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FROM THE ESTATE

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EMILY CLARK BALCH2
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BTHE LLANFEAR PATTERNThe
LLANFEAR PATTERN

By FRANCIS BIDDLE

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NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1927COPYRIGHT, 1927, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

Printed in the United States of AmericaFOR
EATHERINE
WITH MY LOVECHAPTER

Il.
II.
IV.

VIL.
Vill.

XI.
XII.
XII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.

CONTENTS

THE GRAND Tour

Low HILi

THE GARDEN PARTY
ACCEPTING THE SITUATION
LITTLE DELANCEY PLACE
DEAN & LLANFEAR
PONDELLO

Two WILIs.

Tue NIGHT OF THE ASSEMBLY .

AcTON’s AFFAIR

WortTHY GENTLEWOMEN .
MopERN NOTIONS .

THe LLANFEARS UNITE
DRIFTING

ROMANCE

NOBLESSE OBLIGE .

OLD MartTIN AND OLD DEAN

vil

PAGE

16
25
37
48
59
70
88
96
108
11g
130
146
160
167
180

195CHAPTER

XVIII.
XIX.

XXI.
XXII.
XXIII.
XXIV.
XXV.
XXVI.

POLITICIANS AND REFORMERS
TRIUMPH OF DECENCY

AFRAID OF LIFE

Miss Letty

CarEw ACTON’S PHILOSOPHY
Tue LLANFEARS DINE
Macic FREEDOM

Cart DECIDES .

CouNT BRACCHI

CONTENTS

CONTENTMENT .

PAGE
209

224
233
=44
251
264.
275
289

308THE LLANFEAR PATTERNThe names and characters in this story
are purely fictitious.THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

CHAPTER 1

THE GRAND TOUR

Cart LLANFEAR started on the grand tour late in
the summer of 1904.

His father had made the grand tour in 1879. Wit-
ness the little leather-bound editions of Catullus and
Ovid, finely printed at the end of the preceding cen-
tury, picked up from the bouquimstes lining the left
bank of the Seine, bits of old tapestry, a squat marble
horse dug up near Ravenna. Carl took with him
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, in the John Murray,
1832, edition, with the Finden engravings, and his
father’s copy of Rogers’s Italy, a Poem, printed by
Davison, Whitefriars, 1830. Carl liked nice books.
The Italy had belonged to his grandfather, the sec-
ond Dean Llanfear, who had perhaps bought it as a
young man travelling with his father. For by that
time the first Dean, the founder of the fortune if not
of the family, must have already accumulated a sub-
stantial wealth. He had profited with Stephen Girard
‘n the lucrative West Indian trade, and in 1814 had
established the banking house of Llanfear & Company,
which had since grown to such great proportions.

His sons John and Dean had married well, and in-
creased with the bank, living and dying in Philadel-
phia. Dean begat the uncles (there were aunts, too),
who were all living except Carl’s father, eight chil-
dren in all, so that when the money was divided it was
hardly more than enough to make them comfortable.
I2 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

But John had only one child, Martin, now very old,
very rich from a few careful years in the bank, very
gouty and infirm from a long life devoted to the pleas-
ures of the flesh. He had acquired and accumulated
judiciously, a course approved by his numerous neph-
ews and nieces, until, a few years ago, quite too con-
firmed in his ways in their estimation to take such a
step, he had married Sarah Brandt. That she was
too obviously respectable did not compensate for the
fact that her parents lived north of Market Street;
but disapproval somewhat subsided when it was gen-
erally understood that the old man was to pension her
at his death and leave the bulk of his fortune to his own
kith and kin. After all, it was Llanfear money -.. .
Carl’s father had been different from the uncles. He
had a quality of restless leadership which drove him
continually and finally wore him out. “Too many
ideas,’ Richard had remarked, about his younger
brother. And the eldest uncle, Dean Llanfear, the
banker, had assented. “Philadelphia doesn’t take to
that sort of thing.” And the others had nodded their
heads in approval. Yet Charles Llanfear had been
orthodox, a sound churchman, an old-fashioned liberal
Democrat, at a time when such views were still not
unfashionable among gentlemen who could afford to
entertain them. “That sort of thing,” they felt, was
less definable, hinting at an uncomfortable revolt of
spirit, a way he had of walking by himself...

Carl met his mother in Paris. After the first week
she said to him:

“My dear boy, you don’t want to go on knocking
about Paris with an old woman like me.”’
She was a comfortable, worldly, clever little womanTHE GRAND TOUR 3

of fifty-three. They got along very companionably
for a few weeks at a time.

‘Remember, you’ve only a year to amuse yourself
before you settle down to law. You can’t feel very
free with me.”

He smiled. ‘Free as air, mother. And I have been
here a good deal before.”

“That’s very sweet of you, Carl. But I think I'll
leave you for a while.”

“To sow some oats? It’s too hot, and I don’t fancy
tourist oats.”

It was part of her theory about her dead husband,
projected as Carl knew to her son, that there was a
provincial gravity in the Llanfear strain, not altogether
becoming a gentleman.

“They are rather awful. I think I'll go to Les
Avants, or Montreux. You could get some climbing.”

“Rather stay here, and loaf.”

She looked hopeful. ‘And join me afterwards?”

‘Perfect, mother, after the oats.”’

But when he joined her in Florence in the winter,
fresh from Rome, where he had never been before, his
reticence was not of a kind that made her feel he was
concealing anything. If only there was, occasionally,
something to conceal! She didn’t want him to turn
into a prig. But, after all, you couldn't change peo-
ple. De gustibus. She shrugged pretty, complacent
shoulders. One made the best of things. She was a
comfortable, shrewd little woman, Frances Llanfear.

They were at a quiet pension on the Via Biatrice.
Mrs. Llanfear had a weakness for not exaggerated
economies. “It is a matter,” she would say, “of keep-
ing a sense of contrasts. It sharpens one, like good
sauces. Americans pay only for the outside of things.4 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

The inside is usually cheaper, if you have a flair for
it.”’ She admitted the flair, and padded the contrasts
with the nicer luxuries of fruit and flowers, and a good
bottle of wine now and then.

And the inside of the Pension Rispotini needed a cer-
tain amount of relief, especially if there was a man
with you. Men took to pensions less easily than
women. Too many women in the world, far too many
in pensions.

“You'll make the fourth man, Carl, and the only
young one. There are the usual run of old maids,
chiefly English, a solemn parson from Yorkshire, do-
ing Florence; a nice old fat lazy French priest, who
acquired some sort of legacy and has retired, appar-
ently, into lay life; three or four very old women with
the usual high collars, and huge headdresses. And the
Bracchi. She’s the only American.”

“Bracchi, Bracchi? . .. It sounds vaguely famil-
fata

“She was Amy Winterpod, one of the Salem Win-
terpods, a little younger than I, though I do think she
looks older. One daughter. She’s had a hard life,
poor thing, knocking about cheap pensions. Everett
Winterpod left really very little for a supposedly rich
man, and there were scores of children.”’

“But Bracchi?”

“Count Bracchi. A first-rate Roman name, in spite
of the ‘Count.’ Your uncle Dean knew one of them
who was in affairs. It’s a long history. I’ve heard
some of it. It’s curious how people confide in me.
And that flat-chested, pale-eyed little New England
woman, talking, talking endlessly. She’s a lady in her
own right, as your father used to say, but it all comes
out. I suppose it’s the boarding houses. It startedTHE GRAND TOUR E

almost immediately after they were married, and never
stopped, till she finally left him for good. Hasn't
stopped now, for that matter.”

“But what started, what hasn’t stopped, mother?
You always beat round the bush so.”

How curiously like his father.

“Chambermaids. In fact, any one at all, only the
chambermaids seemed to predominate. An association
of ideas, perhaps.’”’ She paused, but it was preferable
to him to pretend obliqueness rather than appreciation.
“And every one else for that matter, her friends, his
friends. Now and then he’d run off with some one for
a few weeks, but he always came back. I think he was
fond of her.”

“Why did she take him back?”

“‘She’s a fool, so probably was then. And I think
she was in love with him and still is.”

“And the girl?”
“Twenty-two or three. Looking for a husband.”

And, after Carl had met Francesca Bracchi: “You
didn’t,” he said to his mother, ‘‘tell me how extraordi-
narily beautiful she is—but a warm beauty, superb.”

“There were so many other things to talk about,”
she answered him with a smile. Gosh, when mother
tries to look inscrutable, thought Carl.

Yet inscrutable, he felt, was a word which suited
Francesca Bracchi. She had the mystery and elusive
rareness of beauty, something withdrawn behind the
richness of color flushing back into the olive of her
skin. Only the eyes were out of keeping, pale blue
like her mother’s. Her contemporaries thought Fran-
cesca stiff, too self-contained; older people found her
good-mannered.THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

She knew Florence well, and talked about it. They
went to the Pitti, Uffizi, and Bargello together, climbed
the hills above S. Miniato for a supper under the stars,
picnicked at Fiesole and Vallombrosa.

“T hate the idea of leaving it all,” he said to her.

“Do you? Sometimes I grow very tired of living
over here.”

“Tired of Florence?”

“Of Florence, of Italy . . . You’ve been here only
two weeks.”’

“Divine weeks . . . But where would you like to
live?”

“Tn America. You wouldn’t want to stay away al-
ways.”

“But I’m an American.”

“So am I,” she said with spirit.

“You're half Italian.”

“I’m altogether American in feeling. And I’ve never
even been there!”

“P’m afraid it’s not half as nice as you imagine.”

She looked at him gravely. ‘Don’t I seem like an
American girl?”

He considered. ‘Not like any I’ve ever known.”

“How am I different?”

“Oh, I couldn’t put it into words. It’s subtler. You
feel more deeply, for one thing. You're sadder.”

“How did you know that?”

‘Perhaps because you've let go with me, a little.”

She smiled. “I like you, Carl.”

She wondered if she were letting go too fast. Looks
didn’t help you much if you never had a chance to use
them. That callow professor’s son on his long vaca-
tion to acquire Italian culture. And she had almostTHE GRAND TOUR 7

thought of him as a chance! Carl Llanfear was ob-
viously a gentleman.

Obviously a gentleman against the background of
the Pension Rispotini. Odious place! The old ladies
with high collars under the blue-white hair, who never
appeared till dinner, asked you where you had been
and what you had been doing. The Yorkshire parson
wanted to talk art; the fat oily priest sought to be gal-
lant in a middle-aged patronizing fashion. And her
mother was always there, watching her, waiting for
her, brooding over her as she always brooded, so that
she wanted to scream with the strain of it. No way
of getting away from it, nowhere to be alone.

“After all,” Carl said, sitting at night by her side
on a stone bench near the river, “they do make escape
rather pleasant.”

“Ghastly crew. I don’t see how mother puts up
with it.”

“You revolt a good deal?”

‘Well, wouldn’t you? I can hardly remember any-
thing else.”’

“But your mother can. She’s got a lot of pluck, I
think. You can see it by her face.”

“She’s simply splendid.” Lot he knew about her
mother! “It’s the talk I hate so, Carl. You can never
call your soul your own. They have nothing to do, no
homes of their own. Or if they have they’re prob-
ably bored with them, bored and tired with everything,
fussing about, always imagining things, and gossip-
ing, and sticking their noses into other people’s affairs.
If you take a walk with a man they smirk at you and
tell each other you’re engaged, or something. It’s so

common.”THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“You’re quite vehement, Francesca. Why worry
about a lot of old fools?”

She turned on him almost passionately. “If you
knew, if you knew what I’d been through you’d un-
derstand. It’s always been that. No life of my own,
no freedom, no companions of my own age. And al-
ways inuendoes and hints about father ... I sup-
pose they think he’s a sort of public character. The
Count Bracchi! But it doesn’t give them a right to
say, to say . . . Forgive me. I don’t often talk this
way.”

“You never have to me. But why shouldn’t
you?”

She had her eyes on the ground, a handkerchief be-
tween nervous hands. “Because you couldn’t under-
stand, and it’s horrid to talk about one’s troubles.”

“But I can understand.” He took her hand. It
was cold and trembling, but answered the pressure of
his fingers.

“IT suppose,” she murmured, “it’s the moon that
makes me a little wild.” She smiled up at him: “And
being with a man under a hundred.”

She didn’t talk much about herself. Only common
people did that. Fortunately, he hadn’t resented it,
hadn’t drawn into himself, the way well-bred people
often did. It was all right to give an impression of
sadness. But you musn’t rub it in. Men preferred to
talk about themselves. She wanted to know more about
Carl. And Carl found it easy to talk to her.

“IT suppose I'll join the firm when I get back to Phil-
adelphia. Dean & Llanfear. Uncle Morris is the head.
And there’s Uncle Richard—he’s very religious—and
Mr. Brackway, who’s also an uncle, married Aunt
Susan. I had a chance to go to New York when ITHE GRAND TOUR 9

left the Harvard Law School. Big office. Of course
they only take the honor men.”

“Were you an honor man?”

“Yes. I did pretty well at the Law School.”

“How wonderful!”

“Well, I worked hard. Not like college. College is
really an awful waste of time, Francesca.”

“Why is it?”

“Just clubs and that sort of thing. Of course I did
some reading.”

“Literature?”

“Oh, no. Economics, philosophy . . ae

“Oh ... But why don’t you want to go to New
York?”

“I can’t entirely explain. It’s an instinct that I
ought to go home. Father died when I was little. I
can hardly remember him—a familiar gesture, the way
he had of using his hands when he talked. He used to
get excited . . . He was a lawyer, too. But he must
have been rather unusual. He was keen about a
good many things. Tremendous enthusiasm . . . I’ve
heard from mother and Uncle Morris. Other people,
too. Father must have left an impression. Wanted
to reform things, change them. Philadelphia’s pretty
corrupt, you know.”

“Tsn’t that true of all American cities?”

“Tn a way. But Philadelphia doesn’t seem to mind.
Father thought if you could get enough people to take
hold, enough young men, you could change it all. This
doesn’t bore you?”

“On the contrary, I find it intensely interesting.”

“T feel like talking to you, somehow. I'd like to take

a crack at politics.”IO THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“You might be mayor or governor.”

“I wasn’t thinking of that, exactly... Only to
clean up the place. It’s such a run-down old city, and
they just graft all the time.”

A dazzling life, she felt, lying awake at night, going
over the things he had said. He was rich and free and
already successful. And to her conscious mind, alive
to the romance which was such a necessary decoration
to reality, she admitted that she was in love with Carl,
a little shyly, a little hesitantly, not without excite-
ment, as became a girl of twenty-two. While below
the surface of the gentle admissions her will, definite
and obstinate, fixed on the determination that he should
marry her.

They had been picnicking, on an early day of April,
on a wide meadow below Settignano, had lunched laz-
ily under a group of chestnut trees, and he lay on his
side, his head propped on an elbow, contentedly watch-
ing the smoke curl up from he: cigarette. They were
silent for a while.

“It’s time to go, I suppose,” she said. “I can’t bear
to go back.”

“Don’t go—Francesca—not yet.”

She glanced down at him, threw away the cigarette.

They were silent again. Carl could not speak. He
had not known, till now . . . How glorious she was,
sitting there, beautiful beyond words, so beautiful he
wanted to cry.

She stood up, brushed out her skirt, and turned to
look at the city glimmering below them in the valley.

“Francesca!’”” He was on his feet and had her in
his arms before she could turn. He kissed her full onTHE GRAND TOUR II

the lips, held her close to him, kissed her again, long
and passionately. She trembled, touching his strange
face with her hands. Had she kissed him back? She
kissed his lips, strange lips... “My darling,” he
sobbed, “my darling!’

And as they were nearing the outskirts of Florence:
‘When shall I tell mother?” she asked him.

“Your mother? Whenever you want, of course.”

They were engaged, it was wonderful! She and her
lover . . . But that first Kissy’ It hadn’t been what
she had expected. There was something terrible about

a kiss

The Countess Bracchi burst into tears when her
daughter told her.

“But why cry, mother? Don’t you like Car

“Tt isn’t that; not that . . . It’s the end of every-
thing . . . I can't explain... It’s the shock, I sup-
pose. You couldn't understand.”

“You always say that, mother. It’s not the end of
everything for me, it’s the beginning. I don't see why
you should cry because I’m happy.”

“You haven’t often seen me cry... The very
thing I’d longed for most, achieved—exactly right, the
very kind of man I'd have chosen for you—everything.
I know the Llanfears—they’re solid. And I dreaded
so a foreigner. But the achievement is an end. And
if the skimping was a bit—mean, at least it was for
you. There won't be any one to plan for now. That
makes me feel a little hysterical.”

“Nonsense, mother. You'll be much better off, freer
to enjoy yourself a little. You’ve had a hard life.”

For a moment they felt an emotional sympathy rare
between them. And the Countess, looking up at her

ee12 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

daughter’s face from her chair, ventured, a little un-
certainly : “You won’t—you won’t be hard with him?”

“Hard, mother ?”

“You have a way, sometimes, when you're dis-
pleased, of getting hard . . . turning in . . . So that
one can’t reach you. It makes people not want to
reach you.”

Poor mother. She had had to pull back when her
mother began to nag. But that was all over.

“T couldn’t be hard with Carl, mother.”

“You don’t know yet. It isn’t only with me. I’ve
watched you with others.”

And then Francesca heard her mother say a most
surprising thing. “I sometimes think I was hard with
your father.”

That was as far as Amy Bracchi could go, particu-
larly with her daughter. When Bracchi had come back
to her after his escapades she had always cried in his
arms while he comforted her as if forgiving. He had
no sense of shame. Perhaps that was why he had to
go to other women. She could not altogether surren-
der herself to those strange pagan ways he had with her,
that attracted and shocked her, till she trembled with
a sense of violation of her inner personality, which
she could never keep from his passionate domination.

Mrs. Charles Llanfear listened to Carl’s announce-
ment philosophically. It was not what she would have
chosen, the daughter of an impecunious Italian, with a
worldly look in her eye, which meant business in spite
of that peach-bloom complexion. Poor Carl! He’d had
so few love-affairs; perhaps none. It was like a girl’s
marrying the year she came out. Frances Llanfear
disapproved of early marriages. Carl was an attrac-THE GRAND TOUR 13

tive boy, but so undeveloped. And she had hoped
he was having a flirtation with this sensuous looking
creature. But the blood was good. The Bracchi oats
might counterbalance the Llanfear lilies. A coat of
arms, lilies couchant with oats rampant.

“You can have the Little DeLancey Place house,
Carl. I think I’ll go to Nice for the winter. And you
should start your married life alone.”

“Tt’s a nice little house,” she said later to Francesca,
“and not too hard to take care of. I’m sorry I shan’t
be there to open it for you. That'll be rather a chore.
Philadelphia dirt is ubiquitous, and it’s been closed for
nearly three years. Don't let Carl help you. He'll
fuss himself into despair. They all do when it comes
to house-cleaning.”

Francesca thought Carl’s mother very wise. She
was so practical, so helpful. The two ladies spent much
time together over household details and domestic ar-
rangements. They got on very well. Mrs. Llanfear
liked Francesca. But Carl was difficult. You couldn’t
tell.

“Dexter’s 15th Street store for cakes. You had bet-
ter get your poultry and game at Garty’s on 2oth, it'll
be near you. I should buy your beef at Margerum’s
at the Reading Market. Bradley's is better for pork
and mutton. Fish is difficult. You'll have to market

for that and pick out your shad.”

There was a good deal of emphasis on food. Mrs.
Llanfear knew about food.

“Curtains? You'll not need fresh ones except per-
haps in the drawing-room. I prefer Darlington for
muslin, Shepherd for linen. You can get Mrs. Kelly’s

second daughter to come in for a day’s sewing. It
would almost pay you to have a dress made by Mrs.14 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

Kelly. You'd have all the gossip in a couple of fittings.
Two dresses would make you feel like an old-timer.”

“What’s it like?”

“Philadelphia? Very pleasant.’’

“I feel terrified. Carl’s family sound as if they were
vast and powerful.”

“H'm. Yes, in a parochial way. They have a good
deal of breeding, and a not unpleasant way of living.
You have to conform to get along, as you do every-
where else for that matter. I prefer to conform in
Europe.”

She spread out her small, neat, plump hands, turn-
ing an emerald ring.

“My sister-in-law, Mrs. Brackway, is always having
rows and people don’t like her. But most of them are
easy, a little dull, very loyal to their own kind. Like
every one else. But of course the family counts. It’s
a good name, my child.”

“Oh, I know, Mrs. Llanfear.”

“Yes . . . Morris has a tendency to spoil Carl. He
has no children, and he was inordinately devoted to my
husband. Old Dean, the banker, has the most influ-
ence. You must like him. I sometimes think Carl is
a little restless, poor chap. But perhaps when he’s
married to you . . . And Ellis for cabs. Don’t get
them at Broad Street.”

“Broad Street ?”

“That's the terminal of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
It’s a very important railroad. Almost every one in
Philadelphia is connected with it one way or another.”

“How funny. I never heard of it.”

‘Never, my dear, let a Philadelphian hear you say
that . . . And you’ll have my furnace man, Joseph.
An old-fashioned darky, not like these impudent mod-THE GRAND TOUR 15

ern negroes . . . Don’t let the dirt get on your nerves,
it’s endless. And don’t be too particular when you be-
gin housekeeping. It isn’t worth it.”’

“But I’m so anxious to make Carl comfortable, to
have things nice.”’

“Of course. You can’t overdo a man’s comfort.
But that’s not quite the same, is it, as having things
nice ?”’

Carl had made up his mind. It might be rather
awful, but it had to be done.

“Cesca, have you spoken to your mother about liv-
ing with us?”

“Living with us!”

abit Ethoncht., 2.”

“Carl, you don’t know mother. She’d drive you
crazy in no time.”’ She saw him wince, could have bit-
ten her tongue off for her mistake. “Carl, don’t mis-
understand me. In the first place, mother wouldn't
consider it. It wouldn’t do.”

“T thought she’d knocked about a good deal and that
you wouldn’t want to be away from her. That is, from
what you said.”

“Carl, please! Don’t look so solemn.” She nestled
to him, touching his face with her long fingers. “I
meant, dear, that I couldn’t bear any one else to share
this.” She kissed him, kissed his mouth till nothing
remained in his mind but the consciousness of her
flesh, the perfume of her body, agony of longing, agony
of waiting...GHAPTER, IE
LOW HILL

To Morris Llanfear, looking up at the quiet irregu-
lar face of his country house at Chestnut Hill, on an
August afternoon, all was right with his particular
world. A small world, if you like, for such a large city
as Philadelphia, which was spreading everywhere,
reaching into the country, west along the river, west
and northwest into a new network of suburbs. He
sniffed at the word. A man could live in the country
without being a suburbanite. A small world, but a
tight little place, holding its grip pretty tight back into
that definite past of leisure and gentle living. It was
changing, of course; but not very fast. He was not
one, like his older brother Dean, the banker, to set his
face_against all change. But the good things took time
to accumulate, and the accompanying sense of time to
make them enjoyable. Of course when his father,
Dean Llanfear, had been alive there had been fewer
vulgarians elbowing their way in. But the people you
knew still controlled most of the things that counted,
and they did pretty much what his father had done,
lived in the same roomy houses, drank very decent
wine, knew good horses and rode them, read Shake-
speare and Dickens and Mr. Thackeray, behaved like
gentlemen .. .

If only Carl would like it! And the thought of
Carl’s arrival gave him a twinge of happiness, fol-
lowed by his habitual Llanfear impulse to suppress
emotion. After a year of travelling Carl was coming
16LOW HILL 17

home, bringing an Italian bride. He had evidently de-
cided to live in Philadelphia. Well, if he wanted to

_. You must let a boy choose his own way. Dean was
always trying to force people the way he wanted them
to go. But Carl might get fed up on it here. That
would depend on the girl. No, not entirely. Carl was
a bit of a rebel, as his father had been, perhaps as he,
Morris, might have been if his brother had lived. Cer-
tainly in that case it hadn’t depended on Carl’s mother.
She wonderfully was not a rebel. Yet Charles had
been happy while his health lasted, breaking his lances,
not all of them either, against windmills which Morris
had long ago accepted—as windmills.

He looked at his watch, spoke again to Patrick about
having the station wagon ready in plenty of time,
picked a few dried seed pods from the rhododendron in
front of the house, and joined his wife, who lay com-
fortably in a long chair on the front lawn reading The
Eustace Diamonds.

‘Where are you?” he asked her. She put down the
book. She looked slim and cool and lazily elegant in
her white muslin frock with the big puffy sleeves. Jane
Llanfear grew quieter, increased her natural repose
when hurry or activity threatened.

“Mr. Dove’s discussion of paraphernalia. Would
you like to read to me?”

“T can’t sit still .. . Do you think she'll like us,
Jane?”

“T don’t see how she can help it.”

“But we won’t know what to do with her. I wish
he hadn’t married a foreigner.”

“Oh, she’ll fit in. Every one fits in at Low Hill.”
“T don’t see how you can take it so casually.”
“What do you want me to do? Everything's ready18 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

for them. Do go away and let me read. It’s the very
best part of the book.”

A half hour later, as the grays trotted up the short
avenue of maples which lined the entrance to Low Hill,
she stood on the front porch, thinking how straight
her husband sat as he drove, in his crash suit, and
wondered if Carl had changed . . . till in a moment
she felt his arms about her, felt herself lifted from
the steps, as Carl had always lifted her when he came
home, her heart torn for an instant away from its
safe mooring, till she remembered, as she always re-
membered on such occasions, that after all he was not
hers.

“This is Francesca,” Carl said.

His aunt stooped down and kissed her on both
cheeks.

“Welcome to Low Hill,” she said. And then, as
Francesca looked up without answering: ‘“You must be
tired. Boat and train, and now a drive behind the
grays.”

“T’m not tired,” said Francesca.

“But hungry, I hope,” cried Morris, coming up be-
hind her, ‘‘for tea will be ready as soon as you are.
Here, Shafto”—this to an ancient colored butler who
was bowing in the doorway—“‘stop those gyrations and
lend a hand with the bags. Carl, Shafto’s getting fat-
ter and lazier every day. Patrick, try the six three for
the trunks, they may be on that. Now, my dear,” and
with a hand on Francesca’s shoulder he led her into
the house.

They had tea on the lawn under the four old tulip
poplars, in front of the house. From there the smooth
grass sloped down to the road, which lay out of sightLOW HILL 19

below a stone wall, almost hidden with ivy and cle-
matis, and emerged beyond to climb the hill. Low Hill
had been built by the second Dean Llanfear in the fif-
ties, as his country house, before the railroad had
reached Chestnut Hill. Morris, when he had inherited
it from his father, had given up his house in town, and
lived there all the year, adding to it as his convenience
dictated. Originally it had been a large square stone
house with front and back porches which had given
way to white columns, Morris’s idea of the Virginia
Colonial to which his wife had been accustomed. The
four poplars were large trees when his father had built
the house, and he had added maples and beech, mag-
nolia and catalpa, sweet gum and oak. The trees were
scattered on the lawn without much plan, but behind
the house Morris had cleared them, so that you could
look through the box and rose garden, over the rows
of corn and tomatoes and lima beans, to the White
Marsh Valley three miles below. Virginia creeper and
wistaria covered the house, softening and unifying its
uncertain lines and angles.

Jane Llanfear sat behind the wicker table, under the
trees on the lawn, pouring tea, straight, slim, and gra-
cious. Shafto, old and white, with a shuffling activity,
moved in and out between the chairs. “A little more
buttered toast, Miss? . . . Some more tea, Mr. Carl?
... Yes, Madame .. . Try this chocolate cake, Mr.
Morris.”’ Shadows crept up the lawn. The wind was
quieter now, came in little puffs, springing up with a
fine energy for a moment, to turn suddenly gentle in
the pervading peace of the later afternoon.

“That will do, Shafto,”’ said Morris Llanfear, “we'll20 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

get along very nicely now, thank you. You had better
see to the unpacking of Mr. Carl’s things.” And, after
the old darky had limped out of sight, “He’s getting
to be an awful nuisance, Carl. He hangs over us as
if we couldn’t feed ourselves. He’s too old to do much
work, so redoubles his energy in ministrations.”

“Has he been with you very long?” asked Fran-
cesca.

“Your Aunt Jane brought him with her from Char-
lottesville when we were married. And he’d been with
Mr. Beverley for many years then. I can’t remember
when he didn’t look old.”

“His name sounds familiar,’ said Francesca, “but
I can’t place it.”

cant VOU”

Bobby Shafto’s gone to sea,
Silver buckles on his knee,

He'll come back and marry me,
Pretty Bobby Shafto.

hummed Mrs. Llanfear.

“Mother Goose. But how in the world did he ac-
quire the name?”

“Tt was long before my time, but the story runs that
when he was a little pickaninny on father’s plantation
he was fond of helping look after the children, and
used to sing to them. ‘Bobby Shafto’ was the song
they liked best and asked oftenest for. So the name
stuck.”’

“But didn’t he have any name of his own?” asked
Francesca.

Mrs. Llanfear smiled, and looked at her niece for
a moment before answering, remembering that herLOW HILL 21

mother had been a Winterpod from Salem, Massa-
chusetts. ‘“‘No, my dear, most of them weren’t named,
but chose names for themselves as they grew to
understanding. You see they weren’t handicapped
in their choice by having any family names to select
from.”

Carl and his uncle laughed and Francesca smiled,
after a moment, as if she had decided to join in their
amusement. Extraordinarily lovely, thought Morris,
as he watched her, sitting quietly in her travelling suit
of brown duvetyne with silver Dutch buttons, a little
black straw hat and silk veil of mauve turning to pur-
ple at the edges, brown silk stockings and very neat
brown shoes, foreign-looking shoes, long and narrow.
Her hands lay in her lap, brown hands, well shaped.
But her repose was not like Jane’s, he thought, an ex-
pression of her serene nature, but self-imposed, self-
controlled, like her speech. Very romantic looking,
strikingly an Italian, except perhaps for her eyes.

The shadows swelled in deeper pools around the feet
of the trees, the sunlight grew softer and lingered, the
wind played with a few prematurely fallen leaves, hesi-
tated, dropped. Carl lay on his back, watching the
birds, watching the gardener leading in two cows to be
milked from a meadow below them, looking now and
then at Francesca, wondering what she thought of it,
whether she felt or shared his happiness. It was some-
times hard to tell what Francesca thought. Deep
waters run still. Carl’s heart went out to her, with a
sudden half-shy longing, mixed with the pride of her
beauty . . . He looked across the lawn to the dip of
the road below, back to the trees about them, to the
house, and across the corner of the vegetable garden22 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

behind the house, with the old barn and stables below,
which he could just see from where they sat.

“Gosh, it’s certainly great to be home,” he said.
“Aunt Jane, you look prettier than ever.”

She acknowledged this with the play of an imaginary
fan, inclining towards him. Jane Llanfear liked com-
pliments, feeling that they were a part of good man-
ners. ‘Your approval carries a pleasant implication.
But, Francesca, do you like your husband’s making eyes
at ladies even if they are old and relatives by mar-
riage?”

“T think he shows very good taste,” Francesca said.
It was her way to pause a moment before she answered
a question. Carl laughed, jumped up, and kissed her.
She wished he wouldn’t kiss her in that funny, sudden
way, and couldn’t understand why he had laughed. She
must ask him when they were alone.

“Tt must be nice to be pretty and thin,” Carl contin-
ued. ‘‘Aunt Susan’s awful fat. She gets excited at
table and forgets to avoid the flesh-pots. I think she
can talk faster when she’s eating. She hates to do only
one thing at a time.”

“By the way, Carl, Olga’s staying with us. I’m
afraid she’s not well. She seems forlorn. You must
be nice to her.”

“Olga? Of course I’ll be nice to her, though Ger-
ald’s her pet. I’ll go and see her now.” He jumped
up. ‘Come along, Francesca. You'll like Olga. She’s
always been with us.”

They found her unpacking Carl’s things. “Olga,
this is my lady.”’

“Oh, Mr. Carl. . .’ She was sniffling, trying to
see through her dimmed glasses. “How do you do,
Mrs. Carl. How is Mrs. Llanfear?’’LOW HILL 23

“How do you do, Miss—’”

“Schlumberg. But you must call me just Olga, like
Carl. He was my baby. But he’s grown.” Her lips
formed a smile.

Sentimental, thought Francesca. I don’t like her
fussing with my things, to see if I’m properly fitted
out.

“You never told me about her,” she said to Carl as
they went downstairs.

“T never thought of her, even! Isn’t it awful the
way we forget them, when they're not there. But I
really love Olga.’

Morris Llanfear and his wife were waiting for them
a few minutes before eight in the high ceilinged, white
panelled library.

“Isn’t she a darling!” Morris said.

“T think so,’’ answered his wife.

‘What do you mean? You're not sure? She’s cer-
tainly handsome enough.” He was longing for her
approval.

“Beautiful. She’s very quiet.”

“Shy, merely. It’s an awful job to face the family-
in-law.”

His wife considered. ‘No, I don’t think she’s shy.”

“Well, then, just wonderfully self-controlled. You
can see by her face how much feeling she Hasan

“T’m not sure.”’

‘What room did you give them?”

“T Jet Francesca choose. There wasn’t much differ-
ence except that there were two beds in the front room.
She chose the two beds.”THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

3

“T must say, on their honeymoon...
“Sh! here they come.”

“What are your plans, Carl?”

“You mean about work, sir? I'd like to join you
at the office, if you still want me.”

“Want you! But when you went abroad you were
thinking of New York.”

“Oh! that—I really didn’t hesitate, especially after
I was engaged. Of course, in a way it was tempting.
But now that I’m married I’d be a fool to throw away
everything I have here. I want to live, not just exist
. . . Lhere are things I want to do.” He contem-
plated his cigar. “Things father would have wanted
. . . There’s so much to be done. I can hardly wait
to been: :).°<”

He looked so eager, so alert, so young! If only,
thought Morris, watching the boy, if only the place
doesn’t get him. And then, as if to console himself
against that doubt: “I think Francesca’s lovely,” he
said.CHAPTER III
THE GARDEN PARTY

LATE in September the Morris Llanfears gave a gar-
den party in honor of the bride and groom. Every
one was invited and every one came to see the bride.
A perfect day for a garden party . . . Carriages driv-
ing in from Jenkintown, from the Main Line, from
Penllyn. Patrick at the horses’ heads, Shafto beam-
ing, pointing the way to refreshments. A trickle of
ladies in wide Leghorn hats and parasols . . . Rem-
brandt Llanfear, the only unmarried uncle, immacu-
late in blue serge, white waistcoat, white spats, a gar-
denia—bowing to kiss Francesca’s hand. She liked
that, a courtly gesture. Suddenly the house overflow-
ing, the clatter of talk and laughter rising to a cres-
cendo as they discovered the punch . . . Juleps in the
library, tea in the drawing-room, on the lawn long
white tables piled with food. Such food—you could
trust Augustin & Baptiste—sugar-cured hams, savory
chicken croquettes, panned oysters, cold salmon, com-
plicated decorated salads, rusk rolls and crescents, vast
slabs of ice cream. A serious matter, in Philadelphia,
this business of eating . .

And Llanfears everywhere, solid, well groomed,
ubiquitous. There was a strong family look about
them, the long, slightly meaningless nose, the eyes set
close together, contemptuous or indulgent, depending
on what they were regarding. A great many unmar-
ried Llanfear ladies, of all ages, with youthful but
2526 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

lady-like impulses, constantly kissing each other .
They kissed Francesca, and asked her how she liked
being of the family.

All the uncles and aunts were there except the Dean
Llanfears. They were still at Bar Harbor. Miss
Lydia Llanfear, the youngest aunt, was a woman by
occupation, affecting youth—she was not over forty-
eight—and a rather dashing cheerfulness.

“But you must call me by my first name,” she said
to Francesca. “But all my nephews and nieces do.”
She sat at the tea table, a fluffy little high-colored
woman in black velvet, a knotted ribbon around her
throat, a cameo brooch, amethyst beads dangling in the
tea cups. She played with the amethysts. “Carl’s
such a dear. You must come to Pondello soon.’’ She
looked a little dreamy, moved from the beginning of a
sigh to a smile.

Mrs. Brackway was a very different woman from
her sister Lydia. She was a huge, dominating, irre-
pressible matron, who sailed down on Francesca under
nodding feathered headgear.

“Hello, Jane,” she rumbled. ‘Well, Francesca, how
are you? I'll kiss you, but don’t kiss me, I don't like
it. Carl, you look pretty well. When are you going
to get to work? . . . Morris, I want to talk to you
about something when you get a chance . . . Carl as
queer as ever? I hope you're not queer, Francesca.
I don’t like queer people. Letty’s enough for one fam-
ily. I understand you’re going to have my sister-in-
law’s DeLancey Place house for the winter. It’s pretty
cramped, but I daresay you can manage. I think Fran-
ces might have come home to get you started, but she
leads her own life. If you need anything come to me
.. . Julius, can’t you see you’re blocking the line?”

,THE GARDEN PARTY 27

Mr. Brackway, with a look of being buttoned up
too tight, dodged behind his wife, as if he were play-
ing hide-and-go-seek with her, trying to get at Fran-
cesca. He was not at his best at garden parties. He
hated the “Julius,” which Susan had insisted on drag-
ging out. Every one but his wife called him Williams ;
J. Williams sounded business-like. That was one of
the penalties of marrying a Llanfear, of marrying
Susan ..

“Julius!”

He hurried after the nodding plumes.

The Richard Llanfears drove over from Penilyn.
He held Francesca’s hand in his for a wavering mo-
ment, as if he were going to perform some sacrificial
rite over her.

“T hope you and Carl will go to St. Peter’s. We have
three family pews there. They're seldom full.” He
sighed doubtfully.

“P’m so glad Carl’s going to be in your office,”’ said
Francesca.

He looked at her mournfully. “Yes,” he said, “I
hope he’ll like it.”

“Of course he will.”

‘Do you think so? We need an energetic young
man. I had hoped that my son Dean would be a law-
yer. But he preferred to go with his Uncle Dean, the
banker, my brother. It’s a very old bank,’ he added,
as if that made his son’s preference pardonable. “You
and Carl must dine with your aunt and me some night,
and meet some of your cousins.”

Young Dean, who was at the bank, came over from
the Main Line with his wife, who was the grand-
daughter of that enormously rich old matriarch, Mrs.28 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

Algernon Henderson Roth. He was a solemn, spruce,
unimaginative little snob, a boyish timidity hiding be-
hind his stiff reserve. They kept together, apart from
the gushing cousins and hearty old ladies, looking out
of place away from the Main Line, trying to look
exclusive.

Mrs. Martin Llanfear, never permitted to forget that
she was Sarah Brandt, who had lived north of Market
Street, drove out from town in high state, fortifying
her shrinking from these oppressive family gatherings
by a new set of liveries.

“Martin was not well enough to come. He sent his
respects.’’ Carl wondered what he really had sent .. .
“He seldom goes out. Just a drive in the Park now
and then. His gout won’t permit any social life.”

“But it must be hot in town in the summer.”

“Yes, rather . . . Martin says he’s never comfort-
able anywhere else . . . Martin and I would like to
send you a little wedding present, just a little token,
you know, something personal. Do you like Caldwell’s,
Francesca? They have some lovely new platinum set-
tings.” She slid away, panting, hoping no one could
hear her pant, wondering if her hat was too gay for
the Llanfear taste .

Morris Llanfear gave his arm to Francesca.

“Let’s get out of this mob. You can at least move
on the lawn. Tired? . .. What a pretty dress...
Here comes Miss Letty. Her father, DeLancey Llan-
fear, was my father’s first cousin. She’s queer.
There are not many queer Llanfears, I wish there were
more. We’re too commonplace. I like Letty. There’s
a friendly innocence about her.”THE GARDEN PARTY 29

Miss Letty was tall and thin and angular. She
walked towards them with great strides, grasping in
one hand an enormous black cotton umbrella as if it
had been an alpinestock, the other arm swinging free.
A rusty black silk dress, a white straw hat, like a man’s,
perched crookedly on the back of her head, a bright-
red goose’s feather protruding from it at an uncertain
angle.

“Hullo, Morris.”

“Hullo, Letty. Here’s the bride.”

“How do you do, my dear.” She stooped down to
pull at a sagging stocking. And suddenly straighten-
ing: “Are you warm?”

“Oh, quite comfortable,” said Francesca.

‘Not that, my child. I mean in your heart.”

“T hope so.”

“H’m. Brides should be warm. You've married
one of the nice ones. Morris and I and Gerald—he’s
my great-nephew, the black sheep of the family, of
course he’s not here, he’s never where he ought to be
—and Carl, and Sidney Morrisoun are nice Llanfears.
Dean and Susan Brackway and that little Dean, and
Earnest Falcon, Gerald’s father, are not nice. There’s
Earnest now, keeping an eye on me as usual. The nice
ones don’t care anything about money; the others don’t
care about anything else . . . Hullo, Earnest. Come
and speak to your new cousin. Francesca, this is my
nephew, the most sweet-tempered man in town.”

Earnest Falcon offered a limp hand and jaundiced
eye first to Francesca, then to Morris.

“How are you, Earnest?”

“Pretty rotten, thank you. I got away for just
two weeks in all this beastly heat. Lillian has been30 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

with Blanche at Narragansett, but I can’t stand that
fellow Perview, so I took a room at the Club.”

“Earnest,” said his wife, “you oughn’t to talk that
way about Jim! Francesca will get the wrong im-
pression.”

“Of him or of me?” He scowled at his wife. “You
haven’t met my son-in-law, Mrs. Llanfear? Ghastly
performance, meeting all these relations of Carl’s . . .”

“Oh, I like it, Mr. Falcon. Philadelphians are so
wonderfully hospitable.”

He grunted. ‘Damned hole. Come along, Lillian,
let’s get away.”

“You're bilious, Earnest, as usual,’ said Miss Letty.
And added, to his retreating back: ““You see, my dear,
I can be as rude to my nephew Earnest as I like. He’s
my heir-at-law, and expects to inherit my money, so
he can’t answer back. Not that I’ve got anything to
leave.”

She was fumbling in a petticoat pocket, and finally
tugged out a package wrapped in white tissue paper
and blue ribbon.

“One of father’s books, with his name in it... I
thought you'd prefer it to something bought in the
shops.’ She handed it to Francesca. “You could al-
ways exchange it for another if you don’t like it. It’s
rather appropriate. Good-by.”’ She was off, striding
across the lawn, clutching her skirts with the free hand,
as if the search for the book had disturbed some con-
trolling arrangement which could not be hastily re-
adjusted.

They looked at the book. ‘The Happy Marriage,”
by the Rev. C. P. Stickington, Harper’s, 1840; and on
the fly leaf: “To my dear wife, Letitia Llanfear, fromTHE GARDEN PARTY 31

her affectionate husband, DeLancey Llanfear, May,
1841.”
“That was the year Letty was born,’

’

said Morris.

Francesca was enthusiastically greeted by Billy
Trush, Carl’s room-mate in college, and Nancy, his
wife.

“Gosh, it’s good to see you again, Carl,” cried Billy,
with his high, emphatic enthusiasm. Nancy kissed
Francesca . . . There didn’t seem to be much to Say.

“It’s great you’re home at last, Carly

“You must come right over and see us at St. Mar-
tin’s,” said Nancy.

“Ves,” said Carl, “we'd love to.” It irritated him
not to be able to say anything more to Billy. They
were such old friends. Billy worked up to a crisis, and
left you there, planted.

“Prospering, Billy?”

“You bet lam! Everything going wonderfully.”

“T think Francesca will like it here,” Nancy ven-
tured. They both beamed at her, and patted her.

“She’s a peach, Carl.” Billy left him with that, to
punctuate everything, tie it tight, as he might have said.
Good old Billy . . . Damn Billy!

And then there was Carew Acton. You didn’t no-
tice Mrs. Acton much. He always made her look
older. Perhaps that was why she was a little apolo-
getic. Francesca noticed him. His arms were too
long. But that added to his look of physical power ;
otherwise beautifully proportioned. It was more than
physical power, she thought, an insistent and challeng-
ing force behind his good-looks, something rugged and32 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

a little brutal, an impudent egotism, a cool appraisal of
you as he looked at your face... .

“T hope you'll come to Longmead,”’ said Mrs. Acton.
“Tt’s not very far out—Rosemont. We’re not coming
to town this year. I love the country in the winter,

don’t you? . . . But you haven’t met Miss Dolbeare,
my cousin... Miss Dolbeare is a famous horse-
woman.”

They passed along.

“Who is he, Carl? He’s very handsome.”

“Curly Acton? Dresses well, doesn’t he? His
father was a Pennsylvania Railroad contractor. One
of the great fortunes of the reconstruction days.
Curly’s got all kinds of nerve. He’s rather disreputa-
ble, but I like him.”

“Disreputable ?”’

“Ladies . . . Or at least one lady. The one who
was with him.”

“You mean that Miss Dolbeare? How horrid...
But Carl, I didn’t know they did that sort of thing
here.”

“What sort of thing?”

“Carl, you’re disgusting . . . You know what I
mean. In America, in one’s own set. . .”

He considered, smiling. “Damned if I know. Curly
seems to get away with it . . . There’s Ellen Thrall.
She’s put her hair up. Judge Thrall is Uncle Morris’s
oldest friend. They live on the other side of German-
town Avenue. Ellen, you’re staying for supper, aren’t
you?”

A good many stayed for supper. Mrs. Rapport was
there with her two daughters. She was fifteen yearsTHE GARDEN PARTY 33

older than her sister, Carl’s mother, a rosy-cheeked
plump old lady in flowing black silks. Where Frances
Llanfear was comfortable, her sister was benevolent.
Mrs. Rapport was genial and kindly, less shrewd and
more witty than Mrs. Llanfear. She loved laughter
and all the things that created laughter, which gave a
broad and hearty outline to her personality. She was
not averse to a good story because it was improper, and
thought that women should not be excluded from
coarseness, which had its place in life. She was an
easy-going mother, and her two daughters were untidy
and unmarried. Molly was thirty-six, Grace thirty-
one. Molly still clung to the idea of marriage for
Grace. Men liked Grace. If she would only do some-
thing to her hair and buy a new hat . . . Molly was
sentimental, Grace more like her aunt, with a tough
resistance to life. They were both great readers, great
talkers, radical, the Llanfears said; active rather than
busy; fond of children, companionable, honest.
Morris Llanfear stood over a chafing-dish adding
red pepper to sputtering lamb kidneys. Molly Rapport,
very expert at salad dressing, stirred lettuce, tomatoes,
hard-boiled eggs, and a little onion in a vast bowl, with
a wooden fork and spoon. Anne Frew made tea at the
other end of the table. She was Carl’s second cousin,
his favorite cousin, Francesca remembered. Carl was
always talking about Anne Frew . . . Clinton Frew,
her husband, in riding breeches and homespun jacket,
stood by the fireplace, smoking cigarettes, watching the
preparations. He was a pale little man, shorter than
his wife, not ill-looking, nondescript, at home every-
where, very popular, beginning to be a successful bond
salesman.
“For the love of heaven, hurry,” he cried. “I’m34 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

famished. Haven’t had a bite since lunch, and not
much then.”

“No wonder,’
nine o'clock.”

“Cousin Morris, those kidneys must be finished.
They smell rapturous.”

“Why don’t you get some cold ham,” said Carl, “till
they’re ready?”

“Here,” said Anne, and she gave him a thick slice
of bread and butter, ‘that will hold you for a while.”

They drew around the table, sitting at random, help-
ing themselves to food, every one talking at once.

“I’m going to sit next to you, Francesca,” said Anne,
seating herself. ‘‘Here’s something to eat. Did you
enjoy it all to-day, or was it too hard work?”

“Well, I liked it quite well, only I never saw so many
Llanfears in my life. I had no idea there were so
many.”

Anne laughed. “I’m one, too. There are a good
many.”

“But how long do you stay a Llanfear? I thought
you were a Jones.”

“My dear,” answered Mrs. Rapport, from across the
table, “if you have a single drop of Llanfear blood in
you you disclaim any other. It’s like Southern blood.
You never hear any one proclaim proudly ‘I’m a Middle-
Westerner,’ but if you have a great-grandmother who
happened to be from the South, it doesn’t matter if all
your other ancestors on both sides were from Pitts-
burgh, you say with an aristocratic air ‘I’m a South-
erner.’ Same with Llanfear.”’

“Awful responsibility,” murmured Francesca.
“Quite the contrary. Once you’re in the family you

,

said Anne, glancing up, “it’s nearlyTHE GARDEN PARTY 35

can do anything you want. Would Miss Letty be at
large anywhere but in Philadelphia, or here if she had
a different name?”

“Sure,” said Carl, “in Boston, she’d be married to
her first cousin and be having first cousins once re-
moved for children.”

They laughed. ‘Well, Curly Acton isn’t a Llanfear,
and he certainly does what he wants, and every one ac-
cepts the situation,” suggested Grace Rapport.

“T don’t think there is any ‘situation,’ as you call it,”
said Frew, his mouth full of kidney.

“Oh, Clinton! What an innocent you are! Belle
Dolbeare has been Curly Acton’s mistress for ten
years.”

“Ts he the good-looking one,” asked Francesca, “who
came with two ladies?”

“A very good description, Francesca,” said Jane
Llanfear. “I must say it puzzles me. Mary Acton has,
as Grace said, accepted the situation, and apparently
the world has followed her. But why? We couldn't
all do it. Gerald’s young and unmarried, two circum-
stances which should mitigate. But he’s always in hot
water, and every one seems to be down on him.”

“Now, Cousin Jane,” said Anne, “I won’t have any-
thing said against Gerald. He’s a particular pet of
mine.”

“Mine, too,” said Carl.

“Well, of course, I’m fond of Gerald, but he does
go rather far,” said Frew.

“Oh! pooh!” said his wife. “You don’t go half far
enough. Give me a cigarette, and don’t say anything
more about Gerald. You can’t understand him. Ger-
ald and I,” she continued to Francesca, “and Carl were
brought up together, and I think of Gerald and Carl36 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

like brothers. That’s why I couldn’t bear it if you
didn’t grow fond of me.”

Francesca and Carl went up early. Carl sat watch-
ing her, as she did her hair before the mirror. He had
not yet got used to that rite, still a strange mystery.
Her hair was not long, but it was very thick, and fell
in straight masses behind her chair.

“Do you like them, Cesca? I mean Anne and Clin-
ton and Molly and Grace.’

“T’m sure I will. You must give me time. I don’t
make friends quickly, you know.”

As she rose he took her in his arms. “Please, Carl,
I’m tired.”

He drew away, surprised. “Can’t I kiss you, dar-
ling?”

“Of course, but not like that when I’m tired.”CHAPTER IV

ACCEPTING THE SITUATION

Mary Acton had indeed accepted the situation, as
Grace Rapport put it, for so many years that she had
almost managed to persuade herself, as she had per-
suuaded so many others, like Clinton Frew, who had
grown up after the fact was accomplished, that indeed
there was no situation to accept. If Belle Dolbeare
had been less charming or less poor, had not been a
Dolbeare, and through her mother, a near cousin, Mary
Acton might have had fewer reasons for acquiescing
in a relationship which she first spoke of lightly as
“Curly’s flirtation,” and then, as passing time made
such a description less apposite, “my husband’s friend-
ship for Belle.”’ Belle’s mother had died when she was
three. She was brought up on her father’s stock farm
in the Green Spring Valley, ten miles out of Baltimore,
and at seventeen, after spending her childhood and
adolescence in an atmosphere of horses, grooms, mint
juleps, debts, and the somewhat lurid good fellows who
were her father’s companions at the race tracks, was
inducted into that particular wing of fashionable so-
ciety which was known locally as the “brass band.”
When her father died, two years later, leaving more
debts than the horses could pay, Belle had changed but
little. She had not been spoiled, but she had certainly
not been improved. She cried for a week, for like her
father she had a soft heart; but having also like him
an optimistic nature, when her cousin Mary Acton
3738 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

suggested she should spend the winter with her in
Philadelphia, she dried her eyes, kissed her favorite
hunter on his silky nose, and joined her cousins at
Rosemont.

At the end of six months she announced that she was
going to work.

“But what in the world at?” exclaimed Mary.

“Well, I can ride a bit and my hands are rather de-
cent. I think I could give riding lessons.”

Mary was shocked. “I don’t think you ought, Belle,
not for money at least.”

Belle laughed. She had a deep gurgling laugh, like
a man’s, which suited her long, rangy figure, and quiet
gray eyes.

“T’ve got to make money, because Curly is going to
back me, and he doesn’t like investments that don’t
pay.”

“Oh, well,” said Mary, nettled, “if it’s all arranged.”

Belle felt sorry for Mary, as she always did when
Mary felt sorry for herself. But she couldn’t very
well tell Mary why it had all been arranged without
her being consulted. Curly had begun to make love to
her. It hadn’t mattered at first, she was used to men’s
making love to her, and she didn’t grudge her cousin
a few kisses now and then. But lately the kisses had
been of a nature not altogether cousinly. She had be-
gun to be not indifferent to them, and somewhere the
half-developed conscience of a child stirred, and she
knew she must go. When she was on her own it would
be different.

She resisted Acton for a year. He was very much
in love with her in those days.

“But what’s the idea, Belle?” he said one day. “You
do care for me, you can’t deny it.”ACCEPTING THE SITUATION 39

She looked at him quietly. It was hard for her not
to tell him the truth, and she didn’t deny it.

“I wanted to pay you back first,’ she answered
slowly. “I don’t know. It was just an idea. It won't
take long. The School’s paying awfully well, and I’ve
put away something. Don’t laugh at me. I thought I
would feel freer then. They couldn’t think it was for
the money.”’

“But every one thinks we’re lovers now. We might
as well be.”

She considered this. “I suppose you’re right,” she
said.

She knew what she was doing, never drifting. Ii
she seldom opened a book, and thought little except
about her horses, and her friends, and Carew, she had
an understanding of people, and knew that he was
selfish and hard, and would make her suffer. Without
sexual morals, without much conscience, but not with-
out a philosophy for herself—to play the game, but
to play it like a sportsman; not to give pain where
she could help it; and, below any framed idea of con-
duct, a deep instinct for realism, which made it as im-
possible for her as a child to deny her feelings, and no
less impossible for her to justify her actions, even to
herself. She thought of Mary, of her children; she
thought of Acton and herself, wanting him with all
her being, moderately sensual, deeply in love, conscious,
in her surrender, that she was giving herself away
completely, giving him the chance to wound her, and
that he would wound her as long as she loved him.

The three had dined together on the night of the
garden party, and Mary, pleading a headache, had
gone to her room soon after dinner, leaving her hus-40 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

band and Belle in a corner of the great drawing-room
at Longmead, the Actons’ house at Rosemont. Belle
lay comfortably on a sofa, propped with pillows, watch-
ing Acton through the smoke of her cigarette. Her
figure in repose looked well-knit and strong beneath the
white lawn dress which she had changed into before
dinner, and she had an air of content with the moment
which suited her slow movements, and slow slightly
harsh voice. Acton sat near her in an armchair, puff-
ing at a cigar.

““Mary’s not herself to-night,” she said, “and I don’t
wonder. You were very irritating, C’rew.”

“She must be pretty well used to it.”

“Used to what, C’rew?”’

“Why, to living with me. It’s always irritating to
have your cake and not be able to eat it.”

“Not to Mary. If she could have her cake she
would be content to let some one else eat it. But you
won't let her have anything. Why can’t you be decent
to her?”

“Oh, I don’t know . . . what’s the use? She gets
awfully on my nerves.”

Belle studied him. “Does every one get on your
nerves?”

He got up, threw away his cigar, and came over to
her, hands in his pockets. ‘‘Belle, it’s not you, or Mary,
or any one in particular—it’s life, a damned dreary bit
of business. What is there that’s worth while in it?
Days to get through, and always this game of playing
affection, playing politeness. It’s all such humbug.”

“T don’t know,” she said.

“What does it give you? Trailing about with Mary
and me, trying to make both ends meet, trying to make
the best of it, to hold up appearances, keeping up withACCEPTING THE SITUATION AI

friends that bore you, being decent to me, and putting
up with my rotten temper and fits of depression.
You’ve a wretched life, Belle.”

She considered this. “I don’t know, life’s rather
sweet, I think. I’m happy when you are. And even
when you’re not,” she added. “Of course, I’m un-
happy about Mary.”

Oh. Mary...

“T’m fond of her, C’rew. No, you needn’t sneer.
And I believe that she’s fond of me, and gets decent
moments now and then because of me. I’m a safety-
valve for you. I don’t believe she'd want to change.
You know you are rather a pig, C’rew.”

“What else can you be, if you live in a sty?”

“I think you’d be happier if you thought now and
then about some one else.”’

“Oh, well, if you’re going to lecture me.”

She smiled lazily at him. “Not I. Id rather have
my pig than not have him.”

He laughed, a little harshly. “You are a good sort,
old Belle.’ He walked to a small table, poured him-
self out a whiskey and soda. “Have a drink ?”’

“No, thanks, dear.”

“By the way, Belle, what do you think of Carl’s
wife?”

“I think she’s lovely.”

‘Ts that alle

“Well, isn’t that enough? I take people for—granted
rather I suppose. That doesn’t satisfy you.”

“No, it irritates me.”

“C’rew, you are in a bad humor to-night. What’s
the matter?”

“Don’t let’s talk about me; let’s stick to Carl’s wife.
What else do you think about her?”42 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“But, C’rew, I didn’t say a word to her. How
should I know?”

“At least one forms an impression.”

“Yes, one forms an impression.”

“Well?”

“My impressions stay inside till I have something
to go on.”

“Well, she’s a bride, and every one says right off
what they think of a bride. You usually do about any
one. Besides, there is something to go on.”

“Carl, you mean.”

“Of course I don’t mean Carl. I mean her father.”

“What about him?”

“The Count Bracchi, my dear, had a very dashing
reputation. You must have heard some of the on dits.
There were so many of them. He was, I am given to
understand, what is called a ladies’ man. He’s been
separated from his wife for years, a Salem girl, who
stuck to him till she couldn’t put up with his peccadil-
loes any longer.”’

“Then,” said Belle, with her slow, quiet smile, “I
think Francesca takes after her mother, the Salem
girl.”

“I bet she doesn’t, not with that full-blooded look
of hers. Do you think she looks like a New Eng-
lander ?”

“I think she looks like a lady.”

“A lady? You look like a lady.”

She sat up quickly, a slow color suffusing her throat
and face. “C’rew!”

“Oh, I didn’t mean anything, Belle,’ he said, touch-
ing her hand.

She answered standing up, the color faded, quiet
and self-contained. She had learned control in herACCEPTING THE SITUATION 43

years with Acton. “C’rew, I’m off to bed. You're in
a rotten spoiled mood to-night, and I’m not going to
stay with you to let you spill it on me. Something’s
upset you more than usual.”

“Belle, don’t go to bed, it’s early, and you will be
going to town to-morrow. I want to talk about things.
I don’t want to be alone.”

“About things . . . about Francesca Llanfear, for
instance?”

His lips tightened. “Yes, about Francesca Llan-
fear, for instance.”

She was standing, her arms at her sides, watching
him. “You want me to tell you whether I think you
can make love to her.’ She turned it over, delib-
erately.

He laughed. “You do know me pretty well, my
dear.”’

“Would you like to, Crew?” And, as he didn’t an-
swer—‘“Oh, I see. You'd like to know first if you
could, and then you’d decide whether you'd like to or
not.”

He flushed. “Belle, that isn’t fair, I’m not like
that.”

“You don’t like not to get what you want.”

“But I don’t stop wanting because I can’t get ity. 4l
don’t think I want anything particularly.”

“Because you’ve had everything already. But I
don’t think you'll get Francesca Llanfear.”’

“You assume a good deal—but if I did want
hee ca”

“T don’t think that would make much difference to
her

“Because of Carl?”

“No, not because of Carl.”44 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“Because of me, then?” There was an almost im-
perceptible tremble in his voice.

She noticed it, and put her two hands on his shoul-
ders. “Look here, C’rew, try to believe me. You im-
agine that every pretty woman who is desirable lives in
an atmosphere of temptation which becomes almost in-
tolerable when you walk in. It isn’t true. They like
you to look at them indecently because you have looks
of your own, and a show of power behind them, and
they like the flair of your evil reputation. But most of
them want a good deal more than a passage at arms
with Carew Acton. They have an obstinate inclina-
tion for happiness. I don’t know what Francesca’s
kind is, but I imagine that her position would count a
good deal to her; and I don’t believe she’s a head-over-
heels kind. I don’t think you’d have a chance. And,
C’rew’’—she smiled in a way she had when she said
something disagreeable—“I think you’re a dirty swine
to think or talk that way about Carl’s wife.”

He backed away from her. “Belle, I'll bet you any-
thing you want that I can make that girl care for me.”

For a moment Belle was tempted to take him up.
Betting was among the many things she found it diffi-
cult to resist. But as she looked at him the situa-
tion struck her as so extraordinary, that he should of-
fer her such a wager, so completely unconscious of
what he was doing, that she threw back her head and
laughed her full-throated laughter.

“Carew Acton,” she said, ‘‘you are an extraordinary
person!” And she bade him good night.

Acton stood looking down into the empty fireplace,
his arms crossed, one foot on the low brass rail which
ran around the hearth, staring at nothing, smiling a lit-
tle. Belle was getting moody, he thought, she hadACCEPTING THE SITUATION 45

shown signs of it during the summer, while they had
been abroad. Why couldn’t she have stayed up a lit-
tle longer, to talk to him, when he wanted to talk?
She was trying to dominate him the way they all
tried. Mary had, at first. But that hadn’t lasted. He
laughed to himself, thinking of Mary’s efforts. He
liked Belle, but she mustn’t get the upper hand. Women
were no good when they tried that sort of thing, lost
their charm, became silly or faddish. He wondered if
Francesca was like that. Not silly, but obstinate per-
haps, obstinate to a point, to the point when she was in
love, and then perhaps she would be silly. Queer
things, women.

The butler came in to close the shutters, asked if
anything more were required, wavered a moment, in-
tending to ask for an afternoon off the next day, hesi-
tated from the glimpse he caught of his master’s un-
propitious profile, muttered a “good night, sir,” to
which there was no response, and withdrew.

Acton looked at his watch. Ten o'clock. He
couldn’t sleep for an hour. Why did every one go to
bed so early? He picked a book up from the table.
The Queen's Quair. That was Mary, she liked that
semi-historical slop. What could he find to read? He
wandered about the room, looking through the book-
shelves. Edith Wharton, James, that new fellow,
Wells, rather a clever blackguard . . . Bret Harte,
Kipling. He pulled out Soldiers Three and sat down.
Good stuff, Ortheris and Mulvaney, and the big one,
what was his name? But into the Taking of Lung-
tungpen drifted Francesca’s face, dark and eager and
young, emerging from the casual surface contacts,
now that he was alone, tempting his desire, which

endowed the memory with a sensuous responsiveness46

 

THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

out of his own mood. He threw the book down, lit
a cigar, and began to pace the room, Once he paused,
poured himself a drink, looked at it, put it down, and
went on walking. How stuffy it was, they never aired

the place properly. He must speak to Mary about it.
Christ, what a life!

Mary Acton, lying quietly in the immense bed, an
uncut French novel on the counterpane, thought of
Belle. Presently, when her mind was tired of circling
the well-worn paths, she would cut the pages, and try
to escape for a while. Belle was going to-morrow.
It would make it harder, it always did. Belle had
been gentle when she had come in to say good night,
but she could not be persuaded to stay any longer.
She was really hard underneath, Belle, in spite of her
warm ways. It wouldn’t have hurt her to stay on
a few days, while Carew was in this mood. During
the summer when they were abroad together there
were times when Mary’s old hatred of Belle had flared
up when she and Carew did things Mary was not
strong enough to do, like the climb from Pied de Mul-
lera up to the Saas Fée. But she had come to depend
too much on Belle to help her with Carew for the
mood to last. She couldn’t love Belle, although she
had tried hard in the early days, like the true Chris-
tian that she imagined herself to be, sustained by the
picture of a wife chaste and suffering, forgiving, hum-
ble, offering her other cheek, never complaining, pray-
ing. If only Carew would be nice now and then!
Absorbed continually with the thought of her sacri-
fice, it never occurred to her that it was made to se-
cure her position and Carew’s money. And her moods
of sentimental melancholy had become dear to her, ex-ACCEPTING THE SITUATION 47

cept now and then, as on this still and sleepless night
of the early autumn, when perhaps by some crueller
gesture on her husband’s part, or greater tenderness
from his mistress, her poor little dried-up heart felt
for a moment a gasp of loneliness and dim revolt.

Belle Dolbeare, plaiting her long brown hair before
the mirror of her dressing-table, with strong steady
fingers, tried to remember Francesca’s face. But she
could only bring back her own impression of the
girl’s beauty. In the ten years of their intimacy Curly
had left her now and then for other women. She
counted them; not many, considering his restless tem-
perament and idle days. He was cut out for work,
and it was no wonder that money and idleness had well-
nigh spoiled him. But the women had usually been of
another social class, and they never held him long. She
was a little puzzled about Francesca. She must get to
know her. She hated the idea of fighting to hold him,
but at the thought that she might lose him she grew
sick and panicky. She would make the fight if she
had to’% 2;

She glanced without interest at the books on the
reading-table by her bed, turned out the lights, and in
five minutes was sleeping, as she always slept, soundly
and without dreams.

     
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
   

FP,CHAPTER V
LITTLE DELANCEY PLACE

Tuey moved to Little DeLancey Place early in No-
vember. It came out below DeLancey Place, between
21st and 22d Streets, lay sleepily on the edge of the
residential district, thrust an irregular slatternly arm
to the river, straggling down to the tracks along the
east bank. DeLancey Place had a charming, uneven
character. To the east it dropped the “‘ittle,” and
became more solid and fashionable, fell back into
stables in the next square, bloomed again, dwindled,
skipped the centre of the city, and reappeared as Clin-
ton Street, between roth and 8th, with charming old
houses, still reminiscent of roses and wistaria, and the
leisurely life of fashion which had once clustered about
the Delaware River.

Francesca, warned by her mother-in-law, was pre-
pared to find the house dirty. But such dirt! It drifted
through every crack, roughening surfaces, eating into
corners, blowing in particles of soft coal dust from the
Baltimore and Ohio tracks along the Schuylkill River,
from the coal barges, from the abattoirs and steel mills
along the banks; rising in eddying whirls of dried
horse manure and dust, which the municipal revolving
broom occasionally swept from the centre of the street
to the gutter and sidewalk. The more you scrubbed,
the faster it seemed to gather. And in moments of dis-
couragement she saw herself forever fighting it, hold-
48LITTLE DELANCEY PLACE 49

ing it back, as the dykes held the water in Holland, to
keep it from engulfing her.

It became to her the symbol of something careless
and slip-shod about the city. She hated that loose, dis-
ordered way of living. She had seen too much of it
abroad. No tidiness, no exact and certain order;
shabby, that was it, shabby and weak. Probably down-
at-the-heel Southern influence. You couldn’t detect a
Southern drawl, but there was a Southern looseness
and surrender about the city. No backbone. She
would have to be careful. Those things were insid-
ious. At least her home should be neat and regular,
well-organized. Carl was too easy-going . . . She was
beginning to know his weaknesses.

She came in early in the morning, walking up to the
house through Rittenhouse Square. Charming, the
Square, but shabby like the rest of the town. There
was charm, too, in the decorous houses along Locust,
and Spruce and Pine, blinking down at the darkies
scrubbing the white marble steps, emblems of a genteel
and indifferent respectability.

She liked the house. It was narrow and deep, drop-
ping a story in the back, irregular and broken, three or
four steps up here and down there, sudden unexpected
landings. It was not a convenient house, no electric
light; oil lamps and gas jets, a front basement kitchen
and creaking dumb-waiter, an aged and decaying brick
hot-air furnace, a feeble water-pressure which on the
third floor occasionally produced a trickle. But it was
her first house .. .

She liked getting it ready, to superintend the clean-
ing and airing, to see that the rugs were properly
beaten. In the midst of her work she would sit down
on the huge sofa in the little sitting-room on the sec-50 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

ond floor back which overlooked the brick yard, with
its latched gate and single shabby poplar, and try to
picture how her things would look. She hadn’t much,
but it was all good. Her mother had a flair for those
things, could pick them up for nothing. She had
made Francesca take all her bibelots, which consti-
tuted, in the poor lady’s imagination, a kind of dot
for the child, who was thus not turned out quite
naked into the world. And separated from them Fran-
cesca felt a little denuded. Not because they were
links with a past she was hastening to forget. But she
liked things which belonged to her. They created a
distinction, were part of her personality, like the new
pigskin travelling cases, and the lozenge from the
Bracchi coat-of-arms which adorned her lilac writing
paper.

No more hateful pensions, with their mean pretense,
the restricted dreariness of second-class hotels, the aim-
less wandering life. She was Carl’s wife, Mrs. Carl
Llanfear, with an established position in a great fam-
ily . . . One of the best positions in Philadelphia
. . . An old society, aristocratic, fastidious, exacting.
In a few years and with a little more money she could
be at the top. Carl was clever, he would draw clever
people about them. He talked well, with his nervous
gestures and quick intensity. Only he needed her to
steady him, to keep him normal. She would have a
drawing-room that was worth while, people that
counted. She saw herself in the background, holding
the threads together, a certain quiet radiance of her
own ... well-dressed, of course, very well-dressed
after they were better off. She projected the intimate
little dinners of six or eight, election platforms, mixed
receptions where fashion and art and politics rubbed
elbows, a salon.LITTLE DELANCEY PLACE 51

“Madame est charmante!” . . . Washington, per-
apse: 2

If only the two young colored women whom she got
from Mrs. Mcllvaine would turn up on time and work
a little faster.

Mrs. McIlvaine was on 21st Street, just around the
corner. In fact, everything in Philadelphia was just
around the corner. It was most convenient. She won-
dered what was in all the rest of the city.

Mrs. McIlvaine didn’t deal in colored help, but she
could arrange to get them. She knew every one in
town and most of their maids passed through her
agency. She greeted Francesca as if she had known
her for years.

“I've been expecting you im any fine day, Mrs. Llan-
fear, and glad I am to meet you. How is Mr. Carl?
You’re to have the house on DeLancey Place, I hear.
It’s a bit crumbly. People ought to stay home and look
after their property. But it’s a nice little place, and
just the size for a young couple without encum-
brances.”’

“How did you know who I was?”

“Sure and hasn’t all the town been talking about the
new bride, so why would I not be knowing? Now
you'll be wanting a good cook and a maid. That’ll be
enough to start on, and you can have a girl to come in
once a week to tidy up a bit.”

“That’s exactly what I came to ask you about, Mrs.
McIlvaine. I should like a really nice cook. My hus-
band is very particular about his food.”

“And would you like Protestants or Catholics?”

“Which do you think would make the best cook,
Mrs. Mcllvaine?”’

“Sure there’s no difference in the cooking, only some52 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

don’t like to mix them. Mrs. Llanfear liked Irish
girls, and they're mostly Catholic. The Protestants
are harder to get, and they’re getting spoiled. Not
enough to go around. Servants isn’t what they used
tobe. Now I’ve got a nice old woman that could break
you in handy. Nora.”

Nora appeared and looked Francesca over with an
expression of rooted malevolence.

“Well?” she said.

“This is Mrs. Carl Llanfear, Nora. She has Mrs.
Charles Llanfear’s house on Little DeLancey Place.”

Nora’s expression deepened. “I know the house.
It’s a poor kind of a range and a basement kitchen.”

“No children; just two to cook for.”

“Don’t you think,” said Francesca when Nora had
left them, “that she’s rather untidy?”

“You're getting her for a cook, Mrs. Llanfear.
She’s the only one I could recommend for you just
now. They get eight dollars.”

“A week? How awful.”

“Tt is, and it’ll be ten in a few years.”

The other domestic which Francesca hesitatingly ac-
cepted was a red-faced, buxom young woman called
Delia.

“She’s green,” said Mrs. Mcllvaine, “but willing.
It’s hard to find combinations that aren’t green. And
she’s good-natured. You'll need that with Nora.
Nora’s a little difficult sometimes. But as 1 always
say, build around your cook.”

It was to be a surprise for Carl. He was to walk
in one evening and find everything ready. She put a
pole for his coat hangers in the closet of his dressing-
room. In the little back sitting-room she ranged theLITTLE DELANCEY PLACE 53

books in the long low oak bookcase which stretched al-
most the length of a wall, and put his pipes about, to
make him feel at home, a last propitiatory male rite.
She fingered them curiously—dirty things, intensely
masculine, not agreeable.

When he rang the bell she let him in herself, anx-
ious not to have Delia’s unruly curls his first impres-
sion. He caught her to him as if he had been away for
a long time.

“Cesca, you darling.”

“‘That’s enough, Carl, come and see it.”

“Wonderful, marvellous!”

“T haven’t changed the downstairs rooms much, not
much anywhere for that matter. Look, there’s the Nar-
cissus, on the carved oak Florentine table. I couldn’t
resist getting them out... I’ve put a few of your
mother’s things away, you won’t mind? But there’s
the stone horse, and the long snaky dagger you like.”

“Cesca, it’s perfect.”

“Tt’s ours, anyway.”

“Like it?”* re

“Of course I do. But come and see the sitting-
room. I hope you'll think it’s all right.”

“Perfect—Hullo! here are my books.” He was
down on his knees by them. ‘Did I show you this
Molliere? Look at that setting on the title-page. Chez
Le Clerc, Quay des Augustins, 1754. I got it for a
franc a volume. And my Gil Blas!”

“Come on. Don’t you want to see the rest?”

“Dol? But it’s all so exciting! a kiss first. A kiss
on each floor.”

“Here’s our bedroom. It’s a lovely room, Carl, all
sun. That’s my bed, I like a big bed, and I didn’t
think you’d mind a single bed.”54 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“Much wiser,” said Carl. “I get all snarled up in
those great four-posters. But I suppose you’re used to
them.”

“Oh, Carl, before I forget.” She took him to the
window. ‘What in the world is this?”

Carl laughed. “I don’t wonder you asked. It’s
called a busybody.” He adjusted the hood and look-
ing-glass. “Look! It’s really a periscope. You can
watch people on the street and see what’s going on.”

He was delighted with the dressing-room arrange-
ments, and touched at her thought of him.

“Cesca, you’ve thought of everything.”

She was happy, flushed with his approval, and Carl,
intoxicated with her beauty, walking on air...

“Aren’t you tired, Francesca? Why, you've put out
my dinner clothes. How did you know we were going
out ?”’

“We're not. I thought it would be fun to dress the
first night. See, I’ve got out the charmeuse that you
like.”

“But we are. I’ve gotiseats for the theatre, Arnold
Daly in You Never Can Tell, at the Broad.”

The door-bell rang, and Delia, mounting the stairs
with a loud furious energy, so that the young lovers
would not be taken by surprise, bore in a long white
box from Battles, out of which Francesca took a bunch
of yellow roses fresh and delicious and cool.

“Carl,” she said, ‘‘you are a dear.”

She was happy, sitting across the dinner table from
him, sitting at last at her own table, in her own house.
Morris Llanfear had stuffed a bottle of champagne in
Carl’s bag as he left Low Hill, which they had for din-
ner. Nora did well, Francesca thought. It was a sim-
ple dinner, but well cooked. Delia was a little wild,LITTLE DELANCEY PLACE 5s

breathed like a threatening windstorm, and laid down
the dishes tentatively, as if prepared to snatch them
away again. Francesca wondered if she would know
any one at the theatre. She looked well to- night, she
knew, finding knowledge in her husband’s eyes, which
never left her face. Her mind jumped ahead to the
late evening, in their room, when he w ould take her in
his arms, when he would want her, and she shivered
slightly, and forced her consciousness back to this im-

mediate well-being that was all about her.

They were trotting down Locust Street in one of
Ellis’s funny old cabs, smelling a little of the stables,
a mild but pervasive smell, the driver in his long
green overcoat with brass buttons and ancient high hat
swaying on the box, Carl’s arm around her.

“My darling, ’'m so happy.”

“Don’t, Carl, you’ll crumple my dress. I want to
look nice. Oh, I’m afraid we'll be late!”

“Not a chance. The Broad Street Theatre waits
till it’s full enough to start.” »

Friends of Carl’s everywhere as they passed through
the lobby, and here and there a face she knew.

VG@arla@anl ly

“Hullo, Peggy, hullo, Fan. This is Francesca.”

A large woman, rolling a little uncertainly, in ill-fit-
ting clothes, middle-aged and ruddy, with quick, shy,
unfinished gestures; a younger woman, handsome and
compact, a cleanly chiselled face and dark chestnut hair
above her furs, head held high and a little stiffly, a
well-made chin thrust forward. Margaret and Fran-
ces Llanfear, daughters of old Dean lantear

Margaret darted to Francesca, gave her a quick vig-
orous hug, and stopped in the middle, blushing, mutter-56 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

ing a greeting. Fanny held out a cool white hand, her
eyes travelling from Francesca’s darker head over her
evening dress.

“How are you,” she said, and smiled pleasantly.
“We've heard so much about you.”

“In town to open the house. Father and mother and
Lydia at the Media farm. Stay very late. Hear play’s
good. Come to dinner soon,” said Peggy.

Seated, they were among friends. Anne and Clin-
ton Frew, Billy and Nancy Thrush, Judge Thrall, and
Ellen, all bright eyes and straight back. Carl was nod-
ding here and there. “Peg is a darling, but very shy.
The warmest heart in the world under that great
bosom. Not really half as much of an old maid as
Fan. Fan’s a real prig, content with dressing well, and
letting you see her ankles now and then. Frightfully
proud of them. Never been kissed.”

“How in the world do you know?” laughed Fran-
cesca.

He was positive.: “You will be when you know her.
A blatant kind of yirgin. There’s one other, Lydia, a
bit soured, the eldest. Only one that stands up to Uncle
Dean. Funny he never had a boy. He ought to—like
himself—to take some of the swank out of him. He’s
never let Lydia marry Dan Carew, who’s been a sort of
silent partner to her for twenty years.”

“Carl, is Mr. Acton always with that woman—
what’s her name?”

“Belle? Where are they? Oh, yes. Look, she’s
waving to us. Funny when you talk of people they al-
ways look around. I told you about her. Beautiful
rider, Belle . . .”

The orchestra were taking their seats, looking about
as they tuned their instruments . . . The outer cur-LITTLE DeELANCEY PLACE 57

tain slid up, revealing on the drop a gallant, in eigh-
teenth-century silks, bowing before a dainty lady who
was stepping out of a broken-down carriage.

“I always feel excited when I see that curtain,” said
Carl. “Been here since I can remember. We used to
have theatre parties here in the Christmas and Easter
holidays. I think the best plays usually go to the
Broad.”

’

All the way home he held her close to him, murmur-
ing in her ear, kissing her hair, half articulate in the
obscurity, his hands groping for her, eager hands, too
eager she thought, shivering a little, so that he drew
her velvet cloak closer about her. If he could only
wait .. . In their room shadows lurked to engulf
her. The bed was like deep water in dreams, still
and dark, that opened to receive a body.

She must not shrink from him. She loved him, but
he overwhelmed her. His hands were gentle, caress-
ip =:

‘“Pillow’d upon my soft love’s ripening breast.’ ”

“What did you say, Carl?”

“Nothing but that I love you, love you. Do you
love me, my sweetest heart?”

“You know I love you.”

It was intolerable this, like a sea rising about her,
swamping her, crashing and tearing at her, engulfing
body and soul. He sought and found her everywhere,
everywhere her spirit turned, turning to escape, to save
some vestige of her inner self, to keep some spot of
herself untouched, remote, never yielding herself, never
her innermost self . . . Until at length, her will hard
and definite, she could hold and kiss his face with the58 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

dry triumph of her victory, and grow less remotely
tender to his pleading murmur—‘Do you love me,
Francesca? Do you love me?”CHAPTER VI
DEAN & LLANFEAR

Tue law firm of Dean & Llanfear was probably the
oldest in Philadelphia. Mr. Percival Dean was an
ornament of the Philadelphia bar in the thirties, dur-
ing the time when his friend, Nicholas Biddle, was
fighting the President to preserve the United States
Bank. Mr. Dean’s cousin, the first Dean Llanfear,
was the head of Llanfear & Co., and the firm pros-
pered with the banking house, and suffered a mild de-
cline shortly before Carl’s father and uncles had be-
come connected with it. Two nephews of Mr. Dean
who had succeeded to the business had not moved with
the times. One, already middle-aged when the Civil
War broke out, had been such an outspoken Democrat
that many good clients left; the other, of a scholarly
turn, devoted his time to the compilation of myopic
treatises on abstruse legal subjects—‘‘The Law of Deo-
dand” and ‘History of Seisin.”’

The offices which Dean & Llanfear occupied were in
a remodelled brick house on 4th Street between Chest-
nut and Walnut Streets. The courts had once been
near them on Independence Square, but had several
years ago moved up to City Hall. When Morris
joined as a student in the sixties, the two Dean broth-
ers, both bachelors, still lived in the two large front
rooms, taught their students in a room in the centre
of the house, large and dark, now devoted to stenog-
raphers, and transacted their diminishing affairs in the
5960 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

old library. A time-worn clerk, shrivelled, dusty, in-
ebriate, shared the third story with the butler and a
boy of all work, who copied letters when he was not
busy shining his master’s shoes, or running across the
street to Tapp’s ale-house for stout and oysters. The
old Deans finally died, the old clerk was pensioned, the
butler retired, and the boy of all work was now spe-
cializing in a flourishing admiralty practice.

Carl paused for a moment in front of the white mar-
ble steps, scrupulously clean by contrast to the dirty
brickwork of the rest of the house. It looked dreary
and unkempt. The dust whirled drily on the curb
above layers of grime along the edges of the house line.
A little wave of depression broke through his senses.
He pulled himself together, and walked quickly through
the open door...

Miss Jason at the telephone switchboard pulled with
nervous fingers at the metal strap which held the re-
ceiver in place, and tangled it in her gray hair. “How
are you, Mr. Carl—delighted to see you looking so
well—how is Mrs. Llanfear? Yes, they’re all in.
Which one would you like to see, Mr. Morris, Mr.
Richard, or Mr. Brackway?” Miss Jason never ad-
mitted that Mr. Brackway was a member in equal
standing with the others.

Carl found his uncle Morris with a client, Mr. Wil-
liam Reese Charter. Mr. Charter put out a soft hand
which seemed to swallow Carl’s. He was a man of
about sixty, heavily and largely built, with long, droop-
ing white mustaches and large, slightly protuberant,
blue eyes, dressed in a loosely fitting tail-coat, shabby
but neat, a high collar cutting at his chin. Not quite
a gentleman . . . He looked earnestly in Carl’s face,DEAN & LLANFEAR 61

stooping, and spoke deliberately. “I’m delighted to
make your acquaintance, Mr. Llanfear. I knew your
father and he was very kind tome. All the Llanfears
have been very kind to me. You come, sir, of a line
of distinguished men. The name has counted much
in the annals of Philadelphia. You are fortunate, sir,
to carry on its high tradition at the Philadelphia bar—
a sacred trust. Well, Mr. Llanfear, I must not detain
you. I see you are eager to talk to your nephew. Good-
by, sir, good-by.”” He descended the stairs heavily.

“There goes a good fellow,” Morris said heartily.
“Worked up from an office boy. Your Uncle Dean
got him a position with the bank, and then with the
Reliable Trust Company. Now he’s in business for
himself, handles a good many estates. Your uncle
leans on him more each year. He has two pretty
daughters who go about. Polly married Billy Sylves-
ter. Well, come in and we’ll have a chat.”

Mr. Llanfear’s office—half study, half library—
filled most of the space on the second story of the
back wing of the house. His desk was in an alcove at
the extreme end, well lighted by the sunlight which
streamed through the bay window to the south. Two
comfortable leather armchairs were on either side of
the soft-coal fire. From one of the tables, as they en-
tered, rose a young man whose immense shock of
sandy-colored hair stood straight up, like a plume, as if
to add a cubit to his rather dumpy stature. He went
out with a tall pile of books in his arms, steadied by his
sharp little chin, which acted like a rudder to his bur-
den. He closed the door behind him by a skillful twist
of a foot without turning around.

“Spiven’s all right,” said Morris, “but he gets on
my nerves a good deal. He squats around here mostaa

  

62

 

THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

of the time, running down cases. We've nicknamed
him the ‘sleuth hound of the law’—‘sleuth hound,’ for
short. He can always get an authority on any ques-
tion if you give him enough time. He’s a typical re-
sult of the case system—not a principle in his head, no
power to reason. But I forget, you’re hot from the
case system and I suppose won’t hear a word against
it. I was brought up on text-books, with Blackstone,
and Kent, and Wharton as corner-stones, and I can’t
stomach this pecking at a case here and a case there,
and calling it the ‘Socratic’ method . . . I want you
to work all you can with Brackway. He’sa thoroughly
modern lawyer. You must get into court work early,
become intimate with the bar and bench. Your Uncle
Richard never has, and knows more business men than
lawyers. But when I was admitted I was in and out
of the courts all the time . . . Carl, I want everything
for you . . . And I'll get out as soon as you're thor-
oughly worked in.”’

“You mustn’t spoil me, Uncle Morris.”

Never fear. You won’t say that when you’ve been
with us for a while. Better stop in to see Brackway.”

Mr. Brackway, in the midst of dictation, beckoned
Carl in, without stopping his work, pointing at the
same time to the chair drawn close to his desk. Miss
MacTaut, his secretary, without losing a word, found
time to cast a malevolent glance at him. She hated to
have Mr. Brackway’s time wasted . . . The dictation
flowed on for five minutes, emphasized by thrusts in
the air of Mr. Brackway’s middle finger in the direc-
tion of his secretary’s head.. Mr: Brackway nodded.
Miss MacTaut rose silently and hurried out, bristling
with well-controlled efficiency, a perfect stenographer.

Mr. Brackway held out his hand. ‘Well, Carl, I
am glad to see you.”DEAN & LLANFEAR 63

“T just dropped in to pay my respects. I shan’t keep
you more than a minute.”

Mr. Brackway behind his desk was very different
from Mr. Brackway behind his wife at the garden
party. He was no longer timid, no longer at a loss.
Very impressive to clients his trick of absorbed lis-
tening, his studiously grave approach to a conclusion.

“T’d like to go through your experience again,’ he
said to Carl. ‘‘When I joined the bar eighteen years
ago it was very different, small and compact. You
knew every one. To-day I don’t know half the mem-
bers. The older men think it’s going to the dogs, and
blame it on the case system. I have a great deal of
respect for your uncle Morris’s views, but on that
score I can’t agree with him. They’re just as able men
practising now. But they’ve changed.”’

He looked a little rueful upon this reflection. “It’s
a pity, I suppose, but it’s inevitable. Men like Sergeant
and Wharton, Penrose, Binney, Meredith, and the
Brewsters, scholars and gentlemen, aren’t being pro-
duced any more.”

He pondered.

“T’m not sure I’d not rather be a business lawyer, as
we modern practitioners are called.” He glanced at
Carl, for encouragement, and his face suddenly bright-
ened. “And there’s John G. Johnson!” he cried.

The telephone at his elbow rang. “Hullo. No. I
can’t take the call. Say I’m in an important confer-
ence, Miss Jason . . . Johnson, the greatest lawyer the
world has ever seen! There’s not a New Yorker that
can touch him. And he’s great in a great time, vast
corporate organizations, great trusts, world-embracing
corporate business . . . I know I’d rather be practis-
ing now. Yes, I certainly envy you, Carl.”

The telephone bell rang again. “Yes, I... Oh!

saa64 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

  

Good gracious, I’d almost forgotten. My secretary re-
minds me that I am lunching up town with your aunt.
I mustn’t be late. Your aunt prefers punctuality,” he
concluded with a twinkle. ‘“Good-by, Carl, I’ve just
time. I am glad you’re coming. I’d meant to consult
1 | you about your Cousin Tunis, and here I’ve been gos-
siping. Good-by, my boy.” And he hurried out.

Carl lunched with his two uncles at the Club. Rich-
ard Llanfear was five years younger than his brother
Morris, shorter and heavier, tending at fifty-eight to
corpulence. As a young man he had been delicate, and
a warning against over-exertion had confirmed into a
principle his natural disinclination to exercise. Where
Morris was lean and brown from much riding and
driving, Richard was heavy and padded, with mild,
lobster eyes and long nose, which wavered between
them uncertainly. He looked tired of life, with noth-
ing but its worries to keep him going, burdened by all
the things he had spent his time in acquiring—the
great house on Spruce Street, filled with heavy furni-
ture, hung with heavy curtains, carpeted with heavy
rugs; a very substantial fortune, which he had built
up by wise investments—excellent investments, bonds
and mortgages, pile upon pile, stacked close in the nar-
now steel boxes at Llanfear & Company, which he
opened regularly on the first of each month to cut cou-
pons, hating the work, but with a feeling that a man
should look after what was his; a large corporate
practice, weighing on his spirit when he thought with
awe of the greatness of the affairs he handled; com-
mittees, boards of directors, the finance committee
of the Reliable Trust Company, the money of poor
people to handle, to invest, to secure—a grave respon-DEAN & LLANFEAR 65

sibility. His duties as a vestryman of St. Peter’s
were what he most loved or least disliked. As a boy
he had indulged himself with the secret idea that he
would some day be a clergyman; but his father, in
characteristic fashion, had called him a fool, saying
that no son of his should turn into a “damned snivel-
ling parson.” A fine sturdy old gentleman, the second
Dean Llanfear, who liked to have his own way...

And Richard, not being of the combative stuff of
which his parent was made, gave up that secret idea.

At twenty-three he married Molly Vickers, the
daughter of old Tom Vickers, whose blood from a so-
cial standpoint was irreproachable, but whose habits
were horrible. He died shortly after his daughter’s
marriage, ripe in sin if not in years, leaving to his two
sons a great deal of money, the blood, still presumably
blue but with little else to recommend it, and a taste for
the habits. Ina few years they both managed to drink
themselves to death; and Molly, with a large fortune
and two small boys, spent many sleepless nights and
offered many tearful prayers lest they should follow in
the footsteps of their grandfather and uncles. She was
a simple soul, with wide trustful eyes below an un-
wrinkled forehead, obviously destined for common-
place joys and sufferings, sincerely devout, with a
greater instinct for happiness than her husband. She
shared his views of the gravity of the mortal adventure,
was as conventional, and quite as narrow; but she could
not pull as long a face, and there lurked in her traces
of a gaiety more shamefaced than rebellious.

Carl had joined the Club a few years before but had
been there so little that he was surprised when the
door-man greeted him by name.

TA66 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

   

“We'll have a cocktail,” said Morris, “I’m not go-
| ing back to the office. But let’s order lunch first.”
1 They studied the menu.

) “Too early for ducks,” sighed Richard.

“Almost impossible to get decent game any more,”
said Morris.

“How about oysters?”

qaltsea,

“Do you like salts, Carl?”

“Oh, anything, Uncle Richard.”

“Soft-shell crabs?”

“All right, but for God’s sake tell John to ask the
chef not to fry them in those beastly bread-crumbs.
Little fellows, with butter,’”’ said Richard.

“Cold corned beef—that’s rather decent here, Carl—
what do you say?”

“Perfect, Uncle Morris. But not too much if we’re
going to ride.”

“No, just a good bite . . . and a crisp tomato and
lettuce salad. Dessert? Very well, order it later...
Here, boy. And tell John to put a pint of Clicquot ’98
on the ice. A good year. Your Uncle Richard doesn’t
drink, and that will do us nicely.”

They passed through the hall into the long living-
rooms, two rooms thrown into one, panelled in oak,
empire pressed glass chandeliers suspended from the
high ceiling, where men lounged in leather armchairs,
reading papers, or talked in groups by the windows.
The grille was filled with a noisy cheerful crowd, lean-
ing on the long mahogany bar in twos and threes, eat-
ing sandwiches and drinking ale; a solid, intimate
crowd, who had grown up together, had ridden and
played golf, danced and dined, prospered, failed, made
love, married, grown old in the same closely preservedDEAN & LLANFEAR

circle, the heart of the larger circle that eddied about it.
The line wavered or broke here and there from out-
side pressure, but never enough to dent the hard sur-
face of this little inner kernel, static, polite, indifferent
to the world without, charming to its world within.
There, even if you didn’t like a man, you knew at least
that he belonged .. .

Billy Thrush hove cheerily in, slapped Carl on the
back with explosive cordiality, accepted with emphatic
approval the offer of a cocktail, and asked Richard
Llanfear with earnest solicitude what he thought of the
municipal bond market. Judge Thrall lounged up, his
eyes keen under the dishevelled mop of white hair.
“I’m sure glad to see you, and to know you're going
to join the bar,” he drawled to Carl, with a trace of
Southern accent which twenty-five years in Philadel-
phia had not quite destroyed.

“How is Ellen, Judge? She’s suddenly shot up into
something very handsome.”

“That’s because you’ve been away, Carl. She’s
nearly eighteen. She wants to go to college. She’s
rather a serious girl.”

“Her age . . . You'll let her gor”

“T always let her do what she wants. She knows
that a great deal better than I do.”

“She was always an independent little thing,’
Carl.

“Damned independent.”

Carew Acton came over from the bar to shake
hands with Carl and to tell him he was glad to see him
at the Club and hoped he would come often. Carl
watched his quiet motions, and wondered why the slim
and compact figure, perfectly valeted, always suggested
power ; power behind and within, far below the gentle

y

said

67

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
 
 
 
  
   
   
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

=.68 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

inflections of his voice . . . Rembrandt Llanfear, re-
splendent in a cutaway, bobbed in for a drink to fortify
himself against the imminent nuptials of the daughter
of an old friend.

“Think of it,” he said to Carl, drawing his chair
closer, lowering his voice to an intimate pitch, and tap-
ping him lightly on the knee with a finger, “a daugh-
ter of Marie Pember old enough to get married! It’s
incredible—yes, brandy and soda. A little while ago
she was running round in short frocks. You wouldn’t
call me old, yet her mother andI .. .” He pulled up
with a jerk. After all, the Club was hardly a place for
tender reminiscence.

“Luncheon is ready, sir.”

“Come along,” said Morris to Carl. “Your Uncle
Richard must get back to the office.”

“Why not all of us lunch together ?”’ suggested Judge
Thrall.

“T can’t,” said Acton, getting up. ‘Llanfear,” he
turned to Carl, “I haven’t had a chance to congratulate
you. Your wife is charming, a rare beauty.”

In the dining-room eight of them, at a round table,
discussed the remark. The order for a pint had been
cancelled, and they were rolling dice—all except Carl,
who was treated as a guest of honor—to see who should
pay for the three quarts that had been substituted.

“He oughtn’t to have said it, at least not the last
part,” said a little round bald-headed man, Owen Roth,
who spent all his time at the Club, and hated to eat
alone.

“T think perhaps Curly has a common streak,” ven-
tured Richard Llanfear. “From his father, you know.”
“But why shouldn’t he say it?” asked Carl.DEAN & LLANFEAR 69

“Tt was the way he said it,” Billy Thrush interjected,
in his explosive way. ‘Almost publicly. He ought
to have taken you aside.”

“Gentlemen,” said Judge Thrall, “allow me to sug-
gest that you're talking rot. Could anything be more
charming than a compliment to a beautiful woman made
to her proud husband? I'll prove it to you. Gentle-
men,’ he raised his glass, “I propose the health of
Carl’s bride.”

They drank enthusiastically.

“That sounded all right,” said Morris. They
laughed. “Perhaps,” he added, “it depends on who
speaks the lady’s name.”

They all shook hands very warmly with Carl when
he left, making him feel how glad they were that he
was home, that he was here to stay, that he was one
of them. He had thought of his first meal at the Club
as a stiff affair, lunching alone with his uncles, the oth-
ers glowering at him from where they ate... And
here they were, slapping him on the back, as if he had
always been a part of them. And he was a part of
them, he told himself, glowing with their friendliness
and hospitality—he had always been a part of them;
and if he had been away for so long, it was good to
know, when at last he came home, that he had not lost
touch, that he could never lose touch, because after all
he was a Philadelphian and a Llanfear.CHAPTER VII

PONDELLO

FRANCESCA was beginning to feel herself a part of
the Llanfears. A vast family, touching everything,
their hands on everything, related to every one, inter-
married for several generations with other great
names, the Deans, the Morris’s, the Madagascar
Jones’s. Entrenched, solid, a great family. They clung
closely together, were greatly interested in each other’s
comings and goings, talked incessantly about the fam-
ily past and present, gave large heavy family dinners.
Francesca liked to hear about their exploits, and was
apt at such intricacies as maiden names and distant
cousinships. She had a neat mind, which sorted and
catalogued social experiences. She soon surprised Carl
by her knowledge of his relations. She cared, appar-
ently, a good deal about that sort of thing... .

She was cautious of first impressions, turning them
through the mill of her New England conservatism,
with the steady unblinking caution which in a man
would have been called shrewdness. Francesca was not
shrewd; she was careful, and dreaded mistakes, fear-
ing that they would follow Carl’s impetuousness.

It was therefore a great relief to find that the Llan-
fears were just like any one else. She liked to think
of the uncles in romantic terms. Dean was a gentle-
man of the old school. That was where his eldest
daughter Lydia got her breeding. Morris—she didn’t
like Morris much, she thought he might be interfering,
he treated Carl as if he owned him. Of course they
70PONDELLO 71

would have Low Hill some day, as there were no chil-
dren to inherit, but she didn’t like Chestnut Hill. But
Aunt Jane was a grande dame. Richard was a medieval
mystic.

“Nonsense, Francesca,” said Carl, “he’s a man of
property.”

“That’s not his inner self. He might have been an-
other Savonarola.”’

“Looks more like Simple Simon,” muttered Carl.

Rembrandt, of course, was a man of the world...
Carl was harder to define, you couldn’t say just what
he was. He seemed to be changing, ever since they
had come home. She couldn’t find him, was not sure
of him. He said queer things now and then. She
couldn’t bear it if he were queer. It made her uncom-
fortable. Francesca disliked the unknown.

She couldn’t place the aunts so well. Mrs. Brack-
way was an overpowering lady; she ought to have been
aman. Not a bit like the youngest aunt, Lydia, who
was sentimental and clinging and dependent. Mrs.
Morrisoun was rather an unknown quantity. You
couldn’t really appreciate Aunt Sidney, Carl said, till
you saw her at Pondello.

They drove over with the Morris Llanfears from
Low Hill to Pondello to spend the Thanksgiving week-
end. The day was full of the wine and stir of late
autumn, yellow and red with leaves that fell and rus-
tled, tinged with the smell of burning leaves, the smoke
rising in vague spirals or sudden puffs as a rake added
fuel to a smouldering pile.

Carl drove, with Francesca in front, his aunt and
uncle behind. Francesca watched the rolling hills and
fields of hardy corn, cut and stacked bivouac fashion;
the chestnuts climbing Barren Hill against the horizon;

,72 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

the yellow stubble and rich red-brown earth of the
white-fenced farms, with a sense of belonging to the
well-ordered country, as if she had been born and
brought up there.

‘“‘There’s Pondello,” said Uncle Morris, pointing to
a thickly wooded hill, from which rose, leaning a little
out of the trees, a dim brown and gray house, shape-
less and vast, except where the jut of a tower took
striking outline.

“Tt’s an odd place, straggling and ugly, with great
shabby rooms and all the embalmed trash of sixty
years, but full of charm. I wouldn’t change a stick.
Time does something to line, and more to surface.”

“T love it,”’ said Carl.

They were driving up an avenue of tall oaks and pop-
lars, through which Francesca could see the sugges-
tion of a “park” that lay neat about the woods but had
not yet subdued the meadows along its borders. The
drive curved around the back of the house, a tall cold
sombre shoulder, loosely hung with vines above the
kitchens and outhouses that huddled beneath it, and
suddenly, in a little circle still in great trees, came
under a high porte-cochére. Below them the trees
opened on a mile of meadow-land, smiling and quiet,
cut by a brook, over which the arch of a small stone
bridge seemed to hold and focus the landscape.

“How lovely,” said Francesca, turning away to the
steps reluctantly.

There were a great many people, it seemed to her,
framed in a high and friendly buzzing of talk. Mrs.
Lindley Morrisoun, a tall horse of a woman, snatched
her at the threshold and hurried her to a seat next her
own at the tea table. She treated Francesca as if she
were something fragile and exquisite. ‘‘Sit here, dear,
near the fire. You must be frozen. Now don’t tryPONDELLO 73

to talk till you get some tea in you.” Mr. Morri-
soun was a small, clean-shaven, vague man. “Lind-
ley, have you spoken to Francesca? He’s so absent-
minded, my dear. Now then Amy, some toast for
Francesca. Where did you say John was, Amy? My
daughter, Francesca, married a man with brains, and
pays the price. He’s always doing brilliant things in
his profession, finding out why people get tired or
bored or married. But he never has time to come to
Pondello. I believe, however, as a special compliment
to the bride, he’s to drift in late to-night. ‘When I was
a girl medical gentlemen were content to be general
practitioners, as it was called. But they tell me this is
an age of specialists, and that’s what John Sarter 1s.
Where’s Gerald?”

Gerald Falcon, it appeared, was taking a walk with
Anne Frew, and presently they came in.

“He’s our black sheep,’”’ Mrs. Morrisoun shouted to
Francesca, as she introduced him. ‘Gerald, what have
you been up to?”

“Trying to keep up with Anne,” he said, smiling,
sitting near the fire next to Francesca.

Anne laughed. “It makes me sound pretty speedy.”

“Where’s Clinton, Anne?” Mrs. Morrisoun asked.

“Couldn’t come. Went to Baltimore on some kind
of male jubilee.”

“Thank goodness for that. I don’t know how I
could have got any one else in. There are eleven now,
twelve if Letty stays. She’s dining, but I don’t know
if she’s sleeping. Lydia, who don’t you give Gerald
his tea?”

Lydia Llanfear had taken her sister’s place at the
tea-table. ‘I’ve been making it fresh,” she said. “Here
it is, Gerald.”’

    
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 

a,74 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“May I have some now,” asked Anne. “Francesca,
when you’ve spent a week-end at Pondello, you'll real-
ize it’s guiding principle is to make men comfortable.”

Mr. Morrisoun gave a sudden gurgling laugh, and
relapsed into silence.

“Of course we do. I spoil Lindley within an inch
of his life, but he’s too absent-minded to notice it.
Aren’t you, dear? I’m sure Francesca agrees with me.
She’s lived abroad so much. I hate to see men bob-
bing up and down to women, the way they do in the
States. It’s so indecorous. English manners are so
much better than ours.”

“T love to spoil men,” Lydia murmured, her eyes on
Gerald.

“Give me some more tea, Lydia, and don’t be an
ass,” said Gerald.

“Francesca, my dear,”’ said Mrs. Morrisoun, “I want
you to see Pondello with me. You may not get a
chance to-morrow. We have an hour before the dress-
ing bell. Dinner’s at eight. You must get a rest, too.
Brides need rest.”

Carl was talking to Anne Frew on a sofa. He didn’t
look up when Francesca rose. The others were too
busy with themselves to notice her. Suddenly she felt
neglected. It would be always like that. They had
so much together, so much in common that could never
be hers . . . She turned slowly and followed Mrs.
Morrisoun into the drawing-room.

It was a vast house, grown old and shabby with a
gentle amiability which disarmed analysis. The room
they had entered retained a certain bygone splendor of
giit and yellow brocade and mirrors, scratched and
dim with age, the plaster peeling from the ornatePONDELLO 75

mouldings on the ceiling. The Louis Sixteenth chairs
stood about like faithful retainers in ancient liveries,
in attendance to the frailer tables on their delicate
carved legs, littered with small light objects, little Ital-
ian olive-wood boxes, heavily embroidered runners of
Spanish lace, tortoise-shell and mother-of-pearl paper-
cutters, a piece of Venetian glass with one handle
broken, a paper-backed French novel in a decorated
Italian leather cover, a chipped magnifying-glass with
a teak-wood handle.

Francesca murmured some words that sounded to
her like a condolence.

“Oh, it’s terribly run-down, we can’t afford to keep
it up decently. My grandfather built it and furnished
it—spent his life here when he wasn’t travelling.
Father left it to Lydia and me. Rembrandt helps us
with it, though he’s not here much himself.”

“What does he do?”

“Nothing. He’s what they call a man about town.
I wish he had a profession, not a business, you know,
but a nice profession. I was always brought up to
think that gentlemen didn’t go into business. But all
that’s changing.” She sighed. “Of course, Mr. Mor-
risoun isn’t a money maker. The Morrisouns never
were.”

“No?” said Francesca, not knowing exactly what
to say.

“No.” Mrs. Morrisoun shook her head conclusively.
“No, he’s a scholar. He has his profession, of course,
but he doesn’t practise.”’

Now?’

“No.” Again the head-shake. “He writes.”

“Oh,” said Francesca, with a little more animation.
“Novels ?”76 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“Dear no. Treatises on international law in French.
They’re sometimes published in the foreign quarter-
lies. But it’s not lucrative.’ She sighed. She was
proud of her scholarly and leisurely husband.

They wandered through the house. Occasionally
Mrs. Morrisoun would pull a drawer out of a table,
stuffed with yellowing papers, menus of forgotten ban-
quets, dance cards, theatre programmes, photographs.
Apparently nothing was ever destroyed. “I’m always
meaning to go through my papers, but when I begin I
don’t like the idea of throwing anything away. And it
takes so much time to tidy up. Don’t you think so?
Besides, there’s plenty of room still.”

They were sitting in a corner of the ball-room,
across from the candles which Mrs. Morrisoun had
lit on their entrance. Francesca felt tired to the point
of struggling against inattention. But Aunt Sidney
had not stopped talking. “You mustn’t get wrapped
up in your husband, my dear. My daughter Amy mar-
ried John Sarter. He’s of Jewish extraction, a Chris-
tian Jew, as a matter of fact.” Francesca wondered
what a Christian Jew was, and reserved the question
for Carl. ‘“He’s very brilliant, and what they call a
good provider. But no one ever sees Amy, she’s too
much wrapped up in him and in her children. Of
course she’s very happy, not like poor Anne Frew.
Anne can’t have any children, you know, and she
minds it terribly and doesn’t know what to do with
herself,”

“What’s the matter?”

“No one knows. She’s seen every one, been to Wies-
baden to consult that new man, I forget his name, who
they say can make any one have children. But not
Anne. No use. It’s too bad. She’s wild about chi-PONDELLO a9

dren. I have an idea it’s Clinton’s fault. Nice boy,
but he doesn’t look like—well, like a potential father.
Of course I don’t think this modern athletic craze is
very wise for girls. I never would let Amy hunt.
Anne’s been let run rather wild. I always thought she
was fond of her cousin Gerald.”

“Is Gerald her cousin?”

“Second cousin. Gerald and Carl were always rather
fond of Anne. I had hopes that perhaps Carl and Anne
_. . But he’s made a much wiser choice in you, my
dear. But don’t get wrapped up in him. That re-
minds me. I want you to join the Board of the Home.”

“The Home?”

“The Home for Worthy Gentlewomen in Reduced
Circumstances. There’s a vacancy, and we need a
young energetic woman on the board, and some one
who thinks like us. It’s been in the family for a hun-
dred and twenty years.”

“But I don’t know anything about retired gentle-
women,” laughed Francesca.

“Reduced. I'll tell you about it after dinner. Heav-
ens!” she cried, jumping up, “there goes the dressing
bell. I haven’t given you a moment to rest. Poor dear,
never mind, you can sleep late and have a fat morning,
as the French say. Don’t forget I must consult Carl
about Letty.” She shook her head ominously. ‘“Letty’s

getting very queer.”

oP,

Francesca was taken in to dinner on her host’s arm,
with Gerald Falcon on the other side. Letty Llanfear,
John Sarter, and Rembrandt Llanfear had arrived.

They stood up, waiting for Mr. Morrisoun to say
grace. He cleared his throat. “Never mind, Cousin
Lindley, I’ll say it,” said Gerald. “Bless, O Father,78 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

these Thy Llanfears, while they fill their bellies for
Thy sake. Amen.”

Mr. Morrisoun, as he sat down, looked more con-
fused than shocked. His wife’s voice from the other
end of the table reached him over the laughter. “Never
mind, Lindley, Gerald’s always been an infidel.”

‘And black sheep,” said Francesca, smiling at him.
He was a big man, strongly built, with strong rough
hands, and a great hooked nose, not handsome, looked
like his name, she thought. The kind of a man who
would say anything.

He grinned down at her. “Fame gets about quickly
in Philadelphia. Silly expression. Why not a black
goat, symbol of Pan and his crew. I suppose if I’m
a black sheep Carl’s a white one.”

She looked down the table at her husband, between
Mrs. Morrisoun and Letty Llanfear. Miss Letty sat
straight and tense, the worn fingers of one hand crum-
bling the bread before her.

“Do you think he’s too white?” she asked.

“Spotless. Full of reform and all that stuff. He’ll
get over it if he stays here.”

She didn’t like the grin—a cruel mouth. “You're
evidently not interested in reform, Mr. Falcon.”’

“T think it’s a vicarious sort of life—a kind of
refuge, I suppose.”

“A refuge from what?”

“That depends on your particular Hound of Heaven.
Carl’s is, I think, a female hound.”

She didn’t understand him, and tried another tack.
“You’re very old friends, aren’t you—you and Carl,
and Anne Frew and Mrs. Sarter ?”

He looked at her quickly. ‘Why did you ask?”
How queer he was. She couldn’t understand him.PONDELLO 79

She didn’t like him. Why were all these women crazy
about him?

“Well, you all seem very—intimate.”’

“It always seems like that to some one on the out-
side. We are in cross-currents now, not a crowd. Carl
and Anne, Anne and I, Anne and Amy. I think Anne
holds us together. And Pondello,” he added. “Pon-
dello is something very dear in common that we all
come back to. The Morrisouns are absurd, if you like,
but they know the charm of living. It lingers here in
this funny Tuscan house more than any place I know.”

She glanced sideways at him, a little surprised.
“You care for those things?”

“Like all truants, to come back to. If I lived
here—” he opened his hands in a gesture of dismay.

“Ts Philadelphia such a hopeless place to live in,
then?”

He stroked his mustache, considering. “Are you
contented ?”’ he asked her, quite seriously.

She flushed, again misunderstanding him. “Of
course I’m not discontented.”

“T thought not. Then you won't find it hopeless.
Rather the reverse. I like it because I’ve escaped.”

“How about Carl?”

“T think he’ll make a fight before accepting it. He’s
bound to suffer, but he’ll stay. He doesn’t know what
he wants, but just now, he’s inspirited by illusions.
That will die here, and then he won’t have anything
else

She hated him now, definitely, and with the desire
to hurt him.

“You're quite a cynic, aren’t you, Mr. Falcon?”

But he only grinned at her, and she turned to Mr.
Morrisoun, who was saying, in an almost inaudible80 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

voice, his eyes on her plate, “I haven’t been in Florence
for twenty-five years. I suppose you would say it had
changed considerably since then?”

After port and cigars, when the men joined the
women in the pleasant untidy library, Carl wanted to
talk to Anne Frew, who looked extraordinarily hand-
some, he thought, but he was waylaid by Mrs. Morri-
soun, while with slight annoyance he saw Gerald and
Anne drift to a far corner of the room.

“Carl,” his aunt said, “there is something I want to
consult you about. Draw your chair a little closer.
There—it’s about Letty. Did you notice her to-
night ?”

“Not particularly.”

“She’s getting very queer.”

“Getting’’..",

“Yes, I know. She’s always been odd. But it’s
moving to a crisis.”

“Change of life?” murmured Carl.

“Carl! You oughtn’t to say those things. But I’ve
been brought up among professional men and I’m used
to their brutal frankness.” She leaned closer to him.
She had nice, level, humorous eyes, Aunt Sidney, not
hard but certainly not soft. Perhaps once she had been
pretty.

“Pm really worried about her. You know we're all
very fond of Letty, and she treats Pondello like a
home. But much less lately. She hardly goes out at
alt now, and she stayed all last summer in town in that
great dark Chestnut Street house in all the noise and
dust. I thought perhaps she wasn’t well, so one day
in August I went in to see her. Carl, she lives like a
pauper. All the rooms were shut except the kitchen
and the servants’ dining-room. She lives in the kitchenSI

 

PONDELLO

and sleeps in the dining-room. She has that dreadful
old woman, Mary Miggins, cook for her, and Mary oc-
cupies one of the first-floor bedrooms, and I’m sure
bosses Letty horribly. I had a dreadful time getting in
—front door barricaded, shutters all down. Finally, I
pounded on the alley gate till Letty let me in herself,
after peering at me first through the peep-hole. But
she was really glad to see me, and hospitable in an awk-
ward way—gave me a cup of coffee, which she made on
the range. The whole place was littered with news-
papers, covering the floor, piled in the corners and on
the chairs. She was making a quilt out of newspapers,
much warmer than eiderdown, she said, for next win-
ter. And in the middle of it she suddenly went silent,
and there, standing in the door, was that horrible
woman.”

“Mary Miggins?”

“Mary Miggins, looking at us with a sullen anger
out of her filthy hair. I was startled but more an-
gry. I’m never afraid of servants.

“Did you ring, Letty?’ I said, ‘I think your cook
is waiting for you.’

“No, no,’ said Letty, a little sheepishly, ‘I don't
think I rang’; and then, as the woman lingered, ‘Get
out of here, can’t you!’ she shouted at her. And she
got out.”

“Gosh,” said Carl, and looked over to where Miss
Letty sat, near Amy Sarter, on a high stool, leaning
forward, one knee between her two hands, her foot
thrust out, the stocking wrinkled about the ankle.

“T was rather worried and I thought that old wretch
might be getting money from her. So I went down to
Llanfear & Co., where she’s always banked, to see what

I could find out. I knew your uncle would be away,
at Bar Harbor, and it would be a chance to get some82 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

 

information out of that nice young man, who acts as
his sort of amanuensis, Mr. Spindle.”

“Windle, aunty.”

“I never can get his name right. He’s always so
polite.”

“Could you find out anything?”

“Tm telling you . . . Well, I just spread the whole
thing before him, and made him feel how worried we
all were. Then I asked him outright how much money
Letty had and how it was invested. He looked
troubled, and said he didn’t know. I suggested that
perhaps he could find out. He hesitated and then went
out to look up her account, I suppose. He was so grave
when he came back that of course I thought poor Letty
had lost everything her father had left her. It must
have been a pretty tidy sum, for old DeLancey Llan-
fear had more than a competence for those days.
Neither of the girls were tied up. So silly not to tie
up women!” she paused, and wiped her face.

“T was all wrong,” she resumed. “He wouldn’t tell
me how much she had or what it was in. But he said
her income was more than enough for her to live in
real luxury, and that her investments were ‘gilt-edged,’
as he put it. I remember he said ‘Miss Llanfear is a
remarkably shrewd business woman.’ That was a great
relief. At least she wasn’t being bled. But, Carl, she’s
very queer.”

“Well, eccentric—”’

“Worse than that. Did you notice the way she was
watching Gerald to-night? Of course, he’s her great-
nephew, but she’s very strange with him. When he
comes in she can hardly open her mouth, and her eyes
never leave him.”

“How does Gerald take it?”
“Letty seems to amuse him. He treats her as if shePONDELLO 83

were a child, rather cavalierly. Slaps her on the back
and calls her ‘good old Letty’—his great-aunt—‘good
old Letty’!

Carl laughed. “Well,” concluded his aunt, leaning
back on her sofa, “‘it’s nice to talk to you about this,
and get a man’s advice. It’s so helpful. I am glad
you're back to stay, Carl, I was afraid you were getting
like Gerald, and your mother’s rather a nomad. Phila-
delphia needs men like you—men of standing and the
old tradition. I think Francesca is a lovely girl, and
so well-bred.”

Everybody, thought Francesca, seemed to be kissing
everybody else, except Mr. Morrisoun, who hovered
about, avoiding embraces, and Gerald Falcon, loung-
ing in the background, hands in his pockets.

Carl and Francesca reached their room, ascending
one flight, passing down another, through a large dim
bathroom and a hall bedroom, where Carl bumped into
a sewing dummy, all bust and wire, and loosed a pile
of photographs which it was supporting.

“Carl, I don’t like Gerald Falcon.”

“Gerald? Oh, old Gerald’s all right. What did he
say to you?”

She tried to remember, finding it a little hard. “It’s
more the way he says it. Sneers at everything. I
think he’s terribly stuck-up. He pretends to know
every one much better than any one else. And all the
things we care about he laughs at.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, your ideas about reform and all.”

“Oh,” said Carl, “Gerald’s always been like that.
He’s got a different point of view, that’s all.”

“T don’t care, I bet he’s terribly immoral and—
selfish.”84 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“T think Gerald does lead rather a selfish life.”

“Carl, do you think Anne Frew is very fond of her
husband ?”’

“What an idea, Francesca! Of course she’s fond of
Clinton, devoted to him. Whatever put such a thought
in your head °”’

“Well, she seems pretty free with every one.”

“Francesca! You mustn’t say things like that about
Anne. She’s closer to me than almost any one. Anne’s
splendid—worth the lot of us.”

“Well, you certainly seem very fond of her.”

“Oh, Francesca! You talk as if you were jealous.”

“You needn’t worry about that .. .”

He looked sharply at her. “Do you really think...”

“T don’t think anything.”

“Oh, well, if that’s how you feel.” He shrugged,
and they undressed in silence.

He lay, staring into the dark. He couldn’t under-
stand her. She couldn’t be like that, suspicious and
hard. Somewhere, perhaps, it had been his fault. She
may have felt out of things, lonely, a resentment of
hurt loneliness. Horrible, this misunderstanding, this
pain between them, all about nothing.

“‘Cesca, dear.”

Vesta

Ces are you-all right?’

‘Yes?

“Good night, darling.”

“Good night.”

Her voice sounded small and flat. It was too diffi-
cult, he couldn’t goon...

Breakfast at Pondello, a late breakfast, leisurely and
extended, sweetbreads cooked with sherry, muffins,PONDELLO 85

waffles, the food kept warm in brass heaters on the
heavy Victorian sideboards. Gerald had been up early
riding, and ate hungrily, next to Lydia Llanfear, who
piled his plate and filled his cup. Anne, across the
table, quiet, brooding, flushed in her brooding. Carl
watching Anne, watching Francesca. Francesca look-
ing up at Carl, catching his eye, avoiding it. Damn,
thought Carl, what’s the matter with her, is she really
jealous of Anne—Anne and me? Anne was oblivious
to everything about her, fallen into a deep mood of
inner contentment, a mood he knew well, as if her spirit
dreamed about her sleepy body, spirit and body one in
their content, fallow, untroubled, her mood lighting the
rosy glow of her body . . . Anne smiling to herself.

‘What are you staring at me like that for, Carl?
Do I look queer ?”’

“T’m not staring, Anne.”

“Carl’s in one of his moods this morning,” said Amy
Sarter.

“Does he have moods?” Francesca asked, in her
level, innocent voice.

“Don’t you know that yet, Francesca? Brides are
blind. Part of Carl’s charm is that he’s queer.” She
looked at Anne.

“T won’t have him called queer,”’ cried Anne, jump-
ing up. “Not by you anyway, Amy. He’s not queer.”
She put her arms around Francesca, as if to protect
her. “We won’t have it, will we, Francesca?” she said,
and kissed her. I hate her, thought Francesca, feeling
Anne’s warm kiss on her cool lips, lips that would have
trembled if she had spoken.

In the afternoon Carew Acton drove his four-in-

maa86 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

hand over from Rosemont. They were standing un-
der the high and narrow porte-cochére when Fran-
cesca came out with the others, a small neat groom at
the pawing leaders’ heads.

“You haven’t got much room there, Acton,” said
Dr. Sarter. He was a lean, rather handsome dark Jew,
with an intense, intellectual face.

“Plenty. I could do it on a canter.”

“Bet you a ten spot,” offered Carl.

“Right,” Acton straightened.

“Wait a minute,” cried Francesca. “May I come on
the box with you?”

“May you come? ... Andrews, help Mrs. Llan-
fear, I’ve got the horses. Easy, Betty, easy, girl.”

m@esea® jplease:.,;. <You're crazy:’? -Garlehad ‘his
hand on her shoulder.

“Let me alone, can’t you!” she flared at him under
her breath, her temper suddenly breaking, her eyes hard
and cold, and, shaking herself free, put her foot on
the step, took Acton’s hand, was at his side before they
could stop her. And on the instant Acton started the
bays around the narrow circle, so that they were gal-
loping when the little groom swung on behind, as the
rear wheels cleared the porte-cochere. The coach
seemed to lean over rounding the curve, the leaders
danced, the wheel horses were back on their haunches,
and the four-in-hand stood motionless again in front
of the steps, the little groom at the leaders’ heads.

“You're wonderful,” he whispered to her, ‘“‘ador-
able.”

She touched his hand and smiled, triumph surging
through her, and jumped down.

Carl was leaning against the doorway, white and
trembling, feeling sick.PONDELLO 87

“She’s a little beast,” said Amy Sarter to her hus-
band.

“I think she’s splendid,” said Anne, “and darn good
tor Carl.”CHAPTER VIII
TWO WILLS

Carx felt, when he began to practise, very much as
he had felt during his first six months at the Harvard
Law School, a bewildered floundering in a sea of cases
which seemed to have no principle or relation. Out of
the chaos of the case system had arisen the beginning
of a conception, the gradual growth into something
ancient, solid, beautiful; at times like the flowering of
his own mind, at times the inner history of the thought
of his race, of its life, the ebb and flow of its expres-
sion, imperfect but fluid, reaching—the Common Law.
As the conception solidified the theory of law grew
tiresome, and he began to long for the contact of actual
practice. But practice, when it came, was as unintel-
ligible as a strange language, which the others talked
with apparent ease, an inherited scattering of rules,
without meaning or rationality.

His first client came much sooner than he had ex-
pected, a few days after the visit to Pondello.

Olga Schlumberg for more than thirty years had
been a peripatetic possession of the Llanfears, wan-
dering from family to family, finding something to do
each year, for she was too “nice” to lose, and they
handed her about among themselves, a nursery gOv-
erness without pride, timid, and delicate. She had been
rescued from domestic service by Mrs. Charles Llan-
fear, whose observant eye was on the lookout for a
good nurse for her cousin, Lillian Falcon, greatly in
need of just the right person for Gerald, who, already
at the tender age of three, showed unmistakable signs
of black sheepdom.

88TWO WILLS 89

Olga was thin and tall and pale, dim blue eyes be-
hind heavy gold-rimmed spectacles, warm-hearted, sen-
timental, unwarrantably grateful to all Llanfears, who,
she considered, had made it possible for her to live
more like a lady than a servant. She looked tired, Carl
thought, as he handed her a chair by his desk.

“T hope I’m not intruding, Mr. Carl?”

“Olga! Of course you’re not. But you mustn’t call
me Mr. Carl. If you do I’ll have to call you Fraulein
Schlumberg.”

“Oh, Mr. Carl. I couldn’t. You’re so grown up
now. How is Mrs. Carl?”

“Very well, thanks. Why haven’t you been to see
us?”

“I did come once, but you were out, and I didn’t
give the girl my name. I didn’t want to bother Mrs.
Carl.’

‘Nonsense, come in and have a cup of tea with us,
Francesca would love to see you.”

Color came to her cheeks. “Thank you, Mr. Carl.
But I musn’t take your time now. I know how busy
you are.”

“Not at all,” said Carl, looking at his desk. “At
least not just now. What can I do for you?”

She stared at him in silence for a moment. “I’m
not very well. The doctor says it won’t be very long.”
She took out her handkerchief and twisted it in her
moist hands, looking down. “I’ve got cancer,” she
said, choking. “They cut off one breast last year.”

“Olga!” He got up, choking too, put an arm about
her neck, and gave her a kiss. When he had come
back from his turn about the room, she was wiping
her eyes with the lump of her handkerchief.

“T didn’t know.”go THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“No, I didn’t tell any people. There was no good.
And so Id like to make a will.”

“Of course, that’s easy. But, Olga, you'll probably
live for years.”

“No,” she answered in her gentle voice, “I don’t
think so. There’s to be another operation. I’ve put
away some money, but I can’t work much now, only
odd jobs, and I’d like to leave something in my will, I
mean more than enough just to be buried with. These
operations cost a great deal of money.”

“But you could go to the ward, I mean—”

“Oh, Mr. Carl! I couldn’t do that. But I thought
maybe—Mrs. Carl is on the board of the Home for
Gentlewomen, and Mrs. Morrisoun. She’d help me,
I know, only I hear it’s very hard to get in. Then I
wouldn’t spend what’s left and would have enough to
be buried nicely. Id like that put in the will—to be
buried at Baritone’s funeral establishment.”

“But, Olga, we’d always look after you.”

“T don’t want that—to be a burden on anyone. I
think I’ll have enough. It won’t be very long. Could
you make my will for me?”

“Why, of course.” He drew paper and pencil to
him. ‘How do you want your money left? Have you
any relations in America?”’

“No, and father never kept up with any one in the
old country. I’d like to leave everything I have to Mr.
Gerald.”

She blushed. ‘He was my first baby. I don’t
think I was very good for him, or he wouldn’t have
been so wild as a young man. But he’s really all
right.”

“Then you'll want some one to act as your execu-
tor,” said Carl professionally.TWO WILLS gl

“Oh, I forgot about that. Would you do that, Mr.
Carl? I don’t want to bother you, but I would feel
better if you did.” She got up. “And you won't for-
get to put that in about my being buried at Mr. Bari-
tone’s? And if you could speak to Mrs. Morrisoun and
Mrs. Carl about the Home?”

“Of course I will. Come in to sign the will to-mor-
row, Say at eleven.”

“Good-by, Mr. Carl.”

“Good-by, Olga.”

He drew the will three times and submitted the final
draft to his uncle Morris. There was, he felt, a cer-
tain appropriate climax about the instrument, opening
with a simple direction to pay debts, passing to the
burial directions, to the disposition of the property, and
ending, in the clause appointing him the executor, in
a crescendo of artistic technical language—powers to
sell land and convey it without liability to the pur-
chaser, to enter into reorganization of companies in
which the deceased held stock; directions as to the ex-
ercise of powers under other wills, as to specific lega-
cies in regard to taxation. For after all she might die
seized of land and possessed of securities. Olga, awed
by the terrible language, signed it with a glow of pride,
upon being several times assured that Gerald would
take what might be left when she died. He must ac-
cept a fee, after all his work, in spite of his protest, and
when he finally took her five dollars, she went away
with a quiet smile of satisfaction.

A day or two later Miss Letty Llanfear walked into
his office, unannounced. She wore a gray taffeta dress,
too long for her, and a blue felt three-cornered hat,
pulled tightly over her hair and low on her forehead,g2 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

from under which her innocent eyes looked out with a
little girl expression, half determined, half shy. She
held her dress from the ground as if it didn’t belong
to her and she mustn’t soil it, and in place of the fa-
miliar umbrella her other hand grasped a sheaf of
papers.

“Hullo, Carl,” she greeted him, with a curious look
about her, “queer old place they’ve stuck you in.”’

“T think it’s very nice, Miss Letty.”

“Humph—musty, aging . . . Any one else work in
this room?”

“Uncle Morris—that’s his desk at the end.”

“That all?’

pPY(es)

“Is he out?”

yess

She looked about her again and sat down with a
quick movement. “I want you to make a will for me,
Carl. But on one condition”—she hitched her chair
nearer to him—‘‘not a word to any one. Wait a min-
ute, I know what you’re going to say—a client’s busi-
ness is sacred, and so on. But we belong to a large
and inquisitive family. I don’t want any one to know
even that I’ve consulted you, particularly not Sidney
Morrisoun. She likes to run other people’s affairs.
Nice woman, Sidney, but devilish curious. And no one
in the office—no conferences or pow-wows about it.
You must write it out in long hand, like a scrivener
in the ancient times. I don’t trust those young women.”

Carl promised. “You seem to trust me, anyway,
Cousin Letty.”

“Got to trust some one. Always trusted your father.
Besides, I can tell you what I want, and you won'tTWO WILLS 93

argue at me and tell me what I ought to do, the way
Richard would.”

She put her papers on the desk, blew her nose, pulled
at an erring stocking.

“Carl,” she continued, “I’m pretty comfortably off
for an old maid. People think I’m a miser. Perhaps
I am, but I’ve done it for a reason. I’ve been putting
away so that Gerald will have enough when I die.
I’ve been doing it ever since he was a little fellow who
used to come to Chestnut Street and pester the life out
of me for pennies, or cookies, or jack candy. I've
always had enough for myself—don’t need much. But
he does, terribly extravagant. He has to have money.
And he will. To-day I’m worth over four hundred
thousand dollars.” Her fingers twitched among the
papers. ‘“Here’s a list of my securities—and he’s to
have every cent, every cent. Do you hear?

“T didn’t mean to scream, but I get excited when I
think of what Gerald will have. Thirty years, nearly
thirty years of saving. I’ve managed to give him an
allowance, too. Four hundred dollats a month, now.
That isn’t miserly, is it, Carl?”

But he could only stare at her.

“No one knows about that. Gerald can hold his
tongue, even if he is half Llanfear.”

“But you’re not going to leave it to him outrigh

“I was waiting for you to ask that. I am—every

te”

last penny.”’

“You mustn’t, Cousin Letty. You know how extrav-
agant Gerald is. You've just said so. He'll dissipate
the whole thing in a few years.”

He argued and pleaded with her, but she was firm,
and finally peremptory. She would not tie up Gerald’s
money. He was aman. It was different with women.94 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

Women were incapable of looking after themselves,
but one had no right to treat men like women or chil-
dren. Gerald would never forgive her if she put
strings on his fortune. It must be his outright to do
with what he wanted. Freedom was the only thing
that counted, and Gerald, because he understood that,
was free.

“No other gifts, Cousin Letty?”

“Not one. Not a cent to that grinning mummy,
Earnest Falcon. But there’s sure to be a row. Earn-
est’s my next of kin, and will of course try to break
the will. I’m afraid of that—lie awake thinking about
it. If the will’s broken Earnest would get everything
—Gerald nothing, not even an allowance.”’

Again her fingers were busy among the papers, two
of which she handed to Carl.

“Do you think I’m very queer? Well, if you don't
you're the only one of the family. They might be able
to stir up something—not much. Only I think most
of them would take Gerald’s side against his father,
don’t you? Well, I got those papers to be on the
safe side—doctor’s examinations—neurologists. Pretty
thorough, eh? Of course, they don’t know what it is
for, but they’re convinced there’s nothing the matter
with me. You can’t say a person’s crazy just because
they dress the way I do,” she laughed, getting up.

“Nothing else?”

“No. You fix it up with the necessary flourishes.
Take plenty of time. Oh, I want you to be executor,
and to charge a good commission.”

“Gerald certainly ought to be grateful.’

“Oh, gratitude . . . I don’t care about that, if he’s

happy.”
“You're very fond of him.”TWO WILLS 95

She looked at Carl, her eyes wide, and nodded.
“‘He’s all I’ve ever had,” she said.

Apparently fledgling lawyers were not, at any rate,
incapable of making wills and acting as executors.CHAPTER IX
THE NIGHT OF THE ASSEMBLY

FRANCESCA was to be a patroness at the Assem-
blies. It was a tradition that a gentleman of the Llan-
fear family should act on the Committee, and Rem-
brandt Llanfear was secretary for the year, bringing
to his duties a wide knowledge of what was and what
wasn’t, and a social experience which included those
who were, as precisely as it excluded those who were
not.

The Committee was self-perpetuating. It gave the
ball, even if those fortunate ones whom it asked to sub-
scribe paid for it. Certain rules, implicit in the bosom
of succeeding secretaries, who made, like the popes, an
unbroken succession, guided these careful gentlemen
in their difficult task. Divorce barred a member, or
rather an expectant member, for you had each year to
be re-invited. And the ground of disbarment was not
moral, because no distinction was made between the
erring and the righteous. Again, the husband's status,
following the good analogy of the law, determined the
wife’s. Such cases were susceptible of firm treatment.
But the exceptions were hard. Was the Governor en-
titled to belong if he were a gentleman though not a
Philadelphian? Fortunately few governors were gen
tlemen. When old Dean Llanfear, the banker, insisted
that his partner, Mr. Faircloud, should be admitted—
sent out an ultimatum to that effect—Mr. Faircloud
was admitted. Some rich men certainly could not get
in, but other rich men certainly did.

96THE NIGHT OF THE ASSEMBLY 97

Occasionally the Committee made a mistake, as in
the admission of Mr. Donavan. That gentleman’s
rapid rise to eminence in the world of coal and iron,
entailing a host of influential friends demanding rec-
ognition, stampeded the Committee into overlooking the
fact that long ago he had been divorced, at Scranton,
from a lady whose reputation on the stage had been
eclipsed only by the romance attending her marital sep-
aration. And as ill luck would have it Mr. Donavan
and his less splendid but more ambitious second lady
were taken in the same year that poor Phil Plangent,
who had married the divorced wife of that old rotter,
Jacob Harris,—all three of them the best of Philadel-
phians—had been omitted from the list.

Lydia Dean Llanfear came to tell Francesca. She
didn’t approve of showing excitement, a predilection
for surface smoothness developed by her hearty dis-
like of the effusive bearing of the aunt after whom
she had been named, that silly littlke woman in dangling
chains only ten years older than herself, whose kisses
had disgusted her as a neat, cool little girl... She,
Lydia Dean Llanfear, was the eldest daughter of Dean
Llanfear the banker, the senior of all the uncles and
aunts.

“T should have come before, Francesca,” she said.
“But we’re hardly settled in Walnut Street—scarcely
a month. Our Thursdays don’t begin till January.
You’ll come? They’re rather dull, but niceish. So few
people are at home any more. Oh, by the way, my
dear, you’re to be a patroness at the Assemblies.”

“Me!” gasped Francesca.

“Yes, isn’t it nice. Dan Carew called me up this
morning to tell me. He’s on the Committee.”98 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“But how wonderful!”

“Well, it is rather decent. You’re the bride of the
year, and usually one of the family acts. I think there
is another bride this year, Polly Sylvester, but I don’t
know how she can act, as they tell me her baby is due
in February. I don’t think under the circumstances
she can still be considered a bride, but technically, I
believe, one is a bride for twelve months.”’ She buckled
her silver foxes about her neck. Lydia was very proud
of her silver foxes, partly on their account, partly on
hers. They suited her admirably. “It’s not official yet.
But you can tell Carl, I think it may please him.”

“T can’t believe it,” said Francesca, walking about.
“Why, I hardly know any one . . . And I shan’t know
what to do. Were you ever a patroness, Cousin Ly-
dia?”

Lydia smiled at her, a dry smile. ‘Hardly. Un-
married ladies don’t act as patronesses. And Fran-
cesca, please omit the ‘cousin.’ It makes me feel like
an old maid, and I don’t like to feel like an old maid.”

Francesca blushed. “I didn’t mean... You're
lovely looking. I think you are the most stylish woman
[’ve met in Philadelphia.”

Lydia patted her hand. “Thank you, we aim to
please. And if you want to know about things, ask
me. I’m on to most of the ropes. I think we'll like
each other. Good-by. You must have a nice dress,
and practise courtesying. You'll be a great sensation
with those looks of yours,”

A patroness at the Philadelphia Assemblies! Carl
would be proud.

As was customary, the gentlemen whose wives had
been selected to patronize the famous ball dined to-THE NIGHT OF THE ASSEMBLY 99

gether comfortably at the Club on that evening, The
Committee shared with them the canvas-back and sad-
dle of venison, which, it was felt, were appropriate to
the occasion. Mr. Owen Roth’s libations between the
hours of five and eight, except during the brief inter-
val in which his valet had managed to get him into a
dress suit, had given him a start which would certainly
bear watching. He was a deceptive little man—so
shiny and white and trig in appearance, like a highly
polished egg—almost infinite his possibilities of eat-
ing and drinking, yet with a limit, seldom reached, but
when it was reached, what a sudden and dreadful
catastrophe! Rembrandt Llanfear, watching his little
eye grow red under the dome of his pointed head, de-
cided that he would detail a waiter to keep a respectful
but alert eye on him at the ball.

Francesca stood last in the line of patronesses, re-
ceiving at the entrance to the foyer of the Academy
of Music, while the endless line filed by, courtesying,
courtesying, sometimes in unison with the other ladies,
but more often only with Polly Sylvester, next to her.
Polly, on account of her condition, couldn’t go down
very far, but made a show of bending a knee and bow-
ing a head. Her dress, it was agreed on all sides, was
a marvel of protective concealment, so if you didn't
know (as of course every one did) you never would
have known.

“A little overdressed,”” Mrs. Moneith murmured to
old Mrs. Algernon Henderson Roth, who anchored
the line, at the other end.

“Overdressed? Nonsense. You can’t be over-
dressed for an Assembly—look at me. She’s fluffy—
that’s all. Did you ever see her father, William Reese
Charter?”100 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“Ves, I know,” said Mrs. Moneith.

“William Reese Charter,” continued the elder lady,
over-riding the interruption, “fearfully common old
party—ingrowing, ultra-honest, but Lord! . . . Two
daughters, each year a little less pretty. Polly mar-
ried in; the other married where she belongs. I think
she’d do well enough if Sylvester didn’t watch her as
he does. Been working this up for five years.”

Mrs. Roth, as became her age and dignity and great
size, was splendidly upholstered in purple velvet, stud-
ded with diamonds. A high diamond collar held up
the genial red face, and though her dress was cut very
low, the flesh was almost covered, as if it had been
melted and run into the sparkling mould, and here and
there had hardened, showing dully between the chinks.
Mrs. Moneith stood like a tall bony horse, her dress of
gray and silver drooping from her like a fly harness,
shivering a little, the pallid gray skin effacing the lus-
tre of her pearls, and courtesied as if she were going
to kneel and then suddenly had decided to stand in-
stead.

At supper Francesca, tired, happy, flushed, found
herself between Carew Acton and young Dr. Pachen.
She looked about her in the trance of a dream which
had become a reality. The magic was hers, as if she
had waved a fairy wand, and it had appeared glitter-
ing and beautiful, out of a dim past which had held
nothing but the dream. For an instant she closed her
EYES GtH

Young Dr. Pachen had been selected as a fitting
companion for Polly Sylvester. He was the young as-
sistant to the great Dr. Grosswaite, the obstetrician
who was now delivering the fourth from the third
generation. (Very promising, young Dr. Pachen, ifTHE NIGHT OF THE ASSEMBLY tor

absent-minded. The reason for his selection had been
made plain to him. He must keep a socio-professional
eye on the bride. But there were two brides. Very
puzzling to a professional man, who depended on care-
ful examinations and notes. He wasn’t used to parties
—had no time for them. He had certainly given his
arm to Mrs. Sylvester. But she did not look like—
well, the way his patients usually looked. He glanced
surreptitiously at Mrs. Llanfear. Perhaps he could tell
by what they ate. They both ate clear green turtle
soup. Mrs. Llanfear was closing her eyes, swaying a
little. Of course it must be she.

He opened to Francesca.

“T’m not much on these parties. I suppose you've
been to a lot?”

“Me? Oh, no! Very few in Philadelphia.”

“Then you didn’t come from here?”

“IT was born in Rome. But they do make you feel
at home quickly.”

“You haven’t been married very long?”

“Seven months.”

There could be no doubt of it. What a color, what
a figure! He looked at her in frank admiration. Funny
little man, she thought.

“It’s rather debilitating here in the hot weather,” he
ventured, suddenly becoming conscious that he was
staring.

“Oh, I shan’t mind that. I’m half Italian, you see.”

That made it easier. Italian ladies, he understood,
expected to be congratulated. A vision of Boticelli’s
Spring floated through his mind. But he was a shy
little man. ‘You look awfully well,’ he said. And as
that was as near as he could get to it, without some102 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

kind of opening, he didn’t follow it up, but drank deeply
of his champagne, and turned to Polly Sylvester.

Francesca, nibbling at a rusk roll, now and then sip-
ping her glass, played with her mood.

“Aren’t you eating any terrapin, Mrs. Llanfear?”
It was Carew Acton’s voice on the other side.

“What? Oh.” She looked down at her plate.
“What is it?”

“Terrapin!”

“Never heard of it.”

“Tt’s a kind of turtle, very much prized by the na-
tives here. For a shining example, glance momentarily
at Mrs. Algernon Henderson Roth—she’s an old ter-
rapin eater—but not too long. It’s a little overpower-
ing for a beginner.”

That lady was eating terrapin with undisguised rel-
ish, pulling small bones from her eager mouth, and
depositing them in a circle on the edge of her plate.

Francesca smiled, tried some, shivered, and put down
her terrapin fork. “I can’t,” she said, “‘it tastes all soft,
and crawly.”’

They laughed. She liked his laugh, a friendly laugh.

“Did I disturb your dreams?” he said.

“I must have given myself away, if you knew I was
dreaming.”

“Star dreaming.”

She smiled. “After all, one can share star dreams,”
he continued, “and it’s rather mericiful of you to give
us a glance. We don’t encourage them here.”

“What do you mean?”

“T didn’t think dreams had any meaning.”

“But you did mean something?”THE NIGHT OF THE ASSEMBLY 103

“A quality of disillusionment, I suppose.”
“You disillusioned? But you have everything.” |
“Except the only thing I want.”

She met his eyes and felt again that sudden stab of
power that she had felt the day of their first meeting at
the garden party.

“You don’t ask me what it Is.’

Suddenly she was uncomfortable, blushing, her eyes
on her plate.

“You're exquisite,’ he said. “Some day, per-
haps .

It was almost a relief to turn to Dr. Pachen.

“T suppose I should congratulate you,’ he was mur-
muring. ‘In your country I believe—”’

“Just a little bit more champagne, Miss,” a gentle
darky voice was urging at her elbow.

“Yes, George,” responded Dr. Pachen, “I think I
will have another glass.” (

,

Belle Dolbeare, when Carew Acton asked her if he
could take her home, looked at him for a moment, her
clear eyes searching his face for an understanding
which she so rarely achieved.

“Mary went home an hour ago,” he volunteered
quietly, ‘and I’m spending the night at the club. It’s
three o’clock. Haven’t you had enough of this?”

“T like dancing, C’rew.”

“Many partners to-night?”

“T didn’t want for them. Why didn’t you dance with
me?”

‘The proprieties, my dear. Are you coming?”

“All right, C’rew,” she said in her slow, deep voice,
wondering whether it trembled as her heart trembled,
trembled and melted to him when he came near and104 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

spoke like that, coldly behind the mask of his face,
smiling 7.)

In the cab she could see his smile in the light of pass-
ing street lamps which flicked the silk of his high hat
and the brown fur of his collar, sleek and beautiful,
like his face, while her hand lay between them, un-
touched, nerveless, and she watched the point of his
cigar and heard the sound of his voice through the
beating pressure of her blood.

She turned on the lights in her sitting-room.

“May I have a drink, Belle?”’

“Right-O. Sit down, C’rew.”’

But he stood watching her as she busied herself with
the whiskey and soda.

“There are some cigars over there on the dresser.”
She couldn’t look at him.

“Belle, come here.”

She did his bidding, standing close to him, touching
his shoulders lightly with her strong hands, not look-
ing in his face.

And when the silence became intolerable: “Do you
want me,” she asked, “to-night?”

He laughed, and took her in his arms, so that she
could feel his strength against her, his lips against her
mouth in a long kiss. When he let her go she stood
for a moment, catching the back of a chair with her
hand, swaying a little, as if she were going to swoon.
Then, quite suddenly—

“Let me get you that drink,”’ she said, ‘“C’rew.”’

Carew Acton, letting himself out of Belle’s flat,
looked about him for a moment. It was not a neigh-
borhood where high hats and fur-lined overcoats were
common. To the rear a broken field ended abruptly inTHE NIGHT OF THE ASSEMBLY _ 105

an embankment which sloped steeply to the bed of the
Schuylkill River. Stunted shacks leaned crazily from
the spaces between railroad tracks, with here and there
the dark bulk of a warehouse, piles of lumber, coal,
refuse iron, the mangled dump of a house-wrecking
plant. Under the flat were the offices of the Dolbeare
Riding Academy, which led through harness-rooms to
the enclosed tanbark ring and the low, rambling stables,
lying below the level of the city grade, a stone’s throw
from the end of the old South Street drawbridge.
Two or three lights cast a faint gleam along the broken
mud and dirty snow of the pavement from saloons
where the Schuylkill Water Rats, as they were pic-
turesquely known to the police, gathered by night for
the exchange of social and professional entertainment.
They were a rough gang, the Water Rats, not like the
softer inhabitants of the Tenderloin, flabby from a
gentle existence in the brothels, Chinese opium-joints,
and twenty-five-cent rooming-houses which elbowed the
saloons and pawnshops in that district. The Rats
could fight and did, hard from incessant competition,
voting their divisions with the same enthusiastic com-
pleteness as they robbed the box cars along the river.

Acton lit a cigar and turned south towards Chestnut
Street, his heavy stick tapping along the lumpy walk.

As he crossed Lombard Street a figure emerged from
an alley on his left, and faced him.

His hand tightened on the knob of his cane. What
a fool to go unarmed here at night .. .

“Got the time, Mister?”

“Four o'clock,” said Acton, without looking at his
watch. And then, as the figure didn’t move, “Any-
thing else?’”’ he asked sharply.

“Well, you see, Mister, I live round here, and I be-106 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

 

lieve I’ve seen you here before. Just wonderin’ wot
you was doin’ round here late at night all alone.”

“Get out of my way.”

“Easy, Mister. I’m a kind of moral inspector round
these parts, and I’ve been watchin’ you.” He moved
closer, hands in his pockets.

The tough’s red face was near his now. “We're
very particular,” he said.

The shadow of another figure, and down the street
the murmur of voices behind the swinging door of a
saloon. Acton thrust the lighted end of his cigar in
the man’s face, and hit him under the chin, ring and
knuckles tight against jaw, so quickly that he went
down softly in the mud. Acton turned and ran.
“Damn this coat,” he thought, and shed it as he went.
If he could cover two blocks he would be safe. By
God, it was fun! He was in good shape. Almost to
Pine Street, with no one else in sight. Then a yell
from behind: ‘‘Get him, boys! Hey, boys!”

They were about him in an instant on all sides, tum-
bling from the saloons, emerging from cellars, spring-
ing, it seemed, from the street itself, a dozen of them,
closing in quickly as they shouted at him. ‘“Mama’s
boy!” “Where did you get the stovepipe, Cholly?”
And from a red-headed Irish boy, grinning and drunk:
“We'll teach you not to keep your whore in our nice
residential section, you dirty stuck-up bastard!”

When they closed on him he backed against a lamp-
post, cool and smiling, in his shirt sleeves. At first he
hit hard and effectively, using his hands as 1f he were
sparring. But in a moment his blood was too hot for
that, and he was fighting in savage fury, intent not to
defend himself but to maim his attackers, using his
knees as he had used them once on the football field, up-THE NIGHT OF THE ASSEMBLY i107

ward with a brutal jerk which laid out one man, ina
red and whirling world, cursing quietly as he fought.
The Irish boy picked something from the. pavement,
and struck Acton with it behind the ear as he was lung-
ing at the faces in front of him. He fell on his face and
lay still.
‘By Christ, that dude can fight!” said the Irish boy.CHAPTER X
ACTON’S AFFAIR

It was Acton’s behavior after his misadventure
which gave Carl an admiration for him amounting
almost to hero-worship. Acton began to get about
again after five or six days, during which the old
scandal flared up again to white heat, promising to
eclipse the first days when Mary Acton had not yet
begun to accept the situation. This new situation she
could not altogether accept. It looked bad. He had
gone home from the ball with Belle, and spent an hour
and a half in her flat—some one had seen the light
burning, it was said—and after the assault Belle had
rushed out, at four o’clock in the morning, and di-
rected the two policemen who had found him uncon-
scious to carry him back to her quarters. From there
he had refused to move. All very well, perhaps, for
the first two days, when the doctor had said it wasn’t
possible. But now, when he could be moved, it was
silly bravado—hateful, she thought, as if he held her
up to scorn, while the whole town buzzed. She hadn't
liked it when her suggestion that she be allowed to
sleep at Belle’s on a cot did not meet with favor.

“There’s really not room,” said Belle, “and it will
just make us all uncomfortable.”

“But I ought to be by his side.’”’ Mary’s voice rose
on a plaintive note far above the enjoined whisper.

The sick man in bed in Belle’s bedroom heard and
remonstrated. ‘Get out, Mary, for God’s sake, and
stop snivelling.”

108ACTON’S AFFAIR 109

She tried again when he was better. “Don’t you
think you ought to come home, Curly?”
“Thanks, I’m very comfortable with Belle.’
“But people have begun to talk a good deal.”
He grinned at her. ‘Cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck
I like to be talked about. Don’t you, Belle?
Never mind, Mary. They'll stop soon enough when I
get out.”

Carl saw him first at the Club. They were taking
coffee after lunch, playing sniff in a wide circle, gos-
siping about the affair.

Dan Carew, thin, dark, handsome, looking his age
—he was fifty-three—only in certain lights, held the
conversation to the subject in which he took a keen
interest.

“Tt did come out in The North American, Roth, and
there was something in The Press.”

“Didn’t see it,’ grunted Roth, in his thick voice,
lighting a huge cigar. ‘Never read anything but The
Ledger. Only decent paper in town.”

“But, after all,” said Judge Thrall mildly, “the ac-
counts were all right. They said Curly was assaulted
by a Schuylkill River gang, having dismissed his cab
after taking the lady home.” It was bad form to men-
tion a lady’s name in the Club.

“He certainly won’t prosecute.” This from Billy
Thrush, who had been listening earnestly to the con-
versation, and felt that it was time to contribute some-
thing.

Ord: nol?
“Well, it’s a dirty mess.”
Carew Acton, his head almost hidden in bandages,I1O THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

one arm strapped to his body, was hobbling toward
them.

“May I join you gentlemen?” he asked, looking
down at the circle.

They stared at him in amazement.

“What’s the matter, think I was a ghost?”

Billy Thrush sprang up. “Sit here, Curly. Gosh,
we're glad to see you. There—have a drink?”

ielhanks 3°. Want tovhear about it?’

There was a rustle of pleasant expectancy. “Do
we?” “How do you feel, old man?” “Qh, to hell
with the game, we'll finish it later,’ and they drew
chairs about him.

“The newspaper accounts,” drawled Judge Thrall,
as if he were introducing a speaker, ‘‘were unsatisfac-
torily meagre. Now, sir, take your time, don’t tire
yourself.”

And Curly Acton told them about it, ending, as Carl
stood up to go, looking at his watch. “By the way,
Carl, could I have a word with you before you go?
I want to swear out a warrant for that young Irish
son-of-a-bitch that did for me. I don’t like his man-
ners. Judge, I think you said you knew him. You have
such a wide acquaintance.”

For a moment the silence was interrupted only by
Mr. Roth’s stertorous breathing.

“Oh, yes,” Judge Thrall said quietly, “Red Finigan.
He’s already been arrested.”

“So much the better. Then, Carl, get me an early
hearing—this week, if possible. I think I would make
a better impression on the magistrate like this.” He
touched his bandages with a grin.

“Why don’t you drop it, Curly?” suggested Judge
Thrall.ACTON’S AFFAIR III

Acton straightened, turning a little white, his eyes
blazing. ‘Drop it,” he answered, “why the hell should
I drop it?” And he looked about him, but no one
seemed inclined to answer his question.

“T think,” said Carl, “I can see his point of view.”

“T can’t,” said his uncle Richard. “It seems to me
. - = 9
folly, pure folly.

They sat in Brackway’s office in consultation. Mor-
tis Llanfear had been silent for atime. “He'll be hard
to handle, won’t he?” he asked Carl.

‘““He’s very determined.”’

“What did he say to you?”

“Not much. Said he was going to get Finigan.
Swore a good deal. I think he expected me to remon-

° . gc »
strate with him. He’s in rather an ugly humor.

“T don’t wonder,” murmured Richard.

“Tf he’d only drop the prosecution,” said Brackway,
walking up and down, “I believe the gossip would stop.
I could see Ike Billings and tell him to hush things up.
It’s awful if those young hoodlums begin to talk. Poor
Mrs. Acton!”

“But,” said Carl, “that’s like submitting to black-
mail.”’

His three uncles turned on him.

“Blackmail, blackmail ” sputtered Richard.

“We're dealing with facts, Carl.”

“We're trying to protect Mary Acton.”

“But, Mr. Brackway, she could protect herself, if
she really believed Acton had been intimate with Belle.”

“What do you mean?”

“She could always leave him, you know.”

Brackway glared at him, as if he were trying to be
impertinent.

    
  
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
   
  
   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
  
 
 
 
 
 

or112 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“Another divorce,” groaned Richard, hands in the
air.

“But don’t you think she might want to divorce
him?” Carl asked.

“Good God! Carl,” said Brackway, “don’t let’s be-
gin to argue about anything else. It’s not for us to
say who ought to be divorced or who oughtn’t. The
point is that if Acton takes the stand the cat is out of
the bag. Imagine the cross-examination if some shy-
ster like Donavan gets hold of the case—and it’s bound
to be a shyster . . . ‘How long had you been in Miss
Dolbeare’s room, Mr. Acton? Was there anyone else
in the room? Inthe house? You'd been in the neigh-
borhood a good deal, hadn’t you?’ ”

“But can’t all that be objected to?”

“Of course, but you can’t make your objection till
the question’s asked, and then it’s too late. Besides,
you can get anything in on cross-examination. And
the facts speak for themselves. He leaves her room at
four in the morning, is assaulted; she rushes out like
a crazy woman and has him taken back—back into the
room where, where . . .”. The good man choked with
indignation.

“Everyone’s talking about it now.”

“Well, then, what harm will a little more talk do?
If Acton doesn’t prosecute it will be like confessing that
he daren’t.”’

“When I said everyone,” continued Richard, “I
meant everyone you know. You don’t also want ev-
eryone you don’t know talking about it, too, do you?”

“Look here, Carl,” said Morris. ‘No one will
think Acton any less innocent because he goes through
with the prosecution. We all know the situation, and
have known it for years. Whether Mrs. Acton hasACTON’S AFFAIR 113

been right to keep Carew in face of his relations to Belle
Dolbeare isn’t our business. How can we judge, at
any rate? The point is, she’s decided to keep him, even
after this last outbreak, and it’s up to us not to make
it any harder for her. Carew ought to understand that.
If he were a gentleman he would. See if you can’t dis-
suade him.”

“T think you had better talk to him yourself, Uncle
Morris.”

His uncle Morris seemed much milder to Carl when,
a few minutes later, he talked to Acton. It was diff-
cult, obviously, to state a fact which had to be as im-
plicitly assumed as it was explicitly ignored.

Acton opened. “I’ve come to see you, Carl, about
this prosecution of Finigan. You'd better stay, Mor-
ris, I’d like your advice, too. Have you ever used a
detective? I suppose there are uses for them, even in
as impeccable an office as Dean & Llanfear.”

“Well, not very often.”

“But you’d know how to get one? I want someone
to turn this up from the bottom. The police made only
two arrests. I want to get the whole gang, and break
it up. It’s a menace to the community.”

“But, Acton, why do you concern yourself with this
business? If you make a report of it to the District
Attorney you will have done your duty.”

“Duty? Hell, Morris, I’m not concerned with duty.
I want to get that crowd that got me, and get them
good. The District Attorney’s a Billings man, and they
stuffed more ballots in that division to elect him than
any in town. I don’t feel comfortable with Belle there.”

“Why don’t you get Belle to move?”

“Why should she be forced out because a gang of
rowdies assaults me?”

    
   
 
 
   
  
 
 
 
 
   
  
  
   
  
   
  
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
   

=114 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“Don’t you think you ought to keep Belle out of it?”
Acton glared at him. “What do you mean by that?”
“People will talk about Belle.”

“You mean in connection with me?”

“Isn’t it inevitable, Acton?”

Acton showed his teeth, not pleasantly. “Surely you,
Morris, don’t think there’s anything, what shall I say,
unusual, between Belle and me?”

Morris Llanfear rose, a little outraged. ‘‘Acton! I
can’t talk to you about that. It’s not—fitting. I don't
presume to imagine anything of the sort. But cer-
tainly, under the circumstances . . .”

“You mean,” said Acton, “that you advise me to
back down for no reason? You've got less guts that I
thought. Carl, I want quick action and results. Fix
a hearing, and see what you can find out about this
crowd. They’ve probably all got criminal records. Put
a first-rate man on the job, who will confine his reports
to what he finds out, not to what he doesn’t. You
see, Morris, I’ve had a good deal of experience with
sleuths—more than you, I daresay. Good-by, Carl.
Good-by, Morris. Shall I give your regards to Belle?”

“Damned impudent cad?”

“But I think he’s right,” said Carl.

His uncle looked at him, a twinkle in his eye. ‘‘Per-
haps he is. Well, you go to it. Never mind the oth-
ers, I'll fix them. That kind of fellow makes me feel
old, Carl. Knows what he wants and goes for it. But
what a cad! I don’t believe Belle Dolbeare can be a
very good sort or she wouldn’t have put up with him
for so long.”

“Then you really think .. .”

‘Don’t be an ass, Carl, there’s no thinking about it.”ACTON’S AFFAIR 115

“Well, by God, he’s got guts, then!” cried Carl, using
the same expression which his client had used a few
minutes before.

About a week after Red Finigan and another mem-
ber of the Water Rats had been arrested, charged with
assault and battery with intent to kill, Carl had a call
from Mr. Isaac Billings. That gentleman had not yet
attained the fame which in a few years was to make
him supreme in the affairs of his native city. But he
had a strong local reputation. He was known as a
man who could deliver the goods, and it was said by
his friends, though denied by his enemies, that his word
could ever be trusted and that he never went back on
a friend. No one knew the precise nature of his origin,
but it is was supposed to have been in the ward which
he now so skilfully controlled. It was certain that at
an early age he earned his first honest pennies by mak-
ing music, for fifty cents an hour, on a piano in a
bawdy house at that time fashionable among the col-
ored élite of South Street. But that was many years
ago, and had only been the beginning of a series of
exciting occupations. Bartender, bouncer, private de-
tective, division leader, ward committeeman, delegate
to two State conventions—these activities were all in
the past, and to-day, in his closely pressed gray clothes,
gray derby hat, gray spats, and modest diamond on a
highly polished hand, he radiated an affluent respecta-
bility, the benevolent gentility of a middle-aged man of
leisure, who had retired on a modest income—his tan-
gible occupation was that of mercantile appraiser—to
live quietly after his years of strife and struggle

Thus he appeared to Carl, looking through enormous
bifocal lenses, his brown face, pleasantly tanned by two116 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

weeks of Atlantic City—he had not yet been asked to
attend the conferences at Palm Beach with the Sena-
tor—a healthy contrast to the gray hair.

“T haven’t had the pleasure of meeting you before,
Mr. Llanfear. But I have heard you spoken of fre-
quently. Only the other day Judge Thrall was saying
that there was a young man who bore watching.”

Carl acquiesced a little stiffly.

“We're neighbors, you know, Mr. Llanfear. I’ve
just bought a new house on DeLancey Place, a little
above you, on the south side. It’s the ward line, you
know, and I’m in the Seventh, but I have some little
influence in the Eighth, too. Pity more of you gentle-
men in the Eighth don’t take an interest in politics.”
He sighed and took off his gloves.

“They call it the silk-stocking ward, you know.” He
smiled at Carl, and shook his head.

“Ah, well, we can’t all have advantages, Mr. Llan-
fear, education and a famous name like yours. One
must always remember that, you know. Now take
some of the boys in the west end of my ward. Nice
boys, churchgoers, but a little wild sometimes. The
environment, you know .. .” He sighed again.

“That’s what’s the matter with young Finigan. I
went to see his priest, Father McCorkle, after this little
affair. I’m a Methodist myself, Mr. Llanfear, but the
father and I are old friends. The father and I just put
our two heads together to see if we couldn’t do some-
thing to help him. Very sad, very sad indeed, but just
mischievous, you know, and perhaps a little too much
whiskey. It will happen, won’t it, Mr. Llanfear ?”

“Have you seen his criminal record?”

“Let me see . . . Assault and battery, criminal as-
sault, robbery, robbing freight cars in interstate com-ACTON’S AFFAIR G7,

merce... H’m... Yes, but only one conviction
for all those arrests. I suppose the police are down on
him.

“Mr. Llanfear, I’ve come to enlist your sympathy
for that boy and the others who were arrested after
that little mix-up. You represent Mr. Acton. Can’t
you persuade him to drop it?”

“Why should I?”

“They’re just a lot of boys. You wouldn’t want to
get them sent up?”

“Mr. Billings, I can see no reason why Red Finigan
and his pals shouldn’t do time.”

“That’s not the way to make friends, Mr. Llan-
fear.’

“With you, Mr. Billings, or with Mr. Finigan and
the other Rats?”

A shadow dropped over Mr. Billings’ ruddy cheeks,
and the heavy black eyebrows drew together over his
nose in a tense pucker.

“You’re making a mistake, Mr. Llanfear.”’

“Perhaps,”’ said Carl, standing up.

“IT was thinking of Mrs. Acton. It’s hard to keep
these boys from talking. I don’t think Mrs. Acton
would like the talk much, if it all came out, that is.
It’s been going on a good while.”

“Blackmail ?”’

Mr. Billings flushed under his tan. He looked
venomously at Carl for a moment, then, picking up hat
and gloves: “I thought you were a gentleman,” he said,
and departed.

For the week before the magistrate’s hearing, there
was much excited speculation as to what would hap-
pen. But Fate, in the amiable person of Mr. Billings,

   
    
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
 
 
  
  
   
 
 
 
 
  
  
    

o™A.118 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

cheated the hungry public of a climax. Finigan and
his two companions did not answer when their names
were called, and their bail was forfeited.

“Bad business,” declared Mr. Billings, shaking his
head, as who should say ‘““His Majesty, the Law!” And
again, to himself, muttering testily: “Bad business.
Fifteen hundred dollars against the Ward emergency
fund.”

Carl was sharply disappointed, having keyed himself
to a point of crusading excitement. “We could get
them if you'll spend some money, Carew. I suppose
if Ike Billings didn’t own the police we'd have them
now. I wish we’d insisted on higher bail. Tl get a
Pinkerton man on it at once.”

Acton, a little scarred, leaning on his stick, touched
his lawyer on the arm.

“Don’t bother, Carl, it’s not worth it. I’m bored
with the whole thing. Besides, I suppose there is a
certain amount of risk.”

Risk? | Bute lsthought. 3/32"

“Quite right,” he grinned, “keep on thinking it. And
meanwhile come out for a spin in my new Panhard.
We’ve just time before lunch.”

“I’ve got to get back to the office.”

“Oh, of course.’ The car drew up to the curb.
“Well, good-by, Carl. I shan’t see you for a while.
Mary and I are going to take Belle down to the Hot
Springs for a few weeks. She needs a rest, don’t you
think ?”GCOAP TER XL
WORTHY GENTLEWOMEN

SPRING was in the air. Francesca felt it, walking
across Rittenhouse Square to her first board meeting
of the Home for Worthy Gentlewomen in Reduced
Circumstances. Winter had suddenly sniffed out in
a throaty gasp of wind swirling the dust about the cor-
ner of the green gray stone house which stood on
21st and Walnut Streets, and something gentle and
lazy had taken its place. On 20th Street a shiny
darky was selling tight little bunches of arbutus,
two for fifty cents, pink roses quivering between bud
and flower, tulips and daffodils. The Square was
bathed in sun and filled with children and nurses and
a few fat policemen, looking tolerantly at the dirty
Italian who sold red and blue and yellow and purple
balloons. Children patted the stone lion and tried to
feed him with gravel. Four or five squares below the
Bellevue-Stratford hotel reared its new bulk like a
heavy signal of what was to come. But the Square
was clear of any shadow of apartment-house, and lay
warm and open and shabby under the quiet midday sun
of early April. From South Street, now and then,
came the unhurried cry of a negro fish-vender. Fran-
cesca lingered for a moment, yielding a little to the re-
laxing mood of the day, till she remembered her ap-
pointment—she had entered it neatly in her Weir
Mitchell calendar just before a tea—and hurried on.

The board were taking their seats in the meeting-
room on the first floor of the Home, a dirty brick and
119120 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

stone house which many years ago had been used as
a public school, on 12th Street, above Arch. The
bishop, the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Philadel-
phia, a member of the board ex officio under the terms
of the donation—was in the chair. He was flanked
by Miss Constance Thrush, an elderly spinster aunt of
Billy’s, nervous and meticulous from a cloistered life
spent in collecting and preserving countless bric-a-brac
in her large gloomy house on Locust Street, where the
sun was not permitted to enter, as it might fade the
chintzes she had inherited from her mother. She
nursed a passion for paper-weights, silver photograph
frames, Mid-Victorian bronze statuettes, little heavily
embossed silver boxes, majolica ware, cheap copies of
paintings of the Barbizon School, and a corresponding
hatred of the five maids who dusted her collections and
ministered to her other needs. As senior member of
the Board she was placed on the Bishop’s right, while
on his left Mrs. Lindley Morrisoun filled the next place
of honor. The other members of the board—Lydia
Dean Llanfear, Molly Rapport, Polly Sylvester, Fran-
cesca—meekly took the remaining seats.

The meeting, said the Bishop, was called to order.
‘We pray Thee, Almighty God and merciful Master,
to look with favor on the work of this Home, and to
alleviate with Thy bountiful grace the sufferings of
those unfortunate ones who have humbly sought its
protection in their affliction. Amen. Shall we waive
reading the minutes?”

“T think,” suggested Miss Thrush, “that Mrs. Llan-
fear, who is a new member of our Board (she was
unable to attend our last meeting) should have the
benefit of hearing the minutes.”’

“Well, do read them quickly, Molly,” said Mrs. Mor-WORTHY GENTLEWOMEN 121

risoun, glancing at her watch, “I’m lunching at Saut-
ter’s at half past twelve.”

“Miss Rapport, will you read the minutes of our last
meeting.”

Molly Rapport produced and unfolded a wad of
paper from her reticule. “They haven’t been written
up in the book yet, I’ve been so busy. But I can give
you a summary of what happened.” She glanced at
her notes, read them to herself hastily, and reverted
again to the reticule. ‘Those are the notes of the meet-
ing before the last meeting. Wait a minute. Here
they are.” Another wad of paper, closely scrawled.

Miss Thrush was rapping on the table with her
finger.

‘Please don’t make that noise, Miss Thrush,”
snapped Mrs. Morrisoun. ‘You make me jumpy.”

A nervous silence, while Molly tried to decipher her
handwriting.

“Never mind, Miss Rapport,” comforted the Bishop.
“There was really only one important matter—er—
about Miss Schlumberg. We put it down as unfin-
ished business.”

“Francesca,” said Lydia Llanfear, “we have seven
vacancies in the Home at present. Some of the ladies
are very old, and we have had a good many deaths
this year. We have accommodations for seventeen, but
there are not as many applications as there once were.
The Bishop thinks we should widen our scope, take in
any indigent females who are respectable. Do I state
your position correctly, Bishop?”

“Well, hardly just indigent females. But they
needn’t be what you might call socially prominent.”

his discussion was precipitated, Francesca, at our
last meeting when Mrs. Morrisoun suggested Olga122 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

Schlumberg, and a difference of view developed as to
whether or not she was qualified.”

“She’s in great need, Francesca,” said Mrs. Morri-
soun, “poor, lonely, dying of cancer.”

“How dreadful! But why can’t we let her in, if
she wants it?”

Mrs. Morrisoun looked at Miss Thrush. That lady,
who had been fidgeting, burst out petulantly. “I don’t
want to seem unchristian, but, surely, gentlewomen
means gentlewomen. Mr. Gottfried, the donor of this
fund, evidently had in mind the sufferings of women
of refinement who found themselves in an unhappy sit-
uation. It was ladies that he was thinking of. Now
I’m sure Miss Schlumberg is most worthy, but she’s
clearly not a gentlewoman. She’s a governess—an
upper servant. Mrs. Sylvester agrees with me.”

Polly Sylvester looked up weakly. Miss Thrush ex-
ercised a strange fascination over her. “I think I do,”
she murmured.

“But,” said the Bishop, “perhaps Mr. Gottfried used
the word in its Christian sense, meaning a woman of
education and spiritual life, which I hear Miss Schlum-
berg is.”

“She’s an angel,” said Molly.

“T don’t think he used the word in a Christian sense
at all,” fired Miss Thrush.

“Oh!” said the Bishop.

There was a pause, in which the ladies glared at each
other, and then at the Bishop.

“It seems to me,” Lydia resumed, “‘that it all de-
pends on Mr. Gottfried’s social position. He certainly
would not have wished to exclude persons of a like so-
cial status. He was, I believe, a worthy merchant, butWORTHY GENTLEWOMEN 123

hardly what Miss Thrush would designate as a gen-
tleman. Presumably, too, he was a German, like Miss
Schlumberg. I think he would have voted to admit
her.’

“But we’re voting, he’s not.”

“T cannot,” said Molly, “understand the attitude of
this Board. Olga’s educated, refined. Just because
she’s a governess is nothing against her. We ought to
have taken her in at once, when she applied. Are you
on my side, Francesca?”

“T agree, Molly.”

“And you, Bishop.”

The Bishop raised his thoughtful head from the con-
templation of his fingertips, meeting across his thin
black chest. “I believe,’ he answered, “the matter
(which is a serious one, for after all we are dealing
with a trust) resolves itself into a proper construction
of the will. It seems to me therefore to be a question
for our solicitors to determine. It is not for laymen—
I use the word in its limited sense,” he added play-
fully, “to say. Our solicitors may wish to make a test
case of it.” :

“Do you mean,” cried Molly Rapport, “you want to
drag it into court, while poor Olga. . .”

“Sh—it’ll be all right, Molly. Carl will fix it,’’ whis-
pered Mrs. Morrisoun.

“It is then the sense of the Board that the matter be
referred to our solicitors?”

“T can see no objection to such a course,” said the
Bishop. “Is there any new business?”

Mrs. Morrisoun, without waiting for an opinion
from Dean & Llanfear, installed Olga Schlumberg in124 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

the Home, telling the matron, who held her in great
awe, that the Board had passed her, and then tele-
phoned Carl that she wanted a favorable opinion at
once. “‘But don’t make it too broad. We don’t want
an avalanche of superannuated Irish nurses on our
hands. Olga, of course, is an exception.” Carl
laughed, and managed to evolve a satisfactory opinion.
The will had once come up for consideration and the
Supreme Court had let fall certain useful hints, obiter
dicta. The word “gentlewomen” implied a considera-
tion of the applicant’s good character and worthiness
as well as her station in life. There was a suggestion
that the testator did not have in mind the laboring
class, nor yet intended to exclude those who were
forced to earn their bread. “Ladies,” enunciated the
court, ‘‘may be found in every walk of life.” The case
had not the full force of a precedent, the applicant hay-
ing died during the extended interval in which she was
being made a test case. Carl ended his opinion to the
Board by pointing out that times were changing, re-
minding them, however, that the case must stand on its
own feet, on its particular facts, and that the expres-
sions he had used were not intended to broaden the
scope of the founder’s original intention. That above
all must be respected.

And this time the law, stepping in between her and
death, seemed merciful to Olga. She was three weeks
in the Home before she died, and the consciousness that
she was dying like a lady, among other ladies, leaving
behind her a trace of possessions, turned her slow pain
into a dim ecstasy; so that she seemed to touch again,
as she had touched as a little girl, the spirit of her
mother’s struggle to maintain the sense of belonging toWORTHY GENTLEWOMEN 125

something better, to be cherished against drudgery,
against death itself, which came with such casual slow-
messi. 30:

Carl found a tin box, containing all her possessions
—six hundred dollars in cash and some loose change,
five shares of Pennsylvania Railroad Company stock,
the will, a deed for a burial lot at West Laurel Hill, a
scattering of brooches and pins, a few photographs,
one of her father, the others of the Llanfear children
who had been under her care, chiefly of Gerald, a
mother-of-pearl and coral ornament Carl had once
given her when she had nursed him through a severe
illness and convalescence at Atlantic City, his mother
insisting on the present, a tawdry, faded, meaningless
little object.

He telegraphed Gerald, who was shooting in South
Carolina, but got no answer.

He communicated with Mr. Baritone, the funeral
director. That gentleman, in washed chamois gloves,
square derby, impeccable clothes, dark but not sombre,
florid, unctious, wordy, called on him in the manner of
a man paying a visit of condolence to assure him that
he would take charge of everything—absolutely every-
thing—music, flowers, “preparation.” They haggled
over the charges, which were finally got under the six
hundred dollars.

But it appeared that there were two Mr. Baritones,
both in the business, each claiming the corpse. Carl
apparently had dealt with the younger branch, who had
split from the old firm, established in the sixties, and
gone into business for himself. Miss Schlumberg, ex-
plained his uncle, in lemon gloves and bamboo walking
stick—Miss Schlumberg must have meant him, the se-126

 

THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

nior, the house itself. She had visited him at the estab-
lishment on Chestnut Street, and he had taken her
through about a year ago, conducted her through per-
sonally. A compromise was effected, and Olga’s body
was transferred to the parent office. They both seemed
satisfied and discreet. Perhaps the commission was
split, or there may have been an arrangement that the
next disputed corpse should go to the younger branch
of the family ...

The establishment was like a family hotel, conse-
crated to the dead and their mourners. You could
sleep there, buy or rent appropriate raiment, take your
meals at the excellent restaurant on the second floor
back. A suggestion of the slow plunder of successive
rummage sales, of years spent in auction rooms, of
collecting second-hand impedimenta filled the rooms,
as 1f to remind the bereaved or expectant relative that
if life were fleeting possessions were permanent. The
figure of a bronze Hercules, holding a dim torch be-
neath his bowed head, lit the granite balustrade which
mounted the marble steps leading from the ground
floor into the great room where important services
were held. Potted palms and rubber plants lined the
stairs, and a dark turkey-red carpet solemnized the
ascent. Young men in black frock coats, with white
etiolated faces, mildly consolatory, walked about on
rubber soles, more dignified than sorrowful. The
great room itself was panelled with imitation tapestry,
antique from the friction of damp dust, framed in
stained oak. Urns stood between each panel, and a
thick carpet decently muffled the hesitating steps of the
celebrants. There was an organ, a lectern, pews, and
on the side which faced the street a stained glass win-
dow, which Mr. Baritone had dedicated to the memoryWORTHY GENTLEWOMEN 127

of his mother, cut off the daylight with diamonds and
circles of tobacco-colored and magenta glass. You
could have the room at special rates, flowers and music,
flowers or music, flowers and just organ, eight, six,
four pall-bearers—but not less than four. Or you could
have one of the smaller rooms, for intimate occasions,
with the regular flowers, or special floral tributes,
crosses, wreaths, “sprays.’’ Mr. Baritone owned his
own greenhouses. Usually to the distracted relative
or uncertain executor he would suggest that it be left
tohim. ‘You can have it for a thousand, five hundred,
three, two—nothing less than two. If you'll tell me
what your idea is I'll make up something nice at that
price.” It was like a breakfast menu, combinations of
such for so much. But he never skimped, Mr. Bari-
tone, and his overhead must have been very heavy . .
Of course mourning suits were extra, but they could
be rented at a very moderate figure, and were, as the
little card announced on the neat pasteboard box which
bore them to the bereaved one, ‘‘strictly hygienic, and
all subject to fumigation.”

There were a good many Llanfears at the funeral,
Miss Thrush, Molly and Grace Rapport, Anne Frew,
and a few quiet, spinsterly, rather drab uncertain fe-
males. Miss Lydia Llanfear was smiling and cheerful.
She affected cheerfulness at funerals and was mildly
sad at weddings. Mrs. Morrisoun wiped her eyes and
nose miserably with an inadequate handkerchief, and
as she walked out put a heavy hand on Carl’s shoulder.
“Poor Olga! What a ghastly place! But she wanted
it, and we did get her into the Home. Poor soul, dying
like a sparrow. I suppose we are dust, but I hate to
think of us as ashes.”128 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

Carl, walking away, found himself next to Ellen
Thrall.

“Were you there? I didn’t know you knew Olga.”

“I used to have piano lessons with her. Don’t you
remember, the summer she stayed at Low Hill? You
and Gerald Falcon were there. You'd just left board-
ing school . . . I hated her then. She knew nothing
about music, and almost spoiled it for me.”

Mpoer Olean. 22

She looked at him; stretched out an impulsive hand,
touched his arm; and, suddenly shy, hurried away.

“Were many people there?” asked Francesca when
he got home.

“No, not many.”

“What’s the matter, Carl? You know I couldn’t
come. I had promised Polly Sylvester to go to her
lunch, and I couldn’t give it up. She wouldn’t have
understood. You're not angry with me, Carl?”

“No, not angry. I was thinking of Olga... It
didn’t matter. Gerald didn’t even take the trouble to
come up from his shooting, and she left him all she had.
I guess I’m rather tired. It’s depressing, funerals, and
it seems to hit you afterward. She was of so little
consequence to anyone, so frail and poor and unimpor-
tant.”

“Carl, dear. I didn’t know you cared so.” She
tried to put her arms about him, but he moved away
from her. “Please... You can’t understand...
It’s all right.”

She looked at him for a moment, drew away, left
the room. But he did not notice, was not thinking
about her or what she felt, but knew only a sense of
loneliness, of unappeased hunger of loneliness, of theWORTHY GENTLEWOMEN 129

loneliness of Olga’s quiet life and death, aware that
he would forget her soon, trying to recall the years
when she had been close to him, faded already into
the past which had swallowed her completely, leaving
hardly a trace even on the hearts of the children she
had nursed and taught, and who had grown beyond and
forgotten her.CHAPTER: XII
MODERN NOTIONS

FRANCESCA closed the house on Little DeLancey
Place with a feeling of regret. Apparently no one
stayed in town after the first of June, and it would be
pleasant to be again in the big cool house at Low Hill
after the heat which for three days had swept up out of
the bricks, hanging heavily under a close sky. But
she had been happy there, the first winter, ordering her
household, systematically active, knowing at last the
sense of living in her own house, of arranging her
life to suit herself. At Low Hill Uncle Morris made
her feel ill at ease, young and conventional, outside
the circle of his quiet assumptions. It annoyed her to
be treated as if her experiences had been inadequate.
They were not inadequate. She had travelled, had
read, knew all kinds of people, people from almost
every country; knew about things, about pictures, fur-
niture, architecture, polite history. But they hardly
ever talked about things, the way people did in the pen-
sions in Switzerland or in the studios in Rome and
Florence. She wasn’t quite sure what they did talk
about at Low Hill. It seemed all rather endless and
pointless and abstract. They talked generally, so that
you never had a chance really to see anything of any-
one who came to the house, and they liked to ask
you what you thought of something and then to dis-
agree with you. They didn’t tell each other experi-
ences or describe things, but were always exchanging
130MODERN NOTIONS 131

ideas, as if ideas were important, and nothing else par-
ticularly counted.

Carl was like his uncle in some ways. He had
changed a good deal in that first year, she thought,
breaking out in queer uncertain ways, getting so excited
over the thing he was talking about that he almost for-
got he was talking to you.

Of course he was in love with her. But there again
his very devotion seemed eccentric, stirred to passion
at the oddest times, when you least expected it .
Romance was, after all, what Carl lacked. The idea
came less as a discovery than as the confirmation of a
suspended judgment. She had always known it.

She thought a good deal of the romance of love.
The perfect lover stooped over your hand, holding it
for a moment to his lips . . . or, passing his chair,
you let your hands rest on his shoulders, stooped to
kiss him, a sudden surprise of delight, like the mystic
shape in Mrs. Browning’s sonnet, only the other way
round, but of course he wouldn’t think it was Death,
but it would be the same kind of surprise.

But Carl hardly ever kissed her hand, and when he
did, a little mockingly; and if she stooped over him as
he read he would pull her down to him and do things
to her which jarred the picture.

Old tapestries were romantic, early Italian pictures,
poetry of the dolce stil nuovo, the Cenci and Borgias,
but not the Gracchi, her father was just disgusting ;
Duse and D’Annunzio, Alfred de Musset, Les Rois en
Exil. And Lydia Llanfear was romantic, that love
affair with Dan Carew in her past. And Carew Acton

_ Carew Acton was the essence of romance, rich,
handsome, careless, a sadness behind the cynicism. He
was like a modern Lancelot, she mused, only Lancelot

 

=~132 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

wasn’t married, and Belle Dolbeare wasn’t a bit like
Guinevere. She was dead common, Belle Dolbeare.
She herself was much more like Guinevere, a beauty
like Guinevere, and misunderstood, a side of her mis-
derstood. Acton would make a wonderful Lance-
lot, the way he had stood up and fought for Belle’s
honor, or was it his wife’s honor, and ignored the dirty
scandal. Carl admired him. Men always admired
Lancelot.

Of course she would not really want to have an af-
fair.

Only it would be nice to have a friend like that, who
was a little in love with you all the time, quite a good
deal in love with you. But he never spoke of it because
you didn’t allow him to speak, except now and then at
certain rare moments, when it was too much for him

. and you had to stop him with an understanding
smile or gesture, tenderly, realizing how he suf-
fered Gs,

He’d show his love in a thousand small ways, books
and flowers and theatre tickets, and a ball for your
daughter when she came out and you were an old
woman, but still beautiful; and always an understand-
ing of your moods, and a great respect for you. . .

For a while June turned cool, rustling with feathery
breezes under a clear and open sky. Richard Llanfear
had given Francesca a pony, and she rode with Carl
in the bridle paths of the Wissahickon. The green
ravine through which the creek ran, with its ancient,
bedded dampness and romantic wildness, suddenly es-
caping from the placid beauty of Fairmount Park, re-
minded her of walks in Switzerland and the Tyrol. It
was fun to canter in the soft mud and decaying leaves;MODERN NOTIONS 133

fun to watch the horses stand with drooping heads in
long lines in front of Valley Green; to see, now and
then, a cheery old gentleman behind a brisk cob rattle
along the drive; to stand beneath the leaping span of
the Walnut Lane Bridge, recently completed. Carl
loved the bridge, and was proud of it, as if he’d had
something to do with its erection.

“Tt’s marvellous,’ he would say, “as beautiful as
anything abroad. Look at that arch, the strength and
easy grace of it! And it’s the city’s work—the regu-
lar city engineer. We can do things, if we only
would: 2%”

“But why don’t you go into politics, Carl? I thought
you were going to.”

“Give me time. I want to look around and get my
bearings. Uncle Morris thinks I ought to get a start
in law first.”

“Have you been discussing it with him?”

“Of course, I talk everything over with Uncle Mor-
is

“T think you might have discussed it with me.”

“T thought it bored you to talk about politics.”

“Tt doesn’t bore me at all. You used to, when we
were engaged. But I didn’t mean that. I meant this
decision of yours, and your uncle Morris.”

“Why don’t you like Uncle Morris?”

“Like him, like him—what’s that to do with it? Cer-
tainly I like him. But can’t I disagree with him just
because I happen to like him? That’s so like a man’s
argument !”’

“There wasn’t any decision, Cesca. I was just wait-
ing till the time came. I sometimes think I talked
about it too much. Everybody I meet talks about it,134 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

but they never do anything . . . I care so much it’s
not easy to keep out. I feel somehow responsible for
it as if I added to the inertia, to the indifference. I’d
like to throw myself into the thick of it, get into the
fight and stay. You realize that, don’t you, Fran-
cescair’’

“Td thought of us as making the fight together,”
she said; and thought, I’ve heard all this before; he’ll
never get anywhere that way.

“Dear Francesca!’ said Carl.

The cool spell broke in July and Francesca had her
first taste of real Philadelphia heat. It was like the
blanket of a fog, heavy, humid. It seemed to radiate
from the ground and fold about the trees so that their
branches hardly stirred, drooping in the airless stu-
por of the days. She was used to the dry Italian
heat, but there was escape from that, and the houses
remained cool and comfortable. This humidity pene-
trated everything, and the big dim rooms, shuttered all
day, were only a little more tolerable than the heat out-
side. She would wake from a night of tossing dis-
comfort—usually she slept soundly enough—to a feel-
ing of oppression, as if a weight had settled on her
chest, so that she could hardly breathe.

She had planned to stay with Carl all summer and go
away with him for his month’s holiday. But after
four days of such weather it was not hard for the oth-
ers to persuade her to get away. They didn’t seem to
mind it so much. Carl was a little tired when he
came home from the office in the afternoons ; Aunt Jane
spent a good deal of time in her own room, and looked
cool and fresh; and Morris Llanfear, apparently im-
pervious to climate, worked about his flower-beds, inMODERN NOTIONS 135

old white thread-worn linen suits, browner and leaner
than ever.

Francesca was to join the Dean Llanfears at Bar
Harbor.

“TI hate to leave you, Carl, in this sweltering place.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” he said. “T’ll come up for a
week or so.”’

“But, Carl, we must have your holiday together.”

“Well, we'll see. I like to spend my summers at
home. Besides, I’m saving up for a trip abroad.”

“But you’ll miss me, Carl?”

“Sure, I'll miss you.”

She searched his face. “I believe you’d rather mon-
key round here with your uncle than come up with me
to Bar Harbor.”

He grinned. “Well, you see, I’m not much stuck on
Lydia.”

“You don’t appreciate her, Carl. She’s been great
to me all winter, and she’s the one of the family I most
admire.”’

She felt he might have been less willing to have her
go, vaguely jealous of what they had together, and
aware that she couldn’t share it with them.

Francesca’s visit to Bar Harbor was the result of
a ripening intimacy with Lydia Llanfear. Reserved,
caustic, distrusting emotion and seldom sharing it, she
had few friends, and now and then, as she grew into
middle age, a distaste for life which she could not un-
derstand invaded her courage. She was attracted by
Francesca’s beauty, and liked the hint of the self-con-
tained personality which lay beneath it like a quiet
pool. Here was somebody you could trust not to be

 

    
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  

=136 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

sloppy. Her sister Peggy was sloppy, and she despised
her for it, as much as it was in her to despise one of
her own family. For with the Dean Llanfears admira-
tion of the family was a cult which centred about Old
Dean, his wife and three daughters forming a solid
wall of self-interest through which nothing from the
outside could penetrate to mar the comfort of his
egotism. He had bullied all but Lydia into a state of
contented subjection, but Lydia would not give in,
smarting with her own passion for dominance, hating
him cordially, holding her hatred deep in the recesses
of her thwarted nature, as she held her contempt for
Peggy, her mild tolerance of Fanny, whose perennial
youthfulness seemed to Lydia vulgar, and her love for
Dan Carew.

If she had been able to marry Dan Carew or to for-
get him, the bitterness which was always below the sur-
face of her life might have disappeared. Yet there was
something in her which bred futility, the acceptance of
standards and ideals for which her keen mind should
have had contempt, if it had not been warped from
childhood by a view of life as a background for the
splendor of the Llanfear tradition—of her own par-
ticular Dean Llanfear tradition. Her sisters took it
easier. Peggy was tender, devout, clumsy, devoted to
her mother and father and sisters, including Lydia, for
whom she felt sorry. Fanny was vain of her rather
stylish prettiness, silly, placid, content to move from
Walnut Street to the farm at Media, to change the
seenes of her mild flirtations from Philadelphia to Bar
Harbor, or to a summer in Europe. But Lydia suf-
fered, hated, and each year drew herself closer to-
gether, poised, stylish, intolerant, accepting the same
assumptions and worshipping the same gods.MODERN NOTIONS 137

She had been intimate with Dan Carew for ten years.
Everyone knew they had once been engaged, and no
one was quite sure whether they still were. Of course
they couldn’t marry. He had seen that as clearly as
she. You couldn’t marry if you were a clerk at a bank
on three thousand a year, and Dan Carew would al-
ways be a clerk at a bank. He didn’t seem to mind,
and that he was nothing more did not trouble Lydia.
He was a gentleman. Of course her father could have
done something for Dan, but she would never ask him
again after that time, when she had told him of her
engagement, and he said:

“Do you propose to marry on his salary? I’m cer-
tainly not going to support him.”

That was ten years ago. Her father was seventy-
five now. And she was thirty-nine. She would.have
all the money she wanted when he died .. .

Francesca was not surprised, therefore, to find Dan
Carew comfortably installed at Cedarwoods, when she
reached Bar Harbor. Lydia met her with the surrey
at the boat-landing. They had taken up two or three
saddle horses from the farm and the bays. Father
found those long afternoon drives along the shore road

so restful . . . He was very tired this year, had had
a hard winter at the bank, and he had so many outside
interests . . . Thank heaven those beastly automo-

biles weren’t allowed on the Island, and never would
be if they had any voice in the matter. Bishop Doane
could be counted on to stand firm at North East. Hor-
tible things, without style or beauty. Father would
never get one... Had it been frightfully hot at
Chestnut Hill? She must take things easy for a few
days, dolce far niente, and then some driving for a

    
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
 
  
 
   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
    

om138 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN
week. You felt like doing things right away in this
wonderful pine air, and then you got tired out. Father
was worried about something, she wasn’t sure what.
Did Francesca like buckboard parties? And to think
she had never seen the Bubbles or Somes’s Sound .. .

“The Carew <Actons are here for the summer.
You’ve met them, haven’t you?”

“Yes. He took me in to supper at the first Assem-
bly.”

“Of course, the night of the fight.”

“T haven’t seen him since.”

“No wonder. He’s kept out of the way rather, after
facing it out. I like pluck, but it ought to teach Curly
a lesson. It’s not very nice to take your wife to an
Assembly, and end up at your mistress’s flat, particu-
larly if you’re caught.”

“But he was plucky, Lydia, almost gallant.”

“H’m .. . At least he got away with it. He goes
about everywhere. People say they receive him for
Mary’s sake. But it’s Curly. It hasn’t left a nice
taste. Dan Carew was very put out. He’s his cousin,
you know—staying with us now.”

‘Does he come to your house? I mean Mr. Acton?”

“Oh, yes. You'll see him. He’s very attractive,
Curly.”

It was apparent at once to Francesca that Uncle
Dean was upset. The tone of disapproval which
lurked so often in his speech, like the aroma of a gen-
tleman of a school which he considered was passing,
this slightly gloomy sanctity of the older gentility, was
no longer in the background, edging his elaborate cour-
tesy with a querulous quality. Mr. Llanfear did not
permit himself to become irritated, but now his re-
straint invited encouragement, as if the pressure wereMODERN NOTIONS 139

too much. Francesca liked her uncle Dean, but was a
little afraid of him. He was small and shrunken, with
white hair and white crisp mustache, neat, well-cared-
for, slender hands, a little gouty at the knuckles, with
one very old seal ring.

At breakfast the next morning they got an inkling
of the trouble.

“Here’s a telegram, my dear,” said his wife, dis-
tributing the mail. And as she read it slowly she
thought it best to keep up her end, across to Dan Ca-
rew, over the coffee urn, watching her husband out of
the corner of an eye.

“Francesca, were having lunch early to-day, at a
quarter before one, as we’re going to hear Josef Hoff-
man play at the Swimming Pool. We have a ticket
for you, of course, but don’t feel obliged to go, my
dear. You must be quite worn with your journey.
Perhaps you'd like to spend the morning in the garden
with a novel. The flags are still rather decent,”

Mr. Llanfear tapped the table lightly with his fore-
finger. “Amy,” he said, announcing it to her over the
heads of the others—‘‘Amy, I shan’t be able to go to
the concert to-day.”

“Oh, Dean. You're not indisposed.”

“No, no, nothing of the sort. Troublesome piece of
business to settle.”

And, as they were rising from the table: “By the
way, Deany is coming up to see me. He’ll be here this
morning on the train boat. Will you have him met and
his room put in order? I don’t know how long he'll
stay.”

“Poor Daddy,” Peggy whispered to Francesca, as
they were leaving the room, “he’s awfully upset, I’m

afraid. There’ve been some rumors about Deany and140 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

Jennie’s not getting on. I thought it was just the
goings-on of that fast Main Line set. Daddy adores
Deany—much more than any of us. He’s a man, you
see. I do hope there’s nothing in it. It would be too
awful!”

As soon as Deany arrived he went to the library,
where his uncle was waiting to see him. “He didn’t
even bring his things with him,” Peggy told Fran-
cesca, “I’m afraid there’s going to be a row. Deany
will never be able to stand up against father.’”’ They
spent the morning together, the ladies nervously flitting
about the house. Mr. Llanfear sent word that he did
not want any lunch. As they were putting on hats and
wraps to go to the concert the butler, his voice lowered
to a whisper, informed Lydia that her father would
like to see her at once in the library. She looked at
her mother, shrugged, and took off the silver foxes.

“You might as well go, mother. I suppose I’m in
for an afternoon now.”

Mrs. Llanfear drew herself up, her mouth tight. “Of
course I shan’t go. Your father will probably need me.
I shall go to my room, and do you girls go to the con-
cert, and enjoy yourselves.”” Mrs. Llanfear was a tall,
handsome, stupid, expressionless woman, who showed
her pleasure by smiling, her disapproval by a frown,
carrying a certain impression of dignity in her straight
and formal figure. She admired Lydia but was jealous
of her.

Lydia found her father sitting near a blazing wood
fire, which he had lighted in spite of the mild weather,
huddled to its warmth, a glass of sherry and biscuit
untasted by his side.MODERN NOTIONS I4I

She touched his shoulder. ‘What is it, father, did
you want me?”

His face startled her, gray and shrivelled beneath the
tan, the cheeks sagging, eyes screwed to an intense con-
centration. He stared at her for a moment, deep in his
thought. The pupils widened, his face relaxed, color
returned, and he was suddenly angry and normal again
as he got from his chair and began to pace about, hands
behind his back, his right hand holding his left wrist,
his head thrust forward, turtle-fashion.

“T won’t have it, by God I won't!”

She waited, sitting quietly on the arm of the chair
he had left.

“These damned modern notions! When people
marry they should stick together. It’s all nonsense this
getting tired of each other and then leaving, as if that
were any excuse.”

He strode across the room, the fingers of the left
hand closing and opening.

‘What do you know about it?” He swerved round
and faced her.

“Nothing from either of them. I’m really not very
intimate with Deany, father. I don’t know his set.”

“Now don’t be airy, Lydia, you know I can’t stand
that. He’s worth the whole pack of you girls.”

“Ves, he’s a man,” said Lydia.

He came over to her, a shaking hand on her arm.
“Lydia, my dear, don’t be cross with me. You're the
only one that can help me. You’re more like me and
Deany, more like a man. Perhaps that is why we
haven’t always got on.”

He paused for her to answer, but as she did not, con-
tinued. “I need help. Deany is as obstinate as a mule.
I can’t do anything with him. I can’t stand by and see142 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

the boy ruin himself. Your mother’s no good. She’d
just fuss.

“It will kill me if Deany gets a divorce...” He
was walking up and down again.

“It wasn’t as if he drank, or was really unfaithful.
I suppose he’s like any young fellow of twenty-five,
but he’s discreet enough to satisfy anyone. He works
hard at the bank, and has a great future there. I had
always dreamed of a son to succeed me. Damned ob-
stinate, ungrateful beggar! He could have a partner-
ship in a year or two if he’d let me play his cards for
him. And the absurd part of it is that they both want
it. Of course I haven’t seen Jennie, but he says they’ve
agreed on it! Fools! with his future, and all that Roth
mioney 6 3”

He turned, tapping one hand behind his back against
the palm of the other.

“Not to consult me, mind you. Had it all arranged.
‘Thought you ought to know, Uncle Dean, before I
file the papers.’ Damn his impudence! Why didn’t
he come to me before it got to this point? I could have
smoothed out the whole thing.”

He sank into the chair by the fire, saw the sherry
for the first time, drank it at a gulp.

“What shall I do, Lydia?”

“But I don’t know the first thing about it. Why
do they want to get a divorce?”

He stared up at her. “I’ve told you there wasn’t any
reason. It’s this infernal stuff about free love, and
everyone being entitled to live his own life. As if
there were no obligations! What do you suppose will
happen to the children?”

“Didn’t Deany give any other reason?”MODERN NOTIONS 143

“Of course I asked him if he cared about anyone else,
or if Jennie had some infatuation. He said that there
wasn’t anyone so far as he was concerned, and he
didn’t think Jennie had a ‘beau,’ as he put it. Admit-
ted to a few flirtations. They just couldn’t get on.
Fought all the time, or had nothing to say to each
other. Hadn’t lived together for nearly a year. Think
of it! No wonder they’re unhappy like that. Poor
Deany . . . nearly a year. He’s been cutting up, I
suppose, but I must say I don’t blame him with such
a wife. But they’d come back to each other in the
normal course of events. Married people always do.”

“Not always,” she said, a little dryly.

“They do if they’re the right sort. Don’t you think
I know? I’ve been married for fifty years. I’ve had
temptations—as a young man. But I didn’t even con-
sider this, this . . .”’ he choked.

“And I always approved of Jennie, aside from the
money. She’s a lady, and healthy, a good position,
conscientious mother. I can understand Jennie. She’s
not like so many of these modern young women, with
their notions and ideas. At least I didn’t think she
was. They’re all alike. But what are we going to do?”

She answered very quietly, “I don’t see how we can
do anything if they’re determined.”

‘What!’ He was on his feet again, head cocked
up, hands behind his back. “Do you think I'll let them
ruin themselves? I thought you had some sense.”

“T think, after all, it’s their affair.”

“You mean it’s not my business?” His voice was
rising as hers grew quieter.

“T think they may know their way to happiness bet-
ter than we do.”

“Happiness! Happiness! All this cant about hap-

 

     
 
  
  
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
 
 
    
  
 
 
 
 
    

Ca144 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

piness, as if there was nothing else in the world, no
honor, or sacrifice, or pride in an old name and an old
tradition. What do you know about happiness?”

She smiled dryly, straightening a little. “I know
that you’ve blocked mine once, and I shan’t help you to
block Deany’s now.”

He was white with anger, spluttering at her. “You
mean Dan Carew? You can marry Dan Carew any
day you please. I shan’t object if you don’t ask me to
support him. Useless beggar!”

She gripped the edge of a table. She wanted ter-
ribly to give him pain, to slap his hateful upturned
face. “I am proud,” she said, “to be the daughter of
such a gentleman of the old school,” and left him.

Francesca and Dan were in the drawing-room.
Lydia sat down. She felt sick and dizzy. She must
sit very straight, not to fall over.

“Well, I’m going upstairs for a nap,” said Fran-
cesca. “Lydia, you look a little tired. Can I get you
something ?”’

“No, thanks, dear. You’ll be down for tea?”

When she had gone Dan came over to Lydia. “You
do look tired, Liddy. Is your father much upset?”

“Yes, he is rather. Deany’s marital difficulties seem
to have come to a head.”

“Perhaps I had better take my things over to the
St. Sauveur. It might make things easier for you. I
don’t want to outstay my welcome.”

“Perhaps you had, Dan. Your fortnight’s almost
up.” She smiled and put out her hand to him. He
held it for a moment.

“Poor Liddy,” he said, patting her hand. “Well,
I'll tell Yates to get my things together. I’ve got some
tennis, and I may not be in for tea. I’m dining withMODERN NOTIONS 145

the Chisolms. Good-by, Liddy.” He was off, hum-
ming lightly below his breath.

She sat for a moment, gathering strength before go-
ing to her room. If he had only kissed her, taken her
in his arms even for a moment. She must get to her
room. If she could only cry, when she got there .

Carew Acton called on Francesca the next day.

“T wanted to tell you,” he said, “how grateful I was
to Carl the way he handled my case.”

“Your case, Mr. Acton?”

“Surely you heard about the attempt to blackmail
me.”

He was disarming, coming to her straight like that.
She inclined her head, gravely.

“Carl backed me up splendidly. The older men
wouldn’t have had the courage. You would have been
proud of him.”

“TI am,” she said.

That was all, the only allusion he made to it during
the three weeks she spent at Bar Harbor, as if he
trusted her understanding, and there was no need to
say more. He was like Lancelot, she thought, back at
Low Hill, remembering their climbs and rides together,
when he talked about life and how little it had brought
him, remembering his dark and rugged good looks,
the sense of power curbed from within, as if he held
it in leash before her. She wondered if he had broken
with Belle Dolbeare . . . Perhaps, as their friendship
grew, she could save him from that woman.CHAPTER XIII
THE LLANFEARS UNITE

ALL summer the possibility of a divorce was dis-
cussed by the Llanfears. They knew nothing about
Deany’s case, but weren’t used to divorce and didn’t
like it. It was not yet part of their code. Divorce
was all very well, perhaps, for certain people, but
not for the Llanfears of Philadelphia, held close to-
gether by an instinct of preservation; preservation of
what to them seemed precious. It was treachery to
the clan this breaking of ties that held a family, not a
matter of sentiment or affection, but betraying birth-
right. A Llanfear didn’t divorce. You stood by your
family and your city. It was a foul bird that dirtied
its own nest. You might dirty another bird’s nest, but
not your own. You could be critical of your city and
laugh among yourselves at its quaintness, its political
corruption, its provincialism, its charming, absurd,
easy-going conservatism, its heat and dirt, its faint en-
thusiasms dying so easily before a stouter longing for
pleasure. But you mustn’t let an outsider laugh at it.
For after all Philadelphia was an aristocracy compared
to the polyglot barbarity of the new New York; cos-
mopolitan against the gauche provincialism of Boston;
rich in flavor where Washington was thin and spice-
less. Of course you didn’t say these things, only felt
them. You were indifferent to what the outside world
thought, indifferent and amused by the obvious short-
comings of the old city.

“After all, it’s a pretty good place to live in.”

146THE LLANFEARS UNITE 147

To Carl the solidarity of the family, drawing its
strength from the solidarity of the city, was no longer
a charming thing, as it had been a year ago when he
and Francesca returned to be welcomed and entertained
on all sides, now that it took the form of interference
with Deany’s affairs. He knew nothing more of it
than the rest of them. But if Dean and Jennie wanted
a divorce, why the devil shouldn’t they have it? He
felt confused and rebellious when he heard it discussed.
They all felt alike, and if their reasons were different
their conclusions were the same.

“It’s like this,’ said his cousin Rembrandt, button-
holing him at the Club, “you can’t have your cake and
eat it. Deany has ties. He has a wife. He has a job

. children. He owes something to them, to all of
us in fact, and to his own future. I haven’t got any
ties, unless you count helping out with Pondello, and
that’s only a money tie, not what you might call a so-
cial responsibility. So I can do more or less what I
want, though I’m not very keen about women, and
particularly not about love affairs, even if you have to
have women now and then. And as a matter of fact
I usually make it a point to go to New York, it’s more
decent. Dean ought to see it through, if you see what
I mean.”

Aunt Susan Brackway was indignant. It was evi-
dent that her busy fingers ached to be active and use-
ful, and doubtless they would have been the first if
it had not been tacitly agreed that old Dean Llanfear
should settle the matter, and that the others should not
act till they were asked. Her older brother was the
only one that she held slightly in awe. He was a bully,
she knew, and so enormously rich. But at a distance
she permitted herself the relief of criticism. “It’s

    
  
 
 
 
   
  
 
 
 
 
   
   
  
 
 
 
    
  
 
 
 
 
 
     

=.148 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

too preposterous! Those children bleating about a di-
vorce. I’m sure Dean’s gone about it in the wrong
way. He’s always spoiled Deany. He ought to put his
foot down. Deany’s got too good an opinion of him-
self with his money and polo ponies, and that common
Main Line crowd. Divorce at their age! Why, we
went to their wedding only a few years ago.”

Her husband talked to Carl about it. Where the
family was concerned his social side, the garden-party
cutaway side, predominated, and he followed his wife
with a hushed anxiety, hushed with awe at her su-
periority, anxious as to the expression it might take.
“One of the family, Carl, think of it—and my part-
ner’s son. Poor Richard. He’s worried to death, I
know, though of course he doesn’t say anything. And
Deany never talks to him—his own father—hasn’t for
years about personal things—too different. And Rich-
ard’s very strict, real churchman, good as gold, quotes
the Bible at you. How different all you Llanfears
are.” He sighed.

They drew together over Deany’s insurgence, rally-
ing around old Dean, the real head of the house, for
old Martin was too lazy, too spoiled, too soft from
rich food and comfort to exert leadership; although he
let it be known, through his wife, to Sidney Morri-
soun that he had heard these shocking rumors, and that
he, of course, would stand by Dean to prevent any scan-
dal. Rheumatic, old, childless, interested in little but
his food, fighting his doctors, grumbling at his wife
for trying to enforce their orders, he raised a quaver-
ing voice from the awful compass of his wealth, of
which a portion some day young Deany would inherit,
to add to the other voices—Dean, Morris, Susan Brack-
way, Richard, Lydia (“think of those sweet children,”THE LLANFEARS UNITE 149

said Lydia), Sidney Morrisoun, Rembrandt . . . Even
Uncle Morris, thought Carl, became a regular Llan-
fear when they pressed together, like a pack, howling
the cry of the pack. He was not violent like Susan
Brackway, or sentimental like Lydia, but as completely
convinced. Carl remembered his attitude to Carew Ac-
ton’s behavior, and wondered if Uncle Morris was like
the rest of them, a preserver of the old order, talking
liberally perhaps about generalities, but when a specific
case tested his views, scurrying to cover.

“But, Uncle Morris, you surely believe in divorce?”

“To fit the occasion, of course. But it’s not a ques-
tion of believing or disbelieving in divorce. I believe
in divorce when it’s right, not blindly. It’s no pana-
cea.”

“But you do believe in certain principles?”

“Yes, I suppose so, though I have a pretty loose
code.” Ce

“You mean you’re not orthodox ?”

“No. But to be heterodox doesn’t seem to me to be
a philosophy of life, as apparently it does to you.”

“That isn’t a fair way of putting it. You care about
freedom, I know. Do you think that two people who
are unhappy should be forced to live together ?”’

“No. Because I believe in the right to separate. But
that isn’t saying that they always should.”

“Morally, you mean?”

“Yes, morally.”

“Then I can’t agree with you,” burst out Carl. “TI
can’t see how people are ever justified in living together
if they don’t love each other.”

“Even if there are children?”

“Oh, children, children . . . One always hears them
invoked in this argument to sustain the glorious insti-150 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

tution of marriage! Preserve the home for the chil-
dren. Do you think Deany’s children will thrive if we
force him back to his wife in the congenial atmosphere
of their home? It’s not theirs, it’s ours, society’s, like
all our other blessed institutions, our church and our
state and our sacred family, too sacred to touch even
if they’re all rotten and useless.”

“Carl, sit down again, and don’t take the matter too
personally. You're hurt about something, but .. .”

“Hurt! I’m not hurt, but ashamed to see all of you
siding against Deany in his effort at some sort of free-
dom, to get...”

“Wait a minute, Carl, give me a chance. These
things are chiefly a matter of sound judgment. You
should judge the particular case. Generalities won't
help you. Deany and his wife are of course free to
chose their own way. But in a family and society as
closely interlinked as ours such a choice has a certain
social significance, and concerns all of us.”

“Not any more than when they got married. You
didn’t arrange that.”

“A great deal more, because, whether rightly or
wrongly, divorce is disruptive, it changes everyone con-
cerned. Of course I don’t believe that we should force
them to stay together, and I have no intention of hav-
ing anything to do with such a course. But you ask
my opinion on whether it is wise for them to separate.
I do not believe it is for them. They are both selfish,
spoiled, with niuch too much money at their age. Deany
is entirely conventional. He would suffer from such a
breach of convention all his life. He’s lived by a code
—a stupid and barren one if you like, but still, it’s a
part of him. He must play the game the way he’s
used to.”THE LLANFEARS UNITE I5I

“But it’s not his game. The crowd he plays with
aren't a bit afraid of divorce. It rather adds cachet

. . Jennie would be just as smart.”’

“Not among the people that count.”

“But count to whom? The old Philadelphia fami-
lies don’t count to them, they’re bored to death by them.
It’s the year 1906, Uncle Morris. Divorce nowadays
is as much of a convention as marriage was when you
were young.”

Morris laughed. Then he said rather soberly, “I'd
never oppose you if you came to want one. I don't
believe you could live with a woman you didn’t love,
any more than I think that Deany ever could love a
woman he was married to.”

“Thank you, Uncle Morris, but I’m not contemplat-
ing anything like that just yet.” But when he thought
it over afterward he wondered if his uncle would not
disapprove of his leaving Francesca, if they grew not to
care for each other. Imagine living with a woman that
you didn’t love! There never could be complete un-
derstanding with anyone, but Uncle Morris certainly
was not a come-outer. He wondered how his father
would have felt about it.

Late in October Deany consulted Carl about getting
his divorce. It would never have occurred to him to
consult any firm other than Dean & Llanfear, and ob-
viously he couldn’t speak to any of the three uncles.

Carl felt sorry for him, watching the strained, tight
look behind his well-controlled firmness of mouth and
chin, Deany was small and compact, like his Uncle
Dean, conscious of his own shortness, and perhaps for
that reason, or perhaps because he had once been shy
in meeting a world which he could not understand, his152 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

habitual address was a little surly, a little stiff, as if he
were afraid of the complications into which gentle
manners might lead him. He talked very little, as he
could rarely think of anything to say, disliked Carl
and the Rapports, and most of his cousins, who talked
a great deal; fell back into stroking his mustache, or
looking at you with a hard eye, not stimulative of mer-
riment; keen about all forms of sport and in the rou-
tine of the bank work; more at ease with men than
women, who thought him handsome, which indeed he
was in feature; keeping fit, keeping smart, sure only
of his own little group of solemn pleasure hunters ; oc-
casionally drunk and then perhaps occasionally happy.

“I promised Uncle Dean I should do nothing before
he came back. He’s been back for a week.”

“Have you seen him again?”

“No. I really don’t see any reason why I should.
Will it take long to fix it up? We’re naturally anx-
ious to have it over with. I suppose I'll desert. Isn't
that the usual way?”

“Yes,” said Carl. “But it takes two years, a little
over two years.”

“Too long. Can’t you work it some other way?”

“Cruel and barbarous treatment, indignities to the
person, adult—un faithfulness.”

“Well, I don’t beat Jennie. Can’t we hurry it up if
we agree?”

“T should say not. That would be collusion, and
would prevent your getting a divorce at all. Jennie
must put up a show of resistance—enter an appear-
ance, file an answer. The idea is that if you both
agree, it’s dishonest, fraudulent, but if one resists
up to a certain point it’s all right. Divorce law is
damned queer, Deany. I suppose it’s on the theoryTHE LLANFEARS UNITE 153

that if you can agree on anything, even on separat-
ing, you should be able to agree on other things, too.
But as a matter of fact if there’s no real opposition we
can run it through smoothly—that is a firm like ours,
which is pretty close to some of the courts. Judge
Thrall handles most of the divorces for the people you
know. Of course it can’t be entirely kept out of the
newspapers—at first, perhaps . . . We could impound
the papers. Have you talked about a settlement?”

Deany stared blankly.

“T mean the money end of it.”

“Jennie’s got ten thousand a year allowance from
her grandmother, Mrs. Roth, and of course I'll give
her whatever she needs—twelve or fifteen more, I
should think. She’ll be rolling when the old lady dies.
Jennie needn’t bother about money.”’

“But I think her lawyer will want a settlement.”

Deany raised his eyebrows. “Lawyer?”

“Well, she’ll have to have someone represent her in-
terests.”’

Deany frowned. “That hadn’t occurred to me.”

“Absolutely. And I think there’ll have to be a set-
tlement beforehand. Needs careful handling, or it
might be collusive, as of course you mustn't have the
divorce in mind.”

“Well, you pick out a lawyer, fix: it up with him, and
when everything’s ready to sign let me know.”

“T couldn’t possibly pick out a lawyer for Jennie.
That would be conclusively collusive. But I could sug-
gest to you the right firm to represent her:

“Any way you say. And will you drop a line to
Uncle Dean and tell him I’ve retained you?” He rose
to go.

“l’m sorry, Deany. But if things aren't going |154 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

think you’re doing the right thing. The family are
awful down on it.”

Deany stared at him for an instant. “Oh, to hell
with the family, it’s none of their damned business,”
he flared up. “I hate the family, the way they poke
their noses into your private affairs. Lot of old maids.
Good-by, Carl, I’m much obliged,” and he put out a
stiff hand. “Oh, and one other thing. Tell father I’ve
seen you. I can’t talk to him because he always gets off
a lot of religion. I'll see mother. Good-by.”

But the matter was not so easily settled as the two
young men had supposed, conscious for a moment that
they had been drawn together by the opposition. And
the family, spurred into action by old Dean, pursued
them with interviews, arguments, threats. It was as-
sumed that Carl was in conspiracy with Deany, was
urging him on, stirring him up, stiffening his revolt.
Old Martin was induced to write Deany a few lines,
the handwriting shaky from his gouty fingers. The
effort cost him the next day in bed. Mrs. Morrisoun
went to see Carl at his office for a short talk. It was
impossible for him to escape by asserting that he was
Deany’s lawyer and would not discuss Deany’s affairs
with anyone. She simply rode him down. Mrs. Rich-
ard Llanfear, almost hysterical from a talk with old
Dean, sobbed steadily when Deany came to see her, and
between sobs told him that he would break her heart.
Susan Brackway talked and stormed and scolded as if
somehow she could shout down this revolt against the
law of the clan, make so much noise that it would
drown any opposition. Mrs. Roth was enlisted, and
after a long interview with old Dean, sent for her
granddaughter and talked to her with a kind, shrewdTHE LLANFEARS UNITE Isc

“common sense,” as she called it. The men were a lit-
tle more reticent, leaving Carl alone. But the support
which he longed for from Uncle Morris was not forth-
coming.

But all to no good. Deany closed his jaw tight, and
went about sullen and stubborn, hating them all, and
trying to avoid them when he could.

Then old Dean determined to play his last card, and
sent for his nephew and niece and Carl.

He met them in the oak-panelled library in his house
on Walnut Street, which his father had built and where
he had been born. He felt the need of his most inti-
mate background for the interview. He was thor-
oughly himself in that room, backed by his household
gods, which seemed to troop about him from the
shadowy corners into the little space where they sat
lit by the fire and two or three soft-shaded lamps; from
the four corners of the high, square room; from the
walls whence the three Sullys looked down—Priscilla
Dean Llanfear, standing with an arm around her son
Dean, the other hand touching a short column over
which a crimson drapery was thrown, melting into the
background, the mother graceful, amiable, uncertain,
the boy spoiled, aggressive, conscious of his velvet and
lace, his long Llanfear nose out of place on a child;
the child, painted in middle life, the nose turning down
more resolutely, as if it had found itself, the lips
tightened, temples narrow and flat, but the eyes and
cheeks spirited and genial, robust 1f unimaginative ; his
sons John and Dean, painted together, full length, very
unusual for Sully, Sully not at his best, perhaps not
Sully at all... The long oak bookcase filling one
side of the room held yellowish plaster busts of Frank-
lin and Hamilton, Webster and Marshall, a bust too156 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

of Socrates, apparently at home, inherited from Judge
Morris Dean, who had distinguished himself on the
Pennsylvania circuit, not so very long after Bushrod
Washington.

Yes, he could face them in that room, with its links
with the past he loved and was proud of, his past and
theirs, too strong for disruption, at least from a breach
within the ranks, even if it were threatened from with-
out; could face them without fear of losing his dig-
nity, of descending to their level, himself in his own
house, dignified, courteous, restrained, an American
gentleman in his home .. .

“Ah, Jennie, my dear,” kissing her. “It’s cold for
November. Sit near the fire. Carl, will you take this
chair? <A glass of port, Deany?” He continued to
stand in front of his hearth, hands behind his back.

Jennie Llanfear, in a black evening gown with a long
train, which she hoped would give her courage to meet
her uncle, sat very straight near the fire, her large eyes
fixed on him, the thin lips pressed tight. She was
as young and slim and pretty, and only a little harder
than when she had married Deany, and the birth of her
three children apparently had left no trace on her
body or heart. Deany, on the other side of the fire,
looking sullen, trapped, uncertain . . . Carl, in the
shadow, alert, curious, unhappy, watched them, watched
his uncle warming his hands by his hearth, his legs
spread 2°."

“It is good of you young people to come here. I
hope it hasn’t inconvenienced you. I asked you, Carl.
because you are Deany’s lawyer in this—ah—affair,
and I thought you should hear what I have to say.
It’s not much. I shan’t say it well, but I know it’s
my duty. If I’m awkward or harsh, Jennie, you'llTHE LLANFEARS UNITE 157

know it’s not intended. When things are close to you
they are hard to express. None of us find it easy to

talk about this.”

He swallowed a little, looked down, lips quivering
for a moment, then quickly up again.

Carl was touched. The old man was suffering, had
suffered. He looked at Deany, but Deany was staring
at the point of his pump, one leg crossed over the
other, as if he would have stuffed his ears if he could

to more talk.

“You know what I feel in this matter,’ Dean Llan-
fear continued. ‘You have both heard it before. I
shan’t go over it again now. But I have not told you
what I should do, what I felt to be my duty. Before
coming to that let me ask you once more for the last
time, are you determined to seek a—divorce? Deany?”

“Tam.” He didn’t look up.

“Jennie?”

She looked at her husband and back to the fireplace.
“Yes, Uncle Dean.”

“Very well. I can’t prevent you. I’ve done all I
could. You are your own masters and can do what
you like.” He seemed to be restraining himself with
difficulty. ‘Even the children are yours to do what
you like with. But of course my relations with Deany
cannot be the same. I could not, for instance, continue
to have him in our banking house. It would be too
painful for me, for him too. You must all see that.”

Deany looked up at his uncle for the first time,
blankly, his brows knit.

Mr. Dean Llanfear turned to warm his hands over
the fire, while they sat watching him, trying to take in
what he meant.

 

=~158 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

He continued slowly, with precision. “You may not
have known, Carl, that I had other plans for Deany.
If it had not been for this—rupture I was practically
ready to announce his partnership in the firm. Of
course now that’s impossible.”

Deany had taken it in now, was on his feet, white,
stammering.

‘Do you mean, Uncle Dean, that if I don’t obey you
you'll kick me out of the bank? You can’t, you can’t
do it!”

“I shouldn’t think you’d want to go on under the
circumstances.”” The voice was smooth and quiet.

They were all on their feet now. Jennie, her eyes
blazing, turned to her husband: “Well, Deany?” And
when he did not answer she wheeled on her uncle, sput-
tering with anger, bristling in her anger like a cat.
“You beast, you old beast,’ she shrieked, “you want
to make everyone think that I have ruined Deany be-
cause I won’t go back to him! And I won’t, I won’t,
I won't...’ She sank on her knees by the table,
head on arms, shaken with sobs.

And to Carl’s amazement Dean Llanfear walked to
her side, and very tenderly put his arms around her,
his cheek against her hair, comforting her. ‘Jennie,
my dear, don’t . . . Can’t you see you’re throwing
away everything? Jennie, you’re worth the lot of us.
Where’s that famous pluck now? My little Jen-
nie...” And then, as her clenched fist hit the table:
“Jennie, you can hate me all you want if you only
won't hate Deany.”

The logs crackled on the hearth. No one spoke. The
sobs grew less convulsive, quieter, ceased. The girl got
up and went to a mirror in the further end of the room.
“Carl,” said his uncle, ‘‘will you take Jennie home?THE LLANFEARS UNITE 159

Deany, stay with me for a few minutes, would you
mind? We'll have a brandy and soda together. I
think we both need it.”

“All right, sir.”

The three others looked at Deany.

“Uncle Dean,” Carl burst out, “it’s a damned shame
trying to buy .. .”

“Carl. Please,” said Deany. The habitual mask of
superciliousness had fallen from his face, and Carl
saw for the first time the immaturity of a school boy,
weak, puzzled, unhappy. ‘Please don’t say anything.
It’s too late now. They’re too strong for me.”

There was a moment’s silence. Jennie walked to her
uncle, courtesied, held out her hand. ‘“Good-night,
Uncle Dean.” She let him kiss her on both cheeks,
and without looking at her husband swept out of the
room, holding herself proudly, as became the wife of a
Llanfear.CHAPTER XIV
DRIFTING

THERE was much rejoicing over the returned prodi-
gal, an atmosphere of festivity ; even a little disappoint-
ment that Deany and Jennie were to go abroad for six
months, on a second honeymoon, so that the killing of
the calf had to be postponed till they got back.

“Really a first honeymoon,”’ murmured Lydia, “the
poor children got almost none when they were mar-
red:

“And what they did they spent at Narragansett,”’ re-
plied Sidney Morrisoun, who thought her sister Lydia
sentimental, like most spinsters. ‘Now if they would
only come out to Pondello for a few weeks, and be
alone together after all this turmoil and fuss. The
woods are wonderful at this time of year.”

She had several naive theories, which went oddly
with her natural shrewdness. One was that everyone
fundamentally was alike; another that Pondello could
cure any ill of body and heart, like a magical patent
medicine.

“T understand,” said Mrs. Brackway to her husband,
“that Dean has given them an absurdly large check for
the trip. He has no sense about people. Doesn’t know
how to put his foot down. I wish you’d find out how
much he gave them. I really ought to know.”

“My dear!” said her husband, in a shocked voice.

“Well, if you happen to hear through Mr. Win-
aletn 22

And indeed old Dean had been very generous, not
160DRIFTING 161

only to these particular prodigals, but on all sides. He
gave Lydia a check for five thousand dollars.

“Forgive me, Liddy, child. You don’t know what a
state I was in.” But he said nothing about Dan Carew.
And she longed to tear it up, but folded it instead, and
thanked him coldly.

Each of the nephews and nieces got something,
which added to the general rejoicing, and the dear old
gentleman went about looking benevolent and kind,
looking younger than his wife had seen him look for
years, a new vitality in his step, as if he were draw-
ing power from some hidden source, nourished from
within.

To Carl Deany’s surrender was a shock. It had
been all very well for the older generation to band to-
gether to have their way. They were living up to some
sort of code. But Deany had simply allowed himself
to be bought by his uncle. It was hateful. Carl grew
maturer suddenly, dropped something of his theoretical
approach to life stated in terms of vague moral philoso-
phy, and began to look about him. What was the pur-
pose of law, after all, of the endless grind, without the
achievement of service or of faith? Was life itself
merely a process, empty of meaning or direction? Was
law but another way of making money? Brackway,
Uncle Richard were successful; but in outlook, in value,
they seemed little different from old Dean. Even Uncle
Morris. What had Uncle Morris achieved? Was it
a good life to potter in a garden, and love your wife,
and go abroad occasionally? . . . Old Dean, with his
hard worldliness, at least believed in himself, and got
what he wanted. How he hated old Dean... .

Carl, brooding over his resentment, left the office
early on an indolent May afternoon. He was sick of
work. He longed to see some one he could talk to.162 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

He called on Anne Frew, on Clinton Street. She was
out. He tried the Rapports. They were expected any
moment. Damn! Might as well go home. Carew
Acton got up as he walked into the library.

“Carl!” said Francesca, “what do you think? I was
just telling Mr. Acton. Uncle Dean has given me a
hunter. Isn’t it wonderful!”

“You're not going to take it?”

“Not going to take it? Of course I am.”

That was the last straw. He felt his anger rising.

“T don’t want you to, Francesca.”

“But why not, Carl? I never heard anything so un-
reasonable.”

“You can’t hunt if you’re going to have a baby in
the summer,” Carl said.

“Carl!’ Francesca was scarlet.

“What good news!” said Acton. “I must say, Carl,
you are a bit unreasonable. Now if I were giving her
the horse, there might be some ground for objection
. . . Well, I must be off.” He bowed over her hand.

“It was hateful of you to say that before Curly Ac-
ton.”

“Oh, nonsense.”

“You ought to be ashamed of yourself, insulting me
like that. I’ve told Uncle Dean to send the horse to
Low Hill. Now I’d like to see you stop me.”

“Oh, well . . .” said Carl. The anger had evapo-
rated, had been succeeded by fatigued disgust for him-
self, for Francesca, for the scene between them. How
could she understand why he objected to her taking the
hunter from Dean Llanfear?

“Belle,” said Carew Acton, “Francesca Llanfear is
going to have a baby.”DRIFTING 163

“Well, C’rew, supposing she is ?”

“Do they ever look the same, Belle? I don’t mean
physically, but with that elusive passionate look, like a
pursued fawn?”

“C’rew, you really do fancy her, don’t you? I think
she may look the same when it’s over. But you’d bet-
ter not see her while it lasts.”

“No? . «. I guess you're right. Buta year : . -

“You waited nearly as long as that for me.” He
can’t do without me, she thought.

“Do you think she’ll have me, Belle? We're great
friends now, you know.”

“She hasn’t it in her to care for anyone. She’s hard
underneath, C’rew, hard and respectable, with a will of
her own, not like me, all feeling and nonsense. She’d
keep you dangling as long as you let her. You'd fit in
with the other beautiful things.”

“By God! I would not.”

‘Hope not, C’rew.”

“Give mea kiss, Belle. You do help.’

“Come and get it, then. I’m too lazy to move. But I
want one.”

“And what else? A new dress?”

She considered. “When did I let you give me any-
thing last ?”

“Ages ago. You never let me.”

“Well, I did see a hat that I think you’d like me in
. .. Crew! It’s nice to be like this, to have you de-
cent, now and again.”

3)

or.

9

The baby wasn’t due until September or October,
Francesca could not be sure of the date, not exactly,
nor even young Dr. Pachen, the very careful assistant
to the great Dr. Grosswaite, the obstetrician. The164 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

young married set were turning from the great Dr.
Grosswaite to young Dr. Pachen, who was felt to be
more up-to-date, more scientific. Francesca had for-
gotten her conversation with him at the Assembly, but
not Dr. Pachen, and he was a little shy of her, not al-
together objectively professional, which made it easier
for her. Both mothers had been written to and both
expressed their intention of arriving in ample time ; but
after the Countess discovered that Mrs. Llanfear had
already sailed she instantly withdrew. You couldn’t
have two first aids, and she dreaded clashing with Mrs.
Llanfear, whom she felt to be stronger than herself,
though of course she wouldn’t understand Francesca’s
needs.

Carl and Francesca resigned themselves easily to the
competent hands of the cheerful little widow. She
managed everything—closing the house in town, rent-
ing a convenient cottage at Chelsea, arranging for one
of Dr. Grosswaite’s very special nurses, a strong, ac-
tive, not too young woman, of wide experience among
the best Philadelphia babies. For Mrs. Llanfear’s pe-
riods of leisure were balanced with moments of useful
activity, and if she had not been at home to welcome
Carl’s bride, she had given her the Little DeLancey
Place house, and was arranging about the baby, so that
her sister-in-law, Susan Brackway, could hardly re-
proach her for selfishness. Mrs. Llanfear did her job
thoroughly, a comfortable little woman, bustling quietly
about the house, never flustered, never annoyed, never
worried; cool, but seeing readily the value of emotion
in a world which she took empirically, without theory
or malice. Carl seemed to her not to have flourished
very greatly after three years of matrimony. If he’d
only sown his oats that autumn in Paris. They mightDRIFTING

crop out any time. He was working very hard. Amer-
icans would be so much happier, she reflected, thinking
of her late husband, if they were more moderate in
their work, less so in their pleasure.

Carl wanted a girl, neither of the two women could
understand why. But Francesca was determined on a
boy, and a boy she had, arriving exactly on schedule,
exactly right in weight, health, and moderate average
ugliness.

For Carl distracted days before and after the baby
came; days of longing to be with Francesca when he
was at Low Hill, and longing to get away from her
when he was at Chelsea, where he seemed inadequate
to her needs in contrast to his mother’s quiet useful-
ness, so that he grew jealous of his mother. And Fran-
cesca was alien to him, her querulousness, her con-
centration on her functional life closing out everything
else, every idea, as if she had turned into something
dull and without will or imagination, and he won-
dered if she would always be like that. In the first
months of her confinement her beauty had increased;
but she lost this suffusion, as if her spirit had left her
body, which became coarser. Her hands and feet grew
larger, her face heavier, the skin pulled tight and red.

He disliked her physical weakness, longing for it to
be over, trying not to show what he felt, ashamed of
himself. The birth and the days following were hor-
rible and confusing . . . the agony at the hospital at
Atlantic City, her pain, her continual pain... the
certainty that she would die... relief drowned in
disappointment over the baby—a hideous little boy

- women everywhere, doctors that looked like
women . . . Francesca too weak and torn to want him.
Nobody seemed to want him, he was useless, in the166 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

way, lonely, playing a preposterous role. Fatherhood
__what had he to do with that absurd little red frog
in the long line of events which had slowly carried it
into being; events marshalled by women, controlled,
arranged, culminated thus triumphantly by women. He
couldn’t even love him, he didn’t love him a bit. He
wasn’t a normal father if he couldn’t love his own
son. But he should be called Morris 2nd, he was de-
termined on that. He longed to have his wife back,
back in his home, living normally together in the old
way, and to be rid of his mother . - .CHAP TER: 2cV;
ROMANCE

WHEN his son Morris was a little over a year old
Carl was taken into partnership, and the firm name
changed to Llanfear & Brackway. To Brackway it
seemed a sacrilege after over seventy years, during
which the name had been a trademark of sound service,
well established, decorous. He suggested “Llanfear,
Lianfear, Llanfear & Brackway.” But they laughed at
him, and the letter heads were changed, a line separat-
ing partners and law clerks, the “bar sinister,” as Sid-
ney Morrisoun called it. No reference to their occupa-
tion. “If people don’t know we're lawyers, advertising
it On Our note-paper won’t prove it . . . No announce-
ments, Carl. It’s vulgar. Sort of thing stock-brokers
do .’ Miss Jason insisted on using the old name
on the telephone. She didn’t like changes, and Mr.
Brackway was not a Dean or a Llanfear; to which
Miss MacTout, Mr. Brackway’s very efficient young
lady, tossed her head and intimated that Miss Jason
was not moving with the times. Miss Glaub, who
worked for Carl, put on airs of being rushed to death
when her services were deprecatingly requested by Mr.
Spiven or Mr. Garish—Mr. Shanks was supposed not
to need a stenographer—and the firm was impressed
into employing another young lady, young in fact as
well as by courtesy.

It was nice to be a partner, Carl reflected, not bad
after three years. Of course the place had been kept
167168 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

for him; but it showed he was getting on, knew his
way about. Practice wasn’t really hard. The im-
portant thing was work—not the philosophy or drift
of law, that youthful search for some encompassing
unity—but work which you seized, and finished, and
forgot.

Francesca, too, in her way, was getting on. It was
not, he had come to realize, his way. She accepted,
with an extraordinary faculty for quick assimilation,
the measure of life which he was prone to reject. So-
ciety was important to her. Its standards and tastes
formed a code for the best people. It was not so much
that she enjoyed what the others did, but simply ac-
cepted it because they did, the crowd that really counted,
Polly Sylvester and Mrs. Moneith, Nancy and Billy
Thrush, Deany Llanfear and Jennie, the Bill Pren-
dergasts, the Main Line set. Many of them, like the
Thrushes, were friends of Carl, whom he had outgrown,
whose rather narrow circle of personal pleasures
seemed to belong more to a period of undergraduate
life than to the maturity of men and women. They all
talked about the same things, made the same feeble at-
tempt at talk, a sort of schoolboy jargon, never seri-
ous, never general, shying off from ideas. Even their
gossip was flat, without eagerness or salience. The
women occasionally repeated indecent stories to create
the illusion that they were risqué, and hence desirable.
It was part of the game to shock men; by language at
least, as if they had just left boarding-school, and were
delighting in the pleasant emancipation, like a group
of freshmen regaling each other with smutty tales. Carl
recalled one freshman, who couldn’t remember them
very well, and went around with a little note-book . . .
The men talked horses, automobiles, bridge, busi-ROMANCE 169

ness, sport. Carl loved horses, but he didn’t breed
them, and found it tiresome to talk about them. He
knew nothing about automobiles, and didn’t play bridge.
Business was an intensely interesting subject, but not
in terms of the stock-market. They never got into
problems of distribution, of competition, of the rela-
tion of employers and workingmen. In fact, they never
discussed anything; it was not possible to discuss
things if you felt the same way about them. If some-
one spoke of a strike it was only to invoke the feeling
of compact solidarity in their hearty class dislike of all
labor-unions.

Carew Acton was one friend they had in common.
Carl often found him at Francesca’s tea-table when he
came home from the office. He liked this growing in-
timacy between his wife and a man who represented to
him a robust and realistic point of view. Acton was
good for Francesca. She was too inclined to run
smoothly in the rut of marriage and motherhood, to
take her life as she chose her clothes, making it fit her,
suit her habits and well-bred active ease. Contact with
Carew was an influence which he felt might change the
deep-rooted New England prudishness that was in her,
prudishness without the stark expression of flat ill-
manners which usually accompanied it, which in her lay
far below the surface, wrapped in the velvet of her sen-
suous beauty, hidden below the externals of a European
education and environment. Curious that Carew should
have found her so companionable! He was proud of
their friendship.

And Francesca was annoyed at his evident enjoy-
ment of it, as if Acton were his friend, not hers; of his
being oblivious to the romance that lay in the situa-
tion, to the danger that threatened. Of course there

ca170 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

wasn’t any danger, but it was not for Carl te be blind.
Perhaps that was what had in the beginning annoyed
Guinevere with her husband, annoyed her to a point of
yielding. But Carl was certainly not Arthurian.

She asked Acton to read her the Jdylls.

He snorted. ‘Filthy stuff.”

“Why do you say that, Curly? They’re beautiful.”

“It probably isn’t your fault, as you were doubtless
brought up on them and on Watts, and Détailles, and
Burne-Jones, and Browning, and Landseer. No, the
Landseer craze came earlier.

“But I'll read to you . . . Do you know Marpessa?
Wretched morals but surpassing beauty, like Tennyson
at his best. For instance, where Arthur, priggish be-
yond Victorian dreams, visits his spotted wife at her
retreat, a passage about his armor, as he sits on horse-
back outside of Almsburg: ‘The moony vapor rolling
round the King .. .’

“But the rest of it! A maudlin picture of the fallen
Queen kneeling to her lord, her respectable King, her
pure gentleman, stuffed like a bolster with cant. But
listen.”

He read her Marpessa, and read again the passage
beginning :

“Not for this only do I love thee, but
Because Infinity upon thee broods.”

“But why is it wretched morals?”

“To choose a man when Apollo offers you the sun?”

“But I like men better than Gods.’’ She was glow-
ing. How beautiful she was! But not yet, she has not
moved beyond a mood.

‘And I like women better than Goddesses. But that
wasn’t the alternative. It was choosing a husband in-ROMANCE I7I

stead of a lover. Choosing the humdrum, the common-
place, the rhythm of commonplace.”

“But does one always have to make the choice ?”

He watched her, wondering. She sat by the fire,
chin on hand, turned a little away from him. She
knew he was thinking of her, and liked the game, play-
ing at double meanings, at personal implications which
were never quite translated or reached.

“Yes, one always has to make the choice.”

“I never could make the choice,”’ she said slowly.

When he rose to go, he kissed her hand. She stood
very straight, as Guinevere would have stood, the first
time, and let him hold her hand. He did it well.

“I hope you’ll never have to make the choice, my
dear.”

Carl found her dreaming over the embers. ‘Carew’s
been here,”’ she said.

“Oh, how did he look?” he answered absent-mind-
edly, wondering what there was for dinner. “I am
tired.”’

She came over to his chair, and stooping over kissed
him on the brow, as she would have kissed a child, she
said to herself.

“My dear,” said Lydia Dean Llanfear, “Carew Acton
isn’t seeing too much of you, is he?”

“Why, Lydia!”

“You don’t mind, Francesca? There’s been some
talk, or I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”

““Who’s been talking?”

“Amy Sarter. I don’t like her. She has the ma-
licious tongue of a professionally good woman. She’s
so pointedly a devoted wife. She’s proud of function-
ing, and has a dry jealousy of women who aren’t

    
   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 

=,172 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

continually in a state of motherhood. Sarter is en-
tirely absorbed in his profession, and Amy, to avoid
admitting that she’s neglected, has to make a fetich of
devotion.”

“What did she say?”

“Oh, nothing much. Understood you were very
good friends, or something of the sort.”’

“But we are good friends, Lydia. And Carew’s a
friend of Carl’s too.”

“But you don’t include his wife.”

“She never goes about with him.”

“That would cramp his style. But don’t look so se-
rious. I think a mild flirtation is the best thing in the
world for you. And for Carl.”

“How do you know that?”

“That Carl doesn’t half appreciate you?”

“Lydia ... 1 didn’t mean that. But sometimes
. . . Lydia, he’s always reading, socialism or politics
or something. He hardly ever talks to me in the eve-
ning. Just settles down to his books.”

“So Carew is rather a relief.”

“He’s very stimulating. You don’t think—”

“Of course I don’t think. I’m warning you against
the Amy Sarters. We're an awful family for gossip
and Carew has a reputation for—what shall we say—
charming pretty women. But I’ve been clumsy. It’s
hardly worth putting into words. Am I forgiven?”

“Lydia, you are nice. Do you think I ought to stop
seeing him?”

“Certainly not. On the whole, I think a little gossip
might be rather good for Carl. I'll keep an eye open.”

If people would only mind their business, Francesca
reflected. She didn’t want to give up Acton. She was
a good influence in his life, probably the only good in-ROMANCE 173

fluence. Their relationship was perfect, the way he
dropped in to see her, talked about himself, his prob-
lems. But she couldn’t stand any gossip. The thought
was intensely distasteful. She would not be talked
about.

It might be just as well to say a word to Carew. It
was hateful to say anything. But he would understand.

She asked him to come to see her.

She had created, she felt as she waited for him, her
own atmosphere in the little drawing-room. There
was the tapestry, the carved chest, a bit of Venetian
glass, candles. She sat on a black settee, in a wine-col-
ored velvet dress, cut square at the neck. A quality of
medizeval richness, not unbecoming . . .

“It’s curious you sent for me,” he said. “I was on
the point of calling you up. We’re going abroad for
eight weeks, before Bar Harbor, Northern Italy—
Padua, Verona, Vincenza, the hill towns. I wanted to
see you to say good-by.”

“T envy you.”

“T don’t want to go. How handsome you look—oure
sixteenth-century Florentine! Ill miss you, Madame.”

She couldn’t say anything now, when he was going
away. It wouldn’t be fair to him, to send him away
with that memory of her.

“What are your plans for the summer?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Low Hill, I suppose, for a
while. And then I think perhaps Bay Head or Barne-

gat. It'll be good for Morris, and I want to go where .

Carl can come down once or twice a week. But don’t
let’s talk about plans. I’m tired, and I don’t want to
talk. Read something.”

“T’ve got Masefield’s Everlasting Mercy, just out.
Splendid stuff.”

    
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
   
  
 
 

o.174 THE LLANBEAR PATTERN

“No. I want to recapture a mood . . . Do you re-
member the day you read me Marpessa? That mood,
to play with sometimes in the summer. I long to go
abroad again . . . But read ‘Not for this only’. . .”

He took the book, his hand trembling, and began.

For a moment silence, after he had finished. He
came to where she was sitting, and took one of her
hands, so that she had to get up. His face was white
and set, but she was looking down and did not notice it.

He needs my sympathy, she thought, courage to go
on with it.

“T know, Carew, life is hard for you.”

“My darling.”

He took her quickly to him, kissed her lips, her eyes,
her cheeks, her lips again, savagely, holding her close.
And as his passion touched her everything in her
seemed to shrink and grow cold. She struggled and
fought him. Hateful, hateful! Brute, the strength of
a brute . . . She was free, staggering blindly away
from the cruel pressure of his arms, from the hot
breath that had touched her face, the eager lips, that
sought to shame her body... .

She sank on the settee, white and quivering, her lips
and cheeks bloodless.

He waited. She couldn’t speak. He was talking
about his feelings for her.

“And it’s been so long. Think, Francesca, five years,
ever since the first day I saw you. . . Beautiful be-
yond my dreams .. .”

She closed her eyes to shut him out.

“Your warmth of beauty stirring in me . . . I never
waited for a woman before. You will come to me,
perhaps not at once .. . Is it Belle? She’s nothing to
me.”ROMANCE 175

The blood rushed back to her cheeks, and she stood
up. To couple her with that woman! What a beast
he was!

“I think you are detestable. How dare you make
love to me .. . in my own house... insult me!”
She choked.

‘Because I kissed you?”

“Filth, filth from the gutter!” If she could hurt
him, insult him, make him realize how he had insulted
her.

He scowled at her, then laughed. “You look charm-
ing when you say little nastinesses. Too charming.
You should have been born bony and sallow, Fran-
cesca. It’s a dirty little game to play, a nasty, mean
little game . . . Letting men kiss your hand and slob-
ber verses . . . A nasty little egotism without heart or
mind, and lips and breasts made for kissing, used to
bait the little flatteries.”’

“No, no...” she sobbed. “TI trusted you

“To play a pretty game. Guinevere the fair. Do
you play it with Carl, too, or is Carl too much of a
man to live on that kind of pap?”

“T hate you.”

“Of course, you hate anything that has reality.
Belle, my mistress, is worth a thousand of you. Belle
can feel and love, and you only smirk and snivel. She
warned me when you first came here that you were—
well, a fake.” He walked to the table and picked up
Marpessa. Would he never go? ... And they had
discussed her, Carew and his mistress, turning over
her points. He was reading to himself, smiling a little.
He put the book down.

‘And I’ve lost my bet to her.’”’ She would not speak
to him again, would not answer him.

3?
.

,176 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“She wagered that I could not seduce you. There
was no time limit. Well, one never can tell. Perhaps,
some day ...I ought to go. Good-by, my dear.
Won't you let me kiss your hand? .. . Well, then. . .”

She heard the door close, and her knees gave way
and she sank to the floor, her body jerked with sobs,
prostrated, her placid, steady universe shattered in ruins
about her.

“Francesca, my darling, what in the world is the
matter?”

“O Carl, Carl!’ She sobbed on his breast.

“Francesca! What is it?”

“Please, Carl . . .”. She cried like a child, clinging
to him, hiding her face.

He comforted her, holding her close to him, waiting
for her to talk.

“Carl, I’m so unhappy.”

“My darling! Bad news.”

“Oh, no, Carl, it isn’t that . . . Do you love me,
Carl?”

“Cesca! Of course I do.”

“Put your arms about me, closer, closer .. .

“What is it, dear?”

She wanted to tell him, to pour out the whole
wretched business. She was not afraid of him, knew
that he would be kind, would believe her; but she had
no experience of intimacy, no intimacy of expression
or exchange. She could only cling closer to him. Why
couldn’t he understand intuitively, the way a woman
would understand?

9?

“Dearest, you know we’re dining at the Prender-
gasts, and there’s only just time to dress.”ROMANCE 177

“Carl, I can’t go out. Telephone. Say I have fe-
ver, or something. It wouldn’t be very far from the
truth . . . No, don’t go out. Ring and send the mes-
sage. I can’t be left alone.”

He was amazed. She never broke an engagement,
was never sick. He felt her forehead.

“You’re feverish, dear. You ought to be in bed.”

“Carl, do you think I’m cold?”

“No, darling.”

“Sure? Things you’ve said, sometimes, or ways
you've looked at me.”’ He had no idea that she real-
ized, even a little, what he thought. How far apart
they had lived.

“I’m not really cold, Carl, only sometimes my
body behaves queerly, as if it didn’t belong to me.”
She was struggling for words. It was hard to say
things, but she had to talk, to justify herself, to get
away from that horrible sense of degradation, of pol-
lution.

“As if it were ashamed ... But I’m not cold, not
my heart .

He yearned toward her, his old sense of her lone-
liness, of her need of protection, rising to the surface.
He had never seen her so tender, seeking for tender-
ness. As if she had come back to him, stepping into
his arms out of his dream of her, out of the illusions
of their first year.

They had supper in her bedroom, sitting in wrappers
before an open fire. But she could not eat, and fre-
quently shivered as if she were cold or frightened. He
made her get into bed.

“Carl, I want you to-night.”178 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

His heart leaped as he stooped over her pillow.

“Sweet!..... “But you're) upset.”

“Please, Carl.’”’ She put her arms about his neck,
the sleeves of her nightgown falling away, and kissed
his lips, and pressed his face to her breast.

But when she felt the warmth of his body against
hers a wave of repulsion ran through her, and his arms
were suddenly the arms of Carew Acton, his lips Ca-
rew’s eager lips, and she stiffened, and drew away. If
only she could give herself now . .

“I can’t, Carl, I’m upset. Please, Carl, don’t go. I
love you, only I feel strange. Don’t take your arms
away. Forgive me, Carl...” She was crying again,
softly.

It didn’t matter, it didn’t make any difference, he
thought. She had never been closer to him. Poor
child, something had hurt her deeply. He comforted
her, holding her close, murmuring gently to her, till
her crying ceased, and she lay quietly. Soon she was
asleep. Their life had not been happy. But it could
be. If she could only be like this now and then...
How stupid to be unhappy!

Carew Acton and Belle dined together that night at
Kugler’s. Since Carew’s fight with the Water Rats
they had disregarded conventions; for after all, as Ca-
rew pointed out, if people got used to the fact that he
slept in her flat they wouldn’t talk about their going
out in public together ; it would be an anticlimax. And
Belle had shrugged and permitted it gradually, Mary
“chaperoning” them, as Carew said, now and then at
first.

“Let’s have some fiz, Belle, I feel like being brilliant
to-night.”ROMANCE

“Suits me. And a show?”

“No show. Want to talk.”

They had clams, crab jumbo, shad, hot asparagus, a
salad, coffee. “You see, Belle, I’m paying up.”

“Paying? a

“The bet we never made . . . Oh, you remember.
That day after old Morris Llanfear’s garden party for
Francesca, just after she married Carl.”

ODEs oarkns

“Mary had one of her regular headaches, and you
were inclined to be moral. I tried to bet you I’d get
her.”

“And you haven’t?”

“No. She’s a bad lot.”

“C’rew, you're priceless. Tell me about her.’

When he had finished, ‘‘Poor C’rew,” she said. “It
hurts, doesn’t it?”

“A bit . . . Pride, I suppose.”

“Did you ever talk to your mother like this when
you started to raise Cain?”

He smiled. “Oh, yes. But she died when I was
fourteen.”

“Fond of her?”

VES elu wass

“Was she like me, C’rew?”

“Damn it, Belle, if you talk like that I’ll be sick at
my stomach. We might as well see a show. It’s only
nine.”

,

She laughed, put out her cigarette, and got up.

“All right, C’rew, anything to-night.”

What a respectable old couple they were, after all.
Fun to feel that way!CHAPTER XVI
NOBLESSE OBLIGE

On a certain March morning of 1910 Carl started
early for the office. It was penetratingly cold, and the
city was damp and dark beneath a dirty pile of snow,
a depressing sight. Here and there a municipal snow-
plough cleared a way, and groups of sleepy shovellers
piled snow into little horse trucks that looked like
farm wagons, stopping to slap their arms against poorly
clad bodies, looking underfed and shaky with the unac-
customed work.

The city was always unprepared and slow and inade-
quate. They would be digging for another week, and
leave vast ridges grown filthy from the soot and smut
to melt through the warm weather, spreading germs,
while the voters coughed and sneezed, and contracted
tonsilitis and pneumonia, and some died, but all re-
mained indifferent. And always dirty; dusty in sum-
mer and littered with papers, dreary with the dreari-
ness of filth and neglect, without pride or beauty. It
was dying, he felt, decaying from river to river, the
damp rot of wood like gangrene running from the
Schuylkill on the west to the Delaware on the east.
West Philadelphia was cleaner, and the streets were
broader and cut by wide oblique avenues. But they
were dull with the monotony of endless rows of small
two-story “homes,”’ with meaningless porches, miles of
flat roofs and chimney pots. Even the University had
no charm, no quality, a group of big buildings huddled
in the midst of the little houses, without plan or point
or any of the soft mellowness which one would have

180NOBLESSE OBLIGE 181

supposed time would have brought to mould the crude
lines and bring a softer tone to the gray-green stone
surfaces; while the trolleys rattled and lurched along
Woodland Avenue and Spruce Street, past the little
haberdasheries, soda-water fountains and cigar stores,
eating-houses, laundries, and shabby rooming-houses,
disused and forgotten rows of crumbling brick and
plaster and unpainted wood.

Philadelphia, city of homes.

Carl had heard it said that workingmen were better
housed here than anywhere in the world, owned their
own houses; unemployment was scarce; taxes were
low; the people were contented; blessings, it was al-
leged, that flowed naturally from the Protective Tariff,
which to a true Pennsylvanian was a divine dis-
penser, a beautiful abundant Ceres, pouring from her
cornucopia on the deserving workers and on their em-
ployers an unending stream of riches. Blessed are the
rich, for they own the earth, even if the poor shall in-
herit it; and Pennsylvania was indeed blessed, in the
vast resources of coal, iron, oil, in the thrift of the busy
hands that turned the resources into profit, the re-
ward of a fortunate and virtuous society. The homes
made the workmen contented. They needed to be,
thought Carl, to put up with the discomfort of the city,
which seemed to be running down like some great in-
dustrial plant whose owners were squeezing dividends
for the stockholders at the expense of upkeep. The
stock was closely held in the hands of the Republican
Organization, and the dividends held steady even if the
city suffered its aimless deterioration.

Miss Jason told him, as soon as he reached the office,
that his uncle Richard and Mr. Brackway were already

     
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

mA,182

 

THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

there, and wished to see him at once. She was trying
to get Morris on the telephone . . . They both looked
very serious when he got there, Mr. Brackway at his
desk, his uncle standing in front of it.

“Carl,” said Mr. Brackway, “we’ve had some very
bad news, very bad indeed. It’s about Charter—William
Reese Charter. He’s failed, for a good deal, I’m afraid.”

“Good Lord, Uncle Richard! What’s the reason?
He can’t be in deep. He hasn’t much money of his
own, although of course he handles very large sums.”

Richard Llanfear looked at Brackway. ‘‘That’s the
trouble.”

“You mean he’s been stealing?”

“He’s twenty-five thousand dollars short in the Roth
estate. They turned up something funny in the ac-
counts at the Reliable Trust Company. Mr. Parcher,
the vice-president, will be here at ten. Perhaps it can
be worked out. There may be a mistake. I hope to
heaven there is.”

“He’s very intimate with your uncle Dean,” said
Brackway. “As you know, he’s co-trustee with him
in half a dozen estates, and handles the actual work.”

“Tt will be a terrible blow to Dean if anything’s
wrong. He’s an old man, and he trusted Charter ab-
solutely.”’

“Richard,” said Brackway, “don’t you think Carl
had better go to Mr. Llanfear’s house now? He’s sure
to pick up something on the street. Tell him, Carl,
that we’re worried, that it looks like a loss, but don’t
say anything about the accounts yet, till we find out
something more.”

Old Dean behind his breakfast table, rosy, affable,
genial. Lydia, pouring coffee, straight, elegant, con-NOBLESSE OBLIGE 183

tained, pale. Peggy and Fanny chattering over their
mail. A log fire, hickory logs, well-seasoned, from
the Media farm; warmth, confidence, the sense of se-
curity.

“Come in, Carl, come in, my lad. Some breakfast?
But, of course, you’ve had your breakfast long ago.
A cup of coffee with us, anyway. Liddy, get some
fresh coffee for Carl. I take things a bit easy nowa-
days, and last night the girls insisted I should look in
at the Roths. Did you and Francesca go?”

“T’'d like to talk to you, Uncle, if you’ve finished
break fast.”’

“Go ahead, my boy, I’m ready for anything.” His
wife smiling over at him, thinking how well and young
he looked.

“It’s rather serious

“Personal. Oh, I see!”

“No, sir. It’s about Mr. Charter.’

Old Dean put down his coffee cup. “Reese Char-
ter?”

re Ves, Sins

“What’s wrong

,

g, sick, dead?”’ His eyes narrowed.

“No, sir. His affairs . . . There’s been a loss, I
think, “Unele Richard 22."

Dean stared at his nephew for a moment. “I don't
understand,” he said. His jaw tightened, a hand trem-
bling. “You don’t mean to say ¥

“Things aren’t right, I’m afraid. We don't just
know. Uncle Richard has sent for him, and for Mr.
Parcher of the Reliable Trust Company. It may be all
right.”

“Reese Charter! . . . It’s impossible, some mistake

. Amy, will you telephone for the car? I must go
down-town at once. I'll take you, Carl. Call Windle,184 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

someone, and tell him to meet me at once at Dean &
Llanfear. Reese Charter .. .”

All day old Dean Llanfear and the lawyers closeted
with Mr. William Reese Charter, with Mr. Windle,
coming in and out, telephoning to the bank, with Mr.
Parcher, of the Reliable Trust Co., fussy, helpless,
worried. Reese Charter, his high collar a bit frayed,
his blue eyes watery and vague, deferential, polite, less
perturbed than the others. Creditors trying to get in-
formation, insisting that they must see Mr. Brackway
—well, then, some other member of the firm. Mr.
Brackway was in consultation with the other members
of the firm and they could not be disturbed. No, Miss
Jason would not take your name up. She couldn’t tell
how long it would last.

At the end of two hours they had most of the story
from Charter. It had been going on for fifteen years,
perhaps more, he couldn’t be sure. He had been steal-
ing money on all sides, from the Trust Company, from
Llanfear & Co., from the estates he managed. It had
grown into an intricate system. To hear him describe
his operations you would imagine he was speaking of
ordinary business transactions. He called his thefts
“loans.”’ “TI would borrow say ten or twenty thousand
from an estate for six months or a year. I always kept
plenty of cash on hand to pay dividends and interest
charges.’’ He had kept back money sent in to pay off
mortgages, borrowed on life-insurance policies which
he held as executor or trustee, pledged or sold securi-
ties which belonged to the estates. He had handled
some large real-estate transactions for old Mrs. Roth,
on Dean’s recommendation. The lots had been sold
several years ago, at a very nice profit, but Mrs. RothNOBLESSE OBLIGE 185
had not received anything. “I needed the funds for
the Ventnor speculation,’ Mr. Charter said quietly,
pulling mournfully at his long white mustaches, look-
ing about him at the others, the men who might be
liable for these embezzlements, who seemed too amazed
to be indignant, who sat staring at him, not knowing
what to say.

The Ventnor speculation came in and out a good
deal.

“T never played the stock-market, gentlemen, not
once,” he announced soberly, shaking his head slowly
from side to side, as if somehow that vindicated him
as a sound business man, who stuck to his own spe-
cialty. And there was no doubt that Mr. Charter knew
real estate. He had made a good deal of money for
Mr. Dean Llanfear by judicious advice as to just when
to buy and sell. The Ventnor development was a large
tract on the outskirts of that city, half developed into
building lots. The carrying charges were heavy. “But
it’s valuable, very valuable. If properly developed it
should bring six or seven hundred thousand dollars.
But it will take time, and some money. The mortgages
will have to be carried, and renewed.”

He considered. ‘That was always my real trouble.
I never had enough capital. Of course, you can’t han-
dle real estate on a shoestring.”’

It appeared that he had never stolen from the Llan-
fears individually. There he had been very scrupulous.
Not that he went so far as to use that word, but he in-
timated that these settlements need not be reopened
and examined. And they believed him.

At half past two Mr. Dean Llanfear rose to go, bent
and tired. “There’s no good my staying,” he said,
looking around helplessly. ‘“Brackway, when you get

   

a186 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

some kind of a statement, will you send it to me? Win-
dle will bring it. Perhaps you would stop in to see me
to-night after dinner. I’m going to try to get a little
rest now.” He looked at Charter, who was standing
with his heels together, his eyes on the floor, his hands
behind his back. “I don’t know what to say to you, sir.
I must have time to think. I never trusted a man
more.”

Charter glanced up, and took one step forward. “I
know how you must feel, sir, May I help you to your
cane?

Dean Llanfear flushed to the roots of his white hair.
“Get out of my way, you damned scoundrel!” he cried,
and for a moment Charter thought he was going to
strike him with his walking-stick, and veered away,
trembling and terrified.

Mr. Llanfear buttoned his fur coat and put on his
silk hat. “Carl,” he said in a self-controlled voice,
“will you give me your arm to the car?”

They worked till six, collecting and checking the
possible assets, and liabilities. Mr. Charter had kept
a careful account of the “loans.” There might not be
a heavy loss, if the creditors would act together, and
not push the land company into bankruptcy, perhaps no
loss at all, even something left over after everyone was
paid. “We must think of those two nice girls,”’ said
Mr. Brackway, referring to Mr. Charter’s daughters.

“It’s not so bad,” said Mr. Brackway, who was at
heart an optimist, walking home with Carl, “we may
pull through all right. To-morrow I’ll tackle the other
big creditors, and we’ll form a committee. We repre-
sent sixty per cent now. We can pay off the smaller
ones if necessary. Will you get a creditors’ agreementNOBLESSE OBLIGE 187

in shape, and have some one look into the Ventnor sit-
uation at once, to see if anything needs immediate at-
tention there? I think Mr. Llanfear will be relieved
when I report to him. I feel so sorry for that pretty
little Polly Sylvester. What’s the other one’s name?
I can never remember.”

But Mr. Brackway did not make his report that night
to Mr. Llanfear. When Carl reached home Francesca
told him he was to call his Cousin Peggy the moment
he came in. Her voice was tearful and full of misery.
“Tt’s father, Carl. He’s had a stroke. I didn’t like to
frighten Francesca. He’s apparently conscious, because
his eyes are open. But he can’t move. Mother’s splen-
did . . . No, everything’s been done, only if you'd
call up the bank in the morning and anyone you think
of. I told Aunt Sidney and Uncle Richard. It hap-
pened this afternoon, after he got back from the office,
as he was taking off his things . . .” Her voice trailed
off.

Carl told Francesca.

“Poor Carl, you must be dead. How awful about
Mr. Charter! Poor Polly! Do you think I ought to
call her up?”

“Lord, no! I doubt if the girls know anything, very
few people do. The papers haven't got hold of it yet.
I suppose it will be about to-morrow.’

“Perhaps they can keep it out of the papers, and the
girls needn’t know anything about fine

“Hardly. You see, he’ll have to go to jail.”

“How awful! Can’t they prevent that? Surely,
with the firm’s influence.”

“He damned well ought to go to jail. Why, Fran-
cesca, he’s been stealing for years. I don’t know how
many hundred thousand dollars he got away with, be-

a188

 

THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

cause he kept putting it back from time to time, as he
made it on different land deals. Slick old rascal! It’s a
wonder no one caught him before. I simply can’t un-
derstand it. But then everyone trusted him. Why, when
I think the way Uncle Morris talked about him. . .”

“It’s pretty hard on the girls,” said Francesca.

The next day the news of William Reese Charter’s
defalcations was everywhere, although there was noth-
ing in the morning papers. Mr. Brackway was talking
to the reporters when Carl reached the office. Yes,
Dean & Llanfear represented a large group of creditors,
a committee was being formed. It was a little early to
make any statement yet. There was no doubt that Mr.
Charter’s affairs were in a bad way, but some of his
properties were very valuable. In all probability the
creditors would take over the Ventnor development ;
there would be no trouble to find the necessary capital,
although he had not heard that the company was in
financial straits.

~ But, Mr. Brackway,” questioned a young man from
The Press, “the city editor told me that this was a big
fraud case, trust funds—the Reliable Trust Co. badly
involved—there was something about some city bonds
which were hypothecated to float a loan for the Vent-
nor deal which really belonged to some estate or other.”

“Have you anything more definite than that?”

“Why, no, that’s what we fellows came here for.”

“Well, I have no statement to make, except what I
said. Mr. Charter’s affairs are somewhat involved.
He is co-operating with the creditors in every way, has
opened his books for inspection. We have two excel-
lent accountants working on them now. Any statement
by us would therefore be premature, and in fact un-
wise.”

He looked around to emphasize his words. “And INOBLESSE OBLIGE 189

should think the same might be said of the newspapers.
I should hardly think it wise if anything were printed
by them just now unless they were quite sure of the
facts. There might be very disagreeable consequences.
A slight misstatement as to Mr. Charter’s er—” he
coughed, “shall we say probity? might do him a great
deal of harm, hurt his credit so that he might not get
over it, so that what we lawyers call the consequential
damages would be very heavy. Words which hint at
crimes are libellous in themselves. Of course, that’s
hardly my business, but I think you gentlemen are ina
rather delicate position. Verbum sapienti .. .”

They stared at him fora moment. “Thank you, Mr.
Brackway, we'll see that your hint gets home.” “We're
sure obliged, sir.” “It'll be low pedal, I guess.” “Won't
bother you till to-morrow, Mr. Brackway.” “Good-
by, Mr. Llanfear.” They trooped out.

It was wonderful, thought Carl, how his uncle man-
aged it. Everyone discussed the situation, speculating
on the extent of the loss, how he had managed it, got
away with it for so many years. Several seemed to be
acquainted with details, told amounts, the names of
some of the estates which had been defrauded. And all
the while the papers were silent, afraid of libel suits.
For two or three days the reporters hovered about the
office. Here and there a short paragraph appeared to
the effect that Mr. Charter had failed and his creditors
were organizing to take hold. If one paper had started
perhaps the others would have followed suit. But the
name of Mr. Dean Llanfear was powerful in Phila-
delphia, Llanfear & Co. a great bank. It was known
that Mr. Llanfear and his relations were somehow af-
fected by this failure, that they desired that the matter
be kept quiet.

A week went by. As news the failure was stale.

Mr,190 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

Things looked better all the time. The creditors, out-
raged at first, felt more charitable to Mr. Charter, who
had certainly helped them all he could, after his short-
comings had been discovered, and voted him an allow-
ance of eighty dollars a month. He had to live.

It was amazing, thought Carl, waiting for the ar-
rest to take place, the epic of sentimentality gathering
about this old blackguard, who had betrayed and stolen
and lied for so many years, and now the very people he
had robbed thought that society owed him something
and talked sorrowfully about his two pretty daughters
who must be suffering dreadfully. No one thought
of telling them the truth, and they were sorry Daddy
had failed, and wondered why the powerful and rich
Llanfears did nothing for him after all these years.
Mr. Charter went to live with each in turn after his
house at Overbrook had been sold. His wife had been
dead for a great many years.

Old Dean Llanfear silent and motionless on his bed
in the big, quiet bedroom in the back of the Walnut
Street house; Dean Llanfear paralyzed, unable to
move, his voice gone, eyes open, watching, watching
the ceiling, thinking, waiting to die. If only they would
talk in their natural voices, instead of whispering, tread-
ing stealthily about the room, darkening the room,
muffling all life, all noises of the life he loved. No let-
ters, no newspapers, silence, watching the ceiling.
There were so many things he wanted to know, about
Reese Charter, about his investments. Was anything
left? They had taken most of it to pay Reese Char-
ter’s debts. He was poor, they were all poor. Hor-
rible poverty . . . His mind went blank, groping along
a dark, empty space, blind, feeling the walls, stumblingNOBLESSE OBLIGE

. . Was that Amy or Lydia, watching him? Why
couldn’t they let him alone? Memory slipped back,
struggling down through the past. He was a young
man watching the troops march through the city, di-
recting the bank at twenty-five, he could not leave the
bank—until the state was invaded, and he too marched
out, joined General Meade’s command at Gettysburg
. . . slipping, slipping, a child, playing in his father’s
rose garden behind the town house on Second Street,
or was it his grandfather’s, the first Dean Llanfear,
who had founded the bank in 1814, who had known
Lafayette, and been a friend of Robert Morris, a fre-
quenter of the house on Third Street of the beautiful
Mrs. Bingham . . . Memory slipping each day, each
day a little fainter, the darkness spreading toward him,
very slowly. Helpless, prone, without power over limb
or tongue, his mind gradually growing dark, sinking
slowly into death

The doctor said he might live for another year un-
less there was a second stroke. He might even recover.
He was not suffering, was hardly conscious, wanted
nothing, the doctor said. And Lydia, sitting by his
side, through the dim hours of the winter afternoons,
taking her turn as was her duty, wondered when he
would die and give her release so that she might marry
Dan Carew .

“Can I see you, Mr. Brackway? Thanks. It’s about
this Charter business. It looks as if we'd pull it
through, don’t you think?”

“Yes, Carl, everything looks first-rate.”

“The last creditor came in to-day. Don’t you think
we ought to put all our information before the District
Attorney, and swear out the warrants?”192 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

Brackway sat up quickly. ‘‘What’s that?”

Carl repeated his suggestion.

“I don’t see that it’s any of our business.”

“But the man’s the worst kind of a crook. There
was absolutely no excuse, no justification.”

“Still, there won’t be much of a loss, perhaps none.”

Carl was growing angry. “Oh, I suppose you’d say
he’s made restitution.”

“Hardly . . . But, Carl, we represent the creditors.
It’s very much to our interest that Charter should not
be arrested—at least it was at first, while we were get-
ting loans extended for the land company. It doesn’t
much matter now, except the notoriety of it for our cli-
ents. They would dislike any criminal proceedings.
Particularly the Reliable. Mr. Parcher has several
times expressed himself on the matter, and I think they
are most gratified with the quiet way we’ve handled it.”

“Do you mean to say that you’re not going to send
the man to prison?”

“It’s not our business and certainly not our duty.
Of course, if the District Attorney wishes information,
everything we have is at his disposal.’’

“Well, I think it 7s our business, because we’re the
only people that know the whole thing. I don’t see
why a swindler should get off just because he’s been
successful. I think it’s a rotten way of behaving.” He
got up, scowling.

“Sorry,” said his uncle, smiling quietly, “I’m afraid
I disagree with you.”

Carl tried the others. Richard was evidently im-
pressed with his arguments, but when he heard Carl
had already talked to Brackway, he would hear nothing
more. “He’s been handling it, Carl, and knows theNOBLESSE OBLIGE 193

details and equities of the case. I certainly won’t go
into it. You may consider it closed.” Morris tended
to be sympathetic, mildly argumentative, philosophic.
“Tf you’re a lawyer, Carl, you can’t always work for
everybody’s good. Your client comes first.’’

Carl left the office depressed, unhappy. If Charter
had been a penniless boy who had stolen a few hun-
dred dollars, whose life had not been intertwined with
richer and more powerful men, would they have con-
spired to spare him? If representing powerful clients
meant that you defended interests inimical to the public
good, did you, as a lawyer, have to defend them, stul-
tify your sense of what was right, conceal, manipu-
late? But that wasn’t fair, nothing had been con-
cealed, no improper influence exerted. But could he
go on with it? He saw himself drifting into the point
of view which to them seemed a matter of course—
that the integrity of the social structure should be pre-
served and defended at all costs, that life should run
peacefully and along the ancient lines of quiet order,
the order of marriage, of unity of the family, of easy
wealth, of banks, and trust companies and institutions,
accumulating reverence in proportion as they accumu-
lated capital. And if in the system someone went
down and splashed mud about him as he fell, clean the
mess quietly and don’t make a fuss. Mind your own
business, serve your own masters, wash your own dirty
linen . . . The law sharpens the mind only to narrow
it, Burke had said . . . Should he not leave the firm,
strike out for himself, do what he thought was right?
But how, where? It was all alike, the world of busi-
ness and politics and society, dead to the stir of moral
indignation, passionate only when it was greedy, tim-
orous, apathetic . . . Or was he impractical, untested,

 

 

n194 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

judging men far better than himself, men like Uncle
Morris and Mr. Brackway? .. .

“Francesca, they’re not going to prosecute William
Reese Charter.”

“Oh, Carl, ’'m so glad. It would be too awful for
Polly. I’m afraid she suspects something. Of course,
she has no idea of the real state of affairs. I think
you must have handled it wonderfully, Carl dear.’’ She
looked up at him with a glow of admiration.CHAPTERSX VIE
OLD MARTIN AND OLD DEAN

OLp Martin Llanfear outlived his cousin, old Dean
Lianfear, by nearly a month. Martin died at eighty-
four and Dean at eighty. Events among the tribe of
Llanfears to be marked with due solemnity and sor-
row. The two richest of the Llanfears, dying almost
together. And yet how different they were in quality,
in achievement, their afflicted relations murmured,
drawing comparison for the younger generation. Dean
had worked all his life, married young, reared three
daughters. It was curious that not one of the girls
had married. They were happier at home, they had
everything, and their father and mother had always
been so particular that few young men had ever ap-
peared eligible, fewer each year, particularly as the
girls grew older. A fine example of the older gen-
eration, Mr. Dean Llanfear, a great banker, who had
built up Llanfear & Co. into a vast institution. Not
like these modern bankers, who have so few interests
outside of their business. He was an integral part of
the life of his community, a stanch Republican, who
could be counted on for generous contributions at elec-
tions, a former president of the Union League. That
his services had never been appropriately recognized by
an ambassadorship was indicative of how safe Penn-
sylvania was in the Republican column. But in his own
city he held many positions of trust, a director of the
Centennial Exposition of 1876, a member of the School
Board, a director of the Academy of Fine Arts, a man-
195196 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

ager of the Assemblies, for years on the board of the
Pennsylvania Hospital, not to speak of countless bank
and trust company boards. And if there were a few
irreverent iconoclasts who were wont to treat the name
of Llanfear jocosely, and spoke of old Dean without
reverence, as an old stuffed shirt, who would have been
nothing without his money; whose narrow provincial-
ism had dried up the sources of growth wherever its in-
fluence was felt, stemming new ideas in education, in
art; atrophying, vain, wielding power with a cold and
selfish precision, his reputation an amusing example of
the parochial outlook which his small, busy mind could
create and dominate ;—the voices of the scoffers were
stilled in the lavish chorus of his praises, rising from
the newspapers, in the letters that poured into the house
on Walnut Street, at the clubs; at the impressive ser-
vice at St. Peter’s, where the little square pews over-
flowed with mourners, so that the two or three dozen
Llanfears seemed lost in the public mourning. The
church, the arts, society, city and state, and the pillars
of business, towering in black, dignified, solemn, who
had come to show their approval of his way of life,
their sorrow at his death . . . Mr. John Wanamaker,
in the daily advertisement of his wares, which he usu-
ally prefaced with a moral news item, wrote, with a
simple appropriateness: “A great store mourns the
passing of a great man.”

Martin’s passing was more strictly a family affair.
He had outlived all his friends, if his wife can be ex-
cepted, and only relatives heard his burial service and
watched his widow, Sarah Brandt, of North Philadel-
phia, who, as usual, overdid her part, clad in too pro-
nounced and emphatic crape, in keeping with the lackOLD MARTIN AND OLD DEAN 197

of restraint in her note-paper. Poor lady! She trem-
bled a little when she thought of the will—he had read
it to her, each last edition, coming out in repeated codi-
cils, during the last two or three years, when the
thought of death had constantly haunted him, the fear
of painful death, of diseased organs, preying on his
mind. He had died pretty peacefully, probably of acute
indigestion, it was a little hard to tell, there were so
many possible causes. And the funeral was rather im-
pressive, he was so enormously rich, and there were
those who said that even if he had been a wicked old
viveur there was something stylish about him, and he
had always done what he wanted, which is saying a
good deal nowadays.

The widow was impressed more by the probating of
the will than by the funeral. She was co-executrix
with the Reliable Trust Co. and Mr. Richard Llan-
fear. Martin Llanfear had felt that any man as re-
ligious as Richard would be less apt to steal, and that
such a mild man would not be disagreeable to Sarah.
He had been anxious as to how they would treat Sarah
after his death. And Richard was made co-trustee
with the Trust Company. Exactly the right man, old
Martin had thought, to act in both capacities—humor-
less, dull, meticulous, grave, gentle. He didn’t even
drink, and Martin had chuckled to himself, thinking
of his life and of Richard’s . . .

Carl had to be present when the will was probated
and the petition for letters testamentary executed, as
he had witnessed most of the codicils, rushing up to
old Martin’s house with his uncle Richard, to find old
Martin with a cold, with a slight attack of indigestion,
flushed and excited, his hand trembling so that he
could hardly sign his name before the two witnesses,

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
   

=~198 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

exclaiming “Is that all right, Sarah? Are you sure
you're satisfied?” And, Sarah, wiping her eyes and
rosy cheeks, and saying: “Yes, yes, Martin. Only
don’t talk about dying. I just can’t stand it...” A
wonderful ceremony, this probating the will, thought
Carl, watching the hushed alacrity of the scene in Mr.
Parcher’s office at the Reliable Trust Company on
Chestnut Street, below Third. On ordinary occasions
they would have appeared before the Register, in City
Hall. But this was not an ordinary occasion. The
Depuy Register, who had come prepared with the nec-
essary papers, felt it, deferential, sympathetic, alert.
Mr. Parcher certainly felt it. He was in black, of
course. He almost always wore black. He almost had
to wear black. But to-day it was a very special kind
of black, an ascot, a quiet pearl, striped trousers, a
short coat, shaped a little at the waist, suggesting for-
mality without emphasizing it. Mr. Parcher was tall,
dashing, pretty well connected, totally bald; small
waxed mustache, large gold eyeglass dangling on a
broad black tape, ingratiating smile, beautiful man-
ners, a perfect artist with rich old ladies, who adored
him, with all old ladies in fact. He was light and
quick on his feet, and almost frisked about now, frisk-
ing decorously of course, giving directions to his two
subordinates, Mr. Plym, the trust officer, and Mr.
Foroway, assistant trust officer, smiling a good deal
and frowning a good deal; smiling gravely and com-
miseratingly at the widow, frowning at the two sub-
ordinates, generous with gestures, gestures to chairs, to
the place to sign, to the witnesses; sympathetic ges-
tures, gestures denoting that it was no trouble, a plea-
sure; rubbing his palms when he thought about the
pleasure, the executors’ commission, at least a hundredOLD MARTIN AND OLD DEAN 199

thousand for the trust company, and year after year a
sound sum, as trustee

The will and codicils were read to the widow, and
carefully explained, though she was already familiar
with their import. There were a few small legacies,
and the residue went in trust, the income to the widow
for life, at her death the remainder equally to the tes-
tator’s nephews and nieces, and issue of nephews and
nieces then living—‘that is, at the time of your death,
Mrs. Llanfear, I’m right, am I not, Richard?” The
house in town and the house in the country were hers
for life ; the house at Newport and the villa at Nice and
the model farm at West Chester went to her outright,
as well as all horses and carriages, jewelry, silver,
books, personal belongings.

She had put back her veil, and looked up timidly at
Mr. Parcher. “What will my income be, do you
think?”

He reflected, shaking his head two or three times,
so that for a moment she felt that her husband perhaps
had died a poor man. “Hard to say, till we list the se-
curities, though of course we have been handling them.
As agent, you know, Mrs. Llanfear. What do you
think, Mr. Plym? Two hundred, two hundred and
fifty thousand?”

“At least two hundred and fifty thousand

“T think we could safely say two hundred and fifty
thousand.”

Mrs. Llanfear sighed. She felt a little frightened.
“That’s a great deal of money,” she said, and dropped
her veil.

 

9

A great deal of money! A great deal too much, said
Susan Brackway to herself, to leave to that common

    
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
    

~200 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

Sarah Brandt. And she said as much to her husband.
“An eminently fair will, my dear. Nothing was left
to the widow outright, unless you count her commis-
sions as executrix. She hasn’t even a testamentary
power. It all goes to the family on her death.”

“Yes, on her death! And when will that be? She
can't be more than forty-six or seven, twenty years
younger than lam. She'll live to be a hundred. They
always do, those large, sanguine, stupid women. And
not even a child to show for it.”

“But Martin was nearly seventy when he married
her.?

“I don’t believe she ever wanted children. It’s sim-
ply taking the money away from where it rightly be-
longs. Martin never made it, at least not much, though
I suppose it accumulated. I call it an outrage.”

Her husband resumed the reading of his brief.

“Did you make the will ?”

“My dear, you shouldn’t ask such questions. Rich-
ard drew it.”

“H’m ... and he’s an executor. I’m certain he
influenced the old gentleman.”

“Susan, what do you mean?”

“Never mind. You'll see what I mean,” she mut-
tered darkly, tossing her massive coiffure.

It was the women, thought Carl, remembering how
they acted about Deany, who were the most indecent
over Martin Llanfear’s money. They talked as if it
were theirs, as if Sarah Brandt, as they called her, had
no right to it. She had seduced him before marriage
and now had his money. There had been an agreement
when they were married that on his death the money
would go to his own people. So Mrs. Morrisoun toOLD MARTIN AND OLD DEAN 201

Carl at Pondello, where he and Francesca were spend-
ing the week-end.

“That’s not true, Aunt Sidney!”

‘What do you mean, it isn’t true? I’ve always heard
that was the understanding.”

“It may have been your understanding and Aunt
Susan’s. It certainly wasn’t Cousin Martin’s. The will
dates back fifteen years, was executed just before they
were married.”

“Ves, but how about the codicils?”’

‘He simply increased her income, and kept tying up
the principal. At first he did leave some outright to her
and to the residuary legatees, but later he felt that she
should have all the income, so that we get a great deal
more eventually. I suppose he came to trust her as
time went on, and to realize how much of her time
she was devoting to him. He must have been a pretty
hard man to live with, Cousin Martin, with his gout
and indigestion and nerves, always cursing everything
and expecting her to be a nurse for him, but at least he
did the decent thing at the end.”

“He acted very foolishly at the end. If he’d given
her a moderate allowance she wouldn’t have her head
turned, as she’s sure to now. You can’t leave all that
wealth to a woman in her position. She’s not a lady,
Carl. We never liked the marriage.”

“Of course you didn’t,” said Carl with a grin.

‘No, it wasn’t only the money, though I do think it
unfair. I was counting on it to put Pondello in order,
and now I don’t know what I’ll do. I daresay she was
a very good woman in her way, certainly a great deal
better than he was. I’m told he was very dissipated,
hardly gay I should think. But, as I said, she wasn't
a lady. It always makes trouble. If she had been a202 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

lady, people couldn’t have said what they’re saying

3

now.

What absurd, what outrageous things they were say-
ing, thought Carl. Jennie Llanfear intimated that
Richard Llanfear had had a hand in it. She talked
everywhere, almost violently, as if she wanted to arouse
a public opinion to support her; and even her own
friends, Polly Sylvester and Francesca among them,
were shocked at her outbursts. Finally she went to
Mrs. Brackway, who in turn called on Richard Llan-
fear.

Mrs. Brackway did not wait to be announced, sailing
into his office, where he was talking to Carl, with a
look of high determination. She was not afraid of her
brother Richard.

“Richard, I’ve come about this will.”

“What do you mean, Susan? Do sit down.” He
glanced at his watch. ‘What will? No, stay, Carl.
Your aunt won’t mind, will you, Susan?” thinking it
would be over quicker, whatever it was, with Carl
there.

“Yes, Carl, you had better stay. It concerns you
very vitally. Richard, you must know the will I mean.
It’s been the talk of the town, and your part in the mak-
ing of it. I mean the will of Martin Llanfear, our
cousin!”

Richard blinked, completely at a loss. ‘Yes, Susan?”

We all think it’s an outrage, Richard. It’s a plot
of this woman to rob us of what’s ours. She got
him first, and now she’s got his money. We mustn’t
let her get away with it.”” She leaned forward on the
desk, trying to transfix him with her large indignant
eyes, the purple plumes on her hat waving as she movedOLD MARTIN AND OLD DEAN 203

her head. “It’s undue influence. I know something
about law. It’s improper influence brought to bear
when he was sick and old and feeble. The last codicil
was made two months before he died. Eighty-four,
mind you, and certainly feeble-minded. Do you call
that testamentary capacity?”

She paused, glowering at him, but rushed on when,
recovering from his first shock of amazement, he be-
gan to speak.

“And do you know what they’re saying about you,
Richard? They’re saying that you had a hand in the
plot. You're an executor. You'll benefit by this will.
It looks bad, doesn’t it?”

He was on his feet, white and choking with anger.
“How dare you, Susan, have you lost your mind? [
won't listen to any more. I'll have you put out, break-
ing, it Oni me, in this way... Vil. .|. Can cout
once to Brackway’s room and tell him to come here—
quick. And Morris, too. And come back. I won't
have this woman insult me %

Carl fled across the hall . .

They stood glaring at each other. “I didn’t insult
you,”’ she said, thinking that perhaps she had gone too
far. “I simply am repeating what everyone's say-
ing. What I thought you ought to know for your own
POO 4h):

But at sight of her husband, whose face fell a little
when he saw her, followed by Carl, her sense of injury,
of being deprived of what was hers, found expression
again. She would have her rights. The will ought to
be broken. There should be some kind of settlement.

Her husband, as she talked, grew quieter and more
set. Carl saw him spread his legs and clench his hands

 

om204 THE LEANBEAR PATTERN

behind his back. He was growing angry, which sel-
dom happened with Mr. Brackway.

“Have you done?” he asked her sternly.

“T suppose so. At least for the present.”

“Then let me say something ... But first about
this will. Richard, of course, had nothing to do with
influencing anybody. He drew the will as he was di-
rected to draw it. Mrs. Llanfear never, I am certain,
used any influence on her husband to get money out
of him. If anything, it was the other way. I was
present on one occasion, when one of the codicils was
drawn, when she remonstrated with him, said he must
think of his blood relations. At any rate, it would have
been perfectly proper if she had used her influence to
get him to leave her everything he had outright. You
seem to forget that she was his wife, although I hardly
suppose you would expect me to cut you off with an
allowance. And your suggestion that he was incom-
petent to make a will is absurd.”

mbit dont. see why...”
voice.

“Be silent!” he shouted at her, his face flushing more
deeply, taking a step towards her. “You will hear what
I have to say without interrupting, and then you will
go to your home and endeavor hereafter to mind your
business in matters that do not concern you.”

She looked at him spellbound. Was this Julius, her
husband ?

“You have repeated without any grounds the basest,
the most idle gossip. You have grossly insulted your
brother. You have gossiped and meddled and made
false accusations. I am ashamed of you. I did not
think you could stoop to, to—something so unworthy
of a Llanfear!’’ He felt this would touch her, and he

she began in a loudOLD MARTIN AND OLD DEAN 205

glared at her as he said it. She had taken out her hand-
kerchief, and was crying, whimpering, the plumes shak-
Cae

“I’ve never been spoken to this way! I don’t un-
derstand . . . I didn’t insult anyone. Oh! .. .” she
sobbed.

“Carl, will you see your aunt downstairs ?”

They both had sunk limply into chairs when Carl
got back.

“Uncle Williams, you were wonderful, like the
Bishop to Mrs. Proudie.”

“I don’t know either of them. But she deserved a
lot more. What a woman!”

Richard’s face relaxed into a smile. “What a
woman!’’ he repeated, slowly shaking his head from
side to side.

“And now,” said Carl, standing between them, a
hand on each uncle’s shoulder, ‘“‘we’ll go to the club and
have a drink. I think we all need one.”

Brackway got to his feet. ‘Carl, I’ll do it, by God
I will, though I never drink in the morning.”

“And I,” said Richard, “though I never drink at
all.”’. And arm-in-arm, to Miss Jason’s amazement,
the three left the office, and started up Chestnut Street
for the Club.

Dean Llanfear was dead, and his will probated, and
the estate almost settled. Lydia, very smart in her
mourning, competent, steady, had taken charge of ev-
erything. She was wonderful, they said, all that spring,
revealing capacities which no one had dreamed of. She
was closer to him than anyone, they said, even than

 

>206 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

his wife, most like her father, inheriting his con-
structive ability, a real Llanfear. Lydia, stepping
quietly, her head high, her eyes clear, seeing steadily
her future, now that she was free, moving in the young
spring breaking about her, bringing new youth with
its promise of sudden life . . . Peggy wondered at the
beauty of her spirit flowering from her sorrow, from
a faith deeper than her sister’s, unshaken by death, cer-
tain of the final triumph . . . Peggy, who felt that life
was very sad, felt middle-aged and stupid and rusty in
her black, missed her father, longed to have him back
to bully her as he used to, wept over him with a con-
vulsive, childish misery, distorted her memory of him
till he became a pleasant saint, with the odd definite
gestures of hands and head which she remembered as
they were, while everything else changed, and she was
lonely for lack of someone to whom she could devote
herself, prostrate her personality, hungry for small
and meaningless self-sacrifices. You couldn’t devote
yourself to mother somehow, who seemed self-suffi-
cient in her detached sorrow. And Fanny went on her
way, which seemed little changed, except that for a
year she would be in mourning, and then could buy
more frocks.

Dan Carew, thought Lydia, had been perfect. She
might have acted differently. But then she was more
crude than Dan, less tactful, less well-bred. It gave
her a strange sense of happiness to compare herself to
Dan, and to find that she had rather beastly faults,
which he would have hated. He came to see her twice
in the week after her father died. She knew how much
he would have disliked her to show what she felt, to
find in her any echo of his own hopes and plans. For
he must know that now they would have enough. SheOLD MARTIN AND OLD DEAN 207

was proud of his reticence, of his perfect manner,
guarded, at ease, sincere—an old friend sharing her
loss, with never any false note, no over-emphasis,
none of the conventional assumptions of her relations
with the dead man. She had almost forgotten that she
had hated him, remembering only that she loved Dan.
Once he touched her hand, held it for a moment, as if
in quiet assurance.

Yes, Dan had been perfect, and she felt to-day, as
she waited for him, three months after his last visit,
that it had not been too long. He understood so well
that they must not rush in, from no conventional preju-
dice, but with a finer feeling for the clear atmosphere
which would make their personal meeting spontaneous
and exquisite.

But her hand trembled as she gave him his tea.

“You haven’t forgot how I take it, Lydia.”

Her heart pounded. Now, now! “I’ve got that sort
of meticulous memory, I suppose. What have you been
doing ?”’

“Oh, nothing much.”’ He talked of books he had
been reading, the new plays in New York. How long
would he talk like that? ‘Yes, I will have another
cup.” More talk, talk . . . He seemed normal, com-
fortable. When would he come to, to . . . Her heart
fell with sudden swift fright, and she sat straighter on
the sofa.

“My dear, I’ve never seen you look so handsome.
You’re like the girl I danced with when your father
gave that famous ball at Horticultural Hall, never mind
how many years ago.”

Her heart was glad again. Oh, Dan, Dan!

He talked of old times. She felt he was being amus-
ing, charming, as he had been so many times. She

    
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 

a“208 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

didn’t know what he was saying. It wasn’t possible,
dear God, it couldn’t be...

He lit a cigarette, stretched himself.

“It’s not such a bad life,” he said.

. . . He was leaving. He was standing up, his hand
out.

“Good-by, Liddy.”

Stop him . . . he doesn’t understand. Throw your-
self in his arms. Of course he loves you. It’s just
convention, chivalry, your new wealth .. .

She put out her hand. She couldn’t speak, she would
choke if she spoke, burst into tears. She must not let
him know that she cared, never that, whatever hap-
pens. But she couldn’t trust herself to speak.

“Good-by, Dan,” she said.

The door shut behind him. Then he really hadn’t
wanted her. It was his way of saying it... She
could not tell him that if he wanted her— But he
didn’t want her. It’s not such a bad life! She felt the
tears rising. She hadn’t cried for years. But when
she got to her room her eyes were dry. She was empty
of tears and youth and the spring, a dried-up middle-
aged woman, who had fallen out of her dream.CHAPTER XVIII
POLITICIANS AND REFORMERS

Cart had been practising law for six years. He
liked his work, now that it was second nature to him.
It was satisfactory to be busy, to feel himself an active
part of his profession, of the bar of his city. Of course
all this talk about the traditions of the bar was bunk.
Probably always had been. Carl knew that now. Reese
Charter’s treatment, for instance. But if lawyers were
not any more admirable than anyone else they were no
less human. If he didn’t much respect their timidity
and routineer methods he was fond of a good many of
them ; very fond of the men he worked with, of Uncle
Richard, with his kindness and solemnity; of Mr.
Brackway, painstaking and generous; and of course of
Uncle Morris. Yet there was something in Carl which
escaped from the activities of his work, which was not
satisfied by his normally increasing success. He was
no longer the impatient youngster who had challenged
everything with his own illusions. But he was not yet
willing to accept the second-best without a struggle.

He looked about him.

They all seemed so much older. The sense, poign-
antly that year, of how his group had suddenly gone
old. Lydia, her lips tight, still in mourning, stylish;
Billy Thrush fatter, static; the Rapport girls, accepted
old maids, cheery enough. Anne Frew and Amy Sar-
ter, domesticated, settled. He felt old himself, looking
back over his years in Philadelphia, which had slipped

209210 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

by without achievement, without even the struggle for
achievement. Yet six years isn’t long.

By contrast Ellen Thrall, back from two years in
Europe, seemed fresh and vivid.

“That’s just because you haven’t been seeing me.”

“Well, as a matter of fact I do hardly know you.
You were a child, and now we're grown up, and I
didn’t see you much in between. Perhaps you didn’t
have an in-between.”

“Oh, yes, I did—a straggly one.”

“Home now for good?”

“T think so.”

pauike 16277

"Love it.’’

“H’m .. . You look nice and excited.”

“Of course I am—life is.”

She wondered afterward whether things were go-
ing well with him. He had seemed gay enough; and
yet not quite sure of himself. He was not a bit like
the other Llanfears.

Carl thought of politics. He had his work going
now. He could afford to do something on the outside.

There was to be a mayoralty election that autumn.
It was one of those rare occasions when the reformers
had a chance. A split had come in the Republican Or-
ganization between the Senator and certain of the city
leaders, Ike Billings, by now a very powerful gen-
tleman, and Ryan. The Ryan faction accused the
Senator of having a college education—which indeed
he had—and therefore of not understanding the plain
people. The Senator retorted that Billings and Ryan
were bosses, which they undoubtedly were, and there-POLITICIANS AND REFORMERS aii

fore unworthy to represent the great city. In the
ensuing struggle for decency the Senator had found it
advisable to ally himself with the reformers, the in-
dependent Democrats—he could not swing the little
Democratic organization kept alive on good Republi-
can patronage—the shopkeepers, who spoke of them-
selves as “merchants”; the newspapers; the clergymen,
loud in denunciation of vice, which had flourished like
a green bay tree under the outgoing mayor; and gen-
erally the ‘“‘better element,” including a dozen dissatis-
fied ward leaders, who thought Billings was getting
things too entirely in his own hands.

The Organization had nominated. Richard Lanahan,
a fluent young lawyer, handsome, good-natured, popu-
lar. He had represented them in the legislature for
two sessions, had been an assistant City Solicitor, and
called by his first name every judge, tipstaff, and clerk
in City Hall. He loved the Organization, which had
made him. It was a club, the most democratic of clubs,
where every man might find a place, and hold it, if he
would take orders and not be a hog; a club which
looked after poor people, and gathered the loaves and
fishes and distributed them fairly enough; friendly and
American, a human institution, where good fellows
came and went and stuck together, fighting and march-
ing and dividing the spoils.

It had been difficult for the reformers to agree on a
candidate. The Senator wanted a man who was prac-
tical. The reformers distrusted practical men, and
fought among themselves. The newspapers called for
a hard-headed business man who would run the city on
a strictly business basis. But apparently no business
man was willing to make the sacrifice. The Rev. J.
Blather Sneath, of the First Presbyterian Church on212 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

Spring Garden Street, had always led the better ele-
ment in the crusades against vice. He was willing, but
not the Senator, who stood firm, muttering curses in
his huge chin against all zealots and crusaders. The
boys, thank God, could count on the Senator. Precious
days wore by, and for a while it seemed that an agree-
ment among the forces of righteousness was impos-
sible.

Then the Committee of One Hundred, after three
days in closed sessions, nominated Mr. George J. Crane,
and the Senator, who had in fact suggested him, at
once announced that he would support the choice of
this representative citizens’ body. With some reluc-
tance the remaining allies, who knew little or nothing
of Mr. Crane, followed suit. The Freedom Party was
chartered to support his candidacy.

Mr. Crane, like Mr. Lanahan, was a member of the
bar. He was a tall, lean, humorless individual, the ef-
fect of whose piercing eye was somewhat marred by
heavy tortoise-shell spectacles.

He considered himself a good mixer. He was a
Mason, an Elk, a Red Man, counsel for the Chestnut
Street Business Men’s Association, a Son of the Revo-
lution, a brother of the Little Brothers of the Poor,
earnestly gregarious, member of infinite committees,
leader of countless movements. He was stanch on
fundamentals, the Church, the Tariff, the Republi-
can Party. A man of sense, Mr. Crane, with never
enough acumen to develop any considerable practice,
but assiduously avoiding mistakes and extremes. His
private life was impeccable, even if there was so little
of it. There was a flurry of belated recognition of his
past services among the newspapers, which, having lit-
tle to go on in his meagre and negative career, were aPOLITICIANS AND REFORMERS 213

trifle inconsistent in their descriptions. They all said
that he was no politician. The North American hailed |
him as a rising young lawyer who had always battled
for the rights of the people against the gang. Mr.
Crane was fifty-three, and if not young was still ris-
ing. The Ledger hinted that he was giving up a ripe
practice to enter the political arena from a sense of
duty long cherished but till now unfulfilled. The In-
quirer called him a good Republican. The Bulletin
published a group photograph of the candidate and his
family, and an impressive list of his affiliations. The
Press hoped, a little dismally, that he would do; and
The Record, the only Democratic newspaper, holding up
a Diogenes lantern, hailed him as an honest and inde-
pendent Republican, hinting between the lines that per-
haps that was the reason that he had been hitherto
inconspicuous.

-

The summer passed into September with little po-
litical excitement. The Senator, knowing the unwis-
dom of premature enthusiasm, was somewhere in
Wyoming, shooting big game. Mr. Crane practised
speeches in private. The Organization leaders paid
calls on Mr. Ryan, who had nothing to say for pub-
lication, or sat about Mr. Billings’ cool porch at At-
lantic City, where Mr. Lanahan was a frequent vis-
itor, and had nothing to say. But by Labor Day
City Hall, waking from its empty days of the shuffling
feet of small fry, opened its arms to the returning
chiefs, and rang again with news and gossip and the
threat of impending slashes in the departments. The
Senator was back in his Walnut Street house, and his
vast bulk and gross bronzed face, nodding over the
enormous cigar, had been seen in the great red touring-214 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

car gliding between respectful policemen and awed pe-
destrians. The campaign for decency had begun.

Carl followed the campaign avidly, reading all the
news. He was very much excited over this chance.
If only they could wrest control of city politics from
the Organization everything would be clear sailing.
He knew nothing of the history or needs of his city,
but saw her like some damsel in distress whom he had
set out to rescue; a personal drama, not unlike the
stories he had told himself as a child, in which he was
a knight, riding alone . . . Till at last the multitude
was roused against this infamous thing. He might be
district attorney, or something .

Perhaps Carl was no more unsuited for the task
than countless other young men of the time, starting
forth on similar quests. Attached to no particular
party, breaking away from the laissez faire principles
of the Manchester School, on which their fathers had
been brought up, they discarded liberalism and turned
their eyes to the strenuous life which Mr. Roosevelt
was preaching. At Harvard Carl had heard Lowell
analyze the structure of party organization in his lec-
tures on government; and in Taussig’s courses on
economics had taken a passing glance at some of the
historic doctrines of the mild socialism currently fash-
ionable before the Great War. And now Mr. William
James had discovered Pragmatism . . . Carl emerged
from college with a classical training which stopped at
school; no scientific or technical knowledge; a scattered
and incodrdinated jumble of reading.

Untrained and enthusiastic, like so many of his con-
temporaries, he saw the problems which confronted
American life in moral terms; and convinced of the
need for action, if rather uncertain of any aim or end,POLITICIANS AND REFORMERS | ais

pinned his faith on virtue, and made up his mind to
join the ranks of the Freedom Party.

He called at headquarters on South Broad Street,
the ground floor of an unrented store, where volun-
teers to the cause were welcomed by Colonel C. Peasley
Rex. Colonel Rex was a Southerner, a native of Nash-
ville, Tennessee, and yet a man of indomitable energy.
He had not succeeded in any definite line of commer-
cial or professional activity, but had always been busy
on the side, and modestly prosperous. He had lectured
at Chautauquas through the Southwest, done publicity
work in Chicago and Kansas City, been private secre-
tary for a Massachusetts Congressman in Washington,
organized and set on a firm basis the model City Club
of Cleveland, had lately worked here and there through-
out Pennsylvania for the Senator. He had made a
special study of Philadelphia.

The glass door to the private office opened to emit
three very fat, very flushed, very hard-looking profes-
sional gentlemen. The Colonel’s rich voice came from
within.

“Miss Means, please show Mr. Llanfear in at once.
I should not have kept him waiting so long.”

A dark girl, with dark hair turning bronze at the
edges, neatly dressed, came out to Carl.

“Colonel Rex can see you now, Mr. Llanfear.”’

Carl stared at her. Gosh, she was pretty. He
walked in.

The Colonel got up to shake hands. “I’m glad you
have come, Mr. Llanfear. Sit down.”

“T’m afraid you are busy, Colonel Rex,” said Carl,
looking doubtfully at the four telephones on the
desk, which were constantly breaking out into muffled

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   
 
  
 
 

aa216 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

rings, and were answered almost inaudibly by Miss
Means.

“Qh, no, not yet. We're just beginning, Mr. Llan-
fear. You'll see things warm up a bit before long.
Besides, I’m really just a sort of figure-head here.
The young men do my work for me. I take things
pretty easy, just a little general supervising, I’m really
only a volunteer like yourself. I hope, like yourself.”
The Colonel was volunteering for five thousand dol-
lars.

“Well,” said Carl, “I should like to do some
work. Have you got anything where you could place
me?”

The Colonel considered, leaning back comfortably
in his swivel chair. “I’m thinking where you could
most help us, Mr. Llanfear. There’s plenty of work
to do, but I don’t want to waste you. We don’t get
men of your ability and education every day. Would
you like to go on the Finance Committee ?”

“Well, Uncle Richard is on that already. I don’t
think I could help much. Besides, I’d like to do some-
thing more active, like speaking.”

“Just the thing I need, of course. Would you or-
ganize a speakers’ bureau? We could begin at once
—meetings all over the city, noon rallies at the facto-
ries. You can have Miss Means to help you. She
knows the ropes.”

“Pd like that,” said Carl, looking at Miss Means.

“A splendid opportunity for service. You're young,
not a quiet old codger like me. But I doubt if you have
any more enthusiasm for this fight.” He struck the

desk with his fist. “Fight! By God, sir! I love to
fight on these lines—the decent element against the

gang.”POLITICIANS AND REFORMERS 217

“T think you’re dead right! I know we can win, if
we can only rouse them. I hope I can do the job. I’d
like to do some speaking myself.”

“That’s the stuff. Let’s shake hands on it. The
speaking literature is all ready. Miss Means will give
you samples of it. Why, you’ve put new enthusiasm
into me. Come to lunch to-morrow, and we'll talk
over the campaign.”

Carl passed out to the waiting-room. ‘Here is some
of the literature, Mr. Llanfear, the Colonel spoke of.”
Miss Means was at his elbow, her eager, quick eyes
looking up at him. “I’m so glad you're to be with us,”
she said.

For a moment his eyes lingered on hers, and found
in them an echo of his own excitement. “So am I,” he
answered, “and to have you work for me. Good-by.”’

“Good-by, Mr. Llanfear.”

Carl’s Speakers’ Bureau was one department of the
Publicity Committee, and the Publicity Committee
again a division of the Central Campaign Committee.
In fact, committees were the very stuff of which the
battle for righteousness was made. Women’s commit-
tees, business men’s committees, lawyers’ committees,
young college men’s committees, central, southern, Ger-
mantown, Negro committees, dividing the town, racial,
geographical, professional, criss-crossing and overlap-
ping, spreading mighty or little names over hastily or-
dered letter-heads, bristling with secretaries, treasurers,
chairmen, chairwomen, honorary vice-presidents.

Colonel Rex was a great believer in committees.
“Gives tone to the movement,” he explained to Carl.
“Makes ’em feel professional and important. Noth-
ing like it, too, for canning some good soul who’s just

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 

oP218 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

 

a little too, what shall I say—almighty Godlike.” He
had become confidential.

“These amateurs aren’t really hard to handle, only
you must keep them in their place, just like the pro-
fessionals. And mind you, I don’t underrate the ama-
teur. Just as important in his own way. Doesn't ex-
actly deliver the votes, but keeps things stirred up all
the time. I think the Senator perhaps doesn’t quite
realize their importance. Now an election like this de-
pends on the way a few ward leaders will jump at the
eleventh hour. They usually jump the way the bunch
goes—that is, of course, with a little encouragement.
And what makes them jump? Psychology! That’s
why all these meetings and speeches and newspaper
stories are so important.”

Carl liked Colonel Rex, and was pleased if a little
surprised when Colonel Rex began to call him by his
first name. He was puzzled how to reciprocate, for
reciprocation was evidently expected. He didn’t know
what the ‘“‘C’” stood for, and Peasley sounded silly.
The Colonel sensed his difficulty. “‘My friends call me
Fred,” he said, without venturing an explanation.

One afternoon Ike Billings called, brown, salty, pa-
ternal, in gray borders. He seemed to be on cordial
terms with the Colonel, quite as if they were in the
same camp. They were closeted together for an hour.

“That man Billings is a crook,” said Carl, when he
had gone.

Rex gave him an innocent, unruffled attention. “Oh,
IT don’t know. He comes at things differently from you
or me, but then he’s had a different bringing-up. Ike’s
all right. He spoke very well of you.”

“That was very kind indeed of him,” retorted Carl,
remembering Red Finigan.POLITICIANS AND REFORMERS 219g

“You mustn’t forget that he makes his living out of
politics, while you, Carl, just dabble in it.” -i
Carl flushed. “You think I’m just a silk-stocking |
reformer.”
“No, I don’t. I thought you would be when you
came down here, with your Harvard degree, and your
name, and money. But I know now how hard you can
work. But you don’t make your living out of it. With
Ike Billings it’s his whole life. He’s bound to play the
game a little differently.”
“But, Fred, you’re always talking about breaking
up the gang, and ending all this crookedness.”’
“You can call the gang crooked all you like, and
curse out the system. But that’s very different from
picking out any particular individual. Did you ever
hear me say that Phil Ryan was crooked, or Big Tim
Andrews, or Little Tim? I don’t believe in personali-
ties. It doesn’t pay in the long run, and it isn’t any
use. Of course it’s all right now and then, when it’s
necessary, but then it’s better just to call them bosses,
enemies of the people, and so on. Those boys are very
sensitive and they don’t like remarks to be too definite
or statistical. Besides, you may be in the same camp
the next year. The Senator’s hand in glove with Ike
Billings when there’s harmony.
“Politics is funny, Carl. It’s best for the big fellows
just to sit tight and say nothing when they’re attacked.
That’s the Senator’s tactics. He’s a great man, the
Senator.”
“T don’t think so,” said Carl. ‘“He’s just a boss, )
like the rest of them, and I wish he wasn’t on our side.”
“We'd never win without him.”
“Well, I like Theodore Roosevelt better.”220 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“Ah!” said the Colonel, “there’s a great difference
between them.”’

“Of course there is. T. R.’s an honest man.”

“Oh,” said the Colonel, “I didn’t mean that, I meant
in technic. I think in a good many ways they’re
not so different. They’re after the same thing, but go
about getting it differently. They understand each
other pretty well.”

“You're a cynic, Fred.”

He looked hurt. ‘You mustn’t say that, Carl. I
hate a cynic. But don’t begin by making the mistake
of despising politicians. That’s the mark of a re-
former.”

“Heaven prevent !’’ exclaimed Carl, and they laughed,
and liked each other.

The campaign waxed warm, drew to a climax, was
in danger of reaching an anticlimax.

Carl organized a flying squadron for street-corner
gatherings, volunteer speakers dashing about in Ford
trucks, bearing party slogans, from which the orators
of the Freedom Party exhorted the passers-by in the
cause of decency and good government. “Make a
noise,” the Colonel said, “and don’t stay too long.”
Accordingly a bugler usually opened the proceedings.
Although the bureau was theoretically a volunteer or-
ganization, some of the volunteers insisted on being
paid. “It simplifies things in the long run,” explained
the Colonel. ‘‘When the patronage comes along after
we win’’—he never said “if we win’—“there’ll be so
many more out of the way. Might as well pay them
off now. Of course, Claxton isn’t much of a speaker,
but his uncle, Bill Claxton, in the Thirty-ninth, con-
trols six divisions, and is on the edge now.”

Claxton was a bulbous young counsellor-at-law, asPOLITICIANS AND REFORMERS 221

he styled himself, who had recently abandoned the small
pickings of a dirty little criminal practice to take up
with the reformers, hoping that he might be made a
magistrate, or perhaps a deputy prothonotary.

And then there was the Reverend Jephthoe Jackson,
the colored Baptist divine. He was an enormous darky
with a beautiful bass voice, shining with faith and en-
thusiam under an immense black sombrero hat. He
offered his services, as a gift, a humble gift, to his op-
pressed race—for ten dollars an evening.

Carl put it before the Colonel. All compensation
must be approved by the Colonel.

“Five dollars,” said the Colonel.

“He won't do it for that. He said so.”

“Tell him I said five dollars. He won't get us a
vote, but we can’t afford to have the old blatherskite
against us. We've got a pretty good nucleus started
at Chump Lawton’s saloon at Thirteenth and Lombard.
But we must hold them together. Jeph’s been swell-
ing around for twenty years, and never got anywhere.
I believe we could get him for two fifty, but I haven't
got time to haggle. I dare say he’s been turned down
by the Organization.”

“That’s perfectly all right, Mr. Llanfear,” the rev-
erend gentleman said genially, when he heard the de-
cision. ‘Mr. Rex is a very just man.”

It was absorbing work. Days at the office meeting
and talking to every conceivable type; old maids who
brought two or three dollars, who year after year sup-
ported the anti-Organization movements, perennially
stirred to disgust, hope, disappointment; college girls,
eager to work, itching to clean house; cranks with sug-
gestions, short ballot, single tax, commission govern-
ment, preferential voting, zoning.

Carl stuck to one slogan—beat the gang. And it

 

Pn,222 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

never occurred to him, till it was all over, and he had
time to think, that there might be some more important
object than to beat the gang. Something positive and
creative. For in the midst of it you played to win, like
football, or war, or trying a case.

Miss Means was a wonderful help. She was a buffer
to Carl, who was a buffer to Colonel Rex, who was a
buffer to the Senator ... She was quick and effi-
cient and good-natured, but not crisply efficient like
Miss Glaub at the office. Miss Means had a delightful
sense of humor, and liked to laugh. She was the sort
of girl who made you talk about yourself, he thought,
watching her pretty back and arms, as she sat pound-
ing away at the typewriter, smiling quietly to herself
as she worked; ready to work as long as he wanted
her after hours; definite in her ideas when he asked
for them, but not volunteering suggestions; a robust
girl, with light graceful arms, little pointed breasts, a
slim waist, heavy hips, and legs tapering to thin ankles;
a fausse maigre, dark and quick and deft, laughing a
good deal but not talking much; very pretty as she
worked, or as she walked, but particularly when she
laughed :.”.

Miss Letty Llanfear visited headquarters, unbrellaed
and garterless, and presented Carl with five hundred-
dollar bills.

“Cousin Letty! You're a brick!”

“H’m. Gold brick, I suppose. I thought it better be
in cash. I suppose you'll use it to buy votes and I
don’t want my check to turn up.”

She was flushed and more excited than usual, her
eyes brighter.

“You must think we’re as bad as our opponents.”POLITICIANS AND REFORMERS 223

“I know the Senator. Used to play with him as a
child. He was in love with me when we were young.
Very handsome in those days. Awful coarse now.
Too shy to tell me. That’s why he’s so coarse, covers
up his shyness. Got over it by playing poker and get-
ting drunk with very common people. Couldn’t bear
to be taken for a gentleman. Weak spot. Reaction
against his own temperament. Some people call it
primitive. I call it childish.”

“But why did you give us five hundred dollars?”

She stuck out her poor old gray frizzled head at him.
“Little mad, I guess. Feel myself slipping.’’ She
laughed in his face, cackling, and made her exit with
long strides, the umbrella swinging in a wide unsteady
half-circle.

“Poor old thing,” said Miss Means.

“It was nice of you not to laugh, Winny.” Her
name was Winifred, and everyone at headquarters
called her Winny.

“Laugh. It was all I could do not to cry.”

He got up and went over to her. “You do under-
stand, my dear. I’m very fond of her. She’s a kind
of a cousin, a Llanfear. She’s awfully eccentric, and
I’m worried about her.”

He let her hand rest in his, while she looked up at
him, her wide eyes serious and wistful, and he thought
of Letty Llanfear. Till suddenly he thought of Winny,
was conscious only of her, of the fire which smouldered
in her eyes and lips, and the blood throbbed blindly in
him, flushing him with desire. He pulled away his
hand. She was looking down at it with a still fixity.CHAPTER XIX

TRIUMPH OF DECENCY

THE campaign for decency sagged, rallied, ended in
a whirl of triumphant agitation the Friday before the
election in a mass meeting at the Academy of Music.
It was very carefully organized. Free tickets were dis-
tributed to the workers, who, with their friends, and
a few stragglers, attracted by the glowing accounts of
popular uprising, managed to fill most of the seats.
Few of the two hundred and fifty vice-presidents of
the meeting turned up, and the stage looked bleak,
the five speakers sitting stiffly in high-backed judicial
chairs, in front of three empty rows, with a back-
ground of women and young men. Back of the drops
Colonel Rex talked to the reporters, and added up the
wards.

The temporary chairman, in a few completely in-
audible words, introduced the permanent chairman.
The permanent chairman spoke very loud, very slowly,
with the false emphasis of unvaried monotony. He
talked about himself. He apologized a good deal. He
was retrospective, anecdotal. He paused and drank a
glass of water. The audience opened their eyes. The
chairman looked through his notes to see if he had for-
gotten anything. The audience settled down again.
Nice old place, the Academy. The speaker of the eve-
ning looked at his watch; he must catch the 11.32 to
Washington. The chairman announced he was keep-
224TRIUMPH OF DECENCY 225

ing the best for the end of the evening. Silence, broken
by an impolite remark from the gallery: “We know
that, old boy, all right, all right.” Everybody laughed
and sat up. The chairman hurried on. He had just
received a telegram from the Senator that he greatly
regretted that urgent affairs required his presence in
the national capital on this epoch-making night, etc.
The chairman read the telegram.

The band played the overture to “William Tell
The chairman of the Ladies’ Volunteer Committee
spoke. The band played “Onward, Christian Soldiers,”
while the audience waved blue and yellow flags. An
eminent Democrat spoke. At last the speaker of the
evening, the Senator from Ohio. He had been told that
it was the fashion in Pennsylvania to belittle that giant,
the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, to detract from
the importance of his work. In Washington he was a
Colossus. You know the proverb. He was afraid
Pennsylvanians didn’t appreciate their prophets. He
was not here to attack, but to praise. He heartily de-
cried this petty tearing down. The Senator, your Sena-
tor, had always built up.

“Ves, a tariff wall!’’ shouted a Democrat somewhere
in the middle of the hall.

The gentleman from Ohio was on him in an in-
stant. ‘Yes, my friend, a tariff,” he repeated in a low
voice, tense with emotion. “We in Ohio are manu-
facturers also. We too vote for a tariff. We are not
ashamed of expressing the wishes of our constituents.
Are you ashamed of having your Senator represent the
needs of Pennsylvania?” Loud applause. ‘““Because he
does his work and keeps his mouth shut in the face of
these scurrilous attacks from half-baked reformers?”
“A little injudicious,” remarked Colonel Rex to Carl

9)

     
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
  
   

cn226 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

behind the wings. “A little overdone. There’s no good
going too far.”

On Sunday the leaders of each party predicted a plu-
rality of one hundred and fifty thousand votes.

Mr. Billings, leaving his bailiwick at noon on elec-
tion day, visited his local leaders. Things were not go-
ing quite right. The vote was pretty even, but there
were certain signs which disquieted him. He did not
like the attitude of the police. They were too damned
impartial. Mr. Billings knew the importance of the
police. He felt the hand of the Senator. The Direc-
tor of Public Safety had always been a timid creature.
Had the Senator fixed him? And he didn’t at all like
the look of things in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth
Wards.

It was very close. At nine o’clock the news got
about that the Organization had won, and Carl and
Francesca, watching the returns at headquarters, saw
the ward heelers march up Broad Street from Washing-
ton Avenue, with red lights and brass bands, singing:

“Hail, hail, the gang’s all here!
What the hell do we care,
What the hell do we care,
What the hell do we care
INGwil se:

Carl felt his throat contract and the weight of defeat
on his heart, tears near the surface.

Colonel Rex remarked to Francesca—‘They’re a lit-
tle premature. I didn’t see Billings. It’s the first time
for thirty years he hasn’t marched. The ‘Twenty-sec-
ond Ward isn’t in yet.”

Carl had forgotten the Twenty-second Ward, thatTRIUMPH OF DECENCY 227

bulwark of independence, Germantown and Chestnut
Hill, where the vote was cast and counted and could
not be manipulated.

“What awful-looking creatures,” said Francesca,
watching the fat, red-faced marchers, a little drunk,
solemnly push their way toward the ugly bulk of City
Hall, with little banners on canes held over their right
shoulders, here and there a rusty top-hat, and curling
in and out of the edges of the procession broken streams
of running and dancing children, mostly black, buoy-
ant, and lithe...

It was soon evident that the report had been prema-
ture. It was very close.

Francesca yawned. “TI think your friend the Colo-
nel’s rather a bore,” she whispered behind her hand
to Carl, who answered with a black look. Not long
afterward she went home.

By midnight the returns were substantially complete.
The Freedom Party had elected their candidate by the
narrow margin of some three thousand votes. The
other offices were still uncertain.

Colonel Rex yawned pleasantly, got up, nodded a
sleepy good-night. A few political prophets stood ar-
guing in the empty offices, littered with papers, looking
already deserted under the hard glare of too many
lights. Carl found Miss Means putting on her hat in
a darker corner.

“T want to thank you, Winny, before saying good-
night, for everything you’ve done for me, for all of
us. You're a fine little soldier.”

She had been crying quietly by herself.

“Winny, what is it?’ He put an arm about her
shoulder. She was such an emotional child. She prob-

,

   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

~~228 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

ably hated to have it over. They had been good com-
rades.

She jabbed at her hatpins. “I don’t want to go
home alone. No one even asked me if they could take
me home. It’s awful late to go home by yourself, and
it’s awful far.”

“Winny, I’m sorry—I never thought. And you've
been slaving for us all the time. I'd love to see you
home. It would be a real pleasure.”

She smiled at him, and turned to the mirror, accept-
ing without a word. It was a part of Winny’s charm
that she accepted things quietly like that.

It was a cloudless sky, strewn with stars, careless and
radiant over the sprawling litter of the city.

‘Would you like to walk to Girard Avenue, Mr.
Llanfear? We can’t get a car anyway for half an
hour, and we have plenty of time to catch the next one
there.”

“How about a taxi?”

“Oh, I’d rather not.”

“Aren’t you tired?”

“No, I’m not tired.”

“All right, we'll walk. But you're often late, Winny.
How do you usually get home? How far is it?”

“Orthodox Street, Frankford. Is that too far 5
She looked at him doubtfully, and he shook his head.
“T often go alone. But someone usually asks me. Only
they didn’t to-night and I felt scared, as if I couldn’t
do it alone. Funny, too, because it’s the last night. I
guess I got kind of excited and you don't like to be
alone when you're excited.”

He looked at the little phantom trotting by his side.
Their relationship had changed in the new background.
She was shyer, not a bit efficient-looking, like a littleTRIUMPH OF DECENCY 229

gentle adventuress. He had thought he wouldn’t be at
ease with her outside of the office, away from work.
But there was no awkwardness, no need even to talk
of the campaign, although they had hardly ever talked
about anything else. He felt curious about her, as if
their new relationship—accidental, fugitive, suspended
—had endowed her with a soft mystery from the milky
vapor of the stars.

He asked her questions about herself. She had come
from Lancaster. ‘But we’re not Pennsylvania Dutch.
They’re awful people, just like beasts of the field.
That’s one reason I left, and I like cities.’”’ She had
studied at Peirce’s Business School, living with an old
and infirm great-aunt, and staying on with her in the
city when she graduated.

“But what are you going to do for a job now?”

“Oh, I don’t work for any one. I’m a public stenog-
rapher. It pays much better. Especially anything like
this, or a Masonic meeting. I get plenty of work.”

“But I should think you’d rather have a permanent
position. What do you make?”

“Two thousand—twenty-two hundred. Depends on
how long a holiday I take.”

“You don’t! Of course you could never make that
in an office.”

“Well, I’m pretty quick, you know,” she smiled up
at him.

“You certainly are, and on such short experience.”

“Six years,”

“Six years! How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”’

“Well, I’d never have known it. I thought you were
about nineteen.”

“T know. People always think I’m very much

   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 

=,230 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

younger. I suppose because I’m small. I don’t think
I’m young when you get to know me,” she added se- ;
riously.

Carl laughed. “I think you’re enchanting,” he said,
and slipped her hand through his arm, drawing her to
him.

They waited for the car. “Why not walk all the
way,” said Carl impulsively. “Are you tired yet?”

She considered the suggestion. ‘‘No,” she decided,
“T think we had better ride, thank you.”

They stood in front of her aunt’s little two-story
brick house, in the middle of a long line of little two-
story brick houses, semi-obscure, deserted, noiseless.

Suddenly Carl felt stiff and self-conscious.

“I suppose,” he said, “I’d better be going.” It
sounded silly after their walk. ‘But I don’t feel a bit
sleepy.”

She took off her gloves slowly, rolled them into a
ball, which she stuffed in her muff, and silently held
out her hand.

He held it for a moment. “Winny!” The blood
was racing through his body. “Heavens, you're sweet,
Winny!’? She smiled at him dimly. She must think
me an awful ass, he thought, gaping at her like this
_ . . and again the desire for her suffocated him, suf-
focated his thought, till he took her in his arms, and
her answering kiss swept him from street to sky, lifted
him beyond where he had ever ventured, and back to
the terrible pressure of her warmth and sweetness.
She drew away, put her head for a moment against
his shoulder, so that he was conscious of its drowsy
fragrance, touched his face with fluttering fingers,
brushed her lips lightly against his lips . . .TRIUMPH OF DECENCY 231

“You’ve knocked down my muff,” she said and
stooped to pick it up. Then, as he hesitated: ‘“Won’t
you come in, Mr. Llanfear? We won’t disturb my
aunt, she’s deaf.”

He was stiff again. “I don’t think I’d better. I
really must be getting home. It’s terribly late . . .”
His voice petered out before her quietness. ‘“Winny!
You’re not mad with me?”

“Oh, no, Mr. Llanfear.”’

“I want to think . . . I’ve got to think. I mustn’t
stay, I don’t know what would happen. You’re won-
derful, my dear.”

“Good-night, Mr. Llanfear.”’

He was off, waving to the little figure that stood
in front of her aunt’s door-step.

He would walk. God, what a night! You wanted

to bound and leap on a night like this . . . “On sucha
night as this . . .” Divine madness, to be in love once

more, love singing in him! Silly ass! Of course he
wasn’t in love. He was in love with Francesca, he
supposed, at bottom, only she was so cold all the time.
What was it Winny had said about Francesca, when
his wife left the office? “Mrs. Llanfear is very beau-
tiful, Mr. Llanfear .. .”” She made funny little re-
marks like that. Adorable child! He wondered if she
were in love with him. She must be. No one could
kiss like that unless they were in love. She’d probably
had lovers before. What difference did it make? God,
to have her, to let himself go on the wings of her kiss
. . . I doubt if she’s ever had a lover. She gives her-
self too completely. But American girls don’t do that,
not the first time, unless they’ve done it before. What
a fool he had been not to stay with her in the first burst

    
    
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
  
   
   
    
 
   
  
    
   
    
 
 

=232 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

of their mutual desire? He didn’t owe anything to
Francesca. If she gave him nothing how could she ex-
pect to hold him . . . He remembered what Curly Ac-
ton had said one day at the Club: “It’s not the things
we do that we regret, but the things we don't do.”’
That was dead true.

What was he going to do? . . . He looked about
him in the night, and a joy of life, such as he had not
known for a long time, inundated him, intoxicated with
the sweetness of her kiss trembling on his lips, his
heart reeling, as he walked toward home through the
quiet streets beneath the stars.CHAPTER XX

AFRAID OF LIFE

THE Organization accepted defeat quietly. Close as
the election was they did not ask for a recount. The
vote in the river wards had been particularly heavy, and
some of it might be thrown out. Mr. Billings con-
gratulated Mr. Crane, and called on his old friend, the
Senator, to compare notes on the cost of the campaign,
and see if they couldn’t get together.

It was, thought Carl, a revolution, men’s consciences
were awakening, the door had been opened for the pos-
sibility of great things. He dreamed and speculated,
turning them over in his mind... A splendid city,
rising from the ashes of its past, blooming from
the ignoble past of Ashbridge, who had built City
Hall, boasting of the fortune he would take out of
the contracts, making good his boast. City Hall, sym-
bol of dishonesty and ugliness, squatting over the
city’s heart, its immense meaningless bulk blocking
traffic where it was thickest, wasting space, shutting
out sun and air from the gloomy rooms within; great
corridors that every day were littered with the refuse
of the crowd; ill-ventilated court-rooms, where the
fetid air lay heavy over judge and jury, witnesses and
accused; imitation marble, velvet plush grown dingy
with grime, meaningless decorations, carvings of slaves
and Cupids where they could not be seen; fly-specked
portraits of forgotten nonentities; gilded Venetian
ceilings with checker-board patterns; a Philadelphia
architect’s dream, perhaps, of the vanished Tuilleries,
the costly richness of those old kings, who had prob-

>
J

>
« )

 

  
   
 
    
 
 
  
  
   
  
   
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
     

~234 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

ably grafted, too, in their day . . . How could Phila-
delphians take pride in their city when its business
was transacted in such a place? Where dirty human
rats—shyster lawyers, ambulance-chasers, jury-fixers,
professional bondsmen—scurried about, and the clerks
and policemen, employees of the city, swore at the
public that paid their salaries, and pushed them about
with the insolence of servants who have learned to rob
their master.

Carl had a feeling that as long as City Hall existed
the city would never completely be free to grow up to
the dreams of those who loved her... .

The port released from the jealous control of rail-
roads, with its extraordinary natural facilities, its great
fresh-water channel, opening its arms again to the
shipping of the world; beautiful bridges spanning the
Schuylkill, like the Paris bridges, its banks green and
untroubled, like the embankments of the Seine; wide
streets cut diagonally across the dreary regularity of
right angles, as MacMahon had cut the great boule-
vards; spacious public buildings. And bridle paths, he
added, leading out from the city to the Park...

The Park! That showed it could be done. Pride
and joy of the city, developed by the creative energy of
one man who was devoting his life to it. And the play-
ground system was admirable, already a model for
other cities, again the work of one man, quietly going
ahead, thorough, persistent. If only they cared, cared
enough—passion of dreaming, patiently building into
the dream till it grew to reality ...

“T’ve just come from the Senator, Carl,” said Colo-
nel Rex, seating himself in Carl’s office. ‘“He’s not as
optimistic as the rest of us.”AFRAID OF LIFE 235

““What’s he worried about ?”’

“The Senator never worries. But he doesn’t get
carried away. He thinks Crane isn’t sound. The Sena-
tor’s got a good deal at stake.”

“He isn’t up for three years.”

“That isn’t any too long to build up his organiza-
tion. It’s been badly shattered. And it’s harder to
get money all the time. He’s put up a good deal out
of his own pocket. In fact, that’s what I’ve come over
to see your uncle about, The Finance Committee
agreed to contribute as much as the Senator, and
they’re fifteen thousand short of him now. We had to
spend that at the last minute, Monday night.”

The Colonel looked about, grew confidential, drew
up his chair.

“TI know you pretty well, Carl, and I know you're
no fool. But don’t spread this; people wouldn't un-
derstand it. You won't, will you?”

Carl, suppressing an uncomfortable premonition,
shook his head.

“We thought we had Big Tim and Little Tim An-
drews cinched. At the last minute, after office hours,
Big Tim came in to see me. Said they’d swing the
Fifteenth and Sixteenth Wards to the Organization if
we didn’t put it up.”

“Put what up?”

“Fifteen thousand bucks, hard cash.”

Carl felt dazed. What he said was: “How in the
world could you get it at that time?”

“The Senator had it. Carl, he’s a marvel, ready for
any emergency. He got out of his morris chair, spat
out a little juice, and went over to his safe. What do
you s’pose he said? ‘Who’s to be stake-holder, Fred?’ ”
“Stake-holder ?”

     
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
  
 
 
   

a236

  

THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

 

“You see, we couldn’t be sure they’d deliver the
goods. The way it’s done is to put up the money with
some fellow you can both trust, and if the ward falls
in all right it’s turned over after the count. Like a
one-sided bet.”’

“Yes . . . And then what do they do with it?”

Colonel Rex held up his hands, palms upward, and
shrugged his shoulders. “That’s their affair. Some
pay their boys, or put it in the ward-committee trea-
sury. Most of ’em just pocket it. That’s what these two
gazooks will do. They’re long on patronage, and run
all the speak-easies and crap games in the two wards.”

“But don’t you think that’s a good deal like—brib-
ery?” asked Carl.

The Colonel shook his head. “We didn’t approach
any voters, and you can bet no money ever got to any.
We hadn’t put any money into those two wards for
ordinary legitimate expenses—just legitimate ward ex-
penses paid to ward leaders. It’s not our fault if they
don’t spend it on watchers and literature. We expect
them to; we can’t make them.

“And it’s much simpler. You don’t have to waste
time dealing with the small fry, talking and bickering.
It’s already organized for you. It’s a nice clean deal,
and not really more expensive in the long run. I sup-
pose Billings and Ryan didn’t go high enough. Of
course they were betting in the dark. We’d have gone
higher if we’d had to. And we'd have lost the elec-
tion by about eleven thousand without these two. They
flopped solid.”

“Hm .. . about a dollar a vote. .

“There wasn’t any buying votes, Carl, I tell you. Be-
sides, we had to do it. I told the Senator right at the
start I wouldn’t stand for any buying of votes.”

)AFRAID OF LIFE

“What did he say?”

“Just grunted.”

“The niggers in my division were going for twenty-
five and fifty cents a-piece after five o’clock,” said Carl.

“Of course you couldn’t do that! But that’s what
we're up against.””’ The Colonel shook his head, and
added: “Besides, it would be a waste of money. They’d
just double up for Billings down there. Got them eat-
ing out of his hand. Well, I must see Mr. Llanfear
. . . Oh, I must tell you the sequel... .

“This morning Phil Ryan walked into my office.
“Well, you fixed Big Tim and Little Tim,’ he said, with
agrin. ‘But you got back at us in the Thirty-third and
Sixth,’ I told him. They’d bought two of our boys
right under our noses. ‘What did you pay, Fred?’ he
asked me. We compared notes and I found he spent
just about the same, and we were about even through
the city, that is on strictly ward work, I don’t mean
the rallies and post cards and all that general stuff.
‘Gosh,’ he said, ‘I thought you put up a lot more than
we did.’ When I told the Senator he gave one of his
great laughs. He didn’t mind digging into his jeans
if Billings and Ryan had to as well.”

“How much did the Senator put up?”

“Two hundred and fifteen thousand dollars.”

“Great Scott!’ murmured Carl.

The Colonel left him, but returning, stuck his griz-
zled head in to say, with an air of mutual understand-
ing: ‘‘All that’s just between you and me, my boy.”

“T understand,” answered Carl, absent-mindedly.

The dream had faded, the dream of his fair city
with its broad tree-lined streets, white and shining like

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
  
  
  
  
  
 
    
  
 
 
 
 
  
  
 
 

=~238 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

the streets of Paris, shrinking from what could be to
what was. Broad Street by night with a throng of
ugly figures marching to City Hall, under the opales-
cent street lights, the Senator and Fred, Phil Ryan,
himself, Billings . . . all marching to City Hall to col-
lect the loot that was waiting for them... Hail,
hail, Carl Llanfear, the gang’s all here, your gang’s all
here . . . Hullo, Senator. Hullo, Carl, we certainly
pulled it over on ’em that time . . . Hullo, Cousin
Letty. Well, Carl, how do you like your new friends?
. .. It’s great to be a reformer. What the hell do
we care, what the hell do I care .

He felt numb and impotent. Was all life a cruel
jest, a mockery at our feeble efforts, our little, blind
strivings and turnings and empty eagerness, bitter with
the absurd delusion of the spirit? His mind wearily
turned back over the familiar road of his disappoint-
ments, which grew in significance each time he re-
hearsed them, and each time added more poignantly to
the cumulative effect. Deany’s fight, and all those
scolding women. Llanfear, indeed! What was there
to be proud of in being a Llanfear? Narrow, worldly
. . . Deany was a coward. Martin and old Dean, old
Martin and old Dean, typical Llanfears. All the
beastly row over Martin’s money, and the silly fuss
about old Dean, as if he’d ever amounted to anything.
A fake, old Dean. People don’t really care. They fuss
about the city, and talk a lot, but they don’t care. The
reformers are as corrupt as the bosses . . . And Olga
dying penniless and alone, Olga who was worth a lot
of them, Olga shrinking into death, while Gerald shot
ducks in Maryland, and Francesca went to a tea

DAanuys ts <
Francesca . . . Her relation to him was typical ofAFRAID OF LIFE 239

it all. Longing of youth to change, to express, to ab-
sorb, moving defenseless among its visions, believing
in their reality, in their beauty. Dreams... City
Hall, City Hall, there was the fact, that was the truth,
the underlying truth. Look at City Hall, Carl, and
you won't lose your head... He had longed for
her so often and never had her, never, never . . . You
mustn’t talk about Francesca like that, she’s your wife
. . . She doesn’t know how to care, she doesn’t know
what love is, escaping its surrender, holding him away

. Nights when you lay and longed in agony, night
after night . . . What the hell did he care, anyway.
Let her go her own way. Love? It’s like all the rest
of the show...

Winny? By God, Winny was real! Funny, he
hadn’t thought of Winny all morning. What time was
it? Nearly two. Better get some lunch, though he
wasn't hungry after such a late breakfast. Not the
Club, with Billy Thrush’s volatile enthusiasm. He
could hear his congratulations. “It’s wonderful, Carl,
a great victory.” And the polite indifference of the
others. He wanted to think of Winny, quietly, to re-
gain the evaporated sense of her passion .

He called her on the telephone. When could she see
him? Any time. But where? Anywhere he said.
. . . He’d call her to-morrow.

Funny how you changed in the morning. He’d
wanted Winny last night, but in the morning it all
seemed silly, complicated, impossible. Where could
they meet? He thought of the makeshifts, arrange-
ments, lies. Whata life! Hecouldn’t doit. It wasn’t
fair to Francesca. It would be upsetting everything,
his work, habits, peace of mind. It would be different

    
   
   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
   
  
    
   
   
 
  
   
 

eh240 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

if he had been abroad, or even in New York. But
here it was impossible to keep anything quiet.

As the day wore on he became uncertain. He
wouldn’t decide anything yet—let events shape them-
selves. He would be a fool not to take this bit of hap-
piness when it came. His longing for Winny rose,
held him.

They met at a little modern tea room, very arts and
crafts in the latest fashion, all black and orange. She
was quiet. They talked . . . He tried to explain to
her his position.

“It wouldn’t do, Winny. We couldn’t be seen to-
gether. It would get about. What do you think? My
dear, I’m distracted, I don’t know what to do.”’

“T thought you liked me, Mr. Llanfear.”

“I do, Ido. I’m crazy about you, Winny.”

“You mean it’s your wife?”

“Partly. But not only that. It’s my business, and
friends, and everything.”

“T suppose you love her.”

“Of course I do.”

“So you're kind of ashamed going about with me?”

“Oh, no, it’s not that.”

“Mr. Llanfear, I shouldn’t make such a bother about
it. I hadn’t thought it all out like that. I guess you
think a lot more about those things than I do. I
wouldn’t want to complicate your life, as you say. But
I thought you liked me more than I guess you do. I
wouldn’t have let you kiss me if I hadn’t thought it
for some time. I guess you take these things more se-
riously than I do. I suppose that’s because you’re mar-
ried.”’

“Oh, if I wasn’t married . . . Winny, you’ve been
in love before?”AFRAID OF LIFE

“Yes:

“And had lovers?”

‘Well, naturally, if I’ve been in love.”

“T mean really.”

“Haven’t you had girls, really?”

“Many, Winny?”

“You're awful queer, Mr. Llanfear. I don’t see how
that’s any business of yours.”

“T beg your pardon, my dear. But don’t men always
ask that?”

“Certainly not till they have the right.”

“And haven’t I the right?”

“T thought this was a good-by party,’

“No: Please, Winny . <<’

“What do you want, then?”

“IT don’t know, I don’t know . . . That’s why I’m
so wretched. Can’t you understand?”

She smiled. “I think you want both to have your
cake and eat it.”

He was shocked. ‘You say pretty crude things.”

Her eyes flashed. “They would sound crude to you.
You’re afraid.”

She got up. ‘Thank you for the tea, Mr. Llanfear.”

“Winny, don’t go yet. We haven't begun to talk
. .. What am I afraid of?”

“T think you’re afraid of life. I guess it hasn’t hurt
you much.”

“Tt’s hurting me now.”

“Oh oe a

“It is, truly.” They were in the street. “I can take

,

she said.

you home, can’t 1?”
“No, I’d rather not.”242 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“You’re not mad at me, you like me?”

“IT did when you kissed me,” she said below her
breath.

“Winny ... You’re adorable. But not now?”

She looked him squarely in the eyes. “I think you’re
all talk,” she said, wheeled about, and walked away
from him. He hesitated, shrugged, and turned in the
other direction, toward home.

He didn’t see her again. For months he was on the
point of calling her up, of going to see her. But some-
thing always held him back; pride, the old dread of
complications, fear that she would turn him down,
that she might laugh at him. There was something
bitter about her pungency, her directness, her accep-
tance of facts exactly as they were, of words for pre-
cisely what they were intended to convey, which made
him dread renewed contact, however casual. And
Winny wasn’t the kind of person you could be casual
about. Wasn’t the very trouble with himself and Fran-
cesca, and most people like them, that they lacked the
very thing which Winny had, approached each other
obliquely, wrapping their emotions in such a cloud of
pretense that they became sterile or fearsome? He
longed for her, for her kiss, night after night, walking
home to Francesca. Afraid of life? She was right.
He had given her up not out of any sense of duty to
Francesca, of affection for her, but because he was
afraid ... Winny, Winny, “I did when you kissed
me.” A quiet little phantom trotting by his side.
But he was afraid to go back to her, even now, in the
midst of his longing. It’s the things we don’t do we
TOORCL \ 6. 4.

And in the mornings, “those bright hours of theAFRAID OF LIFE 243

morning when the temptations are at rest,” his mind
busy with his work, walking to the office, he would
laugh at himself, and wonder at his mood the night
before.CHAPTER XXI
MISS LETTY

TuHat Spring Miss Letty Llanfear’s eccentricities
became so extravagant that her relations felt that some-
thing would have to be done. She was seventy years
old. She shut herself up in the Chestnut Street house
and saw nobody. Mary Miggins, discharged after a
violent scene, went about saying awful things of her
mistress, and threatened to have her arrested. It ap-
peared that Miss Letty had accused her of immoral-
ity, of harboring disreputable characters in the house.
Carl and Mrs. Morrisoun went to see her. She was
emaciated and unkempt, living in squalor. She had
taken down her father’s books to clean and had left
them strewn all over the house. She was glad to see
them but talked wildly. Did they know that Gerald
Falcon was her son?

“His father was a Viking, Carl.”

“He would have been, Cousin Letty.”

“I kept it quiet for Lillian’s sake. Lillian Falcon
never had much spunk . . . There’s another, Sidney.”

“Another what, Letty?”

“Another baby. I haven’t had any for a good many
years. Brackway is the father . . . He ought not to
have done it, ought he?” She jerked at a stocking.
“Of course,” she continued, raising the dishevelled
gray head, and bright, mad eyes, “I’ve had a good many
lovers.”’

Her restraints of sanity were gone, and something
that had been too strong for them, feeding on her lone-
244MISS LETT Y 245

liness, flowed out unchecked, preposterous . . . Carl
felt ashamed, watching her.

Of course she had to be shut up. Mrs. Morrisoun
wanted her to come to Pondello; Pondello would cure
her. But the doctor wouldn’t hear of it. And Carl,
for once, agreed with the family. But there was some-
thing about the way they went about it which stirred
his disgust. It was the pack again, not in full cry, but
ejaculating smothered howls, a frightened pack, quak-
ing at the idea of ridicule. Earnest Falcon led them,
his lean, greedy hands trembling with excitement. He
was her nearest relative, and his mouth watered at this
chance. A will wouldn’t bar him of her property now,
if they could only get her declared legally insane, and
keep her that way till she died, shut in an asylum, her
property tied up so that Gerald shouldn’t get any of it
—Gerald, who was always trying to cheat his own
father out of his inheritance.

The Reliable Trust Company was chosen to act as
a committee for her property. Earnest Falcon had felt
this was his affair. But Carl would not agree.

“Why not, Carl? Haven’t I got the right? I’m her
nearest relation ?”’

‘‘All the more reason.” Carl didn’t like Earnest Fal-
con.

“What do you mean, young man?”

“Shall I tell you?”

Falcon scowled at him, but he didn’t press the point.

“T don’t trust him,’ Carl said to Mr. Brackway.
“He’s after her money. And she always hated him. |
There’s sure to be a fight over the will.”

It was done as quietly as possible, in Judge Thrall’s
chambers. She had to have notice under the statute,

=~246 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

and could have asked for a jury trial, but not know-
ing of any such right it did not avail her much. She
sat quietly fanning herselfi—it was a muggy, humid
day in early July—paying little attention to the pro-

ceedings. Two or three doctors testified . . . There
were conferences. ‘‘Carl,’”’ she said, ‘‘come here a
minute.”

He leaned over her.

“Will my guardian continue Gerald’s allowance?”

He didn’t know she was aware of what was happen-
ing. ‘I’m afraid it wouldn’t have the power, Cousin
Letty.”

“Here, then.” She put a crumpled roll of bank-notes
in his hand. “This will keep him from starving for a
while, and it won’t hurt him to be hard up, anyway,
will it? But you'll let me know if he’s got to have
money, Carl?”

Ten one-thousand-dollar bills!

“Of course I will.”

“T’ve got some more which the Reliable will never
find, even that slick little ferret, Parcher.”’ She winked
at Carl.

The judge signed the decree and handed it to his
clerk. ‘There was a general muffled hand-shaking and
leave-taking.

“Can I see you to your cab, Miss Llanfear ?” offered
Mr. Parcher.

“No thanks, Mr. Parcher, Carl’s looking after me.”

She took his arm walking down the shabby corridor
to the elevator.

“T think I deserve a rest, don’t you, Carl? I have
always hated looking after my own affairs, but I knew
I could do it better than any of those dumb trust com-
panies. But I’ve saved enough for Gerald... It'llMISS ERETLPY 247

be fun having someone else spending your own money
on you.”

They got into the cab, and she waved her umbrella
out of the window to the coachman. A battered stove-
pipe was pulled over his ears which stuck out below it
at right angles, and he was buttoned to the chin in a
rusty green winter driving-coat. His whip came down
with a gesture reminiscent of some by-gone glory
against the bony hind quarters of his horse, which in-
stantly started to amble through the automobiles wind-
ing about City Hall, leaning doggedly against the bit.

“It won’t be bad, Carl,’”’ said Miss Letty.

She didn’t mind going to the private sanatorium
when the time came. She had grown much older sud-
denly, weaker, and docile. She had a queer startling
lucidity in the midst of terrifying rambles, a canny
intuition which made Carl sometimes doubt whether
she was deranged at all, and wonder whether her whole
behavior was not a gigantic hoax she was playing on
them, paying back the ‘“‘bad Llanfears,” as she called
them.

She had long spells of depression and silence.

Carl would not allow an inquisition. As long as she
consented, what difference did it make? She was
peaceable with her nurse, comfortable enough. And
this time the family stood behind him against Earnest
Falcon. They felt that there was less disgrace without
the official declaration. It was all right to be queer,
but you really mustn’t be too queer, said Mrs. Mor-
risoun.

She dwindled for a few months, fluttering like a
dried leaf in the autumn winds which clings by aTHE LLANFEAR PATTERN

 

248

thin tenacious thread to the life of the twig that holds
it; took to her bed, half-conscious, inert; flickered
on the edge of going out; died quietly, slipping into
death with a quiet dignity. Perhaps, thought Carl,
queerly moved, realizing that he had loved her for some
special reason, some hidden understood spring of sym-
pathy between them, she had been unable to live with-
out her wide gestures of freedom—the great swinging
umbrella, striding about with her stockings slipping
... She couldn’t stride about like that with the
trained nurse beside her. Nor make other gestures of
madness, her funny, twisted imagination scampering
away from the old scrawny shell of her, gestures in
self-preserving contempt of the world of Llanfears,
and trust companies, and conventions; a thumb-nose at
them, a funny, dignified thumb-nose from the gentle,
incisive old lady to the world about her... .

Carl probated the will. Earnest Falcon, through
Messrs. Slouch & Grimstead, filed a caveat. Mary
Miggins sued the estate, alleging that the deceased had
agreed to bequeath to her a legacy of ten thousand dol-
lars. Carl settled the case for three hundred and fifty.

Gerald Falcon conferred with Carl. If the will were
set aside Gerald would get nothing, Earnest the entire
estate; a very nice estate, nearly half a million in per-
sonal property, admirable securities, and the Chestnut
Street house, which should bring forty or fifty thou-
sand. It was a fight between Gerald and his father
which didn’t interest the Llanfears. They watched it
with mild amusement—these Falcons squabbling over
money. The Falcons were plain people originally,
Mrs. Morrisoun said, and had bettered themselves
when Earnest’s father married into our family. NoMiss lier tT ¥ 249

reason for Earnest to put on such airs, he was only
half a gentleman. She could remember his grand-
father, with the same hooked nose, and a huge Adam’s
apple that moved up and down, a master carpenter, who
worked quickly and with few words, and knew his
place.

It was a close question. Did Letty Llanfear have
testamentary capacity when she made her will five years
before? The appointment of the committee to look
after her property meant nothing, not even presump-
tively, said Llanfear & Brackway, who represented
Carl, the executor, and Gerald. That was nonsense,
Earnest’s lawyers told him, a strong prima facie case.

Earnest wanted to settle. He was afraid of a jury,
afraid of losing everything. He would give Gerald
half. That was fair. He grew sick with anxiety, slept
abominably. He was afraid of Gerald, who had a way
of pulling a thing off.

‘Too much,” said Gerald, and grinned at Carl. “T’d
like to get all of it, to keep it away from father. He’s
such a damned gluttonous beast, and hates so to be
poor.”

“But, Gerald, you haven’t a cent without the allow-
arice.”’

“Just enough to live on. Aunt Letty made some set-
tlements when I came of age. I shouldn’t like to work,
but I’m rather a gambler, and it would please her no
end. She hated father. She was the right sort, Aunt
Letty, with her odd, darting manner, like a bird.
Couldn’t bear restraint and loathed cant . . . Despised
Philadelphia. I once asked her why she didn’t leave.
‘Oh, everywhere’s the same ultimately,’ she said. ‘I
don't care about places. I like houses, and a few peo-
ple.’ A point of view.”250 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“You were fond of her, Gerald?”

He inhaled deeply at his cigarette, smiling reflec-
tively. “Yes ... She bored me, rather. Too fond
of me, a little girlish.”

He got up. “I’m going down to see Anne. She al-
ways puts me in a good humor.”

He was an extraordinarily handsome creature, Ger-
ald.

Much to the disappointment of the Llanfears and
their set the will contest was settled. Earnest accepted
one-third of the estate and withdrew the caveat grudg-
ingly. Blanche Perview, Gerald’s sister, who had mar-
ried a very rich man, and was accordingly a bit pa-
tronizing to her poor relations, thought Gerald had
been rather mean.

“After all,” she said to her mother, ‘he might have
divided with father.”

“Thank God it’s over,” said Mrs. Falcon. “It’s bad
enough to have your father and Gerald barely on speak-
ing terms—but a public law suit . . . I’ve had a hard
life, Blanche. Poverty is a terrible thing.”

“T don’t know,” replied her daughter, “I sometimes
think money doesn’t help much.”

The kind of remark, her mother reflected, which was
very irritating. But she said nothing. She never did,
after thirty-five years with Earnest Falcon.CHAPTER XXII
CAREW ACTON’S PHILOSOPHY

MarTIN LLANFEAR was dead. Old Dean was dead,
and Letty. Young Morris Llanfear, Carl Llanfear’s
boy, was nearly five. Morris had his mother’s lips and
eyes and rich, dark look; but was sprawly, like his
father, and his great-uncle Morris; his own eyes were a
little over-brilliant for his age, for the balanced orderly
quality of his ways. His father was never sure whether
they held promise of protest or of acceptance of the
commonplace. Perhaps, after all, the commonplace was
better . . . So, in the past year or two, Carl to him-
self, doubting his old values, doubting any values, get
what you can, that’s not much. He watched Fran-
cesca, his wife Francesca, who seemed to fit life so well,
to accept its smooth flow so imperturbably. Francesca
was happy. She was proud of her boy, of his beauty
and good manners, proud of her husband, too, of his
growing practice, the foundation of a certain impor-
tance. He felt that, smiling. The certain importance
was all right. You got used to pretty nearly anything,
even to Philadelphia.

Yes, even to Philadelphia.

He did not like to think of those things, ghosts which
had been laid, or nearly laid, like the thinning memo-
ries of once more poignant intimacies. And thinking
of the city evoked those naive phantoms, which could
not yet be buried between the solider satisfactions of
hearth and desk. Perhaps the city had become the sym-
251

 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

~252 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

bol of some subtler defeat, the defeat that lay in his
wife’s arms and kisses, and hung like an opaque veil
over the value of his work. As the circle of his en-
vironment closed about him he knew that his need of
revolt was slipping, was giving way to an acceptance
which could not be excused by calling it maturity, or
tolerance, or success. It was defeat. And what good
to resist? You could withdraw into a personal life,
work and read and eat and copulate, behind a wall of
defensive cynicism, pretending indifference to the dear
tempting Gods wrought of the yearnings of a younger
spirit, which had taught you that growth and beauty
and freedom for men’s minds were the essential things.

Those things just didn’t go in Philadelphia.

The filthy streets, the disorder and monotony, the
sour ugliness were but the outer shell which the spirit
within had built. Pittsburgh might be dirty, New
York cruel, Chicago blatant; yet behind their sprawling
vitality burned or flickered the flame of an aspiration.
You could blow on it, and watch it flare to achieve-
ment. It didn’t so much matter that Philadelphia had
no art, no criticism, no newspaper that had wit or in-
fluence, put up with a shabby opera and stale plays;
but it did matter that her people accepted the second-
rate, and lived in the tenuous dream of a moderately
thia past, or the lazy acceptance of an over-padded
present, without gaiety and without earnestness, me-
chanical, content, indifferent.

“Did you have a hard day at the office, dear?”

That usually came after soup. Soup was eaten in
silence. Francesca didn’t often vary her introductions.

“Oh, not very.”’ He always answered that way, he
reflected. Would they be doing it for twenty, fortyCAREW ACTION’S PHILOSOPHY 253

years? He asked for a whiskey and soda. He was
damned tired.

The roast and vegetables. Silence. He pulled him-
self together. Must say something. He began talking
about a case he was trying, meaning to make it sound
human and interesting. She smiled at him with a
bright vagueness, murmuring “yes” now and then, or
nodding, to show that she was interested, while he
could see her mind wandering behind the steady fixity
of her eyes. His voice dwindled, stopped in the mid-
dle of his account of the trial.

Salad now. She looked up expectant, waited a mo-
ment. ‘How interesting!”

“Yes, very.” It’s a shame to talk shop. Of course
she can’t listen.

Francesca talked. She had two lines of talk, he re-
flected. She could relate the incidents of her day, or
repeat what she had read in the newspapers. This she
considered general talk, the kind of thing Carl liked.

“T saw in The Bulletin, Carl, the Prendergasts are
giving a dinner-dance at Overbrook the week after
Lent. We're not asked. I don’t think they ever got
over our giving out last year for that dinner the night
I was sick.”

“You never told me what the matter was.”

“Nerves, I guess. I was awfully silly, I’m afraid.”

“You were very appealing.” He remembered how
she had wanted him, had lain in his arms and cried, had
slept in his arms, while he thought of the past and
prayed that she might stay like that. But she hadn't
changed. Life doesn’t change.

She shivered a little, seeing Acton’s face in a blur
of faint disgust.254 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

They had coffee, as usual, in the library. Carl lit a
cigar, and got behind The Bulletin. Lord, what trash!

He put it down. She sat still and straight, hands in
her lap, as beautiful and young, he thought, as the
year they were married.

“Carl, I’m thinking of doing this room over.”

“Yes, dear.”

“That is, if you’re sure we'll be here next year.”

“Would you like to move?”

“Well, town is pretty filthy, and more people are go-
ing to live in the country in the winter now all the
time. We could get a car.”

“Still stuck on the Main Line?”

“Well, I'd like to go where my friends are.”

“I'd like to go somewhere to be away from them.
That’s why I like the city. Feel comfortably lost.”

“Carl, you say very cynical things sometimes.”

“With a grain or two of salt.”

“But I never know when you’re in earnest.”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t.”

“You don’t want to go to Chestnut Hill?”

She had a way of sticking to the point. They had
discussed it since Morris was born.

“I don’t know what I want, but I’m beginning to find
out what I don’t.”

“Well, if we’re not to move next winter, I think I’ll
put in new curtains. These are rather dingy. Do you
think your mother would mind?”

Talk of cretonnes, talk of things, talk of furniture
and furnishings, of velvet, of velvet as against brocade,
of papering and painting, of colors and tints. A smoky
burlap, would that be nice? Yes, that would be nice.
And how would he like the dining-room green? ButCAREW ACTON’S PHILOSOPHY 255

the dirt, she complained; always the dirt. It spoiled
your nice things.

A little helpless without its friendly orientation she
was at home in the material world, could imagine and
arrange the relation and value and quality of things.
She could plan a dinner perfectly, design a dress, ar-
range a house. A dinner, a dress, a house. But, after
all, the world is full of things, pleasant, arrangeable,
concrete, with shapes and sizes all just so.

The clock kept ticking on the mantelpiece, and he an-
swered yes, and no, or that would be lovely, crouched
behind his cigar, watching her talk.

Nine o’clock.

“Dear, I think Ill go down to the Club for a little
while.”

“Do, Carl. I always say you ought to go more.”

He kissed her.

“We've had a nice evening, haven’t we, Carl?”

She smiled up at him contentedly.

“Yes, we have had a nice evening.”

Judge Thrall, Dan Carew, Owen Roth of course,
his cousin Deany, Bill Prendergast, a long disjointed
stretch of a man, whose clothes always looked over-
pressed, smoking cigarettes from an eight-inch ivory
holder ; ah, and Curly Acton, good stuff.

“Pull up a chair, Carl, and join us. We don’t see
as much of you as we'd like.”” Judge Thrall touched a
bell on the table at his elbow.

“Llanfear, we’re drinking champagne. We’re empty.
We'll dice. Join us?”

“Rather, Roth. I’m damned dry. I feel inexplicably
like gettirg drunk. But I'll have mine in a tall glass,
with ice in it.”:
: |
ie
iH .

256 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“There are always plenty of reasons, Carl,’’ Acton
said. He looked very fit, strong chin and strong shoul-
ders, his coarse abundant hair brushed carefully back
from the full forehead, his body moving firm and lithely
under his well-fitting dinner coat.

Owen Roth stared opaquely at Acton; then his mind
found relief from the strain in Carl’s suggestion.

“By God, we'll all have it in tall glasses.”

They drank, relit cigars, looked at each other.

“You’ve been away, Curly?” Carl asked.

“Yes. Tm usually away. This time in the South-
west. Ganado, Walpi, the Painted Desert, a month at
Old Santa Fé. Riding a bit and a few birds. I got
out too late for any decent shooting.”

“You lead a very pleasant life.” Dan Carew looked
at his cousin enviously. “You're lucky not to be tied
down to an office.” He sighed.

“Dan, you’re a damned fraud. You wouldn’t miss
your dinings out and arranging the Assemblies and
Midwinter for anything on earth.”

Roth laughed somewhere in his throat.

“T get awfully sick of it all.”

“Of course you do. But you haven’t the leisure to
realize what really being bored is. That’s the only
value of work. Not in itself—there’s nothing sacred
about work, it’s no more beautiful than vice, but at
least it’s not self-imposed.”

“Keeps the wolf from the door.”

“Better than that, Judge,” said Acton, “the hyena.”

The way he said it made Carl’s flesh feel uncomfort-
able.

“That,” he continued, “is the psychology of un-
selfishness. (“Oh, psychology,” murmured Prender-
gast, trying to eject a cigarette stub from his holder.)CAREW ACTON’S PHILOS@PHY 257

It’s cant, of course, but it has a reason. Gets away
from the circle.”

“Circle?”

“The circle of self. Going round with your tail in
your mouth.”

“Damned funny thing to do,” muttered Roth.

Deany laughed too loud, looked around, laughed
again, as if he were contributing something, drank his
champagne. His face was tightening and his eyes were
bright. Getting drunk, thought Carl.

“But, Curly, there are other things,” said Dan Ca-
rew.

“Of course there are, but they fall into the circle.”

“What are the other things, Dan?”

“Well, that depends on what you like, Carl. But
we could all agree on some. Books, drinking wine,
dancing, exercise, women.”

“You mean making love to them,” said Acton.

“T accept your amendment, Curly. But what I mean
is that there are activities that release, that are happy
ends in themselves, when we live for the fun of it.
Talk, too, I think, if it’s any good. And sometimes if
it is good, or friendly—lI’ve seen it happen at the club
—the self you rail at so breaks down, and there’s a
kind of release in unity.”

“Good Lord, Carew, what are you talking about?”

“Shut up, Prendergast, he’s after something. Go
on, Dan.” Carl was interested, leaning forward.

“Well, there’s a passage I always remember from
Sartor Resartus, about talk. ‘It was one of those rare
seasons,’ it runs, ‘when the soul expands with full
freedom, and man feels himself brought near to man.
Gayly in light, graceful abandonment, the friendly talk
played round that circle; for the burden was rolled258 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

from every heart; the barriers of Ceremony, which are
indeed the laws of polite living, had melted as into
vapor ; and the poor claims of Me and Thee, no longer
parted by rigid fences, now flowed softly into one an-
other; and Life lay all harmonious, many-tinted, like
some fair royal champaign, the sovereign and owner
of which were Love only. Such music springs from
kind hearts, in a kind environment of place and
Re

“Very fine, sir,’”’ said Judge Thrall.

“H’m. Too damned many capitals. Love and Life
and Me and Thou and Bunk! I hate Carlyle’s German
emotional splashings.”’

“I agree,” said Carl.

“For God’s sakes, let’s talk about something else,”
grumbled Roth.

“It’s by me,” said Deany.

“But Dan’s got a point,” insisted Carl. “You can
get away, at times, and touch something else.”

“Never. You can expand a little, but you’ll contract
again. Eh, Roth?” Acton drained his glass, while
Roth blinked, then did likewise. “If you’re hard, Dan,
like Roth and me, you contract. If you’re flabby, like
you, Dan, and Carl, you expand. But you never es-
cape. Better be a realist, then, and live in the reality
of your senses.”

“You’re all wrong, Curly. Take the Spaniards—
the most sensual and the saddest race on earth. Do
you know that plaintive, melancholy music of theirs?”

“Rot. They’re played out; that’s all. Too much
love-making and not enough fighting. They weren’t
sad in the days of the Armada, and I suspect they were
no less sensual. They’ve lost their Latin sense of bal-
ance, of restraint. It’s your dreamer that’s sad, yourCAREW ACTON’S PHILOSOPHY 259

poor, believing, romantic Anglo-Saxon, nourishing
himself on what ain’t. It’s your idealist that suffers,
not the realist.”

He paused, and they sipped their champagne, reflect-
ing. Good talk, thought Carl, extraordinary to break
out at the Club like this. ‘But, Curly,” he said, ‘“‘real-
ism doesn’t mean that you have to take life sensually.”

“More or less.”

“Your Saxon romanticist is as much of a sensualist
as your realistic Latin. Look at Philadelphia. We're
Saxon enough here, but we don’t neglect our appe-
tites.””

“Carl, you’re always looking at Philadelphia. This
place is just like any other. The Union League in New
York is no different from the League on Broad Street.
You dislike Philadelphia because you live here, and are
bored, like most of us. Which brings us back from
the point where we started.” He grinned, poured out
another glass, stood up.

“T think it’s the best place in the world to live in,”
said Deany, and drank, a little combatively, jaw
squared. Carl was always knocking Philadelphia.

“By God, so do I!” pronounced Roth, and he too
drank.

Carew Acton drained his glass. ‘“‘Good-night,” he
said, and left the room.

“Extraordinary fellow,’ Carl said to Dan Carew.
“Brilliant.”

“Ye-es. But spoiled.”

Suddenly a shot exploded, terribly near, almost in the
room. They were on their feet, stuttering, Deany
white, Roth purple, unsteady. A hall boy burst in.260 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“°R’s shot! Oh! My God, ’e’s shot ’imself. Went
into the lavatory and killed ’imself!”

They found Carew Acton, shot through the heart,
crumpled over a urinal, which was smeared with his
blood, as if he had clutched at it as he fell, his face
twisted in a grin, twisted with the pain which seemed
not yet to have left his body. But he was quite dead.

Belle Dolbeare had not yet come in, her colored maid
informed Carl, when he got to her flat. Would the
gentleman wait? She turned on the lights, straight-
ened a cushion, brought cigarettes and whiskey, the
evening paper.
He wondered, looking about him, how often in this
room she had been happy with Curly. It was a long,
rambling room, smoky and stained, the dark floor of
wide oak beams, smooth rubbed, unevenly laid, uncar-
f | peted, with a rug or two, a coyote skin Carew had sent
her that winter. An untidy room, littered with riding
crops, riding and driving magazines, breeders’ gazettes,
spurs; a high mahogany desk stuffed with papers; a
gate-leg table with tea things; a bit of bad imitation

tapestry hiding a stain on the plaster; heavy furniture,
shabby, comfortable, unobtrusive; flowers everywhere,
Belle’s chief luxury; scattered novels, Oppenheim, the
Baroness, Mrs. Ward, Kipling. More like a bachelor’s
room than a woman’s, with the look of irregular com-
fort, here and there, in the untidiness of things that
are left to accumulate, and not disturbed, so that they
seemed to have achieved the quality of Belle’s good
nature and lazy vitality.

She came in in her riding habit, about eleven o’clock.

“Hullo, Carl? Did Jenny make you comfortable?
I’m dead. Been looking at some ponies at West Ches-CAREW ACTON'S PHILOSOPHY 261

ter. You wouldn’t want to buy a string, would you?
Give me a drink, like a dear.”’

It was typical of her not to ask him why he had
turned up in her rooms. How could he tell her?

“Thanks. Ah, that’s better. How have you been,
Carl? . . . Carl, what’s the matter?’ She shut her
eyes for an instant, put her glass down, came over to
him,

atl. what is atc.

“Ts it Crew?” She brushed her hair back with the
automatic fatigue of premonition.

He nodded. ‘Carl!’ She dropped suddenly on her
knees, her hands on his shoulders, her eyes close to his
face. ‘Carl, is he dead?”

“Belle,” he said, half sobbing. ‘My poor Belle.”

For a moment fatigue and shock held her tears.
When they came they shook her whole body, as she
lay against him, half collapsed, her face and arms flung
across his knees, conscious of nothing but her grief.
Her grief was not violent or convulsive, but carried
her whole being in the sweep of its torrent, so that he
found himself sobbing above her, his face against her
hair, sharing her agony as if it were too unendurable to
be borne alone .. .

They talked, later, when she was calmer. She had
not lost her color, and her face did not show strained
or lined; but her vitality, the splendid, ample flame of
her, had been washed out; and her features and body,
heavier and older, seemed tenantless and opaque.

“Tell me how it happened, Carl?” He told her, but
she did not listen, thank God she didn’t listen.

“You said he shot himself? ...I1I was always
afraid of that. He was the most disillusioned man I
have ever seen. He believed in nothing, cared for no

 

~262 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

one. He didn’t really care for me, but I understood
him, and amused him, and I could give him spaces in
between where he could forget. If he’d only come to
me to-night! I could tide him over, you see, Carl.

“But I’ve had so much, Carl. Think of it, fifteen
years as lovers. What other woman that we know
could boast that? He was not generous, cruel some-
times, though not very often, but he was passionate
and beautiful.

“Not a bad sort of life for me, Carl, mucking about
this way with horses and dogs—and C’rew. I haven't
got any brains, but I’ve always known what I’ve wanted
out of life, and I’ve got it. I’ve been happy. And I
have my job now, not like Mary, who has nothing to
do. That was the trouble with both of them. But Pil
still have the horses. They’re better than people when
you're lonely.

“Poor Mary. I must go out there to-morrow. The
shock will keep her going at first. But then she’ll have
nothing to fall back on. And she’s come to depend on
me. Funny thing, life.”

“But she didn’t care for him.”

Belle considered. ‘‘No, I don’t think she did, but
she’ll miss him just the same. One misses a habit.
And then she never had him, which of course makes it
harder .

“It was decent of you to come over, Carl. You were
fond of C’rew. It would have been hard to hear it
from some one else, from a woman, from Mary.”CAREW ACTON’S PHILOSOPHY 263

She kissed him. ‘‘Good-night, my dear,”’ she said.

“Good-night, Belle.’

The tears rushed back into her eyes. “I suppose he
was pretty impossible. But I was awful fond of him.”CHAPTER XXIII
THE LLANFEARS DINE

THERE was a habit among the uncles to dine rather
solemnly together at intervals which were not allowed
to run too long. It had started fifty years ago when
Dean and Morris and Richard and Charles took their
young wives to dine at their father’s house on Walnut
Street every other Sunday night during the winter.
And then old Dean had died, and his son Dean had
taken his place, and they had gone on dining there; and
Susan, rather late in life, had married Brackway and
taken him, fittingly impressed; and Sidney, who was
fifteen years younger than her sister Susan, had brought
her husband, Lindley Morrisoun, with a show of tri-
umph, proud of his lean, stammering, cultivated shy-
ness, and of his leisured uselessness; and Rembrandt
and Lydia, never quite grown up, as the older ones
felt, added a note of youth, as the years accumulated.
And Dean in turn became Old Dean, and died in his
Walnut Street house. The dinners changed to Rich-
ard’s great sombre house on Spruce Street. They in-
stinctively felt it would be better to go to Richard’s.
Morris was older than Richard, but he was less solid,
and lived out of town. Rembrandt seldom went any
more, but Lydia, at fifty-six, still afforded a note of
youth—Lydia was perennially young. And some of the
nieces and nephews went—Peggy and Frances, old
Dean’s daughters, but not their sister Lydia, who hated
being bored; Carl and Francesca, now and then Deany
and his wife.

264THE LLANFEARS DINE 265

They felt a certain dim pleasure in watching each
other at food, three or four times a winter, and com-
paring, with their respective spouses, when the festiv-
ity was over, the changes for worse they had noted in
the others. Molly Llanfear, Richard’s wife, as hostess
conceived the idea of enlivening these occasions by the
addition of a little outside blood, a friend or two, a less
closely related cousin.

“It’s a mixture, to-night, Carl,” she said. It was
early in the spring of nineteen hundred and thirteen, a
blustery March night, and the house was overheated.

“Who’s coming?”

“Grace Rapport, Judge Thrall and Ellen, Peggy, the
Morrisouns, and Lydia and Rembrandt, Dan Carew.
Rather a triumph to get Rembrandt.”

“T haven’t seen Ellen Thrall for several years,’’ said
Morris Llanfear. “Is she grown up?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Mercy, how they sprout.”

“Morris,” said Richard, “you’re not looking well.
Anything wrong?”

“Anno Domini. I’m seventy-one, Dick.”

“H’m. Nothing else?’

“You're too inquisitive. I believe my heart's not
quite what it should be. I haven’t said anything to
Jane, and don’t you.”

“Better get abroad this summer, and try a watering-
place. You need soaking out. | drink Pluto.”

Sherry, caviare on toast. Mrs. Morrisoun, very
décolleté, sweeping ahead of her husband ; Rembrandt
and Lydia; Judge Thrall, stooping over the ladies, and

Ellen Thrall, standing at ease and smiling, her eyes
bright under the masses of her hair, parted low over266 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

her forehead, coiled in a big knot on the nape of her
neck.

She sat between Carl and Deany, and talked to
Deany.

Carl looked round the table. Aunt Molly, on his
other side, was talking to Judge Thrall, and Mrs. Mor-
risoun leaned over him. Peggy Llanfear and Grace
Rapport were trying to hear what Mr. Morrisoun was
saying. Francesca, straight and smiling, was at the
other end, between Rembrandt and Uncle Richard.
Funny thing, thought Carl, all these long Llanfear
noses round the table, wagging at each other. It was
more peaceful without Aunt Susan. Uncle Richard
looked old and worried, as if a glass of his own
excellent champagne wouldn’t hurt him. Everyone
looked older, even Dan Carew, turning gray, turning
tasteless.

Ellen Thrall’s voice on his left, bringing him back to
consciousness of her.

“What did you say?”

Her eyes were smiling at him. Nice eyes. “A little
more conversation on the left, please. I want to be
amused.”

“Hasn’t Deany been amusing you?”

“Not much. Tell me something exciting.”

“What about, Ellen? I can call you Ellen, can’t 1?”

“You seem quite capable of it, Carl.”

He hadn’t expected the “Carl,” and looked it.

Needs teasing, she thought. ‘“You’re not yet at that
age,” she added.

“What age?”

“Where you’d like to be taken for younger, like Mr.
Carew. So it’s all right for me to call you Carl.”
“Why, it’s—of course it’s all right.”THE LLANFEARS DINE 267

She laughed, a clear, ringing laugh, her eyes screw- |
ing up with amusement. “You're not sure . . . Never |
mind. Now for something exciting.” |

He considered. “I don’t know if you’d call it ex-
citing. I’ve been reading Jean Cristophe. It’s been
like discovering a planet.”

now . a

“Wonderful . . .” He was feeling for words. “It
gives you a sense of freedom, of greatness.’

She was interested. “Yes, that’s it.”

“Do you remember the dedication: ‘Aux dames libres,
de toutes les nations, qui souffrent, qui luttent, et qui
vaincront. It’s a terribly sad book.”

“No, not sad, not sad!” she cried. “How can you
say that? You’ve missed the whole point of it.”

“Tt’s the tragedy of genius.”

“Never—the sweep of life.”

They looked at each other. ‘Perhaps after all it’s id
the same thing,” Carl said, “and if you’re not a genius
you don’t get the sweep of life. And if you are one
you're not happy.”

“Do you always think in terms of happiness and un-
happiness ?”

“Don’t you?”

“No. Only now and then, when I’m not happy,
which doesn’t often occur.”

“Tt’s a matter of temperament.”
“Meaning,” she said, “that you’re constitutionally

gloomy.”
He smiled. “Oh, no. I get along.”
“Father says you’re successful.” |

“But that isn’t enough, Ellen.” |
“What do you want, then?”’ )
He had asked himself that so often . . . She hada268 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

way of getting at you. He felt suadenly uncomfort-
able, as if they had moved too fast. ‘‘Oh,” he said,
“nothing in particular.”’

Their hostess was leaning forward. ‘What do you
think the reason was, Carl? You were at the Club at
the time. Judge Thrall thinks it was to escape some
scandal.”

He guessed what they were talking about. Every-
one had been talking about it since Acton shot himself.

“Curly Acton? No, I don’t think Curly was afraid
of scandals.”’

“What, then?”

There came a lull in the talk, and at the other end
of the table they were leaning toward him.

“Well,” said Carl slowly, “I think he was bored.”

“But surely, Carl,’ said Rembrandt in his measured
tones, “one doesn’t kill oneself because one is bored.”

“No,” said Richard, “no, I don’t believe a man in
his right mind would ever commit suicide.”

“Do you think,” murmured Lydia, “that he was tem-
porarily insane?” and looked about her brightly.

“I think he was always a little insane,” said Judge
Thrall. ‘Acton was not a gentleman. He was just a
plain cad. Sorry, Carl, if you liked him. But the way
that man behaved to his poor wife!”

“But cads, Judge, aren’t for that reason necessarily
insane.”

“Those kind are. Sort of moral degeneracy. I’ve
seen it before. Lombroso says all criminals are in-
sane.”’

“And you’d add all cads.”

But the Judge did not hear Carl’s last remark. He
was Saying sotto voce to his hostess: “‘And they tell meTHE LLANFEARS DINE 269

the fellow didn’t even have the decency to leave any-
thing to Belle Dolbeare.”’
“But surely, John...
“Well, she had been good to him, Molly, in a sense;
even you must admit that.”

3)

In a corner of his library, after dinner, Richard
Llanfear sat with Judge Thrall, Morris Llanfear, and
Carl. They were drinking Madeira, 1865, a good vin-
tage, carefully rebottled, nutty and full, unthinned by
maturity; all except Morris, who from principle was
an abstainer, and who held fondly the heaviest and
blackest of cigars, appropriate to the richness of the
food, turning it reflectively, a solid comfort in a bleak
world.

They talked politics.

“Well, Carl, are you still a reformer after two
years?”

“Was I ever a reformer, Judge?”

“I thought you were the leading spirit of the Free-
dom Party, you and Colonel Rex.”

“Oh—that. I got pretty fed up with that crew, es-
pecially after they began to fight.”

“We got fooled on our man,” said Richard.

“You mean the Mayor?”

“Yes. It didn’t take him long to sell out to the
gang.”

“T don’t think he’s sold out, just impotent,” said
Morris.

“Like all reformers,” said Thrall. ‘Of course I’m
an Organization man. I believe in fighting on the in-
side. Once the reformers get in everything stops.
Councils blocking the appropriations, turning down
whatever Crane tries to do; subways held up, water-270 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

power development shelved, streets dirtier than ever.”
The Judge regarded the end of his cigar, then looked up
at Carl as if he expected him to answer.

Carl shifted in his chair uneasily. “That’s hardly
fair, Judge,” he said. “I don’t hold any brief for
Mayor Crane, but it isn’t his fault if the adminis-
tration programme doesn’t go through, with Councils
ninety per cent against him, the Senator hamstringing
him every time he gets a chance, the police sold out to
Billings, the newspapers shouting all the time to do
something. He’s had a raw deal.”

“But reformers always do have a raw deal. That’s
why their interregnums are so sterile.”’

“Politics is a dirty mess any way you look at it,”
concluded Richard, looking doleful.

“Not a bit of it,” said Thrall. “It’s just that you
people aren’t willing to pay the price . . . You’re go-
ing to vote for the Senator when he comes up again this
fall, aren’t you, Richard?”

“Well, of course I couldn’t vote for a Democrat.”

“Of course not. Why do you vote for him? You
don’t altogether approve of his methods.”

“N’no ... I suppose because on the whole he
stands for what the Republican Party believes in—
sound business, moderate protection, encouragement to
individual initiative, good times.”’

“But we Democrats believe just as much in all those
things, except perhaps the tariff, and apparently we’re
coming to believe in that too.”

“No, you don’t, Morris.” Richard turned on his
older brother sharply. He never could understand or
forgive him his dangerous political tenets. ‘‘You’re
always trying to upset things, to tear down what we’veTHE LLANFEARS DINE 271

built up, with your theories and ideas, all essentially
based on the French Revolution.”

Morris grinned and Judge Thrall laughed. “Hold
on, Dick. Don’t let’s get into that old argument.
Come back to my point—you’ll vote for the Senator
every time against a Democrat, even if you can’t swal-
low his methods.”

“Not on a local issue.”’

“Bah—there’s no such thing as a local issue. It’s
always the same fight, a fight to keep and hold place.
We both want the Republicans to run things. The
only difference between us is that you try to make them
inefficient by wabbling about, and talking about local
issues, and letting the reformers, who are just as pirati-
cal, merely freebooters, get in to muddle everything,
while I stick to our own crowd and try to help a bite

“But you voted for Crane, didn’t you?”

“Yes. But not because he stood for righteousness,
but because I was behind the Senator. It was an inside
fight, that was all.”

“T’m inclined to agree with you,” said Carl.

Both uncles stared at him, a little shocked. ‘‘Well,
Carl,” Morris said, “you’ve changed a good deal in the
last few years.”

“Ves,” answered Carl, “I have.”

Before they went down to join the ladies each of
them had a word with him on the side.

“Better leave it alone, Carl, it’s a dirty business for
a gentleman. I said that to Morris when you first
joined us. He’s a bit of a theorist, you know. But
you mustn’t lose your faith, my boy.”

“No, Uncle Richard.”

Then Uncle Morris: ‘Carl, I didn’t know you'd felt
that political business so keenly. But one can be hard-272 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

headed and keep on fighting at the same time. I sup-
pose it was rather disillusioning for a start.”

“Yes . . . There were other things, too.”

Judge Thrall took him by the arm to a corner of the
room. ‘Think over what I was saying. I have wanted
to say it to you for some time. You're too able to
waste your time flirting with trashy notions. A good
many young men of promise have gone on the rocks
here that way. Carl, you’ve got a fine career ahead of
you if you use your common sense a bit more. We're
watching you. The Senator has his eye on you; he’s
spoken to me once or twice. Your argument in the
Perkins equity case made an impression, got talked
about. Those fellows are always on the lookout for
ability. Now look here, Carl—why don’t you go on
the Senator’s Campaign Committee? It would please
him no end.”

“Me on the Senator’s Campaign Committee!’

“I know—you believe he’s all that’s evil in political
life; but think it over. You can bore from the inside
much more effectively. Nobody likes snipers, and
you'll just waste your time and ability.”

“But he wouldn’t even know my name.”

“I tell you he’s interested in you, Carl. Anyway,
don’t turn it down without a thought.”

“Very well, Judge Thrall, I’ll think it over.”

‘Your father,” Carl said to Ellen, “is rather a cynic,
I think.”

“Oh, that just depends what he happens to be talk-
ing about. What was it this time?”

“Politics.”

“I know. He thinks you’ve got the wrong slant—
got started wrong.”THE LLANFEARS DINE 273

“Did he talk about me to you?”
“Not particularly.” Teasing eyes behind a slow, |
teasing smile. .

“What do you think?”

“About you and politics?”

“About my attitude toward them?”

“But I don’t know what that is, except that father
disapproves of it.”

“Well, not me, particularly, but anyone.”

“My mind doesn’t work like that-in generalities. I
should think it would depend a good deal on the fun
you got out of it.”

“Oh, the fun ... I meant your duty to improve
things.”

“Oh, the duty . . .” she mimicked him. Then ris-
ing, very sedate, but for the suggestion of a hidden,
combustible twinkle: “Good-night, Mr. Llanfear. Dve
enjoyed so much talking to you.”

“Rilen dont =. -5

She gave him a mock courtesy, and tucked her hand
into her father’s arm.

“Good-night, Carl, think over what I was saying.”

“T shall, Judge. Good-night.”

Carl and Francesca walked home, each silent, think-
ing his own thoughts.

‘Gari.’

‘Wes, dear.

“Don’t you think that there was some real reason
why Carew Acton shot himself? Not just being bored,
or temporarily out of his mind, but perhaps some per-
sonal reason, some terrible disappointment or tragedy
in his life?”

en274 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“But what was there? It wasn’t money, or a woman,
or any,scrape he got into.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t a woman?” She was think-
ing: After all, he tried it for a year, and couldn’t go
back to the old life. Perhaps if she’d been gentler with
him, and hadn’t said all those awful things . . . He
had been vile, of course, but she was the cause, the
innocent cause. You could forgive a man who shot
himself because he couldn’t bear to live without you.
It was a sad thought, but comforting, in a sense, that
she could forgive, that the horror in her past had been
exorcised by his death. If Carl wanted her to-night
she felt she could give herself more freely, somehow.

“Of course you can’t be absolutely sure, but he was
living with Belle to the end.”

Why did he say things like that just at the moment
she felt drawn to him? . .

On the hall table was a cablegram, addressed to her.
She tore it open. Her eyes filled with tears.

~Carl, itis mother .. . She’s° terribly- sick ~. .
Why didn’t Rose call me up? She’s such an idiot about
those things. I must go over at once . . . I may not
be in time.”

“Darling . . . Let’s see. Oh, I don’t think it’s as
bad as all that. But of course you must go. Aunt
Jane can look after Morris. It’s nearly time to close
the house for the summer at any rate.”CHAPTER XXIV
MAGIC FREEDOM

Low Hitz like the old days, before Carl was mar-
ried, except for little Morris, nearly seven, free from a
nurse for the first time, losing his good manners, to
Carl’s delight, learning to bully his great-uncle, who
adored him. Uncle Morris’s old friend, Judge Thrall,
who may perhaps have once been in love with Aunt
Jane, walking over to dinner, with Ellen.

Francesca had been abroad three months. Her
mother had turned the corner, she wrote, had begun to
be interested again in life, liked to talk about her grand-
child. They were at Fontainebleau, where Francesca
had never been before, and which she liked. Italy had
been too hot. Before they left Amalfi the Count—she
never said her father—had turned up, insisting that
his arrival should be announced to the invalid.

“He looks so like Morris, Carl, it frightened me. I
said mother was not well enough to see him.

“ ‘But I have come a long journey. She needs me.’

“You'll just upset her. That is all over, all in the
past.’ We were speaking in Italian.

“He looked at me, so curiously, up and down and
over me. ‘My child, you never will understand your
mother or me, or anything else, although you are a
very beautiful woman. You never understood, even
when you were a baby.’

“He wrote a message to mother on his card—I did
not read it. ‘I shall wait,’ he said.

“T think it did upset her, but in a way I think it did
275

a a
Z276 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

her good to know that he was anxious about her health.
She trembled, and turned white, and then red, and
touched her head, patting at the little curls, tried to sit
up, but was too weak.

“T said he was waiting. ‘Tell him I have kept the
card,’ she answered.

“He looked at me with a sort of impudent triumph.
“You see, my child,’ he said, and marched off.

“T have a feeling there may be some sort of recon-
ciliation, although I think mother would be very fool-
ish, and I’ve told her so, but she won’t talk about him to
me... Oh, Carl, I wish I had you here. I worry
so about you and Morris, and I miss you every bit as
much as I do him, more I sometimes think.”

He missed her, too, missed her when he came home
in the afternoon, dressing and undressing, at break-
fast, missed the habit of her presence. He could not
see her face in his mind, or reconstruct her quality,
even from photographs—as a bride, with Carl a year
after they were married, with Morris just before she
left.

There were times when memories of his loneliness
while she was by his side, of the hours of aching desire
for her body, for the beauty of her limbs, came to
plague him, so that he hated her, calling her crue! and
heartless. He felt as if youth were slipping away from
him, as if the years of his ardor were numbered, and
he would never know the passionate exultation of being
young and being loved. He thought of Winny, of her
little pointed breasts as she stretched up her arms to
him, of the trembling insistence of her kiss. He be-
gan to watch women as they walked or sat, looking at
them hungrily, wondering whether they had lovers,MAGIC FREEDOM 277

were eager and warm, or like Francesca untouched by
desire. And sometimes, in a crowd, when the dress of
a girl brushed his hand, his blood would stir with de-
sire, his legs weaken with the longing of his body, the
pounding of his heart.

He wrote regularly to Francesca, once or twice a
week.

But there was so little to say. Morris was well. He
didn’t seem to miss her, but was interested in hearing
about her. He had been riding. Things were slack at
the office, and he usually left early. Everyone he knew
was abroad. He was worried about Uncle Morris’s
health. They had dined at the Thralls last night. He
thought Francesca would like Ellen when she got to
know her better. She was a very remarkable person.
It was hot, but delicious. He loved these summers at
home. He missed her very much...

So little to say. She seemed satisfied with his letters,
to expect nothing different. She sent him long accounts
of people she met and what she saw, a sort of running
diary. She liked describing places.

He saw a good deal of Ellen Thrall. She interested
him immensely, her mind interested him. Her mother,
who had died years ago, had been of solid Quaker
stock, plain, sturdy, unfashionable. Her maternal
grandfateher, a Hicksite Quaker, had been read out of
meeting, and had suffered in his iron business from his
heterodox views. Ellen had from her mother her wide
forehead, dark blue eyes, and profuse brown hair,
which she parted like her mother, low over her eyes.
But there didn’t seem to be a trace of Quaker in her.
She was too full of an overflowing vitality, too gay and
curious and eager.278 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

 

“But it must have left an impression on you some-
where,” he said to her once.

“Never had a chance. I suppose I’d have been very
different if she’d lived. But I was brought up in a
strong male atmosphere, without any religious teach-
ing. You wouldn’t think of father as a liberal; he’s
too much of a Republican. But he’s got a strong
negative liberality—I mean in the things he doesn’t
believe. He has no use for the church. It all seems
so much nonsense to him, as it does to so many law-
yers, and he never bothered me with it. He’s awfully
keen about letting people have their own way. Ever
since I was fifteen, and before, really, ve done what
I wanted.”

“But he must tell you what he believes?”

“Yes, but as things come up. He hates theories, es-
pecially of education. I think he’s always dreaded that
I might be a sort of female Richard Feverel.”

“Lets you read anything?”

“Oh, yes. But better than that; lets me talk about
things I’ve read or heard, and talks back. He doesn’t
suppress his point of view, but shoves it at me
obliquely, as a point of view, not as the final wisdom.”

“Tsn’t that rather disillusioning?”’

“Lord, no. The thing that’s disillusioning is getting
the things you’ve been told all mixed up with the things
you see and feel.”

In the matter of games she didn’t fit his theories.

“But you don’t really like games?”

‘sldOin

She played tennis with him and beat him badly.

“You certainly play a good game.”

“That’s why I like it. I knew you wouldn’t under-
stand till I showed you.”MAGIC FREEDOM

“Golf, too?”

“Want it proved?”

“No,” he laughed, “I’ll take your word for that.”

She had a passion for physical exertion, abandoning
her body to it with a vigorous ecstasy.

She had spent two years in college, dabbling with
chemistry, playing hockey and basket-ball, reading vo-
raciously, as she had always read from childhood, try-
ing to keep up her music. But this had been impossible,
and the music proving more enticing, she had gone
abroad to study piano, much against her father’s con-
victions, who thought she would learn just as well at
home, but was unwilling to oppose her decision. He
had been very lonely without her, and she had come
back, persuaded that she never could be a musician.

“Didn’t have it in me.”

“Not enough talent?”

“T didn’t mean that, although I suppose it amounts to
the same thing. I didn’t want to give up everything
else.”

“You wanted to be a professional?”

“Of course, when I went over. Not when I came
back.”’

“But you probably could have done it.”

‘No. I was too keen about the other things.’’

“For instance?”

“All the pleasant things. Books, dancing, and golf,
if you like; seeing my friends, being an American—
playing my own particular kind of game. Scribbling
a bit, too. I’d begun over there.”

“Ellen, you’re extraordinary. Not spreading your-
self too thin, are you?”

She laughed. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe. I'd
like, at least, to know how to do everything there 1s.”280 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

‘Would you?” answered Carl. “I shouldn't.”

But if she had tastes which he did not share they had
many in common. She loved riding and they spent
many hours together in the late afternoons, on the cool
bridle paths of the Wissahickon, over the ridge on the
other side of the creek, plunging down into the bed of
the Schuylkill and along the tow path, or into the
Whitemarsh Valley to Broad Axe and the Three Tuns
Inn, into the rich dip of the Gwynedd Valley, through
the spruce farms beginning to feel the tidy, unimagina-
tive thrift of the Pennsylvania Dutch as they stretched
toward Allentown and Bethlehem thirty miles beyond.
They usually walked on Saturdays or Sundays, some-
times with Judge Thrall, but more often alone, for
Morris Llanfear was not up to walking and his old
friend liked to be with him, sharing the shaded lawn,
talking and smoking endless cigars. And Jane Llan-
fear would read aloud Phineas Finn or the Last Chron-
icle to the two old men, dozing peacefully beside her,
watching the shadows creeping around the tulip poplars.
Sometimes she would mix mint juleps till the ice caked
on the glasses, and Shafto, half blind and very decrepit,
passed them about, his hand shaking perilously.

Once in August when the water on the Wissahickon
was high from the rains Carl and Ellen took a canoe
at Penllyn and spent the day winding down the creek
through plashy cow pastures, round a few carries, into
the ravines in the Park, and down into the river. One
Sunday they ferried across the Delaware, went by train
to Brown’s Mills in New Jersey, and paddled down the
narrow winding Rancocas Creek, exploring here and
there the deserted cranberry bogs, traversed by irriga-
tion ditches, which ran between high sandy banks
where an occasional snake dozed in the sun; the re-281

 

MAGIC FREEDOM

mains of long-since-abandoned charcoal-pits, where the
country was all sand and jack pines, birch and young
growth tangled and scrubby, miles of cover for myriad
birds which sang and chirped and darted along the
creek, orioles, kingfishers, wrens, and now and then a
great white heron, sweeping heavily from a marshy
pond. It was almost dark when they reached the river,
running flat and sombrely through the reeds, so that it
seemed immense and comfortable after the bobbing cur-
rent of the little creek. They left their canoe at Tor-
resdale, and had supper in town at Boothby’s on broiled
mackerel, fresh corn, huge baked potatoes, sidels of
dark beer. Dishevelled, tired, happy—a good day.
They took books with them and read aloud. Ellen
liked poetry, liked the sound of it. She had read and
memorized a great deal more than Carl, was full of the
new American poetry, which seemed so prolific and
fresh in the years immediately preceding the Great
War. He had never heard of Edwin Arlington Robin-
son, Samuel Untermeyer, Carl Sandberg, Maxwell
3odenheim; of Vachel Lindsay’s “General Booth,” of
Edna Millay’s ‘“Renascence,” which she recited, lying
in deep grass, to the end—

“But East and West will pinch the heart
That cannot keep them pushed apart;
And he whose soul is flat—the sky
Will cave in on him by and by.”

But she did not know Emily Dickinson, and it was

triumph for him to quote:

“These are the days when birds come back,
A very few, a bird or two,
To take a backward look.”

Se .
,282 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

 

There seemed so much to say! Was life, he won-
dered, an adventure, after all, something exciting and
splendid, rich with possibilities? He had been think-
ing of it as a dreary sort of rut, where you plodded
along and put up with it as well as you could. The
summer was almost over—his summer with Ellen—
and that first mood of happy excitement was still
sustained. There was so little time for so much to
Sharey xi?

“Francesca thinks we ought to bring up Morris to
say his prayers.” He had formed the habit of think-
ing aloud to her that way, irrelevantly on the surface,
but with a deep association of relevance, as if each
could pick up the other’s thoughts without effort or
introduction.

“Do you?”

“Well, you know I don’t believe in all that, but I
suppose it’s a part of education. It’s an important idea
—the Christian idea.”

“T don’t see why you should teach children what you
don’t believe.”

“It’s not as simple as all that.”

“Why?” She turned clear eyes on him, searching
exact meaning.

“The whole basis of symbolic truth is a subtle thing.
You can’t tell children that it all stands for something
which has a spiritual and esthetic value. They wouldn’t
understand. But they get a meaning behind the story.”

“Self-sacrifice, for instance.”

“Precisely.”

“That and humility. Humility is the basis of wor-
ship. But it’s not to me a positive virtue at all. I
don’t believe in self-sacrifice or humility or reverence.
So I’m not a Christian.”MAGIC FREEDOM 283

“But you wouldn’t want your children to be selfish.”’

“That’s not a dilemma. It’s a matter of emphasis.
I think fear’s worse than pride, and the fear of heaven
infinitely worse than what you hear everyone call ‘this
rampant individualism.’ Selfishness is largely a mat-
ter of bad manners. Tell them not to snatch their toys
and don’t bother them with morals. They can stand
facts just as well as we can.”

“You're not married.”

“And therefore much better qualified than you to
know what I’m talking about . . . Iam selfish.”

“T don’t think so.”

“What do you know about it? You haven’t had a
chance to see it, except when I want to play tennis with
someone else, and you want to ride, and I play ten-
nis . . . Father was entirely alone when I went abroad.
It wasn’t necessary for me to go. I could have been
trained here—possibly not as well. But I went, and
I’m not sorry. It was something I wanted awfully.”

“Tt was important.”

“To me—not to anyone else. I don't think I’d be
happy living with someone who was always sacrificing
himself. It would make me uncomfortable, conscious
that I was not playing up. That's why father and I
get along so well. He doesn’t give things up for me,
so I’ve never had to dislike him for that.”

“But you came back.”

“Not to be with him, but because I wanted to be
home.”

“But surely
like them.”

“Ah .. . that’s different. There's often only one

choice, when you care.”
. : ?
“You won’t think that when you're married.’

it’s fun to do things for others, if you284 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“Yes, Iknow. Living with anyone, every day, that’s
hard.”

“Do you think I’m selfish, Ellen?”

“Of course you want me to say no. I wish you
were more selfish—cared a little more for yourself.”

“What’s the matter with me?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps you pick at things, without
feeling them. You never seem to take them as they
come—casually. Not even me.”

“O you, surely. That’s why you’re good for me.”

“Of course Iam. Well, perhaps you do take me in
your stride. But it’s been a easy summer. Anything’s
easy when you're happy.”

She said funny, contradictory things.

“T think one reason I like you, Carl, is because you’re
almost as restless and dissatisfied as I am.”

“You dissatisfied! But what with?”

“My life, myself, the verses I’m trying to write,
sometimes you.”

“And Philadelphia?”

“Not particularly. I don’t think of it in those terms.
It would be like being dissatisfied with your clothes, or
your food, or being a girl.”

“Td rather be a girl than a Philadelphian.”’

“Well, I’d rather be a girl than a lawyer. Those are
all conditions—except being a lawyer, of course—your
imperatives of space and time. It’s like saying you’d
have been a happier Greek or Florentine. I’d rather be
myself. I sometimes feel you never are quite sure
whether you are yourself or someone else.”

“T think that’s what killed Curly Acton.” He told her
about that night at the Club. “But I don’t think he
was restless in the sense you mean.”MAGIC FREEDOM 285

“One can be restless and happy.”

“T doubt it. Not happy.”

“Yes, you can, Carl.” She touched his hand. “You
can be, Carl, you can!”

He wondered, trembling at the thought with a queer
excitement. He was used to thinking of his life in
terms of accomplishment rather than enjoyment. Did
he do what he wanted, did anyone ever do what he
wanted? He wanted to go on seeing Ellen, building
up this idea of happiness out of their contact. But
Francesca would be back soon. It was late September,
the hint of an early autumn in a premature frost or
two, which had brought down the yellow leaves of the
poplars and was here and there touching a maple with
patches of red. He didn’t want Francesca to come back
_... Not yet, not yet. But how awful to feel like that!
It wasn’t true, he had missed her a lot. But why go
through those same old pretenses? He had been fool-
ing his mind all his life, closing the inner vision of his
mind, mixing his feelings with things he wanted to
think, or someone wanted him to think, so that he could
no longer trust them. For once he’d try to see the
truth.

The truth? Of course he loved Francesca. In a
sense at least. She didn’t have what he wanted. She
was tangled in limitations, conventional, blowing the
cool breath of restraint on the heat of his life. Ellen
had it, had the thing, whatever it was. Ellen loved life.
If he could only love it the way she did. She was very
young, of course, in some ways, but keen. You got
keen being with her. A wonderful friend. He was
going to miss her. His summer, his summer’s happi-

ness was built about her.
That was it, friends. It wasn’t a bit like his first

   

ee tect
neritic
4 2286

 

THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

feeling for Francesca, or Winny—that sudden, blind,
confusing desire. It was like intimacy with a man, an
instant understanding and a limitless scope of ease, of
sprawling ease in the other’s presence; almost imper-
sonal, with a wide world for a background and never
enough time to turn it over between you.

He wasn’t in love with Ellen, nor, of course, Ellen
with him. It was as if they’d hardly been conscious of
each other that way at all, as if there were too many
exciting things between them for the other sort of
thing.

They lay on steamer chairs under the stars, under
the tulip trees on the lawn of Low Hill, the higher
branches rustling faintly in the quiet leisure of the
darkness. Their last night together.

“Do you know you’ve never shown me any of your
poetry.”

“I know . . . I didn’t want anything to come in be-
tween . . . No, I don’t mean that, Carl. I suppose it’s
a shy spot; I haven’t many.”

“Have you published anything?”

“A few things here and there. Several in Poetry,
two or three in The Masses.”

“You'd like to write?”

“I like writing. And it’s fun of course to get
printed.”

It’s getting late, he thought. About them the night
murmured its endless rhythm. He had thought there
would be so much to say to her on their last evening to-
gether, but found words difficult, vaguely oppressed
with a consciousness that he wanted to say something
that would carry the poignancy of his mood, lingering
over their summer.with an end and a beginning to the magic freedom, but
not the same when you land.”

me so much, Ellen . . . You’ve no idea . . . It’s been

of the trees.

    
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

MAGIC FREEDOM

“What are you thinking of, Ellen?”

“Nothing much, just enjoying it.” }
“T’ll miss you frightfully, Ellen.”

She turned her head toward him.

“Yes . .. It’s been like a trip on an ocean steamer,

“Tt has been that—magic freedom .. . You’ve given

a wonderful experience for me knowing you, this way.”
“Please, Carl, don’t.”

“Why? ... Our last night. It will be hard not
doing things with you. Of course I'll see you.”
“Yes,”’ she said drearily.

They watched the stars in silence.

“T’ll come to tea sometimes. I can, can’t 1? I guess
we could manage a ride now and then.”

She sat up, pulling her cloak about her. “Damn it, id
Carl, don’t talk like that. I’m all funny and soft inside,
anyway. I can’t even laugh at you for being an idiot.”
He took her hand and held it. He felt as if his new
world were slipping away from him, and he must hold
her lest she escape and carry it away irrevocably. He
could not see her face. Stars wheeling above them,
cool silence, gentle voices of the tree-frogs, dim outline

“We musn’t lose each other, Ellen.”

His voice seemed faint against the curtain of the
night.

And again he said: “It’s too real to lose, to let slide,
Ellen, like everything else. We do help each other.”
She rose. “But why do you go?”

“I’m sleepy, Carl. It’s late.”

“T’ll walk home with you.”288 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“No, I’d rather not.”

“Why?”

“Oh, don’t ask questions! To-night do what I
want.”

“Well, it’s good-by, then.” He held out his hand,
took her hand.

“Good-night.”’ She had started away.

“Ellen, Ellen . . .”’. He was choking. She turned,
and as she turned he caught her to him, holding her for
a moment in his arms, lifting her hair from her fore-
head, as if to see her eyes, while she stood with her
two hands on his shoulders.

“My dear,” she murmured as he kissed her, and then
again, “My dear,” and, with her hands still on his
shoulders, his arms about her still, she kissed him back,
her face wet with tears, trembling a little. Then very
gently she drew herself away, as he stood there, watch-
ing her move across the lawn and gradually recede into
the darkness of the night.CHAPTER XXV

CARL DECIDES

>)
oP
Si

“Do you see her, Morris:

“No, daddy. Mummy!” he called.

“She can’t hear you up on the ship. Too much noise.
There she is, Morris. Francesca!” shouted Carl.
“Took, there she is. See her? There, she sees us.
Hold on to him, Nanny, and keep by this post. Vil
try to get nearer the gang-plank.”’

“Carl, Carl! I’m so glad to be home! Is Morris all
right? You oughn’t to have brought him to the dock.
It was lucky we weren’t later. My darling, I’m glad

to see you!”
She was half laughing, half crying, clinging to his
arm, as he steered her to where Morris waited.
“That’s mummy,” said Morris. ‘Hullo, mummy.”
And hesitating for a moment he flung himself into
his mother’s arms.

It was exciting, of course, after six months. There
ought to have been a good deal to say. She expected
that he would have a good deal to say, settled herself to
hear it when they got home. But what was there? He
had just lived along in Chestnut Hill, doing the same
sort of thing every day. He had written everything he
could think of in his letters. A sense of depression
creeping about him, choking him off.

“You look awfully well, Carl, I never saw you look-

ing better.”
289290 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“Thank you, dear. I do feel pretty fit.”

“You’re so brown. It’s splendid.”

“Well, you look well, too. Perhaps a little thin.”

“Yes, I’m tired. It’s been so hard, Carl, with all this
worry about mother, and thinking about Morris, and
you not there to talk to. I missed you terribly. It’s
the first long separation we’ve had for eight years. Do
you realize that?”

“T know ... But I thought your mother was quite
all right again. Your last letter, from Paris—”

“Oh, it’s not that. She’s all right in health. Carl,
I didn’t write you, I couldn’t somehow. There’s been
a reconciliation.”

“You mean your mother and father?”

“Yes. Oh, Carl, I’ve always dreaded it, ever since I
was a little girl.’ She took out her handkerchief, on
the verge of tears.

“But I don’t understand. Why in the world shouldn’t
they?”

“T thought it would never happen. But I always
dreaded it, always, always! And now it’s happened.”

“Look here, Francesca, it can’t be as bad as all that.
After all, your mother’s forgiven him.”

‘““She’s as weak as water where he’s concerned. He’s
horrible, Carl, you don’t know. He cares for nobody,
just women all the time. He'll kill mother, and the
disgrace of it, when it happens, will kill me.”

“But, my dear, people have to choose their own way
of living. Besides, how could you know anything
about your father? You were a baby when they were
separated. You can’t remember.”

“T’m not sure. Mother used to keep his photographs
about, and I recognized him instantly when I saw himCARL DECIDES 291

at Amalfi. But everyone made me feel what ke was.
Even the papers talked about him.”’ She winced, and
continued :

“T tried my best to prevent it; but soon I knew it
was too late. They had been seeing each other, meet-
ing secretly. I think she was a little afraid of me.”

“But, after all, Cesca, he is your father; and your
mother’s husband, not her lover.”

“That’s just what he acts like, like a lover, not like a
husband at all.”

“Well, as long as he’s hers, not anyone else’s.”’

“But it can’t last—you'll see.”

Carl was puzzled. What a queer person she was!
He caught himself watching her, wondering about her
as if their separation had objectified her.

“And the upshot of it all?”

“They’re going to stay in Paris for the autumn. Of
course I had to accept it, and be polite when I saw it
was hopeless.”

“What did he say?”

‘Kissed me—on the lips—he always kisses people on
the lips, and said something about its being a lark, and
that you’d understand.”

“That I’d understand? He sounds rather a wag,
your father. But why did he speak of me, I wonder?”

“They’re planning to come over here to pay us a
visit. I couldn’t very well refuse. I don’t think mother
jumped at the idea, but he suggested it, and of course
she had to pretend to be pleased.”’

“Of course.”

“You don’t mind, do you? She’s never even seen
Morris.”

“Mind? I think it’s priceless.”292 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“Please don’t laugh at me, Carl. I do hope it will
be all right. And mother’s awfully happy.”

She didn’t ask him much about his summer, seemed
to take it for granted that he had written everything
there was to tell. He was relieved. His summer was
Ellen, and he couldn’t talk about Ellen.

And the quick memory of Ellen was with him con-
tinually. The sound of her voice, the buoyant swing
of her walk, her ringing, exuberant laugh, the look
of her eyes, a little hard but full of brimming humor,
as if life were joyous rather than absurd; her wide,
strong hands, hard and tanned, capable, expressive of
her strength and gaiety, moving with her thought, fol-
lowing her mood; the slow smile of content, as she
turned her head; her kiss . . . Too much, too much to
bear, that final kiss. He musn’t think of that,. must
hold away the memory of their kiss, till it faded from
his lips where still a shadowy sweetness trembled; till
it grew dim and the implication settled somewhere be-
hind the barricade of normal life. He wouldn’t face it
now ... Pile up the work. Not hard in the daytime
to escape. But after work! Do things for Francesca,
for the children . . . But he couldn’t keep it out at
night. Surely at night he had a right to his memory.
And if he could hold her in the past, summon her out
of the past to that bitter sweetness of his dreaming
arms, so that his whole being absorbed her, there was
room for nothing else, no room for thought, for think-
ing about the implication of a kiss.

A week, two weeks. Memories faded into thin beck-
oning ghosts of the past, the past which was no longer
part of the present, of the urgent present, a void of
longing. He must think, must begin to think. A de-CARL DECIDES 293

cision must be made. Work, the children, Francesca
at Low Hill, going to town to get the house ready, to
open the house for another winter. And through the
blur of this actual world was his feverish longing to see
Ellen, to hear her voice, to be near her...

He walked over to the Thralls a Saturday afternoon
in late October. He could not telephone. Perhaps she
would be out! The possibility that she might be out
made him feel weak and sick.

But when he saw her it was peace again, the old
peace. She was not different, she had not changed, she
was there, smiling at him.

“Come in, Carl. Father’s away at some legal con-
vention in Boston. Where’s Francesca? I saw her at
the Acorn Club last week, looking very pretty, but a
little thin, I thought.”

“Francesca? She’s in town, getting the house in or-
der;

“Sit down—no, here. That’s better.”

Lord, it was good to see her!

“Well?” she said.

“Well?”

They looked at each other.

“Poor Carl. You do look glum.”

“Not now, Ellen. You ought to have seen me when
I was coming over, thinking you might be out.”

“Glad I didn’t.”

“Ellen, we’ve made an awful mess of things.’

“Have we? I hadn’t thought of it that way. In
fact I’d thought of it, as I said to you, like a trip on
the ocean, with a beginning and an end.”

“Magic freedom . . . But it didn’t end.”

“No,” she agreed, “it didn’t end.”

?294 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“Ellen, I can’t bear it. You’re so part of my being,
inextricably, I can’t think or act without you . . . I’ve
suffered . . . And it’s only three weeks! 1 wanted
to see, to know. Ido, now. It’s not like anything I’ve
ever felt or known. You care, don’t you?”

She smiled. ‘Carl!”

“I really hadn’t come over to talk about it. I wasn’t
ready—just to see you again. If you knew, if you
knew! . . . I didn’t fall in love with you that night at
dinner . . . No love at first sight, my dear, far more
beautiful than that, your growing on me, steadily, com-
ing into my mind first, giving me what I’ve never had,
a sense of expansion; and that you found me absurd, a
jest for the curve of your dear smile, was no de-
fense’....3”"

“No defense,” she agreed. “But I didn’t find you
absurd.”’

“Why not? I don’t mind.”

‘Well, perhaps, rather, if you don’t mind.”

He watched her for a moment, collecting his
thoughts. “It’s all so wrong. I can’t make love to
you. I want to be singing or kneeling to you, holding
out happiness for happiness, and with all this agony
I have to talk, and talk .. .”

“Carl, don’t worry your mind. Don’t begin the old
trick of thinking that you ought to be doing something
else, acting another part. Don’t be miserable because
you can’t carry me off in your arms forever after-
ward. Life isn’t like that. It’s never simple, but we
needn’t try to complicate it. You are Francesca’s hus-
band, Morris’s father. And I—well, I’m Ellen Thrall
—and we’re in love. Don’t think of us in any other
way—but just as we are. It will be hard enough to
decide in any case.”CARL DECIDES 295

“Yes, we must decide . . .” He was walking about
the room, aimlessly, uncertainly.

“IT wish I knew,” he said, “I wish I knew. It’s all so
beastly, any way you turn. Francesca hasn’t done any-
thing to me—I can’t walk in on her and tell her I don’t
love her, don’t want to live with her any more.”

“You don’t love her?”

He wheeled about. “Ah, Ellen, if I were only cer-
tain of that! I am at least being frank with you—and
you don’t know how hard it is to turn my mind inside
out like that. I’m much more than in love with you.
I haven’t been happy with Francesca. I dare say it’s as
much my fault as hers.”’

“Don’t let’s talk of it in terms of fault. You come at
life differently, I suppose.”’

“At everything. We have nothing in common but
Morris, past memories, a house. And yet the past is
so terribly strong. We missed each other this summer,
and now that we are together there’s nothing to make
it out of. I think I’d have plodded along imagining
that we still cared if you hadn’t shown me other pos-
Sibilities ..°. .”

“Tt will be pretty hard for you living together if you
don’t care.”

“Curious you should say that. Almost the very
words I used to Uncle Morris, five years ago, when
Deany was trying to get his divorce.”’

“You were on his side?”

“The only one.”’

“But not on your own?”

“Ah, my dear, when it comes to yourself, it’s so
different! I keep thinking of Morris all the time. He's
little, and Francesca has a terrible will to control. He
wouldn’t have a chance with her. Perhaps if it were296 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

anywhere else in the world. But here! He'd learn to
accept without question, without dissent. They’ve
taught me to conform. But I don’t want it for him,
Ellen. Rather suffering and failure than this compla-

cent death...

“T ysed to think, when everything closed in, that it
was all like that, the same everywhere; the same with
everyone. But you’ve shaken me into doubting my
own scepticism.”

‘Did everything close in?”

“Well, rather . . . You know. I’ve'told you about
it. Thank God, I can talk to you about it. I never
have to anyone else. Mother was bored. Francesca
thought I was complaining. I suppose I was. But if
I’d only had someone to say it was rotten, too, to hate
along with me. Of course I was half baked when I
came here to work, and spoiled. I suppose I mooned
about a good deal; but Lord, you've got to have some
illusions.”’

“You have,” she said.

“They didn’t last. They simply couldn’t last here.
’d been brought up with an idea that the Llanfears
counted—had tradition, you know. They’re like any

small bourgeoisie, stuffed with the importance of their
own febrile activities. It’s all in the past. I suppose
there was a past—you can see traces of it—fewer each

year.

“Give me a cigarette. Yes, I do feel better. It ac-
cumulates, you know.

“And law. What the hell is there to it? Making a
living, if you like, which includes covering things up,
truckling to rich clients, to judges, to politicians.CARL DECIDES 297

“And the stinking politicians, stealing, creeping
around between the bankers and lawyers and manufac-
turers, each crowd afraid of the other, holding hands
in their dirty little circle, getting damned little fun out
Ob it.”’

He talked on. She sat quietly, listening, watching
him, trying to go back into his life, far back with him,
deep below the surface of his talk.

“You've hardly said a thing, Ellen.”

“T’ve been listening.”

“But you havyen’t given me an idea of what you
think.” |

“T want to know what you think, Carl.”

“But we must both decide.”

They were standing close together. Her eyes were
grave and deep with thought.

“Yes,” she said, “of course. But it’s your decision,
Cask

“You mean you'll do what I want? Ellen

She hesitated. “I didn’t mean that, exactly. It’s hard
toexpress. It’s for your own happiness, your salvation
almost, I think . . . You must decide, singly.”

tee

She put her hand up. “Try to understand me. You
must do the thing cleanly, all of your own. For once,
your own. You must do what you want. I can help
you, Carl, but you must make up your own mind. It
is your chance.”

“You mean that youandI...

“No, no. I mean either way you decide it must be
you.”

“Well, of course, Ellen, I’ll have to decide, as you
say, but after all we’re both concerned. Certainly you
just as much as I.”

}??

99298 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“You don’t understand. But talking won’t make you
_.. You must go. I’m going out. But, my dear, it
will take our strength and thought. We mustn't
hurry, let ourselves be pushed into a position. We're
not kids. There’s a lot at stake. It’s very hard. And
[’'ll help you all I can, Carl.” She gave him her hand.

<Dhatall?”

“Please, Carl. It isn’t easy ... If I kissed you
now it would make it harder, each day—just as hard
for me. I shouldn’t be any good.”

“Besides,” she added whimsically, “we’re not under
those murmuring stars.”

When he was half-way down the drive she called to
him.

yYese”’

“I’m happy, Carl.”

And her happiness seemed to shield him for a while,
before the gnawing loneliness set in again, settling on
his heart like the consciousness of personal failure.

‘“What’s the matter, Carl? You seem so different
since I’ve been home.”

“Nothing, Francesca. There’s really nothing.”

“You're depressed about something.”

He looked at her miserably. ‘Oh, well, I suppose
I’ve been that way before.’ He smiled forlornly.
“T’ll try to buck up.”

“You think too much about yourself.”

He winced at that.

She came over to him, and kissed him. “Excuse
me, dear. Is it your Uncle Morris you're worried
about? I know he’s not well. But the winter in the
south is just what he needs. You'll like being at Low
Hill for the winter, won’t you?”CARL DECIDES 299

“Yes. I hope you won't be lonely. Was it an awful
chore shutting the house again when it was almost
ready for us?”

“Dearest, I don’t mind those things if you’re happy.
Truly—I don’t mind anything. But you’ve changed
since I’ve been away. You're different.”

“How do you mean?”

She looked at him, a little frightened. “I’m not sure.
But it’s not the same—our life together. I felt it even
coming over on the train. You’re not angry with me,
or annoyed about something?”

He shook his head. He couldn’t speak. He had
never seen her like that, worried, uncertain, tentative.
Ellen had said: “You must be very careful, Carl.
Francesca must never suspect this, unless you decide to
tell her. It will be cruel enough then.” He must not
let Francesca feel that he was different.

“You're all I’ve got,” she said. ‘Do you love me,
Carl? I want to hear you say it.”

And at night she slipped into his bed, and held him
in her arms, searching for his tenderness, trying to
abandon herself to his love, the love which might be
slipping, which she must stir and warm with her beauty,
with a new kind of insistence which he had never
known in her. And for a moment, in her arms, he
forgot Ellen . . . A short moment, soon over, and
the memory of Ellen intervened between them, and
hating himself he thought—Horrible! To be unfaith-
ful even to Ellen.

It was this pressing necessity of making up his mind.
There were so many considerations, so many angles to
the situation. Whatever he might do seemed to land
him in a position which he couldn’t face. If he left300 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

Francesca for Ellen what would happen to Morris?
Obviously Francesca must keep him at first, he was
too small to live with anyone but his mother. When
Morris grew older, perhaps, began going to boarding
school, he might get him. Ellen, Morris, and himself
_. . He let his mind rest on that. Such a possibility
of life there, life for the three of them. But if Fran-
cesca wouldn’t consent to a divorce? He had no ground
for it. Of course she wouldn’t consent. Her home
was the centrifugal corps of her little universe, solid,
compact, tangible. And why should she? A divorced
woman had a pretty dreary outlook. He saw her in
tears, obstinate, unimpressed.

“Tt’s an aberration, Carl,’’ she would say, “you don’t
really love her.”

“But I do, Francesca. Can’t you ever understand?”

“T can understand that you want to desert me and
Morris for this—girl.” Her speech was full of that
kind of anticlimax.

“You don’t want me to live with you if I don't
love your”

“Tt’s not a question of what I want, Carl. It’s just
a simple matter of your duty.”

“And how about our happiness?”

“And Ellen Thrall’s? . . . You mustn’t forget her.”

He saw Ellen when he felt he couldn’t bear it alone
any longer.

“T don’t believe Francesca would ever agree to a
divorce.”’

“Perhaps not at first.”
“Never if not at first. You don’t know how she can

stick to a point if she’s made it.”
“Do you want a divorce?’CARL DECIDES 301

“TI don’t know. But of course I couldn’t get it if
she refused. And then what? ... You've thought of
that, too?”

“T’ve thought of everything, Carl.”

“I thought maybe the idea shocked you.”

“Of being your mistress? How could that shock
me, if I love you?”

“Ellen! .. .’ But something in him pulled back,
always a little over-sensitive at her frankness. “But,
dear,”’ he remonstrated, “have you thought of all it
means? Are we the kind of people that would be
happy living that sort of life? It would mean giving
up my work if we went away together. I don’t know
what else I could find to do. I’m getting on pretty
well, you know, and I suppose in a way I’m ambitious.”

“No, I think running away would be stupid. I got
to that point long ago.”

“Isn’t the other almost worse? Living a lie, evad-
ing, watching, continually afraid of discovery. You
couldn’t, Ellen.”

“T’m not sure. But I didn’t mean that. You could
always tell Francesca.”

“Tell Francesca !”

“Tf she wouldn’t let you go.”

“So that, you mean, eventually she’d have to let me
go?”

“T suppose so. I don’t think out consequences as
much as you do, Carl. I think more of the thing itself.”

“And you would—we could be lovers ?”

“My dear,” she smiled, “you must first tell me what
you want.”

Francesca would never consent. He repeated that
to himself, fortifying his doubt by the insistence that302 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

the choice was already out of his hands. His wife
would not consider it. Beastly thing, a divorce. All
the family to talk to, the questions, an attempt to ex-
plain his position. No one would understand. He
couldn’t say: “I’m tired of my wife, I want to leave her
and to live with Ellen Thrall.” And the gossip, the
endless gossip . . . Uncle Morris, quiet suffering on
his thin, sick face; Uncle Richard’s shocked dismay ;
Aunt Susan’s noisy impertinence; Brackway’s trepida-
tion. He was well settled, well started. You couldn’t
tear up your life by the roots that way, and chuck it
overboard. Ellen had once said he wasn’t a realist;
such a romantic gesture, counting no costs, didn’t
smack of realism.

He had changed, had grown. This experience had
matured him. He was no longer the visionary boy,
full of bright generalities, who had scorned them all
for backing Deany to the wall. They weren’t so far
wrong, perhaps. Deany had a lot at stake.

But God! to lose Ellen .. .

Anything rather than this indecision, this dreadful
uncertainty. Anything for a definite line, in some di-
rection. If only Ellen would help him! She just lis-
tened quietly while he talked, dragging himself before
her, first one way, then another. Why, he hardly
knew what she felt about it, what she wanted! She
loved him, but would she have the courage to follow
him, to burn her bridges if he burned his? He doubted
that. She was a girl of his own class, who had been
brought up in the amenities, liked what her crowd
liked, shared what they all had. She’d hardly bolt. It
took courage, and something in the blood, something
errant and gypsy.CARL DECIDES 303

Why couldn’t she help him? It was her life just as
much as his.

He went to her in this mood.

He found her graver than usual, and more gentle.
And as they talked he had a feeling that some part of
her had been withdrawn from him. Thinking of this,
long afterward, he wondered if fundamentally she were
not hard.

He talked.

“T know, Carl. It’s impossible. We can’t go on
this way . . . Do you think there’s anything more to
say?”

“Ellen! Ellen, what do you mean?”

“Can’t we decide now, to-night? Haven’t you
thought all around the subject, exhausted every possi-
bility? Is there anything more that we can say to each
other ?”

“You haven’t said anything. Perhaps you’ve been
thinking, though, and want to tell me. Is that it?”

She stood looking at him.

And then—‘“‘Sit down, Carl, near me, here on the
sofa. I’ll tell you what I think. You won’t interrupt
me? There are subtle things, not easy to put into
words . .« «

‘Do you remember my saying that you must make
the decision? You’ve never felt that I didn’t really
care, have you? I do care, awfully, Carl. I wanted
you to feel that, while you were fighting this out for
yourself, to be deeply conscious of it every instant, so
that whatever else you doubted you would never doubt
that I loved you. That night, when our lips met, I
gave you my heart. It was hard not to give you my-
self. But if I had, before you had come to a decision,
it would have never been your own, after that. I de-304 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

sired only one thing—for you to do what you really
wanted. I was yours completely—when you asked me.”

SBillen! Ellen. :..7

“Please, Carl. Dve only begun...” She had
spoken slowly and with difficulty, but with an earnest
passion, half broken, half articulate.

“T know that you loved me, that you love me. It
would be useless to compare our feelings, to say that
you or I loved the more. Don’t ever think afterward
that I didn’t believe how dearly you cared. I did, I
dowinnn

Afterward! The world felt numb and cold in his
mind as he held it out of the meaning of her sentence.

“The possibility of our happiness depended on what
you are. If we didn’t make a go of it—well, it wouldn’t
have been worth while, would it?’ She put her hand
in his, talking more easily. “Don’t you see, Carl dear,
if you had come to me uncertainly, looking backward,
looking about you, thinking of what you left, you’d
have never had any of the freedom which was to be the
very raison d’étre of your new life. I’m not blaming
you, my dear. Everyone’s different. Don’t think I
hold it against you because you couldn’t give up—ev-
erything you had—for me.”

“But Ellen, how do you know I couldn’t? I’ve been
on the point of it, so many times. But it’s a big de-
cision . . . Why, even you said I must take my time.
You wanted me to think it over carefully, Ellen. Ellen,
Ellen, how can you?”

He was on his feet striding about, in an agony of ap-
prehension, below which lurked, far below, so far that
he would have indignantly denied its presence, a faint
sense of relief.

“T know, Carl, don’t misunderstand me. You haveCARL DECIDES 305

for some time been far beyond the point of thinking
anything out. Now it’s all a process of ratiocination—
isn’t that what they call it when we try to find reasons
for our impulses? Sure death, my dear, of the other
thing. It is beginning to do something to you; it has
done something to me.”

“You mean you care less?”

“‘Tt’s less fresh, Carl.”

He stared at her. “Not with me.”

“Yes, with you, too.”

“So you mean, you mean...

“That we shouldn’t be happy, Carl. It won’t do.”

The thought that he might lose her, that he was
losing her, made him dizzy. That life again, that same
life again, endlessly, unrelieved, thirty, forty years . . .
Shrinking back into a shell of self-defense, of mild
cynicism, dull, regular, unstirred by the splendid breath
of her love... “Ellen! Ellen! ...” He sank on
his knees beside her, and burst into tears. He couldn't
bear it. And as her hand brushed his hair, already he
felt that she was far away, knew that he had lost her.

7

She was very quiet as he talked to her, striding rest-
lessly about the room, arguing, remonstrating. It was
not so much, he felt, that she had decided for them, as
that she had mentioned a fact which he hadn't per-
ceived before, hadn’t admitted. A fact which gave a
buffer to his opposition, hardened him to believe that
anything was possible. If there was peace in the in-
stinct to surrender to the inherited commonplace, there
was a need, too, for the expression of resistance. It
would be Ellen, not he, who turned her back on their
love. Ellen, Ellen, can’t you see, can’t you under-
stand? We’re making a mistake, giving up everything.306 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

It isn’t fair to you, to any of us, spoiling our lives.
If you love me, what does anything else matter? It’s
so unlike you, Ellen, so inconsistent. You teach a
clearer way and then haven't the courage to follow it
... Ellen, Ellen ... Talking, talking on, hardly
waiting for an answer, that he might be impassioned
and she resolute, Carl in revolt, Carl choosing for him-
self, Carl true to his tenets, and Ellen denying, Ellen
refusing, Ellen determined and immovable, so that all
he said could never change her! And yet the sense of
hurrying finality, as if it were dangerous to pause, to
watch her too closely, to wait for a change, a chang-
ing mood...

A sense of peace, of security under the frosty stars,
as he walked home. A gentler sadness. He had done
all he could. He had made no surrender. It was over,
settled. She might not, after all, be mistaken. Well,
they had loved each other. That there was to look back
on. How dark the poplars rose on his lawn, patterns
for your dreams if you shut your eyes! The aching
poignancy of the suspended days had been sucked from
his grief by a sense of sacrifice, cleansed by his own
action, and the impersonal beauty of those stars.

“Good morning, Carl.”

“Hullo, Francesca.”’ He could kiss her almost ex-
ultingly while the mood of last night was still on him.
They were beginning again.

But throughout the day a rising loneliness.

And when at tea he sat by his hearth, near his wife,
Morris playing by them quietly; and when she said,
cheerily in her flat and friendly voice, ““How did things
go at the office?” he could hardly keep the gathering

reCARL DECIDES 307

misery out of his voice, out of his eyes, which saw
nothing but the other figure, sitting in a chair, stroking
his hair, sitting quietly while he talked, talked away
his happiness, his only chance of happiness .. .CHAPTER XXVI
COUNT BRACCHI

CounT VincENzo Braccuat, and his lady, née Amy
Winterpod, had been staying for two weeks with their
daughter, Mrs. Carl Llanfear, at Low Hill, the resi-
dence of Mr. and Mrs. Morris Llanfear, who were
spending the winter in Southern California. Thus the
newspapers, chronicling the goings and comings of
the august world of society during the meagre Lenten
pause, when the fashionable were supposed to be rest-
ing from their glittering occupations, to be catching
their breaths between functions, their budding daugh-
ters matriculated from the exacting introduction of
dinners, dances, and operas, pausing before the spring
and summer seasons. At any time the arrival of these
exalted European personages would have caused a flut-
ter in the society columns and down the line of host-
esses, ever alive to opportunities for new lions. Not
only on account of that ancient, titled name, but be-
cause Mrs. Carl Llanfear had been a Bracchi—a very
important consideration in Philadelphia, the maiden
name.

The Count liked Philadelphia. It was, he said, most
exhilarating.

“You have,” he remarked to Carl, “‘a very unusual,
a most felicitous combination.” The Count’s English
was picturesque. “You have not forgotten your past,
and yet you live in the future also. It is rare, I judge,
in your country. It is not comfortable always to be in
the day after to-morrow. Such, I am told, is New
308COUNT BRACCHI 309

York. We were there for only five days, but one had
little time to enjoy, to weigh impressions. But here
you have a sense of ease.” He sipped his glass of Bene-
dictine, stretched his legs, looked about the white-pan-
elled, rambling library of Low Hill. “Here one has
the impression of the vitality of the grinding factories,
without their oppression. Very vital, the toiling masses,
but you cannot enjoy them at close quarters.”

“But where are they getting?”

“They’re not intended to get anywhere, Carl. You
don’t move an ant-hill. And you’ve handled it so
nicely, packed them in their neat funny little houses in
the city, with all the little white steps, so sweet, so com-
fortable, so banal; and moved out here,’”’—he waved a
hand—‘‘where you live comfortably, lazily, as gentle-
men should live. Wonderful people, you Philadel-
phians!’’

“Tt’s pretty dull sometimes. Same crowd, same
ideas.”’

“That is a personal matter,” said his father-in-law.
“T am never dull. But then I am no longer young.
Perhaps you young chaps are a bit fin de siécle. It was
very fashionable in the nineties—may be coming in
again. And what have you to be dull about, my boy?
Money, leisure, a charming home. These lovely walks,
trees, and flowers . . . And such beautiful women.”
He sat up and leaned forward. “I have never seen
such women, nowhere. In England they are coarse
and red, in France they are powdered and have bad
breaths. But your girls are young goddesses. Such
complexions, such legs, and the way they stride them
about, as if they didn’t give a little damn!”

Cart laughed. ‘(And you’re no longer young !”
“Ah, you strange Americans! You shy off if one310 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

speaks of women. Are you afraid of them? Don’t
you like them? Of course I am not young. I have
become a philosopher; I read, I contemplate. But I
observe also, and it gives me pleasure to observe your
women. Yesterday I walked down Chestnut Street. It
is a small street. You have no boulevards, no place
where one can stroll. Everyone hurrying—that is all
right—I do not mind others hurrying if I do not have
to. But they hardly looked at the beautiful women—
never smiled at them.”

He twirled his black mustaches, turning gray. He
was growing a little fat, a little bald, but his eyes were
eager and humorous.

“You are a great admirer of women, I take it, sir?”

“T admire women? Not on your life. Is that the
correct argot? I enjoy picking it up. In their place,
of course, like the other charming things. You make
love to them; they look after your house, bring up
your children; they are a need and a satisfaction, and
a décor. But one does not admire them. They are like
children, unreasonable, incapable of fine thought, of
any high sacrifice, unless from biological necessity. One
cannot talk to them. How could I say to my wife what
I am saying to you? She would not understand, she
might even resent the remark, and take it personally.
Francesca is no better. They should sit near us, and
smile, and fill our glasses. Then, when we are weary
of talk, they should wait for us in our beds . . . Fran-
cesca is an odd girl. I, her father, do not understand
her. Do you?”

“T don’t know. Perhaps not.”’

“She seems to me a little—indifferent, and yet, a
worthy girl. She does not like to be kissed. Has she
a lover?”COUNT BRACCHI 311

“Heavens, no!’’ exclaimed Carl.

“Well, well. I didn’t mean to startle you. But one
can never tell. Perhaps one can in America. Must
we join them? Well, if you say so. It is so pleasant
here, talking to you. We are good friends at once, are
we not? Doubtless that is because you haven't thought
of me much as a beau-pére.”

It amused Carl to watch the three of them. He
could orientate Francesca against the background of
her parents. The Countess was a definite little New
England woman, with white hair, pale eyes, and ruddy
cheeks, talkative with women, mute before her hus-
band, with the mute eyes of an adoring dog. The lit-
tle concessions that she made to a lifetime spent among
Europeans sat with a pathetic jauntiness on her prim
outline. And yet, when she rouged her pale lips to
reflect the hard natural color of her cheeks, you felt
that the concession might also be to some inner im-
pulse, half formulated between eagerness and fear.
She seemed very young for a lady who had been
through so much .

Francesca’s personality hovered between them, un-
realized, reflecting them without significance. Carl
could find her rich beauty traced in her father’s well-
groomed features, swart and fleshy. But there the re-
semblance ended. And he wondered how it was pos-
sible for her to have none of his breezy good spirits,
of his brimming, good-natured delight in the life about
him.

He liked to go to moving-picture theatres in the
afternoon, after a short nap, by himself. “It gives
one a sense of adventure to go alone.” He usually
turned up at tea, flashing with excitement, hungry,312 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

shouting about the house in his jolly, rich voice, strum-
ming melodies, calling loudly for Morris.

“Morris! My beautiful grandbaby, come quickly to
embrace me.”

“T don’t like father’s way with Morris.”

“Why not, Francesca?”

“He spoils him.”

POE gg

“He does, Carl. You must be blind if you can’t
see it. And he’s always kissing him and patting him.
It’s not nice, or manly. Morris is nearly eight. He’s
too big for that sort of thing.”

“Morris is very fond of him.”

“T don’t mind that, of course. But the child is very
impressionable. And I don’t know what my father
says to Morris. I hope nothing he oughtn’t to hear.
They get off in corners together and laugh boister-
ously, like two—men.”’

“Oh, well! .. .” Carl shrugged. He had given up
arguing with Francesca.

In the light of subsequent events he often thought
of those afternoons in the library, when he would come
in to find them sitting about the fire, Francesca straight,
quiet, watchful; Morris on the Count’s knee, listening
to his stories and funny songs; the Countess knitting,
as was her thrifty way, now and then lifting her eyes
to where her husband sat. He felt their warmth about
him, glowing on his hearth, soothing his ache . . .

“Do you think, Carl, we ought to get rid of Joséph-
ine?”

Joséphine was Francesca’s new French maid, very
pretty, dark and slim, with neat ankles, and nice hands.
““Joséphine?”’ he asked, a little absent-mindedly.COUNT BRACCHI 313

She flushed. ‘‘You’re such a blind old dear, Carl,
you never notice anything. Joséphine is a beautiful
little creature.”

“Oh, I’ve noticed her, all right. She’s a peach. But
she’s not dangerous to my peace of mind—not yet at

least.”
“Don’t be an ass, Carl. Of course I didn’t mean

9?

you.

“But you did mean someone—Oh!” He whistled.
“Your father.”’

“T hate to say those things, even to think them. But
’ve been so nervous ever since he’s been here for fear
—something might go wrong. I think he knows it.
I just can’t stand that man. He’s spoiling mother’s
visit, and she’s so wrapped up in him she can’t see any-
one else. There—I know I oughtn’t to have let my-

self go.”

“Do you good. But you haven’t noticed anything?
Neither have I. Oh, I think that’s over for the Count.
He talks about himself as an old man. He's very much

on his good behavior.”

Carl took the Count once or twice to lunch at the
Club. Like everything else in Philadelphia, he was

charmed with it.

“Such food and such nice men. No thin intellec-
tuals with a lean and hungry look, but comfortable
fellows like Mr. Roth, who wake up from their arm-
chairs for food and drink. They talk to you so po-
litely, and ask you your impressions of their great city.
And they love it, one can see that, in spite of that fine
air of quiet indifference. They like to think a stranger’s

well-received. It is aristocratic, your Club, formal,314 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

sleepy, hospitable. And your oysters! To think that
you have your own beds for them, on the shore of
Maryland, each oyster tagged for your own use.
Epatant!”

The Count had so far resisted all attempts at enter-
taining him. They had dined out once or twice, but
no great dinner had been given in their honor. He pre-
ferred, he said, to be quiet. Was not this a second
honeymooning? He was happy thus in the home, with
his children and their child. No, let us put off the din-
ner... At first Francesca conceded the point, dis-
liking his perfervid references to intimate domestic
felicity. Of course their home was happy; and to talk
about honeymoons—wretched taste. But before long,
feeling that the time had come, she brought up the sub-
ject again, insisting that a dinner must be given. Her
father looked comically at his wife, at Carl, shrugged
his shoulders, twisted his mustaches: “Very well,” he
said.

It was hard to decide whom to ask. There had to be
some of the family, but not too many. It must be really
smart. Old Mrs. Algernon Henderson Roth, of course.
One always asked her to meet important people. Judge
Thrall, who was such a good diner-out. Lydia Dean
Llanfear and Dan Carew—people asked them out to-
gether a good deal. Mr. and Mrs. Moneith, the Bill
Prendergasts ...

“But couldn’t you ask someone who is pretty and
amusing, Francesca? Your father will be bored to
tears with that crowd.”

“They are the people he would be expected to meet.
I must ask the Moneiths, Carl. We have dined thereCOUNT BRACCHI 315

so much. And I think we ought to ask the Horace
Chizzels. I know you don’t like her, but i

“All right, anyone you say.” It wasn’t worth fight-
ing about. They were all pretty much the same. It
was bound to be a big, dull, formal dinner. Oh, well!

Francesca toiled dutifully in preparation. There
were to be eighteen. Two extra men. Shafto could
open the front door, he wasn’t good for much else.
Terrapin, the 1905 Clicquot, which Uncle Morris had
said they could use. It was to be handsome and solid.
She wanted her mother to feel their position. There
was security in a dinner. She was presenting her
mother, the Countess Bracchi, to Philadelphia society—
and the Count. Perhaps with her dinner she could lay

 

forever the ghost of his past.

Francesca came down early to cast about a final look.

Her mother was standing by the fire, dressed in gray
chiffon, her brows puckered over the faded blue eyes.

“Francesca, your father hasn't come in yet.”

“TIasn’t come in! Why, it’s almost eight. Where
is bee.

“T don’t know. He had some shopping to do, and
went to town in the afternoon. He might have gone
to a moving-picture house, and got absorbed. He’s

very absent-minded,” she said innocently.

Francesca stared at her. “But what in the world

can we do? What shall we say?”
“What is it, Francesca?” asked Carl, coming into

the room.
They told him. “I think we’d better say he became

suddenly indisposed,” suggested the Countess.
“Oh, he’ll be along,” said Carl cheerily. He saw the316 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

look of panic in the poor lady’s face, caught a reflec-
tion of it in his wife’s.

The door bell rang.

“That must be father.”

“Mrs. Algernon Henderson Roth.”

“How do you do, Countess?” The jewels glittered
over the great bulk of her neck and bosom. She grew
heavier, huger every year. And nearly eighty. Won-
derful woman! She looked about for a chair, found
it, sank into her fat.

“But where’s the Count?”

“I wish we knew,” said Francesca lightly. “He went
to town after lunch, and hasn’t come in. Father’s just
like a child, Mrs. Roth. He often loses himself.”

“H’m. I trust we’re not going to wait for him. I’m
aching with hunger . . . Countess, I met your hus-
band, years ago, at Nice. I don’t think you were with
him at the time. Extraordinarily handsome wretch.
Far too handsome . . .”

“Mr. and Mrs. Moneith.”

“Don’t worry, Cesca, you were great—a real sport.
It'll be all right. Stiff upper lip. Ill watch your
mother.”’

She looked at him gratefully, on the edge of tears.

“T think we'll go in without waiting any longer for
father. Carl, will you give Mrs. Roth your arm. Judge
Thrall, you’re to take in mother.”

“Carl, ’'m sick with worry.”

“Any news?”

“Joséphine isn’t back. It was her afternoon out,
but she should have been back by nine. And fatherCOUNT BRACCHI S17

took a bag with him. It’s too awful, with that empty
place, pretending he was just late, and everyone won-
dering why he wasn’t here.”

“They can’t stay much longer. Keep grinning.”

The dinner broke up early, everyone leaving when
Mrs. Roth rose to say good-night.

“Good-by, Francesca. Excellent dinner. Good-by,
Countess. Remember me to your husband, when you
see him.”’

Mrs. Chizzel pressed Francesca’s hand warmly. “It
was such a nice party, dear, and you mustn’t mind the

little contretemps.”’

The three of them stood in silence, as the door closed
on the last guest. Then the Countess stretched out her
hand to Carl. Her face was gray and crumpled, her
eyes dim but dry.

“Thank you, my dear children, for giving such a
beautiful dinner for us. I must apologize for your
father. I think he ought to have let us know. How-

)

ever...
“T’ll come up with you, mother.”
“Quite unnecessary, thank you. Good-night.”

The next morning, at the office, Carl found a letter
addressed to him in the Count’s flowing hand. It was
written from the Brighton Hotel, Atlantic City, and
ran:

“My dear Carl—This is what I suppose you will call
a bread and butter letter. I felt, somehow, that I could
not write to Francesca—and of course not to her
mother. Francesca would not understand, and she
might not show you the letter. You, I believe, are a
man of the world—at least you are a mati. You are318 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

dear to me, and your son is also dear. We have talked
to one another with a certain intimacy. I talk to you
now in that vein, thinking my thought aloud to you.

“I thought when I met Amy in Paris—and before,
when I went to see her at Amalfi, where your wife
stood over her like a stupid dragon—that I could inter
my past. But it was not to be. Nature was too strong
forme. I ama wanderer. I am not young, but I have
a residuary of youth left in me. I cannot stay set.
Yet we had a very happy six months, Amy and I. Is
not that something? She, too, will believe that, when
she looks back on it, not yet, but perhaps some day.
She is an angel, and I love her truly, but I cannot live
with her. It is impossible. I am not like that. And
there is something about her—what shall I say, too in-
tense, too enveloping, fortissimo? You might not
know that, but it is so. For your wife is not like her
mother, not at all like her.

“T shall sail very soon. Joséphine is with me, a nice
child, and doubtless I shall take her along. I owe Fran-
cesca an apology for causing her the trouble of obtain-
ing another maid; but perhaps you had better not make
it for me. She might not understand.

“For your generous hospitality I have nothing but
the warmest thanks. A fine, aristocratic city, your
great Philadelphia. Perhaps, just at that moment, for
me, when the realization came—and that dinner, like
the seal of all your approval—well, a little too much.

“I salute you, my dear Carl. Convey my news in
whatever way you think best—the result of your in-
quiries, and so on, so that they will not worry about my
health and safety. Kiss Morris—a fine boy—and be-
lieve me, your affectionate and sympathetic friend,
Bracchi.”CHAPTER XXVII
CONTENTMENT

Ir was August of 1915, a perfect day, a perfect Sat-
urday morning. The air had been cleansed by a night
of rain, and the sun had swept the mists out of the
Whitemarsh Valley, and the wind rustled in the
branches of the tulip poplars with the breath of cooler
and dryer days. Carl, stretched comfortably on a
steamer chair on the lawn under the four old trees,
was glad that he had not gone to the office that morn-
ing. Francesca, basket on arm, wandered along the
beds of zinnias, stooping now and then to clip a blos-
som. He thought she looked extraordinarily young
and lithe and lovely as she moved, intent on her work,
serious and content. She had come down from a month
at Bar Harbor, leaving Morris there with their cousin,
Lydia Dean Llanfear. It was nice to have her alone.
He always thought when he had her alone that he might
get at her, pierce to some intimacy not frustrated by
the immediate environment. He wondered, watching
her.

“Cesca, come and talk to me.”

She turned, regarding him. “Carl, I must get some
flowers for the house. I won’t have a minute this after-
noon. We're going to the tennis. And I want the
house to look nice for to-night.”

“To-night ?”

“Why, yes, don’t you remember, I’ve asked the Pren-
dergasts and Billy and Nancy Thrush to dinner. Just
a little party. I thought you'd like a few old friends.”

310320 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

“Well, I'd have liked to have dinner alone with you.”

“You wouldn’t, really. You’d just sit round and
read. I bet you hardly saw a soul when I was away.
You don’t really like people,” she concluded.

“And you think I ought to see them?”

“Yes, Ido. I think you’d run down if I didn’t keep
you up. I don’t ask them on my own account, Carl,
really. But you should see more of your friends. You
get so absorbed in your work and your books.”

“H’m ... I don’t know. But never mind the flow-
ers. Come here. I’ve something I want to say to
you.”

She put down her basket, untied the neat apron, and
placed herself in a chair near him, her hands folded in
her lap, ready to listen. He stretched out an arm,
pulled her hands apart, let his hand lie in one of hers.

“Love me, Francesca?”

“Why, yes, Carl. You know I do. What a funny
question !”’

“But I’m a funny husband.”

She laughed, and squeezed his hand. ‘Well?’

“You want to get back to your zinnias ?”

“Not if you’ve really something to say.”

He looked at her for a moment, still holding her
hand, smiling. Then he took his hand away and sat
up in his chair. “I want your advice.”

“Oh, Carl, what is it? I hope I can help you.” She
was thrilled that he had come to her for help, that he
needed her. It didn’t often happen.

Good old Francesca, he thought, I know exactly what
she’ll want and what she'll say. “Judge Thrall sent
for me to say he’d been having a talk with the Senator.
The United States Attorney is going to resign—chapCONTENTMENT 321

called Priester, you don’t know him. No reason why
you should. The Senator wants to get me appointed.”

“Carl, how perfectly thrilling! Are you going to
accept ?”’

“T don’t know. I’d like to know what you think.
Of course it’s a big honor, especially at my age. It
needn’t be for long, if I get tired of it. But they
want a man the profession and community can respect.
There have been a good many stories floating about,
I don’t know if there’s any truth in them.”

“You'd resign from the office?”

“Oh, no, sort of leave of absence. I’m at a point
now where I can have a good deal to say about terms.
Since Uncle Morris died, Uncle Richard is much less
active, and Brackway’s the only other partner ahead of
me. I think it would help the office in the long run,
bring new business. It’s a very important position, in
line for a judgeship, if I ever wanted one.”

“Judge Llanfear! It sounds wonderful. And you'd
get long summer holidays, and we could travel. Carl,
you'd be a great man!”

“Hardly. But it might be fun for a change, some
day. But I’m not sure I ought to accept.”’

“Why not?”

He hesitated. “I’ve always fought the Organization
and the Senator. I suppose he’s trying to buy me off.
Not that it’s worth his while. I’ve never been able to
make an impression from the outside. This town
doesn’t like a reformer.”

“Does anybody ?”

“T suppose not. One has to be regular. And, after
all, I am a Republican.”

“You could work from the inside, Carl.: * You
needn’t give up any ideals, but you'd have a greater322 THE LLANFEAR PATTERN

chance if you weren't always fighting something, like
Don Quixote.”

He looked at her. Rather acute, for Francesca.

“Don’t you think I’ve improved lately—in the last
year or two? That I’m less, what shall we say—tradi-
calf’?

“Oh, I do, Carl, I do. And it’s made me so much
happier. You’re growing more contented, as if you
could almost accept life here with me and Morris, and
your friends . . . fitting into things. You don’t know
for a while, how hard . . .”’. She came over to him,
her eyes dim, and he took her in his arms.

“Was I such an awful beast?”

“No, dear, but I thought I could never make you
happy, that you would never settle down to our life to-
gether . . . especially the year I came back from Eu-
rope, when you were seeing so much of Ellen Thrall.
She wasn’t good for you. You were too much alike.”

Much more acute than he thought. “Well,” he said
vaguely, not prepared to discuss Ellen with Francesca,
“T’m maturing.”’

Maturing. He was thirty-seven. He’d accomplished
something, at thirty-seven. Not so bad. A good prac-
tice, well up in the firm. A couple of directorships,
the beginning of a public career, perhaps. He’d turn
it over. The Senator had his good side. Business
men admired him a good deal. He knew the tariff
backward. You can’t have everything. Francesca was
pretty keen about it, evidently.

And he thought about it, watching the tennis at
Manheim in the afternoon, coming home for tea on
the lawn with Francesca, sitting there on the grass,CONTENTMENT 323

watching the deep shadows, feeling well and at peace,
unhurried in the slow length of the August Saturday,
reflective, thinking back into his life.

It was almost exactly ten years ago when they had
driven down the hill and up the drive, behind his uncle’s
grays, Francesca next his uncle’s lean form in gray
crash. And he had picked his aunt up in his arms, and
felt her go out to him, with her whole heart in her wel-
coming kiss, the way she always did when he had been
away. He was suddenly lonely when he thought of
them, thought of his aunt’s slim, cool elegance, of his
uncle, puttering about. Perhaps because they had died
so nearly together he drew them to him together now,
haunting the quiet lawn of Low Hill. Low Hill, which
was his now, under his uncle’s will. His aunt had died
two weeks after her husband, from pneumonia, and
they had both left him everything they had . . . Low
Hill was his, but it had always been his, even as a little
boy when it gave him the same sense of peace. And
now, when they had been dead for nearly a year, it was
still theirs, and refused, with quiet insistence, to ac-
cept the fact, any more than he could accept it ; holding
the warm echo of their quiet lives, that peace which
they had shared with him. It would never be Fran-
cesca’s. It yielded to her a smiling face, but never the
inner thing which they three had had, which they
seemed now to have, to touch again... .

Ten years ago. And Uncle Morris had opened a bot-
tle of Clicquét, and Carl had watched Francesca
through the afternoon and evening, proud of her
beauty, passionately in love. Oh, well, that kind of
thing didn’t last. Had he ever really reached her,
reached to the depth of her, stirred her out of the324 THE LEANFPEAR PATTERN

placid routine of her life? ... Funny, he hadn't
thought about that for a long time; and he used to
worry about it, in the old days...

He got up, stretched himself, strolled about the place,
came back to his chair, lit a cigarette. Francesca was
at the piano in the library.

He was more mature, as he had said to her. Harder-
headed, less impetuous. Happier? H’m, yes...
You did your job, you did what you could. He could
discriminate a bit now. He was a rich man. Hard
work, travel, the house that he loved. Not bad. And
pleasant little compensations for a man of taste, like the
Thackeray dinners. Good talk there, good fellows.
He was fitting into the life, his own life, following his
own course. There was something in carrying out a
tradition—the Llanfear tradition—doing his job, be-
ing of some service to the community, caring for a
certain decent leisure, a certain frame of culture, a
Philadelphia gentleman.

It wasn’t, after all, such a bad old place, if you got
used to it. Ideas moved slowly here, but life had deep
roots.

His mind wandered back over the ten years. Pretty
monotonous, if you thought of events. But wasn’t
memory always monotonous? Events slid into place,
like the posts of a fence, each post a little different,
but in function and value the same, making a pattern
only as you arranged them, fitting the rhythm that you
made by tapping them with a stick as you went along,
skipping every three posts, arranging them to fit your
idea of the pattern, of the rhythm. People died pretty
much alike. Martin Llanfear, Old Dean, Miss Letty,
Uncle Morris, Aunt Jane. Olga didn’t fit the pattern,
but then she wasn’t a Llanfear, and it was a LlanfearCONTENTMENT 325

pattern, his pattern. And Carew Acton. But Carew
wouldn’t have fitted any pattern. You can’t just do
what you want. Carew’s life had shown that, a trag-
edy for everyone, including himself.

Belle would not have agreed to that. “Fifteen
years,” she had said . . . “passionate and beautiful...”

But what had she to show for it? No home, no chil-
dren, no career, nothing but a dead lover. Poor old
Belle! He had seen her on the street two or three days
ago, a bit shabbier, a bit coarser, but gay and friendly.
She had drifted out of things a good deal since Carew’s
death. But she still went about, giving riding-lessons,
drank and smoked like a man, played the game. Just
the same life except that C’rew, as she called him, was
gone.

He, Carl, did have something to show for his ten
years. He wondered what he'd have for the next ten.
Public career, perhaps. About the same, at any rate,
but more of it, ripening.

Passionate and beautiful .. . Francesca was not
passionate. Had Belle and Curly had something to-
gether which he had not had, would never have? Not
Curly; Belle perhaps; yes, certainly Belle, that sure
knowledge of her own fulfilment, which carried her
through, so that the rest didn’t matter. But peace,
peace surely came from work, from duties fulfilled,
the normal life accepted as it fell. This was peace, to
browse of a late Saturday in the quiet shadows of your
place. A man is restless for an age, but comes to.ac-
cept life as he grows older, comes to contentment with
his lot.

Even in Philadelphia!

“Time to dress, Carl.”

“Tn a minute.”326 THE LEANFEAR PATTERN

It would be light for another two hours. He would
like to stay where he was, watching the light slowly re-
cede, waver in twilight, sink into the first tenderness
of the evening; pale stars; fireflies; the happy chorus
of the tree-frogs; soft whirring moths; the stars high
and splendid, the dark trunks of the poplars reaching
to stars, nothing between.

That night, nearly two years ago, under the poplars,
under the stars with Ellen Thrall...

He had not thought of her for a long time.

Curious how things faded. He had never believed
the loneliness would go. Not very long ago . . . You
could settle down, you took life as it came.

It was as if she sat beside him, her clear, straight
eyes watching him, while he talked . . . “It’s my way,
Ellen, the only way I could take life. I’ve had a good
deal out of it. One can’t throw everything over. You
said you didn’t mind Philadelphia. I’m not living any-
one else’s life . . . Ellen, Ellen . . .”

“You'll be late, Carl, do come in.’”’ His wife’s voice
from their bedroom on the second floor.

He got up, looked about him. He saw her again,
moving across the lawn, hesitating, turning back to
him. Low Hill was there, it was his. He was happy
enough.

Francesca might be different to-night. No good re-
membering those other things.

“Coming,” he called, and walked to the house, to
join his wife, and dress for dinner.