CECILIA INGLES. 
 
 [See page 2=6.] 
 
THE CLIFF-DWELLERS 
 
 H 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY B. FULLER 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY T. DE THULSTRUP 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 1893 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 CECILIA INGLES ^ .-. . Frontispiece. 
 
 "WE ARE LIVING UP ON PINE STREET*" . . Facing p. 10 
 
 "TWO YOUNG GIRLS ENTERED" " 23 
 
 " I SHALL MARRY RUSSELL, SHE DECLARED". " 44 
 4 A DOOR OPENED SUDDENLY, AND HER BROTHER 
 
 BURT CAME IN" " 58 
 
 "HE FOUND A PLACE IN A QUIET CORNER" . " 62 
 " WE HAVE COME TO TAKE OUR GIRL BACK 
 
 HOME ". ....... .....-..-,> " 84 
 
 " ISN T IT PRETTY LATE FOR DOLLY? " . ... " 92 
 
 " * HOW S THIS, JO ? ASKED OGDEN ".."". . " 110 
 " BHE LAID HER HAND TREMBLINGLY UPON THE 
 
 OLD MAN S ARM" .... .1. . ..-"-* 122 
 
 "HE LOOKED STEADILY ON VIBERT FROM UNDER 
 
 HIS HAND". " 130 
 
 "THE GIRL GATE HIM A GLANCE WILD AND 
 
 TIMID" " 148 
 
 "THE MATTER WAS ADJUSTED IN A SMALL AND 
 
 COMPACT COURT-ROOM" " 160 
 
 " HERE WE GO/ SHE CRIED, SUNDAY OH NO 
 
 SUNDAY. I HATE TO POKE " . " 176 
 
Copyright, 1893, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 LOAN STACK 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 CECILIA INGLES Frontispiece, 
 
 "WE ARE LIVING UP ON PINE STREET " . . Facing p. Ify 
 
 "TWO YOUNG GIRLS ENTERED" " 22 
 
 " I SHALL MARRY RUSSELL, SHE DECLARED". " 44 
 A DOOR OPENED SUDDENLY, AND HER BROTHER 
 
 BURT CAME IN" " 58 
 
 "HE FOUND A PLACE IN A QUIET CORNER" . " 62 
 " WE HAVE COME TO TAKE OUR GIRL BACK 
 
 HOME " " 84 
 
 " ISN T IT PRETTY LATE FOR DOLLY? " . . " 92 
 
 " HOW S THIS, JO? ASKED OGDEN " .... " 110 
 "SHE LAID HER HAND TREMBLINGLY UPON THE 
 
 OLD MAN S ARM" " 122 
 
 "HE LOOKED STEADILY ON VIBERT FROM UNDER 
 
 HIS HAND" " 130 
 
 "THE GIRL GAVE HIM A GLANCE WILD AND 
 
 TIMID" " 148 
 
 "THE MATTER WAS ADJUSTED IN A SMALL AND 
 
 COMPACT COURT-ROOM" " 160 
 
 " HERE WE GO/ SHE CRIED, SUNDAY OR NO 
 
 SUNDAY. I HATE TO POKE " . "176 
 
THEY SAT OUT NOW ONLY AFTER DA11K " . Facing p. 186 
 HE SAT WITH HIS EYES FIXED ON THE BOT 
 TOM OF THE BOAT" " 206 
 
 BUBT LED CORNELIA DOWN THE AISLE". . " 212 
 
 now WELL IT S DONE ! SHE SAID TO HIM". " 226 
 GOODNESS, GEORGE, DON T KNOCK THE FIRE 
 
 ALL TO PIECES! " . . " 252 
 
 IS HE DEAD? " " 264 
 
 THEN SHE FELL BACK WEAKLY AND COUGHED 
 
 LONG AND VIOLENTLY " 280 
 
 1 STOP ! CRIED OGDEN " " 292 
 
 THREE TO ONE, PANTED MARCUS" . . . 306 
 
 ; SHE PRESSED HIM BACK INTO THE DEPTHS 
 
 OF HIS GREAT EASY-CHAIIl " . . . . 322 
 
THE CLIFF-DWELLERS 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 BETWEEN the former site of old Fort Dear 
 born and the present site of our newest Board 
 of Trade there lies a restricted yet tumultu 
 ous territory through which, during the course 
 of the last fifty years, the rushing streams of 
 commerce have worn many a deep and rugged 
 chasm. These great canons conduits, in fact, 
 for the leaping volume of an ever -increasing 
 prosperity cross each other with a sort of sys 
 tematic rectangularity, and in deference to the 
 practical directness of local requirements they 
 are in general called simply streets. Each of 
 these canons is closed in by a long frontage of 
 towering cliffs, and these soaring walls of brick 
 and limestone and granite rise higher and higher 
 with each succeeding year, according as the work 
 of erosion at their bases goes onward the work 
 of that seething flood of carts, carriages, omni 
 buses, cabs, cars, messengers, shoppers, clerks, and 
 capitalists, which surges with increasing violence 
 1 
 
for every passing day. This erosion, proceeding 
 with a sort of fateful regularity, has come to 
 be a matter of constant and growing interest. 
 Means have been found to measure its progress 
 just as a scale has been arranged to measure 
 the rising of the Nile or to gauge the draught 
 of an ocean liner. In this case the unit of meas 
 urement is called the " story." Ten years ago 
 the most rushing and irrepressible of the tor 
 rents which devastate Chicago had not worn its 
 bed to a greater depth than that indicated by 
 seven of these " stories." This depth has since 
 increased to eight to ten to fourteen to six 
 teen, until some of the leading avenues of activ 
 ity promise soon to become little more than mere 
 obscure trails half lost between the bases of per 
 pendicular precipices. 
 
 High above this architectural upheaval rise 
 yet other structures in crag-like isolation. El 
 Capitan is duplicated time and again both in 
 bulk and in stature, and around him the floating 
 spray of the Bridal Yeil is woven by the breezes 
 of lake and prairie from the warp of soot-flakes 
 and the woof of damp-drenched smoke. 
 
 The explorer who has climbed to the shoulder 
 of one of these great captains and has found one 
 of the thinnest folds in the veil may readily 
 make out the nature of the surrounding country. 
 The rugged and erratic plateau of the Bad Lands 
 lies before him in all its hideousness and im- 
 
practicability. It is a wild tract full of sudden 
 falls, unexpected rises, precipitous dislocations. 
 The high and the low are met together. The 
 big and the little alternate in a rapid and illogi 
 cal succession. Its perilous trails are followed 
 successfully by but few by a lineman, perhaps, 
 who is balanced on a cornice, by a roofer astride 
 some dizzy gable, by a youth here and there 
 whose early apprehension of the main chance 
 and the multiplication table has stood him in 
 good stead. This country is a treeless country 
 if we overlook the " forest of chimneys " com 
 prised in a bird s-eye view of any great city, and 
 if we are unable to detect any botanical analo 
 gies in the lofty articulated iron funnels whose 
 ramifying cables reach out wherever they can, 
 to fasten wherever they may. It is a shrubless 
 country if we give no heed to the gnarled car 
 pentry of the awkward frame-works which carry 
 the telegraph, and which are set askew on such 
 dizzy corners as the course of the wires may 
 compel. It is an arid country if we overlook 
 the numberless tanks that squat on the high 
 angles of alley w r alls, or if we fail to see the 
 little pools of tar and gravel that ooze and shim 
 mer in the summer sun on the roofs of old-fash 
 ioned buildings of the humbler sort. It is an 
 airless country if by air we mean the mere com 
 bination of oxygen and nitrogen which is com 
 monly indicated by that ,name. For here the 
 
medium of sight, sound, light, and life becomes 
 largely carbonaceous, and the remoter peaks 
 of this mighty yet unprepossessing landscape 
 loom up grandly, but vaguely, through swath 
 ing mists of coal-smoke. 
 
 From such conditions as these along with 
 the Tacoma, the Monadnock, and a great host 
 of other modern monsters towers the Clifton. 
 From the beer-hall in its basement to the bar 
 ber-shop just under its roof the Clifton stands 
 full eighteen stories tall. Its hundreds of win 
 dows glitter with multitudinous letterings in 
 gold and in silver, and on summer afternoons 
 its awnings flutter score on score in the tepid 
 breezes that sometimes come up from Indiana. 
 Four ladder-like constructions which rise sky 
 ward stage by stage, promote the agility of the 
 clambering hordes that swarm within it, and 
 ten elevators devices unknown to the real, ab 
 original inhabitants ameliorate the daily cliff- 
 climbing for the frail of physique and the 
 pressed for time. 
 
 The tribe inhabiting the Clifton is large and 
 rather heterogeneous. All told, it numbers 
 about four thousand souls. It includes bankers, 
 capitalists, lawyers, "promoters"; brokers in 
 bonds, stocks, pork, oil, mortgages ; real-estate 
 people and railroad people and insurance people 
 life, fire, marine, accident ; a host of princi 
 pals, agents, middlemen, clerks, cashiers, stenog- 
 
 
raphers, and errand - boys ; and the necessary 
 force of engineers, janitors, scrub - women, and 
 elevator- hands. 
 
 All these thousands gather daily around their 
 own great camp-fire. This fire heats the four big 
 boilers under the pavement of the court which 
 lies just behind, and it sends aloft a vast plume of 
 smoke to mingle with those of other like com 
 munities that are settled round about. These 
 same thousands may also gather in instal 
 ments at their tribal feast, for the Clifton has 
 its own lunch-counter just off one corner of the 
 grand court, as well as a restaurant several floors 
 higher up. The members of the tribe may also 
 smoke the pipe of peace among themselves 
 whenever so minded, for the Clifton has its own 
 cigar -stand just within the principal entrance. 
 Newspapers and periodicals, too, are sold at the 
 same place. The warriors may also communi 
 cate their messages, hostile or friendly, to chiefs 
 more or less remote ; for there is a telegraph 
 office in the corridor and a squad of messenger- 
 boys in wait close by. 
 
 In a word, the Clifton aims to be complete 
 within itself, and it will be unnecessary for us 
 to go afield either far or frequently during the 
 present simple succession of brief episodes in the 
 lives of the Cliff-dwellers. 
 
ON the tenth floor of the Clifton is the office 
 of the Massachusetts Brass Company. 
 
 Those whose minds are attuned to an apprecia 
 tion of upholstery and kindred matters pronounce 
 this little suite the gem of the whole establish 
 ment. Even many who are not adepts in the 
 matter of house-furnishing, and who are much too 
 rushed and preoccupied to become such, have 
 been known to pause in their course through 
 the Clifton s long corridors, on occasions when 
 the ribbed glass door of the Brass Company 
 happened to be standing ajar, and to say to 
 themselves, with certain home offices in mind, 
 
 " Now, why can t our people do as much for 
 
 UB?" 
 
 Indeed, there is cause enough for envy in that 
 small square of velvety Axminster, in the har 
 monious tinting of the walls, in the padded 
 leather backs of the swivel chairs, in the pol 
 ished brightness of the cherry desk-tops, in the 
 fresh blotting-pads and the immaculate ink 
 stands. To sit in this pleasant little apartment 
 for half an hour is to receive quite a new impres 
 sion of the possible luxury of business, the ulti- 
 
mate elegance of trade. This may be managed 
 as easily as not if you happen to have any deal 
 ings with "D. Walworth Floyd, Agt." accord 
 ing to the legend on the translucent pane of the 
 door who is quite unlikely to hurry you out be 
 fore you have finished. 
 
 " Don t be in such a drive," he will perhaps 
 say to you ; " stay and smoke a cigar." 
 
 For business is not too exacting a considera 
 tion with the western branch of the Massachu 
 setts Brass Company. It is less a hive of indus 
 try than a social exchange. The hours are easy, 
 and the habitues are as frequently callers as cus 
 tomers. They are often Jacks or Toms, whose 
 fathers are social pillars in Boston and large 
 land-owners in Wyoming and Dakota, and Jack 
 and Tom birds of passage in Scotch cheviots 
 and billycock hats are given to alighting for a 
 brief breathing - spell on this lofty perch, where 
 they reproach the slipshod dress and careless 
 speech of their friend s small office force by the 
 trim neatness of their own clothes and conversa 
 tion. 
 
 It may be guessed that this snug haven of ref 
 uge has been established and maintained less to 
 extend the Company s trade than to provide a 
 ] tlace for the Company s Walworth. I say Com 
 pany s Walworth, for in this case " company" 
 and "family" are interchangeable terms. The 
 Massachusetts Brass Company is the Floyd fam- 
 
ily, and the "Floyd family is the Massachusetts 
 Brass Company. The Company pays no divi 
 dends, but it is very generous in its salaries. It 
 is liberal with Hosea G. Floyd, who is its presi 
 dent, and with Winthrop C. Floyd, who is its 
 treasurer, and with H. Lovell Floyd, who is its 
 JSTew York agent, and with Cadwallader P. 
 Floyd, who looks after the Philadelphia inter 
 ests ; nor does it quite forget D. Walworth 
 Floyd, who holds up one end more or less effect 
 ively in the West. But "Walworth is the last 
 and the youngest of the Floyds; his marriage 
 was not to the complete satisfaction of his fam 
 ily, and his single independent venture before 
 leaving home, in the direction of coffee and 
 spices, compelled his brothers to put their hands 
 into their pockets rather deeply. So, while the 
 rest of the Floyds think that, all considered, they 
 have rather done the fair thing by Walworth, 
 yet Walworth, on the other hand, regards his 
 assignment to the West as a mild form of pun 
 ishment and exile. 
 
 " It does give me a little elbow-room, though." 
 This is the silent acknowledgment that Wal 
 worth sometimes makes to himself but grudg 
 ingly. 
 
 Walworth Floyd is a sleek, well-fed, prosper 
 ous-looking fellow of thirty. His figure is a 
 trifle too short and dumpy to be pronounced ab 
 solutely good ; but it is always strikingly well- 
 
dressed for he has lived in the West hardly a 
 year as yet. His face is not handsome, but it is 
 gentlemanly quite. One might, indeed, complain 
 of the retreating lines of his forehead, and re 
 gret, too, that his chin, once perfect, now shows 
 leanings towards the duplex; but, on the other 
 hand, his well-bridged nose, you are sure, has 
 been figuring in family portraits for the last 
 hundred years, and his plump hands, by reason 
 of the fine texture of the skin and the shapeli 
 ness of the nails, form a point that is distinctly 
 aristocratic. Yet penmanship, under his manipu 
 lations, becomes a very crabbed and laborious 
 affair, and this light species of manual labor is 
 usually performed, so far as he is concerned, by 
 other hands. He has a sort of general clerk, and 
 he shares the services of a stenographer with two 
 or three of his neighbors. He employs, too, an 
 office-boy, who would idle away a good deal of 
 time if Walworth were not in the habit of send 
 ing frequent communications to the steward of 
 his club. Walworth, garmented in his plump 
 placidity, has been accustomed to fare sumptu 
 ously every day, and to worry his head about as 
 few things as possible. His dining he does for 
 himself ; his thinking he has somebody else do 
 for him. His book-keeping and auditing and so 
 on are done in .the East, and a friend of his he 
 has no enemies once said that his stomach was 
 in Chicago, while his brains were in Boston. 
 
10 
 
 "Walworth, considering his family training and 
 traditions, is inexplicably expansive. Even more 
 than his limited capabilities for business, even 
 more than the exactions of a wife whose pinched 
 girlhood has helped her to a full appreciation of 
 her present membership in a wealthy family, has 
 his own open-hearted bonhomie "kept him back." 
 He is just the man to whom one writes a letter 
 of introduction without any sense of imposing a 
 burden, or to whom one may present it without 
 experiencing any great sense of embarrassment. 
 And it is a letter of introduction, in point of 
 fact, which is now lying half folded on the ex 
 tended elbow-rest of his desk, and has been lying 
 there for a quarter of an hour. 
 
 Most of us know something about letters of 
 introduction promised so thoughtlessly, written 
 so glibly, presented so reluctantly, received so 
 grudgingly. But when the letter is merely a 
 trifling and insignificant line a line which has 
 no great importance for the bearer and can cause 
 no great annoyance to the recipient and when 
 its presentation here and its accounting for there 
 may be considered as but a minute item in the 
 general system of social book-keeping, then we 
 have an episode that passes quickly and lightly 
 for all concerned. Such appears to be the situa 
 tion in the office of the Massachusetts Brass Com 
 pany. 
 
 Wai worth is .tilted back comfortably in one of 
 
11 
 
 his handsome chairs and sends out a casual 
 glance through the nearest window. The sun 
 is struggling with a half -luminous haze, and 
 through this haze a hundred streaks of smoke 
 are driving headlong towards the lake. A tall 
 clock-tower looms up three or four streets away, 
 and one of its faces on the looker s own level 
 gives the hour as half -past ten. 
 
 "Well, we are living up on Pine Street, Mr. 
 Ogden," he is saying ; " just this side of the 
 Water Works the place where the wheels go 
 round, you know. You beat me here by a few 
 minutes this morning, but I think I can promise 
 to be the first on the ground when you call on 
 us there." 
 
 He is running his fingers over the edges of 
 several little sheets of brass. A few bunches of 
 these, together with a set or two of brass rings 
 of varying diameters and thicknesses, are the 
 only intimations of merchandise that the office 
 yields. Sometimes even these are bundled away 
 into a drawer, and then commerce is refined com 
 pletely beyond the ken of the senses. 
 
 " However, don t go. I am a little late in get 
 ting around this morning, but the mail is light. 
 Ferguson will look after it. Sit down again." 
 
 The visitor, thus urged, sank back into the 
 chair from which he had just risen. He was a 
 slender young man, of good height, and his age 
 was perhaps twenty -four. His complexion was 
 
12 
 
 of the colorless kind that good health alone 
 keeps from sallowness. His hair was a light 
 brown and fine and thick, and it fell across his 
 temples in the two smooth wings that were made 
 by an accurate parting in the middle. He had 
 the beginnings of a shadowy little moustache, 
 and a pair of good eyes which expressed a fair 
 amount of self-reliance and any amount of hope. 
 
 " And how are you finding the West Side ?" 
 Walworth pursued. " I don t know much about 
 it myself. This is a big town and awfully cut 
 up. A man has to pick out his own quarter and 
 stick to it. If you move from one side of the 
 river to another, you bid good-by to all your old 
 friends; you never see them again. You said 
 you were somewhere near Union Park, I be 
 lieve?" 
 
 " Yes," George Ogden answered, " I have land 
 ed in a pretty good place, and I want to stay 
 there if I can. They re a sort of farming people 
 or were, to start with. They came from New 
 York State, I believe, and haven t been here but 
 a year or two. Is there anybody in this town 
 who hasn t come from somewhere else, or who 
 has been here more than a year or two ?" 
 
 Walworth laughed. "/ haven t. But you 
 go around some, and you may find a few that 
 have." 
 
 " The mother cooks, the father markets, the 
 daughter helps to wait on table. Nice, friendly 
 
13 
 
 people; make me think of those at home." He 
 smiled a little wistfully. " About the only peo 
 ple so far that do." 
 
 " Well, I have heard that there are some pret 
 ty good streets over there," is Walworth s vague 
 response. 
 
 " Ours is. We have trees all of one sort and 
 planted regularly, I mean. And ornamental 
 lamp -posts. And I m only a block from the 
 Park. Everything seems all right enough." 
 
 " I dare say ; but don t you find it rather far 
 away from ?" queried Floyd, with a sort of in 
 sinuating intentness. 
 
 However, I have no idea of reproducing Wai- 
 worth s remarks on the local topography. They 
 were voluminous, but he would be found prej 
 udiced and but partly informed. Besides, his 
 little tirade was presently thrown out of joint 
 by a dislocating interruption. 
 
 Walworth always experienced a mental dislo 
 cation, slight or serious, whenever his wife called 
 at the office. Nor were matters much helped 
 when his wife was accompanied by her sister. 
 It was the latter of these who now opened the 
 door with an assured hand and who shut it 
 after the two of them with a confirmatory 
 slam. 
 
 " Yes, here we are," she seemed to imply. 
 
 In Mrs. Walworth Floyd our young man met 
 a lean and anxious little body, who appeared 
 
14 
 
 strenuous and exacting and of the kind who, as 
 the expression goes, are hard to get along with. 
 She had a sharp little nose and a pair of inquis 
 itorial eyes. She was dressed richly, but as 
 simply as a sword in its scabbard. If Wai worth 
 spent an evening abroad it was a fair assumption 
 that his wife knew where he was and all about 
 it. Otherwise the sword was drawn. 
 
 "We have been almost three quarters of an 
 hour getting here," she said in a tense way. 
 " Something was the matter with the cable and 
 they kept us in the tunnel nearly twenty min 
 utes. As I tell Ann, you can always count on 
 that sort of thing when you ve got anything of 
 real importance on hand and not much time for 
 it. And yet we talk about the jams and delays 
 in Tremont Street !" 
 
 She drew down her mouth and blinked her 
 eyes indignantly. She felt all the shortcomings 
 of her new home very keenly ; she made every 
 one of them a personal affront. 
 
 " Ann thought it was amusing. Perhaps it 
 won t seem so after it has happened to her three 
 or four times more." 
 
 Walworth glanced apprehensively in the di 
 rection of his sister-in-law s chair. She was un 
 derstood to be in his house on a brief visit. He 
 trusted that she was not to be exposed a second 
 time to so annoying an accident. 
 
 Ann Wilde was a stout woman who was near- 
 
15 
 
 ing forty. Her appearance indicated that, while 
 she had not escaped the buffets of the world, 
 yet her past experiences had only seasoned and 
 toughened her for her future ones. In this earth 
 ly turmoil of give and take she seemed to have 
 played a full inning on each side. She had be 
 gun as a poetess, she had gone on as a boarding- 
 house keeper, and she was now ready to take 
 her first step as an investor. To turn from liter 
 ature to lodgings indicates talent ; to do so well 
 in lodgings as to have funds for the purchase of 
 property indicates genius. Miss Wi]de, at four 
 teen, was a plain child whose straggling hair 
 was drawn back from her forehead by an india- 
 rubber comb that passed over the top of her 
 head from ear to ear, and she was called Annie. 
 At seventeen, conscious of the first flutterings 
 of sentiment and prompted by indications of 
 increasing comeliness, she re-named herself An 
 nette. At twenty, somewhat disappointed in the 
 promise of beauty, yet consoled in some degree 
 by a spreading reputation as a versifier, she 
 changed her name to Anne. At twenty-six, as 
 the result of a disappointment in an affair of the 
 heart and of a growing appreciation of the mod 
 esty of her social role, she resignedly styled her 
 self Anna. And at thirty-five, fully convinced 
 of her own hopeless plainness, of the completely 
 practical cast of things generally, and of the 
 uselessness of flying the flag of idealism any 
 
16 
 
 longer, she bobbed off at the same time both her 
 hair and her name ; she presented a short - cut 
 poll of frizzled gray and she signed herself Ann. 
 What s in a name ? Sometimes nothing ; some 
 times a whole biography. 
 
 " I have been telling Mr. Ogden," said Wai- 
 worth, " that he ought to be in our part of town 
 he ought to be one of our little circle." His 
 wife looked up rather coldly; her little circle 
 was not open to any new candidate that the un- 
 calculating good-nature of her husband might 
 propose. " That house around on Eush Street 
 could take him in, I imagine. And all the people 
 he will want to know are right around there. 
 Why, you have been in Worcester, Frances; 
 you know the Parkers. Well, Mrs. Parker is 
 Mr. Ogden s aunt aunt, I think you said ? 
 yes, aunt ; so you see about how it is. Always 
 glad to welcome one more Eastern pilgrim to 
 our little what -you -may -call -it oasis, you 
 know." 
 
 " Why didn t you say Mr. Ogden was from the 
 East, Walworth ?" asked his wife, taxingly, and 
 looked at the young man for the first time. 
 
 Her gaze was critical, but not forbidding. 
 
 " Yes, most of us are on the North Side," she 
 observed. 
 
 " Ogden is as good as a neighbor already," 
 Walworth went on, perseveringly ; " a business 
 neighbor. He is going into the Underground 
 
17 
 
 National. Letters and all that, you know. 
 Pretty good for three weeks, I call it. If most 
 of our fellows who come out here did as well in 
 three months it would be money in Mrs. Floyd s 
 pocket. To think of the fives and tens and 
 twenties that have gone to old schoolmates of 
 Win s and to fellows who knew Lovell when he 
 was on the road !" 
 
 Ogden flushed a little and took the first step 
 towards a frown. It is not pleasant to contem 
 plate your possible inclusion in the reprehensible 
 class of the strapped and the stranded, nor to 
 feel that only a lucky letter of recommendation 
 has saved a friend s wife from being crossed in 
 some caprice or balked in some whim. But 
 Floyd, although cordial and liberal, was not in 
 variably fine. 
 
 " They stop me on the street, and they button 
 hole me in the hotels, and you can t think how 
 many of them come right here. Of course, I 
 always do what I can. But how do they find 
 me out ? And why is it that when I am going 
 up home late over the viaduct and somebody is 
 hanging about to strike some man for a quarter, 
 I am always the man to be struck ? One or two 
 of them have actually paid me back, but 
 
 "Who?" asked his sister-in-law. She had a 
 loud, rasping voice. " The men on the via 
 duct ?" 
 
 " The others," Wai worth indicated briefly. 
 2 
 
18 
 
 " You are too generous," said Ogden. What 
 a position for a man who was not to enter upon 
 an engagement to-morrow ! And what might 
 three months be, if judged by the hopes and 
 fears and expectations and disappointments of 
 his three weeks ! 
 
 " The Underground ?" repeated Mrs. Floyd, 
 turning towards her husband. " Isn t that 
 Mayme Brainard s father s bank?" she asked in 
 a general way. 
 
 " Mr. Brainard is the president," assented Og 
 den, with a severe smile. " I addressed myself 
 to the cashier," he added shortly. 
 
 "I was sure I had heard of it," she rejoined, 
 with a glacial graciousness. 
 
 " Well, if you have heard of it, my dear," her 
 husband joked, "how widely known it must 
 be ! You ought to have heard of it ; you ve had 
 enough checks on it, I m sure !" 
 
 But Mrs. Floyd did not pursue the subject. 
 She looked at her sister with that prim serious 
 ness which means something on the mind or on 
 two minds and her sister returned the look in 
 kind ; and they both looked in the same fashion 
 back and forth between Walworth and his caller. 
 Ann Wilde snapped the catch of her hand-bag 
 once or twice, and glanced between times at 
 some loose papers inside it. Ferguson, in the 
 other room, thought he perceived the approach 
 of a domestic crisis a disputed dress-maker s 
 
19 
 
 bill, perhaps. Yet there might be other reasons. 
 He knew that the cook was sometimes imperti 
 nent, and that the market-man now and then 
 forgot to send the white-fish. He himself was 
 a mere boarding bachelor, yet he had come to 
 learn something of the relief which follows the 
 shifting of a housekeeper s cares to the shoul 
 ders of the housekeeper s husband. Ferguson 
 had relieved the tedium of many a half-hour by 
 short-handing bits of dialogue that accompanied 
 connubial spats between his employer and his 
 employer s wife. 
 
 These signs and tokens were not lost on Og- 
 den ; he rose again to go. Nor were they lost 
 on Floyd himself, whose apprehension of a bad 
 quarter of an hour was heightened by the ab 
 sence, as yet, of any exact data. He had no 
 wish to hold the field alone, and he begged Og- 
 den not to hurry his departure. 
 
 " Where are the girls ?" he asked his wife. " I 
 thought you said they came along with you." 
 
 " They did. They are in the building. They 
 will be up in a few minutes. That child ! some 
 body ought to look after her." 
 
 " Then why not wait a little while ?" Floyd 
 suggested to Ogden. "My wife s affair won t 
 take long. Ferguson, won t you just clear off 
 that chair out there and find the paper? And 
 now, what is it ?" he asked the two women Avhen 
 they were left together. 
 
II 
 
 " WELL, Ann has heard from those Minneapo 
 lis people again. And she isn t any nearer mak 
 ing up her mind than before." 
 
 "Here s what they say," added his sister-in- 
 law. She took a letter out of her bag and hand 
 ed it to him. 
 
 " Oh !" said Walworth. He felt half relieved, 
 half vexed. 
 
 His wife stood by the window, rubbing her 
 forefinger along the edges of its silver lettering. 
 
 "I don t see whatever put Minneapolis into 
 Ann s head. There seems to be a plenty of 
 buildings right here." 
 
 She looked at the rough brick back of a tow 
 ering structure a few hundred feet away, and at 
 the huddle of lower roofs between. From a sky 
 light on one of these a sunbeam came reflected, 
 and compelled her to move. 
 
 " And plenty of dirt, too, if she is after real 
 estate; plenty to be sold, and plenty of people 
 to sell it. I never saw a town where it was more 
 plentiful." 
 
 She glanced downwards at the wagons and 
 cars that were splashing through the streets af- 
 
21 
 
 ter a rainy September night. "Why shouldn t 
 there be more people to shovel it, too ? You see 
 their signs stuck up everywhere the dealers, I 
 mean." 
 
 "Ann can get to Minneapolis in thirteen 
 hours," suggested Walworth, passing the end 
 of his thumb along one of his eyebrows. 
 "What s that, after the trip West? And then 
 she can see for herself. You take the cars here 
 late in the afternoon, and you get there in time 
 for breakfast." 
 
 " I believe I d just let it drop," said Miss Wilde, 
 " if I happened to know positively of any good 
 thing here. They write a nice enough letter, 
 but I can t tell what state the building is in un 
 less I see it. And I m merely taking their word 
 that the ground is worth a hundred and fifty. 
 There s forty feet. I wonder if all improve 
 ments in means that the street is paved." 
 
 " Drop it, anyway," said her sister, as if she 
 were disembarrassing herself of some loathsome 
 parcel. " Look around in Chicago itself. You 
 can see what you are buying, then. Even if you 
 do invest here, you are not compelled to live 
 here." She became almost rigid in her disdain. 
 
 " Ah um !" murmured Walworth, in a non 
 committal way. 
 
 The door opened suddenly, and two young 
 girls entered in a brisk fashion. The first one 
 had a slight figure, a little above the average 
 
22 
 
 height. To-day people called her slender; six 
 or eight years later they would be likely to call 
 her lean. She had long, thin arms, and delicate, 
 transparent hands. She had large eyes of a deep 
 blue, and the veins were plainly outlined on her 
 pale temples. She had a bright face and a lively 
 manner, and seemed to be one who drew largely 
 on her nervous force without making deposits to 
 keep up her account. Her costume was such as 
 to give one the idea that dress was an important 
 matter with her. 
 
 "Well, Frankie!" she called to Mrs. Floyd, 
 " you found your way here all right, did you ? 
 You re a clever little body ! Or did Miss Wilde 
 help you ?" 
 
 Mrs. Floyd passed back the Minneapolis letter 
 
 to her sister and bestowed a lady-like frown 
 
 on the new-comers. She disliked to be called 
 
 " Frankie," but what is to be done between 
 
 cousins ? 
 
 " Jessie !" she expostulated softly, indicating 
 Ogden in the adjoining room. 
 
 "You can t think," the girl went on, to Og 
 den redux, " how proud my cousin is of her igno 
 rance of Chicago. She knows where to buy her 
 steaks, and she has mastered the shortest way 
 down town, and that s about all. Frankie, dear, 
 where is the City Hall ?" 
 
 "How should / know?" returned Frances 
 Floyd, with a weary disdain. 
 
23 
 
 " Why, there s the corner of it," cried Jessie 
 Bradley, at the window, "not two blocks off. 
 It s big enough to see !" 
 
 "And she s been here a whole year, too!" 
 cried her husband, proudly and fondly. 
 
 Mrs. Floyd drew Jessie Bradley aside. "I 
 know I m very ignorant," she said, speaking in 
 a low tone, " but there is one thing you can tell 
 me about, if you want to. Why have you been 
 so long in getting up to the office ? You said 
 May me May me ; I suppose that means Mary 
 you said that she was going to stop in the bank 
 for just two or three minutes." 
 
 Jessie looked towards her young friend, who 
 was seated near Ogden on one of the wide win 
 dow-sills. Then she turned back to her ques 
 tioner, with eyes that were steady and perhaps 
 a bit defiant. 
 
 " Well, we stopped for a minute in that insur 
 ance office on the way up. We came part way 
 by the stairs. Mayme said she had just got to 
 see him. I don t see how she can meet him 
 anywhere else. They won t let him come to the 
 house. I can t see that her brother has treated 
 him so very well." 
 
 Mrs. Floyd s regard travelled from the culprit 
 before her to the greater culprit on the window- 
 sill. Mary Brainard was a pretty little thing of 
 eighteen, with a plump, dimpled face. She had 
 wide eyes of baby -blue under a fluffy flaxen 
 
24 
 
 bang. The brim of her hat threw a shadow 
 over her pink cheeks, and she was nibbling the 
 finger-ends of her gloves between her firm white 
 teeth. 
 
 Mrs. Floyd considered this picture with grave 
 disapproval, and turned back to her young cous 
 in a face full of severe reproach. 
 
 "Jessie, I don t like this. It wasn t a nice 
 thing for you to do at all, and I m sure your 
 mother would agree with me. Don t mix in any 
 such matter. Let her own people attend to it." 
 
 Mary Brainard noticed this whispered passage, 
 and suspected herself under comment. Her 
 face, rather weakly pretty generally, was quite 
 flushed and brilliant now, and she looked out 
 from under her wide hat with the forced audac 
 ity that a lightly esteemed nature may some 
 times assume, and afterwards, to everybody s 
 surprise, may justify. She began to chat bright 
 ly with Ogden. Her gayety, however, was evi 
 dently but the spending momentum of some re 
 cent impact, and the bright defiance with which 
 she glanced around the group was not more a 
 surprise to them than to herself. 
 
 Jessie Bradley crossed over to the window 
 and found a third place on its wide sill. Wai- 
 worth gathered the two ladies behind the shel 
 ter of his big desk, and the Minneapolis matter 
 was resumed. 
 
 " No," said Jessie, as she settled down, " Mrs. 
 
25 
 
 D. Walworth Floyd doesn t know where the City 
 Hall is." She was in a slightly nervous state, 
 and she caught hold of the first piece of conver 
 sational driftwood that came her way. " I ought 
 to have asked her something easier where La 
 Salle Street was, for instance. I wonder if she 
 knows she s on it now." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Ogden is going to have a chance 
 to learn all about La Salle Street !" cried May me 
 Brainard, with the air of one who dreads the 
 slightest pause in the talk. " He s going into 
 the Bank, he tells me." 
 
 "That will do very well for six days in the 
 week," declared the other. " How about the 
 seventh ?" she asked with a twinkling directness. 
 " Are you an Episcopalian, or what ?" 
 
 "What, I fancy. Why, in Rome, I suppose,.., 
 I shall do as the Romans do. For the forenoon 
 there are the newspapers, of course. Then for 
 the afternoon the races, perhaps. In the even 
 ing well, the theatre, I should say. That s 
 about the plan at my house." 
 
 " Well, I ve never been to the theatre Sunday 
 evening, nor any of my people. And I don t 
 believe that many nice people do go, either. 
 Perhaps you think that there are not any nice 
 people in Chicago I ve heard the remark made. 
 Well, there are, I can tell you just as nice as 
 anywhere. I suppose you ve noticed the way 
 the papers here have of collecting all the mean, 
 
26 
 
 hateful things that the whole country says about 
 us, and making a column out of them. I dare 
 say they think it s funny. I don t know but 
 what it is. There s my own father, now. He 
 reads those things right after the market -re 
 ports, and time and time again I ve seen him 
 laugh till he cried. Yet he isn t any fonder of 
 a joke than anybody else. He says it s better 
 to be abused and made fun of than not to be 
 noticed at all. How does it strike you ?" 
 
 She made a little moue, as she recalled one or 
 two of these national love-taps. 
 
 " And I must say it s awful, too the sort of 
 news that is sent out from here excursions and 
 alarums, and nothing else. During the anarchist 
 time folks down East were a good deal more 
 scared than we were. And I remember, when I 
 was at school, I read in the Philadelphia papers 
 that typhoid fever was raging in Chicago. They 
 gave the death-rate and everything. I came 
 home, as fast as I could. I expected to find 
 the whole family dying. But they didn t know 
 anything about it. And they took my pocket- 
 money to pay the return fare. They were alive 
 enough." 
 
 Ogden smiled. He saw that he was face to 
 face with a true daughter of the West ; she had 
 never seen him before, and she might never see 
 him. again, yet she was talking to him with per 
 fect friendliness and confidence. Equally, he was 
 
27 
 
 sure, was she a true daughter of Chicago ; she 
 had the one infallible local trait she would 
 rather talk to a stranger about her own town 
 than about any other subject. 
 
 " I think we shall have to reform you," she 
 went on presently, " in advance. I believe the 
 proper place for you next Sunday would be St. 
 Asaph s. But it s high, you understand. Come 
 over ; my cousin has room in her pew. There is 
 a vested choir, and when you have heard Yibert s 
 singing- 
 She stopped, as if to appreciate her own dar 
 ing like a child lighting a match. Mary Brain- 
 ard gave a little start and put her hand on her 
 friend s arm, yet at the same time she blushed 
 slightly less, perhaps, in panic than in pride. 
 
 " you will learn what it is that brings Mayme 
 Brainard all the way over from Union Park 
 twice every Sunday," were the words with which 
 this sentence was mentally concluded. " It s like 
 an angel," she continued aloud. "A certain kind 
 of angel," she added to herself. " Do you sing ?" 
 " Yes, a little." 
 
 " Then of course you play. But that doesn t 
 count. Do you write? But everybody does 
 that, too. I do. Or did. I carried off a prize 
 once. It kept me in flowers for a week. Well, 
 what is it dialect or psychological ?" 
 
 "Business letters," answered Ogden, with a 
 balking sobriety. 
 
28 
 
 " Pshaw ! "Well, then, can you sketch, or can 
 you do anything in water-colors ? I did a love 
 ly head of Desdemona once in crayon. That 
 was at Ogontz." 
 
 " Kodak," Ogden confessed briefly. " Yiews 
 along the wharves in Boston ; some pretty bits 
 from around Stockbridge." 
 
 " My own story was in Stockbridge ! Our 
 artist on the spot !" She clapped her hands 
 together joyfully. " What else ? Can you 
 cook?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Neither can I!" 
 
 " Can you keep books ?" he asked in turn. 
 
 "Not a bit." 
 
 "Well, I can." 
 
 "You take the odd trick. Wait a minute, 
 though. How about private theatricals ?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " I have acted in them once or twice." 
 
 She looked aslant at Mary Brainard. The 
 girl seemed glad that St. Asaph s had been 
 dropped, but she was hoping, fearfully, that it 
 might be taken up again. 
 
 " Well, Father Tisdale has everything just 
 about perfect. He s from St. John the Evange 
 list Boston, you know. And you ought to hear 
 little Mike Besser. He s our butcher s boy only 
 eleven. Sometimes he and Russell Yibert " the 
 other girl vibrated at this first audacious men- 
 
29 
 
 tion of the full name " sing duets together, and 
 then" 
 
 Her eyes rolled around the room in a mock 
 ecstasy and rested on the group of elders, whose 
 three heads just showed above the top of the 
 desk. Walworth s face made quite a picture of 
 discomfort and distress, as he rose from his chair 
 with the effect of trying to shake himself loose 
 from the complications that his wife and Sister 
 Ann were weaving about him. 
 
 " The whole building is full of them," he said, 
 rather pettishly; "there are half a dozen on 
 every floor. But / don t know anything about 
 any of them." 
 
 He looked inquiringly towards the window 
 seat. 
 
 " Ogden might." 
 
 " How is that ?" inquired the young fellow, 
 rising. 
 
 " Some real-estate man. Mrs. Floyd s, sister 
 here has about concluded to cast in her lot with 
 us. She wants an adviser. Perhaps you happen 
 to know of 
 
 He took on the ingenuous air of one who is 
 earnestly searching for information in the least 
 likely quarter. 
 
 Ogden laughed self-consciously. 
 
 "Well, now, as a matter of fact, I do. His 
 name is McDowell. He is on the second floor 
 above. I have a sort of personal interest in him. 
 
30 
 
 He will be my brother-in-law within a month or 
 six weeks." 
 
 A. slight flutter among the women the men 
 tion of matrimony. 
 
 " Do you want to try that, Ann?" asked Floyd. 
 
 " We became acquainted with him down East, 
 last year," Ogden went on, proud to show his 
 newness wearing off. " He was working up a 
 syndicate. He calls himself a hustler. He tells 
 me he has just opened a new subdivision out 
 south somewhere beyond "Washington Park, I 
 believe. I think you ll find him posted." 
 
 Older people than Ogden frequently go out of 
 their way to run cheerfully the risk of advising 
 others in business matters. 
 
 " I believe I ll see him, anyway," decided Miss 
 Wilde. Like all women, she embraced the per 
 sonal element in every affair. The people in 
 Minneapolis became mere myths, now that she 
 found herself so near to the future husband of 
 the sister of the man who had just presented a 
 letter of introduction to her own brother-in-law. 
 The chain was long, to be sure, and some of its 
 links were rather weak but it served. 
 
 Mrs. Floyd arose, shaking out the folds of her 
 dress and smoothing away the wrinkles that 
 the last half-hour had accumulated on her fore 
 head. 
 
 " I have asked Mr. Ogden to go to church with 
 us Sunday," Jessie Bradley announced to her. 
 
31 
 
 "And he is going to bring some Stockbriclge 
 photographs." 
 
 " First-rate !" cried Wai worth, relieved by any 
 outcome whatever. " Stockbridge ! Why, that s 
 where I did my courting !" 
 
 Mrs. Floyd was caught in a melting mood. 
 
 " We shall be very happy to see Mr. Ogden," 
 she pronounced primly. 
 
Ill 
 
 IN one of the first-floor corners of the Clifton 
 is situated the Underground National Bank 
 Erastus M. Brainard, president. 
 
 The Underground is not so styled on account 
 of the policy and methods of its head, oblique 
 and subterranean though they may be; it is 
 merely that the Clifton is almost entirely shut 
 in by its tall neighbors, and that, so far as its 
 lower floors are concerned, direct sunlight, ex 
 cept for a month or two in the early summer, is 
 pretty nearly out of the question. We shall 
 have to throw our own sunlight on the Under 
 ground and on the man who is its president and 
 its principal stockholder. 
 
 The Underground is not one of the old banks, 
 nor is it one of the large ones ; if Brainard had 
 no other irons in the fire he would not cut much 
 of a figure in business circles. The Underground 
 is simply one in a batch of banks that have 
 sprung up in the last seven or eight years and 
 that are almost unknown, even by name, to men 
 who, in the clearing-house at that time, have 
 since passed on to other and different affairs. It 
 is spoken of as Brainard s bank, just as other 
 
33 
 
 banks are spoken of as Shayne s, or Cutter s, or 
 Patterson s. Now Shayne, for example, began 
 life with a fruit-stand Jim Shayne they called 
 him. The fruit-stand developed into a retail 
 grocery, and Jim Shayne (about the time of the 
 Fire) became J. H. Shayne. The retail grocery 
 expanded into a wholesale grocery, and the sign 
 read, " James H. Shayne & Co.," and the firm 
 made money. But the day dawned when his 
 wife began to figure at dances and receptions 
 her own and those of other people as Mrs. 
 James Horton Shayne, and when his daughter s 
 wedding was not far away, with all the splendor 
 that St. Asaph s could command. This was no 
 juncture for laying undue stress on the whole 
 sale grocery business ; it seemed worth while to 
 become identified a little less closely with mer 
 cantile circles and a little more closely with 
 financial circles. Shayne & Co. went right on 
 both routine and profits ; but the High-flyers 
 National was started, and James Horton Shayne 
 was more likely to be found on La Salle Street 
 than on Kiver Street. 
 
 Cutter was in hardware. His daughter was 
 a great beauty. One day he dropped hardware 
 in favor of his sons, to become the head of a 
 board of directors. Then people could say, 
 "Ah! a fine girl that! Her father runs the 
 Parental National." 
 
 Patterson s case was different. He had just 
 3 
 
34 
 
 invested half a million in a big business block, 
 and his daughter had just invested her all in a 
 husband. The best office in the new building 
 remained tenantless at the end of six months, 
 and the man of his daughter s choice continued 
 practically without occupation during the same 
 term. The office was worth ten thousand dol 
 lars, the son-in-law in the present state of things 
 about ten thousand cents. So Patterson, in 
 order to secure a tenant for his new building and 
 a career for his new son, started a new financial 
 institution the Exigency Trust Co. 
 
 But no such considerations as these influenced 
 Erastus Brainard when he founded the Under 
 ground. He was far aside from all social ambi 
 tions, and his domestic affairs took care of them 
 selves. His business interests spread all over the 
 city, the state, the West, even the Far West, 
 and this vast web must have a centre. That 
 centre was on the lower floor of the Clifton, 
 where he ran a bank, true, but a good many 
 other things besides. 
 
 Brainard had come up from the southern part 
 of the state from " Egypt," as it is called. A 
 darkness truly Egyptian brooded over his early 
 history, so that if it is a fact that he was an ex- 
 horter at Methodist camp-meetings in his early 
 twenties, proof of that fact might be sought for 
 in vain. The first definite point in his career is 
 this ; that as a youngish man he was connected 
 
35 
 
 in some capacity with a cross-country railroad 
 on the far side of Centralia. How successful he 
 was in transporting souls no one can say ; that 
 he has been successful in transporting bodies no 
 one will deny. He is unrivalled in his mastery 
 of the street-car question, and his operations have 
 lain in many scattered fields. 
 
 To claim that Brainard has a national reputa 
 tion would be going too far. However, his rep 
 utation might fairly be termed inter-state. If 
 the man were to die to-morrow, sketches of his 
 life would appear in the papers of Milwaukee, 
 Indianapolis, and St. Louis ; and the caustic and 
 frankly abusive paragraphs would be copied ap 
 preciatively as far as the remoter counties of 
 Nebraska. For Brainard s success is not with 
 out the elements of public scandal. His manipu 
 lation of city councils and of state legislatures 
 has been freely charged. Old stories of his brief 
 incarceration in prison, or of his narrow escape 
 from it, sometimes arise and flutter ; and there 
 are those who think that if he never has been in 
 jail, then this is all the more reason for his being 
 there now. His demise would indeed set the 
 clipping-bureaus to work ; but the work would 
 not be started by the direction of his surviving 
 family. Such is the chief to whom young George 
 Ogden has sworn allegiance. 
 
 " I shall marry him," said a voice quite firmly ; 
 " you may make up your mind to that." 
 
36 
 
 Ogden started. These words came through a 
 door which stood ajar in the partition that sep 
 arated him from the president s room ; the office 
 was splendid with bevelled glass and oxidized 
 iron-work, yet it was as compact as high rentals 
 compel. They were words in striking contrast 
 to most of the talk that his pen commanded. 
 " Make it thirty days more " ; " I ll take the rest 
 in small bills, please " ; " It will be due day after 
 to-morrow." And with these " I shall marry 
 him ; make up your mind to that." 
 
 He knew the voice perfectly well; he had 
 heard it a fortnight before in Floyd s office. 
 
 The door in the partition opened a foot or two 
 wider ; the bulky figure of Erastus Brainard ap 
 peared and his hard and determined face. He 
 was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a close- 
 clipped gray beard and a shaven upper lip. Two 
 or three red veins showed prominently in his 
 bulbous nose. He wore black broadcloth ; his 
 coat had a velvet Collar, and on his shoulders 
 there was a light iall of dandruff. He wore 
 boots. On Sundays his boots had "tongues," 
 and his trade was the mainstay of a German 
 shoemaker who kept a shop behind his house, 
 and whom, twice a year, he literally terrified 
 into a fit. 
 
 But now his big figure clutched at the red- 
 cherry door-jamb with a tremulous hesitancy, 
 the hard, fierce eyes looked out appealingly from 
 
37 
 
 under their coarse and shaggy brows, and the 
 proud and cruel lips opened themselves to ad 
 dress the young man with an order that was 
 almost an entreaty. 
 
 " Ogden, won t you ask Mr. Fairchild to step 
 this way ?" 
 
 For a mouse had come into the place, and the 
 elephant was in terror. 
 
 The Underground National Bank, with a sur 
 plus equal to a third of its capital, had not de 
 clared a dividend for several years. Brainard, 
 along with his son and his brother, owned five 
 eighths of the stock. Put these two facts to 
 gether and surmise the rest. Understand, with 
 out the telling, how Brainard had bought back 
 big blocks of stock from men who had invested 
 on his own advice and representations, only to 
 sell out at less than two thirds the price they 
 had paid. Understand how widowed and un 
 protected women, with little realization of the 
 remote possibilities of the science of banking and 
 no realization at all of the way in which their 
 five thousands had come to be worth so much 
 less than five thousand, would come to his office 
 to implore ingenuously with sobs and tears that 
 he would give them back their money. Con 
 sider these and a dozen other phases of the pleas 
 ant pastime known as "freeze out," and then 
 judge whether Brainard, by this time, were capa 
 ble or no of braving, warding off, beating down, 
 
38 
 
 despising the threats, the imprecations, the plead- 
 , the attacks of the harmless domestic an 
 imal known as the investor. But now another 
 Domestic animal, the wilful daughter, had en 
 tered his lair, and with this new antagonist he 
 felt himself unable to cope. 
 
 " Ogden, won t you ask Mr. Fairchild to step 
 this way ?" 
 
 Fairchild was only the cashier of the bank, 
 while Brainard was its head ; but Fairchild was 
 a good deal of a man and that was more than 
 Brainard, with all his money and his brains and 
 his consciencelessness, and all the added power 
 /bf the three combined, could have claimed for 
 himself. He was merely a financial appliance 
 one of the tools of the trade. 
 
 He had no friends none even of the poor 
 sort known as "business" friends. He had no 
 social relations of any kind. He had no sense of 
 any right relation to the community in which he 
 lived. He had next to no family life. He had 
 no apparent consciousness of the physical basis 
 of existence for him diet, rest, hygiene were 
 mere nothings. But none of these considerations 
 disturbed him very much. He could do without 
 friends having so good a friend in himself. He 
 could dispense with social diversion so long as 
 the affairs of the Underground, and the Illumi 
 nating Company, and those Western mines con 
 tinued to occupy his attention. He could rub 
 
39 
 
 along without the sympathy and respect of the 
 community while he and it held the relative 
 positions of knife and oyster. He could do per 
 fectly well without hygiene and proper regimen 
 as long as dyspepsia and nerves and rheumatism 
 were not too pressing in their attentions. And 
 he could, of course, trust his family to run itself 
 without any great amount of attention from its 
 natural head. 
 
 His family had run itself for twenty odd 
 years. It had gone on its scattered way re 
 joicing after the good, new, Western fashion 
 which finds the unit of society less in the family^ 
 than in the individual ; and now a very prom 
 ising young filly, after having " run " herself for 
 a good part of this twenty years, was on the 
 point of taking the bit between her teeth and 
 of running away altogether. The family carry 
 all, whose front seat he had left in order that 
 he might irresponsibly dangle his legs out from 
 behind, was in danger of a runaway and a smash- 
 up, and he was forced to the humiliating ex 
 pedient of installing a more competent driver 
 than himself in his own place behind the dash 
 board. 
 
 Ogden slid rapidly along the narrow aisle 
 which ran behind the row of coops that con 
 fined the tellers, and found Fairchild going over 
 yesterday s balances with the general book 
 keeper. Here he was intercepted by the last 
 
40 
 
 of the messengers, who had had some delay in 
 getting his batch of drafts and notes arranged 
 properly into a route. 
 
 He was a boy of seventeen, with a pert nose 
 and a pasty complexion. He had put on his hat 
 with a backward tilt that displayed his bang. 
 He was the son of a millionnaire stockholder, and 
 was on the threshold of his business career. He 
 panted for consideration, and he had found, dur 
 ing an experience of six months, that most con 
 sideration was to be won from the newest men. 
 
 " What s up now, George ?" he asked, famil 
 iarly. He twitched his narrow little shoulders 
 as he teetered back and forth on his toes. " Old 
 man on the rampage some more? He s had it 
 pretty bad for the last three weeks." 
 
 " Oh, get out !" Ogden responded briefly. 
 
 Fairchild was a man well on in the fifties. 
 He had a quiet, self-contained manner, a smooth 
 forehead, a gray moustache. His general trust 
 worthiness was highly esteemed by Brainard, 
 who generally treated him with civility and 
 sometimes almost ,with consideration. He had 
 his privileges. A member of the board of 
 directors in the Brainard interest, he would be 
 given the opportunity to resign whenever some 
 especially dubious piece of business was looming 
 up, with the certainty of re-election within the 
 year. He was too old to tear himself up by the 
 roots, and too valuable to be allowed, in any 
 
41 
 
 event, the radical boon of transplantation. Of 
 course he paid for such a concession ; he acted 
 as a buffer between Brainard and the more 
 pathetic of the stockholders, and now, as we 
 see, he was summoned to deal with a domestic 
 crisis. 
 
 " My dear girl," Ogden presently heard him 
 saying in a dry, cautious, and yet somewhat 
 parental tone, " you know what his position is. 
 Not in the church ; no, I don t mean that. He 
 is only a policy clerk in that insurance office, at 
 ten dollars a week, probably hardly enough 
 for him to live on decently, alone. Yes, I know 
 he gets more from the choir, but even that " 
 
 Ogden stopped one ear by propping his elbow 
 on his ledger and putting his hand to his head, 
 and went on with his writing as well as he could. 
 But he had left the Underground for St. Asaph s; 
 he was busy no longer with notes for collection, 
 but with the notes the melting tenor notes 
 of the all-admired Vibert. His fellow - clerks 
 noiselessly retired, and a long train of choristers 
 slowly made their way through the long aisle 
 the others had left vacant. Among them Yibert 
 tall, dark, hard, and cruel ; an angel, possibly ; 
 but if so, surely one of the fallen. And a little 
 girl of eighteen, whose blue eyes showed out 
 from under her fluffy blond locks, and whose 
 lips Avere parted in a radiant, reverent smile, 
 steadied a trembling hand on the back of a pew 
 
and looked after him with a fond, open, and 
 intense regard that was a perfect epitome of 
 love. 
 
 Those same blue eyes were now on the other 
 side of the partition, regarding her father s 
 lieutenant with a look as bright and hard as 
 was ever her father s own ; and as she listened 
 to the words of warning, those same full and 
 pliant lips set themselves in a firm line that 
 Brainard himself could not have made straighter 
 or more unswerving. 
 
 " Nobody really knows," the cashier went on, 
 " who his people are, or where he is from, or 
 anything definite about him. He is one of thou 
 sands. Here is a town full to overflowing with 
 single young men. They come from everywhere, 
 for all reasons. They are taken on faith, largely, 
 and are treated pretty well. Most of them are 
 all right, no doubt ; but others Of course I 
 know nothing about Mr. about this one; but 
 your own brother, now " 
 
 " That s just what I tell her," broke in Brain 
 ard, with a distressful whimper. " Burt says, and 
 he knows it s true, that 
 
 Ogden again stopped his ears. If by any pos 
 sibility there was aught good under that chaste 
 surplice, he would not wilfully deprive himself 
 of any chance for belief. If that full neck and 
 heavy jaw and sinister eye and world -worn 
 cheek and elaborate assumption of professional 
 
43 
 
 sanctity offered the slightest prospect of decent 
 manliness and of happy home life, he would not 
 allow one mere solitary phrase to shut that pros 
 pect out. But he could not shut out a disgust 
 that gradually crept in upon him a disgust for 
 the man who would arrange the most sacredjand 
 confidential affairs of his family circle inVthe 
 same general fashion that he would use for deal 
 ing with the concerns of an ordinary business 
 acquaintance ; a disgust for the family life in 
 which such a state of things was possible. Had 
 the girl no mother ? She had, indeed ; but that 
 mother was an invalid one who, with the ad 
 vancing years, had come to know more and more 
 of tonics and cordials, and less and less of her 
 daughters needs. Had she no brother? But 
 what can a brother do ? order the intruder 
 from the premises and intimidate him from re 
 turning, which Burt had done. Were there no 
 friends or relations to see how matters were going 
 and to speak out their minds boldly ? But when 
 ever has such a course availed? The friends 
 cease to be friends, and the relatives are relatives 
 at a greater remove only, and all goes on as be 
 fore. No ; there was only one way to settle this 
 affair the "business" way; and that way Brain- 
 ard took necessarily, instinctively. 
 
 He had never lived for anything but business. 
 He had never eaten and drunk for anything but 
 business his family shared his farm -like fare 
 
44 
 
 ) and his primitive hours. He had never built for 
 anything but business ; though constantly in 
 vesting in grounds and buildings, he had occu 
 pied his own home for fifteen years as a tenant 
 merely, before he could bring himself to a grudg 
 ing purchase. He never dressed for anything 
 but business he had never worn a dress-coat 
 in his life. He wrote about nothing but business 
 his nearest relative was never more than "dear 
 sir," and he himself was never otherwise than 
 " yours truly " ; and he wrote on business letter- 
 
 x heads even to his family. And now that the 
 present domestic difficulty was to be adjusted, no 
 other method was available. But he had the sat 
 isfaction of feeling that his daughter was meet 
 ing him in his own spirit and on his own ground. 
 She eyed him with a cold and direct gaze like 
 that of the sun which is setting in a clear winter 
 sky. Not a single cloud-shred of affection showed 
 itself in the wide expanse of crisp and tingling 
 atmosphere which she seemed to have created 
 about her; not a particle of floating vapor 
 helped to diffuse a glow of sentiment over a situ 
 ation which had much need of some such soften 
 ing influence. Her fierce little glance tore down 
 every scrap of reverence, of home love, of filial 
 duty : life had never seemed to him quite so 
 bald, so unfurnished, so bereft of unbusi ness-like 
 non-essentials. 
 
 " I shall marry Eussell," she declared, "in spite 
 
45 
 
 of you and in spite of everything. You may 
 say that he has no money, and that you don t 
 know his family ; and Burt may forbid him the 
 house and go prying into his private affairs ; and 
 you may say that he has no friends and no abili 
 ties, and as much more as you please. I don t 
 care ; I shall be his wife. I won t believe any of 
 these things, and nobody shall separate us." 
 
 She rose, flushed and frowning, and walked 
 out firmly. Fairchild opened the opposite door 
 and moved off quietly to his own place. Brain- 
 ard brushed aside a pile of abstracts and mort 
 gages that encumbered his desk, found an open 
 ing big enough for his elbow, and leaned over 
 his blotting-pad with an air of utter dejection 
 and defeat. 
 
IY 
 
 ON the twelfth floor of the Clifton at the 
 far end of a long corridor is the office of Eu 
 gene H. McDowell, real estate. 
 
 Ogden, at the beginning of one of his brief 
 noonings, took the elevator up to the quarters 
 of his coming brother-in-law. 
 
 He found McDowell stretching himself vio 
 lently in his swivel chair, which was tilted as far 
 back as its mechanism would permit; his head 
 was thrown back, too, as far as anatomical con 
 siderations would allow. His eyes would have 
 seen the ceiling if they had not been so tight 
 shut; his Adam s apple appeared prominently 
 between the turned-down points of his collar. 
 His desk was strewn with a litter of papers, and 
 the tassels depending from his map-rack began 
 a trembling at varying heights as Ogden closed 
 the door behind him. 
 
 " Waugh oo !" yawned McDowell, with his 
 mouth at its widest. Then he let his chair down, 
 all at once. " Oh, it s you, George, is it ?" 
 
 He used the careless and patronizing freedom 
 of a man of thirty odd to another several years 
 his junior of a man in business for himself to a 
 
47 
 
 man in business for some one else of a man 
 who was presently to undertake the protection 
 and support of the other s sister. 
 
 " Sit down." He motioned Ogden to a chair 
 which stood close to the window a window that 
 looked out on the court and that commanded the 
 multifarious panorama of daily business going 
 on behind the ranks and rows of great glass 
 sheets which formed the other three sides of the 
 enclosure the ends of over-crowded desks, the 
 digital dumb-show of stenographers, the careful 
 handling by shirt-sleeved clerks of the damp yel 
 low sheets in copying-books, the shaking fingers 
 and nodding heads that accompanied the per 
 suasion and expostulation of personal interviews. 
 
 McDowell presented a physiognomy that 
 seemed to have been stripped of all superfluities. 
 He contrived to avoid the effect of absolute lean 
 ness, yet he was without a spare ounce of flesh. 
 His cheek-bones did not obtrude themselves, nor 
 were his finger-joints unduly prominent ; yet his 
 trousers seemed more satisfactory as trousers 
 than his legs as legs, and his feet were in long, 
 narrow, thin-soled shoes, through whose flexible 
 leather one almost divined the articulations of 
 his toes. His hair had shrunk back from his 
 forehead and temples, but his moustache sprang 
 out as boldly and decidedly as if constructed of 
 steel wires. His nose was sharp ; his eyes were 
 like two gimlets. The effect of his presence was 
 
48 
 
 nervous, excitant, dry to aridity. He had a flat- 
 tish chest and bony shoulders ; his was an earth 
 ly tabernacle that gave its tailor considerable 
 cause for study. 
 
 " Your friends called again this morning," he 
 began, folding up two or three documents and 
 thrusting them into the pigeon-holes before him. 
 " We have had quite a session. But they re fixed 
 finally. Does that cousin of theirs live with 
 them ?" 
 
 " Cousin ? Isn t she their sister sister-in- 
 law ?" 
 
 " I mean the other one ; Miss Bradley, isn t 
 it?" 
 
 " Oh ! "Well, no ; she comes in and stays with 
 them a week now and then. But her people 
 live in Hinsdale." 
 
 " Hinsdale ; nice country around there. Seems 
 as if you just had to get outside of Cook County 
 to find anything hilly or even rolling. I d like 
 to take it up first rate. The minute you are 
 over the county line you get clean out of all 
 that flat land and everything s up and down 
 like around Worcester. But I don t believe they 
 save much on taxes." 
 
 He tore some pencilled memoranda off the top 
 of a pad and threw them into the waste-basket. 
 
 "Yes, the sister-in-law was here, all right 
 enough. She s a pretty smart woman, too ; got 
 a good deal more head than any of the rest of 
 
49 
 
 them. She s striking out a little late, but she 
 may make something of herself, yet. 
 
 " But she wants to get that poetical streak 
 out of her," he went on. " What was it she 
 said, now ? Oh, yes ; all this down-town racket 
 came to her like the music of a battle-hymn. 
 Our hustling, it seems, resembles a hand-to-hand 
 combat from street to street she lugged in med 
 iaeval Florence. And to finish up with, she told 
 me I was like a gladiator stripped for the fray." 
 He ran his hand down the stripes of his hand 
 some trousers. " What did she mean by that ? 
 Was it some of her Boston literary business ?" 
 
 He lifted his hand and thoughtfully twirled 
 the scanty locks over one of his ears. 
 
 " Here s a letter I got this morning from Kit- 
 tie." He drew out a small folded sheet from the 
 bottom of a pile of correspondence. " She has 
 about come around to my way of thinking. 
 There don t seem any very good reason for my 
 travelling away down there again, especially 
 when your father and mother are going to move 
 out here anyway. I m awful busy. She ll have 
 her own family at the wedding, then, and she ll 
 give me a show to scare up some of mine. 
 Things are just too rushing that s the amount 
 of it." 
 
 " I m glad to have it settled one way or an 
 other," George said. " And how about that oth 
 er affair have you made any report to father 2" 
 4 
 
50 
 
 " Yes. That s as good as settled. The deeds 
 are all made out ; they ve only got to be signed." 
 He reached into one of his pigeon-holes and 
 brought out a bulk of bluish paper whose frac 
 tious folds were held in some shape by a wide 
 rubber strap. "Here s one of the abstracts- 
 just come in. The other is a good deal longer 
 and the copy isn t finished. I suppose they ll 
 put that one on a board." 
 
 He snapped the band once or twice and put 
 the abstract back again. 
 
 "I m glad," he said, "that your father has 
 finally decided to pull up altogether and to 
 transfer everything to the West. That old 
 block of his was wanting repairs all the time ; I 
 don t believe it paid him four per cent. It takes 
 more than soldiers monuments and musical fes 
 tivals to make a town move." 
 
 George felt his heart give an indignant throb. 
 He seemed to see before him the spokesman 
 of a community where prosperity had drugged 
 patriotism into unconsciousness, and where the 
 bare scaffoldings of materialism felt themselves 
 quite independent of the graces and draperies 
 of culture. It seemed hardly possible that one 
 short month could make his native New Eng 
 land appear so small, so provincial, so left- 
 behind. 
 
 " You ve got to have snap, go. You ve got 
 to have a big new country behind you. How 
 
51 
 
 much do you suppose people in Iowa and Kan 
 sas and Minnesota think about Down East ? Not 
 a great deal. - It s Chicago they re looking to. 
 This town looms up before them and shuts out 
 Boston and New York and the whole seaboard 
 from the sight and the thoughts of the West 
 and the Northwest and the New Northwest and 
 the Far West and all the other Wests yet to be 
 invented. They read our papers, they come here 
 to buy and to enjoy themselves." He turned 
 his thumb towards the ceiling, and gave it an 
 upward thrust that sent it through the six ceil 
 ings above it. " If you d go up on our roof and 
 hear them talking 
 
 " Oh, well," said George; "hadn t we better 
 get something to eat?" 
 
 " And Avhat kind of a town is it that s want 
 ed," pursued McDowell, as he pulled down the 
 cover of his desk, " to take up a big national en 
 terprise and put it through with a rush ? A big 
 town, of course, but one that has grown big so 
 fast that it hasn t had time to grow old. One 
 with lots of youth and plenty of momentum. 
 Young enough to be confident and enthusiastic, 
 and to have no cliques and sets full of bickerings 
 and jealousies. A town that will all pull one 
 way. What s New York ?" he asked, flourishing 
 his towel from the corner where the wash-stand 
 stood. " It ain t a city at all ; it s like London 
 it s a province. Father Knickerbocker is too 
 
52 
 
 old, and too big and logy, and too all-fired self 
 ish. We are the people, right here. Well, 
 Johnny, you hold the fort," he called to a boy 
 who was dividing an open-eyed attention be 
 tween this oration and his own sandwich; "I ve 
 got to have a bite myself." 
 
 " How are you getting on downstairs ?" he 
 asked, as they tramped over the tiles of the long 
 corridor towards the elevators. " I hear you 
 were over at Brainard s house last night he s a 
 fine bird. And his son is like him. He s got 
 another, hasn t he a younger one ? In the bank, 
 isn t he ? Used to be. Well, he might be with 
 out your knowing it. Queer genius his father 
 don t know what to do with him. He s kind of 
 in the background, as it were. How did you 
 happen to go over there ?" 
 
 " Papers to sign. Mr. Brain ard was at home, 
 sick. It was something that they could hardly 
 give to any of the boys to manage. I met his 
 other daughter." 
 
 " Other ? Didn t know he had any. Got two, 
 has he ? And two sons. Well, he s a great 
 old father, from all I hear, and I shouldn t 
 D_ ow - n !" 
 
 But the elevator was too far past them to return. 
 
 "Here s another coming," said George, to 
 whom the indicator showed that a cab had left 
 the top story and was half way down to their 
 level. 
 
53 
 
 Ogden had now gone through a novitiate of 
 five or six weeks. After his first wrench from 
 the East to the West his second one from the 
 West Side to the North seemed an unimpor 
 tant matter. He had learned his new neighbor 
 hood, had made a few acquaintances there, had 
 become familiar with his work at the bank ; and 
 the early coming of his own family, who had 
 elected to swell the great westward movement 
 by the contribution of themselves and all their 
 worldly goods, helped him to the feeling of be 
 ing tolerably well at home. From the vantage- 
 ground of a secure present and a promising fut 
 ure he became an interested observer of the lif 
 that swept and swirled about him. He found 
 that there might be an inner quiet under all this 
 vast and apparently unregulated din : he recalled 
 how, in a cotton factory or a copper foundry, 
 the hands talked among themselves in tones 
 lower than the average, rather than higher. 
 The rumble of drays and the clang of street-car y 
 gongs became less disconcerting; the town s \. 
 swarming hordes presently appeared less sloven 
 ly in their dress and less offensive in their man 
 ners than his startled sensibilities had found 
 them at first; even their varied physiognomies 
 began to take on a cast less comprehensively 
 cosmopolitan. His walks through the streets 
 and his journeyings in the public conveyances 
 showed him a range of human types completely A 
 
54 
 
 unknown to his past experience ; yet it soon 
 came to seem possible that all these different 
 elements might be scheduled, classified, brought 
 into a sort of catalogue raisonne which should 
 give every feature its proper place skulls, fore 
 heads, gaits, odors, facial angles ; ears, with their 
 different shapes and sets ; eyes, with their va 
 rying shapes and colors ; hair, with its divergent 
 shades and textures ; noses, with their multiplied 
 turns and outlines ; dialects, brogues, patois, ac 
 cents in all their palatal and labial varieties and 
 according to all the different iations in pharynx, 
 larynx, and epiglottis. 
 
 He disposed as readily of the Germans, Irish, 
 and Swedes as of the negroes and the Chinese. 
 But how to tell the Poles from the Bohemi 
 ans ? How to distinguish the Sicilians from the 
 Greeks? How to catalogue the various grades 
 of Jews ? How to tabulate the Medes, and the 
 Elamites, and the Cappadocians, and the dwell 
 ers from Mesopotamia? 
 
 During the enforced leisure of his first weeks 
 he had gone several times to the City Hall, and 
 had ascended in the elevator to the reading-room 
 of the public library. On one of these occasions 
 a heavy and sudden down-pour had filled the 
 room with readers and had closed all the win 
 dows. The down-pour without seemed but a 
 trifle compared with the confused cataract of 
 conflicting nationalities within, and the fumes 
 
55 
 
 of incense that the united throng caused to rise 
 upon the altar of learning stunned him with a 
 sudden and sickening surprise the bogs of Kil 
 kenny, the dung-heaps of the Black Forest, the 
 miry w&ys of Transylvania and Little Russia 
 had all contributed to it. 
 
 The universal brotherhood of man appeared^ 
 before him, and it smelt of mortality no par/ 
 tial, exclusive mortality, but a mortality compre 
 hensive, universal, condensed and averaged up 
 from the grand totality of items. 
 
 In a human maelstrom, of which such a scene 
 was but a simple transitory eddy, it was grateful 
 to regain one s bearings in some degree, and to 
 get an opportunity for meeting one or two fa 
 miliar drops. It had pleased him, therefore, to 
 find that Brainard s house was in the neighbor 
 hood of Union Park and in the immediate vicin 
 ity of his own first lodgings ; and when he went 
 over there with his documents in his pocket he 
 appreciated the privilege of ringing the bell of a 
 door behind which were one or two faces that he 
 might recognize. 
 
 The Brainards lived on a corner, and the house 
 was so set as to allow a narrow strip of yard 
 along the side street. It was built in the yellow 
 limestone which used to come from quarries at 
 Joliet, and the architect had shown his prefer 
 ence for the exaggerated keystones that had so 
 great a vogue in the late sixties. The house had 
 
56 
 
 a basement, and above the elaborate wooden cor 
 nice there was a mansard with several windows 
 that were set in a frame- work of clumsy and 
 pretentious carpentry. Behind the house was a 
 brick stable ; it had been built of cheap material 
 and covered with a cheaper red wash. The 
 dampness of the lower walls had caused this 
 wash to discolor and then to fall off altogether. 
 Around the premises there ran an old-fashioned 
 iron fence ; it stood on a stone coping that was 
 covered with perpendicular streaks of yellow 
 rust. In the yard a meandering asphalt walk 
 led past a few lilacs and syringas, which were 
 looked down upon by a painful side porch that 
 nobody ever used. The walk in front of the 
 house was of stone ; that at the side was of plank 
 and showed three long lines of nail-heads. 
 
 The interior, so far as it came under Ogden s 
 notice, was furnished with a horrible yet consist 
 ent simplicity. The large rooms were set spare 
 ly with chairs, tables, and sofas that represented 
 the spoil of Centralia, and there were few mod 
 ern additions to introduce discords. An ideal 
 sculptured head, placed on a marble pedestal 
 swathed in a fringed scarf of saffron silk and set 
 between the lace curtains so as to show from the 
 street, would have ruined the effect both within 
 and without. Perhaps the same might be said 
 of any other house. 
 
 Brainard himself was not visible ; he was only 
 
57 
 
 audible. His deep voice came in a sort of dead 
 ened growl through the closed door of a small 
 side room ; and mingled with it were the queru 
 lous tones of a woman s voice an elderly wom 
 an, a woman in poor health, a woman whom 
 some sudden and distressful stroke had brought 
 to the verge of tears. 
 
 The house had been built in the primitive 
 days when local architecture was still in such 
 exact accord with local society that anything 
 like graded receptions was undreamed of. Every 
 body who seemed too good to be kept waiting in 
 the hall was shown into the front parlor. This 
 room had a carpet whose design was in large 
 baskets of bright flowers, and a ceiling that was 
 frescoed in a manner derived from a former style 
 of railroad decoration. This scheme of decora 
 tion centred around a massive and contorted 
 chandelier with eight globes. Nobody had ever 
 seen the whole eight " going " at one time. Lin 
 coln and his family were on one side of the mar 
 ble mantel-piece; Grant and his family on the 
 other. 
 
 It was in this room that Ogden was received 
 by the elder daughter of the house. She seemed 
 a quiet, self -poised girl, four or five years the 
 senior of her sister. She amply filled her gown 
 of gray woollen ; her hair was drawn back from 
 her forehead and made a knot just above the 
 nape of her neck. She had a pair of cool, steady 
 
58 
 
 gray eyes. She appeared wholesome, stable, ca 
 pable of keeping herself well in hand. 
 
 " My father isn t able to see you," she said ; 
 " but if you will give me what you have brought 
 I will take it to him." 
 
 There was a tremulousness in her voice, quite 
 at variance with her manner and appearance. 
 She put out her hand with a wavering motion ; 
 the flaring of the gas in her face seemed to strike 
 her with a positive pain. 
 
 A door opened suddenly and her brother Burt 
 came in. He was a stocky young man three or 
 four years older than Ogden. He seemed stuffed 
 with importance both present and future, both 
 personal and parental he was himself and his 
 father rolled into one. 
 
 " Abbie," he said, in a sharp, curt way, " I 
 wish you d find father the copy of that report 
 you made for him yesterday." He looked at Og 
 den in a fashion that changed the young man 
 from a person to a thing. " We have been look 
 ing for you some time," he said. " I ll take those 
 papers myself." 
 
 He spoke in a way that was abrupt and auto 
 cratic. Ogden recognized it as the utterance of 
 a masterful nature, but he was unable to see that 
 the masterful nature was moved by an emotion 
 that must be controlled and concealed. His in 
 dignation made no allowance for this, and his 
 subsequent ten minutes of solitary reflection left 
 
59 
 
 a bitterness that passed away but lingeringly. 
 More and more, with every moment of this short 
 wait, did he feel himself a gentleman turned into 
 a lackey by his inferiors. 
 
 There was no salve for his wounded sensibili 
 ties save, perhaps, in the look of dumb expostula 
 tion which the girl cast upon her brother and in 
 the few commonplace words which she addressed 
 to their caller before she went out. 
 
 " Kindly wait a few moments, and the papers 
 will be ready to take back. Perhaps you will 
 find this other chair more comfortable." 
 
 It was after this fashion that he first met Ab- 
 bie Brainard ; met her as he reported it to Mc 
 Dowell and hardly more. 
 
 He followed his brother-in-law into the ele 
 vator and they dropped swiftly to the ground 
 floor. At this level is situated the Acme Lunch 
 Koom. 
 
MCDOWELL took a cup of tea and an expedi 
 tious doughnut standing, and hurried away. Og- 
 den, who had not overcome his habit of leisurely 
 eating, lingered behind. 
 
 The Acme occupies a square, low-ceiled room 
 in the hindermost corner of the Clifton : perhaps, 
 with a lower ceiling and a situation on a level 
 lower still, it would have been called the Zenith. 
 It is fitted up with three or four oval counters, 
 and a very close calculation of space allows room 
 for an infinitesimal cashier s desk as well. Each 
 oval encloses a high rack that is heaped with 
 rolls, buns, and cakes, and close to each rack 
 stands a brace of big, cylindrical, nickel-plated 
 tanks that yield coffee and tea. Each oval is 
 fringed with a row of stools hard-wood tops on 
 a cast-iron base ; and in warm weather a pair of 
 fans, which are moved by power supplied from 
 the engine-room, revolve aloft and agitate the 
 stifling atmosphere. 
 
 Ogden had spent the past week in trying a 
 succession of dairies, lunch-rooms, and restau 
 rants, and had ended by returning to the Acme, 
 which seemed as decent and convenient as any. 
 
61 
 
 He found a place in a quiet corner ; ordered his 
 coffee, wheat-muffins, and pie, which all came to 
 gether; and fell to work with his eye soberly 
 iixed on the shining expanse of the freshly-wiped 
 counter. Was he consistent, he wondered, in 
 claiming any great consideration until he could 
 lunch at a higher figure than fifteen or twenty 
 cents ? 
 
 The girl who had waited on him turned away, 
 but another one, who stood a little distance off, 
 called her back. 
 
 " Here, Maggie, change that mince. This gen 
 tleman don t want a piece with a whole corner 
 knocked off." 
 
 Ogden buttered his muffin without raising his 
 eyes. The second girl herself placed the new 
 cut of pie before him and stood looking down 
 upon him. The hour was a little late, and but 
 three or four customers held places around the 
 counters. Presently she spoke. 
 
 " Well, Mister Ogden," she said, with a humor 
 ous tartness, " you don t seem to recognize your 
 old friends." 
 
 Ogden threw up his head. " Why, Nealie, is 
 this you !" he exclaimed. It was a girl who had 
 helped wait on table at his West Side boarding- 
 house. 
 
 She wore a dark dress with a plain white col 
 lar. Her brows made two fine straight lines 
 over the yellowish green of her eyes. She had a 
 
62 
 
 strong, decided face, yet there was a certain lurk 
 ing delicacy in the outlines of nose and chin. 
 
 "That s what," she replied. "I ve made a 
 change, you see. Been here pretty near a week. 
 Come in often ?" 
 
 " I m in the building. What was the matter 
 with your other place ?" 
 
 The girl hitched up her shoulders. " The fact 
 of it is, I couldn t get used to it. Never tried 
 anything like that before." 
 
 She looked about cautiously and then resumed 
 in a confidential voice, 
 
 " To tell the truth, I was just forced into it. 
 Pa and ma didn t want me to come to Chicago, 
 but I couldn t make out that I was going to have 
 any terrible great show there in Pewaukee. I 
 didn t s pose it was going to be so awful hard to 
 find something to do in a big place like this. But 
 I made up my mind, all the same, that I wasn t 
 going to cave in and go back to Wisconsin not 
 straight off, anyway. Kept right on trotting 
 about. Any port in a storm, says I. And when 
 I met that good old soul in the intelligence office, 
 that settled it. She only wanted a second girl ; 
 but I thought I could stand it." 
 
 "Couldn t you?" 
 
 " I didn t tell ma, though, that I was living 
 out. I wrote to her that I was clerking ten 
 dollars a week. Ten dollars ! I m looking for 
 the girl that gets more than six. I don t know 
 
63 
 
 what the folks would have thought if they d 
 known of me a- being ordered around by a lot of 
 young fellers run and fetch and carry for a 
 parcel of strangers. It don t come natural to 
 me to be bossed, I can tell you." 
 
 " But Mrs. Gore used you well ?" 
 
 u She did, for a fact. But it wasn t the sort of 
 thing I wanted at all. So I told her I guessed 
 I d go. Well, says she, sort of resigned like, 
 * if you ve made up your mind to, you must, I 
 s pose ; she was sorry to lose me, I know. She 
 walked to the basement door with me to say 
 good-by with her specs on top of her head. 
 i Be a good girl, says she, l and let us hear from 
 you most exactly what ma said when I came 
 away. Gray hair, just like ma s, too. Yes, 
 ma am, says I. I didn t say ma am because I 
 thought I was a servant I wasn t ; but because 
 she Avas older and because I had a respect for 
 her. And so I shall let her hear from me ; when 
 I get along a little further I m going to call on 
 her. And I m going to get along, let me tell 
 you ; I haven t jumped on to this hobby-horse of 
 a town just to stay still." 
 
 She nodded her head with great decision. 
 
 " It broke her all up when you went away," 
 she resumed. " She kept a-wondering for two 
 or three days what the matter was. Poor soul, 
 she s a good deal too tender for this town. What 
 was the matter?" 
 
64 
 
 " Nothing. I had friends in a different part of 
 the city." 
 
 " In a different paht of the city," she repeated. 
 She spread her palms far apart on the inner 
 edge of the counter and brought her face down 
 almost to a level with his. "D you know, I 
 always liked the way you talked ; it s real gen 
 teel. And you say cahn t, too. And dinnuh 
 and suppuh. Hardly anybody says cahnV 
 around here except actors. Say, I went the 
 other night. It cost fifty cents ; but I was just 
 wild to see a real out-and-out city show couldn t 
 hold in any longer. They all talked kind of arti 
 ficial, except one man. He had a bad part err 
 ing son, sort o . He talked right out in plain, 
 every-day style, and he was about the only one I 
 really cared for. Of course, though, I don t like 
 bad men better than good ones. But your way 
 is nice, after all." 
 
 "Thanks." 
 
 " Well, I m in. a different par-r-t of the city 
 myself." She gave a comprehensive glance over 
 the sizzling coffee-urns. " Second in command." 
 She tapped her breast-bone. " I don t think so 
 everlasting much of Duggan here, but he recog 
 nizes talent. It didn t take him long to find out 
 what I was and he raised me. I boss and help 
 around when there s a rush, and now and then I 
 take the cashier s place. It s all just like a store. 
 Oh," she proceeded, after a shrewd look at him, 
 
65 
 
 "I know well enough what you ve been think 
 ing all this time. But here s your counter and 
 there s your goods ; and people just say what 
 they want and get a check for it and pay at 
 the door. No boarding-house in that, is there? 
 They don t bulldoze us very much." 
 
 The door opened and a belated clerk came 
 in. 
 
 " Here, Gretchen," she called to one of her 
 force, " see what this man wants." The new 
 comer dropped mechanically on to one of the 
 stools and submissively took the damaged pie 
 that had been taken away from Ogden. He had 
 ordered apple. 
 
 " Most of em are tractable enough," she com 
 mented. 
 
 " I ve got ten girls here," were her next words, 
 " and they re quite a fair lot. But that moon- 
 eyed German girl over there " 
 
 " Gretchen ?" 
 
 " I call her Gretchen ; she don t look as if she 
 knew beans, does she? Well, she don t. She 
 was going on in the pantry yesterday about the 
 rights of man. I knew she was due to break a 
 saucer pretty soon. Well, she did. And we ve 
 got a Swede girl here who would be the best all- 
 around one of the lot if it wasn t for her temper. 
 All of a sudden she gets mad and she stays mad, 
 and you can t for the life of you find out what 
 it was that made her mad. Those three Irish 
 5 
 
66 
 
 girls are pretty smart. H m, yes ; they were 
 rigging up a strike Tuesday. They wanted fifty 
 cents a week more. They found out their want 
 at a quarter to twelve. < All right, girls, says I, 
 ; you can go out if you want. Our regular peo 
 ple will kick and go somewhere else for a few 
 days, perhaps ; but the first rainy noon, they ll 
 all come in again, and they ll see that things are 
 running all right with a new crew, and after that 
 they ll stay. Goodness me ! I ve heard more 
 about rights and less about duties this last week 
 than I ever did before in my life. My uncle 
 says it s the same with him. He s the engineer 
 here. He really got me this place. If you look 
 down, through that grating out there as you go 
 along you may see him. It s talk and argue all 
 the time his men have more half-baked notions 
 than you can think of, and he s kept on the 
 k jump all the time looking after things. Do 1 
 kick ? Do / squeal ? Not much. And if I had 
 come in from outside with a different language, 
 maybe, and a different training and a different 
 set of notions, and if I had been a real, dyed-in- 
 the-wool, down-trodden peasant and all my folks 
 the same for nobody knows how far back, per 
 haps I d find some reason there for not keeping 
 abreast with the tolerably smart lot of people 
 that had let me in." 
 
 She cast a lofty eye over her various under 
 lings. "Kind of a plain lot, ain t we? You 
 
67 
 
 know there s one place like this in town where 
 they won t take a girl unless she s pretty. Their 
 cashier is a regular bute. But I wouldn t work 
 in such a place ; no, indeed." 
 
 She paused. Ogden made no response. She 
 eyed him with a sharp impatience. 
 
 " Not but what I could, though, if I had a 
 mind," she remarked, with a vindictive little ex 
 plosion. 
 
 " No, I couldn t, either," she added suddenly ; 
 " they re all brunettes this year." 
 
 And she laughed forgivingly. 
 
 "And you don t see me a-wearing rings and 
 chains," she pursued ; "I guess not. And I 
 sha n t, either, until I finish my course." 
 
 " Course " ? Was she hinting at the close of 
 her earthly career ? 
 
 " Yep. Shorthand. But don t hurry away." 
 He had dropped his feet to the floor. " Duggan 
 went right off after the rush, and I guess I ve 
 been hard pushed enough to enjoy a little rest 
 ful conversation. Shorthand and typewriting 
 that s what I m steering for. I ll stand this for 
 a while until I can do eighty words. I ve be 
 gun at the Athenaeum already. I don t see why 
 anybody should want to take lessons in type 
 writing ; it s practice you want. Same with the 
 other. Well, I m practising hard enough. I- 
 shall-be ready for J-usiness in-three-months," she 
 traced with her finger on the counter, giving con- 
 
G8 
 
 siderable pressure to the "b" in "business." 
 " I m ahead of the class now. 
 
 " I m educated, too," she continued. " I taught 
 school one term up in Waukesha County. I 
 know how to spell you ought to see how some 
 of those girls write out their notes. And I can 
 punctuate semicolons just as easy as anything 
 else. Say, do you know Mrs. Granger S. Bates ?" 
 
 "I ve seen her name in the papers," said Og- 
 den, emptying his glass and feeling in his pocket 
 for his handkerchief. 
 
 " Sorry we don t give napkins. Well, she was 
 a school-teacher, and look at her now. I went 
 by her house on Calumet Avenue last Sunday. 
 She s got about everything. She is one of the 
 patronesses of the Charity Ball. Still, I suppose 
 she must be getting along in years her husband 
 has come to be the Lord High Muck-a-muck of 
 Most Everything ; I ve read about him for years. 
 Hope / haven t got to wait till I m fifty to have 
 a good time." 
 
 Ogden was shuffling his feet on the floor. 
 
 " Won t you have another piece of pie? No? 
 Well, try a cream-puff, then ; it 11 be my treat. 
 And do take time with it. Anything but fifty 
 men eating away like a house afire." 
 
 Only one other customer remained. The 
 Swede girl began to collect the cream- jugs. 
 
 " I don t care so extra much about Mrs. Bates, 
 though. But there s Mrs. Arthur J. Ingles, three- 
 
69 
 
 hundred-and-something Ontario Street do you 
 know her f Now there s a woman that interests 
 me. She s in the papers every day; she goes 
 everywhere. She s way up, I guess ; I d be wild 
 if she wasn t. She was at a dance last Tuesday, 
 and she gave a reception the day before, and her 
 sister is going to be married next month. It s 
 easy to follow folks since the papers began to 
 print their names all bunched up the way they 
 do, and Mrs. Arthur J. is one that I ve followed 
 pretty close. She must be young I never see 
 his name except with hers. I guess he s just a 
 society dude. Well, dudes are all right ; you ve 
 got to have em in a big town. You wouldn t 
 have the whole million and a half of us be grub 
 bers ?" 
 
 " I suppose not." 
 
 " She gave a dinner last week. Covers were 
 laid for ten what does that mean ?" 
 
 " Probably that she and her husband had 
 eight people." 
 
 " She wore heliotrope satin. Ornaments, dia 
 monds. Great, wasn t it? One of our girls 
 brought down a book this morning about Lady 
 Guinevere. Guinevere your grandmother ! 
 What are we to Lady Guinevere, or what is 
 Lady Guinevere to us ? But when it comes to 
 people living in your own town, why, that s get 
 ting down to business. 
 
 " Yes, let us talk about realities Balzac." 
 
70 
 
 " I should say so," she assented, missing the 
 allusion. " Now then, why shouldn t / be wear 
 ing heliotrope satin to dinner some time ? if not 
 tinder the name of Cornelia MclSTabb, then under 
 some other as good or better. Anyway, I m go 
 ing to keep my hands as nice as I can ; a girl 
 never knows what she may have a chance to be 
 come. I don t imagine it will disfigure me much 
 to run a typewriter. Dear me," she sighed, 
 " how much time I ve lost ! If I hadn t been 
 such a darned goose, I might have begun Pitman 
 at home a year ago." 
 
 She reached down under the counter and 
 pulled a newspaper up out of a dark corner. 
 
 " Some lunch-rooms have papers around as 
 many as a dozen, sometimes ; but Duggan says 
 this place is too cramped for him to give people 
 any inducement to dilly-dally. It s eat and run. 
 So I have to buy my own. This is the first 
 chance I ve had to look at it. I wonder what 
 she s been up to now." 
 
 She opened the paper and ran down its col 
 umns with an expert eye. 
 
 " Yes, here she is, first pop. Mr. and Mrs. 
 Cluett, Parker, Ingles. My sakes, how I envy 
 that woman ! Course I don t want that she 
 should come down here and wash my dishes, 
 but wouldn t I like to go up there and eat off of 
 hers ! What did she wear ? it don t tell. Where 
 was it ? at Mrs. Walworth Floyd s a small din- 
 
71 
 
 ner. Don t know them. How about the Misses f 
 Jameson, Parker, Wentworth she s a great 
 goer, too. And here are a few Messrs. John 
 son, J. L. Cluett, George Ogden " 
 
 She stopped abruptly. 
 
 " You ?" 
 
 There was a world of reproach in her voice. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And you sit there and never let on ! You re 
 as mean as you can be. What is she like ? Tell 
 me, do. Ain t she young, now ? What did she 
 wear ?" 
 
 " I didn t go. I had a trip to the West Side." 
 
 " Your name s here." 
 
 " The reporters get the names in advance. 
 Sometimes they copy them from cards or re 
 grets." 
 
 u And you wasn t there ?" 
 "No." 
 
 " Too bad ! But you ve seen her ?" 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " How hateful ! But you was really invited ?" 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " H m !" she said, deliberately ; "I see now 
 why you moved. I don t blame you. I m try 
 ing to get along, too. We re both in the same 
 boat." 
 
 Ogden rose. 
 
 " What else is there ?" she asked herself, look 
 ing over other columns. " Here s a marriage ; 
 
it s in Milwaukee. Don t know whether it s a 
 society item or not. Who are they ? J. Russell 
 Yibert is the man, and Mary Adelaide Brainard 
 is the woman. Both of Chicago know em ?" 
 
 Ogden sat down suddenly. 
 
 She eyed him curiously. 
 
 " That s the first sign I ve seen that you was 
 willing to stay a single minute longer than you 
 had to. You can go now, whenever you want. 
 We ve got to clean up. So long !" 
 
YI 
 
 OGDEN had been balked in his first social ad 
 vance by the inconsiderate and unwarranted 
 demands of the Brainards. He failed on Propo 
 sition No. I., but its attendant corollary he dis 
 posed of after the proper interval. He had 
 missed the dinner, but he accomplished the din 
 ner call. 
 
 He was moving around his room in his shirt 
 sleeves ; he had the leisurely air of one whose 
 social orbit was so small as to involve no rela 
 tions with the courses of cabs and of street-cars. 
 To set himself right with the Floyds he had but 
 to step around the corner. 
 
 His room was rather small and cramped, but 
 he had preferred indifferent accommodations in 
 a good house to good accommodations in an in 
 different house just as he would have chosen 
 an indifferent house in a good neighborhood to 
 a better house in a poorer one. His quarters, 
 however, were well enough for a single young 
 man of moderate pretensions. He had space for 
 a three-quarter bed, a bureau, a wash-stand which 
 displayed a set of pink-flowered crockery and 
 two towels, a cane-seated chair, and a pair of 
 
74 
 
 book-shelves on the wall. And by means of a 
 good deal of dexterous manoeuvring he con 
 trived to extract some comfort from an under 
 sized rocker. His decorations were principally 
 photographs, which showed to the extent com 
 mon under the circumstances. Some of these 
 were grouped in twos and threes, in frames faced 
 with Chinese silk; they helped to achieve the 
 disordered and over-crowded effect that the pres 
 ent taste in house -furnishing aims at, and can 
 always accomplish in a back hall bedroom. 
 
 The photographs stood in the position in which 
 he had first placed them a month and a half ago, 
 although the recent arrival of several of the 
 originals had given their shadows an altered im 
 portance. Everybody knows of the inertia that 
 overtakes decorative detail, even when portable. 
 There were the pictures of his father and his 
 mother, arranged in a pair. His father offered 
 a placid, gray -bearded face ; it seemed rather 
 forceless, though that effect may have been due 
 to retouching; yet, independent of any practi 
 cal processes, it was the face of a man who 
 obviously could not have risen in advance to 
 any adequate conception of the Western me 
 tropolis. 
 
 The face of his mother was serious, strenuous. 
 She had in some degree the semi-countrified as 
 pect of one who has run a quiet course in a quiet 
 quarter of a minor town. 
 
75 
 
 His sister s picture had been taken in the East 
 just before her starting for her new home. It 
 was now in the hands of Ogden s next - door 
 neighbor, who had come in carrying a choice of 
 white ties, and who now wove around it a con 
 templative cloud of tobacco-smoke from his briar- 
 wood pipe. He was a young man with a high 
 forehead and a pair of shrewd but kindly brown 
 eyes. 
 
 " A mighty pretty girl," Brower said, heartily. 
 " Get the right kind of a New England face, 
 and you can t do much better. I must haul out 
 my own photographs and fix them up some 
 time." 
 
 Brower kept his collection in his trunk, along 
 with his shirts and underwear generally. He 
 used his bureau drawers for collars and cuffs, and 
 for a growing accumulation of newspapers, mag 
 azines, and novels. He had been in the house 
 two years, yet his trunk had never been un 
 packed and put away. He was an adjuster for 
 an insurance company, and was subject to sud 
 den calls to remote localities, in accordance with 
 the doings of the busy monster that the press 
 knows as the " fire fiend." If Isaac Sobrinski, 
 off in Des Moines, had the misfortune to be 
 burned out, at the close of a dull season or in 
 the face of brisk and successful competition, 
 then Des Moines was the place to which Brower 
 immediately posted. He estimated the damage 
 
76 
 
 on the building, figured the salvage on socks and 
 ulsters, and endeavored to decide, so far as lay 
 in his powers, whether the catastrophe had been 
 inflicted by Providence or had been precipitated 
 by Sobrinski s own match-box. However, he 
 never carried anything except his valise on such 
 excursions ; the general state of his trunk is to 
 be accepted simply as the mental index of a con 
 stant and hurried traveller. 
 
 " Yes, she s a mighty pretty girl," he repeated, 
 thoughtfully. " Where have they gone ?" 
 
 " Oh, not far. There s been a good deal of 
 travelling done already. They just went up to 
 Milwaukee ; Eugene had something to see about 
 there. They ll be back to-morrow, I expect." 
 
 " Milwaukee, eh ? That s come to be quite 
 the fashion, hasn t it ? Some folks go there after 
 they re married, and some of them to be mar 
 ried. "We had one in our office a week or two 
 ago ; Yibert have you met him ?" 
 
 " It s in your office he is, then, is it? No, I ve 
 never met him. I ve seen him and heard about 
 him. Is he much thought of ?" 
 
 "Well, the office doesn t have a great deal to 
 say to a man as long as he keeps hours and at 
 tends to his work when the position isn t re 
 sponsible, I mean. What are you looking for 
 whisk -broom? Here; I m sitting on it, I 
 guess." 
 
 " I suppose he does attend to his work ?" 
 
77 
 
 " Oh, so-so ; but a little break like that doesn t 
 help a man any. He struck high, didn t he?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Wonder what he s got to keep her on. Great 
 question all that ; ain t it ? She s a rich girl, I 
 hear. Subject for debate : is it safer to marry a 
 rich girl or a poor girl for a young man in mod 
 erate circumstances, I mean?" 
 
 " Oh, dear," said Ogden, sitting down on the 
 edge of the bed, helplessly ; "if you re going 
 back to that chestnut !" 
 
 " Well, it s timely," rejoined Brower, knock 
 ing the ashes of his pipe into the cover of the 
 soap-dish ; " and always will be. Pro : if the 
 girl s rich, she ll have had things, and got used 
 to them, and perhaps tired of them. If the 
 girl s poor, she ll be ravenous after her long 
 starve-out, and will expect her husband to feed 
 her with everything." 
 
 " Lay on." 
 
 " Con : if the girl s rich, she ll expect all the 
 comforts and luxuries she has been used to at 
 home. If she s poor, she ll have had some sense 
 ground into her ; she ll know how to manage 
 and contrive. So there it is. What s your idea ?" 
 
 " No general rule. Depends on circumstances." 
 
 " What does ?" 
 
 The girl. To begin with." 
 
 "The girl depends on circumstances. And 
 after ?" 
 
78 
 
 " After ? Oh, then circumstances depend on 
 the girl." 
 
 "IPm! Can t lay down any general law 
 same as with little Johnny. Pshaw! You go 
 to the foot." 
 
 But they both agreed on one point, as young 
 
 men alwa}^s do when they discuss this standard 
 
 subject : they stood together on the assumption 
 
 that such a venture concerned only the two peo- 
 
 I pie primarily involved. 
 
 Brower preceded Ogden into the hallway ; he 
 stood with the toe of one slipper on the heel of 
 the other. " Well, remember me to the swells." 
 
 " Oh, shucks !" said George, turning back and 
 laughing. 
 
 He walked down and out rather sedately, and 
 picked his way over the muddy sidewalks with 
 his thoughts fixed on the two recent marriages. 
 That in his own family had just occurred under 
 such disadvantages as must prevail in a disor 
 ganized household, and with the infliction of 
 such discomforts as will sometimes be under 
 gone by people who, while not in society, still 
 feel impelled to have such a function proceed 
 after the fashion that society prescribes. Kittie 
 Ogden was duly married, then, with a certain 
 regard to cards, carriages, caterers, and the rest ,- 
 and the feast was graced by a number of Mc 
 Dowell s family and friends people of a fairish 
 sort, who called for little comment in either way. 
 
79 
 
 At least, little comment was bestowed by Og- 
 den, whose principal thought was that his sis 
 ter was now the wife of a fellow of some means 
 and ability, and who felt that it would not come 
 amiss to have a good business man in the family. 
 
 At the Floyds he found the other wedding 
 the subject of much comment, more or less dis 
 creet. On the other hand, the affair in his own 
 family received but a mere civil mention ; the 
 Ogdens, he felt, must be only an insignificant 
 little group, after all. Must they must he 
 al ways remain so ? 
 
 The Floyds occupied a snug little house which 
 filled a chink between two bigger and finer ones, 
 and commanded a view of the back yard of a 
 third, which was bigger and finer still. Mrs. 
 Floyd had lately begun to fill a chink in the 
 social world as well, by having an "evening." 
 She had approached the idea with a good deal 
 of deliberation, and she had achieved something 
 very small and quiet. She overcame her hus 
 band s weakness for knowing people and invit 
 ing them to the house ; she was not after a del 
 uge, but a drop ; and if her tardy distillation did 
 not equal the perfumes of the fragrant East, 
 still it was the best result to be arrived at un 
 der the circumstances. 
 
 He found the Fairchilds there, and he came 
 upon Fairchild and Floyd smoking, sub r.osa, 
 in a secluded corner of the library, which was 
 
80 
 
 furnished in a sombre and solid fashion. In 
 the Floyd family the household divinity was 
 the lace-curtain, whose susceptibility to offence 
 from the fumes of tobacco is well known ; her 
 high-priestess was Mrs. Floyd, and her chief 
 victim was "Walworth. Associated with the 
 two smokers was young Freddy Pratt, whose 
 solicitude regarding Brainard s mental state on 
 the occasion of his daughter s call at the bank 
 has been already touched upon, and who was 
 now puffing a cigarette with a learned and ex 
 pert air. This attitude was displeasing to Og- 
 den, who was perhaps over -disposed to feel 
 official differences on social occasions ; but no 
 oppressive sense of his own subordinate rank 
 troubled Freddy Pratt, who had but a feeble 
 and intermittent realization of the orders of the 
 business hierarchy, or indeed of anything else. 
 
 " It was a matter that concerned just her and 
 him," Fairchild was saying as Ogden entered, 
 with a contemplative regard fastened on the 
 lengthening ash of his cigar. " It was nobody 
 else s business." 
 
 He stopped. He had spoken in a low, quiet 
 voice, but he had conveyed unmistakably the 
 presence of quotation-marks. 
 
 " I called on em the other night," volunteered 
 Freddy Pratt, unabashedly. His perky little 
 nose was tipped in the air, and his eyes were 
 closed to the two fine slits that denote the 
 
81 
 
 complete enjoyment of the smoker. " I wasn t 
 going to stand off. They re at the Northum 
 berland big name, bnt not much else. Eagged 
 matting in the halls, and the janitor didn t look 
 very slick. I guess they ve rented ready fur 
 nished. Mayme was real glad to see me. But 
 lie was rather grumpy, I thought." 
 
 "Everybody ought always to be glad to see 
 you, Freddy," smiled Wai worth, with a caress 
 ing irony. 
 
 " I suppose," resumed Fairchild, thought 
 fully, "that the human family will always go 
 on considering a wedding as a joyous occasion. 
 It always has; it always must hope springs 
 eternal." 
 
 Ogden wondered what other view there might 
 be to take. Everybody had seemed lively and 
 happy enough when Kittie was married. 
 
 "But there s the other side the side that 
 turns to view with a consideration of the com 
 plicated relations of a good many new and di 
 verse elements new people coming in. We had 
 a case in our own family some years ago, when 
 my young cousin married. Poor Lizzie ; she is 
 dead now. Her father died six months before 
 her and left a good deal to be divided up. Her 
 husband was trustee for the boy after she her 
 self went, and he made us a good deal of trouble. 
 He had his eye on the estate from the start, and 
 more than his share in the handling of it. There 
 
 6 
 
were a good many meetings in lawyers offices 
 more trying than the courts themselves. There 
 was a good deal of money lost, and there is a 
 good deal of feeling that will never be got over. 
 He traded on his wife s memory all through. 
 Yet the family welcomed him very cordially and 
 trustfully ; we thought the poor girl was going 
 to be so happy. She was ; she never knew." 
 
 Ogden sighed ; this was dismal matter. 
 
 " Oh, well," continued Fairchild, resuming his 
 cigar, with an air of passing to lighter topics, 
 "this can t apply here. All of us are happily 
 married or are going to be " 
 
 Freddy Pratt nonchalantly blew an ineffable 
 smoke-ring across the room ; Walworth slipped 
 around the table to close the last inch of crack 
 in the door. 
 
 " Oh, dear, yes !" he exclaimed. 
 
 " and none of us are being troubled through 
 relations by marriage." 
 
 The door was shut, but the penetrating voice 
 of Ann Wilde came through it clearly, and Wal 
 worth winced. 
 
 " Oh, dear, no !" he protested. 
 
 "I should say not," chimed in Freddy Pratt, 
 with his self-satisfied little ba-a. 
 
 The cigars were ending. " Come, let us go out 
 to the others," said Floyd. 
 
 In the drawing-room Ogden presently encoun 
 tered Jessie Bradley and her parents. The girl 
 
herself appeared as dressed as the occasion could 
 warrant, but her father and mother wore the 
 every-day habiliments in which he had first seen 
 them, a fortnight before, on the occasion of a 
 call at Hinsdale. They had an easy-going aspect, 
 as if they hardly cared to put themselves out 
 greatly. They were present in the triple capac 
 ity of relatives of the hostess, of suburbanites, 
 and of body-guard to escort their daughter back 
 home after another of her frequent visits in 
 town, and their effect was quite provisional and 
 transitory. 
 
 Mrs. Bradley was a pleasant woman whose 
 face was full of the fine lines of experience and 
 whose hair had thinned greatly without chang 
 ing its dry, sandy brown. She wore an old- 
 fashioned tortoise-shell comb. She met Ogden 
 here precisely as she had met him in her own 
 house. He noticed presently that she treated 
 everybody else in exactly the same fashion, and 
 he learned subsequently that she had, practical 
 ly, one invariable manner for all times, places, 
 and people. It was a manner that he found 
 very quiet, simple, straightforward, and friendly. 
 It showed that she valued herself, and was also 
 disposed to accord a good value to anybody else. 
 It seemed to say, as plainly as words : " The 
 Lord is the maker of us all; so let s have no 
 more fuss about it." It was the good American 
 manner in full bloom. 
 
84 
 
 Her husband had a jovial eye, a grizzled mous 
 tache, a rotund, polished forehead, and cheeks 
 that hung downward fatly into his big, round, 
 short neck. He appeared to have valued his 
 peace of mind sufficiently to preserve it and to 
 be satisfied with the moderate success that comes 
 from moderate effort. He wore a short- waisted, 
 double-breasted frock coat, and there were no 
 wrinkles in it, either front or back: he would 
 have found it impossible to thrust his plump 
 hand in between any two of the buttons. 
 
 He was given in the directory as "Bradley, 
 Danl. H., secty. and treas. Darrell & Bradley 
 Pt g & Lith g Co." He had been one of the 
 organizers of the corporation, but had since 
 yielded the lead to others of more push and 
 means. He had a moderate salary and a small 
 block of the stock. Since he was assisting the 
 business as an officer, rather than directing it as 
 an individual, he had little personal annoyance 
 from typographical unions and from the paper 
 manufacturers trusts. As for "pi" and proof 
 readers errors, matters which have a power to 
 make some men agonize, he merely laughed at 
 them. The concern, besides its central establish 
 ment, had a few retail branches placed here and 
 there through the business district ; one of them, 
 on the ground floor of the Clifton, supplied the 
 La Salle Street banks and insurance offices with 
 ledgers, ink, and blotting-pads 
 
85 
 
 He had an acre of ground and a two-story 
 frame house at Hinsdale, and Ogden remembered 
 the small green-house where he fed his craze for - 
 chrysanthemums. 
 
 " We have come to take our girl back home," 
 he said to Ogden as he laid his plump hand 
 lightly on his daughter s shoulder. " That is, if 
 she can make up her mind to go with us." 
 
 " Just us two all alone in the house," added her 
 mother, with a humorous pathos. "No chick 
 nor child." 
 
 Jessie laughed and shook out a bit of her friv 
 olous finery. Her face had a tired look, but mo 
 tion seemed more restful to her than rest itself. 
 
 Ogden canvassed the three. Whence could this 
 girl have got her supple leanness, her light, gay, 
 rapid, incisive air, her aspen-like quiverings of 
 nervous force? Not from her parents. From 
 the March winds, perhaps, that sweep down from 
 Mackinaw, over the limy and choppy expanse 
 of Lake Michigan ; from the varied breezes, hot 
 and cold, that scour the prairies on their way 
 from scorched-up Texas or from the snow-fields 
 beyond Manitoba. 
 
 "Not even a relative," pursued her father; 
 "not one in all the country round except 
 Frances. All our people are down East," he 
 continued, addressing Ogden more directly. 
 " They write every so often to learn if we are 
 millionnaires yet. We always have to say i no/ 
 
86 
 
 and that discourages them. They stay where 
 they are." 
 
 " But Jessie goes around to look after them," 
 contributed her mother, with combined com 
 placency and reproach. " She goes to Pittsfield 
 and Nantucket and everywhere. People are be 
 ginning, now, to ask her up to "Wisconsin, sum 
 mers. And sometimes Florida." 
 
 The girl shrugged her shoulders in a fidgety 
 fashion. 
 
 " Oh, well, mamma," she said, " I have to cir 
 culate. Let s circulate some now," she sug 
 gested, turning to Ogden. " I ll be ready to go 
 when you are," she called back to her father. 
 
YII 
 
 have been expecting to see you out at 
 the house again," she said to the young man, as 
 they settled on the stairs. They were seated just 
 below the landing. Her dress, trimmed w r ith 
 silver braid and little groups of flaunting bows, 
 grazed his knees ; he could number every stone 
 in the rings that crowded her long, thin fingers. 
 " We didn t suppose a matter of eighteen miles 
 would scare you." 
 
 " It doesn t. But you re never home." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I am once in a while. When you 
 do favor us again, get a time-table for the next 
 time after. I never heard of the 4 Q. charging 
 anything for them." 
 
 " I will." 
 
 " Awfully sudden about May me, wasn t it ?" 
 she said, with a suddenness of her own. " I 
 didn t suppose it was going to end like that at 
 least, not right away. I dare say you have been 
 noticing how Cousin Frances looks at me, every 
 now and then. You might think /was the one 
 to blame. She s been talking to mother about it 
 to-night and me. I guess I m going home all 
 right enough." 
 
" Don t you want to ?" 
 
 " Oh, I don t mind. But what s the dif. far 
 as Mayme is concerned, I mean ? She was bound 
 to have him ; she wouldn t have anybody else. 
 It was their affair, wasn t it ? Well, then, why 
 not let them manage it ?" 
 
 " I suppose so," assented George, dubiously. 
 
 " Her father won t see her, I hear. I d like 
 such a father. Her sister can t do anything with 
 him." 
 
 " Her sister ?" 
 
 " Yes ; she s got about as much influence as 
 anybody. Have you seen her ?" 
 
 "Yes. Are you very well acquainted with 
 her ?" he asked. 
 
 "Not very. She belongs to the next older 
 generation." 
 
 u How much older ? Two or three years ?" 
 
 " Twenty or thirty. She s about the same 
 age as her mother. But more useful. Mayme 
 thinks everything of her. She s a good, steady, 
 plodding stay-at-home. She ought to have been 
 let out and given a show she s buried there. 
 He makes her do lots of work." 
 
 " Her father ?" 
 
 " Yes. She writes and figures a good deal of 
 the time. She keeps the grocer s and butcher s 
 books, for one thing. Mayme says she knows 
 how to telegraph they ve got their own wire 
 right to the house. When she wants dissipation 
 
89 
 
 she goes to her Friendly. And she belongs to 
 a club over there where they read papers and 
 discuss. She was a good deal upset." 
 
 " Um," said Ogden, abstractedly. He recalled 
 the girl s appearance and her little ordeal of 
 having to face a complete stranger at so dis 
 tressful a juncture. Yet she had borne herself 
 with dignity and composure ; nor was he able to 
 deny that she had been as perfectly courteous 
 as her brief appearance permitted. Now that 
 he understood, he had less cause for complaint 
 against her brother, and none at all against her. 
 
 He dwelt lingeringly on the idea of a a com 
 plete stranger." He did not feel that it would 
 have been infinitely more trying to face a curi 
 ous neighbor. He had begun to idealize the or 
 deal and the victim of it. 
 
 "A penny for your thoughts," he presently 
 heard his companion saying. He came out of his 
 study and looked through the stair-rail at the 
 little throng below. Two gentlemen had just 
 come out of the dining-room. 
 
 " I was wondering who they were," he replied, 
 at a venture. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " Those two." 
 
 The pair was followed by Walworth, whose 
 pleasure it was to pour libations whenever the 
 gathering of two or three together gave a pre 
 text for that ceremony. One of the two sucked 
 
90 
 
 in his upper lip with due caution, and both united 
 in a pretence decent, but slight and futile 
 that the ladies knew nothing of these hospitable 
 doings. 
 
 " The tall, brown one is Mr. Ingles. Haven t 
 you met him here before ?" 
 
 She indicated a man of forty, whose face was 
 shaven except for a small pair of snuff-colored 
 whiskers, and whose mouth made a firm, straight, 
 thin line. 
 
 " Ingles ? Arthur J. ?" 
 
 " I don t know ; I guess so. He owns the 
 building the Clifton." 
 
 " He s no dude," murmured Ogden to himself. 
 
 " Eh ? Who said he was ?" 
 
 " Oh, nobody. Who is the other ?" 
 
 " That s Mr. Atwater Mr. Ingles s architect. 
 They re chums ; were in college together. Isn t 
 he the most fascinating -looking man you ever 
 saw?" 
 
 " By Jove, he is distinguished, for a fact ! 
 Was he born here ?" 
 
 " Don t you think it s lovely for a man of his 
 age to have gray hair gray that s almost white? 
 I shall do all I can to make my husband gray- 
 haired before he is middle-aged !" 
 
 She laughed at her own audacity. He turned 
 about and stared at her, and she laughed more 
 heartily yet. 
 
 " And don t you like the twirl of his mous- 
 
91 
 
 tache ? Or would you have preferred him with 
 whiskers ? cut in a straight line right across his 
 cheeks, with the corners near his mouth rounded 
 off but not too formally. And do you notice 
 the bridge of his nose and the air it gives him ? 
 And his eyes wait till he turns around ; there, 
 did you ever see such a hazel? He seems to have 
 everything youth, experience, style, family; 
 why did you ask if he was born here ?" she de 
 manded suddenly. 
 
 " Did I ? I must have meant is he going to 
 die here ?" 
 
 " Why not ? You don t suppose that men of 
 talent are going to leave Chicago after this ?" 
 
 " Do you expect to provide them with ca 
 reers ?" 
 
 " I don t see why w T e shouldn t. We re on the 
 crest of the wave, and we re going higher yet. 
 From now on anybody who leaves us is likely 
 to be sorry for it." 
 
 Ogden looked back at Ingles; he stood in a 
 doorway, between Fairchild and Jessie s father. 
 
 " Is his wife here ?" 
 
 " Oh, he isn t married, I don t believe." 
 
 " Xot married ? Ingles, I mean." 
 
 " Oh ! Yes, he s married." 
 
 " Is his wife here ?" 
 
 " Dear, no ; you have to speak weeks ahead to 
 get her." 
 1 " He s the one, then," Ogden assured himself. 
 
92 
 
 " Which one ?" 
 
 " Her husband. Do you know her ?" 
 
 "I ve met her here." She leaned over the 
 railing. "What are they all laughing about, 
 down there ?" 
 
 " Do you want to go and see ?" 
 
 Mrs. Floyd and her sister had appeared in the 
 doorway. Between them was a little girl of five ; 
 she had one hand in her mother s, and with the 
 other she clutched a dilapidated doll. The child 
 wore a guimpe and a prim little frock with puffed 
 sleeves ; she had long, smooth brown hair that 
 turned thickly at her shoulders, and a pair of big, 
 round, wondering brown eyes. 
 
 " It s Claudia," said Jessie Bradley. " Yes, 
 let s go down." 
 
 Atwater had placed himself before the child, 
 half crouching, half kneeling. He had the per 
 suasive and ingratiating manner proper to a 
 fashionable architect whose clients were largely 
 women and wealthy ones, and he seemed willing 
 enough to bring his batteries to bear on the tiny 
 woman before him. 
 
 " Isn t it pretty late for dolly ? Oughtn t she 
 to be put to bed in her own little house ?" 
 
 The child looked at him soberly. " She hasn t 
 got any house." 
 
 " Hasn t got any house ?" He glanced at her 
 father. " i Oh, it is pitiful in a whole cityful. 
 But if I were to say that I would make you 
 
.,- , 
 
93 
 
 one ?" he went on ; " one with four rooms. And 
 windows in each room." 
 
 The child pondered, fixing a bashful look on 
 his handsome face. 
 
 " Would there be stairs ?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "And closets? Mamma says we never have 
 enough closet-room." 
 
 " That s right, Claudia," said Ingles, commend- 
 ingly ; " score the profession." 
 
 " Yes, closets, if you insist." 
 
 " And glass in the windows ?" 
 
 " Yes. Dear me, they get more exacting with 
 us every year !" 
 
 " And and - " she rolled her eyes around 
 the group, as if wondering whether any impor 
 tant detail had been overlooked " gas-fixtures ? 
 Would there be one in ivery room, with four 
 globes on it ?" 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 "But don t charge the poor child a full com 
 mission on them," said Ingles, grimly. 
 
 " Ah !" murmured At water, with a world of 
 meaning. " And if I were to promise to put a 
 nice little red chimney on the roof what would 
 you say ?" 
 
 The child clasped her doll firmly and looked 
 down at the carpet. " I shouldn t know whether 
 to belave you," she said, shyly. 
 
 There was a burst of laughter. "You dear 
 
94 
 
 little tot !" cried Mrs. Fairchild, gathering her up, 
 on no very definite grounds, for a kiss. Her 
 father laughed loudest of all, but her mother 
 contracted her eyebrows in distress. 
 
 " That dreadful Norah !" whimpered the poor 
 woman. " She must go." 
 
 "Don t dismiss your ~bonne" laughed Atwater, 
 thankful for the diversion ; " she ll produce a 
 beautiful accent in time." 
 
 " Well, after that," said her father, " I think 
 our little McG-intums had better retire. Say 
 good-night, Claudia." 
 
 " Not yet," said Ingles. " Not before she has 
 learned that she may have her doubts about a 
 contractor, perhaps, but about an architect 
 never. Remember that great truth. Good-night, 
 my child. Won t you kiss me F 
 
 He lowered his face, but Claudia drew back. 
 " I don t like whishky," she said, solemnly. 
 
 " For Heaven s sake, my pet," cried Floyd, " are 
 you trying to start a panic? There s Norah; 
 
 gO_go." 
 
 " Good-night, Claudia," called Atwater ; " we 
 won t forget your house. Upon my word, In 
 gles," he went on rapidly, and with a face still 
 slightly flushed, " I believe I shall have to recon 
 sider that determination of mine I spoke to you 
 about the other day." 
 
 " What s that F asked Walworth. 
 
 " To give up sky-scrapers and to do nothing 
 
95 
 
 but colonial houses for the nobility and gentry. 
 Sky-scraping is bad enough, but the demands 
 of the modern house-builder are worse. Ingles, 
 you re not as evil as I said you were ; I m sorry 
 I ever called you a Philistine." 
 
 " Why did you do that ?" asked Fairchild, 
 amused. 
 
 " Because," answered Ingles, " I took two 
 weeks to consider whether I could afford to let 
 the Clifton have four good street-fronts." 
 
 " Didn t you say," demanded Atwater, " that 
 you wanted to put up an architectural monu 
 ment that would be a credit to the town ? Would 
 an eighteen-story flank of bare brick have been 
 a pleasant object? Or, rather, is it? for you 
 see that sort of business all over the city. Heav 
 ens !" he went on, " we re doing some horrible 
 things here, but we are not the ones who are al 
 together to blame." 
 
 " Who says you haven t done well with the 
 Clifton?" demanded Ann Wilde. Most of the 
 ladies had retired from these masculine topics, 
 and were huddled in a gossipy little group at 
 the foot of the stairs; Ann had remained be 
 hind, as an owner of real property. " That sys 
 tem of elevators is the most magnificent thing I 
 
 ever saw." 
 
 Atwater groaned. " That s all a building is 
 nowadays one mass of pipes, pulleys, wires, 
 tubes, shafts, chutes, and .what not, running 
 
96 
 
 through an iron cage of from fourteen to twenty 
 stages. Then the artist comes along and is 
 asked to apply the architecture by festooning on 
 a lot of tile, brick, and terra-cotta. And over 
 the whole thing hovers incessantly the demon 
 of Nine-per-cent." 
 
 " A slap at me," said Ingles. 
 
 "It s enough to make you wonder whether 
 Pericles ever lived. I doubt if he did," con 
 cluded Atwater. 
 
 " Are you the only sufferer ?" asked his client. 
 " How many of our sub-contractors failed ?" 
 
 "Two." 
 
 " How many times were we set on fire by sal 
 amanders ?" 
 
 " Three." 
 
 "How many drunken night-watchmen were 
 discharged ?" 
 
 " Four or five." 
 
 "How much of the tin-work did you con 
 demn ?" 
 
 " Lots." 
 
 " How many of the contractors suffered a 
 penalty for over-time ?" 
 
 " Too many." 
 
 "How many times did carpenters wreck plas 
 ter-work ?" 
 
 " Fifty." 
 
 " How many times did plasterers ruin wood 
 work?" 
 
97 
 
 "A hundred." 
 
 " How many men were killed or injured ?" 
 
 " Thirteen. 
 
 " Thirteen !" cried Ann Wilde ; " how horrible !" 
 
 " Then you don t encourage building," com 
 mented Bradl-ey ; u and Mr. Atwater wouldn t en 
 courage young men to go into architecture." 
 
 " As engineers, not as architects," replied At 
 water. " Or shall I say as constructionists ?" 
 
 " Good word," murmured Ingles. 
 
 "Thanks. I ve got fifteen draughtsmen up 
 under the roof of the Clifton. When a new one 
 comes, I say, < My dear boy, go in for mining or 
 dredging, or build bridges, or put up railway 
 sheds, if you must ; but don t go on believing 
 that architecture nowadays has any great place 
 for the artist. There won t be another Fair until 
 long after you are dead and gone. " 
 
 " I think I ve had one of your young men 
 with me lately," Bradley said. " He told us that 
 he had been designing labels out at the Stock 
 Yards, but had been in your office before that. 
 Art may cover a wide range, you see," he said, 
 laughing. 
 
 " Yes ? What is his name ?" 
 
 "Brainard, I think. He was a dark young 
 fellow. He looked a little dissipated, it seemed 
 to me." 
 
 " That s the one," said Atwater. " Now there s 
 a case. That boy s father has treated him shame- 
 7 
 
98 
 
 fully. He might have been made something of. 
 He had a decided taste for drawing, and hardly 
 any other. I won t say he had any great abil- 
 "ity, but that wouldn t have mattered so much 
 with training. However, he had no training to 
 speak of, and we couldn t use him. He hasn t 
 got the slightest faculty for business; they 
 wouldn t have made a teller out of him in twen 
 ty years. But that was what they tried to do, 
 and when it failed " 
 
 Fairchild gave a delicate little cough. 
 
 " You don t have to listen, Fairchild," said 
 Atwater. " Neither does Mr. Pratt, unless he 
 chooses." 
 
 Fairchild withdrew a little from the group 
 and stood with his hands behind his back, while 
 the toe of his boot moved the corner of a rug to 
 and fro over the polished floor. Freddy Pratt 
 held his place, but moderated his show of interest. 
 Ogden followed this new recital with a curious 
 concern. 
 
 " His father lost all patience with him," At 
 water went on. " Naturally, such a father would 
 with such a son. He s altogether out of the fam 
 ily now. Is he with you yet ?" he asked Bradley. 
 
 " We had him for a while, but he was pretty 
 irregular and unreliable I never knew why un 
 til now. He was pretty shabby, too. I guess he 
 was about grazing bottom most of the time. I 
 never knew what Brainard he was." 
 
99 
 
 "Anyway, he seems to have made a good 
 try," said Ingles. " I suppose he ll live on post- 
 obits, now, and go to the dogs as fast as possi 
 ble." 
 
 " If he s let go his hold lately," declared At- 
 water, " it s on account of his brother. Every 
 thing s done for him ; he is just run right ahead. 
 Do you know," he continued, dropping his voice 
 and glancing aside towards Fairchild, "that 
 Brainard has just pushed that Burt of his into 
 the vice-presidency ? Right over everybody. I 
 don t see how Fairchild can stand it. And what 
 could be better calculated to infuriate the other 
 one what is his name? Marcus. I d take to 
 drink myself." 
 
 Ogden listened to all this, and was swayed ac 
 cordingly. His brief, fluttering attempt to ideal 
 ize Abbie Brainard ended, and he saw her only 
 in the cold, garish light of crass reality that was 
 beating down so fiercely on the rest of the fam 
 ily. He had been meditating on calling upon 
 her at her father s house, moved by the kind of 
 sympathy that anticipates an invitation, or does 
 without one ; this project he now determined to 
 abandon. 
 
YIII 
 
 McDowELL had not quartered himself on the 
 twelfth floor of the Clifton as distinguished 
 from the eleventh or the thirteenth or any oth 
 er by a mere chance. He had not been influ 
 enced by any finicky consideration of light, pros 
 pect, ventilation, or nearness to the elevators. 
 His sole reason for selecting room number 1262 
 was that room number 1263 was occupied by 
 Arthur J. Ingles, the owner of the building. 
 
 Ingles occupied a very small room, upon whose 
 door was his name his name and nothing more 
 in very small letters. The next door beyond 
 was lettered " Office of the Building," and this 
 second room had communication with the first 
 by a door between. ISTone of these three doors, 
 however, had as much interest for McDowell as 
 the one between his own office and the private 
 office of Ingles. This door was closed, but it was 
 McDowell s dream and ambition to see it open. 
 In his thoughts he constantly saw it standing 
 ajar in an intimate and friendly fashion, while 
 he and Ingles and other magnates of Ingles s ilk 
 circulated through it freely and all did business 
 together. 
 
101 
 
 Up to the present time this door had never 
 been opened, nor had McDowell ever had access 
 to the other suite except by the farther door, 
 through which tenants passed to request repairs 
 or to pay their monthly rent. 
 
 Ingles was enough of a lawyer to be a real- 
 estate man. and enough of a real-estate man to 
 need to be a lawyer. He supervised the draw 
 ing of his own deeds and leases, and seldom took 
 counsel in matters between landlord and tenant. 
 As a landlord, he had found it advantageous to 
 divest himself of his soul by making the Clifton 
 into a stock company; he himself held all the 
 shares but five. He had an extraordinary facul 
 ty for keeping himself out of the papers ; but 
 this did not prevent McDowell from knowing 
 that he was constantly engaged in enterprises of 
 the first magnitude, and he felt that association 
 with this great capitalist would be immensely to 
 his own advantage. 
 
 But he had accomplished only one step that 
 might be reckoned an advance : he had under 
 taken the financial arrangements connected with 
 St. Asaph s choir. This was a large, well-trained 
 body, and was provided with all the expensive 
 paraphernalia of a " high " service. It included 
 four or five tenors and basses who commanded 
 rather good salaries, as well as an expert organ 
 ist and an experienced choir-master who com 
 manded larger ones. The management had been 
 
102 
 
 by committee, and several of the pillars of the 
 church, Ingles among them, had learned the dif 
 ficulty of mediating between music, money, and 
 ritualism. A member of a previous committee 
 had delighted in translating and adapting Latin 
 hymns for Christmas and Easter, and in putting 
 his hands into his pockets now and then to 
 make good a small deficit in the budget. Ingles 
 and his compeers were ready enough to put their 
 hands into their pockets, but they were glad, one 
 and all, to escape the details of administration. 
 
 It was here that McDowell stepped forward ; 
 he cynically acknowledged that religion must be 
 made to play into the hands of business, and he 
 justified himself to himself by many good argu 
 ments. The details of the new dispensation were 
 arranged in a down-town office. McDowell had 
 tried to contrive that that office should be In 
 gles s own ; but the meeting was held, after all, 
 in another tall tower a block or two down the 
 street, and Ingles himself was not present more 
 than ten minutes. McDowell regretted this ; he 
 felt very well disposed towards Ingles. He would 
 have done almost anything for him for a com 
 mission. 
 
 But McDowell did not push this choir matter 
 to the neglect of his own proper business. He 
 was engaged at about this time with a new sub 
 division out beyond the South Parks. He had 
 bought up a ten-acre tract, which he himself ac- 
 
103 
 
 knowledged to be rather low-lying, and which 
 his rivals, with an unusual disregard of the court 
 esies of the profession, did not hesitate to call 
 an out-and-out swamp. He had mended matters 
 somewhat by means of a dam and a sluice, which 
 drained off a part of his moisture on to grounds 
 lying lower still other men s grounds ; and on 
 the driest and most accessible corner of his do 
 main he had placed a portable one-story frame 
 shanty which had already done duty on other 
 subdivisions, and alongside of it stood a tall flag 
 pole which flaunted a banner with his own name 
 and number on it. This tract, by the way, had 
 absorbed some moderate portion of Ann Wilde s 
 hoarded savings. 
 
 A week of rainy weather now and then would 
 lay a complete embargo on McDowell s opera 
 tions in this quarter. His plank walks would 
 float off in sections ; the trees along his avenues 
 would sag deeply into the slush and would sway 
 sidewise, in spite of their networks of rusty wire ; 
 and the cellars of the three or four unfinished 
 houses that he had artfully scattered through 
 this promising tract would show odds and ends 
 of carpenters refuse floating around in muddy 
 water a foot deep. It was an appalling specta 
 cle to one who realized the narrow margins upon 
 which many of these operations were conducted, 
 or who failed to keep in mind the depths that 
 human folly and credulity may sound. 
 
104 
 
 " Oh, it s all right enough," McDowell would 
 say. " It s going to dry up before long." 
 
 Occasionally it did dry up and stay so for sev 
 eral weeks. Then, on bright Sunday afternoons, 
 folly and credulity, in the shape of young mar 
 ried couples who knew nothing about real es 
 tate, but who vaguely understood that it was 
 a " good investment," would come out and would 
 go over the ground or try to. They were wel 
 comed with a cynical effrontery by the young 
 fellow whom McDowell paid fifty dollars a 
 month to hold the office there. He had an in 
 sinuating manner, and frequently sold a lot with 
 the open effect of perpetrating a good joke. 
 
 McDowell sometimes joked about his custom 
 ers, but never about his lands. He shed upon 
 them the transfiguring light of the imagination, 
 which is so useful and necessary in the environs 
 of Chicago. Land generally that is, subdivided 
 and recorded land he regarded as a serious 
 thing, if not indeed as a high and holy thing, 
 and his view of his own landed possessions 
 mortgaged though they might be, and so partly 
 unpaid for was not only serious but idealistic. 
 He was able to ignore the pools whose rising 
 and falling befouled the supports of his side 
 walks with a green slime ; and the tufts of reeds 
 and rushes which appeared here and there spread 
 themselves out before his gaze in the similitude 
 of a turfy lawn. He was a poet as every real- 
 estate man should be. 
 
105 
 
 We of Chicago are sometimes made to bear 
 the reproach that the conditions of our local life 
 draw us towards the sordid and the materialistic. 
 Now, the most vital and typical of our human 
 products is the real-estate agent : is he common 
 ly found tied down by earth-bound prose ? 
 
 " You fellows," said Floyd to McDowell, 
 during one of Sister Ann s sessions, " are the 
 greatest lot I ever struck." He spoke in a half- 
 quizzical, half-admiring way, and showed some 
 effort to handle the language with the Western 
 ease and freedom of those to the manner born. 
 " Do you know, when I had been here three or 
 four months some fellows took me with them to 
 the banquet of the Real Estate Board. Well, it 
 was an eye-opener ; I never saw anything like it. 
 It was Chicago all Chicago. Heavens ! how 
 the town was hymned and celebrated ! It was 
 personified 
 
 " That s right," said McDowell. 
 
 " And glorified" 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " And deified " 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Why not, indeed?" cried Ann Wilde. "7 
 haven t been around much yet, but you strike 
 me as the most imaginative lot of people I ever 
 saw." 
 
 " Whenever Chicago is involved," amended 
 Walworth. 
 
106 
 
 Sure." 
 
 " How you idealize it !" cried Ann, enthusias 
 tically. " How you" 
 
 " It needs to be idealized and badly," said 
 her sister. 
 
 But McDowell s interests in the southern sub 
 urbs as well as at St. Asaph s were soon set aside 
 by another matter; domestic interests claimed 
 his attention. 
 
 His father-in-law had now passed some two 
 or three months in Chicago. He had entered 
 the city without any conception of its magni 
 tude, and he had remained in it without rising 
 to any conception of its metropolitan complexi 
 ties. He had made a change that was too great 
 and too late. He made but an ineffectual at 
 tempt to connect and identify himself with the 
 great rush of life going on all about him. He 
 came down town almost every day to spend an 
 hour or more in McDowell s office, where he 
 took a certain satisfaction in following out the 
 intricacies of the local topography by passing a 
 thin, blue-veined hand over McDowell s maps 
 and his canvas- bound books of plats. McDowell 
 treated him with considerable patience and with 
 as much respect as was due to a man who had 
 no great experience in real estate and little apti 
 tude for learning. One day old Mr. Ogden, who 
 apprehended the lake winds little better than 
 the local " lay of the land," took a slight cold in 
 
107 
 
 returning home from the office ; two days after 
 pneumonia developed, and within a week he 
 died. 
 
 George undertook the charge of such arrange 
 ments as recognized the old New-Englander as 
 a dead man merely, and McDowell subsequently 
 took charge of those which recognized him as a 
 dead property-owner. First, the funeral ; after 
 wards, the Probate Court. 
 
 A funeral is more disagreeable than a wed 
 ding, chiefly because its multifarious details make 
 their demands with but a scanty notice in ad 
 vance. All of these details George was now 
 called upon to face and to dispose of. 
 
 He squared his jaw, set his eyes, put a cold, 
 heavy paving-stone in place of his heart, and 
 met these details one by one. It was a man s 
 privilege. 
 
 Brower went with him to the undertaker s, 
 and mediated between grief and rapacity. 
 
 " Be careful here," Brower said to him in an 
 undertone. They were in a room where sample 
 caskets stood on end against opposite walls and 
 were let down one by one for the inspection of 
 purchasers. 
 
 " They always show the most expensive ones 
 first. Don t look at these. You don t need to 
 pay a hundred and fifty dollars. You can se 
 lect a suitable one for eighty or ninety per 
 fectly good and no loss of respect." 
 
108 
 
 " How about the outside box ?" asked the man 
 in due course. He was in his shirt-sleeves and 
 wore a high silk hat. 
 
 " Here," whispered Brower, " you ll have to 
 take the most expensive. It s chestnut fifteen 
 dollars. Nothing else but plain pine for a dol 
 lar fifty. Shameful, isn t it ?" 
 
 Brower arranged for the handles and the 
 plates. He also met the family at the railway- 
 station next day, and saw the casket put on 
 board the east-bound express. 
 
 He and George were walking slowly up and 
 down the platform alongside the train when a 
 man in blue overalls leaned out of the door of 
 the baggage-car and called to them. He held a 
 paper in his hand. 
 
 " This ain t quite regular," he said. " Our road 
 is pretty strict. The air-tight casket is all right 
 for inter-state travel, but the doctor hasn t signed 
 this certificate." 
 
 George turned on Brower with a look of an 
 guish. 
 
 " Here !" cried Brower, stretching up his hand. 
 "How forgetful of me! I ll sign it now. Go 
 along, Ogden." 
 
 The man hesitated. " Not contagious ?" 
 
 " Certainly not. Hand it down. Got a pencil ? 
 There! Here s a two. Take extra care." 
 
 The dead man s -son paid for the music and 
 flowers, his wife and daughter folded away his 
 
109 
 
 clothes, and his son-in-law undertook to see his 
 estate through the courts. 
 
 " I don t believe you d better pay the doctors 
 and undertaker yet," he counselled. " Let them 
 file their claims with the Probate people. It 
 doesn t cost but a dollar, and if you pay without, 
 you might be liable over again you are on 
 other claims. I ll keep a general eye on matters, 
 of course, but questions will be coming up all 
 the time. I don t know but what we d better 
 have a lawyer first as last. The Probate ar 
 rangements are different now from what they 
 used to be more expensive, for one thing. Now 
 there s Freeze & Freeze they re as good as any, 
 and they re right there in the Clifton, George, 
 only five floors above you." 
 
 "Have we got to go into this thing right 
 away ?" asked George, as if in physical pain. 
 
 " Oh, no. Wait a few weeks wait a month, 
 if you like." 
 
 " Yes, we ll wait," he sighed. 
 
 McDowell made no opposition to his wife s 
 suggestion that her mother now come and live 
 with them. He had not anticipated his mother- 
 in-law as a member of his own household ; but 
 he liked her well enough, and he generally treat 
 ed her with a dry and sapless sort of kindness. 
 Besides, he looked on domestic arrangements , 
 as a mere incident in business life, anyway. 
 George, who for some time had been anticipat- 
 
110 
 
 ing a home with his parents, could not find an 
 equivalent in a home with the McDowells, and 
 he remained with Brower on Rush Street. 
 
 There was no will ; the recasting and consol 
 idation of the small estate had required too 
 much time and attention to leave much for any 
 thought of its redistribution. Mrs. Ogden went 
 into court at the proper time and qualified as 
 administratrix. She was a figure-head, of course. 
 She signed various documents at George s in 
 stance ; George himself was guided by Mc 
 Dowell, principally ; and McDowell got a point, 
 now and then, from the attorneys. However, 
 the legal labors of Freeze & Freeze on the Og 
 den estate were chiefly clerical; this did not 
 prevent them from charging like chancellors 
 and chief -justices. 
 
 These charges and others were paid by Mc 
 Dowell, who began informally by giving checks 
 on his own private account. He came to receive, 
 too, most of the rents and other payments, 
 which were more conveniently made to him in 
 his own office than to George in the office of 
 the bank. And since he paid the estate charges 
 out of his own private account, it seemed natu 
 ral enough that his own account (which was with 
 the Underground) should receive the sums com 
 ing in. This arrangement came about gradu 
 ally, without receiving any formal acquiescence ; 
 but George appeared satisfied with the business 
 
Ill 
 
 capacity of his sister s husband; while his mother 
 was an inmate of her son-in-law s house, where 
 inquiry and explanation were easily enough 
 made. 
 
 These details, once in hand, appeared to give 
 little hinderance to the course of McDowell s 
 regular business. His acquaintances in his own 
 line noticed its increasing spread, and agreed 
 among themselves that he was flying a little high 
 for a man of his limited resources. He had more 
 work for the surveyors and sign-painters, and he 
 presently added a clerk or so to his office force. 
 
 Various small claims were filed in the Probate 
 Court and were allowed. " I think, said George 
 to McDowell, " that we ll use Kastner s rent for 
 them. To-day is the third; he has been in, I sup 
 pose ?" 
 
 " He ll have to be punched up," replied Mc 
 Dowell. " It doesn t do to give them any lee 
 way." 
 
 " He has always been prompt on the first," 
 said George, somewhat annoyed. 
 
 The next morning he entered the paying-tell 
 er s pen for a moment, as occasionally happened. 
 His eye chanced to alight on the balance sheet 
 that ran from L to Z. 
 
 McAvoy, Louis M 81.93 
 
 .McCloud, Peters & Co 1187.25 
 
 McDowell, E. H 
 
112 
 
 " How s this, Jo F asked Ogden. "What s the 
 matter with McDowell ?" 
 
 " Pulled out yesterday," responded the payer, 
 briefly. 
 
IX 
 
 MCDOWELL S defection from the Underground 
 was presently followed by an addition to its 
 working force. One morning, a month or so 
 later, Ogden, in an interval of leisure, glanced 
 across to the window before which Burton Brain- 
 ard had railed in his desk, and saw a young 
 woman within the enclosure. She sat there 
 alone, before a desk of the peculiar kind that 
 has been contrived for the typewriter, and her 
 effect at the moment was that of leisure finally 
 and elegantly achieved. 
 
 He was at once struck by her peculiar facial 
 expression ; she had one eye open and the other 
 shut. All at once she effected an instantaneous 
 change which closed the open eye and opened 
 the closed one. Then she opened both and gave 
 out a smile of recognition, surprise, and pleasure, 
 which he now perceived to be the work of the 
 features of Cornelia McNabb. 
 
 " Here we are !" she seemed to say. 
 
 She had followed Burt s elevation to the 
 vice-presidency, along with the new desk and 
 the handsome rail-work enclosing it. Burt s 
 concerns, despite his rise in rank, were now, as 
 
 8 
 
114 
 
 heretofore, largely outside the bank proper ; fie 
 did something in stocks now and then, and he 
 kept the run of things on the Board of Trade. 
 But he was like his father in looking upon the 
 bank as a personal and family matter a point 
 of view which the action of the body of stock 
 holders somewhat justified : as a general thing 
 they made up a chorus that huddled in the 
 wings several of them declining to come "on" 
 even for the election that advanced Brainard, Jr., 
 to the second place. So he saw no very good 
 reason why the bank generally should not foot 
 the bill for his own clerk-hire. 
 
 " Why can t you use the man we ve got here 
 already?" his father had asked him, however. 
 " Ain t one enough ?" 
 
 " No. Somebody else has always got him. If 
 I could have one for myself just for an hour or 
 so, it would be a great help." 
 
 " Why don t you get one of those girls that 
 circulate around upstairs? I hear there s one 
 or two of em." 
 
 " I believe I will." And thus Cornelia MoNabb 
 came in for a brief daily attachment to the Un 
 derground. 
 
 She sat in her place quite unoccupied for an 
 hour or so, looking about inquiringly, fidgeting 
 a little, and watching the clock. Ogden glanced 
 over in her direction once or twice. He saw 
 that she had contrived to express her rise by 
 
115 
 
 several subtile alterations in her dress, and tnat 
 she had succeeded in enveloping herself in a 
 promising atmosphere of gentility. She, in her 
 turn, kept an eye on him and contrived to time 
 her own luncheon along with his. She thrust 
 her hat-pin into place just as he buttoned on his 
 cuffs, and she drew a black-dotted veil across the 
 tip of her nose just as he was reaching up for his 
 hat. 
 
 They sauntered out separately, but came to 
 gether in the hallway. 
 
 " Do I look nice, or don t I 2" she asked him, 
 as she passed one of her gloves over the smooth 
 surface of the massive marble balustrade. " You 
 needn t think the Pewaukee girls are jays; 
 they re too near Lakeside and Waukesha for 
 that." 
 
 "You do, indeed. But where are the chains 
 and rings?" 
 
 " Fiddle ! I hope I know better than that, 
 now." 
 
 The elevators were sliding up and down be 
 hind their gilded grilles with great rapidity, and 
 hundreds of hungry helpers were stepping out 
 of them in search of brief refreshment. Some 
 of these stopped in the basement vestibule, and 
 our young people, looking over the balustrade, 
 saw them buying packages of cigarettes or the 
 noon papers. There came to them, too, the voice 
 of the man w r ho stood at the foot of the elevator 
 
116 
 
 , hafts and who regulated the movements of the 
 various cabs by calling out their numbers with 
 a laconic yawp. He wore a blue uniform with 
 gilt buttons and he had a gold band on his cap. 
 He was as important as Ingles himself perhaps 
 more so. 
 
 " I believe I ll go up to the restaurant to-day," 
 said Cornelia, with a precious little intonation. 
 Her mincing tone intimated a variety of things 
 altered conditions among them. 
 
 " I go up there occasionally myself," said Og- 
 den. u You have entertained me several times 
 downstairs, and you ought to give me my chance 
 now, don t you think ?" 
 
 " Quite happy, I m sure," she murmured 
 demurely. 
 
 " Up !" called Ogden, and up they went. 
 
 " Well," said Cornelia, a few minutes later, 
 taking off her gloves with a self-conscious grace, 
 and pushing aside her tumbler so as to find a 
 place to lay them, " I can t say I ve been over 
 worked this morning. I haven t seen my new 
 man at all." 
 
 " He s out a good deal." 
 
 " But the old one was on deck." 
 
 "In what way?" 
 
 " Oh, he put me through a regular drill. Made 
 quite a number of remarks. I shouldn t care to 
 take him down. May have to, though, if he 
 gets too bossy. Eh 1 oh, well, I don t know 
 
117 
 
 that I care for so very much, thank you. What 
 are you going to have? Chicken - soup ? all 
 right. Yes, chicken-soup, John^J 
 
 She leaned back in her chair with a genteel 
 grace, and looked out of the window down on 
 the snow-piled roofs below. 
 
 " Do you know, I used to think I was a pret 
 ty smart girl, but I begin to believe I m a good 
 deal of a dummy, after all. That man has been 
 in the building all this time, and I have just 
 found it out." 
 
 Ogden s eye involuntarily followed the waiter. 
 
 " Not that black man nix. But how could 
 I be expected to spot his name among all the 
 steen hundred on that bulletin by the door? I 
 did see it there this morning, though just by 
 accident." 
 
 "Whose?" 
 
 " Oh, Ingies s. Arthur J. Ingles. Think of 
 his being in this very building all this time!" 
 She put the rim of her tumbler up under the 
 edge of her veil. 
 
 " In it ?" repeated Ogden. " He owns it." 
 
 "He does? Great Scott!" she choked and 
 spluttered, setting her glass down suddenly. 
 " Well, I ll be switched !" 
 
 She gave another gulp. " I suppose his father 
 willed it to him." 
 
 " No ; he put it up for himself ; I heard him 
 say so." 
 
118 
 
 " And you know him ?" A new light shone in 
 her brimming eyes. 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " Well," she declared with emphasis, " now I 
 see my way. He s got to have me do shorthand 
 for him, and then I shall see her." 
 
 " Ah !" 
 
 "Yes. Can t you tell Mr. High-and-mighty 
 that you know a respectable girl who is trying 
 to make her own living?" She ran her fingers 
 over the edge of one of her cuffs, which was 
 slightly frayed. " You see how poor I am." 
 
 George laughed. " The laundries are pretty 
 rough, for a fact." 
 
 " How mean of you !" she exclaimed, and 
 laughed too. 
 
 She thrust back her soup. 
 
 " I don t want it. I don t want anything. 
 I can t eat a mouthful. Then I was wrong 
 about his being a society dude ?" 
 
 Completely." 
 
 " And how is she ? S posing I ve made a mis 
 take about her, too ?" 
 
 " I don t know, I m sure. I ve never seen 
 her." 
 
 " You re telling me a fib." 
 
 "No, truly, I never have. I don t believe 
 there s any such person. I think she s some 
 body that the papers have just made up. How 
 many people have you found to work for ?" 
 
119 
 
 " Oh, three or four. But time for more. 
 Rhyme, ain t it ? I m trying for the Massachu 
 setts Brass, but I d rather get Ingles. She gave 
 a dance at Kinsley s night before last." 
 
 " How many words can you do ?" 
 
 " About ninety enough for business ; of course 
 I couldn t manage courts or banquets or ser 
 mons. I expect she comes down to his office 
 for a check every now and then. Why don t she 
 ever have her picture in the Sunday papers ?" 
 
 " O Lord ! I hope they re above that /" 
 
 " What s the objection ? I d have mine there 
 quicker n scat if I could. I will some time- 
 bet you. And not in any office togs either." 
 
 " But don t dream of rivalry. She isn t real ; 
 she s only a beautiful myth. What will you 
 take next roast beef ?" 
 
 " I don t mind ; yes. When I m alone I 
 usually skip right from soup to pie or pud 
 ding. But I guess I will take something a lit 
 tle solider this time ; nothing makes me tireder 
 than sitting still and fidgeting." She tapped 
 her toes on the mosaic pavement, and gave a 
 hitch and a pat to the dimity curtain alongside 
 her. " I squirmed around for an hour, with a 
 whole bookful of other people s notes that I 
 might have been writing out. What sort of a 
 young fellow is he ?" 
 
 " He has his own way." 
 
 " Only child, I suppose ?" 
 
120 
 
 " Only son ?" 
 
 " No yes I don t know. How do you like 
 your work ?" 
 
 " Middling. I m terrible enterprising, but I 
 guess I was never meant for a drudge. Say, 
 what does a patroness really do ?" 
 
 " Oh, nothing much ; she just has her name 
 on the list. Sometimes they don t even go." 
 
 " I notice that your Mrs. Floyd is beginning 
 to be one ; I ve seen her in the papers two or 
 three times." 
 
 " She doesn t like it, though ; sometimes names 
 get put on just to fill up. My dear Mrs. Floyd, 
 we thought you wouldn t mind ; you don t, do 
 you ? they say. But my name in the papers, 
 she objects. * You are too sensitive, they reply. 
 4 You ve had your name in the papers at home, 
 her husband reminds her. Yes, she answers, 
 but here .! She hates the town." 
 
 " AVell, if I was a patroness I guess I d have 
 some say no figure-head for me. I wouldn t 
 be put on, either ; I d put the others on." 
 
 " I see you were cut out for a society career." 
 
 " I guess you ve about struck it. I went to 
 a dance a week ago to-night Periclean Pleas 
 ure Party." 
 
 "Like it!" 
 
 " Twa n t much. And I was invited to a 
 firemen s ball such impudence !" 
 
121 
 
 " Eight don t cheapen yourself." 
 
 " I guess I understand that." 
 
 Meanwhile a nooning of a different character 
 was going on in the directors room of the Un 
 derground. This is not to be taken as indi 
 cating that the green -baize plane of the long 
 centre-table was littered with reports and mem 
 oranda, and that the high-backed, leather-seated 
 chairs were filled with the solid figures of a 
 dozen solid men. No ; the aspect of the room 
 was that of Sunday-like disoccupation, and the 
 only people in it were an appealing young 
 woman and a stubborn old man. 
 
 " Let her come in, father ; please do." 
 
 " Take care, Abbie. You know what I think 
 of you, but you make a mistake when you try 
 this." 
 
 Abbie Brainard passed her handkerchief across 
 her tearful face. Her father stood before her 
 with his legs spread wide and his feet firmly 
 planted ; he had his hands thrust deeply into 
 his trousers pockets. His jaw was set, and his 
 shaggy brows were drawn down over eyes that 
 glared fiercely at nothing. 
 
 " Then meet her out in the hall somewhere, 
 just for a minute." She laid her hand trem 
 blingly upon the old man s arm. He moved, 
 as if to shake it off. 
 
 " Then just walk by outside ; she can see you 
 from the cab." 
 
122 
 
 He turned his eyes upon her, half in expostula 
 tion and half in threat. " Abbie !" 
 
 " Then, father, just step here to the window ; 
 she ll see you and know it s all right. Come." 
 She caught hold of a fold of his sleeve. " You 
 won t keep her waiting out there such a cold day 
 as this ?" 
 
 Brainard moved his feet, but he turned his 
 back on the window and fixed his eye on the 
 fireplace. His daughter s light touch was quite 
 powerless on his huge bulk. 
 
 " Father, you know Burt says " 
 
 " Abbie," he interrupted sharply, " don t you 
 say a word to set me against Burt. I won t hear 
 it. Don t drag him in, or you ll be sorry for it." 
 
 "But, father, don t you understand? He 
 struck her ; there s a mark on her face now." 
 
 Brainard s great frame shook, but he made no 
 other sign. This quiet she took as a favorable 
 symptom. She would have done better in per 
 ceiving that he was between two contending 
 forces so nearly equal as to hold him almost 
 in equilibrium. The wretch had struck his 
 daughter a brutal, hateful thing as regarded 
 his daughter or any daughter or any other 
 woman ; but his daughter had defied him, over 
 ridden him, and the man whom she had chosen 
 for a master was now the instrument of her pun 
 ishment. The accounts appeared to balance. 
 However, figures do lie, and his own agitation 
 
123 
 
 indicated that the x of human emotion had not 
 been completely eliminated from his problem. 
 
 He cleared his throat. "She has made her 
 bed, Abbie," he said in a husky tone, " and now 
 she must lie on it." 
 
 " No, father ; you must hear what Burt says. 
 He has had to go up there and 
 
 " Burt ? Is that where he has been this morn 
 ing? Has he turned against me too? Good 
 God ! what have I done to deserve such treat 
 ment as this ? First it s Mark, with his drawing 
 and his trying to play the fiddle ; and then it s 
 this pen-pusher that puts on those things Sun 
 days and marches around singing songs ; and now 
 it s Burt, who s had every chance to make a good 
 business-man of himself, and everything done for 
 him. It s too bad ; it s too almighty bad." 
 
 Abbie steadied herself against the corner of 
 the table. Her breast heaved with fearf ulness ; 
 she had never before openly protested to her fa 
 ther against himself. 
 
 "Why haven t you done anything for the 
 others? Why didn t you give Mark an educa 
 tion ? the kind, I mean, that would have helped 
 him, and the only kind. Why haven t you taken 
 this Mr. Mayme s hus this man and made the 
 best of it, and found something for him to do ? 
 he can work in an office. Oh, father," she 
 moaned, with a softening note of deprecation, 
 " you have made it pretty hard for all of us." 
 
124 
 
 " Abbie," he gasped, " are you turning against 
 me too? Abbie, I ve always thought so much 
 of you, and I ve clone well by you. But I want 
 you to go away I won t see her. I won t. She 
 must go away, and you too." 
 
 He caught her by the arm and tried to move 
 her towards the door gently, as if she might go 
 of her own accord. 
 
 Ogden, on coming in from lunch, found him 
 self intercepted by Freddy Pratt. This youth 
 had a few moments leisure, and he assailed 
 Ogden between the wardrobe and the wash- 
 stand. 
 
 " I went over to see the Yiberts again ; last 
 night," he communicated. "Poor Mayme I 
 wasn t going back on her, if others did. She 
 was sitting there all alone in the dark. I guess 
 she had been crying. Anyway, when I lit the 
 gas her eyes looked red. She wouldn t say 
 much 
 
 " Good plan." 
 
 " And after he came in she wouldn t say hard 
 ly anything at all. Slow work talking to him! 
 He wasn t drunk exactly, but he had been drink 
 ing; didn t need a light to tell that. I wasn t 
 doing anything at all, and all of a sudden he 
 blurted out, I say, you young fellow you, what 
 do you mean by coming here and destroying the 
 peace of a man s family You can bet I was 
 taken back. Then he got up and came towards 
 
125 
 
 me he looked big, too ! You get out of here 
 that s what he said." 
 
 "And did you?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, I got out," responded Freddy Pratt, 
 with a meek complacency. 
 
 " You surprise me. You showed sense." 
 
 Freddy looked at him doubtfully. " I heard 
 this morning that he had just lost his place with 
 those insurance people," he resumed cautiously. 
 " That was what was the matter, I guess." 
 
 " Possibly," said George, who had heard from 
 Brower that something of the kind was likely to 
 occur. The fellow s work had been done indif 
 ferently of late, and he was far from being worth 
 the increased salary he had asked for. 
 
 As Ogden passed up to the other end of the 
 office Brainard appeared in the doorway of the 
 directors room and beckoned to him. His face 
 was pale and disturbed ; the veins in the end of 
 his nose showed redly ; his eyes burned with an 
 appealing fierceness. 
 
 " Ogden," he said, in a loud, hoarse whisper, 
 " where is that type- writer girl ? Tell her to 
 bring some water here as quick as she can." 
 
 " She isn t here, sir ; she has gone back up 
 stairs." 
 
 " Then you get some yourself. Here ; take 
 this tumbler. Be quick, and don t make any 
 fuss." 
 
 Ogden hastened to the wash-stand near which 
 
126 
 
 Freddy Pratt had detained him. Eetnrning 
 again, he saw through the half -open door that 
 Abbie Brainard was lying back in one of the big 
 chairs with her face pallid and her eyes closed. 
 
 Her father dipped two of his great, clumsy 
 fingers into the glass and made an awkward at 
 tempt to sprinkle her face. " My poor girl has 
 fainted," he said. 
 
 The girl s eyes half opened ; she seemed to see 
 Ogden standing just outside. 
 
 She clutched both arms of the chair and raised 
 herself half up. Her bosom heaved ; her mouth 
 was drawn tensely. 
 
 "Fainted?" she tried to say; "not at all!" 
 She gasped once or twice and rose to her feet. 
 " I never fainted in my life," she said grandly ; 
 " I never should think of doing such a thing !" 
 
 She reeled ; her eyes closed. George rushed 
 forward to catch her. Her hand dropped numb 
 on his arm, and her head fell heavily on his 
 shoulder. 
 
OGDEN and his mother were now beginning to 
 have frequent conferences with regard to the 
 management of the property and to McDowell s v 
 connection with the matter. Perhaps the word 
 " conference " puts, however, too set and formal 
 a stamp on the brief, hap-hazard interchanges of 
 ideas that took place, as chance permitted, with 
 in McDowell s own house a few words after a 
 Sunday dinner or at the front door late at night. 
 And besides being handicapped as to occasion, 
 they were further hampered by McDowell s new 
 relation to them and by their own presence un 
 der his roof. Besides, Mrs. Ogden, with a mul 
 titude of small experiences, had no ability for 
 grasping things in a large and general way; 
 while George, with a broader and more compre 
 hensive outlook, was embarrassed by a lack of 
 experience in the actual details of business trans 
 actions. Added to this, he was a new-comer, 
 under all a new-comer s disadvantages ; he hard 
 ly knew where to turn for the proper agents, 
 legal or financial, that might have been em 
 ployed; while many of the agencies courts, 
 for instance were different in procedure and 
 
128 
 
 even in name from anything he had known 
 East. 
 
 " All the same, though," he said to his mother, 
 "things ought to be in different shape for you. 
 I m bound hand and foot in that bank no time 
 or thought for anything outside. I don t know 
 but what you d better put everything with some 
 good real-estate firm, and let them look after re 
 pairs and collections and taxes." 
 
 His mother fixed a pair of anxious eyes upon 
 him, and the wrinkles of perplexity appeared on 
 her forehead. 
 
 " Eugene is real-estate." 
 
 " Or those lawyers," he went on. " Anyway, 
 you ought to have an account as administratrix 
 with some bank. I believe I ll open one to-mor 
 row. Something has got to be done to make 
 things quicker and clearer." 
 
 He presently took upon himself the delicate 
 task of intimating to McDowell that a simpler 
 and more regular way of doing things was de 
 sired. 
 
 He went up to McDowell s office in the latter 
 part of the afternoon. As he entered, a tall, 
 dark man was standing in the middle of the 
 room. There was a sinister look in his eyes and 
 a contemptuously sarcastic smile on his heavy 
 red lips. He gave a last fold to a small piece of 
 paper that he held in his hands and thrust it into 
 his vest pocket. It was Yibert. 
 
129 
 
 "It s pretty near four now," he was saying 
 to McDowell, " so I can t try again to-day ; but 
 I expect to find this all right after ten to-mor 
 
 row morning." 
 
 He gave his hand a hardy flip across one side 
 of his dark moustache and passed out. McDow 
 ell looked after him sourly. " Damn the brute !" 
 he muttered. 
 
 As Yibert s words implied, he had been in 
 McDowell s office once before on the same day. 
 His salary at St. Asaph s now meant more to 
 him than it had meant a month ago, and he had 
 called with reference to it and to the delay in 
 its payment. Hitherto, the financial arrange 
 ments of the church had gone on with the same 
 precision as its anthems and its processionals. 
 In the present condition of things delay to Yi- 
 bert was more than a surprise, more than an 
 embarrassment ; it was an exasperation. 
 
 " I don t sing for glory," he had declared with 
 an offensive brusqueness. " It s the here and not 
 the hereafter that I m busy with." 
 
 McDowell looked at him uneasily. " I m going 
 to fix up all the salaries next week in one batch. 
 I don t see why any particular man should be 
 favored." 
 
 " Favored !" repeated Yibert, with a loud inso 
 lence. " I should say not. I don t feel favored 
 in running my legs off for money three weeks 
 overdue. "We can t live on air. We have bills 
 9 
 
130 
 
 to pay. "We ain t singing for the pleasure of 
 it." 
 
 McDowell contracted his eyes to a critical nar 
 rowness. " You may not be singing much longer 
 for anything else, either." 
 
 "That s another matter; it isn t you that put 
 the choir together." 
 
 McDowell tapped his fingers on the yellow 
 varnish of his desk. " I don t know about that. 
 From what I hear, you re not making the sort of 
 record for yourself that s useful in a church." 
 
 " My private life is nobody s business. I sing ; 
 I m worth the money." 
 
 "That may work on the stage; it won t work 
 quite so close to the pulpit. Come, now ; I know 
 a little something of your daily doings. Plenty 
 of men sing who don t hang around race-tracks 
 and loaf in pool-rooms. And, from what I hear, 
 you re helping that young Brainard along at a 
 good gait, too. You d better wait along with 
 the others." 
 
 " Waiting be hanged ! Pm here for money 
 money that s mine. If I can t work it with the 
 man who pays out the loaves and fishes, I ll try 
 one of the men that contribute them, in the first 
 place." He tossed his head insultingly towards 
 the door that led to Ingles s office. 
 
 McDowell s elbow rested on the edge of his 
 desk (his thumb on the tip of his ear and his 
 middle finger rubbing his farther eyebrow) as 
 
131 
 
 he looked out steadily on Yibert from under his 
 hand. "Joseph," he called to his clerk, "bring 
 me that check-book." 
 
 The man opened a lower drawer and brought 
 out a book whose covers enclosed a number of 
 stubs and three or four blank checks. 
 
 McDowell wrote and passed the check to Yi 
 bert, who went out with no further words on 
 either side. 
 
 McDowell did some figuring and saw some 
 people, and somewhat later Yibert returned. 
 He threw his check on McDowell s desk con 
 temptuously. " That s no good." 
 
 " How s that ?" 
 
 " No account with em." 
 
 " No ac oh, I see. We ve changed banks, 
 and I forgot to change the name in the check." 
 He picked up a ruler and drew the red-ink bot 
 tle a little nearer. " I ll fix it. Sorry to have 
 troubled you. We want to look out for this, 
 Joseph." 
 
 Yibert withdrew, speaking the words that Og- 
 den had heard on his entrance words that would 
 have been the reverse of assuring if he had fully 
 understood them. " Bad egg," said McDowell 
 to him, wagging his head in the direction of the 
 just closed door. 
 
 George looked at him studiously. He ap 
 peared to be in a state of extreme nervous irrita 
 tion. His wiry moustache moved up and down 
 
132 
 
 stiffly as he felt about with his teeth for the in 
 ner membrane of his lips. His long, lean fingers 
 were interlaced, and a clicking sound came from 
 his snapping his finger-nails together. It was 
 clearly no occasion for more than a partial state 
 ment of Ogden s matter, and this was the most 
 that he permitted himself. 
 
 But McDowell was in the sensitive state of 
 mind when one word does the work of three, 
 and in the irritable state of mind when talk is 
 such a relief that three words evoke thirty in 
 reply. He met George s brief and modest sug 
 gestions with a hitching of his shoulders, and an 
 swered them in a harsh and strident tone. 
 
 " The first thing in doing business," he said, 
 a is to have an office to do it in." He looked 
 about his own his desks, his cashier s window, 
 his letter -press. "And the second is to know 
 how to do it." He looked out of the window in 
 a wholly impersonal way, but his words had a 
 more personal slant than he would have given 
 them at almost any other time. " Gad knows 
 I ve got enough to do already, but Kittie s af 
 fairs are mine. She has equal interests with 
 the others, and she seems to feel that I am able 
 and willing to look after them." 
 
 He spoke with some show of reason, and George 
 was obliged so to concede. 
 
 " There s taxes, for one thing. Or, take spe 
 cial assessments alone ; they re almost a business 
 
133 
 
 by themselves. Say you ve got ten acres or so 
 just beyond the limits. Some fine day it s six 
 hundred dollars or more for half a mile of side 
 walk a sidewalk that won t be walked on by 
 seven people a week. What s the reason ? Oh, 
 some one of those township politicians or other 
 has got a friend that s a carpenter. Now, who s 
 going to tackle the boards and stave off such 
 things ?" 
 
 George looked at him silently. 
 
 " There s tax-sales I guess you never went to 
 one of them. You d strike a bloodthirsty crew 
 if you did. Supposing you ve got a mortgage, 
 and the mortgager don t come to time with 
 his taxes ? You ve got to buy em up to protect 
 yourself. And you ve got to get there first. 
 Last year I fought this point for a week with 
 one of those tax-sharks. And so it goes. Real 
 estate is no kindergarten business, I can tell 
 you." 
 
 The truth of this view was becoming more and 
 more apparent to Ogden. He withdrew, after 
 some further parleyings, in a confused and in 
 conclusive state of mind well convinced, how 
 ever, of McDowell s abilities and more fully con 
 scious of McDowell s position as the husband of 
 his father s daughter. Never did the town of 
 his adoption seem less, indeed, like a kindergar 
 ten than when he took his way northward to 
 dinner, or when, later in the early evening, he 
 
134 
 
 made his way over to the West Side to call at 
 the Brainards. The thousands of acres of ram- 
 shackle that made up the bulk of the city, and 
 the tens of thousands of raw and ugly and half- 
 t)uilt prairie that composed its environs, seemed 
 together to constitute a great checker-board over 
 whose squares of " section " and " township " 
 keenness and rapacity played their daring and 
 wary game. And through the middle of the 
 board ran a line, a hinge, a crack the same line 
 that loomed up in all those various deeds and 
 abstracts of his with the portentousness and un- 
 escapability of the equator the "line of the 
 third principal meridian." 
 
 The Brainard house reared itself in the same 
 frivolous ugliness that we have already viewed ; 
 but an excess of light came through the front 
 parlor windows, and Ogden was prepared to find 
 that at least four of the eight burners in the big 
 chandelier were lighted. This turned out to be 
 the case ; it was as great a tribute as the family 
 ordinarily paid to society. The family he found 
 represented by Brainard, his wife, and his elder 
 daughter ; society was present in the shape of a 
 young couple who were called Mr. and Mrs. Val 
 entine. 
 
 The elder daughter received him with a quiet 
 and simple cordiality. He could not help look 
 ing about furtively for the possible presence of 
 the younger. He had not remained ignorant of 
 
135 
 
 her half -hour wait in a cab outside the bank; 
 but he might have surmised the inflexibility of 
 her father s will. The old man had refused to 
 see her or to let her see him ; the most that he 
 would yield was a species of non-committal com 
 munication through Burt. 
 
 Mrs. Brainard presented herself to Ogden as 
 a peculiarly faded and ineffective person ; it was 
 easy enough to grant her an abysmal incapac 
 ity. Her husband, in fact, had fallen upon her, 
 crushed her, absorbed her as a heavy blotting- 
 pad falls on a page of light and delicate writing. 
 Except for one thing she had no aim, no occu 
 pation, no diversion beyond her ills and reme 
 dies. This was a penchant for chess. To those 
 who object that chess is an intellectual game, 
 one may simply put the question : have you ever 
 seen it taken up by an elderly, invalided female 
 who has rested content with a mere learning of 
 the moves ? It was thus with Mrs. Brainard ; 
 she played a good many games with herself 
 every day, and they realty soothed and rested 
 her. 
 
 On the social board, however, she had hardly 
 learned the first " opening," and the entertain 
 ment of the brilliant young couple now in her 
 house fell almost altogether on Abbie ; for the 
 girl s mother sank back into a passive silence, 
 while her father toured through the rooms oc 
 casionally, and threw out remarks, more or less 
 
d propos, in a gruff and abrupt fashion peculiar 
 to himself. 
 
 His manner with young men had simply closed 
 the house to them. To him it was an inexplica 
 ble and harassing thing that a young fellow of 
 twenty-five should not possess the capacity, ex 
 perience, and accumulations of a man of thirty- 
 five or forty. He regarded every intruder in 
 the light of a potential son-in-law, and no more 
 potential than undesirable. Most of these call 
 ers would gulp down once, with such smile as 
 they could master, the old man s abrupt ways 
 and disconcerting comments; then they got out 
 of the house in good order and never came back. 
 However, at the present juncture he did not 
 appear to resent Ogden s appearance notwith 
 standing the young man s share in the episode 
 at the bank ; perhaps he looked upon him as a 
 serviceable prop in another bad quarter of an 
 hour. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Brainard," Mrs. Valentine was say 
 ing, as George entered, " it s just as I have been 
 telling Abbie ; you ought to move over on the 
 North Side, too." 
 
 Brainard happened to be passing through the 
 room ; it had occurred to him that he might 
 turn down one of the side-burners in the back 
 parlor. 
 
 " Um, no," he said, in an off-hand way ; " too 
 near the lake : fog ; damp ; rheumatism." 
 
137 
 
 " And pneumonia too, perhaps," his wife sug 
 gested feebly. 
 
 " I ll risk it !" cried Mrs. Valentine, vivacious 
 ly. She had an expansive and affluent effect ; 
 she appeared mettlesome, decisive, confident. " It 
 seemed to me that, so long as I was going to 
 build, I might as well make a complete sweep 
 an out-and-out break. I ve always had a fancy 
 for that part of town. So I sent Adrian around 
 to the different offices- 
 She threw a look of passing reference towards 
 her husband, who made a little bow in return. 
 
 " and I had the good luck to get a lot on 
 Bellevue Place one of the last left, and only a 
 block from the Lake Shore drive. Then I went 
 to Mr. Atwater, and he has made my house a 
 perfect little dream ! I thought it best to have 
 him to dinner once or twice, and I m glad I did 
 he s been so interested all through. There 
 hasn t been the least hitch to speak of, and I 
 expect to get in within a fortnight. This," she 
 went on, turning to Ogden with an undiminished 
 vivacity, "is really my P. P. C." 
 
 Ogden glanced at the husband of the lady 
 whose use of the first person singular was so 
 frank and continuous. He Avas a young man 
 with a pleasant and amiable face, and that face 
 was set in a meek little smile, from whose forced 
 lines the element of deception was most pitifully 
 lacking. 
 
138 
 
 " Yes, Abbie dear," Mrs. Valentine went on, 
 " I m afraid it s good-by or nearly the same 
 thing." She took the girl s hand within her own 
 and gave it repeated pats in a rather careless 
 and self-absorbed way. " I shall try to see you 
 often, of course; but it will be so far. How 
 nice it would be if you could only come up there 
 and settle down right next door to me." 
 
 Ogden sighed unconsciously. He had fancied 
 the first rays of social illumination as falling 
 upon this benighted family ; but it was only the 
 last faint glow of a speeding twilight, after all. 
 
 Abbie withdrew her hand with a quiet dig 
 nity ; she seemed to put but a moderate value 
 on4hese protestations. 
 
 " I believe we are satisfied where we are, Fan 
 ny," she said in a low and even tone. "We 
 have always lived here ; we feel more at home 
 in this house than we could anywhere else. All 
 our all our friends are near us" a desolate 
 little blush came in here "and then there s 
 the church and everything. I ve heard my sis 
 I m told that the North Side is very pleasant on 
 some accounts, but I don t think we are likely 
 ever to change." 
 
 " Change !" called her father, suddenly. " I 
 wouldn t live anywhere else if you paid me to. 
 "What s better than this ?" 
 
 " So attached," murmured her mother, vaguely. 
 
 Mrs. Valentine continued for some time fur- 
 
 . 
 
139 
 
 ther to flutter her hands, her clothing, and her 
 conversation, but she was very slow about get 
 ting up and fluttering away. She was a neigh 
 bor, and her return home was a matter of three 
 minutes. Ogden s return was a matter of nearly 
 an hour, and he left first. He carried away the 
 discontented feeling of a young man whose aim 
 in the direction of a young woman is frustrated 
 by the presence of uncongenial elders and irrel 
 evant outsiders. He had been quite certain of 
 his ability to meet Abbie Brainard after the 
 bank episode without any particular embarrass 
 ment or restraint ; certainly he had come to view 
 with more interest a girl whose hand had lain in 
 his and whose head had rested on his shoulder. 
 There had been no embarrassment in her greet 
 ing of him; her manner had been as straight 
 forward and sensible as it always was. But 
 never mind ; he should try again ; he was only 
 too certain of soon finding her alone. 
 
 He took his hour through the clamor and the 
 slime of the public ways. He escaped from 
 these by his talismanic night-key, and stumbled 
 up thoughtfully to his room. 
 
 There was a light burning in it, and the fire 
 place showed the faint red of dying coals. A 
 valise, open and half unpacked, stood in the mid 
 dle of the floor, and sitting up in bed was Brow- 
 er, busy with the last volume of " Monte Cristo." 
 They now occupied a large front room togeth- 
 
140 
 
 er, which Ogden had to himself a good half of 
 the time. 
 
 "Back, are you?" said George. "When did 
 you get in ?" 
 
 " About seven." 
 
 " How s Missouri ?" 
 
 " Weather good ; eating bad." 
 
 " Eeading all this time ?" 
 
 " Went to theatre." 
 
 " What did you see ?" 
 
 " Crackling of Thorns. " 
 
 " Any good ?" 
 
 " Not much ; one pretty girl. Where have 
 you been ?" 
 
 " West Side ; Brainard s." 
 
 "Anybody there?" 
 
 " The old people. And some friends Valen 
 tines." 
 
 " Valentine ? I used to know a Valentine 
 nice, quiet fellow, light complexion. His name 
 was Alpheus no, Adrian." 
 
 " That s the one." 
 
 " Poor fellow ! he deserved a better fate." 
 
 " What s the matter with him ?" 
 
 " His wife owns him." 
 
 George smiled. Brower hitched himself up 
 on his pillow and put his finger into the book 
 to keep the place. " He was a first-rate fellow 
 good all through and kind of capable; that 
 is, he was worth a salary of eighteen hundred a 
 
141 
 
 year or two thousand. He married a girl with 
 two thousand a month. No head book-keeper, 
 no cashier, no secretary could she let him be af 
 ter that ; no, Johnny must be his own master 
 except as regarded her. To-day he sort o hangs 
 on the outskirts of business, and picks up a lit 
 tle here and a little there he has desk-room 
 somewhere in the Clifton, I believe. He does 
 the best he can to preserve his self-respect, but 
 I don t see how he can pay the bills and the 
 house-rent too." 
 
 " House-rent? They re building I mean, she 
 is." 
 
 " Yaugh !" cried Brower, with deep meaning. 
 
 "Atwater s doing the house for them for 
 her." 
 
 " Atwater?" Brower gave a second hitch to 
 the pillow, and threw the book to the foot of 
 the bed. " He s another. He s had a trip in 
 the same boat." 
 
 " Why, he isn t married." 
 
 "I guess he is just about as hard as any 
 man ever was. But he has fought through gal 
 lantly I ll say that for him." 
 
 " What s his story f 
 
 " Begins in the same way. She was rich, too, 
 and a high-flyer. He had education and family 
 and his profession and no money. He strug 
 gled up for ten years, and now now he stands 
 on his own legs ; his wife has her own money 
 
142 
 
 for her clothes and amusements. He saw he had 
 got to strike society, and he struck it hard ; 
 he costs like smoke. But he snatched victory 
 from defeat. It was a great act. Speaking of 
 acts who do you think I saw there in a stage- 
 box to-night 2" . 
 
 " Who ?" 
 
 " Burt Brainard. Just kick that valise out of 
 the way if you want to." 
 
 " All alone ?" 
 
 " Nope. Girl with him. One of the Clifton 
 type-writers the one who used to be down in 
 the lunch-room." 
 
 "NealieMcNabb?" 
 
 " U m h m." 
 
XI 
 
 MCDOWELL S second check to Yibert proved 
 good on the opening of business next morning. 
 It was paid in the usual mechanical and imper 
 sonal fashion that gives no possible clue to the 
 amount of the balance remaining after; but 
 paid it was, all the same, and Yibert s antici 
 pated opportunity for further invective an op 
 portunity which he considered quite possible, 
 and would have been by no means sorry to em 
 brace came to naught. 
 
 McDowell s friendly intimation that St. Asaph s 
 might presently dispense with Vibert s services 
 was soon found to have as solid a backing as his 
 signature. Within less than a fortnight Vibert 
 was dismissed, though on grounds not altogether 
 the same as those that McDowell had figured upon. 
 If Yibert, after descending to the ground 
 floor, had immediately crossed the great court 
 of the Clifton instead of lingering there for a 
 moment, the outcome might have been quite 
 different. But he paused in the midst of its 
 mosaicked expanse to pull out the check from 
 his pocket and to take another look at it. He 
 projected his vision so far into the future as the 
 
144 
 
 next forenoon, and saw the check again rejected 
 this time by the teller of the Highflyers by 
 reason of " no account," or perhaps by reason of 
 " no funds." He dramatized a precipitous visit 
 to McDowell s office, and improvised the scene 
 of denunciation and vigorous action that was to 
 accompany it. 
 
 " It had better be good this time," he mut 
 tered, with his eyes on the pavement. "I ll 
 strangle him if it ain t." 
 
 He tossed up his head and sent a fierce and 
 frowning glance through one of the great plates 
 of French glass that shut in the court. His eye 
 darted forward on its own level, but ifc saw noth 
 ing save McDowell in his office, ten or twelve 
 floors above. 
 
 Most of the panes that enclosed this central 
 space were of great height and breadth, and 
 were lettered with the silvered styles and titles 
 of various railroad and mining companies ; oth 
 ers, smaller, gave light and some ventilation to 
 a few booth-like shops ; a few others, immova 
 ble half-lights, admitted a little daylight and no 
 air at all to certain closet-like crannies that had 
 a squeezed and crowded role in the Clifton s 
 general economy. One of these last looked out 
 from under a kind of secondary stairway; it 
 lighted the scullery of the Acme Lunch Eoom, 
 and it commanded a view of that side of the 
 court on which Yibert was standing. 
 
145 
 
 Yibert s heel gave a vicious dig into the mo 
 saic pavement and made a quick and rasping 
 turn towards the exit ; he crossed the court 
 with a heavy yet rapid stride, and passed out 
 into the street. He was quite unconscious of 
 observation, but he had been seen. 
 
 Through the half-pane under the stairway a 
 young woman had noted his presence and wit 
 nessed his departure. She was a thin, faded 
 creature, in the forlorn garments of an undis- 
 guisable poverty. All but the faintest traces of 
 good looks seemed to have been taken from her 
 by a long experience with illness and suffering. 
 She stood close against the pane. Her thin fin 
 gers, red and chapped, showed, as they pressed 
 against the glass, the crinkled puffiness that 
 comes from long immersion in hot water, and 
 she stared through v/ith a look of mingled fear, 
 entreaty, and agony. At the glance which Yi 
 bert s indignation over McDowell s trickery sent 
 in her direction, she started and cowered like 
 one who had encountered that glance before ; 
 and when he turned to go she recovered herself, 
 and flung her bosom and her hands against the 
 pane as if bent upon breaking through and fol 
 lowing him. 
 
 A moment later she appeared in the court ; 
 she had put on a shabby hat and a flimsy, faded 
 shawl. She crossed over hastily, and approached 
 the head of the elevator squad. 
 10- 
 
146 
 
 " The tall, dark man who just went out you 
 saw him?" she inquired hurriedly. She spoke in 
 two quick expulsions of the breath, and seemed 
 left without a third. 
 
 " Una ?" The man opposed his gold band and 
 gilt buttons to her forlorn and bedraggled shab- 
 biness. His brief inquiry, made without open 
 ing his lips, had the true official indifference ; but 
 it caused his questioner to feel some of the dis 
 advantage that comes to a young woman from a 
 public and impulsive inquiry after a young man. 
 
 " You saw him standing over there ; he had a 
 paper in his hand. Tell me, does he work in this 
 building?" She was panting and all a-tremble, 
 but she found breath for these words and will to 
 use it. 
 
 " Yes, I saw him," the man answered, with the 
 slow reluctance of his kind to be interested in in 
 dividuals as individuals. " Used to work here, I 
 believe. Haven t seen much of him lately." 
 
 " Where can I find him ?" 
 
 The man turned towards the elevators ; one 
 had just that minute come down. u Chicago !" 
 its youthful conductor had called with an airy 
 drawl. 
 
 " Pete," said his superior ; " a tall, dark man 
 who s been standing around here." He threw 
 his thumb over towards the girl, to indicate that 
 the inquiry was hers. " Had on a soft brown 
 hat." 
 
147 
 
 " Yes, I seen him," said the boy. " Used to 
 be in one of them insurance offices, didn t he? 
 Yibert was that his name ?" 
 
 vi r 
 
 " Yibert," said the man, impatiently. " Come, 
 come, don t block the way sev-en!" he cried, 
 in his professional tone, and the boy at once 
 slammed his door to and started roof wards. 
 
 The man retired into himself with a resump 
 tion of his air of idle dignity. The girl, at a 
 short remove, stood looking at him with an anx 
 ious face. She made a timid attempt to ap 
 proach him again and presently stole away. 
 
 Yibert was followed down from McDowell s 
 office, in the course of half an hour, by Ogden. 
 McDowell s dissertation on tax matters, with its 
 pointed presentation of extreme cases, had left 
 him, as we have seen, in a state more or less 
 stirred up ; and it had occurred to him that if he 
 were to stop on the way down he might find some 
 legal sedative in the office of Freeze & Freeze. 
 But the hour was now rather late; Freeze & 
 Freeze were being locked up by the last of their 
 junior clerks; and Ogden was left to ramble 
 through the corridors in a confused and discon 
 solate state. 
 
 He was presently accosted by a young woman, 
 who appeared to be roaming through the build 
 ing in a state even more dazed and forlorn than 
 his own. She approached him with appeal so 
 
148 
 
 plainly written on her features that his hand 
 went instinctively to his pocket for the ready 
 dime. He was used to addresses of this sort ; 
 Brower had told him many times that he was 
 a "soft mark." He soon ascertained, however, 
 that what she wanted was not alms, but infor 
 mation an appeal which is more familiar still 
 in the great down-town buildings ; it comes fre 
 quently enough from simple, inexperienced creat 
 ures who know what they want, but not at all 
 how to get it. 
 
 The girl thrust back a straggling lock and 
 gave him a glance both wild and timid. 
 
 " Please, sir," she said, " do you know any one 
 in this building named Yibert in an insurance 
 office?" She pronounced the name with an ef 
 fort of overcoming its strangeness. 
 
 There was a certain primitiveness in her speech ; 
 it was provincial, rustic a fine ear might have 
 called it uncouth. 
 
 Ogden was struck with her plaintive " please, 
 sir." He had never before heard that literary 
 form of speech in actual use. 
 
 " Well," he said, with the unceremonious kind 
 ness proper to the occasion and person, " I think 
 you can learn something about him in the office 
 of the Yesuvian next floor below." 
 
 " Oh, thank you, sir !" She made a movement 
 suggestive of an abbreviated courtesy ; it was as 
 much in the way of acknowledgment as her 
 
"THE GTRL GAVE HIM A GLANCE WILD AND TTMID. 
 
149 
 
 sense of strangeness and confusion of mind ap 
 peared to permit. 
 
 " Not that way," called Ogden after her, add 
 ing a benevolent postscript. " Here ; come along 
 down these stairs with me ; I ll show you where 
 it is." 
 
 She stumbled after him down the marble steps 
 with a heavy-footed clatter that could hardly 
 have been expected from her slightness, and with 
 a timorous hold on the bronze of the hand-rail. 
 
 "There," indicated Ogden; "the sixth door 
 along, on the right. Yesuvian Fire Insurance 
 Co. it says." And he himself continued an ab 
 stracted descent by the stairway. 
 
 His nearest way home lay through the court 
 and out of the door that led into the asphalted 
 alley. Just within the archway of this door two 
 men stood. The one was Yibert and the other 
 was a dark young fellow of twenty or more 
 whom Ogden, by a brief glimmer of fancy, made 
 to be Brainard s younger son. Yibert was in 
 the act of receiving a roll of bills from him. 
 
 The youth had a pinched and slender aspect ; 
 there was a furtive tremulousness in his hands ; 
 his eyes were reddish and the pupils swam half 
 hazily in a lucent humor. 
 
 "I didn t know, Mark, but what you d gone 
 back on me, too," Yibert was saying to him. 
 " If you d managed to get around a little sooner 
 you d have saved a certain party from the grand 
 
150 
 
 razoo." He smiled grimly. " It s pretty close 
 sailing thirty, forty, forty-five"- -he ran over 
 the bills, rolled them up, and thrust them into 
 his pocket. 
 
 The boy looked at him with some doubt and 
 with a shade of fear. He seemed to have been 
 fascinated and then dominated by the bigness 
 and the hardihood of the other. 
 
 "It s all right, Mark," Yibert presently went 
 on with a dogged vagueness; "I m his son, too. 
 Why wouldn t he give me any show? "Why 
 wouldn t he let me have a chance to show him 
 what I am ? Why did he go and shut down on 
 me at the very start ?" 
 
 "You!" cried the boy. "What can you ex 
 pect, after the way he s treated me his own 
 son ? They re up there now, I dare say " with 
 a bitter glance towards the corner of the Under 
 ground " but they can never make things right 
 with me. If it hadn t been for Abbie she s 
 about the only one that s turned a hand for me." 
 
 " Haven t I done well by you, too ? don t for 
 get that. Well, you don t sh ! I say you don t. 
 Let the executors settle, and give em plenty 
 to settle, too ; they ll get enough for doing it." 
 Yibert glanced up at the Underground windows. 
 "He can t live forever." He brought his eyes 
 back to the boy. "You ve got to live yourself, 
 though, and so have I. You ve got some rights, 
 haven t you?" 
 
151 
 
 The boy did not accept this cue ; perhaps he 
 had already followed it more than once. He 
 studied Yibert with eyes that seemed to indicate 
 a change of thought. 
 
 " Say, Russ," he hinted, deprecatingly, " you re 
 going to be a little more patient with May me ?" 
 
 Yibert scowled. "Come, now, Marcus, that s 
 all right ; only don t let s have any preaching. 
 What I like is a cheerful house and an orderly 
 one. Less sniffling and better meals. I guess 
 you won t deny that, for a housekeeper, your 
 sister is a good deal of a fizzle. She doesn t have 
 to wash her own dishes, does she? And that 
 girl I got her does the scrubbing and takes up 
 the ashes, doesn t she? And we always take our 
 dinners out, don t we ? Well, then ! I don t see 
 what else we can do but go out altogether." 
 
 He drubbed his foot impatiently on the pave 
 ment. 
 
 " Well, so long !" he said carelessly to his com 
 panion. "Better not take anything more this 
 afternoon. Do I see you on the track to-mor 
 row ?" 
 
 Ogden, of course, heard next to nothing of 
 this talk, and his own preoccupations left him 
 no opportunity to scandalize over the relations 
 between Yibert and the young woman of the 
 corridors, even if his inclinations had run that 
 way. But it need not be denied that so close 
 a grouping of these various persons turned his 
 
152 
 
 thoughts in the direction of the Brainard house 
 hold, and his feet later in the direction of the 
 Brainard house. He had lately been cultivat 
 ing a more sympathetic apprehension of Abbie 
 Brainard s position ; it seemed possible that an 
 hour s talk would offer opportunity for the deli 
 cate insinuation of his friendly interest. He re 
 hearsed a number of suitable phrases ; they took 
 felicitous advantage of remarks on her side re 
 marks which he himself constructed and left 
 her, as she thought them over, in no doubt of 
 his feeling sense of her position and of his de 
 sire to make his sympathies known and opera 
 tive. That all these pretty paces would have 
 been gone through in the absence of the Valen 
 tines is by no means certain ; but their presence 
 excluded the least attempt to try them, and it 
 was with lagging feet indeed that he made his 
 late return home to Brower and " Monte Cristo." 
 
XII 
 
 CORNELIA MC^S"ABB S campaign against the ten 
 ants of the Clifton proceeded apace. Such as 
 pleased her fancy or promised advantage to her 
 future she attacked one by one ; she made quite 
 a succession of engagements, dropping here and 
 picking up there, until she reached the point 
 where, for as many hours of the clay as she 
 chose, her time was occupied, and occupied to 
 her taste. "We have already seen her in the office 
 of the Underground National, and we may now 
 see her in the office of the Massachusetts Brass 
 Company. She did good work within tl]e limits 
 she had set for herself; she was accurate and 
 fairly rapid, and therefore was in considerable 
 request. 
 
 " I d a good deal rather work around like this," 
 she expounded to Ogden, one day, "than put in 
 all my time in one place. Lots more variety, to 
 begin with, and lots more pay. Most every one 
 gives me half as much as I could get in any sin 
 gle office ; and then I can skip around and have 
 more of a show. You can talk about your roll 
 ing stone ; that s all bosh." 
 
 Cornelia was now doing a daily stint of an 
 
154 
 
 hour or so in the office of the Brass Company. 
 This hour came in the middle of the forenoon, 
 and the work was oftener performed under the 
 severe eye of Mrs. Floyd than our young amanu 
 ensis could have wished. Mrs. Floyd s presence 
 in the office had always been rather frequent, 
 and her prejudice against female stenographers 
 did not operate to make it any the less so. She 
 bestowed considerable scrutiny on Cornelia, and 
 Cornelia returned the interest in kind. She rec 
 ognized in Mrs. Floyd one of the minor lights of 
 " Society," and she became more deeply indebted 
 to her for points in costume, speech, and beha 
 vior than either perhaps realized. 
 
 Mrs. Floyd was generally accompanied by Miss 
 Wilde. This provided Cornelia with a double 
 course of instruction : she learned what to do 
 and what to avoid. 
 
 Miss Wilde was generally accompanied by her 
 hand-bag, and that receptacle was capable of an 
 endless yield of documents calculated to irritate 
 and perplex her brother-in-law. Mrs. Floyd en 
 couraged this. Who, indeed, should take an in 
 terest in the affairs of her own sister if not her 
 own husband? 
 
 One morning Ann produced a memorandum 
 that stunned him. As he studied it she stood 
 above him like the spirit of Bankruptcy. 
 
 " For Heaven s sake, Walworth, tell me what 
 it means. Am I a ruined woman, or what ?" 
 
155 
 
 Floyd glanced at the sum total; the figures 
 mounted high. " They have struck you pretty 
 hard, that s a fact." 
 
 It was a bill for special assessments levied on 
 the possessions of Ann E. Wilde, in one of Mc 
 Dowell s subdivisions. Paving, so much ; sewers 
 and water-mains, so much; stone sidewalk, so 
 much. 
 
 " And eighteen dollars and a half for a quarter 
 of a lamp-post," wailed Ann. "Why, Wai worth, 
 I haven t got the money on hand for all this ; I 
 never anticipated such a thing." 
 
 " What s a quarter of a lamp-post good for ?" 
 asked her sister. 
 
 "I suppose the cost is levied on four property- 
 owners," said her husband. 
 
 "And who s going to see by it when it s up?" 
 asked the disconsolate investor. " Nobody ever 
 goes past." 
 
 "Not this year, perhaps; but there ll be plenty 
 next year. You ve no idea how the town is 
 spreading about. Why don t you step upstairs 
 and see McDowell ?" 
 
 " Who starts these things going ?" asked Ann. 
 " Who fixes the amounts ?" 
 
 "I guess it s done sometimes on the petition of 
 other owners about according to the frontage." 
 
 "And who s the principal owner all about 
 there?" demanded Ann. "Ain t it McDowell 
 himself ?" 
 
156 
 
 " Well, I don t suppose he s sold off very much 
 yet." 
 
 " And so he s taxing me to make his own prop 
 erty more valuable. I like that. I m glad 1 
 went to him. And your young Ogden I sup 
 pose I can thank him for this." 
 
 " Good gracious, Ann ; McDowell is taxed, too. 
 The town s growing, and all outlying property is 
 subject to such things. And don t blame poor 
 Ogden." 
 
 " What more can you expect, Ann, in such a 
 half-baked place as this ?" queried her sister. 
 
 "Go up and see McDowell," repeated Wai- 
 worth. " He can tell you all about it when it s 
 payable, and how, and whether there s a rebate 
 or anything." He passed the papers back to 
 Ann with the definitive air that closes a matter. 
 "Jessie didn t come with you, then?" he in 
 quired, turning towards his wife. 
 
 " JS r o, poor thing ; she is away down this 
 morning. Why, what do you think, Wai worth ? 
 They ve been asking her if she can t testify." 
 
 " Testify fiddlesticks ! What could she say ? 
 They don t need her ; they ve got a clear enough 
 case as it is." 
 
 " But think of her in court." 
 
 "Don t think of her in court. She may be 
 a thousand miles away by the time the thing 
 comes up. Has anything more been seen or 
 heard of that interesting vocalist ?" 
 
157 
 
 " Nothing. He left the poor child all alone in 
 that big place, with not three days supplies and 
 the" 
 
 She looked sharply over towards Cornelia. 
 The girl s hour was ended, but she had engaged 
 in a pretence of tidying up the desk. 
 
 Ann creased her papers thoughtfully between 
 her fingers. "I had no idea that curb-stones 
 cost so much," she sighed. " If I had only sold 
 out on that offer last month !" 
 
 Cornelia was now engaged in complicating her 
 apron-strings. Her interest in the Underground 
 people, while becoming no less professional, had 
 become a good deal more personal. She would 
 have given anything for a decent pretext to re 
 main. It was hard indeed to tear herself away 
 from this discussion of the affairs of Burton 
 Brainard s sister. 
 
 " and the gas turned off," Mrs. Floyd fin 
 ished, as the door closed on the reluctant girl. 
 "And that s the state Jessie found her in 
 everything just about as bad as it could be." 
 
 "Well, no," Floyd dissented, thoughtfully. 
 "There s one important consolation this suit 
 could be brought." 
 
 " Oh, yes," answered his wife, quickly. " This 
 Canadian woman doesn t claim to be his wife 
 only that she ought to be, and that he promised 
 to make her so." 
 
 "Interesting family," murmured "Walworth. 
 " Should like to be related to em." 
 
 
158 
 
 " She knew him in Toronto. She found him 
 here before she had been in town a week." 
 
 " Small world," remarked Wai worth, negli 
 gently. He played with his penholders. 
 
 Mrs. Floyd became silent. Gossip seemed out 
 of the question with an indifferent husband and 
 a preoccupied sister. 
 
 Yibert s detection by the girl he had betrayed 
 and discarded, and his desertion of his young 
 wife, were immediately followed by the proper 
 steps on the part of Brainard s attorneys. The 
 old man had received the intelligence of Yibert s 
 double misdeed with a tremendous outburst of 
 wrath and vituperation. His indignation re 
 vived in him all the crude violence of his youth ; 
 he drew out from the disused corners of his mem 
 ory such a vocabulary and such turns of phrase 
 as are possible only to one whose boyhood has 
 been spent on the crass and barbaric frontier. 
 He towered and swayed like a rank plant that 
 has sprung rapidly from the earth and has 
 brought up the slime and mould on its sheath 
 and stalk. His prodigal and picturesque inde 
 cencies were heard but half understandingly by 
 his son, and were lost, as to everything save 
 their animus, on his advisers. 
 
 The equilibrium of the scales (whose math 
 ematical poise he had once proven to his own 
 satisfaction) was now destroyed ; this outrage on 
 his daughter and himself and all his belongings 
 
159 
 
 put another and a different face on the matter. 
 The girl was received back into her father s 
 house. It was the understanding that she was 
 to remain there until the legal undoing of all 
 this mischief had been accomplished, and that, 
 afterwards, she must prepare herself for an in 
 definite exile among certain of her father s rela 
 tives still resident in Centralia. 
 
 During this interval Brainard allowed him 
 self only the minimum of communication with 
 his daughter ; her mother s fluttering sympathies 
 were too tenuous and too faded to furnish any 
 thing very definite or vivid in the way of conso 
 lation ; her brother did not readily abandon him 
 self to the softer feelings particularly when 
 work of so much sterner character was before 
 them ; and but for her sister this crushed and un 
 fortunate child would have received but slender 
 support and comfort. Abbie was not only sister, 
 but mother and family circle too ; she found a 
 use for all the pent-up tenderness and domestic 
 ity of her nature. 
 
 The bill in the case of Vibert vs. Vibert was 
 filed without receiving any undue attention from 
 the press. Some exertions Avere taken, some in 
 fluence was used, and the matter merely made a 
 cold, official, numerical appearance in the legal 
 columns of such of the dailies as affect complete 
 court reports. The relations between Yibert 
 and Jane Doane, however, made too good a 
 
160 
 
 "story" to be ignored in every quarter; some 
 brief mention of it appeared in a new and strug 
 gling one-cent evening paper. The friends and 
 well-wishers of the Brainards were surprised by 
 the extent of that paper s circulation a good 
 many people appeared to have seen it. 
 
 The case of Vibert vs. Yibert had its place 
 near the head of a short docket and was reached 
 with much less than the usual delay. It was 
 tried quietly and privately rather late one after 
 noon at a sitting which might have been termed 
 either a prolongation of the regular session or a 
 supplement to it. Perhaps only a legal mind 
 could have distinguished ; probably the legal 
 mind that dominated the occasion did not at 
 tempt the distinction. 
 
 The matter was adjusted in a small and com 
 pact court-room high up in a certain vast and pil 
 lared pile a room which differed little in size 
 and not greatly in furnishings from an ordinary 
 office. The court reporters and the crowd of 
 court loungers had withdrawn ; nobody remained 
 behind save the clerk and a bailiff or two. Yet 
 the spectre of publicity seemed hovering there ; 
 it hurled a flood of glaring light in through the 
 high and curtainless windows, it shimmered on 
 the staring yellow oak furnishings of bench and 
 bar, and it searched out the darkest corner of the 
 yawning jury-box. Abbie Brainard, standing 
 beside her sister, peopled all this void with jar- 
 
161 
 
 goning lawyers and callous constables and mali 
 cious witnesses and indifferent jurymen and 
 sharp-witted reporters and trivial, time-killing 
 spectators ; and then, she set her unveiled sister 
 in that revolving witness-chair and brought to 
 bear upon her the searching glare from the lofty 
 windows and the more pitiless glare of the thou 
 sand-eyed crowd. She shuddered, and thanked 
 Heaven without going too deeply beneath the/ 
 surface of things that present conditions were 
 so favorable. 
 
 For they involved none of the ordinary phe 
 nomena of a " trial." There was no wrangling, 
 no eloquence, no auditory ; there was no humil 
 iation beyond that which was inevitable. It 
 was hardly more than a conference. The judge, 
 with a quiet gravity, took a simple conversa 
 tional tone a keynote to which the indigna 
 tion of Burt, the mortification of his sister, the 
 sorrow of Jane Doane, and the juvenility of 
 Freddy Pratt all came to be attuned. There 
 was a simple recital of uncombated facts, the 
 separation was decreed, and Mary Yibert was 
 presently at liberty to resume her maiden 
 name. It was considered best that she be 
 known henceforth as Mrs. Mary Brainard. 
 There was no report in the next day s papers, 
 nor the next ; on the third day things took a 
 different turn. 
 
 One or two of the newspapers had sacrificed 
 11 
 
162 
 
 the Yibert-Doane story with considerable reluc 
 tance. They felt a certain degree of martyrdom, 
 too, in withholding their hand from Brainard, 
 who had been a standard subject of attack 
 throughout the careers of all the younger writ 
 ers. Nor were they at all sure that their posi 
 tion as guardians of the public morals justified 
 any such suppression of the truth. They learned 
 of the clandestine trial of the Yibert case, and 
 that decided them. Their virtue was strength 
 ened ; the whole affair was reopened and 
 thoroughly ventilated. The encroachments of 
 wealth and privilege were held up before the 
 alarmed eyes of the public; the entire episode, 
 with everything leading up to it, was minutely 
 rehearsed. A good many people were inter 
 viewed a few who knew something of the cir 
 cumstances, a good many who did not. Repor- 
 torial requisitions were also made on the bank 
 and the house. Some persons contributed facts 
 relating to the matter in hand ; others, facts re 
 lating to matters whose connection was not so 
 close; still others volunteered opinions on the 
 method of procedure that made the trial note 
 worthy. "Vox Populi" and "Kuat Coelum" 
 wrote letters " to the editor." Hough cuts from 
 sketches and photographs made their appear 
 ance. The whole career of Brainard was re 
 viewed with merciless detail, and the issue of 
 one edition of a particular publication was at- 
 
163 
 
 tended with the shouting of his name through 
 the streets. Certain sheets whose existence is 
 unknown to the majority of reputable people 
 and whose circulation is in accordance therewith, 
 gave their clients a scare-head full of exclama 
 tion-points ; and one pink publication, whose 
 single connection with respectability is through 
 the barber-shops, devoted its whole front page 
 to the illustration of the case : the wronged girl 
 claimed her surpliced betrayer at the altar-rail, 
 while the equally wronged wife swooned in a 
 front pew. There was an appropriate Gothic 
 background, while one corner of the foreground 
 piquant touch of innocence was filled in by 
 an open-eyed choir-boy. 
 
 All these manifestations of public interest 
 caused Ogden a keen personal distress that sur 
 prised him. He heard the names of Brainard 
 and Yibert bawled in the streets. He became 
 familiar, for the first time, with the salient 
 points in Brainard s career. He heard himself 
 referred to once or twice as a clerk in Brainard s 
 bank. As he handled that pink sheet in the 
 Clifton barber-shop while awaiting his turn, he 
 half expected some acquaintance to brand him 
 as a caller at Brainard s house. As he lay, lath 
 ered and defenceless, in his chair, he almost 
 dreaded lest some pitiless friend might happen 
 in and stamp him as a suitor for the hand of 
 Brainard s daughter. . . . He paused and blushed 
 
164 
 
 under the barber s eye ; he saw now the reason 
 for his personal distress over these odious domes 
 tic entanglements. His surprise passed away, 
 but it left behind it a distress greater still. 
 
XIII 
 
 THE appearance and deportment of young 
 Frederick Pratt as a witness in the Yibert case 
 offered several delicate shades whose noting and 
 whose accounting for may justify a paragraph 
 or two. His general effect, then, was in the 
 highest degree sobered, chastened, depressed. 
 To what was this to be attributed ? 
 
 To his consciousness of the overshadowing 
 majesty of the law ? ]STo ; for the law had 
 turned its softest and most silken side outward ; 
 the little party had taken up its informal group 
 ing at the judge s elbow and had replied con 
 versationally to the interrogations of the judge 
 himself or to the prompting inquiries of Brain- 
 ard s attorney. Justicia had appeared in her 
 most sympathetic and domestic aspect. 
 
 Was the youth disappointed as to his perform 
 ance of a lean role f There is no doubt that he 
 had anticipated with some relish his first appear 
 ance in the witness-box. He would have been 
 obliged, it is true, to confess himself a minor, 
 and he might have been exposed to the humili 
 ating necessity of declaring that he understood 
 the nature of an oath ; but after that all would 
 
166 
 
 have been smooth sailing. Only to be for full 
 fifteen minutes the observed of all observers, to 
 be able to lift up his voice and tell all he- 
 knew ! Yet to be balked in this called for exas 
 peration rather than deep dejection, and deep 
 dejection, after all, was what he chiefly showed. 
 
 Was this dejection the sign of sympathetic 
 sorrow for the woes of his former friend and 
 playmate? Not quite. His sympathy, while 
 real enough, was largely the sprightly product 
 of novelty, curiosity, and conscious self-impor 
 tance ; unentangled with other considerations, 
 it would have shown itself in a nervous and 
 volatile loquacity. 
 
 But Freddy in court was not loquacious ; he 
 gave his testimony after a benumbed and back 
 ward fashion that indicated other and deeper 
 troubles. The boy, in fact, was under a cloud. 
 An issue of some importance had arisen between 
 the Underground National Bank and its young 
 est messenger; it involved no less a question 
 than that of meum and tuum. Freddy Pratt, 
 as messenger, had been in the habit of making 
 two or three daily trips through the business dis 
 trict, during which the notes and acceptances 
 that filled his big official wallet came to be 
 exchanged for checks and greenbacks that rep 
 resented corresponding values. One or two dis 
 crepancies had developed that called for atten 
 tion. 
 
167 
 
 The boy s father came down to the Under 
 ground to contribute his share of this attention. 
 He was a grave, repressive, saturnine person, 
 who might have been set down as possessed of 
 far greater means to meet the requirements of a 
 growing boy in the midst of a circle of well-to- 
 do urban acquaintances than of inclination to 
 study those requirements. He was received in 
 Brainard s own private room, and the affairs of 
 the penitent and sobbing boy were discussed 
 over his head by his parent and his employer. 
 
 " You foolish child," said the elder Pratt to 
 his son, in the self-conscious tone by which we 
 address age through youth ; " if you wanted any 
 thing, why didn t you ask me for it ?" 
 
 This father, seriously handicapped as he was 
 by his own temperament, was attempting to 
 treat the matter as something rather slight and 
 trivial. The pettiness of the amount involved, 
 the perfect ease of restitution, the youth of the 
 offender, the utter simplicity and primitiveness 
 of his method all these he touched upon with a 
 feint of light-handed ease. Another might have 
 blown an airy bubble like this, even in the face 
 of Brainard s ominous and taciturn frown ; but 
 Pratt was not the man to do it. He soon left 
 the upper air of informal jocularity for the firmer 
 ground of argument and expostulation, and this 
 ground, before he ended, was almost pressed by 
 the knees of entreaty. 
 
168 
 
 " It s plain enough," said Brainard, at length ; 
 " he took it, and he kept it." 
 
 Each one, from his own point of view, cast his 
 eye on the culprit. 
 
 " But it can t be that you mean to ruin a boy s 
 future in any such way as this?" snarled the 
 boy s father "with a rasping expostulation. 
 
 Brainard turned a look on him from under his 
 overhanging brows. 
 
 " Um," he merely said, in a voice which might 
 have meant anything. 
 
 But the affair presently came to adjustment 
 a treaty with several clauses. Brainard wished 
 to use the boy in court ; to dispose of the Vibert 
 matter in the cursory fashion that he hoped to 
 follow permitted scant margin for the plea of 
 desertion, and he was depending on young Pratt 
 for the recital of certain occurrences which, in a 
 cumulative way, might have their bearings on 
 the plea of cruelty. Pratt, Jr., was to testify in 
 court, Pratt, Sr., was to reimburse the bank, and 
 the boy s final dismissal from the Underground 
 w r ould then be timed in a way so disassociated 
 from any particular cause as to excite no com 
 ment and to occasion no injury. But all this 
 was scant and nominal payment for Brainard s 
 clemency ; a larger one followed. 
 
 Brainard owned a number of woe-begone tene 
 ments scattered here and there over that unat 
 tractive part of the West Side which is most 
 
169 
 
 affected by manufacturers of furniture. One of 
 these tumble-down dwellings adjoined a large lot 
 owned by Ingles took out one corner, in fact, in 
 such a way as to interfere seriously with its value 
 for building purposes. Ingles, in treaty with a 
 furniture firm for the putting up of a building, 
 had made an offer for this corner. Brainard, 
 informed as to the circumstances, had put a price 
 on it that was excessive exorbitant. Ingles had 
 taken time for consideration; and at the very 
 moment of Pratt s call a letter from him lay on 
 Brainard s desk, to the effect that he was looking 
 elsewhere ; evidently, on principle, he was draw 
 ing off. Brainard had no use for the property, 
 and it was hardly paying taxes. He wanted to 
 sell it at his own figure, and he had expected 
 to. Ingles s tactics nettled him ; he solaced him 
 self by a step that reached Ingles and Pratt at 
 the same time. He sardonically raised his price 
 a peg higher, and offered the property to Pratt 
 with an intimation that refusal would not be 
 entertained. He put his lot still further beyond 
 the reach of Ingles s possible necessities, and he 
 made it realize even more than Ingles had de 
 clined to pay. Pratt swallowed this mouthful 
 with such grace as he could command ; and with 
 the celerity possible to a perfected system of 
 land transfer when supplemented by the guaran 
 tee of a title company, Norval II. Pratt, in a 
 day or two, became the owner, at an excessive 
 
170 
 
 price, of a piece of property for which he had 
 no use, and for which, so far as he knew, no one 
 else had any use either. 
 
 This transaction was at once noted by Mc 
 Dowell, whose study of the daily transfers as 
 reported in the real-estate publications was mi 
 nute, and whose attention had been fixed for some 
 time on this particular piece of ground. He 
 knew something of Ingles s intentions, through 
 the people whom Ingles was endeavoring to ac 
 commodate, and he saw here the entering wedge 
 that he had waited for so long. He had ap 
 proached Brainard unsuccessfully ; he now tried 
 Pratt. Pratt, who figured himself justly enough 
 as a lamb led to the shearing, made no effort to 
 evade the role ; he promptly made an agreement 
 for the transfer of the Brainard lot to McDow 
 ell. He let it go at a decided sacrifice he sold 
 it at a possible shade under its actual value. 
 
 McDowell, whose eagerness had committed 
 him to an out-and-out purchase, was now in a 
 position to approach Ingles. He was willing to 
 sell the ground for simply what it had cost him ; 
 his profits would come later, through that open 
 door between 1262 and 1263. Ingles received him 
 coldly. He had disposed, he said, of his holdings 
 in that neighborhood, and was using the pro 
 ceeds to build for his new tenants in another 
 quarter. He bowed McDowell out with a faintly 
 cynical contempt, and this enterprising person 
 
171 
 
 was left with an unpromising piece of ground 
 on his hands to dispose of as best he might. He 
 tried the new purchasers of Ingles s lot; his own 
 was not necessary to their purposes. 
 
 McDowell was seriously embarrassed. This 
 bit of ground was a trifle in itself to Ingles or 
 to Pratt it mattered little either way ; but to 
 McDowell, who was of a considerably smaller 
 calibre, the thing came as a kind of last straw. 
 In expectation of great activity in acres he had 
 loaded himself down with outside property ; 
 everything of his own was invested in that way, 
 everything that was his wife s, and something, 
 to tell the truth, that was neither his nor his 
 wife s. He was in up to his chin, and at this 
 moment came Ogden, asking him in set terms 
 for an accounting and a settlement. 
 
 McDowell met this demand with a promise 
 of figures, and he renewed this promise several 
 times. The intervals between gave opportunity 
 for a slow insinuation of the truth for a grad 
 uated confession that a considerable part of old 
 Mr. Ogden s estate was tied up in the operations 
 of his son-in-law. This confession was followed 
 by his statement ; but it was some time before 
 the account opened at the Underground by 
 George received any great enlargement through 
 the agent of the administratrix. 
 
 " It s all right, though," McDowell said ; "you 
 don t need to worry, and there s no use in stir- 
 
172 
 
 ring things up. There s big money ahead, and 
 you ll stand in." 
 
 But the statement was the ground, and a suf 
 ficient one, for a rupture. McDowell, in order 
 to diminish his indebtedness to the estate, had 
 charged it with various fees and percentages of 
 his own, and with numerous items that properly 
 concerned his individual and household expenses. 
 He charged the estate with a new porch on the 
 front of his own house, and with the full ex 
 pense of railway travel which had been under 
 taken in great part for his own interests. He 
 even made a hardy attempt to force the Brainard 
 lot upon the indignant widow. 
 
 Mrs. Ogden immediately left his house, in spite 
 of the good offices of her bewildered daughter. 
 George himself, forecasting the future, beheld a 
 long succession of wrangling days in the law- 
 courts and in the offices of attorneys days that 
 threatened to surpass in worry, loss, expense, 
 and nerve-wear anything that his family had 
 experienced yet. He felt himself on the thresh 
 old of a struggle for which he was but scantily 
 equipped, and in which he was certain to be se 
 riously handicapped through consideration for 
 .Kittle. 
 
 Absorbed in these moody reflections, he was 
 crossing the court of the Clifton on a Saturday 
 afternoon when a pencil-tap on one of the great 
 glass panes took his attention. The tap was 
 
173 
 
 sounded on the court frontage of Darrell & 
 Bradley s branch, and George started from his 
 revery to see the face of Bradley himself looking 
 out at him over the rulers, mucilage bottles, and 
 memorandum - books that formed symmetrical 
 piles within. 
 
 Bradley hastened to throw open the narrow 
 glass door adjoining the show-window, and mo 
 tioned George in with a friendly and quizzical 
 grimace. 
 
 "Let Jones walk," he said, crinkling up his 
 eyes and laying his fat hand on Ogden s shoul 
 der. 
 
 " He is walking," responded George, with a 
 wan smile. 
 
 Bradley drew him in and closed the door. 
 
 " Well, let him walk in a different path, then. 
 Let him come out to Hinsdale to-morrow and 
 try the primrose path." 
 
 " Of dalliance ?" asked George, with a doleful 
 attempt to meet half-way the cheery facetious- 
 ness of the other. 
 
 " Well, I don t think a little dalliance would 
 hurt him." Bradley made it seem quite absurd 
 that a young fellow of twenty -five should have 
 any real cares and annoyances. " All work and 
 no pla}^ you know." 
 
 "I m afraid so," admitted George, with a 
 pathos that the elder man found amusing. 
 
 Bradley stepped back to a snug office that was 
 
174 
 
 stowed away behind a tall piece of shelving 
 piled with newly bound account-books, to pick 
 up his hat. " I m glad to have caught sight of 
 you," he proceeded, with the friendliness of an 
 elder brother ; " I ve just taken an hour or so to 
 overhaul things here a little. If you re going 
 north, I ll walk a block or two with you." 
 
 They passed out into the street and picked 
 their way along through the splashing, slumping, 
 and dripping that marks the spring break-up. 
 They elbowed other pedestrians over miry flag 
 gings, and they dodged the muddy spray that 
 bumping trucks sent up from the street - car 
 tracks at almost every crossing. 
 
 " My wife s wondering what has become of 
 you," Bradley puffed out among many other 
 things, as he tried to keep up with Ogden s 
 supple and light-footed gait. " And Jessie, too. 
 She s home to-morrow just back from Evan- 
 ston. You come out on the eleven fifty-five, and 
 we ll have an early dinner, and that will leave 
 enough of the afternoon to make things worth 
 while. And we ll show you that spring is a 
 little nearer at hand than you d suspect in town. 
 Your first spring here ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Pretty bad, ain t it ?" 
 
 " Worse than Boston," said George, in a tone 
 implying that nothing further could be added. 
 
 At the next corner Bradley paused, detaining 
 him for a moment with a friendly hand. 
 
175 
 
 " Sunday noon, then. You provide the dal 
 liance and we ll see to the primroses. Care any 
 thing for em ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, indeed." 
 
 " Good thing ; can t have chrysanthemums 
 all the year round. Well, good-by. Jessie will 
 drive down for you in the buggy." 
 
 " I ll be there," called Ogden, as they drifted 
 apart in the thickening crowd. 
 
 He had reached the point where he felt it 
 would be a relief to cut away from town and 
 everything in it the bustle, the uproar, the 
 filth, the routine of the bank, the complications 
 of the Brainards, the entanglements of the Og- 
 dens. It was a simple thing to do only so 
 many miles of flimsy and shabby shanties and 
 back views of sheds and stables ; of grimy, cin 
 dered switch - yards, with the long flanks of 
 freight-houses and interminable strings of loaded 
 or empty cars; of dingy viaducts and groggy 
 lamp-posts and dilapidated fences whose scanty 
 remains called to remembrance lotions and ton 
 ics that had long passed their vogue ; of groups 
 of Sunday loungers before saloons, and gangs of 
 unclassifiable foreigners picking up bits of coal 
 along the tracks ; of muddy crossings over roads 
 whose bordering ditches were filled with flocks 
 of geese ; of wide prairies cut up by endless 
 tracks, dotted with pools of water, and rustling 
 with the dead grasses of last summer ; then sub- 
 
176 
 
 urbs new and old some in the fresh promise of 
 sidewalks and trees and nothing else, others un 
 kempt, shabby, gone to seed ; then a high pas 
 sage over a marshy plain, a range of low 
 wooded hills, emancipation from the dubious 
 body known as the Cook County Commissioners 
 and Hinsdale. 
 
 At the station Jessie Bradley sat drawn up in 
 a buggy ; she had her place in a small conven 
 tion of phaetons, carryalls, and express-wagons. 
 She tossed her head brightly and waved her 
 whip. 
 
 " I could have walked as well as not," said 
 Ogden, climbing in. " What s half a mile ?" 
 
 " Three quarters almost," she corrected. She 
 gathered up the lines and secured the approved 
 hold on the whip. "Unless you care to drive ?" 
 she suggested. 
 
 " Not particular," replied Ogden, leaning back 
 easily. " Quite willing to be a passenger." 
 
 He took a look at her sidewise from behind. 
 She wore a pert little flat-brimmed, flat-crowned 
 hat, set straight on the top of her head ; a stray 
 lock of hair brushed across her ear in the breeze ; 
 she had a bunch of pale purple primroses at her 
 throat. 
 
 " You may if you want to," she said, with a 
 sudden turn in his direction. Her eyes snapped 
 and sparkled. 
 
 " I d as soon see you unless you don t care to." 
 
177 
 
 " Ohj as far as that goes ! Just hold on tight, 
 though. Get up, John !" 
 
 She drew a taut rein and flicked the horse 
 over the ear. He was a mettlesome five-year- 
 old, and he rushed into his best gait at once. 
 " Here we go !" she cried, " Sunday or no Sun 
 day. I hate to poke." 
 
 She rushed him through the outskirts of the 
 town; she bumped over the cumbrous plank 
 crossings, she grazed one or two of the wooden 
 posts that held up oil-lamps, she charged a flock 
 on its homeward way from church and cut it into 
 two frightened and indignant halves. She was 
 on her native heath ; she felt it ; she showed it. 
 
 George grasped the buggy -cover with his left 
 hand and held his right in readiness to seize the 
 reins. The buggy, with many a bump and sud 
 den wrench, sped on over the stones and ruts 
 and puddles and rough crossings of an indiffer 
 ent country road, and presently it turned into a 
 yard with a rasping graze on one of the two 
 painted white posts that made the entrance way. 
 On the side porch of the house stood the girl s 
 parents. They were laughing. 
 
 Jessie jumped out briskly. She struck a mas 
 culine attitude on the carriage-block, her right 
 hand resting on the stock of her whip, her left 
 arm a-kimbo. 
 
 " I was to get yer through on time ; them was 
 my orders, and here ye are !" 
 12 
 
178 
 
 George climbed out carefully. 
 
 " Poor Horace !" chuckled Bradley, coming 
 down; "he s here all right, but is he able to 
 give his lecture ?" 
 
 Mrs. Bradley followed, to shake hands. She 
 wore a black silk dress, and there was a bit of 
 lace over her thin hair an adornment which her 
 consciousness seemed to put forth as a modish 
 novelty. Her wrinkles all flowed together in a 
 companionable smile. 
 
 " He may have lost his voice on the way," she 
 joked, "but we hope he saved his appetite." 
 
 " They re both all right," said George, laugh 
 ing in turn. 
 
 Bradley was at the horse s head. " The voice 
 is there, anyway," he said in cautious acknowl 
 edgment. " And we ll see about the appetite as 
 soon as you ve got enough spare breath to say 
 Amen to our grace/ 
 
 The Bradley house was a mere box of a build 
 ing set in an acre lot. They had built for them 
 selves, on finally breaking with the city, two 
 years before ; and they had accepted the gables 
 and dormers and shingles and the brown and 
 yellow paint that the modest suburban house of 
 the period finds it so difficult to evade. They 
 stood on high, roiling ground ; there were half- 
 hints of considerable vistas here and there, and 
 they were surrounded by groves and copses 
 through which, to-day, the first faint colors of 
 
179 
 
 the spring were hurtling. Bradley, after dinner, 
 walked Ogclen around the house previous visits 
 had been confined to the parlor. He dwelt on 
 the swelling of the lilac buds, and he drew at 
 tention with an impartial interest to the first 
 sproutings of his peonies and of his rhubarb. 
 The back of the place was littered with the 
 debris of a second green-house in an advanced 
 stage of construction, and through this disorder 
 he picked his way, along with his daughter and 
 his guest, towards the door of the first. 
 
 " Hop in," said Bradley, lifting his own foot 
 over the perpendicular threshold. The air within 
 was but a few degrees warmer than the air with 
 out, yet closer. On either side stretched frag- 
 mental beds of young plants, with frequent 
 breaks between. " It s late for prims, after all ; 
 and a good many of them are outside, anyway." 
 He waved his hand over a few patches of color 
 on the left ; there were white, pink, cherry, pale 
 purple, such as Jessie was wearing, and a few be 
 lated clumps of young and indeterminate green. 
 
 Ogden passed to and fro, with the oh s and 
 all s that accompany the exposition of any host s 
 pet hobby, however partial and trifling the ex 
 hibit may be. He had done the same last autumn 
 with the chrysanthemums. 
 
 Bradley took this tribute with the customary 
 complacency, and presently drifted to one side 
 for a word with his man about a small matter of 
 
180 
 
 glazing he had quite an eye for broken panes. 
 Ogden leaned against a damp ledge. Jessie had 
 seated herself on one of the steps of a rude flow 
 er-stand; she brushed aside two or three small 
 pots that had been left standing on it. 
 
 She showed an air of lassitude ; it had been 
 stealing over her all through dinner, and now it 
 had completely overtaken her in the languid at 
 mosphere of the flowers. Her slender arms hung 
 limply, and she moved her back as if to find a 
 comfortable rest for it. Her face, under the pal 
 lor of the painted glass, looked rather colorless 
 and a little drawn, and a languorous apathy 
 seemed to have taken the sparkle from her eyes. 
 
 She looked up at him as she dropped the pet 
 als of a primrose one by one. " You didn t care 
 to drive, then ?" 
 
 " Did you want me to ? I m sorry not to have 
 understood. You drove down, and so I thought- 
 Was it too much for you, both ways ?" 
 
 " Oh, no. It only struck me that you might 
 want to. You were not that is, you understand 
 horses ?" 
 
 " Certainly ; I drive on occasion." He smiled 
 serenely, not in the least disturbed by her per 
 fectly obvious thought. " However, a wise man 
 never goes out of his way to handle a strange 
 horse perhaps that isn t one of Solomon s prov 
 erbs, but it ought to be." 
 
 " You are awfully cautious." She rose unde- 
 
181 
 
 cidedly, and presently she sat down again with a 
 little sigh. 
 
 " I have to be. That is my business from 
 half-past eight till four. Perhaps it s growing 
 on me." 
 
 " I don t mean that. You were born cautious ; 
 you d be cautious anyway." 
 
 "I m a Down-easter, you know. Look before 
 you leap. Perhaps I shall learn the off-hand 
 Western ways in time. I ll try to. I ll make 
 myself over." 
 
 " I wonder if you can," she said, half to her 
 self. Then aloud : 
 
 "But I don t believe all Down-easters are as 
 careful as you are. There must be lots of them 
 who would have just laid the whip on that horse, 
 and run over a boy or two, and knocked our 
 gate-post to pieces, and come up to the door 
 with a wheel just ready to break to flinders. 
 Why couldn t you have done it ? I shouldn t 
 have minded it I should have liked it first-rate." 
 She spoke with a kind of lingering drawl, and 
 there was a half-smile in her lack-lustre eye. 
 
 " Your father would have minded it, though, 
 and so should I. Never begin to dance without 
 arranging about the fiddler good rule, don t you 
 think?" 
 
 She threw a bare stem to the ground. " Oh, 
 yes ; but tiresome." She rose. " Close in here, 
 isn t it ? Let s go outside." 
 
XIV 
 
 THE sun that had given some warmth to the 
 early hours of the afternoon was dimmed, later, 
 by an overcasting of thin clouds, and the rest of 
 the time was passed in-doors. George smoked a 
 friendly cigar with Bradley in the dining-room, 
 and after Mrs. Bradley had disappeared for a 
 short nap he whiled away the remaining hours 
 with Jessie in the parlor. They sat in two easy- 
 chairs on opposite sides of the fireplace, in which 
 a handful of coal was working against the last 
 lingering chill of winter. The girl had partly re 
 covered her earlier tone, and she chatted with 
 him in a string of smart jocularities with the 
 manner which sometimes assures a doubtful call 
 er that he has not made a mistake in coming and 
 that he has not remained too long after coming. 
 But between these uptilted strata of facetious- 
 ness there came now and then a layer of greater 
 seriousness, and in one of these intervals she 
 trenched on the domestic affairs of the Brainards. 
 
 "Poor Mayme went South the other day, 
 didn t she ? I hardly suppose you could call it a 
 visit?" She looked at him soberly, with her eye 
 brows slightly raised. 
 
183 
 
 George winced. " To visit her uncle s family," 
 he answered. He half wondered why he reiter 
 ated her word and even emphasized it. 
 
 " Her sister was going to run down there with 
 her." 
 
 " I heard so." 
 
 " You see Abbie occasionally ?" 
 
 " Occasionally." 
 
 " I suppose she is at the bank a good deal ?" 
 
 "Not often." He fixed his eye on the last 
 flickerings of the coals and lapsed into silence. 
 It w r as not so easy now as once before to discuss 
 Abbie Brainard with Jessie Bradley. 
 
 Mrs. Bradley came in brisk and refreshed 
 about half an hour before train -time. The 
 young people were chatting amusedly enough 
 on indifferent subjects, and she urged Ogden to 
 stay to tea with the clinging insistency of the 
 suburban housekeeper. 
 
 " You can go home by moonlight ; I ve ar 
 ranged it all for you." She drew aside a win 
 dow curtain and showed him a pale white disk 
 in a bluish sky. 
 
 " It s full, you see. We just have cold meat 
 and tea and biscuits I don t want to keep you 
 under false pretences." 
 
 The moon kept faith with his hostess ; light 
 ing him to the station and following him in to 
 town and keeping him in sight through a mile of 
 noisy and glaring streets. From the car-window, 
 
1S4 
 
 now and then, as the train passed back through 
 a string of scattered suburbs and crossed the flat 
 reaches of prairie-land between he was conscious 
 of her bland insipidity ; and as he traversed the 
 down-town business district she raked the long 
 parallels of the east-and-west streets with an un- 
 discriminating indifference that a mind less pre 
 occupied might have found irritating. It was 
 all the same to that big, foolish face town and 
 country were one. It had its vacuous smile for 
 trees and fields, and it had the same smile for 
 the variant lights of the street - cars, for the 
 clamorous cab-drivers around the depots, for the 
 flaring jewelled guide-posts of the theatres, for 
 the gaudy fronts of sample-rooms, for the cheap 
 dishevelment of occasional strayed revellers, for 
 the signs of chiropodists and the swinging shin 
 gles of justices of the peace, and for a certain 
 meditative young man, whether he was travers 
 ing the rustic roads of Hinsdale or the sophisti 
 cated planks of the State Street Bridge. Ogden s 
 thoughts flowed along with a quiet and grateful 
 sense of the friendliness of the Bradleys, and 
 with many a ripple, wave, and eddy to corre 
 spond with the changing moods of their daugh 
 ter. He made a careful rehearsal of some of 
 their bits of talk why had she said this ? what 
 had she meant by that ? why had she done the 
 other ? He dwelt on these matters with an ab 
 sorbed speculation, and with a young man of 
 
185 
 
 Ogden s temperament speculation was but the 
 first step on the way to love. 
 
 The spring trailed along slowly, with all its 
 discomforts of latitude and locality, and then 
 came the long, fresh evenings of early June, 
 when domesticity brings out its rugs and drug 
 gets, and invites its friends and neighbors to sit 
 with it on its front steps. The Brainards had 
 these appendages to local housekeeping linger 
 ing reminders of a quick growth from village to 
 city. Theirs was a large rug made of two 
 breadths of Brussels carpeting and surrounded 
 on all four sides with a narrow border of pink 
 and blue flowers on a moss-colored background. 
 This rug covered the greater part of the long 
 flight of lime-stone steps. In the beautiful cool 
 ness of these fresh June evenings Abbie fre 
 quently sat there on the topmost step, under the 
 jig-saw lace-work of the balcony-like canopy over 
 the front door, while her mother occupied a car 
 pet camp-chair within the vestibule and lan 
 guidly allowed the long twilight to overtake her 
 neglected chess-board. They sat out, now, only 
 after dark. Ogden called at intervals, and was 
 not flattered that the poor girl brightened at his 
 coming ; it seemed as if she must brighten at the 
 coming of almost anybody. 
 
 One evening he elected to tell off their long 
 street on foot the street whose ornamental 
 lamp-posts and infrequent spindling elms had 
 
186 
 
 partly decided him in the selection of his first 
 quarters. "When within a few streets of the 
 Brainard corner he passed a house (one of a long 
 row) on whose front steps (as with its neighbors, 
 right and left) were camped a large and merry 
 party, whose exaggerated domesticity made it 
 plain that they were all fellow-boarders. They 
 occupied two rugs as well as two chairs and a 
 foot-stool at the head of the steps. Through 
 their light-minded hubbub came dominatingly a 
 voice which Ogden recognized, and he threw up 
 his head to meet the frank but overdone bow of 
 Cornelia McNabb. Beside Cornelia sat a young 
 man who bowed at the same time with a some 
 what forced and conscious smile. It was Burton 
 Brainard. 
 
 Cornelia had returned to the neighborhood of 
 her early trials. She considered herself now on 
 a distinctly fashionable street; she put "Wash 
 ington Boulevard" on her cards, and thought her 
 eight dollars a week was none too much. She 
 had had a plate engraved and a hundred cards 
 printed. She had not found it easy to dispose 
 of many of them ; sometimes she gave them in 
 shops, when she was asked to what address the 
 goods were to be sent. 
 
 " But just wait till I order my next plate !" 
 she would say to herself. 
 
 She had left one of her cards with Mrs. Gore. 
 The poor, good soul (come in from her baking) 
 
187 
 
 was quite taken aback. Then Cornelia, con 
 scious of too stiff an application of the social 
 code, kissed her on coming away and made her 
 self more intelligible. 
 
 " Yes," Abbie was saying to Ogden, a few 
 minutes later, " Cornelia is a pretty smart girl. 
 Father has come to be quite taken with her." 
 
 He noticed that she said Cornelia. 
 
 " She takes down some of his letters, now, 
 too," she continued. " / never learned," she 
 added, in a tone of slight self-reproach. 
 
 " Good Peter !" exclaimed Ogden, with a pro 
 testing admiration, "you can do almost every 
 thing else !" 
 
 She waved aside this ardent apology, and 
 looked rather shyly through the rusty iron-work 
 of the hand-rail. The syringas were in blossom ; 
 the asphalt path had stopped its afternoon s run 
 ning and had solidified since sundown. 
 
 " I think he likes her because she isn t afraid 
 of him. Neither are you," she added, in a low 
 tone, as if on an after-thought. She did not look 
 his way. 
 
 Ogden appreciated this appreciation of his 
 behavior. He had always been prompt and 
 respectful with Brainard, but he had never 
 knuckled down. 
 
 " He gives her letters almost every day. She 
 corrects his mistakes." 
 
 " And he corrects hers ?" 
 
188 
 
 " He says she doesn t make many. When she 
 does she sticks it out. She talks back. That s 
 where she s bright. It kind of irritates him, I 
 think, to have his his clerks his employes 
 seem afraid. It pleases him, though, when other 
 business men are." 
 
 This piece of filial analysis fell softly and 
 slowly on the thickening darkness. The lamp 
 lighter was zigzagging across the wide roadway 
 with his kerosene torch, and the voices of talk 
 ative neighbors on the other side of the street 
 were brought over by the breeze along with the 
 fumes of burning oil. 
 
 Ogden was pleased with this touch of gilding 
 that the daughter s devotion applied to the fa 
 ther s clay. Perhaps the old man was not hope 
 lessly beyond the reach of idealization s hand, 
 after all. 
 
 Besides the people on other steps around, many 
 clattered by over the asphalt pavement, and 
 others promenaded slowly along the sidewalk. 
 These moved in couples towards the Park, whose 
 scant clumps of citified foliage appeared a few 
 hundred yards away under the light of a waning 
 moon and a half-bemisted sprinkling of stars ; 
 many of them issued from basement doors. 
 
 Presently another couple came sauntering 
 along, and they paused at the foot of the Brain- 
 ard steps. They were Burt and Cornelia. Cor 
 nelia came up and found a place on the rug that 
 
189 
 
 suited her, and greeted Mrs. Brainard in a fa 
 miliar and masterful manner, before which the 
 good woman soon boxed up her chessmen and 
 retired. Cornelia then turned on Ogden. 
 
 "Stiff or bashful?" 
 
 " H m ?" 
 
 " Why didn t you stop and say a word as you 
 passed by?" 
 
 " Oh ! Yes, bashful ; too many people." 
 
 " Too bad about you !" She turned to Burton. 
 He had seated himself on a lower step with his 
 back to the others. His hat was on the back of 
 his head and his chin was propped up by his 
 knees and elbows. He was looking thoughtfully 
 at the curbstone. " Come up and be sociable," 
 she called. , 
 
 Burt rose and ascended a step or two. 
 
 " Oh, how are you, Ogden ?" he said rather 
 absently. George felt that he should have said 
 more, and said it sooner and said it differently. 
 
 Cornelia passed a cushion down to Burt. 
 " There ; take that and be comfortable." She 
 regarded him studiously. It was dark, but he 
 was all there the short, thick, yellow mous 
 tache, the virile chin lately shaved and pow 
 dered, the dense hair that rose in a level line 
 from the top of his forehead. Cornelia would 
 have seen all these things in darkness that was 
 Egyptian. She felt her fingers working towards 
 them. 
 
190 
 
 Cornelia was dressed with a trim and sub 
 dued modishness. She had taken a good many 
 cues from Mrs. Floyd, and she had not been 
 above cultivating an intimacy with a girl who 
 worked for the excessively dear and fashion 
 able house that dressed Mrs. Ingles. Mrs. Floyd 
 had had no need to teach Cornelia anything 
 about grammar, but she had shown her, all un 
 consciously, the advantage of a regulated use of 
 slang. 
 
 Her fingers, debarred by the cold conventions 
 of society from any entanglement in the head of 
 hair just before her, smoothed and patted the 
 folds in her own skirt. She further relieved her 
 self by a high, sniffling toss of the head and a 
 long, deep respiration. 
 
 " Well, isn t this a great night !" she said, ad 
 dressing the little party generally. " Isn t the air 
 splendid ! I declare, I could just ramble about 
 till morning. And yet I suppose your moth 
 er " to Abbie " has checkmated herself and 
 gone to bed. Dear me, if there wasn t any city, 
 and no clatter-clatter on that machine ! Seems 
 as if I must just make a break for the country 
 before long just get up home and hop into my 
 little boat and paddle all around that whole 
 blessed lake !" 
 
 " Why don t you ?" asked Ogden. " Can t you 
 give yourself a vacation ?" He spoke a little 
 wistfully ; there was none ahead for him no 
 
191 
 
 Underground man ever had an outing during his 
 first year. 
 
 " I don t see how. They say you can t serve 
 two masters. Well, I ve got five four too many. 
 At least," she tacked on, as if a closer calculation 
 would further increase the number of these su 
 perfluities. " Can I go all over the building and 
 tell each one of them that my services are going 
 to be demanded exclusively for several days by 
 some other one of them ? Or shall I be sick 
 just for a day, at first, and keep adding days, 
 one at a time, until I ve had a week ? I don t 
 know what to do." 
 
 " Drop the whole business," said Burt brusque 
 ly, without turning about. 
 
 " And leave all my poor people in the lurch ?" 
 she cried, as if her employers were her most 
 poignant concern. 
 
 " They can get somebody else." 
 
 " Oh, yes !" cried Cornelia, with mock humil 
 ity ; " I m nobody ; I can be easily replaced." 
 She cast her humility aside lightly. " I ll tell 
 you what I would do, though, if I was up at 
 Pewaukee this eve. I d paddle down to Lake 
 side and back by the light of that moon." She 
 pointed down the street towards the park foli 
 age. " The moon that gilds those fruit-tree tops 
 Shakespeare. And it would be a good deal 
 brighter up there than it is in this smoky old 
 place." 
 
192 
 
 " Can you row ?" asked Ogden. 
 
 " Can I ? I guess. Pair of oars made to or 
 der ; and I can feather with em, too. Speaking 
 of Lakeside, I know who s going to be there the 
 last of this month; that Miss Bradley Mrs. 
 Floyd s niece." 
 
 " Cousin," corrected George. 
 
 " Is it ? Cousin, then. She s a lively girl ; she 
 and I would make a pair. Only she don t look 
 very strong." 
 
 " I thought," said he, " that she was going to 
 Ocon Ocon " 
 
 Cornelia gave an encouraging ha, ha. " That s 
 right ! Take time and you ll get it. Now, then ; 
 Ocono " 
 
 " Ocono" 
 
 " Mowoc." 
 
 " Mowoc." 
 
 " Oconomowoc ; easy enough when you have 
 it. Accent on second syllable. The only trouble 
 is when you write it ; you never know where 
 to stop. Well, so she is going to Oconomowoc, 
 later to stay through July. They re only 
 twelve miles apart." 
 
 " You know Miss Bradley, then ?" Abbie 
 asked Ogden. " She was over here once or 
 twice, to see Mayme. She seemed like a real 
 nice girl." 
 
 Ogden bowed assent. He found himself as 
 unwilling to discuss Jessie Bradley with Abbie 
 
193 
 
 Brainard as he had been to discuss Abbie Brain- 
 ard with Jessie Bradley. Whenever he debated 
 them it was a silent debate, in which he himself 
 took both sides. 
 
 " She s a high-stepper," volunteered Cornelia, 
 filling in Ogden s silence. " Good deal of style, 
 too. Yet they say her father isn t so extra well 
 off. She s a great contriver, I expect. Well, 
 gumption goes a long ways ; it s wriggled me off 
 my back a good many times." She turned to 
 Burt. " Now then, young man, do you want to 
 walk me along to the park ? Haven t we roosted 
 about long enough ?" 
 
 " All right," said he, getting up promptly. 
 He seemed to be smiling appreciatively at her 
 pertness. 
 
 "Ta!" cried Cornelia, dabbing her hand to 
 Ogden and Abbie ; and off she went. " Perhaps 
 you ll see us later if you re good !" 
 
 A big, bulky figure came stamping along the 
 walk, and reached the foot of the steps just as 
 Burt and Cornelia started off. 
 
 " I guess they ll be good," a heavy voice 
 said. The voice was not greatly disguised by 
 its assumption of unaccustomed jocularity, and 
 George with a flush recognized it as Brainard s. 
 
 "Well, Abbie," he said, lumbering up the 
 steps. And, " How are you, Ogden ?" he said to 
 George, as he passed on and seated himself with 
 a loud grunt on his wife s chair. 
 
 13 
 
194 
 
 George bit his lip ; the old man had no busi 
 ness to misuse other people s pronouns in that 
 way. Cornelia s "you" might have meant one 
 person if it meant more than one still it might 
 have meant them separately ; but Brainard s 
 perverting "they" bracketed him and his com 
 panion in a fashion utterly unwarranted. 
 
 Brainard lingered a few moments above their 
 heads. He made one or two clumsy attempts at 
 facetiousness, and George surmised that this was 
 his way of showing a friendliness. But his jok 
 ing was much more painful than any hectoring 
 could have been, and George was greatly re 
 lieved when he presently rose and retired un 
 ceremoniously into the house. 
 
XY 
 
 AFTER Brainard s withdrawal Abbie and Og- 
 den sat for some time in silence. The moon 
 sank ; the clatter of hoofs on the asphalt sounded 
 less frequently ; some of the neighbors over the 
 way had pulled in their rugs, and were now seen, 
 by new-lighted gas-jets, at upper windows pull 
 ing down their shades. The breeze freshened ; 
 it rustled the lilacs and syringas in the side yard, 
 and it swayed the stringy mass of wild cucum 
 bers that had taken it upon themselves to hide 
 the red hideousness of the barn. 
 
 Suddenly Ogden spoke. 
 
 " There ! I knew I should forget it, and I 
 have. I laid it on my bureau the last thing, too !" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Why <A False Start. You haven t wanted 
 it, have you ?" 
 
 " No ; keep it if you like. I ve read it." 
 
 She meant, "Keep it; please do. Keep it, 
 for my sake." 
 
 " It s a pretty good book ; didn t you think 
 so?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes; I liked it ever so much. He married 
 the right one, after all, didn t he ?" 
 
190 
 
 "Might have done it before," Ogden com 
 mented. " No earthly reason why not. Only 
 you know how they spin these things out." 
 
 There was a sudden shutting down of windows 
 over their heads. Ogden drew out his watch, 
 and turned it so as to profit by the lamp-post on 
 the corner. " Why, I d no idea !" Burt and 
 Cornelia had not returned from the park, or, if 
 so, had passed on the other side of the street. 
 " Good-night." 
 
 " It isn t late, is it?" 
 
 " Only for a North- sider." 
 
 "Good-night," she said, slowly, and sat alone 
 on the steps until her father came down and 
 called her in. 
 
 On the first of July Brainard summoned 
 George into his own private room. 
 
 " We have about decided to have an assistant 
 cashier here," he said. His voice was gruff, but 
 his glance was a little sheepish. " Mr. Fairchild 
 thinks it will be convenient about signatures 
 and a good many other things. Burt s out a 
 good deal and likely to be off all through Au 
 gust, and I don t like to have drafts signed in ad 
 vance. You could make up the reports, too, and 
 swear to em. Besides, it s elective puts you 
 in the Bankers Almanac, for one thing. As to 
 salary, I suppose we could stand an extra five 
 hundred or six." 
 
 He looked at George with some constraint, 
 but his intention appeared to be friendly. 
 
197 
 
 " We might expect you to go on helping with 
 the tellers work on occasion vacation-time, for 
 instance. Now, about your own vacation- 
 George bowed with an additional acknowledg 
 ment of the favor ; he had expected to pass an 
 unbroken summer in town. 
 
 " Thursday s the Fourth. Put five or six days 
 with it, if you like to get accustomed to the 
 new deal." 
 
 He turned to his desk. " That s all right; 
 talk to Fairchild." It seemed that anything 
 beyond the merest word of thanks would be dis 
 tasteful, and George withdrew. 
 
 He accepted his elevation and his vacation 
 with unfeigned pleasure; he attributed his ad 
 vance to the old man s softened mood occasioned 
 by his son s engagement to Cornelia McNabb. 
 Burt, a few mornings back, had told his father, 
 plainly and promptly, that it was his intention 
 to marry Cornelia and soon. He had prepared 
 himself for remonstrance even for opposition, 
 and he had braced himself to demonstrate to his 
 father that he was going to have his own way. 
 The old man, however, made no difficulties ; 
 Cornelia had certain qualities that he appre 
 ciated, and he knew that Burt had a strong and 
 a strengthening will. Besides, a son-in-law was 
 one thing, and a daughter-in-law another. A 
 daughter s husband must come as an ally, offen 
 sive and defensive ; he must contribute money, 
 
198 
 
 and if not money, then abilities. There must be 
 abilities in actual exercise, or there must be the 
 certain promise of their development in the pur 
 suit of some such career as would be recognized 
 and endorsed by business men of his own sort. 
 That ten-dollar-a-week man that anthem sing 
 er! His fist clenched and his eye glared at the 
 very thought of him. But a son s wife could be 
 moulded if not moulded, then coerced. There 
 was to be no breaking away from two such wills 
 as his and Burt s. He liked vim ; he recognized 
 snap ; he was prepared to welcome Cornelia as a 
 vital force. 
 
 " Oconomowoc," murmured George to him 
 self. He was bending over his bureau drawer, 
 sorting out his collars. The gas-flame reflected 
 itself in the mirror and threw a doubled glare 
 upon his face. 
 
 " Eh !" said Brower, sitting cross-legged on 
 his trunk. He laid the book down across two 
 of the top slats; it was "David Grieve" he 
 read everything. 
 
 They were still in the Rush Street house. Mrs. 
 Ogden had a room on the floor below. 
 
 "Did I speak?" asked George. 
 
 " You said Oconomowoc. Is that where you 
 are going ?" 
 
 " Queer name, isn t it ? What s the place like ?" 
 
 " If you ve got a chance to go there, you go." 
 The oracle spoke and retired into his book. 
 
199 
 
 George went. The train made its rapid run 
 up to Milwaukee, took its short stop, and turned 
 westward on its way towards La Crosse. At 
 Pewaukee there was the usual halt ; it length 
 ened to an unusual halt. George paced the 
 long platform impatiently ; his mind had pro 
 jected itself through Nagowicka and ISTashotah 
 and Okauchee to Oconomowoc, and his body was 
 eager to follow. 
 
 " What s the trouble ?" he asked the brakeman. 
 
 " St. Paul express late passes us here." 
 
 The platform was swarming with passengers 
 and townspeople. A figure rushed through the 
 crowd and grasped George by the hand. 
 
 " So you re gallivanting, too ? And I ll bet a 
 nickel you ve been aboard all the Avay up par 
 lor-car. Now, haven t you?" The voice sound 
 ed a trumpet-note of wide-flung triumph. It was 
 Cornelia s. 
 
 Her cheeks blazed and her eyes burned with 
 the magnificence of conscious conquest. Her 
 glory spread about her the same succession of 
 flowing circles that a stone spreads over a pond. 
 It seemed as if her expansiveness must crowd 
 the train from its track and the station from its 
 foundations. 
 
 " Ma," she called back into the crowd, " come 
 here do ! I want you to meet Mr. Ogden. He s 
 one of my most particular friends ; but I guess 
 you don t need to be told that you ve heard 
 
200 
 
 enough about him. Mr. Ogden, this is my moth 
 er, and she s about the best mother that ever 
 lived." 
 
 Mrs. McNabb smiled bravely and took Ogden s 
 slender palm in her large, capable grasp. She 
 wore a sedate black bonnet ; her gray hair was 
 parted in the middle and fell right and left in 
 two wide, crinkly folds. 
 
 "And I want pa to come, too; no dodging." 
 An elderly man came forward reluctantly, in his 
 loose, short trousers and his thick boots with 
 broad, square toes; he seemed to find Ogden, in 
 his modified tourist guise, a disconcerting object. 
 He lifted up his shrewd but retiring eyes, placing 
 one embarrassed hand on his grizzled chin whis 
 kers and giving George the other ; it was rough, 
 and the nails were broken. 
 
 George shook hands with the old fellow who 
 went well enough with other features of the Wis 
 consin landscape : the shaggy tamarack swamps, 
 the gashed sides of gravelly "hog-backs," the 
 long stretches of disordered barbed -wire fences, 
 the rusty reds of depots and storehouses, and the 
 marshy ponds, edged by the ragged scantlings 
 of gigantic ice-houses. 
 
 Cornelia did not perceive this harmony or 
 ignored it. 
 
 "Yes," she declared, "ma s the best ma, and 
 pa ain t far behind. Now don t shy, pa ; Mr. 
 Ogden is more scary than you are. He d been 
 
201 
 
 trying for near three months to ask me to go to 
 the theatre with him, when along came Burt and 
 plumped out and asked me inside of a week. 
 Burt s enterprising ; no mistake." 
 
 The old people smiled at each other, half em 
 barrassed by Cornelia s frankness. 
 
 " But we won t shut out George oh, dear ! I 
 mean Mr. Ogden altogether. Bear witness, 
 both of you : I ask him to be one of my ushers." 
 
 George stared. Was the girl meaning to be 
 married in church after everything ? Then he 
 bowed. " On Abbie s account if at all," he 
 thought. 
 
 " Going to Coonie for the Fourth, I suppose ?" 
 Cornelia continued. 
 
 " Coonie ?" 
 
 " Oh, well Con m woc, if you must have it 
 all. Well, we re on the move, too. Good-by. 
 But" meaningly "you ll find us all again in 
 town pretty soon; and if pa and ma don t see 
 the whole place from the tip-top of the Clifton, 
 my name is McMucld. On a clear day, too 
 when you can tell where the smoke ends and the 
 land begins. Good-by. Our house is on the 
 right, a mile farther; watch out for it." 
 
 Oconomowoc, from Ogden s point of view, ap 
 peared as one wide street running between two 
 small lakes that were only a few hundred feet 
 asunder. The business part of the street was 
 built neatly and compactly of the cream-colored 
 
202 
 
 brick of Milwaukee, and the rest of it was a 
 thickly shaded stretch bordered with a double 
 string of summer cottages, which fronted on the 
 street and backed on the water. In the midst of 
 the cottages stood a big hotel of yellow brick ; 
 it was faced with a lofty row of seven immense 
 white columns, and above the maples before it 
 there rose a steep roof set with a series of dor 
 mer-windows. George was given a room which 
 one of these dormers lighted, and presently 
 stepped down the street to inquire at one of the 
 cottages for Jessie Bradley. He soon stepped 
 back again ; she was not expected for two days 
 yet. He thanked Brainard again for his full 
 week, and threw himself into one of the chairs 
 under the big colonnade. 
 
 The town was at the beginning of its annual 
 patriotic flurry ; after the Fourth it settles down, 
 and the real season begins a week or two later. 
 A good many young people were scurrying 
 about, many of them in aquatic attire ; those 
 who did not carry rackets carried banjos. No 
 body noticed him except the young wife of the 
 proprietor. She stood in the doorway ; her black 
 eyebrows were contracted in a study of him. She 
 wore her raven hair in a Japanesque fashion, but 
 she corrected the plump dumpiness of the Japa 
 nese maiden by a tall and slender grace of her 
 own. " He s all right," she said to herself, and 
 sank down in a chair beside him. 
 
203 
 
 " You poor, lonesome man," she began, with a 
 graceful audacity that was her peculiar posses 
 sion, " let me talk to you." 
 
 "Do," answered George, smilingly. He seemed 
 to have known her a week. 
 
 " That is, if you re not just married or not just 
 going to be. Are you ?" 
 
 N_ no." 
 
 " We see so much of that sort of thing. May 
 is dreadful; this year we had five couples in a 
 week it s so pleasant and quiet here then. The 
 fifth was from. Detroit ; they stayed quite a while, 
 and when they went away they thanked us all 
 over. We hadn t done a thing for them we 
 simply left them alone and let them go about. 
 But they were just chuck full of it they d have 
 been in glory anywhere. What do you think of 
 our columns ?" 
 
 Two men could hardly have spanned their 
 fluted shafts. George cast his eye up to their 
 capitals, on a level with the third-story windows. 
 " They re great." 
 
 " Aren t they ? They ve only been on two or 
 three years. We call them the Seven Bride 
 grooms." 
 
 " The Seven Bridegrooms ? Is each the gift of 
 a happy man ?" 
 
 "Not quite; one happy man gave them all. 
 He was here a week ; he gave us one every day. 
 Think how happy he must have been." 
 
204 
 
 She smiled at his inquiring glance. 
 
 " He wanted things his own way, and could 
 afford it," she said. " His name was Ingles." 
 
 Ogden did some lounging up and down the 
 street. He crossed a bridge where one lake fell 
 into the other over a mill-dam, and found him 
 self in another cluster of cottages. They stood 
 on a bluff and looked down the three miles of 
 the lower lake. Both shores were diversified by 
 promontories and islands, and the red roofs of 
 other cottages showed everywhere over the tuft 
 ed foliage of the shores. 
 
 " How it balances how it composes !" he said 
 of the view, as he recrossed the bridge. " And 
 how it s kept!" he said of the town, as he re 
 traced his steps to the hotel. "Really "with 
 unconscious patronage "it s the only thing 
 West, so far, that has tone and finish." 
 
 He took a boat. The next day, the same. The 
 town was full, but was lying back quietly for the 
 excitement of the morrow ; he had the water 
 almost to himself. 
 
 Sloops and cat-boats were being rigged for a 
 coming regatta. A scow for fireworks was be 
 ing anchored two or three hundred yards from 
 shore. He paddled about with a trolling-line. 
 But the line was neglected. He had a good 
 deal to think about ; here was place and time 
 to do it. 
 
 His future was assured. He could now marry. 
 
205 
 
 He wanted to marry. There was only the ques 
 tion which ? 
 
 He had surrendered his primitive theory that 
 marriage was a matter which concerned only the 
 two principals. Kittie s marriage who had 
 come to be more deeply concerned in it than he ? 
 
 He thought of Abbie Brainard, and he thought 
 of her family a divorced sister ; a disreputable 
 brother, whose future was to sound, perhaps, 
 depths yet undreamed of ; another brother, whose 
 coming marriage was but conclusive evidence of 
 the coarseness of the family grain. 
 
 And the father his scandalous success ; his 
 tainted millions ; his name a byword. Those 
 bawlings in the streets ; those disgraceful and 
 degrading pictures ; the stench of the whole 
 scandal. 
 
 His oars dropped idly, and he sat with his 
 eyes fixed on the bottom of the boat. 
 
 But the old man would die. Yes; and then 
 would come the division of the spoil. If there 
 had been so much trouble in a poor sixty or 
 eighty thousand, how much more might there 
 be in all these millions? If he had found such 
 difficulty in getting restitution from McDowell 
 a restitution so incomplete as to be even yet 
 largely in the future what might there be to 
 expect from other brothers-in-law and from 
 other new relations that so much money would 
 be sure to bring ? 
 
206 
 
 He ran his troubled eyes along the shore. A 
 party of children were wading and splashing at 
 the foot of a high, wooded point. 
 
 That money those millions ! It was the talk 
 of the bank that Burt, on his wedding-day, was 
 to have five hundred thousand dollars as an out- 
 and-out gift. And if Burt, why not Abbie in 
 the proper degree? Those shameful, indecent 
 millions millions that it Avould be a disgrace to 
 receive, to handle. 
 
 " Boat ahoy !" A sloop swept by. He dodged 
 its bowsprit and was tossed by its wake. He 
 threw out his oars to steady himself. 
 
 The husband of a rich wife another Yalen- 
 tine. My house my furniture ! 
 
 Then, he had meant to get on in business, in 
 society. Was he to marry a recluse ? a girl in 
 experienced in the ways of his world perhaps 
 incapable of adapting herself to them surely 
 careless of them. 
 
 Abbie was before him in her tender and stead 
 fast serenity, in her stanch and genuine capa 
 bility. He set his teeth, and took up his oars 
 again, and rowed half a mile with a furious 
 vigor. He stopped, panting and exhausted, in a 
 clump of reeds off a sedgy shore, near a group of 
 linden-trees. He had left Abbie behind. 
 
 An elderly couple were standing among the 
 rushes. They regarded him with a friendly and 
 companionable smile. They seemed to offer him 
 
207 
 
 the "middling lot" that the sage and poet have 
 called the best and safest. " No hazardous and 
 complicated relationships," they seemed to say ; 
 " no struggle over dead men s dollars, no swamp 
 ing of self-respect in ill -got gains; only our 
 daughter 
 
 George pressed his forehead confusedly and 
 raised his eyes to get his bearings ; the late 
 afternoon sun dazzled him with its level beams. 
 He saw a house set high among the trees ; and 
 on its porch, amidst a tangle of bittersweet, a 
 girl was standing. He shaded his eyes ; it was 
 as if she waved a handkerchief at him. Pres 
 ently she strolled to the brow of the bank. 
 
 " Glad to see you," she called ; " we have just 
 driven over." 
 
 It was Jessie Bradley. 
 
XYI 
 
 COENELIA MaNABB became Mrs. Burton Brain- 
 ard during the first week in August. Neither of 
 the pair was inclined to wait, and neither had 
 such a circle of friends as to make a midsummer 
 wedding less preferable than a later one. 
 
 The wedding took place in church as Cornelia 
 had intimated to Ogden. She was not disposed 
 to let false delicacy clog the heels of success, and 
 she had her way. They were married in the 
 daytime, as a partial concession to the social in 
 experience of one father and the social indiffer 
 ence of the other. The young men of the bank 
 were drawn on freely; Ogden served as an usher 
 as Cornelia had requested. Adrian Yalentine 
 supported Burt at the chancel-rail, and gave some 
 friendly counsel as to details at both church and 
 house. 
 
 Cornelia s circle of girl-friends yielded nothing 
 suitable in the way of bridesmaids; but there 
 was the groom s sister and one maiden attend 
 ant was enough. Abbie therefore took this 
 part for the first time. She walked up the 
 long aisle with a bashful modesty. She had a 
 dozen opportunities to meet Ogden s eye, but 
 
209 
 
 her embarrassed shyness prevented her from, 
 once looking into his face. 
 
 Mary Brainard was still in exile, and her 
 mother was confined to her room by one of her 
 nervous attacks ; but in one of the back pews, 
 in the twilight under the gallery, a dark, meagre, 
 and dissolute-looking young man had taken his 
 post. And as Burt, with a proud and pros 
 perous smile, led Cornelia down the aisle, tears 
 of indignant rage started from the eyes of his 
 banned and mistreated brother.- 
 
 The Brainard marriage was celebrated in 
 print, just as the Brainard divorce had been. 
 Some of the cuts that had illustrated the one 
 were also used to illustrate the other. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Burton Brainard went to Cali 
 fornia and were absent a month. On their re 
 turn they took up their quarters in the Brainard 
 house, while Burt considered the question of 
 building. Cornelia had made up her own mind 
 where this building should be done. 
 
 They returned to town in accordance with the 
 mandate conveyed by certain cards that had 
 been sent out, directed by the serviceable Abbie, 
 during their absence. These cards announced 
 that "Mr. and Mrs. Burton Tillinghast Brain 
 ard " would be " at home " on the " Thursdays 
 in September. 
 
 Cornelia had gloated over these cards on their 
 arrival from the stationer s. 
 U 
 
210 
 
 " Mrs. Burton Tillinghast Brainard," she read, 
 with a vigorous hitch of her shoulder. " H m ! 
 now we re ready to knock out your Smiths and 
 your Joneses." She tossed her head. " And 
 then bring on your Floyds and your Ingleses !" 
 
 Before going away she had wrung Ogden s 
 hand, and had committed her parents to him 
 during the concluding days of their stay. Es 
 pecially was he enjoined to take them up to the 
 top of the Clifton on the very first clear day. 
 A clear day came ; he conducted them up to the 
 roof-observatory and showed them the city, and 
 they numbered the towers thereof. 
 
 The old people tiptoed gingerly around the 
 parapet, while Ogden waved his hand over the 
 prospect the mouth of the river with its ele 
 vators and its sprawling miles of railway track ; 
 the weakish blue of the lake, with the coming 
 and going of schooners and propellers, and the 
 "cribs" that stood on the faint horizon "that s 
 where our water comes from," George explained ; 
 the tower of the water-works itself, and the dull 
 and distant green of Lincoln Park ; the towering 
 bulk of other great sky-scrapers and the grimy 
 spindling of a thousand surrounding chimneys ; 
 the lumber-laden brigs that were tugged slowly 
 through the drawbridges, while long strings of 
 drays and buggies and street-cars accumulated 
 during the wait. " My ! don t they look little !" 
 cried Mrs. McNabb. 
 
211 
 
 George smiled with all the gratified vanity of 
 a native. 
 
 " And that," he said, pointing southward down 
 the street, a is the Board of Trade." 
 
 " Where we was the other day," the old man re 
 minded his wife. " And that gilt thing on the top 
 of it is a ship, I swan. And wasn t they noisy, 
 though. "Well, now, Josephine, ain t it handsome?" 
 
 A simple soul found to admire the tower of 
 the Board of Trade let it be put on record. 
 
 George and McNabb had got on very well. 
 The old countryman had felt rather frost-bitten 
 on seeing George in full social regalia, but seem 
 ing to find him more human and approachable 
 in a simple business suit, he had thawed out 
 again. Mrs. McNabb had taken to him kindty 
 from the start. Most women did, though he ap 
 peared never to have observed it. She joined 
 with her husband in wreathing him in an at 
 mosphere of simple friendliness. 
 
 The other father concerned in the festivities 
 had also thawed towards George, though it 
 would be a mistake to attribute simplicity to 
 any friendliness shown by the head of the Un 
 derground. At one stage of the proceedings 
 Erastus M. Brainard had laid his hand on Og- 
 den s shoulder, and the young man had asked 
 himself with distressful circumspection what it 
 meant. It might have been to his advantage if 
 he had found an answer. 
 
212 
 
 George s engagement to Jessie Bradley was 
 now an accomplished fact ; the nail was driven 
 only a formal announcement was required to 
 clinch it. He had preferred to withhold this un 
 til his affairs with McDowell were more accu 
 rately adjusted. Freeze & Freeze had put on a 
 pretty positive pressure, and an arrangement had 
 been contrived that had some of the externals, at 
 least, of an adjustment. 
 
 McDowell s affairs had not been taking a very 
 favorable turn; some of his ventures had been 
 too rank for even gullibility itself, and his hope 
 of relations with Ingles was now completely at 
 an end. Ingles, in fact, had signified to him 
 that an accounting for of the St. Asaph funds 
 was desired by himself and the other contribut 
 ing members of the former committee, that a 
 remittance in accordance therewith was looked 
 for, and that his resignation of the financial 
 guidance of the choir would receive prompt con 
 sideration. 
 
 This communication might have been made 
 by Ingles personally, or it might have been sent 
 by his office-boy, or it might even (as a phys 
 ical possibility) have been pushed in under the 
 crack of the door between them. As a matter 
 of fact, it came through the mail. So formal a 
 transmission of so formidable a communication 
 was conclusive ; McDowell felt at once that all 
 possibility of personal relations between himself 
 
213 
 
 and Ingles was at an end that door in the wall 
 between them was as good as bricked up. 
 
 Kittle came around late one afternoon to see 
 her mother. " Do you know, George," she said 
 to her brother, " that Eugene is going to give up 
 our pew at St. Asaph s ? Can you imagine why ?" 
 
 He had heard and read a good deal in his life 
 time about the fine penetration of feminine in 
 tuition; he wondered why feminine intuition al 
 ways failed when it came up for application to 
 business matters. The pretty, high-held female 
 heads that would droop in shame if they could 
 come to learn the how and wherefore of their 
 own costly bedeckings ! Poor innocent Kittie 
 sitting there and twirling in unsuspecting sur 
 prise the sparkling novelties that encircled her 
 fingers, and never caring or thinking about the 
 means by which they had come to ba there ! 
 
 The principal instruments in McDowell s set 
 tlement with the Ogden estate were certain 
 promissory notes and certain warranty deeds- 
 warranty, after quit-claims had boen refused ; 
 and Ogden found himself in possession of his 
 brother-in-law s signature on several bits of pa 
 per which he hoped might realize their full value 
 when the time came, and also of two or three 
 largish tracts of suburban property in which the 
 general public interest seemed rather diminish 
 ing than increasing. McDowell saved the best 
 here, just as he had managed to secure the best 
 
214 
 
 of his father-in-law s estate for his wife. In the 
 original division fair, according to appraised 
 values his knowledge of tendencies of growth 
 had put into his wife s third almost everything 
 that was likely to show a quick increase in price. 
 George took his notes and his lands, and the 
 task of turning them into money ; and he left to 
 Kittie an unimpaired trust and confidence in her 
 own husband. 
 
 The matter of a house shared his thoughts, 
 along with the McDowell business an October 
 wedding, a week for a trip, and then the begin 
 ning of housekeeping on the first of November 
 in a home of their own. 
 
 " You want to see Mrs. Cass," Floyd had told 
 him ; " she fixed us up when we first came out 
 here." 
 
 " Who is she ?" 
 
 "A clever little woman who makes a sort of 
 specialty of North -side houses. She has got 
 desk -room somewhere upstairs sixteenth or 
 seventeenth. She married badly her husband 
 doesn t do anything. She began by renting 
 friends houses to other friends, and has kept on 
 until she has worked up quite a business. In 
 such a big town as this has got to be you need 
 to go to a specialist for almost everything. 
 You might take in the whole lot of those big 
 house-renting agencies and never get satisfied." 
 
 The office of the Massachusetts Brass Com- 
 
215 
 
 pany was as much a social exchange as ever. 
 Jessie frequently came down with Mrs. Floyd 
 and Ann and Claudia, and } George would some 
 times step up to see her for a few minutes dur 
 ing his noonings. Mrs. Floyd looked upon the 
 meetings indulgently enough, but Ann seemed 
 to hold against Ogden a deeply-seated grudge. 
 
 She had been considerably embarrassed in the 
 matter of her special assessments, and she had as 
 much feeling against George as against McDow 
 ell himself. Her efforts to fortify and to recoup 
 herself had led her into other fields of business, 
 and she was now spending a good part of every 
 forenoon in the neighborhood of the Board of 
 Trade. Thus far she had not been so successful 
 as to lessen the grudge. 
 
 The particular institution in which Ann was 
 interested bore some external resemblance to its 
 great prototype across the street. It was small 
 er and, if possible, uglier; but it, too, had its 
 quadrangular arcade, its big square skylight, its 
 ladies gallery. In this gallery Ann sat daily for 
 several hours, along with other women of a like 
 turn of mind, and kept an eye on the proceed 
 ings generally. After a few sessions she became 
 accustomed to the mere externals of the place 
 the endless shuffle of feet on the grimy floor, the 
 sharp yawps of raw and eager voices, the fling 
 ing aloft of excited arms, the little tangles of 
 noise and passion that were instantly woven 
 
216 
 
 around every new-comer with an offer to buy or 
 to sell. She looked over this choppy sea across 
 to the promised Ian4 that was being portrayed 
 on the opposite blackboard ; the artist paced to 
 and fro on a long, high, narrow platform, and 
 worked in the uncertainty of a single drop-light. 
 He frequently changed his mind, and his altera 
 tions usually had a deep and sometimes a dis 
 couraging effect upon Ann and her associates. 
 Every now and then one would retire into the 
 hallway and consult with her agent, and then 
 there would be the rustle of greenbacks, and the 
 agent would take the elevator down and present 
 ly be seen among the crowd of men on the floor. 
 The agent was likely to be a gallant fellow, only 
 too happy to be of service to a lady. 
 
 Ann was now a member of Floyd s household, 
 in good and regular standing. She felt herself 
 very much at home. What was her brother-in- 
 law s was her sister s, and what was her sister s 
 was hers. She was usually the first to unfold 
 the morning paper; she pre-empted the bath 
 room with little regard to Walworth s estab 
 lished habits ; and if the idea of some trifling 
 
 O 
 
 delicacy occurred to her she would order it from 
 the grocery, and after it had appeared on Wai- 
 worth s table it appeared again in his bill. She 
 did not stand on ceremony ; she waived all stiff 
 formality ; cosily and frankly she was quite one 
 of the family. 
 
217 
 
 As such, she used "Wai worth s office quite free 
 ly, and in the same capacity she joined in the 
 conferences which the Floyds were now begin 
 ning to hold with Atwater up under his great 
 skylight in the roof. Atwater s little house for 
 Claudia had given great satisfaction, and he was 
 now about to do a larger one for Claudia s pa 
 rents, who had begun to look upon their banish 
 ment to the West as a perpetual fact. Claudia s 
 house had been delivered with its stairs, its win 
 dows, its red chimney, and its chandeliers 
 which last were composed by a pushing young 
 draughtsman who was as anxious to make inter 
 est with Atwater as Atwater had perhaps been 
 to make interest with Floyd. 
 
 Atwater was accustomed to people who didn t 
 know their own minds, to people who knew their 
 own minds too well, to people who had too many 
 minds to really have any mind at all, and to 
 people who had so much money that they didn t 
 need to have any mind. He was impeccably 
 suave and unruffled, but he had the immense ad 
 vantage of being able to impress the unduly 
 brusque and capricious and exasperating among 
 his clients with the fact that they were dealing 
 with a gentleman and an artist. He also put a 
 good deal of " presence " into the rendering and 
 the collecting of his accounts ; there was no 
 more disputing his charges than his taste. 
 
 He took equally, with his urbane imperturba- 
 
218 
 
 bility, the anxious carpings of Mrs. Floyd and 
 the easy joking of her husband. Ann he quietly 
 ignored, and Wai worth thanked him; for his 
 sister-in-law s interest in the new house was be 
 coming oppressively personal. As for Claudia, 
 he always saw that she had, out of his sample 
 cabinet, all the bits of tiling and scraps of mar- 
 queterie that she needed; and if she fancied a 
 promenade among the boards and trestles of his 
 drawing-room, her whim was gratified. Ogden 
 and Jessie, who sometimes came too, he wel 
 comed pleasantly the guests of the present were 
 the clients of the future. Ogden admired his 
 beautiful manners and his whitened hair ; one 
 day he amusedly recalled Jessie s determination 
 to make her husband s hair like it. 
 
 He looked at At water, who was explaining his 
 preliminary sketches to the Floyds and was try 
 ing to fix the general bearings of hall, stairway, 
 and closets; his hair looked whiter still under 
 the diffused glare from the skylight. 
 
 George turned to Jessie, with his hand on his 
 own head, so smooth and shining brown. 
 
 " This is the hair you are to whiten," he said, 
 and he lifted his eyebrows in a smile. 
 
 " I never saw such a boy !" she murmured in 
 a repressed ecstasy. " Do you remember every 
 thing I have said?" No one was looking, and 
 she placed her own hand on his other temple. 
 
 " "Wouldn t powder do ?" he asked lightly. 
 
219 
 
 Only for girls." 
 
 " Couldn t it be bleached F 
 
 " Not and get that color." 
 
 " Must I suffer, then?" with his hand still on 
 his brow. 
 
 " I m afraid that s the only way." She low 
 ered his hand in her own, and gave it a tender 
 pressure on its descent. 
 
 " Must it be lingering, or something sharp and 
 sudden?" 
 
 She pressed his hand again, and looked affec 
 tionately into his eyes. " Both, perhaps." 
 
 " Will it be fear or anxiety or shame ?" 
 
 " Wait and see." 
 
 Atwater rolled tip his sketches and threw 
 them into a drawer. Then he went to his cab 
 inet and took out a fe\v small strips and squares 
 of encaustic tiling in yellow and gray. 
 
 "And now I wonder if our little Colleen 
 wouldn t like to take some of these home to play 
 with." He turned courteously to Mrs. Floyd, 
 while his hand reached out for a sheet of brown 
 paper. 
 
 " They re not too too heavy?" she asked, cau 
 tiously. " Nor too easily broken ?" 
 
 The child opened wide her brown eyes, in one 
 of her sober little ecstasies. " Oh, plaze, mam 
 ma ! Oh, lave me have them do !" 
 
 Ogden turned to Jessie, mutely asking her to 
 share his appreciation of this. But she did not 
 
220 
 
 seem especially amused. He remembered, then, 
 that to himself he had frequently called her 
 treatment of Claudia " uneven." Sometimes the 
 child entertained her, sometimes she annoyed her. 
 Jessie seemed to regard her and he felt now and 
 then that she so regarded children generally as 
 a doll to be played with until weariness came, 
 and then to be carelessly thrust away. 
 
 " Oh, let her have em," said Ann, with an air 
 of authority. 
 
 " Yery good of you, I m sure," said Floyd to 
 Atwater. 
 
 "Not at all; I m sampled to death. There, 
 my child." He gave her a neat little package. 
 " I m sure they ll understand you when you get 
 to Paris 1" 
 
XYII 
 
 GEOKGE OGDEN and Jessie Bradley were mar 
 ried during the third week in October. The 
 wedding took place at St. Asaph s, with the par 
 ticipation of a small section of the choir, and the 
 Floyds opened their house for the reception that 
 followed. Walworth even gave George a small 
 lunch at his club. 
 
 For some weeks previous Ogden had watched 
 for the right opportunity to make a formal an 
 nouncement of his plans to the head of the bank 
 and to ask for a week s leave. For nearly a 
 month, now, Brainard had not looked at him, 
 had not spoken to him ; and when he entered 
 the old man s office to make his request Brain 
 ard still refrained from looking at him, and in 
 speaking to him was as curt as possible. 
 
 " We need all our men right here ; you must 
 give up any idea of going off." 
 
 " Blow hot, blow cold," thought George, and 
 asked Jessie what she preferred to do under the 
 circumstances. 
 
 She had planned a long and rapid and lavish 
 tour, and the tears of disappointment started to 
 her eves. 
 
" Go anyway," she cried. 
 
 " Go ? Do you know what he is ?" And " Do 
 you know what business is ?" he almost added. 
 
 She lapsed into a sullen silence. 
 
 " We could arrange the wedding for a Satur 
 day," he suggested, " and spend Sunday in Wis 
 consin." 
 
 This proposition stuck in her throat, but pres 
 ently she gulped it down. " Only don t call it a 
 wedding-trip," she said tartly. " Well," she went 
 on, "we ll settle that. We must, because the 
 cards have got to be started out pretty soon all 
 those people who have entertained me have got 
 to be remembered. There s some in Providence, 
 and in Detroit, and in St. Paul. And don t let 
 me forget those Louisville people that took me 
 to Old Point." 
 
 They spent their Sunday in Oconomowoc, 
 along with the Seven Bridegrooms. The day 
 was wet and gloomy, and most of the time they 
 sat in-doors over a grate-fire. Mists dulled the 
 blazing red of the maples, and a thick fall of 
 leaves was churned into the mud before the 
 house by the wheels of farm wagons returning 
 home from church. Only at sunset did the 
 clouds clear away, and the full moon rose over 
 one lake while the sun sank below the other. 
 
 George recalled this many times in after- 
 years. 
 
 They had taken a house in Walton Place for 
 
223 
 
 the year and a half from November first. The 
 house had been vacant some little time, and the 
 landlord made no account of an introductory 
 fortnight. 
 
 Mrs. Bradley had come in from Hinsdale and 
 had superintended most of the furnishing and 
 fitting up. She saw the window-shades put into 
 place and told the men where to set the refrig 
 erator, and Jessie had looked on with the gay 
 irresponsibility of a child who watches puppets 
 being strung. 
 
 On their return from Wisconsin they found 
 the house decorated almost throughout with 
 chrysanthemums. The new green-house at Hins 
 dale had devoted the whole autumn to this 
 specialty. 
 
 Jessie sank down into one of her big new 
 easy-chairs. " Nothing to do but to be happy," 
 she sighed, with a long and delicious expiration. 
 
 She had her days, but those dates were of 
 course overridden by her intimates. 
 
 Among the first to call were the Floyds. 
 "Walworth came over with a pocketful of cigars 
 to christen the new wall-paper, he said. 
 
 " Have you got any closets ?" was one of his 
 questions. 
 
 " Plenty," replied George. 
 
 " Then I don t see but what you re all right 
 just as well off in a house that you rent as we 
 are going to be in a house made to order. If 
 
224 
 
 ever I turn architect" with a glance towards 
 his wife " I shall begin every house with a 
 dozen closets and then pour in the various rooms 
 around them. Four drawers in every one, and 
 t\vo rows of hooks. How stuff does accumu 
 late !" 
 
 " Yes, the inside is rather nice," Jessie ac 
 knowledged ; " but the outside might be im 
 proved. I have my own notion about the porch 
 and the front door." 
 
 George turned to her, as if to ask what that 
 notion might be. 
 
 Other friends followed Brower among them. 
 
 He went about rather shyly, looking at the 
 draperies and grilles and mirrors. In the semi- 
 gloom of the dining-room he threw his arm over 
 Ogden s shoulder and looked into his eye with a 
 friendly and affectionate smile. 
 
 " I never expected you to do it," he said. " You 
 have left me as lonesome as the deuce." 
 
 "Doit? Why not?" 
 
 " Because you re so careful ; you always think 
 things out regular old Puritan sage." 
 
 " Oh, well," began George, with the air proper 
 to a launching out into a broad and easy gener 
 alization, " aren t we New England Puritans the 
 cream of the Anglo-Saxon race ? And why does 
 the Anglo-Saxon race rule the globe except be 
 cause the individual Anglo-Saxon can rule him 
 self?" 
 
225 
 
 " Oh, I know," said Brower, discontentedly ; 
 " that s all right, up to a certain point." 
 
 Others came, among them the Valentines. 
 
 " And how do you like your new house ?" asked 
 Mrs. Valentine, effusively. She addressed Jessie 
 exclusively; with her everything went in the 
 female line. "We are new converts too, you 
 know just over from the West Side. We are 
 very much pleased, aren t we, Adrian ?" 
 
 Her husband gave his corroborative little bow. 
 " We were being left rather aside, over there," 
 he admitted. "And take the South Side, for 
 that matter. Business is walking right over 
 them, and the whole section is in a state of mild 
 panic from the Courts to Oakwood Boulevard. 
 Yes, we re safe and quiet, and settled to stay." 
 
 Still others came, among them Cornelia Tilling- 
 hast Brainard. She called frequently, she usual 
 ly brought her husband with her, and she never 
 failed to walk him all around the Ogdens neigh 
 borhood. Her favorite time was Sunday after 
 noon ; then she took him along the Lake Shore 
 Drive and through all the adjacent streets, with 
 the full benefit of daylight. 
 
 Cornelia now had command over a good seven 
 hundred thousand dollars, and she was arming 
 for the social fray. She meant to bang her shield 
 against the shields of other amazons. The gladi 
 ator must come to the arena, and the centre of 
 the arena seemed to be somewhere near the 
 15 
 
226 
 
 water- works tower. If Burton was going to put 
 seventy or eighty thousand dollars into a house, 
 the site of it must not be too far away from this 
 point. 
 
 "I expect I shall cut a pretty wide swath," 
 Cornelia acknowledged to herself. 
 
 Jessie had her receptions through November; 
 her intimates appeared at these as well, and so 
 did many of her more formal acquaintances. 
 
 On one of these occasions George, having left 
 the bank early, after a light day, hurried home, 
 dressed himself, and hastened down to the par 
 lor. Its contracted space was beflowered and 
 belighted, and quite a little throng of ladies were 
 circulating and chatting there. Mrs. Floyd and 
 Miss Wilde were among them ; so were Mrs. Og- 
 den and Kittie ; so were Mrs. Valentine and Mrs. 
 Atwater. 
 
 His wife hurried up to him ; her cheeks were 
 flushed and her large eyes burned brightly. 
 
 " If you had only been three minutes sooner ! 
 She has just gone. She was telling me why she 
 hadn t been able to come to the wedding. I 
 wanted you to meet her so much." 
 
 " Who is this ?" 
 
 " Cecilia Ingles." 
 
 " There is such a person, then ?" 
 
 " Why, George, what do you mean ? Of course 
 there is, and she was just as nice to me as she 
 could be." 
 
HOW WELL IT S DONE ! SHE SAID TO HIM." 
 
227 
 
 "Why shouldn t she have been? I see you 
 call her Cecilia. Are you as intimate as that ?" 
 
 " Everybody calls her Cecilia. See, Mrs. At- 
 water is trying to catch your eye." 
 
 A tall and rather stately woman of thirty-five 
 was standing in the doorway; she seemed fin 
 ished in profile, figure, and carriage. " How 
 well it s done," she said to him ; " who is the 
 presiding genius ?" 
 
 " My wife s mother, I fancy." He turned and 
 drew her attention to the rustling of Mrs. Brad- 
 ley s black silk. 
 
 " Ah !" she said indifferently, and turned 
 away. 
 
 He had been unable to apprehend the simple 
 costliness of his questioner s dress, and he only 
 half wondered how, in a dozen quiet words, she 
 had conveyed the impression of an expert ad 
 dressing a beginner ; but he could not refrain 
 from asking himself if there was a slight here 
 on Mrs. Bradley. He looked at the old lady 
 again. She was moving about with the greatest 
 show of confidence and good- will. No thought 
 of anything called "differences" had entered 
 her head. She did not believe that anybody 
 would want to slight her or that anybody could. 
 She had come on the ground in the early days 
 of simple friendliness, and perhaps she was too 
 old to apprehend that anything different had 
 developed in the meanwhile. She certainly 
 
228 
 
 seemed to need no defence, and George was as 
 suredly in no position to offer any. 
 
 " Cecilia has gone off and left me," Mrs. At- 
 water resumed ; " careless girl !" They were 
 half-sisters, and Mrs. At water was several years 
 the elder. The Atwaters and the Ingleses ran as 
 a kind of four-in-hand. The rich sister had mar 
 ried a poor man, and the poor sister had married 
 a rich man, and they all went along at the same 
 pace. It was a somewhat rapid pace. " I m 
 going to see what Mrs. Floyd can do for me ; I 
 dare say she has a spare seat." 
 
 His wife caught at Mrs. Atwater and bade her 
 adieu with effusion. Did Jessie regard it as a 
 feat and a triumph to have secured her presence ? 
 So it seemed to Jessie s husband. 
 
 The last of these little receptions was disposed 
 of, and the honeymoon drew to its close. Quiet 
 succeeded this introductory flurry to married 
 life, and George now took occasion to lay a 
 steady hand upon the throbbings of the " pocket- 
 nerve." 
 
 His apprehension of any suffering in this part 
 of his financial anatomy was, indeed, largely an 
 ticipatory ; it was not that the nerve had been 
 roughly touched, but that it soon might be. He 
 had no tendency towards a retrospective study of 
 the journal-and-ledger aspects of his courtship. 
 He had been spared the expense of the wedding- 
 journey that Jessie had planned by the unac- 
 
229 
 
 countable veto of Brainard. And the remuner 
 ation of St. Asaph s choir and kindred matters 
 had fallen to his wife s father to arrange. But, 
 all the same, many small indications arose to 
 make it worth while for him to remember that 
 he was a young man on a moderate salary and 
 that most of his available means were badly 
 tied up. 
 
 He noticed that his wife was developing a dis 
 dain of the public conveyances ; a carriage was 
 sometimes required of afternoons, and invariably 
 of evenings when dances or theatre-going might 
 be the matter in hand. She was also cultivating 
 her taste for flowers ; she had employed them 
 rather lavishly at her receptions (in conjunction 
 with her mandolin-players), and her apprecia 
 tion of them kept equal pace with the advancing 
 coldness of the weather and their own advanc 
 ing cost. She also betrayed a ravenous taste for 
 the exasperating superfluities of house-furnishing, 
 and his bills for things needful were attended by 
 a train of little accounts for things quite worse 
 than useless. 
 
 " Oh, well, we shall be fitted out pretty soon," 
 he sighed ; and he saw his studious face reflected 
 from among the cluttered bibelots of his mantel 
 piece. 
 
 The point of completion as regarded the in 
 terior was finally reached, and his wife s inten 
 tions as to the exterior presently developed. She 
 
230 
 
 accompanied him. out into the vestibule one 
 morning, and stood at the head of the steps to 
 bid him good-by. 
 
 " These doors are awfully shabby and old- 
 fashioned," she declared. " Don t you suppose 
 the landlord would put in new ones ?" 
 
 "I m quite sure he wouldn t. I wouldn t in 
 his place." 
 
 " Well, we have taken this house for a year 
 and a half, and are likely to take it again for a 
 year or two longer. Why couldn t we fix things 
 up ourselves ? The entrance counts more, really, 
 than anything else." 
 
 " That might be thought about." 
 
 " Yes, indeed. If Mary Munson is coming to 
 see me, I want things as nice as they have ev 
 erything." 
 
 Mary Munson was of the Louisville family 
 that had entertained Jessie Bradley at Old Point 
 Comfort. It presently transpired that she was 
 under like obligations to many other acquaint 
 ances of her girlhood. 
 
 " I must pay them up," she explained. " Besides, 
 I need company all alone here during the day, 
 and mamma away off there in the country." 
 
 The succession of Mary Munsons lasted, in 
 deed, through into spring. Flowers, carriages, 
 and matinee -tickets doubled up finely, and the 
 hideous mien of the caterer was seen in connec 
 tion with frequent lunches. 
 
231 
 
 "I spoke to Mr. Atwater to-day about the 
 front of the house," she said to him one evening 
 towards the close of dinner. "Maggie didn t 
 quite get around to pudding to-day," she went on, 
 as the dessert came in, " so I sent out for tfyis ice 
 cream. Take some of these lady-fingers with it." 
 
 " To Atwater ?" 
 
 " Yes. Frances wanted me to go up with her 
 and see the drawings for the front of their house. 
 It s going to be lovely. He had some special lit 
 tle drawings for the outside doors, and things 
 like that. He s got beautiful taste." 
 
 " I know he has." 
 
 " I asked him to design some doors for us." 
 
 "You did?" 
 
 " Yes. He said he had a new idea that he d 
 like to try." 
 
 " You must get your landlord to pass on that. 
 He might not like the new idea." 
 
 " Think not ?" 
 
 " He might object. It would all come on his 
 hands in the end." 
 
 " We d better go on with it, don t you think?" 
 
 " But don t let it be anything too unusual or 
 too elaborate." Architects, he understood, gen 
 erally charged a commission on the cost of the 
 work; so much per cent. five, he had heard. 
 " We don t want to go in too deep." 
 
 They left the table and sauntered slowly into 
 the parlor the drawing-room, Jessie called it. 
 
232 
 
 The standing lamp sent out a broad glare from 
 under its shade of crinkled yellow paper, and the 
 floor of the room burned with a dull and unac 
 customed red the red of a handsome Turkish 
 rug. 
 
 " Ah, what s this ?" exclaimed George. 
 
 " I picked it up to-day," she said ; " it was so 
 pretty and just the thing for this room. Cecilia 
 called it a great bargain she knows all about 
 rugs." 
 
 "Then you have been shopping with Mrs. 
 Ingles?" 
 
 " Well, she was getting a few things. She 
 said that sixty dollars was little enough for it." 
 
 " Sixty dollars ! Did you pay for it ?" 
 
 " I had it charged." 
 
 "Charged?" 
 
 " Yes ; wasn t that right ? Why, George, even 
 poor mamma, away out there in Hinsdale, has 
 her account at Field s." 
 
XVIII 
 
 THE drawings for the embellishment of the 
 house on Walton Place were undertaken by At- 
 water, and their scope broadened under the ar 
 tist s hands. George, at his wife s request, took 
 the elevator one noon and went up to the roof to 
 see them. 
 
 In Atwater s absence he was received by the 
 head draughtsman. The scheme had widened, 
 as such schemes will ; there were suggestions for 
 the porch and for new hand - rails. There was 
 also a drawing for a cornice in harmony. 
 
 " Urn," said George, thoughtfully. " This is 
 all very handsome." 
 
 At about the same time that work on the 
 Ogden house began, the work on the plans for 
 the Floyd house received a check. This check 
 was due to the first Western trip of Winthrop C. 
 Floyd, treasurer of the Massachusetts Brass Com 
 pany. He came on a general visit of inspection. 
 
 The morning after his arrival he sat in the of 
 fice of the Chicago branch ; he had come down 
 with Mrs. Floyd and Claudia. His keen and 
 quiet eye ran over the furnishings of the place. 
 
He was a bachelor of forty ; he was dressed sim 
 ply but elegantly he was completely comme il 
 faut, except for his muddy shoes, which seemed 
 to trouble him. 
 
 " Well, Walworth," he said, with the manner 
 of an elder brother and of an official whose dic 
 tum had weight, " you are pretty well fixed up 
 out here better than the home office, in fact." 
 
 "Have to be," returned the other. "Down 
 East everybody knows the company ; you could 
 do business in a coal -shed if you wanted to. 
 Here it s different. People don t know us from 
 a hole in the ground ; they go by what they 
 see." 
 
 " Do you use all these calls and things ?" 
 
 The wall was set with electrical devices for 
 calling boys from everywhere for everything. 
 
 " Sometimes. Anyway it looks as if we did, 
 and that helps business." 
 
 Little Claudia came creeping up to his desk. 
 
 " When are you going to begin, papa ? I ve 
 come down to see you do it." 
 
 " Do what, my dear ?" 
 
 " Make money. You said you did it here. 
 When are you going to begin ?" 
 
 Winthrop swung his chair towards the window 
 and looked out at the driving rain and at the 
 crowds of vehicles and passengers in the filthy 
 streets below. 
 
 " Yes," he said, under his breath ; " when are 
 
235 
 
 you going to begin ?" Then aloud, " "What a 
 beastly hole ! Is there no government here ?" 
 
 "Precious little for a million and a half of 
 people, and precious bad what there is." 
 
 " A million and a half ? Nonsense !" 
 
 "Why nonsense? There s the census, and 
 there s the regular annual increase." 
 
 Winthrop favored his brother with a stare 
 of frank curiosity. Walworth had spoken with 
 some warmth ; he seemed disposed to throw an 
 undue ardor into his defence of his adopted 
 home a city where quality seemed to count for 
 less than quantity, and where the " prominent " 
 citizen made the " eminent " citizen a super 
 fluity. Then, too, Winthrop coupled with the 
 earnest lines in his brother s forehead a slightly 
 dingy necktie under his brother s chin. He ob 
 served, moreover, in the polishing of the shoe 
 which Walworth, for greater emphasis, was 
 beating on the carpet, a neglect of the heel in 
 favor of the toe. And there were several other 
 indications of a growing carelessness in dress. 
 
 " Well, Walworth," he remarked, " you are 
 getting acclimated, I guess." 
 
 " Not to this sort of thing. Yes, there s a 
 million and a half of us here, and this little 
 quarter of a square mile is probably the most 
 crowded and the most active of any on the 
 globe, and yet it isn t found worth while to 
 keep it clean, or even decent, small as it is. On 
 
236 
 
 days like this you feel as if you just wanted to 
 remove the inhabitants and annex the whole 
 place to the Stock-yards." 
 
 Mrs. Floyd paused in the adjustment of her 
 bedraggled skirts and looked up fiercely. 
 
 " Why remove the inhabitants ?" she inquired. 
 
 " Frances !" called her husband. 
 
 " Why, indeed V asked Winthrop. " I never 
 saw such a beastly rabble in my life." 
 
 " Nor I," she cried. All her smouldering re 
 sentment against the town broke out with the 
 appearance of a new Eastern ally. 
 
 " Except in Madrid or Naples." Winthrop 
 had travelled in his younger days; he never 
 made these European comparisons except under 
 extreme provocation. 
 
 " Why are things so horrible in this country ?" 
 demanded Mrs. Floyd, plaintively. 
 
 " Because there s no standard of manners no 
 resident country gentry to provide it. Our own 
 rank country folks have never had such a check, 
 and this horrible rout of foreign peasantry has 
 just escaped from it. What little culture we 
 have in the country generally we find principal 
 ly in a few large cities, and they have become so 
 large that the small element that works for a 
 bettering is completely swamped." 
 
 He looked almost pityingly on his brother. 
 "This is no town for a gentleman," he felt 
 obliged to acknowledge. " What an awful 
 
237 
 
 thing," he admitted further, " to have only one 
 life to live, and to be obliged to live it in such a 
 place as this !" 
 
 But pity was not an important factor in Win- 
 throp s Western mission. The Chicago office 
 was costing too much and earning too little. 
 There was to be a general reduction and scaling- 
 down; the most important part of Winthrop s 
 baggage was the pruning-knife. 
 
 He remained a week. He used the knife pret 
 ty thoroughly. He snipped Atwater s plans for 
 Walworth s house into very small pieces. He 
 left Walworth in a great state of depression a 
 depression deeper than any he had felt since his 
 failure in coffee and spices. 
 
 His last evening in Chicago he spent in Wai- 
 worth s library. It was a sober little room, and 
 Walworth was the soberest man in it. His wife 
 made only an occasional emergence from her un 
 quiet silence ; she no longer looked on Winthrop 
 as an ally. The Fairchilds were there, and the 
 Ogdens dropped in during the course of the 
 evening. Fairchild and Winthrop did most of 
 the talking. 
 
 Winthrop s sensibilities had now lost their 
 keenest edge ; the weather had improved, and 
 the general aspect of things was a little less dis 
 gusting. He listened to Fairchild with the cau 
 tious reserve of a maturity that was accustomed 
 to meet elderly strangers. He acknowledged, 
 
238 
 
 too, that the city was a big fact, and perhaps 
 a more complicated fact than he had imagined. 
 
 "You have seen the foundations," Fairchild 
 said to him. The old gentleman lay back in his 
 chair and spoke in a quiet and dispassionate 
 tone. "It has taken fifty years to put them in, 
 but the work is finally done and well done. 
 And now we are beginning to build on these 
 foundations. We might have put up our build 
 ing first and then put in the underpinning after 
 wards. That is a common way, but ours will be 
 found to have its advantages." 
 
 " I dare say," admitted Winthrop ; " but you 
 have made an awful muss doing it." 
 
 "Well," rejoined Fairchild, "you may look at 
 the external aspect of things, which is distress 
 ing enough, I acknowledge, or you may consider 
 the people themselves, who are perhaps the real 
 essential." 
 
 " Winthrop finds them rather distressing too." 
 It was Wai worth who spoke ; his voice came in 
 a muffled tone from the darkest corner of the 
 room. 
 
 " What have we done to him?" demanded 
 Jessie Ogden, quickly. "Haven t we received 
 him well ?" 
 
 Winthrop had no ground for individual com 
 plaint, and he hastened to make this clear. Per- 
 sonally, he had been made a great deal of. He 
 was rather a large figure at home, and he natu- 
 
239 
 
 rally grew larger still the farther he travelled 
 West. 
 
 " I don t think it can be denied," pursued Fair- 
 child, tranquilly, " that new-comers are pretty 
 well received here, whether they come to stay 
 or to pass on or to go back. All that a man 
 has to do, in order to insure good treatment, is 
 to put a certain valuation on himself. That 
 done, the more he claims, the more he receives ; 
 we take him at his own figure. The more I 
 think of it, the more I am astonished at so much 
 humility among people who have accomplished 
 such great results. Commercially, we feel our 
 own footing ; socially, we are rather abashed by 
 the pretensions that any new arrival chooses to 
 make. We are a little afraid of him, and, to teL 1 
 the truth, we are a little afraid of each other." 
 
 " H m," said Winthrop, rather grimly ; " Bos 
 ton goes farther than that. Some of our great 
 lights are almost afraid of themselves." 
 
 "I ve noticed," remarked Mrs. Floyd, "that 
 there is a good deal of watching and waiting for 
 cues people of plain origin who are beginning 
 to take upon themselves the forms of social or 
 ganization." She spoke like a princess of the 
 blood-royal. 
 
 " That is the point," said Fairchild. " Indi 
 vidually, we may be of a rather humble grade of 
 atoms, but we are crystallizing into a compound 
 that is going to exercise a tremendous force. To 
 
240 
 
 him that hath eyes this crystallization, this or 
 ganization, is the great thing to note just now." 
 
 "I acknowledge to have seen the ferment of 
 activity, as they call it," said Winthrop. 
 
 " You may have seen the boiling of the kettle," 
 returned Fairchild, "but you have hardly seen 
 the force that feeds the flame. The big build 
 ings are all well enough, and the big crowds in 
 the streets, and the reports of the banks and rail 
 ways and the Board of Trade. But there is some 
 thing, now, beyond and behind all that." 
 
 " Let me tell Winthrop," broke in Mrs. Floyd. 
 " Since I can t take him to our club, I must bring 
 the club to him. At our last meeting" there 
 was a sub-acid relish in all this " it developed 
 that the present intellectual situation in Chicago 
 is precisely that of Florence in the days of the 
 the" 
 
 " Medici," suggested Ogden. 
 
 "Yes, the Medici," said Ann Wilde, loudly. 
 She looked at him with a sharp aversion ; he 
 seemed to be taking part in her sister s joke. 
 " That s just exactly what my paper said ; the 
 Florence of the Medici after the dispersal of 
 the Greek scholars from Constantinople by the 
 Turks." 
 
 " Oh, murder !" said Walworth to himself ; 
 " what will Ann rig up next ?" 
 
 " The Florentines of that day," pursued his 
 sister-in-law, "didnt know so very much, per- 
 
241 
 
 haps, but they were bound to learn, and that 
 was the main thing. And it s just so here." 
 
 " Quite right," said Fairchild ; " we know what 
 there is to learn, and we are determined to mas 
 ter it. Our Constantinoples are Berlin and Lon 
 don and the rest yes, Boston, too ; and all their 
 learned exiles are flocking here to instruct us." 
 
 " And the books that are coming in !" cried 
 Jessie Ogden. She was no great reader, and she 
 spoke less as a student than as a Chicagoan 
 that is, she spoke more ardently than any stu 
 dent could have spoken. " Does the enemy 
 know that four of the biggest buildings in this 
 big city are built of books ?" 
 
 " The new libraries," her husband explained 
 " the ones that are going to make us the literary 
 centre." 
 
 " Dear me," said Winthrop, " are you expect 
 ing that ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes. And we expect to be the financial 
 centre, and presently the political centre, too 
 Chicago, plus New York and Washington." 
 
 " And where is Boston ?" 
 
 " A little behind," said Fairchild. " New York 
 is the main-mast yet ; Chicago ranks as foremast 
 at present ; while Boston is " 
 
 " The mizzen-mast," completed Ogden. 
 
 " And we Chicago folks stand at the bow," 
 chimed in his wife, " and sniff the first freshness 
 of the breeze." 
 16 
 
242 
 
 " Yes," said Winthrop, in satirical assent ; "the 
 4 Windy City. " 
 
 " Don t abuse our wind," cried Mrs. Floyd ; 
 " we should all die like flies without it." 
 
 " That s so," assented her husband. " The 
 wind is our only scavenger." 
 
 " I see," said Winthrop. " If you can only be 
 big you don t mind being dirty." 
 
 Then, half in amusement, half in amaze, he 
 concentrated his attention on the banker. " Can 
 it be that there are really any such expectations 
 here as these?" He addressed Fairchild exclu 
 sively the oldest and most sedate of the circle. 
 
 " Why not ?" returned Fairchild. " Does it 
 seem unreasonable that the State which produced 
 the two greatest figures of the greatest epoch in 
 our history, and which has done most within the 
 last ten years to check alien excesses and un- 
 American ideas, should also be the State to give 
 the country the final blend of the American char 
 acter and its ultimate metropolis ?" 
 
 " And you personally is this your own be 
 lief ? 
 
 Fairchild leaned back his fine old head on the 
 padded top of his chair and looked at his question 
 er with the kind of pity that has a faint tinge 
 of weariness. His wife sat beside him silent, but 
 with her hand on his, and when he answered she 
 pressed it meaningly; for to the Chicagoan 
 even the middle-aged female Chicagoan the 
 
243 
 
 name of the town, in its formal, ceremonial use, 
 has a power that no other word in the language 
 quite possesses. It is a shibboleth, as regards its 
 pronunciation ; it is a trumpet-call, as regards its 
 effect. It has all the electrifying and unifying 
 power of a college yell. 
 
 " Chicago is Chicago," he said. " It is the be 
 lief of all of us. It is inevitable ; nothing can 
 stop us now." 
 
 But Winthrop Floyd was glad to withdraw 
 himself on the morrow from his temporary en 
 listment or drafting under the vociferous ban 
 ner of the Western capital. He did all in his 
 power, as well, to oppose its manifest destiny by 
 transmitting to Wai worth, immediately after his 
 return to Boston, a full corporate confirmation 
 of his own anathema against Walworth s office 
 and house. The Chicago representative of the 
 Massachusetts Brass Company was recommend 
 ed to secure less expensive quarters at the ear 
 liest opportunity, and was directed to drop his 
 architectural scheme forthwith. 
 
 Wai worth at once adjusted matters with At- 
 water. The architect received his " reconsidera 
 tion " with composure, but he was doubtless net 
 tled to be balked in a work in which he had 
 taken unusual personal interest, and he was also 
 disappointed merely to be paid for his plans 
 when he had looked for the fees that follow con 
 struction. These considerations may have had 
 
244 
 
 their influence on the account which he rendered 
 a month later to the Ogdens friends and rela 
 tives of the Floyds, and introduced, too, by them. 
 This account was handed in much more prompt 
 ly than is generally the case with an accredited 
 client in other professions the legal or the med 
 ical, let us say and its final footing caused Og- 
 den considerable consternation. 
 
 The account was mailed to the house instead 
 of to the bank, and the stationery employed was 
 such as to suggest a personal matter between 
 gentlemen rather than a purely business matter 
 between architect and client ; and Ogden opened 
 it under his wife s eyes to learn that design had 
 cost him more than construction. 
 
 " Your drawings are more of an item than 
 your porch itself," he said, rather faintly. " I 
 shall have to step up there and see about it." 
 
XIX 
 
 LATE one afternoon Ogden drew down his 
 desk-top, put on his street-coat, felt in his pocket 
 to be sure that Atwater s tasteful memorandum 
 was still there, and took the elevator up to the 
 eighteenth floor. He had been as conscious of 
 that memorandum all through the day as he 
 would have been of a mustard-plaster. On tak 
 ing it out and recreasing its immaculate folds he 
 almost felt as if he were about to dispute a debt 
 of honor. 
 
 Atwater was in, but he was completely taken 
 up in radiating his careful affability upon some 
 promising clients who wanted not only doors but 
 the house that went with them. Ogden got no 
 closer to him than to secure the attention of the 
 clerk whose duty it was to mediate between the 
 contractors and the plans they were to follow. 
 
 He was an alert, nervous young man, with a 
 big shock of unruly hair and a pair of large, lu 
 minous eyes behind his hooked and shimmering 
 spectacles. He ran his long, lean ? inky fingers 
 through his hair, and transferred his wide eyes 
 from the memorandum to the man who had 
 brought it in. 
 
246 
 
 " No," he said presently ; " it s all right there s 
 no mistake. Mr. Atwater took a good deal of 
 interest in this work. He sketched out some of 
 the drawings himself, to start with, and he even 
 touched up a few of them to finish with." 
 
 " Touched up a few of them to finish with ?" 
 George repeated, inquiringly. 
 
 " Yes ; he don t do that often. When he does, 
 it makes a difference ; it ought to." 
 
 The whole matter was coming to assume the 
 aspect of a personal favor ; it was a debt of 
 honor, after all. The grocer, the upholsterer, 
 and the rest of them might wait ; it would give 
 them time to learn the value of an elegant " pres 
 ence" and the compelling force of personal ac 
 quaintance. 
 
 The doors, hung and paid for, swung open 
 many times during the following winter and 
 spring, to admit people whom, as his wife as 
 sured him, it was an advantage to know. He 
 became conscious that she was actuated by mo 
 tives quite different from his, and that she had 
 a standard quite at variance from any that he 
 himself would have set up. She strained for 
 people that he would not have turned his hand 
 for. Most of these had familiar names, and it 
 sometimes seemed to him as if many of them 
 had had their place in the social yearnings of 
 Cornelia McNabb. Certainly, his wife s atti 
 tude was quite different from that of the Floyds, 
 
247 
 
 who had been disposed to pooh-pooh quietly al 
 most everybody, and also from that of her own 
 parents, who simply accepted the circle that 
 chance and association had formed for them, 
 and met everybody on the same dead level of 
 good-will. 
 
 During Lent his wife arranged a small musi- 
 cale ; another Mary Munson had arrived this 
 time from Cincinnati. The names of the per 
 formers included only those of amateurs of the 
 better sort since she knew that good profes 
 sional services were quite beyond her reach ; 
 yet chairs, awning, and refreshments called for 
 the expense of outside supervision. The morn 
 ing before it she put a slip of paper into his 
 hands. 
 
 "You are going right past the Tribune. 
 Won t you just leave this with them ?" 
 
 It was an announcement of her musicale. It 
 included a list of names not those of the per 
 formers, but those of the listeners. 
 
 " All old friends in print," her husband com 
 mented. " What do you care for these people ? 
 Why don t you ask the Fairchilds ? they re 
 quiet, but they re nice ; and they like music. 
 Why don t you have your father and mother? 
 I haven t seen either of them for a month." 
 
 His wife writhed delicately in protest. Her 
 winter had increased her paleness. The blue 
 veins were bluer in her temples ; her large eyes 
 
248 
 
 looked larger yet, and there were faint circles 
 under them. 
 
 "Well, Cecilia doesn t fancy Mrs. Fairchikl 
 very much, in the first place " 
 
 George bit his lip. By the curious workings 
 of chance he had never yet seen Cecilia Ingles, 
 but he no longer joked about her non-actuality. 
 She appeared to be looming up as the great 
 power in his household. 
 
 " and besides," she proceeded, " who would 
 recognize their names if they saw them in 
 print ?" 
 
 George stood like a looker-on at a transforma 
 tion-scene, before whose eyes the gauze veils are 
 lifted one by one in slow succession. 
 
 " Oh, then," he said, and less in jest than in 
 earnest, " there is no use in enjoying ourselves 
 unless we put it in the papers, and no use of put 
 ting it in the papers unless we can give a list of 
 names, and no 
 
 "Now, George !" She flushed with vexation. 
 
 " and no use of putting in a list of names 
 unless they are names that will be generally rec 
 ognized. Well, that does cut out the Fairchilds, 
 and your poor mother, too. And mine." He 
 looked at her narrowly. 
 
 " Now, George," she cried again, " how can 
 you be so disagreeable? You know papa and 
 mamma wouldn t care anything for this; nor 
 your mother, either. And it isn t the only thing 
 
249 
 
 I m ever going to have. I can ask her yet, 
 though, if you want me to." 
 
 " Oh, fiddlesticks ! Only don t lose your head. 
 Here ; give me that precious notice. Perhaps, 
 before long, people who are after names will be 
 just as anxious to get yours." 
 
 " You silly boy !" she cried, striking him 
 lightly across the shoulder. But she was pleased 
 and gratified by this, and she was not able to 
 conceal it. 
 
 Following Lent there was the usual social after 
 math. For Mrs. George Milward Ogden the 
 major stress of the season was over, but she 
 gave a few luncheons, and she went to a good 
 many others. These little functions sent dozens 
 of ladies tripping through the raw winds and 
 the slushy streets of spring. The lake, weltering 
 under the gray skies of March, dashed its vicious 
 sprays high over the sea-wall, and sent its cruel 
 blasts gashingly through the streets that ended 
 on its confines. And at such signals asthma and 
 bronchitis and pneumonia dug their clutching 
 fingers into the throats and lungs of thousands 
 of tender sufferers. 
 
 Jessie s supplementary doings were of too in 
 formal a nature to demand the entrance of out 
 side help, but at the same time they were of a 
 kind to lay the maximum strain upon the small 
 and simply organized household which was all 
 that her husband was as yet able to maintain. 
 
250 
 
 About every so often the domestic tension 
 overtook the breaking-point. An interregnum 
 would follow, and then a change of dynasty. 
 The blame for these economic hitches George 
 \vas obliged to distribute with an even hand. 
 He acknowledged frankly the mere muddishness 
 of most of the peasant material that oozed in 
 and out of his kitchen ; but he was also obliged 
 to recognize the utter tactlessness of his wife 
 and the folly of her unguarded exhibitions of 
 conscious superiority. She had never before 
 been able to issue directions to two servants, 
 and she had never acquired the practical ex 
 perience necessary for the control of even one. 
 She referred to her servants in their own hear 
 ing as servants ; and this did not seem to her 
 as inconsiderate from the point of humanity or 
 unwise as a mere matter of policy. 
 
 The burden of this fell principally upon her 
 husband. He was obliged now and then to 
 temporize with an indignant cook to secure a 
 dinner for the evening; on one occasion he em 
 ployed all his finesse to effect without scandal 
 the removal of a frantic chamber-maid ; and he 
 became more familiarly known to the intelli 
 gence offices than he had ever expected to be. 
 His wife was manifestly incapable of keeping a 
 house, and he was committed to housekeeping 
 for a year to come. 
 
 March passed and April came. One evening 
 
251 
 
 they sat together in their little parlor. The 
 weather outside was raw and rainy, and not all 
 of its chill could be kept out by the grate-fire 
 over which Jessie was cowering and shivering. 
 She wore a fleecy wrap on which her thin fingers 
 took a sinuous clutch, and she was nursing a 
 cold whose sniffling discomfort seemed passing 
 into an obstinate cough. She was running over 
 the newspaper carelessly. 
 
 " I see Mayme Brainard s mother has just 
 died," she said presently. " On the eighth of 
 April, at her residence and all that l Abigail 
 Brainard, aged fifty-six years. Wasn t she any 
 older than that ? Well, I suppose not. ISTo great 
 change for her, is it ?" 
 
 " What did she die of?" 
 
 " Oh, it was her lungs. It s a wonder that 
 anybody lives through these springs. I can t 
 think why we ever got so close to the lake as 
 this. I don t feel sure of getting through an 
 other winter here myself." 
 
 She leaned forward to stir the fire, and then 
 lay back, coughing. 
 
 " I suppose they ll let Mayme come home, now 
 for the funeral, anyway. I wonder if she ll 
 bring the baby ; he swears he won t see it. Cor 
 nelia says it s a pretty little thing Abbie was 
 down there a month ago." 
 
 George stared at the fire thoughtfully, and 
 reached mechanically for the poker. 
 
252 
 
 " I don t know how they will feel, now, about 
 staying in that house," she went on. " Cornelia 
 wants to move the whole family over here, but 
 Abbie won t listen to her. I don t know whether 
 she likes her own part of town, but she seems to 
 have taken a strong dislike to this. Anyway, 
 she has never come near me, for all you helped 
 them at her brother s wedding. Cornelia ap 
 pears to think everything of her, though, and I 
 guess she likes Cornelia quite a little. Funny, 
 isn t it, that those two Goodness, George, 
 don t knock the fire all to pieces. Here ; let me 
 have it." 
 
 She took the poker from him. 
 
 " Dear me, what a miserable flue !" She looked 
 at him discontentedly, as she settled back weari 
 ly in her big chair. " And we ve really got this 
 house on our hands for a whole year more ?" 
 She seemed to feel in this one year the weight 
 of eternity. 
 
 " That s what the lease says," he responded, 
 soberly. " What do you say ?" his eyes seemed 
 to ask. 
 
 She spoke her thoughts presently and at some 
 length. She proposed giving up the house on 
 the first of May. Was it a passing caprice or a 
 serious desire ? he wondered. 
 
 " Shall you take your porch and your doors 
 with you ?" he asked, with a sorry smile. " They 
 cost enough to be worth considering." 
 
253 
 
 " No," she answered, with the simple liter- 
 alness that builds a stone wall in a moment. 
 " We shouldn t need them in an apartment- 
 house." 
 
 " That s the idea, is it?" 
 
 " Yes, it strikes me that that would be the 
 best thing all around an apartment-house, with 
 a cafe or something. Lots of nice people live 
 that way now. Look at Cecilia Ingles s cousin ; 
 she is invited everywhere, and she entertains 
 just the same as if she was in her own house. 
 It s too hard work for me to run things like this, 
 and I ve just got to get farther away from this 
 miserable lake." 
 
 " There s all the furniture." 
 
 " We could use some of it." 
 
 " And store the rest ?" 
 
 " Yes or auction it." 
 
 " Small profit in either. What are you going 
 to do with the lease ? Store it, or auction it, or 
 use it for furnishing ?" 
 
 Her lip quivered sensitively. " Why, I sup 
 posed - 
 
 " Yes, we can sublet the house if anybody is 
 found to take it. There was something of a 
 wait before we took it. There might be an- 
 other." 
 
 "There s that Mrs. Cass " 
 
 " I don t know how much she could do in 
 three weeks a good many people are fixed by 
 
254 
 
 this time. Two weeks sooner would have made 
 some difference. I couldn t very well afford to 
 carry the house all through the summer. There s 
 a bottom to our pocket-book, and we are getting 
 to it faster than you think." 
 
 This was a figure of speech that called for no 
 direct response. For 
 
 "Well," she went on, " that s my idea : a flat, 
 with our meals. This would give me my chance 
 to get away for a part of the summer I m sure 
 I need it." 
 
 " Away for a part of the summer ?" 
 
 " Yes. Mary Munson was saying something 
 about my going to the White Mountains with 
 her in July. They would do me good. Though 
 perhaps the sea-shore might be better ; plenty 
 of those Down-east people are indebted to me 
 now." 
 
 Another of those gauze veils was lifting. Mar 
 ried life was but a prolongation of girlhood, with 
 all its associations and peregrinations. Where 
 did the husband come in ? 
 
 They left the house on the first of May. 
 George recognized by this time the essential 
 slightness and incapacity of his wife, and re 
 nounced the possibility of a home in any but a 
 modified sense. Part of their goods were sacri 
 ficed at auction, part were stored at a rate that 
 would have provided a home for a working-man s 
 family, a few pieces were utilized in filling up a 
 
255 
 
 partly furnished flat, and the deserted house 
 remained vacant through the summer. It was 
 not until October that its ornate front and its 
 tasteful decorations caught the eye of the right 
 man, and by October a complication of inter 
 ests had made a vacant house the very least 
 of Ogden s concerns. 
 
 The place came under the consideration of the 
 Floyds as soon as the intentions of the Ogdens 
 became known. A decided change had come 
 over Walworth s affairs ; a less expensive house 
 than his present one now seemed a great advan 
 tage. But his own lease ran for a year more ; 
 besides, his wife had too high an idea of their 
 position and its dues to think of succeeding the 
 young Ogdens in such a tenancy. The Floyds, 
 as a matter of fact, were sinking to bed-rock 
 a foothold whose reality they had never tested 
 yet ; and there need be no wonder that the be 
 ginning of their downward course was marked 
 by a slow reluctance. Walworth endeavored to 
 make good the shortages occasioned through his 
 brother s clippings by intrusting Ann with com 
 missions on his behalf upon the Open Board 
 affairs in which she was no more successful for 
 him than for herself; while his wife, for the first 
 time, made some efforts in a society for which 
 she had always had a shade of careless con 
 tempt. 
 
 The Ogdens established themselves anew in a 
 
256 
 
 large building where they had four or five small 
 rooms, and where they could breakfast and dine 
 with a few hundred persons of like requirements 
 and like situation. George now began renewed 
 efforts to turn to account the property for which 
 he had received deeds from McDowell. His half- 
 year of married life had put him in an awkward 
 and straitened position, and the usual activity 
 in real property that comes with the spring was 
 something of which the utmost advantage must 
 be taken. 
 
 He placed some of his outside acres with one 
 or two good houses, but this entire side of busi 
 ness seemed pervaded by apathy. 
 
 "It s going to be an off-year," he was told. 
 " Acres are down, and it looks as if they were 
 going to stay so for some time, anyway. We ll 
 take this, though, and do what we can. You 
 pay this year s taxes, of course ?" 
 
 So much for the real estate. McDowell s 
 notes, which he had made to run for a longer 
 term than pleased anybody but himself, showed 
 the due and prompt endorsement of interest pay 
 ments ; and if there was anything else in the 
 general situation to call for gratulation Ogden 
 failed to discover it. 
 
XX 
 
 JESSIE OGDEN S supposition with regard to 
 Mary Brainard was justified by events ; the 
 poor exile was allowed to come back to town 
 to attend her mother s funeral, and, thanks to 
 a providential escort, she was enabled to bring 
 her child with her. The two arrived under the 
 charge of a distant relative by marriage of the 
 Centralia Brainards, who was understood to be 
 on the point of visiting the city anyway, for the 
 purpose of " buying goods." He was presented 
 by the name of Briggs. 
 
 He was a somewhat uncouth and slovenly 
 man of thirty-five a fair specimen of the type 
 evolved by the small towns of southern Illinois. 
 But he had a bright and capable way with him, 
 and it seemed likely enough that if he were to 
 transfer himself and his business to Chicago, as 
 he once spoke of doing, he might work himself 
 up into pretty fair shape. He was a widower. 
 
 He showed some fitting sense of the solemnity 
 of the occasion that had brought him to the 
 house; but it was fair to surmise from various 
 tokens that his usual treatment of the subdued 
 young mother was in the line of familiar kind- 
 17 
 
258 
 
 ness, which only genuine solicitude kept apart 
 from semi -jocularity a jocularity that had al 
 most the effect of an understanding. He seemed 
 to have about the same understanding with the 
 baby ; he had held it part of the time on the 
 train, and he had shown a willingness to be use 
 ful in the same direction subsequently. 
 
 Brainard saw the child once. He looked at 
 the boy s dark hair and eyes and vented a dread 
 ful oath, and signified that while he and his 
 mother were in the house the infant must be 
 kept out of sight and out of sound. 
 
 Abbie Brainard made no effort towards further 
 mediation between her father and her sister. 
 The present status was endurable, and there was 
 little to be gained by additional appeal to the 
 irascible old man ; it was irascibility rather than 
 sorrow which now possessed him. Nothing irri 
 tated him more than an address to the deeper 
 emotions, and the passing of his life-long partner 
 was an address of this character. And this iras 
 cibility had risen to a pitch of fury on account 
 of the unfortunate resemblance of Mary Yibert s 
 child to its father. 
 
 Abbie was still leading her old life in her old 
 way. She had her reading, her accounts, her 
 church -work; but she went at these with less 
 energy than she had shown a year ago. She had 
 lost something in flesh and something in spirits, 
 but nothing was slighted. She had no confidants 
 and she made no moan. 
 
259 
 
 "What is the matter with her?" Cornelia 
 would now and then ask herself. " If she would 
 only rip out and say something ; but I never saw 
 a girl who was so mum. I ll get her out of this 
 place, though, if anybody can. She has got to 
 come up there and live with me. I ll fetch that, 
 if I have to pull her up by the roots." 
 
 And then, putting generalization in the place 
 of any tangible particulars, " I believe she s just 
 starving " which was not altogether wrong. 
 
 Cornelia found no specific grounds for ap 
 proaching her father-in-law about Abbie, but she 
 had some words with him about Abbie s sister. 
 
 She went to him one evening in his den ; it 
 was the day after the funeral. The distant wail 
 ing of the baby s voice had caused him to shut 
 the door of his little room with a profane slam. 
 
 " Mr. Briggs is right there in the parlor," she 
 said to him boldly, " waiting for her to come 
 down ; I don t see that it s going to help things 
 any to slam doors. If he don t mind the baby, I 
 guess we don t have to." 
 
 He turned upon her fiercely and half rose 
 from his chair. It seemed for a moment as if he 
 was intending to put her out of the room. 
 
 But she stood her ground and stared him full 
 in the face. She was the only one in the family 
 who, when the real pinch came, could look him 
 down. He fell back in his seat and fixed an un 
 certain eye upon the panels of the door. 
 
260 
 
 " There s such a thing as sense at such places 
 as this, if you d only know it," she went on. 
 She spoke out loudly ; she knew that if she used 
 a moderate voice her tones would tremble. " I 
 should think we might hold in for the day or so 
 that the man s here. He knows why she was 
 sent off down there, and that s bad enough ; but 
 it s worse for him to bring her up here and have 
 her treated bad right before his face. Why can t 
 you speak to her at table? "Why can t you 
 have 
 
 "That will do, Cornelia." He beat on the 
 arm of his chair with his doubled-up fist. " We 
 won t have anything more of this sort of thing. 
 That will do." 
 
 But there was a kind of harsh grin on his 
 face ; he either admired her pluck or anticipated 
 her point. She saw this and knew that she held 
 him in her hand. 
 
 "ISTo, it won t do, Cornelia not yet. Why 
 do you think he is here ? Do you suppose a 
 man goes travelling around the country with a 
 woman and a three months old baby for the fun 
 of it? And he hasn t come up to buy goods 
 don t you believe it. This is a great chance 
 for Mayme, everything considered. He s a 
 smart fellow, and you don t want to go and 
 spoil it all. This is a thing that will take care 
 of itself, if you ll only give it a show." 
 
 He stared at her still rather forbiddingly. 
 
261 
 
 But she saw admiration appearing through in 
 dignation, and she judged that it was gaining 
 the upper hand. 
 
 " Now," she said, with her own hand on the 
 door - knob, " when yoi* ask May me to-morrow 
 morning if she would like another piece of 
 steak, I want you to look at her ; seems to me 
 this is a time when a family should act like a 
 family. And I guess it wouldn t hurt you much 
 to put yourself out far enough to ask that man to 
 smoke a cigar with you. You try. And I think 
 this door had better stay the way I leave it." 
 
 She passed out, leaving the door open. And 
 open it remained. 
 
 In such fashion as this came Mary Brainard 
 to her mother s burial. But her younger brother 
 came not, and no one knew where he was or 
 what he might be doing. 
 
 Briggs left for Centralia on the following 
 evening, his charges remaining behind, by an 
 inconclusive arrangement that might terminate 
 in almost any way. Cornelia, who attended his 
 departure with a lively interest, noticed that 
 Abbie, in her hat and cloak, was trying to take 
 advantage of this same occurrence to steal out 
 of the house. She followed her through the 
 vestibule and overtook her half way down the 
 steps. 
 
 " Abbie !" she called after her, " where are 
 you going ?" 
 
" Sh !" Abbie said, softly. " I m just going 
 out for a few minutes." 
 
 "Neighbors?" 
 
 " No, not exactly," the girl hesitated. " I m 
 just going a block or two." 
 
 " You don t want to be trotting around alone 
 this time of night. Sha n t I go with you P 
 
 She placed her hand on Abbie s arm to draw 
 her back while she put on her own things. She 
 felt her companion tremble, and saw an expres 
 sion of anxiety on her face which she took to 
 mean embarrassment. 
 
 " No, Cornelia, I don t want you to go with 
 me. I don t need you, I ve got to go alone." 
 
 " Upon my word, I think you re acting mighty 
 queer. I just believe, Abbie Brainard, that you 
 are going out to meet somebody you, of all 
 people !" 
 
 Abbie started. " Supposing I am ?" she stam 
 mered. 
 
 " Who is it ?" asked Cornelia, peremptorily. 
 Only an extremely eager interest would have 
 made her take this tone with Abbie. " Well, I 
 must say, I think your father is a little too bad. 
 Why can t he see that girls have got to be girls? 
 First it s Mayme and now it s 
 
 " Cornelia !" cried Abbie, with a violent blush 
 and the trembling voice that foreshadows tears. 
 " It s my brother ! It s Marcus !" 
 
 " Marcus !" exclaimed Cornelia. " Then I am 
 
263 
 
 going, sure. Where are you to meet him in 
 the park ?" 
 
 Abbie bowed assent. 
 
 " Well, then, you wait one second. I ll be 
 right out again." 
 
 " Don t come. He won t speak to me if he 
 sees anybody with me." 
 
 " I can stand around somewhere I won t do 
 any harm." 
 
 She was actuated as much by curiosity as by 
 sympathy. She had never seen Marcus, but she 
 remembered the " erring son " of her first play, 
 and nothing more than one s first play has a 
 fixed footing in one s association of ideas. 
 
 The park lay under the cold glare of the elec 
 tric light, in the state of forbidding bareness that 
 overtakes all such urban tracts during the ear 
 lier days of spring. Soggy footprints showed 
 everywhere in the soaked brown turf that bor 
 dered the winding paths, and masses of dead 
 leaves were matted together at the roots of the 
 spindling shrubbery. The arc -lights threw a 
 ghastly illumination on the flat white fronts of 
 the houses that stood around in rows outside as 
 well as on the stretches of theatrical posters 
 which filled up the spaces between ; and they 
 flung deep shadows into the flimsy arbors and 
 kiosks that started up here and there within. 
 Abbie, with her companion, traversed a number 
 of spongy, gravelled paths, and presently the 
 
264 
 
 figure of a man emerged from a summer-house 
 and advanced to meet her. Cornelia turned off, 
 and paused behind the thickened stalks of a 
 bare bush. 
 
 " Marcus !" cried Abbie, as her brother moved 
 towards her, " Marcus, why didn t you come ? I 
 waited at the door to let you in. Could any 
 body have made any trouble at such a time as 
 that?" 
 
 He came up to her with a few unsteady steps. 
 His eyes were blood-shot, and on his face, which 
 seemed paler and thinner than ever under the 
 white flood from the globe overhead, there was 
 a long, half-healed scar. He looked at her in 
 a dull, dazed way ; perhaps he simply misappre 
 hended these present words, perhaps he was 
 unable to fully comprehend any words at all. 
 
 " You could have gone in a carriage all alone 
 with me," she went on, in pitiful reproach. 
 " And you could have stayed in it you needn t 
 have seen anybody else at all. I wanted you 
 so much. Mayme came ; why couldn t you ? 
 Oh, Marcus, you were thought of ; your name 
 was almost the last one said." 
 
 She threw her head on his shoulder and burst 
 into tears. He gave way a little, and then, with 
 an effort, he mastered a steadier pose. 
 
 Her crape brushed his face ; he felt it, rather 
 than saw it. 
 
 "Is he dead?" Something like light came 
 
265 
 
 into his dull eye. The lamp above gave a 
 sudden vast flicker, and the long scar on his face 
 deepened and lengthened and came back to it 
 self again. It was all like a sinister and cynical 
 smile. 
 
 " Marcus ! don t you know ? Where have you 
 been ? Haven t you got any of my letters ?" 
 
 He leaned against the silly rusticity of the 
 summer-house, and looked at her with a dazed 
 but inquiring eye. 
 
 "It s mother! It s mother!" the poor girl 
 cried. " Why didn t you come ?" 
 
 " Why, how is this ?" asked Cornelia, stepping 
 forward. Hadn t he heard " 
 
 " I mailed them to the same place. And the 
 money didn t you get that, either ?" 
 
 He looked at her steadily and soberly, but 
 his eyes had a heavy droop. " It s mother," he 
 said at length ; " it s mother that s dead." He 
 sat down carefully on the steps of the summer- 
 house. " And my name was the last. Always 
 the last, Abbie. When was it ?" 
 
 "Has he moved do you suppose?" asked 
 Cornelia. She regarded him long and steadily. 
 She seemed about to recognize him though 
 voice was apparently counting for more than 
 face. 
 
 " It was only day before yesterday," Abbie 
 said. " I tried to see you, but it was so far and 
 there was so much to do. But I sent you word." 
 
266 
 
 " I haven t been there lately," he said slowly. 
 " I couldn t have come day before yesterday," 
 he added presently. 
 
 "Where have I seen him before?" thought 
 Cornelia. And, " What is the matter with him ?" 
 she seemed to ask of Abbie. 
 
 " I couldn t come," he repeated. " I m sorry," 
 he added humbly. " I was somewhere else." 
 
 " Have you been away all these three months? 
 I haven t seen you since almost New Year s. 
 Have you been away from the city all this 
 time?" 
 
 " I have been somewhere somewhere else," 
 he repeated thickly. He rose tremblingly. " I 
 suppose they ll have me there again, some time. 
 Well, all right," he said, with resignation. 
 
 " What does he mean ?" asked Abbie, turning 
 appealingly to Cornelia. 
 
 Marcus followed his sister s eyes. He looked 
 at Cornelia narrowly, his own eyes half closed. 
 " Who is this ?" he asked. 
 
 " It s Cornelia Burt s wife." 
 
 " Burt s wife ?" He held her with an enig 
 matical stare. " I have seen her," he said ; 
 " before." 
 
 " Where ?" thought Cornelia. " JSTot possibly 
 at the theatre ?" 
 
 " In church," he explained, with a slow gravi 
 ty. " He isn t dead Burt S" 
 
 " Dead ?" cried Cornelia. " No, indeed." 
 
267 
 
 " No, he isn t dead," Marcus repeated deliber 
 ately. His eyelids raised themselves. " He is 
 married; he has half a million," he went on, 
 with the same slowness. His eye lighted up 
 with a malignant glare. -"No, he isn t dead. 
 But" 
 
 He stretched himself aloft, and thrust out his 
 arm, and staggered, and only half -saved himself. 
 
 " but I will kill him," he added suddenly. 
 
 "Marcus!" his sister screamed; "are you 
 mad 3" 
 
 He lay slantingly against the corner of the 
 summer-house. His arm caught at the cross- 
 pieces of the rustic carpentry, and he hung 
 there panting. Presently a little stream of 
 blood began to trickle across the palm of his 
 hand he had torn himself on a nail. He felt 
 the warm fluid on his skin, and held up his hand 
 to his own curious and impersonal inspection. 
 
 " Give me your handkerchief, Cornelia," Abbie 
 implored pitifully. She folded her own and laid 
 Cornelia s over it, and twisted it around his 
 thumb and tied it over his wrist. 
 
 His fingers felt thin and claw-like, and there 
 was a grime rubbed into their cracked and 
 roughened skin those girlish fingers (his moth 
 er s fingers) that had once held a pencil so deli 
 cately. 
 
 "I have seen her before," he repeated. 
 "Here." He jerked his hand out of his sister s 
 
268 
 
 hold and waved it over the circumscribed and 
 shabby landscape. The light shimmered on the 
 leaden surface of the pond behind them, and the 
 wind rustled the stark weeds along its muddy 
 edges. " I knew it was coming." Abbie caught 
 his hand back. " Half a million ; he never did 
 anything for me. I will kill him" he muttered 
 faintly. 
 
 Cornelia continued her inspection of him. 
 " Abbie, just look at these clothes, will you ? 
 And he hasn t got any cuffs on, either." 
 
 " Marcus !" his sister called appealingly. Her 
 raised voice indicated that, after all, she must 
 acknowledge him as other than himself. " All 
 that money I sent you you need it. Go right 
 away to-morrow to your old number and get 
 it." She turned to Cornelia. "I haven t got 
 any ; have you ? I forgot it, after all." 
 
 "Just this half-dollar," she answered. "Ex 
 actly what I paid," she said to herself, " to see 
 him in this part once before." She recognized 
 him now ; she saw that she had been interested 
 in the new actor because nobody else had seemed 
 so ; and she felt sure that his attempt on the 
 stage had been the same brief failure that all of 
 his other attempts must have been as well. 
 
 Marcus raised himself, and a sly smile came 
 over his face. "Money?" he said. "Keep it. 
 I don t want it. I can raise all I need. Yibert 
 knew the ropes, and now I know them just as 
 
269 
 
 well myself. I can do business all right again. 
 No money, Abbie ; no." lie thrust it back upon 
 her. " He always said I wasn t^ for business ; 
 but I ll show him." 
 
 He braced himself and stepped out decidedly 
 into the path. He turned in the direction of the 
 exit. The other two insensibly took this direc 
 tion as well, and fell to regulating their steps by 
 his. 
 
 " You are a good sister, Abbie," he said, as 
 they passed out. " You have been good to me. 
 Good." He put his hand on hers ; he had for 
 gotten that it was bandaged. There was a soft 
 stringency in the folds of the handkerchiefs, but 
 she felt his grateful pulses underneath. 
 
 " Oh, Cornelia," moaned poor Abbie ; " I must 
 take him home I must I must ! So near at 
 hand and the place where he ^belongs. I can t 
 leave him to go wandering around like this." 
 
 Marcus laid his bandaged hand on his sister s 
 shoulder. " No, Abbie." The earlier waves of 
 a sodden stupor now seemed to be washing over 
 him, and he looked on the two girls with a dull 
 leer. "Not home. Better place than home. 
 But some time I will come home some time. 
 He never treated me as well as he did Burt." 
 His tones came thickly. " I will kill him," he 
 murmured softly to himself in a drunken con 
 fidence. 
 
 He turned off, down a side street. Abbie 
 
270 
 
 stood watching him as he disappeared, to reap 
 pear in the light of frequent lamp-posts. Pres 
 ently he turned a corner. Abbie clasped her 
 hand tightly in her companion s and allowed 
 herself to be led home. 
 
 " Another job for me," said Cornelia, thought 
 fully. 
 
XXI 
 
 THE Ogdens, in their apartment, presented to 
 their callers substantially the same aspect that 
 they had offered in a complete house, save that 
 the dining-room had been lopped off, along with 
 the kitchen. They were a shade more compact 
 and, if anything, a shade more luxurious. 
 
 Among the first of their callers here was the 
 faithful Brower. As he lounged back in a famil 
 iar easy-chair he cast his eye around the drawing- 
 room and the reception-hall; he recognized a 
 number of things from the other house, and de 
 tected, too, a good many novel elegancies. In 
 one corner of the room, in particular, there stood 
 a delightful little tea-table ; and he learned that 
 the full paraphernalia of the delicate function 
 known as "a tea" could be produced at a mo 
 ment s notice. 
 
 On the purchase of this adjunct to polite liv 
 ing Jessie had brought all her insistence to bear. 
 Life to her had now come merely to mean re 
 ceiving and being received ; and to receive at all 
 she must receive correctly and elegantly. 
 
 " It s about all I feel equal to doing now- 
 giving teas," she explained ; " and that s all the 
 
272 
 
 more reason why I should do it properly. Now, 
 Cecilia Ingles s table and china " 
 
 " For Heaven s sake, Jessie, please to remem 
 ber that you are not Mrs. Ingles and that I am 
 not her husband. Can you expect me to com 
 pete with a man who has an income like his? 
 Do you know what that building that building 
 alone pays him a year ?" 
 
 " Well, I only want things nice. I shall have 
 to live quietly for a while I don t feel as if I 
 had any great strength; and I don t think I 
 ought to be denied such a small thing as this." 
 
 Hence the charming little tea-table, the delicate 
 and exquisite porcelain, and the beautifully bur 
 nished kettle ; and hence, too, the cup for Brower, 
 so that he might see how the whole thing went. 
 But the hand that passed it to him was white 
 and tremulous, and the graceful bit of lace over 
 the wrist fluttered with a pitiful palpitation. 
 
 " I m going to put another lump on your sau 
 cer ; so sorry you have caught us without a lem 
 on." She smiled atf him as she spoke, and he 
 could not but see that her lips had a bluish tinge. 
 " So good of you to let me come in just as I was." 
 She smoothed down the fall of lace along the 
 front of her wrapper. " But I hardly felt equal 
 to dressing this evening ; besides, an old friend 
 like you " 
 
 The " old friend " went home and talked 
 things over with his room-mate. 
 
273 
 
 He lit the burners on both sides of his dress 
 ing-case mirror and slowly took off his coat. 
 His room-mate was in his shirt-sleeves, too. 
 
 " I wonder if he is happy," said Brower, 
 thoughtfully running his thumb-nail along the 
 teeth of his tortoise-shell comb. 
 
 " He tried hard enough to be," answered his 
 room-mate, running his thumb along the teeth of 
 his comb. 
 
 Brower sighed and looked with frank but 
 troubled eyes into his friend s face. " Too hard, 
 perhaps." 
 
 The other returned his glance in kind. " I m 
 afraid so," he breathed. 
 
 " He figured it all out beforehand," said 
 Brower. " We talked a good deal on the sub 
 ject generally." 
 
 " That sort of thing doesn t always pay." 
 
 " We considered the rich girl and the poor 
 girl," Brower went on. "But there s another 
 kind of girl that we both failed to take account 
 of." 
 
 " What kind is that?" 
 
 "The girl in very moderate circumstances 
 who has spent all her time in going about 
 among wealthy relatives and friends." 
 
 " The poor princess who makes the grand 
 chain of other people s castles ?" 
 
 " Yes," assented Brower ; " the grand chain of 
 other people s castles. It s demoralizing." 
 18 
 
274 
 
 " Is he a disappointed man ?" 
 
 "Yes; I m certain of it. Disappointed, and 
 worried half to death. I m sorry for him. I m 
 afraid for him." 
 
 He sat down on the edge of the bed and be 
 gan to unlace his shoes. His room-mate wore 
 shoes of the same size and laced them in the 
 same way. 
 
 "I wonder," said he, "if he really loved 
 her?" 
 
 " ShP saidBrower. 
 
 " Wasn t there another one that he did love ?" 
 
 " Not a word more !" cried Brower. 
 
 He undressed and got into bed. He took a 
 book with him. It was " A Mistaken Marriage" 
 he read everything. 
 
 " What do you want to read for ?" asked the 
 other. "It s late." 
 
 " I read because I don t want to think." He 
 opened at the mark and settled back on his pil 
 low and started in. 
 
 " Where are you now ?" demanded his double. 
 
 " Page 316 ; the castle s on fire." 
 
 " Do you want anything more about castles ?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " And haven t you had enough of fires ?" 
 
 " Plenty." 
 
 "Well, then!" 
 
 Out went the gas, and sleep presently suc 
 ceeded. 
 
275 
 
 The Ogclens had other callers ; among them 
 was Frederick Pratt. 
 
 Frederick had left the Underground for the 
 temple at the extreme end of the street, where 
 he was engaged in an ardent study of puts and 
 calls. The atmosphere of the Board of Trade is 
 less sedate than that of the clearing-house asso 
 ciation, and the new recruit had become still 
 more volatile and giddy. He was skating on 
 thinner ice and was putting more assurance into 
 his movements. 
 
 Pratt, like Brower, made his own observations 
 on the new status of the Ogdens; but unlike 
 Brower, he did not keep his opinions and con 
 jectures to himself. He gave the same currency 
 to his reflections on this pair that he had given 
 to those on the Yiberts and among others thus 
 favored were the Floyds. 
 
 " What s the matter with George, anyhow 3" 
 he asked Walworth one evening. They were 
 sitting again in Floyd s library, and a light haze 
 of tobacco-smoke prompted to elegiac revery. 
 " He looks old. And he has come to be as poky 
 as the deuce. He seemed last night as if he was 
 worried half to death." 
 
 " I guess he is," answered Walworth. " He s 
 anxious about his wife, for one thing." 
 
 " Well, she does look pretty bad, that s a. fact. 
 I don t believe she will live the year out. The 
 first cold weather will carry her off." 
 
276 
 
 " Don t say that !" exclaimed Mrs. Floyd. 
 " She s delicate, and she has got to take care of 
 herself. But to talk about dying that s anoth 
 er thing." 
 
 "I m not so sure." And Wai worth shook his 
 head gravely. 
 
 " But there s something more than that," said 
 Freddy. " It s money. Gad ! how they are fixed 
 up ! How can he stand it ?" 
 
 " He can t," answered Wai worth ; " he s fall 
 ing behind. And there is that house of his 
 empty yet. I d take it off his hands myself if 
 it wasn t for being left in the same fix too. 
 Wish I could help him ; he hasn t said anything, 
 though." 
 
 " He won t, either," replied Pratt. He ain t 
 that kind." 
 
 " Well, I don t see that we need trouble our 
 selves about help," Ann broke in. " He harmed 
 me, anyway, a great deal more than he helped 
 me with that precious brother-in-law of his." 
 
 " I imagine he knows all about the brother- 
 in-law, too, by this time," rejoined Walworth. 
 " Haven t you got almost tired of twanging that 
 string ?" 
 
 He wondered if Ogden s brother-in-law were 
 really as trying as his own sister-in-law. 
 
 Still other callers favored the Ogdens. Among 
 them was one that had not called at the other 
 house that had never before, indeed, called at 
 
277 
 
 any house whatever. About the first of August 
 a little debutante appeared on the social scene 
 and was " received " with all the care and flatter 
 ing attention that the new apartment had at its 
 disposal. She was a pale and fragile little bud, 
 like many of the exotics with which her mother 
 was fond of decorating her rooms; she had the 
 same slender fingers that set these flowers around, 
 and the same large blue eyes that studied their 
 effect. 
 
 A nurse came, and she stayed long after the 
 time when a mere nurse-maid should have taken 
 her place. Curtains were pulled down and kept 
 so; the doctor s carriage (and sometimes more 
 than one) stood waiting before the big doorway 
 of the " Westmoreland " ; bottles big and little 
 accumulated on tables and shelves ; and cautious 
 tiptoeing became the habit of the whole house 
 hold ; until, at the end of a month, mother and 
 child were doing as well and only as well as 
 could be expected. This was not well at all. 
 But both were out of immediate danger, and 
 presently both appeared to mend. 
 
 The nurse-maid now arrived, and the carriage 
 and the cap. The languid young mother was 
 capable of taking but a tepid interest in most 
 things, but she rallied her powers to enforce the 
 cap, Cecilia Ingles was her model here as in 
 other matters, and the model was followed close 
 ly. Not every girl would wear a cap, but at last 
 
278 
 
 a capable one was found who was willing to. 
 The lace cover of the perambulator and the 
 white frills of its propeller were a frequent sight 
 on the streets for a little time ; then the neces 
 sity developed for the transfer of mother, child, 
 and nurse, during a few weeks, to the conven 
 ient sanatorium provided by nature in southern 
 Wisconsin. 
 
 The little party was back again in town at the 
 opening of the fall season. Jessie employed her 
 dwindling powers in a partial resumption of the 
 duties which she felt that " society " demanded 
 of her, and the child taxed the energies and re 
 sources of the maid, who received little real as 
 sistance from its mother. There were small 
 gusts and starts of maternal affection now and 
 then, but they would quickly run their brief 
 course and baby would be carried out of the 
 room. Ogden wondered, from a curiously im 
 personal outside standpoint, whether he was to 
 attribute this to his wife s waning vitality or to 
 an inherent incapacity for deep and genuine 
 feeling. 
 
 But this matter soon passed beyond the con 
 fines of discussion. The day came when the 
 nurse was dismissed, the carriage was put away, 
 and Brower went with the stricken father to se 
 lect a lot in the cemetery. It came that the two 
 stood together one forenoon before a wide and 
 polished mahogany counter, and bent their heads 
 
27 
 
 over a handsome plat that was neatly lettered 
 and numbered, and was shaded in pleasant tints 
 of blue and green. A man stood on the other 
 side of the counter and tapped the drawing here 
 and there with the reversed end of a fat pen 
 holder. 
 
 " This is a good section," he said ; he was 
 pausing over a green oval which was intersected 
 by four or five fine black lines. " You are right 
 on a leading drive- way " carrying the pen-hold 
 er along between the waving of two other and 
 wider lines that ran parallel " and just over 
 here is the lake" with his little finger on a 
 tangled and shapeless patch of blue. 
 
 " That small lot could be made to do," said 
 Brower, softly. 
 
 " This is the most fashionable part of the 
 whole place," the man went on, with an indif 
 ferent loudness. " See here." He took down a 
 large warped photograph from its place on a 
 dusty shelf behind him, and gave it a dexterous 
 wipe with his elbow. " This monument here 
 is just across the drive-way, and it cost twenty 
 thousand dollars. Put up this summer by Ar 
 thur J. Ingles I guess you ve heard of him" 
 
 " Good God !" groaned Ogden. " Have I got 
 to compete with that man even in the grave 
 yard ?" 
 
 The next afternoon a sombre little procession 
 took its w^ay limits-ward to a tract outside, which 
 
280 
 
 was tenderly enclosed by great stretches of 
 barbed wire, and was neighbored by the noise 
 and glare of several stone-cutting yards. This 
 little train traversed the raw and ragged edges 
 of the town, and trailed across the succeeding 
 reach of open prairie-land, over which led a long, 
 straight, sandy road, dotted here and there with 
 houses of refreshment for the occupants of 
 mourning-coaches and for their drivers. There 
 was the raw chill in the air which the north 
 sometimes sends down into our early October 
 days. The poor mother sobbed and coughed and 
 shivered in her corner of the carriage; she re 
 turned to her home ill and exhausted, and en 
 tered it never to leave it alive. 
 
 It costs when a baby comes, it costs when a 
 / baby goes, it costs when a wife lies sick and dy 
 ing, and Ogden now confessed himself almost 
 driven to the wall. 
 
 " I know, George," his wife said, " that every 
 thing has been a great expense; but I m sure 
 papa would help us if you only spoke to him." 
 
 " "What !" he cried, harshly. 
 
 She started, and presently was all a-tremble. 
 Then she fell back weakly and coughed long 
 and violently. " Oh, George, how could you ?" 
 she gasped. 
 
 " Forgive me, my poor child," he said, and 
 took her hand. " But I could never do anything 
 like that never." 
 
281 
 
 The next day he took the McDowell notes and 
 spent what time he could spare among the bro 
 kers. They passed commendingly on the prompt 
 payment of the interest as shown by the en 
 dorsements ; but McDowell was pretty well 
 known, and it was intimated that endorsements 
 of another sort would be needed to make nego 
 tiation possible. 
 
 Then he got out the abstract of one of the 
 McDowell tracts the only one that he person 
 ally and individually had any right to use. 
 " You ve got considerably more than a pocket 
 ful there," the door-keeper of the Clifton De 
 posit Yaults said to him as he passed out. He 
 left the abstract with a firm of mortgage bro 
 kers for examination. In the course of a week 
 they advised him that a release had been over 
 looked an instrument which must show of rec 
 ord before a loan could be effected on the prop 
 erty. 
 
 The tract had been put through a good many 
 paces, and some of McDowell s work had been 
 too hurried to be careful. The man to give the 
 necessary release was a professional tax-buyer. 
 He lived on the mistakes and misfortunes of 
 other people their sins of omission and commis- 
 sion; and such an act from such a man would 
 cost something. It might be ten dollars, or fifty, 
 or five hundred. 
 
 He waited in this harpj^ s outer office, while 
 
282 
 
 another caller, a woman, claimed attention in 
 the inner one. It was Ann Wilde; he recog 
 nized her and she recognized him. She threw a 
 scowling glance upon him, and her harsh and 
 vindictive tones fell on his ears for several suc 
 ceeding minutes. She knew his necessities ; 
 could she be making them known to another ? 
 
 It seemed so when his turn came. The re 
 lease would be given only on payment of a sum 
 that, in his present circumstances, was simply 
 impossible. 
 
 He seemed now to have exhausted all expedi 
 ents all legitimate ones. A bitter recollection 
 of that Sunday drive in the country came over 
 him ; he had indeed given a free rein to his wife, 
 and just how close he was to graze against ruin 
 only the future could show. He spent a miser 
 able, sleepless night, and at daybreak he had de 
 cided to tax the bank for his own necessities 
 relying upon the present maturing of his notes 
 to set himself right within a month or two. Do 
 not inquire as to his precise method there are 
 many ways to take : the actual appropriation of 
 currency, the abstraction of securities, the over 
 issue of certificates of stock, and so on and on. 
 He chose the method which seemed liable to the 
 lightest misconstruction and allowable of the 
 promptest reparation. He avoided seeing him 
 self in the aspect of a criminal by pleading his 
 own cruel needs and by believing in his ability 
 
283 
 
 to make a prompt and complete restitution. 
 Perhaps neither of these two reasons could have 
 stood alone, but they leaned together and held 
 each other up a precarious poise that was not 
 long to endure. 
 
XXII 
 
 IT endured, in fact, scarcely a fortnight. It 
 lapsed at the close of a dull October day a day 
 that was within one of the first anniversary of his 
 marriage. Let the means by which he was de 
 tected be asked no more than the means through 
 which he transgressed. The delicate mechanism 
 of a bank s accounts responds sensitively to the 
 slightest and most ingenious variation ; and it 
 may be, too, that some one in this particular 
 bank was watching for the slip and was waiting 
 for the chance to expose and punish it. 
 
 The smoky dusk of the short afternoon was 
 falling outside, while within, under the illumi 
 nation made by a single electric light, a mother, 
 in the same room w r here one of Brainard s 
 daughters had plead for the other, was now 
 pleading with him for her son. 
 
 No taint had ever fallen before on any of her 
 family or connections. She was crushed and 
 dazed at the thought that anything like this 
 had happened, could have happened, had had 
 the slightest need of happening. And she was 
 dumfounded that all explanation fell upon heed 
 less ears, and that all offers of restitution en- 
 
285 
 
 countered such stubborn, brutish, and deter 
 mined opposition. 
 
 " We have lands," she cried, with the tears 
 coursing down her anxious face. " We can make 
 this good, twice and three times over. What 
 more can you want ?" 
 
 But Brainard did want something more. He 
 wanted the ruin of her son. 
 
 " A bank can t deal in real estate," he said 
 doggedly. 
 
 He sent a malevolent glance across the table 
 on whose far edge Ogden s bowed head was 
 resting. Beside Ogden stood Fairchild ; there 
 was a look of sympathetic distress upon his 
 kindly face. 
 
 " It is true," he said, in a low and quiet tone, 
 " that it is not allowable for us to make a loan 
 upon real property ; but it would not be amiss 
 for us to take it in payment of this this " 
 
 " Theft ! " cried Brainard loudly. Ogden 
 winced and shuddered ; his mother sank into a 
 chair with a low moan. 
 
 "Look here, Fairchild," the old man went 
 on, holding up his forefinger with an offensively 
 masterful effect of caution, " it will pay you to 
 go pretty slow just about here. This" he 
 wagged his head contemptuously towards the 
 bowed head of the culprit " was your man. 
 You took his letters ; you put him in here. Just 
 stop and think of that !" 
 
286 
 
 Fairchild bit his lip. 
 
 " And the other man, before him, was yours. 
 Don t forget that, either." His face showed a 
 cruel and malignant grin. 
 
 Fairchild flushed, and lowered his eyes to the 
 floor in silence. Ogden half raised his head to 
 look at him; what could these words mean? 
 He looked at his mother, too ; she was lying 
 back with her face in her hands. 
 
 The young man s own face was mapped with 
 the lines of a worry that goads one on to des 
 peration, and it was painted with the blended 
 hue that comes from shame and anxiety and 
 fear and the exhausting struggles carried on 
 through long and sleepless nights. It was hard 
 to face these other faces ; it was hard to face 
 even the light of day, thick and dulling though 
 it might be. His head drooped again to the 
 friendly dusk of the table-top before him. 
 
 "By Heaven," Brainard went on, "not an 
 other man comes into this bank except under a 
 guarantee ; and he ll pay the premium for it if 
 he don t stay more than a week. You might 
 think, in a small bank like this, that some kind 
 of eye could be kept on things ; but it seems 
 not. It s pick and steal, all the time ; first one, 
 then another. No sooner is young Pratt rooted 
 out than this fellow comes up. One steady 
 string of flea-bites I can t stand it ; I won t 
 stand it. Do you think I am going to have 
 
287 
 
 Shayne and Cutter and all the rest of em go 
 around and tell how Brainard s always got 
 somebody else s hand in his pants pocket and 
 never finds it out ? Not very much. I do find 
 it out and I m going to punish it. You needn t 
 ask me to hold off it s no use. There s a 
 law for this, and that law is going to take its 
 course." 
 
 His white hair stood up in a stiff shock over 
 his forehead, and the gray gristle sprouting on 
 his lip moved up and down forbiddingly as the 
 lip itself worked over the broken row of his 
 teeth. The red veins in his nose showed more 
 redly yet, and his fists were clenched at the ends 
 of his down-hung arms with the straightened 
 tension of an inexorable will. 
 
 " My poor boy ! My poor boy !" his mother 
 cried. She came over to him and bowed her 
 head on his. 
 
 Fairchild looked at Brainard a look that 
 called for all his self-control and fortitude. 
 " This is too hard," he said. " There was prov 
 ocation for him, and there are means to make 
 everything good." 
 
 "See here, Fairchild," cried the enraged old 
 man, " you have got to keep out of this, if you 
 want to stay friends with me. We ve pulled 
 together a good while, but we shall pull apart 
 after five seconds more of this. That young 
 man there has fooled along with us a little too 
 
far. He has had his fun, and now he shall pay 
 for it. He shall ; by God, I say he shall !" 
 
 His voice rose to a harsh and strident cry, and 
 his great fist fell with a ponderous thud on the 
 table before him. 
 
 A second later another hand was heard on 
 the other side of the door. It was faint, but it 
 was audible. It had been preparing for five long 
 and hesitating minutes. To the heart that guided 
 this hand the five seemed five-and-twenty. 
 
 Fairchild moved swiftly towards the door 
 and laid his hand upon the knob to prevent 
 any intrusion. 
 
 The knock was repeated. He opened the door 
 to a narrow crack. Then he opened it wider. 
 
 Abbie Brainard stood on the threshold. 
 
 She stepped in swiftly and softly. She shut 
 the door behind her quickly and then leaned 
 her back against its shining panels. 
 
 Her face was pale ; her bosom was heaving ; 
 but her gray eyes gave out the strong and 
 steady light of courage and resolution. 
 
 Ogden saw her. He locked his jaws, and 
 took a firm hold on the two arms of his chair, 
 and raised himself and stood erect before her. 
 Had not she herself, on this very spot, once done 
 the same for him? However it might be, or 
 might have been, with others, here, at least, was 
 one who should not see him humbled. 
 
 There was no salutation of any kind on either 
 
289 
 
 side. She saw him, but seemed to be looking 
 beyond him rather than at him ; and in his eyes 
 she stood there with the remote inaccessibility 
 of some distant snow-peak. 
 
 Her father turned towards her. 
 
 " Abbie ! You here ? What do you want ? 
 What do you mean by coming in like this ? Go 
 out again !" 
 
 She looked at him with a cool and quiet in 
 flexibility. But her voice was low and trem 
 bling as she said, 
 
 " I shall stay." 
 
 " You can t ; you mustn t. You don t want to 
 mix up in this business you don t understand." 
 
 He laid one hand on her arm, and with the 
 other he reached out towards the door-knob. 
 
 She withdrew her arm from the hold of his 
 fingers. 
 
 " I understand," she said, immovably. 
 
 He drew back. " You do ? Well, stay then, 
 if you will, and understand better. Learn what 
 kind of a man he really is." 
 
 He thrust out his arm towards Ogden, with 
 a cruel and contemptuous smile. 
 
 " He came here with letters," he began. " We 
 gave him a chance. Nobody really knew what 
 he was" 
 
 Ogden stood there straight before him. He 
 ground his teeth together to keep his face com 
 posed ; behind him his nails dug into the palms 
 19 
 
290 
 
 of his hands, as he held himself back from 
 springing forward and fastening them around 
 the throat of Abbie Brainard s father. There 
 was a ringing in his ears, and through it there 
 sounded faintly the fine tones of Fairchild, speak 
 ing to Mary Brainard : 
 
 " Nobody really knows who he is, or who his 
 people are, or where he is from ... a town full 
 to overflowing with single young men . . . from 
 everywhere. They are taken on faith. Most of 
 them are all right, no doubt ; but others " 
 
 He was now one of the " others " ; his 
 " people," whom no one had known, were to be 
 known now, after years of probity, as the rela 
 tives of a 
 
 " Nobody really knew who he was," Brainard 
 repeated ; " but he was taken right in and given 
 a good place. Hasn t he ever wondered why ? 
 Is it so easy to go into a new town, and get a 
 good job in a bank the very first thing ? Wasn t 
 there any other men to jump at the chance of a 
 position half as good ain t the city full of em? 
 "Wasn t there any of em in the bank itself who 
 was waiting for the place themselves and had 
 a right to it, too ? Why was there a vacant 
 place to fill, anyhow ? Because, a week before, 
 another man had done just what this man has 
 done. He was your man, Fairchild, too. And 
 why did this one here come stepping in ahead 
 of all the old ones ? You fixed it, Fairchild ; 
 
291 
 
 you liked his looks and his talk, you said. An 
 other bad guess for you." 
 
 Fairchilcl studied the carpet with abashed 
 eyes, as were he himself the culprit. 
 
 " Yes," Brainard continued, " he was put in 
 a good place and he was pushed right along. 
 Hasn t he ever guessed why ? Does a new man 
 come into an office like this, and get as far along 
 inside of a year as he has, without there being 
 any reason for it ? I ll tell him the reason for it. 
 I did it because my girl here 
 
 " Father !" cried Abbie, with face aflame. 
 "No! No!" 
 
 "You say you understand," he said, turning 
 towards her. " Now, let him understand, too. I 
 advanced him to this position," he went on 
 shamelessly, "because my girl here asked me 
 to." 
 
 " No, father ! No !" the poor child cried. She 
 threw her shamefaced head on Mrs. Ogden s 
 bosom. She had never seen her before, but 
 under such circumstances the only place for a 
 woman s face was on another woman s breast. 
 
 "Yes, you did, too ask me," he went on, 
 with increased hardihood. " Or just the same as 
 asked I knew what you meant, well enough. 
 And I said to myself I d do it. One girl went 
 wrong," he continued, with a choking in his 
 throat, "and I wanted to do what I could to 
 I wanted Abbie to do different ; I wasn t going 
 
292 
 
 to have her carried off by another infernal scoun 
 drel." 
 
 Ogden flushed and paled and sank down into 
 his chair. His head dropped into his hands; 
 there was no possibility of his holding it up be 
 fore anything like this. 
 
 "And so I helped him on. I said, If I do 
 the right thing by him, he will do the right thing 
 by her ; he will act like a man. I did do the 
 right thing by him and what then? He had 
 been hanging around all the spring taking 
 walks and sitting out in front and borrowing 
 books. But the moment I put him on his legs 
 what did he do ?" 
 
 He was addressing the young man s mother 
 now, whose tear-stained face showed over Ab- 
 bie s black hat, and whose poor old hand was 
 laid tenderly on Abbie s shoulder. It was plain 
 to every one now that the question was not one 
 of money. Ogden saw clearly enough at last 
 why he had suffered wreck when so many others 
 had ridden the waves. Pratt had filched and 
 had escaped. McDowell had plundered right 
 and left and had never been brought down. 
 Brainard himself had piled up a scandalous fort 
 une and yet had contrived to evade the law. 
 But none of them had come athwart the morti 
 fied rage of a father a father who had humbled 
 his inborn savageness and pride for a daughter s 
 sake and had humbled himself in vain. 
 
Ogden glanced across towards Abbie. She 
 rested on his mother s shoulder as once, almost, 
 and in this very room, she had rested on his. 
 He knew why she had come ; he recognized her 
 devotion and her bravery. She had overlooked 
 his pitiful palterings ; she had forgiven the final 
 slight to which they had led ; she had imperilled 
 her modesty and mortified her self-love by com 
 ing here that she might save him from her f ae 
 ther s vengeance. 
 
 Her father looked at her now and took a 
 softer tone. 
 
 " She s the best girl there ever was in the. 
 world," he declared, with a choking voice and a 
 moistened glimmer in his eyes; "and the smart 
 est she knows how to do everything ; she s the 
 only real comfort I ve ever had. She would be 
 a credit to any man, I don t care who. And 
 what does he pass her over for ? For another," 
 he went on, with a recrudescence of his insane 
 and primitive jealousy, " who can t care for her 
 house, who couldn t be a mother to his child, 
 who has ruined him by her extravagance " 
 
 " Stop !" cried Ogden. He rose and approached 
 Brainard. There was a threatening glitter in 
 his eyes, and convulsive twitches played among 
 his fingers. 
 
 " Yes, stop, for Heaven s sake," said Fairchild, 
 laying an expostulatory hand on the old man s 
 arm. "Stop," he murmured again; "his wife 
 is dying." 
 
294 
 
 Abbie rushed between Ogden and her father. 
 "George! George!" she cried. "Don t! Be 
 patient !" 
 
 " "What if his wife is dying ?" called out the 
 infuriated old wretch. " Is that any reason for 
 lying down when he has slighted my daughter 
 and robbed me ?" 
 
 " For shame, father ! For shame !" She hid 
 her face in her hands, and her tears gushed 
 through them. 
 
 Ogden paused, stung and quivering. His 
 hands dropped; his fingers relaxed. His wife 
 was dying ! Nobody had told him that before, 
 and he had never dared to tell it to himself. 
 But it was true, and he knew it. 
 
 Abbie rose again and confronted her father. 
 The tears were still in her eyes and a wide blush 
 suffused her cheeks. 
 
 "Father, you shall not punish him. He may 
 have done wrong, but there was reason for it. 
 And any wrong he has done can be set right." 
 
 Ogden s eyes were bedimmed, but through the 
 moisture he seemed to see again the sight that 
 closed the evening of his one-day wedding jour 
 ney towards the north ; again he stood on the 
 bridge, and the sun set over one lake while the 
 moon rose over the other. Only now, with 
 Abbie Brainard s blushes before his body s eye 
 and his wife s pale face before his mind s eye, a 
 confusion came alike over his thought and his 
 
295 
 
 vision ; it was now the sun rising on him at the 
 moment that the pallid moon was going down. 
 He looked at her and she looked at him, and in 
 the eyes of both there was read the confession 
 of a great mistake. Then her eyes drooped for 
 shame and his for disloyalty, and neither one was 
 able to look into the other s face again. 
 
 " Do you defend him ?" her father cried. 
 " Can you forgive her ? I can t do either. ~No 
 quarter ; don t ask it, Abbie. He has chosen 
 his course he is responsible for his acts. And 
 he shall answer for them, as any other man must 
 who crosses me." 
 
 He flung open the door and passed out. Fair- 
 child stood anxiously over the chair in which 
 Abbie lay back panting for breath. Ogden 
 pressed her hand and turned towards his mother. 
 
 " Come, let us go," he said, and the two 
 passed out into the great vestibule of the Clif 
 ton. He signalled the elevator. 
 
 " "Wait for me here, mother five minutes ;" 
 he spoke in a voice which she hardly recognized 
 as his. " Twelfth," she heard him say to the 
 boy inside. 
 
 " Twelfth !" she gasped. Twelfth ? It s Eu 
 gene !" 
 
 She tried to stop him; her fingers merely 
 caught in the grille-work that shut off the empty 
 shaft. 
 
 Why do we go mad? Why do we kill our- 
 
296 
 
 selves? Why is there more insanity and more 
 self-murder to-day than ever before ? It is be 
 cause, under existing conditions, the relief that 
 comes from action is so largely shut off. How 
 has humanity contrived to endure so well the 
 countless ills of countless ages ? Because society 
 has been, in general, loose -knit, so that each 
 unit in it has had room for some individual 
 play. What so increases and intensifies the ago 
 nies of to-day ? The fact that society has a closer 
 and denser texture than ever before; its fine 
 spun meshes bind us and strangle us. Indigna 
 tion ferments without vent ; injury awaits with a 
 wearing impatience the slow and formal inflic 
 tion of a corporate punishment; self -conscious 
 ness paralyzes the quick and free action^ that is 
 the surest and sometimes the only relief. 
 
 McDowell was in his office alone. A single 
 light was burning in the room, and nothing re 
 mained but the drawing down of a desk-top and 
 the quenching of the light before locking the 
 door from the outside and calling the day s work 
 over. He looked up as Ogden entered. 
 
 " Oh, it s you. I haven t seen you for some 
 time past." He used the dubious intonation that 
 marks a half-smothered enmity. 
 
 " Yes, it s I. And you won t see me for some 
 time to come. You see me this once." 
 
 He stood with his hand on the back of a chair. 
 He made no motion to seat himself, but he was 
 
297 
 
 unmistakably planted there to remain. McDow 
 ell therefore resumed his own accustomed chair 
 beside his desk. 
 
 " Well, what is it ?" he asked. 
 
 He scrutinized Ogden with an undisguised cu 
 riosity. The young man s voice sounded strange 
 in his ears ; his face had an expression which 
 made it almost the face of an acquaintance now 
 ffrst met. 
 
 " I have come to square with you," began Og 
 den, slowly. He passed an unconscious hand 
 along the varnished back of the chair ; it was a 
 chair in yellow oak, whose frame was light but 
 strong, and whose seat was of cane. 
 
 " We are square," said McDowell, curtly. 
 " You have your deeds for that ground all put 
 into the settlement at a fair value. I have paid 
 your interest as it came due, and shall go on do 
 ing so. The principal the same. I m all right ; 
 what is it you want ? Try the courts, if you 
 think you can reach me?} 
 
 " I shall reach you." 
 
 " I wonder how 2" 
 
 Ogden lifted his hand from the chair to his 
 forehead, across which he passed it once or 
 twice. McDowell gave him an amused smile. 
 
 " You have robbed me," Ogden said ; " you 
 have disgraced me ; you have brought me to the 
 edge of ruin. You took advantage of my trust, 
 my inexperience, my strangeness to the city. You 
 
298 
 
 have stripped us all, and you have used my sister 
 for a shield. You knew we would stand every 
 thing for her, and we have stood everything. 
 You have acted like a sneak and a coward." 
 
 McDowell s eyes dropped to his desk. But no 
 flush mounted to his face ; that would have been 
 a physical and a moral impossibility. He looked 
 up again after a moment. 
 
 " You will reach me ? I wonder how ?" 
 
 Ogden, for the first time in his life, passed 
 completely out of himself. There fell away from 
 him all the fetters that shackle the super-civilized 
 man who is habitually conscious of his civiliza 
 tion. 
 
 Like this." 
 
 He seized the chair, raised it over McDowell s , 
 head, and went out, leaving the man crushed and 
 bleeding on the floor. 
 
XXIII 
 
 BKAINAKD, after leaving the office of the bank, 
 had also taken the elevator, and before Ogden 
 had reached McDowell s floor his chief stood at 
 the door of Freeze & Freeze ; the firm did some 
 legal business for him now and then, under his 
 own general designation of "odd jobs." But 
 their door was locked, as it usually was at that 
 hour ; and the old man descended again, took the 
 street-car, and Avent home to tea. 
 
 " I ve got him, all the same," he muttered to 
 himself. " He can have a little leeway if he 
 wants, but it won t carry him very far off as 
 things are now." 
 
 He stamped and fumed through the parlor 
 floor for the quarter of an hour during which he 
 attended the preparation of tea in the basement 
 dining-room. He sat down with Burt and Cor 
 nelia and his younger daughter ; Abbie had shut 
 herself up in her room, and had sent down word 
 that she was too ill to appear. 
 
 The table was set with the plated ware of 
 twenty years ago, hideous in varied quirks and 
 chasings. Just within the door of the room 
 stood a baby s high-chair ; and Brainard, in pass- 
 
300 
 
 ing to his place, contrived to put a vicious foot 
 heavily on one of its sprawling wicker legs. 
 
 He went through the meal with a great grind 
 ing of molars and a loud smacking of lips. He 
 said nothing ; he handled his knife and fork and 
 his goblet with a heavy-handed clatter, while his 
 eyes stared fixedly at the table-cloth. The oth 
 ers watched him in silence ; his teeth were grind 
 ing something other than food, and the smack 
 ing of his lips indicated a relish beyond that for 
 any mere eating and drinking. 
 
 After his second cup of tea he arose and 
 pushed back his chair, and planted his feet with 
 a ponderous stamp on the space over which the 
 chair had stood. 
 
 " Burt," he said, as he moved towards the 
 door, " you can step down the street when you 
 get through, and tell Albert Freeze to come up 
 here. I shall be in my room." 
 
 He commanded the attendance of his attor 
 neys as lightly as he commanded that of his 
 clerks. The Freezes happened to be youngish 
 men, but it would have been the same with 
 older ones. 
 
 He withdrew to his den. He rearranged the 
 coke-balls that he had had spread on the top of 
 ( his grate fire, and then he. began to rummage 
 among the disordered papers on his desk. 
 
 A book was lying among them a thin vol 
 ume, with the place marked by a paper-cutter. 
 
301 
 
 " I wish Abbie wouldn t leave her things 
 around everywhere," he said, grumblingly. 
 
 He tossed the book across to a table. The 
 paper-cutter fell out of it, but landed by its side, 
 where it balanced on one corner of the table- 
 top. It was a cumbrous implement, somewhat 
 after the fashion of a dagger, and it was smeared 
 over with something that produced the effect of 
 green bronze. 
 
 He went to the window and looked out before 
 pulling down its shade ; the window opened, af 
 ter the manner of a door, on the side porch. A 
 misty rain was falling slight, but deadly chill, 
 and through it there appeared the discolored 
 flank of the stable, draped with the autumnal 
 stringiness of its wild cucumber vines. 
 
 The door of the room opened with a swift and 
 sudden quiet, and a young man stepped in. His 
 shoulders were covered with a thousand shim 
 mering rain-globules, and his breath gave out a 
 strong reek of brandy. It was Marcus. 
 
 " I want to see Mr. Brainard," he had said, at 
 the outer door, to the strange servant-girl, and he 
 had pushed straight by her without further word. 
 
 He stood there pale and tremulous; his eyes 
 glittered like two knife-points. 
 
 " I m out again," he said. " I ve got another 
 chance, and I don t mean to lose this one." 
 
 His father turned on him Avith a fierce frown 
 a frown full of malevolent intention. 
 
302 
 
 " It s you, is it ?" He was silent for a mo 
 ment. " Well, you can stay. I ve been think 
 ing about you, lately. I can tend to two as well 
 as one." 
 
 " You ve been thinking about me lately, have 
 you ?" Marcus repeated. He spoke with a hardi 
 hood that came from draughts of brandy more 
 than once indulged in. "You had better have 
 thought of me before." 
 
 " I m thinking to just as much purpose," his 
 father declared grimly. "I haven t been alto 
 gether in the dark," he went on, " about your go 
 ings and your doings. I know what you ve been 
 living on, and how you got it, and who put you 
 up to it all. I know how you have been figuring 
 on my dying and preying on me before my dy 
 ing ; but I m alive yet, and the next time you see 
 that singing Canadian scoundrel you can tell him 
 so. And I know all about your latest tactics, 
 too. Do you see that ?" 
 
 A pass-book was lying on his desk, and be 
 tween its covers there was a packet of checks, 
 bound by a rubber strap. He drew out the top 
 check and extended it towards his son ; he used 
 his clumsy thumb and forefinger to keep a strong 
 hold on one end of the paper the end that bore 
 the signature. 
 
 "You ve seen it before, too, unless I m mis 
 taken," he went on, with a glance in which in 
 dignation was overlaid by a cruel sense of power 
 
303 
 
 and a cruel determination to use it. "You 
 didn t expect it to get around to me quite so 
 quick, did you?" 
 
 "I see it, yes," said the young man. "And 
 I ve seen it before. What of it ?" He spoke 
 like one who had nerved himself to this and to 
 more. 
 
 " What of it ?" cried his father, in a sudden fit 
 of rage. " There s this of it ! Do you think 
 I m going to stand being stripped by a thieving 
 scamp like you ? Do you think I m going to be 
 bled drop by drop by a couple of infernal scoun 
 drels? Oh, that whining about your drawing, 
 and your not being allowed to go on with it ! 
 You can handle a pen all right enough ! You 
 can draw checks for me, and you can draw your 
 self to Joliet ! That s the best place, all around, 
 for both of us." 
 
 " I shouldn t mind meeting you there," said 
 Marcus, with a contemptuous sneer. " There 
 would be a c couple, sure enough the only one 
 /know anything about." 
 
 " Where is that wretch ?" cried Brainard, seiz 
 ing the youth by the arm. " You know ; you do, 
 too you see him every day ! Tell me where I 
 can find him! He must be followed up. Let 
 me get him, too, and put him where he be 
 longs !" 
 
 " Keep off !" called his son ; " keep off, you 
 fool ! I haven t seen him for a year, and I don t 
 
304 
 
 want to see him for another. It s you I want to 
 see ; you and Burt brother Burt." 
 
 His eyes glittered with a sharpened anger, and 
 his dilated nostrils quivered with the indignation 
 that the thought of his elder brother always 
 aroused. 
 
 " I want to see the vice-president of the Un 
 derground National. I want to see the bride 
 groom who got half a million on his wedding- 
 day. And I want him to see me. I want him 
 to have a look at the poor devil who has been 
 knocking around from pillar to post for the last 
 two years, who has hidden in dives, and who 
 has been dragged through the slums, and who 
 has been driven from the variety stage, and has 
 served his time more than once. Let him feel 
 the difference ; let me help him to feel it !" 
 
 " Your own blame !" cried his father. " You 
 had the same chances and threw them all away. 
 And you ll serve another term now a longer 
 one." 
 
 " I guess not," said Marcus. He looked about 
 the room with a sharp and wary eye. It might 
 have been thought that he sought at once both 
 means of offence and means of escape. 
 
 There was a rap on the door; Burt s voice was 
 heard outside. 
 
 " Here s Mr. Freeze, father. I suppose he can 
 come right in." 
 
 Marcus reared his head suddenly. 
 
305 
 
 " It s Burt !" he trumpeted. " He s here! he s 
 here!" He sprang towards the threshold and 
 clamped his long fingers about his brother s 
 throat. Burt s head struck with force against 
 the wide jamb ; he half fell, and his legs and 
 arms writhed in company with his brother s. 
 
 " Get them apart, Freeze ! Get them apart !" 
 cried Brainard, with a loud roar. " Am I going 
 to see Burt strangled before my very eyes ?" 
 
 Marcus released his grip and staggered back 
 into the room. He reared himself pantingly 
 against the table. His face was deadly pale, and 
 the perspiration was starting out in beads be 
 neath the dark, disordered locks that lay on his 
 forehead. The screaming of women s voices was 
 heard in the corridor outside, and the light hast 
 ening of women s feet. 
 
 u Three to one !" panted Marcus. " It s a plot ! 
 it s a trap ! I know you, Freeze. I see through 
 all of you. But three ain t enough. You can t 
 doit; no!" 
 
 Abbie Brainard came rushing through the 
 hall. She reached the threshold and paused 
 there to see her brother catch up her paper- 
 cutter from the table, plunge it into her fa 
 ther s neck, and break through the window, 
 and to hear his nimble feet clatter escape down 
 the stairs of the side porch. 
 
 Brainard fell heavily against the marble slabs 
 of the fire-place. Blood soaked his high, old- 
 
 20 
 
306 
 
 fashioned collar and trickled down the plaits of 
 his shirt-front. He lay there stunned and bleed 
 ing, and lifeless as it seemed. 
 
 His huge bulk was gotten laboriously to bed 
 half dragged, half lifted. He lay there for a 
 fortnight, between life and death. 
 
 The doctor came, and with the chill gray of 
 the first dawn came the nurse. It was to be a 
 hand-to-hand struggle, and all the forces were 
 engaged at once. The nurse spent the first half- 
 hour of uncertain daylight in bringing order out 
 of the chaos that had established its instant sway 
 in the old man s room on the evening before. 
 She raised or lowered the shades, adjusted the 
 transom, quieted the fire, and arranged her bot 
 tles and bandages. She wore the dull uniform 
 of a public institution ; and she was accustomed 
 to carry this uniform at a moment s notice into 
 strange places and among strange people. She 
 accepted her assignment blindly, and took up its 
 details afterwards. 
 
 She seemed of a rather rugged, stolid build, 
 but her eyes were eloquent with a haunting sor 
 row. It was as if time had redraped her figure 
 with the flesh that sorrow and suffering had 
 once stripped from it, but had been powerless to 
 reclothe her spirit in its pristine hope and cheer 
 fulness. 
 
 She stood at the window, endeavoring to get 
 her bearings in the early light of the dim morn- 
 
307 
 
 ing. The lilacs and syringas in the yard showed 
 the crinkled brownness of latest autumn. A boy 
 was crossing and recrossing the street to put out 
 its lamps ; and in the second-story window of 
 the stable the flickering of a single gas-jet was 
 helping the coachman and hostler to make up 
 his own bed. 
 
 Behind her she heard the heavy grunting 
 breath of the sick man. Presently another sound 
 mingled with it a creeping and rustling sound 
 that made its little track along the hall and 
 across the threshold of the half-open door. She 
 turned ; a baby was on the floor beside her a 
 beautiful boy with dusky, liquid eyes, and the 
 beginnings of a poll of dark and curly hair. An 
 inquiring pain plucked at her heart and set its 
 signal in her eyes ; she saw a resemblance that 
 it was impossible to overlook. She cast a hungry 
 and timorous glance about her, and presently, 
 with a great yearning and a steadying resolve, 
 Jane Doane was kissing Russell Yibert s child. 
 
 For this privilege she w r as indebted, in a sense, 
 to Erastus Brainard. She had never been in 
 debted to him for anything else. 
 
 The old man lay in a kind of stupor ; his head 
 had been seriously injured by his fall, and blood- 
 poisoning of the most virulent type pointed to 
 his inevitable end. He had occasional moments 
 of recurring consciousness, and at such times he 
 attempted, with the help of Abbie and of Freeze, 
 
308 
 
 to bring his affairs into order, and to dispose of 
 his belongings by will. 
 
 The Ogden affair, meanwhile, stood still. No 
 formal steps had been taken, and the young man 
 had Fairchild s assurance that an accommoda 
 tion was sure to be brought about. 
 
 The situation became known to the Bradleys 
 in its general outlines, at least. They caught 
 at the end and ignored the means, as would 
 have been done by anybody else in their posi 
 tion. They considered that their friendliness 
 towards Ogden had been misplaced and that 
 their confidence had been betrayed. They pre 
 served appearances with him through their 
 daughter s final illness ; and by a great effort 
 they even produced an effect of a common suf 
 fering and a common sympathy at the funeral. 
 But after that they never saw him again. The 
 difficulty with the bank did not become public, 
 but they considered themselves, all the same, no 
 less disgraced than deceived. 
 
 The desperate illness of Brainard dragged it 
 self along, meanwhile, and the house was satu 
 rated with gloom. Abbie assisted actively in the 
 nursing; she watched in alternation with the 
 first nurse and with the succeeding one. Corne 
 lia was given an opportunity to put her hand to 
 the household helm. As she said to herself, she 
 was soon to manage a house of her own, and she 
 might as well be brushing up her knowledge. 
 
309 
 
 " And she has got to go with me," Cornelia 
 said to herself for the twentieth time; " she can t 
 live here after this." 
 
 Cornelia had fought out many a fight during 
 her year in this grisly old house ; but she saw 
 now that her intended campaign on behalf of 
 Marcus was an impossibility, and that all the 
 forces might as well be withdrawn from the field. 
 
 Nobody had seen the youth since that fatal 
 night ; nobody, that is, who had cared to make 
 the fact known. Neither did anybody know 
 where he was keeping himself, save the sister 
 on whose night-watches he had once or twice 
 stolen by way of the window through which 
 he had made his escape from his brother and 
 Freeze. 
 
 He came again for a third and last time. It 
 was one o clock in the morning when she heard 
 his light touch on the window. She hastened to 
 him with her mouth set for a terrified whisper. 
 
 " Yes, I know it s dangerous, Abbie ; I know 
 I promised not to come again. But I can t help 
 it I ve got to hear. How is how are things 
 going on to-night? Is there any improvement 
 over yesterday?" He locked his fingers in a 
 convulsive strain. " I thought they had laid a 
 trap for me," he said chokingly. " Just tell me 
 yourself how it is, and after this you can send 
 me word, as you have before. I won t come 
 again, I promise you." 
 
310 
 
 She threw herself on his breast and burst into 
 an agony of tears. " Ho, you never will," she 
 sobbed; "he is dying. There is no hope; he 
 won t live till morning." 
 
 The young man trembled like an aspen ; tears 
 rolled out of his dark and hollow eyes. lie 
 tried to speak, but no word came. Then he 
 clasped his sister in his arms and withdrew as 
 he had entered. 
 
 The night, laden with anxiety and fear, 
 dragged out its weary length. In the early 
 morning the house resounded with a great cry. 
 The dying man, in a brief moment of conscious 
 ness, half raised himself and heard the sound 
 and the tidings thus conveyed. The word was 
 passed from man-servant to maid-servant, and 
 came to their master through the voice of a 
 Swedish girl whose mind was capable of deal 
 ing with emotions only in the most primitive 
 way, and whose imperfect command of English 
 made her communication come with a horrible 
 and harrowing directness. One second before 
 Erastus Brainard fell back dead he knew that 
 his son had hanged himself; the last picture 
 that rose before his fleeting vision was that of 
 his boy pendulous from the rafters of the sta 
 ble, his slight body swinging to and fro and his 
 tongue protruding uglily from the purple-black 
 of his face. 
 
" HOW S TTTTS, JO? ASKED OGDEN." 
 
XXIY 
 
 THE months passed by, and autumn came 
 around once more. 
 
 Ogden s first year as a widower was lived 
 with his mother ; he used the same time to es 
 tablish himself in the real-estate business, whose 
 ins and outs he had now mastered in the bitter 
 school of experience. He had left the Clifton 
 altogether, and had established himself in anoth 
 er street and a different neighborhood. Every 
 stone of the great pile seemed to have raised its 
 tongue against him, and to have driven him out 
 with the loud and insulting hubbub of its angry 
 clamor. He had no wish ever to see again the 
 room in which he had first met his wife, the 
 room in which he had wrestled with his brother- 
 in-law, the room in which disgrace had forced 
 him to bow his head. Bradley lay in wait for 
 him in the court, Jane Doane dogged him through 
 the long corridors, Marcus Brainard rose up as 
 a pallid spectre within the entrance-way. He 
 left the building for once and for all. The pla 
 cards that he placed on vacant tenements and 
 the signs that he caused to be reared on open 
 corners in the suburbs directed inquirers to a 
 
312 
 
 street and number quite different from any near 
 his old neighborhood. 
 
 Within this year Cornelia Tillinghast Brain- 
 ard had moved into her new house and had 
 moved out again. For three poor months she 
 occupied her French Eenaissance chateau on the 
 Lake Shore Drive, and then she gave it up for 
 ever. In vain her anxious plannings of chambers 
 and stairways, her long waitings for the slow 
 finishing of the carved oaks and walnuts of her 
 vast interiors ; in vain (for the present, at least) 
 her lofty aims in the direction of social distinc 
 tion. For Burt with his father was one man, 
 and Burt without his father was another. He 
 had relied upon the elder s advice more than he 
 had realized, and he had felt the steadying and 
 restraining power of his father s hand to a great 
 er degree than he would have been willing to 
 acknowledge. "When he came to act for himself 
 and by himself the difference soon became ap 
 parent. He operated in a variety of directions ; 
 he was confident and daring and ambitious, and 
 one day he risked all and lost all. 
 
 His failure swept away everything of his and 
 nearly everything of his sister s. Abbie had 
 come into the new house along with Burt and 
 Cornelia no great urging had now been re 
 quired to induce her to abandon the house on 
 the West Side. She led the same retired and 
 quiet life in the one quarter that she had led in 
 
313 
 
 the other, save that she never felt otherwise 
 than utterly strange and forlorn. And as she 
 had placed herself in her brother s house, so she 
 put a great part of her share in her father s es 
 tate into her brother s hands when ruin came 
 and every available resource was required. She 
 had never used much money ; she may not have 
 realized the gravity of her sacrifice. Perhaps, 
 too, she had hoped to rest her disappointed soul 
 on something that money could not buy. 
 
 To Cornelia the failure came as a sudden and 
 awful blow. Considering the brief time at her 
 disposal, she had made a distinct impression on 
 society. A great many people of consequence 
 came to her house and invited her to theirs. 
 They laughed at her freedoms and familiarities ; 
 they enjoyed her picturesque and untrammelled 
 phraseology. Some of the more insatiable in 
 vited her twice. She encountered but one de 
 cided check ; this was from Mrs. Floyd. 
 
 The ship of the Floyd household, now navi 
 gating regardless of its customary dependence 
 on the distant admiral of the whole Floyd fleet, 
 was tossing in shallow yet stormy waters ; there 
 were not lacking indications that it was occa 
 sionally grazing bottom, and there was a notion 
 abroad that it might presently beach or founder. 
 Mrs. Floyd therefore manned the helm with 
 more than her customary caution. For one 
 thing, she set the ship s chronometer by local 
 
314 
 
 time. That is to say, her own watch, which 
 had now been giving the time of Boston for 
 the last three years (and she had become very 
 expert in the deducting of the hour and some 
 minutes of difference) came to be set by the 
 hour of Chicago. For another thing, she must 
 think twice before speaking every strange craft 
 such a one, for example, as that propelled by 
 the Brainards. She did think twice, and con 
 cluded to remain silent. 
 
 " Huh !" said Cornelia ; "all because I worked 
 in her husband s office, and she met me there ! 
 Thank goodness, I wasn t allowed to have my 
 wish and work for Ingles, too ! I ll fetch things 
 around, though you see if I don t ; and I ll capt 
 ure Cecilia Ingles yet !" 
 
 Abbie, along with many other persons and 
 things, became a mere piece of driftwood in the 
 general wreck of her brother s fortunes. She 
 swirled and eddied about for some time through 
 a succession of boarding-houses, and after a 
 while she found refuge in the latest home that 
 her sister had made. She found her new 
 brother-in-law a good-humored and well-dis 
 posed fellow. Briggs had established his family 
 in the old neighborhood on the West Side, and 
 readily admitted Abbie; he made no more ob 
 jection to his sister-in-law than he had made to 
 his sister-in-law s nephew. 
 
 Ogden saw nothing of them, heard nothing 
 
315 
 
 of them. He merely went around in a quiet 
 way among a few old friends, and he dropped 
 in at frequent intervals on the faithful Brower. 
 Brower was sometimes at home and sometimes 
 away; the fire-fiend still kept him on the move. 
 One late September evening, after an interval 
 of a month or more,Ogden repaired again to the 
 house which had once been their common home, 
 and found Brower just back from Minnesota. 
 
 He was seated on his trunk, the rigors of 
 whose cover he had softened by the doubled 
 folds of a striped travelling - wrap. He had his 
 brier-wood pipe in his mouth and a book in his 
 hand. It was a paper- bound volume; the back 
 cover was missing, and there was exposed to 
 view the fine, close tabulation of the books com 
 posing a well-known " library." 
 
 " Well, my dear fellow," cried Brower, rising 
 and grasping his hand, "how are you? Say, I 
 believe you re looking better. Here; put your 
 self in the light where I can have more of a 
 chance at you." 
 
 George stood immovable, and Brower jerked 
 out the elbowed gas-jet, so as to make the light 
 fall upon his visitor s face. It fell on his visitor s 
 head, too, and the whole brown head was sprin 
 kled with silver. 
 
 Ogden put his two palms on his temples and 
 spread out his hands until the finger-tips met 
 over the part in his hair. 
 
316 
 
 " There are more," he said, with a smile of 
 quiet sadness ; "don t count them again." 
 
 " I won t," said Brower. He drew away his 
 eyes, but threw his arm over the other s shoul 
 der. 
 
 " I ve had quite a trip, this time," he went on, 
 in the tone which we employ when contriving a 
 light diversion. " Been away out into Dakota 
 Bismarck, Mandan, Yankton, Sioux Falls. I was 
 at the Falls one Sunday." 
 
 " Is that any great place to spend Sunday ?" 
 
 " Lots of folks go there to spend a few Sun 
 days twelve or fourteen Sundays, and the 
 week-days between. On the evening of my Sun 
 day I went to church." 
 
 " I ve known you to go to church on Sunday 
 evenings before. Service any different from any 
 other?" 
 
 " It was a song service. Don t you suppose 
 the poor creatures waiting along out there in 
 Sioux Falls have got to have their little consola 
 tions ? Ain t music the great consoler ?" 
 
 " They were consoled, then ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, indeed ; the principal consoler had 
 been there himself. He sang tenor." 
 
 " Better tenor than the average ?" 
 
 " Good deal better! The most touching, pa 
 thetic tones I ever heard. He sang the Angel s 
 Serenade, with another man playing the violin. 
 It was affecting. One poor lady near me, with 
 
317 
 
 a sort of Eastern look about her, just caught up 
 the child in the pew by her side and burst right 
 out crying. I was all broke up, myself." 
 
 " That s a good song," declared Ogden. " I 
 always like to hear it." 
 
 " You ve heard it before, then \ At St. Asaph s, 
 perhaps ?" 
 
 " At St. Asaph s ; yes." 
 
 " Well," said Brower, " the man you heard 
 sing it at St. Asaph s was the man I heard sing 
 it at Sioux Falls." 
 
 " Yibert !" 
 
 "Vibert." 
 
 George dropped his eyes ; he had no wish to 
 pursue the theme further. " What have you 
 there ?" he asked. He indicated the book that 
 Brower had left lying on top of the trunk. 
 
 " Oh, nothing special. It s just one of those 
 cheap novels. I was merely running it through 
 to see if he really did marry the right one in the 
 end. Might have done it in the first place as 
 well as not." He passed the book to Ogden 
 wrong side up. " I guess it s yours, by rights 
 one you left behind when you moved out." 
 
 Ogden turned the book over and read the 
 title. It was" A False Start." 
 
 He started. He blushed. " Yes, perhaps it 
 is," he stammered. He held it awkwardly in his 
 hand for a moment. Brower watched him cu 
 riously, yet sympathetically. " Yes," Ogden re- 
 
318 
 
 peated, in a bold, firm voice, " it is mine." He 
 put it in his inside pocket and buttoned his coat. 
 
 " Oh, come," cried Brower, trying to thro\v a 
 veil of jocularity over his earnestness, " that isn t 
 fair ! I ve got to finish it. I ve got to know 
 whether he did or didn t. Anyway, let me see 
 the end." 
 
 " There is no end," said Ogden, soberly. " Or 
 if there is, it has come." 
 
 " Then I can only guess." Brower looked at 
 him, with a studious anxiety in his brown eyes. 
 " He made a mistake, sure enough, but I think 
 he sets it right. Yes, I think he sets it right." 
 
 Ogden s eyes sought the floor. 
 
 " No ; he abides by it." 
 
 " He can set it right," said Brower, gravely ; 
 " and if he can he ought." 
 
 " Not now ; not after everything. Let bad 
 enough alone." 
 
 " Make bad enough better," cried Brower. 
 " Is he the only one to be considered ? Upon 
 my word," he went on, with a nervous attempt 
 at lightness, " we are getting these great truths 
 down finer and finer. A couple of years ago 
 we agreed that marriage concerned but two 
 people ; now we are finding that it concerns only 
 one. The question simply is which one 3" 
 
 " The one who would be most exposed to in 
 jury," said Ogden, with a distant mournfulness 
 in his face and voice. 
 
319 
 
 " There are different kinds of injury ; there is 
 the injury of commission, and there is the injury 
 of omission. Sometimes the last is harder on 
 a woman. Why not let the victim choose her 
 own particular woe ? Why not be generous 
 enough to give her an opportunity ?" 
 
 " Not now," groaned Ogden. " You don t 
 know. Not after all that s happened." 
 
 " Well, then," continued Brower, with kindly 
 perseverance, " out goes generosity. Now bring 
 in selfishness and give that a chance. What is 
 our hero going to do ? Must there be more sor 
 row for him, more suffering, more self -punish 
 ment, and everlasting dissatisfaction generally? 
 What is he made of ? Can he stand it ? If so, 
 how long? And if he does, why should he?" 
 
 " Brower, Brower !" Ogden cried ; " not an 
 other word if you care for me if you care 
 anything at all for me!" He crossed his 
 arms on the table and bowed his head upon 
 them. 
 
 Brower passed his hand softly over this head 
 and said no more. He was a patient husband 
 man ; he would sow the good seed and wait for 
 the harvest. 
 
 Ogden took the book home with him. He 
 fluttered its leaves a few times ; then he sat down 
 on the edge of his bed and read the title-page 
 for an hour. The next night he read it some 
 more and dreamed about it. The next night he 
 
320 
 
 was reading it still, and he lay awake thinking 
 of it until daylight. 
 
 On the following evening he took the old, fa 
 miliar way to the West Side. 
 
 He found Abbie Brainard at home alone. 
 Mary and her husband had gone out, and the 
 baby had been put to bed. 
 
 Abbie was sitting in the half-gloom of one 
 small lamp ; the parlor was a little room, and a 
 rather cheap and ugly one. But the lamp, thanks 
 to its beflowered shade, was discreet and reti 
 cent in the disclosure of unprepossessing detail ; 
 besides, twenty lamps would not have had power 
 to divert his thoughts from the channel through 
 which they were now coursing. 
 
 On his entrance she started up to light the 
 gas. She looked pale and worn, and older than 
 he would have believed possible. But he looked 
 older, too, and felt much older than he looked. 
 The light beat down upon his silvered hair, and 
 heightened the glance of pitying surprise that 
 shone from her eyes. 
 
 In this increased illumination he saw that fort 
 une had left her, as well as her youth and beauty, 
 as well as the father whose life he had felt to 
 make their union impossible, and whose memory 
 might still keep it so. But she herself, in her 
 own essence, was before him the same cour 
 age, the same resolution, the same tenderness 
 and fidelity. And in him she saw the only 
 
321 
 
 man she had ever seen, or had ever cared to 
 see. 
 
 To her, he came as a messenger of pity to heal 
 the wounds that knavery and scandal and vio 
 lence had hacked upon her quivering heart. A 
 messenger of pity, yes ; but could he, by any pos 
 sible chance, find her worthy of the pity that was 
 akin to love ? 
 
 To him, she appeared as the victim of his own 
 f aint-heartedness and faithlessness. After all that 
 he had done to wring her heart, could he vent 
 ure upon the crowning indignity of offering her 
 his tarnished name ? 
 
 To her, he stood there as a tower of refuge 
 a tower from whose summit the swathing fogs 
 might be cleared away by the warm breath of 
 trust and confidence, and whose smirched walls 
 if smirched indeed they were might be puri 
 fied by the tears of love and the fingers of for- 
 getfulness. 
 
 To himself, he lay before her as a heap of 
 crumbling arid smoke-stained ruin. Every stone 
 cried out for the cleansing power of pity and 
 for the firm and friendly hand that was to rear 
 them all again to their pristine use and comeli 
 ness. 
 
 The clock had struck eight as he entered ; it 
 was striking eleven as he rose to go. 
 
 " Not yet," she said, softly. She pressed him 
 back into the depths of his great easy-chair, and, 
 
 21 
 
322 
 
 leaning upon its rounded and padded arm, she 
 looked down upon him. 
 
 " You take me, then, as I am ?" he asked her, 
 soberly. 
 
 " How else do you take me f " 
 
 He raised his hand to his head. " There will 
 be more of them," he said. " They tell me I 
 shall be white at forty." 
 
 " How many of them are mine ?" 
 
 He pressed her hand. 
 
 " Not one, not one ! Or, no," he continued, 
 with a stronger pressure, " they are all yours 
 do with them as you please." 
 
 He felt something warm drop on his head and 
 trickle down his temples. 
 
 " Yes, that is the best thing to do," he said. 
 " To think," he added, with a tender seriousness, 
 "that you might have saved me from them 
 from every one !" 
 
 They were married within a month, and they 
 began their married life in the same house in 
 which he had begun his "Western life as a bache 
 lor. Mrs. Gore s kindliness still survived, after 
 the hard rubs of three years of city life, and she 
 spread her sympathetic interest over her new 
 couple with an unstinted hand. 
 
 Their wedding involved no social celebration, 
 unless we note their participation in one of a 
 series of great public functions that sometimes 
 
323 
 
 mark the early winter. This took place in a 
 vast hall that was luminous in ivory and gold. 
 They sat before a wide curved frame brilliant 
 with a myriad points of light, and listened to 
 the united endeavors of many voices and instru 
 ments to please the four thousand people about 
 them. Ogden and his wife had taken places in 
 the balcony. They had toned down existence 
 to a quiet gray ; they recognized the middling- 
 ness of their lot. Cornelia and her husband, un 
 known to the Ogdens, had seats on the floor be 
 neath. 
 
 One box in the two long, parallel rows re 
 mained vacant during the first and second acts. 
 As the prelude to the third act began among the 
 violins the box was claimed. A party of four 
 entered. 
 
 " There she is," said Cornelia to herself, in her 
 place on the main floor. " Just you wait. Burt s 
 smart and I m careful, and we shall catch up to 
 you yet !" 
 
 " Who are those people ?" asked Abbie, turn 
 ing towards her husband. " "Who is the gentle 
 man with gray hair?" She was beginning to 
 admire her husband s own. 
 
 The two ladies of the party had seated them 
 selves ; the two gentlemen were busy with their 
 own and their companions wraps in the back of 
 the box. 
 
 " That is Mr. Atwater, the architect. The lady 
 
324 
 
 in yellow is his wife. The tall, brownish man, 
 just handing the glass, is Mr. Ingles ; he owns 
 the the Clifton." 
 
 "And the other lady?" his wife continued. 
 She indicated a radiant, magnificent young creat 
 ure, splendid, like all her mates, with the new and 
 eager splendor of a long-awaited opportunity. 
 This new-comer had nodded smilingly to many 
 people on entering to her neighbors on either 
 side, to a large dinner-party that filled three boxes 
 across the house. She seemed pleased to have 
 so many persons to bow to so publicly ; and every 
 body whom she favored seemed equally glad of 
 an opportunity to return her attention. 
 
 Ogden looked at her and turned his eyes away. 
 
 " I I have never seen her before," he said. 
 " I don t know who she is," he appeared to imply. 
 
 But he knew perfectly well who she was. He 
 knew that she was Cecilia Ingles, and his heart 
 was constricted by the sight of her. It is for 
 such a woman that one man builds a Clifton and 
 that a hundred others are martyred in it. 
 
 THE END 
 
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