wanted to tell you both 
 how much my sister Julia has been interested 
 138
 
 GEORGE ROSS 
 
 in hearing of your great success on the stage, 
 Miss Sims, and how much she wants to meet 
 both you and your aunt." 
 
 "Thank you." 
 
 "She would like ever so much to call on 
 you." 
 
 "We shall be very glad to see your sister." 
 
 "We live on the North Side now over in 
 Bellevue Place." 
 
 "Oh, how nice," said Katharine, "so many 
 have moved to the North Side in the last few 
 years. There are so many South Side people 
 on the North Side now." 
 
 "That is very true, though it wasn't social 
 considerations that moved sister Julia; she 
 is very much of a stayer. The North Side is 
 much handier for my work. Julia is going to 
 hear you sing to-morrow night," added Ross 
 to Katharine. 
 
 "You must thank her for me for her inter 
 est." 
 
 "I shall be happy to be intrusted with any 
 sort of a message from you." At the second 
 corner and at the third Katharine thought he 
 139
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 would leave, but he followed them all the way 
 home, lively, humorous, interested and inter 
 esting. 
 
 "Can he really be a motormanf whispered 
 Aunt Mary, as Ross walked tall and lightly 
 down the street. 
 
 "Wood violets at Easter are something of a 
 luxury for a motorman," suggested Kath 
 arine. "Didn't he say he was a sort of motor 
 man?" 
 
 As her brother had said she would, Miss 
 Julia Boss, though something of an invalid, 
 called on Katharine and her aunt, and left 
 with them not only the remembrances of her 
 own unaffected sweetness, but of the impres 
 sion made on the neighbors by the Ross coupe 
 and the Ross team and the Ross coachman, 
 for they were all unexceptionable, and they 
 stood at the curb a long time. The growing 
 interest of society people so well known as 
 the Ross's was a foretaste of what real suc 
 cess would be like among old acquaintances, 
 and Katharine, quite wrought, told Aunt Mary 
 at dinner that they must and should have a 
 140
 
 GEORGE BOSS 
 
 divan for the front room at once, and that 
 that old leather chair of her father's must go 
 into the back hall for good. Aunt Mary, in 
 Katharine's eyes, had but one fault. She had 
 lived on the Shenandoah when Sheridan 
 raided the valley, and though the purse was 
 now filling fast she hung to the strings with 
 the vigor of an ex-Confederate. 
 
 Julia Ross did not let the acquaintance end 
 with a formal call. She proved her interest 
 in the various ways that a woman under 
 stands, and George Ross, who to satisfy Aunt 
 Mary, confessed to being an electrical engi- 
 ner in charge of the Motive Power of the 
 United Traction Companies, rarely let a week 
 go by without breaking into it somehow with 
 a reminder that he was living four squares 
 away though Aunt Mary could never figure 
 the squares at less than seven. However, as 
 Julia Ross asked permission to send the car 
 riage on the day that she gave a tea in honor 
 of Katharine, Aunt Mary did not have to walk 
 the distance, anyway. 
 
 But no matter how George Ross figured dis- 
 141
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 tance, he was a good story-teller. Between 
 drumming at the piano, which he liked to do, 
 and telling dry anecdotes about people in 
 whom every one is interested the people that 
 every one knows in the prints, but that George 
 knew by right of family and position in these 
 ways he could make the hours fly like his 
 dynamos. 
 
 If there had been an affair in North Side 
 society it usually leaked out in the course of a 
 following evening either that George had been 
 there or that he knew something droll about 
 it. Then, too, George had become confirmed 
 in the DeVinne habit and could counterfeit a 
 professional in talking parts and presen 
 tations. 
 
 When the school year ended in June a 
 change had already come over the relations of 
 the Bosses and the Simses. And when sister 
 Bessie came home from school, got to the 
 opera-house and to the coveted corner be 
 hind the scenes, she, without ado, threw her 
 arms around Katharine's neck and kissed her 
 like a little whirlwind every one had become 
 142
 
 GEORGE BOSS 
 
 such good friends with every one. Something 
 else, too, happened that night. George Koss 
 and Bessie rode home with Katharine in her 
 carriage. She asked them in; they refused 
 positively to get in, and shortly got in, send 
 ing their carriage home. George, being tall, 
 lighted the gas. Aunt Mary, fresh from her 
 nap, came forward, blinking her smile. Kath 
 arine threw her heavy cloak on a chair and an 
 nounced openly that she was starved, but not 
 before George Ross had taken the cloak up, 
 the cloak he got his hands on every time he 
 could, and hung it in the hall. 
 
 "How's your headache, Aunt Mary"?" asked 
 Katharine. "Auntie had trouble with the 
 cook to-night," Katharine explained to Bessie 
 Ross, as she settled back in her chair Bessie 
 had been placed on the new divan "and it 
 gave her a headache." 
 
 "I hope you gave the cook something 
 worse," suggested Ross. 
 
 "I discharged her," announced Aunt Mary, 
 with as near a gleam of wickedness as ever 
 crossed her eyes. 
 
 143
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "Oh, did you?" cried Katharine, dismayed. 
 
 "I did." 
 
 "But I didn't know that what are we to do 
 for something to eat?" 
 
 "I'll attend to that," said Aunt Mary. 
 
 "But you sha'n't." Katharine rose. 
 "You're half sick yourself." 
 
 "Oh, let you and I get it, Miss Sims," 
 cried Bessie; "that will be fun." 
 
 "Let me get it," put in Eoss, "and it will be 
 tragedy." 
 
 ' * Come in, then ; we will all get it, ' ' decided 
 Katharine, pushing her aunt good-humoredly 
 back. "It will be a frolic." 
 
 "And very little else, if you manage it," 
 predicted Aunt Mary, frankly. 
 
 The pantry was scoured for provender. 
 
 "There is some cheese," called Katharine. 
 
 "And plenty of bread," added Bessie Eoss, 
 who already had her lawn skirt pinned up 
 rather wildly. 
 
 "How about pief ' asked George Eoss from 
 the dark of the dining-room. 
 
 "There isn't a crust," said Katharine. "I 
 144
 
 GEORGE ROSS 
 
 declare, it does look slim, but there are air- 
 tights, as the Grenadiers say." 
 
 "Air-tights?" 
 
 "Canned things, I mean." 
 
 "Oh, George, you cook something," cried his 
 sister. 
 
 "I have offered to " 
 
 "But what can you cook?" demanded Kath 
 arine. 
 
 "Anything." 
 
 "Confidence! What can you cook well?" 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 "I thought so." 
 
 "But if you're game," declared Brother 
 George, "I'll try a Golden Buck." 
 
 "He makes them lovely." With the assur 
 ance, Bessie clapped her hands. 
 
 "But what is Golden Buck?" asked Kath 
 arine. "It sounds dreadfully masculine." 
 
 "Have you a chafing-dish?" asked Ross. 
 
 "Here." 
 
 "Beer?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Eggs?" 
 
 145
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "Not very fresh eggs," confessed Aunt 
 Mary. 
 
 "Cheese!" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Bread!" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "If you'll cut the bread, slice the cheese, 
 and fill the alcohol lamp," directed George, 
 "I'll get the beer at the corner and be back 
 before you are ready." 
 
 "Oh, you're not going after beer!" Kath 
 arine protested. 
 
 "Never mind him he does these things 
 regularly," interposed Bessie Boss, as her 
 brother made for the hall and slipped into his 
 coat 
 
 "Don't say a word; wait till you taste my 
 Buck," he called, closing the vestibule door. 
 
 "He's the queerest fellow," laughed Bessie. 
 "There was a man in State Street, at an alley 
 corner right near us, that had a night stand 
 closed in with a sash, you know just big 
 enough to stand up and cook things in. George 
 often is out till twelve o'clock at the power- 
 146
 
 GEORGE ROSS 
 
 house, and last winter he used to stop at that 
 disreputable place and bring home his over 
 coat pockets full of what do you think?" 
 
 "I can't imagine." 
 
 "Broiled chicken true as I'm alive. George 
 said the man could broil chicken a good deal 
 better than our cook could. And the two be 
 came great friends; they did, and in the 
 spring George gave him a place in the power 
 house, sent him to night-school and " 
 
 Katharine filled the chafing-dish burner. 
 "Made an electrician of him." 
 
 "Bless you no !" exclaimed Bessie, with all 
 possible emphasis. "That's what I thought 
 he'd do with him " 
 
 "Well, what?" 
 
 "Made a cook of him ; and he's cooking for 
 us now; yes, indeed. His name is Peter 
 Peter something." 
 
 "Did he cook that luncheon for Katharine?" 
 whispered Aunt Mary, listening. 
 
 "He did." 
 
 "I never tasted such sweetbreads in my; 
 life, ' ' declared Katharine, with candor. 
 147
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "Oh, that wasn't sweetbreads that was 1 
 veal fricassee." 
 
 Katharine raised her brows. "No wonder 
 I never tasted such sweetbreads. Whatever 
 it was, it was delicious." 
 
 "I'll tell him, because George lectured him 
 till he was scared to death about that lun 
 cheon." 
 
 "Now," said Katharine, reaching for a piece 
 of cheese, "we're all ready; why doesn't Mr. 
 Ross comef ' 
 
 He was gone an unconscionably long time. 
 After a wait he returned, somewhat flushed, 
 but triumphant, with four bottles of beer, 
 which he deposited upon the table. He took 
 off his overcoat carefully, and from various 
 parts of his dinner coat and trousers produced 
 six eggs, and, heedless of the questions shot at 
 him, put them beside the beer. 
 
 "You'll have to excuse me. At a delicate 
 problem I never talk. Miss Aunt Mary, will 
 you kindly rustle a corkscrew? Say, Bess, 
 you might be toasting the bread." 
 
 "And what am I to dof asked Katharine. 
 148
 
 GEORGE ROSS 
 
 "Quit eating the cheese, if you please. I'll 
 have something worth while in about five 
 minutes. By the way, you may get two or 
 three muffin rings to poach the eggs in. And 
 when that water is hot you may poach the 
 eggs." 
 
 "Where did you get the eggs?" asked Aunt 
 Mary, back with the corkscrew. 
 
 "At the saloon. You can always get fresh 
 eggs at a saloon or a barber-shop there's a 
 tip for you provided you stand in ; they have 
 to have them fresh in their business," ex 
 plained Ross, drawing a cork. Things went 
 forward amazingly. Ross emptied the plate 
 of cheese into the chafing-dish, salted and pep 
 pered like a chef, tumbled in square after 
 square of butter, drenched the mixture again 
 and again with beer and stirred judiciously 
 with a fork. 
 
 "This is all I learned at Yale," he replied 
 to a question of Katharine's. "New Haven 
 beats the world on Golden Buck. There's 
 nothing on earth like a chafing-dish, is there 
 except two chafing-dishes. Look at it cream, 
 149
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 Now, Miss Sims," said he to Katharine, "if 
 you would kindly drop in the first egg." 
 
 In no time under his active management 
 four Bucks were smoking on four plates. 
 "This is for the commonwealth of Virginia," 
 announced Ross, pushing the first at Aunt 
 Mary. He passed the second to Katharine 
 with a nod of deference. "This is especially 
 for the chest tones, Miss Sims ; unequaled for 
 the smoothness of the middle register. This 
 is for happy dreams, Bess and this for that 
 trolley feeling," he concluded, sitting down at 
 the table before the fourth. 
 
 "But what am I how are we to eat 
 these !" asked Katharine. 
 
 "Moisten the lips and close them gently 
 over the first mouthful, Miss Sims after that 
 it's like an alternating current: one bite of 
 Buck, one moment of ecstasy. Absolutely. 
 Try it." 
 
 They chaffed and ate and laughed for an 
 hour. 
 
 "We must go home, George," suggested Bes 
 sie Boss. 
 
 150
 
 GEOEGE BOSS 
 
 "Oh, no," said Katharine. 
 
 "It must be after twelve," insisted Bessie. 
 "What's the time, George f ' 
 
 "The best I ever had in my life," said 
 George, openly. 
 
 "Look at your watch," commanded his sis 
 ter. 
 
 "I haven't any." 
 
 "Why, George Ross, what do you mean? 
 You had it at the opera. You've lost it !" she 
 cried. 
 
 "Why must you expose me before friends'?" 
 protested her brother. "I put up my watch 
 for this beer." There was a chorus of cries 
 from the women. "I'm telling the truth," he 
 insisted. "I thought I might be permitted to 
 be a hero without publishing it. After I left 
 the saloon I was coming around the corner 
 with my pockets full of eggs and my arms full 
 of beer when a man put his arm around my 
 neck from behind and asked what time it was. 
 While I was trying to decide, another man, 
 apparently in a hurry, snatched my watch to 
 see for himself and incidentally swiped my 
 11 151
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 money. Then they tried to gobble the beer. 
 I wouldn't have said a word about the rest, 
 but the beer I wanted, and on that issue we 
 mixed up. When the pace got pretty hot I 
 had to throw two bottles at the pirates to save 
 the other four. Jettisoning the cargo to that 
 extent I kept all the eggs." 
 
 "Why, George!" 
 
 "Every one. When the first man hugged 
 me he smashed them, and I had to go to a 
 drug store and wash up and get six new ones 
 on credit that 's what kept me so long. Why 
 get excited?" 
 
 152
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A WOMAN BETWEEN 
 
 THE closing night at the DeVinne was the 
 wind-up of a big season and the company was 
 tired and happy. For one night differences 
 were overlooked, quarrels forgotten. Law 
 rence was smiling, jubilant ; no more reproofs ; 
 no more mysterious frowns. It was the last 
 night ; to-morrow the house would be deserted, 
 chill, smelling of emptiness, of faded hang 
 ings, of shabby plush. But to-night the old 
 house was alive; it sparkled, trembled, 
 hummed with gaiety, and rang with song. It 
 was dying bravely, breathing life out in one 
 last blaze of glory. 
 
 The opera was presented with an all-star 
 cast, an augmented orchestra, souvenirs for 
 the audience, double checks for the principals, 
 a supper for the chorus everything gala. 
 153
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 Katharine was alive to the jokes of the 
 funny man, glowing to her support, and with 
 all her shyness sang what Lawrence called 
 "winning" music. Katharine Sims had been 
 his find at least he thought so. She had been 
 the find of the season, in fact. The DeVinne 
 had been very liberal to Katharine. She had 
 brought a fortune to the DeVinne, and to 
 night the homage set a good deal to her. 
 
 Ever since Katharine had first interpolated 
 Barlow's pretty song, Love Spoke, it had 
 become a feature on big nights, and people had 
 come to associate Love Spoke with Kath 
 arine Sims, no matter what the opera. On 
 that night of farewell it was sung again, with 
 Adolph Keinhart's violin obligate and to 
 great applause. The boxes were given to 
 parties, the house was solid, the stairs packed, 
 and the walls lined with men and with women 
 who would brave the crowd, the effort, and the 
 fatigue. The Rosses had a box party the 
 young folks in front drunk with chocolates 
 and refrains, Miss Julia Boss and George in 
 the back. Across {he house in one of the seats 
 154
 
 A WOMAN BETWEEN 
 
 he so often chose a parquet chair under 
 the shadow of the circle sat George Du- 
 rant. 
 
 When the curtain rang down on the last 
 scene the audience on their feet called the 
 singers out again and again. It was not the 
 excitement of the enthusiasm so much as 
 the gratefulness of farewell. The applause 
 came not in a storm, but in showers, gentle and 
 steady as warm rains. Even after the or 
 chestra had played a supplemental strain to 
 empty the house the audience hung good- 
 naturedly about. Back of the stage, rules 
 harshly enforced during the long season were 
 now relaxed, and people with half rights and 
 people with no rights jostled people with good 
 rights in crowding behind the scenes to say 
 good-by to favorites and to friends. It was 
 a theatrical thaw, a breaking up, a dissolu 
 tion, this season-ending, and one in which 
 every one wanted part. New lines for the De- 
 Vinne had already been laid out and an 
 nounced for the coming season. Light opera 
 was bidding the house farewell. 
 155
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 There was such a crowd in the wings that 
 Lawrence ordered on the fly lights and groups 
 of talkers made their way out on the stage. 
 Orchestra players elbowed chorus girls, box- 
 office assistants talked to the comedians, and 
 interested teachers made ado over promising 
 pupils. Even when Katharine Sims came up 
 from her dressing-room not all had gone, and 
 the scene on the usually empty stage looked 
 like a reception. The young folks of the Ross 
 party surrounded her straightway, and her 
 maid laden with flowers paused. Barry, the 
 gentle tenor, stepped up to the circle to intro 
 duce some one to Katharine, and Katharine 
 introduced him to the circle of girls and to 
 George Ross. Adolph Reinhart, hat in hand, 
 shook both Katharine's hands in good-by and 
 God blessed her twenty times. Lawrence 
 pushed in, manager fashion, Mabel Anthony 
 with him all smiles. 
 
 "The divine right of critics," she mur 
 mured to Katharine, "to be where one's not 
 wanted. ' ' 
 
 "Oh, you are wanted, Miss Anthony. Who 
 156
 
 A WOMAN BETWEEN 
 
 should come before you after all you've done 
 for me this year?" 
 
 Lawrence had arranged a supper for Barry 
 and Katharine. "Come," he called, turning 
 as the leader left him. "Miss Sims, you'll 
 never get anything to eat if this keeps up. 
 Come on, Miss Anthony, you're in it, too. Oh, 
 yes, isn't she, Miss Sims? Come." As the 
 party moved, Durant made his way toward 
 Katharine. But she turned to answer a greet 
 ing and Mabel Anthony saw him first and ex 
 tended her hand, the others talking volleys 
 about them. Then Katharine caught sight of 
 Durant, and, with a little cry of welcome, put 
 ting out her hand, waved it heartily at him 
 over Bessie Boss's shoulder. He made his 
 way to her. George Ross stood at her left. 
 She was tearing a branch of syringas into 
 sprays and distributing them among the girls. 
 
 ' * Oh, Mr. Durant ! ' ' she cried, i 1 1 'm so glad 
 to see you. Why, you have completely de 
 serted us lately ! Mr. Boss, have you met my 
 friend. Mr. Durant?" In the chatter and con 
 fusion, people talking at every elbow, the eyes 
 157
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 of the two men met. They extended their 
 hands spoke courteously. But their eyes 
 and their tones spoke a truce no more. In 
 the first moment that they met a woman stood 
 between them and by that deepest instinct 
 in a man's heart the instinct as strange as 
 life, as swift as happiness, as keen as pain 
 each knew it; and a woman stood between 
 them to the end. Katharine talked fast, cor 
 dially, to both. The two men, each in his way, 
 smiled, laughed, answered her sallies. But 
 each was thinking not at all of what was going 
 on about him ; not of what she said ; each was 
 thinking of the other. Howard Cook seized 
 Ross's arm and took his attention momen 
 tarily. Lawrence, in the interval, turned to 
 speak to Durant. "You must come to supper 
 with Miss Sims, Durant. Miss Sims Miss 
 Anthony Barry. Don't say a word you're 
 coming." 
 
 Durant spoke. "Hadn't Miss Sims better 
 pass on that, Lawrence?" 
 
 George Ross was answering a question. 
 Bessie and Howard Cook were both talking at 
 158
 
 A WOMAN BETWEEN 
 
 him, but George Boss, himself talking, heard 
 what Lawrence said ; heard what Durant said ; 
 listened for Katharine's answer as she clapped 
 her hands quickly. "Oh, Miss Sims passes 
 on that at once. Mr. Durant should know he 
 he is the most welcome possible guest where 
 I take supper, Mr. Lawrence." 
 
 "Then come along," commanded Lawrence. 
 "I'm your manager till twelve o'clock, mid 
 night, to-night, I reckon, and you're under 
 contract to obey." 
 
 Miss Anthony interpolated. "Isn't it hor 
 rid to be bossed f 
 
 "But just a minute," begged Katharine. 
 "Oh, Brooks," she called to her maid, "give 
 me those roses. See here, aren't they lovely?" 
 She held out a basket of garden roses. "They 
 came without card." She looked at Durant 
 as she said it. "Mr. Durant, you hold them 
 while I decorate my friends. Miss Boss, Mr. 
 Cook, here you must all share my roses. 
 Aren't they fragrant? What a travesty on 
 these the hot-house flowers are. There and, 
 oh, Mr. Ross, don't run away before you have 
 159
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 one. Here; these. Oh, yes; all of them. 
 Good-night! Good-night, all. Many thanks 
 for your kindness, every one of you. Good 
 night!" 
 
 160
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 ONE FLOWER 
 
 IT seemed afterward to Katharine that 
 every time George Boss called on her he met 
 Durant. 
 
 It was really not quite so bad; nor could 
 Katharine, had she been pressed, have held 
 that it was unpleasant to have both with her 
 at the same time. Both were tactful, both 
 understood being agreeable. Yet Katharine, 
 when they met in her presence, was conscious 
 of a strain. One difficulty was that every time 
 they met they had to be introduced. 
 
 Shortly after the close of the season Kath 
 arine and her aunt went into Wisconsin. They 
 found such a place as they wanted at Cuyler's 
 Inn, near Waukesha, where a trolley-line gave 
 access to the Springs. About them and to the 
 west stretched the lake region with winding 
 161
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 hills and leafy roads and summer fields. On 
 Lac la Belle, not far away, the Eosses had a 
 place Bass Point unpretentious but beauti 
 ful, and still one of the show-places. George 
 sailed a yacht from Bass Point. Bessie, in an 
 exaggerated cart, drove over before Aunt 
 Mary had the trunks unpacked, and announced 
 that while headquarters might be maintained 
 at Cuyler's, the time of Katharine and her 
 aunt was to be spent at Bass Point. Bessie 
 never hid her lamp, and the summer colony 
 at Cuyler's knew almost before she had driven 
 away that the rather tall, quiet young arrival 
 who wore black and looked well in it, who hid 
 her smiles pleasantly, and who with her aunt 
 sat out under the maples so much, was in re 
 ality their most distinguished guest a singer 
 of renown with no end of gay operas stowed 
 under her loose hair. As for Bessie herself, 
 her rig always asserted her dignity. Her 
 phaeton with a back like a reredos, her little 
 horse Matches (called so because he was 
 fiery), faultlessly trapped, and her childlike 
 twenty years as she flew hatless down the 
 162
 
 ONE FLOWER 
 
 road, were conceded by the Cuyler people to 
 be stunning. 
 
 On Saturday George Eoss used to run up 
 and pray so he said all day Sunday that 
 there wouldn't be a breakdown in the power 
 house before Monday. Once he drove over 
 to Cuyler's unexpectedly on a Wednesday 
 and ran into Durant. They had to be intro 
 duced, and this annoyed Katharine. She re 
 monstrated. The men took it in the best of 
 humor; each protested that it was unneces 
 sary, or that at all events he alone was at 
 fault. 
 
 Katharine had promised Bessie Eoss to 
 come over to Bass Point on a certain Satur 
 day for a regatta and to spend Sunday with 
 her. Her aunt preferred to rest quietly at 
 home. For the races Saturday they had a 
 launch party under young Mr. Cook's man 
 agement. George, with a friend, arrived in 
 time for dinner. In the evening, Bessie had a 
 company to meet Katharine. George's friend, 
 an electrical engineer, was clever at sleight- 
 of-hand tricks, and entertained. He could 
 163
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 sing, too, and they encouraged him to attempt 
 some duets with Katharine. Then Bessie 
 played Mikado airs from a resurrected dog 
 eared book of the score, and every one sang 
 at the choruses. 
 
 Sunday morning it showered so that the 
 little party kept the house till dinner, at which 
 Julia Eoss presided. In the afternoon the sun 
 shone, the trees sparkled, and the hard gravel 
 roads were right for driving. When they 
 all came in toward supper-time Katharine 
 tried to get away, but she could not, and when 
 she finally started for home it was ten o'clock. 
 They took the depot wagon, because the sky 
 had again overcast, and George Ross drove, 
 Bessie and young Mr. Cook inside. Kath 
 arine sat front with the driver. He wanted 
 to tell her more particularly about the new 
 power-house he was building on French 
 Street, and Katharine hated to be disoblig 
 ing. Half-way home they drove into a 
 shower. It struck them so quickly they could 
 not well change seats, so Mr. Ross managed 
 the rubber boot and the lap-robes, and tucked 
 164
 
 ONE FLOWER 
 
 Katharine in beyond the possibility of ex 
 posing her throat, while he took the soaking 
 and the sympathy and gratitude as greedily 
 as any hero should. His tone became all new 
 in mild, care-taking admonition; his voice 
 reached a baritone point that had never be 
 fore, even to himself, made itself known. His 
 manner was solicitude and his word gentle 
 ness; he meant to be and was unblushingly 
 courteous. And it rained harder, and the 
 horse, a fiery beast even in sunshine, took 
 fright at the thunder, and George had him 
 to master which he did. He drove well and 
 kept a firm hand not only on the reins, but 
 on her fingers when he said good-by to her 
 on the dark hotel porch. 
 
 Hardly had the Rosses started to return 
 to Oconomowoc when the rain fell again furi 
 ously. As Katharine turned up the light in 
 her room the shower was drumming heavily 
 on the roof. Aunt Mary, lying on the couch, 
 rose. Katharine saw that her eyes were red. 
 "Mariana! Mariana!" she exclaimed, "you've 
 been crying. What's the matter?" Oh, have 
 165
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 you been lonely to-day? I ought not to have 
 left you." 
 
 "Oh, no, dear, I haven't had a chance." 
 smiled Aunt Mary, smoothing her hair. "Who 
 do you think has been here!" 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "Since last night." 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 "Mr. Durant" 
 
 "Why, auntie ! Why didn't you telephone?" 
 cried Katharine, dropping, without unpinning 
 her hat, all moist and wide-eyed, into a chair. 
 
 "I wanted to ; he wouldn't let me. Did you 
 have a good time, Kate?" 
 
 "Wouldn't let you?" echoed Katharine. 
 "That's strange." She eyed her aunt. 
 
 "Tell me what you've been doing, Kate," 
 urged Aunt Mary. "How wet you are, 
 child!" 
 
 "Tell me what you've been doing, auntie," 
 demanded Katharine, pressing. "Have you 
 just noticed I'm wet? Don't you hear it rain 
 ing? Mariana Sims, what is the matter, 
 darling?" Katharine drew her aunt back on 
 166
 
 ONE FLOWER 
 
 the sofa and sat down beside her. "There's 
 something the matter. Tell me," she coaxed. 
 
 "There isn't anything to tell, dear, except 
 that he came last night on the eight o'clock 
 train and surprised me. I wanted to send 
 for you, but when I told him you were out 
 with a yachting party and expected to spend 
 Sunday with the Rosses he wouldn't hear of 
 my letting you know." 
 
 "Why didn't you bring him over?" 
 
 "I wanted to ; he wouldn't let me. He said 
 it would break in on your outing, and he 
 wouldn't listen to anything but staying here 
 with me. We talked last night till eleven 
 o'clock out on the lawn and it was such a 
 beautiful night, wasn't it? What were you 
 doing?" 
 
 "Oh, dancing, and a young lady read, and 
 there was an amateur sleight-of-hand per 
 former a friend of Mr. Ross's and he 
 could sing, so we sang, and they all sang 
 choruses, and I sang Evening and Love 
 Spoke. Tell me what you talked about ; what 
 did he say?" 
 
 12 167
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 Aunt Mary fenced and fibbed, and told 
 everything but what Katharine knew she was 
 trying to conceal. 
 
 "But you must, auntie. You must tell me 
 everything because you love me." 
 
 "But I promised," struggled Aunt Mary, 
 "to keep his confidence for a while. Go to bed, 
 dearie," she urged, "and wait." 
 
 "Auntie, I can't wait. I shouldn't sleep a 
 wink. I'm so excited now I can't sit still ; you 
 must tell me." 
 
 It ended in a compromise, and for Aunt 
 Mary a wretched one. 
 
 "He is having so much worry, dear," she 
 whispered at last. "That was what it was 
 about business matters. It was my fault he 
 spoke about it at all you know how reticent 
 he is over his own affairs. After we had sat 
 under the trees a long time, he seemed so 
 silent I knew something was worrying him. 
 He asked me how I knew. I told him because 
 I knew what it meant to worry. He asked me 
 then what I ever had to worry over, and when 
 I told him how we didn't even have the money 
 168
 
 ONE FLOWER 
 
 to buy your costume for the Mikado, and how 
 his Japanese chest saved you from having to 
 beg somebody for one, he didn't speak a word 
 for the longest time. He said then that I 
 ought to have told him that it wasn't right 
 he should be left ignorant when it was sup 
 posed by everybody we were at least com 
 fortably provided for that he could have 
 done very differently if he had known. He 
 reproached himself, so it started me to crying 
 that's how everything came about." She 
 paused a moment. "This afternoon he took 
 me driving; we started talking again, and he 
 spoke of how bad things had been in the cof 
 fee market something of heavy losses he has 
 met in business. We drove over to Ocono- 
 mowoc " 
 
 "You did?" 
 
 "All around Bass Point, past Ross's, and 
 we could see you all out on the lawn and un 
 der the trees " 
 
 "Oh, Aunt Mary!" 
 
 "You must guess what he told me to-day. 
 Dear, my promise is sacred. I never sus- 
 169
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 pected it never. I told Mm I knew you 
 never suspected it never in the world and 
 he thought that so strange. Of course, I told 
 him I knew he was fond of you, but that was 
 all. Then he said perhaps after all you were 
 happier with young people we were so close 
 to you all we could hear the laughing he 
 spoke of it in such a way I felt as if my heart 
 would break. Kate, darling, don't cry so 
 hard. He asked me not to tell till he could 
 speak himself." 
 
 Katharine drew her foster-mother into her 
 arms. "Why should he say I would be hap 
 pier with them?" she sobbed. "What did you 
 say, Aunt Mary what did you sayf 
 
 "I told him I knew you esteemed him above 
 everybody in the world and he looked at me 
 as if his eyes would go through me. I begged 
 him to stay over. He was unwilling to meet 
 you to-night ; different from what I ever saw 
 him. Then he said the coffee market was 
 very bad and he must be back for early Mon 
 day morning but I think it was because he 
 thought he had said too much. 'You are the 
 170
 
 ONE FLOWER 
 
 first person in the world, Aunt Mary/ lie 
 said to me, 'that I have ever given a confi 
 dence to of any kind. It would have been 
 better if I had begun sooner, perhaps ; I don't 
 know. I never had a confidant.' " 
 
 Morning brought the sun, all glorious, to set 
 the jewels a moment in the summer landscape, 
 then to touch Nature's tears and print its own 
 smile on every living thing. It was the warn 
 ing that every sunrise gives after a night of 
 storm: that Nature has no place for unhap- 
 piness ; that because it can do no wrong it must 
 sing and will. 
 
 At ten o'clock Bessie and young Mr. Cook 
 and George Boss arrived in the trap. Kath 
 arine wanted some honey for Aunt Mary, and 
 Bessie had told her of a farm on the Naga- 
 wicka road where most delicious honey 
 could be had. George offered the trap. Cook 
 stayed with Bessie to call on some friends of 
 his, who had just come up from St. Louis, 
 where one lives only till the twelfth of July 
 after that it is Wisconsin or death. 
 
 Katharine, still somewhat upset from the 
 171
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 night's alarms, let young Mr. Cook help her 
 up into the trap, and, with George Ross, she 
 drove from the hotel, waving her hand at the 
 group on the porch. 
 
 The difficulties of the trip began when 
 George failed to locate the honey farm, and 
 they drove till they unexpectedly struck fa 
 miliar surroundings in a glimpse of Ocono- 
 mowoc. 
 
 It would now be necessary, said George, 
 calmly, to go to Bass Point for luncheon and 
 take a fresh start. At Bass Point they found 
 Julia Boss had gone to the lower end of the 
 lake for the day. The cottage never looked 
 prettier than when Katharine took off her 
 hat in Bessie's room and George began to step 
 lightly around in her service. By the time he 
 had got Bessie and Aunt Mary on the tele 
 phone it began to seem a lark, and Katharine 
 was witty over the wire, chaffing Aunt Mary 
 and her guests about the queer situation, and 
 bidding Bessie make herself quite as much at 
 home in her room as she was doing in Bessie's. 
 
 As Katharine, still rather warm, slipped 
 172
 
 ONE FLOWER 
 
 down on the bench at the piano, a maid en 
 tered with refreshment. Then Katharine, at 
 George's request, sang Love Spoke. He 
 thought it the very best thing he had ever 
 heard in his life, and told Katharine she ought 
 to have at least one-half the royalties because 
 her singing of the song had made it. By that 
 time it was luncheon, and Katharine, sitting at 
 one side of the table, was telling him, at the 
 other, all about the song ; about Barlow, who 
 wrote it; how poverty-stricken he had been, 
 and how he worked and worked with her that 
 summer getting her up for the first parts, 
 while his wife was dressmaking ; and how he 
 used to empty the refrigerator ; and how this 
 song he had written, which she had interpo 
 lated during the winter as an encore, had be 
 come so popular that it had made him a com 
 petency ; and that when the season closed and 
 the song was selling all over the United States, 
 Barlow whose habits were not the best 
 had in Katharine's presence presented the 
 copyright to his wife. 
 It seemed to Katharine so pleasant to re- 
 173
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 count all this in the subdued green and cream 
 dining-room over the glass and the china on 
 which she and George were silently served 
 with portions of dainty things, and to hear 
 George's banter and sympathy and admira 
 tion. The air, blowing soft from the lawn, 
 smelt of grass and creeping vines and of the 
 leaves of noon-sleeping trees. She could not 
 realize how she herself added to the scene 
 what the warmth of her lips and her eyes, 
 what all the wine of her manner, meant to 
 George Boss. She could not realize that 
 where a woman is, all the surroundings that 
 taste and means may supply serve only as a 
 setting to her own loveliness ; that the heart 
 of a man is fixed ever on the picture never 
 on the frame. 
 
 Sitting under the trees down toward the still 
 water, George Koss Katharine reclining in 
 a steamer chair talked of his own affairs. 
 Not confidently, only simply and openly. Then 
 unexpectedly he would ask to put a mat un 
 der her feet for fear dampness might strike 
 through her pretty boots. 
 174
 
 ONE FLOWER 
 
 "I should know you had an invalid sister," 
 she smiled. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because you are so considerate." 
 
 For the afternoon, George urged saddle- 
 horses. 
 
 "But I can't ride, Mr. Ross." 
 
 "Oh, I'll give you a horse that you couldn't 
 fall off of." 
 
 "But, dear me, how could we carry the 
 honey f" 
 
 Disappointed somewhat, he ordered up the 
 team, and starting from Bass Point they 
 readily found the honey farm. They had a 
 glass of milk and bread and honey with the 
 frail little old woman that tended the bees, 
 and listened to her stories. Katharine told 
 her how her aunt used to keep bees in Virginia, 
 and how cleverly they built ladders in Vir 
 ginia for the bees to walk up into the hives ; 
 and George believed it until the two women 
 laughed together at his innocence. In fact, 
 they were so lively that the honey woman, 
 when they were leaving, said they were 
 175
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 a very handsome couple and wished them good 
 luck, and told them of an old and very pretty 
 road to Cuyler 's, though it was a little longer 
 than the hill road. 
 
 With their honey wrapped in newspapers 
 they went back by the old road, which part of 
 the way proved to be a lane of meeting trees, 
 through which the sun hardly could strike. 
 In the woods Katharine exclaimed at strange 
 flowers that carpeted the little open places, 
 and George reined up. He tied the horses, 
 and Katharine ran ahead to a glade that was 
 filled with wood flowers; neither knew their 
 names. 
 
 "Where is your botany?" demanded Kath 
 arine. 
 
 "What about your posing in the country- 
 girl act and the dairy-maid act at the DeVinne 
 last winter? You ought to know wild flowers 
 in your business." 
 
 They gathered them and sat down and 
 spoke, and worst of all were, at moments, 
 silent. Katharine was thinking of Durant. 
 
 "We must go," she declared at last, gath- 
 176
 
 ONE FLOWER 
 
 ering her flowers. "This is delightful, 
 but " 
 
 "But will you wait just a moment?" His 
 tone and his manner frightened her now, for 
 she saw, too late, something in his face and 
 turned away. But he swept her very con 
 sciousness up in the whirlwind of his words. 
 "Will you wait till I tell you what I am miser 
 ably afraid to and must that I love you, 
 Katharine? Don't run from me " 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Ross. Please " 
 
 He stood leaning with one hand against the 
 tree from the foot of which he had helped her 
 to her feet. She held her hat filled basket- 
 like with flowers and her eyes fell in hopeless 
 confusion as she halted at his appeal. 
 
 "It's unfair I know. I could never get 
 up courage to say it anywhere I planned. 
 And I've planned so many times that when 
 you wanted to stop for the flowers I made an 
 awful resolve to speak before you got in the 
 trap again. I waited till the last minute I 
 know I ought to know how foolish it is for 
 
 me to hope " 
 
 177
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "Oh, do put me in the trap, Mr. Boss. 
 Really, it is my fault. I am crushed." 
 
 "It's only your fault in being the loveliest 
 woman on earth to me." 
 
 T 11 
 
 He bowed. "I couldn't help saying it." 
 Somehow they got home and each put on a 
 brave face. Each told stories and showed 
 their honey, but neither spoke of the old road 
 or of the lovely woods or of the wild flowers 
 that lay wilting under the seat in Katharine's 
 summer hat. When in the dusk, after supper, 
 the Rosses were leaving and Mr. Cook and 
 Bessie were in, George handed the hat to 
 Katharine. He asked if he might have one 
 flower and one she gave him. 
 
 178
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE QUARREL IN THE WOODS 
 
 TWENTY-FOUR hours changed Katharine 
 from a girl into a woman. Nothing in all her 
 hard work, her privation, her success and its 
 rewards changed her as one night and one day 
 changed her. She was as one who sleeps a 
 child and wakes to a throne; all womanhood 
 was hers. 
 
 For ten days Eoss was silent; Katharine 
 neither saw him nor heard from him. Then 
 came a letter, in a few words; a letter ex 
 pressing contrition and justification in a 
 breath; apology and gentle humor together; 
 asking her finally, as a man may, what she 
 was going to do with him; and Katharine 
 answered. 
 
 She answered that he must not for a mo- 
 179
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 merit think of her other than as the friend she 
 always wanted to be. 
 
 He bore it. When he came again he met 
 her frankly and cordially, and while they 
 were with the others he was the same tall, de 
 lightful, mild-mannered George Ross. A 
 word with her he tried to manage, but saw 
 finally he could not unless she willed it. So 
 ceasing his attempt to compel, he humbly ap 
 pealed and got his word. It was a very old 
 word; was there, asked George, any other 
 man? And, worst of all, he could not decide 
 from all Katharine said whether there teas 
 another man. She was open in saying that 
 he must give up his startling declaration ; but 
 there were limits to her candor. 
 
 It was this that tormented him, the idea of 
 the other man, for the other man he knew in 
 stinctively must be Durant. A brief frenzy, 
 such as develops easily in a quiet youth like 
 George Boss, made his uncertainty a fever. 
 Every time he met Durant, always cold, Eoss 
 felt the same jealous hating dread. 
 
 One Sunday evening a sacred concert had 
 180
 
 THE QUARREL IN THE WOODS 
 
 been arranged and Katharine had consented 
 to sing. George Ross stayed at the inn all 
 night. Even the next day, Katharine's sing 
 ing was like a fragrance that lingered about 
 the place. At dinner Durant, Ross, Aunt 
 Mary, and Katharine talked of the next sea 
 son plans, already shaped with Lawrence for 
 her New York appearance in an opera he had 
 secured the rights of and expected great 
 things from. The book had arrived, and the 
 morning had gone at the piano up in their 
 rooms running through it. In the afternoon 
 the men scattered under the trees to sleep and 
 smoke. Durant, after a cigar, started alone 
 up the bay toward the lake. 
 
 The sun was setting when Ross met him 
 in the path through the heavy woods at the 
 foot of the hill. It was so nearly twilight 
 that Durant did not notice his approach. 
 
 "Good evening, Mr. Durant." 
 
 Durant was stooping among the trees 
 when Ross spoke. "How do you do?" he an 
 swered. "These woods are full of mush 
 rooms. ' ' 
 
 181
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "Mr. Durant," continued Ross, abruptly, 
 "we were discussing Miss Sims' plans for the 
 next season at dinner. May I ask you a frank 
 question?" 
 
 "Anything you like." 
 
 "Are you a suitor of Miss Sims !" 
 
 Durant looked at him and drawing his hand 
 kerchief dusted his fingers. "That is surpris 
 ingly frank." 
 
 "I ought to say with equal frankness that I 
 am." 
 
 "Any man might be proud to be." 
 
 "But that does not answer my inquiry." 
 
 Durant paused. 
 
 "I give you the privilege of asking your 
 question," he replied, "you should give me the 
 privilege of considering an answer." 
 
 "I feel that you can afford to meet me in 
 the matter in the spirit that I meet you," re 
 turned Ross, with nervous vehemence. 
 
 "Don't be too fast." 
 
 "Evasion is not what I am looking for." 
 
 "Nor am I looking for insult." 
 
 tc i thought you capable of directness." 
 182
 
 "Are you sure it is called for 1 ?" 
 
 "Miss Sims knows my attitude. She has 
 given me no encouragement every discour 
 agement, in fact I have tried to find out why 
 and failed. Her happiness is more to me than 
 my own. I will withdraw when it is clearly 
 my duty to do so. But I have said I would 
 wait for a better reason than she has yet 
 given me." 
 
 "Still, I see no reason for the necessity of 
 any temper on your part " 
 
 "Nor do I see why there should be any 
 equivocation on yours." 
 
 "Then get it perfectly clear in your mind," 
 said Durant, angrily, "that I have Miss Sims' 
 interests at heart quite as strongly as you 
 possibly can have." 
 
 "Your words are fair, but such words don't 
 quite tally with your record. I like explicit- 
 ness." 
 
 Durant broke a twig in his hand. "What 
 do you," he asked, "complain of in my rec 
 ord?" 
 
 "All that I know is what other men know. 
 13 183
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 Your bachelor quarters in Chicago have not 
 been famous because of quiet companies. I 
 would like to ask what part such a woman as 
 Miss Katharine Sims could take in one of 
 your Michigan Avenue suppers ?" 
 
 "You may have a quarrel without dragging 
 Miss Sims' name into it." 
 
 "There should be no objection to taking her 
 name into any association with yours if your 
 words are sincere, that you have her interests 
 at heart as I have." 
 
 "I have not for some years even lived in 
 Michigan Avenue." 
 
 "You made your record there. When your 
 name is associated with a woman's name it's 
 you have given it the tone it takes. Will you 
 tell me how many women have been the better 
 for knowing you I" 
 
 "Yes," answered Durant, "when you name 
 one that has been the worse." 
 
 "You are known as an entertainer of stage 
 people. Are they such as you would like 
 Katharine Sims to associate with?" 
 
 "That is gratuitous." 
 184
 
 THE QUARREL IN THE WOODS 
 
 "Your manner and morals are your own. 
 I have no wish to question them, but " 
 
 "Your animus is perfectly clear. You dis 
 tort to make your case. Let it be all that you 
 can make it. I have only this to say : any in 
 dictment against my record, as you choose to 
 call it, comes with a poor grace from you." 
 
 "May I ask why?" 
 
 "Since you have already learned so much 
 to my credit, suppose you make it your busi 
 ness to ascertain." Speaking, Durant passed 
 before George Ross and walked slowly up the 
 hill toward the hotel. 
 
 185
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE LAST BALANCE 
 
 THOSE that take the Illinois Central trains 
 at the foot of Randolph Street will recall how 
 many years the office of Sloan, Durant & 
 Company remained at the corner of Randolph 
 Street and Wabash Avenue. The double sign 
 of polished brass on the corner pier of the 
 brick building bore only the firm name, 
 
 SLOAN, DURANT AND COMPANY. 
 
 But that sign had stood so many years and 
 had been for many years so regularly cleaned 
 that the mere words upon it had become a 
 legend to the neighborhood ; nor was its letter 
 ing, to the last, ever changed. 
 
 When Durant got back next morning from 
 Cuyler's, his firm was closing its first six 
 months on the new brokerage basis. When 
 186
 
 THE LAST BALANCE 
 
 Seymour walked into the office, early though 
 it was, Durant was sitting at his desk. 
 
 "I took a night train," he explained. 
 "Is your balance off I" 
 
 Thomas Seymour, slipping out of a very 
 light overcoat, looked alarmed. "This isn't 
 the first. This is the 29th." 
 
 "I know. I am anxious to see what we've 
 done." 
 
 The bookkeeper shuffled uneasily, and took 
 off his black-rimmed nose glasses, as he al 
 ways did when disturbed, to wipe them. The 
 traditions of thirty-five years were threat 
 ened. "I couldn't," he protested, "show a 
 balance before the first." 
 
 There had been years when it meant a strug 
 gle to cross George Durant. Thomas Sey 
 mour stood for a moment determined to main 
 tain his position. But the iron had of late 
 been sent too often into Durant 's heart to 
 leave his domineering nature untouched. "I 
 understand; it's all right," was all he said. 
 And this frightened the old bookkeeper. A 
 dispute would have been nothing ; but for Du- 
 187
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 rant to give way alarmed him, it was too dif 
 ferent. "You're not well," he asserted, boldly, 
 domineering in his turn. 
 
 "How did the market close Saturday?" 
 
 "Bad; it's a mean market; no snap. You 
 ought to have stayed up there this week. 
 There's nothing doing. It was very quiet 
 Saturday." 
 
 Durant turned to the mail on his desk. 
 Saturday's letters still lay about: Willet and 
 Gray's sugar circular; Grossman's statistical 
 letter; exchange tissues, and a calendar tell 
 ing him it was the 29th of June, 1899. 
 
 "Tom." 
 
 "Sir?" 
 
 "This is my birthday." 
 
 "I want to know? I want to know? How 
 old?" 
 
 "Forty-one." 
 
 Thomas Seymour, tying on his desk apron, 
 paused. "Forty-one?" he echoed, and con 
 tinued his tying. "I remember the morning in 
 Front Street your father came down and said 
 you were eighteen just as well as if it were yes- 
 188
 
 THE LAST BALANCE 
 
 terday. Birney Eoss was the financial man 
 then. He was sitting at his desk and feeling 
 pretty good himself. 'Mr. Durant,' says he 
 to your father, 'we've got a new member of 
 the firm over at East Orange this morning.' 
 That was his first and only boy. 'That's good 
 luck,' says your father. 'This is my own 
 son's birthday. George is eighteen to-day.' 
 'He is T says Birney. 'Well, I'll tell you what 
 we'll do. We'll name the baby after him!' 
 And they did ; they named him after you." 
 
 "Named him after me ?" 
 
 "George Eoss." 
 
 "George Eoss?" 
 
 "Yes. You were on the other side then with 
 your mother ; that was the summer before she 
 died. We've seen some pretty lively times 
 since then, by cracky! I wonder what's be 
 come of that boy? Somebody told me his 
 mother is living in Chicago again." Durant 
 was looking out of the window. Seymour 
 never liked to see him sit in that way. "I can 
 get the balance-sheet off to-day." 
 
 "All right, Tom. Do." 
 189
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 For the old accountant the solemnity of the 
 balance-sheet had never changed. The figures 
 had changed; but the shrunken sums, the 
 palsied accounts that told the story of the 
 later years were always in every way formal. 
 They were ruled, guarded, underlined that 
 day, set in the reddest red on that last sheet 
 with the scrupulous care of the golden days, 
 a generation earlier, in old Front Street. 
 
 Next morning when Durant came down, 
 the balance-sheet lay on his desk. Before he 
 took off his coat he glanced at the last item, 
 profit and loss. The figures of the gain for six 
 months were three hundred and seventy-four 
 dollars and some cents. Durant hung his 
 overcoat in the wardrobe. Thomas Seymour 
 was busy, very busy, checking over the June 
 Western Union bill. 
 
 It was too late to turn tail on a bad situa 
 tion. Durant had faced the music too long 
 for that. The new endeavor was a failure. 
 
 "Tom, this is worse than joint account." 
 
 Seymour dropped his due bills, walked over 
 to Durant 's desk, and sat down, 
 190
 
 THE LAST BALANCE 
 
 "I thought I had sold a good many goods, 
 too," observed Durant, studying the sheet as 
 he tilted back his chair. 
 
 "You have. You have," insisted the book 
 keeper, with trembling vigor. "It's the 
 market and the expenses" he stumbled 
 on "the expenses." 
 
 "Why, no, Tom; the expenses are not ex 
 traordinary, are they? We couldn't hope to 
 cut down the expenses very much." 
 
 "There's the salary account," urged Thomas 
 Seymour, feebly. "Your father used to say 
 when we had a bad year and we had 'em, Mr. 
 Durant, I tell you, we had 'em in Front 
 Street." 
 
 "And some good ones." 
 
 "Well yes, sometimes. Your father used 
 to say when the balance was poor, 'Tom, we 
 must look over the salary account.' " 
 
 Seymour took the balance-sheet up as Du 
 rant laid it down, and adjusted his glasses. 
 They never sat steady over his nose, but at 
 such times they wobbled terribly. "I've been 
 expecting this," observed Durant. "And yet 
 191
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 I can't see I can't see what we can do to pull 
 out." Thomas Seymour twisted the trouble 
 some bridge of his nose. "There's the salary 
 account, Mr. Durant." 
 
 "What is the salary account now, Tom?" 
 
 "You're drawing a hundred and fifty dol 
 lars a month, I'm drawing sixty-five, and we 
 pay Joe forty. But Joe is getting to be a 
 pretty good man. Yes, he is. He can carry 
 a pan of coffee himself." 
 
 "I thought we agreed on a hundred a month 
 for you the first of January ?" 
 
 Thomas Seymour waved his hand. "I don't 
 need it." Durant looked at him. 
 
 "You pay all the room rent," added the 
 bookkeeper, uneasily, "and the most of the 
 lunches." 
 
 "I don't see whose salary can be cut much 
 further," remarked Durant, "unless it is 
 yours, Tom." 
 
 "That's what I say," observed the book 
 keeper, hooking up his glasses. "I can live on 
 forty dollars a month." 
 
 "Can you?" 
 
 192
 
 THE LAST BALANCE 
 
 "I can. But Joe is getting to be a pretty 
 good man. Yes, he is." 
 
 "It is you and I that are not so good as we 
 used to be, Tom." 
 
 "We may have to raise him to hold him next 
 year," said Seymour, bluffingly. 
 
 "Do you think so?" asked Durant. 
 
 "He had a good chance to go into Kidder- 
 Pratt's, shipping, last month. They offered 
 him fifty dollars a month. He talked it over 
 with me. I didn't want to let him go, and I 
 told him he was making a mistake that 
 if he stayed with us in this business he would 
 have a future " 
 
 Durant rolled his eyes. "My God !" 
 
 "I told him " The front door opened. 
 "There he is now; careful." 
 
 "True. Let us be careful when the porter 
 approaches," murmured Durant, as Joe 
 walked in. "Come here, Joe," he added. 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Are you married ?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Any children?" 
 
 193
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "Two. A boy and a little girl, sir. She's 
 pretty near two years old." 
 
 "How old are you, Joe ?" 
 
 "Twenty-seven." 
 
 "Twenty-seven; drawing forty dollars a 
 month. Can you live on that?" 
 
 "Well, you see, sir, my wife is pretty handy, 
 sir." 
 
 "She is?" mused Durant. 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Joe, Mr. Seymour says you're a good 
 man." 
 
 "Thank you, sir." 
 
 "After the first, you'll draw fifty dollars a 
 month." 
 
 Thomas Seymour started as if somebody 
 had stuck him with a pin. Durant looked at 
 him curiously, after Joe had expressed his 
 thanks and gone into the back room. "You 
 may rob yourself, Tom. You've been doing 
 that for me for five years ; don't let us rob Joe 
 he's married." 
 
 He walked forward to the sample counters 
 and began picking up a line of coffees to take 
 194
 
 THE LAST BALANCE 
 
 out. "Credit up that thirty-five dollars a 
 month you stole from yourself, Tom two 
 hundred and ten dollars for six months. Then 
 your balance will be right. We've made one 
 hundred and sixty-four dollars in six months." 
 Rain was falling in the street. Durant put 
 his foot upon a chair, rolled up his trousers, 
 turned up his overcoat collar, took his pans 
 under his arm, and, pulling his hat forward, 
 started down the street. As he walked away, 
 Tom Seymour shuffled to the counter, took 
 off his glasses, and, standing by the sample 
 pans, wiped them as he watched Durant dis 
 appear in the crowd. 
 
 195
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 A REMINISCENCE 
 
 IN July Lawrence came up to Cuyler's to 
 take Katharine East for rehearsal work. A 
 quick round of entertainments was taken care 
 of while Aunt Mary went ahead to Chicago to 
 pack. Then Katharine said good-by to her 
 summer friends. 
 
 Before she reached Chicago Aunt Mary had 
 telephoned Durant to tell of her own return 
 and of Katharine's coming. Seymour had 
 answered her call, and told her that Mr. Du 
 rant was in New York. 
 
 "Did you get his New York address ?" asked 
 Katharine when her aunt told her. Aunt Mary 
 hadn't thought of that. She telephoned again. 
 There seemed to be some difficulty about get 
 ting Mr. Seymour, and, when she did get him, 
 some difficulty in making him understand 
 196
 
 A EEMINISCENCE 
 
 what was wanted. Then she asked him to come 
 up and see Katharine, and he called shortly 
 afterward. The truth was that Aunt Mary's 
 request for Durant's address had taken him 
 unawares. Moreover, he was hesitating on a 
 delicate question that he had in mind. His 
 call, however, was a good excuse to meet two 
 persons in the big town who, he knew, were 
 George Durant's friends. The New York ad 
 dress that he had hesitated over was, after 
 all, simple the Holland House. Seymour 
 explained to the ladies that he did not hear 
 well over the telephone, so he repeated that 
 Durant, when in New York, could usually be 
 found at the Holland House. 
 
 Katharine liked old Mr. Seymour very much 
 indeed, and, as for old Mr. Seymour, he shook 
 so when he asked Katharine if she would sing 
 that he really appeared indistinct. When she 
 saw, as she looked from the piano, that he 
 was crying, she turned silently back and sang 
 again an old song, and she turned with a 
 smile that dried his eyes like sunshine. The 
 shaking, though, continued till Katharine was 
 197
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 afraid he would fall down-stairs. She took 
 his arm and walked down with him, laughing 
 and chatting very close to support him, not 
 observing that the closer she put her face to 
 his the worse he shook. He pulled himself 
 together when he took off his faded straw hat, 
 and he clasped her hand when he spoke a 
 tremulous good-by. "I think you're the hand 
 somest woman I ever met " 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Seymour!" 
 
 "Yes, I do." And, though Katharine was on 
 the front steps, she wanted to throw her arms 
 around his neck and kiss him. 
 
 In New York she went into summer quar 
 ters up-town and plunged into her work, 
 though not without wondering sometimes why 
 she could not hear from Durant ; why he was 
 silent after he had once lifted the curtain of 
 his heart. They tried the Holland House not 
 once but many times, and always in vain ; they 
 could get no word from there concerning Du 
 rant. Every one else from Chicago came at 
 one time or another during summer to see 
 them. Heat seemed to make no change in the 
 198
 
 A REMINISCENCE 
 
 round of visitors. One morning at the theater 
 Katharine saw Stein. He was talking to Law 
 rence, and Katharine remembered that he had 
 professed once to know Durant. She detested 
 Stein with every instinct, but she put down 
 her aversion, spoke to him, and let him scuttle 
 up to her that she might ask about Mr. George 
 Durant. 
 
 "George Durant !" Stein bridled like a 
 tarantula. " George Durant I" Then he spat 
 a word like poison from his mouth, "Busted !" 
 
 Katharine did not hear what more he said ; 
 she went home dizzy with worry. Aunt Mary 
 was entertaining a caller, and Katharine tried 
 to slip unobserved to her room, but she could 
 not, for it was George Ross. Not quite so 
 joyful as nature originally made him, but so 
 gently courteous in his disappointment and so 
 faithfully kind that he could not entirely be 
 got rid of. This day he found Katharine 
 heartsick, and she did not hide her depres 
 sion; she asked for his sisters, and drawing 
 off her gloves, wearily, told them both of the 
 horrid Stein's news. 
 
 14 199
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "I don't believe it !" exclaimed Aunt Mary, 
 passionately. "It isn't so !" 
 
 "Do you know anything about it, Mr. 
 Eoss ?" asked Katharine, appealingly. "Have 
 you heard that Mr. Durant's house has 
 failed!" 
 
 "No, I have not, Miss Sims. Not an intima 
 tion of the kind." 
 
 "That man Stein is a scorpion!" cried her 
 aunt, blazing. "I wouldn't believe a word he 
 said under oath ! Mr. Durant couldn't fail !" 
 
 Katharine's eyes began to quiver. 
 
 "Let me tell you," suggested Ross, at length, 
 as they talked. "I have a bachelor cousin here 
 in New York, who is in the coffee business in 
 a small way. I can find out from him this 
 afternoon whether there is anything at all 
 in it." 
 
 "Can you, Mr. Eoss ?" 
 
 "Assuredly. Did I never tell you that my 
 father when he died was a partner in that 
 house of Sloan, Durant & Company? It is 
 true. He once had an interest in the house. 
 But we went to Chicago to live after father's 
 200
 
 A EEMINISCENCE 
 
 death, and I never met any of the firm till I 
 met Mr. Durant at your home." 
 
 "Why, how curious !" 
 
 "This afternoon I'll find out all I can and 
 let you know to-night, if you're going to be 
 home." 
 
 Aunt Mary would not let him leave till after 
 luncheon ; then George made his way to Wall 
 Street, to Front Street, and to the box-like 
 office of his cousin, Sam Ross. 
 
 Cousin Sam, at fifty-five, looked out from 
 under grizzled brows that still struck terror 
 into messenger boys. There had been days 
 when others trembled; now none but mes 
 senger boys were afraid of him, and of those 
 chiefly the younger. 
 
 "George Durant?" he growled. "Sloan, Du 
 rant & Company! Failed! No. Who the 
 hell said so ? No. George Durant's been hard 
 hit for five or six years who hasn't in the cof 
 fee business ? But if that fellow ever gets his 
 health back he'll come out on top sure as 
 there's oil in Texas. Oh, know Durant, do 
 you? Yes; I know him. Sure. He asks me 
 201
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 out to dinner whenever he's here; but he 
 hasn't been here for years. I tell you, Georgie, 
 why I always liked him: when your father 
 died, Sloan was the head of the firm. The 
 question came up about settling for your 
 father's interest. Old Sloan was a smooth 
 one. The Durants made the money; Sloan 
 kept it. But George's father was an invalid 
 then, and Sloan was going to rob your mother 
 - everything was in their hands ; they had an 
 old-fashioned cast-iron partnership contract. 
 It was right after a coffee panic, and things 
 were mixed. Sloan was going to rob your 
 mother in the settlement. George Durant 
 wouldn't have it. Your mother wanted to get 
 the Chicago City Railway stock the house 
 had a big block of it. Sloan said no ; it was 
 the best stuff they owned. He wanted to put 
 off some wild-cat real estate on her that would 
 have ruined her in taxes and special assess 
 ments. 
 
 "One night your mother asked me to go with 
 her to Chicago to see George Durant about her 
 settlement. Why, he told her she should have 
 202
 
 A REMINISCENCE 
 
 the stock before she had talked five minutes, 
 and he entertained her while she was in Chi 
 cago like a princess, by God ! 
 
 "That's how your mother got you children 
 all you and Bess and Julia ever had, Georgie ; 
 that block of City Railway ; that's right. We 
 took you and Bess along; she wasn't six 
 months old then. 
 
 "Old Tom Seymour told me once about 
 how Sloan and George had it out. 'Is Ross's 
 wife more entitled to it than any of the rest 
 of us V old Sloan would whine. 'Damn it, she's 
 a woman,' says George. 'She's got three chil 
 dren.' " 
 
 Cousin Sam, standing with one hand in his 
 pocket at the counter, scowled out of the win 
 dow ; he always scowled when he recalled the 
 past. "Raining again," he muttered. "If this 
 keeps up, I'm damned if wheat ain't got to go 
 down." 
 
 203
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 "IN NEW YORK" 
 
 ON a certain warm day in September 
 Thomas Seymour crossed the Washington 
 Street Bridge carrying a heavy suit-case. The 
 sun was burning hot. He made his brisk, un 
 certain way under the elevated and in the 
 blistering heat of Market Street toward the 
 shady side of Washington. Passing the cor 
 ner he set down his burden, looked about him 
 like a burglar, and taking off his coat drew 
 his handkerchief and mopped his face. From 
 Canal Street over the viaduct, over the bridge 
 and across Market Street under a hot sun is 
 a long stretch with a load. Ignoring the temp 
 tations of the street-cars as he passed Frank 
 lin Street, he walked unsteadily on. The heat 
 was so intense that the street, even on the 
 204
 
 "IN NEW YORK" 
 
 shady side, was deserted ; but this pleased him, 
 for he did not want to be seen. At Fifth Ave 
 nue, with the perspiration streaming down his 
 neck, he put on his coat again, and, shifting 
 his load from arm to arm, kept his way until 
 he made the long distance to Wabash Avenue 
 and turned north toward the office. 
 
 Unlocking the door, he lifted his case 
 a queer box-like, foreign affair, that George 
 Durant had picked up somewhere in his long- 
 ago wanderings and, with the half run that a 
 man gives to a final heavy carry, dropped it 
 at the vault, swung open the iron door, and set 
 it inside. Then he stepped into the rear 
 room and took off his coat to wash away 
 the dust, the heat and the sweat of the jour 
 ney. 
 
 Every day after his second round on the 
 street with his coffees, Seymour turned the 
 key in the office door and started with that 
 case for the West Side. This day, after a 
 thorough scrubbing, he wrote a letter to his 
 sister in Brooklyn, telling her how hot it was 
 and how busy he was ; copied it before he re- 
 205
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 membered it was not quite necessary to copy 
 that kind of a letter, locked the office, and 
 started on a long walk down Wabash Avenue. 
 
 He paused at the door of a shabby apart 
 ment building below Twenty-second Street, 
 and entering walked up one flight of stairs and 
 opened the door of the front room. The 
 room was large and the ceiling high. The 
 floor was carpeted with worn Brussels; the 
 walls, papered, were hideously bare. There 
 were two stuffed chairs in the room; a com 
 mode, a table, a stand and a bed of black wal 
 nut, with a forbidding headpiece that hung 
 above like a canopy. The windows were hung 
 with Nottingham curtains, no longer fresh, 
 and worn yellow shades through which the 
 western light struggled, cracked and spotted, 
 made the heat and the loneliness of the cham 
 ber more oppressive. 
 
 "Is that you, Tom?" It was Durant's voice 
 from the bed. 
 
 "Sure, it's me. Is it you? How are you, 
 boy?" He lowered his voice. "How's the 
 pain ? Eh ?" Bending over the sick man while 
 206
 
 "IN NEW YORK" 
 
 he held his glasses in one hand, he mopped his 
 forehead with the other. 
 
 "Not so bad as this morning." 
 
 "Good enough." 
 
 "Is it very warm to-day, Tom?" 
 
 "It's hotter than Tophet, George, to be plain. 
 Yes, it is. You've felt it, I know. You couldn't 
 help it. But it's cooling off beautifully in 
 Baffin's Bay," he added, mentally. In his 
 queer, shambling, sidewise way, Seymour 
 walked to one of the windows, stripping his 
 coat and waistcoat off and hanging them on 
 a chair as he went, and tried to raise the sash 
 higher. 
 
 "Be careful," cautioned Durant. "There's 
 a hole in that screen, Bob says, and the mos 
 quitoes get in." 
 
 "Oh, how is that darky boy? Does he at 
 tend to you all right?" 
 
 "Yes. I let him go home at five o'clock. I 
 don't really need anybody here during the day. 
 They're kind down-stairs. How's the market 
 to-day?" 
 
 "Rotten." 
 
 207
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "What about the yellow-fever talk at Rio?" 
 
 "It's all talk." 
 
 "Sell any goods to-day?" 
 
 "Better believe I did, and got a nice line of 
 offers, too. Yes, I did." 
 
 "What did you sell, Tom?" 
 
 "Well, now, just wait till I get you fixed 
 up for your dinner before you talk business. 
 It'll be here in a few minutes." 
 
 Seymour's constant effort was to keep Du- 
 rant from talking business. There was, in 
 fact, no business to talk, so the tired book 
 keeper evaded details. It was true, that day 
 he had sold some goods; but not of the line 
 usually handled by Sloan, Durant & Com 
 pany. Seymour had ceased to rely entirely on 
 the coffee market. He peddled his samples 
 twice every day faithfully through the gro 
 cery district, but in vain. Then he turned to 
 a resource undreamed of by the founders of 
 the honored house which he alone represented : 
 he loaded himself with quite a different line of 
 samples, and started for the West Side to sell 
 ink. In Canal Street Seymour was as safe 
 208
 
 "IN NEW YORK" 
 
 from acquaintances as lie would have been in 
 Bridgeport. He posed in Canal Street as an 
 expert in writing fluids. Moreover, on Canal 
 Street he could do business in his shirt-sleeves, 
 which during this terrible August and Sep 
 tember, with Durant sick in bed and the cash 
 balance getting sometimes below three fig 
 ures was something. But the bookkeeper 
 would no more have whispered "Ink" to Du 
 rant that he would have shouted "Fire !" He 
 thanked God for the few dollars he picked up 
 by the sweat of his brow in Canal Street for 
 current expenses, and in the sick-room he 
 talked coffee. 
 
 That night he succeeded with his dodging. 
 After tasting the light meal brought in 
 from a neighboring cafe", Durant fell into a 
 stupor. Seymour, reduced to a pair of Du- 
 rant's winter trousers and a shirt, sat in the 
 half-dark near the window waiting for bed 
 time. Durant woke presently and asked for a 
 drink. The bookkeeper took up the pitcher of 
 iced water, kept carefully under a newspaper 
 cone, and gave him a drink, hoping he would 
 209
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 sleep. But Durant lay wakeful, and, talking 
 for a few moments coherently, began to ramble 
 over new plans for his business. 
 
 "The trouble," he muttered, unsteadily, "is 
 the lack of spot goods." 
 
 "That," echoed Thomas Seymour, softly, in 
 his stocking-feet, "is exactly the trouble." 
 
 "Storage can easily be arranged." 
 
 "Sure," assented Seymour, cocking his 
 burning feet upon the window ledge. 
 
 "Money is cheap enough." 
 
 "Never was so cheap," groaned Seymour. 
 
 "With decent facilities we can put the house 
 to the front, Tom, in six months." 
 
 "Less than that." 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 "I say less than six months." 
 
 "All I want is my health." 
 
 "That's all." 
 
 "But they must consign." 
 
 "They've got to consign." 
 
 Durant lay back. "While you're awake, let 
 me change your pillow," suggested Seymour, 
 dragging himself to the bed. 
 210
 
 "IN NEW YORK" 
 
 "Tom, you've always been faithful." 
 
 One day the old bookkeeper, making head 
 along Washington Street for the West Side, 
 was congratulating himself that he had never 
 yet been seen at it when a woman stepping out 
 of a newspaper office accosted him: he had a 
 telescope as big as a steamer trunk in each 
 hand. 
 
 "Mr. Seymour!" 
 
 Thomas fell a-trembling. "Yes, Miss 
 Miss " 
 
 "Miss Anthony you haven't forgotten 
 me?" 
 
 "No, no. Certainly, I haven't. How do you 
 do?" 
 
 ''Where have you been keeping your 
 self ?" she cried. "I have gone way down 
 to the office twice, and it was locked both 
 times " 
 
 "Yes, ma'am." 
 
 "I want to see Mr. Durant. Where is he !" 
 
 "In in New York." 
 
 "You wicked man 1 What have I ever done 
 to you?" 
 
 211
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "Nothing, nothing. Nothing." 
 
 "He is not in New York. He is here and 
 sick, and I know it." 
 
 The load of ink tumbled to the curbstone. 
 "I I can't help it !" exclaimed Seymour, des 
 perately. "He won't let me tell anybody. I 
 have to say New York when he is down this 
 way he doesn't want it known, Miss An 
 thony." 
 
 Her eyes blazed. "Well, I do know it. I 
 want to know whether he is very sick. I want 
 his address ! I am going to him !" 
 
 Before Seymour could collect his shocked 
 faculties, Miss Anthony was away with the 
 address. Nor did she lose any time in using 
 it. 
 
 Within an hour she stood at the door of Du- 
 rant's room. She knocked. There was no 
 answer. She knocked again. A colored boy 
 opened the door. His face had a wild look. 
 
 "I came to inquire about Mr. Durant." 
 
 "Yes'm." 
 
 "How is he ? What is the matter? Don't you 
 understand !" 
 
 212
 
 "IN NEW YORK" 
 
 The boy, trying to speak, glanced, fright 
 ened, into the room, looked at her again and 
 stammered, "Yes'm." Through the open door 
 she saw Durant, his head bent, supporting 
 himself against the mantel. Breathing with 
 painful exertion, he was staggering out of a 
 paroxysm, and he gripped his side with his 
 hand. She could not repress a cry, but he 
 gave no heed. His face was pinched and his 
 pallor sickening; it was a dreadful face, 
 looking out of agony. Running toward 
 him, streaming with pity, she put out her 
 hands. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Durant! Can't I do something?" 
 She threw up her veil and he recognized her. 
 
 "You are suffering so !" she cried, checking 
 herself as she advanced. 
 
 With an effort, ghastly in intensity, he drew 
 himself up. He tried to speak. 
 
 "Do not ; do not !" she exclaimed, grasping 
 a chair; "I understand." 
 
 His head fell an instant, then, supporting 
 himself still on his elbow, he slowly raised the 
 handkerchief in his right hand and wiped the 
 213
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 damp from his forehead. Pushing forward 
 the chair she begged him to sit down, but when 
 she put her hand on his arm he shook his head 
 and breathing heavily for a minute stood per 
 fectly still. He tried a second time to reach 
 his forehead with his handkerchief, and could 
 not. Then she took it from his hand, and 
 steadying him wiped the chill sweat herself; 
 but the touch of his hand frightened her, it 
 was so cold. He tried to look his gratitude, 
 and at length sat unsteadily down in the chair. 
 
 "How did you ever find me?" he asked, 
 pausing spasmodically between the words. 
 
 "Had I known sooner you were ill I should 
 have found you sooner. Oh, I am so sorry you 
 are ill." 
 
 He put up his hand helplessly to arrange 
 the disorder of his neck. "I am subject to 
 these attacks." 
 
 "Must you suffer so?" 
 
 "I am easier now." 
 
 "Had you not better lie down?" 
 
 He shook his head. "I can not lie down." 
 
 "Is there nothing, nothing I can do !" 
 214
 
 "IN NEW YORK" 
 
 He raised his eyes with something of the old 
 roll and lifted his hand toward the other chair. 
 
 "You may sit down," he smiled, nodding, 
 feebly courteous, "and tell me how you 
 have been." 
 
 15 
 
 215
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 ERRORS AND OMISSIONS EXCEPTED 
 
 ON the following Sunday Seymour set out 
 after dinner charged with a message for Ma 
 bel Anthony. To Durant's annoyance items 
 concerning his condition had crept into the 
 newspapers. Seymour was to find Mabel An 
 thony and get her to contradict the reports 
 and to beg her to see that no more were print 
 ed. He was to thank her also for the flowers 
 on Durant's table that morning. 
 
 The old accountant, none too collected at 
 best since the demoralization of his affairs, 
 made hard work of his errand. After he found 
 Miss Anthony it was such a relief to talk with 
 a sympathetic heart that he tarried beyond 
 his intention, and when he again reached 
 lower Wabash Avenue it was growing dark. 
 
 For two nights Durant had had no sleep, 
 and Seymour's parting injunction had been 
 that he should lie quiet and try to get a nap : 
 216
 
 ERRORS AND OMISSIONS EXCEPTED 
 
 the silence about the halls and within the room 
 as he paused at the door on his return gave 
 him hope that the sick man was sleeping. He 
 turned the knob stealthily. 
 
 The fire that he had left smoked low in the 
 grate, but the windows still caught the faint 
 light of the western sky. Under the shadow 
 of the overhanging headboard Durant sat 
 propped up among pillows. His arms were 
 crossed on his chest, and with his chin lying 
 on his breast his mustache almost hid his 
 mouth. His brows, grown shaggily gray, 
 shaded his sunken eyes, and Seymour, tip 
 toeing, could not decide whether he was asleep 
 or awake. 
 
 "Back, Tom?" 
 
 The bookkeeper, making his way toward 
 the grate, turned with apprehension. "I 
 thought you were asleep." 
 
 "No ; I haven't been asleep since you left," 
 
 The old man took off his glasses. "What 
 have you been doing?" he demanded. 
 
 "Thinking." 
 
 "Thinking?" echoed Seymour, helplessly. 
 
 217
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 "What now?" he asked with a bluster of re 
 proof. 
 
 " I know. Worrying about business 
 again. ' ' 
 
 "No," answered Durant, slowly, "Not 
 that. I Ve been thinking of my wasted oppor 
 tunities. ' ' 
 
 The arc-lamps in the street, bursting into 
 life, threw white patches on the headboard. 
 Seymour, shuffling to the grate, poked at the 
 smoldering fire. He talked of Mabel An 
 thony; talked of better times; of opportuni 
 ties that would come again. But Durant 
 spoke only once. He spoke of some life in 
 surance which he told his bookkeeper ran now 
 in his favor ; then he asked to have his table 
 fixed for the night. 
 
 Seymour brought from the bathroom a 
 pitcher of water and from the mantelpiece a 
 spoon and a glass of medicine that Ingraham 
 had left. He put these on the stand beside 
 Durant's watch. Near the watch lay a tiny 
 bottle containing a number of small white 
 pellets. 
 
 218
 
 ERRORS AND OMISSIONS EXCEPTED 
 
 Seymour took the bottle up ; it was without 
 a label. 
 
 "What is this, George?" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "This." 
 
 Durant looked up. "Morphia." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "It is morphine." 
 
 Seymour looked at him in alarm. "I never 
 you don't take morphine?" 
 
 "No." But the old man's expression did 
 not clear; uneasiness pinched his tired face. 
 
 "It is morphine. I have carried it a long 
 time, Tom ; I have never touched it. Dr. Sims 
 gave me that bottle once because I demanded 
 it; that's all. I promised him I should never 
 touch it so long as I could stand the pain. 
 Tom " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I have suffered the torments of hell." 
 
 "I know it." 
 
 As Durant closed his eyes his mind seemed 
 to wander. "How many are there?" he mut 
 tered, rousing. 
 
 219
 
 "How many?" 
 
 "How many in the bottle?" 
 
 "Oh." Seymour emptied the pellets into the 
 palm of his hand and counted them carefully. 
 "There's twenty, George." 
 
 "They are all there. He gave me twenty. 
 I got them out I looked at them this after 
 noon. Tom?" breathed Durant, closing his 
 eyes as his face set. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Put them " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Put them in the " 
 
 "Bottle?" 
 
 "No." Lighted an instant by a spasm of 
 his iron will, the sick man's eyes opened. 
 'Wo." He drew himself up. Supported on 
 one hand he pointed at the fire. "There." 
 
 As Seymour hastened to obey, Durant 
 watched the little greenish, bluish hell flame 
 burst faintly into the yellow blaze of the fire. 
 
 He lay back, and Seymour sat down at his 
 side. He brightened for a time, and they 
 talked of old Front Street days. When drowsi- 
 220
 
 ERRORS AND OMISSIONS EXCEPTED 
 
 ness appeared at last to overcome Mm, Sey 
 mour stole away to his own bed. 
 
 Once, in the night, the old bookkeeper 
 dreamed, and, dreaming, heard a cry and 
 woke trembling and listened. 
 
 But there was no cry; only the darkness 
 and the silence of the night. And, listening, 
 he fell again asleep. 
 
 That night Katharine was speeding to Chi 
 cago to the side of George Durant. Aunt 
 Mary had seen in her Chicago paper the news 
 of his serious illness. Katharine had wired 
 Seymour at once for information, and he had 
 replied, but vaguely, almost unintelligibly. 
 It was Saturday when, in despair, she wired 
 Mabel Anthony for word. Late Saturday 
 night at the theater the answer was handed to 
 her. When she got home George Ross was sit 
 ting with her aunt. Katharine, weeping, hast 
 ened into the room with the despatch. 
 
 "He is very ill and not well cared for," Ma 
 bel Anthony had said. 
 221
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 The plans were made at once, and only the 
 details were discussed. After they had talked 
 together George Ross spoke. "If you are 
 going, ' ' he said, "I shall go with you. I should 
 leave for Chicago Monday, in any case. You 
 don't know just where he lives now ; perhaps 
 I can help you to find him quickly. If you 
 will let me, I will go, too." 
 
 They reached Chicago Monday morning, 
 but there had been delays, and it was past 
 eleven o'clock when their carriage, driven 
 straight from the station, stopped in Ran 
 dolph Street near Wabash Avenue and George 
 Ross got out. 
 
 The green counter-shades on the Randolph 
 Street side were drawn half-way up the win 
 dows. Passing the brass corner-sign George 
 Ross stopped: there was crape on the office 
 door. He tried to look inside, but the drawn 
 curtains prevented, and seizing the thumb- 
 latch he shook it. The curtain presently was 
 lifted aside and a ghostly face stared at him. 
 It was the face of Thomas Seymour : the liv 
 ing wreck of the house that was dead. Behind 
 222
 
 ERRORS AND OMISSIONS EXCEPTED 
 
 Ross there were sudden sobs ; the two women 
 coming after him had seen the death token. 
 The bookkeeper let them in. 
 
 "I want to go to him," whispered Katharine, 
 when she could speak. "Now, at once. Oh, 
 Mr. Seymour, take me to him." 
 
 The four drove down the avenue to 
 gether. 
 
 At the foot of the stairs Katharine faltered, 
 and Mabel Anthony hearing ran down to 
 clasp her in her arms. They helped her to 
 Seymour's room. Aunt Mary and Mabel An 
 thony went in to where Durant lay. Ross 
 knelt at Katharine's chair, and while she 
 cried his hand crept over hers. 
 
 When the others had withdrawn from the 
 front room, she asked that she might see him 
 alone. George Ross supported her into the 
 hall and putting his hand on the knob of the 
 closed door, paused. 
 
 "I did him an injustice once, Katharine," 
 he said. "When I learned of it I wrote to him, 
 telling him I understood better. I think per 
 haps he forgave me. I think he was a man 
 223
 
 THE CLOSE OF THE DAY 
 
 that could. I did not know even until yester 
 day of all that he had done for you. If I am 
 not wholly unworthy, I want to go to him now 
 with you. May If 
 And they went in to the dead together. 
 
 (3) 
 
 THE END 
 
 224
 
 A NOVEL OF REAL IMPORTANCE. 
 
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