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GIFT OF 
 Harry East Miller 
 

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GOOD AMERICANS 
 
SHE BESTOWED A NOD AND SMILE UPON PETER DAVENANT. 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. BURTON HARRISON 
 
 AUTHOR OF "AN ERRANT WOOING," " SWEET BELLS OUT 
 OF TUNE," "A BACHELOR MAID," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 1898 
 
Copyright, 1897, 1898, by 
 THE CENTURY Co. 
 
 ~ 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 ^-A WAX 
 
 THE DEVINNE PRESS. 
 
To 
 
 MY TEOOPEK 
 
 MS1931 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 HEN we may depend upon you for the 
 15th?" said Mrs. Grantham, scarcely 
 believing her good luck. 
 
 "So good of you to let me come," 
 suavely answered her school-friend of 
 former days known to the world of 
 fashion, of whom she was the starry leader, and to the 
 other world in our broad continent that comforts its 
 uninteresting existence by reading about the doings of 
 a few New-Yorkers, as Mrs. Jack Stanley. 
 
 " I want to try to get together for you some really 
 clever, cultivated people," went on Mrs. Grantham, a 
 flush of excitement mounting to her cheeks. 
 
 " Do, dear ; I love novelty," rejoined Mrs. Stanley. 
 " Katrina, you have no idea how dull it is, night after 
 night, meeting the same old set ! "When we are stand 
 ing around, waiting for dinner to be announced, I some 
 times wonder which of the men is going to pounce on 
 me, and there s not an emotion in my being for one 
 more than another. But what is to be done ? It is 
 i 1 
 
2 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 our fate. You know We are now building dining- 
 rooms that will just hold Us." 
 
 Mrs. Grantham tried to laugh, but in her heart re 
 sented the .magnificent assumption. For years Hen 
 rietta Stanls^ liad been the fly in her ointment. The 
 ambitious; wif< of a hard-working lawyer recently ele 
 vated to judicial honors, Mrs. Grantham, with her 
 pleasant home and nice little family, should by rights 
 have been contented to keep to her own busy, well-filled 
 orbit, without coveting the periphery in which circled 
 golden butterflies engendered by the luxury of modern 
 New York. 
 
 But although it would have been to her a dreadful 
 trial to live Etta s life, she did not care to think there 
 was in her community any life she might not lead. 
 Besides, Etta was only an accident of fortune. What 
 had occasioned her, nobody asked ; what inspired her 
 distinguished exclusiveness, nobody knew; for her 
 rather dull personality it was certain nobody cared. 
 
 The real reason of this attempt of Mrs. Grantham s 
 to rake the coals from the ashes of her old friendship 
 was a pretty little Miss Grantham, who was to swell 
 the ranks of next season s debutantes. Everybody 
 knows that a girl s coming out alters her family s 
 mode of life and plans. If little Katty as her father 
 inelegantly persisted in calling their domestic treasure 
 had to be in society, it must be in the best there was, 
 said her mama. And if Etta Stanley chose to make 
 the effort, how much she might accomplish for Katty 
 by a mere wave of her wand ! 
 
 Thus, after a considerable interval of tepid half- 
 intercourse with her quondam intimate, Mrs. Grantham, 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 3 
 
 putting her pride in her pocket, had gone that after 
 noon to call at the stately dwelling in which Mr. Stan 
 ley had enshrined the somewhat faded charms of his 
 lady. She had found Etta at home to visitors, a fact 
 that gave Katrina courage to be cordial. The hostess 
 was ensconced in a gilt Louis XV chair with cream- 
 satin cushions, in a salon like an outgrowth of 
 Vudeen s emporium in Fifth Avenue for the sale of 
 effects from foreign palaces. 
 
 Mrs. Grantham, who had been saving for some 
 months out of her housekeeping money in order to 
 purchase for her drawing-room a Morris arm-chair 
 covered in flowery velveteen, had felt depressed at the 
 outset by this trifling circumstance. 
 
 But an agreeable surprise awaited her. Etta had 
 been recently attending a course of lectures on ethical 
 culture, alternating in the ball-rooms of her set. Per 
 haps this contributed to her unwonted mood of agree 
 able acquiescence. Perhaps she had absolutely nothing 
 else to think about. In any case, she had tried the ex 
 periment of being gracious with an old friend. She 
 had inquired for Katrina s husband, daughter, and 
 boys at school. She had offered one or two small 
 anecdotes about her own absent children, and made 
 some allusion to past days. And last of all, when 
 Katrina, emboldened by the thaw in a long-frozen 
 atmosphere, had asked her to dinner on the 15th, Etta 
 had actually said yes. 
 
 The moment after, she had been overtaken by appre 
 hension lest her acceptance was a mistake. 
 
 " They will be highly respectable frumps," she had 
 said within herself. " I wish Jack were not going off 
 
4 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 in the yacht for his West India cruise that day. He 
 always knows what those people talk about." 
 
 " So dear of you to want me," she had murmured, 
 nevertheless. "And you are going to get me some 
 body very nice ? " 
 
 "I shall have Agatha Carnifex, to begin with," said 
 Mrs. G-rantham. 
 
 Miss Carnifex, viewed from every point, was unim 
 peachable. Family, fortune, cleverness, good looks, 
 position all were Agatha s. 
 
 "Agatha? Yes," answered Mrs. Stanley, with an 
 amused little curl of the lip. " Her father, poor dear, 
 is quite one of my pals. He says I rest him after his 
 daughter s pyrotechnics of reform of the human race." 
 
 " Mr. Carnifex will certainly come. He is a great 
 friend of my husband s," went on Katrina, with anima 
 tion. " Besides, I want Agatha as well as you to meet 
 my new young man." 
 
 Only the faintest flutter of interest stirred Mrs. 
 Stanley s exterior. 
 
 " And who, pray, is he ? " 
 
 The answer was interrupted by the arrival of an 
 other visitor a tall, slim, exquisitely pretty girl re 
 sembling a French pastel, and dressed in a costume 
 and hat of black velvet picked out with Russian sables, 
 of which quiet elegance of attire Katrina Grantham 
 made note before she had heard the wearer s name. 
 
 " Katty must have something like that next winter. 
 The really smart people never overdress," she was 
 inwardly saying, when Mrs. Stanley, in a sort of be 
 grudging way, introduced to her "my friend, Miss 
 Sybil Gwynne." 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 6 
 
 " Then I am not too late to make tea for you, dear 
 est ? " said Miss Gwyime to her hostess, tenderly. 
 
 " No, darling ; Barnes is just fetching it," answered 
 Etta, with an effusion entirely lacking in her talk with 
 Mrs. Grantham. 
 
 "I had to drop in at Tilly s to hear her Russian 
 violinist, or she 7 d have never forgiven me," went on 
 the girl. " And after the last piece to which nobody 
 listened, they were in such a hurry to talk over Char 
 ley s engagement with Ethel I beg your pardon," she 
 interrupted herself, turning to the outsider. "This 
 must seem very dull to you. I am sure I caught a 
 much pleasanter sound when I came in. Were not 
 you talking about some entirely new young man * " 
 
 " Mrs. Grantham was telling me of that rara avis? 
 said Etta, yawning a very little. " Pray go on, Katrina, 
 and tell Sybil, too." 
 
 " It was only that I hoped Etta might fancy meeting 
 Peter Davenant," said Mrs. Grantham, deliberately, 
 and with conscious pride in enunciating a name just 
 now so interesting to the public. 
 
 But there was no responsive intelligence in the face 
 of either hearer. 
 
 "Surely you have seen in the papers lately," she 
 hurried on, " of the brilliant work he did in bringing 
 about the conviction of Judge McStephen in the trial 
 of his impeachment ? " 
 
 " We have papers," admitted the hostess, languidly ; 
 " but Jack always keeps them in the smoking-room." 
 
 "I am afraid you will think us very uninformed," 
 added Miss Gwynne, more tactfully ; " but really we 
 never heard of Judge McStephen." 
 
6 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 " I forget that everybody is not as much at home in 
 such matters as I must be," answered Katrina, with 
 dignity. "And perhaps I was influenced by Agatha 
 Carnifex having told me there was no one in town she 
 wanted so much to meet as Davenant." 
 
 "Really?" said Etta, changing her right foot for 
 the left upon her gilded footstool. 
 
 " He is a type of the best latter-day American, and 
 looks like an 1840 portrait of a gentleman/ with 
 manners to match old-fashioned and courtly stands 
 with his hat off in the street while talking to women 
 Sir Charles Grandison, you know thinks all women 
 are goddesses, or ought to be." 
 
 "Decidedly not du monde, then," interrupted the 
 hostess, rearranging some roses that leaned toward 
 her in a tall emerald-glass vase. 
 
 "I am afraid not of your world," said Katrina. 
 " For years he plodded along in a subordinate position 
 here, before an opportunity came to prove himself. 
 Now, the wise men say, it 7 s only a question of time 
 before he gets to the very top of the ladder. When 
 he began, a stranger from a dead Southern town where 
 he had been admitted to practice, he was poor as a 
 church-mouse, and knew nobody. Now, though still 
 poor, he is the most talked of among the youngsters 
 of his profession." 
 
 "And a youngster means?" asked Sybil, archly. 
 
 "A rising young lawyer till he is sixty, and after 
 that a leader of the bar," answered Mrs. Grantham, 
 smiling. " Davenant is about thirty years old, but in 
 ignorance of worldly things ; just a big, trustful, affec 
 tionate, headstrong, ardent boy. I m sure the women 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 7 
 
 of society who would care to experiment on him would 
 find him virgin soil." 
 
 The phrase, taking hold of Mrs. Stanley, caused her 
 to sit up and forward, on her chair of state. The 
 servants, coming in to light lamps, revealed her por 
 celain-tinted face with the near-sighted pale-blue eyes, 
 under a mass of craped blonde hair, kindled with a 
 faint animation. 
 
 " And I am to meet this paragon at dinner ? " she 
 said. " Don t fail to put him on one side of me, Ka- 
 trina. And why can t you be awfully nice, and give 
 poor Sybil, too, a chance at Mr. Davenant ? " 
 
 " I shall be only too happy to have Miss Gwynne," 
 said Mrs. Grantham, promptly, although at the mo 
 ment she reflected that this would cut off one of the 
 " duty " dames whom she had meant to work in on the 
 occasion of entertaining Mrs. Stanley. After all, Miss 
 G wynne was so pretty, so fine of grain, so perfect 
 a product of high civilization, it would always be a 
 pleasure to have had her. 
 
 Sybil protested, but was overcome by Etta s rather 
 too frank solicitations. 
 
 "Yes, dearest, you must go ; I will take no denial; 
 it will make it so much more I mean I will call for 
 you, and we can talk in the carriage coming home. 
 Here is the tea at last; pray, Katrina, don t go till 
 you have had some. And here come more people ; I 
 hope among them you may find somebody worth talk 
 ing to." 
 
 That was an attractive gathering in the spacious 
 drawing-room with broad windows looking over into 
 the bare boughs and wintry sage-green reaches of turf 
 
8 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 of the park opposite. The people composing it, in 
 cluding two or three well-authenticated foreigners, 
 were easy, low-toned, well-bred, well-dressed without 
 ostentation. In that each seemed to be in a place 
 recognized by the others, it was in some respects the 
 ideal society. Mrs. Grantham, who fell into conver 
 sation with a lively widow, Mrs. Arden, lingered on 
 to hear what this lady had to say about Mrs. Stanley s 
 delightful tea-maker, Miss Gwynne. 
 
 "Sybil is almost new to New York, last season 
 being her first here. A niece of Mrs. St. Clair Lewiston, 
 you know, with whom she lives. Educated altogether 
 abroad, and has had unusual opportunities there, hav 
 ing been presented at half the courts of Europe. If 
 poor Mrs. Gwynne had n t died in harness, so to speak, 
 running around with her daughter to all the smart 
 resorts of the Continent year after year, Sybil might 
 never have known America. But she was an only 
 child, and after her mother s death Mrs. Lewiston 
 went out, and in time brought her back. What was 
 it Paul Bourget called Sybil ? The fine* fleur of Ameri 
 can aristocracy, I think, or some such phrase, that 
 has stuck by her. She is adorably pretty and dainty j 
 don t you think so ? Rather too quiet, perhaps ; but 
 such graceful manners. As soon as Etta Stanley saw 
 Sybil, of course she appropriated her for a bosom 
 friend, and now they are inseparable. Etta finds 
 something cliic in a crony not exactly a foreigner, 
 but who might as well be one for all she under 
 stands of her own country. But, then, who can pre 
 dict what may happen! With this Revolutionary- 
 Sons of the Cincinnati-Colonial Dames business all 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 9 
 
 over the place, patriotism may be in again next 
 year." 
 
 " My dear lady, what heretical sentiments ! " said a 
 smug, merry-faced gentleman of middle age, who now 
 returned to them after setting down their tea-cups. 
 " I in sure I bank upon my nationality abroad in 
 England especially, where we re much more in vogue 
 when a trifle startling, or at least dialectic. I heard, 
 by the way, a kind lady, who had never dreamed of 
 doing such a thing at home, called upon to read aloud 
 one of Miss Wilkins s short stories, in a country-house 
 party, last summer ; and the mess she made of it was 
 astonishing. People sat around shading their eyes 
 with their hands, solemn as owls ! And you know our 
 Lady Greenwich has written home to her friends, for 
 heaven s sake to send her out a lot of outrageously 
 slangy Americanisms to learn by heart, or she 11 never 
 be a l go. " 
 
 " I can believe it," said Mrs. Grantkam, " after just 
 reading an English story by , with incidental Ameri 
 cans of unique vulgarity to represent our best society." 
 
 " Never mind," said Mr. Cleve, comfortably. " The 
 author is young, and will live to know better. Be 
 sides, I forgive anybody who entertains me decently 
 in these days. And, with all their talk in the air, they re 
 awfully nice to us, individually, over there. But speak 
 ing of people being put under contribution to entertain 
 each other in English homes, I have at last found my 
 metier. I tried it modestly last year, and was quite a 
 blazing success as a teller of American anecdotes racy 
 of the soil. Since then I ve subscribed to one of those 
 newspaper-clipping chaps, and he sends me a hundred 
 
10 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 assorted jokes for five dollars. I pick out the best, 
 and study them while I m shaving. Last night a 
 Western fellow who dined with me at the club gave 
 me three brand-new ones. Like to hear them ? 
 
 "Number 1. Eastern man at a Western hotel (at 
 tended at table by a waitress too superior to waste 
 words upon a mere hungry customer). 
 
 " Man : l I 11 take some berry-pie, please. 
 
 " Waitress (coldly and rapidly) : l Straw, ras , huckle, 
 or goose 1 
 
 11 Number 2. Traveler from frontier district, strik 
 ing hotel where advanced fashions have obtained, 
 observes, with an expression of pleased surprise, the 
 finger-bowl set before him at the close of his meal. 
 
 " * What s this for, waiter V 
 
 " i To wash your hands, sir/ 
 
 " 1 1 wish I d a-know d it fore I began my dinner. 
 
 "And Number 3. You will imagine yourself in a 
 railroad hostelry of the lightning-change variety, 
 where a deliberate diner has just taken his seat at 
 table, and is approached by the breathless waiter. 
 
 " l Will you have bean-soup ? 
 
 " < Well, let me see. I think I 11- 
 
 " Dinner s over ! " 
 
 It was impossible to resist Mr. Cleve s chuckling 
 enjoyment of his own fun. The wrinkles around his 
 eyes became puckered so comically, his laugh rolled 
 out so like mellow wine from an ancient bottle, his 
 hearers could but join in the chorus. Having made 
 his little coup, the amiable gentleman waggled off to 
 another coterie, where he was heard repeating the 
 same jokes. 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 11 
 
 " I will say for the old beau that he has a different 
 set every time, and that they are sometimes new," re 
 marked Mrs. Grantham s companion. " Also, that his 
 dinners of eight or ten are feasts to be remembered 
 for substantial excellence. We were talking about? " 
 
 " Sybil G wynne and the fact that she is a foreign- 
 bred American. Is she happy here?" asked Mrs. 
 Grantham, who had a way of her own of coming to 
 the point. 
 
 " Happy ! Who would n t be who is so tremendously 
 petted and extolled as she happens to be just now? 
 Etta Stanley has put the finishing touch upon her 
 vogue. And although Sybil s mother left her but a 
 small income, her aunt is rich and lavish, and the girl 
 is like a princess in a fairy-tale, so far as knowing 
 about real life." 
 
 "She has no love-affair on?" 
 
 " I think not. A lot of young fellows run after her ; 
 but they do it mechanically, like little figures in a 
 street puppet-box, that jump the same way at the 
 same moment. Her life is spent in the most conven 
 tional round one can imagine. But she is not dull or 
 vapid. On the contrary, I think Sybil has excellent 
 ability, some sense of humor, and a sweet temper. 
 All I have to complain of is that she is unreal, out of 
 place in her present setting like a charming actress 
 who has come to fill a brief engagement upon our 
 boards before returning to the place where she was 
 trained. Dear me ! Six o clock ? I must fly. So 
 nice to have seen you again. Next year, when you ve 
 a daughter to bring out, you 11 be obliged to be in the 
 treadmill like the rest of us. Last night I sat on a 
 
12 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 dais watching my two girls spin until 2 : 30 A. M. To 
 night we have a large dinner at home, the opera, and 
 the Tuesday dance. And I have already been to-day 
 to the dentist with Hal to have his bad tooth out, and 
 after that to hear a string quartet concert, before com 
 ing here. You do look fresh, Katrina! But only 
 wait. This time next year peep in the glass, and see 
 if you find the same face smiling back at you ! Good- 
 by, good-by." 
 
 When Mrs. Grantham went down the broad steps to 
 let Mrs. Stanley s curbstone footman put her into her 
 modest cab, she found the way blocked by a well- 
 appointed little brougham, into which a young man 
 was about to assist the beauty, Miss Sybil Gwynne. 
 
 " I am sorry to be in your way," smiled the young 
 lady. " Won t you let Mr. Ainslie this is Mr. Ains- 
 lie, Mrs. Grantham put you in yours first?" 
 
 "I hope Katty will always do and say things to 
 older people as prettily as that," thought Katty s 
 mama, while the youthful Corydon in a long frock- 
 coat doffed his high, shining hat, and stepped back to 
 do his lady s bidding. 
 
 " I m sure I m very much obliged to you for creat 
 ing a diversion," said he, in answer to the older lady s 
 thanks ; " Miss Gwynne has been lecturing me so that 
 I don t know which end I stand upon." 
 
 " For shame ! " cried Sybil. " You have got the true 
 American habit of exaggeration. I merely told him, 
 Mrs. Grantham, that New York young men ought to 
 take the matter into their own hands, and try to make 
 themselves enjoy life more." 
 
 " I like your calling me a New York young man," 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 13 
 
 put in Ainslie, " considering I was born in Paris, edu 
 cated in England, and have spent most of my summers 
 knocking around the Continent." 
 
 "Well, a good American young man, if you like 
 that better." 
 
 "It is so hard," said Ainslie, whimsically, " to be a 
 good American when one knows only New York, Bos 
 ton, Washington, a little bit of Baltimore, and all of 
 Newport. When I try to take in the monotony of the 
 rest of our country, my interest becomes homeopathi- 
 cally diluted." 
 
 " Oh, dear ! " exclaimed Katrina Grantham, really 
 shocked, and moving toward her carriage, into which 
 she got, only to be detained by their further re 
 marks. 
 
 "Now don t you think he deserves my lectures/ 
 Mrs. Grantham ? " said Sybil Gwynne, lightly. 
 
 " I am not a good judge ; I live with people who 
 believe in so many things," replied Mrs. Grantham, 
 hurriedly. 
 
 "It >s more my misfortune than my fault, Mrs. 
 Grantham," went on Ainslie, a fresh-colored young 
 man of very open and engaging countenance. " To 
 prove it, I have deliberately and in cold blood come 
 back here to live. I hope the gods who sit up above 
 and reward us mortals with more or less discrimina 
 tion will confer on me a large share of what do they 
 confer ambrosia? no ; I have an aunt who gives me 
 ambrosia-cake for tea, and it ; s uncommonly nasty 
 asphodel well, anything you like for my self-sacri 
 fice in becoming a poor republican." 
 
 " Tell him to drive on, please," said Katrina to Mrs. 
 
14 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 Stanley s footman. "Good-by," she nodded to the 
 pair standing upon the sidewalk. 
 
 As she drove away Sybil turned to the young man 
 reproachfully. 
 
 " There, now j you have made another sensible per 
 son think of you as a rather civil outlaw. 7 
 
 " The difference between us is that you think these 
 things about our native land, and I say them. I sup 
 pose I may n t share the privilege of your Aunt Lewis- 
 ton s cozy little brougham and drive home with you ? " 
 
 " Certainly not," said Sybil. 
 
 "Not if I am dropped at the corner nearest my 
 club?" 
 
 " No," she replied inexorably. 
 
 " Very well, then. In London you would n t have 
 minded letting me come with you. I can t afford a 
 hansom in New York ; so I 11 just hie me to a street 
 car, and pack in with thirty or forty dingy people go 
 ing home from work. I shall be jostled and punched 
 out of all semblance of decency, and my only over 
 coat will be strained in the seams till have you no 
 pity on my only overcoat? Are you aware what it 
 costs to buy a new one of a tailor here ? " 
 
 " Very sorry ; but home, please," said Sybil, letting 
 herself be shut inside the little carriage, from which 
 her fair loveliness shone out like a star. 
 
 The latter part of her remark, being addressed to 
 the footman, was at once transmitted to the power 
 upon the box, and the brougham moved away. Ains- 
 lie, lifting his hat and smiling pleasantly, stood there 
 until she had disappeared from view. 
 
 " What a nice boy ! " Sybil thought to herself, as 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 15 
 
 she settled back into the soft cushions j " though at 
 twenty-eight he should hardly be called a boy. He 
 amuses me more than any one, and we understand 
 each other perfectly ; but I wish he would sometimes 
 seem to be in earnest about something." 
 
 Sybil Gwynne was engaged in trying faithfully to 
 adapt herself to a complete change of thought and 
 habit in daily life. The Old- World tinge in her was, 
 by dint of constant application to the claims of her 
 present busy, sparkling life, gradually fading out. 
 The people with whom her lot was cast certainly un 
 derstood the art of living in its high material sense, 
 and, from dawn to dawn again, with discreet intervals 
 for sleep, her days were passed in pursuit of pleasant 
 things. 
 
 Yet there was something lacking just what, she 
 was not prepared to say. The second season of this 
 brilliant existence had begun to drag with her. Wher 
 ever she turned, there was the same perspective of 
 solvent, restless folk intent upon accumulating and 
 displaying the decorations of life, which, it must be 
 said, their opportunities for culture and observation 
 enabled them to appreciate perfectly. And, beyond 
 these, Sybil saw nothing of her fellow-Americans. 
 Her sole idea of her countrymen and -women was a 
 class privileged to make ducks and drakes of any ob 
 stacles in the way of their desires a class spending a 
 few months of the winter in palaces in town, then, at 
 the first hint of spring, wafting themselves away to 
 some far southland in yachts or steamers, or else 
 pounding the railway lines of the continent with the 
 wheels of their private cars in search of softer airs 
 
16 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 and change ; in the early summer running over to 
 London or Paris for the season and for shopping j at 
 midsummer returning to chateaux at Newport, Bar 
 Harbor, Lenox, or on the Hudson, there to live the 
 lives of the princes of the earth. Did any one of them 
 fancy founding an estate, might not he purchase vast 
 acres of primeval woodland, and in a few months 7 time 
 adorn it with roads, plantations, bridges, drains, out 
 buildings, stables, hothouses, lawns, gardens, walls 
 covered with vines, and a house built and fitted up by 
 relays of mechanics, working at night by electric light 
 to fulfil the contract by a date fixed ? There was no 
 end to it. As fast as one favored being had accom 
 plished some wonder of Aladdin s lamp, and before 
 his friends had ceased admiring it, a successor would 
 arise to send his rocket even higher into the zenith ! 
 And the effect of this upon their community was not 
 inspiring. In the intervals of phenomenal surprises 
 no one could settle down to coherent thought and 
 purpose. Unless the head-lines in society events were 
 as astonishing as those in the daily newspapers, peo 
 ple felt a little bit aggrieved. The fad of haste and 
 unrest was a result. In the perpetual chase after nov 
 elty Sybil felt herself, like the rest, becoming breath 
 less without a cause j becoming trivial, disconnected, 
 artificial, and, at times like the present, wondering 
 what it is all worth. 
 
 Sybil was, in fact, in the state of mind in which 
 some women join sewing-classes and go to Lenten 
 services, or violently visit the unoffending poor. As 
 she drove down the long avenue to Washington 
 Square, she found herself dwelling with satisfaction 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 17 
 
 upon the fine lines and earnest, dependable expression 
 of Katrina Grantham s face. Here, at last, was an 
 acquaintance who offered her some variation upon the 
 society by which she was surrounded. The invitation 
 to Katrina s dinner, although extorted by Mrs. Stan 
 ley, had been graciously given. 
 
 " Do you reaUy think I had better ? " Sybil had found 
 time afterward to convey in a whisper to her hostess, 
 with a glance in the direction of unconscious Katrina. 
 
 " Of course," Mrs. Stanley had said bluntly. " Do 
 you suppose she does n t know you will be a l card ? " 
 
 " Card " or not, Sybil continued to dwell upon the 
 thought of the 15th with animation. To get out of 
 her groove, to mix a little with brain- workers and pos 
 sessors of the mental power that makes the wheels of 
 great New York go round, was a decided event. And 
 more than once she recurred to what Mrs. Grantham 
 had said about the " new young man. 77 The terms of 
 the lady s phraseology were so different from those 
 applied to the heroes of her horizon in general. 
 
 " I am going to meet a l best latter-day American/ " 
 she said, smiling at herself in the mirror, while the 
 maid dressed her hair. " I have n t an idea what is an 
 * 1840 portrait of a gentleman. But I recognize Sir 
 Charles Grandison, and I like a man who thinks all 
 women ought to be goddesses. i Big, trustful, head 
 strong, ardent. 7 Oh, dear ! what a very out-of-the- 
 way individual he must be ! " 
 
 Sybil s ordinary evening frock in company was of 
 plain white satin; for, as Mrs. Arden said, " These 
 dinner-girls leave nothing for the brides ! " It became 
 her admirably; and as she followed Mrs. Stanley, 
 
18 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 twenty minutes after time, into Mrs. Grantham s draw 
 ing-room, that deep-red-vestured apartment, hung with 
 the satin damask that had been Katrina s mother s, 
 seemed to have received into it a lily tall and fair 
 upon a virgin stalk. They went in to dinner almost 
 immediately, Mr. Justice Grantham, as a matter of 
 course, leading off with Mrs. Stanley, who, having 
 what she called la grippe (in reality only a good old- 
 fashioned cold in the head), looked swelled and stupe 
 fied. The splendor of her tiara, the luster of her 
 pearls, could not eclipse or cause to be forgotten a 
 very decided redness about the great lady s nose j and 
 during the soup she could hardly speak for physical 
 reasons, combined with deep anxiety lest they should 
 not serve champagne directly with the fish. 
 
 " In this kind of a house they will be likely to keep 
 it back till the saddle of mutton/ 7 she thought mourn 
 fully; but after her first mouthful of timbale, when 
 the life-giving golden fluid flowed bubbling into her 
 glass, Mrs. Stanley sipped and was consoled. Mrs. 
 Grantham, observing these things from afar, had now 
 but one surviving concern lest her dignified and 
 sarcastic husband, whom she had heard repeatedly 
 inveigh against fine ladies of the stripe of her old 
 friend Etta who, ever since her announcement of the 
 present banquet, had peppered her with small shot of 
 ridicule for attempting a Stanley affair who at the 
 time of going to his room to dress had been gloomily 
 foreboding utter failure for the whole entertainment 
 should allow this frame of mind to appear in his 
 conversation with their chief guest ! 
 
 What was her relief, upon peeping between a relic 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 19 
 
 of the ancestral Granthams a silver christening-bowl 
 filled with red roses and the candelabra on four sides 
 of it blooming with crimson shades, to behold the head 
 of her household engaged in the most brilliant banter 
 at his command with the lady at his right! Mr. 
 Grantham was not only what wives call " laying him 
 self out to do the proper thing " : he was apparently 
 engaged in " being fascinating on his own account." 
 And Etta was warming into such suavity as Mrs. 
 Grantham had not seen her show since Etta was a 
 girl! 
 
 " I wish, for their own sakes, men could be a little 
 more consistent," flashed through the hostess s mind j 
 " but just now this is a heaven-send, and I 11 never in 
 the world cast it up at Mowbray. And the sweet 
 breads are just right, thank goodness ! Etta seems to 
 have forgotten all about her desire to cultivate Dave- 
 nant, but that leaves him free to make friends with 
 Sybil Gwynne. I did not think it worth while to tell 
 those two women that I have made up my mind to a 
 match between Davenant and Agatha Carnifex. It 
 was part of my deep-laid plot to put the two opposite 
 each other, instead of side by side, at their first meet 
 ing. I must not seem to throw them at each other s 
 heads. Agatha, I am sure, was sent from heaven to 
 complete the destiny of a fine, ambitious man like 
 Davenant. Nothing would induce me to let my hus 
 band know how much this fancy has taken hold of 
 me." 
 
 Miss Carnifex, seated between the grave and distin 
 guished inventor of a flying-machine that needed only 
 capital to launch it triumphantly into space, and a 
 
20 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 young African explorer just returned from the heart 
 of the Black Continent, appeared entirely at ease, and 
 unconscious of the schemes projected for her by the 
 lady of the house. She was a stately girl of six-and- 
 twenty, to whom the control, for some years past, of 
 her father s widowed establishment had lent an air of 
 command and self-dependence, the possessor of some 
 beauty, more intelligence, an active habit of mind and 
 body, and many theories. The consciousness that her 
 organization was of a finer quality than that of most 
 people she met gave Agatha perhaps a little compla 
 cency in considering herself, but it did not interfere 
 with her ready generosity toward the needs and short 
 comings of others. She was always occupied with 
 some scheme that, whether satisfactorily to herself or 
 not, she carried to its end. She had made many mis 
 takes, suffered a few acute disappointments, and still 
 went on journeying up the arc of her rainbow, expect 
 ing some day to find the pot of gold happiness at 
 the other end of it. One additional peculiarity of 
 Miss Carnifex should be noted. She was a devoted 
 American, a student of history, a Colonial Dame, a 
 conservator of family traditions; and although she 
 had traveled, seen, and experienced as much as most 
 young women of her surroundings, invariably re 
 turned with enthusiasm to her own sphere of duty 
 and pleasure. 
 
 One can appreciate, therefore, Mrs. Grantham s con 
 viction that an opportunity had come to her to make 
 two deserving people happy and complete their use 
 fulness to their kind. But, as the dinner that was to 
 lead up to this desirable state of things progressed, she 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 21 
 
 became painfully aware that, while the attention of 
 Miss Carnif ex more than once wavered away from her 
 scientist and explorer to pass in swift review the per 
 sonal claims of her supposed alter ego, Mr. Peter Dav- 
 enant kept his eyes and ears for Miss Sybil Gwynne 
 alone. Having done what civility demanded for the 
 lady at his other side, he had talked, with every evi 
 dence of keen delight in this preoccupation, to the 
 beautiful creature, who, as Katrina said to her vexed 
 inner self, was no more suited to his workaday needs 
 than a Dresden figurine is appropriate to a bronze 
 pedestal in the park. 
 
II 
 
 URING the years that Peter Davenant 
 had been at the grindstone in New 
 York he had found it convenient to 
 dispense almost altogether with ro 
 mantic sentiment. What little he re 
 tained centered in the memory of his 
 mother, now passed out of life, and of his Southern 
 home going to decay amid many acres of plantation 
 land, rich in picturesque greenery and semi-tropic 
 blooms but not in crops. 
 
 Sometimes he would step to the window of his office 
 in a " sky-scraping " edifice down-town, looking up at 
 the space of sunny blue sky above the canon formed 
 by high walls on either side, to be poignantly assailed 
 by his earliest recollections. He seemed to see again 
 the coral branches of the redbud, the waving of gar 
 lands of gray moss and yellow jasmine, the gleam 
 of humming-birds and black butterflies with silver- 
 spotted wings, that, when in boy hood he lay upon the 
 ground to look upward, used to be printed upon such 
 a background of vivid azure. 
 
 Then, with a sigh, he would turn back to desk and 
 chair and dull routine. His pleasure was dealing with 
 affairs in the court-room ; his penance, office work. 
 
 22 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 23 
 
 But he was interested in all of it, and out of the inter 
 views with keen-faced men of business wearing rusty 
 tweed suits, who denned their clever ideas in idiomatic 
 Americanese, often got inspiration of an active sort. 
 With all the energy of a nature that must have outlet 
 for its strength, he believed in his life, efforts, ambi 
 tions, influences. What had at first offended his finer 
 sense in some of his co-workers was accepted as a 
 means toward an end. Out of this training-school for 
 robust citizenship he had come harder externally, but 
 within full of enthusiasm for humanity, and tender as 
 a woman toward what touched his heart. 
 
 Now, at thirty, having in hand some of the prizes 
 for which he had striven doughtily, and being on the 
 way to a wider sphere of independent action, he knew 
 moments when the song of the siren sounded in his 
 ear, calling on him to rest and listen and let his eyes 
 glisten with pleasure and love and jubilee. Until 
 recently he had sought no place among the people to 
 whom by training and antecedents he belonged. The 
 only women he knew had been encountered in board 
 ing-houses, and were of the class that flood the shop 
 ping-streets of a fine afternoon, that perfume them 
 selves with cheap scents,struggle over bargain-counters, 
 and indoors read " society columns," dreaming of an 
 El Dorado wherein their husbands or fathers may, by 
 some lucky fluke, lift them up to be a part of this 
 coveted social whirl. Commonplace men vulgar 
 men, even Davenant was resigned to live and work 
 among. They had almost always the redeeming 
 quality of an unaffected desire to follow their destined 
 walk in life, and were often of the stuff that has gone 
 
24 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 into the real greatness of the western continent. But 
 a vulgar woman he could not endure or approach, and 
 a commonplace woman wearied him thoroughly. 
 
 When, therefore, this big, masterful, and self-suffi 
 cient young man found himself suddenly brought into 
 contact with one of the exotic specimens of a highly 
 cultured race, a creature as far apart from him in 
 habit of life and mode of thought as the poles are 
 separate, the result was like a rifle-shot going through 
 his breast. Before the ices were handed at Mrs. 
 Grantham s dinner, he was asking himself, in a sort of 
 sweet distraction, what was the nature of this pang 
 she had made him feel. How had he lived through 
 so many long, arid years without feeling it before ? 
 What would his future life be worth if he could n t feel 
 it repeatedly, enduringly? 
 
 Every bit of her, from the crown of her small, well- 
 set head to the tips of her rose-tinted fingers, satisfied 
 his fastidious tastes. The soft voice that caressed his 
 ear in her pleasant discourse was in such delicious 
 contrast with those nasal tones most familiar to him 
 in her sex. Even the measured conventionalism of 
 her manner pleased him. It was thus he would have 
 the woman he honored bear herself in the presence of 
 a stranger. The bounce, the swagger, the challenge 
 or open coquetry of commoner clay had at no time 
 stirred his pulse like Sybil Gwynne s cool unconscious 
 ness of their personal relation. Sybil also represented 
 to him a world from which the nature of his occupa 
 tions and ambitions had well-nigh shut him out the 
 world of travel, leisure, acquaintance with things ar 
 tistic and picturesque ; as, for instance, when she told 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 25 
 
 him of her sensations, the year before, in coming upon 
 the sarcophagus of the great Alexander in the Tchi- 
 mili-Kiosk at Constantinople. 
 
 "I had read of it heard of it," said she; "but 
 what is that to seeing an object so noble, so elevating ? 
 When I stood face to face with that more than two- 
 thousau drears-old casket of Pentelic marble, carved 
 with the deep heroic frieze and decked with those 
 lovely rose-and-lilac-tinted garlands, I felt actually 
 lifted up; I knew I was looking at one of the Old 
 World s rarest masterpieces of art. One has some 
 thing of that feeling standing before the l Venus of 
 Melos or the t Winged Victory. 7 But not even the 
 Parthenon at sunset gave me just the impression I 
 had from Alexander s tomb. 7 
 
 Poor Davenant, who knew much more than she did 
 ^frout the conquering hero s life and deeds, and yet 
 had never got so far away from his own country as 
 the docks at Liverpool, felt arise in him, not envy of 
 this slender, favored girl, but an impulse to embody 
 her with the classic images she evoked those choice 
 treasures he had always longed to see and bow down 
 before. He murmured something about looking up 
 the back number of a magazine that had had an arti 
 cle on the " find " of the so-called Alexander s sarcoph 
 agus, in Sidon, in 1885. He even coldly discussed the 
 part taken in this discovery by the American mis 
 sionaries then in Syria. And all the while he was 
 singing in his heart : " It is she who is fit to be among 
 the rarest, the finest works of the old Pentelic sculp 
 tors. Could I carve, she should stand for my ideal, 
 and, when finished, I would put my work on the top- 
 
26 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 most pinnacle of Parnassus or Athens, and then kneel 
 down and worship it." 
 
 Mrs. Stanley, feeling better of her cold, and having 
 to acknowledge herself well entertained by her host, 
 now turned to Mr. Davenant. Although it was near 
 the time for the ladies to leave the table, she had ex 
 changed with him but a few banalities. 
 
 "I wonder if you have anything on for Monday 
 evening?" she said languidly, looking at him with 
 half-shut eyes. 
 
 Davenant tried to think. There was the Patrick Q. 
 O Shaughnessy Association dinner, at which some of 
 his henchmen were urging him to drop in and make 
 them a much-needed speech. 
 
 " Because, if you have n t," went on the lady, with 
 an air of never having heard of a refusal of one of her 
 invitations, "perhaps you will dine with us, I mean 
 Sybil Gwynne and me, and go to the opera afterward. 
 There will be only Mr. Ainslie besides my husband, 
 as you know, sailed to-day in the yacht for the West 
 Indies." 
 
 He knew as little of her husband as Mrs. Stanley 
 had known about the unjust judge whose career Peter 
 had helped to cut short j but he bowed to the informa 
 tion, rejoiced, in spite of himself, at her bidding to 
 meet Sybil Gwynne. 
 
 " Does er Miss Gwynne live with you ? " he asked, 
 thrillingly conscious of a flow of white satin that bil 
 lowed close on the other side of him. 
 
 " Sybil dear me, no ! She lives with a very tire 
 some old cat, her aunt, Mrs. Lewiston, who is an em 
 bodiment of colonial New York. Her dining-room is 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 27 
 
 filled with General Washington pictures, and all that 
 sort of thing. I believe she has got Benjamin Frank 
 lin woven in silk, under glass, upon her wall. Agatha 
 Carnifex would have been just the niece for her in 
 stead of Sybil, who is dimly conscious of General 
 Washington s habit of veracity, and that he was the 
 father of an overgrown country we all get away from 
 whenever we can do it. Mrs. Lewiston hates me, be 
 cause Sybil comes with me, and because I hate Mrs. 
 Lewiston. So there you are ! But Sybil is a dear." 
 
 Whenever language failed Mrs. Stanley in which to 
 sum up any one rejoicing in the beams of her ap 
 proval, she epitomized him or her as a " dear." George 
 Meredith and Tolstoi were "dears"; the charming 
 young wife of the then President was a "dear"; so 
 were the Pope, Mr. Gladstone, her bishop, Jean de 
 Reszke, and the French artist who had just finished 
 her portrait. 
 
 " You do me too much honor," said Davenant. " I 
 shall be most happy to come to you on Monday." 
 
 " At seven-thirty, then, please ; and I shall try my 
 best to be down-stairs in time. Do you know, 1 m 
 wondering why nobody ever told me what a nice hus 
 band Katrina Grantham has got. He has actually 
 made me laugh. So much better than old Cleve, with 
 his cut-and-dried little stories. Now, mind you don t 
 forget Monday. You are sure you ve not promised 
 anybody else ? " 
 
 Davenant thought, with a shudder, of the Patrick 
 Q. O Shaughnessys, with their green rosettes, howling 
 and thumping on the table, smoking and speechmak- 
 ing, to the music of a brass band in the gallery. 
 
28 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 " Nobody that I dare not forsake for you," he said 
 with prompt gallantry. 
 
 "Pretty well for an unsophisticated beginner/ 7 
 thought Mrs. Stanley, "when I remember Reggy 
 Banks telling me he d come to me at the opera if his 
 valet did n t forget to put him in mind of it, and 
 Lewis Ford, who asked why Jack put out his second- 
 best whisky for the smoking-room. This man looks 
 like a medieval Florentine would do for Paolo in a 
 Francesca da Eimini tableau; seems smitten with 
 Sybil, rather. Perhaps he is piqued because I did n t 
 take notice of him a little earlier." 
 
 It was Etta s delusion that she was a great lady out 
 of a French novel, who must, for consistency s sake, 
 be provided with a hopeless adorer, if not a grande 
 passion. As a matter of fact, not even the women s 
 luncheon parties or sewing-classes had been able to 
 detect in her the most trivial lapse in propriety ; and 
 Jack might come and Jack might go without fear of 
 experiencing an emotion of jealousy toward his spouse. 
 The youngsters in attendance on her were on free-and- 
 easy terms of comradeship, which, valuing their sub 
 stantial privileges in her establishment, they gave no 
 token of a wish to exchange for deeper sentiment. 
 But Etta could not refrain from thinking of herself 
 as a fascinator, and her fancy was to make plans for 
 tete-a-tetes, as often as not forgotten when the time 
 came. As the ladies now arose to leave the table, she 
 did not neglect to engage Mr. Justice Grantham to 
 come to call on her, at four-fifteen, the following 
 Sunday afternoon, which, much to his own surprise, 
 that gentleman found himself promising to do. He 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 29 
 
 was glad, though, that Katrina was at the far forward 
 end of the line of fair ones the men were conducting 
 into exile. And when he thought of what his darling 
 mischief, Katty, would say if she knew of this diva 
 gation on her revered father s part, a little flush came 
 into his face. 
 
 " Until Sunday, then," Etta said to him, in a confi 
 dential undertone, as they parted. 
 
 " What ! You are not going to run away now, be 
 fore we get in there?" asked Grantham, rather stu 
 pidly. 
 
 "No; but one never knows what opportunity at 
 four-fifteen, remember," she answered with her best 
 air of mystery, only to ignore the engagement long 
 before Sunday came though, as Grantham went that 
 day for a walk with Katty instead, no great harm was 
 done, and when Mrs. Stanley next met him in the 
 lobby at the opera-house, she had to ask Sybil who 
 was that rather good-looking man who bowed to them. 
 
 " My dear Katrina, your house is charming, your 
 husband is charming, and my cold is lots better for 
 coming out," she said, settling down in a sovereign 
 manner amid the cushions of Katrina s Morris chair in 
 the drawing-room. " Pray talk to me a little now, 
 and let those two girls take care of each other." 
 
 Agatha Carnifex and Sybil, who had gravitated to 
 gether naturally, were sitting apart on a small Chip 
 pendale sofa built for two. This left unattached the 
 fifth lady of their party, Mrs. Willoughby, who, not 
 having had a chance at the planet of fashion during 
 dinner, was disposed to make up for it now. 
 
 Mrs. Willoughby, too, was a leader, but her king- 
 
30 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 dom and Mrs. Stanley s were not the same, and Mrs. 
 Willoughby was quite willing to leave her throne and 
 take a footstool in Mrs. Stanley s domain. To say 
 why this should have been I leave to some one suffi 
 ciently astute to solve the social riddle of New York. 
 Mrs. Willoughby was every whit as well entitled to 
 supremacy as Mrs. Stanley. Mrs. Grantham, who 
 owed the lesser light a dinner, had hesitated a little 
 about making use of this occasion to liquidate the 
 debt j but since Mrs. Arden, who had been first invited, 
 had fallen out, as well as three other desirable " unat 
 tached" females bidden to fill the vacancy, and Mr. 
 Chetwood, the famous ^bachelor lawyer who carried 
 sweetness and light to every dinner-table on his list, 
 had been called away to Washington, what was a poor 
 hostess to do ? Mrs. Grantham filled up with Mr. and 
 Mrs. Willoughby. 
 
 Mrs. Willoughby, eminent in charities, a great pa 
 troness of musical and dramatic recitals, and of de 
 serving beginners in general, was just at present in 
 the throes of having moved into a grand new house. 
 This complaint, so common among New-Yorkers, had 
 attacked her in a virulent form. Most of her days, of 
 late, had been spent in conducting parties of friends 
 from room to room, from floor to floor, of her recent 
 acquisition. On more than one such occasion, it may 
 be remarked, Mr. Willoughby, in his shirt-sleeves, 
 playing an obbligato upon his back hair with two 
 silver brushes, had been exhibited (without intention) 
 in his dressing-room. And Mrs. Willoughby had 
 received so many praises for her taste, ingenuity, 
 practical skill, most of which were due to the archi- 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 31 
 
 tect-decorator, that even she had grown aweary of 
 the chorus. She knew intuitively what people were 
 going to say about things when they stood upon cer 
 tain rugs or sections of parquetry floor. She was 
 tired of her own stock remarks about curtains and 
 cabinets and corner cupboards. But she could not 
 yet bring herself to give up her glory and step into 
 the background along with the other women who had 
 lived their little day as the owners of the last new 
 houses. 
 
 Accordingly, when Mrs. Grantham graciously in 
 vited her to be seated beside Mrs. Stanley, who looked 
 at her in a coldly distant way, the lady at once broke 
 forth : 
 
 " Such a pleasure to come into a finished house ! 
 You know we have been waiting all the winter for the 
 stone mantelpiece that was carved in Paris for our 
 library. Now they discover it will not fit, and the 
 workmen must all come back just when our tapestries 
 are hung. I 11 declare I am ready to leave every 
 thing and go abroad ! " 
 
 "Your Mr. Davenant is good-looking," said Mrs. 
 Stanley, addressing herself to Katrina. " I like his 
 clear, dark skin and hazel eyes; and the profile is 
 wonderfully strong. Pray is not that a portrait of 
 your mother as I remember her ? Speaking of por 
 traits, have you seen Chatain s of me? Every one 
 says it is his masterpiece. It is just now at DoutiFs 
 gallery, and, I am told, is drawing crowds. You can 
 have no idea of our trouble to pitch upon a proper 
 gown for my sittings. Half a dozen of mine were 
 rejected, and at last the artist himself drove with 
 
32 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 me to Worth s atelier to select that peach-blossom 
 velvet." 
 
 "I have seen it," said Mrs. Willoughby, with cor 
 diality. "The flesh-tints are a marvel. Mine, by 
 Carolus, does not compare with it. But I find the 
 next thing to getting a good portrait is deciding on 
 the place to hang it in. We made sure that the bou 
 doir was exactly right for mine ; but somehow the old- 
 rose hangings the upholsterer put up killed the colors 
 in my background ; and now, after going into every 
 room on that floor, my picture is actually standing in 
 a corner with its face to the wall. Mr. Willoughby 
 says we shall have to build an annex to contain it." 
 
 "Isn t your daughter going to show?" went on 
 Mrs. Stanley to Katrina. " If she would like my box 
 for the Saturday matinee at the opera, I will send you 
 the tickets to-morrow." 
 
 Mrs. Grantham, having it on her lips to explain that 
 Katty had gone out to a school-girl dinner, but would 
 be very glad to avail herself of Mrs. Stanley s polite 
 ness, was cut short by the undaunted Mrs. Wil 
 loughby. 
 
 " What a good location your box is in ! " she said to 
 Mrs. Stanley. " I tell my husband he did not strike 
 his usual lucky vein when he got ours. Katty is cer 
 tainly a pretty and fascinating creature, and, with 
 certain people to back her, will be sure to make a suc 
 cess. Indeed, I tell her that if she is a very good girl 
 from now till then, I may give her a coming-out cotil 
 lion in my ball-room, for which they are still weaving 
 the draperies in France, so it will probably not be fin 
 ished before next autumn. We must not forget Katty 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 33 
 
 next season, Mrs. Stanley. Between us she will do 
 well." 
 
 Mrs. Stanley s cold eyes emitted a danger-signal. 
 She attempted to speak, but failed, and, hunching 
 one shoulder, turned it deliberately upon Mrs. Wil- 
 loughby s presumption. Mrs. Grantham, in despair, 
 wished it had not gone out of fashion to ask people to 
 sing and play after dinner, since Mrs. Willoughby, 
 whatever she lacked, was a brilliant pianist of the 
 modern school. Katrina, although she disliked the 
 custom heartily, even wished that she had hired an 
 artist to sing, recite, juggle, or whistle in this in 
 terim. 
 
 " They are not having a happy time over there," said 
 Agatha Carnif ex, whom few things escaped j " shall 
 we enlarge their circle ? " 
 
 So saying, she arose and, followed by Sybil, crossed 
 the drawing-room. The entrance of a servant with 
 Apollinaris water and a decanter of creme de menthe 
 effected the rest. The group, broken and recast, left 
 Etta protected on each side by a young lady, and Mrs. 
 Grantham at the mercy of her effusive guest. 
 
 Agatha, when brought into contact with Etta Stan 
 ley, always felt herself misplaced and at a disadvan 
 tage. An optimist in theory, ever ready to dwell upon 
 the hopeful conditions of the society of her birthplace, 
 she disliked being reminded of the firm foundation 
 of such rocks in the current of progress as Etta and 
 her set. Among them she found neither enthusiasm, 
 sense of proportion, nor capacity to distinguish be 
 tween excellence and mediocrity. The incoherence, 
 the confusion, of their lives troubled her. But, tiring 
 
34 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 of the attitude of a critic, she had at last resolved to 
 take the broad view that in all great centers of social 
 life good taste and folly are equally distributed, to 
 accept her surroundings, stand by her home and birth 
 right with dignity, and grasp at the best that came 
 to her. 
 
 In moments of wider vision she looked with pride 
 upon a metropolis to which all the nations of the earth 
 have furnished citizens a city that in scope, prospects, 
 tremendous potentiality, picturesqueness of gathered 
 races, extremes of wealth and poverty, must fix the in 
 terest of every real thinker upon the world s progress. 
 
 But, from these empyrean thoughts, what a down 
 fall to Mrs. Stanley, a pretentious figurehead to whom 
 numbers of the clever people of Agatha s acquaintance 
 paid court, whom the younger generation of good so 
 ciety aspired to know and emulate ! She liked Sybil, 
 whose gentle grace appealed to her who, if not ex 
 actly brilliant, was intelligent and impressionable. To 
 be better friends with her it had often entered into 
 Agatha s mind would be a desirable attainment ; but 
 the thought had been as often dismissed in the whirl 
 that keeps us forever lamenting the divergence from 
 ours of delightful lives into which we have had 
 glimpses wholly satisfying, only to lose them in the 
 turning of the wheel. 
 
 And Etta! How could Sybil stand being the 
 shadow of this adumbration of womankind ? Agatha s 
 patience was also taxed by the way in which her own 
 beloved and respected father put up with Etta s airs 
 and whims; by his declaration that, as she was the 
 child of his old friends, and her house one of the best 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 35 
 
 ordered in town, lie liked to drop in upon her once in 
 a while ; worse, by his phlegmatic confession that he 
 found Etta not at all a bad sort to talk to ! 
 
 Then there was Mowbray Grantham, one of the most 
 sensible men of Agatha s acquaintance, devoting him 
 self to Mrs. Stanley all during dinner, to the exclusion 
 of Mrs. Willoughby, who sat on his other side. For Etta 
 he had put forth his wit, his satire, his knowledge of 
 men and things. And Etta had nodded acquiescence 
 till her tiara sent forth twinkles of coruscating light j 
 had smiled in her wooden fashion ; had contributed no 
 fresh thought or keen response to the conversation j 
 and yet her neighbor had appeared to be as well pleased 
 as if she had been a mine of discernment. All this 
 perplexed Agatha. It made her wonder if the man 
 exists who cannot be flattered by the attention of a 
 woman of fashionable vogue. 
 
 When the gentlemen came out, Mrs. Grantham, who 
 had been lying in wait for this opportunity, contrived 
 that Davenant should be placed in a corner beside 
 Miss Carnif ex. Then the African explorer, a fair and 
 blond-bearded young man, consented, at the solicita 
 tion of Mrs. Willoughby, to give the company some 
 examples of native music among a tribe of black men 
 he had discovered on his last journey. While every 
 one wondered if he were about to produce his instru 
 ment from his waistcoat pocket, some wagering it 
 would prove to be a jew s-harp, others a comb, the 
 butler, who had been sent on an errand to the nether 
 regions, reappeared, bearing upon a silver tray two 
 sticks of kindling-wood. Accepting these with a polite 
 countenance, the explorer proceeded to stand upon the 
 
36 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 hearth-rug, and striking them together in rhythmic 
 cadence, accompanied the exercise by a weird, droning 
 chant that in the course of time " got upon the nerves " 
 of everybody present. Afterward the traveler, with 
 the modesty of a school-boy, told two or three thrilling 
 incidents of adventure among his aborigines 5 and 
 then Mrs. Stanley got up to go. 
 
 " So interesting, was n t it ? " said Mrs. Willoughby, 
 intercepting her. " Do you know, I think I will inau 
 gurate my new music-room by an African talk from 
 Dr. Charles, with stereopticon views and that awfully 
 nice music upon kindling-wood. I wonder if he would 
 do it? such people always like to talk. If I can 
 secure him I will surely let you know oh ! this is my 
 husband, Mrs. Stanley, who has not had an opportu 
 nity to be presented to you before" 
 
 " Pleased to meet you, madam," said Mr. Willoughby, 
 a large, bland, pink-faced man, offensively well satis 
 fied with himself and his wife. "I am afraid you 
 ladies owe me a grudge for having detained our host 
 so long in the dining-room. The fact is, I was telling 
 him our extraordinary experience in having to take 
 up two floors and replace a whole set of beams in our 
 new house, because " 
 
 Mrs. Stanley had moved away. As Sybil in her 
 wake passed to the door of the drawing-room, Agatha 
 noticed that she turned and bestowed a nod and smile 
 upon Peter Davenant, which had the immediate effect of 
 making Agatha s companion babble in his speech, lose 
 his thread of talk, and flush up to the roots of his hair. 
 
 " A perfect creature," said Agatha, readily and gen 
 erously. 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 37 
 
 " Is she not ? " he exclaimed, then restrained himself. 
 
 The Granthams, to whom it never made any differ 
 ence in particular when they went to bed, having seen 
 Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby also depart, now urged upon 
 their other guests to remain and chat. For this pur 
 pose they adjourned to Mowbray Grantham s study, 
 serving also as a smoking-room, and until a late hour 
 sat about in his old worn leather arm-chairs, and 
 chatted of a wide variety of topics. Katty, coming 
 flushed and rosy in her little pink-satin cloak from 
 her girls party, made the rounds, spoke to every one, 
 and was sent off to her slumbers. Once or twice 
 Agatha, noticing the clock, and solicitous for their 
 coachman, tried to induce her father to take leave. 
 But the old boy, who was thoroughly enjoying him 
 self, would not budge. It was an arena for men s dis 
 cussion principally, Katrina and her friend keeping 
 together, and listening, well pleased. Among the 
 debates upon many themes of interest, Peter Davenant, 
 shaking off the spell of a recent influence, gave rein 
 to himself, fairly flashing upon the imagination of his 
 hearers. His vivid phrases, stimulating wit, abound 
 ing life and spirits, made the utterances of others 
 seem tame. With all his independence of mental at 
 titude, there was no dogmatism or pugnacity, and a 
 quaint, old-time courtesy underlaid his manner with 
 men as with women. 
 
 When at last Agatha s twitch upon Mr. Carnifex s 
 coat-sleeve succeeded in abstracting the old gentleman 
 from Mowbray Grantham s chair, and the father and 
 daughter drove away home, he was fairly purring with 
 satisfaction. 
 
38 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 " That was something like an evening," he said into 
 the huge white-feather boa with which Miss Carnif ex 
 had wrapped her neck. " Gad ! I don t know when 
 1 7 ve met a fellow like Davenant. He ? s a man, Agatha : 
 please make a note of it ! I got him to promise to 
 come in and eat dinner with you and me on Sunday. 
 Grantham sha n t keep the treasure to himself. Funny, 
 was n t it, their putting him between two such pieces 
 of fashionable still-life as Etta and her friend Miss 
 What-d ye-call- em ? He must have felt like an eagle 
 trying to keep along with two little downy chicks." 
 
 " Then you did n t notice him much," said Miss 
 Carnif ex, " or you d have seen that he had neither 
 eyes nor ears for anything but one of the downy 
 chicks. He looked at Sybil Gwynne as 1 ve seen little 
 street-boys gaze at Easter images in a confectioner s 
 window." 
 
 "Oh, my dear, I hope not I hope not," repeated 
 Mr. Carnifex. 
 
 "Why not, father?" 
 
 " I have seen that happen before." 
 
 " What little street-boys looking into windows ? " 
 
 " Little boys getting what is not good for them, and 
 suffering for it afterward." 
 
 "What a horrid allegory!" cried Agatha. "And 
 this about one of your own dear Etta s pet associates. 
 But I 11 go no further in that direction. I 11 be loyal 
 as Sybil deserves. I think she is lovely enough and 
 refined enough to turn any man s head who can ap 
 preciate her. But that is a long way from thinking 
 she would fancy Davenant. They say Mrs. Lewiston 
 expects her to marry well abroad. An old English 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 39 
 
 name and estate, with a lodge and a gate-keeper, and 
 shooting-parties every year, would please Sybil s aunt, 
 and an incidental title, if Providence w r ere kind." 
 
 " Then let her catch her foreign hare and cook him," 
 say I. "I have no idea of one of our large-brained, 
 large-futured men tying himself to the flounce of a 
 mere doll of society." 
 
 " Now, daddy, I have hopes of you. You are seeing 
 the folly of your ways, and turning aside into the 
 right path." 
 
 " It is simply incalculable, the mischief these pretty 
 little pink-and- white persons do when they are turned 
 loose in the world. A glance, a smile, a talk during 
 the courses of a dinner, and the man is made or 
 marred for life. Women are the very deuce of an 
 influence, anyhow. Sometimes it 7 s the mother that 
 warps a fellow s career of tener, his wife. But, as a 
 wise man once said : * A man s mother is his misfor 
 tune, his wife his fault. " 
 
 "Daddy, you are not very complimentary to our 
 sex." 
 
 " You are one in a hundred, child ; and your good 
 sense must show you that what I say is true. What 7 s 
 the matter with so many American men nowadays, 
 that makes them tear and strain and fret to get money 
 at any cost, if 7 t is not the chafing, ambitious, dis 
 satisfied women behind them, urging them on ? " 
 
 The carriage, pulling up before their door, brought 
 his outburst to a sudden close. Agatha knew that the 
 fire would soon burn itself out, and her father become 
 his gentle, whimsical self again. 
 
 But she wondered if what he had said were true. 
 
40 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 In any case, she was very glad to think she was to 
 see Davenant again on Sunday. 
 
 MEANWHILE Mrs. Grantham, having bid adieu to the 
 last of her guests, was anxiously interrogating her 
 husband as to the success of the evening. 
 
 " I think it went off uncommonly well, don t you ? " 
 she said, standing beside him, where he had dropped 
 into his own chair, and was unfolding the evening 
 paper he had not before had time to read. 
 
 " Yes, very well/ he said abstractedly, his eye hav 
 ing caught a leading article on the editorial page. 
 " Hum ! Scolding as usual." 
 
 This, as Mrs. Grantham well knew, was not directed 
 toward herself, but to the powers that fling printers 
 ink against their enemies. 
 
 " Do stop reading one minute, Mowbray. Half the 
 fun of a thing is talking over it with somebody after 
 ward. I really want your candid opinion about the 
 dinner and everything." 
 
 " That woman of yours did so well with the cooking, 
 there 11 be no excuse for future deficiencies," he said, 
 now retired behind a double barricade of printed 
 columns. 
 
 "You stupid Mowbray! as if we didn t have a 
 Swedish head cook in. How nice you were to Etta, 
 dear ! I feel as if I could never thank you enough for 
 making the exertion" 
 
 Here, feeling herself on dangerous ground, she 
 hastened to diverge. 
 
 " And but for those tiresome Willoughbys all would 
 have gone well. I am resolved never again to dine 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 41 
 
 with bores that we must have in return. And, for a 
 wonder, that big lamp with the pink shade did n t 
 smoke ; I w as so relieved. Mowbray, did you ever see 
 Katty look prettier than when she came in to-night 
 from the fresh air ? She could hold her own by Sybil 
 G wynne any day, I think. Well, whatever happens, 
 at last I have brought those two together. 7 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Mowbray ! I say at last I have brought those two 
 together." 
 
 "What two?" issued in an abstracted voice from 
 behind the newspaper. 
 
 " This is perfectly tormenting, the way you make a 
 point of reading all the time I talk to you. Since you 
 are not interested, perhaps I had better go to bed." 
 
 " I think so, dear j it s very late. Good night," said 
 the voice, with more alacrity. 
 
 " See if I tell you anything again ! " exclaimed his 
 wife, getting to the door, ready to cry with vexation ; 
 then, rushing back like a whirlwind, she threw both 
 arms around his neck and newspaper. 
 
 " Good night, you darling ! I am sorry I was 
 cross." 
 
 " To-morrow you will tell me all your gossip," said 
 Mr. Grantham, affectionately, but with eyes glued 
 upon a paragraph he had been straightening out from 
 the literature crushed upon his knee. 
 
Ill 
 
 AVENANT thought he could never 
 pass the heavy hours intervening 
 between the dinner at the Granthams 
 and his next meeting with Sybil. 
 
 Since prosperity had begun to dawn 
 on him, he had exchanged his room at 
 a boarding-house for a tiny suite in a bachelor-apart 
 ment house. His sitting-room, overflowing with books 
 and pipes, possessed a couch, book-shelves, some easy- 
 chairs, a broad table with an electric drop-light under 
 a green shade, and an open fireplace. When there was 
 no longer room for a friend to sit down, by reason of 
 the accumulation of papers, periodicals, and volumes, 
 Peter would displace these from the chairs, and range 
 them in toppling piles along the vacant floor-spaces. 
 His inner room, containing a bed, dressing-table, wash- 
 stand, and large tin tub, was otherwise a howling 
 wilderness of boots and shoes. But this home had 
 been to Davenant till now a very sanctuary of pleas 
 antness and peace, away from the bustling multitude 
 with whom his days were spent. Although he read 
 far less of general literature than in former days, it 
 was there, ready to hand. Often he would take down 
 his books, blow dust from the tops, handle them lov- 
 
 42 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 43 
 
 ingly, turn the leaves, catch a familiar page, con a few 
 lines of it, then put the tantalizing treasures back in 
 place, cheered by their presence, and feeling as if he 
 had shaken an old friend by the hand. Some day 
 ah, delicious " some day " ! he would take time to re 
 read his favorites, and to read some of the new books 
 he could not resist buying, although he had little 
 chance to know more of them than their bindings, 
 print, and title-pages. 
 
 There were pictures on the walls, chiefly classic 
 photographs the originals of which he fully intended 
 yet to enjoy ; and a portrait of his beautiful Southern 
 mother, dressed in white muslin, and wearing her dark 
 hair rolled under in the fashion called d Vlmperatrice 
 Eugenie. She had been, like Davenant himself, of the 
 coloring Fortuny conferred upon his " Spanish Lady," 
 now in the Metropolitan Museum, though of more 
 regularly beautiful features and contour a famous 
 New Orleans belle, married to a Carolinian planter of 
 Huguenot descent, and the fortunes of both had gone 
 under in the crash of the Confederacy. Her life as a 
 widow, her death in pinching poverty before Dave 
 nant was able to fulfil the ambition of his life to give 
 her the semblance of a comfortable home, were sor 
 rows that had left indelible traces on his heart. Now 
 he had only himself to care for. He never went back 
 to the rice-fields near the closed mansion, that every 
 year clothed themselves anew in living green ; to the 
 groves garlanded with flowers and alive with mock 
 ing-birds. He did not even mention them. 
 
 The Saturday evening before Davenant was to re 
 pair to the opera with Sybil and his new patroness 
 
44 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 found him seated beside his table, preparatory to 
 going out to get his dinner at the club. The book 
 open in his hand was a copy of Theocritus, a singer 
 whose strains he had not wooed in ages. As his eye 
 rambled over the lays of shepherds chanting the 
 praises of their fair, a smile came upon his lips. 
 
 " The symptoms have not changed in the least since 
 the beginning of the third century before Christ/ 7 he 
 said to himself. 
 
 There was a knock at the door. The janitor s wife 
 a very fine person when you met her shopping in 
 Twenty-third street, with her fashionable ruffled cape, 
 large Gainsborough hat, and diamond ear-rings, but 
 here less imposing in the simple dishabille of a calico 
 wrapper, over which she wore a beaded bolero jacket 
 came in. Her face was heated with conflict; her 
 eyes flashed scorn and incredulity upon an object she 
 carried in both hands. It was, as Davenant at once 
 saw, a cast of the " Winged Victory" he had bought 
 that morning, together with a " Venus of Melos," from 
 a vender in the street, and had ordered to be delivered 
 at his house. 
 
 " It s meself brought it up to show it you, Misther 
 Davenant," cried the angry dame. "An the other 
 wan though, sure, she s got a head on to her, barrin 
 the arms I left down below with that saucy Eytalian. 
 An he pretendin he did n t understand a word of me, 
 an me kapin on tellin him he s ch atin you, wantin 
 to 1 ave his damaged images an scoot away. t Where s 
 the head ? says I. Did you break it af ther he paid for 
 it ? says I. * Have you got the pieces in your pocket, 
 an not the conscience to give em up? says I" 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 45 
 
 " It s all right, Mrs. O Brien. Fetch up the < Venus 
 too, and let the fellow go in peace. You see, I bought 
 these ladies cheap by taking them l as is/ " interposed 
 Davenant, to stem the flowing tide. 
 
 When he had put the two figures upon the top of a 
 bookcase, he paused before them in reverence, because 
 She had admitted having done so before the originals. 
 And before he went off to his evening meal, in closing 
 Theocritus his eye rested upon a passage in the " Song 
 of the Cyclops," from which he tore out the kernel, as 
 follows : 
 
 But to leave loving thee, maiden, when once I had seen thee, 
 had I not the strength . . . even from that hour. 
 
 " That fits me, I fear," he laughed, with spring bud 
 ding in his heart. Little he cared for consequences. 
 His mood was in tune with boyish abandonment to 
 happiness. Some men, espying him far off in a corner 
 of the club dining-room, sitting alone at his table, and 
 coming over to settle down upon him for a talk about 
 a certain political appointment of their party, were 
 astonished at his vague interest in the affair. They 
 looked at his brilliant eye, his flushed cheek, and won 
 dered if he were about to go under with a physical 
 malady. But Davenant, scoffing at the suggestion, 
 declared and showed himself to be in full possession 
 of his usual splendid health. 
 
 " Depend on it, he s heard of another piece of good 
 luck coming to him," said one to the other afterward. 
 " That fellow wins on every throw." 
 
 Not being in condition to adapt himself to club 
 society, he returned to his writing-table, where an 
 
46 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 unfinished brief awaited Mm. A few paragraphs 
 written, that too was cast aside. He went to the 
 window and looked up into a firmament of deepest 
 distances, radiant with stars and star-dust. Sallying 
 forth once more, he walked away from the street 
 wherein arose his tall, modern domicile, over to a 
 broad avenue, which he followed to its end. 
 
 Facing Washington Square, he found easily the 
 number of the dwelling he had sought out at the club, 
 in the printed register of chosen names, into which 
 he had as yet had occasion to make few predatory 
 excursions. 
 
 It was one of a row of staid old family mansions 
 that make of their vicinity a real Faubourg St. Knick 
 erbocker. Their broad fronts of red brick, with white- 
 marble steps and facings, their many-paned windows 
 and prim iron railings, the immaculate tone of their 
 muslin window-curtains, contrast pleasantly with the 
 carved stone and wrought-iron, the plate-glass and em 
 broidered laces, of the house-facades up-town. 
 
 Having identified the shrine of his idol, and ob 
 served that all of its windows were demurely veiled in 
 a thin white stuff drawn close against the inner panes, 
 Davenant strolled over into the square opposite, where, 
 sitting at one end of a bench occupied at the other by 
 a bent man in a slouched felt hat, who was enjoying 
 an evening pipe, he could keep the beloved house in 
 view. 
 
 A little farther along the row, a large dwelling, with 
 lights behind every window and an awning run out to 
 the curbstone, showed that an evening party was in 
 progress. By and by, while he was gazing over at 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 47 
 
 the Lewiston house, Davenant observed that its heavy 
 front door was in the act of swinging open. His 
 heart beat dangerously fast, yet the sensation was not 
 unpleasant. In the light streaming from the hall he 
 beheld a fat man-servant in evening clothes waddle out 
 pompously to give directions to a footman in a high 
 hat and long overcoat who arrived from the nether 
 regions of the house. Then appeared a maid carrying 
 a fan; and lastly emerged a slight, graceful figure 
 clothed from head to foot in a long, white-satin cloak 
 bordered with fluffy fur, the train of whose gown the 
 maid lifted as the wearer began to descend the steps. 
 
 The " spirit in his feet " carried Davenant so rapidly 
 across the space of roadway and sidewalks interven 
 ing between them, that when he came up with the lit 
 tle party, Sybil Gwynne, attended by the two servants, 
 was but just turning away from her aunt s door. She 
 started in genuine surprise at thus meeting him. 
 
 " Mr. Davenant ! " she exclaimed. " You you were 
 coming here ? " 
 
 Davenant, although no master of the art of cere 
 mony, knew quite well that he had not the conven 
 tional right to present himself at Mrs. Lewiston s 
 without an indication from the mistress of the house 
 that his visit was desired. 
 
 " No," he said straightforwardly ; " I was not com 
 ing here." 
 
 Sybil laughed like a child. " I don t know whether 
 I like you to be so candid. It leaves me in the attitude 
 of supposing you wished to see me again, when, per 
 haps, you had even forgot our meeting at Mrs. Grant- 
 ham s." 
 
48 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 " I did not dare to offer a visit where I had not been 
 asked/ 7 he said ; then added with absolute frankness, 
 " I came simply to look at the outside of your house." 
 
 What possessed Sybil, that, at this, the blood ran 
 up to her cheeks and ears and temples? She was 
 thankful for the half-light of the street. 
 
 " I am bound, as you see, to a party in our neigh 
 borhood, so near that I had n t an excuse to drive 
 there," she hastened to say, at the same time moving 
 on in the direction of her destination. 
 
 " Might I walk there with you ? " 
 
 " Oh, of course. Then you are going to Mrs. Craw 
 ford s too?" 
 
 "Unfortunately not. I never, indeed, had the ad 
 vantage of hearing Mrs. Crawford s name until you 
 mentioned it." 
 
 What was she to do with this strange, truth-telling, 
 fervid being, striding beside her as if he wore seven- 
 league boots, and turning upon her a look of such 
 unqualified delight ? In all Sybil s experience of men, 
 the like had not happened to her before. The maid 
 and footman, who followed discreetly, saw nothing 
 out of the way in the rencounter of their young lady 
 with a handsome gentleman, in proper evening dress, 
 who had been passing Mrs. Lewiston s door as she 
 came down the steps. But the young lady herself, all 
 a-flutter with inward excitement, knew better. 
 
 " There is n t any chance you are going to dine at 
 the Carnif exes to-morrow f " he asked appealingly, as 
 they separated a little group of street-gazers in order 
 to pass under Mrs. Crawford s awning. 
 
 It had been so ridiculously short, their walk to- 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 49 
 
 gether, and yet both, in the brief time, had felt so 
 much ! Sybil was aware of a tremor in her voice 
 when she answered : 
 
 " No. But you Ve not forgotten Monday ? " 
 
 " Forgotten ! Why, I ; ve thought of nothing else. 
 It came to me in court yesterday when I got up to 
 make an argument, and I was on the point of a very 
 bad break. Fortunately, one of the judges was sharp 
 ening a lead-pencil, and another was reading a dinner 
 invitation, so I suppose they did not notice ; and I 
 rallied soon." 
 
 " Absurd ! Good night, then." 
 
 But she did not really consider it absurd. Although 
 this was their second meeting only, she had been 
 thinking of him almost as much as he confessed to 
 having thought of her. 
 
 Davenant had no excuse to linger in the staring 
 little crowd about Mrs. Crawford s door. Sybil, run 
 ning up the steps as light as a fairy, vanished from 
 his sight. There was absolutely nothing to live for 
 until they should meet again. 
 
 It was characteristic of the man that he did not 
 consider the very decided probability that fate would 
 oppose him in his first love-affair. This chance meet 
 ing, his being alone with her for these few happy 
 minutes under the stars and gas-lamps, feasting his 
 eyes upon her beautiful face and small, shapely head, 
 her young form in its drapery of glistening white, were 
 all-sufficient for the hour. 
 
 It was too much to hope that she cared as he did, or 
 at all, as yet. But Davenant, marching away up-town, 
 vowed that she soon should care. He would win her, 
 
50 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 marry her, crown his life with her dear comradeship. 
 Whatever obstacles were between them should melt 
 before the intense purpose he would bring to bear 
 upon accomplishing his heart s desire. 
 
 ONE of the few indulgences our hero had given him 
 self in his improved financial state was a riding-horse. 
 A true Southerner in his love of the saddle, the long 
 intermission in his exercise had been a deprivation he 
 was glad now to make good. At rarer intervals than 
 he liked he got off to visit the stable near the park 
 where he kept his steed, and, there mounting, spend 
 several hours in the open. 
 
 On the morning after this unexpected talk with 
 Sybil he fared gaily into bright winter sunshine, trav 
 ersing the park, and pursuing his way along the banks 
 of the Hudson, thence into the interior, for a long 
 ride. It was his hope thus to rid himself of super 
 abundant vitality; but as the hours progressed, his 
 spirits seemed to him inexhaustible. It was as if he 
 had been born again. All of life before him was a 
 flower-garden, without a blight or decay in any plant 
 of its parterres. Never had it occurred to him there 
 was so much joyance in the world. From a looker- 
 on he was suddenly transformed into a participant. 
 Everything appeared possible that he desired. The 
 yearning for travel he had so long kept under sprang 
 up full-fledged and confident. With her, what added 
 joy to view the places of his dreams ! She should be 
 his guide, interpreter, his higher and finer intelligence, 
 in all these matters. Means wherewithal, the sordid 
 cares of life, did not enter into these pleasurable specu- 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 51 
 
 lations of Mr. Peter Davenant. He was strong to do 
 all that man had done. Under her inspiration he 
 would be expanded, completed, ready for everything 
 required. 
 
 Far up in the country north of the city limits he 
 came upon a wheelman in temporary stress of circum 
 stance. Davenant, who exchanged a word with him, 
 tarried, struck by the bonhomie of the young fellow s 
 manner, the frank look of his wide-open blue eyes. 
 
 " I am overtaken by disaster/ 7 he had said with a 
 laugh 5 "because one can t attempt pleasuring near 
 town on a mild Sunday like this without being 
 crowded out. One lot of loud-mouthed revelers set 
 on me, surrounded me, assimilated me. I freed my 
 self of them only at the last road-house, where they 
 halted for refreshment. I have seen most of the na 
 tions on the move to-day, though of course it s far 
 worse in summer. When my cordial friends stopped, 
 I fled with this result." 
 
 " Our brotherhood of citizens is certainly not en 
 ticing when it goes abroad on such a Sunday as this," 
 said Davenant. 
 
 " The plague of it is, the same people would be in 
 teresting on their native heath. And I want to be 
 interested. It is n t because they re free and easy 
 with me that I find them dull. I never saw anywhere 
 a class attitude more independent than that of the all- 
 pervading bourgeois in the environs of Paris on the 
 first day of the week. Democratic social equality is 
 at high- water mark there; but it is not aggressive. 
 It does not stick its elbow in your ribs, tread on your 
 toes without apology, shout and hoot its consciousness 
 
52 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 of being as good as you although you may wear bet 
 ter clothes." 
 
 Davenant laughed. 
 
 " For so many years I ve known nothing else than 
 jostling with the mob of commonplace, I suppose I m 
 hardened. You, I take it, are a tenderfoot. " 
 
 " I suppose I am. That is, I have had the bad luck 
 to be pitched head first into this community, to make 
 my living out of it, with the training of an idler in 
 foreign countries." 
 
 They talked for a while longer, then, at the bicycler s 
 suggestion, agreed to rendezvous for luncheon at the 
 roadside hostelry of a Frenchman certified to be ca 
 pable of a capital omelette aux fines herbes, and good for 
 a decent bottle of red wine. 
 
 " If you go there in summer," added his new com 
 rade, "you will have Baptiste, with his napkin, wav 
 ing you into an arbor made of withered pine-branches 
 overgrown with morning-glories and scarlet-runners, 
 where he has strewn gravel underfoot, and sets out 
 his tables with red claret-glasses and bunches of cheap 
 flowers. Now we shall have to be content with a 
 small inside room, if we are lucky enough to get it to 
 ourselves." 
 
 When Davenant reached M. Baptiste s little frame 
 house, standing back from the road in a grove of trees, 
 his companion had already ordered the luncheon and 
 secured the inside room. A tiny table, spread invit 
 ingly, awaited them. And when to the omelet was 
 added a dish of cutlets, broiled, not fried, with pota 
 toes bursting from jackets of light golden brown, to 
 gether with good bread, a plate of fruit, and the 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 53 
 
 promised bottle of French grape-juice, Davenant broke 
 forth rejoicingly : 
 
 "I have passed this place a dozen times, and never 
 dreamed of the treasure it contains." 
 
 "I have developed him," said his friend. "Last 
 year I found Baptiste struggling with the popular 
 demand for custard-pie and doughnuts. I talked to 
 him in his native tongue ; adjured him, by the bones 
 and stew-pans of his ancestors, not to forget their 
 cunning because transplanted to a land of far away. 
 He has made quite a reputation by his cabbage farci 
 aux saudssons. But I am bound to confess that his 
 American dishes are as bad as you generally find them 
 elsewhere." 
 
 Starting upon this substantial basis for acquain 
 tanceship, the two men fraternized rapidly. They 
 talked of many topics, each finding in the other a cer 
 tain zest of surprise. Davenant had never met any 
 one exactly like this fair, soft-voiced fellow, with the 
 manner of a faineant and the build of an athlete, 
 whose talk revealed habits and thoughts totally un 
 known to the hard- worked lawyer. His attitude to 
 ward life was that of one who, not being able to help 
 himself, tries to make the best of his regrettable sur 
 roundings. Involuntarily, Davenant thought of a 
 plant he had taken long ago from his mother s con 
 servatory and set out in a garden dug by him in the 
 woods. The plant had done its best to live, but could 
 not flourish. 
 
 When the time came for them to share the score 
 and part, they shook hands heartily. When the bicy 
 clist was out of sight ahead of him on the return to 
 
54 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 town, Davenant remembered they had not exchanged 
 names. 
 
 THAT evening, on presenting himself at the house of 
 Mr. Carnif ex, to receive a warm welcome from the host 
 and a quieter one from the young hostess, the three 
 sat for a while about a wood fire in a dimly lighted 
 drawing-room before dinner was announced. 
 
 There was little in this room to suggest the femi 
 ninity of its presiding genius. No triplication of cur 
 tains at the windows, no portieres, no little tables 
 perilously full of silver or china toys; above all, no 
 cushions, which, however much they add to the luxu 
 rious repose of modern life, induce as much disturb 
 ancefirst, because of their bad habit of slipping 
 away from the angles of the human frame where they 
 are designed to be ; and, secondly, because under no 
 circumstances will a housekeeper admit that she has 
 enough of them. 
 
 The friends of Mr. and Miss Carnif ex were asked to 
 take their ease in chairs or on couches covered in a 
 dark silken stuff that had not been changed in years. 
 A grand piano, a writing-table solidly equipped, and 
 some healthy-looking palms and ferns growing in jars 
 in the windows, gave the chief evidence of a woman s 
 rule there. Upon the Quakerish background of drab- 
 painted walls hung some good pictures. A cabinet, 
 and the mantelpiece crowded with Chinese porcelains 
 of beauty and value, represented the host s fancy in 
 art. The room, in fine, while not in the least " pretty " 
 according to the canons of modern decoration, ap 
 peared to represent a leisurely lifetime that had 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 55 
 
 treated itself to a few good things and let the rest 
 alone. The guest now enjoying its repose knew no 
 consciousness of fleeting moments until Mr. Carnifex, 
 crossing the room, tugged at a faded bell-pull wrought 
 in worsted- work. 
 
 " Dinner," he said to the man who answered. " We 
 will wait no longer, dear, for Ainslie," he added to his 
 daughter. 
 
 Simultaneously the door into the hall gave admis 
 sion to Davenant s bicyclist of the morning. Both 
 men looked pleased and surprised. 
 
 " Then I need not introduce you ? " said Mr. Carni 
 fex. 
 
 " Only to give us names," answered the newcomer, 
 after he had made easy apologies to Miss Carnifex for 
 his delay. " I at least have been dying to know his." 
 
 The story of their meeting and impromptu luncheon 
 broke the ice of the first moments at table in a large, 
 bare refectory, where conspicuous objects were the 
 coal-hod, an old-fashioned dinner-tray, and a series of 
 Copley and St. Memin portraits on the walls. 
 
 The service of Canton-blue porcelain, with the fid 
 dle-patterned silver spoons and forks, dimly recalled 
 to Davenant an old house in Charleston where, as a 
 lad, he was urged to two helpings of everything, 
 where the maiden hostess wore " sausage-puffs " under 
 her cap, and where his youthful imagination was 
 intoxicated by the varieties of sweet pickles strung 
 about the board in leaf-shaped dishes of the same 
 azure tint. 
 
 The dinner was good, the wines better, the host de 
 lightful. Agatha, who talked little, made herself most 
 
56 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 agreeable. When, afterward, Davenant asked a girl 
 why she had called Miss Carnifex "a man s woman," 
 he received this answer : 
 
 " Oh, because she makes it a point to let men have 
 their way, beginning with that nice old tyrant, her 
 papa." 
 
 The truth was, Agatha possessed so wide a scope in 
 her father s house that she had never felt able to con 
 template leaving it for another man s. Peter had not 
 been with them ten minutes before discovering that 
 on all practical matters she ruled her parent with a 
 humorous assumption of greater age and knowledge 
 than his own, although letting him go under loose rein 
 whenever his hobbies were concerned. 
 
 At twenty-six she esteemed herself an old maid ; and 
 the repose which the abandonment of concern on the 
 marriage question gave to her manner induced many 
 men to confide in her their affairs with other women. 
 Hamilton Ainslie, for example, a cousin in the third 
 or fourth degree, had told her about his passion for 
 Sybil Gwynne almost as soon as that emotion had 
 gained a recognized place in his manly bosom. 
 
 When Ainslie had come back from Europe to live 
 in New York, Agatha had decided upon making him 
 her " mission." She considered him as one more 
 sinned against than sinning, a product of the modern 
 custom of absenteeism among Americans who live 
 abroad and bring up their children in alien fashions. 
 She had an idea she could do him good, rouse his 
 dormant patriotism, make him throw off the sloth 
 resulting from having been a citizen of the world 
 when he ought to have been a citizen of the nursery. 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 67 
 
 Ainslie liked her lectures, her down-setting way 
 with him, her assumption of extreme old age and 
 matronly dignit} r with a man who was her senior by 
 two years. He treated her with courtesy and perfect 
 good humor. His only grudge against her was that 
 she could not be brought to concede that Sybil Gwynne 
 was born into the world to make a helpmate for him. 
 
 " My dear Hamilton, you would be a pair of babes 
 in the wood," she had said six months before, knitting 
 her forehead and throwing from it a little lock wont 
 to escape and confer upon her handsome, serious face 
 a mutinous expression not displeasing to the eye. 
 " Promise me that you will not commit yourself until 
 you have thought over it a year." 
 
 " I may as well promise," he had said. " In the first 
 place, she does not yet see the thing in the light I do. 
 In the next, between us we could n t afford any kind 
 of house or trap, or amusements or travels, such as the 
 girls of her set think indispensable." 
 
 " What do men of your set think about them ? " 
 
 " We don t think," said Ainslie. " The times are too 
 hard upon us. We simply drift." 
 
 The talk at Mr. Carnif ex s table to-night gave Dave- 
 nant a fresh sense of the pleasure to be had from rub 
 bing wits and exchanging views with people of his 
 own kind. Mr. Carnif ex and his daughter would have 
 meant so much to him had he only been able to claim 
 their acquaintance during the dull evenings of the 
 working-years past ! And Ainslie, despite his light 
 touch of and mocking indifference to real things, had 
 stuff in him undoubtedly. 
 
 Agatha s only fear, that her father would bring the 
 
58 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 conversation around to the folly of a young man of 
 ambition and parts fixing his fancy on a girl of fash 
 ionable life, was set at rest. Women entered in no 
 shape into the evening s discussion. 
 
 When the visitors took leave, they walked together 
 as far as the street where Davenant turned off. 
 
 " Good night," he said. " I have to thank you for 
 a very jolly day. What fun it would be, now, were I 
 to meet you by Jove ! I am to meet you, for Mrs. 
 Stanley said you are coming to-morrow night." 
 
 " Of course I am coming," answered Ainslie, lightly. 
 " Do not we all fly at Mrs. Stanley s bidding ? " 
 
 At this point Davenant was guilty of a weakness. 
 He wished to speak aloud a name that had haunted 
 his brain-cells persistently. 
 
 " I believe it s to be a small party like to-night s ? 
 nobody besides our hostess, except Miss Gwynne and 
 you and me." 
 
 " Miss Gwynne and you and me," repeated Ainslie, 
 assentingly ; and the pair separated. 
 
IV 
 
 ATENANT was taking off his overcoat 
 in custody of two or three of Mrs. 
 Stanley s liveried appendages, when 
 the grille that served as a portal to 
 her spacious vestibule opened to ad 
 mit Ainslie, as usual on the run and 
 a little out of breath. 
 
 " Those hanged cable-cars ! " he said. " Nice way for 
 a man to come out to dinner, is n t it ? I started right 
 enough, standing on my feet, wedged in by a jam ; but 
 gradually the crowd increased till I was squeezed up 
 ward, and I ended by crawling out over their shoul 
 ders. As I left I heard an Irishman, who had been for 
 a long time hanging on to a strap, cry out to the rest 
 of em, Be jabers ! have n t any of yez homes ? r 
 
 A very young flunky, who was depositing Mr. Ains- 
 lie s stick in a porcelain jar, smiled at this with sym 
 pathetic understanding. 
 
 " What a contrast between that mob and this kind 
 of thing ! " said Ainslie, as, assured that their hostess 
 would be down-stairs in a minute, they were ushered 
 into an empty room of state. " I know her minutes," 
 Ainslie added ; "we might as well t take it easy till 
 we see her." 
 
 59 
 
60 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 He deposited himself comfortably in the corner of 
 a deep, elastic sofa, shaded from the fire on one side 
 by a plate-glass screen, and from a lamp on the other 
 by a mass of spiky ferns. 
 
 Davenant, standing, his back to the blaze, looked 
 about him with interest. The scheme of the room 
 was old French, the fittings in pale brocades and gilt, 
 superbly carried out by masters of their craft. 
 Throughout, the taste was unimpeachable. A pow 
 dered marquise of the ancient regime might here have 
 received courtiers and cardinals in high-heeled shoes. 
 
 But there was no mistress to complete it. The next 
 arrival was an attache of one of the foreign embassies 
 at Washington, a swart man with beady black eyes, 
 and black hair cut short and standing stiff upon his 
 head. He was adorned with turquoise studs sur 
 rounded by diamonds, and stood shivering on the rug, 
 complaining of the chill of the New York climate. 
 
 After another interval, Mr. Cleve appeared. The 
 little gentleman had dressed hurriedly, for the bow of 
 his necktie had worked around under one ear, and the 
 lining of a pocket was displayed upon the tail of his 
 coat. 
 
 " Knew it was no earthly use to be here when she 
 asked me," he exclaimed, cheerfully submitting to 
 Ainslie s repair of his disheveled toilet. " For heaven s 
 sake, Ainslie, lend me a handkerchief I ve dropped 
 mine putting it in my pocket j or I 11 go send one of 
 those fellows outside up to Jack s dressing-room to get 
 me one of his. Thanks. A man should always carry 
 two. Heard the last Boston story, about that electri 
 cal chap showing off his bath-tub ? " 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 61 
 
 " Try another, Cleve," said Ainslie, lazily. " Every 
 body s heard that." 
 
 "Well, then, what do you say to Mark Twain s 
 speech before a girls college the other day ? when he 
 remarked his ambition is to be a professor of telling 
 anecdotes ? " 
 
 " Hush ! " said Ainslie, mysteriously. " On no ac 
 count divulge that here ! " 
 
 " Eh ! why not ? " asked Cleve, much rattled. " By 
 Jove, Ainslie, you startled me ! I believe you just 
 want to run me off the track ! " 
 
 u My dear man, this is hardly the hour for humor 
 ous narration," said Ainslie. " For my own part, I am 
 starving; I had nothing for luncheon to-day but six 
 raw oysters, eaten while standing before a counter. 
 There is within me a gnawing void that stories only 
 irritate and do not fill. If our hostess does not soon 
 show up, I shall go and beg for a biscuit in the 
 pantry." 
 
 The arrival of Miss Grwynne, looking so crisply 
 beautiful and unruffled that the hearts of two men 
 leaped up within them at sight of her, was the prelude 
 for Mrs. Stanley s descent like an empress among her 
 guests. 
 
 Davenant, who led the way with her across a wide 
 marble hall into a tapestried dining-room, discerned 
 that it was their matron s fancy to single him out to 
 night for special favor. He envied old Cleve, upon 
 whose cork-screwed coat-sleeve Sybil s hand rested, 
 Ainslie and the diplomat bringing up the rear. What 
 a bore it was going to be to dance attendance all the 
 evening upon an oldish woman s coquetries ! (That 
 
62 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 phrase alone, as it became formulated in Davenant s 
 mind, bewrayed him as an outsider to fashion.) 
 
 It was not until they were in Mrs. Stanley s landau 
 on the way to the opera-house the two young men 
 following in a cab that he had a moment s speech 
 with Sybil. 
 
 "Did you enjoy the Crawfords?" was all he could 
 think of to relieve his overflowing soul. 
 
 "Yes no I really forget," said she, laughing. 
 " One does not remember a party two or three days old. 
 I suppose it was like all the rest. You know how 
 exactly they are alike." 
 
 " I have never been to a l function in town," he said 
 simply " at least of your kind. I suppose I might 
 have done so had I not been too busy and too indif 
 ferenttill now." 
 
 "Now we are bringing you out," she said gleefully. 
 " We shall conquer, never fear." 
 
 " I hope not. It would be a sad interruption to my 
 pursuits. But I shall be deeply grateful for any 
 crumbs you may choose to throw me of your com 
 panionship." 
 
 " My aunt has an afternoon affair soon, and I asked 
 her to send you a card that you 11 get to-morrow. It s 
 a musicale, and there 11 be men dropping in as late as 
 seven." 
 
 "An afternoon affair," thought he, remembering 
 his recent scorn of such methods of reunion. But he 
 was now wise enough to know that this meant an 
 opening of the door to him, behind which was to be 
 found the chief delight of life and so accepted the 
 invitation. 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 63 
 
 The opera, which he had never seen from one of the 
 parterre boxes, having for many seasons frequented it 
 in the parquet stalls or galleries, might have been a 
 dumb-show, except during those numbers when the 
 famous singers occupied the stage. Then, only, the 
 people about him stopped talking; the young men 
 ceased to go and come, and bestow little squeezes of 
 the hand in greeting and saying good-by to the ladies 
 in the boxes j the whole vast assemblage focused its 
 attention upon the greatest artists of the age. During 
 these thrilling intervals Davenant felt the charm of 
 vicinity to Sybil. Jostled to the rear by succeeding 
 callers, he stood in the shadow, looking at the back of 
 her graceful head and neck, and investing her with all 
 the fantastic attributes of a lover s imaginings. Or 
 else, wandering to some distant part of the house, he 
 would enjoy her beauty from another point of view. 
 
 Ainslie, on the contrary, after hanging his hat and 
 coat in the antechamber of the Stanleys box, resorted 
 with great diligence to calling upon his friends, ap 
 pearing in turn in most of the boxes of the horseshoe, 
 where he was well received, and seemed to enjoy him 
 self with impartiality. 
 
 Once Mr. Cleve, who had been peppering his stories 
 around the half-circle, came upon Davenant stalking 
 about the lobby in solitary state. 
 
 " My dear fellow, stop with me, and let us have two 
 whiffs of a cigarette," said Cleve, benignantly. "If 
 we join any of those club gossips who are out here, we 
 shall be talked to death ; they are the most untiring 
 fishers for scandal. And, do you know, I find it sim 
 ply disgusting the way these millionaire stock-holders 
 
64 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 put their heads together and speak about nothing but 
 their schemes for amusing themselves." 
 
 "What are they to do? Their wealth handicaps 
 them for politics. They have no excuse to work. To 
 my mind, their Monte Cristo business is very pictur 
 esque." 
 
 " Don t mistake me. I m not envious. So long as 
 I get asked to their banquets, sail on their yachts, 
 enjoy their operas, or make trips in their private cars, 
 I m quite comfortable, personally. But one feels op 
 pressed by segregated fortunes. Look at these four 
 chaps next us, for example. Fancy what their united 
 incomes represent ! It s fatiguing, I tell you. It robs 
 the rest of us of ambition to make moderate incomes 
 for ourselves. It s produced the dreadful discontent 
 of modern good society. Why, man, in all the boxes 
 where I ve called to-night, I can hardly say I ve seen 
 one happy woman one of the nice, jolly, restful kind 
 of matrons, I mean, who can laugh outright, and 
 enjoy fun, and speak naturally. Most of em are 
 keeping watch on the others, to see they don t get 
 ahead in the social race. If you want to see what I 
 mean, just look at the difference in the women s faces 
 when the house is quiet." 
 
 Davenant, guiltily aware of having looked at but 
 one woman s face, could not, for the life of him, feel 
 depressed by Mr. Cleve s jeremiads. 
 
 " The worst of it is the effect it has upon the young 
 uns," went on Cleve. "The debutantes, like their 
 mamas, are calculating how to keep along with the 
 richest, most extravagant set in town. Nothing else 
 seems to them worth living for. To see some of those 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 65 
 
 little rosy young faces kindle with scheming or un 
 satisfied longing makes me sick, I tell you. As to the 
 young men, the whole lot of em, from club loungers 
 to fellows that have just left college, are deliberately 
 and confessedly t on the make. They won t waste 
 themselves on girls whose mothers can t entertain em 
 at dinner, or send em ball-tickets, or give em places 
 at the opera. If the directors here wanted an emblem 
 of high society to adorn the opera-house, they could n t 
 have done better, in my opinion, than set up yonder, 
 over the proscenium arch, the image of a golden calf." 
 
 " And yet you" began Davenant, laughing. 
 
 "I am of high society certainly ; but at least I 
 pay my way by courtesy and civility and helping to 
 make things go. Do you know why I like to put in a 
 month in England every summer ? Because there the 
 greater the lady, the more unpretending she is. And 
 if they love and covet wealth and place just as much 
 as we do over here, they keep their longings in the 
 background of every-day conversation. I went down 
 this morning, by the way, and booked to sail in May 
 in Teutonic." 
 
 " Lucky mortal ! " said Davenant. 
 
 Although he affected to pooh-pooh them, Cleve s 
 sharp strictures had begun to exert upon him a sub 
 duing influence. They made him realize the distance 
 between Sybil and a brain-worker who could never 
 hope to offer her any of these requisites of her set. 
 Until now he had been overcome by the dazzling sug 
 gestions of his hope that she might grow to care for 
 him. Such homes as those of Mrs. Grantham and 
 Mr. Carnifex had not seemed to him impossible of 
 
66 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 realization. The sumptuous domicile of Mrs. Stanley 
 had affected him as merely one of the side-shows of 
 modern plutocracy. The interior in which a man of 
 moderate success in a professional career may hope to 
 install the wife he loves was all-sufficient for Dave- 
 nant s ambitions. But now that it appeared Mrs. 
 Stanley s belongings were the standard, where was he 
 in the race ? 
 
 As he approached the box at the beginning of the 
 last act, Ainslie, in high good humor, had but just 
 come out of it. 
 
 "My dear fellow," he said, "it is as well you are 
 going back. Our hostess is in the sulks. She thinks 
 you have ignored her charms." 
 
 " But I was pushed out of my place," said Davenant, 
 " by all that swarm of men." 
 
 " You should have held it, and let the whole house 
 see you had eyes only for her." 
 
 " Why in the deuce did n t you tell me ? " 
 
 "Because, at the rate you were swimming along 
 with all these women, Mrs. Stanley, Miss Carnifex, 
 and Miss Gwynne swearing by you, I thought you 
 were an old hand. Never mind ; there is time enough 
 to redeem yourself. She has got only the attache now, 
 who bores her ; while Miss Gwynne has her string full 
 of men. Go and swell Mrs. Stanley s number, and all 
 may yet be well." 
 
 "Otherwise?" 
 
 " You will be forgotten before the next opera night." 
 
 " I wonder Miss Gwynne is friends with that sort of 
 a purposeless vagrant," said Davenant, irrepressibly. 
 
 " Miss Gwynne knows nothing better. Miss Gwynne, 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 67 
 
 taken out of these surroundings, would be completely 
 at a loss. Miss Gwynne is intended to grace such an 
 establishment as that we dined in to-night to lead 
 just such a life as her friend Mrs. Stanley." 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! " exclaimed Davenant, with 
 warmth. 
 
 Something in the glow of his honest face warned 
 Ainslie, who, stopping short, looked at him again. 
 
 " Don t, my dear fellow, don t ! " he said briefly, with 
 a sort of tightening about his mobile lips. 
 
 Davenant understood. 
 
 As they opened the box door it became apparent 
 that Mrs. Stanley had a new visitor in the person of 
 a man well on in years, smooth-shaven and intelligent- 
 looking, his features marked with a thousand lines of 
 care. 
 
 " Surely that is Mr. Mortimer," said Davenant, who 
 saw only the back hair of a celebrated capitalist. 
 
 " Incarnate electricity/ they call him/ 7 said Ainslie. 
 " Only death will arrest his progress, though quite a 
 number of fair ladies have tried to do so." 
 
 " I know him well," said Davenant. 
 
 His enormous success in affairs, his boundless 
 popularity with the New York public, his vast inter 
 ests in railroads networked over this continent and in 
 other countries, made of this individual a power not 
 to be overlooked. His face had been so variously 
 reproduced for the benefit of his fellow-citizens that 
 there was left for it only the immortality of a postage- 
 stamp. When Davenant resumed his seat behind his 
 hostess, she was saying in a wondering tone to Mr. 
 Mortimer : 
 
68 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 " But at five o clock you were in Albany ! " 
 
 " When I received your telephone message to dine 
 with you and Miss Gwynne to-night repeated to me 
 from home I was ; but at 6 : 23 exactly I left the 
 Albany station in a special consisting of my own car, 
 a common coach for ballast, and the best of the new 
 engines. At the end of two hours, thirty-six minutes, 
 and nine seconds we ran into the Grand Central too 
 late to dine with you, but not too late, I trust, to pre 
 sent my compliments to the ladies." 
 
 " What gallantry ! " exclaimed Mrs. Stanley. " It is 
 too bad I never can think of asking people till so 
 late." 
 
 Davenant saw that, although Sybil heard it, she did 
 not honor Mr. Mortimer s flattering announcement by 
 turning around. He also perceived that the great 
 man bestowed in vain several pathetically anxious 
 glances upon Sybil s profile. 
 
 This revelation, coupled with what a flash had re 
 vealed to him about Ainslie, could not be said to 
 surprise Davenant. According to his way of think 
 ing, it would have been natural had half the men in 
 the opera-house experienced the same sweet pain. 
 But when, after a few words with Mrs. Stanley, he 
 gained possession of the chair behind Sybil, all the 
 doubts, fears, revelations of the last hours since he 
 had ventured into this her kingdom, fell away. Again 
 he was possessed by the overpowering belief that it 
 was he, and none other, who should assert his claim 
 upon her and win her love. That accomplished, how 
 was it possible for anything else to matter ? 
 
 " You know Mr. Davenant ? " asked Mrs. Stanley of 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 69 
 
 Mr. Mortimer, having seen a friendly nod exchanged 
 between them. 
 
 "Yes; but I thought he was a misogynist, or at 
 least a fashion-hater. I have never before seen him in 
 society. He is a man of strong character aggressive, 
 but always polite ; a hard hitter, a fearless adversary, 
 of intense conviction and persistence 
 
 " Dear me ! " interrupted the lady. " I was begin 
 ning to think there is nothing in him at all." 
 
 "I must go now," said Mr. Mortimer, rising. "A 
 look in at the club, where I arranged to meet some 
 men ; then home, to spend half the night at work with 
 my stenographer. There will be a reporter sitting on 
 my door-step, another in the hall, and a third at the 
 keyhole of my study. Good-by, and ask me to dinner 
 again when I am not in Albany." 
 
 As he left the box, Miss Gwynne, forsaking her talk 
 with Davenant, bestowed upon the man of affairs the 
 tips of her white-gloved fingers. Mr. Mortimer, 
 hesitating for a moment as if he would say something 
 he could not exactly put into words, bowed, smiled, 
 and withdrew. 
 
 " My dear, you are stony-hearted," said Mrs. Stan 
 ley, hardly waiting till their distinguished visitor was 
 out of hearing. " If you but said the word, you d 
 have man, fortune, railroads, engines, newspapers, 
 and reporters all at your feet." 
 
 "I had as soon live with my ear to a telephone," 
 said Sybil, curling her lip, "or in the engine-room of 
 a ship." 
 
 " Ah, no," an audacious listener thought to himself ; 
 "there is something better in store for her than an 
 
70 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 old man s infatuation. I am going to make her life 
 glorious with my love." 
 
 DAVENANT no sooner made acquaintance with Sybil s 
 natural protector, than he divined that lady s antago 
 nism toward him. No doubt Mrs. Stanley had in 
 formed Mrs. Lewiston of the undisguised emotion 
 Sybil had aroused in him on the two known occasions 
 of their meeting. Sybil had taken care to say nothing 
 to any one of that brief interview in the street the 
 night of Mrs. Crawford s ball, the memory of which 
 excited her more than she liked to admit to herself. 
 
 Mrs. St. Clair Lewiston was a high-nosed dame with 
 a roseate countenance, a belle of the fifties, whose 
 figure still gave assurance of being smartly laced. 
 Her hair, much craped, and showing no beginnings or 
 endings, was of a rich copper hue. Her friends 
 thought it better had Mrs. Lewiston selected any 
 other tint. Her costumes were rigorously a la mode, 
 her ornaments confined to a few fine emeralds and 
 sapphires long and favorably known in New York. 
 But here her concessions to modernity ceased. While 
 other people were discarding old furniture, Mrs. Lew 
 iston pulled all of hers to the front. Her walls were 
 a museum of early colonial relics. Since she could 
 not equal Mrs. Stanley in American splendor, she had 
 fallen back upon the pose of American aristocracy. 
 
 Some excuse might be made for this good lady s 
 habitual stern expression of countenance. Seen driv 
 ing alone in her victoria, her face revealed the wear 
 and tear of a sad domestic experience. Her husband 
 having died of consequences of dissipation, her only 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 71 
 
 son was now in a fair way to follow the paternal lead. 
 " Young " St. Clair Lewiston did not, however, live at 
 home. When he was not off on other people s yachts 
 and four-in-hands, idling abroad, or lounging at the 
 clubs, his prematurely aged face and form were con 
 signed to the seclusion of chambers in a modish quar 
 ter up-town. 
 
 Mrs. Lewiston was fond of Sybil, after her lights. 
 The distinction of chaperoning so successful an im 
 portation renewed in her some of her vanished zest in 
 social intercourse. The girl, who was lonely for love, 
 had put forth little feelers of affection that attached 
 themselves in a way to her aunt s polished surface. In 
 default of tenderness, which she did not possess, Mrs. 
 Lewiston gave Sybil material bounty. It was not 
 generally known that Sybil s income, owing to the 
 heedless management of her peripatetic mother, had 
 shrunk under poor investments to be a very slim 
 affair. She was virtually dependent on her aunt. 
 Mrs. Lewiston had already conveyed to her her in 
 tention, should Sybil make a suitable marriage, of 
 doing by her as she would have done by a daughter 
 of her own, her son St. Clair being already in posses 
 sion of an independent fortune larger than was good 
 for him. The only condition put upon this liberal 
 offer was that during the first year or two of Sybil s 
 married life she should form a common establishment 
 with her aunt. "At least," Mrs. Lewiston had said, 
 "until Annie James grows up" Annie James being 
 the daughter of an impecunious first cousin who might 
 be depended upon to cede parental rights in that 
 young person so soon as she had acquired inches and 
 
72 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 accomplishments to justify her in succeeding Sybil as 
 companion. 
 
 Mrs. Lewiston felt that in taking this attitude she 
 was acting extremely well; and as long as Sybil 
 showed no sign of intended marriage with any one, 
 her aunt was all the better pleased. Experience had 
 convinced her that a woman is peaceful only when 
 there are no men in the house. 
 
 It will be judged, therefore, that, although lapped in 
 luxury, Miss Gwynne was liable to be denuded, like 
 Cinderella, of her finery. So little had the question of 
 money or money s worth entered into Sybil s thoughts, 
 this condition caused her no anxiety. She had been 
 brought up by her mother in ignorance of the com 
 mon struggles of mankind, since, if ever a pinch of 
 necessity for funds had come to Mrs. Gwynne, she had 
 met it by drawing on her principal. 
 
 MRS. LEWISTON, in a high toilet of black silk and 
 gauze, incrusted on the upper and lower portions 
 with beetles of glistening jet, stood near the door of 
 her drawing-room, shaking hands disapprovingly with 
 the guests bidden to her musicale. A prominent 
 object of her attire was the largest of the Lewiston 
 emeralds, worn as a brooch beneath her double chin. 
 As soon as newcomers had been permitted a glimpse 
 at this jewel, they were hastily passed along into the 
 throng. 
 
 Davenant, whose name had been duly enunciated to 
 his hostess by her butler, was honored by a stare. 
 While he was still casting about for some speech that 
 would preserve the golden mean between self-respect 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 73 
 
 and gratitude for her civility in asking him, the same 
 functionary cut him short by announcing other guests. 
 
 "Miss Gwynne?" Peter managed to ask, by way of 
 fixing his identity as an acquaintance of the house. 
 
 " My niece is in there/ gruffly observed the hostess, 
 pointing toward the middle room, wherein rows of gilt 
 cane-seated chairs formed a barricade about a grand 
 piano and some music stands. 
 
 " This great lady would make a capital matron for 
 a city prison," said the outlaw, mentally. He felt cer 
 tain she had heard of and disapproved his attentions 
 to her niece. 
 
 Beneath an "acacia, waving yellow hair/ he now 
 beheld Sybil, garbed in some diaphanous texture of 
 faint amber hue, with a large bunch of purple violets 
 at her breast. While busily engaged in receiving the 
 overflow of people from the front room, and in direct- 
 in g them to seats, she gave Davenant a smile that did 
 not encourage him to follow the example of the crowd 
 and pass up forward. 
 
 "May I should I stand here by you?" he asked 
 eagerly, taking his place in the angle of a chimney- 
 piece at her elbow. 
 
 " Not unless you are willing to be useful. Look at 
 Mr. Ainslie, straightening chairs like an angel." 
 
 The banality jarred upon Davenant. It was quite 
 out of his line to do anything "like an angel"; but, 
 then, from her lips even nonsense was attractive. 
 
 " Let me stay where I can admire Ainslie," he said 
 lightly. Already it was his ambition to fit himself to 
 his surroundings. As one person after another spoke 
 to her, he noted that she had some trifle light as air 
 
74 GOOD AMEEICANS 
 
 for each in turn ; that she returned interested com 
 ments upon information seeming to him like apples of 
 the Dead Sea ; that she was, in a word, thoroughly 
 "of" her surroundings. 
 
 When Sybil was too much occupied to speak to him, 
 Davenant could not forego hearing the chat that went 
 on in his vicinity. He was measurably impressed by 
 a close and intimate discussion t between two ladies 
 who talked, usually speaking both at once, concerning 
 operations in surgery recently performed upon the 
 husband of one and the daughter of the other. Path 
 ological details, rattled off glibly and with evident 
 relish, chilled his blood and revolted his sense of de 
 cency. From this the ladies went on to cooks ; and by 
 the time they had winged their flight to the remar 
 riage of a celebrated divorcee the first number of the 
 program cut them short. This was the startling ap 
 parition of four pretty and fashionably gowned young 
 women, in the attitudes of Burne-Jones s seraphs, play 
 ing upon cornets, which performance, having created 
 an American success in Mayfair the year before, had 
 now returned to delight its native wilds. After this the 
 usual list of songs and violin solos wore itself along. 
 
 Davenant, who saw Mrs. Grantham sitting in a 
 corner, struggled across to her. Sybil having deserted 
 him, his own coign of vantage had lost its value. 
 
 " I breathe free," said he, straightening himself in a 
 doorway close to Katrina s retreat. " My dear madam, 
 you were my fairy sponsor in polite circles. Shall I 
 ever become one of those flexible, supple creatures, 
 with all angles rubbed away, and unwearying calves, 
 who enjoy it ? " 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 75 
 
 "I fear I can hardly picture you as the perfected 
 social animal." 
 
 " When I saw you I was just about to get upon my 
 hind legs and roar, from fatigue." 
 
 " Have you seen Miss Carnif ex ? She is in yonder 
 somewhere." 
 
 " Is she?" said he, without much interest and with 
 out looking round. 
 
 " Yes. I hear you dined with them Sunday. It is 
 in her own home one sees Agatha at her best." 
 
 " Her father is a delightful old boy, I think. Looks 
 like a sucking dove, and delivers himself of the most 
 fiery sentiments. And the air of their house is refresh 
 ing." 
 
 This was well, but not good enough for Mrs. Grant- 
 ham. 
 
 " Agatha needs only opportunity to develop as much 
 tenderness as she has good sense and tact. It is as 
 well, perhaps, that she did not marry early. She has 
 had too many problems to work out." 
 
 " She is indeed an admirable girl," exclaimed Dave- 
 nant, with interest j and, feeling encouraged, the match 
 maker went on : 
 
 " But if she marries now, Agatha should never 
 separate from her father ; it would break him up ut 
 terly. The man who seeks her should consider that." 
 
 " I should think Mr. Carnif ex would be a sprightly 
 addition to any establishment." 
 
 "Agatha s husband should make up his mind to 
 hang his hat in Mr. Carnifex s front hall. That old 
 house is its master s shell. Although he has a com 
 fortable fortune, nothing would induce him to move 
 
76 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 out. But it is really a huge house. Our old-fashioned 
 New York dwellings, with the rooms on either side 
 the hall, must remind you of your Southern homes. 
 Mr. Carnifex s has always made me think of some I 
 have seen in Richmond and Charleston." 
 
 "I hope no son-in-law will arise cruel enough to 
 uproot the old gentleman," remarked Davenant, cheer 
 fully. 
 
 Mrs. Grantham was silent for a minute. She felt 
 that she had exhausted the subject of Mr. Carnifex s 
 house. 
 
 " I met there a very jolly fellow called Ainslie," re 
 sumed Davenant. 
 
 " Ainslie ! " she exclaimed. " Surely he is not your 
 sort. They tell me he has been following after Sybil 
 G-wynne for months and can do nothing for love of 
 her." 
 
 Davenant s heart gave a guilty throb. Did his kind 
 friend only know how much, in that respect, he was 
 of Ainslie s "sort"! 
 
 " Miss Gwynne looks her loveliest to-day," he said, 
 with an attempt to speak indifferently. 
 
 " I hope it is not because that man her mother 
 wanted her to marry has just appeared again. Mrs. 
 Arden tells me he is considered the most likely of all 
 Miss Gwynne s suitors one that even Mrs. Lewiston 
 might look at without turning him into stone. Hush ! 
 There is Mme. Amethyst beginning a song. She is 
 what we have all been waiting for, to make us forget 
 the rest." 
 
 The skylark singing of a favorite prima donna 
 might have been that of any other, for all Davenant 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 77 
 
 heard of it. Presently, when some people came to 
 speak with Mrs. Grantham, he wandered off into the 
 tea-room. Sybil, standing near the table, was in the 
 act of pouring cream into a cup held by a fair man of 
 fine proportions and soldierly bearing. 
 
 " That s he that s Captain Cameron/ said a girl, 
 talking to her friend. What followed came to Dave- 
 nant in snatches : 
 
 " He got in this morning, on the Lucania, and has 
 lost no time." 
 
 " She looks flushed and nervous. I wonder if it s 
 a <go ?" 
 
 " Everybody in Homburg said last summer she had 
 thrown him over twice. Seems it s an old affair. 
 He s one of the easy-going kind, apparently. A 
 beauty ; don t you think so ? " 
 
 " Hum ! not that j but he looks sensible and nice ; 
 and I like Scotchmen when they are nice. The great 
 thing about him is his prospects. Lord Hunting- 
 tower s heir and Lord Huntingtower s past eighty. 
 First name s John, called Ian. Rather quaint, is n t it ? 
 He has an old house in the Vale of Strathmore. The 
 Stanleys spent three days with him last year. Going 
 on to Canada to join the staff of the governor-general." 
 
 "I don t care whether she s refused him or not; 
 any one with half an eye can see she s badly rattled, 
 now. Well as I know Sybil Gwynne, I never saw her 
 look like that before." 
 
 Davenant stood rooted to the floor. For the first 
 time in his life the rage of jealousy swelled in his 
 heart. Not knowing how to deal with it, he walked 
 out of the house. 
 
HE sight of Ian Cameron s kind, patient 
 face always brought back to Sybil 
 vividly the occasion of their first 
 meeting, at a German watering-place, 
 where her mother had once stopped 
 for the cure, when Sybil was eighteen. 
 The two ladies, wearying of the monotony of meals in 
 their sitting-room, had descended to the table d hote. 
 The young soldier, detained in the dull place by a 
 twisted ankle, found them an agreeable variety. From 
 acquaintanceship on the ground of several friends in 
 common, they had passed to friendship. Cameron 
 had found time to join them at Dinard later on, where 
 Mrs. Gwynne was profiting by her cure so far as to 
 attempt to enjoy life with the fashionable world. 
 Cameron, seeing in the haggard woman s face that 
 which her daughter could not see, urged Mrs. Gwynne 
 to give up gaiety, and go to a quiet little village in 
 Brittany, where he knew of a house in which she 
 might be comfortable. Mrs. Gwynne, acquiescing in 
 this suggestion with a sort of gasping eagerness to 
 find some one who would take the direction of her 
 affairs out of her hands, betrayed her physical and 
 mental weakness. She was indeed in a deplorable 
 
 78 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 79 
 
 condition. Death at hand, her money matters in dis 
 order, her natural friends and protectors in America, 
 she felt overwhelmed with a longing for her forsaken 
 birthplace, coupled with a shuddering dread of her last 
 journey home, in a box down in the hold of a tossing 
 ship. 
 
 They went to the little country house suggested. 
 Sybil, frightened and helpless, knew not what else to 
 do. An old governess (an Englishwoman who had 
 trained several Ladies Ermyntrude and Honorable 
 Ethels for their world, before taking in charge the 
 young American) came back at her call, and remained 
 with her until the end. Her mother s French maid, 
 the garde-mdlade, and the doctor were, otherwise, in 
 that dread moment the only substitutes for a family 
 circle. Before death came, Mrs. Gwynne told Sybil 
 that young Cameron had spoken of his hope one day 
 to make her his wife, of his good prospects and con 
 nections, and, finally, had offered to marry Sybil at 
 once. But Sybil, who cared for him only as a friend 
 of both storm and sunshine, could not give her mother 
 the assurance she desired. 
 
 The arrival of Mrs. Lewiston directly after her sis 
 ter s demise, and while yet the survivors were under 
 going the experience that makes the formalities after 
 death in a foreign country so much more distressing 
 than at home, gave Sybil a refuge. Her aunt, who 
 had for years been in strained relations with her 
 mother, was attracted by the girl s grace and beauty, 
 and determined at once to appropriate them. Sybil, 
 with tears and thanks, had bidden farewell to her hon 
 est suitor j and Cameron, hard hit by the pretty crea- 
 
80 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 ture, went off determining to put her out of his 
 thoughts forever. 
 
 When he had next met her, three years later, Sybil 
 was the queen-rose of a rosebud garden of American 
 and English girls at gay Homburg. She was well 
 placed, admired, reputed to be the heiress of her 
 wealthy relative. Upon her had been set the cachet 
 of royal notice j and a duchess of his acquaintance had 
 told Cameron that one could see Miss Gwynne had 
 been brought up out of America. 
 
 Welcomed by Sybil with unexhausted gratitude and 
 kind remembrance, he had seen her every day for a 
 week, at the end of which time he had proposed to 
 her again, and was again refused. The day following 
 this second misadventure saw Cameron returning to 
 England. In addition to his usual luggage, he carried 
 with him the girl s affectionate assurance that although 
 she could not see her way to marry him, it was only 
 because she did not consider her want of love a coun 
 terpart to sincere and chivalrous devotion such as his. 
 She had every confidence in him ; he was the most 
 noble and loyal friend she had ever had : but indeed, 
 indeed, she had no wish to marry Cameron or any one. 
 She had a great deal more of life to know before she 
 could settle down. Had not she, for example, passed 
 only a single winter in America since she had left off 
 living there at the age of twelve ? 
 
 Toward the close of Sybil s second season in Amer 
 ica, Cameron had, as has been seen, suddenly made 
 his appearance in New York. Through their mutual 
 acquaintance Mrs. Stanley (whom he had called upon 
 before luncheon, almost as soon as he had changed his 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 81 
 
 clothes at his hotel, after driving up-town from the 
 docks) the gallant captain had ascertained the address 
 of his charmer. Mrs. Stanley had also informed him 
 of the festivity on the cards at the Lewiston mansion 
 that afternoon, and had invited him to let her pick 
 him up at his hotel and drive there. 
 
 At four o clock Cameron had been ready, and 
 eagerly ambulant through the corridors of the hos 
 telry. About half-past five Mrs. Stanley s footman 
 had peered in the vestibule doors, and requested a 
 hall-boy to inform Captain Cameron that the carriage 
 was in waiting. A little later, as we have seen, he 
 reached Mrs. Lewiston s, after the music, but in time 
 for tea. 
 
 There is no saying that Sybil was not stirred by the 
 apparition of her faithful knight. As soon as she 
 looked into his eyes she knew what he had come for. 
 The fiction of his intention to go to Canada might 
 serve with the general public. Sybil understood him, 
 and trembled. When she had parted with him last, 
 it was with the feeling that she had made a narrow 
 escape from surrendering her freedom into his hands ; 
 and now, though this was the western hemisphere, 
 nothing could protect her from again running the 
 same risk. 
 
 Sybil s bold determination was to assume with him 
 the cordial, friendly attitude he deserved ; to be so 
 friendly, indeed, that her unquenchable suitor might 
 see from the beginning there could be between them 
 no question of another tie. But she reckoned without 
 her public of New York. 
 
 For the talk of the town, temporarily lacking an- 
 
82 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 other subject, centered itself with almost passionate 
 activity upon the engagement reputed to exist be 
 tween Miss Gwynne and Captain Cameron. The un 
 fortunate young people found themselves exposed to 
 a publicity such as is attracted to two great nations 
 on the verge of war. Not only were all known, and 
 many imagined, incidents in the history of both 
 brought up for discussion at dinners, teas, balls, and 
 clubs, but that last misery of sentient man befell 
 them the newspapers took them up. Cameron, an 
 unassuming young man who had visited New York 
 before and enjoyed its brilliant hospitality, bore his 
 ordeal with good humor and philosophy. But one 
 day, coming down-stairs at his hotel, he found the 
 hall porter and a bell-boy with their heads together, 
 giggling over the head-lines beneath two dreadful 
 pictures purporting to be of him and the young lady 
 in the case : 
 
 A CAPTAIN WHO EXPECTS TO BE AN EARL! 
 
 AN AMERICAN MISS WHO WOULD LIKE TO BE A 
 COUNTESS ! 
 
 MAYBE SHE WON T GET HIM, AFTER ALL ! 
 
 This was more than flesh and blood could bear. 
 The Scotchman, filled with wrath, chafed impotently 
 when he found there was no practicable way to 
 punish the authors of the outrage. There was abso 
 lutely nothing he could do, short of dragging her 
 name with his before the police courts, except to com- 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 83 
 
 pose himself and try to forget the exquisite annoy 
 ance. 
 
 Sybil, who saw no newspapers, suffered less than he. 
 Her trial lay in the general assumption of her friends 
 that her affair with Cameron must end in marriage. 
 The redeeming circumstance about the whole situation 
 was that Cameron himself now never mentioned that 
 exigent word. He was " nicer " than ever, Sybil owned 
 to herself. If she could only be sure that he hated 
 her, or at least preferred one of the many other 
 girls he saw daily in the recurrent meetings of their 
 set! But something told her that this was not the 
 case. 
 
 In the midst of this confusion of mind she did not 
 forget that she had not seen Mr. Davenant since the 
 afternoon when he had slipped away from her aunt s 
 musical party without saying farewell. The separa 
 tion was not quite his fault, since cards, left by him 
 upon Mrs. Lewiston and Miss Gwynne, had been found 
 upon two occasions, at a week s interval, lying on the 
 hall table. But Sybil met him nowhere. Mrs. Grant- 
 ham had told her once that Davenant was tremen 
 dously busy just now in the Something-or-Other Trust 
 case, and later on that he had come out of it with 
 laurels. Sybil saw by this that he did not permit 
 sentimental interest to interfere with the serious busi 
 ness of his life j but she could not help wishing she 
 had interfered so far as to effect another meeting. 
 She missed the heart-throbs he had brought to her, 
 the charm of his reverent homage. Once she thought, 
 then put it aside with a guilty blush, had Ian 
 Cameron been able to stir in her this emotion, there 
 
84 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 would have been less demur in recognition by her of 
 his fitness as a husband. 
 
 In many respects Cameron suited and pleased her 
 well. He understood her tastes, fancies, allusions to 
 things and people previously known. He represented 
 an existence that, as her days in America went on, she 
 felt a longing again to blend with. She liked more 
 and more to recall the images of restful English life ; 
 its rich perfectness, its well-ordered privacy, its sim 
 plicity of habit during a greater part of the year, 
 contrasted with the liberal gaiety of its London season, 
 and many peeps into Continental centers of society. 
 That life as a constancy would be a thing very unlike 
 her nomadic journeyings with her mama, her presen 
 tations at " half the courts of Europe," her girlish tri 
 umphs in the cosmopolitan society of certain German 
 spas. 
 
 Cameron had once told her that, if she married him, 
 although they would be only fairly well off, she would 
 find his ancestral Scottish home a choicer possession, 
 from an antiquarian s point of view, than either of 
 Lord Huntingtower s dwellings, of which they would 
 ultimately come into possession. He had given Sybil 
 photographs of this historic haunt of his in the lovely 
 Vale of Strathinore; and often, amid the rush of 
 New- World life, she had looked at these pictures with 
 a sort of tender longing. She was most tempted, 
 perhaps, by the old north-country gardens, with their 
 masses of flowers, their turf walks of soft green velvet, 
 their pyramids of box, eagles of holly, and peacocks 
 of yew keeping guard to-day as they did three hun 
 dred years ago. She had seen and loved so many such 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 85 
 
 pleasances within the circle of the British Isles ! And 
 these now offered to her were said, upon the authority 
 of the Stanleys, to be among the loveliest and rarest 
 in the land. 
 
 One morning Sybil had taken out her photographs 
 and was scanning them. From the exterior, with its 
 mullioned windows and ivy-shrouded walls, to the 
 vaulted halls and " dining-parlor," lined with old 
 Spanish leathers from the galleries full of family 
 portraits, under which the American girl might walk 
 as one of the line, to the great, quaint, shadowy, oak- 
 paneled morning-room that had been lan s mother s, 
 and would be his wife s she passed in turn. Just 
 then Sybil received a visit from her aunt. 
 
 With a blush, she swept the pile of pictures to one 
 side of her table, but not before Mrs. Lewiston had 
 observed the nature of her preoccupation. 
 
 " Good gracious, child ! you need not mind my see 
 ing that you are taking that into consideration," said 
 the lady, in a clear, brisk voice. " It is just what you 
 ought to do, in fact. Things have got to such a pass 
 now, you must come to some other definite decision." 
 
 " I think not, Aunt Elizabeth," faltered Sybil, red 
 dening to the roots of her hair, and looking ready to 
 burst into tears. 
 
 "You can t be supposed to know how the outside 
 world is making busy with your affair ; but St. Clair 
 tells me you are the talk of the newspapers and clubs, 
 and, unless your engagement is officially announced, 
 either Captain Cameron will have to take himself off 
 to Canada, or I shall have to go with you to Florida 
 or Bermuda, or some of those tiresome places." 
 
86 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 Again the blushes dyed Sybil s face. 
 
 "It is through no fault of mine, Aunt Elizabeth, 
 that you are subjected to these inconveniences. You 
 know whether I have encouraged him to come here." 
 
 " It would have been well enough, but for the press," 
 said the angry lady. " You know Bermuda bores me, 
 and Florida is so wretchedly far off." 
 
 "What do you wish me to do?" asked the girl, 
 drooping her fair head submissively. 
 
 " I don t know. I asked St. Clair to come in to din 
 ner to-night, and talk it over; and perhaps he will. 
 It is his duty to advise us. But it is so hard to get 
 him to speak ; all he said was, I Ve no right to bind 
 you by an agreement to live with me if you marry a 
 British subject; he said it s uncommon rough on 
 Cameron. And so, thinking it over, I ve come in to 
 tell you I 11 make this agreement : If you marry 
 Cameron, I 11 give you the same allowance I prom 
 ised all along, and either I 11 take a house in London 
 for the season, where you 11 stop with me, or you 11 
 both come over to Newport and stay until the autumn. 
 Of course, when Annie James comes to live with me I 
 will let you off. And St. Clair says I ought to give 
 you the money outright that will bring in the income 
 I promised you." 
 
 " St. Clair has always been good to me," said Sybil, 
 touched by this unexpected kindness. 
 
 " Yes ; he likes you ; he says you make no demands 
 upon him. Poor boy ! but for his wretched health, he 
 might marry himself, and Sybil, you know I am no 
 friend to marriage for women; but, if it s got to be, I 
 think Cameron is the best for you. If my sister had 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 87 
 
 lived up to the traditions of our family in New York, 
 if she had, like myself, stood before society as a 
 type of the old aristocracy of our land, things might 
 have been different. But you are totally unfit for life 
 over here. You know nothing, and care less, for our 
 national history. Why, I believe you have hardly cut 
 the leaves of those volumes I took such pains to select 
 for your shelves." 
 
 "I have so little time to read, aunt," replied the 
 recreant, with a guilty glance at a pair of John Fiske s 
 delightful volumes upon the American Revolution, 
 lying on the table, with a silver book-mark very near 
 page 1 of Volume I. 
 
 "Of course and little inclination. But, as I said, 
 Cameron is the best husband for you. These young 
 fellows you dance with have neither money to support 
 wives, nor wish to assume the responsibility. Mr. 
 Mortimer 
 
 " Don t speak of him ! " cried the girl. 
 
 "It would be an excellent position. But he is, of 
 all people in town, essentially an American. His 
 tastes and yours would never fit. I doubt if he would 
 take time to run over to Europe once in two years. 
 If you accepted him, you d have to settle down to 
 nothing but New York." 
 
 "Oh, Aunt Elizabeth," cried Sybil, throwing her 
 arms wearily into the air, " if you knew how hard this 
 is for me to bear ! " 
 
 " There are times in every woman s life, my dear, 
 when she must consent to look things in the face ; and 
 this is yours. For my part, I can t think what has 
 become of our marriageable men. In our day your 
 
88 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 poor mother s and mine there were so many more 
 than now. St. Glair says it s because the girls expect 
 so much; the men make up their minds not to try. 
 He says, too, the girls are all aiming for such high 
 game, they let ordinary chances slip. That is the way 
 men talk among themselves. In this age men are so 
 horrid about women." 
 
 " Everything is horrid ! " exclaimed Sybil, her lip 
 trembling. 
 
 " "Well, child, since it is evident you are in an obsti 
 nate mood, I 11 say no more for the present, except 
 that I wish to mention Britton having brought to me 
 several cards, left recently, of that Mr. Davenant you 
 met at Katrina Grantham s. Now I don t deny the 
 Granthams good birth and antecedents, but I am told 
 they receive ahem ! very queer people. I asked St. 
 Clair about Mr. Davenant, and he said he never heard 
 of the fellow in any of his clubs. I think it is very 
 forward of him to call here so often, upon such slight 
 acquaintance. He is probably a nobody who wants to 
 get in with established families." 
 
 " Ask Mr. Carnif ex what he thinks of Mr. Davenant," 
 answered the girl, with spirit. "Ask anybody who 
 knows something outside of our little narrow circle." 
 
 " You have been seeing that young man ? " quickly 
 countered Mrs. Lewiston. 
 
 " Only where I have told you, except once, when he 
 joined me on the street for a few minutes walk. But 
 there is no reason why I should not see him, Aunt 
 Elizabeth. He is every whit as good as the best we 
 know. He is more clever and learned than any one 
 we know." 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 89 
 
 " I have it, on good authority, that the Granthams 
 friends are queer," insisted Mrs. Lewiston, obstinately 
 closing her lips ; " and whatever this er person 
 may be, St. Clair has never heard of him in any of the 
 clubs." 
 
 " He belongs to the Academical, for one," said Sybil, 
 blushing at her own weakness. 
 
 " Eh ! St. Clair does not belong to the Academical," 
 answered Mrs. Lewiston, with finality. "In any case, 
 Sybil, I do not care to have Mr. Davenant coming to 
 my house. If you are to marry Cameron, you cannot 
 receive another person who has either fallen in love 
 with you upon ridiculously short acquaintance, or is 
 using you to push himself into society. I may as well 
 tell you that he called again yesterday ; but as I had 
 given Britton orders to say the ladies were not at 
 home, the matter ended with two cards. Now, child, 
 think over what I have said take, if you like, a week 
 to consider it. If you are not going to have Cameron, 
 tell me, and we will leave town for somewhere dear 
 knows where. They tell me people under our circum 
 stances go a great deal now to the Virginia Springs." 
 
 " Do you mean people who are hounded by the gos 
 sip of newspapers and the opinion of those they don t 
 respect ? " said Sybil, hotly. 
 
 But the expression of her aunt s face, set in pride of 
 her own opinion the knowledge of her ideas, hide 
 bound in prejudice stopped further outburst upon 
 the girl s part. She curbed herself so far as to kiss 
 her Aunt Elizabeth upon a brow like polished granite, 
 and to show her a new ball-dress that had just come 
 home for Mrs. Stanley s "little dance" on the morrow. 
 
90 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 That evening, at the opera, she saw Davenant in the 
 stalls, alone. He looked grave and care-worn, and 
 Sybil s heart her vagrant heart of youth went out 
 in joy at sight of him, in sympathy with the cloud 
 upon his face. She was sitting in the box of Mrs. 
 Arden, whom Davenant did not know, and feared he 
 would not understand that he was free to call on her. 
 In addition, Captain Cameron was of their party, and 
 several times the lorgnons of the house had veered 
 around to center upon the group. 
 
 " What it is to be the chaperon of the < Cynthia of 
 the minute ! " said Mrs. Arden to Cameron. " Do you 
 know, although you may n t believe me, I should n t 
 want one of my girls to have the belleship of Sybil 
 Gwynne. How in the world is a girl who has tasted 
 it ever going to do without it in her after life ? " 
 
 "I can think of but one remedy," said he, smiling 
 "another hemisphere. Fortunately, Miss Gwynne 
 has a balance and a sweetness of temper that enable 
 her to keep unspoiled." 
 
 "You don t spoil women in your part, certainly," 
 said the lively widow. "When I remember the way 
 nice women stand around, and follow after, and let 
 themselves be dictated to by husbands and lovers, and 
 even by brothers, in England ! " 
 
 " Yet they seem satisfied with us," rejoined the cap 
 tain, carelessly. He had had so much of international 
 discussion. Just now his whole thoughts were con 
 centrated in the honest hope to win and carry away 
 from these hothouse surroundings the girl he had loved 
 for years. Once bring her to accept him for a hus 
 band, it would be an easy matter to accomplish the 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 91 
 
 reasonable happiness of their two lives. But some 
 thing had now entered into her life and thoughts that 
 Cameron could not understand. She was no longer 
 the simple, transparent being who had refused to 
 marry him because she had never known love. Her 
 secret, if she had one, eluded him. He was tempted 
 to think this another phase of that infinite complexity, 
 womanhood. 
 
 To-night, Cameron, feeling that matters were com 
 ing to a crisis, had, while sitting by her at dinner, 
 infused into his talk with her a more proprietary 
 warmth than he had ventured on before. She had 
 been agitated, had shrunk away, but had not entirely 
 turned from him her countenance. During the even 
 ing he did not once sit in the chair behind hers, or 
 seem to look at her ; but the cool captain had his eyes 
 fully open to what was going on. He had seen her 
 face light suddenly as she identified some one in the 
 stalls, to whom she had bowed with a gracious but shy 
 smile. Shortly after, he had observed the arrival of a 
 new caller, a tall, dark, forceful man of striking indi 
 viduality, who, duly named to Mrs. Arden as Mr. Dave- 
 nant, had then fallen into close conversation with Miss 
 Grwynne. Cameron, divining what he did not desire to 
 think, with a fine instinct arose and went out of the box. 
 
 " It has been so long since I have seen you," said the 
 girl to Davenant, trying to appear unconcerned, but 
 succeeding rather ill. 
 
 "Yet I have called repeatedly. Is it possible you 
 did not get my cards ? " 
 
 "New York is too big," she said evasively. "We 
 are too busy, too selfish, too bent on our own devices, 
 
92 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 too scattered. Nobody is l at home ; now, unless to a 
 raft of people." 
 
 "A man can t keep up going forever and never 
 getting in." 
 
 " If we were in London in the season, and could 
 stray out into Hyde Park and sit upon penny chairs 
 everything would come to us j but here one never runs 
 upon any one outdoors where it s possible to stop and 
 talk without blocking up the street." 
 
 "Do your people 7 not walk!" he asked, eagerness 
 in his gaze. " Would you come with me to our park ? " 
 
 " From the Marble Arch to the Obelisk, and then 
 Hake a walk, " she said, laughing. "What a mag 
 nificent distance you are laying out ! " 
 
 " Then you hold out to me no hope?" he replied in 
 an impassioned undertone. " I may not call j we may 
 never meet. What remains for me ? " 
 
 Sybil would have given anything in reason to control 
 her heart-throbs at that moment. Her voice, shaking 
 as she tried to answer him lightly, played her false. 
 
 " I will walk with you," she said rapidly. " I think 
 you would not find it pleasant to call for me at my 
 aunt s house. I shall be leaving Mrs. Stanley s to 
 morrow at four o clock. If you are there, we may 
 stroll down the Avenue together." 
 
 " Mrs. Stanley hardly knew me when I bowed just 
 now," he said, bewildered ; " but if you say so, I shall 
 be there." 
 
 Sybil, who had never before made an arrangement 
 of this unconventional nature, had no sooner seen him 
 go than she would have recalled it. Her concession 
 could surprise no one more than it had herself. 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 93 
 
 " That is a man I have often wanted to see," said 
 Mrs. Arden, leaning over to Sybil. " I understand 
 he is l booked to marry Agatha Carnif ex." 
 
 " I had not heard of it," murmured Sybil, faintly. 
 
 " I forget who told me. One hears so many things. 
 But it is certainly suitable ; don t you think so ? " 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 "They are just the couple to found a New York 
 household of the higher substantial sort heads of the 
 community, and all that. Agatha will go on presid 
 ing over committees, and his name will be in every 
 list of eminent citizens. They say Mr. Carnifex is 
 enchanted with his future son-in-law." 
 
 " When did this happen f Are you sure ? Are they 
 old enough acquaintances ? " asked Sybil, confused and 
 wretched. 
 
 " For the life of me, I can t remember. I wonder if 
 it came from Katrina Grantham, whose l swan he is ? 
 Perhaps ; but I don t know, really." 
 
 A new batch of callers distracted them. The shock 
 of what she had heard nerved Sybil to sit upright, to 
 talk and laugh with unusual animation. In no other 
 way could she cover the blank dismay of her feelings. 
 
 In the lobby Davenant came upon the ever-cheerful 
 Mr. Hamilton Ainslie. 
 
 " Saw you in there a moment since," said Ainslie, 
 indicating vaguely Mrs. Arden s box. " I fancy you 
 know that all the rest of us have pretty much thrown 
 up the sponge. Old Mortimer has gone West in a 
 special. Our ancient playfellow, Mrs. Stanley, thinks 
 the engagement will be out shortly." 
 
 "What engagement?" asked Davenant, brusquely. 
 
04 GOOD AMEEICANS 
 
 "Miss G Wynne s with Cameron. He is a deuced 
 good fellow, let me tell you. He will never bore her j 
 he will treat her well. The place he gives her will fit 
 like a glove. The more I ve thought it out, the better 
 I m satisfied she won t do over here. With every wish 
 to adapt herself, she s not adaptable. She can t go 
 on in her present line forever, don t you know. And 
 after that what? I confess I can t see." 
 
 " You believe she wishes to marry him ? " 
 
 " I believe she will marry him. I don t see who s 
 to prevent it. I can t, much as I d like to. Must you 
 go ? Good-by. We 11 have a spin together some of 
 the fine spring days." 
 
 Davenant, from his seat in the parquet, gave one 
 more glance into Mrs. Arden s box. He saw Sybil in 
 conversation with Cameron, whose manner was ner 
 vous, his quiet face flushed with excitement. Many 
 others noticed this little episode. It was the first time 
 any one could say he or she had seen Miss Gwynne 
 show her suitor such public favor. 
 
 The next day Davenant received a note from Sybil 
 asking him to excuse her from filling the engagement 
 to walk, that she felt she had made too hastily. 
 
 And the next week it was announced by the papers 
 that Miss Gwynne had gone with her aunt, Mrs. Lew- 
 iston, to the Virginia Springs. Captain Cameron 
 being still seen in his usual haunts about town, the 
 surmise was that on their return the time for the 
 nuptials would be given to the world. By and by, 
 when Cameron departed to make his long-deferred visit 
 to the Canadian provinces, the gossips were thrown 
 off the scent ; and for a time they said nothing at all. 
 
VI 
 
 TIRING the months following the crash 
 of Davenant s air-castle he formed the 
 habit of going frequently to visit Mr. 
 and Miss Carnifex. His need of re 
 fined and sympathetic companionship 
 had now become urgent. There was 
 no one living of whom he would have made a confi 
 dant. To have loved Sybil was a glory, to have lost 
 her a consequence to be expected by common sense. 
 So brief, so passionate a dream might seem to others 
 incredible ; to him it was a reality that could not pass. 
 In any case, he was not one to wear his heart upon 
 his sleeve for even a friend s investigation. 
 
 But he craved friends, and in the Carnifexes found, 
 if not healing, comfort for his wounds. That amiable 
 old worldling, Mr. Carnifex, proved to be a mine of 
 information, philosophy, and quaint comment con 
 cerning the community and people of New York. 
 Nothing that had occurred here in business or society 
 for the last fifty years had escaped his notice or passed 
 out of his tenacious memory. He had lived to see the 
 great social-equality theory of democracy fall quite to 
 pieces at the end of the first century in the leading 
 
 95 
 
96 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 city of the republic, to see new classes formed, new 
 grades and distinctions assert themselves, with no 
 body to say them nay. His old pleasant life among 
 his compeers and associates was gone. Poor Mr. 
 Carnifex, after roving about among the houses of his 
 friends and at his club, would often come back to his 
 library, and drop down into his chair, determined to 
 rove no more. Under these conditions, the society of 
 Davenant was a boon, and to Davenant he attached 
 himself with almost pathetic devotion. 
 
 With Agatha, Davenant advanced more slowly along 
 the path of mutual confidence and esteem ; but theirs 
 was growing to be as good an example of friendship 
 between the sexes as this troublous world can offer. 
 
 Ainslie, whom he encountered occasionally at the 
 Carnifexes , was the only one who seemed to have dis 
 cerned Davenant s feeling for Sybil. Since Ainslie 
 was himself occupied in the task of trying to forget 
 her, he gave no hint of his suspicions. What Agatha 
 knew about either man s feelings, nobody knew. She 
 was the rare woman who keeps impressions to herself. 
 
 One Sunday, after riding all the morning through 
 the tender greens of a late- April landscape, Davenant 
 dropped in to luncheon with the Granthams, whom he 
 found in the throes of deciding upon their summer 
 plans. 
 
 "Help me, Davenant," said Mowbray Grantham, 
 pausing in the act of carving a pair of fowls. " These 
 womenkind of mine, my wife and Katty, are pressing 
 for a vote from me which I know, and they know, will 
 carry no possible weight. We are, in imagination, 
 making the circuit of the country. I go to bed in one 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 97 
 
 rural resort, get up in another, go down-town believ 
 ing myself established for the summer at a third. By 
 dinner-time they have found an entirely new place, 
 where but that I know we shall move out of it, bag 
 and baggage, in a day or two I might be resigned to 
 settle down and thank God for a place of rest." 
 
 "The whole trouble," began Mrs. Grantham, pa 
 tiently waiting till her lord had said his say, "lies in 
 the way rich people have spoiled the nice places for 
 those of moderate means. By the time I bring my 
 
 girl and boys home from a summer at , or , 
 
 or , they are set up with ideas of expenditure per 
 fectly ruinous to a professional income." 
 
 "That is very virtuous, O mother in Israel," quoth 
 her husband ; " but where is she who desires her young 
 to be deprived of the advantages and enjoyments of 
 their set ? In my day 
 
 "Papa, you know I do not allow you to have had 
 a day ; yet," cried his saucy Katty, with an admiring 
 glance at him. 
 
 " In my day," went on Grantham, imperturbably, 
 "we young people got our pleasures without price. 
 We roamed, shot, fished, and played in the free open. 
 Now all joys must be paid for at the highest market 
 rates. If your boy wheels, his machine must be one 
 of the current year. If he golfs, there are subscrip 
 tions and an outfit of the best. If he fishes or shoots 
 I cease to contemplate the cost of those amusements ! 
 And then, girls" 
 
 "Certainly a girl must have things not necessary 
 for a boy. But I am sure our children are all per 
 fectly reasonable, poor dears," mused Mrs. Grantham. 
 
98 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 "If it were not for the effort of Katty s coming 
 out-" 
 
 " Mummy dear/ 7 cried Katty, buoyantly, "if my 
 coming out is going to plunge the family into such 
 trouble, I think I d rather stay in. Anyhow, the boys 
 and I had a thousand times rather go back to the farm, 
 and have some fun, than to one of those prim, dress- 
 up-and-visity places." 
 
 " You are lucky enough to possess a family home 
 stead, are n t you ? " asked the visitor of his hostess. 
 
 Mrs. Grantham s eyes, seeking her husband s, then 
 Katty s, assumed a pensive and apologetic expression. 
 
 "We had determined to try to find a tenant for 
 Hillcote this year," she said, hesitating. 
 
 " The truth is, Davenant," supplemented Grantham, 
 "my ancestral domain, in a stony and unproductive 
 region of western Massachusetts, has cost me so much 
 money to restore 7 it according to my wife s ideas 77 
 
 " What about your experiments in agriculture ? 77 in 
 terrupted Katrina, softly. 
 
 " we can hardly afford to live there, 77 pursued Mr. 
 Justice Grantham. " Last year we got it off our hands 
 to an estimable family, who at once went to Europe, 
 leaving their horses, servants, an invalid daughter, a 
 trained nurse, and a governess in possession. 77 
 
 " I wish you could have seen my chintz covers in 
 the drawing-room afterward, 77 interpolated the hostess, 
 "and two bedrooms that have to be painted and 
 papered new. 77 
 
 " But we must own that our tenants paid their way, 77 
 said Grantham. " I am going to tell you also, Dave 
 nant, that it is n t the expensiveness of Hillcote that 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 99 
 
 is the drawback, so much as the remoteness. Our 
 very first season there, my wife and daughter and one 
 son fancied they must have a month at the seaside for 
 change 
 
 " Oh, oh ! n cried Mrs. Grantham and Katty in con 
 cert, " you know it was really measles, and the doctor 
 ordered us to go." 
 
 " Let me give Davenant my experience as a beacon- 
 light to young men intending matrimony. I inherited 
 that farm from my grandfather, and had a sentiment 
 for it that need not be explained. I should have liked 
 to go back there for my summer vacation, and live the 
 old life just as it was. But the occasion offered too 
 good an opportunity to my decorative wife not to be 
 improved. New-Yorkers then were in the full flush 
 of restoring old houses in new-old fashion. My wife 
 had a nest-egg of a few thousands she wanted to put 
 into our l summer home/ We committed ourselves to 
 the mercy of a young architect who was said to have 
 a strong feeling for the revival of early American 
 art in house-building. After he had done with us we 
 had a strong feeling of empty American pockets. The 
 old house had taken on a fine style and complexion. 
 Eccentricities my good Puritan forebears had never 
 dreamed of cropped out everywhere. But my wife 
 said it was too beautiful for anything 7 ; and I sup 
 pose she knew. All of one winter she spent in ran 
 sacking curiosity-shops for furniture. She would send 
 home dejected specimens of second-hand chairs, sofas, 
 and four-post beds, brasses, mirrors, and the like. She 
 even bought a worsted fire-screen that she said ought 
 to have been worked by my Aunt Pamela. I am not 
 
100 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 sure she did not purchase an imaginary portrait of 
 my Aunt Pamela. For the hall we had English hunt- 
 scenes, for the dining-room black old engravings that 
 would frighten you. But Mrs. Grantham is always 
 essentially correct 1 
 
 " Please, papa/ cried Katty, " let me interrupt, to 
 tell Mr. Davenant that Hillcote is now the prettiest 
 old model farm-house in Massachusetts. And may I 
 tell him, too, about your vegetable-gardenhow much 
 the peas cost apiece by the time we got them on the 
 table and the strawberries?" 
 
 " My father does his farming by long-distance tele 
 phone from his chambers," said one of the school-boys, 
 with a mischievous look. 
 
 "How about those hogs, papa?" added the other 
 lad, evidently touching some family joke. " Oh, don t 
 let s talk about going anywhere but to Hillcote ! " he 
 burst out fervently. 
 
 "Agreed! "said Katty. 
 
 " Agreed ! " cried the older boy. 
 
 " Carried ! " exclaimed the girl, clapping her hands. 
 " Mummy darling, if you knew how I hate dancing 
 and prancing and going to dinners in summer-time, 
 you d never take me to Newport or Lenox or Bar 
 Harbor. Keep all the money you d have spent on 
 our finery, and let us have the farm." 
 
 " And be a ruined parent at the end of the season," 
 said Grantham ; but it was easy to see that his sym 
 pathies were with his young ones. 
 
 " You see, Mr. Davenant, how our juveniles rule us," 
 observed Katrina, as, upon Peter s declining a cigar 
 with his host, she returned with him to her drawing- 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 room. " I don t doubt they will end by having their 
 own way. And, should we go to Hillcote, you must 
 promise to make us a visit there. The only neighbors 
 of any consequence we have are the Stanleys, who 
 own a fine house built on a great wide-spreading es 
 tate a few miles distant, where they keep up a stock- 
 farm, but rarely go. Not once since we fitted up our 
 farm-house has she been there. Etta goes abroad 
 every spring, returns to Newport in July, and spends 
 the autumn at Lenox or elsewhere. From year s end 
 to year s end, she is never out of harness for the gay 
 world." 
 
 " No wonder your charming little daughter avoids 
 such an example," said Davenant. " You are good to 
 let me have a glimpse of home life and natural talk in 
 this reign of artificiality." 
 
 " It is all natural talk in our house," said she, smil 
 ing with a tender thought of her brood. "With all 
 the abuse we Americans have to stand, I claim for us 
 average people an intimacy of domestic life, a unity of 
 interest with our children, that you see in few other 
 countries. My boys and my girl are the best part of 
 my existence, and their habit of confidence sweetens 
 the bitter drops of the daily cup." 
 
 "You must have few of those," put in Davenant, 
 with a half-sigh. 
 
 " Who has n t some ? " she returned. " What two 
 wedded lives, with their outgrowths, ever ran an even, 
 unbroken course? A man thinks when he gets the 
 woman he loves, and a girl thinks when she gives 
 herself, that they will be always superior to petty 
 differences that they will set a pace for others to keep 
 
t . GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 up with. Ah me ! This world is nothing but going 
 on from day to day, living as best one can, hoping, 
 striving, falling, and scrambling up again. When you 
 marry, pray for adaptability to your other half ; pray 
 also to recognize your limitations, and to fit yourself 
 to them." 
 
 " I am not likely to formulate any petitions of the 
 kind/ he said with an attempt to smile. 
 
 " Some day ! " she answered in a lighter vein. 
 
 Katrina had heard of his frequenting the Carnifex 
 establishment. She was careful not to say anything 
 direct upon this theme, but in her heart determined, 
 if his visit to Hillcote did come off, she would somehow 
 afford him an opportunity to make better acquain 
 tance with Agatha. 
 
 "And, speaking of Mrs. Stanley," went on Mrs. 
 Grantham, "she is just about sailing for the other 
 side, to do her usual spring shopping in Paris. Miss 
 Gwynne goes with her why, this is Sunday ! They 
 sailed yesterday." 
 
 Not a muscle betrayed Davenant s feeling. 
 
 " Sybil Gwynne has been very nice in calling upon 
 me two or three times lately ; but I ve always missed 
 her. When she came back with her aunt from Vir 
 ginia, that good-for-nothing son of Mrs. Lewiston s 
 was taken ill in his mother s house, and Sybil was the 
 only person he would allow to sit by him in his con 
 valescence. His mother, dear knows, would make 
 any invalid wretched by her presence. Sybil was very 
 sweet and unselfish, but when he recovered she began 
 running down herself ; so Etta Stanley persuaded Mrs. 
 Lewiston to let Sybil go abroad with her. Of course 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 103 
 
 people say Miss Gwynne s pale looks and general ab 
 straction are due to her approaching marriage with 
 Captain Cameron. That is such a common feature of 
 engagements ! But no one knows whether she is to 
 marry him or not. There has been no announcement. 
 The shopping business in Paris is confirmatory. If it 
 is true, there goes another one of our choice maidens 
 to swell the ranks of the British aristocracy ! It is 
 astonishing what a lot of them we have lost. And it s 
 quite absurd to say their matches have not turned out 
 well. There are as many prizes and as many blanks 
 in the marriage lottery over there as in ours. Sybil 
 Gwynne, for instance, will be happier than she could 
 have been with anybody in New York." 
 " Upon what do you base your assertion ? " 
 " Chiefly the parrot-cry of her set : i Who is there 
 for her to marry here ? Whatever she was intended 
 for by her Maker, shaping and training have not fitted 
 her to be the helpmate of a good American." 
 
 THE first day out at sea ! Sybil quitted the deck state 
 room wherein her friend Etta reclined upon a broad 
 bed, covered by her own luxurious duvet, attended by 
 an effusive maid and the cunning stewardess, and 
 looking so yellow and ghastly it was as well Mr. Stan 
 ley kept himself severely within the smoking-room, 
 where he usually played poker from shore to shore of 
 the Atlantic. Leaning over the rail, the girl looked 
 westward. Ainslie, who had come down to the dock 
 to see her off at the last minute, had casually told her 
 that he d been to the theater the night before with 
 the Carnifexes, and it was all rubbish to suppose 
 
104 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 Agatha meant to marry Peter Davenant. Agatha had, 
 in fact, as much as told him of her persistent inten 
 tion to remain unwed. 
 
 " I once fancied he was hard hit by you," the young 
 fellow had added, in the midst of a mob of swarming, 
 struggling women carrying bouquets, who had come 
 on board to see the departure of their idol, the great 
 pianist. 
 
 There had stood the artist, with his silk hat set on 
 the back of his leonine locks, with his bare throat and 
 turn-down collar, with his pale, intellectual face wear 
 ing an expression of abject boredom. Here had 
 surged the women. Above the clack of tongues, the 
 babel of noise from dock and shipboard, the sonorous 
 clashing of the band, the bell warning loiterers to be 
 off had sounded for the last time. 
 
 " And you decided he is too big and wise a man to 
 waste himself upon an idle trifler of my kind ? " Sybil 
 had answered, a bitter note in her voice. 
 
 " I at least am not," had answered Ainslie, with a 
 look of unwonted gravity. " Bon voyage ! This com 
 ing down to the ships that are sailing for the other 
 side is one of the severest tests of my friendship. If 
 I always want to go on them, fancy how I feel now ! " 
 
 " Some President will have to send you out as sec 
 retary of an embassy." 
 
 " That would undo all these years of striving. No, 
 no ! Let me alone, and in the course of time I may 
 come out a good American." 
 
 " Do go ; you will get left," Sybil had urged. 
 
 " Then good-by, once more. The chief steward will 
 keep you supplied with white violets till about Queens- 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 105 
 
 town j they are in his ice-box, and I hope won t prove 
 messy. Think of me sometimes." 
 
 His hand clasped hers. The gaze of his clear blue 
 eyes wore a look of lover s longing. 
 
 " There is no hope for me ever f" he asked in a 
 thick whisper. 
 
 " No, no. Good-by, good-by ! " Sybil had answered 
 in her agitation lest he should be left putting her 
 gloved hand against his breast to press him from the 
 ship. 
 
 To-day she went over again what Ainslie had told 
 her. The relief of knowing that Davenant was free 
 filled her with joy. She almost forgot to sympathize 
 with poor, faithful, handsome Ainslie ; and for a time 
 she quite forgot Ian Cameron, to whom she had prom 
 ised to give a final answer on arriving at their hotel 
 in Paris. 
 
 This exuberance went with her across the ocean, 
 that, after two boisterous days, settled down into 
 lamblike gentleness. 
 
 Nearing the Irish coast, they held aboard the usual 
 concert, this time to be made forever memorable to 
 its patrons. The ship s company gathered like bees in 
 the saloon. The piano, tuned for the occasion, was to 
 be touched by the famous magician. It was almost 
 too good to be true ! 
 
 A little while and he took his seat. There was 
 breathless silence while he played on, on, without 
 break except to change the melody. No matter what 
 the theme, his fingers gave it harmony divine, and 
 fitted it to the magic of the hour. Afloat on the wide 
 ocean, the sound of the screws scarcely heard in the 
 
106 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 quiet sea that pulsed against the great ship s sides 
 an hour of enchantment, of rest, of tender reverie. 
 
 When Sybil laid her down that night she had 
 reached the conclusion that was to color all her life. 
 In vain had poor Ainslie s violets wasted their sweet 
 ness in a frozen atmosphere. 
 
VII 
 
 IDSUMMER in the Berkshire hill-coun 
 try ! Shadows of mountain and forest 
 lie for a moment upon greenest earth, 
 and at the shifting of a cloud-screen 
 vanish. At a lull in the west wind 
 intense heat is exhaled upon the at 
 mosphere ; the air of the pine woods smites the face 
 like a blast from a furnace j then a burst of invigorat 
 ing wind comes to revive fainting humanity. In an 
 swer to it, the elm-trees toss and whisper to the pines ; 
 the birches, white ladies of the woods, gossip with the 
 tasseled chestnuts. The red bell-lilies in the oat-fields 
 tinkle above a sea of rippled, glossy verdure. In the 
 tall meadow-grasses, daisies, rudbeckias, vetch, and 
 purple clover bend and intermingle. To greet the 
 perfect day, nature sends forth all the incense in her 
 caskets. 
 
 FOLLOWING a, forest road under an awning formed of 
 chestnuts, hemlocks, flowering linden, hickories, beech- 
 boughs crusted with tiny nuts, and garlands of wild 
 grape, jogged a basket-phaeton, leisurely driven by a 
 girl, behind whom was perched a youthful groom in 
 undress livery of cords. The continuity of dense shade 
 
 107 
 
108 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 during a mile or two was grateful alike to the fat 
 pony, to the lazy little groom, and to the graceful 
 charioteer. Now listening to the liquid notes of the 
 wood-robins, now plunging her eye into the bracken 
 and maidenhair that grew in masses upon the road 
 side, or else stopping when the pony wished to dip his 
 nose into a trough of ice-cold water fed by a moss- 
 grown conduit from the hills above, the girl dawdled 
 away a pleasant hour. When she came out of the 
 lovely wood into a country road bordered with low 
 stone walls overgrown by greenery, the view opened 
 nobly before her. Hills upon hills, mountains be 
 yond, a valley with a winding river, here and there a 
 farm-house overtopped in size by its red barn, on the 
 steep hillsides pastures with short herbage, scattered 
 rocks, wild brier-roses, and sweet-fern, the odor of 
 which was trodden out by the feet of grazing sheep 
 and cattle. More daisies in white sheets, rumpled by 
 the breeze; more oat-fields, yellowish red with the 
 lovely mottled bells that steal away their substance. 
 A bit of New England, this placid, verdant, soothing 
 to eye and spirit. As good as old England, thought 
 the looker-on, save for the lack of habitations blended 
 by age with their surroundings. And far away, in a 
 hollow to the left, below a slope of shining Indian 
 corn, she saw the sparkle of a sapphire lake. 
 
 " Would that be Pocasset?" the lady asked of her 
 attendant, extending her whip in the direction of this 
 open eye of the landscape. 
 
 " Beg pard n, miss, but I m sure I could n t say," 
 answered the prim little buttony personage. 
 
 The absurdity of her appeal to this imported speci- 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 109 
 
 men struck the questioner, and she laughed aloud. A 
 countryman in a checked shirt, and carrying a scythe, 
 was met at this moment. As he stopped naively to 
 enjoy the spectacle of her equipage, she repeated the 
 inquiry. 
 
 " No, marm ; it ain t," he said promptly. " To git to 
 Pocasset, you ve got to turn into the next piece of 
 woods to yer right. There s a mighty sight of ponds 
 hereabouts, an all on em purty." 
 
 " Thank you, 7 said she, feeling in a tiny purse of 
 silver network at her girdle for a small coin to bestow 
 upon him. To her confusion, he colored to the ears, 
 and with a grunt of refusal of the dole, passed slouch 
 ing on his way. 
 
 " I forget where I am/ she said to herself, blushing 
 also. " I hope I did not irremediably wound the feel 
 ings of that free-born republican. But I am sure he 
 would not hesitate to drive a sharp bargain with me 
 in the way of trade." 
 
 The pony, reminded by a flick of the whip, resumed 
 his easy gait. The groom, deciding that there was as 
 little exertion in this method of earning his wages as 
 another, sprang to his perch. A mile farther, and the 
 turn of the road appeared, leading into a wood of 
 great pines, oaks, and towering hemlocks. 
 
 In the heart of these shadowy depths lay a pool of 
 azure tint and considerable length and breadth. The 
 road ended beside a bank sloping down to a sheet of 
 water in a noble grove, cleared of undergrowth, and 
 verdant with moss and bracken. So remote the spot, 
 it was a genuine surprise to the lady of the chariot to 
 espy near the edge of this pond a gipsy fire, over 
 
110 GOOD AMEEICANS 
 
 which a kettle was boiling. Under the trees rugs were 
 spread around a hamper suggestive of good fare. A 
 few books had been left by their readers upon the rugs 
 and roots of trees. At a little distance, a smart buck- 
 board stood detached from horses tied at a rack ; and 
 directly from under the steep bank glided a punt filled 
 with wild flowers, fishing-tackle, and people in holiday 
 attire. 
 
 " What a surprise ! " called a woman s voice. " We 
 had no idea you had come up." 
 
 "Nor I that you were here." 
 
 So saying, Sybil Gwynne threw the reins to her 
 groom, and springing from the phaeton, ran down the 
 bank to greet her friends. She had known, of course, 
 of the Granthams residence in this neighborhood, but 
 had not counted upon seeing them at this spot, or so 
 soon. 
 
 " We came up yesterday," she added. " Etta has a 
 headache from the heat j the men are all absorbed with 
 the horses ; and so I begged for this trap to explore the 
 country-side." 
 
 "Then pray send the groom home with it, and 
 stop with us for luncheon," said Mrs. Grantham, who, 
 in her crisp shirt and skirt and shade-hat, looked 
 young and summer-like. 
 
 The other voyagers were Mowbray Grantham, 
 wearing the shocking old coat and trousers he called 
 his " fishing-suit," with a straw hat purchased in the 
 nearest village shop ; one of his sons, in similar attire ; 
 Katty, a picture of jaunty prettiness ; and Agatha 
 Carnifex. 
 
 " I suppose if you did n t let Etta know your where- 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 111 
 
 abouts she would be alarmed/ 7 went on Katrina. 
 "Do stay. We can just as well leave you there on our 
 return." 
 
 The others chiming in, Sybil let herself be persuaded, 
 and the little groom was accordingly dismissed. 
 
 " We were just coming ashore to prepare for lunch 
 eon/ said Mrs. Grantham. " This is our own grove, 
 and to spend the day here is one of our favorite hot- 
 day performances. Lake Pocasset, although in the 
 pine woods, is mysteriously cool. How nice it will be 
 to sit under the trees and let you tell us rustics of 
 your grand doings in the world beyond the sea ! " 
 
 "We arrived in town day before yesterday," an 
 swered Sybil, " and followed Jack s fancy to come here 
 from the steamer. I am to join my aunt at Newport 
 at the end of the week. How pretty this is ! What 
 an odd greenish light ! It is a nook of sweet repose 
 after the glare of the open road. And how particu 
 larly nice," she added, turning to Agatha, " that I have 
 found you with Mrs. Grantham ! " 
 
 "It is nice to be here," answered Miss Carnifex. 
 " Our life at Hillcote is delightful. Katty and her 
 brothers and I form a band of lawless vagabonds, 
 determined to get everything that outdoor life can 
 give us, at any expense of looks." 
 
 "Now for work," said Mrs. Grantham, briskly. 
 "We will lay the cloth first, and unpack the cold 
 meat and salads. I shall trust no one with the coffee, 
 and my husband will care for that wine-cellar of his in 
 the hollow of a tree. I think, Jim," she said to her boy, 
 " you may as well not attempt to broil our fish till you 
 see whether the canoeists bring in something better." 
 
112 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 " Mr. Davenant was lying on his back in the bottom, 
 looking up into the sky," said Jim, with decision ; " and 
 Bob can t catch anything to save him. I vote to cook 
 what fish we have, and not to depend upon those 
 loafers." 
 
 " Mr. Davenant ! " said the last comer. 
 
 "Yes; he is with us for a much-needed vacation," 
 answered Katrina. " There, Jim, is a beautiful bed of 
 hickory embers on the stones. Jiin is an old woods 
 man, Miss Gwynne, as you will say when you taste 
 his broiled bass. My boys had a camp here for a 
 month one summer, and cooked for themselves all that 
 we did not fetch them from home when we drove over 
 to see whether they were dying of starvation." 
 
 Mowbray Grantham, who took his ease beside Sybil 
 while the others worked, had leisure to observe the 
 sudden vivid illumination of her beautiful fair face. 
 
 His wife s invitation to her to join them had not 
 been seconded by him with much zeal. He had always 
 looked upon Sybil Gwynne as a Parisian version of 
 Undine. Now he detected in her expression some 
 thing that lent to it human charm. In her simple 
 morning frock of blue-and-white-striped cotton, with 
 a sailor-hat of white straw, and a knot of sweet-peas 
 in her white belt, she looked like a charming school 
 girl, glad yet shy. "After all," he reflected, "who 
 shall say that a pretty woman is not a good thing to 
 look at, anywhere ? " 
 
 A canoe, propelled in leisurely fashion by Bob 
 Grantham, and containing a recumbent figure in flan 
 nels with his hat over his eyes, now came in sight 
 around the bank. A shout from Jim to his brother, 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 113 
 
 summoning him to help in cookery, aroused the 
 lounger, who, pulling himself up, looked about him in 
 contrition. 
 
 "Are we here?" he said. "Bob, you rascal, you 
 betrayed me ! I had no idea we were at the landing- 
 place." 
 
 "Too hot for apologies too hot for anything," 
 quoth the recreant, steering the craft skilfully inshore. 
 
 Another moment, and Davenant stood in blank as 
 tonishment in Sybil s presence. The drowsy look, 
 passing from his eyes, was succeeded by one of bril 
 liant welcome. Whence she had come he asked not, 
 but took her hand in his, and looked into her face as 
 if he could never have enough of it ; then, remember 
 ing the presence of outsiders, although these were 
 busy with hospitable cares, stood back, and curbed 
 his fervor. 
 
 Constraining himself to speak instead of shouting 
 for joy, he asked her the usual questions about her 
 arrival in the country, and told her, in return, that 
 having himself come up the day before yesterday to 
 be Mrs. Grantham s guest, for two days only, it was 
 his wish to remain at Hillcote for a week. 
 
 " We shall be quite near you, then," said Sybil, art 
 lessly. " Perhaps we 11 be meeting every day." 
 
 Davenant, not trusting himself to discuss this con 
 tingency, now yielded to a call to luncheon, that, 
 spread on a cloth upon the ground, afforded dainties 
 perfected for such occasions by long experience. The 
 broiled bass, so recently transferred from the " glassy, 
 cool, translucent wave," were praised and enjoyed in 
 a way to reward the two cooks for the heat of their 
 
114 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 endeavor. The claret, the black coffee served after 
 ward, all details, carefully sustained the general pitch 
 of excellence. 
 
 When they had finished, Mr. Grantham retired to 
 lounge upon a Highland plaid stretched over a bed of 
 bracken, and there smoke his cigar, while Katty read 
 aloud to him from a book of Rudyard Kipling s prose. 
 Mrs. Grantham, retaining the faithful Jim as her 
 aide-de-camp, dismissed the others "anywhere," she 
 said. 
 
 At this, Agatha Carnifex challenged Bob to return 
 with her to a spot in the woods where from the boat 
 she had seen a curious and superb bank of tawny 
 fungi freckled with crimson spots. 
 
 "May I go, too?" asked Sybil. 
 
 "You will only soil that pretty gown," said Mrs. 
 Grantham, practically; "it is all boggy where they 
 are going. Take my advice : keep cool and clean. 
 Get into the canoe, and let Mr. Davenant show you 
 the bed of water-lilies at the end of the lake. All the 
 rest of us have enjoyed it this morning, and you really 
 should not miss the spectacle." 
 
 "Yes; do go," urged Agatha. "It is the finest 
 flower-show you will have seen since Regent s Park." 
 
 Sybil still hesitated. 
 
 " Will you come ? " asked Davenant, in a voice that 
 reached her ear alone. 
 
 She yielded. Had anything forewarned Sybil that 
 she would be placed in this situation, there might have 
 been some holding back ; but the unexpected had con 
 quered her ; it seemed all so natural. 
 
 When, on stepping into the canoe, she laid her bare 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 115 
 
 little white hand in his sunburnt one, Sybil felt what 
 was coming toward her on swift wings of destiny. 
 They paddled off, she sitting in the bow and facing 
 him in speechless pleasure, until, at the extreme end 
 of the lake, the canoe ran into a floating field of starry, 
 snow-white blooms, golden at heart, exhaling richest 
 fragrance, their chalices cradled upon broad, moist 
 plaques of green. 
 
 Under the nearest bank grew rushes, tall and vigor 
 ous. The air, steeped in perfume and filled with the 
 errant particles of summer growth, was also melodious 
 with the song of wood-birds, and resonant with the 
 hum of bright-winged circling insects. The symphony 
 of midsummer was at its climax. 
 
 " Oh, let us stay here ! " she cried involuntarily, and 
 a flash of triumph leaped into his eyes. 
 
 While they lingered he shifted his place a little, at 
 the other end of the canoe, to watch her more com 
 posedly. They laughed together like children at the 
 rocking of their frail craft, and, once at rest again, 
 began the babbling interchange of respective experi 
 ence since they had parted, just as if no cloud of dis 
 trust had ever come between them. He explained to 
 her how, his visit to Hillcote having been twice before 
 interrupted by business calls, he had come very near 
 missing this chance also and then where would that 
 have left him ? How he had believed her to be stop 
 ping in the Engadine until the autumn; how nothing 
 was further from his dreams than this surprise of her 
 presence beneath an ancient pine-tree on the bank of 
 Lake Pocasset j how, for him, life since he saw her last 
 had gone on in the usual humdrum fashion ; he had 
 
116 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 worked, worked, worked, as he expected always to 
 have to do, without other relaxations than those 
 possible in a hot town when every one excepting 
 toilers has gone to the country. 
 
 Sybil s eyes shone upon him with soft compassion. 
 She tried to realize this existence of his, so unlike any 
 thing in her acquaintance with other men. She 
 thought of the debonair idlers she had seen in Lon 
 don and Paris, and New York s great mill of workers 
 without perspective seemed pitiless. 
 
 " But you have some diversions, surely ? " she asked 
 in a sad voice. 
 
 "Enough and to spare," he answered with a smile ; 
 " but not, probably, of the kind you would recognize 
 as such." 
 
 "It sounded so dreary!" she exclaimed apologeti 
 cally. 
 
 " Not dreary if one faces it with hope in his heart, 
 and courage. And, you must remember, it is my life. 
 Even before I met you I had my bright moments and 
 rewards. Since then" 
 
 Her eyes drooped before his. With one hand trail 
 ing in the water, she drew to her a long green stem 
 crowned with the peerless blossom of New England 
 lakes. Davenant went on : 
 
 " I don t like to tell you what a black time I passed 
 through after I heard you were going to marry that 
 man Cameron." 
 
 " But I am not ! " she exclaimed with enchanting 
 disregard of consequences. " I have no idea of doing 
 so." 
 
 " You have come back to me heart-whole ? " 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 117 
 
 "To to America," she faltered, with an effort to 
 recall her rash encouragement. 
 
 "To me to me!" he cried passionately. "I m a 
 tyro, I suppose, and my brain is in a tumult, and I am 
 desperately anxious for you to love me as I love you 
 as I ve loved you ever since we met. But I don t 
 want to ask you for yourself if you re not ready to 
 hear me. I d rather you d silence me now, and give 
 me a chance hereafter. If you 11 give me that chance 
 I 11 do anything to win you." 
 
 Sybil s mouth curved in a happy smile. 
 
 "Had you rather put it off?" she said, more mis 
 tress of herself than he was master of his palpitating 
 speech. 
 
 MRS. GRANTHAM, who had packed her baskets and 
 ordered her horses put to the buckboard, stood upon 
 the bank, gathering her chickens beneath her wings. 
 
 " It feels and smells like a thunder-storm," she said. 
 " I really think, Mowbray, you had better let one of the 
 boys go in the punt and call those two to come back." 
 
 "The storm is probably a long way off, my dear," 
 said her husband ; " and no doubt Miss Gwynne and 
 Davenant will be coming presently." 
 
 "If we are caught, mother, we can stop in that 
 empty house behind the poplars on the main road," 
 said Master Jim " and there s a shed for the trap 
 and horses." 
 
 With a distant rumble of thunder, a little shiver in 
 the branches of the wood began. 
 
 " You see, Mowbray ! I insist that you go and call 
 them, Jim," said Mrs. Grantham. 
 
118 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 " They are there/ said Miss Carnif ex, calmly, as the 
 missing ones came in sight. 
 
 The canoe, kept at the lake for his diversion by Mr. 
 Grantham, was quickly deserted by its latest occupants 
 and put under shelter. The party with hurrying 
 footsteps climbed into the buckboard, and the horses 
 trotted off. When they reached the ridge of the hill 
 above the lake, the lightning had begun to play daz- 
 zlingly, lacing the branches of the roadside trees. 
 
 " Faster, papa ! " cried Katty, who, with one of her 
 brothers, sat beside her father on the front seat. " I 
 love this tearing along into an advancing storm. 
 You 11 surely get to the deserted house before the rain 
 catches us." 
 
 All nature was in commotion. The tall grass and 
 flowers of the wayside bent, and were bowed to earth. 
 The surface of the fields of oats and corn showed deep 
 dimples from the wind. A few drops fell. Thunder 
 pealed again with a deep, glorious rumble, and again 
 the lightning flashed, this time with a blue glare. 
 
 Sybil, sitting between Agatha and Davenant, shrank 
 and trembled irrepressibly. 
 
 "You are not afraid?" said Davenant, inclining to 
 ward her tenderly. 
 
 Agatha, who had sat erect gazing toward the storm, 
 seemed to have heard nothing ; but the next livid flash 
 from the heavily charged cloud, that, as they drove 
 under the shed of the deserted house, struck one of 
 the row of poplars before it, showed Davenant the 
 expression of her face. 
 
 When, a deluge of rain over, the sun shone out into 
 the warm, humid air, they resumed their drive. 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 119 
 
 " This is a true New England frolic of Dame Nature," 
 said Mr. Grantham. " I wonder which was the most 
 frightened of our party ? " 
 
 " Not I," said Katty. " Mama was a little, for I saw 
 her clutch Jim s coat-sleeve, and Miss Gwynne looked 
 rather white." 
 
 " So did Miss Cam if ex," said Jim Grantham. " I 
 think she s the whitest still." 
 
 "James!" said his mother, reprovingly; "never 
 make personal remarks." 
 
 DURING the rest of his holiday Davenant walked upon 
 air. Thanks to the isolation of the two houses in a 
 quiet neighborhood, daily opportunity was aiforded 
 him to see his beloved, and sun himself in the radi 
 ance of her smiles. The necessity enjoined upon him 
 by her of keeping their affair to themselves until she 
 could announce it formally to her Aunt Lewiston lent 
 the charm of mystery and device to their meetings. 
 In the glorification of his spirits, he took the trouble 
 to be extremely polite to Etta Stanley, who, to please 
 her husband, had come into this barren district, but 
 was longing to leave it for Newport. Mrs. Stanley, re 
 voking her earlier decision, now announced that Dave 
 nant had a great deal in him. She was prepared to 
 launch with him upon one of her shadowy flirtations, 
 wherein the man had little to do besides following her 
 in public and appearing to be devoted. But to this 
 Davenant did not respond ; and, luckily for him, a 
 friend of her husband s, a connoisseur in horse-flesh, 
 whose wife lived in permanence abroad, came up just 
 then to stop for a week at Stanley Hall. This gentle- 
 
120 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 man, well understanding how to dawdle unemotion 
 ally after his hostess, and save her from having to 
 go about with Jack, relieved the situation for Dav- 
 enant. 
 
 Mrs. Grantham, as we have seen, the most good- 
 natured of souls, was disconcerted by the new arrange 
 ment. She admired Sybil, but loved Agatha ; and on 
 the day following the luncheon at Lake Pocasset, 
 Agatha had terminated her visit, and gone to keep her 
 father company at their own summer home in New 
 Jersey, near Morristown. After her departure it was 
 evident to the casual observer that Davenant could 
 never really have cared otherwise than as a friend for 
 the admirable Miss Carnifex. He was too cheerful, 
 too emphatic in indorsing praises of her, too calm in 
 her absence, too everything but what Katrina had 
 intended him to be. And at the end of the second 
 day after the encounter with Sybil the keen-sighted 
 Katty told her mother that she thought, and Jim 
 thought, "anybody with half an eye" could see that 
 Mr. Davenant was " dead gone " upon Miss Gwynne. 
 Katrina, struggling with vexed unbelief, had to suc 
 cumb when Jim told her he had seen the couple out 
 in the huckleberry pasture, sitting upon a boulder, and 
 looking at the sunset, hand in hand. 
 
 " That s not all, mother," added the boy, with 
 deeper excitement, his cherub cheeks ruddy, his eyes 
 distended, as he whispered something in her ear. 
 
 " James Grantham ! " began his mother, then 
 stopped short. So much for her idyl of Hillcote, 
 wherein Davenant and her favorite Agatha were to 
 have played the leading parts! 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 121 
 
 THUS Davenant entered upon the kingdom of his 
 hopes. In the fullness of his satisfaction there was no 
 alloy. This great prize of life that had come to him 
 seemed, like the lesser ones preceding it, his due. He 
 was proud, exultant, in feeling that his manhood was 
 about to be made complete. 
 
VIII 
 
 OLSTOI has said that a newly married 
 man is like one who, having been 
 charmed with the graceful and joyous 
 motion of a boat upon the sea, after 
 ward embarks in it. He then feels 
 the difference between contemplation 
 and action. It is not enough for him to sit still and 
 avoid rocking the boat ; he must keep on the lookout, 
 be accurate in following the course, mindful of wind 
 and weather, and is himself obliged to propel the 
 heavy oars. 
 
 Nothing of this had as yet suggested itself to Peter 
 Davenant as, on their honeymoon journey, he sailed 
 with Sybil out of the Bosporus for a cruise in the 
 
 The violent opposition of Mrs. Lewiston to their 
 engagement, which, accepting no compromise, required 
 Sybil to break with him or forfeit the shelter of her 
 home, had precipitated matters. After a stormy week 
 at her aunt s house in Newport, the girl had yielded 
 to his solicitation to be married quietly in church 
 there, and go abroad until her aunt s excitement should 
 in some degree subside. In this decision she was sec 
 onded by her cousin St. Clair, who, attending her at 
 
 122 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 123 
 
 the altar, not only gave her away in marriage, but 
 presented the bride with a couple of strings of pearls 
 more befitting a princess of the blood than the un- 
 dowered wife of a hard-working lawyer. Others of 
 Sybil s friends who would have liked to be present 
 were debarred by the hasty nature of the proceedings. 
 Agatha Carnifex, the Granthams, and Ainslie sent 
 gifts and good wishes. The affair, a nine days 7 won 
 der of the newspapers, was in time superseded by an 
 other " social incident " offering opportunity for more 
 flamboyant head-lines. 
 
 QUICKLY wooed, quickly wed, Sybil was like the crea 
 ture of a dream. Not an acquaintance of her aunt s 
 and Mrs. Stanley s way of thinking had regarded her 
 action as other than the result of impassioned folly. 
 People who knew better commended her for courage 
 and independence in asserting, at two-and-twenty, her 
 right to the husband of her heart. Croakers said this 
 was the " fine, enlightened stride " of new womanhood. 
 And, lastly, those familiar with Mrs. Lewiston s tem 
 per when aroused by opposition averred that Sybil, 
 poor creature, had really nowhere else to turn. 
 
 The next most serious difficulty in their path had 
 been Davenant s adjustment of his affairs to take her 
 away for a couple of months from the annoyances of 
 home. When, this finally accomplished, the world was 
 all before them where to choose, a memory of their 
 first talk decided both upon a voyage in the Levant. 
 
 From Paris they had taken the Orient Express to 
 Constantinople, and finding it still too hot to do more 
 than skim through the sights of that brilliant, dirty 
 
124 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 town, had there boarded a Russian steamer bound for 
 Smyrna and Alexandria, but intending to bring up en 
 route at the Piraeus. 
 
 It was a mellow day of autumn when their big, well- 
 fitted modern vessel broke away from the throng of 
 little rowboats, caiques, and launches besetting her 
 sides as long as she lay at anchor in the channel, and 
 up to the last minute embarking passengers and mails. 
 The numbers and colors of these crafts recalled to 
 Sybil the course at Henley regatta between the races. 
 Deafened by the shouts of boatmen and stevedores, 
 amused by the water pageant, our pair of travelers 
 hung over the rail like two children, taking note of 
 all they saw. A last impatient whistle had hurried up 
 the gangway steps the family of a Turkish general, 
 whose staff, on taking leave of him to return to their 
 launch, were kissed in a patriarchal fashion while 
 bending at his knee. His chief wife, a formless figure 
 in a dark-green-silk night-gown, with a veil of striped 
 yellow gauze, white-cotton stockings, and slippers 
 without heels, presently established herself on deck, 
 where, after straightening the tassel of her husband s 
 fez, she proceeded to eat sweetmeats held up in a sil 
 ver box by a squatting, amber-tinted slave-girl with 
 white draperies and eyes like a faithful dog s. 
 
 Two little servant-girls in pink cotton, with veils of 
 white cheese-cloth, ran hither and thither, carrying 
 silver cups of water, and holding boxes of cigarettes, 
 in readiness for their mistress s call. The mother-in- 
 law, a sallow old woman dressed in black, with bright 
 eyes and a jolly laugh, took her seat behind the 
 cruncher of many sweets; while the son and heir, a 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 125 
 
 small boy in green-velvet jacket and knickerbockers, 
 with a fez over his droll little foxy face, wandered in 
 cessantly, after the manner of his kind, in custody of 
 a Turkish tutor visibly alarmed by the vagaries of so 
 important a charge. High-class Armenians ; families 
 returning from a summer at Therapia to their homes 
 in Egypt among them a brown mother with a flock 
 of little daughters like brown birds; an English 
 couple ; a German professor and his wife ; a bride from 
 Odessa with her Greek husband (this officer wearing, 
 despite the sultry atmosphere, his full-dress uniform 
 and tufted hat, and spurs) ; a dark-eyed belle from 
 Syria, dressed like a French fashion-plate, on the re 
 turn with her papa and mama from the Turkish New 
 port ; a coquettish young Rumanian lady guarded by 
 her white-haired Parisian husband ; more Turks, who 
 kept aloof ; some Alexandrian citizens ; and a group 
 of handsome Russian officers, made up the ship s tale 
 of first-cabin passengers. 
 
 The lower forward deck of the steamer was even 
 fuller of cosmopolitan variety. Our Americans, up 
 above, surveyed the scene with eager interest. Before 
 the ship left the Bosporus this space had been con 
 verted into a focus of Oriental color and animation. 
 Lounging on mattresses covered with many-hued 
 stuffs and rugs, a veiled harem occupied the center. 
 About it were seen Turks at ease ; Greek and Arme 
 nian peddlers ; Arab women and babies ; a band of 
 sturdy Montenegrins, with shepherd coats of the nat 
 ural tint of wool, leggings, and small caps embroidered 
 on the crown, their belts stuck with knives and pis 
 tols; Circassians in sheepskin shubas ; sad-eyed Ar- 
 
126 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 menian merchants in long black robes and crimson 
 f ezzes j a solitary muzhik in black velveteens, with a 
 scarlet shirt and sash; and two Russian pilgrims to 
 Jerusalem, with scrips and staffs and cross-gartered 
 legs, lying asleep upon the boards, their red beards 
 turned upward to the sky. 
 
 The luggage of these travelers was as picturesque 
 as its owners bales, saddle-bags, carpet-sacks, and 
 cushions of variegated hues and rich texture ; grass- 
 woven baskets heaped with grapes and peaches j melons 
 hugged under the arm ; water-bottles, jugs and trays 
 of pottery and beaten brass; a medley of gleaming 
 metal, embroidered stuffs, and sheenf ul silk. So de 
 lighted was Sybil with each new type, costume, or 
 grouping that, her eye detached from its surroundings, 
 Davenant could with difficulty induce her to come 
 away with him to pace the length of the deck, and look 
 back at the marvelous beauty of the vanishing city. 
 
 Melting in the effulgent sunshine of an unclouded 
 heaven, they saw vanish towers, minarets, mosques, 
 palaces of piiik-and- white fretwork, terraced gardens, 
 cypress-groves, ancient crenelated walls dipping into 
 the water, and the towering domes of St. Sophia. As 
 they steamed out of the Bosporus a bird winging its 
 way across the water, which at times it touched, at 
 tracted Sybil s attention. 
 
 " That petrel of the Bosporus," said, in good English, 
 the German professor, who stood near them with his 
 wife, " is almost the most restless fellow extant. The 
 Turks give him the poetical name of l the lost soul ; 
 but my wife and I have bestowed a better title : we 
 call him i the American en voyage. " 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 127 
 
 " My dear ! " said the lady, blushing, and touching 
 her husband s coat-sleeve. 
 
 "Oh! Ah! I beg your pardon," said he, peni 
 tently. " Of course I supposed you to be English. I 
 should never have taken you for Americans, you know," 
 he ended radiantly. 
 
 " Worse and worse ! " whispered Sybil, as the two 
 couples parted to resume their march. " Don t let that 
 eloquent face of yours show you mind it. If you were 
 as old a traveler as I am, you d be accustomed to that 
 pleasantry." 
 
 " I can be vexed with no one in such a scene," he 
 said, laughing. " Henceforward every inch of our way 
 is through the classics. I must begin to furbish up 
 my memories. There are two questions I forbid you 
 to ask me : where Homer was born, and where was 
 ancient Troy." 
 
 " Just what I meant to do ! " she said. " If you don t 
 tell me all you know, or don t know, I shall be obliged 
 to appeal to our friend the professor, who, I can see, 
 is giving Ms wife a flood of information." 
 
 " I 11 swear I won t be forced into the dragoman 
 business ! But I 11 tell you this : there was once a 
 German youngster in a wine-shop who, after listening 
 to the talk of some students about the Iliad, made up 
 his mind that he would like some day to journey the 
 way we are going now. In after years, when he had 
 amassed gold and learning, he came to the Helles 
 pont-" 
 
 " That we shall pass at two in the morning ! " cried 
 she, in a vexed tone. 
 
 " and, taking up his abode at Hissarlik, dug and 
 
128 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 dug till he had uncovered seven Troys. Out of that 
 collection you may take your choice of the real one." 
 
 " Don t be provoking ! Be sure I sha/n t ask you 
 any more questions. Let us agree to see it all now, 
 and read about it when we go home." 
 
 " It occurs to me, incidentally, that must be Mount 
 Ida," said he, pointing over at the rosy snow of a sum 
 mit rising beyond the brown hills of the Asian coast. 
 " But never mind what it is, so long as we ; re here to 
 gether, far from the world, sailing, sailing to the south. 
 Sybil, I did not think there could be such happiness." 
 
 "Nor I. I have only one regret that this time a 
 year ago we had never even met." 
 
 " A bagatelle ! " he exclaimed, his voice thrilling joy 
 fully. "Why, we were traveling to meet each other 
 then ! " 
 
 AND now, the splendor of sunlight waning with the 
 day s decline, a violet mist gathered in the hollows of 
 the Asian highlands. Along the western horizon the 
 blue was lost in gold. A fresher breeze arose, lashing 
 the surface of Marmora into lively billows, over which 
 the deep-laden ship passed on a steady keel. As the 
 sun forsook them, a long, wailing cry arose : 
 
 " Allah AHar ! To your knees ! " 
 
 It was a muezzin, who, stationing himself upon the 
 bridge over the forward deck, reminded the faithful 
 of the hour of prayer. Scattered about the vessel, the 
 Mussulmans, everywhere kneeling upon little carpets, 
 prostrated themselves toward Mecca. 
 
 Sybil rebelled against the call to dinner in the 
 saloon. 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 129 
 
 "This is too beautiful to leave," she said, holding 
 back. 
 
 A stout Frenchwoman, with mustachios, and carry 
 ing a pet dog under her arm, passing the couple at 
 this moment, smiled at them benignaiitly. 
 
 " Oh la jeimesse ! " she murmured with a rich sigh. 
 " One of these days, madame, you too will be hungry 
 for your dinner." 
 
 u Horrid thing ! " said the girl, petulantly, when the 
 French lady had gone on. 
 
 "I m afraid I am hungry now awfully so," said 
 Peter, guiltily. 
 
 " Then for your sake I 11 go in. But we are to sit 
 up on deck to enter the Dardanelles. I could n t bear 
 to miss the Hellespont." 
 
 Their evening meal, served at the captain s table, 
 had apparently been gathered by the steward from all 
 ports of the vessel s route : fish and mutton from Con 
 stantinople 5 partridges from the Piraeus j JcalatcM (the 
 white rolls of Russia) and fowls from Odessa ; sweets 
 from Syra; wines, red and white, from Bessarabia; 
 fruits, nuts, and resined white wine from the Levant 
 in general j and, to conclude, Lilliputian cups of Turk 
 ish coffee, turbid with grounds and yielding rich 
 aroma. 
 
 "That was a pleasant little company," said Sybil, 
 afterward. " How they all lent themselves to good- 
 fellowship ! Imagine a lot of our countrymen, under 
 like circumstances, loitering at table for the sake of 
 merry chat ! " 
 
 " Other countries, other conditions," said her hus 
 band. 
 
130 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 "You did not like my saying that, Peter. I see I 
 must never find fault with the land of the eagle and 
 the scream." 
 
 "Perhaps I don t want your thoughts to shape 
 themselves that way, because, when we go back 
 
 "Don t don t speak of going back!" cried she. 
 " I want nothing to shadow this lovely, blessed voy 
 age." 
 
 " There should be no shadows about our thoughts 
 of home, my darling," he answered bravely, but at 
 heart a trifle hurt. 
 
 They strolled forward again to look down into the 
 third-class deck. Under the electric light in the rig 
 ging, the groups, who had for the most part already 
 disposed themselves to slumber, presented a new med 
 ley of picturesque attitudes. One of the women of 
 the harem, a slender girl, had thrown her bare brown 
 arms, covered with silver bracelets, above her veiled 
 head. The old crone who guarded them was mixing 
 coffee for a big bearded Turk sitting on a cushion, 
 drawing at his narghile in its gold-embossed glass 
 vessel. Amid a cluster of bag-trousered Mussulmans, 
 whose hands, held behind them, forever toyed with 
 strings of wooden or amber beads, stood a dashing 
 figure, smoking a cigarette, dressed in the costume of 
 a cavass (the Turkish soldier serving as guard at the 
 embassies). His jacket, thickly wrought with gold, 
 his full trousers of crimson silk tucked into long, 
 wrinkled boots, the embroidered holsters of his pistols, 
 and the mustachios curling about a hardy, handsome 
 face, lent him an air both gay and martial. 
 
 "He was but recently a famous Montenegrin rob- 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 131 
 
 ber," explained one of the ship s officers standing near 
 the Americans. " They are quite in demand as ser 
 vants at the embassies." 
 
 With their chairs in a quiet corner, Davenant and 
 Sybil sat upon deck until, about midnight, the pharos 
 of Gallipolis came in sight. As they approached it, 
 Sybil, running forward, stood under the shelter of the 
 captain s bridge to peer out into the darkness. Above 
 her towered the mast, which, with its yard, both black 
 in the shadow of an electric beacon, formed the image 
 of a giant cross. In the rigging, outlined against the 
 blue vault of the sky, millions of stars seemed tangled. 
 Save for the silent specter of a Russian sailor gliding 
 here and there, Sybil had the night to herself and her 
 beloved. With Peter s arms around her, her head 
 leaning against his breast, life overflowed for her with 
 love and peace and hope. 
 
 ON deck again for a long, bright day in the 
 Leaving the Dardanelles (where, at the Hellespont, a 
 health-officer in a small boat had stopped the ship for 
 a brief parley), they skirted Lemnos, between the 
 twin summits of which was cradled Vulcan s forge, 
 then Tenedos, and after that ran for hours between the 
 mainland and Mitylene, ancient Lesbos, burning Sap 
 pho s isle. Lesbian wine might have been circling in 
 their veins, Lesbian sparrows twittering in their ears, 
 so gay the mood of our voyagers. Following the line 
 of serrated coast beneath summits of riven gray, the 
 flanks of its lower hills clothed with olive-orchards and 
 vineyards, they came at noon upon the chief town of 
 the island, the walls of the ruined fortress of which, 
 
132 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 built high and dry by Venetian masters of medieval 
 days, were now washed by the encroaching waves. 
 
 Thenceforward the scene was like the shifting of a 
 kaleidoscope. Rock-piles, arising from the turquoise 
 sea, assumed forever changing forms and tints. Bas 
 tions of Russian porphyry, jagged cliffs of amethyst, 
 crenelated walls of lapis lazuli, a row of golden organ- 
 pipes, a cone of crystal, a tawny lion couchant, far 
 away castles of pale, cerulean blue ! Along the shores 
 of Asia Minor, the hills, with vegetation parched by 
 the summer suns, were russet brown, bronze, and pur 
 ple; the villages, with their occasional olive-mills, 
 were built in eyries to which roads like pencil-strokes 
 went up. Over all this, resplendent sunshine, a lu 
 minous radiance of atmosphere that has kept in it the 
 magic of ancient days, and from the water a light 
 breeze, like the touch of a cool hand ! 
 
 "It is better than any book ever drilled into my 
 boyish brain in a dead language," said Davenant. " I 
 feel steeped in Southern color. And to have it with 
 you beside me" 
 
 Sybil did not weary of such a chorus to every one 
 of her lover s songs of praise of his surroundings. She 
 saw that he had indeed touched the meridian of satis 
 faction with created things. It checked upon her lips 
 many a woman s question and speculation about their 
 future plans and mode of life. It was agreed between 
 them to put off all these considerations until the return 
 voyage to America, which they expected to make from 
 Naples when they could no longer stay abroad. 
 
 Sybil had never looked more lovely. Her fair, deli 
 cate face, with the forget-me-not blue eyes and wild- 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 133 
 
 rose bloom, had captivated most of her fellow-travel 
 ers, who had always a word, a smile, or a courteous 
 act for the young bride. To-day, when the vessel 
 rounded into the sparkling Gulf of Smyrna, people 
 kept emerging from their cabins in resplendent toilets 
 that put Mrs. Daveiiant s plain blue serge and straw 
 sailor-hat in the shade. The fat French lady with the 
 spaniel rustled by her in a fine confection of dress 
 maker s art, topped by a hat with nodding lilacs and 
 white osprey plumes. A little dark gentleman from 
 Egypt, whom the night before Sybil had mistaken for 
 a waiter, appeared in high-heeled lacquered boots, 
 pearl-colored trousers and hat, a frock-coat, blue scarf, 
 yellow kid gloves, and a stick. 
 
 " They look askance at us," whispered Sybil. " We 
 are not dressed for the occasion of landing in a fash 
 ionable port. And I, who thought Smyrna was all 
 figs, and brigands, and the finest camels in Asia! 
 Look, Peter ! Here comes my rival, the other bride, 
 in rose muslin, with such a gorgeous hat! I must 
 run and change before we come to anchor. Peter 
 dear, would you wear your white duck or the striped 
 blue-and-white cotton I had on that day at Pocas 
 set f" 
 
 "The white duck," said Peter, judicially. "Keep 
 the blue-and-white till we get home and I can have a 
 glass case made for it." 
 
 " How long ago it seems, that day at Pocasset, 
 and how far away Pocasset is ! " she said dreamily, her 
 eyes fixed on a line of white glistening salt-heaps edg 
 ing an island coast. " I am afraid we were in a dread 
 ful hurry." 
 
134 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 " We shall have the rest of our lives to repent our 
 rash action in/ 7 said he, rallying her. 
 
 " Repent ! When I have you ! Only sometimes I 
 think how very much we are alone in the world. Oh, 
 Peter, you must be so good to me and I to you ! " 
 
 Her April moods always charmed him, but to-day 
 she had struck a deeper note. He almost felt that for 
 the first time she realized the nature of their bond. 
 While he knew she could not exhaust the depth and 
 breadth of his enveloping love, he wondered if she 
 were equally certain of herself. So far, she had been 
 his queen enthroned in a fond heart. By and by, 
 when she should come to step down from the bridal 
 pedestal and work with him side by side 
 
 " Do you know," she interrupted his meditation, " I 
 think it is so much nicer traveling without a maid and 
 courier. Some girls could n t get on at all; but I I 
 have always done my own hair and known how to 
 keep my things in order. I could not endure to have 
 my clothes disorderly or not fresh and crisp. 7 
 
 " That I am sure of," he said, looking at her with 
 approving eyes. At the same time another one of 
 those shafts of apprehension struck him. Did Sybil 
 understand what it meant not to have all her sur 
 roundings meet her dainty taste? 
 
 " I am afraid, 7 he ventured, " it will be long before 
 I can supply you with a maid and courier, or with 
 journeys that would require them. Our travels must 
 be around the hearth-rug for some time. But you 
 have had so much, your mind will always be filled 
 with lovely pictures. 7 
 
 " Don t speak of anything but this ! " she exclaimed 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 135 
 
 lightly; and again the pagan spirit of her creed to 
 enjoy the hour, and let the future go took hold of 
 him regretfully. 
 
 SYBIL selected from among the gay little fleet that 
 came out to wait upon the ship the boat having the 
 prettiest rug in it. 
 
 When they reached the projecting quay, where a 
 young Turk waited to vise passports, the two were 
 distracted by the din of solicitations from a crowd of 
 guides. Whether to go to Ephesus or the moon, Sybil 
 could not decide, and ended by declaring she preferred 
 to stroll about the town. 
 
 " But if I Ve got to take one of these bores, 1 7 d 
 rather go back to the ship," she said petulantly. 
 
 A nice young man in a blue-serge suit evidently 
 a suave citizen willing to be of service to tormented 
 foreigners here interposed politely. 
 
 "Madam has only to pass these rude fellows by/ 
 he said in English, "and to walk on, paying no at 
 tention." 
 
 Across the blinding sunshine of the quay they hur 
 ried, diving into a cool back street paved with large 
 flagstones newly watered, its shade-trees resting their 
 branches on the house-roofs. A glimpse into a court 
 yard revealed pepper-trees mingling their feathery 
 foliage with the rosy blooms of oleander. And then 
 from a narrow lane emerged a train of stately camels, 
 swaying their long gray necks in the wake of a small, 
 belled donkey. 
 
 " Let us follow the camels," exclaimed Sybil, glee 
 fully, " no matter where they lead us ! " 
 
136 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 But she had reckoned without her host. There, at 
 her elbow, stood the nice young citizen, lifting his hat. 
 
 " Mister wishes to conduct madam to view the bazaar 
 firstly?" he said. "I am serving many distinguished 
 English in the capacity of guide 7 
 
 " We have no need of you," said Davenant, briefly, 
 turning upon his heel. 
 
 They thought to shake him by entering the Hotel 
 Huck for a lemonade and a glance at the "Levant 
 Herald." When they emerged, he was awaiting them, 
 affable and merciless. He infested the honeycomb pas 
 sages of the bazaar, appeared in front of the mosque, 
 refused to be lost in the medley of Oriental peo 
 ples overflowing, with cries about nothing, the noisy 
 little Turkish town. Upon their taking refuge in a 
 book-shop to purchase the Iliad and the Odyssey in 
 modern Greek, the Pest framed himself in the door 
 way, still insufferably smiling. 
 
 "I come out to ship to-morrow morning eh? to 
 conduct mister and madam to view a fig-factory ? " he 
 said inquiringly. 
 
 " Fig-factory be hanged ! " shouted Davenant, at the 
 end of his patience. " If you speak to me again I 11 
 knock you down ! n 
 
 AT evening the hotels, cafes chantants, and theaters 
 were brilliantly alight. The long quay was a parterre 
 of colored lamps. Fainter gleams, like fireflies, twin 
 kled in the old houses scattered about the misty 
 heights beneath the ruined acropolis crowning Mount 
 Pagus. Music and laughter came floating from shore 
 to ship. The Italian gunboat at anchor in the harbor 
 
GOOD AMEEICANS 137 
 
 threw out sheaves of colored fire that broke in showers 
 of stars, repeated in the water. The pale sickle of the 
 moon, hiding her diminished head behind the peaks 
 of Two Brothers, vanished from the scene. 
 
 The lovers, who had the deck almost to themselves, 
 sat there, as usual, till late into the night. 
 
 AWAY again on the morrow, sailing ever over a sea 
 now green, now blue, now streaked with rose, past 
 islands of amethystine hue the purple of Scotch 
 heather drenched in sunshine. All day they skirted 
 the mainland, here a line of tawny foot-hills, in 
 strange shapes, like lions and tigers couched together, 
 under summits, gray, wrinkled, ancient, resembling 
 mastodons in stone, the feet of these high-piled mon 
 sters lost in one continuous garland of olive and 
 orange, grape and fig, almond and laurel. 
 
 At six in the evening the ship came again to anchor, 
 facing Chios, the scene of Homer s school of poetry. 
 The town of the blind bard has been swept out of 
 sight by time and earthquake. At the foot of volcanic 
 peaks, like cones of gunpowder, clusters confidingly 
 the new town, built in tinted plaster, gay, cheerful, 
 and overflowing with the riotous animation of the 
 Levant. Only an old-time fortress near the sea tells 
 the tale of bygones the classic traveler demands. 
 
 There was to be no landing at pretty, lively Chios. 
 
 When the great Russian came to a halt in their bay, 
 a line of small boats shot out to meet her with the 
 intrepid dash of a boarding-party of Indian canoes. 
 
 "We shall soon be in Bedlam/ 7 said Davenant. 
 " These Chians are the worst of the turbulent Levan- 
 
138 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 tines for racket. It must always have been a noisy 
 place. If I don t forget, Homer was nearly frightened 
 away from here by the barking of Glaucus s dog." 
 
 In a few moments the water about the vessel was 
 swarming with small craft. The passenger-boats, 
 spread with brilliant rugs, were crowded with people 
 and luggage of many colors; the freight-boats piled 
 with hampers of grapes, figs, and nuts, sacks of raw 
 mastic, and long-necked wicker bottles of mastic wine. 
 The boatmen, maneuvering them over rough waves, 
 eager each to get in ahead of the other at the end of 
 the gangway, stood brandishing oars and boat-hooks, 
 shouting, yelling, plunging, fiercely quarreling up and 
 down the ranks. They were handsome fellows, as 
 active as cats, dark-skinned, bare-legged, bare-armed, 
 with gleaming teeth and eyes, merry in spite of furi 
 ous raging at their mates. The trim Russian sailor 
 stationed at the foot of the ship s ladder had to strug 
 gle for his life to keep them from hurling their pas 
 sengers past him upon the steps. One persistent devil 
 was brought to terms only by a blow that landed him 
 on his back in the middle of his boat. All through 
 the evening the hurly-burly raged, till at a late hour 
 the ship got under way. 
 
 " Too bad we must leave this steamer," said Sybil, 
 sighing. " It has all been perfect, wonderful ! Such 
 weather ! Such a sea ! When we are rich, Peter, we 
 shall come here and dawdle for weeks in a yacht. But 
 never do I expect to find again a ship so comfortable 
 as this. What would Lord Byron have said to marble 
 bath-tubs, with the water of the ./Egean turned in 
 through silver-plated faucets ? We shall find out the 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 139 
 
 difference when we get into one of the Italian boats 
 to go through the Gulf of Corinth." 
 
 " People who have put off travel as I Ve done get 
 the benefit of fin-de-siecle comforts/ 7 said her husband. 
 "I can t believe that to-morrow morning I 7 m to see 
 Hymettus and Pentelikoii and the Parthenon from 
 this deck. Sybil, shall I tell you that my only fear in 
 reaching Athens is that we 11 meet somebody we 7 ve 
 seen before ? " 
 
 " And letters ! Nobody knows how I dread that 
 visit to the banker s and the post. Oh, these happy 
 people on board who have no Newport gossiping about 
 them, no New York newspapers paragraphing them" 
 
 " My wife shall drop out of the newspapers," said he, 
 fondly ; " and in the world of our love Newport will 
 make no difference." 
 
 " Peter dear, I 7 ve been wondering. Are we to get 
 a house at once ? Because I know of one on Park 
 Avenue the Monty Wutherings had it last year for 
 six months. I m sure the owner will let it from 
 Christmas till May, and we should n t want to be much 
 in town till Christmas." 
 
 "My dear little girl," he said patiently, "we must 
 1 be in town as soon as we get back and, what 7 s 
 more, we must stay there. And 1 7 m dreadfully afraid 
 a house the Monty Wutherings would take is far above 
 our purse. 77 
 
 Sybil s blue eyes opened a little wonderingly. 
 
 "Oh, but I assure you, darling, it 7 s such a tiny 
 house it could n 7 t be dear if it tried. 77 
 
 "Do you chance to know the rent?" 
 
 " No one ever spoke of that to me. Oh, Peter, is n 7 t 
 
140 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 it ridiculous to be bothering about rent here, and on 
 such an evening as this ? Look at the moon over the 
 mountains in that clear saffron sky, and the far lights 
 of Chios ! Our last night on the ^Egean ! Say some 
 verses for me, please." 
 
 "Let us live, my Lesbia, 
 
 Let us our love enjoy. 
 Out upon old men s frowns, 
 
 Count them not worth a toy. 
 The sun may rise again 
 
 When once the night is past, 
 When our brief light is gone " 
 
 " I will hear no more," she protested. " It begins to 
 sound melancholy 
 
 " Catullus ends it cheerfully enough," said he, laugh 
 ing. 
 
 " I am tired of poetry ; let us walk," she insisted, 
 slipping her hand within his arm. 
 
IX 
 
 crown of their voyage was to be the 
 ring of mountains lying in purple 
 shadow about Athens and the Acrop 
 olis. Davenant, glass in hand, had 
 been on deck since sunrise, gazing 
 eagerly at the various points of the 
 Grecian islands, identifying Minerva s temple as they 
 passed it, and at last recognizing with a thrill those 
 mighty piles of marble, Hymettus and Pentelikon, be 
 tween which arises, upon its umber hill, that gem of 
 the dead as of the living world, the Parthenon. 
 
 Sybil had stopped in the saloon for a cup of tea be 
 fore she joined him. When they steamed into the 
 Piraeus the rapt gazer felt her light touch on his arm. 
 " I wonder how I ever pretended to enjoy anything 
 before you were there to share it," he remarked. 
 " The morning has felt incomplete without you ; and 
 in other days I wanted to be alone when I was sight 
 seeing." 
 
 " I also will own that this is just a little better than 
 traveling with my aunt," said she, mischievously. 
 
 While they stood surveying the approach to the 
 Athenian seaport, amid the crowd of vessels of many 
 nationalities lying along the quays, a conspicuous 
 
 141 
 
142 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 object was a beautiful yacht painted white, with the 
 Stars and Stripes flying at her masthead. 
 
 Instantly Davenant s cap was lifted from his head, 
 and a look of proud and reverent affection came into 
 his eyes. 
 
 "What is it?" asked she, curiously. "Oh, only an 
 American yacht ! I can t imagine being glad to see 
 that ; for most likely there 11 be some compatriots at 
 the hotel who 11 find us out, and there s the end of 
 our lovely isolation from the world." 
 
 " A man would be a poor creature, in my opinion, 
 who would n t feel a thrill at the sight of his country s 
 flag in a foreign harbor," he answered. 
 
 " I never thought of that side of it. Perhaps I have 
 seen too many of them," she said, a little chilled by 
 the suggestion of reproof. " At any rate, I shall ask 
 this Cook s boatman, just coming up the side, who the 
 owner is. They know everything about the docks." 
 
 " The Almee, belonging to Monsieur Willoughby of 
 New York, " was the reply Sybil conveyed to her 
 husband, who had not left his stand. "Just as I 
 supposed. Those Willoughbys ! who own a boat be 
 cause it s the fashion, and are both so dreadfully sea 
 sick I wonder they ve the courage to go outside of 
 harbor." 
 
 "The yacht is a beauty, though," said he, admiringly. 
 "Ah, there begins again that Southern clack and 
 tumult of boatmen. But nothing will ever equal 
 Chios ! " 
 
 In their hotel, in rooms with long windows opening 
 into a portico of snow-white marble, its pillars fram 
 ing in full view the hill of his lifelong dreams, Dave- 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 143 
 
 nant left his wife to rest, while he set out on foot to 
 scale the classic heights. What he felt and thought 
 on the staircase of the Propylaea and on the step of the 
 great temple, where he stood for a long time drinking 
 in the scene and air and influence, must be imagined 
 by those who share his sentiment. 
 
 At the portal of the exquisite little temple of Nike 
 Apteros his visions were rudely disturbed by the ap 
 proach of a large, bland personage in a too correct 
 yachting-suit, who fell upon him with fervor, extend 
 ing his hand. 
 
 "My dear sir, I m charmed to see you here- 
 charmed. Met you at dinner at the Granthams , and 
 am well acquainted with your high reputation at our 
 bar. My name is 
 
 "Of course Mr. Willoughby," said Davenant, 
 gathering his scattered wits together. " We were told 
 that is your pretty yacht in harbor." 
 
 "Yes; I bought the Almee last year from Monty 
 Wuthering, who had got tired of her. Fine boat, 
 is n t she ? Sent her over to the Mediterranean, and 
 joined her at Gibraltar last month. M wife had so 
 much care and anxiety last winter, getting into our 
 new house" 
 
 " I ah remember," hastily interposed Davenant. 
 
 " that the doctors said she could n t undertake the 
 care of it this winter. On the verge of nervous pros 
 tration was Mrs. Willoughby. So we made up a little 
 party for this cruise in the Mediterranean and Ionian. 
 Came through the Canal of Corinth, or, I might say, 
 scraped through, m wife quite hysterical over the 
 narrow passage, and expect to winter in Egypt." 
 
144 GOOD AMEEICANS 
 
 " Do you stay long in Athens ? " asked his hearer, 
 wearily. 
 
 " Just as long as m wife can be contented here. By 
 George ! Davenant, we re at the best hotel I ever 
 struck in a foreign country. I d be willing to put in 
 a good stop here myself. But tell me of Mrs. Dave- 
 nant. Of course you are on your wedding-tour. The 
 world knows very well about your movements. Can t 
 carry off a belle of society without suffering the pen 
 alty of having it discussed. Like to have a copy of 
 the l New York Interviewer/ giving a full account of 
 your wedding ? Think m wife has one at the hotel." 
 
 " You will excuse me/ 7 said Davenant, stiffly. 
 
 " No offense meant. Everybody has his turn in the 
 newspapers, and everybody knows what old lady Lew- 
 iston is when her back s up. You 11 be interested to 
 hear that m wife 7 s secured for our expedition the one 
 all the society columns are saying will succeed your 
 fair lady as the beauty of the smart set Miss Claribel 
 Hilton. Heard of her, no doubt ? Pretty as a peach. 
 Mrs. Stanley tried to get her for Lenox before we left ; 
 but m wife was too clever whipped in with an invi 
 tation for this cruise. Some good fellows are of our 
 party several friends of your wife s Allen, Willy 
 Lang, and Beau Frisbie. Tried for Cleve, but he was 
 in England visiting, and I could n t catch him." 
 
 Davenant, writhing with impatience, was yet struck 
 by the names mentioned. He knew them to belong to 
 people of Sybil s acquaintance, hitherto unapproach 
 able by the lavish Willoughbys. The idea of this 
 downpouring of idle pleasure-seekers upon the pre 
 cious hours of his waning honeymoon sent disgust into 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 145 
 
 his heart. But stronger than all other feelings was 
 for the moment his desire to be rid of a Willoughby 
 in the shadow of the Parthenon. 
 
 It was inevitable that the Davenants should run into 
 the other camp. After luncheon in their sitting-room, 
 Davenant carried his wife off for a round of mild 
 sight-seeing. He had found time during the morning 
 to drop into the museum of the Acropolis and admire 
 the recently discovered " Winged Three," with its ser 
 pent s tail, and now went back to give her a glimpse 
 at it. 
 
 "Think of this splendid monster swooping down 
 through ether every evening to gather tidings of what 
 threatened Athens from the outer world, and return 
 ing to the Parthenon with the rising of the sun ! " 
 
 "What strikes me in their sculpture," said Sybil, 
 " is the grand, free forms of the women. If we could 
 all be molded and hold ourselves erect like these stat 
 ues and fragments, we 7 d be fit to take the lead. 
 Did you see the small size of that pretty Greek girl s 
 waist who got into her carriage before ours at the 
 hotel? I am sure she cannot draw a long breath 
 comfortably." 
 
 " Ah, Mrs. Davenant ! " said a voice. A good-look 
 ing man in light tweeds, who was surveying a frieze 
 in rather bored fashion, had turned and was saluting 
 them. It was Sybil s old acquaintance, familiar to the 
 wealthy leisure circles of New York as Willy Lang, 
 who took the circumstance of meeting them in Athens 
 as he would have taken a similar encounter in Hyde 
 Park or Fifth Avenue or, for the matter of that, 
 Djibouti. 
 10 
 
146 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 " Rather a poor season to be here, but we re well 
 enough at the hotel/ 7 he said indifferently. 
 
 Lang, an old admirer of Sybil s, was well informed 
 as to the romantic marriage excluding her from her 
 aunt s good graces and bank-account. He admired her 
 still, but wondered why Davenant had been such an 
 ass as to take a bride under such circumstances, es 
 pecially when everybody said that the fellow was 
 getting ahead in the world like wild-fire. Nothing 
 could have induced Lang to share Ms modest income 
 with a wife. It was all he could do to knock about, 
 buy drinks and cigars, clothe himself like a lily of the 
 field, and pay club dues. The rest of his enjoyments 
 came out of the purses of other people, to whom he 
 gave the equivalent of his good looks, fine figure, and 
 knowledge of the world, intending to do so until such 
 time as it should please his fancy to secure a wealthy 
 wife. 
 
 When Sybil introduced him with graceful pride to 
 her husband, Lang treated Davenant with some show 
 of civility. His shrewd, lazy remarks reminded Dave 
 nant of Ainslie, whom he had always liked, though in 
 Ainslie there was the spark of individuality lacking in 
 the present specimen. Keeping pace with them in the 
 round of the museum, he stood lifting his hat at the 
 carriage-step, outside, after Sybil had taken her seat 
 in it to depart. 
 
 Davenant could see that Sybil was rather gratified 
 than otherwise by this meeting. With Lang she had 
 plunged at once into a talk concerning people and 
 things Davenant had already tried, for his wife s sake, 
 to care about, but tried in vain. He was generously 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 147 
 
 glad for her to have this pleasure, and at the same 
 time a very little piqued at her animation in partak 
 ing of it. 
 
 " You like Lang, then ? " he said as they drove off. 
 
 "I like some of the things he likes, rather," an 
 swered she, with a mutinous smile. "My dearest 
 Peter, you can t expect me all at once to live on your 
 mountain-tops and never go down into the valleys. 
 Now, tell me candidly, what do you think of Willy 
 Lang I" 
 
 " Pm afraid I sha n t think of him after we ; ve been 
 parted for five minutes, though he s pleasant-enough 
 company. The worst I have against him is that he is 
 willing to be the guest of the Willoughbys." 
 
 " Who caused you to thrill with their American flag, 
 remember ! " 
 
 "I wish they had remained invisible beneath it. 
 Sybil, I foresee endless vexations through these peo 
 ple being here. It is almost cause for moving." 
 
 "The hotel is so large. We can have our meals 
 always to ourselves. In the evenings sometimes it 
 might be fun to oh, no, no! what am I saying? I 
 am not Sybil Gwynne, and do not belong to that set 
 now. I am Mrs. Davenant, an entirely reconstructed 
 young person, who glories in her handsome, clever 
 husband, and would n t change him for all that these 
 people stand for. Indeed, Peter, 1 m in earnest. And 
 if I ever seem to you weak in these matters, think of 
 what my whole life has been, put in the balance with 
 the few months since you appeared to influence me for 
 better things. I don t envy Claribel Hilton in the 
 least, stepping into my old shoes. She s quite welcome 
 
148 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 to them. I thought Etta would take her up when I 
 deserted. Etta must have a girl friend. But she 11 
 need a long time to get over Claribel s traveling under 
 Mrs. Willoughby s wing. There s been a rumor that 
 Claribel is in love with Willy Lang, and perhaps that 
 accounts for her being here. But he does n t even 
 look at her. She s not rich enough. Any one who 
 gets him must contribute millions and a house. Those 
 other men we re going to meet are of Lang s sort, 
 only not as nice. You 11 see them all over Europe, 
 amusing themselves. They re rather ashamed than 
 otherwise of being called Americans. They don t like 
 being mixed up with our vulgar herd that travels; 
 though, to tell the truth, Peter, I don t either." 
 
 "Yet we shall soon be hand in glove with Mrs. 
 Willoughby." 
 
 "Oh, the Willoughbys have crept in. They are 
 bad, certainly, but no worse than the parvenus of every 
 nation that rise to the top by spending money for other 
 people s entertainment. It is a sure sign the Wil 
 loughbys are in that Willy Lang consents to come 
 on a cruise with them." 
 
 "I am sick of their 4ns and outs !" exclaimed 
 Peter. " See what they ve brought upon us already 
 to waste Athens in talking about them ! " 
 
 But the glory of past and present soon blended to 
 drive from the grumbler every thought that was not 
 of pure rejoicing, when they watched the sun go down 
 behind "his Delphian cliff." 
 
 Peter had lifted Sybil to rest on a shattered pedes 
 tal in the grass under the eastern range of pillars of 
 the Parthenon, now deserted, save for a few other 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 149 
 
 visitors, and the guardians of the place, who were 
 jingling their keys in impatience for the orb of day to 
 go down and let them be done with gaping travelers. 
 And thence our couple had strayed down to the plat 
 form on the western end of Nike s lovely temple, and 
 stood looking at the scene in the silence of perfect 
 sympathy. 
 
 Sybil could not know what this meant to his thirsty 
 soul, for the first time slaking itself at immortal foun 
 tains ; but she saw his deep pleasure, and was glad in 
 it. They were standing where old ^Egeus stood to 
 look for the ship that was to bring him news of his 
 son Theseus victory or defeat in the encounter with 
 the Minotaur; as he watched, the royal vessel had 
 come into view, but with black sails, and the king, 
 taking this for an announcement of his son s death, 
 had leaped headlong to destruction from the cliff. 
 
 Just now the far reach of mountains, valley, sea, 
 and islands was bathed in " the tender grace of a day 
 that is dead." Nothing like it had ever greeted Dave- 
 nant s eyes before. The memory of it would go with 
 him to his grave. 
 
 The last rays of the sun saw them hurried by the 
 guides from their classic pinnacle where all was bliss. 
 Driving back through the bassr mile, of Athens, the 
 cheerful scenes of the street after working-hours were 
 in strong contrast with the forsaken ruins overhead 
 At the wine-shops, and outside the house doors, women, 
 children, soldiers, and peasants were meeting, greeting, 
 circling, and chatting, like a chorus scene of the opera. 
 Men and women in Albanian dress, manly and hand 
 some Cretans in their baggy knee-breeches with boots 
 
150 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 reaching half-way up the bare calf, some Turkish 
 women in yashmaks, made points of color in the scene. 
 Greek women and girls were at the fountains, filling 
 stone amphorge. Between the white-, pink-, and yel 
 low-plastered house walls between the hedges of cac 
 tus, aloe, palm, and carob arose with every passing 
 by of wheels or foot-passengers a gray dust, thick and 
 heavy, that, settling upon the inhabitants, did not 
 appear to incommode them in the least. 
 
 THERE was no help for Sybil Davenant. Although 
 she had said to herself that she would never go near 
 her, she knew quite well that pay or receive a visit 
 from the unconquerable Mrs. Willoughby she must. 
 She found in her rooms, on the return from driving, 
 the cards of all the party, with an urgent invitation 
 from Mrs. Willoughby to join them at dinner, which 
 was at once declined. 
 
 " You had better go alone first, after dinner, and I 
 will stray in afterward," said Peter, with a groan. " A 
 man always makes a poor show when on bridal exhibi 
 tion. I shall go for a stroll through the streets, and 
 you can say you don t know where I am." 
 
 Sybil s appearance in Mrs. Willoughby s drawing- 
 room the one appertaining, of course, to the most 
 expensive suite of the hotel was the occasion of a 
 lively welcome from two women who had exhausted 
 each other s conversation. 
 
 " Our men are all scattered somewhere," said Mrs. 
 Willoughby, a little more confident in manner than 
 when Sybil had last seen her. " Claribel and I were 
 just wondering if you would not come. And we are 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 151 
 
 dying to see your husband. I ve told Claribel what 
 a beauty he is an excuse for any girl s rash 
 
 " Go on j don t be afraid," said Sybil, blushing a little, 
 but mistress of herself. " You cannot say more of 
 him than he deserves. He will come in presently to 
 thank you for the emotion the flag on your yacht in 
 spired in his patriotic breast." 
 
 " Oh, my dear ! I sometimes say to Mr. Willoughby 
 I wish we could run up another set of colors. Our 
 flag is just the signal for us to be fleeced in every port 
 we go to. The yacht s a very nice one, certainly. 
 My cabins were fitted up for Mrs. Wuthering, who 
 has such sweet taste. But one can t stand the noise 
 and smells of these Southern harbors. Besides, it s 
 a change to get into a hotel and see somebody ; though 
 unless you happen to know people, I think these for 
 eign hotels are very keep-to-one s-self places. It s 
 ever so much livelier at home." 
 
 " I know nothing whatever of hotels at home," said 
 Sybil, " except to leave cards at them." 
 
 " Nor I," said Claribel, not to be outdone. 
 
 " I don t mean that I ever stay at hotels at home," 
 Mrs. Willoughby hastened to say. "Of course not" 
 with two houses of my own. You have no conception 
 of our troubles with our new house in Fifth Avenue 
 last year. After I d furnished it I was a wreck a 
 perfect wreck and that s the reason for this trip." 
 
 For a wreck Mrs. Willoughby certainty preserved 
 a comfortable weight and aspect. But Sybil had heard 
 so many of her class making excuses to come abroad 
 and wander, through excess of money and vacuity of 
 mind ! Mrs. Willoughby was just a shade better than 
 
152 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 the Americans who, in so many foreign cities, form 
 colonies, and are content to dwell together in insular 
 ity of spirit among those who will know them not. 
 
 Mrs. Willoughby was actually bored beyond mea 
 sure by her Grecian sojourn. The true aroma of the 
 place could never be perceived by her. In Paris, 
 London, at the German baths, or in the Italian capi 
 tal, she might have found some kindred spirits and 
 much diversion ; but here ! 
 
 And it was not what it seemed, to be the head of 
 such a party as were her guests. The men treated her 
 with but scant politeness. Her husband, having asked 
 them at her bidding, often wished he could dismiss 
 them, giving each a return ticket and hastening him 
 home. Miss Claribel Hilton, a dark beauty with a 
 keen eye to the main chance, had set out intending to 
 utilize the cruise not only in killing time, but by ac 
 complishing a long-eluded capture of Mr. Willy Lang. 
 
 The most agreeable incident, so far, of ClaribePs 
 travels had been running, in this way, upon the 
 bride and groom who had effected such a meteoric 
 disappearance from Newport. She wanted something 
 to put in her " letters home," she said ; but Claribel 
 was suspected of eking out a slender stock of pin- 
 money by contributing items of so-called " social in 
 terest" to fashionable journals. She had also a keen 
 desire for Sybil to hear the general expression of be 
 lief that Miss Hilton would succeed her in the place 
 Sybil had vacated. 
 
 " If you want gossip, I can give you a good deal 
 from Newport in some cuttings that have been sent 
 me," she said, fully aware that these columns con- 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 163 
 
 tained many statements of the nature she desired to 
 impart. 
 
 " Oh, no, thanks/ said Sybil. " We have n t yet 
 reached the stage of the honeymoon when one wel 
 comes an enemy. We are shutting our eyes, indeed, 
 to everything at home till we see Sandy Hook again." 
 
 Miss Hilton bridled. She felt she had not made 
 exactly a success. 
 
 " It will be nice for me to let our friends know you 
 have survived all that has been said of you," she went 
 on pleasantly. 
 
 " Shall you print it?" asked Sybil, now thoroughly 
 aroused. 
 
 Vexed with herself for minding such pin-sticks, she 
 turned to talk with poor, worried Mrs. Willoughby, 
 who found herself in the position of a theatrical 
 manager between leading ladies at war. 
 
 "Then you do mean to go back home?" pursued 
 Miss Hilton, after a moment s rest. " Won t you 
 find it rather a change? I believe your husband 
 does n t go out much Mrs. Stanley said he did n t 
 
 " He has gone out now," answered Sybil, with de 
 cision. 
 
 What might have ensued was prevented by the en 
 trance of the men. Mr. Willoughby, who brought up 
 the rear, having managed to pass an hour at billiards, 
 was now looking forward to the time when he might 
 be allowed to go to bed. 
 
 The others, discovering in Mrs. Davenant much 
 more of an attraction than in the too evident Miss 
 Claribel Hilton, advanced with animation to surround 
 her. When Davenant came in, he found his wife the 
 
154 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 brilliant center of a little group of masculines, rein 
 forced by poor Mr. Willoughby, who had hailed with 
 satisfaction something that would oblige him to keep 
 awake. Mrs. Willoughby, with her strip of tapestry- 
 work, and Claribel, knitting a golf-stocking destined 
 for the manly calf of Mr. Lang, sat, dull outsiders in 
 the tribute to Sybil s charms. 
 
 Davenant s arrival changed the situation. Sup 
 pressing a desire to hit to the right and left, and 
 carry Sybil away from these fellows to one of the 
 peaks of Hymettus, let us say, he displayed an ease 
 and good-humored courtesy that won for him appro 
 bation undiluted. But Sybil knew that, spite of ap 
 pearances, the sooner she cut short the evening the 
 better for Peter s reputation ; and, resisting all efforts 
 to draw her into a water-party the n<?xt day, she 
 hastened to make her adieus. 
 
 " You poor dear, what a hero you were ! " she said 
 in the corridor. " But you could not have held out 
 much longer." 
 
 " And what a heroine my wife was ! Sybil, what 
 have you done to antagonize that Hilton girl ? " 
 
 "Nothing more than to be" she said, shrugging. 
 
 " She is in love with Lang. Lang cares not a rap 
 for her. He was probably at one time in your train" 
 
 " What an unraveler of plots my lawyer is ! Lang 
 has really cared for but one person himself." 
 
 " But he was reputed to be your follower. That 
 accounts for it." 
 
 "Let us go out on the portico and look at the 
 moon," she said, drawing him out into the peerless 
 night. 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 155 
 
 THE next day they went by carriage to Eleusis. A 
 smart shower of rain refreshed the atmosphere, falling 
 when they had but just passed into the suburbs with 
 the cactus hedges and the plaster walls prickly with 
 thistles growing atop, the gnarled, warty old olive- 
 trees and the oleanders leaning out of the courtyards, 
 all gray with dust of summer. 
 
 Up the hilly road they rode between pine-trees in 
 shape "ike lilac plumes, and of a bright spring green. 
 The rain, that had brought out from the earth a deli 
 cious scent of wild herbs, ran away in yellow rivulets 
 to the valleys. Beyond them were bold, darkling, 
 wood-crowned summits with velvet clefts, not so long 
 since haunted by brigands, but now in possession of 
 archaic shepherds wearing mantles of rough cloth, 
 leggings, and steeple-crowned hats, and carrying guns 
 to keep away the wolves from their " black sheep and 
 white." Groups of local militia patrolled the hills to 
 see that the wandering flocks kept sacred the inclo- 
 sures of the farmers. These mounted infantry wore 
 frilled petticoats, white leggings cross-gartered with 
 black, and Albanian slippers with tufts of red silk on 
 the toes. In peasant carts, gaily painted, drawn by 
 mules in bright harness, the owners, trusting to their 
 faithful beasts to find the way home, lay asleep amid 
 sacks, barrels, piles of wicker bottles, and empty bas 
 kets. Ancient crones in sleeveless overcoats of white 
 wool with stripes of black embroidery sat upon don 
 keys, carrying on their laps rosy babies slumbering 
 amid vegetables, fowls, and fruit. Children, brown 
 and merry, ran beside stalwart peasants ; and straight- 
 backed girls, bearing amphorae on their heads, walked 
 
156 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 with a free, firm tread in heelless slippers. And this, 
 as Sybil saw it, was the modern procession upon the 
 classic Sacred Way ! 
 
 They had stopped for a bit to visit the ancient 
 Byzantine church at Daphni, with its old mosaics 
 newly brought to light by the Grecian Archaeological 
 Society 5 and then drove on to where the Bay of 
 Eleusis, a rippled sheet of blue, laughed as it came 
 up to their feet. 
 
 Here, where once Demeter s maidens danced and 
 sang, and waved their garlands about the flower- 
 wreathed animals they led to sacrifice, our couple 
 fell to talking, as moderns will, of subjects far re 
 moved from these retrospects of long-gone days. 
 
 " You did not hear me, dearest ; you are not listen 
 ing," said her husband, after he had repeated a remark 
 about the lakes above the road, wherein the priests 
 of Eleusis used to fish. "Now you are thinking of 
 something that gives you pain. May n t I share it, 
 Sybil?" 
 
 They were on the rear seat of an old caleche, the 
 dragoman and driver up in front. For the last ten 
 minutes the dragoman had consented to intermit his 
 eternal contributions to their knowledge of events 
 and localities, and was enjoying a cigarette. 
 
 " It is nothing just a trifle," she contradicted 
 herself in feminine fashion. " I wish, Peter, we were 
 going to housekeeping in that red farm-house behind 
 the high walls ! I like its tiled roof with the gay 
 colors, and the vines trailed over the balcony in 
 front, and those vineyards and olive-orchards all 
 around j but alas ! n 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 157 
 
 "Why do you sigh? You must tell me, Sybil," 
 urged the impatient lover. 
 
 " I am vexed with myself for caring what that girl 
 said last night." 
 
 Little by little he drew from her her tilt with Clari- 
 bel Hilton. His eye flashed and his lip curled when 
 he heard it. 
 
 "You could mind that? Ymi, who are my wife! 
 My wife ! " 
 
 " Peter, I told you I was ashamed of it. I am not 
 a strong, big man. I 7 m only a girl brought up to 
 consider these things all-important. If I do not 
 think so still, it is because I fell in love with you." 
 
 " The triviality of it ! The vulgarity ! Why, we 
 are as far above such people as That it should 
 find a lodgment in your brain, much less wound your 
 sensibilities" 
 
 Sybil hung her head, blushing deeply. 
 
 "Do these puppets flatter themselves they are 
 living in an ethereal atmosphere and breathing the 
 air of the gods ? And can my Sybil fancy" 
 
 He stopped suddenly, as if disdaining to carry out 
 the protest. Sybil, who had never seen him angry, 
 shrunk within herself. She thought he was making 
 it unnecessarily hard for her, and bringing super 
 fluous energy to bear upon his expressions. 
 
 " Puppets they may be, but till now they have been 
 all the friends I have had that is, if you mean those 
 I lived among till I met you," she said. 
 
 He did not answer, and in this strained mental 
 attitude they drove to the foot of the hillside scarred 
 with excavations, and scattered with the relics of the 
 
158 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 glorious Demeter s shrines. Leaving the carriage 
 before a little wine-shop in the village, they climbed 
 the slope, and after ascending the steps of the Prop- 
 ylaea, stood at last upon the marble portico of the 
 great Temple of the Mysteries. The autumn sun fell 
 in floods about them, but the air from the Ionian was 
 cool and crisp. In the intense, clear light, the moun 
 tains of Salamis seemed near enough to caress with 
 the hand. The sea sparkled with a million facets. 
 In that moment of supreme beauty the spell of old 
 days descended upon the pilgrims 5 their little troubles 
 fell away, their hearts wavered toward each other, 
 and then blended in tenderness. 
 
 "Do you know what the Eleusinian mysteries 
 were ? " asked Davenant of his bride. " First, worship 
 of a woman, a true, good, loving woman, then the 
 cult of a faith that led its votaries on from aim to 
 aim of this world to trust in a world to come. We 
 are standing in one of the most famous spots in his 
 toric Attica, and, as it seems to me, the source of the 
 noblest impulses of those old pagans lives." 
 
 " Forgive me ! " murmured Sybil in his ear, as she 
 rested her hand upon his arm. 
 
 This was not relevant, but Peter understood, and 
 was touched by it. His brief anger long since spent, 
 he had been reproaching himself bitterly for the pain 
 he had caused her. They began anew their explora 
 tions, and before it was time to return Sybil had 
 merrily proposed to him to " set up housekeeping " in 
 the cave where Pluto had carried Proserpine to spend 
 her honeymoon ! 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 159 
 
 WITH all his desire to visit Olympia alone with Sybil, 
 Davenant could not be selfish enough to deny her the 
 delight of a run in the Almee to Patras, whence they 
 would go on by rail to visit the ruined city of the 
 divine Hermes. This excursion, projected by the men 
 of her party, had found Mrs. Willoughby averse to again 
 " undertaking to squeeze through that dreadfully nar 
 row Canal of Corinth, where they had banged against 
 the sides last time, and frightened her nearly to death." 
 
 Mrs. Willoughby therefore electing to go by rail to 
 Patras, her husband felt that he must needs accom 
 pany her, thus leaving Sybil to chaperon Miss Hilton 
 on the yacht. 
 
 By half-past eight of a fine, bright day, when the 
 arch of blue overhead seemed a single hollow gem, 
 they embarked at the Piraeus and, taking possession 
 of the wicker chairs and umbrellas on the carpeted 
 deck, were soon cutting the sapphire sea to round 
 Salamis. Sybil, leaning back, with Lang established 
 at her side for the morning, took as a matter of 
 course this situation, that proved so annoying to her 
 husband and to one other. She had always been 
 accustomed to see men keeping at a distance from 
 their wives when in parties on pleasure bent. For her, 
 under the present circumstances, to withdraw with 
 Davenant would have been manifestly in bad taste ; 
 and Willy Lang s languid civilities could give concern 
 to no one save Claribel, whom he took visible pains 
 to flout. Miss Hilton, in self-defense, assumed hilar 
 ity, laughing aloud, and engaging the others to admire 
 her pretty vagaries. 
 
160 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 Davenant, finding his occupation gone, walked off 
 forward, and while smoking alone surveyed the scene 
 with an interest unquenched by adverse circumstance. 
 At midday they steamed in between the steep clay 
 and gravel banks of the canal, dreamed of in vain 
 by Caesar, Nero, and Adrian, with its railroad bridge 
 lying like a ladder across the chasm high above ; and, 
 making the entry of the Gulf of Corinth in safety, 
 the Almee began a voyage every hour of which over 
 flowed with interest and beauty. 
 
 " Luncheon, luncheon ! " cried the thin, high-pitched 
 voice of Miss Hilton in Davenant s ear. " Antiquity s 
 all very well, but the rest of us are starving." 
 
 " I am sure my wife will excuse me till we ve passed 
 the Aero-Corinth," he said ; " then I shall make up for 
 my delay by eating all there is." 
 
 "I keep forgetting that Mrs. Davenant is playing 
 hostess for the day," said Claribel, her eyes flashing 
 through her mask veil of white gauze. " And so does 
 she, apparently. One has n t the heart to interrupt 
 that nice long tete-a-tete, has one ? You know, they 
 say Lang values only what s out of his reach. A 
 year ago at Newport it was she who but here am I 
 letting my giddy tongue run on. Of course Sybil has 
 repented of girlish follies, and is going to be a model 
 matron now just like her dear friend Etta ! " 
 
 Davenant did not answer. With glass lifted, he 
 was scanning the grand, bold promontory crowned 
 with the ruined castle of Penteskoupia, at foot of 
 which, close to the water s edge, lies the modern town 
 of Corinth. 
 
 I suppose all moons must wane," went on his 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 161 
 
 tormentor, artlessly. " Sybil was saying how im 
 mensely jolly it is to have run upon our jolly lot. 
 To look at her, one would n t suppose she is a recent 
 loving bride. But that ; s an immense relief to every 
 body. If there s anything that bores hopelessly, it 
 is newly married gush." 
 
 Davenant, turning, directed his gaze across the 
 wide, sparkling gulf to the range upon range of 
 Boeotian and Peloponnesian hills. Above them tow 
 ered Parnassus, gray and hoary, with patches of black 
 moss in its cavernous depressions. The mountain of 
 the Muses was now crowned with a wreath of blue- 
 black cloud, whence a column of white mist, shot with 
 sunlight, arose to heaven. 
 
 " An altar of the gods ; not a green thing in sight ; 
 Apollo fled ! n he muttered to himself. 
 
 Miss Hilton, properly rebuked for her impertinence, 
 could not withhold a final shaft. 
 
 " Then I shall tell Sybil you want us to go to lunch 
 eon without you ? " she said, moving off. " Take my 
 word for it, she 11 prove resigned. If she s a wise 
 woman she 11 make the best of being with people of 
 her own set now. When she gets back to New York 
 she may feel the need of them." 
 
 After luncheon, Sybil, slipping her arm through 
 her husband s, led him away to a quiet spot. 
 
 " You have been teased by that horrid Claribel ? " 
 she said. " I saw it the moment you came in to table. 
 Your eyes have a cloudy look ; nobody s eyes are as 
 beautiful as yours, Peter" 
 
 " I was a fool to come on this party," he said, smil 
 ing at her feminine method of peace-making; "but 
 
 11 
 
162 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 where you re concerned I must always be a fool, I 
 suppose. Sybil, this shows you our lives have nothing 
 in common with chattering idlers. I can t fit my feet 
 to their pace. I want you to myself, to walk with me, 
 apart ! If you love me, give up the attempt to join 
 your old life with the new. Let us cut loose from 
 your past, and work out our own future." 
 
 " My dearest Peter, you are not practical, 7 she said, 
 in perfect amity. " Because Willy Lang is an amus 
 ing do-nothing, and Claribel Hilton a sharp-tongued, 
 spiteful creature, let us not be driven to make such 
 desperate resolution ! My whole heart is yours. I 
 am happier with you than I could be elsewhere. But 
 we can t break with people. In two words, we must 
 live for others as well as for ourselves." 
 
 " My Sybil a moral philosopher ! " he exclaimed in 
 a voice that showed a tinge of vexation. 
 
 " Don t mock me, Peter. I am only talking com 
 mon sense." 
 
 "Away with -common sense when we are sailing 
 under Parnassus ! " he cried petulantly. Somehow, 
 he seemed to her like a big, vexed child. The pro 
 tecting, soothing impulse came over her with a wave. 
 
 "I love you," she said simply, turning upon him 
 the gaze of her bluest of eyes. 
 
 THEIR day, thus checkered, passed into sunset. Le- 
 panto, Don John of Austria and his courtiers danc 
 ing down to death, Byron and Missolonghi (whose two 
 lights glimmered afar as the dusk fell), even the cur 
 rant industries of the shores of this inland sea, 
 were discussed between them at intervals, when- 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 163 
 
 ever Sybil could leave the party to join her hus 
 band. Davenant, throwing off all pretense of socia 
 bility, kept himself aloof or, as Miss Hilton after 
 ward informed her friends, sulked bearishly. Sybil 
 did not mind his bearishness. She knew the cause of 
 it, and forgave. But she was aware of a panic she 
 had rather have been spared, lest the present condi 
 tions should extend into her future in a way that 
 would hedge her in unpleasantly. She saw that be 
 tween their two lives of every day an intermittent 
 rivulet of separating habit ran. She resolved that, 
 come what might, it should not widen to a constant 
 stream. 
 
 These reflections went with her to Olympia into the 
 presence of Hermes, standing on his pedestal, smiling 
 immortally at the infant in his arms. And she no 
 ticed that Peter, who had hitherto yielded himself 
 prisoner at once to such marvels of ancient art, with 
 the homage of a rapt school-boy and a fond scholar 
 combined, now stood before the masterpiece of Praxi 
 teles in almost moody silence as he gazed abstractedly. 
 
 When they were in the train going back to Athens, 
 for it was resolved to leave the Almee at Patras 
 pending the voyage of her owners to Corfu, Mrs. 
 Willoughby, who noticed Peter s aloofness from their 
 party, of which Sybil was still the center, said with a 
 laugh in the bride s ear : 
 
 " Seems a little out of sorts with us, does n t he ? 
 But dear me, child, it would n t be a honeymoon 
 without a tiff or two ! Besides, your honeymoon 7 s 
 over, days and days ago." 
 
 Sybil sighed. 
 
ISS CARNIFEX sat in her morning- 
 room, directing envelops for the cir 
 culars of a newly organized society 
 of which she was president, secretary, 
 and board of managers in one. It 
 had been a forlorn hope of charity, 
 of which she had taken charge. Until it should be 
 more upon its feet she would not expend a penny of 
 their small fund in employing help for its clerical 
 needs. 
 
 While thus occupied, her father, in bicycle costume, 
 in which he resembled an ancient Strephon, came in, 
 and stood discontentedly upon the hearth-rug before 
 a little wood fire that the cool spring morning had 
 made agreeable. 
 
 "I wish to goodness you d drop those decrepit 
 widows, or whatever they are, and come for a spin 
 with me out to the Riverside," he observed. 
 
 "With pleasure, daddy," said she. "I m on the 
 last quarter of my last hundred, as it is. I thought 
 you were safe and happy in your chair, reading that 
 new novel I gave you, that everybody s talking 
 about." 
 
 " I ve had to go back as much as three times and 
 164 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 165 
 
 re-read a page to find out what the woman means/ 
 was the vexed answer. " Her sentences are so swathed 
 in mystery I could n t make head or tail of the story. 
 Give me a good, rattling novel of adventure in plain 
 words, say I ! I would n t exchange l Monte Cristo 
 or i Ivanhoe for a year s issue of this modern stuff." 
 
 "Nobody s going to interfere with your l Monte 
 Cristos and i Ivanhoes, daddy. But, before I go to 
 change, have you seen in the morning papers about 
 that will of Mrs. Lewiston s ? " 
 
 " No j but I hope the old woman relented, and left 
 a few thousands a year to help out Sybil Davenant." 
 
 "No mention whatever of Sybil. With a few 
 legacies to those spoiled old servants of hers, and a 
 thousand a year to her cousin Annie James, what is 
 not given to St. Clair Lewiston goes outright to build 
 a new wing to St. Jeremy s Hospital, of which her 
 husband was a director." 
 
 "I am sorry for that," said the old gentleman, 
 thoughtfully. "But no one who knew her will be 
 surprised. Davenant s refusal to live in her house 
 spoiled the only attempt at peace-making. They say 
 that poor stick of a son, St. Clair, is on his last legs, 
 and his money will go to an uncle in Omaha. I d 
 have thought Mrs. Lewiston would outlive St. Clair, 
 certainly. Gad ! you may n t believe it, but she was 
 a monstrous pretty girl. I remember her and her 
 sister Sybil at a ball at old Delmonico s in Fourteenth 
 street ; dressed alike, in white tarlatan, with camellias 
 in their hair. It made my heart go pit-a-pat when I 
 danced a redowa with Sybil, I remember. She mar 
 ried Gwynne, a kind of a shilly-shally man who col- 
 
166 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 lected embroideries and carried intaglios about in his 
 waistcoat pocket. Gwynne could n t stand the crude 
 atmosphere of America, he said. When I saw him in 
 Paris, in 71, he was the most aimless ass I ever looked 
 at. Spent his life in bric-a-brac shops, Hotel Drouot, 
 and all that. The only thing that kept me from 
 wanting to kick Gwynne was that he knew wines." 
 " At least he was amiable, I ve heard." 
 " Amiable ! Who wants a man to be amiable ? " 
 " It s a deadly fact, father, that you are so your 
 self." 
 
 "Nothing of the sort! I detest skim-milk. No 
 body s worth living with who has n t got a dash of 
 old Adam or Eve in em. The grudge I cherish 
 against Gwynne is that he was one of the pioneers in 
 this running-away-from-home-to-live-abroad business. 
 And the best commentary I can make on that is to 
 point you to a result. Look at his daughter, Sybil 
 Davenant." 
 
 " Father dear," said Agatha, putting down her pen, 
 and straightening her desk mechanically, "I think 
 you are too severe on Sybil." 
 
 " They have been married hardly any time, and yet 
 she has managed to warp that fine fellow away from 
 his career." 
 
 Agatha s face was grave ; her hand shook over her 
 work. 
 
 " Indeed, daddy, that s too much to say." 
 " I know what I m talking about. The whole bent 
 of Sybil s life and thoughts is in the opposite direc 
 tion from his ; he adores her ; and you see the con 
 sequence." 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 167 
 
 "He is no weakling," cried Miss Carnifex, with 
 spirit. 
 
 "No; it is the very strength of his love that 7 s 
 blinded him to the rest. Grantham himself told me, 
 when he dined here the other day, and you women 
 were in the drawing-room, that this was his very 
 expression Davenant has stopped short. 7 " 
 
 "It is a phase. He will pass out of it. He will 
 never stop, except to get breath by the way." 
 
 " It is ridiculous, in the first place, to see him dan 
 cing attendance on her at the kind of places she goes 
 to. And what 7 s more, they can t afford it. They 
 must be living beyond his means. When it is known 
 Sybil s aunt has died without leaving her a penny, 
 people will see that the Davenants have been going 
 on too fast. When they first came home, he con 
 sulted me about a little house that I advised him to 
 buy and try to live in for a dozen years. The next 
 thing I heard was that they had rented a furnished 
 house in a part where there are nothing but fancy 
 prices. When we dined with them I could see that 
 the whole scale is above what it ought to be. And, 
 while she is as lovely and sweet and loving to him 
 as ever, he looks jaded. Yes, Agatha, you know 
 it 5 I see in your face you think so, too. Peter 
 Davenant has made a big mistake. And if you 11 
 please remember, I told you what would follow that 
 first meeting of theirs at the Granthams 7 . 77 
 
 " Daddy dear, if 1 7 m going to wheel with you, I 7 d 
 better dress now, 77 said his daughter, hastening from 
 the room. 
 
 "You did not allow me to get in my fine point 
 
168 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 about that marriage," went on her father, when, quite 
 out of the park, they were speeding together along 
 the Drive bordering the Hudson. "It is this. She 
 finds a rival in his intense Americanism. For her 
 sort, America is a place to endure with philosophy, 
 then hasten away from. She expects her husband to 
 tag after her, begad ! But that Davenant won t do. 
 He will stick to his work, keep his beliefs, but struggle 
 against a perpetual current forcing him backward. 
 And this, Miss Carnifex, is the kind of wife lots of 
 sensible parents of your and my acquaintance are 
 educating their daughters to be." 
 
 Agatha, in her heart painfully convinced, again 
 turned the conversation. When they had gone as 
 far as desirable, and turned, they met many other 
 couples on wheels, enjoying the quiet of the morning 
 hour. Among these they were saluted by Sybil 
 Davenant and Mr. Willy Lang, who were going 
 rapidly, she in high spirits. 
 
 " There ? s another thing an old fogy does n t fancy," 
 resumed Mr. Carnifex. " The idea of a man down in 
 his office slaving all day, and his young wife careering 
 around on a bicycle in company with another fellow ! " 
 
 "Daddy, I thought you considered a bicycle the 
 greatest moral agent of the times." 
 
 " With a nincompoop like that ! " 
 
 "Last time you mentioned him he was an addle- 
 pated sponge," suggested Miss Carnifex, with a smile. 
 
 "He is both a sponge and an addle-pate. And 
 considering that her name has been coupled with his 
 lately in a very offensive fashion" 
 
 "Has it?" 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 169 
 
 "Yes; and 1 m even told that a morning paper 
 bah ! I m sick of the subject." 
 
 "I knew there was a story afloat about Davenant 
 having treated her brutally on their wedding- journey, 
 somewhere in Greece," said Agatha, flaming indig 
 nantly. " The most outrageous manufacture ! But 
 I never heard of this later invention. Father dear, 
 don t you think if people would only leave young 
 married couples alone, to work out their life-problems, 
 things would go far better? I am shocked grieved 
 by what you tell me. Somebody should it is hardly 
 my place who is there, though, to warn that poor 
 thing ? I believe she has not an idea of it. She takes 
 Lang as a pendant the sort of hanger-on women in 
 her set have, because it s the fashion.* 7 
 
 " An edged-tool play, at best. Never mind, Agatha ; 
 if we can t help her, let us be selfish and enjoy this 
 fine spring day. There s a view for you the river 
 and the Palisades. Gad ! what an appetite I 11 have 
 for lunch ! " 
 
 But Agatha, slow to arouse to interference with 
 other people s affairs, had determined to see if there 
 was anywhere room for her to speak or act in Sybil s 
 aid. The same afternoon she set out late to walk to 
 the Davenants house, and was joined in the Avenue 
 by Ainslie. 
 
 " May I go with you a little way ? " he said. " It 
 is an age since I Ve got in to have a talk with you 
 when there were not other men about." 
 
 "We can t succeed in entrapping so fine a gentle 
 man to our lowly banquets, it appears." 
 
 " That s not fair. Both times you asked me I had 
 
170 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 promised some one three weeks ahead. But I m 
 beginning to swear off from the invitations. I m 
 tired of them, to begin with, and, secondly, I find they 
 don t fit in with working-hours next day." 
 
 "I hear golden opinions of you from my father/ 7 
 she said. 
 
 "He is flattering to a struggling kinsman, that s 
 all. I m really a duffer at business. But, having 
 started in, I m not going to drop out ; and, strange 
 to say, I 7 m beginning to have a glimmer of belief I 
 can sometime get ahead." 
 
 " That is well ! " she exclaimed. " I am heartily 
 glad to hear it." 
 
 " It was because you were l heartily 7 in favor of it 
 that I first put my shoulder to the wheel, I think. 
 There is nothing like a clear-eyed woman friend to 
 help a fellow on his way. But I m at a wretched 
 disadvantage beside so many fellows who were trained 
 up to it step by step. As a matter of fact, I am like 
 a foreigner getting naturalized. But no more about 
 myself. You won t come in here and look at the 
 pictures?" pausing before the portal of a gallery of 
 renown. 
 
 " No ; I have just time to get to Sybil Davenant s. 
 You may walk with me there, if you like. But if she 
 is in, you must leave me at the door. I am anxious 
 to catch her, if possible, alone." 
 
 "It is long since I Ve attempted that," he said, 
 meeting her eye unconcernedly. "At first I kept 
 away because it was dangerous to my peace of mind. 
 Now I rarely find her without one man or another 
 whom I don t like in attendance. Actually, I was 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 171 
 
 once goose enough to believe Sybil Gwynne superior 
 to that kind of thing; now I find she s like all the 
 rest." 
 
 " You were her friend you are still," said Agatha ; 
 " can t you do something to stem the tide of gossip 
 that s rising around her ? " 
 
 "I would be glad to settle whoever started that 
 abominable lie, if that s what you mean." 
 
 " I do mean that. I hardly think her husband can 
 be aware of it." 
 
 "If he is, what can he do ? There s some enemy 
 at work with her good name. To-day there was a 
 hint, in print, that her old lover Cameron was coming 
 back to New York, but would find his way l blocked. 7 
 Now, I believe Cameron has n t an idea of returning 
 to New York. I hear, in fact, he s going to marry an 
 Honorable Miss Somebody he s known all his life. 
 But the idea will get abroad, and the originator s pur 
 pose will be served." 
 
 Agatha, whom a man-servant in groom s livery at 
 Mrs. Davenant s residence had invited to walk in, felt 
 a little timorous about her errand when on the point 
 of meeting its object. 
 
 She passed through a square hall in the middle of 
 the house, blocked with a table and chairs of carved 
 Venetian wood, into a drawing-room crowded with 
 furniture that seemed not only to have outgrown its 
 quarters, but to be overdressed. In the light of a 
 large, pink-shaded lamp, Sybil, wearing street attire, 
 as if she had just come in, sat by a tea-table. The 
 other inmate of the room was Mr. Willy Lang, who 
 was just getting up to go. 
 
172 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 "I was delighted to hear your name/ 7 said Sybil, 
 affectionately taking her visitor by the hand. " You 
 are one of those of whom one never is allowed to have 
 enough. Sit down in that chair ; it s one of the few 
 comfortable seats in the house. I hate rented furni 
 ture j don t you ? But what are we paupers to do ? If 
 we ever get a house of our own, I shall have nothing 
 to put into it but some of my mother s things that have 
 lain for years in a storage warehouse. Black-satin 
 chairs, and couches with red buttons, and i suites of 
 blue-flowered brocatelle with bullion fringe. Can t you 
 see them ? Sugar and cream ? How well you look ! 
 I thought so when we met you in the Drive to-day ; 
 and your dear old, crusty, clever, sweet-tempered 
 father ! he is an evergreen ! " 
 
 "It was because we met you that I came," said 
 Agatha, who did not lack for courage j " and what I 
 saw when I got here gave me a better reason for mak 
 ing myself disagreeable." 
 
 " Willy Lang ? Why, he s a fireside animal in every 
 house where he chooses to drop in. My dear Agatha 
 Carnif ex, you surely don t credit any of the absurdities 
 you hear about me and himself ? " 
 
 " You know, then, that people talk ? In that case 
 pray pardon me ; if you were my sister I d say the 
 same is it wise for you to be seen with him twice in 
 one day?" 
 
 Sybil could not be vexed j but she answered the hint 
 of danger by a ringing laugh of amusement. 
 
 "Why, Lang is so good to bicycle with, I can t 
 afford to lose him. And you, who know Peter, can 
 think Lang dangerous ? " 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 173 
 
 "I don t think so. The world is not so discrimi 
 nating." 
 
 " Then trust me. Just now, since Aunt Lewiston s 
 death, we can go nowhere, and I need something to 
 take me out of myself. Oh, Agatha, you do house 
 keeping ! Is n t it simply awful, with these servants 
 we have ? I wonder if that man is listening behind the 
 portieres. One never knows, else, how they find out 
 all our affairs. I have a tower of Babel in my little 
 servants hall : a Swedish cook, a French maid, an Eng 
 lish butler, a Belgian footman, and a Finnish laun 
 dress ! And I begin to believe I hate them all. The 
 winter has been one wild confusion, shifting and 
 changing them. They backbite each other so there is 
 not a moment s peace. This morning my cook asked 
 an hour s leave of absence to take a bicycle-lesson, 
 that she might go out on the road with the Stanley 
 girls meaning Etta s servants! I wish you could 
 see my cook forty-five, fat, and blowzy. I believe 
 my butler takes photographs ; and the footman plays 
 on a mandolin." 
 
 " Did you hear of the lady whose cook told her the 
 servants liked the new butler, because he gave them 
 such interesting lectures about how they were all de 
 scended from Mr. Darwin f " 
 
 " I wish mine were," said Sybil. " There would be 
 some hope of law and order then. And the prices 
 of things the bills the cheating of tradespeople! 
 Agatha, I m afraid I m glad there is no place like 
 home." 
 
 " You naughty girl ! " said her friend. " It s because 
 you were taken unexpectedly. You knew nothing of 
 
174 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 our eccentricities of New York service. And, if I may 
 say so, this little house must be overcrowded with 
 people to neglect the work." 
 
 " I suppose so j I have n t the least idea/ 7 said Sybil, 
 helplessly. " I began the way I thought things ought 
 to be, and Peter knew less than I did. If it had n t 
 been for a tremendously good fee that came to him 
 directly we got back from our wedding- journey, I be 
 lieve we d have starved. And 1 m sure I do prodigies 
 of housekeeping. I look under things, and sniff at 
 places, and make out the nicest little menus with the 
 cook. We have no carriage, and simply ruin ourselves 
 in cabs to go out to dinner and the opera and balls." 
 
 " Your husband goes to balls ? The world is revolu 
 tionized ! " 
 
 " He is an angel ! " cried Sybil. " He even offers to 
 go with me. And he stays out the cotillion like a 
 lamb. Etta says he is a revelation of what may be 
 done with unpromising material." 
 
 "And he likes it?" said Agatha, after a pause. 
 
 " He does n t mind. Perhaps he would like better 
 if we had a little more time to ourselves at home. But 
 how can we, with dining out so much the usual thing, 
 you know I ve never done anything else. Certainly 
 he s a great success ; even Etta says so. Women rave 
 over him. But I m not at all jealous. I like him 
 to be admired; and especially since Claribel Hilton 
 talked so patronizingly at first about Peter s not 
 knowing people. I believe it was Claribel who 
 launched us ! I think, but for her, I 7 d have been 
 content to fall out of society. I have that maid 
 she had last year, Franchise, and I suspect the 
 
GOOD AMEEICANS 175 
 
 creature goes and boasts to Claribel of all our gay 
 doings." 
 
 This, alas ! was not the wife Davenant had dreamed 
 of winning, thought Agatha, with a real pang. Sybil s 
 rattling speech, her touch of recklessness, must come 
 from some worry she did not choose to display. 
 
 She showed Agatha the house, no part of which re 
 vealed a spot that pointed to repose after a busy day. 
 It was the perch of birds of passage ; that was all. 
 
 " There s something lacking, but I don t know what 
 it is," commented Mrs. Davenant, frankly ; " and Peter, 
 not having had a home since he was a little boy on the 
 plantation, can t tell, either." 
 
 " I know," thought Agatha ; but she did not 
 speak. 
 
 While she was taking leave of Sybil, Mrs. Grantham 
 was admitted into the hall. 
 
 As Agatha had before had occasion to observe, her 
 friend Katrina had also suffered a change, hardly for 
 the better. The long winter spent in engineering a 
 debutante from one scene of gaiety to another, the 
 half-sleepless nights, the rushing days, had told upon 
 Mrs. Grantham s pleasant, placid countenance. She 
 could hardly give herself time to sit down on Sybil s 
 little sofa under the pink-shaded lamp. Through con 
 tinually darting in and out of the houses of her ac 
 quaintances in this way, she had come to abhor little 
 sofas and pink-shaded lamps. 
 
 The present visit could not be styled one of condo 
 lence upon the death of Sybil s aunt. Katrina knew, 
 as did every one, that the Davenants had little cause 
 to mourn that event any more than to expect consola- 
 
176 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 tion of a substantial kind from it. She had heard also, 
 from her husband, that Davenant s stand in his pro 
 fession had begun to feel his relaxation of continuous 
 interest in it, and that the young couple could not hope 
 to maintain the liberal style of life in which they had 
 begun. She had a sincere wish to be of service to 
 Davenant s wife, but, like Agatha, hardly knew how to 
 set about it. The sight of Miss Carnif ex, already in 
 stalled here before her, gave her a sense of encourage 
 ment. 
 
 "Don t go, Agatha/ 7 she pleaded. "Stop awhile 
 with me, and 1 11 drop you at your door. I had ex 
 pected to leave two more sets of cards to-day, but it s 
 impossible. I am going to treat myself instead to a 
 glimpse of you two nice women." 
 
 "My husband is one of your most grateful ad 
 mirers," said Sybil. " Whether he will thank you as 
 much hereafter for leading him into this whirlpool 
 called matrimony, I can t say. But we cherish that 
 delightful set of Thackeray you sent us and your 
 dear father s silver dish, too, Agatha. Whenever I 
 look at them I think there are some real people left in 
 the world." 
 
 " You may consider yourself lucky that you escaped 
 a diamond cross from papa," said Agatha. "In his 
 day, that was a wedding-present to special favorites." 
 
 " Then Peter would have worn the cross, not I. I 
 saw disapproval of me in the dear old gentleman s eye 
 this morning when we met you in the park. Dear 
 Mrs. Grantham, Agatha has come here to scold me be 
 causebecausetell her why, Agatha." 
 
 " No one could scold you long ; but Mrs. Grantham 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 177 
 
 will tell you no wife as young and pretty as you are 
 can afford to throw the glove into the face of public 
 opinion, no matter how sure of herself she is." 
 
 "Ah, no," said Katrina, sighing. "The world is 
 very hard upon pretty young women who are brought 
 before it for approval. I have even heard malicious 
 criticisms upon my poor child, who, however, is going 
 through her ordeal without the least thought of her 
 judges. Often it seems to me not worth the trouble 
 I Ve undergone to put her on exhibition, poor darling." 
 
 " Katty looks the picture of health and enjoyment," 
 said Sybil. 
 
 u Yes ; but her parents have had enough of it. Our 
 home is demoralized. My husband and sons complain 
 outspokenly. After all, the trouble is not altogether 
 in the high pressure of the times and of our commu 
 nity. In the early days after my marriage people ex 
 pected so much less j and young married couples were 
 so much more humdrum, I suppose we M call it now. 
 I remember, when we were rather poor, and I had my 
 first home, with a tidy little maid in blue ribbons to 
 open the door and wait on the table, how many happy 
 evenings I spent in it, when my husband and I would 
 sit under student-lamps, reading, and when now and 
 again 1 7 d listen to hear if one of my babies was stir 
 ring in the crib up-stairs. Often, in answer to that 
 little helpless cry of one waking in the dark, have I 
 sped, light-footed, to the nursery often bent down and 
 laid my cheek on baby s cheek, and soothed it to sleep 
 again and the pulse of that baby beating against mine 
 has given me joy more exquisite than anything in 
 life!" 
 
 12 
 
178 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 SYBIL, going to her room after her friends had left, 
 felt in a strangely softened mood. They were dining 
 at home that evening, having withdrawn from an en 
 gagement out of respect for her aunt s memory. As 
 she called Franchise to attend her in dressing, the 
 woman emerged from the adjoining room with a flush 
 upon her face. 
 
 " I was only putting away some shirts for monsieur," 
 she muttered, although no apology was called for. 
 
 "Put out something white, Franchise, that little 
 high frock of Indian cashmere," said her mistress 5 
 " and then I sha n t want you any more." 
 
 She wished to be alone. As she sat before her mir 
 ror, combing her wavy golden locks and twisting them 
 up in a loose knot behind, remembrance came to her 
 of the joyous weeks she and Peter had spent away to 
 gether following their marriage. She went over the 
 many acts of his life since that she felt must have been 
 inspired by pure unselfishness. When she heard his 
 key in the hall door it was impossible for her to keep 
 still and await his coming up. She ran to the top of 
 the stairs, calling out happily, "Oh, Peter, I am so 
 thankful you have come ! " 
 
 Peter was too young a husband to resist this. Three 
 steps at a time he bounded up to take her in his arms. 
 Noticing that she had put on the gown he liked best, 
 that her simple hair- dressing was after his favorite 
 fashion, he was the more delighted. A cloud that he 
 had brought up-town and across his own threshold 
 vanished from his brow. 
 
 " Sit here and talk awhile ; you have time enough," 
 she said, drawing him down beside her upon a couch. 
 " For the last half -hour I have felt as if you would 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 179 
 
 never come. I Ve been thinking, Peter, of many, 
 many things. And I 7 m going to be better to you, 
 dearest. I m going to make you happier than I have 
 done. When I remember all the distraction I ve 
 brought into your life " 
 
 " What is the cause of this fit of introspection ? " he 
 said, when they had sat in silence for a little while, 
 both her arms clasped about his neck, her cheek to his. 
 
 " Oh, Agatha, I suppose and Mrs. Grantham and 
 my own conscience. 1 7 m not strong enough for you, 
 Peter. You should have chosen Agatha. All I can 
 do is to be sorry when I Ve been very, very bad." 
 
 " And have you now?" 
 
 " Pm not going to spoil this moment by resurrecting 
 my offenses," she exclaimed radiantly. " I only wish 
 you 7 d give me some way of proving how good I m 
 going to be." 
 
 Davenant went into his room to dress, feeling a 
 sense of relief from oppression. For weeks past he 
 had realized that they were drifting, with no prospect 
 of safe anchorage. His ambitions, prospects, ideas, 
 that immortal part of him which had hitherto lent a 
 spring to his step, a sheen to the sunshine, a glory to 
 the air, had been under a spell. His love for Sybil, 
 although grown deeper and broader, seemed yet to 
 enmesh him in silken cobwebs as strong as iron. The 
 beginning of the second half of his first married year 
 had not found him a happy man. 
 
 With the warmth of her tender penitential promises 
 in his heart, he told himself that things would go 
 better. They were young ; he was strong ; the right 
 way would open. Nothing was irremediable, provided 
 Sybil loved him and her hand was clasped in his. 
 
XI 
 
 AY EN ANT, hurrying into his room 
 to dress for their belated dinner, did 
 not at first perceive upon his toilet- 
 table a note addressed to him in type 
 written characters. The discovery 
 made no impression on a mind ab 
 sorbed with renascent hope of better things to come. 
 What is one missive more or less, in the shower that 
 daily falls upon a modern home ? When he was ready 
 to go down-stairs, he took it up and mechanically 
 tore it open. 
 
 "Nothing is irremediable/ 7 he was still repeating 
 to himself, as he drew out the contents of the en 
 velop, " so long as Sybil is true to her higher self and 
 me." 
 
 A clipping from a newspaper fluttered down and 
 lay upon the back of a brush with a silver monogram 
 Sybil s gift. Davenant hardly took in, at first, the 
 meaning of the typed words upon the sheet infolding 
 it. When he did, the fierce blood surged into his 
 temples. He glanced at the clipping, and his face 
 grew darker still with wrath. Lies though they were, 
 what he had read cut him like a whip. 
 
 Sybil, impatient at his delay, ran up herself to 
 180 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 181 
 
 hasten him down-stairs. As she came into the room, 
 she stopped, dismayed by the expression of her hus 
 band s face. It was unlike anything he had ever 
 shown to her before. When, frightened and wonder 
 ing, she tried to take the papers from his hand, he 
 tore them to bits and threw them into the fireplace. 
 
 " Peter, what is it?" she said faintly, her heart 
 beating hard. 
 
 "Answer me. Has Lang been with you twice 
 to-day ? " 
 
 "Of course, Peter. This morning I wheeled with 
 him, and this afternoon he joined me in the street, 
 and came in for tea, as he has often done before." 
 
 " I forbid you to speak to him again. 1 d like to 
 kill him for what he s brought upon you ! " 
 
 Sybil stood transfixed. She saw struggling in him 
 the animal man that made her want to turn and flee 
 from him. She waited in silence awhile, till his rage 
 had exhausted itself. Then she spoke timidly : 
 
 " If it s only one of those slandering newspaper 
 paragraphs that everybody gets 
 
 Davenant could not believe his ears. "Only" 
 this from a high, pure woman, lifted by his thoughts 
 upon a pedestal above the mud of humankind ! 
 
 " I don t know about your sort of men," he said 
 blackly, " but in my part of the world we don t brook 
 insult to the fair fame of our women." 
 
 "I have heard of those dear Don Quixotes of the 
 South," she said with a little curl of the lip. " What 
 a mercy you don t carry a six-shooter in your belt, and 
 a bowie-knife in your boot ! Peter, try to be reason 
 able. Lang can t help this any more than we can. I 
 
182 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 don t know what ? s been said I don t want to know; 
 but if you think your wife is the only one" 
 
 " Good God ! " groaned Davenant. He dropped 
 into a chair, clasping his hands over his eyes. What 
 he suffered now was more acute than the pain of the 
 slander. 
 
 "It must be owned, dearest, you are what Etta 
 calls you rococo. You belong to the most delight 
 fully old-fashioned age. If you ? d heard all the things 
 I have that are said of men and women of our world, 
 of almost every one in turn, you d cease to think 
 it such a mighty matter. So long as you know I m 
 all right, and Lang knows it, why should you mind 
 so much? How can I forbid him the house without 
 giving color to this nonsense ? All such stories die 
 down in time, and women are thought none the less 
 of for them. Why, look at Mrs." 
 
 "Sybil, Sybil," he pleaded, with the agony of one 
 pushed further than endurance goes, "if you ever 
 loved me, say no more. What you have said has 
 burned into my heart." 
 
 " But, Peter," she persisted, putting her arm around 
 his neck where he sat, "you distress me dreadfully. 
 Indeed, indeed, I do not understand." 
 
 " That is it, God help me ! " he cried, ridding himself 
 of her embrace, and getting up to walk to and fro 
 " you do not understand." 
 
 Directly after dinner, which was eaten almost in 
 silence between the married pair, Peter went out, 
 telling his wife that he meant to work at the Bar 
 Association library, and would not be home till late. 
 
 Sybil, going into her little drawing-room, sat down 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 183 
 
 before the fire, feeling truly wretched. As her lonely 
 evening dragged itself along, she was glad of a ring 
 at the front bell, followed by the announcement of 
 her cousin, Mr. Lewiston. 
 
 This gentleman, with the touches of mourning 
 added to his evening clothes, looked more than ever 
 pale and shrunken. His small gray eyes peered out 
 of red-edged lids. He dropped wearily upon a divan, 
 doubled up his knee, nursing it with both arms, and 
 complained of the chill of a late spring. After Sybil 
 had exchanged with him a few commonplaces about 
 his mother s funeral, which she, with Davenant, had 
 attended, in a front pew of the church, St. Clair 
 burst out jerkily : 
 
 "I m glad you re alone, Sybil. I wanted to tell 
 you by yourself that I consider it a brutal kind of 
 thing, the way my mother s left you. You stood lots 
 at her hands that other people don t know about, and 
 to be chucked overboard like this, when you need 
 money most, is n t what I call nice." 
 
 " We can t say anything, now, St. Clair," answered 
 Sybil ; " and I should tell you that my husband has 
 not opened his lips in comment, one way or the 
 other." 
 
 " Then he s a devilish sight more civil than I >d be 
 under the circumstances. It would have been all in 
 your favor had you two agreed to go to live in Wash 
 ington Square when she made you that offer last 
 Christmas." 
 
 "Ah, but what an offer! We could n t, in any 
 self-respect, accept it. She treated Peter like oh ! 
 as I said before, we can t talk of it now." 
 
184 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 "Well, you know what you want, of course 5 and 
 Davenant s a plucky sort, certainly. But the long 
 and short of my visit is to say that to-day I ve made 
 my will, leaving you all, and more than, you d have 
 got from my mother. And I wish you d take some 
 thing from me now to make amends for it. I sent 
 my lawyer, you know, to offer this to your husband ; 
 but he declined flatly. I d be glad to get you to 
 reconsider it." 
 
 " My dear St. Clair, you have always stood by me ! " 
 exclaimed she, touched by his kindness. " But but 
 you don t know Peter. He s the soul of indepen 
 dence. Marrying me against the wishes of my aunt 
 makes him more touchy, I suppose. At any rate, I 
 know he would n t hear of it. When he told me 
 about your offer, he was really grateful to you ; but I 
 could see nothing would have moved him to accept 
 
 "Then you re pretty comfortably off, I take it," 
 said St. Clair, with a feeble grin of wonder at such 
 disinterestedness in this age of gain; "or else Dave 
 nant s a wonder from Wayback." 
 
 " That ? s just what he is," said Sybil, laughing, and 
 then sighing " a wonder from Wayback ; and so 
 dreadfully set in his opinions about right and 
 wrong." 
 
 "My dear girl, you should hold on to your trea 
 sure," commented her cousin, who was already begin 
 ning to weary of a conversation for him too long 
 sustained. " I must be off now to the club. I think 
 I 11 be sailing in a few weeks, to try a new place my 
 doctor s found for me in France. If I can do any 
 thing for you meantime, you ve only to call on me." 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 185 
 
 Sybil saw him go out upon tottering legs, her ser 
 vant buttoning him up in a fur-lined overcoat before 
 putting the little man into his brougham. 
 
 "How could I tell St. Clair," she asked herself, 
 sinking again into her chair, "that Peter says his 
 reputation is such I must not receive or hold commu 
 nication with him alone? He meant well, and was 
 really generous ; and if Peter knows of this, it will 
 only be for me to be lectured up and down. Peter 
 expects too much. He is unreasonable; and, until 
 to-night, I had no idea what his temper can be. Sup 
 posing he should ever turn against me like that ! I 
 should die." 
 
 The tears coursing down her cheeks were with 
 difficulty stanched when she went up to bed. She 
 thought Franchise, who awaited her, looked more 
 self-satisfied than usual. Then it occurred to Sybil 
 to inquire about the note left upon her husband s 
 dressing-table. 
 
 " Who put it there ? " she asked. 
 
 " Ma foij madame," began the woman, then poured 
 out a rapid and wordy explanation of how it was the 
 footman who had brought the letter in question up 
 to her while she was engaged in putting away mon 
 sieur s shirts. Jean had been asked at the door, by 
 the messenger who bore it, to see that it reached 
 monsieur as soon as he came in. Franchise had no 
 idea the note was 
 
 "You are not asked to give me your ideas," said 
 Sybil, freezingly. "You can go now; I have done 
 with you." 
 
 And Franchise, flouncing down to the servants 
 
186 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 hall, discussed with her mates, in gleeful enjoyment, 
 every detail of the promising imbroglio up-stairs, 
 together with many other matters connected with 
 their employers handed along by the servants of 
 other houses where free discussion of personalities 
 goes on at table. 
 
 " That woman has a hateful face/ said the young 
 wife, wearily. " But Etta says they are all like that, 
 and the only thing is to get what one can out of 
 them, and pay them well." 
 
 With these and other graver thoughts to vex her, 
 Sybil fell asleep. 
 
 The difference between Peter and herself was not 
 cleared at breakfast-time next day. When she saw 
 that he was in an unapproachable mood, she took 
 fright, and, keeping to her room, ordered a cup of 
 tea to be brought to her there. Peter, hastening off 
 directly afterward, had only a word, and that a 
 formal one, with her. 
 
 But if he cared not to speak, Davenant could act, 
 and did so. Part of his work during the days ensu 
 ing, at the expense of office affairs of moment, was to 
 trace to its fountainhead the paragraph New York 
 had been enjoying for a week before he saw it. He 
 was not one to sit with folded hands, and say, " This 
 should not be, but what can we avail ? " Step by step 
 he followed the lie back to its originator. The money 
 this cost him, by the way, he considered well spent. 
 His suspicion that to Miss Hilton they owed their 
 deadly stab in the dark proved perfectly correct. And 
 Miss Hilton, her secret sold by her employer, received 
 from her victim a rebuke and a warning that caused 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 187 
 
 her coward soul to tremble. Davenant smiled grimly 
 when he left her. There was no mercy in his heart 
 for her species of offender, and he made it plain. 
 ClaribePs only consolation, in her crushed and alarmed 
 condition, was that the venom of this particular shaft 
 could not be recalled; and she felt quite sure that 
 Davenant would never let any one know of his awful 
 visit to her. 
 
 Simultaneously with his bloodless victory over a 
 foe most dangerous, Davenant received an overture 
 to enter into a matter of professional business that 
 opened to him a vista of excellent promise. It was 
 of a nature that he, of all men, could deal with best, 
 owing to previous connection with one of the princi 
 pals engaging him. The success of it would mean 
 fame, and substantial reward in fortune. The oppor 
 tunity to recoup himself for the bad months past had 
 thus come as if with a trumpet-blare of triumph. But 
 in order to succeed, he must bring to the essay his 
 best powers of brain and energy ; he must work un- 
 flaggingly, turning neither to the right nor to the left, 
 nor pausing by the way. This, a year before, would 
 have been a light matter to consider. Now he gravely 
 turned in his mind how he could detach himself from 
 Sybil s life in order to push his affair through. If 
 he could only convince her of the interests involved 
 of the vital importance, to them both, of his work 
 ing by himself ! 
 
 Davenant, who was going through what many an 
 other young man of ambition has had to meet, felt 
 himself a brute to think of Sybil as an interruption 
 to his career. But the time had come when she must 
 
188 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 give way, or lie go under. He was keenly and bit 
 terly alive to the fall backward in his climb of the 
 mountain of professional success. To make good lost 
 progress, to scale the heights again, and go still 
 higher, was now his healthy and absorbing wish. 
 
 These few days of coolness between Sybil and him 
 self had proved intolerable to both. He knew that 
 his own inability to pass at once out of the grief and 
 shame the Hilton incident had caused him was greatly 
 to blame for this. Sybil, rebounding like a child 
 after a fall, had been ready and eager to make friends 
 with him. 
 
 When the day came that, having cleared all impedi 
 menta from his way, Davenant set to work in hard 
 earnest in his great enterprise, he went home lighter 
 of heart and step than he had been in weeks. He 
 found Sybil the better for a walk with Agatha Carni- 
 f ex. It was an auspicious moment in which to unfold 
 his plan of intended preoccupation and absorption 
 for some time to come. Sybil, loving and sensible, 
 would recognize the necessity. He felt sure that she 
 would now prove herself the helpmate as well as the 
 adored and cherished wife. 
 
 "Oh," sighed Sybil, when, after pouring out his 
 heart to her in glowing eloquence, her husband paused, 
 gazing with almost feverish anxiety into her lovely 
 eyes, " while you were talking I felt like somebody at 
 the bottom of a cliff. I can t climb it, Peter ; indeed 
 I can t. But you sounded grand and inspiring, and 
 you make me see what a wretch I d be if I did n t 
 help you. You know, dearest, that this is the "best 
 time for you to work. We are going nowhere j people 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 189 
 
 are forgetting us. Besides, there is really nothing to 
 do in New York after the 1st of May." 
 
 " I have not yet discovered that fact," said he, with 
 a brightening face. 
 
 " Of course you must work, and I 11 mope and try 
 to make the best of it. If there were any peace in 
 our household, I could do better j but to-day there s 
 been another cataclysm. That horrid Franchise, that 
 you made me send away, has left a trail of mischief 
 after her." 
 
 " For heaven s sake, don t mention down-stairs ! " 
 interposed he. 
 
 "I don t mean to. All we can do is to live over 
 the powder-magazine, and thank our stars when it 
 does n t explode. But I 11 try, dearest j I 11 try to be 
 happy without you 
 
 " Every evening for a while ? " asked he. 
 
 " Oh, dear, it is dreadful ! But if I must, I must. 
 And, Peter darling, what s more, I 11 promise not to 
 mention summer plans till you give me leave." 
 
 FINDING it a convenience to work away from home, 
 Davenant now adopted the habit of leaving her as 
 soon as their dinner was over, and not returning till 
 she had long been asleep. For a week Sybil struggled 
 valiantly against the depression of this mode of exis 
 tence. She read, practised her music, regulated her 
 household accounts, and tried to fulfil the whole duty 
 of a home-keeping American wife. 
 
 But the hours were long, and against them warred 
 all the previous years of her pleasure-seeking foreign 
 life. At the end of the first week she put up a faint 
 
190 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 plea that Davenant would stay with her for that 
 Saturday evening, at least. 
 
 " My poor brave darling, I wish I could," he said, 
 kissing her tenderly. " If you knew, Sybil, how I am 
 going ahead in seven-league boots, you d pardon me. 
 My brain was never clearer 5 my powers of work seem 
 inexhaustible. And it is you you who are at the 
 bottom of it. Without you I d be dead-wood. Oh, 
 my Sybil, this life of yours and mine is a common 
 place partnership to the rest of the world, but to us 
 it s a kingdom. Let us control it royally. Help me, 
 as only you can help me, to hold my throne." 
 
 He was gone, and the little house was doubly still 
 for the loss of that buoyant, manly presence. Sybil, 
 who nowadays cried often, bowed her head down upon 
 her hands, and wondered if this was what she had 
 married for. Peter s great speeches, as she called 
 them, pleased her ear j but to them she could not open 
 the innermost door of her understanding. She thought 
 them picturesque, high-flown, and bore with them for 
 the sake of her love for him, which had been steadily 
 growing since their marriage. But she wished her 
 husband were more pliant, more inclined to take tri 
 fling enjoyments, more like husbands she had been 
 most accustomed to see, who shared with their wives 
 in the commerce of social small talk. 
 
 She went to the window, and looked out. An elec 
 tric light opposite showed the deserted street. The 
 houses all about were dull, uniform, respectable. The 
 few passers-by were faded working-people. Every 
 thing seemed commonplace, uninteresting. She en 
 vied her servants down-stairs, who, to the twang of 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 191 
 
 the footman s mandolin, were apparently capering or 
 playing hide-and-seek such a merry racket they made. 
 
 At this moment a carriage drove up to her door, 
 disgorging a party consisting of a lady and two men 
 in evening dress. Sybil, retiring behind her window- 
 curtains, recognized her old-time chum, Mrs. Stanley, 
 attended by a new Venezuelan attache from Wash 
 ington and by Mr. Willy Lang. Before she could 
 form any plans for defense, they were in upon her. 
 Etta, who liked to indulge in nights of this descrip 
 tion, had conceived, after dinner, the idea of going to 
 a certain music-hall, " just for a minute, to see Amina, 
 the woman who s dancing there now," she urged. 
 " Jack said he d come, but at the last minute backed 
 out, because it s a bore, and Amina s ankles are too 
 thick. Do come with us, Sybil; I depend on you. 
 As to your mourning being an excuse, that s quite 
 too ridiculous. Nobody in your position would think 
 of keeping in after a month. It will cheer you up to 
 be with us. You must, now; I 11 take no refusal. 
 Davenant can t complain, if he leaves you here mop 
 ing like this; now, can he, Lang? Do you help me 
 to coax this hold-back Sybil not to spoil our little 
 1 spree. " 
 
 Sybil blushed vividly. 
 
 " I need no one to coax me, except you," she said to 
 Etta, while Lang looked imperturbable. 
 
 " Then come, come ! Ring for your maid, and get 
 a little hat. That plain gray crepon is just ideal; 
 you 11 look like a nun who has determined to cheer 
 up a bit. If we are bored, as Jack says I will be, 
 there 11 be nothing but to come out again." 
 
192 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 Sybil, wishing to say that her husband contemned 
 the practice of women of good society attending 
 music-halls, could not maintain this, or anything 
 serious, in the face of Etta in her present mood. 
 
 DAVENANT, having worked until turned out of his 
 Lawyers 7 Snug Harbor by extinction of the lights, 
 started to walk home in a very happy and elated 
 frame of mind. Not only was his brain singing a 
 paean over its congenial labors of the evening, but 
 his heart reverted to the image of Sybil as he had left 
 her beautiful, graceful, wistful at his going. 
 
 "She can t know I can t expect her to know- 
 how she fills my being, or that would be enough for 
 her, I think," he meditated, striding away with firm 
 footsteps to his home. 
 
 At a corner, coming out of a club, he ran upon 
 Mr. Cleve. 
 
 " Hallo, Davenant ! Glad to see you. Let s keep 
 together till I get to my street. I thought you must 
 be at the library when I saw your pretty wife, an 
 hour ago, at that raree-show of Amina s, along with 
 Mrs. Stanley and Willy Lang." 
 
 "I can t imagine what you mean," said Davenant. 
 " My wife is at home this evening." 
 
 "Oh, I see," said old Cleve, discreetly. "Then I 
 must have mistaken some one else in the box for her." 
 
 He would rather have bitten his tongue out than 
 have made such an old-fogy blunder. The common 
 belief that Mr. and Mrs. Davenant were more blindly 
 in love with each other than before, since that attempt 
 to start a scandal about Lang and Sybil, had possessed 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 193 
 
 his mind. He tried to think of a good story with 
 which to cover his stupid break. But the certainty 
 of having seen Sybil under the circumstances described 
 annoyed him. For once Mr. Cleve had not a joke 
 upon his tongue. 
 
 When they parted, Davenant hurried on, but not 
 so cheerfully. Despite himself, he was depressed by 
 the image Cleve had conjured up. A light burning 
 in Sybil s room showed that she was still awake. He 
 found her in her tea-gown, flushed and appealing, 
 running to meet him at the top of the stairs. 
 
 "My dearest Peter/ she cried, " since you left, 
 guess what has happened to me ! I have sown my 
 first wild oats. I have been with Etta to see Amina ! 
 It was tiresome, and she did n t amuse me in the very 
 least. And the tobacco-smoke got into my hair so 
 that I Ve been all this time brushing it out. Be 
 sure I shall never want to go again." 
 
 "Etta?" said he, coldly. "This was not a plan 
 prearranged, then?" 
 
 "Of course not. I had n t dreamed of it when 
 she came, and I did n t want to go. But you know 
 Etta. When she has set her mind to anything, she 
 will never give it up. Don t be afraid, Peter; your 
 wife has no taste for wild oats." 
 
 "And, besides Etta, who was of the party?" 
 
 His persistently cold tone, chilling her impulse of full 
 confidence, and the line between his brows, bringing 
 back the day of his fury against Lang, suddenly overbore 
 her. Her eyes fell ; her face grew pallid ; she looked 
 like a woman conscious of concealing wrong-doing. 
 
 " Sybil, answer me ! " he said. 
 
 13 
 
194 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 " If you mean Lang, he was of the party. It was 
 not my fault - } but your speaking to me like this only 
 makes me not care whether it was or not ! " she cried 
 rebelliously. 
 
 Davenant saw that she spoke truth; but, having 
 worked himself up to this pinnacle, poor human 
 nature would not allow him to come down from it. 
 She, on her side, felt a hard, stubborn lump in the 
 place of her usual loving, melting heart. They parted 
 for the night under a cloud that seemed to both of 
 them to shut out heaven and earth. 
 
 After a day or two of this miserable difference, the 
 couple came together again in a burst of common 
 self-reproach. Davenant determined to use the 
 strength of his manhood to prevent a recurrence of 
 the scene ; and Sybil, who had not had his distraction 
 of hard work and contact with the outer world, felt 
 that if it did happen again she should give up all 
 pretense of considering herself a happy wife. In this 
 state of mind, she avoided his friends, whom she 
 could not bear to have suspect what was passing in 
 her life. While Davenant s work forged ahead with 
 a steady progress, and he was engrossed with prepa 
 rations for a day to come in court, Sybil went one 
 afternoon to see Mrs. Stanley. 
 
 Etta, for Etta, was almost gay. She was making 
 up a little party to go to a " tiny island " Jack had 
 been induced to buy in the Bay of Chesapeake, where 
 he could go in season for duck-shooting, and whereon 
 there was an ancient house he had just had over 
 hauled and made fit to live in. (It is a fact of latter- 
 day notoriety that when ladies of the Etta group 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 195 
 
 have exhausted their possibilities of continents, they 
 desire to appropriate islands.) Etta had just been 
 on the point of writing to Sybil to come up and talk 
 it over. Of course Sybil and Peter would go, or 
 rather would come on to join her there. Etta and 
 Jack were setting off soon, with some servants, and 
 when they should have opened and aired the house 
 would expect their guests. Mrs. Arden and her 
 daughters, and quite a pleasant little "gang" (so 
 Etta called them), were coming to " camp out." 
 
 Sybil s heart gave a jump of pleasure at the idea of 
 this glimpse of easy, cheerful outdoor life. She was 
 familiar with Etta s habit of "camping out," if only 
 for a fortnight with all the luxuries of life about 
 her. As Mr. Carnifex had said, the Stanleys knew 
 how to do things thoroughly. She promised Etta to 
 let her know at once, and with a buoyant feeling 
 awaited the return of Peter, that she might win his 
 assent to the invitation. 
 
 "My dear Sybil," her husband said, when her 
 scheme was glowingly unfolded, " how can you think 
 of it? I could no more go away from town now 
 than I could change that rug into a flying-carpet to 
 save our traveling expenses." 
 
 " But we have not once been out of town since we 
 landed. I have never stopped so long in town on a 
 stretch." 
 
 There was, could she have seen it, a noble look in 
 her husband s eyes a patient, brave, and far-seeing 
 look. He spoke gently : 
 
 " Do you remember my telling you, once, that New 
 York is my life?" 
 
196 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 "I know; but every one s the better for a change 
 at this time of the year. You can work all the harder 
 when you come back. A week what s a week, 
 Peter ? And we 11 be so happy in the country. This 
 house stifles me ; it is so little, and has so many hang 
 ings. And the street is so ugly outside. One can t 
 walk forever ; and I ve no way to drive, we are so poor." 
 
 Davenant saw her lip tremble. He felt like a 
 parent refusing something to a beloved child. 
 
 "Courage, my darling! We sha n t always be 
 poor. At the present outlook, I 11 soon have a purse- 
 ful to give us a summer outing, pay all these bills 
 that have piled up, and leave enough over to start 
 next winter with. But put out of mind the idea that 
 I can get away now, anywhere. Once and for all, it 
 is out of the question." 
 
 Sybil said nothing. Between them the air was 
 pulsing with thoughts each sent out to the other. 
 Davenant s heart yearned over her. Her heart re 
 proached him for making difficulties and conjuring 
 up scruples. Since that wretched Lang affair, Peter 
 had never been quite the same to her, she felt. 
 
 Presently she began again : 
 
 " I really think, Peter, I had better go to Etta, even 
 if you can t." 
 
 Here Sybil felt reasonably secure. The army of 
 traveling wives abroad, whose husbands are invisible, 
 had long familiarized her with American complai 
 sance in this direction. Whenever Etta felt like it, 
 she took a maid and went anywhere. Sybil, with 
 her maid, could easily make the day s journey re 
 quired to reach Etta s island. 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 197 
 
 " Do you want so much to go ? " said her husband, 
 tightening his lips in a way she did not like. " Sybil, 
 I do not wish to seem ungenerous, and therefore I 
 must tell you the full truth. After paying the last 
 month s bills this morning, and settling one or two 
 big outstanding ones, I am quite empty-handed. 
 Your little funds have gone into your own clothes 
 and spending-money. The servants wages alone 
 mount up tremendously. I was just making up my 
 mind to ask you to dismiss the second man when you 
 spoke to me to-night. I think we have got too ex 
 pensive a cook; and if we you only knew enough 
 to make a clean sweep of these nuisances, and begin 
 fresh with a cheaper lot 
 
 "Do you know what cheap servants are, Peter?" 
 cried she, woefully. 
 
 " I don t know. I m afraid I only care about living 
 honestly, within our means." 
 
 " It is awful this drop," she said, sobbing. " I see 
 now what I ve brought upon you. Everybody told 
 me I was making a mistake." 
 
 Peter was deeply wounded. He could find no 
 words to answer her. 
 
 " Then it is because you have absolutely no money 
 I may n t go away to Etta f " she asked. 
 
 " That chiefly, if you will," he said curtly, leaving 
 her to another and the worst of her lonely evenings. 
 
 During this time of solitude Sybil s mind swung 
 like a pendulum between good and evil. She loved 
 Peter dearly, but thought him unreasonably hard and 
 cold. She wished to stay with him, then reflected 
 how little he kept by her nowadays. 
 
198 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 She felt ready to bear anything for him, then 
 quailed before the prospect of the meager arrange 
 ments he proposed. If she had only had money, all 
 would have gone well. If she had only money now, all 
 would go better, and, with money in pocket, she could 
 treat herself to this jaunt about which Peter was so 
 indifferent. At this point she thought of her cousin 
 St. Clair, and his offers of help to her. 
 
XII 
 
 |YBIL knew, by experience of her 
 cousin s indolent habits, that she 
 could not expect to find him up and 
 dressed and consuming his apology 
 for a breakfast before twelve o clock. 
 Taking a hansom on the morning 
 after her stormy talk with Peter, she drove to the 
 house where St. Clair had his luxurious flat. The 
 porter who directed her to the right floor, and the 
 "buttons" who propelled her in the elevator, looked 
 rather impudently at her, Sybil thought. But she 
 was so full of her own intentions in the visit, so 
 timorous about carrying them out, and so accustomed 
 to think of St. Clair as she had best known him, a 
 whimpering, helpless invalid in his mother s house, 
 sharing her care with that of his two trained nurses, 
 that she did not stop to consider appearances. Her 
 cousin s own man, who knew her well, greeted her 
 respectfully as he opened the door and invited her 
 within. She found St. Clair, shriveled up in the 
 depths of a chair that might have been a cardinal s 
 for size and splendor, sipping a cup of malted milk. 
 " Good Lord, it s horrible ! " he exclaimed queru 
 lously, as she commented on his poor breakfast. " To 
 
 199 
 
200 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 live on wash like this, and my dinners weighed out 
 for me in scales by that fellow of mine, who, on sixty 
 dollars a month, has the digestion of an ostrich! 
 What can I do for you? This is the first time you 
 have honored me with a visit, and I hope it s to say 
 your husband thinks better of letting me settle some 
 thing on you out of my mother s estate." 
 
 "No, no," said she. "Peter is like a rock. I have 
 found that out. He will never give up a point." 
 
 St. Glair was struck by a jangled note in her ordi 
 narily soft and even tones. 
 
 " It s come to you, then, has it?" he asked, looking 
 at her curiously. " It s rather soon, but it comes to 
 all of em." 
 
 "What do you mean, St. Clair?" said his cousin, 
 whose eye had been attracted by the sumptuous tap 
 estries forming the portieres of his rooms. 
 
 "WTiat those French fellows that write the only 
 novels I can read call disillusion. Hang it all, Sybil, 
 I m sorry. 1 m not often sorry, but I am now." 
 
 "You mistake. I love my husband better than I 
 did at first," she replied, the blood crimsoning her 
 face and neck. " But" 
 
 "But, but there are always buts," said the little 
 man. " Do you wonder I never put my head in the 
 noose? Look here, Sybil. I wish you d occupy 
 that old barn of my mother s in Washington Square 
 for me. It s an elephant on my hands. I can t rent 
 it, and wild horses would n t make me go there to 
 live." 
 
 " What do you take us for, St. Clair ? I know very 
 little about living, but I know we could n t afford 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 201 
 
 that. And it would be dreadful to push myself into 
 a place that Aunt Lewiston shut me out of when she 
 was alive. But it s about your helping me in another 
 way I came here. I should be deeply obliged to you 
 to to lend me a little money that I can pay you when 
 I get my next dividend." 
 
 St. Clair, who thought he knew something about 
 loans of money to ladies expecting dividends, smiled. 
 Getting up to walk over to his writing-table, he took 
 a check-book from a drawer. 
 
 " Here you are. What amount, now ? A thousand 
 five hundred? You have only to say the word. 
 We 11 agree that Davenant shall never know." 
 
 "One hundred would be all-sufficient," said poor 
 Sybil, feeling a wave of shame run over her. When 
 St. Clair proposed that she should keep this from her 
 husband, it was the first time she had really felt a 
 sense of impropriety. 
 
 "Oh, I understand. A pretty woman must have 
 grist for her mill or milliner," said her cousin, essay 
 ing, while in process of filling in the check, a consol 
 ing jocularity. "Only, this will soon be gone, my 
 lady, and I want to give you a word of advice. I m 
 not one to preach, you 11 think, and God knows it s 
 so. But you ve been kind and sweet to me, and 
 you re a good little girl, too. Don t get into money 
 scrapes that you can t tell your husband. Like to see 
 that couple of new Monets of mine? Delirium Tre 
 mendous, my doctor calls em. You must go, eh? 
 Remember me to Davenant. He s a man, Davenant 
 is. Thought all the better of him for holding out 
 against living in my mother s house when she offered 
 
202 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 it. Wish you d take it now, though. Pay me rent, 
 if you please anything, so you rid me of the care of 
 it. Perhaps by next winter you 11 repent. Good-by. 
 The door, Clements; and shut it quickly, so that I 
 may not feel the draft." 
 
 Sybil, thrusting her check into a side-pocket of her 
 jacket, went away feeling crestfallen. It was her 
 first essay as a borrower. She had never known 
 money s value, having never wanted money s worth. 
 Somehow, with all his liberality, she felt that St. 
 Clair did not think quite as well of her as before she 
 had made this demand on him. 
 
 But, having begun, there was no drawing back. 
 Telling the cabman to drive her to Mrs. Stanley s, 
 she stopped to lunch with Etta, drove in the park 
 with her, and returned home at dinner-time, pledged 
 to repair to her island on a certain day of the fol 
 lowing week. A pinch of conscience impelling her 
 to take some one into confidence regarding her rash 
 act of the morning, Sybil had said to Etta, just before 
 they parted : 
 
 " Do tell me, dear. If one were in rather a tight 
 place for want of cash" 
 
 " Heavens ! is n t everybody?" laughed her friend. 
 
 " do you think there would be any harm in one s 
 in my letting St. Clair Lewiston lend me a little 
 money ? " 
 
 "Harm!" replied Etta. "Why, it ought to be 
 squeezed out of him for you, poor shorn lamb ! " 
 
 "Oh, but he s offered no end of things/ cried 
 Sybil ; " and Peter will take nothing." 
 
 " Then Peter gives the supreme evidence that he is 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 203 
 
 not long for this world. The idea in your circum 
 stances ! Why, my child, you must be poverty- 
 stricken ! Of course 1 d let St. Clair lend me money. 
 Women s finances have to be helped out now and 
 then. I wish you 7 d heard Lady Bell s account of the 
 way some of her friends are floated 
 
 Sybil s color rose. She did not fancy this illustra 
 tion. Etta had never seemed to her so repellent. 
 But she went home, as has been said, engaged to do 
 the thing she dared not mention to Peter until the 
 time should come. 
 
 As Davenant was leaving her for his usual evening 
 of work on the eve of the day she had fixed for her 
 little journey, an impulse of remorse prompted her to 
 run into the hall, and, seizing one button of his coat 
 after a fashion of her own, arrest his progress. 
 
 " Peter, tell me, are you going to be busy like this 
 long?" 
 
 " I hope two or three days will see me through the 
 woods/ he said, but without any of the expressions 
 of tenderness she had looked upon as daily bread. 
 " My dear Sybil, what you have to bear is the lot of 
 most American wives of your class who have working 
 husbands. Do not persuade yourself that you are 
 the only martyr. In a few words, to live as we 
 must live, I must work as I am working. Good 
 night. Keep up your spirits. Soon we shall have 
 our evenings together as before." 
 
 But he thought of her often during the evening, 
 and on his way home, earlier than usual, when he 
 passed the Carnifexes house and saw it still lighted, 
 
204 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 conceived the idea of going in to bespeak Agatha s 
 good graces for his wife. 
 
 Mr. Carnifex was out at a club dinner, the servant 
 said. Miss Carnifex was in the library, reading. If 
 Mr. Davenant would walk in, Miss Carnifex would 
 no doubt see him, added the man, aware of the family 
 estimate of this visitor. 
 
 Agatha, coming down-stairs at once, looked sur 
 prised, but pleased, by his late call. Davenant had 
 never been more struck by the serenity of her brow, 
 the charm of her friendly smile. It gave him courage 
 to plunge, with a lack of his usual reticence he could 
 not understand, into a statement of Sybil s case. 
 
 "I see exactly," she replied in comment; "and, if 
 you will pardon me, I have been fearing something 
 of this kind. If the poor girl could only look out 
 and above the present, to what you are achieving for 
 her what she will one day exult in 
 
 Davenant sighed. 
 
 " I am beginning to think that may never be," he 
 said. " I expected too much. I understood too little 
 of woman s nature. I suppose my imagination tried to 
 fit the old-fashioned wife into the new woman s place." 
 
 "You are right," she said with a flash of the eye. 
 " "Women in these days, although they may not want 
 to vote, want something to satisfy the celestial part 
 of them ; and if they are not trained to subsist upon 
 their own intellects must find relief somewhere. But 
 Sybil is too genuine and charming a creature not 
 to be, in the end, all a husband could aspire to possess 
 in his domestic deity. Do you know, I feel guilty at 
 saying this to a man about his wife? And I had 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 205 
 
 rather say no more. I shall make it my business, 
 though, to seek her companionship of tener, to let her 
 know the real friendship she has made me feel for 
 her." 
 
 " You are a friend in a thousand ! " he exclaimed 
 impulsively. "I wonder if you 7 d mind my saying 
 that every conversation I have had with you has 
 given impetus to the best ambitions of my life ? " 
 
 Agatha leaned over to draw a lamp-screen between 
 her face and the light that fell upon it. In a jar of 
 deep-red Chinese porcelain behind her had been 
 placed some boughs of dogwood just brought in from 
 the country. About the room were scattered spring 
 blossoms of various kinds, gathered from woods and 
 lawns, and sending forth a fragrance like healthy 
 hope renewed. The sanctuary of Agatha s presence, 
 surrounded and adorned by these emblems, breathed 
 upon Davenant a waft of peace and rest. He con 
 tinued to talk to her for a while of himself and his 
 aspirations chiefly, to which point she always led the 
 way. He was flattered to see that she was acquainted 
 with his new prospects, had heard the plaudits of his 
 friends and followers concerning them. From this 
 they went on to unfold common ideas upon political 
 subjects and the future of the country; and at last 
 he took his leave, remembering the hour, and breaking 
 off in the midst of an impatient declaration that all 
 might yet go well with our big-overgrown nation if 
 its governing bodies, in company with the editors of 
 some newspapers, would consent to retire for ten years 
 or so to the Sandwich Islands, or anywhere out of 
 the United States. 
 
206 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 He found Sybil awake and up, in a room full of 
 traces of preparation for a journey. An open travel 
 ing-trunk stood against the chimney-place, its trays, 
 filled with vaporous garments covered in by tissue- 
 paper, placed here and there, awaiting consignment. 
 A little gray costume that he recognized as one he 
 had been with her to the tailor s to pass upon was 
 spread upon a chair. Even the trim shoes and gaiters 
 to match it were put out. What could this portend ? 
 
 " My dear child, why are you not asleep ? " he said. 
 
 "Peter, I did not tell you before, because it was 
 not worth while," she said, with the directness that 
 rarely forsook her. "It would have just produced 
 discussions to embitter our meals for you know I 
 see you only then. I am going to-morrow to stay 
 with Etta for a week on her island. When I come 
 back, things will go better between us, I hope. I 
 shall feel better stronger to bear trifles. And you 
 you will not miss me." 
 
 She spoke so quietly that Peter was deceived into 
 believing her indifferent. Wrath rose within him. 
 Apart from the lack of feeling involved, he had never 
 imagined a young wife taking such a step away from 
 her husband. 
 
 "This is some of Etta s teaching. It may do for 
 that woman and her l gang/ but hardly for my wife," 
 he answered angrily, using certain other expressions 
 Sybil had not before heard from his lips. 
 
 She turned white, and trembled, but did not reply, 
 while he said his say. 
 
 "And if I may ask where you obtained the funds 
 for the expedition," he remarked finally, " I should be 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 207 
 
 greatly obliged by an answer. It is quite impossible 
 that you go at Mrs. Stanley s expense." 
 
 " That is what I feel most badly about," she replied. 
 " I did a foolish thing, Peter, but it did not seem to 
 me a wrong one. After my cousin St. Clair came 
 here one day to insist upon giving me some money 
 from my aunt s estate, and I refused it, I thought I 
 might borrow a little from him for this emergency; 
 so I went to his rooms, and asked him for a check" 
 
 She stopped, quailing. Again that eye of flame, 
 that lowering brow, his face transformed into that of 
 an unsparing judge. 
 
 "You went alone to St. Clair Lewiston s rooms, 
 and asked him for a check?" he repeated, the 
 words escaping him in gasps of scornful anger. 
 
 "Peter, it was only a hundred dollars. I was 
 sorry, the moment I had done it ; but St. Clair is my 
 nearest relative I did not think" 
 
 "That 7 s enough. I shall return it to him to 
 morrow. But I can t undo your going there worse 
 luck ! any more than I can undo this wish of yours 
 to leave me." 
 
 "Do you want me to give this visit up?" she 
 faltered. 
 
 " Give it up ? No never. I want you to go. I 
 want you to enjoy yourself in the usual fashion of 
 ladies who weary of their lords exactions. Under 
 stand that you have my full sanction. Put any face 
 you choose on it before the world, and I 11 stand by 
 you." 
 
 She was bewildered by his sudden change into self- 
 control. 
 
208 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 "You mean you mean" 
 
 " I mean that if you wish to go, I want you to go. 
 That affair about the check has humiliated me so that 
 I have no other feeling left, I think." 
 
 He stood moodily gazing into space. She faced 
 him, conscience-stricken, wretched, longing to throw 
 herself upon his neck and pray for pardon, but withal 
 not realizing the force of her offense. 
 
 One movement from him toward her, one impulse 
 yielded to by her, might have ended the sad matter. 
 But their eyes stubbornly refused to meet; their 
 hearts, resisting, held apart, while an iron barrier 
 arose between them. 
 
 Presently Davenant went into his own room, and 
 closed the door. 
 
 The next morning he accompanied his wife to the 
 southward-bound train, putting her, with the maid, 
 into good seats in the drawing-room car, and standing 
 beside them until the signal to leave was about to be 
 given. As he kissed her good-by, Sybil felt terrified 
 by the cold touch of his lips. It was their first part 
 ing, and at this moment she would have given all the 
 world not to go. She wished to say so, but his dark 
 face silenced her. When he left the car, she sat still 
 for an instant, then sprang to her feet and ran swiftly 
 toward the door at the end. The narrow passageway 
 was blocked by some people coming in, preceded by 
 the porter with their bags. These proving to be jolly 
 Mrs. Arden and her daughters, Sybil felt glad that 
 Peter had seen them join her. But she resented the 
 interruption that kept her from her husband. Get 
 ting at last down upon the steps, she leaned out 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 209 
 
 eagerly. If Peter had been there, she would have 
 jumped off, fastened herself to his arm, and refused 
 to go back into the car. A passion of love and long 
 ing for him absorbed her. Only to see his dear face, 
 only to tell him that she could not live away from 
 him ! Straining her gaze over the crowd on the plat 
 form, she caught sight at last of Peter, turning to 
 look back, the length of two cars away from her. 
 He saw her, lifted his hat. Sybil, beside herself with 
 emotion, was about to spring from the step to run in 
 pursuit of him, when the train moved. A last flying 
 figure, coming to board it, forced her back, the porter 
 behind her aiding to draw her into the doorway. To 
 Sybil s utter dismay, this last arrival, whom her hus 
 band must have distinctly seen, was the man he hated 
 Lang ! 
 
 DAVENANT stood staring after the train till it had 
 passed out of the long tunnel of the station and 
 become a speck in the distance. He then fell into 
 line with the crowd incessantly surging over the 
 gang-planks of ferry-boats, and crossed the river, 
 returning to his office. Late in the evening he 
 reached home, after stopping for a Bohemian dinner 
 in a restaurant rather than at his club, where people 
 might speak to him of her. The little house, which, 
 in spite of its incompleteness as a home, was yet 
 eloquent of her, was like a face with eyes shut. All 
 up-stairs was silent and dreary. Down below, where 
 they were yet unaware of the master s return, the 
 servants were celebrating their free evening with 
 
 hilarity. Upon a card-receiver on the hall table he 
 u 
 
210 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 saw the yellow envelop of a telegram. It was un 
 signed, but the contents left him no room to doubt 
 the sender. 
 
 What you saw last took me by surprise as much as you. If 
 you say, come, will return to-morrow. 
 
 "I shall not say come," he muttered between 
 clenched teeth. "She must come, as she chose to 
 leave me, of her own accord." 
 
 He went up to his study, a place where his books, 
 as usual, overflowed, and where Sybil had insisted 
 upon making things "look as they used to do in the 
 happy days when Peter was a bachelor." Up on the 
 top of a bookcase stood the cast of Nike Dipteros 
 he had purchased the spring before because it re 
 minded him of her. The inspiration of the noble 
 form, with its fluttering, wind-filled drapery, and 
 glorious wings outspread, appealed to him with its 
 eternal message to rejoice in victory achieved then 
 sent him into lower depths of gloom ! What had 
 been his victory ? 
 
 He looked into Sybil s chamber, turning from the 
 threshold, aghast at its emptiness. A pair of em 
 broidered slippers he had bought for her in the 
 bazaar at Smyrna remained upon the fluffy mat 
 before her dressing-table. Vividly he recalled that 
 bright day s ramble, in the little Turkish town, of 
 two happy, enamoured people, laughing at everything 
 for very joy of existence. A strip of rare old Rhodian 
 embroidery across her table brought back Athens, 
 and the dusky shop crammed with curios where they 
 had chaffered, Sybil carrying off this bit hugged to 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 211 
 
 her breast in the rapture of possession. His own 
 portrait, in a triptych of enamel purchased in Naples 
 as they were sailing for America, looked at him from 
 the mantel. This Peter closed with a snap, covering 
 his handsome features out of sight. He could not 
 endure their joyous look, for the picture had been 
 taken to please her, in Paris, upon their arrival out. 
 
 Poor Davenant, deciding he could stand no more 
 of it, hurried down-stairs. In the act of issuing from 
 his door he was intercepted by Katrina Grantham 
 and Agatha Carnifex, accompanied by Jim Grant- 
 ham, the lively lad who had steered Peter s canoe 
 straight into the jaws of danger on Lake Pocasset. 
 
 "Consider us country cousins," said Mrs. Grant- 
 ham, "come with our knitting to sit awhile with 
 Sybil, if she will have us." 
 
 "Pray come into the drawing-room," answered 
 Davenant, who still retained some of his Southern 
 spirit of formal hospitality. "I am only too sorry 
 that Sybil left town this morning for er a brief 
 jaunt to the South. She had an opportunity Mrs. 
 Arden and her daughters a change of air necessary 
 my wife has not been quite herself." 
 
 He spoke bravely, but could not hide his wound 
 from Agatha. At once his friend divined what had 
 happened, or at least saw that a painful crisis had 
 been reached in the affairs of the couple about whom 
 she had been thinking continuously since his visit to 
 her the night before. 
 
 "You are going out? We will not detain you, 
 then," said Mrs. Grantham, blankly. She was really 
 distressed. Although knowing far less of the real 
 
212 GOOD AMEEICANS 
 
 state of affairs than Agatha, she was too clever a 
 woman not to see that something had gone seriously 
 wrong between her proteges. But upon Davenant s 
 urging them to remain awhile, the party sat talking 
 Jim, driven to looking at photographs, wishing 
 himself back in the canoe on Lake Pocasset. 
 
 Peter knew this visit was prompted by Agatha s 
 kind feeling. He wished heartily that it had occurred 
 the night previous. The still house as he had just 
 found it made him realize what Sybil s vigils must 
 have been while he had been away toiling up For 
 tune s ladder for her sake. When, for a moment, he 
 took Jim up-stairs to present him with an Oriental 
 dagger brought home from their travels, Katrina 
 looked at Agatha, and whispered : 
 
 " My dear, this is gruesome ! Davenant s eyes 
 reveal everything. How could she have gone off 
 there with Etta s fine party, and left him in this dis 
 mal house, all stuffed with other people s dingy fur 
 niturejust on the eve of his ordeal, too ? The way 
 he has worked his affair up is a marvel. My hus 
 band says it is a real triumph of a sane man over a 
 bridegroom. And to-morrow s Davenant s great day 
 in court. If he wins this suit it will mean everything 
 to him everything ! I don t believe Sybil knew how 
 much is involved ; but why she did n t know is some 
 thing I cannot understand." 
 
 Agatha was spared answering by Jim Grantham s 
 voice, over the stairs, calling : 
 
 " Mother, come up here a minute. I want to show 
 you some bully Turkish knives." 
 
 Katrina obeyed, smiling. As she lingered with her 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 213 
 
 lad, looking over Davenant s little collection of arms 
 upon the wall of his study, the host came again 
 down-stairs. 
 
 "You have guessed, I see," he said in a rapid, 
 agitated voice. " To no other person could I betray 
 myself. A blow like this numbs. I can t say I m 
 suffering. I m stunned." 
 
 The soothing, protecting impulse ever uppermost 
 in Miss Carnifex toward afflicted humanity stood her 
 in good stead now. With her own heart racked by 
 his sorrow, yet warmed by ardent sympathy, she 
 spoke cheerfully: 
 
 "I can t advise you not to mind it, for I know 
 you. But I do honestly believe you magnify things. 
 Her going was a mistake, a misfortune, no matter 
 what led to it. Don t justify yourself or her to me. 
 I think only kind things of both of you; and I 
 am sure this will come out right." 
 
 " It is a horror for a man to doubt so soon that his 
 wife s love will stand the strain marriage must put on 
 it ; to have seen it give way in the first test j to know 
 that the influence of others triflers is so much 
 stronger than his 
 
 " Hush, hush ! " said his friend. " Leave others out 
 of the question. Let your universe be filled with you 
 and one other." 
 
 "Ah, but you have not loved ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 Agatha did not stir or speak. Gradually the influ 
 ence of her calm extended to him. 
 
 " I begin to feel hypnotized," he said with a half- 
 smile. " You are controlling me somehow." 
 
 "Then obey the medium s behest," she answered. 
 
214 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 "In whatever way you do it, communicate at once 
 with Sybil. Let her feel your forgiveness." 
 
 Jim Grantham, arriving at the foot of the stairs 
 by the simple process of sliding down the banisters, 
 here appeared, followed more leisurely by his mama. 
 Katrina, declaring they must no longer keep Mr. 
 Davenant from his affairs, wished him good night, 
 adding her kindest hopes for his success in the court 
 room on the morrow. 
 
 " And yours, too ? May I think of you as wishing 
 me to trounce my adversaries?" asked Davenant, 
 clasping Agatha s hand as she was about to leave. 
 
 "Oh, I am always to be counted upon," she said 
 lightly; but in the dim light of the hall he saw in 
 her deep and steadfast eyes a vision of what might 
 have been had not the "ministers that feed Love s 
 mighty flame n led his feet into another path. 
 
 Under the weight of thoughts and feelings which 
 this day and evening had laid upon him, Peter went 
 out and walked for a while in the starlight, pondering 
 upon past and future. Then, returning to his study 
 cheered and strengthened, he sat down to his table, 
 and poured into a letter to Sybil the full tide of his 
 love for her, that, whether for good or ill, would 
 always be the supreme passion of his life. Sealing 
 and stamping this important missive, he went out 
 again to a post-box at the corner, and deposited it, 
 feeling a sense of exquisite relief. 
 
 THE next day Davenant appeared in court in the 
 plenitude of his remarkable powers. His brilliant, 
 almost audacious, management of his case was a 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 215 
 
 matter of universal comment. Among the jaded souls 
 who wait, generally in vain, upon forensic eloquence 
 in modern court-rooms, there was only one opinion as 
 to his surety of success. He went out of the scene of 
 his triumph walking upon air. This triumph, like all 
 he owned besides, should go to her to her. 
 
 He reached home later than usual in the evening, 
 expecting to dress and dine with a friend. He did 
 not know that during the last two or three hours 
 messengers with notes had been in search of him 
 down-town and at his various clubs, and, having 
 failed to find him, had returned the notes to his own 
 house, whence they had been originally sent out. 
 
 Davenant s first sight of his front door revealed a 
 doctor s brougham, then another, passing and repass- 
 ing before it. He wondered who was ill in the next 
 house, then reflected that he did not even know who 
 lived in the next house. When he put his key in the 
 latch and opened his familiar portal, his nostrils were 
 saluted by the strong smell of ether. 
 
 Some one came down to meet him. It was Agatha. 
 She took him by the hand, and drew him into the 
 drawing-room, where she had left him, inspired with 
 happiness, the night before. 
 
 " Sybil has been hurt," she said. " She arrived in 
 Jersey City at four-fifteen, and, after crossing the 
 river, took a hansom, with her maid, to come up-town. 
 There was a collision with a loaded truck. The maid 
 was not injured, but Sybil got a blow. The maid 
 brought her directly here, and sent for us. The 
 doctors are both with her now, and the surgical 
 operation is over safely." 
 
216 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 " Sybil is hurt the surgical operation is over the 
 doctors are with her now," kept on ringing in Peter s 
 brain. Agatha lifted his hand again, which she had 
 dropped. 
 
 " They cannot tell how it will come out, but there 
 is hope, of course, 7 she said forlornly, keeping back 
 her tears. "Katrina Grantham is with her. Do you 
 wish to go up ? " 
 
 Davenant looked at her with haggard eyes, then 
 bounded up the stairs. 
 
 For hours he watched by Sybil s beautiful, inani 
 mate form. Then the physicians, taking him in 
 charge, declared there was likely to be no immediate 
 change, and urged him to get food and rest. Food 
 he accepted, but of rest there could be none till he 
 was assured of better things. In the middle of the 
 night one of the doctors came down to tell him that 
 his wife was holding her own, and gave him stronger 
 hope of improvement; then, struck by his dazed, 
 pallid looks, advised him to go outside and rid his 
 lungs of the drug-laden atmosphere of the house. 
 
 "There can be no reason to keep you here no 
 reason why you may not get a breath of air," he 
 added with assurance. 
 
 Davenant, obeying mechanically, found himself 
 straying like a lost dog into a square not far from 
 home, where he dropped upon a bench. A tramp 
 napping near him excited his envy. " He has not 
 left at home, in extremity, one dearer than are the 
 ruddy drops that visit his sad heart," murmured 
 Peter. The situation recalled like a flash the occa 
 sion of that other nocturnal adventure of his, in 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 217 
 
 Washington Square, on the night of Mrs. Crawford s 
 party, when he had watched Sybil trip down her 
 aunt s steps, and had ventured to join her. The 
 thought of her light, graceful movements, now stilled 
 in suifering, was like a goad, driving him home 
 again. He could not go fast enough. He wondered 
 why he had consented to put so many steps between 
 him and his darling. By this time she might be 
 worse ! 
 
 In a cold sweat of terror, he began to run. A police 
 man, making after him, seized him by the arm. When 
 he saw Davenant s face, the man instinctively recog 
 nized that it was grief, not evil, that inspired the 
 fugitive. 
 
 " My wife is very ill," said Davenant, babbling like 
 a child. " I am going home to look after her." 
 
 "Beg pardon, sir," said the officer, touching his 
 hat. " I hope you 11 find your lady better when you 
 get there." 
 
 Davenant resumed his mad career. At the corner, 
 whence he could see his own house, he noticed that 
 the lights in Sybil s room, hitherto bright, had been 
 darkened. 
 
 "Has it come, then?" he groaned, trying to nerve 
 himself. 
 
 At the turning of the lock, Agatha was again before 
 him ; but for blind grief he could not see her face. 
 
 "Hush," she said tenderly. "Sybil has gone to 
 sleep. She aroused once, asked for you, and is doing 
 well. One of the doctors has gone home ; the other 
 is watching by her." 
 
 Davenant, treading noiselessly, went up-stairs to 
 
218 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 the open door of his wife s bedroom. As he did so, 
 the doctor, who was lying back dozing in the arm 
 chair of the little study at the rear, started awake, 
 got upon his feet, and coming toward him, wrung his 
 hand. 
 
 "Your wife will live, Mr. Da,venant," he said with 
 manly sympathy. 
 
 " Will live ! " Ah, blessed words ! Who that ever 
 heard them will not recognize the hand stretched out 
 to rescue a shuddering wretch on the verge of falling 
 into a gulf? Peter for the first time felt the tears 
 rain down his cheeks. Passing in to where she lay 
 sweetly slumbering, Katrina, the nurse, and Sybil s 
 maid all withdrew to give place to him. When alone 
 with his beloved, he threw himself upon his knees 
 beside the bed, and prayed. De profundis he arose 
 upon wings of victory. 
 
 KATRINA GRANTHAM, who had known many disap 
 pointments in her attempts to turn the course of 
 other people s true love into a channel opened for it 
 by herself, was destined, during the ensuing year, to 
 encounter a supreme surprise. Just when Katrina 
 had picked out for Agatha Carnifex a new and ap 
 propriate suitor could he only be made to see it in 
 the person of a distinguished bachelor of highest rank 
 in the legal world, and of ample means, Agatha 
 announced her engagement with Hamilton Ainslie. 
 Ainslie, who had laboriously acquired a zest for 
 American business life, and even a faint Yankee 
 accent (dropped when he forgot about it), was now 
 vaguely spoken of as " in coffee," and doing extremely 
 
GOOD AMERICANS 219 
 
 well. He certainly had every reason to consider him 
 self in luck as well as coffee, thought his friends ; and 
 of these none were warmer in congratulation of the 
 affianced pair than Sybil and Peter Davenant. 
 
 The latter couple, now established in the former 
 dwelling of Sybil s aunt, were enabled to encounter 
 their increased expenses in that comfortable establish 
 ment by the help of the money coming to Sybil, with 
 the house, by the death at Schwalbach, " suddenly," 
 of Mr. St. Clair Lewiston. With all Peter s high- 
 minded renunciation of a share of Mrs. Lewiston s 
 fortune in her son s lifetime, he had no valid excuse 
 for refusing it under the present circumstances. 
 
 Mrs. Grantham, at last accounts, was bemoaning 
 her sad lot because an excellent young man had pre 
 sented himself for Katty Katty having coincidentally 
 announced herself in favor of the excellent young 
 man. But as that mother, like many another in 
 similar case, would have been more unhappy had 
 there been no husband in store for her charming and 
 winsome daughter, Mowbray Grantham reserved his 
 decision when called on for sympathy in her woes. 
 And then, also, he bethought him that, Katty being 
 married, he might hope for a reasonable share of his 
 wife s company once more. 
 
 Mrs. Stanley shut up her various houses in America, 
 and, with Jack and others, went to Europe for a year 
 of "rest." Mr. and Mrs. Willoughby, finding it im 
 possible to support the cares of existence in their new 
 house, sold it, with furniture, rugs, curtains, objects 
 of art, and all pictures excepting the portrait of Mrs. 
 Willoughby by Carolus. (That was boxed.) The 
 
220 GOOD AMERICANS 
 
 Willoughbys had, in fact, become convinced that the 
 only way for good Americans to live is in knocking 
 around Europe. They kept the Almee sending her 
 from port to port of desirable resorts, and meeting 
 her by rail. Mrs. Willoughby s parties of pleasure in 
 smooth waters, upon her "princely yacht," became 
 matters of international importance, Mrs. Stanley 
 quite meekly attending one of them at Nice, and 
 being glad to get a card for it. After the Stanleys 
 own yacht arrived out, there was a lively competition 
 between the two American queens as to who should 
 excel in extending hospitalities by which people of some 
 of the greatest names in aristocratic England profited. 
 
 The mischievous Miss Hilton had nervous prostra 
 tion for a while, then married a mercantile gentleman 
 residing in Shanghai, who admires literary taste in 
 women, and gives her a very good establishment on 
 the Bubbling Well Road. 
 
 Sybil saw Ian Cameron when that noble Scot 
 brought his wife out for a bridal journey to the 
 States; and Cameron found his old sweetheart not 
 only lovelier than ever, but a more contented daughter 
 of the Great Republic than most of the women he saw 
 about her. Mr. Mortimer has been too busy, since 
 Sybil failed him, to know whether he minded it or 
 not. And lastly, Lang, the brief disturbing element 
 of Davenant s life, married a wealthy widow from 
 the mining districts of Pennsylvania, whom he met 
 on an Atlantic liner, crossing. They live in one of 
 the new Avenues in Paris, and the tendency of his 
 lady s too well-grown son to call Lang "popper," in 
 public, occasions his chief annoyance. 
 
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