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Title: The Mayor of Warwick


Author: Herbert M. Hopkins



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THE MAYOR OF WARWICK

by

HERBERT M. HOPKINS

Author of "The Fighting Bishop"







[Frontispiece: "Have you noticed how silent it has grown?" he asked.]




Boston and New York
Houghton, Mifflin and Company
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1906
Copyright 1906 by Herbert M. Hopkins
All Rights Reserved
Published April 1906





TO PAULINE




CONTENTS

     I. THE MEETING IN THE MAPLE WALK
    II. THE TOWER
   III. CARDINGTON
    IV. THE BISHOP'S DAUGHTER
     V. THE CANDIDATE
    VI. LENA HARPSTER
   VII. THE STAR-GAZERS
  VIII. "WHAT MAKES HER IN THE WOOD SO LATE?"
    IX. "HER HEART WAS OTHERWHERE"
     X. MISTRESS AND MAID
    XI. AT THE OLD CONTINENTAL
   XII. THE CONFESSION
  XIII. FURNITURE AND FAMILY
   XIV. THE PRESIDENT TAKES A HAND
    XV. "I PLUCKED THE ROSE, IMPATIENT OF DELAY"
   XVI. THE BLINDNESS OF THE BISHOP
  XVII. CONDITIONS
 XVIII. "TWO SISTER VESSELS"
   XIX. FATHER AND DAUGHTER
    XX. "PUNISHMENT, THOUGH LAME OF FOOT"
   XXI. THE MAYOR FINDS HIMSELF AT LAST




THE MAYOR OF WARWICK


CHAPTER I

THE MEETING IN THE MAPLE WALK

St George's Hall, situated on a high hill overlooking the city of
Warwick, was still silent and tenantless, though the long vacation was
drawing to a close.  To a stranger passing that way for the first time,
the building and the surrounding country would doubtless have suggested
the old England rather than the new.  There was something mediaeval in
the massive, castellated tower that carried the eye upward past the
great, arched doorway, the thin, deep-set windows, the leaded eaves and
grinning gargoyles, into the cool sky of the September morning.

The stranger, were he rich in good traditions, would pause in
admiration of the pure collegiate-gothic style of the low hall that
extended north and south three hundred feet in either direction from
the base of the great tower; he would note the artistry of the
iron-braced, oaken doors, flanked at the lintels by inscrutable faces
of carven stone, of the windows with their diamonded panes of milky
glass peeping through a wilderness of encroaching vines.  Nor would
this be all.  Had he ever viewed the quadrangles of Oxford and
Cambridge, he might be able to infer that here, on this sunny plateau
above the hill, devoted men, steept in the traditions of old England,
had endeavoured to reproduce the plan of one of her famous colleges.

He would see, perhaps, that only one side of the quadrangle was built,
one fourth of the work done.  Here, along the northern line, should be
the chapel, its altar window facing the east; on the southern, the
dining-hall, adorned with rafters of dark oak and with portraits of the
wise and great.  To complete the plan, the remaining gap must be closed
by a hall similar in style to the one already built.

He might picture himself standing in the midst of this beautiful
creation of the imagination, taking in its architectural glories one by
one, until his eye paused at the eastern gateway to note the distant
landscape which it framed.  And then, if he were in sympathy with the
ideals of which this building was the outward expression, he would wake
from his constructive reverie to realise sadly for the first time, not
the beauty, but the incompleteness, of the institution; not its
proximity to the city beyond, but its air of aloofness from the
community in which it stood.

About ten o'clock of the morning in which this story begins, a
stranger, not quite such an one as we have imagined, left the car at
the foot of the long hill and turned his face for the first time
towards St. George's Hall.  As he passed up the shaded street along the
northern side of the campus, his keen, blue-grey eyes swept eagerly the
crest on which stood the institution that was destined to be the scene
of his professional labours for at least a year, perhaps for many
years, it might be, for life.  Even a casual glance at the tall,
loosely hung figure of the young man, at his clean-cut features and
firm mouth, at the nervous, capable hand that grasped his walking-stick
as if it were a weapon, would reveal the type claimed by America as
peculiarly her own.  It was evident that he possessed energy and
endurance, if not the power of the athlete.  His expression was
intellectual, and shrewd almost to hardness; yet somewhere in his eyes
and in the corners of his mouth there lurked a suggestion of sweetness
and of ideality, that gave the whole personality a claim to more than
passing interest and regard.

This curious blending of opposite traits, of shrewdness and of
ideality, was illustrated by his thoughts as he strode along, making no
more of the hill than he would have made of level ground.  Nothing
escaped his eye or failed of its impression upon his mind.  Fresh from
the teeming life of a large university, he noted the absence of
students from the steps of the fraternity houses on his right, though
it lacked but three days of the opening of the college.  Already his
own university had felt the first wave of the incoming class, a class
that would doubtless contain four times as many students as the total
membership of St. George's Hall.  Instinctively he searched his mind
for an explanation of this lack of growth in an institution that
numbered nearly one hundred years of life.  What was the defect?  Where
was the remedy?  He jumped at once to the conclusion that both were
discoverable, and dimly foresaw that the discovery might be his own.

He approached the scene where he was himself to be on trial in the
spirit of one who questioned, not his fitness for the place he was to
occupy, for of that he had no shadow of doubt, but the fitness of the
place for him.  If he saw promotion, perhaps the presidency, within his
grasp, he might deem it worth his while to stay; if not, his
professorship should be a stepping-stone to something better.  With the
history, the traditions, and the ideals of the Hall he was but slightly
acquainted; in fact, the institution existed for him at present only in
its relation to himself and his possible future.

And yet, beneath these thoughts of self ran a current of feeling or
impressions which never rose high enough in his consciousness to win
definite recognition.  If his first view of the college was depressing
because of the failure of fruition its appearance suggested, he was not
utterly unappreciative of the pictorial effect: the splendid lines of
dignity and beauty; the soft brown colour of the stone, relieved by the
lighter tone of lintel and window-frame and sill; the dark green of the
ivy; the great, black shadow of the tower on the slated roof where
every jutting dormer window threw its lesser shade; the wide sky
beyond, of a blueness which an artist would have wished to paint.

From the meadow below the plateau came the tinkle of cow-bells, musical
in the distance; and this sound, combined with the note of a bird and
the voices of children from an unseen garden, produced an Arcadian
atmosphere which even the harsh gong of the returning electric car
could not dispel.

As he climbed higher, the houses fell away, disclosing the bare hilltop
over which the road seemed to dip down and disappear; and though he
knew it could not be so, he was half expectant of the sea when he
should have lifted his head above the verge.  Instead, he saw a wide
and shallow valley, rich in the varied products of the autumn, with
here and there a bare, reaped field, with many a white farmhouse and
barn of red or grey, till his eye followed the road to the western hill
line and noted a patch of small, white objects which might be a group
of boulders left by a prehistoric glacier, or the houses of a distant
town.

The view on the east, when he turned and faced in the direction from
which he had come, was one of greater interest and of no less beauty.
In the immediate foreground the city of Warwick, in which he had passed
the previous night, thrust its smoking factory chimneys, its spires and
towers, above the shining roofs and lofty elms.  But the final element
of charm was found in a broad and sinuous river, blue as the reflected
sky, which flowed past the city's wharves, under a fine stone bridge,
and on through woodland and ploughed land to the sea.  Small wonder
that he now forgot for a moment his own ambitions and plans, and
thought only that St. George's Hall lifted its head within an earthly
paradise!

The building, seen from the end, presented the same extraordinary
change that is to be noted when a long ocean steamship which has been
trailing across the horizon turns, shrinks, and comes bow on.  In some
such proportion to its length was the width of the Hall; but the tower,
viewed from any angle, was still magnificent.  With its four supporting
turrets it appeared rather a group of towers than a single structure.

His immediate curiosity satisfied, the young man now exchanged the
bright sunlight of the open for the comparative gloom of two long lines
of maples, which flanked a narrow board walk from the street to the
college.  There was a prophecy of winter in the red and yellow leaves
that dropped slowly downward one by one, or descended in rustling
showers as a sudden gust of wind seized the thin branches and shook
them against the sky.

And now, as if to personify the spirit of the place, he saw the figure
of a young woman enter the walk from the other end, apparently from the
college building.  As they approached each other, he noted the fact
that she was without hat or gloves, like a lady walking at ease through
her own estate, and he guessed that she had some peculiar proprietary
right in the premises.  For one moment, in passing, he was startled to
encounter a cool and observant gaze; then her eyes dropped to the
collection of leaves which she held in her hands, as if she resumed an
interrupted study of their harmonious shades.

He divined, after he had passed her by, that she had seen him from the
moment they entered the opposite ends of the walk; and though he could
not recall distinctly a feature of her face, he carried with him an
impression of charm and colour singularly in unison with the season of
the year.  Moreover, her gaze, though momentary, was cumulative in its
remembered effect, so that he presently turned and looked curiously
after her retreating figure.

She had now emerged from the shadow of the trees into the sunlight of
the open street beyond, where she stood looking westward, as if minded
to continue her walk into the country.  Even from that distance he
could see how the unobstructed wind struggled with her slender figure,
so that she leaned against it in resistance.  As if persuaded by its
force to change her plan, she turned slowly, released the leaves with a
gesture of surrender, gathered her skirts in one hand, and with the
other raised to her loosened hair she began to descend the hill.

The young man stood still until she had disappeared, smitten by an
inexplicable sense of the fatality of that meeting.  Verging upon the
sixth lustrum of his age, he had passed through that vernal period when
the face of every woman of more than ordinary charm suggested
possibilities of the heart's adventure.  With him the main business of
life was no longer the seeking of a mate.  All books, all arts, all
accomplishments, had ceased to seem merely the accessories and the
handmaidens of love.  Yet never in those days of searching and romance
had he been so attracted by a passing face.  Beauty alone would have
left him cold.  The impression he received was far more rich, an
impression to which the circumstances of the encounter gave a peculiar
emphasis.  The adventure seemed a possible keynote of the future, and
there was an element of vague disquiet in his hope that he might meet
her again, an element akin to fear.




CHAPTER II

THE TOWER

Llewellyn Leigh found himself upon the wide stone flagging in front of
the Hall before he awoke to a realisation of another meeting, now
imminent, whose importance was far less conjectural than that upon
which his fancy would fain have lingered.

The personality of the president of a large university might be a
matter of indifference to a young instructor, inconspicuous among his
many colleagues; but to be transferred to a full professorship in a
small college was to come into close, daily contact with the ruling
power, a contact from which there was no escape, in which instinctive
likes and antipathies might make or mar a career.  At this thought the
young man began to speculate with some intensity upon the personality
indicated thus far to his mind only by the name of Doctor Renshaw.

The very silence of the Hall, which impressed him now not so much by
its beauty as by its solidity and height, invested the presiding genius
of the place with something of sphinxlike mystery.  The very faces of
the gargoyles, impenetrable and calm, or grinningly grotesque, gave the
fancy visible outward expression.  One monster in particular, with
twisted horns and impish tongue lolling forth between wide, inhuman
teeth, seemed to look upon him with peculiar and malicious amusement.
He experienced the spiritual depression which sometimes seems to
emanate from inanimate things, that mood of self-distrust, that
assurance of being unwelcome, which makes the coming to a strange city
where one's fortunes are to be cast an act requiring courage.  Seen
close at hand, the college lost something of that inviting charm with
which a distant view invested it.  Though the length of the corporate
life of the institution was not unimpressive from an American
standpoint, the present building was comparatively recent.  A thirty
years' growth of ivy was scarcely able to atone for the unencrusted
newness of the stones beneath.  There was none of that narcotic
suggestion of grey antiquity which in Oxford or Cambridge rebukes and
stills a personal ambition.

Beyond each small doorway he saw a flight of stone stairs vanishing
into the obscurity, and through the open windows he caught glimpses of
decorations on the walls, the flags and signs and photographs which
everywhere represent the artistic standards of the average
undergraduate.

But a compensating surprise was presently in store.  As he passed the
tower, he heard the deep notes of a pipe organ; the open diapason and
flutes of the great, the reeds of the swell, piled one upon another in
a splendid harmony.  He looked up and saw the lengthened windows that
indicated the location of the chapel, which apparently extended the
full height of the building.  The musician within added a two-foot
stop, the final needed element of brilliancy, crowning the edifice of
sound his fingers had reared, so that now the music seemed to burst
through the half-open windows and to shake the vines upon the wall.
Lover of music as he was, this unexpected and triumphant symphony made
a peculiar appeal to Leigh's imagination.  Through it, as through a
golden mist, he saw the drama of life sublimated, himself an actor of
dignity and worth; and a few moments later he entered the president's
office with a poise in which there remained no trace of anxious
conjecture.

A figure rose to greet him as he entered, and though he was himself a
tall man, the other loomed above him in the comparative twilight of the
room, until he seemed to assume colossal proportions.  Then Leigh
realized that it was not the height of the man, but his bearing, that
gave such significance to the inch or two between them.  His grey hair
alone suggested years; he held his shoulders like a man of forty.  He
removed his glasses deliberately, put them on the pile of papers beside
him, and stood waiting.  There was a courteous enquiry in his very
attitude, although as yet he spoke no word.  His head was tilted
slightly backward, and his smile might have seemed almost inane in its
width and in the impression of permanency which it conveyed, were it
not for the intellectuality of the brow, the force of the fine aquiline
nose, and the watchful perspicacity of the deepset eyes.

"This is Doctor Renshaw, I believe," said Leigh tentatively.

"Doctor Renshaw is here," returned the other, indicating by a slight
gesture a figure seated at the far end of the table, which now arose
and came toward them.  "Doctor, I venture to assume that I have the
pleasure of making you acquainted with Mr. Leigh, our new professor of
mathematics."

His words were distinctly spoken, but pitched in so low a tone that
they produced an odd effect, as of purring.

It was now that Leigh discovered his mistake.  The man whom he had
taken for the president was Bishop Wycliffe, and it required but five
minutes of conversation to show him that the bishop, not the president,
was the significant personality.

Doctor Renshaw might have been anywhere in the afternoon of life, and
one felt instinctively that his sunset had antedated his meridian.  He
was like those ancients, spoken of with such disapproval by Cicero, who
began to be old men early that they might continue to be old men for a
long time.  His value to the institution he had served so long, and his
safety in his position, lay in the possession of negative qualities.
His silence was interpreted as an indication of wisdom, and the firmly
cut features of his inscrutable face would have served an artist as a
personification of discipline.  As he exchanged the conventional
greetings the occasion demanded, he might even then have been standing
for the portrait of himself that was one day to be added to those of
his predecessors on the library wall; or he might have been one of the
portraits already there that had stepped from its frame for a moment to
take the newcomer by the hand.

In short, the thing of greatest significance in this meeting, the thing
which made itself felt by all three participants, was the juxtaposition
of the ancient and modern.  The young man, clothed in a light grey
suit, his soft hat crushed in the nervous grasp of his long fingers, a
man whose scholastic training had been disassociated from religious
traditions, now stood face to face with mediaevalism, with two elderly
men in dark habiliments, as greatly superior to himself in that
subtlety which finds its highest expression in the ecclesiastical type
as he was superior to them in the acquisition of scientific truth.

Presently the bishop invited his young friend, as he already called the
new arrival, to walk with him about the grounds.  Doctor Renshaw, left
alone, resumed his seat in the heavy oaken chair which had once
belonged to the founder of blessed memory, his shining head round as a
ball against the diamonded panes at his back, the framed plans of the
St. George's Hall of the future looking down upon him.  On the broad
stone mantel rested an antique episcopal mitre of black cloth,
decorated with ecclesiastical symbols in tarnished thread, and a tall
clock of almost equal age stood silent in the corner, showing on its
pale, round face the carven signs of the zodiac.  These objects seemed
the peculiar property of the solitary tenant of the room, rather than
relics of a former time, so still he sat, so convincing was the
changelessness of his decorous age.

Meanwhile the bishop was giving Leigh new light upon his status in St.
George's Hall.

"I must tell you, Mr. Leigh,--for it is better to be frank
always,--that your appointment is in the nature of an experiment.
Doctor Renshaw engaged your services for a year while I was absent in
Europe.  I knew nothing of it until my return, though I have every
reason to believe, in view of your excellent recommendations and family
connections, that the choice was felicitous."

Leigh listened to these words, so kindly but decisively spoken, with an
emotion of uneasiness not untouched by resentment.  How premature his
thought of the presidency now appeared, how slight his claims to
consideration!  He learned now definitely that the bishop was the real
president of the college, and that Doctor Renshaw was a fairly
negligible element in the situation.  He divined also the proud and
self-sufficient spirit of the place, a pride entirely independent of
worldly success, of numbers and noise.

"To be equally frank, bishop," he returned, "I thought I had passed my
professional probation."

"We are all on probation, always," said the bishop, with a suggestion
of amused indulgence in his smile.  "I am far from questioning your
professional capacity, but an arrangement for one year leaves us both
free to make other plans, in case we find that the adjustment is not as
perfect as we could have wished.  However, that is a future
contingency.  _Quid sit futurum cras_--you know the sentiment.  If you
leave us, it will doubtless be at your own volition and, like the man
in the parable, for the purpose of taking a higher place."

He laid his hand affectionately on his companion's shoulder.  "Now
here," he continued, "is the southern boundary of the quadrangle."

Having outlined the architectural possibilities of the future, he
pointed with his stick to the large bronze statue of the founder that
stood on the eastern verge of the plateau, opposite the tower.

"There is only one defect," he remarked, "in that otherwise fine work
of art.  You observe that the bishop's hand is extended in blessing
toward the college, with the palm downward.  Did you ever know a bishop
to hold out his hand in such a position?"

His air was that of a man who has turned from business to friendly and
familiar discourse with a sense of relief.  They visited in turn two
red brick buildings placed at some distance beyond and below the sacred
square, devoted to scientific and athletic pursuits.  Leigh wondered
whether their position symbolised their relative unimportance to the
magnificent hall upon the hill, and indicated a grudging concession to
the dominant scientific spirit of the times.

The bishop viewed the chemical apparatus with frank condescension.
"This is Blake's laboratory," he explained.  "He amuses himself here
with experiments in odours.  If people will give money for such
purposes, I suppose we must take it."

As they climbed slowly back to the plateau, he went lightly from one
subject to another.  His gospel of affability had finally crystallized,
until it seemed to be contained in the formula of the small anecdote
whose point, as often as not, turned upon the foibles of men of his own
profession.  The effect upon his listener was to put him at his ease,
and to remove entirely the impression which the bishop's explanation of
his position had made upon his mind.

"And now we will look at something that more nearly concerns you," said
the bishop, as they approached the tower.  "This large arch, by the
way, is to figure in the completed plan as a _porte cochère_.  It can
be opened right through the tower, as you may observe, and the roadway
will then extend from the boulevard behind the college, across the
campus, through the eastern wing, and down the slope to the city
beyond."

Standing on the steps beneath the shadowing archway, Leigh caught a
reflected glow of enthusiasm from his guide's prophetic gaze.  He was
stirred by an appreciation of the dream so grandly conceived, so
imperfectly realized, by a divination of the long struggle and the many
disappointments.

"I hope we may live to see it, sir," he said.

"You may--you may," the bishop replied, with a touch of sadness in his
tone.  It was like a melancholy echo of Horace's _Postume, Postume_.
"But come," he added, waking from his reverie with an effort.  "I can
scarcely expect you to take as much interest in this subject as I do,
as yet, though in time you may begin to dream of it, too.  Our goal at
present lies farther up."

He led the way to the second story, where open doors disclosed glimpses
of tenantless rooms.

"Professor Cardington lives here," he remarked, "and you may have the
opposite suite, if you like.  The rooms are secluded and command a fine
view in either direction.  These are the only apartments in the tower,
and they are ordinarily reserved for the bachelors of the faculty."

Leigh would fain have turned in to examine the rooms he then and there
decided to accept, but the bishop continued to climb upward, and he was
obliged to put aside his curiosity for the time.  The stone stairs had
now come to an end, and were replaced by stairs of iron, protected by a
railing, which followed the walls through successive floors and past
slits of windows that framed distant views of the sunny landscape
below.  At last they came to a door, which the bishop unlocked.  There
was one more flight of stairs, narrower and darker than the others.
Then they raised a trapdoor and stepped forth upon the roof of the
tower.

For a few moments the intense light of the noonday sun was dazzling,
and they stood basking gratefully in the warmth that presented a
striking contrast with the chill shadows from which they had emerged.
Leigh observed that he stood upon a platform some fifty feet square,
surrounded by a parapet that extended at least a foot above his head.
This wall, however, did not shut out the prospect entirely, for the
regular depressions of its castellated edge formed a series of
embrasures through which it was possible for a man of average height to
look out over the surrounding country.  The tiled floor sloped slightly
toward each corner, where apertures could be seen leading into four
long stone troughs that spouted water in rainy weather.  The enclosure
collected and held both the light and the heat of the sun, and the
bishop remarked that for some time after dark the tiles remained warm
to the touch.

In the centre of this space stood a wooden building, or shed,
twenty-five feet square, painted a dark red, its roof on a level with
the height of the outer parapet.  The bishop opened the door with
another key and threw the windows wide, disclosing a canvas-hooded
telescope in the centre, chairs and tables bearing astronomical
instruments, and sidereal maps upon the walls.  Then, as he pressed a
lever, the roof was cleft asunder till the sky expanded overhead.

"Ah," he said, pleased with Leigh's exclamation of interest.  "I
thought this was more in your line.  This equatorial telescope and
sliding roof are the gift of a former alumnus, left us by a provision
in his will.  I had hoped he would contribute something toward the
chapel."  His sigh, his abstracted look, showed how much more
acceptable such a gift would have been.  "Our present chapel in the
main building is more fitted for an assembly hall or commons.  Please
God, we shall one day worship Him in a separate edifice more worthy of
the purpose."  He depressed the eye end of the telescope until the
muzzle pointed upward above the parapet toward the sky.  "The shed," he
went on, "cannot be seen from below.  I refused to allow an incongruous
dome to be built here, but the sliding flat roof answers the purpose as
well.  You may find a senior who wishes to take astronomy, but I fear
that most of your effort must be expended in drilling elementary
mathematics into recalcitrant freshmen and sophomores.  Your
predecessor was a good mathematician as far as he went, but he did n't
go as far as the stars.  He tried it once, and fell, like Icarus, into
the sea.  In other words, he published something based upon
insufficient data, I believe, which reflected no credit on the college.
Then he naturally blamed the instrument."

"I have done something in astronomy," Leigh remarked, "and hope to do
more."

"Well, I must leave you now," said his conductor.  "You must come and
dine with us soon.  I would like you to meet my daughter.  Say a week
from to-night, at seven.  I 'll leave you here, if you wish, to examine
the telescope further.  Doctor Renshaw will give you all necessary
information in regard to your rooms, the entrance examinations, _et
cetera_."

He had almost disappeared down the stairs as he said these words.
Presently his head and shoulders arose once more above the roof.

"And here are the keys," he added.  "What did you say your given name
was?"

"Llewellyn," Leigh answered, surprised at the abruptness of the
question.

"Ah," said the bishop, chuckling softly, "so it is.  A good Welsh name,
but Peter would be more appropriate under the circumstances."

With this little jest, whose significance Leigh was somewhat slow in
grasping, he once more descended the stairs.

It was now high noon, and Leigh, left alone, paced up and down the
large, sunny square, filled with appreciative thoughts of the bishop.
So benign and humorous was the presence of the man that for some time
his influence survived his actual departure and precluded other
thoughts.  In a reactionary glow of hope and confidence the young
astronomer traversed the circumference of his lofty eyrie, pausing from
time to time to gaze through one of the embrasures of the parapet upon
the incomparable scene below.  Accustomed as he was to the arid glory
of California, he found a grateful refreshment in this far greener
country.  The tower was like a Pisgah, from which he gazed upon the
promised land with eyes that wearied of the desert.




CHAPTER III

CARDINGTON

Leigh stood before the mirror in his bedroom and wrestled with his tie
in preparation for the bishop's dinner.  The week had brought in due
course that procession of events which makes the opening of a college
term a period of exceptional activity, but for the first time he had
passed through the trial untaxed.  He was slowly recovering from a
sense of disappointment similar to that felt by a metropolitan at some
Arcadian retreat, when he stands on the lonely platform at nightfall,
listening to the trilling of the frogs increasing as the rumble of the
train diminishes in the distance, and experiences a wild impulse to
return at once to the fulness of life from which he has fled.

In the ample leisure afforded by his new position Leigh discovered an
analogous consciousness of loss, with its consequent dismay.  He had
known many solitary hours when, as a student in the Lick Observatory,
he had searched the skies for long months together; but the experience
was overlaid by one more recent, so that now, with the varied life of a
great university still ringing in his ears, he looked about and asked
himself disconsolately if this were all.  Had he plumbed the
possibilities of the place in so short a time?  And, if so, what was
left for him in the year to come?

An answer to this question was suggested by his present occupation.  If
he could now and again leave the rarefied atmosphere of the hill for
some such diversion as the one in prospect, he would return better able
to make good use of that solitude in which real achievement is shaped.

As yet there seemed small chance that such diversions would become
sufficiently numerous to interfere with his work.  He had met the other
nine members of the faculty, and while he found them courteous, he
became at once aware that their attitude toward him as a newcomer was
one of indifference.  The smallness of their number did not operate to
draw them more closely together, as might have been supposed.  Each
returned to the city at the end of his day's work, and was lost to view
in his own peculiar circle.  Some time, no doubt, their social
obligation to the new professor in the tower would become imperative,
but the time was not yet.  Meanwhile, he felt himself regarded warily,
an attitude which to his friendly Western nature seemed to betoken a
vague disapprobation.  He did not realise that there was nothing
personal in this aloofness, except in so far as he personified a larger
life, whose hopeful outlook stirred in more cabined natures an
unacknowledged resentment.  Here he found no remnant of the traditional
hospitality of the borderland.  The conditions of this old community of
specialised interests were the opposite of those he had encountered in
the West, where a stranger was welcomed on the slim credentials of his
appearance.

Leigh had been told that the road to promotion led through the small
college, and he had taken that road hopefully; but now he felt like one
who had drifted into an eddy below the bank, while the great stream of
the national educational tendency went tossing and foaming past.

These unaccustomed circumstances gave an unwonted significance to the
simple occupation in which he was employed, and focussed his mind
expectantly upon the event which, in the fuller life he had left, would
have been accepted as a matter of course.

His preparations completed, he donned his overcoat and hat, and stood
looking from his window over the valley toward the west.  The sun was
setting in an angry splendour that threatened storms, Even as he
looked, the wind attained increased velocity and began to whine and
whistle about the solid masonry of the tower.  Leigh drew in the heavy,
leaded panes against the possible beating of the rain.  He passed his
fingers lightly down the cold stone casement, thinking of its immense
thickness and of the beauty of its careful cutting.  Never had he lived
in such rooms.  His was an habitat fit for a prince of the Middle Ages,
and some glimpse of the fascination which this secluded life might come
to possess was given him at that moment.  Evidently, Professor
Cardington, his neighbour across the hall, had felt it and succumbed;
else how could a man of his extraordinary talent have remained so long
buried, as it were, from the world?

Revolving this mystery in his mind, he passed into his sitting-room on
the eastern side of the building.  It was pleasant to think that
Cardington was to accompany him to the bishop's, but as it was still
too soon to call for him, he stood for a few moments looking down upon
the campus.  The giant shadow of the Hall had now crept to the verge of
the plateau.  There was no human figure on its bleak expanse, but the
small trees which found scant nourishment in the rock beneath swayed
gently in the broken wind, like a line of sentries marking time.  In
the centre of the line the flagpole sprang up, thin and white, lifting
the stars and stripes into the lurid light above the shadow.  He could
hear the whipping of the halyards against the pole; but suddenly the
sound ceased, the flag began to flutter downward till its colours were
quenched, and only the gilded ball above now caught the sun's last
rays.  Straining his gaze, he saw the janitor fold the flag on the
grass and carry it within.  Then darkness seemed to fall like a canopy,
beneath which the lights of the city trembled into view.

A moment later he stood in Cardington's doorway, and looked with relief
upon the sight presented to his eyes.  The flickering fire in the
grate, the bewildering congeries of books, statues, and furniture, were
doubly homelike by contrast with Leigh's late vision of the descending
night without.  The old caretaker of the tower was wont to say that she
never knew a neater man than Professor Cardington, or a more disorderly
room than his.  The accumulation of articles in the room seemed to
symbolise the owner's mental furniture, while his personal neatness was
a habit acquired during his stay at West Point, where he had once
occupied the chair of a modern language.  There was a suggestion of the
soldier also in his unbending back as he sat at his desk, so absorbed
in his work that he did not at first look up to see who had answered
his invitation to enter.

The face he turned upon his visitor presently was stern and grey in
effect, like that of a man who has seen service.  His blue eyes, though
pale in tone, were brilliant, as if the intellect behind them burned
with steady intensity and force.  Nature had concealed his true quality
behind a baffling mask, for there was not a line in his face to hint of
his sensitive spirit, or of the humorous moods that swept over him in
unexpected gusts.  Now his aspect brightened, as from a warmth within.

"Come in, Mr. Leigh," he cried cheerily.  "Come in.  I thought it was
some student who wished to ask me what use there was in studying Latin.
I am just outlining an article on the Roman Forum for the new
encyclopaedia.  You might like to see Boni's latest contribution, and
the photographs I took myself last summer."

He reached for his meerschaum pipe, and paused to gaze with a smoker's
admiration at the red-brown perfection of the polished bowl.

"But you have n't forgotten the dinner?" Leigh asked, perceiving that
the other was preparing to settle back in his chair for one of those
discursive talks in which his guests delighted.

"The dinner!  I had quite forgotten it."  And he put down the pipe with
evident reluctance.  "Such is the power of preoccupation."

"We 're a tall set of men here," Leigh said, as the professor rose to
his feet.  "You and the bishop and I would measure eighteen feet or
more, placed one above the other."

"Pelion on Ossa!" Cardington cried.  "How much more impressive it makes
us seem than if you had merely stated that each of us was six feet
tall!  It takes an astronomer to calculate great distances.  I quite
compassionate those little fellows, our colleagues."  His eyes twinkled
behind his rimless spectacles.  "Just amuse yourself with these
photographs awhile.  Not in your line, perhaps, but interesting to us
glow-worms that flit about in ruinous places.  I 'll be with you in a
few moments."

Even from the room beyond he continued the conversation in his own odd
manner, passing to antipodal subjects by paths of association beyond
the guess of an imagination less vagrant than his own.  With Cardington
conversation was a fine art.  He loved the adequate or picturesque word
as a miner loves an ingot of gold, yet he was able to display his
linguistic stores without incurring the charge of pedantry, much as
certain women can carry without offence clothes that would smother a
more insignificant personality.

"We still have a few minutes to spare," he announced, when he presently
reappeared.  "Now, which will you have, a Roman Catholic, or an
Episcopalian, or a Presbyterian beverage,--Benedictine, port wine, or
whiskey?"

Leigh's mood expanded in response to the hospitality.  Here was a
little fling of the spirit of which he stood in need, a promise of
comradeship that was all the more welcome from the fact that his other
colleagues had kept him waiting in the vestibule of their regard.

"I'll drink your health in a little whiskey," he replied with alacrity.

"Quite right," Cardington commented, producing a bottle of Scotch.  "I
hope you 'll find that this has the true Calvinistic flavour.  And
here's to you likewise.  May you yet discover the length, the depth,
and the uses of all the canals of Mars."  Over the rim of his glass his
eyes began to brighten in a manner which his guest already knew to be a
prophecy of something good.  "That was an excellent jest of the
bishop's you told me of yesterday, calling you Peter when he handed you
the keys of the door that leads to heaven.  Now what did you say in
reply?"

"Nothing," Leigh confessed.  "He didn't give me fair warning of what
was coming."

"Then you lost the opportunity of your life.  If you had only said,
'Thank you, my Lord!'  Even a Yankee bishop would have had no objection
to being my-lorded, you know.  Ah, that would have been the retort
courteous, and the story is incomplete without it.  By your kind
permission I shall tell it with that addendum."

"A footnote by Professor Cardington," Leigh suggested.

"No, no, not at all.  I 'll work it into the text as your own.  The
story must go down in history along with the classic jest in regard to
the position of the statue's outstretched palm.  The bishop told you
that, no doubt, anticipating my own good offices."

"It may interest you to know," he went on, as they began to descend the
stairs, "that you are to meet a very charming young lady to-night.
Miss Wycliffe is a very remarkable young woman in some respects.  Have
you yet had the pleasure of making her acquaintance?"

"What is she like?" Leigh asked, wondering whether the answer would
suggest in any way the young woman he had met the morning of his
arrival.

"I shall not allow my enthusiasm to betray me into an inadequate
description," Cardington declared.  "I could no more make the subject
clear to you than you could explain to me the _n_th degree of _x+z_, if
there is any such expression in algebra, which I should n't be
surprised to discover is the case."

"Then I shall have to possess my soul in patience," Leigh answered,
with apparent indifference.

When they emerged from the shadow of the Hall, and plunged between the
lines of maples, they were obliged to go in single file, for the
narrowness of the way.  The young mathematician glanced at the last
melancholy glow of the sunset which spread out in a faint, fan-shaped
aurora above a dun rampart of clouds.  His love of nature was no less
keen than his appreciation of people and events.  The mathematician and
the poet held alternate sway over him.  This di-psychic quality was
evidenced by the rapidity with which the expression of his eye would
frequently change from cold calculation to a certain rapt observation,
as if he looked up from a complicated problem to contemplate a glimpse
of blue distance.  Thus it was that he appreciated to the full the
panorama spread out before him, though his mind was intent upon another
subject; or rather, it might be said that the sight gave warmth and
colouring to his thought.  He had passed the place of that first
meeting several times during the week, and never without a vivid
remembrance of it.  If the young woman who had made such an impression
upon him were the bishop's daughter, why had he not seen her in the
interim, at the initial service in the chapel when visitors were
present, upon the grounds, or in the streets of the city?  Perhaps she
had been away, and had just returned.  At all events, he should know
before long.

Of one thing he felt assured.  If Miss Wycliffe turned out to be some
one else, she would hold no interest for him, not even if she possessed
all the indescribable qualities of which Cardington had hinted.
Speculating upon this possibility, he scarcely listened now to the
words of his companion swinging on ahead, as they came brokenly to his
ears in the gusts of wind.




CHAPTER IV

THE BISHOP'S DAUGHTER

The bishop's house was situated about half a mile from the college on
Birdseye Avenue, the principal residence street of Warwick.  A forest
aisle and city thoroughfare combined, this vista of ancient elms
suggested the inspiration of those Gothic cathedrals of the Old World
from whose associations and influence the Puritans had fled away.
During their transit beneath this splendid nave, Cardington entertained
his companion with an account of the house they were to visit, its
history and architectural pretensions.  In sharp distinction to the
prevalent style of building, the episcopal residence suggested a Tudor
palace.  Its pointed windows, its dentilated battlements, its miniature
turrets, would have been impressive on a larger scale, in stone, but
being of wood, in a reduced proportion, they appeared an inadequate
plagiarism, which not even the extensive grounds could shield from
criticism.  Seen at night-time, however, the counterfeit was far less
glaring.  The form, rather than the material, attracted the eye; the
ecclesiastical windows glimmering among the trees, the antique lantern
in the vestibule, which concealed behind its powdered glass a modern
electric bulb, the turrets, dimly discerned by the light from the
avenue, combined to make an appeal to the historical imagination.

To Leigh, seeing the house thus for the first time, it appeared a
peculiarly appropriate habitat for Bishop Wycliffe; for he was one that
carried the stamp of his profession in his very bearing, and in every
lineament of his face.  It was more difficult to imagine a young and
charming woman housed in such a place, but his first glimpse of the
bishop's daughter showed him that her Pagan beauty was emphasized
rather than lessened by contrast with her surroundings.

She was sitting in the drawing-room to the left of the entrance hall,
bending over a book.  If she heard the entrance of her visitors into
the hall, she made no sign, but kept her eyes bent upon her novel, the
left-hand side of which, supported on her knee, had grown to the
thickness of half an inch.  Only a few pages remained unread, half
lifted on the other side, above which her ivory paper knife hung
suspended.  Clothed in a yellow gown and sitting in a flood of yellow
light that radiated from the shaded lamp beside her, she presented an
extraordinarily vivid picture against the brown panelling of the wall.
Even in repose one divined the suppressed energy of the figure, a
quality indicated by the almost imperceptible movement of the small
slipper that peeped beyond the border of her gown, and by the gentle
heaving of the lace at her throat.  Yet there was something in the
graceful abandon of her attitude reminiscent of the women of the South.

So struck was Leigh by this picture, and by the fact that his hope of
meeting again the goddess of the maple walk was about to be realized,
that Cardington was well on his way up the stairs before he hurried in
pursuit.  Unawake himself to modern art tendencies, he felt, without
conscious reflection or comparison, the old-fashioned appearance of the
house.  The severe, dark paper on the wall, the steel engravings that
had hung for years untouched, were evidently as the bishop's wife, or
as one belonging to a still earlier generation, had placed them.  They
proclaimed a reverence for old associations, or the indifference of an
unmarried daughter to the artistic possibilities of a house that was
not of her own choosing.

The room into which they entered appeared to be the bishop's own, or a
guest chamber.  At least, there was no suggestion of the feminine in
the furniture, or in the ecclesiastical pictures that adorned the
walls.  Even the military brushes on the bureau possessed an episcopal
dignity of size and weight, and the two tall candles in their massive
silver candlesticks glimmered like altar lights.

"There's plenty of atmosphere in this place," Leigh remarked, as he
stood before the mirror and applied the brushes to his hair, which,
because of its thickness, was invariably disordered by the lifting of
his hat.  "I mean atmosphere in the modern fictional sense.  It seems
to me I saw a duplicate of that four-posted monstrosity of a bed at the
Exposition this summer."

"I love to come in contact with the fresh, unprejudiced view of the
West," Cardington returned.  "I've no doubt you are calculating the
number of microbes that ancient piece of furniture could accommodate,
and thinking that a brass bedstead would be much more sanitary."

"You do me injustice," Leigh retorted good-humouredly.  "Even
scientists have their unprofessional moments.  I was just reminded of a
story I once read of a bed of that kind with a movable canopy that came
down in the night and smothered the occupant."

"Excellent," said Cardington.  "The thing was worked, as I remember,
from the room above, and was used by the robber host to persuade his
guests to part peaceably with their valuables.  But I fear that you are
going to show an irreverent attitude of mind toward the local
divinities."

"And what may they be?"

"Two in particular, an alliterative couple, Family and Furniture."

"Why not add Folly to the number?" Leigh suggested.

"An instinct of self-preservation should prevent such an addition.
That might be as injudicious as it would have been for some bright
young man in ancient Egypt, five thousand years before the Christian
era, to express a doubt concerning the divinity of the sacred bull.
The correctness of his conjecture would not have saved him from a
horrible death at the hands of the faithful."  And he began to lead the
way downstairs.

As they entered the drawing-room, Miss Wycliffe closed her book with
satisfied emphasis and rose to meet them.  The bishop was there also,
standing in the background and waiting his turn.  His eyes were on his
daughter rather than on his guests, with a pride that was evident at
even a casual glance.  Again Leigh encountered that look which had so
deeply attracted him.  Her eyes were very dark, and almost misty in
their warm light, as if she were somewhat dazed by long perusal of the
printed page.  She possessed also that mark of feminine beauty so
prized by the ancients, a low forehead, and there was a suggestion of
the classic in the arrangement of her hair.  He found her smile
peculiarly winning, and was conscious of the responsiveness of her
fingers, so different from the limp passivity of many a feminine
greeting.  Though not more given to self-importance than the average
young man, he was somehow aware that she too remembered their first
casual encounter.  Her failure to mention it now served only to invest
it with the greater significance.

"Miss Felicity," Cardington began, when they had become seated, "I
suspect that you were racing against time, endeavouring, in fact, to
finish that book before our arrival should interrupt you."

"You would not have been welcome a moment sooner," she admitted.

"Felicity is a deep student in shallow literature," the bishop put in
epigrammatically.

"As if Zola were ever shallow," she said.  "I'll leave it with Mr.
Leigh."

"You can search me for an opinion," he replied; and in the breezy
colloquialism of the expression, no less than in a certain vividness of
manner, his isolation from the others became apparent.  "My French
reading is mostly confined to astronomical monographs."

"Miss Felicity," Cardington interposed, with an elaborate and
old-fashioned gallantry that became him, "Mr. Leigh is a student of
stars, and therefore he is more concerned with the reader than with the
book.  If you will persist in shining upon him so dazzlingly, you
cannot be surprised if he turns an unseeing eye upon any object you may
present for his inspection.  Now, since I have basked longer in your
light, I may perhaps--allow me."  He reached for the book and began to
turn over the leaves.  She watched his growing absorption with
indulgent amusement, and the comradeship of the two omnivorous readers
was evident.  Cardington was frankly reading, oblivious of his hosts, a
liberty which indicated his familiar standing in that house.

"I have a weakness for polymathists of the old school," the bishop
remarked, harking back to his guest's confession of narrower interests,
"of which class I may say that Professor Cardington is almost the only
example within my range of observation.  I have noticed that Latin is
becoming as strange to the average graduate as Eliot's Indian Bible."

"But Latin does n't help the modern world to build railroads, or
battleships, or motor cars," Leigh suggested, by way of presenting the
opposite view.

"Always the argument of utility," the bishop returned, with mournful
resignation.  "But how have modern inventions added to the beauty or
the dignity of human life?  Man is mastered and slain by his own
inventions, and a skyscraper reduces him to the proportions of an ant."

"I am tempted to mention cathedrals as having rather a dwarfing effect
upon their builders," Leigh said.

"I should hope so!  Better to be dwarfed by the magnificence of a
temple of the Lord than by the hideous hugeness of a temple of trade."
The bishop's dry smile indicated that he had scored.

His antagonist laughed outright, with a keen appreciation of the fact
that his comparison had given the bishop the very opportunity he
desired.  It seemed that circumstances rather than conviction had
forced him into his present championship of the useful.  Miss
Wycliffe's appeal had brought out the confession of a special interest,
which had stamped him unduly.  In addition, the section of the country
from which he came was against him.  The bishop was not without his
prejudices, and was disposed to father all the materialistic spirit of
the age upon his guest, whether or no.  He had noted that lapse into
slang, and his attitude had become like that of the loiterers in the
hall of Caiaphas, the high priest.  Had his thought become vocal, it
would have run like a garbled version of their triumphant charge
against St. Peter: "Thou art a Westerner, and thy speech bewrayeth
thee."

His daughter had been a mere observer of the little tilt she had
unwittingly precipitated, and now, as she saw the younger champion go
down so gaily, she was moved by his spirit to sympathetic participation.

"It seems to me, father," she interposed, "that you and Mr. Leigh are
like the two knights who came to blows over the colour of a shield that
was white on one side and black on the other."

"You are quite right, my dear," he replied gracefully, "and as I see
that dinner is served, I will take this opportunity to dismount from my
hobby for a little refreshment."

"You must let me take this book with me when I go," Cardington begged,
rising from its perusal with evident reluctance.

"It must lie on Mrs. Parr's table for a month first," she replied.  "I
promised to let her pretend to read it."

"I call that a wicked speech," he reproved.  "Where is that charity
which your father has striven to inculcate in your heart?"

She slipped the book into a large Satsuma vase, with a sidelong glance
at Leigh.  Cardington accepted the act with a meek acquiescence that
rested comically upon him and proclaimed his chains.

Had Leigh been asked subsequently to give a description of the dishes
of which he partook that evening, he would have made a sorry showing,
for he was conscious only of his hostess, and intoxicated by a
divination of her consciousness of him.  Cardington and the bishop were
the chief talkers, and as the conversation presently turned to purely
local affairs, of which Leigh had as yet scant knowledge, he was rather
pleased than otherwise to become a listener and observer.  In this
divided attitude of mind his observation was chiefly engaged.  He noted
particularly the string of gold beads which Miss Wycliffe wore, and
their reflection against her throat reminded him of a children's game,
which consisted in holding a buttercup beneath the chin of a companion.

Distracted by the furtive contemplation of such minutiae, he gradually
became aware of the fact that the talk between Cardington and the
bishop had lost the tone of suavity that characterized its beginning.

"No other engagement shall interfere with my voting on that day," the
bishop declared, with grim emphasis.  "We must dispose of this fellow's
pretensions once for all.  It is preposterous that a professional
baseball player and street-car conductor should aspire to become mayor
of Warwick.  An orator?  Nonsense!  Just a paltry gift of the gab.
Balaam's is n't the only ass whose mouth the Lord in his inscrutable
wisdom has seen fit to open."

Leigh suddenly awoke to the fact that a situation had developed during
his absorption, and that both men were looking at Miss Wycliffe, the
bishop defiantly, Cardington with an odd expression of concern.  That
she was affected by her father's announcement and manner was evidenced
in the gleam of cold resentment with which she met his look, but in a
moment the light was gone, leaving her eyes as mysterious as a deep
pool in the woods at twilight.

"Now, bishop," Cardington protested, "I was merely trying to express
the fact that there is a certain facility in this young Emmet's
utterances which belongs to his nation.  Perhaps we ought to appreciate
our opportunity to watch here in Warwick the development of a second
Edmund Burke."

It was Miss Wycliffe herself who gave Leigh the clue, and so apparently
spontaneous was her amusement as she turned to him that he began to
doubt his first impression of a far different emotion.

"This house is divided against itself," she explained, "into two
political camps.  I must try to convert you to my Democratic point of
view, for just at present I am outnumbered two to one."

"Not two to one," Cardington objected.  "Say rather that the forces are
drawn up in the proportion of one and a half to one and a half.  I
stand in the ambiguous position of the peacemaker, inclining now this
way, now that, and receiving in turn the whacks of each contestant.  I
have been compelled to accept on faith the reward that Scripture
promises to such as myself, for it has not yet materialized to any
appreciable extent."

"There 's more truth than poetry in that," she answered, laughing.
"Poor Mr. Cardington's olive branch has proved a boomerang to himself,
I fear."

It pleased the bishop to be blandly diverted by these sallies, though
it was evident that his mind had set so strongly in one direction as to
require an effort on his part to turn it aside.  However, he was not
one to exhibit a family difference before a stranger, when once
recalled to his senses, and the topic that had elicited these few
scintillations of feeling was dropped by common consent.

Presently Miss Wycliffe drew Leigh on to talk of astronomy, of the Lick
Observatory, of California, its climate, its products, and its people,
subjects upon which he alone of the company possessed knowledge at
first hand.  He was impressed by his auditors' ignorance of all that
country which lies west of the Mississippi, and a realisation of the
bishop's sceptical attitude aroused him to partisan enthusiasm.  Their
conception of the West was as inadequate as the average Englishman's
conception of America.  Some few people they had known who had gone out
to California for their health, and in a general way they appreciated
the fact that the fruits and flowers of the coast were of peculiar size
and beauty; but, after all, the place seemed to them more a colony of
the United States than an integral part of the country, a place of such
decidedly inferior interest to Europe that any time in the dim future
would do for its inspection.

"Miss Wycliffe," he ended, "your interest has betrayed me into making a
bore of myself."

"On the contrary," she returned, "I shall take the very first
opportunity of going out to California.  I shall be ashamed to go to
Switzerland again without the Sierras as a background of comparison.
And in the mean time I intend to begin the study of astronomy.  I
thought it would be jolly to bring up a party some evening to look
through the telescope."

"By all means!" he cried.

"I have yet to see the day," said Cardington, "when Miss Felicity will
do me the honour of begging the loan of a Latin grammar."

"I call that ungrateful," she returned.  "Did n't I tramp all over the
Roman Forum with you one boiling afternoon, while you explained that we
had n't strayed into a stone quarry, as I had supposed?"

"So you did," he admitted.  "That was a pleasant little archaeological
_giro_, and you showed yourself upon that occasion to be an audience of
great endurance."

This was only one indication Leigh had received of mutual experiences
and interests between the two, yet, bewitched though he was, the
discovery aroused no uneasiness within him.  It was not only that he
mentally exaggerated his colleague's age.  His source of comfort was
deeper, and lay in Miss Wycliffe's attitude of comradeship toward her
old friend.  It seemed that such an attitude must preclude romance, at
least on her part.  No man situated as he was could have avoided the
speculation that now absorbed him in regard to the possible rivalry of
another.  In the end he decided that Cardington's gaze, when it
lingered upon his hostess, betrayed reminiscence rather than hope.

It chanced that the dinner was followed by a wedding, one of those
forlorn ceremonies sometimes performed in the houses of the clergy
between those who seem to have no kin or friends or home of their own.
The bishop summoned his guests as witnesses, and as Leigh took the seat
which Miss Wycliffe made for him beside her, he was struck by the
impression which this not unusual incident appeared to make upon her
mind.  She sat with her chin resting upon the palm of her hand, in
absorbed, almost pained, contemplation, as if the actual scene were
merely the starting-point of a long journey of the imagination.

In fact, there was nothing intrinsically interesting in the couple
before them.  They possessed not even the picturesqueness of speech and
costume which belongs to the plebeian orders of older civilizations.
These were the people that seemed to justify Schopenhauer's cynical
contention concerning the economy of Nature, who invests youth with
just enough transient beauty to ensure the perpetuation of the race,
making men and women serve her purpose under the delusion that they are
free agents and ministers to their own pleasure.  Here were no pomp and
circumstance to interpose their false colours before the sordid vista
of the future.  It lay glaringly before the imagination of the
onlookers; and to avoid depths of spiritual depression, they had need
to remind themselves of the happy blindness of those that moved their
pity.

Leigh might perhaps have indulged in far other thoughts had the wedding
been of a different character, or had he perceived any suggestion of a
romantic mood in the woman at his side.  Quick to feel an atmosphere,
he found that he had caught from her a sombre view.  How deeply she
thought or felt he could only guess, but hers was a personality that
suggested depth, and the far sadness of her gaze shut the door between
them which he had supposed about to open wider.  The bishop turned
unexpectedly.

"The groom has forgotten the ring," he said to his daughter.  "Will you
lend him yours?"

She glanced quickly at her hands, and a delicate colour crept into her
face.

"I must have left it in my room," she answered.  She made no motion to
go for it, and, turning from her with a hint of impatience, he drew his
seal ring from his finger.

The incident, slight as it was, assumed unusual significance in the
minds of the spectators, and gave the ceremony a tone akin to comedy.
Perhaps they enjoyed the bishop's impatience, the sight of the
episcopal ring upon the girl's finger; or it may be that these things
reminded them of the portentous solemnity into which they had sunk.
Miss Wycliffe especially seemed to welcome the diversion, and showed an
ebullient vivacity when she offered her congratulations, which Leigh
had not previously observed in her.

It was the bishop, however, and not his daughter, who saved the
situation for the embarrassed couple he had just made man and wife.  It
was he who ordered wine and cake, and drank their happiness with a
genuine humanity that took no reckoning of class in life's common
experiences.  This was the quality that had won him love when, as a
clergyman, the homelier duties of his profession had claimed more of
his time.  Even those not of his own communion often came to him for
such services as the present, with a feeling that he gave dignity and
reality to the ceremony.  Observing the luminous kindliness of his
smile, one might well infer that he was reminded of the marriage at
Cana of Galileo, and that he desired to make this incident as bright a
spot as possible in two lives which would doubtless know more of
burden-bearing than of joy.  Nor was he content with this attention
alone.  Chancing to remember the carnations that had stood on the table
at dinner, he brought them with his own hands, wiping the long stems
with his handkerchief before presenting them to the bride.

When they were gone, his glance fell upon an envelope which the groom
had left unnoticed on the piano.

"Look at this," he said, drawing forth a two-dollar bill.  "Why didn't
I see him do that in time?  At least, I am grateful that he did n't
attempt to pay me at parting, while in the act of shaking hands."  His
eyes twinkled deeply.  "You have no idea what a shock it is to feel a
crisp bill crinkling in your palm at such a moment.  But come,
gentlemen.  Our post-prandial smoke has been too long postponed."

"Why not leave Mr. Leigh to smoke his cigarette with me?" Miss Wycliffe
suggested.  "We have n't yet had a chance to become acquainted."

This proposition, which filled the young man with surprise and
exhilaration, seemed nothing unusual to the other two, and they went
off without remark, perhaps not unwilling to have an opportunity to
chat alone.

Miss Wycliffe took the chair in which Leigh had seen her at his
entering.  She held no fancy work in her hands, but toyed gracefully
with the ivory cimeter which had separated the leaves of her novel.  He
was reminded of the episode of the ring by observing that she wore no
jewelry except the string of gold beads, and wondered whether she had a
philosophical contempt for such adornment.  If it were a matter of
taste, as indeed it must be, her instinct, he felt, was singularly
correct, for such adventitious aids could add nothing to her beauty.
They were rather the final dependence of wrinkled dowagers.  As he
watched her through the smoke of his cigarette, chatting still of the
wedding, he was aware that she appeared conscious of the voices whose
intonations rose and fell beyond the study door.  Presently the sound
was varied by a hearty laugh.

"I 've no doubt they have gone back to politics," she remarked.  Her
words recalled the conversation at the table, which he had by this time
forgotten.

"This is a good opportunity to carry out your promise to convert me to
your point of view," he answered, "and I am quite prepared to be
converted.  Being a Mugwump, the mere name of a party holds no
superstitious sway over my imagination.  Still, my support, like your
own, must be purely sentimental, for I have no vote in Warwick.  I have
heard just enough to arouse my curiosity and interest.  Who is this Mr.
Burke?"

"Emmet," she corrected.  "Mr. Cardington would have his jest in
comparing him with Burke.  You noticed, perhaps, that they were more or
less baiting me?"

"I suspected something like it."

"Mr. Emmet is a _protégé_ of mine," she explained frankly, "who is
trying to break the power of the Republican ring that has ruled Warwick
since the war.

"I see," he nodded.  "One of those struggles against municipal
corruption that are such a hopeful sign of the times.  It seems strange
that in the management of our cities alone our form of government has
been a failure.  But we have lighted upon a hobby of mine, and I must
n't begin to ride it."

"Then you will be interested in the situation," she returned.

It was presently evident that her own interest was not that of a
student of the science of government, though he was impressed by her
knowledge of local political conditions.  The situation was indeed
typical: entrenched power on the one hand, and on the other a desire to
"turn the rascals out."  The singularity lay in the fact that Miss
Wycliffe, in spite of the prejudice and influence of her father, was
siding against her own class.  Leigh listened with growing interest and
wonder to her charges of snobbishness and corruption against the
Republican clique.

"You certainly love fair play," he remarked admiringly.  "Such an
impersonal attitude is wont to be claimed by men as their own peculiar
possession."

Her smile disclaimed exceptional credit.

"I 'm not a bit impersonal, I assure you.  I can't abide Judge Swigart,
or his political lieutenant, Anthony Cobbens, a turkey gobbler and a
wretched little weasel, even though we are the best of friends."

"I see," he said, greatly diverted by her admission.  Her eyes fell
beneath his too discriminating gaze, but she raised them again with the
impersonal calmness of an experienced woman.

"Besides, as I said before, Mr. Emmet is a _protégé_ of mine.  I have
even loaned him books, and am quite bent upon seeing his education
result in making him mayor."

"Good work!" he cried.  "I should like to lend a hand myself."

"Why don't you?" she asked.

"How can I?" he retorted.  "Shall I go out and stump the town?"

"I 'll tell you," she said, bending forward and fixing him with a look
of discovery.  "What Mr. Emmet needs more than anything else is a
friend out of his own class, some one like yourself, who could correct
his perspective a little.  How shall I explain it?  He seems in danger
of becoming a demagogue, and of resting his case on an appeal to
class-hatred."

Leigh had not supposed that his semi-jocular wish would be taken so
literally, but he soon discovered that she gave it its face value.  She
went on with growing earnestness.

"There is to be a joint debate between him and Judge Swigart in about a
fortnight, and I 'm afraid that Mr. Emmet will injure his cause by
overstatement, by that very bitterness I mentioned.  If he could
confine himself to the facts, he might win the support of many who are
ready to follow a safe leader, but would be antagonized by a hint of
socialism."

"Do you mean that I could accomplish all this in such a short time?" he
asked.  "To be perfectly frank, the prospect of the task dismays me.
He 'd be sure to resent the attempt."

"Not he," she answered with conviction.  "He 'd be grateful for such
support as yours.  He 's really an awfully nice fellow, and I think you
'd find him rather interesting."

"I don't doubt it for a minute," he assured her.  "But how am I to make
his acquaintance in the first place?"

She considered the question awhile.  "Just tell him I thought you would
like to know each other.  That would make it perfectly easy and
natural."

Leigh could not fail to see that this method was the best, if the thing
were to be done at all.  She could not bring them together socially,
and a note of introduction would be too formal.  Doubtless the man
looked up to her as his patroness, and would accept anything from her
with something of feudal loyalty.

"I might meet him casually,--on purpose,--and if we happened to like
each other and began to talk about politics"--  The sentence dwindled
into a dubious smile.

"Do," she urged.  "I really think you could influence him for good."

Leigh was less sure of it, and the other two men returned before he had
committed himself to a plan that seemed, even when seen under her
influence, to be little short of quixotic.

During the walk home he tried Cardington on the subject of Emmet, but
found him uncommunicative, almost brusque, in his reticence.  Leigh
suspected that the subject might be a sore one with him, and that he
thoroughly disapproved of Miss Wycliffe's odd charity.  When a talker
is silent, his silence has the tactile quality of Egyptian darkness,
and so it now appeared in Cardington.  Concerning Miss Wycliffe herself
they made no comment, doubtless because they were thinking of her so
intently.  Leigh reviewed every moment he had passed in her company,
recalling each look and word.  He was impressed now, more than he had
been at the time, with the intensity of her interest in the election,
and it occurred to him that to do as she desired, or at least to
attempt it, would establish a claim upon her regard.  This was his
opportunity.  If he desired to win her favour, he must regard her wish
as mandatory.  How much he desired to win it he did not try to conceal
from himself.

His frankness extended even farther.  When he recalled that it was the
bishop and not his daughter who had shown humanity at the wedding, he
was impressed by her curious insensibility.  It seemed to him
peculiarly feminine to take an interest in such a scene, and most of
the women he knew would have looked on with tremulous sympathy.  Was
this mere instinctive selfishness on her part?  If he vaguely condemned
her attitude in this matter, he appreciated her father's conduct the
more by contrast.  Somehow he guessed that the bishop did not
altogether like him, but he felt that no matter what the future might
bring forth in their relationship, he could never forget that charming
episode.  The bishop was a true aristocrat, he reflected, more inclined
to be haughty to his equals than to his inferiors.  Doubtless Emmet,
had he been content with that station of life in which it had pleased
God to place him, would have found no more affable acquaintance than
Bishop Wycliffe.

The bishop presented no insoluble riddle to Leigh's mind.  On the
contrary, he had met his type before and knew it well; but with Miss
Wycliffe the case was different.  He recognized now the reason of
Cardington's inability to describe her, for a categorical account of
her features, or of what is commonly called her "good points," would
have left the essential quality untouched.  Yet this quality was the
woman herself, and had fired Leigh's blood with a fever of longing that
made him reckless of his judgment.  In fact, he was not now absorbed in
judging, but in realizing, the woman with whom he had fallen in love.

If she had appealed to him at any one moment more than at another, it
was when she took him into her confidence with that sidelong look, as
she slipped the novel into the large vase.  Then, as at other times
during the evening, but then more particularly, she had betrayed her
consciousness of him as a young man, of herself as a woman and a
beauty.  He saw that she had no desire to talk with him on the
impersonal plane of the mind, that she welcomed, rather than feared,
the discovery of her femininity, even in her political interests.  She
might say this or that, as the fancy took her, but she knew it made no
difference to an admirer what she said.  Her peculiar fascination lay
in a consciousness of sex which is the explanation of the power to win
men that distinguishes one woman above the many, to their envy and
mystification.

Leigh was too attractive a man to have been allowed to reach his
present age entirely ignorant of the psychology of women, though
comparative poverty and laborious studies had limited his education in
this direction, and left him unspoiled.  He knew enough to realize the
secret of Miss Wycliffe's charm, and to reflect consciously upon it in
connection with himself.  Mere beauty, he knew, would have left him
cold, if it had not stirred within him the resentment aroused by a
promise unfulfilled; intellectual gifts alone would have wearied and
antagonised; evident virtue would have seemed humdrum and uninspiring.
It was this delicious appeal of the woman to the man that had won him.

He was yet to learn that this quality is not seldom accompanied by the
most baffling counter-current, that holds its natural movement in
apparent suspension.  Why had a woman so imperially endowed remained so
long unmarried?  It was not that she looked her age, which he felt to
be little less than his own, but that she implied it by her lack of
inexperience.  It was not that eight or nine and twenty made a spinster
from the modern point of view, but that to reach that age unmarried she
must have resisted many a suit.  Had he lived longer in New England, he
would have known more women of this kind, women who hide the passionate
heart of a Helen beneath the austere life of a Diana, hoarding their
gifts of love as a miser hoards his gold, partly because of cruel
necessity, partly influenced by the impulse to deny inherited from
Puritan ancestors.

Suddenly he became aware that Cardington had been talking again, and
that he had shown indifferent courtesy as a listener.  He roused
himself to attention, and detected at once the unusual flavour of his
companion's remarks, from which all jest had gone, showing instead a
poetical and reminiscent mood.

"The silhouettes of the trees which the electric light throws upon the
walk," he was saying, "remind me of a wonderful moonlight night I once
spent at Assisi.  I was younger then than I am now, and it was my first
journey in that land of enchantment.  I travelled as lightly as one of
the apostles, with staff and scrip, so to speak, and having resisted
the efforts of the cabman at the station to rob me, I started to walk
up to the city alone.  I understand they have a trolley line now,--just
imagine the profanation of a trolley line in the ancient city of St.
Francis!--but at the time of which I speak, the atmosphere of the
Middle Ages still hung over the place unbroken.

"The city lay above the valley, white-walled and silent.  I remember
touching with my stick what appeared to be a streak of moonlight that
had filtered through the branches of a tree, when a beautiful little
serpent uncoiled himself and slipped away into the shadows.  Well, the
distance was greater than I had supposed, and the hour was late, so
that by the time I reached the city gate, I found it closed for the
night.  There was nothing to do but to sit down and wait for morning.
I found a large, flat rock which seemed still to hold some of the heat
of the sun, and looked out over the surrounding country.  Just think of
my situation!  There I was, a young man fresh from America, full of the
most extravagant romance, sitting alone in the moonlight before the
gate of a mediaeval walled city, and a city, too, so rich with
traditions that I grew dazed in trying to recall them.  It may be that
the moon became hypnotic in its influence, for I lay down and stared up
at it like one bewitched.

"I don't know how long a time passed in this manner before I was
aroused by the appearance of an old peasant around the corner of my
rock, bending under a huge bundle of faggots.  I addressed myself to
him in the best Italian I could then command, and asked whether it were
possible to enter the city--_entrare la città_.  He rung a bell by
pulling a rope that hung down over the wall, and we went in together.
Now, you know, I would have remained there all night without even
looking for such an obvious way of arousing the gatekeeper."

"Yes," he continued, in answer to an appreciative comment from his
listener, "you would have enjoyed it,--any one with a soul would have
enjoyed it.  And further adventures were in store for me in that
ancient town.  I remember particularly a girl who waited on the table
at my _albergo_ and accompanied me at times on my tours of inspection.
From her I learned more of the history of the place, and upon her I
practised most diligently my Italian.  There was one mystery to which
she would come back again and again.  If I was an American, and poor,
how did it happen that I was not an artist?  She would turn her lovely
eyes upon me twenty times a day and ask me this question.  A charming
experience, was it not?  Long afterward I met an American professor on
one of the boats in Holland, and when we compared notes on our travels,
I discovered that he remembered that girl, too, and her eyes.  Just
think of the number of romantic young travellers upon whom she had
turned them in that appealing way of hers!"

As his companion listened to this recital, he was impressed not so much
by the story itself as by the essential happiness of the narrator.
Here was a nature as untrammelled as the wind, that delighted to roam
from land to land.  Local interests, people, events, might hold him for
a time, but presently he would be gone in search of new adventures.  If
he loved Felicity Wycliffe, Leigh reflected, it was only as a wanderer
loves.

Cardington was laughing in his peculiar fashion.  "You will say that my
little story has a disappointing sequel; but, after all, perhaps it is
less commonplace as it is.  She will remain enshrined in my memory, and
in the memory of those other travellers, as we saw her then, always
young and beautiful, and always turning upon us those lovely, enquiring
eyes.  And, by the way, it is strange, is it not, that Miss Wycliffe
should have eyes similar to those of my young guide in Assisi?  As far
as I know, she is of pure New England ancestry, and one does not meet
very often in this climate a glance that suggests nocturnal mystery.
No, no.  The women here are different, as a rule.  I remember her
mother; she was something like, but in less perfection."

Leigh, fearing that he might perhaps say too much, said nothing at all
by way of comment.  Cardington's phrase, "nocturnal mystery," was a
reminder of the scene through which he had passed thus far unheeding,
and suggested its kinship with the woman of his thoughts.  The vista
seemed to stretch away interminably, disclosing unexpected glimpses of
colour where the boughs displayed their changing leaves within the
radius of an electric light.  Between the lights the darkness gathered
with the greater intensity because of the clouds which had now
traversed the whole expanse of the sky and bidden the stars from view.
He was conscious also of the ceaseless murmuring of the wind in the
leaves, like many voices whispering in an unknown tongue.




CHAPTER V

THE CANDIDATE

Leigh awoke the next morning with a sense that some profound change had
come into his life.  His mood was similar to that of a man on the verge
of a trip to foreign lands, who, with all the humdrum existence that
had earned it behind him, and all the delights of adventure before,
waits only the turn of wind or tide to be away.  The comparison is not
inept, for he had lived laborious days, postponing deliberately or
missing by chance, he scarcely knew which, the experience he now felt
to be impending.  His time of life was peculiarly favourable for the
growth of a master passion, one which, as the old saying has it, might
make or mar him.  The feverish struggles of early youth had landed him
in a position somewhat better than that attained by the majority of his
contemporaries.  He had reached a breathing-place, where he could pause
with a sense of deeds accomplished and of possible rewards in the
future.

A realisation of the fact that his circumstances and position fairly
justified him in entertaining seriously the thought of love lessened in
no way the ideality of that thought.  It was not because Felicity
Wycliffe was the first attractive woman to come into his life at the
right moment that he had fallen in love with her.  He told himself that
he could have met any other woman in the world at that time with
impunity; and, conversely, had he met her years before, when his suit
must needs have been hopeless, he would have loved her no less,
reckless of worldly considerations.  As it was, he did not feel that
the situation was conventional, but that the fates were kind.  His
desire, and the right to strive for its attainment, had synchronised by
happy chance.

In the history of a passion, it is doubtful if any mood is more elysian
than that which accompanies the waking moments on the morning after the
great discovery.  Leigh wandered for some time in this imaginary
paradise, where everything seemed not only possible, but actually
accomplished.  His rising, however, shook some of these iridescent
colours from his thoughts, until they gradually began to assume the
more sober hue of fact, a change like that which he now discovered had
come over the outside world.

The storm, which had promised to be wild and spectacular, had somehow
miscarried in the night, and instead of pelting showers and tossing
branches he saw a pale grey wall of mist against his windows.  All
excitement had gone from the atmosphere, leaving the dreary certainty
that the mist would presently clear only to condense into a slow,
persistent, autumn rain.  It is conceivable that he would not have
exchanged his waking dreams so quickly for more definite thoughts and
speculations had his eyes rested upon the blue hills of the western
skyline, for he was peculiarly susceptible to the moods of nature.
There being now practically no outside world to lure his fancy on, he
began to think of his actual situation, and to ask himself what he
intended to do with regard to the man in whom Miss Wycliffe had taken
such an interest.  If her plan appeared quixotic to him now, he feared
that on second thoughts it might seem no less so to her, and he
resolved to do the thing she desired, and to gain thereby a common
interest with her, before she might discourage the attempt.  This
resolve taken, he went to breakfast at the college commons, and thence
to chapel.

Attendance at chapel, he had discovered, was obligatory upon the
students and upon those clerical members of the faculty who conducted
the services.  Personally he was drawn thither by the peculiar flavour
which the exercises gave his daily life.  It was pleasant to sit alone
in his pew against the wall above the tiers of students, to watch the
morning sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows, and to
listen to the antiphonal singing of a fine old Rouen meditation.
Occasionally the services began with a Sapphic ode by Gregory the
Great, whose opening line, _Ecce iam noctis tenuatur umbra_, set to
music from the Salisbury Hymnal, resounded through the arches of the
chapel like a call to the duties of the day.  In the institution from
which he had recently come, the jealousy of rival sects had resulted in
the complete elimination of all outward forms of worship; and he found
the change grateful.  There was novelty and charm in a service attended
wholly by men, and in the music, as mediaeval in character as the
architecture of the Hall itself.  Like most of his contemporaries,
Leigh could by no means have formulated his religious beliefs, but in
all the chaos of modern thought he still retained a certain piety, in
the old Roman sense of the word, a loyalty to the traditions of his
fathers which he would never have dignified by the name of faith.

He was happily unconscious of the fact that the eyes of many of the
students were fixed upon him with keen observation.  The self-contained
young professor was as much an unknown quantity as any he asked them to
find in the recitation-room.  They were baffled by the impersonal
attitude he had brought from the university, where the individual
counted for little, and were inclined to attribute it to a disposition
to be severe in his marking.

It chanced that this morning he was free from recitations, but though
his time was his own, he had no definite plan with which to fill it.
After lingering in his room for some minutes, he descended once more to
the walk, finding relief in simulating a purpose by definiteness of
action.  Instead of following the line of the building northward, he
struck out directly across the plateau, past the flagstaff and the
great bronze statue of the bishop, and descended the slope along a path
that marked the future grand approach.

As he recalled the bishop's elaborate description, he turned and gazed
at the towers which loomed ghost-like beyond the ridge.  He was now in
the midst of the wide field from which he had heard the tinkle of
cow-bells on the morning of his arrival.  The place was deserted, save
for his own presence.  The grass was heavy with clinging globules of
moisture, and every head of goldenrod seemed encrusted with glimmering
pearls.  Everywhere there was a curious and oppressive silence, as if
the world were deprived not only of light, but also of life.  The great
towers appeared unsubstantial, carved from blocks of mist only a degree
thicker than that which spread about him.  He indulged the odd fancy
that a rising wind might sweep the whole away, leaving only a bare
hilltop beneath the clearing sky.

The clang of a gong from the car barn beyond came like a reminder of
his purpose, a summons to make a tentative effort, at least, to achieve
it.  So he turned resolutely away, leaving academic dreams in the mist
behind him.

The street-car barn was perhaps the dreariest spot in Warwick.  Its
proximity to the college grounds had caused the bishop to view it with
disfavour, and already a fine ivy, planted at his suggestion, covered
part of the bare brick walls.  The bishop would fain have recalled the
days that antedated electric roads, before the company had driven this
peg at the corner of his academe and stretched therefrom another
gleaming thread of its intricate web of trolley lines.  Those were the
golden days when one drove up to the Hall in a comfortable carriage,
when the richer students went horseback riding along the country roads,
when the _chug, chug_ of the motor-car and its attendant smell of
gasoline were unknown.

Though Leigh was far from sharing the bishop's whimsical indignation at
this change, even he felt the chill unloveliness of the long reaches of
the barn filled with lifeless cars, where an occasional electric bulb
burned like an _ignis fatuus_ in the misty gloom.  How much more
attractive a railroad roundhouse, with iron monsters on its converging
tracks, each with his cyclopean eye of fire, each panting deeply with
slow jets of steam!

The place was comparatively deserted.  Far back in the barn dim figures
moved, and from the workhouse in the rear came the clang of metal.  One
or two passengers were waiting for the next car, and Leigh spied a
conductor coming to his work, finishing the last few puffs of his
morning pipe.  He was an elderly man, with a sweeping grey moustache
and a gait that suggested the sea.  Behind him two small boys came
racing with a cart.

"Hello!" cried the conductor, stepping aside with agility.  "What 's
this?  A Japanese torpedo boat?"  He turned to Leigh genially.  "I 'll
have to spread a net before my bows.  These youngsters take me for a
Rooshyan battleship."

It occurred to Leigh that this man might know Emmet well, and when the
car came in, he stood on the back platform for the purpose of engaging
him in talk that might help him in his project.  The heavy morning
traffic was over, and as the conductor was comparatively unoccupied, he
accepted his passenger's advances readily.  In a few minutes Leigh
became aware that the man knew who he was.

"That's nothing wonderful," he explained.  "I've been on this line for
years, and I know everybody that travels this way.  I thought you were
the new professor at the Hall, the minute I set eyes on you."

In spite of the trim uniform, the cap and buttons, he seemed cast in a
larger mould than most men of his kind.  He was garrulous without
offence, and carried with him some of the atmosphere which only travel
gives.  He was more fit, Leigh reflected, to command a ship, or to
crack the whip over six horses from the seat of a stage-coach, than to
pull the bellrope on a Warwick street-car.  It was easy enough to
engage him in conversation about the coming election, but more
difficult to arrive at the point he had in mind.  He learned that Emmet
had already resigned his place as a conductor to devote his whole time
to the work of the campaign, and he began to appreciate the difficulty
of meeting him naturally.  If he went to his boarding-house, he would
doubtless find him away, or not alone.  On the whole, considering the
shortness of the time and the different worlds in which they moved, he
decided that he must make his opportunity, rather than wait for it to
come.

"I believe you said that Mr. Emmet boards at your house," he ventured
finally.  "In that case, you might do me a little favour, if you will.
The fact is, that I would like very much to make his acquaintance, but
I hesitate to call upon him at random, knowing how busy he is.  If he
has a free hour some time, I 'd like to meet him."

"You 'd like to meet him?" the conductor asked shrewdly.

"This is n't politics," Leigh explained, aware of the other's guess,
"and for that reason I want Mr. Emmet to consult his own convenience.
If you 'll give him my card and tell him that we have a common friend
who wishes us to know each other, he may think it worth while to drop
me a postcard and make an appointment.  I 'll come to see him any time
he's at liberty."

The conductor stowed the card away in his clothes with a peculiar lurch
of his figure that reminded Leigh once more of his first impression.

"Am I right," he asked, "in guessing that you once followed the sea?"

"Twenty years," the man answered; "and though I 've been ashore as
many, they still call me captain--Captain Tucker.  The salt water puts
its stamp on a man for life, don't it?  I was reminded of it this
morning when I see in the paper that the Rooshyans had fired on the
Hull fishermen off the Dogger Banks.  What a shame that was, wa'n't it?
Why, those fishermen are the most inoffensive fellows in the world.
Many a time when I passed through that sea they 'd throw up a fish on
our deck by way of a present."

Leigh found the conversation which this reminiscence suggested so full
of interest, that he made the complete circuit of the line to pursue it
at such intervals as his new acquaintance could spare from his duties.
Then, as the steaming rain had begun to fall heavily, he returned to
the college.  Upon a mental review of his trip, he was inclined to
doubt that he would hear from Emmet, but in so doing he forgot to
reckon with one of the most powerful of human motives, curiosity.  He
also failed to consider that his position as a professor at St.
George's Hall would give his advances peculiar importance.  His only
fear was that the captain might not report the message correctly, and
he wished he had been able to write a note.  A remembrance of the man's
geniality reassured him, and he reflected that such men were the most
approachable and companionable in the world, always ready for a new
acquaintance, and imbued with a certain fundamental humanity which is
too often winnowed out from more artificial or more cultivated natures.

He went to his work that evening without much thought of the probable
outcome of his morning's effort.  Like most college professors, he had
a number of unfinished problems on hand, any one of which might require
years for its solution.  The scholar's work, like the housekeeper's, is
never done, and like the housekeeper, too, he can cover up his
postponements and neglect for a measurable time without censure.  He
can fail to set the house of his mind in order; he can sweep the dust
of unfinished investigation into obscure nooks and corners; he can make
fair the outside of the cup and the platter for cursory inspection.
Herein lies his peculiar temptation.  The public is prone to take his
scientific spirit for granted, and is a long time in opening its eyes.
Meanwhile he lives a life of delightful leisure, teaching as many hours
a week as a business man labours in a day.  Not one man in a hundred is
proof against the seduction of those idle hours, during which
literature and art and a cultivated society plead for some share of his
attention and filch away his will.  And, after all, why not?  he begins
to ask himself.  In a commercial age and a country that thinks upon the
surface, his profession receives no adequate recognition.  Life is
short; he had better reap the reward of his laborious and expensive
preparation by enjoying those diversions which he of all men is
peculiarly fitted to appreciate.

Leigh honestly meant to be the hundredth man, and to make a name for
himself.  He had found what might be called an easy place in contrast
with the drudgery of the large classes he had previously taught.  Here
was the time, here the problem.  The lamp was trimmed, the white sheets
of paper were spread out invitingly on his desk.  A few logs burned
brightly in the fireplace, dispelling the penetrating chill, and the
rain beat heavily against the windows, intensifying the distance of the
world and his own seclusion.

But now a face hovered between his eyes and the paper on his desk; then
the complete figure of the woman he loved came into view, pointing with
her small ivory cimeter another and more alluring road.  As one may lie
and doze awhile in the morning, with a resentful realisation of the
impending duties of the day, so now he allowed himself ten minutes of
respite, only to discover presently that his allowance had lengthened
imperceptibly to an hour.

A knock at the door aroused him, and he shouted an invitation to enter,
thinking that Cardington had stepped across the hallway for a chat.
His surprise therefore was great when the door swung open and showed an
unknown man placing his dripping umbrella in the corner.

"I got your message, professor," the visitor began.  Leigh was
instantly aware, above everything else, of the extraordinarily alert
glance which he flung into the room ahead of him as he entered.  This
summed up his total first impression.

"Mr. Emmet!" he cried.  "Come in.  This is really too bad.  I 'm afraid
Captain Tucker did n't give you the message correctly.  I meant to call
upon you.  He must have represented that I had some urgent
business--but I need n't say how I appreciate your coming, especially
on such a night."

"All kinds of weather are alike to me," Emmet answered heartily.  "I
was up in this part of town, and thought I might better drop in and see
you than send a postal."

Now that he was seated, Leigh had a better opportunity for observation,
and his fuller impression was decidedly favourable.  Emmet was
apparently about his own age, of medium height, with the shoulders and
bearing of an athlete.  He possessed no strikingly fine feature, and
yet the whole man was handsome.  One took no notice of the shape of his
nose or the line of his chin, for these points were neither excellent
nor the reverse.  What gave him a claim to distinction above his
fellows was the splendidly abundant vitality that appeared unmistakably
in the rich colour of his cheeks, in his very posture, and in the
brightness of his reddish-brown eyes.  It remained to be seen whether
this brightness might indicate intellect as well as health.  For the
rest, for the quality that betrayed the man, his expression was not to
be read at a glance.  Its major message seemed to be goodfellowship,
but the seeming failed to strengthen into certainty on closer
inspection.  Here was a man who could think hiddenly, speak guardedly,
wait for others to show their cards, and do all this with a disarming
appearance of ingenuous friendliness.  The atmosphere he radiated as he
sat waiting for his host to explain himself was one of tension without
nervousness.

Leigh began as most men would have begun under the circumstances.  He
fostered the subject of the weather for a few minutes longer, and
produced a box of cigars.

"I never smoke, or drink either, for that matter," Emmet remarked
simply.  "A politician is like a barkeeper; he can do his business
better if he lets drink alone.  As for cigars, try one of mine.  They
're part of my stock in trade.  I guess this one won't explode and set
fire to the place."

Leigh smiled as he lighted the cigar, which he found to be a good one.
There was something that made for freedom in the unintentional
officiousness with which his guest had thrust aside his hospitality and
substituted his own.

"Possibly," he ventured, "you might imagine that I have some plan in
mind to hand over to you the vote of the college."

"A deal like that would please the bishop," Emmet returned, with
unexpected irony.

"It would please his daughter, at any rate, as I believe you know."

"Yes," Emmet assented, with a nod.  "I know what a good friend of mine
Miss Wycliffe is."

"We were talking last night," Leigh continued, "about political
conditions here in Warwick; and I became very much interested, for
municipal reform is one of my hobbies.  Wherever I 've lived, I 've
always been against the machine, at least to the extent of my vote.
Miss Wycliffe told me that you were trying to break up the clique that
has ruled Warwick since the war; and when she saw how much she had
enlisted my sympathy, she proposed that we become acquainted.  That's
how I happened to send a message to you by the captain.  I did n't know
when you were likely to be most at liberty."  He paused, and flicked
the ashes from his cigar.  "I feel guilty to think that I have stolen
some of your time, when I have nothing to give you in return but good
wishes."

It was impossible to guess whether Emmet were surprised or disappointed
at this disclosure of the comparative futility of his visit.

"Good wishes," he said, "are always worth having, and especially from
this college, for I tell you there are mighty few men connected with
this place that wish me well."

Leigh, remembering the bishop and Cardington, did not doubt the truth
of this declaration.  He wondered what his colleague would surmise
should he come in at that moment.  The situation would be complicated,
and would no doubt gain in interest, but it was an interest he was
content to forego.  He was impressed by a hint of passion and
resentment in his guest's voice, restrained as by one not entirely sure
of his hearer.

In Leigh's attitude there was no affectation.  He was genuinely
interested in the situation, and he brought to it all a Westerner's
lack of class prejudice, all his appreciation of a man for his
intrinsic worth, irrespective of college degrees and family and
fortune.  It was some time before Emmet, feeling his way by little and
little, realised the anomaly of a professor in St. George's Hall with
Democratic sympathies.  Miss Wycliffe's judgment of the two men, her
belief that they would get on well together, was entirely justified by
the result, which became undoubted before an hour had passed.  Emmet
was by no means lacking in shrewdness, and, having once become
convinced that caution was needless, he talked more freely, until, to
his listener's interested observation, he appeared quite another man.
He began to show some of that eloquence of which Cardington had spoken,
an eloquence that derived its effect not from the artifices of
rhetoric, but from a deep conviction and a personal grievance.  He
spoke in adequate language, that left no doubt of his meaning, and the
meaning itself was sufficiently striking to rivet attention.  Leigh
began to realise why it was that the bishop had thought him dangerous.
He forgot to wonder at Emmet's gift of speech in the new point of view
that was gradually presented to his mind.  He was struck particularly
by the fact that St. George's Hall, which seemed to him comparatively
insignificant in the educational world, should loom so large in this
man's horizon that the towers which stood to him for star-gazing and
cloistered study and old tradition should appear to Emmet merely the
bulwarks of class privilege and social tyranny.

The fact that Leigh was a stranger in Warwick must have given his guest
a peculiar sense of freedom.  One has only to recall the confidences
which men that meet casually on the train will sometimes repose in each
other, to realise how this can be.  Under such circumstances, each
tells his story to unprejudiced ears, without fear that it will one day
be turned to his disadvantage.  Nor was this the first time in Leigh's
life when he had been surprised to find himself the recipient of
another's secrets.  The conversation finally became almost a monologue,
or, more specifically, a statement of grievances.

"I would n't mind, if the campaign were being conducted on the square,"
said Emmet, now thoroughly aroused; "but it is n't.  It's hard work to
talk against money, and they 've got barrels of it.  They 're putting
it now where it will do the most good.  A thousand dollars to this
saloon-keeper and another thousand to that, to keep their heelers away
from the polls on election day, may do the trick for them, no matter
what I say or do or am.  And it's college-bred men, professional men,
who are doing it.  The whole of the wealthy and educated element of
Warwick is leagued against me, and bound to beat me by fair means or
foul."

"Corruption in politics is common enough everywhere, I 'm afraid,"
Leigh remarked.

"It's worse here," Emmet declared bitterly; "and here it's a question
of class against class as well.  Warwick is said to be the wealthiest
city of its size in the country, and the offices have been handed
around in a certain set ever since the Declaration of Independence.
The labour unions are uncommonly strong, too, and if they would only
hang together, they could have things their own way.  I can depend upon
the support of my own crowd, but there are always mutual jealousies to
be reckoned with between the various unions.  Besides, the labouring
man will talk boldly enough at times about equality, but he still has a
sneaking admiration for the fellow that lives in a big house, and a
corresponding distrust of one of his own kind.  Let me give you an
illustration of it.  The other day, Judge Swigart's manager, Anthony
Cobbens, was swaggering around the barn down here, talking with some of
the men about his horses and dogs, and poking a little fun at me on the
side.  Such things have their effect.  I heard one of the men say
afterward that Cobbens was as friendly with them as if he were n't rich
at all.  It's a fact that he was flattered by the fellow, even when he
saw through him."

There was something rather magnificent in the scorn that blazed in the
speaker's eyes as he told this incident, and Leigh felt that, no matter
what his faults might be, sycophancy never was and never could be one
of them.

"It's all the more pitiful," he remarked, "because he gets nothing for
it but the contempt he deserves.  But I 've heard of this Cobbens.  It
seems to me that Miss Wycliffe compared him to a weasel."

Emmet laughed, but almost immediately the intensity of his mood
returned.  "Cobbens is one of your own graduates," he went on, almost
as if he held his listener responsible for that fact.  "I knew him as a
boy, and played with him on the streets.  Perhaps that's the reason he
's my worst enemy to-day.  His mother was a dressmaker and a widow, but
somehow, by hook and by crook, he managed to work his way through St.
George's Hall.  Then he became a lawyer and married one of the richest
girls in town.  What she saw in him, nobody knows, but he's a
hypnotist, and no mistake.  Now she's dead, and so are her parents, and
Cobbens and his mother live in her great house and ride in her
carriages.  He 's a high roller, right in with the judge and his crew,
and there is n't a more corrupt politician in this town.  There 's a
fine specimen of your college graduate!"

"I hope you don't regard him as a typical college graduate," Leigh
protested good-naturedly.

Had he been familiar with the alumni of the Hall, he could have made
his argument strong by personal examples unlike Anthony Cobbens, but he
made his defence of the college graduate general, answering the
well-known objections to him in the well-known way.  It was evident
that Emmet regarded colleges and universities as identified with
entrenched privilege everywhere, and with corruption in local politics
particularly.  It was inevitable that he should have been influenced in
this view by his own concrete experiences.  The iron had entered into
his soul, and its scar was not to be effaced by an evening's
conversation.  Not infrequently life will be interpreted to a
passionate nature by one or two persons, be they friends or enemies.
To Emmet, Cobbens and the bishop loomed much larger in the general
scheme of things than their intrinsic importance warranted.  It was
interesting, having heard the bishop's opinion of Emmet, to get Emmet's
view of the bishop, a view that was by no means without a certain
reluctant respect and admiration.  Leigh felt that his prejudice was
impassioned, rather than intellectual, and would yield gradually to a
change of circumstances, whereas the bishop would never revise his
judgment.  He was impressed also by the fact that Miss Wycliffe could
never fully appreciate the conditions that had produced the man whose
cause she had chosen to champion, or see that he must needs be a
radical, if he thought at all, at least in the present stage of his
development.  Leigh's own experience in life enabled him to look into
both camps with comprehension, for he belonged to the comparatively
small class of the cultivated poor, and his struggles had been no less
intense than those of the man before him, though for different ends.
The effect of what he said was conciliatory, but his visitor was merely
convinced that this particular college graduate was an exception to the
rule.

"You 're not much like the bishop," he remarked.  "I don't say that he
is n't the real thing in the way of a gentleman, but he 's as proud as
the Old Boy himself."

"I don't know how proud the Old Boy may be," Leigh answered, laughing,
"or what he has to be proud of, but I 've discovered that Bishop
Wycliffe, underneath his apparent frigidity, has one of the kindest
hearts in the world."

"We all know that," Emmet assented.  "He's one of the most charitable
men in town.  I 'm bound to say, too, that he does n't know anything
about the inside workings of that political ring, but it's because he
does n't want to know.  He just naturally ranges himself with his own
class on such a question."

He had progressed from an alertness that was not free from suspicion to
a fervid statement of the political situation, into which the element
of his personal feelings had risen more and more to the surface.  So
naturally did he appear to take the mention of Miss Wycliffe that Leigh
had not realised how deeply flattered he must have been by her
interest.  Now, at last, his very posture showed a sense of being at
home, and into the brightness of his steady eyes an expression entered
which could best be described as confidential.

"I meant to ask you," he said, "who it was that began to talk about me
at the bishop's."

Leigh considered a moment.  "We were all discussing politics--I really
don't remember."

"And did Miss Wycliffe take my part against the old man?"

The question arrested Leigh's attention, and traversed his
consciousness with a positive shock.  It was he who was now on guard.
He would have repudiated the insinuation that he was jealous, and yet,
when a man is in love, jealousy in some sort may extend even to those
who cannot possibly be his rivals.  As he divined that Emmet was
inclined to put too personal an interpretation upon Miss Wycliffe's
generosity of feeling, he was concerned to think that she might have
misplaced it, that this man might have the presumption to misunderstand
her.  He became singularly forgetful of what had occurred at the
bishop's house, and seemed not to hear a further intimation from Emmet,
to the effect that he believed Miss Wycliffe was more than a match for
her father.  It was now that Emmet discovered a greater possibility of
likeness between the bishop and his host than he had suspected so short
a time before.  His evident curiosity in regard to Miss Wycliffe's real
purpose in sending the professor to him remained ungratified, and the
necessity which now faced him of retreating from a position in which he
had not been met caused him to take his actual departure presently with
something of his earlier restraint of manner.  They separated, like
Glaucus and Diomedes, representatives of different camps, who
entertained for each other personally the greatest good-will and
respect.  It may be, however, that each gave this assurance with mental
reservations more or less subconscious.

When Leigh was once more alone, he walked up and down his room
restlessly for some time.  His first sensation was one of exasperation
with Miss Wycliffe for her ill-advised championship of a man who
actually seemed to have the assurance to think of her otherwise than as
his patroness and good friend from afar.  If she suffered embarrassment
from it in the future, he reflected, that was only what she might have
anticipated.  It would be a delicate matter to let her know her
mistake.  More than that--it would be impossible.  Her own instinct and
good sense would come to her rescue in time.  Meanwhile, there was
Emmet.  It was delightful to think how she had failed to see his point
of view, while sure that she saw it so well.  He could not wonder that
the man's head was slightly turned, and now that he was gone, Leigh
felt no personal resentment on that score.  As he reviewed the
conversation of the evening, he wondered which were really the more
dangerous to the state, Emmet, full of personal grievances and
undigested theories, or his opponent, Judge Swigart, the cynical and
aristocratic politician.  If Emmet desired at present to turn the
existing order of things topsy-turvy, it was because such a revolution
would place him at the top.  The judge, already nearer the top, was
naturally a champion of things as they were, which included his
position as it was.  Though Leigh mused in this sophisticated vein, he
nevertheless felt considerable confidence that the younger man, when he
became a finished product, would be a better citizen than his political
rival.




CHAPTER VI

LENA HARPSTER

The bell in the cupola of the First Church had just rung out the hour
of midnight, and the slow, deep notes, which seemed to derive a certain
solemnity from the graveyard below, were carried in broken echoes to
the very suburbs of the city on the wings of a moist, intermittent
wind.  The storm of the previous night, which had lifted during the
day, now seemed about to begin anew, and the air was full of a sense of
unshed rain.  Down in the street, where bits of waste paper and other
small refuse spun around under the swaying electric lights, the huge
cleaner, called "the devil waggon," was just beginning its nocturnal
task.  In front of the City Hall, lately such a scene of busy life, a
solitary car stood ready to start upon its homeward trip, its two
violet lamps winking in the wind like a pair of sleepy eyes.  Only the
all-night drug-store on the opposite corner kept up an appearance of
wakefulness by means of a corona of milk-white lights that made a
brilliant spot in the comparative obscurity of the long thoroughfare.

Whatever poetical or imaginative suggestions might lie in this scene
for others, it made no such appeal to Tom Emmet as he strode along,
passing belated pedestrians in his course.  He had just come from a
protracted consultation with his political lieutenants, and deep in the
maze of his own plans the twelve beats of the bell now reminded him
that Lena Harpster must have been waiting for his coming a full hour by
the gate where they had planned to meet.  Even this thought could
scarcely soften his mood as yet.  Sure of the experience that awaited
him, he was content to postpone it till the actual moment.  Politics
was a fact, and his love was a fact, and each was assigned its
appropriate time.  This eye for the actualities of the moment was
characteristic of the man.  A street to him was only a thoroughfare, in
which there were certain things that concerned him personally, or
through which he must pass to reach a definite destination.  To Leigh,
on the contrary, it was sometimes a comparative unreality, a vista
suggesting thoughts of Thebes and Babylon and Rome, a symbol of life's
pilgrimage, a path where multitudinous sounds blended into a universal
chant of the voyager.  It was perhaps this difference that constituted
an element of attraction between the two men.  The star-gazer admired
the practical qualities that made for success in the world below his
tower, and the politician paid an involuntary tribute to a spirituality
above his own.

Lena Harpster also heard the midnight bell, as she stood in the shadow
of a row of tall brick mansions and gazed patiently down the alley,
listening for her lover's step.  She was undoubtedly as pretty a girl
as could be found in Warwick; so pretty, in fact, that when she applied
for a position as maid, experienced housekeepers were wont to balance
her attractions against the probity of their men-folk.  Not
infrequently they decided that the former might weigh heavier in the
scale, and reserved the place for one less favoured.  She was tall and
slender, with a light step and a winning grace of movement.  When she
spoke, her voice was pitched in a key that was pleasantly low and
musical, whether from lack of physical force, or because of timidity,
or in unconscious imitation of those she served.  But more likely this
characteristic was merely an expression of innate refinement; for Lena
was of native American stock, educated in a country school of some
merit; and she regarded herself as a lady, compared with the Irish
maids and coloured cooks among whom her lot was cast.

Her throat was long, with a skin of peculiar whiteness.  When her
sleeves were rolled back while she washed the most valuable of her
mistress's glasses, her arms were seen to be of such a satin smoothness
as to invite instinctively a caressing touch.  And one felt assured,
without trying the experiment, that her resentment at such a liberty
would be expressed only by a gentle and deprecatory withdrawal.  This
same whiteness of her complexion was enhanced rather than marred by the
presence of a few faint freckles, that suggested sunny fields and the
wholesome associations of country life.  When excited, her grey eyes
shone with a luminous brightness, as if all her vitality were gathered
there, while an unexpected colour came and went beneath the delicate
texture of her skin.

But of all Lena's attractions, none was more marked than her smile.  It
was frequent and unaffected, almost maternal in its good nature and
indulgence, and disclosed two rows of little teeth, pure and fragile in
appearance as porcelain.  Yet this smile, so inviting to those who
wished to be invited, was disillusioning to cooler and more
discriminating observers, for in it her ordinary quality was disclosed,
her redundancy of sweetness, her lack of that intellect which enables a
woman to triumph over the ravages of time.

As she waited there by the gate, she marked the lapse of time by the
cars that passed the end of the alley at intervals of fifteen minutes,
occupied not so much with thoughts as with sensations, both those of
the moment and those of anticipation.  The air was delightfully soft,
like that of springtime, and she responded to its caress much as a
flower responds, lifting her face placidly to the sky.  The atmosphere
had now reached the point of saturation, and her fine hair was
moistened as by a heavy dew.  From time to time she gave an
affectionate touch to some small creature which she held warmly in the
bend of her arm beneath her cape, or turned her head to listen to the
stamping of the horses in a near-by stable.  Directly across the alley,
a large, half-finished building lifted its walls in the dim light, like
a ruin, exhaling from its yawning windows a mingled odour of fresh pine
boards and plaster; and toward these squares of blackness she sometimes
turned a look almost childish in its suggestion of vague timidity.

At last, when she had lingered long past the time agreed upon, she
sighed, but without resentment, and resigned herself to disappointment.
She wished to see him this night in particular, for she had something
of importance to tell.  He had forbidden her to write, and she accepted
this tyranny as she accepted the man.  Without reflecting deeply upon
this elaborate caution of his, the secrecy of their courtship made an
appeal to a certain demand of her own nature for concealment and
mystery.  Where a spirited girl would have questioned and resented, she
merely acquiesced.

She had almost abandoned hope when she caught sight of him in the
circle of electric light at the far end of the alley.  He gave a quick
look to left and right before turning in her direction.  She would have
known that alert turn of the head in any crowd, and now, as his
footsteps sounded nearer and nearer, along the narrow board walk that
skirted the fences, she unlatched the gate and came out to meet him.
When almost upon her, his eyes caught first the white strip of apron
beneath her dark cape, and then the dim little face above bending
forward for a greeting.

"Well," he said, in a low tone, "did you think I was never coming,
girlie?"

She leaned against him with a contented sigh.  "You have come, Tom, and
that's all I care about."

As he pressed her to him, the kitten, which had lain concealed till now
in purring contentment beneath her cape, leaped to the ground and
disappeared in the darkness.

"How I hate a cat!" he exclaimed, startled.  "I 'd like to set my dog
on the beast."  His irritation merely elicited a little ripple of
amusement, for though she was submissive to his will, she was never
afraid of his censure.  "Come," he continued; "this is no place to
stand.  We will go into that new building across the way."

He took her hand and guided her between scattered blocks of stone, over
a shaking plank, and into the darkness she never would have ventured to
enter alone.  The large room in which they found themselves was already
floored.  The smell of fresh plaster, which was perceptible even from
without, was here intensified, and he sniffed it with relish, for such
works of construction always appealed to his nature.  An open window,
facing the street, admitted a misty illumination from the electric
light beyond, and disclosed in one corner a heap of boards.

"Now," he said eagerly, taking her almost roughly by the shoulders and
turning her about, "give me a kiss."

All the graciousness and charm were with her, all the strength with
him.  He was an abrupt and dictatorial lover, but she was a born
sweetheart.  At the moment when her arms were twined about him she most
perfectly expressed herself.  He drank in her kisses thirstily; then
grasped her wrists firmly and removed them from his neck, as if he
realised a peculiar responsibility.

"There, Lena," he protested, "that will do."  But he still continued to
hold her wrists.  "Just like a couple of pipestems," he remarked.  "How
easily I could break them!"

She accepted the comment as a tribute to her delicacy, a proof of his
strength.  It was this strength that drew her, so that she swayed
toward him involuntarily; but even though it contained an element of
possible cruelty, it was not purely physical.  Perhaps a realisation of
this fact allowed her to shelve upon him entirely the responsibility of
her impulsiveness.

"Come over here, Tom," she pleaded, drawing him into the corner, "and
sit down.  I want to tell you something.  Besides, I 'm half dead with
standing."

The hint of pathos in her last words was lost upon him, for he was
almost incapable of appreciating physical weariness.  He knew her ready
forgiveness also so well that he took it for granted, without even
offering an explanation of his lateness.  It was characteristic of
their relationship that he felt no desire to tell, nor she to hear, the
details of the political struggle now drawing to a close.  She was too
purely his sweetheart to share his cares; her loving embrace sufficed
for their lightening.  Even in the shadow of their retreat they could
see each other's faces distinctly, hers moonlike, with hair like an
halo of the moon, and his of more swarthy hue.  If she was beautiful in
his eyes, he fulfilled no less her ideal of manhood; and certainly an
impartial witness could not have said that either judgment was
unfounded.

"Well," he began, after surveying her a few moments with appreciation,
"out with it.  Some new man is chasing after you.  Who is he?"

She leaned her face against his shoulder, then sat up and shook her
head prettily, pleased with the thought of his jealousy.

"I can't help it, Tom.  That impudent little Hollister Pyle won't give
me a moment's peace."

"What does he do?" Emmet catechised grimly.

"He makes a grab for me every time I pass him on the stairs; that is,
when his mother is n't looking."

"Why don't you turn around and break his face?" he demanded angrily,
lapsing into graphic vernacular.  The suggestion was obviously too
absurd to need reply.  "I 'd like to get my hands on the young whelp,"
he went on, squaring his shoulders.  "I would n't leave a whole bone in
his body."

"You can't do that, Tom, dear," she expostulated, in gentle alarm.

"No, I can't," he admitted reluctantly.  "It would n't do to be pinched
for assault and battery only a fortnight before election.  I won't
write him a threatening anonymous letter, either.  That is n't my way
of doing business.  I tell you, Lena, you 've got to get rid of him,
yourself."

"I will," she declared, with what was, for her, a tone of decision.  "I
'm going to leave to-morrow."

"That is n't getting rid of him; that's running away," he fumed,
profoundly dissatisfied.  "You 'll meet the same sort of thing in the
next place.  Why don't you stay and fight it out?"

"I don't like the girls, either," she explained.  "They 're all against
me."

"A lot of cats," he muttered.  "But where are you going?"

"To Bishop Wycliffe's."

"No!" he cried.

"Why not?" she questioned.  "It 's an easier place than this one.
There are no young men there, Tom.  That ought to satisfy you.  I saw
Miss Wycliffe to-day."

"I don't like the bishop," he said, with some hesitation, as if aware
of the lameness of the objection, "and he does n't like me.  There 's
no man in this town more opposed to me than he is.  I don't want you to
go there."

"You never let me do what I want to, Tom," she complained despairingly.

He caught her in his arms and gave her an exasperated kiss.  The logic
of the argument was with her, and he could meet it only by an
unreasonable prohibition.  "I don't want you to go, anyhow," he
reiterated.

"But I 've got to go somewhere," she insisted, placing her two hands
upon his shoulders.  She attempted to give him a little shake, with the
result that she shook only herself.  His physical immobility was so
suggestive of his mental attitude that she desisted, with sudden
meekness, and the point was apparently settled as he wished.  He
possessed himself of her hand, and began to stroke the inside of her
arm, as if he had discovered a new charm in her.

"If you did n't give him what he deserved, what did you do, Lena?" he
demanded, going back to the incident that had aroused his jealousy.

"I drew away, Tom."

"As gentle as a kitten, and without a word, too, I 'll be bound.  You
're altogether too pretty--that's the trouble with you.  I ought to put
you in a cage, to keep you safe."

"Tom, dear," she said suddenly, "I hear the Pyles talking about
politics when I wait on the table.  They say that you have n't the
ghost of a chance to be elected.  Now that you 've thrown up your job,
what will you do if you are defeated?"

He emitted a short laugh, expressive of confidence and scorn.  "You
were n't such a little fool as to suppose I intended to stand on the
back of a street-car all my life, were you?  Five years of that sort of
thing is about enough for me, and I 've worked it for all it was
worth."  A desire to impress her overcame his innate secretiveness.
"There 's more in that job than the measly salary the company pays; and
a man 's entitled to take something of what would be his by rights if
things were as they should be in this world.  There 's a higher law
than the law made by the privileged few for their own enriching, and
sometimes a man has to take the matter into his own hands and decide
what's due him."  This was rather an elaborate way of telling her that,
like most of his fellows, he was accustomed to "knock down" fares on
crowded trips, when it could be done undetected.  Perhaps he took some
satisfaction in going over again the arguments by which he justified
the practice.  Perhaps he was curious to see whether she would make a
condemnatory comment, but nothing was further from her thoughts, and he
went on.  "I have n't spent a cent of my baseball salary for years.
Where do you suppose it is?"

"In the savings bank?" she suggested.

He chuckled at her simplicity.  "Better than that--salted
down--invested.  I could live on the interest of it, after a fashion,
if I wanted to."  He was flattered by her wide-eyed admiration and
wonder, and moved to disclose himself to her still more.  "Why, look
here, Lena, there 's more than politics in this game.  They say I have
n't the ghost of a show.  We 'll see about that; but whichever way it
turns out, I shan't be a beggar.  Only, if I am elected, I 'll take
every cent I 've got and put it into the bonds the city is going to
issue to build the new bridge.  There's nothing better in the country
than the bonds of this town.  None of your Central America rubber bonds
or Colorado mining stock for me.  I want something I know about and can
keep my eye on."

"Then you are n't poor!" she cried gladly.  "You're rich!"

He squared his jaw determinedly, and his eyes glowed.  "Not rich yet,
but I will be--I will be yet!"

She did not doubt that he could be anything he wished, but from this
very confidence in his power a great fear was born.  She put her lips
close to his ear, and whispered tremulously: "Tom, dear, I know you
think I 'in pretty, and all that, but do you love me, Tom?  When you
get to be mayor, or when you 're rich, will you love me just the same?
You won't be too proud to think of marrying me then?  Tell me you
won't!"

She withdrew herself and placed her hands on his shoulders as before,
an attitude pathetically suggestive of her effort to fix his attention
upon her words.  The poise of her little head was extremely winning in
her desire for his admiration.  "Do you think I would make a pretty
wife, even for a mayor?" she faltered.

He caught her once more in his arms, as if the word wife had awakened
within him a curious intensity of feeling, but for once she was not
satisfied.  Gradually her slender form became shaken by a storm of
convulsive sobs.  He waited in silence, with all a primitive man's
uncomprehending distress at a woman's tears.

"Don't borrow trouble, Lena," he said simply.  The tone, more than the
words, showed that his mood had become stern, almost resentful.  In
fact, it was the first time she had given him anything but pleasure,
and pleasure was all he desired from her.

His answer was not what she had hoped for, but her woman's wisdom
forbade her to press the matter then.  Of his love she felt no doubt;
the intensity of his look, the well-nigh fierce impulsiveness of his
caresses, showed her that the appeal she made to him was almost
irresistible.  Almost, but not quite.  She could never be in his
company long without a consciousness of the warring elements within
him--on this side love, on that side ambition, fighting foot to foot
and point to point, neither strong enough to win the victory.
Sometimes he would gaze at her in silence, with his warm, speculative
eyes, until, drawn like a fascinated bird, she fluttered to his arms in
the hope of the great decision, but her hope was never realised.  Now
she divined that tears and prayers would not help her cause; he must be
allured by her charm, not driven by her claims upon his compassion.

At this thought she recovered her composure and dried her eyes, and
strove with success to make him forget her importunity.  Disarmed and
soothed, he sunk down to a lower seat beside her and rested his head
boyishly upon her lap.  He pushed back her short sleeve, nestled his
face in the bend of her arm, and kissed it hungrily.  The action, their
relative positions, introduced a new element into their relationship,
to which her deep maternal instinct made quick response.  With a new
tenderness she threw the fold of her cape about his head and shoulders,
and held him close.  Thus they sat for some time in silence.  Beyond
the warm shelter of her cape he heard the faint soughing of the wind,
which had brought the rain at last, a drowsy and monotonous rain that
lulled his senses.  Instinctively he rested heavily upon her in weary
abandonment.  Finally his form relaxed, and she saw that he was fast
asleep.

The strain of the position upon her back and arms grew greater each
moment, till it was almost more than she could endure; but still she
held out bravely, fearing to move lest she should wake him from the
sleep he seemed so much to need.  She knew also that his waking would
mean separation, and she could not bear that thought as yet, before she
had discovered the secret of success.  What could she do more than she
had done to make herself indispensable to him?  That was the question
which she turned over in her mind with such intensity that she almost
lost her sense of growing distress.  Indeed, the distress of body and
mind seemed strangely one, the physical tension but an expression of
the mental.

It was idle, she reflected, to think of studying politics to keep pace
with his widening interests.  She had only a vague conception of the
extent to which his mind had been enlarged by contact with the world,
but she was shrewd enough to know that companionship in such interests
was not what he desired in her.  In her he sought only rest and charm
and love.  Nor was it dress in which she lacked, unless, indeed, he
desired her to deck herself like the rich women of the society he
scorned.  Just as a nurse's habit possesses a fascination for some men,
so she had seen that her little cap, her very apron, though badges of
servitude, made a peculiar appeal to his tenderness.  Other men, too,
had thought them becoming.  It was a dress to reveal her beauty.  Her
curves were the softer for its severity, her colour the more radiant
against that black and white.  On the street also she knew he could
find no fault with her.  Like many a pretty woman of her class, she
possessed a skill in dressing like a lady, and ability in making small
means cover great needs, that amounted to genius.  No--there was only
one thing to do, and that was to love him more and more, until a
consciousness of her love so pervaded him, even when absent, that he
must finally come back to her to stay.

The cars had long since ceased to pass, and the silence of the dead of
night settled down over the city.  She heard the coloured cook saying
good-bye to her lover at the gate where she herself had waited, their
low, melodious voices and happy gurgles of laughter as soft as the damp
wind that came puffing in through the open window.  After what seemed
an interminable lapse of time, an automobile went past, like a
miniature whirlwind, dashing the raindrops right and left from its
gleaming sides, bearing some late revellers through the deserted
streets at a rate of speed forbidden by the traffic of the day.  Even
that incident became a distant memory, and now only the occasional howl
of a prowling cat broke the stillness, a strangely ominous and mournful
sound.  In the bar of light upon the floor at her feet the shadow of
the tossing branches of a tree moved continually, till she closed her
eyes in dizziness.

Hours passed, hours that seemed a lifetime.  The pain extended through
her whole frame, and tears of mute suffering dropped slowly down upon
the flap of the cape that kept her lover warm.  From time to time she
shifted her position gently and won a temporary relief, but presently
the sense of strain returned, and yet she would not waken him and let
him go.  It was the first time she had ever seen him asleep,--one of
love's tenderest experiences,--and moreover he was sleeping with a
sense of absolute peace and security in her arms.  She longed to slip
down beside him, to rest her cheek against his, and to go with him into
that shadowy world of dreams.

Suddenly out of the darkness a soft little form, wet with the rain,
leaped lightly upon her.  The discarded kitten had found its mistress
at last.  Gentle as the impact was, it sufficed to disturb her balance,
and she sank slowly downward in a faint.  Her arm, locked about his
head, saved her from a fall, but the pressure of her body awoke him.
He struggled confusedly, oppressed by a sense of suffocation and by a
vague fear; then, scarcely awake, he caught her in his arms.

"Lena!" he cried, startled by the inexplicable change.  "Lena!"

He touched her cheek, he listened in vain to hear her breathe, and then
an icy terror gripped his heart.  Scarcely knowing what he did or why,
he raised her carefully in his arms and carried her to the window,
where the fine rain sifted in upon her face.  He felt her shiver
slightly, and then her eyes were looking into his.

"Thank God!" he said brokenly.  "I thought that you were dead."

She smiled, and moved her face toward him.  He took her once more to
their former seat, and continued to hold her in his arms as if she were
a child.

"I feel better now," she murmured.  "It was nothing, Tom.  You fell
asleep, and I held your head until I toppled over--that was all.  Were
you frightened?"

"I thought you were dead," he repeated, deeply awed by the grim spectre
so foreign to his experience.

"And did you care so very much?" she ventured, her heart beginning to
beat high again.  For answer he gently raised her cheek to his and held
her close.  There was no need of words to tell her how much he was
moved, for he had never held her thus before.  Through her lover's
strange moods of fierce tenderness and stern denial she had won her way
at last, as she now believed, to a perfect understanding.  He could not
live without her; it was merely a question of time.

His continued tenderness gave her reason to believe that this assurance
was justified.  Only at the gate, when he bade her good-night, did he
seem to be seized once more in the grip of contending emotions.  He
started to go without a word or kiss, then, turning back, he took her
in his arms with a grip that hurt, calling her his Lena, his little
girl, his wife.  The last word broke from him with an intensity that
caused the blood to riot in her heart, a joy that was shot through with
wondering fear of the passion she had aroused.

When his figure had disappeared in the darkness, she left the gate and
entered the kitchen through the low window which the cook had left
unlocked against her coming.  She lighted a candle, and looked at
herself curiously in a mirror that hung on the wall.  The grain of the
cheap glass distorted her features, but reflected faithfully her
heightened colour and the drops that sparkled like jewels in her light
hair.  Apparently she was satisfied with the inspection, for she smiled
happily, and then went slowly upstairs to her narrow room beneath the
roof.

Meanwhile, Emmet was striding along the gleaming street, regardless of
the increasing rain that soaked him to the skin.  From time to time he
shot out his arm violently, as if he would push back some invisible
foe, or would extricate himself from the meshes of a net that was
closing in upon him.  Again, he swore aloud, as one who curses a malign
and unmerited fate.




CHAPTER VII

THE STAR-GAZERS

In the following night the storm terminated its triduan existence some
time between darkness and dawn.  It must have been in the earlier hours
that the change occurred, for Warwick gazed from its windows in the
morning to find the ground rimed with hoar-frost, that looked like
streaks of crusted salt.  The sun was scarcely three hours in the
ascendant before the frost disappeared, like the withdrawal of a
silvery veil, disclosing the bareness it had beautified so briefly.
Even the most casual observer could now see that autumn had made a long
forward march in the last three days toward the confines of winter.

That afternoon Leigh called upon Miss Wycliffe, not without a thought
that the interval which had elapsed since the dinner was decidedly
short.  Still, he would come ostensibly to report the result of the
interview she had suggested, and, as the election was not far distant,
he felt that this excuse, if one were needed, was entirely adequate.
To his chagrin, he found that she was not at home.  The maid informed
him further that she had gone to New York for a week.  As he walked
slowly away, he wondered almost resentfully at this sudden
disappearance, as if he felt that she ought to stay in Warwick and
watch the result of her experiment.  But he did not consider that if
the daughters of men would be clothed like the lilies of the field,
they must seek periodically the place most remote from the solitude in
which their models grow.

The week that followed was one in which autumn flung out all her brave
banners in a final pageantry.  The nights were cold and still, with
stars peculiarly brilliant.  Each morning the mists hung like fleecy
cobwebs in the valley, filaments that parted and drifted away at the
touch of the sun, disclosing the magic work of the nocturnal frosts
upon the foliage of the trees.  It seemed to Leigh, looking from his
eyrie, that Nature had never before painted a panorama of such wondrous
beauty.  Here a solitary elm in the meadow below the cliff, in the
region which the collegians called "over the rock," stood forth all
crimson against the green sward; further on, the woods began, masses of
yellow and red maples, with scattered pines and oaks of more sombre
hue, billowing gently upward toward the blue of the distant skyline.

It was now that the young astronomer began to take up once more the
pursuit that had been so long interrupted.  He felt that if he were to
accomplish something, he must begin a series of observations with a
definite end in view.  There was also another motive than the desire of
professional reputation--a wish to increase his worth in Miss
Wycliffe's eyes by achievement.  Her absence from town, though of only
a few days' duration, freed him from the distraction which the very
possibility of seeing her presented, and night after night he ascended
to his watch-tower.

But he presently discovered that it was one thing to take observations
on Mount Hamilton, where no other claims occupied part of his time, and
quite another to watch by night and teach by day.  The bishop was right
in saying that his chief occupation must needs be the teaching of
elementary mathematics to undergraduates.  For any satisfactory
results, prolonged observations must be made from twilight to dawn, and
such periods of wakefulness were impossible when he must present
himself before a class at nine o'clock in the morning.  Not that this
was necessary each day.  His hours were irregular, but the morning
classes were sufficiently numerous to break up the continuity of his
observations, and to render their results unsure.

In this quandary, he ought, perhaps, to have abandoned his purpose and
to have taken up some problem in pure mathematics, but here the
perversity of human nature interposed.  The forbidden, or at least
difficult, road was the one he desired to travel, and he could not make
up his mind to turn back, though he saw no prospect of going far.
Instead, he began to make a few preliminary observations at random, and
enjoyed the sight of the familiar constellations as one enjoys a return
to old faces and associations.  For the present he swept the skies
leisurely, feasting on the infinite wonders which no consuetude could
render commonplace.  He longed for some unusual phenomenon in the
sidereal tracts, a comet, or a temporary star, one of those strange
wanderers that appear for a time, attain a brief and vivid maximum, and
vanish into the darkness from which they have emerged.  But only about
a score of such objects had been credibly reported in historic times,
and he searched the thoroughfare of the Milky Way, the region in which
they were wont to appear, with small hope of reward.

One morning he received a letter from Miss Wycliffe, in which she named
that night, if the skies were clear, for the observation she had
mentioned at the dinner.  He had almost forgotten the wish she then
expressed in the greater importance she seemed to attach to her plan to
help Emmet.  Now he was surprised to discover that this matter, which
had put him to such pains, had apparently slipped from her mind
altogether.  It gave him a conception of the multiplicity of her
interests.  It was as if she could not attend to all her charitable
plans in person, but, having chosen a responsible agent, she dismissed
the subject from her mind.  Nor was he offended that she did not seem
to consider the possibility of his having another engagement.  On the
contrary, the omission might imply her knowledge of the absolute
unimportance to him of any claims compared with those she chose to
make.  Thus his love fed on crumbs invisible to her from whose table
they had inadvertently fallen.

Had he been less infatuated, he might have divined in this omission one
of those unconscious revelations of character--the selfishness of a
spoiled and petted woman, who has come to assume that the convenience
of others must necessarily coincide with her own.  But Leigh saw only a
hint of something confidential between them.  He experienced also that
peculiar intensity of interest which attends a lover's first glimpse of
his mistress's handwriting.  Even if it were commonplace, it would seem
to him like no other in the world; but here there was really something
distinctive.  The letters were almost microscopically small, and
crowded into the centre of the page with the effect of a decorative
panel.  He carried the epistle about with him all day, and observed the
weather with solicitous attention, but no change occurred.  The
turquoise sky remained without a cloud.  Fires from burning leaves sent
up sluggish pillars of smoke, that spread out equilaterally above the
trees in the windless air.

It so happened that he had the afternoon to himself.  The prospect of
inaction was intolerable, so he went down into the cool vaults below
the Hall to take out his wheel for an afternoon of exploration.  In
these subterranean regions, perhaps more here than elsewhere, the
imaginative appeal of the Hall was still present.  As he prepared his
wheel for the trip, which he meant should be a long one, he glanced up
at the arched windows, down whose wide, slanting sills the sunlight
poured in a flood of dusty gold.  The walls of these foundations were
five feet in thickness, built as if to keep out an invading host.  Even
in this unfrequented place, each stone was carefully cut, and fitted
with exact nicety in its place.  There was no rubble, no mere filling.
Here was a lavishness of expenditure, a conscience in building, rare in
modern times.  Leigh looked down the long succession of massive
archways, dwindling into the distance, with vague thoughts of the
Castle of Chillon and the Man with the Iron Mask.  When he ascended
again into the warmth and sunlight of the open air, he had a passing
sense of having emerged from a brief incarceration.

He pushed his bicycle through the maple walk to the brow of the hill
from which he had first looked over the valley toward the west.  There
in the distance the village he had noted sparkled like a handful of
white dice thrown carelessly down against the earth.  He fixed upon
this point as the terminus of his ride, and began to coast down the
long slope, leaving a trail of grey dust to mark his flight.  There was
a peculiar exhilaration in the dry heat of the October afternoon.
Flocks of crows passed over his head with raucous cries.  The
cornstalks were stacked in serried array, like Indian wigwams, and
heaps of apples, red and yellow and russet brown, lay ungathered in the
orchards.

Through this rich and varied scene he sped swiftly, filled with all a
Westerner's keen appreciation of a New England landscape, constantly
contrasting the arid glories of deserts he had seen with the plenty
about him.  The farms of the fertile tracts of California were
infinitely greater, the methods by which they were worked more modern,
but about these smaller homesteads hung an atmosphere of history and
romance.  Leigh might champion the West in the presence of the bishop,
but now, alone with his own thoughts, he paid tribute to the land in
which the liberties of his country had been cradled.  He seemed to have
known it of old, though he now saw it for the first time.  This
experience was not a discovery, but a reacquaintance.  From these old
farmhouses, with their sagging roof-trees and windows filled with small
panes, the minute men had issued with their muskets to repel the
invader.  At yonder sweep-well some English soldier had perhaps stopped
in his dusty retreat for a drink of water, and had paid the penalty of
his life for the delay.  Above all, the fact that this was the native
country of the woman he loved was ever present in his mind to add
radiance to the afternoon.

At a point where the road took a sudden dip and curved in a wide sweep
toward the southwest, his attention was arrested by an old house that
lay nestled in the bend as in an encircling arm.  The colour had once
been red, but was now faded by many suns and washed thin by innumerable
rains.  A rampart of loose stones, overgrown with brambles and broken
in places as if for the passage of cattle, enclosed the premises, and
the typical well of the country lifted its curving pole in the front
yard only a few feet from the roadway.  Two women were seated on the
worn stone slab in the opening that served for a gate, evidently
basking in the afternoon sun and engaged in desultory chat.  When Leigh
dismounted from his wheel and asked for a drink of water, they moved
slightly to let him pass, and he went up to the well to help himself.
He lowered and raised the dripping bucket, not without awkwardness and
a sense of pleasure in the unaccustomed task, as well as a memory of
the poem which had immortalized that simple operation.  It required
only a casual glance about to see that this was a poultry farm.  At the
back of the house he saw a number of chicken runs, where a man was
engaged in repair work.  The air was filled with the comfortable
clucking of hens, the most cheerful of country sounds.  From his
present slight elevation he had a view also of the trolley line which
bisected the farm and crossed the road a few yards further on.

As he paused, before going on his way, to thank the women for their
courtesy, he was struck, as he had not been at first, by the appearance
of the younger.  So delicate she seemed, so daintily dressed, that he
wondered to find her in this rustic setting.  In her lap she held a
small basket of eggs, and he guessed correctly that she was a visitor,
waiting for the next car to Warwick.  He asked the distance to his
destination, and from her appeal to the older woman he learned that
they were mother and daughter.  During these few moments he began to
realise that she might well be called a beauty, though her pale,
ethereal type was not one that made a personal appeal to him.  Her
whole figure was steept in sunshine, and as her lips parted in a smile,
he noticed how the strong rays penetrated her cheeks, filling her mouth
with a faint pink light and intensifying the whiteness of her teeth.
Just so they penetrated the shells of the white eggs in her basket.

This picture remained with him for some time.  The girl had appeared
almost as fragile as the burden she carried, and suggested a train of
thought concerning a certain type of New Englander whose strength is
spent.  It was such people, he reflected, who still clung to the old
soil whence the sturdier representatives of the stock had long since
departed, destined to give way at last to the swarming Polack, the
French Canadian, and the Italian.  The thought was melancholy, and
coloured to no little extent the remainder of his ride.  This incident,
which was only one of several, was afterward revived to win a permanent
place in his memory when he came to know the girl as Lena Harpster; for
her part in the drama of the immediate future was destined to be
connected strangely with his own.

Seven o'clock found him again upon the tower, setting the telescope in
order and preparing for his guests.  He could scarcely expect them for
an hour, but he walked restlessly about the enclosure of the parapet,
breathing gratefully the cool night air.  The lamp within his cabin
shone dimly through the small windows upon his promenade.  Beyond the
battlements to the east, the evening star, which the Roman poet called
Noctifer, began to bicker and brighten in the serene sky, and the last
vestige of the sun's afterglow had now faded from the west.  It was
already as dark as a summer midnight.  Small and continuous sounds came
floating up from the city beyond.  Immediately below he heard the
occasional voices of students passing on the stone walk, and from the
meadows on the west came the melancholy hoot of an owl.

Accustomed though he had been to lonely vigils, he was impressed by the
juxtaposition of the minute and the infinitely vast, of the transient
and the eternal.  He stood looking for some time at the track of the
Milky Way, till his gaze plunged into one of those abysms of blackness
where no star shines, and the ghastliness of the distance suggested
flooded in upon him.  This lost and shivering sensation, when the world
itself seems to shrink away and send the watcher spinning into the
void, is vouchsafed to the astronomer only at rare moments, and from it
an escape is offered by exact and intricate calculations.  Even figures
that climb into the millions, incomprehensible as they may be, offer
some consolation to microscopic man; but when this consolation is
withdrawn, as it was withdrawn from Leigh for the moment, he stands, as
it were, annihilated by immensity.

Lost in this mood, the voice of Emmet came to his ears with a shock, a
mere succession of sounds with scarce a meaning.

"Hello, professor!  Are you up here star-gazing?  I saw the door open
at the foot of the stairs, and followed my nose till I found you,
though it's a wonder I did n't break it, for my matches gave out two
flights below."

The incongruity of this interruption was almost as great as a shout of
laughter at a funeral, and Leigh experienced a reaction akin to
hilarity.

"I 'm glad to see you," he returned, "for I had rather given you up
till after the election."

"I just dropped in for a few minutes' chat," his visitor explained.
"There's something doing later.  It's funny that I have n't been up to
the Hall once in the last ten years, and now I 've come twice in a
week.  When I was a kid, I used to hang around the edge of the campus,
over there by the bishop's statue, and listen to the band on
Commencement Day.  Sometimes I used to crawl in under the fence to
baseball games, too.  St. George's put up a gilt-edged article of ball
in those days."

"I remember hearing that they had a star year, when they beat
everything in sight."

Emmet remembered the year in question, and the very names of the chief
players, who were enshrined in his mind as only an athletic hero can be
enshrined in the imagination of the normal boy.  As he chatted on about
his early impressions of the Hall, his listener became aware that he
regarded their first interview as the doorway of a friendship into
which he had now entered.  A knowledge of this fact smote Leigh with
some compunction, for he had been so much absorbed in his own ulterior
purpose as to regard this man in the light of a means toward its
accomplishment.  Now Emmet stood before him again, haying taken him at
his word, innocent of his original position as a pawn in another's
game.  He was not one who deserved to be so regarded, and Leigh felt
this, though a greater interest had hitherto interfered with his
appreciation.  There was an element of discovery in this second meeting
that was not unwelcome.  Emmet's implied acceptance of his friendship
suddenly added a new interest to his life, and served to enrich for him
the city of Warwick, which until now had appeared a somewhat nebulous
place, where only one spot glowed with warmth and light.

"Come into my shanty here," he said heartily.  "I want to show you
something I think will interest you.  Have you ever looked at the
stars?"

"On the street corner, at ten cents a look," Emmet answered.

"Then this will be something of a revelation to you.  Miss Wycliffe is
going to bring up a party to-night to use the telescope, but it's early
yet."

The other made no comment upon this statement, and the reason of his
silence remained obscure; whether it were due to indifference, or to a
fear of disclosing a cherished emotion.  It seemed more likely that the
latter was the true explanation, and Leigh already knew his visitor
well enough to be prepared for sudden streaks of reticence or
secretiveness.  The fact that he had discouraged his previous advances
on the subject of Miss Wycliffe was enough to explain this present
silence, but he felt that Emmet was acutely conscious of her impending
arrival.  He could not help wondering also whether he would linger
deliberately until she should come.  Speculating thus, he sat down in
the chair and trained the telescope upon Saturn.

"There," he said, rising.  "What do you make of that?"

"I see a star," Emmet answered after a while, "with a ring of mist
around it--two rings."

"There are four, at least," said Leigh; "but the inner and intermediate
rings are dark.  A better instrument would show a greenish hue.  There
are eight satellites besides.  You can imagine what sort of moonlit
nights they have in Saturn, supposing that any one lives there to enjoy
them."

Emmet drew a deep breath of wonder, and it was evident that his
unimaginative mind was struggling with new conceptions.  There was a
gleam of humour in his eyes which contrasted oddly with the suggestion
of awe in his voice, as he looked up and answered: "It must be a great
place for lovers, professor.  And how far away might it be?"

"Let me see--something over eight hundred and eighty millions of miles
from the sun.  Its distance from us depends"--

"Never mind," Emmet put in.  "A few million miles more or less don't
bother me any.  It makes things down here seem rather small, does n't
it?  Politics, for example."

"It has the effect of readjusting our perspective a little," Leigh
admitted.  "I wanted to show you that planet at this time, because it
is now at its best.  If you waited another seven or eight years, you
would see it only as a ball, for the rings would then be edgewise to
the plane of your vision.  Twice in about thirty years the rings seem
to disappear, and twice they fan out to their largest extent.  You 'll
never see them broader than now."

Without a word Emmet turned back to the telescope.

"You can imagine," Leigh continued, sure of his listener's interest,
"how that change puzzled the earlier astronomers.  They thought that
Saturn was merely a central ball with two handles, like the handles of
a soup tureen; and when Galileo watched them grow thinner and thinner
and at last disappear, he wondered whether Saturn had devoured his own
children, as he expressed it.  It was n't until fifty years later that
a Dutchman named Huygens discovered the real cause of the variation.
You don't mind a few excerpts from my lectures?  But wait a minute; let
me show you something else."

It was long after eight o'clock, so imperceptibly did the time slip
away, when they emerged from the cabin, and Emmet prepared to go.
Leigh looked at his watch, and realised with a quickening of his pulses
that the visit so eagerly anticipated must be imminent, that Miss
Wycliffe might even now be coming up the stairs.  What if she had come,
and, failing to find him below to guide her, had gone away offended?
At the thought, he rushed back into the cabin and lighted the lantern
which he used for his transits up and down the tower.  When he came out
again, he found that Emmet, instead of going, had drifted over to the
western parapet, where he stood looking through an embrasure, as if the
later engagement of which he had spoken were his last concern.

"My other visitors will be coming soon," Leigh explained, "and I must
go to light them up the stairs."

He thought of the probable composition of the party, and reflected that
it would simplify the situation if Emmet should go before their
arrival.  But his visitor failed to accept his implied suggestion.  Was
he dazed by the immensities into which he had looked, or did he form a
sullen resolve to remain and meet that society against which he had so
bitterly inveighed?  Leigh knew that he could count on Miss Wycliffe's
friendliness and upon her tact in meeting a situation, but he guessed
that, if her companions were of like mind with the bishop, his present
guest might be made to feel that he was an intruder.

"Just look at that car over in the valley," Emmet called, without
turning.  "It crawls through the darkness like an illuminated
centipede."

Leigh was struck by the comparison, and in spite of his impatience, he
went over and glanced through another depression in the wall.  At the
moment of turning away he was arrested by the distant panting of a
motor-car far down the boulevard that skirted the cliff.  Instinctively
he waited to see it pass, as one waits for the passing of a train.
Turning his eyes in the direction of the sound, which ascended with
startling distinctness through the night air, he presently saw a gleam
shoot above the hill; and now the great touring-car came on at
breakneck pace, searching the dusty highway a hundred yards in advance
with a clean pencil-shaft of light.

He was far from suspecting that he was watching the arrival of his
visitors.  It was not among his anticipations that Miss Wycliffe might
come swooping down upon the college in this fashion, and moreover the
machine was speeding from a direction directly opposite to that in
which she lived.  In fact, it was headed for the city from the open
country beyond.  His astonishment was great, therefore, when the car
came to a sudden stop at the base of the tower, and the occupants
fairly tumbled out in a gale of merriment and talk.  In the babel of
sounds Miss Wycliffe's voice detached itself, by its peculiar quality
rather than by its power, causing his heart to vibrate as a string
trembles to the touch.

"Mr. Cobbens," she cried gaily, "I believe you were bent on breaking
our necks!"

"I 'm for walking home," came a man's voice.

There were no students' rooms directly over them, but to the north and
south windows were flung open and heads peered curiously forth.

"Hush!" said another of the party.  "Don't wake up the children."

This sally was greeted with another burst of mirth, and then the
star-gazers filed through a small postern door in the walled-up arch
that was one day to be opened wide for the passage of a road.  Leigh
took up his lantern, only to find that in his haste he had unwittingly
turned out the flame.  A puff of wind extinguished his match, and he
was obliged to reenter the cabin for shelter from the draught.  Owing
to this delay, he had scarcely begun to descend before he heard the
voices of his guests growing louder in their progress from below.

About midway he saw them coming across the platform immediately below
him, the bishop's daughter in the lead with a tall wax candle in her
hand.  As she ascended the stairs, the light of the candle gave her
uplifted face the effect of a delicate cameo set in a frame of
radiating gold.  Her lips were parted, her breath came fast, and her
eyes were wondrous in their dark brilliancy.  Rarely beautiful as the
picture was, Leigh received no impression of a "missioned spirit rising
unawares," for as her wrap slipped down from her shoulders, she
suggested rather that goddess who floated into the light one April day
on the crest of a wave.  Apparently she was in a most gracious mood,
and not inclined to hold him to account.  She did not wait to learn the
reason of his detention above.

"Don't apologise, please," she panted, "for we got along capitally.
Dr. Cardington gave me this candle, but declined to come with us.  I
thought he quite resented our intrusion, and was anxious to pass us up
without delay."  Then, turning to her companions with whimsical
imperiousness, "Stand in a row, the whole class, till I introduce you
to your new instructor."

The dimness of the light and Leigh's perturbation of mind at the
thought of Emmet made his impression of the personnel of the party so
vague that he might have passed most of them the following day without
recognition.  They had evidently dined well, and were finishing a gay
evening with a flying visit to the college observatory.  Only the
personality of Cobbens was salient in the group, and would have been so
even if Leigh's curiosity concerning the man had not been previously
aroused.

"We're too frivolous for Cardington," he said, taking off his cap and
mopping his brow.  "I'm glad to meet you, sir.  This is a spooky place,
the ideal place for a man to hang himself in.  I spent four years in
the Hall and never came up here before.  I knew and loved your
predecessor, as all the fellows did.  The old gentleman may not have
been well up in astronomy,--I don't know anything about that,--but he
was well up in the psychology of boys.  He left a big place behind him,
which we 're not likely to see filled in a hurry."

During this address he continued to shake Leigh's hand with an apparent
cordiality that contrasted strongly with his final innuendo, but now
their hands fell apart with mutual repulsion.  Leigh had been
prejudiced against the lawyer beforehand, and his first remarks at
their introduction contained a grisly jest and an implied slight.  But
these things only paved the way to the final cause of distrust--the
fashion of the man himself.  He was unprepossessing in every line.  His
thin, pale face widened rapidly, like a top, to a broad and shining
pate, which looked not so much bald as half naked below its sparse
covering of reddish hair.  His eyes were glimmering and of an
indeterminate colour.  Yet his voice was not unattractive in its
persuasive intonation, and his manner was friendly almost to the verge
of effusiveness.  Whatever might be his demerits from a physical point
of view, he lacked the general air of inconsequence that characterised
most of his companions.  He conveyed unmistakably the assurance of a
certain malign power.  One felt that his normal method of locomotion
was the mole's, but that sooner or later he would thrust his head above
the soil at the top of the hill.

As they emerged upon the roof, they came face to face with Emmet.

"Hello!" Cobbens cried, as the two men shook hands.  "Are you taking a
course in astronomy too?"

"Yes," replied the other, "and I'm just about going."

Their mutual cordiality of manner, somewhat in excess of the
requirements of conventional courtesy, struck Leigh with a sense of the
ridiculous.  He had not anticipated a scene, but he had looked for some
coldness and restraint.  The other visitors, with a curious glance in
passing, spread out over the roof or entered the cabin, but the
bishop's daughter remained behind.  She shifted the candle to her left
hand, and offered her right to her _protégé_ with charming courtesy.

"Has Mr. Leigh been casting your horoscope?" she asked, smiling.  "I
hope he found your star in the ascendant."

Leigh did not wonder that Emmet appeared dazzled, or that his bold eyes
were a shade less bold in their embarrassed admiration.

"Thank you, Miss Wycliffe--I think we shall win."

"I hope so," she returned, with a momentary side-long look at Cobbens.
The lawyer's eyes were upon her, and as Leigh caught their hungry
glimmer, he remembered with a sharp contraction of the heart that he
was a widower, and that sometimes the most hideous men possess a
compelling fascination for women of great beauty.

"Oh, astrology is out of date," Cobbens broke in, with an easy chuckle.
"Isn't it, professor?"

"Yes," Leigh retorted, "but I believe politics is not."

The laughter with which this remark was greeted indicated the real
tension that underlay all this appearance of good feeling.

"Politics is never out of date," Emmet declared, with grim emphasis,
"as we mean to show you soon."

"Politics is like poker," Cobbens commented sententiously.  "Just now
we 're raising the ante, but presently there 'll be a show down, and
may the best hand win."

"We ask nothing better," Emmet assured him, moving toward the stairs.
"Good-night.  I must be off."

"Wait a moment!" Miss Wycliffe called after him.  "Here--take this
candle to light your way, and may good luck go with it."

Emmet had already begun to descend the stairs when her voice arrested
him.  He turned as she approached, and because of his lower position
her form hid him entirely from the view of the two men she had just
left.  Leigh saw the fur edge of her wrap standing out like a mist
against the flaring light of the candle as she stooped to hand it down,
and he thought she lingered longer than was absolutely necessary, as if
to speak some parting words of encouragement.  The impression that
further words had passed between them was so disquieting, in view of
his suspicion of Emmet's audacity, that he was fain to believe himself
mistaken.  It seemed that Cobbens also had lost nothing of this
incident, for when she returned, he regarded her with as much
disapproval as he dared to show.

"You 'll turn the poor beggar's head, Miss Wycliffe," he said.  "It's a
mistaken kindness.  His fall will be all the greater for your whim."

"Sometimes beggars get on horseback," she retorted coolly, "and then
they keep on riding."

Leigh's knowledge of the lawyer's career enabled him to appreciate the
sharpness of this remark, but Cobbens was more adroit than he could
have thought possible in the face of such a taunt.

"Well, when that poor beggar tries to mount the political horse, he 'll
get thrown so hard that he 'll never try it again."

Miss Wycliffe vouchsafed no reply, but turned toward the cabin, and
they followed her in silence.  During the subsequent session about the
telescope, Leigh was not surprised to find that she domineered over her
friends, or that they accepted her tyranny without question.  In her
self-appointed office of the instructor's assistant, she gave this one
or that the chair, until the young astronomer thought it high time to
protest.

"I insist upon your taking a look yourself," he said.  "I have
something of peculiar interest reserved for you."  And he trained the
instrument upon Castor, in the constellation of the Twins.  She took
the chair and looked for a tantalising length of time in silence, while
with one hand she waved off the questions and impatience of the others.
He bent over her, almost oblivious of their presence.  "It's a double
star, you see.  What do you think of it?"

"Beautiful!" she answered.  "I wondered why I was seeing double.  Tell
us about it."

"They are two suns in one sphere, swinging on through space side by
side.  Two centuries of calculations have brought out the fact that it
takes forty-four years for the light of Castor to reach us, and that a
thousand years are consumed in one circuit of its orbit."

"I must admit," she said, looking up at him with a mysterious splendour
in her eyes, in which there yet lurked a suspicion of humour, "that a
thousand years gives me a shiver."

Up to this time the moral atmosphere of the room had by no means
attained the level reached by Leigh and Emmet alone, not only because
of the restless presence of Cobbens, which refused to harmonise with
the idea of sublimity, but also because, in any such gathering, the
tendency is downward toward the plane of the most frivolous and
common-place person present.  The jest about the class, intermittently
revived, had reduced the stars to pretty baubles or, at most, to the
fairy lamps of fanciful verse, in spite of figures of distance that
grew more and more stupendous.  But now a sudden hush fell upon them;
it might have been a tardy appreciation, or the mere emotional reaction
from little talk.  For the moment Leigh forgot that they were not
alone, and almost unconsciously he spoke the thought that had flashed
from her eyes to his: "A thousand years in thy sight are but as
yesterday, seeing that it is past as a watch in the night."

The situation had grown suddenly and unexpectedly dramatic.  It was as
if a troupe of revellers had torn aside a curtain in their mad rush,
and had come face to face with the silence and blackness of an abyss.
Miss Wycliffe rose from the chair as if starting back from such a
vision, and though her tone, when she spoke, was light, it was
apparently so by design.

"If you insist upon quoting from the Burial Service, Mr. Leigh, I shall
take it as a hint to go home at once."

"And it's time we did," Cobbens put in.  "We 're much obliged to you,
sir.  We 've had a charming time, and owe you a vote of thanks."

When Leigh had lighted them downstairs, he ascended once more to his
cabin, tortured by an acute self-consciousness.  The evening had been
far from satisfactory; never had the difference between anticipation
and realisation been more impressively illustrated.  In his afternoon
dreams he had not considered Miss Wycliffe's companions, except as
shadows, and it was they who had disturbed what would otherwise have
been a charmed atmosphere.  His quotation would have been natural had
he been alone with the woman he loved, but in that company it seemed
inept and melodramatic, deserving the rebuke she so easily
administered.  In his humiliation he thought that he must have appeared
extremely youthful in her eyes, one who could not conceal his emotions
before the gaze of the curious and shallow.  Could he have overheard
the conversation which took place between Cobbens and Miss Wycliffe on
their way home, his distress would have been in no way lightened.

The lawyer allowed the machine to run more slowly, that its jar and
noise might not drown his voice.

"Your friend with the comet-coloured hair," he began, "will never fit
into the life of St. George's Hall.  I can see he has n't the true Hall
traditions or spirit."

She was apparently more interested in his views than inclined to
express her own.  If she reflected at all upon the speaker's lack of
that physical distinction which he selected in Leigh for the exercise
of his wit, and if she derived some enjoyment from an understanding of
his resentment, she kept it to herself.

"What makes you think so?" she asked serenely.  "What was he doing with
that Tom Emmet up there?" he demanded, by way of answer.  "In my day,
the professors of the Hall were more select in the company they kept."

"Times have changed since then," she commented, "and the world has
grown democratic."

He suspected her mood of mockery, but his intelligence could not hold
his spleen in check.

"Yes," he went on malevolently, "I suppose it has; and soon we shall
have a lot of muckers in the college instead of the gentlemen that used
to go there in my day.  So that's the prize poor old Renshaw drew from
the Western grab-bag!  It's too bad your father was away."

"Is n't it?" she assented.  "But then, you know, he is here on a year's
appointment, and perhaps he will leave in the spring."

"I can't understand," he resumed, "how he came to know Tom Emmet, of
all men, in this short time, and how he happened to have him up there
on the tower."

As she seemed unable to throw any light upon this mystery, he was left
to grapple with it alone.




CHAPTER VIII

"WHAT MAKES HER IN THE WOOD SO LATE?"

The City Hall in Warwick was a three-storied brick building of
dignified Colonial style, built during Washington's first
administration.  The foundations had settled somewhat, as more than one
crack, zig-zagging upward from window to window, bore witness; and many
an iron clamp had stained the walls, suggesting to the sentimental mind
that the old building was weeping rusty tears over the degeneracy of
the times.  However, the Hall was only in the first stages of an old
age that might be described as green, for the huge beams were sound to
the core, and the figure of a Roman lady still stood firmly upon the
cupola, extending with one chubby arm the impartial scales of Justice.

About a block to the south, and across the street, surrounded by rows
of crumbling gravestones carved with quaint epitaphs and heads of
ghastly cherubs, stood the First Church.  Any stranger, carried hither
in a magic trunk and asked to name that corner of the world in which he
found himself, would have glanced but once at the four white pillars of
the First Church and once at the venerable City Hall, before answering
that he was in the heart of New England.  No one could fail to identify
the architecture of these two characteristic edifices, or of the shops
whose roofs slanted toward the street; no one could mistake the speech
and countenance of many a passer-by.  Evidences of modernity, buildings
that might have been anywhere else, were not lacking; but these huge
piles of iron and stone served only to bring into sharper contrast the
remnants of an earlier civilisation.

As one looked up and down the curving street, the thing that
immediately attracted his attention was a succession of church steeples
or cupolas that broke the roof-lines at almost regular intervals, and
the fashion of these structures left no doubt in the mind that Warwick,
in spite of foreign immigration, was still a stronghold of Puritanism.
All suggestion of Romish or Episcopalian tradition was scrupulously
avoided, even to the omission of the cross and the substitution of a
weather-vane or gamecock.  Only one church told a different story.  At
some distance north of the City Hall a gothic edifice in brown stone,
with a beautiful square tower of elaborate design, gave a touch of
colour and richness to a vista otherwise somewhat cold and bare.  This
was St. George's Church, whose vestry, in the days when it required
some degree of heroism to be an Episcopalian in that uncongenial
atmosphere, had founded St. George's Hall.  The present edifice, though
numbering seventy-five years of life, was young compared with the First
Church; and the lapse of time had not served to alter their respective
positions in the community.  In Warwick the Episcopalians were still a
small minority; they were still the dissenters of this dissenting
commonwealth.

Around the City Hall, which a pious care had preserved in spite of its
present inadequacy, circled an almost unbroken procession of
trolley-cars; for this point was the very centre of the web of tracks
whose various termini were pegged out here and there in the
neighbouring towns.  It might be added that this spot was enshrined in
the heart of every loyal citizen of Warwick as the true umbilicus of
the visible universe.

In the eyes of Llewellyn Leigh, however, the place had no such mystic
significance.  On the afternoon following the visit of Miss Wycliffe to
the tower, he had walked hither from the college, down the long,
winding street on whose well-worn pavements the yellowing leaves of the
elms threw a sheen like gold.  He had noted many a colonial house built
close to the sidewalk in the original New England fashion; he had seen
glimpses of deep back gardens; but his appreciative attitude of the
previous afternoon was gone, giving way to mild melancholy, such a mood
as is sometimes induced by the perusal of an old romance dear to the
youth of one's grandparents.  The experience of the previous night had
some hand in this disillusion.  Some of the dissatisfaction with which
it had left him still hung about his spirit, and drove him on in a
vague search for diversion.  He stood in front of the City Hall and
watched the open cars go by, then took one, almost at random, that bore
the label of Evergreen Park.  As soon as he had swung himself aboard,
he found that he was sitting beside Emmet, and the meeting was not
altogether welcome in his present self-absorption.  Emmet also seemed
somewhat subdued as he asked him his destination, but he suspected that
this impression might be merely a reflection of himself.

"I 'm going wherever this car goes," he answered.  "Evergreen Park, is
n't it?  I 'm gradually exploring the surrounding country, and one
direction will do as well as another.  But where are you bound for?"

"Politics," Emmet said briefly.  Whether he had left the tower the
previous evening with a sore heart and was inclined to identify his new
friend with his old enemy, or whether he was merely occupied with his
own thoughts, Leigh now felt that his manner really exhibited some
constraint.  He was a man of keen intuitions, and divined a
sensitiveness on his companion's part in regard to the rather
inglorious figure he had cut, in spite of Miss Wycliffe's openly
expressed interest.  After all, might not this interest of hers savour
of ostentatious patronage?  At this thought he experienced a kind of
fellow-feeling for the candidate, a change of emotion which his manner
was quick to register.  His interest in politics was the academic
interest of the typical Mugwump he had confessed himself to be, and too
much confined to an occasional vote of protest.  He had never attended
a primary meeting in his life, always having been too busy with his own
career to realise this duty, and too nomadic in his habits to acquire a
personal interest in local affairs.  To him politics was the pastime of
the rich, who could afford it, or the business of the poor, who used it
as a means of support.  The very word, as Emmet used it, conveyed an
impression to his mind like that which Borrow received when his gipsy
friends mentioned the mysterious "business of Egypt."  He made a
comment that drew his companion on to speak of Cobbens with his former
bitterness, though in a smothered tone, as if he feared some chance
listener in the car that was now filling rapidly.

"But you'll find nothing doing in the park," Emmet said presently, with
an abrupt change of subject.  "The season has just closed, and there is
n't a person on the place."

"So much the better," Leigh answered.  "I 'm not in the mood for
merry-go-rounds and picnickers."

The seat became crowded to the point of discomfort, and Emmet, with a
significant look, went back to join the conductor on the platform.
Leigh interpreted the look to mean that some of the political business
on which he was bent lay with this man, and their earnest conversation
confirmed his impression.  Left alone, he took Emmet's place at the end
of the seat and began to watch the passing scene.  The car swung down a
steep street and crossed a long bridge over the river, from which he
had a view of a wide blue basin, where a score of little yachts lay
motionless as floating gulls.  In the other direction several sand-bars
showed brown, ribbed backs, sparsely covered with coarse grass, and
Leigh wished that he could find himself dropped upon one of them, that
he might have the pleasure of wading ashore.  The fancy put him in a
better frame of mind, and the afternoon began to brighten.  In front of
him the open country beckoned, and before committing himself to it, he
turned for a farewell look at Warwick.  The city stood upon the high
river wall, roof above roof shimmering in the hazy light, every line of
chimney, spire, and tower softened by the distance, like a blurred
etching against a pale blue background.

The country was similar to that through which he had passed the day
before, only now the quality of the air was a little more drowsy, the
quietude more absolute, and he awoke to the fact that the Indian Summer
had begun.  The car had gone about four miles before Emmet returned,
and so absorbed had Leigh become that his reappearance was a surprise.
They were now at the top of a long hill, from the summit of which the
country fell away till it rose again far off in dark purple ridges of
low mountains.

"I am reminded of California by that sky-line," Leigh remarked.  "Only
out there you see no patches of gorgeous foliage like those yonder.
The autumn comes on by imperceptible gradations.  The first thing you
know, the leaves have shrivelled and gone."

"The park lies down there in the valley," Emmet said, on whom the
comparison had evidently made no impression.  "There's nothing to see,
though, at this time of year.  Why don't you go on to Pitkinton and
visit the silk mills?"

"Because I 'm determined to explore the park," Leigh answered.  He was
not one to be swerved from his purpose by another's persistence; in
fact, any effort in such a direction usually had an opposite effect.
"I have no desire to see a lot of men working over machinery to-day who
ought to be out enjoying the Indian Summer," he explained.  "I'll
reserve the mills for some other time."

The car came to a stop at a switch before a rustic gate, and they got
off together.  It occurred to Leigh that possibly he had been a little
short with Emmet, somewhat unsympathetic with his practical and
industrial interests.  If this were so, it was merely because he
realised the uselessness of explaining the peculiar intoxication of his
mood, for he suspected that the other would regard such emotions as fit
only for women and poets.  "You might come for a walk with me," he
suggested.  "The exercise would do you good."

Emmet hesitated, as if he considered the proposition seriously, looking
down the track at the approaching car for which their own was waiting.
"No," he said slowly.  "I must be getting back to town, and there's one
of the boys on this car that I want to see."

"Some other time, then," said Leigh.  "There are n't any bandits in
these woods, are there?"

"You 'd better keep your gun handy," Emmet answered.  "Well, take care
of yourself."

Leigh had by this time reached the wicket gate, where he turned a
moment to catch Emmet's friendly wave of the hand.  A few steps more,
and the woods enclosed him like a wall.  He heard the diminishing buzz
of the returning car with a sense of relief and escape, for he was
pleased that his invitation had not been accepted.  In his mind
lingered a feeling that he and Emmet had not been able to meet this
afternoon quite as before, but the feeling vanished with the
disappearance of the car, leaving him merely glad of the solitude.
Soon he came to a spring, a placid basin of water canopied by an
artificial grotto of rock, and kneeling down he gazed intently at his
own reflection.  But no thought of Narcissus, or of Horace's fountain
of Bandusia, intervened to substitute literary memories for the reality
of sensation; he was too genuine a lover of nature to interpret it in
the terms of letters.

Down at the bottom of the pool the water welled up in slow puffs, as if
the ground were panting, stirring dead sticks and withered leaves, and
presently, in the spokes of light that radiated from the reflection of
his head, he descried a frog resting motionless below him.  He
disturbed the water, so transparent that he could not tell when his
fingers would enter it, and the frog was gone like a grey streak,
leaving little swirls like dust where its feet had touched the bottom
in its flight.  The only thought that floated through his mind as he
knelt there was one concerning the infinitely small in nature.  The
place, he knew, was swarming with unseen life, creatures compared with
which the frog was a devouring monster of colossal proportions; and he
reflected that the immeasurable spaces of the sky were not more
wonderful than they.

Having taken a deep drink, he continued on his way, noting that here
beneath the trees the afternoon seemed several hours advanced beyond
the time of the sunny open, for the shadows were like twilight.  Below
the path, crossed and recrossed by rustic bridges, ran a small rivulet.
The gurgling of its miniature falls, like the sound of water coming
from the neck of a jug, the occasional cawing of a crow, and the
snapping of twigs beneath his feet were the only interruptions to the
silence.  Here was a sudden hushed restfulness, as grateful as the
draught of water he had drunk at the spring.

The rivulet ended in a broader stream, on whose bank he found a long,
low boat-house already locked and abandoned.  A wooden bridge ran
across to the opposite shore, where a large dancing-pavilion stood,
waiting for the snow to follow the drifting leaves through the open
windows.  A path which skirted this larger stream to the left promised
more seclusion than the way across the bridge and decided his choice.
On the bosom of the water were scattered the wrecks of what had
recently been a beautiful bed of Egyptian lotos.  Here, where all had
been glistening greenness with splashes of yellow blossoms, attenuated
stalks lifted what looked like crumpled fragments of brown paper, which
quivered in a breeze too light to move the surface of the stream.  Here
alone the fingers of the frost had left a blight, like that of flames,
and had denied to their destructive work the glamour of a funeral pall,
dealing death without pomp or circumstance.

The trees crept down and almost thrust him at times into the water
which lay at his feet, black from the vegetation in its bed and
reflecting on its brimming surface bright patches of colour from the
foliage on the opposite shore.  Here and there a stricken tree was
duplicated by a long white image that seemed to point like a finger to
the depths below.  Apparently there was no current, and this lack of
motion, combined with the blackness of the water and the sombreness of
the woods, produced an effect in striking contrast with the blue and
sunny river he had first crossed, its floating boats and scattered
sand-bars.

At length the trail took a sudden turn into the woods.  The oaks and
elms gave way to a grove of pines, and the tangled jungle of
undergrowth was replaced by a slippery carpet of brown needles.  The
path climbed upward until it ended in a comparatively open space, and
there, under the branches of a pine, her white hands clasped upon her
knees, he saw a woman sitting alone.  If a hamadryad had suddenly
thrust her head around the bole of a tree and looked him full in the
face, he would not have been more astonished, so absolute was his sense
of utter loneliness; but when he saw that the figure was that of Miss
Wycliffe, he stood like one transfixed and deprived of the power of
speech.  This was like a wild freak of his fancy, and he could scarcely
believe the vision real.  The surprise appeared to be entirely on his
side, for she smiled as if the meeting were a matter of course, or one
of appointment.  Undoubtedly she had been listening to his approach for
some time, and had seen him first.

"Well, Mr. Leigh," she called, "I hope I did n't frighten you.  You
started as if you had seen a ghost."

He came forward, laughing.  "So you are one of the bandits Emmet told
me of!  He said the woods were full of them."

"Emmet," she repeated.  "Did you come out with him?  I did n't know he
was on this line."

"He is n't on any line at present.  He has thrown up his job entirely
for politics.  That seemed to be what he came out for.  I left him on
the platform waiting for the down car, which he said was run by 'one of
the boys' whom he wanted to see."  After a slight hesitation he added:
"I tried to persuade him to come with me, but I 'm glad now he did n't."

The frank friendliness of her gaze betrayed no acceptance of his
meaning.  "And how did our experiment come out?" she asked.  "I
inferred from his presence with you last night that you had struck up
some sort of a friendship.  I thought you would."  She motioned him to
be seated with her characteristic suggestion of imperiousness.  "Sit
down, do, and tell me all about it.  You 've come just in time for my
little picnic, though I 'm afraid the friend I expected has failed me.
You 'll get nothing to eat, however, but this basket of Concord grapes
which I picked up on the way."  And she thrust it forward with a smile
of invitation.

He threw himself down at her feet, and having selected a cluster of the
purple fruit, he held it up admiringly to the light.

"I did n't see any one on the car except the usual suburbanites," he
remarked.  "But would n't you be afraid out here all alone, with no men
to protect you?"  He wondered who the friend might be, but was too much
pleased with his own good fortune to give it more than a passing
thought.

"I believe we ought to be," she confessed, "but we 're not.  The truth
is, we like to get far away from civilisation and exchange confidences.
Warwick is a great whispering-gallery, full of tale-bearing bats that
peep and mutter."

He lifted his head and listened.  "Did you get that faint lift of the
breeze in the pines just then?  Now it's gone; but it was just like the
distant sound of the surf.  If my eyes were shut, I should think myself
by the shore."

"Oh, I 've been listening to nothing else for the last half hour," she
returned, "and I much prefer the sound of a human voice.  Too much of
nature frightens me.  You see I have no soul."

"You 've too much soul, perhaps," he amended.  "If you had less, you
would be impervious to such suggestions.  But I know what you mean.
However, we were talking about our friend Emmet, and your description
of Warwick reminded me of his animadversions on the place.  But let me
go back to the beginning for a fair start, and tell you how I managed
to get hold of him."  He described the events of the morning following
the dinner and the visit Emmet had paid him in the evening, putting in
the personal detail with an instinctive knowledge of a woman's demand
for such things.  Her evident appreciation rewarded him.  She had
something to say of the captain who had helped him in his effort, and
at many a point in their talk the congeniality of their minds became
evident.  "You know how Emmet feels about the college, and about
colleges in general?" he asked.

She nodded understandingly.

"Unfortunately," he continued, "St. George's Hall is personified for
him in Anthony Cobbens.  He told me all about their early associations
and subsequent estrangement.  I must say that after his arraignment of
the man, I half expected to see them fly at each other's throats,
whereas they almost embraced."  He threw back his head and laughed
heartily at the remembrance.

"The amenities of civilisation--and politics," she murmured, smiling.

"But how roiled poor Emmet was underneath," he mused.  "I wish I had
Cardington's gift of speech to express the thoughts that have lately
been taking shape in my mind concerning the spectacle of a democratic
aristocracy.  Now, if Emmet had the philosophical attitude of mind, he
would n't have the strength to struggle which he undoubtedly does have.
He needs that stimulus of personal animosity to get somewhere; if he
were philosophical, he would be unambitious.  When he has arrived, as
they say, he will come to see that an aristocracy in the usual worldly
sense of the term must have money to maintain its existence.  The old
aristocracy must have accessions of vulgar blood and vulgar money to
keep it alive, just as the language must be rejuvenated from time to
time by slang from the streets.  I made a tentative effort to present
some such point of view to him as you suggested, but it didn't take.
He could only see Cobbens's red head in front of his eyes, and it was
like the proverbial rag of the same colour to the bull.  Emmet is a
generation short of being able to see in his personal enemy a synopsis
of the processes of history.  This, in short, is my conclusion.  I'm
afraid I did n't accomplish what we hoped for."

"I might have known it," she commented.  "But I'm grateful to you for
making the attempt."

"What hypocrites we are!" he cried, sitting up.  "A little of my own
philosophy would n't be a bad thing for home use.  I could easily allow
myself to get into as great a rage against Warwick as Emmet himself.
Already I 've begun to call it hard names, such as deadly, and cold,
and snobbish.  I'm beginning to see that a man like myself must always
be on the outside here.  I ought to have begun to live in Warwick three
generations ago, or to have brought a fortune with me.  In the West men
are estimated on their individual merits, and one is n't made to feel
himself an outsider."

"Perhaps because there's no inside to get into," she suggested coolly.

He had a vision of that sanctum into which Cobbens could buy his way
with his wife's money, and he realised that this was not the first
glimpse he had had of a quality in the woman he loved that was not all
sweetness.

"I feel like one who has interfered in a family quarrel," he returned,
good-naturedly.  "Well, I may be only a transient here, a bird of
passage nesting for a year in the towers of the Hall.  I will earnestly
request myself to be amused at the spectacle of a democratic
aristocracy."  He felt that in her heart she agreed with him, else, why
did she favour Emmet's candidacy?

"That will be like the attempt to extract sunbeams from cucumbers," she
replied, with a note of weariness in her voice.  "But the equanimity
with which you took my speech about the West makes me feel like a
horrid shrew.  Have you really got a sweet disposition, Mr. Leigh, or
are you just putting on airs?"

"Perhaps I have some occult reason for wishing to win your good
opinion," he suggested.

For the second time she staved off a personal drift in the
conversation.  "It's getting darker," she said, looking about with
sudden concern.

"Don't say you must be going, Miss Wycliffe," he begged.  "This is the
very best part of the day.  Let me light a fire of pine cones."  He
started up and stood before her, anticipating her acquiescence.  She
nodded her approval graciously, and at that moment the setting sun,
struggling through the trees, shone full across her face and illumined
her eyes.  In this clear glow they were no longer black, but brown as
the brown velvet of her jacket.  He was haunted by a sense of a
duplicated experience, and then remembered the fragile girl sitting on
the stone step with her basket of eggs in her lap.  But Miss Wycliffe's
colouring was glorified, rather than penetrated, by the sun's rays,
enriched rather than absorbed.  Her face, framed in a large hat faced
underneath with a delicate tint of blue chiffon, seemed to look out at
him as from an inverted sea-shell, and the picture arrested him on the
point of going.  As if she suspected the cause of his delay and
intended to break the charm, she removed the hat deftly and placed it
with her gloves beside her.

"I think a fire would be pleasant," she remarked, "though it is really
as warm as summer."

She had changed the picture only to improve it, for the suggestion of
wildness and freedom in her dark hair fitted more perfectly with the
spirit of the twilight woods.  It may be that only a man can understand
the fascination that exists for men in just such a simple operation as
she had performed.  The absolute femininity of it, the fumbling for the
hatpins, the deliberate and thoughtful reinserting of them afterward in
the discarded hat, where they can be found when needed, the invariable
smoothing back of the hair from brow and eyes,--all these things make
their peculiar appeal.  It was this that caused Leigh to smile as he
turned away and went in search of fuel, whistling softly to himself.
Returning with his hat well filled with pine cones, he caught sight of
her face before she noted his approach, and was struck, as once before,
by her expression of immeasurable sadness.  She sat, as at first,
embracing her knees with her hands, her nether lip drawn in as if she
would suppress a sigh, her eyes fixed upon the distance and shadowed by
something of the solemnity of the coming night.

As the light flames shot suddenly up from the heap of cones, their
brilliancy made the surrounding woods seem vast and dark, the more so
as the sun had now sunk behind the hill across the stream, filling the
woods in that quarter with a glow as from another fire.  He fed the
flames thoughtfully with bits of broken branches, talking somewhat at
random about a camping trip in the Yosemite.

"Isn't it absurd," she said presently, "that we have gradually lowered
our voices till we are talking almost in whispers?"

"I mean to break the spell at once," he declared, and having made a
trumpet with his hand, he hallooed loudly toward the west.  The result
was unexpected.  A ghostly triple echo, which the lower tone of their
earlier conversation had failed to elicit, answered him from the
opposite shore.  In broad daylight an echo will suggest mystery and a
bodiless, impish mocker, even to an unimaginative mind, but now the
effect was intensified tenfold by the silence and darkness that
enclosed them like a wall.

"You may laugh," she said, "but I don't wonder that primitive peoples
imagined a haunted nature.  I 'm an absolute Pagan this very moment.  I
believe in Pan and Echo and all the rest of them, and I don't like
their company a bit."

"Have you noticed how silent it has grown all of a sudden?" he asked.
"It seems only a few minutes ago that we heard the crows cawing in the
branches, and the woods were full of small noises of squirrels and
birds."

She leaned forward and prodded the fire absently with a stick, gazing
into the flames as if fascinated.  Presently a whiff of smoke unlike
that from the burning faggots reached her, and she looked up to see
that he had lighted his pipe.

"I don't mind your smoking," she commented, smiling, "but if that's a
sign that you have settled down for half an hour of solid comfort, I
must interpose.  You can smoke as we go along."

"It's only half-past five," he said regretfully, holding up his watch
to the light.

Her reply was forestalled by a sound, slight in itself, and one that
would have passed unnoted an hour before, the sharp snapping of a twig
somewhere in the darkness behind her.  Only when he saw her start, and
the widening of her dark eyes, did he realise how much truth had been
contained in her jesting confessions of a few moments since.  He could
see that she was more than startled, that her emotion was one of fright.

"Why, it's nothing," he said reassuringly, rising to his feet.  "Any
little noise sounds loud in the woods at night.  It was only a
squirrel, or a decayed branch giving way.  I 'll prove it to you."  He
raised his voice and called  "Hello, there!"  The result was vaguely
disconcerting.  "I forgot our friend Echo," he said apologetically.
With some idea of restoring her composure by his own unconcern, he
began to move in the direction from which the sound had come; but he
had taken only a few steps when a blot of darkness which had crouched
before him like a huge stone or the stump of a tree suddenly detached
itself and rose into the form of a man.  Leigh had an indistinct vision
of a face, of arms that seemed to ward him off, and then the intruder
fled without a word, breaking through the woods like a frightened
animal.  He stumbled back to the fire, and stood listening till the
sounds of flight had died away.

"Well," he declared, "that was a surprise!  A mutual one too, it seems.
I don't know which of us was frightened the most, but we got away from
each other as fast as we could."

"Oh, I knew it!" she cried, beginning to fasten on her hat with
trembling fingers.  "I had felt for some time that we were not alone."

"It was only the keeper," he assured her, "or some tramp, attracted by
the firelight and thinking he had stumbled upon the camp of one of his
pals.  Let's leave him the rest of the grapes, to show that we bear him
no ill-will for the shock he has given us.  I'll just scrape a ring
about the fire to keep it from spreading."

"This is my last picnic," she declared, "for this year at least.  I
couldn't come here again after that fright."

"Perhaps it's just as well I happened along," he remarked.  "That
fellow may have been lurking about the woods all the afternoon, hoping
to pick up something from late visitors like ourselves."

A moment later he regretted his ill-considered words, for at the
thought of the peril she might have been in, she rose to her feet with
an evident return of her panic.  Without waiting to put on her gloves,
she thrust them into his hands with an impulsive movement, almost
childlike in its unconscious betrayal of emotion.  He put the gloves in
his pocket and took her hand to lead her down the slope.  "It's
slippery here," he explained.  But there was no need to apologize for
what she by no means considered a liberty.  Indeed, though he was
conscious of nothing so much as of her hand in his, he was aware that
she felt in his own merely a needed support.  As she leaned upon him in
the descent, he divined that her fear increased, instead of
diminishing, with their progress into the circumjacent darkness, as if
the act of flight intensified an appreciation of the original cause.
He strove to dispel the emotion his own words had done so much to
arouse, not without a guilty self-congratulation that his
thoughtlessness had driven her to his protection.  Feeling his way
thus, step by step, he presently saw before his feet, as in a dream,
the dim reflection of a star; and then the stream grew upon his vision,
like a strip of fallen sky.

At that moment her foot slipped on the smooth pine needles, and with a
smothered cry she seemed almost to swoon into his arms at the very
margin of the water.  Instinctively he held her close, her heart
beating wildly against his own.  A fragrance sweeter than the fragrance
of the woods pervaded his senses, and he felt her hair brush against
his cheek.  Then she stood released, having recovered herself with a
swift impulse, like a wild creature that had felt in time the first
touch of the snare.  This elusiveness, this sudden recoil from his
contact, sobered him.  What he might have done, had she remained a
moment longer in his arms, must be forever a matter of conjecture with
him now; but the intoxication vanished like a vapor from his mind,
leaving a keen vision of the situation in its uncoloured reality.
There arose within him a certain sense of shame that he had given so
much and received, as yet, nothing in kind.  He had passed that period
of youth when a stolen kiss seems the acme of love's adventure.  Such a
theft on his part, irrespective of its consequences, would have left
him still unsatisfied.

The belt of sky above the stream was sown thick with stars, that were
beginning to make themselves felt more clearly each moment as the
turning world gradually plunged this part of its surface into deeper
shadow.  In this wan light the pathway lay dimly discernible before
them.  The condition of the atmosphere was such as is best described by
the word _sublustris_, that glimmering radiance which lies somewhere
between thick darkness and such a light as is thrown by the crescent
moon.  It was no longer necessary that he should guide her as before,
and as soon as she had freed herself from his embrace, she began to
take the lead.

"What a coward you must think me!" she said, with a ghostly little
laugh.  "Even now I would n't dare go last.  As it is, I can see ahead
and know that you are behind me."

Her confidence in his protecting power brought him scant consolation.
A spirit of dreariness seemed to rise up from the faint reflections
that floated on the stagnant water; it blew stealthily out of the
encroaching woods, and was voiced in the stuttering, tentative note of
an awakened owl.  Familiarity with nature had freed him from that sense
of pursuit in the woods at night which oppresses even a stout heart
unaccustomed to loneliness, and the flight of the unexpected apparition
was sufficient proof that he had no desire to molest them.  The
incident certainly offered no ground for continued uneasiness, he
reflected.  Why, then, did she make so much of it?  Why indeed, except
that her companion was not the one man in all the world with whom she
would choose to be there alone.  The time and the place were full of
romantic suggestions, were the loved one present.  That he was not
present was indicated only too clearly by the unconscious confession of
her next remark: "I would n't have believed two hours ago that this
path could seem so long!"

They reached the boat-house at last, but instead of turning up the
ravine which he had followed from the spring, she ascended a flight of
stairs and came out upon an open road.  From this point their way was
straight and plain.  On their right lay the woods from which they had
emerged, and on their left was an unobstructed field.  In this free
space the heavens seemed to expand immeasurably, and both felt the
influence of the change.  She began to make light of her former alarm,
and his mood became more hopeful.  He told himself that he had
nourished impossible expectations, considering their short
acquaintance, and that the remnant of their time together could be
better employed than by indulging alone his wounded pride.  As they
walked up and down the platform, waiting for the car, the frogs from a
near-by pool trilled intermittently, and they paused to listen.

"They seem to be congratulating themselves upon the prolongation of the
summer season," he remarked.  "Miss Wycliffe, have you any peculiar
associations with that sound?"

"Dinners," she returned flippantly.  "Heavens!  I've had enough of
nature for one evening.  How perfectly melancholy!  But what do they
remind you of?"

"I 'm in a reminiscent mood," he confessed.  "I can never hear the
frogs trilling in the night without being reminded of the marshlands
around my native town in the Middle West.  Every night, all summer
long, I could hear that symphony through the open windows of my room,
and because I was then in the adventurous and romantic period of youth,
the recurrence of the sound brings back an echo of old emotions.  I
feel as if I were being called upon to go out into the world and seek
my fortune."

"Have you been back there lately?" she asked.  "How does it seem to
revisit the home of your childhood after having had adventures, and
after having done something in the world?  I 've never had any home but
this, I 've never travelled except for pleasure, and I 've never
accomplished anything."

Leigh lifted his head and laughed, but the laugh was not altogether a
happy one.  "You present me to myself in a new light," he answered.
"So far I have only accomplished the feat of reaching the first rung of
the ladder which I used to think I would have climbed by this time.
But yes, I have been back there recently, and found everything changed.
In fact, the West is a symbol of mutation.  The marshlands have been
filled in; streets extend across the places where I used to go for
cat-tails; they have no more batrachian concerts there now.  The only
reminder of that earlier characteristic of the place is a huge green
frog worked out in a marble mosaic on the floor of the new court house.
That is the seal of my native town."

By mere accident Leigh had made that first important step in love's
progress; he had succeeded in arousing a personal interest.

"It's quite charming," she commented, "and not lacking in an element of
poetry, either."

"Poetry," he echoed, inspired by her appreciation.  "It's just those
apparently common things that are so full of it, but the poets don't
see it, or else they don't quite dare to give it expression.  The
conventions of the art are too overpowering.  Take the railroad train,
for example, which stands to most of us for convenience combined with a
certain measure of discomfort.  There 's nothing more stimulating to
the imagination than the whistle of a locomotive in the distance at
night, though perhaps only the poor, to whom travel is a luxury,
appreciate to the full its invitation and the suggestion of adventure.
Working up from one stratum to another through difficulties, they are
attended by a growing wonder as the world expands before them.  But to
have all experiences open to you from the first by the power of wealth,
such as travel and theatres, for example, is the real misfortune of
birth.  The curiosity of the rich is gratified before it is stimulated
by denial.  Then what is left to them?"

"Ennui," she answered simply.

"What a blessing it is, then," he went on, "to have no time for that
emotion, or rather, lack of emotion.  I believe that if I had been born
rich, I should have been ruined long before this; but I set myself a
long road to travel, a road that reaches, in fact"--he made a wide
upward gesture--"to the stars."

"Now what is it," he continued, after a pause, "that makes Warwick so
uninspiring, in spite of its obvious charm?  Is n't it the spiritual
stagnation that comes with wealth and aristocracy?  One reads it in the
very faces of the people, and recognises it in the things they think
worth while.  It doesn't need a long observation to discover this.  A
stranger takes in the impression with his first breath here.  Like the
first glance at a new face, it reveals the truth.  Afterward you get
accustomed to an unprepossessing face, and forget what you first
thought of it.  In much the same way, I suppose, a man could become
hypnotised and drugged by the atmosphere of Warwick.  All this is in
the nature of an explanation of what I meant this afternoon by my
denunciation of the place."

She stood silently looking down into the pool from which arose the
sound that had brought them to this point.  It was evident that she
felt no temptation now to indulge in one of those retorts that came so
easily to her tongue.  Leigh had appealed to her imagination, a thing
which the modern man more rarely succeeds in doing with a woman than
his predecessor who wore gay garments and rode a caparisoned steed in
the lists.  Besides, his earnestness had given his thought, though it
was by no means a new one, his own personal stamp, and won its
acceptance.  Deeper than these causes, he had expressed her own
convictions.

"A denunciation," he continued shrewdly, "with which you sympathised."

"One must do something," she said, with a little gesture of despair,
"or die of suffocation."

"Exactly," he agreed, "even if it be only to take the side of the under
dog in a municipal election.  Can you wonder that your sympathy with
Emmet, your evident revolt against the point of view of your own class,
set me to speculating upon the reason?  Have I worked out the problem
to its demonstration?"

Her silence seemed to give assent to his question, though she was
apparently so deeply plunged in thought that she forgot to reply in
words; and the appearance of the headlight of the trolley-car down the
track brought their conversation to a close.  Miss Wycliffe herself
suggested that they take the front seat beside the motorman, explaining
that she always enjoyed the unobstructed view ahead.  He handed her up,
pleased to think that they were still to be for some time practically
alone.  At their backs a glass partition shut off the rest of the car;
the motorman himself seemed a mere automaton, with ears for nothing but
the bell, and eyes for nothing but the gleaming track ahead.  Leigh
suspected that a wish to avoid a possible recognition from some
passenger had influenced her in taking this seat, and he dared to hope
also that she shared his appreciation of the further opportunity to be
alone together.  Their conversation, however, was fragmentary, as if
each were deep in incommunicable thoughts.  From time to time, as the
car swung swiftly around a curve, she swayed against him softly, so
that he began to look expectantly ahead for a change in the straight
line of the track, laughing happily to himself at her involuntary
apology.  Their comradeship seemed to have entered upon a stage in
which mere propinquity was sufficient to give content without the aid
of conversation, and a deep serenity of mood had now replaced the
wavering uncertainties of his earlier emotions.  This atmosphere of
harmony and understanding remained unbroken until they stood before her
house; but now an inexplicable change occurred.  She suddenly held out
her hand with a gesture that seemed to him frankly impatient, as if she
were anxious to be gone.  "And my gloves," she said.  "I think I gave
them to you."

He produced them reluctantly.  "I had hoped you would forget them, Miss
Wycliffe."

"One does n't easily forget a new pair of gloves," she answered in a
tone cruelly matter-of-fact, as if she would show deliberately her
unconcern.  He could now see all too clearly what a fool's dream he had
cherished, and the awakening was painfully abrupt.  He divined that
something was amiss, something of which he had no knowledge or right to
a knowledge.  During that afternoon he had passed through the whole
gamut of a lover's emotions, only to strike at last the lowest note of
all, and he watched her hurrying up the walk as if she were going out
of his life forever.

That evening he turned over in his mind all the phases of their
enigmatical relationship, cursing his bland folly as he recalled with
keen humiliation his complacent explanation of her to herself while
they waited for the car.  Her manner at parting appeared nothing less
than a decisive rebuke.  When at length he fell asleep, he was visited
by a ghastly dream, in which the incident in the woods was re-enacted
with all the grewsome accentuation that belongs to the realm of
dreamland.  Again the shadowy figure rose up before his feet and fled
away.  He pursued and grappled with the intruder in the darkness,
demanding his name and trying to see his face.  Finally he seemed to
prevail, but the figure slipped from his grasp and left him there
alone.  He turned back then, seeking the fire and smitten with poignant
anxiety for the woman he loved; but the light was quenched, and the
place could not be found.  After struggling for what seemed a lifetime
through mazes of darkness and terror, he awoke.




CHAPTER IX

"HER HEART WAS OTHERWHERE"

A few nights after the meeting in the woods, Leigh was hurrying along
Birdseye Avenue, like the belated White Rabbit on its way to the
Queen's croquet party.  He was going to a lecture on Velasquez at the
house of one of his colleagues, Professor Littleford.  The beginning of
the lecture was set for eight o'clock, and it was now past the hour,
for he had been detained in the city by the joint debate between Emmet
and Judge Swigart, put at half past five that the workingmen might have
an opportunity to attend.

The time consumed in returning to the Hall, in dining and dressing,
almost convinced him of the advisability of staying at home, but he
reflected that to do so was probably to miss a chance of seeing Miss
Wycliffe, and this was a risk he was by no means disposed to run.  He
was possessed by a desire to see her again and to test the permanency
of her last mood with him, when she had demanded her gloves and left
him in despair.  If she were inclined to repentance, he felt that he
would know it, even if he managed to meet her for only a moment in the
midst of the crowd.  But it chanced that fate was kinder to him than he
had dared to hope.

As he had anticipated, he was one of the last arrivals, but he was not
destined to experience the embarrassment he feared from this
circumstance.  The wide hallway of the great house was deserted, and he
threaded his way through several dimly lighted drawing-rooms in the
direction of a voice that indicated the location of the lecturer.  Not
until he stood in the doorway of what appeared to be an assembly hall,
and was in reality the ballroom of the house, did he realise the reason
of the obscurity through which he had passed.  At the far end of the
room, he saw one of the well-known portraits of Philip IV projected by
a lantern upon a huge sheet of canvas.  The widening shaft of light
that traversed the intervening space dimly disclosed the audience as a
series of heads, from which arose a sibilant wave of amused comment as
the portrait of the king melted into that of his daughter, a serious
infant with corkscrew curls, all unconscious of the monstrous absurdity
of her voluminous skirts.  This transition from one picture to another
was accepted by one of the audience as an opportunity to shift his
chair, and Leigh saw the bishop's salient profile thrown for a moment
on the canvas, before he subsided again to the general level.

The young man supposed that in thus discovering the whereabouts of the
bishop he had also located his daughter, and he marked the spot against
the restoration of full light to the room.  Meanwhile he maintained his
position in the door, and would have continued to do so, had not his
host tiptoed to his side and thrust him into a near-by chair.

For some time he remained almost rigidly still, as if he would make
amends for the slight noise of his entrance by subsequent
self-effacement.  The succession of pictures, even the surrender of
Breda and the scene of the jolly drinkers, shared his attention with
that part of the room in which he had seen the bishop rise, but he soon
realised that no further discoveries were possible as yet in that
direction, and began to pay more heed to the lecturer.

He knew in a vague way that he was sitting beside a woman; but
presently this consciousness increased till it became a delicate and
pervasive atmosphere.  There was a seduction in the shadowy presence
that distracted his thoughts from the woman he loved, sitting somewhere
there in the obscurity before him.  He experienced a well-nigh guilty
pleasure in this temporary yielding to a feminine influence other than
that to which he had consecrated himself, and finally he admitted his
deliberate appreciation.  Leaning back in his chair and turning his
head to satisfy his curiosity, he saw for the first time the trick his
mind had played him.  Convinced though he had been that Miss Wycliffe
was in another part of the room, he had known all the time with his
senses that she was sitting at his side.  At least, it now seemed to
him that his apparent disloyalty was in reality an involuntary tribute
to her quality.  She had made herself felt even when he thought she was
another.  As he looked down at her rounded cheek and white shoulders,
she lifted her eyes with a recognition as suppressed as that of
acquaintances in church, and then whispered inaudibly in the ear of a
companion beyond.  It was now that he saw a bunch of lilies of the
valley in the hand that rested in her lap, and knew by what channel his
imagination had been awakened.

The lecture was shorter than Leigh had anticipated, and all too short
for his desire.  There was in his present position a peculiar, unspoken
intimacy of which he felt that she also must be aware.  It seemed
unlikely that he could see her alone, and he cherished every moment as
perhaps the best that would be vouchsafed.  Almost before he realised
what had happened, the walls of the room sprang into view at the sharp
click of the electric lights, and he saw the lecturer, previously a
disembodied voice, making his final bow.  As he rose with the others,
he caught a glimpse of many faces already familiar, and felt
unexpectedly at home.  Among the crowd he recognized Cardington by the
bishop's side, Cobbens's smiling face, several of his colleagues, and a
number of the students.  The tide set toward the door, and they were
carried before it.  Not until they reached the less crowded room beyond
did Leigh perceive that Miss Wycliffe was still closely attended by the
companion with whom she had exchanged an occasional whisper at the
lecture.

"You remember Mrs. Parr?" she reminded him.

"I do indeed," he replied, though till now he had received merely the
impression of a face vaguely familiar.

"But you passed me only yesterday on the street without recognition,"
Mrs. Parr complained.  "I don't know whether I ought to speak to you or
not."

The tone of her voice, which aimed at charming piquancy and realised
only an airy affectation, attracted his attention, and revamped her
upon his mind as one of the party of star-gazers.  Her personality was
acrid and insistent, and he imagined that the friendship between the
two women was of her own making and maintenance.  The nature of her
greeting left him no choice but a flat and awkward confession of
absent-mindedness.  This trifling irritation, however, was of small
moment compared with the fact that Miss Wycliffe was evidently content
with his company and not disposed to leave him, as she could easily
have done upon a reasonable pretext.  The three continued together,
drifting in the same direction through the rooms which now began to
present a bewildering spectacle of changing groups and colours.  Their
talk was the usual art jargon which the recent lecture suggested, but
in this Leigh bore perforce a subordinate part.  It was Mrs. Parr who
appealed to him from time to time for a confirmation of her views
concerning composition, drawing, and high lights, and each appeal
presented itself to him as an interruption.  At last he was merely
relieved to find that she had disappeared.  Miss Wycliffe regarded him
with a curious look, in which disapproval of his unconscious rudeness
was mitigated by an indulgent appreciation of its cause.

"You 've succeeded in driving her away at last," she said, with a touch
of severity.

He divined that he was not seriously under the ban of her displeasure.
"I?" he echoed, disingenuously.

"She began by taking a great fancy to you," she went on, "that night on
the tower, but you simply refused to pay any attention to her.  And
to-night you behaved in the same manner.  When you came and sat beside
us, she regarded it as quite a romantic little event."

"She has a husband, has n't she?" he questioned bluntly.

"Yes, but she still indulges fancies for 'stunning young men.'"

"Then Mr. Parr does n't answer to that description, I suppose?" he
queried.

"Mr. Parr is more stunned than stunning," she achieved, quick as a
flash.

"I don't wonder at it," he said, laughing heartily.  "I seem to see the
poor fellow sunk in a coma of marital despair."

"This is extremely wicked and ungrateful talk in both of us," she
murmured, "and I shall encourage it no further."

Leigh was fairly intoxicated by Miss Wycliffe's manner toward him.  She
had never been so frankly sweet before, and he had never seen her as
radiant as now.  She had the air of one filled with a mischievous
impulse, which she restrained with an effort.  A suggestion of daring
lurked in her momentary sidelong glance, and awoke in him a responsive
exhilaration.  To other eyes that watched them curiously she appeared
to assume a certain proprietary right.  If she introduced him to this
one or that, if they ran into other groups from time to time, she
contrived with exquisite skill to make these interruptions temporary
and to keep him to herself.

Their progress, though he was but dimly aware of it, was something of a
triumphal one for himself.  He was sufficiently striking in appearance
when alone to attract attention, and Miss Wycliffe's evident partiality
now made him a special mark for speculative glances.  He began to gain
an appreciation of her absolutely entrenched position in that society
in which the older women were inclined to pet her and the older men
indulged in gallant little speeches.  As for her contemporaries, they
paid her tribute in their kind.

In this way they participated in the slow movement that for some time
had been turning toward the dining-room.  Through the open door they
saw the solid phalanx of earnest eaters that surged about the tables.
To disinterested eyes the sight might have appeared one of agonised
appetition, in which, as in battle, some particular person or movement
arrested the attention for a moment from the general effect: a stout
and determined matron planted like James Fitz-James upon his rock; a
tall youth with salad raised aloft as he turned to make his escape; the
perspiring face of some bewildered darkey, who could have found ample
use for the hands of a Briareus in the stress of conflicting orders.
Leigh turned to his companion with an enquiring glance.

"Will you allow me to forage for you, Miss Wycliffe?"

She shook her head.  "Not yet, at any rate," she answered.  "What a
spectacle!  We might step into the conservatory and rest awhile."

She led the way through a near-by door into the vistas of greenness
beyond.  There she paused from time to time to call his attention to
some rare plant, to lift some blossom to her face, and then went on
with the assurance of one entirely at home in her surroundings.
Through the thick branches Leigh caught more than one glimpse of a
white dress, and heard an occasional ripple of youthful merriment.  The
vision of one of his students hurrying down a parallel aisle with
spoils from the table gave him a humorous sense of fellow feeling.

At length they found a seat of twisted branches, screened by a row of
palms.  From the hallway of the house the scraping of the violins came
intermittently, like the sound of crickets in a distant field, so faint
that they could also hear the puffing of the breeze through a raised
panel in the slanting roof of glass above their heads.  It seemed as if
the wonderful Indian Summer night were trying to steal in among the
guests through that small opening, to bid them be still.  To look up at
that vitreous, transparent roof was like gazing into the enchantment of
a witch's mirror, so imminent was the mysterious depth of the night
beyond.  Miss Wycliffe emitted the ghost of a sigh, as if to express
her relief and sense of escape, perhaps her weariness.  Leigh,
following her glance upward, caught sight of a solitary, brilliant star
peeping through the triangular aperture, and reflected with keen
appreciation that it was the planet Venus.  There was an opportunity in
this chance apparition, of which, however, he did not avail himself.
It was true that she had drawn his eyes down from the stars to gaze
into her own, and that the planet upon which they then looked together
had been given the name of the goddess of love.  These facts,
beautifully coincident as they seemed to him, would not bear expression
in words.  She would think he was making conventional love to her, and
his instinct forbade such an obvious beginning.  He spoke, therefore,
only of the refreshing contrast of their asylum with the noise and
glare of the drawing-rooms, noting with a passing pang as he did so
that the lilies of the valley which she had carried with her thus far
were drooping in her lap, their expiring odour quenched by the heavy
fragrance about them.

Perhaps it was a touch of feminine perversity that led her to acquiesce
in his animadversions upon the scene they had just left.  It was
certainly a function in which she was peculiarly fitted to shine, and
she had taken her part with every appearance of enjoyment; yet her
comments were more caustic than his own.

"The lecture was the better part," she declared.  "I wish it had been
longer--but you missed a good deal of it."

"Yes," he explained.  "I didn't get away from the debate till after six
o'clock."

"The debate!" she echoed, fixing him with an interested gaze.  "I had
forgotten that this was the evening.  Tell me about it.  Did your
tentative efforts with Mr. Emmet bear any fruit, after all?"

He shook his head, smiling.  "It was an extraordinary spectacle," he
mused.  "The pit and the balconies, the aisles, the space at the back,
and the stairs down to the sidewalk were filled with labourers, packed
close together, their dinner-pails in their hands and their pipes in
their mouths.  You could have cut the air with a knife into chunks of
tobacco smoke."

"And how did he seem?" she asked.

"You have good reason to be proud of your _protégé_, Miss Wycliffe," he
answered, kindling with generous enthusiasm.  "Emmet outclassed his
opponent completely--in style, in delivery, in subject-matter, and, as
it seemed to me, in the justice of his cause.  I was so amazed and
impressed that I carried the atmosphere of the thing with me
until--until I dropped into the chair beside you, and then I forgot all
about it."

She moved uneasily and toyed with the flowers in her lap, then glanced
up at him, but not with the glance of a woman who is ready to listen to
a declaration of love.  His next words were determined by that look,
and there was no little self-renunciation in his pursuance of a subject
he would fain have dropped for one nearer his heart.  He had to remind
himself once more of the shortness of their acquaintance, and of her
natural curiosity concerning one of the crises in a struggle which had
interested her so keenly.

"It only shows how far one's judgments fall below the mark sometimes,"
he went on.  "Not till this afternoon did I get a true perspective of
the man, when I saw him standing there, perfectly self-possessed and
powerful, reading his speech"--

"Reading!" she interrupted.

"Yes, reading, and actually gaining in effectiveness by doing so.  It
seems that each speaker was allowed only twenty minutes, and rather
than run the risk of going off on a tangent, he had written the whole
thing out--but he knew it practically by heart."

"It was like him," she commented.  "He's clever.  But what did he say?"

Her eager interest, her knowledge of the man, the compliment she paid
him, filled Leigh with bitterness of which he was ashamed.  He found
himself under the necessity of describing to the woman he loved the
triumph of another man, who had, as he now saw clearly, appealed to her
imagination.  To be sure, it was nothing more than that, but as far as
it went, it hurt his own cause to play the rôle of the narrating
messenger.  He was focussing her attention upon an exciting drama in
which he had borne the inglorious part of witness; but he was too proud
a man to be ungenerous in his comments, or to let her see the duality
of his mental state.

"His speech was a frank setting off of the masses against the classes,"
he returned.  "He said the same things I had heard him say in
conversation, only with more pith and point.  Emmet has the Irish gift
of expression when he's aroused--there's no doubt of it.  He
practically took for his text: The Man in the One-storied House against
the Man in the Mansion.  One thing struck me as especially keen.  His
opponents have been claiming that the city is a great business
corporation, in which the citizens are stockholders and the officials
directors; but Emmet pointed out the fact that in a stock company a man
is entitled to as many votes as he has shares, while in a municipal
corporation the individual, not the stock he possesses, is the unit.
He made a good point there in maintaining that the corner-stone of
democracy is manhood suffrage, not property suffrage.  He tore apart
that apparently reasonable comparison, and showed beneath it an attempt
to rob the poor man of his rights."

She nodded her appreciation.  "It was a good point, but I don't agree
with him, nevertheless.  Property-holders ought to have more to say in
the management of a city than those who have nothing at stake.  If I
had my way, I would confine manhood suffrage to state and national
elections."

Leigh was struck by these words into silence.  For the first time she
had made him realise that she was a rich woman, though he had heard
from Cardington that the bishop merely held his wife's large property
in trust for the daughter.  Now he detected in her a shrewd and
practical strain, perhaps an inheritance from some ancestor who had
laid the foundations of her fortune.  He saw also that her revolt
against the moribund spirituality of the wealthy class to which she
belonged was offset by a consciousness of possession, so that she could
support Emmet one moment and condemn his theories the next.  On one
side of their natures, Leigh and Miss Wycliffe touched in sympathetic
understanding; on the other, they were as far apart as the poles.  No
poor man, however civilised he may be, can range himself on the side of
wealth, unless he is either a fortune hunter or a sycophant, and Leigh
was neither.  At the present moment he merely felt, with a sinking of
spirit, the existence of an artificial barrier between them of which he
had previously been but dimly conscious.

"I 'm something of a socialist myself," he said, "only, I 'm waiting
for a great leader and a reasonable propaganda."

"You 'll never find either," she retorted with spirit.  Then her face
softened into the expression of a listener to a good story.  "But don't
let us discuss these endless and stupid questions.  What I want is the
personal and spectacular side of it.  How did the two men compare?  And
with which of them did the people side?"

"With their own representative, naturally.  I was impressed with the
tenseness of the feeling.  The audience cheered Emmet until he had to
remind them that they were cutting into his twenty-minute allowance.
Then they kept silent, but more like animals held in leash, I thought,
and I could n't help wondering what would happen if the cork should
suddenly pop off and let out all that bottled sense of ill usage.  When
Judge Swigart got up, he did n't mend matters by referring continually
to Emmet as his 'distinguished antagonist,' in a tone that suggested
irony rather than respect.  He said he was pained and astonished to
hear Mr. Emmet declare that there was class feeling in Warwick; he
himself had never detected any; he objected to the setting off of
aristocrat against democrat, when all were democratic; he denied that
the city was run by a clique."

"Really," Miss Wycliffe remarked, laughing, "he could n't expect them
to swallow that.  Of course Warwick is run by a clique--it always has
been--and I 'd like to see them turned out for once."

Leigh was no longer astonished at the sudden swinging of the pendulum.
"They did n't swallow it," he said grimly, "and it took Emmet's
personal appeal for fair play to make them stop their hissing and
catcalls.  I thought there 'd be a riot at one time, but instead, the
men began to get up and walk out, leaving Swigart talking to their
backs.  I was swept along with the crowd, and that was the last I saw
or heard."

He caught the flash of her eyes at the vivid picture he had drawn, and
could no longer conceal his bitterness.  "When I saw Emmet standing
there, whipping up the mob and then holding it in check, and thought of
his scanty schooling, I felt the handicap of professorial pursuits"--

"Oh, eloquence!" she interrupted, with a quick and tactful
understanding of his hurt.  "There's nothing easier in the world, if
you only have the knack.  I think I may say so, as the daughter of a
bishop.  Mr. Emmet moved them merely because he voiced their own
hatreds and prejudices in a clear and convincing way, not that he said
anything so very remarkable."  There was undisguised scorn in her tone,
and he understood that this was the heiress speaking.  "A trumpet makes
more noise of a certain kind than a telescope," she went on, "and the
noise is what the people like.  Have you ever read 'Numa Roumestan'?
At the risk of preventing you from doing so, I must recommend it."

She lifted the flowers as if to throw them away, preparatory to a
return to the house, but he defeated her intention by deftly reaching
forward and taking them from her hand.

"You must allow me to save them, Miss Wycliffe," he explained, in
answer to the quick inquiry of her sidelong glance.  "Let me indulge a
romantic impulse to-night, though we have had such an interesting
conversation on other matters."  He thrust the lilies of the valley
into an inside pocket of his coat, and sat looking at her with a
speculative sadness that made a light or flippant comment on her part
impossible.  She said nothing, though her poise conveyed the suggestion
of intended flight.  She doubtless appreciated the fact that this was
what she might have anticipated, that she could not lead a young man
who was in love with her to such a place without this result.  Her
purpose in so doing was best known to herself.  In his mind there was
evidently a doubt whether it was wanton cruelty, or a desire for
information concerning her _protégé_.  He began to wonder, in view of
the persistence of her interest in Emmet, whether she had not divined
the cause of his late arrival from the first.

"When I first came in," he continued, "and Littleford thrust me into a
chair beside you, I caught the scent of these lilies before I knew they
were in your hands.  It was something like an experience that befell
one of my ancestors as he approached America after a two months' voyage
in a sailing vessel.  They were nearing Virginia one night in May, and
a land breeze blew the fragrance of flowers to them across the water
before they saw the shore.  _On desperate seas long wont to roam_--You
know the verse?"

She rose hurriedly to her feet, distressed, perhaps repentant.  "You
must not," she protested in a low voice.  "You must not."

"There is some reason why I must not?" he questioned, confronting her
with paling face.  She nodded a confirmation of his fear.  "Then I must
ask just one question more," he persisted miserably.  "Suppose the
reason did not exist--I don't ask you to tell me now what it is--but
suppose there were no reason.  Would you forbid me to love you then?"

For a moment she did not reply, and he watched her face as one who
would read an enigmatical page from the book of fate.  The question
demanded an answer, a definite reply, which she was not prepared to
give.  He saw dawning in her eyes a recognition of him in a new light;
it was as if she now contemplated the possibility she had rejected.  In
this attitude of mind, as in nothing else, the bishop's cold and
calculating nature disclosed itself in the daughter, and Leigh divined
that she did not wish to love him, though she allowed herself to desire
the tribute of his love.  It was this desire that enabled her to enjoy
the situation, to convey to him a denial that was not absolute.  She
might withdraw herself,--she had said that she must,--yet something
might remain, something more than friendship, less than the claims of
an acknowledged love.

"If the reason did not exist," she repeated slowly, "then--perhaps."

He heard the words with a gesture of acquiescence, and followed her in
silence down the aisle in the direction of the house, wondering why he
did not stop her before it was too late and ask her whether he had
heard aright, why he had not kissed her when he could have done it so
easily, and thereby, perhaps, have shaken her allegiance to some other
claim.  For his intuition told him that though he was not her
acknowledged lover, he was by no means a mere friend.  It was this
assurance that gave him hope, and there was comfort in the thought that
he had not lost all by daring too much.

About two hours later, Leigh descended from the billiard-room, where he
had been playing an inattentive and indifferent game with one of his
colleagues, and encountered Bishop Wycliffe coming into the hall from
the library in company with his host and Anthony Cobbens.  The major
part of the company had already gone, leaving a few elderly talkers in
various corners, and a group of young people dancing in the ballroom,
which had been cleared after the lecture for that purpose.

"Ah, Littleford," the bishop was saying, "these entertainments of yours
are entirely delightful.  You give every one the particular thing he
wants and send him away contented: to the artistic a glimpse of
Velasquez; to the young, a turn of the 'light fantastic toe;' to me,
one of your good cigars and a quiet chat in the corner about old times.
But have you seen Felicity?"

Littleford, a comfortable-looking man, with a fresh colour, a yellow
beard, and a general air of good living and goodfellowship about him,
hurried off to the ballroom to inquire.  Meanwhile, Cobbens helped the
bishop into his coat with the solicitous attention due a swell official
of the Church, who was at the same time the father of Felicity
Wycliffe.  Leigh, performing the same operation for himself, was
chatting with the other two, when Littleford returned to say that his
search had been in vain.

"She probably went home with Mrs. Parr," the bishop commented.  "They
came together, I believe."

"Mrs. Parr is still here," Littleford said, "and complaining that Miss
Wycliffe has deserted her."

The bishop's residence was only about a block away, on the other side
of the street, and Leigh saw that Littleford's information caused no
particular concern.  Seeking significance in everything she did, he
wondered whether her early withdrawal contained any element of hope for
himself, or whether she were ill.  As he recalled the suppressed
excitement of her manner, he feared that this latter conjecture might
be the true one, and his heart contracted with anxiety.  The three men
descended the broad steps together, the bishop remarking upon the
lateness of the season and the clemency of the air.  When they reached
the street, he turned with Cobbens in the direction of his house, with
an absent-minded though courteous good-night.

Though the leaves of the elms had now in a large measure left the
branches, the suggestion of a cathedral nave was still presented to the
mind.  The equidistant trunks were, as formerly, the supporting
pillars, but the vista had suffered a mournful change, as if the roof
had suddenly been blown away, leaving the springing ribs a black
tracery against the autumnal sky.  This ruinous work of the frost was
strangely offset by the soft witchery of the breeze, which seemed
either a reminiscence of the spring that was past, or a promise of the
spring to come.  Leigh's thoughts took a turn in harmony with this
influence.  He began to readjust his first conception of Miss
Wycliffe,--she was now Felicity in his unspoken meditations,--and to
realise that she was not like a Russian noblewoman, ready to sacrifice
all for socialism, as he had at first conceived her.  Had she continued
to be such a magnificent and heroic creature, he would have loved her
less.  She gained infinitely more than she lost by this more intimate
view.  She was no longer a possible reformer and a subject for the
historian, but a woman pure and simple, with all a woman's alluring
inconsistencies.

Immersed in this new conception, he was startled by a voice and
hurrying step behind him, and turned to meet Cardington's outstretched
hand and the hospitable offer of a cigar.  As they went on together,
his colleague commented in his voluminous way upon the evening they had
just spent, and before long, with Velasquez as a starting-point, he had
launched upon a compendious history of Spain, interspersed with
anecdotes of his own travels in that romantic land.

In this way they had almost reached the end of the rows of elms, when
they saw before them a man and woman walking with the slow and
tentative steps of those absorbed in deep personal conversation.  At
their nearer approach the woman turned quickly for a moment, said
something in a low voice, and then the two hurried abruptly down a side
street, whose thicker shadows offered a screen from further
observation.  Leigh, listening but inattentively to his companion's
disquisition and meditating still of Felicity, gave the couple only a
fleeting glance, thinking, if he thought of them at all, that they were
a maid from one of the neighbouring houses and her lover.

The next moment he realised that he had heard the intonation of Miss
Wycliffe's voice, or had imagined it.  He would doubtless have thought
it mere imagination, some accidental resemblance to which his ear had
given identity, had not Cardington's manner registered a sudden
emotional disturbance.  He paused in his narration, like one smitten
with mental atrophy and searching for the word that was about to reach
his lips.  His position on the inside of the walk offered a barrier
between Leigh and the retreating couple, and he gave a curious
impression of maintaining that position carefully as they passed the
street.  Then he resumed his story with something of accentuated
intensity.  Neither made the slightest comment on the incident.




CHAPTER X

MISTRESS AND MAID

"Miss Felicity," said Cardington, standing before her with a humorous
suggestion in his manner of presenting arms to a superior officer, "I
have come to perform what is both a duty and a pleasure; I have come,
in short, to--pay my bet."  With these words he carefully laid a box of
candy upon the table.

"You have my sympathy, Mr. Cardington," she returned, "not so much
because you have lost the bet, as because you were under the necessity
of ending your sentence with such an insignificant word.  I saw that
you were groping for a polysyllabic finish."  She was in the best of
spirits, and prepared for the exchange of quibbles in which they
sometimes indulged.

"But my finish is best expressed by just that abrupt and insignificant
monosyllable!" he cried, his solemnity swept away by a mood of
extravagant banter.  "Now, you know, since we have elected a
professional baseball player to the mayor's office, I foresee great
possibilities unfolding in municipal affairs.  I rather anticipate that
the city fathers will seek recreation from their arduous labours by
indulging in an occasional game of ball in the park.  I hope to have
the pleasure of applauding our respected mayor as he walks up to the
plate as of yore and knocks out a home run.  Not a bad idea, bishop, is
it?"  For Bishop Wycliffe had entered the room quietly and stood behind
his daughter, listening to the speech with a wide, appreciative smile.

"It is extremely probable," he now answered.  "I shall be surprised if
some such innovation is not introduced.  And why not?  _Tempera
mutantur_, my friend.  We have a President who so far forgets the
traditions of his office as to beguile his spare moments by whacking
the heads of his friends in a game of singlestick.  Why not a mayor who
plays baseball in the park?  What an old fogy you are, Cardington!"

"Old!" Cardington echoed ruefully.  "My dear bishop!  And you baptised
my infant head after you came to your Episcopal office!"

"Ah, but I was young then," the bishop retorted, "or I should never
have assumed that responsibility."

They were still laughing at this sally when the maid appeared in the
door to announce that dinner was served.  Seeing a late caller, she
hesitated, and Cardington broke in.

"I must go now," he announced.  "Remember, Miss Felicity, not to overdo
the matter of eating sweetmeats.  There would be a certain unnecessary
redundancy in such an indulgence, a carrying of coals to Newcastle, so
to speak."

"No, you must stay to dinner," she urged, "and afterward smoke one of
father's cigars to solace you for the loss of the box you might have
had if the election had gone the other way."

"Might have had!" he retorted.  "You mean would have had.  I hope there
was no doubt of your intention to pay your honest debts."

"Come," the bishop interrupted, taking him by the arm and marching him
away, "enough of these quibbles.  You must stay, of course."

"But this is the irony of fate," he continued, glancing back fondly at
his daughter, "that in spite of all my preaching, I have not been able
to convince the one nearest me of the iniquity of gambling."

"I am reminded of that historic occasion," Cardington answered, "when
you preached a sermon against the putting on of apparel and the
plaiting of the hair, and extolled the inward adornment of a meek and
quiet spirit, quoting St. Peter and Tertullian with singular effect"--

"But how was I to know," Miss Wycliffe put in, "that the return of that
sermon from the bottom of the barrel would coincide with the appearance
of my new hat?"

"It was just that lack of cooperation between you and your right
reverend father which scandalised the congregation," Cardington
commented.

"It was a beautiful hat," she mused regretfully.  "Every one admired
it."

"Yes, yes," said the bishop.  "'And a man's foes shall be they of his
own household.'"

Strange to say, this quotation, so lightly uttered, was destined to
strike the keynote of the dinner.  The subject of the mayor-elect was
too vividly present in the minds of all three to be long absent from
their conversation, and a discussion inevitably followed a reminder
from Cardington that this was the evening in which the people were to
celebrate their victory by a procession.  Miss Wycliffe jestingly
proposed an illumination of the house; but her father's patience with
her perversity was exhausted.  Doubtless the triumph of the cause he
hated intensified his emotion.  Had the judge been elected, he could
easily have been magnanimous, or could have twitted her with good
humour.  But there comes a time, even to the most philosophical parent,
when the independent judgment of a child seems a personal affront, an
ingratitude "sharper than a serpent's tooth."  He loved the beautiful
old city in which his life had been spent, and wished to see it ruled
always by men of his own class.  To him the outcome of the election was
really a significant calamity, the beginning of the end of the
aristocratic democracy he cherished.  Not Lincoln, the dissenter and
man of the people, but Washington, the gentleman and Churchman, was his
ideal of an American statesman.  It is perhaps not too much to say that
he would prefer to see the wheels of government falter for a while in
the hands of an aristocrat rather than to see them turn smoothly under
the propelling power of a plebeian, were it in his suffrage to make the
choice.

"An illumination of the house," he echoed bitterly.  "We might put some
flaming hoops out in the street, so that the clown can turn a
somersault through them as he passes by."

The taunt was greeted by Cardington with something of excessive
appreciation, and the bishop, softened by his success, threw back his
head and smiled broadly at his daughter, regarding her through
half-closed eyes.

It was evident that Miss Wycliffe did not relish the absurd picture of
her _protégé_ thus presented to her mind, and a reply in kind seemed to
hover in the scornful curves of her lips; but she was a woman of finer
mettle than to show either her anger or her hurt.

"Mr. Cardington," she said with subtle mockery, "your part in the
performance is plain"--

She broke off, attracted by the unusual manner of the maid, whose hand,
as she placed a plate before her mistress, shook violently, so that she
overturned a glass of wine.  Miss Wycliffe glanced up, surprised at
this awkwardness in one usually so adroit, and pushed back her chair to
avoid the crimson stain that was slowly spreading toward the edge of
the table.  Unconsciously all three suspended their conversation to
watch the simple operation of putting salt upon the cloth.  Cardington,
turning his eyes toward his hostess with an anticipatory relish for the
rest of her sentence, was suddenly struck by an inexplicable change.
Her face had become white in a moment, and she was regarding the maid's
trembling hands with curious intensity.

"You were saying, Miss Felicity,"--he reminded her.

"What was it?" she asked, recovering herself with an effort.  "Oh, yes.
I was about to suggest that your height marks you out as the proper
person to hold up the hoops."

"Agreed!" he cried.  "If you will stand by and hand them up."

This raillery was only a passing incident, for Miss Wycliffe's mood had
suffered a permanent eclipse.  The bishop returned more reasonably and
with perfect seriousness to the subject of the election, and finally
launched upon a long diatribe after the Platonic fashion, with the
professor as a sympathetic interlocutor.  His daughter refrained from
combatting him openly, but he divined and resented her unexpressed
opposition.  Her attitude was one of finality; her silence indicated an
indifference to his opinions more exasperating than words.  It was the
young astronomer, he reflected, who had helped to crystallise her
strange views.  His lurking fear that she might one day marry and leave
him was aroused at the thought, and his heart contracted with jealousy.
She possessed in his eyes something of the sanctity of a vestal virgin,
one who must not be profaned by marriage.  In such an event, also, his
cherished hope that she might complete the quadrangle of St. George's
Hall was likely to be frustrated forever.  These fears moved him to
argue with a bitterness that served only to defeat his purpose the more.

Cardington's participation displayed an animus which hitherto had been
absent from his remarks upon the subject, as if the result of the
election had stirred him deeply, also.

"I have heard," he remarked, "that Emmet would never have been elected
if it had n't been for the support of Bat What's-his-name and the gang
that makes his saloon a rendezvous."

Whether this insinuation produced some effect upon the maid, or whether
the nervousness she had exhibited during the whole evening culminated
coincidently, none present could know, but no sooner had the words left
his lips than a finger-bowl which she held fell from her hands and
broke in a hundred glittering fragments on the carpet.  At this second
proof of incompetence the bishop started irritably, and looked at her
without a word.  That look was sufficient.  A professor unexpectedly
roared out upon by his class, a clergyman breaking down in a sermon,
could scarcely have experienced a keener sense of professional failure
and humiliation than the unfortunate girl knew at that moment.  To the
bishop's astonishment, she suddenly raised her apron to her eyes and
burst into tears.

"That will do, Lena," Miss Wycliffe said quietly.  "We 've had enough
excitement for one evening.  You may go; and send Mary in your place."

"What's the matter with the girl?" the bishop asked, when the door had
closed behind her.  There was an odd blending of annoyance and
compassion in his tone.

"Lena hasn't been well," his daughter replied, "for some days."

"Then let her rest awhile," he said; "and call the doctor, if it's
necessary."  The incident seemed to distract him entirely from his
previous thoughts.  "It is just such a scene as this," he continued,
"that reminds one of the hidden tragedies going on all the time in the
lives about us.  Lena is usually a very quiet and skilful girl, and it
has been a pleasure to have her about.  Perhaps she's going through
some love affair, as big a thing in her existence as the chief events
in ours are to us.  Girls of that class so often acquire a certain
gentleness and breeding from association, and then marry some rough
coal-heaver or mechanic.  It's a pity--a great pity."

"She's pretty enough to meet a King Cophetua," Cardington remarked
judicially.

The observation was directed at Miss Wycliffe, and was an effort to
make her forget the conversation in which his animus had led him to
transgress even his elastic limits with her.  There was something
almost comical in the concerned expression of his light blue eyes, no
longer fierce, as he gazed at her.  But she met this dumb appeal coldly.

"If you will excuse me, father," she said presently, "I 'll go up to
Lena's room, and see whether she 's really ill."

The two men, left alone, drank their coffee, and then went into the
bishop's study to smoke.  As the door remained open, Cardington seated
himself in a chair that commanded a vista of the drawing-room, and
lingered on in the hope of Felicity's return, until the first lights of
Emmet's triumphal procession began to flash past the windows from the
street beyond.

"Here comes the Imperator up the Via Sacra!" he commented, rising.  "I
must go out and see whether he has a slave behind him to whisper in his
ear, _Memento te hominem esse_."

But it would appear that his curiosity concerning the procession was
short-lived, for when he reached the scene, he plunged contemptuously
between the straggling columns, and gained the further curb.  Then he
turned down a side street, without one backward look, and took his way
forlornly toward St. George's Hall.

The bishop, not sorry to be left to his meditations, had made no effort
to detain his visitor.  Now he extended his hand for another cigar,
changed his mind, and sat thinking.  Genuinely indifferent to the
procession passing by with torches and transparencies and bands of
music, he remained with his back toward the windows, his head sunk upon
his breast.  He was steept in a depressing consciousness of having
mismanaged the situation with his daughter, of having widened the
breach he had meant to close.  His tact had failed him because his
affections and interests were too intimately concerned, much as a
surgeon's hand might falter in an operation upon one of his own family.

What was the meaning of this strange interest which Felicity had taken
in the career of a man normally beyond the radius of her acquaintance
and sympathy?  At first it had seemed a jest, then a sentimental
charity maintained in foolish pride, but only recently had it created
anything approaching estrangement between them.  And this situation was
the more difficult to bear because of their long intellectual and
artistic companionship.  She was more to him than a son, for he had a
priestly appreciation of the subtlety of women.  He had watched her
mind unfold in foreign travel, little dreaming that this experience
with him was sowing the seeds of discontent with her narrow environment
which were now beginning to bear such bitter fruit.  Something of a
celibate by nature, he loved to think of her as an eternal priestess,
who would consecrate herself and her fortune to the work of the Church.

Going back in his mind, he could date the acute stage of the present
situation pretty accurately from the inception of her acquaintance with
the young professor of mathematics.  Leigh had disclosed a certain
Western democracy that first evening, and had established immediately
some sort of understanding with his hostess.  The bishop had seen them
together at Littleford's house, and had drawn his own conclusions.
Divination of the hidden interests and emotions of others was one of
his gifts, a gift he had so fostered that sometimes his moves in the
intricate game of life were like strokes of genius.  He did not doubt
now that Leigh was in love with his daughter, and for the first time he
was seriously doubtful of her attitude toward a young man.  Proud and
beautiful, she had always held herself aloof, with something of fine
scorn, from the frock-coated, silk-hatted, conventional men of her
acquaintance, as if she shared her father's opinion of her worth, as if
she secretly sympathised with the plans she knew he cherished
concerning the completion of the college quadrangle.  Was she now to
decline to the level of this fortune hunter, this crude young Westerner?

As for Cardington, of course he loved her, too; but the bishop knew her
too well to suppose that the professor would ever captivate her
imagination.  He had always been within her horizon, and he served the
useful purpose, from the bishop's point of view, of distracting her
attention from more formidable aspirants.

That hour of reflection resulted in at least one definite resolve:
Leigh's connection with the college should cease at the expiration of
the year for which he was engaged.  Meanwhile, the bishop might need a
rest, and might take Felicity with him to Bermuda, leaving the affairs
of the diocese in the hands of his coadjutor.

Having reached this conclusion, he became aware of the fact that the
procession had long since passed, that the house was very still, and
that Felicity had evidently retired to her room for the night.  He got
up and walked aimlessly out into the drawing-room, where the lights
were turned low.  He listened at the foot of the stairs, and thought to
call her, but the silence seemed ominous, and for some reason he
forbore.  Was she really so deeply hurt that she would not return and
bid him good-night?  They had never been demonstrative, but neither
were such affectionate courtesies ever omitted between them.  He could
not seek her now and demand an explanation.  From such a scene he
shrank instinctively.  To-morrow he would begin on a new tack.  He
would relegate this absurd difference of opinion between them to the
obscure corner it deserved, where he trusted it would soon die of
neglect.  It was indeed fortunate for the bishop's rest that night that
his conjecture concerning his daughter's state of mind fell so far
short of the truth.

When Lena Harpster left the dining-room at her mistress's command, she
was in a condition bordering upon hysteria.  Her burst of tears
expressed the culmination of a long strain.  She had dared to disobey
her lover, driven to desperation by the increasing importunities of the
young man of the house in which she served, and had fled to Miss
Wycliffe's as to a refuge.  But her letter of explanation to Emmet had
remained unanswered.  Was it not her love for him that had driven her
to disobey?  She even refrained from signing her appeal for pardon, as
a concession to his desire for secrecy.  Either he was too much
absorbed, or his wrath was implacable, and a fortnight had passed
without a sign.  Would he seize this pretext, now that he had been
elected mayor, to cast her off forever, as an impediment to his
progress in the world?  This doubt had so preyed upon her nerves that
Miss Wycliffe was not far from the truth when she explained to her
father that the maid was ill.  But it was the vilification of her
lover, to which she was forced to listen in silence, that had brought
her emotions to a disastrous climax.

Once in her little room, she threw herself upon the bed and sobbed
without restraint, but her abandonment to grief was short.  She arose
hastily and bathed her eyes in cold water, moved by the reflection that
tears only served to mar her beauty, the sole dower she possessed.
There came into her mind also the sudden resolve to go out and see the
parade.  She would stand near one of the electric lights, and perhaps
her lover would see her and give some sign, a smile, a wave of the
hand, whose significance would be known to them alone.

Fired by new hope, she discarded her apron and cap and donned her
prettiest skirt.  Then, standing in front of her little mirror, she
applied a dash of colour to her pale cheeks with a few deft touches,
spreading it into an appearance of nature with a bit of chamois skin.
She opened the bureau drawer and threw a white silk waist upon the bed.
But now a perplexing question arose.  Which riband should she wear
about her throat?  She selected two, and laid them before her for
consideration.  This one she wore when he first kissed her; but the new
one was prettier.  Which would he prefer?  Or was it possible that he
would not see her at all in the crowd?  While these thoughts ran
through her mind, she smoothed her eyebrows with her pink little thumb,
and paused to reflect that she would like to have a tiny eyebrow brush
with an ivory handle, such an one as she had seen among the toilet
articles on her mistress's dressing-table.  Then she glanced at the
ring on her finger which Emmet had given her, and for a while she
forgot everything else, fixed in contemplation.

The ring was one whose peculiar value Lena was far from realising: a
Maltese cross of old gold, set with four uncut emeralds.  Seen by
gaslight the stones lacked brilliancy, and she thought the ring itself
awkward and heavy.  From the first she had regarded the gift
superstitiously, as if the dull green stones, like four dull eyes,
emitted a baleful influence.  It was significant of her utter lack of
religious associations that the cross itself suggested no counter
charm.  Had she been a Catholic, that shape alone would have made the
ring a talisman, but her people were Congregationalists, to whom
religious symbols were anathema, and she herself had seldom gone to
church.  In fact, Lena was vaguely disappointed in the ring, and even
ashamed of it.  If her lover were as rich as he said, why had he not
bought her a diamond?  But repentance followed hard upon this
questioning.  The ring was not what she desired, but it was a pledge of
his love, and she raised it to her lips.

She was in this attitude, her thin, white shoulders glimmering bare, a
graceful and nymph-like figure, when a light tap at the door froze her
into immobility, and then she saw her mistress's face reflected in the
mirror.  With a little cry of embarrassment, she turned and leaned
against the bureau, lifting one hand with that instinctive gesture
which Greek sculptors have immortalised in many a lovely statue.

"I did n't mean to frighten you, Lena," Miss Wycliffe said quietly,
when she had shut the door carefully behind her and taken a chair.  "I
thought you might be ill, and came to see whether I could do anything
for you."

The words were kind, but there was something in the speaker's manner
that was less assuring.  Her face was pale, and her eyes were bright,
but not with compassion.  Confronting each other thus, they presented a
striking contrast.  The mistress's dark, rich beauty made the other's
prettiness seem ephemeral, without reducing it to the level of the
commonplace; for Lena was not common as servants are, either in her
personality or in the atmosphere she created in her room.  Even her
visitor, absorbed as she was in her own purpose, was not unconscious of
the cleanliness of the place, of the artistic aspiration represented by
the few prints on the walls.

"I did have a turn, Miss Wycliffe," Lena stammered, "but I feel better
now.  I thought, perhaps, if I went out to get the fresh air"--

"And saw the procession?" her mistress suggested, with a curious smile.

Lena nodded guiltily, and a flush quickly spread beyond the limits of
colour which art had fixed in her cheeks.

"Perhaps that would do you good," Miss Wycliffe remarked.  Then, with a
penetrating regard, she added, "And I suspect you have a personal
interest in the parade, Lena."

"I want to see Mr. Emmet," the girl confessed, as if she could not
resist the inquisition of the stronger nature confronting her.  But
there was pride, too, as well as implication, in the admission.

"Perhaps it was Mr. Emmet who gave you that odd ring?" Miss Wycliffe
continued relentlessly.

"Yes," in a voice that was almost a whisper.

"And you regard it as an engagement ring?"

"He did n't say so definitely, Miss Wycliffe.  He told me not to wear
it yet, and I did n't until tonight.  And he made me promise not to
tell--anything.  You will keep my secret, Miss Wycliffe, until--until"--

"No, child, I won't tell, but I 'm sorry to say that I shall have to
deprive you of the ring, as it happens to be one of my own.  I noticed
it on your hand at dinner, and while I was sorry to think of taking it
back, I could n't help feeling that a fortunate chance had restored it
to me."

Lena drooped pitifully, and her mistress deigned to explain further,
though her tone was hard and cold.

"If the ring were of no special value, I shouldn't mind, but it
belonged in the family, and I prized it highly.  Undoubtedly I lost it
in the car, where it was found by Mr. Emmet.  Let me see it; I 'm sure
I can't be mistaken."

She held out her hand imperiously, and resistance to her will was
impossible.  At that moment the head of the procession could be seen
through the trees, and the sound of music floated up to the little
room.  Lena held the ring in the palm of her hand, forgetting that she
had ever thought it less than beautiful, and her tears began to drop
slowly.  Then she surrendered it with an impulsive movement, like that
of a conquered child.  Her heart failed her.  The necessity of giving
up the ring seemed prophetic of the future; and moreover she was now
too late to see him pass.

"Yes," Miss Wycliffe said coolly, "I was right.  The cutting and
arrangement of the stones is peculiar, and there's not another like it
in Warwick."  She arose to her feet, the ring gripped in her hand till
the edge of the cross almost cut her tender palm.  "And one thing more,
Lena.  I have a reason for asking it.  Do you love Mr. Emmet?"

There was no need to answer, and indeed the girl could not utter a
word, so intense was her misery, so overpowering her assurance of
impending disaster.

"And do you suppose he loves you, just because he has kissed you and
given you this ring which he picked up in the car?"

There was still no answer, and the next words came like the voice of
fate.

"Well, I feel it my duty to tell you that a man in his position can
only be amusing himself when he pays attention to a girl in yours.  You
must have nothing more to do with him.  It's better for you to know it
now, and to have done with this infatuation, for I tell you plainly, he
means nothing that an honest girl can accept."

Left alone, Lena tottered as if she would have fallen; then sank upon
her knees and crept to the window.  With trembling fingers she raised
the sash and let in the cool night air upon her bare neck and
shoulders.  She let in also a fuller burst of music and cheering, and
through her tears she saw the lights dancing wildly, like a procession
of fallen stars.  Somewhere in that stream of splendour and sound he
sat in his carriage, proud and triumphant, and with no thought of her.

In her own room Miss Wycliffe stood before her mirror, looking now at
the white reflection of her face, and now at the recovered ring which
she had tossed upon the bureau, while in her splendid eyes blazed the
light of a great and implacable anger.  For the man who was at that
moment passing by in the street, who had taken her gift and bestowed it
upon a servant, had been her husband for more than two years.




CHAPTER XI

AT THE OLD CONTINENTAL

One snowy afternoon, shortly before Christmas, Mayor Emmet came out to
his sleigh from the City Hall, drawing on his gloves with a sense of
release from unaccustomed confinement.  While others hurried along,
shrinking into their coats as if they would withdraw as far as possible
from the nipping cold, he strode slowly and breathed deep, showing a
strong man's conscious enjoyment of Nature in one of her sterner moods.
His manner displayed a consciousness of something else also, of the
position he meant to grace.  He was already beginning to appreciate the
discomfiture of his enemies.  They had thought to find him bewildered
and inefficient, and had encountered instead a man whose conception of
his rights and duties was just and adequate.  Strange also to
superficial thinkers was his dignity of bearing, to which the _élite_
of Warwick paid the compliment of their resentment.  But that ease and
precision of movement, that steady glance of the eye, had been
transferred from the baseball field to become singularly effective in
the mayor's office.

It was now that his experience as a conductor also yielded its harvest,
though few of those whose money he had formerly collected realised the
valuable knowledge they had given him of human nature's more difficult
side.  They had unwittingly taught him to control his temper under
trying circumstances, to hear much and say little, and now they
wondered at the success of their teaching.  Even his language was
exasperatingly correct.  They might claim that his speech for the joint
debate had been written by another, but this would not explain the
excellent quality of his ordinary conversation; and it never occurred
to them to point to him with pride as a product of the public schools
for which their city was justly famous.

That a man not connected with one of the old families, not possessed of
a baccalaureate degree, should really be effective in the mayor's chair
was such an unheard-of presumption that they denied the fact.  Yet they
could not claim that he assumed excess of air.  His lack of exuberance
was so marked, he had taken hold of his work with such seriousness and
sobriety, that he seemed to be a man of great coldness, or one whose
sense of triumph was tempered by a secret trouble.

Those whose condemnation was not altogether sweeping found the phrase
"an imitation" capable of conveying some consolation.  He was like a
wooden cigar, a lead quarter; in short, he was a loaf baked in a
different oven, and that was enough.  How could a man that wore a heavy
watch-chain possess the genuine quality?  In the judgment of the First
Church, that chain was heavy enough to bind him hand and foot and to
sink him in the depths of the sea.

But criticisms from this source Emmet accepted as a matter of course,
much as a Republican candidate for the Presidency would count on a
solid Democratic South.  A more serious menace to his future lay in the
attitude of some of his own supporters, who supposed that the mayor's
office could now be their lounging-place and headquarters.  Bat Quayle,
the leader of a strong constituency of the submerged tenth, had already
departed breathing vengeance, when he discovered that there was nothing
in the new _régime_ for the Boys.  They had given their votes to Emmet
in the confident expectation of special privilege and protection; but
he had made no promises, and had none to keep.  No previous Democratic
mayor of Warwick had ever been able to dispense with the Boys, and it
remained for Emmet to offset their loss by winning new supporters
during his administration.  Bat Quayle, he knew, would be picked up by
his opponents and used against him two years hence; but two years
seemed a long time, and the mayor shook out the lines and started off
with a burst of speed, as if he would tumble black care into the snow
behind him.

The street was like a vista of fairyland.  A new fall of snow had
covered all unsightly stains of traffic, and now lay heaped on every
inch of horizontal space, on branch and roof and post, on window-ledge
and fence.  The sky was clearing, and the last belated flakes were
floating slowly downward, detached from the burdened roofs by light
puffs of wind.  To one glancing upward, the feathery visitors seemed to
drop from the widening spaces of pale blue sky.  The ringing sound of
snow shovels and the crisp crunching of pedestrians' feet indicated a
falling mercury.  The air was filled with the jocund jingling of
sleighbells, now coming, now near at hand, now lessening into the
distance, a pleasing confusion of silvery sounds, not inharmonious in
their varying pitch and intensity.

Emmet, crouching low among his blankets, drew his cap down over his
eyes and let out another link of speed.  At last he was free to take up
the problem that occupied his leisure moments.  His wife had gone South
with her father on the very day when he had expected her to lift the
veil from their marriage, and an acknowledgement of the justice of her
anger caused him to keep the secret still, awaiting her decision.  He
could count the times they had met during the last two years on the
fingers of his hands.  This relationship, which had promised so much at
its inception, was the great mystery of his life, and every succeeding
month it became more unreal, more inexplicable.  Now he went back in
his mind to the time when the bishop's daughter began to take his car
rather than another, and conveyed to him in some subtle way the
impression of her preference.  By little and little he had played the
dangerous game that made such an appeal to his vanity.

The poets were true in their psychology when they pictured the distress
of mortal men beloved of goddesses: Tithonus and Aurora, Venus and
Adonis, Diana and Endymion.  How could aught but tragedy result from
such loves as these?  How could a mortal have dared to lift his eyes to
such a height unbidden?  The gulf between Miss Wycliffe, beautiful,
rich, aristocratic, and Tom Emmet, the professional baseball player and
street-car conductor, was to his mind as impassable.  It was she who
had first suggested the possibility of a bridge between them.  His
conception of her mental states was as dim as our dreams of the
inhabitants of Mars.  Of her ennui in that life which seemed to him all
lightness and pleasure, of the romance with which she invested his
commonplace days, of the possibilities she read in his personality, he
had no conception; but to the lingering of her fingers in his own, to
the glance of her eyes, the primitive man within him made response.

Love of adventure lured him on.  The subtle courtship progressed apace,
and if any of Miss Wycliffe's friends noted her growing friendship with
the conductor, it was merely to praise her sweet and unassuming
humanity.  At the end of that period of increasing intimacy, marked by
little incidents which no lover in the retrospect can ever arrange in
their proper sequence, the night of his marriage loomed in his memory,
every detail ineradicable.  Their coincident absence from Warwick was
naturally unnoted; and who, in all the range of human probabilities,
would be present to see them meet at a certain day and hour on a
certain street corner in New York?

Life is a careless maker of plots.  The villain did not appear to
shadow them to the obscure old church, to lurk in the darkening pews
and see them married, to watch their exit in the twilight as man and
wife, to observe from a safe distance their long talk on the corner of
the street, and, most inexplicable of all, to see her call a passing
cab and drive away in evident haste, perhaps in sudden alarm.

Emmet would never have brooked such desertion from a woman of his own
class, but the ascendancy which she had established over him from the
first was not materially shaken by the fact that she was now his wife.
He did not even know where she passed the night, while he walked the
streets, a deceived and baffled bridegroom, until in desperation he
took the midnight train and arrived home at dawn, too weary to care for
aught but sleep.

When they met again in Warwick, she resumed her mysterious power of
direction as before, and his status as her husband gave him no
advantage that he dared to press.  He accepted the secret interviews
she granted, and learned at last the part he had to play.  On that
promissory note which she had given him at the altar she paid the
instalment of a few elusive kisses, and he discovered to his dismay
that he must do some great thing to make himself worthy of her, before
the note should be paid in full.  It was she who had seen the
possibilities of his connection with a union and of his interest in
politics, and had suggested the career he was to follow.  His election
as mayor was to be crowned by her acknowledgement of him before the
world.  This was the plan in which he had acquiesced, as one who had
only to obey and to wait humbly for his reward.

But a sense of power developed with the struggle.  It was true that she
had directed his feet into the right path; but once there, he began to
feel that he would have found it unaided.  She was secret with him,
giving and withholding as she chose.  He saw her with other men, and
his strong nature rebelled.  Should she be free, while he was bound?
At a certain meeting he presented this point of view, but she said
truly enough that the men she met were nothing to her, and that to do
as he wished would only excite surprise and suspicion.  She would fain
play the part of Egeria and lay down the law to him in stolen
interviews beyond the city.  But Emmet had never heard of that
delightful arrangement, and the rôle of a Numa in the making began to
be intolerable to him.  When they met again, he no longer upbraided
her, for he had met Lena Harpster at a lodge dance in the interval, and
in the culmination of a reckless mood, he had taken his revenge.  Only
a consciousness of his own duplicity saved Felicity from his insistence
and restored her power.

Emmet meant that the affair with Lena should go no further, but the
memory of the kiss she had given him drew him back at last and he
sought her out, as the first man might have sought again the first
woman in the Garden of Eden, after an ingenuous shame had driven them
asunder.  And hereupon began a titanic struggle in his soul.  He knew
that he loved his wife and meant to be true to her, but Lena's kisses
more deeply stirred his blood.  She was wonderfully pliant to his will,
as pliant in reality as he seemed to be to the will of his wife.  For
longer or shorter periods he neglected her, only to come back again to
find her more helpless in his grasp, himself more than ever fascinated
by his power over her.  It was a milestone in their nameless
relationship when he feigned jealousy of her other admirers, when she
admitted his right to question.  Then came the night when she had
fainted beside him in the half-finished building, and he knew that the
jealousy was real.  After that wild moment of parting at the gate, he
resolved to see her no more.  The prize he had sought so long was
almost within his grasp,--the mayoralty and a wife who would make that
office but a stepping-stone to something higher,--and he would not
forfeit his reward.  He meant also, as he had meant all along, to be
essentially true to his moral obligations.

The pathos of Lena's position he but dimly discerned, and his cruelty
was unconscious.  The election almost swept her from his mind, and the
note in which she disclosed her refuge in his wife's house stirred only
a momentary anxiety.  He would deny whatever she might say, and he felt
that she would quietly acquiesce in her fate when she knew the truth.
But he had forgotten the ring, and the ring was his undoing.

At the very moment when he turned his sleigh into Birdseye Avenue he
pressed his hand to his side and felt Felicity's letter crinkle beneath
his touch.  He had carried it continuously with him, and knew its brief
contents by heart.  She had hoped the letter might have been one of
pure congratulation; she had intended to keep her promise and to come
to him as his wife before the world, but now he must wait until she had
time to think over her course of action by herself.  An explanation
would be useless; but she had recovered her ring, and she knew the
value he put upon her gifts, both this one and the greater gift of
which it was a symbol.  And that was all.

The fact remained that she had not utterly cast him off.  He would be
punished, but not forever, and he divined that his probation would end
with her return.  He had a firm conviction that her sense of obligation
was like his own, that repentance and good conduct would restore him to
her, and he longed for an opportunity to tell her how it had happened,
how much less guilty he was than she might suppose.  If he had been
weak with Lena, he knew that he had also been strong.  He had withheld
his hand from taking all, when she would have offered no resistance to
his will.  Surely, that counted for much, and his temptation had been
great.  Cheered by this thought, little realising that the very
simplicity of his position would make it difficult for his wife to
understand, that the vulgarity of his temptation was to her its worst
feature, he glanced down the long avenue with a sudden sentiment at the
thought of passing her home.

This street, because of its width, the absence of car-tracks, and its
comparative freedom from heavy traffic, was often the scene of races in
the winter, and now he saw a group of sleighs ready for the start.  As
the bunch drew away, his own horse came abreast of the others, and
without prearrangement he found himself racing side by side with
Anthony Cobbens.

"Well met, Mr. Mayor!" the lawyer cried cheerily.  "I 'll race you down
to College Street."

Emmet glanced at his opponent, and shouted his acceptance of the
challenge, his sporting-blood surging suddenly to his very finger-tips.
As he gave his mare the whip and held her in from breaking, he looked
once more at the figure whizzing along by his side against the western
light.  Something in the pink, pinched face, the red, eager eyes,
appealed to his sense of humour, and he laughed aloud.  Emmet had more
than one reason for wishing to beat this man.  He had worsted his
candidate in the election, and now he would show him a clean pair of
heels in the race.  His heart beat with exultation as they two drew
away from the others.  For a moment the thought of Felicity flashed
through his mind as they passed her house and the nose of his pacer was
shoved an inch ahead of her opponent.

"Good girl," he murmured, squaring his jaw; "good girl.  Steady there,
steady."

The feathery snow flew up in whirls from the flying heels.  Pedestrians
on the sidewalk paused and cheered as they flashed by under the bending
branches of the elms, under the electric lights that were just then
beginning their sputtering struggle for supremacy against the sunset.
Emmet had learned to handle horses during an apprenticeship at the
race-track in his boyhood, and now the judgment with which he had
selected his pacer was amply vindicated.  Her steaming flanks swung
powerful and free; her long stride just missed the dashboard of the
sleigh.  As he lightly touched her swaying back with the whip for a
final burst of speed, he loved the beast as only a horseman can, and
murmured terms of endearment that were equally applicable to a
sweetheart.

The head of Cobbens's horse was just in a line with Emmet's shoulder as
they passed the goal.  The mayor turned while the other began to drop
behind and shouted a derisive farewell, with a parting flourish of the
whip.  The victory was as sweet to his heart as the taste of honey to
the lips.  The race had changed his mood completely, filling him with a
joyous truculence.  He would gladly have embraced the opportunity of a
rough knock-down and drag-out fight with a picked champion from the
enemy's camp.

As he passed along the eastern border of the campus and glanced up at
St. George's Hall, it no longer appeared the impregnable fortress of
privilege he had once thought it.  Yet, in reality, the towers of the
college had never looked more formidable.  Rising magnificently at the
crest of a bleak expanse of snow, the embrasured battlements,
silhouetted against the sunset sky, might well have suggested to a
beholder grim thoughts of mediaeval strongholds and robber barons.  The
red orb of the sun, hovering just above the rim of the western hills,
flashed successively through the windows of the long, low hall, like a
running trail of fire.  Emmet was directly opposite the towers when he
saw the muzzle of the telescope rise slowly above the topmost line of
coping, as if it were a living thing stretching itself to take a look
at the surrounding country.  Evidently Professor Leigh was preparing
the instrument for an observation.  Emmet pictured the platform heaped
with snow, imagined the cold air rushing into the small shed through
the open roof, and wondered that his friend's enthusiasm could brave
such discomforts to win a knowledge so remote from the interests of
life.

He turned his eyes once more to the road and winked away the glare of
the sun.  The floating spots, changing from crimson to green and from
green to purple, so obscured his vision that he failed to see the
figure of a woman plodding slowly on in the centre of the track.  The
wind was directly ahead, and the hood of a golf cape so closely
enveloped the woman's head that she for her part was deaf to the sound
of coming sleighbells.  Emmet had been driving slowly to give his mare
a breathing-space.  Now, as she veered suddenly of her own accord, he
drew in the reins with a jerk, and brought the sleigh to a standstill
so near to Lena Harpster that he could have touched her with his hand.

Her first alarm was followed immediately by such a chaos of deeper
emotions that the cry died away on her lips.  She stood looking at him
with shining eyes from behind the fringe of her tall, peaked hood,
then, in a voice as low as the wind, she spoke his name.  At the same
moment she laid her hand on the edge of the seat, either obeying the
impulse that would draw her to him, or because she must otherwise have
fallen.

Since their last meeting, their night together in the shelter of the
half-finished building, he had resolutely put her from his thoughts.
He had supposed the victory won, and never more so than on this very
day, when self-interest and moral obligations had marshalled such
invincible arguments before his mind.  If he had seen her from a
distance, if she had been on the sidewalk instead of in his very path,
would he have had time to wrestle with his temptation and to overthrow
it?  Would he have whipped up his horse and passed her by without a
look of recognition?  But the hypothesis is contrary to the fact, and
suggests a fruitless speculation.  It would seem that his evil genius
had planned deliberately to put his resolution to the supreme test,
first by filling him with arrogant self-confidence, then by firing his
blood with a triumph over his enemy, and finally by placing within the
reach of his hand the very woman whom most of all, in his heart of
hearts, he longed to see.

As she stood there before him, all her soul concentrated in her eyes,
her lips apart in breathless waiting on his will, it seemed that
trouble had never put a marring finger upon her beauty; and suddenly he
knew the overmastering hunger of his nature.  This was the woman that
loved him without question, the woman he wished to take into his arms
and carry off.  The place and time were propitious.  Already the sun
had set--there was no one in sight--and just beyond the ridge the open
country beckoned.

"Lena," he said, his voice vibrant with reckless abandonment to his
desire, "jump in here, quick!"

There was no previous greeting, no inquiry or explanation, no dalliance
with emotion.  His first words were a command, her inevitable response
was to obey.  Now, as always, she threw the whole responsibility upon
him.  And Emmet felt equal to the burden.  He was like a god, knowing
good and evil.  He meant to do good in the main, but just now it was
his pleasure to deviate a little.  To-morrow he would come back into
the straight road and hold it to the end.  This resolve gave him a
peculiar exhilaration, a special license for the definite indulgence.

The next moment she was nestling close to his side, borne swiftly along
as in a dream to the music of the bells.  Putting his left arm behind
her shoulders, he drew the robe up across her face to ward off the
whistling wind.  For some time she was content to lie thus in silence,
lost in a sense of his strong embrace and in a consciousness of the
romance that had come to her so unexpectedly out of loneliness and
despair.  This was her own lover, come back to her again, but he had
never come thus before; and she remembered with a thrill that he was
now the mayor of Warwick, taking his pleasure in his own sleigh.  She
wondered whether he had admired her golf cape; she had no need to
wonder what he thought of its wearer.  As if to reassure her on this
very point, he spoke aloud.

"Lena, I had clean forgot you were so pretty."

"What did you say, Tom?" she asked, thrusting her head above the robe
to hear again the praise she feigned to miss.

"I had forgotten," he repeated, "that you were so confoundedly pretty."

"I should think you would have forgotten it," she retorted.  "You gave
yourself time enough to forget almost anything."

This unexpected show of spirit invested her with new piquancy, and he
laughed aloud.  At that moment the sleigh emerged upon the brow of the
hill and caught the full force of the wind.  A violent gust filled her
hood and threw it back upon her shoulders, disclosing, as by the touch
of a magician's wand, the mass of soft curls blowing wildly about her
little head, her flushed cheeks and shining eyes.  She saw the wide,
desolate sweep of the valley, dotted here and there with twinkling
lights, the belt of crimson against the distant hills; and then she saw
his eyes bending near her own, as if they would drink in the beauty of
every line of her face and every curl.  His head blotted out the
western sky, and their lips met.

The sleigh began to drop below the hill, faster and faster, and her
pulses kept time to the jingling of the bells.  Without premeditation
she had struck a new note in their relationship.  The resentment which
she had scarcely acknowledged to herself had grown during the weeks of
unmerited neglect, and its expression had given her an advantage, had
filled him with strange pleasure.  He would find it harder to stay away
from her so long again.  From now on she was armed with a new knowledge
of her lover.

Emmet too was seeing new light.  He did like opposition in a woman, but
not that of a superior mind and a higher station.  He would have
enjoyed the tingle of Lena's little hand smiting his cheek, that
helpless little hand which he could so easily control.  Out of this
special indulgence which he allowed himself sprang an unexpected menace
for the future.

"Where are you taking me, Tom?" she asked presently.

"To Hillside," he answered, "for supper.  I can have you home by eight
o'clock.  There's no hurry about your getting back?"

"Oh, no," she assured him.  "The housekeeper thinks I have gone to my
sister's."

"Then you are still at the bishop's?"

"Yes--and with very little to do.  I get rather lonely sometimes."

"And Miss Wycliffe didn't take you with her as her maid?  I should have
thought she would."

He longed to ask her about the scene attending the discovery of the
ring, and to find out just what his wife had said.  Of course she had
not told the truth, but a new suspicion of Lena's astuteness made him
cautious.  He was impressed by the fact that Felicity had left Lena
behind.  Had she loved him wholly, would she not have made every effort
to keep her rival from his path?  Was this her way of showing that she
refused to regard a servant in such a light?  Or was it thus that she
put him upon his honour?  At the thought he winced with a consciousness
of guilt.  A third explanation occurred to his mind.  Perhaps she left
Lena behind, like a bait in a trap, with the old housekeeper as spy.
This was a mean thought, he knew, suggested by his own duplicity, but
he resolved to act upon the supposition and to avoid all danger.

"She spoke of taking me," Lena said, "but changed her mind, and left me
to help take care of the house."

She too had questions to ask, but instinctively she shrunk from
disturbing the deep content of the present moment.  The road they
travelled was not the one Leigh had taken that October afternoon when
he made his bicycle trip to Hillside, but a parallel way about half a
mile to the south.  As they neared the other side of the valley, Emmet
took a cross-cut back to the northern road and passed her house,
without knowing that the place at which she glanced in passing was her
home.  She had no desire to tell him, for it seemed mean and homely in
her eyes.  She saw her father's silhouette on the curtain, his corncob
pipe in his mouth, and while she would have liked to exhibit her lover
to her family, she was ashamed of their rustic ways and feared the
impression they might make upon the mayor of Warwick.

The village of Hillside was typical of the country.  In summer time a
stream dropping down from the hills turned the wheels of a large paper
mill.  There was a general store, a post-office, a white, wooden
Congregational church with four Corinthian pillars, and an inn dating
from Colonial days, as its swinging sign-board, adorned with the
blurred image of a Revolutionary soldier, bore witness.  This inn, "The
Old Continental," had recovered from its moribund condition with the
advent of the automobile, and was often the scene of gay supper parties
from Warwick.  It had received a new coat of yellow paint and a new
roof, but the Society for the Preservation of Colonial Landmarks had
decreed that the figure of the soldier on the sign-board should remain
untouched by the brush.  Thus the uniform that had once shone so spick
and span in streaks of buff and blue would better recall the ragged
regimentals of the well-known poem.

The distance from Warwick was ten miles, but it still lacked something
of six o'clock when Emmet drove into the stable, blanketed his mare,
and lifted his companion from the sleigh.  He led her through a side
door and into a small room that had formerly been the kitchen.  Here,
in a huge brick fireplace, blazing logs threw out a dancing light that
glinted on the polished mahogany table and quaint chairs, and disclosed
the dark red walls and brown beams, as well as several highly coloured
English coaching scenes.

Lena seated herself close to the blaze, and glanced up at the sooty
arch above her head with small appreciation of the historic memories of
the place, of the archaeological interest inherent in the swinging
crane and twisted andirons.  It did not occur to her, as it would have
occurred to many visitors, to open the doors of the baking-ovens at the
side and to peer within.  If she thought at all of these things, it was
merely to realise their inconvenience, and to be reminded of the
similar room in her own home.

And yet, though she did not know it, she was eligible to membership in
the Daughters of the American Revolution.  Her ancestors had taken
their muskets from just such chimney places to go forth and fight the
British.  Only, they had never kept their family records, their
descendants had never climbed high in the world; and now one of them
was sitting in her own appropriate environment, suggesting in her sweet
face, her curling hair and slender figure, in the very cape thrown over
the back of the chair, the familiar picture of Priscilla.

It was Emmet, an American of only one generation, who reminded her of
the legend that Washington had stopped there overnight on his way to
take command of the army in Cambridge; but she was too deeply absorbed
in thinking how handsome he was and how much he seemed the mayor to
listen with attention to his remarks.  She took his intellectual
interests for granted, and accepted as a matter of course his larger
knowledge of a history that was his merely by adoption.  Love was her
mental theme and the sum of all her interests, not academic
speculations concerning the effect upon America of the great Irish
immigration of the last century, of which indeed she had never even
heard.

She had not observed his quick, keen glance at the stalls of the
stable, nor noted his relief when he found them empty.  They two had
the house entirely to themselves, but the larger dining-room, seen
through the open door, suggested guests, for the tables were set and
the lights turned low.

"Yes, sir," the waiter answered in reply to his question, "there's a
party due here at six-thirty from Warwick.  Mr. Cobbens is bringing 'em
out."

"Then hurry up," Emmet commanded.  "Bring us something hot, and be
quick about it."

The man did not know him; there was consolation in that.  But Emmet
realised the necessity of getting away before the party should arrive.
There seemed a fatality in the coincidence that he and Cobbens should
cross each other's path twice in the same day, when often they did not
meet for a fortnight.

As Lena Harpster drank her coffee and noted her lover's increasing
uneasiness, she gave no sign of her resentment, part of which was due
to the unwillingness of a sensuous nature to leave a warm corner by the
fire on a winter night.  Her awakened sense of power made her for the
first time rebellious of being hustled out of sight and kept in the
dark.  The struggle between her and Emmet was on in earnest, and her
heart beat fast with a resolve to delay him there until they should be
seen together.

It was quarter after six when the jingle of bells was heard before the
door, and Cobbens's voice calling loudly for the stable-man.  Even then
there was time to escape.  Emmet had only to pay his bill and slip
quickly out the side door as his enemy entered at the front.  Lena too
saw the chance and started from her chair, her eyes fixed upon his with
instinctive questioning and submission, all her high resolves forgotten
in the actual crisis.  Their respective attitudes at that moment were
singularly characteristic.  She was now poised for instant flight, with
something of the air of a creature of the wild whose safety lies in
speed of wing or foot; he, who had thought to steal away unobserved,
now threw the thought contemptuously aside.  A dull glow of anger
spread slowly over his handsome features, and his jaw grew rigid.

"Sit down, Lena," he said peremptorily.  "Sit down."

She sank into her chair again, grasping the arms with her thin, white
fingers.

"What's the matter with your supper?" he asked with a short laugh.
"Have you lost your appetite?"

She took up her spoon once more, but her hand trembled, and she was
forced to steady it against the table.

Cobbens entered the door, throwing back his great-coat and tugging at
his gloves, to meet Emmet's slow turn of the head and forbidding stare.
It was the look of one who feels himself intruded upon and waits in no
very amiable mood for an apology.  The rest of the party followed, six
in all, and Emmet recognised Mrs. Parr, Felicity's neighbour and
friend, among them.  The worst had come to pass.  Of Cobbens's malice
there could be no doubt, but in all probability he had not observed
Lena in the bishop's house during her short stay there before her
mistress's departure.  Mrs. Parr, however, was in and out daily; and
what more choice bit of gossip could she write to her friend than an
account of this unexpected meeting?  If there was any momentary doubt
in his mind, it was dispelled by her action.  One sharp look told her
all she wished to know; then she turned her back upon her friend's
servant and the mayor of Warwick with ostentatious indifference,
holding out her hands to the blaze and chatting of the inclemency of
the weather.  The others followed her example, closing in about the
fire, as if utterly unconscious of the two of whose presence they were
in reality so acutely aware.  Cobbens alone chose a different course.

"Ah, Emmet," he said, with easy familiarity, and in a tone that
displayed a distinct relish for the situation, "I did n't mean to
interrupt your _tête-à-tête_, but the fact is, I had engaged the place
for dinner--wired out this afternoon, just before you beat me so
handsomely on the avenue.  That's a fine pacer of yours.  If you want
to part with her at any time, I hope you 'll give me a chance to make
you an offer."

"I believe the waiter told me you were coming at six-thirty," Emmet
answered coolly, glancing at his watch.  "Miss Harpster and I were
counting on another ten minutes to finish our supper."

If the speaker's first stare had failed of its effect, his words now
interpreted it and gave it significance.  The lawyer's jauntiness
dropped off, as if a modicum of respect for this man had found its way
into his calculating soul.  Here was no poor devil of a conductor, but
the mayor of Warwick, a very different person; and though he was
surprised in an adventure of gallantry, he intended to carry it off
with a high hand, as nobody's business but his own.  Cobbens reflected
that the mayor's companion might well be a respectable girl, perhaps
his _fiancée_.  Now he was quick to see his trespass and to mend his
manner.

"Why, of course," he assented graciously.  "Don't let us hurry you.
The fact is, we all came in here before we noticed the room was
occupied, to leave our wraps.  Quaint old place, isn't it?  I fancy
Washington could have touched the ceiling with his hand.  There's a
fire in the larger room, I believe."

The party took the hint and filed out in silence, leaving Emmet and
Lena in possession of the field.  But to the mayor the victory appeared
only half won, for Lena had risen to her feet at their first entrance,
as if to remain standing in the presence of her superiors, thereby
discounting his own assurance.  Now she flushed beneath his look of
speechless indignation and reproach.  If she had only supported him!
If she had only realised what a beauty she was in contrast with the
other women!  As superior as he knew himself to be to that little
Cobbens, or to the bland and elephantine husband of Mrs. Parr.

No words now passed between them, but in the other room the chatter
continued, though in a more subdued key.  Emmet knew well that they
were only waiting for him to depart to break forth into excited
comments; and presently he heard the phrase, "What assurance!" followed
by a lull, as if some one had made a cautioning gesture.  Then the
somewhat dilapidated piano began to tinkle, as it could tinkle only
under the mincing fingers of Mrs. Parr.  Had her random notes been
given a name, they might have been called Mrs. Parr's Tale of a Wayside
Inn.

Emmet realised that the fat was in the fire.  If he were only free, he
reflected bitterly, how little he would now care what they thought or
said!  He would take Lena as his wife and make a lady of her, and force
her down their throats by the power of the money he meant to win.
Position was something, but money everything.  Let him once get their
husbands and sons in his debt, and every door would open wide.  With
Felicity as his wife, his acceptance was assured; but in his present
mood he scorned to make his entry in such a manner.  Now, if he spelled
aright the handwriting on the wall, he might remain forever on the
outside of the citadel he had thought to storm.  He rose to his feet
and paid his bill with a rueful conviction that he had fought not
wisely, though so well.

The very action, the very throwing down of the money, somehow restored
his earlier exhilaration, the assurance of a man who can pay the bill.
It seemed symbolic of future accounts of whatever kind, all of which he
meant to square.  The web he had woven for himself was now so complete,
his discomfiture so inevitable, that his spirits rose to meet the odds
he had arrayed against himself.

Lena, divining his change of moods, but little realising their depths
and heights, was tenderly grateful.  He had stood up for her before
them all, and her wildest hope was fulfilled.  As they drove from the
inn yard, she seized his left hand, which he was about to thrust into
his glove, and pressed it tremulously to her lips.  In this way she
thanked him for what she thought he had done for her, for what in
reality he could never do; and at the touch of her soft lips his
accusing conscience spoke to him in no uncertain voice.

During the homeward drive she was unexpectedly easy upon him.  An
innate womanly tact warned her not to speak of the incident as
committing him to her before the world.  For the second time that
evening she showed the wisdom of a daughter of Eve in dealing with one
of the sons of men; but her gaiety, a new sparkle in her eyes, a new
vibration in her laugh, told him unmistakably the secret joyousness of
her heart.  He had a glimpse also of what she might be under happier
circumstances; he saw how the bud which was even now so sweet could
unfold in love's sunlight; he imagined the possibility of their life
together; but none the less he determined that now at last he must
break away from her forever.

The immutable fact remained that he was married to Felicity.  Though he
had ceased to attend his own church from the days of his boyhood, the
Catholic doctrine of the indissolubility of marriage remained as one of
his traditions, and this too in spite of the fact that he had been
married by a Protestant priest.  He had not committed the one sin which
his wife's church recognised as the only cause for divorce.  There was
no escape from his obligation, provided his wife would forgive him and
take him back.  Her wrong to him had borne the bitter fruit of his
wrong to this defenceless girl.  Let her come back--she could not come
too soon--and face him with his faithlessness.  He would tell her what
she had done, and bid her to forgive him or not, as she chose.

The wind was now at their backs, and having slackened its velocity
until it approximated their pace, it seemed to have died down
altogether, leaving them to glide along in a dead calm.  Emmet looked
up at the stars, which had never seemed to shine with such peculiar
brilliancy, and thought of Leigh.  There was the one man in whom he
could confide.  None of his old acquaintances could be trusted with
such a vital secret.  The astronomer bore no part in the struggles and
jealousies about him.  His very occupation at that moment invested him
in Emmet's eyes with something of the impartiality and spiritual
aloofness of the seer.  It did not occur to him to seek the help of the
confessional, to make his peace with the church from whose instruction,
even as a boy, he had fled to the public schools, in spite of his
mother's disapproval and the angry protests of his parish priest.  That
very night he would go to Leigh, if not for advice, at least for
sympathy and understanding.

Immersed in such thoughts, he said little, but from time to time he
drew Lena to him and kissed her, not with his former intensity, but
with a softening sense of impending farewell.  They had come within
sight of the towers of St. George's Hall, looming against the pale
horizon, when she threw him into sudden panic.

"Tom, dear," she said, "did you know that Miss Wycliffe took away the
ring you gave me?"

"Took it away?" he echoed.

"Yes; she said it belonged to her, and that she had lost it in the car.
Of course, I had to give it up."  After vacillating in delicate
hesitation she went on.  "I did n't mind losing the ring so very much,
since it was really hers, but I was a little hurt that you did n't buy
me a ring."

He winced perceptibly, and she hastened to make her peace.

"What a queer old thing it was!  I liked it at first because you gave
it to me, though it seemed to have an unlucky look, somehow.  I 'd much
rather have had just a little ring, with a solitary diamond in it."

"Did you tell her where you got it?" he demanded abruptly.

"She asked who gave me the ring, and I told her.  But I did n't tell
her we were engaged, or anything like that."

"What did you tell her, then?" he persisted.

"Just that you gave me the ring, Tom.  Then she told me you must have
found it in the car."

"I suppose she blamed me for not returning the thing to the office," he
suggested.

His effort to appear indifferent did not escape her awakened
perception.  She suffered again the pang of losing him that had brought
her to her knees on that dreadful night, and fluttered toward him in
terror.

"Oh, no, Tom," she cried.  "She did n't say anything about that, but
she seemed angry with me, though she was so quiet.  I thought,
Tom,--how foolish you will think me,--that she loved you and meant to
take you away from me!"

He laughed harshly.  "She love me!"

The bitter incredulity of his accent was too pronounced to be feigned,
as indeed it was not, and she lifted her head, reassured.  "I might
have known it," she said, dashing away her tears with a tremulous
little laugh, "but I loved you so.  And she warned me against you.  She
said you meant nothing good by me.  I suppose she thought you would
want to marry a lady, now that you are mayor; but at the time I felt
somehow that she wanted you for herself!"

A subtler and more highly developed man would have foreseen all this
suffering from the first; he would have sown the wind with some
knowledge of the whirlwind to come.  But Emmet was a child in matters
feminine, and he stood aghast at the thought of the probable effect
upon Lena of the inevitable discovery of the truth.  If the very fancy
caused her such grief, what would she do when she found out that her
imagination had been prophetic?  A frantic desire to postpone the blow
that must fall upon her so soon gave him the skill of a Faustus.  He
scoffed at the absurdity of her fear, and a bitter conviction of his
wife's selfishness gave his arguments the ring of truth.  Only, when he
drew a picture of the difference between his social position and that
of women of Miss Wycliffe's class, she stopped him with the assertion
that not one of them, with all their money, was worthy to be his wife.
She added humbly that she knew how little worthy she was herself.

As if the approaching end of their journey drove her on to lay her soul
bare before him, she told him every detail of that interview with her
mistress in her room, down to the moment when she had groped blindly
for the window and looked out through her tears to see him pass.

He had planned to leave her some distance from the bishop's house, but
now caution was useless.  The street, however, was deserted
thereabouts, though the night was still young, and no one saw their
farewell.  As he drove away and glanced back to see her figure still
motionless against the snow, he experienced some of the punishment that
comes to him who plays at ducks and drakes with a woman's heart.




CHAPTER XII

THE CONFESSION

An hour later, Emmet approached the college through the maple walk with
very different feelings from those he had entertained when he watched
the sunset behind the towers.  Then he had felt the glory of
individualism, his own vivid power as opposed to the lethargy of
institutions.  But his recent experience had started the pendulum back,
and now it swung to the other extreme.  His self-confidence had been
followed by an exhibition of weakness.  He who could defy and control
men was helpless before the eyes of a woman; he who had burned with
indignation at the corrupt politics of his enemies, who had sacrificed
his interests to principle by showing Bat Quayle the door, had gone
forth and sacrificed his principles to his pleasure at the very first
opportunity.

Though by nature objective rather than introspective, his experiences
since his first meeting with Felicity were teaching him by hard blows
the rudiments of his own psychology.  Had he been unmoral, he would
have remained unscrupulous and unreflecting, but the claims of right
would not down.  He saw the better way and approved it, but followed
the worse, and his knowledge of this inconsistency was gall and
bitterness to his soul.  He was as genuinely repentant as it is
possible for a healthy man to be while the taste of life is still
sweet; yet without doubt a large measure of his repentance was the fear
of discovery.  In the recesses of his mind lurked a hope that Leigh
would be able to show him some way out of the labyrinth, would somehow
help him to escape the consequences of his misdeeds.

Born a Catholic, his instinctive attitude toward the established order
of things was that of a dissenter.  Yet here were religion and learning
coming back, and not in vain, to claim their penny of tribute.  He had
defied the authority of the Church, and had nevertheless accepted her
doctrine of the sanctity of marriage; he had scorned the College, and
now he turned by preference to one of her representatives, influenced,
in spite of prejudice and disillusioning experience, by respect for her
ideals.  There she loomed, seeming monolithic in her solidity, a part
of the rock on which she was built, her windows sending out shafts of
light into the surrounding darkness, an allegory in stone.

As he passed the windows, he saw within characteristic glimpses of
college life.  Half a dozen students were gathered about a fireplace
with their pipes, clothed in every variety of garment from the sweater
or bath-robe to the evening dress of one who had dropped in for a chat
on his way to a dance.  In another room a game of cards was in
progress; in still a third a thoughtful plodder sat close to his shaded
lamp, his head resting upon his hand, an open book before him.
Somewhere above he heard a piano played with brilliancy and dash, and
the rollicking chorus of the college song:--

  Then we 'll drink to old St. George,
      (By George!)
  Then we 'll drink to our valiant knight,
      With his trusty spear,
      And never a fear,
  And the dragon pinned down tight, tight, tight,
  And the dragon pinned down tight!


Emmet listened to the refrain with a curious mixture of envy and
contempt.  Many a time these fellows had taken his car and discussed
football news with him, but at no time, in his hearing, had their
conversation indicated intellectual interests or risen even to the
level of the socialistic problems that were dear to his heart.  He had
yet to learn more of college life than is disclosed by the sporting
clique to a street-car conductor; but with characteristic
self-assurance he thought he had penetrated to the very heart of the
machine.  The quiet and unobtrusive student, the leaven of the loaf,
the future poet or statesman, had never attracted his attention or that
of men of his kind.  They saw only what was on the surface.  It was the
froth of college life that gave him a not unwelcome excuse to form
caustic generalisations upon a privileged class.

He hurried along, relieved to meet no one on the walk, for there were
few who would not have recognised him, and his mood was all for
concealment.  Observing from without that the light in Leigh's windows
was dim, he concluded that he was still upon the tower and went on up
the stairs, striking match after match to guide his steps.  As he
paused to extinguish the embers, he encountered the blank darkness of
the walls, relieved by ghostly slits of windows holding here and there
a star; and the hollow drumming of the wind was like the sea.  It was a
release to emerge at last from this series of aerial prisons and to
stand beneath the wide sweep of the sky.  In answer to his knock Leigh
opened the door and confronted him, clothed like a Siberian Cossack.

"Still at it, professor?" Emmet inquired.  "I should think you would be
frozen out."

"Come in, Mr. Emmet," Leigh answered.  "This is a welcome interruption.
I 've been working at a problem now for a month, and was just beginning
to get a little lonely."

His eyes shone bright in the dim light and his face was somewhat
thinner than Emmet had remembered it, but his manner was buoyant and
alert.  The visitor took a chair and glanced about him with interest,
noting the changes that had been made since he last saw the place.  He
observed an improvised windbreak of canvas, and a charcoal brasier in
the corner.

"And how do you manage to work that sliding roof in snowy weather?" he
asked.

"A broom, a shovel, some salt to melt the ice, and a little oil for the
wheels"--

"Well, I saw your telescope rising up above the towers about half-past
four, and was so surprised to think that you were still taking
observations that I came up to see how the place looked."

"I 'm making observations for the parallax of Arcturus," Leigh
explained.  "The atmosphere is clearer in winter, you know."

"How long might it take, now," Emmet asked jocosely, "to get at the
facts?"

"Who knows?  Others have been working at the same problem for twelve
years."

Emmet emitted a low whistle.  "What does it all amount to?" he
demanded.  "Suppose you do find the what's its name--parallax?  It
sounds like the name of some kind of weapon.  Why don't you go in for
some other line of business, before it's too late?  There's the law,
now--a short cut to politics.  You could get somewhere in the world, if
you did n't shut yourself up on this tower and spend your time in
looking through that telescope."

The reproach was in reality a compliment, and Emmet would have been
disappointed had his suggestion been received with favour.

"Since we 're comparing politics with astronomy," Leigh answered, "let
me ask who was the governor of this State fifty years ago?  Perhaps he
spent a lifetime struggling for the place, and after his two years of
office he was down and out for good, with the privilege of hanging his
portrait among a hundred others on the walls of the State Library.  But
take any name connected with a scientific discovery, and it lasts as
long as the world endures.  Take even a lesser name--never mind your
Galileos and Herschels.  There's Asaph Hall, who discovered the moons
of Mars, and already, before his death, he is enjoying his immortality."

"But I thought you told me the instrument was no good," Emmet persisted.

"Not as bad as that.  It is n't what I should like, but a man must do
something, even if it's only to keep in practice.  It might stand him
in stead some day in a larger place."

Emmet was too much absorbed in himself to catch the hint of
restlessness these words conveyed.  Leigh's profession, like the
ministry, made him, in the mayor's eyes, a being apart from the life
with which he was familiar.  It naturally did not occur to him that the
astronomer had been driven back to his duty by the scourge of
suffering, much less that his own wife had wielded the whip.  He saw
only an inexplicable devotion to an ideal pursuit.

"Well," Leigh continued, with a sudden change of manner, "and how is
the mayoralty getting on?"

Emmet's face darkened.  "I had it out with Bat Quayle this morning and
turned him down hard.  He 'll get back at me sooner or later.  But that
is n't what I came up to see you about.  The fact is, I 'm in trouble."

Leigh glanced tentatively at the sheets of paper on his table, covered
with unfinished calculations, and hesitated; but his visitor's manner
implied an urgent need.

"If I can be of any help to you"--he suggested.

"I'm not so sure of that," Emmet answered gloomily, "as that I want to
tell some one what an awful fool I 've made of myself."

"There are others," Leigh replied, with a bitter grin.  "I know a
triple-expansion ass not a hundred miles from here; so fire away."

Emmet went over to the brasier and warmed his hands, as if embarrassed
for words with which to begin.  Leigh fumbled in the pocket of his
greatcoat and produced his pipe, then drawing up his chair opposite, he
sat down to listen.  No premonition came to him at that moment that the
story his visitor had to tell in any way concerned himself, or would
deepen the even melancholy of his present days.  He settled himself
comfortably, with a sense of justifiable relaxation from toil.  The
troubles of another might arouse his intellectual sympathy, but they
could add no burden to his heart.  He even experienced a pleasurable
curiosity.  Emmet was to some degree a mysterious character to him,
though he no longer thought of him in connection with Felicity.  Her
departure from Warwick had put an end to that suspicion, and made it
something of which he was ashamed.  He divined indeed that the trouble
concerned a woman, but not the woman who had gone away with such
evident indifference to any man in Warwick.

"Well, Emmet," he said at last, "here I am, all ears.  Perhaps it will
help you to a beginning if I suggest that there's a woman somewhere at
the bottom of the trouble."

The other placed his chair snugly in the corner, buried his hands deep
in his pockets, and looked at the brasier with a fixed stare.  "It's
not one woman," he began, with a sensible effort, "it's two.  I don't
know any better way to give you an idea of the tangle I've gotten
myself into than by going back to the beginning of the story.  About
five years ago, I hadn't any more idea of going into politics than you
have now.  I was playing baseball in the summer and running a car in
winter, and saving my money.  My parents were both dead, and I was
thinking that it was pretty near time for me to get married.  I was
never one to throw away my money with the boys,--it came too hard,--I
didn't even smoke or drink, and"--

"That's a bad beginning," Leigh interrupted, shaking his head with mock
seriousness.  "No small vices--women."

Emmet took the comment with good humour.  "No, I was n't an easy mark
for women, either.  I tell you my main idea was to get ahead, to save
some money.  I could n't stand poverty; I had seen too much of it.
When I was a boy, I carried the washing for my mother after school
hours.  In summer I played baseball and hung around the race-track.  If
I had n't been so heavy, I 'd have become a jockey and made my fortune
quicker; but anyhow I had ten thousand dollars salted away by the time
I was twenty-five.  I 'm thirty now."

Leigh was secretly somewhat amused by this prologue, which seemed to
spring partly from the egotism of a self-made man, partly from an
instinctive unwillingness to embark upon the confession to which he was
committed.  However, he was far from being bored.  "I'm about thirty
myself," he remarked, "and I'm worth about thirty cents.  But that's a
digression."

"Well, as I was saying," Emmet resumed, "I wasn't an easy mark for
women.  I had too much at stake to get tangled up that way, but I was
thinking that it was pretty near time for me to find a wife.  There's a
lady in this town--you 'll hardly believe it--I did n't myself, at
first--that took a fancy to me.  She was rich and fashionable, and all
that, the sort of woman I would n't have thought of in any such way;
but gradually I began to notice that she took my car nearly every day.
Even when she told me straight out that she preferred to ride with me,
I did n't suspect anything, for she always had a pleasant word for all
the boys.  But after a while I woke up to the fact that she knew just
when I would be at the City Hall, and managed her shopping so as to
ride home with me.  After that I began to take particular notice.  When
I took her fare, I was embarrassed by the look in her eyes.  She had
fine eyes, and a way of sizing me up that seemed to mean something.
Sometimes our hands would touch for a moment, and then it was n't by
accident; and by Christmas time I knew as well as if she had told me
that if she was n't in love with me, she thought she was."

"You were a lucky dog," Leigh said, filling an impressive pause with
the first chance comment that came to him.  Afterward he wondered at
the obstinate torpidity of his mind, for not even the reference to her
deliberate look and fine eyes gave him the clew.  All this talk of
early hardship and of street-cars had put the narrator for the time on
another level from that he now occupied in the world, and made his past
seem his present.  The very confession, and the manner of it, belittled
the confessor, and Leigh took his characterisation of his admirer as
rich and fashionable with a grain of salt, making some allowance for
the point of view, some for natural vanity and a desire to impress him.

"I did n't think I was so lucky," the mayor answered simply.  "Of
course I was pretty well set up, but I never thought it would amount to
anything, and it was a dangerous game to play.  I was n't sure how far
I could go, or how far she wanted me to go, and besides, I had mighty
little chance to see her alone.  There was always somebody near, and I
thought if I overstepped the mark she might be offended, or her father
might get on to it and have me fired for impertinence."

His listener suddenly abandoned his semi-recumbent position for one of
alert attention and ceased smoking, not yet fully aware of the reason
for his dawning excitement, except that the last words had called up a
vision of Bishop Wycliffe to his mind.  He was in a state of suspended
perception, trembling upon the brink of a discovery he was loath to
make, waiting with painful tension for more light.

"So I did n't even meet her halfway," Emmet was saying.  "She kept
asking me questions about my life, until little by little she knew all
about me.  But the thing that interested her most was the fact that I
belonged to a union, and that I had read a good deal of political
economy.  Well, at Christmas time I got a box of books without any clew
as to the sender, but of course I knew who sent them.  They were Plato
and Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus and John Stuart Mill, and books of
that kind.  After that she began to talk to me, right before her
friends or her father, of my studies.  I read at the books, at first to
please her and to have something to say about them, and then because I
became interested.  Her friends regarded me as one of her charities and
began to patronise me, but all the time I knew she felt differently,
though no one suspected it but ourselves.

"Just before I left the car to play ball in the spring, she said she
hoped it would be the last time, for I was fit for something better.
Several times she happened to be in Warwick that summer when we played
there, and I saw her in the grand stand; and once, when I knocked a
home run, I saw her wave her handkerchief to let me know she saw me do
it.  When I came back in the fall, we began with a new understanding.
I had thought a good deal of her during the summer, and I knew she had
of me.  There was more between us than before, and it was only a
question of time and opportunity before we should come together.  We
happened to take the same car one evening when I was off duty.  All the
way up we talked like two old friends, and when she reached her street,
I helped her off and then walked over with her to her house on Birdseye
Avenue."

A sharp crackling sound startled him into silence.  Leigh had
unconsciously been clenching the amber stem of his pipe with increasing
intensity, and now it was ground to powder between his teeth.  The
meerschaum bowl fell to the floor, scattering a trail of sparks as it
rolled away.

"Hello!" Emmet cried.  "You 've broken your pipe."

Leigh was groping for the bowl and stamping out the sparks.

"The cold weather," he muttered, "makes the amber brittle.  There must
have been a flaw somewhere."

Long before Emmet had mentioned Birdseye Avenue, he had known the
worst; but only then, when he remembered the two lovers whom he and
Cardington had overtaken after the evening at Littleford's, did his
emotion culminate in this unexpected expression.  She had gone from his
side, after he had made love to her and had taken the lilies of the
valley he still cherished, to walk with her real lover, to congratulate
him upon the triumph she had made her dupe describe.  Now every
incident connected with her fell into its proper place and appeared
with its true meaning.  He understood how he had been used from the
first; the lurking figure by the fire in the woods was no longer a
mystery; the scene on this very spot, when she had bent down to hand
Emmet the candle, was explained.  The whole story, in which he played
the part of a meddler and a fool, was unrolled before him.
Emmet--Emmet--Emmet--that had been her theme, and apparently her chief
interest in life.  Still, with a pitiful hope, he must needs have the
final proof before believing.  There was yet some remote possibility of
a mistake, some question at least as to the extent of her infatuation
for this man.  He had spoken of two women.  Perhaps Miss Wycliffe's
abrupt departure was connected with a discovery of his unfaithfulness
to her, and meant that she would cast him off forever.  A wild hope
that this might be so displaced his first despair.  If that were
all,--a mere ideal fancy which really did her credit,--perhaps she
would return disillusioned, convinced of her mistake, and eager to bury
its very memory forever.

He regained his seat, pale as a ghost, but with a wonderful effort he
managed to smile.

Emmet reflected a moment.  He had gone too far to retreat.

"Perhaps if her name were still Miss Wycliffe," he announced, "instead
of Mrs. Emmet, it might be better for all concerned."

Only the semi-darkness of the place prevented him from seeing the
effect of this disclosure.  During the silence that ensued, the canvas
of the windbreak flapped audibly, like the sail of a yacht responding
to a rising breeze.

"You did n't expect that?" he demanded, gratified by the sensation he
had created.

"No," Leigh heard himself reply, in a voice that sounded far away.
"That makes it all the more--interesting.  Then you were married
secretly?"

"Not for two years or more; but we met from time to time.  I can't help
wondering now why nobody suspected the truth.  Of course the boys
chaffed me a good deal, and asked to be invited to the wedding, but
they were miles short of guessing the real state of affairs.  Sometimes
I noticed her friends putting their heads together and knew they were
discussing me, for they stopped whispering when I came up for their
fares.  But even so I heard casual remarks.  Some said it was sweet of
her--the way women talk, you know--and democratic, and others said it
was no use trying to do anything for that kind of people."

"Mrs. Parr, for example?"

"Yes," Emmet burst out, his eyes flashing redly, "but I 'll show that
singed cat yet what kind of people I am!  I 'll show her and her whole
damned set!"  His anger almost choked him, and his face grew crimson.
"She's part of the story, too," he went on, "but she does n't come in
yet.  However, if there were two people in Warwick that suspected
anything serious, it was that woman and Professor Cardington."

"Not the bishop?" Leigh asked.

"I don't think so, though he did freeze me in that way of his that you
can't put your finger on.  He's as proud as Lucifer, and would as soon
have thought of his daughter falling in love with some little Dago on
the street as with me.  But all the same, he did n't approve of her
interest in me, and he managed to make it evident."

Leigh had a vision of the blow that awaited the bishop's pride.  He
even wondered whether the disclosure would kill him, but he made no
comment.  In his own heart a sense of anger deadened for the time being
his sense of loss.  Since his discovery of the fact that she was a
married woman, her treatment of him appeared so much more heartless
that he felt he could never forgive her.

"We were married in New York," Emmet explained.  "It was in September.
The bishop was off on a visitation; Mrs. Parr was in Europe.  We met"--

"Never mind," Leigh interrupted, shrinking.  "Tell me where the other
woman comes in."

"That's just what I 'm coming to now.  When we got back to Warwick,--we
didn't come together, you understand,--I found out for the first time
what I was in for.  That was when my troubles began."

"You don't speak as if you loved her," the other said harshly.  Was it
for this she had thrown herself away?  Fortunately Emmet was too much
absorbed in himself to note the suppressed scorn and fury of his voice.

"I did n't get much chance for love, or much love from her, either," he
said bitterly.  "She kept me just where I was before.  What did I get?
A stolen interview and a kiss now and then, but plenty of advice and
books and plans.  She put me up to running for mayor; I 'm bound to say
that.  But she was n't to acknowledge me as her husband until I was
elected.  That was the plan, and I was fool enough to agree to it.  You
would n't believe it, but I did n't see her sometimes for weeks
together.  Last winter she even sailed off to Europe as cool as a
cucumber, and left me alone to work out my salvation, as she called it.
I worked it out, too.  I worked the union for all it was worth.  I got
to be president and formed a secret league with the other unions, and
we captured the Democratic nomination before the opposition knew what
we were up to.  All that took time and work, and gave me something to
think about besides my married life.  But when I saw Felicity after
that, it was mostly to report progress and to get advice.  God!  It was
more like going to my teacher than to my wife, and the thing became
intolerable.  She grew more mysterious to me all the time.  She did n't
seem like a natural woman, and I could n't understand her at all.  Then
I met the other woman at a lodge dance.  I took her home and kissed her
at the gate, partly because she was a pretty girl, and partly because I
thought she expected it.  I thought that would be the end of it, but it
was n't.  You know how those things grow into something you did n't
expect.  You can understand how I got in deeper and deeper, intending
to break away all the time.  If you 're the man I take you to be, you
can't help understanding.  You can't help seeing both sides of the
question, and how I gradually got mixed with this girl without meaning
any harm, until I discovered that we loved each other, and that my wife
had kept me waiting till she had killed the love I once had for her,
and the gratitude, too.

"The situation came to a head all at once.  Just before the election,
this girl goes to work for Felicity, and while there she wears a ring I
let her have, which my wife had given me as a sort of kismet, or
talisman, as she called it.  Felicity sees it on her hand, follows her
to her room, and gets it back, after having found out all she wanted to
know, but without telling anything herself.  Then, instead of coming to
me after the election, she sent me a note to let me know that she had
found me out, and off she went to Bermuda with her father."

"I see," said Leigh coldly, "but I don't see yet where I come in."

"I want your advice, as a friend," Emmet returned.  He was still
unsuspicious of anything amiss in his auditor, and went on to tell of
the adventure that followed his good resolutions: of his race on the
avenue; of his unexpected meeting with Lena and his sudden fall; of the
encounter at the inn.  Something of the eloquence which Leigh had heard
from him on the platform glowed in the apologetic passages of his
narrative.  If the astronomer had never known and loved Felicity
himself, he could not have failed to be impressed by the man's evident
struggle; he would have appreciated his repentance; he would have
blamed his wife for her conduct, and would have realised that her need
of sympathy was less than Lena's in proportion as her love was less, in
proportion as her resources and her pride were greater.  As it was, he
would have been more than human had he taken such a comprehensive view
of the tragedy, and his judgment went bitterly against the man who had
dared to esteem lightly the gift which he felt he would have given his
all to possess.

"Now," Emmet said, in conclusion, "you 're a friend of mine and a
friend of my wife's, and I thought--perhaps"--

"You want me to be a go-between?" Leigh demanded.  "You want me to help
you win her back?"

"That's what I was thinking of," the mayor replied.  "Tell her I mean
to do the right thing, that I meant to all along.  Somehow I think she
'll understand better if you tell her.  You stand halfway between us,
and can see both points of view.  Now that I 'm mayor and established
in life, the bishop need n't feel that he 'd be disgraced by the
marriage.  I can hold my own with the old gentleman now.  She 's my
wife, and I want her to acknowledge it.  The account is pretty even as
things stand, I take it."

Leigh smiled scornfully at Emmet's claim of social equality with the
bishop, based upon his position as mayor.  Not that office, but only
the fact that he was Felicity's husband, would give him an entrance
into the bishop's house, and the claim seemed to him boastful and
vulgar.  He rose abruptly to his feet, every muscle tense.

"No, I can't see both points of view," he said hoarsely.  "I can see
only her point of view, what she is, what she meant to do for you, what
she gave you"--

"What she gave me!" Emmet echoed, springing to his feet in turn.  "Hold
on, professor.  Be fair to a man.  She gave me nothing that a wife
should give, I tell you, nothing!  She left me at the very door of the
church and went off alone"--

"What!" Leigh cried.  His revulsion of feeling was so great that he
tottered and leaned against the wall for support.  Only one thought
possessed him, that she was not in reality this man's wife, after all.
In the face of her desertion, the mere words of the marriage ceremony
were as nothing.

"Why, man," he said, taking Emmet suddenly by the shoulder, as if he
would shake a comprehension of his words into him, "you're not married,
before God you're not married.  What priestcraft notion has gotten hold
of you?  I tell you it's all a mistake.  You've both made a
mistake--and you've both found it out.  Do you suppose, if she really
loved you, she would have gone away like that, without giving you a
chance to explain?  If you really loved her, would you have kissed the
first pretty girl that came in your way?  I help you to win her back!
Get her back yourself, if you can.  I hope you can't do it.  I don't
wish you the luck you don't deserve.  Don't come to me with your
troubles!"

Emmet wrenched himself violently away and stood aghast.

"You love her yourself," he said, in a voice of wonder.

"And if I do," Leigh retorted defiantly, "what is that to you?"

"Nothing," Emmet answered, "nothing."  And turning like one stupefied,
he walked slowly away without another word.




CHAPTER XIII

FURNITURE AND FAMILY

It was not without a painful self-consciousness that Leigh and Emmet
met again after their strange interview on the tower.  In a city of
between fifty and one hundred thousand people, with comparatively few
large arteries of trade, a chance encounter sooner or later was
inevitable.  It occurred one afternoon in a large crowd of Christmas
shoppers.  Either would have been glad of a forewarning and a chance to
look casually in another direction, but neither was prepared, when they
came face to face, to give the cut direct.  Their greeting was scarcely
more than a nod, and showed their mutual constraint.  Leigh read in
Emmet's bold eyes a warning such as an injured husband might convey to
the man that had wronged him, and a defiant reassertion of himself
after his humiliating confession.  He suspected also, what indeed was
the truth, that the discovery of his own feeling for the bishop's
daughter had opened Emmet's eyes anew to her value, and had cleared
them of the mists of passion for the unfortunate Lena Harpster.  From
now on the mayor would do his best to win his wife back.  He had the
bearing of one who had recovered his poise and meant to yield no inch
of ground.

Leigh, absorbed in the impression he had received, was unconscious of
the one he had given, of his somewhat repellent expression when he saw
the mayor's square figure bearing down upon him.  Yet his emotion was
less personal and intense than the other's in proportion as he was less
primitive by nature and training.  He distinguished between Emmet the
mayor and Emmet the lover; for he was familiar with the phenomenon of
official probity combined with a lack of that quality in some personal
relationship.  Had Emmet's quandary been presented to him abstractly,
he would have been quite tolerant in his judgement, with the
understanding of a man of the world; but, in spite of resentment and
chagrin, he still continued to love Felicity Wycliffe, and this fact
made him scornful of the man who had trampled her gift under foot.  But
would Felicity continue to give?

Leigh believed that she had awakened from her delusion; but what
direction would her pride now take?  Would she continue in the course
she had chosen in sheer perversity, in sheer fidelity to herself?
There was also the attraction of extreme opposites to be reckoned with,
the fascination which a man of simple psychology, of strength and
wholesome good looks, might possess for a woman of great subtlety and
cultivation.  Yet what could he do to prevent it?  With what grace
could he attempt to open her eyes to her husband's ulterior motives in
seeking a reconciliation, now that she knew of his own love for her?
Could he advise her to get a divorce on some technical ground, that she
might marry the man who had opened her eyes to the truth?  And how
could he assume that to her he was an element in the situation?

After his first emotion in learning that she had never lived with her
husband, and his consequent conviction that she regarded the marriage
as a mistake, the ceremony itself loomed up as a grim fact, one not to
be brushed aside by ingenious arguments.  Behind it, as a prop to its
stability, was the strict tradition of Christianity, an inheritance of
peculiar influence with both the participants in the strange mistake.
There was no cause for divorce which either of their respective
churches recognised as valid; at least, so he believed, for he did not
doubt that Emmet had told him the whole truth in regard to Lena
Harpster, and he felt sure that he would now avoid the very appearance
of evil.  He recognised also that he was the recipient of a confession
he must regard as sacred.  Felicity must not know he shared her secret.
His part must be merely that of a spectator of a drama.

These were his thoughts as he wandered from place to place, trying to
convince himself that he had reached a point of renunciation; but as
often as her face rose up before him he wavered in his resolution, and
went back to the conviction that she really did not love the man who
was only technically her husband.  Might not her treatment of himself
be capable of a more favourable interpretation than his first anger and
chagrin had put upon it?  He felt that it would depend upon her, when
she returned, whether he could maintain a feigned indifference.

He purchased a pipe for Cardington, and ultimately found himself in a
large department store turning over the volumes on the book counter in
search of a gift for his father.  Presently he heard a voice at his
elbow.

"Are you engaged in Christmas shopping too, Mr. Leigh?"

He turned and saw Mrs. Parr looking at him tentatively, her hands full
of bundles.  A remembrance of his rudeness to her at Littleford's
caused him to welcome this opportunity to make amends.  She was
Felicity's nearest friend, and perhaps she would mention her name.
Moreover, the fact that Emmet suspected her of having divined his
secret, and her meeting with him and Lena at the inn, gave her a new
interest in his eyes.

"Yes, Mrs. Parr," he returned.  "I'm doing as well as a mere man can be
expected to do, which is n't very well.  Perhaps you can come to my
assistance."

She placed her bundles on the counter with alacrity, and her thin,
gloved hand hovered over the rows of volumes.

"You must give me some hint as to the destination of the gift," she
declared, turning upon him with a sparrow-like motion of the head and a
significant smile.

"No," he said, laughing at her intimation, "it isn't what you suspect.
I want a book for an old-fashioned gentleman, past middle life.  There
seems to be nothing here but the latest novels."

"As to that," she responded, "the bishop reads everything, from the
Talmud to a Nick Carter detective story."

"Neither of the classics you mention will fit the present case,
however."

"I know!" she cried.  "'The Bible in Spain.'  You need n't look
dubious; it is n't a Sunday-school book, as you might think from the
title.  You may be sure that Felicity Wycliffe would n't like insipid
literature, and this is one of her favourite books."

Leigh's dubious look had not been due to ignorance of the book, but to
a doubt as to whether his father possessed it.  On reflection, he
thought the choice a safe one, and his reply left his adviser
undisturbed in her conviction that she was admitting him into the
select circle of Borrovians.

"The recommendation goes," he said.  "Not," he corrected himself, "that
I would not have purchased it upon yours alone, Mrs. Parr."

"Oh, I'm not vain of my knowledge of books," she assured him.  "Miss
Wycliffe is my literary conscience.  I do miss her so much!  When she
's away, I 'm only half a person, I declare; and when she 's here, I 'm
just nobody at all, because I lose myself in her."

"You make the friendships of men pale into insignificance," he remarked
jestingly, yet not without a new respect, inspired by this glimpse of
her capacity for loyalty to one who overshadowed her.

"If you only knew her!" she said.  "But you don't."

He could not help wondering which of them knew the more about one great
incident in her life, but he merely echoed her words with a rueful
conviction of his own: "No, I don't."

She regarded him with sympathetic understanding.  Of course he was
infatuated with Felicity, like many others, and undoubtedly his chances
were as remote as theirs.

"Now tell me," she said, "what you are going to get for the rest of
your family."

"That's what I want you to tell me," he answered.

"Follow me, then," she said brightly, "and I 'll see that you don't get
imposed upon."

He took the book and her bundles, and they left the counter on the best
of terms.  Though he was hopelessly in love with another, a knowledge
of Mrs. Parr's partiality for him lent a certain charm to his manner.
Without attaching any weight to the fancy Miss Wycliffe had told him
of, he was sufficiently human to enjoy being liked and to make some
response.  At his first meeting with Mrs. Parr she had seemed merely
insignificant; at Littleford's he had found her irritating; now, to his
astonishment, he discovered in her worship of Felicity her attractive
side.  When they finally left the shop with their accumulated
purchases, she insisted that he follow her into the sleigh and go to
her home for a cup of tea.

"People are so inconsiderate during the Christmas season," she
chattered.  "Now I never have my things sent home at this time of year,
when the delivery men are so overworked; and I don't even bother the
boys to carry them out to the sleigh for me, unless I positively have
to.  John and I do our shopping together, don't we, John?"

The coachman touched his hat with his whip in acknowledgement of the
copartnership in humanitarianism, and deftly steered his horses into
the open street.  "I belong to a league of women," she went on, "who
have agreed not to go shopping in the late afternoons, and not to have
the things they can carry sent by the delivery waggons.  I don't know
how many printed slips I have sent out requesting shoppers to use the
same consideration.  We looked up nearly every name in the directory.
This is the third year we 've done it."

"That's why I did n't receive a copy of your communication," he
remarked.  "My name 's not in the directory yet."

"You would n't believe what fun Felicity always makes of us," she said.
"She pretends that we are trying to excuse people from doing what they
are paid to do."

He was able to see how the virtue of the league could appeal to
Felicity's sense of humour, even though she might accept its suggestion.

"There 's that man!" she cried, suddenly stiffening.  "It seems to me I
can never go down-town without meeting the horrid creature somewhere,
strutting along as if he owned the town, just because a lot of ruffians
have made him mayor.  But I believe Felicity has won you over to her
strange point of view."

"Emmet is n't at all a bad mayor," he returned.  "I happen to know that
he has refused to have anything to do with Bat Quayle, the political
boss of the worst element of his party.  What do you say to that?"

"That you have been misinformed," she answered implacably, "or that he
has gone back on his word, and now refuses to pay his political debts."

"In either case you don't leave him a leg to stand on.  Still, I can
only reiterate my conviction in regard to his political honesty, and
wait for developments."

"I notice you don't make any claims for his private character," she
retorted, giving him a severe glance.  "But men have their own code of
morals, and always stand by each other.  Now I happen to know that he
is running around with one of Felicity's servants.  Out at the Old
Continental, the other evening, we found them in possession of a room
we had engaged for dinner.  He practically ordered us out of the place
until he and Miss Harpster, as he called her, chose to take their
departure.  Did you ever hear of such a thing in your life?"

"Never," he answered.  "Emmet would be quite a catch for her, would n't
he?"

She threw up her hands with a gesture of infinite scorn.  "He never in
this world intends to marry her.  I 'm sure of that."

He wondered whether she guessed how truly she had spoken, but her face
was sphinx-like in its hard acerbity.  She seemed to shrink and grow
pinched with the intensity of her emotion, and her next words, spoken
almost as a soliloquy, showed the trend of her thoughts.

"I had n't quite made up my mind to write to Felicity yet, but now I
will, this very night.  She ought not to let such a girl stay in the
house.  But I 'm afraid my writing will only make her determined--she
's so perverse."

The words only completed his mystification.  It now occurred to him
that this might be merely the excessive virtue of a New Englander, that
Mrs. Parr merely wished to save her friend from the mortification of a
scandal belowstairs in her house.  Her prejudice against Emmet was
sufficient to explain her belief in his bad intentions regarding Lena
Harpster.

"On second thoughts I sha'n't do it," she declared, with a curious
gleam in her eyes; then she closed her lips firmly, as if to dismiss
the subject.

Leigh could only guess why she had changed her mind, and had suddenly
decided to let matters take their course.  Assuming that she knew
nothing of Emmet's true relationship with Felicity and thought merely
that her friend was infatuated with him, it was possible that she might
even welcome a moral breakdown on Emmet's part, provided it would open
Felicity's eyes to his true quality.  He was tempted to believe that
Mrs. Parr would willingly let Lena be sacrificed to accomplish this
result.  The various possibilities that lay concealed behind his
companion's enigmatical features were bewildering, and the subject was
too delicate for further probing.  As the fine vista of Birdseye Avenue
opened up before them, he turned the subject by remarking that
Christmas never seemed so truly Christmas as in New England.  The
dictum was a happy one.

"Yes," she assented with fervour, "and is n't Warwick beautiful?  I
never go away, even to Europe, without realising when I come back that
Warwick is the most beautiful place in the world.  Thank God, I was
born and brought up in New England!"

"And thank God, I was n't!" he retorted.

"What do you mean by that?" she demanded, turning upon him with shocked
asperity.

"I merely mean that my view would have been limited for life to the
vista that may be obtained from the steps of the First Church--not that
it is n't a fine one, in its way."

The genial banter of his tone softened her resentment to curiosity.

"Where in Heaven's name were you brought up?" she asked.

"Let me see.  An account of my peregrinations would read like a list of
most of the States of the Union.  One gets an idea of the country by
such a nomadic existence, and does n't make the mistake of supposing
that the tail wags the dog, instead of the dog wagging the tail."

"I suppose you mean to imply that New England is the tail," she said
with trembling intensity, "when every one knows it's the head and
brains of the country.  I've never been west of Niagara Falls, and I 'm
proud of it."

"You have reason to be," he replied with gravity.  "I was only testing
your loyalty.  Where is our Mecca of patriotism and literature, if it
is n't New England?  My remark about the New England Christmas was
suggested by a memory of 'Snow-Bound,' which was one of the classics of
my youth, when I used to look out discontentedly upon our inferior
Western brand of snow."

"I can't make you out," she said.

When they entered the house, she laid aside her wraps and gave him a
cup of tea, supplemented by the thinnest of thin wafers, after which
she conducted him from room to room on a tour of inspection.

"Are you interested in Colonial furniture?" she questioned.

"I 'm anxious to learn enough about it to get interested," he assured
her.  "I see you have a great deal of it here."

"A great many people have," she answered.  "It's easy enough to pick up
imitations in the second-hand shops, or to ransack country houses; but
these pieces are all genuine and have been in the family for
generations.  There are three Chippendales that belonged to my
grandfather on my mother's side, Colonel Styles, and this is a
Sheraton.  That mahogany table with the low-hanging leaves is a genuine
Pembroke.  Do you see that newel-post?  It's the only thing in the
house we did n't inherit.  We got it from the old Putney mansion when
they were tearing it down to make room for the library.  When I heard
they were destroying the house, I sent Mr. Parr there to see what he
could pick up, and he found this beautiful thing thrown in the corner,
as if it had no value at all.  Think of it!"

Leigh owned that it was a prize of no small value.

"You may say so," she went on, warming to the subject, "and it cost us
twenty-five dollars.  When they found out we wanted it, they put up the
price.  Mrs. Bradford has never gotten over it that we stole a march on
her, for she meant to get it herself.  Do you know Mrs. Bradford?"

"Miss Wycliffe made me acquainted with her at Littleford's.  I remember
hearing that she was prominent in the First Church and very much
interested in historical relics."

"Her husband is one of the Bradfords," with an emphasis on the definite
article, "descended from Governor Bradford, and she is president of the
Society for the Preservation of Colonial Landmarks, and also of the
Daughters."

"The Daughters of the King?" he inquired maliciously.

"The Daughters of the American Revolution," she corrected.

"I did n't know," he explained; "I used to hear of the other
'daughters' from an aunt of mine; but her chief hobby was bishops."

"The Episcopalians are in a small minority here," she informed him.
"Most of the old families go to the First Church.  I was brought up
there, but Miss Wycliffe has made me a kind of half Episcopalian, so
that I go to St. George's sometimes with her.  But speaking of the
Bradfords, you have no idea how many obscure people claim to be
descended from Governor Bradford.  Now, I am a genuine Bradford on my
father's side."

"The old governor must have been the Adam of these parts," he commented.

She picked up a volume from a near-by table.  "This is the real
Bradford genealogy," she announced.

They continued their progress through the house, viewing hautboys, and
clocks, and tables, and tapestries, and chairs.  Leigh had extracted
all the amusement for himself that the subject and the a narrator could
offer, and he began to grow inattentive.  The long roll of names and of
styles of furniture, hitherto unfamiliar, confused him, and the
constant reiteration of the local point of view seemed an almost
incredible provincialism.  When they returned at last to the
drawing-room, Mr. Parr, just returned from his office, rose to greet
him.

"And how do you like Warwick?" he demanded.  "You show your good
taste," he approved, when Leigh had complimented the beauty of the
city, "and Warwick is a very cultivated place as well.  Have n't you
found it so?  There are a great many rich people here, but you see no
display of wealth, as in New York."

"I hate New York," his wife put in.  "It's so frightfully commercial."

Mr. Parr, having delivered himself of the articles of his belief,
resumed his rôle as the silent partner of the house.  He was a large,
slow man, whose history seemed to be the history of the dinners he had
eaten.  In his eyes smouldered a dull glow, as of resentment at the
limits of the human stomach and the volubility of wives.  He woke up as
his visitor prepared to depart, to inform him that the thermometer had
registered twenty degrees of frost that morning, and to express the
conviction that Warwick would spoil him for residence hereafter in any
other city.  Leigh assured him that there was no doubt of it, and went
out into the winter twilight, homesick for the full, crude life of the
Middle West, for the picturesque civilisation of California, for the
smoke and splendour and roar of New York.

As he passed the bishop's darkened house, he felt that it was out of
the question for him to spend the Christmas recess in the deserted
college on the hill.  He resolved to run away from himself, to seek
distraction from the riddle of his existence by a visit to the
metropolis, to change his sky in the hope of changing his mind.  The
increasing cold, and the dun canopy of cloud that had overspread the
sky for days, convinced him of the futility of attempting to continue
his observations at present.  Tomorrow he would join in the general
hegira from the Hall.

He walked back to the college, and seeing a light in Cardington's room,
he knocked at the door.  His friend was seated in the chair he never
seemed to leave.

"Ah," he said, observing his visitor's bundles, "you come in like a
Santa Claus coadjutor, a youthful Santa Claus, not yet dignified by
that hirsute appendage to the chin without which no Santa Claus is
complete."

Leigh admitted that he was a feeble imitation, and produced the
briar-wood pipe from his pocket.  Cardington was greatly pleased.

"Thank you," he said; "thank you.  I shall break the amber stem,
sooner or later, but I shall have it replaced by one of vulcanised
rubber, and shall continue to cherish the gift though _mutatus ab
illo_.  If you don't mind, I 'll initiate it now, without waiting
for Christmas day." He suited the action to the words and leaned
back in his chair, puffing.  "A new pipe is like--a new pair of
shoes--necessary--inevitable--but it must be broken in.  I see promise
already of sweetness--great sweetness--in this briar."

"Mrs. Parr picked me up and took me home for a cup of tea," Leigh said.
"And there I met Mr. Parr."

"Well, and how did you enjoy our excellent friends, the Parrs?"
Cardington queried, leaning back in his chair with an expectant twinkle
in his eyes.

"I felt that I was visiting a storage warehouse filled with old
furniture, in the midst of which stood Parr like a wax figure escaped
from the Eden Musée."

"I can well understand that," Cardington commented, with a chuckle.
"And you learned something, doubtless, about the old newel-post that
was taken from the Putney mansion, which I hope you admired adequately,
about the old clock, the tables, and the chairs.  You heard the
respectable names also of the respectable Parrs' ancestors, and Mr.
Parr asked you how you liked Warwick, after which he told you how he
liked it himself."

"Your astral body must have accompanied me," Leigh suggested.

"I could report the conversation verbatim," Cardington declared.  "She
told you, among other things, that she was a genuine Bradford on her
father's side, and uttered bulls of excommunication against pretenders
to the honour.  It would n't do, you know, to admit that the Bradford
progeny is as numerous as the stars for multitude, and as the sands
upon the seashore.  It is advisable to restrict the genuine Bradfords
to those of wealth and position.  Now, this genealogical mania is a
kind of midsummer madness that lasts in Warwick the year through, a
lineal descendant, so to speak, of the witchcraft delusion; but it
offers a certain kind of mental pemmican to impoverished minds.  Those
much vaunted ancestors were very worthy people, but, bless you! there
was n't a social swell in the whole lot."

"Out West one never hears of such things," said Leigh.

"Out West," Cardington returned, "they are still grappling with the
realities of life.  Ancestor worship has not yet set in as a canker in
the fruit; that will come with the dead ripeness.  Here you see the New
Englander as he is to-day, not as he was in a glorified past; not
landing at Plymouth Rock, not hanging witches, or beating Quakers, or
persecuting Episcopalians, not throwing tea into Boston Harbour, or
writing philosophy at Concord, but spending his days in watching the
gradual accretion of his already substantial fortune.

"A New Englander is the only jewel that appears to better advantage out
of its proper setting than in it.  To illustrate.  In the West, the New
Englander is thawed without being melted to such an extent as to lose
his backbone; he becomes genial without undue compromise; he carries
the torch of civilisation without a flourish.  It was the chosen
spirits of New England, men and women, that went West in their great
waggons with the pots and pans hanging from the axle, and salted that
crude country with their quality.

"But the conversation has become very oracular," he continued.  "What
are you going to do during the recess?"

"I 'm going home, and shall stop over in New York for a visit on my way
back.  But where are you going?"

"Well, I may take a little run down to Bermuda and see the bishop and
Miss Felicity.  Just think of leaving all this ice and snow, and about
the second day out beginning to shed your superfluous outer garments,
until you arrive at your destination in white duck trousers and a
Panama hat!  Think of the odour of lilies, not to mention the onions!
And there I shall find Miss Felicity, looking like the goddess Flora,
wandering in those beautiful lily-fields that command a wide sweep of
the purple sea.  It's enough to stir one to poetry, is n't it?"

"I wish I might go with you," Leigh remarked.

A film seemed to come over Cardington's blue eyes, just the suggestion
of a veil of secrecy.

"Yes--yes--if you hadn't made other plans, you know.  But you must go
down there some winter, you must indeed.  It's really a most charming
place."

"Well," Leigh said, rising and taking up his bundles, "give the bishop
and Miss Wycliffe my regards."

"I will," Cardington promised.  "Perhaps they will return with me.  I
'll take your excellent pipe along to smoke on the Gulf Stream and
among the lilies.  Good-bye!"




CHAPTER XIV

THE PRESIDENT TAKES A HAND

One evening late in January, Leigh entered Cardington's room with his
post-prandial pipe still burning.

"What do you say," he demanded, "to going down to the opera house to
hear the President of the United States speak?  Here I 've been shut up
all day, and forgot what was going on till I picked up the paper just
now.  I'm ripe for some excitement, the mood which in my undergraduate
days would have tempted me to go out and paint the town."  He threw
himself into a chair, looked about with a sense of being at home, and
passed his fingers wearily through the disordered masses of his hair.

The other looked at him attentively.  "You make a great mistake," he
remarked, "in allowing yourself to get out of condition.  With a
reasonable regard to the laws of health, you could keep yourself
looking like the discus-thrower, thinly disguised in modern
habiliments."  He spoke like an impersonal judge, who appreciates the
excellence of a type and wishes to see it maintained.

Leigh laughed with some bitterness.  "You remember what the German
professor said to his American student when he wished to take a rest.
'Who ever heard of a real mathematician with any health?'"

"Ah, yes," Cardington returned, with a comprehending look in his eyes,
"but I 'm afraid you had too good a time down there in New York, and
that now you 're working too hard by way of penance.  But in regard to
your suggestion, I am inclined to think favourably of it.  Not that the
President _per se_ is an object of great interest to me.  His mental
processes are tolerably familiar, and I don't feel particularly in need
of instruction concerning my duty toward God and my duty toward my
neighbour.  Still, this is an occasion of more than usual interest, as
perhaps you are aware."

A change had come into the relationship of these two, or rather a
readjustment of the view of the younger man concerning the older,
dating from the time when Cardington had disposed so neatly of his
tentative wish to accompany him to Bermuda.  He had returned from the
South alone about a fortnight before, quite uncommunicative in regard
to his trip, merely saying that the Wycliffes would come by a later
boat.  The shadow of the woman in the case was undoubtedly between
them, and yet it could not be said that jealousy, in the ordinary sense
of the word, was operative as an estranging element.  Leigh had too
much reason to know that neither of them had much chance of winning
her, and he thought he divined in Cardington not so much a lover's
interest as a friend's deep concern on her behalf and an unwillingness
to mention her name in casual conversation.

Upon the present occasion Leigh was impressed with his air of subdued
excitement, with a hint of tension and expectancy, as if something
untoward were about to happen; and as they took their way toward the
city together, the reason of this mood became apparent.

"Now, you know," he began, "great things were happening this afternoon,
and as I sometimes like to view history in the making, I went out to
see what I could see.  I 'm afraid that our respected mayor is destined
to play a very inconspicuous rôle in this evening's entertainment.  If
I am correctly informed, he is not to have a speaking part.  As an
accidental mayor, pitchforked into his present position by Fortune in
one of her ironical moods, he is to be allowed merely a seat on the
platform, where he may be seen but not heard.  But to go back to the
beginning.  When it was learned that the President of the United States
intended to honour us with a visit and to stand and deliver a speech,
it occurred to a group of representative citizens that a professional
baseball player and street-car conductor was scarcely a fit person to
receive so distinguished a guest; so they very properly resolved that
his part in the exercises should be reduced to a minimum.  To that end
a committee, including among others Mr. Bradford, Mr. Parr, and our
worthy alumnus, Mr. Cobbens, wrote a letter to Emmet in which they
suggested that his speech of welcome at the station be limited to
three, or at the most to five, minutes.  They intimated also that after
the speech of welcome was concluded, Mr. Emmet need not concern himself
further in the entertainment of the President."

"I call that beastly snobbishness," said Leigh indignantly.  "Whatever
the man's former position may have been, he is now the mayor and
entitled to all the honours of his office.  On the same principle, the
swells of forty years ago might have refused to recognise Lincoln as
the President because he once split rails.  And in fact they
practically did.  He had to be dead before they began to think that his
rise in the world was a vindication of the equality of opportunity they
pretended to believe in."

"'Beastly' is perhaps the proper adjective under the circumstances,"
the other admitted, "but why should we lose sleep and shorten our days
with fruitless indignation because men of a certain kind act as men of
that kind always have acted?  I prefer to look at the dramatic and
humorous side of it, having, perhaps unfortunately, reached the
speculative and acquiescent time of life.  And the situation at the
station was not without its amusing aspect.  Mr. Emmet's well-known
oratorical powers being thus curtailed, the President was delayed but a
few minutes and then conducted to a carriage and driven about the city,
attended by the honourable trio before mentioned.  It is said by those
who were within earshot that the President inquired for his friend the
mayor, when he saw that he was to be deprived of his company.  However
that may be, I myself saw our tribune of the people riding by himself
in solitary grandeur in the third carriage."

At the memory of Emmet's discomfiture he interrupted his story to
indulge in one of his silent laughs, an expression of mirth which, to
his listener's excited mind, seemed almost an inhuman exhibition of his
professed detachment from the passions about him.  Perhaps, had he seen
the dapper Cobbens and the lethargic Parr escorting the unsuspicious
President to the carriage, and Emmet's expression as he found himself
shoved into the third place in the procession, he might have
appreciated his companion's sense of the ridiculous.  But it was the
inward struggle, not the outward aspect, that stirred his emotions.
Emmet's most bitter strictures upon Cobbens and his kind were justified
by this incident, and he imagined the mayor's sensations when he found
himself out-generalled and humiliated.  What would Felicity have felt,
had she been present to witness the scene?  How it might have affected
her toward her husband, whether it would have aroused her to champion
him the more, or whether it would have moved her to scorn of his
stupidity in allowing himself to be put aside, Leigh could only guess;
but his own instinct was to make common cause with the man that was
wronged.

"And who appointed the committee," he inquired, "if Emmet had nothing
to do with it?"

"Why, they appointed themselves, without any more regard for the mayor
than if he had been a professor in St. George's Hall.  Now perhaps you
begin to appreciate why I remarked that this was an occasion of more
than ordinary interest.  Can we doubt that word has gone round among
the proletariat that their mayor has been insulted, and can we doubt
that they will be at the opera house in full force to express their
opinion of the committee?  You see now my motive in coming.  I am like
the man that went to the animal show in the hope of seeing the lion eat
the trainer.  In other words, if the people are going to give us a
specimen of the psychology of the mob, I wish to be there to enjoy it.
Such a thing might help one to an appreciation of certain incidents in
Roman history, like the turmoils in the time of the Gracchi, and the
scene in the forum when Mark Antony played on the heartstrings of the
populace.  Everything is grist that comes to our mill.  Even a football
game is a modern rendition of a gladiatorial combat.  Don't you think
so?"

When they reached the edge of the great throng that already filled the
street in front of the opera house, Cardington, instead of plunging
into it as his companion had anticipated, turned down an alley, like
one familiar with the locality, and led the way to the stage door.  The
manoeuvre disclosed to Leigh the fact that his colleague had intended
all the time to come, and also his own good fortune in obtaining such a
guide.

"Pass right in, professor," one of the guard said, as soon as he caught
sight of Cardington's tall figure.  "A friend of yours?  All right.
Sergeant, these are two friends of mine."

They made their way behind the scenes and came down into the pit, where
a few people, similarly favoured, were slowly selecting their seats.

"What kind of a pull have you got with these fellows?" Leigh asked,
secretly amused at the surprise his companion had reserved for him.

"A prophet is not always without honour, even in his own country,"
Cardington returned evasively.

Apparently his vein of talk was worked out to the end, for he fell into
a profound silence as soon as he had taken his seat, his arms folded
and his head bent forward, like one oblivious of his surroundings.

Leigh, not sorry to be left to his own thoughts and observations,
listened to the roar of the increasing multitude in the corridor
without.  He was struck by an absence of that good humour which usually
characterises such a gathering.  From time to time the doors creaked
and bulged inward as the people surged against them, clamouring
menacingly for admittance.  Each repetition of the forward movement was
followed by an accentuated babel of voices: women screaming that they
were being crushed and shrilly demanding more room, men protesting that
they themselves were powerless to resist the pressure from behind.  It
was evident that Cardington had not miscalculated their animus, for
they hurled maledictions at the janitor, who stood waiting within, his
watch in his hand, wavering between fear for the stability of the bolts
and an unwillingness to disobey orders.  Those already admitted
listened with increasing uneasiness, momentarily anticipating that the
doors would give way with a crash, and that they might see men and
women trampled under foot in an irresistible stampede.

Every electric light in the place was now turned on, disclosing the
bare tiers of seats, the stage filled with chairs, the great flags
looped on either side of the national shield, the speaker's table
surmounted by a glass and pitcher.  Then the scene changed.  The
janitor, struggling to open the doors, was thrown violently aside as
they swung back and launched the mob into the hall.  A great roar
ascended to the roof; the nearer seats were submerged by the black
mass, which sent out thin streams between the rows, like an advancing
tide creeping shoreward between ledges of rock.  Leigh and Cardington
rose to their feet and stood gazing at the spectacle.  For the most
part the crowd was composed of labouring men, who looked as if they had
just come from the factory or the shop, but here and there could be
seen a glimpse of bright ribbon, or a feather, or the silk hat of a
pale-faced clerk.  So rapid was the movement that the two spectators
were forced to resume their seats in a few minutes to forestall their
seizure.

It was eight o'clock, the time set for the appearance of the President,
when Mayor Emmet came from one of the wings, entirely alone, and took a
chair near the centre of the stage.  He had not been invited to meet
the President at dinner, and while the great man and his entertainers
lingered over their cigars, the mayor appeared promptly in the opera
house, as if keeping a business engagement.  No one who listened to the
welcome he received could doubt his personal popularity or the
intensity with which his constituents resented the slight he had
endured.  At first he sat facing the tumult imperturbably, and then a
smile slowly mounted to his eyes, as he rose and bowed his
acknowledgements.  Demands for a speech were shot out at him from
various parts of the pit, but he merely shook his head and indicated
his refusal by a familiar yet graceful gesture.

Cardington sat gazing at the solitary figure, muttering half
inarticulate strictures upon the demagogical spirit that had led the
man to make such an open bid for sympathy and vindication, but his
companion experienced very different emotions.  There sat Felicity's
husband, handsome, self-contained, and effective.  With a rueful
appreciation of a type that differed so much from his own, the
astronomer wondered whether she could resist him now, were she there to
witness his triumph.  The difference in social station between her and
her husband seemed unimportant now.  What he lacked was easy to acquire
compared with what he had already won; and his weakness for Lena
Harpster was, after all, much less serious than the moral delinquencies
of the men of Felicity's own class.  For Warwick, like all rich cities,
was honeycombed with social scandals, and scarcely one of Emmet's
opponents would have been justified, if all were published, in casting
the first stone at him.  Surely, Leigh reflected, she must know these
facts, for even he, a comparative stranger, had heard of them.

Was her pride so exacting that she demanded perfection in return for
her condescension?  Would she make no allowances whatever?  It seemed
to Leigh that such an attitude on her part would be inhuman.  During
his visit to New York he had recovered his grip upon himself, for he
was not one to throw away his days like the petals of a discarded
flower because he had failed to win the woman he loved.  Love, he
reminded himself bitterly, was not the main business of life.  This
mood of renunciation gave him an almost impersonal appreciation of his
successful rival; but the tribute left him heartsick.  Like all
personally ambitious men who have failed of popular applause, the
success of another filled him with momentary self-depreciation.  To be
sure, this popular triumph of Emmet was fleeting and local, while he
himself meant yet to win a permanent, though restricted, fame.  Of this
he had no doubt.  The present scene stirred him to grim emulation.
To-morrow he would realise that shouting and the clapping of hands are
as transient as the wind in the trees; but to-night they were, after
all, something well worth winning.

Presently, as if a play previously rehearsed were being acted before
the eyes of the audience, the "prominent representatives" of the city
and state began to swarm out from the wings and fill the chairs.
Senators, judges, millionaires, popular preachers, all sunk to the dead
level of a supporting chorus, an impressive illustration of the
littleness of the locally great.  To all those thousands of intent eyes
these were merely the background upon which, in another moment, was to
be projected the one figure of national importance.

And now he was standing before them, instantly recognisable, though his
appearance magically bettered expectation.  The committee, virtuously
true to the course of action they had planned, had passed Emmet by
without a look, but the people surged to their feet and cheered, as
they saw the President pause and take their mayor by the hand.  The two
stood in front of the passing chorus, apparently chatting like old
friends, and as the audience caught sight of the President's famous
smile, they laughed aloud.  Even those who might later call the
President's action shrewd politics now felt that it was dictated by
unaffected humanity, and their carefully nursed attitude of criticism
melted for the time in the warmth of that solvent personality.

As the confusion began to subside, while the observed and the observers
resumed their seats, Leigh suddenly saw Bishop Wycliffe sitting beside
the local bishop of the Roman Catholic Church.  The proximity of the
two men, the easy courtesy of their manner as they exchanged a
whispered remark and turned again to glance at the President, stirred
Cardington to comment.

"That's a touching picture of Christian charity," he murmured, with a
gleam of amusement in his eyes, "our Anglican and Latin ecclesiastical
princes side by side, forgetful of the Eve of St. Bartholomew and of
Henry VIII.  I have n't the slightest doubt that they are more
conscious at this moment of those very things and of their respective
traditions than of the situation before them."

His companion, looking for the bishop's daughter, scarcely heard what
he said.  He discovered her in a box at one side of the stage, in the
midst of her friends, and was not surprised at the studied unconcern of
her manner.  She must have come prepared to play her part.  It was her
beauty only that surprised him.  His mental picture of her was pale
compared with the glowing reality, for she seemed to have brought with
her all the warmth and colour of the south.  Though her eyes were
turned in Emmet's direction, the casual observer might naturally have
supposed that the President, sitting in the same line of vision, was
the object of her interest.  Only Leigh, glancing from one to the
other, saw her falter slightly as she encountered her husband's fixed
and meaning look.  There was a determination in his aspect that shook
ever her fortified resolve.  The colour slowly mounted in his face, and
his cheek pulsed with emotion.  As her gaze fluttered away, he turned
himself in his chair with a decisive motion, like one who bides his
time, and sat looking upon vacancy.  He seemed to forget the scene
before him and his own position between the warring forces so
dramatically brought together.

The silence of expectancy that had fallen upon the house was pierced by
a low hissing sound, for Anthony Cobbens had risen to his feet and
advanced to the footlights to make the speech of introduction.  As the
malignant greeting reached his ears, his face paled and his fingers
tightened on the rim of the silk hat which he held awkwardly in the
bend of his arm.  The scene Cardington had anticipated was about to be
enacted.  Upon Cobbens, as the mouthpiece of the committee, the fury of
the people now turned itself, a fury no less intense because restrained
to some extent by the presence of the President.  Perhaps the
unfortunate spokesman had thought that this presence would save him
entirely, for his reception seemed to turn him to stone.  As he waited
for the hissing to subside, he presented an appearance at once so
grotesque and pitiful that his bitterest enemy must needs have felt
some twinges of compassion.  That tight-waisted and wide-skirted coat,
those faultless trousers, served only to give a waspish effect, and to
emphasize the insignificance of the figure they were meant to dignify.
He wore a solitary pink carnation, selected with solicitous care.  His
thin face seemed to shrivel under the fierce rays of scorn
concentrating from thousands of eyes, and his large, bald crown began
to glisten with slow drops of sweat.  Even his voice, when he was
permitted to speak, had lost its timbre and suggested the voice of a
somnambulist.

It was evident that he had prepared a long and elaborate address, for
presently in the monotonous mumble of his words familiar phrases began
to reach the ears of those who listened,--"when police commissioner of
New York"--"the Rough riders"--"San Juan Hill,"--but for once their
conjuring power was gone, and they were greeted in silence or drowned
in mocking catcalls.  Not one in ten of his audience knew or cared what
he was saying; not one in a thousand was moved to pity for his plight.
The people had been visited with scorn that day through an insult to
their elected representative, and now they paid it back with interest.
The lion was eating his trainer, and licking his chops with grim
satisfaction.  The spirit was that of class against class, bitter,
ugly, and revengeful.

Leigh's personal interest was supplemented by the curiosity of a
comparative stranger, who drinks in every detail of a situation typical
of the country in which he has come to dwell.  He studied the various
faces on the platform attentively, and wondered whether Judge Swigart
were now convinced of the existence of the class feeling which he had
so blandly belittled in the joint debate; but the defeated candidate,
like the majority of his companions, had assumed a studied and
enigmatic expression.  So great was the tension that no one ventured to
look at his neighbour.  In a way they were all sharers in the
humiliation of Cobbens, and co-recipients of the people's scorn.  He
saw Felicity and Mrs. Parr putting their heads together in whispered
comment.  The bishop stirred uneasily and glanced with irritation at
the speaker's back, as if he would fain have bid him make an end.  In a
moment of pardonable weakness the mayor's lips parted in the briefest
of smiles.  Then he took out his handkerchief to conceal his emotion,
and having propped his chin upon the palm of his hand, he gazed
abstractedly at the floor.

The President, twitching in his chair, appeared well-nigh unable to
control his nervousness.  He grasped the arms of his seat convulsively,
he polished his glasses, he screwed up his eyes, he smiled, he frowned.
Watching him with intense interest, Leigh entirely forgot the speaker.
He had not imagined the President's build so powerful.  There was a
brute strength in the neck and shoulders that would have been no
inadequate endowment for a pugilist; yet this suggestion was offset by
an expression of which his pictures had given scarcely a hint.  It was
not difficult to understand how his enthusiastic biographer had been
carried away by that probity and sweetness, so that he made both
himself and his hero ridiculous and aroused inextinguishable laughter
among the arbiters of good taste.  The subject was one that tempted men
to violent opinions on one side or the other.

Meanwhile the speech continued, but now the listeners began to
appreciate a curious change in the temper of the speaker and of his
tormentors.  At first he had stood before them like one hypnotised,
unable to save himself by shortening the oration he had prepared.  By
little and little, however, the innate power of the man asserted
itself, malign and hateful as ever, but no less surely effective.  His
eyes began to glisten, his voice gained in volume and steadiness.  He
gradually made himself heard more continuously, until the hissing and
catcalls became less frequent, and finally ceased.  After a struggle of
fifteen minutes, he finished strong.  Like some ill-favoured terrier,
he had persisted in spite of odds, and had worried his great antagonist
into wondering submission.

When his figure disappeared from view, to be replaced by that of the
President, his supporters exchanged sidelong glances and meaning
smiles.  They had chosen their champion well, a nasty fighter, to crack
the whip over the class from which he had risen.

It was now that the President increased to passionate devotion the
popularity his attitude thus far had won him.  As he heard Emmet's name
combined with his own in the cheering, his face lightened up with his
extraordinary and spontaneous smile.  He turned, and pulled Emmet to
his feet beside him; then he sat down and looked on with keen enjoyment
while the mayor bowed his thanks.  It was some time before the
demonstration ceased and the people, satisfied and vindicated, settled
down to listen.

But the President evidently had a score of his own to settle, and a
snub to administer.  He turned to the senior Senator who sat at the far
left of the stage and thanked him for his welcome to the State; then he
turned to Mayor Emmet and thanked him for his welcome to the city.
There was not one word of reply to the ill-starred Cobbens, not one
syllable in appreciation of the efforts of the committee.  He had taken
his manuscript from his pocket and laid it on the table before the full
meaning of this omission dawned upon the audience, and then they broke
loose with an animus which made their previous demonstrations seem
comparatively mild.  The President gathered his manuscript together,
raised his hand for silence, and began to read.

His speech was simple in content and devoid of imaginative passages;
his delivery was conspicuously defective; his voice, uneven in quality,
now low, now breaking into a shrill note, seemed to come forth only at
the bidding of a tremendous will.  Every word appeared to necessitate
an effort and to be ground out between clenched teeth.  Yet his
listeners hung on every word with breathless attention.  His smile
broke forth, and they found it irresistible; he grew serious, and they
reflected his mood; he made a patriotic appeal, and the response was
instant.  Without any of the arts of the orator, he swayed them as he
would.  It was the triumph of personality over art.  The ugly memories
of the recent scene faded away; local struggles were forgotten; Emmet
and Cobbens receded equally into the background, and only the country's
glory and interests filled the minds of the listeners.

During all this time the bishop's daughter sat as one rapt in a reverie
that had little connection with the emotions that swayed the crowded
house before her.  Emmet made no further attempt to look at her, and to
do so would have necessitated a conspicuous movement and turning; but
the young mathematician gazed in her direction from time to time,
wondering at the nature of her thoughts, and hoping that their eyes
might meet.  As often before, he noted that her expression in repose
suggested a profound sadness, as if her beauty had brought its heritage
of unrest.  There is a type of beauty that suggests a setting of
fashion and clothes and jewelry; but Felicity's loveliness was of the
twilight kind, far removed from realism, setting the imagination free
with fancies of the mountains and the woods.  To the man who loved her
and had seen her in just such a setting, the appeal was all the more
powerful.  Even now the shadows of the trees seemed to lurk in her
eyes, in her hair, and in the exquisite curve of her lips.  It was
difficult for him to realise that she was a fashionable woman, loving
the opportunities of her social life, for he saw her otherwise.  Hers
was a face toward which men gravitated, not drawn by her beauty alone,
nor by the brilliancy of her mind, but by a sense of mystery beyond the
outward seeming.

The atmosphere which the President's speech had created outlasted the
effort itself, and remained warmly in the minds of the hearers.  All
too soon they were reaching for their hats and coats and beginning to
realise that the great occasion was over.  Soon the stage was bare, and
the receding tide in the pit had left large patches of empty seats.

The experience had wrought a wonderful transformation in Leigh.
Emmet's initial triumph and his claims were now forgotten.  Had the
mayor been allowed to speak, he would doubtless have scored a hit, but
Cobbens had succeeded in reducing him to a mere pawn.  The people had
thrust him forward on the board; Cobbens had neatly lifted him off and
usurped his square.  The mayor's position had been far from heroic,
battered between contending forces and finally rescued by the
President's strong arm.  Doubtless Cobbens had killed himself
politically, but he had won a certain kind of victory.  Emmet was
already beaten when he failed to grasp the opportunity the President's
visit presented and allowed the committee to thrust him aside.  No
amount of subsequent championing could restore him to a position of
dignity.  His enemies had decided that he must not be allowed to
introduce the President, for they knew he would do it well.  They had
brought the fury of the people down upon their heads, but they had
exhibited their chosen representative before them in a mute and
inglorious rôle.  They had even succeeded in making him an object of
pity.  The damage he had received in the imagination of his supporters
was incalculable, and while they burned with indignation, they
instinctively paid a treacherous tribute to Cobbens's amazing
cleverness and audacity.

Though no such tribute was paid the lawyer by Leigh, it was still true
that the turn of affairs forced Emmet from his consideration until,
instead of a star of the first magnitude, he became a mere point of
light, and finally disappeared.  During the President's speech, he felt
that he had been holding secret communion with Felicity, and the
accumulated excitement of the evening worked in his thoughts an
unexpected license and daring.  It was possible to allow Emmet's claims
when he was receiving the homage of the people alone, and she had not
yet appeared; but her presence had revived the old passionate torment
in his heart.  Love returned triumphant, making light of all other
claims and considerations.

Upon some natures oratory, the successful swaying of the crowd, has the
same effect, irrespective of the tone and content of the speech, that
is produced by the harmony of a great orchestra, an effect of
exaltation and lawlessness.  In the young mathematician this
responsiveness was a marked trait, at variance with another more coldly
intellectual quality.  He began to feel that he ranged at will, freed
from artificial and unreal restraints.  He, too, would do some great
thing.  On that full wave of excitement he was carried beyond the dikes
which in cooler moments he had erected against himself.

When the audience arose to depart, he looked longingly in the direction
of the box in which Felicity sat.  He would fain have leaped upon the
stage and have gone to her before she could escape him; he was burning
to speak to her, to hear her voice and touch her hand.  But her
departure with her friends was little less than precipitate.  It did
not now occur to her lover that she might wish to avoid her husband; as
far as he was concerned, she had no husband.  He only appreciated his
own disappointment, and stood chafing before the stupid herd that
blocked his way to the street.

In this mood he cared not at all to discuss the events of the evening
with his companion; but Cardington was full of caustic comment.

"It was a great occasion," he mused.  "We have seen what we came out to
see, and what more have we a right to demand?  The dear people rampant,
the respected mayor quiescent, but biding his time, Cobbens couchant
but fanged, the President raised to a sublime apotheosis.  It is always
a pleasure--is it not?--to witness transcendent ability, even if it be
in the line of practical politics.  The perfection of each thing is
worth observing.  These local politicians are fools compared with the
President, mere blundering tyros in the hands of a master of the
craft."  His eyes began to gleam with merriment.  "And, by the way,
that was a noble effort of Mr. Cobbens, 'apples of gold in pitchers of
silver.'"

His soliloquy lasted unbroken until they reached the street.  To his
companion there was now no inspiration in the moonlight, no sweetness
in the unusual mildness of the air.  His restless eyes searched in vain
the long line of carriages, but Felicity was nowhere to be seen.  He
caught sight of the bishop driving off alone, and Cardington noticed
the direction of his glance.

"Ah," he said, "the bishop is doubtless about to betake himself to the
final reception to the President at the Warwick Club.  Which reminds me
that the Bradford House is only a short walk from here."




CHAPTER XV

"I PLUCKED THE ROSE, IMPATIENT OF DELAY"

The Bradford House was a famous hostelry, and had long been deservedly
popular for its cuisine.  It was a pleasure to sit in the long, low
café, to observe the rafters of natural wood, the antique fireplace,
and the mural paintings illustrating scenes from Colonial history: the
landing at Plymouth Rock, the death of Miantonomoh, the Boston Tea
Party.  Still more pleasant it was, while the colonists attacked the
Pequods on the wall, to attack a lobster salad or a welsh rabbit on the
table, and to reflect that the main business of men _fruges consumere
nati_ was no longer to fight Indians.

Some such comforting reflection seemed to be mirrored in the genial
countenance of Professor Littleford, as he sat with Miss Wycliffe and
the Parrs in a corner, listening to the music that floated in from the
room beyond, and viewing the scene through the smoke of his cigarette.

He and Miss Wycliffe had a full view of the room, to which the Parrs
had shown their indifference by turning their backs, Mrs. Parr being
absorbed in her own excited comments upon the scene in the opera house,
while her husband was earnestly employed in the business which had
brought him to that place.  In fact, he had pleasantly occupied the
major time of the President's speech in gustatory anticipations that
were now being realised to his perfect satisfaction; and if he thought
of the mayor at all, it was to reflect that Emmets could come and go
without changing the flavour of his favourite viands.

"It was fortunate," Littleford remarked, "that I telephoned over and
reserved this table, but I 'm afraid our friends have disappointed us."

He glanced uneasily at the chairs leaning one against each end of the
table, and then over the room.  In all that crowd of eager talkers
there was practically but one theme of conversation, the recent scene
in the opera house, and but one verdict, praise of the committee.  In
obscure saloons the same topic was bandied back and forth over bars
dripping with beer, but there the verdict went the other way.  Could
all the excited comment on this subject, all the oaths and laughter,
have been collected into one volume of sound, what a mighty roar would
have ascended, shattering the far quiet of the moonlit night!

As Littleford looked across the room, three men entered the door and
began to make their way between the tables in his direction.  The first
was Cobbens, his hat in the bend of his arm, as if it had rested there
continuously since his performance on the platform.  He was acutely
conscious of the interest his appearance aroused, and bowed from left
to right with his nervous, expansive smile, a Gallic personality in
manner and dress.  It was evident that he felt himself among friends,
and regarded his entrance as something of a triumphal progress.  To him
social Warwick was the world, and its approval was commendation enough,
in spite of the President's rebuke.  He by no means estimated at its
full value the hatred he had won from the masses, and to see him now, a
pleased and genial person, the fact was hard to realise.  His
companions, or rather, the men who followed in his wake, were
Cardington and Leigh.  They had left their hats and coats in the
check-room, and were following the lawyer's lead instinctively, as men
will in the mazes of a crowded place.  At the same moment Littleford
held up his hand and the bishop's daughter indicated her presence and
her welcome by a beckoning motion of her napkin.  All three men saw the
signal and accepted it.

Littleford's brow clouded slightly at sight of Leigh, and his greeting
of the young man was a shade less cordial than his greeting of the
other two.  There were three men and two chairs, which was awkward, and
he was expecting only Swigart and Cobbens.  Cardington was always
welcome, but the astronomer was still an outsider, and the present
excitement was one of peculiarly local interest.  Had Leigh been a man
of means, Littleford would have commanded the waiter to find another
chair somewhere, even at the risk of being obliged to compress his
ample form against the wall; but now he retained his seat in deliberate
helplessness, hoping that the situation would presently be adjusted by
the tactful withdrawal of the only supernumerary of the party.
Unhappily for this hope, the supernumerary was not disposed to regard
himself as such.  He may have known that Cobbens would have left his
hat outside had he intended to remain, but at all events, it needed
only Miss Wycliffe's smile of welcome to justify him in taking the
chair beside her.

Her acknowledgement of the lawyer's greeting was brief and perfunctory,
as if she forgot to masque her indifference; and just as unconsciously
she betrayed her partiality for the young astronomer by those minute
signals which a woman displays when off her guard.  She swayed toward
him almost imperceptibly, and looked at him with content, as a woman
looks at the man she loves before she realises more than her desire to
have him near.

Cobbens began to apologise for himself and the judge.  "I forgot that
of course we were expected at the club, when I promised to meet you
here; but it seems we are still on dress parade."

"Let me congratulate you," Mrs. Parr interposed, "for putting that
creature in his place."

"It was neat," Littleford commented, with appreciation.

Felicity glanced up from her conversation with Leigh to meet an
unmistakable desire for her judgment in the lawyer's eyes.  The winning
prettiness of her manner, the transient glow, were gone in an instant,
to be replaced by an expression almost stony in its unhappiness.

"Something had to be done," Cobbens observed modestly, "to maintain the
dignity of the city."

The moment was epic in its possibilities, to two of the men present.
Cobbens might interpret an expression of approval on her part as a sign
that she forgave him for humiliating her _protégé_ and had outgrown her
fancy, but to Leigh such an expression would mean infinitely more.
Thus they waited, each hoping for the significant and illuminating
word.  But none was given.  At the lawyer's mention of dignity in
connection with himself, a slight smile hovered about the corners of
her lips, but it found no reflection in the cold brightness of her
eyes.  She made as if she failed to realise that a comment was
expected, or as if the subject were not of sufficient interest to move
her to speak.  The hiatus was closed before its existence could be
felt, except by the three so vitally concerned.

"I did think," Littleford explained, "that it would be pleasanter here
because of the jam at the club.  That's why I proposed that you and
Swigart slip away."

The lawyer, perhaps not yet convinced that he had played and lost, now
addressed Felicity directly.  "Won't you come to the reception with Mr.
Littleford and me, Miss Wycliffe?  I brought my machine around for the
express purpose of carrying you off."

"I 'm too comfortable to move now," she answered coolly, "and I don't
propose to make the President shake hands with me twice in one day.
Besides, I want to have a little chat with Mr. Leigh.  We have n't met
for ages.  Mr. Littleford, I know you want to go,"--

"I deny it," he interposed gallantly.

--"and as I refuse to move, I don't see why my stubbornness should keep
you away from something more interesting."

"In other words," Cobbens said, with as good a grace as his
disappointment would allow, "we have received our _congé_, and had
better not stand upon the order of our going."

She greeted this declaration with laughing protest, but the two went
off together, Littleford being eager to get from one of the
participants the inside history of the scene he had witnessed, and
Cobbens well aware that to remain would be to subject himself
gratuitously to the humiliation of taking a second place in her
attention.

Leigh, exhilarated by his good fortune, was impervious to the keen,
malicious glance the lawyer had bestowed upon him, while Cardington,
who had stood by during the whole colloquy in perfect silence, did not
even now venture to seat himself, but looked down upon Felicity with
the mute reproach of one neglected.

"Mr. Cardington," she said gaily, "don't stand there like a
clock-tower, without striking a note, but take Mr. Littleford's place
here by me."

He did as she commanded, and having given his order, he took out a
cigarette and puffed meditatively.

"Now please don't fall into the doleful doldrums," she protested, "when
we 've had such an enlivening evening."

"A most effective alliteration," he murmured, but without spontaneity.
It was evident that the doldrums were very real with him, for he made
no effort to take part in the ensuing conversation, in spite of the
fact that the subject was one which might have aroused him to his best
endeavours.

Felicity's mood was a revelation to Leigh, though he could not fail to
divine its cause, and to guess the emotions she had undergone.  Had her
pride led her to defend her husband, or had she been reserved and sad,
he would not have been surprised, but her sparkle and gaiety were like
the glancing of light on the surface of a rock.  She even shared in
Mrs. Parr's ecstatic triumph over Emmet and echoed her praise of
Cobbens, but with a subtle effect of mockery, so that her friend was
presently reduced to a hurt and bewildered silence.  In all this Leigh
saw the effect of her husband's humiliation upon her, that it had torn
from the mayor the last shred of the glamour with which her foolish
fancy had once surrounded him.  He was moved to speculate upon her
probable attitude, had Emmet seized his opportunity and risen
adequately to the occasion, but the speculation was fruitless, and the
present topic of conversation full of hazard to himself.  He was
guiltless of the vulgarity of showing an animus against Emmet,
guiltless also of the hypocrisy of defending him against his wife; and
he embraced the opportunity Mrs. Parr's discomfiture offered of turning
the talk to Bermuda.

How much of this psychological drama was visible to Cardington it would
be impossible to say, but apparently he was lost to his surroundings,
for he allowed the others to thresh out the Emmet incident without the
assistance of his own able flail.  Not until the conversation turned to
Bermuda did he arouse himself from his reverie and take the lead.  The
topic suggested to his mind the influence of climate upon architecture
and the arts, and presently he was exploring distant ramifications of
the theme.

"I feel it incumbent upon myself," Cardington said, "to confess that I
gave Mr. Emmet my careful consideration this evening, during the
moments I could spare from a contemplation of our Chief Executive, and
I must say that I found him the more interesting study of the two.  I
began to demolish my earlier views, or prejudices, and to build up a
new opinion of the man.  Fairness compels me to admit that I got a
different conception of his possibilities.  As I sat looking at him,
expecting to see every sign of demoralisation in his aspect, I began to
perceive that he by no means regarded himself down and out for good, if
you will allow the sporting phrase.  Mr. Emmet was fooled this time,
but he will not be fooled again.  I thought I could see that he had
learned his lesson well, and if I were Mr. Anthony Cobbens, I should
feel the stirring of a very considerable doubt as to the ultimate
outcome of the struggle to which he has now committed himself.  Perhaps
he has provoked a jinnee in that young man which will one day rise up
and envelop him in a cloud of political suffocation.  Don't you think
so, Miss Felicity?"

He looked at her inquiringly, anticipating her acquiescence.  In his
expression the ideal and impersonal quality that constituted his
peculiar charm was now apparent, and suggested an inward exaltation, as
if he had gained a victory over himself and had made an honourable
amend.  Leigh, watching her with tense emotion, saw that she was deeply
impressed, and he seemed to read the record of her thoughts in the
shadows that came and went within her eyes.  She was weighing her
husband's qualities and possibilities in the scales of this unexpected
opinion, and the decision hung suspended in the balance.  As he divined
her secret struggle and realised that she might go back to the man who
did not love her, who wished to use her for his own advancement, he
suffered an agony of jealousy that was well-nigh insupportable.

For a few moments she delayed to answer, toying with her fork in
thoughtful abstraction.  In fact, her love for the young astronomer
beside her was contending with the old desire to control her husband
and to make him a figure in the world.  In the inmost recesses of her
heart she knew that she no longer loved Emmet, and that they could
never wholly meet.  What she did not, perhaps, so frankly own was the
fact that she had found too late the man she could have loved and for
whom she should have waited.  With him she had common social
experiences and religious traditions, and time had taught her the value
of these things she had once imagined she despised.  But, after all, it
was the right man against the wrong man, irrespective of such
considerations.  Now that Emmet was mayor, she found she did not care;
the prize was an apple of Sodom in her hand.  He had even lost the
picturesqueness which appeared to be his in another sphere, without
gaining in compensation the things that were Leigh's by inheritance.
The argument went against him now, if that could be called an argument
which was only a question of love.  She looked up finally with a smile
that seemed to indicate indifference, or the weary shelving of a long
vexed question.

"Perhaps you are right," she answered.  "I 'm sure I don't presume to
say."

Cardington rose to his feet abruptly, and his glance seemed one of
judgment upon her.

"A scandalous proceeding!" he broke out.  "This night's work was a
scandalous proceeding."  Her startled flush arrested him, and his tone
attained a sudden jocularity.  "Well, I must leave you here to fight it
out among yourselves.  I have a piece of work that is calling loudly to
me from the hill.  Good-night!"  He paid his bill, and strode away
without another word.

"I never knew a man with such a range of learning," Leigh said; "he
makes the rest of us seem like ignoramuses."

"We are all his students," Mrs. Parr put in, "whether we wish to be or
not."  She spoke with such feeling that the others were moved to
laughter.  For some time she had been looking from Leigh to Felicity
with that birdlike movement of the head, until she had made a woman's
great discovery, that her friend was not indifferent to his admiration.
Without going so far as to wish Felicity to marry him, she was deeply
pleased that he seemed to have driven away the more unworthy fancy.
This was enough for the present, and her content shone in her glances
toward the young man like an unspoken message of good-will.

As they stood on the curb outside while Mr. Parr went to find his
carriage, the scene before them presented such a contrast with the
experiences of the evening that instinctively they were hushed in
contemplation.  The bare branches of the trees in the park across the
way were silvered by the rays of the full moon, which wrought a
motionless tracery on the thin remnant of snow beneath.  Through a gap
could be seen the white shaft of the soldiers' monument, lifting high
above the trees a splendid figure of Victory, with wings outspread
against the pale sky.  Modelled after the Pillar of Trajan, only more
lovely in the purity of its white marble, it was one of the rare
objects of art that gave Warwick a claim to distinction and justified
the pride of its citizens.  Around it were carved innumerable figures
of soldiers, climbing a spiral pathway.  Indistinguishable now in the
moonlight, they still remained in the memory, like the echo of a
martial song.

This was the first appeal of the night, made to the eye alone; but
presently, despite the random noises of the street, they became aware
of a dull, continuous sound, and knew that the stream which intersected
the park on its way to the river had been freed from ice by the January
thaw, and was pouring its swollen waters over the dam.  The note was
deep and full, like a solemn recitative, as if Nature's diurnal
harmonies had sunk to this one transitional key.  Above all, the
mildness of the air, full of the alluring witchery of a false spring,
affected the imagination like a delicate, ethereal wine.

Leigh lifted his head and swept the sky with the keenness of the
scientist to whom its vast spaces are a familiar book; yet when he
suddenly desisted and looked down at Felicity, she saw in his eyes the
rare expression of the poet.

"It would almost seem," he said, "that Nature has gradually been taking
on a more serene and mysterious beauty every moment, to rebuke the
feverish struggles of men."

Their glances lingered, and he read in her a wild unhappiness and a
suggestion of reckless daring that stirred his heart to he knew not
what tempestuous emotions.  He found in that look a license for his
dreams, and made her the guardian of his conscience.  He had no wish to
be more honourable than she, and this surrender was attended by an
ecstasy that derived its final sweetness from a sense of transgression.
When the carriage came round, he handed Mrs. Parr in, and then
hesitated.

"We ought to walk home such a night as this, Miss Wycliffe," he
suggested.

Mrs. Parr leaned forward and laughed lightly with appreciation.
"Felicity, dear," she said, "if you're going to walk, do draw up your
hood, or you'll catch cold."

Leigh's heart grew warm with gratitude at this friendly interposition,
and to his surprise even Parr himself seemed not indifferent to his
cause.  "Yes," he added, pulling at his cigar till it glowed redly,
"this is the kind of weather when one catches cold easily.  The worst
cold I ever caught was during one of these January thaws."  With this
advice they drove away, pleased with their innocent cooperation.

Felicity, laughing at their warning, nevertheless accepted the
suggestion.  The long Shaker cloak gave a demure and Puritanical effect
to her figure as her head disappeared beneath the hood, an effect of
outline merely, for the richness of its crimson hue suggested other
associations.  For some time they walked in comparative silence through
the park, pausing for a moment on the stone arch that spanned the
stream to note the glint of the moon on the swirling water, and even
when they found themselves at last in Birdseye Avenue, their talk was
all of the night and the sorcery of its effects, veiling and again
unconsciously betraying the nature of their inward thoughts.

A realisation of the fact that his opportunity was slipping by moved
Leigh to desperation.  Yet an opportunity for what?  Try as he might,
he could never understand how she had come to marry Emmet; her
practical repudiation of the act could not undo it.  What was he to
hope for from this cruel and beautiful woman?  He was indifferent to
the fact that for some time he had not spoken.

"What are you thinking of?" she asked, turning upon him with a hint of
challenge.  "Has the moonlight bewitched you, Mr. Leigh?"

"Not the moonlight," he answered shortly, "though I am bewitched."

She regarded him with an air of inquiry, even of invitation.  Was it
possible that she failed to know what might result?  Did she hunger for
further evidences of her power?

"Don't look at me like that," he went on, "if you wish me to remember
that you once forbade me to love you.  Don't I know how hopeless my
love is?  Your eyes have come between me and my work day and night to
invite me to take what you can never give, and what I believe you would
not give if you could.  Is n't it enough that you have been cruel to
one man?"

They were passing her house, but neither paused.  His passion had led
him to disclose his knowledge of her secret, and her heart was gripped
in a sudden fear.  For the moment, it seemed to her that all Warwick
must know, that the fact she now desired to conceal was common
property, to be to-morrow the wonder of the town.

"See how deserted the street is," he said.  "It is as if you and I were
walking alone in the world, and who can tell when we shall be alone
again?"

Presently he paused and faced her.  She stood looking up at him, her
face, framed by the gathered edge of her crimson hood, ethereally
beautiful in the full moonlight.

"Do you know how a man feels when he loves you, Felicity?" he demanded.
It was the first time he had ever addressed her by that name, but she
accepted it without protest, waiting with parted lips for his next
words.  "How can you be so quiet?" he went on passionately.  "It is n't
possible that you can be as cruel as you seem!  Why did n't you treat
me brutally at the very first, and give me my answer before I was such
a fool as to ask the question?  That would have been kindness.  But you
let me hope, I don't know why, perhaps because you wanted to use me,
perhaps to feed your vanity.  Just now I hardly know what I am saying
to you; but don't think that I shall be one of your victims.  You owe
me something, Felicity, some memory to carry with me the rest of my
life.  That at least I will have, even if I must pay for it by never
seeing you again."

Before she could forestall his intention, he had drawn her into his
arms.  Her hand faltered in a vain effort against his breast, and she
was lost.  She leaned against him helplessly.  "There," he said,
kissing her once and again, "now you know how I love you."

They stood apart, trembling.  In his eyes shone a mournful triumph,
while her indignation was rendered speechless by a full knowledge of
her responsibility for the act.  She could have averted it, had she
wished.

"I did not dream," he said at last, as if speaking to himself alone,
"that a woman could be so sweet."

"Have you forgotten that I am"--She could not frame the word that
hovered on her lips, nor maintain the dignity for which she strove
against the suffocating tumult of joy that rioted in her heart.

"Your husband gave me his confidence," he answered bitterly.  "You see
how well I deserved it."

"Then you realise what you have done."  There was a note of finality in
her voice, and, turning slowly, she began to retrace her steps.  She
was unconscious of the fact that they were walking close together until
the sound of a carriage overtaking them caused her to draw away
instinctively and to glance with apprehension at the roadway.  The
vehicle passed within a few feet of the curb, and the bishop leaned
forward with a look of recognition.

"Father has been to the reception," she said.  "I must go in now."

"There is so much I want to say," he protested.

She smiled drearily.  "You must spare me further humiliation," she
answered.  He knew her meaning without more words.  He must not speak
to her of her mistake, nor hint of the possibility of her freedom.  Yet
it was this possibility that struggled dumbly within them for
recognition, so that now their mood was one of storm, all the more
intense from its repression.  They were conscious each moment of the
man who stood between them, no longer the familiar figure, but one
evoked by their mutual guilt and sublimated by Cardington's prophetic
words, strong to avenge himself upon his enemies and betrayers.  Leigh,
convinced that Emmet would claim his own, suffered already the anguish
of renunciation, more poignant that the pressure of her unresisting
lips was still felt warmly on his own.  Before her house he stooped and
kissed her again without fear of repulse, chastened and subdued.

"Since it is to be good-bye," she said quietly.

He stood where she left him, watching her figure lessening between the
trees until it was swallowed up in the shadow of the house.  The door
opened, he saw the crimson flash of her cloak for a moment in the light
from within, and then she was gone.

The bishop, sitting beside the lamp with a book in his hand, glanced up
as his daughter entered, with a keen inquiry in his deepset eyes.

"I thought I just passed you with Mr. Leigh," he remarked, watching the
effect of his words.  Her unusual colour and the brilliancy of her eyes
served to confirm his suspicions, though her manner was as studiedly
indifferent as his own.  It was with difficulty that she restrained the
trembling of her fingers fumbling with the fastening of her cloak.

"Yes," she answered.  "Mr. Leigh met us at the Bradford after the
President's speech, and the night was so beautiful that we walked home
together."

Looking at her attentively, he was struck by a new softness and
radiance in her beauty, and by the fact that the Shaker cloak was
singularly becoming.  He thought of his sermon on personal adornment,
and in spite of his anxiety, a deep amusement dawned in his eyes.  "And
went around Robin Hood's barn, by the way," he supplemented.

"Is n't the longest way round the shortest way home?" she asked coolly.
His smile had reassured her.  Whatever he suspected, it was much less
than the truth.

It was not in the bishop's nature to come out with a direct question
that might precipitate a scene, except as a last resort, and he
presently bade her good-night, after commenting upon the events of the
evening with the casual interest of one accustomed to public
spectacles.  In reality, his interest had been deep, but now another
matter demanded his thought, and he was willing to be alone.  He was
reminded by the encounter in the street that it was high time to put
the machinery in operation by which the young professor was to be
quietly dismissed from St. George's Hall.  Satisfied with his analysis
of his daughter's state of mind, he perfected his plan, and went to bed
in comparative content.

Leigh sat for a long time staring at the flame of his lamp and striving
to take reckoning with himself.  He could no more have told how he
found his way to his room than if he had been carried thither in a
state of insensibility, but there he was, trying to think, while mere
emotion still held a riotous sway.  He had kissed her, and the touch of
her lips, the fragrance of her skin, were even now present in his
senses.  The experience caused him to readjust his impression of her.
She had lost something in his eyes.  What was it?  Not height; though
she seemed less tall.  The change was not in stature.  Like Pygmalion,
he had found the marble grow warm and human beneath his caress; he was
still bewildered by the wonder of it, and mad with a sense of triumph.
She had lost her inaccessibility, her inviolable distance, but she had
gained in womanly quality, gained infinitely upon his heart, so that
now he longed for only one thing--to take her in his arms once more.
At the thought he flushed warmly; but suddenly his heart grew cold, as
her words came back so vividly to his mind that they seemed spoken
audibly in the room: "Since it is to be good-bye."

He arose from his chair and walked rapidly up and down the room, as if
to escape from his own condemnation.  Had he, then, no honour at all?
The question brought him face to face with his naked soul, and he was
afraid.  What sophistry was that by which he had justified his act?  He
had argued that it was to be a kiss of farewell, and no sooner had he
attained his wish than all thought of the stipulation vanished utterly
from his mind, leaving only a more insatiable longing.  The last
vestige of his morality seemed to be swept away, and memory made the
taste of stolen waters still sweet to his lips.  When he judged Emmet
so severely, he was proudly sure of his own standards, but now he felt
he had none.  Her husband's scornful and warning look, the day they
encountered each other in the street, was then prophetic.  The man
estimated him unerringly, and knew what he had to fear.

Reflection had come at last, and would not down.  Surely, Emmet was the
more honourable of the two, and had been more sinned against than
sinning.  He had slipped, had recovered himself, and was honestly
striving to make amends.  How shamefully cruel his treatment had been
from every hand, from his wife's, his friend's, his political
opponents'!  Where was now his own guilty triumph of a few moments
since?  He sank into his chair once more, and faced the fact that Emmet
had given him an example to follow, that he must keep his promise not
to see Felicity again.

His eye fell upon his pipe and he seized it avidly.  At the table, he
had not smoked with Cardington and Parr; he had scarcely eaten.  Now,
the tobacco brought peculiar relief to his over-wrought mind, and
dulled for a few moments the edge of his remorse.  In the wavering
clouds of smoke he saw her eyes once more.  And the crimson cloak!  Was
ever a wrap worn by mortal woman so bewitching, so deliciously
contradictory in its suggestions?  The Shaker women never married, and
this was their peculiar garment, though they always wore one of sad,
monotonous gray.  Every winter they came to Warwick and sold cloaks of
worldly colours to the rich young women of the town, seeking money for
their dwindling settlement.  In the contradiction between the
demureness of outline and the warmth of colour the wearer found a
weapon of coquetry.

Presently the pipe was smoked out, and then the second and the third,
with gradual lessening of narcotic power.  The vision of the senses was
gone, and the relentless reality of duty returned.  Once more he left
his chair and began his restless pacing to and fro.  Thus the miserable
night wore on, until he threw himself upon his bed to win the oblivion
of sleep.

But now another memory assailed him: the night following his meeting
with Felicity in the woods, when, during fitful dreams, a vision of
that strange figure rising up in the shadows beyond the fire returned
to haunt him.  Suddenly he was sitting up in bed, staring into the
darkness.  In despair he went to his windows and raised the curtains to
see if it were near the dawn.  It was four o'clock, but night still
covered the wintry landscape.  The full moon was setting in the west.
Transformed from a natural object by the medium of his over-strained
and weary mind, it now presented a sinister and mocking face, as it
peered through the diamonded panes and poured a flood of yellow light
upon the floor.




CHAPTER XVI

THE BLINDNESS OF THE BISHOP

The following morning, Felicity did not appear at the breakfast-table,
a circumstance sufficiently unusual to cause the bishop some
uneasiness, for she rarely failed to rise at a reasonable hour.

"Lena," he said, "go upstairs and see whether Miss Wycliffe is ill, but
don't wake her if she is still asleep."

Left alone, he glanced over the morning paper, too much absorbed in the
hypothesis that would explain his daughter's non-appearance to find
much amusement in the editor's bland and innocuous comments upon the
sensational episode of the preceding night.  He recalled her evident
excitement and preoccupation when she came in from her walk with Leigh.
If her interview with the young man had been what he feared, it was
natural she should have lain awake long into the night, and his heart
misgave him at this additional confirmation of his insight.

When Lena Harpster received no response to her gentle tap, she ventured
to open the door softly and to step within her mistress's room.  The
lightest sleeper could scarcely have been awakened by her entrance, as
noiseless as a shadow or the slow swaying of a curtain.  She stood near
the foot of the bed, in the dim and fragrant room, looking at the
beautiful head upon the pillow, the dark, abundant hair, the half-open
lips relaxed from the control of the mind, revealing now more clearly
all the promises and passions which when awake they might deny.

Some sense of the awe and mystery of sleep caused Lena to stand thus
motionless at gaze, herself a pale, ethereal figure, scarcely less
beautiful than her mistress.  There was a guilty consciousness also of
deliberate intrusion.  Familiar as she was with the room, it now took
on a different aspect to her eyes.  All the objects of art, the
tapestries and pictures and statuettes, which she had admired for
themselves, seemed in a peculiar way the property of their happy owner,
an overflowing expression of her abundant loveliness.  What a contrast
that lace-covered bed, that nest of luxury, presented to her own simple
couch beneath the roof, which served merely as a place where she could
lie down and rest!  And there was another contrast of which she was
unaware.  The sleeping face was more instinct with life, though Sleep
is said to be the brother of Death, than the shadowed eyes that watched.

Miss Wycliffe, she reflected, had only to wish for a thing, and
possession was assured.  Above all, it was the thought that she might
also have taken her lover from her which kept the girl's eyes fixed in
wistful speculation.  She had ventured to write again to Emmet, but
without result; he had even passed her blindly on the street, leaving
her faint, with a whispered greeting dying pathetically on her lips.
How could she contend with her mistress, if what she feared were true?
Yet how slender her cause of suspicion!  Only the incident of the ring,
which Miss Wycliffe had explained most naturally; but the final warning
against Emmet remained in her mind as a declaration of possession.

It was characteristic of Lena's nature that she yielded to no one in
appreciation of Felicity's beauty.  Chastened rather than embittered by
a conviction of her own loss, she was not without a consciousness of
the appealing change which sleep now made in the woman she had such
cause to dread.  No hint remained of that imperious quality which
moulded others to her will.  She seemed to have grown softer, and there
was something childlike in the position of her arm on the counterpane,
in her hand turned palm upward, in her half-curled fingers.  A lover,
were he a poet, might have likened them to the petals of a flower that
had begun to open with returning day.  Presently the sleeper stirred
and opened her eyes, dimly aware of a retreating presence and a closing
door, but when, an hour later, she awoke fully, the impression was like
that of a dream.

It was ten o'clock when she rang her bell and ordered breakfast in her
room.  This order was as unusual as her late sleep, but she seemed to
herself to have awakened a different person, one in whom such small
changes of action were merely an index of greater possibilities.  She
received her father's inquiries through Lena with indifference, and
sent back word that she had been only over-tired.  Knowing that he
lingered below to see her, she delayed deliberately until he should
grow impatient and leave the house, for she wished to take up again the
train of thought that had kept her so long awake the previous night.
At present, her sole concern was of herself and of her lover.

Having placed the steaming cup of coffee beside her on the
dressing-table, she sipped it from time to time while she fastened up
her hair.  Like Leigh, she too had come to a new realisation of self,
but the revelation was attended with far less of spiritual turmoil.  It
was as if she were making her own acquaintance over again, and the
process was not without fascination.  He had called her cruel.  Was
there truth in the charge?  She had never been conscious of intentional
cruelty, and yet she was intellectual enough to see that her husband
might have good reason to accuse her of it in her treatment of him.
But Leigh had no such cause of complaint, unless he would hold her
responsible for her beauty.  There must be some expression in her face
which she herself had never seen, which she could never summon from its
reflection in the mirror, an expression of desire, impersonal it might
be, but moving the beholder to a personal response.

She was pleased, rather than distressed, by Leigh's condemnation.  In
spite of his talk of cruelty and vanity, he had said he did not know a
woman could be so sweet.  She knew she could be sweet to the man she
loved, and that no one had ever yet divined how much she had to give.
She placed the back of her hand against her lips and tried to imagine
how they had felt to him when he kissed them.  The youthfulness of the
action and the fancy made her smile, and showed her how far she had
gone in thinking of him as a lover.

Her sense of guilt was less acute than her realisation of the
difficulty of her position.  It came upon her that she was one day
nearer discovery and condemnation.  As yet no plan of action had taken
final shape in her mind.  She did not know whether she would wait for
discovery to come and find her, or take the initiative.  Leigh's
declaration had acted as a sedative on her unhappiness, and had
banished the desire of an explanation with her husband.  She would fain
arrest time while the situation remained as it was, while Leigh was not
yet lost to her for good.  What did she mean by allowing him to kiss
her a second time?  Did she wish to make amends for the suffering she
had caused, or was her acquiescence a fatal admission?  In the latter
case, what hope or consolation could she find in this new discovery?

Cardington too came in for a share of her thought, but scarcely for a
share of her concern.  Whatever his suspicions or knowledge, she was
sure that his affection and loyalty would keep him silent.  If his
final outbreak at the table the previous evening expressed his
indignation at Emmet's treatment, it seemed to tell also his acceptance
of the inevitable, and to convey to her in her doubt his advice, almost
his entreaty.  It was as if he had pointed out to her the path of duty,
and warned her against his colleague, not in a spirit of jealousy, but
in the spirit of a friend who had readied an absolute renunciation of
whatever hopes he might once have cherished, and now thought only of
her.  For a moment she softened almost to the point of tears, but this
indulgence was brief.  A vision of her husband's bulldog air, as he sat
there baffled and at bay, returned to menace her.  She realised that he
would not leave matters longer as they were, that he might force the
crisis that very day.  The mettle of the bishop's daughter was never
more apparent than now, as she faced the probable results of her own
actions.  She was by no means inclined to take her punishment quietly,
or to admit that she was in the wrong.  Having ruled her husband so
long, she would not now allow him to dictate to her, but would fight
for her own happiness.  Her hands clenched involuntarily, and her
breath came quick with militant excitement.  Had she been a man, her
career, in whatever line she might have chosen, could scarcely have
been less than remarkable.

Meanwhile the bishop was frittering the morning away by a desultory
attention to his correspondence, hoping each moment that Felicity would
pass the open door of his study.  He was no longer a busy man, for the
onerous duties of his office were now taken by his coadjutor, and he
could well afford to wait.  He did not know what he wished to say to
her, but he would see her face again and observe her manner, that he
might examine anew his grounds of suspicion.  For him there were no
longer golden hours which it were a sin for others to filch from him.
In the sunset of his life he dreamed of the active labours of his
successors, of the institution which he would leave in a position to
feed more generously the ministry of the Church.  Should he allow her
foolish fancy for a fortune hunter to divert her from the purpose he
hoped she would one day cherish?  Even if a husband made no attempt to
dissuade her, a child would inevitably become an heir, and her plans
would be solely for him.  Cold and austere by nature, he had married
his own position to wealth, and he felt no desire to perpetuate his
line under the name of another man.  Above all, he shrunk from the
thought of his daughter's marriage as from a profanation.  She was so
like him in certain mental traits and interests that he could not
appreciate the temperamental difference that kept them far apart.

As the hands of the clock crept toward eleven, he realised that the
morning was slipping away, and that he could wait no longer if he was
to see President Renshaw before he went to lunch.  A few minutes later,
he stood in the hall, a distinguished and old-fashioned figure, with
his silk hat, his long cape, and his gold-headed ebony cane.  Lena
Harpster was there, dusting an antique chair of ecclesiastical design
that looked as if it had been imported from the chancel of some English
cathedral.

"Lena," he said, laying his letters on the table and beginning to draw
on his gloves, "don't forget to give these to the postman when he
comes; and tell Miss Wycliffe I shall be home to lunch."

She opened the door for his exit and started back against the wall with
a little cry, as if she had seen a ghost, for there, blocking the
bishop's way, his hand extended to touch the bell, stood Mayor Emmet.
The bishop, too much surprised to note the panic of his servant, was
silent for a moment.  It did not occur to him that the call could be on
any one but himself.  How great would his astonishment have been, had
he known that poor Lena was almost fainting beside him with the wild
hope that her lover had come to claim her at last!  How great his
stupefaction, could he have seen his daughter standing midway on the
stairs, one hand on the baluster, the other raised to her heart in
petrifying fear!  It was fortunate indeed for Felicity that she had
time, unobserved in the shadow of the stairway, to regain her
self-control.  Had she descended a moment earlier, had she been at the
door when Lena threw it open, she could hardly have answered for
herself.

The bishop retreated a step, as if he would thereby invite his
visitor's entrance, but, busy with his gloves, his cane hugged under
one arm, he failed, without the effect of discourtesy, to extend his
hand.

"Ah, good-morning, Mr. Emmet," he said in his courtly and deliberate
manner, and with that suggestion of a purr in his voice which always
betokened concealment and a latent ability to spring.  "You find me
just about to go out, but I still have a little leeway.  Won't you step
in?"

He was not without curiosity in regard to the object of the mayor's
visit.  Speculation glimmered in his eyes, and his wide, affable smile
was subtle with anticipation of a diplomatic test.  He was secretly
amused that Emmet should presume upon his blushing honours in this
fashion, but doubtless the man had a plausible excuse for his
intrusion, some civic scheme for which he wished to bespeak
cooperation.  After his humiliation the previous night, he had
conceived a plan for drawing some of his opponents into his own camp,
and this was perhaps the first movement of the new campaign.  So ran
the bishop's conjecture, and he was not surprised at his visitor's
unmistakable air of excitement, at the pallor of his face.  Perhaps his
drubbing at the hands of Cobbens had taught him more respect for the
class he had been wont to denounce to his followers, and had deprived
him of a moiety of his self-assurance.

"Bishop Wycliffe," Emmet returned, coming into the hall and taking off
his hat, "I had n't decided to call upon you--yet.  It is your daughter
whom I wish to see."

It was months since the bishop had given Felicity's advocacy of this
man a thought.  The election seemed to have killed her interest, for
she had not spoken of him since, and besides, his suspicions were
centred solely on Leigh.  Perhaps, then, the scheme was one of charity,
and the mayor had planned to begin with Felicity, remembering her
former kindness.

The bishop hesitated, when the rustle of silken skirts caused him to
turn his head, but he greeted Felicity's appearance unperturbed.

"Oh, here you are, my dear.  I thought you had gone out."

"I overheard I had a caller," she returned, taking her husband's hand
and meeting his eyes unflinchingly.  "I have n't had a chance to
congratulate you, Mr. Emmet, upon your election, for we had to go South
the next day on account of father's health.  You caught me at the
feminine trick of listening over the banisters."

The bishop was secretly annoyed at her cordiality, but still confident
that he could trust his daughter to remember the difference between a
common interest in charitable work and social equality.

"I leave Mr. Emmet in your hands," he said to her.  "I have a little
business at the Hall, and shall return for lunch."

And he went out, thinking how like a bewildered yokel the mayor seemed
in the face of his daughter's graceful greeting, and imagining with
relish his further discomfiture.

The door had closed behind him, and as yet Emmet had not said a word to
his wife.  Even now it was she who took the initiative.

"Let us go into the drawing-room," she suggested, turning and leading
the way.  He followed at once, brushing past Lena with cruel emphasis
of manner.  There she stood, or rather leaned against the wall, like
one stricken.  The jar of his passing seemed to release the tension of
her limbs, and she sank down slowly, noiselessly, in a dead faint.
Emmet neither heeded her anguish nor heard her soft fall upon the heavy
rug.  He hurriedly closed the drawing-room door to prevent his
sweetheart from overhearing his interview with his wife, and strode
into the centre of the room, where Felicity had turned at bay.

"What have you come for?" she asked in a low voice.  Her face was as
white as his own, but her self-control was greater.

"For you, Felicity," he answered.  "You are my wife, and I 've come for
you."

"I did n't know," she returned relentlessly, "but you had come to see
that poor girl in the hall to whom you gave my ring.  Looking from the
stairs, I saw by her manner that she thought so too."

"My God, Felicity!" he gasped, "I believe you 've kept her in this
house like a bird in a cage, to torture her as you 've tortured me.
Why did n't you send her away, when you discovered I 'd been making
love to her?"

"For your greater convenience?"

"Oh, as for that," he retorted, "when you left her here in Warwick and
went away, you practically threw her into my arms.  But I did n't take
advantage of it,--only once,--and then I stopped short.  That was what
I came to explain.  I want you to know how much less cause you have to
throw me over in this way than you think.  I want you to forgive me,
and to keep your promise.  She's nothing to me--nothing.  She 's no
more to me than any one of the dozen men you 've been running around
with are to you,--Cobbens, for example, or that young professor up at
the Hall."

There was more than a suggestion of scorn in his refusal to mention his
real rival by name, and in the belittling adjective.  His assumption
that she cared nothing for Leigh would perhaps have found acceptance in
her mind only the day before, but now a memory of last night's scene
made her as cruel to her husband as he had just been to Lena Harpster.
She looked at him coolly, aware of her utter awakening from the
adventurous and romantic mood she had mistaken for love, wondering also
that she should ever have supposed this man capable of satisfying her
ideal.  The ideal itself had vanished in the personality of the man who
had taken her in his arms the previous night and poured his passionate
love into her ears.

"It is n't a question of forgiving, Tom," she said, after a pause; and
her tone was conciliatory.  "It's a question of discovery.  I was
deceived in you.  I did n't think you capable of such--such weakness
and vulgarity.  It was my fault of judgement, perhaps, but the
awakening is fatal.  Can't you see that?"

"What do you mean to do?" he demanded, glaring at her helplessly.
Their points of view were so different, her expression so unrelenting,
that the self-justification he had planned to speak was choked in his
throat.  "Do you mean to get a divorce?  I tell you, Felicity, there 's
no cause."

"I don't know yet what I mean to do," she said frankly.

"I 'll call upon your father, then," he declared grimly, "and see what
he thinks of it."  An ugly gleam shone in his eyes, as he uttered the
threat.  It was plain now that love for his wife was the least of his
motives in demanding her; there was ambition, but, strongest of all, a
desire for revenge on the bishop and his class.  He would make them
accept him at last.  They should pay dearly for their scorn.  "I 'll
not be elbowed out of the way and kept in the closet like a family
skeleton any longer," he went on.  "The limit of my endurance has been
reached."

Felicity now saw clearly what she had brought upon herself.  She paled
with fear, and flushed with anger, but neither emotion coloured her
reply.

"You must give me a few days longer.  I prefer to see my father
first--alone.  I will let you know--I'll write."

So absorbed were they in their own tense feelings that they failed to
hear the opening and shutting of the front door, which was left
unlatched during the day for just such unconventional calls as the one
Mrs. Parr now happened to make.  The first intimation they had of
interruption was her shrill and terror-stricken cry: "Felicity!
Felicity!  Your maid is here in the hall--dead!"

Emmet reached Lena's side first.  He raised her in his arms and carried
her into the room he had just left, where he laid her gently on a
couch.  Felicity had already run upstairs for brandy and
smelling-salts.  Emmet, standing over Lena in guilty solicitude,
addressed Mrs. Parr.

"Open the window," he said brusquely, "and give her some air."

She obeyed without question, and Felicity, returning with restoratives,
found her husband hovering over her maid with tell-tale anxiety written
on every feature, while her friend stood at the window looking on in
curious conjecture.  Together they bent over the girl's white face and
moistened her lips with brandy.  Presently, Lena's eyelids fluttered
and trembled open.  The mayor lifted her once more, as if she were a
child, and stood erect.

"I 'll carry her to her room," he said to Felicity, "if you 'll show me
the way."

"It's two flights of stairs," she objected.  "Perhaps she had better
stay here for a while."

"She's as light as a feather, poor girl," he returned.  "She 's nothing
for me to carry."

"You forget, Felicity," Mrs. Parr put in, with double meaning, "that
Mr. Emmet is an athlete."

Without further protest, Felicity led the way upstairs, and Emmet
followed with his burden.  It was inevitable that the gentle clinging
of those arms about his neck, the pressure of her golden head, should
melt his heart like wax and make temporary havoc of his resolution.
Impulsively he bent his face until it rested a moment in her hair.
Circumstances had thrown them together once more in their natural
relationship, both of them scorned, each needing and understanding the
other in a peculiar way.  No bold claims or passionate protests could
have won the tender consideration her patient suffering drew from him.

Felicity opened the door, and stood aside to let him pass.  He laid
Lena carefully on her little bed and arranged her pillow, then turned
toward the door.  It was still open, though his wife no longer stood
there, and he heard the diminishing rustle of her skirts.  He stood
looking first at the door and then back again at the bed, irresolutely.
Lena opened her eyes and smiled at him with ineffable sweetness, and
the temptation was overpowering.  He took one noiseless step and sank
upon his knees beside her.

"Good-bye, Lena," he murmured brokenly, the stinging and unaccustomed
tears springing to his eyes; "good-bye, my poor little girl.  If she
were not my wife--my God, Lena, if she were only not my wife!"

The revelation could add nothing to the emotions she had already
experienced.  She was sure of his love; in her weakness and spiritual
exaltation, that was enough.  They were now bound together by a common
tragedy, and she knew his gain was loss.  If he had made her suffer, he
had brought no less suffering upon himself, and her eyes shone with a
pitiful triumph.  His arms were about her, and his cheek was pressed to
her own upon the pillow.  Too weak herself to speak, or even to weep,
her eyes told him all she wished to say.

"Forgive me, Lena," he entreated, "forgive me before I go."

"I do, Tom, dear," she whispered.  "You know I do."

Her words fell upon his soul with infinite consolation.  He felt that
he had received the pardon of Heaven for his sins, and could now depart
bravely to work out his penance.  Softened and exalted, he little
realised that the penance was unnecessary and self-imposed, that the
mood which now took on the heroic tone of self-sacrifice was still a
mood of self-seeking, that his love for Lena was selfish now as it had
always been, and utterly unworthy of the devotion he received.  It was
true that he loved her, but he loved himself and his ambitions and
revenges more.  Her forgiveness was but permission to indulge them to
the end.  Nevertheless, when he found Felicity at the telephone in the
hall below, his eyes were still bright with tears.  She hung up the
receiver and turned to him coldly.  One glance at his face told her his
state of mind and justified her own.  She had never seen him at his
worst before.  Hypocritical with himself, filled with mawkish emotion
that sublimated him in his own eyes, yet still grimly bent upon his
original purpose, he had reached the very nadir of unattractiveness.

"I have sent for the doctor," she informed him, in the tone of one who
has done her duty.  "He will be here soon."

"Your answer," he said hoarsely.  "I cannot leave without an answer."

"I will write--soon," she returned, "but leave me now."

Without further insistence he turned from her and ran downstairs.  He
was out on the sidewalk before he became aware that his head was
uncovered.  He returned to the drawing-room and found his hat on the
floor, where it had fallen from his hand at Mrs. Parr's shrill alarm.
She stood there still, waiting for Felicity's return, but neither
looked at the other or spoke a word, frankly and mutually contemptuous.
The door slammed behind him a second time, and almost immediately
afterward Felicity entered.

"Well, Ella," she said, sinking into a chair, "did you ever see such an
excitement?  I never had a greater shock in my life than when you
called out that she was dead.  I 'm afraid she's a very delicate girl,
but she 's coming around all right, and I 've sent for the doctor."
She showed unmistakably the strain she had endured.

"Felicity," her friend broke out excitedly, "there's something here I
don't understand.  You don't mean to tell me you actually allow that
man to call on you!"

Miss Wycliffe opened her eyes in astonishment.  "What a goose you are,
Ella!  He came to see father.  I had n't time to find out what he
wanted when you nearly frightened me out of my wits."

Mrs. Parr, only partially convinced, was forced to accept the
explanation; and though her eyes adumbrated reproach, she dared not say
more.  She remembered, however, the picture of Leigh and Felicity going
off together in the moonlight the previous evening, and was reassured.
In fact, she had run in to gossip about the young man, and to sound his
praises with design, but the situation she encountered at her entering
had revived her old suspicions concerning Emmet.  Now she told herself
that they were merely a habit of mind, without justification.  She
recalled the mayor's emotion as he bent over Lena, his averted face
when he returned for his hat, and plunged at once into an account of
the episode at the inn, which she had hitherto kept to herself.  Before
long they were discussing the probable nature of the tie between Emmet
and Lena with apparently equal interest and conjecture.

About this time, the bishop, coming from Dr. Renshaw's office, met
Leigh face to face on the walk as he was returning to his room from a
recitation, and stopped to speak to him.

"Mr. Leigh," he remarked, with an observant twinkle in his eyes, "you
look as if last night's experience had been too much for you."

"We had enough strenuous excitement to keep any one awake," was the
reply.  "It was too violent a break in my monastic life."

The bishop's smile widened; his innuendo had been skilfully parried.
"When you get to be my age," he said, "you will doubtless take your
politics more calmly.  I never lose sleep now over the vicissitudes of
those whom the fickle crowd has raised to honour.  How does the line
run?  _Hunc, si mobilium turba Quiritium_--but you probably remember
your Horace better than I do."

It was one of Bishop Wycliffe's little perversities to quote Latin at
the devotees of science, and to maintain an ironical assumption of
their appreciation.

"I don't remember a word of my Horace," Leigh declared.  It was not the
first time he had given the bishop the same information, and this fact
lent emphasis to his tone.

"Too bad, too bad," the old man murmured.  "I fear the rising
generation has no atmosphere."  And he went on his way, chuckling
genially.




CHAPTER XVII

CONDITIONS

"Dr. Leigh," said President Renshaw, in his gentle and measured
utterance, "I sent for you on a little matter of business, for a few
minutes of conversation, if you are at leisure."

The young astronomer signified that his time was the president's, and
waited for his next words with an oppressive sense of vague foreboding.
They were sitting in the room he had first entered, and Dr. Renshaw
occupied the chair in which he then sat.  As Leigh glanced about the
room and back again at the old man's face, that first meeting seemed
but yesterday, so unaltered was the scene.  The tall clock, the old
chair, the black cloth mitre with its tarnished gold insignia, the
framed plans of St. George's Hall, were all in the same places.  The
president had not changed in the interim; it even seemed that he had
not moved.  But beyond the shapely oval of the old man's head a glimpse
of wintry landscape was framed by the narrow window, instead of that
earlier vision of the September morning.

In Leigh's alert and sensitive mood, these relics taunted him with
their own permanence in the face of change.  Those sticks of wood,
those drawings, that piece of black cloth, were as ancient in a sense
as the pyramids, and would retain their places while generations came
before them, laboured their brief day, and then vanished as a puff of
steam vanishes into blue sky.  The clock had long since run down for
good, and seemed by virtue of this very fact to have gained a victory
over time.

"You remember, doubtless," the president resumed, "that your
appointment was for this year only, and I asked you to come in to--in
short, I should like to inquire whether you have made any plans for the
future."

The form of the question was such that it might have been merely a
preface to an offer of a permanent appointment, but Leigh divined too
clearly the doctor's inward distress to give it such an interpretation.
The dismissal of which he now felt assured was scarcely a surprise.  It
seemed but natural that the greater loss of Felicity should include the
lesser loss of his position, and he smiled bitterly.

"You mean to suggest, sir, that some such plans on my part are
advisable?"

"We might say it amounts to that," Dr. Renshaw returned reluctantly.
His age, the kindness of his manner and tone, were disarming, and his
listener entertained no more personal resentment toward him than if he
were an ancient sibyl uttering of necessity the will of the Fates.

"I had not thought it necessary to make plans for next year," he said,
"not being conscious of any shortcomings on my part sufficient to cause
my dismissal.  I am well aware that you are strictly within your
rights, and that I have no legal redress, perhaps even no cause of
complaint.  I know how subordinates in business are turned away to suit
the convenience, or at the whim, of their superiors; but in most
colleges there is a sort of unwritten law that promotion shall follow
efficient service.  As a rule, the one year appointment is merely a
safeguard to protect the institution from a man seriously incompetent
or depraved."

"I know--I know," the president interposed, raising his hand as if to
ward off more words.  "And I would not have you think for a moment that
we view you in any such light.  On the contrary, I may say that
personally I entertain for you the highest regard and consideration."

"What is the matter, then?" Leigh demanded.  "It seems no more than
fair that I should be told definitely where the trouble lies."

The other reflected awhile.  "If I were to mention the one definite
complaint, Mr. Leigh, it would not sum up the whole situation; it would
be an explanation that only partially explained.  However, the
complaint has to do with your discipline in the class-room."

Leigh stared incredulously.  "Discipline?" he echoed.

"Disorder in your class-room," Dr. Renshaw corroborated firmly.  "Those
passing by have heard laughter and unseemly shouts from within."

"Who could have made such a report?" Leigh wondered, still at a loss.

"The information came through a responsible channel, through one whose
duty it is to take cognisance of such things and to report them to the
proper authorities."

He was surprised to see that his listener was laughing, not without a
suggestion of scornfulness.  "I 've heard the same unseemly shouts
myself, Dr. Renshaw.  They come from class meetings and athletic
meetings that are held in my room nearly every day, when the place is
not being used for recitations.  There is n't a word of truth in the
charge against me."

Dr. Renshaw's face clouded, and he cleared his throat uneasily.  "Mr.
Leigh," he said with dignity, "I told you that the complaint would fail
to sum up the whole situation.  We may say _Quaestio cadit_ in regard
to that, if you like.  Let us look at it in another light, in the light
of the best interests of the Hall and of yourself.  There is a question
of general fitness which implies no criticism upon yourself, upon your
scholarship or character.  We are a homogeneous community here, we
understand each other and cherish the ideals which this college was
built to inculcate.  You are a product of an entirely different
tradition.  You were educated, and have previously taught, in a large
university, and this makes it difficult, perhaps impossible, for you to
appreciate the needs and the point of view of the small college.  The
ideal of the professor in a university is self-improvement and personal
achievement; but in the small college, the teacher is expected to give,
above everything else, personal service and devotion to the interests
of his students.  He should stand to a large extent _sancti parentis
loco_.  I do not say that you have consciously failed to improve this
opportunity of service; I would say rather that, because of your
previous academic experiences, you have failed to see it.  The
conviction has therefore been forced upon us, in spite of our personal
regard for you and our appreciation of your attainments, that you would
be happier and more useful in a larger institution, where the point of
contact begins and ends in the class-room.  In short, I believe you
will agree with us that the experiment has not been altogether a
success from this point of view.  I accept your explanation of the
specific charge gladly, and congratulate you upon correcting an
impression that did you injustice."

It was Leigh's first meeting in his professional life with that malign
experience, injustice in the garb of plausibility, from which there is
no appeal.  He could not bring himself to acquiesce in silence, though
he knew that explanation and protest were vain.

"Dr. Renshaw," he rejoined, in a voice that showed his deep chagrin and
sense of wrong, "the proved falsity of the first charge throws
suspicion on the second, which is, after all, mainly a conjecture as to
my state of mind in regard to St. George's Hall.  I must plead guilty
to the sin of personal ambition; but how can you expect a man to become
entirely identified with the spirit of a place in a few months?  It is
evident to me that there are certain men who wish me gone, for reasons
best known to themselves, and that they have trumped up these absurd
charges."  He flung himself to his feet indignantly.  "This merely
illustrates how easy it is to find plausible complaints against any
man, and also that even-handed justice is the last thing one should
look for in the world."

The president rose also.  They were standing almost in darkness, but
the afterglow of the sunset, streaming through the western windows and
an intervening door, illumined the old man's face.  His expression was
one of concern, tempered by an humorous appreciation of the
youthfulness of Leigh's last remark.

"Young man," he said, putting his hand on Leigh's shoulder, much as if
he were admonishing a student, "I beg you not to allow this experience
to colour your views with cynicism, for cynicism hurts only the cynic,
and fails to take account of all the facts of life.  As you have
intimated, even-handed justice, inasmuch as it implies omniscience, is
an attribute of God alone, but we have not been consciously unjust to
you, according to our light.  Personally I regret your departure, and I
wish to assure you of my confidence in your future.  You will doubtless
one day look back upon this apparent contretemps as a blessing in
disguise."

Leigh was far from being mollified by this platitudinous commiseration,
though he credited the kindness of heart that gave it birth; and he
took leave of the president without further remark.  Then he went out
into the twilight, more deeply humiliated than ever before in his life.

His loss of Felicity had been sweetened by love's triumph.  There was
in it the sustaining exaltation of tragedy, and a lingering ray of
unreasonable hope; but this reverse was harder to bear, in that he
suffered injustice without the possibility of appeal, and was deprived
of professional importance in the eyes of the woman he loved, of the
position which, slight as it must seem to her, was yet all he had to
offset her wealth and social consequence.

There are times when even the stoutest hearts are appalled by the cruel
handicap of poverty, when they are tempted to throw over their ideal,
to rush into the market-place and make money by fair means or foul,
that they may return and shake it in the faces of their foes.  Leigh
knew well that the possession of means would have made him immune from
this attack, would have won him consideration instead of contumely,
compliments instead of complaints.  The Roman satirist, eating out his
soul with bitterness against the insolence of wealth, said that
poverty's greatest bane was the fact that it made men ridiculous.  He
was speaking, to be sure, of clothes; but what could be more ridiculous
than an assumption of equality, based upon equal education and
breeding, between the poor and the rich?

The young mathematician had not yet established a commanding
professional reputation.  He had given up a position which was now
filled by one of the fifty applicants that had rushed to seize it; his
present position at St. George's, he knew, could be filled as easily.
He had not the consolation of knowing himself to be valuable to the
institution.  No one would rise up indignantly and take his part; no
one would care what became of him, except Felicity, and pride alone
would keep him from appealing to her.

He looked up at the great towers, buttressed by deep shadows, as if he
bade them farewell.  Already they seemed to take on a strange and
unfriendly aspect.  This mass of masonry had expressed hostility to him
on that September morning, he had read a warning in each impassive or
grinning gargoyle, and now, as he passed by, he could almost imagine
that they gave sibilant expression to their accomplished malice.  He
realised how completely he had forgotten that first impression and
allowed his imagination to be captured by the place.  Where now were
the dreams in which he had lately begun to indulge, visions of the
finished square, of turret and gable and tower, of gothic gateways, of
foliated chapel windows glimmering high in the darkened wall at evening?

Like one stunned by an unexpected blow, he continued his walk, until he
came to Birdseye Avenue and paused in front of the bishop's house.  Did
he really intend to keep his promise never to see Felicity again? It
so, why was he even now measuring the distance between himself and
those lighted windows?  Perhaps some chance would yet throw her in his
way; but he would not risk her contempt by following the prompting of
his heart and presenting himself before her only three days after his
expressed renunciation.  Besides, the bishop might be there; and what
had he discovered since they last met?  His consciousness of
wrong-doing in regard to Felicity deprived him of the desire to meet
the bishop face to face and to demand an explanation.  Was there not,
after all, reason enough for the bishop's action, if he knew all?  This
thought robbed Leigh of the satisfaction of a righteous indignation,
which until now he had cherished as justifiable.  He was fair enough to
admit that he had received what he deserved, on other than professional
grounds, and having reached the lowest depth of unhappiness, he began
to retrace his steps disconsolately toward the college.

A philosopher once said that every man has in him at least one poem
which he could write under the stress of great emotion, and that night
Leigh unconsciously exemplified the truth of the saying.  It was near
the dawn when he descended from the tower, having left upon the table
by the telescope this fragmentary record of his vigil.


  THE MORNING WATCH

  Be resolute, my soul,
  And battle till the day,
  My strength is manifold,
  If only thou art gay;
  Since friendship takes its flight,
  Since love is far outgrown,
  Here, in the silent night,
    I watch alone.

  And sing a song, my soul,
  A bitter song and bright,
  While fleeting hours unroll
  The enigmatic night;
  The saddest souls must sing--
  Ah, happy those that weep!
  So laugh, till death shall bring
    Unending sleep.

  Now let me lie in peace
  On Nature's passive breast.
  Since human love must cease,
  And life is all unblest,
  And watch the stars outspread
  Within the brimming blue--
  But Abraham is dead
    Who saw them too.

  And millions, ages hence,
  Shall watch the steady stars,
  And question Why and Whence
  Behind their prison bars;
  But if no love shall give
  A light upon the way,
  How can they dare to live
    Until the day?




CHAPTER XVIII

"TWO SISTER VESSELS"

The January thaw now took on a sinister and unwholesome phase,
preparatory to its final retreat before the onslaught of returning
winter.  The heavy snowfall was reduced to a few discoloured streaks
lingering in the deeper ruts and hollows, and the brown earth, never so
unlovely, exhaled faint wreaths of vapour that caused old-fashioned
folk to shake their heads and to speak of full graveyards.  The sun
seemed to draw up in the form of mist more and more of the water that
had been soaking into the soil.  People moved about in a dank haze,
that rose gradually to the tops of the houses, until by noontime it had
obscured the moist blue sky and turned the sun into a dull-red disk set
in a golden aura.  There was something ominous in the strange
atmosphere thus engendered, in the dimming and distorting of
architectural lines, in the muffling of familiar sounds.  The
unseasonable conditions resembled in some way what in other climates is
called earthquake weather, when Nature seems to be throwing a veil over
the world to hide the monstrous deed she is about to commit.

Those whose lives were happy, drawing their breath with a sense of
oppression, imagined impending trouble, while those with real tragedies
to bear now found them almost insupportable.

Early in the day, St. George's Hall looked down from its lofty ridge
upon basins of mist that presented the appearance of white lakes in the
meadows below.  Gradually the tide rose above the long, low hall, until
the towers seemed to rest on clouds.  Finally the whole mass
disappeared, to loom up larger than reality to the eyes of one
approaching from the city.  As night came on, the lights from the
windows cut lurid pathways into the surrounding obscurity.  A gradual
chill crept along the ground, thinning the fog and disclosing at
intervals ghostly glimmerings of the moon.

Through this strange medium two figures were toiling up the street that
flanked the northern limit of the campus.  Under normal conditions, the
second could easily have seen the one in advance, but now his view was
obstructed, and though he gained rapidly, he had reached the entrance
of the maple walk before the mist in front of him seemed to concentrate
into a flitting shadow that resembled a woman's form.  The young
astronomer had been wandering for hours in a vain search for diversion,
and the vision before him, embodying as it did the subject upon which
his mind had been concentrated, caused him to stand still in a tumult
of emotion.  The next moment it was gone, and he believed that he had
been visited by an hallucination.  Recently, that earlier picture of
Felicity beside the lamp had given place in his imagination to one
associated with a deeper experience.  He had just pictured her in her
scarlet cloak and hood; then he had looked up to see the same figure
vanishing before his eyes.

A moment's reflection convinced him of the psychic nature of the
phenomenon.  In all the range of human probabilities, what errand could
lead her at ten o'clock on such a night to that lonely hilltop, and on
down the road into the country beyond?  It was manifest that his own
mind had shaped the vision from the pale vapours, and he realised how
weary and overwrought he had become.  His sensation was now almost one
of fear, as if he had seen the ghost of a loved one rising out of the
mists of a remote and passionate past.  A strange impulse seized him to
follow the phantom further, but he was shivering with the penetrating
dampness to which he had been long exposed, and instead he continued
his way toward his room.

Had he obeyed his impulse, he would soon have overtaken the living form
which he imagined to be an apparition of the mind.  Felicity did not
keep straight ahead, however, to the westward, but paused at the brow
of the hill, breathing deep after her long climb, conscious that the
rapid beating of her heart was not wholly due to her recent exertion.
It was the prospect of a meeting now imminent that caused the painful
tumult in her side and the widening of her dark eyes as she looked up
at the saffron blur which marked the position of the moon.  Yet there
was resolution in her step as she turned southward and took the road
that passed between the college and the cliff.  In spite of the long
thaw, the gravelled track was firm beneath her feet, and she walked
rapidly in the direction of the Hall, her face pale and set, her warm
breath mingling with the swirling mist.

Leigh was also progressing in the same direction by the almost parallel
path between the maples, but somewhat in advance of Felicity, inasmuch
as she had climbed to the very summit of the hill before turning, while
the course he took extended diagonally across the campus from a point
further down.  Thus it happened that he had gained his rooms by the
time she came opposite his western windows.  As she glanced up at them
in passing, their location in the wall became more clearly defined by
the appearance of a glimmering light within.  She saw Leigh, with his
hat and coat still on, come from his eastern room, holding a candle in
his hand.  He stood under the chandelier, raised the candle, and
lighted the jets of gas.  Then he advanced to the windows, and pulled
the curtains down with a decisive motion, that expressed his inward
determination to shut out all ghostly imaginings with the night.

Felicity stood for some time regarding the yellow squares in the murky
expanse of the wall.  She reflected that he might have been very near
her in the mist but a few moments before, since he must have entered
the grounds by the maple walk.  The other path, by the bishop's statue
and across the fields, was seldom used in winter, and was now
impracticable because of the soggy condition of the turf.  The possible
results of the meeting, which had evidently been avoided by mere
accident, perhaps only by the thickness of the atmosphere, were
incalculable, and sent the blood to her cheeks in a sudden glow.

The memory of their last meeting flooded her whole being warmly, to be
followed by a dreary realisation of their present position.  The very
drawing of the curtains between them seemed symbolical, not so much of
his expressed determination to see her no more as of the relentlessness
of Fate.  She believed that he was strong enough to keep his promise,
and knew how gladly she would have him break it.  Her actual situation
at the moment, shut out from him and standing alone in the night, gave
her longing an intensity which she had not hitherto experienced.  She
wondered whether he would have taken her in his arms and kissed her
good-bye once more, had he overtaken her upon the hill.  Presently she
resumed her way, thinking of the man she was leaving there in his
lonely tower rather than of the man she was so soon to meet.

Some quarter of a mile further on, she came to a huge button-ball tree
that marked the trysting-place.  Its great trunk and long branches,
spotted with white patches, like scars on the twisted limbs of a giant,
confronted her as a hideous and uncanny thing.  This tree, the only
kind in all the country that lacked beauty of line and colour, received
a touch of ghastliness from the atmosphere that enveloped it which was
not without its effect upon her imagination, and when she saw the mayor
emerge from its shadow, she started as if she were confronted by a
highwayman.

"Is it you, Felicity?" he ventured anxiously.  "I thought you were
never coming."

"Was I late?" she returned.  "I did n't mean to be; but let us walk
further on.  We can talk as we go."

As she caught sight of the eager light in his eyes and noted the
intonation of his voice, she divined that his mood was radically
different from that which had carried him to her house in hot haste a
few mornings before.  Then, he was burning with a sense of humiliation,
frantic with the thought that she was slipping from his grasp,
embittered by baffled ambition, and determined to assert his rights.
Now, softer emotions held sway in his heart.  The memory of that scene
in the opera house had grown less galling.  He was soothed by the
blandishments of resilient self-esteem and by his friends' more
flattering interpretation of the incident.  Indeed, looked at from one
perspective, it was a most impressive vindication of his official
dignity against the slight that had been put upon it.  A new point of
view had somehow sprung from his brief contact with the President.  For
the first time, Cobbens and his kind appeared to him the provincials
they were.  They no longer blocked his whole horizon, like the lion in
the way.  Dim dreams of wider ambitions, vague exhilarations, stirred
within him.  He began to think it possible to transcend Warwick.  Thus
his temper was less bitter than before, his poise was less a pose, the
result of a new adjustment of values.

"Felicity," he began, almost happily, "I could n't help thinking, as I
stood there waiting for you, how often I have waited in the same way
before.  Just think of it, Felicity, for years and years!  It seems
almost a lifetime, so much has happened in the interval.  Did you
notice this coat and cap?  They 're the same I used to wear when you
began to take my car rather than any other.  A pretty good disguise for
the mayor of Warwick, don't you think?"

A pain went through her heart, not for a lost love, but for the
vanished dreams of girlhood.  The chord he had hoped to touch remained
mute.  In view of the fact that she believed love to be dead between
them, this method of stimulating an outworn romance seemed sentimental
and insincere.  Had he loved her, she might well have thought it boyish
and pathetic.  What he spoke of as a disguise had seemed so natural as
to escape her notice; and this indicated the height from which she had
never really descended and could now never descend.  He had lost his
great opportunity of appearing the mayor in her eyes.  It was no part
of her plan, however, to emphasise this difference between them, for
she had seen what vindictive passions a realisation of the fact might
arouse within him.  Full of the warmth of his own emotions, he failed
to grasp the significance of her unresponsiveness.

"But have you spoken to the bishop yet, as you promised to?" he asked
eagerly.

"No, I have n't--I could n't, yet."

"I 'm glad of it," he returned buoyantly.  "I wanted another chance to
see you before you spoke to him, to set myself right with you.  I did
n't mean to threaten you, Felicity.  I knew that was no way to win
forgiveness, but I was n't myself.  Can't you see how the long waiting
for you almost drove me mad?  But now we 're together again in the old
way, and I feel that I can explain everything so that you can
understand.  Everything that's happened lately to keep us apart seems a
dream, something utterly unreal.  Come, Felicity, don't you think our
meeting was rather a cold one, after such a long separation?  Have n't
I won the prize you set for me to win, and are you going to deny me my
reward?"  He made as if he would put his arm about her, but she shrank
away with such emphatic and spontaneous denial that he desisted in
chagrin.  "After all there has been between us," he protested, "are you
going to let a passing flirtation outweigh the fact that we are man and
wife?"

Felicity had somehow not anticipated that he would attempt to kiss her,
and the movement set her quivering as at an outrage.

"Has there really been so much between us, Tom?" she asked.  "Doesn't
it all seem a great mistake, which it would be better to acknowledge
frankly, rather than to assume the existence of something that has
ceased to exist?"

"And whose mistake was it?" he demanded, with sudden fierceness.  "Tell
me that."

"Mine," she admitted.  "You know how I came to make it--the narrowness
of my life that yet seemed so broad, the insignificance of the
artificial men I knew, the longing for romance, for a love affair with
a flavour of risk and adventure in it.  You must n't hold me now to
that girl's dream, since you were the one that waked me from it.  You
showed me first that we really did n't care for each other.  If you
loved me, why did you take up with the first pretty servant-girl you
met?"

She had not meant to recall their difference in class, but in Lena's
station in life lay the chief sting of his offence, and the fact could
not be concealed.

"Why?  Why?" he echoed.  "Because she loved me more than you did,--if
you ever loved me at all,--because you starved my heart and made me
feel that you were not my wife at all, but only a patroness who had
taken me up to make something of me, with an indefinite promise of a
reward at the end of it, if I would be a good little boy and do as you
told me, and keep out of mischief, and win a prize.  What kind of a
position is that to put a man in?"

"I supposed the reward was worth working and waiting for," she retorted
coolly.  "You 're whipping yourself into a passion now, Tom, but you
know in your heart that my cruelty to you, if it was cruelty, was not
as great as your cruelty to Lena.  I would have kept my promise, and
you know it, if you had not yourself forfeited all claim to my respect.
I supposed you were a strong man"--

"And have I no wrongs?" he broke in.  "Did you think I was n't a man at
all, but just a lump of putty to be moulded by your hands?  How do you
suppose I felt when we were married in New York, and you left me at the
very door of the church?"

"I did n't realise till then what I had done," she gasped, the panic of
that moment returning to her, "and I had to leave you."

"But I did realise it," he cried bitterly, "as any man would have
realised it.  I realised nothing else.  I walked the streets, wondering
whether it was a practical joke.  You made a fool of me.  You did n't
tell me beforehand that you were going to play such a trick on me."

"Trick!"

"Yes, trick!  What else, in the name of God, was it?  It seemed like
nothing else, at first.  I could hardly remember what you said,--you
spoke so confused and were so anxious to get away,--but finally I
figured it out that you were just scared, and that I would have to wait
a little while for you to get used to the idea that you were my wife."
He paused, choked by emotion.  "I waited, God knows," he went on,
"waited for nearly three years.  And what did I get?  A few stolen
meetings and a few kisses, not very genuine ones at that.  Somehow you
carried the thing out in your father's high-handed way.  I could n't
break through and get at you.  Every time we met I thought I would, but
instead I took advice and promises, until it became a habit of mind.  I
became tired of the mockery, and heart-sick.  You made yourself seem
less and less my wife.  And when I did n't see you for weeks at a time,
and when I was filled with resentment, I met Lena"--

"And did the very thing that lost me to you forever," she supplemented
relentlessly.

They had come to a point where the road ascended and ran along the
margin of a great stone quarry, from which the material that went into
the building of St. George's Hall had been hewn.  The air had grown
momently colder, condensing the mist, which now floated away in milky
wreaths, disclosing the full moon shining down upon the wide sweep of
the valley toward the west.  Stung to madness by her words, he stopped
and turned upon her, but his answer died on his lips, for he looked
into a face of such surpassing beauty that he seemed never to have seen
it truly before.  The gathered crimson hood invested it with something
of the sorcery that Leigh had felt, that any man must have felt.  The
divinity that had hitherto hedged about the bishop's daughter vanished
for the first time like a vanishing mist, and left her only an
irresistible woman standing alone with him in the moonlight.

The impulse that swept over him was one of sheer desire.  Lena had
taught him what a woman's kisses could be, kisses such as Felicity had
never given him, such as he would now have from her as his right.
Before she could anticipate his intention, he had seized her roughly
and strained her to his breast with a violence that hurt.

"Felicity!" he cried in savage delight, "I could make you come to me
now.  You are my wife--I tell you, my wife!"

She managed to free herself from his grasp, and having retreated a few
steps, she faced him, white with anger.  Leigh's embrace had been
passionate, and had fired her blood with an answering emotion, but
Emmet's was an assault, arousing within her an implacable resentment.

"I am not your wife!" she cried, quivering.  "Marriage or no marriage,
I am not your wife, and never will be.  After what has passed between
you and that girl, how dared you kiss me--how dared you?  When you came
down to me--the other morning--from her room--and found me in the
hall--did n't I see in your face--in your tears--the state of your
mind?"

In her heart she believed it probable that he had wronged Lena to the
greatest extent that a man can wrong a woman.  He did not divine the
extent of her suspicions, however, and unfortunately his next words
deepened them to practical certainty.

"God help me," he groaned.  "You 've told the truth.  You 're not my
wife and never have been, but you 've kept her from being, poor girl.
You 've made me wrong her--perhaps kill her, for all I know."

Something of the wild and tragic strain that lies so deep in the Celtic
race now rose to the surface and transformed him.  He took a step
forward and seized her by the wrist.

"I could end it all at once by dragging you with me over the cliff, and
I don't know but I will!"

Powerless in his grasp, she stood on the very edge of the rock that
fell away sheer before them to the depth of two hundred feet.  He
looked down into the basin, showing here and there in the hollows a
pool mirrored in the moonlight, and shapeless masses of machinery and
stone.  Whether he had really been in earnest, or had only imagined
himself to be, the vision of that cruel abyss made him pause,
shuddering.  But Felicity had not taken her eyes from his face.  Now he
turned to meet them, not distended with fear, but fixed upon him in
discerning scorn.  She even made no effort to free her wrist, but stood
poised on the brink with an apparent unconcern, that reëstablished her
ascendancy as if by magic.

"You 're merely acting now, Tom," she said calmly.  "You don't want to
die, and you have no intention of killing me.  You 've got too much to
live for, to throw your life away in that fashion.  When you 've had
time to think it over, you 'll discover that it was n't love that made
you want me, but ambition.  The love was gone long ago, but the
ambition remains.  You want to live for that."

He dropped her wrist, and cowered away from the cliff as if he were
shrinking from a nightmare horror, while she began to move slowly in
the direction of the college.  The very act of retreat aroused within
her the emotion which, curiously enough, she had not experienced in the
crisis of danger.  It was not fear that made her flee, but her flight
that produced the fear; and the possibility of the crime, the grewsome
picture it suggested, flashed upon her with such sinister power that
her knees weakened and caused her to stumble.  He overtook her in a few
long strides, and walked beside her in dumb penitence.

"You 'll never forgive me now, Felicity," he said, when he could bear
the silence no longer, "never--never!"

"We 'll not talk of forgiveness any more on either side," she returned
wearily.  "We 're merely going round and round in a circle, without
arriving at any conclusion."

His own nature shared her reaction from intense emotion to
indifference, and again silence fell between them.  Apparently, they
were scarcely better able to understand each other than if they spoke
in different languages, and each took refuge in incommunicable
thoughts.  It would always be thus, she reflected, if they lived
together; no community of interests, herself living in a region apart,
which he was generations short of being able to enter.  Nothing would
remain but practical politics, and already she sickened of the sordid
subject.  Unionism, public ownership of public utilities versus private
privilege, charges and counter-charges of political corruption,
problems of taxation--such things would constitute his sole interest in
life and the gist of his conversation.  It was not enough that he
talked intelligently, even eloquently, on these subjects.  Her active
mind had already exhausted their possibilities, and what to her was a
mere by-play of the intellect was to him the be-all and end-all of
existence.  Of the books she had given him, he understood and
appropriated only those parts that related to his subject.  All the
rest was lost: the literary quality, the atmosphere, the historic
perspective.  To him it could never mean anything that Plato saw the
Parthenon.

This fact indicated a limitation, a reason why he could never develop
from the politician into the statesman, why, for example, she knew that
he was not the kind of man to become a cabinet officer or ambassador.
She would be merely the wife of a mayor, or at the most, of a governor
or representative.  And she knew she would never respect his opinions,
that he was one who might champion crude and undigested theories,
theories which men trained as her father and Leigh and Cardington had
been trained would weigh in the balance and find wanting.  How rashly
she had condemned this training, how effectually her experiment had
cured her of radicalism, she herself now saw clearly.  The problem of
liberty within conventionality was still unsolved, and she had beaten
her wings against the bars in vain.

On the other hand, just as she had once endowed Emmet with
possibilities he never possessed, so now, in her disillusion, she lost
sight of those primitive virtues that would always make him a force for
good in whatever level he was destined to reach.  Unjust to him in the
beginning, she was unjust to him still.

Felicity Wycliffe was a mystery to herself no less than to others.  The
normal functions of her sex had dropped so far below her ken, in the
course of her complicated development, as to seem negligible.
Beginning with this negation, she had passed rapidly on to an attitude
of universal scepticism, to which religion was merely a matter of
taste, and prayer was a psychological phenomenon.  She was not one to
lend herself to the constructive dreams of men, or to attach herself to
their theories.  Her weariness of her father's academic plans presaged
her disillusion in regard to Emmet's career, even if he had been what
she first imagined him.  Her colossal egotism demanded everything from
a man, and was prepared to give nothing in return, except the
precarious possession of herself.  Yet what man, fascinated by the
mysterious unrest and nocturnal splendour of her eyes, would not gladly
pay for that possession whatever price she might demand?

Presently, when their silence had again become awkward, she began to
speak of impersonal things; of the strange transformation of the night,
lately so oppressive and obscure, now so dazzlingly serene; of the
carrying power of sound in the stillness about--a dog's barking, the
distant notes of the bell in the tower of the First Church striking the
hour of eleven.  As they passed the Hall, she saw that the windows of
Leigh's room were again dark, and imagined that he had taken advantage
of the clearing atmosphere to ascend to the top of the tower and resume
his observations.  Emmet, following the direction of her eyes upward,
divined her thought.

"The professor is probably looking at the moon through his telescope,"
he remarked.

"Yes," she answered, in a tone as casual as his own, "he would
doubtless not lose this opportunity of examining the cracks that have
appeared recently on its surface, if he can see them with that lens,
which is n't likely.  They are said to be hundreds, or even thousands,
of miles long, and only a few yards in width."

Her knowledge of such a recent astronomical discovery confirmed his
suspicion that she and Leigh saw much of each other.  Knowing the man's
infatuation with her by his own confession, he now became convinced
that she returned it; that she had used his fault in regard to Lena
Harpster to justify its counterpart in herself.  Correct in his main
surmise, he was nevertheless mistaken concerning the source of her
information, a short press despatch from the Lick Observatory which he
had overlooked in the morning paper.

He was in no mood to renew the struggle with her on the basis of these
suspicions, but laid them away in his heart for future consideration.
About to reply indifferently, his words were checked by a sudden fit of
coughing.  The long exposure in the penetrating fog and the subsequent
increase in the cold were producing their effect, and as they descended
the hill, his cough became more frequent and severe.

She was concerned for him, much as she would have been concerned for
any one under similar circumstances.  Some hereditary instinct, a
tradition of professional humanity, moved her to expressions of
sympathy and advice; and when they arrived before her house, she
insisted that he come in and get something warm to drink before
exposing himself further to the cold night air.  He followed her
obediently through the dimly lighted hall into the dining-room,
wondering at her apparent indifference to the possibility of meeting
either Lena or the bishop.

The indifference was real.  Wearied of her own efforts to disentangle
herself from the meshes of her plight, she was ready to challenge
chance.  Had her father been sitting up for her, she would have led her
husband into his presence, prepared to take the consequences.  But as
chance decided otherwise, she accepted the respite, not without relief.

She heated water over a small alcohol lamp, which she placed on the
table, and called his attention to the reflection of the green flame in
the polished mahogany surface.  There was that in her manner and
conversation which deprived her act of the tone of personal service.
She watched him sip his whiskey with a judicial expression, overruling
the protest his principles suggested.  She poured for herself a glass
of wine and sat opposite him, the tall wax candles between them, and
asked him for the first time how he found his duties as mayor.  The
question seemed to occur to her as one which ordinary courtesy should
have prompted her to ask before.

Emmet felt her aloofness, and met it with unexpected dignity.  In his
answer he spoke of Bat Quayle, and of a plan forming against him among
his enemies in the board of aldermen to lay all his appointments on the
table indefinitely, and thus to make his administration a failure.  But
he did not assume, as he would once have done, that she was vitally
interested, and his remarks were fragmentary.

Felicity noticed his sombre mood and attributed it partly to his
physical condition, little dreaming how bitterly he resented, not her
kindness, but the manner of it.  It was the old grievance over again.
Like the bishop, like her whole class, she was unconsciously
patronising, he reflected, even when she meant to be charitable.  For
the time, at least, he asked nothing from her, and this indifference
gave him more of a tone of the world, more the air of a gentleman, than
she had ever seen in him before.  For once the tables were turned, and
it was he who appeared enigmatical.  If he were any longer conscious of
his conductor's uniform, it was a proud consciousness, and he seemed to
wear it like the insignia of a soldier.  When he left, it was without
further appeals or personalities, but with brief thanks for her
kindness and good wishes.

She stood and watched him going down the walk in the moonlight, the
black shadows of the bare branches falling one after another across his
shoulders, and suddenly the thought that this was her husband who was
leaving her thus came over her with a wave of irresistible emotion.
Her throat ached with a piercing realisation of the tragedy of it, and
without stopping to think, she ran down the steps and pursued him,
panting and almost weeping.  He turned at the sound of her hurrying
steps, puzzled by the pursuit and on his guard against her influence.
He was suspicious of her intentions now, and waited for her to explain
the meaning of this mercurial change.

"Tom," she said in a choking voice, laying a detaining hand upon his
sleeve.  But she was possessed by an emotion, rather than by a thought
that could be expressed in words, and so she stood thus awhile in
silence.  His grim immobility and manly self-containment brought back
some flavour of that early romance, when he, unaware as yet of her
fancy, paid her slight heed, and for that very reason appealed to her
imagination.

The change in her mood seemed to flow into him like a solvent that
broke up his resentment and suspicion.  That realisation of their
relationship which had sent her after him was conveyed in the thrilling
note of her voice when she uttered his name, and though at first he had
refused to understand it thus, her lingering touch became its full
interpreter.  They searched each other's eyes mutely, and he knew
before he began to speak that she was his.

"Felicity," he said, his eyes gathering an intense, exultant light,
"you 've come after me of your own accord, and you 've got to abide by
it.  You 've played fast and loose with me long enough.  Don't go back
into the house--come with me now--you're my wife--why should n't you
come with me?  Whose business is it but our own?  I say you must!"

With an effort she withdrew her eyes from his face and looked back at
the open door of her father's house, imprinting every detail upon her
memory: the dull red carpet, the antique chairs, the stairway hung with
old engravings, climbing upward to the room which she was never again
to enter as before.  The temptation assailed her to cut once and for
all the Gordian knot, and obeying its impulse, she began to walk down
the flagging beside him.

At the street she paused once more and pressed her hands piteously
against her heart, trying to think.  This was the spot where Leigh had
kissed her, and his ghost seemed to confront her there in the cold
moonlight, looking at her with sad, reproachful eyes, eyes full of a
deep, ethereal passion that burned this other passion to ashes.  This,
then, was the explanation of her vacillation.  If his mere memory could
stay her thus, while she vibrated to the influence of the man that was
present, she must love him indeed.  She looked up and saw Emmet's face
distinctly, already hardening with new suspicion, without a trace of
tenderness, marked only by the ravages of disappointment.  By contrast
she remembered that other face.  She felt again Leigh's kisses and
heard his murmured words of love.

"No, Tom," she said, shrinking back.  "I will not go with you--I am not
your wife."

Her tone was final, but his passion, newly awakened, was terrible in
its imperious demands.  He could scarcely carry her off by force, and
yet for one moment such seemed to be his intention.  He took a step
toward her, his hand raised as if to strike her down, then stopped.

"We 'll see about that," he retorted, with a strange, short laugh.  He
would have said more and disclosed his further intention by a final
threat, but another fit of coughing caught at his throat, and before he
could find his voice again she was well on her way toward the house,
fleeing between the trees like a frightened bird.  He stood still until
the door closed behind her.

"She must be a devil," he said aloud.  "She stirs up the devil in me.
She makes me bad."

Could any one have seen the malign record which his experience with her
had traced upon his face, he would have been forced to admit the
justice of this accusation.  He walked slowly away, striving to reckon
with his tempestuous emotions, but he could not pass beyond the limit
of the grounds.

"I was going away quietly enough," he muttered, "when she came chasing
after me.  Why did n't she let me go, or else come with me?"

He stopped short, as a sudden thought flashed upon him.  Then he looked
up at the windows of Lena's room.  They were dark; but the windows of
Felicity's room, immediately below, now shone with a saffron glow
behind their curtains.  He regarded them only to reflect how he hated
the woman they concealed from his view, and then wondered whether Lena
were asleep.  He took out his watch and held it up to the moon.  As he
did so, he saw that the hands pointed at midnight, and simultaneously
the bell from the First Church began to ring the hour.

If Lena were still awake, she might possibly be lingering in the
kitchen, perhaps with some new lover.  She had a right to do so, but
the very thought filled him with a fury of jealousy.  It would be an
easy matter, he reflected, to tiptoe down the driveway behind the
trees, to gain the shadow of the house, and to peep into one of the
kitchen windows.  Of course they were dark, but he wished to be assured
of it.  Let him once discover that the house was closed for the night,
and he would be content.

As he began to put his plan into execution, gliding stealthily from
tree to tree and pausing to look and listen from the shelter of each
shadow, he was acutely aware of the fact that it was the mayor of
Warwick who was doing this thing.  The realisation could not stay his
progress or change his purpose.  After all, she would probably not be
there; and if the bishop's coachman or some servant should come out and
find him, his explanation was ready.  The driveway passed by the
bishop's stable and on through the square to the street beyond.  He
would say that he was making a short cut, and the explanation would be
plausible.  From time to time he stifled a cough with difficulty, and
it was this difficulty alone that almost persuaded him to turn back.

It was by no strange coincidence or accident that Lena remained reading
by the lamp in the large, deserted kitchen.  She might have been seen
there, as Emmet saw her now, almost every evening after the others had
gone to bed, poring over some paper-covered novel that depicted a life
of romance quite different from the dull monotony of her own days.  But
though she herself was wide awake with the interest of the story, her
good angel had gone to sleep, and left her there, unwarned, to face her
peril alone.

Emmet ventured to thrust his head for a moment into the bar of light
that cut the deep shadow of the house, and saw that his most
extravagant hopes were fulfilled.  He saw also that she was prettily
dressed, with a red velvet ribbon about her throat, her hair showing a
careful and coquettish arrangement.  He was convinced that she had
dressed herself thus for a lover, and he meant to call her to account.

Little by little he crept closer, until he stood beside the window, his
back against the wall.  He had only to turn and lean forward and look
her in the face.  His eyes searched the wide stretches of the lawn in
vain for a sign of life.  The stable was dark, the house was silent.
Only he and Lena were awake.  No thought of pity for her softened his
heart at that moment.  He only chafed inwardly at a memory of his
stupid and mistaken loyalty to Felicity.

Lena Harpster was one of those timid natures that are paralysed by
sudden surprise or fear.  Had it not been so, the apparition of his
face against the pane, his intense and hungry gaze, would have caused
her to wake the house with a scream.  But she sat staring at him with
her wide grey eyes, like one turned to stone, until she saw that her
first impression of a burglar was false, and then that her lover was
beckoning her to come.

She had never resisted his will, and she did not do so now.  When she
had comprehended who it was, and his meaning, she glanced behind her
with instinctive caution; she rose from her chair and tiptoed to the
farther door, where she looked and listened until satisfied.  Then she
returned, placed her hands on the table, and leaned over the lamp.

Emmet saw the light of the flame illumine the pink curve of her lips as
she formed them for a breath.  He saw the upward shadow of her features
against the golden mist of her hair, and then the vision was swallowed
up in darkness.  A moment later the outside door was softly opened, and
as softly closed.




CHAPTER XIX

FATHER AND DAUGHTER

When the bishop and his daughter met at the breakfast-table the next
morning, the air was full of unpleasant possibilities.  She came in by
way of the kitchen with the news that Lena had gone home on a plea of
illness, and though he was concerned for the girl, the necessity of
breaking in a new maid to his ways added to his evident irritation of
mind.

There was none of the bright-eyed vitality and serene spiritual tone that
follows nights free from care.  Felicity observed that her father omitted
his customary inquiries in regard to her rest, that the morning paper,
the usual basis of comment at breakfast, lay unopened beside his plate,
and guessed correctly that the explanation she must make could no longer
be postponed.  His bewilderment and suspicions had reached a point that
would drive him to take the initiative, and he was only waiting for a
favourable opening.

The crafty expression of his eyes filled her with irritation and
resentment.  How well she knew the trend of his thoughts!  Others might
find him inscrutable, but she knew him through and through.  In their
long and subtle struggle concerning the disposition of her property, in
the question whether she would or would not help him to build up the
college, she had always been sustained by a peculiar loyalty to her
mother, who had passed her fortune on to her daughter unimpaired.  This
was a practical declaration of her own will in the matter, and Felicity
accepted it as she might have accepted a sacred trust.  She barely
remembered her mother as a shadowy and benign being floating through the
great rooms of the house.  During her childhood, a certain angel in one
of the windows of St. George's Church had somehow been confused in her
mind with that figure, and had inspired her with vague awe.  These dim
memories and childish fancies had crystallised in later years into an
appreciation of the common interests that would doubtless have been
theirs, had her mother lived.

No hint of this hidden psychological drama had ever reached the bishop's
ken.  His daughter's attitude seemed her mother's obstinacy and
worldliness reincarnated, and he was distressed also by more dangerous
elements, by inexplicable sympathies, antipathies, and rebellions, until
the whole fabric of his careful plans seemed destined to fall in ruins.

As the sunlight came stealing in across the table, striking prismatic
colours from the glassware, he shaded his eyes with his hand and sharply
ordered the maid to draw the curtain.

"What is the matter with you this morning, father?" Felicity asked
severely.  "Are you ill?"

The corners of her mobile lips were curled slightly upward, with just a
suggestion of scorn.  Unhappiness is no great promoter of the courtesies
of life, and if she was conscious of wrong-doing, she was far from being
on the defensive.

"Yes," he answered, "I am ill.  I am sick at heart."

"If you will drink coffee, and keep on smoking those strong cigars"--

He eyed her so intently over the rim of his shaking cup that she left the
sentence uncompleted.  In spite of her tragic mood, his glare of
resentment aroused within her an inclination to laugh.

"You see how your nerves are affected," she finished.

It was not the first time this subject had come up between them, but
hitherto he had denied with urbane mendacity the ill results of his
favourite indulgences.  Now his control was gone.

"They are not affected," he retorted, while the rattling of the cup
against the saucer disproved his declaration.  It was with difficulty
that he could extricate his fingers from the handle without breaking the
delicate ware.  "Or if they are," he went on, "you misstate the cause,
deliberately, as I believe."

She opened her eyes incredulously, and pushing back his chair, he rose
petulantly to his feet.

"Felicity, I am disappointed in you--more than disappointed--wounded--cut
to the heart--scandalised!"

He turned away, then, coming back, he seized the morning paper, and with
a parting glance of reproach went into his study and closed the door.
His words, his manner of retreat, were a challenge to follow which she
meant to accept.  A few moments later, she flung back the door of her
father's study and confronted him, intensely angry, and strikingly
beautiful in her anger.

"Scandalised!" she echoed, as if no time had elapsed since he uttered the
word.  "What do you mean by that?"

The apparition was not unexpected, but the bishop, glancing over the top
of his paper, managed to convey his surprise with the subtlety of which
he was master.  Chagrined by his conduct at the table, he had fortified
himself in the interim against a renewal of the struggle.

"I used the word advisedly," he replied with dignity.  "You might come in
and close the door.  It is just as well, perhaps, not to take the
servants into our confidence."

She accepted the suggestion and sat confronting him expectantly, her
anger ebbing away imperceptibly in the pause until only the underlying
dread remained.

"Who was the man that came in with you last night?" he asked with
authority.  "You went out about half-past nine o'clock to Mrs. Parr's, as
I supposed, and returned at midnight, not alone.  I might have thought
that Mr. Parr had seen you home, but I looked from my window, and though
I could n't hear what you said--but never mind that.  You will do me the
justice to admit that I have never pried into your affairs or actions.
Until recently such a question as I have now thought it my duty to ask
would never have occurred to me."

"It was Mayor Emmet," she answered in a thin voice.  She was
panic-stricken, and her heart beat to suffocation.

"Emmet!" he echoed.

"Who did you think it was?" she asked, with a wan smile.

"Never mind--never mind," he returned impatiently.  "Ah, I begin to see
more clearly.  What was it you said he wanted with you here the other
morning?  Some trivial thing--I can't remember.  Now I want to know at
once--I have a right to know--whether there is anything between you and
that man.  It is n't possible--I am ashamed to ask--but your face betrays
you.  You are n't--Felicity--you can't imagine yourself in love with such
a fellow?"

"Perhaps it would be better if I could," she answered desperately, "but I
can't.  Father, you must control yourself.  I used to think myself in
love with him, and--and--and I was very foolish"--

"How foolish?" His face had grown white, and he steadied his hands on the
arms of his chair.  "Don't torture me, Felicity.  Tell me the worst at
once."

"I married him."

At the words his paleness became ashen, and the rigidity of his features
was so ghastly that, forgetting everything else in her alarm, she ran to
his assistance.  He waved her away angrily.

"No--I am not going to faint--and I don't want anything to drink."

She resumed her chair obediently, and waited for him to ask more
questions.  Apparently he was unwilling or unable to do so, and the
silence seemed interminable, though in reality it lasted but a few
minutes.  During that short time the bishop's thoughts ranged with
characteristic rapidity over every aspect of the situation.  Emmet as a
son-in-law!  First of all, the fact that he was the mayor of Warwick, a
fact which the bishop had hitherto belittled, now presented itself as a
mitigating circumstance.  Then the thought that he was a Catholic
followed immediately, to suggest complications and humiliations which the
bishop's large experience enabled him to see with fatal distinctness.
What was the man's paltry office compared with this stupendous fact?
Nothing--a mere accident--a passing honour that would probably be plucked
from him two years hence, leaving him--what?  Tom Emmet, ex-professional
baseball player and streetcar conductor, out of a job, no longer mayor,
but always a Catholic, married to the richest woman in Warwick, and that
woman his daughter, the daughter of Bishop Wycliffe!

It was inevitable that he should look at the situation from the point of
view of the bishop rather than from that of the father simply.  Had she
been a son who had "gone over to Rome" after taking Anglican orders, the
bishop's professional humiliation would not have been as great as that
which now stared him in the face.  It would have been a keen
disappointment indeed, but lightened by the prospect of his son's
preferment in an ancient communion.  There would still have been the
possibility of a career for the boy, a career which his father could
watch, or at least anticipate, with emotions of pride; for the bishop was
too purely an ecclesiastic to under-estimate professional success in the
Church of Rome.  The career of a Cardinal Newman, for example, was one
that challenged his respect, however much he regretted the loss of such
talents to the Anglican faith, however forcibly he might characterise the
convert's action as apostasy.

But how different the actual case, how infinitely worse!  Felicity's
fortune was lost indeed to the great cause for which he had laboured a
lifetime.  Could he not imagine the delicately malicious triumph of the
Catholic bishop, by whose side he had so recently sat on equal terms?
Did he not know how the man would begin to scheme for the fortune of
Emmet's wife from the very day the marriage was published, how he would
strive to reach Felicity through her husband, flattering, threatening,
moving heaven and earth to get the money for his parochial schools, his
nunneries, his cathedral?  Only one as intensely partisan as the bishop,
and with his reasons for partisanship, could divine his sensations as he
viewed the picture thus presented to his mind--the troops of Irish or
Italian children screaming in their dusty playground, watched by the
monkish forms of their teachers.  And the other possibility had been St.
George's Hall, the miniature Oxford of America!

But even if the money should not go in such a direction through the hands
of Felicity,--and the bishop realised that a husband would not be likely
to succeed where a father had failed,--it would ultimately reach the
hands of her children.  Baffled by the parents, the authorities of the
Catholic Church would transfer their efforts to the children from their
very cradles, and would bring the game to earth at last.

The thought of children reminded the bishop now far he had gone on the
facts he knew thus far.  What were they?  That Felicity had married
Emmet, that she did not love him, that she already repented the deed!  It
was characteristic of his mental processes that the consideration of love
had been overlooked in his first agonised speculations, but now he
clutched at it as a drowning man clutches at a straw.

It was a wonderfully interesting face that he turned upon her,
transformed by his complicated emotions--his mechanical smile of
suffering, humiliation, scorn, disgust; the sudden leaping into his eyes
of a desperate hope.  The master spirit within him was already awaking
from the stunning blow she had dealt.  Every faculty of his acute mind
was once more alert, hungering for more facts, all the facts, as a basis
of future action.

He spoke not one word of the terrible anger that racked him like a
physical nausea.  Even in this crisis, his temperament and training held
fast.  Reproaches on his part would only drive her more surely to the
place from which she seemed desirous to return.  His flurry at the table
had shown him how she could match anger with anger, and over-power him by
sheer vitality.  An instinct of self-preservation, and an astuteness that
now reached its final triumph, pointed the wiser way.

"Then you feel that you have made a mistake, Felicity?" he questioned.
"I have long divined a great trouble in you, though of course this is far
beyond my worst fears.  If I am to be of any help to you, I must know
all."

For the first time in her life she felt that her father might be her
friend, her refuge in trouble.  Hungry for sympathy and
understanding,--she knew not how hungry till now,--she told her story,
beginning impetuously and with starting tears.  The bishop listened
attentively to the facts, dismissing from his mind her point of view, her
reasons for dissatisfaction with her life.  Such crude immaturity he had
encountered a thousand times, though he had never suspected it in her.

The only facts that concerned him were: that the marriage had never
really been consummated; that there was no question of a child to
consider; that Felicity was anxious to escape from the man in whose
clutches she had placed herself; and that there were grounds for divorce.
Emmet himself might be induced--purchased--to bring action on the ground
of desertion.  To be sure, such a cause was not acknowledged by the
Church as valid, but the bishop was prepared to lay aside his prejudice
in this particular case.  Not for a moment did he think of holding his
daughter to her mistake, as soon as he knew the facts in the case.  But
she made no mention of Leigh.

As the dangers with which he had at first seen himself threatened became
less formidable, and the way of escape suggested itself, his wonder at
her stupendous selfishness increased.  What manner of woman had he reared
and educated with such care?  In spite of the restraints of his questions
and comments, incredulous scorn was written in his expression and in the
gleam of his eyes.  It was much that she had not been physically coarse,
but her psychic equation was beyond his solving.

Felicity could not fail to be conscious of this growing antagonism, and
the warmth of emotion with which she had begun her explanation cooled
with every word.  Her gratitude vanished, to give way to implacable
resentment at his attitude of virtuous superiority.  Her judgment of him
was no less bitter than that she received.  Angry reproaches would have
stung her less than this courteous contempt.

"And how many persons are in this secret?" he asked finally.

"Mr. Emmet has taken Mr. Leigh into his confidence, I believe," she
answered, a faint colour creeping into her face.

"Ah, Leigh," he returned, thrown off his guard by surprise.  He thought
he saw now what her intimacy with the young professor really meant.  She
was pledging him to secrecy, and the young man had now the motive of
revenge to turn and reveal what he knew.

"It would perhaps be better to keep him in the college, after all," he
mused.

"What do you mean, father?" she demanded.  "To keep him in the college?
You had n't asked him to go?"

To this question he made no reply, but she saw confusion plainly written
in his face.

"I naturally supposed that he was a fortune hunter"--

She rose to her feet, flaming with an anger that appalled him.  "You
asked him to go," she cried, "because you thought I might marry him, and
not give my mother's money and mine to the college!  A fortune hunter!
It does n't seem to me, father, that you have much cause to talk about
fortune hunting!"

The taunt stung him to the quick, and his face grew scarlet and livid by
turns.  Never had this question come to an open issue and caused an
explosion like the present.

"I am not a fortune hunter," he said raspingly.  "If you are so dead to
the most inspiring of God's works, yours be the blame, Felicity, and
yours the condemnation."

"I have no idea of marrying Mr. Leigh," she went on passionately, "but
one thing I can tell you once for all.  If you think I am going to give
one cent to the college, you are utterly mistaken!  Don't I know your
plans?  Haven't I seen the drift of your casual remarks about the glory
of serving God?  I know you would have me give every cent I possess to
the college and become a deaconess--repent of my sins--retire from the
world.  You already see an opportunity in my mistake to profit by my
repentance.  Oh, I know all the choice phrases by heart!  You never loved
my mother, nor me, but you wanted the money for your St. George's Hall.
It was you that drove me into this marriage.  God knows, I admit I was
wrong, but I made the mistake in a frantic desire for fresh air, for some
other atmosphere than the stuffy gloom of churches and seminaries and
colleges.  What do I care for that miserable little college on the hill,
full of your good little boys with their churchly conceits and bowings
and deadness?  I want life, and I mean to have it.  I will spend my money
as I see fit--for travel--for clothes--for luxury--for anything that
strikes my fancy--but never--never--never--for that college!"

A wild impulse swept over her to seize something and break it in
fragments on the floor, but seeing nothing fragile at hand in that
book-lined room, she stood still, trembling like an aspen leaf.  The
bishop, little realising that she was driven to this extraordinary
transport by his treatment of Leigh, looked at her in stupefaction.  It
seemed to him that her mother stood before him once more, though she had
never acted thus; but the mental attitude was the same.  The mother had
thwarted his plans by leaving her money to the daughter, and now the
daughter would spend it as she willed.  It was like a second defeat at
the hands of the same woman.  And this was the flower he had cherished
with such pride, now scentless of spirituality and dead at the roots!  He
rose to his feet, suddenly an old man, utterly bereft, and shook a
trembling finger in her face.

"You lack nothing of filling up your cup of wickedness," he quavered,
"but that you have refrained from making a physical attack upon me.
Felicity, God will punish you!"

The corners of her beautiful lips curled upward in cruel scorn, and she
swept from the room, slamming the door behind her.  Presently he heard
the door of her own room closed with equal force, not once, but twice, as
if she had opened it again, and again slammed it shut, to give adequate
expression to her feelings.  Completely bewildered, he wandered into the
hall, reached mechanically for his hat and coat, and went out into the
street.

Instinctively he turned his steps toward St. George's Hall, as if from
its contemplation he could derive comfort.  Something, at least, had been
done toward realising his ideal, though far less than he had hoped to
accomplish.  Many a graduate had gone forth from beneath the shadow of
that stately tower to win fame and applause in the great world.  The
bishop knew most of them, and was known and loved by all.  There were
bishops among them, and clergymen, and judges, and physicians, and some
who had freely given their promising young lives in the service of their
country.  He counted over the names, as a miser counts his gold.  His
boys!  It was such as these, their successors, whom his daughter
characterised with scorn, impatient of the passing fads and fancies
common to their age, of an immaturity which she herself had exemplified
so much less venially.

Musing thus, he traversed the length of Birdseye Avenue, saluting those
who passed him with absent-minded courtesy.  At length he raised his eyes
and looked up the hill to the long, low roof against the cloudless sky.
For the thousandth time his eyes kindled at the sight, for the thousandth
time he experienced the artistic satisfaction of the connoisseur in
collegiate architecture, and mentally limned the remainder of the plan.
His sensations were like those of a skilled musician who has heard the
first movement of a masterly sonata and is left to imagine the perfect
whole.  The sun, now mounting toward the zenith, was shortening the
shadows of the tower on the slate roof that shone in the bright
atmosphere like dull silver.  Not a student was in sight, and the place
seemed to share the drowsy influence of the noontime.

Motionless, and leaning heavily on his cane, the bishop's mood grew warm,
as if it travelled upward with the sun.  His dream, now destined to
remain unfulfilled, had not been one merely of stone and brick and
mortar.  His spirit was akin to that of the cathedral builders of the
Middle Ages.  They might drive the people in harness to accomplish their
purpose, but that purpose was to erect a splendid temple to their God, a
symbol of human aspiration toward the divine.

The bishop reflected with pride that if he had measurably failed, he had
yet planned greatly.  He had taken his stand firmly on the ideal, defying
the utilitarian spirit of his time and country.  It was nothing to him
that the money which disappeared in the rearing of that splendid fragment
could have been spent for humbler structures which practical men would
have called more useful.  Useful!  He hated the word.  As if a beautiful
thing employed in the service of God were not useful in exact proportion
to its beauty!  If the churchmen of America had not been inspired by this
fair and brave beginning to complete the work, the fault was theirs.  He
had pointed them the way.

And how had he merited his wife's indifference, his daughter's
reproaches?  He had not desired the money for himself, he had used no
undue influence, he had forged no will; he had merely striven to make
them realise their stewardship, to inspire them with his own ideal.  In
this effort he could find no grounds for self-accusation; on the
contrary, the effort was a merit he might lay with humble pride before
his God, when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed.

Presently he resumed his way, until he stood directly opposite the
towers, at the foot of the path which crossed the intervening meadows.
Here the gateway was to have been built, similar to that of Trinity
College, Cambridge, with flanking towers and a statue, perhaps of
himself, standing above the portal.  At the thought the bishop smiled
ironically, and began a tentative progress up the hill.

The later hours of the night had been cold and the ground was still
fairly firm, even under the softening influence of the noonday sun.  As
he went further, the students began to come from their recitations and to
disperse toward their various rooms.  One figure, however, detached
itself from the rest and struck out across the upper campus in the
direction of the bronze statue of the founder, who stood with hand
outstretched in perennial blessing toward the hall which one of his
successors had reared.  That successor now caught sight of a head and
shoulders emerging above the rim of the plateau, until a man's full
length came into view and rapidly descended the slope.  Then the bishop
recognised Leigh.  His greeting to the young man was affable, and his
pause an invitation.

"You are adventurous to come this way," he remarked, prodding the earth
with his cane.  "This crust will scarcely sustain the weight of an old
Tithonus like myself, let alone a vigorous young Ajax like you."

Leigh glanced down at his soiled shoes, and smiled with an appreciation
of the ironies of life not unlike that which the other had felt so
recently.  "I came this way for sentimental reasons, I imagine," he
replied.  "This is a good point from which to look back at the towers."

"Then you 've caught the disease too?" the bishop asked.  "But one can't
long remain an immune in St. George's Hall."

"I shall have plenty of time to recover," Leigh returned, "when I shall
have left."

"Yes--yes," the bishop murmured.  "I heard something about that.  There
was an unfortunate misunderstanding, concerning which I believe I can set
Dr. Renshaw right.  It will give me great pleasure, Mr. Leigh, if you
will not think of leaving us."

The overture was practically an admission of his own responsibility in
the matter, but the astronomer was only impressed by the fact that for
some reason the bishop had ceased to regard him with disfavour.  Could it
be that he had discovered Felicity's secret at last?  A study of the
haggard record in the old man's face made the conjecture almost a
certainty.  Leigh felt that the bishop would now make amends to him for
suspecting him falsely in connection with his daughter, and reflected
guiltily that the suspicion was not as false as the bishop supposed.

"I have been thinking of leaving--naturally," he answered, hesitating,
"but my plans are not yet matured."

The bishop nodded understandingly.  He appreciated the fact that the
other's sensitiveness and resentment could not be put aside at once, and
that his own change of front could not draw forth immediate confidences.
The subject was a delicate one to both, and they were mutually anxious to
separate.

"I hope you will let me know, then," he said courteously, "whether you
decide that your best interests call you elsewhere, but I hope not--I
hope not."

He turned his face once more toward the Hall, his sagacious mind already
grappling with another possibility.  If Felicity must marry after getting
her divorce,--and it now seemed wiser that she should,--let her marry
this young professor, who was, after all, of her own class.  Her fortune
would not be wholly alienated from the college interests, should Leigh
continue in his professorship.  The young man might be made president
after Dr. Renshaw's impending retirement.  He could take orders to
conform with the traditions of the place; and men had taken orders for
smaller rewards.  His pride in the institution, which his wife must then
share, would influence them much in the direction of giving.

Leigh's first words upon coming down the hill had betrayed his growing
appreciation of the Hall, his gradual conversion to the ideal of the
church college.  Though a scientist, he had taken the degree of bachelor
of arts, and he was an inheritor of church traditions.  As for
Felicity--the bishop recalled the times he had seen her with Leigh, and
especially at the lecture at Littleford's.  He had divined their mutual
attraction from the first, though he credited them both with more
conscience in the matter than they had shown.

Leigh reached the street and turned southward, following the course that
Emmet had taken with his sleigh when he picked Lena up on that very spot
some two months before.  It wanted yet an hour of his lunch time, and he
had come forth with no other thought than to get the fresh air and to
turn over again in his mind the plans of which he had hinted to the
bishop.

After his interview with Dr. Renshaw, he had written to the authorities
of the Lick Observatory and asked permission to join one of the three
expeditions that were soon to be sent out to observe the approaching
eclipse of the sun.  It was too early as yet for a reply, but he had
reason to believe that his previous connection with the observatory and
his record there would assure the granting of his request, if the number
were not entirely completed.  Already he imagined himself transported to
Norway, or South America, or Egypt.  He could not tell which expedition,
if any, he would be permitted to join, but of the three, the last named
was most to his mind.

Felicity had become interwoven with his consciousness of himself, and in
thinking of Egypt he pictured her there with him, a vivid creation of
memory and imagination.  Some association of ideas between her and the
country that had given birth to Cleopatra must have influenced him in his
choice, he reflected with a disconsolate smile.  The association did
Felicity little justice in one way, but the impossibility of imagining
her at home on the cold heights of Norway or the Andes showed her kinship
with the land of colour and nocturnal mystery.

Sometimes he felt that he must brush aside all opposition of persons and
circumstance and beg her to go with him, leaving the world to gape and
wonder as it might.  It was only a fevered dream, but it suggested
another possibility that presently became a definite resolve.  At least
he would see her again, and beg her not to go blundering back into the
arms of the man she did not love.  He would plead with her not to try to
rectify one mistake by making another more fatal still.  Did he not owe
it to her and to himself to make one last effort for their happiness?
Had he a right to desert her in her trouble, to yield supinely to a
conventional prejudice?

He was in the glow of this new resolve when he climbed the hill to the
south of the college and turned to follow the road along the ridge which
Felicity and Emmet had taken that misty night.  At the quarry he paused
for a few moments to look down absently at the men working below, and
then began to retrace his steps toward the Hall.  His turning brought the
tower of the college and the distant city before his eyes.  The absence
of foliage from the trees exposed to view innumerable glinting roofs that
were hidden in summer as by a forest.  He picked out the tower of St.
George's Church and the various steeples with which he had become
familiar.  Then he caught sight of the pale wings of the figure of
Victory above the triumphal column in the park, poised like those of a
butterfly about to soar into the still, bright air.

Once more the beauty of the country made its great appeal: the
magnificent valleys to east and west swelling upward to ridges of hills
clothed in ever changing lights and shadows; the Hall standing sentinel
over all; the city nestled below, a city of dreams.




CHAPTER XX

"PUNISHMENT, THOUGH LAME OF FOOT"----

The bishop sat in his study, awaiting the arrival of Mayor Emmet in a
frame of mind that boded ill for the success of the interview.  In
reply to his letter suggesting a conference on a subject of mutual
interest, the mayor had named the third morning as the one that would
find him most free from his numerous engagements.  The coolness of this
reply was exasperating to the bishop, and he thought he divined in the
delay a deliberate intention to keep him on the rack of uncertainty.
Being a man of ample leisure, he had found plenty of time to formulate
the position he meant to take.  He and his daughter had threshed out
the subject, and now avoided it by mutual consent.  Their relationship
became unnatural and constrained.  They met only at meal-times, and not
always then, for each one sought more than one pretext to dine
elsewhere.  More words on the subject would only precipitate a
repetition of the scene that still rankled in the memory of both, and
the discussion was therefore closed until Emmet should have stated his
own position.

While the situation remained thus stationary, the appearance of the
world without had been so completely transformed that a whole season,
rather than three days, seemed to have elapsed.  Winter had returned in
a storm of snow that threatened to assume the proportions of the
historic blizzard, which piled such deep drifts about St. George's Hall
that the students had leaped with impunity from the upper windows.
During the previous night, however, the sky had cleared, and now the
air was filled with those familiar brumal sounds, the scraping of
shovels and the ringing of sleighbells, that usually make such a
pleasant appeal to those within-doors; but the bishop was merely moved
to impatient longing for the spring.

The bright sun filled the study with a garish light reflected from the
snow without, and the bishop pulled down the heavy shades, introducing
thereby an effect of twilight in the room.  At the same time the wood
fire in the grate, which had previously seemed pale and thin, took on a
ruddy and cheerful activity, relieved from the overpowering competition
of the sun.

The mayor finally arrived, half an hour behind the time he had
appointed, drawn in his sleigh by the pacer that had stood by him so
gallantly in his race with Anthony Cobbens.  He fastened the mare to
the post with careful deliberation, conscious the while that he might
be under inspection from behind the drawn curtains of Felicity's room.
When he entered the bishop's study, it was evident at once that he came
in no very conciliatory mood.  The bold glance of his eyes was a trifle
more bold than usual and swept the room rapidly, as if he anticipated
seeing Felicity there.  Something of disappointment and resentment
seemed to show itself in his manner, as he took the chair the bishop
indicated; and now he waited, with the instinct of the politician, for
his opponent to show his hand.

The bishop had always hated this man, and never more so than now.  In
addition to his special reason for hostility, Emmet's type was one
peculiarly distasteful to him.  Just as he had catalogued Leigh as a
Westerner, and had assumed certain characteristics in him, so he had
put Emmet, from the first, into the class of loud-voiced, big-limbed,
heavy-heeled centurions.  It made no difference that the mayor showed
marked deviations from the type; there was just enough of the feminine
in his judge to keep him true to his prejudices, and never were they so
nearly justified as now.  He saw that he must make a beginning, and did
so with his usual circumspection.  His words were carefully selected to
avoid giving offence, but the gist of their meaning was that he waited
for his visitor to give an account of himself.

"I should like to speak in the presence of my wife," Emmet announced
uncompromisingly.

"My daughter will not be present at this interview," the bishop
declared, with marked austerity, "nor at any other interview that may
subsequently become necessary, though I hope we shall come to such a
satisfactory understanding to-day as to make further conferences
superfluous.  This arrangement is with her entire consent, or rather,
is the fulfilment of her expressed wish.  I must protest also against
your designation of my daughter as your wife.  She is not such in the
full sense of the term.  She has never appeared with you publicly as
your wife, but by her desertion of you at the very altar she
emphatically showed that she realised her mistake at once and
repudiated it."

"Desertion is no cause for divorce, bishop," Emmet returned, with an
ugly gleam in his eyes, "either in your Church or in mine.  Your
daughter's treatment of me has been such that the only amends she can
make is to acknowledge our relationship and act accordingly."

"Come, come, Mr. Emmet," the other retorted, "I need scarcely remind
you how far my daughter has already atoned for her mistake by helping
you to realise your ambition, by suggesting it, in fact, and by lending
you books for your instruction.  It seems to me that a manly man would
acknowledge this frankly, that he would not strive to hold the woman to
the letter of the agreement after discovering that the spirit was no
longer there to give it life."

"I could have won without her," the mayor declared hoarsely.

The bishop smiled with exasperating, ironical amusement.  "We will
waive that point, then, Mr. Emmet.  It suggests a fruitless discussion,
that would merely serve to distract us from the main question.  I was
about to say, when you interrupted me, that if you always considered
your marriage as binding as you now feign to consider it, you should
have come to me and announced the fact.  By your acquiescence in my
daughter's desertion, you tacitly admitted that you released her, that
you had nothing to announce.  If you did not consider then that the
marriage was binding, you cannot begin to do so at this late hour."

"Allow me to say that your daughter considered it binding," Emmet put
in shrewdly.  "She did not repudiate her mistake, as you call it, by
leaving me at the altar.  On the contrary, she intended all along to
acknowledge our marriage as soon as I should be elected mayor."

"She did not, perhaps, realise the full significance of her instinctive
action," the bishop answered.  "A woman is a mystery to herself no less
than to others.  I am putting the case to you as man to man, hoping to
kindle a spark of generous understanding in your heart.  Could any
woman who really loved a man do as she did?  I tell you, and you know,
that it was the folly of a romantic girl, a folly that does not deserve
the penalty you would inflict.  If my daughter did not actually, in so
many words, repudiate her mistake in the beginning, she did so in a
recent interview with you, and she does so finally now by me."

"And she did me a great wrong!" Emmet cried hotly.  "If you are a man,
bishop, you must know what it meant to be tricked and disappointed as I
was."

The bishop's face grew livid, and he shrank within himself.

"You offer a pitiful excuse, sir!" he retorted.  "It depends upon what
kind of man you mean--the brute man, who regards women merely as the
instruments of his passion, or the chivalrous man, who knows that the
woman is the weaker vessel and bears himself accordingly.  I confess to
you that I am not the former kind."

His eyes assumed a keen, inquisitorial look that required all of
Emmet's false fortitude to meet.

"Mr. Emmet, I venture to say that I give you the benefit of a very
considerable doubt in assuming that you have not given my daughter
statutory grounds for divorce by your conduct with some other woman.
It seems passing strange that you should have been so acquiescent under
an arrangement which you describe as such a hardship, if you were not
kept so by a consciousness of duplicity.  But I have no desire to
pursue that line of inquiry.  This so-called marriage must be
dissolved.  Let us admit that you have not given statutory grounds;
there are other grounds concerning which there exists no manner of
doubt whatever.  I do not speak now of the eternal fitness of things,
of those humane and ethical considerations to which I find you
impervious, but of legal grounds.  My daughter cannot bring an action
for non-support against you, because she left you voluntarily.  It
remains for you to institute proceedings of divorce against her on the
ground of desertion.  We will not defend the suit."

There was something almost clairvoyant in the bishop's guess of the
mayor's infidelity, for pride had caused Felicity to keep Lena out of
her confession.  She had told only as much as she chose to tell,
leaving her father to imagine himself in possession of all the facts.
Had she told all, she would have strengthened her case at the expense
of her pride; but this was a sacrifice she could not bring herself to
make.

Before the bishop finished speaking, his listener had discerned that
the veiled accusation was a guess, and nothing more.  This knowledge
helped him to remain apparently unmoved.  It did more.  It showed him
Felicity's pride in remaining silent concerning a rival so much beneath
her.  This had been her attitude all along,--to consider Lena beneath
contempt,--and he burned to make her suffer for it.  He was filled with
fury against himself also for yielding at the last to his passion for
Lena, after a long and successful struggle.  It was this that made it
impossible for him to say plainly that he would not give Felicity up,
though he had tormented her father by implying it.  This method of
revenge was the only one now left him.

"But your religion," he suggested, with a sneer.

"Excuse me," the bishop returned, with patient dignity, "if I feel that
I am not accountable to you for the manner in which I defend or fail to
defend the canons of my Church.  My daughter acts as an individual who
is of age, and her reckoning is with the civil law.  To clear up your
evident confusion of mind, I will explain that I violate no canons of
the Church in eliminating myself officially from the situation.  I am
merely suggesting to you, as one individual to another, a way out of a
most unhappy complication.  Besides, you evade the hard fact that this
was no marriage in the full sense of the word."

Emmet realised that his shaft had fallen short, and the knowledge stung
him to fury.

"I will not bring any such action!" he cried recklessly, rising in
white heat.  "I will not release her!"

"We shall accomplish nothing by violence," the bishop interposed.
"Pray, resume your chair and hear me out.  A marriage without love is a
mere mockery and sham.  You do not love my daughter, and she does not
love you.  We will not argue about that, if you please, for it is not
possible to contradict an evident fact.  You are an ambitious man, and
marriage is only one of the ways by which ambition can be furthered.
In this case, the marriage is out of the question; but if you will name
a compensation which you deem adequate recompense for your
disappointment, we shall be ready to listen to the proposition."

Emmet had taken his seat at the bishop's request, but this cynical
proposal to buy him off caused him to spring to his feet again in an
indignation that was not altogether unjustified.  He was a money-maker
himself, and had not coveted Felicity's wealth.  From her he had sought
only social advantage and revenge upon his enemies; but it was his
pride to be the builder of his own fortune.

"If you were not an old man," he said tempestuously, "you would not
make such an offer with impunity.  You will find I have no price.  I
wish you good day."

"Wait!" the bishop cried, raising his trembling hand and clearing his
throat from suffocating emotion.  "Only one word more.  You shall not
have her--that is all.  And this house is mine--you shall not enter it
again."

The other's face became diabolical in its passion.  He leaned against
the jamb of the open door and folded his arms mockingly, as if inviting
an effort to eject him.

"You were speaking pretty freely of statutory grounds," he said,
raising his voice.  "It has n't occurred to you, perhaps, that I may
name a co-respondent myself.  You ought to have a care, bishop, what
kind of professors you employ in your college."  With these words he
turned and strode from the house.

The bishop's speechless indignation presently gave way to the first
touch of pity he had yet felt for Felicity in her trouble.  The mayor
was more of a brute than even he had thought possible, and should
receive no quarter in the future.  The front door had scarcely closed
when his daughter's figure took the place her husband had just occupied
before him.

"Well?" she asked simply.

He searched her face with haggard eyes, and guessed from its pallor
that his fears were justified.

"Did you hear what the fellow said," he demanded--"his last words?"

The colour came back to her cheeks with a rush.  "I could n't very well
help it.  I was in the dining-room, and the door was open."

"I 'm sorry," he murmured, "very sorry.  I hoped you did not.  But
there, we 'll not discuss the subject any more at present, Felicity.
The interview was fruitless, worse than fruitless, I fear."  He shifted
uneasily in his chair, and she understood his dumb appeal to be left
alone.

When she had gone, he arose from his seat and unlocked a long drawer
beneath one of his bookcases, from which he took a mass of material
relating to the plans for St. George's Hall.  These he spread out on
the desk before him and studied with deep attention, turning again to
this dream with an instinct of self-preservation.  To-morrow he would
take up again the fight for his daughter's freedom and happiness, but
now he was in sore need of some narcotic influence, of something
beautiful and permanent, as a refuge from the passions that had
threatened to overpower him.  Felicity would live this down; it would
ultimately seem but a stormy day in the retrospect.  Meanwhile, what
could he do about this chapel?  Here, in this envelope, was a promise
of half the money needed, if he could raise the balance within a
specified time.  He recalled having read in the morning paper of the
arrival from Europe of an old friend and former parishioner.  She was a
rich woman, and was now alone in the world.  Perhaps he could get away
in a few days and run down to New York to see her.  He began to drum
absently on the desk with his fingers, turning over in his mind some
details in the arrangement of the chapel which he had never settled to
his satisfaction.  Presently he realised that something was lacking,
and reaching forward, he took a cigar from the open box that stood on
the revolving bookcase near by.

It was noon when the mayor returned to the City Hall.  On the steps, as
he entered, stood a figure long familiar in the streets of Warwick, a
blind news-vender, with his cane and smoked glasses and bundle of
papers.  In the morning, he might be seen at the railroad station, a
grotesque and patient form, holding out his papers silently in the
direction of the shuffling feet that passed by.  He never cried his
wares, but his appeal was more compelling than the noisy shouts of his
more fortunate competitors.  He had become an institution in Warwick.
Every one knew where to find him at certain hours: in the morning, at
the station; toward noon, taking his way, unassisted except by his
cane, toward the City Hall, carrying the first edition of a great
metropolitan daily of the flaming variety; in the evening, at the
station once more.  He had made these two posts of vantage his own, as
unfortunates in the Old World take possession of sunny corners beside
cathedral doors, and no one ventured to trespass within his sphere.

Each noon Emmet had been accustomed to buy a paper, paying a nickel or
a dime as it came to his hand, but seldom the penny that was the price
of the sheet.  To-day he followed his custom mechanically and hurried
on, eager to plunge into the distraction of work as a refuge from the
tormenting devil within him.  The outer office, lined with chairs for
visitors and adorned with pictures of former occupants of the
mayoralty, was deserted.  He passed into the inner office, where his
desk stood, piled with the last mail, and sent his stenographer out to
lunch, for his own appetite had deserted him.

He had thrown the paper down, with no thought of reading it, and paused
to hang up his coat and hat.  Upon his return, he was confronted by a
black headline in letters two inches deep, and flinging the paper open
with a sharp crackle, he stood rigid while the meaning of it burst upon
him.

  PRETTY MAID MARRIES RICH SWELL!

  ROMANTIC RUNAWAY MATCH.  YOUNG
  HOLLISTER PYLE OF WARWICK MARRIES THE
  GIRL THAT FORMERLY LIVED IN HIS HOUSE.
  CUPID NOT TO BE BAFFLED BY THE DIFFERENCE
  IN SOCIAL POSITION.  PARENTS OF
  BRIDEGROOM TELEGRAPH THEIR FORGIVENESS.


Emmet slowly sank into his chair, his staring eyes fixed on the page
while he rapidly ran through the startling story--not a seven days'
wonder, indeed, in these times of universal publicity, but the gossip
of a few hours, until the whirling sheets of the next issue should
fling some other story of folly or crime into the hands of its gaping
readers.

But Emmet was not comforted by a realisation of the transitory nature
of the sensation.  He heard the newsboys in the street without, crying
it hoarsely, and almost wondered why his own name was not coupled with
the others, to be bruited about the sidewalks, proclaiming his guilt.
In the first moments, his sensations were those of fear and horror.
The bottom had dropped out of his world, leaving him suspended over an
abyss.  He experienced no relief that this act of Lena's freed his own
hands.  He was free in one sense, but she had fastened a crime upon him
forever by taking herself from his path.

What he had intended to do, he did not know.  Some vague idea of
providing for her had lain dormant in his mind.  He had even gone to
the bishop's with a subconscious disposition to give Felicity up; but
her father's scorn had aroused his perversity, and had resulted in a
declaration of obstinacy that was unpremeditated.

Now he knew that he had loved Lena, had intended to stand by her, even
to marry her; and he was struck by her pitiful humility.  Evidently it
had not occurred to her mind that he might get a divorce.  Too late he
wished he had been frank with her and had asked her to wait.  In
reality, he was no sensualist, and Lena's frailty had not made him a
cynic; on the contrary, he regarded it as a proof of her love alone.
In his agony, he did not judge her; he judged only himself.  He had
taught her duplicity, but he was aghast at her skill in practising the
lesson she had learned.  During all this time, he had received no hint
that young Pyle had followed her from his house.  He could only imagine
the facts.  When Lena left that place to go to Bishop Wycliffe's, she
doubtless had an honest desire to escape from the unwelcome attentions
she had told him of.  She must have begun to weaken only after
discovering that the man for whom she made the effort had played her
false.

Emmet threw down the paper with a groan and turned to his desk, moved
by a desperate hope that he could force himself to appreciate the
reality of the interests those piled envelopes represented.  He seized
them feverishly, and began to shuffle them over like a pack of cards.
His random glance was arrested by a thin, wavering hand he knew well,
scrawled on an envelope that bore the picture and name of a New York
hotel.  Had he been a student of chirography, he might have read the
secret of the enigma that tormented him in those pale, uncertain
pen-strokes, so unlike the firm, compact characters by which Miss
Wycliffe visualised her will.  But his only thought was that this
letter came to him as a final explanation and farewell, after he had
lost her forever.

The epistle was confused, and blotted with tears.  She told how Pyle
had pursued her, how she had resisted him, how she had finally yielded
to his importunities, to shield the man that had wronged her and to
save herself.  If she had not done this, she would have killed herself,
but she was afraid to die, and there was no third way.  She wrote no
word of reproach, but closed with a final message of love and a prayer
for his happiness.

Emmet shrank from the lines, as if each were the waving lash of a whip
that descended upon him.  When he had finished reading, he tore the
letter into minute fragments and threw them in the basket.  His heart
was swelling with the sense of a tragedy that was not completed, but
only begun, a tragedy that he and Lena must share together.  She had
bound him to her forever by putting this barrier between them.  He
thought of Felicity only to resolve to free himself from her at once,
that he might be in readiness to come to Lena's aid in the future,
should she need him.  Perhaps God would yet give him a chance to make
amends.  If her husband would only break his worthless neck in one of
his mad rushes with his machine, Emmet reflected savagely, or drink
himself to death--

Any moment some one might come in and find him there.  He got up and
locked the door against intrusion before he should be able to master
the outward signs of his emotion.  Then he returned to his chair and
looked about, thinking confusedly.  There was something pitiless in the
glaring light of noon that disclosed every crack and stain on the ugly
brown walls.  It was like the relentless light of his new revelation
turned upon the stains and patches of his soul, dreary and terrible.
Had the hour been twilight, some glamour of lost romance and self-pity
might have fallen upon him like a violet veil, hiding the sordid truth;
but he lacked the imagination with which artistic natures may shield
themselves, and he saw things as they were.  He even wandered momently
from his own misery to reflect that he would have this room refitted
and painted a more cheerful hue, whether for himself or for his
successor.  The office was beneath the dignity of a city like Warwick.

He picked up the paper and spread it out before him once more,
quivering sensitively at the flippant and vulgar tone of the
announcement.  That "pretty maid" was just Lena to him, whom he had
loved in secret, now haled before the tribunal of public opinion.  His
sensations could scarcely have been more keen, had he also been billed
before the gaping crowd.  The fact that he was not so billed made him
realise what a small part of any secret ever readies the general ear.
The plant is pulled up for inspection, but the deeper roots remain
behind, hidden in the earth.

There was the elder Pyle, a dignified man, with a war record, who had
been one of the committee that thrust the mayor of Warwick aside as
unworthy to welcome the President.  Here was a strange, unmeditated
revenge!  Emmet, through Lena, had done much to wreck the happiness of
that household.  His deed had gotten away from him, and was working on
and on, beyond his power to recall, passing from one social class into
another as through a familiar medium.  The mayor's straight lines of
demarcation between classes became blurred; he saw them shift and waver
and disappear, till the whole seemed a confused mass of humanity,
confluent and interchangeable.

His only desire now was to make reparation, and reparation was denied
him.  His success had been so steadily progressive, his growing
appreciation of his own power so intoxicating, that he had somehow felt
he could control this situation also.  Even Felicity had not been
beyond him, had he chosen to assert himself.  But Lena,--so gentle and
acquiescent,--it was she who had taken the bit in her teeth and done
this astounding thing!

It would be a relief, he reflected, if he could make open confession
and begin life over again, or run away from the daily reminder of his
sin; but he must remain where he was, and steel himself to see Lena
unmoved, a man with an abiding shadow.




CHAPTER XXI

THE MAYOR FINDS HIMSELF AT LAST

It was between three and four o'clock in the afternoon of the same day,
and the sun still shone dazzlingly on the deep, unblemished snow.  All
morning long, the janitors of the Hall had been toiling through the
drifts with their shovels, leaving a narrow pathway behind them from
the southern extremity of the building to the street at the end of the
maple walk.  Now, their heads and shoulders had ceased to rise and fall
above the bleak expanse.

Instead, a solitary figure could be seen advancing in the direction of
the college, seeming from a distance to be that of a child, and
reminding one of Little Red Riding-Hood in the fairy tale.  The height
of the side walls of snow aided the distance in producing this
illusion.  Upon coming nearer, one would have seen the child gradually
assume the stature of a woman, and had he been a citizen of Warwick, he
would have recognised Felicity Wycliffe.

Although, as a general thing, women were not wont to pass that way,
except to attend the chapel services of a Sunday or some public
ceremony, the bishop's daughter was free of the grounds by peculiar
rights, which no one dreamed of questioning.  A group of students,
meeting her halfway, leaped gallantly into the snow waist-deep to let
her pass, and did not presume to question her mission or destination.

The wind had already begun to sift the fine snow into the bottom of the
trench, increasing the difficulty of her progress, and forming
innumerable little rifts and scallops in the white dunes that swelled
upward toward the skyline like the sands of the sea.  Suddenly she
heard the harsh cawing of a flock of crows that passed overhead,
wheeling westward.  The sound caused her heart to vibrate with a memory
of that wonderful October afternoon when she had listened with Leigh to
the same notes beneath the pines, and she shaded her eyes against the
sun to watch the course of the flock across the wide basin of the
valley.  The notes grew less and less, no longer streperous but
strangely musical, and finally were heard no more, leaving her
oppressed by a sense of loneliness and desertion.  Something akin to an
antique mood fell upon her, as if she had been given an augury of an
irreversible fate.

This spiritual quiescence, numbing her from a realisation of her
purpose, held until she disappeared into the huge archway of the tower
and began to ascend the narrow stairs.  But here her spirit failed her,
and she paused.  Standing motionless in the gloom, she could hear her
heart beating wildly, and the folly of her intention became apparent.
But the momentum of her original purpose presently urged her on, it
seemed against her will and better judgement, until she stood before
Leigh's half-open door.  Had the door been closed, she might not have
been able to bring herself to knock, she might have turned and departed
as silently as she had come; but there was an invitation in this
accidental circumstance, to which the gleam of an open fire gave warmth
and persuasion.

Listening intently, she heard no sound from within.  The few students
she had met on the hillside were the only ones she had seen, and she
guessed that the majority were still detained by their recitations.  At
the end of the hour, he would doubtless return from a class.  There was
time for her to recall what she wished to say and how she would begin.
Reassured by this reflection, she was about to enter, when the door on
the other side of the hall opened, and she turned to see Cardington's
tall figure against the light from within.

"I was listening for your step, Miss Felicity," he said, "having
observed your approach from my corner window, but you came as quietly
as a snowflake.  This is an unexpected honour.  It's a long time since
I have had the pleasure of a call from you; in fact, not since those
days of blessed memory when you were a little girl, and used to run up
to take a look at my pictures.  But come in.  Perhaps I can make you a
cup of afternoon tea."

She followed him into the room, and said nothing until he had closed
the door behind her.  Then she flung back her hood with a sweep of her
hand and met his gaze steadily.

"You know I did n't come to see you, don't you?" she demanded with
quiet defiance.

"Far be it from me," he temporised, "to assume accurate knowledge of
anything as doubtful as the direction a charming young woman's favour
may take; but I thought it possible--I thought it possible--for old
sake's sake."

The repetition of the reminder touched her, in spite of her
preoccupation, and she glanced about the once familiar room with a
wistful kindling of the eyes.

"I used to come up here often, did n't I?" she mused.  "And father knew
where to find me when he had finished his smoke and talk with the boys.
There 's the same old picture of the Alhambra you used to tell me
stories about."  Her defiance was gone now, though her purpose still
held.  "But I did n't come to see you this time; I shall--soon.  I came
to see some one else."

"My dear child," he said, fixing her with a gaze of deep concern, "I am
old enough to be your father, am I not?"

She nodded silently, waiting for the lecture she felt she so well
deserved.  Yet it was characteristic of their relationship that she
experienced no serious apprehension; she was too well aware of his
understanding and indulgence for that.

"But still," he continued, "I lack a few years of reaching the imposing
longevity of Methuselah."

She put out her hands in impulsive protest against this reference to
their difference in age, understanding the pain that underlay his
effort at jocularity.  He took and retained them in his own, and his
colour deepened.

"This is a most embarrassing demonstration of affection," he commented.
"If any one should suddenly open the door, I fear his surprise would be
very great.  Now, is it not fortunate that my room is opposite that of
my young colleague, rather than the room of some other person less well
disposed, less a friend, I may say, to you both?"

"I 'm sure it is," she answered.  "If any one else had been living in
this room, I would never have ventured"--

"Exactly.  No one else, perhaps, has had my opportunities for
understanding you.  Now, on the basis of our long acquaintance, and
because of my deep attachment to yourself and your father, I wish to
urge you to reconsider your intention of making any other call this
afternoon."

"I shall have to use my own judgement," she returned, without
flinching.  "I am in great perplexity--you don't know."

"I do know," he retorted, "and perhaps the time has come for me to tell
you so.  A wanderer like myself comes across many unexpected things in
the course of his peregrinations.  Shall I tell you how, while looking
for some records of my family in an old New York church, secretly
indulging the genealogical mania I am wont to deride, I lighted upon a
record I did not think to find--the record of the marriage of one who
is very dear to me?"

"Then you knew all the time!  I almost thought so--often."

"Not all the time," he corrected, "though for what seemed a very long
time, while I waited for the bolt to fall on your father's unsuspecting
head.  Perhaps, Felicity, you will accept it as a proof of my devotion
to you that I did not consider it my duty to enlighten your father.  If
I can be of any assistance to you even now--but I am an outsider.  I
merely wish to assure you of my unswerving--friendship."

"Don't make me cry," she protested, with a shaken little laugh.  She
bit her lip and winked back the starting tears.  "Father knows now--and
you know--and I am going to tell Mr. Leigh."

"Well, well," he answered, "I say no more."  His eyes searched her face
earnestly, and he began to shake her hands, which he had retained in
his own from the time she put them there.  "You must redeem your
promise to come and see me again, I hope under happier circumstances."
He flung open the door with suspicious haste, and bowed her out in his
ceremonious way.

She found herself facing the same beckoning firelight, with the same
reassuring silence about her.  In addition she felt a new comfort and
an unexpected permission from the recent interview.  Without further
hesitation, she stepped across the threshold and quietly closed the
door behind her.

She was still somewhat shaken by the emotions she had just experienced,
but this change of scene brought different sensations and dried her
tears.  Her first feeling was one of intense relief.  Here she was,
whether wisely or not she could not tell, but she was glad she had
come.  She advanced to the centre of the room, and gazed about her at
the objects that were his.  The first thing that always struck her in
any room was its pictures, and here she saw a number of famous
astronomers and mathematicians, stiffly arranged in chronological
order.  There were no Venetian scenes or cathedrals, but above the
fireplace she saw an etching of the library of his _alma mater_,
surmounted by his college flag.

What a contrast to the room she called her own!  The very atmosphere
was different, for mingled with the odour of burning logs she detected
a suggestion of tobacco smoke, so faint that only a woman would have
perceived it.  The simplicity of the place, the absence of ornate
decoration, was like him, she reflected.  Artistic herself to an
exceptional degree, she had never cared for men who possessed an equal
knowledge of such things; they were either professional artists, or
somehow less than manly.

She was familiar with the rooms of St. George's Hall, and knew to a
nicety what furniture and pictures and hangings were best suited to the
suggestions inherent in the deep stone windows, the small, leaded
panes, the massive fireplaces.  Of these things she saw no examples;
but on the large desk, littered with a profusion of books and pipes and
papers, her glance was arrested by the sight of several candlesticks of
various sizes and of beautiful workmanship.  She was struck by this as
by a psychological singularity, and counted the number--four on the
table and three others on the mantel, seven in all, the number
freighted with so many religious associations.  She wondered whether
there were some astronomical association also.  Were there seven stars
in the Pleiades?

She went to the window and stood looking out at the shadow of the Hall,
creeping more rapidly now toward the edge of the plateau.  The austere
gloom of the scene, the strange, red light of the sunset striking
across the eastern valley to the vague blue hills on the horizon, were
unutterably sad, and her desolate mood returned, shot through by fear
as the time of his arrival became a matter of moments.  What was she to
say to him?  What would he think?  Was there yet time to change her
mind and make her escape?

Suddenly the voices of students were heard below and the crunching of
their steps along the path, She had lingered too long and must abide
the issue, for presently she heard him coming up the stairs.  Then she
thought that it he was buoyant, if he entered light-heartedly, she
would leave without a word, cured of her fancy that he loved her.  The
door opened slowly, and she remained motionless where she stood, her
hands resting on the cold stone window-ledge, her eyes fixed intently
on the distant hills.  But all her senses were conscious of him.  She
felt that she could see him, that he too was sad, that she heard him
sigh, though the only sound in the room during his moment of speechless
surprise was the purring of the flames in the fireplace.

"Miss Wycliffe," he ventured doubtfully.

Remembering his experience in the mist, he had almost believed that he
was again the victim of an hallucination, but her swift turning, her
illuminating smile, were very different from that ghostly vanishing.

"How extraordinary you will think it of me, Mr. Leigh," she said,
coming toward him, "to call on you in this fashion."  She stood near
him, her hands involved in the folds of her cloak, her bearing one of
spontaneity and candour.  He pulled off his cap and stood waiting.
None of the conventional greetings passed between them.  He did not
even ask her to be seated, so great was his bewilderment, his anxiety
to know why she had come.  The emotion that had stirred her in
Cardington's room seemed gone now.  Her smile conveyed an humorous
appreciation of her unconventional act.  The gaze of her eyes was
spiritual and clear.

"I have come to you as to a friend," she explained with sweet
seriousness.  "You know the trouble I have brought upon myself, upon my
father, upon Mr. Emmet, upon every one.  I am in great distress of
mind.  I want to do the right thing, if it is possible to right so much
wrong at this late date.  I have become confused as to my duty.  My
husband thinks one thing--my father thinks another--and I don't know
what I ought to do.  You have been in Mr. Emmet's confidence and in
mine.  I want you to give me your advice."

"Perhaps you should have chosen a more disinterested judge, Miss
Wycliffe," he returned; "but you were right at least in feeling that
you could come to me as to a friend.  In fact, I was thinking of coming
to you, perhaps not altogether as a mere friend--but let that go now.
Why should n't one who would have been something nearer, if it had been
possible, be at least that?  And more--I am grateful to you for giving
me this opportunity.  I take it as a proof that you have restored me in
some measure to your confidence, after I had deserved to lose it
entirely."

In reality, there had been no doubt in her mind in regard to her
husband, though possibly she would have denied, even to herself, that
her decision was formed before she came with the problem to the man
that loved her.  It was not her duty to Emmet that distressed her, but
whether Leigh loved her still.  This was what she wished to know, and
now his manner told her more than his words.

"Don't say you deserved to lose my confidence," she protested quickly.
"It was I who deserved to lose yours."

The attitude her coming demanded of him was cruelly difficult to
maintain, and he sought help from action.

"We 'll let bygones be bygones, then," he answered brusquely; but his
brusqueness pleased her.  "Take this chair by the fire."

"The question is one of duty," she began again.

He flung himself into another chair on the opposite side of the
fireplace, locked his fingers about one knee, and regarded her
judicially, as if his whole mind were concentrated upon the problem she
was stating.  In reality, he was absorbed by the extraordinary nature
of the situation, and lost in admiration of the picture she presented.
Were she posing for a portrait to be painted, she could not have chosen
her position more effectively.  The firelight brought out a golden tone
from her brown skirt.  It was lost in the softness of her velvet waist
and hair, to reappear mysteriously in her eyes.  She had thrown her
crimson cloak over the back of the chair, and it formed a rippling band
of colour on each side of her figure.  Surely, here was a Portrait of a
Lady that would have made an artist famous, could he have done it to
the life.

She spoke of her struggle with Emmet as it she were stating an
hypothetical case for his dispassionate consideration.  Her apparent
coolness filled him with amazement, but he recognised that she had
adopted the only attitude that could justify the interview and preserve
her own dignity.  His emotions were held in suspension; he even felt he
had none, so compelling was the effect of her serious and impersonal
frankness.  Yet he saw she was not really frank with him.  She omitted
entirely to mention certain elements in the situation which she must
have known that he knew from her husband's confession to him.

His eyes, fixed upon her own, were filled with speculation, and he was
unconscious of the inquisitorial effect they produced upon her.  He was
thinking how very different she was from what he had at first supposed,
and how this gradual opening of his eyes to hitherto unsuspected vistas
of her character had not changed for one moment the fact of his love
for her.  She might vacillate and doubt,--she seemed to do so now,--but
questionings, retreats, advances, refusals, were for women.

Finally, she spoke of the possibility of going back to Emmet, and he
felt that he could not bear it.  It was this very thing which he had
decided to protest against, and now his opportunity had come.  Every
word tortured him, filled him with fury against her for the folly of
such a sacrifice, with fury also against the fate that forbade him to
plead his own cause and to open her eyes to her husband's motives.  He
arose from his chair and began to pace the room feverishly, tempted
each moment to pause, to throw himself at her feet, and to beg her to
love him alone.  Would he only lose her thus, and gain her contempt as
well?

Felicity ceased speaking, looked into the fire with a musing and
thoughtful gaze, smoothing absently the fingers of her gloves, and
waited for the opinion she had asked him to give.  She was more than
satisfied now, even a little afraid of the possible expression of the
love she had wished to prove.  She had tempted him once before, and he
had yielded; now she was making another impossible demand upon his
self-restraint, calmly asking him to ignore the truth of their own
relationship while she discussed her false duty to another.  Suddenly
he stood before her, and she looked up to encounter his eyes, which
seemed to burn with a blue flame in the intensity of his emotion.

"You can't be so foolish as to go back to him!" he cried.  "I tell you,
Felicity, it's worse than folly--it's wickedness.  I love you, and he
doesn't--I won't let him have you!"

"Oh, don't!" she protested, rising hurriedly in her turn.  "I ought not
to have come--how dark it has grown!--I must be going.  What shall I
do?  He refuses to give me up, and--and I am afraid of him!"

The scene on the edge of the cliff had come back to her mind with new
and terrible force, all the more portentous as she seemed now to have
seen her way of escape made clear.  And her husband's face in the
moonlight, when she fled from him in panic into the house!  Finally,
his parting threat that very morning, in which he had involved this man
whom she loved.  Leigh's arm went about her, and her head rested
against his breast.  He bent over her, intoxicated by the fragrance of
her hair and kissing it passionately.

"All questions and doubts are solved in this," he murmured.  "It is
different this time, is it not, my darling?  What is the use of more
words?  We understand each other now."  He held her from him.  "Look up
into my eyes," he commanded, with reckless exultation.  "Your eyes
blind me; how wonderful they are!  Do you know what I was thinking, all
the time you were talking to me about Emmet?  I was n't half
listening--I was imagining that you were my wife and not his, sitting
with me by the fire.  I allowed myself to see things, not as they were,
but as they ought to be, as they shall be!"

"I was a proud woman once," she faltered, "but I have no right to be
proud any more.  If you will only understand me, if you will only love
me always as you do now, I shall not care for anything else.  Tell me
you were to blame, too, and save me some remnant of my self-respect."

"Blame!" he echoed contemptuously.  "See, my darling, how I kiss away
your tears.  Poor child, so storm-tossed, so troubled!  Have we not
dealt enough with words, while all the time this was the only reality?
Can you talk of blame on either side, Felicity, when we love each other
as we do?"  In that moment of happiness he could not bring himself to
tell her of the letter in his pocket that gave him permission to join
the expedition to Egypt.  He had still a few days to spare, and though
he was resolved to go, he would not throw the shadow of separation over
their first perfect understanding.  That very afternoon he had arranged
with Dr. Renshaw for his substitute, and had made his final plans.  He
would have gone to her to-morrow with the news, but now he would wait
until to-morrow before he spoke.

Silence had fallen between them when they heard the sound of footsteps
ascending the stairs, buoyant and determined.  They might be directed
to Cardington's room across the way, but the two listeners stood as if
frozen, waiting with strange foreboding for the issue.  Then came a
loud knocking on the door.

They stood apart, and looked at each other with mute irresolution.  The
knock was repeated, and before they could fortify themselves to meet
the crisis, the door opened and Emmet advanced boldly into the dim
light of the fire.  Leigh stepped quickly between him and Felicity.

"What is the meaning of this intrusion, Mr. Emmet?" he asked quietly.

The bishop's daughter seemed to grow taller with scorn of the vulgar
outbreak and unseemly charges she believed to be inevitable, but her
husband raised his hand as if to ward off resentment, and Leigh saw in
a glance that he was no longer the man he had known.  There was little
now of that bold, insistent personality which had once radiated a
compelling sense of power.  His face seemed thinner, finer, almost
luminous with his purpose of renunciation.  He looked at Leigh with
none of the fury of the outraged husband in his eyes, but rather with a
suggestion of sympathy and understanding.

"I 've been to the bishop's," he began abruptly.  "I wanted to see him
and Felicity once more to take back all I said this morning, and to say
I would do as they wished.  They were n't at home, and I guessed
somehow they might be here.  Anyhow, even if they were n't, I wanted
you to know, Mr. Leigh, that I 'd given Felicity up.  Never mind
why,--that's my affair,--but it's right for every one concerned.  I 'll
not be the dog in the manger any longer.  You were intended for her,
and she for you.  I knew it long ago, though I would n't admit it; and
after all this trouble is over, you 'll be happy together"--His voice
died away, and having taken a step aside to bring Felicity within range
of his vision, he stood looking from one to the other with an
expression which prophesied the spiritual aloofness he might one day
attain.

"Felicity," he said, "you 'll not have reason to fear me any more.  It
's clear sailing for us both now.  And don't reproach yourself.  The
account is more than square.  You 've not been as much to blame as I
have,--be sure of that."

It seemed, however, to be more with Leigh than with Felicity that he
was concerned at the last, and he shook hands with him lingeringly, as
if he would show that under happier circumstances, had a woman not come
between them, they would have been the friends they were meant to be.
The astronomer felt this, as if the message had been spoken, and
followed his visitor to the door with scarcely articulate words of
appreciation.  But Emmet, having accomplished his purpose, was anxious
to be gone, and making his exit with unceremonious haste, he ran
rapidly down the stairs.

He had not reached the northern end of the Hall before two other
figures emerged from the blackness of the archway into the snowy
twilight and turned in the same direction.  Felicity had not allowed
herself to remain a moment longer than was necessary, with Leigh, after
her husband's departure; he had returned from seeing his visitor to the
door to find her cloaked and ready.  He appreciated the situation too
well to attempt to detain her, or even to comment upon Emmet's
extraordinary change of front and her impending freedom.  He knew that
she too, like himself, was crushed by her husband's magnanimity, and
that all mention of love between them was an impossibility for the
time.  While their love seemed hopeless, he had kissed her in wild
revolt and farewell, but now he found it possible to wait.  He
experienced a curious joy in a realisation of the fact that she fell
short of the perfection he had once assumed in her.  From her faults he
took heart of grace, and was saved from being over-powered by her
beauty.

As he looked at Emmet's sturdy figure plunging on before them, now lost
in shadow, now passing through a bar of light that shone from a
student's window, he wondered at the man's surrender of one who was to
him a treasure-house into which were gathered all the beauty and
mystery and fascination of women.  The future held much of uncertainty
for him, but his love was safe.

This final act of the drama, which was, after all, only the centrepiece
of a trilogy, built on a drama acted before Leigh's entrance to the
scene, and promising another in the future, was played more below the
surface than above.  Not one tenth of the things that might have been
said was actually spoken; the greater part was unexpressed, perhaps
unexpressible.  But to the young astronomer, Nature herself, never
wholly mute, was full of interpretative music.  If the wind was ever a
paean of victory, it was such to him as they emerged from the shelter
of the Hall and received the full force of its robust and joyful blast;
if the familiar stars ever sang in their courses, they sang to him now.
From time to time his hand met that of the woman he loved in a clinging
touch, as he turned to help her through a drift that had risen since
she passed that way, and this progress seemed to his warm imagination
an allegory of their future life together.

They neared the end of the maple walk, and the mayor's dark figure
became partially obscured by the bulk of his waiting sleigh.  The next
moment he was standing upright within it, arranging the blanket about
him, seeming larger than human against the whiteness beyond.  He sank
into his seat and gathered up the reins.  They heard him speak to his
horse in his confidential way; there was a cheerful burst of silvery
bells, and the sleigh began to move rapidly down the hill.

As Leigh watched the vanishing figure, his heart was smitten by a keen
regret, for he felt that a man of heroic quality, known only when lost,
was passing out of his life forever.



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