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 THE STORY OF MARGARET KENT. New Edi- 
 
 tion. i6mo,$i.2s; paper, 50 cents. 
 SONS AND DAUGHTERS. 121110, 1.50; paper, 50 
 
 cents. 
 QUEEN MONEY. A Novel. New Edition. i6mo, 
 
 $1.2$; paper, 50 cents. 
 BETTER TIMES. Stories. i2mo, $1.50. 
 A MIDSUMMER MADNESS. i6mo, $1.25; paper, 
 
 50 cents. 
 
 A LESSON IN LOVE. i6mo, $1.00; paper, 50 cents. 
 A DAUGHTER OF EVE. izmo, $1.50; paper, 50 
 
 cents. 
 
 WALFORD. i6mo, $1.25. 
 CIPHERS. A New Book. i6mo, $1.25. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY, 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK.
 
 CIPHERS 
 
 BY 
 
 ELLEN OLNEY KIRK 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE STORY OF MARGARET KENT," " SONS AND DAUGHTERS, 11 
 " QUEEN MONEY," " WALFORD," ETC. 
 
 " Ciphers forget their integer " 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 restf, (ambri&0e 
 1891
 
 Copyright, 1891, 
 BY ELLEN OLNEY KIRK. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co.
 
 CIPHERS. 
 
 " Ciphers forget their integer." 
 
 I. 
 
 THERE was just that touch of unexpectedness in 
 Mrs. Lee Childe's sudden reappearance in New 
 York society which impresses the imagination. 
 During the four years of her widowhood people had 
 asked, " Is Milly never coming back to settle down 
 with her father-in-law ? " Then the time had arrived 
 when she was ready to shape out a new career for 
 herself, and all the world was taken by surprise. 
 This afternoon in November she had been standing 
 since three o'clock receiving the stream of guests 
 who had promptly answered her card of invitation, 
 and although it was now past five hardly a visitor 
 had left the house. Each seemed eagerly anxious 
 to remain within sight or hearing of the hostess, 
 and an inch of standing-room was grudgingly con- 
 tested to new-comers. A conjunction of circum- 
 stances had made Mrs. Lee Childe's life excep- 
 tional, and not a few were ready to say to-day 
 that she herself was exceptional. The crowd was 
 composed chiefly of women, and they watched and 
 
 2046113
 
 2 CIPHERS. 
 
 listened, studying her wit and beauty as a veteran 
 general studies his enemy's strength and posi- 
 tion. There were charming old ladies, who, hav- 
 ing fought their own battles more or less success- 
 fully, might now with magnanimity assist at a 
 younger woman's triumph. There were matrons, 
 with daughters of their own who would find a 
 rival in the youthful widow. There were expe- 
 rienced society girls, who coveted this easy vantage- 
 ground held by a woman hardly beyond their own 
 age. Then there were the debutantes who gazed 
 with open-eyed amazement at the phenomenon of a 
 woman so consummately adult as to have been 
 married and to have lost her husband, yet who not 
 only assumed the advantages of youth, but towards 
 whom every eligible man in the room was pressing 
 with a definiteness of intention which might easily 
 have rankled in the breasts of these charming 
 young creatures, to whom the good things of the 
 opening season rightfully belonged. 
 
 "Evidently," the chaperons were saying to each 
 other, "Milly Childe has refused to grow old." 
 
 " She is beautiful, magnificent, enchanting," 
 said Paul Secor. " I have always observed that 
 widowhood gives a fresh lease of youth and beauty. 
 Besides, I suppose she takes the family ' elixir * 
 regularly." 
 
 This was an old joke, but some witticisms enjoy 
 perennial freshness. To know what and whom to 
 laugh at, as well as when to do so, is the surest 
 test of knowledge of the world. For in society,
 
 CIPHERS. 3 
 
 from reasons of state, so much that is actually dull 
 and absurd has to be taken with profound serious- 
 ness, so much pettiness must be accepted as im- 
 measurable bigness, so many balloons to which a 
 pin prick of ridicule would be fatal require to be 
 inflated by the bated breath of reverence, that we 
 need even to smile warily. But it had always been 
 admissible to laugh at " Dr. Pardee's Elixir of 
 Life," which was the source of Milly Childe's 
 wealth. 
 
 Nine years before, when Lee Childe, the most 
 exclusive, the most fastidious of men, had married 
 Emily Briggs, co-heiress with her uncle to one of 
 the most successful patent medicines of the last 
 half century, society had exclaimed much after the 
 fashion of Mme. de Sevigne over a famous mesal- 
 liance of her epoch ; not however but that all the 
 world was ready to applaud Mrs. Rutherford 
 Childe's cleverness in securing- the Pardee millions 
 for her sou. Everybody rushed to see the bride 
 who, already fabulously rich in dower, would all 
 the time go on receiving- nobody knows how many 
 thousands of yearly income from the elixir, which 
 still bubbled perennially from its original spring, 
 rejuvenating the human race. 
 
 Mrs. Lee Childe, ne'e Emily Brig-g-s, proved to 
 be a girl of eighteen, so youthful in face, figure, 
 and manner as to seem two years younger. She 
 wore the gowns of her splendid trousseau with an 
 air of being oppressed by their weight. She was 
 slight to fragility, pale, with great frightened eyes
 
 4 CIPHERS. 
 
 often on the point of tears, which after a single 
 questioning glance at a stranger were apt to hide 
 themselves under their lids. Her voice was so 
 low as to be almost inaudible. When pointedly 
 addressed she looked at her husband or her mo- 
 ther-in-law, seeming eager to escape the least social 
 ordeal. Friends, even acquaintances, she made 
 none. 
 
 Mrs. Rutherford Childe was a brilliant woman 
 with an easy habit of supremacy, and she carried 
 her timid little daughter-in-law through a season or 
 two, but she was mortal and did not long survive 
 the reestablishment of the family fortune. After 
 her death, her husband, who had spent the last 
 twenty years going up and down the face of the 
 earth, gave up his wanderings and resumed his 
 long vacant place in the Childe menage. By this 
 time Lee, who had gradually detached himself 
 from actual life, and trusted to his mother to shape 
 events, grew weary of pretending to be well, gave 
 himself up to chronic invalidism, and in two years 
 died of heart disease. 
 
 Soon after this event, Emily, or Milly as she 
 was called by all the Lee and Childe connection, 
 which forms a considerable fraction of social New 
 York, went into the country. There had been a 
 singular dearth of gossip about her in these four 
 years. Thus to society at large a new planet had 
 swum into its ken, and it could hardly be won- 
 dered at if people looked at each other with a 
 wild surmise. The traditions of her introduction
 
 CIPHERS. 5 
 
 to society iiine years before were the traditions of 
 a failure. Even those who best remembered her 
 would have said she was a plain little creature, 
 without style, without conversation, without chic. 
 Evidently it was necessary to collect fresh facts to 
 make fresh inferences. This was a handsome wo- 
 man, a woman of distinction, with an air of being 
 used to meet the world on equal terms and decide for 
 herself what things in life she accepted or rejected. 
 
 " I can't quite define her," said Paul Secor, as 
 questions and comments began to stir like a breeze. 
 " Is it that she is actually a beautiful woman, or is 
 she simply well dressed? " 
 
 Certainly all the women were ready to answer that 
 her gown was nothing in particular. It might be 
 called half mourning, gray with fluffy white effects 
 about the throat, and its only audacity was that it 
 proclaimed a pretty woman's challenge to be beau- 
 tiful in spite of colors which would make most 
 wearers resemble Lot's wife. In her manner prob- 
 ably lay the trick of a certain charm she undoubt- 
 edly possessed. She had always had these same 
 superb gray eyes, but had only now learned to use 
 them to look at the world in an honest, innocent 
 way, yet with a sort of dreaminess. One could not 
 quite understand what one saw in those eyes. Her 
 glance and smile together showed plenty of mother- 
 wit and a turn for humor. She carried herself 
 well, was spontaneous, natural, with a soft wo- 
 manly witchery. Yet it was evident that she held 
 her sympathy a little in reserve ; was resolved to be
 
 6 CIPHERS. 
 
 natural, with an arch, bright, womanly way. She 
 did not perhaps always give her sympathies full 
 sway, but seemed resolute always to be herself. 
 
 Indeed, mere beauty would have been unsatis* 
 factory, ineffective, under the ordeal imposed to- 
 day upon Mrs. Lee Childe, who, although sur- 
 rounded by a group of ladies receiving with her, 
 by her own unaided glow put out all minor lights. 
 It was in her audacity, in her cleverness, in her 
 tone where lay her triumph. She triumphed in- 
 deed in not triumphing at all, for this event of her 
 return which had startled all New York evidently 
 seemed to her nothing in particular. 
 
 By half past five the tide was at its full, and 
 Holly Ruff and his friend Sidney Breck, who were 
 the last to arrive, could not advance a step beyond 
 the threshold of the drawing-room. Ruff was a 
 slender man of medium height, with a dark, pale, 
 rather handsome face, his features well-cut, and his 
 black hair setting off a fine forehead. The pose of 
 his head suggested a habit of fixed attention to 
 the subject before him, and his alert critical air 
 was perhaps heightened by his eyeglasses, through 
 which his eyes seemed to burn. His companion, a 
 bright-eyed, boyish-looking fellow, was much his 
 junior, and evidently looked to him for orders. 
 The group now gathered before Mrs. Childe was 
 within the range of the eyes and ears of the new- 
 comers. It was composed chiefly of men. To 
 begin with, there was the well oiled and accurately 
 poised weathercock, Whiley Norreys, a well made,
 
 CIPHERS. 1 
 
 carefully dressed man, with a bland air showing an 
 absolute knowledge of the art of pleasing, and a 
 smooth deliberate voice, which in spite of its soft 
 intonations invariably mastered and bore down all 
 that he wished to silence. No man excelled Whi- 
 ley Norreys in the art of foretelling from which 
 point passing winds were to blow, and at the pres- 
 ent moment the way he stood squarely planted 
 before Mrs. Lee Childe, pointedly addressing his 
 every remark to her, was sufficient to establish her 
 as the success of the season. Then there was 
 Paul Secor, a tall, handsome man with a soldierly 
 carriage, a long fair moustache, and a pair of half- 
 melancholy, half-laughing blue eyes. There was 
 Archy Lamg, the best dancer in New York, the 
 hero of a hundred flirtations, but lacking advance- 
 ment, and Geddes Poorshaw, a plain, solidly-built 
 fellow with no charm, but the owner of a com- 
 fortable fortune. 
 
 " If I do not love New York," Mrs. Childe was 
 saying, as Ruff and Sidney Breck stood together 
 under the archway of the door, " it is only be- 
 cause there is nothing to do in New York." 
 
 " In the years that you have been away from 
 New York, Mrs. Childe," said "VVhiley Norreys, 
 " the town has advanced by great strides." 
 
 " So I hear, but we know where great strides 
 lead to." 
 
 " Not to heaven, Whiley, not to heaven, but the 
 other place," put in Paul Secor. 
 
 "But, my dear Milly," said Mrs. Geddes, "I
 
 8 CIPHERS. 
 
 can assure you that you will find only too much 
 to do in New York. I come down to breakfast 
 with my bonnet on at nine o'clock, my carriage is 
 already at the door, and that is the way I go on 
 until midnight, indeed, through the season often 
 three or four hours later. I never have a moment 
 to myself. I often say 1 am like a clock which is 
 wound up, and goes by some force not its own." 
 
 " Of course," said Mrs. Childe, " one might get 
 into a treadmill and grind corn from one year's 
 end to the other ; but that is not my notion of a 
 delightful existence." 
 
 " You will have plenty of dinners and balls to 
 go to, Mrs. Childe," said Paul Secor "and cer- 
 tainly we all hope you will give plenty of dinners 
 and balls. We needed just this one house more to 
 look to for agreeable things. And entertaining is 
 an occupation in itself." 
 
 " Entertaining has become one of the fine arts," 
 said Whiley Norreys, with the solemnity of a high 
 priest explaining the rites. " The time, the fore- 
 thought, the money, the intellect, the original gen- 
 ius, I might say, which are spent in the details 
 which go to make up the sum of a highly civilized 
 dinner or supper, might, if differently expended, 
 carry on the affairs of a small kingdom. Every 
 new season brings its demand for some clever de- 
 vice, some new kink, some cunning caprice of fash- 
 ion. The mere bric-a-brac, if I may use the term, 
 of any sort of social occasion, calls for skill, know- 
 ledge, research, above all, supreme good taste.
 
 CIPHERS. 9 
 
 This is what gives modern society its subtle aroma 
 of elegance." 
 
 " Good gracious ! " said Milly ; " I fear you will 
 never find any subtle aroma of elegance about my 
 dinners, if I venture to give any after this initia- 
 tion. I shall simply say to my man, ' So many 
 people are coming on such a night. Have plenty 
 of flowers, but not a jungle ; plenty of light, but 
 veil it.' Then there is always some good-natured 
 person to settle the distribution of guests. If I 
 thought I had to trouble myself about those trifles 
 I should return to my lodge in the wilderness with- 
 out loss of time." 
 
 "Whiley Norreys shook his head, smiling sadly ; 
 a murmur ran round. 
 
 " Is n't she saucy ? " said Georgina Hurst to 
 Paul Secor. 
 
 " I like it. She jingles her money in our faces. 
 I enjoy the jingle even if it is other people's 
 money." 
 
 " Do I like dinners ? " Mrs. Childe was now 
 saying. " One must eat, and it is agreeable to eat 
 in company with one's friends. But I am not a 
 Strasbourg goose, and I can only eat a certain 
 amount. I hate made dishes and I loathe wines, 
 and if there are too many courses, and the people 
 who sit near me do not amuse me, why, of course 
 I do not enjoy dinners, quite the contrary." 
 
 "You are too young to have learned how to 
 dine," said Whiley Norreys with tender patronage. 
 " You like balls better."
 
 10 CIPHERS. 
 
 " The few balls I have attended impressed me 
 as mournful to a degree. Still, I do like the 
 music." 
 
 " Don't you dance ? " inquired Archy Laiug. 
 
 " Not in company. Often when I am in good 
 spirits I execute a pas seul, but at balls, even if 
 I felt the requisite elan, which I very much doubt, 
 I might surprise people too much." 
 
 " Our balls have grown as dull as ditch-water," 
 said Paul Secor. " The novelty we need is to 
 have Mrs. Lee Childe dance a pas seul." 
 
 " At one time of my life," observed Whiley 
 Norreys, " balls seemed to me the only rational 
 end of existence. Now that I am a trifle too heavy 
 in weight to enjoy making a teetotum of myself 
 balls take another aspect. There is no such op- 
 portunity for a woman to display a beautiful 
 gown." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Norreys, think of a show window and 
 a figure revolving by machinery," said Milly 
 Childe. 
 
 " Then a ball offers such an unlimited opportu- 
 nity for conversation," said Whiley Norreys, shak- 
 ing his head at this frivolity. 
 
 ' I had no idea there was any conversation in 
 New York nowadays," said Milly. 
 
 " Set up a salon, my dear," said Mrs. Geddes. 
 " You will find that people talk very cleverly, not 
 perhaps in the Chateaubriand fashion, but every 
 epoch has its own topics." 
 
 " What is talked about in this epoch ? "
 
 CIPHEBS. 11 
 
 " Music seems to be one of the great subjects." 
 " I suppose you mean the German opera ? " 
 " But do you not like the German opera ? " 
 " Immensely, that is, until people explain it 
 to me." 
 
 " Evidently, Mrs. Childe, you don't begin to 
 appreciate the boon of a few definite ideas on a 
 subject," said Paul Secor. " Music used to be a 
 melodious but inarticulate voice out of the blue ; 
 it made one sentimental, filled one with hankerings 
 after one knew not what. Nowadays we sum it 
 all up in a sentence : ' Thuin, thum, thum,' ' that 
 is the giant's motif,' we say to each other. ' Diddle 
 diddle, diddle,' ' that is the lump of pure gold at 
 the bottom of the Rhine.' Wagner has been a 
 distinct boon to society." 
 
 " There was never a period in the world, Mrs. 
 Childe," said Whiley Norreys, " when the best so- 
 ciety was so well equipped with succinct opinions. 
 There is no vagueness. It is absolutely essential 
 to be able to talk on every sort of topic : European 
 politics, the latest novels, Shakespeare, Brown- 
 ing"- 
 
 "It quite makes one long for the dark ages, 
 does it not?" said Milly. 
 
 " At the houses I visit," put in Archy Laing, 
 " we don't discuss music or literature, but simply 
 gossip. Confess you like to talk about people, 
 cousin Milly." 
 
 "Of course I like to talk about people. It is 
 the relish of life, the pepper in the stew. But oh,
 
 12 CIPHEES. 
 
 what a dangerous indulgence ! Even when I hold 
 my tongue I am apt to make enemies at the rate of 
 one a day. If I were to open my lips but there 
 is Mr. Ruff wedged in at the door ! Will some- 
 body please move and let him come and speak to 
 me." 
 
 She advanced a step, holding out her hand 
 eagerly. The crowd parted and gave way to the 
 late comers, who bore their sudden preeminence as 
 best they might. Holly Ruff was comparatively 
 well known, but his companion was an utter stran- 
 ger except to the Poorshavvs, who, when everybody 
 said, " Bi-eck ? Sidney Breck ? Who is he ?" re- 
 plied, " Why, don't you know ? He is the architect 
 who designed our cottages at Newport." 
 
 The interruption was needed to break the charm ; 
 somebody discovered that it was past six o'clock, 
 and a move was made at once. Mrs. Childe took 
 the ebb as she had taken the flow, with easy good 
 humor, which still held its own and conceded no- 
 thing. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I am always at home. I shall have 
 Saturdays put on my cards, but I dare say I shall 
 never go out. What is there to go out for ? It is 
 so hard to manage it. If one longs for a drive one 
 has to think of it two hours before, or sit waiting 
 with one's wraps on until the fit for going out is 
 over. Oh, yes, I 'm certain to be at home." 
 
 " Am I going to the Bellews' silver wedding ? 
 Perhaps so, but I always insist 'that after a woman 
 has been married twenty-five years she ought to be
 
 CIPHERS. 13 
 
 allowed the privilege of honorable retirement on a 
 pension." 
 
 " Of course I '11 come to your coming-out tea, 
 my dear. And let me see, what can I do for you ? 
 Shall it be a pink or a yellow luncheon ? " 
 
 " I have looked at that gown, Fanny, and all the 
 afternoon I have been dying of envy. Quel chic! " 
 
 " Oh, as to papa, the moment I told him 
 everybody was coming to-day, he retired into pri- 
 vate life. No doubt he has spent his time in wash- 
 ing his hands and saying mournfully that Milly 
 does not know what she is doing." 
 
 " Don't go yet," she had found time to say to 
 Holly Kuff ; and he had walked down the thinning 
 rooms with his companion, and, crossing the hall, 
 entered the library. 
 
 " Well, Sidney, what did you think of her ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " I admired her," said Breck. 
 
 "But did not like her?" 
 
 " I had no time to think about my individual 
 feelings. I simply was delighted to have the 
 chance to watch her and listen to her." 
 
 " She struck you perhaps as more acute than 
 amiable." 
 
 " She took away my breath at times." 
 
 " That is her society manner," said Ruff, with 
 the tone of a man who has mastered the subject. 
 " The truth about Milly Childe is that she is half 
 a dozen women in one. You see she is not a happy 
 woman, has never been a happy woman. Of all
 
 14 CIPHERS. 
 
 that crowd pressing about her not one knew her. 
 I myself am the only intimate friend she has in 
 New York." 
 
 " You were saying," murmured Breck, " that 
 there were half a dozen women in her. I am curi- 
 ous to know what you meant." 
 
 " I will tell you," said Ruff, speaking always 
 with the deliberate consciousness of a scientist 
 who has reduced his observations to exact formula. 
 " There is the woman who is ambitious to shine in 
 society, and the woman who laughs at society ; the 
 refined womanly woman, with all the modesty, re- 
 serve, and dread of daylight which charms us, and 
 yet the woman of wit who is carried away, easily 
 outsteps bounds, and is too reckless of displeasing ; 
 the woman of intellect, the woman of heart ; the 
 cynical woman, and the intensely romantic woman. 
 She went through an experience which utterly dis- 
 enchanted her, yet she is as fresh as a girl. She 
 is completely disillusioned, yet her bright inquis- 
 itive mind is alert for every new idea, and she pos- 
 sesses as acute and discriminating an intellect as 
 any woman I know." 
 
 " And she lives here," said Breck, looking about 
 the rich room, at the deep cushioned chairs before 
 the fire burning in the grate ; at the reading-tables 
 with their carefully shaded lights ; at the books 
 everywhere, on shelves, in cases, and strewn about 
 amid sheaves of periodicals. The sense of quiet 
 and seclusion, of opportunity for leisure, reading, 
 and thought, was refreshing to him after the gay
 
 CIPHERS. 15 
 
 bustle and idle chattering of the parlors. While 
 they stood for a moment in silence, a slender white 
 hand drew aside the portiere which separated the 
 two rooms, and an elderly man appeared. This 
 was Rutherford Childe, father-in-law of the woman 
 whom Ruff had been describing. He was past 
 sixty, but had reached the downward slope of life 
 without losing the delicate good looks of his youth. 
 His hair had whitened, but it gave added distinc- 
 tion to his chiseled features and fire to his dark 
 eyes. His manner was peculiarly gentle ; he was 
 not easily stirred ; he took life quietly, had always 
 hated scenes, and for that reason perhaps had 
 never been so happy as since his brilliant, ener- 
 getic, domineering wife had dropped out from his 
 circle. After his son's death he had lived on in 
 the old Childe mansion, which had at the time of 
 Milly's marriage passed into her possession. His 
 life was not desolate ; his daughter-in-law came 
 and went, and he had a circle of friends of whose 
 life he made, he believed, an essential part. 
 
 " Have the women gone away ? " he asked, as he 
 shook hands with Ruff. 
 
 " They are going." 
 
 "Thank God!" said Mr. Childe devoutly. 
 " Milly arrived Friday with half a mind to sail for 
 Liverpool next day. * Why not settle down com- 
 fortably for the winter with me ? ' I asked her. 
 Then the first thing she did on Monday was to set 
 Mrs. Fletcher and Georgy Hurst making out a 
 visiting list for her. This is the result."
 
 16 CIPHERS. 
 
 " Very brilliant affair," said Ruff. " Let me 
 introduce Sidney Breck, Mr. Childe. This young- 
 ster longed for a glimpse of society, so I took the 
 liberty of bringing him." 
 
 " I have had several years of solid comfort," ob- 
 served Mr. Childe mournfully. " It is something 
 to be fenced off from this world. However, Milly 
 is young. She has not learned the value of peace 
 and quietness. Let us go and see how she has 
 stood it." 
 
 They found only a group of five in the parlors : 
 Mrs. Fletcher, a white-haired, dark -eyed, soft- 
 skinned, and still very pretty woman, although not 
 far from sixty, and her two nieces, Mrs. Ferris 
 and Miss Hurst, all cousins of Mr. Childe, who 
 had been helping Milly to receive, besides Whiley 
 Norreys, who always lingered behind to be sure of 
 missing nothing pleasant or profitable. 
 
 " Mercy on us," Milly was saying, " are you not 
 all tired to death ? For heaven's sake, let us sit 
 down ; let us sit upon the ground and tell sad 
 stories of the death of kings." 
 
 " Live queens are a better subject," said Norreys. 
 
 " Why did you not come out before, cousin 
 Rutherford ? " said Mrs. Fletcher, addressing Mr. 
 Childe. " You need not pretend not to like soci- 
 ety, for we know there is nothing you like half so 
 well." 
 
 " That is a very good reason for staying away 
 from a crowded afternoon reception," said Mr. 
 Childe. " Surely you would not invite a gourmand 
 to a feast of bread and butter."
 
 CIPHERS. 17 
 
 Mrs. Ferris, a blooming young matron, and Miss 
 Hurst, a mature stylish girl, kissed their " cousin 
 Rutherford " and began telling what a success 
 Milly had enjoyed. Never was anything like it. 
 Nobody had been willing to take time to eat or 
 drink. Each alike had had eyes, ears, and open 
 mouths only to watch, listen to, and gape at 
 Milly. 
 
 "And everybody was here," remarked Mrs. 
 Ferris in a tone of heartfelt satisfaction. 
 
 " Except Mrs. Bernard-North," said Miss Hurst 
 with a note of woe in her voice. 
 
 " But then Mrs. Bernard-North never goes to 
 anybody's receptions," Mrs. Fletcher explained 
 soothingly. 
 
 " Which is a great advantage to anybody's re- 
 ception," said Milly. " I am sure that I for one 
 am much obliged to Mrs. Bernard-North." 
 
 " She intended to come to-day," Whiley Norreys, 
 whose aunt Mrs. Bernard-North happened to be, 
 hastened to interpose, " but unfortunately just past 
 noon she received a cable despatch announcing 
 that her granddaughter had died in Paris of mea- 
 sles, poor little thing." 
 
 "Regular memento mori, telegrams, hate 'em 
 like poison," said Mr. Childe. " They always re- 
 mind me of my wife. She invariably wired on the 
 most trivial pretense, and I finally declined to 
 open her despatches. In fact, when the news of 
 her death came I supposed it to be simply some 
 unnecessary piece of interference on her part, so
 
 18 CIPHERS. 
 
 flung the envelope in the fire and never heard 
 what had happened until a letter came a fortnight 
 afterwards." 
 
 " I always dread opening a telegram lest it 
 should contain some upsetting news," said Mrs. 
 Fletcher. " But one can't put off opening them, 
 for people wire nowadays to tell you they cannot 
 come to dinner, they even invite one by tele- 
 graph. Highly absurd, I think." 
 
 Mrs. Lee Childe had moved across the room to 
 speak to Breck. His face struck her as excep- 
 tional. It was a beautiful boy's face, with full 
 forehead and temples, rich tints and brilliant eyes. 
 His cheeks were smooth, apparently beardless ; his 
 moustache was a mere line of brown, and turned 
 up slightly at the ends in a foreign fashion. There 
 was strength and decision in the mouth and chin, 
 but the impression he gave was of an ardent alert 
 vitality and a readiness to absorb impressions. As 
 she approached him she said to herself that he 
 could hardly be more than twenty. 
 
 " You came at the eleventh hour," she said to 
 him ; " but I am glad to see you at my little tea." 
 
 " You did not invite me," stammered Breck. 
 
 Holly Ruff had followed the hostess. 
 
 " I met Breck at the corner," he said, " and he 
 confided to me that he was never at a fashionable 
 tea. I told him I would enlarge his experience, so 
 brought him, trusting to your magnanimity, Mrs. 
 Childe." 
 
 She smiled at Breck. He seemed not to have
 
 CIPHERS. 19 
 
 seen her smile before. " Oh, heavens ! " he said 
 to himself. 
 
 " I don't consider myself the very glass of fash- 
 ion," she remarked, " but how do you like this 
 affair as far as it goes ? " 
 
 " I have not thought about the affair yet," said 
 Breck. " I have been thinking about something 
 else." 
 
 " I want to give a tea myself, Mrs. Childe," said 
 Holly Ruff, and he at once proceeded to broach 
 his project. Milly listened, then going back to 
 Mrs. Fletcher told her that Mr. Ruff desired them 
 all to go to his rooms the next day. 
 
 "Am I asked ?" inquired Whiley Norreys in 
 his favorite attitude, his hands extended, while he 
 bent forward with his head a little on one side. 
 
 Of course Whiley Norreys was asked, being a 
 person whom Holly Ruff tolerated with the same 
 sheer contempt with which he tolerated a large 
 proportion of the human race.
 
 n. 
 
 AN hour later Sidney Breck was on his way up- 
 town to fulfill his deferred errand. He had par- 
 taken of a sort of high tea at the Childes', then 
 when the ladies had set out for the opera he had 
 parted from Holly Ruff and gone on as if in a 
 dream, completely under the charm of the experi- 
 ence. He was of the age and of the temperament 
 which take vivid impressions, and the thought of 
 Mrs. Childe dominated him. He knew more beau- 
 tiful women ; Miss Rivera, whom he was now on 
 his way to see, possessed more actual beauty, but 
 he admired Mrs. Childe. He longed to study the 
 secret of her, sitting, watching, and listening to 
 her for a month. Certainly, if not beautiful, she 
 had points of rare perfection. He longed to model 
 her head and neck and catch the trick of that turn 
 of the throat ; there was something wonderful 
 about that pose, it would give rare distinction to 
 a bust. Not that Breck was a sculptor ; he only 
 dabbled in clay occasionally when he wished to 
 express some idea that haunted him. At first he 
 had been struck by the ease with which Mrs. 
 Childe received universal homage. There was an 
 air of good-natured amusement ; her smile took the 
 edge off her little audacities. His first impression 
 had been that she was too cultured, too exotic to
 
 CIPHERS. 21 
 
 be warmly and humanly a woman, just as one feels 
 in looking at an orchid that it is not simply a 
 flower. Afterwards, when she addressed him, let- 
 ting her smile and glance linger on him, he had re- 
 ceived a revelation of an influence sweet, caressing, 
 protecting, something purely feminine. He knew 
 little and cared less about the great world. He won- 
 dered, remembering how Holly Ruff had boasted 
 of his intimacy with Mrs. Lee Childe, whether the 
 two could be engaged. He was in the habit of 
 looking up admiringly to Ruff, who had befriended 
 him. Breck was not a New Yorker ; he had been 
 born in Boston, and at the age of seventeen had 
 gone to Paris to study to be a painter ; then at the 
 age of twenty-two had returned to America and 
 settled in New York, taking up the profession of 
 architect. For five years now he and Ruff had 
 been almost like brothers. 
 
 Arriving in a new quarter of the city, Breck, 
 on leaving the train, turned into a street attractive 
 in its freshness, and ringing at the entrance of a 
 great apartment house he was presently knocking 
 at a door in the fifth story. He was admitted on 
 the instant by a bright - looking little woman, 
 dressed in a fantastic tea-gown, who held out her 
 hand and welcomed him cordially. This was Mrs. 
 Hugh Rivera. 
 
 " Nita is at home. Indeed, you do not need to 
 be told that," she said in response to his inquiry, 
 as she ushered him into a small room crowded with 
 tables, elaborately cushioned chairs and divans,
 
 22 CIPHERS. 
 
 hung with curtains and portieres, while the walls 
 were covered if not enriched by a medley of plates, 
 pictures, and fans. Into one corner was crammed 
 an upright piano, and before the instrument sat a 
 girl carelessly striking a note here and there as an 
 accompaniment to " Che faro senza Eurydice ? " 
 while she hummed the air repeating the cry " Eury- 
 dice" with every variety of passionate inflection. 
 
 44 Here is Mr. Breck, Anita," said Mrs. Rivera. 
 
 The girl wheeled on the music-stool and started 
 up. 
 
 44 Oh, is it you ? " she exclaimed, with an air of 
 intense satisfaction. " I was just trying the song 
 you sent me." 
 
 In spite of the intimate salutation the two bowed 
 to each other with that air of youthful reserve 
 which betrays a fear of transgressing polite forms. 
 
 " I have brought you the tickets for the sym- 
 phony concert," said Breck. "My friend, Mr. 
 Ruff, managed to get them for me." 
 
 Mrs. Rivera, after hovering for a moment about 
 the parlor, putting minor details to rights with 
 swift birdlike touches, withdrew to the adjoining 
 compartment, where she sat down anew to her work 
 within call of her three children asleep in an inner 
 room of -the crowded little flat. 
 
 Breck had for some months been a frequent 
 visitor. Hugh Rivera was a draughtsman in the 
 office of Champion & Breck, and had asked the 
 junior partner to call and give his opinion of his 
 sister's voice, for Anita was just entering upon the
 
 CIPHERS. 23 
 
 study of music. Breck had at once become inter- 
 ested in the girl, who was beautiful, full of artistic 
 ambition, and thoroughly discontented with her 
 present possibilities. All his sympathies were 
 alert at this glimpse of genius groping in search of 
 its true aims. 
 
 For Miss Rivera's was a harp of many strings, 
 and at the outset it had been no easy matter to de- 
 cide which of her five talents she should spend and 
 which suffer to dwindle under a napkin. She had 
 primarily decided to be a Mrs. Browning, and had 
 turned off hundreds of verses deficient only in those 
 minor requisites of technique which editors with 
 meagre-souled sympathies insist upon as essential. 
 A few disappointments sufficed to prove to Anita 
 that appreciation of poetry is one of the lost arts, 
 and since the novel is the true vehicle of nineteenth 
 century thought and passion, she wrote one which 
 was to run through a hundred editions. Unluckily 
 it failed to do so. But it had only been a means 
 to an end ; what she had aspired to do was to 
 make money to support her in some art-centre, for 
 she was now determined to be an artist. Her 
 brother opened a door by asking her to live with 
 him, and accordingly, two years before, she had 
 come to New York with a portfolio full of original 
 sketches, which were to be the delight of the mas- 
 ters and the despair of her fellow-students. The 
 committee to which the sketches were confided 
 admitted that they showed talent, but was unani- 
 mous in declaring that the artist had not been
 
 24 CIPHERS. 
 
 taught to draw, and must begin with a full course 
 of the " preparatory antique." The " preparatory 
 antique " was very dull for Anita, who felt warm 
 blood stirring in her veins and longed for swift 
 action and instantaneous results. 
 
 Probably her love of color was partly a matter 
 of temperament. Her grandfather, a native of 
 Porto Rico, the descendant of a French nobleman, 
 who had emigrated during the revolution, had 
 been sent to Northampton, Massachusetts, to be 
 educated, and had married in that place, dying 
 just after his wife gave birth to a son. This graft 
 of French and Spanish blood upon New England 
 stock had been an almost forgotten incident until 
 in the second generation this girl was born, who 
 alone out of eight children was endowed with 
 those distinctive attributes of physique, tempera- 
 ment, and mind which we call foreign. She pos- 
 sessed remarkable beauty with all the rich and 
 delicate coloring of a French Creole ; long eyes 
 with wonderful lids, superb contours, graceful 
 movement, hands and feet after a rare model, and 
 besides these physical endowments, ardent artistic 
 tastes, a pliancy to artistic impressions, and an in- 
 tense ambition to conquer the world by her gifts. 
 She liked to paint, but she soon heartily detested 
 the " preparatory antique," and declared she saw 
 neither logic nor reason in sitting down before and 
 worshiping a hideous plaster foot without a single 
 curve of beauty in it. Her fellow pupils shrugged 
 their shoulders at her work and occasionally tried
 
 CIPHERS. 25 
 
 to set her right, but the masters were merciless ; 
 all she did was declared to be out of proportion, 
 out of plumb ; she had no feeling for the outline. 
 
 At this moment, when she was crushed with the 
 mortification of her defeat, it happened that Con- 
 tarini, a fashionable music-master, heard her sing 
 a little German ballad, and, struck by the richness 
 and dramatic quality of her voice, he asked her to 
 become his pupil for a few months, that he might 
 decide what possibilities lay behind that fine mid- 
 dle register. At the end of three months he be- 
 sought her to go on for a year, two years. It 
 was a labor of love to teach her ; it was, besides, 
 a religious duty to foster so beautiful a talent. 
 
 Anita felt in herself that strength of youth which 
 makes it seem an easy matter to mould one's des- 
 tiny. Emerson observes that we must read history 
 actively and not passively, considering our own 
 lives the text and this the commentary, and she had 
 always obeyed this behest implicitly. " Shall I 
 write poems like Mrs. Browning's or Jean Inge- 
 low's ? novels after the example of George Eliot 
 or the author of Jane Eyre ? Shall I be a female 
 Millet or Meissonier?" 
 
 Thus when Signer Contarini told her that she 
 possessed a mezzo-soprano voice of unusual com- 
 pass and flexibility, and of a timbre almost un- 
 known since Garcia retired from the stage, and 
 that all she required was patient and docile study, 
 Anita instantly decided that the mantle of Patti, 
 which of necessity must one day fall, should de-
 
 26 CIPHERS. 
 
 scend upon her own shoulders. Of course she had 
 lost time, she was now about twenty-one years of 
 age, but lost time could be made up by working 
 with superhuman energy. This past summer she 
 had been studying under Contarini's direction in 
 the little mountain nook where he made his villeg- 
 giatura. He had been very sanguine when he un- 
 dertook the enterprise of developing Miss Rivera 
 into a great cantatrice. He was still sanguine, but 
 he clearly recognized the fact that there were lions 
 in the path. Anita's voice showed the rarest pos- 
 sibilities ; the fault, strange to say, was of the ear. 
 This fault he had felt certain he might, by indefati- 
 gable training, correct. He had watched, tested, 
 experimented, finally believed that he understood 
 the secret of it. It lay, partly, he declared, in the 
 conflict of the two temperaments : that is to say, 
 when she sang false, it was a matter of physique, 
 intellect, nerves, above all, nerves. What she 
 lacked was discipline, the discipline resulting 
 from a single intense dominating idea. Her will 
 was like a wind blowing where it listeth, delighting 
 in its vagaries and exulting in its chimeras. When 
 she slept well, kept herself fresh, did not over-eat 
 or strain her powers in any way, above all, when 
 she was serenely happy, she sang like an angel. 
 The one thing necessary was to keep her single- 
 hearted, happy, and well. 
 
 Sidney Breck, himself an ardent lover of music, 
 with a faultless ear, had never been over-sanguine 
 concerning Miss Rivera's chances. But he had
 
 CIPHERS. 27 
 
 gone through his own hard struggle, and knew 
 something about artistic cravings for free play for 
 one's powers, and she interested him. The belief 
 was sometimes forced upon him that she was hope- 
 lessly wrong in her choice of a career. But a 
 girl's failure is not so tragical as a man's failure, 
 since a happy marriage may more than make it up 
 to her. When he sometimes said to himself, " She 
 never can be the great singer she is ambitious to 
 be," he half smiled, for many thoughts drift 
 through the mind of a young fellow. 
 
 " Whether I can sing for you to-night, Mr. 
 Breck, I do not know," said Anita. " I wish you 
 could have been with me this afternoon. Mr. 
 Contarini lost his head entirely. I heard him 
 jumping about while I was singing, and was afraid 
 at first that he was tearing his hair over a false 
 note, and presently would fall upon me and rend 
 me in pieces. But no; when I finished he clapped 
 his hands. ' You shall go to Paris, to Milan, for 
 one, two, tree years,' said he. ' But fairst you shall 
 show zem here in New York what I can do. I will 
 take a hall, I will take ze opera-house, I will 
 hire ze orchestra, I care not for ze aixpense, I 
 will pay ten t'ousand dollar, but you shall be 
 brought out in New York and show them what I 
 have done, what I can do.' ' 
 
 "I am delighted," said Breck in a glow of exul- 
 tation. 
 
 " But to-morrow," pursued Anita, " very likely 
 he may be in a different mood, and just when I
 
 28 CIPHERS. 
 
 am gathering myself up for it, I shall hear him 
 fling over a chair, then he will jump on a sofa as 
 if he meant to break its every spring, and he will 
 put his fingers in his ears and say, ' Oh, ze mighty, 
 ze zounds, ze sacr-r-r-rr ! ' : 
 
 " Oh, no, no, you are over the threshold now. You 
 do well to-day and you will do better to-morrow." 
 
 " Perhaps so," said Anita, with a little nod and 
 smile ; " but I do wish, Mr. Breck, you had heard 
 me this afternoon. Mr. Contarini told me when I 
 came away that I was sailing off into the blue, 
 that he must hold fast to the tail of the kite lest I 
 should escape him altogether." 
 
 " I started to come here at five o'clock," said 
 Breck, "but just as I was leaving the house Holly 
 Ruff went past, and as he was going to a great re- 
 ception " 
 
 " Mrs. Lee Childe's ? " asked Anita eagerly. 
 
 ' Oh, you know her then ? " 
 
 " Oh dear, no, I know nobody in New York ; but 
 Maddy and I always read the society news, and 
 we saw that she was to have a reception to-day." 
 
 " Maddy," otherwise Mrs. Hugh Rivera, repre- 
 sented to Breck all that he wished a woman to 
 avoid. 
 
 " I suppose everything is in the papers," he re- 
 marked with a shrug ; " but why when there is 
 anything else to read one should occupy one's self 
 with stuff of that sort, at least, when it does not 
 personally concern one, I can't understand." 
 
 " It does concern me," said Anita. " It gives
 
 CIPHERS. 29 
 
 me knowledge of the world, and besides, I say to 
 myself that there will come a time when the pa- 
 pers will be full of paragraphs about me." 
 
 " All right," said Breck, throwing back his head 
 and laughing ; " I promise to read all they say 
 about you." 
 
 "But about Mrs. Lee Childe's reception?" 
 questioned Anita. " The papers said she was only 
 twenty-six years old, a widow, and worth millions 
 upon millions." 
 
 " Twenty-six, yes, I should have said she was 
 about that age," murmured Breck. 
 
 " Did you go with Mr. Ruff ? " 
 
 " Yes. He is always like the centurion, and 
 when he says ' come,' I come, and when he says 
 ' go,' I go." 
 
 "Was it delightful?" 
 
 " Mrs. Lee Childe is delightful. If you think 
 you ever saw a perfectly charming woman just dis- 
 miss that idea and get another. Nothing less than 
 Mrs. Lee Childe is charming." 
 
 " But why is she so charming ? Is she so beau- 
 tiful?" 
 
 " Beautiful ? I don't know whether she is pos- 
 itively beautiful." 
 
 " Was she exquisitely dressed ? " 
 
 " Dressed ? Oh, no doubt ; I did not observe." 
 
 " Was the house beautiful ? " 
 
 " I only noticed the library, which was large 
 and quiet." 
 
 " You don't seem to have brought away very 
 clear ideas," said Anita.
 
 30 CIPHERS. 
 
 " One does not sum up a woman like that in a 
 sentence," said Breck. " It may be art, but it is 
 such consummate art it seems like nature. When 
 I first heard her talking to a crowd of men I was 
 afraid she ran after brilliance too much, but I saw 
 afterwards that she is really more simple, more 
 natural, more direct than other people." 
 
 Anita gave him a bright glance, but his words 
 had reminded her of something else. 
 
 " I forgot to tell you," she remarked, " that when 
 I went in this afternoon, Mr. Contarini said ' You 
 weel sing well to-day.' Afterwards he explained 
 what he meant." She jumped up and with raised 
 forefinger mimicked the Italian. " ' You do not 
 look so praity as usual. You are not so neat, 
 so well-dressed. You have not been finking 
 about yourself to-day, but about your music. Ze 
 troot' is, Mees Rivera, ze coquette in you too 
 often spoils ze artiste. Zere is war between ze 
 real and ze ideal. You geeve your best am-bee- 
 she-on not to your art, but to your gown, your 
 gloves, your shoes.' " 
 
 ' The impertinent puppy ! Does he constitute 
 himself your father-confessor ? " 
 
 " Indeed he does. He is forever telling me 
 there are four things absolutely required to make 
 a good voice : the throat, the stomach, the heart, 
 the brains. He says I cannot be a great singer 
 unless I am a good woman and a great woman and 
 a well woman ; that I must be willing to fast like 
 a knight before he goes into battle for the first 
 time."
 
 CIPHERS. 31 
 
 " That is true enough. Life is a perpetual fast 
 and vigil for anybody who wishes to accomplish 
 anything in this world." 
 
 " I do not need to confess my sins, for he sees 
 through me invariably," pursued Miss Rivera. 
 " He finds out all my little evasions of duty. He 
 knows that I do all sorts of things to make money ; 
 that when I ought to be resting after using my 
 voice I am painting sachets and pin-cushions and 
 decorating menus and dinner cards." 
 
 " You ought not to attempt that outside work. 
 It takes away your devotion to your prime object." 
 
 " But I must have some money. They send me 
 only two hundred a year from home. They can 
 hardly spare that. Besides, I like to do those 
 pretty things." Starting up, she crossed the room 
 with her light, pretty movement, and, opening a 
 drawer, brought a handful of cards and bits of silk 
 and satin, on which she had sketched in pure pale 
 shades of color a bough of leaves and flowers 
 straggling across a corner, a cluster of peach blos- 
 soms, or other affectations of Japanese art bor- 
 rowed from the fan and the cup. 
 
 " Very pretty, very pretty indeed," said Breck, 
 hastily. " You color very well." 
 
 " Those are all done without any models, with a 
 few strokes of the brush," said Anita in triumph. 
 
 " Beware of the conventional," he murmured. 
 
 " That is why I follow the Japanese school," 
 said Anita. " It is wholly unconventional." 
 
 He laughed, but did not reply, and said pres- 
 ently,
 
 32 CIPHERS. 
 
 "All the same you must reflect that one has 
 only so much strength, and that for success in 
 any career one must concentrate all one's powers 
 and faculties." 
 
 " As soon as I am launched I shall have plenty 
 of money, and there will be no need of such pot- 
 boilers," she returned. " I shall not be compelled 
 to eke out my supply of handkerchiefs by washing 
 them myself and drying them on a pin. I shall 
 not have to mend my gloves endlessly." 
 
 " I know the look Contarini likes to see in your 
 face," said Breck ; " it is that not of a pretty, self- 
 conscious girl, but of a priestess just off her tripod 
 and all alive with her inspiration." 
 
 " What chance have I to feel inspiration here ? " 
 said Anita. She was standing before her visitor ; 
 and now, glancing into the next room and discover- 
 ing that it was empty, in a low voice but with pas- 
 sionate vehemence she poured out the story of her 
 hindrances and vexations. " I cannot even prac- 
 tice in peace. Sometimes the children are left for 
 hours under my sole charge, and even when Madcly 
 is here she thinks there can be no harm in their 
 running in and out. I am cramped and thwarted 
 in every way. I sometimes wonder that I can sing 
 at all, I am so irritated, so bored, so depressed. 
 Good conditions are essential to good art. Artists 
 ought not to be obliged to live with their families." 
 
 "You may have heard how Patti and Mali- 
 bran " 
 
 " That was musical education. All that they
 
 CIPHERS. 33 
 
 had to bear was in the line of artistic discipline, 
 progress, development. But when one's nearest 
 relations are actually indifferent to one's chief ob- 
 jects, when family life means worry, sordid econo- 
 mies, scrimped meals, for Mr. Contarini says I 
 require to be well fed with good soups and juicy 
 meats " 
 
 " You do not look as if you suffered from any 
 meagre, hunger -bitten diet," interposed Breck, 
 laughing. " I have often told you you should 
 leave bonbons alone." 
 
 She shook her finger at him archly. 
 
 " I know," he conceded, " that twice I tempted 
 you, but that was before I realized that a singer 
 can put an enemy into her mouth which steals 
 away her voice. I shall never tempt you in that 
 way again." 
 
 " I shall not be tempted. Henceforth I promise 
 to devote myself to art. If I do not succeed it 
 will be art itself that is ungrateful." 
 
 " You are too impatient. You expect to accom- 
 plish miracles. Nowadays miracles only follow 
 tedious processes." 
 
 " But I am almost twenty-one, and a singer's 
 lease of power is so short. Nature herself fixes a 
 limit, and after a woman is thirty-five she has lost 
 something. Think of it, only fourteen or fifteen 
 years for me ! How much has to be put into that 
 time!" 
 
 Breck listened, half touched, half amused. She 
 was so young and so pretty, and her earnestness
 
 34 CIPHERS. 
 
 deepened her beauty and her charm. And possi- 
 bly after all she would realize all her dreams. 
 There was somewhere, somehow, a touch of genius 
 in the girl, and although she made mistakes there 
 was none of the crude stumbling of the tyro in 
 anything she attempted. And although medioc- 
 rities sometimes have everything their own way for 
 a time, genius knows how to hold its own, when it 
 does really exist. Perhaps the chief stumbling- 
 block in the way of Breck's belief in her ultimate 
 success was the fact that Miss Rivera's love for art 
 rested as it were on her love for herself. 
 
 " Don't let us forget music in the musician," he 
 said finally. " I want you to try 'Che faro.' " 
 
 " I hardly think it suits my voice," returned 
 Anita. 
 
 " It is one of the dozen great songs of the 
 world. It is a pleasure even to hear it sung 
 badly." 
 
 " Oh, thanks. If you expect me to sing it badly 
 it is safe to disappoint you by not singing it at 
 all." 
 
 He nevertheless prevailed upon her to try the 
 aria, which she did sing so badly that she was in- 
 dignant with him. 
 
 " I told you," she exclaimed, " that it was of no 
 use for me to attempt it. Mr. Contarini would be 
 displeased to hear that I gave way to anybody's 
 urgency when I knew that I might fail. He says a 
 voice is not a machine. One must not fight against 
 nature."
 
 CIPHERS. 35 
 
 " Of course he is right," said Breck, amused by 
 the spirit with which the girl turned upon him to 
 rend him for her own failure. " But I am always 
 longing to hear certain songs, and some of them 
 are hard to sing and nobody sings them. Music 
 is unlike all the other arts ; there must always be 
 an interpreter. Just think what it is to have the 
 ' Adelaide ' voiceless, forgotten ! Who sings the 
 'Pieta Signore ' nowadays? Certain songs haunt 
 me, waylay me, seem to call upon me to deliver 
 them from the darkness and silence." 
 
 He pulled himself up and pretended to laugh at 
 his own earnestness. 
 
 " I cannot sing the old songs now, 
 It is not that I deem them low ; 
 'T is that I can't remember how 
 They go," 
 
 he quoted comically, " Not however that Calverley 
 told the truth, for nobody who ever in his life 
 loved a song can forget it." 
 
 A sudden wish assailed him himself to sing 
 " Che faro senza Eurydice, f " and with a laughing 
 glance at Anita, he took the seat from which she 
 had just risen, struck the opening notes with a 
 firm free touch, then sang through the aria in a 
 mellow tenor voice. 
 
 She gazed at him in astonishment, even inter- 
 rupting him in one of the pauses of the air to ex- 
 claim, 
 
 " I had no idea that you could sing." 
 
 He went on to the end without seeming to hear 
 her.
 
 36 CIPHERS. 
 
 " I had no idea you could sing, Mr. Breck," she 
 reiterated. " You have a wonderful voice. It was 
 unkind to deceive me in this way." 
 
 " Deceived you ? Did I ever tell you I did not 
 sing ? But then I never do sing nowadays except 
 perhaps to hum an air while I am dressing. I 
 have not sung in this way for years." 
 
 " But your voice is a delightful one." 
 
 " Nonsense ! I have never had any training. I 
 have an intense love for music, but my mother dis- 
 couraged it, objecting to my becoming ' a musical 
 man,' as she expressed it. So I sing without 
 knowledge, just as I play, catching everything by 
 ear alone. Now that we are talking about it, Miss 
 Rivera," he went on laughing, for it had excited 
 him to sing, " I will tell you something I never 
 even told Alice. When I came to New York six 
 years ago I was rather a broken-hearted fellow, for 
 I had given up painting and tied myself down to 
 what seemed then the veriest drudgery. It was in 
 the summer time, and I was getting a home ready 
 for my sister, who had just lost her husband and 
 her three children ; but meanwhile they were in the 
 country, and I was quite alone and hardly knew a 
 soul in New York. The weather was excessively 
 hot, and in the evenings the people who were stay- 
 ing in town used to gather on the steps of their 
 houses to catch the coolness of the river breezes. 
 Remember that I was only twenty-two, a crazy 
 youngster ! But I used to assume a sort of dis- 
 guise and sing about the streets. After a few
 
 CIPHERS. 37 
 
 nights I was expected and waited for. * Oh, there 
 he is ! ' I would hear them say. At first they 
 wanted to give me money, but I replied in Italian 
 gibberish that I did not sing for pay, only for love 
 of music." 
 
 "You ought to have been a musician, Mr. 
 Breck," said Anita with conviction. 
 
 " Contarini would tell you that I am all wrong: 
 that I open my mouth the wrong way, that it is 
 not a voice at all but a trumpet through the nose, 
 or a broken pipe. Moreover, I have not a strong 
 throat, and could never have been a professional. 
 Above all, I had to bone down to some good pay- 
 ing work and earn some money." 
 
 " You ought to have told me you could sing," 
 said Anita with feeling. " I thought I knew you 
 so well, when after all I did not know you at all." 
 " You know everything now," said Breck. 
 " That is the ' finis ' at the end of my story, so you 
 may as well forgive me." 
 
 " I forgive you," Miss Rivera granted, yielding 
 her little hand to him. " And I am willing to 
 confess besides that you sang charmingly." 
 
 Breck took his leave, and on his way down town 
 thought over the girl's naive self-confessions, her 
 little tempers ; and perhaps, too, he shrewdly put 
 his finger on a want of sympathy in her character 
 from the way she had received his little story. He 
 recalled Garcia's saying, " D'abord, je suis femme, 
 avec les affections, les devoirs, les idees d'une 
 femme ; d'apres, je suis artiste." Very pretty ; and
 
 38 CIPHERS. 
 
 of course in a way a woman must postpone every- 
 thing to fulfill the sacred duties of life before she 
 permits art to dictate to her. Yet in a different way 
 women are apt to put the woman before the artist. 
 He recalled feminine rivalries in Parisian ateliers, 
 and was ready to indulge in masculine cynicisms 
 regarding the rebellious egotisms of the fair sex. 
 Then taking a fairer view, he acknowledged that 
 even men did not invariably succeed in fusing self 
 in the artist. 
 
 As he crossed the streets to his lodging, " Eury- 
 dice " was still ringing in his ears, but his thoughts 
 had returned to Mrs. Lee Childe. It struck him 
 as a coincidence that his room was just round the 
 corner from the old Childe mansion, which faced 
 Stuyvesant Square. Nothing could be more sim- 
 ple and natural than to stroll on and look up at 
 the windows. The full moon flooded the whole 
 place with light. It was the Indian summer, and 
 the air was balmy with breezes just stirring the 
 tops of the trees, causing the shimmer of moonlight 
 to tremble like a sheet of water ruffled by a sudden 
 disturbance. A soft stifled murmur rose and fell 
 like a regular breath. Breck felt the beauty of 
 the night, the outside silence of the great city, the 
 stir of life within the heart of it. The romantic 
 passion of the song still thrilled him. Why might 
 he not sing it ? He leaned against the paling and 
 looked up at the house, where lights burned in 
 the upper windows. She was probably there, and 
 he resigned himself to the impulse which half
 
 CIPHERS. 39 
 
 an hour later he was ready to regard as an 
 
 insanity. 
 
 " Chefa/ro" he began; when his voice was dying 
 on the final note he became aware that the draw- 
 ing-room window was open and that some one was 
 standing within a few feet of him. 
 
 " Please sing that again," a voice said eagerly. 
 " Oh, I beg you to sing that again." 
 
 Breck's self-possession, his manners, his very 
 senses seemed suspended by the sudden tremor 
 which seized him. He turned and fled, vanishing 
 out of the pale motionless flood of moonlight into 
 the black opaque shadows.
 
 III. 
 
 HOLLY RUFF had hardly exaggerated his unique 
 claim to Mrs. Lee Childe's friendship when he 
 told Sidney Breck that no one else had enjoyed 
 so long and intimate an acquaintance with her. 
 Emily Pardee, the only daughter of the famous 
 Dr. Pardee, had, early in life, married a lawyer 
 named Arthur Briggs, partner of Holly Ruff's fa- 
 ther. The little Emily was not born until her 
 parents had reached middle age, and when she was 
 five years old. her father died. His partner con- 
 tinued to transact Mrs. Briggs's more personal af- 
 fairs, and when Mr. Ruff in his turn died, it fell to 
 his son Holly to be of use to the rich and lonely 
 woman, whose life was given up chiefly to chari- 
 table enterprises. When Emily lost her mother 
 Holly Ruff was twenty-eight years of age. Mrs. 
 Briggs had implored him to continue his good ser- 
 vices to the orphaned girl. A young man can do 
 little for a young woman of sixteen except to fall 
 in love with her and marry her. This Holly Ruff 
 was just making up his mind to be the right course 
 for him to pursue, when Mrs. Rutherford Chilcle 
 forestalled him by taking possession of the little 
 heiress. Emily Briggs was at this time at the
 
 CIPHERS. 41 
 
 great boarding-school of Mine. Segur, just outside 
 New York, and it was Mme. Segur herself who 
 happened to tell Mrs. Childe about the rich young 
 girl under her charge, who was eating out her heart 
 in grief for her mother. Mrs. Childe had once 
 been associated with Mrs. Briggs in some charita- 
 ble effort ; thus it was a graceful and natural atten- 
 tion to make the acquaintance of Emily, and bring 
 her to her home for Sundays and other holidays. 
 She took the young girl to drive, to flower-shows, 
 to concerts, to see the animals at the Park, and 
 when the right moment came she married her to 
 her son Lee. 
 
 Ruff acknowledged to himself that he had been 
 a laggard in love, for he had had a year's start of 
 Mrs. Rutherford Childe. But he philosophically 
 decided that after all it was better not to have 
 hampered his career by the weight of the Pardee 
 millions. Indeed, it was only when Emily Briggs 
 became Mrs. Lee Childe that he found out she was 
 charming. Ruff established himself as her family 
 friend during her husband's lifetime, and after 
 Lee's death he continued his habit of going to the 
 house and was admitted to Mr. Rutherford Childe's 
 small and exclusive family circle. During these 
 four years of her widowhood Milly came and 
 went, sometimes staying but a night, again settling 
 down with her father-in-law for a month. Only 
 Mrs. Fletcher and a few others of the Childe con- 
 nection succeeded in seeing her; for everybody else 
 who inquired for her at the door the stereotyped
 
 42 CIPHERS. 
 
 formula went forth: "Mrs. Lee Childe is not at 
 home," " Mrs. Lee Childe does not receive at pres- 
 ent," or, " Mrs. Lee Childe is staying in the coun- 
 try." 
 
 Ruff easily kept himself informed of the young 
 widow's comings and goings, and without any sus- 
 picion of intrusion, was always certain to see her 
 even if she just passed through the town, stopping 
 only for a night. He made himself usef ul to her 
 in certain ways, giving her lists of forthcoming 
 books, for she was an omnivorous reader, and talk- 
 ing over with her those she had already read. He 
 soon not only grew to understand her tastes, but in 
 a way helped to shape them. Once they encoun- 
 tered abroad, and visited picture galleries together 
 both in Florence and Venice. He could easily flat- 
 ter himself that he had made himself useful to 
 her, more than useful, agreeable. What he 
 longed for was to make himself essential. 
 
 The day of the reception he laughed in his 
 sleeve at the pretensions of the men whom with 
 quiet jealous instinct he recognized as rival suitors. 
 By this time he knew Milly Childe's likings and 
 dislikings by heart. She possessed a capacity for 
 getting some amusement out of all sorts of people ; 
 but at the same time a power of satire, which, even 
 if she habitually kept it within bounds, sometimes 
 escaped her in caustic wit. She hated a bore, 
 she hated a man who veered and tacked and tacked 
 and veered, and of course she would not like 
 Whiley Norreys. Paul Secor was a spoiled and
 
 CIPHERS. 43 
 
 superficial creature, who, if he had any heart 
 left after his gay youth, had long since bestowed it 
 on Georgy Hurst, whom he was too poor to marry. 
 Archy Laing was a mere dancing man, while 
 Geddes Poorshaw, with the physique of a pugilist, 
 and brusque, direct manners, which seemed to dis- 
 close his innate tendency to assume that the world 
 belonged to him, had nothing to recommend him 
 to a woman of heart and intellect except his name 
 and his money. Of money, Mrs. Lee Childe always 
 had enough and to spare, and she was likely to 
 insist on other qualifications in a second husband. 
 
 Who then remained as a possible, a probable, 
 an inevitable choice for the young and lovely 
 widow? Holly Ruff remained. Looking at the 
 subject dispassionately, he could assure himself 
 that he answered her every need. He was 
 exactly of the right age, twelve years her senior. 
 He had made a career for himself as a journalist 
 and literary man. In fact he, and he alone, pos- 
 sessed just the prestige which could give meaning 
 to her millions. 
 
 He piqued himself on the unerring tact with 
 which he had on the spur of the moment made 
 up his smart and exclusive little party. Mrs. 
 Childe had once remarked that she was ambitious 
 to climb to the top of one of the tall structures 
 which command a view of the bay, and he had said 
 he should enjoy showing her his own quarters in 
 the Phoenix Building, and prompted by this recol- 
 lection he had pressed his invitation at an auspi- 
 cious moment.
 
 44 CIPHERS. 
 
 He had entertained ladies before, and under- 
 stood the fastidious requisitions of the fair sex as 
 well as did David Copperfield when he provided 
 the bottle of lavender water, two wax-candles, a 
 paper of mixed pins, and a pin -cushion for Mrs. 
 Micawber's comfort. In accordance with more 
 modern requirements Ruff had ordered in a profu- 
 sion of palms and chrysanthemums, while masses 
 of cut roses were set about in bowls. 
 
 Little more was needed for the general equip- 
 ment of the rooms ; their design, furnishings, and 
 decorations included everything that the most 
 artistic fancy could suggest. They were the 
 rooms of a very highly civilized man, Ruff had 
 sometimes remarked with complacency, but then 
 he was ready to explain that Sidney Breck had 
 been the sole designer and afterwards his own 
 coadjutor in the arrangement. It was his habit to 
 make " the youngster " useful, and to-day Breck 
 was deputed to meet the ladies on their arrival 
 and to escort them by way of the elevator to the 
 top of the building. The host himself sat at his 
 desk working until the last moment. He was 
 always working, anywhere and anyhow, without 
 fussiness or apparent effort. Not to have worked 
 would have been to lose time, and to lose time was 
 not only to lose money but his knack of keeping 
 abreast with the full movement of the day, chroni- 
 cling not only the doings of the moment but the 
 prophetic meanings of the moment, so that each com- 
 ing event seemed to have taken shape and gathered
 
 CIPHERS. 45 
 
 force logically and in order from his predictions. 
 He was now writing rapidly in a stiff, straight up- 
 and-down hand with the blackest ink, when the 
 janitor's boy, engaged for the occasion, threw open 
 the door. Ruff sprang up, expecting to meet the 
 ladies, but it was Whiley Norreys, who entered 
 with outstretched hand. 
 
 " How are you, Ruff ? " said he. " I came 
 early. Here, take this." He divested himself of 
 his light top-coat and gave it to the boy. " I said 
 to myself," he went on, with his large bland 
 smile, " Ruff will need a hint or two. It is not 
 every man who knows how to carry off these 
 things." 
 
 " Look about the rooms, Norreys ! " Ruff re- 
 turned, " and find fault with whatever does not 
 come up to the mark." 
 
 " Of course," observed Norreys, " I am in the 
 swim and I know how these things are done ; you 
 are not in the swim and you cannot know how 
 these things are done." 
 
 Ruff was hospitable to new ideas, above all to 
 ideas imparted by an expert in any science. He 
 had besides an ample sense of humor, and now 
 good-naturedly sat down, crossed his legs and 
 watched his visitor, who darted about, wheeling the 
 tea-table three inches to the right, and a gi-eat arm- 
 chair, relieved against the background made by a 
 rich screen and a beautiful palm, a foot nearer the 
 little table at the left, which was loaded with 
 attractive trifles.
 
 46 CIPHERS. 
 
 " There," said Norreys in the tone of a man who 
 by his unaided efforts has created a small world, 
 "the effect is good, excellent! It needed just 
 this touch. But on my word, Ruff, you had man- 
 aged very well. Your rooms have quite an air. 
 If you had turned your attention to these matters 
 at an early age and given up your whole mind to 
 them I can see that you might have developed a 
 genuine social talent." 
 
 " I had not the time," answered Ruff, with a 
 peculiar smile ; " and besides, Norreys, I have not 
 the intellect." 
 
 " Oh, don't say that," said Norreys. " But I 
 take it each man has his own line, and perhaps 
 yours is to be a looker-on and not a chief actor in 
 the world. When your writings come up for men- 
 tion I always say that what stamps Holly Ruff's work 
 is its being alive with what we call actualite" 
 
 " A man who has anything to do with journal- 
 ism can't afford to be what the French call 'a 
 slayer of dead dogs, ' " Ruff replied modestly. " I 
 do try to keep along with current events, even, if 
 possible, to know what is going to happen." 
 
 " The art of life ! that is what makes a leader 
 everywhere," said Norreys. He had taken a chair 
 opposite Ruff, and the two men, each in exactly the 
 same attitude, looked at each other. No two 
 could be in more absolute contrast. Ruff was 
 slender, pale, and, all in black and white, every 
 line clearly cut, gave the impression of an etch- 
 ing. Norreys was large, loosely made, inclined to
 
 CIPHERS. 47 
 
 corpulency, his coloring florid, his eyes wrinkled 
 at the corners ; still his whole figure and mien 
 carried a suggestion of conscious good looks. " I 
 always say to my tailor," he went on, " that I 
 wish to wear not what is, but what is going to be, 
 the fashion. However, catching the thistle-down 
 in air is a feminine trait. I flatter myself that my 
 taste and judgment are correct, usually I might 
 say infallible, yet I have made mistakes. But a 
 clever woman never makes a mistake. She can 
 seize the bead of the first bubble of the champagne, 
 the glint of the coming rainbow. There are here 
 in New York certain women with whom one dines, 
 or whom one goes to see on their reception days, 
 whose gown or table or arrangement of courses 
 shows some eccentricity, which at first blush seems 
 a droll fad, but presently it is discovered that 
 what we had taken as a freak of fancy is the 
 new fashion among the smart set in Vienna, St. 
 Petersburg, or London." 
 
 "That shows no special force of originality," 
 Ruff observed, always ready to bristle with nega- 
 tions. 
 
 " Who wants originality ? " said Norreys. 
 " What we want is thorough good form." 
 
 " Still somebody, sometime, must have possessed 
 originality." 
 
 " I don't feel certain of that," insisted Nor- 
 reys. " Society and all social forms are a 
 gradual accretion. There is, of course, a certain 
 er er magnetic force at the centre, as it
 
 48 CIPHERS. 
 
 were. Everything revolves around this in its own 
 orbit, and what is essential and permanent ad- 
 heres." He illustrated his interesting scientific 
 hypothesis with appropriate gestures. Then, 
 pleased with this exhibition of his cleverness, he 
 proceeded. u No, Ruff, I always feel that any 
 attempt at originality is dangerous. If innova- 
 tion begins, where will it end ? No, no woman of 
 undoubted position can afford to run any risk of 
 being original. She must use her taste and her 
 intellect in elaborating and perfecting the ideas 
 bequeathed to her by those who in their day have 
 held their position unquestioned and unassailed. 
 There is always plenty of room for development. 
 By the way, Ruff," here Norreys leaned forward 
 and, sinking his voice, spoke with peculiar empha- 
 sis, "I believe you are an old acquaintance of 
 Mrs. Lee Childe. Candidly, what do you think of 
 her ? " 
 
 Ruff, as was his near-sighted habit, had taken 
 off his eyeglasses and was examining them with 
 microscopic attention, breathing upon them as a 
 prelude to scouring them with his fresh pocket- 
 handkerchief. " What do you think of her, 
 Norreys ? " he replied, beginning to rub painfully. 
 " That is more to the point. You settle such 
 questions." 
 
 Still leaning forward, Norreys nodded and shook 
 his forefinger. " Too much wit, too much wit," 
 he said impressively. 
 
 "It has sometimes occurred to me," observed
 
 CIPHERS. 49 
 
 Ruff, without desisting from his occupation, " that 
 she cultivates too assiduously the art of being 
 misunderstood by dull people." 
 
 " Exactly," murmured Norreys, with admiration. 
 " You have said it. Verbum sat." 
 
 At the same instant he put his finger to his lip 
 and rose. Ruff, still fumbling at his eyeglasses 
 to bestow a final polish, followed his example, but 
 the pause was most unlucky. The whole party 
 had entered simultaneously, Mr. Childe and his 
 daughter-in-law, Mrs. Fletcher, Mrs. Ferris, Miss 
 Hurst and Sidney Breck. Ruff, blind as a bat 
 without his eyeglasses, was about to put them 
 on when, by an awkward fatality, he contrived to 
 drop them. It was second nature to a born mas- 
 ter of ceremonies like Whiley Norreys to throw 
 himself into the breach, when Ruff lost his own 
 opportunity. He darted forward, made a low 
 salaam, as if overcome with delight, then recov- 
 ered himself and addressed particular greetings to 
 each lady in the exact order of precedence, lead- 
 ing them in turn up to Ruff, whose mishap had 
 brought on an inopportune fit of shyness and 
 driven every idea out of his head. 
 
 Perhaps what hindered his recovery of self- 
 possession after Sidney Breck had obligingly 
 picked up and restored his eyeglasses was that 
 Mrs. Lee ChilJe startled him. Something in her 
 dress, her face, her manner, struck him as quite 
 out of the usual. Was it her wide-brimmed gray 
 hat trimmed with plumes, or the fluffy gray boa
 
 50 CIPHERS. 
 
 which she wore over her close-fitting gray gown that 
 invested her with this shimmer of silver radiance? 
 or was it that he was dazzled by her evident high 
 spirits? He had sometimes said of her that she 
 had a hundred faces and a hundred manners, each 
 more charming than the other, and certainly 
 something in her aspect to-day, hitherto unseen, 
 took him at his word. She addressed him with 
 unhesitating friendliness, telling him that she and 
 Miss Hurst had been walking together in the Park, 
 and that the beauty of the day had made them lin- 
 ger until almost the very hour he had named for 
 their arrival here ; that in order not to be belated 
 they had had the carriage take them to the nearest 
 station of the " elevated." The journey down town 
 had been delightful. Hereafter, Milly declared, she 
 intended spending her entire day in making trips 
 from one end of the island to the other. He had 
 never seen her in such bubbling high spirits. Pie 
 knew not how to account for the impression she 
 left on him. It was one of his many clever sayings 
 about the fair sex that no man could be quite cer- 
 tain where the gown ended and the woman began ; 
 and now the problem perplexed and baffled him. 
 As if his years of intimate habit counted for 
 naught, as if she were a great lady whom he met 
 for the first time, he bowed, said he was most 
 happy, most happy, he was sure, smiled in- 
 anely, declared it was not late, in fact, said and 
 looked and did exactly what an hour before he 
 would have sworn he could by no possibility have 
 said or looked or done.
 
 CIPHERS. 51 
 
 The experience which paralyzed Ruff made 
 Norreys master of the occasion. Indeed, each 
 member of the party, if we except Breck, gen- 
 erally glad to hold his tongue and use his eyes and 
 ears, eagerly helped to fill any gap by express- 
 ing admiration for the rooms, the appointments, 
 the decorations, the flowers, each individual silver 
 bauble on the gueridon, the screen, the tea-caddy, 
 even the cups and saucers. 
 
 " Yes," Norreys magnanimously announced, " I 
 was telling Ruff that he has the knack of succeed- 
 ing in all he undertakes." 
 
 All added unstinted praise. The host smiled, 
 but it was not the smile of a happy man. Without 
 any cut-and-dried arrangement he had laid out a 
 sort of programme for the entertainment of his 
 guests. His exquisite etchings were even more 
 rare than beautiful. He had some very clever 
 sketches by great masters. He especially piqued 
 himself on his books, being the owner of unique 
 copies with bindings which touch the soul of the 
 connoisseur. He could besides draw aside a silken 
 curtain from a shelf of shabby volumes whose 
 title-pages and fly-leaves were scrawled over with 
 signatures which made the blood of collectors burn 
 with emulation. Nothing in his rooms was every- 
 day or commonplace. The hall-marks on his silver 
 rendered each piece a positively priceless posses- 
 sion, and his samovar had its only duplicate in the 
 winter palace of a Russian grand duke. These 
 appurtenances, trivial it is true, yet still suggesting
 
 52 CIPHERS. 
 
 the acme of civilization, were to have given him 
 the requisite cue, and he was to have talked to the 
 ladies in his very best vein, as only a clever man 
 can talk who is at home in his subject. He had, 
 however, counted without his guests. It might 
 not be easy to tell what occasion Whiley Norreys 
 did not consider his own ; now, at least, he believed 
 thoroughly that Providence, watching over Holly 
 Ruff, who, like some other gifted people, wrote 
 like an angel and talked (in the presence of ladies 
 at least) like Poor Poll, had conducted him, 
 Whiley Norreys, hither. He assumed all the pre- 
 rogatives of a host; he established everybody to 
 his liking ; he instructed Miss Hurst how to heat 
 the samovar and to make the tea, the knowledge 
 of which occult process he evidently considered 
 his own by special revelation. In fact, Holly 
 Ruff and Breck stood apart like interlopers ; Ruff 
 tremulous with suppressed irritation, while Breck 
 was glad to be a looker-on. He had blushed and 
 dropped his eyes on meeting Mrs. Childe, and had 
 not ventured to encounter her glance. He hated 
 to remember that he had given way to a romantic, 
 impractical impulse. Then, besides, if he had 
 been recognized he mi^ht have seemed intrusive, 
 
 O O ' 
 
 absurd, maudlin. The days of troubadours were 
 past, and certainly he had in general no desire to 
 play the role. Thus he and Ruff stood looking at 
 and listening to the group, each member of which 
 seemed to have a thousand things to say exactly 
 apropos and not once lacking in precision of ex-
 
 CIPHERS. 53 
 
 pression. Breck was eagerly interested and was 
 ready to admire what everybody uttered and did. 
 Ruff was not so happy; he was more conscious of 
 himself ; it galled him to reflect that he was show- 
 ing himself ineffective, and that, too, before the 
 woman he wished to impress with the fact of his 
 superior effectiveness. He had yearned to lift the 
 burden of inanity with which she was weighted, to 
 fuse her dull, inert, wealthy existence with the fire 
 and sparkle of his own wit and intellect. 
 
 " Mr. Ruff seems to me to lead the most envia- 
 ble existence," Miss Hurst remai-ked. " Do you 
 often give afternoon teas, Mr. Ruff ? " 
 
 " Do you suppose he has time, to say nothing of 
 inclination ? " interposed Milly. " He has his life, 
 that is to say, his career, to deal with, to divide it 
 between work, recreation, sleep, duty, pleasure, and 
 the rest of it." 
 
 Ruff bowed, and tried to look like a man who 
 suppresses more of feeling than he shows or utters. 
 
 " The scheme of things is all in favor of men," 
 pursued Milly. 
 
 " A man has something to do," said Miss Hurst. 
 
 " A woman used to think she had," remarked 
 Mrs. Fletcher. 
 
 " Yes, to make every man her slave and every 
 woman her friend," said Mr. Childe gallantly. 
 
 " What an existence ! " observed Milly. " One 
 would have more joy over one downright remorse- 
 less enemy than over the ninety and nine who 
 fawned upon one."
 
 54 CIPHERS. 
 
 " As if Mrs. Lee Childe could have an enemy," 
 said Whiley Norreys. "Mr. Childe has defined 
 her, every man her slave, every woman her 
 friend." 
 
 " It is quite superfluous to tell her such things," 
 said Miss Hurst. " She has everything her own 
 way. I used to have lovers and friends ; nowadays 
 I am their confidant and they talk by the hour 
 about Mrs. Lee Childe. Some people consider 
 that her manner is rather distant at times, but 
 with that sort of a finished woman one can't always 
 tell from a woman's manner just what she means, 
 you know. They realize that, and also that a 
 woman has sometimes to be a coquette in self-de- 
 fense. They forgive her everything." 
 
 " You are absurd, Georgy," said Milly, laugh- 
 ing. " I hate it." 
 
 "To have every man at your feet? I assure 
 you it is a great deal worse to have no man at your 
 feet. I hope you are taking notes, Mr. Ruff," she 
 continued, addressing her host, " and that we shall 
 see all our good things in the morning papers." 
 
 " I have not the honor of being a reporter," he 
 retorted. " I ought to have remembered that peo- 
 ple are used to having their doings chronicled, and 
 have posted a stenographer behind the screen." 
 
 " Mr. Ruff's art is more subtle," observed Milly. 
 " He listens and observes, then shows up our follies 
 in an epigram. However, society never knows 
 when it is laughed at." 
 
 "Why should one wish to laugh at society?" 
 asked Mrs. Ferris.
 
 CIPHERS. 55 
 
 " Unless society could be laughed at," returned 
 Milly, " I really do not see what it was intended 
 for." 
 
 " Now, Mrs. Childe," said Norreys, " don't you 
 think that in a spirit of wit or of paradox you 
 occasionally take a tone about society which is a 
 trifle unfair ? " 
 
 " Unfair ? If one does not go into society to 
 get a little amusement out of the absurdities of 
 the chief actors, what should one go for ? " Milly 
 retorted. " It is true that this ideal entertainment 
 sometimes fails. Often when I am assisting at the 
 most expensive affairs, the thought comes over me 
 that there is actually no flame to justify the can- 
 dle. However, one has to go on smiling and re- 
 sponding with fervor to everybody's conversation. 
 It does seem a pity that from the very nature of 
 things there can be no ideas in society. As soon 
 as anybody has ideas, like Mr. Ruff, for example, 
 he has something valuable to do with them, and so 
 gives up society." 
 
 " Of course, of course," said Norreys smoothly. 
 " Ruff is a clever man, possessing versatile know- 
 ledge, wit, all that. But yet literary people 
 have always shown a secret hankering after the 
 society of fashionable people." 
 
 " The thing is, Norreys," Ruff managed to find 
 opportunity to say, " we have ideas, ideas, alas, 
 some of them ! which it needs a hatful of money 
 to carry out. Now you have the hatful of money, 
 so we run after you, hoping that you will carry out 
 our ideas."
 
 56 CIPHERS. 
 
 " I don't say that I am a great original thinker," 
 said Norreys with his large bland gesture, " nor do 
 I claim that many people in our set are great ori- 
 ginal thinkers, but I will assert this, that every 
 scribbler in New York has his e}'e on us and 
 makes a paragraph upon our least movement." 
 
 " And did you ever see such impudence as they 
 put in the papers ? " said Mr. Childe. " This very 
 morning I found this in the ' Republic.' ' He 
 fumbled in his pocket for a scrap of paper, drew it 
 out, and with a lively air of indignation read from 
 it: "'The young and lovely Mrs. Childe, heiress 
 of the Pardee millions and widow of Lee Childe, 
 formerly one of the best-known men about town, 
 has emerged from her two years of mourning, and 
 promises to be a bright particular star in the so- 
 cial firmament this winter.' " 
 
 " I did not expect to hide my light under a 
 bushel," said Milly. " I myself never read those 
 paragraphs, but if that is the worst they find to 
 tell of me I can endure it." 
 
 " But to say you are only a two years' widow 
 when everybody knows poor Lee died about five 
 years ago," said Mrs. Fletcher, "it is cruelly 
 unjust." 
 
 " I am grateful for their moderation. They 
 might have said two months." 
 
 " Here is another," said Mr. Childe testily. " I 
 cut them out and paste them in a book. I con- 
 sider them one of the signs of the times, danger 
 signals that show what this generation is coming
 
 CIPHERS. 57 
 
 to." Again he raised his eyeglasses, and read in 
 his soft, drawling voice, " ' Mrs. Lee Childe, who, 
 although the richest woman in New York, is only 
 twenty-five years old, is a fearless rider. Not unfre- 
 quently the early morning bird in Central Park ' ' 
 
 "As if I were a worm," murmured Milly. 
 
 " ' Sings pseans at the sight of the fair eques- 
 trian, faultlessly arrayed in a gray habit. She sits 
 her black horse squarely and well, shoulders well 
 back in the English fashion. Occasionally she is 
 accompanied by her venerable father-in-law, Ru- 
 therford Childe, who is one of the last surviving 
 relics of a generation whose manners had the old- 
 fashioned court stamp of another century when 
 social distinction was not founded on the posses- 
 sion of vulgar dollars.' ' Mr. Childe dropped his 
 glasses and gazed first at one, then at another of 
 the group. " How old do you suppose they think 
 I am ? " he asked plaintively. " By that allusion 
 to the last century, do you suppose they mean to 
 give the idea I was born in seventeen hundred 
 something ? " 
 
 "They make the most nonsensical mistakes," 
 said Norreys soothingly. " If I were to tell you all 
 the absurdities they have concocted about me you 
 would wonder how I contrive to survive it. But 
 let us remember that the eyes of the world are 
 upon us. Noblesse oblige. The important thing 
 is to give them something worth telling. I am 
 ready to confess, Ruff, that it needed just this 
 lynx-eyed criticism, this free observation, this bold,
 
 58 CIPHERS. 
 
 intrusive daylight let into every crack and cranny 
 of our daily lives, to make New York see its faults. 
 New York has developed. I am no chicken, and I 
 knew New York when it was comparatively crude, 
 and I can assure you all that New York has im- 
 proved and is improving all the time. And I am 
 willing to attribute it in part to the fact that, no 
 matter what paper we take up nowadays, we see 
 ourselves, as it were, in a mirror." 
 
 " D d impudence ! that is what I call it," said 
 Mr. Childe. " And as to New York having im- 
 proved, I would rather have one side of Washing- 
 ton Square as it was when I was a boy than to 
 have all Murray Hill put together." 
 
 " The glamour of youth, the light of other days," 
 said Whiley Norreys. " Now I am a disinterested 
 judge. I see things with an unprejudiced eye, and 
 when I look back I must concede the fact that 
 formerly there was nothing rounded, finished, sym- 
 metrical, about New York society. Of course a few 
 old families and a few rich families lived in a hand- 
 some way. But twenty-five years ago it was im- 
 possible for a fastidious man to accept invitations 
 freely without encountering some painful shocks. 
 No standard existed, one might say. I shall never 
 forget one experience after my return from Eu- 
 rope, where I had lived for two years on terms of 
 intimacy with people who really understood the art 
 of savoir faire and savoir vivre. Alas, it seemed 
 for a while as if that season had been my Capua, 
 and had quite unfitted me for the rigors of Ameri-
 
 CIPHERS. 59 
 
 can existence. Naturally my return was the signal 
 for hospitalities among the Norreys and Whiley con- 
 nection, a respectable connection, I think I may 
 venture to say. But I suffered, I assure you I 
 suffered. I shall never forget dining with my 
 aunt, Mrs. Vandervoort, on Washington Square, a 
 contemporary of your own, my dear Mr. Childe." 
 
 " Ten years older, at least, at least, ten years 
 older," said Mr. Childe. 
 
 " Just so, of course, but excellent people of the 
 solid sort ; no end of money which had been theirs 
 for generations ; the same English butler they had 
 set out with, forty years before ; a capital cellar with 
 the choicest Madeira I ever tasted. The dinner 
 was given on what Americans call Thanksgiving 
 Day. We had oysters, soup, fish, and then roast 
 turkey, a magnificent bird brought to the table 
 and set before my uncle, who was an expert carver. 
 I greeted the ever familiar sight after my Euro- 
 pean experience, for roast turkey is, I may say, a 
 distinctively American dish like canvas-back and 
 terrapin. I had not eaten what I called roast tur- 
 key during my absence. To advance : my uncle 
 sent me generous slices of the white meat, also a 
 second joint, and I looked round for the giblet 
 gravy. The butler was dispensing the champagne, 
 and one of his assistants brought me mashed po- 
 tato, while another offered cauliflower. Now, as 
 it happens, cauliflower is my favorite vegetable. 
 It is indeed more than a vegetable, it is a dish. 
 Thus, there was something almost painful in having
 
 60 CIPHERS. 
 
 it offered as a mere auxiliary to turkey and mashed 
 potato, with neither of which has it either that nat- 
 ural conjunction or that piquant opposition which 
 results iu the happy harmony, or the marriage of 
 contraries, which is the soul of good eating. Still, 
 as I before remarked, I like cauliflower ; so, against 
 my better judgment, I yielded and helped myself 
 to some. No sooner had I bestowed half the room 
 left on my plate on the cauliflower, hoping for the 
 speedy advent of the melted butter to eat it with, 
 than peas appeared at my elbow. I have a weak- 
 ness for French peas, and as there was still an inch 
 of bare space I appropriated it for those delicate 
 petits poisfins. The butler by this time had made 
 his rounds with the champagne, and now shoved 
 cranberry before me with one hand, while with the 
 other he offered giblet gravy, not as an alternative, 
 but as an adjunct, for one eats both cranberry 
 sauce and giblet gravy with turkey. But how was 
 one to achieve it ? Where was I to find room for 
 either ? However, glancing at my fellow-guests, 
 I discovered that each man or woman's plate was 
 heaped to the height of six inches, and saying to 
 myself, ' What others dare I will venture,' I pro- 
 ceeded to pile cranberry sauce on top of my tur- 
 key, which was indeed the only possible haven for 
 it, then I deluged my mashed potato with gravy. 
 At tb.3 same instant the gods, taking their own 
 time as usual, answered my prayer for melted but- 
 ter, and I accordingly ladled out the melted butter 
 and inundated my cauliflower. Imagine, Mrs.
 
 CIPHERS. 61 
 
 Childe, the olla-podrida on a plate at the utmost 
 ten inches in diameter. Within this thirty inches 
 of margin were turkey, potato, cranberry, cauli- 
 flower, peas, gravy, and melted butter ! Every- 
 thing- seemed to have changed places ; turkey was 
 submerged in a puree made of peas and melted 
 butter : the potato was flavored with cranberry, 
 the cauliflower with giblet, while the peas were 
 mixed up with the oysters used in the turkey stuff- 
 ing. Everything, in short, tasted of what it should 
 not/' 
 
 " Just fancy," said Mrs. Ferris. 
 
 " What did you do ? " inquired Milly. 
 
 " What a man of the world does under all cir- 
 cumstances when he can, I ate my dinner. I 
 took what came uppermost." 
 
 " What splendid self-denial ! What high cour- 
 age ! " said Milly. " Did it disagree with you ? " 
 
 " The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the 
 church," said Norreys. " Having eaten that din- 
 ner I recognized my mission. It was to preach a 
 crusade, to teach my countrymen how to dine. 
 ' Here,' I said, ' is a good dinner spoiled in the 
 serving. These unnatural combinations, these soul- 
 curdling amalgamations, shock every finer instinct. 
 Give every dish its chance. How is a man to find 
 his intellect, his wit, his sentiment, while probing 
 his mess for turkey and bringing up something 
 which tastes like any tiling except its individual 
 self?'" 
 
 " Exactly," said Mrs. Childe, springing up. " In
 
 62 CIPHERS. 
 
 fact, I wish never to dine again. I feel like a 
 stuffed goose after your moving description. Oh, 
 Mr. Breck, I have been thinking- to myself there 
 must be a view from that window ; will you show 
 it to me ? " 
 
 As she spoke she moved forward, and Breck 
 joined her. Any disappointment experienced by 
 Mr. Norreys at this desertion was successfully cov- 
 ered by his knowledge of what to do under all cir- 
 cumstances, and he went on illustrating his hy- 
 pothesis, that the most fastidious of men might 
 nowadays accept invitations freely in New York 
 with an utter absence of shock. 
 
 Meanwhile, Milly Childe and Breck stood gazing 
 wistfully seaward in silence. Then turning to him 
 she said softly, 
 
 " It was you. At the time it did not occur to 
 me. It was simply a beautiful voice out of the 
 night. I had come in from the opera, and the 
 moonlight had made me restless, it often does. 
 I told Wilkins I wanted to sit at the window for 
 half an hour and look out. The trees in the 
 square moved to and fro. Do you remember Haz- 
 litt's ' Wave on, wave on, ye woods of Tuderley, 
 and lift your high tops in the air ' ? It had the 
 same charm for me. It seemed to me there must 
 be a murmur. I pushed up the sash. Two min- 
 utes later " She paused and looked at him. 
 His face expressed comic entreaty. " I will not 
 talk about it if you object," she added. 
 
 " It gave me a fit of self-disgust," said Breck.
 
 CIPHERS. 63 
 
 " I generally try to preserve my balance. Please 
 forget it. How do yon like the view ? " 
 
 Her eyes rested on his face for a moment more, 
 and she smiled ; then she turned and looked at the 
 curving lines of sea and shore. " If I were to settle 
 down in New York," she remarked, " I should like 
 to buy land close to the Battery, tear down what I 
 did not like in my surroundings, and then build me 
 a house." 
 
 " Let me draw the plans for you," suggested 
 Breck. 
 
 " Are you an architect ? " 
 
 " Yes," he returned mischievously. " This build- 
 ing was my design. I heard you say as you came 
 up in the lift, that it was the ugliest edifice you 
 had ever seen." 
 
 " Really an architect by profession ? " said Milly 
 incredulously. 
 
 " May I ask why I should not be an architect ? " 
 
 " You look so young." 
 
 " I am twenty-eight." 
 
 She flushed slightly with a purely feminine con- 
 sciousness that she had treated him with a sort of 
 easy familiarity. 
 
 " You do not look so old," she said. " I myself 
 am twenty-seven. A very agreeable age, twenty- 
 seven and twenty-eight, don't you think so ? " 
 
 " A perfect age for a woman. A man of twenty- 
 seven or twenty-eight is devoured by a fever to be 
 doing something, a need to get what he wants 
 out of the world. In twenty years I expect to be
 
 64 CIPHEBS. 
 
 happier than I ever am now, because by that time 
 I shall either have accomplished something, or 
 have been hopelessly beaten." 
 
 She gazed at him with a smile which warmed 
 and tranquilized. She was half amused that lie 
 should be talking of accomplishment when he 
 looked to her no more than twenty, a mere boy, 
 so fresh, so bright, so modest, that slie was inclined 
 to tell him that she liked him. She wanted to say 
 that with such a delightful tenor voice he ought to 
 be a singer, but her intuitions were subtle, and she 
 said no more about the song she had heard. 
 
 " You have what they call a tete d* artiste" she 
 observed. " I think an architect ought to be called 
 an artist. I am often ready to say that the only 
 two great arts are architecture and music." 
 
 " I understand you," he said. " But I took up 
 architecture at sixteen, then at the age of seven- 
 teen decided that it was not enough, that I must 
 be a painter. For five years I gave my whole 
 heart and soul to that art." 
 
 " And then ? " said Milly eagerly, with a dozen 
 questions in her eyes and almost on her lips. Mr. 
 Norreys came up at the moment with a cup of tea 
 in his hand, and began a disquisition on tea in gen- 
 eral and this in particular. The party all followed 
 him, considering the respective merits of lemon, 
 sugar, and cream as the accompaniment of tea. 
 Everybody broke in by asking what point it was 
 whose shores rose in a purple line against the 
 flame of the sunset; then Mrs. Ferris remembered
 
 CIPHERS. 65 
 
 that she had an engagement and .must be at home 
 in time to dress for it, and the whole party hurried 
 away. 
 
 When Ruff had made his last bow from the 
 curbstone, after overseeing Norreys put Mrs. Childe 
 in the carriage, he turned to Sidney Breck, and 
 said, " Come back to my room," with an energy of 
 tone and a fierceness of expression which showed 
 that forces were at work within him requiring in- 
 stant outlet. 
 
 The party had not gone off in a way to please 
 the giver of it, and to lay its failure to Whiley 
 Norreys lightened somewhat the burden which op- 
 pressed Ruff's soul. He summed up his opinion 
 of Norreys with succinctness. He trampled on 
 him, ground him to atoms. Then, as it were, pick- 
 ing up the fragments that were left, he recon- 
 structed that unfortunate individual, analyzing his 
 component parts, testing each ingredient with 
 a biting irony. Next, advancing into the wider 
 field of metaphor, he illustrated his idea by mak- 
 ing Whiley Norreys appear the exponent, the in- 
 terpreter of fashionable society against which he 
 declaimed with impassioned rapidity of invective ; 
 an insignificant fraction of the world with more 
 dogmatism than the Puritans who resolved, 
 " First, that the kingdom of heaven belongs to the 
 saints ; secondly, that we are its saints," a clique 
 which arrogates superiority to itself, and on what 
 grounds? Simply because with affectation, igno- 
 rance, and indolence it washes its hands of what
 
 66 CIPHERS. 
 
 freshens and invigorates, and by denying a fact 
 supposes that it altogether puts it out of existence. 
 What that class of people call cleverness, Ruff 
 went on to say, a man of brains and sense calls 
 absurdity, and refrains from ; they wear blinkers, 
 and thus seeing only that small lighted circle they 
 are traversing, they consider that outside is dark- 
 ness and gnashing of teeth ; and so they keep on 
 their paltry course, piquing themselves on the vir- 
 tue of never wetting or dusting the soles of their 
 high-heeled shoes, and altogether maintaining a 
 meagre and idea-less existence based upon a rooted 
 disregard for the rights and feelings of human 
 nature at large. 
 
 " Oh, come, come, Ruff, let them live," said 
 Breck finally. "After all, they are our fellow- 
 creatures." 
 
 " Did you hear him talk about every scribbler 
 in New York?" pursued Ruff hotly. "Do you 
 suppose he meant me ? " 
 
 " Certainly, you are but one of them." 
 
 " And I had flattered the bloated beast by allud- 
 ing to him as having a hatful of money ! He has 
 no money but a beggarly annuity, windbag that he 
 is." 
 
 " Of course," said Breck soothingly, " anybody 
 wishes Mr. Norreys were drowned in his own 
 gravy, but all the same he entertained me. So 
 much dexterity in turning a situation to account, 
 such supple rapidity of mind in making something 
 out of nothing, and such flexible vivacity of tongue,
 
 CIPHERS. 67 
 
 must be so useful. Just consider, if everybody 
 had been struck dumb as you and I were." 
 
 " I had plenty to say," retorted Ruff in a tone 
 expressive of injury. " I am not so much at a 
 loss as you seem to think. Only I have a reputa- 
 tion to maintain, and cannot bring myself to the 
 point of talking down to that level. How Mrs. 
 Lee Childe can permit herself so to be stifled by 
 commonplaces, how By the way, Sid," he 
 turned sharply to the youngster, " what was she 
 saying to you, over by the window ? " 
 
 " Oh," said Breck, " let me see, what was it ? " 
 He was a candid fellow, yet had his reserves, and 
 did not long to have the lens of Ruff's magnifying 
 glasses turned upon certain little out-of-the-way 
 corners of his consciousness. " She was saying 
 she should like to build a house near the Battery. 
 I told her I should like to design it for her," he 
 added. 
 
 " A mere caprice, I dare say, like other caprices," 
 said Ruff. " Don't flatter yourself that she is 
 likely to think twice of such a project. It is a pity, 
 an intolerable pity, that a woman of such charm, 
 such actual strength of mind, should fritter herself 
 away upon Heavens and earth ! " he exclaimed, 
 with all the solemnity he could infuse into the 
 invocation. 
 
 However, an idea had seized him, and he was al- 
 ready at his desk, economically jotting down the 
 results of his keen emotions. There is a high in- 
 sight born of disappointment and despair, it is
 
 68 CIPHERS. 
 
 worth while to gather the bloom even of our rage. 
 It had happened before that what Ruff had felt 
 and said at a high heat had been, a little later, 
 presented to the reading public with a vivacity of 
 epigram and pointed phrase which left nothing to 
 be desired. For 
 
 " Tasks in hours of insight will'd 
 Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd," 

 
 IV. 
 
 "WHY not?" Milly Childe had said to herself 
 that day half a dozen times. " Why not ? I am 
 twenty-seven years old, a married woman of nine 
 years' standing, and a widow of four and a half ; I 
 ought to know what I might and might not do 
 with propriety. Why not ? " 
 
 She could not help thinking of Sidney Breck. 
 The little adventure of the song which she had 
 heard by the merest chance for he had directed 
 it towards Mr. Rutherford Childe's windows 
 charmed her. Perhaps, when next day she sud- 
 denly recognized the singer in Breck^ she might, if 
 he had been surer of himself, have experienced 
 disillusion. She had learned to distrust votaries 
 of opportunity, and was only too ready to protect 
 herself from possible intrusion. But this young 
 fellow's shamefacedness in meeting her, the leap 
 of color to his face and of light to the eyes he 
 withdrew from hers, before he met her glance, won 
 her friendliness. " What a charming boy ! " she 
 said to herself. 
 
 However, it turned out that he was twenty-eight 
 years old, her senior, an architect and apparently 
 a successful man. He had begun by being a 
 painter, and he sang delightfully. Certainly, he 
 seemed to have been well endowed by nature, and
 
 70 CIPHERS. 
 
 there was a simplicity, a directness in him, a way 
 of doing what he set about without any effort, that 
 easily persuaded her he might do anything he at- 
 tempted. He interested her, that she was ready 
 to confess ; and so few people actually interested 
 her that she found her curiosity to know more of 
 Breck a satisfactory explanation to this new mood 
 of fervor, almost recklessness, this willingness to 
 take the initiative. She had hoped he would come 
 to see her of his own accord, but he had not come. 
 She thought of sending him an invitation to dinner, 
 and looked in the directory for his address. By 
 an odd coincidence his place of business had the 
 same street and number as that of her lawyer, Mr. 
 Joshua Venn. It was after making this discovery 
 that she said to herself, "Why not?" 
 
 It had never been Mrs. Childe's habit to go to 
 see Mr. Venn. When she required his services 
 she sent him a note or a dispatch by wire, and he 
 at once dropped all other business and set out to 
 call upon her. But ten days after Holly Ruff's 
 " tea," just as Mr. Joshua Venn was bowing out 
 a visitor, he was startled by the apparition of his 
 favorite client, standing apparently lost in thought 
 or bewildered by her strange surroundings on top 
 of the landing, reading the names on the doors 
 which opened into the main corridor. 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Childe," said Mr. Venn, advan- 
 cing towards her, " can I flatter myself you are 
 coming to see me ? " 
 
 As it chanced, she was studying the sign of
 
 CIPHERS. 71 
 
 "Champion and Breck, architects," but she at once 
 transferred her full attention to the solicitor, held 
 out her hand, and said, 
 
 " Of course I was coming to see you. There 
 are twenty things I wish to consult you about. 
 Are you at liberty ? " 
 
 Not to have been at liberty to devote his best 
 powers to Mrs. Lee Childe would have been to 
 defeat his dearest ambitions. He was a neat, 
 carefully dressed man, always wearing gray tweeds 
 which heightened the pallid effect of his colorless 
 face and closely trimmed white beard and hair. If 
 lie could ever have been said to glow it was at this 
 moment, as he led the way to his private room, 
 placed his visitor in a chair with the light on her 
 face, and waited with every faculty alert to find 
 out what this sudden urgent business might be. 
 Although he was the least imaginative of men, his 
 mind with far-reaching speculation had instantly 
 fastened on the idea that she was thinking of a 
 second marriage. 
 
 Milly, being a woman, also had her intuitions, 
 and foreseeing that a lynx-eyed lawyer would trace 
 the least of her actions back to some adequate 
 course, she had come laden with a memorandum 
 book full of accounts which she declared puzzled 
 her. She wished him also to look into the practi- 
 cal workings of a charity which she had endowed 
 three years before, to which she was now urged to 
 make further contributions. She described to 
 him the importunities of worthy people who be-
 
 72 CIPHERS. 
 
 sieged her, waylaid her, and extorted money almost 
 by force. Letters, notes, and messages she knew 
 how to manage. She had, she told Mr. Venn, en- 
 gaged a secretary with whom she spent two hours 
 every other morning, dictating answers which were 
 taken down in shorthand and then amplified and 
 printed by a type-writer. 
 
 " Heaven knows," she said, " I am well enough 
 aware that I deserve little, and that many of my 
 fellow-mortals deserve much. I should like to 
 feel that I had helped some human being to a 
 better chance for living well. But these begging 
 letters ! They confide the most intimate histories, 
 and explain how the timely present of fifty or a 
 hundred, even five dollars can raise an impover- 
 ished existence to felicity. One person wants it to 
 pay a troublesome debt ; another actually needs a 
 new gown ; while ever so many long for a trip to 
 Europe." 
 
 " Refuse them all, my dear madam refuse 
 them all," said Mr. Venn. " They are all impos- 
 tors, every one." 
 
 " But then it is so hard not to be an impostor," 
 said Milly. " Don't you ever feel like an impos- 
 tor yourself, Mr. Venn ? " 
 
 " Good God, no, my dear Mrs. Childe. What 
 could put such an idea into your head ? " 
 
 " It very often comes into my head that I am 
 an impostor," said Milly. " I have so little 
 chance to be actual and real, to do what I wish 
 and to say what I think and feel." She paused 
 and laughed. " I see I surprise you, Mr. Venn."
 
 CIPHERS. 73 
 
 " You are the most fortunate woman on the 
 face of the earth," said Mr. Venn with conviction. 
 " You can do, be, say, and feel whatever you in- 
 cline to. If your life is not a verity it must be 
 your own fault." 
 
 " That is what I say to myself," said Milly, 
 " that I must be a poor creature if I cannot find 
 some real pleasures, and appoint myself some real 
 duties, in the world. You see I am not a strong- 
 minded woman. As a child my mother governed 
 me absolutely. Then I married when a mere un- 
 formed girl, and I was so anxious to please my 
 husband and his family that I bent myself double 
 to conform to every request made of me. It has 
 all shaped me. I may have individual impulses, 
 but I am timid. I still feel as if I had no right 
 to decide for myself, as if somebody must criticise 
 or laugh at me You see I make you my father 
 confessor " 
 
 She put out her hand to the lawyer, who took 
 it awkwardly, looking at her with a wooden coun- 
 tenance, keeping his gaze fixed on her with an air 
 of expectation as if certain that some particular 
 confidence was to follow this introduction. 
 
 "Well? "he said finally. 
 
 " Well, what ? " she returned, laughing and 
 drawing back her hand. 
 
 " Now tell me what you actually want of me," 
 said he. " This is mere preamble." 
 
 " Oh, you are so deep," said Milly, still laugh- 
 ing.
 
 74 CIPHERS. 
 
 " But there is something else." 
 
 "Nothing in the world except that it had oc- 
 curred to me that I might build something, and 
 thus fasten on some interest in life." 
 
 " Build something ! " 
 
 " Well, renovate, make over, what you will. I 
 think I should like to have a new country house, 
 after some pretty modern fashion " 
 
 " Oh ! " 
 
 " People live so artistically nowadays," said 
 Milly, " I don't see why I should not have a cot- 
 tage all gables and bay windows and chimneys and 
 oriels. It occurred to me it might be amusing to 
 consult an architect about making over one of my 
 houses according to the new ideas." 
 
 " I suppose you own a hundred houses." 
 
 " I mean one of those I live in. For example, 
 something might be done to the house in the Berk- 
 shire Hills, or would it be better to build a new 
 one?" 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Childe, the idea ! " 
 
 " Am I not sufficiently well off ? " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders and screwed up his 
 lips. 
 
 " I suppose the money might be found." 
 
 " But why are you adverse to the idea ? " 
 
 " I am not adverse, except that on general prin- 
 ciples when you have not a good reason for doing 
 a certain thing you have a good reason for not 
 doing it." 
 
 " Why not put it the other way, that when one
 
 CIPHERS. 75 
 
 has not a good reason for not doing a thing, one 
 has a good reason for doing it ? " 
 
 " Ah, you belong to a sex which delights in 
 paradox, Airs. Childe. I belong to a sex which 
 prefers explicit facts." 
 
 " Then I may as well announce to you as an 
 explicit fact that I am going to have my Berkshire 
 house changed into a Queen Anne." 
 
 He looked at her quizzically, rubbed his fore- 
 head, then tapped it reflectively with his forefinger. 
 
 " She has got an idea in her head," he mut- 
 tered. 
 
 " Of course I have got an idea in my head," 
 said Milly. " Other women live in a perfect 
 whirlwind of devices and caprices. Every day is 
 full of events. The smallest incident of their ex- 
 istence is expanded into its fullest measure. I am 
 so dull in comparison. I read too much, I brood 
 too much. I think of a thing I want to do until 
 I see through it and beyond it and realize its no- 
 thingness. I want to begin and do things without 
 thought, to say ' Unto the day, the day ' " 
 
 " Hum, hum ! " said Mr. Venn, raising his fore- 
 finger and shaking it. " Had you thought, my 
 dear Mrs. Childe, of any particular architect to 
 whom you would commit your house ? " 
 
 She burst into a fit of laughter. 
 
 " You see through me," she said. " I throw 
 myself on your mercy." 
 
 " Is it Mr. Champion or is it Mr. Breck ? " he 
 inquired, smiling grimly, his head a little on one 
 side.
 
 76 CIPHERS. 
 
 " What sort of a man is Mr. Champion ? " 
 
 " Oh, middle-aged, fifty at least, faithful but 
 not brilliant. His partner is said to have all the 
 originality in the firm." 
 
 " What sort of a man is Mr. Breck ? " 
 
 " I know nothing against the young man, no- 
 thing." 
 
 " Anything to his good ? " 
 
 " Hitherto he has not existed to me except as a 
 good-looking boy whom I meet occasionally on the 
 stairs." 
 
 "Mr. Venn!" 
 
 " Mrs. Childe." 
 
 The two looked at each other then. He had 
 never quite taken the measure of his client, whom 
 he considered inscrutable, but now her trust in him 
 was so naive his sympathy was stirred. She wore 
 the gray dress she had on at Holly Ruff's rooms, 
 but to-day a small bonnet had replaced the broad- 
 brimmed hat. She was certainly the prettiest 
 woman he had ever seen. Although he had a 
 wife and four daughters he felt half jealous of the 
 boyish-looking architect. 
 
 "Could there be any harm in my calling on 
 Mr. Breck and requesting him to make me some 
 plans ? " she now inquired. 
 
 " Harm ? Not the least in the world. I take 
 it you are acquainted with the young man." 
 
 " I have met him," said Milly ; " in fact, he 
 interests me, and I should like to help him. I 
 wanted to be sure there was no harm in it."
 
 CIPHERS. 77 
 
 " Harm ? Very charitable, most laudable ; not 
 but that Champion & Breck have plenty of busi- 
 ness." 
 
 " Would you, perhaps, go with me to see him, 
 Mr. Venn?" 
 
 Mr. Venn would have liked nothing better, but 
 he was the soul of discretion, and he believed his 
 client would prefer to go alone. 
 
 " If you required my services," he said, " I should 
 be most happy to accompany you ; as it is, you do 
 not need me. It is simply the most natural thing 
 in the world for you, on your way out, to knock 
 at Mr. Breck's door, and stop for a moment to 
 consult him." 
 
 "You see nothing out of the way in my 
 going ? " 
 
 " Nothing out of the way whatever." 
 
 She rose at once, drawing the fluffy boa closer 
 to her throat, looking so youthful and so pretty he 
 had a feeling that he was, perhaps, permitting 
 an indiscretion. It might after all do harm, it 
 might put ideas into the young fellow's head. 
 He wished he had not committed himself to this 
 course. He meant never to decide anything with- 
 out due reflection, and, alas, now that he had 
 reassured her as to the propriety of her mission 
 she seemed in frantic haste. She shook hands 
 with him, laughed, and murmured something 
 about his goodness to her. He stiffened with a 
 sort of displeasure as he let her out, escorted her 
 for three steps, then with a cool " I bid you good-
 
 78 CIPHERS. 
 
 day, Mrs. Childe," turned on his heel, went back, 
 and closed the door. He stood in the centre of 
 the room, reflecting that a lawyer's responsibilities 
 are heavy ; that just as his observation and insight 
 are finer than those of other men, so he ought 
 more carefully never to 
 
 A knock sounded on the panel. 
 
 " Come in," he said gruffly, expecting a clerk, 
 and thinking of the fair apparition probably at 
 this moment dawning upon Breck in his atelier. 
 
 The door opened, and there stood Mrs. Childe, 
 her eyes brighter than ever and her cheeks more 
 rosy. 
 
 " He was not in ? " ejaculated Mr. Venn. 
 
 "I don't know," she said under her breath. 
 She entered and shut the door. "My courage 
 failed me," she explained. "I kept saying to 
 myself that I was twenty-seven years old, a mar- 
 ried woman, and that Mr. Venn had assured me it 
 was absolutely proper ; but, nevertheless, just as I 
 lifted my hand to knock, I turned and precipi- 
 tately fled." 
 
 "Shall I accompany you?" inquired Mr. Venn. 
 
 " Perhaps you will kindly ask Mr. Breck to call 
 upon me at my own house," said Milly. 
 
 Mr. Venn escorted his client to her carriage. 
 
 " It is deeper than I supposed," he said to him- 
 self as she drove away ; " I must inquire into that 
 young man's antecedents. I wonder who knows 
 him." 
 
 Milly, on her way up-town, had ample time to
 
 CIPHERS. 79 
 
 think over her senseless panic. Holly Ruff had 
 told Sidney Breck there were a dozen women in 
 her. She clearly recognized in herself two identi- 
 ties, one, Emily Briggs, and the other, Milly 
 Childe. The first, the actual woman, timid, 
 shrinking, passionate and enthusiastic ; the other, 
 the woman she aimed to be, forever on guard, 
 with a humorous, satiric, almost disdainful convic- 
 tion of the littleness of the world and the funda- 
 mental nothingness of social ambitions and social 
 forms. She declared to herself that she had no 
 compunctions ; she had been brow-beaten, laughed 
 at, ignored, and made uncomfortable by shrewish, 
 rude, and pushing women when she first entered 
 the world as Mrs. Lee Childe ; she had felt her- 
 self to be ignominiously beaten, and when, finally, 
 she gained the requisite inspiration and energy, 
 she had decided to have her turn. " With a great 
 sum obtained I this freedom," she sometimes said 
 to herself, quoting St. Paul with a difference, 
 remembering her early disappointments, renunci- 
 ations, despairs. One day she had clung to her 
 husband with passionate entreaties that she might 
 no longer be dragged into the society she shrank 
 from, believing in her own hopeless insignificance. 
 Lee Childe had stroked her hair, with a half- 
 pitying laugh. "Why, Milly," said he, "you 
 have as much intellect, as much good looks, and 
 certainly you have more money than the most 
 impudent of the women who you say frighten 
 you out of your senses. Beat them at their own 
 game."
 
 80 CIPHERS. 
 
 The germ of the change in her had dated from 
 that hour. The young and ardent mind gathered 
 its forces. She was eager to improve, and she 
 developed, finding infinite invitation beckon her 
 from the charming world from which she had 
 hitherto felt herself shut out. She accepted cer- 
 tain axioms of her husband's as definitions of her 
 own shortcomings. She must learn never to show 
 agitation; never to permit anything to excite or 
 over-hurry her. She must distinguish herself 
 from others; must create a distinctive style and 
 adhere to it, yet must never seem to stand 
 alone or apart; must rule a coterie, yet never 
 seem to insist on being the first ; must be comply- 
 ing, yet actually must concede nothing; must 
 study everything, penetrate everywhere, keep her- 
 self in touch with all that moves, yet must not be 
 too anxious to communicate her ideas of things to 
 others, must be more eager to accept with swift 
 and unerring intuition what others communicate. 
 Since there is no such unerring test of culture and 
 character as what is found amusing or ridiculous, 
 it is best generally to be serious. 
 
 " No man would talk much in society if he re- 
 membered how infernally it bored him to listen to 
 other men," was another aphorism of Lee Childe's. 
 
 But when Milly had in a measure attained 
 the knowledge she sought she was amazed to find 
 it a barren vantage-ground. As soon as she could 
 hold her own against the encroachments of her 
 supposed enemies, she laughed to see how little
 
 CIPHEES. 81 
 
 formidable they actually were. She had been 
 studying nights and days to be the equal of those 
 brilliant, world-wide, subtle men and women, 
 who, she now perceived, lived chiefly by catch words 
 and hearsays, always in hopes that all new ideas 
 outside of routine would " blow over " so that they 
 need not be troubled with painful conundrums. 
 If Milly was driven into an attitude of skepticism 
 and disdain of society, it was by the necessity of 
 expressing her faith in something better than she 
 had so far found. The closer the horizons came 
 which had once seemed so remote, the more she 
 grew in what is called knowledge of the world, the 
 better she recognized restrictions and limitations 
 which she longed to leap over into nature and 
 freedom. But how was she to escape from the 
 circle in which she constantly retraced her own 
 steps ? 
 
 She was in this mood, disenchanted, dissatisfied, 
 wrestling with herself and her environment to find 
 out the word of her enigma, when she met Sidney 
 Breck. The incident of the serenade had touched 
 sensibilities long dormant. His few words on the 
 following day had deepened the impression. What 
 she longed for was to meet him without constraint ; 
 to hear him talk, to find the clue to his personality. 
 Little as he had so far said, she realized that he 
 was ready to give her the real outcome of his 
 thoughts. He seemed to her fresh, bright, and 
 unspoiled. Her husband's characteristic tendency 
 bad been never to give her his real thoughts.
 
 82 CIPHEES. 
 
 Taciturn, irritable, skeptical, incredulous, he had 
 met all experiences with a shrug, his impressions of 
 the outside world warped and colored by his self- 
 limited observation. 
 
 What wonder was it that in her rebound from 
 the long cramp of hopeless pessimism Milly should 
 have wished to know some one like Breck, who was 
 the soul of candor and found every experience in 
 life full of interest ? She was, however, far from 
 acknowledging the significance of her interest in 
 him, and argued, with all the casuistries of which 
 a clever woman's heart and head are capable, that 
 she was merely acting out the role she had im- 
 posed upon herself, and seizing upon anything 
 which seemed pleasant and to her own advantage. 
 Selfish as this sounded, her impulse, she declared, 
 was to do something for the young man's financial 
 advantage. She would give him her country 
 house to tear to pieces and build anew as he 
 chose. She congratulated herself that nobody 
 except Mr. Joshua Venn suspected her girlish fluc- 
 tuations of feeling, her going forward and back, 
 and blushing over the simple matter of calling in 
 an architect. Mr. Venn did not count, as he knew 
 all her indiscretions, and might sum up this along 
 with the mistakes in her accounts and her bad 
 management in her charities. 
 
 She had not, however, been unobserved either 
 time she stood before the door of Champion & 
 Breck. Such apparitions in a shimmer of silver 
 gray did not often wander irresolutely up and
 
 CIPHEES. 83 
 
 down the corridors of that centre of driving busi- 
 ness. Thus Sidney Breck had heard that the rich 
 widow had twice stood at his door, apparently ready 
 to knock and ask for admittance, before Mr. Venn 
 dropped in at the architects' office and dryly in- 
 formed the junior partner that Mrs. Lee Childe, of 
 Stuyvesant Square, wished to consult him about 
 remodeling her house among the Berkshire hills. 
 The lawyer looked round the place, which was 
 hung with plans, etchings, photographs, and a 
 painting representing the Ducal Palace in Venice. 
 Half-a-dozen men were at work at different desks 
 and tables, of whom Sidney Breck was the busiest. 
 
 " Shall I go to-morrow ? " he inquired with a 
 startled air. 
 
 " No time was specified," said Mr. Venn. 
 
 " Please tell me exactly when to go," said Breck, 
 so humbly that the lawyer was impressed by the 
 guilelessness of the lamb destined for the sac- 
 rifice. 
 
 It was two mornings later that the architect 
 was ushered into the Childe house and found 
 Milly sitting in the library with her father-in-law. 
 
 " Oh, thank you for coming," she said, rising, 
 and giving him her hand. " Papa, you remember 
 Mr. Breck? Mr. Venn and I are discussing the 
 propriety of making some improvements in my 
 Berkshire house." 
 
 " I know what that means," said Mr. Childe, 
 
 " that you will go to expense and spoil a fine 
 
 old-fashioned mansion."
 
 84 CIPHERS. 
 
 " Exactly ; one cannot make one's self over, 
 one is so dreadfully restricted when one's identity 
 is concerned, bat one may tear down and rebuild a 
 house. Besides, one likes to have something dis- 
 tinctive. Now my house in Berkshire is neither 
 mediaeval nor early English, nor Elizabethan nor 
 Gothic nor Queen Anne." 
 
 " Thank Heaven I shall not have to live in it, nor 
 even to pay the bills," said Mr. Childe ; indeed, 
 paying bills had always been one of the social 
 annoyances he had shirked. " If you want to con- 
 sult me I shall be in the next room," and gathering 
 up the morning papers he left the library. 
 
 The young widow and the young architect stood 
 side by side on the hearth-rug ; both were smiling, 
 and for a moment neither had anything to say ; 
 then Milly began : 
 
 "I have laughed to remember how Mr. Ruff's 
 party was spoiled for him. He is clever, literary, 
 exclusive ; why did he invite fashionable people ? 
 Did he fume and rage after we were gone ? " 
 
 " He said some very good things," replied Breck ; 
 " indeed, he filled his note-book and has been in 
 a bland humor ever since." 
 
 " I should like to see that note-book. Still, it 
 might throw my sympathies on the side of Mr. 
 Norreys." 
 
 " Mine are there already. I have a great respect 
 for such an expert in the art of living." 
 
 "You are more good-natured than I am," said 
 Milly. " I feel like sending him across Africa or
 
 CIPHERS. 85 
 
 on an Arctic voyage. I like etiquette very well in 
 its place " 
 
 " I have always wished one might formulate its 
 rules as one does the laws of whist, in order to 
 understand how to lead and how to follow, and 
 above all how to finesse," said Breck. 
 
 "When conventionalities are made too much 
 of," pursued Milly, " I belong to the opposition and 
 long to go on all fours. Still, I admit, some rules 
 of politeness are graceful. I have not yet asked 
 you to sit down." 
 
 She dropped into a seat by the table and he took 
 a chair opposite. 
 
 " I might say," she went on, " that I learned 
 etiquette much as I learned whist. My own mother 
 feared above all things that I might grow to love 
 the things of this world too dearly, and if she gave 
 me a rule of behavior she gave also its antidote by 
 showing me that forms were of no consequence, 
 that the heart and spirit alone must be kept aright. 
 It was after my marriage that I found out the con- 
 venience of a definite knowledge of forms, and as a 
 rule I stick to forms ; yet I never have the comfort 
 of feeling that forms will save me." 
 
 He was looking at her so intently that she 
 paused, expecting him to speak ; after waiting a 
 moment, she proceeded : " Sometimes, it is true, 
 I say to myself, ' I cannot please everybody and 
 myself into the bargain, so I will please my- 
 self.' " 
 
 " One's self is such a formidable person to please,"
 
 86 CIPHERS. 
 
 said Breck, " one soon gives it up and accepts al- 
 most any tyrant in its place." 
 
 "Do not discourage me," said Milly, "for now 
 I want to please myself. I want to make over my 
 house." 
 
 " That is a most laudable ambition. I must go 
 and look at the house in Berkshire county." 
 
 " An impossible journey at this time of the year, 
 with two feet of snow on the ground. I will sketch 
 the house for you. Have you a pencil ? " 
 
 There was a litter of cards and notes of invita- 
 tion on the table, and she took up a large square 
 of pasteboard and began to draw on the blank side, 
 talking all the time, telling him of a winter she 
 had once passed at the place when the roads were 
 blocked with snow and she was for a fortnight 
 almost completely cut off from the outside world. 
 " There it is," she said, giving him the sketch. 
 " It was built for a summer residence, and is all 
 balconies and windows. There is an effect of large- 
 ness and light about it which I rather enjoy." 
 
 He was struck by the cleverness of the drawing, 
 which was executed with vigorous telling strokes 
 and the precision of a practiced draughtsman. 
 The house as it was pleased him so well that he 
 was reluctant to suggest any alteration which 
 might improve it. While he was studying the 
 sketch she said eagerly : 
 
 . " I was interested in what you told me about 
 having set out to be a painter. You evidently 
 loved your art ; I have wondered why you gave it 
 up?"
 
 CIPHERS. 87 
 
 " I was obliged to make an income," said Breck. 
 
 " But surely your pictures would soon have given 
 you a living." 
 
 " I was young, I could not wait to conquer 
 my public," said Breck. " It was like this," he 
 looked her fairly in the face and smiled : " I have 
 a sister older than myself. There are just the two 
 of us. Our father died when I was ten, my mother 
 six years later. When I was seventeen my sister 
 married and soon afterwards I went to Paris. I 
 was twenty-two when her husband died suddenly 
 during a commercial crisis in which he had lost 
 everything, not only his money but hers. She had 
 three children." 
 
 " Ah, I see," said Milly with a quick sigh. 
 " You went to work to support her and her chil- 
 dren." 
 
 " I came home at once. Of course I had to set 
 to work. I had had just enough to keep myself 
 during those five years in Paris, but it was not 
 enough for all of us. I was ready to undertake 
 anything that offered. As it happened, I had 
 already studied a year in a Boston architect's 
 office. I now went to Mr. Champion, who is a dis- 
 tant cousin of ours, and asked him if he had any 
 opening for me. He told me that plans were being 
 offered for the new Phoenix Building, and that 
 here was a chance to show what I could do. So I 
 competed. The judges accepted my design, and 
 Mr. Champion offered me a partnership. So there 
 I have been for six years."
 
 88 CIPHERS. 
 
 " Tell me about your sister. Does she live in 
 New York?" 
 
 " She was married last year to a man in San 
 Francisco." 
 
 "You made all that sacrifice for her, yet she 
 married and left you ? " 
 
 " I was very glad to have her marry. She was 
 only thirty, and her present husband is a fine fel- 
 low with large means, and not only adores her but 
 her three children." 
 
 " You are not married ? " Milly asked suddenly. 
 
 " Oh, no, I have never thought of marrying," 
 said Breck, reddening to his ears. " I have a 
 room just round the corner from here. While my 
 sister was with me we had a little house miles up- 
 town. Naturally I was lonely when she went 
 away. I especially missed her two youngest chil- 
 dren, who were very fond of me." 
 
 " You speak as if all this were nothing particu- 
 lar," said Milly, with an eloquent face, " and yet 
 you resigned a career which might have given you 
 a great success." 
 
 " Perhaps it seems to you sordid in me to give 
 up my art for a livelihood," said Breck ; " but you 
 cannot think exactly how a man feels when he has 
 a family dependent on him, and he has to turn 
 swiftly towards any horizon seeking for some path 
 which leads not to fortune, but to a bare living. 
 Of course it hurt me, that is, it would have hurt 
 me if I had stopped to think about it. But I did 
 not stop. I was never in all my life so happy as
 
 CIPHERS. 89 
 
 when my design was accepted. I was so happy 
 that I could not sleep. For three nights I could 
 not sleep. You see I was so anxious about poor 
 Alice, : her baby was only six months old. A 
 man's personal prepossessions, tastes, cravings, do 
 not count for much in such crises." 
 
 She did not answer except that lips, eyes, and the 
 flush on her cheeks had a significance of their own. 
 
 " I look at pictures with a thought of my un- 
 painted ones," said Breck. " Sometimes I see one 
 that reminds me of some sketch of my own. But 
 after all, I might never have had any distinction 
 as a painter. Some of my work was a good deal 
 praised, and I obtained several medals ; but nobody 
 knows exactly what is in an artist until he has 
 passed a certain point. It is fairly astonishing 
 how many fellows seem at first to have greatness 
 in them. But some mental limitation comes in 
 and hinders development." 
 
 He paused again, and their eyes met. 
 
 " I am grateful to architecture," he went on. " I 
 have never been disinterested. I made up my 
 mind to put my head to it and work with all my 
 might, and I have done so. No great opportunity 
 has come in rny way, but they may come. In fact, 
 we have some fair chances ; we have been design- 
 ing some Newport cottages." 
 
 "Whose?" 
 
 " The Poorshaws' and Mrs. Geddes'." 
 
 " Oh, indeed, I am so glad. That is a good 
 chance, I atn sure."
 
 90 CIPHERS. 
 
 Breck laughed. " Of course what I want to do 
 is to build a Gothic cathedral," he said. " But I 
 am not likely ever to have one of the opportunities 
 which set the spirit free. I have to clip ' my ima- 
 gination and accept thankfully Queen Anne cot- 
 tages, or whatever comes in my way." 
 
 " Could you not begin again now to be a 
 painter ? " 
 
 " No, I shall not go forward and back. Indeed, 
 I have gradually taught myself to believe that it 
 is best as it is. At any rate, I have escaped dis- 
 enchantment and failure. There is a time when 
 every young fellow considers himself a genius, but 
 bit by bit, with relentless clearness, fate tells the 
 truth. Many men allow themselves to be deceived 
 by the little talent they possess, which often is just 
 enough to obscure the actual facts and make it 
 seem worth while to go on. I rejoice that I am 
 not one of those self-deceivers." 
 
 " All this shows some resolution on your part." 
 
 " I have got plenty of resolution and plenty of 
 energy. A man can hardly fail to have whose 
 duty is put before him as mine was put before me. 
 Besides, I have a bent towards architecture, and I 
 achieved a certain degree of success at once," said 
 Breck. " It is working with an insufficient talent, 
 out of dilettanteism or in some false direction, 
 which robs a man of his native strength. An in- 
 sufficient talent is the cruelest of gifts." 
 
 He had talked eagerly, as if he longed to make 
 a full confession, but at this moment some realiza-
 
 CIPHERS. 91 
 
 tion of the fact that he had simply been sum- 
 moned on professional business by a rich woman 
 who needed his services plucked at his mind 
 with a clear reminder that he was making himself 
 absurd. 
 
 " Forgive me," said he, with sudden shyness. 
 " I cannot think what made me forget myself ; 
 I never talked like this before." 
 
 Milly stretched out her warm white hand, and 
 put it on his. " I forgive you," she said. " No- 
 body ever talked to me like this before." 
 
 Breck looked at the hand, which was withdrawn 
 as swiftly as it came. 
 
 "That is because you have known no poor 
 man," he said. 
 
 " I am not sure," said Milly, " whether I pity 
 you, or whether I consider you singularly fortu- 
 nate. It is cruel that a beautiful talent should 
 be crushed without scruple; but, on the other 
 hand" 
 
 "On the other hand," said Breck, laughing, 
 " you respect honest poverty." 
 
 " I should like to give you a cathedral to build," 
 said Milly. 
 
 "Safer to give me a gable," said Breck. As 
 he spoke he took up the sketch she had made, 
 studied it for a moment, and asked if he might 
 take it away with him. The day after the morrow 
 he was to call again, make some suggestions, and 
 receive hers.
 
 V. 
 
 IT would have been inconsistent with Holly 
 Ruff's aptitude for timely work if he had always 
 been a laggard in love, and thus he decided soon 
 after his afternoon tea that the time had come for 
 him to strike his blow. The gay season would 
 shortly open, and once in the whirl Mrs. Lee 
 Childe was sure to be so occupied, surrounded, 
 monopolized, she would have no leisure to think 
 consecutively nor to act on her best judgment. 
 Perhaps Ruff's recent experience had taught him 
 that even an insignificant rival may hamper the 
 cleverest man's free play. Indeed, a conven- 
 tional being of Whiley Norreys's sort, Ruff was 
 now ready to confess, has it in his power to extin- 
 guish better men, just as a fog may put out elec- 
 tric lights. Norreys carried weight in society and 
 always held his own, partly because he came from 
 a family who for generations had sat down solidly 
 and maintained their superiority to the rest of the 
 world, and partly because, with an inordinate 
 vanity and activity, he was always ready to secure 
 every advantage that any occasion offered. He 
 was by this time well past forty-five, yet his years 
 had robbed him of nothing, had but given him a 
 complete knowledge of how to get what he wanted 
 out of life. Impossible to forget him or to slight
 
 CIPHERS. 93 
 
 him, for he was everywhere pliant, assiduous, de- 
 voted, always offering attentions to which nobody 
 could be callous. And if, according to his detract- 
 ors, he had never had an original idea, it must be 
 confessed that he knew very well how to present 
 ready-made phrases which pass current among 
 well-bred people, and he often had the grace to 
 say the timely thing, while cleverer men went too 
 far in search of an illustration and wiser men 
 could not collect their fugitive wits. 
 
 Thus ran his rival's meditations, for ever since 
 that occasion when Whiley Norreys carried off the 
 honors, Holly Ruff could not get the man out of 
 his head. Day by day, as Ruff reflected that Mrs. 
 Childe was probably attending dinners, receptions, 
 and the opera, and that Whiley Norreys, fault- 
 lessly dressed, was always on hand and always 
 pressing forward with something to say, he suf- 
 fered. And Whiley Norreys was not the only one 
 who danced attendance upon the young widow: 
 there were Paul Secor and Archy Laing, to say 
 nothing of Geddes Poorshaw, all three of whom 
 belonged to the Childe or Lee connections, and had 
 the run of the house. Then, looking further afield 
 for dangers, the newspapers were heralding the 
 fact that all feminine New York was in a flutter 
 over the expected arrival of Lord Pompelli and the 
 Hon. Wilfrid Crashaw. They had been bear- 
 hunting in Dakota, but were now on their way- 
 east, intending to spend the season in New York. 
 
 Thus, it behooved any man, who was in a posi-
 
 94 CIPHERS. 
 
 tion to speak, to speak and at once. Holly deter- 
 mined to put an end to his uncertainty, for in 
 spite of his logical claims upon Mrs. Lee Childe 
 he did not pretend to absolute certainty. 
 
 " Offering one's self to a woman is like tossing 
 one's self up, and not knowing whether one will 
 come down heads or tails," he wrote in his note- 
 book in these days. 
 
 Sunday was Mrs. Childe's day ; Mrs. Fletcher 
 and Georgy Hurst invariably came in after morn- 
 ing service, spent the afternoon, and partook of 
 the foui'-o'clock dinner, which was the old-fashioned 
 habit of the house. They were the nucleus of a 
 family party which sometimes drew a long tail 
 after it, and included the whole connection. 
 
 One Sunday, just past the middle of December, 
 Holly Ruff entered at three o'clock, and found 
 Mrs. Fletcher sitting before the fire with Mr. 
 Childe, while Georgy Hurst was ensconced on a 
 sofa opposite, engaged in entertaining three or four 
 of the cousins. It was explained to Ruff that 
 Mrs. Lee Childe was in the conservatory, show- 
 ing some new orchids to Mrs. Crooke Poorshaw. 
 Accordingly, with an air of established habit, he 
 sat down and took up a book. Although he 
 turned the pages, and once or twice made a note, 
 his thoughts were busy on his own personal affairs, 
 and he also had an ear for the scraps of conver- 
 sation which from either hand floated to his ears. 
 
 Mr. Childe was discoursing on his favorite topic, 
 the New York of his infancy, a very superior 
 city to modem New York.
 
 CIPHERS. 95 
 
 " I remember," he said, " when an ice-cream 
 man used to go about ringing a bell. He used to 
 come up Broadway and down Bleecker, and then 
 into Washington Square, and very convenient it 
 was." 
 
 " Just fancy," said Mrs. Fletcher. 
 
 "There was a simplicity, a dignity about life 
 in those days, a right up-and-down solidity of 
 comfort." 
 
 "But, cousin Rutherford," Mrs. Fletcher ven- 
 tured, " it does seem to me that we are actually 
 more comfortable nowadays. Just take the mat- 
 ter of lights. I remember when we considered it 
 a horrible extravagance to burn more than two 
 candles except on company nights." 
 
 " It gave people a chance to talk. There were 
 not so many books to read then, and we could 
 compare ideas, in fact, become really acquainted 
 with each other." 
 
 " Then we were so cold," Mrs. Fletcher contin- 
 ued. " It makes me shiver to think of it. I re- 
 member sitting waiting for people to come to a 
 ball with my arms all goose-pimples." 
 
 " Nowadays the rooms are so hot I never have 
 an appetite. To go to any place of amusement is 
 to endure the experience of Shadrach, Meschach, 
 and Abednego. As to attending church, it is out 
 of the question. I prefer to sleep at home." 
 
 " I remember my mother's telling me once when 
 I asked her how she used to dress as a girl," re- 
 marked Mrs. Fletcher, " that she could only recall
 
 96 CIPHERS. 
 
 one circumstance. They lived on Bowling Green, 
 and on Sundays always walked to Old Trinity. 
 She remembered clearly how once on her way 
 home, when she had her future husband in attend- 
 ance, there was deep snow melting, she constantly 
 wet her feet in little pools of water, and, also, that 
 she had on a white embroidered frock, white silk 
 stockings, and low slippers cross-gartered." 
 
 " I remember your mother very well," said Mr. 
 Childe gallantly. " She was always charming, 
 whether she went cross-gartered or otherwise." 
 
 " But they had no rubber overshoes in those 
 days ; in fact, had only fine-weather clothes. Half 
 the people died of consumption." 
 
 " Capital plan, left room in the world for 
 healthy people. Nowadays everything is given 
 over to invalids." 
 
 " I remember mamma's saying once late in life," 
 Mrs. Fletcher now observed, " that in her day peo- 
 ple used to stay at home in bad weather, so that 
 one had a chance to write up one's letters, make 
 up one's accounts, and read one's Bible ; but that 
 nowadays, what with umbrellas, waterproofs, mack- 
 intoshes, and rubbers, one was never left in peace." 
 
 " Exactly ! There is no peace left for anybody 
 in the world," said Mr. Childe with a sigh. 
 
 " They are so clever nowadays," Mrs. Fletcher 
 pursued. " That is the chief fault I find with the 
 new generation, so many new ideas." 
 
 " My dear Agnes, there are no new ideas, and 
 people are not clever," said Mr. Childe, " When
 
 CIPHERS. 97 
 
 I was a boy they had found out that the earth 
 went round the sun, and in spite of all the talk 
 that goes on I have never been able to see that 
 they had actually discovered anything else." 
 
 " But the telegraph, the telephone " 
 
 " Much better off without them." 
 
 " But think of not having foreign news until it 
 is two weeks old " 
 
 " It would be an immense blessing. Think of 
 the stuff they send by cable, that Mr. William 
 O'Brien is lying abed because he will not put on 
 the regulation prison breeches. I don't care in 
 the least whether he goes sans culotte or not." 
 
 " I should like to think," said Mrs. Fletcher 
 plaintively, " that some of the new ideas were not 
 worth having. I get so tired of being dragged 
 about to lectures and readings and all the rest of 
 it. One of my granddaughters knows what un- 
 differentiated protoplasm means." 
 
 " She may as well comfort herself with that 
 knowledge. She will never get married. A 
 woman who compels a man to gauge his own igno- 
 rance goes too deep." 
 
 " I remarked to Mary that Madame Recamier 
 knew nothing about such things, and that she knew 
 enough for me." 
 
 " You and she knew how to charm every man 
 who came near you, and that is enough for a rea- 
 sonable woman's ambition." 
 
 At this point Miss Hurst's voice took Ruff's ear. 
 
 " Of course he wants to marry Milly Childe.
 
 98 CIPHERS. 
 
 Who does not ? She could have the pick of all 
 of you." 
 
 " Don't make us out so mercenary," said Geddes 
 Poorshaw. 
 
 " Oh, I did not allude to you bloated million- 
 aires. There is such a thing as honest poverty." 
 
 " Yes, I have seen it, know it intimately," 
 said Archy Laing. " If honest poverty could en- 
 dear me to cousin Milly, I would willingly turn 
 my pockets inside out for her inspection." 
 
 Mrs. Fletcher's voice again struck in. 
 
 " I never saw two people so absolutely suited to 
 each other, or who were evidently so clearly in- 
 tended to be man and wife." 
 
 " Then why on earth," demanded Georgy Hurst, 
 *' do they not get married, aunt Agnes ? " 
 
 " Because her husband, contrary being that he 
 was, chose to live ; only died ten years ago." 
 
 " But why did they not marry after his death ? " 
 
 " Because she was dead herself," Mr. Childe ex- 
 plained impressively. " She must have died ten 
 years before he did." 
 
 " They are always talking about dead people," 
 Miss Hurst remarked confidentially to her own 
 group. " I suppose that when I get to be a hun- 
 dred I shall spend my time in telling what charm- 
 ing people you all were." 
 
 " Oh, yes," Mr. Childe was now saying, " my 
 wife was a handsome woman. I should n't have 
 married her else." 
 
 " All the Lees were handsome. But she was far 
 more than that."
 
 CIPHERS. 99 
 
 " Indeed she was," Mr. Childe granted with 
 feeling, " a woman of inexhaustible energy." 
 
 " A wonderful woman, I always say that " 
 
 " But impossible to live with," said Mr. Childe 
 with peculiar significance. " I am the most domes- 
 tic man in the world, but However, you under- 
 stood the situation. I will say this about Milly, 
 she is a really agreeable person to have opposite 
 one at table." 
 
 At this moment Milly herself emerged from the 
 conservatory with Mrs. Crooke Poorshaw, Mrs. 
 Geddes, and Paul Se*cor. It was a veritable gath- 
 ering of the clan, Holly Ruff said to himself. He 
 sat down by Mrs. Crooke Poorshaw, a rather 
 pretty and very exquisitely dressed woman, with an 
 ambition to attach clever men to her following. 
 She stayed to dinner, and Holly Ruff not only had 
 the pleasure of sitting by her, but he was on Mrs. 
 Childe's left. He was in a position to shine, and 
 he shone. There were sixteen people at table, and 
 they all listened gratefully to his discourse through- 
 out the meal. 
 
 " Must I go away ? " he asked Mrs. Lee Childe, 
 when, within an hour after they had risen from 
 table, one member of the party after another had 
 dropped out of the circle. 
 
 " Do stay," said Milly, " and I will make you a 
 cup of strong tea." 
 
 Presently Mrs. Fletcher carried off Mr. Childe 
 to her own Sunday tea-table, and Milly was left 
 alone with her suitor. She had accompanied the
 
 100 CIPHERS. 
 
 last guests to the door, and now reentering the 
 parlors walked the length of the three ^great rooms 
 towards Buff, who was standing on the hearth-rug 
 before the fire watching her, his mien as ever criti- 
 cal and alert. How well she moved, he thought 
 to himself ; there was a distinct charm about her 
 rapid advance. She was smiling, and he was cer- 
 tain that smile promised him happiness. 
 
 " There are happy moments in life. People go 
 away," she said as she drew nearer. " Nothing 
 exhausts me like a family party. While I am 
 talking about all sorts of things for which I care 
 nothing, listening to everybody's solemn confi- 
 dences, being asked questions I know not how to 
 answer, and would not answer if I could, I say to 
 myself, 
 
 " ' If I be I, as I do hope I be,' " 
 
 " ' I 've got a little dog at home, and he knows me,' " 
 
 said Ruff on the instant. " Let me flatter myself, 
 Mrs. Childe, that I am that little dog." 
 
 " You are easily flattered," said Milly ; " and if 
 I remember aright the little dog in the song turned 
 out a traitor. In fact, only my glass knows me, 
 the real Emily Briggs." 
 
 " I am an old friend, Mrs. Childe," Ruff ob- 
 served. She had seated herself on a sofa at the 
 right of the fireplace, and he drew a chair close to 
 her side. " I am rather proud of saying," he went 
 on, sinking into it luxuriously, " that I am the oldest 
 friend Mrs. Lee Childe has in New York." 
 
 " Thank you," said Milly. " I do seem to have
 
 CIPHERS. 101 
 
 known you for a long time, and your fidelity has 
 been sometimes tried, perhaps. When I have 
 said ' Come ' you have come, and when " 
 
 " You have never yet said to me ' Go,' " put in 
 Ruff entreatingly. 
 
 "No, I was about to add that when I have 
 piped to you you have danced, but not as well 
 as you did for Mrs. Crooke Poorshaw. How well 
 you talked all through the long dull dinner ! How 
 many good things you said ! It seemed almost 
 a pity to give up to a Sunday family dinner what 
 was meant for mankind. But we appreciated 
 you, at least after our fashion. At any rate we 
 are not ungrateful.'' 
 
 " If you listened " - 
 
 " Mrs. Crooke Poorshaw listened, which is more 
 to the purpose. She was your inspirer." 
 
 " Mrs. Crooke Poorshaw is a pretty and an ele- 
 gant woman in her way," said Ruff fastidiously. 
 " But when I meet such people I say to myself : 
 * This is called society ; these are acknowledged 
 first people ; these are, so to speak, the arbiters 
 of'" 
 
 " Thank you for abusing my nearest connec- 
 tions," murmured Milly. " It saves me no end of 
 trouble. Go on." 
 
 " But " 
 
 " I assure you my withers are un wrung. They 
 deserve the most you can say of them. I grant 
 that. Still, they l>elong to the human race, you 
 must admit too that they are very much like other 
 people."
 
 102 CIPHERS. 
 
 There was an almost reprehensible air of raillery 
 about Milly. However, Wilkins, the butler, was 
 standing in the doorway waiting for orders, and 
 Ruff decided that she was only trying to cover an 
 awkward moment. He had not thought of pos- 
 sible eavesdroppers. She ordered tea, and the low 
 table was placed before her ; then the table was 
 covered with a cloth, and the service was slowly 
 laid out. Meanwhile, Mrs. Childe turned to Ruff, 
 and said with some eagerness, 
 
 " Tell me, please, about your friend Mr. Breck. 
 Who is he ? " 
 
 " A bright young fellow. He came from Bos- 
 ton, originally, but is making his way here. He 
 has done some very good work, and his friends ex- 
 pect better work from him. His bent is strongly 
 artistic, he is brim full of originality, and he is be- 
 sides very thorough." 
 
 " But about himself. He has a charming face. 
 He looks clever and he also looks good." 
 
 " He has worked too hard to have any time for 
 self-indulgence. He has eked out his income by 
 writing. He does art notices and reviews of art 
 books for the ' Renaissance.' I have given him 
 some work from my own overflow. He is clever, 
 probably has no actual genius, but has a beauti- 
 fully flexible mind, pliant to every impression and 
 with a gift of expression. He is apt to overwork. 
 We were in the Adirondacks last summer. Never 
 was there such weather. We had to exercise all 
 our ingenuity to avoid being drowned out. That
 
 CIPHERS. 103 
 
 is, Sidney Breck used all his ingenuity, for he and 
 our guide carried us through. The rest of us were 
 a set of helpless complaining loafers. The most 
 wonderful thing about Sidney is his capacity for 
 work ; the next is his sweet temper. He accom- 
 plished more than all the rest of us, including the 
 guide, yet never grumbled, never confessed that 
 he was tired, or took the worst experience amiss." 
 Nobody could outdo Ruff in magnanimity where 
 his friends were concerned. Still one owes some- 
 thing to one's self, and he now proceeded to describe 
 a Norwegian experience in which he himself had 
 displayed shining traits while encountering gen- 
 uine hardships. Strange to say, Mrs. Childe, 
 whose face had been lighted by a wonderful soft 
 brilliance while the Adirondacks were the theme, 
 now seemed abstracted. That is, her expression, a 
 half-smiling one, remained unchanged, while he 
 was in the midst of a thrilling account of salmon 
 hauling, when he was dragged into deep water and 
 so weighted down by his heavy boots that he was 
 almost drowned before he could be extricated. 
 Certainly, there was nothing in such a predica- 
 ment to smile over even in retrospect. He had 
 expected a gasp of sympathy, some pallor. How- 
 ever, when a woman is making tea it is impos- 
 sible to tell whether she is or is not attending 
 to a man. Nettled by her indifference, Ruff 
 said within himself that his next society paper 
 should be on " Works of Supererogation." He 
 would define the foolish labors the modern woman
 
 104 CIPHERS. 
 
 appoints for herself. He would describe the 
 fashionable afternoon tea - table, with its costly 
 equipment of kettle, lamp, teapot, tea-bell, tea- 
 caddy, sugar-bowl, sugar-tongs, cream-jug, cream- 
 ladle, tea cups and saucers, and bread and butter 
 plates. He would draw a picture of the pretty 
 solicitudes of the tea-maker: first, as to whether 
 the lamp burns to the right degree, then as to 
 whether the water boils or merely simmers ; her 
 intense seriousness as she measures out the tea ; 
 the coquettish manoeuvres with which she goes 
 forward and back, advances and re-advances on 
 the same lines ; her tremors of doubt as to the 
 success of her undertaking. Of course a cup of 
 tea, no matter how poor, gains under these vicis- 
 situdes a sort of value. But when we consider 
 the brief duration of human life, might it not be 
 as well if the butler in his pantry, or the cook in 
 the kitchen, should set the tea steeping ? thus 
 enabling the queen in the parlor to give time, ear, 
 and eye to the intelligent man who addresses her. 
 In fact, Ruff said to himself, he might add that 
 the modern Penelope who wished to keep her suit- 
 ors at bay only required to make tea perpetually 
 instead of toiling over tapestry. 
 
 His irritation was natural, for it was only too 
 evident that Milly had let her thoughts wander 
 and had lost all clew to the meaning of his dis- 
 course. This might or might not be an unfavor- 
 able sign, for it was her usual habit to give her 
 undivided attention to any one who spoke to her.
 
 CIPHERS. 105 
 
 Bat now she ended the pause which ensued, when 
 he stopped short just at the point where he had 
 waded breast high into the stream in order not to 
 lose his salmon, by asking him if his tea suited 
 him, evidently without a thrill of concern for 
 his safety, and her next remark was absolutely 
 flippant, for she went on to say that Mr. Norreys 
 had views on the subject of making tea. 
 
 " I dare say his ideas are correct," said Ruff, 
 with some stiffness. " No man alive surpasses 
 Whiley Norreys in the capacity for laying down 
 the law with intense conviction that two and two 
 make four." 
 
 " He sometimes makes me long to declare that 
 two and two make seventeen," said Milly. 
 
 " I supposed," observed Ruff, " that everybody 
 in society agreed with Whiley. It is impossible 
 wholly to despise that sort of man, for he adds 
 zest to life by his enjoyment of its trivialities, 
 and his presence enhances the good-nature and 
 comfort so important for the preservation of small 
 coteries." 
 
 There was an energy in his accent and a latent 
 disdain in his look as he stirred his cup of tea 
 which made Milly glance towards him with won- 
 der. "Candidly, Mrs. Childe," he went on to 
 say, "I do feel that you are thrown away on a 
 society whose oracle is Whiley Norreys." 
 
 Milly, who had just lifted her cup to her lips, 
 put it down untasted. 
 
 " Oh, dear, I flattered myself I was doing very
 
 106 CIPHERS. 
 
 well," she said. " I actually was beginning to 
 pique myself on being quite a fashionable woman." 
 
 " Of course ; by simply raising your finger you 
 can be a fashionable woman, that is, you can 
 make fashions," said Ruff, holding out his now 
 empty cup to be replenished. " The greater in- 
 cludes the less. But when the world calls you a 
 beautiful and successful woman " 
 
 " I never consider myself either a beautiful or 
 a successful woman," said Milly. " I know very 
 well that if I had no money I should have no 
 followers. Everybody has always laughed at the 
 source of the wealth they are quite willing to 
 accept the advantages of. I used to writhe at any 
 allusion to the Elixir. It was associated with 
 half-suppressed smiles, whispers, and humorous 
 allusions. Nowadays, I make a point of talking 
 about my grandfather's famous Elixir, and more 
 than once I have recommended it to some languid, 
 elegant people." 
 
 " I feel for all you have suffered," said Ruff, in 
 a touched voice. 
 
 " It ought to have been good for my soul," said 
 Milly, " but it was not good for my soul. A 
 spirit grew in me which made me long to defend 
 myself. Not everybody can be a lioness or a 
 tigress, but the least of creatures can put up her 
 back and spit, and that is what I have done." 
 
 " Oh, no," said Ruff. 
 
 " Indeed, I have done so ; and I have found out 
 that Trav, Blanche, and Sweetheart, who barked at
 
 CIPHERS. 107 
 
 me, may now be led by a silken thread. But I 
 suppose I have passed the time of life when one 
 makes real friends. Women flock to see me on 
 my reception days, but if one of them sends up 
 her card on any other day, I say to myself, ' She 
 wants money for some object,' and invariably she 
 does want money." 
 
 "I can see," said Ruff, who felt himself softly 
 pushed away from his subject, " that such doubts 
 imperil friendship." 
 
 "I envy men their opportunity to make real 
 friends," Milly went on. " It might be almost 
 worth while to be a man to have men's friend- 
 ships. I suppose the reason you all hang together 
 so is that you know such dreadful things about 
 each other." 
 
 " The true friendship is between a man and a 
 woman," Ruff observed, with conviction. 
 
 "Let us swear an eternal one," said Milly. 
 " But presently you will marry some woman who 
 does not like me, and where shall I be then? 
 By the by, you and Mr. Breck seem to be good 
 friends." 
 
 " I like Breck. I am even fond of the young- 
 ster." 
 
 " He swears by you." 
 
 " I have had it in my power to do a good deal 
 for him," said Ruff. Could it be that it was the 
 mention of Breck which brought that soft bril- 
 liance again to her glance and smile ? 
 
 "He told me he set out to be a painter,"
 
 108 CIPHERS. 
 
 remarked Milly ; " then, needing quick returns, he 
 took up architecture." 
 
 "There is no telling what sort of failure he 
 might have made in art," said Ruff. " He has too 
 much cleverness to be a great genius." 
 
 All this was miles away from his real subject. 
 Still, with the tea-table spread out, and two men 
 coming in every five minutes to offer some crisp 
 confection, it was of course impossible to broach 
 the question which imperatively rose to his lips. 
 He had no intention of shirking it. He believed 
 she liked him, although to-night she did seem 
 more successfully than usual to dissemble her 
 love. Now, thank Heaven, the tea things were 
 being carried off. There was an air of finality 
 about the way the butler looked round the room 
 as he doubled up the table and put it in its place. 
 A fresh lump of coal was thrown on the fire, and 
 the lights were carefully shaded. While this bustle 
 was going on, Euff told about a new play which he 
 had been to see the night before. Milly said she 
 would arrange a theatre party for the coining 
 Saturday, and began counting up a dozen people, 
 of whom, alas, Ruff was not one. But then he 
 had just told her he hated theatre parties. 
 
 " You bristle with negations. You do not like 
 anything," said Milly. "You see through us; 
 find our wisdom commonplace and our best wit 
 foolish. All our efforts to entertain you are 
 purely disinterested ; you will not be entertained." 
 
 "You do not understand me at all, Mrs.
 
 CIPHERS. 109 
 
 Childe," Ruff returned, leaning forward, his pale, 
 ardent face kindled with new light, even his 
 eyeglasses full of expression. " Everything you 
 do pleases me only too well. The trouble is, I 
 throw you so high above ordinary mortals that I 
 cannot easily resign you to the trivial round, 
 the buzzing, bustling inactivity which makes up 
 fashionable life." 
 
 " What would you have me do ? " inquired 
 Milly naively. 
 
 His heart was beating rapidly. She certainly 
 offered him a chance to be explicit. He would 
 have liked to say, " Marry me, Mrs. Childe ; that 
 is a heaven-appointed career for you." And he 
 was capable of saying it, that is, if he were well 
 warmed up by his subject, instead of approaching 
 it, as it were, in cold blood. What he did contrive 
 to stammer out was : 
 
 " Suppose, Mrs. Childe, I were to be very pre- 
 sumptuous?" 
 
 " I suppose I should consider it a bit of human 
 nature. * Presumptuous mortals,' it has passed 
 into a phrase." 
 
 " But think how long I have known you ! " 
 
 " An eternity." 
 
 " And does not a long, and I may say somewhat 
 intimate, acquaintance give a man a right ? " 
 
 " It gives a man every right," said Milly. 
 
 " You will not strike me dead if I am too bold ? " 
 
 " Certainly not ; striking people dead is no habit 
 of mine. It is too generally the other way."
 
 110 CIPHERS. 
 
 " Then, Mrs. Childe," said Kuff, " I ask you to 
 be my wife." 
 
 " Oh, good gracious, Mr. Ruff, you must be 
 joking." 
 
 " Joking ! " cried Ruff, in a voice of poignant 
 reproach. " I ask you to be my wife ! " 
 
 " Please do not ask anything so impossible," 
 said Milly, with a sort of petulance. " Do you 
 suppose I am thinking of a second marriage? 
 Not the least in the world. I began very young. 
 I have had my experience." 
 
 " But," said Ruff imploringly, " that is just it. 
 Your experience was perhaps not an absolutely 
 happy one, and I feel as if I " 
 
 " As if you could make it up to me ? I assure 
 you I am not thinking of any sort of compensation. 
 Please put the idea out of your head." 
 
 " I see," faltered Ruff, overwhelmed by a convic- 
 tion of his bad management of his own case, " I have 
 taken you by surprise. I ought to have prepared 
 you. Still, Mrs. Childe, I did believe that our 
 whole acquaintance had been a preparation. You 
 have seemed to like me " 
 
 " I have liked you extremely," said Milly with 
 perfect sweetness. " I should hate very much to 
 give you up as a friend, for I depend on you for 
 opinions and ideas on all sorts of subjects." 
 
 " If you could bring yourself to make a place for 
 me in your life," said Ruff, wiping his eyeglasses, 
 which were suffused with mist and blinded him, 
 " if I could be always at your side, prompting,
 
 CIPHERS. Ill 
 
 guiding, combining, I could make your house 
 a centre of conversation, wit " 
 
 " I see," murmured Milly, " you are ambitious to 
 have a salon. Now do you know, Mr. Ruff, I never 
 was ambitious to have a salon. As it is, people 
 bore me to extinction." 
 
 " Do I bore you to extinction ? " 
 
 " No, not generally, not until you suggested 
 this unlucky topic. Let us talk about something 
 else, anything else. Have you heard about " 
 
 " Mrs. Childe, you do not know, you do not 
 begin to know my sensations. This has cut me to 
 the heart." 
 
 " There comes papa," said Milly. 
 
 " But tell me, are you quite certain " 
 
 "Absolutely certain," said Milly relentlessly. 
 "Well, papa, how many cups of tea did cousin 
 Agnes give you ? " 
 
 Mr. Childe sat down and began talking at once. 
 He had seen Mr. Ferris, who had told him of an 
 amendment now before Congress likely to depre- 
 ciate stock and make the whole social fabric totter. 
 Now modern politics were to Mr. Childe a mere 
 juggler's trick for getting hold of the valuables in 
 one's pockets, and by some open chicanery or sleight 
 of hand transferring them to the sleeve of the 
 manipulator. He never heard of a new bill before 
 the state Assembly or national Congress without 
 suggesting some plan for simplifying matters, so 
 that honest men might hold their own. 
 
 " I should like to be at the head of affairs for
 
 112 CIPHERS. 
 
 one year," he now remarked to Ruff, " and I as- 
 sure you I should make a revolution. When I 
 think of that mob of fellows in Washington with 
 their hands in the Treasury, voting away thou- 
 sands and tens of thousands of dollars for every 
 sort of job that tickles their constituents, and then 
 when I go on to reflect that the same sort of 
 thieving on a reduced scale is going on in each of 
 the How many States are there in this country, 
 Ruff?" 
 
 " Forty-two, I believe." 
 
 " There used to-be twenty-eight when I went to 
 school," grumbled Mr. Childe. " But no matter, 
 the more there are the more thieves there are. 
 Well, as I say, if I were at the head of affairs I 
 would put all the members of the two houses of 
 Congress and of all the state Assemblies into a 
 leaky ship together, send them out into mid-ocean, 
 and scuttle it. With these legislators out of the 
 way there might be a chance." 
 
 * A chance for whom ? " 
 
 " For honest men." 
 
 " Not the least in the world. It would simply 
 afford a chance for the other politicians anxious to 
 get into your drowned rascals' shoes." 
 
 " Then I would send another ship, and another, 
 and another, and have one, too, for all aldermen 
 and common councilmen." 
 
 "With all my heart," said Ruff blandly. 
 " And after that what should you propose to do ? 
 Set up as Kaiser ? "
 
 CIPHERS. 113 
 
 "I don't want any more responsibility. And 
 when the rascals are all disposed of, we can get 
 along easily and comfortably, without either laws 
 or rules." 
 
 Ruff took his leave. Indeed, he could hardly 
 hold up his head, and he went home and sat down 
 helplessly. He could not yet take in the extent of 
 the calamity which had befallen him ; he could not 
 even decide as to the degree of consideration with 
 which his pretensions had been treated. Cer- 
 tainly she had most successfully dissembled her 
 love. And after all, is it necessary to know the 
 exact calibre of the cannon-ball which takes one's 
 head off ? His head was gone : there could be no 
 doubt of that, and he could not yet recover from 
 this attitude of open-mouthed surprise. 
 
 Even after a night's sleep he was singularly de- 
 pressed. His mental vision began to clear, how- 
 ever, and he realized that he had not done the 
 thing in the best way. He had not fully grasped 
 his idea, which he had been in the habit of stow- 
 ing away in some unreachable pigeon-hole of his 
 brain, and at the moment could only fumble after 
 it. He had been stiff and dull, whereas he had 
 expected to dazzle with sallies of wit, to charm by 
 far-reaching suggestions, holding in reserve a deli- 
 cate touch of pathos. What on earth had ailed 
 him ? The fact was, probably, that he was in the 
 habit of addressing the public in the abstract, as it 
 were, and thus had not adjusted his full powers to 
 the task of conquering the concrete woman before
 
 114 CIPHERS. 
 
 him, a human being composed of instincts, sensa- 
 tions, likings, repugnances, tastes, sympathies, a 
 few definite ideas, and a whole chaos of romantic 
 imaginings. While he spoke he ought to have 
 remembered that his each word and look created 
 some impression, which harmonized with, or was 
 opposed to, certain preconceived notions of what 
 she wanted in a second marriage. She was not a 
 young girl. Evidently she could look at a suitor 
 without perturbations of spirit, estimate him, test 
 him, even compare him with others. Now that 
 Ruff was in a logical frame of mind, remembering 
 her former husband's languid elegance and egoistic 
 valetudinarianism, he was ready to predict infal- 
 libly, after the event, that Lee Childe's widow 
 would insist on fervid bubblings of passion, the 
 raptures of a Romeo. 
 
 " I suppose," he said to himself, his irritation 
 growing every moment, " that what she wanted 
 was that I should have gone down on my knees to 
 her." 
 
 It was while he was still chewing this cud of bitter- 
 ness that Mr. Joshua Venn dropped in at his 
 office to make some inquiries about Sidney Breck. 
 The lawyer was cautious, extremely cautious, and 
 advanced to his subject under cover of Mrs. Lee 
 Childe's expensive building projects. Mr. Breck 
 had, he said, suggested alterations in the Berkshire 
 house which would necessitate a considerable out- 
 lay ; would he he appealed to Ruff be justified 
 in advising his client to commit herself to the
 
 CIPHERS. 1 15 
 
 clever inventions of an ambitious young architect, 
 whose senior partner was at present engaged in 
 Washington ? No man alive could exceed Holly 
 Ruff in the capacity of seeing through a millstone, 
 and he instantly understood that Mr. Joshua Venn 
 was afraid that his client was more than a little 
 run away with by a personal interest in the young 
 partner of the firm of Champion and Breck. He 
 would have scorned to take a mean advantage of a 
 rival when asked about his character. 
 
 " Sidney Breck is as honest a fellow as ever 
 breathed," he said. " He spent five years in Paris, 
 between the ages of seventeen and twenty-two, that 
 I cannot answer for. He had four hundred and 
 fifty dollars to live on, and by turns, no doubt, al- 
 ternately feasted and starved, as art students do, 
 according to the way their pockets are rilled. He 
 worked hard at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and at 
 the atelier, that I know ; and a young fellow cannot 
 work as he did unless he puts his heart into it, as 
 well as his strength. I don't say he was a saint or 
 an angel. I dare say he learned a good many 
 things not in the course of the Ecole des Beaux 
 Arts. But I do not believe he learned anything 
 which is not useful to a man who has to live in this 
 world. As I say, I can't really vouch for those 
 five years in Paris, yet I would be ready to swear 
 by Breck all through, for I have known him ever 
 since he came to New York, known him well, 
 and I think better of him than I do of myself, 
 I would trust him sooner."
 
 116 CIPHERS. 
 
 Mr. Venn remarked dryly that he was very glad 
 to hear that the young man had a good character, 
 and, after some curt thanks, went away. Left 
 alone, Ruff stamped about his room in the clutches 
 of a new idea. It was grotesque ; he laughed at 
 it ; he thrust it away ; he stamped on it, and yet 
 the spectre remained unsubdued. While he was 
 still fighting this phantom, he was startled by the 
 advent of the very person whom he suddenly felt 
 a fierce anxiety to see. 
 
 " May I come in? " asked Sidney Breck at the 
 door. At the sight of the bright, joyous young 
 fellow, Ruff experienced an acute sense of his own 
 undeserved sufferings. 
 
 " I am afraid I shall interrupt you," said Breck. 
 
 " Interrupt away. Some days are given up to 
 the foul fiend, and there are only interruptions. I 
 have not done a stroke of work, and evidently shall 
 not accomplish a stroke of work. Come in and 
 sit down." 
 
 Breck sat down. He never expected meaning- 
 less suavity from Ruff, so thought this greeting 
 nothing particular. 
 
 "I wanted to ask you a question," he said. " It 
 is a foolish trifle, still " 
 
 " I will try to ' answer a fool according to his 
 folly.' " 
 
 " Do. What I wanted to ask was this : I am to 
 dine with Mrs. Childe to-night, that is, I am 
 to take a drawing for her to look at, and stay to 
 dinner. Now, under such circumstances, ought I 
 or ought I not to wear my dress clothes ? "
 
 CIPHERS. 1 17 
 
 " Have you or have you not cut your eye-teeth ? 
 Can you or can you not walk alone?" said Ruff, 
 who had removed his eyeglasses and now turned 
 and glared at his visitor with his near-sighted 
 eyes. 
 
 " You see I cannot." 
 
 " I supposed any fool knew that a man is sup- 
 posed to put on his dress clothes, if he owns any, 
 to dine with a lady, and at a house like that, 
 where " 
 
 " What I felt was this," said Breck " that per- 
 haps when I was actually fulfilling a business en- 
 gagement I ought not to " 
 
 "Don't talk about tweedle-dum and tweedle- 
 dee," said Ruff. " Of course wear your evening 
 clothes. I should be ashamed of you else." 
 
 "Thank you, old fellow. I knew you would 
 tell me exactly what to do." 
 
 " Do you see Mrs. Childe often ? " asked Ruff, 
 fiercely rubbing his eyeglasses. 
 
 "'Often?'" repeated Breck doubtfully. "I 
 don't exactly know what you call ' often.' " 
 
 Already feverish and fretful, Ruff turned on 
 him in a storm of indignation. 
 
 " I call often often. You will see her to-night. 
 When did you see her last ? " 
 
 " Two or three days ago. That is, it will be two 
 days this afternoon," said Breck. 
 
 " Two or three days ago, that is, the two days 
 will be up by this afternoon," said Ruff with a 
 mirthless laush. " You remind me of an Irishman
 
 118 CIPHERS. 
 
 I met in the street. ' Give me a sixpence for the 
 love of God,' said he, ' to buy a sip of whiskey. 
 I have not had a drop since yesterday, and to-mor- 
 row will be the third day.' " 
 
 Breck also laughed in a half -embarrassed way. 
 
 " Look here, youngster," said Ruff, who had by 
 this time polished his eyeglasses to his heart's con- 
 tent, and now, putting them on, turned the double 
 lens on his victim. " You are falling in love with 
 that woman." 
 
 Breck stared at the other a moment, all the color 
 receding from his face. He opened his lips to 
 speak, but no words came. 
 
 " Did it ever occur to you what it means to fall 
 in love with a woman worth millions ? How much 
 have you got in the world ? " 
 
 "Ten thousand dollars," gasped Breck, as if 
 aghast. 
 
 " Are you looking forward," Ruff pursued with 
 a dry smile, " to marrying Mrs. Childe ? " 
 
 Breck hung his head. 
 
 " No," he said in a low voice. 
 
 " Well, then, what do you expect ? " 
 
 " I expect nothing. Good God, I don't under- 
 stand you, Ruff." 
 
 " Other people seem to," observed Ruff point- 
 edly. 
 
 " Do you allude to yourself ? " 
 
 " I assure you no such idea would ever have 
 lodged in my brain unless it had been put there by 
 somebody else. To begin with, you seem to me a 
 mere boy compared with her."
 
 CIPHERS. 119 
 
 "I am ten months her senior," said Breck 
 eagerly. 
 
 " She is a hundred years older than you are in 
 knowledge of the world," said Ruff. " She is not 
 thinking of marrying any one. She could have no 
 object in marrying except to secure a title. I have 
 known her for twelve years. I saw her all through 
 her married life. I knew her husband. I saw 
 just the terms they were on." 
 
 " What were the terms they were on ? " asked 
 Breck, a flush rising to his forehead. 
 
 " At the start she was afraid of him, anxious to 
 please him. Next she tried to surprise him, pique 
 him, dazzle him. Then she found out that he was 
 ill, and she would have nursed him devotedly if he 
 had permitted it. He had a valet whose ministra- 
 tions he preferred. I tell you she had plenty of 
 mental experience in her married life. At first 
 she was trampled on, then she turned round ready 
 to trample on others. I don't suppose any human 
 being is born without heart, but hers was used up 
 in the ordeal she went through. She has not an 
 atom of heart now. She is all intellect, all ca- 
 price, all ambition. Anything novel interests her, 
 and you are a novelty. She will lead you on, turn 
 you inside out, amuse herself with your romantic 
 worship, then break your heart. I don't care so 
 much about that. What I do mind is your being 
 stigmatized as an adventurer in pursuit of her 
 money." 
 
 Breck tried to speak, but it was as if his tongue 
 were paralyzed.
 
 120 CIPHERS. 
 
 " Well, what is it ? " demanded Ruff inflexibly. 
 
 "Your imagination carries you away," Breck 
 contrived to stammer. 
 
 " See that yours does not," said Ruff, with a 
 straight look into the young face, which had lost 
 all its glow. The eyes were dilated, and the nos- 
 trils quivered as if nature were at a severe strain. 
 " You see," Ruff pursued, urged on to hammer in 
 obvious truths until they touched the quick, " you 
 know little of the world, and don't begin to com- 
 prehend what it is for a woman to be so rich that 
 everything lies within her reach ; beautiful beyond 
 other women, with an assured place in the great 
 world, twenty-seven years old, and a widow. She 
 has been everywhere, seen everything. What she 
 has not done she has read about, and what has 
 she not thought? She is the sort of woman who 
 wants cherries in mid-winter and snow-banks in 
 summer; if she goes into a shop, she asks for 
 what they have not got. You don't begin to 
 measure her possible caprice ; yet you actually 
 believe that you are pleasing her. The moment 
 you tell her you expect to marry her " 
 
 " The moment I tell her I expect to marry her," 
 said Breck in hot wrath, " she may dismiss me as 
 a lunatic." 
 
 " She will dismiss you, no doubt of that. Per- 
 haps you have been deceiving yourself by the 
 belief that you nurse no actual hopes of winning 
 her, but the hope is kindled and burns in your 
 mind the whole time. Your fancy is heated by
 
 CIPHERS. 121 
 
 the idea of her ; you may think you are planning 
 a country house, but it is only a castle in Spain 
 enveloped in a diaphanous and rosy mist, from 
 behind which a magical dawn is likely to break 
 any moment. How can you help thinking of such 
 a woman ? When she turns towards you, you are 
 ready to go on your knees to her ! " 
 
 " Please dismiss the pronoun ' you ' from your 
 statement," struck in Breck, who was beginning 
 to rally his scattered forces, u as if you were de- 
 scribing me, for I don't go with you at all. 
 When I am in danger of going on my knees to 
 any woman alive, I will come and tell you." 
 
 "When I say 'you,'" said Holly Ruff, "I 
 mean a man with blood and not water in his 
 veins. Such a man would be pretty sure to 
 worship her." 
 
 " I should say you were in love with her your- 
 self!" 
 
 "I am sufficiently in love to know where the 
 rocks lie. I have been in your place, youngster, 
 and I advise you as a friend not to be passion's 
 slave, but to look the question in the face as if it 
 were the case of another man. Can you afford to 
 go on falling in love with her, burning incense 
 to her coquetry, and, worse than all, being 
 branded by all who look on as a presumptuous 
 fortune-hunter? There, now, I have spoken as 
 your true friend ought to speak ; I trust you are 
 not offended." 
 
 " I am not in the least offended," said Breck 
 fiercely.
 
 122 CIPHERS. 
 
 " It is natural enough," Ruff went on, " that 
 when she singles out a bright young fellow in this 
 way he should grow ambitious. Of course, what a 
 man looks for and watches in the vault of heaven 
 is his own star." 
 
 " I don't agree with you," said Breck. " There 
 is such a thing as disinterestedness." 
 
 "I don't know where you will find it," Ruff 
 retorted. " We somehow have to eat and drink, 
 provide lodging and raiment, and we all are im- 
 patient to do it in the handsomest way. We 
 always say that when we have any superfluities 
 we will be generous, but what mortal has enough ? 
 Now I have preached my preach. I should not 
 have taken the trouble to do it for any one else, 
 but the truth is, Breck, I 'm fond of you, you 're 
 like a younger brother. I should not like to have 
 you come to grief." 
 
 "I am grateful to you," said Breck dryly. 
 " Since you are a sort of elder brother, I may as 
 well confide the fact to you that the only woman 
 on earth whom I have ever thought of as iny 
 wife is Miss Anita Rivera." 
 
 "I congratulate you with all my heart," said 
 Ruff, wringing his friend's hand with an air of 
 relief. 
 
 Breck did not stop to correct any possible false 
 impression left on the mind of his mentor. All 
 he wished for was to be outside this torture- 
 chamber, and telling Ruff that he was in haste he 
 left at once.
 
 CIPHERS. 123 
 
 Once on the pavement outside, he stamped his 
 foot angrily, and said aloud : 
 
 "The trouble with Holly Ruff is that he is a 
 beast." The phrase pleased him, and he repeated 
 it more than once, indifferent whether or no he 
 was overheard in the din of Broadway. Then, as 
 he was ascending the stairs which led to his own 
 office, he added : 
 
 " Did I ask for any of his beastly interference ? 
 Did I? I '11 be- -if I did." 
 
 In fact, the young architect was in a very great 
 rage.
 
 VI. 
 
 FOR an hour or two Breck felt that no power 
 on earth should induce him to go near Mrs. Childe 
 that evening. Then, as the first glow of his indig- 
 nation faded away, he tried to look at the situa- 
 tion more justly. He conceded that Ruff was a 
 true friend, a clever man, penetrating and at 
 times unamiable ; still, he knew the world as only 
 a man who has an unworldly streak in him can 
 know it. Examining his own conscience, Breck 
 had to confess that he needed just this raking fore 
 and aft, and that half his wrath had come from 
 his reluctance at being forced to show his true 
 colors and define his course. He had by this 
 known Mrs. Childe seven weeks, and had seen her 
 in all thirteen times. Not only that, but he con- 
 stantly looked forward to seeing her, and was 
 restless if he did not see her. Indeed, he had so 
 often made excursions to the Park to gain a 
 glimpse of her, that she nowadays watched for 
 him as she took her daily drive with Mr. Childe, 
 and some three or four times had stopped her car- 
 riage and sent the man to invite him to get in. 
 On two of these occasions he had gone back with 
 her, dined, and stayed till midnight. She had asked 
 him to sing, and he had sung to her. Afterwards,
 
 CIPHERS. 125 
 
 when he lay sleepless, he had explained to himself 
 that it was the music which had excited him. 
 
 In fact, it was high time that Ruff should have 
 dragged him before a tribunal and administered a 
 stinging rebuke. When a man ceases to remem- 
 ber what he knows by heart, he needs a sharp 
 lesson. Breck had been charmed by Mrs. Lee 
 Childe the first moment he saw her. Then she 
 had sent for him, and the plans for the country 
 house had been a ready-made excuse, a permanent 
 apology, an excellent sedative to conscience. He 
 knew very well, however, that there had been 
 nothing professional, nothing perfunctory, in the 
 way he had remembered how once that little soft, 
 white hand had fluttered to his, alighting for a 
 moment like a dove. In all his life nothing so 
 charming had come to pass to him. It was the 
 only time she had shown sympathy and compre- 
 hension in just that way, but there were a hundred 
 other memories as subtle and almost as sweet. 
 They had talked ; sometimes Mrs. Childe had 
 questioned and he had answered ; then, again, it 
 had been she who had most to say. But let one 
 or the other talk, the other listened as if under the 
 charm, each seemed to have waited for the other 
 to solve the problem. Breck had felt this ; intel- 
 lectually they were in wonderful sympathy. He 
 had wondered that he was so completely at ease in 
 her presence, for he had never seen a more im- 
 posing woman. She was often severe, and was 
 not at all slow to express impatience and sarcasm
 
 126 CIPHERS. 
 
 towards the world in general; but, although he 
 recognized her capacity for being haughty, he 
 easily understood that she was rather timid with 
 those she liked, that she had an intense longing 
 to please, and that her eyes, smile, and voice could 
 suggest a sweetness which made other women 
 seem cold. 
 
 He found out now that he had been studying 
 her ; that he had said to himself, " She is a woman 
 who is tired of being lonely, and who longs for 
 love and companionship. She will not give her 
 heart easily, but let her give it, and with it she 
 gives herself at once and forever. She has made 
 one mistake, and she will be careful to make no 
 more mistakes." 
 
 This was what he had been saying to himself 
 of late ; now, in the light which Holly Ruff had 
 suddenly turned in upon his vague, fluctuating, 
 incomplete ideas, he longed to escape from the 
 truth disclosed. He writhed at the conviction of 
 his own vanity and self-complacency. Ruff might 
 well have inquired how he expected the situation 
 to resolve itself if he counted on marrying Mrs. 
 Childe. It seemed to Breck as if all his resolu- 
 tion and self-respect shriveled up before this 
 revelation of his absurd vanity and presumption. 
 He had governed himself before. Nature, iu her 
 lavish output of force, gives men faculties, aspira- 
 tions, and talents without offering any favoring 
 circumstances for their development. There are 
 those who, when they see an obstacle in their way,
 
 CIPHERS. 127 
 
 egoistically decide that it shall not spoil their 
 career, so carry out their own wishes to fulfillment 
 with a strong hand and an iron heel. Breck, how- 
 ever, was nothing if not conscientious. Years 
 before, he had resigned his ambition to be a 
 painter, and after his first struggle had found a 
 real satisfaction in the reflection that he had given 
 up the dearest wish of his life for his sister's sake ; 
 that he had denied himself not only his art, but 
 ease, self-indulgence, desultory tastes, and had ad- 
 hered rigidly to the routine he had relentlessly 
 mapped out. 
 
 And now in this moment of revolt against the 
 calumny that he was trying to marry a rich 
 woman, who would presently laugh at his suit, 
 the stoic within him awoke. He was not a mere 
 vain coxcomb. He could appoint boundaries to 
 himself ; he could bid the seas retire. 
 
 Being a stoic, he felt that it was safe to go to 
 Mrs. Childe's to dinner. As he rang the bell, a 
 little coupe darted up to the curbstone, a man 
 alighted with the unquestioning zeal of a guest who 
 feels himself behind time, and ran up the steps. 
 
 " Did you ring ? " he asked in a voice that 
 Breck recognized. 
 
 " Yes," said Breck, " I rang. Good-evening, 
 Mr. Norreys." 
 
 " Oh, is it you, Breck ? How are you ? Are 
 you of the party ? I was afraid I was late." 
 
 They were admitted ; their overcoats were sol- 
 emnly removed by Wilkins, who waved his hand
 
 128 CIPHERS. 
 
 towards the small drawing-room. Norreys led the 
 way, and Breck followed as if in a dream. Mr. 
 Childe was standing on the hearth-rug discoursing 
 to Mrs. Fletcher, and under the glow of a tall, 
 crimson-draped lamp Mrs. Childe was sitting on a 
 sofa talking to Miss Hurst. It was evidently a 
 dinner-party, and Breck felt that in some way he 
 had bungled. He must have mistaken the day or 
 the hour, for he had been asked to bring the plans 
 of the country house and discuss them quietly. He 
 felt his face flame, and the blood tingled even to 
 his finger-tips at the thought of having forced him- 
 self upon this intimate coterie. But Mrs. Childe 
 advanced as if she expected him. She greeted 
 Mr. Norreys with a smile and some easy phrase, 
 then turned to Breck and held out her hand, say- 
 ing, 
 
 " So good of you to come. I shall give Miss 
 Hurst to you ; see that you talk to her." 
 
 As she spoke, she bent her head a little on one 
 side and looked at him with a peculiar glance 
 whose roguishness perplexed him. It was all a 
 riddle. Was this expression friendly sweetness 
 and intimate fun at an odd situation, or a planned 
 triumph to show him that she had only been play- 
 ing with his earnestness ? He felt that he would 
 rather have died than have permitted her to gain 
 the faintest clew to what was in his thoughts. 
 
 He simply bowed and said, " At your orders," 
 and she looked at him questioningly. She was 
 magnificently attired, and her dress gave force to
 
 CIPHERS. 129 
 
 all Holly Ruff's exhortations. He needed just 
 this lesson, he said to himself. Hitherto she had 
 been dressed much like everyday people, perhaps 
 with more studied simplicity. To-night, for the 
 first time, he saw her in full evening toilette. Her 
 gown was of some material he could only have de- 
 scribed as cloth of silver embroidered with violets ; 
 the petticoat he recognized as Venetian point lace. 
 The corsage was low in front, and her beautiful 
 arms were bare ; at each shoulder was a diamond 
 clasp. She wore a girdle studded with precious 
 stones, and there was a diamond aigrette in her 
 golden brown hair. Every detail of the splendid 
 toilette seemed to burn itself into Breck's percep- 
 tions, and the easy repose of her manner was an 
 affront. 
 
 " Are you going to the ball ? " Miss Hurst in- 
 quired as they sat down at table. No, he re- 
 plied, he never went to balls. When she asked 
 him why he stayed away he said that perhaps it 
 was that a crowd was so fatal to a woman's beauty, 
 to say nothing of her style and individuality. One 
 gown puts out another. 
 
 " For example," he remarked, " you have on a 
 charming costume of shrimp color, but contrasted 
 with rose pink or true yellow where will it be ? " 
 
 " You alarm me," said Miss Hurst. " I have 
 often felt myself thin away into insignificance at a 
 ball where all my favorite partners danced with 
 other girls, and my dearest foes had all the good 
 times. I see now what the matter was, I had
 
 130 CIPHERS. 
 
 chosen my gown unfortunately. How about Mrs. 
 Childe's ? Will that hold its own ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Childe will triumph in spite of her 
 gown," said Breck. 
 
 " Do you intend to suggest that it is not the 
 loveliest thing you ever saw in your life ? " 
 
 " It would be too old, that is, if she did not 
 look so young." 
 
 " That is what I told you, Milly," Mr. Childe 
 struck in. " Too gorgeous altogether. Only fit 
 for a dowager." 
 
 " Mrs. Childe, I come to your relief," said Whi- 
 ley Norreys. " Your gown is superb, also fitting. 
 I may say, too, that my opinion of a woman's 
 toilette is worth having, for it is based on exact 
 knowledge." 
 
 Breck, who experienced more and more a sense 
 of revolt, felt at the same time his spirits rise. His 
 annoyance took the form of mischief, and he played 
 the pranks of a saucy boy. He declared that Mr. 
 Norreys's speech had charmed him, only it stopped 
 short on the brink of interesting revelations. How 
 does a man gain an exact knowledge about a wo- 
 man's gowns ? He pressed questions as to the ex- 
 act number of gowns Norreys had been intimately 
 acquainted with ; insisted upon definite particulars ; 
 would allow no vagueness, no haziness. Norreys 
 took the cue and discoursed on the gowns he had 
 known, of many of which he had been the inspirer. 
 Breck attacked him from first one and then the 
 other flank, prodding his memory with questions
 
 CIPHERS. 131 
 
 which seemed to show an impish knowledge of all 
 the other's little adventures. In fact, he longed to 
 do or say something audacious, which should shock 
 every one at table. The effect he produced, how- 
 ever, was of cutting boyish capers out of mere fun 
 and high spirits. Everybody laughed, Milly each 
 moment growing more animated ; a blush crept 
 into her cheeks and her eyes were full of a happy 
 light. Whiley Norreys, wound up to the point of 
 talking, freely told one story after another, each of 
 the sort which could be told, of course, with him- 
 self always as central figure. 
 
 " I never had the least idea you were so success- 
 ful with the women, Norreys," remarked Mr. 
 Childe with admiration. " I wonder how you 
 managed it. I will say I have slain my thousands, 
 but you have slain your tens of thousands." 
 
 " Just think of a man's being satisfied with one 
 love affair after hearing these boasts," saidGeorgy 
 Hurst. "However, I myself prefer a more con- 
 centrated form of devotion. I do not wish to be 
 anybody's one hundred and eleventh." 
 
 " Women are so insatiable," said Mr. Childe. 
 " That is why I wonder at Whiley's good luck. 
 How did he contrive to satisfy any one of them ? " 
 
 " I take it," said Norreys modestly, " that it is 
 the happy province of certain men to throw more 
 depth of feeling into the art of kissing a woman's 
 hand, or putting her cloak on her shoulders, than 
 other men can show by a whole lifetime of devo- 
 tion."
 
 132 C1PHEES. 
 
 " I call that sort of fellow dangerous, very dan- 
 gerous," said Mr. Childe, wagging his head. 
 
 " What I wonder at, Whiley," Mrs. Fletcher 
 said, " is that, with all these successes, you were not 
 married long ago. I always say, however, that the 
 man who has many love affairs has a cold heart." 
 
 " A cold heart ! " repeated Norreys, with some 
 natural indignation. " No woman ever said that 
 of me." 
 
 " No, indeed," said Miss Hurst. " To be sure I 
 never made any impression upon it myself, but " 
 
 " You don't know, Miss Georgy," retorted Nor- 
 reys. " If I have not married hitherto, it has been 
 because " 
 
 " Because you were too magnanimous," remarked 
 Milly. " Marriage is such a selfish institution." 
 
 " Partly that," Norreys conceded. " I did not 
 wish to marry too soon. Then I am nothing if 
 not fastidious." 
 
 "I wish you would tell us what your require- 
 ments are, Mr. Norreys," said Breck demurely. 
 " One would like to know whether they could or 
 could not be fulfilled." 
 
 "My wishes are not immoderate," returned 
 Norreys. " To begin with " 
 
 " To begin with, her face is her fortune, I sup- 
 pose," said Georgy Hurst. 
 
 " Well, I do not want too beautiful a wife " 
 
 " Then I am out of the question," murmured 
 Milly. 
 
 " Nor too poor a wife," proceeded Norreys, not 
 catching the words.
 
 CIPHERS. 133 
 
 " Then he does not mean me," said Georgy. 
 
 " I suppose you want one of suitable age, and 
 discreet," put in Mrs. Fletcher. 
 
 " Don't get one who is too discreet," said Mr. 
 Childe. " My wife was the soul of discretion, 
 never told me anything." 
 
 Norreys bowed, smiled, and took it all in such 
 good part, that Breck blushed to think of his own 
 pettishness. The dinner was not a long one, and 
 the moment it was over he pleaded an engagement 
 and took leave. He had hardly met Mrs. Childe's 
 eyes since he came in until now, when she held out 
 her hand. 
 
 " If you will go," she said in a low voice, " we 
 might easily take you to the ball if you will come 
 with us." 
 
 " Oh, no, no," he said with decision. It would 
 not have been easy for her to understand the ex- 
 pression of his face; she had little idea of what 
 feelings were behind the fire in his eyes, and why 
 he looked so pleading, so handsome, and yet so de- 
 fiant. 
 
 ""Will you come again very soon?" she asked. 
 " Perhaps to-morrow night ? " 
 
 " Not to-morrow night," he returned. When 
 he found himself in the street he accused himself 
 of roughness, of bad manners. He would have 
 been amazed if he had heard those he had left be- 
 hind extolling him to the skies : a charming young 
 fellow ; no egotism, no self-sufficiency, possessing 
 some sense of humor, willing to listen and enjoy,
 
 134 CIPHERS. 
 
 and not criticise the universe. Meanwhile, he felt 
 himself plunged in chaos. All his impressions 
 seemed to be shifting and changing ; black seemed 
 white, and white black. He could not understand 
 why Mrs. Childe had included him in the dinner- 
 party, which was a mere tryst where her friends 
 gathered to take her to the ball. He was ready to 
 accuse her of all the cruelty and coquetry which 
 Holly Ruff had ascribed to her. She had dressed 
 herself like a queen, and then had looked at him 
 with that half-mischievous air as if asking how he 
 liked her royal trappings. He said to himself that 
 he began to understand ; and he stamped his foot 
 on the pavement. She was, after all that was im- 
 puted to her, good-natured ; she possessed frank- 
 ness and independence of character, and the truth 
 was, when she saw that he had been so much en- 
 couraged by her kindness as actually to think of 
 of being in love with her, she had taken this 
 means of bringing him to his senses. A man 
 would be bold, indeed, who would dream of taking 
 the hand of the woman he had seen that evening 
 of He could not formulate his whole thought, 
 for his blood seemed to be on fire in his veins. He 
 wished, instead, to put away from his mind every 
 suggestion of Mrs. Childe, as a temptation against 
 which he must struggle. Some secret bitterness 
 born of a feeling of defeat and mortification min- 
 gled with his resentment. 
 
 It was something to have his course mapped 
 out. Miss Rivera shone like a beacon out of the
 
 CIPHEBS. 135 
 
 darkness, beckoning and offering a refuge. Yes, 
 he would go to Anita ; he would tell her that he 
 wanted her for his wife. That was his only true 
 course. What a man imperatively needed was 
 something absolutely his own, a young girl 
 whose love belonged to him from the first thrill of 
 sensation. How dared a man love a widow ? How 
 could he love her? Breck asked himself these 
 questions with a sort of cynicism as if trying to 
 convince himself that he was thoroughly disen- 
 chanted. He could only love a woman with the 
 first maiden bloom on her lips, no other man 
 must ever have claimed her, must ever have ad- 
 mired her. 
 
 With this fierce determination to settle his un- 
 certainties by engaging himself to Anita before 
 he slept, he experienced fresh disappointment and 
 rebuff when, on entering the Riveras' apartment, 
 he found the Italian music-master talking eagerly 
 to his pupil, while he walked up and down the 
 room gesticulating violently, now and then stop- 
 ping to strike the table a blow, whether in wrath 
 or merely by way of emphasis Breck could not at 
 first determine. Signer Contarini was a Lom- 
 bard, large and fair, with a round head, a broad 
 face, large brilliant blue eyes, and a huge mus- 
 tache, which curled up at the corners after the 
 fashion of some once powerful European poten- 
 tates'. His ample waistcoat was cut low, as if 
 with a view of displaying dazzling white linen and 
 an azure scarf in which was stuck a pin containing
 
 136 CIPHERS. 
 
 diamonds of surprising size. He glanced impa- 
 tiently towards Breck as he entered, but did not 
 interrupt his harangue. 
 
 " Ze voice," he was saying, " is an instrument 
 like ze ozzer instruments, only it is more delicate, 
 and it suffers from being incased, not in a baize 
 bag, not in a box, but in ze human frame, which 
 is exposed to every danger. You would not t'ink 
 of putting a violin where ze rough airs, ze harsh 
 contact, could touch its strings. But you take no 
 such care of your voice, alzough ze least annoy- 
 ance, ze faintest breat' of feeling, may injure it 
 fatally. I ask you, Miss Rivera, to watch your- 
 self until to-morrow like some precious commodity, 
 like" 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Breck," exclaimed Miss Rivera sud- 
 denly, catching sight of her visitor, and running 
 towards him with outstretched hands. " I am 
 actually engaged to sing at a concert at Schumann 
 Hall to-morrow afternoon." 
 
 " Is it possible ? " said Breck with dismay ; then 
 feeling as if he were permitting his selfish disap- 
 pointment to retard the free play of his sympa- 
 thies, he said to Contarini, as they shook hands, 
 " I hope your pupil will have a great success." 
 
 " I tell her," said the Italian, " zat zere are tree 
 sooccesses, ze succes d'estime, ze grand succes, 
 and ze succes magnifique, colossal." 
 
 " I hope Miss Rivera's will be the succes magni- 
 fique, colossal," said Breck. 
 
 "I shall be zat-is-fied wiz ze grand succes,"
 
 CIPHERS. 137 
 
 said Contarini. " A succes colossal at ze outset " 
 he made a gesture of dismissing it to limbo 
 " may be a meesfortune colossal." 
 
 " Have it a grand succes by all means. Just 
 enough to stimulate without making her believe 
 that she does not need to go on working hard." 
 
 "No need to go on working hard?" shrieked 
 Contarini. " Zere is every need. What is accom- 
 plished genius ? A long toil, an endless fast ! " 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Breck soothingly. " We all 
 know that. Miss Rivera understands that she has 
 embarked on a career which necessitates absolute 
 self-abnegation. She never even eats a bonbon 
 nowadays. But I am curious to hear how this 
 wonderful good fortune has come about." 
 
 He was at once informed that Anita was to sing 
 at the debut of Frauleiu Lemcke, the violinist, a 
 youthful prodigy, a pupil of Herr Joachim's, who 
 had been brought over by Bayliss, the clever 
 impresario whose undertakings had as a rule met 
 with distinguished success. Fraulein Lemcke was 
 to be assisted by her regular accompanist, Benski, 
 Zriny the pianoforte virtuoso, Herr Weil, a favor- 
 ite baritone of the Wagner school, and Mile. 
 Dam pier, the soprano. Unluckily, Mile. Dam pier 
 had fallen ill, at Albany, of congestion of the lungs, 
 and Bayliss, compelled to look up another singer, 
 had gone to Contarini in despair, declaring that 
 not a soprano was attainable. The Italian at once 
 told him he had a promising pupil ready to be 
 launched, Miss Rivera had been sent for and had
 
 138 CIPHERS. 
 
 sung with a charm and brilliancy which de- 
 lighted Baylis's, who not only had engaged her for 
 the next afternoon's performance, but threw out 
 hints as to the possibility of including her in his 
 company. It could hardly be wondered at that 
 Miss Rivera walked on air, and felt that all her 
 dreams were coming to pass, and, looking at her, 
 Breck said to himself that no matter how she sang 
 at the concert, if she only looked as pretty as she 
 looked to-night all New York would be ready to 
 applaud her. He inquired about the FrHulein. 
 
 " Oh, a fright," said Miss Rivera. " Thirty at 
 least, I should say from her appearance, although 
 they proclaim her as a youthful phenomenon. She 
 has straw-colored hair, her nose is so thick," 
 measuring some inches on her own pretty hands, 
 " and her complexion is muddy." 
 
 " She has good eyes," struck in Contarini, 
 " she has eyes like ze forget-me-nots of her native 
 land." 
 
 " I did not see them," said Miss Rivera, with a 
 half shrug ; " she did not trouble herself to raise 
 them to look at me. But I could see her ill- 
 fitting clothes. Such a figure ! Dowdy ! No 
 distinction ! " 
 
 " Find out ze charm of her, not ze faults," said 
 Contarini with a warning forefinger. " Do not 
 t'ink of her as a rival. She has ze virtuosity, she 
 has ze technique, she has ze love for art; let it 
 help yours. You do not wish to surpass her. 
 You are both of ze same profession ; you have ze
 
 CIPHERS. 139 
 
 same ambition to make ze sympat'y of your audi- 
 ence t'rill wiz a sense of all that is lofty and 
 beautiful in ze music." 
 
 " Yes, that is it," said Breck. " No jealousy ; 
 no competition. In fact, there could be none, any 
 more than a painter feels towards a sculptor." 
 
 " I am not jealous of Fraulein Lemcke," said 
 Miss Rivera ; " I really am very grateful to her. 
 Only as the papers talk about her as a girl in her 
 teens, I was a little taken aback by the sight of a 
 woman at least half a dozen years older than I 
 am, in an ugly brown ulster and a Derby hat. 
 I am sure I wish her all success, a most brilliant 
 de"but." 
 
 "You may safely wish her a brilliant debut," 
 observed Contarini with emphasis. " Her success 
 will be your ladder. She will light ze match 
 which sends up your rocket. See that you keep it 
 a blazing torch in ze zenit'." 
 
 "Perhaps I might have succeeded even if the 
 Fraulein had never been born," said Miss Rivera 
 with a toss of her head. 
 
 "Perhaps! Do not be too sure. Do not be 
 carried away. T'ink not of ze Fraulein, but of 
 your art ; not of your public, but of your teacher, 
 who has tried to implant ze eternal principles of 
 trut', of beauty, of great music. Zis is ze grand 
 experiment. Perhaps, who knows, you will one 
 day say, ' Before I sang at zat first concert I did 
 walk on my two feet, after zat I did have a cab, 
 and now I have a barouche magnifique wiz two 
 horses.' '
 
 140 CIPHERS. 
 
 " Four! four! " cried Anita. " I insist upon hav- 
 ing four at least ! " But Contarini's speech had 
 been uttered in benediction at the door, which he 
 had now closed behind him. 
 
 Breck, left alone with the girl whom he had 
 decided it was his duty to ask to be his wife, felt 
 his heart beat. He was excited, and could have 
 put spirit into almost any role he attempted. 
 Still, he was not so wholly dominated by his reso- 
 lution as to be blind to the fact that this was not 
 an auspicious moment for making love to Anita, 
 who was in a state of youthful exultation as she 
 saw opening before her the destiny of which she 
 had long dreamed. Sentiment, passion, were to 
 her as if they did not exist. He was quite certain 
 that she would rather have a column of praise in 
 the morning paper than the tenderest love confes- 
 sion. What she was dreaming of was success, 
 honors, adulation, riches. Still resolute, although 
 he was to control circumstances instead of being 
 controlled by them, he might have gone on to 
 state his views in logical order if Anita had given 
 him the opportunity. She no doubt attributed the 
 fire in his eyes and the peculiar softness of his 
 manner to their just cause, and it added to her 
 elation to realize that nothing failed her in this 
 happy moment. Although admirers might be a 
 superfluity, it was something to have an impas- 
 sioned auditor who would listen to her overflow of 
 feeling, sympathize with her excitement, and help 
 her to realize the far-reaching meanings of this 
 unique opportunity.
 
 CIPHERS. 141 
 
 Breck after a while adjusted his intellect and 
 imagination to the practical exigencies of the 
 situation. 
 
 "I suppose you have some adorable gown to 
 wear," he ventured to remark. 
 
 " Oh, yes. Months ago Maddy insisted that I 
 should be prepared for any emergency, and we 
 bought a yellow satin. She is so clever about 
 such things ; she made it for me herself." 
 
 Breck shuddered. He remembered certain tea- 
 gowns worn by Mrs. Hugh Rivera, ambitiously 
 designed on great models. 
 
 "I hope it is" exactly the right thing," he said 
 anxiously. 
 
 "I will try it on if you like," Miss Rivera 
 returned graciously. 
 
 Breck caught eagerly at the suggestion, and 
 when Mrs. Hugh Rivera, on being called in for 
 consultation, demurred slightly, he argued with a 
 persistency which reminded him of Whiley Nor- 
 reys's pretensions that he was the best possible 
 judge of a gown. 
 
 " I do not consider that any man can have any 
 clear comprehension of such matters," said Mrs. 
 Rivera. " Hugh makes the most absurd criticisms 
 on my prettiest dresses. However " 
 
 She yielded, and went off with her sister-in-law 
 to put on the yellow satin which was to help or 
 hinder the young singer in her first appearance on 
 the stage. Left alone, Breck sat down at the 
 piano and struck a few notes ; but they jarred
 
 142 CIPHERS. 
 
 upon him. Like a soul in trouble, he started up, 
 and began to pace up and down the few feet of 
 area the small crowded room afforded. A phan- 
 tom seemed suddenly to have risen, and it con- 
 fronted him with the aspect Mrs. Childe had worn 
 when he met her that evening. He seemed to 
 see her lovely clear features filled with that won-, 
 derfully sweet and truthful expression he had 
 never found in any other woman's face. She 
 looked at him archly, smiling as if some joke lay 
 behind his finding her surrounded by guests and 
 wearing such a splendid gown. While he had 
 been sitting beside her at table, he had taken 
 pains never to look at her, but now her image was 
 close beside him ; he could see nothing else ; it 
 was absolutely life-like, even to the dimple on 
 her elbow. A sense of her beauty, of her man- 
 ner, gave him a thrill at once delicious and pain- 
 ful. Tears rose to his eyes ; they blinded him, 
 and he stumbled over a chair. 
 
 "Are you getting impatient?" called a gay 
 voice from the next room. "We are almost 
 ready." 
 
 He stamped his foot. He could hardly believe 
 his own weakness. He had never expected to 
 play such a part. He suddenly absolved Mrs. 
 Childe from any crime he had imputed to her. 
 She was good, sweet, natural, wholly without 
 the worldliness that cheapened most women. If 
 he had fallen in love with her, if from the first 
 moment he had met her he could not turn his eyes
 
 CIPHERS. 143 
 
 from her face, could never hear enough of her 
 voice, could never tire of talking to her, feeling 
 impelled to tell her all he had ever felt, known, 
 and seen, it was not her fault. It was that he was 
 young, that he was lonely, that for the first 
 time he felt that he understood and could love a 
 woman, and that she loved and could understand 
 him. She had kindled an intense thirst for hap- 
 piness in him. Happiness ! happiness ! that was 
 what he had longed for; that was what seemed 
 before him when he waited, freezing, in the street 
 to gain glimpses of her, when he went to see her, 
 when she advanced towards him with that delight- 
 ful movement he was never tired of watching. 
 But what happiness meant he had never put into 
 exact words. Holly Ruff had done that for him. 
 Only what is unexpected happens in life ; he had 
 never supposed himself likely to be accused of 
 being a fortune-hunter. 
 
 With the impassioned rapidity of youth, he 
 determined to retrace his steps. " The man who 
 has vigor may walk to the east just as well as 
 to the west, if he chance to turn his head that 
 way," said Dr. Johnson. Breck had told Holly 
 Ruff that the only woman he had ever thought of 
 marrying was Miss Rivera, and he would prove 
 his honesty and consistency by giving himself up 
 to the thought of this young girl exclusively. A 
 man wanders about alone, perishing from thirst 
 after happiness, an agonizing and secret thirst 
 which he believes can only be answered by attain-
 
 144 CIPHERS. 
 
 ing to the region of some far-off glittering star ; 
 when all the while, at his side, within reach of 
 his hand-clasp, is exactly what his whole nature 
 craves. He and Anita belonged to the same 
 class, artistic, educated, acute, bent on making 
 each spark of talent they possessed find its equiva- 
 lent in money and reputation. This pretty, proud, 
 ambitious girl could not count too assuredly on 
 success, and she needed some one to smooth the 
 rough places for her. His real place was at her 
 side. He had unspent powers of work in him. 
 The goad of necessity was what he needed, and 
 must not the goad of necessity be always behind 
 good work and great art? He wanted no ease, 
 no wealth, no chance for sleek dilettantism ; he 
 wanted incessant, devouring struggle, hard- 
 earned success. Nothing worth having had ever 
 been done in cold blood. 
 
 If only it were all settled. If only Anita realized 
 how much she needed him ; if only this foolish 
 chance for singing in public had not momentarily 
 dazzled her, flattering her into the belief that she 
 was to win the great prize of life for herself, with 
 what rapture could he have taken her in his arms 
 at this moment and sworn that he would save her 
 from the hard experience he coveted for himself. 
 
 At this moment Anita emerged from the inner 
 room with the assured step of an Atalanta who 
 feels strength to run her own race and win her 
 own goal. She looked so handsome that Breck 
 gazed at her as if spell-bound ; her eyes were full
 
 CIPHERS. 145 
 
 of light, her cheeks warm in color, her smile ex- 
 pressed youthful, triumphant happiness. She wore 
 a pale yellow gown trimmed with a wealth of lace, 
 lace was invariably a strong point in Mrs. 
 Rivera's costumes ; the effect might be a little 
 overdone, but the tall, well-shaped figure could 
 easily carry off some display of magnificence. 
 
 " How do you like it, Mr. Breck ? " Mrs. Rivera 
 inquired anxiously. The girl did not need to ask ; 
 she read the story of her beauty in the young 
 fellow's eyes. 
 
 "I like it extremely," Breck murmured. " There 
 can be no doubt it is a handsome gown, and 
 very becoming. That pale yellow suits the com- 
 plexion." 
 
 " I want to be well dressed," said Miss Rivera, 
 " and if I have any good looks I do not want them 
 spoiled by some color which does not go with my 
 dark skin." 
 
 "It seems to be an evening gown," ventured 
 Breck timidly. " I suppose, however, it is the 
 correct thing to wear at an afternoon concert." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said Mrs. Rivera with the ease of 
 assured knowledge. " Singers always wear full 
 dress. You are sure you like it, Mr. Breck?" 
 she asked again with the jealous instinct of the 
 true artist, detecting some reserve in his admira- 
 tion. 
 
 "Oh, yes," he replied, laughing. "It is of 
 course just the right gown for the occasion, 
 well chosen, well made, and well worn."
 
 146 CIPHERS. 
 
 "I took no end of pains," said Mrs. Rivera, 
 with a sigh of relief. "I saw one like it at an 
 ' opening ' ; that was pale Nile green, not Anita's 
 color at all. I used to go and sit before the show- 
 case day after day and drink it all in until I had 
 every detail by heart. I do believe that this is 
 actually handsomer than the imported dress, 
 although the price of that was said to be four 
 hundred dollars." 
 
 " One of these days," said Anita with intense 
 satisfaction in present and future, "I shall order 
 four-hundred-dollar gowns from Paris by the dozen. 
 You shall have some too, Maddy," she added, with 
 a pretty and grateful caress to her sister. 
 
 Certainly, it was hardly the moment for Breck 
 to offer marriage when Anita was in a state of 
 mind to order four-hundred-dollar gowns by the 
 dozen. He resigned his aspirations for that night 
 at least.
 
 VII. 
 
 HE searched row after row of the parquet when 
 he entered the concert hall next day, hoping to find 
 a familiar face. Pie had begged Holly Ruff to ac- 
 company him, but Ruff was too busy a man to be 
 able to sacrifice an afternoon even for Miss Rivera's 
 debut. He promised, instead, to bespeak some fa- 
 vorable press notices from certain musical critics 
 at almost any sacrifice of conscience to friendship. 
 This was a point gained, yet Breck longed to di- 
 vide his agitations, hopes, and fears with some one 
 near at hand. He was anxious about Anita, di- 
 vining how her heart throbs were measuring out 
 painfully this interval of suspense. It might have 
 been a difficult matter to decide the question of 
 his consistency. He longed to have her succeed 
 in a way to answer her wildest hopes, yet he car- 
 ried behind this wish the vibrating consciousness 
 that if she failed he was to teach her to welcome 
 defeat, since it brought her nearer to him, per- 
 mitted him to press sweeter ideals upon her than 
 she had yet known, and to show her that love is 
 enough for a woman. Meanwhile, what was essen- 
 tial was to fulfill the duty of the present moment 
 and suspend every thought of further action until 
 the right moment came. He longed to find an 
 acquaintance whom he might bribe or buy to aid
 
 148 CIPHERS. 
 
 him in bestowing some sort of recognition upon 
 the young songstress. The seats were chiefly oc- 
 cupied by ladies, who were settling themselves 
 with little movements and gestures suggestive of 
 birds pluming their feathers and sharpening their 
 bills. There was a flutter of programmes and a 
 soft buzz of voices. Two or three mature women 
 glanced back at Breck with the sunny benignity of 
 vision which his youth and good looks perhaps de- 
 manded, but they were strangers ; all were stran- 
 gers, and he experienced a hopeless feeling of dis- 
 tance, of isolation. Each seemed so individual, so 
 interested in herself, so well satisfied with herself, 
 so critical of all outside herself, that it was useless 
 to hope for any favorable judgment from any one 
 of them. Not one seemed to realize that this was 
 no mere every-day concert; that the dull, empty 
 stage with its grand piano and music stand was an 
 arena looked forward to with hopes and fears, shiv- 
 ering dread and repugnance, and that although the 
 fair gladiators would not come forth and say, 
 " Morituri te salutant" the struggle for life was 
 shortly to take place before the eyes of the indif- 
 ferent spectators. 
 
 However, he was not inspired to frame his ap- 
 peal to humanity in words, and now, failing to meet 
 a single glance or smile of recognition from any 
 one in the audience, he discontentedly walked back 
 to the door, wondering if perhaps the best thing he 
 could do were not to go behind the scenes and find 
 Anita. Suddenly he gave a start of joyful sur- 
 prise.
 
 CIPHERS. 149 
 
 "Poorshaw!" he exclaimed, putting his hand on 
 the shoulder of a young man who was leaning list- 
 lessly against the wall. " How glad I am to see 
 
 you ! " 
 
 " Hello, Breck, is that you ? " said Geddes Poor- 
 shaw, staring at the architect with some surprise 
 at the unexpected warmth of his greeting. " How 
 are you ? I am glad to see you, too. I was won- 
 dering why I had promised to come to this affair. 
 I thought there was not a soul here to speak to." 
 
 " I have been looking all over the house for 
 somebody I know, but in vain," said Breck, glow- 
 ing with pleasure and wringing Poorshaw's hand 
 as if he were some long-lost fidus Achates. " If 
 one wants to feel isolated, cut off from humanity, 
 let him enter a crowd of women." 
 
 " I prefer one at a time myself," said Poorshaw. 
 " My only reason for being here is, that my sister, 
 Mrs. Floyd, begged me to come in her place, as she 
 is ill. She crossed from Bremen with this girl, and 
 promised to befriend her. She has engaged her to 
 play at a musicale Saturday night. They say New 
 York will go wild over her, that she is certain 
 to make a sensation." 
 
 " Oh, you allude to the German violinist ? " 
 
 " Whom else ? " 
 
 " Poorshaw," exclaimed Breck fervently, " do 
 me a favor." 
 
 " Of course, anything." 
 
 Poorshaw was a big, well-made, ugly fellow, on 
 whom one could depend for a certain indifferent
 
 150 CIPHERS. 
 
 large-heartedness, and scorn of merely social con- 
 siderations. Breck and he had been thrown to- 
 gether frequently while the Newport cottages were 
 in progress, but up to the present moment had 
 rarely exchanged an unnecessary word. Friend- 
 ship, like love, however, answers necessity, and 
 can advance by great strides. Sure of sympathy 
 in his listener, Breck began with vivid picturing 
 and irresistible logic to describe Miss Rivera, and 
 the hard ordeal before her. Perhaps to make the 
 case stronger he refrained from any suggestion 
 that if she were to fail to-day there might exist 
 certain compensations for her. He continued to 
 give Poorshaw a very distinct impression that the 
 girl was poor, almost friendless, forced to earn her 
 own way ; that if she could make money by con- 
 cert singing she was saved, and failing that career 
 she was lost. 
 
 "Poor thing," said Poorshaw. "I'll do all I 
 can. I know nothing about music, and care less, 
 but I promise to applaud to the echo, whether she 
 sings like the cherubim and seraphim, or cannot 
 raise a note." 
 
 " I want her to feel cheered, not disheartened, as 
 she comes forward," said Breck. " I want her to 
 be certain she has some friends. The infernal thing 
 about being a musician is, that you have not only 
 to have a voice, skill, training, but you have to 
 have experienced nerves." 
 
 " Hush, they are beginning. Sit down," said 
 Poorshaw. They went forward and took their
 
 CIPHERS. 
 
 seats in the first row of the balcony circle. Herr 
 Zriny was already at the piano engaged in over- 
 coming the enormous technical difficulties of Schu- 
 mann's Fantasia, Opus 17. He was followed by 
 Herr "Weil, a baritone, who the season before 
 had become a familiar and favorite figure on the 
 operatic stage. He seemed to have secured his 
 place in the hearts of his friends, since to-day he 
 was enabled to make a triumph out of what, judged 
 on its own merits, might have been a dismal fail- 
 ure ; for, owing to the fact that he was suffering 
 from a violent cold, his upper notes were uncertain, 
 worse than uncertain, his middle register al- 
 most inaudible, while his lower tones came out with 
 such preternatural strength that the effect was 
 startling. Feminine verdicts are said to be an affair 
 of the sensibilities only, and probably his fair audi- 
 ence was moved by his dire need of encourage- 
 ment. They would have insisted on an encore had 
 not the artist himself, with grateful and eloquent 
 gestures, made it clear that such a concession 
 would be at too much cost to his own chest. Sid- 
 ney Breck could not help experiencing satisfaction 
 at these signs of easy toleration on the part of a 
 house he had suspected of being over-critical. If 
 these women were so complaisant towards a fat, 
 red-faced falsetto, whose voice varied between a 
 painful baritone and a volcanic bass, what would 
 they not do for a young and pretty creature who 
 would trip forward presently in her yellow satin 
 and lace gown, her eyes beaming, her lovely lips
 
 152 CIPHERS. 
 
 smiling, and her hands holding, with an occasional 
 coquettish gesture, the roll of music which con- 
 tained the song which would charm all hearts. She 
 was first to sing " Lascia cK io pianga" a some- 
 what worn, but yet eternally fresh aria. Indeed, 
 Contarini piqued himself on the way he had taught 
 Anita to sing what well done could never be hack- 
 neyed. " Every thirty years," it was his wont to 
 say, " a new singer should arise who will sing the 
 old songs. Each generation needs a musical re- 
 naissance." The important matter was to sing 
 them out of a new inspiration, discarding the tra- 
 ditions, the conventions of each lyrist, who in turn 
 has made the songs her own. Anita in particular, 
 of that the music-master was quite certain, 
 could, with unique genius, gather up the cast-off, 
 half-forgotten melodies, invest them with her own 
 fire and force, and charm the world with nobody 
 could predict what grace of unexpectedness, and 
 novel charm. 
 
 However, before Anita's place in the programme 
 was to be filled up by this delightful vision which 
 more and more possessed Breck's mind, the Frau- 
 lein Lemcke must appear. Breck, naturally jeal- 
 ous for his own protegee, had taken comfort in the 
 picture Anita had drawn of the violinist. Conced- 
 ing something to feminine malice, he had expected 
 to see a robust Hanoverian, comparatively of mid- 
 dle age, who would handle her instrument like a 
 saucepan. He could hardly believe his eyes when 
 there was led out a quaintly pretty little creature,
 
 CIPHERS. 153 
 
 apparently not more than sixteen, dressed in a 
 dark blue frock of cloth and velvet hardly reaching 
 to the ankles. Her masses of wavy flaxen hair, 
 arranged in braids whose long ends fell below her 
 waist, were surmounted by a cap of dark blue 
 velvet set off by a little feather. As she came for- 
 ward her lips were set in a babyish curve, and 
 when she bowed her appealing blue eyes traveled 
 about the place as if she longed somewhere to find 
 a friend and be sure of some touch of sympathy. 
 She looked so childish, so naive, so pretty, the 
 heart of the audience opened to her on the instant. 
 She was greeted with a spontaneous burst of ap- 
 plause. At this she smiled, the smile of a happy 
 infant, and fitted her violin under her soft white 
 chin with such a blissful air of satisfaction that 
 everybody vociferously clapped again ; in fact, the 
 little Fraulein's success was assured before she had 
 played a note. Then, as she drew her bow across 
 the strings the impression was deepened. She was 
 not only a charming child, she was a virtuoso. 
 The most captious critic could hardly have found 
 fault with her performance. If it were not marked 
 by clear individuality it yet established the fact 
 that the musician was mistress of her art ; that 
 she held ample powers in reserve, restrained her- 
 self, and was bent only on the reverent interpreta- 
 tion of the composition, one of Joachim Raff 's. 
 Of course when she had finished, she was enthu- 
 siastically applauded, and was not even allowed to 
 leave the stao-e for a moment. She ran forward
 
 154 CIPHERS. 
 
 obediently at the recall, laughed as she bowed, ad- 
 justed her instrument, then with an abrupt eerie 
 note which announced strange things, she seemed 
 to grasp a fresh faculty and sense in every auditor, 
 and to bid them follow her into a charmed circle. 
 She permitted her violin to play strange antics. 
 Everybody gazed, rapt, surprised, under the spell, 
 yet hardly knowing whether to be shocked or 
 charmed, fascinated or repelled. There was a 
 half uneasy feeling that the exhibition was some- 
 thing uncanny. But while every eye and ear was 
 strained in expectation, the dissonant discords re- 
 solved one by one into a full melodious strain. 
 Gradually from this emerged a melody, at first far 
 off, then nearer, evidently approaching, and as it 
 approached bringing a promise. Nothing could be 
 sweeter than the higher registers of the instrument 
 from which this melting, die-away air was beseech- 
 ingly invoked. The little strain was heard again 
 and again, growing fuller in strength. It seemed 
 now to hover above and perpetually to descend, 
 quivering restlessly on poised wings like a butter- 
 fly; it was like a beloved presence, felt, expected, 
 ravishingly near, yet never quite clasped, like a 
 kiss always promised, but just eluded. It filled the 
 yearning heart with rapture, the rapture which 
 comes just before possession. Alas, the charming 
 phantom was but playing hide-and-seek ; half 
 caught, it receded, vanished, then returned, this 
 time as if it were actually to be grasped, only to 
 flutter to a greater and greater distance. It was
 
 CIPHERS. 155 
 
 gone, and a sad sighing lamentation was heard ; 
 one sharp, swift, twanging chord, and the little 
 violinist bowed, laughed, and herself ran away 
 from those she had enchanted. 
 
 In spite of his artistic enthusiasm over Fraulein 
 Lemcke's clever playing, Breck had listened with 
 a boding presentiment, his nerves strung to the 
 highest tension. This was success, dazzling suc- 
 cess. Impossible that lightning should strike 
 twice in succession in the same place. He 
 listened not only with his own senses, but with 
 the ears of the girl whose turn was yet to come. 
 Bettina was recalled again and again, as if the 
 audience were insatiable if for only a glimpse of 
 the pretty German maiden, who smiled and shyly 
 kissed her hands, seeming always to deprecate the 
 very emotion she had inspired. After such an 
 overwhelming tribute it was impossible, Breck 
 argued, that they should have any feeling left for 
 Anita, who would instead be used as a douche, as 
 it were, to allay the fever pitch of excitement 
 which interfered with the progress of the concert. 
 His fears were only too substantially confirmed. 
 Tiring of the clamor, in the very midst of a fresh 
 salvo of applause, the opposite door from that 
 by which Bettina had for the time disappeared 
 opened, and the accompanist, followed by Con- 
 tarini, appeared, ushering forward a tall figure in 
 a startlingly bright yellow gown, at the sight of 
 whom all plaudits ceased on the instant. Breck 
 felt ready to faint.
 
 156 CIPHERS. 
 
 " Is not this the girl you wanted me to clap ? " 
 inquired Poorshaw, nudging his companion and 
 recalling him to his senses. 
 
 " Yes," said Breck. " Come, let us show people 
 she, too, has some friends in the audience." 
 
 The two began with no uncertain emphasis, but 
 their volley gathered little force from others, and 
 seon their own unaided endeavors seemed to rouse 
 derisive echoes in the hall. 
 
 " We had better drop it," whispered Poorshaw 
 with a suppressed chuckle ; " see how everybody 
 stares at us. They probably take us for paid 
 claqueurs." 
 
 By this time Anita, led forward between Con- 
 tarini and the accompanist, had reached the front 
 of the stage. Breck suffered in every nerve as 
 he looked at her. His tremors had been only 
 too prophetic when the night before he had said 
 to himself that he was not satisfied that she 
 had chosen the right sort of gown. In the dull 
 half-lights of the concert room, where the late 
 afternoon sunlight struggled coldly to put out the 
 gas, the yellow was too bright, the lace added a 
 tawdry effect. Compared with the childish Frau- 
 lein, who in point of fact was four years her 
 senior, Anita looked consummately adult, even 
 middle-aged. She could not appear otherwise than 
 handsome, but at this moment her beauty did not 
 attract. Her large dark eyes traveled over the 
 house, not timidly and trustftdly like the. German 
 forget-me-nots, but almost defiantly. Had she pos-
 
 CIPHERS. 157 
 
 sessad the requisite self-command to force herself 
 to smile, she might still have charmed as she 
 bowed ; as it was, she bit her lower lip and looked 
 sulky. Still, in very desperation, so Breck said to 
 himself, the latent genius of the girl might assert 
 itself as genius can assert itself, an irrestrainable 
 natural force sweeping away impediments, in fact, 
 organizing what seems like chaotic defeat into 
 victory. He could read the expression of her 
 face, and knew she realized that her moment of 
 struggle had come, that she had to make her 
 choice, and if she failed would be taken at her 
 word. 
 
 Contarini, as he supposed, had chosen her songs 
 wisely. What he had dreaded was that she should 
 be carried away by excitement or enthusiasm. 
 Lyrically, he could feel certain of her voice, but 
 not dramatically. He was afraid, not of her show- 
 ing herself tame and mediocre, but of being over- 
 ambitious and striking a false note. He had 
 thought only of her capabilities and limitations, 
 not of the possibilities of the moment. Thus it 
 was of little use for Breck to pray for a song in 
 which her irrepressible idea might shape itself 
 into a beautiful artistic novelty, for she had only 
 Handel's sublime aria. She rendered it very 
 faithfully and with some feeling, but the effect 
 was amateurish, and it left the audience cold. 
 They were still under the thrill of Bettina Lem- 
 cke's magic, and considered everything between her 
 two appearances as a tedious entr'acte which must
 
 158 CIPHERS. 
 
 be sat through patiently. They seemed not to 
 take note of Anita save as the hackneyed cantatrice 
 who fills up a gap in the programme. The faint 
 applause which followed the song was a mere 
 good-natured concession to an uninteresting artiste 
 whose feelings nobody wished to hurt, and it so 
 soon thinned and died away, and any attempt on 
 the part of Breck and Poorshaw was so clearly 
 perfunctory, they gave it up, feeling that the 
 singer was more honored in the breach than the 
 observance of the conventional encore. 
 
 "I shall go behind the scenes and speak to 
 Miss Rivera," Breck remarked to his companion. 
 
 " Take me," said Geddes Poorshaw. " I ad- 
 mired her looks. I should like to see her close at 
 hand." 
 
 And close at hand it must be confessed that 
 Anita was far more charming than she had been 
 at a distance. She was sitting with Mrs. Hugh 
 Rivera in a small, cold room, well wrapped up in 
 furs to avoid the draughts. Contarini was stand- 
 ing before her as the two young men entered, 
 talking and gesticulating violently. Breck pre- 
 sented Poorshaw to the whole party, and hat in 
 hand and with his best air the latter pressed his 
 congratulations upon the songstress. 
 
 " Yaas, yaas," said Contarini striking in, " I say 
 that it was all very well, very well indeed; and 
 for the fairst time it is something to be very well, 
 and not to be a fiasco utter and overwhelming. 
 I say to Miss Rivera, * Rome was not built in a
 
 CIPHERS. 159 
 
 day.' You have the voice, you have the intellect, 
 and you have the heart to sing ; you have also the 
 defects of these qualities. You have the nerves, 
 you have the high and unattainable ideal, you have 
 the doubt of yourself. They are as much to mas- 
 ter as the voice, and only experience will conquer 
 them. The one thing important to-day was not to 
 fail, and you have not failed." 
 
 " What did you think ? " asked Anita, looking 
 eagerly at Breck. 
 
 "You sang admirably. I was horribly fright- 
 ened, and my critical nerves were all on edge, yet 
 I could not have asked you to sing better. As 
 Contarini says, the great thing to achieve to-day 
 was not to fail." 
 
 Miss Rivera shook her head. She had listened 
 first to one and then to the other of the men who 
 tried to comfort her, endeavoring to detect their 
 real meaning behind their words. 
 
 " I don't feel it to be a success," she said, with a 
 mutinous glance and smile which showed the pos- 
 sible flash of her eyes and her pretty teeth. " I am 
 not happy over it. I know very well I did not 
 conquer my public. As I stood there I felt 
 humiliated. If you had not been close beside 
 me, Mr. Contarini, I believe I should have turned 
 and run away. And then to have to sing ' Lascia 
 eft io pianga,' in which I have to weigh every note, 
 as it were, and listen to the echo of my own voice. 
 If I had only had the scena from ' Freischiitz ' or 
 even ' LiebestodJ I might have put my whole soul
 
 160 CIPHERS. 
 
 into my singing. Then when everybody was going 
 wild over my voice, when they insisted on an 
 encore, I would have said, ' Never again ; you 
 were cold to me, you gave me no welcome. Had 
 you offered a kind word at the right time, I would 
 have been your slave ; as it is, never will I sing to 
 you again ! ' " 
 
 "Softly, softly," said Contarini. "It will all 
 come. Get familiar with the work you have to 
 do. You are not yet an artist, you are my pupil. 
 It is for me to judge, for me, who recognize dis- 
 tinctions of style, method, timbre, unheard by the 
 multitude. I wanted to feel sure what you could 
 do with your voice. Now I understand. It is a 
 beautiful talent; it will reward effort and self- 
 renunciation with the very blossom of art. It is 
 a voice that has its root in poetry, in feeling, in 
 the great heart of sorrow, in the comprehension of 
 the highest and the noblest, in what has made and 
 will always make the great art of the world." 
 
 " It is all of no use. All the king's horses and 
 all the king's men cannot reinstate me in my old 
 self-belief," said Anita, with a little gesture and a 
 dazzlingly saucy smile at one after another of the 
 group of men before her. " The signer may talk, 
 you may talk, Mr. Breck, but it was a failure, 
 at least, not a success. Now that German girl 
 had what I call a success ; she carried the people 
 off their feet." 
 
 Anita's eyes happened to rest on Poorshaw as 
 she spoke the last word.
 
 CIPHERS. 161 
 
 "You sang charmingly," he remarked; "not 
 that it matters whether a girl like yourself sings 
 well or ill." 
 
 " I assure you it matters very much to me," said 
 Anita. 
 
 " I do not see why you should take the trouble 
 to do anything for a parcel of women who actually 
 care nothing for music," Poorshaw went on with 
 an air of indignation. " It is only that they like 
 to pretend they are doing something." 
 
 " You do not seem to understand," cried Anita, 
 with passion in her face and voice, " that music is 
 my profession. The opinion of the public may not 
 be worth caring about, but all the same I have got 
 to live by it." 
 
 " I can't see that at all," retorted Poorshaw, with 
 a look of ardent admiration. 
 
 " I mean I am obliged to earn my bread and 
 butter," explained Anita, looking superb in her 
 youthful scorn. 
 
 "Don't see it at all," Poorshaw insisted. 
 " What I say is, if I were you I would not give 
 myself the trouble." 
 
 "What do you mean? That I shall sit down 
 helplessly and die of starvation?" 
 
 " Quite the reverse," said Poorshaw enigmati- 
 cally. 
 
 Miss Rivera listened apparently without com- 
 prehension. It was time for her to gather up her 
 energies for her second song, and Contarini told 
 Breck to go back to the concert-room and take his
 
 162 CIPHERS. 
 
 friend with him. Anita passed her next ordeal 
 fairly well. When the concert was over, Poor- 
 shaw was disappointed to find that she had gone 
 home at the conclusion of her song, attended by 
 her sister and Signer Contarini. Breck was so 
 much taken up with the reflection that the after- 
 noon had settled his destiny for him that he 
 walked away from the hall like a somnambulist, 
 failing to observe the impression made upon Poor- 
 shaw, who talked of nothing but Miss Rivera, and 
 expressed his admiration with an audacity which 
 might have disarmed any but a jealous lover by its 
 extraordinary naivete. 
 
 " I don't know a girl in society who can com- 
 pare with her for real good looks," he said. 
 
 " I dare say not," murmured Breck ; " yet " 
 
 " She looked well on the stage," Poorshaw con- 
 tinued, " but a hundred times better off it. The 
 notion of a girl like that talking of earning her 
 own bread and butter with starvation as an alter- 
 native ! The idea of her being exposed to the 
 criticism of a lot of dull, insignificant people, not 
 one of whom can hold a candle to her ! Why, she 
 has the most superb eyes, never have I seen such 
 eyes! They are so full of fire, and still at the 
 same time they laugh, they challenge, they im- 
 plore ! It would be positively cruel " 
 
 "We talk of the public being cruel," Breck 
 burst in at this cue, pursuing the thread of his 
 own thoughts; "but, after all, it is Art that is 
 cruel, when it at once promises and deludes, gives
 
 CIPHERS. 163 
 
 and denies. Art should not so easily surrender 
 itself, should reserve itself for a full gift, not 
 offer slight favors to all who seek, here a little 
 and there a little ; to each an insufficient talent 
 which serves merely to awaken longings never to 
 be fulfilled, takes away contentment and puts a 
 thorn of ambition in its place, rankling into dis- 
 enchantment, and finally into bitterness." 
 
 " I do not consider that it makes an atom of 
 difference to a girl like Miss Rivera," said Poor- 
 shaw. " I always insist that art and books and 
 music are simply intended for people out of the 
 swim, or compensation for the poor and the old, 
 the sick and the unhappy." 
 
 " There is more than a grain of truth in what 
 you say," said Breck, and he laughed as he looked 
 at the big, athletic fellow. 
 
 They were about to separate, when Poorshaw, 
 with a sudden impulse of intimate affection, 
 pressed Breck to dine with him at his club. 
 Breck declined, having a clear idea of what was 
 before him that evening. 
 
 " I wish you would give me to-morrow night 
 then," said Poorshaw. " I don't see enough of you. 
 Oli, by the way, I suppose there would be no harm 
 in sending Miss Rivera some flowers? She might 
 
 o o 
 
 like the attention." 
 
 " Oh, it is not at all necessary," said Breck, with 
 an air of surprise. 
 
 " It is the usual thing, quite the usual thing," 
 said Poorshaw. "Where does she live?" He
 
 164 CIPHERS. 
 
 wrote down the address, which Breck could not 
 find a pretext to withhold, with an air of consider- 
 ing it a matter of high importance. 
 
 By eight o'clock Breck was again in the Riveras' 
 little reception room. It was manifest that Anita's 
 spirits had not risen. She told him that she and 
 Maddy had been talking over the affair of the 
 concert, and her manner made it manifest that 
 they had touched the bottom of things, probed 
 the actual vital meaning of what goes to make up 
 success or failure. Mrs. Hugh Rivera was always 
 a close observer, and to-day her eyes, quickened by 
 jealous instinct, had taken in certain nice details 
 on points which had hitherto been obscure and 
 conjectural. She had not been dull in remarking 
 every feature of Fraulein Lemcke's toilette. She 
 had with jealous instinct seen the impresario sur- 
 round the little violinist with an absolutely wor- 
 shiping care, while he had neglected Anita. She 
 was ready to concede that there had been a culpa- 
 ble ignorance of nice distinctions in the choice of 
 the yellow satin gown, yet she had hitherto piqued 
 herself on her knowledge of the fashions. It was 
 her habit to read every item in the papers con- 
 cerning them ; she pored over fashion-plates and 
 books of patterns, haunted the chief shops on 
 opening days, never went by certain windows 
 without a careful study of each figure displayed, 
 and on Sundays it was actually a piously con- 
 ceived and executed duty to walk up and down 
 Fifth Avenue after morning service. She had
 
 CIPHERS. 165 
 
 always declared that she considered it her metier 
 to know what was worn, and she was now plunged 
 into actual humiliation at having made a mistake 
 in Anita's toilette. " Let me dress a woman, and 
 I care not how she sings," had been her proud 
 motto while engaged in the concoction of the 
 yellow satin and lace gown, yet all the time she 
 had failed to grasp the idea of the situation. The 
 moment she saw Fraulein Lemcke's simple toilette, 
 she had dreaded lest Anita's furbelows should 
 estrange everybody's sympathies, and all that her 
 worst fears could predict had come to pass. 
 
 " Now that it is too late, I see exactly what I 
 should have done," said Anita, the moment Breck 
 sat down opposite her. " Instead of wearing that 
 dowdy, old-fashioned thing, I should have gone in 
 hastily in a walking-dress, thrown down my muff, 
 loosened my boa, and taken up my music as if I 
 considered the occasion nothing in particular; 
 then I might at least have had a chance of success 
 from the start." 
 
 " You will know better what to do next time," 
 said Breck. 
 
 " There will be no next time. This was a happy 
 chance, and I have let it slip. Yesterday, Mr. 
 Bayliss talked about the concert tour, not a word 
 of it to-day. And Contarini ! In spite of all his 
 consoling words, I know as well as if I had seen 
 into his soul that the iron had entered there. 
 And I do not wonder at his being disappointed. 
 He has been so patient, oh, so beautifully pa-
 
 166 CIPHERS. 
 
 tient, and what a reward I gave him ! When 
 I went out in the midst of the dying applause for 
 the Lemcke, I felt cold, dull, disenchanted, and I 
 showed in every tone and every look that I was 
 dull, cold, and disenchanted. But how was I to 
 be bright and hopeful ? There I had been sitting 
 in that uncomfortable place for an hour and a 
 half, Contarini exhorting me, beseeching me, 
 threatening me. Nobody else came near me ; the 
 Lemcke did not notice me by a word or a smile. 
 Our two camps seemed utterly hostile. How could 
 I do my best in cold blood ? My wonder is that an 
 artist can ever experience the necessary glow, the 
 thrill, the emotion ! Outside, the audience sit 
 in a beautifully decorated auditorium, on softly 
 cushioned seats, with warmth, light, and a cheerful 
 buzz of voices. The artists are huddled shiver- 
 ing in a dingy little room, cold, draughty, the 
 look of everything suggesting the seamy side. 
 Not a comfortable chair is to be found ; they have 
 been made for the stage, gilded probably, but 
 without a spring, and so slight in frame that you 
 expect each moment they will give way beneath 
 you. Everybody looks cross and anxious ; every- 
 body is finding fault. There is everything to 
 depress one, and positively nothing to inspire ; 
 yet, in spite of this tedious interlude, in which one 
 is torpid with chill and dread, one must come 
 forth bold, sure, coquettish, conquering by sheer 
 force of will, smiling as if one were happy, serene 
 as if one were self-confident, proud as if one had
 
 CIPHERS. 167 
 
 one's foot on the neck of the public, instead of 
 being tremblingly dependent on its favor." 
 
 Break, touched, even thrilled, leaned forward 
 and seized the girl's hand with a look and manner 
 so direct that Mrs. Rivera, sitting by, divined that 
 he had forgotten he was not alone with Anita; 
 accordingly, she discreetly went out, closing the 
 door behind her. 
 
 " And to think," Anita went on, goaded always 
 by the feeling that she had been the victim of 
 imbecility and mischance, "that while I am suf- 
 fering this humiliation and defeat Bettina Lemcke 
 is exulting in her triumph. I can't help think- 
 ing how, to-night, she is surrounded by admirers, 
 pressing forward to congratulate her. Engage- 
 ments are being made for her in every city of the 
 United States. In a few weeks she will be able 
 to dictate terms, to demand what prices she likes. 
 She must be out of her senses over her success, 
 while I, oh, it is cruel ! I have had so many 
 defeats. I have never half told you, Mr. Breck, 
 how much I have gone through. I wanted to 
 write. I had the power to write, but nobody gave 
 me the least encouragement. Then I began to 
 paint, but although every one who saw my sketches 
 was ready to confess that they had spirit and real 
 aptitude, so many obstacles were put in my way 
 that I lost all interest in my work. Whatever I 
 set my heart upon fails me at the pinch of need. 
 There seems to be a fatality pursuing me. And 
 now, after all my beautiful dreams, to think that
 
 168 CIPHERS. 
 
 because I was badly dressed and came in while 
 the audience were under the spell of that little 
 German girl, whom yesterday I was ready to look 
 down upon " She tore her hand away from 
 Breck, and flung both her arms in air with a 
 disconsolate gesture " Oh, it is too much, too 
 much!" 
 
 Perhaps this flood of confessions might have 
 been stemmed by a lover actuated by genuine pas- 
 sion, but the personal note, it must be confessed, 
 jarred a little upon Breck. 
 
 "You speak as if everything had come to an 
 end," he said reproachfully ; " as if " 
 
 " Everything is at an end," she returned forcibly. 
 
 "Just because " 
 
 " I suppose I shall eat, I suppose I shall sleep," 
 said Anita. " One has to go on living, and as 
 one lives only by minutes, one mechanically an- 
 swers the need of the moment. If I think of 
 my future life in the aggregate I am frightened 
 by it, without hope, without ambition, without 
 art." 
 
 " Art at least will last, and you can find some 
 compensation in that." 
 
 "I shall feel about my music as I felt about 
 my painting. For six months I could not look 
 at my easel, my palette, or my color-box ; it was 
 like coming upon the corpse of a dead friend." 
 
 " Anita," cried Breck with sudden impetuosity, 
 " I have been through all that. After I laid down 
 palette and brush, it pierced me, it pierced me
 
 CIPHERS. 169 
 
 to the soul to see a picture ; even to look at a 
 landscape in nature, to see a fine sunset, the light 
 shining through the branches of trees, brought my 
 heart to my throat. Now I am wiser ; at least I 
 am more sane, less egoistic. I can understand 
 that I pampered a little grief into a great one. 
 Art has become all the more beautiful and worthy 
 to me. I am glad that men free to follow art 
 could go on doing, and doing better than I, the work 
 I laid down. And just so some day you will come 
 to realize that a benignant destiny had the order- 
 ing of all this. Life is many-sided, and you will 
 take it up by some new handle. I laughed at 
 Poorshaw this afternoon when he said that he saw 
 no good in art except as a consolation for the old, 
 the sick, and the unhappy ; but there is something 
 in it, after all." 
 
 " I was going to ask you who that Mr. Poor- 
 shaw was," said Anita with sudden interest. 
 
 "His name is Geddes Poorshaw. I designed 
 a cottage for his mother last year. She was a 
 widow, and she has since died, and the cottage 
 now belongs to this young man. That is the way 
 I became acquainted with him." 
 
 " He must be rich." 
 
 "I suppose he must be well off; how rich, I 
 don't know." 
 
 " How happened he to be at the concert ? " 
 
 " His sister, Mrs. Floyd, sent him in her place. 
 She is interested in Fraulein Lemcke, who is to 
 play at her house at a musicale."
 
 170 CIPHERS. 
 
 " There it is again ! " cried Anita, freshly stung 
 by the recollection of the rival into whose lap all 
 the gifts she herself coveted were being thrown. 
 " I try not to hate that girl, but it does seem to 
 me unjust that she should have everything and I 
 nothing." 
 
 " She has worked longer than you and harder 
 than you. I dare say she began when she was 
 five years old. There are no miracles behind that 
 admirable skill, but good solid, disinterested prac- 
 tice. She is a virtuoso used to her work, and you 
 are not. You need a more thorough training, a 
 surer technique. When you have mastered your 
 voice to the point of knowing to a nicety just 
 the effect you can produce with it, then you may 
 let yourself go, and trust to the inspiration and 
 the intuition which are the blossom of a perfect art." 
 
 " Let me have a little success, and I can work 
 as faithfully as any one," said Anita. "I need 
 the elan which good spirits bring." 
 
 Breck had a sense of fumbling, of wasting him- 
 self in generalities. Narrowness is essential to a 
 lover. 
 
 " Musicians are unlucky," he remarked, " in the 
 fact that the supreme test comes when the public 
 is looking on. Now a painter may ultimately fail, 
 but while he works he has the comfort of be- 
 lieving that he is putting the vital spark into his 
 work." 
 
 "I assure you," said Anita, "that even if I 
 failed to-day, I have often enough not failed.
 
 CIPHERS. 171 
 
 I have had my fine moments. I have believed in 
 niy own power." 
 
 Breck now gathered up his strength for a home- 
 thrust. 
 
 " I do not consider that you did fail," he said ; 
 " but I am ready to wish that you had failed abso- 
 lutely." 
 
 She gazed at him with incredulity. 
 
 " Oh, you mean " 
 
 "I mean," he said, leaning forward and speak- 
 ing with an agitated face, but yet trying to carry 
 off his emotion by a half laugh, "that what I 
 want is not that you should be a great singer, but 
 my wife." 
 
 She looked back at him as if in dismay, her 
 dilated eyes .seeming to read him through and 
 through ; then, as if compelled from the fire in his 
 glance to believe in the truth of his words, she 
 blushed and turned away. 
 
 He laid his hand on hers. " Will you marry 
 me, Anita?" he asked. 
 
 She smiled mischievously, then, with her face 
 still half averted, looked back at him out of the 
 corners of her eyes. 
 
 " Why should you wish to marry me ? " she 
 asked, as if still incredulous. 
 
 "I long to spare you, to serve you, to watch 
 over you." 
 
 " Oh, I see. Out of pity." 
 
 " Out of pity ! " he repeated. " What nonsense, 
 what absurdity ! "
 
 172 CIPHEBS. 
 
 " How am I to know that you really love me ? " 
 she murmured. 
 
 Breck blushed deeply; for a moment he felt 
 conscience-stricken. Then, as if eager to mask 
 the whole with the fragment of truth which really 
 existed, he hastened to say, "Have I not been 
 coming to see you for months? I told a friend 
 of mine yesterday that you were the only woman 
 I had ever thought of asking to be my wife." 
 
 "Who was that, Mr. Poorshaw?" she in- 
 quired. 
 
 "No; Holly Kuff." They had both risen, and 
 he went up to her and tried to take her hand. 
 " Why do you evade me ? Why do you not 
 believe in me ? " he exclaimed reproachfully. 
 
 She retreated a few steps, then with a saucy, 
 half -mischievous smile on her face, which was 
 glowing with color, said, " I did not expect to 
 marry anybody. I do not want to marry any- 
 body yet, not until I have made a great success 
 in some way." 
 
 " That is a very false notion of life, which you 
 had much better correct," he said, taking a step 
 towards her. 
 
 She held him off, as it were, by an imperative 
 gesture. 
 
 " But it is not a simple matter to marry," she 
 went on. " I am not an easily satisfied person. 
 I should be dreadfully unhappy, unless in some 
 way I made something brilliant out of my life. 
 I should not like to marry tamely, like others, to
 
 CIPHERS. 173 
 
 settle down in a humdrum fashion." She gave 
 him a laughing glance. " I should at least insist 
 on being loved madly." 
 
 He had felt himself dull and cold, but this bribe 
 to his ardor put fire into his veins. Up to this 
 moment the phrases he knew he ought to be utter- 
 ing in such a crisis whirled confusedly in his head, 
 but his tongue was stubborn. At her challenge, 
 however, he was beside her, his arm was about her, 
 his lips pressed to hers. 
 
 " You infant, you goose ! " he whispered. " Is 
 a man to sum up everything in a sentence? 
 Much you know about the way I can love you ! 
 Do you call me tame ? Do you dare assert that 
 life with me will be a humdrum affair ? " 
 
 He held her away from him, a hand on each 
 shoulder, and both laughing; they looked each 
 into the other's eyes. 
 
 " I also object very decidedly to marrying any- 
 body who is poor," she retorted, her whole face 
 dimpling with fun and sweetness. " I have told 
 Maddy a hundred times that nothing would induce 
 me to live in a crowded little flat like this, up five 
 flights of stairs." 
 
 " You will live exactly where I think best," said 
 Breck. " Perhaps in one room, where you will 
 contentedly grill my chop and make my cup of 
 coffee." 
 
 " Never will I live in one room. Never will I 
 make your coffee or grill your chop," said Anita ; 
 yet the expression of her face belied her words.
 
 174 CIPHERS. 
 
 " Not only will you do it, but you will exult in 
 it," Breck insisted, drawing her nearer to him. " I 
 think I see you darning my stockings, putting but- 
 tons on " 
 
 " Never, never, never ! I assure you I was not 
 born to be any man's slave." 
 
 " You have thus far mistaken your vocation," 
 said Breck. " Up to the present time you have 
 run after false ideas. I will give you a new heaven 
 and a new earth. You must burn the gods you 
 used to worship, and worship the gods you used 
 to burn." He held her face close to his and 
 looked into it, his own tremulous with feeling. 
 " Anita," he whispered, "confess that you love me 
 a little. Say you will marry me." She made an 
 effort to escape, then, as if she relented, met his 
 eyes, smiled, and permitted him to kiss her. 
 
 " Now that is settled," he said. " You will be 
 my wife." 
 
 As if this brought her to her senses she tore 
 herself away from him. 
 
 " No, no, no," she said with new energy. " I do 
 not promise yet. I ought not to give myself away 
 on an impulse. It is my whole life, my whole 
 life." 
 
 " It is in return for mine," said Breck seriously 
 and proudly. " Do I offer you nothing ? " 
 
 " It is different with a man. He still goes on 
 in his career ; he actually resigns nothing, while a 
 woman " But she softened, and took a step 
 nearer him. " I can't help loving you a little,"
 
 CIPHERS. 175 
 
 she said, with a tremulous laugh. " I do not see 
 how any woman could. No, no, I do not want to 
 be swept off my feet, as it were. Give me a little 
 time to i-eflect. I cannot at this moment promise 
 irrevocably.", 
 
 But although she persisted in this reserve, and 
 said that she must have time to reflect, he laughed 
 
 O 
 
 at such scruples. Certainly she had told him she 
 loved him, could not help loving him. She had 
 kissed him. He had wished to anchor himself, 
 and now he was safely anchored.
 
 vin. 
 
 MRS. LEE CHILDE had but one near relation, 
 her mother's brother, Dr. George Pardee, who was 
 the co-heir of the great property, and indeed had 
 for many years superintended the manufacture of 
 the famous Elixir, which engaged a whole village 
 of work-people in New Hampshire. 
 
 Early in January Dr. Pardee came to New 
 York to see his niece, stopping at the Everett 
 House, and spending his mornings with her. His 
 object was to consult Milly on the feasibility of 
 disposing of the business, for which he had re- 
 ceived a good offer. He was growing older and 
 was far from strong. He had no heir except 
 Milly, who was glad to consent to the sale, having 
 at times asked herself, with dismay, what in the 
 case of her uncle George's death she should do with 
 the Elixir. The negotiations filled two mornings, 
 then on the third, the last of Dr. Pardee's stay in 
 New York, he had a word to say on other matters. 
 
 " And how is it with you, Emily ? " he asked. 
 He was a tall, thin man, his face and manner aus- 
 tere, yet expressive at times of peculiar sweetness, 
 and his large gray eyes full of expression. 
 
 The two were sitting in Milly's morning room, 
 which was delicately, but not luxuriously furnished. 
 She was at her desk, and at this question wheeled 
 her chair round and looked into her uncle's face.
 
 CIPHERS. 177 
 
 " What are you doing with your life ? " he pro- 
 ceeded. 
 
 " Not much," she returned. " I decided to stay 
 in New York and try going into society once more. 
 After all, papa is getting old; he needs a com- 
 panion." 
 
 " I see that you are here," said Dr. Pardee. " I 
 asked what you were doing." 
 
 "I entertain frequently. Papa likes to have 
 people coming and going. Besides, I go out a 
 great deal just now." 
 
 "Is that all you do?" 
 
 " I am on several committees," said Milly. " I 
 am patroness of all sorts of enterprises. Every- 
 body knows that I am willing to give to any wor- 
 thy philanthropic scheme. Indeed, Mr. Venn 
 would tell you that I give far too much. But, with 
 my income to dispose of, what could I conscien- 
 tiously do except give ? If you saw the entreat- 
 ing letters I have every day ! But I dare say you 
 receive twice as many." 
 
 " I know, I know," said Dr. Pardee. " I hope 
 you don't flatter yourself that you are gaining 
 heaven by giving of your superfluity to rich or 
 poor." 
 
 " No." She looked at her uncle. 
 
 " Emily," said he, with a faint smile, " has your 
 money ever brought you happiness? Has it ever 
 bought what you wanted ? " 
 
 She shook her head. " One cannot buy happi- 
 ness," she said with some uneasiness. " Why do 
 you ask such a question ? "
 
 178 CIPHERS. 
 
 " I dare say you have probably found as I do," 
 he proceeded, with a little nod, " that your money 
 hinders your chance of happiness rather than adds 
 to it. It is easier, I tell you, Emily, for a camel 
 to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich 
 man to enter the kingdom of heaven. I am sixty- 
 three years old. I have not long to live, all the 
 doctors tell me. I cannot now begin and live my 
 life over again, but if I had the chance I would 
 give away all I possess and struggle along shoul- 
 der to shoulder with struggling men." 
 
 She looked at him with bright-eyed surprise. 
 
 " I say that it is more easy for a camel to pass 
 through the needle's eye than for a rich man to 
 enter the kingdom of heaven," he went on; "but 
 by heaven I mean the happiness of this world, for 
 which we all experience an infinite longing. I 
 have never been happy. For a time I deceived 
 myself with sanguine illusions. At college I flat- 
 tered myself for a year I was a favorite, then dis- 
 covered I was the jest of the class. They called 
 me ' Money-bags ' and * Bottles.' Still, I believed 
 I had one friend. In vacations I took him to my 
 father's, or to Europe, or to the Rockies. I loved 
 him. I trusted him to the core. "Well, one day I 
 overheard him talking about his ' money-bag,' and 
 remarking that he took the goods the gods pro- 
 vided, and never shook his bottle to get at the 
 dregs. After that I was very lonely at college. I 
 had not been sent for the sake of study, and no- 
 body seemed to consider it worth while to help
 
 CIPHERS. 179 
 
 me to study. It was taken for granted that with 
 all the Pardee money I was indifferent to books. 
 Not until years later did I compreLend how I had 
 thrown away, or rather been encouraged to throw 
 away, my best chance of happiness. My father 
 wished me to take a degree in medicine in order, 
 like himself, to be Dr. Pardee. I hated the pro- 
 fession, shirked all I could, and the moment I had 
 my diploma I dropped all pertaining to it. You 
 see, Emily, not having my own livelihood to make, 
 my faculties were never gauged, my ideas never 
 sharpened, my wits never stirred. The excite- 
 ment, the competition, the charm of life, was re- 
 served for those who had something to compete 
 for. I married very early, that was another 
 mistake. I was married for my money, and my 
 money and what it bought perfectly satisfied my 
 wife. She died in a few years, and her child died. 
 That was a sorrow I have never got over, but I 
 have never run the risk of making another mistake. 
 Little by little I found out what was in me. A 
 man must do his business in the world, and grad- 
 ually I found it worth while to live without dis- 
 order in my affairs, and help others to avoid dis- 
 order. Very likely in some ways I have even done 
 good. In a material way the village seems to be 
 prospering. Every year I give large amounts to all 
 sorts of charities, in some instances, I confess, 
 with the feeling that my money goes to support in- 
 stitutions and people I am not in sympathy with." 
 Milly, listening, experienced a dismay she could
 
 180 CIPHERS. 
 
 not trace to any adequate cause. " You have en- 
 joyed travel," she murmured ; " you are an inde- 
 fatigable reader of all sorts of books." 
 
 *' I have traveled everywhere, and with interest 
 and curiosity ; and I have read with interest and 
 curiosity, but never with any consciousness of 
 actually belonging to the real world of work, 
 of ideas, of achievements, of keen sympathies 
 applied to what is essential and vital in existence. 
 I take it, a man only gets what he has earned in 
 life ; now I have earned nothing. I sometimes say, 
 ' There are two ways of getting money, earning 
 and stealing ; and certainly I have earned no 
 penny. Thus, I suffer from the conviction that 
 nothing honestly belongs to me, that I owe it all. 
 Only how to pay my debt ! " 
 
 Milly had stared at her uncle, growing all the 
 time paler. Now when he paused she started up 
 and crossed the room, her chin raised and her two 
 hands clasping her throat. 
 
 "I am afraid you have become morbid," she 
 said, standing at a distance and looking at him. 
 "You ought to have said to yourself, 'There is 
 happiness in the world, and I will be happy.' " 
 
 The flicker of a smile crossed his face. " You 
 have said that to yourself," he observed. 
 
 "Yes. Why should I not be happy, uncle 
 George ? " 
 
 " You just told me you had not been happy." 
 
 " I am still young, only twenty-seven. Surely, 
 at my age, one can afford to have made a mistake 
 or two and still have time to be happy."
 
 CIPHERS. 181 
 
 "I never felt quite sure," said Dr. Pardee, 
 " whether your marriage was or was not an abso- 
 lute mistake, Emily." 
 
 "If I were to begin over again," said Milly 
 earnestly, " I doubt if I should alter it. It was, 
 after all, an experience. I might have made a 
 commonplace marriage and have had a common- 
 place happiness; but I married Lee Childe, that 
 is, his mother made him marry me, for the sake of 
 my money." 
 
 " It runs in the blood, or with the Pardee 
 money." 
 
 " But I was in love with Lee, that is, as a very 
 young girl is in love," said Milly. " He was very 
 handsome, very elegant, and had a way of uttering 
 little rankling flatteries and smiling down at me. 
 One day he told me I must marry him, and it was 
 exactly as if heaven had opened. You see, uncle 
 George, I have had my little romance, after all. 
 We were married very soon after the engagement 
 was made. I soon found out that he regarded me 
 as a crude, ill-formed girl, whom he trusted to his 
 mother to be trained into something presentable. 
 Uncle George, I could not begin to tell you what 
 I went through, the first year of my marriage. I 
 felt he did not love me, was contemptuous of me. 
 My feelings were wound up to a pitch of acute 
 agony by my continual strife with myself. I 
 seemed to be the sport of awkward accident, of 
 imbecility, of ill-luck. I made mistakes over 
 which my cheeks still burn when I recall them.
 
 182 CIPHERS. 
 
 I knew that I was a laughing-stock, that Lee hated 
 to go out with me lest I should commit some 
 betise, that I continually jarred upon him like a 
 false note in music. However, I grew older every 
 day, and was not so dull that I could not improve. 
 Mrs. Childe died, and Lee soon became miserably 
 ill. If he could have trusted me to nurse him it 
 would have been a sort of happiness ; but no, he 
 had a man, Teddo, who knew exactly how to 
 please him. I could do nothing except sit with 
 folded hands." 
 
 "That is another penalty of being rich. It 
 separates you from those you love ; hired service 
 is more skillful," said Dr. Pardee. 
 
 " For months and months after he died," Milly 
 went on with shining eyes, " I was the unhappiest 
 creature in the world. If I could have had one 
 frank, loving pressure of the hand to remember, I 
 should not have been plunged into such utter chaos. 
 It was papa who finally gave me comfort. He told 
 me that Lee had once said to him, ' Milly is the 
 sweetest woman in the world. It has never 
 crossed her mind that we have all lived on her 
 money. I should like to have her understand 
 that I have appreciated her ; that if I have 
 seemed cold and ungrateful it is because I have 
 been a sick man, and that a sick man has to 
 seem a heartless man because he has no strength 
 to spend on emotion.' Uncle George, if I have 
 said that once to myself, I have said it ten 
 thousand times. I have pressed it to my heart 
 as a Catholic presses a crucifix."
 
 CIPHERS. 183 
 
 " A poor reward. He was a selfish man." 
 
 " It was his training. His mother had brought 
 him up to feel that the world existed for him. 
 After I knew that after all he had had a regard 
 for me, the sting went out of my grief. It became 
 an appreciable fact, partly perhaps from under- 
 standing papa, that there was a sort of cynicism 
 in the blood, that for generations the family 
 had lived so far from deep emotions they abhorred 
 the idea of strong feeling. Perhaps, as you say, 
 they had been too rich, and had lost the kingdom 
 of heaven." 
 
 "Now you have got over your grief for your 
 husband ? " 
 
 She flushed slightly. "It is almost five years 
 since he died," she faltered, as if deprecating his 
 words. "The pang of it is gone. It all seems 
 long ago. I did all he would let me do, but of 
 course he never really cared for me." 
 
 " No doubt you have offers. I wonder if you 
 will marry again." 
 
 " If I ever do marry," said Milly eagerly, " it 
 will be because " The impulse carried her so 
 far, then she blushed and broke off. 
 
 " Because you are in love ? " 
 
 " That is only a part of it. Indeed, I mistrust 
 myself. I have always been so hungry for some- 
 body to love, somebody to spend myself for." 
 She laughed as she spoke; she had regained her 
 self-command. 
 
 " You want a man to be ardently in love with
 
 184 CIPHERS. 
 
 you," said Dr. Pardee with conviction. " It will 
 not be easy to prove his disinterestedness. Easy 
 enough to love a pretty woman with your in- 
 come." 
 
 "I shall know," said Milly. "I have been 
 married once for my money. I have had the 
 experience." 
 
 " I warn you to beware of expecting miracles. 
 The safest thing to do is to marry a man of equal 
 means, who asks nothing from you." 
 
 " You do not seem to think I care about being 
 happy," said Milly, with a little soft petulance. 
 "Unless I were sure of being happy I should 
 never think of marrying at all." 
 
 "Emily," said Dr. Pardee, taking her hand 
 and drawing her towards him, " there is some- 
 body." 
 
 She laughed, blushed, but did not deny it. 
 
 "I warn you," said he, "that it is more easy 
 for a camel to pass through a needle's eye 
 than for a rich woman to enter the kingdom of 
 heaven." 
 
 He took his leave ; and after he had gone, Milly 
 reflected upon all he had said, his premonition of 
 his own end, his careful arrangements for herself. 
 The intimations he had given . of his own life, 
 thwarted and defeated in its personal hopes, 
 weighed upon her. She could combat his views, 
 yet there was a voice, and a persuasive voice, 
 in this solemn reiteration of the text of his 
 sermon to her; still, she knew that there was a
 
 CIPHERS. 185 
 
 fallacy in all he had uttered, for she was going to 
 be happy. 
 
 "It was all chance," she said to herself. She 
 had seen Sidney Breck, and everything had 
 altered in values. So far, she had contented 
 herself with planning Breck's future, a future 
 in which she had no visible place. At times she 
 dreamed of his turning back to his beloved art, 
 and of her telling him to devote all his powers to 
 becoming a painter. Again, it seemed to her 
 that, with his strongly diversified tastes, he ought 
 to become a real connoisseur and make a great 
 collection of pictures. Always, when she planned 
 and plotted, her joy was in giving, in giving on 
 her knees. He had touched her; she liked him. 
 The farthest she had gone in her deepest soul had 
 been once to say to herself, "He loves me!" That 
 had happened on an occasion when she had asked 
 
 him to meet her at X 's art rooms and give 
 
 her his views on a picture of Daubigny's which 
 she thought of buying. It was a day of furious 
 wind and rain, and when she left her carriage the 
 man who held the umbrella over her had splashed 
 her long cloak with mud. She was indifferent, 
 but Breck, advancing to the door to meet her as 
 she entered, gave a cry as if some calamity had 
 overtaken him. 
 
 " There is mud on your gown," he said. 
 
 "Yes," she returned cheerfully; "I have as 
 many spots as Lady Macbeth." 
 
 Already he was on his knees, scouring away at
 
 186 CIPHERS. 
 
 the stains, and would not desist until all signs of 
 the desecration were rubbed away. 
 
 "There," he said in a tone of satisfaction, and 
 smiled at her. 
 
 It was then she had said to herself, " He loves 
 me!" a woman's test, a Woman's subtle intu- 
 ition. It gave her unspeakable content ; yet she 
 had never said in return, " I love him ! " It was 
 only that she liked him. She enjoyed his talk, 
 not that she considered him especially clever, but 
 that he seemed to her fresh and real, that he gave 
 frankly the actual outcome of his mind and heart. 
 She was never tired of watching his face, and was 
 charmed by an expression she found there at 
 times, like that of a delightful little boy half- 
 astonished at things. It would be something to 
 live for, to set him free to follow his own bent, to 
 give all his powers and faculties free play. 
 
 By this time a full fortnight had passed since 
 Breck had dined with her the evening before the 
 ball, and she had not seen him. He had perhaps 
 been out of town ; he had once spoken of going 
 to Washington. After a week she had sent him 
 this little note : 
 
 DEAR MR. BRECK, Where are my plans ? 
 Am I, after all, to have no chateau en Espagne ? 
 Yours, MILLY CHILDE. 
 
 To which he replied : 
 
 DEAR MRS. CHILDE, It was all in the air.
 
 CIPHERS. 187 
 
 I am making it over on new foundations, and 
 will bring it soon. Respectfully yours, 
 
 SIDNEY BRECK. 
 
 Still he did not come, and by the end of this 
 blank fortnight she began to grow restless. She 
 recalled every incident of the little dinner party 
 to which he had found himself unexpectedly in- 
 vited. At the time she had told him to come that 
 Monday evening, she had forgotten the engage- 
 ment. When it was recalled to her mind, she had 
 half decided to send a line explaining that Mrs. 
 Fletcher, Miss Hurst, and Mr. Norreys were 
 coming to dinner, and afterwards they all had to 
 go on to the first ball of the season. Now she 
 was ready to confess to the foolish feminine vanity 
 which had kept her from warning him he was not 
 to be the only guest. She had hoped he would 
 consider it a piquant surprise to come upon her in 
 that splendid gown. Instead of being charmed, 
 he had perhaps been wounded. She could remem- 
 ber that he had scarcely looked at her, and that 
 when she did once or twice meet his eyes they 
 wore a dazzled expression. Yet how well he had 
 talked! What spirits he had been in! With 
 what fun and good humor he had rallied Whiley 
 Norreys ! At the time she had felt grateful to 
 him for the self-restraint which made him talk to 
 every one rather than to herself. Now she began 
 to readjust her impressions according to the new 
 light thrown by his long silence and absence.
 
 188 CIPHERS. 
 
 She could not believe that he had been affronted, 
 but in some way his pride had been hurt. He 
 was diffident and modest, and perhaps that very 
 gown she had longed to have him admire, with 
 its cloth of silver and its girdle and clasps of 
 jewels, had separated them. 
 
 The new year had passed in this interval, and 
 she had sent him a present ; then, when no answer 
 came, she finally dispatched this note : 
 
 DEAR MR. BRECK, Will you dine quietly 
 with papa and myself, nobody else, at seven 
 to-night. Please send word, " yes " or " no," by 
 messenger. MILLY CHILDE. 
 
 The one word " Yes " came, and Milly's spirits 
 rose. 
 
 "Papa," she said, "Mr. Breck is coming to 
 dinner." 
 
 " I thought you were dining out." 
 
 "I had three engagements for to-night, but I 
 have thrown them all over. I cannot please every- 
 body and Milly Childe into the bargain, so I 
 decided for once to please Milly Childe." 
 
 " Depend upon it," said Mr. Childe with an air 
 of having reached the ultimate secret of things, 
 " that is the safest way. If you please yourself, 
 somebody at any rate is certain to be pleased. 
 My wife used to proclaim the fact that she only 
 lived for others, never seemed to have reflected 
 how superfluous the effort was."
 
 CIPHERS. 189 
 
 " Papa," said Milly, " I wonder you never 
 thought of marrying again." 
 
 He gazed at her blankly. 
 
 " Now, do you actually suppose I am that sort 
 of person ? " 
 
 " But, why not ? There is somebody you are 
 always dying to see, and who is always rejoiced 
 to see you ; to whom you talk endlessly, yet have 
 to leave off with the half unsaid ; who invariably 
 puts you in good spirits ; with whom you enjoy, 
 so to speak, the whole of yourself, not a mere 
 fraction." 
 
 " Good heavens ! " said Mr. Childe, with an air 
 as if at his wits' end, " I can't think what you are 
 driving at. Whom do you mean? " 
 
 " Whom do I mean ? Why, cousin Agnes 
 Fletcher, of course." 
 
 *' Agnes Fletcher ! Why, yes ; I see." Mr. 
 Childe had started up in his perplexity, but now, 
 as the air of shock and alarm passed off his 
 face, he sat down, and his delicately chiseled fea- 
 tures relaxed into a peculiai-ly genial expression. 
 " Agnes Fletcher ! why, of course," he murmured 
 and smiled, a gradually broadening smile, 
 while he told off the points of Milly's riddle on 
 his fingers: "Somebody I am always dying to 
 see ; who is always dying to see me ; somebody I 
 am never tired of talking to ; who puts me in 
 good spirits. No doubt, Milly, that is all true; 
 but " 
 
 "We all know what such affinities lead to,"
 
 190 CIPHERS. 
 
 interrupted Milly saucily. " As I said before, 
 papa, why don't you " 
 
 He shook his head with an air of sudden 
 depression. 
 
 "My personal experience of matrimony does 
 not exactly harmonize with your hypothesis," he 
 said mournfully. " It sounds all right, some- 
 body who is always dying to see me, never tired 
 of listening to me, puts me in good humor. 
 But I have been married once, and that descrip- 
 tion does not seem to fit my first wife at all." 
 
 " They say, you know, that a second marriage is 
 the triumph of hope over experience," suggested 
 Milly. 
 
 " Do they, though ? " said Mr. Childe, brighten- 
 ing. " That is neat, remarkably neat, ' the tri- 
 umph of hope over experience.' It seems to me I 
 never heard an epigrammatic saying which was so 
 absolutely veracious. ' The triumph of hope over 
 experience ! ' It is really astonishing how clever 
 some people are." He chuckled. It was evident 
 to Milly that the pebble she had thrown had not 
 sunk into the deep ocean without raising ever- 
 widening circles of ripples. " You don't consider 
 me too old ? " he asked after a time, in a stiff, 
 reluctant tone. 
 
 " No, indeed ; and I am sure cousin Agnes 
 does not." 
 
 " She is not so very much younger herself," he 
 observed, and added, "Certainly, at her age she 
 can have no great expectations."
 
 CIPHERS. 191 
 
 Milly trod on air that day. She liked to feel 
 that she could shape events and alter people's 
 destinies to their advantage. This feeling of ela- 
 tion had not left her when Sidney Breck entered 
 at seven o'clock. 
 
 " You have been ill," she said, the moment she 
 glanced at him. 
 
 "Not quite well. They tell me I have been 
 working too hard, but I fancy it all came from 
 a slight cold," he replied. 
 
 His face had given her a feeling of alarm. He 
 seemed wholly to have lost his habitual glow of 
 youthful color : the orbits of his eyes looked 
 larger. Even Mr. Childe, who was still in the 
 clutches of a new and absorbing idea, was struck 
 by the startling delicacy of the young face. 
 
 " Better look out," he observed ; " I have no 
 doubt it all comes from these infernally over- 
 heated modern houses. Half the young men in 
 New York die of pneumonia." 
 
 At table Breck spoke little, but smiled as Milly 
 and her father-in-law talked, turning his face first 
 towards one and then towards the other, as if 
 deeply interested. Yet, although he seemed thus 
 to listen, Milly felt as if actually he was not 
 listening, but was preoccupied and mentally far 
 beyond reach of the subjects discussed. She did 
 not recognize the expression in his face. Hitherto, 
 he had looked at her with a sort of eager humil- 
 ity; she had seemed to read in his eyes, "Do 
 what you will with me. I love to do your bid-
 
 192 CIPHERS. 
 
 ding." The same self-surrender was not in his 
 eyes to-night, nor did any glow come into his face 
 as he spoke to her. He maintained a simple, 
 serious demeanor which suggested a poise of mind 
 which no trivial force could alter. She was jeal- 
 ous of this new strength of dignity. Twice, when 
 the butler put some question as to his choice of 
 wines, Breck seemed impatient, waved his hand, 
 and looked absolutely haughty and unapproach- 
 able ; but never before had he seemed to Milly so 
 admirable. She was radiant with joy at seeing 
 him once more ; she talked incessantly, and if her 
 words brought the faintest smile to his lips she 
 was triumphant. As she left the two men at table 
 she smiled and nodded at Breck, who rose cere- 
 moniously and followed her to the door, without 
 speaking. When he came back to the table he 
 seemed to feel the absence of some stimulant ; he 
 leaned his head against the high back of the 
 chair, closed his eyes, and once or twice passed his 
 hand over his forehead as if to press away some 
 importunate thought. 
 
 "Do take some Madeira," said Mr. Childe, 
 after waiting for a few moments. 
 
 " No, thanks." 
 
 " Have a cigar, at least." 
 
 "Not to-night." 
 
 " Then perhaps you had rather go and find Mrs. 
 Childe." 
 
 " I have something to show her," said Breck, 
 rising. " If you will excuse me I will go into the 
 parlor."
 
 CIPHERS. 193 
 
 " That fellow seems to be talking in his sleep. 
 If he had drunk anything I should decide it had 
 gone to his head. Perhaps it is Milly instead," 
 said Mr. Childe to himself, left alone and preparing 
 to take a little nap. 
 
 Breck found Milly standing before the fire in 
 the rear drawing-room. As she heard his step she 
 turned ; there was a tremulous expression on her 
 face. 
 
 " So you left papa to smoke his cigar alone," 
 she said, almost with timidity. 
 
 " I wished to speak to you." 
 
 "About the plans?" 
 
 " About the plans, but also " He paused, 
 and as she met his glance her heart began to beat 
 violently. 
 
 "I have not yet thanked you for the etchings 
 you sent," he said. 
 
 " Did you like them ? " she asked eagerly. " I 
 remembered what you said about the rarity of good 
 architectural etchings, and these seemed to me ex- 
 cellent." 
 
 " Admirable, yes, but " 
 
 " But what ? " They stood looking at each other 
 as if defiant. 
 
 " I do not feel justified in accepting them," he 
 said, dropping his words as if they came by a 
 painful effort. " I happen to know the cost of 
 such things " 
 
 " The cost of such things ? " she broke in. 
 " What does it matter ? I liked the etchings, I
 
 194 CIPHERS. 
 
 thought you might like them. I ventured to hope 
 they might even be serviceable to you. Yet you 
 talk about cost. Oh, Mr. Breck ! " 
 
 He did not answer, but something in his look 
 and attitude suggestive of pride and reluctance 
 seemed more and more to excite her. Her eyes di- 
 lated as they searched his face. Her hands clasped 
 and unclasped. 
 
 " I thought we were friends," she cried. 
 
 Her tone smote him. " Oh, Mrs. Childe ! " he 
 said with a deprecatory gesture. 
 
 " And if we are friends," she went on almost 
 passionately, " what does it matter ? I happen to 
 be rich, so rich that the cost of tilings scarcely 
 counts if I wish to buy them. Now if I happened 
 to be poor and it were you who were rich, Mr. 
 Breck, how pleasant it would be to have you give 
 me presents." 
 
 " But I am not rich," said Breck, not altering 
 his simple, serious manner ; " and it is not 1 who 
 have it in my power to give. And since I cannot 
 give I cannot bring myself to receive." 
 
 She gazed at him in astonishment. 
 
 " I have offended you," she exclaimed. " I know 
 not how, perhaps it may be best not even to ask 
 what I have done, simply to beg you to forgive 
 me. Believe me, Mr. Breck, nothing could be fur- 
 ther from my wish than to displease you in any 
 way." 
 
 She said this breathlessly ; he could see tears in 
 her eyes.
 
 CIPHERS. 195 
 
 " How could you offend me ? " he muttered. He 
 half turned away as if the ordeal was too severe. 
 "Oh, Mrs. Childe," he said, his voice trembling, 
 " I ought not to be here. I ought never to have 
 come." 
 
 " Yes, I have offended you," she went on as if 
 he had not spoken. "I cannot but think some- 
 thing happened the night you dined here with 
 those people. You see, Mr. Breck, when I spoke 
 to you about coming I forgot the engagement. It 
 was all so little to me. Perhaps finding me sur- 
 rounded and occupied you said to yourself that I 
 was capricious. But I am not capricious." 
 
 " No, I do not think you are capricious," he re- 
 plied ; but he had turned away, and she could not 
 see his face. 
 
 "What is it then?" 
 
 " It is," he burst out almost fiercely, " that our 
 paths are wide apart. You have no need of me, 
 and I have no right to intrude upon you. You 
 called me your friend, but how can a man in my 
 position be your friend ? " 
 
 For a few moments she had felt troubled, almost 
 overwhelmed ; now she experienced an exquisite 
 sense of relief. 
 
 " How can a man in your position be my friend ? " 
 she repeated very softly. " I might affect to mis- 
 understand you. I might say that you probably 
 considered yourself too clever and too usefully em- 
 ployed to waste time on a frivolous woman like 
 myself. But that is not what you meant. There
 
 196 CIPHERS. 
 
 is, instead, some idea in your mind that as a rich 
 woman I enjoy some especial prerogatives. But 
 tell ine who are to be my friends ? Those whom I 
 enjoy, delight in, whose words I repeat over and 
 over to myself, whose visits I look forward to, who 
 give charm and stimulus to all they share with 
 me, or the idle people I meet ? Do you consider 
 me so dull that I prefer those who do nothing, 
 who can do nothing ? Society is interesting, I sup- 
 pose, to those ambitious to get on in it, to those 
 bom in it, but if you think I care for society you 
 have no idea of the woman I am. I love the 
 thought, the ideas, of the real world. I love na- 
 ture, I love art, and these people who live on the 
 surface of things simply cramp and weary me. 
 With you it has been so different, Mr. Breck, for 
 with you I am myself. You have powers, and you 
 know how to use them ; you are honest, you are 
 filled with love for the best things in the world. 
 Am I saying too much ? But I feel as if I had to 
 defend myself against some accusation. I suspect 
 that somebody has been telling you evil things of 
 me, perhaps that I am a coquette. I am not a 
 coquette, at least, if I am ever a coquette it is 
 only in self-defense. I am not, I shall never be 
 a coquette with you. I want you to understand 
 that." 
 
 Her voice failed her. He was impelled to turn, 
 although he had not looked at her as she poured 
 out this tumultuous rush of words. She was 
 flushed, all her features were quivering.
 
 CIPHERS. 197 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Childe," he began in a tone of de- 
 spair, but she regained her voice and swept on in 
 her defense. 
 
 " I spoke to you once of my uncle. He was 
 here last week, and one day he was telling me 
 about his spoiled life. He declared that his wealth 
 had given him no happiness, that it had simply 
 robbed him of his chance to use his faculties and 
 work for the objects in life he craves. He said he 
 had had no comrades, no true friends ; that his 
 wife had married him without love, simply desiring 
 his money ; that in every direction, turn where he 
 might, his wealth had stood between him and the 
 actual world-wide, world-deep life which poorer 
 men taste the pang and the joy of. He warned 
 me that it would be my fate, as well, to find no dis- 
 interested friendship, no disinterested love, no 
 work I could put my hand to and perform with 
 all my heart and soul. Again and again he reit- 
 erated that it was more easy for a camel to pass 
 through a needle's eye than for a rich man to en- 
 ter the kingdom of heaven. I was ready then to 
 laugh at his cruel prophecy. To-night I begin to 
 feel the force of it, to be stifled by it." 
 
 He caught her hands. Great tears were rolling 
 down her cheeks. Her face was irresistibly mov- 
 ing to him. For a moment they looked at each 
 other in silence, then bending down he kissed first 
 one palm of hers, then the other, and dropped hia 
 hold upon her. 
 
 " I must tell you something," he said in a husky
 
 198 CIPHERS. 
 
 voice, " something that has happened to me in 
 these three weeks." 
 
 She shuddered and drew back. 
 
 " I am engaged, engaged to be married," he 
 went on in a tone hardly above a whisper. His 
 glance had dropped to the floor, but he was con- 
 scious that she had moved away and had thrown 
 herself into a chair at some distance. " It was 
 sudden," he went on, " but after all, it had been in 
 my mind since I first met her." He stopped a 
 moment and tried to steady his voice, then re- 
 sumed. " All at once I felt as if she needed to be 
 shielded, and I could shield her. I I " 
 
 His voice died away, the silence tortured him, 
 and his self - contempt grew. A restless devil 
 within him had urged to save himself, and he had 
 flung this insult in the face of the woman who had 
 permitted him to penetrate her inmost thoughts. 
 But then it was the only alternative which could 
 save him from falling at her feet, pressing his lips 
 to her raiment, telling her that he had worshiped 
 her from the first moment he met her, must al- 
 ways worship her. His only safety lay in blurting 
 o:it the truth to her, just as for three weeks he had 
 kept himself in the grooves by saying day by 
 day and hour by hour, " I am engaged," alwa} r s 
 with the same recurring amazement that he had 
 made utter havoc with the precious things of life, 
 and had thrown away all he cared for. 
 
 The silence must be ended, and he must some- 
 bow get away from this house, which he ought not
 
 CIPHERS. 199 
 
 to have entered. He finally raised his head, which 
 he had kept bowed in dreary, hopeless self-abase- 
 ment. Milly had sunk into a chair; both arms 
 had fallen forward on the table, and her head was 
 bent on them. He uttered a groan, and advanced 
 towards her. At the sound she raised her head, 
 and by an effort sat back in her chair and crossed 
 her hands on her lap. Once she opened her lips to 
 speak, but she could not utter a syllable. 
 
 He was standing before her with a pale, drawn 
 face. 
 
 " I wish I wish I could venture " he fal- 
 tered. 
 
 A burning blush rose to her temples. " Do not 
 say anything. I implore you to say nothing," she 
 murmured almost inaudibly. 
 
 " Shall I go away ? " he asked. 
 
 " Please do," she said, with timid sweetness, and 
 half smiling. " That will be best." 
 
 He went out at once. After he had gone Milly 
 sat down cowering over the fire as if shaken by a 
 chill. Mr. Childe entered, looked about, and asked 
 with surprise, 
 
 " What ! That young fellow gone ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered Milly. 
 
 " What was the matter with him ? Was he ill ? " 
 
 " He said he was overworked. I dare say he 
 had an engagement." 
 
 Mr. Childe sank into his favorite chair. 
 
 "Milly," said he, "you have put an idea into 
 my head."
 
 200 CIPHERS. 
 
 She glanced at him affectionately and laughed, 
 but said nothing. The tea-table was brought, and 
 Mr. Childe drank the cup of tea his daughter-in- 
 law made him, all the time ringing the changes 
 upon the new idea, which was evidently a stimu- 
 lating one, with far-reaching suggestions. He had 
 reinforced his dwindling courage by the recollec- 
 tion of the dash and ease with which he had made 
 love in former days, and she humored him by 
 not only listening to his reminiscences, but with 
 quick sympathy guiding him over the possible 
 difficulties and dangers his fancy occasionally pre- 
 sented. She was astonished to find herself talking 
 naturally, with an easy command of words. Once 
 she offered to read aloud, but Mr. Childe was too 
 much interested in the next chapter of his own 
 history to care for the history of less interesting 
 people. At eleven o'clock the butler entered, 
 offering each a glass of water, and seemed to sug- 
 gest by his movements that the evening was over. 
 Milly longed to stay below, but knew that Wilkins 
 would not go to bed until he had attended to fire 
 and lights. She offered her cheek to Mr. Childe, 
 who for once gave her a hearty caress, then went 
 upstairs to her own room. She had dreaded com- 
 ing here ; in this room she had lived through 
 many a struggle, and she knew that the hardest 
 struggle of all was before her. 
 
 She summarily dismissed her maid, and sat down 
 before the fire until the door was shut upon the 
 woman, when, rising, she bolted herself in, and
 
 CIPHERS. 201 
 
 going to the glass gazed upon the reflection she 
 found there. 
 
 "I have betrayed myself," she said audibly. 
 " Since the beginning of the world no woman has 
 so shamelessly betrayed herself." She turned 
 away and paced up and down the room a few 
 times; then, with a motion and look as if expe- 
 riencing physical torture, she flung herself face 
 downwards on the lounge, and for a long time re- 
 mained motionless. She did not weep : a lethargy 
 seemed to have seized her emotional faculties. 
 What she suffered from was a weary, intolerable 
 sense of the irony of fate. All the evening she 
 had upheld herself by a resolution to leave New 
 York on the morrow. The town would be un- 
 bearable. She could never see Sidney Breck 
 again. She remembered his expression, at first 
 haughty and resolute, then touched and frightened. 
 ... A man in love with another woman, en- 
 gaged to marry another woman, yet compelled to 
 listen to such a confession as had been poured out 
 to him that night. Milly stifled a cry as the shame 
 of her defeat rankled anew. 
 
 " Why should I not be candid ? Why should I 
 not try to be simple and human and womanly ? " 
 That was the sophistical plea which her heart had 
 put forward when he had confronted her with that 
 stubborn resistance. 
 
 She saw herself in a new light. She had always 
 said that she cared nothing for her wealth, did not 
 rate its advantage at a pin's fee. Yet as if she
 
 202 CIPHERS. 
 
 had been the most unblushingly sordid of women, 
 she had counted with assurance upon buying the 
 young architect's services, his friendship, his love, 
 perhaps. All the time his ideal had been some- 
 thing quite the opposite of hers. He wanted a 
 wife whom he could protect, comfort, sustain. He 
 had said it : " She needed to be shielded, and I 
 could shield her." 
 
 Again Milly felt the scorching ignominy of the 
 inarticulate burning shame which had consumed 
 her when Breck uttered these words. 
 
 "And yet he had sometimes seemed to care 
 about me," she whispered, clutching at some self- 
 justification. Then, hopeless, she cried aloud with 
 clear conviction, " No ! nobody has ever loved 
 me ! Nobody ever will love me ! " Even her 
 mother's tenderness had been masked by her anxi- 
 eties ; she had dreaded lest her daughter should 
 count too assuredly on the happiness of this world 
 and depend too little on what descends from 
 above. 
 
 It was three o'clock before Milly, all at once 
 realizing that the fire was low and the room cold, 
 started up. Going to the dressing-table she turned 
 up the lights and again looked at herself. She 
 was pale to haggardness, and heavy lines showed 
 under her eyes and about her mouth. 
 
 " I never was pretty," she reflected, " and now 
 I am old and shall constantly grow older. He will 
 marry a young girl ; I dare say that she is a very 
 young girl, who is beautiful to-day, and will be
 
 CIPHERS. 203 
 
 more beautiful to-morrow, and years and years 
 hence more beautiful still." 
 
 The thought of that happy young girl, beloved 
 and shielded, pierced her anew. Tears rolled 
 down her cheeks, but she conquered herself. " I 
 am glad to have him happy," she said, as if sud- 
 denly seizing upon a new hope. " I will not be a 
 poor creature. I am glad to have him happy." 
 
 She went to bed and slept. Again and again, 
 when she restlessly turned and awoke with a feel- 
 ing of calamity, she resolutely said this to herself, 
 and once more slept. The intention not to give 
 way was strong upon her when she awoke.
 
 IX. 
 
 EVEN if she ran away from New York, she said 
 to herself next day, whither could she go that this 
 spectre would not pursue her ? She had lived of 
 late with all the possibilities of her nature in sight. 
 There had been an incessant thrill of some joy- 
 ful, indefinable feeling, a sense of something unex- 
 pected about to happen. The least event had given 
 a stir to her pulse ; by turns she had been hot and 
 cold ; a chance encounter had set her blood tin- 
 gling ; a reverse had frozen her heart like a lump 
 of ice. Existence had been a desperate but a de- 
 lightful effort, and these extremes and alternations 
 could be borne because they showed her far-off vis- 
 tas and reaches into regions hitherto unexplored. 
 It was something at least to have been set free, 
 to have at last believed in happiness. She must 
 pay the price without flinching and without tears. 
 
 She was determined to look at the facts of life 
 by the clear light of day. Every one called her an 
 exceptionally fortunate woman ; what she consid- 
 ered her limitations were, according to her friends 
 and advisers, the result of her magnificently ex- 
 panded opportunities. More than once when she 
 had personally attempted some philanthropic ef- 
 fort, she had drawn back with a quick perception 
 that she simply impeded the efforts of others who
 
 CIPHERS. 205 
 
 had better training and tact for the work. " Your 
 province is to give, to give nobly and at the 
 right moment," she was invariably told with un- 
 mistakable emphasis. Other women vaunted their 
 engrossing occupation which never left them a 
 spare moment. How could she fill her own days ? 
 If she were to go on living it was indispensable 
 that she should make interests for herself which 
 offered color, variety, excitement. No use to try 
 to do good to the poor and the unhappy by her 
 presence ; her cheques were more welcome. What 
 she must do, then, was to throw this sop to Cer- 
 berus, and then endeavor to seize the patent advan- 
 tages of her own every-day life. Hitherto she had 
 looked at the world from starry heights ; perhaps 
 this defeat had humanized her : she was at least 
 tired of herself, and was disposed to lay aside her 
 fastidiousness. She would try to content herself 
 with her own little world, accept what was nearest, 
 and endeavor to find diversion, as other people do, 
 in whatever presents itself, good, bad, or indiffer- 
 ent. There are people who for health's sake and 
 against natural inclination have been ordered to 
 drink strong liquors, and have ended by being 
 enslaved by the habit ; some desperate gamblers 
 have related that when first initiated into games 
 of cards they found them tedious and dull. Per- 
 haps by complaisant acceptance of social life, she 
 might end by becoming enamored of society and 
 turn out a fashionable woman. 
 
 She attended an elaborate luncheon that day,
 
 206 CIPHERS. 
 
 and later went to the dra-matic recital of a famous 
 actress. It was the night of one of her own din- 
 ner-parties, and she had invited a hundred or 
 more young people to a little dance afterwards. 
 She did not permit herself to measure the ordeal. 
 Henceforth she would keep to the surface of things. 
 It is a sad mistake for a woman to take life seri- 
 ously. " Let me live day by day, hour by hour," 
 she prayed, " forgetting yesterday, and not dream- 
 ing of to-morrow." 
 
 Going about wherever she was invited, it fell 
 out that dining one night at Mrs. Crooke Poor- 
 shaw's, she found herself at table sitting between 
 Geddes Poorshaw, to whom she had been allotted 
 by the hostess, and Holly Ruff. Only Milly her- 
 self happened to know that both were her rejected 
 suitors, but each man was aware of his own indis- 
 cretion, and depended on the good services of the 
 other for her entertainment. Poorshaw rarely 
 talked, even when he had something to say, and 
 how can a man have anything to say to a woman 
 who has with the promptest decision answered his 
 invitation to spend the remainder of her life with 
 him in the negative ? Although Holly Ruff's at- 
 tention by right belonged to Miss Hurst, who was 
 on his right, he threw himself into the breach 
 when he observed Poorshaw's lack of resources. 
 Perhaps Ruff wished to experiment a little, for 
 suddenly changing his subject, he said, 
 
 " By the bye, Mrs. Childe, you know my friend 
 Breck, Sidney Breck, the architect ? "
 
 CIPHERS. 207 
 
 " Yes," said Milly, suddenly alive to her finger- 
 ends, and, afraid of disclosing the truth, she raised 
 her glass to her lips. 
 
 " Of course he has spoken to you of Miss Ri- 
 vera?" Ruff pursued. 
 
 " Miss Rivera ? " Milly repeated. Then per- 
 ceiving something quickened and alert in Ruff's 
 attitude, she said, " I suppose it must be Miss 
 Rivera to whom Mr. Breck is engaged. I happen 
 to know that he is engaged." 
 
 " I should be willing to stake something that he 
 is not engaged to Miss Rivera," Poorshaw made 
 haste to remark. 
 
 " Yes, he is engaged to Miss Rivera," said Ruff 
 blandly. " Music has been the food of love in 
 this case. She is a charming singer, and Breck is 
 always infatuated about music." 
 
 " I myself have the honor of knowing Miss 
 Rivera quite well," said Poorshaw, " and I could 
 swear to it that she is not engaged to any man. I 
 dare say Breck wants to marry her, but that does 
 not establish his right to do so. She is a girl 
 likely to pick and choose." 
 
 " She happens to be engaged all the same," said 
 Ruff. 
 
 Poorshaw shrugged his shoulders and made a 
 little gesture with the air of a man understanding 
 his subject, but who restrains his tongue. Milly, 
 listening, had turned with smiling eagerness first 
 to one, then the other of the two men, with the 
 air of one who sees a clear vista open where all 
 was dark before.
 
 208 CIPHERS. 
 
 " Tell me about this Miss Rivera," she ex- 
 claimed. " Who is she ? What is she ? Where 
 is she ? " 
 
 " You do not expect me to repeat a happy lov- 
 er's confidences," said Ruff. " To begin with, she 
 is adorable, in the second place she is adorable, 
 and finally she is adorable." 
 
 "A charming description, but vague," said Milly. 
 " Now, Mr. Poorshaw, can't you give me something 
 more precise ? " 
 
 "A very handsome girl," said Poorshaw, " South- 
 ern, you know, tropical, Creole blood in her 
 veins, makes our women look waxen." 
 
 Milly seemed to see an apparition arise, but she 
 compelled herself to smile and say, " And beside 
 all this she sings ! That is almost too much." 
 
 " She is poor," observed Poorshaw. " She feels 
 compelled to be an artist of some sort." 
 
 " Of some sort," repeated Ruff incredulously. 
 " I am afraid it is of some sort. She failed at a 
 concert. Breck wanted me to attend, but I was 
 too busy. I asked Lefferts about the effect she 
 produced, and he said she was stiff and amateur- 
 ish, did not know how to let herself go." 
 
 " Contarini declared it was no failure, but a suc- 
 cess," said Poorshaw, looking haughty. 
 
 *' I dare say it was the fault of the public that 
 she did not make a hit," said Ruff. " It shows 
 the invariable lack of appreciation shown by swine 
 for pearls." 
 
 " I don't myself consider that it makes an atom
 
 CIPHERS. 209 
 
 of difference what the public or the critics say 
 about her," said Poorshaw. " Sit by her and talk 
 to her, and you will soon perceive that she was not 
 made to be dependent on any one's favor." 
 . Milly had maintained a simple demeanor, and 
 had shown an obliging tact and ease with both 
 men, but now was glad to rise with the other 
 ladies and leave the men at table. She went on 
 at once to a large reception and later to a dan- 
 cing party. At the latter she encountered, among 
 others, Paul Secor, who had of late set himself the 
 task of pleasing her. She was ready to smile upon 
 him to-night, for he could at least save her the task 
 of entertaining him. He was an endless talker 
 when he had a companion to his liking, and she felt 
 strangely self-absorbed, having a new idea to think 
 of and a new voice at her ear. She was glad to 
 possess some clew to the personality of Breck's 
 fiance'e. It is the unknown quantity which makes 
 us restless. She was saying to herself that she 
 would take an early occasion to ask Poorshaw all 
 the particulars about this girl, beautiful, poor, 
 gifted, but not so successful but that she needed to 
 be shielded. Milly seemed all at once to divine 
 the whole meaning of the situation, and it touched 
 her. 
 
 Meanwhile, she had sat down on a sofa with 
 Paul Secor under a small forest of palms. He 
 had never felt so much encouraged as to-night, 
 for Mrs. Lee Childe looked quietly pleased, and 
 although it was evident that her imagination was
 
 210 CIPHERS. 
 
 not always sufficiently active to follow his far- 
 reaching suggestions, she evinced little reluctance 
 to listen to the clever and audacious things he 
 uttered, as was his habit, no matter whether they 
 told for or against himself. The fact was that 
 Milly hardly heard what he was saying. The dis- 
 cussion she had listened to was still in her ears, and 
 some of Poorshaw's utterances were invested with 
 fresh meanings. It was evident that he, too, had 
 fallen in love with this Miss Rivera, who of course 
 loved Breck. Although Geddes Poorshaw could 
 offer the girl everything, as the world calls every- 
 thing, it would never have occurred to Milly 
 that any one could halt in choice between two 
 such suitors. She tried to think of some plausible 
 excuse for going to see this beautiful young girl. 
 She might tell Miss Rivera she had heard of her 
 voice, that she was anxious to arrange some 
 musicales for Lent. Geddes Poorshaw might give 
 her a hint. Milly had the reputation of possessing 
 a wonderful easy nonchalance in the way of doing 
 things which other women halt before as indiscre- 
 tions, and certainly she ought to be able readily to 
 impose upon a novice. 
 
 Thus, while she was sitting beside Secor, and an- 
 swering his tentative and daring speeches at ran- 
 dom, she was actually taken up by these schemes. 
 There was a charm in the idea of helping to pro- 
 mote Sidney Breck's happiness, of being always 
 his good angel. She might never trust herself to 
 meet him again, but her aching, passionate regrets
 
 CIPHERS. 211 
 
 might find some symbol of expression which all 
 his life long he would go on accepting, even when 
 he only dimly remembered her face. 
 
 Mr. Whiley Norreys, disregarding the monopoly 
 Paul Secor piqued himself upon having success- 
 fully established, came up and spoke to her, and 
 his action broke the spell. For the next hour she 
 was surrounded, but when she was to leave the 
 house she accepted Paul Secor's arm to the car- 
 riage. Snow had fallen from the middle of the 
 afternoon until midnight, when, the wind veering 
 to the south, a heavy rain came, which, soften- 
 ing the six inches of snow, had made a frightful 
 slush. 
 
 " Pleasant prospect for a poor devil who can't 
 afford his own cab," said Se"cor, standing under the 
 awning and looking at Milly, as she bent forward 
 to the open carriage window to say good-night. 
 
 " Jump in," she said unhesitatingly. " I will 
 drop you at your rooms. Tell the man where they 
 are." 
 
 Blessing his stars, and deciding that a propi- 
 tious destiny favored him that night, Paul obeyed 
 with a quick sense of relief. All that evening he 
 had felt that he was at last beginning to make an 
 impression upon the one woman in New York he 
 cared to please. By a sudden bold stride he had 
 advanced to the chief place with her. It was 
 always his habit to formulate his experience with 
 the fair sex. It was the unexpected, he affirmed, 
 which charmed a woman. Women's lives are so
 
 212 CIPHERS. 
 
 dull, so tideless ; they like to be carried over their 
 banks. Their horizon is so bounded by gray 
 monotony, they are ready to be grateful to a 
 man who lifts it and offers a fresh vista. A 
 woman, he explained, never meets a man without 
 confessing to herself at least that it is a toss-up 
 whether she falls in love with him or not. All 
 these views, based evidently, not on mere idle 
 conjecture, not even on sentences out of phrase- 
 books, but on sound experience, probably dictated 
 Paul Secor's present course. No sooner was he 
 established by the side of Mrs. Lee Childe in the 
 small, luxurious carriage, which was rolling down 
 the avenue as rapidly as was possible in the deep 
 slush, than, with two words of preamble, he put 
 his arm about his companion and made an effort 
 to kiss her. 
 
 Milly, in her way, was also a mistress of the 
 unexpected. She pulled the string with unmis- 
 takable imperiousness ; the carriage stopped, and 
 the man opened the door. 
 
 " Mr. Secor will get out," she said quietly ; and 
 Mr. Se'cor accordingly did get out in the middle 
 of Madison Avenue, in the pouring rain. 
 
 It has always been a question open to discus- 
 sion whether Clive Newcome did or did not kiss 
 his cousin Ethel in the Brighton tunnel. Within 
 five days after this episode, Paul Secor's little 
 indiscretion was the gossip of the town, and the 
 disputed question was what compensations sweet- 
 ened the condign punishment meted out to him.
 
 CIPHERS. 213 
 
 One side argued that a woman so prompt in ac- 
 tion was certain to have lost no time ; but, then, it 
 must be admitted that if she had been successful 
 in defeating his intention, she hardly needed to be 
 so implacable. 
 
 Another question might have been, who had 
 told the story? Nobody suspected Mrs. Lee 
 Childe of disclosing the secret ; her servants were 
 models of discretion, while, as all the world knew, 
 Paul Se*cor liked une aventure de p/ws, whether it 
 went crooked or smooth for him. But would even 
 Paul Secor let himself be laughed at for a com- 
 plete fiasco ? 
 
 He was a cousin on the Lee side of the house, 
 while Archy Laing's mother had been a Childe. 
 The two clans always regarded each other with 
 more or less well-concealed hostility, yet it might 
 not be an easy matter to explain why Paul Se*cor's 
 presumption should have encouraged Archy Laing 
 to come forward. He perhaps argued that, not 
 being so enterprising as Secor, he was in no dan- 
 ger of having his new evening clothes spoiled; 
 but the argument employed by his sister, Mrs. 
 Ferris, and his aunt, Mrs. Fletcher, was that no 
 moment could be so auspicious for him to press 
 his suit as this, when Milly Childe's own con- 
 sciousness must be echoing: what all New York was 
 
 o 
 
 telling her, that she was too young, too attractive, 
 and, above all, too rich to go about the world 
 without a husband to protect her. 
 
 Archy was perfectly willing to play that role,
 
 214 CIPHERS. 
 
 his only fault was that he liked delightful results 
 independent of tedious processes. He admired 
 Milly, her good looks, her chic, above all, a cer- 
 tain high-mindedness of which the tradition ran in 
 the family, substantiated by the fact that although 
 every cent of her money was so strictly tied up it 
 had to go through her hands, yet her first husband 
 had never needed to be galled by a feeling of 
 dependence. A large sum had been paid to Lee 
 Childe's bankers quarterly, and no questions were 
 asked as to how it was spent. There was some- 
 thing royal about such a woman, and no doubt she 
 was lonely on her throne. Accordingly, one Sunday 
 night, after the family party had broken up, just 
 as Milly was taking a book, with a sense of relief 
 at being left alone, she looked up and saw Archy 
 in the doorway. 
 
 " So you have come back," she said. 
 
 " I have not been away, only across the hall," 
 said Archy. " I wanted to ask your advice, so 
 waited after the rest were gone." 
 
 " I am the last person in the world to come to 
 for advice," said Milly. "I always make mis- 
 takes in my own affairs, have a fatal facility 
 for blunders." 
 
 " You are, by all odds, the cleverest person in 
 the family," said Archy, still hovering, but ap- 
 proaching closer and closer. 
 
 "Not half so clever as you, Archy," retorted 
 Milly. " You always get precisely what you want 
 out of the world."
 
 CIPHERS. 215 
 
 By this time he had established himself very 
 comfortably on the other side of the table which 
 held the reading-lamp. If he had any prescience 
 that this table might prove an obstacle, he rele- 
 gated that question to the future, for the chair 
 looked especially inviting. 
 
 " That is what 1 should like to do," he said. " I 
 confess that some few desirable things have come 
 in my way without much trouble on my part, but 
 now that I desire something very particular I 
 don't dare flatter myself it will drop into my 
 mouth when I look up and long for it." 
 
 Milly laid her book on the table, and glancing 
 at her visitor with a lazy smile and half-closed 
 eyes, observed : 
 
 "You seem to be talking about the golden 
 apples of Hesperides." 
 
 The allusion to " golden apples " tried his self- 
 possession, but he carried off any embarrassment 
 with a laugh, saying : 
 
 " They always hang high, and are guarded by a 
 dragon, I suppose." 
 
 "You want my advice, perhaps, as to how to 
 kill that dragon," suggested Milly. 
 
 " Exactly," said Archy, in capital spirits, until 
 an exhortation of his sister's tugged at his con- 
 science with a reminder that he had promised to 
 be seriously in earnest. This was no idle flirta- 
 tion, Mrs. Ferris had warned him; he must show 
 himself capable of deep and sincere emotion. In 
 order to move a clever woman of the world like
 
 216 CIPHERS. 
 
 Milly Childe, who could turn any man round her 
 finger, he must himself be moved. So, pulling 
 himself up, as it were, he proceeded : 
 
 " I take it, there is only one important subject 
 for a man or a woman." 
 
 " Of course," said Milly ; " looked at from a 
 religious point of view, there is only " 
 
 " Oh, I don't go in for that yet," said Archy. 
 " Of course, I want my heavenly kingdom when 
 the right time comes, but just at present I should 
 be quite satisfied with an earthly heritage." 
 
 " There is a neighbor of mine in a small way 
 in the country, whom I go to see occasionally," 
 observed Milly, " who always looks at me from 
 head to foot, shakes his head, and says, ' I don't 
 care nought about the honors of the world, the 
 riches, or the pleasures on 't.' Evidently you do 
 not agree with him." 
 
 " I am afraid not," responded Archy. 
 
 " By the bye, what is your idea of an earthly 
 kingdom ? " she asked suddenly. 
 
 " I 'm not hard to suit, no sublime discon- 
 tent about me," returned Archy, conscious all the 
 while that he was dancing to her piping when it 
 behooved him to be the piper. " I simply ask for 
 a comfortable house, a fair income to maintain it, 
 and a handsome wife, who understands how to 
 make things go off well. The rest will come of 
 itself." 
 
 " Certainly there is nothing unattainable about 
 such ambitions. Have you picked out the wife 
 you want ? " demanded Milly.
 
 CIPHERS. 217 
 
 " I picked her out long ago." 
 
 " Oh, you are engaged ! " 
 
 " Oh, no, no, not yet, I am sorry to say," re- 
 turned Archy, reddening slightly, and his smile a 
 little too broad and vague. 
 
 " What hinders you ? " inquired Milly, with 
 wide-open eyes. 
 
 " Don't you see," said Archy in a wheedling 
 voice, " a man grows timid when so much depends 
 upon the results of his confession. It may be easy 
 enough to make love when nothing is at stake, 
 but" 
 
 " Do you mean the wife or the income ? " Milly 
 interrupted. Their eyes met, and both laughed. 
 " I suppose," she added, " you might like to have 
 them identical." 
 
 " That would suit me capitally," Archy re- 
 torted. " Everybody knows that I have no income 
 except the beggarly nine hundred I earn down- 
 town. It runs in the Childe family to be dead- 
 beats. You know by experience that, so far as 
 money is concerned, we are all played out. Our 
 grandfathers used to be rich, but they thoughtlessly 
 ate their cake and left their descendants to find 
 their own bread and butter." 
 
 " Unless they can make a fortune by marriage. 
 I take it," remarked Milly sweetly, " that the wife 
 you have selected is well off." 
 
 " Very well off indeed," said Archy demurely. 
 
 "What a comfort!" 
 
 "Both a comfort and a difficulty," explained
 
 218 CIPHERS. 
 
 Archy. " How should you advise me to get over 
 the difficulty in order to experience the comfort 
 of it?" 
 
 "I see," Milly exclaimed. "You are not in 
 love with her. ' My poverty, but not my will con- 
 sents,' that is your motto." 
 
 Impossible to tell whether she were laughing at 
 him or not. He had had many warnings about 
 the amplitude of Milly Childe's sleeve. He tried 
 to infuse a gentle melancholy into his tone and 
 look. 
 
 " Indeed, I am in love with her," he said re- 
 proachfully. " You know a man can't invariably 
 be at high pressure. Besides, I have always ob- 
 served that a calm and rational affection is the 
 best foundation to marry on. Blazing passion 
 burns itself out, and then where are you ? " 
 
 " What sort of a woman is it for whom you feel 
 this rational affection ? " inquired Milly, as if 
 weighing the subject. 
 
 Archy had begun to find the table an impedi- 
 ment, and had gradually wheeled his fauteuil round 
 the corner until he was at a right angle to the ob- 
 ject of his pursuit. Now, feeling that the time 
 had come to grapple, as it were, with the enemy, 
 he propelled his armchair towards Milly with such 
 force that, running with unexpected freedom on 
 the casters, he came up to her full tilt. 
 
 " Oh, I beg pardon," said he. " I did not in- 
 tend to overwhelm you." Then leaning forward 
 and looking up into her face with his most cherubic
 
 CIPHERS. 219 
 
 expression, he went on. "I should describe her 
 as being very much like yourself." 
 
 " Oh, indeed." 
 
 " It is yourself, cousin Milly," he exclaimed, 
 throwing reserve to the winds. " Of course you un- 
 derstood me all the time. No use trying to beat 
 about the bush with a clever woman like you. Say 
 you will marry me. Come, now, I 'in awfully fond 
 of you." 
 
 " No, thanks," said Milly. " I 'm exceedingly 
 grateful, but " 
 
 She had been so pretty, so smiling, had listened 
 with such apparent interest, he had actually begun 
 to believe that his bow, drawn half at a venture, 
 was not to miss its mark. 
 
 " Don't talk about gratitude," he said, wounded 
 by this sudden perfidy ; " it sounds as if you were 
 ironical or sarcastic." 
 
 " I am," said Milly. " It is a fault of mine, a 
 fault some people say I cultivate." 
 
 "I know they say it," Archy returned with 
 feeling, " and I have often denied it. I always in- 
 sist that you really are the best-natured woman 
 alive, and that if you seem ironical or sarcastic it 
 is the fault of the life you lead. It cannot be a 
 healthy sort of life for a woman : nobody with any 
 real authority over you ; nobody to protect you 
 from gossip and calumny ; unlimited means, and 
 half a dozen fellows pretending to be in love with 
 you when actually all they care about is your 
 money."
 
 220 CIPHERS. 
 
 " Thank you, cousin Archy, for putting the case 
 before me so plainly," said Milly. " What you say 
 is absolutely true." 
 
 However, she was able to convince him that he 
 had listened to bad advisers when he came to offer 
 his services in her behalf. She had had many vi- 
 sions of late of some special plan of action ; her 
 course of- thought advancing, then halting, and 
 receding before some obstacle, finally read van cing 
 on surer lines. Nobody could fathom her caprices, 
 and a great many of her friends and well-wishers 
 were telling each other in these days that Milly 
 was too reckless, that it was not an easy matter for 
 a woman who uttered speeches so little difficult to 
 misrepresent to keep herself from being talked 
 about. She seemed sometimes to take a malicious 
 pleasure in withdrawing her own personality and 
 substituting in its place a capricious being who 
 said and did what might answer for the moment, 
 but left an impression adverse to what her friends 
 desired. 
 
 Nobody saw this deepening tendency towards 
 levity with more solicitude than Whiley Norreys. 
 He was an admirable judge of time and seasons, 
 and he had decided not to come forward with his 
 offer until mid-Lent, when the present gay whirl 
 would be a pensive memory. But there was some- 
 thing erratic about Mrs. Lee Childe of late, and 
 she had been heard to say that she liked southern 
 Italy in the early springtime. So it behooved him 
 not to waver, but to press forward to the breach.
 
 CIPHERS. 221 
 
 It is not altogether a pleasant matter for un homme 
 serieux to seem to reverse all his plans, and pru- 
 dence whispered that there might be a certain awk- 
 wardness if, that is but upon the whole that 
 was impossible. The Paul Secor adventure had 
 proved that Mrs. Lee Childe needed a husband's 
 protection, and in this crisis Whiley Xorreys felt 
 that no other man's lot but his own had leapt from 
 the urn. 
 
 He approached his subject guardedly. He had 
 dropped in to see her one howling February morn- 
 ing when few visitors were likely to be abroad. 
 
 "I wanted to tell you, Mrs. Childe." he said 
 after a few opening preliminaries concerning the 
 weather, " how much I admired your gown last 
 evening." 
 
 " Oh, I am so much obliged to you," murmured 
 Milly. 
 
 " That gown was, I consider, a chef d'oeuvre. I 
 have thought of it many times since." 
 
 " Oh, it was my gown you came to see. Shall I 
 send for my maid to bring it down to you, Mr. 
 Norreys ? " 
 
 " Is not your gown a part of yourself, and, in 
 fact, an important part? Properly speaking, a 
 gown is not a gown until its owner gives it style, 
 shape, and individuality ; then it becomes part of 
 her visible personality. When I thought of the 
 gown I naturally thought of you." 
 
 " Alas," said Milly, " I have so many gowns 
 that if I were to distribute my identity between
 
 222 CIPHERS. 
 
 them I should have none left for nay poor shiver- 
 ing self. I go with you, Mr. Norreys, so far as 
 to agree that a gown ought to express a woman, 
 but to effect this she must wear it habitually. I 
 myself never really like one of my dresses until I 
 have worn it so many times that my maid insists it 
 is a wreck. I often reflect that if I could be per- 
 mitted to wear my clothes until they were all in 
 creases and holes I might be a better woman." 
 
 Milly was sitting on a low and luxurious sofa, 
 and had on a pretty house-gown of soft tints, 
 softened still more by ribbons and lace. She 
 looked slender, pale, but charming, j^alf like a 
 nymph, half like a queen. This nonchalance be- 
 came her, thought Mr. Whiley Norreys, surveying 
 her with the sure eye of a clever adversary, as he 
 sat in an easy-chair at her left, his back to the 
 windows, the glow of the distant fire in his face ; 
 well dressed, a beautiful scarf-pin in an immac- 
 ulate azure scarf which became his complexion; 
 one glove off, which it was a sensible relief at 
 times to flap with his gloved hand ; his hat and 
 cane on the floor. He had chosen his position 
 with a view to future manceuvres. 
 
 "Now that is a very interesting psychological 
 problem," he remarked admiringly, in reply to 
 Milly's statement. 
 
 " Don't you see," she explained, " that when a 
 woman wears a gown day after day, it has all 
 sorts of suggestions and associations for her. 
 Every patch and darn recalls an indiscretion it
 
 CIPHERS. 223 
 
 may be good for her not to forget, and the spot 
 which has to be hidden at once makes her prudent 
 and reserved, besides keeping in her own mind 
 what she ought to remember. Do you not remem- 
 ber Heine's friend, the learned student, \vho made 
 use of each article of his dress and of the furniture 
 of his room for a system of mnemonics, by which 
 he fixed dates and philosophical theories in his 
 head ? Thus he grew fidgety if anybody moved a 
 chair or even a pair of snuffers, because it dis- 
 arranged his arguments for the immortality of the 
 soul ; and when his landlady insisted that his 
 shirts, neckties, and stockings should go into the 
 wash, he possessed no longer any clew to Assyrian 
 history." 
 
 "I do not happen to remember that part of 
 Heine," said Norreys. 
 
 " Just so with my gowns. As I was saying, if I 
 could but wear one all the time, I might remember 
 friends, foes, benefits, injuries; as it is, I retain 
 no fixed impression. By the exigencies of civil- 
 ized society, I am never permitted to get used to 
 my gowns, and the result is I can have no remi- 
 niscences, no associations, no poetry, no romance. 
 I live in a blur." 
 
 Mr. Norreys surveyed her as she quietly uttered 
 these revelations with his large, bland smile, but 
 his eyelids narrowed. Probably he was saying 
 to himself, " Too much wit, too much wit ; " but 
 what he remarked was, "Wealth imposes obli- 
 gations."
 
 224 CIPHERS. 
 
 " A lady's maid does," said Milly. " Mine has 
 her ideals, and the ignoble practice of economy is 
 not one of them. If anybody inquired what was 
 my ideal of earthly happiness, which nobody 
 ever yet did take the trouble to do, by the way, 
 it would be living without a maid. I am always 
 plotting to escape her ; it is of no use. If I go to 
 my room, she is there ; if I retreat into any other 
 sanctuary, she is there before me. ' Could n't you 
 just as well do that in some other place ? ' I ask 
 her ; then she enters upon laborious explanations, 
 until I admit there is reason for her omnipresence. 
 If there were another woman in the house to speak 
 to, a mother, sister, daughter, female friend, 
 I might, perhaps " 
 
 " You sometimes feel lonely then, Mrs. Childe," 
 observed Mr. Norreys, with the tenderest intona- 
 tion. 
 
 " Very often ; in fact, constantly," said Milly. 
 
 " I was sure of it," he exclaimed triumphantly. 
 He leaned forward. " Sometimes," he went on 
 tenderly, " I have seen in your eyes what shall 
 I call it ? a longing to escape." 
 
 "You define my feeling exactly," said Milly. 
 " I often have a lively desire to run away ; but, 
 actually, I did suppose I hid it successfully." 
 
 " Not from me ; my sympathy is too deep." 
 
 " Oh, you also wish to run away ! " 
 
 *' I know my obligations too well," said Norreys. 
 "My position is, of course, less arduous than 
 yours; still, my duties towards society are well
 
 CIPHERS. 225 
 
 defined. I realize how cruel it is for a woman 
 like yourself to have to bear all the burdens your 
 position imposes. Often, when I watch you re- 
 ceiving company, with a slight frown of weariness 
 on your brow, I have thought that the load ought 
 to be lifted from you." 
 
 "I am often bored to extinction," said Milly, 
 " but I try not to let myself be worried by 
 trifles." 
 
 " ' Mistress of herself, though china fall,' " 
 quoted Norreys admiringly. "That, of course, 
 is a homely illustration, and relates to a more 
 primitive state of civilization than ours at pres- 
 ent ; but there is always a possibility that trifles 
 will go wrong, and that they will, momentarily 
 at least, assume exaggerated importance. Every 
 house requires, not only its sovereign, but its Bis- 
 marck or Gladstone. Some person with strength 
 to meet emergencies has to be told that the boiler 
 has burst, that the water requires to be shut 
 off, that a gas-pipe leaks; and I confess that 
 my homage to your sex is so deep, so chivalrous, 
 it seems a cruel diminution of the prerogatives of 
 a beautiful woman to have her attention called to 
 such annoyances." 
 
 "Does Mr. Gladstone attend to such matters 
 for Her Majesty?" Milly inquired, as if athirst 
 for information. 
 
 Mr. Norreys's oblique gaze narrowed again. 
 "Of course," he said, changing his attitude 
 slightly, and once more assuming an upright po-
 
 226 CIPHERS. 
 
 sition, "I was speaking figuratively. What I 
 meant to say was this : In order to have a well- 
 regulated house, some efficient person must take a 
 great deal of trouble. Now, the mere necessity of 
 keeping a coachman in order, eager and willing to 
 have his horses out at all hours of the day and 
 night, and in all weathers, has embittered the ex- 
 istence of a great many women. Then, as regards 
 entertaining, there come up perpetually so many 
 nice and delicate questions, minor details, yet, 
 actually, of the most far-reaching importance. 
 For example, it is so essential that the right peo- 
 ple should meet the right people, and although 
 with us the question of precedence is not yet gov- 
 erned by the arbitrary rules which settle it in the 
 Old World, still, it is of vital moment to the correct 
 arrangement of a dinner-table that each guest 
 should be placed in a way to show his true value. 
 I have actually had my digestion endangered 
 before now by being requested to take out the 
 wrong woman." 
 
 " I have been put into a towering rage, if that 
 is what you mean," said Milly, " by being taken 
 out by the wrong man." 
 
 "Of course, of course," said Norreys sooth- 
 ingly. "The comfort of each guest depends on 
 these seemingly insignificant details of arrange- 
 ment, and a mind of far-reaching insight even 
 imagination is required to foresee the possibili- 
 ties of each distinct social occasion. Then there 
 remains the question of supreme importance,
 
 CIPHERS. 227 
 
 one on which no woman can be expected to have 
 either true feeling or experienced judgment. I 
 allude, of course, to the subject of wines. Of 
 course, you may give your butler general orders 
 as to what brands shall be served, but the question 
 is, ''How will they be served?' Will they be 
 decanted as if they were so much water from the 
 Croton hydrant ? What will be the temperature 
 of the claret and burgundy, and will the cham- 
 pagne \3Qfrappe or glace ? Plenty of high-priced 
 butlers do not understand the difference between 
 the two processes." 
 
 "You touch my conscience," said Milly. "I 
 don't know the difference between champagne hot 
 or cold. I supposed it was Wilkins's mission to 
 attend to those matters." 
 
 " It belongs to a connoisseur, and only to a con- 
 noisseur," said Mr. Norreys, with feeling. " You 
 would not send one of your men to buy you a 
 picture ; well, the correct serving of wines is just 
 as much a question of high art, and can only bo 
 determined by the cognoscente" 
 
 "Mercy on us," said Milly; "you make life 
 a very serious affair. I feel like Dr. Johnson 
 when he heard the young lady's performance on 
 the piano, and was told it was difficult. ' Diffi- 
 cult ! ' he repeated ; * I wish it were impossible.' " 
 
 Mr. Norreys smiled. 
 
 " What I mean is," he said, with an easy gesture 
 of his smooth, plump hand, which hovered for a 
 moment over Milly's lace and ribbons, as if it
 
 228 CIPHERS. 
 
 longed to alight there, but then settled on his own 
 knee, "that these labors, counting for more iri 
 civilized life than the labors of Hercules, do 
 exist, but that a woman like yourself, and in 
 your position, ought never to feel the burdens or 
 the perplexities they entail. You should have the 
 bead of the wine, not the lees, the rose without 
 the thorn. You need, at every step of your 
 career, some one to whom you can turn, on whom 
 you may rely ; so that, in short " 
 
 " I have Wilkins," said Milly, as if bewildered, 
 " and he has an assistant, two, if he wants them ; 
 then there is Mrs. Clark, who was Mrs. Childe's 
 factotum for long years. Actually, there does 
 not seem to be room for any one else in the 
 establishment." 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Childe," Mr. Norreys began 
 
 " And after all," Milly proceeded, " if I stop 
 short of poisoning people I do no actual harm. I 
 remember George Sand remarking in one of her 
 letters, with some complacency, that she has never 
 pampered the gluttony of her guests. Henceforth 
 I will accept that as my true aim. And as to the 
 wrong people sitting down by the wrong people, 
 those tribulations are good for the soul. I myself 
 have gained great altitudes, and don't despair alto- 
 gether of finally reaching heaven by just such sac- 
 rifices." 
 
 " My dear Mrs. Childe," said Whiley Norreys, 
 once more trying to stem the flood of her elo- 
 quence, his hand again in air, and this time actually
 
 CIPHERS. 229 
 
 touching the furbelows of her gown, " what you 
 need is not a servant, no paid subordinate, no hire- 
 ling, but " with a soft smile and bending towards 
 her as he spoke "a husband." 
 
 " Oh, a husband," said Milly, as if confounded, 
 at the same time altering her position slightly so 
 that his hand descended on a down cushion beside 
 her. Then, as if rallying, she went on : " Evidently, 
 Mr. Norreys, you know very little about domestic 
 life if you fancy that the role a husband plays in 
 domestic life is to oil the machinery and make 
 everything go smoothly. No, what he actually 
 does is to forget until the last moment that it is 
 the night of the dinner-party ; and then, at having 
 to throw over some delightful plan of his own, he 
 descends cross and irritable, ready to scowl at each 
 guest as he or she enters, with an expression as if 
 saying, 'What, you here? What the devil were 
 you invited for ? ' Again, upsetting all the careful 
 table arrangements by refusing point blank to 
 take the right woman to table, because he dislikes 
 her conversation, or because her nose grows red 
 by the second course. Then, frowning at his wife 
 across the length of the board, making signals 
 impossible to comprehend, caiising her to feel that 
 some dire catastrophe is likely to happen in an- 
 other moment. Finally, after the guests have 
 departed, throwing a flood of light on his behavior 
 by the information that she has used his favorite 
 sherry, the brand he had bought at endless expense 
 for his own particular circle of cronies. That is 
 what a husband is, Mr. Norreys."
 
 230 CIPHERS. 
 
 " Ah, Mrs. Childe, if that has been your expe- 
 rience " 
 
 " Oh, no, not exactly my own personal experience. 
 Poor Lee used to shrug his shoulders and say he 
 did not care who came so long as he had no 
 trouble in the matter. He never found fault with 
 the wines or the food, because he could neither eat 
 or drink. He lived on air the last three years of 
 his life. No, my knowledge of the habits of hus- 
 bands was compiled from the confessions of my 
 female friends." 
 
 " Let me have the honor of showing you what 
 a husband can be," said Norreys. " I assure you, 
 Mrs. Childe, I will give you a domestic happiness 
 not only beyond your experience, but perhaps be- 
 yond your imagination." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Norreys," said Milly, " I beg you will 
 not" 
 
 " Listen to me, Mrs. Childe," he returned indul- 
 gently, but firmly. " I have thought a great deal 
 about this matter. I have looked at it from every 
 light. You are certain to marry, you will be 
 obliged to marry in self-defense, and nowhere can 
 you find a suitor so disinterested as myself. Here 
 you have enormous responsibilities, a great posi- 
 tion which you must seek not only to maintain but 
 compel to offer you its full advantages. You your- 
 self have more than once confessed to me that you 
 are not willing to grapple with certain difficulties. 
 And you are right. You are young, beautiful, 
 light-hearted ; you like to be on the top crest of
 
 CIPHEES. 231 
 
 the wave, so to speak. Now, I am solid, thorough. 
 You need me. Just look at the subject dispas- 
 sionately, and you will concede that of all women 
 you most require a companion, guide, and familiar 
 friend, that is, myself. No other man could 
 possibly supply just what you lack. Together we 
 could do anything we wished to do ; we could actu- 
 ally lead New York society." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Norreys," said Milly ardently, " I do 
 so fully appreciate your courage, your splendid 
 self-denial, your " 
 
 " You accept me then ? " He bent forward with 
 rapture. 
 
 " Oh, no, no, no. I could not think of it. It is 
 impossible. For one thing, Wilkins would not stay 
 in the house an hour if he were ordered about and 
 looked after." 
 
 " Let him go, then," said Mr. Norreys. 
 
 " I could not live without Wilkins," said Milly. 
 "Really, Mr. Norreys, I feel as if you did not 
 quite appreciate him, for your description of a fac- 
 totum fitted him to a nicety. He never tells me 
 the boiler has burst, or that the coachman refuses 
 to get his horses out when I need them, and once, 
 hearing strange noises in the pipes, he actually got 
 up quietly in the dead of night and shut off the 
 water in some occult way, actually saved us 
 from being flooded, for there was a dangerous leak 
 somewhere." 
 
 The two regarded each other for a moment in 
 silence. Mr. Norreys's face was already red, and
 
 232 CIPHERS. 
 
 it constantly grew more and more inflamed, until 
 it became a deep crimson. 
 
 " And besides," Milly went on in a very soft, 
 languid voice, " I do not expect to marry. To my 
 thinking, a woman almost twenty-eight years of 
 age, who has for five years been a widow, needs to 
 be cautious, very cautious, indeed. She has a long 
 life before her, and has already lost a great many 
 of the illusions which make marriage seem the 
 natural solution of her destiny. Accordingly, Mr. 
 Norreys, I am not likely to change my condition, 
 but I am grateful to you for your good intentions, 
 most grateful." 
 
 " I do not like to forebode disaster, Mrs. Childe," 
 said Norreys, in the voice of one who foresees ca- 
 tastrophes he might have prevented, " but " 
 
 " Don't," said Milly. She rose. The rejected 
 suitor also rose. 
 
 " I think your best friends must be puzzled to 
 account for your conduct," he remarked. " I really 
 feel" 
 
 " So do I," said Milly mournfully. " Good- 
 morning."
 
 X. 
 
 TOWARDS four o'clock one dull day in February, 
 Miss Rivera emerged from her room in a pretty 
 toilette, and entering the small parlor, she was just 
 choosing a Bon Silene from a superb bunch of 
 roses which filled a bowl, when a tap came at the 
 door. She was expecting a visitor, and this sound, 
 confirming her belief that it had been worth while 
 to make herself as charming as possible, communi- 
 cated fresh brightness to her eyes and a heightened 
 color to her cheeks. 
 
 " Come in," she said, after giving herself time 
 to settle the rosebud safely in the lace at her 
 throat, and then stood with a kittenish air of inno- 
 cence and demure surprise, waiting to have her 
 visitor appear. The door opened, but instead of 
 the tall, heavy-shouldered, masculine visitor she 
 had expected, a slender figure in gray filled up the 
 doorway. Anita gazed at the vision in a vague 
 alarm. 
 
 " Oh, excuse me," she murmured, " I thought it 
 was " 
 
 " Is this Miss Rivera ? " said the visitor, advan- 
 cing a step. 
 
 " Yes," said Anita. " I " 
 
 The lady had by this time entered and closed 
 the door behind her.
 
 234 CIPHERS. 
 
 " Perhaps," she said with a smile, " you may 
 have heard Mr. Breck speak of me. I am Mrs. 
 Lee Childe." 
 
 Miss Rivera's mobile face, which had by turns 
 taken every variety of expression, now glowed with 
 satisfaction. 
 
 " Oh, I am very glad to see you," she said fer- 
 vently. 
 
 " Mr. Breck has spoken of me, then ? " 
 
 "Not lately; but once he told me he had at- 
 tended a great reception at your house. That was 
 months ago. But Mr. Poorshaw has spoken of 
 you, and I read your name in the papers so con- 
 stantly." 
 
 Milly stood for one moment in silence looking 
 at the girl. Her heart experienced one pang, then 
 the real depth and truth and sweetness of her 
 nature stirred itself, and she was glad that Breck's 
 fiancee was so lovely ; for she happened to see 
 Anita at a moment when every possibility of her 
 face was revealed : the large, startled, splendid 
 eyes, the sudden flash of color, the first soft 
 roguishness of the smile changing into a soft pout- 
 ing surprise, all helped to give her a surpassing 
 beauty. It was, too, the bright saucy beauty of a 
 young creature whose look of ardent life suggested 
 that she had been caught in some mischievous 
 gambols which she was eager to resume. 
 
 " I hope you will forgive my coming to see you," 
 said Milly, " but I wanted to meet you, to hear 
 you sing."
 
 CIPHERS. 235 
 
 Anita made a little gesture. 
 
 " I don't believe it was Mr. Breck who told you 
 that I sang," she said, laughing and blushing. 
 
 "Why not? Why should he not have told 
 me?" 
 
 " Because Mr. Breck has no great belief in my 
 voice," said Anita. " He has quite given up the 
 idea that I could ever be a great singer." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Milly, coining closer to the 
 girl and taking her hand and looking at her with 
 a soft, admiring smile, " he has at heart other hopes 
 and wishes for you." 
 
 Anita laughed ; her consciousness thrilled all 
 through with the flattery of her visitor's look and 
 manner. 
 
 " I cannot give up everything most precious to 
 me for anybody's hopes and wishes," she returned. 
 
 " So you are anxious to be a great singer," 
 Milly now said, continually fascinated by the girl's 
 vivid coloring, her air of superabundant life. 
 
 " Has not a woman a life of her own to lead ? " 
 said Anita. " If you had some artistic gift, Mrs. 
 Childe, something that thrilled you with a sense 
 of having power to do what you liked with, and 
 which made everyday life seem poor and dull and 
 tame and sad, should you be willing to give it up 
 and sacrifice a possibly brilliant future ? It seems 
 to me like putting away the great glorious sun and 
 accepting a dim little candle in its place. But 
 then, you could not feel as I do, your life gives 
 you everything ; there is no cramp and pettiness
 
 236 CIPHERS. 
 
 from which you daily beg to be delivered. So you 
 cannot quite judge what art means to me." 
 
 She poured out her words with a soft vehe- 
 mence, smiling constantly, yet with charming ca- 
 dences expressive at times of high disdain. 
 
 " But," said Milly archly, " Mr. Breck told me 
 you were engaged to him." 
 
 " That was not quite fair," retorted Anita. 
 
 " Not fair ? Of course I shall not repeat it ; but 
 I wanted to explain " 
 
 " I do not call it an engagement exactly," said 
 Anita eagerly. " I have never absolutely pro- 
 mised, I told him I could not make up my 
 mind in a moment." 
 
 " Is. not that a little cruel, if you love him ? " 
 
 " But I do not say that I do love him," said 
 Anita, blushing and dimpling with laughter. " Of 
 course I know that he is charming, lovable, clever, 
 and that he is in love with me." This was so 
 roguishly said that any momentary effect of per- 
 sonal vanity was surmounted by the charm of her 
 candor. " When he is here," she went on, " I 
 sometimes feel as if, after all, nothing could be 
 so sweet as giving up, being carried away by a 
 power one does not care to resist." There was a 
 curve in her lips as she said this, an arch of the 
 brow, and a laughing side glance of the eye which 
 cast its spell over Milly. " But after he has 
 gone," proceeded Anita, " I shake myself, as it 
 were, say to myself, ' You little fool, how can you 
 let yourself be duped, how can you be blinded by
 
 CIPHERS. 237 
 
 illusions ? ' For I know very clearly what I want 
 in the world, and it is not love in a cottage, even 
 with Sidney Breck." 
 
 They had sat down side by side on a little sofa. 
 Milly's impressions were vividly clear, but not 
 broad. They took in but two realities : one was 
 that the girl was pretty, piquant, and irresistible, 
 the other that Breck was naturally and inevitably 
 in love with her. No need for mistakes ; all was 
 plain, straightforward, tangible. Every word the 
 girl uttered was a suggestion opening up far vistas. 
 She knew the way to hold a lover, half-denying, 
 half-complying. Milly was stung anew by self- 
 scorn. Anita was so thrillingly pretty ; not only 
 her face, but her shape, her hands, her wrists. 
 
 " I am frank," Anita went on, " but something 
 in your face makes it easy to tell you everything." 
 
 " I am Mr. Breck's warm friend, and yours," 
 said Milly. 
 
 " I grow furious with wrath sometimes, you see," 
 Anita went on, " because I can't help considering 
 him a little domineering. He asked me to marry 
 him at a moment when I was utterly discouraged. 
 I had made what seemed to me a miserable failure 
 at a concert and felt that everything was at an 
 end, that nothing mattered." 
 
 " But was not that the very moment for the 
 man who loved you to speak ? " cried Milly. " He 
 wanted to shield you, to comfort you, to " 
 
 " Of course he meant well," said Anita, " but 
 for all that it was not precisely fair. He knows
 
 238 CIPHERS. 
 
 that I hate poverty ; but just at that moment I 
 had given up, and he took advantage of my weak- 
 ness." 
 
 " Your weakness ! Do you try to believe you 
 are not a little wee bit in love with him ? " 
 
 " I have had no time to care about such things," 
 said Anita. "You cannot think what an absurd 
 jumble Sidney's ideas of our future make with 
 mine. I suppose he is half joking, for he is always 
 quoting, ' You must burn the gods you used to wor- 
 ship and worship the gods you used to burn.' " 
 
 " That is, you must give up your unrest, your 
 self-love, your selfish ambition," said Milly with 
 swift insight. " You must feel childlike faith and 
 hope and belief. No more looking before and 
 after and pining for what is not " 
 
 "All that and more," said Anita, laughing. " He 
 tries to convince me that nothing is so delightful 
 as poverty. He jokes about our living in one 
 room, and my cooking his meals and mending his 
 clothes. Of course he is not poor like that. My 
 brother Hugh says that Champion & Breck do a 
 very fair business, and that Sidney ought to have 
 at least four or five thousand a year. But after 
 all, what is five thousand a year when I might 
 hope to make at least that a week ? " 
 
 Milly did not answer for a moment ; she was 
 perhaps weighing the two budgets : Sidney Breck's 
 five thousand a year against Miss Rivera's, how 
 many weeks in the year did she expect to make a 
 thousand dollars a night ?
 
 CIPHERS. 239 
 
 " Sidney sees life very simply," Anita went on. 
 " I tell him lie is so refined himself that he needs 
 none of the refinements of life. Now I do. I am 
 a practical, actual person ; I love so many things ; 
 I need to be pampered a little. I worship luxury. 
 There are two ways for a woman to make money : 
 one is by marrying, the other by becoming a singer 
 or an actress." 
 
 " Some women do both," said Milly. 
 
 " I do not believe Sidney would permit his wife 
 to do anything in public, and he does not believe 
 in my voice. But then he is fastidious ; he insists 
 on some unspeakable perfection. He never will 
 admit that a lucky or unlucky opportunity is be- 
 hind success or failure. He will never agree with 
 me that the reason I was received coldly was be- 
 cause I wore the wrong sort of gown." 
 
 " The wrong sort of gown?"" repeated Milly. 
 
 "A woman can understand these matters," said 
 Anita, longing for a sympathizer. 
 
 " Tell me about the gown," said Milly, meeting 
 her half way. 
 
 Anita poured out the story, not sparing the 
 fallacy of Maddy's infallible recipes for picking 
 and choosing. Anita did more than describe the 
 imperfections of the yellow satin and lace gown ; 
 she presented the whole situation dramatically, 
 showed Sidney Breck sitting in judgment on the 
 toilette, and approving with his eyes, to say noth- 
 ing of his words. She was a true raconteuse, and 
 hated to spoil a narrative by leaving out vivid and
 
 240 CIPHERS. 
 
 effective touches wherever they were needed. More 
 than before, Milly was now convinced of Breck's 
 long and fervid passion, his intimate comings and 
 goings. A girl does not try on her new gowns 
 before unfamiliar friends. 
 
 " I dare say the gown was extremely pretty," 
 she remarked, " only it was worn at the wrong 
 time. Did nobody praise your singing?" 
 
 " I was going to tell you that next day, just a 
 little too late, I was in very good spirits again, for 
 the papers all spoke well of me." 
 
 "Did not that convince Mr. Breck?" 
 
 " He said that his friend Mr. Ruff was power- 
 ful with the critics and had given them a hint." 
 
 " I want you to sing for me," said Milly. " I 
 came to ask you to sing at a musicale at my house, 
 
 two musicales, three, if you like. One must 
 keep something going in Lent. Now let me hear 
 you, that is, if you are willing to try." 
 
 Anita was more than willing, eager. She had 
 divined that Mrs. Lee Childe had something in 
 view, and this was the chance she courted. She 
 inquired what songs her patroness wished to hear, 
 
 then, kindled, sang not only her best, but be- 
 yond what had hitherto been her best. Milly was 
 ready to admire, but she was startled. Here was 
 a singer indeed; a mezzo voice of marvelously 
 rich and sympathetic quality, and possessing a 
 range which gave her the advantage of a soprano ; 
 wonderfully flexible, too, and exquisitely correct 
 in intonation. She sprang up and kissed the girl.
 
 CIPHERS. 241 
 
 " My dear," she said, " you are wonderful." 
 
 "I do not always sing like that," returned 
 Anita, glowing like a gem. " You inspire me. 
 Some people paralyze me " 
 
 " You need not think of them. With such a 
 voice and such skill, your path to success shines 
 definite and certain. I will invite all the people 
 who make opinions. Drawing-room celebrities are 
 the fashion nowadays." 
 
 " I know," said Anita. " It is just the way I 
 have longed to be launched." 
 
 " If I were you," said Milly, " I should aim at 
 becoming a singer of songs. It is quite time we 
 had a real singer. The world is in danger of for- 
 getting what songs are. A song is to the opera 
 what a lyric is to the drama. The heart of the 
 whole thing is in it. At least, you shall sing songs 
 at my musicale." 
 
 They plotted together how to make the affair 
 most successful ; how to strike the key-note ; how 
 to grasp the situation and compel it to yield all 
 that it contained. 
 
 "And I must not make any mistake about my 
 gown this time," said Anita. "You will know, 
 Mrs. Childe, exactly what I ought to wear." 
 
 "You will go to my dressmaker," said Milly. 
 " She can suggest, and then we will choose. Not 
 that it makes any particular difference. Your 
 voice is beyond reach of those trivial accidents, 
 it would triumph over a Mother Hubbard gown." 
 Then another danger suddenly hove into sight. 
 "But will Mr. Breck like it?" she asked.
 
 242 CIPHERS. 
 
 " I am not his slave yet," said Anita exultingly. 
 " I need not ask whether he likes it or not. In 
 fact, if he cares about me as he ought, he should 
 be enchanted with whatever I do. Though he 
 sometimes makes me half in love with what I hate, 
 he understands very well that nothing will satisfy 
 me except doing something that everybody bows 
 down before. When I was a tiny little girl I 
 made up my mind that I must be clever and win 
 greatness. If I saw people rich and successful 
 and happy, I would clench my little fist and stamp 
 my little foot, and say, ' The time will come when I 
 shall look down upon them.' " 
 
 " Be thankful that you were not born with 
 everything, that you have been allowed to feel 
 the spur which comes from needs. ' There is no in- 
 spiration in possession " 
 
 "There is no inspiration in longing to have 
 things one cannot get," said Anita^ " What one 
 needs is to have the object not beyond reach. 
 Sometimes this poor life of make-shifts, this hid- 
 eous little room, frets and jars me so that I can 
 do nothing but get into a rage." 
 
 Milly's eyes traveled slowly around the parlor, 
 not a detail of which she had yet observed. 
 
 " I am sure the room looks to me extremely 
 pretty ; " she said, " so much color and variety. 
 And you have superb flowers ; I suppose I need 
 not ask who sends them to you," she smiled archly. 
 She seemed by this time to have lived down every 
 pang.
 
 CIPHERS. 243 
 
 " Not Mr. Breck ; I assure you he is too matter- 
 of-fact to send me cut flowers. Indeed, he hates 
 cut flowers, he says the sight of them hurts 
 him," said Anita. " His traits are so oddly con- 
 trasted, he is so romantic in some ways, and so 
 painfully practical in others. When there is any 
 question of self-indulgence he seizes the chance to 
 deny himself." 
 
 "But he does not enforce self-denial upon 
 you?" 
 
 " Not yet," said Anita with much emphasis. 
 " What do you suppose he sent me at Christmas? 
 Twenty yards of gray crepe de chine for a gown. 
 He said he wanted me to have it made simply, and 
 that I should be presentable for any occasion." 
 
 " Ah," cried Milly, " a girl may trust a man who 
 observes her needs and helps her. A woman real- 
 izes the worth of these little indications more than 
 a girl." 
 
 " I am not an unnatural creature," said Anita, 
 " and I was charmed by his goodness. Still it 
 does not answer my ideas of what a man madly in 
 love ought to do. I like foolish outlay, nonsensi- 
 cal extravagance. I should prefer to have a man 
 spend all his money on one single, flawless dia- 
 mond for the girl he worships than to save it up 
 to buy kitchen utensils." 
 
 Milly glanced again at the flowers with an ex- 
 pression on her face which brought a blush to 
 Anita's cheeks. 
 
 " Mr. Poorshaw sent them to me," she said. " I
 
 244 CIPHERS. 
 
 believe he is very rich, so such lavishness does 
 not count with him ? " 
 
 Milly caught the little round soft hand. 
 
 "I hope, dear," she said, "you are not making 
 a mistake. You are not playing Geddes Poor- 
 shaw against Mr. Breck ? You let it be under- 
 stood that you are engaged ? " 
 
 " But I do not call myself engaged," said Anita. 
 " Mr. Poorshaw knows that Sidney is my particu- 
 lar friend, and that is quite enough." 
 
 "Mr. Poorshaw does not make love to you?" 
 said Milly. 
 
 " Indeed he does not make love to me," said 
 Anita quickly, noticing the expression on Milly's 
 face ; that face so luminous, so sweet, so full of 
 sympathy, but which at this allusion to Mr. Poor- 
 shaw showed a flash of the blue eyes like a sword 
 coming out of a silken sheath. Never had Anita 
 been so anxious to please any one as she was now 
 to please Mrs. Lee Childe. " I am not thinking of 
 lovers," she added, lifting her head with a charm- 
 ing young dignity. " I shall think of nothing but 
 the songs I am to practice for your musicale." 
 
 Milly's thoughts had reverted, for the first time 
 since she entered, to her idea that Geddes Poorshaw 
 was himself in love with Miss Rivera, but undoubt- 
 edly if he had any such pretensions they had been 
 but matter for an idle hour. This quick rush of 
 sympathy for Breck ardently in love with a girl 
 who was all the time accepting the attentions of a 
 richer man had somehow chilled her. The throb of
 
 CIPHERS. 245 
 
 impulse to say more subsided to a dumb yearning 
 of feeling, which Anita was thrilled by as Milly 
 clasped her and kissed her. " I shall come again 
 very soon," she said, " and you must consult Mr. 
 Contarini and bring him to see my rooms." 
 
 Then she went away. 
 
 Anita had been bright, gay, spontaneous with 
 Milly, and now left alone she had no qualms of 
 conscience over anything that she had said. Still 
 it must be confessed that, the moment the sound 
 of her visitor's footsteps died away, she exclaimed 
 audibly : 
 
 " Very lucky he did not happen to come while 
 she was here." 
 
 She had, however, a wonderful new idea to con- 
 template, and she sat down to brood, not upon pos- 
 sible lovers, but upon the musicale, the thoughts 
 of which opened a vista for her generous imagina- 
 tion to fill up. Within five minutes, however, 
 there came a second tap at the door, and this time 
 at her " Come in " Geddes Poorshaw entered. 
 
 " Oh ! who do you th.ink has been here ? " cried 
 Anita. 
 
 " I know only too well," he replied. " I have 
 been dodging her coachman and groom for half an 
 hour, waiting for her to go away." 
 
 " You knew Mrs. Lee Childe was here then ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I was not surprised, She had spoken of 
 coming to see you to ask you to sing at a musi- 
 cale." 
 
 " Why did you not tell me ? "
 
 246 CIPHERS. 
 
 " I hoped it was only one of her thousand ca- 
 prices. I do not see why you should be patronized 
 in that way." 
 
 " In that way ? It is what I have longed for. 
 I have heard of artists who sang at private con- 
 certs in Paris and St. Petersburg, who were loaded 
 with jewels which the great ladies tore off their 
 necks and arms to give them." 
 
 " Ah, it is the jewels you want," said Poorshaw, 
 who had not sat down, but stood leaning on the 
 back of a chair, and looking down at the girl. 
 
 " It is everything. I would rather be Patti for 
 one evening than Queen of England for her whole 
 life." 
 
 He laughed. "You are ambitious. Well, be 
 Patti if you can, only you must go the right way 
 to work." 
 
 " What is the right way to go to work ? " 
 
 " Marry me. I will take you abroad and you 
 shall have every advantage. If you want to sing 
 in public, you shall sing in public ; if you want to 
 go on the stage, you shall go on the stage." 
 
 " Marry you ! " shrieked Anita. " I am an ar- 
 tist. I do not wish to impede my career." 
 
 " I should say your career was somewhat im- 
 peded already. What I offer is to remove certain 
 obstacles." 
 
 "What obstacles?" 
 
 " You told me yesterday that you were to have 
 a happy day to-day because your sister was to 
 spend the afternoon and night at her mother's,
 
 CIPHERS. 247 
 
 and accordingly you would not be pulled about 
 and distracted by those three youngsters. You 
 have no freedom, you are cramped and restricted. 
 Now I happen to have money enough to give your 
 tastes and inclinations free vent. I should rather 
 like to see what a girl like you could turn out, with 
 nothing to bore her." 
 
 " You flatter yourself I should not be bored ? " 
 she said saucily, too saucily, for he winced. 
 
 " I don't venture to believe you are in love with 
 me," said he with a shrug. 
 
 " I should rather think not." 
 
 " What I wonder is, whether you are in love 
 with any other man." 
 
 " Of course I am not in love with any other 
 man. It is not my metier to be in love. I could 
 act it, I could sing it, but nothing would induce 
 me to feel it." 
 
 " Not in love with any one at all ? " 
 
 " A little with Mrs. Lee Childe, who is the most 
 charming person I ever met." 
 
 " But with no man ? " 
 
 " With no man." 
 
 " Your heart never felt a throb ? " 
 
 " It is a piece of crystal glass which beats here," 
 she said, putting her hand on her heart. 
 
 "Fancy me in love with a perfectly heartless 
 girl," said Poorshaw. " Just fancy ! "
 
 XI. 
 
 THE release which a new hope gives a man from 
 the trammels of the ordinary had been an interest- 
 ing phenomenon to Mr. Rutherford Childe, who had 
 for many years lacked any fresh inspiration, and 
 had lived chiefly by routine. The unreasonable, 
 unaccountable persistence of the ideal in a mind 
 which has long since discarded ideals surprised 
 him. At times he was ready to accuse Milly of 
 cruelty, for having spoiled his peace of mind ; then 
 he forgave her, confessing that this suggestion of 
 a second marriage offered him something to think 
 about, and, in certain moments, took on hues of 
 rose color, and lent a strange glamour to existence. 
 Had he originated the idea it could never have en- 
 joyed the lease of life he now granted it, out of 
 concession to Milly. Had he first confessed to 
 his own heart that he wished to marry Mrs. 
 Fletcher, examined his own feelings and probed 
 for hers, he would have blushed at his own ab- 
 surdity. A man of sixty-six amorous and inclined 
 to experiment on the reciprocal sentiment of a 
 widow a few years his junior ! The thing would 
 have been preposterous. But the responsibility 
 was Milly's, and she possessed plenty of feminine 
 acuteness. She read the situation with insight 
 and sympathy, saw that here were two elderly peo-
 
 CIPHEES. 249 
 
 pie each of whom needed the other. What could 
 be simpler ! It would be such a comfortable ar- 
 rangement. It is true that hitherto his definition 
 of matrimony had not been a comfortable arrange- 
 ment ; quite the contrary, for his experience had 
 left a sort of prejudice in his mind. He had not 
 been, so to say, unhappy with the late Mrs. Childe, 
 who was a masterful spirit, born for supremacy, 
 because he had afforded her little opportunity to 
 meddle with him. At the first intimation of such 
 officious interposition he had remarked, " Too much 
 interference ! " and had set off for Egypt. 
 
 What Milly ought to have done after recklessly 
 throwing this projectile into his still inflammable 
 heart, was to have proceeded to do the same with 
 Mrs. Fletcher. In fact he had counted on such 
 good services. Then, after creating a simultaneous 
 explosion, she could have joined the two hands and 
 otherwise have arranged and simplified matters. 
 
 But it soon became evident that his daughter-in- 
 law had spoken without mature deliberation, throw- 
 ing off the suggestion at a white heat of energy 
 when the most marvelous accidents in life seemed 
 easy. Of late she had been in a quieter mood, 
 talked less and brooded a good deal. She did not, 
 of her own accord, again bring up the subject, but 
 when he himself alluded to it, she gave one of her 
 crisp nods and bright smiles, and said, " Why don't 
 you ? " evidently expecting him to act for himself. 
 
 It was a ponderous combustible for a quiet man 
 to carry about without any one to share the burden
 
 250 CIPHERS. 
 
 with him. What a pity that he and Mrs. Fletcher, 
 used as they were to discussing all sorts of sub- 
 jects together, could not talk this over, looking at 
 it objectively, subjectively, from an interested and 
 from a disinterested standpoint, and decide whether 
 it was or was not feasible. 
 
 These problems assailed him. He was a man in 
 his sixty-sixth year ; now how does a man of sixty- 
 five years and eight months strike a woman's per- 
 ceptions ? 
 
 He had 110 money in particular, but Milly had 
 long since told him he need never think twice 
 about that matter, as he was certain of always find- 
 ing an ample balance at his banker's. Mrs. 
 Fletcher was fairly well off, so financially there 
 was no painful discrepancy in their circumstances. 
 
 What would she say to it ? 
 
 What would her children, nephews, and nieces 
 say? 
 
 What would people in general say ? 
 
 Where would she wish him to live ? In her own 
 house, on Gramercy Park, or in his, that is, 
 Milly's ? His daughter-in-law had paid the heavy 
 mortgage on the Childe property at the time of 
 her marriage, and her trustees held the title-deeds. 
 
 He himself would prefer to make no changes at 
 his time of life. Still, marriage is inevitably an 
 upheaval ; alas, there lay the danger ! He had a 
 flitting insight as to the untamed, original elements 
 a woman brings into a man's life. But then again, 
 his gallant youthful spirit revived, and he courted
 
 CIPHERS. 251 
 
 them. At times he even felt refreshingly stimu- 
 lated by the idea of them. 
 
 He took advantage of one of these more hope- 
 ful intervals, and one snowy morning went to see 
 Mrs. Fletcher. There was nothing out of the 
 common in this, for it had been his habit to go 
 constantly to see Mrs. Fletcher before he was 
 under the weight of this turbulent secret of which 
 he longed to be delivered. 
 
 She was in her usual place before the fire 
 when he entered, in her comfortable armchair, 
 flanked by two low tables holding books, papers, 
 periodicals, wool-work, indeed, every appliance fa- 
 vorable to pleasant occupation, yet she was sitting 
 with her pretty hands folded in her lap. 
 
 " Oh, cousin Rutherford," she exclaimed, " I am 
 delighted to see you. I was thinking about you." 
 
 " Thinking about me ? " said Mr. Childe, almost 
 with a qualm. Perhaps, after all, Milly had fore- 
 stalled him. He was holding her hand, and for a 
 moment had the impulse to kiss it, then was con- 
 scious of fumbling, so waited for an occasion when 
 he coidd be more swift and direct. " And what 
 were you thinking ? " he asked. 
 
 " I have thought more than once of late," said 
 Mrs. Fletcher, " that you were not well. You look 
 to me rather feverish." 
 
 He sat down opposite her with an air of relief. 
 
 " I was apprehensive about the adjective," he 
 remarked ; " you might have said old." 
 
 " Oh dear, no," said Mrs. Fletcher, " I never
 
 252 CIPHERS. 
 
 think of you as old." She smiled at him so brightly 
 he felt dazzled. 
 
 " I am not feverish," said he. " That is, I eat 
 and sleep as usual. I am too much alone, I sup- 
 pose. I think too much." 
 
 " One is apt to try to look too far into things," 
 responded Mrs. Fletcher. " Now when I find my- 
 self trying- to settle the affairs of the universe I 
 say to myself ' After all, they have got on without 
 me for some five or six thousand years,' so I 
 give it up." 
 
 " I don't know," said Mr. Childe reluctantly. 
 He had sat down almost in front of her in the cozy 
 corner by the fireplace. 
 
 " That is too low for you," said Mrs. Fletcher. 
 
 " Not at all, suits me very well," he returned. 
 
 " Put your legs up, lean back, there, let me 
 arrange the cushions behind you, so. That is bet- 
 ter," said Mrs. Fletcher, " that is more comfort- 
 able, is it not ? " 
 
 "Too comfortable," said Mr. Childe. "You 
 spoil an old fellow." 
 
 " I want to spoil him. I 'm so delighted to see 
 you. I am to have some cold birds for lunch, 
 Aggy sent them. I wanted somebody to enjoy 
 them with me." 
 
 " You and I have known each other a long time, 
 Agnes." 
 
 She nodded at him kindly, and he proceeded, 
 " When we reflect upon what we saw together in 
 our youth, what the world was then, and what it
 
 CIPHERS. 253 
 
 has come to, how when we were young certain 
 ideas were inculcated " 
 
 He paused a moment, losing the thread of his 
 discourse. 
 
 " Yes," she acquiesced cheerfully, "I often think 
 of it." 
 
 " It really does seem to me," he went on, " that 
 you and I are the sole survivors of a better genera- 
 tion." 
 
 " Dear me, we are not the oldest inhabitants 
 yet," exclaimed Mrs. Fletcher. 
 
 " But everybody else has forgotten. When I 
 wish to say to any one ' Do you remember ? ' I turn 
 to you." 
 
 " Exactly. Just so when a recollection floats up 
 to my mind, I say to myself, ' I must tell cousin 
 Rutherford.' " 
 
 " Now don't you see," said Mr. Childe, " there 
 is a peculiar affinity, a secret link between us ? " 
 He had changed his position. " Press a button, 
 as it were, and it touches the same spring of old 
 feelings and memories in each of us." 
 
 " That exactly expresses it." 
 
 " Don't ypu think, Agnes," asked Mr. Childe 
 in a wheedling manner and slipping along the 
 length of the seat towards her, " that it gives us a 
 sort of duty in the matter ? " 
 
 " A duty ? " repeated Mrs. Fletcher, as if puz- 
 zled. 
 
 " Don't you see that the thing two people ought 
 to do under the circumstances is to get married ? "
 
 254 CIPHERS. 
 
 " Whom do you mean ? " 
 
 " You and I." 
 
 " You and I get married ? " 
 
 " Yes, Agnes Fletcher, you and I get married." 
 
 " Rutherford Cliilde, in all my life I never heard 
 anything so ridiculous." 
 
 Mrs. Fletcher's soft serenity of aspect had 
 changed, a bright spot appeared on each cheek, 
 her eyes were dilated, and her lips formed a round 
 O of astonishment. 
 
 " Come now," said Mr. Childe, " I don't see 
 anything ridiculous in it. If ever a man tried all 
 his life long to avoid making himself absurd, it is 
 I. I confess it startled me when it was first sug- 
 gested." 
 
 " Who on earth suggested such a thing ? " 
 
 " Milly." 
 
 " She must have been joking." 
 
 " Not a bit of it. She said there was just one 
 person in the world I longed always to see, to 
 whom I loved to talk ; in listening to whom I de- 
 lighted, who in fact made my little happy world 
 inside of the great brutal outside world, and 'so 
 why should I not try to marry her? " 
 
 " Ah, I see. I knew it could never have been 
 your own idea." 
 
 " Indeed it was my own idea, it had been 
 floating over me all the time, only, as it were, I had 
 not grasped it. Milly caught it and put it in my 
 head." 
 
 "A bee in your bonnet, yes, that describes it."
 
 CIPHERS. 255 
 
 " It is the most natural thing in the world. The 
 moment she suggested it I realized that the thing 
 had actually been going on these forty years. I 
 remember the night you came out. I sent you 
 some flowers. I was twenty-five then." 
 
 " I was eighteen." 
 
 " You wore a white gown, I remember the 
 slippers you had on, so slender, so pretty, with 
 large rosettes." 
 
 " Good gracious ! I thought you a finished man 
 of the world. I considered it immense condescen- 
 sion when you asked me to dance." 
 
 " Your blush was charming. If you had not 
 gone and got yourself engaged in two months our 
 fates might have been very different. I think you 
 owe me some reparation. I will give you a chance. 
 Say that you will marry me, Agnes." 
 
 "Nonsense! Now, at the eleventh hour? No- 
 thing would induce me," said Mrs. Fletcher. 
 
 " I suppose you consider me too old. I assure you 
 I intend to live until I am ninety. However, per- 
 haps it is better not to offer that circumstance as 
 an inducement. There are accidents, you know. I 
 may pop off the hooks at any time." 
 
 " I 'm much obliged. I certainly wish you to 
 live as long as possible, but I don't think of chan- 
 ging my condition," retorted Mrs. Fletcher. " I 
 have grandchildren old enough to laugh at me." 
 
 " Don't think of those trivial considerations ; 
 think of me. Besides, we would have a delightful 
 house for them to come to, you can give them a
 
 256 CIPHERS. 
 
 grandfather. They do nothing for you. You are 
 lonely here." 
 
 " I am not lonely at all." 
 
 " You often tell me you are lonely.'* 
 
 " A woman says things " 
 
 " For example that she wants me to eat a cold 
 bird with her while all the time she actually be- 
 grudges it." 
 
 " I don't mind your having all the birds, cousin 
 Eutherford " 
 
 He caught her hand which she extended in airy 
 gesture. 
 
 "Don't you like me ? " he demanded. 
 
 " When you are sensible." 
 
 He kissed her hand with his best air, then re- 
 linquished it. He rose, and stood with his back to 
 the fire. 
 
 " You are too sensible," he said dryly. " I am 
 happy to say I am capable of a few follies yet, old 
 fellow that I am, if being in love with the most 
 charming woman I have ever known is a folly. 
 However, I suppose Milly is still left me. I '11 go 
 home and tell her she made a mistake." 
 
 " I am glad to see you are coming to your 
 senses," said Mrs. Fletcher with a bright little 
 nod. " And if Milly can console you, you are not 
 broken-hearted." 
 
 " Broken-hearted ! I don't take expressions out 
 of phrase-books. I thank Heaven for Milly. I 
 don't suppose I ought to expect anything better 
 than she can give me." A clear note of submis-
 
 CIPHERS. 257 
 
 sion to the inevitable was beginning to be heard in 
 his voice. Perhaps it touched sensibilities in Mrs. 
 Fletcher hitherto unstirred. 
 
 "Do sit down, cousin Rutherford," she said 
 entreatingly. " It afflicts me to see you standing 
 in that uncomfortable way." 
 
 " Thanks, but I am on the point of going." 
 
 " I can't let you go away angry with me. Quar- 
 reling between you and me is quite out of the 
 question." 
 
 " I have no wish to quarrel, you must confess 
 that my intentions ran in a very different direc- 
 tion. But when a man is laughed at, his views 
 derided " 
 
 " You took away my breath. Never in all my 
 life was I so overwhelmed with surprise." 
 
 " Well, perhaps it was an absurd proposition." 
 
 " I did not actually intend to say it was an ab- 
 surd proposition," said Mrs. Fletcher ; " but I 
 was startled. It takes one a moment to recover 
 from such a shock. Then, gradually the aspect of 
 the thing changes. One grasps the total idea." 
 
 " I know," said Mr. Childe mournfully. " I 
 went through all that when Milly broached the 
 subject. Well, let 's forget it all." 
 
 " Oh, so you were not really in earnest about the 
 matter?" 
 
 " No particular use for a man to be in earnest 
 all by himself, it needs two earnest people in 
 order to get married." 
 
 " I do not believe you are at all broken-hearted," 
 observed Mrs. Fletcher.
 
 258 CIPHERS. 
 
 " I should hope not. As our time on earth 
 shortens, we are more and more anxious to dis- 
 miss fallacies and accept facts. The fact proves 
 to be that you won't have me, Agnes ; so I avenge 
 myself on fortune by becoming a philosopher." 
 
 "Do sit down," said Mrs. Fletcher nervously. 
 " I can't help thinking that you are angry with 
 me." 
 
 He yielded to her entreaties and sat down. There 
 was nothing implacable in his mood. Certainly, 
 he reflected, a second marriage was no necessity 
 of life for a man, it offered no particular dis- 
 tinction, nor could it be said to be an infallible 
 distraction to the troubles of life. 
 
 " I tell you, I 'm not angry," said he. " Of 
 course I 'm vexed that I made the offer. It will 
 be a disturbing element. You will always be 
 thinking what an old fool I was " 
 
 " I shall never think such a thing," said Mrs. 
 Fletcher. He had seated himself once more in 
 the fireplace corner, and she went up to him with 
 a cushion. "Here, let me put this behind you." 
 
 " Do you mean that all can go on in the good 
 old fashion ? " he said, looking at the wonderful 
 softness of her eyes and bloom of her face. " Do 
 you promise to forget all about it ? " 
 
 " I don't want to forget it. Are you comfort- 
 able?" 
 
 " Delightfully comfortable." 
 
 " Put your feet up, there, lean back." 
 
 " You are a charming woman, Agues,"
 
 CIPHERS. 259 
 
 " I can see that you are glad you are out of the 
 mess." 
 
 " It would have been a pudding indeed, if all 
 had come about as I proposed." 
 
 " Rutherford Childe, I do believe you are actually 
 heartless." 
 
 " Heartless ? " He started up. He caught her 
 hand. " By Jove, Agnes," said he, " are those 
 tears in your eyes ? Heartless ? I, heartless, 
 when I can't live without you ? When, if you will 
 not grant me the first place, I am ready to take 
 any ? When I have grown so used to the idea of 
 loving you, of being loved by you, that I " 
 
 " Rutherford Childe," whispered Mrs. Fletcher 
 between laughing and crying, " it is the most 
 ridiculous thing I ever heard of in my life." 
 
 Lunch was announced, and they went out to- 
 gether and ate the cold birds. A peculiar hilarity 
 was evident in Mr. Chjlde, while Mrs. Fletcher 
 seemed to be afraid to lift her eyes.
 
 xn. 
 
 MRS. LEE CHILDE had not seen Sidney Breck 
 for some weeks, in fact had definitely made up her 
 mind she could never see him again, when one 
 evening at a private view of some paintings by 
 American artists, as she entered the main gallery, 
 she caught a glimpse of him making the rounds 
 with his hand on Holly Ruff's arm. Her heart 
 gave a great beat ; for a moment she longed to rim 
 away, then all at once the conviction came over 
 her that it was important, even essential, that she 
 should speak to him that evening. She was in ad- 
 vance of her party, and now, rather uncomfortably 
 and against the current, led them to the left. 
 
 " I suppose you will buy something, Milly," 
 Miss Hurst remarked. "This is pretty; I hope 
 you will choose this." 
 
 "I have no idea what I shall buy," replied 
 Milly. 
 
 " There is Mr. Ruff. Let us try to reach him," 
 said Miss Hurst. " He understands these things 
 and will give us some ideas." 
 
 " That sort of man generally knows too much," 
 said Mr. Ferris. " I hate to have to look intelli- 
 gent while people talk a high-art jargon." 
 
 " When Mr. Ruff talks," observed Milly, " I
 
 CIPHERS. 261 
 
 always creep as close as I can hoping to pick up 
 something." 
 
 Her ruse was successful in the present instance. 
 By keeping close to the rail with a pertinacity 
 worthy of a more just cause, indeed aided by the 
 very people she most inconvenienced, since they 
 recognized her as a possible purchaser of the pic- 
 tures they looked at with the most purely disin- 
 terested admiration, she was by this time close 
 beside Holly Ruff, who, with a shrug and shake 
 of the head, was standing erect before a medium- 
 sized canvas, which Breck, bending forward, was 
 studying eagerly. 
 
 " Times were," Ruff was saying, " that when the 
 brains were out the man would die. Nowadays 
 their loss seems to add a lease of life to poets, 
 novelists, even painters." 
 
 " The tints may want cooking together." put in 
 Breck, " but just as a delicate bit of color " 
 
 " Nonsense ; you see paint, not a picture. I 
 
 hate that talk. X ought to have a lesson. 
 
 He can do good work, but he has decided good 
 work does not pay, so he does bad work." 
 
 " Evidently," said Mrs. Lee Childe in his ear, 
 "you came to bury Caesar, not to praise him." 
 
 Breck had already with a start recognized her, 
 and had plucked at his companion's arm. It was 
 Ruff who flushed most deeply as Milly gave her 
 hand to each and introduced them to those of her 
 party to whom they were not known. 
 
 " It is Breck who knows most about it," said
 
 262 CIPHERS. 
 
 Holly Ruff, with an access of modesty as lie saw 
 himself surrounded by listeners. " To be a judge 
 of pictures one must have used colors and a 
 brush." 
 
 " I don't see that," said Mr. Ferris. " A man 
 need not be a baker to know whether bread is 
 good or bad." 
 
 " A baker can tell whether there is alum in it." 
 
 " I remember taking a clever pianist to hear 
 
 Z ," said Milly. "The music was exquisite, 
 
 but my friend could not get over the fact that 
 
 Z used his first finger when he should have 
 
 used his third. I cared nothing whether he used 
 fingers or thumbs, not I, so long as the sound 
 charmed me." 
 
 " I tell Breck he thinks about the way the thing 
 is produced, not the sum total of its effect. I in- 
 sist that in the arts technique is not all, although 
 it is " 
 
 Breck's eyes and Milly's had encountered with 
 an indescribable glance. 
 
 " There is a picture I wished to ask you about," 
 she said. 
 
 " A picture ? " he repeated. 
 
 " What do you think of the exhibition, Mr. 
 Ruff ? " inquired Miss Hurst. " But perhaps you 
 prefer to reserve your opinions for a printed arti- 
 cle." 
 
 " I am ready and willing to impart my opinion 
 to the whole world," said Ruff. "It is a very 
 pretty exhibition. It shows the characteristic ten-
 
 CIPHERS. 263 
 
 dencies of the day. There are few important 
 works, and the most ambitious disclose little sig- 
 nificance or originality. Nobody seems actually 
 to have anything to say, but tries to say nothing 
 in the neatest possible manner. Since painters 
 will not see for themselves nor feel for themselves, 
 there is one advantage in following French mod- 
 els, for the French, even when they have nothing 
 to say, possess the knack of saying nothing with 
 surprising cJiic." 
 
 Ruff, embarrassed, constrained, tied by the leg, 
 as it were, could not but be flattered by the air of 
 rapt attention with which some of the party lis- 
 tened to this disquisition, and he did not at first 
 perceive that his audience had lessened by two. 
 Meanwhile, Mrs. Childe had moved on, and Breck, 
 with a slight frown, had followed. 
 
 " Are you exhibiting anything?" she inquired. 
 
 " Oh, no, that is, there is a design for " 
 
 " Will you not show it to me ? " She glanced 
 back at him over her shoulder, and smiled. 
 
 " It is not worth looking at," he replied. " You 
 spoke of a picture." 
 
 " Oh, yes, a picture. I must have your ad- 
 vice." 
 
 " Ruff says the worst things please me ; that I 
 see high merit in the most pitiful good intentions. 
 I dare say he is right. I think too much of the 
 long months' work of men who ache for a little 
 understanding and sympathy. I dare say if I were 
 in the concours I should be more critical and less 
 sympathetic."
 
 264 CIPHEE8. 
 
 " Could we not sit down somewhere ? " said 
 Milly, her eyes fixed on his face. " I wished to 
 speak about something, not the pictures." 
 
 " There is a bench in the little room where the 
 plaster casts are," suggested Breck. He led the 
 way, and they found a place deserted by the crowd. 
 She sat down at once ; he stood before her and 
 looked expectantly at her. 
 
 " I wanted to speak to you about Miss Rivera," 
 she said, looking back at him with absolute se- 
 renity. 
 
 He dropped his eyes. 
 
 "Anita told me of your visit," he said. " I can 
 hardly express my sense of your kindness, Mrs. 
 Childe." 
 
 " Do you mean about the musicale ? There is 
 no kindness in that enterprise. It is she who does 
 me a great favor. I wanted to ask your consent." 
 
 " My consent ? " He smiled. 
 
 " She confided to me that it was your wish that 
 she should give up singing." 
 
 " I have no desire that she should give up any- 
 thing that makes her happier ; all I wish is to 
 spare her disappointment and disenchantment." 
 
 " She has a charming voice. She has every 
 right to be successful. Think what it would be 
 to stifle such a talent. You yourself know what 
 it is to live half submerged, as it were " 
 
 " I ? " repeated Breck, as if puzzled "I live 
 half submerged ? " 
 
 " She is so young," pursued Milly, as if pleading
 
 CIPHERS. 265 
 
 for a cause on which all her heart was set. " Let 
 her have the chance. Even if she were to fail 
 let her have had the chance. You will in the end 
 lose nothing." 
 
 " I evidently figure to you as a monster," he 
 said, "a monster of egoistic selfishness." 
 
 "A man has a right to be selfish towards the 
 woman he loves," pursued Milly. " He wants his 
 wife for his own fireside." 
 
 " You see me on the domestic hearth playing 
 the part of tyrant, repressing artistic instincts, dis- 
 cussing the price of butter and eggs, and insisting 
 that the coal bills shall be cut down." 
 
 Their eyes met, and both laughed. 
 
 " Fools rush in," said Milly, with a little ges- 
 ture indicative of going no farther. " I will trust 
 you to do exactly what you think best." 
 
 " No man knows what a bore he can be until he 
 becomes a pere de famille" said Breck. " But 
 actually my only wish at present is to spare Anita 
 pain. I am afraid hers is only a half talent. She 
 has not worked long enough or hard enough. 
 She has tried to snatch at one success after an- 
 other. It is bad for a man to be rate, but for a 
 woman it is brutal." 
 
 " She is so beautiful," said Milly. 
 
 " Is she not ? " He laughed as he spoke. *' I 
 tell her it is enough for her to be a pretty woman, 
 that that after all is the rarest gift. But she re- 
 torts that whereas as an artist she might be easily 
 satisfied, as a pretty woman her wishes are illirai-
 
 266 CIPHERS. 
 
 table, that nobody except a millionaire could 
 begin to satisfy her just demands." He was 
 flushed, and his eyes were too bright, but a sug- 
 gestion of humor in his manner took away any 
 suspicions of serious criticism from his words. 
 " She is so fond of pretty things. She loves pro- 
 fusion. A flower is not enough, she insists on 
 having a whole greenhouse of flowers. One new 
 gown shows her the limitations of her wardrobe ; 
 if she requires one she requires twenty. A single 
 jewel is nothing ; her taste in jewels is regal." 
 
 "I advise you," said Milly, with a little nod, 
 " to encourage her devotion to art. Why is she 
 not here to-night? " 
 
 " Geddes Poorshaw has a small theatre party 
 for Anita, Mrs. Hugh Rivera, and another sister 
 and her daughter, who are visiting them. I was to 
 have joined them, but Anita confided to me that 
 my ticket could be used with singular advantage 
 by a young man who is devoted to the pretty 
 young niece ; accordingly, I am here." 
 
 As he said these four words, a mask seemed to 
 drop from his face. " I am so glad to see you," 
 he added, under his breath. " I have " Some 
 secret emotion seemed to have taken possession of 
 him, and it communicated itself to her. She 
 could no longer look at him, but he kept a 
 straight, strong, compelling gaze upon her. 
 
 " I am glad to see you," she murmured, as he 
 broke off. 
 
 "Oh, thank you, thank you," he said fer-
 
 CIPHEBS. 267 
 
 vently. " I have felt cast out in utter darkness. 
 I ought not to say this, but I will, I must say 
 it. After I had gone away that night, I did not 
 go far ; I walked up and down, up and down. 
 I had but one idea." 
 
 What that idea was that she had confessed 
 her love for a man who had already rejected her 
 for another woman burned in afresh upon her 
 consciousness, but she kept a half smile upon 
 her lips, and said nothing. 
 
 "You had told me to go away," he went on, 
 "and at the moment implicit obedience to you 
 seemed my highest law ; but, the chance gone, I 
 realized what I had lost by my cowardice. I 
 despised myself I, a man, and had left you ! 
 A dog, a dumb brute, would have stayed ! " 
 
 The color flashed to her face ; she mistook his 
 meaning for his possible meaning. 
 
 " Sit down," she said nervously ; for he had not 
 once changed his position, but had continued to 
 stand before her, bending forward, so that their 
 faces were about on a level. She moved slightly, 
 lifting the wrap she carried, changing it from one 
 arm to the other. " One may as well take a little 
 comfort if one has the chance," she remarked 
 easily. 
 
 " Oh, comfort, comfort ! " he repeated ironi- 
 cally. 
 
 " Besides, I have something to say to you which 
 calls for a little heroism," she proceeded ; " and 
 for a moment I wish not to be under your eyes."
 
 268 CIPHERS. 
 
 She laughed as she spoke. He seated himself 
 beside her, and gazed straight in front, and did 
 not once turn towards her. 
 
 "I have never had a friend in my life," she 
 said, " and you see, Mr. Breck, I had hoped we 
 were to be real, actual friends. When you fell 
 away, I was sorely hurt. I wanted to explain, but 
 a woman at least, a young woman cannot 
 explain. She says too much ; the right words 
 do not fit themselves to her demands; and, car- 
 ried away by the feeling of the moment, she 
 uses abrupt, obscure expressions, which stand for 
 what " 
 
 " Oh, my God ! " muttered Breck. " I cannot 
 have you accuse yourself, explain anything 
 away. Let me go on remembering that once 
 one of God's angels came down and looked in 
 my face." 
 
 "I was going to ask you to forget it," said 
 Milly. 
 
 " Anything else." 
 
 " Well, well ; I feel sure at least you wish me 
 no ill, so I can forget it. Let us be friends, Mr. 
 Breck, real friends." 
 
 " You honor me. I certainly am your friend." 
 
 "Your marriage will not hinder our friend- 
 ship ; quite the reverse. She is charming. I 
 think, in all my life, I never saw a girl who in- 
 terested me so much. She is almost the more 
 charming because, unlike everyday girls, she 
 does not put all her romance into her little per-
 
 CIPHERS. 269 
 
 sonal vanities and ambitions ; she gives it to her 
 music." 
 
 " She is clever, but crude ; she is still uncertain 
 of her vocation ; she does not know where her real 
 talent lies." 
 
 " Oh, certainly in music," said Milly with 
 energy. 
 
 " Evidently, you heard her on a good day. The 
 unlucky thing is, she cannot count on her good 
 days. It is partly because she does not realize the 
 sacrifices one has to make for a talent before it 
 gives one complete happiness, and partly because 
 she is too ardent, too excitable, and permits her- 
 self to be upset by trifles. When she told me of 
 your wish, I said % ' But, Anita, suppose you should 
 disappoint Mrs. Childe.' And she shuddered, 
 realizing that there was always that hideous possi- 
 bility of gathering herself up for the high note, 
 which is the climax of the song, and failing to 
 strike it." 
 
 " She will strike it, strike it to everybody's 
 enchantment," said Milly, almost at a loss to find 
 reason for Breck's disbelief in powers which had 
 seemed to her so rare and so perfected. "You 
 do not refuse to let her sing at my musicale, 
 Mr. Breck?" 
 
 "I refuse? No, indeed; she shall do as she 
 chooses." 
 
 " At present, at all events," said Milly, with a 
 little, soft laugh. 
 
 " I am perfectly willing, for her own sake, that
 
 270 CIPHERS. 
 
 she should experience the grand and final test," 
 said he. "It is a good thing for any human 
 being to get at the pith and kernel of hard 
 fact." 
 
 "I see," returned Milly, still laughing, "that 
 you wish to clip her wings. I feel for you, but 
 let her sing just this once or twice. Let her see 
 what gratified ambition is, and perhaps even her 
 success will show her, better than defeat could, 
 that for a woman there is but one art, the art 
 of loving. She has a rich nature, and when the 
 time comes all will be subordinate to that. Do 
 not thwart her. When she knows life better, 
 she will understand that her loss is a gain, 
 that what you will offer is more than a fair 
 exchange." 
 
 Still Breck looked in front. 
 
 " I wanted to say this," she added, with evident 
 effort. 
 
 " Thanks," he replied stififly. 
 
 She sat for a moment playing with the fringe 
 of her mantle, perhaps in doubt whether she had 
 made her meaning clear. Then it occurred to her 
 that she had on one occasion made it too clear, 
 and she made haste to rise. 
 
 "I hope you will come to the musicale, Mr. 
 Breck," she said. He, too, had risen. 
 
 "I do not attend musicales," he replied in a 
 manner which would have seemed cold and dull, 
 had she not remembered his kindled face a few 
 moments before.
 
 CIPHERS. 271 
 
 " Oh, you will coine to this," she said, with per- 
 sistent hopefulness. " We must go back to my 
 party ; they will think that I have been buying a 
 picture, that I have bought a whole gallery of 
 pictures. There is poor Mr. Ruff still discoursing 
 on art. A regular Casabianca ! He must be long- 
 ing for some catastrophe to end his ordeal."
 
 XIII. 
 
 MRS. LEE CHILDE, 
 
 AT HOME, 
 
 On Saturday, February the Twenty-fourth. 
 Music at Four o'clock. 
 
 STUYVBSANT SQUARE. 
 
 THIS invitation flew about New York within 
 three days, and it was understood that it heralded 
 the introduction of a singer, young, beautiful, and 
 unique in gifts. Paragraphs in the papers pro- 
 claimed her to be a Malibran, a Garcia. Report- 
 ers called upon Miss Rivera; one solicited her 
 photograph, and it was reproduced, in a style 
 which flattered only by its polite intentions, in a 
 Sunday paper. Anita herself was happy in this 
 interval. Her scale of possibilities no longer 
 seemed incomplete, but sounded each note to its 
 full power and sweetness. Her new gown had 
 come home, and was exquisite ; Mrs. Hugh Rivera 
 went on her knees before it. Mrs. Lee Childe 
 was friendly, intimate, caressing, and carried the 
 young girl off day after day into a world all rose 
 and azure tinted. Sidney Breck was acquiescent. 
 Geddes Poorshaw, a little abashed, was holding 
 himself aloof, but perhaps gathering up his forces 
 for a final blow. The ball seemed at the feet of 
 Anita, who, in her moments of highest rapture,
 
 CIPHERS. 273 
 
 had a practical sense of the advantages of her 
 present position. 
 
 Signor Contarini, it is true, kept her hard at 
 work, growing less and less willing that she should 
 spare labor or slur over any difficulty. He came 
 to her each day in a terrible state of mind, pre- 
 dicting evil, putting his fingers in her ears at 
 the first note she sounded ; compelling her to stop 
 and listen to an exordium, then, pouncing upon 
 her the moment her voice died away on the final 
 note, and, as it were, tearing to pieces any belief 
 in her own performance. Not, he explained, that 
 he wished to discourage her ; it was only that he 
 wished to enforce submission upon her. The 
 spirit of obedience must be put into every note 
 of her music ; she must open her mouth with an 
 awful sense of the necessity of producing her 
 tones in a way to throw its exact duties upon each 
 distinct organ concerned. She must clearly under- 
 stand that she rested, not upon her own powers, 
 but upon his guidance, and that the more wholly 
 she trusted to him the more gloriously she would 
 sing. Then, intrenched in sure knowledge and 
 strength, she might find her forces pliant to op- 
 portunity, and reach forth to some other end than 
 that of attaining mere dull correctness. Yet this 
 liberty was to be sparingly exercised, and always 
 under a solemn sense of special consecration. He 
 mistrusted her possible belief in herself. 
 
 " Will that do ? " she would ask him day by day. 
 
 " Yaas, yaas," he sometimes replied. " That
 
 274 CIPHERS. 
 
 will do. I wish all the connoisseurs in New York 
 could hear you." 
 
 But twenty-four hours later it was apt to be, 
 
 "Do? That will never do. It was bad. It 
 was abominable ! It was incredible ! " 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Contarini," Anita once exclaimed in 
 keen disappointment, for she had believed she had 
 executed something vivid, effective, thrilling, " you 
 are cruel." 
 
 "Cruel? cruel?" he returned. "It is you, 
 Miss Rivera, who are cruel. It is to you I hold 
 out my hand for bread and you give me a stone. 
 It is you whom I have warmed at my fire who turn 
 into a viper and sting me. I come to hear a night- 
 ingale, and what is it I am obliged to listen to? 
 An owl, an owl that hoots." 
 
 " That is more than cruel, it is unjust," Anita 
 declared with flashing eyes. " It may be I have 
 taken a slight cold " 
 
 " If you are to be a singer you must not take a 
 slight cold. Where did you go last night ? " 
 
 " To the opera." 
 
 " Ah, yes, to the German opera. That is the 
 place to learn to screech, to sing like a trumpet, to 
 strain the voice till it is no voice at all, but a tin 
 pan. You know I have forbidden you the German 
 opera till you know how you ought not to sing." 
 
 " I wanted to go once," said Anita. " Mr. Poor- 
 shaw offered Maddy a box " 
 
 " And afterwards ? You ate ices, no doubt, 
 ices at midnight. Is that the way to treat a voice ?
 
 CIPHERS. 275 
 
 Is an art, a sacred, a divine art, to be played with 
 like a toy, put on or off like a garment, treated 
 like a lover with whom you act the coquette, 
 are good to to-day, turn your back on to-morrow ? 
 No, it demands the complete giving up. You say 
 you want a great success at Mrs. Childe's, yet you 
 let your mind go this way and that. To be any- 
 body, to be anything, you must be sincere, you 
 must be thorough, you must be narrow. You 
 think of too many things." 
 
 " If I had only the one idea of my voice, and 
 particularly after you scold me, Mr. Contarini, 
 how could I summon any strength or spirit to sing 
 at all?" 
 
 "If you wish to be a great singer you must 
 think of one thing, and of one thing alone." 
 
 "You like to discourage me," said Anita, the 
 tears starting to her eyes. 
 
 " Ah, no tears ! Les larmes dans la voix come 
 not when you are weeping, but when you are com- 
 plete mistress of yourself. Now we will try once 
 more. Remember that we have ears, nerves, a 
 brain ; that we know a voice from a trumpet 
 through the nose." 
 
 To hold one's own against criticism "so pointed, 
 so personal, requires, it must be confessed, not 
 only good nerves, but a singleness of purpose which 
 cleaves to its object like a limpet to its rock. And 
 how could a girl like Anita be wholly under the 
 domination of one meagre idea? How could she 
 dare so to surrender herself, to fasten to anything
 
 276 CIPHERS. 
 
 with the very fibre of her soul, to feel with the 
 very palpitations of her life? There were so 
 many voices in her ears, so many hands held out. 
 And it was so essential to choose the very best, 
 and not dwindle away into insignificance from 
 missing her opportunity. In such a crisis, indi- 
 vidual taste and personal craving should, she ar- 
 gued, count for little. 
 
 Certainly she liked Sidney Breck, and liked 
 him, too, with what she recognized as the better, 
 nobler, wiser, part of herself. He was a bright, 
 sincere, honorable fellow, and having asked her to 
 marry him, and not having been refused, came 
 regularly every night to see her, brought her books, 
 talked quietly and rationally about her music, 
 helped her all he could, and seemed always to keep 
 the fact clearly in his mind that they two were to 
 spend the rest of their lives together. What he 
 was now she could be certain he would always be, 
 when the husband had outlived the lover. While 
 she was with him their engagement seemed easy, 
 natural, charming, and the hindrances she imposed 
 were of the sort most provocative to an ardent 
 young fellow, who seemed incapable of believing 
 that a girl who confessed she loved him could be 
 in earnest about her individual cravings* and ambi- 
 tions. 
 
 " How little he knows me ! " Anita would say to 
 herself, when she rose next morning, the glamour 
 Breck's presence had brought wholly departed. It 
 was by the clear light of day that Poorshaw had
 
 CIPHERS. 277 
 
 his triumph. To begin with, the morning brought 
 his daily offering of flowers ; then, a little later, 
 he came. Anita never said to herself that this 
 man pleased her, yet he somehow encouraged and 
 stimulated her, for the reason, perhaps, that he 
 looked at life from a widely different standpoint 
 from that of Breck, whom nothing contented but 
 the pith of the substance. Poorshaw was not only 
 superficial and narrow-minded, but he piqued him- 
 self upon being superficial and narrow-minded, half 
 despising people for looking too far into things. 
 
 Anita had often said to herself that Poorshaw 
 was hard and that he could be brutal, but insensi- 
 bly she began to like his easy way of following 
 certain estimates and understandings taken for 
 granted by people who accept the world as a place 
 offered for their enjoyment. Not but that she still 
 maintained her artistic ambitions, but she had be- 
 gun to realize that when a woman sets out to be 
 more beautiful and to have more luxurious houses 
 and carriages than her neighbors, the result may 
 be somewhat in proportion to her endeavors, but 
 that when she enters the domain of art, she con- 
 quers or is beaten, just as it happens. This waver- 
 ing uncertainty, whether she was or was not to 
 witch the world with her singing, at times began to 
 seem, as Poorshaw declared, not worth the candle. 
 And by way of paradox, Mrs. Lee Childe's influ- 
 ence was thrown into the scale on the side of Poor- 
 shaw's suggestions and promises, for Anita, in pre- 
 paring for the musicale, went every day to Milly's
 
 278 CIPHERS. 
 
 house, in Milly's carriage, and was waited upon by 
 Milly's servants. She liked the splendors and re- 
 finements with which she now became familiar. "I 
 call that ease in high life," was Mrs. Hugh Ri- 
 vera's admiring comment upon her own occasional 
 glimpses of Mrs. Lee Childe and her belongings, 
 and there was a secret exultation in Anita's eager 
 little heart at the conviction that this luxury, this 
 " ease in high life," came easily to her. 
 
 She told Sidney Breck this when he came on 
 the evening of the twenty-third, and he laughed at 
 her, declaring that there was not a shop-girl in 
 New York who did not feel that nature intended 
 her to tread on Eastern rugs and ride in carriages. 
 
 " A good honest taste for bread without butter, 
 and for walking on one's two honest feet, shows 
 far more originality," he added. " Wait until 
 you have been my wife for a year, the sharer of 
 my two rooms " 
 
 " Oh, even you are growing luxurious ! There 
 are to be two rooms, not one." 
 
 " Yes, my two rooms ; the cooker of my por- 
 ridge, the " 
 
 " Don't be too sure." 
 
 " Anita, do you know how to make a salad ? " 
 
 " It is not my metier to know how to make a 
 salad. My business is to sing." 
 
 " Alas, I wish it were to-morrow night and all 
 well. Not that I care a button about your being 
 successful ; but it kills me to think of your fail- 
 ing again, although I admit "
 
 CIPHERS. 279 
 
 " Well, what do you admit ? " 
 
 " That if you suffer a regular Humpty Dumpty 
 fall my course will be clearer. I may then assert 
 myself. I shall put on my boots and spurs and 
 take my riding-whip in hand. I blame myself for 
 dawdling, but then with a debatable egg, of which 
 nobody can tell whether it is to hatch into night- 
 ingale or blackbird " 
 
 " I am much obliged to you for not saying a 
 crow." 
 
 " I have not liked to make the little final ar- 
 rangements. I don't say what will happen if you 
 have a great success, Anita, but if you do not " 
 
 " You evidently count with assurance on my 
 failure." 
 
 " No, I do not. But if you should by any chance 
 happen to fail, I shall say, 'Anita, marry me in 
 two weeks.' ' 
 
 He could not have said all this had he not felt 
 sure of touching a vibrating, responsive chord in 
 her ; Anita was neither cold nor dull, and Breck 
 charmed her. She glowed like a gem as he talked 
 to her ; she looked back at him laughing and dim- 
 pling, every glance a caress. He went away under 
 the glamour left by his final clasp of her light, 
 pretty figure. She was to be his girl-wife, and his 
 heart throbbed. 
 
 " At least she loves me," he said to himself, 
 " and she shall never find out that I do not com- 
 pletely love her. At least, I will be true to her." 
 
 He was often enough angrily indignant with
 
 280 CIPHERS. 
 
 himself for not dismissing every other thought and 
 accepting the happiness Anita could give him. 
 " Happiness, happiness," he to-night said moodily 
 to himself, " why should I think about happi- 
 ness ? " He counted over on his fingers the men 
 he knew, to discover if any one of them was ide- 
 ally happy, that is, romantically happy. The only 
 men who were satisfied with their lot were those 
 who were so hard driven by daily work that they 
 saw no problems in life except how to get through 
 with their endless task. Holly Ruff was happy in 
 a way, because he used all his powers. 
 
 " I shall need to work," Breck said to himself, 
 putting his hands into his pockets. " Anita will 
 want all the money I can earn, and likely enough 
 I too shall be happy." That is, he meant that, 
 goaded on, he should finally forget his present 
 ceaseless, impetuous, impotent longing, his intense 
 thirst after the happiness he refused to believe in. 
 
 Anita went to bed almost ready to starve, feast, 
 despair, and be happy with Breck, w r hom she saw 
 in the most attractive colors, and it was as if 
 Poorshaw did not exist for her. But next morn- 
 ing, when she awoke, the illusions which had gov- 
 erned her the night before fell off like dead 
 leaves ; she re-awoke to the real facts of life, for 
 this was the day of days. A woman cannot think 
 of everything at once. She smiled with half 
 amusement to-day to reflect how dear she was to 
 Breck, how ardently he longed to have his ordeal 
 ended. There is a fatality about such a love,
 
 CIPHERS. 281 
 
 it was too ideal, she said to herself, thinking of 
 her actual requisites of life. She was glad that he 
 was not to be at the musicale, and when at ten 
 o'clock she received a message from him saying 
 that he was called to Washington by the senior 
 partner, she breathed, as it were, more freely. 
 She could hardly have described in what way he 
 hindered her free play, but of late she had at times 
 felt hurried, crowded, an actress of too many parts. 
 
 Milly Childe herself came for Anita at one 
 o'clock. 
 
 " How is the voice ? " she asked anxiously. 
 
 " Mr. Contarini was here. I sang the exercises 
 to him, and he was satisfied," said Anita. " He 
 told me not to think about my voice again to-day." 
 
 Milly was in high spirits, or seemed so. She 
 talked all the way to her house, whither she was 
 taking Anita to dress and to rest, telling her 
 amusing things, delicately tickling her vanity with 
 flatteries, helping, in fact, to inflate the balloon 
 which was to soar up into a region of flame and 
 azure a few hours later. Anita listened, her heart 
 throbbing. She liked the excitement, yet was con- 
 scious that her nerves were thrilling from her in- 
 tense mental action. 
 
 " If I were only made of gutta-percha," she said 
 as Milly was leaving her after showing her about 
 the rooms, where magnificent tropical plants and 
 exotics were piled high in all the corners. 
 
 Milly put her arms round the girl and kissed 
 her. " It is going to be a great success," she said.
 
 282 CIPHERS. 
 
 " But after all what is success to you ? It is 
 wholly an outside thing. You are yourself and 
 will continue to be yourself, and Sidney Breck 
 cares only for your actual self, and if you should 
 not sing your best he will but love you the more 
 dearly." 
 
 " He said last night," said Anita, between 
 laughing and crying, " that if I covered myself 
 with glory he should probably hide his face dazzled 
 by my grandeur, but that if I failed he should in- 
 sist on my marrying him in two weeks." 
 
 "And do you want to marry him in two weeks, 
 or do you wish to succeed?" 
 
 " Do you ask ? " demanded Anita, wondering at 
 the sudden flash on Milly's face. "I would not 
 marry him in two weeks, in two months, in two 
 years. That is what I feel to-day. I shall end 
 by running away to the other side of the world, 
 away from him, for he governs me, coerces me, 
 makes me seem to like what actually I hate." 
 
 "I do not like to think my musicale is to be 
 a destiny, a fate, a providence," said Milly. She 
 looked at the girl with a bright penetrating glance. 
 She would have added something which burned in 
 her heart and almost trembled on her tongue, then 
 remembered that Anita was to rest, to dress her- 
 self composedly, and be ready by four o'clock. So 
 once more she kissed her, and then shut the door 
 on her. 
 
 Anita had no desire to rest. 
 
 " It is indeed a destiny, a fate, a providence,"
 
 CIPHERS. 283 
 
 she said to herself. She moved up and down the 
 room conscious of a growing intoxication, yet not 
 knowing how to repress it. Currents of diverse 
 thoughts and feelings met within her, and she felt 
 herself reckless of results. 
 
 "After all," she said almost audibly, "some- 
 body's heart must be broken. I suppose since the 
 beginning of the world a girl has always had two 
 lovers at once, and chosen one." She walked to 
 the mirror and looked in at the lovely reflection. 
 "Which? " she said, questioning the soft ovals of 
 the beautiful face, the delicate bloom, the laughing 
 lips and eyes. " Do I love one better than the 
 other ? At this moment I love nobody ; I am in 
 love with myself." 
 
 She bent forward in an attitude which showed 
 her herself in another mirror at a right angle. 
 How pretty her side face was, how becoming the 
 twist and knot of her hair ! She turned her neck 
 first one way, then the other, and her beautiful 
 dark eyes burned like those of Calderon's Spanish 
 women. Her gown was laid out on the bed, and 
 with a cry of delighted recognition she ran towards 
 the pale blue crepe, with its neck and sleeves of 
 white chiffon. She longed to see herself in it ; 
 she glanced at the little clock, there were twenty 
 minutes yet before she needed to begin dressing. 
 A white peignoir lay across the lounge where she 
 was expected to lie down for ha,lf an hour. She 
 had no inclination for rest, but put on the peignoir 
 in order to feel herself into harmony with the deli-
 
 284 CIPHERS. 
 
 cate tints of the room, where there was a careful 
 choice displayed even in the placing of a satin bow 
 on a cushion. After all, this was the actual poetry 
 of life, she reflected ; in fact, one might say the 
 art best worth having, that of living well with 
 every possible appurtenance that can lend charm 
 and completeness. And the comfort of it was 
 that such poetry and such high art were easily 
 attainable to anybody who had, say twenty-five 
 thousand a year, from that upwards. No thrill 
 of uncertainty, no possibility of failure, when the 
 supreme point aimed at is to live in the handsom- 
 est way, if only one has money to pay the bills. 
 
 A pang darted through the momentary enchant- 
 ment. 
 
 " I hope I am not going to be nervous," she 
 said to herself, for her heart had leaped into her 
 throat as the recollection returned that in an hour 
 she would be called to sing before a crowd of 
 people. For a moment the ordeal seemed terrible 
 as she thought of going forward, every eye fas- 
 tened upon her. She was ready to weep. A sud- 
 den feeling of loneliness, of confused wishes and 
 regrets came over her ; a profound envy of the 
 luckier people to whom the prizes of life were 
 awarded without struggle or competition. 
 
 " Am I turning out a coward ? " she said to her- 
 self, for hitherto she had rejoiced at the task of 
 forcing the world by dint of hard knocks to give 
 her what she wanted. 
 
 A rap came at the door. A maid brought a
 
 CIPHERS. 285 
 
 glass of eau sucr$e, and asked if she could serve 
 Miss Rivera in any way. No, Miss Rivera wanted 
 nothing save the eau sucree, which she drank 
 thirstily. The draught brought back her courage. 
 She was no longer flushed, but pale. The blood 
 was no longer at her head ; she had quieted down 
 and determined to keep her hold upon herself. 
 She was glad that it was time to begin the opera- 
 tion of dressing. The occupation helped to ex- 
 pend the nervous force within her. Besides, it 
 was in itself a satisfying experience simply to dress 
 in this pretty room where for almost the first time 
 in her life she saw herself reflected from head to 
 foot. She smiled at herself, coquetted with her- 
 self, even took time to dance a few steps up to the 
 laughing image that also advanced pirouetting as 
 towards a possible partner, simply to exult over 
 the elegance of the trim, high-heeled satin boots. 
 
 When at a quarter before four Milly looked in 
 she found Anita dressed, her eyes sparkling, and 
 her cheeks just touched with rose color. The 
 gown was charming ; the older woman stood look- 
 ing at the younger with her head on one side and 
 with the smile of a connoisseur. 
 
 " I wish Mr. Breck could see you," she said. 
 
 " I am glad Mr. Breck is hundreds of miles 
 away," cried Anita. "He is too humdrum, too 
 precise, too everyday. I don't wish even to think 
 of him this afternoon. He wants me to fail ; I 
 fear he is selfish." 
 
 "You spoiled child!" said Milly. She could
 
 286 CIPHERS. 
 
 have shot a rejoinder with all the force of her 
 indignation, but that the pretty creature must be 
 humored, pampered. She was conscious of a 
 tumultuous rush of 'sensations. " Don't you know 
 that the way to sing is to feel ? " she said, putting 
 her hand on the girl's shoulder. "Forget your- 
 self and your personal ambitions ; let your heart 
 speak." 
 
 " I do not dare," retorted Anita, feughing. " It 
 is so important to keep myself quiet." 
 
 " The people will be here presently," said Milly. 
 "Come down to the library. Mr. Contarini will 
 be one of the first, I suppose. I shall leave you to 
 him." 
 
 They went down the private stairs together, and 
 entered the empty library. 
 
 " I suppose it is best for you to be alone," Milly 
 went on. "I must go and speak to the mu- 
 sicians ; I have to speak to everybody. Sit down. 
 No, not there; you may rumple your muslin. 
 We women have to make these sacrifices." 
 
 Anita perched on the edge of a chair, and 
 waited. The twang of a distant violin reached 
 her ears ; she knew that Mrs. Childe was to have 
 a band playing in the conservatory while the peo- 
 ple gathered. The drawing-rooms were lighted as 
 if it were evening, but beams from the low sun 
 blazed here and there through the hall windows, 
 and broke resplendent upon brass, crystal, and 
 silver. The library was dark, except for the 
 bright fire. Now and then a coal fell, and it
 
 CIPHERS. 287 
 
 startled Anita, to whom each second appeared an 
 hour, and who, in five minutes, felt, like a child in 
 a dark room, as if she must find a warm, familiar 
 touch, or must go mad. 
 
 The band had begun playing a nocturne of 
 Chopin's, delicately sad, full of perfume, of 
 suggestion, of memory. The strains did not 
 wholly drown the sounds of arrivals in the hall ; 
 there were murmurs, rustles, voices. 
 
 Anita heard some one coming towards her, and, 
 looking up, saw Geddes Poorshaw. She stretched 
 out both hands to him. 
 
 " Oh, I am so glad to see you," she exclaimed. 
 "I had begun to feel as if I must have some 
 one to talk to, or must scream at the top of my 
 voice." 
 
 "Mrs. Lee Childe said I might come," said 
 Poorshaw. " She sent word to you that a great 
 lady had seized Mr. Contarini, but that he would 
 be here presently." 
 
 "I do not care particularly about Mr. Conta- 
 rini," said Anita. " I felt myself getting fright- 
 ened, nervous, afraid of the people. I am glad 
 the band is playing; the blood begins to stir in 
 my veins again." 
 
 "A woman needs to be strong as a horse to 
 sing," said Poorshaw. 
 
 " Delightful comparison ! " 
 
 " True, all the same." 
 
 " Birds sing, yet are so frail that you can crush 
 them in your hand."
 
 288 CIPHERS. 
 
 " I give up. You, at least, are more like a bird 
 than like a horse ; yet a horse is the most nervous 
 of animals." 
 
 " Except a woman." 
 
 "Don't be nervous. Oh, how I hate this! 
 When I think of all my sisters, and aunts, and 
 cousins out in the audience ready to stare at you, 
 I am ready to cut them all." 
 
 " Can I pass their criticism ? How do I look ? 
 Do you like my gown ? " 
 
 " Like it ? Don't you see I am keeping myself 
 under lock and key, as it were, that I don't 
 dare utter a syllable of what I long to say? " 
 
 " Why not ? I long for a little encouragement 
 and sympathy." 
 
 " Here is encouragement and sympathy in con- 
 crete shape," said Poorshaw, still bending close 
 over her, and now throwing a little box into her 
 lap. " You told me once about a girl who created 
 a perfect furore by singing in some drawing-room 
 abroad ; that all the women crowded around her 
 and pressed their bracelets and diamond brooches 
 upon her. I came prepared to do the same, but 
 may as well give you my little offering before the 
 event." 
 
 She uttered a soft cry as she tore the casket 
 open. 
 
 " Oh, how superb ! " 
 
 " Put it at your throat," said he ; " it will suit 
 your toilette." 
 
 "Can I? May I? Ought I?"
 
 CIPHERS. 289 
 
 " Of course you can ; you may, you ought, 
 you might, should, and must," said Poorshaw, 
 laughing. 
 
 She held up the glittering ornament a moment 
 to watch the play of light across the facets of the 
 six small diamonds set about a large one of won- 
 derful whiteness and brilliance ; then, with an air 
 of childish contentment, she thrust the pin through 
 the fluffy white frill at her throat. 
 
 " I ought to sing well," she said triumphantly. 
 
 " That everlasting voice ! you think of nothing 
 else." 
 
 " I dare say you would like me better if I had 
 no voice." 
 
 "It would be a hard matter for me to learn 
 to like you better. By Jove, how that becomes 
 you!" ' 
 
 " I wish I could see myself ! " 
 
 " I almost wish I could not see you," muttered 
 Poorshaw. 
 
 " I shall probably sing the Jewel song ; that is, 
 if Mr. Contarini is sure of my voice," said Anita. 
 " I should like to try it this moment, for" I know 
 what that ecstasy means. I am fairly tipsy with 
 delight over my new clothes and these diamonds. 
 Are these my own, my very own, to keep, no 
 matter whether I succeed or fail ? " 
 
 " Yes ; lay that comfort to heart, all that I 
 can give you will be yours whatever happens." 
 
 He said this with an intensity which, even at 
 that moment, when she was carried away with a
 
 290 CIPHERS. 
 
 thousand ambitions rolled into one, burned its 
 meaning into her brain. She did not reply, for 
 Mrs. Childe and Contarini had entered, and, rising, 
 she ran towards them. 
 
 " She is too pretty," said Contarini, striking his 
 forehead, with a comic gesture of despair. " I 
 know that look ; she cannot sing to-day." 
 
 " Oh, you croaker, you prophet of evil ! " 
 cried Anita in the highest spirits. " I am going 
 to sing beautifully. I am so happy, so delighted 
 with myself ; I am certain I shall sing as I never 
 sang before." 
 
 Milly had beckoned Poorshaw aside. She had 
 observed his look, his attitude ; and her quick eye 
 had discerned as well the new flash of diamonds 
 at Anita's throat. 
 
 "Thank you," she said, "for filling up the 
 tedium until Mr. Contarini came ; but I suppose 
 that now he will have a thousand last orders to 
 give. He is horribly nervous about her voice." 
 
 "I always tell her she ought not to care a 
 button whether she sings well or not," said Poor- 
 shaw. " A beautiful girl like her has other strings 
 to pull." 
 
 Milly gave him an arch glance. " I wonder if 
 you are yet aware that this beautiful creature is 
 actually engaged," she said lightly. 
 
 " I don't mind telling you, Mrs. Childe, that if 
 I can compass it, I intend that she shall shortly 
 be actually engaged to me. I have been waiting 
 until this excitement is over."
 
 CIPHERS. 291 
 
 " I do not pretend to be anybody's keeper, but 
 I am Miss Rivera's chaperon to-day, and I think 
 I ought to tell you she is engaged to marry Mr. 
 Sidney Breck." 
 
 " You are quite mistaken ; they are old friends. 
 I dare say she flirts with him. She is a born 
 coquette " 
 
 " A born coquette, very likely ; but Mr. Breck 
 was before you, and he loves her, rests upon his 
 expectation of marrying her. You are too honor- 
 able and too good-hearted, Mr. Poorshaw, to rob 
 him of the girl he loves, to tempt her with 
 magnificent gifts." 
 
 She was conscious of the savage gleam in his 
 eyes. "However," she went on, "people's love 
 affairs are not at present my concern. What I 
 must do is to make this affair pass off well." She 
 went to the door and called Mr. Norreys, whom 
 she saw standing at a little distance, perhaps com- 
 bating certain memories which in that house rose 
 and looked him in the face. " Mr. Norreys," she 
 said in a wheedling tone, " I want this affair to 
 go off in just the right way. It is not a concert 
 with the audience in rows, you know, but presently 
 a pianist is to come out and play one of Liszt's fan- 
 tasias. That is to be the signal for everybody to 
 sit down ; that is, half a dozen men will bring in 
 chairs, and people can at least have the opportu- 
 nity of sitting down. Next, there is to be a duo 
 for a violin and the piano ; and, finally, Miss 
 Rivera is to be led in to sing to us. Let me 
 introduce you to Miss Rivera."
 
 292 CIPHERS. 
 
 Mr. Norreys pressed forward with his best air. 
 
 "Mr. Norreys is to lead you in," Mrs. Childe 
 said to Anita. " Whatever Mr. Norreys does suc- 
 ceeds, so I am begging him to throw his ffigis over 
 you. Now this is my idea : When the first song 
 is over, there will be some applause, and then, 
 under that inspiration, a second song ; and after 
 the second song I want an interlude. Everybody 
 must be presented to Miss Rivera, and, Mr. Nor- 
 reys, I appoint you master of ceremonies." 
 
 Mrs. Childe went back to her guests, leaving 
 Mr. Norreys flushed with a sense of his responsi- 
 bilities. Perhaps, who knows, he experienced the 
 hope that, grown wiser, Mrs. Lee Childe was re- 
 lenting, now that she found out her actual need of 
 him. At least, from this moment, he threw the 
 whole might of his influence into the scale, deter- 
 mined to achieve a success for Milly Childe's 
 protegee. 
 
 The hostess returned to her guests, moved about, 
 skillfully grouping the right people near the rear 
 drawing-room, the floor of which was raised a few 
 inches. The band, which had been playing Cho- 
 pin's waltzes and nocturnes, ceased. The pianist 
 appeared, bowing, near the grand piano, and each 
 person looked about for the most comfortable seat 
 attainable. How charming it was ! was the excla- 
 mation on all sides. What a happiness to be freed 
 from the gene of a concert room. Here one could 
 listen and feel, that is, one could listen without 
 feeling, experiencing simply comfort and the plea-
 
 CIPHERS. 293 
 
 sure of watching one's friends seat themselves, 
 arrange their attitudes and their draperies, put 
 on a serious air of intense appreciation, and then 
 lose one's self in a reverie from which one only 
 emerged at the close of the performance. Milly 
 herself suffered, and turned hot and cold by turns, 
 fighting, as it were, with a nightmare, while assum- 
 ing smiles, nods, and the rest of it. She was in 
 no mood to resign herself to the melodious passion 
 of the duet, but was intensely eager to have the 
 introductory part over and to see Anita advance. 
 And at last she was led out ! 
 
 Mr. Norreys had arranged the small effects like 
 the consummate master of details that he was. As 
 the young singer came forward everybody was 
 startled by her beauty. What youth ! What dis- 
 tinction ! What charm ! She was supported, too, 
 by Mrs. Bernard-North, Mrs. Fletcher, and Mrs. 
 Crooke Poorshaw, just the setting to enhance 
 the worth of a brilliant whose actual market value 
 has not yet been tested. 
 
 Anita advanced, hesitating and timid, and stood 
 with her delicate ardent face, her charming figure, 
 her spontaneous youthful grace, detached, as it 
 were, from her surroundings, a picture complete 
 in itself. She seemed to notice no one ; not a 
 blush came to her cheek, not a quiver to her lips. 
 Yet how, in spite of this very repose, fire and rest- 
 lessness burned through her as a flame through 
 crystal ! Milly 's own sensations seemed heightened 
 to agony by her instinct of the intense feeling in the
 
 294 CIPHERS. 
 
 girl. Contarini was to play the accompaniments. 
 She was to begin with Mignon's song. Milly 
 scarcely breathed while it was gone through note 
 by note. Anita had sung it to her the day before, 
 making the poetry and charm of it vivid, bringing 
 her face to face with the sad, passionate soul of 
 Mignon. To-day, instead of a heart full to over- 
 flow of intensest music, and a bird's impulse to 
 pour it out in rapture, it seemed to Milly that the 
 girl was a mere mechanical puppet. However, it 
 was evidently the mistake of her own jealous, crit- 
 ical ears, which listened with senses strained be- 
 yond their limit, for the moment Anita paused an 
 irrepressible outburst of applause burst forth. 
 Milly heard from every lip with surprise and de- 
 light, " Marvelous ! " " What a bird-like quality, 
 yet what feeling ! " " And so young, you say ! " 
 
 Milly caught at the phrases with sudden rapture. 
 
 " And is she not lovely ? " she said, beaming. 
 " She is descended from a French marquis who 
 emigrated to Porto Rico during the Terror. One 
 sees the French look in her forehead." 
 
 This was all that had hitherto failed. Milly 
 said it to her next neighbor, her next neighbor 
 passed it on. Twenty-two people knew the de- 
 lightful fact before a " Hush " ran round, with the 
 intimation that the descendant of the French mar- 
 quis was to sing again. Although the sincere in- 
 dividual judgment had been that Anita sang very 
 well, the impression had needed to be fixed in or- 
 der to make itself actually felt. Now eyes had seen,
 
 CIPHERS. 295 
 
 ears heard, and the heart of each woman conceived 
 the idea. Anita in her second and more ambitious 
 aria was listened to with a sure admiration which 
 rose into a crescendo of rapture to its irresistible 
 climax, although instead of striking and sustain- 
 ing her voice on G sharp, as it was her intention 
 to do, she encountered and lingered on the wrong 
 note. Hearing this, both Contarini and Milly bent 
 themselves double, crushed, stricken, suffering, as 
 if never to rise again. 
 
 " Oh, hopeless, hopeless, hopeless," said Milly to 
 herself. " He was right. She is not a musician, 
 not an artist. She sings well only by a lucky op- 
 portunity." It flashed through her mind that she 
 had exposed Anita to this terrible mortification, 
 this cruel reverse. She did not dare once to raise 
 her eyes until the last note of the song. The end of 
 things had come, she felt, and her brain was busy 
 in concocting verbal plausibilities, explanations, 
 apologies. 
 
 But in another moment all the guests had risen 
 as by a preconcerted plan. Milly had missed a 
 tableau. Mrs. Crooke Poorshaw, who had a lively 
 soul and was passionately fond of whatever she 
 liked, had darted forward and embraced Anita. 
 Mrs. Bernard-North had followed suit, each mem- 
 ber of the nearest group pressed close with felici- 
 tations, and to have been cool and critical at such 
 a moment would have been to commit an absolute 
 rudeness. Anita had had her unhappy moment. 
 Then Mrs. Crooke Poorshaw had embraced her,
 
 296 CIPHERS. 
 
 and the spring of her felicity was proportioned to 
 the depth of her interval of despair. She gave a 
 sigh of relief as her bent and crushed forces re- 
 gained their equipoise. She looked not only 
 happy, but ravished with happiness when Milly 
 went up to her. She was on a pinnacle, but it was 
 the pinnacle of which she had so long dreamed 
 that she took it gracefully. Compliments buzzed 
 about ; not finding the ear of the young queen, 
 those outside the inner circle echoed to each other 
 the phrases current among the initiated, who had 
 always something felicitous to say at the right mo- 
 ment. 
 
 Contarini had retreated into a corner, where he 
 glared wrathfully. Milly went up to him. 
 
 " I wash my hands," he said with a practically 
 illustrative gesture. " I wash my hands." 
 
 " I was horribly afraid she was doing badly," 
 said Milly ; *' but all these people seem to think " 
 
 " All these people, I care not if it is one 
 tousand, ten tousand people ! / know that Miss 
 Rivera made a fool of herself. I see now that it 
 is all no use, she cannot sing. It was my fool- 
 ish hope, my mad vanity, to make a genius where 
 there is no genius at all. She is quick, clevaire, 
 and three days out of the seven she has a voice. 
 But the other four days ! then she is a different 
 sort of a bird. I have thrown away time, I have 
 thrown away money, I have thrown away deep 
 feelings of my heart on this ill-justified ambition. 
 Oh, useless flapping of the wings when it is a mere
 
 CIPHERS. 297 
 
 barnyard fowl, no divine bird with power to 
 soar into the heaven." 
 
 Milly listened with doubt and amazement. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Contarini," she said deprecatingly, 
 " she can sing so beautifully at times. Yesterday, 
 now, how sure we felt of her." 
 
 "The fault is in herself," Contarini returned. 
 " She is made of another stuff from an artist. I 
 wash my hands, I shake the dust off my feet. 
 I have no more time, no more strength, no more 
 heart to waste on fiascos," and in spite of Milly's 
 entreaties he walked straight out of the house, 
 leaving Anita to her fate. 
 
 Anita's fate, however, seemed not to be depend- 
 ent on Signer Contarini. She held her fate in her 
 own little white hands. She was entreated to sing 
 again, and when, after the Italian could nowhere 
 be found, Milly suggested, " Perhaps you can play 
 your own accompaniments," Anita, with apparent 
 timidity, with blushes, with half-frightened, lovely 
 eyes, sat down, and played and sang song after 
 song. It was delightful to watch the transfor- 
 mation of the charming child to a woman. Her 
 natural grace carried her through even when she 
 bungled, for she had the instinct to turn back to 
 a friend, to reinforce herself by fresh aid, in a 
 word, to put charm and coquetry into the mis- 
 chance. 
 
 If Milly had been for a time wretched with the 
 sickening conviction that the singer had failed, 
 the tension of her mood gradually relaxed. Anita
 
 298 CIPHERS. 
 
 evidently did not mourn. Was it that she rose 
 secure against apprehension of failure, soothing 
 her nerves and satisfying her ambition with the 
 belief that love was enough ? Or was it that she 
 was after all a mere charlatan, accepting a cheap 
 success, and floating blissfully on the flattery of a 
 roomful of people who liked a new sensation ? 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Childe," said Anita, clinging to 
 Milly, when, her ovation over, she was going away, 
 " I never was so happy in my life. I can't thank 
 you enough, I never' expected to be quite so 
 happy."
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE next day at three o'clock Milly knocked at 
 the door of Mrs. Hugh Rivera's apartment, and 
 was admitted by Miss Rivera herself, who, on see- 
 ing her, exclaimed with dismay, 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Childe ! " 
 
 " What is it ? " said Milly anxiously. " I have 
 been expecting you all the morning, and not seeing 
 you felt restless and tormented, and accordingly as 
 soon as luncheon was over set out. You are not 
 ill." 
 
 She took the girl's hands and looked into her 
 face, seeing an expression there she was puzzled to 
 divine : at once saucy and frightened, tremulous 
 and triumphant. 
 
 " Oh, no, I was never so well in all my life," 
 said Anita. She drew her visitor inside and closed 
 the door. " I may as well tell you," she went on, 
 laughing and blushing, "that I am a little bit 
 afraid of you. Indeed, I have just sent Mr. Poor- 
 shaw to break a piece of news." 
 
 "A piece of news ? Mr. Poorshaw ? " repeated 
 Milly as if incredulously. 
 
 " I have promised to marry that individual," 
 explained Auita, still laughing. " You see I make 
 it no secret. His sister-in-law brought me home in 
 her carriage last evening, you may remember, and
 
 300 CIPHERS. 
 
 when I entered this room here he was waiting for 
 me. He had come by train. He declared that 
 he was tired of shilly-shallying, that he had not 
 wished to assert himself until the musicale was 
 over, but now that it was over he must have his 
 answer." 
 
 "And you promised to marry him ? " said Milly 
 in a low, but indignant voice. "Although you 
 were engaged to Sidney Breck you promised to 
 marry Geddes Poorshaw ? " 
 
 " He spoke at the right moment," said Anita. 
 " I had come from fairyland into this dull, every- 
 day life, and I was already longing to go back to 
 fairyland. He gave me the chance. ' You see 
 now what sort of a career I can offer you,' he said. 
 4 Marry me at Easter ; we will go to Europe, and 
 next season I will bring you back to New York, 
 and the ball shall be at your feet just as it was to- 
 night.' He explained that my success yesterday 
 was after all a sort of accident ; but that it showed 
 what I could do with a secure footing of my own in 
 society." 
 
 " Have you no heart ? " said Milly, with a 
 straight gaze into the girl's face. " Have you no 
 feeling, no apprehension of what you are doing ? " 
 
 Anita did not blush, but said with a slight ges- 
 ture of concession, " I knew you would take it 
 to heart. That was the reason I begged Geddes 
 to go and see you to-day." 
 
 " You were engaged to a man who loves you," 
 cried Milly, "a noble, charming, clever man,
 
 CIPHERS. 301 
 
 who loves you ! Do you know what an experience 
 that is for a woman ? It will not happen twice to 
 you." 
 
 " I always insisted that I was not absolutely en- 
 gaged to Sidney Breck," said Anita with spirit. 
 " But I am now engaged to a man who loves me, 
 who worships me even, and has the power to lav- 
 ish everything upon me. He may not be wonder- 
 fully clever or charming, but he can offer me 
 everything." 
 
 Milly smiled with a touch of irony in her ex- 
 pression. "Oh, I have seen Geddes grow up," 
 she said. " Geddes is a sort of cousin." She 
 checked herself, and her disdain warmed into sym- 
 pathy. " Oh, child," she went on, taking a step 
 forward, " I feel as if you were making a mistake. 
 Can it be that you were disappointed, disenchanted 
 yesterday ? Perhaps you were wounded by Mr. 
 Contarini's desertion. It seemed to me cruel that 
 he should go away." 
 
 Anita uttered a little bubbling laugh, half like 
 a sob. " I knew I broke his heart," she said. " I 
 saw his head go down when I struck that note 
 sharp, and for a moment I felt as if the end of 
 things had come. Everything whirled round. I 
 was surprised at myself for going on with the song, 
 and really finishing up quite creditably. Nobody 
 however, could have been more surprised than I 
 was at first, to find myself in that seventh heaven, 
 flattered, accepted, made a queen of. I was amused 
 afterwards when Mrs. Poorshaw told me she knew
 
 302 CIPHERS. 
 
 nothing of music except through her emotions." 
 She paused a moment and looked at her visitor 
 with a pleading smile. " When one cannot have 
 what one wants," she pursued, " one takes up with 
 what one has. I am tired of beating the air with 
 my wings and not flying. I admit myself dis- 
 mayed by the difficulties of an artist's career. I 
 am going to take up a new profession." 
 
 " It must have been in your mind all the time 
 yesterday," said Milly in a suffering voice. " You 
 had on his diamonds." 
 
 " I see now," said Anita lightly, " that it really 
 has been in my mind a good while. Probably the 
 diamonds settled my fate for me." 
 
 A silence fell between them ; then Milly began 
 hesitatingly, 
 
 " Have you " but she broke off, growing scar- 
 let. 
 
 " Have I told Sidney Breck ? " said Anita. 
 " Yes, I wrote to him last night. He is in Wash- 
 ington, but no doubt had the letter this morning." 
 She was asserting her imperious self-willed person- 
 ality against the rebuke in Milly's clear, scornful 
 eyes, and strengthened herself every moment. 
 " He is not so selfish but that he will be glad to 
 have me do the best I can for myself," she went 
 on. " He knows that I am ambitious, extrava- 
 gant, that I hate everything dull, tame, and medi- 
 ocre. He would never take me quite seriously 
 when I insisted on my own fastidiousness ; now he 
 will understand that I was in earnest. I wanted
 
 CIPHERS. 303 
 
 to be rich and great. I am not sure that I ever 
 cared very much about art. It was simply a 
 means. What most people call living, the me- 
 chanical rotation, the everlasting coming back of 
 the same duties, I loathe. If I married a man 
 who was poor and obscure, I should simply pass 
 my days in feeling unsatisfied cravings, miserable 
 jealousy and anger." 
 
 Milly listened with a feeling almost as if the 
 props of her universe had fallen. Her impulse 
 was to get away and find out what had happened 
 to give her this blow. She said a few words more 
 to the girl, kissed her, then took leave, her brain 
 still whirling, still repeating the charge that the 
 girl was false, the girl was cruel. Had she no 
 heart ? Breck had loved her and he would suffer. 
 A great horror came iipon Milly's mind at the 
 thought of his suffering, almost like remorse for 
 some misdeed of her own. She had to close her 
 eyes on the agonizing vista of Breck's loss of hope, 
 loss of belief. 
 
 Then by turns she was angry with the girl, and 
 it braced her like a tonic to say that Anita would 
 suffer for her stupid vanity, her senseless egotism, 
 her belief that everything in the system of the uni- 
 verse was created in order to pay her homage ; 
 that men were to be bidders against each other for 
 possession of this inestimable jewel ! She knew 
 her own value, with quick wit she had taken the 
 suitor who possessed solid cash. Poorshaw was 
 certain, however, to make a good bargain for him-
 
 304 CIPHERS. 
 
 self, a hard man, with the physique, nerves, and 
 brain of an athlete, with the habit of domina- 
 tion, governing everything and everybody whom he 
 lived with, and resolutely declining to live with 
 anybody or anything he did not govern. Perhaps, 
 however, each would meet his or her match in the 
 other, Milly finally said to herself, remembering the 
 fire in Anita's eyes. Gradually the inclination died 
 away which had at first prompted her to go back 
 to Anita, to put her arms about her, to implore her 
 to reconsider, to say, " We are both women, and I 
 am an older woman than you are, and I know what 
 you will gradually find out, that any one of us 
 born a woman is born a foolish child, always 
 to be a child, with a heart longing for love, for 
 tenderness, for a kind hand to clasp and trust to. 
 A woman's fate is made for her by the man she 
 accepts. Oh, think what you are exiling yourself 
 from." 
 
 This impulse passed away and what she did in- 
 stead was to order an afternoon tea-service for 
 Anita's wedding present, and then to leave town, 
 promising to come back in April for her father-in- 
 law's marriage. She went to her house in Berk- 
 shire, but late in March was called to her uncle in 
 New Hampshire, who was failing and asked to see 
 her. She stayed with him until his death, which 
 happened just before Mr. Childe's wedding day ; 
 thus Milly could not attend the nuptials. It was 
 said in New York that she would, as soon as the 
 pressing business connected with her uncle's great
 
 CIPHERS. 305 
 
 estate was settled, go to Europe for the summer. 
 But instead she returned to the house among the 
 hills for which Sidney Breck had once partly de- 
 signed a new wing. The house was already large 
 enough, with more rooms than Milly, even in her 
 present mood of restless inactivity, cared to walk 
 through. It stood high, surrounded by lawns, gar- 
 dens, and a house-farm, facing the west, and over- 
 looked a wooded valley through which a stream 
 meandered. To the north and east rose the hills, 
 solemn ridges dominating gorges, deep ravines, 
 and a little lake. Towards this lake a moun- 
 tain brook rippled singing with a sweet impetuous 
 voice in its descent, and in one place flung itself 
 boldly over a precipice, looking midway like a veil 
 of fine gauze floating in the air. To this waterfall 
 Milly was in the habit of walking in the long quiet 
 afternoons with her dogs, and one day, just at the 
 end of June, she was setting out, and had reached 
 the foot of the grounds, when the dogs gave a sud- 
 den sharp bark, and she heard a step behind her. 
 
 She turned and saw Sidney Breck dashing down 
 the slope, and when he reached her he was breath- 
 less. 
 
 "They told me you had left the house but a 
 moment ago ; they offered to send for you, but I 
 8a id " This he faltered, as soon as he was near 
 enough to speak. 
 
 She was laughing at his haste and at his eager- 
 ness. His hat had tumbled off, and, regaining it, 
 he had not put it on, and his hair was tossed
 
 306 CIPHERS. 
 
 about ; his eyes were full of light, his cheeks were 
 flushed, and his lips were smiling. He was in a 
 knickerbocker suit of gray tweed, and carried a 
 knapsack slung across his shoulder. 
 
 " I am glad to see you," said Milly. " Where 
 did you come from ? " 
 
 " I have been walking through Berkshire Coun- 
 ty," said Breck. " It is only by the merest chance 
 that I am here. Please understand, Mrs. Childe, 
 that, as it were, I have stumbled upon you." 
 
 " Oh, dear ! " said Milly. " I hoped you had 
 come to build my wing. Not a day passes but I 
 look at that side of the house, and think of that 
 wonderful chimney, those gables " 
 
 "Have you had any sort of presentiment I 
 might come ? " inquired Breck. 
 
 " Not a single presentiment." 
 
 " Surely you have fancied I might come," he 
 said in a wheedling tone. 
 
 " I have no fancies," replied Milly ; " no fancies 
 whatever." 
 
 The dogs, at first impatient and restless at this 
 delay, had fawned imploringly, but now crouched 
 quiescent, gazing, with lolling tongues, at the two. 
 
 "Well," said Breck, "it had occurred to me 
 that you had a place in Berkshire County, but I 
 did not know what corner of the county it might 
 be in. I heard in May that you were going to 
 Europe ; but it was borne in upon my mind, es- 
 pecially as I made a point of looking through 
 every steamer passenger list, that you were not in
 
 CIPHERS. 307 
 
 Europe, but here. So you see I had a distinct 
 presentiment that I might find you." 
 
 " I am glad you had," said Milly frankly. 
 
 " And now that I see you," Breck went on, " I 
 seem all my life to have dreamed of seeing you 
 just here, with the golden twigs and stems and 
 leaves, and solemn tree trunks behind you, the 
 shimmering, beautiful afternoon, the dogs at your 
 feet, the white gown you have on, the broad- 
 brimmed hat. It is like enchantment." 
 
 " Had you not better leave your knapsack, and 
 go to walk with me and the dogs?" she asked, 
 not meeting his eyes. " Mr. and Mrs. Rutherford 
 Childe are to arrive at seven o'clock to-night, and 
 so I can ask you to stay." 
 
 " I have not come to stay," said Breck ; " I 
 have come to tell you something. I wanted to 
 tell it quickly, forcibly, without preamble, and 
 then go on. I see now that my ideas were a little 
 dramatic. I did not want you to feel that I had 
 forced myself upon your solitude. Yet my days 
 and nights are full of you, I can think of 
 nothing: else : and ever since Anita broke her 
 
 O * 
 
 engagement to me, I have wished to tell you 
 how it happened that I had ever asked her to 
 marry me." 
 
 " Surely," said Milly earnestly, " you loved her ; 
 that was the way it happened. I do not wish to 
 hear of any possible perfidy." 
 
 " If she had been true to me," Breck went on 
 quietly, " I would have held myself to every obli-
 
 308 CIPHERS. 
 
 gation which bound me to her ; but that was all 
 over long ago. I went to her wedding, and wished 
 her every happiness. I have had no pang to live 
 down. I simply offered myself to her because, in 
 mad folly, I wanted to prove to people that I was 
 not trying to win the regard of a rich woman." 
 
 " You had not tried to win the regard of a rich 
 woman ? " asked Milly. A thrill ran through her 
 speech. 
 
 " I loved a woman who happened to be rich," 
 said Breck. " As to trying to win her regard," 
 his voice broke, "I did not think of it ; I 
 only thought of loving her. It did not occur 
 to me I ran the risk of being called a fortune- 
 hunter." 
 
 " It seems to me you are very proud, Mr. Breck," 
 said Milly. 
 
 " It seems to me I was a stupid coward," cried 
 Breck. " I loved her. I have never loved another 
 woman ; I never shall love another woman. But 
 simply because Ruff stirred up my vanity and 
 rage, I cut myself off from the right to tell her 
 that I loved her by pretending to care for some- 
 body else, by giving my sacred promise to 
 somebody else." He looked into her eyes with 
 an intense and penetrating gaze. " Emily," he 
 said, " I wanted you to hear this from me, but I 
 do flot in any way try to justify myself. I made 
 a foolish mistake, which has cost me dear. I can- 
 not make any effort yet to repair it; I simply 
 wish to confess it, and then to go away "
 
 CIPHERS. 309 
 
 "Go away?" repeated Milly in amazement. 
 "Why should you go away? " 
 
 " I cannot come and tell you I made love to 
 another woman, was first accepted, and then 
 jilted by her, and then ask you to marry me, 
 all on the same day," said Breck, as if with indig- 
 nation. 
 
 " Exactly," said Milly. " I agree with you 
 that the latter part would be entirely too much. 
 ' Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' So, 
 now, let us take a walk ; we are just in time to 
 hear the thrushes sing." 
 
 He made a little gesture as of despair. "I 
 intended to tell you my story and walk off rapidly, 
 vanishing in the distance before you could collect 
 your thoughts," he said. 
 
 " The fine dramatic effect would be wasted on 
 such a small audience; besides, I should feel so 
 badly to see you vanish in the far distance," said 
 Milly. " Come ; there is such a pretty walk, and 
 the dogs are so anxious to go." 
 
 He flung his knapsack on the grass, and to- 
 gether they entered the wood, where the thrushes 
 were singing. The dogs ran on before, following 
 up vague rustles, thrilled with the delight and 
 mystery of chasing shadows, which looked alive 
 and whisked like ears and tails; barking into 
 holes in the boles of the trees with a fierce rapture 
 of delight. Presently, from beneath tall chestnuts 
 and oaks, which stood like sentinels, they issued 
 again into the open, and looked across the valley
 
 310 CIPHERS. 
 
 to the dazzling lights and solemn shadows of the 
 range of hills. They passed beside the crystal 
 pool, which imaged the blue heaven, the little 
 fleecy clouds, and all the lovely golden and white 
 and rosy things that struck sweet notes, as it were, 
 among the green of the banks. 
 
 It was here they found wild strawberries, which 
 they sat down and ate like two children, each pick- 
 ing for the other. They said little, but each word 
 spoken seemed to let smiles and laughter loose. 
 If one looked at their faces, one would have 
 said that nowhere under the blue heaven that day 
 were there two happier people than Sidney and 
 Emily. 
 
 It was when they had eaten the strawberries 
 that he found a wild rose, and, picking, gave it 
 to her. 
 
 "Oh, thank you," she said, tucking it in her 
 belt; and then, raising her eyes, she met his 
 glance. 
 
 " I am so pleased that you will be here to meet 
 papa and his bride," she said. " I am sure they are 
 so happy ; cousin Agnes has written such delight- 
 ful letters. You know," she said this with a 
 sudden burst of confidence, "I made that match. 
 Was I not bold? I want you to tell me, when 
 you see them together, that I divined rightly that 
 they would be happy together." 
 
 "I can't stay," said Breck with a tragic air. 
 "How can I stay? and particularly to see two 
 happy people."
 
 CIPHERS. 311 
 
 "Of course you can stay," said Milly. "Of 
 course you must stay. The idea of your going 
 away is ridiculous." 
 
 " But if I stay," said Breck, " I shall do what I 
 did not intend to do. I shall ask you to marry 
 me. I shall say what I expected not to have said 
 until after weeks, months, perhaps years of stern 
 probation, that 1 want you for my wife ; that, 
 no matter whether you are poor or rich, little or 
 great, far beyond me, above me, no matter 
 where, I love you, love you desperately ; that, 
 before God, I will try to make you happy." 
 
 She did not try to answer, but after a moment, 
 gazing into her face and seeing that her eyes 
 were full of tears and her lips were quivering, he 
 said, as if half frightened by his own joy, " Emily, 
 my Emily ! " and kissed her. 
 
 Then, while the afternoon lights shimmered and 
 deepened, they walked home through the woods 
 together.
 
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