THE PORT 
 OF STORMS 
 
 ANNA MSCLURE SHOLl
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS
 
 THE PORT 
 OF STORMS 
 
 By 
 ANNA McCLURE SHOLL 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE LAW OF LIFE" 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 1905
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 Published March, 1905
 
 TO 
 MY KINSMAN 
 
 HIRAM CORSON, LL. D., LITT.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF ENGLISH 
 LITERATURE, CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
 2138180
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK PAGE 
 
 I. THE CHOICE i 
 
 II. THE CITY 77 
 
 III. THE DREAMER . . 187 
 
 IV. THE PRISONER. ....... 251 
 
 V. URBS BEATA 295
 
 BOOK I 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 "It is no casual beauty that will content us; what we are 
 seeking after is that supreme beauty which must of necessity be 
 unique."
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 BETWEEN five and six of a June afternoon Henry 
 Winwood was seated with a visitor in his private office, 
 a room whose aspect, like the library of a scholar, was 
 significant of more than the outward processes of labor. 
 The rich, sparse furniture, the prominent desk, ominously 
 free from litter, suggested the orderliness of laws govern- 
 ing a great enterprise. 
 
 Winwood's solid frame filled one of the armchairs. 
 His massive head, his obliquely set ears, his unshapely 
 hands and feet, told of an origin deep in the soil; but 
 his keen gray eyes were indicative of an intellect far 
 from pastoral. 
 
 Contrasted with him, James Erskine looked the ideal- 
 ist, a lean, ascetic figure of an American business monk, 
 his features delicately tooled by sharp edges of thought, 
 his spare body expressing the domination of the spirit 
 as truly as that of an anchorite. He had the patient 
 expression of the man who waits for, rather than makes, 
 his chances. 
 
 Winwood knew the type well. He had met it before, 
 in small towns where small manufacturers, according to 
 modern standards, carried on industries which had no 
 right to stand alone. When he had thundered his com- 
 mands to these men, " Get in the procession, or get out 
 of business," they had acted in different ways, each 
 according to his traditions or to his financial standing. 
 Some had capitulated, glad of the shelter of a great cor- 
 poration ; others had resisted and ultimately gone down 
 before the enemy ; others were still struggling, and would 
 
 3
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 struggle. In this last category the capitalist placed his 
 visitor. 
 
 The conversation, after following lines traversed on 
 previous occasions, had led as usual to a deadlock. James 
 Erskine, a petty mill-owner in the town of Trenthampton, 
 would not sell, nor would he merge his plant in the greater 
 one which Winwood had taken under his protection. 
 
 The capitalist brought down his fist at last with a 
 bang. 
 
 " But, Lord, man ! we can drive you out of business 
 in three months. We're underselling you now." 
 
 He looked keenly into his visitor's face to see the 
 effect of his words, which were, after all, only conjec- 
 tural. A man who gauged everything from the com- 
 mercial standpoint, he could conceive of no other reason 
 for Erskine's resistance than the fact that he was stronger 
 financially than Winwood supposed. It never occurred 
 to him that pride in an inherited and independent busi- 
 ness might be a strong factor of the opposition. 
 
 " If you think you can drive me out of business in 
 three months, you're welcome to try. But I have cus- 
 tomers whose grandfathers dealt with my grandfather, 
 and I don't think I'll lose them." 
 
 " Grandfathers ! There ain't any in our concern. 
 We're up to date, and we don't mix sentiment with busi- 
 ness, any more than we run our machinery with violet- 
 water." 
 
 Erskine nodded. 
 
 " I'm not banking on sentiment. I've told you my 
 reasons for not accepting your offer, at least for the pres- 
 ent. My son may have something to say in the matter," 
 he added with an intonation of pride. 
 
 " Your son, eh ? I thought he was in Paris." 
 4
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 " He has been working in the Paris hospitals for two 
 years, but he is coming home " he drew out his watch ; 
 " his train is due at seven." 
 
 "Is he going to practise in Trenthampton ? It's a 
 small field for a young man." 
 
 " I suppose he'll practise here. I hope so. We would 
 like to have him with us." 
 
 Winwood's features softened as he nodded assent. 
 
 " I don't blame you. I always wanted a boy myself, 
 but the Lord didn't see fit to send me one. Not that I 
 don't appreciate my girl," he added, " but girls belong to 
 their mothers." 
 
 " And I always wanted a daughter," Erskine said, 
 rising to take his leave while the atmosphere was mellow, 
 but in the same moment a knock on the office door 
 announced a visitor. " Stay and see mine," Winwood 
 answered as his daughter entered. 
 
 Erskine had never met Olivia Winwood, her brief, 
 meteoric summers at Trenthampton being spent in a circle 
 with which he was not familiar, but he had heard enough 
 contradictory statements concerning her to arouse his 
 curiosity. 
 
 She did not wait for her father's introduction, but 
 came forward with a frank, direct manner. 
 
 " You are Mr. James Erskine, are you not ? I am 
 glad to meet you." 
 
 Ill-concealed astonishment was in Erskine's face as he 
 took her hand. He had expected to see a young woman 
 whose inherited rawness of type was covered superficially 
 with the veneer of wealth, but Olivia Winwood in her 
 look and bearing might have been of noble birth. Erskine 
 wondered what freak of atavism had produced in her the 
 indefinable marks of th3 aristocrat. If she were beauti- 
 
 5
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 ful and of her beauty he was doubtful she possessed 
 the still greater gift of distinction. 
 
 The capitalist saw his wonder, and rubbed his big 
 hands together in satisfaction. 
 
 " You had never met my daughter? " 
 
 A note of reproach was in Erskine's voice as he 
 answered : 
 
 " I have never had the opportunity of meeting Miss 
 Winwood. You see," he added, turning to Olivia, " Mrs. 
 Erskine and myself have been out of touch with the young 
 people here since our son has been abroad." 
 
 The girl smiled. 
 
 " I am not in touch with them either. I am in Trent- 
 hampton so little." 
 
 Her voice, singularly low and mellow, held a with- 
 drawn accent, as if, by reason of wide experience or of 
 mature thought, she refused to be classed with youth. 
 
 " She is always roaming," Winwood said, regarding 
 her with resentful pride. " Her traveling expenses cost 
 me a small fortune, and as for her clothes why, the price 
 of those would keep three families in comfort." 
 
 She turned and looked at her father curiously, but 
 with a kind of abstract and impersonal interest, as if he 
 were some one else's parent and this was her first acquaint- 
 ance with a self-made man. 
 
 " I have had a wire from mother," she said ; " she will 
 be here at seven." 
 
 " Are you going to meet her? " 
 
 " I am on the way to the station now. The cart is at 
 the door." 
 
 " Mr. Erskine is also meeting that train maybe 
 you'd give him a lift." 
 
 She turned. 
 
 6
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 " I will drive you down with pleasure." 
 
 Erskine was about to decline, but something in the 
 girl's voice seemed to imply that the matter was settled. 
 
 She drew on her driving-gloves, bidding her father 
 good-by with a manner which, though entirely respectful, 
 held an element of comprehension. 
 
 The groom stood in attendance by the cart, its highly 
 polished sides shining in the rays of the setting sun. She 
 stepped lightly to her seat, and Erskine took his place 
 beside her, conscious of her femininity as of a perfume, 
 but conscious, too, of a strength in her more than 
 feminine. 
 
 " We have time for a little spin," she said, looking at 
 her watch, which bore her monogram in rubies. Every- 
 thing about her spoke of wealth except her bearing. The 
 man at her side, for whom the exigencies of business life 
 had killed mystery and the charm of mystery as an acid 
 kills flowers, now felt an almost forgotten interest stir 
 within him. From time to time he stole interrogative 
 glances at her face. In repose it was somewhat negative, 
 as if she reserved the expression of her thoughts and 
 feelings until a certain curiosity concerning life, or per- 
 haps her own personality, should be satisfied. 
 
 " This is a good hour for driving," Erskine said as 
 they bowled along the broad, level road, underneath the 
 arching elms of the main street of Trenthampton, trees 
 so tall and graceful of outline that they imparted to the 
 village thoroughfare something of the dignity of a cathe- 
 dral aisle. The few shops were soon left behind. Then 
 began the white-painted, green-shuttered houses of the 
 older town, suggestive of a phase of American life now 
 as out of date as daguerreotypes. On the near-by hills 
 were the country-seats of the summer colony that had 
 
 7
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 made Trenthampton fashionable. Beyond, a low range 
 of mountains stood out in silhouettes of violet against the 
 calm eastern sky. 
 
 " Do you like this time? I prefer early morning." 
 
 Erskine smiled. 
 
 " I thought all young ladies liked the approach of 
 twilight." 
 
 She touched the horse lightly with the whip. 
 
 " It is an unbearable hour to me ; but then I do not 
 love mystery. I hear that you are expecting your son 
 home from Paris, Mr. Erskine." 
 
 " He is coming on this train." 
 
 " He has been away long? " 
 
 " Two years." 
 
 " I wonder how he will like Trenthampton after 
 Paris," she said, musingly; then she turned and looked 
 steadily at Erskine for a moment. " Does he look like 
 you ? " she added. 
 
 " I really don't know," he answered, laughing, " but 
 I don't think he does." 
 
 " Do people interest you ? " she asked abruptly. 
 
 " They used to until I had to work too hard." 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " My father has no curiosity about people either. He 
 divides them into those who buy and those who sell." 
 
 They had now reached a part of the road from which 
 all views were excluded but that of the mountains, remote 
 and austere in the deep light of the June evening. She 
 drew rein, and they sat for some moments in silence look- 
 ing toward those lonely heights. 
 
 " The mountains are the true aristocrats of Trent- 
 hampton," she said with a smile, as she turned the cart 
 about. " We'll see the pretenders at the station." 
 
 8
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 The Trenthampton station was a trim modern struc- 
 ture set about with flower-beds, and surrounded at this 
 hour by a throng of carts and station wagons whose occu- 
 pants were chiefly matrons and young girls in dainty 
 costumes. The majority of them, belonging to the sum- 
 mer colony, were unknown to Erskine, but Olivia bowed 
 right and left as she made her way skilfully to an un- 
 appropriated place. Her companion wondered if her 
 interest in people were that of the dissector. 
 
 He jumped down, and, putting aside with a gesture 
 the officious groom, gave her his hand. For years no 
 woman had aroused in him the curiosity which this girl 
 had. He found himself wondering what Robert would 
 think of her. 
 
 Robert ! His heart leaped as he heard the whistle of 
 the approaching train, and over him swept all at once the 
 emotion of glad welcome which for weeks had made the 
 heart of the boy's mother young again. But women have 
 time to feel. 
 
 The train was in now. Erskine pressed forward 
 through the throng just behind Olivia. Suddenly she 
 paused. 
 
 " Is that your son helping my mother from the car? " 
 
 A thrill of pride went through the father. It was 
 Robert indeed, taller than he remembered him, and with 
 something foreign and distinguished in his aspect which 
 had changed the good-looking college graduate into a 
 man, concerning whom women might be curious, and 
 men not indifferent. One woman, it seemed, had already 
 found him interesting. Olivia's mother, a fat, florid, 
 expensive-looking matron, whose manner seemed to be- 
 token that she would confuse the affairs of her children 
 by not remaining in her own generation, rustled forward 
 2 9
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 to greet Erskine, her approach heralded by a faint odor 
 of vervain. An unwonted cordiality was in her manner 
 as she said, in her high-pitched voice: 
 
 " Mr. Erskine, I've brought you your son." 
 
 Robert stepped forward, oblivious of every face but 
 the kind, worn one, transfigured by its eager welcome. 
 The young man was taller than his father, and of a lean, 
 firm, athletic build. He had strong features, but the 
 brown eyes were boyish, holding that almost divine look 
 of youth which is born of keen enthusiasms. If Paris 
 had wooed him it was with the caresses of a sweetheart, 
 not a mistress. 
 
 The matron beamed upon him with the claim of one 
 who has found a valuable acquisition to her summer cir- 
 cle. The girl regarded him with a kind of impersonal 
 curiosity, a touch of haughty indifference in her bearing. 
 
 Mrs. Winwood broke in at the first possible moment : 
 
 " Olivia, my dear, let me introduce Dr. Robert Er- 
 skine. We came down together. I thought his face was 
 familiar, and as our chairs were next in the drawing- 
 room car, we got into conversation on the way. He has 
 been in Paris two years, and he plays golf and tennis. 
 He has promised to call, and I have asked him for the 
 lawn-party on the fifth." 
 
 She paused to take breath. Robert, smothering a de- 
 sire to laugh, held out his hand. Then he gave a per- 
 ceptible start. 
 
 " I think I saw you once in Paris," he said with a 
 slightly foreign accent. " Were you not in front of that 
 big church on Montmartre I forget its name on an 
 April afternoon a year ago? " 
 
 The patience which had been in Olivia's face while 
 her mother chattered changed to a look of wonder. 
 
 10
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 " Yes, I remember it perfectly. Were you also there 
 admiring the view ? " 
 
 Robert bit his lip. 
 
 " I also was admiring the view." 
 
 Her dark eyes searched his face ; then a smile curved 
 her lips. 
 
 On the way home he took out a card-case and drew 
 from it a pencil-drawing on a leaf torn from a notebook. 
 
 " Is it not like her ? " he said. " Antoine did it. He 
 was with me that day. We thought her a Parisienne, 
 and now I meet her in Trenthampton ! Who are they, 
 father? The mother told me so much that she told me 
 nothing." 
 
 " They belong to the summer colony. She is the 
 daughter and heiress of Henry Winwood, my chief busi- 
 ness rival, a man who is trying to undersell me," he said 
 with a touch of bitterness. 
 
 Robert laughed. 
 
 " Ah, then I will have none of her the proud minx ! " 
 He paused, then added, with a certain shyness which 
 transformed him for the instant into the college fresh- 
 man he had once been, " How is Brooke? " 
 
 II
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 " ON my return," the letter ran, " I shall expect you 
 to give me my answer. The two years are over, and this 
 city is still the wilderness all places would be without 
 you. You asked me in your last if there have been no 
 interludes. Well, you know my temperament, but stage- 
 love doesn't go deep. One plays Pierrot to Columbine, 
 that is all ! Besides, I worked too hard, even for mimic 
 romance. 
 
 " Do you doubt me because we have known each other 
 from childhood? Love is not always born of strange- 
 ness, Brooke." 
 
 What followed she knew by heart. His bright, Shel- 
 leyian presentation of his case seemed wholly character- 
 istic of the Robert she had known. She found herself 
 wishing that his feeling for her had been in some way 
 modified or changed by his residence abroad that she 
 might meet him as a friend, without a sense of romantic 
 obligations. 
 
 She longed, yet dreaded, to see him. Over against 
 her tentative love were her practical plans for a future 
 not deflected by the demands of a dual existence. Her 
 college life, just ended, though not regarded with the 
 overseriousness of the bluestocking, had yet awakened 
 in her certain ambitions which, if followed conscientiously 
 and with no feminine reservations, would take her far 
 enough away from the existence Robert was planning for 
 her. Despite her joy over his coming, she was not pre- 
 pared to surrender to him the whole of a future in which 
 her own self-expression was an important element. 
 
 12
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 She read the letter through again, then, restless with 
 anticipation, walked slowly toward the house, intending 
 to divert her thoughts by meeting some ever-present 
 nursery exigency. 
 
 As she passed her father's study door he called her 
 to listen to a passage of translation upon which he was 
 working. Charles Peyton, lawyer turned poet, was a tall, 
 delicately built man of the scholar type. His deep-set, 
 vague blue eyes, his oversensitive nose and mouth, indi- 
 cated that he possessed at least the irritability of genius. 
 
 Brooke looked about the familiar place, which was 
 marked with her father's restlessness and filled with his 
 nervous atmosphere. Leaning back in his chair, Peyton 
 regarded his daughter with curiosity, not unmixed with 
 admiration. Her erect, slender figure was almost boyish 
 in its slim grace. She had the appearance of a woman 
 who has lived much in the open air, and whose intellectual 
 life has been as wholesome as sunshine. 
 
 She listened attentively to the reading, then gave her 
 criticism. She saw by the slight frown on his brow that 
 it was not what he wanted, and she hastened to mollify 
 him by an allusion to one of his sonnets. But his vexa- 
 tion was still apparent. The criticism was more mature 
 than he expected, and he belonged to the type of parent 
 to whom a child in its riper development would be always 
 a rival. To turn the tables, he said : 
 
 " You should apply some of that keenness of dissection 
 to your own writings." 
 
 " I hope to, next fall in the city," she said. 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " Have you told your mother that you wish to be a 
 metropolitan ? " 
 
 Her face softened. 
 
 13
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " Not yet." 
 
 " Can she spare you ? " 
 
 " No, I don't think she can." She was silent a mo- 
 ment, then she added, " Unless I can do more for her 
 there than here." 
 
 Her father shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " It is not my fault that your mother gives all her 
 time to the children." 
 
 Brooke went on to the nursery, wondering whether 
 she herself were a child that she could not be patient 
 with the curious domestic conditions of her home. The 
 little scene with her father had brought her sharply back 
 to realities whose importance seemed to make dalliance 
 with romance an unpardonable folly. To go away with 
 Robert into the exclusions of love was to part, perchance, 
 with her own identity, with that something which made 
 her a factor of more or less importance in the complex 
 problem hidden by the outward simplicity of her mother's 
 household. 
 
 Mrs. Peyton was seated in the darkened nursery, her 
 youngest child in her lap. Her face, with its strong, 
 irregular features, was of the type which lends itself 
 well to portraiture, but it had the weary passivity of a 
 woman whose personality has been obscured by marriage, 
 as by a fog. 
 
 Talking with her was Robert's godfather, Dr. Will- 
 iam Gorton, now past eighty years of age, but still con- 
 tinuing the practise, the scientific investigations and 
 writings that had made his home in Trenthampton a 
 kind of shrine for the members of his profession. 
 
 He rose as Brooke entered the room, and came for- 
 ward to greet her. Over six feet in height, and of a 
 rugged, muscular build, erect as a pine-tree, he had that 
 
 J4
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 look of youth which is preserved by intense mental 
 activity. 
 
 " I'm glad you're home, Brooke; you're needed here," 
 he said with the abrupt frankness characteristic of him. 
 
 Mrs. Peyton looked up and smiled. 
 
 " I've missed her, but I don't believe in girls sharing 
 their mothers' duties too much. It's like teaching them 
 economics before they know their poets." 
 
 " I can hold a baby as well as ever," Brooke said, 
 taking the child with a graceful gesture from her moth- 
 er's lap. 
 
 In the same instant she heard her name spoken by a 
 voice which seemed to control the memories of her entire 
 life. She did not turn at once, only pressed the child 
 closer, glad that the nursery twilight hid the glow in 
 her face. 
 
 Her mother rose, both hands outstretched. She looked 
 into Robert's face with eyes that searched. 
 
 " Well, am I there ? " he said, smiling. 
 
 " I was looking for a small boy in knickerbockers." 
 
 " You'll find him," Dr. Corton said. " I found him 
 last night." 
 
 Robert turned to Brooke with a manner half confident, 
 half appealing. 
 
 "Am I before the bar with you? Are you glad to 
 see me?" 
 
 " You know I am. Are you glad to get home ? " 
 
 " That will depend not wholly on myself." 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " No, you will always be independent. Are you still 
 a disciple of Spinoza, Robert, and are you still a bully? " 
 
 " That, my dear, you will have to find out for 
 yourself."
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " I imagine that you have not changed much." 
 
 "You have; you are very handsome, Brooke." 
 
 He looked at her with frank admiration, with some- 
 thing deeper and tenderer than admiration in his clear 
 eyes. Long afterward, like a dream of dawn touching 
 with prophetic light all hopes and purposes, this vision 
 of her came back to him, standing before him with the 
 child in her arms, the old child-love of him in her face. 
 
 " You are going to practise in Trenthampton, Rob- 
 ert?" Mrs. Peyton asked, looking from him to Brooke. 
 By his manner he seemed already to be claiming her 
 daughter, and, though she could see no obstacle to their 
 union, she lacked the confidence in romance imparted by 
 a triumphant personal experience. 
 
 Dr. Gorton answered her question. 
 
 " Of course he is going to settle here," he said with 
 the didactic emphasis of old age. " He has given enough 
 of his vitality to the city." 
 
 " On the contrary, godfather, Paris gave everything 
 to me," Robert said, then looked at Brooke as if she alone 
 of the group could understand just what he meant. He 
 was longing to be alone with her that he might the 
 quicker destroy the triangle made by his absence. He 
 was jealously conscious of those two years, as of a third 
 inscrutable person. 
 
 " But I need you in Trenthampton," Dr. Gorton said. 
 
 Brooke's imagination leaped to a conclusion. Robert 
 was to be the heir of this great physician, his godson in 
 no usual sense ; inheriting his devotion to science, his 
 large conception of service. These thoughts preoccupied 
 her during the general conversation which followed, and 
 which Robert's impatience terminated rather abruptly by 
 a request that she would go walking with him. 
 
 16
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 True to their old preferences they chose a road which 
 led to the hills. Alone with him, she was conscious of 
 a desire to gain time, to weigh and measure and judge 
 before emotion made clear judgment impossible. She 
 took refuge, therefore, in the practical subject of his 
 work. 
 
 " It is really to be Trenthampton, then ; not the city? " 
 
 " Yes, I made my decision last night, when I saw 
 how much they wished it. I prefer the city. I am afraid 
 I am not big enough to live in a small place." 
 
 " Few of us are, I'm afraid." 
 
 " But I didn't bring you out here to talk of my work. 
 I want my answer." 
 
 He waited a moment. 
 
 " Brooke? " 
 
 " Yes, Robert." 
 
 " You're not going to play the coquette. You're too 
 noble, too frank for that." 
 
 " We can't be sure yet," she said. " We've been 
 separated " 
 
 " We were not separated," he broke in. " You knelt 
 in cathedrals with me, and you stood with me before pic- 
 tures you've never seen." 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " I did indeed. I was with you in thought." 
 
 " Then, why," he said reproachfully, " do you speak 
 as if these years were a barrier? Tell me the truth. Is 
 it that you have ceased to care in the old way? " 
 
 " Perhaps I have not learned to care in the new. I 
 don't wish to bring my uncertainties to you as a mar- 
 riage-portion. Why can't we be children again for a 
 while!" 
 
 " You can't stay a child forever, Brooke ! " 
 17
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " I wouldn't mind. A child has no care. It can 
 always play in the sunshine. It can always see the little 
 green elf-things. I wouldn't mind being a child," she 
 said with a touch of perverseness. 
 
 " But why shouldn't you be care-free with me? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " That is precisely the point. I'd be too happy. I'd 
 forget everything, every one but you." 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " Would that be such a hardship? " 
 
 " No, but it would be selfish. I want to bring my 
 mother somehow out of that treadmill she's in, that de- 
 lirium of domesticity. You know how it is, but a poet 
 can never realize it. He lives chiefly in Greece, my 
 father." 
 
 " Have you any plan for helping them ? " 
 
 " Yes, to go to the city and write. I suppose it's a 
 wild idea. I might end in the traditional author's garret, 
 or, on the other hand, I might have all the success of 
 mediocrity." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " Brooke, you would perish in the city. You are 
 made for the open road." 
 
 " Yes, and if you were going to settle in town you'd 
 say ' only there can you attain your fullest development.' " 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " I am selfish. I want you ; you mustn't go away." 
 
 They were passing the grounds of a house whose 
 towers and chateau-like roofs could be seen rising above 
 the trees a long distance away. 
 
 " This is the Winwoods' place," Brooke said. " They 
 are newcomers, atrociously rich." 
 
 " I met the mother and daughter yesterday," Robert 
 18
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 answered. Then he told her of his introduction at the 
 station. 
 
 A jealous thrill went through her, of which she was 
 at once ashamed. From childhood she had punished her- 
 self for her faults, and incidentally saved her soul, by 
 applying moral counter-irritants. She spoke now with 
 deliberate enthusiasm. 
 
 " Olivia Winwood has a more impressive personality 
 than any woman I ever met. I have only had two con- 
 versations with her, but I shall never forget the least 
 part of them." 
 
 " Don't let's talk of her. What is she to us ? I want 
 to be alone with you on these hills." 
 
 His voice caressed, enfolded her, took her with him 
 into some high, if perilous, distinction. 
 
 They had reached a point overlooking the broad val- 
 ley and the distant mountains. Behind them the hills 
 swept away in clear, broad lines of flight, their ample 
 sides traversed by slow-moving cloud shadows. The air 
 was of golden and sensuous noon, pungent with the odor 
 of dry pine-needles and sweetbrier. Bright insects 
 flashed iridescence from their tiny wings. 
 
 He turned to Brooke. Sun-lover that she was, she 
 stood with uncovered head in the full glory of the mid- 
 day, her eyes fixed on the mountains, her whole being 
 yielding itself to the splendors of the summer. He had 
 met many women in Paris, perfervid art students, with 
 untidy hair, who knew the slang of the Latin quarter and 
 who could prattle of symbolism while mixing cocktails ; 
 young French girls, whose imposed simplicity hid the 
 wonderful married women they were to be ; English girls 
 whose simplicity was as congenital as their sailor-hats, 
 a lifelong accessory. But among them all he had never 
 
 19
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 known one who, like Brooke, combined the frankness of 
 the boy with the charm of a perfectly feminine sweetness. 
 
 "Brooke!" 
 
 She turned. 
 
 " Of what were you thinking? " 
 
 " Of what I want to accomplish next year. I, 
 
 He took her hand in a tight grasp. 
 " Let us not talk of work just now. I want my 
 answer." 
 
 20
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 MARGARET ERSKINE, looking at the cards which the 
 maid had brought to her, had a vision in the same 
 instant of her growing value in the Trenthampton sum- 
 mer colony as the mother of Robert. The expression of 
 amusement had only just faded from her face when she 
 entered the low, old-fashioned drawing-room to greet the 
 guests who were calling upon her for the first time, Mrs. 
 Winwood and her daughter, Olivia. 
 
 The wife of the capitalist, gowned to express her 
 opulent matronhood, rustled forward, her face beaming 
 vicariously with the thought of the pleasure she must be 
 bestowing. Contrasted with her, Margaret had the look 
 of a maternal sibyl, or of a spirit delicately shadowed 
 and paled by its reserve and its exclusion. Olivia, re- 
 membering Robert's face, saw it elucidated, as it were, 
 in the features of this stately woman who greeted her 
 without effusion, yet without coldness. The girl herself 
 returned the greeting with a manner as negatively cour- 
 teous as her mother's was pronounced and efflorescent. 
 Though, apparently, she saw only her hostess, she was 
 missing not one detail of the drawing-room where wealth 
 had so little place in determining the furniture, and pride 
 of ancestry so much. From the colonial portraits on the 
 walls to the flowered eighteenth-century cups in which 
 Mrs. Erskine offered them tea, everything spoke of long 
 residence, of the accumulated memories and traditions of 
 an old and honored family. The girl sighed, thinking, 
 not without a smile coupled with the sigh, how recent 
 was her mother's knowledge of Chippendale. 
 
 21
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " You must surely come to our little lawn-party," 
 Mrs. Winwood was saying, with that use of the diminu- 
 tive which is lawful only for those who give Brobding- 
 nagian entertainments. " Your son has already promised 
 me that he will come." 
 
 " I go out very little," Mrs. Erskine said, " but Rob- 
 ert, I am sure, will enjoy going." 
 
 " I hope you will come," Olivia said earnestly, her 
 serious eyes fixed on her hostess's face. 
 
 Margaret Erskine, half repelled, yet half attracted by 
 the girl, wished that she were alone with her, that she 
 might have a better opportunity of studying her. Her 
 husband's interest in Olivia had aroused her curiosity, 
 which Olivia's bearing during this call had strength- 
 ened. Whatever she was, she was not commonplace, and 
 she possessed, Margaret divined, some unusual form of 
 strength which had little or nothing to do with the wealth 
 surrounding her. 
 
 " You must be mighty glad to have your son back," 
 Mrs. Winwood said, slipping into the vernacular under 
 the cheering influence of her cup of tea. " I'd give my 
 eyes for a big, handsome son like yours. Only they 
 always go off and get married, and then, like as not, your 
 daughter-in-law wishes you under ground." 
 
 Mrs. Erskine laughed. 
 
 " Oh, it doesn't always happen according to the comic 
 supplement, does it? At least you are spared such a 
 possibility, Mrs. Winwood." 
 
 The matron sighed heavily. Flushed from her tea, her 
 big, soft, pink face looked like that of a youngish St. 
 Anne in a Rubens altar-piece. Margaret Erskine per- 
 ceived that under her attempted society manner was the 
 bewildered innocence of a woman whose natural sim- 
 
 22
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 plicity is constantly overwhelmed by the requirements of 
 great wealth. The mother was smothered by what the 
 daughter had beneath her heel. 
 
 " Well, the name will perish with us," she said, in a 
 tone of resignation, " unless Olivia's husband consents 
 to a hyphen." 
 
 Mrs. Erskine was careful not to smile, her sympathy 
 with the daughter's probable embarrassment being keen ; 
 but Olivia seemed frankly amused, though she said noth- 
 ing. Her capacity for silence amounted 10 genius. 
 
 She waited patiently for her mother to give the signal 
 for leave-taking, which, after a time, Mrs. Winwood did. 
 Her farewells were as deferential as her greetings had 
 been philanthropic. 
 
 As they were leaving the drawing-room James Er- 
 skine appeared. The look of fatigue in his face faded 
 as he saw Olivia. He shook her hand cordially, but he 
 could not resist saying, " You are not dissecting us, I 
 hope?" 
 
 " Can you dissect people who are really alive ? " she 
 answered, smiling. 
 
 " If my son were here he would probably offer you 
 some of our roses. Permit me to take his place," Erskine 
 said gallantly, disregarding the motion of the groom to 
 open the carriage door, and leading the way into the 
 garden. 
 
 " I promised to drive with your father at five, 
 Olivia," her mother said, stepping heavily into the vic- 
 toria ; " shall I send the cart for you ? " 
 
 " Father will wait a few moments," Olivia answered 
 quietly ; " Mr. Erskine is being generous to me, as 
 you see." 
 
 He was cutting the choicest roses and filling her arms
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 with them. She walked back to the carriage, holding 
 them closely, bending her cheek to their perfumed soft- 
 ness. She gave him no other thanks but this subdued 
 delight, as if he had presented her with something 
 she had never before possessed. Erskine followed her, 
 pleased as a child by her appreciation. 
 
 When the carriage had driven off, Mrs. Winwood 
 spoke fretfully : 
 
 " Why did you let him rob himself when we've got 
 bushels of roses ? " 
 
 " It gave him pleasure," Olivia answered. 
 
 The pleasure was still in his face as he went up the 
 steps of the porch to rejoin his wife. 
 
 " I was surprised when I saw who your callers were," 
 he said. " What do you think of the daughter ? Is she 
 not rather wonderful ? " 
 
 Mrs. Erskine laughed. 
 
 " She is as impenetrable as an absolute monarch. 
 The mother is harmless." 
 
 "You don't like them?" he said quickly. 
 
 " They are not the kind of people one either likes or 
 dislikes. I found them interesting." 
 
 " Has Robert called on them yet ? " 
 
 " I think not." 
 
 " That is hardly courteous of him. I thought Miss 
 Winwood would be just the woman to attract him." 
 
 " Do you wish him to be attracted ? " his wife said 
 significantly. 
 
 He made no answer, but, lighting a cigar, began a 
 restless walk up and down the porch. An unpleasant 
 idea obtruded itself in Margaret's mind. She was not 
 unaware of the rivalry between Winwood and her hus- 
 band, but it troubled her little, the Erskine name being 
 
 24
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 synonymous with solidity in citizenship, in churchman- 
 ship, in business. Even the long-dead scholar of the 
 house, the collector of the library, which was its special 
 glory, had been remembered for just that quality in his 
 work. The first doubt of her husband's strength arose 
 in her now. Could it be possible that he thought of a 
 marriage between Olivia and Robert as a bulwark against 
 impending disaster? She dismissed the idea as unjust to 
 him. He must have discerned in Olivia Winwood some- 
 thing which enabled him to draw a clear breath beyond 
 the choking golden mist which still obscured the girl 
 from her own eyes. 
 
 Questions rose to her lips, but she repressed them. 
 She had refrained so long from intrusions that she seemed 
 destined to remain permanently in the outer circle of her 
 husband's life. Since Robert had gone to college their 
 middle age together had become like the blank pages at 
 the end of a book, suggesting nothing more than the 
 closing of the volume. 
 
 The silence between them was broken by Robert's 
 voice hailing them gaily from the garden path. As he 
 came toward them his manly beauty seemed heightened, 
 as in a portrait. His mother, who had watched him 
 closely since his return, with the searching analysis of 
 the true maternal instinct, divined what he had come to 
 tell them. 
 
 When he came up on the porch he looked from one 
 to the other of his parents, to be sure of their sympathy 
 before he spoke, yet he felt that they knew already. His 
 love for Brooke was part of the continuity of his life, 
 of whatever it held of comely order and legitimate 
 ambition. 
 
 James Erskine, feeling instinctively that romance was 
 3 25
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 no longer in the air, but had become a fact as definite as 
 the recent opening of his son's office, was conscious of a 
 vague annoyance. Ignoring this invasion of happiness, 
 he said : 
 
 " I was asking your mother if you had called yet on 
 Olivia Winwood." 
 
 " No," he answered carelessly, " I have had other 
 things to think of. I'll go before the lawn-party." 
 
 His eyes, always betraying him when his other fea- 
 tures closed the door, sought his mother's. Their inter- 
 changing smile brought the question to her lips: 
 
 " Did you see Brooke this afternoon ? " 
 
 " I did, and she has said ' yes ' at last." 
 
 " You mean " his father asked. 
 
 " That we are engaged." 
 
 His mother drew his head down and kissed him. She 
 was very fond of Brooke, and she had had the usual 
 maternal dread that under the eccentric laws of attrac- 
 tion Robert might present her with a daughter-in-law 
 who would have to be endured rather than loved. 
 
 Then they both turned to James Erskine, whose 
 silence seemed vaguely and inexplicably hostile, and 
 whose expression of anxiety had deepened. 
 
 " Have you nothing to say to me, father? " 
 
 Robert's voice was reproachful. " I've always thought 
 Brooke a favorite of yours," he added. 
 
 " Brooke's a lovely girl, but haven't you been in some- 
 what of a hurry? " 
 
 " Why, James, they were babies together," Mrs. Er- 
 skine said with a touch of impatience. " Do you expect 
 a courtship in a previous incarnation ? " 
 
 " I thought you knew, father, that I've always wanted 
 to marry Brooke," Robert said with genuine astonish- 
 
 26
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 ment in his voice. " I asked her before I went away, but 
 she wouldn't consent to an engagement then. She has 
 not been easy to win." 
 
 Erskine puffed at his cigar for a few moments in 
 silence. 
 
 " Is she willing to wait until you've built up a prac- 
 tise ? " he said at last. " I can't help you out, you 
 know." 
 
 A strained quality in his voice, coupled with his 
 words, gave Robert the sensation of meeting a new per- 
 son. It was unlike his father to lay emphasis on the 
 financial side of a question. He had always been gen- 
 erous, as if the fruit of difficult work and of large 
 enterprises could only be generosity, or a kind of wise 
 indifference to the incident of wealth ; and that his father 
 was wealthy he had never doubted, though of the details 
 of his money-earning he knew as little as his mother. 
 Business had never interested him, his general concep- 
 tion of it being a Babel in which the man who shouted 
 loudest would be heard the farthest. He had never even 
 inquired if his father's voice were weak. 
 
 " Of course Brooke is willing to wait. You know I 
 will not marry until I can provide for my wife," he an- 
 swered. " I did not know you were such a good Amer- 
 ican, father," he added with a jesting accent, lest the 
 words should betray a sting. 
 
 " My dear boy, if we're not good Americans, we have 
 to be poor Americans. It's the devil's choice the coun- 
 try's offering us. As to your marriage, I have no objec- 
 tion to offer." 
 
 Robert flushed. 
 
 " That is only negative commendation. You don't 
 know Brooke, evidently," he said. 
 
 27
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 His mother laid a hand on his arm. From Rob- 
 ert's childhood she had been interpreter between father 
 and son. 
 
 " It is not Brooke, but her family " 
 
 " Charles Peyton's indifference to material things is 
 the true poet's," Erskine interrupted. " Why, he dupli- 
 cates Coleridge in everything but the divine spark." 
 
 Robert laughed. 
 
 " Yes, and you've played Providence with the rest. 
 Aren't you godfather to two of the children? " 
 
 A grim smile stole over Erskine's face. 
 
 " I only promised to look after their spiritual wel- 
 fare. What I did, I did for Ursula Peyton's sake." 
 
 Mrs. Erskine took Robert's hand in hers. 
 
 " Your father is afraid that Charles Peyton might 
 throw burdens on you in the future that you ought not 
 to carry." 
 
 " Oh, if that is all," he began, then stopped abruptly, 
 because the thought again intruded itself that such an 
 objection seemed foreign to his father's nature to his 
 father's large, comfortable ways of living and thinking. 
 " I am perfectly willing to take such a risk," he went on 
 after a moment's pause ; " but you seem inexplicably 
 unenthusiastic over my engagement." 
 
 His father was silent. His mother put her hands on 
 his shoulders, and looked at him with a smile in her eyes. 
 
 " You know we are glad ! " 
 
 He could not doubt the sincerity of her voice, nor 
 the blessing in the kiss she gave him. She held him 
 close a moment, then excusing herself on the plea of a 
 domestic engagement she left the room, thinking that if 
 the cause of her husband's opposition were what she 
 divined he would be more likely to confide it to Robert 
 
 28
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 in her absence. In their family group the third person 
 had always rendered free discussion difficult. 
 
 When she was gone, James Erskine turned to his son 
 with an apologetic look in his face. 
 
 " I've had a good deal on my mind lately, Robert," 
 he began, then hesitated, as if seeking the aid of a ques- 
 tion to continue. 
 
 But Robert did not speak, suddenly occupied with an 
 unfamiliar idea. His father, misinterpreting his silence, 
 said with a note of propitiation : 
 
 " I am glad you are to marry a girl you've known 
 all your life. It doesn't often happen that way." 
 
 The young man's face was grave, his eyes troubled. 
 He did not know just how to open the subject now in 
 complete possession of him, obscuring even the light that 
 an hour since he had seen dawn in a woman's eyes. Yet 
 he must speak of it, must know that it was the cause of 
 his father's disapproval. 
 
 At last he said : 
 
 " Father, you spoke the other day of this Winwood 
 as a man who is trying to undersell you. I didn't pay 
 much attention then but is it true? Does he are you 
 in any difficulty? " 
 
 " What makes you ask ? " Erskine said, avoiding his 
 eyes, yet relieved by the question, as if his burden were 
 already shared. 
 
 " Your attitude toward my marriage. I knew it 
 could be only one thing. Is the business all right ? " 
 
 Erskine hesitated. 
 
 " No, Robert," he said, " it's all wrong." 
 
 29
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 ROBERT'S brilliant, tyrannical wooing had given 
 Brooke the sensation of being caught up upon the wings 
 of a heaven-soaring power. Earth retreated, and with 
 it the problems that she had looked upon as obstacles to 
 an empyrean flight. He had left her no time for delib- 
 eration, appealing insistently to that side of her nature 
 which was his by long association. 
 
 Her father received the news of her engagement with 
 a quotation which, repeated in his cold, beautifully modu- 
 lated voice, was like the actual perfume of violets in the 
 room. Her mother, removed from such conceits of 
 scholarship by the gulf of the nursery, held her for a 
 moment in a silent embrace, cheek pressed against cheek. 
 
 The third person whom she told of her engagement 
 was Dr. Gorton. She went alone one afternoon to the 
 old dwelling, half manor, half farmhouse, which crowned 
 one of the hills above Trenthampton. Here he had lived 
 for sixty years in a patriarchal simplicity of existence 
 which was saved from narrowness by the breadth of his 
 intellectual interests. 
 
 The office was not in the homestead, but in a little 
 stone house covered with ivy, and resembling a porter's 
 lodge, which stood near the carriage-drive at some dis- 
 tance from the gate. Here the dominant genius of the 
 place had written his books and pursued his experiments. 
 As children Brooke and Robert had rarely ventured 
 across its solemn threshold, and even now a touch of 
 the old awe was upon Brooke as she went up the stone 
 
 30
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 flagging between the tall lilac bushes. The very odor 
 of the garden roses penetrated to the deep places of her 
 spirit. Far away, and long ago, was the magic of child- 
 hood, yet a glamour was in her eyes which recalled the 
 pristine gold. 
 
 She paused in the walk to feel the stillness all about 
 her, broken only at intervals by a bird-note coming from 
 some depth of azure or emerald. The sentiment of places 
 had always been strong in her, so that she remembered 
 the very angle at which a bar of sunlight crossed a 
 favorite room or the nodding of a rose in her path. 
 
 Through the little, thick panes of glass, oddly irides- 
 cent, she saw the white head of Dr. Corton bending over 
 his desk. In another moment he had risen and was 
 coming to meet her, both hands outstretched. She fol- 
 lowed him into his cell of an office, where the marble 
 bust of Apollo, stained yellow with time, still presided 
 over the worn furniture. The room was filled with a 
 greenish light, the reflection of the sun on the broad 
 lawn. 
 
 " What have you come to tell me? " 
 
 A look of joy lighted her face. 
 
 " You see that I have come to tell you great news." 
 
 " How could I help seeing ! You walked like a 
 princess." 
 
 " Robert and I are engaged." 
 
 He gazed at her with the searching look of old age 
 that has witnessed the whole of life, and in whom the 
 scouts of experience have become at last the cohorts of 
 wisdom. Signs of glad emotion were in his face, as of 
 some inner Nunc Dimittis. He had always looked upon 
 his godson and upon Brooke as in a peculiar sense the 
 children of his spirit, destined to understand eventually 
 
 31
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 his own far-reaching designs and to carry on his work. 
 Austerity of life, fervor of labor, intensity of thought, 
 had been the threefold cord which had bound alike his 
 youth and his old age, and with which he now wished to 
 bind these young souls. 
 
 " This is what I desired. This is good news. I was 
 afraid Robert might marry a stupid woman or a doll, as 
 men of brains sometimes do. You'll help, not hinder, 
 him in his work." 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " I can at least keep his house well." 
 
 " You'll do more than that. I'll train you both to 
 carry out certain ideas of mine. Never forget, Brooke, 
 that Robert is a member of the greatest profession in 
 the world." 
 
 " I will pray to St. Luke for him, godfather." 
 
 " When will you marry ? " 
 
 " I don't know. We'll have to begin in a simple way ; 
 but then, fortunately, our tastes are simple. A cabin in 
 the wilderness would suit us if it were well stocked with 
 books." 
 
 " And your writing ? " 
 
 " I am going on with it, but I have given up the idea 
 of living in the city. When the summer is over I'll settle 
 down to work, though," she added with a smile. " I am 
 afraid another writer in the house will compel a massacre 
 of the innocents. Poor mother is almost driven to drug 
 them as it is." 
 
 " Don't wait too long to marry. Time is always a 
 traitor." 
 
 " I don't want to be married too soon. I like this 
 pause." 
 
 " Well, when you do marry, make your life together 
 32
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 wide and social and inclusive. Robert will not know he 
 is married then, and when a man doesn't know that, he 
 is a happy man. Now come with me to the house; I 
 have something for you." 
 
 She followed him along the little graveled path lead- 
 ing to the fine old dwelling, empty for half a century 
 of the graciousness of family life. He left her sitting 
 in the quaint parlor. Through the gloom, the portraits 
 of his wife and child, stiff figures, paled with age, looked 
 down upon her. In a corner the tarnished gilt of a 
 harp, mute for innumerable years, caught the light from 
 a near-by window. A feeling of depression came over her, 
 as if she were really in the presence of the dead. She 
 longed for the " green felicity " of the outside world. 
 
 Dr. Corton was gone a long time. When he returned 
 he had in his hand several old-fashioned jewel-cases. 
 
 " These were Isabel's, but they are yours now your 
 betrothal gift. Some of the stones are very beautiful, 
 though the settings are, of course, old-fashioned." 
 
 Brooke touched them with hesitating, reverent fingers, 
 suddenly conscious of the part they had played in a ro- 
 mance long removed from earth. 
 
 " You like them ? " he said in a pleased voice. 
 
 He made her sit down and take the cases in her lap. 
 The absent expression of his face told her that he had 
 gone far into the past. After a time he went to a book- 
 case, and, taking from it a volume of Longfellow, began 
 to read aloud, but in an undertone as if to himself, the 
 translation of Pfizer's " Two Locks of Hair." The jewels 
 dropped from Brooke's hands as she listened, and into 
 the past she went with him. When he had finished, he 
 said abruptly: 
 
 " Don't look that way. You are going to be happy." 
 33
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " I am happy," she answered ; " but I sometimes 
 fear it." 
 
 He was conscious as she spoke of the two genera- 
 tions which separated him from her. Wholesome as her 
 nature was, she was not wholly free from the modern 
 self-consciousness which is always ready with its ques- 
 tion. He was glad that she had become engaged to 
 Robert before she had had time to destroy feeling with 
 analysis. 
 
 She was replacing the jewels on their faded velvet 
 beds when the bell rang, and in another moment the 
 housekeeper ushered in Olivia Winwood. Brooke, who 
 was younger by five years of life and several centuries 
 of experience than Olivia, had been always somewhat in 
 awe of her, conscious in her presence that a college cur- 
 riculum has little to do with a woman's real education. 
 But now her engagement put her in the van of life. 
 Only the happy are conquerors. 
 
 " Don't get up," Olivia said to her, with a glance at 
 the jewels. " Dr. Gorton, I am come in behalf of my 
 father to beg you that you will not refuse his invitation 
 to the dinner next Wednesday. Please say 'yes.' It 
 would give him so much pleasure ; and your philanthropy 
 is your glory," she added with a smile. 
 
 " Will you be at the dinner? " 
 
 " If you come, yes ; otherwise, no. I know nothing 
 of state or county politics, and what could I say to these 
 worthy gentlemen! But I have promised my father to 
 play for them rag-time." 
 
 "No Beethoven?" 
 
 " If you come it shall be Beethoven." 
 
 " Yes, then ; but I will send my formal acceptance." 
 
 " Never mind that. Don't go, Miss Peyton." 
 34
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 Dr. Corton took the cases from Brooke's lap. 
 
 " I will send these to you. Have you nothing to tell 
 Miss Winwood ? " 
 
 Olivia looked at her expectantly. Brooke blushed, 
 but she met the look with frank eyes. 
 
 " Dr. Corton means my engagement to Robert Er- 
 skine. It is just being announced." 
 
 It seemed to Brooke that a shadow passed over Olivia's 
 face, so faint that in the same instant it became part of 
 9 smile a smile which revealed nothing but its own 
 secrecy. 
 
 Brooke expected to hear the usual congratulation, but 
 Olivia said not a word. Yet, curiously enough, there 
 seemed no element of rudeness or indifference in her 
 silence. 
 
 " Don't you believe in congratulating people ? " Dr. 
 Corton said. 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " Why should I in this case ? The traits of Miss 
 Peyton's character will always lead her to paradise." 
 
 " Am I so obviously predestined ? I prefer the world 
 outside of paradise," Brooke answered with a touch of 
 dignity. Then she took her leave, wondering why she 
 should resent Olivia's estimate of her. 
 
 Unknown to her, Dr. Corton shared her feeling. 
 Despite the unassumed homage which Olivia always 
 rendered him, he withheld from her his usual generous 
 response to youthful tribute. He did not altogether trust 
 her, believing her to be of that androgynous spiritual 
 species which seems incapable of lending itself to any- 
 thing but the sterilities of coquetry, yet possessing the 
 power of the north to draw human currents. He was 
 ready to abandon this theory should contradictory evi- 
 
 35
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 clence arise, for he did no person the injustice of 
 a label. 
 
 " My godchildren have made me very happy by their 
 engagement," he said. 
 
 " I have only met Dr. Erskine once," Olivia replied ; 
 " but Miss Peyton seemed to me too original a girl to 
 marry early." 
 
 " All women should marry early. An unmarried 
 woman has no hold on the facts of life." 
 
 " I knew I was limited," Olivia murmured, " but I 
 did not know to what degree. Marriage must certainly 
 be a broadening experience." 
 
 " It is not an experience," he answered testily. " It 
 is life or death." 
 
 " To certain women, yes." 
 
 " The best type." 
 
 His words aroused in her a vague envy. To possess 
 Brooke's clarity of nature would be to rest from obscure 
 tumults. Many persons had followed Olivia, but not to 
 the stars. No one loving her had ever looked above her 
 eyes. In a lightning flash of retrospect she saw only 
 kneeling figures and despised them. 
 
 " It is singular that a man should care for a girl he 
 has known all his life," she said. 
 
 " A splendid foundation for marriage." 
 
 " If he know his own heart, yes." 
 
 " If he doesn't," Dr. Gorton answered with a per- 
 ceptible curtness of manner, " no one else can assist him 
 to that knowledge." 
 
 Olivia laughed.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 ROBERT called at " The Towers " unwillingly, and 
 was relieved to find neither mother nor daughter at home. 
 Since his father had confided his business troubles to 
 him he had conceived a dislike for the Winwoods which 
 amounted to repugnance. He would have absented him- 
 self from the lawn-party, but was deterred by the obvious- 
 ness of the act. 
 
 He and Brooke walked up together through the bril- 
 liance of a July afternoon to the entrance of the park, 
 the great gate, with its interlacing of heraldic roses and 
 lions, suggesting a transatlantic order of society. On 
 the way they jested over the wretched rich, and all their 
 losses, bringing the sweet impertinence of youth, liber- 
 ated by love from the domination of material things, to 
 judge of the gross and miserable state of the wealthy. 
 
 But when they entered the lovely grounds, where 
 wealth had taken the place of the five hundred years that 
 adorn an English park, their spirits came under the spell 
 of their surroundings. The art displayed in this perfect 
 imitation of an ancient heritage was so identified with 
 nature that its triumph over the imagination was inev- 
 itable. The features of the landscape were blended in a 
 fine and dignified simplicity, as if one powerful soul and 
 will were behind the effect obtained. As their half-mile 
 of winding way brought them within sight of the main 
 entrance of the house they were surprised by the absence 
 of decorations on the lawn, or of any attempt to dazzle 
 with an effect of elaborate preparation, as if their hosts 
 had refused to gild what was already perfect. 
 
 37
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 Robert wondered over this fine reserve, remembering 
 what he had heard of Henry Winwood's character. As 
 for the mother, her personality was the blare of a trum- 
 pet. Could it be that the daughter was strong enough 
 to guide the wills of her parents ? The foreign, spacious 
 beauty of these grounds was more potent than an intro- 
 ductory essay in arousing his curiosity concerning Olivia. 
 
 Mrs. Winwood, perfectly gowned, but with a touch 
 of the rococo, which she could not have escaped even in 
 a nun's habit, was welcoming the guests in a high- 
 pitched, friendly, afternoon-tea voice that awakened 
 echoes in the majestic twilight behind her. She held 
 Robert's hand tightly her own, all jewels and soft, 
 plump flesh while she questioned him about his engage- 
 ment with a manner that seemed to imply resentment of 
 the fact. 
 
 He answered as best he could, then turned to Olivia. 
 She greeted him cordially, adding, as he was about to 
 pass on: 
 
 " Come to me when I am free, and talk to me of 
 Paris, or of yourself. You are the only person in the 
 world who can tell me just why Miss Peyton is to be 
 congratulated." 
 
 The audacious logic of her words, the touch of good- 
 humored mockery in her voice, gave him the feeling of 
 wishing to reread a preface. 
 
 " I will come with pleasure." 
 
 " And meanwhile ? " she questioned, as if all time not 
 spent with her must, of necessity, be an interlude. His 
 wonder delayed his answer. If this were egotism, its 
 very openness held a kind of charm. 
 
 " Meanwhile, with your permission, I will ex- 
 plore " 
 
 38
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 "The grounds?" 
 
 " No, not the grounds, but your beautiful house." 
 
 " Go where you like, but I warn you that upholsterers 
 are impersonal." 
 
 Her words so exactly accorded with what was in his 
 mind that, to her amusement, he flushed like a school- 
 boy. But there was no time to reply. He gave his 
 place to another guest, and went on, half angry, wholly 
 curious. 
 
 The rooms, through which he went in search of 
 Brooke, were, like the grounds, beautiful as much by 
 what they rejected as by what they held. Their furniture 
 was characterized by that classic austerity which only 
 great wealth can produce without an attendant effect of 
 harshness. 
 
 He found Brooke in the library bending over some 
 illuminated missals. 
 
 " I would have joined you before, but the rooms de- 
 tained me. Is it possible that Henry Winwood inhabits 
 this house ? " he said, lowering his voice. 
 
 " I knew you would be surprised. Could anything be 
 more lovely, more noble than the effect of this library ? " 
 
 " It looks like a dwelling prepared for great souls," 
 Robert said, the shadow of a frown on his face. He 
 hated this beauty subduing him in the house of an enemy. 
 Brooke read his thoughts. 
 
 " And we, we feel it just as much," she said impetu- 
 ously, " and we can't express ourselves because we're 
 poor." 
 
 Robert nodded. 
 
 " What a fight she must have had to have it all her 
 own way," he said. 
 
 "You mean it's Olivia's doing?" 
 39
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " Can you imagine any other member of the family 
 responsible for this almost reproachful beauty? One 
 person, and one only, really lives here." 
 
 " Of course it is Olivia," Brooke assented. 
 
 At that moment they both turned at the sound of a 
 heavy footstep. Henry Winwood was entering the room, 
 with an air half complacent, half uneasy, which reminded 
 Robert of certain Americans he had seen abroad. He 
 shook hands with Brooke, who introduced Robert with 
 a pretty manner of unconscious pride. Winwood's keen 
 eyes regarded him with a not unkindly expression. 
 
 " Why ain't you out-of-doors ? " he questioned. " My 
 wife says it's a lawn-party, but most of the folks seem 
 to be in the house." 
 
 " These beautiful rooms detained us," Robert said. 
 
 Winwood looked about him complacently, then settled 
 himself, a vast bulk of modern Americanism, in a chair 
 of ancient Venice and crossed his hands on his gibbous 
 figure. 
 
 " Well, the best I can say about 'em is that they ain't 
 copies. Olivia planned 'em. You won't see their like 
 in every foreign palace you're shown through." 
 
 " I thought they were of your daughter's planning," 
 Robert said, careless whether the words held an implied 
 discourtesy. 
 
 " I see you've opened your office, Dr. Erskine. Are 
 you going to have a specialty? Most young doctors do 
 nowadays pays better." 
 
 As he spoke he rose, and going to an elaborately 
 carved cabinet took from it a box of cigars. 
 
 "Have one? They're choice almost too choice for 
 a young man," he added with a twinkle in his eye. " I 
 
 40
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 always maintain that no man under forty-five is ripe 
 enough to enjoy a fine cigar. After that time he has 
 something worth while to forget while he puffs." 
 
 Robert laughed. 
 
 " But the young are at least entitled to pipe-dreams. 
 With your permission, Brooke? " 
 
 " Be sure you give it, young lady, if you wish to make 
 a model wife," Winwood interposed, nodding his huge 
 head. " There ain't any room in my house too grand 
 to smoke in." 
 
 " I am going to leave you to your ecstasy," she said ; 
 then, with an odd look in her clear, brown eyes, she 
 added, turning to Winwood: 
 
 " Don't teach Dr. Erskine to forget." 
 
 " I won't keep your young man long," Mr. Winwood 
 answered literally. " If your mother's here, take her to 
 see the orchids." 
 
 " I will join you soon, Brooke," Robert said, already 
 soothed by his incomparable cigar out of any harsh or 
 precipitate judgment of his host, who, between puffs, 
 talked with the robust intelligence of a man of affairs on 
 a variety of subjects, ranging from cattle-breeding to 
 French wines. Robert read in his speech and manner 
 that inevitableness of will and purpose which marks the 
 successful leader, whether warrior or financier. 
 
 They were interrupted after a time by the entrance 
 of Olivia. As she came into the room she seemed to 
 interpret it, so well did it blend with her look of conscious 
 strength, with her beauty, which held no element of the 
 obvious. 
 
 " Well, have all your guests arrived ? " her father 
 asked, his eyes softening at sight of her. 
 
 " All whom I expect," she answered ; then, turning 
 4 4 I
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 to Robert, she said, " Why do you stay here, when it is 
 so beautiful out-of-doors ? " 
 
 " It is so beautiful indoors that I miss nothing, and 
 I gain much," he added, bowing to his host. 
 
 " Are you quite sincere ? My father is not accus- 
 tomed to a Parisian turn of speech." 
 
 Henry Winwood made no comment on this remark, 
 seeming content with whatever estimate of him his 
 daughter chose to make. Robert was astonished at her 
 curious frankness which thus lifted the richly embroid- 
 ered veil of the family's outward state, revealing its real 
 simplicity or poverty of life. Yet this frankness differed 
 from Brooke's in being, he felt, the fruit of some subtle 
 design. 
 
 He met her in the same spirit. 
 
 " Then I will say that I would like to go into the 
 gardens with you." 
 
 " You may come with me for a few moments," she 
 said, as if granting him a precious favor. " I will show 
 you a favorite spot of mine. Father, will you please go 
 out to our guests ? " 
 
 He obeyed her at once, rising heavily to his feet. She 
 led Robert through a series of rooms whose seductive 
 beauty asked him to linger, and opened a door upon a 
 garden shut in by tall hedges from the rest of the park. 
 At its far end a terrace overhanging a steep hill gave 
 the effect of a miniature end-of-the-world. Only the 
 brilliant blue sky intervened between it and the distant 
 mountains. 
 
 " This is my own garden, a desert solitude unless I 
 will it otherwise. The most adventurous outsider could 
 not penetrate its walls of hedges. Let us go down to the 
 terrace. The view from there is worth seeing." 
 
 42
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 She led the way between rows of old-fashioned, stately 
 garden flowers, all converging to a sun-dial placed at the 
 summit of a low pyramid of steps. Robert paused to 
 read the motto engraved upon it, " Time is not for the 
 Free," and smiled, but made no comment. 
 
 Olivia's presence was interpreting the garden to him 
 as it had the library, though in the open air all the 
 dreamy undercurrents of thought suggested by some 
 withdrawal quality in her face vanished, and her splen- 
 did bodily health seemed the most obvious thing about 
 her. 
 
 Nothing in this enclosed paradise was casual or un- 
 premeditated. The wide spaces of the terrace were a 
 relief to the surfeit of flowers crowding down to its 
 edges, creeping with gorgeous stains and splashes of 
 color over the backs of its semicircular marble benches, 
 old, and yellow as cream, filched, as their carvings be- 
 trayed, from the long caress of the sun of Italy. On 
 one of these she seated herself in an attitude of relaxa- 
 tion, her hands, those subtle revealers of personality, 
 lying idly in her lap, her eyes fixed on the distant moun- 
 tains. She seemed to have forgotten Robert's presence. 
 
 He was at once piqued and amused by her oblivious 
 manner. He wondered if she refused to be conventional 
 just because life might so easily become a tissue of lies 
 about her. 
 
 He stole a glance at her. The poise of her head, her 
 impassive dignity, her look of repose without insensi- 
 tiveness, recalled to his mind some portrait of the High 
 Renaissance. 
 
 He waited for her to speak. Silences were never dis- 
 concerting to him, and his natural reticence had been 
 increased by the requirements of his profession. 
 
 43
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " I need not ask you if you are homesick for Paris," 
 she said at last ; " two years there guarantee that." 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " How did you know I was homesick for Paris? It's 
 true enough ! " 
 
 " I judge by what my six months there did for me." 
 
 " Of course you saw a very different side," Robert 
 said. " Hospital wards are much alike everywhere. I 
 imagine you trailed clouds of glory down the Champs 
 Elysees." 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " But you had your holidays." 
 
 " Ah, didn't I ! those holidays ! Do you know the 
 odd corners ? " 
 
 He was away in an instant cafes and gargoyled 
 shadowy places directly ahead in the rich perspective. 
 She led, but he thought she followed. 
 
 While he talked of the well-beloved she watched his 
 face, noting the square chin, the eyes too visionary for 
 a physician, all the contradictions of the irregular, strong, 
 mobile features. The news of his engagement, coming 
 sharply on the impression gained at her first meeting with 
 him, had roused in her a vague annoyance, as if he had 
 played false to that memory of Montmartre. She had 
 been too often remembered, too often etched in iron on 
 heavy hearts, not to believe that what had been must 
 always be. This deviation from the normal rule filled 
 her with resentment. 
 
 " But I am keeping you " he said, breaking off 
 suddenly. 
 
 She looked up at him with grave eyes. 
 
 " You must not go until you tell me why Miss Pey- 
 ton is to be congratulated ! " 
 
 44
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 There was laughter in her voice, contradicting the 
 seriousness of her expression. For a moment he was 
 disconcerted. 
 
 " What impossible answer do you expect to such a 
 question ? " 
 
 " It Is a reasonable question. Who else can know if 
 you do not ? " 
 
 He smiled grimly. 
 
 " I admit that your logic is sound. You can con- 
 gratulate Miss Peyton, then, on her intimate knowledge 
 of me. We have known each other from childhood. My 
 failings are an old story to her." 
 
 " And your virtues ? " she said, a gleam of mischief 
 in her eyes. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " If I possess any, the same advantage holds good." 
 
 She was silent, pondering the question apparently as 
 if it were a remote theory, wholly impersonal. 
 
 " What have you made of your use of the scalpel, 
 Miss Winwood, if I may inquire ? " 
 
 " I was only wondering if a knowledge of failings 
 and virtues were necessary to happiness." 
 
 " Did I say it was ? " 
 
 " That was your ground for congratulation, was it 
 not ? or did I misunderstand ? " 
 
 The upward glance of her eyes teased him. He felt 
 strangely impatient of her analysis, impatient of having 
 been led into a discussion with her that seemed solely 
 for her amusement. 
 
 " What is necessary to happiness, if I may ask a 
 question in my turn ? " 
 
 " It is a strange question for you to ask, who are 
 possessed of it," she said in a musing voicej her face 
 
 45
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 going again into shadow, as if she had passed under 
 some archway of the mind. 
 
 " But what would you say? " he insisted. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " Let us talk about the view." 
 
 She leaned back on the marble bench, half closing her 
 eyes, with a look of passive joy over the beauty before 
 her that obliterated any intellectual interest she may have 
 had in their conversation. This sudden transition piqued 
 his curiosity, yet he was vaguely resentful of being curi- 
 ous, as he resented all feeling that did not converge to- 
 ward Brooke. He felt restless, half unwilling to remain. 
 
 Turning her head, she read the look in his face, and 
 rose. 
 
 " I am detaining you, and neglecting my guests," she 
 said with a caressing graciousness that made her in that 
 instant wholly feminine. " You should be with Miss 
 Peyton. Should I offend you if I said she is charming? 
 I trust you and she will come often here this summer. 
 I am very lonely." 
 
 The wistfulness in her voice seemed almost incredible 
 to him. Was she an* actress, he asked himself, or did 
 this splendor of setting really leave her lonely, as queens 
 are? In that hour she took hold of his imagination, but 
 as yet only as a picture or poem might. 
 
 He found Brooke in a distant part of the grounds. 
 The girl raised her head with an eager, expectant look 
 as he approached, but she asked no questions. 
 
 He felt a sudden, keen joy in being again with her; 
 was glad in that instant that he had acted quickly on his 
 return from Paris, making himself wholly hers. The 
 enclosed garden, with its wealth of color and perfume, 
 seemed in retrospect a prison. 
 
 46
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 He told her of his conversation with Henry Winwood. 
 
 " He is not the pretender I expected," he commented. 
 " The mother sums up the artificialities of the family, but 
 she seems good-hearted." 
 
 " Have you seen Olivia since she greeted you?" 
 
 " I have just come from her," he said, glad of the 
 opening. " She was showing me a favorite view of hers." 
 
 "Did she like you?" 
 
 " What a question ! How should I know ? " 
 
 " I want her to, that's all." 
 
 He looked at her curiously. 
 
 " Brooke, you are a child of light. I give my con- 
 science into your keeping." 
 
 " Keep your own conscience, m'lord," she answered 
 gaily. " I will have enough to do to keep your heart." 
 
 47
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 WHEN Robert and his mother returned from the 
 garden-party both were in that silent mood which sug- 
 gests the harvesting of what was most significant in a 
 past occasion. As they went up on the porch Erskine 
 came out to meet them, his evening paper in one hand, 
 his inevitable cigar in the other. 
 
 " James, your son, I fear, is dazzled by our neighbors 
 on the hill," Mrs. Erskine said, sinking into a chair with 
 a sigh of comfort. " He went forth a stern young judge. 
 He returns with the artist in him uppermost. To be just 
 in this world you should have no esthetic instincts, Rob- 
 ert. But I don't blame you," she added ; " such beauty 
 would entangle a Jonathan Edwards." 
 
 " And I am no Puritan ! It is certainly a triumphant 
 sort of place." 
 
 " They hide the gilt frame well," his mother com- 
 mented with a dry accent. She was watching her hus- 
 band's face, in which the lines of care had deepened at 
 the mention of the Winwoods. She stole a glance at 
 Robert, and saw that he was regarding his father with 
 an anxious, questioning look. After a time she rose and 
 sauntered down into the garden, saying that she wished 
 to inspect her flower-beds. 
 
 " Father," Robert said when they were alone, " why 
 don't you sell out to Winwood if it's hopeless to fight 
 him? You can fight a trust no more than you can an 
 octopus. They're both bloodsuckers." 
 
 " Give up the business ? " Erskine said impatiently. 
 48
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 " What could I do then ? I am neither old nor young 
 enough to be idle." 
 
 " You could enjoy life after all these years of work." 
 
 " I wouldn't know how," Erskine said laconically. 
 " I'm out of practise." 
 
 "Well, couldn't you get into something else then?" 
 
 " Learn a new business at my age ! " 
 
 Robert was buried in thought for some moments; 
 then he said: 
 
 " I wish I'd known this ten years ago. I wish you'd 
 put me in the business." 
 
 " The conditions didn't exist ten years ago. You 
 don't regret having a profession, do you ? " he added, 
 looking searchingly at his son. 
 
 " Regret it? No, indeed! But I am impatient of the 
 slow process it will have to be. I am keen to help you 
 out, to get you beyond the reach of Winwood's claws. 
 The thought that he was on your scent spoiled the after- 
 noon for me." 
 
 "You would have enjoyed yourself otherwise?" 
 
 " Frankly, yes. They are an interesting family. By 
 the way, are you going to Winwood's stag dinner? He 
 invited me this afternoon." 
 
 " I was about to decline, but if you think of going 
 I'll accept." 
 
 " Let us go for the bravado of it. It will stop peo- 
 ple's talking. I wish I had settled in the city," he added. 
 " I think I could do more for you there." 
 
 Erskine did not reply. Proud as he was of Robert's 
 record, he regarded it as the unfruitful brilliance of 
 youth ; and he knew that a certain kind of intellectuality 
 hampers rather than aids a man in making money. He 
 felt instinctively that Robert would be always too much 
 
 49
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 interested in the spectacle of life to accumulate a fortune. 
 Even had he entered business he would not have been 
 willing to exchange his preoccupation with the dramatic 
 elements of existence for its absorptions. 
 
 And he was so far right that Robert, despite his com- 
 prehension of the way matters stood, still saw the foot- 
 lights between his father and the family at " The Tow- 
 ers." Henry Winwood amused him, Olivia appealed to 
 his imagination. 
 
 He and Brooke had more than one discussion con- 
 cerning her, in which Brooke had come forward as her 
 champion against Robert's arraignment of her sincerity. 
 But Brooke always championed women on general prin- 
 ciples. Herself of a frank, clear spirit, she refused to 
 believe in the traditional feline characteristics of her sex. 
 Though she was not wholly at her ease with Olivia, she 
 laid the blame at her own door, recognizing that Olivia's 
 maturer years and experience would in themselves con- 
 stitute a barrier. 
 
 " Why is it," Robert said to her one day, " that you 
 don't analyze people you really like?" 
 
 " It isn't because you idealize them," she answered. 
 " I think you see their faults all the more clearly because 
 you do care for them." 
 
 " I see none in you." 
 
 " You will after you are married to me," she said in 
 a tone of conviction. 
 
 Robert's laughter was his only answer. 
 
 Winwood's dinner was rendered tolerable to James 
 Erskine by the presence of Dr. Gorton, who sat at one 
 end of the long table. Between him and his host was a 
 gathering of the wealthiest and most influential citizens 
 
 50
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 of Trenthampton, a prosperous farmer or two being in- 
 cluded among the guests. Winwood had a reputation 
 for democratic sympathies which he took care to sustain 
 by the trifles of life, being shrewd enough to know that 
 a word or a hand-shake is of more weight than a prin- 
 ciple when the people are to be impressed. 
 
 A company of women, as diverse in social training 
 and in their interests as this company of men, would 
 have failed to preserve the moral unity of the gathering, 
 but the guests about Winwood's table became as one man. 
 This blending was partly due to the host's rough, good- 
 humored hospitality, partly to the superlative quality of 
 the wines provided. 
 
 Erskine, who was seated near Dr. Corton, was mak- 
 ing a mental inventory of the symbols of his rival's 
 power. The gold and silver plate, the wines, the rare 
 flowers, seemed little side issues of Winwood's magnifi- 
 cent thieving, of which a larger, more significant result 
 was the deference of the assembled company. Excepting 
 Dr. Corton, Robert seemed the least impressed of all the 
 guests. What amusement James Erskine obtained was 
 in watching his son, who entered into the occasion with 
 a delightfully uncritical spirit, and with a keen pleasure 
 and interest in the whole company, which read its mood 
 and carried his one or two good stories the length of the 
 table, bringing him an approving glance from Winwood. 
 Erskine recognized these good spirits as a long-ago pos- 
 session of his own. He hoped that life would not steal 
 them from Robert. 
 
 After dinner they went into the drawing-rooms, 
 where coffee was to be served, and where Mrs. Winwood 
 and Olivia awaited them. The mother, gowned in pink 
 of a shade which blended silk with flesh, looked younger 
 
 51
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 than the daughter, whose black dress, relieved only by 
 some fantastic gold ornaments, put her forward or back 
 a hundred years. 
 
 She did not speak to Robert for some time, but de- 
 voted herself chiefly to the two farmers. That they were 
 being well entertained he could judge from their bursts 
 of laughter, though Olivia's face remained serious. 
 
 Robert was beginning to be impatient of her neglect 
 of him, when she came to where he stood, and, without 
 a word of greeting, said : 
 
 " They want me to play. What shall I play for 
 them?" 
 
 " May I really choose ? " 
 
 " Anything you like." 
 
 " Some Russian music, then, with a pack of wolves 
 in it." 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " I am to play for you alone, am I, of all these men? " 
 
 " You gave me my choice." 
 
 " Yes, but I told you to choose for them, not your- 
 self." 
 
 He looked about the company. 
 
 " How can I tell whether they prefer two-steps or 
 sonatas? Play for me this time." 
 
 " Very well, then." 
 
 She went into the music-room. Robert settled him- 
 self in a window-seat where he could watch her hands. 
 She began a slow, complaining movement, which soon 
 changed into a wild, primitive melody, bearing in its 
 heart the cry of hunger, or of wanderers through a deso- 
 late winter night, unlit by stars. He had what he had 
 asked for. It was Russian. 
 
 He watched her face after a time instead of her 
 52
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 hands, but it told nothing. The music told much. That 
 she played with professional skill was an incident. What 
 counted was this interpretation. 
 
 When she had finished, her mother came over to her. 
 
 " Olivia, I wish you'd play something with a tune to 
 it. Your father's almost asleep." 
 
 "All right, dear, I'll play a lullaby." 
 
 " Now, don't tease me," Mrs. Winwood said pathet- 
 ically, adding, as she turned to Robert, " I can't bear 
 these queer, jumbled things. They may be stylish, but 
 I like something with a tune to it. Don't you, Dr. 
 Erskine?" 
 
 His eyes met Olivia's, and they both smiled. 
 
 " I'll play a spring song, mother," she said coaxingly, 
 " a little innocent spring song. Go and wake father up." 
 
 She looked at her mother with a tenderness that 
 seemed to Robert beautiful, considering how deep was 
 the gulf that separated them ; and this tenderness passed 
 into what she played. He thought that he would have 
 to readjust his conception of her.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 " ARE you going to Olivia's again this afternoon ? " 
 
 Brooke did not answer her mother's question at once. 
 She was standing before her mirror, adjusting, with 
 boyish gestures, a linen collar, above which her brown, 
 shapely throat rose in sharp contrast. Despite the sever- 
 ity of her attire, she had a distinctly feminine appear- 
 ance. Happiness had endowed her with a new, delicate 
 beauty, and had veiled and softened her independence of 
 manner. 
 
 " Robert and I have wondered lately whether we are 
 pensioners or benefactors. He was determined at first 
 to mistrust her, but I think she is breaking down his 
 doubts. It is difficult to refuse her invitations when she 
 makes us feel that it is an act of charity in us to go 
 there and enjoy all that luxury." 
 
 " It is strange that she has been so persistent," Mrs. 
 Peyton said, " even sending for you when she has house- 
 parties." 
 
 Brooke laughed. 
 
 " If we only filled in gaps, she would know before 
 very long that we are a haughty pair. Robert is too 
 stiff-necked as it is, but I think he never forgets the 
 rivalry between his father and hers." 
 
 " Isn't it rather a case of the hound and the hare ? '* 
 Mrs. Peyton said. 
 
 Brooke looked thoughtful. 
 
 "I hope not. Robert hasn't told me much, but I 
 54
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 know he's worried. He said to me again yesterday that 
 he wished he had started his practice in town." 
 
 " But he is doing well." 
 
 " As well as a young physician could do in as healthy 
 a place as Trenthampton ; but he seems restless. Mother," 
 she added impulsively, " I am glad I never thought that 
 romance was the whole of loving. It ought not to be," 
 she said earnestly, as if defending the absent. " You 
 can't continue to live on the heights of the first month 
 or two, unless you are all poet or all angel." 
 
 Ursula Peyton thought that Brooke ought still to be 
 treading the heights, but she said nothing lest she should 
 seem to accuse Robert of leading the way down to the 
 plains of life. Even if he had, his father's business 
 troubles sufficiently excused him. 
 
 When Brooke had finished dressing she stopped and 
 put her cool cheek for an instant against her mother's. 
 
 " You look so tired, dear ; are you well ? " 
 
 Mrs. Peyton smiled. 
 
 " I've been tired ever since you were born. I think 
 my babies all bullied me. They were all so big and 
 strong." 
 
 Brooke looked apologetic. 
 
 " I am not always going to play. I'll begin my writ- 
 ing in the fall." 
 
 " Don't write, just be happy." 
 
 " Mother, you're a vagabond ! " 
 
 " I know it. I'd have been off to the woods long ago 
 if it hadn't been for the children." 
 
 " You and I will run away together some day Oh, 
 Jimmy ! " 
 
 Her exclamation was called forth by the appearance 
 in the doorway of a dripping small boy, who regarded 
 
 55
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 his mother, through the patches of mud on his face, with 
 a conciliatory expression. 
 
 " I accidentally fell into the Bates's horse-pond. 
 Carlton fell in, too." 
 
 " Where is Carlton ? " Mrs. Peyton asked in the 
 maternal tone of resignation. 
 
 " I left him in the lower hall with strict orders not 
 to cry, because you said father's getting something of! 
 to the publishers. He had his mouth all open ready, 
 and I popped a toffy-ball into it the last one I had, too," 
 he added virtuously. 
 
 Mrs. Peyton looked up at Brooke in despair. 
 
 " And I have to get them ready for a child's party 
 at five ! There's Carlton crying now," she added, rising. 
 " Charles mustn't be disturbed." 
 
 " I'll go down. I'll help you get them ready." 
 
 " But you have this engagement." 
 
 " Robert will make my excuses." 
 
 She traced the bleating cry to a dark corner. There 
 she found a miserable little dripping object, mud from 
 head to foot, with a few delicate additions of brown toffy 
 streaks about the quivering mouth. It was so pitiful 
 that, regardless of her linen walking-dress, she stooped 
 down and gathered the small bundle into her arms. 
 
 " Sister's own baby ! You did go out into the wide 
 world and get hurt, didn't you! " 
 
 He ducked his curly head under her chin, and clung 
 to her with muddy, desperate little fingers, glad to be 
 cuddled, but still sobbing spasmodically. As she turned 
 to go up-stairs, the library door opened, and Charles Pey- 
 ton's white, querulous face looked out. 
 
 " My dear Brooke," he drawled, " is there no way of 
 muzzling those children? This house has been pande- 
 
 56
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 monium since six this morning. My nerves are worn 
 to shreds, and it is most important that I get this book 
 off by Wednesday." 
 
 A disrespectful speech rose to the girl's lips, but she 
 repressed it. Her mother's example held in check her 
 youthful resentment. 
 
 " Mother is tired, too," she answered gently. " But 
 I think the worst is over. Carlton and Jimmy and 
 Angelica are going to a party." 
 
 " Thank God ! " 
 
 " And, father, Olivia sends word that the wing of 
 the house where the library is, is always deserted in the 
 morning in case you want to consult any book. She 
 has the edition of Novalis you were asking for, and will 
 loan it to you. Ah, here is Robert. He might bring it 
 to you." 
 
 " What is it, Brooke? Aren't you going? " 
 
 He listened to her explanations with an impatience 
 born of his disappointment. Brooke's love had never 
 seemed so precious to him as during these weeks of their 
 mutual intimacy with Olivia. 
 
 " But I don't want to go without you. I'll wait 
 for you." 
 
 " No," she said with decision. " It would mean the 
 whole afternoon. Father, tell Robert what books you 
 want." 
 
 Mr. Peyton held open his study door graciously. He 
 liked Robert, who was a good listener. 
 
 Brooke toiled on up-stairs. At the nursery door 
 stood Angelica, shining from her bath, her stiff little 
 petticoats standing out like a columbine's, her air some- 
 what prim and superior. 
 
 " Mother says I can have two pieces of cake if it's 
 5 57
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 sponge, and one if it's chocolate which would you pray 
 for?" 
 
 " I would pray to be delivered from the bondage of 
 gluttony," Brooke said, beginning to undress the muddy 
 rose of a Carlton. 
 
 " Those are college words," said Angelica gravely, 
 " and I don't understand them. I will go down and ask 
 papa." 
 
 Brooke rose promptly and locked the door. 
 
 " There would be no little Angelica if you went down 
 at this crisis. Sister doesn't want to lose you. Come 
 and dance a pirouette for Carlton while I comb out his 
 curls." 
 
 Robert went on his way to " The Towers " reluc- 
 tantly. Much of his satisfaction in his former calls 
 there was owing to Brooke's presence, which liberated 
 him from the haunting consciousness that this friendship 
 with Olivia held within it the seeds of future tumults. 
 During these last weeks she had become, in a sense, 
 necessary to him, yet what she awakened in him did not 
 place her in rivalry with Brooke, for the simple reason 
 that he had never felt in this way toward his old play- 
 mate. Olivia's strength drew him, fascinated him, some- 
 times hurt him like a wild play of the imagination or the 
 spectacle of some tremendous natural force. The moment 
 she appeared everything seemed possible. 
 
 Half-way to the house he encountered Mrs. Win- 
 wood, whose first enthusiasm over him had never waned, 
 and under whose artificialities he had discovered the 
 exuberance of a warm-hearted, uncritical matron, puzzled 
 by her daughter when she was not puzzled by her hus- 
 band, and looking, therefore, to strangers for some grasp 
 on the facts of life. 
 
 58
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 She waved her parasol at Robert from a little summer 
 bower on the edge of a miniature lake. 
 
 " Olivia's in the library. Where's your young lady ? " 
 
 " A domestic crisis kept Miss Peyton at home. You 
 know there's a large family of children there, all very 
 much alive." 
 
 " They say it's unfashionable to have big families. 
 You're a bright young doctor. Do you think there's 
 any danger of this race suicide they talk so much 
 about?" 
 
 Robert laughed. 
 
 " I don't think it's a physical matter. It seems to 
 me that the deadening of the human spirit could be the 
 only cause of race suicide." 
 
 " That's too much for me/' Mrs. Winwood said with 
 frank good-humor. " You young people are so terribly 
 deep these days. When I was a girl the sky was blue, 
 a rose was a rose, and love was love. Now Olivia calls 
 everything by another name." 
 
 " The new names don't bring us much pleasure," 
 Robert answered. " You had the best of it." 
 
 " Some days I think I had," she said with a fat sigh. 
 " This place, now, I'm proud of I ought to be ; it's the 
 biggest in the State but," she lowered her voice to the 
 key of confidence, " there are times when I just long for 
 the old-fashioned back yard I knew when I was a girl, 
 with lilac bushes in it, and a picket-fence that the neigh- 
 bors would hand ginger-cookies over, or their first mince- 
 pie of the season." 
 
 Her earnestness kept back the smile from Robert's 
 lips. As he went on his way he wondered whether any 
 sympathy of Henry Winwood's ever rendered less foreign 
 the setting of the transplanted wife. 
 
 59
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 The footman ushered him into the library. In the 
 embrasure of a window Olivia sat reading. 
 
 She did not look up for a moment, and he had time 
 to note the half-weary expression of her face, the dark- 
 ness that seemed to steal from under her lowered eyelids. 
 She let the book fall slowly to her lap, then raised her 
 eyes as one who comes out of a dream. 
 
 "Where is Brooke?" 
 
 " Tubbing her small brother." 
 
 Olivia smiled. 
 
 " She has the maternal instinct." 
 
 Putting down her book, she rose, and, crossing the 
 room, leaned for an instant against the carved chimney- 
 piece, one white hand grasping the stone, her cheek 
 pressed to it. The long, graceful lines of her figure 
 were silhouetted sharply against the gloom of the fire- 
 place. 
 
 " I am tired to-day, and not content. I warn you 
 that if you stay you will probably be companioned by a 
 mood, and not by an attentive hostess." 
 
 " Be yourself with me," Robert said, " if you will 
 honor me so far." 
 
 " You have always had that honor, if you consider it 
 one ; but," she added with a little laugh, " I don't remem- 
 ber which self you saw." 
 
 " Perhaps I saw many." 
 
 " That is unfortunate ; your impression will be con- 
 fused." 
 
 " It is for you to clear it." 
 
 " I refuse to be responsible for your impressions," she 
 said, a smile lighting up her face. The intangible atmos- 
 phere of coquetry was about her, but it was dignified 
 by a certain pensiveness in her bearing. Olivia's serious- 
 
 60
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 ness of manner seemed sometimes to Robert her strongest 
 weapon. It was impossible to tell what it hid. 
 
 " Ah, but you are responsible," he said, reproach in 
 his voice. 
 
 "And if I were then what?" 
 
 " You would have to remember which self." 
 
 " I only remember pleasant things," she said. Then, 
 as she crossed the room toward him, she added, " Let 
 us go into the garden. It is too charming a day to be 
 indoors." 
 
 He spoke of the edition of Novalis. 
 
 " I will send Mr. Peyton a boxful of mystics, from 
 Plotinus to Maeterlinck." 
 
 " Have you read them all ? " Robert asked. 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " Of course not." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Haven't you learned yet not to ask me questions ? 
 You know I never answer them." 
 
 Her voice was full of soft reproach ; her eyes mocked 
 him, yet they held enticement. 
 
 He did not follow her at once. In his heart he was 
 wishing that he had not come. It was the first time 
 that they had been alone together, and he found that he 
 was not at his ease. 
 . " What garden are you going to, if I may ask ? " 
 
 " There is only one garden mine." 
 
 The simple words jarred upon him, as if they hid 
 much more than their obvious meaning. 
 
 " Let us walk about the park," he suggested. 
 
 " Don't you like my garden ? " she said, not pausing 
 in her walk or changing her direction. They were soon 
 among the warm splendors of the flowers nodding in the 
 
 61
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 late August heat. A delicate blue haze rested on the dis- 
 tant mountains. Nothing was clear of outline. Not a 
 leaf stirred in the sweet, heavy air. 
 
 Olivia seated herself on the marble bench, leaning 
 her dark head against a term that rose directly behind 
 it, a column of old, yellow stone ending in a fantastic 
 satyr-face, the whole half smothered in the embrace of a 
 riotous rose-bush. She picked one of the deep crimson 
 flowers and held it against her lips, against her cheek, as 
 she talked of indifferent matters in a monotone as lulling 
 to the senses as the murmur of a stream. Robert's vague 
 discomfort gave way gradually to content in being there 
 with her, quite alone with her in that still and hidden 
 place. 
 
 " Tell me about your work," she said. " Does it go 
 well ? Are you satisfied ? " 
 
 Her words released his accumulated doubts and dis- 
 contents of the past weeks. That was precisely what he 
 was not. Life in a country town, always more or less 
 irksome to him, had become doubly so since his return, 
 from Paris. He believed that the attrition of struggle 
 in the city made cleaner-cut the requirements of a great 
 profession. Before he realized it he was unburdening 
 his impatient hopes and plans to her, as he had done 
 to no one, not even to his mother or Brooke. He 
 was surprised at his own vehemence. Suddenly he 
 broke off. 
 
 " I don't know why I am telling you these things. 
 Perhaps I feel that you could never misunderstand." 
 
 " Not to misunderstand is the least we can do for 
 people," she said gently. 
 
 He went on with added confidence, feeling her sym- 
 pathy like the actual touch of caressing fingers. When 
 
 62
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 he had finished she made no comment. She seemed to 
 be thinking deeply. 
 
 " I shouldn't be able to make it clear to Dr. Corton 
 perhaps not to my father. But in the city I should have 
 the stimulus of many things." 
 
 She was silent, her eyes glowing with some inner 
 light of thought, but she kept the signs of struggle from 
 her face. She was making her choice of roads. The 
 feeling which he had aroused in her she had ended in 
 resenting, because it fell in with no plan of hers for her 
 future. Should she kill it angrily, putting him out of 
 her life, or should she make of it a flame such as wreck- 
 ers kindle on inaccessible cliffs, that the precious cargo 
 may float ashore from the doomed vessel? She had 
 divined from the first that Robert's love for Brooke was 
 closely allied to the calm of a long, close friendship ; had 
 been tempted from the first to rouse the sleeping lion in 
 him. With difficult art the only kind that appealed 
 to her she had tried to waken him in the very pres- 
 ence of his betrothed. A word from her now might 
 suffice. 
 
 " Go to the city. It is worth the intervening diffi- 
 culties. You could make a name there." 
 
 " I've always wanted to go, now more than ever," he 
 said in a low voice, yet half astonished at his words as 
 he uttered them. 
 
 " Hasn't Miss Peyton also ambitions ? " she asked. 
 " I have read some little stories of hers. You could work 
 out your salvation together." 
 
 He assented eagerly. 
 
 " I would not go unless Brooke would carry out her 
 former plan of going to the city next winter. She has 
 relatives there. I should be glad for her sake." 
 
 63
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 She smiled, drawing the rose across her lips before 
 speaking. 
 
 " Be frank with yourself Robert. You want to go 
 for your own." 
 
 Her little hesitating pause before she uttered his 
 name enchanted him, hurt him. He rose and walked 
 slowly away from her toward the balustrade of the ter- 
 race, keeping his face turned away until he was sure 
 that the blinding light had died there. He sat on the 
 balustrade a moment, playing with his cane, his tall fig- 
 ure more tense than usual, his lips pressed firmly to- 
 gether, his eyes dark and troubled. At last a smile 
 flitted across his face like a gleam of light on deep water. 
 He rose and came slowly back to her. 
 
 " It is evident that you have plummets for sounding 
 a man's selfishness. I have kept you much too long. I 
 must say ' Addio.' " 
 
 She looked up at him with eyes that laughed. 
 
 "Must you really go? Take this to Brooke." 
 
 She handed him the rose. 
 
 He went from her^ conscious only that the flower he 
 held had been against her cheek, her lips. When he 
 reached a lonely part of the grounds he paused, and 
 pressed it passionately to his own. 
 
 The act seemed to wake him. With a quick gesture 
 he threw the rose to the ground and crushed it beneath 
 his heel. 
 
 64
 
 ROBERT faced the fact that the crushing of the rose 
 by no means implied the crushing of what it symbolized, 
 an emotion which seemed to have the strength of some- 
 thing full-grown. How and when it had stolen upon 
 him, soft-footed through unsuspected corridors, he could 
 not tell, restless with his impatience of it and with the 
 sense of dishonor. 
 
 He hated tricks of passion, a certain fastidiousness 
 in his nature recoiling from the indiscriminate nature of 
 the attractions of the senses. He had been always sin- 
 gularly keen in detecting a mirage of the flesh, taking it 
 for what it was worth, and no more. He played his 
 comedies with his eyes wide open, nor did he ever con- 
 fuse the attraction of a blond curl on a white neck with 
 any permanent need of his nature. 
 
 Brooke's strong, poised love had seemed to him de- 
 serving of something finer than ardors. To offer her a 
 sincere and earnest trust, fidelity of thought, all the 
 beautiful moralities of friendship touched with dreams, 
 was the tribute most worthy of her character. 
 
 But was this feeling for Olivia a trick of transitory 
 emotion? To his sorrow he knew that when he thought 
 of her, banners streamed against the sky, high doorways 
 opened, and pageants in gorgeous colors moved toward 
 towered cities. Strength and space were the gifts she 
 offered, and already the narrow warmth of the fireside 
 seemed to suffocate him. 
 
 Yet a deep anger possessed him that this should be, 
 65
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 the first effect of which was a resolution to remain in 
 Trenthampton, working as if to defeat a legion of devils. 
 A new tenderness for Brooke awoke in him. Every mo- 
 ment of his spare time he spent with her, putting her 
 face between him and these fresh perspectives. 
 
 He did not go again to " The Towers," saying to 
 Brooke that his conscience troubled him, a statement 
 which she connected directly with his father's business 
 affairs. She herself in this interval saw Olivia fre- 
 quently. The two women read together and took long 
 walks together on the hills above Trenthampton. To 
 Brooke, Olivia showed chiefly the wholesome, out-of- 
 door side of her nature, a side more developed than was 
 always evident. 
 
 One day, as Robert walked along the main street of 
 the town, he heard his name called softly. Olivia, on 
 horseback, had ridden to the curb, and was looking at 
 him with an expression of nonchalance, not unmingled 
 with amusement. 
 
 " I have just sent Brooke a box of red roses," she 
 said. 
 
 " That is kind of you," Robert answered, fearful lest 
 his voice should not be natural. 
 
 " You don't ask me why, but I'll tell you. You 
 robbed her of the flower I sent her. I found it in the 
 park walk quite crushed, poor little rose! You must 
 have dropped it. It was careless of you, Robert." 
 
 To his disgust he felt himself color. 
 
 " So I chose a safer messenger," she went on, " and 
 with the flowers was a note, asking you both to dine with 
 me to-morrow evening. You will come, of course." 
 
 She gave him no time to reply. He watched her out 
 of sight, then walked slowly toward Brooke's home, say- 
 
 66
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 ing that they must decline the invitation; yet he knew 
 in his heart that he would go. 
 
 He found Brooke arranging her flowers in a tall glass 
 vase, an expression in her face half puzzled, half amused. 
 
 " Olivia sent these," she said as he greeted her. 
 " She wrote a strange little note, charging the roses up 
 against some misdoing of yours." 
 
 Robert explained partially; then he asked: 
 
 " We are not going to the dinner, are we ? " 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " No reason," he said musingly, " except perhaps 
 that the insolence of their wealth is again uppermost in 
 my consciousness." 
 
 " Never mind that. Olivia is quite apart from that." 
 
 " Unfortunately, yes," he answered. 
 
 The friendly informality of the dinner, at which 
 Olivia was the impersonal, yet charming, hostess, put 
 him back where he desired to be. The episode of the 
 rose, he told himself, was but an incursion into the 
 fantastic. 
 
 But his desire to remove to the city was left a hard, 
 insoluble fact after all his alchemy. He refused to con- 
 nect this fact with Olivia, his metropolitan ambitions 
 having antedated his acquaintance with her, but every 
 thought of his possible life and work in the city led per- 
 versely to her at last. 
 
 He resolved to ask Brooke if she would countenance 
 his going by a revival of her own ambitions. He broached 
 the subject one Sunday afternoon when they had wan- 
 dered far up the mountainside, saying little for sheer 
 joy in the beauty surrounding them. 
 
 " And leave this ! " she said, waving a hand toward 
 the blue peaks whose lonely summits met a bluer sky. 
 
 6?
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " You can't live on a view," Robert answered, be- 
 ginning to whittle a stick into the shape of an ugly 
 idol, a kind of doll Angelica had a special prefer- 
 ence for. 
 
 Brooke read the communicative mood in his face, and 
 settled herself to listen. 
 
 " I've known you had something on your mind for 
 the past three weeks," she said, her clear voice sympa- 
 thetic. 
 
 He closed his eyes a moment, as if to shut out a too 
 persistent vision. 
 
 " Why didn't you ask me what it was ? " 
 
 " You can't question people you care for," she an- 
 swered. 
 
 " Wise, adorable lady ! " 
 
 He took her hand and pressed it to his lips. She 
 flushed with pleasure. Robert's symbols of his love had 
 not been frequent of late. 
 
 " Before I begin, tell me what special type of ugli- 
 ness Angelica would like for her fetish. Shall I make 
 him all ears or all mouth ? " 
 
 " Anything, so it's grotesque. She's an odd chick. 
 She prefers these wooden horrors to the French doll you 
 brought her." 
 
 Robert therewith began to whittle and talk. Brooke, 
 weaving pine-needles, listened to a much less impassioned 
 discourse than Olivia had drawn forth. He stated his 
 case dryly, but with emphasis. 
 
 " Now I want you to go with me," he wound up. 
 " Doesn't your father's sister live in town ? " 
 
 "Aunt Angelica? Yes. I had thought of going to 
 her before our engagement." 
 
 " Why not now, dear? " 
 68
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 " You blotted out the city." 
 
 He turned his head sharply away. 
 
 " You make me more than I am, Brooke. There, 
 perhaps, I could win my spurs for you." 
 
 " That is not necessary," she said gravely ; " what 
 you do here counts just as much to me." 
 
 " It is a wider field." 
 
 " But a difficult one to enter. What are your ways 
 and means?" 
 
 He unfolded the details of his plans to her. She 
 listened with close attention, wishing that the spark of 
 enthusiasm would kindle in her own breast. She remem- 
 bered how keen she had been to test her powers before 
 that brilliant, all-transforming week of Robert's wooing. 
 But other causes had aided in lessening her desire for 
 warfare her companionship with her mother, her care, 
 of the ubiquitous children. 
 
 " You would not desert me, Brooke, would you, if I 
 went up to the city ? You would go and work there, too ? " 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 "Dear?" 
 
 She looked up gravely. 
 
 " Robert, I am afraid I would do anything you wanted 
 me to do that was right." 
 
 " Don't you feel this is ? " 
 
 " I can hardly judge for you." 
 
 "But for yourself?" 
 
 " It would depend largely on what the family thought 
 of it." 
 
 "Your mother?" 
 
 A smile flitted across her face. 
 
 " She understands restlessness," she answered. 
 
 "And your father?" 
 
 69
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " He would think it right if I succeeded, and wrong 
 if I failed." 
 
 Robert nodded. 
 
 " I know ! Well, let us go in and win, Brooke. I 
 have much at stake." 
 
 " And I want to please you." 
 
 He knit his brows. 
 
 " Don't say that. I want you to be ambitious for 
 yourself." 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " You shouldn't have made me love you if you 
 wanted me to be famous. I have not genius enough for 
 both destinies. Remember, there was a time when you 
 didn't want me to leave Trenthampton." 
 
 " The logic is irreproachable. I thought then I was 
 to be here. You see, I want you with me wherever I 
 am. I believe you could do great things in town, how- 
 ever." 
 
 " Oh, if I went to the city I suppose the spark would 
 kindle," she said, laughing. " When would you go ? " 
 
 "As soon as possible." 
 
 " I would like to stay until Richard has begun to 
 talk," she said wistfully. 
 
 Robert frowned. 
 
 " Brooke," he said sternly, " if you're going to put 
 a baby between you and destiny you'll never succeed." 
 
 " But such a baby, Robert ! " 
 
 He laughed in spite of himself, then looked away with 
 a little sigh. He wished that she were not so true, so 
 good, so reliable. He feared that she would leave too 
 little to his imagination.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 JAMES ERSKINE was pacing up and down the garden 
 path in front of his house, endeavoring to put into rela- 
 tive order the points of an important interview which he 
 had just had with his son. He was himself in that rest- 
 less, apprehensive state of mind which, awakening the 
 gambling instinct, sees in any change the chance of a 
 favorable change of fortune. 
 
 The older man within him, cautious, wary, and half 
 discouraged, called upon him to take no negative stand 
 in the matter of Robert's migration, but to protest against 
 it as a throw of the dice in the dark; but his adolescent 
 spirit, though long overlaid by experience, was more 
 than inclined to aid the young adventurer. 
 
 He threw away his cigar at last and walked quickly 
 toward the house, resolving to ease the burden of his 
 indecision by sharing it with his wife. Her patient care 
 of him in these past weeks, her perfect command of the 
 whole gamut of silence, had awakened in him the spirit 
 of dependence. Into the mists of the future he had no 
 desire to go alone. 
 
 He found her at her desk sorting letters. Her smile 
 of welcome gave him courage to begin. She listened 
 without interruption while he related Robert's plans, un- 
 consciously apologizing for them, justifying them, laying 
 the emphasis on every possible advantage to accrue from 
 them. 
 
 " Well ? " he said when he had finished his plea. 
 
 He saw in her face that she wanted to agree with 
 71
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 him, but could not. He wondered whether her reluctance 
 was bom of the maternal desire to keep her son near her, 
 or of some sterner principle. 
 
 " Let us be honest with each other," she said at last. 
 " Do you want to know what I really think ? " 
 
 " You need not tell me," he answered. " I see you 
 think it best for Robert to remain here." 
 
 She looked up with a deprecating smile. 
 
 " I have no reasons that would satisfy you. I simply 
 want him near me." 
 
 " He will never make much money here," Erskine 
 said, the look of care deepening in his eyes. 
 
 "Does that matter?" 
 
 " He is not St. Francis of Assisi," Erskine answered 
 impatiently. "If he can't make money he should cease 
 to be an American citizen." 
 
 The bitterness in his voice told her much. She laid 
 her hand gently on his arm. 
 
 " But Robert's chance of making much money in the 
 city is most uncertain. Besides, it will take some capital 
 to set him up." 
 
 Erskine nodded, but did not reply at once. 
 
 " I am thinking of surrender," he said at last, with 
 a weary accent. " If I fight Winwood much longer I'll 
 have nothing to give up. If I sell out now, I'll have a 
 little capital at least, which, properly invested, will keep 
 us going if we retrench here. You're such a wonderful 
 housekeeper, Margaret, that I can ask it of you," he said 
 with a smile that seemed sadder to her than his gravity. 
 
 ' Tell me the business situation. Explain it to me 
 in full," she replied, settling herself in her chair. 
 
 He began his story awkwardly, conscious of the dumb 
 years between them. But after a time he was aware only 
 
 72
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 of his relief in speaking out. She listened with masculine 
 fixedness of attention, keeping, by a strong effort, her 
 feeling from her face, lest such a running commentary 
 should curb his frankness. When he had finished, she 
 said: 
 
 " By all means sell out, and get clear of Winwood. 
 It isn't as if Robert could ever carry on the business. 
 I don't care what the price of freedom is." 
 
 " Nor I. Now about the boy. Would you be will- 
 ing for me to set him up in town ? " 
 
 He looked at her anxiously, an expression of apology 
 in his tired eyes. 
 
 " I wouldn't invest much capital in such an enter- 
 prise." 
 
 " But you have always been so ambitious for him," 
 he said reproachfully. 
 
 She was silent for some moments; then she said: 
 
 " I am ambitious for him, but not in that way. I 
 wanted him to be Dr. Gorton's successor. What does 
 Brooke think?" 
 
 " He has made his going conditional on her going," 
 Erskine replied. " She will try to get literary work of 
 some kind." 
 
 " God help her ! " Mrs. Erskine said, half under her 
 breath. 
 
 Her husband, after a moment's silence, turned and 
 left the room. When he came back he had his hat and 
 cane in his hand. 
 
 " I am going up to see Winwood," he said. 
 
 "To tell him?" 
 
 " What I should have told him weeks ago ; but I had 
 more courage then." 
 
 "That you will sell?" 
 
 6 73
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " That I will sell." He twisted his hat in his hands 
 nervously, then, looking up, he added with an attempt 
 at a smile: 
 
 " We'll place Robert in the van of our fortunes." 
 
 She rose and went over to him. 
 
 " Whatever you do, whatever happens, I will never 
 blame you," she said quietly. " We have come too far 
 together for blame now." 
 
 For answer he kissed her cheek. The color stole into 
 her face. His act, annihilating the years, restored to her 
 for an instant the lover of her youth. 
 
 Robert and Brooke meanwhile were answering Dr. 
 Gorton's inquiries, as searching and direct as those of 
 a lawyer. Whatever Brooke felt, Robert at least had the 
 sensation of facing a glare of light which achromatized 
 certain hues in his picture of the future. 
 
 They were seated in the office, brightened on this late 
 September day by a wood-fire, which threw charming 
 lights and shadows on the brown walls, and foretold the 
 delicate poetry of winter. Brooke, in a red gown, seemed 
 a part of the comfort of the place. She was gazing into 
 the fire, taking little part in the conversation, but from 
 time to time she turned her large, brown eyes toward 
 Robert with a reassuring smile. In the past week she felt 
 that she had come closer to him than ever before, as a 
 woman does to the man who is taking her with him into 
 the perilous sweetness of the unknown and the untried. 
 Sharing his dreams, his hopes, his ambitions, she seemed 
 wooed the second time. Her reluctance to leave her 
 mother had not diminished, but the strongest of all 
 forces was arrayed against it. Wherever Robert was 
 would be home to her. Under his stimulus her ambitions 
 were again awakening, though not in their earlier guise. 
 
 74
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 They all led now to him. Yet the vision of the city was 
 not without its charm ; she remembered it as she Had last 
 seen it, in an opalescent cloud of sunset reflected in the 
 great river that bounded it, its giant buildings soaring 
 toward the unattainable, its multitudinous echoes rising, 
 blending into a choral passion of a world as wide as 
 humanity itself. Was she strong enough to live there? 
 she asked herself more than once. 
 
 After a time Dr. Corton ceased to question, and be- 
 came apparently absorbed in thought. He leaned his 
 white head against the high back of his wooden chair, 
 his face flushed, as if with some protest that he would not 
 give voice to prematurely or unadvisedly; his strong 
 hands, singularly free from the disfigurements of old 
 age, fingered a ruler on his desk. Robert was wishing 
 that his godfather would give an opinion one way or the 
 other. This silence seemed to put him in the wrong. 
 
 But it deepened, broken only by the crackling of the 
 wood, the soft tap of flying leaves against the window- 
 panes. Once Brooke started, hearing a cry, as she 
 thought, of something wandering outside. 
 
 " It is the wind at the door," Robert said in a low 
 voice. 
 
 He waited respectfully for some word of approval or 
 disapproval from his godfather, but none came. At last 
 the old man rose, with a weariness of attitude, and went 
 toward the fireplace, his shoulders bent, the look of his 
 great age more clearly upon him than they had ever seen 
 it. Opening the door of a corner cupboard, sacred to 
 them as children for its store of nuts and sweets, he took 
 from it a plate of fruit. The action, so trifling in itself, 
 seemed to Brooke and Robert to put them back again 
 to the time when, seated in the office chairs, their little 
 
 75-
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 feet could not touch the floor. So for the next half-hour 
 the old physician held them in the past, nor did he refer 
 again to the subject of their migration until they were 
 taking leave; then he said: 
 
 " I didn't advise you, Robert, because your mind was 
 made up before you came to me. As you know what 
 you want, I'll help you all I can." 
 
 Robert murmured his thanks, glad, he scarcely knew 
 why, to get away from his godfather's keen eyes. Yet 
 he told himself that he had nothing to hide. He and 
 Brooke were now in perfect agreement as to their plans. 
 The city was to be their battle-ground, their Field 
 of Life. 
 
 They did not leave the place at once, but, led by a 
 common instinct, sought a little hill behind the apple 
 orchard. From its summit the autumn world was un- 
 rolled before them with its gorgeous colors of decay, its 
 pageant of ineffable farewells. Evening crept up the 
 mountainside, accompanied by the hollow voices of the 
 wind. Robert and Brooke, absorbed in thought, did not 
 seem to see the landscape. At last she moved nearer to 
 him, and he saw that she shivered. 
 
 " Dear, are you cold ? Shall we walk on ? " 
 
 " No, not cold. I had a strange, ugly fancy for a 
 moment." 
 
 "What was it?" 
 
 " An incredible thing. It is gone now." 
 
 All the light had faded from her face, which, in the 
 shadows of the approaching evening, looked pale and 
 weary. He put his arm around her with a protecting 
 gesture and bent repentant lips to her forehead.
 
 BOOK II 
 THE CITY 
 
 "And is it not reasonable that all men should desire to be 
 of a City such as that, and take no account of the length and diffi- 
 culty of the way thither, so only they may one day become its 
 freemen?"
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 "Do you doubt me?" 
 
 " No, but I doubt your powers of discernment. You 
 speak to me as if I were an embryonic St. Theresa. I 
 tell you I am perfectly selfish, that I have no higher 
 desire than to exclude, as far as possible, the ugly and the 
 disagreeable from my life." 
 
 Olivia enjoyed telling the truth to Paul Mallory 
 because he never believed it if it ran counter in the slight- 
 est degree to his preconceived ideal of her. He looked 
 at her now with an incredulous expression in his large 
 blue eyes, singularly uncontaminate, as if they saw only 
 what they wished to see. 
 
 He belonged to one of the oldest and wealthiest 
 families of the city, and until his acquaintance began with 
 Olivia he had never stepped outside his inherited social 
 circle, in which he had a reputation for taciturnity and 
 unyouthful gravity that some attributed to depth of char- 
 acter, others to an early disappointment in love. A more 
 striking trait was a faith in his claims of birth so abso- 
 lute that his devotion to Olivia filled him continually with 
 surprise, as did her adaptation to environments of which 
 by training she could know nothing. A more astute man 
 could have easily divined the secret of her rapid social 
 ascent from the financial plateau represented by Henry 
 Winwood. Olivia never " climbed," was devoted to her 
 parents, was, apparently, indifferent as to whether people 
 received her or not; invited whom she pleased to her 
 
 79
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 house, and carried her courage and her nonchalance into 
 the first high place open to her, with the result that other 
 citadels soon surrendered to her supreme unconcern. 
 
 Mallory, too much of a gentleman at heart to insist 
 upon the aristocratic rigidities in others which had bul- 
 warked his own beautiful family and transmitted its 
 powerful negativity from generation to generation, was 
 led into further compliance by the strongest attraction 
 which he had ever experienced in the course of his well- 
 regulated existence. Almost since his first meeting with 
 Olivia, a year or two before, she had dominated his heart 
 and awakened his somewhat sluggish imagination. He 
 was resolved to win her, but as yet he had not had the 
 courage to face a possible refusal. 
 
 " I can not believe," he said in his low, well-modulated 
 voice, " that you are without feeling." 
 
 "What is the use of feeling?" she said lightly. 
 " When you begin to feel you begin to demand, and when 
 you begin to demand you open yourself to denials. The 
 masters of life never have ' no ' said to them. Don't 
 look frightened," she added, smiling, " I am seldom 
 oracular; and please, will you put the bowl of violets a 
 little this way. The yellow damask is a good back- 
 ground." 
 
 He rose and moved the bowl nearer the curtain. The 
 long, pale-yellow room was in a rich twilight, a mingling 
 of the radiance of candles with the clear yellow of an 
 autumn sunset. The windows overlooked the great river 
 that bounded the city on the west. 
 
 " I fear that I am not a master then," Mallory said, 
 resuming his seat. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " she questioned. 
 
 He was silent a long time. The pride of a man who 
 80
 
 THE CITY 
 
 dreads refusal struggled with the strong current of his 
 feeling. 
 
 " Olivia," he said at last, " you must know that I love 
 you. I ask you to be my wife." 
 
 His boyish face was turned to her with an almost 
 hieratic gravity. She knew in a moment that he would 
 be faithful, that he would wait for her as long as she 
 chose. 
 
 Her own face was thoughtful, not untouched with 
 melancholy. She was wondering how she could answer 
 him without hurting him too much. She never hurt 
 people unless it was necessary to bind them more closely 
 to herself, realizing that pain has a longer memory 
 than joy. 
 
 " It is better," she said, " that you and I remain 
 friends, Paul. I am afraid that you could not make me 
 happy in any other relation, and unless I were happy you 
 would be miserable. As a friend you content me. Isn't 
 that a great deal ? " 
 
 " No," he said in a dull, hurt voice, " it is little. I 
 want bread. You offer me a stone." 
 
 " You are mistaken," she answered. " You want 
 wine." 
 
 " I want you." 
 
 " You want what you think I am." 
 
 "But you don't know yourself," he said earnestly; 
 " you were made for great things." 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " What great things could I do as your wife ? pre- 
 side at your dinners, entertain your friends and be enter- 
 tained by them. If I am made for great things, least of 
 all must I marry into the circle of the elect." 
 
 Her voice was satirical, but her eyes made amends. 
 81
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " Oh, I don't pretend we're anything but sheep," he 
 said humbly; yet he was dazed by her refusal, by her 
 criticism of what had been to him the holy of holies. 
 But this indifference to all that he could offer her only 
 increased his ardor. 
 
 " Let us be friends at least," she said. " Do you know 
 how much harder it is, how much greater it is, to be a 
 good friend than a lover? In friendship you have to for- 
 get your egotism and your demands; you have to be 
 brave and gay, and as impersonal as sunlight." 
 
 "How can I change my feeling?" he said bitterly. 
 " I am not going in for heroics. I want you." 
 
 " You are not the hundredth man," she replied. " I 
 can't expect you to be my friend." 
 
 " I have no extraordinary virtues." 
 
 " And we are always looking for those," she said, 
 sighing. 
 
 " So you refuse me." 
 
 " I do not refuse your friendship." 
 
 " Do you want me to have a desolate winter after my 
 wretched summer ? " 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " Did you have a wretched summer? Mine was 
 delightful. I had two friends who were always enter- 
 taining." 
 
 " They were fortunate if they had the power to enter- 
 tain you." 
 
 " No, I was the fortunate one." 
 
 " Did they really find your heart, these friends ? " 
 
 " They found my imagination, which is better." 
 
 " Olivia, you are cruel." 
 
 "If that is your theory you can order your armor." 
 
 " It is too late. I'll have to win without it. Olivia, 
 82
 
 THE CITY 
 
 I shall ask you again to be my wife. I shall keep on 
 asking until you consent." 
 
 He rose and stood before her with a dignity and con- 
 fidence that pleased her. She liked a man who would 
 not acknowledge defeat. 
 
 " I'll not consent until you can prove something 
 to me." 
 
 " What is that ? " he asked eagerly. 
 
 " That I love you." 
 
 His discomfited look was his only answer. 
 
 When he was gone she gave her whole attention to an 
 unseen visitor. She had been now a month in town and 
 Robert had not called on her. His delay had joined 
 forces with her lesser self, arousing in her the desire to 
 exercise upon him when he did come certain arts of which 
 she was mistress. Olivia obeyed the law of contraries. 
 To give her what she wished was to be safer with her 
 than to cross her will. 
 
 But in this case paradox was, after all, but a minor 
 influence. With her usual frankness in self-analysis she 
 knew that at last she was in the subordinate position of 
 a woman who both feels and demands. Just what she 
 felt for Robert she scarcely knew. What she was sure 
 of was the dividing of her roads. She would never marry 
 a provincial; yet a provincial, a man whose family was 
 unknown and unrecognized by those ultimate circles of 
 the city toward which her well-concealed ambition gravi- 
 tated, was, by the irony of fate, the only person who had 
 ever aroused in her the sense of not being complete in 
 herself. 
 
 Because this was so, it seemed perfectly natural to 
 her to theorize concerning a possible marriage with Rob- 
 ert. That he was engaged to Brooke had been from the 
 
 83
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 first but an incident to her. She not only held the 
 American view of engagements, as experiments more or 
 less of the strength of an attachment, but this attitude of 
 mind was reenforced by her genuine mistrust of emo- 
 tion, and by a kind of fatalistic instinct. Though she 
 had never before used her power to separate lovers, show- 
 ing them the mercies of indifference, her very deliberate- 
 ness in this case had told her not so much that she 
 wished to win Robert, as that she herself was won. 
 
 Paul Mallory's face rose before her, its somewhat 
 negative goodness suggestive of illimitable monotony. 
 She wondered why goodness was so often lacking in 
 color, why people were all alike in paradise, but retained 
 their splendid differences in the circles of the inferno. 
 
 Her father's heavy step awoke her from her reverie. 
 
 " Where's mother ? " he said, pausing in the doorway. 
 
 " She is at a charity musicale the kind at which 
 everybody looks so glad they're wealthy." 
 
 He crossed the room, and stood for a moment by her, 
 his hand resting affectionately on her shoulder. 
 
 " Season's begun, eh ! I saw that young Mallory 
 leaving the house, looking solemn as an owl. I bet dol- 
 lars to doughnuts you've been fooling with him." 
 
 " He asked me to marry him," Olivia said. 
 
 " He did, eh ! and he belongs to the big Mallory 
 family, doesn't he ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Why, you're coming on, Olivia. You're a match 
 for any of 'em. It will be a dook next, and your mother 
 will have a coronet on her note-paper," he said com- 
 placently. 
 
 Olivia laughed. 
 
 " She wouldn't be entitled to use it, dear. No, you'll 
 84
 
 THE CITY 
 
 never be father-in-law to a duke." She paused, then 
 added : 
 
 " I want to ask you a question. Did James Erskine 
 sell out to you absolutely? " 
 
 " Yes, he did, just in the nick of time, too. He saved 
 his skin, that's all." 
 
 " Not much capital, then? " 
 
 " Depends on what you call much. I guess he set 
 his son up on some of it. Have you seen the Doctor 
 since he came to town? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " No ; he hasn't called." She paused, then added, 
 " I am glad Mr. Erskine sold out. I didn't want you 
 to gobble him up." 
 
 " Not a big mouthful," Winwood said with a little 
 grunt. " An old-fashioned business man hasn't any right 
 to be in business." 
 
 The reflection seemed to awaken other reminiscences 
 not wholly pleasant, for the capitalist continued to 
 grumble half audibly. 
 
 "Won't you sit down, father?" 
 
 " Not on one of those spider-legged chairs. The 
 library for me." 
 
 " Then, if you'll excuse me, I'll go and write a note." 
 
 She crossed the hall to a little study, and sitting down 
 at a desk began to write. She tore up sheet after sheet, 
 and finally wrote three lines: 
 
 " I miss you enough to tell you so, my friend. What 
 you and Brooke give me is a rare enough thing in my 
 life. Come soon. 
 
 " OLIVIA."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 BROOKE'S first impression as she entered the office, to 
 which she was admitted by a crooked-featured boy, all 
 suspicion and freckles, was of an abnormally high room 
 with vast dirty windows which dimmed the light already 
 made precious by the close proximity of tall buildings; 
 of an atmosphere thick and faintly blue with cigar smoke ; 
 of a row of tense figures bending over a long table. 
 Beyond this table were a set of offices, into which un- 
 healthy looking men were hurrying with perturbed ex- 
 pressions and invariably coming out with expressions 
 still more perturbed. Innumerable telephones seemed to 
 be ringing, and above the hubbub Brooke distinctly heard 
 a clear, ironical voice swearing slowly, but with enormous 
 emphasis, down a speaking tube. 
 
 All this she observed from the chair near the door, 
 into which the office boy had put her before he took her 
 letter of introduction to the managing editor. Alec 
 Kempton had written it. Alec had once lived in Trent- 
 hampton, but was now Sunday editor of a city paper. 
 He and his wife Ethelberta lived in a flat in the vast 
 northern wilderness of the town, and Brooke and Robert 
 were to dine with them that evening. 
 
 As she saw the office boy returning to her with a 
 languid step suggestive of blue uniforms a shiver went 
 through her. She gave a little nervous cough to be 
 sure that her throat was clear for speaking. 
 
 " Come this way," he said wearily. 
 
 As she passed in front of the reporters' table a com- 
 86
 
 THE CITY 
 
 posite scowl went down the line which, in lieu of a first 
 and last greeting, was to be replaced thereafter and for- 
 ever by a composite look of perfect indifference. Brooke 
 felt that the old hymn, " Oh, to be nothing, nothing! " 
 would be peculiarly appropriate to the impersonal condi- 
 tions of a newspaper office. Alec's words rang in her 
 ears, " Never ask a question if you can help it, never 
 make a comment, never show feeling." 
 
 The managing editor had hair which stood straight 
 up, the keenest blue eyes, and that look of aged youth 
 characteristic of everybody in the office, an over-bright, 
 sleepless, consumed appearance, as if they would all die 
 in their thirties, with their ears to telephones and with 
 big cigars in their mouths. 
 
 The great man looked intently at her for a moment, 
 asked her three or four questions, all the while tapping 
 his desk with a stump of a pencil, and keeping up a 
 tattoo with his foot on the bare floor. He seemed eaten 
 up with an intensity of energy which was like the inex- 
 orable workings of a fully charged machine. Brooke felt 
 that she must vanish quickly or the machine would 
 go off. 
 
 " Well, report to-morrow, then, at eleven. Good 
 afternoon, Miss Peyton." 
 
 It was over. She drew a long breath, and her heart 
 again beat naturally. Only the world-weary expression 
 of the office boy kept her from smiling at him as she 
 passed him in his horrid little cage, where he sat biting 
 viciously at an apple and reading a penny-dreadful. 
 
 She went through the big marble corridors as if on 
 wings. Outside, a crisp, golden October day was dying 
 amid vast splendors thrown up against the monumental 
 buildings, those walls of canons the antipodes of nature's 
 
 8?
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 architecture. The wonder of this city was increasing 
 upon Brooke, and as she stood now for an instant watch- 
 ing the surging throngs that swept by her like the tumults 
 of a dream; as she saw the last light fade from the 
 heights above her, and blue fires flash out suddenly 
 through the soft, thick, dusty violet of the enveloping 
 atmosphere, the poetry of it surmounted whatever it might 
 hold of sordidness or tragedy. She rejoiced to be a part 
 of this throbbing, battling life, forgetting in that moment 
 her first three weeks of discouragement, homesickness, 
 and doubt of the wisdom of a venture whose determining 
 course was not altogether clear to her. 
 
 Robert was to call for her at the " studio " where she 
 was living with her Aunt Angelica, a publisher's reader, 
 and the type of a spinster found, perhaps, only in the 
 metropolis, a woman who at forty has earned all the 
 privileges of a matron by her single-handed battle with 
 the hostile forces of the town. 
 
 The big room with its north light, its gray denim 
 walls covered sparsely with pictures in gray tones, its 
 books, its casts, its " intellectual " look, seemed to Brooke 
 typical of her aunt's life, from which all the warmer 
 colors had been, perforce, eliminated, leaving a dry, clear 
 residuum, eminently serviceable, but to the betrothed girl 
 unspeakably dreary. She had met many of her aunt's 
 friends since her arrival, women who were " doing some- 
 thing " ; but to Brooke, even their enthusiasms seemed 
 substitutions, as if they flew about so feverishly because 
 they had missed, either by their own will or through 
 necessity, the greatest of all destinies. When she was 
 with them she felt her own coming joy of wifehood upon 
 her forehead like a crown. 
 
 She found her aunt making tea. Angelica Peyton 
 88
 
 THE CITY 
 
 looked like her poet brother, Charles, but her face held 
 an element of strength which his lacked. She would 
 grow handsomer as she grew older, her iron-gray hair, 
 her glasses, her erect carriage and severely plain dress, 
 already lending her an air of distinction. She looked up 
 with a pleased expression as Brooke entered. The girl 
 had become a bright bit of color in her life. 
 
 Brooke related her experiences, clothing in fresh form 
 what was to Angelica an old story. 
 
 " I can't understand how you find it picturesque," she 
 said at the end of her niece's rhapsody. " It's a great, 
 ugly, noisy place." 
 
 " But did you never see the poetry of it ? " Brooke 
 asked. 
 
 " Years ago I made a desperate fight to preserve the 
 sense of romance, but I ended with discovering every 
 sterility the city has to offer. Two years ago I gave up 
 the last farce of trying to imagine that I had a home 
 because I was living with two or three women in an 
 apartment. When I began to live alone, and acknowl- 
 edged the fact that my room was a cell, and I a member 
 of that order of spinster-nuns whose rule is compre- 
 hended in the duties of bread-winning, and whose patron 
 saint is this iron town, I felt better." 
 
 " Did you never want to marry ? " 
 
 " Of course I did. But I never attracted men. Per- 
 haps I was too independent. I had to be. I had no one 
 to look after me." 
 
 Brooke sat silent wondering what kind of a desert life 
 would be without love. 
 
 " Robert is coming for me after his clinic," she said. 
 " We are going to dine with Alec Kempton and Ethel- 
 berta." 
 
 7 89
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " Poor Ethelberta ! " Angelica said with a grim smile. 
 " The last time I saw her she told me she was down on 
 the black list of the apartment agencies, as a woman 
 likely at any time to have a new baby. The flat they 
 have now is too small, and they can't get in anywhere 
 else, because of the size of their family." 
 
 After a while Robert came for her, and they started 
 on the long, somewhat perilous journey to the far 
 north. Under his surface good spirits, Brooke dis- 
 cerned signs of fatigue. Contrary to her usual custom 
 she questioned him. 
 
 " You are not working too hard ? " 
 
 " No, indeed ! If I hadn't fitted up a laboratory in 
 that office of mine I'd go mad waiting there. I look 
 forward to the clinics as if they were special performances 
 of grand opera." 
 
 " And the hospital appointment ? " 
 
 "You mean as out-physician? I'm pretty sure of 
 getting that. Dr. Gorton has a number of pulls, and 
 he has been awfully decent and kind considering how 
 much he wanted me to remain in Trenthampton." 
 
 " Is your home news good? " Brooke ventured. 
 
 " My mother writes that my father wanders about 
 like a lost soul. The sale of the business was a terrible 
 trial to him." 
 
 The question was unfortunate, for Robert went into 
 a brooding silence from which he was only roused by 
 the necessity of showing some appreciation of the elabo- 
 rate preparations made in Brooke's and his honor by 
 Ethelberta Kempton, who gave her townsfolk a greedy 
 welcome. She was a little, mercurial woman with very 
 natural tastes and instincts striving constantly to break 
 through the limitations which hedge in middle-class ex-
 
 THE CITY 
 
 istence in the city. With her arms about Brooke she 
 told her in one breath that she was never so glad to see 
 any one in her life, that the janitor had served a term 
 in Sing Sing, and that the dropsical plums on the dining- 
 room ceiling had almost driven her and Alec to suicide. 
 
 " Say you don't like this horrible town, that's a dear! 
 Alec says we're making more money, but then we have 
 so many more ways to spend it, and no comfort! Dar- 
 ling, just look at this mouse-trap. Everything folds up 
 except the radiators. I'm not joking. And just think of 
 those acres and acres about Trenthampton. The dear 
 place! Oh, Brooke, there are days when I'm crazy for 
 a sight of the mountains ! " 
 
 She babbled on, as if it gave relief to an over-full 
 heart. After a time Alec came in, a long-legged, narrow- 
 chested man of thirty-five, with good-natured eyes, and 
 the alert look of the newspaper editor, now dimmed a 
 little with fatigue. But after the somewhat ceremonious 
 dinner at which he was forced to relax, his youth seemed 
 to come back to him ; and by dessert they were all very 
 merry together, though Brooke was conscious that Rob- 
 ert's good spirits were more or less forced. 
 
 They exchanged their plans and hopes and ambitions. 
 Ethelberta and Alec as pioneers related their experiences, 
 the summing up of the whole matter seeming to be that 
 the city was like a beautiful woman of the world. If 
 you were diffident, she scorned or overlooked you. If 
 you were daring, you might conquer her. 
 
 When Brooke and Robert went out into the night, 
 both were for a long time silent. He spoke at last sud- 
 denly and impetuously: 
 
 " Dear, I couldn't live as Alec and Ethelberta do. I'd 
 rather be dead." 
 
 91
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " That isn't very kind to them when they've just en- 
 tertained us." 
 
 " I don't mean it in a personal sense. What I mean 
 is, I couldn't endure the littleness of such a life. Alec 
 had no right to obliterate Ethelberta in this town. Only 
 the rich can be really metropolitans." 
 
 "But what of you and me so dramatically poor?" 
 she said with a little laugh. 
 
 " Ah, but we're not married." 
 
 The words chilled her. 
 
 " But suppose we never get rich or famous ? " she 
 replied with a little break in her voice. 
 
 In an instant he was himself again, self-reproach and 
 tenderness in his face. 
 
 " Dear, I'm tired, and the gulf between my ambitions 
 and where I am now seems so great to-night. I would 
 give you everything, everything in the world." 
 
 " Your love is enough," she answered. 
 
 He made no reply. 
 
 At her door he said, with an effort to appear entirely 
 unconcerned : 
 
 " I had a note from Olivia this morning. It appears 
 that she thinks of us, even though she is in town. Come 
 under the electric light. I want you to read it." 
 
 A shadow passed over Brooke's face as she read the 
 note. She handed it back to him without a word. 
 
 " She she seems really to miss us," Robert said. 
 
 Brooke nodded. 
 
 " Yes, it is very friendly." 
 
 " Can you go up with me there to-morrow evening? " 
 
 " I am going with Aunt Angelica to a concert." 
 
 "The next night, then?" 
 
 " I'd rather you wouldn't wait for me. I don't owe 
 92
 
 THE CITY 
 
 Olivia a call. Please go to-morrow night, Robert. I'll 
 I'll enjoy the concert better if I know you are being 
 taken care of." 
 
 He laughed uneasily. 
 
 " Olivia has a genius for playing hostess." 
 
 " Go and be guest then." 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 " Don't take my mood to-night too seriously, sweet- 
 heart. We'll win out together." 
 
 " I can do anything with you near me," she answered 
 in a low voice. 
 
 He raised his head, looking upward as if to see in the 
 night-depths an open way, but the electric light blotted 
 out the stars. 
 
 93
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 ROBERT had purposely refrained from calling on 
 Olivia because the episode of the rose could by no jug- 
 glery be fitted into the incidents of friendship. The 
 alternative he would not acknowledge. 
 
 A minor reason was his desire to establish himself 
 on a firmer basis in town before renewing an acquaintance 
 in which he was constantly aware of his unequal for- 
 tunes. The sale of the business, however it had de- 
 pressed his father, had been to him a source of keen 
 pleasure, because it removed between him and Olivia a 
 barrier of which he had always had a humiliating con- 
 sciousness. To be clear of Winwood was the first step 
 toward independence. 
 
 Yet the fact that he had longed for its removal was 
 the matrix of self-accusations. That Brooke was not all 
 in all to him, seemed to him all the more inexplicable 
 because she was still the beloved friend of his childhood, 
 holding complete her fair and tender charm, her many 
 consolations. He had to acknowledge, however, that 
 beyond the last comfort, the last tenderness she could 
 offer him was a region of magnificent distances ruled by 
 a woman who might be saint or coquette, but who 
 possessed to a high degree the divine power of troubling 
 souls. 
 
 His resolution of resisting her influence being of the 
 mind, and not of the heart, crumbled before the power 
 of her little note. After all she might be in real need of 
 his and Brooke's friendship. 
 
 When he called on the following evening the footman 
 94
 
 THE CITY 
 
 ushered him, not into the drawing-room, but into a little 
 octagonal study or library-boudoir, where, it would ap- 
 pear, Olivia had for once consented to express herself. 
 The gray-tinted walls were divided between Whistler and 
 Goya. The ineffable grays and blues of an Eastern rug 
 were repeated in the hangings. The fireplace mantel of 
 carved black oak bore vases and jars of the same ancient 
 blue, which were filled on this evening with sprays of 
 mignonette and narcissus. On the rug before the fire lay 
 a large Angora cat, black as the plague of darkness. 
 
 The warmth and silence of the room closed in upon 
 Robert like a curtain, and invited reverie. When he 
 looked up, at last, Olivia was sitting opposite to him, her 
 eyes full of laughter. 
 
 " I was wondering when you would deign to notice 
 me. Were you hypnotized by the fire? I can scarcely 
 blame you. Those driftwood flames are beautiful." 
 
 He had risen, an embarrassment in his face which 
 seemed caused by something of more importance than her 
 mysterious entrance. 
 
 " When did you come in ? Your feet must be winged 
 like Mercury's." 
 
 " Never mind when. I found a guest whose spirit 
 was apparently a thousand miles away. As a courteous 
 hostess I could only be silent and await his return." 
 
 Robert smiled grimly. 
 
 " I have never left this room. What is the name of 
 your Grimalkin here? He has ignored me like a prince." 
 
 For answer she stooped over and drew the mass of 
 black fur into her lap, where it blended with her dress 
 so perfectly that only the round golden eyes showed the 
 living creature. 
 
 " Dr. Erskine, allow me to introduce to you Dr. Faus- 
 95
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 tus of ancient lineage and illimitable wisdom. ' He 
 knows what Rameses knows. He has seen the mystery 
 hid under Egypt's pyramid,' " she quoted quaintly. 
 
 Robert leaned over to stroke the cat. His hand 
 touched Olivia's, and he drew back suddenly. 
 
 " Why did you not bring Brooke ? " 
 
 " You owe her a call, do you not ? " Robert said with 
 a touch of resentment. 
 
 Olivia sighed. 
 
 " So she is not yet my friend. I did not know Brooke 
 was so conventional. Is this what the town is doing to 
 her and to you, Robert ? " 
 
 He looked up, trying to meet her eyes steadily. 
 
 " What do you mean, if I may ask ? " 
 
 " I mean that you have not shown yourself very 
 friendly to me since you came here." 
 
 " Does it make any difference to you ? " he asked, 
 aware of the clumsiness of the question as soon as he 
 had asked it. 
 
 " Of course it does," she answered frankly. " You 
 do not want your friends to forget you." 
 
 " I did not forget you." 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " Your way of showing your remembrance was singu- 
 larly negative. Let me remind you, Faustus, that your 
 paws are not wholly of velvet." 
 
 The cat had leaped lazily to her shoulder, and was 
 perched there, emphasizing the whiteness of her bare 
 arm, over which his plume of a tail swept grandly. After 
 a moment of delicate poise, he made a noiseless spring to 
 a cabinet just behind her, where he curled himself up 
 with infinite comfort among some images of ivory. 
 
 " I have been working hard," Robert said. 
 96
 
 THE CITY 
 
 " Where is your office ? " 
 
 " It is in an old-fashioned part of the town, but it is 
 near my clinics, and the difference in rent is quite an 
 item when you're just setting up." 
 
 " Of course," Olivia said, a note of sympathy in her 
 voice that at once transformed her into the practical 
 woman. Robert found it hard to resist her when she 
 entered into the moods and situations of persons whose 
 experiences must have been difficult for her to under- 
 stand, even in imagination. 
 
 " Tell me of your hospital work. Does it appeal to 
 your dramatic sense ? to your heart ? or to your head ? " 
 
 Robert smiled. He wished that Brooke would ask 
 him such questions, forgetting that she had long passed 
 the stage when she analyzed her lover. 
 
 " I think it appeals to the whole of me. Healing 
 seems to demand something far beyond the mere knowl- 
 edge which the healer possesses." 
 
 " You believe, then, in establishing personal relations 
 with your patients ? " 
 
 " In so far as such relations would be stimulating to 
 them. Often their souls are ill or starved, when they 
 believe it is their bodies." 
 
 Olivia smiled. 
 
 " So you believe in souls ? " 
 
 " Do you not ? " he counter-questioned. 
 
 " I have never been uncomfortably aware of my own. 
 People who possess ' souls ' seem to be in a state of un- 
 rest. I would rather be poised on a low plane than tot- 
 tering on a high one," she added with a little laugh. 
 
 Robert's face grew grave. 
 
 " But you are made for the high plane, for the things 
 of the spirit." 
 
 97
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 She gave an impatient gesture. 
 
 " I don't believe half of you people know what you 
 mean when you talk about the things of the spirit : except 
 something perhaps that is infinitely more of a luxury 
 and an indulgence than any pleasure the senses offer." 
 
 Contempt was in her voice and face. Robert had the 
 sensation of wishing to look over and rearrange his cabi- 
 net of ideals. 
 
 " You don't believe in the sincerities of religious feel- 
 ing, then?" he ventured. 
 
 " When it leads to action, yes ; when it is to get rid 
 of a load of superfluous emotion, no," she said impa- 
 tiently. 
 
 " It is at least an innocent way of getting rid of it," 
 Robert answered. 
 
 To his surprise a slow flush crept up her forehead. 
 An instant's anger shone in her eyes. 
 
 " I would rather offer to the gods a withheld than 
 a rejected emotion." 
 
 " Then," Robert said boldly, " they are sure of a per- 
 fect gift. You have always withheld your emotions." 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " You are presumptuous in assuming that I have any 
 to withhold. I fear you've been trained in the romantic 
 school, Robert." 
 
 The slight mockery in her voice turned clear, hard 
 daylight on the conversation. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he asked. 
 
 " Like another friend of mine, you will always see 
 things as you wish them to be, not as they are." 
 
 He bit his lips in vexation. 
 
 " I did not know you knew so much about me," he 
 said with resentment. 
 
 98
 
 THE CITY 
 
 " I like you, and because I like you I'm tempted to 
 study you," she answered with a gentleness that dis- 
 armed him. " After all," she added, " we are all seeking 
 something. It may seem to you a crazy simile, but this 
 big town sometimes appears to me like a vast unfinished 
 cathedral of half-formed thoughts and incomplete experi- 
 ences. There are crypts and towers, forms of saints and 
 devils, crucifixes and strange shapes, shadows and altar 
 lights, Misereres and Te Deums" 
 
 She seemed to be thinking aloud. Robert resented 
 the sympathy her words aroused in him. What if she 
 should triumph over him in the exalted places of human 
 nature? He wished to put her back in her little net of 
 coquetry, that manlike he might feel his superiority even 
 while he yielded to her charm. 
 
 " I haven't a poet's imagination," he commented, 
 " and I can't follow you." 
 
 She laughed, quite unperturbed. 
 
 "Did I ask you to? My little journeys are always 
 taken alone, Robert. Remember that." 
 
 " What place do you occupy in the cathedral, if I 
 may ask ? " 
 
 " The tourist with a Baedeker." 
 
 " I might have known it," he said, rising to take his 
 leave. 
 
 " I am sending an invitation to Brooke to dine with 
 us on Friday of next week. Will you also honor me 
 with your presence ? " 
 
 " I should be charmed." 
 
 " And you say it as if you were reversing the salva- 
 tion of my dinner. Meanwhile will you take me to a 
 clinic?" 
 
 " No, I will not," he answered with emphasis. 
 99
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " Bravo ! Childe Harold ! Always say ' no ' to me, it 
 will be your salvation. Dr. Faustus, get your broomstick 
 and escort Dr. Erskine home." 
 
 100
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 OLIVIA went with him for a much longer distance 
 on his down-town journey than he desired, as if she her- 
 self had undertaken the errand of the cat. Her dark eyes 
 seemed to watch him, ready to mock should he take his 
 tumult of feeling too seriously. He tried to shake off 
 the haunting presence, lest on joining Brooke she should 
 discover that he had not come to her alone. 
 
 She had written him that, instead of going to the 
 concert, she was to report a reception given by a church 
 club to a visiting Cardinal. The note was rosy with her 
 enthusiasm, but its news filled him with a vague sense 
 of self-accusation. He had expected that Brooke would 
 write for the magazines in the seclusion of the studio, 
 taking her new life with more or less unconcern. Least 
 of all did he wish her to enter upon the hard and un- 
 lovely career of a newspaper woman. But she had met 
 each of his opposing arguments with clear logic. Since 
 she had come to town to try her fortune, she must act 
 as if her daily bread were in reality solely dependent upon 
 her own efforts. Robert, listening to her statement of 
 the case, felt a sudden jealous thrill, as if he had delib- 
 erately provided her with substitutes for romance. 
 
 Yet Brooke showed no signs of replacing love with 
 personal ambition. It was evident to him, too evident 
 sometimes, that all she did was done for him. 
 
 To-night he was eager to shut out unpleasant mem- 
 ories with the walls of her affection. The moaning of 
 strange winds sends even adventurous feet to the fireside. 
 
 101
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 He crossed the square bounded by the newspaper 
 buildings, the poetry of the city night blending with the 
 lingering phantasies of a bizarre evening. The electric 
 lights cast strange shadows, in and out of whose black- 
 ness moved figures which had exchanged their common- 
 place character for something of the mystery which in- 
 vests all nocturnal wanderings. Southward an old church 
 guarded its graves, its dwarfed spire dumbly suggestiv 
 of what forces were now paramount. The Beatific Vision 
 had become the crucial million dollars, beyond which all 
 things were possible. 
 
 These ideas passed through Robert's mind as through 
 the mind of an onlooker rather than a judge. In Paris 
 he had never thought of money-making except as a minor 
 incident of life. It was impossible the city was too gay ! 
 To sit at a little table in front of a cafe, in the company 
 of artists or writers, was to be quite content, especially 
 if the sunshine were warm. In the first city of his own 
 country he found himself coming under the spell of an 
 ambition which, though aided in its growth by that city's 
 genius, had its roots primarily in poetry. Olivia, in sur- 
 rounding herself with beauty, had shown him what 
 wealth was for. 
 
 He found Brooke waiting for him in one of the upper 
 corridors of the building, which, despite the lateness of 
 the hour, palpitated with life from its subterranean 
 chambers to the summit of its towers. 
 
 " You have emerged whole and sound ? " he asked 
 her with a smile, noting with satisfaction that she looked 
 confident and happy. 
 
 " My first copy has gone in," she said gaily. " They 
 were so kind to me at the reception, those nice priests. 
 They told me things without my asking. And the Car- 
 
 102
 
 THE CITY 
 
 dinal was like a Titian portrait. He made me think of 
 your letters from abroad, and his voice sounded as if he 
 had spoken nothing but Latin all his life. They had a 
 delicious supper, but I hadn't time to stay for it, and I 
 was so hungry." 
 
 " Are you hungry now, dear ? Shall we hunt up 
 some little restaurant? I feel like night-prowling! " 
 
 " Oh, let's," she said joyously. " Isn't this town in- 
 spiring? " she added as they went out into a street almost 
 as crowded as if the noon sun shone upon it. " I'm 
 beginning to be glad we came, Robert." 
 
 " You weren't glad at first? " 
 
 " No, I missed so many things, and mother's face 
 haunted me, as I last saw it." 
 
 " But she was smiling," Robert said. 
 
 " They always smile when they think you want them 
 to. Oh, what a queer, dear place ! " 
 
 He had taken her into a little German hall, where 
 much art had been shown in the arrangement of pewter 
 flasks and platters above the black-oak wainscoting, and 
 of the great tankards above the fireplace. The frieze, 
 smoke-dimmed, represented scenes from the Nibelungen- 
 lied. About the little round tables many sorts and con- 
 ditions of people were seated, apparently discussing 
 everything from politics and the play to the latest system 
 of philosophy that had rolled cloud-like out of Germany 
 to obscure the spiritual vision of other lands. 
 
 Many glances were cast in the direction of Brooke 
 and Robert as they made their way to a table. These 
 two young people carried about them the bright, inde- 
 finable atmosphere of poets to whom all aspects of the 
 city are as yet but food for speculation or enthusiasm. 
 
 Brooke looked about her for the expected types. 
 103
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " The man at the third table from us sits opposite 
 me at the reporters' desk. He loaned me his paste-pot 
 to-day." 
 
 Robert laughed. 
 
 " What an inscrutable, surprised-at-nothing face. He 
 doesn't look as if he were rolling in wealth." 
 
 " I imagine he is poor. He lunched on apples ; but 
 I don't think he cares." 
 
 " Why should he? With his pipe and that little stein 
 of beer he has probably been off in the Elysian Meadows 
 this half-hour." 
 
 " Tell me about Olivia." 
 
 " She is going to ask you to dinner." 
 
 " I have no gown grand enough for the occasion. I 
 will decline on the plea that I can not leave my work." 
 
 " But, Brooke, you are not going to be haughty and 
 unfriendly just because we are not in Trenthampton ? " 
 
 Brooke looked apologetic. " I don't want to judge 
 for you, Robert, but she is in a circle where a thousand 
 a year will take you, but where ten thousand a year won't 
 take a woman." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he said impatiently. 
 
 " I mean the difference between a black coat and a 
 trousseau, between a street-car and a carriage, between 
 an overcoat and an opera-cloak." 
 
 " I didn't know you were so worldly." 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " I'm not worldly. I'm just a woman." 
 
 " But you accepted Olivia's hospitality in Trenthamp- 
 ton, and you returned it without any question." 
 
 " Of course, because I was in my own home, and I 
 could be queen there presiding over chops and potatoes ! 
 Here everything is different. Our worlds don't touch." 
 
 104
 
 THE CITY 
 
 " But your friendship for her?" 
 
 " That remains. It is not dependent on my attend- 
 ing her dinner. I can see her at odd times the beauti- 
 ful, strange lady," she added, half under her breath. 
 
 " So you do feel her fascination ? " Robert said. 
 
 " Of course," Brooke answered, her eyes responsive. 
 " I understand the charm she has for you, Robert. Please 
 be frank about it, just because I do understand it." 
 
 " You are wonderful," he said impetuously. " What 
 other woman in the whole wide world would say ' just 
 because I do understand ' ! " 
 
 She was silent, suddenly grave. 
 
 " My dear, I haven't hurt you ? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " No ; but I wish I couldn't understand things 
 couldn't put myself in your place. I know so clearly 
 what all that beauty means to you, means to me." 
 
 " Don't you think," he said earnestly, " that that is 
 just the great strength of the bond between us? " 
 
 " Yes," she answered, with a little catch of the 
 breath. " Nothing could be stronger than the bond be- 
 tween us." 
 
 " And our life here will cement it," Robert said. 
 " All that we go through here is a double education. 
 You can't say," he added jestingly, " as you did of Paris, 
 that this is your rival." 
 
 " I have no rivals," she answered bravely and proudly. 
 " Let us go out and see our city, Robert, though it doesn't 
 know yet it's ours." 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " Poor old town ! What an awakening it will have 
 some day ! " 
 
 They walked home gaily, the explorer's mood strong 
 8 105
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 upon them. The two miles or so seemed short to Brooke, 
 for Robert was at his best. Their little frank talk had 
 taken the evil out of the earlier part of his evening. As 
 he said good night, he added : 
 
 "And you will go to the dinner? I couldn't enjoy 
 it if you weren't there." 
 
 " I will go, mi'lord," she answered. 
 
 106
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 " BUT why must I dine with these people?" 
 
 " To please me." 
 
 Mrs. Mallory sighed, wishing for the first time in 
 her life that her only son had given her enough anxiety 
 to justify her now in refusing him his request. Mothers 
 whose sons frequented the demi-monde, or who, by their 
 dissipations, created unbridgeable gulfs in family life, 
 were released from many tyrannies of affection. The 
 whole structure of Paul's existence was of that stability 
 which rendered opposition to his wishes difficult. From 
 childhood he had been studious, deeply religious, and 
 solemnly exclusive, regarding his high birth and great 
 wealth as being, in a sense, heaven's own creation. His 
 devotion to his mother was a part of his amiable creed, 
 now rendering more difficult her astonished opposition. 
 
 Astonishment had been from the first the keynote of 
 her attitude toward his infatuation for Olivia Winwood. 
 Herself of a fine old Dutch family, and a member by 
 marriage of one of those city families which antedate the 
 aristocracy of wealth, she was amazed that Paul's imag- 
 ination, hitherto scrupulously kept within the bounds of 
 his own circle, should have been fired to a flame that 
 threatened conflagration by the daughter of the latest 
 Croesus. For a long time she had refused herself even 
 legitimate glimpses of these incredible people, until the 
 hour arrived when she could not help seeing them be- 
 cause, by one of the modern miracles, they had entered 
 her own circle. Then Olivia's beauty and twilight man- 
 
 107
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 ners arousing her maternal curiosity, she had left cards 
 on mother and daughter, at the same time declaring to 
 Paul that this act marked the limit of her graciousness. 
 They were now in conflict over the dinner invitation. 
 
 " But how far must I go to please you? " 
 
 " As far as every one else goes, dear mother of mine." 
 
 " Mob rule, as usual. On what possible ground can 
 I meet these people? " 
 
 " On the ground of my love for Olivia." 
 
 A look of pain crossed Mrs. Mallory's reserved, hand- 
 some features. She rose and went to a window over- 
 looking the avenue. Tall and erect, with a certain elegant 
 hardness in her bearing, she turned to her son a back 
 of stiff protest. 
 
 " Your love for Miss Winwood," she said at last 
 slowly, as if the words hurt her. " I am to understand, 
 then, that you are really in love with this young 
 woman ? " 
 
 Paul flushed. 
 
 " You speak of her as if she were the parlor-maid. 
 She is an uncrowned queen." 
 
 " Have you told your jewelers to make the crown ? " 
 she asked with faint satire. 
 
 " I can't until she gives me permission," he said 
 ruefully. 
 
 His mother turned to him, her face blank with 
 astonishment. 
 
 " You don't mean to say you have asked her to 
 marry you ? " 
 
 " I have, and she has refused." 
 
 Mrs. Mallory sank into a chair. 
 
 " Refused you ! " 
 
 " Refused me." 
 
 108
 
 THE CITY 
 
 " Does she know does she realize " 
 
 " Who and what we are ? I imagine so. She is not 
 a hermit." 
 
 " And she refused you ! " Mrs. Mallory repeated, 
 struck down by the inexplicable, until something like 
 physical weakness possessed her. Her finely formed 
 white hands moved restlessly over the carved arms of 
 her chair, the little thread-like lines in her face deepened. 
 
 " You see," Paul said in a quiet voice, " she is not 
 the ambitious schemer you thought her." 
 
 " Ah, perhaps she is only putting you off for plans 
 of her own. Her saying ' no ' seems to me like a mon- 
 strous piece of coquetry. She was brave to dare it." 
 
 " I will wait forever for her ' yes.' " 
 
 His mother sighed. 
 
 " Apart from her birth, there is to me something too 
 unusual in her look and manner. I should fancy her 
 irreligious." 
 
 " She can not be. She thinks too deeply." 
 
 " Deep thinking generally produces skeptics." 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " You accuse your son of shallowness ? " 
 
 " You are religious by inheritance," she answered 
 with an accent of pride. " With an archbishop of the 
 Church of England for one of your ancestors, how could 
 you be otherwise? The crucifix over your bed has been 
 in the family two hundred years." 
 
 " Well, will you go to the dinner? " 
 
 " Since she has refused you, yes." 
 
 " You will probably meet Miss Winwood and her 
 mother this afternoon at the private view of Marston's 
 things." 
 
 " How did they get cards ? " 
 109
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " Miss Win wood is a capital judge of pictures, as 
 Marston very well knows." 
 
 " Well, ring for the carriage. I can't miss a Marston 
 afternoon even at the risk of " She paused. The look 
 in her son's face was a barrier. 
 
 A few moments later he escorted her down through 
 the great, silent house, furnished with the most cherished 
 treasures of successive generations of the family. When 
 they were in the carriage he laid a caressing hand on hers. 
 
 " Dear, try to understand. She, too. is an aristocrat." 
 
 His mother smiled faintly, drawing her sables closer 
 about her. 
 
 Benedict Marston's studio was in a street near an 
 unfashionable avenue. The artist himself was of suffi- 
 cient reputation to live where he chose. He had leased 
 some old stables, and had transformed them into an ad- 
 mirable background for his work. You entered through 
 an Italianized hall, a bare, fair place, set about with 
 sarcophagi full of growing plants. The studio proper, 
 ugly as a garret, no one but sitters ever entered. What 
 the public called Marston's studio was a long, low, rich 
 room, with an open gallery looking down upon the hall, 
 carpeted and curtained to exclude all sound, and lighted 
 from above. In its shadows you caught gleams of gilt, 
 in its high lights of soft purple and greens. The brass 
 bowls were kept filled with heliotrope, no other flower 
 ever appearing in the room. Debutantes said that she 
 had died young ; young married women, that she was an 
 expected dream. Marston was one of those men for 
 whom every one creates a romance. 
 
 When Paul Mallory and his mother entered the com- 
 fortably filled rooms Marston never overcrowded, even 
 to sell a picture the artist was standing before one of 
 
 no
 
 THE CITY 
 
 his portraits with Olivia. Mrs. Winwood, with the timid 
 look which in the city replaced her confident Trenthamp- 
 ton expression, stood in the background, as out of place 
 in this singular room as dandelions in a vase of Henri 
 Deux ware. Paul Mallory went to her and shook her 
 hand. She addressed him plaintively. 
 
 " Olivia's going to buy that picture. I don't know 
 whether it's proper of her, for they tell me ' Zita ' is a 
 very naughty woman. She gets such queer things, and 
 like as not she'll hang a Holy Family opposite to it, just 
 to be contrary. Do you think she ought to buy it ? " she 
 added with an accent of appeal. 
 
 Paul glanced at the picture. A gay French face of 
 colossal impudence looked out and laughed at the world. 
 He recognized a chorus favorite of the season before. 
 
 " Oh, it is only a picture, Mrs. Winwood," he said 
 in a soothing voice, while the matron turned to repeat 
 her plea to Mrs. Mallory. 
 
 Paul watched his mother anxiously. 
 
 " I think your feeling is right in the matter," Mrs. 
 Mallory answered with more kindness than usual in her 
 voice. " But it is a superb piece of work." 
 
 Mrs. Winwood relapsed gratefully into her double 
 chin, and at that moment Olivia turned and came forward 
 to greet them, holding out her hand to Mrs. Mallory 
 with a directness that took no account of barriers. 
 
 Mrs. Mallory 's curiosity concerning her had been in- 
 creased a hundredfold by Paul's revelation. With a 
 graciousness which she knew well how to assume she 
 drew the girl down beside her on a divan, saying: 
 
 " Will you tell me why you like the ' Zita ' apart 
 from its merit as a picture ? " 
 
 A whimsical smile flitted over Olivia's face, 
 in
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " I like courage, even in the form of bravado. She 
 dares to be gay and unconcerned." 
 
 Mrs. Mallory regarded her curiously. 
 
 " So you think it takes courage to be gay? " 
 
 " French courage." 
 
 The little crisp phrase might mean anything or noth- 
 ing. Mrs. Mallory, who had lived many years in France, 
 smiled, but remained silent. She was beginning to under- 
 stand a little of the charm this woman had for Paul. She 
 herself could enjoy her, she thought, if she could be per- 
 fectly sure that Olivia would never be in the family. 
 
 They talked for a few moments on indifferent sub- 
 jects, Paul watching them from an adjacent shadow ; 
 then Marston came up, and with a little maneuvering 
 formed a group, only to disintegrate it by withdrawing 
 Olivia from it. 
 
 " Come with me," he said in a tone of authority. 
 " One picture only you shall see." 
 
 " I am honored." 
 
 " You are worshiped," he said in a low tone. 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " Please don't worship me. Such a religion would 
 exclude your sense of humor, and I can spare anything 
 from my friends' possessions but that." 
 
 " I have no humor ; I am an artist," he said with a 
 touch of bitterness. 
 
 He raised a curtain, and dropped it behind her. She 
 found herself in a little, unsuspected room, bare but for 
 one picture. She looked long at it, then turned to him, 
 her face irresponsive. His own was at once expectant and 
 strangely humble. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I have nothing to say." 
 112
 
 THE CITY 
 
 " Nothing ! " he cried with a note of protest. 
 
 " No, nothing." 
 
 He turned at once and raised the curtain. She stepped 
 into the main room, going directly to her mother. 
 
 " You must go to the Walkers' tea without me. I've 
 had enough of heavy scents and heavy talk." 
 
 "What are you going to do, Olivia?" Mrs. Win- 
 wood said helplessly. " Those people will snub me if 
 you're not along." 
 
 " If they attempt to snub you, dear, ask Mrs. Walker 
 if her son is graduating this year. He was expelled from 
 Harvard last week." 
 
 Mrs. Winwood put out a plump hand and caught a 
 fold of her daughter's gown. 
 
 " Stay with me, 'Livy, that's a good girl ! Who'll 
 tread on my foot if I start wrong? " 
 
 Olivia laughed out. 
 
 " If you go to the Walkers' tea everybody will tread 
 on your feet. Don't be afraid, mummie. You are a nice, 
 fresh, wholesome soul, worth a dozen Mrs. Walkers." 
 She turned. " Paul, will you see that my mother is taken 
 care of if she looks in at the Walkers' reception ? " 
 
 Paul had been standing at a respectful distance, his 
 eyes adoring Olivia, who had scarcely bestowed a glance 
 on him since her entrance. He came forward now with 
 a lover's eagerness. 
 
 " I will be delighted to do what I can for Mrs. Win- 
 wood. You are not " 
 
 " No, I'm not," she said with decision. " Will you 
 please ask Mr. Marston to come to me? " 
 
 Mallory's face fell. He hesitated, but Olivia took no 
 notice. When she looked up again Marston was standing 
 by her. 
 
 "3
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " Will you call a hansom for me ? I am reluctantly 
 leaving." 
 
 She went down into the lower hall. In a moment 
 Marston joined her. He held in his hand a little bunch 
 of heliotrope. 
 
 " Will you take it? " he said. 
 
 She looked at him in silence ; then she said : 
 
 " It is not my flower." 
 
 His hand dropped to his side. When her hansom 
 came he put her into it without a word. 
 
 " You are not being courteous," she said. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he answered, not raising his 
 eyes. " What shall I tell your driver ? " 
 
 " The Cunningham Hospital." 
 
 114
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 " SHE has been asking for you again. If you would 
 like to take the case, I'll arrange it with Rodney. It's a 
 little irregular, but we're overworked, and, besides, she 
 was your out-patient." 
 
 Robert nodded. He was in the dispensary laboratory 
 watching some chemicals boil. His long clinic was just 
 at an end, leaving him as usual in a state of mental ab- 
 sorption. In memory he reviewed and studied the more 
 important cases, sometimes elucidating by this method 
 obscure features. 
 
 " You'll look in on her, then, before you go? " 
 
 "Ward No. 4?" 
 
 " Yes ; the poor thing seems to think you can make 
 her well by a certain time. She has an engagement to 
 dance at the Rowley Theater. She calls herself the famous 
 ' Firefly,' and wonders why we don't know all about her." 
 
 " I prophesied pneumonia for her if she didn't take 
 better care of herself," Robert said, getting into his white 
 coat. " Have you time to watch this tube for me while 
 I go to the ward ? If the fluid doesn't clear in five min- 
 utes, give it up." 
 
 He found " Firefly " in a bed a little apart from the 
 other patients. Her long hair, of that dull, brittle gold 
 which seems burned out of a certain kind of metropolitan 
 furnace, had been braided and hung, Gretchen-like, over 
 her shoulders, lending to the pretty childish oval of her 
 face a quaint look of innocence. Fever had given its 
 
 "5
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 strange touch to a beauty otherwise commonplace enough, 
 and suggestive of long series of dancers who had danced 
 their way to perdition or to glory, according to their 
 capacity. Beneath the sheet the girl's slender limbs were 
 outlined gracefully. On her slim body there was not an 
 ounce of superfluous flesh. A certain coquetry of tem- 
 perament was indicated in the glance of her eyes, which 
 were now turned eagerly to Robert. 
 
 " I knew you'd come if I asked for you," she said 
 huskily. " I told 'em all to fade away. I only wanted 
 you. You'll get me well. Shake." 
 
 She held out a thin hand, and took Robert's for an 
 instant in a tight grasp. 
 
 " Of course I'll get you well. When do you have to 
 dance ? " 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " I like the way you get busy. I have to dance ten 
 nights from now." 
 
 Robert knit his brows. 
 
 " Up against it ? " she queried. 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " Firefly, you'll have to help me." 
 
 " You bet I'll help you." 
 
 " Does does Jim know ? Pardon the familiarity, but 
 you never told me his last name." 
 
 " You mean me steady that came with me the first 
 time you sprayed me throat?" 
 
 Robert nodded. 
 
 " Yes, Jim knows." She gave a little impatient shrug. 
 " I'm not botherin' about Jim. I've got troubles of me 
 own." 
 
 " And you will pardon me if I ask you another ques- 
 tion. Have you a family, Firefly ? " 
 
 116
 
 THE CITY 
 
 She smiled, showing her white, even teeth. 
 
 " I've got people I send money to. If that woman 
 over in that bed doesn't stop rubbering, I'll ask you, sir, 
 to draw the screen 'round." 
 
 Robert adjusted the screen ; then, after examining the 
 girl, he gave directions to the attending nurse. 
 
 " When will you come again, Doctor? " Firefly asked. 
 " And would you mind telling me your name all of it ? " 
 
 " Robert Erskine." 
 
 " Dr. Robert Erskine ; that sounds good. I guess 
 you're white as your coat. Down in the dispensary there 
 you didn't treat me like I was cattle. That's why I 
 wanted you when I knew I was in for it. You and me are 
 partners now in a get-well enterprise. Isn't that stamped 
 on the ticket?" 
 
 " Precisely that. Now, little girl, you must keep 
 quiet and obey orders." 
 
 " 111 obey 'em if you give 'em," she answered. 
 
 Robert was turning away when an orderly approached 
 him. 
 
 " A lady wishes to see you. She is in the main 
 waiting-room." 
 
 Robert went down, wondering if Brooke had come in 
 on a chance of finding him. For an instant he did not 
 recognize the tall figure that came forward to meet him 
 across the dimly lighted room. It was Olivia. 
 
 "You look rather ghost-like; are you tired?" she 
 asked in a slow, soft voice. 
 
 " No, not tired. I am most glad to see you." 
 
 " And I am most glad to come," she said frankly. 
 " I came away from a studio, sick to death of art jargon 
 and low lights and perfumes. I wanted realities. I 
 wanted to see the harsh side." 
 
 117
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " You've come to the right place," he said ; " I've been 
 dealing with realities all afternoon." 
 
 " While I was being bored," she replied. 
 
 Robert found her altogether too charming in her gen- 
 tle, half-appealing mood, so unlike her usual confident 
 spirit. She seemed as tired as she said she was, turning 
 to him a pale, shadowed face. 
 
 " You will think it real to-morrow again," he said. 
 
 " I see you understand moods. Well, perhaps I will. 
 I can't answer for myself. Where were you when I sent 
 for you ? " 
 
 " At the bedside of a little dancer who has pneumonia, 
 and who thinks she must dance in ten days, cured or not 
 cured. She is a waif who drifted into the dispensary, 
 accompanied by a young man with a very red necktie. 
 He scowled at me all the time I was treating her throat, 
 but he was as humble as a whipped dog with her." 
 
 " Could I see her ? Would she like some flowers ? " 
 
 Robert looked his uncertainty. 
 
 " I don't know ; they sometimes resent attention." 
 
 " I understand. It's patronage they hate. Take me 
 to her. She will not resent me, I promise you." 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " How could she ? Would you like to see the wards ? " 
 
 " I told you I wanted the real thing." 
 
 He conducted her through the hospital, feeling less 
 at a disadvantage with her than ever before, his pro- 
 fession and all its symbols surrounding him like an armor. 
 She was vaguely jealous of the preoccupation which she 
 had only partly dissipated, yet her admiration deepened 
 for Robert as she saw him now for the first time in his 
 work-day environment. 
 
 When they reached Firefly's bed she went softly 
 118
 
 THE CITY 
 
 forward and bent over the girl, introducing herself with 
 a little apology and with a manner almost timid. Robert 
 could not hear what she said, but he watched Firefly's 
 face. She looked up at Olivia wonderingly, then her 
 eyes softened, and, putting her hands in the long, white 
 furs, she drew the visitor down. Olivia was talking to 
 her as one girl talks to another. 
 
 When she came away a little enigmatical smile lin- 
 gered about her lips. 
 
 " She wants some pretty nightgowns. She hates 
 the coarse cotton she's in. I'll send her some to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " She didn't ask you " Robert began. 
 
 " Of course not. I divined it. I made her tell me." 
 
 " I could see from the way she looked at you that 
 you had won." 
 
 She sighed. 
 
 " It is so easy to win them." 
 
 Robert was silent. 
 
 " My hansom is at the door. May I give you a lift ? " 
 
 " Yes, if you will wait a moment while I change 
 my coat." 
 
 They drove through brightly lighted streets swarm- 
 ing with people of the tenement class. Olivia, her furs 
 drawn closely about her, sat motionless and silent. Rob- 
 ert, too conscious of her near presence, was trying to fix 
 his thoughts on Brooke, and spoke of her at last, as if 
 with the utterance of her name he made the sign of the 
 cross. 
 
 " Brooke is making a heroic effort to keep up with 
 a modern newspaper," he said. " She is wonderfully 
 brave and splendid an inspiration to me." 
 
 " I am glad she is coming to my dinner-party," Olivia 
 119
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 said. " I was afraid she would disdain me, because as 
 a working-woman she has stepped so far beyond me." 
 
 Robert made no answer. 
 
 As they approached a florist's Olivia pressed the 
 bulb, and the hansom drew up in front of the shop. 
 
 " Will you go in with me a moment ? I want to leave 
 an order." 
 
 He followed her in. When she had given her order 
 to the obsequious clerk, she drew a red rose from a bowl 
 and pinned it in her furs. Then from another vase she 
 took a little spray of purple heliotrope. 
 
 " Wear it for me," she said, laughing. " It is my 
 flower." 
 
 120
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 BROOKE'S consent to accept Olivia's dinner invitation 
 had cost her far more self-conquest than Robert realized. 
 From her earliest childhood two congenital traits or 
 faculties had always made self-deception difficult. Her 
 powers of reasoning were almost masculine in their clear- 
 ness and directness, and she possessed the gift of putting 
 herself in the place of other people, a corrective to im- 
 perialism which can scarcely be overestimated. During 
 the latter part of the summer at Trenthampton she had 
 perceived, with an ever-growing clarity, the temptations 
 which the personality of Olivia offered to a man of Rob- 
 ert's temperament, but not until that autumn day at Dr. 
 Gorton's had she allowed her vague ideas to take definite 
 shape in a sudden intolerable suspicion. Of two classes 
 of women, the larger is blinded by emotion, and is wor- 
 shiped for being blind. Brooke belonged to the minority, 
 whose reward for direct vision is the confidence and 
 good-fellowship, but not the fidelity, of men. 
 
 And it was precisely fellowship that Robert was 
 offering her at this period, based on a strong affection 
 that took too much for granted, that overlooked all the 
 little symbols which mean everything to the woman in 
 love. He gave her his trust, his frankness, his comrade- 
 heart; but the serviceable homespun cloak bore no em- 
 broidery. Brooke sometimes wondered whether she had 
 dreamed the incredible glory of those first three or four 
 weeks after his return. She asked herself whether, after 
 9 121
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 all, it had been cumulative splendor, the last and brightest 
 manifestation of an unusual friendship, instead of the 
 dawn of love. Was she but a stepping-stone to the reality 
 of Olivia? 
 
 Time would tell. She would believe nothing until 
 forced to believe. Her own course stretched before her 
 in that straight line whose inevitableness of direction is 
 the peace unknown to the storm-tossed and the wavering. 
 Her love, her faith, and her silence had passed forever 
 into Robert's keeping. 
 
 So she hid these earliest fears and doubts from him, 
 and presented a happy face, though there were days 
 when it seemed to her that he would not have noticed if 
 she had wept in his presence. To what his preoccupa- 
 tion was due she did not wish to decide. He was work- 
 ing hard enough to justify many omissions. 
 
 Her own work was beginning to demand a great deal 
 of her ; and she threw herself into it with an ardor that, 
 based as it was on a desire to forget, and not on the de- 
 sire to succeed, had the paradoxical effect of putting 
 success into her hands. The city editor, who had mis- 
 trusted the look of scholarship about her, was forced to 
 admit that her mistakes were surprisingly few. She did 
 exactly as she was told, asked few questions, and made 
 no comments. Her one acquaintance in the office was 
 Hugh Bradley, the homely, silent young man who on 
 that difficult first day had deferentially offered her his 
 paste-pot. They had exchanged a few commonplaces 
 since then; and sometimes, in a curious kind of mono- 
 logue, which she was not sure was intended for her ears, 
 he would give forth maxims whose wisdom was of an 
 immediate practical value to her. Looking at the smoke- 
 dimmed ceiling, he would say dreamily: 
 
 122
 
 THE CITY 
 
 " I'll be hanged if I didn't forget to start that story 
 with a direct statement of what had happened before I 
 went on to expand my soul " ; or perhaps he would 
 murmur: 
 
 " I wrote a head-line by accident this morning, and 
 they pay a man five thousand dollars a year to do noth- 
 ing else. If the ax had fallen on my presumptuous head, 
 who would have supported my aged aunt and my old, 
 blind grandmother ! " 
 
 Brooke, looking at his solemn, inscrutable face, always 
 pale beneath the freckles, wondered if he were in earnest ; 
 but the wisdom of his words she appropriated without 
 question. From time to time she became aware that cer- 
 tain things were made easier for her by the intervention 
 of some friendly spirit. Her place at the long table was 
 kept free from litter. Fresh copy-paper was always there 
 ready for use, new blotters made their appearance semi- 
 weekly, and the man who smoked five-cent cigars was 
 always kept at a safe distance from her. Brooke was 
 grateful, but she made no attempt to express her grati- 
 tude to her champion. Once or twice she discovered him 
 looking at her with a shy yet penetrating glance. He 
 seemed to her a curious mixture of boy and aged stage- 
 villain. 
 
 Robert came for her every night, and together they 
 walked up-town, telling each other the day's experiences, 
 which in Robert's case were described in general terms. 
 Of his cases he rarely spoke to Brooke, lest by an inad- 
 vertence he should overstep the bounds of his professional 
 reticence. 
 
 But of Firefly he did speak to her, not wishing that 
 Olivia should know of some detail of his work hidden 
 from Brooke. He told of Olivia's visit to the hospital, 
 
 123
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 but he did not mention their little journey together 
 through the city twilight. Folded in a bit of white paper 
 in a pocket by itself was the withered spray of heliotrope. 
 
 On the night before the dinner he and Brooke had 
 come into something like their old relations during a con- 
 fidential chat in the studio. Angelica had gone with a 
 woman friend to the theater, and they kept house for her 
 in her absence, comparing for the most part home-news. 
 Robert was worried about his father, who, his mother 
 wrote him, had been running down in health ever since 
 the sale of the business. Unless some new form of 
 activity were found for him she was afraid that he might 
 become a nervous invalid. 
 
 " She ended by saying that all interests seemed to 
 be taken away from them, even that of watching my 
 progress." 
 
 Brooke looked troubled, but made no comment. 
 
 " She wants me to be on the lookout for some solid 
 business chance for my father that would require only a 
 modest capital," he went on. " Dear, I haven't a business 
 bone in my body. I can understand speculation. There's 
 something dramatic, something that appeals to the imag- 
 ination in that, but the necessities of business are prose 
 to me ; scarcely intelligible prose at that." 
 
 Brooke smiled. 
 
 "Doesn't everything turn out to be prose at last?" 
 
 A weariness in her voice penetrated the armor of his 
 self-absorption. He glanced toward her. Her face looked 
 strangely old and tired. Leaning over, he drew a cushion 
 toward him. 
 
 " Come and sit down beside me, dearest. Do you feel 
 quite well to-night ? " 
 
 Without a word she rose and came over to him and 
 124
 
 THE CITY 
 
 sat where he told her to, like a little obedient child. He 
 put his hand on her soft brown hair. 
 
 " Brooke, are you quite happy in this life?" 
 
 " I won't know yet for some time," she answered with 
 a smile. " Are you happy, Robert? " 
 
 " Yesterday and to-morrow, in Wonderland style. 
 What are you going to wear to Olivia's ? " 
 
 " If I could describe it it would be a failure. It is 
 something quite miraculous, even to Aunt Angelica's 
 jaded mind suitable for my first and last appearance." 
 
 " Do you mean that you will accept no more in- 
 vitations ? " 
 
 " Probably not. By the way, I've heard who two of 
 the guests are to be; tremendously big people Mrs. 
 Longstreth Mallory and Paul Mallory. Aunt Angelica 
 says it is reported that Mr. Mallory is in love with 
 Olivia." 
 
 An imperceptible tremor went through Robert. When 
 he was sure of his voice he said: 
 
 " You mean of the Mallory family ? " 
 
 " Yes. Isn't Olivia remarkable! " 
 
 " She has many advantages over mere birth," he an- 
 swered. " These people may have all the stupidity of an 
 unassailable position." 
 
 He went away that night disturbed by a jealousy 
 which burned all the more fiercely within him because 
 he had no honorable right to entertain it. The thought 
 of Paul Mallory's immense wealth was bitter to him. 
 After all, only a man possessing such wealth was on equal 
 terms with Olivia. Others must ever be handicapped by 
 the frightful disparity, must always be open to the im- 
 putation of fortune-seeking. He himself had been pro- 
 tected in this uneven friendship by his engagement with 
 
 125
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 Brooke. But supposing that it was removed ? He could 
 not ask a woman to marry him when, relative to her, he 
 was in the position of a pauper. 
 
 At this juncture he drew back from his broodings in 
 horror. How far had this force drawn him that he could 
 think of possibilities involving his deep dishonor! Half 
 the night he lay awake, trying to set his house of life in 
 order, and succeeded at last, only to find the well-arranged 
 rooms cold and lonely. Well, at least one bulwark re- 
 mained to him, that of absence and separation. After the 
 dinner he would see Olivia no more. 
 
 When he called for Brooke next evening his mood 
 of revolt against an inexplicable passion had prepared 
 him for all the finer admirations which she could awaken 
 in him ; but she was depending very little this evening 
 on the obligations of his engagement to her. She came 
 clown to him radiant, yet aloof, her lovely gown express- 
 ing more worldliness than he had thought her capable 
 of. Her strong, almost boyish beauty was softened as if 
 he saw her through a veil. 
 
 Angelica gave her over to him with a gesture of 
 pride. 
 
 " She will do you credit, Sir Robert," she said in her 
 curt manner, which left him sometimes doubtful of her 
 friendliness. 
 
 " Dear, you are a vision of delight," he said ; adding, 
 as if to himself, " I wish I were worthy of you." 
 
 He put her into a hansom, and they drove off together 
 in unconventional fashion. Brooke's eyes were shining 
 like stars. Wrapped in her white cloak, she had the air 
 of a woman of society who is slightly amused by the 
 situation. 
 
 " You are happy to-night," he said. 
 126
 
 THE CITY 
 
 " ' I, who am about to live, salute you,' " she an- 
 swered gaily. " Robert, what if I should stop taking you 
 with my usual profound seriousness? What if I should 
 stop thinking you a hero ? " 
 
 She looked at him with mischief. He did not answer 
 at once, taken aback by a form of speech so unusual to 
 her. He reviewed the past weeks in a lightning's instant 
 of thought, and was embarrassed by his failure to rescue 
 himself from those swamps of preoccupation in any guise 
 emphatically heroic. Had she been measuring him while 
 he was dealing with Olivia? 
 
 " I should miss what I never deserved," he said 
 frankly. " But you'd better see me as I am, dear." 
 
 " Well, to-night I'll play you are my hero," she said 
 softly, " so act your part well, Rob Roy." 
 
 Robert, opening his little envelope in the dressing- 
 room, found that he was to take Olivia in. His thrill 
 of pleasure was marred by the thought that she might be 
 using him in a game she was playing with Paul Mallory. 
 He went to the drawing-room in a distinctly cautious 
 mood. 
 
 Mrs. Winwood, toned down by gray satin, despite the 
 bulging of her round, pink shoulders, held out to him a 
 fat, friendly hand. 
 
 " It's good to see you, my dear boy," she said in a 
 cordial voice. " Trenthampton folks just warm my heart 
 in this big, cold town. Olivia, don't you think Dr. Er- 
 skine's lookin' rather run down ? " 
 
 He raised his eyes then and met her gaze. The con- 
 cern in it made the pulses of his heart beat quicker. 
 
 " Are you tired ? Are you working too hard ? At 
 dinner you must tell me all about it." 
 
 He was at once disarmed of what now seemed to him 
 127
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 a foolish and unjust suspicion. Henry Win wood, a mar- 
 vel of fair linen and pearl studs, greeted him cordially, 
 and he passed on to join Brooke. She was undimmed by 
 the splendor of the room. 
 
 The guests of honor had not yet arrived. The others 
 had been chosen by Olivia with tact. They were all peo- 
 ple of some distinction, but they were recruited from the 
 professional and artistic rather than the acknowledged 
 social circles. Each was well known enough to compel 
 the deference of even a woman of the highest fashion. 
 The purely social element was represented by young, un- 
 married people, who could take no advantage of an 
 introduction to Mrs. Mallory. 
 
 She came quietly in after a while, her son, a monu- 
 ment of faultlessness, towering above her. Robert, watch- 
 ing him jealously, saw the color rise to his face as 
 Olivia greeted him. 
 
 Immediately afterward Mr. Winwood gave his arm to 
 Mrs. Mallory, and the procession to the dining-room was 
 formed. Paul Mallory was with Brooke, his disappoint- 
 ment tempered by the instant appeal which her appearance 
 made to him. Under his society manner was a simplicity 
 of heart which found comfort in natural people. 
 
 Robert, seated by Olivia, had the odd sensation of 
 being alone with her. By a manner that only he per- 
 ceived she seemed to shut out the other guests or to put 
 them at a distance. Yet she said very little to him dur- 
 ing the first part of the dinner, directing her conversation 
 across the low bank of orchids to the three people who 
 sat opposite Brooke, Paul Mallory, and the artist Mar- 
 ston, his dejection only half veiled. 
 
 Mrs. Mallory, whose favorite violinist was at her 
 right, and who found Henry Winwood no more intoler- 
 
 128
 
 THE CITY 
 
 able than his type on the stage, was more entertained 
 than she would have cared to admit. She watched Olivia 
 covertly, still amazed over the girl's daring refusal of her 
 son. She was forced to acknowledge to herself that 
 Olivia had more distinction of bearing than the majority 
 of young women in the elect circle. The evident source 
 of her power was neither wealth nor beauty, but per- 
 sonality. 
 
 " She is the kind of woman," she thought, " who, if 
 she had been bom a kitchen-maid at Versailles, would 
 have become the mistress or the wife of the king. But 
 I don't want her for a daughter-in-law. Too much per- 
 sonality throws life out of proportion, and we have always 
 been a symmetrical family." 
 
 Aloud she said: 
 
 " Do you musicians find as much joy in music as you 
 are credited with finding?" 
 
 The violinist smiled. 
 
 " We are crucified on our imperfections." 
 
 Winwood nodded. 
 
 " I guess you mean the way I feel when I don't run 
 a deal through as I'd planned it." 
 
 Mrs. Mallory then started a conversation of inquiries. 
 Winwood's elucidations amused her. 
 
 Brooke, meanwhile, was listening to Paul Mallory 's 
 perfectly unoriginal remarks with an ever-growing sense 
 of the young man's worth. She had never known an 
 obviously worthy person to be witty. Yet, in her rather 
 confused state of mind, his platitudes were grateful to 
 her, all the more because she felt behind them the solid 
 substance of a character singularly honest and serious. 
 She was conscious, moreover, of some hidden intensity 
 in his present mood, but his breeding forbade further 
 
 129
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 revelations. He addressed himself continually to Brooke, 
 only looking at Olivia when she spoke to him. 
 
 The two women and the three men had come by slow 
 degrees into a community of hidden understanding. It 
 takes a lover to detect a lover; and between Marston, 
 Mallory, and Erskine was the bond and the antagonism 
 of thieves. Mutual suspicion was hidden in their cour- 
 teous nothings. Their glances betrayed war. Brooke, 
 with a sinking of the heart, had perceived Robert's absorp- 
 tion. By a defect which placed him just below Mallory 
 in the scale of gentlehood he had not been able to play 
 his part. He saw no one but Olivia. 
 
 Olivia directed several remarks to Brooke. These 
 were answered gaily and with a histrionic power that 
 would have surprised Robert had he paid attention, but 
 he was making the mistake of settling a moral problem 
 during the course of a dinner. Olivia, flattered by his 
 abstraction as no spoken word had ever flattered her, 
 rallied him on his silence. 
 
 " Is it the crisis to-night for one of your patients that 
 you thus ungallantly remain at the hospital?" 
 
 " If it had been I wouldn't be here," he answered. 
 
 " Little, harsh, one-syllable words are not for a din- 
 ner, are they? Please put more Latin in." 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " I fear I'm in an Anglo-Saxon mood." 
 
 " You shouldn't be in a mood at a dinner. Moods 
 are only for studio-teas, entr'acts, and good-night dis- 
 gusts of the day, aren't they ? " 
 
 " Please don't talk like a studio-tea girl," he said. 
 " You'll be asking me next if I'll have rum in my tea, 
 and if I've read ' Joyzelle.' " 
 
 " But what do you wish me to talk to you about ? " 
 130
 
 THE CITY 
 
 " Yourself." 
 
 " A little contents you." 
 
 " I shall always have to be content with a little." 
 
 She glanced toward Brooke. 
 
 " When you possess a kingdom ? " 
 
 " Say, rather, an empire," he answered. " Let us not 
 introduce a third person." 
 
 " I am fond of the number three. It represents all 
 the social graces of existence." 
 
 " And what do two represent ? " 
 
 " A chance to be bored eventually." 
 
 " Thank you." 
 
 " Please don't be personal. You have been so splen- 
 didly free from that. When people are personal I never 
 know what to do with them, because, you see, they are 
 only personal when they don't know what to do with 
 themselves." 
 
 Robert smiled. 
 
 " I will try not to be a burden to you." 
 
 She grew suddenly serious. 
 
 " As if you ever could be ! Your friendship is one of 
 my few real joys." 
 
 Her manner was sincere. Robert wished that she had 
 continued to jest. 
 
 He was glad when the women left the table. A cigar 
 excused silence. He was wondering in what terms he 
 could tell Olivia of a possible approaching discourtesy 
 on his part. He knew that he could not come again to 
 this house. 
 
 When he said good night to her the little speech that 
 he had framed about the pressure of his work in the 
 future died on his lips. Not to see her again would be 
 to go into tragic monotony.
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " You will come soon," she said softly. " I have some 
 things to tell you." 
 
 " I would like to come soon," he answered. 
 
 When he and Brooke were alone he expected to find 
 her either cold to him or dejected, but she seemed in a 
 sparkle of spirits. 
 
 "Well, what did you make of the evening?" he 
 asked, drawing her cloak closer about her. 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " Precisely what I did make out was that more than 
 one man at that table was in love with Olivia." 
 
 Robert held his breath and waited, but she said noth- 
 ing more on the subject, turning with a quick, gay transi- 
 tion to the guests, on whom she pinned what she called 
 " guess-labels." One was witty, another ambitious, an- 
 other frivolous. Her flow of talk aroused Robert's curi- 
 osity. Was Brooke, after all, more complex than she 
 appeared ? 
 
 When they reached her home he bent to kiss her 
 good night, but she turned away her head. 
 
 " I don't feel romantic. You should know when to 
 kiss me, Robert." 
 
 For a moment he was annoyed, then he laughed, since 
 the Olympians were laughing. 
 
 132
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 ON the morning after the dinner Paul Mallory, as 
 his custom was, went to say his prayers in a neighbor- 
 ing church whose hospitality had drawn toward it all 
 sorts and conditions of men. He passed through the 
 lich-gate with a heavy step, not lightened when he 
 emerged again from the low Gothic doorway. He had 
 tossed all night in unrest and doubt, and the peace of the 
 place seemed a remote and ineffectual consolation. 
 Olivia's manner toward Dr. Erskine, this haughty, good- 
 looking stranger from the provinces, had aroused in Paul 
 a jealousy not appeased by the knowledge that the inter- 
 esting girl whom he had taken in to dinner was engaged 
 to the young physician. 
 
 Mrs. Mallory had refused to give an opinion of Olivia 
 after the dinner on the ground that midnight judgments 
 are rarely unbiased. Paul, driven from his office by his 
 restlessness, came up-town early, hoping to find his 
 mother. Her carriage was waiting, and as he ascended 
 the door-steps he met her. 
 
 " Are you going far enough for me to have a bit of a 
 chat with you? You promised last night, you know, to 
 tell me certain things." 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " I believe I did. You are as impatient as a school- 
 boy, Paul. After all, it can make very little difference." 
 
 "What can make little difference?" 
 
 " My opinion." 
 
 " Ah, but it is a relief to talk it over with you," he 
 133
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 said as he put her into the carriage. " Where are you 
 going?" 
 
 " To the Cunningham Hospital. I am on the visit- 
 ing committee this season." 
 
 For some time they sat in silence, watching the end- 
 less procession of the avenue. At last Paul spoke. 
 
 "Wasn't it all perfectly done? Nothing could jar 
 on your taste except perhaps the parents." 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " It was done too well. I think I found the parents 
 less objectionable than the environment. They, at least, 
 were honest." 
 
 " Ah, but the environment was the expression of her 
 of her soul." 
 
 " My dear boy, I don't think she has a soul." 
 
 Paul looked troubled. 
 
 " You think her a Lamia ? " 
 
 " I think her a wonderfully clever woman, who is de- 
 pendent on sensation for her amusement. You might 
 make her love by laying on the whip but you're not the 
 kind of a man who has the whip-hand. You must be a 
 bit of a brute for that." 
 
 " I think you misread her character. I think her 
 soul is there, only night-hidden." 
 
 The poetical expression sounded odd from his lips. 
 She laid a motherly hand on his. 
 
 " Don't go into the night. You can't see your way." 
 
 " I can see her," he answered simply. " Did you 
 meet Dr. Erskine last evening? " 
 
 " I talked with him a few moments. He seemed to 
 me just a little difficult." 
 
 " He is from Trenthampton ; he and his fiancee, Miss 
 Peyton, are great friends of Miss Winwood. I like that 
 
 134
 
 THE CITY 
 
 in her/' he added ; " she does not exclude them from her 
 city circle." 
 
 " I admit that she shows few of the usual marks of 
 the climber," his mother answered dryly. 
 
 " Could I care for her if she were that ! " he ex- 
 claimed. " Wasn't her refusal of me the last proof that 
 she doesn't calculate?" 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 The little word stung him. 
 
 " I see you do not believe in her." 
 
 " I am not in love with her." 
 
 " Leave out your first preposition. This is no pass- 
 ing fancy." 
 
 " I fear not," Mrs. Mallory answered with a little sigh. 
 
 They did not speak again until the carriage rolled 
 under the arched entrance to the hospital yard. 
 
 " I will remain in the waiting-room," Paul said, " if 
 you are not stopping a great while." 
 
 Mrs. Mallory began her rounds with the conscientious 
 attention of the fashionable woman to whom hospital vis- 
 iting is as much a part of her winter as attendance at 
 grand opera. To do her justice, she had little of the exas- 
 perating curiosity of the average philanthropist. She dis- 
 tributed her flowers and magazines without inquiring into 
 the moral worth of those she benefited. Mothers if 
 they wore the wedding-ring called forth her particular 
 solicitude, but she judged no one. Her religious propa- 
 ganda never went farther than the presentation of a 
 prayer-book. 
 
 As she passed from bed to bed, a trail of American 
 Beauty roses marking her progress, she asked questions 
 of the nurse accompanying her, which for the most part 
 put no strain on the professional woman's sense of humor. 
 
 135
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 Mrs. Mallory was not without powers of observation, 
 though her judgment of what she observed was not 
 always perfect. 
 
 Suddenly she paused with a little air of doubt or 
 hesitation. 
 
 " Who is the pretty girl in a night-gown fit for a 
 duchess? " 
 
 The nurse smiled. 
 
 " Her name is Aurelia Shanley, but they call her 
 Firefly. She dances in vaudeville." 
 
 " The night-dress tells a story." 
 
 " An innocent story this time. It was sent her by a 
 wealthy young woman who takes an interest in her. 
 Aurelia likes pretty things." 
 
 " Pretty things, yes. But why should this benefactor 
 robe her in embroidered cambric and fine lace ? " 
 
 " Just to please her, I suppose." 
 
 " I could conceive of its leading the child downward, 
 if she is not already started on that road." 
 
 " I can't say whether Aurelia's good or bad," the 
 nurse answered, " but she has a big heart Here comes 
 Miss Winwood now," she added, her face lighting up. 
 
 "Ah! It is Miss Winwood who does this!" Mrs. 
 Mallory said, adding to herself, " Paul's divinity is not 
 lacking in the melodramatic instinct." 
 
 The two women met at the foot of Firefly's bed. 
 Olivia, encumbered with big bunches of violets, held out 
 an audacious left hand. 
 
 " You have the right to be here," she said. " I can 
 only come as this little girl's friend," nodding toward 
 Aurelia. " And I suppose I blunder every time. I have 
 had no training in official charity." 
 
 Mrs. Mallory felt the veiled antagonism of the words, 
 136
 
 THE CITY 
 
 and a smile flitted across her face. She made up her 
 mind that Olivia should not know that Paul was in the 
 building. 
 
 " You at least have the sense of poetic justice," she 
 answered sweetly. " Few of us are dramatic enough to 
 clothe the poor in purple and fine linen." 
 
 " I like to give them what they want," Olivia an- 
 swered, " but I suppose that is unscientific." 
 
 " Not if you or they can keep it up." 
 
 "Won't you speak to her, to Firefly? I think she'd 
 appreciate it." 
 
 Mrs. Mallory went forward, and bent over the girl, 
 who was as white as the lace about her throat. Her fight 
 for life, now won, had left her with something of the 
 ethereal and remote look of the dead. 
 
 She listened passively to Mrs. Mallory's formal con- 
 solations, but her eyes sought Olivia, and her thin hands 
 reached out greedily for her as she approached. 
 
 " I knew you'd come. You're a lady of your word, 
 you are." 
 
 Mrs. Mallory slipped away, wondering at the look in 
 Olivia's face as she bent over Firefly. It held a deep 
 tenderness. 
 
 " Getting well, Firefly?" 
 
 " Oh, I'm just grand these days ! Me doctor and me 
 are a team. Jim's that jealous ! " She laughed feebly. 
 " I told him this morning that o' course I liked Dr. Ers- 
 kine better than him. If the Doctor'd raise his little 
 finger, Jim couldn't see me for the dust; but I ain't any- 
 thing to him but a case." 
 
 Her eyes filled with tears. Olivia put the violets up 
 against the thin white cheek. 
 
 " Is he good to you ? " she said softly. 
 10 137
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " I suppose he is. I never thought of it. You don't 
 care for people because they're good to you. There's 
 some that could kick you down-stairs and yet take the 
 heart right out of your body." 
 
 Olivia smiled. 
 
 " Where did you learn it all, Firefly? " 
 
 She tapped her thin chest. 
 
 " I've been kicked down-stairs," she answered. 
 
 " There is your Doctor corning now," Olivia said, 
 rising, and holding out her hand to Robert. 
 
 For an instant his eyes expressed all his trouble, then 
 with the barrier of a cold and courteous manner he shut 
 her out, as he meant to shut her out for all time. With 
 a whispered word of farewell to Firefly, and a grave 
 good-by to him, Olivia went away. 
 
 Robert, crushing down his mingled revolt and long- 
 ing, bent over Firefly, going through his examination 
 in a perfunctory manner. He would sometimes jest with 
 the girl, but to-day he had no heart even for trivialities. 
 
 As he was leaving she put out a detaining hand. 
 
 " Have you had a scrap ? " she said confidentially. 
 
 Robert looked puzzled. 
 
 " A scrap ? With whom do you mean, Firefly ? " 
 
 " With her, with Miss Winwood. Ain't she your 
 girl?" 
 
 The quick color rose to Robert's face. 
 
 " We are only friends," he answered. 
 
 " You don't look at her like you was her friend," she 
 said. " You look at her same as Jim looks at me." 
 
 Robert was silent. 
 
 " You ain't mad ! " 
 
 " Of course not." 
 
 The tears again came to her eyes. 
 138
 
 THE CITY 
 
 " If you stayed mad, I'd not get well." 
 
 " Don't bother, little girl," he said gently; " I couldn't 
 
 be angry with you if I tried." 
 " What's the matter, then ? " 
 " Oh, just life, just living," he answered. 
 She smiled with appreciation. 
 " I ain't stuck on it are you? Wonder why we all 
 
 act like it was lovely." 
 
 Olivia, at the turning of a passage, again met Mrs. 
 Mallory, who had been detained in a lower ward, and 
 who now summoned all her courtesy to keep from her 
 face her annoyance over this second encounter. The 
 girl quietly joined the matron, and they rustled on 
 together, Olivia stringing together little nothings of a 
 glittering, bead-like quality; black beads, Mrs. Mallory 
 would have said, sensitive to she knew not what noc- 
 turnal element in the personality of this young woman. 
 
 Paul was fated to see her, after all, she thought, won- 
 dering what imp of the perverse favors a lover. She 
 hated Olivia for refusing her son, and she blessed her 
 for refusing him. The two conflicting emotions gave her 
 little rest in the girl's presence. 
 
 As they entered the waiting-room Paul's face lit up 
 with the radiance of an unexpected joy. Mrs. Mallory 
 said her unheeded word of explanation while her son, 
 figuratively speaking, was getting down on his knees. 
 
 " Would you like to go for a walk ? " he timidly asked 
 Olivia. 
 
 "In this neighborhood?" Mrs. Mallory objected. 
 
 " I'd enjoy a walk through this quarter of the town 
 at this hour," Olivia answered, a touch of perverseness 
 in her manner. 
 
 139
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 She kept them waiting on one pretense of conversa- 
 tion and another until she was sure that a certain thing 
 would happen. Then they went down the high stone 
 steps together, and Paul put his mother into her carriage. 
 As he rejoined Olivia, Robert came out of the dispensary. 
 He bowed stiffly, his surprise visible in his face. She 
 smiled to herself, thinking how well she had timed this 
 meeting, a punishment for Robert's coldness to her. 
 
 His sudden appearance quickened into fresh life the 
 suspicion which had crossed Paul's mind on first seeing 
 Olivia. She had come to the hospital because Robert 
 was there. Was her interest in him deeper than that of 
 friendship? or was it merely that she depended on his 
 professional knowledge in directing her charities? 
 
 Jealousy, the first infirmity of love, has as many 
 varieties of torment as there are temperaments. The 
 quick flash, deadly but soon over, belongs to impulsive 
 natures. The jealousy of serious-minded, slow-moving 
 people is a long-drawn-out passion. If they possess high 
 ideals they suffer also on the rack of self-contempt. 
 
 The pain that gripped Paul now was of this double 
 order. 
 
 Olivia, perfectly conscious of his state of mind, and 
 perfectly indifferent to it, was enjoying with the epicure- 
 anism of a Turner the rich colors of the disordered scene 
 before her: the blues and browns of the clothes of labor- 
 ers returning from their work; the splotches of ruddy 
 orange made against the twilight by the oil-lamps on the 
 push-carts ; the golden and crimson contents of the carts 
 themselves ; or the varied dimmer colors of the vegetables 
 heaped before some shop. A stand of Russian brass 
 caught the flickering glow of a near-by gas-jet, while over 
 all hung the cold, blue star of an arc-light. Children 
 
 140
 
 THE CITY 
 
 swarming over the pavement added the raw, bright colors 
 of their frocks to the variety of hues. 
 
 Paul broke the silence. 
 
 " Dr. Erskine is an old friend of yours, is he not ? " 
 
 " Measured by time he is a very recent friend," she 
 answered. 
 
 " ' Measured by time/ " Paul repeated in the hungry 
 voice of the denied lover. " Do you know, Olivia, I am 
 jealous of him, even though you tell me he is engaged." 
 
 " You may well be," she said lightly. " I have a 
 great admiration for him." 
 
 Her perfect concurrence left him sore and silent. 
 Was his mother right ? 
 
 The doubt, as usual, added to the charm of the person 
 against whom it was directed. Love thrives on unbelief 
 so long as the charge is not definitely proved sometimes 
 even then. 
 
 " Tell me something of Dr. Erskine. He seems an 
 inscrutable person." 
 
 " Truth was not in the wine, then, last evening." 
 
 " He took no part in the conversation. His absorp- 
 tion was so deep that I judged he was thinking of you." 
 
 " You see your own state of mind in every one else. 
 Dr. Erskine was probably performing an operation or 
 making a diagnosis." 
 
 Paul laughed grimly. 
 
 " Where are you taking me ? " she said, as they came 
 to a turning. " Let us go this way. I love the docks at 
 this hour. How black the masts are against the last gold 
 of the west ! " 
 
 " I wish you and I were on that ship," he said wist- 
 fully. " We would sail to the Blessed Islands. Olivia, 
 is it nothing to you that I love you ? " 
 
 141
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " It is more to me that you are my friend. Let us 
 walk to the end of the dock, and see the city pass into 
 night." 
 
 They bent their heads against the cold west wind 
 romping over the water, which was now black beneath 
 the sky and stained red here and there by the lights of 
 a tug or ferry-boat. Behind them the majestic city rose 
 preparing itself for its supplementary day. Far to the 
 north a graceful tower was outlined with many colored 
 lights. 
 
 " You do care for my friendship, then?" 
 
 " Please don't be personal. Look at the city and for- 
 get me." 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he said humbly. 
 
 She gave a gesture of impatience. 
 
 " Never beg my pardon. I threw a friend over once 
 for apologizing to me." 
 
 "What may I do?" 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " Adore me, if you wish, but be silent just now! " 
 
 142
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 OLIVIA for once had erred in a calculation of psychol- 
 ogy. Her power was less magnetic over Robert than 
 she thought, and more closely allied to the natural prin- 
 ciples of his character. Not her fascination, but his own 
 deep love of her, was beginning to dominate him. The 
 sight of her as he left the dispensary aroused in him a 
 kind of jealousy which resulted in clear vision. He 
 might have dallied with a fancy. From a fact he must 
 flee. 
 
 By a paradox which told him how little of the lover 
 he had been to Brooke, and how much of a friend, he 
 sought her for a certain kind of consolation, and found 
 it. She seemed to him more companionable than ever: 
 her strength and sweetness more invasive of the whole 
 structure of his life. He did not realize that since the 
 dinner she had been putting forth every effort to charm 
 and hold him, fighting her doubts in a lovely armor of 
 graciousness. She talked to him gaily of her experiences. 
 She put on her prettiest dresses to receive him, and did 
 her hair in new ways, knowing full well the value of 
 little impressions. She made him tempting suppers in 
 Angelica's chafing-dish. Her aunt, divining some hid- 
 den trouble between the lovers, and feeling for her niece 
 a wistful sympathy, spent her evenings at the libraries, 
 that Brooke and Robert might have the studio to them- 
 selves. 
 
 One evening, not long before Christmas, they were 
 seated by the open fire, Brooke roasting apples and re- 
 
 143
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 lating with touches of satire her attendance, in the char- 
 acter of a reporter, at a fashionable women's club. 
 
 " She read a ten-minute paper on the Influence of the 
 Platonic Philosophy on the Christian Dogma of the Sec- 
 ond Century, together with a Brief Sketch of the Most 
 Distinguished Neo-Platonists honestly, dear, that was 
 the full title. I came away sorrowful from the hostelry, 
 for I felt that they were very poor. But the lunch was 
 delicious." 
 
 " And where did you go next, brave lady ? " Robert 
 said, looking at her with admiration that deepened the 
 reproach in his heart. 
 
 " To a studio : an unofficial attendance. I went to 
 please Aunt Angelica." 
 
 " Were you rewarded ? " 
 
 " After a fashion. It was the kind of a place where 
 people read their sonnets to each other; then somebody 
 plays Grieg just well enough to exasperate you; then 
 somebody else gets up and recites his latest poem; and 
 there are Moorish corners with those hideous painted 
 Turks' heads and sham armor, and girls with picture-hats 
 who always take cocktails." 
 
 Robert laughed. 
 
 " It sounds like the American-Latin quarter in Paris. 
 I know the types." 
 
 Brooke hesitated. 
 
 " Olivia was there." 
 
 "Did did you speak with her?" 
 
 Brooke looked into the fire. 
 
 " For a few moments. She possessed all the dis- 
 tinction that there was in the studio, though she said and 
 did nothing. An artist was with her. I think it was 
 the great Marston." 
 
 144
 
 THE CITY 
 
 "Did she seem well?" 
 
 Brooke's little smile, as she bent forward to turn the 
 apples, was hidden from Robert. 
 
 " I thought she looked tired, certainly bored. She 
 asked me why we had not been to see her." 
 
 "What did you say?" 
 
 " I did not remind her that I had made my dinner- 
 call. If you haven't made yours, Robert, you ought to 
 go at once. It's not courteous." 
 
 She spoke with an effort, keeping her face turned 
 away. 
 
 " I've been too busy. I'm not a society man, and she 
 knows it." 
 
 " There is not much Olivia doesn't know," Brooke 
 said in a musing tone. " She sets a wonderful pace for 
 divination." She paused, then added, " Do you think she 
 is the kind of woman, Robert, that a man would always 
 love? I sometimes wonder if they keep on loving her 
 all these distracted people ! " 
 
 She spoke quietly, a shadow of contempt in her voice. 
 
 " If he really loved her yes." 
 
 Brooke closed her eyes a moment. From the 
 shadowy corners of the room threatening shapes seemed 
 to creep. She wished that she could despise Olivia, but 
 her strange and strong personality held even her reason- 
 able accusations in check. This rival was too extraor- 
 dinary for ordinary jealousies. 
 
 Robert, seeing nothing but the leap and play of the 
 flames like a symbol of inner devastation, put a hand 
 gently on Brooke's shoulder and drew her toward him. 
 
 " Come closer to me. You are too near the fire." 
 
 He put a protecting arm about her, and put his cheek 
 down to hers. Suddenly he felt her tears. 
 
 US
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 "Why, girlie! why, Brooke! Oh, my dear, why are 
 you crying? " 
 
 The distress in his voice called to her self-control. 
 She spoke piteously. 
 
 " I'm tired, Bobbie, just tired. Oh, Bobbie, let's go 
 home." 
 
 He kissed her forehead. 
 
 " Dear, we're going home for our white day, for 
 Christmas. We'll play then. We'll do all the old 
 things: we'll go up the mountain and cut a tree for the 
 kids and trim it together." 
 
 Remorse gave intensity to his words. She tried to 
 smile. 
 
 " It will be good to play with the children, and forget 
 that we are metropolitans." 
 
 " And you go back successful." 
 
 A shiver went through her. 
 
 " No, I have failed," she said. 
 
 This little scene with her became sacramental to him. 
 He entered upon a period of comparative calm, one 
 which for her also held its halcyon blessings. Two days 
 before Christmas they went down to Trenthampton, 
 Brooke being able to get away because she was still re- 
 porting " on space," and Robert deliberately taking the 
 brief vacation. Firefly had left the hospital, telling 
 him with tears at parting that he " could have her and 
 Jim." Even Jim himself had shaken hands with him 
 cordially, convinced at last, perhaps, that Robert was 
 heart-whole toward the little dancer. 
 
 He looked forward to meeting his parents with re- 
 luctance. Though his mother never mentioned the 
 change which the sale of the business and the setting- 
 up of his town office had made in the household, her 
 
 146
 
 THE CITY 
 
 letters were reserved beneath their solicitude. She was 
 evidently worried over his father's health, over many 
 things of which she never spoke outright. 
 
 But the first hours at home were all pleasure, despite 
 the story told to Robert by his father's nervous, half-fret- 
 ful manner and run-down condition, like that of an 
 animal that grows thin pacing its cage. His mother's 
 face was patient, but not happy. Robert saw with a 
 pang how shrunken the establishment was over which 
 she presided with her old grace and dignity. No wine 
 was offered at dinner. The coachman and the gardener 
 had been dismissed at the closing of the stables. Only 
 the cook and one other servant were retained indoors. 
 
 After dinner the three went into the library. Mrs. 
 Erskine made the black Turkish coffee that Robert 
 liked, and he and his father smoked, the elder Erskine's 
 unfailing method of drifting from reality to dreams. 
 
 " Tell us all about it, Robert," he said. " Don't leave 
 anything out. My mole-hills are Alps, you must re-- 
 member." 
 
 So Robert began his story, making it as dramatic and 
 as full of color as possible, emphasizing his hopes and 
 passing over his discouragements, because he saw that 
 his father desired only a bright perspective. 
 
 "And the Winwoods, what of them?" 
 
 Robert related what he could relate. 
 
 " You evidently don't see as much of Olivia as you 
 did," Erskine said. " Is Brooke jealous ? " 
 
 The ungenerous speech told of a condition far from 
 normal. Mrs. Erskine hastened to say : 
 
 " That's not Brooke's nature. Why are you so sus- 
 picious of people these days, James?" 
 
 " Because I have nothing to do but brood. I'm 
 ,147.
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 nothing but a chained bear, Robert," he added with a 
 little deprecating smile. " I'll open a store in the village 
 soon, if I can't do something to work off my energy. If 
 there's any little hell on earth, it's sitting down and 
 economizing when you want to be out in the world 
 making money." 
 
 The words seemed to give him relief. He put out a 
 thin hand and patted his wife's shoulder. 
 
 " Your mother has been a brick putting up with all 
 my humors. I've not been easy to live with this fall, 
 Robert. I guess I wanted to go to the city, too." 
 
 " Your father has corresponded with several people 
 who want capital put into their concerns, but their plans 
 never seemed solid enough for our sober judgment." 
 
 Robert listened with some surprise. Evidently his 
 father and mother talked to each other more freely than 
 of old. His own mood fell all too readily in with his 
 father's. Though he did not realize it, his subconscious 
 self was always planning ventures by which, through 
 some miracle, he could retrieve the family fortunes, and 
 place himself on an equal plane with Olivia. For money 
 itself he cared little; for the emancipation it represented, 
 much. He wanted to be able to say in that realm of the 
 impossible where lovers live, " I could ask her to marry 
 me." He wanted to be rich that he might forget her 
 intolerable wealth. 
 
 " How about the Street ? If I had any leaning 
 toward speculation I am in the way of magnificent temp- 
 tations. A patient gave me a tip the other day, which 
 of course I couldn't use." 
 
 His father gave an impatient shrug. 
 
 " I wouldn't dare risk what's left to us. No, I want 
 something solid : something that would give me employ- 
 
 148
 
 THE CITY 
 
 ment, too. I've had one or two offers, but they were 
 subordinate positions you see I'm getting on," he 
 added wistfully. 
 
 Robert was silent for a while, then he said: 
 
 " I'll look out for that solid thing, father. I'll make 
 a point of it when I go back. We'll have you in town 
 yet, catching up with the best of them." 
 
 " I only want to catch up with myself," Erskine 
 answered. 
 
 Later in the afternoon Brooke and Robert went to 
 Dr. Gorton's. They found him tending a royal fire in 
 their honor, in the seldom used fireplace of the drawing- 
 room. The house was wrapped in the profound silence 
 of winter, the surrounding country being deep with 
 snow. Even the wind seemed muffled as it shook the 
 dry vines on the porch pillars, and blew fine, glittering 
 particles of snow and ice against the window-panes. A 
 sky of almost Italian depth and clearness overhung this 
 white world. In the distances the mountains towered, 
 their sides shining under the low sun, meet, it would 
 seem, for the passing of an angel host. 
 
 Brooke, in the window-seat, gave a sigh of pleasure. 
 
 " Godfather, the city has nothing like this." 
 
 Robert, who was gazing into the fire, looked up. 
 
 " You're right, Brooke : ' getting and spending we 
 lay waste our powers ' only it's mostly spending." 
 
 Reaction was for the moment upon him despite the 
 impetus given to his ambition by the conversation with 
 his father. In returning to the city he was afraid of he 
 knew not what. For that day at least he wished that 
 he and Brooke were deep-hidden in some little home, 
 reading together by their own fireside, listening to the 
 wind in the chimney, or, like the poet, to the sounds of 
 
 149
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 frost at midnight, with the icicles on the eaves " quietly 
 shining to the quiet moon." 
 
 Dr. Gorton was watching his face, his keen black 
 eyes full of his own speculations. These children, with 
 their modern unrest, seemed to interpret the age to him. 
 
 " Well, if you've gotten that much wisdom out of 
 the past three months, you've done well," he said. 
 "Have you had any interesting cases, Robert?" 
 
 Robert told his story, the old man listening with 
 warm appreciation. Despite his dissatisfaction with 
 Robert's choice of environment, his interest in his god- 
 son's career remained superlative. 
 
 The ringing of the telephone interrupted their con- 
 versation. When Dr. Gorton came back he said: 
 
 " I am called to an operation in a farmhouse about 
 five miles from here. Would you like to come along ? 
 The sleigh will hold us all." 
 
 They responded joyfully. It was an afternoon that 
 ever afterward stood out to Brooke in clear outlines of 
 pure delight. The ride through the bright, intense cold, 
 the fairy panoramas of winter landscape, the tramp 
 through the hushed woods in search of a tree for the 
 children, the ride home in a crimson twilight with Robert 
 his old gay self all these things took her for the hour 
 into the sweet, bright rapture of recovered life. 
 
 On her return home she went to the nursery, her 
 cheeks glowing with the cold and with pleasure, her 
 whole being energized, filled with fresh faith. At the 
 door she met her father, who had been having one of 
 his rare conversations with his wife. He complimented 
 Brooke on her appearance. Her little success in town 
 made him see possibilities in her. 
 
 She laughed and thanked him, and went in to her 
 ISO
 
 THE CITY 
 
 mother, who scanned her face anxiously as she entered; 
 then her own brightened. 
 
 " You're happy, Brooke." 
 
 The girl hesitated, then with a manner touched with 
 shyness she said: 
 
 "Haven't I seemed happy?" 
 
 Mrs. Peyton drew her down until her cheek was 
 against that of the sleeping child. 
 
 " It was my fancy, perhaps. There are moments 
 when I would like to go back twenty years, and have 
 you as Richard is." 
 
 " If we only could go back. But it is always going 
 forward, always change, always something new to get 
 used to." 
 
 She spoke in a meditative, passive voice, for the in- 
 fluence of the afternoon was still upon her. Then she 
 turned and looked closely at her mother. 
 
 "Are you well, mummie quite well?" 
 
 " Not always. You see, Brooke " she began, then 
 paused, with a look of timidity and apology in her eyes 
 that for the moment the girl did not understand. As 
 it slowly dawned upon her what was meant, she gave 
 an impatient, half-angry gesture. 
 
 " Oh, mother, I'm so sorry ! I would rather hear any- 
 thing than that. I can't leave you if you if you're 
 needing me. Is there no mercy for women in the 
 scheme of things!" she wanted to add, but she kept 
 back the words, stroking her mother's hand the while. 
 
 " No, it's better for you to stay in town now. You've 
 been a help. Perhaps afterward " 
 
 "When will it be?" 
 
 " About July." 
 
 " Does it worry you, dearest? "
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " This time, yes. I feel too discouraged to go 
 through with it." 
 
 Brooke sighed, then put her arms about her mother 
 and drew her close to her, forgetting in that embrace 
 all personal joy or sorrow. 
 
 152
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 ROBERT and Brooke returned to the city after Christ- 
 mas in a tranquillity of spirit which seemed to promise 
 a garden of their own peace within the turmoil. The 
 few days at Trenthampton had restored to them some- 
 thing of an earlier happiness. Robert, alone with 
 Brooke in the winter woods, had made a silent vow to 
 keep his very thoughts faithful to her. He would put 
 Olivia out of his life, and with her the haunting splendor 
 of emotion that clung like light about her very name. 
 If he had missed a supreme experience, he must forget 
 even his loss. 
 
 He looked about for defenses. The obvious one he 
 presented at once to Brooke for her judgment. They 
 were walking home one evening when he said to her 
 directly and without preliminaries: 
 
 "Dear, when are we going to be married?" 
 
 Her look of astonishment told him many things. 
 
 " Haven't you thought of it lately ? " he said, a note 
 of resentment in his voice. 
 
 " Yes, but I did not know that you had," she answered 
 gently. 
 
 " I think of it a good deal," he replied. 
 
 A look of happiness came into her face. 
 
 " I am glad," she said. " You remember the evening 
 we were at Ethelberta's. I thought then that we should 
 have to wait for years, because you said such a life would 
 be intolerable to you." 
 
 " It doesn't seem quite tolerable now," he answered 
 11 153
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 with a little smile, " but a flat may not be the inevitable 
 solution. Suppose we marry this spring, and take a 
 couple of rooms in the old-fashioned part of the town; 
 big rooms in a decayed-grandeur mansion." 
 
 She was silent, struggling with the old, cruel doubt. 
 To marry him, to chain him forever with her love, seemed 
 an easy solution of the difficulty viewed from one stand- 
 point; from another it appeared to her curiously 
 enough like an attempt to enter heaven without the 
 password. She knew now that he had never uttered it 
 in her hearing. 
 
 " Doesn't it appeal to you?" he questioned, and her 
 quick ear caught the note of relief in his voice. 
 
 She bent her soul to a heavy weight of falsehood. 
 
 " No, it doesn't appeal to me, dear," she said, " at 
 least not under present conditions. As things go in 
 this town we can scarcely afford marriage yet. I'm not 
 always good-tempered when I cook," she added with a 
 charming smile that caught his soul midway in its flight 
 from a possible prison. 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " And my hair isn't long enough to insure a poetic 
 view of deprivation. Let's worry along till next year, 
 when surely things will happen." 
 
 His good spirits told her how great was his relief. 
 She smiled with him, knowing that you must smile with 
 the person you love to keep him, though to keep a per- 
 son who loves you, frowns will serve. 
 
 And Brooke's cause was strengthened for the pres- 
 ent by her refusal. In the first joy of his reprieve Rob- 
 ert's affection for her was strengthened and delicately 
 adorned with fresh flowers of admiration. He longed to 
 be completely hers, but longing had little power over ful- 
 
 154
 
 THE CITY 
 
 filment. His appreciation of her was becoming more 
 and more intellectual, and sometimes her very sinceri- 
 ties were tedious to him like the virtues of an unloved 
 wife. 
 
 To Olivia's he went no more. His days were given 
 up to unceasing work, his evenings to Brooke. As the 
 fascination of his labors grew upon him he wondered if 
 a man's true mistress were not his chosen occupation. 
 He had always regarded the office of a physician as 
 something involving a wide range of spiritual percep- 
 tions for its perfecting; involving, indeed, an almost uni- 
 versal knowledge of character, of social conditions, of 
 the obscurer forces and influences at work in the body 
 politic. In his ministrations he always remembered the 
 soul, though he did not seek to define it. 
 
 During this period of quiet, uninterrupted labor, he 
 was in closer communication with the household at 
 Trenthampton, for he keenly desired to put his father 
 in the way of some business interest that would again 
 give him an aim in life. His intentions, however, were 
 stronger than his power of execution. In a world with 
 which he was not familiar, Robert was forced to go 
 cautiously. More than once the plans which he un- 
 folded to his father were little more than a commentary 
 on his inexperienced business judgment. But the quest 
 itself was salutary in bringing the older and the younger 
 man together, and in keeping Robert's thoughts from 
 Olivia. 
 
 She meanwhile was entering for the first time in her 
 life a valley of humiliation. It was not the fact of Rob- 
 ert's withdrawal from her circle that hurt her. Men 
 had dropped out of her life before, because she could 
 not love them. What aroused this new, resented suffer- 
 
 155
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 ing was her own longing to see him. There were hours 
 when she desired to lay aside every ambition, every 
 principle of honor, and wresting him from Brooke, from 
 all the world, make his life forever tributary to hers. 
 A passion as strong as it was clear-sighted took posses- 
 sion of her, though not without her protest and resent- 
 ment. No plan of her life had ever allowed for the pos- 
 sibility that she herself might love, though she had built 
 prisons for the souls of others : prisons indeed not unlike 
 palaces in design and adornment, but with high and 
 thick surrounding walls. 
 
 Having no faculty for self-deception, she knew per- 
 fectly well that she would take Robert from Brooke if 
 she could break down his resistance. She made no ex- 
 cuses for herself, as a weaker woman might have done. 
 Olivia had only contempt for the subterfuges by which 
 some women twist the moral code to soothe their con- 
 sciences. 
 
 But would Robert yield? The uncertainty of the 
 answer stimulated at once her curiosity and her longing 
 to make him wholly hers. Distrusting her tempera- 
 ment, she sometimes asked herself if she would cease 
 to love him if he were wholly hers. 
 
 She thought not; in any case she could always pre- 
 serve her love for him by not marrying him. 
 
 She was sitting in her little study one dreary day 
 toward the end of February, in company with Dr. Faus- 
 tus, whose inscrutable eyes were narrowed to yellow 
 slits. Her thoughts were of Robert. She had sent no 
 word to him these weeks, her pride forbidding inquiries, 
 but in her heart she dwelt continually with him, keeping 
 that silence in which all strong emotions are born, and 
 in which all weak ones die. 
 
 156
 
 THE CITY 
 
 Her mother rustled in. In her round face was a look 
 of maternal concern. For several weeks she had 
 watched Olivia anxiously, thinking that this wonderful, 
 inaccessible daughter seemed not wholly well and 
 bright. 
 
 "Did I hear you cough, 'Livy, dear?" she began 
 with timid diplomacy. 
 
 Olivia smiled. 
 
 " No, you didn't, mother, as you know perfectly well, 
 and I don't think you ever will." 
 
 " No one thinks they're run down these days," Mrs. 
 Winwood said with a touch of resentment. " I suppose 
 it's not swell to be sick." 
 
 " No, it is as unfashionable as interest in theology," 
 Olivia said. 
 
 " Now don't make fun of me. You know well 
 enough what I mean. When I was a girl we took what 
 the good Lord sent, and didn't turn up our noses at the 
 proper remedies." 
 
 " I am in splendid health." 
 
 " Well, you look peaked to me. You haven't a mite 
 of color." 
 
 Olivia laughed. 
 
 " I never did have. What perfume is that you are 
 using? " 
 
 "Don't you like it?" 
 
 " No, dear, not very much. You should always let 
 me select your perfumes." 
 
 " It cost four dollars an ounce," Mrs. Winwood said 
 apologetically. 
 
 Olivia made no comment. 
 
 "Are you expecting anybody this afternoon?" 
 
 " Yes, Paul Mallory." 
 
 157
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " I like that young man. Are you going to marry 
 him, Olivia?" 
 
 " Perhaps, if I don't change my mind." 
 
 "Don't you know? Ain't you sure you love him?" 
 
 " Love him ! " Her low laugh rang out. She stooped 
 over the cat. " Oh, Faustus ! what funny logic ! " 
 
 Mrs. Winwood bestowed one of her rare frowns on 
 her daughter. 
 
 " Olivia, you give me goose-flesh sometimes. The 
 Lord only knows how I ever came to have you." 
 
 Olivia put up her arms, and drew the fat, tight form 
 down beside her. 
 
 " Poor little mother! You ought to have had a 
 blond dumpling, who would have said her prayers o' 
 nights." 
 
 " We might have fought. We'd 'a' been too much 
 alike," Mrs. Winwood said, getting up with a puff from 
 her crouching position. 
 
 " Are you going out now, mother ? " 
 
 " Yes, I'm going to hear about a Bab. It's some 
 kind of a new religion. I told Mrs. Denton I was a 
 Presbyterian in Trenthampton, but without prejudice. 
 She said this wouldn't interfere." 
 
 Olivia bent over the cat again, hiding her face in the 
 long black fur. 
 
 When Paul Mallory was announced an hour later, 
 he found her in street-dress, a kind of costume which 
 always aroused in him a feeling of insecurity, as if she 
 might at any moment escape him. She had seemed 
 to him of late more elusive than ever, arousing the hunt- 
 ing instinct in him despite his old-fashioned belief that 
 you ought only to offer your heart to a woman, and 
 then stand in dignified silence until she took it. 
 
 158
 
 THE CITY 
 
 But the Napoleonic attitude seemed to make little 
 impression upon Olivia, so the would-be conqueror 
 abandoned philosophy and gave himself up to the for- 
 tunes of practical warfare. His air of decision on this 
 afternoon drew her attention. 
 
 " You look as if you had just settled an important 
 question," she said after their greetings. 
 
 " I have." 
 
 "What is it, if I may ask?" 
 
 " I am determined that you shall marry me." 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " Why do you want to marry me, Paul? Do you 
 know why?" 
 
 " Because I love you as I never loved any other 
 woman." 
 
 " I remember having had that said to me before." 
 
 " Unfortunately there is but one way of saying it. 
 Olivia, have you no heart?" 
 
 " No, but I have imagination, and perhaps tact. 
 Aren't those good substitutes? At least they insure 
 against blunders, and blunders are what separate people." 
 
 Paul looked hopeless. 
 
 " I know how you feel," she said gently, going by 
 one of her quick transitions from mockery to tenderness. 
 " You are seeking the beatific vision, not of God, but of 
 woman; and you think you have found it in me." 
 
 " I place you next to Him," he said, a pale religious 
 light spreading over his face, turning him from the man 
 of the world into a monk or confessor. 
 
 " Ah, don't do that. I will tell you what I am a 
 supreme egotist." 
 
 He smiled sadly. 
 
 " It does not matter to me what you say you are." 
 159
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " No, I suppose not," she said musingly. " I sup- 
 pose you take comfort in your little dream. Do you 
 want to go with me to the East Side? " she added. " A 
 friend of mine who lives over there expects me this 
 afternoon. I shall take a street-car." 
 
 " Do I want to go with you! Don't you know what 
 it means to me to be with you? " 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " I must have missed a good deal in missing super- 
 latives. I will rejoin you in a moment." 
 
 She came down in her white furs, looking like an 
 incarnation of winter. Paul gazed at her in silent ad- 
 miration. His delight in accompanying her changed the 
 drab city into gold. Even the crowded streets of the 
 lower East Side seemed to him lovely as lanes of para- 
 dise. Passers-by looked at Olivia, but however evi- 
 dent their poverty, there was no resentment in their 
 look. She did not seem aloof from them, only beauti- 
 ful and comforting to eyes that rested always on the 
 sordid. 
 
 She turned at last into the narrow, badly lighted hall 
 of a tenement. 
 
 " Will you wait for me here? I'll only be a few mo- 
 ments." 
 
 " Yes, but is it quite safe for you to go up there 
 alone?" he asked, looking apprehensively up the steep, 
 dark stairway. 
 
 " Safe! I'd be safe among brigands." 
 
 She went lightly up flight after flight until she reached 
 a door opening on a comparatively clean and quiet 
 landing. Here Firefly lived with another girl, also a 
 dancer. 
 
 Her knock brought eager steps to the door. 
 160
 
 THE CITY 
 
 " I knew it was you. You knock like a lady," the 
 girl said, drawing her in greedily. " I've dreamed of 
 your coming all week." 
 
 " On that little white bed? " Olivia said, smiling and 
 sinking into a chair, while Aurelia fumbled at her furs 
 to undo them. 
 
 " Yes, that's mine. Jennie sleeps in the next room. 
 We cook in there 'cause it's bigger." 
 
 "Where are you going to sit?" 
 
 " On the floor here by you," she answered, fluttering 
 down with professional grace, and reaching for Olivia's 
 hand, which she clasped tightly. 
 
 "How's Jim?" Olivia asked. 
 
 " Botherin' the life out of me as usual. He wants to 
 get married right off." 
 
 " And don't you want to get married, Firefly? " 
 
 The girl shook her head. A mournful expression 
 crept into her face. 
 
 " Some day mebbe. I ain't hankering to." 
 
 " You'd be better off with a good, kind boy like 
 Jim," Olivia said, touching the girl's hair softly. 
 
 " Yes, he's kind, Jim is," she answered, puckering 
 her brow. After a moment's silence she added: 
 
 " Have you have you seen Dr. Erskine lately? " 
 
 " No, not since I saw you last at the hospital." 
 
 Firefly sighed. 
 
 " He said you was his friend." 
 
 " I am." 
 
 " If you should see him, give him my best regards 
 and Jim's." 
 
 " I will not forget to." 
 
 Olivia had an impulse to put her arm about this 
 blond butterfly, to hold her an instant to her heart, 
 
 161
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 because of what she read in the girl's face, but she re- 
 mained passive. She never obeyed her impulses. 
 
 When she rose to go, however, she took the girl's 
 hand in a strong, warm grasp. 
 
 " Don't keep Jim waiting too long. Let me know 
 when it will be, and I will send you your linen." 
 
 Firefly smiled, but shook her head. 
 
 ' 'Twon't be this year, I guess. I fell up-stairs this 
 morning. You're comin' to see me dance some night, 
 ain't you, Miss Winwood? " 
 
 On the way up-town Olivia dismissed Paul abruptly. 
 Then getting off the car herself at the next crossing, 
 she turned into the quiet old-fashioned street in which 
 Robert had his office. A nervous coldness, new to her, 
 made her shiver as she went up the steps and rang the 
 bell. 
 
 The little servant who answered it looked her over 
 with surprise. Evidently Robert's patients were of a 
 different class. 
 
 In the barren waiting-room, with its few stiff chairs 
 and litter of old magazines, their covers curled at the 
 corners, Olivia had a minute or two in which to regain 
 her accustomed confidence. She was herself again 
 when Robert's tall figure emerged from an adjoin- 
 ing room, his face chalk-white against the gathering 
 darkness. 
 
 " I am very glad to see you," he said unsteadily. 
 " Come into the office. It is warmer in there. Do you 
 mind the smell of chemicals? I have been at work in 
 my laboratory." 
 
 " No, Robert," she answered in a low voice. " I 
 don't mind anything." 
 
 162
 
 THE CITY 
 
 On the threshold of the office she paused. 
 
 " So this is your workshop ? I'm glad you have 
 that little grate fire. Let me see your outlook." She 
 crossed the room and raised the shade. " That is good; 
 you have a bit of a garden." 
 
 The cry of his heart kept him silent. If she had 
 entered in her old dominant way, he could have met her 
 with the barrier which all these weeks he had laboriously 
 striven to create between himself and his very thoughts ; 
 but her gentle, appealing manner was overcoming him. 
 He longed to take her in his arms, to pour out to her 
 his wild, incredible story. 
 
 She seated herself before the fire and leaned forward, 
 one elbow on her knee, her chin resting in the palm of 
 her hand. 
 
 " My mother thinks I'm not well," she said, in a tired 
 voice. " I am, of course, in perfect health, but I stopped 
 in here just to satisfy her. You can feel my pulse," she 
 added with a little smile, beginning to strip off her glove, 
 " and perhaps write me out a sugar-and-water prescrip- 
 tion." 
 
 Then Robert for the first time raised his eyes and 
 looked steadily at her. She did not meet his look, but 
 in her downward glance, in the faint quiver of her lips, he 
 read something that filled him at once with joy and with 
 terror. For a moment he stood quite silent, then, as 
 she bared her wrist he bent a little forward. But some- 
 thing in him, the principle of honor which he had strug- 
 gled to maintain during these past weeks, was still 
 stronger than his love. He drew back, assuming again 
 his professional manner. With steady fingers he held 
 her wrist, then put one or two questions to her, which 
 she answered exactly and fully. 
 
 163
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " You have no cold," he said. " You seem to me in 
 good health." 
 
 A look of amusement passed over her face. 
 
 " You will never make a metropolitan physician, Rob- 
 ert. If I haven't a cold, will you please tell me what, 
 precisely, is the matter with me ? " 
 
 164
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 HE did not reply for a moment or two, then he 
 said: 
 
 "Do you insist that there is something the matter? 
 Have you come to make a trial of my skill ? " 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " No, only of your powers of invention. I see they 
 are limited ; that you refuse, like a true scientist, to take 
 one step beyond your facts. But what shall I say to my 
 mother?" 
 
 " Tell her you are as well as can be." 
 
 " That won't satisfy her. Give me a prescription to 
 show her." 
 
 " Very well. Here is one for quinine." 
 
 " Bitterness, Robert ? Stop being professional, and 
 tell me what you've been doing all these weeks. Have 
 you been to Trenthampton lately ? " 
 
 Robert sat down opposite to her. The rigidity of his 
 muscles relaxed; he drew a long breath of relief, from 
 what weight she could not divine. 
 
 " Brooke and I were there over Christmas." 
 
 " Are your father and mother well ? " 
 
 " My father is restless. He misses his work." 
 
 " Naturally," she answered in a sympathetic voice. 
 " Tell me if you care to more about him." 
 
 The gentleness of her voice, her look of genuine in- 
 terest, invited his confidence. He began to tell her of his 
 father's state of mind, and of his own efforts to find for 
 him some congenial activity. 
 
 165
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 Olivia listened with a grave, intent expression ; her 
 dark eyes softened, as if some tenderness awoke in her 
 which she had the right to feel. 
 
 " This hurts me," she said in one of his pauses. " Do 
 you know, Robert, can you realize what a source of 
 trouble in my life my father's genius for it is a form 
 of genius has been? He can't help himself. He was 
 born to play with millions, as children play with balls, 
 but no great force ever went on its inexorable way with- 
 out crushing and hurting. Since I was a very young 
 child I have always seen what it meant. Your father 
 escaped with a little money and his life. Others are not 
 so fortunate. I know of three suicides for which the 
 action of my father's corporation was directly responsible. 
 Yet in private life he is a good and kind man." 
 
 Olivia had never spoken at such length to him. She 
 was leaning forward in her chair, her chin resting on 
 her hands, a real distress in her face. He had not 
 thought her capable of so much feeling, and the reve- 
 lation was another link in the chain that bound him 
 to her. 
 
 " I hated it at first ; when it first began to dawn 
 on me what it all meant," she went on, " I almost hated 
 him. Then I grew accustomed to it, as you could grow 
 accustomed, I suppose, to passing all your days in a 
 power-house among roaring engines. It came to seem 
 to me a part of the drama of life ; I tried to console myself 
 by thinking that a certain percentage of humanity must 
 always suffer and go under, that waste is as much a part 
 of the world's life as it is of the life of any little house- 
 hold; but my father's power seemed to bring me too 
 close to those wasted and wrecked people. Their ghosts 
 haunted me. They never haunted him." 
 
 166
 
 THE CITY 
 
 Robert leaned toward her and took one of her hands 
 in both of his. 
 
 " Thank you for saying these things. It is much that 
 you understand the other side." 
 
 He did not relax his hold at once, nor did she draw 
 away her hand. Protected by the seriousness of their 
 subject, they came closer together in spirit than ever be- 
 fore. At last Robert seemed to recollect. He dropped 
 her hand suddenly, a bitter look in his face. 
 
 " But what of wealth accumulated by such means ? " 
 he said. " What use will you make of it Olivia ? " 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " I fear I have the habit of wealth. I knew a rich 
 man once who had three sons among whom to divide his 
 fortune, which was made in the liquor traffic. One son 
 had entered the priesthood, had worked for years on the 
 East Side. At his father's death he refused his share 
 of the inheritance wouldn't take a penny of it. I have 
 often wondered whether he were a fanatic or a saint. 
 What I was sure of was that I could not do anything 
 like that. I am too fond of power, of the power that 
 money brings. I think my love of power is the strongest 
 feeling I know. You see, Robert, I am not a noble 
 character." 
 
 She spoke with an intonation of sadness that seemed 
 prophetic of some future compromise with life not wholly 
 exalted. But Robert had never found her so alluring as 
 in this frank, unreserved mood. 
 
 " You are at least honest, Olivia." 
 
 " I suppose my honesty, my clear sight in the matter, 
 will some day make my damnation all the more impera- 
 tive," she said with a smile. 
 
 will render sentence ? " 
 167
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " Myself, I suppose. God always saves us, but we 
 always damn ourselves. He leaves that entirely to us 
 which is right and proper." 
 
 " Yes, it's up to us," Robert assented. " How cheer- 
 fully most of us go about it ! What energy we bring to 
 our task ! " 
 
 They were both silent for a while. Finally Olivia rose. 
 
 " Come home and take dinner with me, and I will 
 draw father out about certain business deals that he 
 knows of. There might be nothing that would fit your 
 father's need, but you could listen and make your own 
 estimates perhaps get a point or two." 
 
 Robert glanced down at his clothes. 
 
 " Oh, you needn't change. My father can only be 
 wheedled into his evening clothes when we are going out. 
 You will find him in sack coat. After dinner I will play 
 some Norwegian music to you music that must have 
 been written under fir-trees, with the sound of the sea 
 coming through the branches. I love the north." 
 
 " You belong to it." 
 
 " I think I do. The thought of a frozen, silent world 
 is always calming to me. Shall I tell you of a fantastic 
 idea of mine a wish, rather? I've always wished that 
 I could die on some Alpine glacier where my body would 
 never be found, but would lie uncorrupted in that cold 
 and brightness forever." 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " I've always wanted Indian burial in a treetop." 
 
 " I see we both desire light and air, even after death. 
 Well, Robert, we'd better go off and die somewhere to- 
 gether beyond the reach of the well-meaning but mis- 
 taken survivors." 
 
 Her look of mirth took him with her into an innocent 
 168
 
 THE CITY 
 
 friendliness. His doubts and fears seemed swept away 
 by a fresh, wholesome wind. He was unspeakably glad 
 to be with her, and yet to be unconscious of wrong or 
 dishonor. On their way up-town she entertained him 
 with descriptions of certain people whom she had lately 
 met always slightly caricatured. 
 
 It was good to pass from the raw, bleak evening into 
 the luxurious warmth and brightness of the house. Mrs. 
 Winwood was in the drawing-room, looking like a very 
 large and bewildered cherub. She greeted her daughter 
 with fretful eagerness. 
 
 " I knew you'd gone on foot, Olivia, and I just had 
 you under a cable-car or run down by a motor. Dr. 
 Erskine, you're a great stranger. I'm real glad to see 
 you. If I'd known you were with 'Livy I'd not been so 
 anxious." 
 
 Olivia excused herself to change her dress, and Rob- 
 ert sat down for a comfortable talk with Mrs. Winwood, 
 whose pleasure in seeing him again was genuine. She 
 continued to speak of her daughter, and Robert was only 
 too glad to listen. He liked to hear of Olivia's devotion 
 to her mother, of her hidden acts of charity, of all those 
 qualities which counterbalanced an inexplicable element 
 of hardness in the girl's nature or was it only indiffer- 
 ence? Yet she had not shown herself indifferent to him. 
 Did she really care? 
 
 He put away the question as dangerous, and went 
 back to the obvious innocent enjoyments of the evening. 
 After the long dinner, at which Olivia fulfilled her prom- 
 ise, she played for him. He followed her through odd, 
 sweet, interminable passages of music, now quivering 
 with a primitive eagerness of life, now disconcerted with 
 the insoluble mystery of existence, now sunny and care- 
 18 169
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 free, passing from the deep, pensive shadows to the open 
 fields, then back again to the darker, self-conscious state. 
 Deep in the mystic forests of the north he found him- 
 self at last, and quite alone with her. 
 
 The striking of eleven reminded him that he would 
 be late at the newspaper office if he did not go at once. 
 His good-bys were hurried, but he promised to come 
 soon again and to bring Brooke with him. 
 
 On the way to the office he banished the thought of 
 Olivia by reviewing Winwood's observations on certain 
 business openings in the town. After all, this evening 
 might be of real service to his father. 
 
 So he quieted his conscience, and tried to forget where 
 her music had led him. As he passed along the corridors 
 of the building he looked for Brooke at every turning. 
 Evidently she was working later than usual. 
 
 But she was not at the office, nor had she been there 
 that evening, the office boy said, eying him with bland 
 superiority. He turned away puzzled ; then suddenly a 
 horrid light flashed upon him. He remembered that he 
 was to have taken her to the theater this evening. 
 
 He hastened into a telephone booth. In another mo- 
 ment he heard her voice, and strained his ears for the 
 note of reproach in it, but he could detect only relief. 
 He asked if he might come and explain. 
 
 As he went up-town he wondered whether he should 
 tell her the truth or whether he should invent some com- 
 forting fable. He decided that his course would depend 
 upon her mood. 
 
 Brooke greeted him with her usual friendliness, 
 though her eyes asked questions which remained un- 
 spoken. It was one of her tenets that explanations are 
 not the parents of confidence; another, that discourtesy 
 
 170
 
 THE CITY 
 
 can not be explained, and the interferences of business or 
 professional life need not be. Robert had only to keep 
 silent or to speak in general terms to establish her belief 
 that some sudden call a maternity case, or an accident 
 or a crisis had detained him. 
 
 He looked down into her frank eyes, and hesitated. 
 Then he said with a visible effort : 
 
 " I was at Olivia's." 
 
 171
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 LATE one evening in May, Brooke was crossing the 
 square before the newspaper buildings. She walked rap- 
 idly, as always when forced to be out alone at night, but 
 her step was inelastic, was that of a person passing 
 through scenes of which she is scarcely aware. This 
 physical revelation of a mental state was further con- 
 firmed by the blankness of her face. Whatever she was 
 about to do would be done mechanically, after the 
 manner of those whose spirits " have gone down into 
 Egypt." 
 
 Entering the office, which on this May night had a 
 peculiarly stale and jaded aspect, she went directly to 
 the city editor. 
 
 " I could not get the Cooper interview," she said, 
 " but I have the other. I'll have the story ready for you 
 in about an hour." 
 
 The editor looked keenly at her; then he said, with 
 a kindness in his voice that would have reached had she 
 not been surrounded by a wall of abstraction: 
 
 " Wednesday's issue will do just as well. You look 
 rather done up, Miss Peyton. You'd better stop off 
 to-night." 
 
 " I'd rather turn in the story," she answered ; " then 
 it will be out of the way." 
 
 She went to her place at the long desk and mechan- 
 ically took out her fountain-pen. Hugh Bradley, who 
 was watching her with a concerned expression, pushed 
 
 172
 
 THE CITY 
 
 some fresh copy-paper toward her and nodded good 
 evening. 
 
 She began to write, scarcely knowing what she put 
 down, scarcely seeing the page before her. What she 
 did see was a ballroom in which many people were 
 dancing. Robert was among them, and Olivia. How 
 beautiful Olivia must look to-night! The music of the 
 waltz sounded in Brooke's ears. 
 
 Her mind reviewed the weeks of a season which was 
 never again to recur without memories like a chill of 
 death among its warm and scented winds. Had she 
 dreamed it all Robert's isolation even in their closest 
 companionship ; her own doubts giving way gradually to 
 a literal and merciless knowledge, still to be dealt with, 
 still faced only in thought. 
 
 The dancers were swaying to wild and still wilder 
 measures, as if before some pagan altar. The music, 
 unholy, brilliant, intoxicating, seemed to fill the air with 
 quivering flames. Brooke drew her hand across her eyes 
 and shook her head. Bradley, watching her furtively, 
 had seen that gesture repeated and repeated during the 
 past weeks. It gave him an uncanny feeling. 
 
 She bent over the paper and wrote rapidly. For a 
 while she held the ballroom away from her eyes. Her 
 hard, mocking thoughts left her, left her weak and help- 
 less, like the demon-haunted child that Christ delivered. 
 Softer emotions crept into her heart, and now the scene 
 changed to the mountains above her home, and Robert 
 was with her. 
 
 Her head drooped nearer and nearer the paper. After 
 a while she became conscious of a friendly voice saying 
 in a low, helpless monotone : 
 
 " O my God ! not tears ! " 
 173
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 She put her hand to her cheek. It was wet. The 
 paper before her bore little blistered marks. She looked 
 across at Bradley, and tried to smile. 
 
 " This is unpardonable in a newspaper office ! " she 
 said. 
 
 " Hang the newspaper ! " he answered, scowling. 
 " You don't feel well, Miss Peyton." 
 
 " I'm a bit tired," she said apologetically. 
 
 He nodded, suddenly left his place and bolted out of 
 the door. In a few moments he returned, carefully carry- 
 ing a bulging paper bag, which he put down beside her. 
 
 " Tea and sinkers from a neighboring foundry," he 
 explained, " also a chicken sandwich warranted fresh 
 last week. No texts thrown in." 
 
 " You are a real friend," Brooke said, smiling and 
 forcing back the tears which his act had brought again 
 perilously near the surface. " Did you think I looked 
 hungry ? " 
 
 " Eating is my remedy for everything," he answered. 
 " I eat when I have sorrow, when I have joy, and always 
 when I have the price. I would have brought something 
 under a silver cover, in the style of Delmonico, but, as 
 you are aware, it is the day before the ghost walks." 
 
 Brooke laughed. 
 
 " Please eat the sandwich and the doughnuts. I 
 couldn't touch them, for I'm not hungry ; but I'll drink 
 the tea." 
 
 Bradley did as he was told, looking remorsefully at 
 her between bites. 
 
 " Story nearly finished ? " he queried. 
 
 " Just a stick or two more," she answered. 
 
 " That's good. After it's done, I beg that you will 
 let me see you home. What a strange, archaic, far-away 
 
 174
 
 THE CITY 
 
 sound the word has in this little old town," he added 
 dreamily, breaking a doughnut. 
 
 " Do you live far from here ? " 
 
 " My ancestral hall is in North Dakota. Merger and 
 I share what the landlord euphoniously calls a sumptuous 
 suite on Tenth Street. Nothing in it is what it appears 
 to be, but is something else. I am constantly mistaking 
 the bookcase for the dining-table." 
 
 He rattled on, hiding with his nonsense the traces of 
 embarrassment left in her manner by his discovery of 
 her tears. Brooke was conscious through all her inward 
 surge and tumult how delicately chivalrous was the spirit 
 which served her, and her gratitude brought her at last 
 into a calmer mood. 
 
 Half an hour later when she entered the studio 
 she found her aunt sitting up for her. Angelica regarded 
 her with a grave, anxious look. 
 
 " Did Robert bring you home ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Where is he to-night ? " she asked with a note of 
 sharpness in her voice. 
 
 " At a dance." 
 
 "At Olivia's?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Why aren't you with him ? " 
 
 " I declined the invitation." 
 
 Brooke's tone was gentle, but something in her face 
 forbade further questioning. She began to undress, and 
 Angelica rose, and, going into an adjoining room, stripped 
 a couch of its cover and cushions, turned down the bed, 
 and put a carafe of fresh water at the bed's head. It 
 relieved her pent-up feelings thus to minister to Brooke. 
 
 When her niece had said good night to her, Angelica 
 175
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 sat down at her desk and began to read a manuscript 
 which she had received with orders to " rush." But her 
 mind wandered. She found herself listening for sounds 
 from the next room. Once she went to the door and 
 looked in, but all was silent. 
 
 One o'clock struck. An intense stillness had settled 
 down upon the house, broken only at intervals by the 
 distant roar of the elevated trains. Suddenly Angelica 
 looked up and gave a little cry. Brooke, ghost-like in 
 her night-gown, was standing motionless at the door of 
 her room. 
 
 " Child, how you frightened me ! What is it ? Did 
 something wake you ? " 
 
 " I haven't been asleep," Brooke said. She hesitated. 
 " Aunt Angelica, would you take a note out for me if I 
 wrote one ? " 
 
 " But it is after midnight. The last collection is 
 eleven." 
 
 " I know, but I want this taken up early." 
 
 " Very well, just as you wish." 
 
 " You don't mind going out with it? " 
 
 " Of course not, if it will be any comfort to you." 
 
 A shudder went through the girl's frame. Angelica 
 looked pitifully at her, but did not make any comment. 
 
 The note was soon written. Angelica wished that it 
 had taken longer to write. When Brooke held it out to 
 her she glanced at the superscription, though she knew 
 perfectly well to whom it was addressed. 
 
 176
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 BROOKE was walking restlessly about the studio, now 
 flooded with the cheerful light of early afternoon. Over 
 twelve hours had elapsed since the writing of the note. 
 The time which she had set for seeing Robert was ap- 
 proaching and she was not prepared. She had spent the 
 morning seeking that calmness, that dignity, that reason- 
 ableness, indeed, which should be the accompaniment of 
 any passage of importance from one state to another, but 
 her life still struggled fearfully with labored, suffocating 
 breaths. All the scenes of her existence rose before her 
 as memories upon which she had no further claim, since 
 Robert was their central figure. 
 
 Why had she not been able to hold him? They had 
 been, were still, indeed, so much to each other so much, 
 but not all. She had gone as far as she could, but where 
 her wall was, there began his open road. 
 
 Through Brooke's brain went stray cries of human 
 sorrow, of long-forgotten warfare and pain that had been 
 asleep a thousand years. 
 
 " I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up : 
 while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted." 
 
 " Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and 
 mine acquaintance into darkness." 
 
 There was a knock. Brooke's lips moved, but no 
 sound came from them. Then she crossed the room and 
 opened the door. Robert stood in the hallway, an ex- 
 pectant figure. At the sight of him the voices within 
 her became quiet, the intruding visions cleared away. 
 
 " Come in, Robert. I have been waiting a long 
 177
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 time," she said, her voice sounding to her strange and 
 far off, like a ventriloquist's. 
 
 " I got your note," he said as he entered. 
 
 He was pale and worn, with something refined and 
 encloistered about him, as if what he had suffered had 
 been a veritable " passion in the desert." A certain dig- 
 nity held his form erect, even as he looked at Brooke 
 with a cry for forgiveness in his eyes. 
 
 She led the way across the room, a tense, remote fig- 
 ure, with all the unfamiliarity about her lent by her lonely 
 purpose. Seating herself at the window, she motioned 
 him to a chair. He shook his head and remained stand- 
 ing, waiting for her to speak. 
 
 " You must know why I have sent for you," she said 
 at last. 
 
 " I know why," he answered with a note of harshness 
 in his voice. 
 
 " I should have broken our engagement a month 
 ago," she said, " but I had not the courage. I set you 
 free now, Robert." 
 
 She drew the ring from her finger and handed it to 
 him. He took it mechanically, and held it in the hollow 
 of his hand. Then he raised his eyes. 
 
 "What if I should refuse to release you?" 
 
 " You will not refuse you can not. You can not 
 marry me, loving another woman." 
 
 " How do you know I love another woman ? " he said 
 hoarsely, his manner dogged, filled with resentment, not 
 of her, it would seem, but of some fact which he still 
 would not acknowledge. 
 
 " Robert," she cried appealingly, " be honest with me 
 now. It is no time for cowardice. Face it as I am 
 doing." 
 
 178
 
 THE CITY 
 
 " Face my dishonor ! " he said with bitterness. 
 
 " If it is real, it is no dishonor. The wrong would 
 be in remaining in a false relation. You go on you 
 have to go on." 
 
 " So it seems. It seems that you are forcing me to 
 an issue. Remember, you, not I, break this engage- 
 ment." 
 
 " You broke it long ago. But not without a struggle. 
 You did struggle, but you were in the grip of something 
 too strong for you." 
 
 He winced at her words. 
 
 " Brooke, I can at least say to you that, to this 
 hour," he hesitated. 
 
 She smiled faintly. 
 
 " Only the spirit counts, not the letter. She has 
 the real thing." 
 
 " I do not know what she has ; but I know what you 
 are taking from me." 
 
 " what belongs to Olivia." 
 
 " I don't know to this day what she " 
 
 " thinks? feels? That is not the question. It is 
 what you feel." 
 
 He turned his head away. For a while silence reigned. 
 Brooke broke it. She began to speak in a low monotone : 
 
 " Robert, I understand better than you think. You 
 care for her as a man cares but once in his life. You 
 found in me your dearest friend, but still a friend. 
 These are facts. We have to face facts." 
 
 She paused, then went on, her voice now clear and 
 firm: 
 
 " Do you think that I can not see what a many-sided 
 nature came to show you the way the way I missed? 
 But I wish to God I were blind ! " 
 
 179
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 Her sudden cry of protest and pain rang out sharply. 
 He stretched out his hands to her. 
 
 "Brooke! Brooke!" 
 
 At that appeal she turned from him, lest he should 
 see the terror in her face, terror that she might weaken 
 and beg him wildly to stay with her, to give her of the 
 crumbs of his affection. 
 
 He watched her as if fascinated. She did not look 
 around. She seemed to have turned to stone. 
 
 He waited. 
 
 " Is it good-by ? " he said. " Are you sure ? Are 
 you sure ? " 
 
 She bent her head, but no sound came from her lips. 
 He raised her passive hand and kissed it, then, turning, 
 went slowly from the room, bowed, haggard, yet with the 
 light of his deliverance beginning to dawn in his face. 
 She had opened the prison door, and he went back to the 
 glory of earth. 
 
 180
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE breaking of her engagement brought no 'deeper 
 suffering to Brooke seemed, indeed, after the painful 
 scene with Robert, to be a thing long ago accomplished. 
 She had been alone for weeks before she compelled him 
 to recognize this loneliness. Now that the meaningless 
 symbols of their bond were withdrawn she felt but little 
 difference. 
 
 When a day or two had passed she told her aunt what 
 she had done. Angelica's eyes grew dark with anger. A 
 bright flush came into her thin cheeks. 
 
 " He forced you to break it by his conduct. He 
 
 Brooke put a hand on her arm imploringly. 
 
 " Don't judge him. I know more than you." 
 
 " You may keep me from speaking out, Brooke, but 
 you can't keep me from thinking certain things." 
 
 " Well, if you'll not say them I'll be grateful," the 
 girl said wearily. 
 
 " What are you going to do? " 
 
 " Stay here. I thought of going home, but I'd rather 
 not go for a month yet. If I went now, mother would 
 get the brunt of it, and she's in no condition to be wor- 
 ried. I'd rather worry you," she added with a faint smile. 
 
 Angelica bent over and kissed her timidly. Brooke 
 had a remote look about her which seemed to forbid 
 sympathy. 
 
 " You could never worry me. But won't she hear 
 through others ? " 
 
 181
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " I've provided for that. I wrote Robert, asking him 
 to tell only his father and mother, and to require their 
 secrecy for a while. He understands about my mother. 
 He wrote in reply that he would do anything I asked." 
 
 Angelica shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " It is certainly considerate of him." 
 
 " Don't, please, don't." 
 
 The days which followed seemed of interminable 
 length and dreariness, all the harder to bear because they 
 followed, for the most part, sleepless nights ; or if Brooke 
 slept, it was to find' her sense of being miserably alone 
 intensified by dreams. In these she wandered among 
 barren rocks, always closing up the thread of a path just 
 when she thought she had found it. Pallid hills threat- 
 ened her with their desolate appearance, or she stood by 
 the side of a great water and could find no boat across 
 it. From her bewilderments she would wake with a cry, 
 and find her aunt bending over her, her face frightened, 
 but her voice reassuring. One recurrent dream roused 
 special terror in her, though it was nothing more than 
 the vision of a sharp cornice, white as a bone, that jutted 
 out into space. She could not see to what building it 
 was joined nor at what awful height the building stood. 
 That mystery kept her in uneasiness. She was afraid to 
 go to sleep sometimes lest the cornice should flash out 
 of the darkness. 
 
 Her days were better than her nights, because she 
 could work. She performed her duties on the newspaper 
 with an intense energy wholly out of proportion with the 
 requirements of her task. Her face, thin and worn, bore 
 deep marks of a suffering which was not always conscious. 
 Bradley, watching her, wondered if any one had hurt 
 her. He wanted to inquire of her whether there was 
 
 182
 
 THE CITY 
 
 anybody or anything he could consign to that nether 
 region which seems situated just beneath the newspaper 
 buildings. 
 
 Brooke longed to go home to her mother, but refused 
 to go with a load of care. Every day she thought she 
 should feel better; every day she hoped for some abate- 
 ment of her trial. She could not go home until she was 
 at least outwardly cheerful. 
 
 She was working at the office one morning when her 
 aunt called her on the telephone. She said she had 
 received an important message from Trenthampton, and 
 asked Brooke to come up-town at once. 
 
 On her way she speculated as to what it might be, 
 but without anxiety. Her own trouble swallowed up 
 apprehensions that might otherwise have dominated her. 
 
 At the door her aunt met her. 
 
 " I had a wire from Dr. Gorton," she said. " He 
 wants you to come at once. Your mother is ill." 
 
 Brooke looked at her in perplexity. 
 
 " It can't be " she began. 
 
 " It must be that ; but he didn't say." 
 
 " Let me see the telegram." 
 
 She read twice over the message it contained. Had 
 it come to her a fortnight earlier it would have seemed 
 to her another of the buffetings of fate. Now it spelled 
 deliverance, for the time at least, from utter blackness 
 of darkness. Those who are forced to think of others 
 can not wholly despair. 
 
 She began her packing at once, Angelica helping her. 
 
 " You will never come back," she said tearfully. " I 
 have to be alone again." 
 
 " No, I don't think I shall ever live here again. I'm 
 glad to go home to my mother." 
 
 183
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " Dear heart ! How I shall miss you ! " She paused 
 a moment, and regarded Brooke intently. 
 
 " Ursula will have to be very ill not to see how ill 
 you look." 
 
 A shadow passed over the girl's face. 
 
 " It's what I dread." 
 
 In another hour she had started on her journey. Dr. 
 Gorton met her at the station. He looked at her curiously. 
 
 " You are prepared, then ? " 
 
 She nodded an affirmative. As they drove rapidly up 
 the main street he turned from time to time and stole a 
 glance at her. The anxiety of a few hours could scarcely 
 make such ravages. 
 
 " Does the child live ? " she asked. 
 
 " It just lives. It will require never-ceasing care." 
 
 " I'm glad of that." 
 
 As they drew near the house she turned to him with 
 a half-frightened expression. 
 
 "How do I look?" 
 
 " Why do you want to know ? " he answered harshly, 
 out of his anxiety for her. 
 
 She was silent for a minute, then she said : 
 
 " Is is mother's room light ? " 
 
 "Quite light, yes. Child, is it Robert?" 
 
 She struggled for composure. 
 
 " Yes, Robert," she whispered. " She mustn't know. 
 You'll help me." 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 Her father, trembling, pale, vague as usual, even in 
 his distress, received her with clinging, imploring hands, 
 his whole manner symbolizing the new relation in which 
 they now stood. The children clung to her skirts, but 
 with hasty kisses she drew herself from their arms and, 
 
 184
 
 THE CITY 
 
 saying to Dr. Gorton, " In just five minutes," she hurried 
 to her room. 
 
 She bathed her face, rubbing her cheeks to bring 
 some color to them. She rearranged her hair. Then, 
 summoning all her courage, she stepped into the hall 
 and said: 
 
 " I am ready." 
 
 " You look better. Keep that look." 
 
 She crossed the threshold, and feeble, outstretched 
 arms received her. After that long embrace she sat on 
 the edge of the bed, answering the tender, halting voice, 
 bringing all the accumulated moral force of all her years 
 to gain strength to meet the inevitable question. 
 
 " And the children Angelica's cold you'll see " 
 
 " Yes, dearest. I'll see to everything." 
 
 " Carlton is afraid at night sometimes." 
 
 " I'll take him in my bed." 
 
 There was silence. 
 
 " I'm glad I leave you with Robert. Is all well with 
 you?" 
 
 The moment had come. 
 
 " It is well with us/' she answered. 
 
 No tremor broke the words. With a look tranquil 
 and reassuring Brooke smiled into her mother's closing 
 eyes. 
 
 18 185
 
 BOOK III 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 "But I, being poor, have only my dreams; 
 I have spread my dreams under your feet ; 
 Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.' 1
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 ONE hot, brilliant morning, toward the end of June, 
 James Erskine was seated in his son's office, recounting 
 the details of a new business venture with a zest and 
 animation which made his face for the moment youthful. 
 He had come up to town the day before in something 
 of the spirit of the boy seeking his fortune. The long 
 year the longest he had ever known seemed about to 
 yield its deadening inactivity to zealous enterprise. His 
 imagination, like silver from which the tarnish has been 
 removed, was again reflecting all the light and move- 
 ment about him. 
 
 " You see," he wound up, " the best part of this 
 venture is that it will give me work. I'll have to be on 
 the jump constantly to look after our interests. And, 
 oh, Robert, you don't know what this year of idleness 
 has been to bear. It was hell, as I'm afraid your poor 
 mother knows. Now I'll be going to and from the city 
 about every week. We're to have that is, if the deal 
 goes through a town office here, another in Chicago. 
 Why don't you say something, boy?" 
 
 Robert rose from his chair, and, going to the fire- 
 place, leaned his arm upon the mantel. There was about 
 him an air of distinction, of that refinement which a great 
 love sometimes produces, as if it swept clear of all super- 
 fluities the temple of its habitation. 
 
 " It seems a safe enough investment ; so safe that I'm 
 afraid you won't make much money." 
 
 189
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " Not for two or three years, until we get well started. 
 But the joy of working again, Robert ! " 
 
 " When are the papers to be signed ? " 
 
 " At the end of this week. I'm going slow. I want 
 to understand everything, down to the last detail, before 
 I finally commit myself. But I knew both my prospective 
 partners twenty years ago. They're gentlemen and hon- 
 est men. None of us wishes to make a sudden fortune. 
 We believe there's room in this country for stable busi- 
 nesses conducted on different principles than the Win- 
 wood grafts." 
 
 A flush overspread Robert's face. 
 
 " Have you have you seen Olivia lately ? " his father 
 asked. 
 
 " Last week. There were other callers." 
 
 His father hesitated. 
 
 " Do you know what is being said in Trenthampton ? " 
 
 " No, I don't. I suppose they would lie rather than 
 say nothing." 
 
 " Well, the news has got abroad, somehow, that 
 Brooke broke her engagement with you because " 
 He paused, looking embarrassed. 
 
 "Say it out, father," Robert said quietly; "because 
 of Olivia Winwood. Well, it's true. But Olivia was in 
 no way to blame." 
 
 "You mean ?" 
 
 " I mean that I " 
 
 He went no further. His father rose and walked 
 toward the window, stood there a moment, looking out. 
 At last he turned and said: 
 
 "Robert, does she ?" 
 
 The young man did not answer for a moment. Signs 
 of strong emotion were in his face. 
 
 190
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 " If it were true," he said at last, " what could I do? 
 My hands are tied. A man who has nothing can not 
 ask a woman of her wealth to marry him. It has been 
 done, but not by the kind of creatures I'd wish to be 
 classed with." 
 
 His father regarded him thoughtfully. 
 
 " I always looked upon your engagement with 
 Brooke as premature." 
 
 Robert gave an impatient gesture. 
 
 " I mistook the nature of my attachment." He 
 paused, then added, " I did her a terrible wrong. I live 
 always in the shadow of it." 
 
 " Did she break the engagement, or you? You told 
 us so little in your letters." 
 
 " She broke it, of course. I would never have broken 
 it. A man of honor doesn't do that sort of thing." 
 
 His father smiled. 
 
 " She probably saw how matters stood. Brooke is 
 no fool." 
 
 " She's the noblest woman I ever met," Robert said 
 in a husky voice, " and I couldn't even write her when 
 her mother died. It would have been like mockery." 
 
 " Poor Ursula ! She was sacrificed to Charles Pey- 
 ton. I hope he knows now what he lost." 
 
 " How are they pulling along? " Robert asked. 
 
 " Brooke's a host, your mother tells me. She sees 
 her constantly. They are rearing that poor baby between 
 them." 
 
 " I'm glad mother sees her," Robert said humbly. 
 " Mother blames me because she does not under- 
 stand. I, too, have suffered. I never for an instant 
 forget." 
 
 " Your mother never speaks of it ; nor, I believe, 
 191
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 does Brooke. A woman's silence is so terrible. I sup- 
 pose because it is so unusual," he added, smiling 
 grimly. 
 
 " Is Brooke does she seem well? " 
 
 "She doesn't look well no; but then she has the 
 care of all those children." 
 
 Robert bit his lip ; his face for a moment was rigid. 
 
 " Poor child ! I must go now to a patient, father. 
 He is my first patient of worldly consequence, a young 
 stock-broker. I've pulled him through pneumonia. 
 You and I dine together? " 
 
 Late that afternoon Robert was on his way to the 
 home of Henry Winwood. He had called up the mag- 
 nate on the telephone asking for this interview in which 
 he desired to obtain an assurance of the reliability of a 
 " tip " proffered him by his patient. 
 
 He was shown into the library, and in a few moments 
 Henry Winwood, breathing hard and stepping heavily, 
 entered with outstretched hand. 
 
 " You're a stranger, Doctor, or else you generally 
 come when I'm not around. Health good? You ain't 
 looking like a fighting cock, but then I've heard you've 
 had trouble." 
 
 " My engagement was broken," Robert said. 
 
 " You waited too long," Winwood commented 
 sagely. " You've got to snap women up, or they'll 
 give you the slip; though Miss Brooke didn't seem that 
 kind." 
 
 " Miss Peyton was not that kind," Robert answered 
 with dignified coldness, then, changing his manner, he 
 added, " I've come to ask you about the Bridgewater 
 stock. I have a patient, a young stock-broker, who 
 gave me a * tip ' thinking that I had some acquaintance 
 
 192
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 with the Street. As a matter of fact, I'm as ignorant as 
 an infant of everything down there. I'd like your 
 advice." 
 
 Winwood settled himself in an armchair with the 
 contented, somewhat superior look of a man whose favor- 
 ite subject has been broached. 
 
 " Got some money to invest ? " 
 
 Robert looked embarrassed. 
 
 " No, but I have a friend who has fifty thousand or 
 so that he would like to place to advantage." 
 
 Winwood pursed up his lips. 
 
 " Well, it's just this way. Bridgewater ain't for 
 novices. Is this pin-money, so to speak? or his whole 
 pile?" 
 
 " It's all his capital." 
 
 " Well, now I don't know quite what to say. I've 
 stock in Bridgewater myself, but then you see I can 
 afford to take chances; and between you and me the 
 company's running close to the wind. They may come 
 out with flying colors, and if they do it will be about 
 the fattest thing in the market; if they don't there won't 
 even be a funeral. Dynamite don't leave no remains. 
 I wouldn't touch Bridgewater myself if all I had was in 
 the old stocking under the brick behind the stovepipe. 
 Tell your friend to keep his little all snug and warm. 
 The West is a chilly place sometimes." 
 
 He winked facetiously at Robert, whose look was 
 somber and downcast. 
 
 " You say if they did come through, it would be rich 
 pickings?" 
 
 " They'll make millionaires of their stockholders, but 
 then most of 'em are that anyway." 
 
 Robert rose. 
 
 193
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " I won't detain you longer. I thank you for speak- 
 ing plainly." 
 
 " That's my custom, or else I don't speak at all. 
 Both methods are good, but the second for mine as a 
 rule." 
 
 As Robert was taking his leave, Olivia came to the 
 door of the library. She looked tall and pale in her 
 white gown unrelieved by a touch of color. 
 
 " Pardon me, father. I did not know you had a 
 visitor. Ah, it is you, Dr. Erskine ! " 
 
 She advanced with a frank, direct look and gave him 
 her hand. 
 
 " Father, do you want your cup of tea? Mother will 
 give it to you in the morning-room. I do not offer you 
 tea," she said to Robert, " because I know how you hate 
 it. Sit down and talk to me." 
 
 She led the way to an alcove, its windows open to 
 the warm June air. Her face was grave and thought- 
 ful, touched with an unfamiliar humility. He wondered 
 as he followed her if any power on earth could keep the 
 long-imprisoned words from his lips, but he schooled 
 himself to be conventional, remembering that scarcely a 
 month had elapsed since the grave had closed upon 
 Brooke. 
 
 " You are staying late in town," he said. 
 
 " I have no desire to go away," she answered. 
 
 " You are not going to Trenthampton? " 
 
 " You know that I am not. How could I go there! " 
 
 She put a hand before her eyes. 
 
 For a moment he hesitated, then in a strained, im- 
 ploring voice, he said: 
 
 " Olivia, do you understand? Do you despise me, 
 Olivia?" 
 
 194
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 " I understand," she said in a voice almost in- 
 audible. 
 
 Her hand dropped to her side, then she looked up 
 at him as a woman looks at her conqueror. 
 
 " Robert, we " 
 
 Incredible joy lit his face. 
 
 "It is love!" 
 
 His cry was the flash of a sword. She closed her 
 eyes an instant. He rose and stood by her, close by her, 
 looking down upon her with wonder, with doubt, with a 
 rapture that held its own misery. She leaned her head 
 back, and gazed at him with more than one answer in 
 her face. 
 
 " I wanted it so," she said simply. " It was wrong, 
 but I wanted it." 
 
 " You have it. Everything is yours. All I can give." 
 
 "All you can give," she repeated; then she added 
 dreamily, as if speaking of some far-off tragedy, " You 
 did her wrong that child!" 
 
 " She is no child. She is a noble woman." 
 
 " You did her more wrong then." 
 
 " Unknowingly." 
 
 " It doesn't make her suffering less. Robert, 
 we " 
 
 " How could we help it? " 
 
 She shook her head. Her eyelids drooped with some 
 weariness of incommunicable thought. A mournful 
 look crept into his face. 
 
 " Robert, you'd better go away." 
 
 A note of entreaty in her voice chilled him. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he repeated. 
 195
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " Suppose I made you unhappy. I might, you 
 know." 
 
 " Yes, I know that." 
 
 She looked up with a smile. 
 
 " You don't idealize me then ? That is good." 
 
 " I don't know what you are, Olivia," he said. " I 
 know that you fill my life, with pain or bliss little mat- 
 ters. You fill it." 
 
 She did not reply at once. Her hands, usually lan- 
 guid and relaxed, played restlessly with some lace on her 
 gown. 
 
 "Robert?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Do you want my caring? " 
 
 "Do I want life?" 
 
 " It might not be that." 
 
 He made a gesture of indifference. 
 
 " Whatever it is, then." 
 
 " You are brave." 
 
 " I am yours." 
 
 "Poor Robert!" 
 
 " I am a king." 
 
 " My king of a hundred days." 
 
 " Why do you say that ? " he questioned jealously. 
 
 " I might never cease to care, but I might cease to 
 tell you that I did." 
 
 " To be told once crowns me." 
 
 " And you will risk everything? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Even possible unhappiness? " 
 
 " Ah, yes." 
 
 " Because I'm sure to give it, whether I will or not," 
 she said with a pleading smile. " You see I forget 
 
 196
 
 that they are not all actors. I hurt them without know- 
 ing it, and then they come and tell me and perplex me. 
 I don't tell them when I'm hurt. I have none of their 
 privileges." 
 
 She closed her eyes. Deep shadows were about 
 them. In that instant she did not look like a woman 
 who had made her own terms with life. 
 
 He could not utter the words that rose to his lips. 
 He wished for a new tongue that he might never repeat 
 the phrases of endearment that he had spoken to Brooke. 
 
 "Will you speak French with me?" he said. 
 
 " What an odd question at this time ! I will speak 
 Latin with you if you wish; or modern Greek." 
 
 " Are you serious ? Do you know these tongues? " 
 
 " Yes, but never tell," she answered laughingly. " I 
 might lose hearts." 
 
 " That is impossible." 
 
 " Don't speak that way. Don't say things that lovers 
 say. I hate the exaggerated tongue. You are much 
 too privileged now to use it. You can be wholly frank 
 and simple with me now. The other thing belongs to 
 the past." 
 
 " Into the future then ! You are not going away this 
 summer? You will be here through July at least." 
 
 "Do you wish it?" 
 
 " How can you ask! " 
 
 " I will not go away at least for a while. We can 
 be much together, Robert. Do you know a summer- 
 city? Do you know what a paradise it can be? You 
 will come and read to me. You will tell me many things. 
 I have so much to hear you say and now I have time 
 for the joy of listening." 
 
 " Three words tell all." 
 
 197
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " Never say them. Interpret them." 
 
 "Olivia!" 
 
 He bent to kiss her, but she shook her head. 
 
 " Some day, not to-day. Come with me now. I 
 know a little garden." 
 
 She took his hand with a playfulness that he had 
 never before seen in her. She seemed full of delight 
 now as deep as her sadness had been. She led him 
 down the stairs and through the halls to a garden, small, 
 but charming and secluded, held within two wings of 
 the house, with high walls to the street. 
 
 At the head of the steps which went down into its 
 greenness she paused. 
 
 " Will you go away, Robert? There's yet time." 
 
 "Why do you jest?" 
 
 A shadow passed over her face. 
 
 " I do not jest," she said. 
 
 198
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 ROBERT, hurrying to keep his appointment with his 
 father, walked through a transfigured city. The great 
 town, usually significant of little but the press of busi- 
 ness and pleasure, now seemed a vast stage for his own 
 splendid enterprises. His mood, though ecstatic, was 
 practical. Before he could ask Olivia to marry him he 
 must win from life some extraordinary concessions. He 
 was impatient of her wealth, though not of the demands 
 that it made upon him. If he wished her as poor as a 
 nun of some ministering order, his own ambition of con- 
 quest in wide fields still remained. 
 
 His father was waiting at the office. He greeted 
 Robert with boyish gaiety. 
 
 " I don't wonder you like this old town. There's 
 something in the air that makes you over; makes you 
 believe in yourself. I feared I was such a rusty key that 
 I could unlock no more doors." 
 
 " Oh, you'll unlock the treasure-house, yet," Robert 
 answered. " No key is thrown away here. What have 
 you been up to?" 
 
 " Never mind now. I'll tell you at dinner. Have 
 you had a Turkish bath ? You look so fresh and clear." 
 
 " No, I'm happy, that's all, happy in spite of myself. 
 Where shall we dine Mentoni's ? " 
 
 "What place is that? I've been in the country so 
 long that I've forgotten the haunts here." 
 
 199
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " A nice Italian table d'hote. The man's wife cooks 
 and she's a wonder. You can go into the kitchen if you 
 want to order anything special, and tell her just how 
 you'd like it done. The wines are good. The guests 
 are chiefly foreigners with emotions or ideas two 
 vehicles of activity not used in public by the average 
 American." 
 
 His father laughed. 
 
 "Well, you are on a high horse! I suspect you are 
 not free from emotions yourself this evening. Let us 
 go to Mentoni's." 
 
 Seated at a little round table, in the graveled yard of 
 an old-time house, under the shade of a rubber plant 
 so long of stalk that it suggested a paucity of nether 
 garments, father and son nibbled their radishes and lit- 
 tle sour olives, waiting for the mutual confidences which 
 would follow the opening of the bottle of Chianti they 
 had ordered. James Erskine was content for the pres- 
 ent to watch the people about him, mostly young men 
 of the " noble-brow " order, with a sprinkling of women, 
 some bad and glad of it, some good and sorry and some 
 good by choice, others content in that mediocrity which 
 is the result of indifference to the two dividing forces 
 of the world. 
 
 After the little impenetrable entree, Robert told his 
 story, in few words and many rapturous silences. When 
 the coffee was served, and he had drunk two cups, he 
 passed to the practical side of the question. 
 
 " You see, father, I can't ask her to marry me. We 
 both have a sense of humor. Why, I scarcely make my 
 living and you pay my office rent." 
 
 His father, drawing the first puff of an irreproachable 
 cigar, nodded dreamily. 
 
 200
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 " It is an awkward situation. She will have to ask 
 you first, as queens do." 
 
 " Si, fetais roi" Robert murmured under his breath. 
 Aloud he said: 
 
 " Even that wouldn't help matters. I've no desire to 
 play the role of the penniless husband. Religious differ- 
 ences are as nothing to financial ones in their power to 
 ' queer ' a marriage. If I were founding a Platonic 
 republic I would require equal wealth as the first con- 
 dition of a union." 
 
 He spoke with youthful seriousness, his eyes dark 
 with the intensity of his thought, his brow furrowed. 
 
 " I'm glad you feel that way about it. I'd despise 
 you if you jumped at the chance." 
 
 " I wish she had nothing," he said with a sigh. 
 
 His father smiled. 
 
 " That is not according to your theory." 
 
 " Oh, well, the husband should have the most. He 
 is the head, the leader; he's nature's choice." 
 
 James Erskine's laugh rang out. 
 
 "The old story! I'm glad you're not ready to sur- 
 render your rights even in the face of a million." 
 
 " No, I'm not ready to surrender them," Robert said 
 in a low voice. 
 
 There was a long silence. Robert broke it. 
 
 " Father," he said with a note of hesitation and 
 apology in his voice, " have you ever looked into Bridge- 
 water? " 
 
 " You mean that new company, that new Western 
 enterprise?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " No, I haven't. I got one of their circulars. It 
 seemed too much of a speculation for my pocket." 
 14 201
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 The words, so exactly according with Winwood's 
 advice, had a depressing effect upon Robert. His 
 father saw the change in his face. 
 
 "Why do you ask?" 
 
 " My little stock-broker put me on to something, 
 that's all." 
 
 " Is he so sure of Bridgewater? " 
 
 " He is. Henry Winwood gave me different advice." 
 
 " You went to a good authority," Erskine re- 
 marked with faint satire in his voice. " Just what did 
 he say?" 
 
 Robert recounted the interview. A look of impa- 
 tience crept into his father's face, which gradually 
 changed to one of resentment. 
 
 " The money in the toe of the stocking is what he 
 calls fifty thousand, eh? These millionaires are an inso- 
 lent lot. Only those in their own class may juggle the 
 golden apples." 
 
 " You see in the morning when I got this tip I 
 thought at once of you. I thought here might be a 
 chance to increase your capital quickly." 
 
 His father smiled. 
 
 " Robert, you're very much in love," he said. 
 
 A flush crept up Robert's face. 
 
 " You don't know how I long to be more on the level 
 with her," he broke out in passionate apology. " And 
 what's fifty thousand in this town! A professional man 
 has no chance. If he can marry by the time he's sixty, 
 he's lucky. Oh, I know it's done. They marry and 
 choke love out of life in a flat. I wouldn't do Brooke 
 that wrong," he went on, all unconscious of self-satire. 
 " It would hurt me if my wife wanted her clothes lined 
 with silk and had to use cotton; if she had to bump 
 
 202
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 her head against a roof every time she heard an opera; 
 if she had to take a cable-car to make her calls." 
 
 His father made no reply. He seemed lost in 
 thought. 
 
 " Your cigar will burn your fingers," Robert said. 
 " Aren't we going somewhere this evening? How 
 would a roof-garden do? " 
 
 " A roof-garden would suit me," his father said, rous- 
 ing himself and making ready to depart. On their way 
 up-town he was silent and preoccupied. The buoyancy 
 was gone from his manner. 
 
 Seated at another table in a bower of plants and 
 colored lights, they watched the dancers on the pretty 
 little stage, and listened absent-mindedly to the jokes 
 and songs. Out of a long lapse in their desultory con- 
 versation, James Erskine spoke. 
 
 " The money in the toe of the stocking is not for 
 Bridgewater; Robert, what if I should put this capital 
 into it? I haven't yet signed the other papers." 
 
 Robert's eager look contrasted strangely with his 
 slow, cautious words. 
 
 " It's a big risk, father. It's a bigger risk than bet- 
 ting on jacks high when the other man stood pat." 
 
 " And on the other hand it's a big chance. Henry 
 Winwood's being in it guarantees that. He's no 
 fool." 
 
 " No, he's a gambler. Father, are you thinking se- 
 riously of it? I don't want anything I said to influence 
 you. I can only carry my own hide to the tanner's." 
 
 " Of course I would do nothing in a hurry. It's a 
 chance if they'll let me in anyway." 
 
 "Oh! they'll take you in!" He paused and 
 laughed. " I don't mean in the gold-brick sense. And 
 
 203
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 if it did turn out well, you'd be wealthy comparatively 
 wealthy." 
 
 Erskine nodded. 
 
 " There are no wealthy men since Winwood and his 
 ilk set the pace only comparatively wealthy. I am 
 almost ready to take the risk. The most I have against 
 it is that it will give me nothing to do. Waiting eats 
 your heart out." 
 
 For an instant Robert had an impulse to say: 
 
 " Don't consider it. Put through the business you 
 came to town for." But a stronger force sealed his lips. 
 
 204
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 OLIVIA sat in the cool, golden twilight of the draw- 
 ing-room, awaiting the coming of Paul Mallory, who, 
 called to Europe suddenly, had begged for a good-by 
 interview. She was in a dreamy state, much at variance 
 with her usual clear-cut mental processes. To be loved 
 as Robert was loving her with silence rather than speech, 
 with innumerable rejections of the halting word, the im- 
 perfect rapture was an experience new to her. She di- 
 vined that the vocabulary Brooke had heard was put 
 aside as outworn. 
 
 And he had put aside his French also, as if that deli- 
 cate, incisive, marvelously clear language was no vehicle 
 for the strong tumults of his emotion, passing always 
 into mystery, like the curve of the soaring arch. Those 
 upper spaces were dim with incense, with aspiration 
 unutterable. 
 
 And Olivia, not a little of a mystic when she chose 
 to be, yielded herself to this worship, whose perfect re- 
 straint seemed at times to her sacramental. This love 
 springing from the strong, fecund earth held so much of 
 heaven. 
 
 " I may need to remember later," she thought, " that 
 I was once in paradise." 
 
 She rose to greet Paul, wishing that she could have 
 for once a visitor who did not lose his color as he came 
 into her presence. The succession of white faces and 
 cold hands sometimes irritated her. 
 
 205
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " This was most good of you," he said humbly. 
 " May I tell you how lovely you look?" 
 
 " You were always original, Paul," she said with 
 a smile. " How are you, and how is your lady-mother? 
 Does she go with you?" 
 
 " No, she goes to Newport." 
 
 " You fashionable people have such a knack for dis- 
 covering new places." 
 
 Her eyes were hostile. In that instant she, who 
 seldom resented anything or anybody, because of her 
 indifference, felt all the antagonisms of the marital rela- 
 tion. Why were the " desirable people " so often unin- 
 teresting? 
 
 " You would go there too," he said with a touch of 
 resentment, " if you were " 
 
 " If I were Mrs. Mallory? Probably I should. Don't 
 let us quarrel, mon ami," she said in a soothing tone, 
 " on the eve of your going." 
 
 He looked at her gravely. 
 
 "Olivia!" 
 
 " Yes, St. Paul." 
 
 " Olivia, when I return I want your final word." 
 
 " That sounds like a speech at the end of the second 
 act of a problem play. Paul, don't you know that no 
 word of mine is ever final? I have too much imagination 
 for that." 
 
 " Perhaps I am lacking in imagination since I will 
 always love you," he said in a voice too serious for 
 satire. 
 
 " Yes, frankly you are ; or else you have too much. 
 A sweet reasonableness would have discovered my limi- 
 tations long ago." 
 
 He was silent. The hurt look in his face^ exasper- 
 206
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 atingly free from lines, led her to turn the conversation 
 into other channels. For a half-hour she wooed him 
 back to the heights with all the charm of which she was 
 capable. When the untroubled adoration was again in 
 his clear, blue eyes, she said: 
 
 " Paul, I must send you away. I expect a friend at 
 five who is always savage if he finds any one else here." 
 
 Paul rose, his face blank before her audacious frank- 
 ness. 
 
 " Olivia." He paused. " Olivia, I sometimes think 
 you're a coquette." 
 
 Her laughter rang out bell-like. 
 
 " Why, you boy ! Of course I am. All women are 
 more or less, more or less. And you would find us 
 dull enough if we were not." 
 
 He took her hand. 
 
 " If a woman loves a man she doesn't play with him." 
 
 She returned his serious look. 
 
 " No, if she loves a man she doesn't play with him. 
 He tyrannizes over her. Which do you prefer, the com- 
 edy or the tragedy? " 
 
 When he was gone, she went back to her seat, lean- 
 ing her cheek against the chair. A feeling of depres- 
 sion crept over her. 
 
 " The great Emperor was right," she thought. " We 
 are leaves, little leaves in the wind. Come, Robert, come 
 quickly. When you are with me, I almost believe in 
 myself." 
 
 They had been an hour together, yet little had been 
 said. When he was with her he was not conscious that 
 she was the listener, but when he went away and re- 
 viewed in his mind their conversation he was astonished 
 
 207
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 to find that it had been carried on chiefly by himself. 
 He had laid his heart bare to her, while she had smiled 
 upon him from the depths of her silence. If it were 
 evening she always asked him to sit where the light fell 
 upon him, but she herself remained in the shadow. 
 True to their bond he rarely used the lover's vocabulary, 
 going out of his way to avoid the " exaggerated tongue." 
 
 " Were you at your clinic to-day? " she asked him. 
 
 " Yes, for three hours ; mostly children and babies. 
 Nature certainly has her way on the East Side." 
 
 " I never could understand why people glorify nature 
 so. She is utterly indifferent to both morals and man- 
 ners. She is crude and rough and unfinished." 
 
 Robert laughed. 
 
 " She is no flatterer. I prefer art to nature al- 
 ways." 
 
 " Yes, art does at least persuade us sometimes that 
 we have a divine destiny; but nature constantly reminds 
 us of our earthly origin." 
 
 " I have brought the book of poems," Robert said 
 after a pause. 
 
 " Read to me." 
 
 She listened, watching him with an intent expression. 
 After a time she leaned forward and gently took the book 
 from him. 
 
 " You say it all so much better. Talk to me, Rob- 
 ert." 
 
 " I can only speak prose," he answered with a little 
 smile. " What I can not say, what I do not say, are your 
 lyrics and your madrigals." 
 
 Silence again fell between them. Both were in that 
 state of mind which can give utterance only to what is 
 not of the first importance. 
 
 208
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 " Is your father still in town ? " she asked at last. 
 
 " He left yesterday." 
 
 " But he will be coming in often, will he not ? Didn't 
 you tell me that he is to have an office here?" 
 
 " That scheme didn't go through. He he in- 
 vested his money elsewhere." 
 
 " What makes you look so worried? " 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " I wasn't aware I looked worried. Perhaps I'm 
 tired to-day." 
 
 She put out her hand and took his. 
 
 " Come," she said, rising, " let us go down and talk 
 to my mother. She is more restful than I am. She 
 doesn't know that ' life is complex,' " she added with 
 a smile. 
 
 Her gesture, her words comforted Robert, as if pro- 
 phetic of the fact that he was to be one of this family. 
 He longed to cry out: 
 
 " Promise me that you will wait for me until I can 
 ask you to marry me. I will scale any height to reach 
 you." 
 
 But the words died on his lips. After all, would not 
 such an appeal imply that he did not trust her? 
 
 On a porch overlooking the garden they found Mrs. 
 Winwood, amplified by her white summer gown, and 
 quite red in the face from her vigorous fanning. By her 
 side on a little table was a pitcher of lemonade and some 
 glasses. 
 
 " How cool you young folks look," she said resent- 
 fully. " Dr. Erskine, don't you think Olivia's crazy to 
 stay in town, when we've got that grand place at Trent- 
 hampton, and twelve servants there enjoyin' what's right- 
 fully ours?" 
 
 209
 
 " We people who have to stay in town are very for- 
 tunate to have our friends here," he answered. 
 
 " Are you very busy, Doctor? It's bad weather for 
 babies. Have some lemonade, do. I made it with my 
 own hands for your father, 'Livy. He says nobody can 
 make it like I can." 
 
 " Mother, dear, some summer I'm going to take a lit- 
 tle white-and-green house for you in the real old-fash- 
 ioned country; the kind of a hous% that has an apple 
 orchard in front with a red barn on the hill above it, get- 
 ting all the view. We'll leave the servants behind, and 
 you and I will cook for the hired men, and I will blow 
 the horn at noon to call them from the fields." 
 
 Mrs. Winwood smiled placidly. 
 
 " There are days when I just long to beat up an 
 omelet or toss a cake together. I can do as well as 
 that man of ours in the kitchen, and he gets five 
 thousand." 
 
 Robert listened with a growing sense of discomfort 
 and discouragement. He rose to take his leave. As he 
 said good-by to Olivia she drew him one side. 
 
 " What is the matter, Robert? You don't seem like 
 yourself." 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 " I'm all right ; perhaps stupid from working in the 
 heat. Forgive me, if I have been a bore." 
 
 " No, you are not all right. Come into the library 
 a moment." 
 
 He followed her into the cool, brown room. There 
 she paused and took both his hands. 
 
 "Now tell me what it is. Don't you trust me? I 
 am trustworthy in some things." 
 
 He smiled wistfully. 
 
 210
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 " Olivia, will you put on your plainest dress and come 
 away with me to that white-and-green house?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " You would be bored to death in a week, and so 
 should I. Perhaps I'd be bored even sooner, for I could 
 keep you good-natured with my cooking, a gift I've in- 
 herited from my mother. But we'd be yawning in each 
 other's faces before a fortnight." 
 
 " But what of this disparity between us? I curse 
 your wealth some days." 
 
 " You are not the first to do that, as I once told you. 
 Is it any nobler, Robert, to refuse a woman because she 
 is too rich than to refuse her because she is too poor? " 
 
 " It's not a question of nobility. A man doesn't wish 
 the roles reversed." 
 
 " They are not reversed. Don't let's speak of it, 
 think of it/' she said caressingly. " This is our sum- 
 mer of romance." 
 
 " But your parents ? What will they think? " 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " They never question me. They've asked so many 
 since I was a child that were never answered that they 
 have become tired and given it up." 
 
 He went away more content. After all, nothing 
 could be announced this summer, and perhaps by fall 
 Bridgewater would do all that was expected of it. 
 
 211
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 BROOKE meanwhile was going through one of those 
 periods of readjustment which resemble the slow, pain- 
 ful knitting together of broken bones and lacerated 
 sinews. Though her heart cried out for her mother, 
 there were hours when she could almost have thanked 
 heaven for the burden of labor imposed upon her by 
 this untimely death. She was now the head of a house- 
 hold whose cares left her little time for active conscious- 
 ness of the grief which otherwise might have over- 
 whelmed her. The tradition of her father's exemptness 
 which she carried on faithfully out of loyalty to her 
 mother's memory was of itself the creator of many 
 duties. It seemed to her sometimes that she divided her 
 day between him and the youngest member of the house- 
 hold, whose fragile life owed its continuance to her un- 
 remitting care. 
 
 So labor helped to eject from her soul its grief and 
 bitterness, though not without hours when these reigned 
 supreme. She found herself hating Olivia, despising 
 Robert, despising herself most of all for her inability 
 to keep his love. Then the thought of their friendship 
 of the old days would calm her passion and soften her 
 grief. That memory was at least whole and golden, 
 raised forever above the shocks of time. 
 
 With the past she often linked the future. Robert 
 would go to his own, to a brilliant life in the metropolis 
 with a brilliant woman. Brooke saw as a shadow in 
 this light her own existence, that of a mother to mother- 
 
 212
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 less children through long, monotonous years ; and when 
 the brood had gone forth, to a silent gray life alone with 
 her father. There were moments when she could not 
 look toward the vista of that flat, straight road without 
 a shudder as of death passing over her. 
 
 She found her greatest solace in the visits of Rob- 
 ert's mother, who offered her neither sympathy nor ad- 
 vice, but that kind of understanding which takes much 
 for granted. 
 
 With Dr. Gorton she was less at her ease, because 
 she was constantly in dread lest his blunt kindness 
 should probe her wounds. She had given him no ex- 
 planation of the breaking of her engagement. 
 
 She sat one afternoon in the nursery reading a letter 
 from Hugh Bradley, a curious, jumbled missive, full of 
 his grim humor, and touched here and there with senti- 
 ment as with a clear shaft of light from the man's true 
 personality. His chivalrous devotion to her was height- 
 ened by the loss of her mother. He expressed it vica- 
 riously by sundry little attentions to Miss Angelica 
 Peyton. 
 
 Brooke put the letter down with a sigh. Here was 
 a strong nature in whom she could place perfect confi- 
 dence, yet her heart yearned for the nature that was not 
 strong, but pitifully human and unstable. Though good- 
 ness is one of the bulwarks of love, it can not of itself 
 create it, and the laws of attraction go deeper than the 
 profoundest system of morals. 
 
 She leaned over the child in her lap to distract her 
 thoughts by contemplation of the tiny face, as mysterious 
 by its blankness as the face of age by its wrinkles. 
 She was sorry that this baby was a girl. 
 
 The day had been a difficult one. Her father's head- 
 213
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 ache requiring quiet, only a series of skilful diplomacies 
 had kept the children at a safe distance from his study. 
 At the midday dinner the meat had come up scorched, 
 and Charles Peyton, already nervous from a long morn- 
 ing of unbroken application, had insisted on cook being 
 sent for. After the meal Brooke had received her notice. 
 
 The nurse came in now to relieve her of the charge 
 of the baby. She was an honest, fresh-faced country 
 girl, devoted to her young mistress, whom she watched 
 over in a motherly way. As she took the child from 
 Brooke's arms she urged her to go out for " a breath 
 of air." 
 
 Brooke's nod was of thanks rather than assent. She 
 dreaded the house less than other places because it had 
 fewer memories of her companionship with Robert. 
 They had spent that beautiful summer chiefly out-of- 
 doors. 
 
 But she went into the garden, and wandered about 
 aimlessly, her black dress a somber contrast to the riot- 
 ous colors of the flowers. She was too tired, too dull 
 even to think, much less to fix her mind on the book 
 she had brought with her. She wondered if she would 
 ever care to read or study again. What was the use? 
 Was she not already overburdened with life's bitter 
 wisdom ? 
 
 She sat down on a bench under a tree, but inaction 
 was dreadful to her, and she began again her restless 
 walk. When she was not occupied her imagination 
 sometimes took fantastic excursions which troubled her. 
 Ugly shapes dodged about among the rose-bushes with 
 a strange cackle of laughter. Queer eyes were watching 
 her from the interstices of the foliage. The universe 
 seemed to be capable of bringing forth nothing more 
 
 214
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 lovely than a brood of imps whose mockery even the 
 face of Christ Himself could not quiet. Sometimes 
 when these specters grew too palpable she would cry 
 out to her mother as if she were a child again, afraid 
 of the darkness. 
 
 She saw Dr. Gorton entering the garden and went 
 down the path to meet him. He came almost every day. 
 Brooke thought it was to see the baby, but it was con- 
 cern for her which brought him, for he discerned in her 
 certain signs which not only indicated that she had re- 
 ceived a great shock, but were of sinister significance 
 regarding the future. He did not fear for her mind, but 
 he dreaded a condition of the spirit so hopeless that the 
 health of the body would eventually be impaired by it. 
 
 He wished that he could induce her to break her 
 silence concerning the ordeal through which she had 
 passed, believing that what is unspoken has power to 
 destroy as well as to make alive. 
 
 To-day he made no attempt at strategy, but went 
 directly to the point. After greeting her he said: 
 
 " Brooke, I am your godfather and Robert's. Do 
 you wish me to condemn him as strongly as I have to 
 do these days? I show him no mercy." 
 
 She stood for a moment silent, a blank, dark look 
 in her face. Then she shook her head. 
 
 " No, don't blame him. He had to be hers. Where 
 people love they love, and that's an end of it." 
 
 Dr. Gorton made no answer, for a moment wonder- 
 ing just what words he could use to divert Brooke's mind 
 from Robert's faithlessness. At last he said: 
 
 " Heaven grant that Olivia really cares for him. 
 Are you strong enough, great enough to breathe that 
 prayer? " 
 
 215
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 Brooke bowed her head. 
 
 " Not yet," she said. " I hope to be." 
 
 " It is the only prayer left you, if you are so sure of 
 his destiny. Think of the future now, not of the past. 
 There are many dreams of life," he went on, as if speak- 
 ing to himself, " love, joy, riches, fame, but the dream 
 of God outlasts them all. I am old and I know." 
 
 She smiled bitterly. 
 
 " Will one wake from that, too? " 
 
 " No ; for that dream is the one reality. How is your 
 baby to-day?" 
 
 " Nurse has her. She's wonderful for such a mite 
 of a baby." 
 
 He left her, and went on into the house. When he 
 came out again, she went up to him quickly. 
 
 "Godfather!" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You won't act differently toward Robert because 
 of this?" 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " My dear, when you are past eighty you do not 
 change toward people no matter what they do." 
 
 When he was gone she sat down to think over the 
 things he had said to her. It was hard doctrine. 
 
 So absorbed was she in her thoughts that she did 
 not see the approach of Jimmy, who since his mother's 
 death had been more subdued in spirits than Brooke 
 had ever known him. He came and sat by her now, 
 and looked up in her face with a puzzled expression. 
 Brooke smiled and patted the grubby hand on her 
 knee. 
 
 " Can't you tell a fellow? " he burst out at last. 
 
 "Tell you what?" 
 
 216
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 " Tisn't just mamma," he said. " I know. I've 
 watched you, dear." 
 
 " Some day I will tell you," she answered, " because 
 you and I are chums." 
 
 " You bet we are," he said, putting his freckled 
 cheek against her arm. The boyish phrase comforted 
 her. For a moment the world about her took on its 
 old, sweet, natural aspect. 
 
 15 217
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 " DID you come straight from the office ? " 
 
 " No, from the Street." I 
 
 " How often you go down there ! Are you looking 
 after an investment?" 
 
 "Yes, I am; rather some one else's investment. I 
 am waiting for a good many things these days, among 
 others a letter from you." 
 
 " What could I say in a letter to you when I see you 
 every day? " 
 
 " Then why do you want my letters? " 
 
 " Because you put into them what I do not myself 
 possess. You don't realize, I think, what my nature is. 
 I haven't a Gothic bone in my body. I'm pure pagan. 
 My philosophy is of Epicurus." 
 
 " But I am a man, not a philosopher," he answered. 
 " You rouse me to fever-heat sometimes while you re- 
 main calm, inscrutable, half-amused." 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " If I were always on the surface, you would soon 
 tire of me. I sometimes think," she added musingly, 
 " that that is why God draws everything to Himself 
 because He loves and remains hidden." 
 
 " Yet you say there are no cathedrals in your nature." 
 
 " I don't enter them often ; I'm too fond of sunshine. 
 How lovely those colors are! " 
 
 They were sitting upon a bench in the great park of 
 the city. Westward a sunset of latest August flamed 
 above the tall buildings, a suggestion of autumn in its 
 
 218
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 red and yellow tints. In the opposite direction the light 
 was reflected upon a dome of copper, whose burnished 
 red stood out strongly against the faded blue of the 
 eastern sky. 
 
 " Isn't a summer-city beautiful, Robert? " she said, 
 after a moment's interval of silence. 
 
 "I didn't know it could be so beautiful," he said; 
 " the light-effects are as sumptuous as in Venice. Did 
 you ever notice the cross-streets at this hour, when the 
 sun's going down, and the dust makes a haze of the in- 
 tensest gold, sometimes red gold? Then comes a rich, 
 blue twilight, and out of it the high buildings rise as 
 lightly as if they had no foundations. Dawn's even more 
 splendid." 
 
 " That I seldom see in summer. Do you get up so 
 early?" 
 
 " I've prowled about a good deal this month between 
 four and six in the morning." 
 
 "You don't sleep well?" 
 
 " I have ' white nights.' I can't shut out the heaven 
 the days are. When will we quarrel? We have not 
 quarreled yet." 
 
 " In paradise it is not possible to quarrel." 
 
 " Paradise is a summer-city," he answered. 
 
 " Where do we dine to-night ? My father gives you 
 permission to take me anywhere." 
 
 " Suppose we dine high in the air, on the roof of 
 some hotel? " 
 
 " Very well. Let us walk down through the park." 
 
 They went very slowly, both being in that mood 
 which garners every moment, as having its own precious 
 quality. But their reasons for this harvesting were di- 
 verse. With Robert it was the sense of the briefness of 
 
 219
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 the summer which when ended would mean the beginning 
 of a situation no longer secret, and of the great demands 
 it implied. To Olivia, on the other hand, the flight of 
 time meant always a certain weariness, a keen conscious- 
 ness of the futility of all things. She knew the mood 
 of those of whom it is written: 
 
 " They shall seek some face elusive, 
 And some land they never find." 
 
 So with deliberate intent they held back the mo- 
 ments, but the long, slow walk brought them at last to 
 the place they had chosen. There, high above the 
 street, an artificial garden had been created. From the 
 little embowered table they could see north and south 
 over the city, its outlines dimmed by a haze of heat and 
 dust. 
 
 As Olivia seated herself she bowed to a party of 
 people at a near-by table. The men returned her greet- 
 ing cordially, the two women with an air of well-bred 
 coldness. One of them put up a lorgnette and followed 
 the slight movement of her head with a stare of great 
 simplicity and directness. Olivia looked across at Rob- 
 ert with a smile. 
 
 " The mother is a friend of Mrs. Mallory's, and she 
 is shocked." 
 
 " Why is she shocked? " Robert questioned. 
 
 " Because I am doing a very unconventional thing. 
 Mrs. Mallory will probably add this to the list of my 
 crimes. She hates me, you know, because Paul wants 
 to marry me." 
 
 Robert's look was troubled. 
 
 " Do you care that these people are shocked? " he 
 said. " Do they count? " 
 
 220
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 " I care neither for men, women, nor chaperons, 
 Robert. I know what I am doing and why I want to 
 do it." 
 
 " Ah, but are you sure you could dispense with them 
 as audience? " 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " You are keen, too keen sometimes, since you dis- 
 cover my follies. You are quite right. I want to act 
 as I please to an audience of my own selection. I wish 
 that orchestra would stop playing. The music recalls 
 something I would like to forget." 
 
 " You know how much I have to forget," Robert 
 said with a somber expression. 
 
 " I suppose you mean Brooke," she said gently, her 
 eyes softening as if she spoke of the dead. 
 
 " Yes, Brooke. It is terrible to hurt a soul of whom 
 you are so unworthy." 
 
 " The lower always hurts the higher, as I've ob- 
 served," Olivia said musingly. " Pardon me, but she 
 was higher." 
 
 " Oh, I know/' he assented. 
 
 " I am nearer your plane. If you ever hurt me you 
 will not at least have that remorse." 
 
 She leaned her chin on her hands and gazed away 
 from him over the housetops to the bounds where night 
 began. 
 
 " I couldn't hurt you, Olivia. No one ever has hurt 
 you. No one ever will." 
 
 " That is a dangerous doctrine for me. How clearly 
 you are showing my critics, our neighbors, that you are 
 in love. Don't look at me that way." 
 
 " They will know it sooner or later," Robert said with 
 a smile. 
 
 221
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " They will not be interested," she answered dryly. 
 
 His heart sank, for he knew what her words implied. 
 Unless she married one of their class, her doings would 
 be of no importance to them. 
 
 " Well, what does their interest amount to?" he an- 
 swered with a touch of impatience. 
 
 " Much, if you are going their way." 
 
 " But you are going mine," he said decisively. 
 
 She made no answer, but for the rest of the evening 
 she exerted herself to the utmost to charm and divert 
 him, until she saw that he was living again wholly in 
 the present. 
 
 On his return to his rooms that night he found a 
 letter from his father, which, like several that had pre- 
 ceded it, was full of his nervous anxiety over the fluc- 
 tuations of Bridgewater. For the last month Robert 
 himself had been more uneasy concerning the result of 
 the venture than he would admit to his parents. The 
 sense of his own responsibility in the matter lay heavily 
 upon him, and in his depressed moments he wished 
 with all his heart that he had never repeated to his father 
 his conversation with Winwood, whose scornful meta- 
 phor of " the old stocking " had been of such weight in 
 the decision. The scales of life are turned more often 
 by trifles than by great events. 
 
 Another element in his anxiety was the attitude of 
 his former patient, Darrell, the stock-broker, who seemed 
 to regret having given Robert " a tip " which he had not 
 entirely verified. 
 
 " You see if I hadn't been on my back," he said on 
 one occasion when Robert had come to make inquiries 
 of him, " I'd have known the ins and outs better. I 
 thought I was giving you a sure thing, and perhaps I 
 
 222
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 was. Stock dreams go by contraries oftener than you'd 
 think." 
 
 When he had read the letter Robert sank back in his 
 chair, his brow furrowed, his lips compressed. Suppose 
 the worst happened? Suppose Bridgewater collapsed? 
 What would become of his parents? The house in 
 Trenthampton would have to be sold. What would his 
 father do? 
 
 And he himself? What could he do if his fathers 
 support were withdrawn from him? And how would 
 poverty of this complete and thoroughgoing kind affect 
 his relations with Olivia? 
 
 Yet might he not trust her to rise with him above 
 considerations of fortune; trust her to wait, until he 
 could hew his way to her? 
 
 A brighter look came into his face. He thought of 
 the little entresol in Paris that for their amusement they 
 had furnished together that afternoon, a place all ormolu 
 and flowered brocade, like a scene out of Balzac when 
 he writes of duchesses. Well! dreamers had sometimes 
 the best of it. 
 
 223
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE summer evening in Bruges was heavy with a 
 brooding and delicious warmth, which seemed to hold 
 the town in an even deeper stillness than its enfolding 
 ancient years. Paul Mallory was not as a rule suscep- 
 tible to the sentiment of places, but as he stepped from 
 the door of a pension, where he had been calling upon 
 his old French tutor, he felt about him, like palpable 
 presences, the ghosts of dead centuries, the babble of 
 voices long hushed beneath the pavements of the high, 
 quaint churches. Before him a little bridge spanned a 
 black canal of waters so sluggish that they seemed mo- 
 tionless. Bordering this canal were the garden-walls 
 of the red-roofed Flemish houses; enclosing, it would 
 seem, existences even deeper and dreamier than those in 
 the palaces of fairyland where knight and page, king and 
 vassal have been put to sleep by enchantment. A stone's 
 throw from the bridge a great tree in full white blos- 
 som, though it was late August, overhung the still water, 
 a patch of clear, high light in the warm gloom. 
 
 Paul, leaning on the parapet of the bridge, thought 
 as usual of Olivia, longed for her to be with him that 
 they might wander together through the grass-grown 
 streets, together listen to the sweet, interminable call 
 of the bells, together explore the white-walled, black- 
 raftered churches, where homely Flemish faces looked 
 down from above the altars, stiff Holy Families in colors 
 gay as tulips. He had said many prayers for her among 
 the kneeling townsfolk. 
 
 224
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 He took from his pocket a letter which he had just 
 received from his mother, and began again to read it, 
 haunted by the sense that it was somehow her valedictory 
 to many things which had made their companionship 
 precious. 
 
 " I do not blame you," she wrote, " for what now 
 seems to be your destiny. If sons waited for their 
 mothers' approval to marry, the world would be depopu- 
 lated. We become idealists then, if never before. 
 
 " I am anxious now that she shall marry you, though 
 my estimate of her is but slightly changed. I admit her 
 charm, her unclassified beauty, her altogether singular 
 virtues in one newly rich. I admit all this, but I still 
 believe that her selfishness is colossal, that she could 
 never make any man happy because she could never 
 for an instant forget her own claims, her love of power. 
 
 " Believing this, I can yet write that I should be 
 glad if she accepted you. I know that your emotions 
 were never scattered and were always tenacious. When 
 you write me that you will love her always, I believe you. 
 " I know that you are unhappy. You don't say so, 
 but I feel it under all your bravado of interest in your 
 business and pleasure over there. Come home and win 
 her if you can. I promise to be gracious, to act as if 
 she were my choice." 
 
 " You're a brick," he said, as he folded the letter, 
 " for you dislike Olivia from the bottom of your soul, 
 and you know it, mother! You're a great lady. You're 
 the real thing." 
 
 But how to win Olivia! Not one line had he had 
 from her, though he had written her twice every week 
 during the summer. Paul was not brilliant, but he 
 believed in the value of persistence. 
 
 225
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 Sighing, he took his way to the Beguinage, a square 
 whose silent green spaces, crossed only by holy women, 
 seemed the friendliest place in Bruges. There he sought 
 a stone bench near an archway where a gaunt Christ 
 hung, and gave himself up to planning his future, a 
 future through which Olivia accompanied him step by 
 step. 
 
 226
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 OLIVIA was sitting at her desk rereading a number 
 of Robert's letters. They had nearly all been written, as 
 the hour carefully recorded showed, after midnight of 
 those evenings he had spent with her, forming a kind of 
 noctuary. Their deep poetical quality, unconscious for 
 the most part, made her hesitate to destroy them. 
 
 She had feared to tire of this worship, which she had 
 desired more deeply than she had ever desired anything; 
 but to her surprise for she had little faith in emotion 
 it had grown so dear to her that she was almost ready 
 to commit herself to it openly, giving up, as an offering 
 of betrothal to Robert, her metropolitan ambitions. She 
 knew that as an unmarried woman she could take a place 
 far higher than as the wife, however wealthy, of an 
 unknown physician from the provinces. The husband 
 creates the wife's social position, and not the wife the 
 husband's. Olivia realized that the mere fact of Robert's 
 being a gentleman by birth would not secure his admit- 
 tance to a world which demands that ancestors be rich 
 before they are gentle, and resents the inverse process; 
 or to that other world represented by the Mallorys, which 
 bases its claim on several generations, both of conspicuous 
 wealth and of breeding. 
 
 Her lip curled in contempt of these circles, yet she 
 knew that in her heart she desired their recognition and 
 their homage ; as necessary to her, indeed, as a sense of 
 divine grace to the conscience of a saint. 
 
 227
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 On the other hand was the appeal of genuine in- 
 terest and affection. Why she loved Robert she did 
 not know, nor did she greatly care. She had known 
 men more brilliant, more cosmopolitan, perhaps of 
 sterner fiber of character, but they had left her heart 
 untouched. Robert's spirit mated hers. With him she 
 was content. 
 
 She had held herself firmly in check during the sum- 
 mer, fearful of being carried where reason no longer held 
 the reins. That feeling should be made a basis for mar- 
 riage she was not at all sure. She was afraid of killing 
 the thing she loved. 
 
 Yet the desire of uniting her life to his was becom- 
 ing perilously sweet. What simplicity there was in her 
 nature yearned for better things than her oppressive 
 riches offered her. The little entresol in Paris, with its 
 gay furniture, its abundance of mirrors and flowers, was 
 more than a fanciful dream born of the idleness of a 
 summer afternoon. What an ideal setting for a honey- 
 moon ! Sometimes her thoughts went on to pretty details 
 of that isolation. On feast-days they would go to St. 
 Cloud or to Versailles, as do the pairs of humble lovers 
 in French stories. Then, after a few months, home again 
 to the finest country in the world to enjoy all the old- 
 fashioned rural pleasures open to good Americans who 
 have neither poverty nor riches. 
 
 Ah, what a dream ! She pressed her lips to a letter 
 in which he had told her sternly and with authority that 
 she would have to share his fortunes, great or small. 
 That letter was more precious than the others. She put 
 it aside as privileged by its message to escape the general 
 holocaust. In the fireplace a wood fire was burning 
 for it was a bleak day in late September and one by 
 
 228
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 one she gave the letters to the flames, watching them burn 
 until the last little ghost of gray ashes had soared up 
 the chimney. 
 
 Toward the end of her task Robert was announced. 
 As he entered the room she rose from the hearth-rug 
 which she had shared with Dr. Faustus, and came for- 
 ward to meet him with hands outstretched. 
 
 " I've been burning all your beautiful thoughts, Rob- 
 ert. They are now floating above the housetops. Per- 
 haps some are seeking the river and will go out to the 
 great ocean." 
 
 " I'm glad you cremated them. People who keep 
 letters are not the kind of people you want to send 
 letters to." 
 
 "Tired, Robert?" 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "Cold?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Bothered?" 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 " Come and sit here between me and Dr. Faustus, who 
 is in one of his wisest moods. He has been telling me 
 that even the luxuries with which I surround him are as 
 nothing to what he enjoyed on the banks of the Nile two 
 thousand years ago. He will explain to you the difference 
 between white and black magic if you ask him courteously 
 and without rumpling his fur." 
 
 Robert laughed. 
 
 " I'm sure there's only black magic under that ebony 
 coat. You shameless old wizard, are you always 
 asleep? " 
 
 He seated himself on a low chair, and drew the cat 
 on his knees. 
 
 229
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " You look as if you had been working too hard, 
 Robert." 
 
 " I've been thinking too hard, perhaps. I am a ways 
 and means committee of one." 
 
 " You are like all the others. You don't know the 
 meaning of repose. Why struggle ? " 
 
 " Why, indeed ? That is a strange question for you 
 to ask." 
 
 " Work, but don't struggle," she said gently. 
 
 " You must realize that our engagement has made me 
 ambitious." 
 
 " Are we engaged, Robert ? " 
 
 A flash of anger was in his eyes as he said : 
 
 " What do you mean by asking such a question ? 
 Have you been playing with me ? " 
 
 " No. You know that I have not," she answered 
 gravely. 
 
 " Well, what do you mean then ? " 
 
 " More things than I can explain to you. Don't ask 
 me to explain them. Trust me a little." 
 
 " I do trust you." 
 
 " You don't act as if you did." 
 
 " I'd like to take you to-night and go away with you 
 into the wilderness." 
 
 " Robert, I tell you frankly that that is an impossible 
 dream. I am not made for plain living and high think- 
 ing, and I have the sense to know it. I require a certain 
 genial temperature for the flowering of my virtues." 
 
 " I don't agree with you. You have a large enough 
 nature to do anything." 
 
 " No, as I told you once before, nobility, like pov- 
 erty, would not agree with me. I'd grow ill-tempered 
 and nervous. The saints are always nervous, you know." 
 
 230
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 " Don't jest." 
 
 " I never was further from jesting." 
 
 " But what of our future, then ? " 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 " Olivia, you will have to come to me. I can't come 
 to you." 
 
 She made no reply. 
 
 There was a sound of approaching footsteps. Henry 
 Winwood paused at the door and looked in. 
 
 " Good evening, Doctor. These sudden changes 
 make good pneumonia weather. Olivia, tell James he 
 must keep that tom-cat of yours from wandering all over 
 the house. I nearly broke my neck falling over him on 
 the stairs this morning, the black rascal! " 
 
 " Don't abuse Faustus. He'll bring you bad luck if 
 you do." 
 
 Winwood laughed. 
 
 " I guess I swore too hard at him this morning, then. 
 Bridgewater's busted. You'll have to do without your 
 fall hat, 'Livy." 
 
 He went on his way whistling. Robert stood motion- 
 less, his face devoid of color, his lips blue, his eyes full 
 of sudden and, to her, inexplicable misery. 
 
 " Robert, what is it? Are you ill?" 
 
 He did not answer at once, but stared at her with 
 an intensity of expression that frightened her. 
 
 "Robert! What is it? Speak to me!" 
 
 " My father is ruined, that is all," he said quietly. 
 
 " Ruined ? What do you mean ? " 
 
 " He put all his money all he had left in the 
 Bridgewater stock ; and I let him do it, knowing " 
 
 She stood silent, gazing at him. Then a look came 
 into her face such as he had never seen there. 
 
 231
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 "You did it for me?" she said softly. 
 
 He bent his head. 
 
 She hesitated a moment, the strange, beautiful light 
 still on her face, then she slowly crossed the room, and 
 for the first time raised her lips to his.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 " YOUR kindness to me hurts me. If you'd blame me, 
 reproach me, I could bear it better ! " 
 
 James Erskine, hollow-eyed, thin, and pale, as if he 
 had spent his summer underground, made a gesture of 
 protest. 
 
 " I was as much to blame as you. I allowed my 
 resentment of Winwood to influence me unduly. But 
 I suppose," he added with faint irony, "that if fortune 
 had come my way I'd have seen the finger of Providence 
 in the whole matter." 
 
 The two men were seated in the library of the Trent- 
 hampton home, before a hearth on which no fire burned. 
 The sense of dreariness produced by the chilly air of 
 the room was further increased by the continual drip, 
 drip of a fine, soaking rain, which seemed to turn even 
 the chrysanthemums in the garden as brown as the 
 fallen leaves. 
 
 " What do you think you can do, father ? " Robert 
 said after a long pause, that had deepened the apathetic 
 look on James Erskine's face. 
 
 " God knows ! " he answered. " The house will have 
 to be sold. We will go somewhere in the country, your 
 mother and I, and board cheaply until I can look around 
 a little." 
 
 " Poor mother ! " Robert murmured. 
 
 " I've always had a standing chance for a position in 
 the Winwood works. They'd be glad to pay me a small 
 W 233
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 salary for my large experience in their line, but I think 
 I'd rather starve than go to them." 
 
 " No, not that if you can help it," Robert said, turn- 
 ing his eyes away that he might not see the nervous 
 twitching of his father's hands. 
 
 "What about Olivia? You've not spoken of her 
 since you came." 
 
 Robert's face reflected for an instant a mirage of 
 heavenly beauty. 
 
 " We are engaged. She gave me her final word on 
 the night I heard that Bridgewater she was marvelous ! " 
 
 His father's dull eyes brightened. 
 
 " Is she announcing it ? " 
 
 " No. It can't be announced at this crisis. I am 
 held between joy and despair. I can't, I won't marry 
 her till I've worked my way to some success by my own 
 legitimate efforts. It seems now like asking her to wait 
 forever. Why, I don't know where my office rent's 
 coming from. The lease expires the middle of October." 
 
 " We might apply to Dr. Gorton for a loan," James 
 Erskine said wearily, " if you think you could keep up 
 with the interest." 
 
 Robert shook his head. 
 
 " No ; I'll manage somehow. I pay monthly, not 
 quarterly, thank heaven ! I have bills out, but people 
 have been away, you know." 
 
 " Does Olivia know these things ? " 
 
 " I tell her very little. It is difficult for a wealthy 
 woman, even with the best intentions, to understand 
 poverty. Besides, it's too much like a beggar showing 
 his sores." 
 
 " Well, I'm thankful you have her to work for. It 
 is the one ray of light in this trouble." 
 
 234
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 " Her love keeps me sane," Robert said in a low 
 voice. " If I had ruined you for a will-of-the-wisp of 
 my fancy I could not bear it." 
 
 "Have you told your mother of your engagement? " 
 
 " Not yet. I find it difficult to open the subject. 
 Mother doesn't like Olivia." 
 
 " She'll be fair, no matter what she feels. She has 
 been such a bulwark since this loss. Not a word of re- 
 proach! I sometimes think she has a man's tempera- 
 ment. She takes so much for granted." 
 
 They sat a few moments in a silence broken only by 
 the insistent dripping of the rain. Occasionally a gust 
 of wind rose from the ground to sway the yellow leaves 
 as if in preparation for their cradling, and then to die 
 away in the distance. A longing arose in Robert, as it 
 sometimes arises out of the strongest love, a longing to 
 leave the intricate labyrinths that he had been threading 
 and to follow a wandering wind, forever care-free, young, 
 and untroubled. The gray realms of thought lying like 
 a high plateau under the stars allure those whose beloved 
 have brought the touch of fever to their souls. 
 
 " Where are you going ? " James Erskine asked as 
 his son rose. 
 
 " I am restless. I think I shall go to The Towers 
 and get a book I promised Olivia I would bring her." 
 
 Erskine went to a drawer and took from it a 
 cigar-box. 
 
 " There are only two left of a brand I won't be able 
 to buy again for some time. Shall we smoke them now, 
 or after dinner ? " 
 
 " Let us wait until after dinner," Robert said ; " per- 
 haps I can make you forget then the trouble I have 
 caused you." 
 
 235
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 His father smiled faintly. 
 
 " When you are as tired as I am, you resent nothing.' 7 
 
 The Towers rose majestically through the thick gray 
 atmosphere. The lawns, still green as emerald, were 
 bare of leaves, as if the little gay, fluttering things were 
 seized upon and carried off like poachers by vigilant 
 gardeners. 
 
 The butler who admitted Robert bowed obsequiously. 
 It was evident that the servants were not unaware of 
 the favor in which he stood with their young mistress. 
 The man conducted him to the library, and, after light- 
 ing a fire on the hearth, went noiselessly away. 
 
 Robert found the book, then he seated himself in the 
 depths of a high carved chair. The desire to wander 
 with the wind had left him since he had entered this 
 house, so full of memories of Olivia that he half expected 
 to encounter her somewhere in the twilight. Her voice 
 called his name softly. Her dark eyes watched him. 
 Through those wide halls he heard the rustle of her dress. 
 
 He leaned his head against the tall chair-back, look- 
 ing up at the ceiling, with its two great circular frescos, 
 one representing the last conversation of Socrates, the 
 other, Paul upon Mars Hill. 
 
 How would it seem one day to be master of this 
 place? How would it seem consummate miracle! to 
 be master of her? 
 
 236
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 " BUT I thought you were not returning before No- 
 vember," Olivia said, a touch of impatience in her voice. 
 
 " I could stay away no longer. I left the business 
 uncompleted. Remember, I have had not one line from 
 you. Europe was hell." 
 
 " Paul, remember you are a churchman, and the 
 great-grandson of a bishop or was it an archbishop? 
 You should have known that I never write letters in 
 summer-time." 
 
 Paul Mallory rose and began to pace up and down 
 the long drawing-room. He had the feverish look of a 
 man consumed by something which has passed thor- 
 oughly beyond his control, yet which can find no outlet. 
 His face had lost its boyishness. Love knows no middle 
 age. It has either the youth of Apollo or the centuries 
 of the Sphinx. 
 
 " Where were you this summer, if I may ask ? " 
 
 " Here." 
 
 "All summer?" 
 
 " All summer." 
 
 " What is the meaning of that? " 
 
 " Are you my master that I should answer any ques- 
 tion you choose to ask ? " 
 
 Olivia's voice was hard, her face as expressionless as 
 she knew how to make it. 
 
 Mallory's frame shook with that anger of love which 
 is only terrible to the person who feels it. 
 
 " No, by God ! I'm not your master ; I'm your dog 
 to be kicked, and, like a dog, I come crawling back." 
 
 237
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " Dogs are nobler than men sometimes," Olivia said 
 with a little smile. " Calm yourself, Paul. You know 
 angry people only amuse me." 
 
 " Everything amuses you," he said bitterly. " Yon 
 should have been a Roman woman in the days of 
 Nero. You would have called ' to the lions ! ' between 
 a discussion of the weather and of the new styles 
 of togas." 
 
 " I thought only the senators wore togas," Olivia 
 said musingly. " However, if you say so, it must be 
 true. You are a Mallory." 
 
 " My name is at least unsullied," Paul said. " It is 
 the best I have to give you." 
 
 Olivia was silent. 
 
 He paused before her chair. 
 
 " My dearest, why is it you rouse me sometimes to 
 say ungentlemanly things in your presence? I don't 
 often get angry, but when I do the fiend has full pos- 
 session." 
 
 " Why do you blame me for your lack of self-con- 
 trol ? " Olivia asked. 
 
 He made no answer. 
 
 " You are only a child, Paul. Why should I marry 
 a child?" 
 
 " No, I am not a child," he said with dignity. " I 
 am a man, too much of a man, I hope, to go on in this 
 uncertainty. I will take my leave now, and I will re- 
 turn in three days for your final word. If you say ' no ' 
 to me then I will go away forever." 
 
 His voice was quiet, his eyes calm and steady. Olivia 
 realized that he meant what he said. 
 
 " Would you care to marry me knowing I did not 
 love you?" she asked. 
 
 238
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 " God help me, yes ! " 
 
 " Men are such strange beings," she murmured, as 
 if to herself. " Paul, you can come back in three days 
 for your answer. Be prepared, however, to take your 
 final leave of me." 
 
 A spasm of pain crossed his face. He lingered a 
 moment, then he bowed, raising her hand to his lips. 
 
 " Good-by," he said. " If prayer can help, you will 
 not say ' no.' " 
 
 When he was gone she went to her mother's room. 
 Mrs. Winwood, somewhat paled and faded by her sum- 
 mer in town, sat in a bay-window knitting a little silk 
 baby-sock. 
 
 " I wish this was for your baby, Olivia," she said. 
 
 Olivia laughed. 
 
 " What an unnatural mother you are to wish such 
 a thing for your daughter." 
 
 Mrs. Winwood dropped her needles in her lap. 
 
 " Wouldn't you really like to have a child of your 
 own, 'Livy ? " 
 
 " No, I wouldn't. Why should I transmit my faults 
 to another generation? I suppose if I married into one 
 of these big city families I'd have to, though. There 
 must always be an heir for the name and the fortune. 
 Don't look frightened, mother. I'm not going to sell 
 my soul. I think I will marry the man I love." 
 
 She sank upon the floor and laid her head upon her 
 mother's knee. Mrs. Winwood, thoroughly astonished, 
 touched Olivia's hair timidly. 
 
 "Don't you feel well, my dear?" 
 
 " Quite well, mother. Your voice sounds as if you 1 
 were afraid of me. Was I ever cross to you ? " 
 
 " Never ! Only only I was always afraid of you, 
 239
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 even when you were a tiny baby. What black eyes you 
 had, and what a temper ! " 
 
 " I was a changeling, dear. Your own blond-haired 
 baby-girl, with the blue eyes, is somewhere now in fairy- 
 land. Wouldn't you like to have her back?" she said, 
 stroking her mother's hand. 
 
 " No; I guess I'd rather have you." 
 
 Silence fell between them. Her mother broke it 
 at last: 
 
 " Have you seen Robert lately ? " 
 
 " He comes this afternoon." 
 
 " I like him/' Mrs. Winwood said, picking up her 
 needles again. 
 
 " So do I," said Olivia softly. 
 
 " What are you going to wear to-night ? " 
 
 " To-night ? Have we anything for to-night ? " 
 
 " The little musicale at Mrs. Webb's. You haven't 
 forgotten you're to play ! She's opening the season early, 
 and I declare I don't feel up to a long winter of it." 
 
 " You can run up to The Towers for a while. 
 You'll have to go to-night. Mrs. Webb is in the Knick- 
 erbocker set." 
 
 240
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 MRS. WEBB'S house was in a cross-street which 
 opened from the lower end of the Avenue. It was a 
 small, old-fashioned dwelling, furnished chiefly as her 
 friends said with musical instruments. But an invita- 
 tion to one of her musicales was a passport to the inner 
 circles of society. 
 
 Olivia and her mother had received invitations, partly 
 because Olivia played the piano as well as if she were 
 a public performer, but chiefly because her engagement 
 with Paul Mallory was looked upon as merely a matter 
 of time. His future wife must be treated with con- 
 sideration. 
 
 A half-hour before the time set for the musicale, 
 Mrs. Webb, her husband, and two women friends who 
 had dined with them were gathered about the piano, 
 where they took turns in entertaining each other with 
 their latest compositions. 
 
 Mrs. Webb, a strong-featured little brunette, had just 
 finished playing a madrigal when Mrs. Leidy, a young, 
 very fashionable matron, picked up a program and 
 remarked : 
 
 " I see, Polly, you have Miss Winwood down for 
 the Appassionata. She ought to be able to do justice 
 to it." 
 
 ' I understand that she has no heart," said Webb, 
 who was sorting some music. 
 
 "Just because Paul Mallory hasn't found it?" re- 
 marked Miss French, who was in her sixth season. 
 
 241
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 Mrs. Leidy shrugged her pretty shoulders. 
 
 " My dear, I don't believe he ever asked her to 
 marry him." 
 
 " But he was wild about her last winter." 
 
 " Men are often wild about women whom they don't 
 want to marry." 
 
 " Well, if she's not going to marry Paul Mallory, I 
 think I'll cross her name from my list," Mrs. Webb said 
 frankly. " I could accept her alone, for she has the air 
 of a duchess, but she insists on forcing her impossible 
 mother down people's throats." 
 
 " Good girl ! " said Webb, looking up. 
 
 " Oh, it's all very well, Courtney, but when one's 
 rooms are small one can't know certain people." 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " Is Mrs. Win wood inclined to embonpoint ? " 
 
 Miss French put a thin arm about Mrs. Leidy's waist 
 and drew her to a window-seat, where they sat, a blur 
 of soft fluffiness in the dim light. 
 
 " I want to tell you something. Olivia Winwood was 
 in town during the entire summer. She was seen by four 
 or five people I know dining in public at different times 
 with the same man." 
 
 "What man?" 
 
 " Heaven only can tell ! One of her former friends, 
 I suppose, whom she can't afford to know during the 
 season." 
 
 Mrs. Leidy smiled. 
 
 " What is to be done had better be done quickly. I 
 think I will ignore Miss Winwood this evening. She 
 may look like a duchess, but people of the stamp of her 
 family are becoming altogether too sure of their position. 
 A wholesome snub won't harm them." 
 
 242
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 " You do those things so beautifully," Miss French 
 said, looking at her friend with admiration. " I hope I 
 may be present at the execution." 
 
 " You can assist if you will." 
 
 Miss French laughed. 
 
 " With all my heart ! I have a grudge against Miss 
 Winwood for outshining me last winter at the Dudley 
 musicale." 
 
 " She certainly plays well," said Mrs. Leidy, who 
 was noted for giving the devil his due. 
 
 "What mischief are you two plotting?" asked Mrs. 
 Webb, coming up to them at that moment. 
 
 " We are going to cut Miss Winwood. We have 
 decided to resist the inroads of the proletariat," Mrs. 
 Leidy said sweetly. 
 
 " Well, I beg of you not to carry out your charitable 
 intentions until after she has played. Those perfectly 
 cool people always have horrible tempers. She might 
 leave me in the lurch." 
 
 " She'd be more likely to play with the force of a 
 whirlwind," Mrs. Leidy replied ; " the Appassionata calls 
 for strong feeling of some kind." 
 
 Mrs. Webb laughed. 
 
 " It doesn't call for temper. Courtney, will you 
 kindly go down and see to that furnace yourself ? These 
 rooms will be unendurable by ten." 
 
 She sat down at the piano again and ran her lithe 
 fingers over the keys, finally wandering into a folk-song. 
 Under cover of the music, Mrs. Leidy said : 
 
 " I'd like to oblige Polly, but if the psychological 
 moment comes before the sonata, the sonata will have 
 to go." 
 
 Miss French pressed her arm sympathetically. She 
 
 243
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 promised to help. She had always the courage to do 
 what Mrs. Leidy did, but she herself lacked the power 
 of initiative. 
 
 The rooms filled up quickly as the hour named ap- 
 proached, for Mrs. Webb's entertainments always began 
 with the promptness of a public performance. Olivia 
 and her mother were among the latest comers. The girl 
 looked well in a gown of dull red chiffon, cut very low, 
 and without sleeves. She wore a quaint necklace of 
 gold, but no other ornaments. 
 
 After greeting her hostess she slipped quietly into 
 the nearest seat, but Mrs. Winwood, feeling the impor- 
 tance of the occasion as the first event of the season, 
 looked around for familiar faces, with the intention of 
 making herself agreeable in the few moments which were 
 left for conversation. 
 
 Olivia, with some misgivings, saw her mother enter 
 the chattering throng, but she made no attempt to follow 
 her. She always prepared herself for playing by a period 
 of silence. 
 
 People began to take their places, and, watching the 
 audience, which at Mrs. Webb's musicales was always 
 worth watching, she forgot her mother, nor was she 
 aware when Mrs. Winwood took her place by her side. 
 
 But during the first number, a violin obligate, her 
 attention was diverted by a very perceptible sniffle. 
 Turning her head to locate the direction of the sound, 
 she saw her mother sitting rigid, her face scarlet, her 
 lips compressed, and two big tears rolling down her 
 cheeks. 
 
 Olivia looked at her in wonder, but she checked her 
 sympathetic impulse to whisper "Are you ill?" or to 
 lay her hand on her mother's, because she was fully 
 
 244
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 aware that kindness might bring forth a flood of hys- 
 terical tears. Instead she frowned and put a warning 
 finger to her lips. Mrs. Win wood's ample bosom heaved 
 convulsively, but she made a desperate effort at self- 
 control, clutching her handkerchief with her plump hands 
 and tapping the floor with her foot to relieve her ner- 
 vousness. When the number was over, Olivia whispered, 
 " Come to the dressing-room," and saying to Mrs. Webb, 
 who was still stationed at the door, " My mother feels a 
 little faint," she led her gently up-stairs. 
 
 She dismissed the maids who came forward with 
 proffers of assistance, asking them to wait outside a 
 moment. When the door closed upon them she turned 
 to her mother, who, now that she found herself free from 
 observation, allowed her tears to flow freely. 
 
 " Dear, what is it ? What has happened ? " 
 
 Mrs. Winwood's lower lip quivered like a child's. 
 
 " Oh, 'Livy, if you'd only have been with me they'd 
 never 'a' done it the cold, cruel things, and right before 
 a crowd of people that know us ! Oh, you'll be snubbed 
 right and left now. That horrible woman ! " 
 
 " Mother, dear, will you collect yourself and tell me 
 just what happened? My number comes soon." 
 
 " Mrs. Leidy wouldn't speak to me. I came up to 
 her so friendly, because of last year, and my hand out, 
 and I was smiling, and she turned right away didn't 
 even look at me, 'Livy, and me left standing there and 
 Miss French turned away, too; and, oh, 'Livy, I felt as 
 if I'd sink through the floor! me left standing there 
 with my smile on my face like a fool ! " 
 
 A burst of tears followed. Olivia, who had grown 
 very pale, stood in silence for a moment, holding her 
 mother's hand tightly and stroking her forehead. 
 
 245
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " Dear," she said at last in a quiet voice, with a hard 
 undertone, " it is the last time they will hurt you. Be- 
 fore Christmas you will be in a position to hurt them. 
 Dry your eyes." 
 
 Her mother gazed up at her through her tears. 
 
 "What are you going to do, 'Livy?" she said, half 
 frightened by the look in her daughter's face. 
 
 " Nothing now. Oh, the brutes ! The brutes ! " 
 
 She set her teeth. Her eyes had the fuliginous qual- 
 ity of a thunder-cloud. There was something in her 
 whiteness, in her stillness, that alarmed her mother. 
 
 " 'Livy, don't look like that ! 'Livy, speak to me ! " 
 
 The girl closed her eyes. When she opened them 
 again, she said quietly: 
 
 " Don't be afraid. I'll go down and play my little 
 piece, and then I'll take you home. After that " 
 
 Her laugh rang out. 
 
 " 'Livy ! 'Livy ! Oh, why didn't I keep it to myself ! " 
 
 " Hush, mother. You did right to tell me. They 
 didn't know with whom they were dealing, that was 
 all." 
 
 In that instant her father looked out of her face, the 
 iron will that had gone straight to its goal unmindful 
 of cries or pleas, of barriers that dwarfed the highest 
 Alps, the iron will that recked neither of God nor devil 
 in its onward course. 
 
 " Stay here. When I have played we will go home." 
 
 Olivia descended to the drawing-room, smiling. 
 
 " A little overcome with the heat," she said in answer 
 to her hostess's inquiries. " I thought it best for her 
 not to come down again." 
 
 " So sorry," Mrs. Webb murmured politely. " Your 
 number is the next," she added. " I am all eagerness. 
 
 246
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 You are one of the few women in this city who can do 
 justice to the Appassionata." 
 
 " You are too kind," Olivia answered. 
 
 She sank into a chair wearily. Her face was ashy 
 white. Her eyes, dark and dilated, saw nothing about 
 her. 
 
 She heard her name spoken, as if from a great dis- 
 tance. She rose mechanically, and, with a little bow to 
 her audience, took her seat at the piano. Her hands 
 rested idly on the keys for a moment. Mr. Webb came 
 to her side. 
 
 " Do you feel ill, Miss Winwood ? You are very 
 pale." 
 
 " No, I'm not ill," she murmured. " In a moment 
 I'll be ready." 
 
 She raised her hands again, hesitated, then began the 
 sonata. 
 
 The opening bars told the critical, hypersensitive 
 audience that no ordinary rendition of this great work 
 was to be given. What Olivia put into it she dimly 
 knew, for the confusions of her emotion left no place 
 for a distinct ideal, but she played with a splendor of 
 interpretation that was born of superlative feeling. As 
 the sonata attained its height people moved uneasily, ex- 
 changed glances, betrayed all the restlessness of those 
 before whom the human spirit is walking in its naked- 
 ness. 
 
 When Olivia had finished, there was a dead silence, 
 broken at last by a crash of applause. As she glided out 
 of her seat, looking neither to the right nor left, Webb 
 bent toward his wife. 
 
 " That girl is a genius ! " 
 
 " She is in love," she answered. " If she'd shrieked 
 247
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 it from the housetops she couldn't have told us more 
 plainly. My dear Miss Winwood," she added as Olivia 
 came toward them with an outstretched hand, " you are 
 not going! Every one will want to congratulate you on 
 this triumph. It was a marvelous rendering." 
 
 Olivia smiled faintly. 
 
 " You are very good. I must take my mother home." 
 
 In the carriage Mrs. Winwood took her daughter's 
 hand timidly. Olivia was leaning back, her head sunk 
 on her breast, her eyes closed. At times a quiver went 
 through her frame. 
 
 " Why, your hand's like ice ! You ain't sick, 'Livy ? " 
 
 The girl shook her head. 
 
 " I oughtn't to have worried you," her mother said 
 humbly. " I guess I had nerves." 
 
 When they were home Olivia put her lips to her 
 mother's forehead, and, bidding her good night, she 
 went to her room. Her maid was moving about the 
 dainty place, lighting the candles on the dressing-table, 
 getting the toilet articles in order, preparing to put her 
 mistress to bed. 
 
 As Olivia entered, the girl looked at her anxiously. 
 
 " Mademoiselle is ill ! " she said. 
 
 " No, Jeannette, only tired." 
 
 She crossed the room to her writing-desk, and began 
 to take out some paper and envelopes. 
 
 "Shall I undress Mademoiselle?" 
 
 " No, Jeannette. I shall not need you to-night. Tell 
 James to wait in the lower hall until I ring. I have two 
 letters to send out. Tell him I may be a long time." 
 
 The girl lingered. She was devoted to Olivia. 
 
 " Is there nothing I can do for Mademoiselle? " 
 
 " Nothing, thank you. Go and get your sleep." 
 248
 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 The first note was soon written. It was but a line: 
 
 " I will marry you. Do not come to the house until 
 I send for you." 
 
 She sealed it and addressed it to Paul Mallory. She 
 rose then and began to pace the floor, a terrible look in 
 her face. Once or twice she stopped short and wrung 
 her hands convulsively, but not a sound came from 
 her lips. 
 
 At last she sat down again and wrote a few lines un- 
 steadily. Then she rang the bell. 
 
 Her mother, whose room was just below Olivia's, was 
 listening with feverish anxiety to the sounds overhead. 
 They died away for a while, but long after midnight 
 there began again the tread of footsteps. Mrs. Winwood 
 endured it as long as she could, then she went over to 
 her husband's bed and awakened him. 
 
 " Henry, I'm worried about 'Livy. She's been pacing 
 that floor for hours," she said in a hoarse whisper. " I 
 bothered her to-night, but she acts like she has some- 
 thing else on her mind. Ought I to go up ? " 
 
 " No, let her alone," her husband said crossly. " You 
 couldn't do anything if you did go up." 
 
 Mrs. Winwood crept back to her bed reproved, but 
 she lay awake for another hour, staring into the darkness 
 and listening to the footsteps, which had not ceased when 
 she fell asleep. 
 
 When the first light stole into the room, she woke 
 with a start, and, recollecting her anxiety, she rose, and, 
 throwing on a wrapper, she went up-stairs. 
 
 Olivia's door was ajar. The girl herself was stretched 
 
 across the bed, still wearing her evening gown, the red 
 
 tints of which emphasized the pallor of her face. Her 
 
 closed eyes looked sunken, blue lines were about her 
 
 17 249
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 mouth. She seemed either in a faint or in an unnatural 
 sleep. 
 
 Her mother, thoroughly alarmed, bent over her, call- 
 ing her name and shaking her. At last Olivia's eyes 
 opened. The look of horror in them made her mother 
 think that she was still dreaming. 
 
 " Olivia, dear, it's mother." 
 
 Then her lips moved. Mrs. Winwood bent nearer to 
 her, and caught the words spoken in a whisper: 
 
 " Has Robert come yet? " 
 
 250
 
 BOOK IV 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 "From the confessionals I hear arise 
 Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies, 
 And lamentations from the crypts below."
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 " JUST what they want to know is," Mrs. Winwood 
 said apologetically, " whether you'll have marguerites or 
 forget-me-nots embroidered on that particular set." 
 
 " They can embroider little devils all over my linen 
 for aught I care," Olivia said in a bored voice. Her 
 mother remained standing at the door of her room, look- 
 ing helplessly at her. 
 
 " Well, I never knew a woman yet who wasn't inter- 
 ested in her trousseau. Why, I'd a gone wild at your 
 age over such pretty things. When your father gave 
 you that gold-mounted toilet-set last night you scarcely 
 looked at it, and he felt hurt. I know he did, 'Livy. It 
 was every mite made to order, and the pattern'll never 
 be duplicated." 
 
 Olivia's face softened. 
 
 " Mother, dear, I'll thank him properly to-night. It 
 wasn't pretty of me, I know. I'm an ingrate." 
 
 Mrs. Winwood looked at her anxiously. 
 
 " You don't act natural to me. You don't act like a 
 woman who's going to be married in a month." 
 
 " They act like fools mostly. You're spared that, 
 anyway." 
 
 " Olivia, dear, you seem so hard these days. You 
 don't seem happy. I wish you'd tell mother what hap- 
 pened that you took Paul all of a sudden." 
 
 Olivia shook her head and turned to her desk again. 
 253
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " There's nothing to tell, dear. You wouldn't under- 
 stand anyway. You're just a good, true woman." 
 
 Her voice held bitterness. 
 
 " Was it anything that that Robert did ? " 
 
 Olivia smiled faintly. 
 
 " No, mother, it was nothing that Dr. Erskine did. 
 If you're going down-town, will you stop at Lucille's and 
 ask them to send me up some hats. I suppose I'll have 
 to wear hats after I'm married," she added musingly. 
 
 "What kind, dear?" 
 
 " Oh, they'll know. They know better than I do 
 what I want. Tell them a little about my dresses." 
 
 " Hadn't you better come along, and try some on 
 there? The air will do you good." 
 
 "Oh, no, I can't bother; I'm tired." 
 
 " You never used to be tired." 
 
 " Don't rake up my lurid past, please." 
 
 Her mother hesitated. 
 
 " Have you decided about the decorations for the 
 church? " 
 
 " Yes, annunciation lilies and orchids." 
 
 " And two bishops to marry you," Mrs. Winwood 
 said with a thrill of pride. 
 
 " A justice of the peace would do as well." 
 
 " It'll be strange to see you going up the aisle under 
 a veil, 'Livy. I used to think you'd never marry." 
 
 "Well, whatever you do, don't cry. Such incidents 
 aren't worth tears." 
 
 She bent over her desk with a long sigh. Her 
 mother looked wonderingly at her, then turned away. 
 
 When she was gone Olivia rose and closed the door; 
 then went over to the window, and stood for a moment 
 gazing out with heavy eyes. She had the air of one 
 
 254
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 who lies awake too long into the night. Now that she 
 was alone, the mask fell from her face, and lines of suf- 
 fering showed in it. The corners of her mouth drooped. 
 All her buoyancy and confidence were departed. She 
 seemed depleted by some never-ceasing conflict with cer- 
 tain forces of her nature not yet overcome. 
 
 After a time she sank on her knees by the window- 
 seat, and buried her face in her hands, shutting out the 
 dreary daylight. 
 
 "' If I could only forget! If I could only forget! " 
 
 There was a knock at the door, and her maid entered. 
 
 "Well, what is it, Jeannette? " 
 
 " Does Mademoiselle forget that she is lunching 
 out?" the girl said timidly. 
 
 " No, I haven't forgotten. Don't look so frightened. 
 Come and put me into something. Am I late?" 
 
 " No. It is not yet one. Has Mademoiselle any 
 choice? " 
 
 " Anything that is easy to get into. You want to 
 brush my hair? " 
 
 " Yes, Mademoiselle." 
 
 Olivia sat down with an air of resignation. 
 
 The hair-dressing was a difficult process. Nothing 
 pleased Olivia. Nothing was right. Suddenly the girl 
 laid down the comb and burst into tears. Her mistress 
 looked up in astonishment. 
 
 " Why, Jeannette, what is the matter? What have 
 you to cry about you! " 
 
 " Mademoiselle is so harsh to me of late. I can do 
 nothing to suit her." 
 
 Olivia looked repentant. She closed a caressing 
 hand over Jeannette's. 
 
 " Don't mind me, child. I am not myself these days. 
 255
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 I have a headache now, and I suppose that makes me 
 cross. You won't want to stay with me after I'm mar- 
 ried, will you ? " 
 
 "Stay with you! Oh, Mademoiselle, I'd go to the 
 end of the world with you." 
 
 " Marriage is a kind of end of the world, but not the 
 kind you mean," Olivia said musingly, " and after that 
 the judgment." 
 
 She was dressed at last, and went down to the waiting 
 motor. She gave the number to the chauffeur, then set- 
 tled herself among the furs, grateful for the cold, snowy 
 air against her hot cheeks. For a while she did not 
 notice in what direction she was being taken, but sud- 
 denly she became conscious of her surroundings. 
 
 " Not through the Park," she commanded sharply. 
 " Go down the Boulevard." 
 
 On the Avenue she passed many people whom she 
 knew. Their recognitions were most cordial, and Olivia 
 smiled to herself. 
 
 " It is already working wonders," she thought. 
 "Cowards!" 
 
 The lunch was given in her honor by Paul's mother, 
 the guests being exclusively young unmarried women 
 of the best-known families of the city. Some of them 
 had not met Olivia before, and were secretly eager to 
 satisfy their curiosity concerning her. 
 
 Olivia, despite her seeming indifference concerning 
 the gown to be worn, had in reality made a very careful 
 toilet. For the first time a little thrill of pride went 
 through Mrs. Mallory at the sight of her future daugh- 
 ter-in-law, whose gift of distinction seemed in full evi- 
 dence on this occasion. A certain pensiveness, almost 
 sadness, in her face added to her beauty. All eyes were 
 
 256
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 upon her as she stood for the moment's greeting with 
 her hostess before the introductions. 
 
 It was Olivia's first taste of power in a world which 
 hitherto had only opened intermittently to her. The 
 intoxication of it she took deep into her spirit, careful 
 that her manner should show only the well-bred indiffer- 
 ence which was all that was required of her. She was 
 even watchful that she said nothing clever or memorable, 
 lest she should antagonize these women, some of whom 
 she hoped would be her future puppets. After she was 
 married would be time enough for the brilliant playing 
 of the game. In her interest she forgot for the hour 
 the gnawing pain at her heart. 
 
 257
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 " THE noise in that next room is getting intolerable," 
 Robert muttered, rising from his desk, and opening the 
 door into the dingy hall. There was no one there but 
 a small, very dirty child, its hands rolled in its pinafore 
 for warmth. At the sight of Robert it stumbled eagerly 
 forward. He put a hand on the matted hair. 
 
 " Not this morning, Carlchen. I haven't even a fire 
 to offer you, and I'm as hungry as you are." 
 
 He pushed the child gently away, but waited a mo- 
 ment, for the postman was entering the hall. He handed 
 Robert two letters, forwarded from his old office address. 
 One was from his mother, and that he put aside; the 
 other contained a small check in payment of a bill long 
 ago relegated to the limbo of his losses. 
 
 " I'm sure of a roof for another week," he said aloud, 
 " and perhaps two meals a day." 
 
 He sat down on the edge of the " divan " that at 
 night served him for a bed, and remained for a long 
 time motionless, his head buried in his hands. The 
 room in which he was resembled thousands of others in 
 that quarter of the town, a small, forlorn place, all the 
 more forlorn because of the attempt it made to be one 
 degree above the tenements. Its cheap wood mantel, 
 its " frescoed " ceiling, its staring flowered paper, bore 
 evidence to its futile ambitions. The exterior of the 
 house was covered with excrescences of brownstone 
 wherever the fire-escapes had not encroached. These 
 
 258
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 were hung day and night with bedding. The high 
 brownstone steps, except during school-hours, were 
 crowded with children. One of the door-posts bore 
 Robert's sign. 
 
 To this place he had come because he would not go 
 back to Trenthampton, nor let his parents know any- 
 thing of his life, except the fact that Olivia had broken 
 her engagement with him. With the permission of his 
 former landlady he still dated his letters from his old 
 address, and his home mail was received there. To his 
 father he wrote cheerfully, assuring him that he could 
 keep on his feet, and that he needed no assistance. 
 
 During these last ten dreadful weeks many things 
 had grown clear to him, among them the reason why 
 men sometimes hurry out of life by their own act. More 
 than once as he wandered aimlessly through the streets 
 of the great city, the only flash of light in his thick dark- 
 ness had been the thought of suicide. He understood 
 at last the banal crimes of the newspapers, and why men 
 killed the women they loved, when they themselves con- 
 templated self-slaughter; that the tormented souls might 
 go out together upon the wind of death. 
 
 His head sank deeper in his hands. He was living 
 over again, as he did day after day, that last scene with 
 Olivia. He sometimes wondered whether he had really 
 struck her mouth with the back of his hand, or whether 
 in his delirium of suffering he had confused an impulse 
 with the real act. There were days when he wanted to 
 write her and ask her if he had struck her; ask her quietly 
 and humbly like a patient who comes out of fever and 
 wishes to know if he has done mad things. Her face 
 as he had last seen it was ever before him, calm, remote, 
 unrelenting. He still heard her words: 
 
 259
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " I am acting with my eyes open. I never fool 
 myself. Why did you love me?" 
 
 " But your love for me! " he had cried. " My God, 
 what of that?" 
 
 Then she had laughed, and the terrible delirium had 
 come upon him. Had he struck her? How he longed 
 to know whether he had struck her! He could remem- 
 ber nothing after she laughed, until he found himself in 
 the street. 
 
 " Did I strike her? Oh, if I only knew! " 
 
 He rose and began a feverish walk up and down the 
 little room. This was the invariable ending of those 
 profound absorptions that made him sometimes like a 
 dead man. 
 
 After a while he paused and looked out into the 
 wretched street. It was beginning to snow. People 
 hurried along with blue, pinched faces. A lean cat, with 
 patches of mangy skin about its ears, was sniffing at 
 the contents of an ash-barrel. Across the way a push- 
 cart man was steaming frankfurters, a little crowd of 
 hungry men and boys looking on. Two or three for- 
 tunate ones had bought a roll and a bit of the sausage, 
 and were eating ravenously. A tall, red-faced girl, her 
 head wrapped in a shawl, her blue hands carrying a 
 pitcher of beer, stumbled over a child, and swore at it. 
 There was an answering oath from the child's mother, 
 who stood in a doorway. The girl raised her hand with 
 a threatening gesture, but thought better of it and hur- 
 ried on with her beer. 
 
 " Did I strike you, my beloved ? My heart's dear- 
 est, did I strike you ? " 
 
 He could stand it no longer. That thought was 
 crowding him out of the narrow room. Taking his 
 
 260
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 shabby hat and buttoning up his coat to his chin he 
 had pawned his overcoat on one desperate day of hunger 
 he hurried into the street. 
 
 There he hesitated for a moment, looking up and 
 down, uncertain in which direction to turn since he had 
 no reason for going anywhere. But at the river he could 
 at least draw a free breath. He had wandered much 
 among the docks these past weeks, finding some comfort 
 in watching the great ships prepare for unknown jour- 
 neys; in imagination he followed them through vast 
 oceans to lands that he would never see. 
 
 He lived in continual amazement at his own situa- 
 tion, yet without desire to better it. The steps which 
 had led to it were simple. After the shock of his part- 
 ing from Olivia, he had gone through a fortnight of men- 
 tal agony, which had brought him to the verge of an ill- 
 ness. During that time he was a wanderer. From 
 these confusions he was recalled by the practical neces- 
 sity of meeting certain demands. He had to give up his 
 office, because he had no money for the rent, nor could 
 he concentrate his thoughts long enough to devise ways 
 and means of bridging over his difficulties. His instinct 
 to hide from every one was a powerful factor in his de- 
 cision. He removed to the eastern quarter of the town, 
 taking up his abode among the poor, with a sense of 
 relief that he had no longer to keep up an appearance 
 of prosperity. In his state of mind the baldness and 
 sordidness of the life about him were in a certain de- 
 gree remedial. Wealth seemed but an embroidered robe 
 drawn over leprous sores. 
 
 A few patients came to him, but they were so poor 
 that in the majority of cases he treated them free of 
 charge. To meet his daily needs he began to sell his 
 
 261
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 chemical instruments and some of the more extravagant 
 fittings of his laboratory; then he began to pawn his 
 clothes. All this time he was conscious that he was not 
 acting altogether like a man in his right mind, yet he 
 seemed incapable of changing his course. There were 
 hours when he had the horrible oppression of a sleeper 
 who struggles to awake from his nightmare; almost 
 awakes, then is forced back again into the suffocating 
 bonds. 
 
 There were other hours that his mortal shame and 
 weakness were in the one fact that he still loved her, 
 loved her blindly, wildly, loved her though she had been 
 deaf to his cries while her hand thrust him down into 
 the pit. In imagination he lived over all their hours 
 together, now touched with lines of scarlet, as if his 
 brain saw everything through furnace heat. Sometimes 
 she came into that hell where he lived, like a quieting 
 sweet vision of early spring, holding flowers whose cool, 
 faint colors rested him. 
 
 The snow against his cheek seemed to bring him 
 back to reality, to deliver him from the terror that had 
 driven him into the street. 
 
 " I didn't strike you," he muttered. " I'm not well, 
 Olivia. I imagine things. But you are a wicked 
 woman. You crushed my heart." 
 
 The thought of her wickedness now possessed him 
 as thoroughly as had the thought of his own brutality. 
 It drove him through the streets like one whom the 
 fiends follow. People turned and looked after him as 
 he hurried along, for he had the air of one who has 
 risen too early from his sick-bed, or who goes to it too 
 late. A newsboy offered him a paper, but he pushed 
 him aside roughly. Olivia was to be married this week ; 
 
 262
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 he had forgotten the day, and he did not want to know. 
 He averted his eyes lest he should see head-lines and 
 photographs. 
 
 He came at last to the river, to a dock somewhat more 
 forsaken than the others, where he had spent many hours. 
 A cold, raw wind blew against his forehead with an acrid 
 odor of wharf water, of rotten wood and tar. He sat 
 down on a pile of lumber, and began to watch the boats 
 going up and down. As he did so, his brain cleared. 
 She came to him with her hands washed free from blood. 
 About her dark hair was a floating light. 
 
 " Olivia, my saint! I wronged you," he cried aloud; 
 then added with a look of wonder: 
 
 " You are a spirit, I know; when did you die?" 
 
 A longshoreman came up to him. 
 
 " Got 'em again? " he said cheerfully, and after look- 
 ing Robert over he lounged along, laughing a little. 
 
 His words brought Robert back to fuller conscious- 
 ness. Why hadn't he remembered that the fever had 
 come on regularly every day about this time, plunging 
 him into dreadful confusions? On previous days he had 
 held this in mind, and thereby kept his balance through 
 all his strange wanderings. He put his fingers on his 
 pulse now, and began to count. 
 
 " I guess I'd better get home," he said, rising un- 
 steadily to his feet. He was glad that he had written 
 to his father quite early that morning. His brain must 
 have been clear then. 
 
 He walked now as slowly as on starting out he had 
 made haste. He felt very weak and tired. At a crowded 
 street corner he paused, childishly fearful of falling down 
 if he attempted to cross. While he stood there, hesi- 
 tating, a young girl and a man approached him. The 
 
 263
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 girl's fair blond prettiness was somewhat nipped and 
 pinched by the cold, but her companion was gazing at 
 her with frank admiration. 
 
 Suddenly she paused and grasped the man's arm. 
 
 "Jim! ain't that Dr. Erskine?" 
 
 " Him in those clothes ah, g'long! " 
 
 " It is, sure as I'm born, it is," she repeated. " But, 
 Lord, what ails him?" 
 
 " Looks like he'd been drinking! " Jim said. 
 
 Firefly cast a contemptuous glance at him. 
 
 " Was you raised in the country? I guess I know a 
 drunken man when I see one. He looks sick; I'm going 
 to speak to him. They don't make 'em any better than 
 him," she added huskily. 
 
 She walked quickly up to Robert. 
 
 "Dr. Erskine! It's Firefly." 
 
 Robert turned and looked at her wonderingly, not 
 altogether trusting the evidence of his senses. 
 
 " Why, it's Firefly," he said in the uncertain voice 
 of a person just awakened. Then he held out his hand. 
 
 " Your hand's hot, Doctor. You ain't well, I guess. 
 Here's Jim. You remember Jim, don't you ? " she said 
 in a coaxing tone, for Robert's eyes had a confused and 
 uncertain look. 
 
 " Yes, I remember you perfectly," he said. " Are 
 you both well ? I hope you are both well." 
 
 " I guess we're a darn sight better than you are, 
 Doctor," Jim said frankly, a curious pity awakening 
 in him at the sight of Robert's thin, fevered face and 
 bloodshot eyes. " You don't look fit to be out of 
 your bed." 
 
 " I'm not quite up to the standard," Robert said 
 slowly and uncertainly. " I'm a little run down, I think." 
 
 264
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 " We'll walk home with you, Doctor," Firefly said 
 cheerfully. " Me and Jim better see you home." 
 
 " You needn't trouble. You're very kind, but you 
 needn't trouble." 
 
 " Tain't no trouble," Jim said ; " but we can't get a 
 car here." 
 
 " I live quite near," said Robert. 
 
 With an effort of self-control, worthy of those who 
 frequent king's palaces, Firefly kept the surprise from 
 her face, nor did she glance at Jim when Robert gave 
 his address. 
 
 " Why, that's real near," she commented, " that's 
 just a nice walk." 
 
 Jim put a strong arm under Robert's and guided him 
 across the street. 
 
 " Don't you think you'd better go to the hospital, 
 Doctor? " he said kindly. 
 
 A look of terror came into Robert's face. 
 
 " No, not the hospitals. They know me at the hos- 
 pitals." 
 
 " Well, they know a corking fine man," Jim muttered. 
 " I ain't forgot what you did for Firefly." 
 
 " No, I'm a traitor," said Robert huskily. 
 
 Jim went back a step, looked at Firefly and tapped 
 his forehead. 
 
 " Nutty." 
 
 At the door of Robert's rooms he paused and thanked 
 them with a dignity which checked Firefly's longing to 
 enter and see if he had fire, and if he had enough to eat. 
 With difficulty she kept the tears from her eyes. The 
 poor know all the signs of poverty. 
 
 " Doctor, may I come to-morrow and see how you 
 are? " she asked humbly. 
 
 18 265
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " Why, you're good, Firefly," he said. " But I'll do 
 very well. I'll dose myself. I'll be better to-morrow." 
 
 His thanks were a dismissal. In the street Firefly 
 turned to Jim. The tears were streaming down her 
 cheeks. 
 
 " He's in some awful trouble." 
 
 " That's no news." 
 
 They walked on silently. Suddenly Firefly paused 
 and grasped Jim's arm. 
 
 " I know!" 
 
 "Know what?" 
 
 " It's Miss Winwood. She's married this week. 
 She's flung him over. That's it." 
 
 Jim frowned. 
 
 "You're all alike," he muttered. "Damned if I 
 know why we trail around after you." 
 
 Robert made himself some hot tea, and took some 
 remedies which he hoped would check the course of the 
 fever. Toward nightfall he felt better; had courage 
 enough, he thought, to read his mother's letter. 
 
 It was written from Dr. Gorton's. He had insisted, 
 she said, on their coming there until Robert's father 
 could look about for a new field of work. The house 
 had been sold, but the sum realized was much smaller 
 than they had hoped. They could not live on the in- 
 come. The letter closed without her usual loving greet- 
 ings. Its tone, so foreign to her, was distinctly one of 
 discouragement. Robert read it over and over. Yes, 
 he was the traitor through whom all these misfortunes 
 had come. He had betrayed Brooke, he had betrayed 
 his father, he had brought only pain and deprivation to 
 his mother. 
 
 266
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 The fever increased again under the stress of his 
 self-accusations, so that after a while the confused 
 thoughts and wavering visions came actually as a relief. 
 He threw himself down at last upon his bed. Through 
 the cold and darkness a beloved form glided toward him, 
 or so he dreamed. He stretched out his arms and en- 
 tered paradise. 
 
 267
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 BETWEEN four and five next day, Firefly was hasten- 
 ing through the crowded streets toward Robert's dwell- 
 ing. One hand clutched a shabby but thick pocket- 
 book, the other a knobby bag of oranges. Pinned to her 
 jacket was a little dusty bunch of violets purchased from 
 a street vender. 
 
 " Lord, ain't I glad I have a job," she muttered. 
 " S'pose I couldn't have done anything for him!" 
 
 As she climbed the high steps, little blue hands 
 clutched at her skirts. 
 
 " Say, lady, gimme a flower." 
 
 She pushed them away not ungently. 
 
 " I ain't no flower mission. Get out of me way. I'm 
 in a hurry." 
 
 She knocked at Robert's door. There was no an- 
 swer. She knocked again, then turned the knob and 
 entered. The room was cold, and had a close, unaired, 
 oppressive odor. Through the twilight she dimly dis- 
 cerned a form stretched on the bed. She tiptoed softly 
 to the window, drew down the blind, then lit the single 
 gas-burner. Robert stirred uneasily, but did not wake. 
 She bent over him, touched his forehead and the hand 
 that lay outside the sheet. They were burning hot. 
 
 She turned the light, so that it would not shine in 
 his eyes and wake him in her absence, then taking up 
 her purse she hurried out. She returned with her arms 
 full of round packages of kindling. A boy accompanied 
 
 268
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 her, carrying a bucket of coal. He put it down, then 
 stared at the figure on the bed. 
 
 "Aw, g'long, you rubber-neck!" she said fiercely, 
 and he fled. 
 
 She built a fire; then, when the stove was red-hot, 
 she opened the windows wide to the outside air, first 
 covering Robert warmly. He stirred then, his eyelids 
 unclosed, and he stared up at her. 
 
 " It's me Firefly. I've come to take care of you 
 whether you want me or not," she added with a little 
 break in her voice. 
 
 " Firefly! " he said feebly. " Am I ill? " 
 
 "111 enough!" 
 
 A frightened look came into his face. 
 
 " Don't send for the ambulance. I don't want them 
 to know at the hospital. You won't send for the am- 
 bulance?" 
 
 " I'll be sawed in two first. Don't you worry," she 
 said in a soothing voice. " I know a little Jew doctor I'll 
 get for you. He's homely as they make 'em, but he's 
 bright like they all are. Jim and me'll take turns nurs- 
 ing you. Would you like an orange, Doctor? " 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 She rose and put her violets in a glass and brought 
 them to him. 
 
 "Ain't they pretty? They'll smell real sweet when 
 they get thawed out." 
 
 A look of pain passed over his face. He closed his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Not violets, Firefly." 
 
 She understood. Going to the window she tossed 
 the bunch out to a passing group of children. 
 
 When she came back he put a feeble hand on her arm. 
 269
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 "How did you find me?" he asked. 
 
 " Why, don't you remember, Doctor? We brought 
 you home yesterday, me and Jim." 
 
 " Yesterday? " he said uncertainly. " It seems very 
 long ago." 
 
 " Well, I'm here for keeps. Now shut your eyes and 
 go to sleep again, while I write a note to Jim." 
 
 She sat down at the desk, and a look of martyrdom 
 stole into her face; writing was a painful process. 
 
 " Dear Jim, if you help me nurse the Doctor, I'll 
 mary you the moment he's well. I've got to danse to- 
 night, so come soon as you get this. I'll mary you hon- 
 est, if you'll help me." 
 
 She sent the note off by a boy, then stood for a 
 moment on the door-step, looking after his retreating 
 figure. She had sealed her destiny in this promise, and 
 her path stretched gray before her. She, too, had had 
 her dreams. 
 
 270
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 WHEN Brooke saw in the newspapers the announce- 
 ment of Olivia's engagement to Paul Mallory she had 
 one moment of return to the primitive instincts of that 
 nature of the flesh with which the nature of the spirit 
 is continually at war. Whatever was wild and wayward 
 in her uttered its cry of thanksgiving. Then the better 
 self, toward which she had groped blindly throughout 
 this summer of truces with death and the powers of the 
 grave, rose and asserted itself. 
 
 How Robert must suffer, she who had known him 
 best knew best. She knew how completely Olivia pos- 
 sessed his citadel of life; and she recognized that Olivia 
 belonged to that order of women who, good or bad, true 
 or false, are held in everlasting remembrance by those 
 who love them. 
 
 The fall wore away. The changing fortunes of James 
 Erskine told Brooke that many events had been drawn 
 in the train of the event that signified most. She had 
 always known that Robert's father liked Olivia, that he 
 desired his son to be on good terms with the Winwood 
 family. Had ambitions too high brought shipwreck? 
 
 But she speculated little, too absorbed in her own 
 problem. Her inner life had become one continual 
 drama whose climaxes were the heights which she some- 
 times reached, though again and again she slipped back. 
 In the midst of a domesticity which was like reading 
 memoirs of her mother's life, the ordering of dinners, 
 the washing of grubby little hands, the sewing on of 
 buttons, the darning of stocking-knees, the hearing of 
 
 271
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 sleepy prayers at night in the nursery; in the midst of 
 these ever-recurrent duties, her thoughts struggled 
 through desolate places seeking rest and finding none. 
 What she was trying to gain seemed to her at times 
 beyond the power of the human heart. 
 
 One evening toward the last of January she was 
 seated before the nursery fire, holding the child in her 
 arms whose life she had watched over with a maternal 
 intensity and clearness of vision. She was thinking, as 
 usual, of Robert. She knew that for a long time his 
 parents had received no word from him, and that their 
 anxiety was reaching a point where action of some kind 
 is necessary. 
 
 The house was very quiet. Nothing broke the 
 silence but the snapping of the wood and the soft breath- 
 ing of the children in their cots. Outside a roistering 
 wind whipped the icy branches of the trees. 
 
 Brooke had almost fallen asleep in her deep chair, 
 when she became conscious of voices in the hall below, 
 then of the sound of footsteps on the stairs. She knew 
 Dr. Gorton's tread. Of late it had grown slow and heavy. 
 
 He came into the room, and turned up the gas. She 
 put her hand over the eyes of the sleeping baby, and 
 looked at him inquiringly. He drew a chair to the oppo- 
 site side of the fireplace and sat down. She thought 
 that she had never seen the signs of age so clearly in 
 him. His eyes had lost their brightness, his hands 
 trembled a little. He did not hold himself erect. 
 
 He began without preliminaries. 
 
 " I've come to speak of Robert. It's a month, you 
 know, since they've heard from him, and he's in the habit 
 of writing twice a week." 
 
 Brooke nodded. 
 
 272
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 " Some one must go to the city. His mother's not 
 fit, and his father, you know, has just started in bookkeep- 
 ing at the works. I've thought for a long time that there 
 was something wrong. I've seen some of his letters. 
 As a physician I noted things that would escape them." 
 
 Brooke's face grew pale. 
 
 "You think he is ill?" 
 
 " I think he is ill." 
 
 A quiver went through her. 
 
 " What do you think had better be done? " 
 
 " I think you are the one to go to the city and look 
 Robert up. You understand him. You could do for 
 him now what his parents could not do." 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 "Will you go, child?" 
 
 She looked down at the baby. 
 
 " I will send a trained nurse to be here in your 
 absence, and I will pay all your expenses in town. You 
 could write to Angelica to-night." 
 
 " How good you are ! " 
 
 " No, I am old, and I cling to what I love," he said 
 with a sigh. " Robert went to shipwreck for a woman, as 
 many have done before him. He needs a friendly hand 
 now. He needs yours." 
 
 A bitter look crept into Brooke's face. 
 
 " It is hard to be friendly." 
 
 Dr. Gorton gazed at her intently. 
 
 " Your love wasn't worth much, then, after all," he 
 said in a quiet voice. 
 
 "Oh, you are cruel!" she cried. "You ask so 
 much." 
 
 " Yes, I ask a great deal. I wouldn't ask it if I didn't 
 think you capable of replying in the fullest degree." 
 
 273
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 Brooke's lip trembled. 
 
 " Godfather? " 
 
 " Yes, my dear." 
 
 " You ask me to forget I'm a woman." 
 
 " I ask you to remember that you are Robert's 
 friend." 
 
 She turned her head away. He waited. 
 
 "You will go, Brooke?" 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 " You will go and tell him that I want him to come 
 to my house, to take up the work that before long I 
 must lay down. I want him here in Trenthampton." 
 
 She was silent. For the last time the human cry to 
 love and be loved, the memory of her bitter wrongs, 
 struggled with that self toward which on bleeding feet 
 she had dragged herself as toward a star. But the 
 months of her desperate pilgrimage had not been in vain. 
 She bent to the destiny of her nature, the hard, inex- 
 orable but wholesome law of growth. 
 
 " I will go, godfather. I will do for Robert what 
 I can." 
 
 " Brooke speaks," he answered. 
 
 274
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 " You won't let me watch? " 
 
 " No, you need your sleep. I can catch a wink in 
 the chair here." 
 
 Jim looked at the figure on the bed. 
 
 " You've done a sight for him," he said in a half- 
 resentful voice. " You must think a lot of him." 
 
 " I do," she answered humbly. 
 
 " I'm in love with you, and you act like you were in 
 love with him, and he's dyin' of love for some one else. 
 Lord! ain't it a queer world." 
 
 " You're to marry me as soon ^s he's well," she said 
 in a gentle voice. 
 
 " Yes, I kep' that note. I've got it down in black 
 and white at last. Well, so long, little woman." 
 
 " So long, Jim." She turned from him, then turned 
 back again. 
 
 "Oh, Jim!" 
 
 He paused in the dark hall. 
 
 " Here a minnit. Say, Jim, don't you ever repeat 
 nothin' of what you've heard him say in his delirium. 
 It's just like we've seen his soul." 
 
 " Course not. I ain't a lobster. Shut the door, or 
 you'll have a draught on him." 
 
 She shut the door softly. Then she moved about the 
 room, arranging this and that, looking at the fire, making 
 ready for the night-watch. Robert was beginning to 
 mutter and to toss from side to side. He put his hands 
 
 275
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 to his face, and began feebly to make a brushing motion. 
 He had done this so often that Firefly knew just what 
 he would say. 
 
 " Take her hair from my face, her long black hair 
 I can't breathe." 
 
 Firefly bent over him, and put a cool hand to his 
 forehead. He smiled ecstatically and breathed a sigh 
 of relief. 
 
 " Yes, Olivia." 
 
 She turned down the night-light, and drew a chair 
 to the side of his bed. Silence had fallen on even this 
 noisy house, for it was now one o'clock. The streets 
 outside were muffled with snow. 
 
 She felt terribly alone, almost afraid of this man who 
 was so far away in a world of confused suffering. She 
 had followed that wandering spirit to places of the un- 
 seen land never before known to her. She had listened 
 to words of love whose sweetness haunted her like the 
 scent of flowers borne to another. She had heard 
 snatches of speech like poetry, and cries that came from 
 a soul in prison. 
 
 She turned her head to find Robert staring at her. 
 The look in his eyes called for her courage. 
 
 " She's over there don't let her come near me. Her 
 face is so pale in Paris, dearest come, come with me. 
 I know a little garden " 
 
 He closed his eyes and was silent for a while. Firefly 
 lifted his thin hand and kissed it. The rapturous look 
 passed over his face. 
 
 " We will go to God, Olivia. Dearest dearest 
 dearest we will sleep " 
 
 His voice sank to a whisper. He put out his hand, 
 and clutched Firefly's skirt. 
 
 276
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 " It's you, dear. You've come!" 
 
 " Yes, I've come, Robert," Firefly answered to com- 
 fort him. 
 
 " You'll never leave me again, Olivia? " 
 
 " No, my darling." 
 
 "I didn't didn't strike you?" 
 
 "No, no, no!" 
 
 " Blessed it was a red rose no, Brooke, I can't I 
 can't. Heart's dearest, I didn't " 
 
 " No, no, no," Firefly repeated in a tender, comfort- 
 ing voice. The fear of him was going away. Her only 
 desire was to reach his shadowy distress and heal it. 
 
 " We're dead it is good we died that night 
 Firefly." 
 
 " Yes, yes," she murmured. 
 
 " She was so beautiful and proud so beautiful I 
 know a little garden " 
 
 She was glad that he went back to the little garden. 
 But in its peace he did not remain long. He was suffer- 
 ing again, groping, calling wildly. Again the long dark 
 hair smothered him. Desperate at last, Firefly began to 
 sing in a low voice and after a time it seemed to reach 
 his poor confused brain. He became quieter, and when 
 she had given him his medicine he fell into a troubled 
 sleep. 
 
 She watched him, wishing that any woman in the 
 world had played him false but Olivia, to whom her own 
 heart had, in a sense, been given. She remembered 
 the pretty night-gowns, the visits at the hospitals, the 
 flowers, all the little poetical attentions with which the 
 sordidness of her life had been lightened by this woman, 
 who had acted with wide difference from the usual great 
 lady playing philanthropist. Olivia had treated her as if 
 
 277
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 she were her friend and, like her, loved beautiful things. 
 She remembered the gentleness of her look, her voice, 
 her touch, and she cried out that not her hand but the 
 hand of a stranger had struck Robert down. 
 
 278'
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 " Do you feel real well this morning? You look like 
 yourself again." 
 
 Robert smiled. 
 
 " I'm fine as a fiddle thanks to you." 
 
 He looked about the room, kept in spotless order. Its 
 every detail told him with what care this girl of the 
 tenements had cherished his least possession during these 
 weeks of illness. A soul had dwelt here strong and im- 
 passioned enough to make of the sordid place a temple. 
 His eyes filled with tears, and he turned his head away. 
 Firefly regarded him anxiously. 
 
 " I'd like to dance for you to-day, if I can get Tony 
 and his fiddle. Would you like to see me dance, Dr. 
 Erskine?" 
 
 " Of course I should." 
 
 " You see," she said in an apologetic voice, " when 
 you're stronger I won't have the chance. I'm going to 
 marry Jim soon," she added wistfully. 
 
 Robert's face lit up. 
 
 "That's good!" 
 
 Firefly turned away and walked toward the window, 
 and stood there in silence for some moments. 
 
 "Firefly?" 
 
 " Yes, Dr. Erskine." 
 
 " I have no wedding-gift for you, and I am in your 
 debt for more than money could ever repay, but when 
 I'm well and strong again I hope to pay the least part of 
 my debt, and then well, the rest can only be my ever- 
 lasting friendship." 
 
 279
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " Don't speak of debt," she said huskily. " You're 
 never in debt to your friends." 
 
 " Where did you learn these things? " he asked. 
 
 She shook her head. She had no talent for self- 
 analysis. Robert closed his eyes in a pretense of sleep, 
 but his thoughts went wandering back over his desolate 
 winter, which he now regarded passively as if it were 
 another man's history. In the fire of fever his own self- 
 consciousness seemed to have burned away. Even that 
 great passion belonged to old legends of lovers long de- 
 parted, whose joys and woes alike are seen dimly through 
 the haze of time. His deepest sense of reality was in 
 the thought of his work, of that calling to which he had 
 been unfaithful by involving with it ambitions foreign 
 to the pursuit of its highest ideals. He longed to be on 
 his feet again that he might plunge into the baptismal 
 stream of vigorous, unceasing toil. 
 
 After she had prepared his dinner, Firefly left him 
 with a small guardian, the musician who was to play for 
 her dancing. The child had the glorious Italian eyes 
 which suggest an embryonic Raphael, but his busy, mer- 
 cantile little mind had already learned the chief lesson 
 which his adopted country has to teach. He wanted to 
 pitch pennies on the counterpane with Robert, who tried 
 to draw from him reminiscences of Italy the beautiful. 
 Tony only remembered it as a place where he did not 
 get enough to eat. 
 
 In the middle of the afternoon Firefly returned. 
 Taking off a long gray ulster she appeared resplendent 
 in a spangled gown of crimson chiffon, which contrasted 
 oddly, but effectively, with her fair hair and skin. Over 
 one ear was a big red rose. 
 
 " I don't much like to dance in the daytime," she 
 280
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 said. " It always seems to me the nearer midnight I 
 get the better I can dance. Tony, I want you to play 
 like you were fightin' with somebody. Do you under- 
 stand?" 
 
 The child, adjusting his violin, smiled, showing his 
 even, white teeth. Firefly pointed to a paper bag on the 
 table. 
 
 " Candy," she said significantly. 
 
 He nodded, and began a brisk melody, which might 
 have been a tarantella, so full was it of quick transitions, 
 of a certain wild, feverish grace. It suited Firefly's mood, 
 for in this dance she felt that she was bidding good-by, 
 not only to her old life, but to fantastic dreams all the 
 more dear because impossible. 
 
 With a little bow, she sprang to the center of the 
 floor ; Robert had become an audience, and about his bed 
 were footlights. The next instant she was in a whirl 
 of chiffon, as if a great crimson rose had suddenly 
 opened its petals. She danced with utter abandonment, 
 now wildly, gaily, then with soft, floating steps as if the 
 music were about to carry her far away. She improvised, 
 she made poetry, she threw all the invention of her nature 
 into this last brilliant, farewell dance, on which an un- 
 seen curtain was soon to ring down. 
 
 The little Italian, his beautiful eyes fixed on the bag 
 of candy, played as if he were possessed. Both music 
 and dancing were infusing a strange strength into Rob- 
 ert. He sat upright against his pillows, his eyes watch- 
 ing every lovely movement of Firefly, but his soul abroad 
 in the world of men, again working, struggling, hoping. 
 
 Suddenly Firefly stopped, stood poised a moment, 
 then her arms dropped to her side with a weary gesture. 
 Her face was very white. 
 
 19 281
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 Robert clapped his hands. 
 
 " That was wonderful ! You have cured me. How 
 beautiful your dancing is ! " 
 
 She smiled faintly. 
 
 " I guess I'll not dance again," she said. " I wanted 
 you to be the last one to see me dance, Mr. Robert." 
 
 Her voice choked. She turned away her head. 
 
 " My dear, I'll never forget it," he said gently. " I 
 couldn't, for I could never forget you." 
 
 She took the rose from her hair and laid it in his 
 hand. Then she put on her ulster and her hat. 
 
 " I'm going back to change," she said ; " then I'll 
 come get your supper against it's time for Jim to 
 show up." 
 
 At that moment there was a knock at the door. Fire- 
 fly crossed the room and opened it. A tall young girl 
 stood on the threshold. Robert looked up. 
 
 "Brooke!" he cried. 
 
 She had been with him half an hour, but they had 
 as yet spoken only as mere acquaintances might. In an- 
 swer to his questions she said that she was staying with 
 her aunt, that she had come to the city in behalf of 
 Robert's parents and at the request of Dr. Gorton. He 
 asked her how she had found him. She replied that her 
 old friend, Hugh Bradley, had helped her in her search. 
 At his former office Robert's address had been refused, 
 on the ground that his last instructions were to keep it 
 a secret. Therefore she had had to depend on what she 
 could discover without calling in official aid. 
 
 Robert listened, watching her clear, pure face with a 
 282
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 strange wonder, as if she were a visitant from another 
 world. Suffering had matured her. He felt timid in her 
 presence, not only because of the wrong he had done her, 
 but because she seemed to him scarcely the Brooke he 
 had known. She had about her the unintentional aloof- 
 ness of women who love and are not loved, and who have 
 wandered alone through a universe which abhors the 
 solitary soul. 
 
 She gave him Dr. Gorton's message. Then, misin- 
 terpreting the long silence which followed, she rose to 
 go. He put out a detaining hand. 
 
 " Don't leave me. Be generous. Stay with me a little 
 while longer." 
 
 Her face softened. In her deep eyes was the ex- 
 pression of one who has entered upon her maternal life. 
 She sank down in her chair. 
 
 "You are not returning at once to Trenthampton ? " 
 he asked timidly. 
 
 " Not not if I can be of any service to you here." 
 
 " You kill me with your forgiveness," he said in a 
 trembling voice. 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 He put out his hand and clasped hers tightly. 
 
 " Am I a coward, a wretch, to say I need you ? Your 
 mercy can heal me." 
 
 She was silent. Both in thought were going back 
 to a childhood which had known only sunshine. He saw 
 her a little, brown-faced, graceful girl, scampering after 
 him on sturdy legs. He saw her sweet and shy in her 
 first party-dress. Beyond that time he could not go 
 beyond were ghosts. 
 
 " Let us go there," he whispered. 
 
 "Where?" 
 
 283
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " To our childhood. Let us forget that we ever 
 grew up." 
 
 " Let us forget everything but our friendship," she 
 answered gently. 
 
 "You are my friend?" he said wonderingly. 
 
 " Always that," she answered. 
 
 " You are pure gold," he said, " but I " 
 
 He turned his head away. 
 
 " Tell me what you can of your illness," she said 
 gently, " that I may have something to write them." 
 
 He told her the history of the past three months, his 
 outer history. He told her of Firefly's and Jim's devo- 
 tion. She listened intently, but the look in her eyes was 
 troubled. She seemed to be revolving some weighty 
 question. 
 
 When he had finished he waited for her to speak, but 
 she seemed lost in her absorption. 
 
 " What is it, Brooke ? You have something on your 
 mind." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Would it be hard to say itto tell me? " 
 
 " It would be hard to say it. It is something that I 
 want to know is true. To suffer for a mere fancy is too 
 terrible, for a mere wind of passion too ignoble. Oh, 
 can you see what I mean ? " 
 
 " Don't speak to me in riddles, Brooke. You have 
 the right to say anything to me." 
 
 " I can ask you a question," she said in an uncertain 
 voice, " but you have the right to withhold the answer." 
 
 " I would answer truthfully anything you chose to 
 ask me." 
 
 " What I would know is this " she said in a low 
 
 voice. " You still care you still love " 
 
 284
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 He closed his eyes a moment, then he answered : 
 
 " I promised you truth. She was the whole of my 
 life. How could I forget ! " 
 
 She bent eagerly forward. 
 
 " Oh, I want it that way don't you see? " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he cried. 
 
 "Can't you see? I couldn't respect you unless she 
 were the the woman you loved better than anything in 
 the world. It is the only thing that justifies that makes 
 it possible for me to be your friend." 
 
 285
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 OLIVIA was giving a dinner to a Russian prince 
 whose foreign grace of manner did not have to atone in 
 this instance for an unaristocratic lack of riches. The 
 noble was as wealthy as he was well-born. 
 
 Paul Mallory was endeavoring, with more or less suc- 
 cess, to give his attention to the dowager at his right, 
 a fruity-looking woman of fifty summers, who demanded 
 less and less of him as the dinner proceeded, and who 
 seemed, after her first sip of a wine of the vintage of 
 1850, to be about to attain the empyrean silence of 
 Nirvana. 
 
 The eyes of her host wandered continually across the 
 circular table to his wife. In her two months or so of 
 marriage Olivia's beauty had increased, had hardened, as 
 it were, into the fixed loveliness of some perfect sculp- 
 ture. She had already taken on the authoritative yet 
 gracious bearing of a matron whose salon is to be a 
 center in a city where salons are practically unknown. 
 
 The admiration in Paul's eyes was mingled with that 
 look of triumph which marks the lover in the first stages 
 of marriage. She was his, he told himself, body and 
 soul. He felt inclined to flaunt his happiness before his 
 guests ; for since his marriage something brutal, primi- 
 tive, and wholly of the earth had crept into his attitude 
 toward Olivia, which in the last degree was perhaps a 
 superlative joy of ownership. He had been a slave too 
 long not to enjoy to the full being master. Like some 
 men who are pronounced ritualists he had not realized 
 
 286
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 that his religion of lights and flowers and candles and 
 soft music had been an outlet for a sensuousness of tem- 
 perament which in men of less fastidious nature expresses 
 itself in ways wholly secular. Olivia now took the place 
 of his prayers. 
 
 If before her marriage she had made him miserable, 
 since she had become his wife he had lived in a state of 
 ecstasy. Lovely, yielding, tender, caressing in her man- 
 ner, outwardly watchful of his slightest wish, she blinded 
 him so thoroughly that he did not know at what an im- 
 measurable distance from him she held the citadel of her 
 spirit. 
 
 The Russian prince was bending toward her, gener- 
 ously appreciative, it would seem, of her thoroughly 
 American beauty and charm of manner ; and putting into 
 his dark eyes that look of worship which a foreigner 
 believes the exact tribute to be offered to a fascinating 
 matron. Paul, pale with jealousy, watched not his wife, 
 but his guest. He had a wild longing to strangle him 
 for that look in his eyes. 
 
 Olivia's light laugh had brought a flush to the fore- 
 head of the prince, and he drew back with a touch of 
 haughtiness. Then she turned to the man at her left. 
 It was the artist Marston. 
 
 " I am to paint your picture in that gown," he mur- 
 mured. " When are the sittings to begin ? " 
 
 " Not until after Ash Wednesday. I haven't one 
 free hour." 
 
 " Do you enjoy your whirl of pleasure, Mrs. 
 Mallory?" 
 
 " Of course. You used to call me a hedonist. I 
 think you were just." 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 287
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " There is no use in labeling you. You never dispute 
 your labels." 
 
 " Because my friends are entitled to their opinions 
 of me." 
 
 " There is but one opinion that you are charming." 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " You have surely known me long enough not to say 
 the conventional thing." 
 
 " Ah, but I do not know you. You have the greatest 
 gift a person can possess." 
 
 "Indeed! What is it?" 
 
 " Mystery." 
 
 " Why is that the greatest? " 
 
 " It is nearest the divine." 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 She turned to speak to the prince, who, forgetting 
 his usual courtesy in his absorption in Olivia, had made 
 no attempt to enter into conversation with the woman at 
 his right. 
 
 Mars ton watched her, a dull ache at his heart. He 
 wished that he had possessed the strength to let her go 
 entirely out of his life when she had rejected him. He 
 had remained in her circle partly because of the fascina- 
 tion she had for him, partly because much of his artistic 
 inspiration sprang from her. To be with her was like 
 hearing a great opera. He could do better work after- 
 ward. 
 
 One incident of her overfull life he longed to pene- 
 trate. He had heard of Dr. Robert Erskine as a man 
 whose devotion to her was almost the warrant of her 
 engagement to him. He knew, furthermore, that she had 
 spent this last summer in the city, and was often seen 
 dining out with this young physician. Would it be pos- 
 
 288
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 sible, he wondered, to surprise her into some sign of 
 emotion by the piece of news now in his possession ? He 
 could at least try the experiment. 
 
 Without preliminaries he opened his subject. 
 
 " I heard yesterday something concerning a fellow- 
 townsman of yours from Trenthampton," he said ; " but 
 doubtless you already know of Dr. Erskine's illness." 
 
 He thought that she grew a shade paler, but she 
 looked at him steadily and with no great degree of 
 interest. 
 
 " I have not seen Dr. Erskine for some time," she said 
 quietly. " I am sorry to hear that he has been ill." 
 
 " One of his hospital brothers told me. It seems he 
 has been living in a wretched quarter of the town, prob- 
 ably for the purpose of studying social conditions there, 
 and came down with brain fever or typhoid." 
 
 He watched her closely as he spoke, without appear- 
 ing to do so. He thought that she caught her breath as 
 if with a sudden sharp pain, but if she did she regained 
 her composure at once. 
 
 " May I ask," she said, " where you first met Dr. 
 Erskine?" 
 
 " At a dinner you gave." 
 
 Her curiosity seemed satisfied, and she turned the 
 subject. Her smiles and light, brilliant talk during the 
 remainder of the dinner gave no evidence of a wound. 
 
 When the last guest had departed toward midnight, 
 and she and her husband were alone, he came to her with 
 the joy of a lover and bent beside her chair on one knee 
 and drew her to him. 
 
 " You are glorious to-night. The prince thought so. 
 I could have killed him." 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 289
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " Oh, my dear ! if you are going to slay every harm- 
 less man who looks at me you will get into trouble. He 
 is a nice prince," she added ; " he knows more than 
 princes generally do." 
 
 " You seem tired to-night," Paul said, regarding her 
 anxiously. 
 
 " I oughtn't to be. Our guests were entertaining." 
 
 "How could they help but be, with you for hostess?" 
 
 " You say things very prettily." 
 
 "Olivia?" 
 
 " Yes, Paul." 
 
 " Do you know that you have never told me that you 
 love me?" 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " Some things should not be told." 
 
 " But, dearest " 
 
 She stopped the words with a caressing hand. 
 
 " Are you happy, Paul ? " 
 
 " I am the happiest man living." 
 
 "Then why probe it? Be satisfied with results. 
 ' Where the apple reddens never pry.' " 
 
 " You are right, as always. But sometimes I long 
 for the direct, simple word from you. I want you to tell 
 me that you love me." 
 
 " You would be less sure of it if I did," she answered, 
 rising and drawing herself from his arms. She went 
 slowly through the great rooms prepared for her with 
 all that wealth of attention to detail which marks the 
 lover who has it in his power to express his emotion 
 through beautiful symbols. 
 
 He followed her up-stairs. At the door of her own 
 rooms she paused. 
 
 " Bid me good night, Paul ; I'm very tired." 
 290
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 His face fell. 
 "Now? Here?" 
 " Yes." 
 
 When she had dismissed her women, and was alone 
 at last in her rooms, she put out the lights that she might 
 not see their accusing beauty. The ceiling painted with 
 the story of Eros and Psyche, the furniture with its sug- 
 gestions of a dual life, the lovely symbols of the entire 
 setting hurt her, maddened her at times. She had ob- 
 tained the power which she desired, but she never forgot 
 the price she paid for it. In her hours of triumph this 
 did not seem too dear. Paul was a gentleman, harmless, 
 and on the whole tactful. That he had no sense of humor 
 was perhaps his greatest crime. To-night, with the 
 thought of Robert turning in her breast like a sword, the 
 price seemed nothing less than her own soul. 
 
 She was too restless to seek her bed. She moved 
 about in the twilight of the room like an unhappy ghost. 
 After a while the warm, fragrant air seemed to suffocate 
 her. She went to one of the French windows and, open- 
 ing it wide, stepped out on a balcony, screened with 
 evergreens from curious eyes. 
 
 The cold, damp air refreshed her. She sat down on 
 the sill of the window, her head on her knees, her long 
 braids of dark hair sweeping over her shoulders to her 
 feet. She wished that she might put on the clothes of 
 a working girl and go out and seek Robert. 
 
 But, even through her longing, her habit of acute 
 self-analysis asserted itself. With her curious tempera- 
 ment, which desired only what she could not have, to 
 which denial was more seductive than possession, and 
 uncertainty than fact with this temperament would she 
 
 291
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 not have tired, eventually, even of her passion, and 
 thereby created a greater suffering for Robert than that 
 he was now enduring? 
 
 A smile of self-contempt passed over her face. 
 
 " Perhaps I was merciful after all," she thought. 
 But the vision of him, ill, alone, and poor, haunted her. 
 And because she was now bound to another, the tempta- 
 tion came to her to bind Robert's life to hers by those 
 spiritual ties, compared to which in strength the ties of 
 the flesh are as rotten threads. In that first dreadful 
 week of marriage she had said to herself that, though 
 she would be absolutely faithful to her husband in out- 
 ward act, she would lighten and divert her life by every 
 coquetry of which she was capable. The fascinations of 
 the soul made only the evils of the soul worth while. To 
 keep about her a court held by no more obvious ties than 
 a word unspoken, or a look given, was a triumph which 
 few women could attain to, because few women knew 
 how to be impersonal while inspiring the thirst for the 
 personal and definite. The very difficulties of the under- 
 taking enhanced its charm. 
 
 Rejected suitors like Marston were already in this 
 circle. Would Robert join it? 
 
 To make him join it, to reach him, to blind him, to 
 draw him to her again over the gulf that separated them, 
 would call for every quality of her peculiar power. But 
 she was doubtful of success. She could do everything 
 for him if he came make him rich, sought after, make 
 him, as a physician, the fashion in the world in which 
 she moved ; but would he come ? She knew him too well 
 not to know that his pride was superlative. Through his 
 pride, his desire to be nearer on a level with her, he had 
 ruined his father. 
 
 292
 
 THE PRISONER 
 
 She thought of the last time she had seen him. After 
 his cry, " But your love for me, what of that ? " he had 
 passed into silence, had stood looking at her without 
 movement, without expression, then, like one in a dream, 
 had left the house. 
 
 Would he come to her? She knew herself strong 
 enough thus to tempt fate. To have him in her life, to 
 see him from time to time, to feed her starved spirit upon 
 his devotion, to hold him always by invisible chains all 
 this might be possible without outward disloyalty to 
 her bond. 
 
 Would he come? 
 
 293
 
 BOOK V 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 " He overheard those he loved best pronouncing his name very 
 pleasantly, as they passed through the rich light and shadow of a 
 summer morning, along the pavement of a city Ah! fairer far 
 than Rome ! "
 
 CHAPTER XLI 
 
 ONE evening in March, Robert and Brooke were 
 taking their daily walk along a street which bounded 
 the city on the east, one side of it being lined with ware- 
 and store-houses, the other with the river docks. This 
 part of the town had an unfailing interest for them. 
 Neither squalid nor conventional, belonging both to the 
 land and the water, it seemed the proper setting for their 
 own moods' of transition of suspense between a life laid 
 down and one not yet entered upon. Since Robert's full 
 recovery Brooke had been his constant companion out of 
 his working hours. In her presence he drew near to the 
 wholesome sanities of life, and he craved her strength 
 and poise as he craved bread. All that was beautiful 
 and true in their old-time friendship seemed to come 
 again to the surface in these walks about the city. They 
 did not always say much to each other, but they were 
 conscious of sharing together their thoughts and sympa- 
 thies. If they dwelt in a gray atmosphere, it was the 
 grayness of dawn. 
 
 On this evening, in the deep light, the shipping had 
 almost an enchanted look, for the forests of masts were 
 pure gold in the last sunshine, while beneath, the decks 
 in shadow gleamed with little lights. They sat down to 
 rest at the end of a dock. It had been one of those balmy 
 days which, coming in March, seem to bring the actual 
 scent of violets and visions of yellow daffodils. In the 
 20 297
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 low places about Trenthampton the pussy-willows would 
 soon show their silvered, furry buds. 
 
 After a silence occupied by both in a dreamy contem- 
 plation of the scene before them, Brooke said : 
 
 " You will not alter your decision, then, to remain in 
 the city for a while ? " 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " I can't go back until I have fought it out here." 
 
 She looked out over the broad, brown surface of the 
 troubled river. 
 
 "Will you stay where you are among the poor?" 
 
 " Yes, just where I am. It is better to stay where I 
 am than to go in debt that I may set up again in a good 
 quarter. If I'm worth anything, I'll not remain hidden." 
 
 She nodded assent. 
 
 " It's all true, Robert ; but I can't help wishing you'd 
 go to that old house and take up his work." 
 
 "Godfather's?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I'm not worthy." 
 
 She gave an impatient gesture. 
 
 " Who is ? The work will have to be carried on by 
 some one it ought to be by some one whom he loved." 
 
 " I can't take my fever there. That dwelling of his 
 is as austere, as withdrawn as some temple of science." 
 
 " But you belong to science." 
 
 A look of pain crossed his face. 
 
 " Don't remind me of my terrible failure. My pro- 
 fession should have had all the vitalities that have gone 
 elsewhere." 
 
 She seemed not to hear. 
 
 " The spring is coming," she said. " Do you remem- 
 ber the little hollow on godfather's place where we used 
 
 298
 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 to pick the quaker-ladies ? It is an acre of peace, 
 Robert." 
 
 " An accusing peace to me." 
 
 " No, it would heal." 
 
 He smiled and shook his head. 
 
 " It is another world. I can't enter it. I have no 
 right to enter it." 
 
 " And you will not come ? " 
 
 " Not for the present at least. I want to pay my debt 
 to Jim and Firefly. I want to leave everything free and 
 clear here." 
 
 " Well, perhaps you are right." 
 
 She looked out again over the water, and he turned 
 and looked at her, thinking how noble were the lines of 
 her face, in which desire of life had been subdued to 
 duty ; how calm and frank her eyes. He wondered why 
 the women who love children and who seem born for the 
 maternal life of sacrifice, though they may be the objects 
 of trust and tender affection, are seldom the women who 
 awaken the innermost souls of men, while the sterile 
 nature of the coquette, who makes of coquetry an end, 
 not a means, seems best fitted to fascinate and hold. 
 
 " God will have to answer for this some day," he 
 thought; "why didn't He make his saints alluring?" 
 
 But he knew that Brooke was no saint, but a woman 
 who had sacrificed her very pride of womanhood, her 
 birthright of ruling, for a friendship which she had 
 bowed her soul to recognize as the one reality in her re- 
 lation with Robert. He lived in constant wonder over 
 her quiet resumption of relations which seemed never to 
 have held any element but that of good comradeship, 
 touched, perhaps, with intellectual romance, as with a 
 pale gold light. Never in word or look did he surprise 
 
 299
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 in her a memory of the time when they were engaged. 
 She seemed to shrink from such memories, to desire 
 chiefly that he be found faithful to the ideal that had 
 wrecked him. 
 
 And in this he was right. By a paradox known only 
 to higher natures she desired that he should live and die 
 faithful to his disloyalty. She herself looked forward to 
 a lonely life, true to the love which had become, in a 
 sense, a memory. She had joined the congregation of 
 those dead lovers whose resurrections are in the service 
 of their fellows, in the patient working out of existence. 
 
 But there were moments when her pulse beat too 
 quickly in Robert's presence, and when her heart cried 
 for a word or look from him that would bring back, if 
 only for an instant, her short, triumphant dream. Then 
 she would shut the stone down on the grave, and write 
 upon it what she believed was the final epitaph. 
 
 She had made up her mind that, now that her mission 
 was in a sense accomplished, it would be better for her 
 and better for Robert that she returned to Trenthampton. 
 He was strong again and in his right mind. He could 
 enter upon his work. 
 
 She hesitated a moment, then she said: 
 
 " I am returning to Trenthampton day after to-mor- 
 row, Robert." 
 
 "Brooke!" 
 
 " Think of all those children ! " she said with a little 
 smile. 
 
 " I have no right to ask you to stay," he answered in 
 a low voice. " You have already done more than I could 
 dream or hope for." 
 
 She was silent. 
 
 "Brooke?" 
 
 300
 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 " Yes, Robert." 
 
 " I believe in goodness, in truth, in every strong and 
 pure thing through you." 
 
 His voice was reverent, his face solemn, as if he re- 
 cited his credo. But, unsubdued as her mortal nature 
 still was, the high, cold words chilled her. 
 
 " You should go to no human being for that belief," 
 she said. 
 
 " Ah, but men can only be religious through women. 
 Left to themselves they are utterly material." 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " Not all men, Robert." 
 
 " If you are going Wednesday, may I spend to-mor- 
 row evening with you?" 
 
 " Hugh Bradley is coming to say good-by to me. But 
 that will make no difference." 
 
 " He has served you faithfully," Robert said with a 
 touch of bitterness. 
 
 " He has been a good friend," she answered. " Let 
 us go now. The night air is cold, and you still have to 
 be careful." 
 
 He rose reluctantly. How vast the city would seem 
 when Brooke was gone! 
 
 301
 
 CHAPTER XLII 
 
 WHEN Robert had put Brooke on the train he went 
 back to face the moral loneliness which surrounds a 
 period of reconstruction. 
 
 Toward what dawn he lifted up his eyes he could not 
 as yet divine. The face of Olivia still looked from the 
 only stars that lit his night; far-off, inaccessible, yet still 
 the stars. He saw them as from a deep uncovered 
 grave. With the curious instinct of love, he separated 
 the woman from her deed. The Olivia he had known 
 still lived, but she was not the wife of Paul Mallory. 
 
 This mystic mood was not for his reasonable mo- 
 ments. He knew that he must deal somehow with the 
 wreck of his love. He must put in order the ideals, the 
 emotions, the thoughts which had been so closely bound 
 up with Olivia that they seemed to have no chance for 
 a separate existence. What was he to live for? 
 
 Necessity came to his aid. The old myth of Eden 
 would again justify its profound and searching truth. 
 Work, hard, bitter, unceasing labor, was left to him. In 
 work he could again find his manhood and perchance 
 some springs of hope. 
 
 He began to attend the clinics at the hospital which 
 knew him and the quality of his skill, and to keep the 
 office hours, which he filled up with study, though after 
 a time patients began to straggle in. He took the fees 
 they proffered because he was as poor as they were. 
 His evenings were spent in solitude. With what instru- 
 
 302
 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 ments he had left he pursued his experiments. When 
 these failed or were completed, he turned to his books 
 again. The round of his life, limited and, in some ways, 
 sordid as it was, held remedial elements. Its mechani- 
 cal duties brought him slowly back to mental health. 
 
 So with his persistent labor he beat down the thought 
 of Olivia. His letters from Brooke and from his mother 
 were all that kept him near to the personal world. Cer- 
 tain regions of his existence seemed closed forever. He 
 felt sometimes like a monk who, shut in by stone walls, 
 painfully transcribes a gospel, nor ever glances through 
 the window of his cell toward the summer world. 
 
 He saw so few people outside of his daily round of 
 toil that he might well have been one of a silent order, 
 subduing its members to poverty, chastity, and obedi- 
 ence. Even Firefly and Jim were in a sense lost to him, 
 for since the girl's marriage she had seemed shy and 
 not altogether comfortable in his presence. So, after 
 one or two visits to their little flat so small that Rob- 
 ert wondered how it could contain the restless soul of 
 Firefly he said to himself that he would not go again 
 until he could discharge his obligations to them, though 
 he knew dimly that Firefly's attitude toward him sprang 
 from no consciousness of his debt. 
 
 She had cried when he was gone, but to the aston- 
 ished inquiries of her husband she made no answer. 
 Afterward she had treated Jim with remorseful tender- 
 ness, had cooked him an elaborate supper, lavishing on 
 him all the attentions of conscience-smitten affection. 
 She, too, was endeavoring to find peace in the daily 
 round of work and service, but her wayward spirit would 
 wander back to old dreams; and like the call of dance 
 music, she heard the voices of her old life 
 
 303
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " I wonder if he'll ever be happy again," she said one 
 evening to Jim when he spoke of " the Doctor." 
 
 Jim took his pipe from his mouth and reflected. 
 
 " Not if he lost his girl. I bet I'd never been just 
 fool happy again if I'd lost you." 
 
 " ' Just fool happy/ " Firefly repeated with a sigh. 
 "Why can't that last? We think we're children when 
 we're happy, but when we're miserable we know we're 
 grown up." 
 
 Jim stared at her. 
 
 " Gee! But you talk just like a book. I guess you 
 went to school longer than I did." 
 
 A little smile flitted over her face. 
 
 " Yes, I went to school a long while." 
 
 Robert came home from his clinic one night with a 
 lighter heart than usual, though the reason for his cheer- 
 fulness could be traced to nothing less general than the 
 influence of a perfect April day, which brought even 
 into the quarter where he lived delicate suggestions of 
 spring. His mind's eye beheld steaming brown mead- 
 ows soon to wake to their " green felicity " ; soft, clouded 
 trees; hollows daintily sprinkled with little tender 
 flowers, distant hills with violet shadows in their curves, 
 all the lovely austerities and withheld beauty of April. 
 He put away the vision lest he should hate the sordid 
 streets through which he passed. The hour of his re- 
 lease was not yet come. 
 
 As he approached the house he discovered signs of 
 excitement among the small children perennially on the 
 steps. They all knew him, and one of them constituted 
 herself herald. 
 
 " There's a real gent inside to see you," she an- 
 304
 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 nounced. " That's his carriage comin' round the corner 
 now." 
 
 Robert, looking in the direction she pointed, recog- 
 nized the Winwood liveries. For an instant the color 
 left his face and his muscles grew rigid. Then he turned 
 and went slowly up the steps, only half sure that the 
 child's voice and the carriage were not the figment of 
 an imagination which since his illness had required a 
 tight rein to keep it within the bounds of health. 
 
 A large figure filled up the hallway. Robert rec- 
 ognized the massive outlines of Henry Winwood. He 
 came forward with a slight air of embarrassment, his big 
 hand outstretched. 
 
 " How d'ye do, Doctor! I've had the devil's own 
 time finding you, but I had made up my mind I would if 
 I had to drive all over town. Letty Mrs. Winwood 
 is ill, and she wants you and nobody else to attend her. 
 You always were a favorite of hers, you know. I have 
 the carriage here and I'll take you right along." 
 
 Robert looked intently at him. 
 
 " I don't think I can oblige you, even for Mrs. Win- 
 wood. I appreciate very much her remembrance of me, 
 but I do not think I can attend her." 
 
 Henry Winwood rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and 
 began to walk up and down the narrow passage. He 
 looked perplexed. 
 
 " I don't know as I can go back without you," he 
 said, after a few moments of silence. " Letty's made 
 up her mind. She's a pretty sick woman, too," he added. 
 " I can't lose much time." 
 
 " I'd like to oblige you, Mr. Winwood, but knowing 
 as you do " 
 
 He could not finish the sentence. 
 305
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 Henry Winwood nodded. 
 
 " I ain't saying a word for Olivia, Doctor, except 
 that she always did as she pleased from the time she 
 wore socks. She never told us why she threw you over." 
 
 Robert made a gesture of protest. 
 
 " Don't speak of it. It belongs to the dead past." 
 
 "Well, why should that stand in the way, then? 
 We're another family now. My wife likes you, has con- 
 fidence in you. You don't bear us a grudge, do you, 
 for what 'Livy did?" 
 
 " Oh, no grudge. That isn't it. I can't make you 
 see what it is." 
 
 Winwood put a hand on his shoulder. 
 
 " Don't try. I ain't built like you. Just take me 
 as I am and help me out now. Mrs. Winwood ain't 
 often obstinate, but when she takes a notion that's the 
 end of it. I just surrender. When she said she would 
 have you I started to scour the town." 
 
 " I will go with you. Wait a moment." 
 
 They went down the steps between a double row of 
 staring children. A crowd of them had gathered about 
 the motionless footman, and were exchanging bets as 
 to whether his trousers had grown fast to his legs. 
 
 Robert settled back in the deep cushions, with the 
 air of a man trying to relax the too rigid tension of his 
 muscles. He felt that Winwood must hear the heavy 
 thumping of his heart. His skin was cold and damp 
 with perspiration. He was not yet strong enough to 
 resist physically the pressure of his nervousness. 
 
 As the carriage proceeded up-town Robert caught 
 glimpses of places which he seemed to have beheld last 
 in another world, and a thousand years ago. He won- 
 dered if he had ever really belonged to this world. 
 
 306
 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 "Looks real gay, doesn't it?" Winwood said, nod- 
 ding at the throng on the avenue. " Lord! I never see 
 these peacock women in their carriages or showin' their 
 silk petticoats on the sidewalk, that I don't wonder what 
 poor devil's footing the bills and whether he's down on 
 the Street, or getting fifteen hundred on a high stool." 
 
 Robert smiled. 
 
 " Marriage is a costly institution," he said, conscious 
 that the remark was banal. 
 
 And now they had entered the Park. Robert averted 
 his eyes. He was afraid that he might see her walking 
 beneath the trees, and be not sure whether what he 
 beheld was reality or vision. 
 
 When they reached the house another carriage was 
 under the porte-cochere. Robert recognized the Mallory 
 liveries. His first impulse was to say that he must re- 
 turn, that he could not go in. Then his pride fortified 
 him. He would go through the ordeal unflinchingly, 
 that she might know that he had still within him the 
 spirit of a man. A horrid accusation entered his mind. 
 Had Olivia persuaded her father to go for him? 
 
 No. Henry Winwood was not the kind of a man 
 to lend himself to such a measure of deception. 
 
 They went through the great doors and up the broad 
 staircase. Robert was exerting all the strength of his 
 will to keep his mind clear, to be betrayed by no tricks 
 of a diseased imagination, for already the scene about 
 him was wavering, and he was in a dreadful uncertainty 
 as to whether or not he had dreamed his illness and its 
 cause. Would Olivia be waiting for him in the draw- 
 ing-room, her face lovely with welcome? 
 
 He fixed his eyes on Winwood's broad back as the 
 only real thing in the surrounding shadows. They were 
 
 307
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 passing the drawing-room and the little blue-and-gray 
 study. 
 
 " I have been ill," he whispered to himself. " I must 
 remember that I have been ill, and that Olivia is married." 
 
 At the top of the next flight of stairs a tall figure 
 was waiting, a woman in a dove-gray gown, her face 
 shadowed by the brim of her broad hat. She looked 
 earnestly at Robert, but his answering look held no 
 apparent consciousness of her presence. He was saying 
 to himself: 
 
 " Olivia is not here. I must be careful. I can not 
 trust what I see." 
 
 She spoke a few words in a whisper to her father, 
 then she bowed to Robert, but he did not return her 
 bow. He was looking straight before him with the same 
 strange air of a sleep-walker. 
 
 Winwood knocked on the door of his wife's cham- 
 ber and entered. Robert followed him. A nurse in her 
 white uniform came forward to meet them. On the bed 
 Mrs. Winwood lay, the flush of fever in her face, and 
 her eyes unnaturally bright. 
 
 The sight of the nurse, the sight of his patient, brought 
 Robert back to full and normal consciousness. The fear- 
 ful uncertainty left him, the shadows faded, his waking 
 dream dissolved. With the quiet, hopeful n.anner char- 
 acteristic of him in his professional ministrations, he 
 stepped to the bedside. Mrs. Winwood looked up grate- 
 fully. 
 
 " It was real good of you to come, Doctor. I just 
 set my mind on seeing you. I didn't want any of these 
 big, solemn celebrities. I wanted some one I knew and 
 liked." 
 
 He pressed her hand. 
 
 308
 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 " You knew we were friends," he answered gently. 
 
 When he had finished his examination he looked up 
 to find Olivia standing at the foot of the bed. She was 
 in a dove-gray gown, and wore a large, plumed hat. He 
 knew then that he had passed her on the staircase with- 
 out one word of greeting. He came forward and with 
 a direct look held out his hand. 
 
 309
 
 CHAPTER XLIII 
 
 His sense of unreality still uppermost protected him 
 from self-betrayal. The look she gave him, grave, in- 
 tent, and profoundly melancholy, aided in establishing his 
 self-possession. If she had played the married woman, 
 hiding past offenses behind her garnered dignities, he 
 might have faltered in his greeting, or accused her with 
 his eyes. But her gravity implied an inner drama which, 
 if known to him, would compel his pardon. She had the 
 look of a person just entering the confessional whose 
 secret sorrow the passer-by in the dim aisles can only 
 conjecture. 
 
 He turned from her to the nurse, to whom he gave 
 some directions. Then he took leave of Mrs. Winwood 
 and her husband, promising to return early in the morn- 
 ing. Olivia meanwhile had left the room. 
 
 As he passed the door of the drawing-room she came 
 out to meet him, an austere figure of a dignity which 
 compelled his recognition. In that instant he felt not 
 shut out, but included in a common grief. The woman 
 whom he had been prepared to scorn and to hate, if 
 possible, was taking him with her beyond all temptation 
 of such littleness. 
 
 He had anticipated every aspect of their meeting but 
 this this recognition of two souls etiolated by a passage 
 through darkness and his bewilderment unnerved him. 
 He stood silent and motionless, making an effort not to 
 betray surprise. If she suffered so much, how could she 
 have consented to become Paul Mallory's wife? 
 
 310 

 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 " Come in a moment," she said, " and tell me more in 
 detail of my mother's case." 
 
 He followed her across the bland room which had 
 heard so many of their conversations, grave or gay, 
 trifling or philosophic. The odor from some flowers on 
 the mantel stirred him even more than the aspects of 
 the room, bringing back, as a perfume will, a host of 
 memories. 
 
 " Sit down, Dr. Erskine." 
 
 " No, I will stand. I can only give you a moment. 
 I have an appointment at the hospital in another half- 
 hour." 
 
 " It was generous of you to come. My mother 
 wanted it so much that I know your attendance on her 
 will aid in her recovery." 
 
 " I trust so," Robert answered in a hard voice. " But 
 I did not come of my own will. Your father in a sense 
 compelled me. There was nothing generous in the 
 action." 
 
 " I am the best judge of that." 
 
 She asked him a few questions concerning her mother, 
 which he answered with professional brevity. Then he 
 made a motion of leave-taking. She raised a detaining* 
 hand. 
 
 " I will never speak again to you of the past," she 
 said gravely, " but I think the hour will come when you 
 will thank me for what I did. I can only make those 
 persons happy whom I do not love." 
 
 " The logic of the sword." 
 
 " No, the logic of mercy." 
 
 She rose and held out her hand. Already she was 
 binding him to her anew by cords woven of their very 
 sorrows. The subtlety of the temptation prevented his 
 
 3"
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 realization of it, and, good actress as she was, there was 
 enough of the real in her attitude toward him to make 
 what was histrionic only an element of the whole. Yet 
 as he turned from her she had an impulse from her 
 nobler nature to cry out : 
 
 " I will not see you again. Go from me, because I 
 can give you nothing but dust and ashes." 
 
 But the habit of years held her dumb. Why should 
 he not be one of her circle? For the infidelities of the 
 spirit there are no divorce-courts. 
 
 Her father's voice roused her from her reverie. 
 " Mother wants to see you, Olivia. Can you stay a 
 while longer ? " 
 
 " All evening if you wish. I'll 'phone Paul to dine 
 here." 
 
 Her father knit his brow. 
 
 " Can't he dine alone once? " 
 
 She smiled. 
 
 " Why, yes, of course. You don't feel comfortable 
 with him, do you, father? " 
 
 " No, I don't. I hate aristocrats." 
 
 Olivia laughed. 
 
 " I'm an aristocrat. You don't hate me, do 
 you?" 
 
 " Oh, well, you've got good middle-class sense, with 
 all your airs and graces. It always seems to me as if 
 your husband crosses himself before he enters our house. 
 He don't like to come here, any more than I like to 
 have him come and what's more, he'd be glad if you'd 
 shake your parents." 
 
 " I married him to keep them in my world," Olivia 
 answered. " Paul knows perfectly well that I care more 
 for you and mother than I do for him." 
 
 312
 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 " You ought to have married the Doctor," Winwood 
 said abruptly. 
 
 It was the first time he had ever spoken of Robert 
 in that connection. A blush passed over her face. 
 
 " I liked him too well," she answered. " That was 
 one reason. The other was my ambition. You surely 
 can not take me to task for that," she added. " Yours 
 is colossal." 
 
 "That's true," he admitted. "But I wish you'd 
 stayed in your father's class. I could buy up most of 
 the swells in this town if I had a mind to." 
 
 " I prefer to purchase them with another kind of 
 coin," Olivia said lightly. " Well, I'll 'phone Paul, then, 
 that I am dining here, and that he can dine at home, or 
 go to his club if he likes." 
 
 " Yes, do. We'll have a nice little dinner alone. 
 You're a good girl, 'Livy." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " No, but I have some originality." 
 
 Her father looked at her with a puzzled air. 
 
 " Paul Mallory ought to be proud of you." 
 
 " He is. Abominably so." 
 
 She rang the bell and gave orders to send the car- 
 riage away. Then she went up-stairs to her mother, and 
 sitting down by her bed, took her hot hand and held it 
 caressingly. 
 
 " You feel better, mummie? " 
 
 " Yes, better already. Robert's a good doctor." 
 
 " I should judge so." 
 
 There was a long silence. It was broken by a whis- 
 per from Mrs. Winwood. 
 
 " 'Livy, did you say anything to him?" 
 
 " Yes, dear." 
 
 21 313
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " What did you say? " 
 
 " I thanked him for coming to you." 
 
 " Was that all? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 "What else?" 
 
 " I told him how good I had been to him." 
 
 '"Livy!" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " He'll not come back to take care of me." 
 
 " Oh, yes, he will. He knows I did not jest." 
 
 " How could you say such a thing to him, and he so 
 white and thin from his illness? " 
 
 " Because I mean to be good to him in the future. 
 I can make his fortune. I can make him fashionable. 
 His attendance on you will start him upward." 
 
 " Your father says he found him in a dreadful part 
 of town the real bad part where they have big families; 
 he says he just trod on babies going up the steps ! " 
 
 Olivia restrained a smile. 
 
 " He will not be there long. I can at least prove my 
 friendship for him." 
 
 Her mother looked at her earnestly. 
 
 " You never cared for Robert, as he cared for you. 
 You shouldn't have led him on, Olivia." 
 
 " Mother, I spared him at the last," she answered 
 humbly. 
 
 Robert, meanwhile, was on his way home, walking 
 rapidly down to the eastern quarter of the city as if 
 there only lay salvation from thoughts and emotions 
 which had come out of their grave with all the power 
 of forces not under the dominion of the second death. 
 His own suffering had answered the call of her sorrow. 
 Her gravity had drawn him, as her smiles could never
 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 have done. Surely, surely, he thought, somewhere in 
 the depths of that strong and complex nature must be 
 the justification for its seeming cruelty, its apparent ego- 
 tism. Was she right in saying that she could not make 
 any one happy on whom she placed the claims of her 
 affection? Did she really have another influence than 
 her ambition in rejecting him? 
 
 Step by step he went over their summer together, 
 gathering all the evidence at his command to support a 
 theory which, however incomprehensible to a man, might 
 justify a woman with as intimate a knowledge of her own 
 character as Olivia. He caught at straws to justify her, 
 because to care for a woman who had betrayed him in- 
 volved him in something of her own dishonor, and he 
 knew to his sorrow that he still loved her. 
 
 3IS
 
 CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 As he drew near his own dwelling the sights and 
 sounds of the familiar neighborhood cleared his vision 
 and threw into the dream-like perspective his recent ex- 
 perience. He had the sensation of being once more with 
 real things and people. 
 
 He let himself into his rooms, feeling, for the first 
 time since his occupancy of them, that they were home 
 to him. Here, at least, he could work out his problem 
 without the complications introduced by the elements 
 of wealth and of that " culture " beneath which so many 
 barbarities are hidden. He was still near enough to 
 defeat and pain to be glad of his surroundings. 
 
 In his box he found two letters one from his father 
 and one from Brooke. His father wrote that they had 
 taken a small cottage situated on Dr. Gorton's farm, 
 and were beginning to turn it into some semblance of the 
 old home with the aid of the furniture, of the books and 
 pictures. Margaret Erskine was already busied with the 
 setting out of her garden, and, if not happy, was at least 
 content. 
 
 " I am neither happy nor content," the letter con- 
 cluded, " but my work is absorbing enough to keep me 
 from thinking. I hope yours is, too. Together we may 
 forge something out." 
 
 Brooke's letter was interesting. She was evidently 
 feeding her spirit with books and what glimpses of nature 
 
 316
 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 she could obtain in her rare moments of leisure. Her 
 description of the little round of her existence was inter- 
 spersed with quaint comments, as if she had become, 
 despite her activities, thoroughly the looker-on at the 
 play of life. 
 
 The vision of her clear, strong face could do little on 
 this evening to calm Robert's excited imagination, but 
 he thought of her with infinite regret. Marriage was 
 possible to neither of them, for they had loved too well. 
 
 These two letters, with their gray, pensive atmos- 
 phere, seemed to fall in with his visions of early April 
 before the interlude of his meeting with Olivia. He read 
 them through again, then began a review of his hour 
 in the Winwood house. He tried to scourge himself 
 for his weakness in consenting to go there, but his hand 
 fell to his side. He raised the whip, but she intervened. 
 
 The end of his struggle was the determination to 
 have no further conversation with Olivia unless abso- 
 lutely forced upon him by the presence of others. By 
 degrees he returned to that calm of negation so deeply 
 cherished by him during the past few weeks. 
 
 Yet he realized that he was impatient for morning to 
 come. He wanted to go again to the house which held 
 the memory of his love, as well as the memory of his 
 humiliation. 
 
 He was relieved to find only the nurse with Mrs. 
 Winwood, who welcomed him eagerly, as if he brought 
 something more to her than the mere assurance of his 
 professional skill. She seemed endeavoring in a blind, 
 groping way to atone to him for some wrong, of which 
 she had only a partial understanding. When he had 
 finished his examination, she looked up coaxingly. 
 
 " Are you in a great hurry, Dr. Erskine?" 
 317
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 " I'm not in a hurry at all." 
 
 " Would you mind sitting with me a little? I get so 
 lonesome." 
 
 " I am only too glad to stay a while," he said, seat- 
 ing himself by the bed. 
 
 She looked at him intently. 
 
 " Do you work very hard these days, Doctor? " 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " Not so hard as I'd like." 
 
 " It's not easy to build up a practise, is it? " she said 
 in a sympathetic voice. 
 
 " No, not easy. And I have been interrupted by 
 illness by many things." 
 
 " When I get well," she said confidentially, " I'll men- 
 tion you to my friends. Now now that I'm well 
 now that Olivia " She broke off embarrassed, for Rob- 
 ert's face had hardened. " I only mean, Doctor, that I 
 can help you. Everything's a matter of fashion in this 
 town anyway. Not that you aren't but if you had an 
 office up-town " 
 
 Her broad, wholesome, simple face was full of affec- 
 tionate anxiety. Robert saw the mother in her look and 
 forgave her. 
 
 " I can't climb except on steps of my own hewing," 
 he answered gently, " but I thank you for your interest 
 in my success." 
 
 He went away from her with a curious wonder over 
 the turn events had taken, yet with a determination to 
 forge no further links in the chain begun by his attend- 
 ance upon Mrs. Winwood. 
 
 For several days he did not see Olivia. He told 
 himself that he was relieved, but though the fact humili- 
 ated him, he knew in the depths of his heart that he 
 
 318
 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 longed to see her again, before the end of his profes- 
 sional visits at this house would render further inter- 
 course with her impossible. He was living in a kind of 
 interlude. The curtain must rise again on tragedy or 
 on hopeless submission. 
 
 One evening toward the end of April, as he was de- 
 scending the staircase after a visit to Mrs. Winwood, he 
 met Olivia and Paul Mallory on the landing. Mallory 
 bowed to him stiffly and did not hold out his hand. For 
 an instant a blind anger filled Robert; then, exercising 
 all his self-control, he returned the bow with frigid ex- 
 actness, and, after greeting Olivia, was about to pass on, 
 when she detained him. 
 
 " Come into my old study a moment, Dr. Erskine. 
 Paul, please go and tell my mother that I shall be with 
 her very soon." 
 
 Mallory hesitated. Man of the world as he was, he 
 could not keep from his face his feeling of remonstrance, 
 but Olivia was already leading the way to the study 
 with that air of unconcern which was always about her 
 like a sure armor. Robert had once said to her that had 
 Dante possessed her nonchalance he would have needed 
 no guide through the three regions. 
 
 The little study was unchanged. A bowl of blossoms 
 was placed in the open window, and under their pale 
 sweetness sat Dr. Faustus dreaming, as usual, his end- 
 less dreams. 
 
 Olivia went over to him and stroked him. 
 
 " What indifference," she murmured. " Faustus, 
 when I can attain to that I shall have the metropolis at 
 my feet." 
 
 " That has always been your ambition, has it not ? " 
 Robert said. 
 
 319
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 She turned. The look in her dark eyes made his 
 words seem wantonly cruel. 
 
 " Yes, but I pay the price," she answered wear- 
 ily. " We can have anything we want if we'll pay for 
 it." 
 
 " Is it worth it ? " he said in a gentler voice. 
 
 " To me, yes. I have to live at the summit of things. 
 I can be frank with you now." 
 
 " It is not a high ideal." 
 
 " I hate the very word," she said bitterly. " Aren't 
 we all profound egotists, and the greatest saints the 
 greatest egotists of all because they don't dare express 
 themselves except in terms of a world they hope to gain 
 by fruitlessness in this. What are ideals but the arro- 
 gance of dreamers ! " 
 
 " You are right for yourself," Robert said. 
 
 She smiled sadly. 
 
 " I see you banish me from the aristocracy of dream- 
 ers, but then you were always rigid. Perhaps, some 
 day, you will understand." 
 
 His face grew gray: terrible for the moment with 
 sharp lines of pain. Her own was infinitely tender, yet 
 aloof, and unreal to him as if he saw it in a picture. 
 
 " I understand one thing at least," he said. 
 
 "What is that?" 
 
 " That the dreamers also pay." 
 
 "Do they?" she said softly. She turned from him, 
 then crossed the room and took from the cabinet 
 a little book. 
 
 " Come and read," she said, a touch of the old im- 
 periousness in her manner. 
 
 He hesitated a moment, then went to her side, stifling 
 his longing to put his arms about her, to bear her away 
 
 320
 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 with him forever. He bent his head over the lines to 
 which her finger pointed: 
 
 " Shall I know thee again when I see thee: and will 
 the Spirit of God say to thee in that day, ' This is thy 
 Beloved'?" 
 
 "O soul of my soul! would God I were one with 
 thee, even though it were in death! " 
 
 " Thou hast all of my love, my desire, and my sorrow; 
 yea, my life is mingled with thine and is gone forth with 
 thee!" 
 
 He drew back, and looked at her as if they stood 
 before the final bar of judgment. For an instant, but 
 only for an instant, the words he had read became a 
 spirit of flame in her eyes the call, the cry, the yearn- 
 ing, the despair. Then she closed the book with a ges- 
 ture of impatience. 
 
 " A poet wrote it," she said. 
 
 The struggle within him kept him dumb. They stood 
 in silence for a moment, then the look in her face became 
 more than he could bear. He made a motion of leave- 
 taking. 
 
 " Will you keep the book? " she said, holding it out 
 to him. 
 
 " It is your wish ? " he asked in a voice almost in- 
 audible. 
 
 " Perhaps or a caprice." 
 
 There was a moment's pause. Then Robert opened 
 the door. 
 
 " I think your husband is seeking you." 
 
 " Probably," she answered, and swept past him, while 
 he bowed low, not daring again to meet her eyes. 
 
 His spirit cried out to her. From henceforth they 
 were both wanderers. The temptation was strong upon 
 
 321
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 him to remain where he might watch her groping, and 
 assure himself that she suffered, assure himself by this 
 suffering that the woman he had believed in still lived. 
 
 That night he read hungrily in the little book. Her 
 face looked from its pages, but across the ecstatic light 
 of that message fell the dark shadow of his doubt. 
 
 322
 
 CHAPTER XLV 
 
 " BUT my wife wants you to continue your visits a 
 while longer. I'd like you to humor her, because they 
 give her something to look forward to. She misses 
 Olivia, you see, and feels lonesome in this big house." 
 
 Robert hesitated. 
 
 " I'd rather stop now. Mrs. Winwood is almost well. 
 The nurse can stay a week longer if you want her, but 
 even that is not necessary. Mrs. Winwood has her 
 maid." 
 
 Henry Winwood gave him a shrewd, approving look. 
 
 " You're frank, you're honest, but you'll never make 
 a doctor to the rich. You'll never go in this city. First 
 you make me cut my check in half, then you refuse to 
 continue your visits." 
 
 " You know why," Robert said curtly. " You know 
 that I didn't want to come in the first place." 
 
 " I don't blame you," Winwood said. " Well, you'll 
 have to have your way. If you won't, you won't. I'm 
 mighty indebted to you as it is." 
 
 He shook hands cordially with Robert, who then 
 went up-stairs to take leave of his patient. Mrs. Win- 
 wood was inclined to be tearful. 
 
 " But you'll come sometimes to see me, Doctor, won't 
 you? You know you and I were always friends." 
 
 " And always will be," he answered heartily. 
 
 He parted from her with genuine regret, for the sim- 
 plicity and kindness of her nature had been a balm to 
 him during these visits to the scene of a dead joy. When 
 
 323
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 he went out of the house his first feeling was of relief, 
 but as he drew near to the eastern quarter of the town 
 the inevitable reaction came. He began to regret that 
 he had not consented to pay two or three more calls, 
 thus prolonging his leave-taking of Olivia. 
 
 The day was heavy with the first warmth of- spring. 
 Strong, close odors were wafted from open doorways, 
 and from cellars underneath little sour restaurants. In 
 the streets all was noise and babel. The foreign popula- 
 tion was welcoming the warm sunshine with much volu- 
 bility and noisy good-temper. Robert made his way 
 along the crowded pavements with the ease of the ab- 
 stracted man. As he drew near his home, shrill childish 
 voices called to him, and a little girl, all pink pinafore 
 and shining pigtails, ran up and caught his hand. 
 
 " Wie geht's, Liebchenf " he said. 
 
 Other children surrounded him. He made his escape 
 with bribes of pennies, and took refuge in his rooms. 
 
 He had been there some minutes before he saw lying 
 en his desk a square white envelope, the superscription 
 of which made his heart beat fast. 
 
 He did not open the letter at once, because he did 
 not wish to face at once the dividing of his roads. He 
 divined that this message from Olivia, however ordi- 
 nary its surface purport, marked a crisis; that it was in 
 a sense the summing up of their future relationship; of 
 her interpretation of the words which they had read 
 together. 
 
 He waited until the letter and what it might imply 
 seemed an old story, then he opened it. 
 
 " DEAR DR. ERSKINE," it ran, " will you dine with us 
 informally on Tuesday evening, the tenth of May, at 
 
 324
 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 eight ? We expect a few people whom I think you would 
 find interesting. 
 
 " Yours very cordially, 
 
 " OLIVIA WINWOOD MALLORY." 
 
 That was all, but as he read, the kingdoms of this 
 world and all the glory of them unrolled before him. 
 He had lost much, he might gain more. What she could 
 do for him could be measured in both spiritual and mate- 
 rial terms, and he knew that the one involved the other. 
 His chance to rise, to enter this world of hers in his 
 professional character, was in her hand, but, after all, 
 this was but an incident. The main thing was the op- 
 portunity to measure his power against hers to prove 
 the truth of her unspoken words. 
 
 He faced the temptation squarely. He knew that 
 the strength of his feeling would rob his intercourse of 
 the element of friendliness. He knew that to see her 
 would be to seek to conquer her: to force her to set her 
 whole life to the import of that last scene between them. 
 
 Something brutal, hard, revengeful stirred within 
 him. All the cruelty of the lower nature awoke and 
 clamored for the exercise of its power. To subdue her, 
 to bind her to himself, to make clear to her the necessity 
 of bowing fully to an emotion which had not been strong 
 enough to save her from disloyalty and was now strong 
 enough to compel an unholy fidelity, to do this would 
 be to satisfy something deeper than the claims of poetic 
 justice. 
 
 "Olivia! Olivia! It is your choice. I sought the 
 heights with you once. This is your choice." 
 
 Yet the cry of his heart accused himself only. He 
 did not confuse a possible intention with the assured suc- 
 
 3 2 5
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 cess of the incredible enterprise, which seemed a part of 
 his old delirium. He doubted that she would ever step 
 beyond the realm of the spirit with its unjudged and 
 unrecorded liberties. But to watch her suffer, to stay 
 in her world, to use its ladders 
 
 He sat for a long time in deep absorption, then on 
 his confusions a beam of austere light fell, which seemed 
 the product of his winter's trial. By its illumination he 
 saw neither the face of Brooke nor of Olivia; neither 
 Brooke nor Olivia beckoned to him, but all that was 
 great and worth while and inspiring in his profession. 
 He was realizing, not through his feeling for that was 
 like a sea still rocking after the tempest has departed 
 but through his nobler reason, that to a man who reaches 
 the full measure of his manhood the deepest love can 
 be only an incident in comparison with the claim of his 
 chosen work. On this work and its supreme require- 
 ments he must base his future life. To pursue his labors 
 diligently, to rise in his profession by his own merit, to 
 confuse his aims by no element of personal ambition, 
 this was the vision that, breaking in upon his tumults, 
 made all still. 
 
 He had conquered, perhaps, but he hated his victory, 
 as people will always find the first fruits of reason bitter. 
 
 Firefly and Jim were seated on their fire-escape, as 
 the most convenient balcony from which to enjoy the 
 soft splendor of the April night, held in trance by a big, 
 pale moon. A rubber plant and a kitten bore them com- 
 pany. Some kitchen utensils hung airily from the 
 railings. 
 
 326
 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 Firefly was looking up at the moon with that dream- 
 ing expression which always made her husband uncom- 
 fortable. 
 
 " Come back to earth. I can't have my wife runnin' 
 off from me like that. I'll get a divorce on the ground 
 of desertion," Jim said with a chuckle; adding, " If you 
 weren't such a blamed good cook, and if you couldn't 
 dance like the devil, I'd think you was going to die 
 young." 
 
 " Not me." 
 
 " You're a lot nicer married than when I was courtin' 
 you," Jim said, regarding her with satisfaction. 
 
 " I didn't cook for you then," she said with a little 
 smile. " Didn't somebody knock, Jim? " 
 
 They listened. 
 
 " Yes, there's somebody there." 
 
 She crossed the little kitchen and opened the door. 
 In the hall stood Robert. 
 
 " Oh, Dr. Erskine! Well, I am glad! " 
 
 Jim came forward, holding out his hand. 
 
 " We've been makin' guesses about you, Doctor. I 
 thought some of dropping in your place yesterday." 
 
 " I've been busier than usual," Robert said, " but 
 now I'm changing all my plans. I'm leaving town very 
 soon." 
 
 Firefly turned abruptly away and began hunting for 
 the matches, that she might light the lamp. She pro- 
 longed her search unnecessarily, glad of the deep shadow 
 in the room. 
 
 Jim proposed the parlor, but Robert said that he 
 preferred the kitchen. He sat down by the table, his 
 face in the lamplight looking white and tired. After talk- 
 ing with them a few moments he took out Winwood's 
 
 327
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 check and made it over to them. Jim, seeing the amount, 
 protested. 
 
 " You don't owe us near that much, Doctor. You 
 don't owe us anything as far as that goes." 
 
 " I can never repay you," Robert said; " so this can 
 only be a little part. The rest is friendship." 
 
 The tears sprang to Firefly's eyes. 
 
 " You won't forget us, Doctor ? " 
 
 "Forget you!" 
 
 He went from them into a long silence. Already 
 he seemed to them like one who has said good-by. 
 
 " Where is the place you're going? " Firefly asked 
 timidly. 
 
 " To Trenthampton to my old home." 
 
 "Does Miss Brooke live there?" 
 
 " Yes, and my parents." 
 
 " We'll miss you, Doctor," Jim said heartily. 
 
 Robert took his leave of them soon. At the door 
 Firefly asked: 
 
 " May I speak with you in the hall a minute just 
 a minute?" 
 
 " Why, of course." 
 
 When she was alone with Robert the words that she 
 had wished to say died on her lips. She stood gazing 
 at him with wistful, questioning eyes. 
 
 "What is it?" he asked. 
 
 " What do you do with love that didn't reach home? " 
 
 He smiled and shook his head. 
 
 " That's a hard question, Firefly. I suppose that if 
 there is a God we'll find it with Him; if not, we will 
 sleep and forget it." 
 
 " Thank you, Doctor," she said gravely. She held 
 out her hand. " I wish you good luck, Doctor." 
 
 328
 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 They shook hands, then he went down the stairs. At 
 the landing he turned. She was still standing motion- 
 less, gazing into the darkness that hid him. 
 
 On the way he pondered her words, but dreamily 
 and in an abstract way, as if he had read them in a book. 
 When he reentered his rooms he sat down to write some 
 letters. The first was to Brooke. 
 
 " I am coming back to Trenthampton to take up the 
 work Dr. Gorton wishes me to do. Perhaps some day 
 I'll be worthy of that great inheritance. I am willing to 
 wait and to work." 
 
 He added a little account of his plans, but he made 
 no allusion to the thought uppermost in his mind. Time 
 alone could answer his question. 
 
 He then wrote to Dr. Gorton and to his father. The 
 note to Olivia he left until last. 
 
 22 329
 
 CHAPTER XLVI 
 
 OLIVIA waited with more impatience than she had 
 ever known in her life for Robert's reply to her invita- 
 tion. Its significance would be crucial. On his accept- 
 ance she was almost willing to stake her whole record 
 of mastery from the time when, as a stormy little child, 
 her playmates had quarreled among themselves for her 
 favors. His fidelity was now as necessary to her heart 
 as it was to her sense of rulership. 
 
 Surfeited as she had been with homage, she had 
 always had her moments of longing for some nature 
 strong enough to hold her. Robert had come nearer 
 this dominion than any one, but, by a paradox, the very 
 fact that he had yielded to her, that he had not remained 
 true to Brooke, had been one of the elements which 
 made her stormy decision at the musicale possible. 
 Though she herself had called to him, Olivia could not 
 forgive him his defection even at the height of their 
 brilliant, unreal summer of experimental happiness. 
 
 But now that she herself had been disloyal, and had 
 chosen finally her portion of power, she was realizing 
 how imperative was her need of keeping Robert in her 
 life. Her act had cleared her vision, had centralized her 
 being in the love of the unattainable. Passion, now a 
 dark and tragic figure, crowned with bitter herbs, beck- 
 oned her along rough paths to goals remote from para- 
 dise. All that was true, perhaps all that was noblest in 
 her, answered its cry, its supreme signal. If in the future 
 she played a part, her acting would at least be vitalized 
 
 330
 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 by the primitive forces of existence: the forces that in 
 her last interview with Robert had swept her into com- 
 plete sincerity. 
 
 Her outward composure protected her from betray- 
 ing during these days of waiting her tempestuous feel- 
 ing. In her moments of confidence, her old mocking 
 gaiety was again uppermost. 
 
 She was seated in the library one morning, perfect- 
 ing the arrangement of her guests for the dinner, when 
 her husband entered. He laid a caressing hand on her 
 shoulder. 
 
 " What are you doing, dearest? " 
 
 " How can you say ' dearest ' at half-past ten in the 
 morning? It is a word which should only be used after 
 nightfall. I am seating people, separating the bores 
 from the goats." 
 
 He looked puzzled. 
 
 " What do you mean, dear? " 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " Paul, did you ever know a nice white woolly sheep 
 that was entertaining? I never did. Where is your 
 sense of humor ? " 
 
 " Do I lack humor, Olivia? " 
 
 " Yes, it is a better warrant of your noble English 
 descent than the assurances of the heralds." 
 
 " Have you heard from all your guests?" 
 
 " All but Dr. Erskine." 
 
 A shadow passed over his face. 
 
 " I did not know that you had included him." 
 
 " I hope to include him very often, Paul. He is a 
 gallant gentleman." 
 
 " He is not in our circle." 
 
 " He will be, if I say so." 
 331
 
 " Go slowly, dear." 
 
 " As your wife my privileges are unlimited. Your 
 people must receive my friends." 
 
 He made no answer. 
 
 She bent over her desk, her little silver pencil moving 
 rapidly. Paul watched her with an ache in his heart. 
 She was always charming, always friendly, but he had 
 already learned that the close companionship of marriage 
 had not brought him nearer to the real Olivia. 
 
 When she had completed her task she rose and, see- 
 ing the look on his face, she went to the piano and 
 began to play softly some German love-songs. He came 
 over to her and stood by her side, an humble, grateful 
 expression in his eyes. 
 
 " Thank you, Olivia. You always read my moods." 
 
 " You are not difficult to read, Paul," she said with 
 a slight smile. 
 
 He hesitated. 
 
 " Dear, there's a matter I want to speak to you about. 
 You know we've been members of St. Alban's for gen- 
 erations. You've never been confirmed. I had a letter 
 from the Bishop this morning saying that he will con- 
 firm you in our private chapel at your convenience. 
 What shall I tell him?" 
 
 " Anything you like." 
 
 He looked grave. 
 
 " Don't you feel at all interested, Olivia? " 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " No, because I'm only doing it as I give your din- 
 ners, or appear at certain houses. I'm not religious, not 
 in your way at least." 
 
 " I wish your heart was in it, Olivia." 
 
 " Well, it never will be. St. Alban's is a fashionable 
 332
 
 URBS BEATA 
 
 club. I have no illusions about it. But bring the Bishop 
 if necessary. I like him he tells a good story." 
 
 Paul looked unutterable things, but he made no com- 
 ment. Olivia's frank paganism was one of her dreadful 
 charms. 
 
 The day wore away, but no message came from Rob- 
 ert. When evening closed in she went up to be dressed 
 for a large dinner-party. Her women, who took more 
 genuine delight in their task than is usual in such cases, 
 had everything in impressive readiness. She was in a 
 mood to enjoy the long ceremony, and she gave herself 
 into their hands with a sigh of content. 
 
 While her hair was being arranged her evening mail 
 was brought to her. She put aside all letters but one. 
 
 She broke the sea 1 -ith hands that were not quite 
 steady, then read: 
 
 " MY DEAR MRS. MALLORY: 
 
 " I leave the city this afternoon, not to return, as I 
 am to take up Dr. Gorton's work in Trenthampton. I 
 regret that I am thus prevented from accepting your in- 
 vitation to dinner. 
 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " ROBERT ERSKINE." 
 
 The sheet of paper dropped from her hands. The 
 maid bent over her, a look of apprehension in her face. 
 "Is Madame ill? Madame is very pale." 
 
 On the afternoon of this day Robert, having com- 
 pleted all his arrangements for departure, started for 
 the ferry on foot. Now that he was leaving the great 
 
 333
 
 THE PORT OF STORMS 
 
 city, never more to return as a metropolitan, he realized 
 how strong a hold it had upon his affections and his 
 imagination. He realized what a colossal stage it was 
 upon which his comedy had gone forward, and in what a 
 maelstrom of activities his own heart had ridden the 
 storm. 
 
 As he gazed at the tall buildings from the rail of the 
 ferry-boat on its passage down the river, they seemed 
 transfigured into an enchanted, changeless stronghold in 
 which the memory of his love would be forever guarded. 
 Olivia was the city, but he sought other streets and 
 fairer spires. 
 
 The last look brought a last sharp pain of recollec- 
 tion, then he turned his face westward. 
 
 The train flew along through the marshes. Already 
 in the distance the clear intense green of the awakened 
 country shone with all the promises of abundant life. 
 The blossom-scented air brought other memories, and 
 the faces of old friends looked in upon him. Old voices 
 called him, and thoughts and emotions awoke in him 
 which might well have formed part of the immortal res- 
 urrections of the spring. 
 
 (i) 
 
 THE END 
 
 334
 
 > "A beautiful romance of the days of Robert Burns." 
 
 Nancy Stair. 
 
 A Novel. By ELINOR MACARTNEY LANE, author 
 of "Mills of God." Illustrated. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " With very much the grace and charm of Robert Louis 
 Stevenson, the author of ' The Life of Nancy Stair ' com- 
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 " ' The Life of Nancy Stair ' is interesting from the first 
 sentence to the last ; the characters are vital and are, also, 
 most entertaining company; the denouement unexpected 
 and picturesque and cleverly led up to from one of the 
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 hitch. Robert Burns is neither idealized nor caricatured ; 
 Sandy, Jock, Pitcairn, Danvers Carmichael, and the Duke 
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 everybody he knows to read it ; and those who do not care 
 for its literary quality cannot escape the interest of a love- 
 story full of incident and atmosphere." 
 
 " Powerfully and attractively written." Pittsburg Post. 
 " A story best described with the word ' charming.' " 
 
 Washington Post. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
 
 t "Daring in conception and fulfilment." 
 
 Boston Herald. 
 
 Mills of God. 
 
 By ELINOR MACARTNEY LANE. Illustrated. i2mo. 
 Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " It is a good novel in comparison to even the best in current Amer- 
 ican fiction." The New York Herald. 
 
 "The reader will not willingly lay aside the book till the end is 
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 " The story shows maturity, resource, and distinction. It combines 
 the dash and valor of the favorite school of fiction with the poise, acute- 
 ness, and refinement of the reflective type. It is compact of fresh, 
 generous character creation, appealing and exquisite." Boston 7'imes. 
 
 " Her theme is daring and delicate. Notwithstanding, the final 
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 told, the novel exceptional in finish and the careful balance of its parts. ' 
 
 The Washington Star. 
 
 " ' Mills of God' is said to be a woman's first novel, and if this be 
 true the writer, Elinor Macartney Lane, has much to be proud of. She 
 has studied her art and has a serious view of it. It is a well-written, 
 interesting, and readable novel." New York Times Saturday fteview. 
 
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 New York Mail and Express. 
 
 " A romance of extraordinary charm and carries its absorbing story 
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 the romance is too gallant to leave the mind of the reader in a depressed 
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 " A brilliant romance of Virginia ; a deftly woven tale, with passion's 
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 dialogue has an air of life, and is even-pointed and piquant. She has 
 pictured with power, yet with delicacy and reserve, the dawn of a great 
 passion, the futile struggle against it, and the surrender." 
 
 Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
 "A mighty good romance. The diameters are complex human 
 beings, instead of lay-figures for the display of ready-made chivalry, 
 and one remembers both them and their history after laying down the 
 book." Life. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
 
 A NOVEL OF REAL IMPORTANCE. 
 
 The Law of Life. 
 
 By ANNA McCLURE SHOLL. i2mo. Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 This remarkable novel presents an entirely new and a very enter- 
 taining feature of American national and social development. Miss 
 Sholl has sought her inspiration in the life and interests of a large 
 University, as that life is felt and known from the faculty and post- 
 graduate standpoints. The author has brought to this fascinating and 
 unfamiliar subject a close personal knowledge and an enthusiastic 
 appreciation of its possibilities for literary purposes. 
 
 " The book is exceptionally interesting. ... A genuine touch 
 of dramatic power." Harry Thurston Peck. 
 
 " An impassioned romance, told with admirable balance ; absorb- 
 ingly interesting and one of the most vital novels of the day." Lillian 
 Whiting in the Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
 
 " The writer unfolds an every-day tragedy with that touch of inevi- 
 tableness that we usually associate with the work of the masters." New 
 York Evening Telegram. 
 
 " A remarkable story in many respects ; it makes one think, as well 
 as sympathize, and gives pleasure as a tale as well as stimulates as a 
 problem." Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
 " The book has not only a literary grace and distinction, but a 
 sympathetic understanding of conditions, a sense of their artistic values; 
 and a strong feeling for that law of life from which the book takes its 
 title." Louisville Evening Post. 
 
 " Miss Sholl has handled her subject with admirable sureness 
 ol touch, with dignity and proper restraint. Her lovers are be- 
 ings of flesh and blood, not puppets ; she faces the problem fully, 
 fearlessly ; hence the compelling strength of the story, its excep- 
 tional merit as the product of an American pen." Ntw York 
 Mail and Express. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
 
 THE MASTERPIECE OF A MASTER MIND. 
 
 The Prodigal Son. 
 
 By HALL CAINE. i2mo, Ornamental Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 "The Prodigal Son " follows the lines of the Bible para- 
 ble in the principal incidents, but in certain important 
 particulars it departs from them. In a most convincing 
 way, and with rare beauty, the story shows that Christ's 
 parable is a picture of heavenly mercy, and not of human 
 justice, and if it were used as an example of conduct among 
 men it would destroy all social conditions and disturb ac- 
 cepted laws of justice. The book is full of movement and 
 incident, and must appeal to the public by its dramatic 
 story alone. The Prodigal Son at the close of the book 
 has learned this great lesson, and the meaning of the parable 
 is revealed to him. Neither success nor fame can ever wipe 
 out the evil of the past. It is not from the unalterable laws 
 of nature and life that forgiveness can be hoped for. 
 
 " Since ' The Manxman ' Hall Caine has written nothing so moving 
 in its elements of pathos and tragedy, so plainly marked with the power 
 to search the human heart and reveal its secret springs of strength and 
 weakness, its passion and strife, so sincere and satisfying as ' The Prodi- 
 gal Son.' " New York Times, 
 
 " It is done with supreme self-confidence, and the result is a work 
 of genius." New York Evening Post. 
 
 " ' The Prodigal Son ' will hold the reader's attention from cover to 
 cover." Philadelphia Record. 
 
 " This is one of Hall Caine's best novels one that a large portion 
 of the fiction-reading public will thoroughly enjoy." 
 
 Chicago Record-Herald. 
 
 " It is a notable piece of fiction." Philadelphia Inquirer. 
 
 " In ' The Prodigal Son' Hall Caine has produced his greatest work." 
 
 Boston Herald. 
 
 " Mr. Caine has achieved a work of extraordinary merit, a fiction as 
 finely conceived, as deftly constructed, as some of the best work of our 
 living novelists." London Daily Mail. 
 
 " ' The Prodigal Son ' is indeed a notable novel ; and a work that 
 may certainly rank with the best of recent fiction. . . ." 
 
 Westminster Gazette. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
 
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