99 


 
 LOUISBURG SQUARE
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NBW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS 
 ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA 
 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. 
 
 TORONTO
 
 No. 8 Louisburg Square
 
 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 ELISE AMES 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1917 
 
 All rightl Ttttrvid
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1917, 
 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published, March, 1917.
 
 TO 
 
 THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER 
 
 "No spring nor summer's beauty hath such grace 
 As I have seen in one autumnal face. 1 ' 
 
 Brookline 1915-1916 
 
 2135S82
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I AN INTRODUCTION TO EIGHT LOUISBURG 
 
 SQUARE i 
 
 II EXPLAINING GENERAL WASHINGTON . . 12 
 
 III WHAT WAS SAID AT TEA 20 
 
 IV GARY BUYS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT ... 35 
 V DEALING CHIEFLY WITH CHRISTMAS . . 44 
 
 VI THE FANCY DRESS BALL 58 
 
 VII OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN 72 
 
 VIII INTO THE FIRE . 88 
 
 IX WHAT HAPPENED IN AIKEN .... 100 
 
 X PRELUDE SEVENTEEN 112 
 
 XI NEW THOUGHTS FOR OLD 125 
 
 XII AFTER THE CONCERT 136 
 
 XIII WHAT PATRICIA THOUGHT 145 
 
 XIV A CONVERSATION IN THE SQUARE . . .164 
 XV A RUMOUR 179 
 
 XVI WHICH CULMINATES IN A SECOND LETTER 
 
 TO CAMILLA 193 
 
 XVII MISFORTUNES NEVER COME SINGLY . . . 204 
 XVIII A SHORT CHAPTER BUT AN IMPORTANT ONE 217 
 
 XIX THE SUN GOES DOWN IN LOUISBURG 
 
 SQUARE 226 
 
 XX SOME LETTERS, AN ENGAGEMENT, AND A 
 
 TELEGRAM 240
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XXI 
 
 XXII 
 XXIII 
 XXIV 
 
 XXV 
 
 CULMINATION 257 
 
 DEAD NARCISSUS 274 
 
 A DECISION TO MAKE 293 
 
 A DECISION MADE 306 
 
 THE WORLD SET FREE 316
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LOUISBURG SQUARE Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 ROSALIND . ., 73 
 
 PATRICIA 148 
 
 QUIETLY SHE CLOSED THE LITTLE BOOK . . . .211 
 ERIC STOOD BESIDE THE WINDOW 270
 
 LOUISBURG SQUARE
 
 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO EIGHT LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 MR. SINGLETON SINGLETON, attired in 
 his flowered silk wrapper, reclined at length 
 upon a chintz-covered ottoman and stared 
 passively through the frosted panes of his study win- 
 dow. For a long time he had held himself motion- 
 less, with so much unnatural stiffness in his pose and 
 so much unnatural dulness in his eye that he seemed 
 scarcely alive. He was, in fact, a great invalid, a 
 potential paralytic, whose potentiality increased with 
 the passage of years, as if it were a tender flower 
 watered by the curative baths prescribed by his doc- 
 tors. 
 
 But he had not always been a passive, white old 
 man, who spoke only at the rarest intervals, and 
 who lived almost a hermit in his house at 8 Louis- 
 burg Square. Once Mr. Singleton Singleton had 
 been the flower of Boston's young men. Educated 
 abroad, he had returned with a reputation for wild- 
 ness and a large fortune, both guarantees to popu- 
 larity. The best dancer, the most fluent speaker, 
 possessed of exquisite manners and unlimited means, 
 to mothers eligible, to fathers agreeable, to daugh- 
 ters engrossing, he had early become a lion of so- 
 ciety. His exercise was taken in the ball room, his 
 
 I
 
 2 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 business transacted over the tea-table; he was to be 
 the catch of the season. No lady with a pretty 
 daughter but kept an eye on his goings and comings ; 
 no father with a doubtful income but took him aside 
 at the Sarcophagus Club for a chat. But Mr. Sin- 
 gleton Singleton deftly avoided all the nets spread 
 to enmesh him and by degrees became a confirmed 
 bachelor. Far from necessitating his withdrawal 
 from the ball-room, his single blessedness served 
 rather to stimulate his interest in society. He never 
 missed a ball; neither waltz nor two-step passed 
 without his nimble figure gliding through the dancers. 
 As a cotillion leader he was perfection. It came to 
 be a recognised thing that unless Mr. Singleton Sin- 
 gleton led your cotillion, your ball could not really 
 achieve success. By the pyrotechnical journals he 
 was established as the social leader of Boston, and 
 in that eminent position reigned for a score of years, 
 alone and undisputed. Yet despite the tinsel of his 
 position, despite the hideous unreality of calling 
 cards and cutaways, there was in him that ability 
 to love which dignifies humanity. 
 
 All men must have their day, however, and Mr. 
 Singleton Singleton had his. The hilarious tide of 
 modern dances surged into the ballroom. A man 
 to whom Strauss was perfection, with perhaps a 
 polka for variety, naturally found ragtime barbaric 
 and impossible. In dismay this arbiter of society 
 forbade the one-step and the maxixe, but the waves 
 would not listen to Canute. In a year Mr. Singleton 
 Singleton was a changed man ; and when the cotillion 
 went out of vogue, at the same time he, too, went out, 
 for the one thing which he could do supremely well 
 was no longer the thing to do. Retiring from the 
 world of society, he shut himself up in Louisburg
 
 EIGHT LOUISBURG SQUARE 3 
 
 Square, and thereafter the only intimation which 
 Boston had that this once brilliant social light had 
 not entirely gone out, was an occasional glimpse 
 of a long, paralytic figure being driven through 
 the parkway in a victoria. 
 
 This is by way of explaining why on this clear, 
 crisp December morning Mr. Singleton Singleton 
 reclined on his chintz-covered ottoman, gazing 
 passively out of the frosty window. He did this 
 simply because there was nothing else for him to do. 
 For years he had sat there every morning on the 
 same chintz-covered ottoman, staring idly out of the 
 same window with unspeculative eyes. He seldom 
 looked at anything in particular. After all, what 
 was the use? He was only waiting; for such people 
 there is no field of vision. 
 
 This morning, however, his eye had fallen on the 
 chimney-pot across the way. He frowned at it. It 
 did not offend him that the house should have a 
 chimney-pot, for they were necessary evils; but this 
 particular chimney-pot, the most elevated and salient 
 feature of the Square, was made of green tin. All 
 day long the sun shone upon the innovation. En- 
 hanced by the surrounding snow, its blatant green 
 dazzled offensively, shocking his proprietary interest 
 in the Square that quaint, semi-impregnable cor- 
 ner of the past which was so very dear to him. Since 
 John Singleton Copley had owned the whole of the 
 west slope of Beacon Hill, some member of his 
 family had always dwelt there. It was in the Copley 
 blood to love Louisburg Square, and Mr. Singleton 
 Singleton was the oldest of the Copley blood. And 
 then it was such a sympathetic place to wait in! 
 With its dying elms, its faded brick houses, its cobble 
 pavement and wrought-iron fence, all now clothed in
 
 4 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 white by the late snowfall, it seemed like himself to 
 be waiting for Something to come and sweep it 
 away. To feel this similarity was natural. Each 
 step of the march of progress in the Square wounded 
 him. Bad enough to see a convent established at 
 number 21, and be compelled forever to be stared 
 down by its lofty motto per augusta ad 
 augusta ; bad enough to have number 2 turned 
 into a boarding-house for theological students, with- 
 out the Misses Hepplethwaite across the way 
 Jane and Joan, whom he had known from their child- 
 hood decorating their chimneys with green tin. 
 From the artistic point of view it offended; regarded 
 as a symbol of progression, it was mortal. 
 
 Somewhere in the house buzzed a refined electric 
 bell ; the sound came to the invalid's ear as if through 
 rolls of thick velvet. 
 
 " Dr. Gary to see you, sir." A servant had 
 quietly entered the room. 
 
 As if reluctant to leave off staring out of the win- 
 dow, Mr. Singleton Singleton slowly turned his head, 
 but did not speak. He seldom spoke to his friends, 
 never to his servants. 
 
 " He's in a great hurry, sir," the servant went on. 
 ' You'll see him, won't you? He's coming up." 
 
 There was a quick, light step on the stairs outside, 
 and a little man with steel blue eyes hurried into the 
 room. Dressed in white from top to toe save for a 
 black satin tie, he was a perfect picture of hygienic 
 spick-and-spanness. To the casual observer Dr. 
 Gary scarcely appeared a distinguished surgeon and 
 the recently appointed Chief of the new Longwood 
 Hospital; but if in a crowd of men his stature handi- 
 capped him, the incision of his speech and the keen-
 
 EIGHT LOUISBURG SQUARE 5 
 
 ness of his eyes soon betrayed his genius. About 
 him floated the dry, clean odour of hospitals, which, 
 when one stood in his presence, made the nostrils 
 tingle not unpleasantly. With all his spotlessness, 
 however, it was readily visible from the lines in his 
 face that he was the busiest man alive. Like all 
 great leaders he was daily overworked, but loved 
 and gloried in the stress of life. It suited him ex- 
 actly to live on a schedule, to have just so much time 
 for meals, so much for committees, and so much for 
 correspondence. To live eagerly and zealously is 
 actually to live. 
 
 " Sorry to be rude and not wait, Tony," he cried 
 even before he reached the room. " I'm in a dread- 
 ful hurry. Have a committee at State House on 
 pure milk at eleven-thirty, so I can only " 
 
 Dr. Gary did not finish what he had begun to say. 
 It was his custom not to waste time on obvious con- 
 clusions. Grasping Mr. Singleton Singleton's list- 
 less hand, he drew up a chair and sat down beside 
 him. 
 
 " Well, how are you to-day? " he rattled on, evi- 
 dently busied only in his conversation, while in reality 
 making a keen observation of his friend's condition. 
 " Haven't been in for some time, have I ? Thought 
 I'd better drop in this morning on the way to the 
 State House. They're trying to lower the milk re- 
 quirements. Outrageous. . . . Never could see 
 why you persisted in living up here on this hillside 
 . . . Let me feel your pulse, will you? ... It al- 
 most breaks the motor every time I come to see you, 
 and with the snow it's like climbing the Himalayas. 
 Should think you'd feel as if you were sliding off into 
 the Charles all the time . . Good! Pulse bet-
 
 6 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 ter. . . . Mt. Vernon St. seems a little more per- 
 pendicular every time I what are you pointing at, 
 Tony?" 
 
 Mr. Singleton Singleton's long, pale hand was 
 stretched out toward a corner of the room. 
 
 "Desk?" 
 
 The invalid nodded assent. 
 
 "What is it? On top? Oh! This envelope 
 for me? What is it? Shall I open it? " 
 
 His friend nodded again. 
 
 " Hullo ! " cried Dr. Gary in surprise, as he tore 
 across the envelope. "What's this for? A thou- 
 sand dollars ! You don't owe me a thousand dol- 
 lars, Tony! " 
 
 " Services." At length Mr. Singleton Singleton 
 spoke; one dull word, accompanied by a ghost of a 
 smile. 
 
 Dr. Gary folded up the cheque and put it back in 
 the envelope. 
 
 " My dear Tony, how many times do I have to 
 say that I won't take anything from you ? Services, 
 indeed! If we weren't the oldest friends, do you 
 suppose I'd take the time to come and straighten you 
 out every so often. Here " 
 
 Mr. Singleton Singleton shook his head, and spoke 
 again. " Hospital." 
 
 ' You mean to give it to the Longwood? " Dr. 
 Gary's eyes snapped with pleasure. " Good ! We 
 always need more free beds. You're most kind, 
 most kind. You're a blessing to the hospital, 
 Tony I " The doctor moved to the window. 
 " Lord ! It's a glorious day out ! Do you see how 
 the snow sparkles? You don't miss any day out- 
 doors?" (Mr. Singleton Singleton shook his 
 head). " I'm glad to hear it. You ought to find
 
 EIGHT LOUISBURG SQUARE 7 
 
 the sleighing wonderful. . . . Hullo, here's your 
 goddaughter outside. Beautiful girl, Tony. And 
 to-day she looks " 
 
 A happy glow came over Mr. Singleton Single- 
 ton's face. Very slowly he arose from his ottoman 
 and moved to the window with an uncertain, heavy 
 step, suggesting for all the world, as Dr. Gary took 
 his arm to help him, a great leviathan being warped 
 into its dock by a smart little tug. 
 
 " There she is. See her? Lean a little this way. 
 There ! She's talking to some one. One of the 
 Hepplethwaites, I think. Live opposite, don't 
 they?" The invalid nodding absently, Dr. Gary 
 rambled on. " Rosalind is a lovely girl. By 
 George, I wish she were my goddaughter! You 
 should have married yourself, Tony; then you 
 wouldn't have had to steal one of your cousin's chil- 
 dren like this. I swear I should think Jack would 
 be jealous, you have her here so much. But I can't 
 blame you." 
 
 Mr. Singleton Singleton beamed in his paralytic 
 way, as men always do and always will at praise for 
 what is nearest to their hearts. 
 
 " I often tell my son, Ben you haven't seen 
 Ben for ages, have you? I often tell Ben I wish 
 he'd get to know her. Ben's worse than you were 
 when you were young. He won't look at a girl; 
 thinks they're silly things, an entirely different species 
 from man. I suppose that's because his mother died 
 when he was so young. He's never known anything 
 about the other sex at all. Why, Tony, I don't be- 
 lieve he's spoken to a girl in two years. Think of 
 it ! He'll dry into dust at that law office of his with 
 his investigations and one thing and another. Lord 
 save us ! " he cried suddenly, looking at a clock on
 
 8 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 the wall. " I've got two minutes to the State House. 
 Good-bye, Tony. Cheer yourself up, old man. 
 I'll be around next week. . . . Some day I'm going 
 to take that Corot out of the front hall here, I like it 
 so much." 
 
 With a merry laugh Dr. Gary pressed his friend's 
 hand, was down the stairs, in his fur coat, out of 
 doors, and into his motor, crying out a " good morn- 
 ing " to Miss Copley, waving to his friend in the 
 window, and bustling away to his milk investigation 
 at eleven thirty. Rosalind Copley passed him at 
 the front door. In a moment she was up the stairs 
 and in her godfather's arms, glowing and out of 
 breath. 
 
 " Rose ! " he cried, his dull voice almost happy and 
 tender. 
 
 "Dear Uncle Sing-Sing!" 
 
 She kissed her godfather warmly on both cheeks 
 and sat him gently down on the ottoman. " Uncle 
 Sing-Sing " was the unconventional shortening of 
 Singleton Singleton which she had adopted when a 
 very little girl. Like most such names, it had vic- 
 toriously weathered the storm of years and maternal 
 disapprobation. 
 
 "Why has Dr. Gary been here? You haven't 
 been feeling badly? " 
 
 " No, dear." He always made an effort to talk 
 when Rosalind was with him. " Sit down." 
 
 She seated herself beside him on the ottoman. 
 Against the dull flowers of his silk wrapper the blue 
 of her eyes and suit was refreshingly clear. There 
 were roses in her cheeks and hands, and the Decem- 
 ber wind had blown strands of her golden hair out 
 from under her hat. Beside the light grace of her 
 youth his age seemed ponderous.
 
 EIGHT LOUISBURG SQUARE 9 
 
 " It gave me a start to see the doctor coming so 
 early. He usually visits late in the afternoon." 
 
 " On his way to State House." 
 
 " Oh! Did he want anything in particular? " 
 
 Mr. Singleton Singleton made a dry sound in his 
 throat, perhaps intended for a laugh. 
 
 " Wanted you to marry Ben." 
 
 "Ben?" Rosalind laughed prettily, throwing 
 her head back and bringing her shoulders together. 
 "His son? He'll never marry any one. Never 
 looks at a girl. Why, I've asked him to the house 
 often, but he'll never come. He scarcely speaks to 
 me." 
 
 Across Mr. Singleton Singleton's face flitted an 
 air of relief. 
 
 " Why, you dear old Uncle Sing-Sing ! " Rosalind 
 laughed again, looking at him out of the corners of 
 her eyes. " Did you think I wanted to get mar- 
 ried ? I don't love any one enough except 
 you." 
 
 Whereat she kissed him again, rearranged his 
 pearl scarf-pin, and declared for taking off her hat. 
 
 " No," protested her godfather, " sleigh." 
 
 "Soon?]' 
 
 " Ten minutes." 
 
 " Well, I can't stay for long; I have to be at 
 Brimmer House at twelve-thirty. You'll never 
 guess what I've got to do this afternoon ! I'm going 
 to take ten little Italian imps through the Art 
 Museum ! What do you think of that, Uncle Sing- 
 Sing? " 
 
 " Large order." 
 
 " I should say it was," replied Rosalind. 
 " They're the best of the class, though, and I've 
 taken them before to lots and lots of places. I've
 
 io LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 invited them to have tea at home after the Museum." 
 
 Mr. Singleton Singleton made the dry sound again 
 in his throat. 
 
 "I know what that means! That mother'll be 
 upset? She is already. You should have heard her 
 telling Paris what to serve for tea ; it was as if sev- 
 eral crowned heads were coming to 29 Common- 
 wealth. But the children will have a glorious time. 
 I'll invite you to tea, Uncle Sing-Sing," she added 
 merrily. " It's at four o'clock." 
 
 " The sleigh is quite ready, sir." 
 
 Rosalind smiled a good morning to the servant 
 who made this announcement. Years ago Mr. 
 Singleton Singleton had brought him back from 
 Paris, and now he was a neat old fellow with the 
 face of a bishop and the manners of a cardinal. For 
 years Edouard, for such was his name, had been the 
 cog on which 8 Louisburg Square had moved. Mr. 
 Singleton Singleton had lost his taste for French 
 novels ; he had forgotten the French tongue ; his love 
 for Paris had faded; everything connected with his 
 stay at the Beaux Arts was changed everything 
 save Edouard, and the years passed, but he remained 
 still the same. 
 
 He now took one of the invalid's arms and Rosa- 
 lind the other. Between them they steered the old 
 man down the stairway and into his great fur coat. 
 For the more perilous transfer down the icy front 
 steps and into the sleigh, before which two roans 
 were stamping down the snow, the coachman and 
 footman were summoned as auxiliaries. By dint 
 of propping the invalid up here and pushing him on 
 there, they at length hoisted him into the sleigh like 
 a very elegant bag of meal. Rosalind jumped in;
 
 EIGHT LOUISBURG SQUARE n 
 
 the footman sprang up after the coachman; the 
 whip cracked; the bells jingled pleasantly; and away 
 they went out of the quaint, quiet shyness of Louis- 
 burg Square into the noisy brilliancy of the world.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 EXPLAINING GENERAL WASHINGTON 
 
 IT was one of those rare and beautiful afternoons 
 which sometimes come to Boston in December. 
 For once the fallen snow had not changed to 
 slush, and lay clean and sparkling over the city with- 
 out a trace of the clammy mist which usually succeeds 
 a storm. Everywhere was winter. To the delight 
 of youth and to the disgust of age great drifts of 
 snow clothed and choked the city. Lo ! the very 
 heart of Boston was become a polar battle-ground. 
 An army of lop-sided snowmen were over night 
 possessed of the Public Gardens, and the air of the 
 Common lived with volleys of snowballs. The sun 
 was scarcely in the heavens before a dozen adventur- 
 ous skirmishers had been dragged from the Frog- 
 pond, through which a bold leader, like Ethan Allen 
 of old, had led an icy charge on an imagined Ticon- 
 deroga. Even Louisburg Square resounded with 
 the shrill pipings of the children of the district, 
 myriad little creatures, who swarmed in the snow- 
 drifts as if to the temperature born or sought to 
 blow up with their ice-bombs the snowy turbans un- 
 der which the two little statues at either end of the 
 enclosure staggered. Chasseurs alpins indeed, these 
 tiny stormers of Beacon Hill ! The houses on Com- 
 monwealth Avenue took on a new and livelier as- 
 pect; while here and there even a house on Newbury 
 Street, as the sun made myriad reflections on its 
 
 12
 
 GENERAL WASHINGTON 13 
 
 snow-covered sides, undertook to sparkle rather 
 shyly, like an old spinster pleased with a new frock. 
 All day long the sun had dazzled on the snow, caus- 
 ing old gentlemen to put on their blue spectacles and 
 babies in their carriages to hold little mittens before 
 their eyes; all day long the streets had jingled with 
 sleighbells, sounding the merrier in the clear, crisp 
 air. Such air as it was ! Air that made you run 
 down steps you had walked before; that sent the 
 children out of doors with eager laughter and old 
 ladies in white caps to the front windows to see them 
 at play; that mated the tingling blood with every 
 passing bell; that lent zest to living. A merry day, 
 a bright day, a clean day, a day which passed too 
 soon even for those confirmed in winter-hatred. 
 
 The sun had just sunk below the building tops, 
 leaving in the winter's sky the afterglow of a very 
 bright fire suddenly gone out on a very cold night. 
 In the gathering gloom a curious little troup marched 
 down the centre path of Commonwealth Avenue 
 under the snow-gloved fingers of the deciduous trees. 
 There were twelve little girls in all, walking two by 
 two and swinging their clasped hands. Red tam-o'- 
 shanters and red mittens, clearly gifts, were the uni- 
 form wear for the head and hands, but their coats 
 showed a great disparity in impoverished taste. A 
 soiled white sheepskin, a blue woollen, a red cotton, 
 a green Heaven-knows-what with pieces of inde- 
 scribable fur stuck on here and there, any and every 
 species of outer garment was in evidence. In winter 
 the poor must shift as best they can; whatever is 
 warm must perforce be handsome. Behind this 
 motley array walked a simply but fashionably 
 dressed young lady, whose gold hair and fair com- 
 plexion contrasted with the Latin colouring of the
 
 i 4 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 little girls. It was pretty to see the way in which she 
 marshalled their unruly activity and the skilfullness 
 which she employed in ferrying them across Arling- 
 ton Street, streaming with automobiles and sleighs. 
 Several men turned their heads to watch her; and a 
 few acquaintances, on the way home from their of- 
 fices, bowed or cried out a laughing compliment. 
 
 At the entrance to the Public Gardens a little 
 clamour arose; for the hundredth time that day the 
 girls were in disagreement. They had squabbled in 
 their Italian dialect over the pictures in the Art 
 Museum; they had marvelled with lustrous and long- 
 ing eyes before the different cakes at tea; now the 
 question of the route home divided them. Let there 
 be two sides to a question and your Italian will argue 
 and gesticulate till Doomsday. To settle the con- 
 troversy the young lady shooed the girls through the 
 iron gate of the Gardens, much as one might a brood 
 of chickens. 
 
 A few yards before them the equestrian statue of 
 Washington loomed in the darkness on its granite 
 pedestal. In a country notorious for ineffective 
 statuary, the horse and rider, rising grandly in the 
 twilight, dominated with high pride their surround- 
 ings. The ghostly outline against the cold, dark sky 
 was oddly decorated with the snow which lay upon 
 the general's hat, his shoulders, saddle, and horse. 
 As the group drew near, the young lady bowed her 
 head respectfully. 
 
 " Why you do-a that, lady? " asked a little voice. 
 'What, Maria?" 
 
 " Bend your head, lak sad people? " 
 ' I was bowing to the statue. My father taught 
 me that when I was a little girl and ever since I've 
 done it almost without thinking."
 
 GENERAL WASHINGTON 15 
 
 Keenly interested in everything, the little group 
 had stopped to gape up at the huge underside of the 
 horse. 
 
 "What ees?" piped up a girl who had been in 
 America scarcely more than a year. 
 
 " It's a statue of why don't you know? Don't 
 any of you know? Bici? Maria? Helena? 
 Look at it ! " 
 
 " Garibaldi ! " decisively answered the little Sici- 
 lian who had spoken before. 
 
 The others hung back. 
 
 " Oh, come ! You must know. Look again ! " 
 
 " Thea da Roosevelt," ventured Maria doubt- 
 fully. 
 
 " Oh, no, girls, no ! " cried the young lady, putting 
 her hands to her ears. " Who was the Father of 
 his Country? Who was the first President of the 
 United States?" 
 
 " Abram Lincoll!" chorused half of the group. 
 
 " No ! Non so ! " cried Helena, the oldest of the 
 girls. " I knowa now. It was Georga Washaton. 
 I knowa. He greata, biga man. Live long ago and 
 fighta Spain." 
 
 " You've got his name right, Helena, at least. It 
 is George Washington, children. That's a name 
 you all ought to love and respect. Can you all say 
 it? George Washington." 
 
 The girls tried it, the syllables sounding strange 
 on Latin tongues; but the little Sicilian, even after 
 she had mastered the name, still had a feeling that 
 this might only be the American way of saying Gari- 
 baldi, a suspicion which the ensuing explanation 
 greatly strengthened. The young lady was de- 
 cidedly at a loss how to give the salient facts about 
 Washington to these little foreigners; to crowd into
 
 1 6 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 a few minutes the story of the cherry tree, the Revo- 
 lution, the Presidency, and the " first in peace " was 
 after all no small task. Little wonder that she 
 floundered and spoke like a primer, inwardly grate- 
 ful that only her little girls were listening to her 
 efforts. She did not tell it well, she knew, but still 
 she thought it strange that the children were not 
 more interested, strange that they stared so avidly 
 at something directly behind her. Words which 
 they usually caught up like pearls from her lips now 
 seemed to fall unnoticed. It made the young lady a 
 little angry. 
 
 " and you must never forget this man. He was 
 the truest, finest American we have ever " 
 
 She could bear that concerted stare no longer. 
 As she turned quickly about, an exclamation of sur- 
 prise escaped her ; some ten feet off stood a tall young 
 man with a green bag in his hand, evidently listen- 
 ing to her historical platitudes with the deepest and 
 most interested attention. 
 
 "Mr. Gary!" 
 
 " O I er . Good evening, Miss Copley." 
 
 Rosalind felt her face flood with red and was 
 grateful for the night. In the ensuing silence the 
 man moved his feet nervously in the snow. 
 
 " I suppose I suppose it was very rude of me 
 
 to er listen, but I . I don't know how I 
 
 came to " 
 
 " Oh ! " remarked Rosalind, coldly. 
 
 " I hope you'll you'll let me apologise." 
 
 He came a step nearer. Holding their breath, 
 the little girls huddled close together, each one feel- 
 ing that at last she was seeing how life was lived in 
 the Upper Ten. All the inherent romanticism of 
 the Latin race rounded their young eyes. Perhaps
 
 GENERAL WASHINGTON 17 
 
 had Rosalind and Mr. Gary known that their be- 
 haviour was moulding the future conduct of their 
 spectators they might have performed more grace- 
 fully. As it was, the conversation was largely made 
 up of a most uncomfortable silence. 
 
 " Certainly I shall let you apologise," said Rosa- 
 lind with decision. She paused significantly. " But 
 I think I ought to punish you." 
 
 "I I suppose you ought." 
 
 Gary administered an inward chastisement to him- 
 self; here was a pretty mess! How stupidly care- 
 less of him to have listened ! While he wondered 
 how he might withdraw with the least rudeness, 
 Rosalind turned over in her mind a fitting method of 
 reprisal. She was very angry that any one should 
 have overheard her kindergarten lecture on Wash- 
 ington. To be caught would have piqued a saint. 
 
 " I know what you shall do. You shall help me 
 take the girls back to Brimmer House ! " She al- 
 most laughed; surely this was the ideal penance for 
 a misogynist ! 
 
 "Brimmer House! " Gary repeated feebly, chill- 
 ing at the thought. He was six feet of bashfulness, 
 and groaned inwardly. 
 
 " Yes ! And I think if I took your arm, it would 
 be safer it's so dark and slippery! " 
 
 Having thus destroyed the possibility of escape, 
 she accepted his unwilling arm and bade the children 
 move on ahead which they obediently did, though 
 with faces turned toward herself and Gary. Never 
 did Orpheus cast a more interested glance rearward 
 to Eurydice than the relentless gaze of these twelve 
 little girls. They advanced like toy children whose 
 moveable heads have stuck permanently in the wrong 
 direction a posture none too favourable to prog-
 
 18 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 ress and very inconvenient for on-coming pedestrians. 
 
 " I was surprised; that was it," Gary was saying. 
 " You see I didn't know that your type of girl did 
 anything like this." 
 
 "Oh! What did you think?" 
 
 " Why, I don't know," he replied, falling in the 
 trap which she had laid for him. " I don't know as 
 I ever did think very much about it. I guess I 
 thought you er dressed and danced and er 
 went to the theatre." 
 
 ' Your opinion was not very high." 
 
 " No. That's why it was such a surprise to see 
 you standing there, preaching away like er 
 like anything about Washington." 
 
 " Did you hear much of it? " 
 
 " Every word," he replied innocently. " I 
 wouldn't have missed it for anything. Why, it's 
 changed my views immensely." 
 
 So he had heard every word of it! And it had 
 changed his views immensely! As Rosalind's face 
 burned with pique, she covenanted with herself for 
 revenge upon this young scorner of women. But she 
 spoke as if honey were on her tongue and banter on 
 her lips. 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't talk about me as if I were 
 being experimented on! It makes me feel cold all 
 over. When you say in that scientific way that your 
 views have changed, I feel as if you had just taken 
 me out of a test tube for examination." 
 
 " I'm sorry," said Gary humbly. He wondered 
 miserably how a man dealt with woman's words, and 
 fell silent. 
 
 When they arrived at Charles Street, he saw her 
 for the first time clearly under an electric light. 
 Momentarily her face, framed by her blue fox furs,
 
 GENERAL WASHINGTON 19 
 
 stood out in relief. His glance was one of hasty 
 curiosity, but Rosalind, who knew what would fol- 
 low, stared straight ahead and pretended oblivious- 
 ness. Gary felt a little thrill of excitement. He 
 looked at her again under the next light, but no 
 longer curiously or scientifically, no longer inter- 
 ested in views ; now he looked at her because he felt 
 impelled to. As each light was passed he began to 
 anticipate the next, hoping that it would be brighter 
 and clearer than the last. Having never thought of 
 a girl or looked at one without necessity, he found an 
 odd, mischievous pleasure in stealing these unnatural 
 glances. There was more than novelty in it; he was 
 experiencing the delight of an unreluctant Adam first 
 tasting forbidden fruit. Light succeeded light, and 
 still Rosalind permitted him to cast these sidelong 
 glances. Not until they swung into Brimmer Street 
 did she turn towards him; then their eyes met, and 
 Gary, fairly caught, was not a little moved. Strange 
 that such a thing should stir him, he thought, as he 
 dropped his glance. He did not dare look again; 
 something told him that her eyes were still bent upon 
 him and that she knew that he had been staring at 
 her. 
 
 Of his strange uneasiness Rosalind was fully 
 aware. When at length they turned up the dull 
 steps of Brimmer House, she felt certain that she had 
 changed his views much more than he suspected.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 WHAT WAS SAID AT TEA 
 
 ELL, my dear Tony, I only wish you 
 and Jack had been here to see how well- 
 behaved and polite they were ! It was a 
 revelation to me. You would have laughed at the 
 naive way in which they mimicked everything Rose 
 did. She is their idol. When they saw her take 
 lemon with her tea, they all bravely followed suit, 
 although one little girl had been making eyes at the 
 cream from the moment Paris brought it in." 
 
 Mrs. Copley was speaking. She sat behind an 
 inlaid walnut table, on which gleamed a silver tea set 
 dating from Colonial days. Though the room was 
 lighted but dimly, the silver shone in the blaze of a 
 wood fire, which flamed opposite her in a cheerful 
 accompaniment to the softly singing kettle. On the 
 dim mantelpiece of veined marble an old-fashioned 
 clock ticked off ponderous seconds. The fire be- 
 neath it dominated the large room, dancing on the 
 French walnut panels of the walls and finding an 
 occasional reflection on the rich backs of the books 
 which filled the shelves extending from the floor to 
 the elaborate ceiling. Above the fire-place hung a 
 self-portrait of John Singleton Copley; the red, 
 placid face benevolently smiled about his shadowy 
 and refined surroundings, as if pleased to observe 
 that his descendants were free from the pecuniary 
 difficulties which sometimes had beset him. Below 
 
 20
 
 WHAT WAS SAID AT TEA 21 
 
 the great, gold-framed portrait, close to the welcome 
 warmth of the fire, the smiling and red-faced John 
 Singleton Copley of the present day sank back into 
 a most comfortable arm-chair of red brocade and 
 warmed his knees. 
 
 Although not immediately visible, Mr. Singleton 
 Singleton was also present. Safe from observation 
 and intrusion, he sat in the embrasure formed by the 
 front window which rounded out towards Common- 
 wealth Avenue. It was his favourite spot in the 
 house. Knowing well the strategic value of the 
 place, he had for years ambushed himself behind the 
 book-covered table and the great brocade curtains, 
 hidden from the eye of undesirable callers. Mrs. 
 Copley had known him to stay there for hours, see- 
 ing but unseen. Whether he listened no one could 
 tell; at least he never spoke, and his taciturnity fa- 
 voured his place of retirement. A chosen few were 
 admitted to his secret; but to society in general he 
 was unknown as a visitor at his cousin's house. 
 
 " As for Paris," Mrs. Copley went on, " they 
 found him quite inexplicable. Some of them sus- 
 pected him of being Rose's father. To have a man 
 in a dress suit wait on them seemed beyond belief; 
 evidently they considered such a costume fit only for 
 the ultra rich." 
 
 " How did Paris like 'em? " asked her husband. 
 
 " I heard him tell Albert that they were distress- 
 ingly poor, but * as 'ow they be'aved themselves very 
 decorous.' ' 
 
 Mrs. Copley's rich, warm laugh was entirely har- 
 monic with her surroundings and with herself. She 
 was renowned in Boston for a beauty which as the 
 years went by seemed rather to increase than to fade. 
 Her hair had turned white before thirty, and most
 
 22 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 fortunately for her, since it accentuated the un- 
 troubled loveliness which rested in her eyes and 
 moulded her lips. Dressed in something black from 
 the Rue de la Paix and with the Copley pearls about 
 her neck, she was an object which no one in Boston, 
 from the most eager debutante to the most lovely 
 Victorian remnant, could equal. Mrs. Copley knew 
 this not vaingloriously, not spitefully, but as one 
 knows any incontrovertible fact and lived accord- 
 ingly. Her clothes were the most elegant in Boston; 
 her jewels the most perfect; her coiffures the most 
 painstaking. After all, why not? Knowing her 
 talent to be beauty, she determined to put it to good 
 advantage, and did so with success unquestionable. 
 As the firelight made shadows in her soft white hair 
 and danced in each trembling pearl about her neck, 
 she seemed to be the quintessence of the room's aris- 
 tocratic beauty. 
 
 There sounded a hearty ring at the front-door 
 bell; footsteps echoed on the marble-flagged hall out- 
 side; and a little man with shining eyes and white 
 hair like Mrs. Copley's popped into the room. 
 
 " Hullo, Jack ! Beth, my dear I '] Smack ! The 
 little man's eyes twinkled as he kissed her on the 
 cheek. " Lovely as ever ! Tony, how are you ? " 
 This to the invisible Mr. Singleton Singleton, whose 
 face, like that of an austere and invalid Cheshire Cat, 
 appeared at his name above a pile of books, and as 
 soon faded again behind the curtains. 
 
 " Maybe this fire isn't good ! There's too much 
 ice on the front steps; I almost killed myself. 
 Thank you! Two lumps. Thoughtful sister! 
 Lovely creature ! " 
 
 The little man settled in a chair, slapped his leg, 
 took his tea, cocked his head on one side like an in-
 
 WHAT WAS SAID AT TEA 23 
 
 quisitive bird, and laughed an internal laugh, with 
 all the expressions of extreme merriment on his face 
 and none of its boisterousness on his lips. 
 
 " Guess where I've been ! You never can ! " 
 
 " Keith's ! " ventured his sister, who knew his 
 habits. 
 
 " The Sarcophagus Club." This from Mr. Cop- 
 ley who knew his habits better. 
 
 "All wrong! All wrong! I've been to Mrs. 
 Thayer's to hear Pierre Holland, the French editor, 
 speak. And in French, too." 
 
 "Oh! I hoped you could tell us about it!" 
 Mrs. Copley made up a face at him. She was very 
 fond of her brother he formed an excellent sub- 
 ject for her innocent witticisms. 
 
 "I can! Tremendously interesting. All about 
 sex ! You should have gone ; every one should have 
 gone; done 'em all good. I'm a changed man. 
 Swear I am. Very brilliant chap, Holland; brother 
 of the great tenor, Lucien. Listen to what hap- 
 pened ! Had a front row seat on the left-hand side 
 and if Jane and Joan Hepplethwaite didn't see me 
 there and come and sit down beside me before every 
 one on purpose ! They follow me everywhere. 
 I shall take out my razor and end it all some day. 
 Really! Driven to drink and all that, you know. 
 One is bad enough, but now they're both pursuing 
 me. I don't boast, Jack ! It's awful to be attacked 
 from the rear ; a debutante I can withstand, but those 
 two old I don't want to marry; I won't marry! 
 I'm fifty years old, and I believe in marrying for love. 
 Love at fifty where is it? " 
 
 Having thus lashed himself into a fury, the little 
 man drank his tea off at a single draught, set the cup 
 down with a rattle, and stared darkly into the fire.
 
 24 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 ' Well, Jo-Jo, you shouldn't be so attractive ! 
 You shouldn't lay yourself out to captivate," re- 
 proved his sister. 
 
 Her brother was up in a second. "Captivate! 
 Bah ! I set myself out to captivate ! Why, I tell 
 you, Beth, they pursue me ! If I didn't live at the 
 Sarcophagus Club, I believe they'd bring flowers to 
 my room and call on me." 
 
 The front door bell rang again. 
 
 "I'll wager that's them; I'll wager anything. 
 They hunt me, Beth, really! You're a woman and 
 you know what I mean. What you used to do to 
 Jack refined head-hunting, but essentially canni- 
 balistic." 
 
 " The Misses Hepplethwaite." 
 
 Amid a subdued chorus of greetings two ladies 
 swept into the room. They were tall, thin, aristo- 
 cratic old maids, Joan rather attractive still, but 
 Jane, the elder, refined to such a degree that, like a 
 pencil which has been sharpened too much, she 
 seemed all point and no body. 
 
 " I understand," said Mrs. Copley, as she made 
 tea for the new arrivals, " that you heard Monsieur 
 Holland speak at Mrs. Thayer's. My brother was 
 so pleased to have found some one he knew." 
 
 " I am glad," replied Miss Jane Hepplethwaite. 
 " He occupied by chance the chair next to us. The 
 lecture was infinitely absorbing; we found it so, did 
 we not, Joseph? " 
 
 For a moment she languished in expectation; then 
 Mr. Quincy answered sulkily, " Every word he said 
 was true." 
 
 * Very true," echoed the younger sister. 
 
 ' What was it all about? " asked Mr. Copley. 
 
 " I'll tell you, Jack. It was called ' The Third
 
 WHAT WAS SAID AT TEA 25 
 
 Sex ' all about our modern women. Here is the 
 idea. One sex, male. Second sex, female. Third 
 sex, female that won't marry. You know the kind, 
 Beth! Think they're superior to men, and won't 
 touch 'em with a pole. They are sure men are 
 vicious creatures, given over to sin and all that kind 
 of thing." 
 
 "Well, don't you think they are partly right?" 
 asked Miss Jane Hepplethwaite. 
 
 Mr. Quincy bubbled with excitement. 
 
 " No, my dear Jane, I think man is good; I think 
 woman is good; I think we are all good. But as 
 for the woman who will not marry, I scorn her; I 
 cast myself in her teeth! What good is she? 
 What does she do? She encumbers the earth. 
 What is woman's business on earth ? It is to " 
 
 Mrs. Copley thought it time to take the conver- 
 sation away from her fiery brother. 
 
 " My dear Jo-Jo, supposing the girl cannot find 
 the right man? " 
 
 " Oh, there must be plenty of men in the world! " 
 
 "Ah, but what if they are not willing?" asked 
 Miss Joan Hepplethwaite with a pointed glance to- 
 wards Mr. Quincy, who in sudden confusion fell to 
 poking the fire. 
 
 " And," went on her sister, following up the ad- 
 vantage, " perhaps Monsieur Holland might have 
 named a fourth sex: there are men who will not 
 marry. Surely women may have their opinion of 
 them!" 
 
 In the midst of his unnecessary reassembling of 
 the logs, Mr. Quincy almost fell into the flames 
 himself. 
 
 " I think you're quite right, Miss Hepplethwaite," 
 Mrs. Copley laughed with a quizzical glance at her
 
 26 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 brother, " for the men have the proposing power. 
 A man may dog any girl's footsteps and make her 
 love him. But with a girl it's different; she can't 
 pursue a man." 
 
 " Of course not! " simpered Miss Joan. 
 
 Mr. Quincy snorted. 
 
 " Man proposes, girl disposes." 
 
 Having discharged her last bonmot on this topic, 
 Mrs. Copley changed the subject in full realisation 
 that the double entendre was in imminent danger of 
 falling through. 
 
 " Speaking of Monsieur Holland, is it true that 
 his brother, Lucien, is going to sing in the Opera 
 this year? He must be at least fifty-five! Have 
 you heard? " 
 
 " The incomparable Lucien ! Would he were I 
 We heard him sing once in Paris," replied Miss 
 Jane Hepplethwaite. 
 
 " Glorious! " echoed Miss Joan. 
 
 " We met him after a performance and also his 
 wife, a charming creature. A vicomtesse in her own 
 name, I believe." 
 
 " I know her well," broke in Mr. Quincy. 
 " Knew her before her marriage. Lovely crea- 
 ture ! Divine ! Such eyes and such a figure ! 
 Marie de Nemours was her name. Tony Mr. 
 Singleton, you know and I were at the Beaux 
 Arts. Jack's family didn't want him to go; they 
 were afraid he'd fall in love! So he stayed be- 
 hind and Beth torpedoed him. Lucky devil! " 
 
 ' You should have stayed, too, Mr. Quincy," said 
 Miss Hepplethwaite with an assumption of coy- 
 ness. 
 
 " Perhaps," proceeded Mr. Quincy hastily, " but
 
 WHAT WAS SAID AT TEA 27 
 
 I didn't. Poor Jo-Jo ! Wooed the Muses in Paris 
 and found them cold. Returning to Boston, dis- 
 covered that no one wanted him except the bridge- 
 players at the Sarcophagus Club. Tony has a god- 
 daughter to comfort him; I only have a lot of un- 
 paid bills, and they can't be called exactly sooth- 
 ing!" 
 
 " That reminds me," said Miss Hepplethwaite, 
 rustling in her chair a little closer to Mrs. Copley. 
 " My sister and I saw your daughter going into 
 Brimmer House as we were on our way here. She 
 is very much interested there, is she not? " 
 
 " Dear me, yes," replied Mrs. Copley. " I had 
 a dozen little Brimmer Housers here for tea to- 
 day." 
 
 Raising her refined eyebrows a trifle, Miss Hep- 
 plethwaite glanced about the room as if expecting 
 to find traces of the little girls. 
 
 " How curious ! My sister Joan once was inter- 
 ested in Brimmer House, it being the most con- 
 venient charity for her. One has only to go down 
 the hill from Louisburg Square and there it is. But 
 the infections one is exposed to were so multifarious 
 that I thought it best for her to relinquish the work. 
 A month later she had chicken-pox, and I've never 
 felt quite assured that the germ did not emanate 
 from some of those Italian children. They arc 
 most unhealthy creatures; they all inherit disease, I 
 believe. I dare say it's in their blood. Could you 
 dare to permit them in your house? " 
 
 Mr. Quincy, who had been poking the fire, gave 
 the back log such a blow that it sent forth a shower 
 of sparks. 
 
 " Oh, I trust Rosalind," answered Mrs. Copley.
 
 28 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " She'll come to no harm. She knows more about 
 infections and such things than all the rest of the 
 family put together." 
 
 " Certainly does," spoke up Mr. Quincy decid- 
 edly. " Only modern girl I've ever seen with a 
 grain of sense. Brought up right. I'm proud of 
 my sister. Excellent mother. Remember dough's 
 line: 'She that is handy is handsome!' Rose 
 took a cinder out of my eye in no time last Tues- 
 day. Dr. Lloyd couldn't have done it half as well." 
 
 " We saw her walking to-night with Benjamin 
 Gary." 
 
 "What! The doctor's son?" 
 
 Miss Hepplethwaite replied affirmatively. Had 
 her eyes been turned in the right direction, she might 
 have descried a ghostly movement in the brocade 
 curtain by the front window. 
 
 " I can't believe it! " cried Mrs. Copley. " Why, 
 he never speaks to girls. Are you sure? Jack, 
 isn't that just like Rose? It's a wonder she doesn't 
 have Edward Everett Hale off his pedestal in the 
 park!" 
 
 " Dr. Cary will be so pleased," continued Miss 
 Hepplethwaite. " He said to me weeks ago that 
 his son was worse than a misogynist that he was 
 a gynophobe." 
 
 " That's exactly what he told Mr. Singleton this 
 morning," said Mrs. Copley, " and he repeated it 
 to Rose. Perhaps she's undertaken to cure him in 
 the role of an angel of philogyny. She'll do it if 
 any one can." 
 
 The door bell rang distinctly again. Mrs. Cop- 
 ley glanced at her blue enamelled watch, a trifle of 
 surpassing beauty suspended by a pearl chain about 
 her neck.
 
 WHAT WAS SAID AT TEA 29 
 
 " Since it's after six, that must be Rose herself. 
 She can tell us the whole story." 
 
 It was indeed Rosalind, but not alone, for she 
 had brought the unwilling Gary with her. A bright- 
 ness pervaded the room at their entrance; it was as 
 if they had caught up the last daylight and now in the 
 darkness gave it off. 
 
 Gary was introduced. Massive and masculine, he 
 bent over the ladies' hands in turn; then took a 
 place by the fire, concealing the old-fashioned clock, 
 which ticked on resentfully behind his back, and 
 even obscuring with his head the silver-buckled shoes 
 of the John Singleton Copley in the portrait. 
 
 " Do get warm," urged Rosalind. " Is there any 
 tea left, Mamma, or shall I ring? I've been per- 
 fectly brutal to Mr. Gary. I walked him all over 
 Brimmer House even up on the roof play- 
 ground." 
 
 " But but I wanted to see it; it was most in- 
 teresting." 
 
 " Where did Rosalind discover you to take you 
 on this tour of inspection?" asked Mrs. Copley. 
 " I was sacrificed in midsummer and almost pros- 
 trated." 
 
 " In the Common," answered Rosalind severely. 
 " Mr. Gary showed such interest in my appearance 
 with the little girls that he couldn't two lumps, 
 Mr. Gary?" 
 
 Gary was unintelligible; he had been afraid Rosa- 
 lind would betray him before all these people, 
 and blushed as he had not since dancing school 
 days. 
 
 " The Common acts as a kind of melting pot in 
 our family," laughed Mr. Copley. " Once Rose 
 met there a reporter on the American, whose camera
 
 30 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 her Uncle Joseph had the good aim to knock into 
 the Frogpond." 
 
 "Did he actually try to photograph you?" 
 gasped the elder Miss Hepplethwaite. 
 
 " He did, indeed," replied Rosalind, lifting her 
 tea-cup to her lips. 
 
 " How dreadful !" 
 
 " Awful ! " echoed the younger sister. 
 
 " But Uncle Jo-Jo's aim was superb ! His vol- 
 ume of Zola went over the fence, too. A little boy 
 fished it out of the water later and I've got it up- 
 stairs as a trophy of the chase." 
 
 " How magnificently your uncle behaved." 
 
 " He didn't hesitate a moment," said Rosalind 
 gaily. " And he wanted to punch the reporter's 
 nose afterwards. I had to catch him ! " 
 
 " You must be proud to be so well looked after," 
 simpered the younger Miss Hepplethwaite. 
 
 Mr. Quincy moved uneasily in his chair. " Well, 
 well, any one would have done the same thing! 
 Jack would. Gary would. Any man would. 
 These reporters don't care what they do nowadays. 
 Take Rose's picture, indeed! " 
 
 Mr. Quincy patted his niece's hand affectionally. 
 
 " Well, I must say," remarked the elder Miss 
 Hepplethwaite, " that I shall never dare walk in the 
 Common again. The idea ! Think of appearing 
 like that in a public journal! " 
 
 A smile curled the corners of Mr. Copley's 
 mouth. 
 
 ' You'd better never go out without an escort, 
 Jane. Take Jo-Jo with you: he's always within 
 nailing distance at the Club. I am sure he'd 
 be delighted." 
 
 As Mr. Quincy secretly brandished the poker at
 
 WHAT WAS SAID AT TEA 31 
 
 his brother-in-law, the Misses Hepplethwaite mur- 
 mured something about not troubling him and rose 
 together. They always rose together, did every- 
 thing, in fact, in unison, like twin atoms composing 
 one Hepplethwaite molecule. Joan, to be sure, was 
 rather the chorus to Jane ; she never initiated things 
 without a reference to her older sister, being the 
 younger by almost four years. But Jane was a 
 born leader, while Joan by nature was a clinging 
 vine. 
 
 " Oh, must you go? " 
 
 " Yes, we've not got our sleigh and it's rather 
 late." 
 
 " Don't walk through the Common ! " laughed 
 Mr. Copley mischievously. " They might try a 
 flashlight. Jo- Jo, isn't your motor outside? " 
 
 Mr. Quincy's white moustache bristled with in- 
 dignation as he assented. 
 
 " Oh, but we couldn't think " 
 
 " Pleasure, Miss Hepplethwaite, I assure you." 
 Mr. Quincy spoke shortly. " Stop at the Club for 
 me and send you on perfectly well. Good-night, 
 Rose, my love. Good-night, Cary." 
 
 Angrily ignoring the amused glances of his sister 
 and her husband, he popped out of the room in the 
 Hepplethwaite's train and slammed the front door 
 after him. 
 
 Cary glanced at his watch, doubtful whether his 
 penance was over. Without being aware of it, he 
 i was beginning to enjoy himself in an odd kind of way. 
 lit pleased him to see Rosalind seated on the arm of 
 jher father's chair and Mrs. Copley at her embroid- 
 ery on the other side of the fire. He hoped that he 
 was not intrusive. 
 
 " Now that the lovers have departed," said Mrs.
 
 32 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 Copley, " tell us what you thought of Brimmer 
 House." 
 
 " Why, that it was an excellent charity. Your 
 daughter has made me most enthusiastic. I used 
 to suspect these things of being largely shams." 
 
 " Shams? " Mrs. Copley looked puzzled. 
 
 " So many women take up charity just because 
 they can't afford bridge and aren't strong enough 
 for golf. Of course, there is nothing as fine in this 
 world as real charity, but in my work I come across 
 so many useless uplifters that the sight of your 
 daughter to-day with those little girls was most won- 
 derful. I'm sure they all love her at the House; 
 they ran to meet her." 
 
 " You shouldn't say that before me," remarked 
 Rosalind, colouring with pleasure. 
 
 Cary was silent; he had just noticed for the first 
 time in his life the matchless glint of firelight on gold 
 hair. 
 
 "They all spoil you, don't they!" cried her fa- 
 ther playfully. 
 
 Mr. Copley's mild jocosity was infectious. Cary 
 began to find himself actually drawn out into con- 
 versation, and it pleased him. In the middle of the 
 explanation of a technical point in regard to his 
 last law case he often wondered afterwards how 
 the subject had come up! he heard a clock strike 
 and guiltily apologised for having remained so long. 
 
 ;< I do not make many calls, Mrs. Copley." 
 
 " You should," she complimented him prettily. 
 " Good night." 
 
 " Give my regards to your old man," said Mr. 
 Copley with a genial hand-shake. 
 
 Cary bowed. Turning to Rosalind, he spoke in a 
 low voice meant for her ear alone.
 
 WHAT WAS SAID AT TEA 33 
 
 " Your punishment, Miss Copley, was er " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "Most most agreeable." 
 
 Rosalind cast a deep, swift glance into his eyes; 
 there are some feminine instincts too strong to be 
 overcome. 
 
 " It is more blessed to give than to receive, you 
 know. Good night." 
 
 He shook her hand and left the room in a sudden 
 flush of excitement. Going down the front steps he 
 was so busied with estimating judicially what Rosa- 
 lind had meant by it all, but particularly by her last 
 remark, that he slipped on the ice and narrowly 
 averted a fall. This shook him from his dreams. 
 
 " Oh, I suppose it was only common politeness," 
 he mumbled to himself. " She probably says that to 
 every one. Yet " 
 
 He went home to dinner so deeply thoughtful that 
 his father assured him if he did not stop worrying 
 over his work, his digestion would certainly be im- 
 paired. 
 
 No sooner had he quitted the room than Rosa- 
 lind hurried to Mr. Singleton Singleton's retreat. 
 
 " Come over to the fire, Uncle Sing-Sing." 
 
 The invalid shook his head. Drawing her down 
 by him on the sofa, he looked at her gravely. 
 
 " Cary," he said. " Told me you didn't know 
 him." 
 
 " Oh, dear, old, jealous Uncle Sing-Sing, is that 
 troubling you?" She kissed him prettily. "I'm 
 sorry. I really never saw him before an hour ago 
 that is, to talk to particularly. I came across 
 him in the park and he was rude without meaning 
 to be so, and I punished him. I shouldn't have done
 
 34 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 it, I suppose, but when he said that he thought girls 
 of my type did nothing but dance and go to the 
 theatre, I vowed to change his views." 
 
 "And you have, dear!" broke in Mrs. Copley 
 from the fireplace. 
 
 " Oh, do you think so, Mamma? If you do, I 
 must have." 
 
 Long after her godfather had left the house and 
 she had picked up a book to read comfortably on the 
 sofa, her mother's opinion obtruded itself upon 
 Rosalind; and she laid down her book and mused on 
 the reflected flames dancing now high, now low on 
 the richly filled shelves. In such matters Mrs. Cop- 
 ley was a shrewd judge.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 GARY BUYS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT 
 
 THE memory of the meeting with Rosalind lin- 
 gered uneasily in Gary's mind for several days 
 before becoming submerged. At first he was 
 keenly affected, and did not find in the established 
 order of his measured and calm life that complete 
 satisfaction to which he was accustomed. Beyond 
 the page of his law book, over his desk, outside of 
 the window, there lay new fields, at which he stared 
 and made brave, strange pictures for his inward eye. 
 When he walked home from the office, he paused in 
 the crisp stillness before the statue of Washington. 
 The few people crunching past on the snowy paths 
 observed him gravely raise his hat; for him the Gen- 
 eral had taken on a new reverence. He hoped to 
 meet Rosalind again in the Public Gardens, but was 
 not rewarded with even a glimpse. To call at 29 
 Commonwealth did not occur to him as a solution of 
 his uneasiness. He had never made a voluntary 
 call; in his sedate, dry schedule there was no place 
 for such a thing. 
 
 Gradually his work enveloped him. Rosalind 
 was forgotten in the new interest of a building in- 
 vestigation, to a committee on which he had been ap- 
 pointed by the Mayor. In the work there were sta- 
 tistics and facts to be obtained by personal examina- 
 tion; the committee went high and low over the city, 
 delving into unsanitary cellars, creaking up the 
 
 35
 
 36 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 broken stairs of rickety apartment houses, scrupu- 
 lously examining filth-filled alleys, fire-hazards, un- 
 safe roofs, and toppling sheds so many dangers 
 and menaces that Gary came to think the city was in 
 a hopelessly wretched condition. On the day be- 
 fore Christmas he had been asked by the Chairman 
 of the Committee to examine the cellars of some 
 miserable, brick lodging-houses in the rear of the 
 Charles Street Jail. The precinct was mean and 
 dirty; no snow that ever fluttered down from 
 Heaven could hide its drab character. Children lit- 
 tered the narrow streets, making a bedlam of their 
 poor games. 
 
 Gary's request to examine the houses was met with 
 open suspicion. A cellar may be only a cellar to 
 Smith, Jones, or Gary; but if one must live in it, it is 
 a castle, too. 
 
 " Cellar? " asked the Italian mistress of the first 
 house, standing in the doorway with her arms 
 akimbo. " I no understan'." 
 
 Gary pointed to a grimy pane of glass on the level 
 of the street, behind which a baby squalled. 
 
 " I am from the Government," he explained pleas- 
 antly, " the mayor. I want to go down and look 
 about where the baby is." 
 
 The black Italian eyes snapped suspiciously. 
 
 " Ma babee ? What you thinka ? " 
 
 She turned to another woman, arrived from across 
 the street, and, while Gary stood patiently by, argued 
 in Italian with quick gestures of distrust. The con- 
 ference resulted in a grudging admission of his great 
 form into the little house, which was filled with a 
 smell mingling everything cooked there since Novem- 
 ber's cold weather had closed all the windows for the 
 last time until spring. As they walked down the
 
 GARY BUYS A PRESENT 37 
 
 narrow, dark hall, bare of any decoration other than 
 dust, the noxious deadness of the air choked in his 
 throat. By means of a narrow, cramped ladder the 
 two Italian women descended, followed by Gary, 
 scarcely able to squeeze through the small opening. 
 A mud-stained square of glass alone admitted air 
 and light to the room. Pale, dirty sunshine drifted 
 through it, mocking the absence of all comfort with 
 its faded beams. About the room rolled a fetid 
 billow of heat; and in a corner, where a pile of rags 
 was gathered, shrieked a baby. But though most 
 miserable in furnishings, the room had one virtue: 
 it was a degree cleaner than the hallway. 
 
 " How many of you live here? " asked Gary, as 
 he accustomed his eyes to the gloom and examined 
 carefully the walls and ceiling. 
 
 " Me an' Pietro, ma' man, an' Lucia an' Victor 
 an' Bici an' Tripolita, ma bambina cara ! " Catch- 
 ing up the sobbing, little bundle of dirty rags, she 
 pressed it to her half-bare breast. 
 
 There was a sound of sleigh bells outside, and of 
 horses trampling the snow near the dirty pane of 
 glass. As Gary bent down to look out, a cracked 
 bell tinkled in the hall above. The baby stopped 
 crying, as if the jangle was a music to its ears. 
 
 " It ees Lady; it ees Mees Lady," cried out the 
 Italian women excitedly; and they swarmed up the 
 little ladder, baby and all, leaving Gary, choked with 
 the squalor of the place, to follow them as best he 
 might. When half way up the wretched ladder, the 
 sound of the visitor's voice checked him suddenly; 
 he hesitated in the darkened end of the passage, 
 thrilled and eager. It was Rosalind. 
 
 " Merry Christmas, Mrs. Mario," she was say- 
 ing. " How are you? "
 
 38 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " Ah, wella, dear Lady, wella." 
 
 "And Pietro? And the children? Bid's cold? 
 Does she cough any longer? " 
 
 The Italian women were transformed. Their 
 frowns were exchanged for smiles and friendly ges- 
 ticulation; their dark eyes sparkled; their nervous 
 bodies shook excitedly. 
 
 " Come ina, dear Lady! Come outa da cold." 
 ' Thank you, I cannot this time. I've only come 
 to bring Bici her Christmas present, and I have 
 others to leave. If you'll take it, I'll give you 
 Maria's now, Mrs. Ferrari." 
 
 The other Italian woman smiled and ducked, her 
 ear-rings bobbing against her yellow cheeks. Fear- 
 ful that Rosalind depart, yet timid in the sudden re- 
 awakening of her presence, Cary moved uncertainly 
 down the little hall. Rosalind was the first to notice 
 him, and cried out, " Why, Mr. Cary ! However 
 did you happen to get in Mrs. Mario's house? " 
 
 He took the extended hand and shook it. 
 
 " It's it's a building committee I'm on. We 
 have to investigate Boston houses and alleys and 
 cellars. I've been rather suspected by these ladies. 
 Couldn't you ?" 
 
 Rosalind laughed merrily. 
 
 " He's perfectly all right, Mrs. Mario. He's a 
 good friend of mine." 
 
 As Rosalind's hand rested protectingly on his 
 sleeve for a moment, he sought to estimate correctly 
 the degree of warmth in her voice. It had not been 
 at all necessary for her to be so enthusiastic; he 
 could have imagined a far more cold and common- 
 place greeting. Perhaps he had made an impres- 
 sion. That same innate pride which ruffles and 
 fans the peacock's iridescent tail swelled in Gary's
 
 GARY BUYS A PRESENT 39 
 
 heart, and when Rosalind bade farewell to the 
 women, he turned away with her feeling very strong 
 and pleasingly masterful. 
 
 " I'm for Blossom Street next, 1 ' said Rosalind. 
 " Are you going that way? I've sent the sleigh on 
 ahead." 
 
 Although he had no business on Blossom Street, 
 Gary nodded in reply to her question, and they 
 walked along side by side. 
 
 " How long have you been at it? " he asked. 
 
 " This is my fifth year; I began when I came out. 
 Is it still a source of surprise? " 
 
 " Of interest rather." Gary looked at her criti- 
 cally, more at ease. He could not help admiring 
 her dress, a simple but lovely brown, such as is sel- 
 dom seen in the environs of Blossom Street. 
 
 " You have the right idea about clothes," he said 
 ingenuously. 
 
 Rosalind looked at him, puzzled. 
 
 "I I mean you don't dress the part of a social 
 worker." 
 
 " Why should any one? " 
 
 " Lots do. They put on their worst clothes and 
 then try to spread joy." 
 
 " I know. They think that they can get closer 
 to the poor that way. As a matter of fact the poor 
 people think they're shamming. I feel perfectly 
 sure that Mrs. Mario likes to see my pretty clothes 
 just as much as me." 
 
 " I don't believe that," objected Gary earnestly. 
 
 " There is no use in dressing down to people any- 
 way; I learned that at Brimmer House long ago. 
 Our earliest precept was that 
 
 ' The Colonel's lady and Judy O* Grady 
 Are sisters under their skins,' "
 
 40 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " Do you give all your girls Christmas presents? " 
 
 " Well, it's not much to do," disclaimed Rosa- 
 lind prettily, " and they appreciate my presents ten 
 times more than any others I give. It gets to be the 
 best part of Christmas, Mr. Gary. They give me 
 presents, too. About this time of year I receive a 
 perfect flood of workbaskets and mottoes which they 
 have made in the House." 
 
 " That is a wretched room of Mrs. Mario's. 
 You've been in it? " 
 
 " Yes. Her husband digs sewers, which does not 
 add to the general comfort." 
 
 They turned up Blossom Street and passed the 
 great, snow-covered buildings of the Massachusetts 
 General Hospital. At the genesis of its name this 
 dull street decades ago had ceased to wonder; now 
 dirt-brown snow made the designation seem even 
 more of a mockery than did its flowerless summer. 
 
 " You did not come for further punishment," said 
 Rosalind. 
 
 " No, I er I've been so busy with this work 
 the very next day I was appointed. But " 
 
 Cary did not go on, halted by a hopeless inability 
 to phrase the conclusion. It was in his mind, but not 
 on his tongue, to tell her that he had thought often 
 about their previous meeting. 
 
 " But you've changed your ideas about girls? " 
 Rosalind concluded with a bright look. 
 
 " Decidedly, most decidedly." 
 
 " A Daniel Drought to judgment ! Now that I've 
 done my duty to the entire flock of debutantes, past, 
 present, and future, by enlightening so blind a judge, 
 I shall give him a Christmas compensation. Your 
 sins are pardoned. Arise, Daniel, and spread the 
 gospel : you are forgiven."
 
 GARY BUYS A PRESENT 41 
 
 " Thank you. I I " 
 
 Running lightly up the front steps of a forbidding 
 apartment of yellow brick, Rosalind turned on the 
 landing. To the open-mouthed Gary she looked im- 
 possibly out of place and beautiful in the drab entry- 
 way. 
 
 " But I warn you, Mr. Gary, to look out for your- 
 self. I'm afraid I have made you into such a dan- 
 gerously marriageable man that some young girl will 
 seize you, if you're not careful. Perhaps you won't 
 thank me then ! Merry Christmas ! " 
 
 She was gone, leaving Gary on the sidewalk, hat in 
 hand. No one had ever talked to him like that be- 
 fore, and he was astounded to find how much it 
 pleased him. This second meeting, so like the first, 
 so unexpected, so different from all the customary 
 incidents of his life, like the first swept him off his 
 feet. What had she said? A marriageable man? 
 Some young girl would seize him, if he were not care- 
 ful? Gary suddenly realised that he was standing 
 in the middle of the sidewalk with his hat off 
 smiling at himself to the unmistakable delight of 
 Rosalind's coachman. He flushed self-consciously, 
 hurriedly replaced his hat, and strode off with his 
 thoughts far, far away from municipal investiga- 
 tions. 
 
 As he walked, he whistled. A bold, brave idea 
 had come into his mind, and his long dormant blood 
 ran like sap in springtime. To-morrow was Christ- 
 mas. Should he not give Rosalind a present? He 
 smiled rather foolishly to himself as he wondered 
 what she would say. And then his father and Aunt 
 Sara Gary laughed outright at the thought of 
 their surprise. But what could he give her? What 
 do girls like? A sensible, inexperienced man could
 
 42 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 hardly know what would please a girl. Then, con- 
 science-stricken at having so soon forgot his lesson, 
 he remembered that he was as of old scanting the 
 intelligence and ability of the other sex. Still a 
 woman is a woman, he told himself; he could not 
 give her cigars or a bottle of sherry. 
 
 In hopes of finding a suggestion he glanced about. 
 His brisk strides had carried him up over Beacon 
 Hill into the more fashionable part of the city, and 
 on his right the show windows of a great florist shop 
 displayed a paradise of flowers. He stared in for 
 so long a time without being able to make up his 
 mind to enter that one of the clerks opened the 
 door; then there was nothing for it but to go in. 
 He found himself in a sweetly odorous maze of 
 flowers with clerks bustling on all sides. 
 
 " Christmas flowers, sir? " 
 
 'Yes. What do you recommend?" 
 
 The clerk, of course, recommended everything; 
 pointed out holly here, an azalea there; put a gar- 
 denia to Gary's nose; begged him to smell of these 
 violets and of those hyacinths; until Gary in sheer 
 desperation chose a dozen white roses. He did not 
 care much for flowers, but knew that roses were al- 
 ways appropriate. 
 
 " Send them to Miss Rosalind Copley, 29 Com- 
 monwealth. Enclose this and charge it to me." 
 
 He gave the man his card. 
 
 ; ' Will you write on it, sir? " 
 
 Cary took the card back, and absently accepted a 
 pen from the clerk. What should he write ? What 
 do people write on such occasions? Three times he 
 wet the pen in ink, vainly searching for some neat 
 phrase which might express his feelings. If there 
 was one, he could not find it, and after a pause which,
 
 GARY BUYS A PRESENT 43 
 
 he thought, must have made him appear ridiculous 
 in the clerk's eyes, he wrote down nothing but 
 " Merry Christmas." 
 
 " Thank you, sir. They will go to-night. Merry 
 Christmas, sir." 
 
 " Merry Christmas," Cary echoed vaguely. 
 
 He walked slowly down Park Street, half wish- 
 ing he had not sent the flowers after all. How 
 would she receive them? Would she not think it 
 very forward in him? Surely it was a strange thing 
 for him, Benjamin Cary, to be doing! 
 
 A clock struck the half hour. With a shame- 
 faced start he remembered his long established cus- 
 tom of lunching at one o'clock.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 DEALING CHIEFLY WITH CHRISTMAS 
 
 ONCE every year 8 Louisburg Square changed 
 its character. The hushed magnificence 
 which enveloped the invalid disappeared, and 
 that unnatural quiet in which footsteps were not 
 heard and voices fainted into murmurs was sup- 
 planted by an anomalous gaiety. On Christmas Eve 
 the very house itself blazed with light. The Rom- 
 neys in the great drawing-room looked superciliously 
 down upon a Christmas-tree from the Sherborne 
 farm, brilliant with shimmering spangles arranged 
 by Rosalind and Edouard; the dinner-table flamed 
 with candles, myriad reflections of which danced in 
 the silver and glass; in each of the front windows 
 stood twelve, tall Christmas tapers as beacons to the 
 carol singers; in fact, the house on Christmas Eve 
 compared with the house on other nights was as 
 music compared to silence. Light supplanted the 
 customary darkness; laurel wreaths usurped empty 
 spaces on the wall ; mistletoe and holly interlaced the 
 banisters in so mischievous a way that no lady could 
 remove her wrap without hazarding a kiss; and, 
 what effected the greatest change, the house was 
 filled with Christmas merry-makers. 
 
 The party was strictly a family affair. This night 
 was set apart for the genus Copley to gather to- 
 gether and talk, and if noise and the light chatter 
 of many tongues be evidence of enjoyment, the 
 
 44
 
 DEALING WITH CHRISTMAS 45 
 
 Christmas party was invariably a tremendous suc- 
 cess. As a result of the bombardment Mr. Single- 
 ton Singleton usually spent his Christmas day in 
 bed; but since he considered the celebration a part of 
 his position as the oldest and wealthiest of the Cop- 
 ley blood, each year the invitations went out. No 
 one was omitted. The Copley who drank, he was 
 invited; the queer Singleton, whose wife divorced 
 him because he sometimes preferred to sleep in the 
 bathtub, he was invited; the trying cousin, whose 
 grammatical errors gave her wealthier relatives 
 shivers, she was welcomed; and even the poor Pel- 
 hams, who lived in a flat in Chelsea and that was 
 about all there was a place for them, too. They 
 all came, rich and poor, proud and humble, old Cop- 
 pleys, young Copleys, bent Copleys, frolicsome Cop- 
 leys, little children who were very noisy at the far 
 end of the room, but very much awed when near 
 Mr. Singleton Singleton, and their older relations on 
 whom the tall, silent host had to tell the truth a 
 similar effect. They shook his hand on arriving and 
 endeavoured to be polite by making small-talk, but as 
 he never talked and they had nothing to say, they 
 soon chose opportunities to steal off to company more 
 congenial. The party was an institution, and, since 
 they only saw the invalid this one night in the year, 
 they regarded him as a material part of the insti- 
 tution. One cannot converse under such circum- 
 stances. It did not hurt their host's feelings in the 
 slightest; he did not care for them. It was merely 
 having them there, the preservation of the old cus- 
 tom, and perhaps a faint regard for this last 
 flickering of his social life, which made the evening 
 bearable. As long as he could sit with Rosalind's 
 hand in his, he cared not a whit who went or came.
 
 46 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 As Rosalind concluded her account of meeting 
 Gary that morning, the poor Pelhams arrived. 
 They were always the first to come; in Chelsea, if the 
 invitation read seven o'clock, it meant seven o'clock 
 or no dinner. Abashed by the silence, they hesi- 
 tated to leave the hall, and Rosalind, on going out to 
 see what had happened, found them there sitting 
 down and engaged in conversation with the second 
 man. Their embarrassment soon thawed under her 
 welcome. The male Pelham, whose hired dress 
 trousers from their singular fulness must have been 
 designed for Falstaffian limbs, even ventured to kiss 
 Rosalind under the mistletoe; and it was in the 
 middle of this operation that her father and mother 
 arrived. The Copley who drank came in at the 
 same time, but, labouring under the misapprehension 
 that he was in the Club, went unobserved up the 
 front stairs and had to be retrieved somewhat later 
 from Mr. Singleton Singleton's bed, on which he had 
 composed himself for sleep. At seven-thirty, the 
 party being fully assembled and the children con- 
 sumed with hunger and excitement, Edouard with a 
 flourish announced that dinner was served. 
 
 Mr. Singleton Singleton took his seat at one end 
 of the great table in silence; Rosalind queened it at 
 the other, excited and glowing. In a noisy en- 
 deavour to find their places the guests bumped into 
 each other and apologised and laughed. The un- 
 grammatical cousin admiringly told Mr. Quincy that 
 " she never was set down to such a table, and could 
 he^help her find her seat, the candles fluttered her 
 so." This kind office performed, and the Copley 
 who drank being taken out of the rubber tree by 
 Edouard, the dinner went off with a whirl of conver- 
 sation.
 
 DEALING WITH CHRISTMAS 47 
 
 " Joseph, was anything ever more luxuriant than 
 this?" 
 
 " No champagne for John ! John ! John Cop- 
 ley Ingersoll, not a drop ! " 
 
 " Land love us ! " the ungrammatical cousin whis- 
 pers confidentially, " I think Milly ought to let him 
 have a drop on Christmas." 
 
 "I wouldn't think of using paint! But this is 
 a kind of enamel which Mme. Louise says is bene- 
 ficial to the skin. So I " 
 
 " By gad, Rose, take my advice, my dear, and 
 never marry but for love. Look at me ! I have 
 never married, though I might have had a dozen 
 girls. A little wine, Rose! Merry Christmas and 
 my best wishes ! " 
 
 a Jo- Jo, are you going to the Fancy Dress Ball? " 
 
 " Certainly am ! Wouldn't miss it, Beth." 
 
 "What's your disguise; true love?" laughs Mr. 
 Copley. 
 
 " No, Jack, no. I'm going as a Bashi-Bazouk. 
 How's that? How's that, Lucy? " 
 
 " Mercy me, Joseph, I guess you'll be just elegant 
 as a Bash-of-Bazoo. What are they? Somethin' 
 foreign, I suppose?" 
 
 " Rose," Mr. Singleton Singleton speaks for the 
 first time and raises his glass. 
 
 " A Bashi-Bazouk, Jo-Jo! You can't go as that; 
 you'll look worse than Mr. Tupman in ' Pickwick.' 
 You might as well go as Pavlowa ! " 
 
 " Well, I did once, Beth." 
 
 " Yes, but Mrs. Hereford said you were in- 
 decent." 
 
 " Rose is going as Sir Galahad." 
 
 " I made the costume myself, Uncle Jo- Jo it's 
 wonderfully put "
 
 48 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " A merry, merry Christmas to all! " 
 
 Mr. Copley proposes the toast for Mr. Singleton 
 Singleton and the party rises in happy laughter. 
 Even the invalid is helped to his feet by Edouard and 
 lifts his glass with a trembling hand. The children 
 drink their drop of wine with conscious pride for 
 every one has a glass, even Edouard and the 
 laughter is general when Ingersoll, despite his wife's 
 protest, drains off a bumper to Christmas. 
 
 " Land of mercy," exclaims the ungrammatical 
 cousin, who has swallowed perhaps a quarter of a 
 teaspoonful of wine, " how this champagne does set 
 me a-flutter. It's the bubbles most likely do it. 
 Joseph, I don't know when I was to such a party." 
 
 " Good for you, Lucy, very good. Expands you, 
 makes you cheery, you know. Your health, Lucy! 
 God bless us, your health ! Oh, come, a little more ! 
 Never tell me ! " 
 
 " Mrs. Curtis is running the ball. Dr. Gary's 
 sister, you know." 
 
 " And Rosalind is taking up with her nephew? " 
 The ungrammatical cousin misses no gossip. 
 
 14 I met him in the slums to-day, Cousin Lucy." 
 
 " Ned, if you eat any more nuts, Santa Claus 
 won't" 
 
 ' Yes, Beth, I've no doubt you saw me with Miss 
 Hepplethwaite at the Copley Plaza ; she lassooed me 
 in the park. Life's not safe nowadays in public ! " 
 
 ' You're an old hypocrite, Jo-Jo, I think. Tell 
 me now, did she say you'd look well as a Bashi- 
 Bazouk?" Mrs. Copley laughs till the wonderful 
 pearls are a-tremble on her more wonderful neck. 
 
 " Ooooph ! " 
 
 The children rustle in their seats and gasp, and 
 the Copley who drinks is firmly convinced that he has
 
 DEALING WITH CHRISTMAS 49 
 
 seen a serpent belching fire in the air before him; 
 but it is only Edouard with the plum-pudding, a 
 round, odorous affair, dancing with blue brandy 
 flames, and so large that Edouard staggers as he 
 bears it around the table with a proud smile. It is 
 indeed a triumph of culinary art. There is no mor- 
 tal yet born who could refuse such a dish; so it is 
 cut, and in a fair way towards being finished when 
 Edouard comes bustling back with the information 
 that the carol singers are at the other end of the 
 Square. A hush falls. 
 
 O little town of Bethlehem! 
 How still we see thee lie 
 
 Unable to wait to hear more, the children murmur 
 with expectant delight. Mr. Singleton Singleton 
 rises, and, during the general exodus to the front 
 windows, the house is plunged in darkness. With 
 only flaming rows of candles in the windows, the 
 company waits and listens in hushed silence as the 
 band of children from afar sing their hymns, cry out 
 " Merry Christmas " and " Good-will," and then 
 move to the next illuminated window. 
 
 At length they stand before Mr. Singleton Single- 
 ton's house. The hard splendour of a cold win- 
 ter's evening so whitens the Square that the electric 
 street-lamps seem consciously ashamed of being lit. 
 In the starlight the little band of singers is vaguely 
 distinguishable. For the most part it is composed of 
 children in the thickest of coats and mufflers, but 
 there are a few older people carrying lanterns feebly 
 aflame; behind the singers a great crowd of cheerful 
 spectators masses along the wrought-iron fence and 
 fills the Square with shadowy forms. The singing
 
 50 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 is clear, sweet, and crisp, piercing the tingling air and 
 
 lifting each heart to the ever-old and yet ever-new 
 
 glory of Christmas. 
 
 Now the young voices take up Richard Willis's 
 
 hymn: 
 
 It came upon a midnight clear, 
 
 That glorious song of old, 
 
 From angels bending near the earth, 
 
 To touch their harps of gold: 
 
 " Peace on earth, good-will to men," 
 
 From heaven's all-gracious King 
 
 Another hymn and yet another, and then the 
 singers move on amid choruses of " Merry Christ- 
 mas " from within the house and without. The 
 cold air seems warm with cheerful messages. By 
 this time the children are very tired, and the Copley 
 who drinks, excited by the singing, mistakenly as- 
 sumes that he is at the opera and puts on his top hat 
 to go out between the acts. The guests begin to 
 drift away, singly and in groups. Rosalind stays to 
 the last, and when she finally does say good-night, 
 leaves as the best present of all, a long, affectionate 
 Christmas kiss on her godfather's cheek. 
 
 The presents were distributed early next morning 
 in the Copley house with a great deal of that gayness 
 of heart which had always been in Rosalind's family 
 as much a part of Christmas as the actual gifts them- 
 selves. Rosalind was mightily surprised to receive 
 the flowers from Benjamin Cary, and stared at the 
 card in silence. Flowers from Philip Brooks, from 
 Francis Wharton, from, Frederic Hoyt she took as a 
 matter of course, but flowers from Cary ! She 
 was pleased, yet at the same time puzzled. 
 
 "What's that, Rose?"
 
 DEALING WITH CHRISTMAS 51 
 
 " Look, Mamma ! Flowers from Ben Gary." 
 
 " The idea ! What have you done to that young 
 man? Let me see the card. Only ' Merry Christ- 
 mas ' isn't that typical of the quiet man who says 
 a grain of sand and means the world? His ' Merry 
 Christmas ' is worth a page of Billy Harte ! " 
 
 " I know, Mother. I shouldn't have done it! " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Taken him to Brimmer House. It's all my 
 fault; he never thought of girls before that." 
 
 Mrs. Copley looked at the card and laughed. 
 
 " The agony of soul the composition of this great 
 thought cost him must have been tremendous." 
 
 " But he was rude." Rosalind looked quizzically 
 at her mother. " I'm afraid I've done wrong. I 
 I didn't want him to send me flowers; I only did 
 it to to humanise him, to give him a shock. I 
 hope he " 
 
 " Oh, well, leave him alone, my dear, and he'll 
 forget. Your father used to give me flowers before 
 we were engaged, but I always had to prompt him." 
 
 As she turned the card over in her hand, the melan- 
 choly strains of Handel's " Largo " drifted in from 
 a graphophone in the music room. 
 
 " Who's playing that on Christmas Day! Jo-Jo? 
 How can vou do such a thing? You ought to be 
 merry! Look, Rose." 
 
 Beside the phonograph sat Mr. Quincy, a picture 
 of despair. 
 
 " What's the matter, Uncle Jo-Jo? You've been 
 blue ever since you came in." 
 
 " Blue, my dearest Rose, I'm ultramarine, purple, 
 black! Oh, it's awful! No! Awful is no word 
 for it!" 
 
 "What is it, Jo- Jo?"
 
 5 2 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " Oh, nothing. Ha ha ! Nothing." 
 
 Changing the record to the " Maiden's Prayer," 
 Mr. Quincy gave himself up to a grief which out- 
 wardly showed in sundry shakings of the head and 
 heartfelt sighs. 
 
 " Tell us, please, Uncle Jo-Jo." 
 
 " Rose, never, never trust any one ! Listen to 
 me: I'll make your blood run cold. Those 
 da" 
 
 "Jo-Jo!" 
 
 " those Hepplethwaite girls by artful insinua- 
 tions led me to believe that they were going to give 
 me a Christmas present. Foolish old idiot that I 
 was, I believed them. In retaliation I went and 
 bought 'em books and boxes of flowers, made a regu- 
 lar fool of myself and now, now no present has 
 come from them! I'm desperate. They'll never 
 let me hear the last of it, you know. * Oh, those 
 sweet flowers, Joseph ! ' ' Oh, that engrossing 
 book ! ' Sweet flowers, fiddle-de-dee ! Engrossing 
 book, bosh! " 
 
 " Whatever will they say at the Club, Jo- Jo? " 
 
 Overwhelmed by mock misery, Mr. Quincy opened 
 both doors of the Victrola and put his head as far 
 inside as possible, where he kept it till the end of the 
 " Maiden's Prayer." Then, purged of his grief, he 
 went off with Rosalind to see Mr. Singleton Single- 
 ton. 
 
 They found the invalid propped up in his great 
 four-posted bed, on the edge of which Rosalind 
 seated herself. After a morning kiss, she displayed 
 Benjamin Gary's card. 
 
 " I'm afraid, Uncle Sing-Sing, he's going to fall 
 in love with me." She made up a face of mimic 
 grief.
 
 DEALING WITH CHRISTMAS 53 
 
 "Going to!" cried Mr. Quincy. "Has, you 
 mean! Why! I could have told you that the first 
 ever I saw of him. Bull-dog love, you know. Ah ! 
 Look out for that kind, Rose, my dear. Put up a 
 dike : it washes it down. Banish it : it knows no 
 exile. It sticketh closer than a barrel of brothers. 
 Mark me! You'll be married in six months, if 
 you're not careful. Take my word for it ! " 
 'You do not like him?" 
 
 " Of course not, Uncle Sing-Sing. I only know 
 him out of pique, as it were. But he's all right, you 
 know. I do like him for a change ; he is so different 
 from Billy and Phil." 
 
 " He's a man. That's what Tony objects to." 
 
 " He is a man." There was a trace of enthu- 
 siasm in Rosalind's voice. " Billy and Phil aren't." 
 
 " They will be some day, my dear, and don't you 
 forget it. Tony and I were flighty once. Fools 
 to-day, fathers to-morrow and so the world goes. 
 Take Philip Brooks. In ten years don't laugh, 
 Rose ! he'll be a warden of Trinity Church, and 
 fold up the map of Europe. Earth will cease to 
 have wonders for him; he will not care to know 
 them. But ]' 
 
 " I don't believe Gary's narrow, if that's what you 
 mean." 
 
 " No no ! Perhaps he is, perhaps he isn't. 
 What I say is this: just because an undergraduate 
 wears a club ribbon and prefers Victor Herbert to 
 Victor Hugo, don't you think that he's always going 
 to be a puppy! So many girls marry an older man 
 because he is calm and serious. Don't, Rose ! 
 Marry a wild-cat or a polar bear, but don't get taken 
 in by the false gravity of years. Wait till you get 
 the sun and some man mixed up then jump ! "
 
 54 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 Rosalind went over to the writing desk and sat 
 down, a smile twisting her lips. 
 
 " Never fear, Uncle Jo-Jo ! I shan't jump just 
 yet, but I will write and thank him for the flowers. 
 How shall it go? I must be careful! . . . Dear 
 Mr. Gary-- 1 was surprised and delighted . . . 
 (shall I say ' surprised,' Uncle Jo- Jo?) ... to re- 
 ceive your beautiful roses. They were in perfect 
 condition. Roses are always beautiful, I think, and 
 the loveliness of these, I assure you, is greatly ap- 
 preciated ... (I call that neat! I've used it be- 
 fore. Now I'll end it; that's enough, don't you 
 think so, Uncle Sing-Sing? However, shall I say 
 it? Let me see.) ... I shall hope to see you at 
 the Fancy Dress, where I can really thank you for 
 your thought of me. Sincerely yours, Rosalind Cop- 
 ley. ... (I think that's awfully good about the 
 Fancy Dress. It ends up with a flourish, you see, 
 and, of course, he won't go)." 
 
 "Sure?" 
 
 " Sure, Uncle Sing-Sing! And so closes Episode 
 the First." 
 
 Benjamin received the letter the next afternoon, 
 and in quite a different mood from that in which it 
 was written. On coming home he turned naturally 
 to the tray on which reposed the day's assortment of 
 mail. Among the letters for him there was one, the 
 fair, precise handwriting of which made his blood 
 suddenly tingle. He had been waiting for it, expect- 
 ing it. With almost a laugh at the novelty of the 
 thing, he carried the little note to a comfortable sofa 
 in the living-room. Eager to read, yet more eager to 
 prolong the sensation of being alone in a strange 
 land, he smoked a cigarette and like all prosaic men
 
 DEALING WITH CHRISTMAS 55 
 
 dreamed in the blue smoke which eddied to the lamp. 
 It was ludicrous, yet delightful and disturbing. He 
 had once seen a moving-picture hero ravished by the 
 romance of his cigarette smoke; then the situation 
 had seemed crude and silly, but perhaps he had mis- 
 judged it. He opened the envelope and read the 
 lines at first hastily, the second time with increasing 
 care. Having had absolutely no experience with 
 such letters, he was mystified by its sentiments. Was 
 she really pleased or was this but a formal way of 
 saying thank you? The " surprised " disturbed him; 
 evidently she thought him rude, forward, intruding. 
 Yet at the same time she was " delighted " and " en- 
 joyed their beauty." The more Gary endeavoured 
 to form a judicial opinion on this point, the less con- 
 clusive he became, and, deeming the evidence on this 
 point insufficient, at length proceeded to examine 
 scrupulously the next line. There the allusion to the 
 " Fancy Dress " puzzled him. Supposedly it was a 
 dance, but when or where he had no idea; fancy dress 
 was not his habiliment. To cap his perplexity she 
 seemed to express a hope of seeing him at this ball, 
 seemed to take it for granted that he would be there. 
 Gary sought to imagine what a Fancy Dress could be 
 like. During his solitary meal the question tortured 
 him till he could bear the uncertainty no longer and 
 determined to smoke his after dinner cigar with his 
 aunt, Mrs. Curtis. To her he unburdened his 
 trouble. 
 
 " Aunt Sara, I came to ask you what ' The Fancy 
 Dress ' was." 
 
 "It wasn't; it will be a dance on Friday night. 
 It's the regular New Year's Charity Ball that we get 
 up." 
 
 " A nice thing, I suppose ? "
 
 56 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 "The best in the year, Ben, but why? The 
 leopard isn't changing his spots, is he? " 
 
 "Why, Aunt Sara, I I" (Ben flushed as he 
 said it), " I thought I might go this year if I could 
 get invited." 
 
 " You go, Ben ! You ! You're in love ; you must 
 be!" 
 
 " Oh, Aunt Sara, that's rot. Women do take the 
 most awful leaps to false conclusions ! " 
 
 " I know, Benjamin," she said shrewdly, " but 
 the farther they leap, the more near right they are." 
 
 "Aunt Sara, is that your own?" 
 
 " Yes, dear." 
 
 " Then it is very clever of you," said Ben in- 
 genuously. " But you didn't leap far enough for me 
 this time ! " 
 
 " The surprise was too great, dear ! I'd as soon 
 expect the Archbishop of Canterbury at the ball as 
 you." 
 
 " Could you get him a ticket, if he came? " 
 
 "Yes, I certainly could; and I can get you one 
 also, although you've already refused once. I'm 
 running it this year, you see." 
 
 " I'm glad oif that; you can take care of me." 
 
 " All right, my dear. You seem to need it," she 
 added maliciously. " What are you going as? " 
 
 "Going as?" 
 
 '' Why yes, it's in costume, as one might gather 
 from the name." 
 
 " Do you expect me to wear a costume ? " 
 
 Mrs. Curtis nodded. 
 
 " Never ! My dear aunt, me in a costume ? It 
 would be too conspicuous I'll just wear a dress 
 suit." 
 
 1 You may if you want to, my dear Ben, but if you
 
 DEALING WITH CHRISTMAS 57 
 
 take my advice, you'll wear a costume if only to 
 avoid conspicuousness. You would probably be the 
 only dress suit there." 
 
 Benjamin was aghast. 
 
 " Does every one put on a disguise? " 
 
 " From the fattest to the thinnest, from the 
 bravest to the most cowardly." 
 
 " Then I shall, Aunt Sara ! Can you give me one ? 
 I remember you used to have a great many." 
 
 Mrs. Curtis surveyed him critically. 
 
 " I have it ! " she cried, clapping her hands. " I 
 have it! Christopher Columbus! Oh, Ben, you 
 will be stunning in green! " 
 
 So Christopher Columbus it was, a glorious, green 
 Christopher Columbus, in a slashed silk doublet, 
 painfully aware of the exposure of his legs in green 
 tights, and painfully clumsy in a pair of fifteenth 
 century slippers.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE FANCY DRESS BALL 
 
 IT was a still January night, so cold and brilliant 
 that the very stars seemed frozen into glittering 
 immovability in the sky. A bitter wind whis- 
 pered icily through the streets, eddied about great, 
 pendant icicles, and stole off to moan in the dark 
 pockets of the city. There were few people abroad. 
 A policeman swinging his arms in a calisthenic effort 
 to warm himself, a miserable passerby whose hurry- 
 ing feet rang on the sidewalk, a taxicab whirling a 
 shivering passenger from one haven of warmth to 
 another these were the occasional manifestations 
 of life in a city which took its ease indoors. 
 
 Copley Square alone was animated. It was the 
 night of the Fancy Dress Ball annually held at the 
 Copley Plaza in behalf of the Indigent Orphans of 
 Boston. As the invitations openly stated, the ball 
 was a charity affair, but after the price of the ball- 
 room, and of the elaborate decorations, and of the 
 supper, and of the latest thing in bands had been de- 
 ducted from the receipts, the Indigent Orphans 
 might well have been justified in feeling that charity 
 in connection with a social affair of this nature was 
 more of an excuse than of a cause. But then, of 
 course, the Indigent Orphans knew nothing about it; 
 they had never been expected to know anything 
 about it, and the dance succeeded or failed quite irre- 
 spective of whether there were any orphans in the 
 
 58
 
 THE FANCY DRESS BALL 59 
 
 Home or not. The ball had become a social fixture, 
 dear to our best people and to the undergraduates 
 of Harvard University, who comprised the male 
 dancing population of Boston. It was dear to our 
 best people as all fixtures are dear; to the under- 
 graduates it represented the admittance at three dol- 
 lars a head to as much refreshment as was bad for 
 them. As for the debutantes, they held it no sin to 
 attend six dances and dinners in one week, provided 
 one of them was for charity. And then for one and 
 all it was such glorious fun to walk about in costume ! 
 What if the charity part did get lost in the shuffle? 
 The evening was still amusing and magnificent, giv- 
 ing that great body of women who depend on the 
 society columns of the dailies for their information 
 on life topics, something to think about, and furnish- 
 ing the Indigent Orphans pecuniary relief which, if 
 not too large, was yet not to be scorned. 
 
 Motors and carriages thronged about the great 
 hotel. Defiant of the cold, the social world was out 
 in force, and the biting air lived with the cries of in- 
 furiated cabmen and the insistent racking of electric 
 horns. As the guests streamed under the broad 
 awning, spread from the hotel to the street, the wind 
 whisked and fluttered their wraps, permitting the 
 carriage-caller, apparently a living bear-skin, to catch 
 glimpses now of a harlequin, now of a cardinal, now 
 of a fairy. 
 
 The interior of the Copley Plaza was a pande- 
 monium of light and music. As the dancers flut- 
 tered past to the ball-room, a crush of people craned 
 their necks and stared. These were the hotel guests, 
 the uninvited, the dwellers in the limbo of bour- 
 geoisie. Poor unfortunates! Even the most unat- 
 tractive Jewish widow of their number would have
 
 60 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 bartered her immortal soul, nay, even her mortal 
 gold, for the entree of that blazing paradise of so- 
 ciety. But it could not be; and they must dream and 
 envy, they must exchange amenities in their Hinter- 
 land, the foyer, and read the details of Mrs. So-and- 
 So's costume in the papers of all the world. 
 
 The ball-room streamed with a wild profusion of 
 ribbons and rosettes, flaunting from the massive 
 chandeliers and hiding the upstairs boxes. Behind 
 a mass of shrubbery in Italian pots blared a cele- 
 brated New York band, sixty musicians thumping, 
 shouting, squeaking, swaying, employing every 
 known device, musical or otherwise, to prove the in- 
 vincible modernity of their art. Whether it was 
 music or cacophony which penetrated their leafy 
 screen, there was a great deal of it, loud, sweeping, 
 infectious, the bewildering perfume and flashy sup- 
 pliance of a minute. Above all arose a ceaseless 
 babel of voices, as bewildering to the ear as the cos- 
 tumes, which displayed every known combination of 
 colour and design, were to the eye. Even a frenzied 
 Cubist might have hesitated to place his impression 
 of so inextricable a mixture of colour, sound, and 
 motion on hitherto undaunted canvas. For all the 
 world the five hundred revolving figures resembled 
 an enormous crazy quilt in the act of violent peram- 
 bulation. Here a Watteau shepherdess nestled in 
 the arms of Ivan the Terrible; there Cato the 
 Censor attempted the fox-trot with Catherine de 
 Medici; you might have seen a Cardinal waltzing 
 with Mme. du Barry, and Florence Nightingale in 
 the arms of Abdul Hamid. 
 
 Above the whirling, swaying, laughing dancers the 
 staid, older ladies, whom the influx of modern steps 
 had not swept onto the dancing floor, sat in their
 
 THE FANCY DRESS BALL 61 
 
 festooned boxes like minor Olympians, passing judg- 
 ment behind their jewelled lorgnettes and breathing 
 deeply under the weight of great ropes of pearls. 
 Even they were in fancy dress: age hath no ter- 
 rors for a woman costumed. While they formed 
 in the front line of the boxes a dazzling array of 
 Queen Elizabeths, Fairy Queens, queens of all de- 
 nominations, their heavy and dignified husbands 
 yawned away the evening behind their backs in talk- 
 ing over the latest bonmot at the Sarcophagus Club. 
 From their aerial vantage these sexagenarian in- 
 quisitresses promulgated the autos-da-fe of society. 
 If Mrs. Lavalle as a nymph was hardly decent, they 
 had realised it long before the whisper buzzed about 
 the ball-room; if Mr. Morton's dancing was too 
 good to be proper, they were the first to take excep- 
 tion to it. When young Harry Francis tumbled 
 down the stairs from the champagne punch, it was 
 quite useless for him to look about for the person 
 who had tripped him. The dog-collared Junos had 
 known his father years ago; when the wind was in 
 that quarter, they could tell falling from being 
 tripped. Their keen old eyes twinkled over Joseph 
 Quincy, dancing only with debutantes, ferreted out at 
 least two engagements, and were perhaps the only 
 eyes for the dancers were too busy dancing and 
 babbling to observe anything to catch a glimpse 
 of Sir Galahad quitting the confusion of the great 
 hall on the arm of Christopher Columbus. 
 
 " Now be true to your name," Sir Galahad was 
 saying " and discover some place where it is quiet. 
 The noise is deafening here." 
 
 Cary led Rosalind to a little room at some dis- 
 tance from the dancing. The perfume, the heat, the 
 novelty of the night aroused his dusty emotions, and
 
 62 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 his heart stretched within him like an awakening 
 Titan. As they sat upon a sofa, the music came dis- 
 tantly to them, confused with the hum of voices. 
 
 " I'm so glad you came. I think I've never seen 
 you at a dance before." 
 
 " I have not been since I left college." 
 
 "No?" 
 
 " Eight years. Do you wonder now I could not 
 dance?" 
 
 " Hardly. But you could learn. You dance as 
 well as Uncle Jo-Jo now." Rosalind laughed mer- 
 rily. " He thinks he dances beautifully, so never 
 tell him what I said. He must be a trial to the 
 young girls, for he persists in believing that he is as 
 young as he feels, and scorns any one who has been 
 out more than a year. Even I am passe! " 
 
 " I caught a glimpse of him. He ought to look 
 very fierce in that Turkish costume, but somehow he 
 doesn't." 
 
 " I'll warrant he spent as much time over it as 
 any lady here spent over hers. Where did you pick 
 up Columbus? It suits you." 
 
 " Mrs. Curtis chose it for me." 
 
 ; ' I made this costume myself," said Rosalind with 
 pride. " It was a piece work putting these alumi- 
 num rings together for the chain mail, I tell you, but 
 its use has warranted the labour. Almost all my 
 friends have worn it at one time or another." 
 
 She stood up and turned about before him, the 
 tunic of chain mail swinging and chinking at her 
 knees. Scarlet stockings and slippers and a splash 
 of scarlet at the neck, which made a flaming harmony 
 with the honey-gold of her hair, completed the cos- 
 tume.
 
 THE FANCY DRESS BALL 63 
 
 " You made it yourself? Why! It it's won- 
 derful ! " 
 
 " You find new capabilities in girls all the time, 
 don't you? " Rosalind laughed up at him. 
 
 " It's it's the most beautiful costume here ! " 
 said Gary stoutly. 
 
 " That can hardly be true, but it's nice of you to 
 say so." 
 
 " I am sure of it." 
 
 " Tell me, Mr. Gary, how did you happen to 
 come to a dance after eight years of monastic life? " 
 
 Gary was captivated by the innocence of the ques- 
 tion. How should he know that the rosy fingers of 
 the graceful hand on which his eyes rested were 
 twisting him round and round? Lacking both cour- 
 age to be bold and tongue to be adroit, he stammered 
 in reply. 
 
 " I came er because your letter you know 
 you said that you would see me here." 
 
 " It's like a moral version of Thais ! " cried Rosa- 
 lind merrily. " Athanael, I apologise for tempting 
 you to quit your monastery. How do you like Alex- 
 andria? " 
 
 Gary could not banter; neither could he follow 
 happily that feminine celerity of mind which finds in 
 everything in life parallels and analogues to make 
 merry over. It was bewildering to drag Thais and 
 whatever name she had applied to him into an ordi- 
 nary conversation. 
 
 " I'm glad I came," he said bluntly. 
 
 " Do you think our city wicked ? Do you still 
 scorn these maidens who dance and dress, dress and 
 dance ? Are their heads empty, their tongues " 
 
 "Oh, please!"
 
 64 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " Well! I've forgotten that. And I'm glad you 
 came. It's been the best part of the dance by far. 
 Look ! There goes Uncle Jo-Jo with a debu- 
 tante, of course! " 
 
 Gary did not see them. The words which came so 
 easily from Rosalind's tongue had made his heart 
 suddenly warm within him. 
 
 "How are you going to do it?" he asked in- 
 genuously. 
 
 " What? " As Rosalind turned her wide-opened, 
 blue eyes toward him, he lost courage. 
 
 " Why in your letter, you know, you also said that 
 you that you were " 
 
 "Oh! Going to thank you for your present? 
 How thoughtless of me! I think it was awfully 
 kind of you to send them. You may be sure I ap- 
 preciated them tremendously. Of all my Christmas 
 flowers they were the nicest, because " 
 
 Gary waited in pleasurable suspense. 
 
 " Oh, because I knew you wanted to send them. 
 Phil and Bobby feel they have to." 
 
 Gary smiled in such content that the conscious- 
 ness of green tights and mediaeval slippers was 
 drowned in its profundity. 
 
 " I like Alexandria," he murmured. 
 
 " You're on the downward path now for sure I " 
 Rosalind laughed. " Beware of all young Alexan- 
 drians who say you look handsome in that costume ! " 
 
 " I shall be deaf." 
 
 " Right! When it comes to ladies' compliments, 
 Mr. Gary, let me advise you. Be like marble to re- 
 ceive and wax to retain, and you'll live happily ever 
 after." 
 
 A harlequin, chequered in green and white, ap- 
 peared at the door.
 
 THE FANCY DRESS BALL 65 
 
 " Is it time for supper, Freddy? " 
 
 " Time ! " The deep brown eyes of the new- 
 comer, tall and graceful in his tight-fitting costume, 
 sparkled with reproof. " Aren't you the needle in 
 the haystack, though, hiding out here ! I should say 
 it was time." 
 
 Gary developed a sudden dislike for the ease and 
 manner of this young senior at Harvard, and as he 
 arose stiffly, a conscious feeling that his tights bagged 
 at the knee possessed him. 
 
 " I must go, Mr. Gary," smiled Rosalind, " or 
 have my head bitten off. Good-bye." 
 
 They ran from the room, Rosalind protesting, the 
 harlequin indignant, fluttering away like moths to 
 the ball-room for a last dance before the supper. 
 Fascinated by the lightness of their youth, yet an- 
 noyed that Rosalind so soon disappear with another 
 man, Gary followed at a distance, and later caught a 
 glimpse of them gracefully threading their way 
 through the confused crowd in the ball-room. For 
 the first time in his life he regretted his inability to 
 dance. 
 
 As he stood by the doorway, gazing moodily in at 
 the whirling figures, he felt a hand upon his arm. 
 
 " Why is it? God bless my soul, it is ! Gary, 
 how are you? " 
 
 Under the fierce black moustachios and jewelled 
 turban of a Bashi-Bazouk lurked Mr. Quincy. 
 
 " Quite lost, sir, I'm afraid." 
 
 " Don't blame you a bit ! Not a bit ! I tell 
 you, Gary, it wasn't like this when Tony Singleton 
 ran things, eh? He knew who was who. Sara 
 Curtis aliter visum, eh? " 
 ' They must all be here." 
 
 " Impossible to dance, quite ! I can hardly get
 
 66 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 started." Mr. Quincy took a comprehensive survey 
 of the ball-room. " Look at the old girls in the 
 boxes, will you?" he cried irreverently. "Aren't 
 they enjoying it? I wonder whose reputation is 
 going now? Thank the Lord, I have none. Ha- 
 ha ! It's a singular thing, Gary, how few old-fash- 
 ioned low necks one sees to-day." 
 
 " Is it? " Gary could not help smiling. 
 
 "I assure you. Look at the boxes; not a 
 one!" 
 
 Mrs. Lavalle flashed by, a nymph in everything 
 but divinity of birth. 
 
 " Not even this Grecian goddess? " 
 
 " You have me there. But then she's young, you 
 know, and has a lovely neck ! It's quite right, quite 
 the compensation of nature. To age, the dog- 
 collar ; to youth Joe Quincy ! " 
 
 He was off down the ball-room after Mrs. La- 
 valle, with his Turkish trousers fluttering behind his 
 short legs, leaving the younger man to affirm his 
 sartorial dictum. As Gary's glance half-amusedly, 
 half-idly traversed the boxes again, it fell upon a 
 magnificent black lace crinoline, framed in the flut- 
 tering decorations. An arresting and fascinating 
 sight, this old lace, this white hair, these magnificent 
 pearls, this beauty of middle age which was still 
 young; Gary thought it the most exceptional thing in 
 the room. It gave him a peculiar thrill of pleasure 
 to know that this beautiful figure was the mother of 
 the girl whom he admired so much. 
 
 Mrs. Copley was a sensible woman. As well as 
 any person in Boston she was aware of her beauty, 
 of her seemingly perpetual youthfulness ; better than 
 any one, she knew that it must never be jeopardised 
 on the dancing floor. There is not a woman living
 
 THE FANCY DRESS BALL 67 
 
 over forty-five who can dance and be exquisite at the 
 same time ; a nebula of youth may sparkle about her, 
 yet age is in her sinews. To be content to watch is 
 but to realise the price of dancing. Therefore Mrs. 
 Copley held her court in peacefulness, and viewed 
 with interested eyes the heat and kaleidoscopic mo- 
 tion below. In an idle moment she caught a glimpse 
 of Cary, solitary and silent amidst the excitement, 
 and their eyes meeting, made him a little sign to come 
 and sit beside her. For all her beauty she was a 
 doting, thoughtful mother. As Cary moved slowly 
 through the crowd toward her elevated box, she re- 
 membered the perturbation of her daughter over 
 his flowers and attention, and hoped to discourage 
 his incipient emotion. 
 
 " It cannot be," she thought to herself, " that he 
 is in love yet, but then these steady, quiet fellows 
 are impossible to diagnose. They boil away inside 
 like JEtna. and then explode. If he does fall in love 
 and Rose does not care for him well, we'll see ! " 
 Then aloud: "Won't you sit beside me and talk, 
 Mr. Cary? You didn't seem to be dancing, and 
 I'm so bored with myself up here. They've gone 
 and left me alone." 
 
 Cary sat down in a state of pleasant confusion. 
 
 " No, I I don't dance," he said. " Not at 
 all." 
 
 " Neither do I. It's more pleasant sitting out, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 Cary turned red. 
 ' Your daughter and I " 
 
 " I saw you. Rose is an inveterate sitter out." 
 Seeing that the little barb on this remark made no 
 impression, she added, " She's out with Frederic 
 Hoyt now. Do you know him? "
 
 68 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " No. She she told me he had her for sup- 
 per." 
 
 " My husband and I like him so much. He's just 
 Rosalind's age a senior at Harvard and be- 
 tween ourselves, Mr. Gary, I think Rose fancies him. 
 Of course, up here I can keep a careful watch on 
 her ! " She paused to observe the curative effect of 
 her remarks on Gary, but finding his silence in- 
 scrutable renewed the treatment from another quar- 
 ter. " How do you like Rose's costume? " 
 
 " Perfect, Mrs. Copley ! There is nothing like it 
 here!" 
 
 " And mine? " She made a wry face. 
 
 " You see how clumsy I am ! But then yours is 
 different, you know." 
 
 " All the difference between Sir Galahad and Mrs. 
 John Quincy Adams ! " 
 
 " But you saw how I was gaping at you? " 
 
 " An open mouth is the subtlest flattery ! Look I 
 There are Rose and Freddy now. Such a handsome 
 boy! He and Rose do look well together, don't 
 you think so? " 
 
 In Gary's laconic monosyllable there was to a 
 woman, and especially to a mother, all the evidence 
 necessary for conviction. Mrs. Copley went off to 
 supper on her husband's arm firmly convinced that 
 her cure had been a failure. 
 
 Left alone in the box, Gary pushed his seat back 
 into a corner. To go to the supper-room never oc- 
 curred to his perplexed brain; he wished to be quiet 
 and think in the rush of cool air which swept through 
 the French doors, cleansing and purifying the heavy 
 silence of the emptied ball-room. After the inces- 
 sant blaring of the band, the cool calmness was wel- 
 come. A problem perplexed him, more intricate and
 
 THE FANCY DRESS BALL 69 
 
 difficult than those met with in his law practice or 
 on his building committee, a problem intangible and 
 uncertain, of shadowy outlines, a problem projecting 
 the mind far out into impossible spaces. Gary was 
 too normal to be introspective, but at the same time 
 too sensible not to face an examination and explana- 
 tion of his state of mind. What were the simple 
 facts? A judicial examination of his feelings re- 
 sulted in the finding that while a month ago he had 
 been a sober, equable young man, devoted to his 
 practice, to his investigations, and to such other 
 activities as befitted a sober, equable life, he now 
 found himself monstrously concerned, even unhappy, 
 simply because a girl whom he scarcely knew was very 
 intimate with a boy whom he had never heard of be- 
 fore. Gary threw himself back in his chair indig- 
 nantly. Brought down to reason, the whole thing 
 was so frankly ridiculous! Why should these peo- 
 ple or their actions, their likes or dislikes, concern 
 him ? Were they a part of his universe ? He sum- 
 marised the late inconsistencies of his life: he had 
 called on a girl, sent her flowers for Christmas, 
 and had attended a costume ball as Christopher 
 Columbus! Evidently it was a question of what 
 constitutes one's universe ! Gary smiled a wry 
 smile, because he did not understand; he did not 
 know that earth and water, the dust and dryness of 
 mundane life, are not sufficient materials with which 
 to compose a universe, that without air and fire, the 
 nobler elements of nobler life, our individual planet 
 becomes a dead, cold star. 
 
 What should he do? He sought to devise some 
 plan, to plant ?. rallying flag; surely there must be 
 some method of destroying this uneasiness of mind. 
 He arose and walked slowly down the corridor.
 
 70 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 Could he forget? Could he leave the hotel now and 
 wholly extirpate the memory of Rosalind? Why 
 not? Heretofore determination had been his fiery 
 sword; his will-power, like the pottage of the Ben- 
 jamin in Genesis, had been five times as much as that 
 of others. If he had set his mind to do anything, 
 that thing was as good as done. Determination had 
 beaten down all opposition; it had succeeded against 
 every adversity. Why should not this will he prided 
 in serve him here? A sudden disgust for his own 
 weakness possessing him, his face assumed an un- 
 conscious look of aggression; like a minor Bismarck, 
 he determined to destroy ruthlessly and absolutely 
 this uneasy and alarming tenderness. He was not 
 ready yet; his schedule of life could not at this time 
 permit the blossoming of love. I have the will, he 
 murmured, as he moved down the stairs, I shall have 
 the way, too. But in some matters Cary was twenty- 
 eight years young. He was unaware that he was 
 now dealing with an obstacle entirely novel in its 
 nature, with an adversary stronger than a Yale crew, 
 wilier than a crooked politician, and sharper than 
 both Dodson and Fogg; he was wholly ignorant that 
 to step in even so short a way was to make returning 
 more tedious than going o'er. 
 
 On his way to the coat-room he became involved 
 in the general exodus from supper, which choked the 
 corridor with laughing people and rendered progress 
 impossible. Suddenly he was aware that Rosalind 
 and her partner were almost at his elbow. . Fearful 
 lest he be seen, he stepped back against the wall in 
 breathless suspense. Yet when she had passed close 
 by him, laughing up at Freddy Hoyt's dark eyes, he 
 felt disappointed and hurt that she had not noticed 
 him, and wished to hear her voice again. He even
 
 THE FANCY DRESS BALL 71 
 
 ran a few feet after them in a spirit of boldness, 
 thinking to speak to her, but lost courage when he 
 realised that he had nothing to say. In a moment 
 the swirling crowd swallowed up the graceful Sir 
 Galahad and her clean-limbed, dark-eyed harlequin. 
 Turning on his heel, Gary stalked angrily away to 
 the coat-room; he had entirely forgotten his fiery 
 sword of determination.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN 
 
 THE library windows at the back of 8 Louis- 
 burg Square commanded a view of the Basin 
 very dear to Rosalind. In her childhood she 
 had learned to love the little room upstairs, where 
 during many a shadowy twilight she had heard her 
 godfather tell stories of their ancestors' sea-cap- 
 tains, grizzled old fellows who came to the high 
 Square with spyglasses in an endeavour to catch 
 sight of some expected ship. There was a romance 
 in the outlook foreign to America. When the sun 
 had dipped from the winter sky, the roof of the 
 houses lower on Beacon Hill formed a gigantic stair- 
 way from the frozen river, which stretched like 
 gleaming silver far below them, to the very win- 
 dows where they sat. Here the curious mysteries 
 of childhood had unrolled themselves; here still she 
 and her godfather often watched the vesperal dark- 
 ness creep over the city. 
 
 " But you haven't seen him since he was a little 
 boy, Uncle Sing-Sing. It's not fair to judge him 
 so harshly. I'm sure after all Dr. Gary has done 
 you might at least give him the benefit of the doubt." 
 
 ;' It's not that, dear." 
 
 ' Well, never fear for me ! I'm well protected 
 now, for Mamma has taken up the cudgels against 
 poor Gary, too. She told me that they sat out to- 
 gether you see it's in the family ! and that for 
 
 72
 
 Rosalind
 
 OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN 73 
 
 my sake she informed him that Freddy Hoyt and 
 I were the next thing to married. It made him 
 furious. I should think it might have! Between 
 Mamma and myself the poor man won't know 
 which way to jump." Rosalind paused a moment. 
 " He's so clean and stern, Uncle Sing-Sing, so very 
 manly and strong! Papa says that he's wonder- 
 fully successful, that he has never failed in an un- 
 dertaking. I can't help admiring him no girl 
 in America could. I guess it's in us to like big, free 
 men who look as if they could move mountains for 
 a pastime. But say you won't worry any more ! 
 I'm not in love with " 
 
 " Not yet," the invalid interrupted. 
 
 Rosalind looked thoughtfully out over the river. 
 
 " N-o-o. I don't think I ever could be with him 
 really in love, I mean. Some people strike you 
 that way; they may be the admiration of all the 
 world, but when it comes to loving them, they're too 
 great or too good or too strong for our poor mortal 
 hearts." She laughed. " It's cold-blooded enough, 
 Uncle Sing-Sing, the way you and I go about a 
 thing; it seems like one person reasoning out loud, 
 doesn't it?" 
 
 " It is." The invalid appeared amused. 
 
 " That's better ! I almost coaxed out a smile 
 that time! Do please take Ben like any of my 
 other friends. To have one more doesn't decrease 
 my love of you, dear; it merely leaves less for them 
 to share. You aren't jealous of Billy or Phil or 
 Freddy?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " I am fond of them, though; I love them as I 
 do anything that I'm accustomed to, that is always 
 pleasant and kind to me; but they aren't the real
 
 74 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 thing yet, and Gary is. He may not be fluent like 
 Freddy or amusing like Billy, but you feel a superi- 
 ority in his very hesitancy to speak. And he's very 
 appreciative, which a girl loves. If you could have 
 heard him admire my Sir Galahad costume Pa- 
 quin might have made it! He went away before 
 I could see him again, though I looked everywhere. 
 I suppose it was Mamma's kindness that killed him." 
 
 " Mr. Quincy is coming upstairs, sir." 
 
 No sooner had Edouard got the words fairly out 
 of his mouth than the little man bustled into the 
 room. 
 
 "By gad, Rose! Sweetheart!" (patting her 
 hand and kissing her). " Tony, my boy, good eve- 
 ning. Have I seen you since the ball, Rose? You 
 were lovely, divine, exquisite ! " 
 
 " You debutante-killer ! You don't get off that 
 way; you know you wouldn't look at me you were 
 so busy with the children ! " 
 
 " On the contrary," Mr. Quincy replied loftily, 
 " you seemed so busy with Gary that I well, you 
 know! Old boy keeps in the background while the 
 mice are playing. Shows the terrible effect of that 
 letter you wrote to Gary. He never would have 
 thought of the ball but for that, never in a dozen 
 years. Tony, my boy, keep your weather eye out. 
 You remember what Shakespeare said? ' It's a wise 
 father that knows his own godchild ! ' Ah, Rose, 
 my love? " 
 
 " Don't be silly, Uncle Jo-Jo ! You're worse 
 than Mamma ! " 
 
 " All right, my love. Silence is golden. No one 
 shall have an inkling of the news until you give the 
 signal. Only tell me early by Gad ! " Mr.
 
 OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN 75 
 
 Quincy's animated face in a twinkling became grave 
 and serious. 
 
 " What's happened now? " 
 
 " The sight of you, Rose, completely put out of 
 my head what I'd come to tell Tony. Have you 
 seen the Transcript to-night ? " 
 
 The invalid shook his head. 
 
 " I wanted to tell you myself so that it might not 
 be too much of a surprise. An old, old friend of 
 ours is dead." 
 
 There was a pause, during which Mr. Singleton 
 Singleton leaned forward a little and stared atten- 
 tively at Mr. Quincy. 
 
 " Some one we knew in Paris." 
 
 "Paris?" The invalid's lips framed the word. 
 
 " Some one you were very fond of. She " 
 
 " Marie? " 
 
 Mr. Quincy nodded. 
 
 "Who, Uncle Jo- Jo?" demanded Rosalind curi- 
 ously. She had turned her eyes to Mr. Quincy, 
 and did not see her godfather lean back in the dark- 
 ness of his cushions, a trifle paler and colder than 
 before. 
 
 " Marie de Nemours. You must have heard us 
 speak of her in the past. We knew her when we 
 were at the Beaux Arts; in fact, I introduced Tony 
 to her there. Later she married Rolland. You 
 know, the great tenor." 
 
 " I remember the name." 
 
 Mr. Quincy looked meditatively at his boots and 
 sighed a long, melancholy sigh. 
 
 "Ah, well! Poor, dear creature! To think 
 that she should die, Tony; you used to say, I 
 remember, that she could not grow old. Even
 
 7 6 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 your mother couldn't hold a candle to her, Rose." 
 
 There was a long silence, filling the dark room 
 with meditative pathos. Touching gently her god- 
 father's hand, Rosalind found it listless. 
 
 " I'm sorry, dear," she murmured. 
 
 " So am I, Tony. I was sure you'd want to know. 
 Ah, well! There's the first star. I must be off! " 
 
 " Shall I go, too, Uncle Sing-Sing? " 
 
 The old mati nodded slowly. ' To-morrow." 
 
 " Yes, dear, surely." 
 
 Half-way down the stairs with her uncle, she 
 thought she heard her name called. 
 
 " You go on down, Uncle Jo-Jo ; I'll follow you 
 directly." 
 
 She hurried back to the library. 
 
 ' l Did you call me?" 
 
 " Miniature in my desk. Bring it here." 
 
 In his hand her godfather held a gold key which 
 Rosalind took, and carried to his bedroom. There 
 she found the miniature, gold with a circle of pearls 
 around the painting, lying face-down on the top of 
 a pile of letters in a drawer. On the back an in- 
 scription in a feminine hand inevitably struck her 
 eye. Though the ink had long since faded, she 
 could readily make out two names : Tony Ma- 
 rie. Wondering, she hurried to her godfather and 
 placed the painting in his white hand. 
 
 " Look, Rose." 
 
 As she took the little picture to the lingering 
 light at the window, a murmur of admiration es- 
 caped her lips. The lady of the miniature war- 
 ranted all her uncle's praise. The dark, curling 
 hair, the high forehead, the emerald green eyes, the 
 graceful neck, the delicate fineness of the features, 
 these witnessed to an aristocracy of beauty.
 
 OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN 77 
 
 "Beautiful?" The old man spoke in a far-off 
 voice. 
 
 " Exquisite 1 So beautiful, that it almost seems 
 impossible that any woman " 
 
 " It is unworthy of her." 
 
 " Rose ! Rose ! " Mr. Quincy's voice called from 
 below. " Do you want me? " 
 
 " Coming, Uncle Jo-Jo ! Good-night, dearest 
 or shall I stay? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Thank you for letting me see the picture; it 
 was beautiful." 
 
 1 You and me." 
 
 " I understand no one else shall know. Good- 
 night, dear." 
 
 Rosalind ran lightly down the stairs to rejoin Mr. 
 Quincy. 
 
 " At last, Uncle Jo-Jo!" 
 
 " One moment! Would you object to exploring 
 the coast first? You know those two harpies, the 
 Hepplethwaites, live directly opposite." 
 
 With a merry laugh Rosalind walked down the 
 front steps alone. 
 
 " All clear, Uncle Jo- Jo." 
 
 His face appeared at the crack of the front door. 
 
 " Hush, my dear, hush ! No lights in their 
 house? " 
 
 " None." 
 
 Mr. Quincy slammed the door, took his niece's 
 arm, and hurried up the street. 
 
 " A little faster here, Rose, if you please. Just 
 till we get out of range. If you could see the letters 
 they wrote me about those Christmas things ! I had 
 to burn them up directly. Think if they ever found 
 out at the Club ! "
 
 78 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 At the comical expression on her uncle's face, 
 Rosalind laughed louder than ever. 
 
 "Hard-hearted girl! Where are your feelings? 
 I believe you'd like to see me married ! If so, your 
 joy will never be consummated. Marry for love is 
 my maxim! Never marry for anything but love, 
 my dear Rose, and you'll always be in love. And 
 what is that? Happiness! Laugh you may, Rose, 
 but if you follow my advice, you'll come out right 
 in the end. And now, good-night, my dear; I'm 
 going to run up to the Club for dinner." 
 
 Some days later Rosalind found herself seated 
 in the outer office of the Mayor of Boston. It was 
 a large, unprepossessing room, filled with large, un- 
 prepossessing chairs, while on the walls hung large 
 engravings of not too prepossessing gentlemen, 
 whom Rosalind took to be the former incumbents 
 of the office. She was by no means alone in her 
 attendance on His Honour's pleasure. Several 
 flabby gentlemen with gold rings and jewelled scarf- 
 pins, expressive of their extreme gentility, conversed 
 earnestly in one corner; opposite them sat three 
 provincial ladies, whose prim, black gloves guarded 
 a petition; in the centre of the room an enormous 
 man with a mountainous wen on his nose, com- 
 placently spat into a cuspidor which fortune had 
 placed conveniently near. Of the others, a non- 
 descript dozen were sprinkled .about, lolling on the 
 ugly chairs with fragments of dirty newspapers or 
 evil-smelling cigars in their hands, attempting with 
 the vanity of small men to appear important an 
 undertaking in which they deceived no one, except 
 perhaps themselves. Among this tawdry mess of
 
 OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN 79 
 
 humanity, this litter of the great pawnshop, politics, 
 Rosalind shone with contrasting serenity. 
 
 A stir inside a small door, marked " private," 
 caused sudden silence. The Mayor's secretary 
 swung out into view like the toy bird of a cuckoo- 
 clock, called an Irish name, and mechanically dis- 
 appeared. As one of the nondescripts moved im- 
 portantly to answer the summons, Rosalind heard 
 to her surprise Dr. Gary's voice at her elbow. 
 
 " Why, Rosalind ! What brings you here ? " 
 
 " It's Brimmer House, Doctor. The Mayor once 
 promised to speak at our fiftieth anniversay and I've 
 come to hold him to his word." 
 
 "Fiftieth! Is it that old?" 
 
 Rosalind nodded. 
 
 " I've been getting his views on the milk ques- 
 tion. Like all Irishmen, you know; treat them well 
 and they will treat you well. I am half convinced 
 he's honest." 
 
 " Will you get the bill through? " 
 
 The doctor shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " You have an appointment, I hope? " he asked, 
 glancing about the room. 
 
 " Not exactly. The Mayor told me that any 
 time I dropped in he would be delighted to see 
 me." 
 
 " Coming to America doesn't take all the blarney 
 out of them, does it? It would have been better 
 to write him. This place isn't very de rigeur." 
 
 " I know; but seeing him personally is the safest 
 way. He can't deny then." 
 
 ' You've been waiting long? " 
 
 Rosalind smiled. " Twenty minutes. It's not 
 half bad with all these curios here." 
 
 " Let me help."
 
 8o LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 "Oh, I couldn't" 
 
 The famous surgeon strode off with the carriage 
 of one who is sure of himself and of his welcome. 
 As the private door closed upon him, Rosalind be- 
 came the cynosure of eyes, and would have found 
 the insistent scrutiny of the flashy men disquieting 
 had he not in a moment returned. 
 
 " I have displaced the buildings committee in your 
 favour," he laughed. " The Mayor will give you 
 a minute." 
 
 Rosalind thanked him gratefully. 
 
 " Well, I must be off. I'm coming to the Square 
 in a day or so. How is he? " 
 
 "Not so well just lately. I'm a little anxious; 
 in fact, I intended to telephone you to-night." 
 
 "So?" The doctor whipped out his engage- 
 ment book and fluttered the pages. u Will he be 
 in at five-twenty this afternoon? I'll come then." 
 
 "Hello, Father!" 
 
 Rosalind turned with a smile at the voice, which 
 she recognised as Benjamin's. 
 
 " Ben, my boy, you here, too ! I beg your par- 
 don, Rosalind. What? Do you know each other 
 already? " 
 
 " I should say we did ! " cried Rosalind. 
 "Hasn't he told you?" 
 
 ' Not a word ! " Dr. Gary's face was a picture. 
 ' We've known each other for several weeks 
 and very well, too, haven't we, Mr. Gary? " 
 
 ' To think that after all these years Ben should 
 have clandestine relations with a young lady! Oh, 
 Ben!" 
 
 The son flushed guiltily as he shook Rosalind's 
 hand. 
 
 14 Father, you're talking perfect rot, you know."
 
 OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN 81 
 
 Little Dr. Gary patted his tall son affectionately. 
 
 " I realise that, Ben, and I'm mighty glad of the 
 opportunity. It's the best thing you have ever 
 done." 
 
 "Why are you here?" asked Benjamin, pa- 
 tiently ignoring his father's efforts to embarrass 
 him. 
 
 " I came for Brimmer House, your father for 
 milk, and you ? " 
 
 " For my buildings committee." 
 
 " I've postponed it. Beauty before business, you 
 know. I've got Flanagan to let Rosalind come 
 first." 
 
 " I'm glad to hear it; we can wait." 
 
 " I shall only take a minute. Your father's been 
 most kind." 
 
 " It's my nature," humorously ran on the great 
 surgeon. " Look at Ben: he's spoiled, quite spoiled 
 by my kindness. He won't confide in his old father 
 any more. That's gratitude for you ! " 
 
 " Why did you leave the dance so early, Mr. 
 Gary? " asked Rosalind. " I hoped we might have 
 another talk together. It made me feel guilty to 
 drag you there, as you declared I did, just for that 
 little time." 
 
 "Never drag" 
 
 " What ! " interrupted the doctor in amazement. 
 " Ben at a dance ! Oh, this outherods Herod ! " 
 
 He seemed actually staggered by the news. 
 
 " I'll tell no more ! " cried Rosalind. " You must 
 get it out of him yourself." 
 
 " Ossa on Pelion ! " The doctor looked ruefully 
 at his son. " I can't bear it; the suddenness is too 
 much ! Good-bye, Rosalind. Good-bye, you mar- 
 ble-hearted fiend! "
 
 82 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 With a parting shake of the head at his son he 
 trotted off in his characteristic hurry at the very 
 moment the private secretary announced Rosalind's 
 name. 
 
 " I trust you'll come to tea some afternoon," she 
 said to Gary. " I want your views on the ball and 
 on ever so many other things." 
 
 " You're very kind." 
 
 " You shouldn't make me do all the asking; that's 
 not fair! " 
 
 Gary stammered happily. " I should l-love to 
 come. Good-bye, Miss Copley, good-bye!" 
 
 Rosalind hurried into the private office, leaving 
 him in open-mouthed bewilderment. It was incon- 
 gruous to feel sentimental in the outer office of a 
 mayor; yet sentimental Gary indubitably was, stand- 
 ing where Rosalind had shaken him by the hand 
 and staring at the door marked " private." For 
 the first time since the costume ball he felt happy. 
 Since that ill-starred night on which he had rallied 
 to the standard of invincible will-power and deter- 
 mination, a melancholy disinterestednes in his life 
 and affairs had distressed him. The law seemed 
 dry, the Club stupid, the newspapers empty. The 
 more he willed the sun to shine, the more the east 
 wind blew; the more he determined to extirpate 
 Rosalind, the more deeply planted the roots of mem- 
 ory proved to be. Because he was obstinate and 
 strong, he persevered in his attempt, but doggedness, 
 either in winning or destroying love, is at the best 
 a sorry, painful weapon. Now to match his great 
 unhappiness, so small a thing as this meeting with 
 its friendly words, its bright smile and handclasp, 
 had suddenly transformed apathy into happiness. 
 He stood astounded by the rapidity of the change.
 
 OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN 83 
 
 Even coming up in the elevator he had been moody 
 and disgruntled, and now now even the man with 
 the wen on his nose seemed a cheery old soul and 
 the prints of the ex-mayors works of fascinating 
 interest ! 
 
 With an amused movement of his broad shoulders 
 Gary recalled the ratiocinations which had borne 
 fruit in his determining to forget Rosalind. In his 
 present happiness he could laugh at the failure of 
 his fiery sword. How hasty and ridiculous had been 
 his decision! Yes, he had read the stars wrong, 
 very wrong, he told himself. Only to remember how 
 pleasantly she had asked him to come to tea, to come 
 and talk on many things, was to confirm his inepti- 
 tude at reading the stars. Instead of welcoming 
 her divine intervention, or so he chose to think of 
 it in his present happiness, he had insisted on pur- 
 suing a distasteful and unhappy course. Poor blind 
 mole that he had been ! Let but God vouchsafe him 
 sight, Gary determined that he would burrow no 
 longer in the earth! With his hands deep in his 
 pockets he walked about the unattractive room and 
 past the unattractive people. It was good to see 
 things straight; it was good to feel again that in- 
 vincible Tightness of life which for so many years 
 had been his keystone of existence. When he had 
 accompanied the rest of the committee into the pri- 
 vate office of the Mayor, he thought with a thrill 
 of pleasure that Rosalind might have occupied the 
 very chair in which he himself was then sitting. In 
 such a temper he could brook no pessimistic views 
 from his colleagues. 
 
 The next afternoon a dark, cheerless January 
 day it had been for almost every one except him- 
 self he stopped at 29 Commonwealth Avenue on
 
 84 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 the way home from his office. It was a bold step, 
 but Gary was no man to be afraid. Not until he 
 was fairly abreast the bull did its horns look sharp 
 and hard to grasp; then it was too late for retreat, 
 since Paris was speaking his name. 
 
 " Oh, I am so glad you came ! Mamma, do you 
 remember Mr. Gary? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed. Has Rosalind been dragging you 
 through Brimmer House again? " 
 
 "No unfortunately," replied Gary with a 
 heavy attempt at chivalry. 
 
 " Much worse, Mamma. We met in a most dis- 
 reputable place ! " 
 
 " Oh, Rose ! How can you ! Do you wonder 
 that my hair is white, Mr. Gary? Tell me the 
 worst. Was it the Charles Street Jail? " 
 
 " No. Only the Mayor's office." 
 
 " Almost as bad !" 
 
 " We had Dr. Gary for a chaperone, Mamma, so 
 it was perfectly proper ! " 
 
 " Also several ward politicians and an ex-prize 
 fighter." 
 
 " I think your father sufficed without them, Mr. 
 Gary." Mrs. Copley smiled as she poured out his 
 tea. "I'm so glad you dropped in; just see how 
 lonely we are ! Rosalind was on the point of going 
 to see her godfather for the third time to-day, she 
 found me so boring." 
 
 " Is he worse? " 
 
 Rosalind shook her head sadly. " I'm afraid he's 
 really not at all well. Your father visited him yes- 
 terday and even he seemed a little depressed." 
 
 ; ' I'm so sorry." 
 
 " Mr. Singleton, you know," explained Mrs. Cop-
 
 OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN 85 
 
 ley, " is Rose's godfather and perfectly adores her." 
 
 " My father has told me." 
 
 " When we were children, I used to invite you 
 to my birthday parties in the Square," stated Rosa- 
 lind with an air of mock reproof. 
 
 " I don't remember. Are you " 
 
 " Of course, not. You never would come." 
 
 Gary endeavoured to embody something clever 
 about the ignorance of youth in his reply, but by 
 the time the answer was framed Mrs. Copley had 
 changed the subject. 
 
 " Guess what Rose has been doing with her Italian 
 girls now ! " 
 
 " Almost anything would be believable ! " 
 
 " Last Saturday matinee she filled our box at the 
 opera with them! " 
 
 " It was * La Boheme,' and they loved it, Mr. 
 Gary ever so much more than most of the fat, 
 old " 
 
 " Rose ! " 
 
 " All right, Mamma. But it was wonderful to see 
 their eyes shine and the way they sat forward in 
 their seats. As for myself, I never enjoyed ' Bo- 
 heme ' half as much before." 
 
 " By the way, Rose, we're dining at seven to- 
 night, remember! Have you asked any one? It's 
 ' Ai'da,' you know." 
 ' No, Mamma." 
 
 "Will you come with us, Mr. Gary? There's 
 only Rose and myself, and I for one should be de- 
 lighted." 
 
 11 Why, Mrs. Copley, I " 
 
 "Oh, do come!" urged Rosalind. "Have you 
 never heard 'Ai'da'? It's glorious. Mamma and
 
 86 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 I are old-fashioned and common enough to prefer 
 it to Debussy or Rimsky-Korsakov." 
 
 Had Rosalind said that she preferred Bergson 
 to Santayana or Matisse to Van Gogh, it could have 
 meant no less to Gary than this declaration of faith. 
 Of these names Debussy perhaps was familiar 
 though he failed to associate him with anything save 
 long hair and France. Gary knew that he himself 
 preferred Blackstone to Kent and, for recreation, 
 Dickens to Thackeray, but when it came to a ques- 
 tion of declaring " Ai'da " a vaudeville sketch or a 
 composer, he had no opinion to offer. Yet at the 
 same time that he wondered whether Rimsky-what- 
 ever-it-was ought to be called he or it, he liked to 
 hear the name come trippingly from Rosalind's 
 tongue. Like most unmusical men, his attitude to- 
 wards feminine interest in art was one of amused 
 tolerance. And then to be talked to after this fash- 
 ion made him feel not unpleasantly intellectual him- 
 self. Protesting that he had always cut a poor fig- 
 ure at opera, he accepted. Indeed, he had been but 
 once before in his life. Some years past his aunt, 
 Mrs. Curtis, had inveigled him to a performance of 
 " La Tosca," his only comment on which had been 
 a condemnation of the soldiers in the last act for 
 being unable to keep step. 
 
 Gary hurried home and dressed in a state of in- 
 ward excitement; to one who had become such a 
 stay-at-home going to the opera with a young lady 
 was an occasion. As he shaved, he held an intimate 
 conversation with his lathered image in the mirror. 
 What a pass the world had come to with himself 
 attending the opera ! 
 
 Before the curtain went up he even began to think 
 that he might like " Ai'da " of itself, but in that was
 
 OUT OF THE FRYING-PAN 87 
 
 deceived. The succession of scenes, the apparent 
 lack of romance in the immense soprano and the 
 more immense tenor, the long airs which held Rosa- 
 lind breathless in her seat, proved dull and stupid 
 to him. Yet there was imperishable compensation 
 in sitting close behind Rosalind and feeling a part 
 of her small and intimate world. He was glad and 
 vain that people saw him sitting in the Copley box. 
 When the lights were off, he endured the music in 
 patience, eyeing boldly the smooth curve of Rosa- 
 lind's neck as it stood out in profile against the 
 brilliant stage; between the acts he listened quietly 
 to her eager enthusiasms and indulgently echoed 
 them. The odours of the gay auditorium drifted 
 upwards, commingling feminine fragrances with the 
 indescribable pungency of white kid gloves; he felt 
 vaguely the eyes of many people fixed upon him, and 
 held himself proudly and well. Out of his element 
 indeed, but, like a captive lion being fed kickshaws 
 in a gilded cage, he found for the moment both sweet- 
 meats and prison altogether too delightful to be 
 roared at. 
 
 After the first scene his attention to the opera 
 from perfunctory interest turned to neglect, and he 
 altogether ignored the stage. Far nearer to him 
 than the imitation Nile with its gross Rhadames 
 pouring out his soul in meaningless music his eyes 
 had found a much higher form of art which they 
 could understand. Yet when the great red curtain 
 had finally fallen amidst a splendid burst from the 
 orchestra and a scattering applause from the depart- 
 ing house, Gary would have been the last to deny 
 that the performance had given exquisite pleasure.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 INTO THE FIRE 
 
 AS time went by the acquaintanceship of Rosa- 
 lind and Gary ripened into friendship, and 
 from that into intimacy. Dry and practical 
 as he was, Gary soon learned to count that day 
 lost which Rosalind in some way had not brightened. 
 To be sure, there were very few dark days. He 
 dined often at the Copley house; he sleighed with 
 Rosalind at the Sherborne farm; he went with her 
 twice to the Symphony although it bored him al- 
 most to extinction; he even took tea at 8 Louisburg 
 Square, where Mr. Singleton Singleton with his usual 
 silence dumbfounded him. But he was a distinct 
 success in the family. He held forth on farm im- 
 plements and model henneries when with Mr. Cop- 
 ley; he talked politics to Mr. Quincy, who had as- 
 pirations of an indefinite, but lofty character; he 
 admired Rosalind to Mr. Singleton Singleton and 
 to her mother; and when with Rosalind herself, 
 once his tongue freed from embarrassment, there 
 was a universe before him to explore. , 
 
 They soon, observed themselves alike in many 
 of their tastes and distates. More serious than the 
 majority of her companions, Rosalind found a nat- 
 ural kinship in Gary's seriousness. To hear him 
 talk of his investigations, of the big men he had 
 met and of what they had said and done, was a 
 source of unending interest. She admired his cease-
 
 INTO THE FIRE 89 
 
 less activity, his simplicity, and honesty; in his 
 straightforward way of coming right out with a 
 thing there was something clear and clean which 
 made her keenly aware of the Tightness of his spirit. 
 He was so much the man, this great, handsome, 
 quiet lawyer, and all her other friends were boys. 
 Yet she never felt toward him as she did toward 
 Philip Brooks or Frederic Hoyt. For them there 
 was in her heart tenderness, the enjoyment of sun- 
 shine, of laughter, of flowers, the gay response to 
 the liberty of a child who does not yet understand 
 the black language of this world; but for Gary, older 
 and stronger than herself, though she might admire 
 him greatly and take deep pleasure in his company, 
 there was no tenderness, no sentiment other than 
 interested affection. She never associated him with 
 love. Without him, alone in her room, or with 
 her girls at Brimmer House, she could be perfectly 
 contented; he was no necessity to her happiness. 
 Yet, if it had been a question then of parting with 
 him forever, she would have found in their separa- 
 tion a most sincere sorrow. To her he was more 
 than a friend, yet nothing of a lover; almost heroic 
 in some ways, always admirable, and a most en- 
 grossing companion. If she afforded him more and 
 more opportunities for associating with her, it was 
 in ignorance that she was herself feeding a fire whose 
 flames some day might wax unbearably hot. 
 
 In Gary's behaviour there was nothing to warn 
 her of the flooding tide of his love. Never a talka- 
 tive man, he had lived in the belief that to be doubly 
 wise was to obtain the opinion of another rather 
 than to air that which was one's own. Love made 
 him yet more silent. Like a filled bottle, the small 
 mouth of which, when it is overturned, will permit
 
 90 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 the egress of not a single drop of liquid, so Gary 
 in a company of people could find no words to speak 
 to Rosalind. Few men have suffered more the em- 
 barrassments of love, because few men have reached 
 so advanced an age with such inexperience. He had 
 known nothing of girls before his meeting with 
 Rosalind. Love was an unpathed wilderness in 
 which he soon lost his way, yet into which, accounting 
 his own strength superior to all else, he boldly 
 plunged ahead. But calculation and reasoning van- 
 ished in the strange beauty of this undiscovered 
 country; far from being disproved, they were ig- 
 nored, denied admission into a land where behaviour 
 is ruled by the moon which makes men mad, and 
 life and happiness of living abandoned to the un- 
 certain favour of a female heart. At first he had 
 rebelled at the rape of his logic and determination, 
 for no man likes to be deprived of the only com- 
 passes which he has known; but once resigned, once 
 he had abandoned resistance he found himself hap- 
 pier. There was a light in the wood after all. In 
 his love he found guidance and inspiration, the in- 
 centive to march ceaselessly and doggedly till he 
 should reach that light and stand face to face with 
 Rosalind. Originally employed in crushing out his 
 affection, his determination later embodied itself into 
 love as omnipresent as it was profound. His life 
 no longer was his own, nor could he regard it as 
 such in the fits of abstraction which possessed and 
 held him by his office window. He came to know 
 nothing save loving Rosalind, and his entire, calm, 
 slow spirit bent itself to that love. 
 
 Thus January passed into February and Febru- 
 ary into March. In the train of winter succeeded 
 those grey days when March, not stormy enough
 
 INTO THE FIRE 91 
 
 to be dubbed lion, yet too ungentle for a lamb's 
 name, drizzled hour after hour from heavy clouds. 
 The much-rained-on inhabitants of Boston began to 
 forget the sun, which appeared, if ever, to shine 
 shamefacedly for a moment at sunset over a city of 
 puddles ; they went about their daily work in rubbers 
 and bad tempers. 
 
 In time tongues began to wag. Though the sud- 
 den attachment of Benjamin to Rosalind was too 
 patent to be good gossip, since the season was dull, 
 a few kindly disposed ladies of inquisitive tempera- 
 ment made much of the matter. An engagement 
 was rumoured. When the report came to Rosa- 
 lind's ears, she was surprised and good-humoured 
 in laughing it down; but tongues at bridge tables 
 will not be laughed down, and over the cards in 
 the Cavendish Club, where circulated the dark tittle- 
 tattle of other women's business, Rosalind's name 
 was mentioned with glances full of significance. By 
 means of the husbands of these bridge players the 
 news entered the Sarcophagus, and gentlemen of 
 the old school, gazing through their brandy-and- 
 sodas out of the great front windows which looked 
 over the Common, choked at the expression on Mr. 
 Quincy's face when marriage in his family was 
 hinted. " You'll be the next captive, Jo-Jo ! " they 
 cried hoarsely, as they rolled about in the great 
 leather chairs. " Joey engaged ! Ha-ha ! Take 
 your niece's example. Don't be timid ! " 
 
 Perhaps there was sufficient basis for the rumour. 
 United by many pursuits and inclinations, Rosalind 
 and Benjamin were seen everywhere together. If 
 she found him unappreciative of the higher arts, of 
 paintings which caught her eye and held it fasci- 
 nated, of music which flooded her with warmth, of
 
 92 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 poetry which sang so well the things she dimly felt, 
 but never could herself express, if he was hopelessly 
 practical and unromantic, at least he pretended to 
 be nothing else. He told her frankly that the Sym- 
 phony made him feel numb with sleep, that the in- 
 cessant scraping and thumping stupefied him. Re- 
 alising with a sense of relief that he did not try 
 to pose as a music lover, like some of her boy 
 friends, she gave up inviting him to go with her. 
 To pretend an admiration for the sake of opinion 
 is to give prima facie evidence of insincerity; 
 Gary with the frankness of an older man pleased 
 her. 
 
 Not only were they often together, but sharp eyes 
 often discovered them in the most out of the way 
 places. Summoned one March morning to the 
 Roxbury police court for over-speeding, Mr. Here- 
 ford, in glancing about the dock, caught sight of 
 Rosalind. She had come to hear Benjamin handle 
 the case of a poor scrubwoman whose husband beat 
 her, a case which he had taken out of kindhearted- 
 ness. Rosalind, whose sympathetic heart was much 
 struck by the deed, made a great story out of it 
 for her family; but not half so great as Mr. Here- 
 ford's wife devised for the Cavendish Club. When 
 Rosalind visited the Supreme Court of Massachu- 
 setts to hear Benjamin argue before that august as- 
 semblage, it was Mrs. Scribble's husband, one of 
 the seniors of Foolscap, Parrypoint, and Scribble, 
 who opposed him. Throw a pebble in a pond and 
 watch the circular ring of waves spread; in a day 
 the tea-time conversation of three dozen ladies of 
 Beacon Street began with : " Have you heard what 
 Mrs. Scribble says ? " 
 
 But it was not always Rosalind who went to hear
 
 INTO THE FIRE 93 
 
 and see Benjamin; he was the constant attendant 
 on the lesser cares of her woman's life. Without 
 his precision and logical arrangement of detail the 
 fiftieth anniversary exercises at Brimmer House 
 could have achieved no such complete success. The 
 afternoon was long memorable to him. Lost in the 
 crowd of guests, he heard her few words in intro- 
 duction of the captive and smiling Mayor with a 
 queer tremor of nervousness. It was strange to 
 hear her soft voice before so many people, strange 
 and unnatural, like the sudden unveiling of some- 
 thing hitherto hidden. He cast a furtive glance 
 about the room, feeling self-conscious and large 
 among the crowd, but no one had noticed his em- 
 barrassment. When she had finished, he was proud 
 of her success and congratulated her warmly on the 
 simplicity of her presence. They walked home to- 
 gether, discussing the future of Brimmer House, a 
 subject constantly before them. He loved nothing 
 better than to be with her as she did whatever work 
 she might have on hand for the House, to watch her 
 interest in her charity, to help and advise her. Here 
 was something at which they could meet on more 
 equal terms. If he could not respond to her en- 
 thusiasms over the opera, in the field of practical 
 affairs it was she who must look to him for guid- 
 ance. And that guidance he gave more happily than 
 anything in his life. 
 
 One evening Rosalind was seated at the piano in 
 the drawing room of Eight Louisburg Square, while 
 beside her Mr. Singleton Singleton, sunk back into 
 a deep chair, watched her as she played. The room 
 was peaceful and dark. A lamp near the piano, 
 the light of which enabled Rosalind to read from the
 
 94 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 music before her, shed a subdued, soft light on her 
 golden hair and created delicate shadows about her 
 bare neck. 
 
 " These Chaminade pieces are too fast for my 
 fingers," she laughed at the conclusion of one of the 
 pyrotechnical waltzes. " What shall it be next, 
 Uncle Sing-Sing? It's getting late, almost time for 
 me to go home. What shall we have the Pre- 
 lude?" 
 
 Her godfather nodding assent, she turned over 
 the music until she came to " Les Preludes " of 
 Frederic Chopin and opened the little book to the 
 seventeenth. There was reverence in her manner 
 as she began to play, the reverence of any novice 
 attempting a thing well-known and well-loved. She 
 was far from skilled. As the soft sadness of the 
 prelude stole out into the room, there were stum- 
 bles in technique; but these occasional errors could 
 not mar the tenderness of the piece, the gentleness, 
 the calm, and the sweetness which she felt in it as 
 she played. Still the delicate refrain called forth 
 a legion of memories ; still the insistent booming of 
 the chapel bell blended in harmony with the air. 
 Her eyes shone with the beauty of it; those of her 
 godfather were bright with retrospect. 
 
 " Oh! I wish I could play it," she exclaimed in 
 a low voice, when the last deep note of the chapel 
 bell was hushed into silence. " I wish I could really 
 play it." 
 
 She slowly covered the piano; the last piece was 
 finished. 
 
 " Rose." The invalid spoke softly and ten- 
 derly. 
 
 She turned to find him holding something in his 
 out-stretched hand.
 
 INTO THE FIRE 95 
 
 " Some one I loved once played that." Never 
 before had she heard her godfather speak so calmly. 
 It was the old halting voice, but a voice flooded with 
 shining memories. " This was hers, from me." 
 He opened his clenched hand; in the subdued light 
 a jumble of pearls shone on his palm. " Before she 
 died she sent them back." 
 
 Wondering at the words, Rosalind stood beside 
 his chair; to her inward eye came suddenly the pic- 
 ture of the pearl-circled miniature. 
 
 " How beautiful they are ! I'm sure she loved 
 them." 
 
 " She did." The invalid smiled faintly. " Put 
 them on." 
 
 Rosalind clasped the pearls behind her neck a 
 perfect string, not large, but of beautiful colour and 
 faultless gradation. 
 
 " There." She tipped the lamp shade so that the 
 light fell full on the soft curve of her throat. " Are 
 they lovely, dear? " 
 
 The old man looked at her a long time in silence, 
 so long a time that she thought he had forgotten the 
 present in thinking of the past. 
 
 " Take them," he said at length. " Wear them, 
 dearest." 
 
 "Oh, godfather! Do you do you really 
 mean ? " She was troubled with surprise; he had 
 never spoken of his youth and youthful love to her 
 before. " I shall always wear them; I shall always 
 love them." 
 
 She kissed his pale forehead gently. 
 
 ; ' We two." 
 
 4 Yes, dear. I shall not tell; I understand." 
 
 The entrance of Edouard prevented any further 
 thanks, could she have made them.
 
 96 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " It's your motor, Miss Rosalind, and young Mr. 
 Gary in it." 
 
 The invalid looked up suddenly. 
 
 " Mr. Gary?" she asked in wonder. 
 
 " Yes, miss. He said he found you out at your 
 house." 
 
 " I hope there's nothing happened. . . . Good- 
 night, dear godfather. These pearls are the sweet- 
 est present you have ever given me ; I know how much 
 they mean to you." 
 
 She kissed the invalid good-night and quietly went 
 away, leaving him seated by the piano to think of 
 the desperate distance of the past. 
 
 " Why, Ben, what brings you here at this time of 
 night? There's nothing wrong, I hope? " 
 
 " No, Rose. I have to go away, and I wanted to 
 say good-bye." 
 
 The motor rolled slowly down the steep decline 
 of Mt. Vernon Street. 
 
 " Going away? When? " 
 
 He felt Rosalind turn towards him in the dark- 
 ness. 
 
 ' To-morrow morning. I'm going to New Or- 
 leans for the office." 
 
 " New Orleans! Oh, Ben" 
 
 " It's a legal tangle over a will and I seem to be 
 the only man who can go. Naturally I wanted to 
 say good-bye to you before I left. They told me 
 at your house you were with your godfather." 
 4 Yes. But, Ben, how long will you be gone? " 
 
 " A month, I should think, at the least." He 
 said it quietly, but with much feeling. " It will be 
 a long, long time." 
 
 " Must you go? I'm so sorry." 
 
 " So am I. It will be "
 
 INTO THE FIRE 97 
 
 He did not finish the sentence. In the blank, 
 rather hopeless silence which followed Rosalind be- 
 gan to realise how much of a place he had been fill- 
 ing in her life. The vista of a month without him to 
 advise her in Brimmer House affairs, of a month 
 without his accustomed figure by the fire-place at 
 29 Commonwealth, of a month without some one 
 more serious than Philip Brooks to talk to, looked 
 more bleak than she had ever thought such a vista 
 could look. In December the absence of any man 
 would not have troubled her in the least; but it was 
 March now, and at the thought of their projected 
 separation she was aware of a crescent sense of lone- 
 liness. 
 
 " I shall miss you tremendously. We have been 
 so much together lately that it's like having a finger 
 decide to go off to New Orleans to have you leave. 
 Are you sure you'll be a month? " 
 
 The question was sweet in Benjamin's ears; under 
 the affection of its tone his love welled up like a 
 fountain which reaches unaccustomed heights when 
 its sources are increased by gentle rains. 
 
 " It will surely be a month. Rose, will you 
 will you write me? A month is such a long 
 time." 
 
 It was the hardest speech that he had ever made. 
 The words, which the darkness of the enclosed motor 
 alone made it possible for him to utter, sounded 
 painfully bald on his lips. 
 
 " Of course I will, Ben. You must give me your 
 address." 
 
 " I'll send it to you when I'm settled there," he 
 replied happily. A wave of content broke over him. 
 " It's awfully kind of you, Rosalind; they will mean 
 so much to me down there."
 
 98 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " It's a little thing to do. If you have time, you 
 must write to me, too, about your progress." 
 
 Gary smiled to himself in the darkness; he would 
 have time, plenty of time for such letters. 
 
 ; ' Do you realise," asked Rosalind with a laugh, 
 " that we've been stopped before my house for sev- 
 eral minutes? I'm sure Edmund will have imagined 
 all sorts of things." 
 
 Had Gary been anything but a quiet, reserved, 
 masculine man he would have seized on this oppor- 
 tunity, but, like so many of his fellows, in love he 
 lacked the courage of his convictions. Vaguely sen- 
 sible of having said not half what the occasion war- 
 ranted, he handed Rosalind out of the automobile. 
 
 " Shall Edmund take you home? " 
 
 " Thank you. I think I'll walk for the exercise. 
 It's a beautiful night for once." 
 
 Rosalind held out her hand to him. She stood 
 on the first step of her house, where the light of 
 a neighbouring street lamp fell dimly on her fur- 
 coat. The gauzy veil which she had flung over her 
 head was partly fallen back, and Benjamin could 
 make out her face in the darkness, smiling into his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Good night, Ben. We'll look ahead to the time 
 when you come back. Don't forget to send me your 
 address." 
 
 He took her hand. For a moment it lay in his. 
 
 " Good-night, Rosalind. Good-bye." 
 
 He turned and walked rapidly off into the night 
 without glancing back, though he was sorely 
 tempted. It took determination to leave Rosalind 
 and not steal a last look, but he walked on, turning 
 over in his mind all the happiness which had been 
 compressed into the last three months of their asso-
 
 INTO THE FIRE 99 
 
 elation. It was sad to leave it all, yet his heart 
 sang at her promise to write to him, and he felt 
 that a new relation might arise from it. If he was 
 too phlegmatic to experience the immediate bitter- 
 ness of this parting, he had at least a keen realisation 
 of the nonsense embodied in the old saying that 
 " parting is such sweet sorrow." Parting is sweet 
 only in the prospect of speedy reunion; his exile was 
 one of thirty days in which no sweetness lay.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 WHAT HAPPENED IN AIKEN 
 
 TO the genial haven of Aiken, South Carolina, 
 more beneficial medicinally than all the ton- 
 ics and drugs in the Pharmacopoeia, Mr. Sin- 
 gleton Singleton migrated soon after Benjamin 
 Gary's arrival in New Orleans. It is not good for 
 persons of delicate health and great fortune to re- 
 main in Boston during March ; there is something in 
 the air, something in the rain, something in the mo- 
 bility of temperature which leads doctors to pack 
 their valuable clients off to the South. Therefore on 
 the sixth consecutive day of storm the establishment 
 of 8 Louisburg Square quitted misty Boston for the 
 invigourating warmth of Carolina, quitted the great, 
 solemn rooms of the old house, on whose panels hung 
 Romneys and Corots, for the simplicity of a little 
 cottage with bare cypress walls, lost among the pine 
 trees. The change was utter and absolute. Instead 
 of a quantity of servants, a large negress cook, a 
 maid, and the omnipresent Edouard; instead of the 
 circumscribed area of city streets, the freshness of 
 the laughing South stretching away on all sides; in- 
 stead of rain, shrouding the Square in mist, sunshine 
 which sparkled from each blade of grass, from the 
 emerald tip of each pine needle, and from each indi- 
 vidual grain of sand; instead of a drab city still in 
 the clutches of winter, a countryside radiant with 
 
 100
 
 WHAT HAPPENED IN AIKEN 101 
 
 spring; in short, instead of everything that was dis- 
 cordant, everything that was harmonious and soft. 
 
 As usual Rosalind accompanied her godfather; the 
 physicians were far too wise to advocate a change 
 from her presence and affection. During his 
 gradual recuperation she settled into the pleasant 
 laziness of southern days. It was a stupid, comfort- 
 able, healthy life, such as even the most active of us 
 for a time finds pleasant a little riding, a little 
 golf and tennis, an occasional dove drive, a few let- 
 ters to read and write in the morning. 
 
 Of her correspondence Benjamin's letters were the 
 most interesting; they were lawyer-like briefs, written 
 in a firm hand, rather than personal communications. 
 From them she obtained a clear, dispassionate picture 
 of New Orleans, which he found a second Marseilles, 
 an idea of Louisiana's lazy methods of doing busi- 
 ness, much information about the case he was in- 
 vestigating, but only faint glimpses of himself. He 
 wrote in his second letter : " I find myself much 
 alone here. It is a relief, though, to think that you 
 are not still in Boston, doing alone all those things 
 which of late we have done together. The picture 
 of you in a new place is pleasanter to look on. 
 Aiken should do you good." Gary had hesitated to 
 send even this scrap of evidence of his oppressive 
 loneliness, but had finally let it remain in the letter. 
 Like all those in love he read into the words the 
 wealth of longing in his heart, and was both eager 
 and fearful that Rosalind value the sentiment at 
 its true worth. But she failed to understand the 
 intensity of his feelings. She found in the words 
 only the affection of one friend for another, such af- 
 fection as she herself might have meant in like words 
 addressed to him. The love and pain which we
 
 102 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 write into the letters we make for those we love 
 is never understood as it is written; ink is no true 
 spokesman of the heart, but a lying, weak-kneed, 
 pale translator of divine messages. Yet she was 
 fully aware of the gap Benjamin's absence made in 
 her life, and it was with the keenest pleasure that 
 she obtained a promise from him to stop over in 
 Aiken for a few days on his way home. 
 
 A week before he was due to arrive, another and 
 unexpected visitor came to them. Heralded only by 
 a mysterious telegram from Asheville, Mr. Joseph 
 Quincy descended from the northern train one glo- 
 rious morning, bearing on his face the traces of a 
 sleepless night. 
 
 "So you've been in Asheville, Uncle Jo-Jo?" 
 asked Rosalind, when they were slowly driving along 
 the sandy main road. 
 
 "I will not deceive you, Rose; I have been in 
 Asheville," he replied with profound decision. 
 " Furthermore, I have been there with the Misses 
 Hepplethwaite; and not only have I been there with 
 the Misses Hepplethwaite, but I have fled from Ashe- 
 ville, if I may use the phrase, in extremis." 
 
 ' Tell me about it," urged his niece with an admi- 
 rable effort at seriousness. 
 
 ' To begin with, I was lured to the place under 
 false pretences. Miss Amy Pearce was to have 
 been there a lovely young creature ! Air and 
 fire ! A cousin of the family, I believe." 
 
 " A debutante?" 
 
 " Last year, but still exquisite. She was not 
 there, of course; the whole thing was a colossal 
 lie." 
 
 Mr. Quincy's eyes flamed with righteous indig- 
 nation.
 
 WHAT HAPPENED IN AIKEN 103 
 
 " But the Misses Hepplethwaite ? " 
 
 " Never fear ! They were there the harpies ! 
 And they had laid out a systematic schedule to un- 
 dermine my resolve. I rode with Jane alone; I 
 drove with Joan alone ; and when she had a head- 
 ache bah ! headache ! I took Jane on a picnic 
 in the woods alone. If it was not one, it was 
 the other, but always alone ! " At each repe- 
 tition of the emphatic word, Mr. Quincy's voice 
 rang with melancholy. " But I was adamant; my 
 heart was as hard as alabaster and as cold as ice. 
 Like Argus, I was all eyes. If I had once weak- 
 ened, if I had once allowed Jane's superiority to 
 chill me or Joan's blandishments to undermine me, 
 if I had once allowed either of them to get her 
 knife under the oyster-shell ! " 
 
 Mr. Quincy threw back his head, and with closed 
 eyes convulsively swallowed several times in demon- 
 stration of the passage of a resisting oyster down a 
 greedy throat. 
 
 " But what a pearl they would have found in the 
 shell!" 
 
 " They are not looking for any pearls," re- 
 sponded Mr. Quincy sagely. " Only women of your 
 age, Rose, who can choose as they go, look for 
 pearls; all the harpy wants is to crack the shell, 
 whether there is an oyster inside or not." 
 
 "How did you escape, Uncle Jo-Jo?" 
 
 " Ah ! That is where my ingenuity came in ! 
 While we sat at dinner I had delivered to me a wire 
 saying that Tony was much worse. I clapped my 
 hand to my head, turned pale, and, to make nothing 
 of my strategy, retreated in disorder, but still 
 single." Mr. Quincy smiled in appreciation of his 
 own cleverness.
 
 io 4 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 "But he isn't! He's better than he's been in 
 years ! " 
 
 "Oh! That's no matter! No matter at all! 
 To make my escape absolute I'm going to sail for 
 Bermuda on Monday." 
 
 " Uncle Jo- Jo ! Frightened away by a petti- 
 coat? " 
 
 " You may laugh, my love, because the boot is not 
 on your pretty little foot; but please remember that 
 he who runs away, lives bachelor another day. Fur- 
 thermore," he added loftily, " the Governor is to 
 fill a vacancy on his staff, and I do not wish my polit- 
 ical opinions ahem ! to be at all ahem ! 
 to influence his choice ; on the whole it is best not to 
 be present during such a political crisis." 
 
 Mr. Quincy was a delightful visitor. At every 
 moment there came to his mind some new intrigue of 
 the Misses Hepplethwaite with which to amuse 
 Rosalind, and his ceaseless and unavailing efforts to 
 compose a bread-and-butter letter of complimentary 
 thanks to these ladies, for whom he appeared to 
 cherish the most consummate antipathy, roused even 
 Mr. Singleton Singleton. One could not but be 
 merry in his company; his mock grief as well as his 
 mock anger were made for mortal delectation. 
 
 Benjamin, who arrived some days later, was less 
 amusing a guest, but there was something substantial 
 in his character which Rosalind from the first had 
 loved. Sometimes she had thought of him as a 
 man-mountain. In his presence she had felt that 
 protection which lies in the reposeful shadow of pur- 
 ple hills; in his physical strength she had found that 
 provocative antithesis which attracts all women. If 
 their separation had taught her how much she had 
 come to enjoy his serenity and essential manliness, it
 
 WHAT HAPPENED IN AIKEN 105 
 
 had also taught her to look forward to his coming 
 with keen anticipation. 
 
 To find even in his first greeting that he was 
 changed was a disagreeable shock. In his absence 
 she had with the deepest satisfaction pictured the 
 renewal of their friendship and the restoration of 
 the old, familiar days and hours. She had gone to 
 meet him at the station with the spirit of affectionate 
 comradeship shining in her eyes; to what end? It 
 takes two people in this world to establish a rela- 
 tion. If the man does not respond in the same man- 
 ner, it is wasted time for the woman to speak frankly 
 and unaffectedly, to seek an eye which turns from 
 hers. With a sudden discouragement and discon- 
 tent she realised that there was constraint in his man- 
 ner; he was no longer the Benjamin of other days, 
 but a changed Benjamin, whose glance followed her 
 about the room with furtive insistence and whose 
 heart concealed something foreign to the serene 
 stability which she had imagined his. As she stood 
 beside him, she was uneasy; mountains are not so 
 pleasant when one discovers them to be volcanic. 
 She was not twenty-three for nothing; there are a 
 thousand little ways in which the manners of a man 
 reveal his heart to a woman. During their con- 
 tinuous association in Boston she had failed to grasp 
 the gradual change in their relations; but now, after 
 a month of separation, it was impossible to meet 
 again as they had parted. Imagination paints our 
 future as we wish it painted. She had imagined 
 Benjamin a friend; to her consummate regret she 
 found him a lover. 
 
 " What a pity! " she whispered to her pillow on 
 the night of his arrival. " Are there no sensible 
 men on earth? "
 
 io6 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 She wanted no lovers; in Benjamin she had never 
 dreamed of finding one. Boys had been in love with 
 her before, had sentimentalised over her, had writ- 
 ten much sound and little reason to win her heart. 
 Of these, some she had tolerated, some she had liked. 
 But Benjamin was not a boy, and he was meant for 
 neither her toleration nor her liking. To her the 
 very idea of him as a lover was anomalous and 
 ridiculous; as soon should she have conceived the 
 minister of Trinity Church making sheep's-eyes as 
 Benjamin moon-struck and in love. Here was some- 
 thing very magnificent, very strong, very powerful, 
 suddenly yielding to the common frailty of all men; 
 here was Odysseus deprived again of his wisdom by 
 Calypso and Samson idling in the vale of Sorec. It 
 was repellent. Rosalind had thought Benjamin as 
 near the perfect man as one might care to find; she 
 knew that their friendship had turned to dross other 
 association. But she also knew that, though her 
 heart exalted and admired him as a good, clear man 
 and a brave comrade, it held no love for him. He 
 had not become a necessity to her life; perhaps an 
 invaluable accessory, but never the necessity which 
 he hoped to make himself. 
 
 The knowledge of the change put Rosalind out of 
 conceit with the world, and Benjamin's three days 
 slipped by under a cloud of uneasiness. There was 
 a lack of adjustment between them, a stiffness, un- 
 natural and unbearable; yet there was no physic for 
 it. Since going back was not possible, and the con- 
 straint between them favoured progress still less, a 
 hollow compromise was struck. Like puppets they 
 performed their parts with mechanical emptiness. 
 In the morning they rode horseback, threading the 
 sandy roads which wound through odorous pine
 
 WHAT HAPPENED IN AIKEN 107 
 
 groves; in the afternoon they played golf at the 
 Country Club, where Benjamin, who had been in 
 college a famous athlete, was the feature of the 
 links. As he lived, he played quietly, sternly, 
 precisely, perfectly. But there was no pleasure in 
 the games; constraint kills all mutual enjoyment. 
 Perhaps unjustly Rosalind grew out of patience with 
 him. Forgetting that she had paved originally the 
 very path on which he now was walking, she illogi- 
 cally abused him for his steps. Yet she was not 
 selfish in her accusation; a great friendship is so 
 magnificent and sacred that our poor human fears 
 for its continuance and our sorrows at its end cannot 
 be called selfish without detracting from its quality. 
 Where all mortality is selfish, we call it human; 
 and Rosalind was very human about Benjamin. 
 Since the change in him destroyed not only their 
 friendship, but also its great promise, she was angry 
 and repelled; yet in her heart she cherished him as 
 he had been, and, as they walked to meet his train 
 on the last day of his visit, felt a pang of loneliness. 
 
 It was a clear, windy morning with a sky as blue 
 and stainless as if fairy hands had been scrubbing 
 at it with vast, invisible brushes. The wind, which 
 stirred little whirlwinds of dust from the sandy roads 
 to spend themselves in the fury of their rise, pulled 
 at Rosalind's hair and sent it flying across her face. 
 
 " We're early," she said, glancing at her watch. 
 " In this wind you walk fast without noticing it. 
 There's almost a quarter of an hour, and the sta- 
 tion's around that corner by the little hill." 
 
 They both stopped. The path had led them by a 
 cedar hedge into a secluded dell which few knew 
 and fewer walked in. 
 
 " Let's sit down."
 
 io8 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 Rosalind followed her own suggestion, but Gary 
 remained standing beside her, looking down ear- 
 nestly. 
 
 "What's been the matter, Rose?" he asked. 
 
 "Matter?" 
 
 " Between us, I mean." 
 
 She felt suddenly cold, and groped for a word to 
 express the disappointment in her heart. 
 
 " I think you know better than any one, Ben." 
 
 " I wonder if you know," he said evenly; then 
 without warning, broke out into fierce, eager speech. 
 The words fell from his lips as if no control could 
 hold them back, scattering, nervous, unbalanced 
 words, words of first and irrepressible freedom. " I 
 love you, Rose, I love you. I know what the mat- 
 ter is; I've known ever since I went to New Orleans, 
 and you must know, too. I love you terribly. Do 
 you understand? Terribly. I cannot go back 
 alone; it is misery. I am changed since last year. 
 Then I did not know, but you have taught me, Rosa- 
 lind, and I have learned the lesson well ! " 
 
 He ceased to speak with the suddenness of his 
 beginning. Rosalind found herself staring at a pale 
 blue-bell, the stem of which was crushed beneath his 
 heel, at a loss for words. 
 
 ' You don't say anything, Rose." 
 
 She looked at him for the first time, and with a 
 timid smile on her lips stretched forth her hand. 
 He seized it in his. 
 
 " Sit down, Ben. Let's have a talk." 
 
 He sat down beside her, his eyes bent fixedly on 
 her face. 
 
 " I'm so sorry to see it all go," she said softly. 
 
 ;;G O ? what?" 
 
 " Our friendship. This winter has been wonder-
 
 WHAT HAPPENED IN AIKEN 109 
 
 ful to me; we've done so many things together and 
 we've found each other so companionable. I've ad- 
 mired and liked you, Ben, and you " 
 
 u I admired and liked you, too, at first, but I 
 couldn't go on like that; it's not human. You can't 
 expect a man to remain just a friend when the world 
 is stupid and empty without a certain woman. A 
 man has to have love; it is inevitable. I need you, 
 Rose; that is all." 
 
 Rosalind felt a great desire to be far away from 
 where she was; the little dell was close and narrow, 
 and in the hateful moment which was coming she 
 was to make suffer some one of whom she was very 
 fond. 
 
 " And now we can't go back ! Ben, you were so 
 different from my other friends; now you're like 
 them. I wish " 
 
 She hesitated. There was nothing for her to say; 
 she realised that it would be added cruelty to speak 
 dull, cold words of regret. Regret is seldom worth 
 the breath that whispers it. 
 
 "Rose!" His voice struck pleadingly on her 
 ear. " Can't you say something? " 
 
 " What would you have me say? " 
 
 " That you will marry me." 
 
 He said it in a firm voice, measuring the syllables 
 with a passionate care. 
 
 "Oh, Ben, I can't!" 
 
 She jumped up impulsively in almost physical re- 
 volt, unwilling to bear the pleading in his voice and 
 eyes. A desire to be alone dominated her, a desire 
 for the freedom of some crowning hill, where the 
 wind might wash about her in clear, cool waves and 
 she might forget the responsibilities and relations of 
 human existence in a communion with the elements.
 
 no LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 In the dell she felt enmeshed and burdened; but, 
 woman-like, she spoke tenderly to the man seated at 
 her feet. 
 
 " I'm sorry, Ben. I didn't mean to speak like 
 that, but I I it was on the impulse. You know 
 how I value you. All this winter I have given you 
 the best in me with pleasure, but that best is not 
 enough to answer your asking. I am afraid that 
 you want more than I can give. It is my limitation, 
 not your fault. It must be in me that I cannot love 
 enough to marry. I have never cared for any man 
 as much as for you, yet for all that I I cannot 
 marry you. Do you understand?" 
 
 She smiled wistfully at him as he arose. 
 
 " I can't think now. I can't believe it. Of 
 course, the the fault must lie in me. . . . And 
 do you mean you never ? It cannot be never? " 
 
 Such an appeal is not readily borne; Rosalind's 
 heart softened. 
 
 " I don't know that, Ben. Only the gods do. 
 Some day " 
 
 " Then I may I talk to you again, Rose ? I 
 must." 
 
 A whistle shrieked imperatively in the distance. 
 
 'That's your train." 
 
 " Rose, will you try to think of me ? " 
 
 His clear, grey eyes held hers for a moment. 
 1 Yes," she replied faintly, " I'll try." 
 
 " Until you come to Boston I shall remember 
 that; it will help. Good-bye." 
 
 He pressed her hand hard, turned, and ran down 
 the path. Rosalind stood looking after him, recall- 
 ing the night on which he had come to tell her of his 
 departure for New Orleans. This time he turned 
 back at the curve to wave a last farewell.
 
 WHAT HAPPENED IN AIKEN in 
 
 " Good-bye, Ben," she called after him. 
 
 When the last sound of the train had mingled with 
 the lazy quiet, she slowly retraced her steps to the 
 house. She was angry and disappointed; but 
 whether it was because of her inability to love Ben- 
 jamin enough to marry him or because she had not 
 told him plainly the whole truth she was at a loss to 
 discover.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 PRELUDE SEVENTEEN 
 
 EXACTED promises are soon broken. Do we 
 but voluntarily make an agreement our sense 
 of honour compels us to its consummation, 
 but a promise made in a moment of weakness or 
 under compulsion is not readily kept. Often after 
 Benjamin had left Aiken, Rosalind regretted the 
 gentleness of her nature which had moved her to 
 extend a deceitful hope. She had promised to try 
 to love him; she had been afraid to face the immi- 
 nent crisis, and by compromise had hoped to spare 
 the feelings of both herself and him. But her 
 timidity had brought her no comfort. She could not 
 love him ; she could not bring herself to think of him 
 as being other than a steadfast friend. He was a 
 man, a creature of noble stuff, of great physical and 
 moral strength, but there was in his nature no single 
 attribute which she could not readily plumb. This 
 was the spring of her discontent. Women are essen- 
 tially unmechanical. They desire and appreciate 
 those loftier things for which man has no true defi- 
 nition; they are impatient of appearances. If the 
 woman is more religious than the man, it is because 
 she is fascinated by a spirituality which is not to be 
 understood. If she cannot ascribe to him she loves 
 an ideal character, then her love is a poor thing, 
 born of necessity or reason, and will not flourish in 
 the winter-time of life. For Benjamin Rosalind 
 could conceive no higher love, no idyllic passion such 
 
 112
 
 PRELUDE SEVENTEEN 113 
 
 as is the promise of all pure, sweet natures; every 
 emotion of his heart, every act of his life was appar- 
 ent, as offensively definable as any mechanical action. 
 His soul was too clean and clear not to be readily 
 understood; frankly and simply it explained itself, 
 and like a clean, clear lake its bottom was visible to 
 the naked eye. But if one must live forever on a 
 lake, the mystery of depth in which bottom is unseen 
 and distant as the stars is preferable to the crystal 
 clearness of transparent beauty. 
 
 Whether she could love him or no, the promise 
 was obtrusive. Visions of a day of reckoning trou- 
 bled her mind, a day when the uncomfortable truth 
 must be imparted to Benjamin, and be so imparted 
 that the question would never rise again. Knowing 
 that she must tell him, that she must act squarely and 
 not bear him in hand, she could find no words to 
 frame what she must say. Like all women, she saw 
 the end and not the means, and, as she turned the 
 matter over in her mind, felt more and more that she 
 had become involved in a most uncomfortable tangle. 
 
 She was glad to leave Aiken. If Benjamin had 
 to be faced, she felt it best to face him soon and be- 
 gin with a clean slate while there was yet chalk 
 with which to write. Her godfather had preceded 
 her return on some mysterious matter of business, 
 the secret of which both he and her father, who had 
 joined them, obstinately refused to divulge; hence 
 she arrived alone at Back Bay one fine twilight in 
 April, and stepped into the family's open automobile, 
 deluged with that wave of content which is the in- 
 evitable accompaniment of the true Bostonian's re- 
 turn. To any citizen of the world there is no place 
 like home; to the true Bostonian there never has
 
 n 4 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 been and never can be, even in beatific realms, a 
 place like home. 
 
 As the automobile turned the corner by the Caven- 
 dish Club to swing into Commonwealth Avenue, a 
 shabbily dressed old lady with a poke bonnet all 
 over her head, stepped off the curbing directly in 
 front of the wheels. With a warning cry the chauf- 
 feur threw on the brakes, but it had been too late to 
 save her, had not a young man standing on the curb 
 seized her skirts and with intuitive swiftness jerked 
 the old woman back into his arms amid a confusion 
 of bonnet and exclamation. The automobile was 
 brought to a violent stop; the chauffeur (as all chauf- 
 feurs do on such occasions) glowered and muttered; 
 and Rosalind, who had nervously stood up, was the 
 first to speak. 
 
 "She's not hurt, I hope?" 
 
 As the woman only mumbled to herself in a nerv- 
 ous endeavour to adjust her lop-sided hat, the young 
 man replied. 
 
 " I think not. It did not even touch her." 
 
 He spoke in a low voice with a faint accent which 
 lent a certain charm and distinction to the few words. 
 As she murmured that she was glad, Rosalind looked 
 at him curiously. In the darkness she found him 
 tall, slender, and well-dressed; and, although his 
 features were hardly distinguishable, she thought him 
 decidedly handsome. She thanked him again with 
 more profusion, and he bowed in return, rather 
 lower than most Americans do, and removed his hat 
 as if it were an honour and not a hardship. The 
 automobile rolled on. As its lights wheeled by, she 
 caught a glimpse of a pair of clear, green eyes, as- 
 tonishingly true in colour.
 
 PRELUDE SEVENTEEN 11$ 
 
 After dinner Rosalind went into the music-room. 
 She knew that Benjamin would come to her and 
 chose to meet him there, alone. When he arrived, 
 she was playing an old French song, Maman, dites- 
 moi, and humming the words. With a flutter in her 
 heart she pretended not to be aware of his presence 
 at the door; for a moment she entertained a wild 
 hope that the old order of things might be re-estab- 
 lished. 
 
 " Aren't you going to speak to me, Rose? " 
 
 The old, old remark, half sincere, half false, half 
 bathos, half really pathetic; the old, old appeal to 
 one beloved, but not loving! Rosalind made a poor 
 attempt to cover her pretended ignorance. 
 
 " Why, Ben, I I didn't hear you come in." 
 
 "Oh, I thought" 
 
 " Sit down. Here." She pointed out a chair 
 near the piano. " Shall I play some more? " 
 
 He did not reply. He had hoped she would not 
 play. Music, especially the music which she liked, 
 he had never understood or cared for. But she was 
 in the mood for it and began the Chanson Indoue, a 
 sad, haunting, Russian song, which jarred so uncom- 
 fortably in his ear that when she was half through, 
 he arose and laid his hand on her fingers. Drowned 
 in a little discord, the music stopped. 
 
 "Benjamin!" 
 
 " Rose, please ! We we've got to talk this 
 out." 
 
 He walked back to his chair and sat down on the 
 arm. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " You remember, Rose, what you said to me at 
 Aiken?"
 
 n6 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 He looked keenly at her. " Have you have 
 you tried? " 
 
 * Yes, Ben, I have " 
 
 She meant to tell him the truth, but the impulse 
 failed her. She saw him leaning forward, his eyes 
 yearning for her love, his whole spirit dependent on 
 her lips, and hesitated, frightened. 
 
 " And you you " 
 
 Turning away, tortured and unable to speak, she 
 clasped her hands together in undisguised nervous- 
 ness. 
 
 "Oh, don't ask me, Ben! Please! Why need 
 you? You must not." 
 
 " I must, Rose." He drew himself up beside the 
 chair and spoke in a hurried voice. " I cannot wait. 
 I must have some answer. You you don't under- 
 stand the torture of my mind. I have thrown every- 
 thing in the balance, everything worth living for, and 
 you outweigh them all of them. You know how 
 I live. I know no one well only you ; I have no 
 time nor care for intimate friends. Every bit of my 
 heart is yours, Rose. Tell me, what are you going 
 to do with it? " 
 
 She looked mutely at the pattern of the carpet; 
 she had no words in answer. 
 
 ' That December day was the commencement of 
 it all by the statue. You remember? You re- 
 proved me for my bad manners and took me to 
 Brimmer House; the memory is very clear. You 
 began it; you liked me then. You " 
 
 " I like you now, Ben ! " 
 
 " And that is all? " he asked quietly. 
 
 " I'm afraid, Ben, that is all."
 
 PRELUDE SEVENTEEN 117 
 
 He sank into the chair and was for a while miser- 
 ably silent, then laughed coldly. 
 
 " Well, I'm a coward. I can't seem to face it. 
 It's all upside down, all wrong . . . You're sure 
 that in time, Rose, sure you couldn't come to marry 
 me?" 
 
 As he leaned forward with his head sadly down, 
 pity overflowed Rosalind's heart and she weakened. 
 She had not forgotten that memorable twilight on 
 which they had met in the Public Gardens ; since then 
 she had found cause to blame herself harshly for her 
 behaviour. As he had said, his love was all at- 
 tributable to the manner in which she had treated 
 him. Knowing that her duty was to destroy all 
 Benjamin's hopes, however it might hurt him at first, 
 she found herself incapable of performing that duty. 
 In recompense for the unhappiness which she had 
 caused, she held out a straw of comfort. 
 
 " I cannot say that I am sure, Ben," she ventured 
 in a timid, kind voice. " I don't know. It's hard 
 can't you see what a hard position I'm placed in? 
 It makes me feel that I'm a perfect beast. I am so 
 very fond of you that it is terrible to say no " she 
 hesitated, unwilling to wound, but realising the neces- 
 sity of frankness " yet I cannot bring myself to 
 say yes. It may be selfish; it is, I know, but it's 
 human, too. It's human not to take a big chance 
 like that with happiness. I can see how much you 
 care for me: it is wonderful to realise it! " Her 
 voice was near breaking as she said this, but she 
 strengthened it and went on. " Yet with its beauty, 
 it makes me feel, too, all the more certain that I am 
 right in refusing you. My love, Ben, is too poor be- 
 side yours. It is cruel enough when we are friends;
 
 n8 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 if we were married, it would be unbearable. Do 
 you see what I mean? " 
 
 " Yes, I think I see," he answered slowly. 
 
 " I can't bear to make you miserable, Ben. If I 
 thought that some day, at some future time I could 
 feel differently " 
 
 " Perhaps you will! " 
 
 "Who knows?'/ 
 
 " Rosalind," said Benjamin frankly, " you have 
 known me better than any one. You have known 
 how dependent I am on regularity. It has been at 
 the bottom of all my strength and happiness. All 
 my life has been definite; now it is without any cer- 
 tainty. I do not know if you love me ; I do not know 
 if you can love me. It seems I must go on suffering 
 day after day with nothing to fall back on. Can't 
 you do something to help? Is there no word, no 
 promise which you can give to strengthen me? I 
 hate to leave a thing hanging fire. If we could 
 only . . . I'd almost like to finish it all now," he 
 went on rather bitterly. " But if you think there is 
 any chance, I will wait forever." 
 
 " It may be it is, I'm afraid, a faint chance." 
 
 " No matter how slight, when the business is so 
 serious. In time it may grow stronger. It will 
 grow. Such things must happen every day in this 
 world where time so often chooses. Shall we name 
 a day? It will help me, and it will give you an op- 
 portunity to decide. Let us make things definite, 
 Rose." 
 
 She paused before replying. The commitment to 
 a fixed day repelled her as an attempt to regulate the 
 one thing which should know no regulation; yet at 
 the same time she saw in it a way out. If she had 
 no heart to destroy Benjamin's love now by a single
 
 PRELUDE SEVENTEEN 119 
 
 stroke, in the weeks which must elapse before the 
 appointed day arrived there would be many oppor- 
 tunities to discourage his affection. What if the 
 process and period of this attrition be distinctly hard 
 for her? It was a just punishment, falling on her 
 more heavily than on Benjamin. By a variety of 
 means his love might be cooled; by gradual and in- 
 creasing neglect, by showing herself to him in un- 
 pleasant lights, by forcing herself to be not herself. 
 At the cost of their friendship it might be done. 
 But was not their friendship ended now? 
 
 " I will, Ben. What day will you choose? " 
 
 " Let it not be too near at hand. The first of 
 June?" 
 
 " The first of June," she repeated. " Until then, 
 let's try and forget that we're anything but great 
 friends." 
 
 He took her hand. 
 
 " Thank you, Rose. I will do my best, for you 
 have done yours. . . . Good night." 
 
 He went quietly out of the room, leaving her at 
 the piano, staring fixedly at nothing in particular. 
 Had she done her best? 
 
 Rosalind had left Boston in the slush and sleet of 
 a vindictive March; she came back to a city bathed in 
 sunshine. As she walked to Louisburg Square the 
 morning after her return, she discovered in the Public 
 Gardens not one robin but a dozen, carolling away 
 with the importance of all harbingers bright prom- 
 ises of spring. There were birds in the Square, too, 
 whispering in its old ear tropical messages; they flut- 
 tered from the wrought iron fence to the grass, peer- 
 ing up green and fresh through the stubble of the 
 old year, or sought in the ragged elms, whose tops
 
 120 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 were feathering out into a reddish haze, aerial 
 boudoirs in which to preen their feathers. How 
 monstrously spick and span the Square appeared ! 
 It seemed as if little hands had dusted each indi- 
 vidual cobble-stone, polished each bar of the black 
 fence, and put the two white statues into the launder- 
 ing-tub of nature. Across the green the houses 
 smiled like a double row of hibernators recently re- 
 awakened to find the world a most inviting place. 
 Rosalind had inherited the Copley affection for the 
 Square. From her childhood she had found it a 
 second home, a haven of charm and adventure, in 
 all seasons to be loved, but especially in spring to be 
 admired. Who does not think the coming of spring 
 incomparable? What is wonderful in the country 
 is the more amazing in the city. That the Invisible 
 Renovator each April transform the cold, quiet 
 gloom of this old pocket of the metropolis into the 
 garden greenness of June was a source of never-end- 
 ing joy to Rosalind. To see the country reborn at 
 spring is to see only the material side of the season, 
 the new crops, the fast-opening buds, the waving hay; 
 but to see the dull, hard city annually rejuvenated is 
 to see the most unnecessary and beautiful light prodi- 
 gally shed in uncongenial grimness. 
 
 She mounted the steps of 8 Louisburg Square 
 with her happiness dancing in her eyes. As the door 
 yielded without the necessity of ringing, she thought 
 that she heard the sound of music and listened for a 
 moment, dumbfounded. Music in 8 Louisburg 
 Square? Some one playing upon her piano? It 
 was a thing as unexpected, as impossible to believe 
 as the wildest range of fancy. Closing the door, 
 she advanced into the great, formal hall with a silent 
 step. She recognised the melody as the seventeenth
 
 PRELUDE SEVENTEEN 121 
 
 prelude of Chopin, the favourite of herself and of 
 her godfather. Whoever the player was, the play- 
 ing was consummately skilful, and her keen ear told 
 her as she listened that years of training and a deep 
 appreciation guided the unknown fingers in the ad- 
 joining room. Curiosity impelled her towards the 
 doorway. As the melody swayed softly upward 
 to the commanding note of the prelude, she brushed 
 aside the heavy hangings at the door and looked 
 eagerly in the direction of the piano straight into 
 the green eyes of the young man who the evening 
 before had rescued the woman from her automobile ! 
 His hand was raised for a heavy chord when he 
 caught sight of the figure in the doorway. Rosalind 
 saw him spring to his feet in amazement, leaving the 
 melody to die midway. 
 
 " Oh, please finish it ! " she cried impulsively. 
 
 The young man hesitated ; then, with a smile com- 
 plied. 
 
 Rosalind remained standing, framed against the 
 dark hanging like a vibrant figure of light stamped 
 there by the gods. During the completion of the 
 prelude she had an opportunity to examine the 
 stranger, and found him a strikingly handsome figure 
 as he sat before the great piano. Morning sunlight 
 streamed in at a window beside him, glinting on the 
 top of his dark, curly hair, and making the green 
 waves sparkle in his eyes. Though bizarre, his fea- 
 tures were undeniably handsome, and the carriage 
 of his thin, graceful body lent distinction to his ap- 
 pearance. What an anomaly was this poetic figure 
 in the staidness of her godfather's house! In appar- 
 ent oblivion of his surroundings he lingered over the 
 haunting refrain, and not until the prelude was 
 finished did he look again in Rosalind's direction.
 
 122 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 The quizzical expression on his face made her smile 
 as she advanced into the room. 
 
 "Isn't that prelude wonderful? I try to play 
 it, too, and long to play it well. You " 
 
 " I found the music here," said the young man in 
 the same low voice of the afternoon before. 
 
 " It is mine." 
 
 The young man raised his eyebrows in surprise. 
 
 " You will forgive me for using it? I could not 
 resist the temptation. This prelude is full of memo- 
 ries for me; years ago I heard my mother play it. 
 It was her favourite." 
 
 Rosalind gasped involuntarily. She appreciated 
 now the mourning of the young man and his slight 
 accent. In a flash she combined the facts that this 
 prelude was beloved by her godfather and the 
 favourite of this stranger's mother. To solve the 
 riddle of his name was simple. 
 
 " You must be a Mr. Rolland! " 
 
 With an astonished glance the stranger assented. 
 
 " It sounds rather illogical to draw that conclu- 
 sion, I suppose, but my godfather once told me that 
 this prelude was much loved by Madame Rolland." 
 
 'Your godfather?" 
 
 " Uncle Mr. Singleton Singleton. Hasn't he 
 spoken of me to you ? " 
 
 The young man smiled. Rosalind liked his smile ; 
 it fascinated her. 
 
 " He is not very talkative. In a week he has 
 said but little, and not a word of you." 
 
 " How like Uncle Sing-Sing ! I call him that, al- 
 though he's only father's second cousin. He's the 
 dearest and most uncommunicative godfather in the 
 world!" 
 
 " You must have been surprised to find me here."
 
 PRELUDE SEVENTEEN 123 
 
 " Surprised ! I never have had a surprise in my 
 life to compare with that of entering this house and 
 hearing music. I truly expect to see you go up in 
 a cloud of smoke like a genii at any minute ! " 
 
 "I shan't do that; it's too attractive here." 
 
 "You like it then?" 
 
 " Like it ! I never believed there was anything 
 like this in America. I had always thought it a 
 cauldron of cities and factories, smoking and grind- 
 ing away. But this this is a bit of the older, 
 calmer world. I have explored Boston during this 
 last week and I can't tell you how much of beauty 
 and interest Fve discovered. Will you show me 
 more? " 
 
 " You can probably tell me more about Boston by 
 this time than I can you. It's always the stranger 
 that is the best informed." 
 
 " There must be many out of the way pockets, 
 though " 
 
 "I'll try," replied Rosalind. ^ "We'll make a 
 bargain. I'll be your Baedeker, if you'll be my 
 Orpheus ! " 
 
 "Agreed!" 
 
 " You've come at the best time of year; in a few 
 weeks the country will be glorious. You must come 
 out to the farm." 
 
 " Anywhere. And will you introduce me to some 
 people? Your godfather has been most kind, but 
 outside of Edouard and a Mrs. Copley oh! and 
 Dr. Gary I have seen no one." 
 
 "That's my mother, that Mrs. Copley! I hope 
 you got along well together." 
 
 "Splendidly! It worried her that I spoke Eng- 
 lish so well." 
 
 " I don't wonder; you do."
 
 i2 4 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " I went to school at Cheltenham. My grand- 
 mother being American, my mother wanted me to 
 speak her tongue well. Since she could not part 
 with me for America, England was the substi- 
 tute." 
 
 "Is Mr. Singleton upstairs?" 
 
 " I suppose so; he has not yet come down." 
 
 " Do be Orpheus again till he descends! I'll re- 
 pay you some day double-fold." 
 
 Mr. Singleton was indeed upstairs. He was sit- 
 ting by a window with almost an expression of eager- 
 ness on his pale face. Edouard, as he adjusted his 
 footstool, was speaking to him. 
 
 " They are down by the piano, sir, and it's my 
 opinion, since you ask it, that they've taken quite a 
 fancy to each other."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 NEW THOUGHTS FOR OLD 
 
 IT was late in the afternoon when Rosalind 
 walked slowly home. A high wind had 
 sprung up which tore at the branches of the 
 trees, making them wave and shiver in the dying 
 light. Head down she struggled along, busily turn- 
 ing over and over in her mind the novelty of a hand- 
 some and talented young man in the house of her 
 godfather. In her childhood 8 Louisburg Square 
 had been something of a fairy castle, something of a 
 Golconda where lay concealed innumerable beauties 
 awaiting only an adventurous spirit to discover them. 
 But here was a novelty more diverting than the four- 
 foot doll which had done everything but talk, until 
 Mr. Quincy endeavoured to endow it with that 
 quality by a mechanical operation involving more 
 ingenuity than technique; here was a surprise more 
 dumbfounding than the tiny dog which had one 
 Christmas popped out of a large plum pudding; here 
 for her entertainment was come to visit the son of 
 the greatest tenor in the world! 
 
 Rosalind laughed excitedly to herself. The 
 whistling wind made her thoughts fly fast ; it sang by 
 her lips and whirled along in its rough embrace the 
 words she murmured half to herself and half aloud. 
 
 " And Uncle Sing-Sing ! Why, he couldn't take 
 his eyes off him ! There never was anything like it. 
 Calls him Eric, dotes on him, on his music, on his 
 
 125
 
 126 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 architect's sketches, on everything about him. I'm 
 not in it. My poor efforts at the piano will never 
 be favoured again." She laughed whimsically. 
 " How well he does play; I'm sure there were tears 
 in my eyes over his Caprice Fienncise. . . . As a 
 rule I don't like foreigners. There was that nasty 
 cad whom Mrs. Bryce dragged about with her 
 the Count de Ricrac. I hated the little beast; yet he 
 would kiss my hand and talk about the stars. And 
 after all he turned out to be somebody's valet. 
 Foreigners are always much nicer in their homes. I 
 wonder why? But Mr. Rolland is certainly dif- 
 ferent. I hope he's going to stay and be ever so 
 interesting with his music; I forgot to ask Uncle 
 Sing-Sing. . . . He said his grandmother was an 
 American. I'm glad of that; it doesn't make him 
 seem so far I beg your pardon ! " 
 
 Obsessed with her thoughts, she had collided with 
 two ladies whom the wind was sweeping down Ar- 
 lington Street. 
 
 " Oh ! Miss Hepplethwaite, do excuse me ! In 
 this wind one cannot see at all." 
 
 "How do you do, Rosalind? I hope your trip 
 to Aiken benefited you? " 
 * Yes, thank you." 
 
 " And how is your dear mamma? " 
 
 "And your dear papa?" echoed the younger 
 sister. 
 
 Even in the whistling wind an indefinable and un- 
 ruffled primness clung about the two spinsters, and 
 they asked their invariable questions with as much 
 cold interest as if they were all three meeting in the 
 most sedate drawing-room in Boston. Rosalind 
 murmured some reply. 
 
 " I haven't seen you for such a long time," went
 
 NEW THOUGHTS FOR OLD 127 
 
 on the older Miss Hepplethwaite. " You've been 
 with your godfather, I suppose? " 
 
 " Yes. He came home before me." 
 
 " We are most curious, my dear Rosalind, to dis- 
 cover who the very handsome young man is that 
 calls on your godfather. Joan and I have observed 
 him entering the house several times. He is not a 
 cousin ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," said Rosalind, " not a member of the 
 family at all. He is the son of Lucien Rolland 
 the tenor, you know. His mother was a great friend 
 of my godfather, and at her death she expressed a 
 wish that her son come to America. He is a 
 most " In the excitement of her interest in the 
 stranger it was on Rosalind's lips to say " charming 
 young man," but remembering the ears, eyes, and 
 tongues before her she concluded " beautiful 
 pianist. He played for us to-day." 
 
 " Is that his profession? " 
 
 " No." Rosalind scented cold disapproval in the 
 question. " He is an architect, and a very excellent 
 one, too. My godfather told me that he won the 
 Grand Prix at the Beaux Arts two years running." 
 
 " The French are so clever ! Their esprit is re- 
 markable." 
 
 "And their elan!" added Miss Joan, not to be 
 outdone. 
 
 " His grandmother was an American. He speaks 
 English perfectly, with just a shade of accent." 
 
 " He must be very diverting. I am afraid that I 
 shall have to keep an eye on my sister; Joan is so 
 impressionable." 
 
 " Oh, Jane, how can you? " The younger Miss 
 Hepplethwaite simulated coyness with the full bene- 
 fit of forty years' experience.
 
 128 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 "And your poor dear uncle, Mr. Quincy! He 
 was so worried over your godfather at Asheville 
 that it was pitiful to behold. We tried to comfort 
 him. When he departed for Bermuda, he sent us a 
 sweet present." 
 
 " Too thoughtful of him," murmured Miss Joan. 
 
 " And a cable. Do you think the Governor will 
 really appoint him ? Mr. Hereford endeavoured to 
 induce Joan to believe that the Governor's staff had 
 no political importance, but after what Jos Mr. 
 Quincy has said, we understand fully its responsibili- 
 ties. He was quite justified in leaving at such a 
 time." 
 
 " It was imperative," said Miss Joan. 
 
 " I am certain it was," Rosalind assured them, re- 
 membering with an inward smile the more cogent 
 reason for her uncle's departure. 
 
 The wind had become so boisterous that the 
 Misses Hepplethwaite, having acquired that in- 
 formation necessary for the concoction of a little 
 scandal, took their leave, begging Rosalind some day 
 to bring the stranger to talk French with them. As 
 Rosalind watched the wind blow them across the 
 street, lady-like even with their skirts fluttering about 
 their knees, a sense of their pitiful inutility came 
 over her. If they had only married, they might 
 have made decent enough wives; in a crowd of 
 modern married women they would have passed 
 muster. But they had waited too long and too care- 
 fully. They had ignored opportunity's knock, be- 
 cause it had not been loud and distinct; now every 
 moment their ear was at the door to detect the faint- 
 est scratching. As she turned towards home, Rosa- 
 lind told herself that, God willing, such a fate would 
 never be hers.
 
 NEW THOUGHTS FOR OLD 129 
 
 Hearing a murmur of many voices at tea in the 
 living-room, she went quietly up to her own chamber, 
 a pretty blue and white room, companionably quiet. 
 She removed her hat, smoothed her golden hair in 
 front of the mirror, and then wandered to her desk 
 and sat down, still busy with her thoughts. How 
 pleasant it was to sit in her comfortable arm-chair 
 and think of the walk which she had taken with 
 Eric Holland along the Esplanade! His typically 
 French nature had amused and charmed her. The 
 French in their happiness and sorrow are children, 
 in their courage giants, in their talent geniuses, in 
 their sympathy angels. The remembrance of the 
 walk called to her mind a promise to take him to a 
 concert of Schumann-Heink's the next afternoon. 
 As she reached for a pencil to note down the engage- 
 ment, her eye fell upon her calendar, a loose-leaf af- 
 fair with a separate page for each day of the year. 
 On going to bed the night before she had left it 
 turned over to June ist; written on that page in 
 large bold letters : ANSWER BEN ! 
 
 Rosalind stiffened in her chair. The day long 
 she had not thought of Gary. Engrossed by the 
 stranger from across the sea, she had lost sight of 
 her troubles in his happy usurpation, and had drawn 
 idle fancies strangely at variance with an attempt to 
 return Benjamin's love. When Damocles observed 
 a blade trembling above him upon a single thread, 
 he took no pleasure in the banquet which Dionysius 
 had spread for his consumption; so Rosalind's fond 
 imaginings soon lost their charm with the vexing 
 promise to Benjamin staring her in the eye. She 
 arose and walked pettishly about the room, injured 
 and confined. How foolish to have made that 
 agreement with Benjamin in contradiction to her
 
 1 30 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 first impulse! She would not consent to be forced 
 into anything by a man; however masterful he might 
 be, Benjamin could not compel her to love him. In 
 aggrieved revolt she forgot that without her own 
 encouragement he would never have entered into her 
 life, that for all his concern she would have been 
 as free as the libertine air. A low knock at the 
 door interrupted her petulant walk. It was Paris. 
 
 "It's Mr. Gary, Miss Rosalind. I'll tell him 
 you'll be down, shan't I ? " 
 
 Still annoyed, Rosalind exclaimed, " No, Paris, 
 stop! Tell him I've I've a headache; I'm not 
 coming down." 
 
 She turned away toward the windows. 
 ' Yes, miss. I'm sorry you're not well." 
 
 When Paris was gone, she was angrier with her- 
 self than she had been with Benjamin. She had no 
 headache; this was nothing more or less than the be- 
 haviour of a spoiled child, and if she disliked one 
 thing more than another, it was the petty selfishness 
 of life. Pricked by an excellent conscience, she 
 opened the door and hurried down the hall to the 
 stairs, on which she intercepted Paris and left him, 
 gasping at the suddenness of her change in health, 
 with a glorious tidbit for pantry gossip. 
 
 There were some dozen people in the drawing- 
 room. She caught sight of Benjamin pinioned in 
 his chair by a lady whose fantastical garb and disar- 
 rayed ringlets declared her to be one of those intel- 
 lectual females whom society lionises and in secret 
 laughs at. From such captivity she rescued him 
 with a graceful facility which was the admiration of 
 Benjamin and the confounding of his blue-stocking 
 interlocutor. 
 
 " She was telling me about the soul," he mur-
 
 NEW THOUGHTS FOR OLD 131 
 
 mured weakly, as Rosalind led him into the quiet 
 music room, " about the soul, and Maeterlinck, and 
 silence. There was a lot about silence, I remember, 
 and its beauty." 
 
 "You know how a python mesmerises a rabbit? 
 When I dragged you away, you were in the last 
 hypnotic stage." 
 
 " Thanks a thousand times for the rescue. I 
 thought I saw you come in, so I " 
 
 " I have been at at the Square all day." 
 
 " Did you find Mr. Singleton Singleton well? " 
 
 "About the same. The day passed quickly." 
 
 Rosalind let slip an opportunity to tell Benjamin 
 about Eric Rolland. A month earlier she would 
 have instantly related the whole story to him, but 
 now she was glad to postpone the moment. 
 
 " How does it seem to get back to the office, Ben? 
 Have you finished your New Orleans business? " 
 
 " I'm afraid not. I may have to go back soon 
 very soon." 
 
 Rosalind started involuntarily. 
 
 " I'm sorry," she said. The words sounded con- 
 victionless to her, and she repeated them in another 
 tone. " I'm sorry. How soon? " 
 
 " In a week or so; and it will take another month, 
 too, I'm afraid." 
 
 Rosalind received this piece of news, so painful 
 for Benjamin to relate, with a criminal sense of in- 
 ward happiness. She forced herself to murmur, 
 "Really?" 
 
 " In one way," he went on, " it will be a good 
 thing. You will be absolutely free to decide for 
 yourself. From New Orleans my influence can be 
 but small and by June first you ought to know as defi- 
 nitely as as I do now, where we stand."
 
 132 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 In dangerous waters so soon! Rosalind walked 
 nervously to the fire-place, crying to herself, " Oh, 
 Ben, Ben, why must you always bring it up?" 
 Aloud, however, she assented. " Yes, it will be 
 fairer." After an uncomfortable pause, during 
 which the wind rattled in the chimney, she added, 
 " Listen to the wind. I wish you could have seen 
 it blow the Hepplethwaites across Arlington 
 Street!" 
 
 After all, there is nothing like the weather! The 
 gentle rain of Heaven which falls upon the just and 
 the unjust has watered many a backward conversa- 
 tion and brought it to full growth. Far from being 
 the infirmity of talk, the weather is often its strength 
 and guide. As Rosalind's friend of friends, Camilla 
 Cabot, often told her: there is nothing like a rain- 
 storm to dampen sophomoric effusions, and the mere 
 mention of wind will blow Byron and all his verses 
 into the next county. With Benjamin the well-worn 
 ruse succeeded; he turned to his law. 
 
 " It seems good to be at my desk again. I like 
 to work methodically as you know; in the South 
 business is transacted according to the thermometer." 
 
 " You mustn't work yourself to death, Ben. I 
 know how ambitious you are." 
 
 She spoke kindly and softly, as she had often 
 spoken in the past, suddenly moved by a wave of 
 tenderness. Perhaps Benjamin noticed a subtle 
 change in her tone, for he glanced towards her as 
 if pleased by her words. 
 
 ' Thank you, Rose. Ambition isn't worth a con- 
 tinental without health to back it up. That's why I 
 lay so much value in method. Regularity spells 
 health." 
 
 Rosalind shrugged her shoulders. His desire to
 
 NEW THOUGHTS FOR OLD 133 
 
 standardise everything had long been a contentious 
 subject between them. 
 
 " I don't believe any great man was ever regu- 
 lar!" 
 
 " How about Edison and John Marshall? How 
 about " 
 
 " I don't mean that kind. Look at Shelley or Dr. 
 Johnson or Maeterlinck," she added with a laugh. 
 " Do you suppose they were regular? Bah ! Don't 
 be a dry-as-dust, Ben! Trollope was your perfect 
 machine. What of him? However the world is 
 amused by what he wrote, it knows exactly where to 
 put him." 
 
 Benjamin, who did not know exactly where to put 
 him, resigned literature to irregularity with a wave 
 of the hand. 
 
 " I wasn't thinking of literary men they may 
 live as they please. I was thinking of great prac- 
 tical men, men of affairs. If I am to succeed in poli- 
 tics, let us say, I must have method; for who ever 
 heard of a famous statesman who was not the soul 
 of system? " 
 
 " Daniel Webster ! " cried Rosalind triumphantly. 
 " He never could get up until ten in the morning and 
 then it was usually to drink whiskey. * It is a small 
 college, but there are those who love it,' " she quoted 
 gaily. " Now what? Now where are you? " 
 
 Benjamin smiled with such infuriating indulgence 
 that she suddenly wondered if he ever thought of 
 her as " little woman," a term of endearment which 
 she despised. His paternal condescension seemed 
 sometimes to betray what might be a mental applica- 
 tion of the term. 
 
 ' Well, never mind; we won't argue about it until 
 I can array more facts on my side. You women al-
 
 i 3 4 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 ways have the faculty of dragging in exceptions or 
 long-haired literary men to win a victory. By the 
 way, to-morrow afternoon Father is to show me 
 certain parts of the Longwood Hospital in great 
 detail on a legal question. You have long wanted 
 the opportunity to see it all; won't you come? 
 Father would love to have you." 
 
 " I'm so sorry, Ben. To-morrow is the Schu- 
 mann-Heink concert and I've promised to go with 
 some one." 
 
 In past days the projected trip to the Longwood, 
 then newly completed, had been a source of mutual 
 anticipation; if the opportunity came, nothing could 
 deter them. Yet now Benjamin found Rosalind 
 with a ready excuse. 
 
 "You couldn't give up the concert, I suppose?" 
 he asked rather stiffly. 
 
 " I'm afraid not, Ben. It's a well, I couldn't." 
 
 Being in no mood to introduce a troublesome 
 third party, Rosalind let slip a second opportunity to 
 speak of Eric Rolland. To herself she declared 
 that things being as unhappy as they were, that 
 bridge she would not cross until she came to it. 
 
 " I'm awfully sorry." 
 
 Benjamin rolled all his unhappiness into this little, 
 halting sentence. Like all men new at love or 
 old, for that matter he intensified this minor re- 
 fusal, probably perfectly reasonable, and suffered as 
 regards not the true object but its magnified image. 
 But almost immediately his manner changed; he be- 
 came solicitous, appealing. 
 
 " Forgive me, Rose," he said with humble in- 
 genuousness, "I did not mean to speak like that: 
 it was not playing the game to you. I forgot, for a 
 minute ; you'll forgive me ? "
 
 NEW THOUGHTS FOR OLD 135 
 
 It was hard to nod and say yes, when conscience 
 mocked within. For what need she forgive him? 
 For letting her see that there was a love in his heart 
 which knew no master? For a rare, God-sent im- 
 pulse proudly to array before the world his 
 firstling thought untarnished by mortal reconsider- 
 ing? She turned away, as if his love were a blank 
 abyss before her feet. 
 
 " Do not think me brutal or unsympathetic " 
 Her hands flew forward to disclaim. " No, listen, 
 Rose. I would not have you marry me without af- 
 fection : that would be a sin. The world is too un- 
 happy now that ever we forget our duty." He 
 spoke with the ingrained rectitude of a Puritanic 
 ancestry as fine as that of Rosalind herself, with that 
 inflexible excellence of morals which bends backward 
 in its walk through life. " I do not ask for such a 
 pledge ; you know that. I only pray that love come 
 in your heart, that you try; and you do try, I know, 
 because I understand your strength and beauty. It 
 is I who forget." 
 
 Rosalind was not aware that he had quitted the 
 room until she heard his firm step ring upon the 
 flagstones in the hall. A conflict of impulse and 
 emotion shook her body. 
 
 " Ben," she called; and in the same moment 
 snapped close her lips, her hands pressed over them, 
 her eyes wide. Had he heard? With her whole 
 body she listened. . . . The footsteps still sounded, 
 fainter and more faint. With a sudden, half- 
 ashamed relief she crumpled back into her arm-chair. 
 After all, there was nothing to tell him yet, she reas- 
 sured herself; it was better that he go and she look 
 into the fire and think on Orpheus.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 AFTER THE CONCERT 
 
 THE concert was a great success. Half of the 
 enjoyment derived from music lies in sharing 
 it with a congenial mind. To the amateur 
 sympathetic response is everything, and Rosalind, 
 after a legion of youthful escorts who took music 
 only on sufferance, found the keenest delight in a 
 companion who understood and adored that which 
 she found moving. Each song to Eric was definitive 
 of some mood; and thanks to a long schooling in 
 music, he could readily interpret and explain what 
 Rosalind only felt. Between the songs the con- 
 versation turned on his celebrated father. To Eric 
 he was a demigod. The memory of the tenor's 
 early triumphs, when, a boy of ten, Eric had stood 
 in the wings to hear whole theatres rise in tempestu- 
 ous acclamation, lingered in his mind and threw 
 about his father as if it were real the artificial 
 glamour of the stage. As a father, he had never ex- 
 isted. A man singing now at the Covent Garden, 
 now in Buenos Ayres, and the next month in Berlin 
 is ever more of a luxury than a parent to his child. 
 To the son's mind the father was always the re- 
 splendent Duke in " Rigoletto," glittering with 
 jewels, or Rhadames on his triumphal car, a station 
 in which even ugly tenors appeared to advantage and 
 one in which his father had been strikingly hand- 
 some. Upon these stories of triumph Rosalind fed 
 
 136
 
 AFTER THE CONCERT 137 
 
 till her imagination could almost picture the La 
 Scala in a delirium of excitement; she felt that at 
 last she had met with some one to whom she might 
 confide her appreciations and yearnings. 
 
 Woman cannot be understood; there are two parts 
 to her which play hide-and-seek for domination. 
 One part requires strength, muscles, physique, and 
 worships a Hercules, though his head be filled with 
 bran and his feet be clay; the other sets eyes upon 
 the soul and stares till blindness comes, infatuated 
 by some shred of genius discovered in an effeminate 
 ass. If the woman marries the Colossus, she de- 
 spises the sterility of his soul; if she marries the 
 man who understands her heart, she despises the 
 sterility of his body. Whatever happens, the part 
 which has not conquered makes life miserable for 
 the part which has, and at forty the giant's wife has 
 an affair with a dream-eyed poet, whose own wife 
 in turn is playing golf in the mountains with the 
 champion of three states. Fine women do not go to 
 these extremes. Rosalind had always found Ben- 
 jamin insufficient, had known from the first that her 
 heart required more love than was his to give. 
 When his foot went to sleep during Melba's singing 
 of Tosti's " Good->bye, Summer," she suddenly re- 
 alised that at forty he would be unbearable. How 
 different it was with Eric! She glanced at him, 
 leaning forward with intense interest in the match- 
 less voice, and smiled a contented smile. Compari- 
 sons are never odious to the one who makes them. 
 
 When the concert was over, they walked back in 
 the soft light of late afternoon to 29 Common- 
 wealth Avenue, where Mrs. Copley was sitting with 
 Rosalind's young brother, Jack, just returned from 
 St. Matthew's for the April holidays. He was one
 
 138 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 of the familiar type which our best boarding-schools, 
 furnished with the right material, can and do turn 
 out in large quantities: attractive, clean, high- 
 tempered, and obstinately opposed to the cultiva- 
 tion of his mind. For his scholastic deficiencies 
 Mrs. Copley blamed the school, Mr. Copley the 
 boy, and Jack himself the whole ridiculous educa- 
 tional system, which he chose to characterise as 
 " bughouse." 
 
 " How was Jack's report? " asked Rosalind, when 
 her young brother had disappeared. 
 
 Mrs. Copley made a grimace. 
 
 " Don't speak of reports, dear. Your father's 
 been lecturing me all the afternoon about them 
 me, mind you. Now he's gone off to the Club 
 completely exhausted, leaving Jack not yet spoken 
 to. The mind has study pains just as the body has 
 growing pains; the latter are painful to the son, 
 the former to the parents. I'm glad you've come, 
 Mr. Rolland, for I need to be soothed. You'll 
 play to me, won't you? Rosalind has said so much 
 about you that ever since yesterday I have been on 
 the qui vive." 
 
 Rosalind's face burned self-consciously as Eric 
 turned towards her: she felt it impossible to face 
 his gaze. 
 
 " She has been most kind to mention me. I 
 hoped she would." 
 
 With a bright glance he followed Rosalind into 
 the music room. 
 
 " Will you stay with me ? " 
 
 She smiled in reply, and sat where she might 
 stare at him unobserved, the momentary wave of 
 strange unrest ebbing from her. He ran over a 
 few of Schumann-Heink's songs with a deft, sure
 
 AFTER THE CONCERT 139 
 
 touch, then essayed something more pretentious. 
 In the midst of a dashing French waltz voices from 
 the drawing-room halted his fingers. 
 
 " Oh, don't stop ! " cried out Mrs. Copley. " It's 
 so improving for Ben and my husband ! Please go 
 on." 
 
 " You must meet my father. You haven't yet, 
 have you? " 
 
 Rosalind saw an excellent opportunity to bring 
 Benjamin and Eric Rolland together, and though 
 she shrank from the meeting, realised its necessity. 
 During the last two days her position had been too 
 false and too perilous for maintenance. It was far 
 better that she introduce Eric to Benjamin than 
 malicious tongues perform that office. 
 
 In a moment the meeting was over. As Ben- 
 jamin measured the stranger's slender figure and 
 eager, mobile face, she could see that her choice 
 of the concert instead of the visit to the Longwood 
 Hospital rankled in his mind. It was plain that 
 he was hurt and plain that he wished her to know. 
 For a moment the situation was strained; then Mrs. 
 Copley came to the rescue. Better than any 
 woman in Boston she knew how to combat such a 
 moment. 
 
 " I'm done with Russian literature, Jack," she 
 said, picking up a book from the table beside her 
 with a wry face. " If you want to please me, never 
 give me a Russian novel again." 
 
 " Why, Mrs. Copley? " asked Eric with a quizzi- 
 cal look. 
 
 "Oh, they are so unpleasant!" Mrs. Copley 
 shrugged her pretty shoulders. " My idea of Rus- 
 sian literature is a composite picture of any number 
 of consumptive death-beds. And they always die
 
 1 40 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 under the most revolting circumstances. As for the 
 characters, no one would ever want to know them; 
 they are all unclean, unmoral, and unscrupulous." 
 
 " There are lots of people in the world like 
 them." 
 
 "But why write about such people? What is 
 the use? It's too depressing." Mrs. Copley 
 shook her head till the lamplight danced in the pearls 
 about her neck. " If they'd only wash up their 
 heroes and let them die pleasantly! I'm sure it 
 does nobody good to read such books." 
 
 " Hasn't it done you good already without your 
 knowing it? " 
 
 " I can't see how." Mrs. Copley looked in a 
 delightfully puzzled way at the young Frenchman. 
 
 " Why, it's made you angry against such condi- 
 tions in books, and that's the next thing to being 
 roused against such conditions in real life." 
 
 Mrs. Copley's eyebrows were still arched. A 
 person who regards literature as confectionery to 
 be sampled and consumed like candied comfits in 
 leisure hours, readily fails to grasp any personal 
 relation with a dirty peasant in a Russian novel. 
 
 " He's right, Mother. I'm sure that such books 
 do a world of good. If our friends would only 
 read them, perhaps Chambers Street wouldn't look 
 as it does on a hot day in summer, crammed with 
 dirty and pitiful babies. They're as thick as flies, 
 aren't they, Ben?" 
 
 " Indeed, yes." 
 
 "And you know about them, Miss Copley?" 
 Eric asked with surprised interest. 
 
 " Know about them?" broke in her father from 
 over the Transcript. " Rosalind is one of our best 
 little social reformers I "
 
 AFTER THE CONCERT 141 
 
 "Jack, stop! You know you're prouder than 
 any one of what she has done at Brimmer House." 
 
 " Don't you think I look interested in such 
 things?" asked Rosalind. 
 
 " Perhaps you do." Eric looked boldly at her. 
 " At first I didn't think you did; you are so " 
 
 "Don't!" interrupted Rosalind gaily. "Don't 
 throw my femininity in my face ! I believe every 
 man in this world thinks that a girl must have the 
 appearance of a prize-fighter to delve into anything 
 more than bonbons and styles. You one and all 
 condemn us to be butterflies." 
 
 Is not woman perverse, uncertain, hard to 
 please? When Benjamin cast blundering asper- 
 sions upon the feminine world, Rosalind thought 
 it necessary to her honour to punish him; but 
 the same condemnation from Eric's lips brought 
 forth no more than a gay provocation to 
 further condemning. Circumstances do indeed alter 
 cases. 
 
 " I suppose it's because the average man prefers 
 the eater of bonbons to the social worker," laughed 
 Eric, " and hopes to find, almost without knowing 
 it, the old Victorian type in every girl he meets. 
 No one can see a butterfly without wanting to catch 
 it but it is not so pretty at home under glass. 
 I'm glad you are interested in the poor." 
 
 " They all adore her, Mr. Rolland. I've even 
 had some of her girls here to tea ! " 
 
 Mrs. Copley smiled a benignant, disarming smile. 
 Behold her concession to poverty; was she not 
 abreast of the new movement? 
 
 " Her girls?" 
 
 " From Brimmer House, Mamma means. That's 
 the charity at which I've helped for four years."
 
 1 42 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " I should like to see it. Will you take me some 
 time?" 
 
 u With pleasure. I'll even make you play for 
 them. I impress all my men friends into the serv- 
 ice; Benjamin has been my trusty financial aide for 
 months." 
 
 A sop for Cerberus. But Cerberus was in no 
 mood for such trifles and glowered at the words. 
 Benjamin arose stiffly from his chair; Brimmer 
 House had been one of the closest ties between him- 
 self and Rosalind, something peculiarly intimate; 
 who was this stranger invading the hallowed ground 
 of their friendship? He went home, jealous, re- 
 sentful, unhappy. No matter how small the prov- 
 ocation, a man in love can find tears in the eyes of 
 angels and spots as big as his head upon the sun. 
 Everything to the lover is wrong until proved right; 
 everything goes under penalty of suspicion until ab- 
 solved by a kiss. 
 
 But with Rosalind how different! As she sat 
 down after dinner to write a long overdue letter to 
 Camilla Cabot, the sole repository of her thoughts, 
 she was resplendently joyous. Enchanted by Eric, 
 she was also happy that her cowardice was con- 
 quered, that she and Benjamin had come to an agree- 
 ment by means of which, with a little skill on her 
 part, a not too unpleasant adjustment of their re- 
 lations might be effected. Thanks to her high spir- 
 its, the letter was written in the most flippant and 
 sprightly of tones. 
 
 Friday, April I2th. 
 Dearest Cammy: 
 
 I really don't deserve the bushel of ungenteel adjectives 
 your last letter dumped on me. Wait until you hear what 
 has happened, my darling Cam, before you bite because I
 
 AFTER [THE CONCERT 143 
 
 didn't write. Skipping lightly from poetry to the Bible, I 
 have walked through the Valley of the Shadow and even 
 still my path is umbrageous. Which is all by way of say- 
 ing that your old Samson has gone and done it! 
 
 It happened at Aiken, my lovely Cammy, when the sun 
 was peeping through the singing pines. And it came that 
 sudden: PLOSH! Just like that! A first class chance 
 to be the Governor's wife! You said when you departed 
 for Panama with my best Thomasine jabot as I later 
 discovered ! that Ben would some day be the First Gent, 
 in Mass., you know. But I disregarded gubernatorial at- 
 traction, and can still sign " Ever thine " to thee. 
 
 Poor Ben has taken it terribly hard. (I know, but 
 there's no one else to say it!) Our friendship is all gone 
 packing, and the situation now is AWFUL! Cammy love, 
 he won't take " no " ! And I, being as you know a sweet, 
 affectionate, loving creature, cannot be brutal with him. So 
 we've set a Doomsday June 1st. You must return, dear, 
 and help dust up the room after the battle is over. 
 
 Life is not all thistles and cabbages, though. Loveliest 
 Cam, eine bluhende Rose ist in meinen Garten gekommen! 
 It's my perverse nature to write in German, for he's a 
 French rose, come a-visiting Uncle Sing-Sing. Conceive 
 me abattue, aplatie, emue and everything like that on 
 entering the Square and finding an adorable young demi-god 
 at the piano! At least he looked like that in the morning 
 sunlight. He plays comme un inspire. Look up hero in 
 the dictionary. Tall, slender, graceful, dark, curly-haired, 
 green-eyed oh, so green, Cammy, dear ! well dressed 
 hold that pose, please! Doesn't that sound like a six-best- 
 seller? I call him very handsome; his face is bizarre, I 
 suppose, but so interesting and mobile. (Pit-pat! pit-pat! 
 My heart beating, Cammy.) 
 
 Are you jealous? Ben is! But wait till you see him! 
 No-o-o! You might turn abductress. At present we are 
 artistically flighty; perhaps from the style of this epistle you 
 will gather that I am a trifle aerial, but you have told me 
 you liked it.
 
 144 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 Anges en del 
 Mangent de miel. 
 Miel, ta louange; 
 Je suis ton ange! 
 
 ROSE. 
 
 P.S. His name is Eric Rolland ; the son of the tenor, Lu- 
 cien. Glamour, you say? 
 
 P. P.S. Cam! They've got a new Club in town. I'm 
 going to-morrow. They have a Bible talk in the morning 
 from Dr. Snuffle ; in the afternoon they play bridge. That's 
 preparedness against the Evil One, ain't it? 
 
 Lastly, lovely Cammy, he's an architect. Do you sup- 
 pose he designs love in a cottage?
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 WHAT PATRICIA THOUGHT 
 
 THE sprightly mood in which Rosalind had 
 composed her letter to the admiring and ex- 
 cellent Camilla continued on the day follow- 
 ing. She arose with a song in her heart and de- 
 scended to breakfast with it on her lips, returning 
 Jack's shyly affectionate embrace with a kiss of splen- 
 did dimensions. To fill her cup brimful, the family 
 readily acceded to her postponement of the annual 
 spring removal to the Sherborne farm, thus leaving 
 her an additional week in town to spend in cultivating 
 her newest and most alluring interest. 
 
 With far more gaiety than was her wont, she 
 set off with her mother for the Bridge and Bible 
 Club, which on this day met at the magnificent resi- 
 dence of Mrs. Preble. One could not call it a house. 
 A house suggests home and the fireside, something 
 to leave and return to, something to cherish almost 
 as a friend; but this was nothing more nor less than 
 a magnificent residence. Mrs. Preble accorded 
 with the popular conception of a social leader. An 
 imported product, she had gone in for everything 
 which she felt sure might galvanise Boston: mon- 
 keys, suffrage, professional dancers, Arabian foot* 
 men why not a Bridge and Bible Club? The 
 idea had come to her from New York; they were 
 doing it there. Before this dazzling novelty, even 
 
 145
 
 i 4 6 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 though the Biblical morning scarcely appealed to 
 her, Mrs. Preble lost interest in her effort to pro- 
 vide the babies of the North End with pure milk. 
 Here was a pursuit far worthier of her attention; 
 and she gave it with the fatuous eagerness of all 
 those ultra-fashionables who, lacking the brains to 
 entertain themselves, must spend their time in en- 
 tertaining others. Lo, the Bridge and Bible Club 
 waxed as is the way of fat weeds! On this morn- 
 ing all the smart ladies of the town were assembled 
 in Mrs. Treble's ballroom, gorgeously dressed and 
 bearing a treasury of jewels. Rosalind swept her 
 eyes over the " flock " as Dr. Snuffle, from a coign 
 of vantage under a Nattier depicting a bathing 
 nymph, unctuously called them and wondered 
 with a smile why they had all come. Her mother, 
 she knew, spoke of Mrs. Preble with a pretty shrug. 
 Had they come, like herself, out of curiosity? Sur- 
 prises in Boston society usually emanated from one 
 source, Mrs. Preble; and the beau monde, though 
 it often wondered if she were not going a little too 
 far, invariably went with her. 
 
 Dr. Snuffle exuded a diluted account of Ruth and 
 Boaz. It was a pretty subject, pretty in other days 
 and pretty now by contrast; he told them so, but 
 apart from that ventured nothing constructive, ex- 
 cept a hope that each one would carry away the 
 lesson of faith and love. When he had finished, 
 Rosalind could see women right and left carrying 
 away the lesson. Some of them carried it into the 
 library for a smoke; others carried it to the butler 
 and one of the Arabian footmen, who were serving 
 -cocktails in the music-room; but most of the women 
 carried their faith and love into the dining-room 
 and thus strengthened fell upon the luncheon.
 
 WHAT PATRICIA THOUGHT 147 
 
 Rosalind could plainly see that the talk had bene- 
 fited them all. They spoke in hushed voices of the 
 subject and the preacher. One woman, though she 
 remembered having heard the story before, ex- 
 pressed over a plate of chicken salad her agreeable 
 willingness to hear it again just for the sake of the 
 moral; another found Boas cold; a third thought 
 Ruth forward; but all agreed that Dr. Snuffle had 
 told the story in a charming way and wondered 
 how soon the bridge would begin after luncheon. 
 To Rosalind the whole affair was delightfully en- 
 grossing. It was such a stupendous sham ! She was 
 sensible enough to realise the ludicrous side of the 
 gathering at the same time that she deprecated its 
 essential wrong. To Mrs. Copley it was only an- 
 other breach made by Mrs. Preble in convention; 
 her daughter saw also the breach in society's strength 
 before the world. A Bridge and Bible Club, in- 
 deed! Plague take the twentieth century for its 
 terrible gift to our poor mortal world, its nai've and 
 impudently ingenuous manner of doing wrong. 
 
 " Hello, Rosey! Have a cocktail? " 
 
 Rosalind turned with a pleasant shake of her 
 head. She had seen too much of the bitterer life 
 at Brimmer House to be shocked by such a jarring 
 note, and could be Roman enough in Rome, how- 
 ever she inwardly disapproved of that city's man- 
 ners. 
 
 " Why, Patsy Canfield ! Wherever have you 
 come from? " 
 
 Patricia Canfield, whose hands Rosalind would 
 have seized, but that she bore a glass in each, was 
 a dark-eyed brunette, considered by most mothers 
 dangerously beautiful and by most sons beautifully 
 dangerous. Though her family was as old as any
 
 148 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 in Massachusetts, Patricia and her parents were not 
 highly regarded in the community. Some said that 
 the family was too old. Patricia's father had com- 
 mitted suicide; her mother's residence abroad was 
 explained in polite conversation by that phrase of 
 phrases, " for her health." For years Patricia and 
 Rosalind had gone to school together, but, though 
 they had seen much of each other all their lives, 
 Rosalind had never fully made up her mind whether 
 she liked her friend or not. Miss Canfield had 
 the attractions common to youth and cleverness, be- 
 ing beautiful and, superficially at least, the last word 
 in reckless modernity. Like the last word in any- 
 thing, she engrossed the attention of friends and 
 enemies alike. Cubism is to-day the thing in art; 
 and you will find the most high-waisted devotee of 
 pre-Raphaelitism that ever worshipped Burne-Jones 
 lingering for hours in front of the " Nude Com- 
 ing Down Stairs." The world is ever progressive. 
 If it were not, people would take as little interest 
 in the last word as they do in any fixed thing. It 
 is because the last word of to-day is the revered 
 idol of to-morrow that people regard it with a fear- 
 ful interest, fascinated by its prophetic character. 
 For Rosalind there was too much of Helen in Pa- 
 tricia to trust, and too much of Cassandra to un- 
 derstand. 
 
 " I've come from Paris within a week. Been 
 over with Mat. There! " (as she drank one cock- 
 tail). "Religion makes me thirsty! Do I look 
 dreadfully wicked, Rosey? " 
 
 * You haven't changed much anyway, Pat ! " 
 
 " Change ? Age cannot wither, nor custom stale 
 my infinite my infinite infinity ! Sure you don't 
 want this, dear ? " She pointed to the second cock-
 
 Patricia
 
 WHAT PATRICIA THOUGHT 149 
 
 tail. " No, of course not 1 What shall I do with 
 it? " she asked in a general way. 
 
 " Do with it, Patty? " called Mrs. Preble, as she 
 swept imperially by on a tour of inspection. " Drink 
 it, child!/' 
 
 Patricia Canfield smilingly complied. 
 
 " One can't be rude, Rosey! To such a hostess, 
 too ! " she whispered, catching Rosalind by the arm. 
 " Let's go in to lunch together, dear. It's months 
 since I've seen you, and we must talk, talk, talk! 
 Ain't I wicked, Rosey?" 
 
 She let slip a provocative smile, such as she had 
 often employed in the past to reduce Harvard un- 
 dergraduates who fancied themselves in love to a 
 state of utter imbecility. 
 
 " Patsy, who were you before you were Cleo- 
 patra?" 
 
 " Priscilla Alden mustn't flatter I What luck I 
 Here's a table for two." 
 
 They sat down amidst the bustle and chattering of 
 the crowded room. 
 
 " Now, Pat, tell me all about it. What have you 
 been up to? " 
 
 " First, Rosey, is the Ogress here? " 
 
 " You mean my Cammy, I suppose. She'd give it 
 to you for the way you've behaved to-day, Pat! 
 But I'm too good-tempered. No, the Ogress is off 
 doing Panama with her papa." 
 
 Patricia Canfield made up a face. 
 
 " With all respect for our angelic school friend, 
 I'm glad. You'll never guess what I've been doing 
 this winter! I've been keeping pigs in Paul Oh, 
 I'm the bucolic, I am ! Barbara Frietchie and Maud 
 Muller all in one. How does it go * Up from 
 the meadows fresh with corn ' ? Mat and I had
 
 1 50 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 the darlingest farm at Pau ! Look at my figger, 
 Rosey: haying! My complexion: gardening! And 
 the pigs: my dear girl, I could bring up ten babies 
 now! They're nothing like a litter of piglets, I'll 
 warrant." 
 
 " I suppose you've thrown over a dozen dukes ! " 
 
 " There's no telling, Rosey. How's your god- 
 pa?" 
 
 " He's the same. We went to Aiken again." 
 
 " So ? And the Square is lively as ever, I sup- 
 pose? " 
 
 " Lively, Patty ! We've got a ' young Frencher ' 
 there, as Alfie calls him." 
 
 'Not with Sing-Song?" 
 
 " Patty ! " Rosalind shook her head in comic re- 
 proof. " Eric Rolland's his name. Did you ever 
 meet him the tenor's son? " 
 
 "Eric! Not Eric?" 
 
 " You have met him, Pat? " 
 
 " Met him ? I came over on the boat with him 1 
 Met him ? Oh, Rosey 1 One of those slow French 
 liners and a moon for nine nights." 
 
 Rosalind sat up very straight in her chair and 
 grew red. She was glad Patricia was looking out 
 of the window. 
 
 " Don't he play well, dear? " she went on reminis- 
 cently. " I tell you he gave me quite a flutter. You 
 must take me to see him. I'm a desperate case of 
 Eric or erotic or something." 
 
 Miss Canfield laughed and to Rosalind's relief 
 turned the subject of conversation, dashing off in 
 a brilliant extravagance upon a poor farmer's son 
 who had fallen in love with her in a hayfield at 
 Pau. 
 
 The trouble was that a little village girl adored 
 
 u
 
 WHAT PATRICIA THOUGHT 151 
 
 him. They were engaged or something, and I guess 
 his parents regarded me as a second Carmen. They 
 even came one Sunday to plead with Mat. ' Will 
 you believe it, Rosey, they asked Mat to interfere 
 for her poor dead husband's sake? Imaginez! 
 Mat flew into such a passion that even I was 
 alarmed at the size of her vocabulary and the quan- 
 tity of her breath. Andrea Sebastien was his name 
 and he was handsome enough for the whole of it. 
 There's a lot in a name, dear; you look rosy, you 
 know, and every time I see Camilla I think of Fanny 
 Burney and all those other stupids. I do wish Mrs. 
 Preble would hurry. Apologies aside, Rosey, I'm 
 dying for cards and cash. I'm going to play against 
 Mrs. Gloucester, and if I don't get some lingerie 
 out of the old dear, why, I shall have to go without 
 and add Lady Godiva to my other accomplish- 
 ments ! " 
 
 After the ladies had sat down to bridge and Rosa- 
 lind had excused herself from what Mrs. Preble 
 predicted would be the fun, she walked down the 
 Avenue to her godfather's house, turning over in 
 her mind what her old friend had said. The mat- 
 ter of Patricia's having crossed on the same liner 
 with Eric Rolland was an occurrence of concern to 
 her. While, as she told herself, she was no more 
 than much interested in the young Frenchman, she 
 knew Patricia well enough to regard their acquaint- 
 anceship as a troublesome element in certain little 
 plans which she had been shaping. To some ways 
 of thinking nine days is a short space, scarcely more 
 than a week; but in that time Patricia was capable 
 of both subjugating and devastating a male heart. 
 Rosalind herself had known Eric but for three 
 days.
 
 152 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 She earnestly wished that he had not met Patricia. 
 Yet at the same time that she felt a little shocked, 
 she could not but remember that Patricia was one 
 of her own oldest friends. Whether she approved 
 of her behaviour was apart from the question. She 
 had successively adored, fought, and tolerated Pa- 
 tricia; why should not others? No, she certainly 
 could not blame Eric in her mind for knowing her, 
 even for liking her. Did he like her? Thanks to 
 her absorption in this insoluble question she unob- 
 servantly walked directly into an oncoming perambu- 
 lator, the propelling power of which was gazing 
 across the road with unfeigned admiration at a friend 
 in the police. Probably there had been on the 
 French liner no other attractive people; probably 
 Eric had played for Patricia often and she had 
 heaped adulation on him; probably they had sat 
 out on the top deck in the moonlight, discussing those 
 unfathomable subjects which seem inseparably con- 
 nected with sea voyages. If this were true and 
 it did not take long for Rosalind, building on Pa- 
 tricia's flighty remarks, to believe that it was why 
 then, the sooner she abandoned a course of intimacy 
 with Eric for one of civility the better. But in mat- 
 ters of love decisions based on reason are soon 
 broken. She entered 8 Louisburg Square to meet 
 Eric, with his fine hand extended to take hers, say- 
 ing, u I have been waiting for you ; I thought you 
 had forgotten." 
 
 Resolutionary firmness vanished; the thickest fog 
 melts under the beneficent radiance of the sun. 
 
 "Not I. Even the Bridge and Bible Club 
 couldn't efface that appointment. Where's Uncle 
 Sing-Sing? I must tell him all about it." 
 
 Together they went up to the invalid's study,
 
 WHAT PATRICIA THOUGHT 153 
 
 where he lay on his ottoman, watching aerial fingers 
 at work upon his beloved Square in the interests of 
 a new and softer season. He turned his head to 
 see them enter, and there was longing in his eyes. 
 He cared, as we have seen, for almost no one. In- 
 deed, one might have said that all the love the human 
 heart is capable of yearned in his breast for these two 
 fair young creatures, standing side by side in the 
 premature gloom of his front room. 
 
 " Godfather," ventured Rosalind, after an ac- 
 count of the party from which Patricia was tactfully 
 omitted, " we ought to launch Mr. Rolland " 
 
 " Eric," interrupted Mr. Singleton Singleton 
 slowly. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Eric," he repeated. 
 
 " Oh, please do, Miss Copley. Please call 
 me " 
 
 " Rosalind ! " the invalid interrupted again. 
 
 It was Rosalind's turn to cry out this time. She 
 and Eric looked at each other and burst out laugh- 
 ing. 
 
 " Listen, Uncle Sing-Sing! We must launch Eric 
 in Boston society! " 
 
 ' You speak of me as if I were a man-o'-war ! " 
 
 " I'm sure you are much more interesting than 
 one; see if Boston doesn't think so. Now, Uncle 
 Sing-Sing, I should imagine a very little dinner in 
 the Square would be the best thing." 
 
 " Must we? " Mr. Singleton Singleton appealed 
 rather sadly to Rosalind. What was he thinking 
 of behind those wan eyes? Society had taken young 
 Rosalind from him on the eve of her debut; perhaps 
 he had hoped to keep this new source of joy all to 
 himself.
 
 154 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " We mustn't be selfish, dear. I have thought of 
 April the twentieth." 
 
 "So soon?" 
 
 " We mustn't lock poor Eric up as if he were a 
 criminal or a monk. Of course, he wants to see and 
 meet a few people; even you and I prove a bore 
 after a while." 
 
 " Not at all. I " 
 
 " April twentieth is fixed for your public appear- 
 ance," she interrupted with a laugh. " You mustn't 
 look a gift debut in the mouth. You're agreeable, 
 Uncle Sing-Sing?" 
 
 The invalid nodded. 
 
 "Who will be invited?" asked Eric, affecting 
 great timidity. " May I know? " 
 
 " Leave the guests to me," replied Rosalind, " and 
 I'll surprise you both." 
 
 The list had been in her mind all day. To write 
 the invitations was a small matter Benjamin and 
 Dr. Gary, Mr. and Mrs. Veneerable, Mrs. Mont- 
 gomery Longfellow, Justice Pauncher, Mr. Swel- 
 front, the world-famous architect, for Eric's par- 
 ticular benefit, and several people to fill in. When 
 the invitations were all written, Rosalind medi- 
 tatively bit the end of the penholder. How about 
 Patricia Canfield ? She had deliberately passed over 
 her name, but on consideration wondered if a greater 
 wisdom did not lie in inviting her troublesome friend. 
 The only way to ascertain the true relations of two 
 people is to bring them together; here lay an excel- 
 lent opportunity for observation. Valuing the 
 sharpness of Patricia's tongue and knowing that her 
 omission would inevitably lead to embarrassing in- 
 uendoes, she tore up the note to Pauline Peabody,
 
 WHAT PATRICIA THOUGHT 1551 
 
 and wrote as follows, suiting her style to Patricia's 
 well known humour. 
 
 Dear Cleopatra: 
 
 Dinner at the Square April twentieth. A foreign gen- 
 tleman to be entertained; has no title, but good looks and 
 genius. Eight o'clock. 
 
 Your Rose and Sing-Sing need you ! 
 
 P. S. Pigs not allowed on the premises. R. 
 
 The week which intervened before the dinner was 
 a memorable one. According to their original 
 agreement Rosalind turned Baedeker for Eric's 
 benefit, and found her personally conducted tours an 
 infinite pleasure. Together they journeyed every- 
 where, to every historic landmark, to every nook of 
 interest or curiosity, and especially to any towns 
 where Eric could observe examples of Colonial archi- 
 tecture. Salem and Newburyport were ransacked 
 until his notebooks were filled with rough sketches of 
 relics of simpler days. Americans no longer build 
 homes; they build factories, sky-scrapers, houses, to 
 be sure, but the art of building homes vanished with 
 the art of living in them. 
 
 Particularly memorable was one glorious day spent 
 in the country. They had automobiled out to a 
 famous mansion near Lancaster in the early morn- 
 ing, a fascinating old house, typical of the finest 
 Colonial spirit. Before it Eric soon fell a-sketching 
 with eager zeal, while Rosalind, stretched at full 
 length on the grass under the shade of her gay cre- 
 tonne parasol, pretended an absorption in Verhaer- 
 en's poems. The grass was soft and warm from 
 the morning sun and as it stirred against her breast, 
 she enjoyed a delicious sense of relaxation. Above
 
 156 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 the house swept the graceful branches of elms, mov- 
 ing an intricate tracery of shadow as the breeze, 
 which still bore in its dash a trace of the season gone 
 before, gently moved them to and fro. From the 
 corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of Eric, so 
 close that it was possible to touch him with the silver 
 tip of her parasol. The book dropped from her 
 hands; in this radiance she smelt the kerosene of its 
 nocturnal composition. How little poetry has been 
 written which can be read with respect and pleasure 
 out of doors in April ! Rosalind turned lazily upon 
 her side, lowering the parasol that the sun might fall 
 upon her face. There was a great stillness every- 
 where ; the countryside slept like a child. Far away 
 a silent hill swelled in a brilliant outline against the 
 sky. It was as if the concentrated essence of the 
 most inspired of seasons had been poured forth with 
 a lavish hand, as if before its adolescent beauty na- 
 ture and all things productive of sound were hushed 
 in a perfect concord of silence. Being one to whom 
 out of doors is dear, Rosalind felt the inexpressible 
 beauty of this morning rise resistless in her heart. 
 She sat up and stretched her arms out in the stream- 
 ing sunlight. 
 
 " Oh, Eric, I can't read this poetry ! It's all 
 around me now so much fairer than mortal hands 
 can write it. Those old elms as they droop over 
 the house are like tired guardians. Don't you love 
 them? Just see the green of those meadows, the 
 aquamarine of that little lake, and far off the deep 
 blue of those hills! Doesn't it make you want to 
 sing? I feel like crying out that this is the best and 
 most beautiful world ever created ! " 
 
 Eric looked up from his sketchbook. 
 
 " No, not cry out." He cast his eyes reflectively
 
 WHAT PATRICIA THOUGHT 157 
 
 over the country side. " Rather fall on my knees 
 and thank God for it all ! What might not a Corot 
 or a Constable feel now. And here I am paltering 
 away with these dry architect's sketches. Let's climb 
 the hill, Rose." 
 
 " Yes, yes ! We can see even more from 
 there!" 
 
 Together they climbed the hill, struggling side 
 by side over fences and bending under hedges, 
 breathing fast in the eagerness of the ascent. At 
 length they stood upon the summit. The panorama 
 spread out at their feet in a wealth of dimpling 
 meadows and swelling hills made them exclaim in 
 unison. 
 
 "How grand it is!" Rosalind murmured. 
 " And yet," she continued after a pause, " it is 
 simple. Other hills are twenty times as magnificent 
 as these and other fields twenty times as rich. Yet 
 spring can make this seem unparalleled." 
 
 "America is so big!" said Eric. "Look how 
 it stretches away on all sides! In France the hor- 
 izon seems the end of the world; here the horizon 
 promises only more grandeur. Sometimes America 
 is ragged and ugly, but it is always great." 
 
 " This is the America we love. I wish it could 
 all be spread out over the vile city ! " 
 
 " That would only cover up its wickedness." 
 
 " In time the roots would grow downward. Oh, 
 Eric, I adore this. I should have been born a milk- 
 maid. I am at home with nature as you are; I feel 
 it is a neighbour, a friend." 
 
 " ' Les ombres, les eaux, et I' art champetre avaient 
 compose une harmonie si simple qu'elle paraissait 
 conduite selon le rythme de la flute a trots notes, 
 taillee dans le roseau palustre,' " Eric quoted.
 
 158 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " What is that?" 
 
 " D'Annunzio, I think. It has always stayed in 
 my memory." 
 
 " How quiet it is ! We might be in Mars or 
 Venus and be no more alone. There is no one to 
 hear us, no one to care." 
 
 A pause fell between them; words were empty, 
 as is the wind in a blue sky. For the first time in 
 her life Rosalind felt that deep communion of spirit 
 which is so rare in mortal worlds. They stood for 
 a while in the clear morning with heads high, silent 
 and thoughtful, made akin by the subtleties of like 
 and dislike ; then turned and slowly moved down the 
 slope, still silent. They were almost afraid to 
 speak. There had been more than a vision of nature 
 in the panorama on which they turned their backs, 
 and they could find no words to express that which 
 at first mortality can never understand. 
 
 The day of the dinner arrived. After a week in 
 which she had been thrown continually with Eric 
 to the exclusion of every one else, Rosalind could not 
 regard the event without concern. It was worse 
 than casting a pearl before swine; it was casting a 
 pearl before a connoisseur in jewellery, an action nat- 
 urally repellent to any woman in her senses. All 
 women are protectionist at heart; there is not a one 
 of them who in the matter of the opposite sex be- 
 lieves in the open-door policy. Rosalind began to 
 wish that she had not been so rash in her launching 
 of Eric on the social sea. Never a week in her 
 life had passed more happily than the one just 
 finished. Nothing had been amiss; she had found 
 Eric as lovable as he was handsome and as interest- 
 ing as he was gifted. Attracted to him primarily by
 
 WHAT PATRICIA THOUGHT 159 
 
 his great personal charm and beauty, she later found 
 in his naivete, in his warmth of heart, and in his 
 kindred interests and ambitions the causes for much 
 more than mere attraction. Love had come to her 
 quickly, with the superb suddenness of the first note 
 in a symphony. When it had once begun to vibrate, 
 that note swelled into a diapason that flooded her 
 whole life with music. 
 
 There were two things to trouble her. Having 
 assured Benjamin that she could never love any one 
 greatly, she now found her life impregnated with a 
 mighty adoration. Far from being concerned over 
 this contradiction, she found it rather delightful than 
 otherwise; but Benjamin's unhappiness did hurt. 
 Her regard for Eric soon made itself apparent to 
 his ready watchfulness. One does not need to ex- 
 plain such things to a man who loves; there are a 
 thousand thousand unconscious mannerisms, affecta- 
 tions, glances, words, expressions, all of which be- 
 tray what is supposedly concealed. Explanation 
 surely boggles such a business ; tacit revelation is the 
 more sure and the more painful. In the midst of 
 her happiness Rosalind felt Benjamin's grief as one 
 is aware of the prick of a thorn hidden under a pro- 
 fusion of roses. A second thorn was Patricia Can- 
 field. Rosalind had not told Eric of their meeting; 
 she had pushed her old friend as far out of her mind 
 as possible. But it was of no use to submerge 
 Patricia in her thoughts; as if made of cork, she 
 bobbed to the surface, a perpetual bogey. Having 
 consistently recoiled from probing the matter in her 
 heart, Rosalind felt, as she sat waiting for the guests 
 to arrive that Friday evening, that she would have 
 been far better off to have made up her mind to the 
 matter long ago and introduced Eric and Patricia be-
 
 160 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 fore things had gone so far with herself. But what 
 was done, was done; and her business this night was 
 to use a very bright pair of eyes and a very sharp 
 pair of ears to the best advantage. 
 
 The guests were politely late, except Dr. Gary 
 and Patricia. By reason of living life on a schedule 
 the great surgeon was never late on any occasion, and 
 arrived at eight precise. But Patricia, who in her 
 whole life had never been on time for anything, was 
 the last to arrive. As she moved across the room 
 to speak to Mr. Singleton Singleton, she was the 
 observed of all observers. She always was the last 
 arrival at a dinner party, and, since truisms are never 
 spiteful on pretty lips, her friends agreed that she 
 staged her entrances well. Even Rosalind could not 
 fail to admire her dark beauty; it was as irresistible 
 as her dress, the latest importation from Paris, 
 which must have given even to that city a fillip of 
 excitement. If Patricia was generous in displaying 
 her neck and shoulders, however, she felt assured 
 that the most exacting judge who ever sat in judg- 
 ment had no license to cavil. If men craned their 
 necks, it was a success; if ladies gasped, it was a 
 triumph. As she swept across the room with grace- 
 ful and sinuous assurance, she courted ogling from 
 one sex and indignation from the other and, since 
 she aroused both, was pleased beyond words. 
 
 Fixing her eyes on Eric, Rosalind noted the sur- 
 prise on his face at Patricia's entrance immediately 
 transformed into the most winning smile imaginable. 
 As she saw them shaking hands and observed Pa- 
 tricia behaving in a way calculated to reduce the most 
 catholic-minded man in the world to an idolatrous 
 state, she doubly doubted the wisdom of her invita-
 
 WHAT PATRICIA THOUGHT 161 
 
 tion. Her glance followed them to a corner, where 
 they fell into a most earnest talk. From the fatuous 
 smile on Eric's face, it was apparent that Patricia, 
 past mistress in the manipulation of that most deadly 
 instrument, the trowel, was engaged in laying it on 
 very thick. Tactically Rosalind had made a mis- 
 take. So be it! It was her fault, and no regret, 
 however heartfelt, could put spilt milk back in the 
 pitcher. With this sound conclusion, she took Mr. 
 Swelfront's arm and went in to dinner. Eric and 
 Patricia she had seated opposite; Benjamin was two 
 places off; she herself sat between Dr. Gary and Mr. 
 Swelfront, whose large head bore on it fewer hairs 
 than might be counted on the fingers of both hands. 
 Its sheen in the candle-light fascinated Rosalind; she 
 felt sure that it would have made an excellent ma- 
 terial on which to design architectural masterpieces. 
 But while she imaginatively traced cupolas and pal- 
 aces and town houses on her famous guest's head, she 
 was busied ocularly in watching Eric and Patricia 
 and verbally in praising the architectural capacities 
 of him she watched. Even in the midst of his strug- 
 gle with the asparagus, Mr. Swelfront was politely 
 interested and promised to give Eric what poor in- 
 formation and introduction lay within his power; at 
 which Rosalind felt well pleased with herself, for a 
 word from Mr. Swelfront was sufficient to make 
 sealed doors fly wide. His name was the Open 
 Sesame of American architecture. 
 
 Yet she was far from easy in her mind. It was 
 bad enough to have Benjamin two seats away with 
 his reproving eyes continually upon her without the 
 added torture of Eric and Patricia speaking French 
 in an undertone across the table. What were they
 
 i'6t LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 saying? Patricia was animated, eager, impulsive as 
 ever, filled with the reckless unconcern of to-day. 
 These might be commonplaces which she murmured 
 to Eric, leaning close to him, warm and beautiful. 
 If they were, why need Eric dart so smiling a glance 
 at his companion? Why need he seem so tender in 
 his demeanour; why dilate upon Patricia, seemingly 
 regardless of the lady on his right? And even com- 
 monplaces, spoken in French, seem much more deep 
 and wicked ! 
 
 For a moment Eric's eyes turned upon herself. 
 She had sought to attract his attention, but now 
 averted her gaze, losing completely a valuable dic- 
 tum of Mr. Swelfront regarding the architecture of 
 ancient Smyrna. Why had she looked away? To 
 rectify a conscious mistake, she glanced boldly across 
 the table, but Eric was again talking animatedly to 
 his companion. Patricia never turned her eyes 
 away; if one gazed at her, she returned the look with 
 rich interest. 
 
 In this fashion Rosalind sat through the entire 
 dinner, observing every move of Eric and Patricia 
 to the tune of Mr. Swelfront's drone, an occupation 
 far more trying than diverting. When the ladies 
 had left the gentlemen and retired to the drawing- 
 room, Patricia flew to her side. 
 
 '* Rosey, you're a dear to put me next to Eric. I 
 had a perfect time." 
 
 ' You seemed to, Pat," Rosalind assented a bit 
 coldly. She did not wish to discuss Eric with Pa- 
 tricia; any association of the two was distasteful to 
 her. But curiosity got the better of her proud re- 
 serve. ' You and he seem to have become well 
 enough acquainted on the boat."
 
 WHAT PATRICIA THOUGHT 163 
 
 " Acquainted, Rosey ! Do you know what I 
 think?" 
 
 " No one does, Pat." 
 
 " I think that if I gave that young man half a 
 chance, he'd propose to me. I do, indeed! "
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A CONVERSATION IN THE SQUARE 
 
 THE remark of Patricia's with which the last 
 chapter closed caused Rosalind much unhap- 
 piness. Though it acted as a confirmation of 
 her fears in its seeming assurance that her love was 
 hopeless, it did not in the least alleviate the pangs of 
 that feeling. Some time before the dinner she had 
 found herself deeply in love with Eric. Together 
 they had spent a week of quiet beauty with no one to 
 interfere in their friendship, and Rosalind had dimly 
 hoped that thus alone, the world forgetting, they 
 might struggle side by side up sunlit hills or investi- 
 gate sequestered crannies of life in an unending suc- 
 cession of blissful days. She had come to regard 
 Eric, if not as her own property, still as a being pe- 
 culiarly allied by circumstance to her and to her 
 alone. In a single evening this was changed; in a 
 single evening Virginie found that there were other 
 maidens upon their exotic island against whose 
 blandishing eyes Paul was not proof. When the 
 dinner had broken up and Rosalind was being 
 whirled home in her automobile, she dramatically 
 assured herself that never again could her relations 
 with Eric or with any other man be what they 
 had been. She had learned her lesson, and it had 
 changed her mightily. In her sorrow, half petulant, 
 half sincere, she renounced men. Yet in the very 
 moment of her renunciation, her heart echoed the 
 
 164
 
 CONVERSATION IN THE SQUARE 165 
 
 falseness of this abandonment by an insistent recapit- 
 ulation of her happiness and its downfall. She 
 knew not what to think. Those that become the 
 plaything of jealousy seldom recognise their peril in 
 its incipient state. 
 
 As she lay in her bed unable to sleep, Patricia 
 haunted her thoughts. Once again her old friend, 
 the source of many girlish tears in her school days, 
 was at the bottom of her unhappiness. Yet she 
 could blame no one. Patricia was her friend; she 
 herself had invited her ; on her own volition she had 
 risked incurring this unhappiness. Yes, and she was 
 glad that she had done so, she protested to herself, 
 very glad! It was better to know Eric's state of 
 mind than to become involved in a hopeless love. 
 But was it better? Should she not have been happy, 
 if Patricia had never come between them? She 
 might never have known; she and Eric might have 
 become happily engaged and married. Yet there 
 are post-marital infelicities more bitter still than 
 lovers' quarrels. What if Patricia might have had 
 some power to fascinate Eric after their marriage? 
 There would have lain the crudest gall. Shatter the 
 heart and age may mend its fracture; but shatter 
 the hearth and no agency, divine or mortal, can 
 rekindle the fire which has once gone out. Eric's 
 behaviour, if nothing else, justified Patricia's invi- 
 tation. "What a piece of work is a man! How 
 noble in reason! How infinite in faculty" and 
 how prodigal in love ! For a pretty smile and a 
 pretty amenity he will think himself rich as any ma- 
 harajah of Orient empire. The meanest man in 
 love is a poet, with knowledge to profess and under- 
 stand the harmony of spheres and only too ready 
 on the slightest provocation to fancy that he hears
 
 i66 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 that silver-sounding music in the voice of every 
 woman who flatters him with her favour. Because 
 man is an egotist, woman leads him by the nose; be- 
 cause he is fatuous, he thinks it is his nose which is 
 leading woman. Alas for Eric! Rosalind had 
 thought him made of some finer stuff, " in action like 
 an angel, in apprehension like a god " ; she found him 
 after all a mortal, and like so many others of his 
 kind, a victim to Patricia's wiles. She had seen 
 other young men taken captive in like manner with 
 considerable amusement, but the substitution of the 
 individual case for the general was far from divert- 
 ing. 
 
 In a moment of pique she had given Benjamin 
 a promise to play golf on the next afternoon, half in 
 anger with Eric, half in a reproof quite unintelligible 
 to him. For the moment the promise had raised her 
 pride and she held her head high in queenly dis- 
 regard of what another might do. 
 
 To Benjamin her promise was like manna. His 
 mind was not the complex organ of a woman in love, 
 nor could it understand the mutations of her heart. 
 Dark things to him were black; light things trooped 
 in the category of white. The multifarious inter- 
 mediate shades which lend colour and fineness to 
 exquisite temperaments were entirely lost to his mat- 
 ter-of-fact comprehension. To a man who knows 
 but the sun, the world by night is a dark place indeed. 
 Only the finer eyes may see the stars. 
 
 Making resolutions when one is in love is like 
 throwing into the air directly above one's head a 
 large stone and waiting for it to descend. For a 
 time the thrower is disembarrassed of his weight, 
 but the longer he stands where he is the more rapidly
 
 CONVERSATION IN THE SQUARE 167 
 
 increases the unpleasant imminence of the rock's re- 
 turn; for a moment the lover's resolution clears the 
 mind and makes valiant the will, but the longer he 
 who makes it remains in love the weaker becomes 
 the resolve. The same divine gravity which governs 
 the rock governs the lover's resolution ; in either case 
 the dependency upon human volition is nil. What 
 lover but resolves a dozen excellences in the sobriety 
 of morning only to forget them in the madness of 
 eve? Who has not put in his bedside prayers re- 
 nunciations of some fickle heart and waked in the 
 full sunlight of morning to find courage sufficient for 
 still another day's devotion? A lover's pledge shall 
 survive the promised end, but a lover's resolution is 
 too gossamer in web to hold a gnat to duty. Thus 
 with Rosalind. Having resolved to hold aloof from 
 Eric, having fallen to sleep in a drowsy declaration 
 to herself that he must come to her if they were ever 
 to meet again, she found in the morning wiser 
 counsel. Perhaps he would not understand ; perhaps 
 he might never come. The Jeanne d'Arc which is in 
 all women rose within her. It mattered not that she 
 bitterly doubted to herself the possibility of meeting 
 him again as if nothing had occurred : the battle is to 
 the adventurous. She put on her hat, and excitedly 
 sallied forth into the sunshine. 
 
 Mr. Rolland, so Edouard informed her, was out 
 walking, but would soon return. Though she had 
 regarded meeting him with a nervous hesitation, she 
 went up to her godfather, disappointed and cast 
 down that Eric was not in the house. 
 
 " Uncle Sing-Sing," she asked, after an affection- 
 ate kiss, " did the party tire you too much? " 
 
 "No, dear. No. Am I pale?" 
 
 Despite a certain novel brilliancy of eye and what
 
 1 68 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 seemed to be a real desire to speak, she thought the 
 invalid more pallid and wasted than ever, the lack 
 of colour made all the more evident by the lustre in 
 those eyes that for so long a time had been dull. 
 
 " Only tired, dear heart," Rosalind lied glibly. 
 " Was it cruel in me? There was Eric, you know; 
 he was having, I suppose, rather a stuffy time with 
 no one but me of his own age to see and talk to." 
 
 " I don't believe it." Her godfather smiled ten- 
 derly. 
 
 " It was natural that he should want to meet peo- 
 ple. I dragged a promise from Mr. Swelfront to 
 take him under his wing. You should have heard 
 me advertise him during dinner; he'll never have a 
 better press-agent." 
 
 " I hope not." 
 
 'Thanks, dear. Why are great men bores? 
 Mr. Swelfront's bonmots dated back to the Mycen- 
 aean Age ! I was dying to recommend him my hair 
 tonic it worked miracles with Papa. We passed 
 the time of day discussing Greek temples. I fol- 
 lowed him closely through the Acropolis, but when 
 we forded the Hellespont and moved towards Baby- 
 lon the conversation turned into a monologue punc- 
 tured by asparagus. His appetite saved me from 
 an untimely end." 
 
 '* Why Patricia ? " asked the invalid irrelevantly. 
 
 " Patricia ? " Rosalind repeated vaguely with a 
 little flush in each cheek. " Oh, I I thought she 
 she might amuse Eric. He met her on the boat, 
 you know." 
 
 " She did." 
 
 "Did amuse him?" Rosalind looked away. 
 " Yes, she has a way with men. Eric Eric " 
 
 "Do you like him?"
 
 CONVERSATION IN THE SQUARE 169 
 
 They had not discussed the visitor in many words 
 before. For once in her life Rosalind found it 
 strange and hard to answer her godfather, found 
 actual embarrassment in the question of her habitual 
 confidant. 
 
 u I never loved Ben, godfather. You know that. 
 But with Eric well, it's nothing like Ben. Eric 
 is" 
 
 She broke off. A black cat prowled about the 
 grass-plot in the Square on the watch for birds. 
 With her hand clasped tight in her godfather's, 
 Rosalind stared at the marauder. 
 
 ' I am glad, Rose." 
 
 " I thought you would be, dear, when I saw how 
 fond you were of him. I might well be the jealous 
 one this time ! " 
 
 There was a pause between them. The cat had 
 ambushed itself behind the little statue of Columbus 
 with malicious intentions on a fat robin, greedily 
 eyeing the turf. 
 
 " Eric is so like his mother." 
 
 " Yes. He makes one think of her miniature." 
 
 " And it is her voice, too." 
 
 "Who would not love him?" Her enthusiasm 
 bubbled over restraint. " Surely he is handsome 
 and talented and sympathetic; and more, too, I know. 
 And he has a poise to his head that American men 
 lack. Do you know what I mean? A woman al- 
 ways looks to see how a man carries himself." 
 
 In a sortie the cat failed to capture its prey, which 
 flew to the wrought iron fence with indignant chat- 
 tering. 
 
 Is he happy here? " 
 
 "I I think so, Uncle Sing-Sing. Of course. 
 Why not?" As she turned her eyes to her god-
 
 iyo LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 father's face, she wondered if Eric had found her 
 companionship dull. " Has he said anything? " 
 
 * No. Must be stupid with me." 
 
 " He does not need many people to make him 
 happy. With his books and music he is content. 
 How beautifully he plays ! I suppose he inherits his 
 talent from his father." 
 
 " I think not," the invalid returned in a low voice. 
 
 " Why, his father " 
 
 " Let's not talk of his father." 
 
 The sharp note in the dull voice surprised Rosa- 
 lind into silence. What was hidden in this lavender 
 romance to bring so marked a change in her god- 
 father's manner? Without glancing at him she fell 
 into a reverie. Outside a lumbering spaniel had 
 driven the black cat into one of the ragged old elms, 
 at the foot of which he was yelping himself inside 
 out. From its refuge the cat regarded her tor- 
 mentor with delicious unconcern. 
 
 The arrival of Edouard cut short both Rosalind's 
 reconstruction of a romantic past for her godfather 
 and her observation of further developments in the 
 warfare on the green. With the assistance of a 
 footman, Edouard towed the invalid to his bedroom 
 for a rest, leaving Rosalind to walk down stairs, 
 undetermined what to do. Though eager to see 
 Eric, she felt so aggrieved by his absence that she de- 
 termined to leave without meeting him. Pride reas- 
 serted itself. She walked slowly to the door; then, 
 a wave of resentment sweeping over her, suddenly 
 ran down the steps. Ten paces off Eric came strid- 
 ing towards her. 
 
 " Not going? " he cried out. 
 
 Rosalind bit her lip. 
 
 " I was," she replied doubtfully.
 
 CONVERSATION IN THE SQUARE 171 
 
 "But you're not now? Oh, please don't go 
 away! " he appealed. To Rosalind he looked radi- 
 ant and beautiful in the soft sunshine of the Square, 
 like some exotic plant in an old manor garden. She 
 smiled. " That's better. I hoped I'd find you here. 
 Let's get over the fence; it's too beautiful to go in- 
 doors. We can sit down on the grass and talk." 
 
 In a moment she found herself being helped over 
 the old iron fence, a suspicion of white petticoat and 
 pretty ankle fluttering for a moment in the face of the 
 staid old Square. Discouraged by the eminence 
 of the cat's vantage, the noisy spaniel had trotted 
 off in search of more accessible worlds to conquer, 
 leaving the green in peaceful quiet. Rosalind seated 
 herself with her back against one of the elms. 
 
 " I have been down by the river, reading," Eric 
 explained, stretching himself full length on the warm 
 grass beside her, his face raised on his palms. 
 When Rosalind looked down, she found his brow 
 wrinkled and his green eyes upturned. 
 
 "What?" she asked, catching up the book. 
 "Oscar Wilde!" 
 
 " Yes : * Lady Windermere's Fan.' It is a most 
 entertaining thing. I could not lay it down till I 
 had finished it, and so almost missed you." 
 
 " There is one magnificent line in it. How does 
 it go? ^ 'All of us'" 
 
 " It is the very one that struck me ! I turned the 
 page. * We are all in the gutter, but some of us 
 are looking at the stars ! ' 
 
 " It makes him worth while just that one line. 
 You will be interested, Eric: my Chief at Brimmer 
 House used to quote it inverted." 
 
 ''Inverted?" 
 
 ' Yes. She said it gave the idea of charity.
 
 1 72 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 ' We are all in the stars, but some of us are looking 
 at the gutter.' ' 
 
 "But we aren't!" 
 
 " Oh, yes, Eric. She meant we all have our ideals 
 and aspirations, no matter how poor or miserable, 
 but some of us, though we do live in our stars, look 
 down at those really suffering in the gutter." 
 
 " I see . . . Rose, do you often think about such 
 things? " 
 
 "Often? No, not often, but sometimes I do. 
 Why?" 
 
 " I don't know. So few girls do now and men, 
 too, for that matter." 
 
 " I don't believe girls in other times thought of 
 them any more, Eric." 
 
 " Perhaps. Still I sometimes think it would be 
 a good thing if a great flood or a plague or a war 
 were to devastate this world. Then more people 
 would look in the gutter. If this world were 
 wracked with suffering, people wouldn't seek Jesus 
 Christ so much for their own sakes ; they would seek 
 Him for others." 
 
 " Of course we're unchristian now; religion is no 
 longer the mode. But surely you're not going to ad- 
 vocate a war! What can be more unchristian? 
 Two wrongs, you know " 
 
 " What can be more unchristian? Why, the way 
 most of us live to-day ! That thing at Mrs. Preble's 
 is a trifle, a small instance of what I mean. To be 
 slain in an honourable cause is far more Christian 
 than to attend that mockery ! " 
 
 "I went, Eric. Am I unchristian?" 
 
 " I wish you had not gone. Why did you go? " 
 
 Rosalind paused before replying, literally 
 astounded. To see Eric ride the high moral horse,
 
 CONVERSATION IN THE SQUARE 173 
 
 to have his serious reproofs for her sins come flood- 
 ing in her brain, there to mix with the torrent of re- 
 proach she felt towards him on account of Patricia, 
 left her helpless. Could he know Patricia's ways 
 and yet reproach herself? Surely his conversation 
 with her friend the night before had borne no out- 
 ward semblance of reproof. Did he tolerate Pa- 
 tricia's sins with a smile to find hers reprehensible 
 with a serious mien? She flushed. Surely he was 
 not making sport of her? No, these were earnest 
 eyes, so earnest that she found them embarrassing, 
 and forgot her anger in an attempt to justify herself 
 before them. 
 
 "I I went because I was curious. You do not 
 think the less of me ? You did not think I went be- 
 cause I approved of such a thing? " 
 
 " I was sure you did not, but then who can be 
 sure of anything? I am not sure of myself! " 
 
 " Why, Eric, I did not know you were so puri- 
 tanical! You surely do not appear so." 
 
 "Who isn't puritanical in theory?" 
 
 " No one except the devil ! " 
 
 "And you never thought me him? Why, I am 
 infinitely puritanical. As much as you are, Rose. I 
 was quite noted for my views in Cheltenham." 
 
 "Really? Your views?" 
 
 " Just so. That's the trouble, though. I have 
 the best intentions in the world. I am most charit- 
 able; it puts me in tears to see little children suffer, 
 to hear the cries of poverty and want. If you were 
 to tell me that by giving the money for a new suit of 
 clothes I could save a baby's life, and were to name 
 to me the baby, I would go without the suit gladly. 
 But I don't go without the suit; I am always well- 
 dressed. Nobody names the baby; so I go on buy-
 
 i 7 4 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 ing new suits in spite of a vague knowledge of the 
 power of the money which I spend for them. My 
 intentions are good, and I have a kind heart. 
 I am religious; I am charitable; I am willing to 
 serve." 
 
 " Then what troubles you, Eric? " 
 
 " I hardly know. I suppose it's that a good deal 
 of all this is in my head and not actuality. These 
 are my ' views.' Then, of course, I'm poor. My 
 father is recklessly extravagant. If he earns a for- 
 tune, he spends it all. Why shouldn't he ? It's his. 
 My dear mother left only a little. But for your 
 godfather's kindness this visit would have been im- 
 possible." 
 
 " I had not known." 
 
 " Maman told me to come: so I came." 
 
 " I am glad you did, Eric." 
 
 " Are you? So am I, tout a fait bien aise." 
 
 " Except when you worry over your intentions? " 
 Rosalind asked with the shadow of a smile. She 
 scarcely knew what prompted her to make so point- 
 less a remark. Eric had fathomed her eyes as he 
 asked the question, and had raised himself till his 
 face was yet closer to hers. 
 
 " Ah, my intentions, my poor, abused intentions ! " 
 He let himself sprawl back with unconscious grace 
 upon the grass. " They have no more spine than 
 myself now; or shall we call it dormant spine?" 
 He laughed, enchantingly Rosalind thought, and the 
 sun was bright on his teeth. He might have been a 
 latter-day Cephalus resting from the chase, garbed 
 in the uncouth habiliments of a century which de- 
 stroys all beauty save that which it chooses to petrify 
 in museums. " I feel those intentions, Rose. 
 When I walk through a miserable, ugly district like
 
 CONVERSATION IN THE SQUARE 175 
 
 your West End, I feel that it is I who am the blot on 
 the landscape, however poor it may be. What right 
 have I to walk in my smart clothes before these 
 over-crowded, wretched homes? I do it at times to 
 prove that I am not a coward, but truly I feel like 
 running away." 
 
 " I doubt if the poor notice you." 
 
 " That makes it worse ; the struggle then is all 
 with myself. I tell you, Rose, some day I shall 
 throw a paving stone at some of these smug, self- 
 satisfied, well-fed men and women who motor com- 
 placently through the sad streets of big cities. 
 Canaille they call the poor, too ! I'd like to canaille 
 them ! A paving stone in their stodgy faces would 
 be more benefit than a dozen beauty parlours." 
 
 " Why, what an excitable person you are ! You 
 never have told me, Eric, of your interest in social- 
 ism." 
 
 " It is the interest of any man who thinks he is 
 put in the world for more than eating and sleeping. 
 If I do not talk about my intentions, none the less 
 I have them." 
 
 " I believe you, Eric." 
 
 " I knew you would. We understand each other. 
 If we aren't better than other people, we at least 
 realise that we should try to be; we realise that we 
 should put into life the very best, if we are to take 
 out the very best. Life should be lived at concert 
 pitch. I should like to live mine so." 
 
 "Mr. Eric!" It was Edouard who spoke. He 
 stood, politely deprecatory, on the other side of the 
 fence. " I beg pardon, Miss Rosalind. It's Miss 
 Canfield on the telephone, sir." (A sudden stiff- 
 ness laid hold upon Rosalind at the name.) "She 
 says she has the two seats in the front row, and
 
 i 7 6 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 wants you to call for her at Mrs. Treble's house, 
 sir." 
 
 " Please thank her, and tell her that I shall be 
 there at one o'clock. Thank you, Edouard. Now 
 I say that's awfully kind of her," he went on, turning 
 to Rosalind. " Put herself to no end of trouble to 
 get seats to this play. She's a most vivacious, at- 
 tractive girl." 
 
 With such terrible suddenness was the subject 
 changed. O, heavy declension! Here was Zeus 
 become a bull, a prince become a prentice, a dis- 
 courser upon the moral profundities of socialism and 
 temperament become the admirer of a pretty face 
 and a flippant tongue. To man the contiguity of 
 Christian morality and a Patricia represents nothing 
 shocking; but to woman, in whom high exaltations 
 dominate both during and after the period of stress, 
 a lofty subject unless loftily completed is poppycock. 
 Rosalind found the change in theme unbearable. 
 As much as she disliked Patricia, she disliked Eric's 
 precedent moralising more. She longed to ask him 
 whether he thought Patricia unchristian. Bah! 
 His " concert pitch " was sham ! At the moment he 
 spoke the phrase, no doubt his mind was contemplat- 
 ing the afternoon at the theatre with Patricia. 
 Rosalind bit her lip and arose; she should not detain 
 him. 
 
 'You have known her before, Rose?" 
 
 " I went to school with her." 
 
 " You were lucky then." Rosalind felt her 
 cheeks burn. " We came over on the same boat, 
 and I have never been so entertained. She seems 
 characteristically French." 
 
 " Her mother lives in France for her health." 
 In an attempt to read a vicious meaning into the last
 
 CONVERSATION IN THE SQUARE 177 
 
 three words Rosalind's sweet voice failed signally. 
 " She was born and bred in Boston." 
 
 " But she is certainly different from Boston girls," 
 laughed the unconscious Eric, as he helped Rosalind 
 over the fence. " Must you go back now? " 
 
 " Yes." She spoke jerkily. She felt an emotion 
 which, if her intuition taught her to diagnose, it did 
 not teach her also to combat. " I hope you en- 
 joy the play. Good-bye." 
 
 She turned and almost ran out of the Square with 
 Eric's last words afire in her ears : " she is certainly 
 different from Boston girls." Yes, thank God, 
 Rosalind cried passionately to herself, Patricia cer- 
 tainly was different. With what a smile he had said 
 it, with what a meaning! Yet the moment before 
 he had been gazing in her face with such intensity 
 that his life might have hung upon her lips. This 
 was her paragon of virtues and excellence ! This 
 was the prodigy trumpeted forth to Mr. Swelfront ! 
 This was her fond-imagined tutelary genius ! An 
 automobile flashed by in misty outlines ; the bricks at 
 her feet were confused and blinding; and in her 
 eyes unbidden tears screwed themselves over her eye- 
 lids and glistened on her lashes. Petty incidents 
 often reveal great truths. This little conversation 
 in the Square told Rosalind of the immensity of her 
 love. If a stream of water is dashed suddenly into 
 a vase which can well accommodate its volume, the 
 violence of its entrance may often shatter the vessel. 
 As she panted home, Rosalind felt the agony of mis- 
 prized love breaking her heart. 
 
 Going to her room, she sat down moodily at the 
 desk. Her excitability had worn off; now was left 
 the gloom of consideration. 
 
 " Rose ! " Jack's voice called outside her door.
 
 178 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " Ben Gary's come in his car about some golf with 
 you. What shall I say? " 
 
 Golf? With Benjamin? In this state of mind? 
 A shadowy smile at the absurdity of the suggestion 
 curled her lips. If there was one thing in the world 
 she could not do, would not do, had not the heart to 
 attempt doing, it was to see Benjamin in her present 
 desolate condition. Yet even as her lips formed the 
 refusal of the invitation, her demeanour changed. 
 A fire came in her eye; a firmness sat upon her lip. 
 Defiant and scornful of her wound and of the person 
 who had inflicted it, she arose. 
 
 " Tell Ben that I'm coming right down. I'll play 
 golf with him certainly ! "
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 A RUMOUR 
 
 THE weather, that divine panacea free and com- 
 mon to us all, cannot be denied its power. 
 There is no man so wearisomely tugged with 
 fortune but the sunshine of April cannot thrill him 
 to the midriff. And thank God for it! Thank 
 God that what is forever in our sight, the opening 
 eyelids of morning, the arboreal verdure, the star- 
 clustered firmament, the unmeasured dance of waves, 
 thank God that all of these rain influence while the 
 great Potter turns his wheel above our mortal clay. 
 It makes us feel the nearness and omnipresence of 
 God. 
 
 Thus it was with Rosalind, her heart strings 
 snarled into a very knot of Gordius, when out flamed 
 the vernal sun, a divine Alexander, with one sharp- 
 edged ray to split and solve all difference. As we 
 have seen, her decision to accompany Benjamin had 
 been made in the heroic strain. A violent grief must 
 be combated by a violent cure a doctrine akin to 
 that mediaeval homeopathy which prescribed to the 
 chronic neurasthenic physic of a sour and melancholy 
 hue. Yet while it was almost pain to face Ben- 
 jamin at first, once the inertia of repugnance over- 
 come, things went better than Rosalind had looked 
 for. One cannot for long be dramatic unless one 
 is to the manner born. Having entered Benjamin's 
 automobile whispering to herself that she would be 
 
 179
 
 i8o LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 brave, that no one should know how sad she felt, 
 that if Eric could be heartless to her, she could be 
 heartless to him, Rosalind found herself drifting in 
 the grateful sunshine from an heroic to a tender 
 mood. 
 
 As for Benjamin, his joy was childlike and un- 
 forgettable. His long sojourn under swarthy Sirius 
 was ended; even the great sun himself now seemed a 
 beneficent planet. The purest, greatest joys are all 
 unreasoned: to weigh and measure happiness is to 
 destroy its bloom. Benjamin had no idea of the 
 why of Rosalind's acceptance of his invitation. A 
 murrain on whys ! Was she not side by his side, 
 hand by his hand? Reasons and past unhappiness 
 were lost in the train of the pleasurable moments 
 which were passing. If he had been jealous of Eric 
 in his unyielding, overpowering fashion, in the pres- 
 ent moment of opportunity and felicity his jealousy 
 was forgotten in the song of his heart. 
 
 Oftener than not we dislike or feel constraint for 
 those that love us more than we do them. Unless 
 love is at an equilibrium, the balances perforce must 
 hang askew. Yet there are moments when we melt 
 to those importunate friends, moments when we are 
 generous, not for love, but merely for the sake of be- 
 ing generous. Such a moment is frequently one in 
 which we endure sorrow in ourselves and are thus 
 purged to a gentle kindness towards others. Rosa- 
 lind wanted to stretch out her hand, touch Benjamin, 
 and whisper a word of sympathy; but the mortal 
 wall of reserve belied her sensibility, and she kept 
 silent. To find a friend's happiness sadly pleasant is 
 one thing; to phrase it another. 
 
 There were few people on the links ; the green was 
 practically free for their speed or leisure. Though
 
 A RUMOUR 181 
 
 Rosalind could not swing into the game, her part- 
 ner was in such fettle that even the lackadaisical eyes 
 of the caddies shone with benignancy. It was a de- 
 light to watch the joy and skill of his swing, and 
 Rosalind with her healthy love of out-of-doors found 
 that the time passed far faster than an hour earlier 
 she would have deemed possible. Through the 
 match Benjamin was the soul of patient, kind devo- 
 tion, hovering like a giant guardian by her side, and 
 she found his attention restful and healing. 
 
 The stroke of the day was his drive on the seven- 
 teenth hole. The ball seemed to soar interminably 
 into the sunlight, a white sparkle above the distant 
 green, beyond which it fell among thorns and long 
 grass. In an attempt to make a shot comparatively 
 respectable in length, Rosalind pulled her ball into a 
 thick-clustered clump of diminutive oaks on the left. 
 Sending the caddies ahead to find Gary's ball, she 
 and Benjamin disappeared among the trees in search 
 of hers. There was a hot beauty about the place. 
 The dead brown leaves of the oaks, through which 
 the sunlight fell in great splashes, seemed to radiate 
 heat into the dry, almost dusty, air. High above 
 them the derisive caw of a hoarse-throated crow 
 floated down through fathoms of space. They 
 stirred among the underbrush, now side by side, 
 now separated by trees, now bending beneath low- 
 sweeping branches. Rosalind raised her hand to 
 her head: it was unbearably close. In the same mo- 
 ment strong arms went round her from behind and 
 she heard Benjamin's voice huskily murmuring in 
 her ear. 
 
 "Rose, let's not wait! Why not now? Let's 
 not wait till June." 
 
 She had never been so touched before, and the
 
 1 82 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 first, fierce contact with the brute earth which occa- 
 sionally upheaves itself in the best of men momen- 
 tarily stunned her. Then struggling greatly with 
 her small strength, she sought release. 
 
 " Ben ! " she demanded breathlessly. " What 
 are you doing? " 
 
 " Doing? " he hurried on, bending his head close 
 to her tossing hair. " I'm being happy, Rose. I'm 
 a man, and I've suffered terribly. I'm doing the 
 necessary, the natural thing." His voice was big 
 in her ear. " I'm asking you to marry me now, not 
 to wait till June to decide." 
 
 Still Rosalind struggled, though she could scarcely 
 move. The blood rushed through her heart till the 
 beats seemed to trip one over the other; her brain 
 was filled with the ungovernable desire for freedom. 
 This embrace, unwished and unreceived, created in 
 her only a feeling of repellence. 
 
 " Don't struggle, Rose. I can hold you safe. 
 You are safer with me than with any one else." 
 
 She was quiet at last; she fluttered no more against 
 her imprisonment. 
 
 " I had thought so, Benjamin. Are you mad? " 
 
 Of a sudden she was free, uncertain of her foot- 
 ing after such impetuous support. She shivered 
 slightly. Still close by her, Benjamin was leaning 
 against a tree, one hand covering his face, the other 
 clenched by his side. A great wave of pity came 
 over her. Indignant as she was, she now felt no re- 
 pugnance nor any desire to punish the man who had 
 offended. Had this happened before the sense of 
 her own desolation had possessed her, she would 
 have quitted him in just anger without a word; but 
 now she saw in the plucking of his hand at his shirt 
 the nervous pain of a sorrow kin to hers. A scale
 
 A RUMOUR 183 
 
 had fallen from her eyes. The anger and sympathy 
 of the happy are too often mere phylacteries, mere 
 emblems and forms. They matter not! Only 
 those who have also suffered can understand grief. 
 Now that she comprehended, she could no more in- 
 crease his sorrow than she could pierce him with 
 a sword. Be worthy of a grief and it makes you 
 tender; it teaches you to subtract from the unhappi- 
 ness of others. Rosalind stretched forth her hand 
 and gently touched the bare, muscle-ribbed forearm. 
 
 "Ben" 
 
 His arm dropped in his evident amazement at 
 finding her still standing near him. 
 
 " Forgive me . . ." His voice choked in his 
 throat. " I was a cad ... I couldn't help my- 
 self. It was a rotten thing to do." 
 
 ' You shouldn't have done it, Ben. It hurts me. 
 Some day it will hurt me more; it will kill me for 
 you." 
 
 She was thinking of the mountain again. Here 
 had been the most dangerous eruption of all! Yet 
 in her sympathy she gave him only this simple re- 
 buke. 
 
 People who permit their hearts to govern their 
 heads sometimes find that they have no longer heads 
 to govern. In giving her passionate heart to Both- 
 well, Mary Queen of Scots incidentally gave her 
 head to Elizabeth. No doubt she was aware of the 
 capital penalty for her weakness, as Rosalind was 
 aware in this moment that her long-sought oppor- 
 tunity to break forever with Benjamin had knocked 
 and not been heard. The chance to dismiss the im- 
 portunate suitor had come and had not been accepted. 
 Thus it is ever with best laid plans which brains de- 
 vise ! The heart forces them all to gang agley, and
 
 1 84 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 does so with conscious pride. If Rosalind later re- 
 buked herself for soft-heartedness, at the moment 
 when repudiation was possible she rather prized her- 
 self on the generous kindness of her heart. She had 
 suffered; another should not. But in acting the 
 friend to Benjamin in the little, she acted the enemy 
 to him in the great. Kind as it was not to break his 
 back suddenly at this moment, it was cowardly to 
 renew again the opportunities for what she had felt 
 convinced was a hopeless love. 
 
 ' Then you will . . . forgive me? " 
 
 Rosalind was silent. Her hair was like so much 
 spun gold in a patch of sunshine: to the breathless 
 Gary she was loveliness incarnate. 
 
 " Yes, because I know, Ben, that you are sincere. 
 I have no heart to be angry with you as I should be, 
 but you have been wrong, terribly wrong. And you 
 know it. So we are friends again." 
 
 With bowed head Benjamin took his punishment. 
 Shame for the rashness which he had exhibited could 
 not but soon rise from his clear nature. Self-re- 
 proach 'bears a more bitter sting than scorpions. 
 To the condemnation of parent or friend we turn 
 the ear of one who reserves an ulterior judgment, 
 but from the condemnation of oneself there is no 
 court of appeal. Since man is to himself sufficient, 
 his own judgment supplants in mortal life the Word 
 of God. If a man have light within his own clear 
 breast, earth is his Paradise; but the consciousness 
 of wrong-doing stirring in his heart makes the world 
 a dungeon. Benjamin condemned himself bitterly 
 and turned to go, his brain in tumult. It seemed as 
 if something had withered while he held Rosalind 
 in his arms, something which in fancy had been im- 
 agined sanctified and which in actuality was pitifully
 
 A RUMOUR 185 
 
 mortal. The first touch and pressure of her body 
 had been dreamt on tremblingly; he had thought of 
 it as the implicit papist does of his first vision of the 
 Casa Sante. His love was his religion, and this was 
 to be a culmination of his worship. But alas for 
 human nature ! He had in his fierce, rough embrace 
 desecrated his shrine, hurled down from the gleam- 
 ing altar monstrance, pyx, and crucifix, made gross 
 and rude the most tender and beautiful of moments. 
 Self-shamed and self-unpitied, he strode away. 
 
 " Where are you going? " 
 
 It was Rosalind's voice. Benjamin stopped. 
 Like Adam, banished by Michael out of Eden, but 
 catching at straws of comfort in the kind arch- 
 angel's words, Benjamin at this unexpected question 
 recovered his scattered spirits. 
 
 " I hardly know," he repeated lamely. "I 
 hardly know." 
 
 " You aren't going to leave me here like this, 
 Ben?" 
 
 " I thought you wanted me to go," he dumbly re- 
 plied. 
 
 In his contrition there was that which could not be 
 withstood. He seemed afraid to move or speak 
 lest he commit some further blunder in her sight, and 
 remained uncertainly, half faced about. Rosalind 
 stretched out her hands to him. 
 
 " Not at all. I wanted you to take me home." 
 
 He hurried to her and took her hands in his. 
 For a moment they stood in a pool of sunlight under 
 the serene sky. 
 
 " But mind! We're to forget this, Ben! " 
 
 He pressed her hands reverently. 
 
 " I'll mind," he answered obediently, and to- 
 gether they trudged off to his automobile.
 
 1 86 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 When they arrived at 29 Commonwealth, they 
 found Mrs. Copley in the clutches of the ungram- 
 matical cousin. 
 
 " Don't she look healthy! " exclaimed that lady, 
 rapturously holding up both her hands. " My dear 
 Rosalind, those cheeks are just like just like " 
 
 "Roses?" suggested Benjamin with a gallantry 
 unusual in him. 
 
 " Ah, that's it ! Mr. Cary knows, I'm sure." 
 
 " How was your golf? " interrupted Mrs. Copley 
 coolly. Cousin Lucy was tolerated only so long as 
 she behaved well. Since the accompaniment of the 
 airy inflection of her last remark with an unfathom- 
 able glance in Gary's direction hardly fell within the 
 category of good comportment, Mrs. Copley, at 
 once the Lachesis and Atropos of her garrulous 
 cousin's thread of discourse, cut short the conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 For the second time Cary rose handsomely to the 
 occasion. " Rosalind won, Mrs. Copley, as usual ! " 
 
 But Cousin Lucy refused to be counted out: a 
 woman with a piece of gossip is unsnubable. She 
 hitched her chair toward Rosalind with allufling 
 friendliness. 
 
 " I was just telling your mother, Rose, the ter- 
 rible accident that happened to your Cousin Arthur 
 Copley. He's burst an artery in his neck. I un- 
 derstand it happened while he was playing whist 
 the excitement and all, I suppose, was responsible. 
 I know my poor father used to say cards were pro- 
 vokers of strife. He was a bit of a Baptist in his 
 way, Mr. Cary." She favoured Benjamin with a 
 benignant smile. " Not a big man by any means, 
 but a powerful talker. Hell-fire was his favourite 
 line." She shook her head despondently. " He
 
 A RUMOUR 187 
 
 couldn't abear games, not because they were wicked, 
 but because they gave others sinful dependence on 
 things not of the spirit. I'm not like that. You 
 know, I reckon Arthur's thing came from drink," 
 she whispered eagerly to Rosalind. 
 
 " Cousin Lucy! " 
 
 "It's the truth, my dear: I'm no tale-bearer." 
 
 At this moment the Misses Hepplethwaite were 
 announced. Mrs. Copley sighed. A call from the 
 Hepplethwaites was at the best trying, but with the 
 added complication of the ungrammatical cousin, 
 who like all poor relations became excessively ef- 
 fusive to be thought genteel, the event was one which 
 she could regard only in the light of a penance for 
 some sin. 
 
 " We have been driving in the park," remarked 
 the elder sister, icily seating herself. " It was so 
 beautiful we felt it as much a duty as a pleasure to 
 come and relate to you our enjoyment." 
 
 " Exquisite ! " murmured the younger sister. 
 
 " Isn't it? " broke in Cousin Lucy affably. " You 
 must drive out to Franklin Park some day and see 
 the elephants." 
 
 Miss Jane Hepplethwaite favoured Cousin Lucy 
 with a glance of indifferent interest, as if she were a 
 rather unattractive specimen of an uncultivated age ; 
 Miss Joan started in her chair at her words. 
 
 " How is your dear husband? " asked the former 
 of Mrs. Copley. 
 
 "And your dear godfather?" added her sister, 
 turning to Rosalind with a dazed look. 
 
 The formulae of polite conversation never aban- 
 doned the Misses Hepplethwaite. Despite the 
 shock of Cousin Lucy they could still like twin auto- 
 mata go through the motions of talking. But even
 
 1 88 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 the conventional field of health was unsafe. Ob- 
 serving her redoubtable cousin about to relate the 
 tragic tale of Mr. Arthur Copley's accident, Mrs. 
 Copley was again forced to exercise her right of 
 closure. 
 
 " City life seems to agree with us all. Rosalind 
 won't hear of our moving to Sherborne just now." 
 (Rosalind coloured as she felt Benjamin's eyes upon 
 her, wondering if he knew the reason for her de- 
 sire.) " But I do hope she'll let us go before May. 
 Jack worries over the garden day and night." 
 
 " You'll not migrate before the Pearce wedding, I 
 presume? " said Miss Jane. 
 
 " You must stay for that," murmured Miss Joan. 
 
 " Amy Pearce and Philip Brooks ! " laughed Rose. 
 " Think, Mother, an old beau of mine ! " 
 
 Here was a chance for Cousin Lucy. 
 
 " What are you going to wear, Miss Hepple- 
 thwaite? " Despite the rattle of Mrs. Copley's tea- 
 cup Cousin Lucy held the floor. " My white dresses 
 are all shrunk by washing; you wouldn't believe how 
 they shrink on me ! I've a green velvet that's 
 awfully sweet, but a leetle bit tight," she confided in 
 a low voice, " about the hips. You know how I 
 mean I Girls our age do have trouble with their 
 hips somehow ! " 
 
 At this open reference to the feminine anatomy 
 the Misses Hepplethwaite shuddered. If that cele- 
 brated Queen of Spain had no legs, for the purposes 
 of polite conversation she was also hipless. But 
 Lucy would have tripped innocently on, had not the 
 entrance of Freddy Hoyt cut short a further revela- 
 tion. By the time the stir of introduction was over 
 Cousin Lucy had lost the thread of her idea, and 
 Mrs. Copley was spinning a new and safer line.
 
 A RUMOUR 189 
 
 " Have you any news, Jane? Of engagements, I 
 mean. Your speaking of the Pearce wedding made 
 me think of it." 
 
 " Only concerning what we hoped you might en- 
 lighten us." 
 
 " We hoped you might," echoed Miss Joan. 
 
 " Me? " Mrs. Copley arched her eyebrows pret- 
 tily. 
 
 " Oh, not Rosalind! " Miss Hepplethwaite gave 
 one the impression of being amused. " But 
 a friend of hers Eric Rolland." 
 
 ' That attractive young foreigner," supplemented 
 her sister. 
 
 " We see him so often in the Square." 
 
 "So often.'] 
 
 ' To whom is he supposed to be engaged? " asked 
 Mrs. Copley. " It's rather quick work, isn't it? 
 He's not been here but a month." 
 
 " Oh ! He became acquainted with the lady on 
 the steamer Patricia Canfield." 
 
 " Eric and Patty engaged ! Rose, dear, do you 
 hear this? " 
 
 Rosalind had heard it all. From the first sus- 
 picious word to the last whisper of the rumour, each 
 syllable had struck like a stone against her heart. 
 She had listened with painful eagerness. What did 
 these people know? Until this moment she had 
 heard the rumour only in her own breast; now it 
 was on the lips of the world. 
 
 " I hear it, Mamma," she said in a low voice. 
 
 " Not that handsome garsong! " exclaimed 
 Cousin Lucy with a deliberate display of high school 
 French which made Mrs. Copley shudder. 
 
 "/ thought," ventured Freddy Hoyt, laying a
 
 1 90 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 tremendous emphasis on the pronoun, " / thought to 
 have heard other news of him." 
 
 'Yes?" Rosalind looked into his laughing 
 brown eyes. " What? " 
 
 She knew he meant herself, but boldly faced him. 
 
 " I said I wouldn't tell ! But then Rose must 
 know, Miss Hepplethwaite." He turned to the 
 elder sister. " Her intimacy with this foreign in- 
 terloper has long been a thorn in my side. You see, 
 as a callow freshman I swore to be faithful a I'out- 
 rance; so for one, I hope it's true ! Thus perish all 
 my rivals ! " 
 
 He laughed again, but Rosalind had not the heart 
 this time to look into his boyish face. She was 
 grateful for Benjamin's silence. 
 
 " Is it true, Rosalind dear? " asked Miss Jane 
 ingratiatingly. 
 
 ' We hate to press you," pressed the younger 
 sister. 
 
 " I don't know. They haven't told me." 
 
 Rosalind spoke coldly, as who should say that the 
 business was not hers either for interest or participa- 
 tion. But just under the rim of her control surged 
 an intemperate desire to shake these two prim icicles 
 till by the very friction of their motion they dis- 
 solved. 
 
 ' They'd make a lovely couple," ventured the un- 
 grammatical cousin, " so dark, both of 'em 1 Do 
 you suppose there is anything in the attraction of 
 like to like? I met an albino lady once. She was 
 never married, perhaps because she couldn't find an 
 albino man. Funny thing; their eyes are reddish, 
 like rabbits. Creepy, I call it." 
 
 Freddy Hoyt choked into his tea-cup, and even
 
 A RUMOUR 191 
 
 Benjamin's stern lips had a humorous expression 
 about them. 
 
 " I have heard Mr. Rolland was completely fasci- 
 nated by her on the boat," ventured Miss Hepple- 
 thwaite. 
 
 " So romantic! " 
 
 " I can't think who told you," said Rosalind, en- 
 deavouring to veil under an ill-maintained indif- 
 ference her passionate eagerness to ascertain the 
 source of the information. 
 
 "I really forget!" 
 
 " Just a rumour." Miss Jane smiled sweetly. 
 
 ' We saw them at the Copley Plaza just now on 
 our way here." 
 
 " Going to tea, we supposed." 
 
 " Then there may be something in it." Mrs. 
 Copley shook her lovely head doubtfully. " I had 
 not known they were acquainted; Rose didn't tell 
 me." 
 
 Rosalind had arisen and moved aimlessly to the 
 shadows by the windows. As he followed her, Ben- 
 jamin could not see her face, but from the pathetic 
 slope of her shoulders he gathered something of her 
 unhappiness. It was a hard moment for him. 
 How might he offer sympathy on this subject, the 
 very downfall of his rival? Yet there is a sorrow 
 which supersedes all personal emotion; it is the pain 
 of those beloved. Her wounds were more precious 
 than his own. With some divine intuition guiding 
 his heavy heart, he understood how best he might 
 help her. 
 
 " Good-bye, Rosalind," he said in a low voice. 
 " You have been kind to me to-day." 
 
 " Thank you, Ben."
 
 192 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 When he was gone, Rosalind went slowly up the 
 stairs to her room. It seemed as if with each step 
 there was an incalculable weight to be lifted, as if 
 a mighty, vague depression flowed through her body, 
 numbing its muscles and interdicting their function. 
 The pipe of rumour, " blown by surmises, jealousies, 
 conjectures," plays a tune easily accredited by two 
 ears, the one most eager for its music, the other most 
 dreading its note. For Rosalind this piece of news 
 had blotted out the sun, and she could cry with 
 blind Samson, " O dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze 
 of noon! " Rumour is painted with many tongues; 
 the whisper of each had found an ear in her sad- 
 dened heart. 
 
 She went to her desk and took the little calendar 
 in her hand. June ist: ANSWER BEN! How 
 should she answer him with Eric become a vital part 
 of her daily happiness? Oh! Had these last days 
 been a dream? Should she awake soon, unable to 
 finish this song so beautifully begun ?
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 WHICH CULMINATES IN A SECOND LETTER 
 TO CAMILLA 
 
 THERE are a thousand homes in Boston, dwelt 
 in by the nicest people imaginable, which are 
 painfully alike. Alike in their calm pro- 
 priety; alike in their Victorian homeliness; alike in 
 their chastening influence upon the young. The chil- 
 dren grow up to their homes; nothing grows down 
 to them. Even if they do not walk about the streets 
 reading Emerson, they alone are the losers by such 
 abstention, for the world at large is convinced that 
 they do. At a tender age the boys are whisked 
 off to boarding-school, where they are cast into 
 an excellent mould and turned out six or seven years 
 later in varying degrees of completion. The girls 
 remain at home, sometimes beautiful, often incon- 
 sequential, and usually idle ornaments. 
 
 After a year of this ornamental stage though 
 even during the winter of her debut she had discov- 
 ered Dostoievzki and Brieux to parental alarm 
 Rosalind had decided to be useful. It shocked her 
 mother; it hurt her father; it displeased her god- 
 father. Among the lists of subscribers to charity 
 the name of Copley had led all the rest; but to 
 work, actually to work, in Brimmer House ! Col- 
 lectively and individually the family shook its head. 
 But Rosalind's determination won the day, and 
 within a year lo and behold! Mrs. Copley had 
 
 193
 
 i 9 4 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 entertained a carefully selected group of Rosalind's 
 little girls at the house; Mr. Copley was telling 
 stories about her at the Sarcophagus Club ; and even 
 her godfather acknowledged to be pleased with her 
 success. 
 
 People are hungry for life in proportion to the 
 courage which they bring into it, and Rosalind was 
 brave. She had not wanted to live as does the aver- 
 age, the conventional girl. Perhaps she did not 
 court the storm and stress of existence; yet at the 
 same time she was unafraid before it, and could re- 
 gard its possible incursion upon her virginal serenity 
 with the pleasurable thrill of a novice in oriental 
 travel who hears by night the far-off shriek of the 
 monsoon on Arafura Sea. Life is very sweet; no 
 wonder that it be human nature to desire the utmost 
 of it. In Eric she had found what she believed 
 to be the reason of her existence, and had been 
 mightily stirred. What she had endeavoured to find 
 in Benjamin, affining qualities in Eric had showered 
 upon her. Even in so short a time he had taught her 
 to see the world in a grain of sand, to find eternity 
 in a second. Life had not been lived entirely on 
 the hilltops, it is true: to scale the loftiest moun- 
 tain, the lowest valley must be tread. But with a 
 cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night the path 
 mattered not: the goal was all. 
 
 It was different now. Rosalind sat at her desk 
 in Brimmer House, leaning back in the chair and 
 biting her pen-holder, her mind filled with the ru- 
 mour heard yesterday from the Misses Hepple- 
 thwaite. A feeling came over her that both ame- 
 thyst mountain and purple valley had vanished away, 
 that nothing now was left but the endless, humdrum 
 flatlands of life. She set herself to write.
 
 A SECOND LETTER TO CAMILLA 195 
 
 ". . . . Antonio is worse than when he first came 
 to the class-room, and I really begin to think his is 
 a case for the House of Correction . . ." 
 
 The pen trailed off the page in an inky hen-track. 
 Little words that Eric had said tumbled through 
 her brain, scraps of sentences, music that tinkled 
 in a past harmony, a glint of sunlight on his dark 
 hair. Was it all to go, this beautiful universe? 
 " A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering hap- 
 pier things." She thought of all those trivialities, 
 so incomprehensibly dear, which had made her life 
 rich of late; she thought how warm and precious 
 past hours had been; and her tears, like those of the 
 Recording Angel upon Uncle Toby's great oath, 
 dropped one by one upon the page, blotting the sins 
 of Antonio from all legibility. There were not 
 many tears, but the few were bitter, and left her as 
 miserable as before they had been shed. Incapable 
 of work she jumped up, put on her hat, and moved 
 irresolutely to the door. A magnetism stronger 
 than her pride was drawing her towards the Square. 
 As she climbed up the hill she whispered that she 
 was going to see her godfather and no one else, but 
 she was painfully conscious of falseness to herself 
 in the thought. 
 
 Despite a few pale streaks of sunlight which still 
 filtered slowly into the Square the place was gloomy 
 and chill, with an angry wind whistling in the chim- 
 ney-tops and rattling a loosened shutter with im- 
 perious rage. Aristides and Columbus, cold little 
 statues, looked across the enclosure at each other 
 in dejected misery; up above, the wind shredded the 
 limbs of the ragged old elms. Rosalind shivered. 
 Yesterday morning it had been warm enough to sit 
 in the enclosure with Eric; to-day she doubted if
 
 196 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 she might now sit anywhere with him ! And yet her 
 heart filled with but one desire : to know what he 
 was about, to see him, to hear his voice, to observe 
 close by his hand, though unobserved. Acting on 
 some impulse, she stepped across the road and, 
 pressed close to the old iron fence, looked in at the 
 spot where together they had been the morning be- 
 fore. There was so much loveliness in the remem- 
 brance that she forgot to turn away. On the dark- 
 ened grass she could see Eric's slender figure flung 
 back with a laugh; the sun was still dazzling on his 
 face ; the nearness of his body still stirred her blood. 
 Like an enchanted pilgrim, she stood gazing in 
 through the bars as if a Garden of Armida lay be- 
 yond and not a dark, shy old square. 
 
 " I have been watching you from the window, 
 Rose. Have you lost something? " 
 
 With electric surprise Eric's voice aroused her 
 from her reverie. She could not look at him, so 
 overwhelmingly she felt his presence. 
 
 " Yes, Eric. I have lost something," she truth- 
 fully answered in a voice so low that the wind caught 
 and swept it away from her lips. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 There was nothing to say, nothing that she could 
 reply which would be truth. 
 
 " My my purse ! It must have dropped yes- 
 terday morning, as we sat here. You remember? " 
 
 "Let me look!" 
 
 He was over the fence in a moment. Rosalind 
 watched his slim figure vault through the half light 
 in a confusion of admiration, self-reproach, and an- 
 ger. 
 
 " Don't trouble, Eric ! " She blushed as he
 
 A SECOND LETTER TO CAMILLA 197 
 
 groped about the grass. " It's only a trifle after 
 all." 
 
 " It doesn't seem to be here anyway," he called. 
 Then he came close to the fence on his side. 
 "Where have you been? I have waited all the 
 morning about the house." 
 
 Rosalind's heart leaped up as he spoke, and she 
 felt the skin upon her scalp tighten and tingle. 
 
 "Have you really?" she asked with suddenly 
 bright eyes. 
 
 " Of course. Did you forget? " 
 
 Something, she knew not what, made her think of 
 Patricia and she bit her lip, angry at his deceit. 
 
 " Yes that is, no. I've spent most of the day 
 at Brimmer House." Her voice was coldly polite. 
 " There's much work for me." 
 
 " I wish I could help. Couldn't I ? " 
 
 Rosalind looked sharply at him. Another day 
 the solicitude in his voice would have warmed her 
 heart; now she was tempted in her anger to be cyni- 
 cal. He help her? Was this a game of buff he 
 was playing and was she the blindman? Through 
 the bars of the old fence she could see the breeze 
 ruffling his curly hair and flooding his cheeks with 
 colour; in his eyes there was the clear coolness of 
 high winds on high hills. 
 
 " You allowed Cary to help you. You called him 
 your financial aide. Why not ask me? " 
 
 " I will ask you, Eric." She met his eyes seri- 
 ously. 
 
 " Thank you." He was very close now; the same 
 breath of wind that played about his head stirred also 
 about her before it flung itself to Heaven. " You 
 are not angry with me, Rosalind? Tell me! "
 
 i 9 8 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " Angry? " She grasped tightly the bars of the 
 old fence, overwhelmed with a feeling that she had 
 somehow betrayed her jealousy, and said the easiest 
 thing, the first thing that came into her mind. 
 " What do you mean, Eric? " 
 
 " Lately it has seemed that I displeased you. I 
 have wondered why to myself. Perhaps I have 
 been wrong in my conclusions. ... I thought you 
 liked me." He paused. Rosalind, tremulous and 
 with bent head, could say nothing. " You seemed 
 to take a fancy to me at first. Perhaps it was only 
 kindness : every one has been so kind. I hope I have 
 not offended you? How have I? Rose?" Still 
 no reply. The joy of the moment stifled her and 
 she felt her jealous conviction, built upon rumour, 
 like an evil spirit before the exorcising charm fade 
 at his words. " I do so want all people to like 
 me. My mother was sweet to every one, simply be- 
 cause she said it was easier to be pleasant than dis- 
 agreeable. I have inherited the manner from her, 
 and it makes one seem false, I suppose. If I see 
 a person, I desire that person to like me. And I 
 try to make every one want me, though I don't care 
 perhaps at all for them. It's a selfish thing, I sup- 
 pose." 
 
 " Did you try with me, Eric? " asked Rosalind 
 timorously. 
 
 " I hardly had an opportunity. I that sounds 
 conceited enough, doesn't it? I meant we seemed 
 to like each other so well that endeavour wasn't 
 necessary." 
 
 " Not at all necessary." 
 
 It was dark now. Rosalind smiled to herself. 
 From the moment when first she had discovered him
 
 A SECOND LETTER TO CAMILLA 199 
 
 at the piano to the present instant, love had seemed 
 to her inevitable. 
 
 " If you are not angry, then I am most pleased. 
 It means a great deal to me. . . . And now before 
 we both get pneumonia in this tearing wind, let's go 
 in to godfather! " 
 
 Eric had mounted the fence and stood a moment 
 above her silhouetted against the angry sky with arms 
 outstretched. So might Mercury have poised in flight 
 upon a heaven-kissing hill. But the footing was too 
 precarious and the rushing wind unbalanced him; he 
 twisted, caught at the air, and fell to the street with a 
 cry. At the misstep Rosalind had stretched out her 
 arms to steady his position, and as he fell his foot 
 struck her, spinning her back against the fence. 
 
 "Eric! Are you hurt?" 
 
 For a moment she stared sickly at the figure on 
 the cobblestones, her heart cold in her breast. 
 
 "Eric! Eric! What has happened? Are you 
 hurt, dear Eric? Answer me! " 
 
 Dropping to her knees beside him, she caught his 
 hand as it moved about his head. He lay upon his 
 side, and she endeavoured to support his shoulders 
 and raise him from the cold ground. His lids were 
 heavy as if with sleep. 
 
 " I must have stumbled," he murmured in a 
 faint, dazed voice. " It's my head; it hit the iron 
 fence. I'll be all right now. Nothing broken. 
 I'll be all right." 
 
 " I'm so sorry," she cried with a break in her 
 voice, as with her support he arose unsteadily. " It 
 must hurt dreadfully, Eric." 
 
 " I'm dizzy." He tottered on his feet. " Give 
 me your arm, Rose. Stupid of me fall."
 
 200 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 She slipped her arm through his, looking up in 
 the pale, drawn face. At the first step he reeled, 
 like to fall again from his faintness, and with quick 
 pity and strength she put her arms about him. For 
 a moment they stood thus in the stormy twilight, 
 his weight thrown heavily upon her, his face de- 
 clining with the weariness of pain toward her face; 
 then, with an effort, he took another step, halting 
 and weak, another and another, and so on up the 
 stairs and into the house. The weight was precious 
 in Rosalind's arms. Perhaps it was only a step 
 across the street to the sofa in the drawing-room: 
 such steps are rare, invaluable measures, quite un- 
 known to linear scales. There was an eternal mag- 
 nitude about that minute which defied all temporal 
 calculation. To help in a moment of pain, to feel 
 a dazed head heavy upon the shoulder, to clasp about 
 the waist, to touch with light fingers the temples 
 in these small services is the lover's great reward of 
 love. 
 
 The slightest accident to one beloved is infinitely 
 magnified. Charity we measure by our incomes, but 
 sympathy by our hearts. Had Eric been Horatius, 
 fresh from washing his wounds in hurrying Tiber, 
 he could not have received a more lavish yet sin- 
 cere bestowal of fuss and affection. He reclined 
 upon a sofa, cushioned, cologned, and comforted, 
 a moral Don Juan revived and restored by a west- 
 ern Haidee. Mr. Singleton Singleton would have 
 called a doctor, but Eric balked at that. A man 
 likes to be made much of if he has only pricked his 
 thumb, but even though he be dying he will not 
 summon a doctor. Love is the best physician; it 
 is the one infallible cure-all of immedicable woes. 
 Though Asclepios brought Hippolytus back to life,
 
 he could not have prescribed comfort for a bump on 
 the head; but Rosalind's cool fingers at Eric's temples 
 were like ministers of peace in a hot and aching 
 world. At dinner Eric was the focus of attention. 
 Sitting beside him, Rosalind could not eat; one never 
 eats in the presence of a person much loved or much 
 respected. Between the excitement of the heart and 
 the stimulation of the nervous system the conductive 
 usefulness of the alimentary canal is reduced to a 
 minimum which holds only ambrosia palatable. 
 Who could be so oblivious as to eat with a garden of 
 roses blooming in the heart? 
 
 After Eric had been put unwillingly to bed, Rosa- 
 lind sat down at the desk in the small library up- 
 stairs, her eyes still brilliant with happy excitement. 
 She felt a desire to laugh and a desire to cry, and in 
 her mood of exaltation took up a pen to write to her 
 friend, Camilla. The deathless joy of friends is 
 this: wherever they may be, whatever their estate, 
 they represent a sympathetic and intimate audience 
 before which the cloak and subleties of life may be 
 stripped off and the confidence of strong love re- 
 main. 
 
 April 22d. 
 Dearest Camilla: 
 
 As a hors d'ceuvre Uncle Sing-Sing sends you his love. 
 I send you mine, dear Cam, too, and I wish with all my 
 heart you were here this minute. What a talk we could 
 have! But you aren't, so I take my pen in hand (like 
 the country lover) hoping you are still the same. I'm not. 
 I'm involved in a drayma. 
 
 The curtain goes up, disclosing to view a beautiful, young, 
 society girl, right centre, in tears. (That's me.) Centre 
 stage, handsome foreigner with ice-green eyes and air of 
 divine insouciance. (That's HIM, Cammy!) Left cen- 
 tre, dark woman of vampire beauty, dangerous temperament,
 
 202 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 and Gallic moral code. (That is you've guessed it, 
 Cam! Patricia!) 
 
 Everything you have ever said about P. C., I now en- 
 dorse, Camilla. Anything you ever can say will " when 
 found, be made note on." Is this music to you? It's ten 
 thousand trumpets out of tune to me, dearest. What 
 makes it all the worse is this: / warped those trumpets. / 
 brought Patricia and Eric into contact, moi! 
 
 You know, my sweet Cammy, how said Patricia can act! 
 Well, she tried out all of those and a cargo of new allure- 
 ments on Eric, and within Jack Robinson my fairy prince 
 was a god in chains. Since that moment the sun has risen 
 in the west, my ears have burned, and I have dreamed of 
 walking under ladders. (Also I have been attacked on the 
 golf links by a tall, handsome friend of yours. You re- 
 member what Samson did to the lion? But I'm not going 
 to tell you that secret. It wouldn't be fair to Samson.) 
 
 But dearest Cammy, you mustn't be jealous when I tell 
 you what glorious times Eric and I have had together! 
 Oh! to walk on air and contemplate the sun! And I have 
 done it. Ah! ces beaux jours de bonheur indicible! I have 
 felt a joy that has passed all my belief, Camilla. And 
 now? I don't know anything, m'amie! I don't know 
 whether he likes me or not. It's torturing to live this way. 
 To-night I'm almost very sure I'm grand' chose in his life; 
 to-morrow qui salt? As for jealousy ! My dear Camilla, 
 I'm positively ochre; Leontes out-Leontesed ! But how can 
 I help it? Two suns cannot revolve in the same sphere: 
 Patricia Canfield and I cannot both be Venus! As for my 
 pride, Cammy dear, I've not two penny's worth left. 
 
 Oh, Camilla, you understand me, I know. Other friends 
 have not been like us. Then lend me now your love. I 
 have yearned for Eric, put him before everything in the 
 world. To me he has not been what he is, what you 
 might think him, but something inhumanly beautiful. I 
 have set him on a pedestal of crystal ; I have put him in my 
 prayers all in so short a time ! You think it is a pass- 
 ing craze perhaps? No, Cammy! It is very deep in my
 
 A SECOND LETTER TO CAMILLA 203 
 
 soul. There are some moments when you can feel a reve- 
 lation: with Eric such a moment has come to me. I could 
 strike Heaven dumb with hyperbole, so changed am I, 
 but tears, idle tears! Ca ne vaut rien! 
 
 When you come back you'll be dearer to me than ever 
 and be in at the death! 
 
 Patience on a monument, 
 
 Your adoring ROSE. 
 
 P. S. Allegra Tompkins' new free verse poems are just 
 out. You'll be interested in this parody Eric and I in 
 one of our HAPPY MOMENTS have concocted. 
 Mamma says it's much more sense than the original. Eric 
 calls it 
 
 " A Temperamental Temperance Tour de Force." 
 
 Of late of thy wine of love 
 
 Much have I drunk. 
 
 Gushing and ebbing in my red heart, 
 
 Tide upon tide has clutched and passioned 
 
 For something there. 
 
 Now am I full of broken bottles, 
 Chipped, ruddy glass, amber beer bottles, 
 Splinters that tear and scream. 
 Why, having drunk up all the wine, 
 Did I drink, too, the bottles? 
 My parched soul, unslaked, 
 Shrieked for that more which you had not; 
 So of your love I swallowed the shell, 
 Hideously indigestible . . . 
 
 I was thirsty, so thirsty!
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 MISFORTUNES NEVER COME SINGLY 
 
 BETWEEN Eric's accident and the wedding of 
 Amy Pearce to Philip Brooks there lay in 
 Rosalind's life an interregnum. The days 
 filed by in a dull succession, strangely devoid of the 
 initial glamour of being passionately in love. It 
 was as if before the full sense of her deeper emotion 
 could be appreciated an adjustment of spiritual 
 values must be made. Rosalind was puzzled, and 
 came to regard herself with mistrust. At times she 
 felt almost repugnance for her love. In moments 
 of bright sunshine and gay laughter she entertained 
 those torturing, mortal misgivings and half-doubts as 
 to the possibility of eternal devotion. So new and 
 swift in its conquest, could this passion endure the 
 infinite weaving of years? To one assured of re- 
 ciprocal love the future is a land of jasper and of 
 gold, glowing with celestial roses; but Rosalind en- 
 joyed no surety of affection, and so with unsealed 
 sight could see in all its grey reality the cold, hard 
 road that stretches up to the gleaming hill where 
 man and Maker meet. Yet far more often a sense 
 of all that which was now hers swept over her in a 
 torrent of reproach that such doubts could find enter- 
 tainment in her breast. When she awoke in the 
 vast silence of the night to find a square of moon- 
 light nicely painted on the floor, the firm belief in 
 Eric as the quintessential of her life possessed her, 
 
 204
 
 MISFORTUNES 205 
 
 tossing and turning its mortal casing in an ecstasy of 
 loneliness. Moved by this sudden influx of feeling, 
 she would steal to the window to watch the stars 
 like armies of eyes march silently across the heavens, 
 and find in each twinkling radiancy a cold distance 
 that struck into her heart. In the daytime, too, 
 the sense of being alone came over her. In little 
 country groves the wind sang unearthly melodies, 
 faint echoings of something which had never been; 
 in city streets she found associations rich with past 
 remembrances; and the dulness of mundane associa- 
 tions contrasted vividly with the omnipresent spirit 
 of her love. 
 
 One afternoon she unexpectedly came across Pa- 
 tricia Canfield, standing on the steps of Violet Lee's 
 house. For a moment Rosalind was embarrassed, 
 but her friend with the characteristic flutter and 
 bustle of all beautiful women who live life as if it 
 were a foot-race, flew down the steps to embrace 
 her. 
 
 "Hullo, Rosey-ro!" Patricia always kissed on 
 the lips for sincerity's sake. " Where are you go- 
 ing, dear ? Do come in and see Vi's olive-branch ! " 
 
 Rosalind paused uncertainly. 
 
 " I suppose I all right, Pat." 
 
 " I'm crazy to see it. I adore babies they're 
 so puddeny. Vi is perfectly mad over hers; sits it 
 up on the bed beside her and cries, ' Now when you 
 grow up, you and I are going to be bess, 'ittle, quiet 
 fre'n's.' Let me see," mused Patricia maliciously. 
 " Do you remember said Violet in the ante-baby 
 days? They had to put the lights out to get her 
 home ! Now she's that demure and maternal I feel 
 actually rebuked in her sight ! " 
 
 They slipped into the house.
 
 206 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " It must be a relief for Hugh." 
 
 " Yes. I suppose you think marriage would be 
 good for me, too, Ro-ro?" Rosalind coloured ab- 
 ruptly. " I've thought so lately. A couple of 
 babies might make me into a Penelope or a Lucre- 
 tia." 
 
 ;' What's the child's name?" 
 
 " That I'm thinking of kidnapping, dear? " Pa- 
 tricia wilfully misunderstood the question with facile 
 stupidity. " Never mind but you know him." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 Rosalind was glad when they reached Violet's 
 boudoir; fencing with Patricia about Eric was a 
 particularly disagreeable occupation. 
 
 " Hullo, Vi. I've brought Rosey with me. 
 Where is the blessing? " 
 
 Rosalind kissed the mother and knelt down be- 
 side the baby. 
 
 " May I take it up, Violet? What a splendid 
 child!" 
 
 Mrs. Lee, nodding assent, Rosalind raised the 
 baby to her breast with a skill taught by long expe- 
 rience at Brimmer House. The little bundle of 
 blankets was quiet in her arms. 
 
 " Look, Violet ! She's smiling at me." Rosalind 
 lifted to her lips one of the little hands, its rosy 
 fingers crisping in the first exercise of strength. 
 
 ' Want to hold it, Patricia? " 
 
 Miss Canfield was sitting by the window, where 
 she could look out upon the street. 
 
 " Heavens, no ! " she replied with marked declen- 
 sion of interest in infantile welfare. " I might drop 
 it. Don't be offended, Vi! This is a Paris dress 
 anyway, and if you don't know just how to handle the 
 little things, they're liable to forget themselves.
 
 MISFORTUNES 207 
 
 Look! There's Hatty Mason: shall we have a 
 bridge? I'm dying for cards." 
 
 Rosalind excused herself and, putting down the 
 baby, bid Mrs. Lee good-bye. 
 
 " I only just dropped in, Violet." 
 
 " Ta-ta, Rosey," called Patricia from the window. 
 " Is he going to the wedding to-morrow? " 
 
 "Who?" asked Rosalind, firmly meeting her 
 friend's half-mocking, half-inquisitive stare. 
 
 " Eric, of course ! Did you think I meant the 
 baby?" 
 
 Rosalind bit her lip. 
 
 " I don't know," she replied truthfully. Eric had 
 gone into the country on a sketching trip and had not 
 defined the day of his return. 
 
 " Don't fence, Rose," laughed Mrs. Lee from her 
 reclining chair. " You're with friends ! " 
 
 Rosalind was standing at the door. 
 
 " I really don't know, Patricia. He didn't tell 
 me. Good-bye, Violet." 
 
 As she ran down the stairs, her face burned to 
 hear Patricia's laugh floating after her. It is not 
 pleasant to know that your friends are dissecting you 
 with an amused smile behind your back. Sharper 
 than all the blades of Damascus is the tongue which 
 wags malice against an old friend. 
 
 On the next morning her answer to Patricia would 
 have been different, for she received a telegram from 
 Eric declaring his intention to return at noon and 
 go to the wedding. With this in her thoughts Rosa- 
 lind sat in Trinity Church, staring about on all sides. 
 The dingy interior was impregnated with the per- 
 fume of the roses which decorated the altar and 
 wreathed about little columns guarding the length of 
 the aisle. But if Eric was there, he was not to be
 
 208 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 seen in the crowd of fine dresses and dark cutaways 
 which filled the pews. Rosalind leaned back in dis- 
 appointment. What a circus our world of to-day 
 makes of a wedding! What an opportunity it af- 
 fords garrulous women to sate that curiosity of theirs 
 which damned mother Eve ! What a perfect carni- 
 val of barbaric impudence is all this frilling and fur- 
 belowing and staring at two inoffensive human be- 
 ings strangers, more often than not who are 
 for the moment standing close by God! Clack- 
 clack-clack go the ladies' tongues, intruding their 
 scandal-mongering upon the magnificent thunder and 
 drone of the organ. The men in the audience 
 what else, indeed ? yawn and cough ; the minister 
 and the best man behind the altar settle the account 
 in gold pieces and not human teeth or bright 
 stones, for this is not Madagascar, though it appear 
 like it and the trembling protagonists march away 
 from the presence of God, grateful that what should 
 be most divine in life is quickly over. Marriages 
 are certainly not made on earth ! Were it not better 
 done to stand in a rain of apple blossoms from an 
 age-old branch, sole separation from the Lord's high 
 Heaven, and speak the simple words before a simple 
 man than endure all the tinsel and trumpeting of a 
 marriage in a crowded church? 
 
 Rosalind was glad when the ceremony was over; 
 marriage was too close to her own heart to be a 
 visual pleasure. Still there was no sign of Eric. 
 Despite ceaseless burrowing in the tight-packed press 
 at the reception, her efforts were unrewarded. With 
 a sense of disappointment she mounted the stairs to 
 retake her wrap, but passed absent-mindedly from 
 the hall into a chamber opposite the improvised coat- 
 room. It was a cosy little place, overlooking the
 
 MISFORTUNES 209 
 
 Basin, a place on the gay chintzes of which the sun 
 fell brightly. Not until she was well inside the door 
 did she realise her mistake. At the same time she 
 experienced that curious sense of being not alone in 
 a room. A glance towards the window confirmed 
 her subconscious feelings; a man had risen from be- 
 side a woman on the chintz-covered sofa. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," stammered Rosalind. 
 Then as she recognised the person : " Why why, 
 Eric!" 
 
 He stood framed in the dazzling window; afar 
 behind him shimmered the river in the warm mid- 
 day sun, reflecting from its glittering bosom light 
 that shone about his head in a soft aureole. He was 
 on the point of speaking when the lady on the sofa 
 tu'rned about, and Rosalind found herself looking 
 into the eyes of Patricia. 
 
 " Hullo, Rosey ! So you've found the only quiet 
 spot here, too? " 
 
 Rosalind felt that her face must be exceedingly 
 pale. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," she said at length in a 
 splendid effort to keep her tones even. 
 
 " Don't mention it, Rosey," ran on Patricia point- 
 edly. " How d'you ever find us? Sit down, dear, 
 on the sofa. Eric's no end of pretty speeches to- 
 day. He's been dazzling me with 'em." 
 
 Rosalind repressed a great desire to do something 
 mad and unheard of, abruptly turned, and quitted 
 the room and the house. 
 
 Wise and long-suffering La Rochefoucauld! 
 When he proclaimed to the world that nothing is 
 more natural or more fallacious than to persuade 
 ourselves that we are beloved, he voiced a terrible 
 warning to all sensitive people. Do these folk but
 
 210 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 care for a person ever so little, they can interpret 
 any word or any action in some way intimately 
 favourable to themselves; they look into the sun of 
 love and are struck blind to the truth. Yet could 
 Argus, with all his eyes, have withstood its light? 
 Surely it had tricked Rosalind like a veritable Friar 
 Rush, hobgoblin flame which dances on and ever on 
 in the darkness. Through vicissitudes of doubt and 
 error, she had at last concluded that there was a re- 
 lation between herself and Eric which was both pe- 
 culiar and sincere. On the receipt of his telegram 
 this very morning of the wedding, she had anew re- 
 solved that every opportunity for a felicitous con- 
 clusion lay before her. And now now she felt 
 assured that he had been but playing with her! 
 Nothing can raise so resentful a passion in the human 
 breast as the knowledge that what to us is most 
 sacred and profound is undervalued by another. 
 To Eric her existence must be negligible. Tortur- 
 ing herself with the thought that he and Patricia 
 were undoubtedly laughing together now over her 
 white face and patent sorrow, she strode angrily 
 along the Esplanade. Plainly the world was out 
 of joint: there was no beauty in this day. The wind 
 bore only dust to her; the river's surface irritated 
 with its perpetual sheen; and the gaiety of the chil- 
 dren playing about her made the more vivid her 
 unhappiness. There was but one way to deal with 
 the horrible tangle. No hesitating, no attempts to 
 unravel the skein enough of her pride and life 
 had already been spent in that effort: one swift, sharp 
 stroke, and it was over ! Rather than share a corner 
 of the heart she loved, she would live a loathsome 
 thing, as Othello would have been a toad sucking in 
 the vapours of a dungeon rather than have lived with
 
 Quietly she dosed the little book . . .
 
 MISFORTUNES 211 
 
 Desdemona false. She must be free; all possibility 
 of reciprocal love must be abandoned and with it her 
 own mighty passion. A person of courage, Rosa- 
 lind told herself, would end it now. It matters not 
 to have half-seen beatitude, if the consummate sight 
 is denied. In questions of the soul that materialistic 
 doctrine of the half loaf, propagated by the stout 
 Hanoverian, has no place. Love knows no halves: 
 it is a beauty indivisible. 
 
 The afternoon was endless and miserable. At 
 tea-time Rosalind vanished from the house to avoid 
 the influx of callers; and dinner was such a tiresome, 
 vapourish affair, that she escaped as soon as polite- 
 ness allowed, and, protesting a headache, wandered 
 alone into the music-room and gave herself over to 
 melancholy. A chair before the fire inviting, she 
 sank into its cushions; in each curling finger of flame 
 she found a memory. That would not do. She 
 picked up a book, one of those gorgeous trifles which 
 with jade and jasper figurettes litter the tables of the 
 rich, and aimlessly fluttered the pages. 
 
 " Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand 
 Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore 
 Alone upon the threshold of my door 
 Of individual life, I shall command 
 The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand 
 Serenely in the sunshine as before " 
 
 Quietly she closed the little book with a trembling 
 lip. Had she not stood in Eric's shadow? Had 
 she not felt the unforgettable influence ? Oh, Eliza- 
 beth Barrett, by that one gold string set trembling 
 under thy touch how hast thou awaked a responsive 
 chord in every breast of youth! As she put down 
 the " Sonnets," her hand fell upon " Gil Bias," and
 
 212 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 she turned its pages with a sense of relief. Always 
 the roguery of La Sage, had made her laugh, and 
 now she trusted in his power. 
 
 " A y de mi! un ano felice 
 Parece un soplo ligero, 
 Fero sui dicha un instante 
 Es un siglo te tormento." 
 
 She let the book fall to the floor. " Alas ! a year of 
 pleasure passes like a fleeting breeze; but a moment 
 of misfortune seems an age of pain! " No comfort 
 anywhere. She strayed about the room, restless, al- 
 most afraid, at last to sit moodily before the piano. 
 As her fingers trailed over the keys, she struck by 
 accident a chord in a waltz by Edouard Schiitt, " A 
 La Bien-Aimee," a favourite with Eric and one which 
 she had learned to play from him. She drifted into 
 the swinging, irresistible melody, her body alive with 
 harmonic echoes. Each note pulled and stretched 
 the strings of her heart. Through her half-closed 
 eyes she seemed to see a graceful figure at a piano 
 with head thrown back and fingers flying. 
 
 A step sounded in the hall outside. Absorbed in 
 her own reflection, Rosalind had been subconsciously 
 aware of the opening of the front door some time 
 past; now a sudden wild hope crowned her heart. 
 At last Eric was come and they could re-establish the 
 glorious quality of life ! 
 
 "Benjamin!" 
 
 It was a dizzy height to drop from. Relaxed in 
 every nerve and muscle, Rosalind turned away to 
 hide the profundity of her disappointment. A sud- 
 den hope at the best, it was come and gone like a 
 tardy lightning gleam after a storm. 
 
 " Rose, you are not ill? "
 
 MISFORTUNES 213 
 
 Half-turned from him, she shook her head 
 slowly. She was not what he would call ill. 
 
 " Your mother said " He did not finish his 
 sentence, but stood looking at her. There was a 
 pause and she dully wondered why he had come. 
 
 " Rose, are you happy? " 
 
 She looked quickly at him, erect, handsome, a 
 solid foundation of society. Yet how small he 
 seemed to her ! Nothing about him save his physical 
 mass in this moment created in her the impression of 
 size. He was a child. 
 
 " No," she answered truthfully, " I am not 
 happy." 
 
 " Nor am I. Is there any good in it? Couldn't 
 we combine and and make one happy out of 
 two sads? " 
 
 Rosalind shook her head slowly. 
 
 "Why not, dear? I could give you everything. 
 I could make you happy. There is nothing you 
 could desire that I wouldn't slave to win for you. 
 Everything would be yours." 
 
 " Not everything." 
 'Yes, Rose. Dear" 
 
 " I couldn't give everything to you, Ben." 
 
 " Oh I It doesn't matter. Just you to be with 
 you, hear you, see you that is what I want. A 
 touch of your hand, a look, the feeling of your arm 
 in mine I do not ask for more." 
 
 " Some day you would." 
 
 " No no. You don't understand, Rose." He 
 spoke with the typical pride of man, the superior sex. 
 " You can't understand the the how much I 
 love you." 
 
 "I can't, Ben?" Rosalind smiled pathetically. 
 " I can understand perfectly."
 
 2i 4 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " Perhaps you can : I'm sorry. But it should 
 make you understand everything then." 
 
 He was close by her now. In the soft light of the 
 room he seemed to loom up beside her tired body 
 in preposterous dimensions. 
 
 " Why have you come to-night? " 
 
 " Because, dear Rosalind, I am leaving for the 
 South. It's that New Orleans case I told you about. 
 When I learned I should have to go again, I I 
 rather liked it, but now I don't see how I can go 
 without a word from you. It's too much for me." 
 
 " You promised to wait till June first; you named 
 the day." 
 
 " I know. I know." 
 
 " Now you are continually forgetting. Why do 
 you do so ? Do you think it will help you ? " 
 
 "No. But I can't avoid it, Rose. Think I I 
 am going away for a month, probably more. At 
 the earliest I cannot get back before the last of 
 May. Leave you for a month ! It seems a a 
 devil of a time." 
 
 " So you must really go again? " Rosalind asked 
 in a feeble effort to frame some reply. 
 
 " How lonely I shall be! Bad enough last trip; 
 think how much worse it will be now. If I only 
 thought I had some if only you loved me, Rose ! 
 Then I could bear it. You will forget me in my ab- 
 sence; other friends will occupy your time and 
 thoughts. And I thousands of miles away." 
 
 "Poor, dear boyl" 
 
 She said it softly, touching his arm as she spoke. 
 It was as if the remark, so innocently meant, so 
 sweetly said, had ignited a fuse in his heart. Over- 
 whelmed by her closeness and the gentle touch of her 
 hand, he suddenly flung his arms about her. This
 
 MISFORTUNES 215 
 
 time Rosalind did not struggle; quiet, cold, neither 
 willing nor unwilling, limp against his body, she en- 
 dured the mightiness of his embrace. 
 
 " Say it again, Rose ! Oh, say it again ! Those 
 words are sweet. God knows I need some sweet- 
 ness. Can't you love me, Rose? Won't you try? 
 Think what it means ! Where can you find another 
 to adore you as I do? You are my world, dearest; 
 I'd chuck up everything for you. Come, Rose ! 
 Speak to me ! You don't try to get away this time? 
 You could not escape. It is better for you always 
 to stay like this, I know. Am I cruel? I don't 
 think I am. Will you let me kiss you, Rose? One 
 kiss? Before I go for a long time? " 
 
 He would have kissed her whether she willed or 
 not, for resistance was impossible, when of a sud- 
 den the noise of some one in the hall caught his ear. 
 Freeing her, he turned quickly, breathless and 
 ashamed; there was no one there. Swept by the 
 tempest, Rosalind sank dispiritedly into a chair. 
 She felt neither great indignation nor sorrow. We 
 are all of us human : even in the midst of this passion- 
 ate embrace she had been able to think of nothing 
 but her own woe. In her passivity lay the sign of 
 defeat. Had Eric loved her, no struggle she could 
 have made would have been omitted. Now it did 
 not matter. 
 
 " Will you say good-bye, Rosalind? " 
 
 She roused herself with an effort. 
 
 'Why not? Good-bye, Ben!" 
 
 " You understand. I I couldn't help it " 
 
 " I forgive you." 
 
 " Good-bye, dearest Rose. Try try to 
 don't forget June first ! Good-bye ! " 
 
 Long after he had left the room, Rosalind sat
 
 216 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 quiet in her chair by the dying fire, thinking of noth- 
 ing in particular. Her brain was dulled. Images 
 of thought flitted like shadows through her mind, 
 but they were meaningless, whirling, distorted. 
 Chaos was come again. 
 
 Finally she arose and went into the other room. 
 The sorrow of her disillusionment robbing from her 
 the tenor of years, she was like a little child, wide- 
 eyed and gentle in its early grief. 
 
 " Good-night, Mamma." 
 
 " Why, where's Eric? " Mrs. Copley looked up 
 from her embroidery with surprise. 
 
 "Eric?" Rosalind repeated vaguely as if she 
 did not understand. 
 
 "Haven't you seen him? He came about an 
 hour ago." Mrs. Copley bent her lovely head to 
 examine the infinitesimal emerald watch pendant 
 about her neck. " He seemed so particular about 
 seeing you that I sent him to the music-room." 
 
 " You mean that that he was here this eve- 
 ning? ' 
 
 " Yes. A little before Benjamin came to say 
 good-night to us. We thought he was there with 
 you all this time. Haven't you seen him? " 
 
 Rosalind shook her head, but she was not thinking 
 of her mother's question. With bitter faithfulness 
 she recalled the picture of herself in Benjamin's 
 arms, the sound without the door, and her sudden 
 release. The shaking of her head was a pathetic 
 recognition in her own mind that at last was come 
 the culminating misfortune.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 A SHORT CHAPTER BUT AN IMPORTANT ONE 
 
 go to my desk." 
 
 In obedience to Mr. Singleton Singleton's 
 wish the young man moved from his side. 
 
 " The drawer on the left. . . . Bring it here." 
 The invalid's eyes followed with a tender regard the 
 movements of this companion who was doing so 
 much to make bearable his dull watch in the store- 
 house of years. Lifting from the drawer a pearl- 
 circled miniature, he spoke again. 
 
 " Look, Eric. Your mother." 
 
 The young man took in his hand the little picture 
 and, carrying it to the window, gazed at it long and 
 steadfastly. The wound of his mother's death was 
 still unhealed. Again those images which cluster 
 round the child's love winged in unending sequence 
 through his mind ; again the realisation that she was 
 a soul in bliss caused his throat to tighten. 
 
 " When I die, that shall be yours. She gave it to 
 me; you will treasure it." 
 
 " I thank you, sir," said Eric mechanically, like 
 one whose mind voyages in unknown spheres. His 
 eyes rested darkly on the shining jewels, yet seemed 
 not to see them. 
 
 " Did she ever speak of me? " asked the old man. 
 
 " Sometimes to me, Godfather." (He had fallen 
 into the way of calling the invalid by that name.) 
 " More often when I was a little child and just 
 
 217
 
 218 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 lately. She thought so much of you. How it would 
 please her to know your kindness to me and my hap- 
 piness here! " The sunlight, streaming in through 
 the window, made shadows on Eric's down-turned 
 face. " She does know, I am sure. I feel her 
 sometimes . . . close beside me." 
 
 The invalid stretched out his thin arm. The 
 white hand, reaching the square of light which fell 
 through the window, trembled slowly. 
 
 " I loved her, Eric." 
 
 " Tell me, Godfather." The young man's voice 
 was more than tender; some thrill of kinship haunted 
 it. 
 
 " No. It's gone. . . . She was married and 1 
 young, at the Beaux Arts. . . . Like you." He 
 smiled wanly. 
 
 " I had not known that that she was married to 
 father then." 
 
 ' Yes. He was away much, singing." 
 
 " He always was. Poor mother ! She never saw 
 much of him. I scarcely knew him when I was little. 
 Then the glamour of the thing was a source of pride; 
 but now that mother's gone " (he paused before con- 
 tinuing) " I wish I'd had a more human father. I 
 am almost alone. . . . Mother and I were such 
 comrades." 
 
 " My dear boy! " In the invalid's tones sounded 
 a deep affection. As he bent his eyes on Eric's fine 
 features, his own youth rang back across the years 
 like the faint echoing of a far distant sound. 
 
 "Godfather, were they happy together?" The 
 old man's hand moved across the arm of his otto- 
 man. " You must have known." 
 'Why?" 
 
 " I scarcely know. Father always seemed in-
 
 A SHORT CHAPTER 219 
 
 tensely devoted and mother mother loved him, 
 too. Not as much as he loved her, I think. Some- 
 how, though ... I scarcely know what I mean, 
 but there seemed something missing in their life. 
 Yet I could not say what it was. I suppose 
 it was father's career which kept him apart so 
 much." 
 
 Mr. Singleton Singleton did not make any re- 
 mark. 
 
 " Eric," he said at length. "Don't make your 
 life like mine . . . ruined." 
 
 " But you couldn't help your sickness, sir." 
 
 " Not that. . . . Loneliness, Eric. Loneliness. 
 At night by day." There was a longer pause. 
 With the painful introspection of all invalids the 
 old man was making a sad summation of his life; 
 his companion waited, wordless when words were of 
 no avail. Mr. Singleton broke the silence first. 
 " Love some one, boy; keep that some one." 
 
 The young man gazed over the graded housetops 
 to where the Basin dazzled. 
 
 " I did love some one, sir," he answered slowly. 
 " But I think I found out in time. I thought she 
 loved me, too. She had been more my ideal of 
 womanhood than any one I had ever seen except 
 my mother. But just before I I lost myself, I 
 found out by chance that some one else. . . . You 
 see, I happened to see her in his arms." Eric shook 
 his head with a sad smile at the world outside, a 
 smile which seemed to dismiss an infinite amount of 
 potential beauty from life. " The memory is very 
 fresh now." 
 
 " My dream always was . . . you and Rosa- 
 lind," innocently volunteered Mr. Singleton Single- 
 ton.
 
 220 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 Eric wheeled about, his face alive with swift sur- 
 prise. 
 
 " Rosalind! " 
 
 The old man nodded. 
 
 " Why ! It it was Rosalind I " 
 
 He broke off in amazement. 
 
 'You you mean?" The old man moved 
 on the sofa eagerly. 
 
 " I had begun to love Rose; I was on the verge 
 of great happiness; and then then I found her, 
 as I said, in another man's arms! So I've had to 
 give it up. . . . She does not love me. Why should 
 she? She will marry some Boston man, some fine, 
 noble, stup but never mind ! . . . Yet, Godfather, 
 she really seemed to love me. I " 
 
 " She she she " 
 
 Mr. Singleton Singleton half rose in his chair, his 
 hand outstretched, the eagerness for the perfection 
 of his ideal starting in his eyes. Suddenly the words 
 murmured, turned into unrelated sounds upon his 
 pale lips. His dull eyes dilated; he had become in 
 an instant deathly white. He wavered uncertainly 
 on his feet, then dropped to the floor with a gulping 
 sound and sprawled there, voiceless, motionless, 
 senseless. The long dreaded stroke had come. 
 
 With a horrified cry Eric leaped to his side. Ex- 
 erting his strength to the utmost, he dragged the 
 stilled body to the ottoman, noting that the pulse 
 still kept up an uncertain beating. In answer to his 
 furious pressure of the bell the servants streamed up- 
 stairs and stood in helpless consternation, while he, 
 overwhelmed by the suddenness of the catastrophe, 
 remained standing by the invalid, clasping the limp 
 hand. Edouard alone retained his wits. With 
 faithful tears in his eyes he hurried to the telephone,
 
 A SHORT CHAPTER 221 
 
 making the necessary calls with so much despatch 
 that as he arose from his chair, Dr. Chick, the near- 
 est physician, was heard knocking at the door. 
 
 Dr. Ebenezer Chick had the appearance of a fret- 
 ful humming bird, and was one of those practi- 
 tioners who derive their practice from this sole 
 recommendation : their propinquity to the house in a 
 case of emergency. Standing beside the ottoman in 
 a fluster of excitement, he felt of the invalid's pulse 
 and stared helplessly at his watch, as if he hoped to 
 find in its vacuous face the information which no in- 
 ternal agency could furnish him. 
 
 " It's very serious," he ventured nervously. 
 "Oh, very! I really think I mean I scarcely 
 know what to say. This pulse is very bad! Put 
 him to bed! He can't stay like this, you know. 
 Oh! it's very serious, very! There's the nurse, 
 thank Heaven ! " 
 
 Fluttering to the window, Dr. Chick looked out 
 and shook his head with indecisive weakness. In 
 an agony of doubt Eric followed him. 
 
 " Do you think he he will live? " 
 
 Under the supervision of the nurse the invalid 
 was carried from the room to his bed. Only his 
 laboured breathing testified that the air of life still 
 stirred within him. 
 
 " I could hardly say. Perhaps; perhaps not. In 
 some cases, yes; in some cases, no. If I gave him a 
 week, he might die to-morrow; if I gave him to- 
 morrow, he might live for a year. It's a touch and 
 go thing, sir." 
 
 Dr. Cary's arrival put an end to such torturing 
 insufficiency. As the little surgeon sprang up the 
 stairs, two at a time, a new feeling seemed to walk 
 through the house. At last was come authority, if
 
 222 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 not in the malady particular to Mr. Singleton Single- 
 ton, most certainly in the highest practice of the art 
 of medicine. Followed by Eric and Chick, Dr. Gary 
 approached the bedside of his old friend. There 
 was in his bearing that which struck into the hearts 
 of his companions confident respect for what he 
 would say. In such a moment a great doctor is 
 figured in the mind as can no other mortal ever be; 
 he seems a medium between life and death, a trans- 
 lator of a divine message, one about whose head the 
 Pentecostal flames have danced. Even Dr. Chick, 
 swollen with the importance of being the associate 
 of the most famous surgeon in America, hung like 
 Eric on the newcomer's lips. After a careful ex- 
 amination of the white, still figure, Dr. Cary ad- 
 dressed them. 
 
 " I wouldn't give him a week to live. It's over 
 this time . . . Poor Tony ! " 
 
 Eric, who had been so recently in the presence of 
 death, stepped back, his heart full of swift-grown 
 grief. Was he to lose also this newest and kindest 
 friend ? 
 
 " Chick," said Dr. Cary, turning from the bed, 
 " will you stay by Mr. Singleton from now on? 
 There's little to be done, but I want you to see to 
 that little yourself. Make him as comfortable as 
 possible. You have treated parallel cases? " (Dr. 
 Chick nodded importantly.) " Aphasia, you see. 
 Complete shock. Paralysis on right side. Er 
 ah with your permission I will associate Sir 
 Chadby Leigh in the case with us." (Dr. Chick al- 
 most gasped: the great Leigh, his associate!) "I 
 am to meet him in conference this afternoon. He, if 
 any one, will know what to do. How fortunate he
 
 A SHORT CHAPTER 223 
 
 is on this side just now. By the way, Rolland, 
 where's Rosalind? Has she been told? " 
 
 Privileged by long service, Edouard answered in 
 his stead. " She was out, sir. She's expected back 
 at any moment." 
 
 " Tell her gently, Rolland. You know what he 
 means to her." 
 
 Eric nodded. 
 
 " I'll call her up again myself," he said, flushing. 
 " The surprise of it all made me forget." 
 
 A warm current of sympathy sped through his 
 body. When he saw that the doctors were engaged 
 in earnest discussion, he hurried to the telephone and 
 called the Copleys' house, his heart touched to the 
 quick. Above all things he desired at that moment 
 to make her feel his compassion. 
 
 " Yes; who is it? " answered Rosalind, after what 
 seemed an interminable time. 
 
 " Eric." 
 
 " Oh ! " A staccato exclamation came distantly 
 to him, tinged with an indefinable antagonism. 
 
 "Are you coming to the Square to-day?" 
 He fumbled for words, uncertain how to speak. 
 
 "No that is I" 
 
 " I wondered. You see your your godfather 
 he's not quite well." 
 
 "What do you mean? What has happened?" 
 The voice was changed now; the tones sounded pain- 
 fully expectant. 
 
 " Why, Rosalind, he's he's we've had to put 
 him to bed and get the doctor. I think you had " 
 
 "Is it very serious? Oh, Eric! How did it 
 happen? " 
 
 Without waiting for his reply, Rosalind flung
 
 224 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 down the receiver. It did not take her long to reach 
 the Square. As she mounted the stairs, all hope 
 seemed to drop from her. The automobiles of the 
 two doctors, the pale face of the servant who ad- 
 mitted her, the silent nurse, the already increased 
 oppression in the house's atmosphere, made her 
 keenly aware of impending tragedy. At the time 
 she entered his room the invalid had in no way re- 
 covered from the shock. Inert, blank in mind, un- 
 able to speak, he lay upon his great four-posted bed, 
 unconscious as the coverlet itself of the tears which 
 flowed from Rosalind's eyes. Nor had he mended 
 from the shock when at twilight with bending head 
 she trailed down the stairway. 
 
 Eric came forward to meet her. 
 
 "Any change? " 
 
 11 None." 
 
 She shook her head. As together they entered 
 the great drawing-room, she found a pathetic com- 
 fort in being with Eric in her grief. If he had been 
 bitterly unkind, nevertheless to him she had given 
 her most inspired love. Her godfather had been 
 almost a part of her, the guardian of her youthful 
 secrets, in her young womanhood the greatest bond 
 between herself and Eric. In the moment of this 
 bond's loosening, it was sweet to be with that which 
 it had formerly grappled to her heart. 
 
 "You were with him?" she asked at length. 
 
 " Yes. We were together in the upstairs 
 library." 
 
 " If I had only been here! Now he may never 
 speak again, may never know me any more. And I 
 was not here! " 
 
 " It was very unexpected. We were talking to- 
 gether and suddenly ! "
 
 A SHORT CHAPTER 225 
 
 u How did it happen? What were you talking 
 about? " 
 
 Eric fell a colour surge into his face. The sud- 
 den remembrance of the scene, of all that had been 
 said swept across him as he stood halting for words. 
 
 " Why ! We we were talking about you ! "
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE SUN GOES DOWN IN LOUISE URG SQUARE 
 
 SIR CHADBY LEIGH invariably wore a dark 
 blue cutaway with a gardenia in the buttonhole. 
 As a rule his face was red, and his lips were 
 pursed into a magisterial frown which well became 
 a man of his position in the medical world; but 
 whether his face was red or white and whether he 
 frowned or smiled, the gardenia nestled odorously 
 on the lapel of his coat. Only once had the wax-like 
 boutonniere been forgotten : on that day he had been 
 summoned in the same hour to the bedsides of two 
 Princes of the Blood. In such a crisis even an Eng- 
 lishman forgets what is customary. 
 
 The morning following Mr. Singleton Singleton's 
 shock there was a conference in the great drawing- 
 room of 8 Louisburg Square. While Sir Chadby 
 stood grandly in a corner by a window, Dr. Gary 
 walked to and fro near him and Dr. Chick gazed at 
 the great man with unqualified approbation. 
 
 ; ' It is your definite opinion then that there is no 
 chance? " Dr. Cary asked with the air of a man who 
 is determined to take the reply as final. 
 
 The baronet looked thoughtfully at his gardenia. 
 " None," he answered. 
 
 Dr. Chick shook his head as if he had suspected 
 this all along and had only waited until now to con- 
 firm his impression. " You have seen a worse case, 
 though ? " he queried. 
 
 226
 
 THE SUN GOES DOWN 227 
 
 Sir Chadby coughed impressively. 
 
 " Perhaps. Our patient's stroke recalls that of 
 Prince George, whom I had the honour to attend 
 last year. You recall his illness, I have no doubt." 
 
 Dr. Ebenezer Chick nervously assented. Though 
 he had never heard of Prince George, it gave him a 
 peculiar thrill of pride to talk with a baronet about 
 the symptoms of a prince. 
 
 " How many days do you give him? " asked Dr. 
 Gary, emerging from his meditation. 
 
 " Four. Not more than five at the most." 
 
 " I am not particularly up in this field, Leigh. 
 He will talk again?" 
 
 " Probably. I think, I am almost sure that the 
 aphasia will disappear a little before death. It hap- 
 pens in sixty per cent of the cases. Then, if he 
 regains consciousness, he may speak coherently." 
 Sir Chadby paused to snuff up the sensuous odour of 
 his little flower. " Is there anything further, 
 Cary? " 
 ~ "I* think not." 
 
 " Then I must run along. Since I am leaving for 
 Montreal to-night after the conference, I shan't see 
 him again." He looked upward significantly. 
 They had moved into the hall and Sir Chadby was 
 putting on his top hat. " By the way, Cary," he 
 asked in an appropriately delicate voice, " to whom 
 shall I send the er note?" 
 
 " To me." 
 
 " Right ! I shall see you at the conference." 
 
 The door closed behind the baronet and the two 
 doctors returned to the drawing-room. 
 
 " A very great man ! " exclaimed Dr. Chick. 
 " Dear me, how interesting! Did you hear him re- 
 fer to Prince George? I've no doubt he's on inti-
 
 228 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 mate terms with half the peerage of England. How 
 fortunate that he was here ! " 
 
 " Fortunate? " queried the other coldly. " I do 
 not see that he has helped us or could have. Bah! " 
 Dr. Gary turned his back on the discomfited practi- 
 tioner. " I wanted help, not confirmation. But 
 there's nothing to be done : it's all over." 
 
 Without looking round again, he quitted the room 
 and went upstairs; after which Dr. Chick returned to 
 his little house in Lime Street and told his wife the 
 first version of a story destined to become famous in 
 his small circle : namely, how Sir Chadby Leigh, 
 Bart., had asked his (Ebenezer Chick, M.D.'s) ad- 
 vice about a certain Prince George, whose other titles 
 medical tact forbade the narrator ever to disclose. 
 
 Rosalind had waited in the library upstairs for the 
 conclusion of the conference. As the little surgeon 
 entered the room, the expression in his eyes be- 
 trayed the truth. 
 
 "Oh, Dr. Caryl" 
 
 He gently took her hand in his. 
 
 " It has to come, Rosalind. That's the only way 
 of thinking about it." 
 
 A faintness filled Rosalind's body; she was pale 
 and dumb before this first great deprivation. 
 
 " And is it must it " 
 
 " Leigh said there was no chance." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 " He must know." 
 
 She sat down slowly, trying to think out what had 
 happened, to appreciate what she was to lose. 
 
 ' Will he ever know us again? " 
 
 " I think so and speak, too. Leigh seemed 
 sure on that point." 
 
 " I am glad," she murmured simply.
 
 THE SUN GOES DOWN 229 
 
 Dr. Gary placed his hand kindly on her shoulder. 
 
 " I know what you are losing, Rosalind. I was 
 about his oldest friend, I suppose." 
 
 After the surgeon had gone, Rosalind sat still in 
 her chair. At first grief is impossible to realise. 
 Though her godfather had been for the last five 
 years an invalid, she had never associated him in 
 her mind with mortality. In the flowering of her 
 womanhood he still remained the dominant figure 
 of earlier days, of the time when from him blessings 
 and presents flowed. The happy impressions of 
 childhood are those which linger longest: that is 
 why in the chill of age we remember our mothers as 
 young and beautiful. As she sat by the window 
 Rosalind sought to make compatible in her mind the 
 pale, rigid figure in the next room and the remem- 
 bered godfather of her youth. Yet tears did not 
 come. Until the sufferer's breath ceases to fluctuate 
 in his breast, death remains to the anxious watcher 
 as a possible but not a probable occurrence. So 
 strong are the bonds of mortality with us. 
 
 With the next days came understanding. Ter- 
 rible days they were, filled with watching and wait- 
 ing by day and night, with hoping where there was 
 no possibility of hope, with praying where the nega- 
 tion of the prayer was gone before. There was 
 about the house a stillness which rendered spoken 
 words louder and more pointless than at all other 
 times, and Rosalind and Eric, though continually 
 together now, said but little to each other. At first 
 she had found his presence an embarrassment. 
 Mindful of her shattered hopes, it seemed an added 
 strain to have him by her, tacitly sympathetic. This 
 feeling soon passed away. As the days dragged by, 
 the sole comfort in her hours of ceaseless watching
 
 230 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 by the invalid's bed was the presence and accordant 
 sorrow of Eric. Together they sat side by side in 
 the panelled bed-chamber; together they saw the 
 morning sun swim hotly through the vacant sky; to- 
 gether they watched its softer light, shadowed by 
 clouds, sweetly glowing in the old Square; together 
 they experienced the calm sadness of the finished day 
 and silent saw the stars creep out. Through the 
 unending passage of hours the invalid lay motion- 
 less. Sun, moon, stars stirred across the sky and 
 still he rested in oblivion. Very rarely Rosalind 
 went out, but occasionally it was necessary to breathe 
 air freed from the attendant presence of death. At 
 such a time Dr. Gary or her mother or father would 
 take the place by the window, that when the invalid 
 awoke for the last time he might not look upon an 
 unknown face. 
 
 To the world outside, the sickness of the old man 
 was of no interest. Even the yellow journals 
 seemed to have forgotten him who in other days had 
 furnished them with such abundant social copy. 
 When a figure in society abandons the customary 
 cane with evening dress or grows sidewhiskers, the 
 world is accordingly thrilled; but when he dies, he 
 dies alone. Only the intimate circle, those who 
 could remember five years back to the time when 
 his name had been a Sesame, were solicitous. 
 Among the latter, his neighbours, the Misses Hep- 
 plethwaite sent flowers, and called several times at 
 29 Commonwealth, but whether because of real 
 sympathy for their old neighbour or because of that 
 curiosity which is the inseparable attribute of all 
 spinsters, Mrs. Copley declared herself at a loss to 
 decide. 
 
 May Day came. In the afternoon Eric and
 
 THE SUN GOES DOWN 231 
 
 Rosalind quitted the house, leaving Mr. Copley by 
 the window in the invalid's room. Upon the Square 
 slept the calm, sapphire glow of afternoon; only to 
 live in such air was peacefulness. They wandered 
 to the Esplanade, where the sunlight burned in golden 
 bars upon the river's breast. There a ragged child 
 offered fragrant mayflowers for sale, hawking the 
 blossoms timidly among the stream of slow-moving 
 passers-by. Struck by her appearance, Eric gener- 
 ously purchased the whole of her stock, which made 
 even then but a moderate bouquet. 
 
 ' The first flowers of the year," said Rosalind. 
 " Thank you. How sweet they smell ! " 
 
 Raising the pink sprays to her face she breathed 
 in their fragrance. This was Eric's first gift. She 
 stole a glance at him, gazing abstractedly across the 
 bright river. How little the thought and the giv- 
 ing stirred him, how much her ! A crowd of pathetic 
 desires eddied in her heart as she thought of those 
 dull, sad times to come when memories of her god- 
 father would swarm back and find her alone without 
 the comfort of Eric's presence. As she turned im- 
 pulsively away, she felt assured that the inevitable 
 accompaniment of her godfather's death would be 
 her separation from this beloved companion; and 
 the assurance made her grief intolerable. But Eric, 
 however deeply abstracted, observed her turn away. 
 Attributing the movement to her sorrow for her 
 godfather, he cast about for some object of interest 
 with which to divert her attention. An eight-oared 
 crew came swinging through the still water towards 
 them, the paddles gleaming in the sunlight. 
 
 " Look ! " he cried, pointing to the approaching 
 shell. " How graceful that is ! Who are they, I 
 wonder? "
 
 232 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 She turned her eyes to the river again. They had 
 stopped by the iron railing and were standing where 
 the river slowly lapped about the stone embankment. 
 
 " Some Harvard crew, I suppose," she answered 
 listlessly. In her heart arose a sudden bitterness 
 that such irrelevancies could hold place with Eric. 
 
 " Rose." 
 
 " Yes ? " 
 
 " I wish I could make you think of something 
 else." 
 
 Rosalind started. What had she been thinking 
 of? 
 
 "Thank you, Eric. You can; you always do." 
 She said it far more gratefully and truthfully than 
 he could understand. A sudden desire to empty her 
 heart took possession of her as she looked up in his 
 face, tender in sympathy. " Just now you have 
 made me think of something else." 
 
 "What?'' 
 
 Rosalind thrilled with a new courage to speak. 
 The glistening river, the sun-bright air, the soft 
 placidity of the Basin contrasted with the rumble of 
 the haze-veiled city, everything that was beautiful 
 and fair in the midst of the ugly town seemed to 
 tell her that the moment to speak had come. 
 
 " I was wondering where you would go after 
 after it was all over." 
 
 She felt his eyes upon her. 
 
 " I have wondered, too," he replied with a remi- 
 niscent slowness. " Back to Paris, I suppose." 
 
 " What a long way off that is," said Rosalind wist- 
 fully. 
 
 " A whole ocean's breadth." 
 
 There was a pause, broken by the staccato cries
 
 [THE SUN GOES DOWN 233 
 
 of the coxswain of the fast receding crew. 
 
 " And you will be glad to go back, Eric? " 
 
 "Glad because it is to France; sorry because it 
 means leaving you all." 
 
 Rosalind looked hard at the dark, turgid water in 
 the shadow at their feet. Whom did he include in 
 that little word? 
 
 " I shall come and see you some day in Paris, 
 Eric." 
 
 " Do you mean it? " 
 
 " We'll be old then." Rosalind's voice was soft. 
 " And we can talk about old times and never care." 
 
 " That will never be," said Eric earnestly. 
 1 You mean " 
 
 u I shall always remember these days as some- 
 thing to care very much about." 
 
 " And I, too." She glanced at her companion and 
 was filled with a sudden boldness to speak further. 
 " I am so glad you are here now. I have not told 
 you, but you understand." 
 
 " If I could help you and him by it, I'd stay 
 here forever." 
 
 Rosalind's fingers played excitedly on the railing. 
 If only he might be made to understand ! If only he 
 could truly mean these words ! 
 
 " When you go back it it will be ! How 
 shall I get along without you, Eric? It will be quite 
 unbearable ! " 
 
 She looked wistfully in his face. 
 
 " My home seems really here now. It is good 
 of you to say these things, Rose." 
 
 " I mean them," she went on in a low voice. 
 " Our friendship is a great deal of what is worth 
 while to me."
 
 234 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " I shall remember that always. Rose " 
 " Miss Rose! Miss Rose! Come back quick, if 
 you please! Mr. Singleton's speaking! " 
 
 With a startling suddenness the imminent beauty 
 was dispelled. At the very instant when her desires 
 seemed about to be fulfilled the faithful Edouard, 
 his eyes staring with haste and excitement, burst 
 upon them. No dreams more ! No gazing at the 
 shimmering river ! With a single motion Rosalind 
 and Eric turned and sped up the Esplanade towards 
 Beacon Hill. 
 
 Mr. John Singleton Copley had taken Rosalind's 
 place by the window. Sitting rather uncomfortably 
 in his chair, he now and then cast a glance at the 
 bed across the room. He was not a sentimental 
 man, nor a particularly sensitive one. Perhaps he 
 loved his wife and children considerably more than 
 most rich husbands, but beyond that his affections 
 were hardly profound or far-reaching. Mr. Single- 
 ton Singleton and he were second cousins, which of 
 itself in Boston usually meant no more than that all 
 our best people are in some manner connected. But 
 closer ties had bound them. Not only were they the 
 two oldest members of the great Copley family, but 
 Mr. Singleton was his daughter's godfather and 
 had in fact seemed in his younger days almost his 
 own brother. 
 
 Mr. Copley was thinking of all this as he sat 
 rather uncomfortably in his chair. He had tried to 
 read at first, but one cannot read at such a time any- 
 thing but words. Therefore, taking off his glasses 
 very slowly, he resigned himself to thought. He 
 had been fond of his cousin. Mr. Copley remem- 
 bered the pleasures which they had shared together.
 
 THE SUN GOES DOWN 235 
 
 From knickerbockers they had been playmates at 
 school, at college, in later life; they had been in the 
 same clubs, known the same circle; they had travelled 
 together, lived together yes, he had been fond of 
 his cousin. He nodded his head a great many times 
 and then, remembering, looked at the bed furtively. 
 The room was utterly quiet: he could not notice. 
 Mr. Copley felt suddenly very old. Looking at the 
 pale, rigid figure across the room, it seemed that he 
 himself was probably paler and less supple than he 
 imagined. Death. What happened to people 
 when they died? What would happen to his 
 cousin? What would happen to himself? Mr. 
 Copley stirred uneasily in his chair; up to the present 
 time these questions had not troubled his mind to 
 any great extent. He looked through the window 
 at the warm, swimming sky. Was there anything 
 behind that blue canopy? Then he remembered 
 that it was not a canopy at all, but ever more and 
 more infinite space. Where was God in this blue- 
 ness? A little bird swooped down in a flutter of 
 wings upon the window ledge outside. As Mr. 
 Copley stared at it, it came into his mind that God 
 loved even the birds and would suffer no harm to 
 them. Then certainly his cousin would be cared 
 for; there was reasoning in that. Mr. Copley did 
 not say prayers; like so many men, his churchgoing 
 was limited to unpleasant winter Sundays. By no 
 means agnostic, he was of the modern type to whom 
 religion is a rod with which to frighten children 
 rather than a staff on which men and women may 
 lean. He had always considered religion illogical 
 when he did consider it. Yet now he found in it 
 reason which made him feel more at his ease. Still 
 it was not comfortable sitting in that panelled cham-
 
 2 3 6 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 her with the inscrutable enigma, death, at hand. 
 Even the very outside world itself looked different 
 from the windows of such a room. The clouds 
 which now and then stole before the sun cast their 
 big, ruthless shadows over the Square like forebod- 
 ing messengers; yet when the sun itself shone, it 
 seemed cruel and hard in contrast with the painful- 
 ness in the house. 
 
 Mr. Copley's mind drifted in a gradual transition 
 from death to life, from life to his life, from his 
 life to what he had done with his life that morning, 
 from that to his farm, where he had been all day 
 before coming to town. There his thoughts rested. 
 He loved his farm with the pride of a child pos- 
 sessed of a magnificent toy, with the intensity of man 
 who is too rich to work, yet too refined to do noth- 
 ing. He thought of his asparagus and his beets, of 
 the Angora goats and the thirty-two Jerseys, of the 
 new hotbeds which he had himself designed. A 
 pleasant channel this : let the mind run free ! Let it 
 wander through the great pine groves and the bean- 
 fields and the odorous meadow with the little foals 
 'in it! Let it traverse all the earthly beauty which 
 it prized! 
 
 In the midst of an apple-orchard, Mr. Copley 
 suddenly started, his hands gripping the arms of his 
 chair. A faint-whispered sound had come to him. 
 With a scarcely perceptible circle of sweat upon his 
 brow, he turned uneasily in his chair. 
 
 "Jack!" 
 
 Again ! The room was darker now, and Mr. 
 Copley, straining his eyes, could see no motion in the 
 figure on the bed. What was it? He had heard a 
 voice. Rising softly, he walked to the bedside. 
 Then he saw that he had not been mistaken ; for all
 
 THE SUN GOES DOWN 237 
 
 its blue-veined pallor there was life and light in the 
 face of his cousin. 
 
 "Tony! " he cried gently. " I'll get the nurse, 
 old man." 
 
 " Stop ! " The voice, though faint, was deep, 
 with curious, whispering overtones. The lips 
 scarcely moved to form the sound. 
 
 Reading in his cousin's eyes a desire, Mr. Copley 
 came close to him and sat in a chair by his pillow. 
 'Yes, Tony?" 
 
 " Jack." With painful slowness, halting, seeking 
 breath to form each syllable, the voice struggled on. 
 " Listen . . . secret . . . you . . . should. . . know 
 ... E ... E ... E-ric ... is ... my . . . son." 
 
 As the invalid's breathing became thick, the voice 
 ceased. Mr. Copley, who had been listening with 
 his head inclined, sat bolt upright in his chair. His 
 face was red, his eyes wide; on his knees his hands 
 spread out in astonishment. 
 
 " S s son? " he stuttered. 
 
 The invalid breathed the word again. Mr. Cop- 
 ley stared at him with the most profound amaze- 
 ment. Eric Holland! This handsome young boy 
 whom Rosalind admired! 
 
 " You mean . not Rolland's son? " 
 
 " Marie ... and ... I." 
 
 ;< Does he know?" 
 
 " No . . . one . . . knows . . . except . . . Hol- 
 land." 
 
 " I see," Mr. Copley said, although he did not see 
 at all. There was a pause, during which the in- 
 valid's stertorous breathing quieted somewhat. 
 
 " Help him . . . Jack. . . . My son. . . . 
 Where's . . Rose?" 
 
 Mr. Copley roused himself.
 
 238 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " I sent her out with Eric to get the air for a 
 moment. They've scarcely stirred from this room 
 in four days." 
 
 When Edouard had been despatched to search for 
 them, the invalid closed his eyes, and save for the 
 movements of the nurses, the familiar stillness was 
 renewed. Dumbfounded by what he had heard, 
 Mr. Copley remained sitting in his chair. To a per- 
 son of his conservative temperament the disclosure 
 was decidedly upsetting; he was nearly shocked. 
 Whatever would his wife say? And what must he 
 do in regard to Rosalind, especially if she really 
 loved Eric and wanted to marry him? Mr. Copley 
 frowned. That would hardly do. He shook his 
 head a great number of times, casting an occasional, 
 dubious glance at the sharp, pinched profile in the 
 bed. This second chair was proving far less com- 
 fortable than the first. 
 
 Twilight stole into Louisburg Square. A glow 
 of sunshine still lingered on the housetops, but the 
 day was done. Silence brooded in the ragged elms 
 and the old houses; the very air of Heaven itself 
 seemed heavy with quiet. 
 
 Inside the panelled chamber of Number 8 a little 
 day was ending, too. About the bed the family 
 grouped in painful helplessness, with eyes looking 
 their sober last upon the sunken face on the pillow. 
 Rosalind held one of the old man's hands; close by 
 her stood Eric. The old eyes were fixed on them, 
 but the voice was stilled. A calmness lay upon the 
 pale lips which defied all earthly tribulation. Then 
 the glow vanished from the housetops and death, 
 with the silent sweep of a great cloud fleeting across
 
 [THE SUN GOES DOWN 239 
 
 the face of Heaven, entered the room and possessed 
 the body of the old man. 
 
 Turning, Rosalind left the chamber to be alone. 
 With aimless steps she went to the library, and there 
 at the window stood looking over the Basin stretched 
 out far below, about which the lights of the Es- 
 planade shone like a chaplet of jewels. Her 
 thoughts in dulness, she remained there for a long 
 time without moving. The night was come; it rose 
 up from the earth on all sides until only the zenith 
 of Heaven was bright. Tears trembled in her eyes. 
 She turned from the window and found Eric beside 
 her in the darkness.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 SOME LETTERS, AN ENGAGEMENT, AND A TELEGRAM 
 
 TIME passed heavily enough for Rosalind dur- 
 ing the first weeks after her godfather's 
 death. It was not so much that her grief 
 was unbearable; rather it seemed that she had lost 
 from her life an integral part. In some ways her 
 godfather had been to her more of an institution 
 than a personality. To suffer such a loss is to en- 
 dure a broad and general sorrow. 
 
 The weeks were not lacking in occupation to force 
 her thoughts into other channels. There were num- 
 berless letters to be read and answered gloomy 
 labour, indeed. If it is hard to write a letter of 
 condolence, it is much harder to reply to one. To 
 overdo sympathy is a common fault; to repress ex- 
 hibiting in reply the wealth of one's sorrow without 
 falling into phrases so worn as to be revolting is 
 incomparably difficult. Two of the letters at least 
 differed from the usual tenor of sympathy. One 
 was written from New Oreans very late at 
 night and sent by quick delivery; it arrived the day 
 after the funeral. 
 
 May 3rd. 
 Dear Rosalind: 
 
 I have just heard of your godfather's death. Was it 
 very sudden? I had not known he was worse. You un- 
 derstand how sorry I am. I know well you loved him a 
 very great deal. If there is anything I can do, any way in 
 
 240
 
 SOME LETTERS 241 
 
 which I can help you, be sure that it is my sincerest aim in 
 life. I have been at work eleven hours to-day and can 
 scarcely think; to-morrow I shall write to you again. But 
 take my deepest sympathy to-night. Yours, BEN. 
 
 Being so very like its author, the letter struck 
 Rosalind's heart. Brief, dry, unaffectionate yet 
 with what infinite pains conceived ! As she pictured 
 him writing it, his great hand enveloping the pen- 
 holder, his brows knit in the struggle between his 
 legal vocabulary and the kind but for him inex- 
 pressible sentiments in his heart, there were grate- 
 ful tears in her eyes. 
 
 The other letter, which arrived a week later, bore 
 on its envelope, across which scurried a violet super- 
 scription, a New York postmark. Olfactory inspec- 
 tion betrayed a perfume. After turning the letter 
 over curiously for some time, Rosalind suddenly 
 realised that it came from Patricia. 
 
 RITZ HOTEL, May twelfth. 
 
 Oh, Rosey-Rosey-Rosey, I'm a million times sorry, dear- 
 est. Just up from the country, been playing divine polo 
 on the Island, when Florrie told me about your godfather. 
 I hadn't heard before. You aren't still mad with me, Rosey? 
 Old songs are the best. 
 
 I don't know what to say and Florrie is calling me to 
 stop. I'm staying with her here. And busy! Darling, 
 I'm in the high speed from morning on; and Florrie's bed 
 hour is something we don't speak about. 
 
 Cheer up, Rosey. Look at the sun and the shadows fall 
 behind. 
 
 Your old PATSY. 
 
 P.S. There are some exquisite mourning things at Ce- 
 cile's! Can't I get you some? I love to shop and haven't 
 a cent. If I can do anything for you, write me here. I'm 
 going to stay with Florrie as long as I can before going
 
 242 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 to Washington, but she drives me insensee within a week. 
 I wish you could hear her dance actually ! ! And she says 
 the most awful things about her friends, too. So long, 
 darling P. C. 
 
 With a sad smile twisting her lips Rosalind laid 
 aside the odorous note. Who but Patricia would 
 express sympathy so? Who but she so incoherently 
 mix frankness with hyperbole? Of late Rosalind 
 had forgotten her old friend; to have her thus 
 brought to mind was both bitter and amusing. 
 
 The Copley family had migrated to the country 
 at the invalid's death, and there Eric had joined 
 them. Sherborne in mid-May is not to be with- 
 stood. A grave serenity stole into Rosalind's heart, 
 a sweet calmness which tempered sorrow and made 
 her in her mourning doubly beautiful. Further- 
 more her untroubled association with Eric brought 
 great happiness and comfort. To gallop side by 
 side along hedged country paths, the turf of which, 
 untracked by many feet, sprang beneath the speed- 
 ing hoofs; to walk through the shadows of unde- 
 ciduous groves, where still the cool, damp air of 
 night clung undispelled by sunlight about the mossy 
 trunks of pines; to stand upon the crest of some steep 
 hill and gaze about the gentle panorama spread be- 
 low, far fairer in the clear light of the early-risen 
 sun than in the majestic dazzling of noon these 
 comprised the simple and lasting joys of life. At 
 such times Rosalind's sorrow seemed a cloudy back- 
 ground, and in the absorption of present loveliness 
 she let a solace wind into her heart. After all, 
 with Eric by her side, life was hers. The essential 
 though often unconscious desire of all mortals is not
 
 SOME LETTERS 243 
 
 for some one they can be loved by, but for some one 
 whom they can love. 
 
 The day on which Patricia's letter arrived marked 
 another departure of Eric, this time in the train of 
 Mr. Swelfront to a great architectural congress in 
 Philadelphia. The invitation was such a golden 
 opportunity for Eric's advancement that Rosalind 
 bravely swallowed her disappointment and smiled on 
 his departure. In sorrow one is doubly generous to 
 those one really loves. 
 
 And so he went away and she was left to ride 
 alone. Often in the days which followed the mem- 
 ory of his voice sang strongly in her heart. She 
 could not pass a certain tree, gnarled with age and 
 battered by the winds, which stood upon the sum- 
 mit of a smooth-browed hill, without remembering 
 how they had sat together on its mossy roots and 
 Eric had told her of his boyhood. She had loved 
 the story. Each small, elfin trick of youth, half 
 laughingly revealed, was dear to her. She conjured 
 up bright pictures of his boyhood friends, feeling 
 a strange jealousy that she had been nothing to 
 him then, unknown and unknowing. They had 
 passed each other in strange lands, dwelt at one 
 time in the same city; they must have walked upon 
 the same street, gone to the same theatre perhaps 
 in those past days of Paris, and yet never knew 
 it. That he had had a life apart from hers seemed 
 fit subject for jealousy. As for these friends of 
 whose love he spoke so brightly, they did not ap- 
 proximate her devotion, she told herself, while 
 she begged to hear more. And by a silver brook 
 that wound slenderly through a meadowland, ob- 
 served only by the beady eyes of a pale-throated
 
 244 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 shrew-mouse, he had told her of a Parisian girl, 
 Melanie, the queen of his youthful heart. At his 
 words she had stopped suddenly, her hand upon his 
 arm. Who was this Melanie? Was she pretty? 
 Was she of his age? She had laughed in relief 
 to find the haunting name a mere memory. But 
 ever as she wandered by the brooklet's side it mur- 
 mured " Melanie, Melanie " in her ear, as swift He- 
 brus once lisped out " Eurydice." And then there 
 was an arbour by the house, where in the warm 
 night before his going they had stood together. 
 The moon had moved, but motionless they re- 
 mained. Shyly Eric had talked of great ambitions, 
 of what he hoped to do. Loving ambition in a 
 man, she gloried to find him so possessed of it. His 
 breath had been upon her cheek, his hand near hers 
 where it fingered a rose-leaf on the trellis; and 
 she had stifled with yearning and felt her heart 
 melt. 
 
 The death of Mr. Quincy's old friend brought 
 him back from his refuge in Bermuda for a visit at 
 Sherborne, where as usual he proved to Rosalind a 
 great diversion. Finding himself the chief execu- 
 tor of Mr. Singleton's great estate, he plunged into 
 his duties with his customary zeal and assumption 
 of importance. The buoyant child surviving in his 
 manhood found great gratification in his novel in- 
 dustry. It was his delight to carry sheaves of paper 
 about with him, to lay them down and finger them, 
 to put on his eye-glasses or twiddle them on a chain, 
 and to introduce an occasional " whereas " or " de 
 minimis non curat lex " into his polite conversation. 
 The very mention of Messrs. Foolscap, Parrypoint, 
 and Scribble, to whom he referred as " his solici-
 
 SOME LETTERS 245 
 
 tors," caused him to swell with importance. In 
 short, for a man who had never done any business, 
 he soon learned to adopt to perfection the airs and 
 attributes of the legal profession. 
 
 One noon Rosalind strolled slowly up to the 
 house from the gardens which she loved so well, 
 her arms filled with early flowers. A striped awn- 
 ing flaunted over the trim shrubbery on the terrace 
 above her. It was a lazy, lovely day; already the 
 murmuring hush of afternoon dreamed upon the 
 air. Drooping above the old-fashioned house, a 
 huge elm seemed to expand in the pleasant warmth 
 and in its hazy branches fluttered the restless wings 
 of little birds. Under the awning, where Mrs. 
 Copley sat in a white garden chair, were also her 
 brother and husband. 
 
 "Why, Uncle Jo- Jo," cried Rosalind, "what's 
 brought you out of town so early to-day? " 
 
 " It's happened! " cried her mother with a laugh. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " The Governor " 
 'You mean?" 
 
 " I'm a general now ! " replied her uncle simply. 
 
 " I don't believe it! Tell me the whole story." 
 
 " I'm still rather nervous," began Mr. Quincy. 
 " You see I was at Foolscap's with the will, when 
 a telephone message ahem ! came for me. It 
 was the Governor's secretary. You can fancy it 
 made quite an impression in the office. Appoint- 
 ment at ten-thirty. Down I went to the State 
 House in a taxicab. Ante-room crowded; nothing 
 to me ! In I walk, cynosure of all eyes. The Gov- 
 ernor was ahem ! delightful, reassuring, confi- 
 dential. We chatted for a few moments on po- 
 litical matters and our views were singularly coin-
 
 246 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 cident." Expressing this coincidence with a sweep- 
 ing gesture, Mr. Quincy blandly proceeded. " He 
 asked me in a few simple words. ' Quincy,' he said, 
 ' will you serve on my Staff? ' What could I say? 
 ' Your Excellency,' I replied, ' I will and with 
 pleasure ! ' ' You will be a general,' he went on. 
 4 You may have your tailor make your uniform. 
 That's the most important part! ' he added jok- 
 ingly, of course ! We shook hands and I left him. 
 General Joseph Quincy. Rather neat, Rose? I 
 went directly to the Sarcophagus Club. Quite a 
 day's work! " 
 
 " Oh ! Uncle Jo-Jo, I do congratulate you. 
 Think of being a general ! Does the uniform have 
 lots of gold braid? I'm dying to see it ! " 
 
 " It's coming out on Saturday. We'll try it on 
 then, by Jove ! " 
 
 On Saturday afternoon the uniform did indeed ar- 
 rive. To struggle into it Mr. Quincy retired to 
 the upper regions, where by a cunning contrivance 
 involving a cheval glass and a bureau mirror he 
 was enabled to adjust the shining garment to a 
 nicety. Some half an hour later he strutted back 
 to the terrace, smothered in epaulettes and gold 
 cord, every inch a general. Mingled exclamations 
 burst from the family. 
 
 "Jo-Jo!" 
 
 ' You look like the Brazilian Ambassador ! 
 
 " Or the carriage-opener at the Opera ! " added 
 Mr. Copley. 
 
 ' Joseph and the coat of many colours ! " 
 
 " I think I look thin in it," remarked the little 
 man in a voice which courted assent. He set about 
 revolving like a mannequin, stretching out his arms 
 so that the family could view him on all sides. En-
 
 SOME LETTERS 247 
 
 grossed by these unmilitary antics, all failed to ob- 
 serve the approach of two ladies over the lawn. In 
 the middle of his fourth revolution, Mr. Quincy 
 caught sight of them. With a horrified cry he 
 stopped short, his face a picture of dismay. It was 
 too late to flee : like a true general he must face the 
 guns. 
 
 " I hope," ventured Miss Hepplethwaite (for it 
 was she and her sister) , " we are not in the way." 
 
 " Not at all." Mrs. Copley struggled with a 
 laugh. " Do sit down and have some tea." 
 
 " It's Uncle Joseph's new uniform," explained 
 Rosalind to the younger sister. " You've heard? " 
 ' Yes, indeed." 
 
 " We came partly in hopes of seeing your brother, 
 Elizabeth, and felicitating him on his honours." 
 
 The two sisters favoured the new general, ablaze 
 with embarrassment for once, with congratulatory 
 glances. 
 
 " You're very kind, I'm sure," said Mrs. Copley. 
 "Aren't they, Jo-Jo?" 
 
 Mr. Quincy assented with deep feeling. 
 
 " I like the uniform," said the younger sister, 
 glancing through her lorgnette. 
 
 " It might be more chaste," remarked the elder. 
 
 Mr. Quincy squirmed under this double inspec- 
 tion. 
 
 " Chaste, ma'am? " he fumed. ' You talk about 
 me as if I were a ballet girl." 
 
 The Misses Hepplethwaite were shocked and 
 rustled in their chairs, but the trend of the conver- 
 sation was diverted. Relieved of their inquisitorial 
 glances, Mr. Quincy permitted himself to be flat- 
 tered. After a time he even ventured out in the 
 sunset light to examine the garden with the younger
 
 248 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 sister. Their return was long delayed. The shad- 
 ows lengthened, faded, vanished; twilight crept 
 across the fields and smothered them in darkness. 
 The ragged outline of trees loomed against the eve- 
 ning sky, a suffused green on the horizon, like light 
 shining through clear ocean depths, but mounting 
 to dark sapphire at the zenith. Just above the tree- 
 tops sailed the crescent moon in company with the 
 great, bright evening star, first wanderers in the 
 celestial darkness. After the tea things had been 
 removed, the conversation despite Mrs. Copley's 
 noble efforts lagged. The quick-darting flight of 
 bats across the lower sky marked the inception of 
 night. A train whistle hooted in the distance; near 
 at hand a premature cricket shrilled. But the gen- 
 eral and his companions still lingered in the garden. 
 
 " Something must have happened," ventured the 
 elder sister nervously. 
 
 Something had happened, but none of the four 
 under the awning knew of its nature until after the 
 Misses Hepplethwaite had been sent home in the 
 Renault, and Mr. Quincy, still in his uniform, was 
 smoking with great puffs a very long and very black 
 cigar. 
 
 " Jo-Jo, don't fidget so ! " reproved his sister, 
 as the little man picked up a book for the tenth time 
 since coffee and laid it aside. " You've been like 
 this for hours. You haven't got anything on your 
 mind, have you? You haven't committed any 
 crime? Look at him, Jack! " 
 
 ' No crime, Beth, no." 
 
 ' Well, do behave like a Christian then ! Say 
 something." 
 
 ;< Why doesn't Rose get married?" asked Mr. 
 Quincy with sudden irrelevance.
 
 SOME LETTERS 249 
 
 Rosalind bent her eyes over the paper which she 
 was reading as if engrossed in some passage. 
 
 "Why doesn't she get married?" Mr. Quincy 
 repeated in a louder voice. 
 
 " Is that what you're nervous about? " asked his 
 sister. 
 
 " No, but I believe in marriage. It's a good 
 thing ! Early and often ! " 
 
 " You haven't practised that yourself. It's never 
 too late, you know." 
 
 ' You're right 1 " Mr. Quincy took an enormous 
 puff at his cigar. 
 
 " Well, why don't you do it, Jo-Jo ? You're only 
 fifty-five." 
 
 " I'm not yet fifty! " responded the general with 
 indignation. 
 
 " It doesn't matter. You just get married and 
 stop talking to Rose about it." 
 
 " Perhaps I shall," said Mr. Quincy, picking up 
 the book for the eleventh time. " I believe in de- 
 votion. None of your love at first sight for me, 
 but love that weathers time and storms. Perhaps 
 I shall get married." 
 
 " Nnnnnever ! " said his sister with emphasis. 
 
 " Perhaps I'm engaged now." 
 
 " Tosh, Jo- Jo." 
 
 " Very well, I " 
 
 " You weren't engaged yesterday." 
 
 " No, but that ahem ! doesn't signify that 
 I mayn't be ahem ! to-day ! " 
 
 Suddenly Mrs. Copley clapped her hands to- 
 gether, her pretty mouth round as an o. On her 
 lips trembled delicious laughter. 
 
 " Do you mean, Jo- Jo, that after all you've said 
 about Joan Hepplethwaite you're "
 
 250 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " I never said anything about her ! " 
 
 " Uncle Jo-Jo ! Not in the garden ? " 
 
 " In his uniform, too," cried Mr. Copley. 
 
 " Oh, Jo- Jo, you poor lamb ! " Mrs. Copley ran 
 to her brother, put her arms about his neck and 
 kissed him squarely on the lips. " No sooner a 
 general than captured ! " 
 
 " What did you say? " asked Mr. Copley. 
 
 "Don't be silly!" said Mr. Quincy with some 
 heat. "There, there, Beth! You'd better sit 
 down now! Can't a man get engaged without his 
 whole family biting him? " 
 
 " I never thought you'd have the courage, Jo- 
 Jo!" 
 
 " I don't believe he did," laughed Mr. Copley. 
 " She did it for him." 
 
 " She did not ! " expostulated Mr. Quincy. 
 " Nothing of the kind ! We were out among the 
 nasturtiums and it it sort of came over me. It 
 was a lonely life; there's no love in the Sarcophagus 
 Club. Time I settled down." 
 
 " I hope you'll be very happy, Uncle Jo- Jo." 
 
 " Thank you, Rose, love. One member of the 
 family can speak pleasantly, I'm glad to see." 
 Mr. Quincy looked defiance at his sister. " I shall 
 be very happy, very. I intend to be master in my 
 house. No foolishness. This marriage is built on 
 true love. I have served, like Jacob, seven years 
 for Rachel " 
 
 " Be careful you don't get Leah instead! " broke 
 in Mrs. Copley. 
 
 Her brother favoured her with an indignant 
 glance. 
 
 " My seven years have passed as so many days; 
 now, having tested my affection, assured of its
 
 SOME LETTERS 251 
 
 strength, I fold my wife to my bosom. There has 
 been no haste; I have been firm and have refused 
 to let my heart run off with me. I must admit," 
 said Mr. Quincy modestly, " that Joan needed per- 
 suasion and yielded only to the arguments of com- 
 mon sense. I was masterful one has to be a man 
 with women. But that is all forgotten now, and 
 she has begged me never to remember that she once 
 hesitated to accept me." 
 
 Recalling how her uncle had sought to avoid the 
 Misses Hepplethwaites, how he had fled even to 
 Bermuda to escape his prospective bride, and now 
 how he sought to persuade himself that it was he 
 after all who had brought about the match, Rosa- 
 lind could not refrain from bursting into laughter. 
 
 "What's the matter?" asked her uncle suspi- 
 ciously. 
 
 " I was only thinking of Bermuda," innocently 
 answered Rosalind. 
 
 " That was a test," replied the general very se- 
 verely. " Knowing that she was young and im- 
 pressionable, I thought it might be unfair to ask 
 her without trial. But I could not bear it; I came 
 home and conquered." 
 
 Rosalind contented herself with an " Oh ! " and 
 went upstairs to dream of her uncle and Miss Hep- 
 plethwaite settling down to light housekeeping in 
 the Sarcophagus Club. To their establishment the 
 presence of the future Mrs. Q.'s elder sister added 
 that something more which marital felicity seldom 
 countenances. The tragic conclusion of the dream 
 was a vision of her uncle wandering about the streets 
 of Boston in search of his former masterfulness and 
 wailing out the plaintive cry of lo, " Eleleu, oh, 
 Eleleuf"
 
 252 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 On the next morning Rosalind received a letter 
 from Eric. It was the first time that any written 
 word had passed between them. With a great sud- 
 den warmth in her body she pressed the little en- 
 velope to her lips, scanned it eagerly, turned it over, 
 followed the tracery of the ink, examined the post- 
 mark, made as much of the innocent paper as if it 
 had been the manual of every gift and virtue in 
 the world. The music of fantastic melodies rose 
 irresistibly in her heart and smothered her. A de- 
 sire for the free air of Heaven, for some quiet, 
 sunny spot hallowed by silence and far from possi- 
 ble interruption sweeping over her, she hurried 
 from the house. Across the smooth, green lawn 
 she sped, through the trim hedge that marked its 
 confines, into the first pasture, over a moss-grown 
 fence, and so through the second pasture. At the 
 brook she stopped ; still it whispered " Melanie " 
 in a rustling cadence. A lovely spot, but here in- 
 terruptions might disturb the perfect silence she de- 
 sired. With a reassuring glance at the letter she 
 traversed the meadow, lying like a garment of soft 
 Oriental stuff in the morning light. So gentle was 
 the sun it seemed to soothe the tired world and 
 make a harmony with Heaven. As she walked 
 slowly along, head erect, heart singing, listening to 
 the airy voices of the wind which syllable a lan- 
 guage well understood if but the heart be right, an 
 early bobolink flew up from the grass with his rich, 
 bubbling melody, and she laughed aloud for the joy 
 of the song. 
 
 Rosalind penetrated almost to the distant river 
 before her quest was ended. Upon a rise of ground, 
 a kind of knoll, she at length descried the place 
 of places most perfect to her mind. An old syca-
 
 SOME LETTERS 253 
 
 more stretched its knotted fingers above her in the 
 sunlight; about its roots the grass was of imperisha- 
 ble green and warm from lying in the early sun. 
 It was on this knoll that a constellation of wild 
 narcissus scattered its delicate perfume to the 
 winds. Quickly mounting the little rise, she seated 
 herself at the foot of the great tree in silent ad- 
 miration. To see this beauty in a moment so 
 ecstatic was too see a double beauty. From the 
 starry narcissus at her feet to the white, distant 
 spire of a country church the world smiled up at 
 her. Fascinated and tremulous, she deftly opened 
 the letter so as not to injure the envelope, and read 
 eagerly. 
 
 May nineteenth. 
 Dear Rosalind: 
 
 You will be glad to know I have had a most interesting 
 time. The Congress, like all congresses, was a magnificent 
 failure, but I have met a great many distinguished men and 
 heard endless speeches. My being a kind of equerry for Mr. 
 Swelfront has spread the opinion that at the least I am a 
 member of the Institut de France. That is delightful. I 
 will tell you all about it when I get back. 
 
 Philadelphia is unexciting. It is not as quaint as Bos- 
 ton or as monstrous as New York, but I find the women 
 very pretty. The tinge of southern accent delights me. 
 Yesterday the Congress ended with every one talked out. 
 I went to Havre de Grace for the horse races. I 
 used to visit Longchamps and Auteuil a great deal when I 
 was younger, and once made eight hundred francs. I do 
 not think Americans care for horses any more than the 
 French. In America you go to bet; in France you go to 
 look at the latest fashions. 
 
 I am sorry I have not written earlier, but my letters are 
 not good and I have been busy every minute. Did you 
 expect me to return directly after the Congress? I am eager
 
 254 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 to stay here longer as there is much to see. I shall telegraph 
 when I decide. Here I have discovered Harry Farr, who 
 was at the Beaux Arts with me. Over there he was the 
 laziest boy in the atelier and the gayest on the boulevard. 
 Marriage has changed all that. Now he is only gay at the 
 office. He says that he spends all his time being lazy with 
 the baby. His wife is lovely Susie Harte, perhaps you 
 know her? It makes me want to get married myself! 
 
 I received a letter from my father yesterday. He is at 
 his villa in Cadenabbia and wants to know when I am 
 sailing. I wrote him that I had not made up my mind. 
 Perhaps it will be necessary for him to come over and take 
 me back by force. I have become very much attached to 
 Boston; I feel at home there. I even have that feeling for 
 Beacon Street which all Bostonians entertain, and when you 
 begin to love streets, it's a serious matter! Then you have 
 been so wonderful to me! I have never thanked you; I 
 cannot; but with every bit of my heart I feel your sweet- 
 ness. It is not easy to come among strangers and so soon 
 find a home. It will be a thousand times harder to leave 
 after having found it. We have been very close, you 
 and I, Rosalind. Since Mr. Singleton's death our friend- 
 ship has seemed even more intimate. Do you remember our 
 walk along the Esplanade that afternoon? It has lingered 
 in my memory. Some day I hope we may finish that con- 
 versation. I trust you are not lonely at Sherborne now. I 
 know you will not be, though, for you have no end of friends 
 to amuse you. I am almost alone here, and I think of you. 
 
 I hear bells striking two o'clock. From where I write 
 I can look out across the still city. How bare and quiet it 
 is in the smokeless air! The vast thing seems asleep. Me 
 voila bien fatigue ; je vous souhaite, Rose, bon soir et rien 
 que des beaux reves. 
 
 Votre ami 
 
 ERIC. 
 
 There was a tear in each of Rosalind's eyes as 
 she slowly laid the letter in her lap; the world had
 
 SOME LETTERS 255 
 
 become too beautiful to look upon. She thought 
 that she had never read so sweet, so diverting a 
 letter. To contrast it with Benjamin's was nat- 
 ural; and this made her laugh softly as she pressed 
 the paper to her lips. It was hers, this wonderful 
 letter, hers to be treasured, hers to be re-read in 
 the vastness of night, hers to be a bulwark against 
 future doubts. With an overflowing heart she 
 threw herself back upon the warm grass, so that 
 the narcissuses danced above her golden hair on 
 their slender stems. A while she contemplated the 
 sun through half-closed lids as it flamed behind the 
 branches of the sycamore, mastered by the supreme 
 calmness which one feels after work well done or 
 when one has at last arrived at some long-dreamed- 
 of resting-place. She was ready to cry with Faust 
 to the fleeting moment : " Ferweile dock, du hist so 
 schonf" 
 
 It was hard to quit painting thought-pictures, but 
 at length she arose and slowly made her way back 
 to the house. To leave the shining knoll with its 
 starry-white flowers and vivid green seemed a de- 
 parture from Paradise. One by one the beauties 
 dropped away. As she stepped into the house, the 
 dust and tedium of the world again were with her. 
 
 " A telegram, Miss Rose." 
 
 She felt in her heart that it was from Eric, and 
 moved to a window. 
 
 Gone to Washington. Buildings and 
 
 Patricia. Will write. ERIC. 
 
 For a moment she did not appreciate the words. 
 Then she remembered that Patricia had written of 
 visiting Washington, and, marvelling at the effront-
 
 256 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 ery of the thing, read the telegram again. Hot 
 anger rushed into her heart and in a swift revul- 
 sion she flung Eric's letter defiantly into a waste- 
 basket. Could such a change be possible? She 
 felt insulted, made sport of; her ecstatic dreams 
 of the moment before now seemed mockery. The 
 telegram in a thousand fragments followed the let- 
 ter. Throwing herself in a chair, she stared mood- 
 ily at a man in dirty blue dragging a hose across 
 the lawn; when he tripped in its serpentine coils, 
 she laughed resentfully. How indifferent and 
 cross-grained the world had become! The birds 
 outside the window chattered out of tune and their 
 notes mixed on the air with sounds of subdued but 
 cross words. Irritated that another be angry, she 
 flung her hands to her ears. We are all alike in 
 our disappointments; since we must vent our spleen 
 on something, it is as provoking to have those about 
 us angry as happy. At odds with herself and with 
 the world, Rosalind pushed aside her chair and 
 strode away. At the door she paused with cloudy 
 brow. Then, half indignant at her own weakness, 
 she returned and bent over the partly-filled waste- 
 basket.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 CULMINATION 
 
 U P~~1 "~^HAT will finish the business as far as 
 you and Mr. Quincy are concerned. I ob- 
 - tained his final signature yesterday." 
 
 Mr. Foolscap was speaking. Shuffling all the 
 papers on his desk together as one shuffles a pack 
 of cards, he glanced over his eyeglasses with a sug- 
 gestion of relief. The senior member of Fools- 
 cap, Parrypoint, and Scribble had a fat face, in 
 colour and texture so much like calfskin that it 
 might have been bound uniform with any of the 
 legal volumes which crammed the deep shelves of 
 his office. With both their stolidity and their con- 
 servative colouring, it was a good face behind 
 which to obscure much knowledge and all emotion. 
 Faces are sometimes fortunes. To be Prime Min- 
 ister of England the Duke of Newcastle was once 
 willing to ape the manners and looks of a stupid 
 fop; but to be the most fashionable and successful 
 lawyer in Boston Mr. Foolscap had only to ape 
 himself. Behind his impenetrable countenance he 
 might evolve the most profound thoughts, yet pass 
 in the eye of the world for a know-nothing. 
 
 Mr. Copley and Mr. Quincy had been appointed 
 executors of Mr. Singleton Singleton's will. Know- 
 ing that alone they could do nothing and together 
 less, they had agreed that if the estate was ever 
 to be executed Foolscap had better execute it. So 
 execute it Foolscap did, while Mr. Copley, who 
 
 257
 
 258 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 never on any account dabbled in business, signed 
 one or two necessary papers and his brother-in-law 
 created a great deal of smoke out of his duties, 
 though precious little fire. In consequence of this 
 Mr. Quincy was continually getting the smoke in his 
 own eyes and in those of every one else concerned. 
 However amusing in the Sarcophagus Club beside 
 a sea-coal blaze, he was not a success by the legal 
 fireside. Almost a breath of relief, therefore, 
 stirred on Mr. Foolscap's lips as he spoke the fore- 
 going words. 
 
 " The estate, when everything is finally settled, 
 will be almost two millions, then? " 
 
 " More, Mr. Copley, more. Your daughter has 
 a rare inheritance." 
 
 " You say it is all hers, apart from the annuity to 
 Holland ?" 
 
 " Absolutely." 
 
 Mr. Copley looked absently out of the opened 
 window. A great deal of money! The rumble 
 and roar of the city swelled up through the opened 
 windows and broke against the fat calfskin volumes. 
 
 ; ' What about illegitimacy?" Mr. Copley asked, 
 his brow suddenly wrinkled. 
 
 Mr. Foolscap bumped his knee against the desk. 
 
 "Did you? Did I ?" 
 
 Mr. Copley's red face turned a shade redder. 
 He had not meant to phrase the question in such a 
 way, but it had slipped out of his thought into 
 speech in all its baldness. 
 
 " A-hum ! " He arose brusquely from his chair 
 and moved to the window. 
 
 ' You startled me. I thought you said ille- 
 gitimacy."
 
 CULMINATION 259 
 
 "I did." 
 
 Silence. As he stood looking down upon the 
 noisy street, Mr. Copley felt uneasy and vaguely 
 dissatisfied with himself: Foolscap never spoke in- 
 advertently. 
 
 " Will Mr. Quincy be married soon? " The law- 
 yer broke a silence becoming painfully long; he had 
 no intention of making so valuable a client uncom- 
 fortable. 
 
 " I dare say. He doesn't know where he is ! 
 Perfectly depraved over his clothes and things." 
 Mr. Copley moved to the door. " I think he finds 
 getting married even more diverting than being ex- 
 ecutor. Fickle, I call it. Good-bye." 
 
 Deep in thought, he descended the steps of the 
 law office. His slip of the tongue some minutes 
 before testified to what had been his mind's chief 
 activity since Mr. Singleton Singleton's death. The 
 secret revealed to him at that time had been more 
 than a piece of information; as we have seen, the 
 surprise had been both unpleasant and shocking. 
 Mr. Copley was not a prude by any means. At the 
 Sarcophagus Club any designation rather than that 
 might have been applied and where, if not at 
 a man's club, is one to learn his true character? 
 It was not so much that he was outraged from the 
 social point of view. Men of his position in the 
 world, with great wealth and no application, long 
 before they are forty lose their sense of social pro- 
 priety; it turns with their hair. Where the sword 
 thrust home was that this indelicacy had occurred in 
 his own particular circle. Such things ought never 
 to happen in so well regulated a family. His prom- 
 inent, kindly eyes bulged in his head as he strove to
 
 26o LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 imagine the colours with which scandalous tongues 
 might decorate the tale. 
 
 And not only this misfortune, but his daughter 
 had fallen in love, as far as he had been able to as- 
 certain, with the disturbing element himself! The 
 more Mr. Copley considered the matter, the less 
 soluble the quandary appeared. It was not a thing 
 to tell his wife; even if it were his right to repeat 
 the secret, it would cause her endless worry. If 
 Rosalind knew, it might destroy her happiness for 
 ever; as for Eric, it would certainly cast a cloud 
 over his whole life. Like a kind husband, he had 
 no desire to disturb his wife; no more did he feel 
 it his duty to impart to Eric such destructive in- 
 formation, especially since his own father had al- 
 ways kept it from him. For the fiftieth time Mr. 
 Copley came to the conclusion that there was not a 
 soul to whom he could unburden his puzzling knowl- 
 edge. After all, he assured himself, since the dog 
 was soundly asleep, there could be no reason for 
 waking him. Eric was committing no crime; if 
 Rosalind chose to marry him, there was no real 
 objection to it. He was attractive, sincere, evi- 
 dently exceedingly clever and talented. What more 
 could be asked? Mr. Copley's private knowledge 
 was of the kind that is often employed as a weapon, 
 but some weapons do as well upon the topmost shelf 
 as elsewhere. Feeling this to be the case, Mr. Cop- 
 ley shook his head decidedly and permitted a stew- 
 ard of the Sarcophagus Club to prepare him a cock- 
 tail. Parental interference never yet benefited 
 love. 
 
 Like father, like daughter. For every thought 
 relating to Eric which her father entertained Rosa- 
 lind had a parallel and many, many more. By day
 
 CULMINATION 261 
 
 she read him in the chapters of her heart; he flamed 
 in sunsets; he scattered across the sky in flying 
 clouds; and if there were "books in the running 
 brooks, sermons in stones," there was for her his 
 spirit in everything. The few and far-off sounds 
 which break the boundless quiet of the country night 
 are vague and sad: little wonder that they brought 
 tears to her eyes as she contrasted the richness of 
 her love with the poverty of his return. And all 
 because of Patricia ! Hotly Rosalind pressed her 
 lips together; Patricia was unworthy of him, un- 
 worthy to speak to him, and yet he tolerated her, 
 visited her, liked her even he ! In an ecstasy 
 of unhappiness she would slip from her bed and 
 steal down the long hall to the room which had 
 been his. The moonlight streamed in on the bed, 
 a square of white softness. Breathless she stood, 
 almost able to visualise his fine features and dark, 
 curling hair upon the pillow. And now ended 
 and forgotten with him! She passed through the 
 moonlight to the window, where the clear trilling 
 of the tree-toads, like vibrations of silver thread, 
 came to her ear with a fine insistence. In winter 
 the stars seem to hang upon the trees and the sky 
 is close, chill, and near; but in May they shimmer, 
 myriads of them, almost lost in distance. And this 
 was sad, too. 
 
 In the days which followed Eric's letter proved 
 of some comfort. At times believing it, she warmed 
 in her heart to beautiful possibilities; at others, 
 marking a mockery in each line, she tossed it from 
 her disdainfully. It was but kindness all. Pa- 
 tricia the whole time had been Eric's love; his re- 
 gard for herself could be interpreted only in terms 
 of his gratitude to Mr. Singleton. Kindness!
 
 262 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 Kindness! Mortifying counterfeit of love she 
 had come to hate that word ! 
 
 On the thirtieth of May, Rosalind paid one of 
 her frequent visits to the Square. She went often, 
 for there was much to do, endless reading of dusty 
 papers and the wandering through of an infinity of 
 drawers. To know it all was hers added to the in- 
 terest and love which she had always felt for the old 
 house. The majesty of summer reigned in the 
 Square, all the still, sweet calmness of full after- 
 noon decorating its shy beauty. Brick is a blank, 
 harsh colour in other places; but on such a day, 
 in such a worldless spot, the red of the houses was 
 but a pleasant glow of light. Yet one could not 
 say that light was anywhere. Long, silent shad- 
 ows of the housetops and the trees drifted indis- 
 tinguishably into areas of brightness. The two 
 white statues shone gently at either end of the green 
 like twins of ivory; a placid glow lingered in the 
 hazy tops of the old elms and mirrored in the upper 
 windows of the higher houses; but nowhere was 
 there light and light alone. The soft shadows that 
 become old age lingered in the sun's own shining. 
 
 Slowly Rosalind drew near the house. It was a 
 day for slow steps and memory, a day on which no 
 power of will could keep the mind from reverting 
 to the past. There are such days for all of us. 
 Thinking of the first wonder of her love, she half- 
 unconsciously approached the iron fence. Here 
 Eric had come to her, standing in this same spot 
 on a gusty evening in the last of April. He would 
 not come now that was changed ! In the pas- 
 sage of one little month she had understood and 
 lost the mystery of living. To dream of the stress
 
 CULMINATION 263 
 
 of love is enevitable; to experience it, divine; to 
 lose it, ineffably melancholy. There was something 
 hot in her breast as she touched the iron fence; once 
 there had been no more than its blackened bars be- 
 tween them. Rosalind struck them with her hand 
 one is always dramatic in one's memories. 
 White clover, faintly tipped with pink, dotted the 
 grass where she and Eric had sat, and its odour rose 
 delicately on the afternoon air. As she looked 
 wistfully in at the blossoms, a cry escaped her lips: 
 almost at her feet, so close was it growing to the 
 wrought-iron fence, a four-leafed clover had caught 
 her eye. Stretching her hand through the bars, she 
 plucked it and stood awhile silent. There are times 
 when one can well afford to be superstitious. She 
 placed the green leaves carefully in her handker- 
 chief and with a sigh entered the house her house. 
 As yet she had not recovered from the strange- 
 ness that had come over the rooms. A house not 
 lived in is easily recognisable; it is like a man with- 
 out a religion. Everything may be in perfect or- 
 der, the rooms magnificent, dusted and swept, filled 
 with every conceivable comfort, and yet ! there 
 is a materialism, a deadness about the place which 
 reveals itself instantly on examination. No atten- 
 tion of servants can dispell this pervadant empti- 
 ness. Wandering through the rooms, Rosalind felt 
 deeply the sentiment which can exist for purely in- 
 animate things. There were the brocade _ curtains 
 in the great drawing-room; framed in their folds, 
 she had observed Eric at the piano for the first 
 time. Romney's portrait of " An English Gentle- 
 man " catching her attention, she recollected how 
 her godfather had lifted her as a baby in his arms 
 to kiss the picture. That had been a favoured ac-
 
 264 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 complishment of her childhood; but to this day the 
 worldly eyes of the young swaggerer still fasci- 
 nated her. As she turned away, the afternoon light 
 gleamed upon the piano and she went to it. Find- 
 ing her book of Chopin's Preludes still opened on 
 the rack, she essayed a few notes, but found the 
 emotion of music too strong to bear. When soft 
 voices die, music becomes impossibly sad. 
 
 Slowly she mounted the stairs and passed to the 
 little library. A sheaf of letters lay by the win- 
 dow where she had left them the morning before. 
 Seating herself near the table on which they were 
 scattered, she picked up the topmost envelope and 
 took out an old letter written in grey, faded ink 
 from Paris in her godfather's youth. Half amus- 
 edly she marked the filial politeness of past gen- 
 erations; their respect seemed cold and distant. 
 This letter to his mother contained an account of 
 his life in the atelier, of his progress in French, 
 and quaint little sketches of people whom he was 
 meeting. " Yesterday we drove in a cabriolet to 
 Saint Cloud. The President was having a fete 
 there. Joseph introduced me to one of the most 
 beautiful women that I have ever met, a Mme. 
 Holland. A vicomtesse in her own right, she lately 
 married the tenor who created the great furore last 
 spring. Holland, they say, is very respectable, yet 
 I think she regrets the match already. The most 
 perfect green eyes and luxuriant black hair. I am 
 to meet her again at dinner at the de Freycinets' 
 to-night." 
 
 Rosalind's eyes had almost drifted over this pas- 
 sage before she appreciated its context. This was 
 Eric's mother! She closely scanned the passage 
 again and her blood, mounting to her temples,
 
 CULMINATION 265 
 
 throbbed in excitement. The past was alive, open- 
 ing to her now. Eagerly she finished this letter 
 and devoured all those bound in the same packet, 
 feeling that this must be a part of her own life 
 which had been hidden from her. She read with 
 the interest of a wide-eyed discoverer. At first the 
 mentions of Mme. Holland were voluminous; her 
 hair, her eyes, her dresses, her bonmots, her sweet- 
 ness, drives in the park, parties at the Gallifets', 
 at the Opera, at the Waddingtons', filled the pages. 
 Yet as the note grew more intense, the reflections 
 on Marie dwindled. Letters passed in which she 
 was not mentioned, and there was never more than 
 a line in the others a strong, burning line which 
 made Rosalind thrill with the fierceness of the feel- 
 ing steeped in it. It was as if a great passion were 
 being condensed and compressed into an impossibly 
 small area. " Marie and I spent Sunday at Saint 
 Cloud again. We walked in the park where Jo- 
 seph first introduced us. Oh, madam! Saint 
 Cloud is divine !"..." Monsieur Holland sang 
 in ' Lucia di Lammermoor ' to-night. His voice is 
 exquisite and he acts with great elegance; he sings 
 always to his wife, but sang chiefly to me to-night, 
 as I sat in the front of her box." ..." Marie has 
 been ill. I cannot bear that she suffer." . . . 
 (And this from the last letter:) "I would you 
 might meet Marie, dear madam; we speak together 
 of you." 
 
 This was all! The thread was broken here. 
 Rosalind remembered that Mr. Singleton's father 
 had fallen suddenly ill, that the son had sped back 
 to Boston, and, so she understood, had never left 
 that city again. As the faded envelopes slipped to 
 the floor, Rosalind was tremulous, almost frightened
 
 266 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 before these flowers of the past. Outside the sun 
 with salmon and gold was tinting the haze-blue of 
 the sky, and far over the shining Basin the spires 
 and chimneys of Cambridge gleamed with yellow. 
 What had happened to this romance of her god- 
 father? Why had he never again left Boston? 
 Why had his life been first one of social diversion, 
 full of the eager pursuit of pleasure, and then in his 
 years of illness one of hermitage? 
 
 Puzzled, interested, saddened, Rosalind, her chin 
 on her hand, stared across the housetops of the mur- 
 muring city. There was a mystery in these letters 
 which evoked all the sympathy and romance of her 
 young heart. The salmon changed to pink in the 
 higher heavens; the gold fled eastward. Dominant 
 and huge, the red orange sun rolled upon the hori- 
 zon. Time fled, unheeded, unwelcomed, ignored; 
 and in its flight, over the diminuendo of the city's 
 vague hum, chords of music stole to Rosalind's ears. 
 At first the sounds seemed only imaginary creations 
 of harmony; but the strain persisted. Of a sudden 
 she was standing erect, trembling a little. The 
 Seventeenth Prelude of Frederic Chopin! She al- 
 most stumbled in her trepidation. A delicate gloom 
 had stolen through the library, increasing the eerie 
 effect of music in a house where only she could play. 
 For a moment genuine fright conquered her; the 
 gentleness of the touch below befitted ghostly fin- 
 gers ! Stealing from the room, she tiptoed to the 
 banisters, where softly the melody sang upwards. 
 Then from the nuance of the playing she knew it 
 to be Eric. Suddenly faint with surprise, anticipa- 
 tion, hope, she leaned against the wall. A picture 
 stirring at her touch, she clenched her hands and 
 listened. He had not heard. The emotion of the
 
 CULMINATION 267 
 
 moment entered into her body and swept it clear of 
 earthly dust. With glistening eyes and pulsing blood 
 she stole down the stairs; the supreme moment of 
 her life was at hand, and before its reign the history 
 and time of ages fell away and left the world to her 
 alone. 
 
 The last deep monotone of the prelude united 
 with silence. In the folds of the brocade curtains 
 Rosalind stared, as long before, towards the piano. 
 About her the room was darkening, but enough 
 brightness fell through the window to place the 
 player in bold relief, to reveal his poise and subtle 
 carriage at the same time that it denied his features. 
 The curve and suppleness of his back was marked 
 by a pencil of light. 
 
 "Eric!" 
 
 At the sound of her voice, unexpected and un- 
 natural, the figure at the piano sprang to its feet. 
 
 "Why, who Rosalind!" 
 
 She came towards him into the area of light. 
 Her shining eyes gained new beauty as they stared. 
 
 " I did not know you were in the house. You 
 startled me." Smilingly Eric took her hand. 
 
 " And you startled me, too." 
 
 " Did you just come in? " 
 
 " No. I have been upstairs all this afternoon. ^ I 
 thought it must be a spirit, when you began playing 
 my prelude our prelude," she corrected with a 
 smile. 
 
 " I found it open on the rack." His fingers 
 stirred aimlessly across the white keys. " It made 
 me think of you." 
 
 Rosalind's heart leaped within her in the greatness 
 of her desire to speak, but she could find no utterance 
 for the words which tumbled through her brain. A
 
 268 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 chill permeated her body, delicious, sudden, domi- 
 nant. She turned her head aside and traced with 
 a nervous forefinger the letters of Eric's name upon 
 the piano's cover. 
 
 " I came back, Rose." 
 
 "Why?" she asked with a sudden courage. 
 " You did not let me know." 
 
 " I wanted to surprise you." 
 
 ' You have, indeed." 
 
 " I had no idea that you would be here so late. I 
 came on the chance." 
 
 " I have been reading some letters of godfather's. 
 They were about your mother." 
 
 " May I read them, too? " 
 
 Rosalind did not answer for a moment. 
 
 " Did you know, Eric, that they had loved each 
 other?" 
 
 " I guessed." 
 
 " These letters are from godfather to his own 
 mother. There are only hints in them; some things 
 you don't speak of to a mother." 
 
 Eric murmured a reply. Rosalind had never told 
 her mother of her love for Eric; she had never even 
 intimated it. 
 
 " Tell me ! " she demanded suddenly. " Was 
 Washington amusing? Did you like it? What 
 did you do?" She sought to be guileless, but the 
 ugly shadow of Patricia had stolen into her mind and 
 her questions seemed conscious and false. Patricia 
 was the one thing destructive to the quietude of life; 
 with her explained time might run through the rough- 
 est day and all would be well. Yet Rosalind could 
 not approach the subject directly, bereft by delicacy 
 of words. 
 
 " Let us not talk of cities, now, Rose."
 
 CULMINATION 269 
 
 'What, then? Of the people you saw there?" 
 
 " I stayed with Patricia's aunt." 
 
 Fencing is a dangerous game, yet Rosalind per- 
 severed in it. 
 
 "Where did you find Patsy? Was she in Phila- 
 delphia? " she asked with apparent indifference. 
 
 "No; she wrote to me." 
 
 ; ' Did you go to Mt. Vernon? " 
 
 " I made some sketches of it. It certainly is the 
 most inspiring thing that I have seen in America! 
 I think it as nearly the perfect type as one can find. 
 You Americans must love it. Why, there were a 
 hundred songbirds on the lawn and below us the Po- 
 tomac gleamed and turned in the sunshine. Beauti- 
 ful? Every bit of it! I will show you .my 
 sketches." 
 
 " I shall love to see them." She wondered if 
 Patricia had been with him and had watched him at 
 work. What did Patricia know of the beauty and 
 worth of his drawings? Little, pricking devils 
 goaded her to ask, " Did Patsy like them? " 
 
 Eric's eyes rested on her. 
 
 " You seem mightily interested in Patricia," he 
 said softly. " I thought you did not like her." 
 
 Rosalind was fairly caught. 
 
 " She is an old friend of mine," she murmured. 
 
 " Old friends are not always the best, are they? )1 
 
 She turned her eyes to his face as they stood by 
 the window in the fading light. Surely the double 
 meaning which she found in these words he had not 
 placed there intentionally? 
 
 " No, Eric, not always." 
 
 " Let's forget about Patricia ! There is a hap- 
 pier and more interesting subject to discuss." 
 
 " What? " Suddenly she felt a clear, untram-
 
 2 7 o LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 meled happiness encircle her. In this renunciation 
 of Patricia, this careless, trifling valuation of her 
 worth, there was a free release from jealousy. 
 
 " Ourselves." She trembled at such a union. 
 " What have you been doing in my absence, Rose? 
 How has the time passed? " 
 
 " Slowly enough. It has been dull and quiet and 
 lonely. I did not know that I should miss you so. 
 Your letter helped cheer me up thank you for it. 
 Look ! A four-leafed clover ! I found it this after- 
 noon out under the elms." 
 
 She showed him the little leaves, nodding towards 
 the Square. 
 
 " It should bring you luck," he said, holding it to 
 the light. 
 
 " I hope it will. That's why I picked it." 
 
 " Hasn't Gary come back? " 
 
 " Gary? Benjamin? I had forgotten him! " 
 
 She sank down on the sofa by the window. Ben- 
 jamin's name sounded out of tune, discouraging, and 
 dull in the midst of her nervous happiness, and the 
 remembrance that in two days she must give her an- 
 swer to him again showed its Gorgon head. Where 
 was he ? In his last letter he had written of return- 
 ing Thursday. Perhaps at this very moment he was 
 in Boston or at Sherborne. She fell into uncomfort- 
 able silence. 
 
 " He seemed a fine man." 
 
 " Yes," assented Rosalind vaguely. Then, half 
 to herself, half intentioning : "Poor Benjamin!" 
 
 While the afterglow of sunset yet brightened the 
 lower heavens, on high a few pale stars were visible 
 and the room in which they sat was become almost 
 wholly dark. Eric stood beside the window, where 
 still there was light enough to trace the slenderness
 
 Eric stood beside the window . . .
 
 CULMINATION 271 
 
 of his body. For a moment his face was turned 
 from Rosalind; and the dark hair on the top of his 
 head glinted dully in the window which framed him 
 before her. When he turned toward her again, his 
 voice was gentle. 
 
 " Do you remember our walk along the Espla- 
 nade?" 
 
 Rosalind nodded. 
 
 ' There was a conversation then we never 
 finished." 
 
 ' You wrote me " 
 
 " Rosalind, shall you still miss me when I go back 
 to France? Shall you want me here? " 
 
 1 Yes, Eric." 
 
 " Is there not some one else who " He broke 
 off, thinking of the evening when he had seen her in 
 Benjamin Gary's arms. 
 
 " No one." 
 
 Eric bent forward. 
 
 "Gary?" 
 
 Rosalind, too, remembered that sad evening; a 
 flush mounted to her cheeks, but her eyes did not fall 
 from his face. She was drinking from the cup of 
 eternal happiness. 
 
 " No, not Ben. No one," she replied in a firm 
 voice. 
 
 " Rosalind Rose, will you listen while I tell you 
 something? I came here, a stranger, and saw you 
 do you remember the night I caught up the old 
 woman from before your machine? I do. I met 
 you ; we were always together at first. You seemed 
 to like me, to want me with you." In divine sus- 
 pense, Rosalind clutched among the cushions on the 
 sofa. " I did not feel I had a right to care for you 
 and then your godfather told me that he had
 
 272 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 wanted you and me to but I thought you loved 
 some one else ! And so I went away and tried to 
 amuse myself. I couldn't, Rose." He had moved 
 to the sofa. His hand was close by hers; he almost 
 touched her dress as he stood, bending to see her 
 eyes. When he spoke again, his voice was softer 
 still, a mere breath trembling in her ear. " I missed 
 you. Why, Rose? Because I loved you. I 
 seemed to find you in everything beautiful and won- 
 derful I saw. When I sat at Mt. Vernon with my 
 sketchbook, I saw you in its loveliness. I thought 
 how you would enjoy it; I drew for you. And 
 what shall I do if I must return to Paris? In a 
 dusty atelier I shall have no hope to find you. All 
 my spirit shall be gone. I have learned from you to 
 do things with a new meaning; your approval is all 
 the value of achievement. I have no one to be alive 
 for in Paris." 
 
 His head bowed above her. 
 
 " Eric," she murmured. 
 
 She could say only this, for her throat was dry. 
 Taking his hand which touched hers warmly on the 
 cushion, she pressed it hard, as if she sought to trans- 
 late all her love and her desire into this one touch. 
 Of a sudden a magnificent torrent seemed to break 
 upon her. Eric was half-kneeling, his arms flung 
 round her, his face beside hers. His lips brushed 
 her cheek as the words tumbled out, and she felt 
 his hair against her temples, and the warmth of 
 his blood dancing in his face. A mighty thrill in- 
 vaded all her body; her pulses raced in the nearness 
 of his heart to hers. 
 
 " Rose, I love you ! I love you ! Life and happi- 
 ness are ours we'll share them with no one. You 
 do want me, dearest ? Oh, my Rose, my Rose 1 "
 
 CULMINATION 273 
 
 He had drawn her to her feet and his arms were 
 about her now, so powerful that Rosalind marvelled 
 at his strength. Together they stood in the death- 
 less moment of embrace, their hearts stirring in 
 tumult and their lips in the darkness meeting in cul- 
 mination.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 DEAD NARCISSUS 
 
 INNER is ready, madam." 
 
 Mrs. Copley laid down her neatly- 
 folded Transcript. 
 
 " Has Miss Rose come in? " 
 
 " No, madam. Not yet." 
 
 " We'll wait a while, Paris. It's only just seven- 
 thirty." 
 
 She picked up the paper again, but thought better 
 of it before she had actually begun to read. 
 
 " Jack! "she called. ^ 
 
 A masculine sound, intended to denote pre-occu- 
 pation and a great unwillingness to be disturbed, 
 came from the adjoining study, where Mr. Copley 
 perused with devotional solemnity his copy of the 
 Transcript. 
 
 " Rose is not yet at home, dear." 
 
 Another sound. 
 
 " I hope nothing's happened. It's not like her to 
 be late, is it? " 
 
 To this Mr. Copley vouchsafed no answer. His 
 wife sighed, looked at her wrist watch, and, as she 
 did so, caught a reflection of herself in a neighbour- 
 ing mirror. For a moment that wooden expression, 
 peculiar to every one when looking into a glass, 
 moulded her features. The inspection was momen- 
 tary, unintentional, but pleasing; she rather fancied 
 
 274
 
 DEAD NARCISSUS 275 
 
 herself in horn spectacles, the large kind with great 
 owlish lenses, the dark frames of which against the 
 white of her hair were engagingly scholastic and 
 added to her beauty a provoking air of erudition. 
 Since the reputation for intellectuality in a society 
 which devotes its time to other matters depends a 
 great deal upon appearances, Mrs. Copley often 
 passed for a modern Mme. de Rambouillet a re- 
 semblance which, from the physical side at least, 
 would have pleased la grande Arthenice. 
 
 A suggestion of day faded in through the opened 
 windows to combat vaguely the lamplight and lin- 
 gered with refreshing calm about the subdued greys 
 and silvers of the room. A simple room, for sim- 
 plicity is the requisite of coolness, and the house was 
 intended for the incipient heat of May and June. 
 Indeed, the simplicity to some seemed studied. 
 There were no paintings; only a few of Turner's 
 water-colours with an occasional Sargent for the 
 sake of balance. The ornaments were on a similar 
 plane of simplicity; two vases of lapis lazuli, filled 
 with tall, shadowy larkspur; a figurine of Mrs. Cop- 
 ley by Prince Troubetzkoy; some Chinese porce- 
 lains ; nothing, in short, pretentious or arresting. It 
 was a country house, the " Sherborne farm," and at 
 any cost Mrs. Copley sought to preserve its char- 
 acter. To her it seemed that flowers should suffice 
 for decoration and blossoms filled the room: blue 
 larkspur in vases, white rosebuds floating in a great 
 circular dish, and the occasional glow of marigolds 
 defying darkness in the corners. On the air loitered 
 the perfume of heliotrope. 
 
 In the centre of this loveliness sat Mrs. Copley, 
 rare, untrammeled, exquisite to the tips of her fingers. 
 In warm weather, when only the family was present,
 
 276 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 she affected a cerulean blue scarcely a dress, yet 
 every detail of its apparent incoherence represented 
 the ardour and grace of Parisian design. Embody- 
 ing all the witchery of feminine apparel, a veil of 
 chiffon fell in soft blue lines from her white shoul- 
 ders to her golden-slippered feet, while underneath 
 shimmered a silver bodice. About her neck drifted 
 a scarf of hazy pink, like a little cloud at sunrise mak- 
 ing the blue sky immortal, and on the taper fingers 
 which for a moment pressed against her hair glowed 
 a great sapphire. It was Fragonard in the twentieth 
 century ! Boucher dressed a la mode 1 Watteau 
 with the evening Transcript! 
 
 "Jack!" 
 
 A cricket chirred insistently outside the window, 
 but Mr. Copley, steeped in editorial wisdom, kept 
 silence. 
 
 " Please call up the Square, dear. The telephone 
 is right at your elbow. I can't think where Rose is." 
 
 Mr. Copley groaned irritably. 
 
 " Please, Jack." 
 
 There were sounds of a disgruntled man putting 
 aside what he considered his legitimate field of en- 
 deavour for the evening namely, his paper and 
 taking up that most useful and most condemned of 
 all instruments, the telephone. In the prolonged 
 and vexing parley with central which followed, Mr. 
 Copley soon lost his temper and Mrs. Copley her in- 
 terest. 
 
 ' Well? " she asked, when her husband at length 
 appeared. 
 
 " She's at the Square." 
 
 ; ' What happened? Machine break? " 
 
 Mr. Copley's back was turned and he "did not an- 
 swer.
 
 DEAD NARCISSUS 277 
 
 " My dear Jack, you'll not find any odour in those 
 marigolds ; not even if you sniff yourself black in the 
 face. What did she say? " 
 
 ' Nothing particular. These are fine larkspurs." 
 
 " Yes. I picked them this afternoon. She's com- 
 ing home to-night? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. She'll be " 
 
 Begun with pretended collusiveness, Mr. Cop- 
 ley's sentence did not conclude. 
 
 "What's keeping her, Jack? Do say some- 
 thing!" 
 
 Why, it's it's Eric." 
 
 "Eric? Where did he come from? " 
 
 " He's just back, she said. They're coming home 
 together." 
 
 Mr. Copley looked hard at his wife. 
 
 " Eric Holland ! " she murmured surprisedly. 
 Her pretty mouth was framed to ask a question when 
 Paris with a cough announced dinner. 
 
 After the meal Mr. and Mrs. Copley sat together 
 in their restful drawing-room, the one smoking and 
 the other reading. Somehow Mr. Copley's cigar 
 did not draw well and his wife's book failed to hold 
 her attention. When her husband arose to throw 
 his cigar away, Mrs. Copley, looking up for the 
 fiftieth time since dinner, found his eyes were upon 
 her and smiled indulgently. 
 
 "Well, Jack?" 
 
 They had been happy together and how diffi- 
 cult it is for the rich, since they have no aspirations, 
 no struggles, no bread to share with one another, to 
 be happy in marriage! To share diversions and 
 luxuries is indeed comfortable, but to share bread is 
 divine. Over caviare there can be no real sympathy
 
 278 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 or appreciation; with corned beef and cabbage there 
 must be comradeship or nothing. Any day in the 
 year a dinner of herbs makes for love. Yet despite 
 these disadvantages disadvantages which never- 
 theless are the universal goal the marriage of Mr. 
 and Mrs. Copley had been a great success, and her 
 indulgent smile comprised their years of affluent 
 happiness. 
 
 " Beth, I have been thinking." 
 
 "About Rose?" 
 
 " Urn." Mr. Copley chose another cigar from a 
 silver box with affectionate care. 
 
 " Do you think she loves Eric? " 
 
 " I thought wasn't she fond of Cary? " 
 
 Mrs. Copley shook her head. " Not in love, 
 though, Jack. Benjamin is one of those St. Bernard 
 people, don't you know? No girl can adore a St. 
 Bernard : it takes up too much space." 
 
 " Don't see it ! I thought girls liked the big, red- 
 blooded kind. He was a wonderful athlete cap- 
 tain of the crew his year. And then he's a good 
 lawyer, I imagine. I'm not saying he's emotional or 
 anything like that." 
 
 ' You mean like Eric? " 
 
 ' Well, don't you think Eric is a little " 
 
 " Of course, he is flighty, Jack, especially for 
 America. I didn't take to that sort when I was 
 young, did I ? " 
 
 Mr. Copley puffed at his cigar with a self-satisfied 
 smile; this one went well. 
 
 " Hardly. I used to play the flute, though." 
 
 " But I never held it against you." They both 
 laughed. u I tell you what I think, Jack. I think 
 that Rosalind is head over heels this time."
 
 DEAD NARCISSUS 279 
 
 " She never says anything." 
 
 " They never do. Nobody else's opinion is of 
 any use at such a time not even a mother's." 
 
 " She sounded over the telephone as if dinner were 
 too material a think to speak of. She said they'd 
 forgotten it and laughed." 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 Mr. Copley nodded several times. 
 'What do you think?" 
 
 " Everything," replied his wife with a pretty ges- 
 ture. " And I don't see but that it will make a very 
 happy marriage. I'm sure Tony would have wanted 
 it. In fact, it's a wonder he didn't speak of it in his 
 will. Did he ever say anything to you about Eric? " 
 
 Arising precipitately, Mr. Copley walked to the 
 mantelpiece, where he stood with his back to his 
 wife. Within him his secret whirled about like a 
 dervish. After so many years of absolute confi- 
 dence, it was hard beyond belief to keep to himself 
 any piece of information. 
 
 " Oh, yes. Of course. Some things." 
 
 "What, for instance?" 
 
 Mr. Copley put his cigar between his lips for an 
 artificial dike. 
 
 "He er " 
 
 After all, she ought to know! She was as much 
 Rosalind's mother as he was her father. If she felt 
 so assured that Rosalind and Eric were in love and 
 meant to marry, it was plainly his duty to inform her 
 of any details concerning the proposed son-in-law 
 of which he was cognisant. Yet he made a last ef- 
 fort to hold the oozing secret back, hoping she would 
 enquire no further. 
 
 " Just about Eric's family."
 
 280 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " They were all right, weren't they? What did 
 he say, Jack? I should hate to have Rose marry 
 into a oad inheritance " 
 'Not that!" 
 
 " Foreigners are so different from us. Of course, 
 Eric has a great deal of American blood in him." 
 
 " Indeed he has ! " 
 
 " His grandmother, you know, was a New York 
 girl. What is the tenor like? Did Tony talk of 
 him?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " I don't care particularly to have Rose marry a 
 singer's son." Mrs. Copley pulled the pink scarf 
 about her neck with a relic of primness in her man- 
 ner. " But then " 
 
 It was too much for flesh and blood to bear! 
 That wicked babbler of Rome spoke true when he 
 wrote, " Citius flammas mortales ore tenebunt quam 
 secreta tegant." The secret fairly sparkled in Mr. 
 Copley's red face. 
 
 " Hang it " (What would she say?) " I've 
 got to tell you, Beth ! Rolland isn't Eric's father ! " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " It's true. Tony told me." 
 
 "Who is, then?" 
 
 Mr. Copley looked hard at the grey ash on the 
 end of his cigar. 
 
 " Tony was," he answered in a disarming voice. 
 
 "Jack!" 
 
 Mrs. Copley arose from her chair and swept to 
 her husband, the colour mounting to her cheeks in 
 waves. 
 
 " Tony ? Tony Eric's father ? " 
 
 " It's true, dear." 
 
 " Oh ! Jack ! " Mrs. Copley's voice was subdued,
 
 DEAD NARCISSUS 281 
 
 shocked, disappointed. " I'm glad I didn't know 
 while he was alive." 
 
 There was a pause, during which Mr. Copley 
 drew a pattern on the soft grey carpet with the toe 
 of his slipper and Mrs. Copley watched him. 
 
 " And the mother? " she asked at length. 
 
 " Madame Holland." 
 
 "Oh! In our family, Jack!" 
 
 " I know, dear. Tony told me just before you 
 came, on the day that he died. He left me Eric to 
 look after." 
 
 Mrs. Copley was not paying attention ; to her the 
 maternal point of view was dominant. 
 
 " I do not see how Tony could expect, could de- 
 sire Rose to marry a Why! Jack! It's dread- 
 ful ! How can the boy himself want to marry Rose, 
 if he really loves her, knowing what he is? " 
 
 Mr. Copley took her hand in sudden alarm. 
 
 " Listen, Beth ! He doesn't know ! You must 
 understand that! Only Rolland and you and I 
 know. It would ruin Eric's life, if he found 
 out." 
 
 " It will ruin Rose's, if he doesn't, won't it? " 
 
 " I can't see why. No one shall ever know." 
 
 " Oh ! the secret is bound to get out. They al- 
 ways do." 
 
 " It isn't fair to ruin the boy's life." 
 
 " You're standing up for him now, aren't you, 
 Jack?" 
 
 "Well, he fj Tony's son!" 
 
 Sitting down on a sofa, Mrs. Copley stretched her 
 arms out on the cushions and nervously plucked at 
 their embroidery. 
 
 "Oh! I can't bear it, Jack! Rose is too good, 
 too pure ! "
 
 282 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 " My dear Beth, you forget that Eric is utterly 
 unconscious " 
 
 " But the stain is there ! " 
 
 " I think the stain is where you we wish to put 
 it." 
 
 " Oh ! You men ! You always stand up for one 
 another! Jack, don't you think it's wrong? You 
 don't approve of it? " 
 
 " Of course not, dear. But is that the considera- 
 tion? " 
 
 " I'm thinking of Rose." 
 
 " So am I. I'm thinking of her happiness. Ever 
 since Tony died I've been wondering, wondering 
 what it was best to do." 
 
 "Tell her!" 
 
 " No no." Mr. Copley came and sat beside 
 his wife on the sofa. " How can we? She would 
 have to tell Eric, and then he would feel that he 
 could not marry her." 
 
 " That would be best." 
 
 'Why, Beth! You like Eric." 
 
 "I do I do. I'm so sorry for the poor boy. 
 But Rose is our daughter! If she marries him, it 
 will be an open countenancing of such behaviour as 
 Tony's. I don't believe in it, Jack. It's rotten 
 yes, exactly so ! rotten ! " Mr. Copley made a 
 deprecatory gesture with his hand. " No no, 
 Jack ! It's all very well to say Tony's in the family, 
 and nil nisi, and all that, but I'd as soon I'd as 
 soon have Rosalind marry a drunkard ! " 
 
 " Oh, come, dear, you can't mean that! " 
 
 Mrs. Copley shook her head firmly. To her sin 
 was inexcusable, though she was neither rigorous nor 
 catholic in her religion. She occupied a pew in 
 Trinity Church, because she believed that it set a
 
 DEAD NARCISSUS 283 
 
 good example, and she abhorred revivalists, because 
 they were insulting; but none of her concepts were 
 built upon reason or faith. Faultlessly pure in her 
 own morals, she could not condone the sins of an- 
 other. From her birth she had lived in a high- 
 walled garden, shielded from east winds, basking 
 in untroubled sunshine; for those people out upon 
 the moor in the full blast of temptation she had 
 neither cognisance nor understanding. She could not 
 pardon: to pardon one first must sin. 
 
 " I think you are wrong, Beth." Mr. Copley's 
 brown eyes were prominent with anxiety. 
 
 " There are some things, Jack, a woman can de- 
 cide about better than a man. I will tell Rosalind 
 the truth." 
 
 " I could not." 
 
 " It is for a mother to do. I will not break her 
 heart, Jack dear she's a woman." 
 
 " And if she still wants him when she knows? " 
 
 Mrs. Copley twirled the great sapphire about on 
 her finger. 
 
 " I shall at least have done my duty as a mother," 
 she replied. 
 
 Morning broadened into Rosalind's bedroom. 
 Elfin rays of sunshine stole across the floor and 
 danced upon her coverlet, patterning its blue with 
 lakes of gold. There was a great calmness in the 
 pretty room which was neither the placid quiet of 
 afternoon nor yet the languishing hush of summer 
 nights, but a cleaner, cooler peacefulness. As Rosa- 
 lind awoke, and she awoke early from pure happiness 
 of heart, she felt this calmness steeping her nerves 
 in rest. Yet she could not rest. As the memories 
 of the night before fluttered back in a radiant flight,
 
 284 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 there was so much else in life that rest had no place 
 in it. She ran to the window. Morning had flushed 
 and bubbled over the rim of darkness and the clear 
 notes of birds struck upon the air, robins cheerily 
 carolling on the lawn, and below her window a blue- 
 bird, lost in a cloud of syringa blossoms. 
 
 It was so early that no one was stirring through 
 the great house when she flew down the noiseless 
 stairs and out onto the terrace. As yet Nature had 
 not mixed her colours, and they were so bright in 
 their newness that Rosalind wanted to touch every- 
 thing surrounding her, as one irresistibly feels of the 
 flamboyant stuffs in a vagrant pedlar's bag. The de- 
 sire for action, the zeal for running and singing, 
 caught hold upon her. But where should she run? 
 In a comprehensive glance her eyes fell upon Eric's 
 opened window. What was he thinking of? Did 
 he dream? Did he sleep calmly and sweetly, as we 
 ever picture the sleep of those we love? In the 
 plenitude of her happiness she threw a great, im- 
 pulsive kiss towards the window, and as she did so, 
 somehow the thought of his letter came to her. 
 That was it ! She would run to the spot where she 
 had read his first letter; she would undertake an 
 early pilgrimage and bring back to him a handful of 
 the wild narcissus which had made the knoll so 
 bright. In a moment she was off with the sun full 
 on her face and her long shadow dancing behind. 
 
 How easy life was at last! Her road stretched 
 out now to the crack of the doom, clean and inviting, 
 a fair road, a free road, a road for walking or 
 dancing or resting or running, a road bright unto its 
 very end, a road which she and Eric must always 
 march together. There was indeed fear on the 
 road, but she was protected; there was sorrow, but
 
 DEAD NARCISSUS 285 
 
 she had one with whom to share it; there was disap- 
 pointment, but there was courage, too. Together 
 how brave and fearless they would be, how strong in 
 union, how sympathetic in understanding! The 
 world before them was a world to love, to conquer, 
 to create! 
 
 Past the tinkling brook she sped, nor listened this 
 time to its murmur. That chapter was dry and 
 dusty now, thrown on a top shelf and disregarded, 
 for there were new songs to sing and new miracles to 
 ponder. She thought how Eric had taken her in his 
 arms the night before and how she had trembled at 
 his touch. Unlike her dreams, the scene had been 
 simple; yet as she remembered the feeling of his 
 crisp curls upon her temples she trembled, and 
 stopped. Before her lay the little knoll with its 
 single tree, the tracery of whose gnarled image made 
 dark patterns on the ground. Mounting the gentle 
 rise, she looked expectantly for the star-white blos- 
 soms. An exclamation of dismay broke from her 
 lips: the narcissuses lay in withered ugliness upon 
 the green turf, brown and dead! Keenly disap- 
 pointed, she turned away; the knoll was not so beau- 
 tiful now. Thinking to take something back to Eric, 
 she plucked a single dusty stalk, then hesitated. 
 No ! Unless it were the best and loveliest, she 
 would not countenance it, she would take nothing 
 back; and the pretty story which she might have 
 made for his delight died before its birth. With 
 downturned face she retraced her steps. Shorter 
 and blacker, before her streamed her shadow. 
 
 Eric was not visible when she re-entered the 
 house. Vaguely uneasy, she ran through the rooms. 
 How calmly men take love ! With a thrilling heart, 
 she ascended the stairs and tiptoed down the hall-
 
 286 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 way to pause outside of Eric's closed door. He 
 was singing! She caught the sound of his voice, 
 lightly rising and falling in an old French air: 
 
 " Ah! je voudrais etre mouche, 
 Pour voleter dessus la bouche, 
 Sur les cheveux et sur le sein 
 De ma dame belle et rebelle; 
 Je picquerais cette cruelle 
 A peine d'y mourir soudain!" 
 
 The blood seemed alive in her body. This dame 
 belle et rebelle was herself; he was singing of her! 
 With her ear pressed close to the door, she lis- 
 tened 
 
 "A peine d'y mourir soudain!" 
 
 The spirit rose within her like sap in a budding 
 tree. This voice was hers! It would sing to her 
 in chill winter nights and in the slumbering noons 
 of summer, in the rain-soaked fields of April and 
 in the flaming orchards of October; it would sing 
 pain out of life and sweetness in, but whatever it 
 sang, it would sing always to her. Choked with 
 tenderness, she touched for a moment her lips to 
 the door then, unobserved in her worship, fled 
 down the hallway. 
 
 The morning papers were in the drawing-room. 
 Picking up the Herald, Rosalind moved to a sofa 
 by a window and sat down where the sunlight played 
 in the gold of her hair. From an alabaster bowl 
 beside her hand arose the odour of heliotropes, deli- 
 cate and sensuous. She glanced across the head- 
 lines a murder, a bank cashier missing, a double 
 victory for the Boston Americans, a train wreck 
 and smiled at her inability to comprehend what was
 
 DEAD NARCISSUS 287 
 
 before her. The knowledge that Eric was coming, 
 that his foot might even at this very moment be 
 on the stair, destroyed all interest in past events. 
 This was not her world! Her world lay in the 
 nervous expectation of her heart. Skimming over 
 the page, she acquired none of it, and was about 
 to lay it aside when a name caught her eye. Her 
 fingers were suddenly numb and she felt the colour 
 stream from her face. What was she reading? 
 There ! Under the wreck headlines ! From the 
 list of those " Probably Fatally Injured " stared up 
 at her: "Benjamin Gary, Boston lawyer, aged 
 28 ; residence with Dr. Gary at 244 Beacon Street! " 
 
 She clapped her hands to her head. It could not 
 be! Benjamin? She read the paragraph again 
 and again, the awful story jumbling before her eyes. 
 The reporter had spared no words in his descrip- 
 tion; every adjective that could harrow the heart 
 was impressed, doubly and trebly fulfilling its horri- 
 ble service. For an unknown cause the flying cars 
 had jumped the rails in the subterranean part of the 
 Back Bay station, creating a veritable carnage. In 
 a moment that which had been a swift-moving train 
 had become a flaming scrap-heap of twisted steel 
 and splintered wood. Rosalind's blood ran sick as 
 she grasped the details. On the second page she 
 found definite news of Benjamin. " Mr. Benjamin 
 Gary of 244 Beacon Street, City, was returning from 
 a business trip to New Orleans. Not a single per- 
 son in his car escaped serious injury. He was stand- 
 ing in the vestibule at the time of the crash and his 
 body was found there, somewhat burned. He was 
 totally unconscious. Both legs were broken, one at 
 the hip. It is feared that the spine " 
 
 Rosalind flung herself face down on the sofa, un-
 
 288 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 able to read more, tortured by the picture of the 
 wreck in her inward eye. She knew too well the 
 reason of the return from New Orleans: it had 
 been for her answer. W T hile last evening she had 
 been in Eric's arms, Benjamin had been racked in 
 agony. Where? Where was he? Where had 
 they taken him? She turned back to the account in 
 the paper. " Mr. Gary was rushed to the Long- 
 wood Hospital, of which his father, the distinguished 
 specialist " Oh, God! How cruel she had 
 been ! How unmeaningly cruel ! Had she but 
 known she would have acted otherwise, surely she 
 would have ! Tears came and blotted out her 
 thoughts. 
 
 Suddenly she felt arms around her, a face close 
 and cool by her hot cheek, a voice caressing in her 
 ear. 
 
 "Darling, what is it? Rose! Blessed Rose, 
 what has happened? Tell me." 
 
 It was a sin to feel his gentle hands pressing 
 about her and not to resist. She knew that he was 
 kneeling by the sofa, and when she lifted her heavy 
 head, she found his face close beside hers, anxious 
 and grieving. It was a sin that he should kiss her 
 wet lips and her blue eyes, misty with tears, but she 
 had no will to prevent him. 
 
 ; ' What is it? Please ! Do not cry, love." 
 
 She looked into his green eyes, green as the sum- 
 mer sea dancing at dawn; they pierced deep with 
 sympathy. Over her pallor came a vivid flush. 
 Could she tell him? What would he say? A mo- 
 ment later she was angry with herself for the 
 thought ; there was nothing between them to be kept 
 silent. 
 
 "Eric, look!" she whispered, holding out the
 
 DEAD NARCISSUS 289 
 
 newspaper. "Benjamin, poor Benjamin, he's " 
 
 She could not finish; in her mind she saw a little 
 calendar with ANSWER BEN written opposite June 
 first. 
 
 " By Jove ! What a smash-up ! " Eric's eyes 
 were big with surprise and wonder. " Poor 
 Gary!" 
 
 He looked at Rosalind quickly. Raising her eyes 
 to his, she matched his gaze. She hoped he would 
 not ask the question which she saw trembling on his 
 lips. 
 
 " I'm sorry for him," she heard him say in a dull 
 voice. 
 
 He arose and stood stiffly by the sofa. 
 
 "Eric," she murmured. "You don't you 
 don't ? Don't you trust me, Eric? " 
 
 He bent over her in a rush of tenderness, staring 
 through her eyes to her heart. 
 
 " I must." His voice was rough in his throat. 
 " I do." 
 
 " Trust me for a day, dearest. I cannot explain 
 to you now. I must see Benjamin, but but 
 oh! Trust me, Eric! I love you so much." 
 
 She caught his hand and pressed it tight between 
 hers. As they stood in the sunshine, gazing deeply 
 into each other's eyes, the scent of heliotrope drifted 
 about them. 
 
 Some three hours later Rosalind stepped from her 
 automobile at the Chief's entrance of the Longwood 
 Hospital. The day had become close and hot. In 
 the dazzling of the sun the roses which she carried 
 in her arms withered and hung their heads. 
 
 The Chief was alone in his immaculate office. 
 As he came forward to greet her, Rosalind noticed
 
 2 9 o LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 that there was much pain in his face and that his 
 eyes shadowed a surpassing weariness. She tried 
 to say something. 
 
 " Doctor, I ..." 
 
 Suddenly she wished she had not come. It 
 flashed through her brain that Dr. Gary felt that 
 his grief was also hers, that she loved his son, that 
 she had come almost as Benjamin's fiancee. When 
 he took her in his arms and kissed her naturally and 
 simply, Rosalind withered like the roses in the hot 
 sunlight. His son she had not loved, did not love, 
 never could love; to-morrow she must refuse to 
 marry him. A horror for the falseness of her po- 
 sition possessing her, she sank down silently on the 
 horsehair sofa, uneasy, ashamed, abashed. 
 
 " I am glad you have come," the doctor was say- 
 ing kindly. " He has spoken your name continu- 
 ously since the accident." 
 
 " My name? " she repeated faintly. 
 
 " He has been delirious, of course." 
 
 14 Does he does he suffer terribly, Dr. Gary? " 
 
 " He is still but half-conscious. He will suf- 
 fer " The surgeon bravely shrugged his shoul- 
 ders. Rosalind could feel that he was struggling 
 to keep his composure, that the struggle was a great 
 one, and she dared not look up. Before such un- 
 happiness she was small and mean. 
 
 When Dr. Gary spoke again, his voice was 
 calmer. 
 
 " His work in New Orleans was not finished." 
 
 "No?" 
 
 Rosalind's head bowed pathetically. Then it had 
 all been her fault! Did Dr. Gary know? Did he 
 blame her? 
 
 " He wrote me in his last letter that he was re-
 
 DEAD NARCISSUS 291 
 
 turning only for a day. He said that he had an 
 engagement on June first that it was necessary to 
 keep. Poor boy! His letter is still on my desk." 
 
 An engagement on June first that it was necessary 
 to keep! Rosalind shivered. To-morrow she 
 must keep that engagement, too. How? As her 
 thoughts whirled in a chaos of past memories an 
 inward voice cried out revolt. It was unfair ! She 
 could not jeopardise her own life ! It would not be 
 just to give herself to Benjamin. 
 
 " And now, Rosalind, now ! " The doctor's 
 voice was strained in his throat. " If he does not 
 die, he never can be of use again. Both legs are 
 broken, and he is paralysed, always will be paralysed. 
 My son will always be a cripple. . . . Think of his 
 health and strength, too. God! It's cruel! It's 
 damned cruel ! " Rosalind felt tears swimming in 
 her eyes, and would have liked to speak. " Only 
 his mind is left. As soon as he comes from his 
 delirium that will be clear, but his suffering " 
 
 The doctor broke off blankly. 
 
 " Do you want me to see him? " she asked faintly. 
 
 "Will you?" The voice for a moment seemed 
 brighter, and she thrilled happily. " It will help." 
 
 With the flowers still held to her breast she 
 quitted the room with the doctor and they hurried 
 through the silent corridors to the private ward. As 
 they approached the nurses' desk, the figures about it 
 arose. 
 
 " He's half-conscious, sir," whispered the head 
 nurse in reply to Dr. Gary's question. 
 
 Motioning to Rosalind to wait outside, the sur- 
 geon entered his son's room. She looked about 
 vaguely, stunned by the ironical complexity of the 
 situation. Benjamin occupied the last room of the
 
 292 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 ward; through the partly opened door she could 
 see that it was darkened. She wondered how the 
 air was kept so cool. At the nurses' desk a system 
 of flashing lights had supplanted the more noisy 
 bells. It seemed a good system; but what if the 
 nurses went to sleep? Would the colour awaken 
 them? 
 
 A touch on her arm startled her. Dr. Gary was 
 making a sign in the doorway. Straining her cour- 
 age to the utmost, she followed him into the room, 
 the cool air of which was impregnated with the 
 odour of antiseptics. A fan whirred wearily in a 
 corner, ceaselessly moving from one side of its 
 standard to the other. After the light of the hall 
 it was impossible to see in the shuttered darkness. 
 As she moved nearer the bed, a beam of sunshine 
 falling through the blinds made a warm white line 
 on her black dress. 
 
 The first full view of Benjamin startled her. 
 Strapped to the bed on his back and swathed in 
 bandages, he appeared in the half-light enormous. 
 And then his face! As she gazed on the strong, 
 clean features twisted in agony, on the working 
 mouth, and on the tortured brow, the roses fell 
 from her arms. In that moment her sense of duty 
 broke its bonds and transfigured her; in that mo- 
 ment she rose to a nobler life, higher than self and 
 selfish interest. Mercy struggled on her lips; chiv- 
 alry purified her heart. 
 
 " Benjamin! " she murmured. 
 
 Bending over the bandaged figure, she softly kissed 
 its lips.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 A DECISION TO MAKE 
 
 LIKE an invisible blanket, heat oppressed the 
 city. From the housetops to the baking earth 
 it deadened the sweet air of Heaven till the 
 city panted in the sultry atmosphere. A billow of 
 suffocation rolled in through the opened windows 
 of the drawing room of 8 Louisburg Square and 
 broke upon the furniture into myriad lesser waves 
 which clung and eddied about the brocade curtains. 
 Foreign voices filled the streets outside. From a 
 window Rosalind could make out shadowy figures, 
 swarmed from the steaming North End in search of 
 air. Flung down at random, these figures sprawled 
 upon the green or leaned against the iron fence, 
 their white shirts barred by its black palings. There 
 was no air for them and they protested in a high, 
 insistent monotone ; not for warmth had they sought 
 America. In the hot lamplight the Square had a 
 garish look. 
 
 Mrs. Copley sat fanning herself. Magnified by 
 the heat, the voices outside poured through the win- 
 dow in an irritating drone. 
 
 " If they would only keep quiet! " she remarked 
 for the tenth time. But neither Rosalind nor Eric 
 observed that she had spoken. 
 
 Apart from the physical discomfort caused by the 
 breathless heat, Mrs. Copley was dissatisfied in her 
 
 293
 
 294 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 mind. In the morning she had put on her cap of 
 virtue; she had determined to speak to Rosalind as 
 a mother should speak to a daughter, to tell the 
 truth about Eric, to give, in short, advice and guid- 
 ance. This elucidation, a duty both to Rosalind and 
 to the world, the news of Benjamin's accident and 
 the hurried dash to town had postponed from hour 
 to hour, and her maternal wisdom still lay heavily 
 upon a wearied brain. Few parental ailments are 
 as painful as an attack of dyspeptic virtue and 
 the day long there had been no relief. Since Rosa- 
 lind's return from the hospital the time had passed 
 in preoccupied silence, with only an occasional mes- 
 sage from Dr. Gary to break the sultry monotony. 
 Alternately the news was good and bad, as Ben- 
 jamin gained or lost advantage in his close and ter- 
 rible struggle with death. 
 
 Bells throughout the city struck nine o'clock. 
 The sound reverberated as if mountainous balls of 
 lead were being rolled on the heavy air. Dropping 
 a magazine which he had been making a feeble pre- 
 tence to read, Eric stood up and would have liked to 
 stretch. 
 
 " Dp you want to go out, Rose? " he asked. 
 
 " I imagine it is worse out of doors than here," 
 interposed Mrs. Copley. 
 
 " It's not possible." There was a shade of petu- 
 lance in Rosalind's voice. She wished that she and 
 Eric might be alone. Had he felt the consecration 
 of this room? But one little day past she had 
 been in his arms in the very spot where now she 
 stood. 
 
 " It's worth trying," Eric persisted. 
 
 Rosalind looked gratefully towards him. 
 
 " Thanks, Eric, but I can't. Dr. Gary said he'd
 
 A DECISION TO MAKE 295 
 
 call me up himself at nine. I must stay." She 
 sank into a chair. " And I'm so tired; it seems as if 
 my head would split." 
 
 " I'm sorry, dear." 
 
 His voice was but a whisper on the air, audible 
 to her alone. As it sank into her heart, she forgot 
 Benjamin and dwelt through Eric's thoughtfulness 
 and love in a different world. But almost in the 
 same moment her self-pity seemed mean and base, 
 and she hated herself. 
 
 A bell buzzed distantly in the house. 
 
 " That's Dr. Gary." 
 
 Rosalind moved to the door. 
 
 "You're coming back, dear?" asked Mrs. Cop- 
 ley. She must speak to-night. 
 
 But Rosalind was gone. The telephone was in a 
 dark embrasure at the end of the hall, where the 
 heat was packed tight, layer on layer of it, deadened 
 there from morning. For a moment Rosalind was 
 dizzy, and she found sweat upon her lips as she put 
 them to the mouth-piece. 
 
 "Rosalind?" 
 
 " Yes, Dr. Cary? " 
 
 " Both legs are set and he is more comfortable. 
 He has just come out of the ether." 
 
 " I am so glad 1 " Rosalind murmured. 
 
 " I was with him as he I heard a great many 
 things, Rosalind." 
 
 Though faded with weariness, the doctor's voice 
 was very kind. The receiver trembled in her hand, 
 and her voice was so unsteady that she dared not 
 entrust more than a monosyllable to it. 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " I know now what engagement he had to keep. 
 Poor girl ! I am sorry for you ! "
 
 296 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 He was sorry for her! She leaned against the 
 warm wall. 
 
 " Doctor . . ." 
 
 "I have always been very well, never mind! 
 You will come to-morrow morning? " 
 
 ' What time? " she managed to articulate. 
 
 " Early. Ten o'clock. He expects you to come; 
 it means well, everything! " 
 
 Rosalind shut her eyes tight. 
 
 "Doctor!" Her voice was small and distant. 
 "Will he live? Is it?" 
 
 A moment's pause gave her strength. 
 
 " I will tell you the truth, Rosalind, because it is 
 well for you to know. We cannot be definite yet. 
 With God's help, yes. I think so. Oh, God! I 
 think so ! " His voice rang in momentary despair. 
 " You can help, Rosalind." 
 
 She said something she hoped so, she wished 
 so, she would try to help, she would do her best. 
 The words were not hers. 
 
 " Then good-night. To-morrow morning at 
 about ten." 
 
 " Ten," she echoed. " Good-night." 
 
 He had rung off. As she groped for the table 
 to replace the telephone, a step sounded in the hall- 
 way. She fumbled for her handkerchief with a hand 
 which felt weak and numb, and wiped her forehead 
 and lips. 
 
 "Well?" asked a low voice. Eric was beside 
 her in the darkness. 
 
 ' They do not know. He he may live." 
 
 She felt Eric's fists clench at his side. 
 
 " Don't, Eric." 
 
 The oppressiveness of the embrasure weighing 
 upon her, she placed her hand on his arm for sup-
 
 A DECISION TO MAKE 297 
 
 port. Her brain whirled with the strain and heat 
 of the day; she wanted to break down, to weep, and 
 to be comforted, but the thought of Benjamin reigned 
 above her desire. She must not weaken; she must 
 be firm and clear in her consideration. 
 
 " I must go," she said in a breathless voice. " I 
 am exhausted, Eric; I must go." 
 
 ^ Will you leave me like this ? " 
 
 She felt that she was hurting him, but did not 
 dare trust herself in speech. To preserve a shred of 
 equilibrium it was necessary to quit Eric, to be alone 
 at once. As she took a step from the embrasure, 
 she was caught up in a silent embrace which made 
 the blood beat fiercely through her body and fading 
 stars dance before her closed eyes. In the sudden 
 tumult of her heart all thought of resistance van- 
 ished and she raised her hands to Eric's head, ming- 
 ling her fingers in the dampness of his curls. As 
 their faces burned together, her dishevelled hair, wet 
 about her temples, caught upon his cheek, and her 
 lips, moving as the lips upon them moved, murmured 
 fragments of the lover's litany. She was without 
 strength or motion, without will or wisdom, a weight 
 clinging to his breast. Something of the oblivion 
 of death drifted between them and the weary world; 
 where they stood it was cool and distant from earthly 
 revolution. 
 
 A flaming arrow suddenly burned its path into 
 her brain. After the first unrestrained moment she 
 remembered, and wrenched herself from the stifling 
 lock of Eric's arms. Stumbling down the hallway 
 and up the stairs, she reached her room, where she 
 flung herself upon the bed in abandonment. A fire 
 of self-reproach consumed her, and, deep in the 
 pillows, her face was hot with the kiss to which she
 
 298 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 had resigned herself while Benjamin was rising 
 from the arms of death because he trusted in her 
 love. How weak, how unpardonably miserable she 
 had been! In one moment she could talk to Dr. 
 Gary in sympathy for the suffering of Benjamin, 
 she could allow him to believe that she loved his 
 son and would marry him; in another, she had per- 
 mitted, nay, lived in the embrace of his greatest rival. 
 It was mean, unchivalric, revolting; it poisoned her 
 sense of justice. 
 
 There was some one in her room. Though in 
 her self-castigation she had heard no sound of an 
 opening door, she underwent that curious sensation 
 of being looked at. Without raising her head she 
 held her breath and was in a moment strangling in 
 the hot pillow. Could it be Eric? She was fright- 
 ened, and a mixture of desire, anger, and shame at 
 her own weakness possessed her turbulent mind. 
 Then a cool hand touched her head. Like a dying 
 spurt of water the blood receded through her body; 
 faster and faster it fled away, leaving her shivering 
 and weak as after an outburst of childish grief. It 
 was her mother's hand. 
 
 " My dear Rose, what is it? Tell me, tell your 
 old mother, Rose. Let me help, dearest." 
 
 Rosalind felt her mother's lips upon the back of 
 her neck and her pearls brushing over her shoulders. 
 The cool hand ruffled her warm hair in an effort to 
 comfort. 
 
 " Is it Benjamin, darling? He is not worse? " 
 
 Ashamed of herself and of the tear-stains on her 
 face, Rosalind sat up. She did not look at her 
 mother, but took her hand gratefully. 
 
 " No, Mamma. He will live." 
 
 Mrs. Copley wondered at the bleakness in Rosa-
 
 A DECISION TO MAKE 299 
 
 lind's voice, wondered to find her daughter so 
 controlled and mature that in many ways she seemed 
 an equal in a passion of tears. 
 
 "Can I help?" 
 
 " No, Mamma. I am tired." 
 
 " Little wonder, darling. It has been a long, 
 hard, hot day. Go to bed and rest: a sleep will do 
 you good. Shall I have Edouard bring a fan? " 
 
 " No, thank you," she answered dully. Her 
 mother was kind, but Rosalind wished to be alone 
 and think. To-morrow was June first, and in this 
 night her life must be planned. 
 
 "I think I feel a breeze." Her mother's hand 
 was silhouetted gracefully against the darkness of 
 the opened window. " It will surely be cooler." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 Mrs. Copley looked uneasily into the outer dark- 
 ness. Could she speak of Eric now? Perhaps the 
 best moment for such a relation was one of stress. 
 
 " Rose." 
 
 "Yes, Mamma?" Her head throbbed. Why 
 could she not be left alone? 
 
 " I want to tell you something." 
 
 Rosalind's silence made the telling seem to her 
 mother much harder now, and her courage wavered. 
 
 " You you are listening? " 
 
 Rosalind nodded and a braid of her dishevelled 
 hair tumbled down her back. Raising her arms, 
 she allowed the rest to fall. It was cooler so. 
 
 " Your father and I have talked it over and we 
 have felt it our duty, though it may be an unpleas- 
 ant one, to tell you what we know." (What was 
 she saying, Rosalind wondered. Would she not go 
 away? It was cruel to talk to her when she was 
 so tired and sad.) "You know that we have al-
 
 300 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 ways wanted you to be happy. We have given you 
 everything that we thought it best for you to have. 
 And you have realised it; you have been a dear 
 daughter, Rosalind. Your father and I are proud 
 of you, and there is nothing which can make a mother 
 more happy than to be proud of her children." 
 (How sententious kind mothers can be! One by 
 one Rosalind felt her nerves wearing, fraying, snap- 
 ping.) " What I have to say to you is about Eric." 
 
 "Please, Mamma! Please don't!" Rosalind 
 sprang to her feet, her gold hair shadowing down 
 her back. There was pleading and weariness in her 
 voice. " I can't stand any more to-night." 
 
 "But" 
 
 "Please! If you love me!" Rosalind cried a 
 little hysterically. It was too much for her to bear ! 
 She could not, would not listen; she would run out 
 in the street, but of Eric she would hear nothing. 
 
 "Why, Rose!" 
 
 Mrs. Copley was alarmed. She regarded her 
 daughter with the air of one who has just discovered 
 that an innocent hill, crowned with marigolds and 
 daisies, is volcanic. 
 
 " I'm sorry, Mamma, but I'm unstrung with all the 
 excitement. To-morrow. Any day; but not now." 
 
 She put her arms round her mother's neck and 
 kissed the lovely face. She was proud of her 
 mother, worshipped her beauty, admired her tact, 
 adored her with all her love ; but no one could help 
 her now. She must work out her existence by fyer- 
 self. 
 
 "My little girl!" 
 
 " Good-night, Mumsie ! " 
 
 "Good-night.;' 
 
 Listening until she heard her mother enter her
 
 A DECISION TO MAKE 301 
 
 own room, Rosalind shut and locked the door. Then 
 she flung herself on her bed and lay for a long time, 
 supine and still. 
 
 Gradually thought formed itself in her mind, al- 
 most as it does from the chaos of sensations in the 
 child's brain. For a while she had been unable to 
 think; now the thoughts pieced themselves together, 
 here a little and there a little, marshalling them- 
 selves into lines of increasing regularity. As she 
 began to understand more clearly the problem be- 
 fore her, the feeling of exhaustion diminished, and 
 she arose from the bed and switched off the lights. 
 It would be easier to think in the dark. Drawing 
 an armchair to the window, she sat down. Through 
 the cloud-haze no stars were visible and she could 
 see only the nearest lights of the Esplanade, mistily 
 shining as if through a veil. 
 
 The problem was clear. It was the happiness of 
 her life which she was to decide, and the judgment 
 must fall to either Eric or Benjamin. The former 
 she loved : the latter she did not. Entering her life 
 suddenly and abruptly, Eric had swept her from her 
 feet and had possessed almost in a day her thoughts 
 and her being. One need not necessarily be a fatal- 
 ist to feel that a certain person fulfils every require- 
 ment, is endowed with every desired attribute, and 
 comprehends the sympathy and worth of living in 
 his life. Love is after all a sensation and not a 
 belief. When a woman feels that a certain man 
 is the incarnation of what in the nights of her maid- 
 enhood she has dreamed of, when she feels that 
 " even his stubbornness, his checks and frowns have 
 grace and favour in them," then she is dependent on 
 her heart and not on her brain. So Rosalind had 
 felt; so to her heart of hearts she had talked hyper-
 
 302 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 boles of Eric. But she was convinced also that her 
 love was built upon a rock. Had she not tested 
 her love by an analysis of reason? In every light 
 she had found him fair; in every position she had 
 found him worthy; in every minute she had found 
 him to be desired above all things. How was he 
 not then the perfect comrade? Intense and pure 
 had been her adoration. It had burned in her 
 heart like a white, hot flame which consumes all 
 opposition, a white, hot flame which grows and 
 dances whiter and hotter the more it is fed. Even 
 now it burned within her as she thought of Eric, 
 and the decorum of two centuries of calmly proper 
 ancestors suffered an abeyance of control. Having 
 given her lips to Eric, was she not his? He pos- 
 sessed her heart, her mind, her soul; the promise 
 of the insignificant casing of her flesh had lain in 
 their first kiss. Life without love she could not 
 contemplate; and Eric was love, and therefore, life. 
 It was difficult to turn from this radiant field to 
 a thorny path, but what of Benjamin? At first, she 
 recollected that she had liked him; the unconscious 
 attraction which all women find in big, healthy men 
 had stirred her. When the edge of that attraction 
 was dulled, she had found him only a machine, quite 
 lacking in voluntary response. His eyes, keen in 
 business, were shallow in art; the depth of his soul 
 was readily plumbed. Had not fate struck him 
 down, he would have succeeded; such men, strong, 
 iron-willed, dogged, determined, such men always 
 succeed, but the failure of a Blake or a Chatterton 
 to some ways of thinking is the better success. Not 
 that Rosalind thought Eric a Blake or a Chatter- 
 ton; but she knew that whisperings of genius did
 
 A DECISION TO MAKE 303 
 
 stir within him, for she had heard them when her 
 lips were close to his and she had seen 
 
 The light that never was on sea or land 
 
 gleam in his eyes. 
 
 This whisper, this light was not in Benjamin. 
 Taking him in all, he was a man. But Rosalind had 
 wanted a great deal more and had found echoes of 
 it in Eric. Call this rhapsodising if you will; Rosa- 
 lind was still young enough to find much truth to 
 nature in rhapsody. About her friendship with 
 Benjamin she could weave no imaginative halo. 
 Like himself, it was a question of fact, and she had 
 long ago been forced to pin herself to a day on which 
 to define her attitude towards him. To-morrow 
 was that day; to-morrow she was to answer yes or 
 no. Which should it be? Her part of woman 
 cried out against the former. What! give all her 
 youth, all her life on earth to a cripple, to the wreck 
 of a man whom she had never loved? It could not 
 be thought on! Marry a paralytic to be his nurse 
 through a sad existence, when Eric offered her 
 health, genius, and love? A thousand times no I 
 
 From thinking on Benjamin her mind reverted to 
 his father. It was of no use to be brave while his 
 sad, tired eyes stared at her, and while she felt his 
 hands upon her shoulders, his paternal lips upon her 
 cheek. If she refused Benjamin, how could she 
 meet those eyes again? It was her fault that his 
 son's life had been shattered, all, all her fault, and 
 despite the doctor's kindness she knew that he held 
 her responsible. Aware of their secret, he was 
 aware also of Benjamin's sacrifice. 
 
 A flicker of indignation flared in her heart. Sac-
 
 3 o 4 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 rifice? Benjamin need not have come unless he so 
 desired; surely she had not wanted him. But he 
 had come, and there lay the bitter truth. The world 
 would hold her guilty; it would demand a life for a 
 life, the promise and beauty of hers for the battered 
 wreck of his. God ! What an exchange ! It was 
 right, but was it fair? Was it fair that she fade 
 the rose of her youth in striving to soften his pain, 
 in wheeling him, feeding him, tending him, in sitting 
 beside him during long winter nights when joy seems 
 asleep, in bringing him flowers in summer when her 
 heart lay over the golden horizon, in loving him 
 as best she could, and, when memories streamed 
 back to damn her choice, in tolerating his love with 
 lip-smiles? Sure this was a barren counterpart to 
 what she would have made of life. Yet, however 
 barren, it was her duty. Duty is indeed a stern 
 daughter of the voice of God, an inexorable, unre- 
 lenting, unkind mockery made for the scientific reg- 
 ulation of life. Yet this time it was synonymous 
 with chivalry. To marry Benjamin would be in the 
 highest sense of the word chivalric, would be an act 
 commensurate with what we like to think is noblest 
 on this pinfold earth. What if no one ever knew 
 the greatness of her sacrifice? What if the world 
 thought she was marrying Benjamin, because she 
 would allow no injury to come between her and her 
 love ? Ah ! well ! The world is a small, greasy 
 spot in comparison with eternity. We are not 
 placed here by Divine Command to lay attentive ears 
 to earth and regulate our lives by what we hear, but 
 to rise above ourselves. Cast before her was an op- 
 portunity to fulfil the purpose for which a soul had 
 entered her body. To neglect it would be sin. 
 By degrees Rosalind found herself rising to a
 
 A DECISION TO MAKE 305 
 
 loftier pitch, which was not happiness, but which so 
 satisfied her conscience that it left her calm. She 
 thought of Dr. Gary again and of his kindness to her 
 godfather, of how for years his skill had prolonged 
 the invalid's life. Would it be gratitude fair in the 
 eyes of Heaven to break his son's heart, when she 
 had already destroyed the body? Her promise 
 might mean life to Benjamin. Had not that lain 
 under Dr. Gary's words? It made her shudder to 
 think that a human life depended on her will ; but as 
 the tremor stirred her body, it strengthened her half- 
 formed determination. 
 
 Two paths lay before her, the one insufferably 
 beautiful, the other stern and hard; yet she thought 
 the latter might be easier to tread. Conscience, 
 which of old drove Adam into an abyss of fears, is 
 a terrible thing. How relentlessly would it dog her 
 if she chose Eric! No sweetness on this earth could 
 banish it from her pathway. But chivalry is strong, 
 and it would always be her guide and comforter, 
 however bleak and dull the way, if she gave yes to 
 Benjamin.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 A DECISION MADE 
 
 ROSALIND walked slowly down the hall from 
 her room. Morning had come and with the 
 clean, fresh sunshine a kind of strength. It 
 is never so hard to live in the morning; there is a 
 sense of utter revelation and open-heartedness which 
 simplifies existence. For the time being mortal 
 woes, which cling and brutify with the encircling of 
 night, seem superficial: in the splendour of day's 
 rebirth the personal element must appear small and 
 mean. 
 
 So Rosalind went out to meet her lover with a 
 courage that deceived herself. On the way to the 
 stairs she passed her mother's room, and, the remem- 
 brance of the night before cutting keen into her duti- 
 ful mind, she paused with her finger on her lips and 
 her brow wrinkled. What had it been all about? 
 Something in regard to Eric? Quietly she opened 
 the door and stepped inside. 
 
 Mrs. Copley was eating iced grapes. In a cloud 
 of lace and silk, the soft, fluttering nothings of fairy 
 web which summer temperatures demand, she re- 
 clined in bed like some beautiful and discontented 
 Pompadour. There is not one woman in a million 
 to-day capable of holding a petit lever; the feminine 
 art of being beautiful in bed is lost, lost forever in 
 the swirl of suffrage and golf and bridge. Not so 
 with Mrs. Copley: no art of beauty was lost to her. 
 
 306
 
 A DECISION MADE 307 
 
 Upon her silver hair a mist it was no more than 
 that a transparent mist of lace, such as Pease- 
 blossom might have brought to adorn Titania; her 
 neck and bosom bare and shaped to the gentle intake 
 of her breath; the silken white coverlet suggesting 
 grace beneath; the crystal dish of ice and sea-green 
 grapes; and over these her hand flitting like a sky- 
 lark winged from the blue deep. 
 
 "Oh, Rose, what a terrible night!" A kiss. 
 "I am sure I scarcely closed my eyes. Grapes? 
 They're deliciously cool; I couldn't bear anything 
 else this morning." 
 
 Absently Rosalind chose one from a shining 
 cluster. 
 
 " I thought on my way down, Mamma, I'd I'm 
 afraid I wasn't very agreeable last night. I was ex- 
 hausted. What was it you wanted to say? " 
 
 A flush crept into Mrs. Copley's cheeks. In the 
 preoccupying discomfort of the hot night she had for- 
 gotten her yesterday's determination. No morality 
 is a match for temperature. With a great grape 
 half way to her curved lips, her soft, white hand 
 paused. 
 
 " It was something I that is, we, your father 
 and I wished you to know a-about Eric." 
 
 Rosalind was very still. She sat upon the foot 
 of her mother's bed, her eyes bent upon the myriad 
 motes of sunlight flickering on the cracked ice. 
 
 " I we think you ought to know," Mrs. Copley 
 hurried on to get it over with. " He he is not 
 Monsieur Rolland's son." 
 
 "Well?" Rosalind's voice was even, undis- 
 turbed. 
 
 "He is ... he is ille " (No, she could not 
 bring herself to use that word to her daughter; from
 
 308 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 such contamination, even of speech, Rosalind should 
 be apart.) " He is your godfather's son, dear." 
 
 She swallowed a grape hastily and choked over it 
 a little; Rosalind's clear gaze was upon her. 
 
 "Uncle Sing-Sing's son? But he wasn't mar- 
 ried, Mamma ! " Busied with a ribbon on her night- 
 gown, Mrs. Copley did not look up. She could not. 
 In the experienced eye of her mind she saw bright 
 colour flood into her daughter's face as realisation 
 came; and in that moment regretted her presump- 
 tuous virtue with all her heart. " Oh, Mamma, 
 Mamma, you don't mean yes, you do. You mean 
 
 that . . ." Rosalind twisted her hands to- 
 gether in a passionate confusion of feeling. " Eric 
 doesn't know, Mamma. I'm sure he does not know. 
 He never " 
 
 She broke off. It was on her lips to speak of 
 his love, to declare her faith that he would not have 
 sought her heart with this secret untold. 
 
 " He has never known," returned Mrs. Copley, 
 glad to bring some comfort. A sudden ability to do 
 her task filled her heart: she laid aside the grapes 
 and took her daughter's hand. " Darling, I told 
 you this because I " her voice sank very low " I 
 did not want you to marry any man without knowing 
 what might later cause regret." 
 
 " You think that I shall marry Eric? " Rosalind 
 lingered over the question. " No, Mamma, I can- 
 not. I am going to meet him now and tell him that I 
 
 I cannot." Her voice trembled. Across Mrs. 
 Copley's face fluttered a shade of relief. " But you 
 are wrong in thinking that what you have told me 
 could ever influence my choice. What does it matter 
 who a man is, if you love him? Birth is all an acci- 
 dent. If I could, I would marry the man I loved a
 
 A DECISION MADE 309 
 
 dozen times over, no matter what the world 
 thought." Rosalind's heart rose within her like a 
 warrior to battle all mankind for the ideal of her 
 love. So is it ever with strong spirits; their lives are 
 but pawns to hazard for those they cherish. 
 " There is no comfort in this, Mamma; it makes my 
 struggle all the harder. Oh, I should like to marry 
 Eric, to dare Boston, dare every one just to show my 
 love. Such a proof would be worth having, such a 
 proof before the world ! " 
 
 She had moved to the door and stood there, de- 
 fiant and pure, eager as Abdiel was of old to do 
 battle against the countless enemies of his ideal and 
 Master. 
 
 " Yes, dear. You are right." 
 
 Her mother took the crystal salver in her lap again 
 and plucked a grape. It was very comforting to 
 know that Rosalind was after all not going to marry 
 this foreigner; the rather headlong words she had 
 just uttered were beside the point. 
 
 Mrs. Copley looked up with a bright, engaging 
 smile ; but her daughter was no longer in the room. 
 
 Eric was standing by the window in the library, 
 waiting. The white curtains fluttered idly beside his 
 hand ; save for that, it was very still. 
 
 When Rosalind entered the room, he went to her 
 with unaffected sympathy and love to take her in his 
 embrace. 
 
 " Wait, Eric. I " 
 
 His arms fell to his side. There was something 
 in her voice and eyes that frightened him. 
 
 " Rose, what is it ? What has happened ? There 
 is something, I know. Since yesterday there has 
 been a change. You asked me to wait and to trust
 
 3 io LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 you. So I have, dearest; so I always shall. But I 
 am human. . . . When will you tell me what it is? " 
 
 " Now." 
 
 He found Rosalind's lifted eyes suddenly bright 
 and brave, and wondered. 
 
 " Don't tell me, dearest, unless " 
 
 " I must." 
 
 A kind of fatalism rang in Rosalind's voice and 
 she abhorred the sound. Her reserve was but play- 
 acting, hateful however necessary; yet for a time 
 she hesitated to break it. These were the last mo- 
 ments of her happiness; she must be firm and not 
 waver. What she had so recently learned from her 
 mother fired her mind, flaming athwart her cool de- 
 cision of the night before and urging her to marry 
 Eric in a pre-eminent vindication of her love. Yet 
 he must never know, she whispered to herself, he 
 must never know. She must bear his burden for 
 him. 
 
 " Eric! " she burst forth. " I will tell you now. 
 Promise that you will listen." 
 
 As he nodded, the sunlight danced upon the top 
 of his head and a shadow streaked across his face. 
 
 " It's about Benjamin. He loved me. You 
 know what sort he is, Eric, determined and insistent. 
 He asked me last March and wouldn't take no, 
 though I told him I didn't love him. I liked him 
 well enough, and to save his feelings I said I'd try to 
 love him. Weeks ago we agreed on a day when I 
 should give an answer, a a well, tell him the 
 result of my trying. To-day is that day June 
 first." 
 
 Her nervous fingers moved a button of the sofa 
 on which they sat in endless revolution; her eyes, 
 which she dared not lift to Eric's face, fell upon his
 
 A DECISION MADE 311 
 
 long-fingered hand, resting on his knee in the sun- 
 light. 
 
 " I did try, Eric, until you came. Then it was no 
 use. I I loved you always, from the very first, 
 and it has been rare and sweet, dearest." The feel- 
 ing of tears was in her eyes and she sought to hold 
 them back. " Benjamin never quite understood my 
 heart. He could not. He thought with the assur- 
 ance of such men that it would all come out right in 
 the end, that you were only a passing fancy. His 
 letters from New Orleans showed me that he did not 
 understand. I tried to let him know. I tried to let 
 him down gently, but it only made things worse. 
 Oh! it was hateful! If I had to say no, I should 
 have done it at once. But I put it off ; I was a cow- 
 ard; and then, I was in love." She smiled wist- 
 fully. " Benjamin went to New Orleans, you know, 
 on business. He hoped to finish by June first, but he 
 didn't and left in the middle of things to come back 
 for my answer. Dr. Gary told me that. And then 
 then the accident." 
 
 " But " Eric murmured. He felt a great still- 
 ness in his heart. 
 
 " Please, Eric ! " she pleaded. " Ben came back 
 because he expected I was going to say yes. He was 
 sure of it. If he had only known my mind, there 
 never would have been this accident. It's my fault, 
 you see. He was justified in thinking that I would 
 say yes. It was natural; why not? Yesterday, 
 when I went to the hospital, Dr. Gary took me in his 
 arms, and last night over the telephone " Rosa- 
 lind broke off, her voice drying in her throat. " I 
 went into Ben's room yesterday, Eric. They say he 
 is wrecked, paralysed, crippled for life, ruined ! He 
 was half-conscious and his face oh ! it was knotted
 
 312 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 in pain ! Dr. Gary was with me. I kissed Benja- 
 min; I had to." 
 
 Eric was flung back on the sofa, staring at her as 
 if his eyes would never close. 
 
 " You don't you can't " he stammered. 
 
 " A minute, dear. Last night," she continued 
 wearily, " I thought it out. Don't you see how it is, 
 Eric?" She braced herself, for she felt that as 
 soon as he recovered his amazement she should need 
 great strength. " I cannot marry you," she said in 
 a low, breaking voice. " It must be Benjamin." 
 
 Without knowing why, she arose and made as if 
 to move. 
 
 "Wait a moment, Rose! What sit down, 
 please! You can't decide these things like that, 
 dearest. You can't say that! " 
 
 " If Ben lives, I must marry him," Rosalind re- 
 iterated, as if the repetition gave her firmness. But 
 she sat down again. 
 
 Eric ruffled his fingers through his hair. 
 
 "Why, Rose, you you can't mean-r ! You 
 don't love him? " 
 
 " I hate him ! " Her voice rang out in momen- 
 tary agony. Then she felt that she had overstepped. 
 " No, I don't hate him," she corrected in a mild, 
 dead voice. " I don't hate him." 
 
 " Could you live with such a man? " 
 
 " I must." 
 
 " A cripple, Rose ? Give all your youth and age 
 to a cripple ? " 
 
 " I've taken his from him. A life for a life," she 
 repeated from her thoughts of the night before. 
 
 "No no!" 
 ' The world " 
 
 " The world is cruel and unfair I Oh, let us for-
 
 A DECISION MADE 513 
 
 get the world in ourselves; let's lose its law in a 
 higher law." He put his face near hers, so near 
 that she could feel his breath as he spoke stir over 
 her hair. " There are other lands than America, 
 other peoples, other thoughts, other cares, but there 
 are only two like ourselves. Why, it is nature, dear- 
 est, that we should live together. Come ! Look in 
 my face, Rose! Look in my face and tell me that 
 you love me ! I know you do ! I know you want 
 me. You've told me so, and I've kissed your lips, 
 and you're mine, body and soul, you're mine ! " 
 
 As his arms went round her, Rosalind felt her 
 head swimming. 
 
 " Eric ! Eric ! Please ! You're making it im- 
 possibly hard ! You mustn't talk like this ! " 
 
 He left her and with hands plunged deep in his 
 pockets strode from the window to the door, to and 
 fro, forward and back, exclaiming to himself. 
 
 "You can't mean it! I won't believe it! It's 
 impossible ! You can't mean it ! " 
 
 " I do, Eric. I do, indeed. We must all do 
 our" 
 
 "Duty?" He anticipated bitterly. 'Would 
 you put duty before me? " 
 
 " If I thought it was right." 
 
 Eric realised that his question had been a mis- 
 take. 
 
 " I am sorry. But is it your duty? If you love 
 me Why! Rose! Your life will be a mockery, 
 a misery with that man." 
 
 " I have thought of my life." 
 
 " Have you thought of mine? " he flung out with 
 the inherent selfishness of man. 
 
 " You don't mean that ! " 
 
 " I do ! I do ! " he hurried on in a last, great
 
 3 H LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 appeal. " It isn't fair to do this. There are two 
 of us in it, Rose. You cannot love me " 
 
 " Oh, Eric, don't be cruel ! " 
 
 " I want you, Rose. I've got to have you your 
 gentleness and your strength, your sickness and your 
 health, everything about you ! I must have you ! " 
 
 "What of me?" asked Rosalind, caught by the 
 tumult of his passion. " Do you not think, Eric, 
 that I love you, that I want you as much as you 
 want me? Do you think because women are weak 
 they cannot love? Love is our very being; it's an 
 incident with men. I love you with all my soul." 
 
 " Yet you won't marry me? " 
 
 Old, far-off memories haunted in his question as he 
 hung over her, his hand upon her bending shoulder. 
 
 " It's not a question of that, Eric. I can't! " 
 
 " You have finally " 
 
 "If Ben dies, I shall be free." 
 
 " God ! " Eric sank down on a chair beside her, 
 his head in his hands. One cannot wish for the 
 death of a fellow man! 
 
 " He will live," Rosalind said slowly. " He is 
 sure that I will marry him and be a good, loving wife 
 after this flurry of excitement. He will live. You 
 see, it is a question of his life or my happiness." 
 
 There was a long pause and the curtain flapped 
 idly on the breeze, now out of the window, now in. 
 When she spoke again, her voice was scarcely 
 audible. 
 
 " It must be his life." 
 
 Eric remained motionless, his elbows on his knees, 
 his face covered by his hands. 
 
 " Eric." 
 
 He made a sign that he heard. 
 
 " I have rung the bell. Edouard is coming."
 
 A DECISION MADE 315 
 
 Eric arose; his eyes were wet and hot. Going to 
 the window, he stood there with his back to the 
 door, while Edouard silently entered. 
 
 " Is the car ready? " 
 
 ' Yes, Miss Roso." 
 
 " I will be down in a moment." 
 
 When he had disappeared, Eric turned to her 
 again. 
 
 " Where are you going? " 
 
 " To the hospital to him." 
 
 A small clock ticked upon the mantelpiece, each 
 moment nearer to Benjamin and farther from Eric; 
 save for that, it was very quiet in the room, very 
 quiet and very much more beautiful than any room 
 might be in their lives again. 
 
 Rosalind moved slowly to the door. As she 
 turned and looked back at him, standing in the sun- 
 light with bowed head and clenched hands, a great 
 tenderness ruled her, dominating will, determina- 
 tion, everything. 
 
 " Eric, will you kiss me? " she asked in a stifled 
 voice. " It is the last time." 
 
 He came to her quickly and silently, and raised 
 , her to his lips.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE WORLD SET FREE 
 
 ROSALIND did not see Eric again. Yet she 
 could not but hear rumours of him sly, 
 provocative bits of gossip spread by those who 
 knew nothing of her grief, fragmentary conversa- 
 tions abruptly ended on her entrance to a room, a 
 line in some society column, a word in some letter. 
 He had returned to Philadelphia and was plunged in 
 work; he was with friends there; he would remain 
 in America till July. 
 
 It was not as if he had died, not as if some swift, 
 unpremeditated fate had torn him from this earth. 
 In death there may be a limitless comfort; in life 
 there is none. Eric was living, breathing this same 
 air of Heaven, pressing this same dust beneath his 
 heel, within reach and call and yet more separated 
 from her than if the grave were prisoning his young 
 grace and beauty. Rosalind could not think upon it. 
 Her world was suddenly narrowed to herself. So 
 much of circumscribing space had been dedicated to 
 her love and made memorable by its associations that 
 she could not go to the old haunts or sing the old 
 songs. The material world had become vacuous, 
 yawning, unbearable ; all living was tangled and con- 
 fused in her own heart. The flood of feeling op- 
 pressed her by day, and her eyes, losing the colour 
 of sight, became mirrors in which she saw the world 
 
 316
 
 THE WORLD SET, FREE 317 
 
 she would have made her own; at night her love be- 
 trayed determination in her dreams. She and Eric 
 were continually together by summer seas, on 
 sun-crowned mountains, in places that neither had 
 ever known. And there was perfect happiness be- 
 tween them. To awake from this into the pulsing 
 silence of a June night with the warm sky pricked 
 with stars was to be robbed of Paradise. 
 
 Yet she knew that there was no other way. She 
 sought daily to steel herself, to bring in her visits to 
 the hospital something more than a smile though 
 that cost her pain enough, to be sure something 
 more than solicitude. Day after day she visited Ben- 
 jamin, day after day. He grew better rapidly: his 
 great strength fought off the pain; his great love 
 purged from his mind the 1 suffering. Beyond all 
 hopes he mended. Both legs set well. " What a 
 day," a young interne told Rosalind, " when we can 
 set the nerves as we can the bones ! " For while the 
 mind was utterly lucid and untouched, while other 
 members and organs of the body retained their pris- 
 tine vigour, Benjamin's legs had lost their ability to 
 move, helpless, motionless in paralysis. 
 
 And then came the day when Benjamin asked to 
 see Rosalind alone. As yet they had not spoken of 
 marriage; as yet there had been no intimation of a 
 decision between them. But to-day Benjamin felt 
 strong, felt able and equal, like Sir Andrew Barton in 
 the fine, old ballad, " to rise and fight again." For 
 love was to him a fight, a good fight, to be sure, but 
 none the less a physical struggle rather than an emo- 
 tional phase. 
 
 He lay propped up in the bed, his eyes very bright, 
 his face pale. Beside him sat Rosalind. Through
 
 318 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 the hospital window floated that murmuring tran- 
 quillity which is born on summer afternoons of the 
 intermingling and softening of many distant sounds. 
 
 " Rose," he began slowly, " we are long past the 
 first of June." 
 
 ' Yes, Ben." She leaned towards the bed that he 
 might not have to speak loud ; she would make every- 
 thing easy for him now. 
 
 " And I want to say something . . . hard to say. 
 Do you know that my legs will never get better? 
 Has Father told you? " She bowed her head. He 
 laughed to comfort her. " I shall always be sort 
 of smashed up like this. And so I wanted to say 
 ... I wanted to say that I felt now ... as I am 
 now ... I couldn't ask you to marry me." He 
 said this very simply and very bravely, his proud 
 sense of right lending him courage. He could sur- 
 render to justice and to nothing else. " I couldn't 
 ask you to become the wife of a cripple. I shall 
 be of use in the world and do good work . . . but 
 that isn't what a woman wants. So ... so I 
 thought I'd just tell you about it," he finished rather 
 blankly. 
 
 His courage helped to strengthen Rosalind. For 
 a moment she caught at his renunciation and warmed 
 her poor heart with the beauty which acceptance of 
 it offered; then she remembered. The truth was too 
 plain before her; it was her whom every finer feeling 
 commanded to make the sacrifice. 
 
 " I am ready, Ben," she said in low tones. 
 
 " Ready? You mean? " In his voice there was 
 a painfully expectant break. 
 
 ; ' I will marry you. I " 
 
 " You you love me enough to what ! As I 
 am? As I now am? Do you understand, Rose?
 
 THE WORLD SET FREE 319 
 
 II cannot walk ; I shall not be able to walk. Do you 
 I* 
 
 realise 
 
 " Don't, Ben ! " She put her hands to her tor- 
 tured brain. The picture he drew was too bitterly 
 faithful of the future she must choose, too uncon- 
 scionably divergent from the future she had pictured 
 with Eric. The clash was unbearable. 
 
 "I'm sorry" (in quick regret, misunderstanding 
 her emotion) , " forgive me. I did not think you 
 you cared enough. There is such suddenness in it." 
 His mind kept reverting to the physical disability, an 
 obstacle to him insuperable. " You will take me this 
 way? Oh, Rose, as I am? You must love me; I 
 was afraid, terribly afraid that you did not, but now 
 I think you must." 
 
 In his voice there was a kind of awe, an inspired 
 wonder; he had seen a miracle. His eyes sought 
 Rosalind's face with the regard of one transfigured; 
 his whole spirit seemed to bend before her. Be- 
 neath this worship and this thankfulness Rosalind 
 trembled. Acutely conscious of the falseness in her 
 position, torn with a grief for Eric and a sympathy 
 for Benjamin, dragged this way by emotion and that 
 by honour, wearied, anguished, exhausted by the 
 precedent strain, she felt unequal to the task of liv- 
 ing. To tell Benjamin the truth was necessary; 
 there must be no deceptions, no half-truths, no con- 
 fusion between them. Out of the chaos in her brain 
 this one thought crystallised, and she began to speak. 
 
 " Ben, listen a moment. I ... I want you to 
 know. Eric " she found his face very white and 
 rigid as she spoke the name " Oh, forgive me, he 
 is something . . . was something more to me than 
 you understand. You never liked him, Ben, you 
 never made him out. But he was very dear to me."
 
 320 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 She paused; and then, stirred by some impulse for- 
 eign to intention, added with wistful simplicity : " I 
 loved him ... I don't think you ever appreciated 
 the the depth of it all. You were away, you see, 
 and Eric was very different. It was not fancy, Ben, 
 it was . . . love." 
 
 There was long, unstirring silence. 
 
 A ray of light from the sloping sun crept upward 
 on the wall. Something in its fading glow tugged at 
 Rosalind's heart; it was less bright now than a 
 moment before ; in another moment it would be gone. 
 Gone with her visionary world of happiness and 
 Eric, forever gone. 
 
 " There, it's told now . . . over and done with, 
 and we need never, never think more of it." Her 
 voice faltered beyond her control on the repeated 
 word. She sought to change the subject. " It 
 makes no difference ... to us. Now, let's discuss 
 when you'll be getting up and " 
 
 " No, Rose, please," his voice cut in distinctly. 
 " It does make a difference." 
 
 " I think not. I think I know myself." 
 
 " It is not a question of that," he said slowly. 
 " I thought . . . you cared for me. And you ao 
 not. Only for a moment I thought so. It was 
 strange; I felt it strange then. Only for a mo- 
 ment." Hoping that she would speak, he played 
 with the idea, rephrasing it tenderly, as a father 
 touches with passionate gentleness the cheek of a 
 dying child. But Rosalind could say nothing. 
 There was a great hungriness in his voice, when at 
 last he asked: " Then you do not . . . love me?" 
 
 " Not that way," she answered in a whisper. 
 
 " And and you could not learn? "
 
 THE WORLD SET FREE 321 
 
 Rosalind clapped her hands together before her 
 face. 
 
 ' Not now, Ben, please ! While you are suffer- 
 ing, I cannot." 
 
 " I shall not suffer so much when I am sure," he 
 said with a pathetic air of reproof. 
 
 " I can never learn . . . now." Her voice was 
 gentle, utterly gentle, but something in it brought a 
 cry to Gary's lips. 
 
 ' Yet you would make this sacrifice for for 
 me? " he asked timidly. 
 
 " Yes, Ben." 
 
 Again silence filled the little room. The glow 
 flickered a moment on the ceiling to vanish with the 
 wheel of day; the sun had commenced to shine in an- 
 other land. 
 
 " You have taught me a great lesson, Rose." He 
 broke the quiet first. " You have made me strong; 
 you have made me see things right." That same 
 sense of honour which had prompted him to absolve 
 her from a pledge because of his physical injury, 
 urged him now again to act the nobler part. A fine 
 soul is finest in adversity. " I would not tarnish your 
 life: it is too beautiful, too sacred to me. Marry 
 you? Take advantage of my helpless limbs? Oh, 
 no, no. I can live somehow, but not with your heart 
 sad . . . not with your heart sad." 
 
 " But, Ben, you . . ." 
 
 " It is better that I lose you far better. You 
 need never feel that you owe me anything; you need 
 never let what has happened be a cloud. If there is 
 any debtor, it is I." 
 
 " But to leave you . . . like this . . ." 
 
 " I shall not be lonely," he said painfully with an
 
 322 LOUISBURG SQUARE 
 
 air of deep resignation resting on his slow-moving 
 lips. " I shall have your friendship, your under- 
 standing." 
 
 It was as if a great wind were blowing in Rosa- 
 lind's heart. At his words she felt her tribulations 
 and grief vanish as the distempered pestilence of day 
 flies before the clean, first breeze of night. She rose 
 to her feet, her heart swelling within her, and 
 looked down upon the stretched figure on the bed. 
 
 " Ben, you are making my life, you to whom I 
 thought I must give myself in a bondage. Yes, it 
 was that I thought. May I take your hand? I am 
 not worth the touching of it and yet, you know 
 how it is." 
 
 The subtle inflection of her voice stirred a tremor 
 across the white face. It was a heavy hand that 
 Rosalind lifted to her lips, heavy with pain and with 
 surrender. 
 
 For a long time she stood thus beside his bed, 
 clasping his great, weary hand and bending slightly 
 in the twilight. Like the falling of a feather dark- 
 ness had come, as silently and as peacefully. Far in 
 the distant sky she could see a single bright star, new- 
 risen in the arc of night; and its clear, crisp ray shone 
 suddenly deep into her heart, deeper than maiden- 
 hood, deeper than dreams, deep to where love 
 labours and forever is reborn. 
 
 Footsteps sounded in the corridor. She felt Ben's 
 hand press hers with a fierce tenderness and then re- 
 lax. 
 
 * They are coming. Oh, good-bye . . ." 
 
 " Ben," she whispered, " dear, brave friend." 
 
 With this she turned and flitted from the room to 
 the world that she had painted, to the world set for- 
 ever free and to Eric. 
 
 FEINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
 
 THE following pages contain advertisements of a few 
 of the Macmillan novels.
 
 ERNEST POOLE'S NEW NOVEL 
 
 His Family 
 
 The publication of a new novel by the author of The 
 Harbor is an event of greatest importance in the literary 
 world. Rarely has an American story met with the success 
 enjoyed by that book and confident have the critics been in 
 their predictions as to Mr. Poole's future work. These 
 predictions would seem to be fully realized in this volume. 
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 and their life in the midst of the modern city's conflicting 
 currents. These daughters are very different one from the 
 other in character and the way in which individually they 
 realize earlier ideals or ambitions of their parent, the manner 
 in which he sees himself in them is one of the most interest- 
 ing qualities of the work, that is tense with emotion, alight 
 with vision and vitally interesting from the very start to the 
 close. 
 
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 NEW MACMILLAN FICTION 
 
 Changing Winds 
 
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 $1.60 
 
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 people looking as it were the other way. Mr. Ervine in 
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 almost blithely when it comes. The title is from the 
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 Jerry 
 
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 treated. 
 
 Benoit Castain 
 
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 Gold Must Be Tried by Fire 
 
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