EWING'S LADY 
 
 CALIF 
 
 . LIBRARY. LOS ANGElE*'
 
 EWING'S LADY 
 
 <By 
 HARRY LEON WILSON 
 
 Author of "The Spenders" 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 J907
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 COPYKIGHT, 1907, BY 
 
 AINSLEE MAGAZINE COMPANY 
 
 Published, November, 1907
 
 To N. B. T. 
 
 2132830
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. EWING'S KID i 
 
 II. A LADY LOSES HERSELF .... 12 
 
 III. A PRIVATE VIEW 20 
 
 IV. A PORTRAIT 32 
 
 V. INTO THE PAST AND OUT .... 43 
 
 VI. THE LADY AND THE PLAN .... 55 
 
 VII. Two SLEEPERS AWAKEN .... 64 
 
 VIII. THE JOURNEY WONDER . . . . . 71 
 
 IX. A DINNER AT SEVEN-THIRTY . . .83 
 
 X. THE WAY OF THE LITTLE MAN ... 97 
 
 XI. A NIGHT AT THE MONASTERY . . . 105 
 
 XII. THE NEW MEMBER 124 
 
 XIII. SEARCHING THE WILDERNESS . . .131 
 
 XIV. THE TRICK OF COLOR 140 
 
 XV. FLESH OF HER FLESH 147 
 
 XVI. TEEVAN AS SPECIAL PROVIDENCE . .156 
 
 XVII. AN ELUSIVE VENUS 164 
 
 XVIII. MRS. LAITHE is IN 174 
 
 vii
 
 Contents 
 
 CHAPTER . PAG* 
 
 XIX. THE UNBLAZED WAY 185 
 
 XX. A LADY BLUSHES 196 
 
 XXI. THE DRAMA IN NINTH STREET . . 203 
 
 XXII. A REVOLT 211 
 
 XXIII. THE LITTLE LAND 222 
 
 XXIV. EWING INTERRUPTS 231 
 
 XXV. MRS. LAITHE is ENLIGHTENED . . 247 
 
 XXVI. THE SUNSET TRAIL 256 
 
 XXVII. THE HILLS OF REST 262 
 
 XXVIIL THE WHITE TIME 273 
 
 XXIX. THE AWAKENING 279 
 
 XXX. THE HARDEST THING 290 
 
 XXXI. THE MISSION OF EWING .... 304 
 XXXII. THE TURNING OF COONEY . . .313 
 
 Vlll
 
 EWING'S LADY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 SWING'S KID 
 
 TWO weeks of instructive contact with the Bar-7 
 school of gallantry had prepared Mrs. Laithe 
 to be amazed at her first encounter with Ewing's 
 kid. Riding out from the ranch one afternoon and 
 turning, for coolness, up the wooded mesa that rises from 
 the creek flat, she overwhelmed him at a bend in the 
 trail. Stricken motionless, he glared at the lady with 
 eyes in which she was compelled to believe that she 
 read more horror than admiration. There was a mo- 
 ment of this ; then her pony neighed a greeting to the 
 statue of dusty bronze as if to say that things were 
 not so bad as they seemed, and the gazing youth broke 
 the spell his vision had laid upon him. He bowed his 
 head doggedly and vanished beyond some low-growing 
 cedars that lined the way. 
 
 As he fled the lady laughed softly, yet was silent, 
 with face austerely set as she passed the point of his 
 evanishment. His behavior recalled that of a deer she 
 had terrorized one day in this same green isle of the 
 woods; and she had laughed the same furtive laugh, as 
 
 I
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 if in confidence to herself, when the creature tossed its 
 head in challenge, pawed the earth with a dainty 
 bravado, and then fled in such an ecstasy of panic that 
 she could hear it crashing through the underbrush long 
 after it had vanished. But this human woods-creature 
 had gone silently; and no great way, she suspected far 
 enough only to screen himself while his eyes still held 
 her through some opening in the green curtain. Where- 
 fore let us comprehend the mien of austerity as she 
 passed. 
 
 Elusiveness in the male, be it bluntly said, was con- 
 founding to the experience of Mrs. Laithe since she had 
 ventured into the San Juan Mountains under the nominal 
 care of an inattentive brother, and her belief was still 
 firm that the men about her suffered little from shy- 
 ness. This latest specimen would be a single variation 
 from type and of slight value in determining the ways 
 of his kind. 
 
 As her pony picked its way up the trail she mused over 
 the not unpleasant picture of the youth at bay. It 
 was a thing to be caught at the moment, for she would 
 find him otherwise, she believed, at their next meeting. 
 She would come on him some day at Bar-y, or at one 
 of the ranches neighboring it, and find him quite like 
 his fellows, rigidly respectful, but with a self-confidence 
 and a simple directness in his gallantry that had enter- 
 tained her not a little as practiced by local courtiers. 
 He would be like the others, from Beulah Pierce, owner 
 of Bar-y, down to Shane Riley, humble helper in the 
 cookhouse. 
 
 An hour later, refreshed by the balsam-laden air of the 
 upper reaches, she left the woods at the foot of the mesa 
 and rode out on the willow flat, lush with grass for Bar- 
 
 2
 
 Ewing's Kid 
 
 7's winter feeding. From the first bench above the 
 creek she descried the figures of two men in front of 
 the ranch house. One she saw to be Beulah Pierce, 
 his incredible length draped lazily over the gate that 
 opened into his wife's flower garden. Outside this gate, 
 under the flow of his talk (Pierce would surely be talking) 
 stood one whom the lady, riding nearer, identified as 
 the youth who so lately had shirked a meeting with her. 
 At this sight she warmed with a little glow of pride in 
 her powers of prophecy. Truly he had waited no long 
 time. His hat was off and he leaned restfully against 
 the withers of a saddled horse, a horse that drooped, 
 head to the ground, in some far low level of dejection. 
 She laughed again, comprehending the fellow at last. 
 His variation from type had been but seeming, due to 
 an erratic but not constitutional embarrassment. Bra- 
 zenly enough now he contrived to await her coming, 
 craftily engaging the not difficult Pierce in idle talk. 
 And Pierce, as she rode up, would perform, with stiff 
 importance, the orthodox ceremony of presentation. 
 Whereupon the youth would bow with visible effort, 
 shake her hand with a rigid cordiality, once up, once 
 down, and remark, after swallowing earnestly, " Pleased 
 to meet you, ma'am!" or perhaps, "Glad to make your 
 acquaintance!" Then, tactfully affecting to ignore her, 
 he would demand if Pierce had seen anything of that 
 buckskin mare and colt that strayed off last Tuesday; 
 or if anyone had brought mail up from Pagosa Springs 
 lately; or if Pierce happened to need two thousand 
 hemlock shakes. This query he would follow with 
 a popular local witticism concerning sheepmen or the 
 Colorado climate nominally addressed to Pierce but 
 intended for her own refreshment. And, in readjusting 
 
 3
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 the silk kerchief at his throat, he would manage a quick 
 side glance at her to see how she relished the jest. For 
 Mrs. Laithe had learned their ways in two weeks, and 
 this was one of them to favor one another with witty 
 sallies in her presence, and solely in her behalf. All 
 the men of Bar- 7 practiced this amiable strategy. When 
 a group of them assembled within her hearing the swift 
 exchange of repartee, accompanied by the inevitable 
 side glance, was a thing to wonder at. 
 
 Indeed, the lady had learned their ways. Even be- 
 fore she neared the gate Alonzo Pierce, son of Beulah, 
 appeared round the corner of the ranch house to take 
 her pony, sauntering with a flagrant ennui, in full 
 knowledge that Sandy Goodhue had started violently 
 on the same gallant mission, but from the farthest corral. 
 Shane Riley, chained by his labors to the doorway of 
 the cookhouse, smirked genially out over a pot that he 
 polished; and Red Phinney, star rider at Bar-7, seated 
 himself on the step before the front door, so that he 
 might have to arise with flourishing apologies a per- 
 formance that would move the lady to ask about his 
 sprained wrist, now in bandage. 
 
 This familiar assembling of her court, professedly 
 casual, was swiftly detected by Mrs. Laithe. But she 
 saw now, being near the gate, a quick turning toward 
 her of the strange youth. It was a brief, impersonal 
 survey that seemed not to disengage her from the back- 
 ground of gray road and yellowish-green willows; but 
 clearly it sufficed. With a curt nod to Pierce he was 
 mounted; in another breath his amazed and indignant 
 horse, spurred viciously from its trance, raged with 
 protesting snorts over the road to the east. As Mrs. 
 Laithe reined up at the gate she beheld, through a nim- 
 
 4
 
 Ewing's Kid 
 
 bus of dust, the rider's boots groping pathetically for 
 their stirrups. 
 
 She repressed a little gasp of astonishment in which 
 the natural woman might have betrayed her view of so 
 headlong a retreat, although, had Beulah Pierce been 
 alone at the gate, she might have descended to speech 
 with him about this strangely retiring youth. But 
 as 'L,on Pierce waited for her pony, with a masterly 
 taunt for Sandy Goodhue, who came up breathless but 
 late, and as Red Phinney had already risen from his ob- 
 structive seat in the doorway, his wrist held cunningly 
 forward to provoke solicitous inquiry, the lady passed 
 in with only such easy words as the moment demanded. 
 She was reflecting, with agreeable interest, that the 
 young man's avoidance of her would presently begin to 
 seem pointed. 
 
 This conjecture was to be abundantly confirmed. 
 Returning from her ride the following afternoon, she saw 
 that the youth must pass her on the public highway. 
 They were out on the flat, with no arboreal sanctuary 
 for the timid one. The lady looked forward with genial 
 malice to a meeting which, it appeared, he was now pow- 
 erless to avoid. But the youth, perceiving his plight, 
 instantly had trouble with a saddle girth. Turning 
 well out of the road, he dismounted on the farther side 
 of his horse and busied himself with the mechanics of 
 proper cinching. As Mrs. Laithe rode by she saw 
 only the top of a wide-brimmed gray hat above the 
 saddle. 
 
 The day following, when, in an orderly sequence of 
 events, they should have met at the ford, he turned with 
 admirable promptness down the stream, where no trail 
 was, sharply scanning the thinned edge of a wood in 
 
 5
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 the perfect manner of one absorbed in a search for lost 
 stock. Clearly, his was a mind fertile, if not subtle, in 
 resource. 
 
 Not until a day later did he come truly to face her, 
 and then only by the circumstance of his being penned by 
 her within the high-walled corral where Red Phinney 
 broke green horses to ride, work or carry. Returning this 
 day earlier than was her wont, and finding no one at the 
 front of the house to take her pony, she had ridden back 
 to the corrals. Here she delivered the animal to Phin- 
 ney, but not before the timid one had been compelled 
 to pass her. He did this, she thought, only after swiftly 
 calculating the height of the walls that pent him. And 
 though his hat was doffed as he hurtled by, his eyes 
 were on the ground. Mrs. Laithe, feeling thus at liberty 
 to stare brutally at him, felt a prodigious heightening 
 of that tower of amazement he had been rearing within 
 her mind, for she saw him blush most furiously; beheld 
 it under the brown of his beardless face. 
 
 Yet there was more in the young face than this flaunted 
 banner of embarrassment; and scanning it intently, she 
 resolved forthwith to know him. 
 
 Late that day she was pleased to come upon Beulah 
 Pierce alone in the big living room of the ranch house. 
 Smoking a last pipe before the call to supper, Beulah 
 relaxed on the " lounge" after a toilsome season of ditch- 
 making. 
 
 "Oh, him?" he answered, luxuriously extending 
 legs that seemed much too long for any reasonable need 
 of man, and pulling at his ragged red mustache. " Why, 
 that's Ewing's kid." 
 
 "Ewing?" retorted Mrs. Laithe, provocatively, win- 
 ningly. 
 
 6
 
 Ewing's Kid 
 
 "Ewing," affirmed Pierce, with unaccustomed brev- 
 ity, his mind at dalliance with other matters. 
 
 "Ewing's kid," murmured the lady, as if in careless 
 musing. 
 
 "Sure, Ewing's kid Hi Mighty! I struck one o' 
 them willow roots to-day, on that piece o' ditch over on 
 the west forty, an' say! it yanked me clean over the 
 plow handles. It did, fur a fact straightened me out 
 like a whiplash. It scraped all the wall paper off'n this 
 left shoulder o' mine when I landed, too, say nothin' o' 
 the jounce it give me. Ma, whur's that embrycation 
 fur man and beast?" And Beulah laid a gentle hand on 
 the abraded member. 
 
 "After you've et a bite," called his wife from the next 
 room. "Shane has the things all on, so come along an' 
 set up." 
 
 Beulah erected himself with an unctuous groan and 
 spoke his favorite jest: "Wa'al, le's go out an' see 
 what the neighbors has brought in." 
 
 The meal over, Mrs. L,aithe again found herself with 
 Pierce in the living room. She sat on the bearskin 
 before the open fire, her hands clasped about her knees. 
 Through the dancing jets of flame she observed the kid 
 of Ewing with his downward, troubled face. Pierce, 
 tucking shreds of tobacco into the bowl of his pipe, 
 glanced toward her, the light of coming talk in his eyes. 
 
 "How'd you like that there little red roan you're 
 ridin', Mis' Laithe?" he began. 
 
 "Cooney? Oh, Cooney's a dear, generally. Some- 
 times he's stubborn and pretends to know the way 
 better than I do." 
 
 "Sound and kind, though, I bet you." 
 
 "OH, yes; but when I want to ride down the east 
 
 7
 
 Swing's Lady 
 
 side of the valley, why does he always try to go up that 
 steep trail to the left? Sometimes I've quite a strug- 
 gle to keep him in the valley road." 
 
 "Wa'al, you see I bought him off'n Ewing's kid an' 
 he wants to git back home. Sure's ever we dast let 
 him loose with the saddle band, he's over to Ewing's 
 place, come sun-up. You give him his head any time 
 he'll carry you straight there." 
 
 "He will?" 
 
 "Surest thing you know! When that kid breaks a 
 pony he gits it all gentled up so's it hones to git back 
 to him." 
 
 "How interesting!" 
 
 " Naw makes lashin's o' trouble fur them that buys 
 off'n him. Say, Mis' Laithe, you was askin' about 
 Ewing's kid." 
 
 "Was I?" She looked politely blank. 
 
 "Sure you was jest 'fore supper. Wa'al, Ewing's 
 kid is the son of a man named now hear me talk! 
 Course he's his father's son. Wa'al, anyway, this man 
 Ewing comes in here with this kid about fifteen, sixteen 
 year ago, an' takes that place over there by the lake to 
 git cured up o' the consumption. He was a painter, 
 painted pitchers an' all sech, understand? puts up a 
 big stoodio with a winder in it six feet high to paint by. 
 But he was puny. He couldn't fat up none. You never 
 seen a critter so gaunted as he was. Some said he 
 never got over losin' his wife. Anyway, 't wa'n't no sur- 
 prise when he was took off, seven, eight year ago. An' 
 since he died that there kid has sort o' half run the place 
 along with a feller named Ben Crider that the old man 
 had got fur help. 0' course we all kind o' looked in on 
 the boy at first to make sure he wa'n't in need, an' done 
 
 8
 
 Ewing's Kid 
 
 a day's work now an' then, an' they raised a few horses 
 an' a few cattle an' one thing an' another. Trouble 
 with that boy, though, he's always putterin' round with 
 his dad's paint brushes, an' talkin' about portrayin' 
 art an' all like that, understand? I've told that kid 
 time an' time again, 'Kid,' I says, 'never you mind about 
 portrayin' art an' depictin' the linnerments an' the 
 varied aspecks o' nature,' I says; 'you jes' burn up them 
 foolish little long-shanked paint brushes in your Charter 
 Oak cookstove,' I says, 'an' ten' to portrayin' a good 
 little bunch of cattle an' depictin' Ben Crider to work 
 also, an' you'll git somewhur's, I says. But him why, 
 he jes' moons along. An' Ben Crider ain't much better. 
 Ben ain't no stimulant to him. Ben had ort to been the 
 only son of a tenderhearted widow lady of means. 
 That's what he'd ort to been. You give him a new coon 
 song out of a Sunday supplement an' his guitar, an' 
 Ben's fixed fur half a day at least. He ain't goin' to 
 worry none about a strayed yearlin' or two. Why, one 
 time, I rec'lect " 
 
 "Then young Mr. Ewing is a painter, too?" she 
 interrupted. 
 
 "Wa'al" Pierce became judicial "yes an' no. He 
 ain't a reg'ler one, like you might say not like his pa 
 was. Still, he can do hand paintin' if you want to 
 call it that. Made a pitcher o' me this summer, bein' 
 buckjumped by old Tobe. Tobe was cert'n'y actin' 
 high, wide an' handsome, comin' down with his four 
 hoofs in a bunch, an' me lookin' like my works was corn- 
 in' all apart the next minute. A lively pitcher yes; 
 but, my Lord! it wa'n't a thing you could show! It 
 made me out that reediculous. Course, I ain't Mrs. 
 Langtry, but you got to draw the line somewhurs, 
 
 2 9
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 hain't you? Now there" Beulah pushed an informing 
 thumb toward crayon portraits of himself and Mrs. 
 Pierce that graced the opposite wall in frames of massive 
 gilt, one on either side of the organ" that's what you 
 can call art drawn by a reg'ler one down to Durango 
 everything showin' like it ort to, expressions an' all, 
 even down to Ma Pierce's breastpin an' my watch 
 chain, made out o' my own mother's hair. They're 
 decent pitchers. That other one was plumb indecent, 
 I can tell you. Ma she up an' hid it away, quick as she 
 seen it." 
 
 "And has he done other things?" 
 
 "Hey?" 
 
 "Painted other pictures?" 
 
 "Slathers horses an' animals an' Ben Crider with 
 his gun an' all sech, an' deer. Say now, I seen another 
 artist down to the Durango fair last fall that was a 
 genuine w6nder an' no mistake. He was writin' callin' 
 cards at a little table, an' he could draw a runnin' deer 
 all in flourishes an' curlycurves, without liftin' his 
 pen from the card, all slick an' natural as you'd want 
 
 "Did you know his mother?" 
 
 " No-o-o didn't even know him. I jest stopped to 
 look an' he drawed a fine big bird right while I watched, 
 havin' a ribbon in its bill with my name on it in red ink ; 
 about as tasty a thing as you'd care to see, fur a quarter 
 of a dollar. It's round the house somewhur now, I 
 reckon, if you - " 
 
 "Ewing's kid's mother?" 
 
 " Hey? Oh, no, I never knew that lady. She passed 
 away sommers off up the state before these other parties 
 moved in." 
 
 IO
 
 Ewing's Kid 
 
 "Does the boy resemble his father?" 
 
 "Ewing? Wa'al, not to say resemble. In fact he 
 didn't favor him, not at all, that I can rec'lect. He 
 must of been most like his ma." 
 
 The lady had been speaking as from a distance, staring 
 fixedly into the fire, with the distraction of one engaged 
 in some hopeless feat of memo.ry. So intently aloof 
 was she that Pierce had to repeat his next remark. 
 
 "I say, you don't never want to let Cooney git you 
 started up that trail you was speakin' about. First 
 place, it's steeper'n the side of a house. Next place, 
 ever let him git you to the top, he'd land you slambang 
 over to Ewing's, spite of all you could do." 
 
 "Thank you! I'll be sure to remember that. Good 
 night!" 
 
 She left him, still with the far-centered, puzzled look 
 on her face the shadow of some resemblance, indefinite, 
 nameless, but insistent. 
 
 ii
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 A LADY LOSES HERSELF 
 
 ONLY a few miles separate Bar-7 from the Ewing 
 place; but they are interesting miles and at 
 least one of them will be found exciting by the 
 town-bred novice. There is a stretch where the trail 
 leaves the valley road and zigzags up the face of the 
 east bench to a height from which one may survey the 
 whole sleeping valley of the Wimmenuche as through 
 a reducing glass. The way seems no broader than one's 
 hand, and to Mrs. Laithe, who approached it from across 
 the flat and studied it for the first time as a practicable 
 thoroughfare, it looked to be impossibly perpendicular; 
 a climb that no horse in its right mind would attempt, 
 an angle of elevation that no rider could sustain. 
 
 Brought to incredulity by this survey, she pulled 
 Cooney to a walk as she neared the parting of the ways. 
 Then, indecisively, she let the bridle rein fall on his neck. 
 The little horse loitered on, splashing through the creek 
 with a few leisurely sips of its icy water (taken merely 
 in the spirit of a connoisseur), and a moment later halted 
 where the bench trail turned out. At the beginning 
 of his intimacy with his present rider he had adopted 
 rushing tactics at this point, leaping at the trail in a fine 
 pretense that no other way could have been thought of, 
 and showing a hurt bewilderment when the sudden 
 pull brought him about and into the valley road. For 
 that was a road that led nowhere, since it led away from 
 
 12
 
 A Lady Loses Herself 
 
 his home. Day after day he had played this game, 
 seemingly with an untouched faith that some time he 
 would win. Day after day had he exercised all his powers 
 of astonished protest when the frustrating tug was felt. 
 But these tugs had become sharper, to betoken the 
 rider's growing impatience, and it may be surmised that 
 on this day Cooney had lost his faith. If it were inevi- 
 table that one should be whirled back into the broad, 
 foolish way, one might save effort by omitting that first 
 futile rush; one might stop and let evil come. Cooney 
 stopped now, drooping in languid cynicism. 
 
 His rider waited, wishing that he had not stopped; 
 wishing he had rushed the trail as always before. She 
 felt the need of every excuse for daring the hazards of 
 that climb. Cooney waited and waited morosely 
 anticipating the corrective jerk of a rider who refused to 
 guide him properly by pressing a rein across his neck. 
 The shock was delayed. Cooney thrilled, aspiring joy- 
 ously. He waited still another uncertain moment, 
 bracing his slim legs. At last, with a quick indrawing 
 of breath, he sprang up the only desirable trail in all 
 the world, with an energy of scurrying hoofs that con- 
 fined his rider's attention wholly to keeping her seat. 
 She hardly dared look down even when the little horse 
 stopped on a narrow ledge to breathe. Nor did Cooney 
 tarry. Still fearful, perhaps, of that deadly backward 
 jerk, he stopped but once again before the summit was 
 reached. Doubtless he suspected that the most should 
 be made of this probably fleeting mood of compliance 
 in one who had hitherto shown herself inveterately 
 hostile to his most cherished design. 
 
 Looking back over the ascent while the stanch little 
 animal panted under her, Mrs. Laithe discovered that the 
 
 13
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 thing had been worth while. The excitement had been 
 pleasurable and the view was a thing to climb for. On 
 the north the valley narrowed to a canon, its granite sides 
 muffled in clouds of soft green spruce. To the south it 
 widened away until, beyond a broad plain, quickened 
 with flying cloud shadows, a long, low-lying range of 
 blue hills showed hazily, far over the New Mexico border. 
 Straight before her, across the valley, were mountains 
 whose rough summits leaped gray and barren above 
 their ragged hemming of timber mountains not to be 
 seen from the ranch because of the intervening mesa. 
 But the picture was not long to be enjoyed no longer 
 a time than Cooney needed to recover his wind. He 
 was presently off through a sparse grove of aspen, break- 
 ing by his own will into a lope as they crossed a wide, 
 grassy meadow, level between the wooded hills that 
 sloped to its edge on either side. And this was the horse 
 who, when he bore her lazily up and down the valley, 
 constantly cropped the good green stuff to right and 
 left, a horse always before willing to loiter, or to stand 
 motionless for an hour with his bridle rein on the ground, 
 while she adventured beyond him on foot. The rider 
 caught his new spirit and laughed as she felt herself hur- 
 ried to the comsummation of this mild adventure; hur- 
 ried up the long ridge, ovei a cross system of sudden gul- 
 lies, through another wide meadow of the mountains 
 where strange cattle paused to regard her rather dis- 
 concertingly ; on through the gloom of other woods, the 
 trail worrying itself up another ascent, and then out upon 
 an open summit that looked down upon a tiny lake set 
 in a cup of the hills. On one side the water, its shining 
 surface pierced only by the heaps of hungry trout, flashed 
 the green of chrysoprase up to the spruce trees that crept 
 
 14
 
 A Lady Loses Herself 
 
 to its edge; on the other it mirrored a scarred wall of 
 rock that rose sheer from the water to some far, incal- 
 culable height, its summit carved into semblances of 
 buttressed castles with gray and splendid battlements. 
 
 But Cooney was still loath to linger over mere scenery. 
 He hurried his rider down the ridge and out on a flat of 
 marshy grass, thickly starred with purple gentians. 
 Here he delayed only to recall, as it later appeared, a 
 duty familiar to him in the days before he was sold into 
 bondage. Standing across the trail where it neared the 
 margin of the lake, a sedate-looking cow grazed and was 
 at peace with the world. 
 
 Looking up as the horse bore down upon her, and ob- 
 serving that she was expected to move, the cow did so 
 with but slight signs of annoyance in the shaking of 
 her head. The incident, however, was not thus simply 
 to be closed, for now began that which enabled the 
 lady to regard the day as one of red adventure. Cooney 
 swerved from the trail with a suddenness that was like 
 to have unseated his rider. Then as the cow halted, 
 head down and forefeet braced, he swerved once more, 
 heading so obviously for the beast that she turned and 
 trotted off on the trail, mumbling petulant remon- 
 strance. With a knowing shake of his head Cooney fell 
 in behind her. 
 
 His intention might no longer be mistaken. He 
 meant to drive the cow. Did she turn aside, Cooney 
 turned aside, ever alert for her slightest deviation. The 
 trail now lay through a grove of spruce and balsam 
 that had been partially cleared, but the trees were 
 still too many for the lady to relish being hurtled among 
 them by a volatile and too-conscientious cow pony. She 
 found herself eying their charge as alertly as did Cooney 
 
 15
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 himself, praying that the driven beast might prove less 
 reluctant. When she did break from the trail Mrs. 
 Laithe braced herself to meet Cooney's simultaneous 
 detour, and thereafter, until the indignant animal was 
 again in the beaten way, the rider was engaged in avoid- 
 ing fearful impact with trees and entanglement with 
 low-growing branches. She debated the wisdom of 
 dropping from the saddle and abandoning herself to the 
 more seemly fate of starvation in this wooded fastness. 
 To be sure, there was a chance that Cooney would rush 
 on to find his late master, who might return to solve 
 the problem of the empty saddle. But even so, that 
 young man would only glance at her and run swiftly 
 away, after he had blushed. Moreover Cooney, whom 
 she now believed to be demented, had increased his speed, 
 despite her restraining pulls, while the cow, in a frenzy 
 of desperation, became more daring in her sorties. 
 
 Then, to the glad relief of the rider, an opening 
 showed through the trees close ahead, and in another 
 moment Cooney had galloped her out into an extensive 
 clearing. Swiftly about its edge he circled, to thwart 
 a last dash of his prey for the glad, free grazing life 
 from which she had so summarily been withdrawn. Half 
 round the clearing they went in the startled gaze of a 
 person who had been at work over a deer hide in the 
 shade of a mighty hemlock. Then, with lightning swerve 
 pursued and pursuers fled straight and swiftly across 
 the clearing Cooney close on the flanks of his prize 
 into the astounded vision of Ewing's kid, who had 
 sauntered to the open door at the sound of flying 
 hoofs. 
 
 Hereupon the little roan abandoned his task, halting 
 before the figure in the doorway. The halt was so abrupt 
 
 16
 
 A Lady Loses Herself 
 
 that Mrs. Laithe never knew whether she dismounted 
 or was thrown. 
 
 They looked at each other helplessly, the lady's eyes 
 still wide with the dismay that had been growing in 
 them since Cooney's mysterious seizure. She felt her- 
 self trembling and she tried to smile. The young man 
 released the arm he had seized to support her and 
 stepped back, putting a hand up to Cooney, who had 
 been mouthing his sleeve with little whinnies of 
 rejoicing. 
 
 Then the lady heard the voice of E wing's kid, heard 
 him say with quick, embarrassed utterance, "It's too 
 bad you went to all that trouble. We're not milking 
 Clara any more." 
 
 Still breathing rapidly, she turned half away, confused 
 by this cryptic utterance. 
 
 " Clara? I didn't know I don't I beg your pardon, 
 but I'm afraid I don't understand." 
 
 " Yes, we don't drive her in any more. Midge came in 
 fresh a few weeks ago, and we let Clara run along with 
 her calf again." 
 
 Pondering this item, she put her hands to her head. 
 One of them found her cap which a low branch had raked 
 awry ; the other grasped a tangle of hair that muffled the 
 other side of her head, regrettably out of place. From 
 this surprising touch of things she divined the picture 
 she must be making. More, she saw herself dash into this 
 sylvan opening apparently in mad pursuit of a frenzied 
 cow; for, as a requisite to keeping her seat in the saddle, 
 she had been compelled to seem as eager in the chase 
 as Cooney himself. She sank collapsed, rather upon 
 the broad slab of stone before the door, laughing 
 weakly. 
 
 17
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 The youth looked down at her with puzzled eyes in 
 which she saw alarm rising. 
 
 "But I didn't try to chase your cow I didn't want 
 to," she broke out. "It was your horse; his idea, his 
 alone." 
 
 There was such fine, shy commiseration in his face as 
 she rose that she laughed again. 
 
 "Of course it must have been Cooney's fault," he 
 said. " I might have known that. He used to have to 
 drive her in every day." He regarded her for a moment 
 with a sort of dumb chivalry, then politely offered his 
 hand, saying, with a curious little air of taught formality : 
 "I'm very glad to see you. Thank you so much for 
 coming!" 
 
 In avoiding each other's eyes, as their hands fell apart, 
 they both looked out to the person who stooped busily 
 over a deer hide in the shade of the big hemlock. His 
 view of the circumstance was revealing itself. Only 
 his rounded back could be seen, but this rose and fell 
 in the rapid, rhythmic convulsions of silent laughter. 
 They turned quickly back to each other and smiled in a 
 sudden sympathy with his mirth. 
 
 " If I may have a glass of water " she suggested, as a 
 device for establishing ease between them. 
 
 " Of course!" He called to the person under the tree, 
 arresting the back at the height of one of its recurrent 
 spasms. The face turned upon them was rigidly sad, 
 a face of almost saturnine solemnity, the face of one who 
 has been brought to view life as an engine of woe. As 
 he ambled dejectedly toward them, his head bowed 
 from his work-bent shoulders, the lines of grief in his 
 face seemed to deepen, and a gnarled hand tugged at 
 the already drooping ends of his long mustache, as if he 
 
 18
 
 A Lady Loses Herself 
 
 would be assured that they, also, testified to the world's 
 objectionableness. 
 
 "Mr. Crider, this is Mrs. Laithe she has come to see 
 us." The youth achieved this with austere formality. 
 The sad one nodded and put forth his hand with a 
 funereal "Glad to know you, ma'am!" as if they met at 
 the open grave of a friend. 
 
 "Ben, won't you go to the spring and get her some 
 fresh water? She's thirsty. She's had a hard ride." 
 
 The other turned quickly away, and there was a sound 
 as if he had manfully stifled a sob. Ewing faced his 
 guest with eyes that twinkled a bit, she thought, beneath 
 their apologetic droop. 
 
 "I'd be glad to have you come inside," he ventured.
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 A PRIVATE VIEW 
 
 FROM the first room, a kitchen and general living 
 room, such as she had learned to know in the 
 other ranch houses, he conducted her up two 
 steps to a doorway, from which he pushed aside a Nav- 
 ajo blanket with its rude coloring of black and red. 
 There was disclosed beyond this an apartment of a sort 
 with which she was more familiar, a spacious studio 
 with its large window giving to the north. In the clear 
 light her eyes ran quickly over its details: the chinked 
 logs that made its walls, the huge stone fireplace on 
 one side, the broad couch along the opposite wall, covered 
 with another of the vivid Navajo weaves, the skins of 
 bear and lynx and cougar on the stained floor, the easel 
 before the window, a canvas in place on it ; the branching 
 antlers over the fireplace, contrived into a gun rack; 
 a tall, roughly made cabinet, its single shelf littered 
 with half-squeezed tubes of paint, a daubed palette, 
 and a red-glazed jar from which brushes protruded. 
 Above the couch were some shelves of books, and between 
 it and the fireplace was a table strewn with papers, 
 magazines, a drawing board with a sheet of paper tacked 
 to it, and half a dozen sharpened pencils. 
 
 He indicated the couch. " It will be a good thing for 
 you to rest a little," he said. She seated herself with a 
 smile of assent. He rashly began to arrange the pillows 
 for her, but left off in a sudden consciousness of his 
 
 20
 
 A Private View 
 
 temerity, withdrawing a few paces to regard her. He 
 was still apprehensive, but his boy's eyes were full of 
 delight, amusement, curiosity, and, more than all, of 
 a wistfulness like that of a dumb creature. He stepped 
 to the door for the pitcher of water and glass that Ben 
 now brought. 
 
 She had studied him coolly as he spoke the negligent 
 out-of-doors carriage of the figure, not without a kind of 
 free animal grace, the grace of a trampling horse rather 
 than that of soft-going panthers. The floor boards 
 reechoed to his careless, rattling tread, and occasionally, 
 his attention being drawn to this reverberation, he was 
 at great pains for a moment to go on tiptoe. He was 
 well set up, with a sufficient length of thigh. Mrs. Laithe 
 approved of this, for, in her opinion, many a goodly mas- 
 culine torso in these times goes for nothing because of a 
 shortness of leg. His hair was a lightish brown and so 
 straight that a lock was prone to come out behind and 
 point uncompromisingly toward distant things. This 
 impropriety he wholly disregarded, whereas the more 
 civilized man would have borne the fault in mind and 
 remembered occasionally to apply a restrictive hand. 
 His face was a long, browned square, with gray eyes, so 
 imbedded under the brow that they had a look of fierce- 
 ness. His lips showed only a narrow line of color, and 
 trembled constantly with smiles. These he tried to re- 
 strain from time to time, with an air of pinning down 
 the corners of his mouth. 
 
 She had noted so much while he poured out the water, 
 and now he came to her, walking carefully so as not to 
 thunder with his boots. 
 
 "You must have been frightened," he said, and his 
 eyes sought hers with a young, sorry look. 
 
 21
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "Not after we left the woods; it wasn't funny among 
 those trees." 
 
 He brightened. "I'd always thought women don't 
 like to look funny." 
 
 "They don't," said the lady incisively, "no more than 
 men do." 
 
 "But you can laugh at yourself," he insisted. 
 
 "Can you?" She meditated a swift exposure of his 
 own absurdity at their meetings in the valley, but forbore 
 and spoke instead of his pictures. 
 
 "You must show me your work," she said. 
 
 For a moment it seemed that she had lost all she had 
 gained with him. He patently meditated a flying leap 
 through the door and an instant vanishing into the 
 nearest thicket. She had an impulse to put out a hand 
 and secure him by the coat. But he held his ground, 
 though all his geniality was suddenly veiled, while he 
 vibrated behind the curtain, scheming escape, like a 
 child harried by invading grown people in its secret play- 
 house. 
 
 She looked cunningly away, examining a rip in her 
 glove. 
 
 "I tried to paint a little myself once," she essayed 
 craftily. Nothing came of it. He remained in ambush. 
 
 "But it wasn't in me," she continued, and was con- 
 scious that he at least took a breath. 
 
 "You see, I hadn't anything but the liking," she went 
 on, " and so I had the sense to give it up. Still, I learned 
 enough to help me see other people's work better and 
 to be interested in pictures." 
 
 "Did anyone try to teach you?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes, but they couldn't make me paint; they could 
 only make me see." 
 
 22
 
 A Private View 
 
 "Perhaps you could tell me some things," he admitted 
 at last, "if you've tried." He paltered a little longer. 
 Then, "Ben Crider says this is the best thing I've ever 
 done," and he quickly took a canvas from against the 
 wall and placed it on a chair before her. 
 
 She considered is so quietly that he warmed a little, 
 like a routed animal lulled once more into security by 
 the stillness. 
 
 " Do you get the right light?" he asked anxiously. 
 
 She nodded, and managed a faint, abstracted smile, 
 indicative of pleasure. She heard him emit a sigh of 
 returning ease. He spoke in almost his former confiding 
 tone. 
 
 "That's our lake, you know, painted in the late after- 
 noon. Ben is set on my sending it down to the Durango 
 fair next month." 
 
 It was the lake, indeed, but, alas! an elaborate, a 
 labored parody of it. The dead blue water, the granite 
 wall evenly gray in shadow, garishly pink where it 
 caught the sun, the opaque green of the trees, the care- 
 fully arranged clouds in the flat blue sky all smirked 
 conscious burlesque. It recalled the things in gilt 
 frames which Mrs. Laithe remembered to have seen in 
 front of "art emporiums." on Fourteenth Street, tagged 
 "Genuine Oil Painting," the "$12.00" carefully crossed 
 out and "$3.98" written despairingly below to tempt 
 the alert connoisseur. 
 
 She knew the artist's eyes were upon her in appeal for 
 praise. She drew in her under lip and narrowed her 
 eyes as one in the throes of critical deliberation. 
 
 "Yes, I should recognize the spot at once," she dared 
 to say at last. "How well you've drawn the rock." 
 
 "I hoped you'd like it. I don't mind telling you I 
 
 2 3
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 put in a lot of time on that thing. I 'carried it along' 
 as my father used to say. I don't believe I could better 
 that. And here are some others." 
 
 He displayed them without further urging, his shyness 
 vanished by his enthusiasm, in his eye a patent confu- 
 sion of pride and anxiety. She found them in quality 
 like the first. In one the valley of the Wimmenuche 
 from the east bench was as precisely definite as a topo- 
 graphical map; in another the low-lying range of hills 
 to the south had lost all their gracious and dignifying 
 haze. 
 
 "They are immensely interesting," observed his critic 
 with animation, "It may be" she searched for a tem- 
 pering phrase "it is just possible there's a trick of color 
 you need to learn yet. You know color is so difficult 
 to convict. It's shifty, evasive, impalpable. I dare say 
 that lake isn't as flatly blue as you've painted it, nor 
 that cliff as flatly pink in sunlight. And those hills 
 isn't there a mistiness that softens their lines and gives 
 one a sense of their distance? Color is so difficult 
 so tricky!" 
 
 She had spoken rapidly, her eyes keeping to the poor 
 things before her. Now she ventured a glance at the 
 painter and met a puzzled seriousness in his look. 
 
 " You may be right," he assented at last. " Sometimes 
 I've felt I was on the wrong track. I see what you mean. 
 You mean you could reach over a mile and pick up the 
 ranch house at Bar-; that it's like a little painted 
 poll's house; and you mean you could push your finger 
 into those hills, though they're meant to be a hundred 
 miles away. Well, it serves me right, I guess. My 
 father warned me about color. And I never saw any 
 good pictures but his, and that was years ago. I've 
 
 24
 
 A Private View 
 
 forgotten how they ought to look. He sold all his 
 when I was young all but one." 
 
 "You've done well, considering that." 
 
 " He said I must learn to draw first really to draw 
 and he taught me to do that. I can draw. But black 
 and white is so dingy, and these colors are always nagging 
 you, daring you to try them. If I could only learn to get 
 real air between me and those hills. I wonder, now, 
 if my colors seem like those Navajo blankets to you." 
 He flung himself away from the canvases like an offended 
 horse. 
 
 "Let me see your black-and-whites," she suggested 
 hastily. 
 
 "Oh, those! They don't amount to much, but I'll 
 show you." He thrust aside the canvases and opened 
 a portfolio on the chair. 
 
 She saw at a glance that he had been right when he 
 said he could draw. She let her surprise have play and 
 expanded in the pleasure of honest praise. She had 
 not realized how her former disappointment had taken 
 her aback. But he could draw. Here were true lines 
 and true modeling, not dead, as he had warned her, 
 but quick with life, portrayed not only with truth but 
 with a handling all his own, free from imitative touches. 
 He had achieved difficult feats of action, of foreshorten- 
 ing, with an apparently effortless facility the duck of 
 a horse's head to avoid the thrown rope; the poise of the 
 man who had cast it ; the braced tension of a cow pony 
 holding a roped and thrown steer while his rider dis- 
 mounted ; the airy grace of Red Phinney at work with 
 a stubborn broncho, coming to earth on his stiff-legged 
 mount and raking its side from shoulder to flank with 
 an effective spur. There was humor in them, the real 
 3 25
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 feeling in one of the last. Mrs. kaithe lingered over 
 this. 
 
 "It's Beulah Pierce' s wife in that flower garden of hers," 
 the artist explained. " It seems kind of sad when she 
 goes out there alone sometimes. You know how tired 
 she generally is, and how homesick she's been for twenty 
 years or so 'all gaunted up,' as Ben says, like every 
 ranchman's wife they have to work so hard. And in 
 the house she's apt to be peevish and scold Beulah and 
 the boys like she despised them. But when she goes out 
 into that garden 
 
 "Tell me," said his listener, after waiting discreetly 
 a moment. 
 
 "Well, she's mighty different. She stands around 
 mooning at the hollyhocks and petunias and geraniums 
 and things, the flowers that grew in her garden back 
 East, and I reckon she kind of forgets and thinks she's 
 a girl back home again. Her face gets all gentled up. 
 I've watched her when she didn't notice me she's 
 looking so far off and when she goes into the house again 
 her voice is queer, and she forgets to rampage till Shane 
 Riley lets the stew burn, or Beulah tracks mud into 
 the front room, or something. I tried to show her there, 
 looking soft, just that way." He sounded a little 
 apologetic as he finished. 
 
 "It's delightful," she insisted, "and they're all good 
 I can't tell you how good. You must do more of them, 
 and " she paused and shot him a careful glance to deter- 
 mine how wary it behooved her to be "and I believe 
 you should let color alone for awhile, until you've had 
 a teacher show you some things. You must learn the 
 trick." 
 
 " Oh, I'd try to learn fast enough, if I had the chance." 
 26
 
 A Private View 
 
 His eyes lighted with a kind of furtive wistfulness, 
 as if he would not have her wholly fathom his longing. 
 
 "Of course you could learn. I believe you can do 
 something something fine." 
 
 She rose from the couch and glanced over his books, 
 with an air of wishing to touch other matters before they 
 dwelt long on this. She noticed with some surprise 
 a set of Meredith. 
 
 "Do you read these?" she asked, taking down one 
 of the volumes. 
 
 There was an instant return of his former shyness, 
 a hint of the child and the invaded playhouse. But 
 she knew what to do. Without further remark she 
 calmly lost herself in " Diana." 
 
 "Those books were my father's," he said at last, with 
 the air of addressing an explanation to some third per- 
 son. She ignored this, not even glancing at him. " But 
 I've read them," he added, still as if to another person. 
 
 At last, after studying her face a bit, he ventured, 
 "Have you read them all?" He spoke low, so as not to 
 interrupt her too pointedly. She did not look up, but 
 nodded, with a smile that said confidentially, "Well, 
 I should think so!" He edged nearer then, like one 
 who would be glad, if pressed, to share his secrets. 
 
 "I was sorry when I reached the last one," he began. 
 "It was another world. Oh, he's a great writer. He 
 writes as if he was thinking all the time in fireworks, 
 and he makes you do the same thing. Every page or 
 two he sets off a bunch of firecrackers in your mind that 
 you didn't know you had there. But he writes as if 
 he didn't care whether anybody understood him or not. 
 It's a blind trail, lots of the way, and on some pages I 
 just bog down." 
 
 27
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 She smiled sympathetically. "Many of us have that 
 trouble with him." She put "Diana" back on the shelf 
 and held up the poems of Robert Browning. 
 
 "And this?" 
 
 "Oh, do you read that, too?" he counterquestioned 
 with sparkling curiosity. She could see that he was 
 enlivened beyond his self -consciousness for the moment. 
 "Well, I do, too, in spots. He's pretty good in spots. 
 But other times he's choppy and talky and has a hard 
 time getting into the saddle. Why, sometimes when 
 Ben Crider is talking to himself, it would sound just like 
 Browning, if you broke it up into poetry lengths and 
 gave it a good title." 
 
 " And this you like, too?" She was opening a volume 
 of Whitman. 
 
 "Sure!" he rang out. "Don't you? There's the 
 man." He began walking about with a fine smile that 
 was almost a friendly grin. She felt suddenly sure that 
 he had never talked about the books before, and that 
 it was a kind of feast day for him. 
 
 "Yes," he continued easily; "when I get to feeling 
 too much alone up here I pretend I see him striding in 
 off the trail, his head up, sniffing the air, his eyes just 
 eating these big hills, and he'd march right in and sit 
 down. Only I can't ever think of what we'd say. I 
 reckon we'd sit here without a word. He must have 
 had wonderful eyes. He's good in winters when you're 
 holed up here in the snow and get on edge with nothing 
 to do for five or six months but feed the stock and keep 
 a water hole open. Sometimes I wonder if Ben and I 
 won't come out crazy in the spring, and then I read old 
 Whitman and he makes me feel all easy-like and sure of 
 myself." 
 
 28
 
 A Private View 
 
 He paused again, but she only waited. 
 
 "I had a funny thought last winter," he pursued. 
 " It seemed to me that if people turn into other things 
 when they die the way some folks believe, you know 
 that Whitman must have become a whole world when 
 he died, whirling away somewhere off in space; a fine, 
 big, fresh world, with mountains and valleys and lakes, 
 with big rivers and little ones, and forests and plains and 
 people, good people and bad people, he just liked all sorts 
 it didn't seem to make much difference to him what 
 they were, so they were people and he'd carry them 
 all on his back and breathe in and out and feel great." 
 
 He laughed as if the idea still delighted him, and she 
 laughed with him. 
 
 "I'd like to have told him that," he continued, almost 
 meditatively. " But I'll bet he often thought of it him- 
 self. I guess he wouldn't be satisfied with anything 
 less than that." 
 
 When he stopped they stood a moment smiling at 
 each other. Then she went back to the couch with rather 
 a businesslike air. 
 
 "How old are you?" she asked. 
 
 "I'm twenty-four. How old are you?" 
 
 She smiled, quite disarmed by the artlessness of this 
 brutality. 
 
 "I am twenty-seven." 
 
 "That's pretty old, isn't it?" he commented, gravely. 
 "I shouldn't have said you were older than I am. 
 Some ways you look younger. And what a lot you must 
 have seen out yonder!" 
 
 "You should go there yourself, to work, to study." 
 She felt that he was curiously watching her lips as she 
 spoke rather than listening to her. 
 
 29
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 " Now I see it's only your profile that's sad," he began 
 in the same detached, absent way he had spoken of the 
 books, the way of one talking in solitude. "Your full 
 face isn't sad; it's full of joy; but there's a droop to the 
 profile. Here I'll show you." He took a sketch-book 
 from the table. 
 
 "I'll show you this, now we're such good friends. I 
 could only draw the profile because well, that was 
 the only thing I could look at much." 
 
 She looked and saw herself on three pages of the book, 
 quick little drawings, all of the side face. 
 
 "I didn't dream you had seen me enough," she said. 
 "And you have everything from cap to boots, and 
 
 Cooney " 
 
 "I knew Cooney, and I've well I've watched you 
 some when you didn't know." 
 
 "Certainly you never watched me when I did know," 
 she retorted. 
 
 "I should think not!" He laughed uneasily. "But 
 you see the sadness there. I tried to locate it, but I 
 couldn't. I only knew it was there because I found it in 
 the sketches when they were done. I think I caught 
 the figure pretty well in that one. Stand that way 
 now, won't you?" 
 She rose graciously. 
 
 "Here's your quirt, and catch your skirts the way 
 you've done there that's it. Yes, I got that long line 
 down from the shoulder. It's a fine line. You are 
 beautiful," he continued critically. "I like the way 
 your neck goes up from your shoulders, and your head 
 has a perky kind of a tilt, as if you wouldn't be easy 
 to bluff." 
 
 She smiled, meditating some jocose retort, but he still 
 3
 
 A Private View 
 
 surveyed her impersonally, not seeing the smile. She 
 dropped to the couch rather quickly. 
 
 "Let us talk about you," she urged. But he did not 
 hear. 
 
 " Your face, though that's the fine thing " He was 
 scanning it with narrowed eyes. But a protesting 
 movement of hers restored him to his normal embarrass- 
 ment. He writhed in uncomfortable apology before 
 her. "I'd 'most forgot you were really here," he ex- 
 plained. " I've seen you that way so often when you 
 weren't here. There now I see that sadness; it's in 
 the upper lip. It showed even when you laughed then." 
 
 "Really, this must stop," she broke in. "People 
 don't talk this way." 
 
 "Don't they? Why don't they? I'm sorry but 
 all that interested me." The wave of his hand indicated 
 the fluent grace of the lady impartially from head to 
 foot. 
 
 "Of course," he added, "I knew there must be people 
 like you, out there, but I never dreamed I'd have one 
 of them close enough to look at let alone get friendly 
 with. I hope you won't hold it against me."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 A PORTRAIT 
 
 THOUGH she had made him tingle with an im- 
 pulse to flee from her, he was at the edge of 
 the east bench early the next afternoon. He 
 might see her from a distance. If she came close 
 upon him well, it was worth risking; he had a good 
 horse. Her eyes were the best of her he thought, big 
 gray things under black brows, with a dark ring, well 
 defined, about the iris. He had seen no such eyes before. 
 And how they lighted her face when she spoke. Her 
 face needed lighting, he thought. It was pale under 
 the dark hair her hair stopped short of being black, 
 and was lusterless with only a bit of scared pink in her 
 cheeks, after that ride of the day before. He thought 
 of her hands, too. They were the right hands for her, 
 long, slender, and strong, he did not doubt, under a 
 tricky look of being delicate. It was not possible that 
 they could ever talk together again so easily. He could 
 not make that seem true, but he could look at her. He 
 had hoped she would promise to come again, but they 
 had parted abruptly the afternoon before. Riding back 
 with her, as they breasted the last slope leading to the 
 ranch, he had rejoiced boldly at the chance that had led 
 her up the lake trail that morning. Then Beulah Pierce 
 had hailed them from his station at the bars, hailed them 
 in a voice built to admirable carrying power by many 
 
 32
 
 A Portrait 
 
 cattle drives. His speech began, " Didn't I tell you where 
 that upper trail would " 
 
 Whereupon the lady turned to dismiss her escort 
 rather curtly. 
 
 "Thank you for riding back with me. I shall not 
 trouble you any further." And he, staring suddenly 
 at her with the wild deer's eyes again, had fled over the 
 back trail. 
 
 He thought if there had been more time she might 
 have said, " I will come again soon perhaps to-mor- 
 row." He liked to think she might have said that, but 
 he could not give it much reality. 
 
 He sprawled easily in the saddle, leaning his crossed 
 arms on the pommel and gazing out over the sun-shot 
 valley to the group of buildings and corrals at Bar-y. 
 At least she rode somewhere every afternoon, and he 
 would see her leave. If she turned down the valley 
 road or up the canon well, that emergency could be 
 met. He thought of speeches to make it plain that 
 he had not followed her, daring to approach her in his 
 mind, but knowing well that he would probably hide at 
 sight of her. 
 
 A half hour he waited so, beholding visions of their 
 accidental meeting. Then his pulses raced. He saw 
 the stocky-barreled Cooney led from the corral to the 
 front of the house by Red Phinney. He could almost 
 discern the Sabbath finery of Red across that crystal 
 mile for this was the breathing day of the week, when 
 faces were rasped cruelly by indifferent razors, and fine 
 rainment was donned, black trousers and gay, clean 
 shirts and neckerchiefs of flaming silk. 
 
 He could not see her mount. The ranch house hid 
 that spectacle. But she rode into view presently, putting 
 
 33
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 Cooney first to his little fox trot and then to a lope, as 
 the road wound among the willows. 
 
 He straightened in the saddle as she reached the creek. 
 He was eager to retreat, yet feared to have his cowardice 
 detected. And when Cooney halted midway of the stream, 
 pawing its rocky bed and making a pretense of thirst, 
 the woman looked up and saw her watcher on the trail. 
 She waved the gauntleted hand that held her quirt, 
 and he found himself holding his hat in his hand with 
 an affectation of ease. Then each laughed, and, though 
 neither could hear the other, it was as if they had laughed 
 together in some little flurry of understanding. He 
 could still pretend to have happened there at that mo- 
 ment, he reflected. And this brought him courage as he 
 saw her give Cooney his way where the trail branched. 
 When the little horse had carried her to the summit and 
 stood in panting gratitude, the waiting youth evolved 
 a splendid plan for hiding his fright. He dismounted 
 and forced himself to go coolly and take her hand. 
 Perhaps it was as well that he had not trusted himself 
 to remain in the saddle at that first moment. But 
 when the thing was really over he no longer made a 
 secret of his delight at her coming. His first anxious 
 look at her face had shown him the cordial friendliness 
 of the preceding day. She was amused by him, he could 
 see that, and did not resent it; but she was kind, and in 
 his joy at this he babbled, at first, with little coherence. 
 
 " I rode right over here to make sure I would see you," 
 he began, "and then if you rode down the valley., or up, I 
 was going to loaf along and find you by accident, and 
 pretend I was hunting a colt. I was going to be afraid 
 the mountain lions had got it." He laughed immoder- 
 ately at this joke. " And while I waited for you I kept 
 
 34
 
 A Portrait 
 
 trying to think how fine it would have sounded last 
 night if you had said, 'I think I shall go over and look 
 at your place again to-morrow.' I couldn't make your 
 voice sound true, though. It's a good thing we needn't 
 try to paint voices." 
 
 They were riding together over the first stretch of 
 meadow. It seemed to have been agreed without words 
 that they should ride to the lake cabin. 
 
 "To paint voices?" she queried. 
 
 "Voices, yes; how could yours be painted? It 
 couldn't. You'll see that. I thought of a jumble of 
 things wine and velvet, for instance; some kind of 
 rich, golden wine and purple velvet, and then, warm 
 flickers of light in a darkened room, and a big bronze bell 
 struck with something soft that would muffle it and 
 yet make everything about it tremble. You see, don't 
 you?" he concluded with a questioning look of deep 
 seriousness. 
 
 His own voice was low and eager, with its undernote 
 of wistfulness. Already he had renewed upon her that 
 companionable charm which she had felt the day before, 
 a charm compounded of half-shy directness, of flashes 
 of self-forgetfulness, of quick-trusting comradeship. 
 She rejected a cant phrase of humorous disclaimer that 
 habit brought to her lips. It would puzzle or affront 
 his forthrightness. 
 
 "Very well, we'll agree that my voice can't be painted," 
 she said at last. "So let us talk of you." 
 
 " I guess I should like that pretty well," he answered 
 after a moment's pondering. "1 don't believe I've 
 ever talked much; but now I feel as if I could tire you 
 out, talking as we did yesterday. Queer, wasn't it?" 
 
 He fell silent, however, when the trail narrowed to 
 
 35
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 climb the long ridge, as if the acknowledgment of his 
 desire to speak had somehow quenched it. She fell 
 in ahead, half turning in her saddle to address him from 
 time to time, but he would talk only about things of the 
 moment. In a marshy spot at the edge of the meadow 
 he pointed out a bear wallow, and farther on a deer lick. 
 "It's a sulphur spring," he exclaimed, "and deer come 
 from miles around to drink there." 
 
 "Do you shoot them?" she asked. 
 
 "We always have fresh meat when we need. Ben 
 Crider says he won't let a deer come up and bite him 
 without trying to defend himself." 
 
 "It's like murder, isn't it?" 
 
 "Well, I never murdered anyone myself, but I hit 
 the first deer I ever shot at, and I felt as if I'd lain in 
 wait at a street corner and killed a schoolboy on his 
 way home. But I missed the next three or four, and 
 that made me blood-thirsty. I guess if you carried 
 that feeling back far enough a man could go out and 
 shoot his little sister if he'd had to still-hunt her over 
 rough ground all day, and especially if he'd missed 
 two or three cousins or an uncle in the meantime. I 
 think that would raise the savage in him enough." 
 
 They were skirting the lake now, a glinting oval of 
 sapphire in its setting of granite. Beyond this they rode 
 through the thinned timber where Cooney was dis- 
 suaded, not without effort, from pursuing his ancient 
 charge, and emerged into the glare of the clearing. 
 
 As they dismounted at the door of the cabin a melan- 
 choly of minor chords from a guitar came to their ears, 
 and a voice, nasal, but vibrant with emotion, sang the 
 final couplet of what had too plainly been a ballad of 
 pathos : 
 
 36
 
 A Portrait 
 
 " While they were honeymooning in a mansion on the hill, 
 Kind friends were laying Nellie out behind the mill." 
 
 " That's one of Ben's best songs," said Ewing, with so 
 genuine a gravity that he stifled quite another emotion 
 in the lady as she caught his look. 
 
 "Indeed! I must hear him sing more," she managed 
 with some difficulty. 
 
 The sorrowful one arose as they entered, hastily 
 thrusting aside his guitar as might an assassin have cast 
 away his weapon. His face was shaven to a bitter degree ; 
 in spots it was scarified. But the drooping lines of woe 
 unutterable were still there in opposition to his Sabbath 
 finery a spreading blue-satin cravat, lighted by a 
 stone of impressive bulk, elegant black trousers, and 
 suspenders of red silk embroidered with pansies and a 
 running vine of green. He greeted the visitor as one 
 who would say, "Yes, it's a sad affair wholly unex- 
 pected," and, cocking an eye of long-suffering negation 
 on Ewing, he went out to the horses. 
 
 As they entered the studio Mrs. Laithe saw that the 
 easel had been wheeled into the light from the big win- 
 dow and that a woman's portrait had been placed upon 
 it. Had Ewing looked at her on the instant he might 
 have detected that her face seemed to ripple under some 
 wind of emotion. But his own eyes had been on the 
 portrait. 
 
 "That's my mother," he said, unconsciously hushing 
 his voice. 
 
 "I should have known it," she answered, with a kind 
 of spurious animation. " The face is so much like yours. 
 It is a face one seems to have known before, one of those 
 elusive resemblances that haunt the mind. It is well 
 done." She ended the speech glibly enough. 
 
 37
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "She was beautiful. My father did it. He had that 
 trick of color, as you call it, or he could never have 
 painted her. She was so slight, but she had color. And 
 she was quick and fiery. I used to see her rage when I 
 was very small. I believed there were coals in her eyes, 
 and that something blew on them inside to make them 
 blaze. I wouldn't know what it was about, only that it 
 wasn't us she raged at not my father or me. I could 
 go up and catch her hand even when she frightened me. 
 And sometimes, after a while, my father would get ex- 
 cited, too. He was slower to take fire, but he burned 
 longer. And at last she would become afraid and grow 
 quiet herself and try to soothe him. I never could tell 
 what they were at war with." 
 
 They looked in silence at the vivid young face on the 
 canvas, a thin, daring, eager face, a face of delicate fea- 
 tures, but strong in a perfect balance. The eyes were 
 darkly alive. 
 
 "You were young when she died?" the woman asked 
 at last. 
 
 "Too young to understand. I was eight, I think. 
 There was a lot I shall never understand. Sometimes 
 my father would tell me about their life here in the 
 West, but never of the time before they came here. It 
 always seemed to me that either he or she had quarreled 
 with their people. They were poor when they came 
 here. We lived in Leadville when I first remember. 
 My mother sang in a church choir and made a little money 
 and nights you'll think this queer my father played 
 a piano in a dance hall. They had to live. Days, he 
 painted. He had studied abroad in Paris and Munich, 
 but he wasn't selling his pictures then. It took him 
 years to do much of that. Sometimes they were hungry, 
 
 38
 
 A Portrait 
 
 though I didn't know it." He paused, overwhelmed 
 by a sudden realization that he was talking much. 
 
 "Tell me more," she said very quietly. "I wish to 
 hear the rest." 
 
 " Well, at the last my mother was in bed a long time, 
 and my father worked hard to get things for her, things 
 she must have. But one night she died it was a cold 
 night in winter. He and I were alone with her. I'll 
 not soon forget that. I sat up on the cot where I slept 
 and saw my father sitting on the bed looking down at 
 my mother. They were both still, and he wouldn't 
 answer or turn his head when I spoke. Then I cried, 
 for it was cold in the little cabin and my father's still- 
 ness scared me. But I don't think he heard me crying. 
 He kept looking down at my mother's face, even when 
 I called to him as loud as I could. Then I was afraid to 
 see him that way any longer, so I pulled the blankets over 
 my head and I must have cried myself to sleep. 
 
 "He was sitting the same way when I woke in the 
 morning, still looking at my mother's face. Even 
 when the people came to take her away he kept silent 
 and while they put her in the ground in a great, snowy 
 field with little short waves all over it. And when we 
 were back in the cabin not a word could I get from him, 
 nor a look. He just sat on the bed again, looking at her 
 pillow. 
 
 " In the evening some one brought a letter. I lighted 
 a candle and took this letter to him, crowding it into 
 his hand. I wanted him to notice me. I saw him 
 study the envelope, then tear it open and look at a 
 little slip of green paper that fell out. It was money, 
 you understand, for pictures he had sent to New York. 
 I knew this at once. I'd heard them talk of its com- 
 
 39
 
 Swing's Lady 
 
 ing and of wonderful things they'd do with it when it 
 did come. I was glad in an instant, for I thought that 
 now we could get my mother back out of the ground. I 
 was sure we could when he held the green slip close 
 to the candle and began to laugh. It wasn't the way 
 he usually laughed, it was louder and longer, but it 
 was the first sound I'd heard from him, and it made 
 me happy. I began to laugh myself as loud as I could, 
 and danced before him, and his laugh went still higher 
 at that. I ran for my jacket and mittens and cap. 
 I wanted him to stop laughing and hurry along. I 
 pulled his arm and he stopped laughing and looked 
 down at me. I shouted 'Hurry let's hurry and bring 
 her back let me carry the money!' He caught my 
 shoulder and looked so astonished, then he burst into 
 that loud laugh again, after he'd made me say it over. 
 I ran for his overcoat, too, but when I came with it I saw 
 he wasn't laughing at all. He was crying, and it was so 
 much like his laugh that I hadn't noticed the change." 
 
 He had kept his eyes on the portrait while he spoke. 
 He stopped abruptly now, turning to the listening wo- 
 man, searching her face with new signs of confusion. 
 
 "I I didn't know I was telling you all that." 
 
 She did not answer at once. 
 
 "And you came here after that?" she said at last. 
 
 "Yes; my father found this place. He wanted to be 
 alone. I think he began to die when my mother went. 
 He couldn't live without her. He taught me what 
 he could, about books and pictures, but I couldn't 
 have been much to him. I think it hurt him that I 
 looked like her he said I looked like her. He worked 
 on that portrait to the very last, even oa the morning 
 of the day he died." 
 
 40
 
 A Portrait 
 
 "What was your father's name?" 
 
 "Gilbert Denham Ewing. I was named for him." 
 
 "And your mother's name before marriage was- 
 
 I'm ashamed that I never knew. It must have 
 been spoken often, but I was so young; it never stayed 
 in my mind. And a little while before he died my 
 father burned all his letters and papers. I've wondered 
 about their life long ago before I came, but I think 
 my father meant me not to know. He had some 
 reason." 
 
 " I am glad you have told me all you did know," 
 she said. 
 
 "But you have made me glad," he assured her, 
 returning to his livelier manner. 
 
 "Your mother's first name" she asked "what did 
 your father call her?" 
 
 "Oh, that Katharine. He called her Kitty." 
 
 "Kitty!" She repeated it after him, softly, as if 
 she spoke it in compassion to the portrait. 
 
 "But see," he continued, "it's late. Stay and eat 
 with us and I'll take you back by moonlight. I've 
 ordered a fine, big, silver moon to be set up in the sky 
 at seven, and Ben is already getting supper." 
 
 He pulled aside the blanket portiere, and through 
 the doorway she could see the saturnine one a man 
 fashioned for tragedies, for deeds of desperate hazard 
 incongruously busied with a pan of soda biscuits and 
 a hissing broiler. 
 
 When they rode back to Bar- 7 the hills were struck 
 to silver by the moon. They were companionably 
 silent for most of the ride, though the youth from time 
 to time, when the trail narrowed to put him in the 
 rear, crooned stray bits of a song with which Ben Crider 
 4 41
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 had favored them while he prepared the evening meal. 
 The lines Mrs Laithe remembered were: 
 
 "Take back your gold, for gold it cannot buy me; 
 Make me your wife, 'tis all I ask of you." 
 
 When they parted she said, " You must think about 
 leaving here. It's time you rode out into the world. 
 I think my brother will be back from his cattle-driving 
 trip to-morrow, and I mean to bring him to see your 
 pictures very soon. Perhaps he will suggest something 
 for you." 
 
 "This moonlight does such wonderful things to your 
 face," he remarked. 
 
 "Good night! I'm sorry you have so far to go." 
 
 "It isn't far enough," he answered, still searching 
 her face. "Not half far enough I have so much 
 thinking so much thinking to do." 
 
 42
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 INTO THE PAST AND OUT 
 
 IT was not without concern that Mrs. Laithe awaited 
 the return of her brother the following day. The 
 cattle drive that had beguiled him from habits 
 of extreme and enforced precision had occupied a 
 fortnight, and she understood the life to be sorely trying 
 to any but the rugged. Earnestly had she sought to 
 dissuade him from the adventure, for insomnia had 
 long beset him, and dyspepsia marked him for its play- 
 thing. Eloquently exposed to him had been the folly 
 of hoping for sleep on stony ground after vainly wooing 
 it in the softest of beds with an air pillow inflated to 
 the nice degree of resiliency. And the unsuitability 
 of camp fare to a man who had long been sustained by 
 an invalid's diet had been shrewdly set forth. None 
 the less he had persisted, caught in the frenzy of des- 
 peration that sometimes overwhelms even the practiced 
 dyspeptic. 
 
 " It can't be worse, Sis," he had tragically assured her 
 at parting. "If I've got to writhe out my days, why, 
 I shall writhe like a gentleman, that's all. I can at 
 least chuck those baby foods and perish with some 
 dignity." 
 
 "But you're not leaving your medicines, those drops 
 and things?" she had asked, in real alarm. 
 
 "Every infernal drop. I've struck all along the 
 line not another morsel of disinfected zwieback nor 
 
 43
 
 Swing's Lady 
 
 sanitary breakfast food nor hygienic prunes nor gluten- 
 ized near-food not even one pepsin tablet. It's come 
 to where I'd sooner have no stomach at all than be 
 bullied night and day by one." 
 
 With which splendid defiance he had ridden desper- 
 ately off, a steely flash in his tired gray eyes and a bit 
 of fevered color glowing in his sallow cheeks. 
 
 When Mrs. Pierce loudly announced the return of 
 the men early in the afternoon, therefore, the invalid's 
 sister was ready to be harrowed. There would be 
 bitter agonies to relate chiefly stomachic. She had 
 heroically resolved, moreover, not immediately to 
 flaw the surface of her sympathy with any gusty "I 
 told you so!" That was a privilege sacred unto her, 
 and not to be foregone; but she would defer its satis- 
 faction until the pangs of confession had been suffered ; 
 until the rash one should achieve a mood receptive to 
 counsel. 
 
 At the call of Mrs. Pierce she ran down the flower- 
 bordered walk to join that lady at the gate, and there 
 they watched the cavalcade as it jolted down the lacets 
 of the mesa trail four horsemen in single file, two 
 laden pack animals, another horseman in the rear. 
 The returning invalid was equal, then, to sitting a 
 horse. The far-focused eyes of Mrs. Pierce were the 
 first to identify him. As the line advanced through 
 the willow growth that fringed the creek she said, 
 pointing, "There's Mr. Bartell he's in the lead." 
 
 "But Clarence doesn't smoke; the doctors won't 
 let him," his sister interposed, for she could distinguish 
 a pipe in the mouth of the foremost horseman. "And, 
 anyway, it couldn't be Clarence; it's too " On the 
 point of saying "too disreputable," she reflected that 
 
 44
 
 Into the Past and Out 
 
 the person in front looked quite like the run of Mrs. 
 Pierce's nearest friends and might, indeed, be of her 
 own household. 
 
 " It's sure your brother, though," insisted Mrs. 
 Pierce, as the riders broke into a lope over the level, 
 "and he don't look quite as " Mrs. Pierce forbore 
 tactfully in her turn. She had meant to say " dandified." 
 
 "And I tell you, Mis' Laithe, he does look husky, 
 too. Not no ways so squammish as when he started. 
 My suz! Here we've et dinner and they'll be hungry 
 as bears. I must run in and set back something." 
 
 The other men turned with the packhorses off toward 
 the corrals, but Bartell came on at a stiff gallop to 
 where his sister waited. When he had pulled his horse 
 up before her with perilous but showy abruptness, he 
 raised himself in the saddle, swung his hat, and poured 
 into the still air of the valley a long, high yell of such 
 volume that his sister stepped hastily within the gate 
 again. She had heard the like of that yell as they 
 passed through Pagosa Springs, rendered by a cowboy 
 in the acute stage of alcoholic dementia. 
 
 "Why, Clarence, dear!" she gasped, fearing the 
 worst. But he hurriedly dismounted and came, steadily 
 enough, to kiss her. She submitted doubtfully to this, 
 and immediately held him off for inspection. He 
 was frankly disreputable. The flannel shirt and cor- 
 duroy trousers were torn, bedraggled, gray with the 
 dust of the trail; his boots were past redemption, his 
 hat a reproach ; his face a bronzed and hairy caricature ; 
 and he reeked of the most malignant tobacco Mrs. Laithe 
 had ever encountered. Only the gold-rimmed spectacles, 
 the nearsighted, peering gray eyes, and a narrow zone 
 of white forehead under his hat brim served to recall 
 
 45
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 the somewhat fastidious, sedate, and rather oldish- 
 looking young man who had parted from her. 
 
 He smiled at her with a complacency that made it 
 almost a smirk. Then he boisterously kissed her again 
 before she could evade him, and uttered once more 
 that yell of lawless abandon. 
 
 "Clarence!" she expostulated, but he waved her to 
 silence with an imperious hand. 
 
 "Quickest way to tell the story, Nell that's my 
 paean of victory. Sleep? Slept like a night watchman. 
 Eat? I debauched myself with the rowdiest sort of 
 food every chance I got fried bacon, boiled beans, 
 baking-powder biscuit, black coffee that would bite 
 your finger off couldn't get enough; smoked when I 
 wasn't eating or sleeping; drank raw whisky, too 
 whisky that would etch copper. Work? I worked 
 harder than a Coney Island piano player, fell over 
 asleep at night and got up asleep in the morning when 
 they kicked me the third time. And I galloped up 
 and down cliffs after runaway steers where I wouldn't 
 have crawled on my hands and knees two weeks before. 
 And now that whole bunch of boys treat me like one 
 of themselves. I found out they called me 'Willie 
 Four-eyes' when I first came here. Now they call me 
 'Doc,' as friendly as you can imagine, and Buck Devlin 
 told me last night I could ride a streak of lightning 
 with the back cinch busted, if I tried." 
 
 He broke off to light the evil pipe ostentatiously, 
 while she watched him, open eyed, not yet equal to 
 speech. 
 
 "Now run in like a good girl and see if Ma Pierce 
 has plenty of fragments from the noonday feast. Any- 
 thing at all I could eat a deer hide with the hair on." 
 
 46
 
 Into the Past and Out 
 
 Wavering incredulously, she left to do his bidding. 
 As he led his horse around to the corral he roared a 
 snatch from Buck Devlin's favorite ballad, with an 
 excellent imitation of the cowboy manner: 
 
 "Oh, bur-ree me not on the lone prai-ree-e " 
 
 After he had eaten he slouched into a hammock on 
 the veranda with extravagant groans of repletion, and 
 again lighted his pipe. His sister promptly removed 
 her chair beyond the line of its baleful emanations. 
 
 "Well, Sis," he began, "that trip sure did for me 
 good and plenty. Me for the high country uninter- 
 rupted hereafter!" 
 
 She regarded him with an amused smile. 
 
 "I'm so glad, dear, about the health. It's a miracle, 
 but don't overdo it, don't attempt everything at once. 
 And the trip 'sure' seems to have 'done' you in another 
 way how is it 'good and plenty'? You walk like 
 a cowboy and talk and sing and act generally like 
 one " 
 
 "Do I, really, though?" A sort of half-shamed 
 pleasure glowed in his eyes. "Well, you know they're 
 good, companionable fellows, and a man takes on their 
 ways of speech unconsciously. But I didn't think it 
 would be noticed in me so soon. Do I seem like the 
 real thing, honestly, now?" 
 
 She reassured him, laughing frankly. 
 
 "Well, you needn't laugh. It's all fixed I'm going 
 to be one." 
 
 "But, Clarence, not for long, surely!" 
 
 "It's all settled, I tell you. I've bought a ranch, 
 old Swede Peterson's place over on Pine River; cork- 
 ing spot, three half sections under fence and ditch, right 
 
 47
 
 Swing's Lady 
 
 at the mouth of a box canon where nobody can get 
 in above me, plenty of water, plenty of free range close 
 at hand." 
 
 "Clarence Bartell, you're what do you call it? 
 stringing." 
 
 "Not a bit of it. Wait till I come on in about two 
 years, after selling a train load of fat steers at Omaha 
 or Kansas City sasshaying down Fifth Avenue and 
 rounding into Ninth Street with my big hat and long- 
 shanked spurs and a couple of forty-fours booming 
 into the air. You'll see, and won't dad say it's deuced 
 unpleasant!" 
 
 "But I'll not believe until I see." 
 
 He spoke ruminantly between pulls at the pipe. 
 
 " Lots of things to do now, though. Got to go down 
 to Pagosa this week to pay over the money, get the 
 deed, and register my brand. How does ' Bar-B ' strike 
 you? Rather neat, yes? It'll make a tasty little mono- 
 gram on the three hundred critters I start with. I'm 
 on track of a herd of shorthorns already." 
 
 "And a little while ago you were off to the Philip- 
 pines, and before that to Porto Rico, and last summer 
 you were going on one of those expeditions that come 
 back and tell why they didn't reach the North Pole, 
 and you came out here to be a miner and you've 
 
 There was an impatient, silencing wave of the pipe. 
 
 "Oh, let all that go, can't you? let the dead past 
 bury its dead. I'm fixed for life. You and dad won't 
 laugh at me any more. Come on out now and see me 
 throw a rope, if you don't believe me. I've been 
 practicing every day. And say, you didn't happen to 
 notice the diamond hitch on that forward pack horse, 
 did you? Well, I'm the boy that did most of that." 
 
 48
 
 Into the Past and Out 
 
 She followed him dutifully to the corrals and for half 
 an hour watched him hurl thirty feet of rope at the 
 horned skull of a steer nailed to the top of a post. When 
 the noose settled over this mark his boyish delight was 
 supreme. When it flew wide, which was oftener, his 
 look was one of invincible determination. 
 
 As his sister left him he was explaining to Red Phin- 
 ney, who had sauntered up to be a help in the practice, 
 that the range of Bar-B had a lucky lie no "greaser" 
 could come along and "sleep" him. 
 
 She went back to her chair and book, shaping certain 
 questions she would put to this brother. But it was 
 not until after the evening meal that she could again 
 talk with him, for the ardent novice found occupation 
 about the stable and corrals the rest of the afternoon, 
 and even sat for a time with the men in the evening, 
 listening avidly to their small talk of the range, watch- 
 ful to share in it. When he dared ask a question know- 
 ingly, or venture a swift comment couched in the vernac- 
 ular, he thrilled with a joy not less poignant because 
 it must be dissembled. 
 
 But conscience pricked him at length to leave those 
 fascinating adventurers in the bunkhouse and to con- 
 descend for an interval to mere brotherhood. He 
 found his sister alone in the "front" room, ensconced 
 on the bearskin rug before a snapping and fragrant 
 fire of cedar wood. 
 
 He drew up the wooden rocker and remarked that the 
 fire smelled like a thousand burning leadpencils. He 
 would have gone on to talk of his great experience, but 
 the woman wisely forestalled him. 
 
 "Clarence," she began directly, "I've been thinking 
 over that old affair of Randall Teevan and his wife, 
 
 49
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 Kitty Lowndes, you know. Do you happen to recall 
 the name of the man the man Kitty went away with?" 
 
 " Lord, no! That was before I'd learned to remember 
 anything. If you want to rake that affair up, ask 
 Randy Teevan himself. I'll wager he hasn't forgotten 
 the chap's name. But why desecrate the grave of so 
 antique a scandal? Ask me about something later. 
 I remember he had a cook once, when I was six " 
 
 "Because because I was thinking, just thinking. 
 Are you certain you remember nothing about it, not 
 even the man's name, nor what sort of man he was, 
 nor what he did, nor anything?" 
 
 "I only know what you must know. Randall 
 Teevan's wife decided that the Bishop had made two 
 into the wrong one. I doubt if I ever heard the chap's 
 name. I seem to remember that they took Alden 
 with them he was a baby of four or five, I believe, 
 and that Randy scurried about and got him back after 
 no end of fuss. I've heard dad speak of that." 
 
 "Did Kitty and that man every marry?" 
 
 "No; you can be sure Teevan saw to that. He took 
 precious good care not to divorce her. They manage 
 those things more politely nowadays; everything formal, 
 six months' lease of a furnished house in Sioux Falls, 
 with the chap living at a hotel and dropping in for tea 
 every day at five ; and felicitations from the late husband 
 when the decree is granted in the morning and the new 
 knot tied in the afternoon another slipknot like the 
 first, so that the merest twitch at a loose end will " 
 
 "Please don't! And did you never know anything 
 more about them, where they lived or how they ended?" 
 
 "Never a thing, Sis. It's all so old, everybody's 
 forgotten it, except Teevan. Of course he'd not forget 
 
 50
 
 Into the Past and Out 
 
 the only woman who ever really put a lance through 
 his shirt-of-mail vanity." 
 
 "You forget Kitty's mother. She remembers." 
 
 "That's so, by Jove. Teevan got what was coming 
 to him, he got his 'cone-uppance' as the boys say; but 
 old Kitty yes, it was rough on her. But she's always 
 put a great face on it. No one would know if they 
 didn't know." 
 
 "She's proud. Even though she's been another 
 mother to me she rarely lets me see anything, and she's 
 tried so hard to find comfort in Kitty's boy, in Alden. 
 She's failed in that, though, for some reason." 
 
 Her brother glanced sharply at her. "I'll tell you 
 why she's failed, Nell. Alden Teevan wasn't designed 
 to be a comfort to anyone, not even to himself. There 
 was too much Teevan in him at the start, and too much 
 Teevan went into his raising." 
 
 "They're back in town, you know." 
 
 "Yes; Teevan must have realized that old Kitty 
 is getting on in years, and has a bit of money for Alden. 
 Say, Sis, I hate to seem prying, but you don't you're 
 not thinking about Alden Teevan seriously, are you? 
 Come, let's be confidential for twenty seconds." 
 
 She mused a moment, then faced him frankly. 
 
 "There's something I like in Alden, and something 
 I don't. I know what I like and I don't know what 
 I don't like I only feel it. There!" 
 
 He reached over to take one of her hands. 
 
 "Well, Sis, you trust to the feeling. You couldn't 
 be happy there. And you deserve something fine, 
 poor child! You deserve to be happy again." His 
 inner eye looked back six years to see the body of poor 
 Dick L,aithe carried into the Adirondack camp by two
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 silent guides who had found him where a stray bullet 
 left him. 
 
 She turned a tired, smiling face into the light. 
 
 "I was happy, so happy; yet I wonder if you can 
 understand how vague it seems now. It was so brief 
 and ended so terribly. I think the shock of it made 
 me another woman. Dick and I seem like a boy and 
 girl I once knew who laughed and played childish 
 games and never became real. I find myself sympa- 
 thizing with them sometimes, as I would with two 
 dear young things in a story that ended sadly." 
 
 He awkwardly stroked and patted the hand he still 
 held. 
 
 "Come and live with me, Nell. There's only a one- 
 room cabin at that place now, with a carpet of hay on 
 the dirt floor. But I'll have a mansion there next 
 summer that will put the eye out of this shack at Bar-y. 
 I believe in getting back to Nature, but I don't want 
 to land clear the other side of her. You'd be comfy 
 with me. And it's a great life; not a line of dyspepsia 
 in it. And think of feeling yourself sliding off to sleep 
 the moment you touch the pillow, as plainly as you 
 feel yourself going down in an elevator. That reminds 
 me, I'm going to bed down with the boys in the bunk- 
 house to-night. I'm afraid to trust myself in that bed 
 upstairs again I've lain awake there so many nights." 
 
 For a time she lost the thread of his rambling talk, 
 busied with her own thoughts. She was faintly aware 
 that for luncheon he had been eating a biscuit, a thick, 
 soggy, dangerous biscuit, caught up in the hurry of the 
 morning's packing, wrenched in half and sopped in 
 bacon grease. There was a word about shooting. 
 He was learning to "hold down" the Colt's 44, and had 
 
 52
 
 Into the Past and Out 
 
 almost hit a coyote. Later, words reached her of a 
 cold night on the divide, when ice formed in the pail 
 by the cooking fire. What at last brought her back 
 was a yawn and his remark that he must "hole up" 
 for the night. 
 
 "Clarence," she began, looking far into a little white- 
 hot chamber between two half -burned logs, "listen, 
 please, and advise me. If you were going to do some- 
 thing that might, just possibly, and not by any means 
 certainly, rake up rather an ugly mess, in a sort of 
 remote way that might make some people uncom- 
 fortable, you understand I mean if you saw some- 
 thing that ought to be done, because the person deserved 
 it, and it was by no means that person's fault, not 
 in the least, and the person didn't even know about 
 it nor suspect anything, would you stop because it 
 might be painful to some one else just possibly it 
 might or to a number of people, or even to the person 
 himself, after he knew it? Or would you go ahead and 
 trust to luck, especially when there's a chance that it 
 mightn't ever come out? though I'm quite sure it's 
 true, you see, and that's what makes it so hard to know 
 what to do." 
 
 She looked up at him with bright expectancy. Clutch- 
 ing his head with both hands, he stared at her, alarm 
 leaping in his eyes. 
 
 "Would you mind repeating that slowly?" he began, 
 in hushed, stricken tones. "No, no I shouldn't ask 
 that. One moment, please now it all comes back 
 to me. I see in fancy the dear old home, and hear 
 faithful Rover barking his glad welcome. Ah, now 
 I have the answer ; I knew it would come. It's because 
 one is a toiler of the sea and the other is a soiler of the 
 
 53
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 tea then the ball is snapped back for a run around 
 the end and the man on third must return to his base." 
 
 "I might have known you couldn't understand," 
 she said regretfully; "but I can't possibly be more 
 explicit. I thought if I stated the case clearly in the 
 abstract but I dare say it's a waste of time to ask 
 advice in such matters." 
 
 "You've wasted yours, my child, if that's the last 
 chance I get. Do you really want help about some- 
 thing?" 
 
 " No, dear, it wasn't anything. Never mind." 
 
 "All right, if you say so. And now, me for the 
 blankets!" 
 
 When he had gone she stepped out into the night 
 under the close, big stars. She breathed deeply of 
 the thin, sharp air and looked over at the luminous 
 pearl of a moon that seemed to hang above the cabin 
 where Ewing's kid would doubtless be dreaming. Her 
 lips fell into a little smile, half cynical, half tender. 
 
 "I'll do it anyway!" The inflection was defiant, 
 but the words were scarcely more than a whisper. 
 She said them again, giving them tone. 
 
 54
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 THE LADY AND THE PLAN 
 
 THEY were chatting the next morning over the 
 late breakfast of Mrs. Laithe. Her brother, 
 summoned from the branding pen, where tender 
 and terrified calves were being marked for life, had come 
 reluctantly, ill disposed to forego the vivacity of that 
 scene. He had rushed in with the look of a man harassed 
 by large affairs. His evil beard was still unshorn, his 
 dress as untidy as care could make it. He drew a 
 chair up to the oilcloth covered table and surveyed 
 the meager fare of his sister with high disapproval. 
 
 "What you need is food, Nell," he began abruptly. 
 " Look at me. This morning I ate two pounds of 
 oatmeal, three wide slices of ham, five chunks of hot 
 bread, about two thousand beans, and drank all the 
 coffee I could get and never foundered. How's 
 that, against one silly glass of malted milk two weeks 
 ago? And I slept till seven. I woke up for just eight 
 seconds at four-thirty to hear the boys turning out. 
 Oh, it was gray and cold in that bunkhouse with 
 me warm in the blankets. That was the one moment 
 of real luxury I've ever known not to turn out if I 
 didn't choose. And I did not choose if anyone should 
 ride up hastily and inquire of you. When we were 
 on the drive I had to turn out with the rest of the bunch 
 and catch horses and unbuckle frosty hobbles with 
 stiff fingers, and fetch pails of ice water and freeze and 
 
 55
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 do other things, but this morning I just grinned myself 
 asleep again. That was worth living for, my girl." 
 
 But his sister was for once unresponsive. She had 
 not seemed to hear him. 
 
 "Clarence," she began, as if reciting lines she had 
 learned, "there's a chap over on the next ranch 
 Ewing's his name that ought to have something done 
 for him. He's young, twenty-four, I believe, and 
 boyish even for that age, but he draws; draws well. 
 His father was a painter who died here years ago, 
 and the boy has lived in these mountains ever since. 
 His father taught him to draw, but he has had no chance 
 to study, and he's reached a point where he must learn 
 more or lose all he has. I'm almost certain he can 
 make something of himself. He ought to go to New 
 York, where he can study and see pictures and find 
 out things. Now, please advise me about it." 
 
 "How's his health his stomach?" 
 
 "I believe we've never spoken of it. That's hardly 
 the point." 
 
 "Well, I call it a big point. Suppose he went off 
 to New York and got plumb ruined, the way I did 
 no eats, no sleeps. If you want my advice, he ought 
 to stay right here where everybody's healthy. He 
 shouldn't be foolish." 
 
 "Clarence!" Her eyes shone with impatience. "It 
 isn't whether he's to go or not. He's going, and he's 
 to have money to keep him there till he makes himself 
 known. It's on that point I need advice." 
 
 "Oh, I beg your pardon! I didn't savvy at first. 
 You're to tell me what to advise and I'm to advise it? 
 Well, tell me what to say." 
 
 "Don't be stupid, dear just for a moment, please. 
 
 56
 
 The Lady and the Plan 
 
 You're bound to agree with me when you see his work. 
 And you might offer to lend him the money my money, 
 though he's not to know that. Or perhaps you ought 
 to buy his pictures. I'm sure you'll want some of those 
 things he has. Of course that's the better way. It 
 will let him feel independent. There, it's fixed. It 
 was simple, after all." She flashed him a look of grati- 
 tude. " You're a help after all, dear, when you choose 
 to be." 
 
 "But one moment, my babe! Perhaps after listen- 
 ing to my advice so meekly you'll let the poor chap say 
 a word for himself. Perhaps he'd rather stay right here 
 in God's own country if he eats and sleeps well now." 
 
 "Please, please, let's not be so so foody! Of 
 course he wants to go!" 
 
 "But what in Heaven's name would you ever have 
 done without my help, poor mindless child that you are?" 
 
 But she was oblivious to this subtlety. 
 
 "Yes, dear, you're always a comfort. We'll ride over 
 this afternoon and tell him he's to go. It will be a fine 
 thing to do he's so promising." 
 
 "Look here, Nell" he glanced at her shrewdly 
 "is this to be his picnic or yours?" 
 
 She burned with a little inner rage to feel her cheeks 
 redden, but the black fringe of her eyes did not fall before 
 him. 
 
 "We'll ride over after luncheon," she repeated, 
 "and I do wish, Clarence, that you'd shave and wear a 
 collar or a stock, and throw that unspeakable coat away, 
 and have your boots cleaned, and send for some cigars." 
 
 He looked complacently down over the objectionable 
 attire, pulled sputteringly at the condemned pipe, then 
 grinned at her. 
 
 5 57
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "Say, Sis, if it's going to be that much fun for you, 
 I'll rope and throw him, and send him on tied if he acts 
 rough." 
 
 Late that evening the two inmates of the lake cabin 
 sat before the big fireplace in the studio to talk of a 
 wondrous thing. They had survived the most exciting 
 half day in the life of either, and the atmosphere of the 
 room was still electrical with echoes of the big event. 
 Through their supper Ewing, unable to eat, had sat 
 staring afar, helpless in the rush of the current, inert 
 as a bowlder in the bed of a mountain stream. He, 
 so long at rest, was to be swept down from the peace of 
 his hill nook to the ocean, to life itself. It was a thing 
 to leave one aghast with a consternation that was some- 
 how joyous. Since supper he had stared into the fire 
 in dumb surrender to the flood, with intervals of dazed 
 floor-pacing, in which he tried to foresee his course. 
 
 Ben Crider, submerged by the waters of the same cloud- 
 burst, was giving stouter battle to the current. His 
 face drawn to more than its wonted dejection, he strove 
 to play the beacon. Between snatches of worldly coun- 
 sel he read with solemn inflection certain gems of guid- 
 ance from authors in whose wisdom he had long felt 
 a faith entire. His ready mind harked forward to dire- 
 ful emergencies, and he submitted devices for meeting 
 these. 
 
 " Remember what that says, Kid," he urged impres- 
 sively, and he read once more a saving passage from his 
 well-thumbed "Guide to Polite Behavior." '"If you 
 cannot sing a song or tell a mirth -provoking story at 
 an evening ball or party you may well perform a few 
 tricks in legerdemain. The following are among the 
 simplest and, when deftly performed never fail to 
 
 58
 
 The Lady and the Plan 
 
 provoke loud applause and win you the undying gratitude 
 of your hostess.' Are you a-hearin' me? Well, I've 
 turned down the pages at that one with the coin and the 
 hat, and the one where you must tell the right card by 
 a simple act of mind-readin'. And don't forget what 
 he says here, 'the hand is quicker'n the eye.' " 
 
 "Yes, Ben; I'm listening." 
 
 "Well, listen to this here other book. It's more 
 serious." 
 
 He took up his treasured "Traps and Pitfalls of a 
 Great City," and again became a voice in the wilderness, 
 waving a forefinger to punctuate and warn. 
 
 " 'It is the habit of these gentry to lie in wait for their 
 intended victims when they alight at the principal rail- 
 way stations, and where, by their plausible and insinuat- 
 ing advances, they ingratiate themselves into the con- 
 fidence of those whom it is their purpose to fleece ; hence 
 the name, "confidence men." Only by constant watch- 
 fulness and a thorough knowledge of their methods 
 may the stranger in the great city hope to escape their 
 wiles, since their ways of approach are manifold.' 
 You hear that, Kid their ways is manifold. Here's 
 a pitcher of one of 'em tacklin' a countryman. See 
 what an oily-lookin' feller he is, stovepipe hat, fancy 
 vest, big watchchain, long coat, striped pants. You'd 
 say he was a bank president. Oh, I bet they're slick 
 ones. They'd have to be to\og out like that every day 
 in the week. Now remember, if one o' them ducks comes 
 up to you and starts to butter you up with fine words 
 and wants to carry your satchel, you just let out a yell 
 for the police and hand him over. That's the way 
 to settle 'em!" 
 
 "I'll surely remember, Ben." 
 
 59
 
 Swing's Lady 
 
 "And there's thugs and footpads. Always keep 
 your coat buttoned over your watch, it says, and if 
 you're goin' along Broadway or Fifth Avenue after 
 dark, get out and walk in the middle o' the street, so's 
 they can't spring around a corner and slug you. And 
 don't talk to strangers, and don't look into store 
 windows ner up at the high buildin's, else they'll spot 
 you fer a greeny and give you the laugh." 
 
 "I can't believe it yet, Ben." He rose to walk the 
 floor again, his hands sunk deep in his pockets, his head 
 bent low. 
 
 "And don't git into no card game on the train with 
 a couple o' smooth strangers that ain't ever met each 
 other before and want to pass away the time pleasantly. 
 And don't bet you can open the patent lock after you 
 think you found the secret spring. And don't buy any 
 o' that money you can't tell from real, that was printed 
 from stolen Gov'ment plates." 
 
 " Think of his giving a hundred dollars for that drawing 
 of 'L,on Pierce on the pinto, throwing a steer, and all 
 that money for the others." 
 
 "Serves him right!" Ben hissed this vindictively, 
 having first reluctantly laid aside "Traps and Pitfalls." 
 "Serves him dead right! That feller puts on a wise 
 look that's about sixty-five years beyond his real age, 
 as I'd cal'late it. I tell you, son, it sure takes all kinds 
 o' fools to make a world." 
 
 "But he said they were worth the money," Ewing 
 pleaded. "He said I would do even better, some 
 day." 
 
 "Sure sure he said it! An' didn't he ask me if I 
 had dyspepsia, an' did I sleep at night, an' I'd better 
 remember to live an outdoor life of activity if I ever got 
 
 60
 
 The Lady and the Plan 
 
 that a- way. An' he thinks he's learned how to grain 
 a deer hide after watching me do it three minutes, an' 
 he's goin' to pick up a live skunk next chanct he gits, 
 because I told him jest how to grab it. Oh, he said 
 things all right! He said a variety o' things!" He 
 glared at Ewing as he rounded out this catalogue of 
 follies. 
 
 "I'm torn in two, Ben. I shan't be glad to leave 
 here, and yet I'll be glad to go. I've dreamed it so 
 long. It seems as if I'd dreamed it so hard I'd made 
 it come true." 
 
 "Always pin your money to the inside of your vest, 
 like I told you," came the voice of warning. 
 
 "I will, I will. But things do happen, don't they? 
 This is like a fairy tale." 
 
 "Fairy tale!" The wise one uttered this with violent 
 scorn. " Likely you was the sleepin' beauty, an' this 
 here princess comes along with an alarm clock!" 
 
 "Not a princess, Ben." He laughed boyishly. "She's 
 a sure-enough queen." 
 
 "Jest remember they's knaves in the deck. That's 
 all / ask." 
 
 "You like her don't you?" 
 
 Ben made an effort to be fair. 
 
 "Well, I do an' then I don't. She's saddle stock, 
 fur looks, that lady is, but she ain't serious. No, sir! 
 When her eyes is on me I know as well's I want to she's 
 snickerin' inside; makes no difference if her face does 
 look like it was starched. You'll find, when all's 
 said an' done, that she's plumb levitous, an' levitous 
 folks is triflin'. " 
 
 "Have you seen how sorrowful she looks sometimes, 
 a sort of glad-sorry, as if she felt sorry for herself and 
 
 61
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 glad for other people? She makes me feel old when she 
 looks that way as if I must protect her." 
 
 "Yes, an' other times she's stiffer'n Lot's wife!" 
 
 "Other times she seems older than all the world, a 
 woman who has always lived and always will." 
 
 "Well, son, when you git put afoot there, you write 
 on an' I'll manage to scare up a git-away stake fur 
 you." 
 
 " It's wonderful to think of going out into the world 
 that they knew, Ben my father and mother. It seems 
 as if they must be out there now, and that I'm going 
 to meet them very quietly and naturally some day. 
 I think it wouldn't astonish me." 
 
 "Look a-here, Kid! That'll be about enough o' 
 that! You go to bed." 
 
 The other smiled a little wanly. 
 
 " I can't. I'm afraid to. I'm going to sit here awhile 
 and think, and when the moon gets up I'm going out- 
 side to think. The hills haven't heard the news yet, 
 and the trail over to the lake doesn't know about it. 
 I've got to spread it before I sleep. You see, when I 
 do sleep, I'm afraid I'll wake up and find it was stuff 
 I dreamed." 
 
 "Shucks, Kid, what's the use o' talking like that? 
 It ain't no dream. It's true as God made little apples." 
 There was, at the moment, a noticeable relaxation from 
 the speaker's habitual austerity. An awkward smile 
 of affection melted the hardness of his face as he held 
 out a hand to Ewing. "An' I'm doggoned if I'd be so 
 all-fired amazed if everything come out fur the best. 
 Yes, sir, blame me, Kid, if I don't almost half b'lieve 
 you'll make good!" 
 
 "You can bet I'll try, Ben!" 
 
 62
 
 The Lady and the Plan 
 
 "That's right; you do your damndest 'angels can 
 do no more,' as the feller said." 
 
 As he lighted a candle his face was grim once more 
 savagely grim, even as he sang, in going to his rest: 
 
 " Oh, 't was on a summer's eve when I first metier, 
 Swingin' on the garden ga-a-atel"
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 TWO SLEEPERS AWAKEN 
 
 IT now befell that the imminent adventure of Ewing 
 should bring him a double rapture. The day after 
 Mrs. Laithe secretly played special Providence to 
 that unsuspicious youth her brother found profit of his 
 own in the plan. 
 
 "I've a world of things to do here, Nell," he said. 
 "I ought to stay here this winter. I'd be that much 
 forwarder with my work next spring." 
 
 "I shall be quite safe alone," she answered. 
 
 "Why go alone? If you insist on robbing the cradle, 
 why not take the innocent with you? Of course you'll 
 have to see that he doesn't walk off the train, or lose 
 his hat out of the window, or eat too much candy, or 
 rough-house the other children on the way, but he'll 
 serve every purpose of a man and brother." 
 
 "To be sure!" she broke in with enthusiasm. "I 
 worried last night about his going. We'll put it that 
 I'm in his charge, and he will really be in mine." 
 
 "That's it. He'll feel important, and you'll be the 
 tidy nurse. And with both of you off my mind I can 
 start those chaps to getting out logs for the Bar-B 
 mansion. I'll camp over there till a good tracking snow 
 comes, then I'll have an elk hunt I want a good head 
 for the dining room then I'll hole up here at Pierce's 
 for the winter and learn how to handle my stock. So 
 that's settled." 
 
 64
 
 Two Sleepers Awaken 
 
 Mrs. Laithe rode over to apprise Ewing of this plan. 
 The little clearing slept vacant in the sunlight. She left 
 Cooney " tied to the ground " by throwing the bridle rein 
 over his head, and knocked on the open door of the cabin 
 with the handle of her quirt. There was no response 
 save echoes from the empty living room. Crossing 
 this she drew aside the blanket that curtained the door 
 of the studio. The big room lay before her in strange 
 disorder. Pictures and hangings were gone from the 
 wall. Two yawning trunks stood by the door ; canvases 
 and portfolios lay about; loose drawings and clothing 
 littered the chairs and floor. Beyond this disarray 
 stood the easel, still holding the mother's portrait. 
 In the light from the window the eyes looked livingly 
 into her own through the silence. She was struck by 
 some new glint of meaning in them, something she read 
 as an appeal, almost a prayer. Her own eyes fell and 
 then she first noticed the room's living occupant. 
 
 On the couch, in the shadow of the half-drawn cur- 
 tain, Ewing lay asleep. He had sprawled there easily, 
 half turned on his side, one arm flung about his head, the 
 other hanging over to the floor. Now that she saw him 
 she heard his measured breathing. Some new, quick- 
 born interest curiosity, sympathy, she knew not what 
 impelled her to scan the sleeping face more closely. 
 She stepped lightly across to the couch and looked down 
 at him, with a little air of carelessness against his sudden 
 awakening. It was the first time she had studied his 
 face in repose. Lacking the ready, boyish smile, it 
 was an older face, revealing lines of maturity she had 
 not suspected in the arch of brow above the deep-set 
 eyes, in the lean jaws and sharply square chin, and in the 
 muscled neck, revealed by the thrown-back head. It 
 
 65
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 was a new face, for the unguarded faces of the sleeping, 
 like the faces of the dead tell many secrets. Ewing's 
 face was all at once full of new suggestion, of new depths, 
 of unsuspected complexities. As she gazed, scarce 
 breathing, she was alive to a new consciousness of him. 
 He had been a boy, winning from her at once by his 
 fresh, elemental humanness a regard that came partly 
 from the mother lying alert in her, and partly from the 
 joyous, willing and even wistful comrade which this 
 woman was fitted to be. Now, bending over the un- 
 masked face, she divined with swift alarm that her old 
 careless attitude toward the sleeper might never be re- 
 covered. What her new attitude must be she could not 
 yet know, but she was conscious of being swept by a 
 great wave of tenderness for him; swept, too, by fear 
 of him ; and the impact of these waves left her trembling 
 before him. Some flash of portent, some premonition 
 born of instinct, warned her with a clearness that was 
 blinding. Tenderness and fear rolled in upon her, though 
 her reason weighed them as equal absurdities. Then 
 her look rose to the mother's portrait and she saw that 
 the eyes had followed her : they seemed now to challenge, 
 almost fiercely. Only the briefest of moments could 
 she endure their gaze, a gaze that in some way drew life 
 to itself from the breathing of the sleeper. Instinctively 
 she brushed her hand before her own eyes, drew herself 
 up with a little flinching shudder and moved slowly back- 
 ward to the door. 
 
 Then she was happily out in the sunlight, breathing 
 deep of the pine-spiced air, gratefully eying the famil- 
 iar boundaries of the clearing, the stumps, the huge pile 
 of cut wood, and the fenced-in vegetable garden. Over 
 the line of green to the north a gray, bare mountain shot 
 
 66
 
 Two Sleepers Awaken 
 
 above the lesser hills, rising splendidly from its timbered 
 base to a peak hooded in snow. It swam in her vision 
 at first, but presently something of its grounded sure- 
 ness, something of the peace that slept along its upper 
 reaches, fell upon her own soul and her serenity was 
 restored. 
 
 Not pausing to review those amazing moments of 
 inner tumult, she stepped again to the door and with her 
 old, careless, mildly amused laugh she beat upon it, 
 loudly this time. She heard an inarticulate call from 
 the studio, and again she assaulted the panel. Then 
 the curtain was drawn aside and Ewing stared at her 
 from the doorway. 
 
 " I believe you were sleeping," she started to say, but 
 he came quickly to her with something between a laugh 
 and a shout. 
 
 " Then it's true, it is true you're real ! I just dreamed 
 that you became Ben Crider and made me walk in the 
 middle of the street." He fairly rushed her into the 
 studio and waved excitedly to the open trunks. 
 
 "There! I began to pack last night so I could see it 
 when I woke up and have a proof that things were true. 
 I didn't sleep at all till about eight this morning." 
 
 She sat on the couch, feeling that she was foolish be- 
 yond measure to avoid the eyes of the portrait. Then 
 she smiled at him with an effort to recover the amused 
 ascendancy of their first meetings. 
 
 " It's all true, I assure you, and I wonder if you'd mind 
 taking charge of me when you go East. My brother 
 has suggested it, and I'll promise not to be a trouble." 
 
 His look of wondering delight was so utterly boyish, 
 his helpless laughter so entirely without reserve that 
 she regained for the moment her old easy dominance. 
 
 67
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "Would I mind mind going with you? That's a 
 joke, isn't it?" He seized both her hands in a grasp 
 from which she caught some thrill of his deep-breathed, 
 electric joy. 
 
 "But of course this is nonsense," he went on; "I'm 
 still lying there." 
 
 " Enough of dreams," she broke in warningly. " You'll 
 find it only too, too real. You're going to work. It's 
 simple." 
 
 He sat down on one of the trunks, trying to subdue his 
 excitement, his hands clenched. 
 
 "If this feeling lasts I can do anything, anything, 
 you understand, learn everything, do everything, be 
 everything. I have power. Ever since you left yester- 
 day I've felt full of steel springs, all tightly coiled. Only 
 I must be careful. If they went off all at once there'd 
 be an explosion, and I'm afraid I couldn't ever be 
 repaired." 
 
 She grimaced with an effort at mock dismay which 
 was not wholly successful. She divined the literal 
 truth under his jesting. The springs were coiled and 
 their steel was not too well tempered, she believed. The 
 thought left a shadow on her face. 
 
 "You're not doubting anything?" he asked quickly. 
 
 "Not doubting, O youth! Only a little innocent 
 wonder." 
 
 " But isn't life an enchantment? Isn't it all miracles? 
 Oh, I understand poets at last. They can't tell you 
 their secret unless you already know it. They sing in 
 big numbers. They say a million is true, and you say, 
 'Yes, that's very pretty, but it's poetry exaggeration; 
 he really means that a hundred is true,' and you never 
 know any better till the light comes. Then you see 
 
 68
 
 Two Sleepers Awaken 
 
 that the poet was literal and quite prosaic all the time. 
 The whole million was always true, in beauty and big- 
 ness and wonder." 
 
 " Stop ! " she protested. " You're making me feel as old 
 as the world itself, ancient and scarred with wisdom." 
 
 "You!" he burst in, "you're as young as the world. 
 You are foolish and I am the wise one if you can't see 
 that. Indeed, you're looking beautifully foolish this 
 minute. You are thinking all kinds of doubts under- 
 neath a lot of things you won't tell me. You're secre- 
 tive. You hide a lot from me." 
 
 She laughed, a little uneasily. 
 
 "You are a babe for wisdom," she retorted; "but 
 you're not to be enlightened in a day nor by me. I'll 
 give you a year. You shall tell me then which of us 
 two is the older. Now you must be at your packing. 
 Can you be ready by Monday?" 
 
 "Monday? and I'd been wondering what would be 
 the name of the day. So it's merely Monday? How 
 many Mondays there have been, how many, many 
 Mondays, that were like any other day ! And now this 
 Monday steals up yes, I'll be ready." 
 
 "I see you are past reason " 
 
 "Say above it " 
 
 "Anyway, get on with your packing. So much is 
 true." He would have ridden back with her, but she 
 demurred. 
 
 " It's so far," he urged. 
 
 " It isn't half far enough," she mocked him, " I have 
 so much thinking to do!" 
 
 "Monday, Monday, Monday, then!" he chanted, as 
 he went out to lift her into the saddle. But when he 
 had done this he suddenly bowed his head to kiss her 
 
 69
 
 Swing's Lady 
 
 hand, as he had seen his father long ago kiss his mother's 
 hand. 
 
 "You are all the world, just now, all I know of it," 
 he said. 
 
 She looked back to where he stood, straight and buoy- 
 ant, his head thrown back in joyous challenge. 
 
 <; And you are youth dear, dear youth!" she cried; 
 but this he could not hear. 
 
 A little farther on she breathed softly, "Poor dead 
 Kitty don't be afraid!" 
 
 70
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE JOURNEY WONDER 
 
 DURING those last days Ewing brushed only the 
 airy slopes of illusion, strive as he would to 
 keep his feet to earth. Many were the tricks 
 he used to this end: vain tricks to forget the miracle of 
 his going, of going so soon, of going with her. 
 
 Ben Crider would not help him forget. When snatches 
 of warning from "Traps and Pitfalls" grew stale, Ben 
 coined advice of a large and general character. 
 
 "Want to be an artist, hey? Ask me? Go down to 
 Durango let that professor learn you in ten lessons. 
 Make yer five t' eight dollars a day canvassin' fur en- 
 largements. Gold frame throwed in. Yes, sir! Ask 
 me? Durango's fur enough. New York's too gosha- 
 mighty fur!" 
 
 It was not possible to forget under the droppings of 
 this counsel. Wherefore his spirit tossed in tumult. 
 
 When Ben called him on the morning of the start it 
 was still dark. He lay a moment, his nerves tighten- 
 ing. This was the last time he would lie in that bed 
 for how long? Well, on some unmarked night in the 
 pregnant future, lying there again, he would look back 
 to this moment and tell himself all the wonderful things 
 that had come to him tell his ignorant, puzzled, excited 
 self, who would, somehow, be waiting and wondering 
 there. 
 
 Juggling this conceit, he groped for matches and a 
 
 71
 
 E wing's Lady 
 
 candle. He could hear the singing of the kettle in the 
 outer room. Through the window he saw a lantern 
 swinging, and knew that Ben would be bringing around 
 the horses. It was a time to be cool, a time to gird 
 himself. 
 
 He had breakfast on the table when Ben came in, 
 and they ate by the light of a smoky lamp, tacitly pre- 
 tending that no miracle was afoot. Saving the early 
 hour, it was a scene they enacted whenever they drove 
 to Pagosa for supplies, up to the point when, the meal 
 finished, they carried two trunks from the studio out 
 to the wagon. But they managed this carelessly enough, 
 with only a casual, indignant word or two about the 
 excessive weight of full trunks. 
 
 Only the faintest hint of light showed in the east as 
 the chilled horses stumbled awkwardly down the hill. 
 A half hour they rode in a silence broken but once, and 
 then only by Ben's hoarse threat to "learn" the off 
 horse something needful but unspecified which it ap- 
 peared not to know. 
 
 The light glowed from gray to rose and day was 
 opened by the bark of a frantic squirrel that ran half- 
 way down a tree trunk, threatening attack, in alarm 
 for its store of spruce cones at the foot of the tree. A 
 crested jay at the same moment mocked them harshly 
 from a higher branch of the tree. 
 
 Bwing exhaled with gusto a breath of the warming, 
 pine-spiced air. 
 
 "It's sunning up, Ben." Ben grunted unamiably. 
 
 A little distance ahead of them a doe and a half- 
 grown fawn bounded across the road. 
 
 "She seemed to be in a hurry," Ewing again ventured. 
 
 "She wanted t' git that child away from here, 'fore 
 
 72
 
 The Journey Wonder 
 
 some one stuffed its head full o' fool talk about goin* 
 off to New York. Can't tell what notions a young deer 
 might git." With this laborious surmise he shut his 
 jaws together with repellent grimness. 
 
 Their road now wound down a hill and out of the 
 woods to join the valley road. 
 
 "Vender's Beulah Pierce!" Ben snapped this out 
 savagely. The wagon was half a mile ahead. Pierce 
 was driving, and in the rear seat were two figures whom 
 they knew to be Mrs. Laithe and her brother. As 
 Ben had pointedly ignored these Ewing did not refer 
 to them. 
 
 They came to a gate in a wire fence that stretched 
 interminably away on either side, over brown, low- 
 rolling hills. Pierce had left the gate open for them, 
 and Ewing got out to close it after they had passed 
 through. 
 
 "L,arabie is building a lot of fence," he said, as they 
 drove on. " At this rate he'll have every school section 
 in Hinsdale County wired in pretty soon." 
 
 On this impersonal ground Ben seemed willing to 
 meet him. 
 
 "Me? Know what I'm going to do if Wes' Larabie 
 cuts off any more o' this road with his barb wire? Stick 
 a pair o' wire clippers in the whip socket an' drive 
 through. That's all! You'd think he owned all Amer- 
 ica, the way he makes people sidle along that fence 
 till he gits good an' ready to make a gate. Me? Make 
 my own gates. Yes, sir! Wire clippers!" 
 
 With this he was sufficiently cheered to insult viva- 
 ciously a couple of dull, incurious Mexicans whom they 
 presently passed, plodding behind a laden burro train. 
 To his opprobrious burst of weirdly entangled Spanish 
 
 6 73
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 and English he added the taunting bleat of a sheep 
 and a merrily malign gesture eloquent of throats to 
 be slit the throats of unspeakable sheep herders. 
 He observed with deep disgust that neither of the 
 threatened ones gave any sign of interest in their por- 
 tended fate. They passed with scarce a lift of their 
 heads. 
 
 "They're takin' supplies up to that sheep outfit o' 
 Raukin's," grumbled Ben. "Pierce an' some o' the 
 others is talkin' about gettin' in a car load o' saltpeter 
 an' dopin' the range if Rankin lets his herd work down 
 any closeter have it billed in as hardware or pianos, 
 an' unload the car at night. Serve him right fur bein' 
 a sheep man. An' yet I knowed Nels Rankin, five, 
 six years ago, when there wa'n't a more respectable 
 cuss in the hull San Juan." 
 
 In passing the Pulcifer ranch they made talk about 
 the hay-cutting, for a reaper sent its locustlike click 
 from a brown stretch of bottom land. Pulcifer had a 
 good stand of hay, they agreed, and probably he wouldn't 
 have such a big winter kill this year if he didn't act 
 the fool and sell off too much of it. You couldn't 
 expect to bring cattle through fat on cottonwood 
 browse. 
 
 So they lamely gossiped the miles away in strained 
 avoidance of the big event. Only once did Ewing 
 look back, while Ben was occupied with the horses at a 
 ford. The rocky wall at the verge of their lake was 
 intimately near, despite the miles they had come, 
 and below it, through a notch in the hills, he could 
 see a spot of yellow the new shake roof on a shed they 
 had built that summer near the cabin. Then his eyes 
 were ahead to where Pierce 's wagon crawled up a hill. 
 
 74
 
 The Journey Wonder 
 
 Ben whipped up the horses and burst into song: 
 
 "One evening I was strolling through the city of the dead; 
 I viewed where all around me their peaceful forms were spread." 
 
 He took the thing at a quick, rollicking tempo, as one 
 resolved to be gay under difficulties. 
 
 When they drew up to the station platform at Pagosa, 
 Ewing hurried to greet Mrs. Laithe and her brother. 
 Pierce busied himself with the trunks, cautiously 
 watching the man check them. 
 
 Ben Crider, after a long, fervent look at Ewing's 
 back, caught his breath, sniffled, strangled this, and 
 stepped quickly into his wagon. Pulling the horses 
 quietly away from the platform he whipped them into 
 a sharp trot toward the town. Ewing ran back, shout- 
 ing. Ben would not turn, but he thrust one arm back 
 and upward with a careless wave. 
 
 Ewing stared hard at the bent head, the eloquent 
 back, longing for a further sign, but none came. He 
 was at the gateway of the world, a mist before his eyes. 
 
 A moment later their little train rattled into a narrow 
 canon where its shrill whistle, battered from wall to wall, 
 made the place alive with shrieking demons. 
 
 Having seen his charge to a seat in the one squalid 
 car, Ewing went out to brace himself on the rear plat- 
 form. She who was doing this thing had seemed a 
 strange lady again; in her manner, as in her dress, more 
 formal. The dark-blue, close-fitting gown, the small 
 toque of blue velvet, the secretive veil, the newish 
 gloves, instead of the old, worn riding gauntlets, the 
 glossy-toed black boots so different from those of scarred 
 tan he knew, all marked a change that heightened the 
 pangs of homesickness he already suffered. 
 
 With burning eyes and tightened throat he saw the 
 
 75
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 floor of the canon rush away from him, and watched 
 old Baldy's snow hood flashing momentarily as the train 
 twisted, now sinking below a quick-rushing wall of 
 rock, now showing over a clump of cedars. It was 
 as if the old peak had become sprightly at his going, 
 and sought to bob curtsies to him. 
 
 At intervals the train came to a jangling halt. The 
 little locomotive would leave it and ramble incon- 
 sequently off into the big pine woods, to return with 
 screeches of triumph, dragging a car load of new-sawn 
 boards from the mill. Or it would puff away to a siding 
 and come back importantly with a car of excited sheep. 
 At these halts Ewing would leap to the ground to feel 
 the San Juan earth under his feet. 
 
 At the junction where they were to take the through 
 train he reflected that nothing had really happened yet. 
 He could turn back and be out of the dream. The 
 little train would return up the canon presently. The 
 conductor would be indifferent to his presence. To 
 the brakeman, whom he knew, he could say, "Yes, 
 I thought some of going to New York this morning, 
 but I changed my mind." He would be back at Pagosa 
 by five and find Ben at the post office or the " Happy 
 Days" saloon. Then there would be no more of that 
 curious sickness a kind of sickish wanting. Yet, 
 when the through train drew in, he hurried aboard. 
 
 He stood on the rear platform and watched a horse- 
 man jogging over the sandy plain to the west, picturing 
 his ride from the junction to some lonely ranch on a 
 distant river bottom. He would have the week's 
 mail in a bag back of the saddle, and a stock of tobacco. 
 He would reach the place after dark, perhaps, from 
 sheer ennui, shooting at a coyote or two along the way. 
 
 76
 
 The Journey Wonder 
 
 He knew that rider's life, the days of it and the nights, 
 and all of good or ill that might ever betake him. It 
 was well, he thought, to dare a bigger life, though he 
 waved a friendly greeting to the unconscious horse- 
 man, jogging at the head of his train of dust. He flung 
 a tender glance at the diminished junction, now a low, 
 dull blur on the level horizon, and went into the car. 
 
 For the moment the Pullman had no other occupant 
 but himself and Mrs. Laithe, and she was sleeping, he 
 thought; but her eyes opened as he would have passed 
 her seat. She had replaced the toque with a brown 
 cap he knew, and as she smiled up at him she seemed 
 again almost the familiar godmother of his fairy tale. 
 He passed on, however, after a meaningless word or 
 two and, sprawling in another section, surrendered 
 himself to the troubled pretentiousness of the Pullman 
 school of decoration. 
 
 He had left the lady grateful for his going. She was 
 in no mood for that artless lyric chant of youth in which 
 he was so adept. Her brother that morning had accused 
 her of waning enthusiasm for her protege. 
 
 " I believe you're funking, Nell," he had said shrewdly. 
 " You're discovering that mountain slumming is different 
 from the city kind." 
 
 But she had protested that no discerning person of 
 ordinary humanity could have done less for the prisoned 
 youth. "Of course" and she had sighed "he's a 
 mere bundle of untried eagerness, and we're responsible, 
 in a way, for Heaven knows what, but we had to do it, 
 didn't we?" 
 
 " Not 'we' had to ! You had to. It's all yours, Nell 
 the credit and the glory and all the rest. I prefer to 
 get up my own responsibilities, if you don't mind." 
 
 77
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 " But you agreed with me you did you advised when 
 I asked you it's perfectly plain you said, 'Of course!' ' 
 But the train moved off in the midst of his laugh at 
 this, and he had doffed his hat to her with a mocking 
 gesture of freehanded relinquishment. 
 
 Now, as she closed her eyes again, her memory dived 
 for some fairy tale or fragment of mythology in which 
 an unsuspecting humanitarian rescued an insignificant 
 woods thing, only to have it change on the instant into 
 a creature troublesome in more ways than one. She 
 was certain some primitive fabulist had foreseen this 
 complication, but her mind was weary and shadowed, 
 and the historic solution evaded her. "Mountain 
 slumming" was truly more exigent than the town sort. 
 
 But this reflection aroused a defensive sympathy. 
 The vision of Ewing as he had passed glowed before her 
 shut eyes, the active, square-shouldered, slender figure, 
 garbed in a decently fitting suit of gray (she was glad 
 to remember that), the quick eyes, ardent for life, the 
 thinned, brown face, the usual buoyance held down 
 to an easy self-possession that was new to her, the 
 wild, reliant expectancy of a boy tempered all at once 
 by some heritage of insight. Outwardly, at least, 
 he would fit his new life. So reflecting, she dozed 
 on the look of the man in his eyes, and dreamed that 
 she feared this and fled. But after mad flight through 
 the windings of an interminable corridor she awoke 
 to look squarely into his eyes, to cower instinctively 
 under his touch on her arm. Her waking thought 
 took the thread of the dream, her flight had been vain : 
 he was there, and his voice throbbed fatefully within 
 a secret chamber of her mind, even though his words 
 rang little of portent. 
 
 78
 
 The Journey Wonder 
 
 "We are coming to the supper station." 
 
 She hastened to freshen herself with cold water, and 
 they were presently eating a hasty meal at a crowded 
 table. Then they were out side by side to pace the 
 platform briskly. 
 
 There was green about the station, where water had 
 taught the desert to relent, but beyond this oasis the 
 sand sea stretched far and flat to murky foothills. 
 Above these they could see a range of sharp-peaked 
 mountains that still caught the sunlight, some crystal 
 white with snow, others muffled by clouds turned to 
 iris-hued scarfs of filmiest gauze. 
 
 "El Dorado is beyond those hills," said the youth 
 fervently. 
 
 "It looks accessible from here," she answered, 
 "but " 
 
 "You're warning me again. You're afraid I'll be 
 discouraged by the hills." 
 
 " Not discouraged, but there are resting places on the 
 way. They hold the bulk of the pilgrims, I fear." 
 
 " I shall go on; not even you could stop me." 
 
 She caught a glint in his fierce young eyes that she 
 thought he must be unconscious of. 
 
 "I? Oh, I shall spur you if you need spurring." 
 
 "I know; I'm only beginning to realize how much 
 I owe you; I mean to repay you, though." 
 
 There was an intimation of remoteness in his tone, 
 as if he saw himself removed from her, mounting soli- 
 tary to his dream city, a free-necked, well-weaponed 
 pilgrim, sufficient unto himself. It was as if he had 
 put distance between them the moment he crossed the 
 threshold of the world. She drew a full breath. It 
 came to her, as the upflashing of some submerged 
 
 79
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 memory, that all his frank adoration of her had been 
 quite impersonal. He had regarded her as a bit of 
 line and color. It was amazing to remember that he 
 had made no effort to know her, save with his eyes. 
 She divined that she had stopped short of being human 
 to him, while he to her had been, more than anything 
 else, a human creature of freshness and surprises. What- 
 ever difficulties might be in the way of an easy friend- 
 liness between them, they would not be of his own 
 making. She was sure she felt a great relief. 
 
 Ewing awoke in the night at some jolting halt of the 
 train, to feel an exciting thrill of luxury as he stretched 
 in his berth. Here was no stumbling about in the 
 dark to search for a lost trail; nor must he rise in the 
 chill dawn to worry a blaze from overnight embers, 
 cook a discouraging breakfast, catch horses, and lade 
 unwilling beasts with packs. Things would be done 
 for him; and the trail was wide and level as befits the 
 approach to the world. He dozed royally off feeling 
 that he had bitten into the heart of his wonder at last. 
 
 The following day they sped through a land whose 
 kind he knew, but after another night he awoke to 
 find their train breasting the brown waves of a sea 
 that rolled lazily to far horizons. No longer was there 
 one of his beloved mountain peaks to be a landmark: 
 only an endless, curving lowness, as of land that had 
 once tried to lash itself into the fury of mountain and 
 crag, and then ceased all effort to lie forever impotent 
 and sad. 
 
 He thought of Ben amid this disconsolate welter. 
 Ben had beheld this sight years ago, and had described 
 it with aversion, as one relating a topographical scandal. 
 Ewing favored his companion with heartfelt dispraise 
 
 80
 
 The Journey Wonder 
 
 of this landscape, applauding the suggestion of a woman 
 she laughingly quoted that "there should be a tuck 
 taken in the continent." He was sure nothing would 
 be lost by it. 
 
 The lady beguiled him over the inadequacies of 
 Kansas by promising a better land farther on. He 
 gladly turned from the car window to watch the pretty 
 play of her mouth as she talked. 
 
 But the next day they steamed out of St. Louis in 
 the morning he scanned several hundred square 
 miles of excellent farming land with sheer dismay. 
 From morning till night they ran through what, to 
 Ewing, was a dead, depressing flatness, a vast and 
 clumsy jest of a checkerboard, with cornfields for squares. 
 The tiny groves of oak at long intervals seemed only 
 to satirize the monotony. The rolling plains of the 
 day before had been vivacious beside this flatness, 
 and there had been a certain mournful dignity in their 
 solitude. But this endless level lacked even solitude. 
 To Ewing, indeed, the mystery of it lay in its well- 
 peopled towns. He wondered how men kept sane 
 there. Mrs. Laithe insisted that it was an important 
 stretch of our country, that it fed thousands and made 
 useful objects in its tall-chimneyed factories (things 
 like wagons and watches and boots, she believed), and 
 that it ought not to be discountenanced. But he 
 could feel nothing for it, save an unconfessed pity 
 that it would sleep that night in ignorance of his glorious 
 transit. He had never suspected there could be so 
 many thousands of people who took the world as a 
 tame affair and slept indifferent to young men with 
 great things before them. 
 
 "If New York is like this," he said, with a flash of 
 
 81
 
 E wing's Lady 
 
 his old boyish excitement, " what can I ever do without 
 you?" 
 
 " But it isn't at all like this, and you'll do big things 
 without me or with me, if I can help you." 
 
 "You will have to help me. Now that I've seen the 
 beginning of the world, I'm depending on you more 
 than I thought I should when we started." 
 
 "You will lose that." 
 
 "Will I? But it will be queer to see you as part 
 of the world no longer the whole of it ; to see how you 
 stand out from the others. Perhaps the rest of the 
 world will be only a dingy background for you you 
 are all color and life." 
 
 "You've made me feel like a lay figure," she laughed. 
 Then, in a flash of womanish curiosity, she ventured, 
 " Have you ever thought me anything but a shell of 
 color?" 
 
 He stammered, blushing painfully. 
 
 "Oh, a real person of course, certainly! A woman, 
 yes but when I think of you as a woman, I'm scared, 
 like those first times I saw you. I can't help it. You 
 may not believe it," he concluded with a burst of can- 
 dor, "but the truth is, I don't know women." 
 
 He was again embarrassed when she retorted, with 
 her laugh: 
 
 "O youth! May you always know so much!" 
 
 "Well, to-morrow afternoon we shall be in New 
 York," he said briskly, when she had shut the deeps 
 of her eyes from him. He had felt the need to show 
 that there were matters upon which he could speak 
 with understanding. 
 
 82
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A DINNER AT SEVEN-THIRTY 
 
 BY five o'clock the next afternoon Ewing had 
 ended his journey in an upper room of the 
 Stuyvesant Hotel. This hostelry flaunts an 
 outworn magnificence. Its hangings are dingy, its 
 plenteous gilt is tarnished; and it seems to live on 
 memories of a past when fashion splendidly thronged 
 its corridors. But peace lies beyond the gloom of 
 its portals, and Ewing was glad to be housed from the 
 dazing tumult outside. Nothing reached him now 
 but the muted rhythm of horses' feet on the asphalt 
 below, and this but recalled agreeably to him that his 
 solitude was an artificial thing of four walls. He had 
 no wish to forget that the world waited beyond his door. 
 
 He fell back on the sofa, a once lordly thing of yellow 
 satin, now frayed and faded, to eye the upper reaches 
 of the room. The high, blue-tinted ceiling was scarred 
 and cracked. Depending from its center a huge chande- 
 lier dangled glittering prisms of glass. An immense 
 mirror in a gilt frame, lavishly rococo, rested on the 
 mantel of carved white marble. Heavy lace curtains, 
 shrouding the two broad windows, made a restful 
 half light. 
 
 He had awakened to hills that morning, wooded hills 
 and well towned. Then had come veritable cities, rich 
 to him with all romance under their angular, smoky 
 ugliness. And at last had come the real city the end 
 
 83
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 of the world and its center. He discovered it beyond 
 a stretch of white-flecked water alive with strange 
 craft. Its clean, straight, myriad-windowed towers 
 glowed under a slanting sun in an air as crystal clear as 
 that of his own hills. A vista of heartshaking surprises 
 unfolded ahead of the great boat they boarded, a boat 
 with a heart strongly beating in tune with his own. 
 Too soon it nosed its way, with a sort of clumsy finesse, 
 into a pile-walled pocket. There followed the keen, 
 quick rattling of a cogged wheel and a rush of people 
 who seemed insufficiently impressed by the magnitude 
 of the event. Then they entered a cab, to be driven 
 from a throng of other cabs and jostling pedestrians 
 through the maze of a dream come true. He tried not 
 to ignore his companion for glimpses of that strange 
 life through the cab window. 
 
 Very casually she had said at parting, "Thank you so 
 much for all your care of me and dine with us at 
 seven-thirty, won't you? I shall try to have a friend 
 here that I think may help you." 
 
 A long time he lay, reviewing that chaotic first hour 
 in the world. Everything throbbed here, it seemed. 
 One lived more quickly. And how long could the body 
 endure it? Suddenly he felt his own pulses beating at 
 a rate to terrify. He caught his breath and listened. 
 He could hear the monstrous beats they were actually 
 shaking the sofa on which he lay. He thought of heart 
 disease. He might be dying there and they would 
 wait dinner for him. He sprang up desperately. The 
 sinister beating ceased. He put his hand to his heart, 
 listened tensely, and heard again that which had alarmed 
 him, the pulsing beat of a steam pump somewhere 
 far below. In his relief he laughed aloud. 
 
 84
 
 A Dinner at Seven-Thirty 
 
 As he set about opening his trunks he was marveling 
 at clothes lines he had seen stretched high between the 
 rear walls of houses. How did people ever hang clothes 
 on lines fifty feet from the ground? Truly it was a 
 city of wonders. 
 
 He took out a suit of evening clothes that had been 
 his father's. He had found that the suit fitted him, 
 and he and Ben had assured themselves by reference to 
 the pictured heroes in magazine advertisements that its 
 cut was nearly enough in the prevailing mode. Ewing 
 had also found some cards of his father's which would 
 convey his own name to all who might care to 
 read it. 
 
 As he sauntered out at the dinner hour he wished that 
 Ben could be watching him. The Bartell house was in 
 Ninth Street, less than a long block from his hotel, a 
 broad, plain-fronted, three-story house of red brick 
 trimmed with white marble. Caught in a little eddy from 
 the stream heading in Washington Square and sweep- 
 ing north, it had kept an old-time air of dignity and 
 comfort. Ewing observed a cheering glow through the 
 muslin curtains at the windows as he ascended the three 
 marble steps. The old white door, crowned with a 
 fanlight and retaining its brass knocker, had suffered 
 the indignity of an electric bell, but this was obscurely 
 placed at the side, and he lifted the knocker's lion head. 
 As no bell rang, he dropped it, and was dismayed by its 
 metallic clamor. He swiftly meditated flight, thinking 
 to return for a seemlier demonstration. But the door 
 swung back and a person in evening dress stood aside 
 to bow him in. 
 
 "Ah, good evening!" exclaimed Ewing cordially. 
 Then, embarrassed, he felt for a card, recalling that he 
 
 85
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 was in a land where, probably, one could not be cordial 
 to persons who opened doors. 
 
 "For Mrs. Laithe," he said, in grave tones, eying the 
 man's bluntly cut features with a severity meant to 
 dispel any wrong impression. The person received 
 the card on a tiny silver plate, relieved him of hat and 
 coat with what seemed to Ewing an uncanny deftness, 
 bowed him to the gloom of a large apartment on the 
 left, and vanished. An instant later he reappeared, 
 drew portieres aside, revealing another warmly lighted 
 room, and Ewing beheld a white vision of his hostess. 
 
 " I'm glad to have a word with you," she began. " Sit 
 here. You're to meet a friend, Ned Piersoll, who will tell 
 you a lot of things. I telephoned him directly I came in, 
 and he found he could come, though he must run when 
 he's eaten some affair with his mother. But he'll 
 have found out about you." 
 
 "I'm much obliged to you," he stammered, having 
 caught little of her speech. 
 
 " Ned will tell you what to do. He knows everybody. 
 He's on the staff of the Knickerbocker magazine, and he 
 had a novel out last spring, 'The Promotion of Fools,' 
 that you must have seen advertised everywhere, like 
 a medicine." 
 
 "Yes, I've read that book." 
 
 "You must tell him if you liked it they all care to 
 hear that and he'll see that you meet men of your own 
 kind." For looking at her he had been able to give her 
 words little attention. She had revealed herself anew 
 in the dull white of a gown that brought out the elusive 
 glow of her face. Her eyes were deep wells, shaded 
 but luminous, under the lusterless dark of her hair, and 
 her smile flashed a girlish benignity upon him. Acutely 
 
 86
 
 A Dinner at Seven-Thirty 
 
 alive was he to the line of neck and shoulder and arm, 
 a slender, supple neck, set on shoulders superbly but 
 lightly modeled, the small collarbone exquisitely muffled 
 but not lost, and the little hollow at the base of her 
 throat prettily definite. And all was white and luster- 
 less save the warning dusk of her eyes and the flash 
 from her parting lips. 
 
 With such cold passion for line did his artist's eye 
 wreak its joy upon her that, as she talked, she found 
 herself thinking him curiously dull to the prospect she 
 opened. It was the impersonal look she had come to 
 know; and his replies were languid, as if he thought of 
 other matters. It might have passed for the bored ease 
 of a man of the world had she not known him to be 
 amid novel surroundings. 
 
 Feeling a slight discomfort under his look, she at 
 length diverted his eyes to the room in which they 
 sat. 
 
 "It's the room I like best in all the house," she said. 
 ''That big drawing room you came through is inhuman. 
 It terrified me as a child, and still refuses to make friends 
 with me, but this library don't you feel that I've 
 humanized it?" 
 
 He became aware that he had felt its easing charm 
 of dark-toned wood and dull-red walls. There were 
 low book-shelves, low seats that invited, a broad table 
 with its array of magazines, and a lazy fire in the open 
 grate. 
 
 "It's a fine room to be in," he said, bringing his eyes 
 back to her. 
 
 "There's not a chair in it," she continued, "that 
 wasn't meant to be sat in most chairs nowadays are 
 mere spectacles, you know and no glass doors before 
 
 87
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 the books. Nothing enrages me like having to open a 
 door to get at books." 
 
 "It's the room you need," he replied. "You draw 
 all the light to yourself. It gives you color, turns your 
 hair to black, and makes your eyes look like " 
 
 "Mr. Piersoll!" announced the man. 
 
 His look still engaged her as she floated forward to 
 greet the tall, pleasant -faced, alert young man with 
 tumbled yellow hair who now entered. Not until he 
 heard his own name did he relinquish her to acknowledge 
 the word of introduction. 
 
 A moment later the father of Mrs. Laithe strolled 
 in and Ewing was again introduced, this time to a stout- 
 ish man with a placid, pink face, scanty hair going from 
 yellow to white arranged over his brow with scrupu- 
 lous economy and a closely cut mustache of the same 
 ambiguous hue. He was a man who gracefully con- 
 fessed fifty years to all but the better informed. Ewing 
 felt himself under the scrutiny of a pair of very light 
 gray eyes as Bartell took his hand, tentatively at first, 
 then with a grip of entire cordiality. One may suspect 
 that this gentleman had looked forward with mild ap- 
 prehension to a dinner meeting with the latest protege" 
 of his impulsive daughter. The youth's demeanor, how- 
 ever, so quickly caused his barbaric past to be forgotten 
 that, by the time they were at table, his host had said to 
 him, prefacing one of his best anecdotes, "Of course you 
 know that corner table on the Caf de la Paix ter- 
 race. ..." 
 
 Ewing floated dreamily on the stream of talk; laugh- 
 ing, chatty talk, spiced with suggestive strange names; 
 blithe gossip of random happenings. He was content 
 to feel its flow beneath him and rather resented the 
 
 88
 
 A Dinner at Seven-Thirty 
 
 efforts to involve him in it, preferring to listen and to 
 look. But he was courteously groped for by the others 
 and compelled to response as the dinner progressed. 
 
 Piersoll mentioned his drawings pleasantly and 
 engaged him for dinner at a club the following evening. 
 " I'll call for you at the Stuyvesant about six," he said, 
 when Ewing had accepted. "I must have a look at 
 your stuff. Don't dress; we dine in our working clothes 
 at the Monastery." 
 
 The father of Mrs. Laithe warned Ewing to beware of 
 worry in his new surroundings. 
 
 "Let life carry you, my boy. That's my physiology 
 in a nutshell. Don't try to lug the world about. The 
 people who tell you that life in New York is a strain 
 haven't learned rational living. Worry kills, but I 
 never worry, and I find town idyllic. Clarence was 
 born to worry: result, dyspepsia and nervous break- 
 down. My daughter worries. She goes into side streets 
 looking for trouble, and when she finds it she keeps 
 it. That's wrong. Life is whatever we see it to be. 
 Eleanor sees too much of the black side, poverty, starva- 
 tion, hard luck all kinds of deviltry, and it reacts on 
 her. I look only on the cheerful side, and that reacts 
 on me. A good dinner, a glass of burgundy there's 
 an answer to all that socialistic pessimism." 
 
 "Suppose one hasn't the answer at hand?" his daugh- 
 ter broke in. 
 
 "Keep smiling, my dear," retorted her father with 
 Spartan grimness. " Skipping a dinner or two can't over- 
 turn real philosophy. Down on the Chesapeake last 
 fall, duck shooting one day, we lost the luncheon hamper 
 overboard, and hadn't so much as a biscuit from four 
 in the morning till after nine at night, shooting from 
 
 7 89
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 a chilly, wet blind all day. There was a test! But 
 I give you my word I never worried. I took it as so 
 much discipline. My dear, if I had fretted over tene- 
 ment houses the way you have, I should be a broken 
 man. Thank the gods that be, I've had the wit to let 
 my agent do all that!" 
 
 His daughter received this with a shrug of despair. 
 "But confess, daddy you have a worry." 
 
 '"Oh, that this too, too solid flesh would melt!'" 
 quoted Piersoll, divining her mark. 
 
 " I admit, my dear, that legitimate worry has its uses. 
 I only warn against the too common abuse of it. I 
 maintain," he went on, turning to Ewing, "that a man 
 with the feelings of a boy should, if there's any moral 
 balance in the world, retain the waistline of a boy; yet 
 I've not done it. I go to doctors they all talk the same 
 ballyrot about exercise or they harangue you about diet. 
 Why, I've heard them gibber of things one mustn't eat 
 till I writhed in anguish. Some day I know I shall 
 chuck it all and let Nature take her course." He glared 
 defiantly about the table. 
 
 " She's not waiting for you to let her, dear," observed 
 his daughter maliciously. 
 
 "It's my temperament, I suppose" he sighed rue- 
 fully into his plate of sweet stuff "just as it's Randy 
 Teevan's temperament to keep slender, though I sus- 
 pect Randy of stays." 
 
 Mrs. Laithe had glanced swiftly toward Ewing at the 
 mention of this name. She again looked at him alertly 
 a moment later when the man announced " Mr. Teevan 
 and Mr. Alden Teevan." 
 
 "Alden told me this afternoon at the club, my dear, 
 that he and his father might stop for a moment on their 
 
 90
 
 A Dinner at Seven-Thirty 
 
 way up town, just to say 'How-de-do.' We can have 
 coffee in the library." 
 
 His daughter received this with a meditative under 
 lip. Then she brightened. 
 
 "I'm sure you men would rather sit here and smoke 
 while I run in and see them. They'll stay only a 
 minute." 
 
 "Nonsense, child! I can't lose sight of you so soon 
 again. We can smoke in there as well." 
 
 "Coffee in the library, Harris." She gave the order 
 with a submissive shrug and led the way out. 
 
 Ewing saw two men come to greet her, alike enough of 
 feature to reveal their relationship at first glance. He 
 detected, however, a curious contrast they presented. 
 The father, slight and short of stature, was a very young- 
 looking old man, while the son was an old-looking young 
 man. The father was dapper, effusive, sprightly, quick 
 with smiling gestures; the son restrained, deliberate, low- 
 toned with a slow, half -cynical smile of waiting. He 
 gave the effect of subduing what his father almost elf- 
 ishly expressed. 
 
 Father and son greeted the men over the shoulders of 
 Mrs. Laithe, and Ewing was presented. There was an 
 inclination of the son's head, and a careless glance of his 
 waiting eyes; from the father, a jerky, absent "How- 
 d'you do How-d'you do!" 
 
 They moved by chatting stages to the library. The 
 elder Teevan, carefully pointing the ends of his small, 
 dark mustache, stood with his back to the dying fire, 
 a coffee cup in one hand, a cigarette in the other, twitter- 
 ing gallantly of a town's desolation wrought by the going 
 away of Mrs. Laithe; and of a town renewed by her 
 great-hearted return. "A preciously timed relenting,"
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 he called it, with a challenging sigh toward the lady, as 
 he gracefully flicked back a ringlet of the lustrous brown 
 hair that had fallen low on his brow. Ewing thought 
 it wonderful hair on a man whose face, though ruddy 
 in hue, showed signs of age. There were deep lines at 
 the corners of those gallantly flashing eyes, and their 
 under lids drooped. The skin was shrunk tightly over 
 the high, thin nose, the cheeks were less than plump, 
 and the neck revealed some unhappy wrinkles. Sadly, 
 too, his voice failed at supreme moments. It was tragic, 
 Ewing thought, to listen to a sentence valiantly begun, 
 only to hear the voice crack on a crucial word. 
 
 Mrs. Laithe received the little man's tribute with a 
 practiced indifference, chatting absently, meanwhile, 
 with the son. Presently she led Ewing and the younger 
 Teevan to the drawing room to admire a huge jar of 
 roses for which she thanked Teevan. 
 
 Back in the library Piersoll was listening to a salmon- 
 fishing story of BartelPs. The elder Teevan genially 
 overlooked the scene, humming lightly to himself the 
 catch air from a late musical comedy. He turned to 
 study a bit of Japanese bronze on the mantel behind 
 him, screwing a single glass into an eye. When he had 
 scanned the bronze with a fine little air of appreciation 
 he replaced it, resumed his jaunty humming, and idly 
 picked up a card that had been thrown beside it. 
 Carelessly under the still fixed monocle he brought the 
 words "Mr. Gilbert Denham Ewing." A moment he 
 held it so in fingers that suddenly trembled. His head 
 went sharply back, the glass dropped from his eye, 
 dangling on its silken ribbon, and his little song died. 
 He glanced about him, observing the two groups to be 
 still inattentive. Placing a supporting hand on the 
 
 92
 
 A Dinner at Seven-Thirty 
 
 mantel he set the glass firmly again and studied the card 
 a second time. Another glance through the rooms, and 
 he resumed his song, crumpling the card in his hand. 
 Then, turning, he stood once more before the fire, his 
 hands comfortably at his back. One of them tossed the 
 card into the grate, and his song again ceased. 
 
 Bartell looked up, having, after incredible finesse, 
 slain and weighed his giant salmon. Piersoll, recalling 
 that the anecdotist had killed other salmon in his time, 
 made a hasty adieu and went to his hostess, who lingered 
 in the drawing room with the younger men. Teevan, 
 before the fire, breathed in smoke, emitted it from pursed 
 lips, studied the ash at the end of his cigarette from under 
 raised, speculative brows, and flashed search-light eyes 
 upon his host. 
 
 "Who's the young chap, Chris?" 
 
 Bartell took up a liqueur glass and turned to his 
 questioner. 
 
 "Name's Ewing, I believe. Some chap Eleanor 
 picked up in the far West. Painter, I believe, or means 
 to be." 
 
 " Painter, yes, to be sure quite right; painter ..." 
 He waited pointedly. 
 
 "Paints cowboys and Indians, I fancy the usual 
 thing. Seems a decent sort ; rather a gentleman. You're 
 looking a bit off. Randy." 
 
 "Am I, though? Queer! Never felt fitter. Walked 
 to Fifty-ninth Street and back to-day. Might have 
 overdone a bit. That chap staying in town long?" 
 
 " Have to ask Eleanor. It's her affair. By Jove, old 
 boy, you are a wonder. I wish I could keep it off 
 around here the way you do." 
 
 The little man drew himself up, expanded his chest, 
 
 93
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 and bravely flourished a smile of acknowledgment. 
 This faded into a look of hostile curiosity, discreetly 
 veiled, as Mrs. Laithe and the two young men came in 
 from the drawing room. 
 
 "Time to be moving on, Governor," young Teevan 
 remarked. 
 
 "I'm not going, my boy," the little man answered 
 in crisp tones, with the hint of a side look at Ewing and 
 Mrs. Laithe. " Run on like a good chap and make my 
 excuses to the dear grandmother. Needn't lie, you know. 
 Say I chucked her theater party at the last moment 
 because the places are stuffy. Say that I loathe plush 
 and those crumpy little boxes where one sees nothing 
 but the gas fellow in a gingham jumper yawning in the 
 wings. Say I'm whimsical, capricious, fickle as April 
 zephyrs in all but my love for her. If you're quite 
 honest she'll disbelieve you and guess that I'd a reason 
 for stopping away. Run, like a good lad, while I quench 
 a craving for tales of adventure from the most charming 
 of her sex and from our young friend here will you 
 pardon my oversight Ewing? Ah, to be sure, from 
 Mr. Ewing Ewing. I must remember that. I'm 
 a silly ass about names." 
 
 But when his son had gone the little man appeared to 
 forget the craving that had prompted his stay. From 
 his stand on the hearth rug he jauntily usurped the talk, 
 winging his way down the world stream of gossip from 
 capital to capital. Circuitous, indeed, was his approach 
 to art; an anecdote of studio life in Paris; a criticism 
 of Rodin, "Whitman in marble;" the vigor of our native 
 art impulse, only now learning to withdraw a slavish def- 
 erence from the French schools. "And you Mr. Ah, 
 yes Ewing, to be sure our amiable and rotund host 
 
 94
 
 A Dinner at Seven-Thirty 
 
 tells me that you are to be a warrior in this fray of brush 
 and chisel. Bravo! You shall show me work." 
 
 Ewing had listened to his recondite discourse chiefly 
 with a morbid expectancy of that recurrent break in the 
 voice, straining until it came and relaxing until it quav- 
 ered back to the hazardous masculine level. Finding 
 himself thus noticed he stammered, "Oh, I I've done 
 some work in black and white. I hope Mrs. Laithe has 
 encouraged me." 
 
 "A charming modesty, yours; by no means the beset- 
 ting sin of your craft, but is Mrs. Laithe an ideal promoter 
 of genius? I fancy you'll need a sterner guide, one to 
 be harsh as well as kind. Women can't be that, least 
 of all the charming specimen who has honored you with 
 her patronage. I shall be proud to supplement her 
 deficiencies as critic her glorious, her fascinating defi- 
 ciencies. Women, audacious souls, are recklessly kind. 
 They incur perils to chill the blood of brave enough 
 men, meaning monstrously well all the time" his 
 narrowed eyes sought to read the face of Mrs. Laithe 
 "but I've yet to see one worth a second look who had 
 divined that there exists a certain arbitrary relation 
 between cause and effect. Need I word the inference? 
 . . . No? ..." Relieved by his scrutiny of her face 
 he broke off, his heart leaping to the thought, "She 
 doesn't know doesn't know . . . the fool!" 
 
 " I'll be glad to show you what I have," Ewing an- 
 swered, rejoicing at this solicitude in a critic so obviously 
 eminent. " I've been afraid all along that Mrs. Laithe 
 might be too kind." 
 
 "Kinder than she knew kindness is no word for her 
 excess. Women lack fiber where their sympathies are 
 involved. They'll not inflict pain within scope of their 
 
 95
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 imaginations beyond that rather narrow field of course 
 they're merciless, bless them! But trust me to score 
 your work if it deserves that, and trust me to praise 
 if it merits praise. You shall exhibit to me. By the 
 way" he consulted a small enameled watch "I've 
 a bit of time to spare. If you're stepping along I'll 
 not mind looking at your things this evening." 
 
 Ewing arose, glowing with pleasure. He felt drawn 
 to this wonderful little man who knew everything, and 
 who was visibly kind just, at any rate under that 
 fantastic cloak of severity. 
 
 "You're very good," he said. "I'm staying close by, 
 at the Stuyvesant." 
 
 " Drop in often, Ewing," urged Bartell as they shook 
 hands. "And don't let Teevan put you down. I dare 
 say you'll come on, you know, if you chuck worry." 
 
 As he parted from Mrs. Laithe he was aware of a new 
 look in her eyes. He had learned to read them. They 
 sought now to tell him . . . what? There was a 
 warning in them, and her glance seemed to enfold him 
 almost protectingly. But her words were not more than 
 those of formal parting, with a suggestion that he drop 
 in for tea some afternoon soon. 
 
 96
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE WAY OF THE UTTLE MAN 
 
 THEY walked briskly to the Stuyvesant in silence, 
 for Ewing could think of nothing to say, and 
 his companion seemed preoccupied. He showed, 
 indeed, the stress of some excitement, for Ewing once 
 heard him mutter heatedly. Suspecting this to be 
 meant for himself, he evoked by inquiry only an impa- 
 tient "Not here not here!" He believed that his 
 distinguished companion must be engrossed for the 
 moment with something profounder than the drawings, 
 of a novice. 
 
 At the hotel they ascended to Ewing' s room. Indicat- 
 ing a chair to Teevan he went to the mantel for matches. 
 When he had set the room to sudden light he stepped 
 quickly back, for the little man, standing there, glared 
 at him in a panic of fear and disgust. 
 
 In the shock of his embarrassment Ewing fumbled 
 at his overcoat and slowly drew it off. Teevan's eyes 
 now blazed rage upon him. His small, withered, blue- 
 veined hands were tightly clenched at his sides. His 
 attitude was almost a crouch. Ewing felt a furtive 
 amusement above his dismay, at sight of the dapper 
 little figure in this incongruous battle pose. 
 
 A moment they stood so, then the upper lip of Teevan 
 lifted slowly to a snarl. Seeing that he was about 
 to speak, there ran with Ewing's amazement an absurd 
 apprehension of that break in the voice. 
 
 97
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "What do you mean by it?" The swiftness, the 
 intensity of the utterance held the voice level thus far, 
 but the break came with the next words, and the speech 
 ended in a wail. 
 
 "What do you think to gain by coming here by 
 hounding me by hounding me?" 
 
 Ewing constrained himself to quiet, with an impulse 
 to soothe this inexplicable fury. 
 
 "Please sit down, won't you? You were going to 
 criticise my drawings, you know. You suggested it 
 a moment ago, and I thought " He took up a port- 
 folio of sketches from one of the open trunks. 
 
 "Your trash! What's that to me? Do you think 
 to pass this off? You've learned effrontery in a fine 
 school. Come to the point. What can you make by 
 this indecency this " 
 
 Ewing's look checked him something genuine in 
 his bewilderment. 
 
 "Come," began Teevan again, "is it possible you're 
 no one, after all, instead of being less than no one? You 
 know me, don't you?" 
 
 "Of course I know you; Mrs. Laithe introduced us." 
 
 "Oh, don't juggle. You can't swagger it off with 
 me. You shall not hound me or mine." 
 
 "Hound?" Ewing sought for light, still trying to 
 subdue this absurd assailant. 
 
 "Hound, I said, you smug brat! You know me 
 you've not forgotten my name so soon." 
 
 "Teevan, I believe. Really, Mr. Teevan I 
 
 "Randall Gordon Teevan! The name meant some- 
 thing to you, didn't it?" 
 
 "No; it didn't mean anything to me." 
 
 "Ah! say that again!" He came toward the 
 98
 
 The Way of the Little Man 
 
 younger man to peer up into his face with a grinning, 
 incredulous scowl. "Say it again!" 
 
 Ewing drew back from his scrutiny with a slight 
 impatience. 
 
 "Why say it again? Isn't once enough? You hear 
 well, don't you? What should your name mean to me? " 
 
 "You still try to carry that off? Your game isn't 
 ready to play?" 
 
 Ewing resumed his patient search. 
 
 "See here, Mr. Teevan, let's be very quiet and get at 
 this. I never heard your name until an hour ago. 
 Perhaps it ought to mean something to me, but it 
 doesn't. I'm not well acquainted in New York; I 
 only came here to-day. Now" his voice became 
 cajoling "suppose you sit down there quietly and tell 
 me all about yourself." 
 
 "Your name is Ewing, isn't it?" 
 
 "Of course!" 
 
 "What's your full name?" 
 
 "Gilbert Denhatn Ewing." 
 
 " Damn him!" 
 
 "Damn him? You are speaking of me?" 
 
 "Not you you cub!" 
 
 "Another Ewing?" 
 
 "Another Gilbert Denham Ewing!" 
 
 " I never knew any other but my father. And you 
 wouldn't be damning him." 
 
 He said this with a confident smile, and the peering 
 little man at last read him accurately. An impalpable 
 veil seemed to screen his scowling face. Erect from 
 his peering stoop he passed a small hand dazedly across 
 his brow, and his face had become pleasantly ingenuous, 
 alive with a half-comprehending regret. With a 
 
 99
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 rueful laugh he put out a hand to Ewing, who took it, 
 to say the least, doubtfully. 
 
 'A thousand pardons, my boy! I fear I've suffered 
 an attack of nervous aberration to which I am unhappily 
 subject. It's most distressing. I'm chagrined beyond 
 measure by the annoyance I must have caused you, 
 I give no end of worry to my specialist by these seizures. 
 My speech wandered provokingly, I dare say. It 
 always does. You'd not credit some of the things I've 
 said to my dearest friends at such times. But you can 
 fancy the mortification it is to me. You'll pardon me, 
 I trust youth's charity for the failings of age. The 
 horrid truth is that I'm a bit oldish not aged, not 
 outworn, mind you my years have come and gone 
 lightly but at times like these I'm obliged to admit 
 the count. Come, you'll forget?" 
 
 Ewing delightedly pressed his hand. He could 
 believe the little man's tale of his years. The hair 
 that he had remarked for its young look had been 
 uncannily twisted on the head of its wearer during the 
 flurry of his transport. An area of luminous scalp 
 now showed above one ear. 
 
 He stammered awkward but heartfelt words of 
 assurance. 
 
 "Doubtless it quite bowled you over," Teevan pur- 
 sued "though I never can recall what I've said; 
 but let us forget, and, if you'd not mind, let us say 
 nothing of it to anyone to Mrs. Z,aithe, for example. 
 If it came to the ears of my son he's over-anxious 
 about me already." 
 
 "Certainly, I'll not speak of it, and I'm sorry, very 
 sorry. Lay your gloves on the mantel there and find 
 a seat." He turned to his trunk, hoping the little man 
 
 100
 
 The Way of the Little Man 
 
 would sight his head in the mirror. When he again 
 looked up the hair was in perfect adjustment, and 
 Teevan beamed on him from an armchair. 
 
 "Your father," he began, "I seem to recall your 
 saying it *was a painter. Doubtless he taught you 
 much." 
 
 "I studied with him there in the mountains till he 
 died. I've nothing left of his but this portrait of my 
 mother." 
 
 He took the unframed canvas from the tray of the 
 trunk and held it before his guest. 
 
 "Do you get the right light there?" 
 
 It had been a bad quarter of an hour for Hwing, and, 
 as he adjusted the picture, he felt a moment's satisfac- 
 tion in having weathered it so plausibly. And now 
 that the curious little gentleman seemed restored, it 
 was pleasant to anticipate his cultured appreciation 
 of that work of art which was the boy's chief treasure. 
 
 "There isn't any shine across it now, is there?" he 
 asked, and looked up with a shy, proud, waiting smile. 
 
 But the agitations that had gone before were as 
 nothing to what now passed in front of his dismayed 
 eyes. One moment his guest hung staring at the canvas 
 with a goblin horror; then, uttering a kind of sob, he 
 shot incontinently out of the door. 
 
 The harried Ewing dropped the picture and rushed 
 in pursuit. He came up with the little man at the 
 head of the stairs. He was trembling, and his face 
 was ashen gray; but after a few deep breaths he smiled 
 and waved a hand jauntily to indicate humorous despair. 
 It seemed to say, " I am frequently like this it's annoy- 
 ing past words." He spoke of needing a restorative and 
 suggested an advisable haste in the direction of the cafe". 
 
 101
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "They've some choice old cognac downstairs. Sup- 
 pose we chat over a bit of it. I'm rather done up. 
 These absurd attacks of mine react on the heart. A 
 noggin of brandy will fetch me about. You'll come?" 
 
 They were presently at a table in the hotel cafe". 
 
 "We've the room to ourselves," said Teevan genially. 
 "Delightful old place, this; restful, reminiscent, mellow 
 and generally empty. I detest the cheap glitter 
 of those uptown places with their rowdy throngs. They 
 make me feel like a fish in a fiddle box, as our French 
 cousins say. You'll have soda with yours?" 
 
 Teevan drank his own brandy neat, and at once 
 refilled his glass. 
 
 " Now for a chat about yourself, my young friend 
 for surely only a friend could have borne with me as 
 tenderly as you have this evening. You're a fellow 
 of promise the future clamors for you your drawings 
 enchant me." 
 
 Ewing reflected that his drawings had not been ex- 
 posed, but the intention was kind, and he was grateful 
 for that. Teevan drank more brandy with a dainty 
 relish, and begged to hear of his young friend's adven- 
 tures in the far hills. 
 
 Ewing expanded in the warmth of this kindly con- 
 cern. He told, little by little, under adroit prompting, 
 what he had to tell. Teevan displayed a gratifying 
 interest, especially in what he recounted of his mother's 
 death. But at intervals during this recital the young 
 man became conscious, with astonishment, that there 
 was an inexplicable look on the other's face, a look which 
 he suddenly discovered to be an unbelievable veiled 
 pleasure. 
 
 He fell back with a quick, blind repulsion, and the 
 102
 
 The Way of the Little Man 
 
 two stared at each other, the elder man dissolving with 
 difficulty a monstrous smile. He appeared to recover 
 himself with an effort, finding the lines about his mouth 
 refractory, but his embarrassment was so poignant 
 that Ewing felt sorry for him. 
 
 "You must forgive me, old fellow! These damned 
 treacherous nerves of mine! I shall see that specialist 
 chap of mine directly in the morning. I'm so weak 
 that the sadness of that poor lady's death set me off 
 into something like hysteria." 
 
 It was one o'clock when they parted, and then only 
 at a hint that the place would close its old-fashioned 
 doors for the night. Ewing rejoiced to feel that he had 
 made a desirable friend. He liked the little man well. 
 Teevan had said at the last. "You should move on 
 to Paris, my boy. You'll need the touch they give 
 only in that blessed rendezvous of the masters." Ewing 
 went to his room realizing that the world of his dreams 
 did actually abound in adventure. His first day had 
 been memorable. 
 
 Teevan walked through Ninth Street to his own 
 home, a few doors beyond the Bartell house. It was 
 a place of much the same old-fashioned lines, that had 
 withstood the north-setting current. 
 
 He let himself in and went to the dining room at 
 the rear. Here he lighted a gas jet, took a decanter 
 from the sideboard, and brought a glass and a bottle 
 of soda from the butler's pantry. He sipped the drink 
 and lighted a cigarette. His musings, as first reflected 
 in his face, were agreeable. His mouth twitched 
 pleasantly, his eyes glistened. At intervals he chuckled 
 and muttered. With an increase of brandy in the glass 
 he became more serious. 
 
 103
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 When Alden Teevan entered an hour later he found 
 his father in a mood astonishingly savage. At sight 
 of his son the little man became vocal with meaningless 
 abuse. It was as if the presence of a listener incited 
 him to continue aloud some tirade that he had pursued 
 in silence. But the younger Teevan, lounging in the 
 doorway, only stared with polite concern as he was 
 greeted with these emotional phrases: 
 
 " a damned milk-and-water Narcissus a pre- 
 tentious cub with the airs of a cheap manikin of the 
 world a squeaking parasite a toadlike, damned 
 obscenity " 
 
 An easy smile came to the son's face as he noted the 
 fallen tide in the decanter. 
 
 " Night-night, my quaint, amiable father and cheery 
 dreams!" 
 
 They studied each other a moment. The elder man 
 seemed to meditate some disclosure, but stopped on the 
 verge of it. 
 
 "That's all, my boy!" 
 
 The young man laughed again. 
 
 "It's enough, I fancy but don't overdo it, Randy. 
 You know one mustn't at your age." 
 
 "I'm taking care, taking care of everything, my 
 boy never you fear " 
 
 The other passed on, but stopped at the stairway 
 and called back: 
 
 "I say, Randy!" 
 
 "Yes yes " 
 
 "Get to bed, you absurd little rat, you!" 
 
 104
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A NIGHT AT THE MONASTERY 
 
 EWING awoke late the next morning, rejoicing 
 that he need not cook his breakfast. After 
 feeding his hill-born hunger with novel and 
 exciting foods he sauntered out to become a wave on 
 the tide that flooded those strange, heart-shaking streets. 
 He mentally blazed his trail as he went. His soul 
 marched to the swift and cheerful stepping of the life 
 about him. He remembered Ben's warnings and 
 wished that expert in urban evil could see how little 
 menacing was this splendid procession. That the 
 Saturday throng of shoppers and pleasure seekers was 
 unaware of the greatness of the moment to him lent a 
 zest of secrecy to his scouting. 
 
 Back and forth he wandered on Broadway, the 
 moving crowds, volatile as quicksilver, holding him 
 with a hypnotic power. Often he stopped before some 
 shop, hotel, or theater that he had come to know in 
 print. Not until five o'clock did he find that he was 
 leg weary. Then he took his bearings and, in his own 
 phrase, "made back to camp." 
 
 A boy brought him Piersoll's card at six, and Piersoll 
 followed. He came with that alert self-possession 
 which Ewing had come to consider typical of these 
 dwellers in a crowd where each is the inconsiderable 
 part of a great organic body, and must yet preserve 
 his unique oneship. 
 
 8 105
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "Bully old place, this," Piersoll began. "My mother 
 came to balls here thirty years ago. Show me your 
 stuff." 
 
 He dropped into one of the armchairs and lighted a 
 cigarette. 
 
 EJwing opened a portfolio and placed drawings along 
 the wall. Piersoll slid his chair closer and studied them. 
 
 "They're only little things I've seen," murmured 
 Ewing. "I haven't had a chance to see much." 
 
 Piersoll blew out smoke and arose to put one of the 
 drawings in a better light. He gazed at this closely, 
 swept his eye again over the others, and exclaimed, 
 "All right! Bully! Good drawing, and the real thing. 
 That's the point you've drawn only what you've seen. 
 They're not all equally interesting, but they're all true. 
 You'll do." 
 
 " I'm glad you like them. I never knew if they were 
 good." 
 
 "They're better than I expected, from Mrs. Laithe's 
 talk. She was so keen about them, I made allowances." 
 
 " Mrs. Laithe seemed to think I might sell them." 
 
 "Some of those you can sell, undoubtedly. The 
 others show what you can do. They'll get your orders. 
 The magazines are using a lot of Western stuff. That 
 ranchman's wife there in her poor little flower garden, 
 surrounded by a million miles of sage and cactus fine! 
 It's a story picture, and the story's good. The Knicker- 
 bocker might use that. They might want a series from 
 you six drawings or so 'Scenes of Ranch Life.'" 
 
 "It sounds too good." 
 
 "It's not, and you'll get stories to illustrate. Can 
 you draw a pretty cowboy?" 
 
 "Pretty?" 
 
 106
 
 A Night at the Monastery 
 
 "The kind in the magazine story. Harvard man, 
 half-back, old New York family, named Van-Something 
 or other; unhappy love affair; tries ranch life; fearless 
 rider, dead shot 'six feet of clean-limbed, virile young 
 manhood,' is the approved phrase for him. He's a 
 beautiful thing his man keeps his chaps pressed, 
 and he never is seen needing a shave " 
 
 Ewing grinned appreciatively. 
 
 "Girl comes out from New York," continued Piersoll 
 "the girl, with her fierce aunt home on north side 
 of Washington Square. I'm going to do an article 
 on the story people who've had fine old homes on the 
 north side of Washington Square thousands! That 
 one block would have to be ten miles long to hold 'em. 
 Girl in tea gown, fierce aunt with lorgnon threatened 
 with death flood, fire, Apaches, stage-robbers, vicious 
 bull, rattler anything! Rescued by cool, daring, 
 clean-limbed Van-Soforth, who says 'By Jove!' as he 
 risks his life. That is, if it's in one of the respectable 
 magazines. If it's only a young ten-center he says 
 'Damn!' right out in print. Then, love scene on mesa, 
 faithful cow pony and mountains in background, and 
 return to New York by next train, with clean-limbed 
 Harold in one of our gent's nobby sack suits that sets 
 off the unconscious grace of his slight but muscular 
 figure oh, you know the story." 
 
 "I have read it somewhere something like it." 
 
 "You'll go on reading it. But you'll have to pretty 
 your cowboys if you make the pictures for it. Hulston 
 usually illustrates it. He can draw a cowboy that 
 would make a bunch of violets look coarse." 
 
 "I'm afraid I couldn't " 
 
 "Of course you couldn't. But you'll find work. 
 107
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 Some of the magazines are becoming reckless and 
 printing stories of cowboys that are almost real. Come 
 along to the club. You'll meet some fellows there. 
 The chap that printed my book is dining with me, 
 but he'll slip off early and we can have the evening 
 together." 
 
 "I liked your book," Ewing ventured, when they 
 were in the street. 
 
 "Well, that's comforting. I dare say it was easier 
 to read than it was to write. But about this club you're 
 going to it's a little place we've started lately illus- 
 trators, newspaper men, book writers and that ilk. 
 You must join. I believe I'll be safe in putting you up." 
 
 "I never joined a club," Ewing confessed. "Are 
 there conditions?" 
 
 "Rigid ones you must have ten dollars for the 
 entrance-fee, and not be a leper." 
 
 "Well" Ewing debated "I have the money " 
 
 "That's all you need think about. The other part 
 is ours. We have you in to dine and look you over. 
 Lots of men go there with an idea that they must be 
 witty. One fellow was turned down last week for 
 springing 'made' jokes at the table. I believe he spoke 
 of 'quail on trust' as we were served with that bird 
 and in the hearing of three members of the board of 
 Abbots. That settled him, of course. They didn't 
 need his imitations of a German dialect comedian, which 
 he sought to convulse them with later. Another man 
 was turned down lately for saying, 'Oh, how quaintly 
 bohemian!' after he'd looked about the grill room. 
 Another was ejected for playing 'chopsticks' on the 
 piano with the edges of his hands. They didn't even 
 let him get to the table. That's the sort of thing and 
 
 1 08
 
 A Night at the Monastery 
 
 we're strict, even though we need the money. I'm 
 bursar and I know. There are weird jests about my 
 decamping with the club funds, but I've never had 
 enough surplus yet to take me beyond Rah way." 
 
 They ascended the steps of a dingy-fronted brick 
 house in Clinton Place, a little out of the Broadway 
 rush. Passing through a bare, echoing hall, they entered 
 one of the two dining rooms of the club, connected by 
 immense sliding doors, now thrown open. They were 
 broad, lofty rooms with stained floors, mantels of gray 
 marble, and rich old doors of polished mahogany framed 
 in white casements the drawing rooms of some staid 
 family of a bygone generation, before the trade army 
 had invaded this once quiet neighborhood. 
 
 Bwing at once noticed the walls. They had been 
 covered with a grayish-brown cartridge paper, and on 
 this the members of the Monastery had plied their 
 charcoal in fancies more or less attuned to the spirit 
 of the organization. There were monks in most of 
 the pictures, monks combating or, alas! overborne by 
 one or another of that meretricious trinity which ever 
 conspires against godly living. Over the mantel in 
 the first room a pink-fleshed nymph in simple garb of 
 chef's cap allured an all but yielding St. Anthony 
 with one of the club's dinner menus held before his 
 hunger-lit eyes. On a panel to the right of this a befud- 
 dled lay brother, having emptied a flagon of wine, 
 perched on the arm of a chair and angled fatuously 
 in a jar of mocking goldfish, to the refrain: 
 
 " For to-morrow will be Friday, and 
 We've caught no fish to-day! " 
 
 To the left, Brother Hilarius furtively ignored his 
 breviary as he passed a gay affiche, from which a silken- 
 
 109
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 limbed dancer beguiled him with nimble, worldly caper- 
 ings, and smiles of the flesh and the devil. 
 
 "There's a vacant panel or two in the other room," 
 said Piersoll. "We'll save one for you. Come down 
 to the grill room it's early yet." 
 
 They went out through the hall and down a narrow 
 stairway. They heard the lively hum of voices, and 
 Ewing found himself in a low, wainscoted room, finished 
 in dull gray, where a dozen or so men talked loungingly 
 in corners, awaiting the dinner hour. 
 
 Piersoll presented him to several of these in so quick a 
 succession that their names became a many-syllabled 
 murmur in his ears. They found seats on a red-cush- 
 ioned corner bench of churchly pattern, and Piersoll 
 ordered cocktails. 
 
 Ewing tried to follow the talk running about him. 
 A boyish-looking reporter for a morning paper was 
 telling at a nearby table how he had been the first to 
 reach the scene of a railroad wreck in Pennsylvania late 
 the night before by fording a swollen river. At another 
 table a successful playwright obligingly expounded the 
 laws of dramatic construction to a respectful novice, 
 who seemed puzzled by their simplicity. At their own 
 table a youth of yellow melancholy confided to Piersoll 
 that the afternoon had witnessed an important transac- 
 tion in verse the sale of his ballade, "She Was a Belle 
 in the Days of Daguerre." "The editor of 'Quips' 
 took it and paid on acceptance let's have another," 
 he added with deep significance. 
 
 The atmosphere of the place was unthinkingly demo- 
 cratic. The cub reporter here met his city editor as man 
 to man. Piersoll identified various members of the gath- 
 ering the dramatic critic of an evening paper in busy 
 
 no
 
 A Night at the Monastery 
 
 talk with the Wall Street man of the same sheet; a 
 promising young composer cornered by the star re- 
 porter of a morning paper, a grizzled knight of the world 
 of war, crime, flood, fire, and all mischance of any news 
 value, a man who had attained the dignity of signing 
 his "stuff." Old men and young, they were compacted 
 of nerves, vividly alive, even those in whom the desk 
 stoop could be detected. 
 
 The movable feast of the cocktail waned and the groups 
 drifted upstairs. The publisher for whom Piersoll 
 waited came at last, a bland but keen-eyed gentleman 
 of early middle age, introduced to Ewing as Mr. Layton, 
 of Layton & Company. They followed the others up 
 to the dining room, and Piersoll found a table for three 
 under the drawing of the earnest but miscalculating 
 angler. 
 
 Ewing nervously apprehended talk of an abstruse 
 literary character from which he would be debarred. 
 The talk assuredly became abstruse, but it dealt in 
 literary values solely as related to public taste in the 
 novel of commerce, and to the devices of Lay ton & 
 Company for divining and stimulating that variable 
 quantity. 
 
 Instead of descanting on Shakespeare, as Ewing had 
 supposed a publisher would do, Layton, with the soup, 
 plunged into a racy narrative of how he had "boomed" 
 sales of "The Mask of Malcolm" the year before. That 
 had been a success compounded of trifles. Witness 
 Lay ton's chance view from a car window of a " Mask of 
 Malcolm" poster on a watering cart that toiled through 
 the dusty main street of a remote Western village. He 
 had written to the postmaster of that town for the name 
 of the cart's driver, sent him a copy of the novel 
 
 in
 
 E wing's Lady 
 
 inscribed by the author, and enough more posters to 
 cover his cart. Result: a sale in the aroused village 
 and surrounding country of two hundred and eighty 
 "Masks," where otherwise not more than half a dozen 
 would have been sold. Further result: the watering 
 carts of the great mid-West were now cunningly blazoned 
 with incitements to purchase Lay ton & Company's 
 fiction. 
 
 Ewing still feared Shakespeare or Chaucer, or George 
 Eliot, at the least; but the publisher clung to earth, 
 launching into his plans for PiersolPs next book. "The 
 Promotion of Fools" was in its hundredth thousand. 
 The next book must go beyond this. 
 
 "You want a smashing good love scene at the end," 
 urged the sapient Layton, "and plenty of good, plain, 
 honest heart feeling all through it. Make a quaintly 
 humorous character, simple-minded, trusting, but still 
 shrewd, and win the reader's sympathy for him by giving 
 him some sort of hard luck a crippled child that dies 
 isn't bad, if the father has been harsh to him some 
 time, not meaning to be, you know. And not too much 
 dialect; enough to contrast well with the Fifth Avenue 
 people. Then, with the kind of hero you know how 
 to draw swell family, handsome, refined, a real gentle- 
 man, and all that sort of thing, with an English valet 
 you'll have a story that will go. You can write a winner, 
 Piersoll, if you'll listen to your publisher. We keep 
 our fingers on the public pulse ; we know the taste better 
 than you can know it, shut up in your office. And 
 have a good, catchy dedication people are interested 
 in your personality. Couldn't you have in the next 
 book something like 'To my Mother in Heaven, whose 
 Memory ' " 
 
 112
 
 A Night at the Monastery 
 
 "Our people are all Unitarians," suggested Piersoll. 
 
 "What difference does that make " 
 
 "And my mother has been graciously spared to 
 us " 
 
 "Well, then, 'To my Gray-haired Mother, whose 
 Loving Counsel has ever ' you know the sort of thing, 
 short and snappy, but full of feeling. It helps, let me 
 tell you, with the people who pick up a book on the 
 stands." 
 
 Ewing lost the run of this talk for a time, entertaining 
 himself with a study of the other diners. The rooms 
 had rapidly filled, and two waiters scurried among the 
 tables. His attention focused on a long table in the 
 center of the room, whose occupants made savage and 
 audible comment on diners at other tables, and confided 
 to one another, in loud, free tones, their frank impres- 
 sions of late comers. 
 
 The door opened upon a goodly youth in evening 
 dress. Seven pairs of eyes from the big table fixed 
 him coldly as he removed his overcoat. 
 
 A voice, affectedly mincing: "As I live handsome 
 Harold Armytage!" 
 
 Another voice, hoarse with rage: "Curse ye, devil 
 that ye are, with yer oily tongue and city ways ! where's 
 me daughter Letty, me little lass, that ye took up to 
 the big city and threatened to make a lady of?" 
 
 A voice, hushed and slow: "They say the 
 child is in London." 
 
 The newcomer, flicking the ash from his cigarette, 
 glowered at the last speaker and hissed: "As for you, 
 Black Bart, alias Jasper Vinton, remember that one word 
 from me would set all Scotland Yard on your trail!" 
 
 A new voice from the table: "Stand back, Hector 
 
 "3
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 Walsingham! I would rather be the poor working 
 girl I am than the gilded toy your wealth would make 
 me and besides, you wear made ties! I'll have to 
 speak to the stage manager about that," continued the 
 speaker in less dramatic tones. " Look, it's one of those 
 horrible made things that fasten at the back of his neck 
 with a harness buckle see his hand go up to it!" 
 
 The newcomer emitted a mocking laugh, but judi- 
 ciously sought a seat in the next room. 
 
 "Say new idea for a melodrama," came another 
 voice from the long table. "The old thing with an 
 Ibsen twist. Stern father ready to drive erring daugh- 
 ter from his door in a snowstorm, but it won't snow! 
 Of course he can't send her off in pleasant weather. It 
 clouds up every few days, and the old man hopefully 
 gets his speech ready 'Curse ye, ye are no longer a 
 daughter of mine!' but the sun comes out again. Girl 
 gets nervous. Young squire gets nervous, too, though 
 he's married the girl in secret. He begs the old man to 
 put her out and have it over with, even if the weather 
 is pleasant. Old man won't hear of such a thing. Got 
 to have a howling snowstorm. His mind fails; he sits 
 in the chimney corner driveling about the horrible 
 winters they used to have when you could curse a daugh- 
 ter out almost any day in the week. Everybody dis- 
 gusted at the way things are dragging. Young peo- 
 ple quarrel. Divorce! Young squire sails for Labra- 
 dor to try it again, where you can count on the winters. 
 Girl watches ship out of sight, and it .snows! Snows 
 hard. But too late ah, God, too late! She rushes 
 back home to find the old man delirious with joy. He 
 starts in to do his speech at last, but she slowly strangles 
 him with her muscular young hands. Rather good cur- 
 
 114
 
 A Night at the Monastery 
 
 tain, that yes?" He looked around the table appeal- 
 ingly, but the others had turned from him to another 
 newcomer, a young man of dark and sinister aspect, whom 
 they greeted as Simon Legree. Ewing heard Eliza's 
 despairing cry, " Merciful Heavens, the river is choked 
 with ice!" above the deep baying of bloodhounds that 
 issued from half a dozen able throats. The newcomer 
 was obliging enough to scowl and demand fiercely, 
 "Tom, you black rascal, ain't you mine, body and soul?" 
 
 A fair-haired youth at the table, with the face of an 
 overfed Cupid, responded pleadingly: "No no, Massa! 
 Mah body may b'long to yo' but mah soul to de good 
 Lawd who made it!" 
 
 "Crack! Crack! Crack! Take that, you black hound, 
 and that, and that!" Uncle Tom cringed under the 
 blows of an imaginary lash, and Legree seated himself 
 at the long table. A bearded man at the head promptly 
 became little Eva, with a piping voice. "Uncle Tom, 
 dear Uncle Tom, I fear I am going to die in the last 
 act." 
 
 The faithful slave gulped at his claret and water and 
 replied tearfully, "Dar, dar, Miss Eba, yo' bre'k dis 
 pore ole man's heart!" 
 
 "And, dear Uncle Tom, remember that the colored 
 quartet will slink in and sing 'Rock of Ages' while I am 
 dying on a camp bed in the parlor. Think of that, you 
 black hound!" 
 
 " Indeed, that is what I am apprehending, Miss St. 
 Clair," returned Uncle Tom, this time in polished accents 
 and with marked urbanity. "And you are doubtless 
 aware that I shall have to be present and listen to it. 
 Come, then, little one ! If you must die, come with me 
 into the back yard where the quartet can't find us, and
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 I will feed you to the nice hungry bloodhounds. They've 
 had nothing since tea." 
 
 Bwing listened, aghast. He had once gone with 
 Ben in Durango to see "Uncle Tom's Cabin," and both 
 of them had wept at its heartrending crisis. It embar- 
 rassed him now to hear its pathos blasphemed, embar- 
 rassed him because he felt a sort of shamed mirth. He 
 was glad that Ben was not by. 
 
 Piersoll and his publisher still discussed literature. 
 Layton was now setting forth the superior state of the 
 latter-day author over those of the past. 
 
 " Those old fellows had no market publishers were a 
 sleepy lot. Think what could have been done with 'Par- 
 adise Lost,' illustrated by Hulston with about fifty half 
 tones and marginal decorations, and an elegant binding, 
 properly advertised with testimonials from clergymen 
 and leading actresses and senators and prominent col- 
 lege presidents. I tell you, gentlemen," he concluded, 
 earnestly, "this is the golden age of letters!" 
 
 This phrase unhappily reaching the big table in a 
 moment of quiet, made an instant sensation. 
 
 "The golden age of letters!" was echoed in concert 
 by eight men who arose solemnly and bowed to the 
 embarrassed Layton. He tried to smile tolerantly, as 
 if he knew a joke when he saw one. They sat down 
 and turned to stare at him with extravagant awe, catch- 
 ing his eye when they could and drinking to the golden 
 age. Piersoll grinned cheerfully at them. Ewing 
 was puzzled. 
 
 "I like this place for its literary atmosphere," said 
 one loudly, gazing over the head of Lay ton. "Don't 
 you all just love literature?" "Oh, I simply adore it!" 
 answered the next man. "I really can't say what I 
 
 116
 
 A Night at the Monastery 
 
 should do without books. I think they improve the 
 mind." 
 
 Now they hitched their chairs about so that they 
 could regard Layton more easily, though they affected 
 to be unconscious of his presence. 
 
 "It does seem to me that literature is good to read," 
 ventured another conservatively, "but then, / love 
 music and flowers and the little birds." 
 
 "I should die without literature," insisted another 
 "it's so good and excellent. Oh, why do not more 
 people read literature and be decent!" 
 
 "Now you take Henry James," began another, 
 judicially, " he's a bright writer, but he can't touch the 
 great throbbing heart of the public like Hall Caine can." 
 
 "What is a Hall Caine can?" demanded the whisk- 
 ered person bluntly. " I thought they kept 'em in jars." 
 
 Layton rose, genially bidding his host and Ewing 
 good night. The men at the long table rose with him, 
 bowed ceremoniously, and chanted "the golden age of 
 letters" as he passed all but one, who sobbed bitterly 
 because poor Shakespeare had not lived to see it. 
 
 Ewing was still dazed, but he had slowly been growing 
 cheerful. He felt that he could almost understand this 
 strange fooling. He would have been glad to observe 
 it still from a distance, but Piersoll took him to the long 
 table when Layton had gone. The others made room 
 for them, and Ewing responded somewhat timidly to 
 the introductions that Piersoll performed. He was a lit- 
 tle anxious lest he be made a part or target of their sport 
 and show himself awkward under the ordeal. For the 
 moment, however, there were remarks about the unde- 
 sirability of "tradesmen" as guests of the club. 
 
 "I know a lovely delicatessen merchant," said one 
 117
 
 Swing's Lady 
 
 brightly, "a most interesting person. He says this 
 is the golden age of cooked provisions. I must have 
 him round the next time Lay ton is brought in." 
 
 "I can get a plumber from over on Eighth Avenue," 
 volunteered another. "We might have a 'trade' 
 night, if Layton will come. Of course they'll talk about 
 nothing but how to sell their wares, but they'll have a 
 good time together." 
 
 Presently they forsook this theme, and Ewing found 
 himself talking to Chalmers, an illustrator with whose 
 work he had long been familiar. Though Chalmers drew 
 Western subjects, Ewing was amazed at his confession 
 that he had never been west of Jersey City. Chalmers, 
 on the other hand, was delighted to learn that Ewing 
 had so long been a part of that life which he had por- 
 trayed from afar, and was at once profuse with offers 
 of help when Ewing explained his situation. He was 
 eager to see his work, and would install him in a studio. 
 
 "I know the place for you," he exclaimed, after a 
 moment's reflection. "There's a vacant studio in our 
 building on Forty-second Street. Billy Glynn told me 
 to sublet it and sell the stuff the first chance I had. 
 You can move in right off if you like it." 
 
 Ewing thanked him warmly. It was pleasant to 
 find that the recent Simon Degree had his human side. 
 Two of the other men at the table had studios in the 
 same building: Crandall, who made pictures for a 
 comic weekly, and Baldwin, who was a magazine illus- 
 trator. They became, like Chalmers, solicitous to 
 oblige the newcomer, and were attentive to Piersoll 
 when he praised, with a quick word or two, the draw- 
 ings of Ewing. He felt immensely drawn to these 
 men who had dropped their bantering to be kind to him. 
 
 1x8
 
 A Night at the Monastery 
 
 The crowd of diners had thinned out until only a 
 few lingered over their coffee. From one or another 
 of these scattered groups would come a burst of laughter 
 at the climax of a story, or a bar of song from one who 
 had reached his playtime of the day, and recked not 
 if he advertised this. It was an hour of ease in the 
 Monastery, when its inmates expanded in the knowledge 
 that Sunday lay before them. To some, at least, this 
 could be a day of rest. 
 
 A musical member came from the rear room to the 
 piano near the long table to play a Liszt rhapsody. 
 When this performer had gone back to his seat one of 
 the men from the big table he who had lately enacted 
 Little Eva, and whose title of "The Brushwood Boy" 
 Ewing at once related to his beard seated himself at 
 the instrument. 
 
 " Heard a great song over on Third Avenue last 
 night," he began. "Wish I could remember some- 
 thing like this " His fingers searched for the melody. 
 Ewing caught a transient strain of it and thrilled to 
 recognize Ben's favorite, a thing he might be singing 
 to his guitar in the far-off lonely cabin at that very 
 moment. 
 
 " ' The Fatal Wedding,' " he ventured to the performer. 
 
 "Sure that's it! 'The Fatal Wedding.' Wish you 
 fellows could have heard it rich! How did it go, 
 now?" 
 
 Ewing recklessly hummed the opening bars. 
 
 "Go ahead, if you know it!" This came from 
 several of the men. He protested. He would have 
 liked to sing it, yet feared to do so before an audience 
 whose ridicule he had learned to dread. He considered 
 the song to be irreproachable and could understand 
 
 119
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 the apparent enthusiasm about it, but he doubted 
 his worth as a vocalist. 
 
 " I don't believe I'd better try it," he began; " I know 
 the words it's the favorite song of an old-time cowboy 
 I've lived with, and he does it right. I couldn't give 
 anything more than a poor imitation of him." 
 
 The inciting calls were renewed. 
 
 "Go on! Do your worst! Show us how your friend 
 does it! Silence in the back of the hall!" 
 
 Piersoll smiled encouragingly and the accompanist 
 struck the opening chords, having at last recalled the 
 air. Ewing diffidently took his place at the end of 
 the piano, with apologetic protests. "I'll do my best, 
 but you should hear Ben Crider sing this." 
 
 The little audience listened with unfeigned delight 
 as he sang of the handsome stranger who wooed the 
 village beauty, only to desert her for "a lady proud 
 and haughty" who had "houses, jewels, land, and 
 gold at her command." The words moved his hearers. 
 Had he not promised them to render the song in his 
 friend's manner? They felt he was achieving this 
 with rare art. Almost unconsciously, indeed, he sang 
 the song in Ben's best manner, with a sob in the voice 
 and even with Ben's strained, sad face as he reached 
 the pitiful climax: 
 
 " While they were honeymooning in a mansion on the hill, 
 Kind friends were laying Nellie out behind the mill." 
 
 He moved quickly back to his chair almost before 
 the first shouts of laughter dismayed him. He blushed 
 and glanced appealingly from face to face as the applause 
 was swelled by the groups in the rear room. He and 
 Ben had considered this no song to be laughed at. 
 It was too sad. Yet he saw that the applause was a 
 
 1 20
 
 A Night at the Monastery 
 
 friendly tribute to his performance. Piersoll was 
 pounding him joyously between the shoulders and Chal- 
 mers was urging him to do Ben Crider singing the 
 "Fatal Wedding" at their next club smoker. Baldwin 
 demanded the last verse again, and Ewing sang it, from 
 his chair this time, redoubling his efforts to bring out 
 its pathos. 
 
 In the new applause that deafened him he felt re- 
 assured. At least they were not laughing at him. He 
 joined weakly in the merriment. The gods had blessed 
 him with a gift for silence at critical moments. He 
 asked no questions. 
 
 As the mirth subsided voices were heard unctuously 
 rehearsing choice lines from the song. A passion for 
 the ballad pathetic had been aroused. Some one 
 called on Chalmers. 
 
 "Chalmers has written a song himself give it to 
 us, Chalmers the one you sang up at Needham's the 
 other night." Chalmers took his place and bowed low 
 as the accompanist poised eager hands above the 
 key-board. 
 
 "Gentlemen, with your kind attention, I'll give you 
 a little thing called 'Nothing but Mother' words and 
 music by a party that doesn't want his real name known 
 because the folks back home might hear of it. Let her 
 go, Professor!" 
 
 In a twangy, nasal voice, not unlike Ben's, enun- 
 ciating his words with the fastidious and strained pre- 
 cision of the music-hall balladist, he began: 
 
 " The courtroom, it was crowded, 
 
 All the witnesses was there; 
 The Judge he sat a-frowning 
 In his highly cushioned chair. 
 
 9 121
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 They was trying a old lady 
 
 For the stealing of a horse; 
 They had hauled her to the station, 
 
 They had dragged her there by force!" 
 
 The last line had been achieved with intense, pas- 
 sionate emphasis. Ewing, listening intently, felt the 
 pricking of a nameless suspicion. The song seemed 
 right enough, and yet some queer, ulterior emotion 
 stirred within him. The air continued in a stirring 
 minor, adapted to the dramatic action: 
 
 " Then uprose a handsome lawyer, 
 
 But would not give his name; 
 He defended this old lady 
 
 And well he done the same. 
 The verdict was "Not guilty!" 
 
 Tears stood in the jury's eyes; 
 When the unknown lawyer heard it, 
 
 Then says he to their surprise:" 
 
 With secret consternation Ewing waited, trying to 
 laugh with the others, who had exploded at "tears" 
 wrenched out in a high minor wail. The air now took 
 a graceful swinging waltz movement, and the puzzled 
 youth suffered an illumining flash: 
 
 " She was my mother once 
 
 In days of long ago; 
 I'll not forsake her now, 
 
 Her lots has fell so low. 
 I have other mothers now 
 
 To take me by the hand, 
 But I'll not desert this one 
 
 Just because I'm rich and grand." 
 
 Enlightened at last, Ewing joined in the applause, 
 amid which Chalmers resumed his seat. Instantly 
 perceiving why they had laughed at his own song, he 
 
 122
 
 A Night at the Monastery 
 
 burned at recalling how chance alone had saved him 
 from betraying a simple-hearted faith in the virtues 
 of that gem. Now it was funny, even to him. Other 
 songs of Ben's rang in his ears; they were all funny 
 though he must never let Ben know that. He had 
 unwittingly betrayed Ben to a ribald crew, but he had 
 learned a thing it was well to know. He had learned 
 of the world ; he had aged in a leap. 
 
 They sat late at table, drinking beer from stone 
 mugs, smoking long-stemmed pipes and trifling with 
 song. They blended their voices in melting harmony 
 at the climax of "Nelly's" woe and in the acuter parts 
 of "Nothing but Mother." 
 
 As they drifted out at midnight Chalmers made an 
 appointment with Ewing to inspect the vacant studio 
 and make himself, if he liked, one of the colony of not 
 too serious workers housed by the Rookery. 
 
 Half a dozen men strolled with him to the Stuyvesant, 
 and in the shadow of its sober doors, as a parting test- 
 imonial to his worth, they sang once more in blended 
 pathos: 
 
 " She was my moth-e-r-r once 
 In days so long a-g-o-o-o!" 
 
 He watched them up the street a block, pouring 
 out their hearts in song to a watchful and cynical police- 
 man. 
 
 123
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE NEW MEMBER 
 
 WHEN Ewing, a few days later, moved into 
 the vacant studio on the top floor of the 
 Rookery, the men there made an affair of it, 
 flocking from their studios to receive him. They showed 
 him the view from his windows, a far stretch of dull- 
 red roofs, with murky water butts stuck aloft like 
 giant cockades against the gray sky. They showed 
 him where he would sleep, in a little closet-like alcove 
 screened from the big room by a gay curtain. They 
 exhibited the alcohol lamp left by Glynn, over which 
 water would be boiled for the morning coffee. And 
 they superintended, from their wider experience, the 
 arrangement of his belongings. 
 
 He felt aloof from the friendly turmoil, unable to 
 believe that the place would be his own. The thing 
 was too vast for his experience. It would surely be for 
 another that Baldwin spread the Navajo blankets on 
 the floor and couch; for some one else that Chalmers, 
 of the beard him they called the Brushwood Boy or 
 eke "the human ambush" removed piles of old 
 magazines from the cot in the alcove; for some one else 
 that Dallas tucked brushes into a ginger jar; and for some 
 one else that Griggs tested water taps and the radiator. 
 
 When they had cheerfully discovered that no one 
 could think of anything further to do they trooped down 
 Broadway to celebrate Ewing's advent in a dinner 
 
 124
 
 The New Member 
 
 at the Monastery. When this was over and the crowd 
 had thinned to a few late sitters they had him do a 
 picture. The others watched him as he worked, stand- 
 ing on a bare table drawn to the wall. Brother Hilarius 
 grew before their eyes, insecurely astride a bucking 
 broncho, narrowly observed by two figures in the 
 background a dismayed brother of his order in gown 
 of frieze and hempen girdle, and Red Phinney, contort- 
 ing himself in ribald glee. 
 
 The watchers applauded as the picture grew. They 
 had not supposed that the quiet, almost timid, boy, 
 who betrayed his unsophistication by countless little 
 mannerisms, could have attained the sureness of line 
 his strokes revealed. 
 
 The heated air of the room rushed up to make a torrid 
 zone of the region about the worker's head, and from 
 time to time one of the watchers handed him a mug of 
 creaming ale with which he washed the dust of the char- 
 coal from his throat. He lost himself in the work at 
 last. The voices, laughter, songs, strains of the piano, 
 came but faintly to him, and were as the echoes of 
 street life that sounded in his ears each night before he 
 slept. It was after one o'clock when he stepped down 
 from the table to survey the finished drawing. 
 
 He knew he had done well, but he was glad to be told 
 so by others. It was clearly their opinion that the club 
 had in no way descended from its high standards of 
 mural decoration. Baldwin brought a bottle of fixa- 
 tive and sprayed the drawing through a blowpipe. 
 Then they drained a final bumper to the artist and 
 the work and went out into the mild September night, 
 making the empty street, sleeping in shadow, resound 
 to their noisy talk. 
 
 12$
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 The light of a car crept ghostlike toward them and 
 they stood to board it. As it moved on through Broad- 
 way Ewing thought of an empty creek bed at the bottom 
 of some ravine at home. This was the dry time, but 
 with earliest dawn would come the freshet, flooding 
 the canon, surging over its rocky bed to some outlet 
 as mysterious as its source. The image brought him 
 a sudden pang of homesickness. Despite the jovial 
 friendliness of the crowd he was still a detached spec- 
 tator. There was no intimacy for him, no real contact. 
 He was glad to remember the bed that awaited him and 
 confessed this to Chalmers. 
 
 "Bed!" echoed Chalmers in righteous amazement. 
 " What's the use of going to bed ? You only fall asleep ! " 
 
 "He's right, old man," put in Baldwin warningly. 
 " I've tried it." 
 
 Dallas turned a reproachful gaze on Bwing. "God 
 has given you a beautiful life and you sleep it away! 
 Come, come, man!" 
 
 "We'll have a bite to eat, anyway," broke in Griggs. 
 "Come on, here's Clayton's." 
 
 They were presently about a table far back in a 
 restaurant where lingered many sitters-up of nights. 
 They ordered Welsh rabbits and ale. Ewing refused 
 the ale and drank water. 
 
 Dallas put on an air of wishing to defend this choice 
 of beverage. "Of course, it's the stuff that made 
 Noah famous," he submitted. 
 
 "Yes and it made all that trouble at Johnstown, 
 too," broke in Chalmers with deep hostility in his look 
 at Ewing's glass. "I can't forget that. Water has 
 never been the same to me since." 
 
 They fell to the food when it came. They smoked, 
 126
 
 The New Member 
 
 they drank more ale, they sang in tones enough subdued 
 to avert public disfavor, and they flung jests about to 
 spice the endless gossip of their craft. 
 
 Ewing listened, yet with eager eyes for the people 
 at other tables about them. These men and women 
 captivated him by their suggestions of mystery char- 
 acters in the play he was forever beholding curious- 
 looking men whose faces suggested lives of dramatic 
 tension; beautiful women, splendidly arrayed, with much 
 of mystery and something of daring in their animation. 
 He scanned them all furtively as the talk at his own table 
 flowed on. 
 
 It was chiefly of their work that they talked. Chal- 
 mers related matters exposing the inefficiency of an art 
 editor to whose mercies fate now and then betrayed 
 him. Chalmers bitterly thought that this person should 
 be driving an ice wagon or helping about in a shipyard, 
 or something of the sort not telling artists how to 
 draw their pictures. 
 
 Baldwin sympathized. He had his own art editor. 
 It came out that no man present had ever even heard 
 of a competent art editor. It stood to reason that there 
 could be none. A man of capacity to be an art editor 
 would have too much self-respect. He would starve 
 in the gutter first. But it took time and talk and 
 replenished mugs to reduce this truth to its beautiful, 
 naked simplicity, and Ewing at last saw that day had 
 come. The lights inside were paling to an unwhole- 
 some yellow. He mentioned the circumstance insinuat- 
 ingly, for he was tired. 
 
 Baldwin scowled at his watch, then dropped it into 
 his fresh mug of ale, and glanced triumphantly about 
 the table. 
 
 127
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "A degenerate race," muttered Chalmers. "At the 
 first sign of daylight we scamper off to bed like 
 scared rabbits. For me thank God there's nothing 
 like the glorious sunrise, the crisp air, the healthy 
 glow. There's magic in it Nature's choicest gift. 
 Yes, sir, the splendors of dawn for me! D'you s'pose 
 I'd miss this?" He glared about the room and ecstatic- 
 ally sniffed the thick, smoky air. "What does that 
 clod know of beauty?" He indicated a waiter, dozing 
 against the wall with practiced equilibrium. 
 
 "Well, well," exclaimed Baldwin, "if I haven't gone 
 and forgotten to eat breakfast! How shiftless!" He 
 aroused the waiter with snapping fingers. " I hope we're 
 not keeping you up, Claude, but bacon and eggs, please, 
 and coffee." 
 
 An hour later they went out to find the street already 
 alive with early workers. Baldwin appeared to consider 
 that these, also, were night-long revelers. 
 
 "'Stonishing how they can keep it up, night after 
 night," he remarked, frowning in wonder at the early 
 procession. "You'd think they'd have to sleep some 
 time." 
 
 " It'll tell on their nerves sooner or later, you mark 
 my words," said Griggs sententiously. 
 
 Chalmers stared intently into the window of a florist 
 adjoining the restaurant. He turned to them with 
 purpose in his fair face and spoke again of his art editor. 
 
 "Only trouble with him he's passed away, poor fel- 
 low, and doesn't know it. He ought to be told but 
 not brutally. I see something here for him." 
 
 He came out of the florist's presently with a sizable 
 emblem of mortality a floral pillow with " Rest" worked 
 on it in immortelles. 
 
 128
 
 The New Member 
 
 ."Come on!" 
 
 At the corner they crowded into hansoms. It was 
 a long ride, and Ewing was asleep when they reached 
 Park Row, but they aroused him to help escort Chal- 
 mers and his offering to the elevator of a mighty building. 
 While they awaited his return Baldwin bethought him 
 of his own art editor. He seemed to believe that some- 
 thing fitting might be done. After deep reflection he 
 crossed the narrow street to a district messenger office, 
 to emerge a moment later followed by eight grinning 
 messenger boys. These he led to the elevator of another 
 building near by. 
 
 Chalmers returned from his own mission, wiping his 
 eyes. 
 
 " Poor fellow, he knows he's dead now. But I broke 
 down and sobbed like a child when I gave it to him 
 I'm all heart. It's over now, all but the life insurance. 
 And yet he didn't thank me. On the contrary he spoke 
 language I should blush to repeat." 
 
 The others put on looks of chastened gloom and were 
 speaking in hushed tones of the sad event when Baldwin 
 returned. He dismissed his uniformed attendants with 
 largesse. 
 
 "Thing that needed to be done for his own good," 
 he explained. "Max believes he's an art editor, but 
 nobody else does nobody else ever believed it in this 
 whole wide, beautiful world. So I lined those trusting 
 little boys up in front of his door and said, 'Boys, look 
 in there and you will see a real art editor.' They looked 
 in at old Max and then at me. 'You believe it, don't 
 you, boys?' I asked them, and they all said, 'Yes, sir!' 
 So I made them bow to him and say in concert, 'We 
 do believe you are an art editor, no matter what other 
 
 129
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 people say,' and then we left. We had to. I'm ashamed 
 to tell you but old Max seemed to forget that he was 
 a gentleman. He'll thank me when he conies to his 
 senses, all the same. He can lay his head on his pillow 
 to-night knowing that there are others in the world 
 besides himself who believe he's an art editor. Oh, 
 I love to do good!" he concluded with a benevolent 
 smirk. 
 
 Once more they were in the hansoms and Ewing 
 slept again, to the strains of " I have other mothers now," 
 sung by Baldwin, who sat in his lap. 
 
 As they climbed the stairs of the Rookery Baldwin 
 found the moment suited for sage counsel to Chalmers. 
 
 "'T won't do, my boy 't won't do! Can't burn 
 candles both ends. Your face this minute looks like one 
 of those cheap apple pies in a restaurant window." 
 
 Ewing mounted to his own floor and found himself in 
 the curious stillness of the big room. It had seemed to 
 wait there for him, mutely, but with desire. He stood 
 a moment in the silence, his ears ringing with after sounds 
 of the night. He fell on the couch, too tired to go for- 
 mally to bed, and felt himself falling into sleep as into 
 a beneficent and welcoming abyss. 
 
 130
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SEARCHING THE WILDERNESS 
 
 HE awoke from a dream noisy with laughter and 
 the ring of shod hoofs on a stone roadway; 
 a phantasma in which faces were gray and 
 distorted through smoke and people did wild things 
 in sane ways. He lay long enough to separate the fiction 
 of this dream from the actual but not more credible 
 performances of the night before. Then he rose, yawning 
 away the last of his drowsiness, and looked out over the 
 roofs. He saw that it was late afternoon, for the shadows 
 of the water butts ran well to the east. The mute 
 solitude of the scene gave his loneliness a new pang. He 
 felt more solitary in the multitude than he had ever 
 felt in his unpeopled hills. Yet the place still lured him, 
 not less than in days when he had hungered for it, 
 a starved lover of life in the desert. If only he could 
 find some one to come near, some one to whom he could 
 be his unguarded self. Such a one must exist. 
 
 His eyes swept the reticent roofs, and his mind searched 
 beneath them: what felicitous possibilities did they not 
 conceal? People doubtless fasting like himself, longing 
 for the friendly cry, eating their hearts out in loneliness 
 men and women he might know or never know. He 
 lifted each roof as he gazed; under any one of them 
 might be the companion ; under all were charms of adven- 
 turous search. 
 
 In this moment of homesick longing his mind caught
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 at Mrs. Laithe. She had told him to come soon. Did 
 that mean in one day, or in ten? She was his one link 
 with an old life that had filled if it did not satisfy. And 
 sometimes she had met him. Chiefly she had been a 
 woman for the eyes, but there had been fleeting times 
 when they touched in ways that brought him a deeper 
 satisfaction times when invisible antennae from each 
 seemed to be in communicative contact. These mo- 
 ments brought back the palsy of shyness that had 
 stricken him at his first glimpses of her; yet they 
 brought, too, some potent, strange essence that sus- 
 tained him. He resolved to go to her now. She mysti- 
 fied, she dismayed him, but her kindness was de- 
 pendable. 
 
 It was the memory of this that moved him to throw 
 off his stale, smoke-saturated garments, to bathe, to 
 dress himself afresh, and to walk briskly through the 
 tonic sharpness of a September afternoon. 
 
 As he rang the bell a vague, delightful home-coming 
 warmth rushed over him. 
 
 " In a moment I shall see her," he said within himself. 
 As the door swung back he heard the din of many voices 
 and caught a rush of heated air, sweetish with the odor, 
 as it seemed, of tired and fainting flowers. At the 
 entrance to the drawing room he faltered, for the place 
 was thronged with terrifying strange people who held 
 teacups and talked explosively. 
 
 Longing to flee, he saw Mrs. Laithe across the room, 
 turning somewhat wearily, he thought, away from three 
 or four voluble women, as if to snatch at a moment of 
 rest from her perfunctory smile. Almost instantly her 
 eyes swung to his, and he became aware, as she started 
 toward him, of some sudden flurry leaping behind their 
 
 132
 
 Searching the Wilderness 
 
 black-fringed curtains, a quick play of lights that stirred 
 and confused him. She gave him her hand with half- 
 formal phrases of greeting under which he detected 
 a rising nervousness. 
 
 "So good of you to come, and on my day! They're 
 tiresome at best. You are well? You shall have tea 
 and know some people." She went to a table between 
 the two rooms, where a girl in white drew tea from a 
 samovar into many little cups. Ewing began to watch 
 this girl, a slight but rounded creature with yellowish 
 hair curving down either side of her tanned face. He 
 caught a greenish light in her eyes, as she bent to her 
 task with a somewhat anxious concentration. 
 
 Mrs. Laithe brought him the tea, which he helplessly 
 took, and presented him to a vivid-hued young matron, 
 who made room for him beside her. His part in the 
 talk that followed was confined to mutterings of agree- 
 ment, tinged now and then with a discreet sympathy. 
 He heard the latest golf and yatching news and sprightly 
 chat of the lady's newest motor car. He caught a blurred 
 view of the Austrian Tyrol, and absorbed technical data 
 on the operation of smuggling silk stockings from Paris. 
 He gleaned that Airedales were difficult to raise; that 
 Caruso would return; that all coachmen were but hire- 
 lings of the sales stables, when you got at the root of 
 the trouble. He learned that Newport had been deadly, 
 Bar Harbor impossible, Tuxedo not half bad for a week 
 end; and that New York would be empty for another 
 fortnight. 
 
 Upon none of these difficult matters had he anything 
 of moment to offer. The assertion that New York was 
 empty bereft him, indeed, of even his slender power of 
 assent. The lady would have considered him stupid but 
 
 133
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 for the look with which he met her quick eyes from time 
 to time. She decided that he was merely bored a 
 thing not to be particularly remarked. It was common 
 enough in the men she met. 
 
 In one of the roving looks he permitted himself under 
 his companion's discourse his glance rested on two people 
 far back in the library. One was Mrs. Laithe's father. 
 He stood, cup in hand, talking down to a smartly 
 attired, whitehaired woman who sat forward in her chair 
 and stared at Ewing. Her gown was black, and one 
 white-gloved hand rested on Bartell's arm. Her eyes 
 did not waver as Ewing met them. He saw that Bartell 
 seemed to identify him in the throng and speak a few 
 words to the lady. Ewing turned to his companion, 
 discomfort under that steady survey. A moment later 
 he was drawn to look again and saw Bartell coming 
 toward him. 
 
 "Ah, young man!" His greeting oozed cordiality, 
 the soothing friendliness of a man fitted to find only the 
 pleasantness of life. 
 
 " And come with me, if Mrs. Dudley will let you off 
 the lady smiled a pretty but unreserved assent "an 
 old friend, Mrs. Lowndes, wants to know you. She's 
 a dear soul, always jolly. Tell her about cowboys and 
 things, won't you something pleasant." 
 
 They stood before the woman in the chair, and Bartell 
 uttered a few words which Ewing did not hear, for at the 
 moment he had glanced up to see Mrs. Laithe watching 
 him with eyes of such genuine dismay that confusion 
 overtook him. He wondered what wrong thing he could 
 have done, but recovered in time to bow and murmur a 
 phrase of acknowledgment. His new acquaintance in- 
 dicated a seat beside her, but did not look at him. 
 
 134
 
 Searching the Wilderness 
 
 "Thank you, Chris. Mr. Bwing will entertain me. 
 Run off to someone as young as yourself." 
 
 Bartell smiled himself back into the more crowded 
 room, and Ewing waited, apprehending talk like that 
 he had lately undergone. But he found that this woman 
 who had stared at him so curiously was not voluble. 
 For a long time she remained silent. Once he glanced up 
 to observe that her eyes were closed, and seized the 
 moment to study her face. He thought she was very 
 old sixty at least. Yet the face showed strength in 
 its frailness. The cheeks, looking brown under the plen- 
 teous white hair, were lined but not withered, and the 
 curve from brow to chin revealed more than a suggestion 
 of self-will. A dainty but imperious old lady he thought 
 her. He might have believed himself forgotten but 
 for an intimation of waiting thrown out by her manner, 
 a suggestion of leaning toward him, breathless, one of 
 the gloved hands poising as if to alight on his arm. He 
 found this less tiring than the compulsion he had lately 
 been under to agree with a livelier woman about mat- 
 ters strange to him. And yet he was relieved when she 
 opened her eyes as if to speak. He regarded her with 
 puzzled but kind expectancy. At last she said, and he 
 understood that her voice was unnaturally tight and 
 hard: 
 
 "Mr. Bartell tells me that you are a painter, Mr. 
 Ewing." 
 
 "I'm trying to be they are very kind here." 
 "Your father was Gilbert Ewing a painter?" 
 "Oh, you knew him?" He thrilled at the thought, 
 but was disappointed. 
 
 "Mr. Bartell mentioned his name and yours." 
 
 " He was a painter, yes; he died out there in Colorado." 
 
 135
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 She seemed to shudder ever so slightly and her eyes 
 closed again. 
 
 "And your your mother?" The words were hardly 
 more than a whisper. 
 
 "My mother died when I was very small." 
 
 Again she seemed to wince under a sting. But now 
 she fell away from that waiting tenseness with which 
 she had held him. The hand that had hovered over 
 his arm fell limply into her lap, and she leaned back 
 in her chair. 
 
 "I'm afraid you aren't very well," he ventured. 
 "The rooms are close." 
 
 She opened her eyes, with no sign of having heard. 
 Sitting forward in her chair she gazed ahead with 
 narrowed eyes. 
 
 "I am an old woman and dull, Mr. Ewing, but I 
 should like to have you come and see me." 
 
 "I'll be glad to come," he answered promptly enough, 
 though he could not keep surprise from his voice. 
 
 "Come to-morrow, if you will, and pardon an old 
 woman's whim in asking you with so little ceremony." 
 
 "I will come, of course." He wondered if she felt 
 a city loneliness like his own. 
 
 "Thank you. I shall be in after four." She gave 
 him a card from a small silver case at her belt. "The 
 room is close. You may fetch me tea." 
 
 He was certain her eyes were sharply on him as he 
 went, and when he returned, her full gaze swept him 
 with a look in which he curiously read incredulity, with 
 something beside that might have been fear or repulsion 
 he could not determine. She took the tea, but set 
 it down untasted. A very queer old lady he thought 
 her. He stood by in embarrassment, not knowing 
 
 136
 
 Searching the Wilderness 
 
 what to say. Glancing about for inspiration he was 
 relieved to see Bartell bearing down upon him from 
 the side of Mrs. Laithe. He came up jovially. 
 
 "I've been ordered to separate you two, Kitty. 
 Young men aren't plentiful at this time, and Eleanor 
 wants one." 
 
 "Thank you for bringing him, Chris." She gave 
 Ewing a little nod, which he construed as his release, 
 and he turned to meet Mrs. Laithe. 
 
 She sought his eyes with that swift look of appre- 
 hension which had before puzzled him, and threw another 
 glance toward Mrs. Lowndes, who now chatted smilingly 
 with Bartell. She seemed to be reassured. 
 
 "I do hope you've not been bored. No? I was 
 afraid. Come and meet my sister," and she momentarily 
 swept away his memories of the queer old lady by lead- 
 ing him to the girl in white who poured tea. 
 
 "Virgie, this is Mr. Ewing." 
 
 The girl looked up with that hint of shyness he had 
 before observed in her. The eyes instantly recalled 
 his own mountain lake when the light showed it to far, 
 green depths. But they fell at once, for she inclined her 
 head toward him, seized a cup and demanded sternly, 
 "Cream or lemon I mean I'm very glad to know you. 
 Do you take sugar?" 
 
 In his own embarrassment he would have told her, 
 but Mrs. Laithe broke in with her low laugh. 
 
 "He doesn't want tea, child, he only wants " 
 
 The girl interrupted defensively, with a flutter of 
 eyelids toward Ewing: "I can't remember what they 
 like when they come back the second time. It's too 
 much to expect." 
 
 "Your martyrdom is over, dear. No one wants 
 
 10 137
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 more tea, and most of them are escaping. Talk to Mr. 
 Ewing while I speed them." 
 
 The girl sank wearily into a chair, with a rueful 
 glance at the table's disarray of cups and plates. 
 
 "I'll dream about tea to-night." Her hands met 
 disconsolately in her lap. 
 
 "I suppose there was a lot of it," Ewing replied 
 sympathetically. 
 
 "Why do they do so many insane things here?" 
 demanded the girl. "They're always at something. 
 Town is tiresome." 
 
 "But don't you live here?" 
 
 "Dear no! I went to live with mamma's sister up in 
 New Hampshire when I was small, after mamma died. 
 There was no one here to raise me. And now that I'm 
 raised they want me back, but I shy at things so dad 
 says I'm not city broke. I shall hold off another year 
 before I get into this sort of thing " She waved an 
 ably disparaging hand toward the backs of several 
 unsuspecting people who lingered. Then she looked 
 up to meet his laugh and laughed prettily with him. 
 The two had found common ground by some free- 
 masonry of the shy. 
 
 "Does it seem like a play to you, too?" he asked; 
 "everyone playing a part and making you wonder how 
 it's coming out?" 
 
 "Well" she debated "I used to have that, when 
 I was at school and came here for holiday times. I was 
 always expecting great things to happen then. But 
 they never did. You'll be disappointed if you expect 
 them. Everybody rides down Broadway in the morning 
 and back again at night, and they make such a fuss 
 about it that you think something worth while is coming 
 
 138
 
 Searching the Wilderness 
 
 off, but it doesn't. I know." She achieved this with 
 an air of mellowed cynicism that almost won his respect. 
 
 "But things must happen where there's so much 
 life," he insisted. 
 
 "You're very young, aren't you?" she retorted. 
 "Quite a boy, I should think. Sister said so. You'll 
 see, though. It isn't one bit more a happening life 
 than ours up at Kensington. Yours must have been 
 the happening life, there in the West. Tell me about 
 Clarence. Is he a real cowboy yet? He says he's 
 a real one, but I couldn't believe it. Those I saw in 
 the Wild West show looked as if they'd had to study 
 it a long time. Can Clarence lasso a wild cow yet?" 
 She leaned toward him with friendly curiosity. They 
 were amazed half an hour later when they looked up 
 to find Mrs. Laithe standing by them, the only other oc- 
 cupant of the room. 
 
 "You must come oftener," urged Mrs. Laithe. Her 
 sister gave him her hand with a grip that made him 
 wonder at its force. 
 
 He pushed through the evening crowd of Broadway, 
 pleasantly reviewing his talk with the girl. At Forty- 
 second Street it occurred to him that this was the first 
 time he had walked the street unconscious of its throng. 
 He had been self -occupied, like most of its members. 
 
 But the girl, he reflected, would go away. The 
 friend, the near one, to take and give, man or woman, 
 was still to be found.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 THE TRICK OF COLOR 
 
 THE men of the Rookery toiled, in the season of 
 toil, with that blithe singleness of purpose 
 they brought to their play. Ewing learned 
 this the following morning when, after an hour in his 
 own place, correcting some of those hasty first arrange- 
 ments, he began an idling tour of the other studios. 
 These occupied the two upper floors of the building, 
 those beneath flaunting signs of trade on the ground - 
 glass doors one passed in the long climb from the street. 
 
 From Baldwin's studio Baldwin was sketching in 
 from the model a kneeling Filipino prisoner with head 
 thrown back and hands bound behind him Ewing 
 descended to Chalmers's place to find its owner finish- 
 ing, with many swift pen strokes, the filmy gown of a 
 debutante who underwent with downcast eyes the 
 appraisal of an elderly beau. This absorbed and 
 serious Chalmers was so unlike the frivolous night 
 bird who reviled his art editor that Ewing forbore to 
 distract him. 
 
 Griggs, in the studio back of Chalmers, was soberly 
 work-bent over the wash-drawing of a sword fight, an 
 illustration for what he confided to Ewing was the 
 latest "high boots and hardware novel." 
 
 "One lovely thing," explained the artist, "they all 
 take the same pictures the plighted troth in the chateau 
 garden; the lone hero spitting eight low-browed mer- 
 
 140
 
 The Trick of Color 
 
 canaries of the scoundrelly duke at the end of the blind 
 passage; 'nother fight on the main stairway of the 
 palace, girl in view back of the hero, who's still acting 
 the village cut-up with his little rapier; and the last 
 picture, reward of hero in front parlor of the chateau, 
 my Lord the Cardinal standing by to bless the happy 
 pair, and the wicked Duke Bazazas being dragged out 
 by loyal serving men to be finished off in the woodshed. 
 The caption for that one always is, 'At Last, My Darling!' 
 I just glance along the proofs until I light on those 
 scenes. It saves a lot of reading, and I think of getting 
 a set of rubber stamps to do the pictures with." 
 
 "You seem to be all black-and-white men here," 
 remarked Ewing. "Aren't any of you painters? I've 
 thought I'd like to work in color to learn the trick of 
 it." 
 
 Griggs glanced up at him, then smiled largely. 
 
 "The trick of color, eh? Sure! There's a boy 
 upstairs next door to you old Pop Sydenham. I'll 
 take you up now, but don't let him hear you call it 'the 
 trick of color.' Pop has been at that trick for over a 
 century now I believe he's a hundred and nineteen 
 years old to-morrow. He's got a darned refined sense 
 of color, too. I guess he's seen every color in the 
 world, except some of those he puts on his own canvases. 
 Some of those I don't believe he ever saw anywhere 
 else. But Pop's worth knowing if you're keen to paint. 
 He's a whole Art Students' League in himself. Come 
 on, he'll be proud to have you notice him." 
 
 Wiping his hands neatly on his jacket plainly a 
 long-established custom with him Griggs led the way 
 to a room across the hall from E wing's. He opened the 
 door in answer to a call and pushed Ewing in before 
 
 141
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 him. Sydenham leaned back on his stool to peer at 
 them around the corner of his easel. 
 
 He was an old man, as Griggs had said. White hair 
 fell in sparse locks over his ears, and his short, roughly 
 pointed beard was scant enough to reveal sunken cheeks. 
 But the face was tanned to a wholesome brown, and the 
 eyes that glanced over his gold-rimmed spectacles 
 were full of fresh good-humor. He nodded to Griggs 
 and clambered down from his stool to greet Ewing. 
 
 "He's a line man now," announced Griggs after the 
 introduction, "but some busybody has gone and told 
 him that there's such a thing as real color. Of course 
 I don't pretend to know myself, but I told him you did. 
 He's your neighbor on this floor. Run in often and 
 make yourselves at home with each other," he con- 
 cluded cordially. "I must hurry back and finish a 
 fight." 
 
 "May I look?" asked Ewing, his eyes running about 
 the room to the many canvases. 
 
 "My summer's work is there Look? yes; but I can't 
 promise what you'll see. You bring your own eyes. 
 I can't make eyes, too. If I only could " He spoke 
 with a slow, soft gentleness, his blue eyes half shut and 
 dreamily distant. As Ewing turned to study a land- 
 scape leaning against the wall on a table near by, the 
 painter climbed to his stool and twined his thin legs 
 confusingly among its supports. Then facing his 
 canvas and working a brush into the color on his palette 
 he continued: 
 
 " Line is a fact. Color is only a sensation. Anyone 
 can prove line, but to know color you must have imag- 
 ination. If you lack that and do have a gift for humor- 
 ous abuse you can be an art critic and make quite a bit 
 
 142
 
 The Trick of Color 
 
 of money, I'm told." He had begun to paint as he 
 talked. He spoke with the same slow gentleness, 
 even when a hint of seasoned bitterness betrayed itself. 
 
 One close look at the sketches about him had made 
 Ewing rejoice that his own paintings were safe with 
 Ben Crider. He studied the canvases before him with 
 pleasure and dismay: wooded hills, grassy meadows, 
 a park slope with a single birch ; mist rising over a marsh ; 
 a country road narrowing into a blaze of sumach. 
 They showed plainly enough, he thought, that color 
 must be conveyed rather by implication than by blunt 
 directness, and there, he felt, had been his own great 
 blunder. He had been brutally direct. 
 
 Some of the pictures before him left him wanting a 
 sharper definition of line, a more explicit modeling of 
 surface, a treatment less timid, and the color itself, 
 though it never failed to interest him, often puzzled 
 or even irritated. He sought for words to disclose 
 what he felt, his admiration for some of the sketches, 
 his doubt or his rank disbelief as to others. But the 
 old man suddenly swept the half -formed sentences from 
 his mind. 
 
 A crash of falling furniture had resounded from the 
 room of Dallas, forward on their own floor. From the 
 studios below came other crashes, the noise of falling 
 bodies, and a ringing, metallic clangor. Sydenham 
 had paused at the first crash, then skipped nimbly 
 from his stool, shouting gleefully, "There goes Griggs's 
 suit of armor!" Then, to Ewing's amazement, he 
 twitched the end of a cord that led to a high mahogany 
 sideboard, causing a cigar box, a copper kettle, and a 
 heavy volume of prints to fall with resoundings that 
 must have carried to the farthest studio. The old man 
 
 143
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 faced him with the ecstatically deafened look of a child 
 amid exploding firecrackers. Then, as he discerned 
 Ewing's startled look, he explained: 
 
 "It's only a way the boys have every day at one 
 o'clock. That Baldwin boy started it by upsetting a 
 musket and a brace of cavalry sabers. Then Griggs 
 followed with his armor. Then they all got to joining 
 in. The Chalmers boy pulls over his easel, and I under- 
 stand there's been a complaint from the people below; 
 but it leaves us feeling rather friendly, you know r , and 
 we're sure it's time to eat." He looked at Ewing as if 
 seeking to justify his complicity in so childish a perfor- 
 mance. And Ewing, reading the look, helped him to 
 reload his sideboard for the next day's disturbance. 
 The copper kettle, book and cigar box the latter con- 
 taining half a dozen lumps of coal were replaced on a 
 thin board to which the string was attached. 
 
 Sydenham had meantime taken food from a curtained 
 cabinet and was munching before his easel. He waved 
 the freedom of his larder to Ewing. "There's bread 
 and half a chicken, and pickles. There used to be ham, 
 but I forget if it's there yet. Anyway, it wasn't the 
 most expensive ham. I can't lose daylight by running 
 out. The light changes while I eat. I'm no Joshua. 
 What did Griggs say of you crazy boy, that Griggs. 
 Doing black and white, eh? Show me." 
 
 Ewing had helped himself to the bread and meat, 
 and the two, eating casually, crossed the hall to his own 
 room. His drawings were at hand and Sydenham 
 looked at them as he munched, pausing critically now 
 and then, a bit of bread midway to his mouth. 
 
 "Not bad, not bad! If you can do that well you 
 ought to do better. But too many of you boys quit 
 
 144
 
 The Trick of Color 
 
 when you've learned to do something you can sell. It's 
 respectable, of course, but shoemakers do as much, 
 and you've no right to call yourselves artists for it. 
 I'm afraid there isn't anything made in the world 
 that some one won't buy. And people know if their 
 boots fit them, or if their bread is good, but they buy 
 pictures in the dark. There wouldn't be so many men 
 calling themselves painters if the public wasn't a better 
 judge of sawed lumber or iron castings than it is of 
 pictures. Where did you study?" 
 
 "My father taught me drawing. He warned me to 
 learn that first." 
 
 "Father, eh? Well " His eyes rose from the 
 drawings, ranged along the top of the couch, to the 
 portrait of Ewing's mother, hung between the two 
 windows, and the speech died on his lips. He stepped 
 back, bit into a reserve slice of bread and waved an 
 inquiring chicken bone toward the picture. 
 
 " My mother," explained Ewing. " My father painted 
 it." 
 
 Sydenham's jaw fell, and looking again at the por- 
 trait he muttered some low, swift phrase of bewilder- 
 ment. Ewing waited for him to speak, but the old 
 man only stared. 
 
 "It has good color, don't you think?" he ventured 
 at last, but even the mention of color could not move 
 Sydenham to speech. He absently consumed the 
 remainder of his food and flicked crumbs from his 
 frayed jacket. 
 
 "You look like her," he said at last, with so much 
 the air of speaking to himself that Ewing made no 
 answer. He moved toward the door with bowed head. 
 At the threshold he looked back at Ewing a brief mo-
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 ment, then went out, closing the door softly behind 
 him. 
 
 Bwing decided that his neighbor was a curious old 
 man. Recalling other curious people he had met in 
 this strange new world, he was reminded of the lady 
 who had urged him to call on her. He was still ready 
 to believe that anyone might wish to talk to him, or to 
 hear him talk. But in spite of this, the old lady had 
 been queer. From the table he picked up the card 
 she had given him, studying the name and wondering 
 what they might talk about. 
 
 He was still feeling this mild wonder when he rang 
 the lady's bell at five o'clock. 
 
 146
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 FLESH OF HER FLESH 
 
 TWO persons had waited for Ewing. Mrs. Lowndes 
 was one of them, sitting forward in her chair 
 and braced on its arms, though her head dropped 
 now and then in forgetfulness. The other was a big, 
 shambling old man, a dark man gone gray, his face 
 needing the kindly, yellowish -brown eyes to save it from 
 sternness. His thickets of eyebrows were joined in a 
 half-humorous scowl of perplexity. 
 
 "I had to send for you, Fred. You and Herbert 
 Sydenham are the only two left who were close to me 
 then, and Herbert Sydenham well " she laughed 
 a laugh of exquisitely humorous pain " Herbert would 
 have forgotten me any time these twenty years for a 
 striking color scheme, a streak of unpaintable moon- 
 shine. It was you, Fred, or no one, and it hurt me so! 
 All last night I was on the rocks being ground to bits. 
 I knew you would say the wise thing." 
 
 The big man had risen to walk the floor, his thick 
 shoulders heaving as if to throw off invisible burdens, 
 his head shaking doggedly. 
 
 "Yes, Kitty, yes " His voice was 'big but low, 
 the voice of his whole being bent to soothe. He came 
 to her side and reached down to take one of the frail, 
 blue-veined hands between his own two, huge and 
 hairy. They closed upon hers with a kind of awkward 
 effectiveness. 
 
 147
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "Of course you had to come to me, but I'm afraid 
 all I can do is to brace you." 
 
 "I wanted you to be with me. I couldn't have 
 borne it alone, Fred his being here Kitty's child." 
 
 "And you say he doesn't know?" 
 
 "I'm certain of it, and Eleanor Laithe doesn't know; 
 but those are little things when I know." 
 
 "We'll see, Kitty we'll see. Perhaps I can help. 
 But I suspect it's one of those matters where you must 
 be your own guide. You'll act as you feel; not as I 
 think not even as you think." 
 
 "Ellen is going to the door," she whispered, almost 
 fiercely, bracing herself in the chair. 
 
 As the maid held back the curtain at the doorway, 
 Ewing advanced uncertainly, an embarrassed smile on his 
 lips, the look of one who would be agreeable if he knew 
 how. He saw Mrs. Lowndes stiffly fixed in her chair, 
 her white-crowned head thrown back, and he would 
 have taken her hand but she diverted him from this. 
 
 "Mr. Ewing, my old friend, Dr. Birley." 
 
 Her voice was no longer halting and shallow, as it 
 had been the moment before when her barriers were 
 down. Ewing swiftly confirmed his impression of the 
 previous day: this was a lady of immeasurable pride, 
 a one-time beauty who perhaps treasured the authority 
 her charms had once conferred upon her, wielding it 
 with little old-fashioned graces. She seemed to him 
 at the moment to be an almost excessively mannered 
 person, interesting, but unapproachable. 
 
 He stopped on his way to her chair and shook hands 
 with the big man, who had come forward. This person 
 was quite as formidable as the curious old lady, but he 
 was eminently kind of look. 
 
 148
 
 Flesh of Her Flesh 
 
 "Sit here, Mr. Ewing." He indicated a chair. 
 
 "I asked you to come and see me " The old lady 
 had begun in low, even tones, but paused, and Ewing 
 was again struck by this seeming of agitation which 
 had made him remark her the day before. 
 
 "Mrs. Lowndes was interested to hear of your life 
 in the West," said the big man easily, "and she was 
 good enough to ask me to meet you also. We were 
 both interested in knowing of you from the Bartells." 
 
 "There is so much we do not understand here in 
 New York," put in Mrs. Lowndes, rather vaguely, 
 Ewing thought. He looked from one to the other. 
 The lady puzzled him, but the big man drew him from 
 his embarrassment, helping him to an ease which he 
 could hardly have achieved with his hostess alone. 
 
 Without knowing quite how he began he was presently 
 talking. Unconsciously he directed his speech to the 
 man, who kept kind eyes on him and led him by questions 
 when he paused. He was aware that the woman listened 
 and that her eyes searched his face, but he divined, 
 without meeting them, that they were more curious 
 than kind, and several times, as she moved in her chair, 
 he seemed to feel sharp little points of hostility radiat- 
 ing toward him. 
 
 But the big man drew him more and more from the 
 consciousness of her presence, so that he all but forgot 
 her. It seemed entirely natural to him that he should 
 be telling this friendly inquirer of his early life, the first 
 memories of his father and mother, and of the queer, 
 shifting home they had known. As he told of the death 
 of his mother both listeners had seemed strangely alert 
 for that he was startled by a sound from the lady 
 a catching of breath and a gasp of pain. He turned 
 
 149
 
 E wing's Lady 
 
 quickly, but observed only a stiffly courteous gesture 
 bidding him continue. 
 
 He stopped in confusion, feeling that a strange quiet 
 had come upon the room. The questions from the big 
 man had ceased, and the woman drooped in her chair 
 until he could no longer distinguish her outline through 
 the deepening dusk. Nor was there any sound when 
 his own voice ceased. Neither figure stirred. He was 
 oppressed by the awkwardness of it. 
 
 "I should have pulled up," he said, with an uneasy 
 laugh. "I forgot I wasn't on a lone road." 
 
 There was still no sign from the woman, shrunk far 
 into her chair, but the doctor rose at his speech with a 
 half-muttered, "We're obliged to you." Ewing rose 
 at the same time, with an impulse to break some strain 
 that he felt himself sharing. The doctor reached out 
 in the dusk and turned on an electric light that hung 
 above the table, looking quickly at Mrs. Lowndes as he 
 did so, for there had come from her a murmur of protest 
 at the light. Ewing also looked at her from where 
 he stood on the hearth rug. The lighting of the room 
 had intensified some electrical current that pulsed from 
 each to each. The woman returned Ewing's gaze with 
 the absorption of one moved beyond all arts of conven- 
 tion. Her eyes glistened, ominous of tears, and her 
 small, lean chin trembled as her lips parted. Ewing 
 turned from her distress, appealing by look to the big 
 man, who watched them both, but his gaze was at once 
 drawn back to the woman. She rose from her chair 
 with weak effort and faced him with something like 
 wild impulse rather than intention, a look, a waiting 
 poise, that shook him with fear of the unknown. 
 
 Slowly she brought her hands to a wringing clasp
 
 Flesh of Her Flesh 
 
 at her breast. Her eyes were frankly wet now as she 
 leaned and peered at him, holding him immovable. 
 Twice her lips parted with dry little gasps, her hands 
 working as if to ring the words from her choked throat. 
 
 "My boy!" It was so low that without the look of 
 her lips as they shaped the words he could not have 
 been sure. 
 
 " My boy oh, my boy ! " This time they were sharper 
 though no louder, and Ewing's nerves tingled an alarm 
 that ran to the roots of his hair. She came a half 
 step toward him, and he felt that he was drawing her, 
 divined that in another moment she would be throwing 
 herself upon him in surrender to some emotional torrent 
 that raged within her. He was powerless under this sud- 
 den, strange assault. Dumbly he watched her, closer 
 now by another step, the clasped hands, fighting blindly 
 toward him, with little retreats to her breast, her dry 
 lips again shaping the words, "My boy my boy!" 
 
 And then, even as his own arms were half extended 
 with an instinctive saving movement for the woman 
 seemed about to totter the stillness was broken by 
 quick steps along the hall, the rattle of curtain rings along 
 a rod, and the voice of the maid: 
 
 "Mr. Teevan, ma'am!" 
 
 There had been an instinctive wrenching asunder of 
 the three at the first sound of steps. Yet traces of the 
 stress under which they had labored were still evident 
 to Randall Teevan as he entered. Mrs. Lowndes had 
 turned to search among the magazines on the table not 
 before the little man had swept her with a comprehend- 
 ing eye flash. 
 
 Ewing, pleasantly delivered from a situation that had 
 grown irksome, a situation rising from what he considered
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 the too-ready sympathy of an emotional old woman, 
 allowed his relief full play in the heartiness of his re- 
 sponse to Teevan's greeting. The doctor had squared 
 his shoulders to another pacing of the room. 
 
 Teevan, missing no item of the drama he had inter- 
 rupted, chose for himself the r61e of blind unconscious- 
 ness. So well did he enact this that Mrs. Lowndes 
 was convinced, and the belief aided her to recover a 
 proper equanimity. The doctor surveyed the new actor 
 with a skeptic keenness not so readily to be overcome. 
 
 One glance at Ewing's perturbed but mystified face 
 assured Teevan that the climax of exposure had not 
 been reached. He bustled amiably about the room, 
 kissing the hand of Mrs. Lowndes, shaking the hand of 
 the doctor, straightening a picture on the wall, and, at 
 last, lighting a cigarette as he faced the room from his 
 favorite post on the hearth rug. 
 
 " I ran in for a moment to see how my lady prospered," 
 with a graceful wave of the expiring match toward Mrs. 
 Lowndes, " and all is well. I find her holding court to 
 youth and age, to wit and wisdom, all of which she com- 
 bines graciously in her own person. She is looking 
 weary, perhaps, but rejoiced. Gentlemen, you have 
 served her well. Doubtless our young friend here, 
 Mr. Ah, yes, Mr. Ewing has talked enchantingly. 
 I've had an art evening with him myself." He bestowed 
 a glance of benevolent approval on Ewing, who smiled 
 in return. 
 
 " By the way, my lady, I've sent you a brace of birds 
 that lived their little span of woods life between last 
 spring and yesterday. Ah, but they came to a fluent 
 richness of body, brown and plump and tender as first 
 love, and tanged with autumn spices so blessed be the 
 
 152
 
 Flesh of Her Flesh 
 
 piece that brought them low. Doctor, you'd dissect them 
 for their nerve centers or the intricacies of their bone 
 structure, but I find them admirable in all aspects. They 
 rejoice my scientific soul even as they lure my carnal 
 man. Isn't it Duceps, the falconer, friend of old Izaak, 
 who speaks of birds that both feed and refresh man 
 'feed him with their choice bodies, and refresh him with 
 their heavenly voices'? There was a normal person, 
 now not one-sided." 
 
 The atmosphere cleared of its cloud wrack as his 
 speech flowed, marked by pointings of the small, crisp 
 mustache and gracious little pauses of appeal to each of 
 the listeners in turn. 
 
 From edible songsters he progressed to the cooking of 
 these, and thence to speech on the art of cooking at 
 large. There were pessimists, it seemed, to bemoan 
 the day when a maitre d'hotel would die rather than out- 
 live the dishonor of his master's table, as when Vatel 
 stabbed himself because the fish for one of Condi's 
 dinners failed to arrive on time proving, as Savarin 
 observed, that the fanaticism of honor could exist in 
 the kitchen as well as in the camp. But in the opinion 
 of the speaker these were pinchbeck heroics. Vatel would 
 have been the truer Frenchman, certainly the better 
 chef, if, instead of wreaking a messy violence on himself 
 in his master's kitchen, he had contrived an entree to 
 replace the missing fish. And we should remember, too, 
 that the French, good cooks as they are, have but elab- 
 orated an art for the germinal principals of which they 
 are indebted to Italian genius. Italy first saw the re- 
 vival of cookery as she first saw the revival of learn- 
 ing. The land of Savarin lay in darkness until light 
 was brought by those incomparable artists in the train 
 
 11 153
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 of Catharine de Medicis. One might recall how Mon- 
 taigne was captivated in the land of Horace by the 
 weighty manner of the chef of Cardinal Caraffa in dis- 
 coursing upon the occultisms of his art. The Italians 
 even then held the thing hardly second to theology. 
 
 The little man here permitted a pause in which he 
 discarded his cigarette and readjusted the carnation 
 in his lapel, with a sniff at its spiciness. Then he turned 
 graciously to Bwing. 
 
 "But I must be off time races so in this little nook! 
 If you're stepping on, Mr. Ah, yes Ewing, to be 
 sure if you're leaving, I shall be glad to join you as 
 far as the avenue. My dutiful love, lady, and to you, 
 doctor, that virtue which superstition ascribes to your 
 pellets. The word 'health ' could never have been coined 
 by the healthy, could it? I dislike to use the word 
 baldly." 
 
 Ewing rose, glad of the exit thus provided. It was 
 kind of people to concern themselves about his affairs, 
 but he wished they could be less peculiar. He bowed 
 to Mrs. Lowndes and shook hands with the doctor. He, 
 at least, was understandable. 
 
 When they had gone the old lady faced her friend 
 with a calmness that surprised him. 
 
 "Fred, what sorry, what terrible things can make us 
 young again! I feel now as I felt that other night 
 just at this hour so many years ago when I knew she'd 
 gone knew she'd gone." 
 
 " He's Kitty's boy." The big man fronted her as if 
 for a feat of persuasion. 
 
 "Don't, Fred! I've just weathered that point. I 
 was weak, but Randall Randall saved me. He's 
 dreadful, Fred, unnatural, impossible oh, terribly
 
 Flesh of Her Flesh 
 
 impossible!" She faced him dauntlessly, her cheeks 
 glowing with faint spots of color. 
 
 " I liked him, Kitty. He seems " 
 
 "You're a physician, accustomed to monstrosities. 
 He's something we don't speak of, my friend. And see 
 you must see what he would suffer if he knew."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 TEEVAN AS SPECIAL PROVIDENCE 
 
 EWING was delighted by an invitation from the 
 little man to dine. They had reached the avenue 
 after walking in silence through a side street. 
 Such moments were rare with Teevan. Not often did 
 he fail of speech, even in his periods of calculation. But 
 this was a moment requiring nice adjustments. The sug- 
 gestion about dinner came as they paused at the corner. 
 
 "If you'd like to have me I'd be mighty glad," re- 
 sponded Ewing. 
 
 They turned toward Ninth Street, and Ewing told of 
 his hour at Mrs. Lowndes', scarce conscious of Teevan' s 
 questioning, for the little man probed with an air of 
 discreet condolence that would have won a far more 
 reticent talker. Ewing was gratified by this attention 
 from a man who knew the world of cities, and whose 
 mind must usually be occupied with affairs of import- 
 ance. He felt himself drawn to Teevan by bonds of 
 sympathy that tightened momentarily. 
 
 "My dear mother-in-law is a sentimental thing," 
 the little man confessed with a delicate intimation of 
 apology. "She makes any sad tale her own. The 
 theater affects her, the woes of stage creatures, quite 
 as you tell me your own very human little story did. 
 My arrival must have saved you from one of her rather 
 absurd manifestations. She's a dear old soul, with 
 quantities of temperament, but she recovers with amaz- 
 
 156
 
 Teevan as Special Providence 
 
 ing facility, I'm bound to say. If you met her to- 
 morrow she'd likely freeze you with a nod." 
 
 Ewing was not sorry to hear this, though he thought 
 it hardly polite to say so. 
 
 When they reached the house in Ninth Street Teevan 
 ushered in his guest with a charming hospitality. 
 
 "Come to the library. The man will bring you an 
 aperitif while I escape from this accursed frock coat. 
 Not a word about your own dress! I took you as you 
 were but a jacket for me, if you'll pardon it." A 
 servant entered in answer to his ring. 
 
 "Sherry and bitters, Farrish, and Mr. Ewing will 
 dine with us. Is my son in?" 
 
 "Mr. Alden is dining out, sir." 
 
 " All the better, my boy. We shall be the chummier for 
 Alden's absence. Make the house yours while I change. 
 There are the evening papers; or perhaps you'll be inter- 
 ested by those cabinet bits jades and scarabs and junk 
 of that sort; a few fairish pieces of Greek glass that 
 Tanagra isn't bad, nor those Limoges enamels. The 
 netsukes and sword guards are rather good Japanese 
 bits, and there are one or two exquisite etchings on 
 ivory un instant, n'est-ce pas?" 
 
 Ewing lay back in his chair and sipped the sherry when 
 it came. His enjoyment of the room's ensemble was 
 too nearly satisfying to require examination of it by 
 detail. It was a room of discreet and mellowed luxury, 
 with an air of jaunty ripeness that distinguished its 
 composer. The chairs solicited, the walls soothed, the 
 broken light illumined perfectly without dazzling. He 
 was thrilling agreeably to his host's evident interest in 
 him when the latter returned, beaming with a smile 
 of rare good-fellowship. 
 
 157
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 They were presently at table in a dining room whose 
 plain old mahogany and thin silver produced, like the 
 library, an impression of finished luxury without flaunt. 
 The dinner itself possessed an atmosphere of sophisti- 
 cation, a temperament, even. It sated the exigent 
 appetite of Ewing his luncheon with Sydenham had 
 been a mere adventure in meagerness and sated with- 
 out cloying, but it was more than food to him. As he 
 ate, and drank of a burgundy whose merit he was ill 
 qualified to appraise, he was conscious of a real fascina- 
 tion growing within him for the man who favored him 
 with so distinguished a notice; who talked, seemingly, 
 with the same nice care to please him that he would 
 have exercised for a tableful of more difficult guests. 
 
 Nor did Teevan lack the parts of a listener. Ewing 
 found himself talking much and enjoyably. With so tact- 
 ful a listener, so good a friend, it was no longer necessary 
 to remember that he was new in this land and unknowing 
 of its smaller ways. It occurred to him, indeed, as he re- 
 viewed this memorable evening, that he had talked more 
 than his host. But he was spared the youthful blush 
 at this by remembering that he had been questioned 
 persistently " toled," as Ben would have said, with baits 
 of inquiry. Incredible as it seemed, Teevan wished him 
 to talk and had neatly made him do so. He felt that 
 the little man must know him through and through. 
 He had been, of course, a book in large print and short 
 words, but he was flattered to believe that Teevan had 
 found him worth opening. 
 
 And now he was certain he had discovered the longed- 
 for friend ; one soul had come from the oblivious throng 
 to touch his own, to call him out and speak him fair. 
 He was companioned by one as likable as he was learned, 
 
 158
 
 Teevan as Special Providence 
 
 by one who meant, it was intimated, to seek every oppor- 
 tunity to befriend him. 
 
 And the need of such a friend became more and more 
 apparent to Bwing as they sat in the library after dinner 
 over coffee and liqueurs. It was brought upon him 
 that he had never known his own rashness in braving 
 so difficult a world with so modest an equipment. The 
 tragedy of failure was a commonplace in the little man's 
 experience. So many young dreamers like his guest 
 were rejected after bitter trials. It was an inconsequen- 
 tial world, whose denizens chased butterflies and too 
 often permitted sober worth to perish by the wayside. 
 
 At times during the evening Ewing had feared a 
 return of that distressing malady to which his host was 
 subject, but this he was happily spared. 
 
 When he took a reluctant leave it was with two emo- 
 tions : a fervent liking for the wise man who had so gen- 
 erously befriended him, and doubt of himself, the first 
 he had known. It came like an icy blast out of summer 
 warmth and shine. 
 
 Teevan listened for the door to close on his guest. 
 When he heard this he sank into his chair and chuckled 
 gaspingly. Presently he drank a glass of brandy, smiled 
 in remembering pleasure, lighted a cigarette, and took 
 his post on the hearth rug, his eyes dancing elfishly, his 
 lips moving. 
 
 His son found him so an hour later, for the little man 
 was tireless even when, lacking an audience, he merely 
 dramatized his own reflections. Seeing him to be 
 familiarly engaged, Alden Teevan would have withdrawn 
 with a careless, half -contemptuous nod, but his father 
 detained him with a gesture, and a sudden setting of 
 his face into purposeful hardness.
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 " Sit down." He looked into the hall, then closed the 
 door and faced his son. The latter regarded him with 
 coolly impertinent interest. 
 
 "You'd make a ripping conspirator in a melodrama, 
 Randy. What you going to do now steal the will?" 
 
 Teevan laughed grimly. He crossed back to the 
 hearth rug and took a fresh cigarette, which he lighted 
 with studious deliberation. His words followed swiftly 
 upon the first exhalation of smoke, and his eyes fastened 
 venomously on his son's. 
 
 "I'll give you a morsel to jest with conspirator, 
 indeed ! yes, and a will. See if that facile wit of yours 
 is up to it, my bonny stripling." He played with his 
 moment, drawing on the cigarette with leisurely relish, 
 and gazing into the smoke with eyes of an absorbed 
 visionary. 
 
 "Well?" The young man yawned ostentatiously. 
 
 "You missed dining with your brother this evening. 
 He was good enough to break bread at my table." 
 
 The young man took a cigarette from the. lacquered 
 bowl at his side and lighted it with the same deliberation 
 his father had shown. 
 
 "Really? I didn't know you had another son." 
 
 "Thank God I haven't but your mother had, and 
 that precious sniveling grandmother of yours has 
 another grandson. You might recall that when you 
 chatter of melodrama and wills. I believe her estate 
 is not one you'd care to divide." 
 
 "What rot are you gibbering with those monkey airs 
 of yours?" 
 
 " Delicate as ever in your raillery ! Perhaps you think 
 I'm drunk. Perhaps I am. But I dropped in on your 
 grandmother this afternoon in time to prevent her 
 
 160
 
 Teevan as Special Providence 
 
 clasping that nameless whelp to her breast. A lovely 
 bit I spoiled, my merry-andrew ! tears and fondlings 
 to-night, a codicil to-morrow. I'm none too sure there'd 
 have been a codicil, though. Likelier a new will 'give, 
 devise, and bequeath the sum of one dollar to my grand- 
 son Alden Teevan, who has already wheedled me out of 
 more than was good for him, and the residue of my 
 estate, both real and personal, to my beloved grandson, 
 Gilbert Denham Ewing '" 
 
 "Ewing! That chap Nell Laithe brought back with 
 her that rustic lout " 
 
 "Have I won your attention, lad? Another item 
 I chance to recall permit me, since you've mentioned 
 the lady's name have you caught the look of her eye 
 as it rests upon the creature how it follows him, runs 
 to him, hangs upon him with sweet tenacity? Have 
 you felt the glow in her voice as she speaks to him? 
 A woman of the world, young, tender, romantic, stormed 
 by this Galahad of the hills, who first wins her solicitude 
 by his helplessness, and then, before the lady quite 
 knows it, coerces her whole being by sheer masculine 
 dominance. Ah, you haven't read that only enough 
 of it to puzzle you, perhaps enrage you. You haven't 
 your father's eyes. I read it all in three glances: one 
 at him and two at her. Decidedly, you've not your 
 father's eyes." 
 
 "Nor his love of many words. So that's the son of 
 my mother, of the woman who failed to adore you after 
 a brief but heroic effort?" 
 
 " Likewise, I dare say, the lover of a woman who will 
 henceforth fail to appraise you at anything like your 
 extraordinary worth. Such blind things they are, eh, 
 my boy? She regards the two of you superficially, bien 
 
 161
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 entendu, and hence to your prejudice. There's a likeness 
 between you, the same cast of face, even a likeness 
 of voice, and your noses are identical the nose of that 
 woman but the differences are all in his favor. You 
 have grace of a drawing-room sort, a certain boudoir 
 polish of manner, but his face is fresher, kinder, quicker 
 of sympathy, more compelling, and there's that out- 
 of-doors look in his eye, the look of readiness and 
 power. You know what that sort of strength means with 
 the pretty animals." 
 
 "You speak bitterly but then, you've competed 
 with that sort." 
 
 "My unhappy infant! You'd at least have found a 
 barren sort of dignity in actual competition. As it 
 
 "You got her by a trick, I've heard, from the man 
 who took her away from you when she'd found you out." 
 
 "Tell that to your grandmother it may help you 
 out of some money." 
 
 "Stop it, governor! I'll quit if you will. Come!" 
 He spoke with a drop of the voice, and lifted a hand 
 in appeal. 
 
 "When you like I've wasted no words." 
 
 "It's true, all you've said? Grandmother knows?" 
 
 "Thirty seconds later and I'd have had to bless the 
 pair." 
 
 "And now?" 
 
 "It's safe for the present. She forgot. She'll 
 remember to-morrow. I'd trust him back there then. 
 She'd see only an obscene excrescence." 
 
 "It's a pleasant situation!" 
 
 " It's hellish ! Can you imagine my feelings? You've 
 touched on them with your graceful, filial banter." 
 
 162
 
 Teevan as Special Providence 
 
 "What will you do?" 
 
 '"What will you do?" He mimicked the other 
 with a snarl. "Well, I begin by having him to dine. 
 I study him, I win him. I have him now. He will 
 dine with me other times. I'm not so sure he won't 
 come to reverence me. Oh, it's an ideal situation! 
 Damn it! How they fall! We couldn't contrive them 
 half so cunningly. The fool hath said in his heart 
 'There is no God' a fool, indeed! There is a God, 
 and He has a devil in Him, or He couldn't have given 
 me this to play out. I have him, I tell you, her son 
 and his son, think of it her lover's son that they both 
 loved served up to me!" 
 
 "What can you do with him?" 
 
 "Do with him?" The elder man eyed his son for a 
 long minute, then dropped into a chair, and for an 
 interval the young man pursued his rather uncomfortable 
 reflections in silence. At last he broke this with another 
 query. As there was no response, and his father's 
 face was turned away, he rose and sauntered in front 
 of him. The eyes met his musingly, and he saw that 
 the mouth was fixed in a rather hideous smile. 
 
 163
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 AN ELUSIVE VENUS 
 
 THE days that followed were marked for Ewing 
 with a puzzling discouragement; puzzling, be- 
 cause there had been no failure. A failure 
 would have left him reliant, however battered, but 
 nothing good had been disproved. He was fighting 
 some black doubt of himself, insidiously nursed, he 
 knew not how. 
 
 His friend, Randall Teevan, almost an intimate since 
 the night they dined together, daily predicted great 
 works of him. Where the careless picture makers of 
 the Rookery were content with assurances that he 
 could turn out marketable "stuff," Teevan showed 
 him far and lofty eminences that he might scale, had he 
 a spirit for the feat. 
 
 Undoubtedly there were obstacles that would daunt 
 a less spirited novice, or one with less than the supreme 
 powers of his young friend, but he, the intrepid, the 
 enduring one, could surmount them. The danger in 
 this time of 'prenticeship, Teevan suggested, was slug- 
 gish content with a cheap facility. The tyro learns 
 to do a thing that sells, and remains commercially 
 solvent but, spiritually, an example of arrested develop- 
 ment artistically dead. 
 
 He left Ewing at these times with a sense of his present 
 futility, but also with a genial pity for the men who 
 were doing things to sell and selling them; all uncon- 
 
 164
 
 An Elusive Venus 
 
 scious of the remote, the vacant summits, of true art. 
 A little while before he would have rejoiced that his 
 work could appear beside the work of these men. That 
 would have been a triumph glorious enough. But 
 he could no longer desire so mean a success. He must 
 strive for the higher things, if for no other reason, 
 because this fastidious critic expected him to accomplish 
 them. He could not affront that captious taste with 
 things done for a dollar. Teevan, it seemed, had 
 found life wearing on his dearest illusions. Contact 
 with the world had left him little to believe in. Yet he 
 confessed to believe in Ewing; confessed it with a shamed, 
 humorous naivetee, and with pleasant half doubts, as 
 a man of tried unbelief laying a bed to fall back on at 
 his next undeceiving. 
 
 Ewing was fired to high resolve by this witty, this 
 tender betrayal of confidence in his powers. He could 
 not bear to think that his friend should one day find 
 him, too, a bit of specious insincerity. He consecrated 
 himself to guard this last illusion. It was a pleasure, 
 a duty, and an ambition whose rewards would magnify 
 them both. 
 
 The hill boy no longer yearned solitary in the crowd 
 for a day with Ben Crider, or perhaps an evening with 
 him of little easy silences. Teevan filled his needs. In 
 some sort the little man became his idol; a constant 
 presence before which every act of his days must be 
 judged. Teevan was a smiling but inexorable arbiter 
 of his destiny: a judge humane but incorruptible, a 
 man experienced in the obliquities of human nature, 
 but never tolerant of these. 
 
 Teevan showed him pictures, the work of masters, 
 piloting him through galleries with instructive comment. 
 
 165
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 Ewing instinctively felt the accuracy of his taste, and 
 divined the soundness of his technical knowledge. 
 Often he overlooked a blemish of bad drawing till 
 Teevan pointed it out. Often Teevan defined to his 
 eye some masterly bit of lining in a picture otherwise 
 hopeless. And of color, that splendid mystery, thing 
 of trick and passion, the little man discoursed with 
 rare sanity. 
 
 After these provings of his expertness, Ewing was 
 humble when Teevan chose to point out the more strik- 
 ing deficiencies of his own work. If Teevan made 
 him feel that he must unlearn the vicious little he knew, 
 he performed trie duty with a tact that left the youth 
 as' large with gratitude as with discouragement. It 
 was by Tee van's counsel that he went to the school. 
 The men of the Rookery tried to dissuade him from that. 
 
 "They can't give you anything you haven't got," 
 warned Baldwin. "And if you don't act stubborn 
 they may spoil what you have. You've learned your 
 A B C's, and they'll only tell you at the school to learn 
 them another way. They'll make you feel like a clumsy 
 ass. Stay away." 
 
 Well-meant advice, but superficial, as Teevan ob- 
 served when he heard of it. 
 
 "Your friend confirms what I suspected," he went on, 
 with a pleasant glint in his eyes. " Those chaps would 
 have you become a decent hack on the pitiful facility 
 you've already acquired. Pitiful, mark me, as compared 
 with your capacity. But I've learned to expect little 
 in this world of weak purpose. I dare say you won't 
 endure it long at the school. I grant you a fortnight 
 there; then you'll tell me you give up." 
 
 He began his lessons at the League next day, fired 
 166
 
 An Elusive Venus 
 
 with intent to please his friend. He would fail, yes 
 fail seventy times seven, but he would stand up. 
 
 He went, however, a little weighed down by the 
 memory of his various advisers. From the entrance 
 he was directed above by an official-looking person who 
 yawned. Then he found himself in one of many 
 cramped, stall-like compartments, facing a plaster woman 
 who crouched on one knee. His position was between 
 two youths who were annoyed by his nearness. When 
 he edged from the glowering of one the other nudged 
 his drawing board with an indignant elbow. There 
 was no retreat, for the students were packed closely 
 about him. The one behind him made disparaging 
 remarks about the dimensions of his back, which 
 seemed unkind, considering that he did not hesitate to 
 use the back from time to time as an easel. 
 
 The air was hot and thick with charcoal dust. The 
 crowded disorder confused him. He tried to think 
 only of the cast. He began at the head, as was his 
 custom, and felt a moment's exhilaration in studying 
 the delicate shadows beneath the filleted curls. 
 
 He was aroused by sounds of derision from behind, 
 and ominous prophecies of what "Old Velvet" would 
 do to him when he caught sight of that pompadour. 
 He observed then that the other men were not working 
 at the head first, but mapping out the entire figure at 
 once with long, raking, angular lines that blocked the 
 shadows in square masses. He half rose and looked 
 about. They were all working alike, with their drawing 
 boards far out, and with blunt charcoal. He had spent 
 half an hour sharpening his, and had hugged his drawing 
 board. 
 
 He sat down again, impelled by protests from behind 
 
 167
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 and drew the entire figure, but he could not bring him- 
 self to do it in those rude angles. He drew it with a 
 single line down the curving flank, about the gracious 
 knees, skirting the feet, and up once more to round 
 the farther shoulder that drooped above the nestling 
 breast. Although he did not know it, this was a feat; 
 the swing of the body was almost perfect, yet he had 
 not skirmished a moment. 
 
 The youth behind him was now peering through 
 spectacles above his shoulder. 
 
 "You're a queer duck!" he said; "but he'll make 
 you do it his way. What do you mean by drawing 
 like that?" 
 
 "Why?" asked Ewing, confused. "Let's see yours." 
 
 The other exhibited. There was no outline, there 
 were no gracious curves, only a suggestion of angular 
 shadows, scratched across with brutal straightness. 
 Yet, when Ewing squinted his eyes a bit the thing stood 
 out. 
 
 "Wait till I get my shadows in," he said. 
 
 "Cart before the horse!" rejoined the critic. "I 
 see your finish with the old man." 
 
 Ewing started to lay in his shadows as the other had 
 done, but it seemed as if that delicate body appealed 
 for gentler treatment. He rubbed out the vandal 
 lines and began swinging around the figure in the curving 
 strokes habitual with him, strokes that nursed each 
 lovely rondure like caresses. Then, until the closing 
 hour, he polished, picking out the precious little reflected 
 lights that saved her treasures from shadow. 
 
 "Red ruin for you, my boy!" exclaimed the spectacled 
 one behind him. "Ravage and slaughter! Old Velvet 
 will scalp you." 
 
 168
 
 An Elusive Venus 
 
 Ewing stood up, released by his neighbors, who now 
 rose in a clatter of toppled stools. 
 
 "What's the matter with it?" he asked. 
 
 "Finicky! You've fussed it to death. Velvet will 
 slay you for those reflected lights alone and your nice 
 curly lines oh, Lord!" 
 
 "But they're there, those lights," protested Ewing. 
 " And it's the way I've always drawn. I suppose there 
 are different methods." 
 
 " There's only one way with Velvet, and that's Velvet's 
 way." Then with a damnatory waving-away of the 
 offensive drawing he sauntered off to put his stuff in 
 his locker. 
 
 Ewing dined alone that night. He was in no mood 
 for Teevan. 
 
 Back in his place next day, still incredulous of defeat 
 so swift, he waited for the master. He watched him 
 going the rounds of the other students, the light playing 
 on the purple velvet of the garment that gave him his 
 title. His beard was a rich growth, his mustaches 
 curled upward at the ends, his large, heavy eyelids 
 drooped in a perpetual ennui. His usual criticism was 
 a weary " Rub it out!" 
 
 When at last he stood beside Ewing's work he gave 
 an effect of collapsing, as if his whole being cried out: 
 "This is too much!" He took the drawing from the 
 board and stuck it to the wall with two thumb tacks. 
 Then, picking up a bit of charcoal, he wrote across it, 
 "A perfect example of how not to do it." 
 
 He did not return to Ewing, but, after examining a 
 few other drawings, he turned to leave the room. As 
 he passed, Ewing reached across two neighbors who 
 protested and caught the velvet jacket. 
 12 169
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "Perhaps you can give me an idea," he said. The 
 other looked at him as if he had not seen him before. 
 
 "Use intelligence! Good God use intelligence!" 
 he almost wailed, and made his escape. 
 
 Ewing mechanically placed a fresh sheet before him 
 and began again, but he rubbed out as fast as he drew. 
 The next morning he found the paper foul from many 
 erasures, and started afresh. He could see now that 
 his first drawing, posted in irredeemable ignominy, 
 was not all that it should be. It lacked the freedom 
 of work he had done in his solitude. He tried to conjure 
 back that old free feeling, but the days passed and it 
 drew farther away. Some of the students changed 
 places and began on other casts. The better men went 
 every other week into the life class. But Ewing stayed 
 desperately by his crouching woman. He studied her 
 until he loved and loathed her. The master came and 
 went. Sometimes he ignored Ewing. When he did 
 notice him it was always with a fresh blow on the sunk 
 heart of the boy. Once he sat in his place and ran 
 some of his own brusque, effective lines along the figure, 
 the lines that every other youth in the room punctiliously 
 imitated. They mingled with Ewing's strokes as a 
 driving rain mingles with a bed of flowers. 
 
 "If you'd only give up your damned little way," 
 he complained. 
 
 "I wish you'd explain a bit," pleaded the boy. 
 
 "Old Velvet" turned to the spectacled young man. 
 "Give him your study. There, do it like that." 
 
 Then came the beginning of the end. He lost him- 
 self in a crawling blindness of imitation. The old power 
 that had made him draw without knowing how he did 
 it gathered its splendid garments and withdrew as 
 
 170
 
 An Elusive Venus 
 
 mysteriously as it had once come to possess him. He 
 drew, but he would no longer have recognized what he 
 did as the work of his own hand. He thought of Griggs, 
 who had said, "Style? I'd know a scrap of your stuff 
 if I found it in an ash barrel in Timbuctoo!" 
 
 The thought of those friendly men knowing his 
 degradation was another stone on the grave of his self- 
 esteem. It was this that made him wait when the others 
 had gone one night, to take down that first crucified 
 drawing from the wall where it had remained, torn and 
 hanging by one tack. 
 
 "Will you give it to me?" said a voice, and, as he 
 did not care one way or the other, the spectacled 
 young man put it in his portfolio. Afterwards Ewing 
 thought of asking him why he wanted it, but he did 
 not come back again. He had been advanced to the 
 life class. 
 
 The master did not speak to Ewing again. He made, 
 at intervals as he passed, the pantomime of rubbing out. 
 And Ewing obeyed, beginning each time the task that 
 grew day by day more hatefully useless. In the begin- 
 ning he had felt that if he could get that plaster woman 
 off by himself he could draw her. The long habit of 
 solitude had left him confounded by the crowd. There 
 had been something almost shameful to him about draw- 
 ing publicly, and he had the impulse to curl an arm 
 about his sketch to hide it a little as he worked. He 
 felt sick with the hot, dry air and the breathing of the 
 stallful of men. When the door was opened the odor of 
 turpentine came from the room where they were paint- 
 ing. It had for him a familiar, happy smell. 
 
 "I wish I could go in there," he said once to a fat 
 youth beside him. 
 
 171
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "That's what the dubs always say," was the reply. 
 "It's so much easier to paint." 
 
 He spent a day going around, looking at the better 
 students' work, asking them how they had learned 
 to draw as "Old Velvet" wanted them to. They had 
 a great many things to say that sounded technical, 
 but he heard nothing that opened a way to him. 
 
 He hated the school; he hated the street that led to 
 it, with a quiet ground swell of hatred. But, deepest of 
 all, he hated his own despair. He felt that his shattered 
 courage would never heal. He was like a dishonored 
 soldier whose sword has been publicly broken. He 
 remembered the fine things he had said to Teevan about 
 his ambition, and the blush that suffused him ached. 
 At the thought of Mrs. Laithe bringing him from his 
 wild beast's hole, as if he had been worth her splendid 
 faith, his heart withered within him. At intervals he 
 started as if he suddenly awoke, saying to himself, 
 "And to think it could have ended like this!" 
 
 At the end of a fortnight he sat for three days without 
 doing anything, a stick of charcoal in his hand. He 
 did not come again, and his fat neighbor used up his 
 charcoal paper, after putting fine mustaches on all his 
 crouching Venuses. 
 
 He had shunned his acquaintances during this time 
 of travail. But twice had he seen Teevan since his 
 first day at the League. He had tried to be cheerful 
 at those meetings, still hoping the lines would come right, 
 but he felt each time that Teevan saw straight to his 
 wretched heart of doubt; and he would not risk an- 
 other meeting until he could report an overwhelming 
 victory or defeat, if it must be so. 
 
 That he did not for a day forget his good friend, there 
 172
 
 An Elusive Venus 
 
 was ample testimony; though this was of a nature that 
 Teevan must remain oblivious to. On the night of 
 the day that saw his first buffeting he walked the streets 
 until late, rejoicing mournfully that there were still 
 so many people who did not know his shame. Half 
 unwittingly he wandered into Ninth Street, and stood 
 a long time opposite Teevan's house, finding a solace 
 in his friend's possible nearness. Then, as the days 
 of defeat followed with so deadly a sequence, this walk 
 and vigil became his nightly habit. Sometimes the 
 house was darkened. Then he felt free to gaze at it. 
 Sometimes there were lights, and his survey was brief 
 and furtive. Until the very last there was always a bit 
 of hope to spice the melancholy of this adventure: to- 
 morrow the thing might be done as they all did it, the 
 master be moved from blame to praise, and himself 
 be free to enter this street bravely, noisily, careless of 
 recognition, to tell how the big way had been opened. 
 He had pictured the pleasure that would light Teevan's 
 face as he heard this tale of conquest. 
 
 173
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 MRS. LAITHE IS IN 
 
 ON the ultimate night of defeat Ewing walked 
 as usual into Ninth Street for his vigil before 
 Teevan's house. He had come to a wall that 
 must be scaled. He could no longer believe in any 
 chance way round it or gracious opening through it. 
 Teevan would have to be told, and he was sorry for Tee- 
 van. The little man had believed so. 
 
 He scanned the starred strip of sky above him as if 
 for words to renew the faith of his friend. His eye ran 
 along the house fronts opposite, but they were blunt, 
 uninspiring masses with shut doors and curtained win- 
 dows, houses turned away from him. He wished for 
 another friend, less exacting than Teevan, who would 
 take defeat lightly. Then one of the houses stood 
 out familiarly, the Bartell house, with its generous 
 width and its hospitable white door. He had not cared 
 to go there in his time of suspense, but now he was over- 
 whelmed with a sudden longing to see Mrs. Laithe, to 
 feel her friendliness and confide to her, perhaps, a hint 
 of his plight. At least he could look at her a little 
 while, even if he told her nothing. 
 
 He crossed the street quickly, walked toward the 
 avenue until he reached the marble steps, and rang the 
 bell. It occurred to him dismally while he waited that 
 she might not be in; still worse, that there might be 
 people about who would keep him from her. It had been 
 
 174
 
 Mrs. Laithe is In 
 
 so most of the few times he had called. There was always 
 friendliness in the look she gave him across those shore- 
 less seas of talk, but too often there had been little beside 
 this look. 
 
 The man admitted him and was not sure if Mrs. Laithe 
 was in; he would see. Ewing strolled back to the sooth- 
 ing snugness of the library and dropped on the couch. 
 Even to be there alone was something: the room was 
 alive with her, and the restful quietness of it made him 
 conscious all at once of the long strain he had been 
 under. Leaning his head back, he shut his eyes in a 
 sort of desperate surrender, letting the tragedy of his 
 failure swirl about him. But something from the 
 woman he awaited seemed to have flowed in upon him, 
 healing his hurt with gracious little reminders of her. 
 He breathed a long sigh of relief, and for a moment 
 almost lost himself in unconscious rest. It was good 
 to stop thinking. 
 
 It was thus she saw him as she came softly in, with 
 scarce a silken rustle. Her face, as she gazed, lost its 
 look of welcome and ready speech, for she saw all his 
 anguish uncovered there before her. It was in his young 
 face, gaunt and jaded and bleached to the city pallor ; in 
 the closed eyes, the folded lips ; and in the body wearily 
 relaxed. So little life he showed, it seemed to her he 
 might be sleeping, and again, as at the other time, she 
 was shaken by a rush of tenderness for him tenderness 
 and fear, alike terrible. 
 
 She could not speak. She hovered a half step toward 
 him, with a hand instinctively up to shelter and cherish, 
 her eyes wide with pity and a great gladness. Poised 
 so, she waited, breathless. 
 
 Though she had made no sound, he thrilled suddenly
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 to the knowledge of her presence, and his eyes opened 
 to hers. They stared dully an instant, then shone with 
 a quick light that held her exposed and defenseless, 
 while he came to himself for the first time in her pres- 
 ence as a man. Helpless to stay it, she watched this 
 consciousness unfolding within him, traced it lucidly 
 from its birth to the very leaping of it from his lips in 
 a smothered cry of want unutterable. 
 
 So he held her with his look. Though every nerve 
 warned her to flight, she was powerless even when he 
 started toward her, raising himself slowly from the couch 
 with his hands ; her own hand even groped a little toward 
 him, blindly fighting its way into both his own. It 
 turned and nestled there, unreasoningly, warming itself, 
 clasping and unclasping. He towered above her she 
 had never felt herself so small, so frail as now. His two 
 hands fiercely smothered her own, and his eyes were on 
 her with a look she had never seen there, a look she could 
 not face. It was then that her tenderness was lost in 
 fear of him, and she forced herself to laugh. She laughed 
 in the desperate knowledge that his rising arm threatened 
 her with some crushing, blinding enfoldment where no 
 striving would avail her laughed with a little easy, 
 formal grace. 
 
 He fell back dazed, scanning her in uncomprehending 
 dismay as they stood apart. Then he seemed to recover 
 himself and smiled foolishly as she moved to a chair. 
 
 "I'm so glad you came," she began with nervous 
 quickness. He dropped back on the couch, his eyes 
 still on her the man's eyes. 
 
 She endured the look, but she could not suppress the 
 color she felt rising in her face. It seemed to her that 
 her strength must go if the moment lasted a little longer. 
 
 176
 
 Mrs. Laithe is In 
 
 She knew now that in the weeks of his absence she had 
 longed for this look for the fearful joy of it and the 
 realization left her overpowered. 
 
 At last, to her relief, he muttered some conventional 
 phrase of his own pleasure in seeing her. But the look 
 of the man still held her, an implacable look. She felt 
 that the shy, embarrassed boy in him was gone forever. 
 She had aged him all in a moment. There was something 
 splendidly ruthless in his gaze, and in place of the con- 
 fusion she was wont to wreak on him he showed a strange, 
 dogged coolness. 
 
 " You've changed," he continued. " You're not well." 
 The wondrous deep alarm of his tone warmed her through 
 and through. She murmured a careless disavowal, 
 and her low laugh, like the little comprehending chuckle 
 of a pleased child, banished from her face for a moment 
 its almost haggard set. But the face was flatly white 
 again under the dark of her hair, and the white gown 
 defined her frailness and drooping, as of some pale, long- 
 stemmed flower fainting of languor in the still heat of 
 late summer. 
 
 "You are whiter than ever," he insisted, "whiter 
 and finer. You are like a white rose that is beginning 
 to let its petals fall. You you are beyond anything 
 now." She laughed helplessly, as people laugh at 
 something insupportable. 
 
 "You're going to tell me that people don't talk that 
 way here," he went on, with his old fling of the head, 
 like that of a horse about to gallop off, "but you under- 
 stand me." He sighed, remembering his trouble for 
 the first time. "But you understand me," he repeated, 
 with a wistful attenuation of the words. 
 
 "Yes, I understand everything," she said, seeing 
 
 177
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 again the amazing sadness in him. Her look seized 
 all the dejection of his attitude, the listless lean of his 
 head, once upheld so gayly on the strong neck. She had 
 to exert her will not to go nearer to him. She turned 
 away and closed her eyes for a moment to shut him out, 
 then opened them quickly and began to berate him 
 charmingly for having neglected her. " I've thought of 
 you so much oftener than I've seen you," she concluded. 
 
 He floundered in the old shyness. It had come sud- 
 denly on him when he thought of himself. 
 
 "I've been at work." 
 
 "Your face shows it," she said, with a swift, unsteady 
 look. "You have changed, too. You actually look ill." 
 
 He reddened slowly under her scrutiny, stammering 
 protestations, but her eyes were open to him. She 
 shrugged herself together and assumed a brisk, motherly 
 air. 
 
 " Is it as bad as that truly? And you told me nothing 
 of it! Come I want to know." There was a ring of 
 authority in her voice as she leaned toward him, her 
 great eyes full of pity and succor. " Is the world differ- 
 ent from what you thought? Let me know where does 
 it hurt? That's what they say to children." 
 
 Challenged thus directly, he felt shame at the thought 
 of confession equally direct. He would come to it 
 only by winding ways, asserting at first that there was 
 no trouble; then that the trouble was but a little one; 
 and insisting at last that, though the trouble was great, 
 it might have been greater. 
 
 Her eyes beat upon him insistently while she drove 
 him to these admissions. Then she was eager with 
 attention while he compelled himself to details. He told 
 of his two weeks' humiliation at the school, not sparing 
 
 178
 
 Mrs. Laithe is In 
 
 himself, confessing his lack of power, and the pain this 
 discovery had cost him. When he had finished, with 
 a self -belittling shrug, she sat silent, bending forward, 
 her hands loosely clasped, her eyes fixed away from 
 him. 
 
 Now that it was over he felt a sudden lightening of 
 his mood, a swift consciousness of reliance on the woman, 
 a foreknowledge that her words would profit him. At 
 last she brought her eyes upon him and cut to the heart 
 of his woe with a single stroke. 
 
 "The thing is nothing in itself." He drew a long 
 breath of relief. "It's in the way you take it. If it 
 weakens you, it's bad. If it strengthens you, it's good. 
 Call the thing ' failure ' if you like but what has it done 
 to you?" 
 
 "Why, of course" he broke off to laugh under her 
 waiting look "of course I'm still in the race. I see 
 now that I haven't really doubted myself at all." He 
 looked at her with sudden sharpness. " I'd be ashamed 
 to doubt myself before you." He sprang to his feet in 
 the excitement of this discovery and stood alertly before 
 her. 
 
 "It doesn't mean anything, does it?" he went on 
 quickly. "You believe in me?" 
 
 She laughed defensively. "I believe in you now. 
 You look so much less like a whipped schoolboy." 
 
 " I won't forget again. That school isn't for me. I 
 can do things those poor charcoal dusters won't do for 
 years yet. I know that. Baldwin said they'd spoil 
 me if I wasn't stubborn, and I was stubborn I am. 
 You believe I'm stubborn, don't you?" 
 
 She smiled assurance. "You have it can you use 
 it?" 
 
 179
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "You'll see!" He sat down, continuing almost 
 apologetically, " I worried more about the effect on others 
 than on myself. It was that threw me down, a fear 
 that other people might think I was some pretentious 
 fool who had come here to get over big things and 
 stumbled at the first little one. I was deathly afraid 
 of hurting other people." 
 
 His eyes had been steadily upon hers with an under- 
 current of consciousness for what he would have called 
 the "queerness" of her look, a baffling look that hinted 
 of many things of sympathy, consternation, rejoicing, 
 even of embarrassment, and yet it had not distinctly 
 been any one of these, so quick had been the play of 
 light in her eyes to the moment they fell before his. 
 
 She released her breath with a sound like a sigh, as 
 if she had been holding it, and there was another look 
 in her eyes when she at last raised them to his, one that 
 he could not read, save that it was wholly serious and, 
 he felt, peculiarly a woman's look. 
 
 "I am sure," she began, "that no one no one you 
 consider in this way, could think less of you for a failure. 
 You ought to know that. I want you to know it." She 
 rose from her chair and stepped to the table with a little 
 shrug, turning over the leaves of a magazine, her back 
 toward him. At last she turned her head only, looking 
 at him over one shoulder and speaking with a laughing, 
 reckless impatience. 
 
 " Oh, fail fail fail as often as you like fail a hun- 
 dred times and then fail." He felt his cheeks burning 
 under her vehemence. She turned about, facing him 
 squarely. 
 
 " Have I said enough? Do you know what I think of 
 failures now?" 
 
 180
 
 Mrs. Laithe is In 
 
 He rose and stood before her. "You don't know what 
 you've done for me. You don't know " Again came 
 that crude impulse to take her in his arms. It left him 
 feeling like a criminal. As if she had discerned this she 
 resumed her seat, speaking quickly. 
 
 " Go back to that studio and do things. Do them your 
 own way. It's a better way for you than any they can 
 teach you, and the next time " 
 
 "The next time I have a hell " 
 
 " a hell of doubt don't wait come to me." She 
 rose from her chair. 
 
 "You don't know all this has meant to me," he said 
 feelingly as she gave him her hand. 
 
 "Good night!" And though the gray eyes were hid- 
 den from his, there was the look in them of one who 
 knows more than she is thought to know. 
 
 As Ewing went out the man was admitting the younger 
 Teevan, who asked for Mrs. Laithe. Ewing wished it 
 had been the father. He had much of good to tell the 
 little man now. 
 
 Neither Mrs. Laithe nor Teevan spoke of Ewing after 
 their greeting, though each was so busy in thought of 
 him that their talk was scant and aimless for the first 
 five minutes. Alden Teevan was brought back to her 
 at length by noticing the drawn, tired look of her face, 
 for the sparkle that Ewing had left there was gone. 
 
 "Nell, you look done up. I'm no alarmist, but you 
 really need to be frightened. What is it you're doing 
 to take you down so the same old round? Is it a 
 visiting guild now, or the Comforters of the Worthy 
 Poor, or just amateur nursing of sin, sickness, and 
 death?" 
 
 She smiled wanly. 
 
 181
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 " The same old round, Alden. I can't keep away from 
 it when I am here. I know it so well. No one could 
 keep away who knew it well." 
 
 " Futile, futile, futile ! Are you equal to a revolution ? " 
 
 " More's the pity, no. And I've no time for one. I've 
 a whole family of consumptives on my hands at this 
 moment, father, mother, two girls and a boy." 
 
 "And you wear yourself out over a few minor effects 
 like that, instead of going at the cause. You may save 
 one or two of those people none of them of any value, 
 individually; while the same energy put to the root of 
 the evil might save thousands and they are of value in 
 the mass. Think me calloused if you like, but that's 
 mere common sense economy of effort. You and I 
 our class make them live as they do, and we grow maud- 
 lin over it and take them a little soup and many tracts. 
 But we won't remit our tithes. We keep them down 
 to breed more misery for the exercise of our little phil- 
 anthropic fads. I'm radical, you see." 
 
 She turned her head away with a hand wave that 
 seemed to dismiss an argument familiar and outworn. 
 
 "I know but I must do what I can." 
 
 He faced her with a sudden insistent energy. 
 
 "Come away, Nell come farther off. You're too 
 close to the ugly things now you lose the perspective. 
 Come away and come with me, won't you, Nell? 
 Come away and live. I must say it I must ask it 
 come!" 
 
 He read the inexorable in the lift of her head. 
 
 "I understand, Alden and I thank you but no." 
 She glanced across at him and continued more lightly, 
 " I wasn't meant to go far off to go above timber line, 
 as Mr. Bwing would say." 
 
 182
 
 Mrs. Laithe is In 
 
 He felt bitterness rising in him at her mention of the 
 name, but he laughed it away. 
 
 " You'll always do the hardest thing, Nell. I know 
 that. But I well, one of the old heathen Heraclitus, 
 wasn't it? remarked that the ass, after all, would have 
 his thistles rather than much fine gold." 
 
 She laughed. "Dad would say, the more ass he, if 
 he wouldn't." 
 
 " I know we'd rather have our own particular thistles, 
 each of us. But to live a day or two before we die, Nell! 
 Come with me stop trying to mount the whirlwind. 
 You'll only be thrown." 
 
 Again she shook her head, and gently shaped "No!" 
 with her lips. It was too unemotionally decisive to war- 
 rant of any further urging, and he became silent, with 
 something of pain in his face that her eye caught. 
 
 "I'm sorry, Alden I've never liked you better but 
 I'd rather you didn't ask." 
 
 "You wouldn't have come before, would you, Nell 
 three months ago?" And she answered "No" again, 
 very quickly. 
 
 "I must play my little game out in my own way," 
 she continued. "I must stay beside some one beside 
 people who still have heart for trying." 
 
 "Someone, Nell?" 
 
 She caught her lip. 
 
 "Everyone who has fresh hope and stubbornness in 
 defeat." 
 
 "If you'd let me, Nell" There was the note of 
 real pleading in his tone. 
 
 "No, Alden." 
 
 "Friends, though?" he queried, seeming at last 
 convinced. 
 
 183
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 She thought there was a trace of bitterness in his 
 voice, but she answered, "Friends, surely, Alden." 
 
 "We've skirted this thing often, Nell, but you never 
 seemed certain before." 
 
 " I didn't I think I never was quite so certain before, 
 Alden but now I'm driven all one way." 
 
 "I believe that." He rose and spoke in a livelier 
 manner. "But if you won't be wise for me, Nell, be 
 wise for some one else. For God's sake feel a little worry 
 about your health. I say you look unpromising at this 
 moment." 
 
 "I've always been well," she insisted brightly. 
 
 "And, Nell, I've wanted to be so much more than a 
 friend to you that my feelings are a bit blurred just now 
 but I believe I'll always do what a friend should." 
 
 184
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 UNBIvAZED WAY 
 
 EWING was loath to sleep that night, for in sleep 
 he must leave the thought of her who, having 
 been only a picture to him, had come suddenly 
 to life. The magic would have seemed no greater if 
 his own mother had issued livingly from the canvas. 
 How it had happened he knew not, but this woman 
 was all at once the living spring of his life. The thought 
 of her was a golden mist enveloping him. He did not 
 once call it love, but he thought of the gracious women 
 he had loved in books, and knew she was all of them in 
 one. 
 
 And once he had been almost careless in her presence ! 
 How he marveled at that now, when he knew that hence- 
 forth every approach to her would be an event. He 
 shuddered at the memory of what he had been saved from 
 that swift brute impulse to hold her close against his 
 breast. Must he feel that always fight it always, to be 
 blasted if he lost? At least in his own secret world he 
 was free to treasure each memory of her dearness. 
 And he could make her glad. He could work as man 
 had not worked before. He could make her a little 
 glad. 
 
 He feverishly began a drawing for the Knickerbocker 
 the next morning. Craig, the art editor, had said that 
 he could use six drawings as good as the two he was 
 shown, and they had decided on scenes that would give 
 
 13 185
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 variety to the series. But that was before a Teevan 
 had come into his life, and now he had lost a month in 
 the dream of satisfying that patron critic. 
 
 It was good to prove that he could still draw in his 
 own way ; he had suffered so long in that rage of impo- 
 tence ; and he kept to the work until dusk, making no stop 
 for food, even when the noise of falling bodies came to 
 mark the luncheon hour. 
 
 When Teevan sauntered in at six the two went to 
 dine at a restaurant. Ewing had no longer dreaded the 
 meeting. He was ready to show Teevan that there had 
 been no true failure. But Teevan merely listened to the 
 bare outline of fact as they threaded a way through the 
 evening crowd. He made no comment, and Ewing 
 thought this might be due to the difficulty of conversing 
 in a noisy street. 
 
 But after ordering dinner with a nice deliberation, 
 Teevan spoke determinedly of other matters. Ewing 
 ventured a humorous reference to his despair when he 
 left the school, meaning to compel the inference that he 
 no longer despaired. Teevan languidly mentioned a 
 violinist he had heard the evening before. 
 
 " Two Bach numbers, the suite in F minor rather 
 exquisitely done. Bach wrote tremendously well for 
 the riddle. Technical skill in the performer, you ask? 
 Yes, entirely adequate; indeed, he gave rather a warm 
 reading, really not lacking a certain elevation of style, 
 even a nobility of utterance. That was quite all of 
 interest, though. The Dvorak humoresque a thing 
 transcribed from a piano piece and made sentimental 
 has one of those effective passages in double notes, cer- 
 tain to win an encore from the mob; and the twenty- 
 fourth caprice of Paganini was merely a smart exhibi- 
 
 186
 
 The Unblazed Way 
 
 tion of harmonic playing mere squibs and firecrackers 
 and rockets, the veriest fireworks. Ah, it's small wonder 
 the world has so few artists when it demands so little." 
 And Teevan sighed significantly. 
 
 Bwing was chilled by this avoidance of himself, 
 though he could not yet believe it intentional. 
 
 "I haven't given up," he declared, by way of remind- 
 ing Teevan. "You shall see that I'm stubborn." 
 
 Teevan affected to study a group of diners at a 
 neighboring table as he replied: 
 
 " Oh, yes, I gather that you left the school when you 
 found it difficult." 
 
 "But you see " 
 
 " This soup is worth while, really. Soup is surprisingly 
 difficult. Yet the world believes perfect soups to be 
 plentiful." He sighed again. "It merely shows the 
 vitality of error." 
 
 Ewing felt his woman-given courage leaving him at 
 this attack, or rather at this lack of attack. He had 
 been prepared to have his friend exhibit doubt, disbe- 
 lief, chagrin anything that would still show an undimin- 
 ished esteem. But the intimate note had gone from 
 Teevan's speech. He talked at large as Ewing had 
 heard him talk to roomfuls of people. 
 
 "Ah, yes, the vitality of error. Give the world a lie 
 about soup or souls, and you'll not soon worry that lie 
 away. It's clutched with a bulldog jaw. Say good 
 soup is common God-fearing Christians echo the lie. 
 Say Berkeley denies the existence of matter, and men 
 with Berkeley at hand repeat you. Say Locke denies 
 all knowledge except through the medium of the senses, 
 and students of Locke pass on the absurdity. Bacon 
 was by no means the first thinker to proclaim the defi- 
 
 is?
 
 E wing's Lady 
 
 ciencies of the Aristotelian philosophy a system already 
 in disrepute when he wrote the 'Instauration.' Yet 
 in our crude yearning for concreteness, for specific idols, 
 we laud him as the father of the inductive philosophy 
 as if induction weren't an inevitable process in any mind 
 grown beyond primitive concepts. Gad! I had a dog 
 once that used induction a dozen times a day, and he'd 
 never so much as heard of Bacon." 
 
 Thus he wandered afield during the dinner, with airs 
 of a bored but conscientious host, and Ewing fell lower 
 of heart at each of his periods. He hoped for his chance 
 when the coffee came, but Teevan gave him no opening. 
 The brandy sufficed for his text. We were not .brandy- 
 drinkers, unhappily enough "the wholesomest of all 
 spirits, the distilled essence of cognac grapes, the magic 
 cup of Circe, 'her Orient liquor in a crystal glass' and 
 we know as little how to drink a liqueur brandy as we 
 know how to buy it. We gulp it from these straight 
 glasses, when it should be taken in sips from a glass small 
 at the top, a glass first warmed in the palm of the hand. 
 Only so may we capture the bouquet, that elusive fra- 
 grance of the May- vine blossom, that wraith of spring- 
 perfumes." 
 
 Ewing was still unjustified when the waiter helped them 
 on with their coats, and then he was dismayed to observe 
 that Teevan apparently meant to leave him. The little 
 man held out his hand with "So glad to have had your 
 company another time I shall see you again, I hope." 
 
 " Please come back with me. I'd like to talk to you 
 to ask your advice." He felt himself an outcast. 
 
 Teevan's response, a surprised but coldly polite assent, 
 did not lighten his dejection as they walked back to the 
 studio in silence. 
 
 1 88
 
 The Unblazed Way 
 
 But once there the little man no longer avoided talk 
 of his young friend's fiasco. He let it be seen that 
 another illusion, one fondly cherished, he need not say, 
 had been shattered. He gave the impression that he 
 had talked of other things to forget this an inadequate 
 device, he let it be inferred. 
 
 Ewing confessed his own despondency of the night be- 
 fore, but told how a woman had given him new courage. 
 
 "Not the least injury they do us," remarked Teevan 
 of women, somewhat snappishly, "is to wheedle us into 
 taking our failures lightly." That were especially 
 baneful to the artist, it seemed; by his very tempera- 
 ment was he exposed to their blandishing sophistries. 
 The artist cult should be a priesthood, aloof, austere, 
 celibate deaf to the woman cries of "Never mind!" 
 and "Courage!" and "Another day!" All very well 
 that, but they shut their pretty eyes to real failures, 
 or, at most, survey them with a tender air of belittle- 
 ment that leaves the defeated one blind to their signif- 
 icance. Speaking largely, the society of women should 
 be shunned by earnest men intent on achievement. 
 
 Ewing began to feel that possibly he had taken heart 
 too readily. He was willing to believe this if it would 
 restore him to the little man's esteem. He pointed 
 timidly to the drawing he had begun that morning, 
 eager for the word of praise he believed it to merit. 
 
 "Oh, that!" Teevan drawled the words, with lifted 
 brows; then went on to speak of Jean Francois Millet, 
 unprosperous villager of Barbizon. He tried unsuc- 
 cessfully to recall an instance when that painter had 
 debased his art. Not once had he made a cheap picture 
 for a magazine. He had never put his Muse to the 
 streets. Millet was not pigeon-livered. 
 
 180
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 Ewing leaned forward in his chair, his head between 
 his hands. He saw that the mere sale of drawings 
 would be a savorless success, if it bereft him of this 
 plain-speaking but just friend. More, it would leave 
 him small in the eyes of a woman who was now even 
 more than Teevan. He got up doggedly, seized the 
 drawing and began to break the tough bristol board, 
 getting it into four pieces at length and flinging these 
 into the grate. He was unable to resist a secret fond 
 look at the lines he had made with such loving care. 
 Teevan's eyes glistened now, and he held out a hand 
 to Ewing. 
 
 "Ah you give me hope. Bravo!" 
 
 "Then you do believe in me; you think I have it in 
 me?" 
 
 "Power? Yes; I've seen that. I judge men rather 
 accurately. But I saw that you'd be tempted to rest. 
 The more power, the greater the temptation. It's 
 not so hard to fast in a desert the less-gifted man is 
 less tempted. But to fast with plenty at hand for the 
 reaching, and fair women to counsel content to refuse 
 apples and flagons, waiting for the ultimate jewel 
 that takes a man. It demands one there's a certain 
 street saying who can 'stand the gaff.'" 
 
 "And you really think I can stand it? I feel more 
 than ever that I want to succeed." 
 
 Teevan beamed on him almost affectionately. " I 
 almost suspect " 
 
 "You shall see that I can," Ewing broke in, but what 
 he thought was, "She will see it." 
 
 "It's a matter of endurance," resumed Teevan geni- 
 ally. "Genius is no endowment of supreme gifts. 
 Every man of us has something latent that would set 
 
 190
 
 The Unblazed Way 
 
 him apart. Genius is only the capacity for expressing 
 that that phase of yourself which differentiates you 
 from all other selves. Of course only a few succeed. 
 Most of us succumb to the general pressure to be alike. 
 Yet I almost believe in you." 
 
 Ewing regarded him with glad eyes, touched by this 
 stanch yet discerning adherence. 
 
 Returning home that night Teevan, in his library, 
 took down a Bible and searched for a passage he only 
 half recalled. He found it at last, one wherein the God 
 of Israel thunders, not without humor, against the foes 
 of His chosen tribe. 
 
 " I will send a faintness into their hearts in the land 
 of their enemies; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall 
 chase them ; and they shall flee as fleeing from a sword ; 
 and they shall fall when none pursueth." He chuckled 
 delightedly as he read it, and wiped tears of mirth from 
 his eyes. 
 
 So it befell that Ewing forsook the beaten road of 
 minor achievement that winter, and labored toward 
 the far, high peaks. In his own phrase, the trail was 
 rough and blind. Preceding climbers had not been 
 thoughtful to "blaze" it. But he grudged no effort 
 while he had the little man's applause. And this 
 was not lacking, though it was discreet applause, pro- 
 moting no slothful content. 
 
 It was Ewing who suggested that he paint under the 
 criticism of Sydenham. The little man looked at him 
 in doubt, seeming to suspect a jesting insincerity, then 
 burst into hearty, hand -clapping laughter, crying, 
 "Splendid! An inspiration, indeed! On my word, 
 I hadn't thought of anything half so brilliant." 
 
 And Ewing began to paint; to paint like Sydenham, 
 
 191
 
 E wing's Lady 
 
 if he might cloud studies, bits of street perspective, 
 stretches of river, a realistic view of the roofs from his 
 window, with their water butts, chimney pots, and 
 clothes lines. Baldwin looked in once, and carried a 
 word below to the men who sold things: the word 
 "Awful!" He also ventured a friendly remonstrance 
 to Ewing. "If you're going to paint, for God's sake 
 go to some man who knows how!" 
 
 Ewing referred to Teevan's conviction that Syden- 
 ham was the ideal master for him, and to the attested 
 fact that Teevan knew painting and painters. 
 
 "Then I don't understand Teevan," was Baldwin's 
 puzzled response. 
 
 "But I'm coming on Teevan says so." 
 
 Baldwin ventured another look at the canvas in 
 hand and fled below. 
 
 Teevan was watchful and permitted few chances for 
 meddling of this sort. He contrived to be with Ewing 
 most of the time when Sydenham was not. And Ewing 
 never tired of Sydenham. If they walked the streets 
 together the old man would direct his eye to some 
 unnoticed felicity of color on the walls that shut them 
 in, to bits of enchanting perspective, to subtle plays of 
 light and shade in unpromising spots. Or if they sat 
 alone at night the painter told of color in the world 
 beyond the sea; how from the top of Mont Blanc the 
 stars are seen at midday, points of vivid light in a dark 
 blue-violet field ; of the purple nights of the desert, the 
 stars but an arrowshot above; of the cold, pale silvers 
 of dawn in the desert, and the heated gold and scarlet of 
 evening; of the impossible blue of the bay of Naples. His 
 face glowed to such youthfulness at these times that 
 Ewing would forget his futile years until the sigh came. 
 
 192
 
 The Unblazed Way 
 
 " But I've always seen too much. Only the fountain 
 of Juventius could have given me time enough. I'm 
 like the lad in the school-reader tale who reached into 
 the jar of nuts and tried to withdraw his hand full and 
 lost them all." 
 
 Between Bwing and Teevan there was even a new 
 bond. Ewing discovered that money inevitably left 
 one's pocket in New York, even if it vanished under 
 auspices less violent and less obscure than Ben had so 
 gloomily feared. The steady dribble was quite as 
 effective. When he awoke to this great fiscal truth 
 he saw that some condescension of effort would be 
 required. He must sell enough drawings to sustain 
 him modestly. He broached this regrettable neces- 
 sity to Teevan, wishing the little man to understand 
 that, in making a few things for money, he was guilty 
 of no treachery to the Teevan ideal. But Teevan, 
 much to his embarrassment, had extended the full 
 hand of bestowal. 
 
 He was hurt when Ewing demurred; then annoyed 
 that so petty an obstacle should retard a progress so 
 splendid. He never dared to suspect a decadence in 
 the resolution of his young friend. 
 
 Ewing was cut by his distress, stung by his doubt, 
 and persuaded by his logic. He accepted Teevan's 
 money, though not without instinctive misgiving. 
 There were moments when he traitorously wondered 
 if it might not be better for him to lack a friend with 
 ideals so rigid. And more than once he suffered the 
 disquieting suspicion of some unreality in and through 
 it all his intimacy with Teevan, and his desertion of a 
 trail whose beginnings, at least, he knew. There was 
 sometimes a faint ring of artificiality in the whole situa-
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 tion. Yet Teevan's heartiness and his certainty 
 the felicitous certainty of a star in its course always 
 dispelled this vague unquiet, and at last it brought 
 Ewing a new pleasure to remember that an actual, 
 material obligation one increasing at measured inter- 
 vals now existed between them. 
 
 He had never spoken openly to Mrs. I/aithe of his 
 intimacy with Teevan. The little man had conveyed 
 his wish of this by indirect speech. He would have 
 liked to tell her of the solace and substantial benefits 
 of their comradeship, to dwell upon the shining merits 
 of this whole-souled but modest benefactor for Teevan 
 caused his charge to infer that a shame of doing good 
 openly inspired his hints but he had, perforce, to let 
 the praise die unspoken. 
 
 Nor did he speak often of Mrs. Laithe to Teevan, for 
 the little man was not only bitter as to woman's influ- 
 ence on the life artistic, but inclined to hold the sex 
 lightly, it seemed, in a much wider aspect. And he 
 spoke, Ewing was sure, out of a ripe experience. He 
 had no difficulty in detecting, under the little man's self- 
 depreciating talk, that Teevan had ever been a power 
 among women, and was not even yet invincibly averse 
 to gallant adventure ; not yet a man to be resisted. He 
 was far from bluntly confessing this, but sometimes, 
 when the brandy was low in the decanter, he would 
 tacitly admit a romantic past; romantic, perhaps, to 
 the point of turbulence. And once, when there was no 
 brandy left, he spoke of specific affairs, particularly 
 of one the breaking off of which was giving him the 
 devil's own worry. 
 
 "Gad! She's bent on sacrificing everything for 
 me!" 
 
 194
 
 The Unblazed Way 
 
 Ewing innocently murmured words about marriage 
 as an honorable estate. 
 
 "Marriage!" said Teevan, and Ewing blushed, noting 
 his tone and the lift of his brows. 
 
 "Poor, silly, romantic fools!" sighed Teevan. "One 
 would find it difficult to say what they see in me, I 
 fancy." 
 
 Ewing murmured polite protestations. But less 
 than ever did he feel moved to speak of Mrs. Laithe 
 to the little man. It did not seem fitting. "Don Juan" 
 had been among the verse with which the lake cabin 
 was supplied. 
 
 Not even when Mrs. Laithe was taken off to Florida 
 by her father did he speak her name, though he was 
 filled with her good-by to him. There had seemed 
 to be so much between them, and yet so little of it that 
 could come to words. But he carried for long the last 
 look of her eyes, and he set to his work with a new 
 resolve. There was incentive enough. Teevan never 
 let him forget that he required signs and miracles, like 
 the doubting ones of old. And she she knew he 
 would perform them. 
 
 195
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 A LADY BLUSHES 
 
 AS the winter wore on Ewing fell into doubt and 
 dread. Vague enough they were, but they rested 
 on a sickening effect of emptiness, a time blank 
 of achievement. He still regarded Teevan as quite all 
 of the seven pillars of the house of wisdom. Yet in- 
 stinct was rebelling. There were tired afternoons when 
 he hungered to eat of the fruit of his own way. 
 
 This feeling could not but show in his occasional 
 letters to Mrs. L-aithe. She read through all his protes- 
 tations of cheerfulness to the real dejection beneath them, 
 and was both troubled and mystified, raging at his 
 secretiveness. 
 
 When she returned to New York on a day in April 
 and found a note from Mrs. Lowndes asking her to 
 dine that evening, she accepted with a plan in mind. 
 Before she saw Ewing she would try to learn something 
 about him from Sydenham, for Sydenham would also 
 dine with Mrs. Lowndes, and she knew that Ewing 
 had been painting with the old man. 
 
 She found Birley the other guest, and that, too, was 
 customary. Birley and Sydenham preserved for their 
 hostess a certain aroma of her youth. Both had wooed 
 her in the long ago; Sydenham in a day when Long 
 Branch was. On its sands in the light of a July moon 
 she had prettily hoped they might always be friends. 
 Birley had heard her intone the same becoming senti- 
 ment at Saratoga later in the season. And both rejected 
 
 196
 
 A Lady Blushes 
 
 ones had been present at St. Paul's on a day in the 
 following June when Kitty Folsom and Jack Lowndes 
 had consented together in holy wedlock. 
 
 The girl's hope, perfunctory enough at the time, one 
 may fear, had seen long years of fruition. She liked 
 to have them at her table now. Only, when the three 
 were alone, they remembered too vividly and became, 
 in the silences, too fantastically unlike their aged selves 
 to the misty eyes of one another. The one-time belle 
 found a little of that forgetting and remembering to be 
 salutary, so little as ensued when a fourth guest was 
 present. And Eleanor Laithe had often been that 
 fourth, a saving reminder of the present, to recall 
 them when they had loitered far enough back into the 
 old marrying years. 
 
 But she came this night with a reason beyond her 
 wish to please. So eager was she to ask Sydenham 
 about Ewing that she gave scant attention to the search- 
 ing looks and queries of Birley when she entered the 
 drawing room. The big man rallied her on her pallor 
 and frailness, but with a poor spirit that hardly concealed 
 his real misgiving. She silenced him with impatient 
 denials of illness, but his eyes lingered anxiously on her 
 face. 
 
 She sat at table with but half an ear for their old- 
 time gossip, the bantering gallantries of the aged swains, 
 and the outworn coquetries of the one-time beauty. 
 And when they fell silent oftener now than was their 
 wont, for each was thinking of that other Kitty Lowndes, 
 who had taken matters into her own hands she forgot 
 to make talk, silent herself for thinking on the son of 
 that Kitty. The dinner lacked the sparkle she had 
 been expected to give it. 
 
 197
 
 Swing's Lady 
 
 As they were about to rise, after coffee, she playfully 
 petitioned for a chat with Sydenham. 
 
 " Herbert wants to smoke, and I want to sit here with 
 him. We need a little talk together," she explained. 
 And the other two left them, the old lady leaning on the 
 arm of Birley. 
 
 Sydenham lighted a cigar, pushed his chair back, and 
 faced the woman who looked eagerly at him across the 
 disordered table, her arms along its edge, her head tilted 
 to a questionable angle. She flew to her point. 
 
 "What about Gilbert Ewing what trouble is he 
 having?" 
 
 Sydenham stared vacantly. He seemed to find it 
 necessary to translate the question into some language 
 of his own. 
 
 "Trouble? Oh, all sorts chrome and indigo, yellow 
 ocher, burnt umber, rose madder, Chinese white com- 
 position, light and shade, vanishing points. You'd 
 have to be one of us to understand." 
 
 "Other trouble," she insisted sharply "personal 
 not about his painting." 
 
 Sydenham stared again, clutching his beard in a 
 dazed search for inspiration. He did not consider people 
 apart from painting. It was impossible that anyone 
 should wish to discuss Ewing except in relation to colors 
 and canvas. 
 
 "Well, he has trouble with everything composition, 
 tone- values, everything." 
 
 "But something not painting." 
 
 He looked up at the ceiling helplessly. 
 
 "Well, I fancy Randy Teevan worries him." 
 
 "Randall Teevan!" She was amazed and alarmed 
 at once. 
 
 198
 
 A Lady Blushes 
 
 "Sometimes I get the idea that Randy badgers him, 
 though they're thick as thieves. The boy wouldn't 
 breathe if Randy said it was bad for the lungs." 
 
 "How long have they been friends?" 
 
 By quick, nervous, point-blank queries she drew from 
 him all that he knew of this intimacy. She puzzled 
 over it. 
 
 " Can he know? " She had not meant him to hear this, 
 but he caught the words, and betrayed something like 
 human interest. 
 
 "Trust Randy for that! I found it out myself. He 
 had Kitty's portrait Kitty to the life stunning brush 
 work. Randy has begged the picture of him for a while. 
 I fancy he didn't want it hanging there for others to see. 
 And he found the fellow here one afternoon. Kitty 
 told me. She was nearly taken off her feet by his story 
 but Randy happened in and cooled things down. It's 
 queer, Randy's setting himself to win over the chap. 
 It's a puzzle-mix. I wonder about it sometimes when 
 the light goes." 
 
 She had listened in consternation, a rage for battle 
 rising in her. She was sure Teevan must have some end 
 in view hurtful to Ewing. Yet this was cunningly 
 hidden. She was still puzzling over this when Sydenham 
 recalled her. He had forgotten Ewing, and studied the 
 red light that fell across the table through a shade of 
 silk. 
 
 "What fools we are to think of painting shadows! 
 If heaven's the place it's said to be they'll have real 
 shadows put in up tubes, and then well, think of it!" 
 
 She laughed at him, her brief laugh, with a sigh to 
 follow. 
 
 "We must go to the others. But, Herbert, you'll 
 
 199
 
 E wing's Lady 
 
 watch him as well as you can, won't you ? I feel respons- 
 ible for him in a way." 
 
 He hesitated, but the light came. "Oh, you mean 
 Ewing? Of course I'll watch him. I dare say he'll 
 paint some day, after a fashion." He fumbled for the 
 knob and awkwardly opened the door for her. 
 
 When the men went Mrs. Laithe asked if she might 
 not linger a moment. 
 
 "Dear Aunt Kitty!" she said, going to the other's 
 chair. "Old Kitty!" she repeated meaningly. The 
 elder woman glanced quickly at her in faint alarm, half 
 questioning, half defiant. 
 
 "Oh, Aunt Kitty! I know I know! and I must 
 talk of him. I suspected something almost from the 
 first, and then I made sure. But I thought that perhaps 
 no one else would find it out. And he was worth it 
 he is worth it. I couldn't have left him there, even if 
 I'd been sure that everyone would know. He was a man 
 he had the right to live." 
 
 " My child, my child ! Oh, you didn't know what you 
 were doing! It was a monstrous thing, an impossible 
 thing!" 
 
 " He's Kitty's son. You must feel for him." 
 
 "Feel? What haven't I felt since that day he came 
 here?" There had been a break in her voice, but she 
 went quietly on. " I can't make you know, dear. 
 You've torn me it will hurt to the end. Can you under- 
 stand that in a terrible, an unspeakable way, my Kitty 
 is still alive, is near me, and yet is not to be known? 
 But you can't understand it. You've never had a child." 
 
 " Ah ! but I've been one. I know what he would feel." 
 
 "Please, dear!" She put up a hand in protest. "As 
 if I don't feel his hurt and Kitty's as well as mine. I 
 
 200
 
 A Lady Blushes 
 
 shall be ground between the two every day of my life. 
 Do you think my old arms didn't cry out to be around 
 the mother in him ? But think if I had yielded ! Picture 
 his own suffering his own shame. Can you see us meet- 
 ing, our eyes falling? Even for his own sake, he must 
 never know." 
 
 " Isn't there a way, Aunt Kitty? Some way? He's 
 worth finding a way for." She leaned over to stroke 
 the other's hand. 
 
 "No way, my girl. Be the world a moment, be 
 cool. He's a nameless thing. You might know him, 
 but nothing more. Could he make a life? Could a wo- 
 man come, face it without prejudice could you see 
 your own sister marry him?" Mrs. Laithe looked blank. 
 
 " You see how impossible it is. You, yourself, could 
 you stand before the world with him? Could you face 
 tire shame?" 
 
 The younger woman dropped the hand she held and 
 turned away. The elder regarded her shrewdly. 
 
 "There you see how impossible " 
 
 But the other faced her suddenly, clear-eyed and 
 defiant, her head back. 
 
 "Eleanor!" It was a cry of consternation that was 
 yet softened by tenderness, an amazed but compre- 
 hending tenderness, for the face of the younger woman 
 was incarnadined, flagrantly, splendidly. 
 
 A moment they held each other. But there was no 
 mistaking the thing, for, though the blush had quickly 
 faded, an after glow lingered. 
 
 The older woman rose quickly to throw her arms about 
 the other. 
 
 "My mad, mad child!" She stood off to search her 
 face incredulously. 
 
 14 201
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "He's alone, Aunt Kitty, and he's so defenseless. 
 He believes in everyone more than in himself. He'll 
 be cured of that some time, but just now I'm his only 
 defender. Others are against him or stand neutral 
 with talk of the 'world.' I can't blame you, dear, I 
 think you must be right for yourself. But when he 
 does awaken" she narrowed her eyes on the other a 
 moment in calculation "then I shan't be ashamed to 
 have him know it was always safe to believe in me 
 whether he was boy or man or no one at all or less than 
 no one. I'd never bother about names, dear I'd 
 never bother about names." 
 
 She smiled and drew the other close with little reassur- 
 ing caresses. " You see names aren't much the directory 
 is full of them, and dreary enough reading they'd make. 
 No, I'd not care for that. I'd only ask that he believe 
 in himself as much as I believe in him, and care as little 
 for names. And I warn you I mean to help him to that 
 if I can." 
 
 The eyes of the other sparkled now. There was in 
 her glance the excited admiration of a timid child who 
 watches a reckless playmate dare some dark passage 
 of evil repute for goblins. 
 
 "You mad dear mad girl!" she said. 
 
 202
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE DRAMA IN NINTH STREET 
 
 EWING knew that his lady had come back. She 
 had sent him a note the first day: "I am dining 
 to-night with an old friend. But come to-mor- 
 row night." 
 
 The next day, while he was saying, " To-night I shall 
 see her actually see her . . . " there had come another 
 note in her careless, scrawled writing: "I find, after 
 all, that I shall be engaged to-night. Can you not come 
 to-morrow night instead? I am eager for a talk with 
 you." 
 
 "Could" he come! He laughed as he put the thing 
 tenderly away. Could he come, indeed ! Could he stay 
 away? 
 
 But early in the evening of that same forbidden day 
 he walked to Ninth Street, entering that thoroughfare 
 furtively. He might not see her for another day, but 
 at least he could look fondly at the door by which she 
 had entered, and gaze on the stanch house that enfolded 
 her, even on the steps that must have felt her light, 
 quick tread, perhaps within the hour. 
 
 These things would help him to believe in her actuality 
 she had so come to seem but a dream lady to him. 
 
 Thrice he passed the house on the opposite side of the 
 street. A dim light glowed through the curtained win- 
 dows. Beyond them, he thought, she would be talking; 
 laughing, perhaps; perhaps even thinking of him at 
 
 203
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 that very moment as she gazed absently at some speaker 
 who thought to have her attention. If only she, too, 
 could be counting the hours ! But that was too unlikely. 
 He warned himself not to imagine that. He recalled 
 some of Teevan's speeches about women "Shallow, 
 pretty fools, for man's amusing the Oriental alone, 
 my boy, has a sane theory of women; creatures to be 
 kept as choice cabinet bits under lock and key." 
 Poor Teevan, not to have known the one woman who 
 could have illumined his darkness! Poor Teevan, in- 
 deed ! He idly wondered if his affair that troublesome 
 affair of which the little man had spoken so feelingly 
 had been "broken off." 
 
 He slowly walked once more past the Bartell house, 
 beholding a splendid vision of himself as he would leap 
 up those steps the next evening. Then he continued 
 on past Teevan's house, regarding that, also, with great 
 kindness. He stopped a little beyond this, meaning to 
 return. As he did so the door opened and a woman 
 came out. He thought there was something furtive in 
 her glance up and down the street as she paused to 
 gather up her skirts. Then something familiar in the 
 feminine grace of that movement chained him. Surely, 
 but one person had ever done the thing in just that way. 
 There could be no other. He stood staring while she 
 came down the steps and into the light of a street 
 lamp. It was Mrs. Laithe, walking briskly now, toward 
 her own home. He could not mistake that free-swinging, 
 level, deliberate stride, with the head so finely up. 
 
 He almost cried out to her in his gladness. He felt 
 as a lost child who wildly claims its own again in some 
 crowded street. He walked back quickly, watching her 
 until her own door swallowed her up. 
 
 204
 
 The Drama in Ninth Street 
 
 He felt a lively rejoicing. The unpromising evening 
 had done well by him after all. Thinking but to look 
 tenderly at a house front he had veritably seen his lady 
 watched her with secret, unrestrained fondness. He had 
 an impulse to follow now and demand her at the door. 
 But he remembered in time ; she would be engaged and 
 he would see her soon. That long look was adventure 
 enough for one night. 
 
 But he could ring Teevan's bell. That would be a 
 fine thing to do, for Teevan had seen her. Teevan 
 would speak of her, little knowing how his words were 
 hungered for. He was admitted and found the little 
 man on the hearth rug in the library, talking to himself 
 with great animation. He showed surprise, but his 
 welcome was warmer than usual, Ewing thought. He 
 seated his guest and proffered him brandy, pouring a 
 glass for himself from a decanter almost empty. As 
 he drank he beamed shrewdly on Ewing kindly but 
 shrewdly. " He must have seen her he must have seen 
 her ..." the little man was saying. Then a vag- 
 rant, elfish vanity smote him. He smiled inscrutably 
 on Ewing Ewing, who had been waiting to say lightly, 
 "I happened to see Mrs. Laithe leaving . . ." But 
 he did not say this, for the little man's smile came to 
 life in speech. 
 
 "Gad! my boy I'm deuced glad you came. You 
 can make me forget a most distressing half hour I've 
 just gone through." 
 
 The light in Ewing's eyes changed perceptibly. 
 
 " Oh, these women ! " grumbled Teevan pleasantly, with 
 the fine, humorous resignation of a persecuted gallant. 
 
 "Women women?" muttered Ewing, slightly aghast. 
 Teevan's heart beat blithely within his breast. 
 
 205
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "Silly, romantic fools! What do they see in a man 
 of my years?" He flourished a gesture of magnificent 
 deprecation. " I think I once mentioned a very irk- 
 some affair " How he blessed, now, that bit of boast- 
 ing, vague and aimless at the time ! " The lady, I blush 
 to say it, becomes exigent. But I'm rightly served. 
 Heaven knows I've seen enough of that sort of thing to 
 know how it ends. But come" he rose to a livelier 
 manner " I shouldn't bore you with a matter I'm half 
 ashamed of, man of the world as I am. You'll sound the 
 ennui of it, all in your own good time, when you've lost 
 a few of those precious illusions." He broke off to 
 ring, and directed the man to replenish the decanter. 
 
 Ewing gazed stupidly at him, failing of speech. The 
 little man drank again when the brandy came, and 
 Ewing wondered if he could be drunk. He feared not. 
 The men he had known in the hills were noisy in drink 
 they chiefly yelled. And Teevan was quiet. If his eyes 
 stared vacantly at intervals, if he clipped syllables from 
 his words, and seemed to attack his speech with extreme 
 caution, those might be only the results of his emotion. 
 But what monstrous stuff was this he uttered! What 
 unbelievable stuff ! In a fever of apprehension he won- 
 dered what Teevan would say next. 
 
 But the little man dismissed woman, dismissed her 
 with an exquisite shrug, to speak of his young friend's 
 work, and of painting at large. 
 
 "A suggestion of the true manner in that late thing 
 of yours, my boy, really, a hint of Dupre", and he was a 
 colorist of the first rank. And there are fewer colorists, 
 genuine masters of tone, than you'd think. Turner 
 was one, to be sure, but Millet had a restricted sense 
 of color. Corot was great only within a narrow range. 
 
 206
 
 The Drama in Ninth Street 
 
 Rousseau was only a bit broader, robuster. There's 
 a wretchedly defective color sense in many of the old 
 masters, and in heaven knows how many of the young 
 ones. France must take the blame for that, I'm sure 
 you'd agree with me. The academic sentiment there 
 runs to form and against color. They insist thatcolor- 
 ists do little work. It's not an unplausible sophism. 
 One has only to begin counting to see that counting 
 the host of little niggling, mechanical stipplers it's 
 responsible for. It's true, color has its pitfalls and its 
 gins. There's a temptation to shirk form. Many 
 an aspiring colorist has become at last a mushy manner- 
 ist, as vicious in his influence as the chaps who never 
 get beyond smart drawing and clever grouping." The 
 little man was "squeezing" his eyes now as if he 
 judged a row of paintings. He talked on and drank 
 frequently. 
 
 But Ewing left as soon as he could do so. Teevan 
 pressed his hand with rare cordiality at parting, as if 
 Ewing were one person in the world still worthy of belief. 
 He wandered blindly home, awkwardly trying to mold 
 this new chaos into an understandable scheme of things. 
 He fell instinctively back on his studies of the drama. 
 
 Many nights he had sat before the painted curtain 
 to feast a questing mind on the life it lifted to reveal. 
 He had found its revelations more intimate, more 
 specific, than those of the life outside, and he had seemed 
 to learn many things. Lacking this study he would 
 not have divined that actual men and women might 
 be leading lives of domestic adventure, of romantic 
 vicissitude, of sinister intrigue, lives crowded with 
 love and hate and fear and a thousand lawless com- 
 plexities. 
 
 207
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 He had studied the street crowds in the light thus 
 thrown on their inner motives. It had been a fine 
 thing to detect the plotting scoundrel under the placid, 
 dissembling mask of some fellow who bought an evening 
 paper and boarded a street car with elaborate airs of 
 innocence; to probe the secret of the unhappy wife 
 whose white face stared blankly from a passing brou- 
 gham ; to identify the handsome but never culpable hero, 
 unconscious of third-act toils tightening about him; 
 to know the persecuted heroine, or the manly but 
 comic chap who loved her with exquisite restraint, 
 divining that she could never be his. 
 
 But, though he had stripped the masks from these 
 mummers in the street crowds, and read their secrets 
 of guilt or innocence, he had not supposed that the 
 people he actually knew could be leading lives com- 
 plicated in that way. And if Teevan had talked, then 
 Teevan must have been drunk. He would see her 
 to-morrow night, and she would speak casually of her 
 call at Teevan's upon some trifling errand. 
 
 Yet, when night came again and he stood in her 
 presence, the first devouring look at her shocked him 
 momentarily out of all thought of Teevan's maunder- 
 ings. She was drooping and wasted and flatly pale. 
 He scarcely knew her face, with the eyes burning at 
 him from black rings. He took her hand, nursing it 
 gently, standing helpless and hurt before her. 
 
 "You are so changed," he said fearfully, "so changed! 
 Oh, you are so changed!" 
 
 But she laughed with her familiar gayety, tossing 
 her head in denial. He still scanned her face. Some 
 resemblance there, some sinister memory of her look 
 on another face, was stirring him. He could almost 
 
 208
 
 The Drama in Ninth Street 
 
 remember what it meant. At last her eyes fell before 
 his and she drew her hand quickly away. 
 
 "Really, I won't have any talk of myself. I hear 
 too much of that. I'm a bit run down, that's all. We 
 found Florida enervating. Even dad was affected 
 by it and forgot his philosophy. So, an end to that. 
 I must hear of you, of your work." 
 
 She sat down, drawing a white scarf about her shoul- 
 ders, and leaning toward him in the old inviting way. 
 
 "Tell me what you have done everything there is 
 to tell about it." 
 
 All at once he remembered. 
 
 "Last night," he began uneasily "I wanted to see 
 you last night " 
 
 "You couldn't have seen me last night." She smiled 
 in a way that brought out all the weak, wasted look 
 of her face. "I was busy I was trying to adjust 
 something that has troubled me more than I can tell 
 you." 
 
 He stared at her, incredulous, believing he could not 
 have heard. 
 
 ". . . an affair that has worried me," she repeated, 
 noticing his blank look. 
 
 Stupefied as he was, he felt a great pity rush over 
 him, an instant longing to be her knight and give battle 
 for her to be her squire, if she herself must be knight. 
 Yet, if Teevan had spoken truly must it not be a thing 
 in which he was powerless to help her ever so little? 
 A sudden sickness of rage came over him at thought of 
 Teevan. He had almost made a jest of her. 
 
 He could not talk of himself after that. She could 
 get nothing from him of his own worries, though she 
 could see that he had these in abundance. At last she 
 
 209
 
 Swing's Lady 
 
 tired of striving against him and let him go, out of sheer 
 longing for the touch of his hand at parting. He had 
 regarded her with a moody, almost savage tenderness 
 that made her weak. 
 
 As he walked home he felt new to the streets again. 
 They were strange streets in a strange world. But 
 one thing he was sure of; one thing stood clearly out 
 of the puzzle : he must not intrude, must not bother her ; 
 must not see her often. In a drama so alien to him 
 he could not act without direction. He knew his own 
 longing too well to trust himself. He sat a long time 
 with his arms clasped across his breast. The anguish 
 in it seemed physical; it was as if a beast were devouring 
 his heart. 
 
 2IO
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 A REVOI/T 
 
 HE turned furiously to his work, but, as the sum- 
 mer came on, he realized that he was working 
 with a desperation entirely heartless. He 
 was not only sure, now, that he had taken a wrong 
 road, but that nameless distress of his lady had left 
 his desire benumbed. A fountain had gone dry in him. 
 
 At the beginning of the warm days he went into the 
 country on sketching trips with Sydenham. To vales 
 and little rivers north of the city, to flat, green stretches 
 on Long Island, to the Jersey hills, they had gone with 
 sketch traps wherever trolley or steam car could find 
 Nature quickly for them. 
 
 Ewing had looked forward to this. He had felt 
 hampered in the studio, where he must pass whole 
 days in futile messing with colors, in rash trials of this 
 or that trick of tint, like an idling schoolboy playing 
 with slate and pencil. Once in the open, he had felt, 
 there would quickly show forth those gifts which 
 Teevan was certain he possessed. 
 
 But day by day these excursions with the old painter 
 had brought him to believe that he had lost his way. 
 That trick of color was not to be learned, it was clear, 
 by rough-and-ready advances. Teevan, who was ever 
 watchful of him, who betrayed, indeed, a strange little 
 jealousy of any other influence than his own, scanned 
 his first studies eagerly, and turned an inscrutable face 
 
 211
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 on his young friend. He did not praise loosely; he did 
 not condemn outright. And he talked not too specific- 
 ally of the canvases before him. He showed little 
 consciousness of a change in the demeanor of his dis- 
 ciple, though Ewing's eye rested on him with a long, 
 unaccountable regard. Perhaps the boy was turning a 
 little sullen. This amused him. Meanwhile, the youth 
 stood aghast before the dreadful thing he saw in his 
 heart. Hatred of a benefactor! All the good in him 
 struggled against it; all his gratitude pleaded with him 
 to be fair to the friend he had revered so long. Teevan 
 talked more of Corot or Constable, Diaz or Millet than 
 he talked of Ewing; and the young man came at last 
 to the amazing conclusion not only that he was on a 
 wrong road, but that Teevan knew it that the little 
 man must long have known it. This put him again 
 in that rage of impotence that had seized him in those 
 last days at the League. But he bore it longer now. 
 He felt there was something final about this. 
 
 There were long days in the open to think on it, 
 weigh it, and wring the meaning from it. Sydenham 
 placidly criticised his work; but Sydenham could not 
 feel his tragedy of defeat. A man who, at seventy, 
 suffered his own despairs with the poignant ecstasy 
 of youth, could not take a boy's failings seriously. 
 Ewing now saw, moreover for he was beginning to 
 use another pair of eyes than Teevan's that Sydenham 
 himself was a hopeless mannerist, a color-mad volup- 
 tuary, painting always subjectively, refusing all but 
 the merest hints from his subject. 
 
 His last day of confessed futility, his last hour of 
 inner rebellion, came early in June. He carried his 
 sketch trap out that day, but did not unpack it. He 
 
 212
 
 A Revolt 
 
 lay, instead, pondering, resolving, raging, while Syden- 
 ham, a little distance off, delicately corrected the errors 
 of Nature in a vista of meadow. Ewing chewed the 
 juicy ends of long-stemmed grasses and made phrases 
 of disparagement for this sketch of Sydenham's, pictur- 
 ing himself with the courage to utter them. He told 
 himself frankly what he thought of the old man's work 
 his "brush doddering," he nerved himself to call it. 
 
 Immensely refreshed by this exercise in brutality, 
 he rolled over on his grassy bed to follow the shade of 
 the oak under which he lay, and dramatized a meeting 
 with Teevan, in which the little man strangely listened 
 more than he spoke. He uttered his mind again con- 
 cerning the work of Sydenham, the master Teevan had 
 prescribed, asserting that unsuspecting toiler to be 
 hopelessly "locoed" in the matter of color. He saw 
 Teevan's fine brows go elegantly up at this term, and 
 he explained it to him with a humble sort of boldness. 
 
 From this he warmed to sheer audacity, disclosing 
 further to his imagined hearer that the time had come 
 for him to go his own way still grateful for advice, 
 still yearning for that friendly intimacy, but determined 
 to be done with dreams. He saw Teevan applauding 
 this mild declaration of revolt, with his fine, dark little 
 smile, and a courteous inclination of the head, and he 
 thereupon amplified it. He must go back to himself 
 and stay there stubbornly, wheresoever that self led 
 him. Millet might have had a restricted sense of 
 color, Corot might have had his faults, and Rousseau 
 have been less than Teevan could have wished him; 
 but these were dead men. And Ewing was alive, 
 determined to do those things that permitted him to 
 feel the little power he might have. He was through 
 
 213
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 with efforts that brought him nothing but a sense of the 
 folly of all effort. And it was to this conviction, he 
 made it plain, that his amazed but still respectful 
 listener had led him. He worked himself into a glow 
 of defiant self-assertion, feeling his own respect, and 
 Teevan's as well, mounting with his heat. 
 
 When the light faded he strolled over to look at 
 Sydenham's sketch, bent on testing his self-inspired 
 temerity. 
 
 "I wonder if you've gotten that sky?" he began 
 judicially, as the old man invited his comment. Syden- 
 ham looked up in some surprise, but Ewing's eyes were 
 still on the sketch. 
 
 "Too gray above, isn't it? I thought the gray was 
 only down near the horizon. By the way, I wish I'd 
 roughed in that cow for you. A cow isn't the easiest 
 thing in the world to draw. They look easy, but they're 
 not. That bit of stone wall isn't bad, and your clover 
 effect is first rate." He paused. He had meant only 
 to practice speaking his own mind against the next 
 interview with Teevan. He did not want to hurt 
 Sydenham. The latter was roping his stool and easel 
 together. He had been a little amazed at his pupil's 
 outburst, but he looked up with a smile entirely placid. 
 
 "That's the way they all say it. You've caught the 
 trick of art criticism, my boy, if you've caught nothing 
 else." 
 
 Ewing saw that he was laughed at. There was a 
 cool little flash to his retort. 
 
 " I can make that into a real cow for you, if you like, 
 after we get home." 
 
 But the old man only chuckled at him, making him 
 regret that he had ever so little curbed his criticism. 
 
 214
 
 A Revolt 
 
 He had an impulse to fight, a craving to arouse resist- 
 ance. But he saw that Sydenham was no target for 
 him, save in a sort of subcaliber practice. He hoped 
 this novel combativeness would not wither under the 
 first glance of Teevan's sharp little eyes. 
 
 It was dusk when they reached the city, and Ewing 
 went to the Monastery to dine. He had long shunned 
 the place, for the men there talked of things they had 
 done or were doing, and they had made him, without 
 meaning to, feel "out of it," as he told himself. For 
 he, if he talked, could tell only of wonders he meant to 
 do, and, lacking an audience composed of Teevans, 
 he was shrewd enough to see that these would sound too 
 wonderful and the future too distantly vague. 
 
 He had always been glad, however, of his drawing 
 on the east wall. They could not believe him wholly 
 lacking after that, nor refuse him fellowship if he sought 
 it. He avoided the crowd when he entered the room 
 the men he knew best were at a long table on the rear 
 veranda just outside the open windows and chose a 
 small table opposite his drawing. He had thought of 
 it often during the afternoon while he harangued 
 Teevan in imagination. It had occurred to him that 
 this was the only thing he had really done since coming 
 to New York, and he had been seized with a longing 
 to look at it again, to prove to his own eyes that the 
 thing which was really his own not Corot's nor Millet's 
 nor even Sydenham's was not an inconsiderable thing, 
 not a thing he need despair of building on. 
 
 As he ate, his eyes eagerly retraced the lines. After 
 the soup he had to look down to his plate to know if 
 his fork brought him fish or flesh. The sketch delighted 
 him. He was surprised that he had been able to do it. 
 
 215
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 He began to doubt his present mastery of the tech- 
 nique it displayed, fearing he had wandered too long in 
 the Tee van-prescribed maze, dawdled too long in the 
 little man's palace of illusions. One thing he knew: 
 he would not dare mount a table and try another such 
 drawing before them all. He had done this one as 
 unthinkingly as he would have saddled a horse or 
 sighted a rifle, indifferent to observers. It rushed 
 upon him sickeningly that all his association with Teevan 
 had tended to destroy his belief in himself. The coffee 
 found him afraid ragingly afraid. 
 
 The voices from the group outside came to him 
 murmurously, and at intervals he would listen to the 
 careless, bantering talk. One voice related that its 
 wielder had smoked opium in Cairo. He heard cries 
 of mock horror, and the drawl of Chalmers "Cairo 
 that's where the 'streets' come from." Griggs was 
 presently extolling some ancient and wonderful sherry. 
 "Great stuff! You take a sip and you don't swallow 
 it it just floats off through your being like a golden 
 mist. He only has about a dozen bottles out of a lot 
 that was put down for Napoleon or somebody in 1830." 
 Baldwin's voice floated in: "All right, old man, but 
 they had to put it down a long way to reach Napoleon in 
 1830." 
 
 There was a laugh at this, and it came to the lone 
 listener as the care-free echo of a world he had tried for 
 and lost. Lost thus far but there was farther to go, 
 other days to live, other wise men to counsel with. He 
 could have believed it heartily, if it were not for that 
 thought of Mrs. Laithe, the thought that was always 
 like a beast devouring his heart. Meantime, if he could 
 only have a breathing spell, some days of quiet. He 
 
 216
 
 A Revolt 
 
 wished his own hills were not so far away. He was sure 
 that a little time back in the cabin studio would give 
 him his old bearings. 
 
 His thought ran to Mrs. Laithe's brother, who had 
 come to town the week before, bronzed and bearded and 
 violent with enthusiasm for his Western life. He 
 decided that a talk with Bartell would be tonic to his 
 mood; the bare mention of familiar names and places 
 would hearten him of the Wimmenuche and Bar-y, 
 Old Baldy and Dry Fork. And perhaps he had seen 
 Ben lately; the two might even have driven down to 
 Pagosa together. 
 
 And it would be an excuse for seeing her. For two 
 months he had sought her only thus, with something 
 he could hold in his mind as an excuse, for he was 
 abashed by that nameless thing that troubled her, and 
 troubled, as well, the little man who had meant so 
 much to him for Teevan, when the brandy was low, 
 continued to speak of women. 
 
 He walked quickly round to the house in Ninth Street, 
 where he asked for Bartell. But only Mrs. Laithe was 
 at home. This embarrassed him, great as was his 
 solicitude for her. She had sought his confidence more 
 than once of late, but he could not tell her of doubts only 
 half defined, of fears vague to absurdity, of anxieties 
 that might well be baseless. He thought that now he 
 could have talked, finding her alone, but for once she 
 seemed rather curiously preoccupied. They sat together 
 in the library with only a half light, the two windows 
 opened for random breezes. Suddenly, as her face was 
 toward him, dim though the light was, he caught the 
 look that had troubled him so hauntingly in the spring. 
 He knew that look now ; it was the look he had seen on 
 15 217
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 his father's face in the last year of his life the look of 
 a spirit divesting itself of the flesh. 
 
 " You are ill," he said, trying to speak lightly under 
 his sudden alarm. " Let me have a better look at you." 
 He turned the light to a full blaze. Her wonted paleness 
 was warmed to a sinister flush about the eyes and the 
 upper face, and, though her eyes flashed bravely at him 
 in denial, the bones were sharp above her hollowed 
 cheeks, and her once rounded chin had become lean. 
 She shivered as she spoke. 
 
 "I'm a little exhausted by the heat; nothing more. 
 Lower the light, please. I don't care to be studied just 
 now." 
 
 "But I know you're not well. You ought to go off 
 some place. Get out to pasture at once. You've been 
 'over-packed,' kept too long on the trail." 
 
 "You, too? They all say it. It's so easy to say." 
 
 "And easy to do." 
 
 " It's hard to do, and yet I'm afraid I must. I've felt 
 that I ought to be here with my charges you have been 
 one of them." She brightened with a sudden inspiration. 
 "You need rest yourself. Your face shows it. You've 
 been depressed a long time, you are worried now. 
 Let us both rest. My aunt up at Kensington has wanted 
 me there the aunt my sister is with. She'd be glad 
 to have you as well. It's a big house and she likes 
 young people. There! Will you go with me?" 
 
 She rose, waiting, electrified, for his answer. Instantly 
 he felt that he wished this above all things. There he 
 could find himself, fortify his soul for any number of 
 Teevans perhaps fortify her own. 
 
 " I'll go," he answered heartily. " It will be good for 
 us both." 
 
 218
 
 A Revolt 
 
 She fell into her chair with a long " Ah ! " then she gave 
 the purring little laugh, like that of a child made happy. 
 "We shall go for two blessed weeks and forget this 
 place with its wretched tangles." 
 
 " I'm your man!" he said, rising and taking her hand 
 with his old boyish enthusiasm. "Can we start early?" 
 
 She kept her hand in his while she laughed again. 
 "The train goes from the Grand Central at one. I'll 
 wire Aunt Joyce." 
 
 Outside Ewing met Bartell, but he did not talk of the 
 San Juan. 
 
 "You must see to your sister," he said. "She looks 
 the way my father did. You ought to get her out of 
 here. She's going off for two weeks, but that won't set 
 her right. Go look at her!" 
 
 Bartell found his sister where Ewing had left her. 
 
 "Well, Nell, how is it now? What did Birley say?" 
 
 She stirred impatiently in her chair. " He wouldn't 
 commit himself. He told me to rest away from here 
 for two weeks and then come back to see a specialist he'd 
 send me to, a man who knows such things." 
 
 " I just met Ewing he spoke of how badly you look. 
 I'm worried, Nell. You're not going to be left here." 
 
 " I must tell you something, dear oh, a ghastly 
 joke, if ever there was one : You know that one death 
 trap of a tenement I've had so much trouble with " 
 
 "Where all those consumptives were? Yes." 
 
 "They've died there like sheep. I had it inspected 
 I wanted to have the owner compelled to build it over 
 or something, but we always found that the law had been 
 cunningly met with not the spirit of it, but the letter. 
 The airshafts and drains were bad enough to kill, but 
 not bad enough to hurt the owner. Yesterday I deter- 
 
 219
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 mined to find out who the owner was, to make a personal 
 appeal. I was willing to buy the place myself." 
 
 She stopped in a fit of coughing, a dry, hard, tearing 
 cough that left her exhausted. 
 
 "Well, Sis?" 
 
 "I went to the agents this will make you cry or 
 laugh ; I did both and I found they were my agents 
 the house was my house." 
 
 "Poor Sis!" 
 
 "One of those Dick left mine, you understand. 
 I've been spending the blood of those people, eating, 
 wearing, amusing myself with it." 
 
 "Yes, and going down there to get caught in the 
 same trap. I don't see anything funny about that." 
 
 "Alden Teevan would. I must tell him of it my 
 own dungeon closing in on me." 
 
 "Nonsense! You're morbid, girl. Tenements have 
 got to be dirty. Trinity Church itself has a fine bunch 
 of the worst kind." 
 
 "I'm not a church, dear. This tenement is coming 
 down. I gave orders to-day." 
 
 " Well, you stay away from it. You're in bad shape, 
 my girl." 
 
 "Two weeks at Kensington will put me right." 
 
 "Two weeks nothing! See here, if you act up, I'll 
 rope you and hustle you out to the ranch and close herd 
 you there for about six months." 
 
 She smiled weakly at him. 
 
 " I shall be all right, dear but you can help me up- 
 stairs now." 
 
 "Too tired for a roof garden?" 
 
 "I'm afraid so." 
 
 "Or a broiled lobster?" 
 
 220
 
 A Revolt 
 
 "Not to-night, dear." 
 
 He helped her up the stairs, alternately scolding her 
 for her weakness and protesting that broiled lobsters 
 were all that kept him from forgetting the existence of 
 Manhattan. 
 
 221
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE LITTLE LAND 
 
 EWING found Kensington like a village dropped 
 from the clouds of stageland, its wide, grass- 
 bordered streets arched with giant elms and 
 flanked by square old houses, drowsing behind their 
 flower gardens and green lawns. The house to which 
 he went was equally a stage house. Only in that land of 
 pretense had he seen its like : a big, square, gray house, 
 its drab slate roof and red chimneys all but hidden by 
 the elms that towered above it like mammoth feather 
 dusters, its wide piazzas screened from the street by a 
 hoary hedge of lilac. The house seemed to drowse in 
 a comfortable lethargy, confident of the rectitude of 
 builders long dead who had roughhewn its beams and 
 joined them with wooden pins before a day of nails. 
 In Ewing's own room, far up between the hunched shoul- 
 ders of the house, the windows gave closely on one of the 
 elms, so that he could hear its whispers night and morn- 
 ing from his canopied bed of four posts. The other 
 rooms were broad and low of ceiling, and there were 
 long, high-backed sofas, slim-legged chairs, and tables 
 of mahogany or rosewood, desks, cabinets, and high- 
 boys of an outlandish grace, that charmed with hints of 
 a mellowed past of past overlaying past in sleeping 
 strata. 
 
 The woman whose house this was seemed to Ewing 
 to be its true spirit. She, too, drowsed anciently, a 
 
 222
 
 The Little Land 
 
 thing of old lace and lavender, yet of a certain gentle 
 and antique sprightliness, of cheeks preserving a hint of 
 time-worn pink, mellowed like the scrap of her flowered 
 wedding dress shut between the leaves of an "Annual" 
 half a century old. 
 
 And Ewing found in the house, too, the girl who had 
 once talked half an hour with him by an exigent tea 
 table. She had been a thing of shy restraint then, 
 showing with an almost old-fashioned simplicity against 
 her background of townish sophistication. Now he 
 found her demurely modern in this huddle of mellowed 
 relics. She it was who interpreted for him the antique 
 mysteries of house and town. She paraded before him 
 the treasures of her aunt, from the pewter plates and 
 silver-gilt candelabra to camphor-scented brocades long 
 hidden in cedar chests in the ghostly attic. But she 
 performed her office with irreverence; as when, in the 
 attic's gloom, she held the festal gown of some departed 
 great-grandmother before her own robust figure to show 
 how tiny were grandmothers in those days, for the yoke 
 but a little more than half spanned her breadth as she 
 smirked above it in scorn of its narrowness. 
 
 In that subdued light the girl's skin was flawless, 
 her eyes were shaded to murkiness, and a mote-ridden 
 shaft of sunlight struck her hair to a radiant yellow. 
 But out of doors these matters could be seen to another 
 effect. The hair was only a yellowish brown, the eyes 
 lost their shadows and became the lucid green of sea 
 waves, and the face was spotted with tiny freckles, like 
 a bird's egg. He liked her best out of doors, breathing 
 as she did of wood and field and sky. Skirts she seemed 
 to wear under protest, as a wood nymph might humor, 
 a little awkwardly, the prejudice of an indoor tribe with 
 
 223
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 which she chose to tarry. When she raced over the 
 lawn with her dog, it was not hard to see that clothing 
 was an ungraceful impediment, even the short-skirted 
 gowns she wore by day. In the longer affairs of evening, 
 though she strove to subdue her spirits to them, she still 
 had an air of the open, as if she but played at being a 
 lady and might forget at any moment. Ewing was shyer 
 of her when evening brought this change of habit. At 
 such times he found it easier to talk to Mrs. Laithe, who 
 sat or, oftener, lay with her eyes turned from the 
 light, speaking but little. 
 
 "I'm glad to be away from town," she said to him, 
 as he sat a moment beside her one day, "and I'm glad 
 you're away. I need to be quiet, and you shall do as you 
 like. Virginia will go about with you and make you gay. 
 Virginia always makes us gay." 
 
 Unconsciously her hand had fallen on his sleeve, 
 curling and fastening there, and when he rose he was 
 disturbed to see that he had shaken off so tender a thing. 
 
 "I didn't know you were holding me," he said, in 
 apology, and lifted the fallen hand. 
 
 "Such foolish hands! Your sister's are tiny, too, 
 but they look as if they could turn a doorknob." He 
 leisurely turned it this way and that to see its lines, and 
 compared the fingernails with his own to show how 
 absurd they were. And all the time it seemed to the 
 woman that her hand had a little heart in it that was 
 beating to suffocation. 
 
 " There, Virginia is beckoning to you from the path 
 perhaps you can finish my hand another time." She 
 laughed. "I hope you're not seriously annoyed about 
 it." 
 
 "It's foolish," he insisted, and replaced it with 
 
 224
 
 The Little Land 
 
 elaborate care. Then he ran to join his ruddy cicerone. 
 He found the girl a good comrade, who helped him to 
 forget those things he wished to forget. Somehow in 
 the quiet air, that nameless secret thing that had been 
 eating his heart drew off a little. Almost he could 
 believe it had all been some hideous mistake. 
 
 He tried at first to join Virginia in her sports. Tennis 
 looked foolishly easy, but after sending four of the 
 balls beyond recovery he suspected that the game 
 might demand something more than willingness and 
 strength, and relinquished his racquet to watch the 
 girl. He felt the glow of the sport in following her 
 swift movements, and he envied the young men who 
 could play with her. 
 
 Golf looked not only easy but useless ; and it was with 
 only half a heart that he essayed it. He splintered a 
 driver at his first attempt, and he did not venture a 
 second. Still, he liked golf better than tennis, he 
 decided, for he could carry the bag of things she played 
 with and hunt lost balls, and wander over the course 
 alone with her. He was never able to believe that a 
 stroke more or less in holing the ball could be a matter 
 of real moment, but the girl was worth watching while 
 she believed it. He had never seen a real girl near 
 before, and he was surprised to find it so fine a sight. 
 
 In the canoe he was more successful, contriving to 
 accomplish by sheer strength of arm what the girl did 
 more adroitly. They would paddle far up the little 
 river, to float down in the late afternoon. The river, 
 too, was a stage river, running between low, willow- 
 fringed banks, or winding among hay fields that sloped 
 back to the upland, or lush green meadows where cows 
 were posed effectively. The girl became part of the 
 
 225
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 picture when they turned to float homeward, facing 
 him from the bow, her hair glinting yellow and her 
 skin crystal clear against the crimson cushion she 
 leaned upon. 
 
 They rode together, too he could join her there 
 over the upland and far into the little hills, between 
 tangled hedge rows, past little farms with orchards of 
 ripening fruit. They passed many deserted places, 
 mournful in their stagnation, overgrown with wild 
 things, the houses forlornly dismantled, perhaps with 
 the roof sunken, the chimney toppled, and the weather- 
 beaten walls in ruinous decay. He was touched by 
 these places. The houses must have been built with 
 high hope, and once have been alive with full-hearted 
 effort. Their walls had enclosed dreams and joyous 
 dramas. Then discouragement had fallen and the 
 search for another place of beginning. He wondered 
 what had become of all the people who had built these 
 homes. He hoped they had begun in another place 
 with undimmed resolve and had found peace. Yet 
 there were sinister hints that their ghosts haunted 
 these spots of their first failures, beseeching of the ruins 
 something of the first freshness of impulse. 
 
 He tried to tell Virginia Bartell that he, too, was 
 like a deserted farm, falling into ruin. But this only 
 made her laugh. She could not believe in failure, it 
 seemed. And he laughed with her, after a little. It 
 was not possible, after all, to suppose that he could go 
 on being a ruin forever. These frustrated home makers 
 must have succeeded at last, and so would he. In some 
 manner the girl herself became an assurance of this. 
 Her mere buoyancy uplifted him. 
 
 These times alone with the girl were not always to be 
 
 226
 
 The Little Land 
 
 had for the asking. There abounded other youths 
 who prized her companionship; able, dauntless youths 
 and skilled with accomplishments. 
 
 There was one of these, a tall young man, spectacled, 
 of a high, shiny forehead, a student of a youth, who 
 haunted the gray house like a malignant wraith of erudi- 
 tion, and condescended to the girl almost as flagrantly 
 as he did to Ewing. His talk, whether of machinery 
 or morals, socialism or chemistry, was meant to instruct. 
 Wherefore the girl slunk from him, not always so skil- 
 fully as might have been wished with far less subtlety, 
 indeed, than her aunt wished. 
 
 " I'm almost certain you offended him this afternoon," 
 she remarked on a day when they had fled flagrantly 
 to the river, "though why you should wish to avoid 
 him is beyond me. You know that he's from one of 
 the very oldest families in West Roxbury." The 
 girl's tone was penitent as she answered: "But I'd 
 promised to go in the canoe with Mr. Ewing." There 
 was no penitence, however, in the look she flashed at 
 Ewing over her aunt's shoulder, daring him to prove 
 if he were a man. He nerved himself in the glance. 
 
 "But you see, Mrs. Ranley, I'm from one of the 
 very oldest families in Hinsdale County, Colorado." 
 The girl applauded him with her eyes, and the incident 
 was closed with a word of mild gratification from the 
 old lady. She was pleased to observe that he felt a 
 family pride, even though any county in Colorado was, 
 of course, beyond consideration. 
 
 Their favorite walk home from the golf links led them 
 through a churchyard, and here they often rested in 
 the cool of the afternoon; not in the new part where 
 monument and mound were obtrusively recent, but up 
 
 227
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 the hill from these, where death was so ancient as to be 
 touched with the grace of the antique. Here, in a 
 pleasant gloom of oak shade, cypress and elm, they 
 loitered among the drab stones that headed mounds 
 worn down and overgrown with sweetbrier, wild rose, 
 and matted grass; and here Mrs. L,aithe sometimes 
 joined them for the homeward stroll, walking too much, 
 Ewing thought, like one who had risen from the for- 
 gotten multitude under foot. Yet, when he spoke of 
 her health she always responded with her gay assurances, 
 and seemed, indeed, to be more concerned about his 
 welfare than her own. He had not been able to talk 
 to her freely. There was so much about Teevan that 
 he felt she would not understand. Besides, he could 
 not speak to her about Teevan. 
 
 At the end of the first week he had written to Teevan 
 to say that he must talk with him. The little man 
 had replied from his favorite sea place, naming a day 
 when he would be back in town. 
 
 The prospect depressed Ewing anew. It had been 
 easy to lie on his back in a field, nettled by disgust with 
 himself, and frame speeches of self-mastery. But 
 reflection had brought him doubt. The speeches 
 would have to be made, and yet, in a way, he was 
 Teevan's property; Teevan had invested money in him. 
 This added to his depression. And this was why the 
 girl reported him to her sister as a youth joyful in odd 
 moments of forgetting, but sunk in some black despair 
 when he remembered; a young man she could not at 
 all understand. And Mrs. Laithe, puzzling over his 
 trouble, divining that Teevan would somehow be at 
 the bottom of it, determined on a move to aid him, a 
 move that would take her once more to Teevan himself. 
 
 228
 
 The Little Land 
 
 She had sought him the night after her talk with Syden- 
 ham, but the interview had come to nothing. Teevan 
 had been so plausibly solicitous about Ewing's success 
 that she had found herself unready to tax him with a 
 knowledge of Ewing's identity, or with motives inimical 
 to him. His excessive amiability, his air of unsuspect- 
 ing sincerity, had disarmed her. But this time, she 
 determined, there would be no more fencing. She 
 would attack straightforwardly. 
 
 The day they left the girl lightly 'bade Ewing farewell 
 with talk of meetings in town. He had not told her of 
 a resolve formed the day before when they had ridden 
 to a hill above the village from which they could see 
 veritable mountains in the distance his own delectable 
 mountains they had seemed, calling to him. Instantly 
 he had determined to go back to his own. Not in 
 defeat, but for fresh courage. He would stay there 
 working as he could, until Teevan was paid. Then 
 the Rookery would know him again, and the men of 
 the Monastery know him going his own way. 
 
 He was meditating gloomily on his retreat as the 
 train bore him back to town with Mrs. Laithe. And 
 she, alive to the distress that showed in his face, forgot 
 everything but him, the one she had helplessly and 
 irrevocably taken for her own, half her entreating child, 
 half her master, terrible and beloved. She watched 
 his face from half-closed eyes, finding it unutterably 
 sad, and, without her being able to withhold it, her 
 mind constantly repeated the image of an embrace, 
 to soothe and sustain him. Incessantly this unsub- 
 stantial enfoldment took place in her inner sense, like 
 some wild drama among ocean-bed things, far below 
 an unrippled surface. Over and over the phantom 
 
 229
 
 E wing's Lady 
 
 woman beat down his enemies, encircled him from harm, 
 consoled him against her heart, cherished him like 
 the dear walls of a home. And she could not halt this 
 phantom play. Once she divided her arms and raised 
 them a little, as one in a dream faintly acts his vision. 
 Ewing thought she was drawing her chiffon boa about 
 her, and he replaced it on her shoulders. 
 
 Floating about this obsession in her mind was the 
 dismayed thought of Teevan. She was fixed on going 
 to him for the truth, and this disturbed her like a coming 
 battle. She was not used to the feeling of antagonism, 
 she, with her gentle woman's life, but she felt an un- 
 known energy welling up in her the fierceness of the 
 defender. She would have the truth from Teevan. 
 
 230
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 EWING INTERRUPTS 
 
 ELEANOR LAITHE started from a half sleep. 
 She had begun to dream while still conscious 
 of the library walls, the couch on which she 
 lay, the curtains swelling in and out of the opened 
 windows with a heated breeze of late afternoon, the 
 rattle of a wagon through the street, and the shrilling 
 of boys at a game. 
 
 She turned her face from the wall, fixed the pillows 
 more easily under her head, and stared into the room, 
 her eyes narrowing in calculation as she went lucidly 
 back for the hundredth time since she had flung herself 
 there, to check off the details of that half hour with 
 the man who healed or did not heal. 
 
 She had shrewdly rejected the specialist Birley had 
 named for another who would not know her. She 
 wanted no mistaken kindness, no polite reluctance or 
 glossing, and she feared to find this in one who might 
 regard her as something more than a casual human 
 body in evil case. She had felt bound to have plain 
 words. She would know what she faced as one knows 
 heat or cold. 
 
 And she had gained the full of her wish. The man 
 had taken her as casually as she offered herself. His 
 questions were few, his examination mechanically 
 impersonal, his diagnosis cool and informing. She 
 had felt herself a culprit, listening to sentence. 
 
 231
 
 Swing's Lady 
 
 "You think I have a year to live?" 
 
 "Longer, perhaps, if you take it this way, without 
 worry. Worry eats the tissue even faster than those lit- 
 tle vegetable parasites. I take it you eliminate worry? " 
 He drew on his gloves. 
 
 She smiled now, with pride in her cunning. Her 
 simulation of unconcerned curiosity had been perfect, 
 as if it were another's wasting body she brought him. 
 She had hidden all that fond love of life, her life of action, 
 sensation; of hope ever enlarging, of fruitions certain, 
 innumerable, and dear. No sign had the practiced 
 eyes read of the inner rage that maddened her at thought 
 of so much life unlived life of mirth and tears, height 
 and depth, grief, ecstasy and common levels. She 
 was avid of them all, dared them all, wished only to 
 play the game, vaunting a fine zest for the sport with 
 all its hazards. 
 
 She had found in her hour alone there that she did 
 not fear death only detested it. She feared it as little 
 as a child fears sleep; hated it as a child, torn untimely 
 from play, hates to go to bed. 
 
 " Longer, perhaps, if you take it this way eliminate 
 worry." But she knew she could not take it "this 
 way;" could not give up as this judge believed she had 
 done. She must rebel to the last. As long as she 
 played she must play in the true spirit. She might be 
 vanquished, but she would not debase the sport. She 
 smiled at a reminiscence of her brother's college life, 
 catching at a phrase. " It seems I'm not a 'quitter,' " 
 she thought. 
 
 Then she halted this race of thought in sudden amuse- 
 ment. She felt her evening fever rising, the sinister 
 warmth and false glow that burned like a red flame 
 
 232
 
 Ewing Interrupts 
 
 below the outer corners of her eyes. It had come 
 earlier than usual, hurried, doubtless, by the very 
 passion of her rebelling. The man had been right. 
 But she would have no waiting, half-hearted conflict, 
 for all that. 
 
 She sat up quickly. A certain battle was set for this 
 day, one that would test her gameness. She rose to 
 look at a clock, and knew that Teevan probably awaited 
 Ewing. But she could be first there, and she felt equal 
 to the clash. The very fever would sustain her. And 
 she would be wary once more that day, cunning to 
 learn what she had to oppose. Then she would be 
 valiant. If the fever only gave her strength, small 
 matter the fuel that fed it. 
 
 She smoothed her hair, flung a scarf over her shoulders, 
 and stepped out into the early twilight. She felt a 
 slight giddiness as she walked the short distance to 
 Teevan's door, but she had shrugged this away by 
 the time she rang the bell. There was a wait, and she 
 rang again. Then, when she began to fear that she 
 assailed an empty house, she heard rapid steps; the 
 door swung back, and Teevan himself stood before her, 
 Teevan jaunty in summer negligee of flannels and 
 silken shirt, who deftly covered with his froth of gal- 
 lantry whatever surprise he felt at sight of her. 
 
 "My dear lady! So neighborly of you, and what 
 luck I was in! I'm off Neville's yacht for the evening 
 only on a bit of business. Come up to my den. It's 
 stifling down here." 
 
 She followed him up the stairs, feeling a reckless 
 strength for combat. He took her to a room at the 
 front of the house where there was a desk, a few lounging 
 chairs, and an air of mannish comfort. 
 16 233
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "I'll not keep you long, Randall," she said, hesitating 
 at first to sit, illogically fearing that weakness might 
 seize her if she relaxed her body. After a moment, 
 however, she took the chair he pushed forward. 
 
 "As long as you like, Eleanor. The breeze comes 
 cooler through those south windows while you're here. 
 Let me offer you a brandy and soda. No? You'll 
 let me take this alone, then? Thanks! I'm feeling a 
 bit done up by the heat." He seated himself at the 
 desk, sipped from his glass and looked a question at her. 
 She debated her beginning. 
 
 "It's about Gilbert Ewing." 
 
 His dark little eyes narrowed upon her with agreeable 
 interest. 
 
 "Ah, to be sure Ewing." 
 
 "You know he's been staying a fortnight with us at 
 Kensington." 
 
 He nodded a gracious assent, still waiting, still veiled 
 with an effect that aroused all her caution. 
 
 "He came back to town yesterday." 
 
 "He must have enjoyed the place immensely. I'm 
 nowhere so strongly reminded of rural England, saving 
 the architecture, of course. Ewing painted, doubtless? " 
 
 "Oh, no, he did nothing. He played with my sister, 
 chiefly. Virginia took him about. They were insepara- 
 ble. He had heart for nothing but her no work, noth- 
 ing else." She had deliberately lengthened the speech, 
 wishing him not to see that she watched for an opening. 
 Teevan seemed to feel a leading. He searched her face 
 as he asked: 
 
 "They liked each other immensely, eh?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, I couldn't tell you " 
 
 He felt the weariness of her tone, almost a faintness. 
 
 234
 
 Ewing Interrupts 
 
 The color burned darkly high on her cheeks, her eyes 
 showed an exotic and painful splendor. He suddenly 
 saw that she must have sustained some blow; that 
 her luster was a fevered glitter sad and terrible, and that 
 she was nerving herself to some ordeal. He sank back 
 in his seat, all acuteness. Had she betrayed herself in 
 the beginning, struck open the secret for him by her 
 first words? A jealous woman, then a flouted woman 
 come to turn on the man? It was no conclusion to leap 
 at; rather a piquant suspicion to verify. 
 
 He set his glass down and picked up a slender-bladed 
 dagger from the desk before him, absently bending the 
 steel. He knew they were both veiled for the moment. 
 His eyes challenged her to open speech of Ewing as he 
 held the dagger up to her and said lazily, "A beauty, 
 that undoubted Toledo work. Picked it up in a shop 
 at Newport yesterday. They knew how to temper steel 
 in those days. See its edge " He tore a bit of paper 
 from a pad and slashed it into strips, his eyes rising to 
 hers at each cut, interrogatory, through the complacence 
 of a man exhibiting a fine property. 
 
 "Randall, you've been friendly with him, and yet 
 you know who he is ; you've known it a long time. And 
 you you can't like him." 
 
 He still toyed with his plaything, prickling its needle- 
 like point into the pad of paper under his hand. Then 
 he turned on her with a sudden, insinuating droop of 
 the eyelids. 
 
 "Very well and you've been friendly with him, 
 say until two weeks ago. And you're no longer so. 
 I name no reason. But you detest him now. Am I 
 wrong? Can I still read a woman?" He leaned toward 
 her, peering nearer with each query. He meant them 
 
 235
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 to be like thrusts of the dagger which he now threw on 
 the desk. Her eyes fell in unfeigned confusion under 
 his look, her mind running many ways to come on the 
 meaning beneath this preposterous guess. She looked 
 up to him, seeking a hint, but his eyes were inscrutable, 
 his mouth set in a sagacious smile, intimating, accusing. 
 She looked down again, suddenly feeling it wise to let 
 him think as he did whatever absurd thing it might be. 
 She sighed deeply, relaxed in her chair and met his 
 eyes again. Teevan beheld a woman defenseless to 
 his insight; one too proud to confess in words, but too 
 weak, too vindictive, perhaps, to attempt denial. 
 
 " I see, my girl don't trouble to speak." He replen- 
 ished his glass from the decanter. He was delighted 
 with his penetration; pleased, also, to believe that here 
 was an ally, if one should be needed. He glanced at 
 her again. She sat silent and drooping. 
 
 " You did well to come to me, Eleanor. I fancy you'll 
 be interested to know what our young friend is about 
 to encounter." 
 
 "Oh, I shall, I shall! Tell me, please." He smiled 
 at her eagerness, so poorly subdued, recording in a 
 mental footnote the viperish fury of a woman in her 
 plight. Still, he thought she carried it off rather well. 
 There had been need for his keenness to read her 
 secret. 
 
 " I'll tell you, my girl, and I'm jolly glad to find some 
 one who can enjoy it with me. What am I going to do 
 with him?" He rose and paced the room for so long a 
 time that she felt she could not bear it. She was about 
 to speak when he abruptly halted and faced her with a 
 petrifying burst of malignance. "What am I going to 
 do with him? wring him, wreck him, choke him, 
 
 236
 
 Ewing Interrupts 
 
 fling the fool back on his dung heap to rot!" She 
 stared at him, panting; then, summoning all her ingenuity 
 she smiled slowly above the sickening fear that had 
 rushed over her. Teevan glowed. That smile of hers 
 he could detect something relentless in it was a tribute 
 to his prowess no less than a confirmation of his power to 
 read her. 
 
 "I don't understand," she half whispered, still with 
 that restrained fierceness that gave him joy. 
 
 "Of course you don't. Am I to be read as a primer? 
 I'm subtler, I trust, than an earthquake, a cyclone, a 
 deluge. You don't understand, but you shall." He 
 paced the floor again with a foppish air of pride. "Ah, 
 it has worked so beautifully. Really, I've regretted 
 there was no one I could let in to enjoy a work of art 
 with me. But you, I see, will have the taste to applaud 
 it, Nell, now that your eyes are opened. Oh, the thing 
 has gone ideally! Only applause was lacking." 
 
 " I don't understand, Randall." She could hardly 
 manage the words. She was afraid her heart would 
 beat them into some wild cry of impatience. 
 
 "You shall you shall." He gazed meditatively 
 at her. " Yes, and you'll have to know it all to under- 
 stand perfectly, even my my humiliation." He un- 
 locked the door of a closet and brought out something 
 she did not recognize until he had placed it across the 
 arms of a chair and stepped back. It was the portrait 
 of E wing's mother. His face was contorted now in a 
 most unpleasant sneer. 
 
 " There's the motif." He resumed his seat at the desk, 
 facing the picture. The sneer had gone, and whatever 
 dignity of soul was in him sounded in the next words. 
 
 "You can't know what that meant to me when I 
 
 237
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 saw it, when I knew who had done it, when I thought of 
 the creature who carried it about parading his own 
 shame and hers and mine!" 
 
 " I think I can understand that, Randall." 
 
 "You can't, I say. No woman could. You can't 
 begin to know the humiliation, how it tore me, knowing 
 this fellow walked the earth at all, a nameless spawn, 
 holding my shame over me over me! threatening 
 every instant to cover me again with it. As if I'd 
 not survived enough! Good God! was I to go through 
 it again, and know that this puling whelp was the in- 
 strument a thing to torture me, hold me up to ridicule, 
 to make men smile and titter and mock me in club 
 corners? Wasn't her insult enough? Must she breed 
 obscene things to echo it?" He groaned and turned 
 away with a gesture of warding off. In the mist of her 
 besetment the woman found herself thinking that the 
 fine little hands in this gesture should have been lace- 
 beruffled at the wrist. He was the figure of stabbed 
 vanity, the bleeding coxcomb. He flung an arm toward 
 the picture with bitter vehemence. 
 
 "Ah, my lady! my fine, loose lady, with your high 
 talk and your low way! I hope you've watched me 
 with those painted eyes of yours. Did you think I'd 
 never strike back?" 
 
 "But now, Randall how?" He replenished his 
 glass and turned slowly away from the picture. 
 
 "How, indeed? That's where you meet me at last. 
 Not every one could have carried it through, but it 
 was simple for me. Difficult in a way, yes. It's been 
 hard to stomach the fool, with his conceit and his whin- 
 ing. Oh, he fancies himself tremendously, for all his 
 ways of a holy innocent, his damned airs of a sugar- 
 
 238
 
 Ewing Interrupts 
 
 candy Galahad. But I've won him, I tell you, by that 
 very innocence of his. I'm the one soul in the world 
 he truly reveres. His sun rises and sets in me. And 
 now he's where I want him. I've worn out his hope, 
 kept him from doing the thing he wanted to do, kept 
 him on the edge of despair out of respect and fear and 
 love of me. The beggar has a certain devilish sort of 
 genius, but he doesn't know where it lies, and I've taken 
 precious good care he shouldn't find out. Oh, but I've 
 had a rich time of it disgusting and rich. Nearly a 
 year it is now that he's led me this dance, but I've 
 hooked him beautifully, and to-night I'll pull him in." 
 She had been watching the play of spite on his face, and 
 it was with difficulty that she moistened her lips to say: 
 
 "But what will you do to-night what can you 
 say?" 
 
 "Everything I've laid a train for saying, this year 
 past. Tell him how I despise him for his empty pre- 
 tensions, his constant, wretched failures. Show him to 
 himself as a conceited dawdler and a cheat who has 
 lived on my bounty oh, I saw to that a cheat who 
 has defrauded me of time and money and faith in man. 
 Never fear but I'll know the things to say. I've told 
 them to her often enough." He thrust viciously at the 
 portrait. "And you'll hear it all, my Lady Disdain, 
 with your face to the wall to hide its belated blushes." 
 
 Again she tried to speak but her lips were dry. At 
 last she achieved a few rather husky words. 
 
 " Randall, if you please, might I have a glass of some- 
 thing water, I'd like." 
 
 "To be sure, my child. You're certain you won't join 
 me in a brandy and soda? No? I'll get you something 
 below." 
 
 239
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 She clutched at the moment to quiet, if she could, 
 that tumult of heart and brain. Her mind dwelt chiefly 
 on Ewing's dejection as she had left him the day before. 
 Teevan came back, bearing a carafe and a bottle of soda 
 water. She drank a glass of the water greedily, and 
 murmured her thanks as he gave her more. It refreshed 
 her and she seemed to feel a renewal of strength. Her 
 fever was heating her brain to wild activity. She felt 
 a crazy desire to cool her head, to lean it against snow 
 or cold metal. She thought fleetingly of cold things she 
 had touched, of marble, icicles, a brass rail with frost 
 on it. She was goading her mind for a way to reach 
 Teevan. She drank the second glass of water, and again 
 he refilled it, protesting against so poor a tipple as he 
 took more brandy for himself. 
 
 She watched him narrowly as he prepared his drink. 
 The decanter was so low that she thought he must be 
 feeling what he had taken, and she wondered if it might 
 not have softened him, released some generosity in his 
 poor soul. 
 
 "You must have suffered, Randall, in all this. But 
 won't it hurt you still more, doing what you mean to do 
 when you make him suffer?" 
 
 "His suffering!" He waved a deprecating hand. 
 "What can he suffer compared to me? Disgust I've 
 suffered, yes, and mortification. He could feel nothing 
 approaching that if I flayed him here. Why, Nell, I 
 pulled a rose from its bush this morning in Neville's 
 garden, and crushed a worm crawling on its stem. A 
 poor, tiny green thing, yet it had lived, and had its suc- 
 cesses and failures after a fashion. But you can't 
 imagine its actual suffering in death to equal my own 
 mere disgust at crushing it." 
 
 240
 
 Ewing Interrupts 
 
 The brandy had not softened him, she thought. 
 Could it have made him cautious? 
 
 "Have you never suspected, Randall, that there 
 may be a sleeping fighter in him?" There was a glitter 
 in her tormented eyes, a sudden fierce wish to behold 
 battle between this puny insulter and Ewing aroused 
 to his might. 
 
 " Bah ! a fighter ! " He snapped contemptuous fingers. 
 "There's the look in his eye sometimes, but I've dis- 
 armed him. He can't fight me, his benefactor, his best 
 friend. Never fear; he'll wilt, wither, shrivel up. Oh, 
 trust me for that. And suppose the impossible, suppose 
 the worm turns in some fit of wormish desperation. I've 
 the coup, have I not? You know what his mother is 
 to him, a damned romantic memory of pure womanhood 
 and all that rot. Suppose him capable of so much as 
 an eye-flash of defiance. Why, then, my child, he'll 
 know who he'll know what his mother was; and he'll 
 know my right to describe her. He'll know what he is. 
 And the words won't puzzle him : he'll need no lexicon 
 crisp, Anglo-Saxon words. Do you think that will 
 leave any fight in him her shame and his? By Gad ! 
 Nell, it's too good to keep from him. He shall have it 
 anyway, though I'd meant to keep it back for my own 
 sake. But that shall be the clincher. Before her face 
 there I'll tell him what she was." 
 
 "Not that, Randall, surely not that!" Her veil 
 of calmness had flown on the wind of his hate. She 
 knew she must reveal herself. Her words had been so 
 near a cry that he turned on her in amazement. 
 
 "Listen, Randall, don't don't do that. Let him 
 off. I promise to take him away. It's all true ; you've 
 handled him well, and you can break him now but 
 
 241
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 don't. Please, please let him go. I'll take him away, I 
 tell you. I promise he shall never bother you again," 
 
 He looked at her, incredulous. 
 
 "You're asking me to consider him really?" 
 
 "No, no to consider me. Please, please listen 
 please consider me." 
 
 "But you I thought you " 
 
 " Randall " she had regained a little of her first cool- 
 ness "I'm done for. I found that out to-day. I've 
 a year to live, at most. A scant year, if it's to be like 
 this. Try to grasp it. I've wanted so much, had so 
 little of life. But, I must go, they tell me. Can you 
 understand what that means, as well as I understood 
 what this meant to you a sentence of death, a few 
 little months to snatch at happiness?" 
 
 He stared at her uncertainly, but half comprehending. 
 She saw that the drink was affecting him at last. His 
 eyes were dulled, his face had lost its centered look. 
 
 "Going to die, Eleanor? Die in a year? What rot! 
 Don't talk rot. Nobody dies in a year." He spoke 
 carefully, with a deliberate attack on each word, as if 
 he mistrusted his tongue. 
 
 "But it's true, Randall, I swear it's true. 'Can you 
 understand?" 
 
 "Understand?" he repeated, and through her tense 
 absorption she was astonished to see on his face an 
 incredible look of pity. ' ' Understand ? Why, of course ! 
 And it's too bad, my girl. Poor Eleanor! Die in a 
 year why wouldn't I understand? But never mind" 
 he seemed to search clumsily for words of cheer. 
 "Death isn't anything but an incident in the scheme 
 of life a precious contemptible one, I've no doubt. 
 We live, and that's a little thing but death's littler. 
 
 242
 
 Ewing Interrupts 
 
 I dare say we live as long as we need to. Who was 
 the old chap Plotinus, wasn't it? conceived the body 
 to be a penitential mechanism for the soul? All the 
 better if we expiate early. Gad! I must have had a 
 quantity of things to atone for though I'm really 
 younger than you may think, Nell. Poor girl poor 
 girl!" He brightened as he drained his glass to her. 
 "Here's to you, wherever you are. Come, be cheerful 
 anyway. What was it struck in my mind yesterday? 
 a sentence from one of Arbuthnot's letters to Swift 
 just the meat for you 'A reasonable hope of going a 
 reasonable hope of going to a good place and an absolute 
 certainty of leaving a bad one.' That's the sentiment 
 keep it in mind, my dear." 
 
 She was nerving herself to new appeals, half fearing 
 she could not hold his attention. She seized on that 
 unprecedented look of compassion. 
 
 " But, Randall, you'll let him off let him off for me 
 for my sake." In her eagerness she rose and fluttered 
 to the desk, standing before him. He whirled his chair 
 about, and the look of commiseration had gone. 
 
 " No, no, no ! You can't understand, Nell. I couldn't 
 let him off if I wanted to. It's fate, its retribution 
 the sins of the father it's scriptural, I tell you " 
 His eyes were gleaming again with steely implacability. 
 
 "But for me, Randall, for my sake, for me alone 
 not thinking of him?" 
 
 "Ah, lady, set me a harder task, but one of dignity 
 as difficult, as dangerous as you like, so it has some 
 dignity. But not that. Here " he gracefully extended 
 the handle of the dagger to her " slay me an you will 
 the blade is keen a toy, but deadly I'll die smiling 
 if you wish. But don't ask for that cub's happiness. 
 
 243
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 Don't rob me of my pay, Nell, my pay for all I've 
 endured from him, his boastings and snivelings, and 
 his detestable handshakes. Don't talk rot, I say, even 
 if you must die." 
 
 Again she set herself to plead, desperation feeding 
 the fire in her head until she knew not her words. She 
 was conscious only of a torrent of speech, coaxing, 
 imploring, wheedling, even threatening. But all she 
 evoked was the steady, smiling negative, his head shaken 
 unwittingly to the rhythm of her phrases. 
 
 She stopped at last, panting, striving to keep back the 
 passionate words of entreaty that still formed, crushing 
 them down in a maddened consciousness of their im- 
 potence. She stared wildly, feeling only a still stubborn 
 determination. Ewing would soon come yet it seemed 
 that she had no resource save appeal. She felt this 
 and raged against it, striding away from Teevan across 
 the room. For the first time in her gentle life she was 
 feeling the sensation she thought a man must feel 
 in fighting. She had an impulse to strike blindly, 
 to wound, to beat down with her hands. Without 
 volition she measured her antagonist and wondered 
 deliriously if she could throw him to the floor. He 
 seemed so small to her, and hateful hateful and small 
 enough to kill. She closed her eyes to shut him out, 
 but opened them again quickly, for everything rocked 
 in the darkness. She incessantly pictured this creature, 
 naked in his poverty of manhood, smiling up at Ewing, 
 the friendly one, who stood bowed down, blighted and 
 broken of heart. Sometimes Ewing had his arm over 
 his face, and she felt that he would never take it away 
 move on thus forever, like a figure in an anguished 
 dream. 
 
 244
 
 Ewing Interrupts 
 
 Constantly beside her thoughts, like a little refrain, 
 went the remembrance that she had brought him there, 
 torn him from his youth and splendid dreams to give 
 him to this she the betrayer! The fever waxed, 
 the tortured blood trampled in her head like hurrying 
 hoofs. 
 
 But she could not strike Teevan, extinguish him 
 with blows, and she set herself again to play the beggar. 
 And she could not beg across the room. Bit by bit she 
 crept to the entreated one, her great eyes full of flame 
 and fear, and laid pitiful hands on his shoulder. Still 
 the shaken head met her, the icy smile, the dulled eyes. 
 
 "No good talking, Nell! No good! You mortify 
 me, my word you do. Demand something great, 
 something to task a man; ask me " 
 
 Again he picked up the dagger with a return to that 
 extravagant air of the sighing gallant. 
 
 " here, I point it to my heart, see! A mere thrust 
 your beautiful hand is still equal to it. I'd be proud 
 of the blow. I'd give you my life gladly but not my 
 self-respect. You're too stunning a woman, Nell, to 
 waste yourself on that cub a woman to die for indeed. 
 You were never finer than at this moment." In the 
 excess of his emotion he threw an arm about her waist. 
 She started back but he held her. 
 
 "Never finer, Nell, on my soul too fine for that 
 damned " 
 
 She put out her hands in an instinctive, shuddering 
 movement of repulsion. Still he clung to her, muttering 
 his insupportable phrases. He clung and she could 
 not release herself without doing what she had thought 
 was impossible exert her unused hands in striking, 
 thrusting, beating off. She hesitated: she did not 
 
 245
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 like to touch him. He looked very small and low in 
 his chair. How low he seemed from her dizzy height! 
 And yet he held so well. His voice came faintly, too, 
 as if from afar, floating up faint and hateful. So he 
 would hold Ewing and slay him with his voice. He 
 was playing with the dagger again and proffering his 
 heart with maudlin eyes. Prisoning her still with his 
 right arm, he took her hand in his left and clumsily 
 set it on the dagger's hilt. 
 
 "It would be a sweet death, Nell. Press home!" 
 He drew her closer, so that she staggered on his shoulder. 
 "Gad! your eyes are fine. What a woman you are! 
 Too great, Nell, for that beaten whelp, even before 
 he took to your sister " 
 
 She gave a desperate little cry and struck out to free 
 herself. It was hardly more than a gesture to have 
 him away, but she was conscious, with a lightning 
 shock, that the blade moved under her hand. She 
 heard Teevan's shrill scream of fright and pain 
 
 "You're killing me you're killing me!" 
 
 But she saw only Ewing with covered face, and 
 pushed the harder, lost to all but her blind sense of 
 opposition. Then she heard a new note in Teevan's 
 cry. 
 
 "Ewing! Ewing!" 
 
 She turned quickly, while Teevan retreated round a 
 corner of the desk, snarling his rage turned to see 
 Ewing. 
 
 246
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 MRS. LAITHE is ENLIGHTENED 
 
 HE stood just inside the door, hat in hand, re- 
 garding the scene with a look that was troubled 
 yet cool. She felt her way cautiously back 
 to a chair, afraid of fainting, and grasped it for support. 
 Finding that her hand still clutched the dagger, she 
 dropped it with a shudder of disgust. 
 
 Ewing shrewdly noted where the dagger fell, then his 
 eyes flashed to Teevan. There was a stain of blood on 
 the silken shirt, and the little man was staring down at 
 this, incredulous. 
 
 "By God! she meant it!" he muttered. Then his 
 eyes rose to meet Ewing's, and a look of sudden malig- 
 nance blazed into them. 
 
 "So you've come!" The cry, like the look, was full 
 of hate. <: You've come in time, you whelp! Now 
 you'll hear something you might have heard that first 
 night when I had to fuddle you with tales of a seizure. 
 Now you'll know " 
 
 But the woman started toward him with a sudden- 
 ness that broke his speech. 
 
 "If you tell him he'll kill you" The words came 
 with a quick, whispering intensity, and there was a 
 rapt, almost rejoicing look on her face, as of one eager 
 for the deed. 
 
 Teevan looked scornfully to Ewing again, but was 
 
 247
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 chilled by a certain sharp, cold light in his eyes, the 
 look of one alert and ready. His words gave meaning 
 to this look. 
 
 "If you tell me, I'll kill you," said Ewing. The 
 sentence was evenly uttered, and the tone was low, 
 almost deferential, but the intention was not to be 
 mistaken. 
 
 Teevan laughed, flourishing a gesture of scorn for 
 the threat. 
 
 "I'm no coward" but he broke off, waiting, watch- 
 ing, with fear in his eyes. 
 
 "I'll take this," said Ewing. He lifted the portrait 
 tenderly from the chair and thrust it under his arm 
 with a protecting movement. Teevan stared at this 
 with an air of fine disdain, but did not speak. 
 
 The woman had been waiting for his words with 
 parted lips. Now she breathed a long, trembling sigh 
 of relief and turned to Ewing. 
 
 "You see, he has nothing to say. Let us go." 
 
 He opened the door for her and closed it after them 
 without looking again at Teevan. 
 
 "There's a reason why I can't do it for you now," 
 he said, as they went down the stairs. She wondered 
 what he could mean, but was too little alive to ask. 
 When they reached the street she became at once 
 interested in a belated laborer going home with a loosely 
 tied bundle over his shoulder, odds and ends of small 
 boards, refuse from some building. He whistled in a 
 tired way as he trudged on, not looking at them. She 
 felt pleased at the thought that his wife was going to 
 have wood with which to cook the poor fellow's supper. 
 The dark was fast gathering, but children still romped 
 in the street. An elderly stout man passed, his hat off, 
 
 248
 
 Mrs. Laithe is Enlightened 
 
 wielding a palm-leaf fan. She was surprised at this, 
 for the outer air had fallen on her with icy clutch, 
 making her draw the scarf more closely about her. 
 
 Ewing would have left her at her door, but she urged 
 him to go in. She took him to sit in the unlighted 
 library, and there, when he could no longer see her face, 
 he was astounded to hear her talk of her girlhood, her 
 schooldays, of the few people they knew in common, 
 of PiersolFs new book, of her brother's ranch life; of a 
 score of little gossipy matters that would occur to the 
 untroubled mind in a twilight chat. But when he rose 
 to go after a little time, she was in an instant wild panic 
 of protest, seizing one of his hands with a convulsive 
 grip. He covered her poor hand with his own and 
 regarded her with pity. She lifted her face to him 
 with a sudden wild entreaty for shelter. "Oh, stay 
 with me stay stay and comfort me. I am so ill, 
 and I I would comfort you." He soothed her as best 
 he could, protesting that he would stay, and in a few 
 moments she was talking cheerfully of Kensington and 
 of Virginia. She tried to amuse him with tales of 
 Virginia's childhood how she had been such a droll 
 and merry little creature. She still retained his hand, 
 gripping it with an intensity through which he could 
 feel the quivering of her whole body. 
 
 Only once did she refer to Teevan. "Please don't 
 see him again," she urged. "Promise me, promise 
 never to let him tell you anything. Please, please 
 promise that!" 
 
 Believing she pleaded for herself, he felt that old 
 
 longing to lift her in his arms and show her there without 
 
 words how little she had to fear. But he controlled 
 
 himself to answer simply, "I promise; I'll never 
 
 17 249
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 let him speak to me again. Don't be afraid; he shall 
 never say anything to me." 
 
 Her father came in presently, grumbling about the 
 lack of light as he stumbled against a chair. He let 
 it be known that he had returned to the city in some 
 alarm about her, inspired by a letter from her aunt. 
 She hastily assured him that she was well never 
 better. But he demurred at her remaining longer in 
 town. 
 
 "You'll have to get out, daughter. It's beastly 
 unpleasant doing those slum things in summer. You 
 need life and gayety. You come with me and dance, 
 play bridge, swim, sail enjoy yourself with your own 
 kind for a while. You're going on Tom Neville's 
 yacht to-morrow. He's to pick us up about noon with 
 Randy Teevan." 
 
 "Will he be there?" she asked. 
 
 "He will, and he'll be one of a jolly crowd that will 
 'liven you up. Here's Clarence he must come, too." 
 
 Her brother had felt his way through the darkness, 
 and before she guessed his intention he had found one 
 of the electric lights and turned it on. She shrank 
 back with a strange, smothered cry, under the sudden 
 light, her hand before her face as if to ward off invisible 
 horrors, her eyes staring at them under it, wild with 
 appeal. They were speechless for the moment, alarmed 
 by her manifest illness, her frightened, haggard face, 
 in which the fever raged. Her brother was the first 
 to speak, going to her and taking the blind, defending 
 hand she had put out. She clung to him when she felt 
 his touch, but turned her face away. 
 
 "See here, Nell," he began, in tones of savage decision, 
 " no yachting trip for you, my girl. 'Twon't do, gover- 
 
 250
 
 Mrs. Laithe is Enlightened 
 
 nor, you can see that for yourself. But I'll tell you 
 what she's going to do she's going to pack up and go 
 back to the mountains with me and stay there till she's 
 well." 
 
 She still clung to him, drawing his arms around her 
 with an effect of hiding. 
 
 "Yes, yes, that's it let's go there out where 
 there's room. It's stifling here. Have you noticed 
 how curiously stifling it is? Too many people, dead 
 people and live people, and all hobnobbing. We must 
 get away, brother." 
 
 "You hear that, dad? She'll go back with me. 
 How soon, Nell? I say, how soon?" he repeated, for 
 she had not seemed to hear him. 
 
 "How soon?" She raised her eyes to them with 
 sudden intelligence, then sprang wildly to her feet. 
 
 "Oh, soon, at once! Well, not to-night, perhaps," 
 she sank back again "bu to-morrow, next day. 
 We'll all go. Mr. Ewing is going." Her eyes rested 
 on Ewing a moment, then, with a difficult smile, she 
 turned to her brother. "And Virgie must go, too. 
 Telegraph her to-night. She'll make us gay, she'll 
 make us as we used to be. We couldn't go without 
 Virgie. She will comfort us." 
 
 "She'll go, too, Sis. It's all right. I'll telegraph. 
 But what are you afraid of? You'll be a well woman 
 there in a month." 
 
 "Afraid I afraid?" She looked up at him in won- 
 der. "I don't know. Oh, yes I do. Why, I just tried 
 to kill I've just killed killed a hundred people- 
 killed " 
 
 " Good Lord there she's fainted ! Get some water 
 and a drop of brandy, dad!" 
 
 251
 
 E wing's Lady 
 
 "Poor child it's so fearfully unpleasant," murmured 
 Bartell as he came back with a glass and decanter. 
 "It's that tenement house thing that's got on her 
 nerves." 
 
 "An unpleasant business," returned his father, "all 
 that rot mighty unpleasant!" 
 
 Bwing waited in the outer room until he heard the 
 broken murmur of her voice and knew that she had 
 recovered. Then he went quickly out, the portrait 
 under his arm. He had the feeling that it had been 
 contaminated by Tee van's touch. 
 
 He began dismantling his studio that night. He stop- 
 ped in the work once to look out over the roofs, glowing 
 luridly under a half moon. This was because the plead- 
 ing of the woman still rang in his ears " Don't let him 
 tell you anything" and the whole entreating look of 
 her flashed back to him. Then the big, slow tears of 
 pity gathered in his eyes to set the chimney pots dancing 
 before him. 
 
 "If only I hadn't owed him money!" he muttered, 
 beside himself with pity and hatred. 
 
 It was not until the day before they started West 
 that Mrs. Laithe learned the secret of this pity of Ewing's 
 that had so puzzled her. Alden Teevan begged a mo- 
 ment with her in the afternoon of that day, and she, 
 sunk in the languor of her sickness, received him where 
 she lay, in her own sitting-room. 
 
 He swept her with a long, knowing look as he entered, 
 reading, she saw, the truth about her condition. 
 
 "I'd gladly go with you, Nell," he began "let my 
 own walls close at the same time." But she would have 
 no bald admissions. 
 
 "I'm not going, Alden I'm only a bit run down. 
 
 252
 
 Mrs. Laithe is Enlightened 
 
 I shall pick up in a month out there." He detected 
 her insincerity but only smiled in a hurt way. 
 
 " That's one of your rules of the game, isn't it, to keep 
 up the pretense? Of course I can't expect you to break 
 rules for me." She faced him stanchly, looking denial. 
 
 " But I must tell you something," he went on quickly, 
 "something horrible and absurd and unbelievable." 
 She listened, and grew faint in an agony of unbelief, 
 while he told her what had inspired Ewing's behavior 
 the night before. She made him repeat it, testing each 
 detail, weighing its credibility against Ewing's inexperi- 
 ence; dazedly trying to see herself as he must see her 
 now. Alden Teevan regarded her with quickening 
 sympathy. 
 
 " It wasn't a pretty thing to do, Nell, but I saw he had 
 some deviltry afoot, and I got it from him I half 
 choked and half wheedled it from him. Fortunately 
 he was drunk or I couldn't have got it either way. But 
 now you know. It began, as nearly as I could gather, 
 one night last spring when Ewing saw you leaving the 
 house. The vain little fool guessed he'd seen you, and 
 told him the tale about a woman who'd been harassing 
 him because he was trying to break off an affair with 
 her." 
 
 "I remember " 
 
 "And then last night- 
 
 "Last night ah, last night!" She laughed weakly, 
 recalling the scene that had met Ewing's eyes, perceiving 
 what he must have thought. " I'd have done it for you," 
 she heard him say again, and shuddered. She recalled, 
 too, her own later urging, "Never let him tell you any- 
 thing." How pitiful she must have seemed to him, and 
 how monstrous! She laughed again wildly, suddenly 
 
 253
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 struck by the cunning of this satire on truth. Alden 
 Teevan recalled her from the picture. 
 
 "It was like him, wasn't it, Nell? like both of them 
 like him to say it, and like the other to believe. But 
 the harm can be undone. You can explain a word or 
 two." 
 
 She stared at him in sudden consternation. It had 
 flashed upon her that no half truth would satisfy Ewing. 
 She knew she would be unequal to any adequate fiction ; 
 she would falter and he would see to the heart of her lie. 
 She must let him think as he did or blacken his dear- 
 est memory. But to Alden Teevan she only said: 
 
 "Ah, yes a word will explain and I'm so grateful 
 to you." She was wondering then if she were glad or 
 sorry that he had told her. She might have lived out 
 her time without knowing, she thought. 
 
 "Of course, if you'd like me to tell him, Nell " 
 
 "No, no, Alden, thank you; but that's for me." 
 
 They had not spoken Ewing's name, but his concern 
 in the matter, the meaning of his faith in the woman, 
 was a matter that seemed to lie open to them both. 
 Alden Teevan had assumed it and she had made no 
 denial. His recognition of it colored his leave-taking. 
 
 " All happiness for you, Nell. The game ought to be 
 worth playing with you and with him. You both 
 live so hard." He found it difficult to say as little, 
 there was such gratitude and such misery in her eyes 
 as they fell before his, trying to veil at least a part of 
 what she felt. But he left her so. 
 
 She lay a long time trying to realize Ewing in this new 
 light. She had never read anything in his eyes but the 
 fullest devotion, and yet for months he had believed 
 this sinister thing. She caught again his young, sorry, 
 
 254
 
 Mrs. Laithe is Enlightened 
 
 protesting look, and the poignancy of it brought her 
 tears. There came into the tenderness she had felt 
 for him something of awe for his unquestioning alle- 
 giance, a thing that had not wavered under the worst 
 he could believe. Then the monstrous absurdity of 
 what he did believe came upon her once more and she 
 laughed ; but her tears still fell. And so, with laughter 
 and tears, she set him up anew in her heart, her beloved 
 child and her terrible master. She was glad now that 
 she knew. It made him more to her. And the time 
 would be so short. 
 
 255
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 THE SUNSET TRAIL 
 
 EWING had looked forward pleasantly to meet- 
 ing Virginia Bartell again, but it was a new 
 Virginia who met him with a nod when he 
 joined the party on the evening of the start. She had 
 eyes only for her sister, the white, weak, phantom thing 
 who smiled terribly as her brother half carried her into 
 the stateroom of their car. Through the days of the 
 journey he sought to cheer her, wistfully making jests 
 about the flat land and its people as they sped through 
 the little wooden towns, promising her a land that would 
 be "busy every minute." But she would only say, 
 " I'll like your land when it makes sister well." 
 
 "It's bound to," he assured her. "Nobody dies 
 there unless he gets careless. Here, this is the way it 
 happens. Here's Ben Crider's last letter. You'll like 
 Ben. Listen to this and see if it doesn't make you 
 hopeful." He opened the scrawled sheet and read: 
 
 "'Dear Kid, I thought it about time to write you a 
 few lines. If you seen the lake now you would want 
 to of been here. Life and nature seems very complete 
 here. I heard Chet Lynch shot Elmer Watts. I been 
 building a haystacker for Pierce. Plenty deer sign around 
 the lick. Lee Jennings was killed by a bucker falling 
 back on him. I can sell your saddle for twenty-two 
 dollars to Ben Lefferts. I put a new latigo on it. Let 
 me know. Say, Kid, I sent two dollars to the Mystic 
 
 256
 
 The Sunset Trail 
 
 Novelty Company. The address is Lock Box 1347. 
 The ad. said they would send you a book how to read 
 past, present and future from the hand and a genuine 
 ten-karat Persian diamond pin set in solid gold, if you 
 sent on one dollar in stamps or P. O. order. Well, the 
 diamond may be all right enough Persian, but the solid 
 gold setting has turned black. You go there and ask 
 for the head man and raise particular '" He broke 
 off the reading. 
 
 "You see, they only die by getting shot, or falling 
 off a horse." 
 
 The girl shuddered and turned to him with a sudden 
 helpless yielding. 
 
 " I can hardly bear it," she said, almost in a whisper. 
 "You don't know what she is to me, how I've loved 
 her and loved her and loved her. And yet I've accepted 
 her as a matter of course, a thing that couldn't be taken 
 from me, like the world itself. How could I think she 
 might be like like those others? Oh, I never dreamed 
 I could lose my dearest ray dearest!" 
 
 He waited a moment, and at last said gently, "You 
 won't lose your dearest we won't lose her." 
 
 " Oh, but she's going, before our eyes." 
 
 ''Listen to me, listen now! She's going to get well. 
 She'll be strong again I know it. I say she can't 
 die ; but you must be sure of it as sure as I am do you 
 hear? as sure as I am. " 
 
 "Yes, yes I will be sure." She tried to look at 
 him through her tear-wet lashes. He smiled at her 
 confidently. 
 
 " If we're both sure, we can have your sister crying 
 in a month because Ben won't let her work in the 
 garden." 
 
 257
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "Oh, if you only " She broke off to look at him in 
 wondering gratitude. 
 
 "And I'll go in and tell her so now," he added, rising. 
 
 "Yes, yes, make her feel sure, too," she implored. 
 She turned quickly to the car window, where twilight 
 was blurring the fields to a far, dreamy horizon, level 
 and vast. He stood a moment, tracing with mental 
 point the line of her profile under the boyish cap pinned 
 to her yellow hair. 
 
 Mrs. Laithe lay on a narrow sofa in the stateroom. 
 She had moved from that only to the berth at night 
 since their start, and had betrayed a preference for 
 being alone in the little compartment. Bwing had felt, 
 however, that she liked to talk with him as evening drew 
 on. She had sent for him at this hour the day before and 
 they had sat together in the dusk. He was reassured 
 by the cheerfulness of her tone as she greeted him now. 
 
 "We're flying so fast," she said joyously. 
 
 " To make you well the sooner. I've just been telling 
 Virginia what we'll do for you even in a month. You'll 
 be riding and climbing, and you'll cry because you can't 
 fell trees or rive out shakes, or something." 
 
 "I'm not worrying about that. It will come right 
 very soon." 
 
 " We'll make it come right. No one ever dies a natural 
 death there, you know. I was just reading your sister 
 a letter from Ben. Lee Jennings killed breaking a 
 horse, Elmer Watts shot by Chester Lynch. Of course, 
 in a way, that was a natural death for Elmer. He was 
 bound to go that way sooner or later, but you're not 
 going to ride a bucker, and you're not a gunfighter. Oh, 
 you'll thrive, with a little stall feeding." 
 
 "And there's so much room out there." She smiled. 
 
 258
 
 The Sunset Trail 
 
 "So much room to to live. And life is so full. I like 
 to hear it, through Virgie and through you. You are 
 shells that give me the roar of it." 
 
 He was sensitive to some pathos of aloofness which 
 her whole being expressed for him, and he strove to meet 
 this with pictures of herself returning, a well woman; 
 but she turned her face from him at length, and did not 
 speak for so long that he thought she might be sleeping. 
 He went carefully out, with a last enveloping look. 
 
 When he had gone the woman laughed in a helpless, 
 shuddering way, then raised herself far enough toward 
 the window to see the fields rushing by outside. There 
 was timidity in her look until she had seen a mile of that 
 relentless earth rush back and away from her. She 
 seemed to need this assurance that she was going away 
 from the trouble in the crude, literal sense of earthly 
 distance going off where there was room "to live," she 
 had told Ewing; "to die," she had amended the phrase 
 to herself. For death was now a solace she faced. She 
 who had been so hot for the fight, so avid of life, had 
 been cheated of a combatant's privileges. She could 
 not tell Ewing the truth, and she could not live while 
 he believed the lie. It was well, she thought, to know 
 that she had only to let herself float down that placid 
 current of the white death. She was amazed at her 
 own calmness and tested it in all subtle ways, making 
 sure of its foundations. She could find no weak spot. 
 She craved only a moderate speed in the descent. Too 
 long a wait would be wearisome, and the wise man had 
 assured her against that. Yet she felt that she had the 
 right to be a little glad when her brother told her the 
 next day of a change in the plan. 
 
 " It will be better for you and Virgie to go to Ewing's 
 
 259
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 place, Nell. It's always quiet there, and my place is 
 pretty busy and noisy. I'll manage to stay over there 
 with you a good deal, and we'll get a woman to come and 
 do for you I know one that will be glad to come. It 
 will only be for a little while, you know." 
 
 She smiled at that well-worn fiction, but applauded 
 the plan. 
 
 " I shall like it, dear, and Virgie will, too, I'm sure, if 
 you think it best, and if Mr. Bwing " 
 
 "Ewing suggested it, and he didn't waste any words 
 telling what a good plan he thought it was. We'll have 
 some extra things brought up from Pagosa to make you 
 comfortable, and you can have a bully long rest there." 
 
 "A long rest, yes and let us have a piano. I'd like 
 to hear some music while I'm resting." 
 
 "Sure! we'll have one up from Durango. You 
 might need to stay there until well into the winter, 
 you know." 
 
 "I think so, Clarence." She was tempted sometimes 
 to confide to him the truth about her sickness, but 
 refrained. 
 
 " Well, it won't be very long. All you want is a rest." 
 
 Her mind echoed it when he had gone. Yes, a rest. 
 She looked up at Virginia, who had entered softly. 
 Her face still shone with the thought of rest and release, 
 and she smiled up at the girl, who had laid a cool hand 
 on her flushing cheek, and now regarded her with devour- 
 ing eyes. She stood so a moment, then knelt to peer 
 at the wasted face. She looked a long time without 
 speaking, looked shrewdly and, at last, accusingly. 
 
 "What is it, dearest? I saw it in your face yesterday. 
 What is it I see? Something has frightened you 
 beaten you." 
 
 260
 
 The Sunset Trail 
 
 The other smiled protestingly, chidingly, with a 
 raised finger; but the girl was not to be appeased. 
 
 "You won't tell me, Nell; I know you; you'll keep it 
 in. But, oh, dearest!" She suddenly gathered the sick 
 woman into her strong young arms, raising her head from 
 the pillow, holding the fevered face to her breast, press- 
 ing her own cool cheek to the hot brow. 
 
 " Dearest dear, let me in. Trust me. Tell me where 
 it hurts. Let me mother you." 
 
 "There, there, dear! Everything is all right. Lay 
 me down again and be easy in that mind of yours." 
 
 But once more on the pillow she had to endure again 
 the girl's accusing eyes. 
 
 "Nell, some one hasn't loved you enough. That's 
 what I feel. Who is it?" 
 
 "Nonsense! You're only worried because I'm a 
 little run down. Everyone loves me enough all I 
 deserve. There, dear, I think I can rest." The girl 
 kissed her shut eyes, and went out, after a long, doubting 
 look. The sick woman raised her arms once, like a 
 child who would be taken, but they fell back, and she 
 painfully laughed the old low laugh of secrecy. 
 
 She mused on her brother's words. "A little rest." 
 Yes, a rest. "Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a 
 little folding of the hands to sleep." She remembered 
 now that it would come to her in the shelter of those 
 hills, perhaps in that room to which her thoughts had 
 flown so many times, where she had seen the awakening 
 man in the sleeping boy, and caught misty shadowings 
 of the portent he bore for her. Her eyes might fall 
 before his now, but they need not fall before the eyes of 
 his mother. 
 
 261
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE HILLS OF REST 
 
 BEN CRIDER waited for them on the station 
 platform at Pagosa. He was excited to a 
 point of feverish unrest until the train warned 
 its way out of the last canon. Then, by a masterful 
 effort, he became elaborately nonchalant. That train 
 had brought Ewing back to him, but he constrained 
 himself to handle the occasion as one rising hardly to 
 common levels. He would have considered any other 
 demeanor "shameless." 
 
 He nodded to Bartell, who supported his sister from 
 the car, and stared politely at the pretty but anxious- 
 looking girl who followed them. But when Ewing ap- 
 peared, burdened with handbags, Ben ignored him, 
 and rushed to shake the hand of Beulah Pierce, return- 
 ing from a three-days' trip to Durango. So effusive 
 was his greeting that Pierce mentally convicted him of 
 having lingered at the "Happy Days" bar for one too 
 many drinks, and broke from his affectionate grasp 
 with some embarrassment. 
 
 Ben strolled forward to the baggage car, humming 
 lightly, and, with the bored air of a man creating diver- 
 sion for himself, laid listless hands on the trunks as they 
 were unloaded. He was whirling one of the heaviest 
 of these to the waiting wagon when Ewing fell on him 
 with a glad shout. Ben paused briefly, balancing the 
 
 262
 
 The Hills of Rest 
 
 trunk on a corner, glanced up with moderate surprise, 
 and spoke his welcome. 
 
 "Oh, that you, Kid? Howdy!" He resumed his 
 struggle with the trunk, blind to the other's outstretched 
 hand, and when Ewing thereupon hissed at him, " You 
 damned Mexican sheep herder!" he allowed pleasure 
 to show but faintly in his face. But when he was 
 seized by the collar, hurled half across the platform, 
 and slammed brutally against the wall of the station, 
 he protested with pleased annoyance as he picked up 
 his hat, "Aw, quit yer foolin', now, Kid! I got to 
 hustle them trunks." He was sufficiently refreshed 
 by the attack, however, to sing to himself as he labored. 
 And when the -start was made he insisted that Ewing 
 should drive. Ben sat in the rear seat. He wanted to 
 look at E wing's back for five hours. 
 
 The sick woman, in another and easier conveyance, 
 rejoiced that she was going still farther into the peace 
 of her last refuge. As they left the brown-floored valley 
 and began to climb the mountain road, she was glad 
 that the green walls closed in behind them ; glad of every 
 difficult ascent; every stream forded; every confusing 
 turn of the way. She was hiding herself, cunningly 
 insuring the peace of her last hours. 
 
 She was troubled now only by Virginia, who hung upon 
 her with an agonized solicitude. But she promised 
 herself to wear this down by her own cheerfulness and 
 expressed certainty. Virginia would see her peaceful, 
 hopeful, happy; she would become used to the idea of 
 her wasting; and the actual going out would come 
 gently to her as something fit and benign. Life so 
 abounding as Virginia's could not long droop under the 
 shadow of death. 
 
 263
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 Made at home in the lake cabin, she still felt the 
 world rushing back from her as had the fields rushed 
 by when she looked from the car window. And she 
 rested in this. Affairs went on about her, plans were 
 made, talk of the future or of the day; all went by her 
 unheeded, save for a blurred and pleasant effect of 
 swiftness. Outwardly she was serene, languorous, 
 incuriously placid. Inwardly she thrilled with a luxury 
 of inertness. She had loosed herself in the ebbing 
 tide, and she folded her hands and smiled from this 
 with the assured indolence of one who knows that 
 some earned reward will not long be delayed. The 
 slow-paced even life was a balm to her, the gathering 
 about the table at mealtimes, the evenings in the studio, 
 when her sister played or talked with Ewing; when 
 she could lie still on the couch and try to make herself 
 forgotten, regretting only the short dry cough that 
 racked her night and morning and brought her to the 
 minds of the others. 
 
 She had thought that she could adjust herself, after 
 a little, to the new look in Ewing's eyes, knowing as she 
 did its secret spring. It was a look of blind acceptance, 
 of unquestioning adoration and mingled with it was 
 a maddening pity. But there flashed from him, too, 
 at times, a look of purpose and assurance, steady, secret, 
 determined. She detected this chiefly when he glanced 
 up to her from his drawing. He had brought with him 
 a story to illustrate for the Knickerbocker, and he was, 
 at last, to finish that series of Western scenes for the 
 same periodical. And he had flown to this work with 
 a frantic haste, with the look, as he bent over the board, 
 that seemed to say: "This is for you. Be patient 
 with me, it will soon be done." 
 
 264
 
 The Hills of Rest 
 
 When the work did not claim him he stayed by her 
 side, watchful for service, jealous of Virginia for little 
 acts he might not himself perform. His eyes seldom 
 left her, she thought, though she could not long endure 
 their look, and she knew that he read this evasion of 
 hers in the light of what Teevan had told him. Through 
 all his devotion there was a gentle aloofness, a constant 
 withdrawing, as if he knew that he must never come 
 close. 
 
 She had laughter and tears again for this when she 
 was alone, though there were times when, in her weak- 
 ness, her wild craving for the fullness of what she might 
 not have, she would have told it all in one surrendering 
 cry to him but for the eyes of Kitty Teevan. They 
 were always upon her now Ewing had hung the por- 
 trait in the studio holding her with passionate entreaty, 
 the mother pleading for herself in the son's memory. 
 She could never tell him, she knew, under those eyes. 
 She must live out her few days in content with that 
 wondrous thing his own eyes revealed for her. She 
 thought it comic and tragic and beautiful. One night 
 she dreamed that she was not to die, and woke in horror 
 of what his belief would then mean. But morning 
 restored her serenity, and she reposed placidly again 
 on the unquestioned sureness of her going. 
 
 Best of all times she liked the late morning and mid- 
 day, when she could be alone in the sun- heated nook 
 out of doors and give her body to the warmth. She 
 knew it was a primal, sensuous pleasure, but she sur- 
 rendered to it; turned and bathed writhingly in the 
 sun flood, feeling herself transparent to it. And the 
 pleasure had its reverse side. Autumn came presently 
 in these upper reaches; a less splendid autumn than 
 18 265
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 would set the Eastern woods ablaze with flaunts of gold 
 and scarlet, but an autumn more eloquent of death, 
 the faded yellow of the aspen groves, broken but rarely 
 by some flaming shrub that only emphasized the mono- 
 tone. This, the unending, lifeless yellow, and the 
 dead green of spruce and hemlock a false green, she 
 felt, with its tale of ever-living made a coloring of 
 nice symbolism for her state. 
 
 Had she felt the need of a death's head at her sun 
 feast, this neutral, denying flatness would have sufficed. 
 The end had come home to her. It was her unseen 
 familiar, voiceless, but ever present, with a look unhurry- 
 ing but constant. 
 
 And there were the mountains themselves, things 
 that had once leaped alive and tortured themselves 
 into frenzied furies of striving only to be stricken and 
 left at last in all the broken tossing of their folly. They 
 had tried the fighting death, and it had availed only 
 to fix their last agonies. Their scarred hulks testified 
 to the wisdom of submission. 
 
 Yet her mind was normal in these sun-warmed hours 
 of musing. She knew that those dead hills with their 
 dying leafage told another tale to the pair of young 
 lives housed with her. To them they were but inspira- 
 tions to life vital and triumphant; eminences to be 
 scaled in joyous effort, offering to youth's dreaming, 
 half -true clairvoyance, unending reaches to provoke; 
 near enough to seem attainable; far enough to be 
 plausible with promise of delights. 
 
 Nor did she fail to rejoice in the fervor of this fresh 
 view so unlike her own. She was conscious of its truth 
 to untouched souls like theirs, and she sought to throw 
 them together, urging them to excursions through the 
 
 266
 
 The Hills of Rest 
 
 hills. She thought of them at first as her pair whom 
 she had set in a garden where the fruit of no tree was 
 forbidden. 
 
 She coolly studied Ewing on the days when he worked 
 indoors, detaching herself from his life as one about to 
 go on a long journey. From her shadowed couch she 
 scanned his face as he bent over the drawing board. 
 It had filled in the year since she first saw it, and was 
 an older face, the strength of it more conscious, the 
 promise of it almost kept in its well-controlled, level- 
 eyed maturity. Much of the boy remained to flash 
 out, but she saw that this would never go ; that it would 
 kindle his eyes when the brown hair had gone white. 
 It was this eternal boyishness, she saw, that made him 
 quick of response to another's interest; this that had 
 made him seem too ductile under Teevan's manipulation, 
 when in truth he had merely been loath to hurt, fearing 
 nothing so much as another's pain. The forward line 
 of the nose and the smoldering fierceness of eye should 
 have been more informing. That was the face, vital, 
 fearless, patently self-willed for all its kindly immaturi- 
 ties of concession, that Teevan had thought to prevail 
 over by his stings of waspish contempt. She smiled 
 pityingly for Teevan, until she recalled that she also 
 had misread its lines. There were moments when her 
 beaten spirit fluttered up at thought of Teevan's being 
 blasted by what he had thought to blast. But a look 
 at the mother's restraining face, or, still more, a look 
 at Ewing as he would glance from his work up to the 
 portrait, stilled this craving for battle. It was well, 
 she thought, as it had fallen. 
 
 Ewing had set to work doubtingly at first, but with 
 laughing energy when he found that the lines came again 
 
 267
 
 E wing's Lady 
 
 at his call. He felt, indeed, that his facility had been 
 increased, and he confided this to Mrs. Laithe one day 
 as she lay watching him. 
 
 "I don't have to 'squeeze' the way I did," he said. 
 "Perhaps I really learned something there in spite of 
 myself, in all that messing with colors. I didn't learn 
 to paint, but I seem to have a new line on bucking 
 bronchos and bucked cowboys." He stopped in sudden 
 thought. 
 
 "There, I've forgotten that old painting of mine. 
 I'll treat us both to a look at it." 
 
 He went off to Ben's room beyond the kitchen and 
 came back with the dusty canvas. He wiped it with 
 a cloth and placed it on the easel. 
 
 She did not look at this. She knew it too well. Her 
 look was for his face as he studied it. She saw surprise 
 there, bewilderment, incredulity, and then, slowly 
 dawning, a consternation of dropped jaw and squint- 
 ing scowl. Yet this broke at length, and, to her great 
 relief, he laughed, heartily, honestly. She smiled, not 
 at the poor painting, but in sympathy with him. Then 
 he remembered that she had looked at this same canvas 
 once before, and that neither of them had laughed. 
 His face sobered, and he went over to her. 
 
 " You had nerve, didn't you after seeing that thing? " 
 
 "You remember I didn't praise it." 
 
 "But you saw I didn't know any better, and you 
 never let me see that you did. You must have thought 
 highly of me, I can see that." He stooped and laid 
 one of his hands on hers with a friendly, thanking pres- 
 sure. 
 
 "I saw plainly enough what you could do," she 
 protested. 
 
 268
 
 The Hills of Rest 
 
 He went to stand again before the despised canvas, 
 playing upon it with humorous disparagement. 
 
 "But if you see now," she said, "that it's so if it 
 seems so " 
 
 "Say the word do!" 
 
 " If it seems bad to you now, that's a good sign. It 
 means that you've learned something about color. 
 Suppose it had still seemed good." 
 
 He took the thing off the easel. 
 
 "If I've learned as much about color as I think 
 this is bad well there's only a little left for me to 
 learn." 
 
 "Now you will paint others that will seem faultless 
 at the time and bad a year later. That's the penalty 
 of growth, but it's the proof. Make your prayer to 
 the god of painting: 'May everything I do seem bad 
 when it's a year old ! ' " 
 
 "I'll try to," he returned gravely. Then, "Let's 
 put this out of sight quick, before Virginia sees it." 
 
 "You didn't burn it," she asked, when he returned. 
 
 " I should think not. I'd have to fight Ben if I burned 
 that. Of course I didn't know any better when I gave 
 it to him, any more than I knew about his songs. That's 
 another thing you must have laughed at me for." 
 
 He laughed himself as she looked up at him with 
 puzzled inquiry, and went on to confess how he had sung 
 Ben's choicest ballad at the Monastery. 
 
 "Of course it's a funny song," he continued, as he 
 returned to the drawing board, "but it isn't so very 
 much funnier than a lot that aren't supposed to be 
 funny at all. Come, now," he rallied her, "don't they 
 all rub in the sadness, even the ones you might think 
 serious? There must be a million songs about 'Dream- 
 
 269
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 ing,' 'I Dreamed that You Were with Me, Love!' 
 and 'It was All a Dream!' and 'Could I but Recall that 
 Day!' and 'Alas, It was not so to be!' and 'Must We, 
 then, Part Forever!' Always crying about something! 
 Always moaning 'if only' something or other. They're 
 about as teary a lot as Ben's songs. I told Virginia 
 last night I never wanted to hear another 'Could I but ' 
 song; they're as bad as 'The Fatal Wedding.'" 
 
 Though he had rushed at the drawings with a power- 
 ful incentive to make himself free so that he could per- 
 form one great service for his lady he yielded often to 
 the persuasions of Mrs. Laithe and took Virginia out 
 for adventures. They explored box canons that she 
 believed to be impenetrable until he nonchalantly 
 opened a way to their secret recesses. They whipped 
 trout streams and he complacently caught fish from 
 holes she would angle in without result. He tried to 
 persuade her that certain brown patches he professed 
 to detect off through the forest from time to time were 
 deer; but vainly each time, until there would be a sudden 
 terrific shattering amid the underbrush, and perhaps 
 a fleeting glimpse of the brown patch with its white 
 center, flying in swift rebuke to her unbelief. They 
 climbed hills together, and he irritated her by his con- 
 tinued ease of breath under the strain, while her own 
 "wind" that she had thought so well of in Kensington 
 was exhausted by the first moments of effort. She 
 believed him guilty of a polite fiction when he explained 
 that the altitude made all the difference. She disbe- 
 lieved his tale of the lake water's coldness it was 
 annoying to be told that even he wanted no more than 
 a single plunge in it and bathed there one day to her 
 undoing. She refused to believe that he could shoot 
 
 270
 
 The Hills of Rest 
 
 accurately with a rifle that made so much noise, or with 
 a revolver that wobbled when one tried to hold it still, 
 until he had demonstrated these matters. And she 
 refused to concede that she could not ride a certain 
 half-broken little mare which Ewing rode without 
 apparent difficulty until the mare proved it to the 
 satisfaction of all concerned. 
 
 These little disbeliefs were not unpleasant to Ewing. 
 He revenged himself for having been proved a "duffer" 
 at her own games. 
 
 It was on their return from an afternoon's fishing one 
 day that they found Bartell bestowing Cooney on his 
 sister. 
 
 " I bought him for you from Pierce," he was explain- 
 ing. "Of course Virgie can ride him until you're fit 
 again." 
 
 The sick woman greeted her old friend formally in the 
 presence of the others. But when they had gone inside 
 she led the little roan around to the corral, and there, 
 sheltered by its wall, she put an arm tightly over his 
 lowered neck and laid her face to his with fond little 
 words of greeting and remembrance. He had carried 
 her so well on a day when nothing had happened ; when 
 she was a girl herself, it almost seemed, more curious 
 of the world than knowing. 
 
 That had been an age a year ago. The little horse 
 had been bravely doing his work, carrying his inconse- 
 quent burdens as they listed, while she had been losing 
 herself in protests. She had begun doing that, it seemed, 
 the first day he brought her there. She wondered if 
 he could remember it. She doubted that; but at least 
 he remembered Ewing and loved him. She clasped the 
 arm more tightly about his neck, and the little horse 
 
 271
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 whinnied, pawing the earth with a small forefoot, and 
 moving his head up and down in a knowing way. To 
 the woman he had the effect of seeking to return her 
 caress, so that in a moment she was sobbing in a sudden 
 weakness of love for him. 
 
 272
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THE WHITE TIME 
 
 THE days went, shortening. She kept to her 
 couch through all but those hours when the 
 sun was high. Then she lay to be warmed 
 in the open while the year died before her. She could 
 not see another year. She must read all her meanings 
 into this one. September went and October waned. 
 The sky was often overcast. They had ceased to talk of 
 her going back. Her brother reminded her cheerfully 
 that he had half expected a long stay for her. She must 
 be patient. She spoke in his own vein of hopefulness, 
 promising patience, and smiled as ever on her pair, 
 who still wandered in that garden, bantering comrades, 
 tasting the fruit of every tree but one. 
 
 And one day she knew that all her imaginings about 
 this pair had been vain, caught it in the deepened look 
 of Ewing as he turned from Virginia to herself. It was 
 a thing to bask in that look like the fervid sun itself. 
 But it hurt her, too; made it harder to let go of life. 
 Yet always before her was the face of Kitty Teevan 
 with its beseeching eyes: "You have so little time to 
 live, and I must live in his memory always!" And 
 so she put the thing away, letting him think as he must, 
 wincing under his look of pity, and that devouring thing 
 that lurked always back of his pity, and striving for 
 lightness when she talked with him. 
 
 " I understand why our land seemed unreal to you," 
 
 273
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 she said to him while they loitered in the blue dusk of 
 the pine woods near the cabin one day. The peaks 
 beyond were misty behind gray clouds that lay sullenly 
 along the horizon. " I understand why you called our 
 land a stage land, for this is unreal to me, painted, 
 theatrical, impossible. I keep hearing the person who's 
 seen the play telling his neighbor what's to come next." 
 
 "It's real enough," he answered, looking away from 
 her. " I have a way of telling when a land is real." 
 
 "You have?" 
 
 "Any land is real where you are. New England or 
 Colorado or Siberia or " 
 
 "There, there!" she soothed him mockingly "or 
 India's coral strand. That's quite enough. You have 
 learned your geography lesson. What a busy traveler 
 you must have been!" 
 
 "And no land can be real where you are not," he went 
 on gravely. " I go where you go, follow you around the 
 world and out into the stars beyond the moon, up and 
 down and on forever, and it all seems real to me all 
 except you." 
 
 "Oh, I I'm real, real enough, but this land is a sad, 
 fearful, threatening land, so heartless." She shivered. 
 "Let us go in!" 
 
 " That's only because it's closing up now for the win- 
 ter; that's why the sky is sorry. The leaves are nearly 
 gone, and the fat old bears are slouching down from 
 the high places to curl up in the holes, and the deer 
 are moving down into the valleys, and pretty soon the 
 hills will crawl under white blankets and go to sleep. 
 And we shall have to do the same. We shall be shut 
 in before you know it, snowed in, frozen in, like the bears. 
 But the winter it can't take you from me." 
 
 274
 
 The White Time 
 
 "There, there!" But she could not finish. She 
 flashed a helpless smile at him and fled indoors. He 
 went after her, crying that winter was upon them. 
 
 And then, all in a day and a night, winter came. 
 The wind fell to an ominous hush one midday, and a 
 leaden quiet lay over the hills. Blurred masses of cloud 
 rose slowly above the peaks, shaping themselves with 
 ponderous sloth. Below these a white mist formed. 
 Then one tiny snow crystal fell. It was followed pres- 
 ently by another, and then by more, floating down 
 with unhurried ease. Meaningless wisps they seemed, 
 fugitive bits of wool, perhaps, from a sheep losing its 
 fleece in some nearby shearing pen. More of them came 
 with the same slow, loitering grace, as if they would lull 
 suspicion of the fury they heralded. 
 
 By night the storm had shut off the hills so that the 
 cabin might have been set in a plain, for all the eye could 
 see. The flakes no longer came saunteringly, but swiftly 
 now, in a slant of honest fervor, frankly threatening. 
 
 By morning the land was muffled in white The sun 
 shone pale and cold through the mist, and the wind 
 began a game with its new plaything, still light and dry, 
 and quick to dance to any piping. Spruce and hemlock 
 seemed to have darkened their green, and their arms 
 drooped wearily under the white burdens they bore. 
 The second day's fall buried their lowest branches so 
 that not even the circle of bare earth was left about 
 them. 
 
 Inside the cabin they sought the peace of the earth 
 under its cover, the trustful repose of the live things 
 sleeping there. The days sped by almost unmarked. 
 Scarcely ever were they certain of the day of week or 
 month, especially after Ben forgot to mark his calendar 
 
 275
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 on the days he and Ewing devoted to getting deer for 
 their winter's meat. There were but opinions as to the 
 date after that. 
 
 Ben, after his work with the stock each morning, 
 hibernated gracefully in a chair by the kitchen stove, 
 sleeping with excited groans, like a dreaming dog. Or, 
 awake, he stared at the wall with dulled eyes. At 
 times he would touch his guitar to life and sing very 
 softly, or hold it affectionately in his lap, a hand muting 
 its strings, while he pondered dreamily of far-off matters, 
 of cities and men, and the folly of expecting ever to 
 receive treasure such as the advertisements promise. 
 
 Ewing and Virginia, after the snow packed, went 
 forth on snowshoes far into the white silence; over open 
 spaces so glaring that the eyes closed in defense ; through 
 ravines where once-noisy streams were stilled ; and under 
 forest arches of green where the snow was darkened to 
 hints of blue they agreed that Sydenham would paint 
 it blue without condescending to hints and where the 
 hush was so intense that they instinctively lowered 
 their voices. They passed long times without speech, 
 as they would have done in a church, worshiping the 
 still beauty about them, beauty of buttressed peak, of 
 snow-choked canon, of green-roofed cathedral, of pink 
 light at sunset on endless snow-quilted slopes. 
 
 Mrs. Laithe, too, sought the open when the sun was 
 high, and one day in midwinter she walked as far as 
 the lake in the path beaten by the stock. It did not 
 occur to her then that this was no feat for a dying woman 
 nor even on the succeeding days when this walk became 
 her habit. It was a change for her eyes from the cabin 
 prospect; the sun warmed her genially, despite the 
 intense cold, and she liked the stillness, all the move- 
 
 276
 
 The White Time 
 
 ments of life going on in a strange, muffled silence. 
 This helped her to remember her own plight. Life 
 still abounded with all its warmth and glad clashing, 
 but she must have only eyes for it no heart of desire. 
 She had been so sure of this from the first that she gave 
 but heedless smiles to the others when they told her 
 she was better. They had always said such things. 
 
 She slept the long nights through now, seeking bed 
 like a tired child, and waking in strange refreshment. 
 And milk no longer appeased her hunger as it had wholly 
 done when she arrived. The savor of baked meats was 
 now sweet to her. She was presently walking to the 
 lake both morning and afternoon, breathing deep of 
 the dry air that ran fire in her veins as she absorbed it. 
 And the flush on her face when she returned was not that 
 of fever. 
 
 But more eloquent than these physical symptoms was 
 a sullen current of rebellion rising slowly within her, 
 the old fighting instinct, a lust for sheer living, a thing 
 she had believed was long since extinct. 
 
 She did not lose her certainty of death all in a day. 
 For weeks she was haunted merely by an unquiet sus- 
 picion. The cough still racked her night and morning, 
 and the fever came each evening, but the old potency 
 seemed to have gone from both. She tried to believe 
 at first that this was one of those false rallies so common 
 before the end. 
 
 The full, maddening realization came to her on a day 
 when Ewing walked with her to the lake. He turned 
 on her suddenly when they had mounted a slope, seized 
 both her hands, and looked long into her eyes with a 
 certain grave wonder. 
 
 "You are made new," he said at last. She trembled 
 
 277
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 in a sudden panic, divining the truth of it, feeling, as he 
 spoke, a great rush of life overwhelming her. 
 
 " You are living again, you are going to live. I knew 
 you would live." He still gripped her hands. It was 
 as if he had drawn her, warm and pulsing, out of all the 
 wintry death about them. She could not face him, 
 but released her hands and turned away. He had seen 
 truly. She had relaxed utterly when she came, to waver 
 unresistingly down into the cool abyss of her despair. 
 But some indomitable brute thing had risen in her while 
 she slept, to fight for life, and to fire her whole being with 
 its triumph. While she had rested and waited in that 
 luxury of self-abandonment she had been cheated of her 
 victory betrayed back to life. 
 
 Trying now to think what life would mean to her, 
 she was overwhelmed with shame and dismay. With 
 death so near things had been simple. But how could 
 she live on and face Ewing, shaming herself and shaming 
 him in the darkness of his belief about her? 
 
 They walked back to the cabin in silence. Ewing, too, 
 she felt, saw the future to be less simple now. 
 
 " I shall know what to do," he said, as they reached the 
 door; and there was again in his eyes that puzzling 
 look of some fixed purpose. For the first time this 
 vaguely alarmed her now, and she questioned him swiftly 
 with her eyes. But he only pointed to his mother's 
 portrait they had entered the studio and said, 
 " Do you think I'd do less for you than I would for her? " 
 
 She could endure neither his own look nor the mother's, 
 and fled to her room. There she studied her face in the 
 glass. It was all true. She was going to live, and she 
 sickened at the thought. Again it was a time for tears 
 and laughter. 
 
 278
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE AWAKENING 
 
 THE white giant, sun-stricken, drooping lan- 
 guidly, crumbled and dissolved before their 
 eyes. The air softened. The streams rushed 
 full, the southern hillsides showed bare and gaunt. 
 
 In the lake cabin they felt aged by their imprison- 
 ment. It had been so long, so remote from the world 
 rush. L,ike prisoners long confined, they were loath 
 to leave a dungeon where life had been well ordered if 
 not exhilarating. Benumbed in the first days of the 
 change, they returned indoors to the soothing evenness 
 of their six months' hibernation. They found those 
 first changes unbelievable. Winter would surely go on 
 forever; too mighty a jailer it was to be vanquished 
 by a mere breath of honey and flowers. They stayed 
 in to warn one another against false appearances. 
 
 But there came a day when, in the blaze of noontime, 
 Ben Crider moved his chair out by the door and sang 
 softly to the strains of his guitar. His eyes blinked in 
 the sunlight as he sang, yet they did not fail to detect 
 the signs of spring so plentiful about the clearing in 
 bud and leaf and tiny grass shoot, even though patches 
 of snow still lay in the shaded spots. 
 
 The woman who cooked came also to the door as 
 Ben sang. He had spoken of her the winter through 
 as "the woman," dimly perceiving her as a spirit that 
 mumbled endless complainings as she toiled, for she 
 
 279
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 was one who had been disillusioned by much cooking. 
 She cooked acceptably, and Ben had burgeoned in the 
 uncanny luxury of food prepared by another hand than 
 his own, but he had given her little attention beyond 
 discovering her opinion that cooking was a barren per- 
 formance, since people perversely ate and thereby 
 destroyed, and the thing must be done again endlessly. 
 He had vaguely observed that this woman was not 
 beautiful, and now, as she faced him with a sudden 
 joviality in the spring sunshine, he saw that she could 
 never have been beautiful. She beamed amicably on 
 the balladist, and he, turning casual eyes on her, was 
 stricken to dismayed silence ; the tuneful praise of young 
 love fainted on his lips as he stared, aghast, and his 
 startled hand hushed the vibrant strings. A moment 
 he looked, recovering from the shock. Then, in swift 
 recoil, he grasped his chair and went resolutely out 
 under the big hemlock, there to resume his song and 
 his absent contemplation of Nature's awakening 
 his back to the cabin door. In this sensitive mood 
 he wished not to incur again a vision that blighted 
 song. 
 
 It was no longer disputable that spring was real; no 
 baseless tradition, but an unfolding reality. Ben had 
 divined it, and the other prisoners were not long in 
 proving it. 
 
 One of them surveyed it in panic wonder, turning in 
 upon herself to face the ordeal of enforced living. They 
 wandered in the open, three of them, now, finding 
 it good to feel the bare, elastic earth under their feet 
 again, and prove the noiseless but sensational life of 
 growing things all about them. They plucked buds 
 to see their secret hearts, and exposed the roots of 
 
 280
 
 The Awakening 
 
 peeping herbs that had begun their strivings before the 
 snow went. 
 
 When the sunny places had been dried and warmed, 
 and were pulsing in their myriad hidden hearts, so 
 that winter began to fade in their minds as some dream 
 of night, they would penetrate the sunless depths of a 
 narrow canon where the snow yet lay deep and the 
 stream was a mere choking of ice in a gorge. 
 
 It was in the flush of this exultation over winter's 
 downfall that they planned camp life in a vale at the edge 
 of the lake, where the spruces thinned to leave wide- 
 vaulted arches, and spread the floor with yielding brown 
 rugs of the pine needle. They began it as a play, and 
 finished with a permanent camp into which they moved 
 from the cabin. There were tents and beds, a table, 
 a sheet-iron stove, chests for their stores, and hammocks 
 in which to be fanned by the south wind. 
 
 Bartell promised his sister vast benefits from this 
 life. 
 
 "This will put the finishing touches to you, Sis. A 
 month here and you'll be loping over the range, high, 
 wide, and handsome. It'll take an elk-high fence to 
 hold you after you've slept awhile out here." 
 
 She felt the truth of what he said, and was appalled 
 by it. Almost daily she dismayed herself by recalling 
 some unpremeditated feat of strength or endurance. 
 Life had crept back to her like a whipped dog, and 
 bitterly she felt the sting of its satire. She was loath 
 to leave the cabin in which she had so long nursed death. 
 She had impregnated the very walls with an atmosphere 
 of dissolution. But she understood now that that 
 prison house could no longer suffice her. Stubborn 
 life had prevailed over all its powers of suggestion. 
 19 281
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 There she had clung stubbornly to the old solution, 
 cherishing a hope of some sudden relapse, despite the 
 new life that taunted her with its animal buoyance. 
 But once in the open, her brain was washed of that. 
 Her mind was as clear as the fathomless blue above 
 them at noon; and the stars at night were not more 
 coldly luminous than the reasoning she bent upon her- 
 self, nor sharper than a certain deduction she made. 
 
 Ewing brought his drawing to the camp and spent the 
 mornings in work. He had finished his series for the 
 Knickerbocker during the winter, and these drawings, 
 with the illustrations for the story previously made, 
 had brought him enough to discharge the Teevan debt. 
 He had reported this transaction significantly to Mrs. 
 Laithe, and was now busy on pictures for another story 
 for the Knickerbocker. 
 
 "Only a little longer," he said, with a meaning she 
 could not fathom, and he returned to his work with a 
 singular absorption. Not even Ben could distract 
 him when he sauntered up for his daily criticism. Ben 
 was respectful to the drawings after he saw the checks 
 they brought, but his summing up of the purchaser's 
 acumen never varied. 
 
 "Well, well fools and their money! The idee of 
 payin' out cash for a thing that looks as much like Red 
 Phinney as that there does!" 
 
 When work was done for the day Ewing would turn 
 to Mrs. Laithe with a smile of release, and they would 
 stray along some dim trail or off into pathless, shaded 
 silences of the wood, lingering in grassy mountain 
 meadows, or skirting the base of bleak crags where 
 streaks of snow in shadow still clung to the gray walls. 
 She was conscious then of a tumult throbbing wonder- 
 
 282
 
 The Awakening 
 
 fully beneath the surface of their companionship a 
 tumult of life aching for release. In little chance mo- 
 ments of silence this rumbled ominously, leaving her 
 fearful, but curiously resigned, moved to blind flight, 
 yet chained and submissive as were the hills themselves. 
 
 One afternoon they sought their canon of delayed 
 winter after many days' neglect of it. They wondered 
 if spring might not have reached even that secret recess 
 at last. They left the trail that skirted the edge and 
 descended a rocky way that Ewing found, emerging 
 at last through a fringe of the stunted cedars into the 
 gloom of the depths. 
 
 At first glance this last stronghold of winter seemed 
 to have remained impregnable. Snow lay deep along 
 the bottom, enormous stalactites of ice depended from 
 overhanging ledges, and the stream itself appeared 
 to be still only a riven glacier. But, listening intently, 
 they heard a steady liquid murmur, the very music 
 of spring come at last to sing the gorge awake. As 
 they stood, listening, there was a shivering crash; one 
 of the huge icicles had dropped, shattering on a lower 
 ledge and raining its fragments into the soft snowbed 
 below. 
 
 "It's the very last of winter," said Ewing mourn- 
 fully. " That snow is eaten through and through. See 
 how those bits of ice drove into it. And hear that run- 
 ning water. It will be off with a rush now. It's the 
 very last of it all I shall have to look back to that 
 winter of ours together." His tone was full of a mean- 
 ing she dared not question. They climbed in silence 
 to the summer above and traversed, still silently, the 
 stretch of green woods that grew beyond the canon 
 wall. Only at the first mountain meadow, a dazzle 
 
 283
 
 E wing's Lady 
 
 of emerald under the slanting sun, did they halt to gaze 
 at each other. His eyes were wonderfully alight with 
 sadness and rejoicing as she faced him, radiant in a 
 moment of forgetfulness, flagrant in her beauty's 
 renewal. 
 
 "You're wonderful again," he said, almost whisper- 
 ingly, "you're all in flower now!" She quickened 
 under his look, feeling the glow on her cheeks. But 
 that faded at his next words. 
 
 "I finished the last of those drawings to-day. Now 
 I must go." 
 
 "Ah go?" It was a little cry, half of question, half 
 of understanding. 
 
 "Yes I can go now. I couldn't go before, but I 
 have the money now." 
 
 She sickened as they walked on in silence, fearing 
 to question him, and when they reached the camp 
 she ran to throw herself on the bed in her tent, covering 
 her eyes with her hands, pressing the lids down, but 
 making no sound. 
 
 As they sat about their camp fire that evening Ewing 
 was struck by a certain view he caught of her. She 
 sat in shadow on a stool at the foot of a towering hem- 
 lock, and once when he rose to stir the waning fire a 
 flame shot up from a half-burned log, with a volley of 
 sparks that fell back in a golden rain. He glanced over 
 to be sure that she escaped these, and saw her sharply 
 revealed in the sudden light, unconscious of it, unaroused 
 by the crackling explosion. She was staring fixedly 
 into the darkness, her body relaxed, her hands half 
 clasped, her head, the profile toward him, leaning 
 wearily against the tree. Before this background 
 she seemed frail again, her face pallid under the dark 
 
 284
 
 The Awakening 
 
 of her hair and against the rough, ruddy brown of the 
 tree bole, her whole body contrasting in its fragile 
 lines with the tree's strength human weakness showing 
 starkly against the vigor of the woods. 
 
 To dull the sudden wanting of his heart for her he 
 walked off alone over the path that bordered the lake, 
 to reduce the amazing actuality of things, if he could, to 
 proportions seemly with normal life. But the lake 
 was a mirror of enchantment, the booming of an owl 
 was a magic portent, the shadowed wall of granite 
 was a turreted castle of mysteries, vague in the starlight, 
 and the very stars themselves huddled down on him 
 excitingly. He was in a world of the unreal, and must do 
 an unreal thing. He stumbled blindly back to camp. 
 He was surprised to find Mrs. Laithe as he had left her, 
 still drooping against the rough -barked tree, weak, 
 submissive, overborne. He touched her arm gently 
 to recall her from some troubled distance. She looked 
 at him with eyes unseeing at first. 
 
 "Isn't it bedtime?" he suggested. 
 
 She smiled and stood up to shrug away the spell of 
 her dreaming. She spoke with such clear strength of 
 tone that he was at once reassured of her vigor. 
 
 "Yes, it's sleeping time in a moment. I haven't 
 said much to you, but there's really little to say. You 
 feel that you must go?" 
 
 "How could I stay here after that?" 
 
 She repressed a sudden spasm of wild, weeping 
 laughter that threatened to overcome her. 
 
 " And you'll not come back? " She waited breathless. 
 
 "There isn't much chance of it." 
 
 "You dear, dear fool!" was on her lips, but she held 
 back the words and said very quietly: 
 
 285
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "Go out, then, and live as you must. Only don't 
 let life cow you. Don't ever fear that living is intricate 
 or hard or tragic a thing to be gone about warily. 
 The wary people make the same mistakes as the careless 
 ones, and feel them ten times more. Don't be afraid 
 to dream afraid to believe. I'm glad I've dreamed 
 every dream of mine false or true. Never be afraid 
 to want." She turned half away as if to go, but halted, 
 and he thought she had grown suddenly weak. 
 
 "You're going " 
 
 "To-morrow, I'd thought the sooner the better." 
 
 "Ah, but that's so soon. Can't we have one more 
 day here? One more day to think of it?" 
 
 " I've thought of it all winter, days and nights as 
 well ; but I'd like another day " He watched her long- 
 ingly as she went beyond the firelight. 
 
 "Not a day to think about it," he called softly "a 
 day to forget." 
 
 They made it a day of forgetting, as he had said. In 
 the morning they planned to ride, and their spirits 
 were such as they rode off that Ben was moved to regard 
 them knowingly, as one who had taken a fling at life 
 in his time. 
 
 The day long they rode or rambled, talking of all 
 but obvious things making it, indeed, a day of forget- 
 ting and a day to remember. Deep in the woman's 
 heart stirred an instinct of primal coquetry, an impulse 
 to wield her charm upon him, to make the woman pre- 
 vail over the man, beating all reason down, blindly, 
 madly. And she yielded to this, watching its effect 
 on him, divining the power of her freshened beauty 
 each time she compelled his eyes. Instinctively she 
 would have had him say, " I give up. I can't go. 
 
 286
 
 The Awakening 
 
 Let me stay stay by you!" The natural woman in 
 her fought for that. But reason reigned above the 
 conflict. She knew he would not surrender and knew 
 she would not have him surrender. Still she could 
 not resist that impulse to enchain him, and exulted 
 each time she made him tremble at their nearness. 
 
 Not until night had come did the imminence of his 
 going seem to lie upon them. But then it lay with a 
 weight. Together they left the camp and felt a way 
 over the darkened trail to the cabin. Ewing had spoken 
 of packing he must do, of matters in which she might 
 help him. 
 
 But when they were in the studio, and he had started 
 a great blaze in the fireplace he sat before it with her, 
 silent. She spoke at length of the packing. 
 
 "There's none to do," he answered. "I'm taking 
 scarcely anything only what I can carry back of the 
 saddle." 
 
 Her blood leaped with a quick hope. 
 
 "Then you're not going for long you will come 
 back " But he only shook his head. 
 
 "I can't expect to come back." He looked at her 
 with a sudden lighting of his eyes. "Come near to me 
 this once." He moved a stool in front of him. "Sit 
 here, this once." 
 
 She sat on the low stool at his feet and felt herself 
 drawn slowly forward until her arms rested on his 
 knees. She laid her head on them, shaken to the heart. 
 Then she felt him bending over her, hovering, shelter- 
 ing her, and at last, with a long sigh, come to rest, his 
 face buried in her hair. They remained so, immovable, 
 without further speech. 
 
 The absurdity of the thing between them had never 
 
 287
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 seemed so egregious to her. The words rang in her 
 mind, burning behind her closed eyes "It's all a 
 mistake, that. How could you believe it, even you, 
 unused to the world though you are?" But she knew 
 the questions this would bring from him, the doubt 
 that would stay with him; knew she could never satisfy 
 him with less than the truth. For a moment she heard 
 herself telling him this truth, gently, delicately, tenderly. 
 But he spoke, even while she was thinking this. 
 
 "I wanted to be here to-night with you, and with 
 her." He raised his head at last, to look at the portrait 
 of his mother. "She understands, I'm sure. And 
 she would have me go she would have me do as I am 
 doing." 
 
 She knew finally, then, that she could never tell 
 him. She ceased all vain considering of that. He was 
 going away from her because of the lie he believed. 
 The truth might come to him some day, but it must 
 never come from her. The certainty brought her a 
 kind of rest. She could fall back on laughter and tears 
 for the thing. 
 
 A long time they sat there, speaking little, her head 
 still cradled on his knees. But when the fire died they 
 knew it must be late and rose to go. Ewing looked long 
 at the portrait, then turned to her. 
 
 "I'm doing what I would do for her," he said, "and 
 I'm glad I had you both with me this last time. You'll 
 always keep that for me, won't you?" He raised a 
 hand toward the portrait. 
 
 "If you wish it," she said. 
 
 When they came in sight of the camp fire they stopped 
 and turned to each other. He caught her by the 
 shoulders. 
 
 288
 
 The Awakening 
 
 "Good night and good-by!" he whispered. 
 
 She tried to speak, but could not for the trembling 
 of her lips. She turned to go, and took a few faltering 
 steps, then flew back, and with a wild gesture, drew 
 him down and pressed his head against her heart. 
 
 Ben came sleepily from the cabin next morning as 
 Ewing was about to mount his horse. He had felt at 
 ease about this journey, because of the slender equip- 
 ment with which Ewing was setting out. An early 
 return was to be inferred. 
 
 Ewing held out his hand, and Ben, observing that 
 it was scarce daylight, and that the act could in no 
 way be considered a public scandal, grasped it cordially. 
 
 "So long, Kid and good luck, whatever you're 
 goin' to do!" 
 
 " There's a man down in New York needs killing, Ben." 
 
 "Now, look a here, Kid, you better look out" but 
 the practical aspects of the affair at once seized his 
 mind, and he broke off with, "Got your gun?" 
 
 "No a gun's too good for him." 
 
 Ben considered this, and became again solicitous. 
 
 "Well, look a here, now, you be darned careful. If 
 it's needed, why, do it. But you jest want to remember 
 that New York ain't Hinsdale County. You want to 
 be mighty careful you don't git into some trouble over 
 it." 
 
 289
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 THE HARDEST THING 
 
 THE zest had gone from camp life with Ewing's 
 departure, and the cabin was again occupied. 
 Mrs. Laithe filled the days with a sort of 
 blind waiting. It could not end so, she felt, despite 
 the eyes of Kitty Teevan, so watchful of her, and so 
 certain that it had ended. Something must happen. 
 That was the burden of her hope as vague as a child's 
 hope. She would set no time, nor would she name 
 the thing. But come it must, and she could wait. 
 
 When Beulah Pierce rode by on his way from Pagosa 
 and left their mail one afternoon, she felt no eagerness 
 about it. There could be nothing so soon, she was 
 sure. Virginia brought her some letters and read 
 aloud one from the aunt at Kensington. Then Mrs. 
 Laithe looked through her own letters and found one 
 from Ewing. She did not open it, but rose after a few 
 moments, and walked swiftly over to the lake camp. 
 Only there, alone, could she trust herself. 
 
 She read the thing staringly, haltingly, testing each 
 phrase as if it were worded in some strange tongue. 
 
 " I can tell you now what I came for," the letter ran, 
 ''because the thing will be done before this letter can 
 reach you. It's a thing you want done, but if you had 
 known I meant to do it you would have tried to prevent 
 me, and that would only have distressed us both. But 
 now, when it is all over, you will see that I was the one 
 
 290
 
 The Hardest Thing 
 
 person in the world to do it for you. Think if you had 
 killed him yourself that night, the pain you would 
 have brought to yourself and to others. It wasn't a 
 woman's work. I would have done it for you then, 
 but I owed him money. I couldn't kill him till I had 
 paid that. 
 
 " I used to dream of doing things for you always, 
 many things, big and little, but it has turned out that 
 I can do only this. So won't you try to believe that 
 I am putting all my heart into it for you, all that thing 
 I would have tried to show you if it had been scattered 
 over the rest of our lives? I must put it all into this 
 one act. 
 
 "Ben seemed to suspect that such affairs could be 
 managed here with the informality that often marks 
 them in the San Juan, but you and I know better. I 
 cannot expect to return, nor to see you again. Yet 
 I shall see you always; see no one else while they let 
 me see at all. We must take life as it falls, do the next 
 thing without complaining, even if it is the hardest thing. 
 And be sure of this I shall do it so quickly that he 
 will have no chance to tell me anything. He will not 
 even speak your name. Afterwards you can have this 
 to remember, that I did it gladly, knowing what the 
 consequences would be. I hope that will be, in time, the 
 happiness to you that it is to me. It is enough for me." 
 
 Over and over she read it, and at last she mastered 
 it all the horror of it. A long time she gazed dumbly 
 at the sheets, then once more she laughed the old, low 
 laugh, with a sinister note in it now. Ben Crider found 
 her there an hour later, staring blankly out over the flawed 
 surface of the lake. The breeze was swirling many 
 finely torn bits of paper about her feet. 
 
 291
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 As they walked back to the cabin she reflected that 
 the letter had lain four days in the postoffice at Pagosa. 
 It had been written nine days before. Then Ewing had 
 done the thing. She no more believed that Randall 
 Teevan still lived than she believed that the mountains 
 about her were phantoms. A sentence from the letter 
 ran in her mind. "We must take life as it falls do 
 the next thing without complaining, even if it is the 
 hardest thing." 
 
 "The hardest thing!" 
 
 She pleaded fatigue and lack of appetite to Virginia 
 and sought her bed to lie and think in the dark. She 
 saw her own hardest thing, the thing she must do. 
 
 She had caused a man to be put to death; a vicious, 
 mischievous fool, it was true, but still a man. That 
 was sad and horrible. But of another man, one she 
 had thought to guard and cherish and care for in all 
 of woman's ways she had made a murderer, and she 
 had murdered him. For she knew that Ewing must die. 
 It was as if he were already dead. Perhaps out there 
 in the agonized void of the world he had already killed 
 himself, his work being done. Or, if not, they would 
 kill him. She felt a blind, hollow sickness, as if her heart 
 had broken and was bleeding away inside her. She 
 had made her beloved a slayer and had slain him. 
 She could not live with it. She hungered for her own 
 death with intolerable desire. 
 
 She arose with a despair-cleared mind the next morn- 
 ing, her resolve made. Only the smaller details were 
 to be worked out. She walked by the lake, revolving 
 these. Once she wept, from the very abundance and 
 color of life about her. Life was so full, and she had 
 taken it from him in his splendid youth. But she would 
 
 292
 
 The Hardest Thing 
 
 not shirk the penalty of her blood -guiltiness. She looked 
 out to the hills beyond the valley that fell away from the 
 lake, studying headland and wooded slope and canon 
 opening, choked with green. Some spot far out there 
 would be secret and gracious to her welcome her with 
 a finger on its lips take her and keep. Death, to her, 
 was no longer terrible. There had been a long intimacy 
 with it. She rushed to the idea of it as to a home a 
 benignant succor from the unendurable thought. 
 
 Back in the cabin she lay counting the minutes as they 
 rushed thinking and counting. She must not let her- 
 self be prisoned by a mere body that exulted blindly, 
 basely, in its vigor. She could make everything right. 
 She could conform to the law of a life for a life. 
 
 " The hardest thing," she murmured. " I must do the 
 hardest thing." That would be her expiation, though 
 not a sufficing one ; she recognized that. She longed for 
 it too avidly, for the relief from thought, from torturing 
 visions. Yet it was formally perfect as a punishment, 
 according to the world's standards. She would be 
 her own executioner, and it would satisfy the world if 
 the world knew. And despite her longing for release, 
 it was still, she thought, the hardest thing, although it 
 saved saved her from that old man and that young 
 man slain: that young beloved one, lying dead with 
 blood upon his hands. Poor sacrificed, poor betrayed, 
 poor ruined one! Again, the hollow sickness, as if her 
 heart were bleeding away inside her. To expiate to 
 do the hardest thing. She came back to that always. 
 It was the hardest thing, although it saved. 
 
 When her brother rode up in the afternoon, she instantly 
 saw her plan completed. There came an hour in which 
 she walked and talked and laughed in a waking dream, 
 
 293
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 without sensation, except as she could imagine it felt by 
 a creature she seemed to watch from afar, a creature 
 who had looked strangely like herself. She saw this 
 woman greet the others and sit at table with them to 
 laugh and talk with acceptable ease. Their voices were 
 soundless as voices in a dream, their shapes and Sittings 
 as illogical. So benumbed was her spirit that she suf- 
 fered little even at the moment of hurried parting from 
 Virginia. Her role was played with flawless detachment. 
 She studied herself coolly and guarded against wrong 
 speeches. 
 
 "I shall go home with Clarence; I haven't seen that 
 magnificent ranch yet," she remarked carelessly, and 
 Virginia and her brother had applauded this. 
 
 " I'll show you a ranch that is a ranch," Bartell had 
 answered. 
 
 Ben led Cooney around, saddled. She kissed Virginia 
 lightly and was on the little horse. She turned to wave 
 gayly as she fell in ahead of Bartell on the trail to the lake. 
 
 The moon had sailed up over the eastern hills with 
 the going down of the sun, and the shadows were sharply 
 cut in its light. They reined in at the lake, lingering 
 there a moment in its charm. Under the slanting 
 moon rays it shone like another moon, radiantly silver 
 in its setting of cloudlike leafage. She drew a long 
 breath as her brother started on, and called to him. 
 
 "Clarence ! " He pulled up his horse, looking back at her. 
 
 "You'll think me absurd, but I've decided not to go 
 with you, after all. I believe I'd rather stay with 
 Virginia. She'll be lonesome." 
 
 He came back to her, scolding whimsically. 
 
 "I know I'm foolish," she persisted, "but you're so 
 dreadfully busy and noisy over there." 
 
 294
 
 The Hardest Thing 
 
 "Nonsense ! And Virgie will be all right. She doesn't 
 need you for a few days." 
 
 " I'm sure she'll need me. No go on alone, there's 
 a dear. I can ride over myself and bring you back for a 
 few days, after your rush is over." 
 
 " Well, if you're really set." He submitted, grumbling. 
 
 "And kiss me, dear!" 
 
 He did so, still grumbling. "And you skip back, 
 if you're going back. You're cold as ice. So long, 
 weathervane! And come over when you feel like it." 
 
 "I'll be warm, dear and good-by." 
 
 She watched him down the slope and across the 
 meadow until he vanished into the black of the forest 
 wall. Then she rode on to the camp. Without dis- 
 mounting she took from the end of a broken branch a 
 revolver in its holster that she had hung there earlier in 
 the day. She made sure again that it was loaded and 
 buckled the holster about her waist. 
 
 Turning from the ranch trail, then, she found another 
 that led off to the north and away from the Pagosa 
 road off into a wooded wilderness of hills where she 
 would be safe from discovery. She halted again on 
 the first ridge above the camp, sitting motionless in the 
 shadow, her eyes on the little moon-flooded opening 
 across the lake where the cabin trail came down to the 
 shore. That was a walk for lovers, but they could not 
 walk there now. After a little time she whirled Cooney 
 about in a sudden gust of fierceness and sent him along 
 the winding ridge, keeping close within the shadow. 
 
 When the trail fell away into the first of the unknown 
 valleys she breathed a sigh of relief and release. Her 
 burden was falling from her. She could not again be 
 cheated back from her refuge. 
 
 295
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 She began to rejoice in the wide, wild sweetness of 
 the night, its piny fragrance, the soft-footed scurryings 
 of its lesser people, the gloom of its sharply defined 
 shadows, and the silvering haze that enveloped the peaks. 
 She came on a deer feeding in the open, and was delighted 
 when it did not run. It only lifted its head to look at 
 her. 
 
 She began to rejoice, also, in the cleverness of her plan. 
 As well as she might she had preserved the decencies. 
 A week might ensue before they missed her. Coone> 
 stripped of his trappings, would appear at the lake cabin 
 to be laughed at and chided for his desertion of the Bar-1 
 ranch, a week before she was missed ; and then she wou, 
 never be found. There was, indeed, small chance o 
 their having the pain of that. She would keep to the 
 trail as long as the night hid her; then a climb up some 
 unpathed slope, over rocks that would show no trace of 
 her passage; then a tangled thicket, remote, secret, im- 
 probable and the tale of a lost woman, a woman who 
 wandered confusingly far on a night of tempting splen- 
 dor. She thought of Virginia's pain with a feeble pity. 
 It seemed as if humanity was dead in her. 
 
 The narrow trail wound beckoningly before her, the 
 land stretched off to peaks of silver or barren gray slopes 
 or shadowed promontories, glooming above ravines where 
 little rivers turned restlessly in their beds; and over all 
 hung the mystic shimmer of moon rays, softening all 
 angles and picking the fronds of trees with dancing lights 
 as she passed. 
 
 An owl boomed from a dead pine, and a little off the 
 trail she heard the scream of a cougar, like the scream 
 of a woman in some strange terror. But all sounds were 
 indifferently alike to her, the shrilling of the beast, the 
 
 296
 
 The Hardest Thing 
 
 sibilance of running water, the bellow of the owl, the 
 whistle of a deer, or the throaty mutterings of an awak- 
 ened bird. She heard them as receding echoes of a life 
 already remote. 
 
 She kept Cooney moving as rapidly as the trail per- 
 mitted, checking his little snatches at the wayside herb- 
 age. He could fast with her for one night, she told 
 him. To-morrow he could feast his way home harassed 
 by no rider. He stopped at times to test some doubtful 
 bit of trail with a cautious forefoot; or slowed to feel a 
 sure way down a gullyside of loose stones; or lingered 
 knee deep in a melody of swift water, to drink, with 
 swelling sides. She was glad to have this last night with 
 the little horse that had been Ewing's. Ewing only 
 not to think of him for one cannot ride with the heart 
 all bled away. 
 
 The light faded from the lower ways after a while. 
 The moon had completed its short arc and fell below 
 the mountain ahead of her ; defining sharp little notches 
 in its rim. 
 
 The hills seemed to steal upon her in the darkness 
 then, huddling close about her, muffling her with their 
 black plumage. But she was glad of this surmounting 
 the mere physical oppression of it for she felt that it 
 doubled the secrecy of her going; and Cooney 's eyes, 
 with his skilled feet, sufficed for the trail. 
 
 At times she shrank as under the touch of a palpable 
 hand reached out to her from the darkness, a thing that 
 frantically protested, pleaded, expostulated but she 
 knew it for the hand of mere brute life, a cowardly, 
 blind, soulless thing, that would subvert all fitness. 
 She shook it off, knowing herself its superior by right 
 of mind, with power to inflict justice upon it. And 
 30 297
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 he was dead, he, the young and strong alas, poor slayer, 
 poor slain ! How her heart bled away. To expiate 
 
 She clung to that : it was an obligation that lay on her, 
 a secret obligation, but the more imperative for that. 
 She could not hold a forfeited life. She must redeem 
 herself. The hardest thing was demanded of her. And 
 then, one could not go on with this bleeding heart. 
 
 "The hardest thing the hardest thing!" she mur- 
 mured, shutting her lips tightly on the words, with a 
 sudden inexplicable fear of some flaw in her logic. Again 
 and again she forced the words from her lips with stub- 
 born, deaf insistence, to still some mental voice of inquiry, 
 a passionless, cold thing that lifted itself in her brain, 
 but which she could beat down with this bludgeon of 
 her phrase. She was even bold enough to cross-examine 
 herself presently. The hardest thing was demanded of 
 her, and she was doing the hardest thing. Her hand 
 fell on the laden holster at her side with a panic impulse 
 to rush the thing through. But the touch reassured her 
 and she laughed in the consciousness of her security. 
 She could not be thwarted now, and she need not hurry. 
 She could afford to the very end that deliberate thor- 
 oughness with which she had begun. Her will for the 
 thing had lost none of its iron. 
 
 An hour or so after the darkness had crowded the hills 
 in upon her she rode into a dense mist, chilling to the 
 bone after the dryness of the early night. The range 
 of her vision was again shortened, and even the little 
 horse halted more frequently to feel his way. Once 
 he seemed to have wandered, and stood a moment in 
 uncertainty. She let him rest, then flicked his shoulder 
 with the bridle rein, and he struggled stanchly on over 
 the ridge of loose gravel where he had halted, feeling 
 
 298
 
 The Hardest Thing 
 
 for the trail with expert hoofs. He found it a moment 
 later, and was moving forward again. She patted his 
 neck and blessed him for being so "trail wise." He, 
 too, was doing the hardest thing, and doing it faithfully. 
 
 She fell again into the rhythm of her battle cry 
 "The hardest thing the hardest thing!" 
 
 And yet it was not hard. She was so near to it now 
 that she could afford the luxury of this admission. 
 It required only a sense of justice, of moral symmetry. 
 She had taken a life two, doubtless and by the law 
 she must pay. But no debtor could have had a willinger 
 spirit. And she would not be paying too much. She 
 recalled certain homely words of an old man whose 
 life she had watched out, a man whose worn, seamed 
 face showed his right to speak. 
 
 "Experience, lady, a dear thing sometimes yes 
 but never too dear. It is worth always just what we 
 pay for it. It is had at slightest cost, high or low. No 
 other thing is like it thus. All else of the world may 
 cheat us in their price, but not experience. Our fee 
 shall vary as we are quick to learn, but the good God 
 teaches us what we must know at flat cost, as says the 
 merchant, with never the penny of profit. This it 
 saves much to know much sorrowing, much whining. 
 It would make us wise so!" 
 
 "So!" She echoed his rich guttural imitatively 
 and laughed as she drew in a deep breath of the damp 
 air. She was numb with the cold now, and laughed 
 at foolish life for registering so petty a discomfort at 
 such a moment. The humor of it came home to her 
 that she should sensually feel the cold. 
 
 Another span of hours the little horse strode on at 
 his quick step, valiantly lifting her up steep ascents, 
 
 299
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 or descending the sides of ravines with devoted sure- 
 ness of foot, treading narrow ways where she could 
 feel that he hugged the bush-lined bank, and knew that 
 a fall lay the other side. 
 
 "The hardest thing the hardest thing!" Again 
 she muttered it, beating at her purpose. And again, 
 that mental, passionless query lifted its head. Strike it 
 down as she would, its cool, curious eyes were always 
 on her, not denying, not disputing, only questioning, 
 calmly but implacably, until her soul seemed to writhe 
 in loyalty to her motives, holding them sacred even 
 from questioning. 
 
 "The hardest thing" but her brain rang with the 
 relentless question "are you doing it because it is 
 the hardest thing or because you want to do it?" 
 
 "I am doing it because I want to do the hardest 
 thing." 
 
 "A quibble!" 
 
 She set her lips, shut her eyes, even to the darkness, 
 and tried to deafen her ears to the sounding thing. A 
 long time she rode so. And then she wept because she 
 was alone and cold and dying and unsuccored by the 
 only one who could have comforted her. 
 
 " I would never, never have left you!" she called back 
 toward Ewing, with the first reproach she had ever 
 given him. Her voice had a broken sweetness like that 
 of a child speaking through tears. " I'd never have 
 let you be so cold! I'd have stayed stayed by you 
 warmed you comforted you!" 
 
 But after a little her tears ceased, as an unpitied 
 child wears out its crying, and her eyes closed again as 
 she laughed at her own sad lack of reason. 
 
 When she opened her eyes again she gave a little 
 
 300
 
 The Hardest Thing 
 
 gasping cry of relief. The black of the night had faded 
 to gray. A dull, dark, opaque gray it was, but ghosts 
 of the land already bulked massively through it; 
 shrouded, vague shapes without line. And the spirit 
 of her purpose quickened as she looked. 
 
 Slowly the mist lightened, still opaque but silver 
 now, and presently she saw the murky face of a nearby 
 rock and could trace the cedar that twisted outward 
 from its summit. They were amazing shapes to her, 
 so long had she seemed to live in the dark, and she 
 named them over, wonderingly " A tree, a rock a 
 rock, a tree!" 
 
 Again the question struck at her: "You want to do 
 the hardest thing?" 
 
 "I must do the hardest thing it only happens that 
 I also wish to." 
 
 "Is there nothing harder than what you are doing?" 
 
 Again she shut her eyes and set her lips, but the 
 voice came with merciless insistence. 
 
 "What would be harder than dying?" 
 
 Then she threw back her head and challenged the voice. 
 
 "Living! To live would be harder." She made 
 the confession without flinching, even with a laugh, 
 and a weight dropped from her. 
 
 "Then you are not doing the hardest thing not 
 doing it not doing the hardest thing!" 
 
 She coolly scanned the descending bed of a creek 
 that the trail now crossed. The ravine widened below, 
 and she saw that an ascent would be practicable farther 
 down. It was time, then, to leave the trail. If the 
 impossible should happen, if by some chance or trick 
 of woodcraft they tracked her all the miles of her night- 
 long ride, they must lose her here. 
 
 301
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 She turned Cooney down the shallow stream with a 
 furtive smile of pride in her own craft. He splashed 
 through the water, stumbling over the submerged 
 bowlders, but always recovering himself, and picking 
 a sure way over the creek bed. 
 
 The cool gray of the mist-steaming water reminded 
 her that she was thirsty, but she would stop for nothing 
 now. She knew herself for a coward at last, guilty 
 of a cowardice hideously selfish. She had planned 
 her act to be remote, secret, undiscoverable. But now 
 she faced squarely the grief her loss would be to others. 
 
 But the sting would pass. And she had her own 
 right her own obligation to meet. She had killed 
 she had killed her love and she could not live. There 
 was service she might have performed through the 
 years, but others would perform it now, quite as accept- 
 ably. A gnat dropping from the ephemeral human 
 swarm could be nothing but a gnat the less. She no 
 longer pretended to call it the hardest thing. "But 
 it's the next hardest," she pleaded to herself. Her 
 lips quivered, but she stilled the spasm with a gust of 
 fierce resolving to be done with the thing quickly. 
 
 The shelving bank along which the stream had wound 
 now fell away, and she could dimly make out a draw 
 between two hills where she might ascend. She chose 
 a place of broken stone and loose gravel for Cooney 
 to clamber out, so that he might leave no sign even 
 to a searcher who had come this far. Then, ascending 
 the draw a little distance, she turned and sent him up 
 the side of the lesser hill. The mist still shut her in, 
 but she could make out that the woods were denser 
 on this hill. 
 
 Cooney made his way through a growth of the thick, 
 
 302
 
 The Hardest Thing 
 
 wet buck brush, then between white files of the quaking 
 aspen, and at last into the heavier wooded forest where 
 his feet slipped and slid on the yielding pine needles 
 as he climbed. The hill lengthened before her in gradual 
 ascents, broken by terraces, and the way was rough 
 with bowlders and fallen trees and the clutching tangle 
 of undergrowth. But the mist, receding before her, 
 revealed aisles of the wood farther on that allured her. 
 She would be thorough. Ahead of her were ruddy, 
 yellow hints of the sun, striking down through the 
 green arches of the forest. 
 
 At last she saw that she had reached the summit 
 of the hill. "It is the place," she said, then reined in 
 and dismounted by a clump of bushes. She found her- 
 self stiffened by the cold, and a sudden fear of failing 
 force seized her. She stamped on the ground until 
 she felt warmth in her feet again, and the stirred blood 
 mounting through her. She drew a great breath and 
 straightened her body with a consciousness of its 
 strength and wealth of life. "It is the place," she 
 repeated. 
 
 303
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 THE MISSION OF SWING 
 
 IN a dingy little bedroom of a dingy little hotel in 
 one of the lesser avenues of New York Ewing 
 sat waiting for his hour. He had sealed his letter 
 to Mrs. Laithe with the feeling that this was the last 
 intelligible word he could say to anyone. Henceforth he 
 must be silent ; refuse reasons. He must let them devise 
 reasons for him. Any but the true reason would suffice. 
 
 When darkness came on he went out into the noisy 
 street, mailing the letter as he passed through the hotel 
 office. Then, by u-nfamiliar thoroughfares he made 
 his way to Ninth .Street and resumed his old vigil in 
 front of Teevan's house. 
 
 There were lights in the house, both above and below. 
 The thing was not, then, to be attempted at the mo- 
 ment. He walked for an hour through squalid streets 
 to the west and came back to his post. The house was 
 still alight. Teevan, apparently, was entertaining. He 
 watched but a moment, then returned to his hotel 
 and went to bed. He could be patient, and he must be 
 thorough. Before extinguishing his light he made 
 sure that he had not lost what was now his most impor- 
 tant possession: a key to Teevan's door. Teevan had 
 bestowed it on him the year before, in order that he 
 might obtain books during the little man's absence 
 from town. Ewing had forgotten the key until he set 
 on his present mission ; then he had perceived a use for it. 
 
 He fell asleep, despite the recurrent tumult of elevated 
 
 34
 
 The Mission of Ewing 
 
 trains outside his window ; fell asleep thinking of Teevan. 
 There was no bitterness in his heart toward the little 
 man. It was only necessary that he die. 
 
 He kept closely to his room the next day, wishing 
 not to be recognized by any of his acquaintances, and 
 he was at his post early in the evening. This time the 
 house was dark. Teevan was out, but he would return. 
 So he paced back and forth through Ninth Street, going 
 only so far as would let him keep the house in view. 
 He felt no impatience. It was his last work, and he 
 could bide the time when it might be well done. A 
 little after midnight two men entered the street from 
 Fifth Avenue, strolling leisurely in the warm June 
 night, and ascended the steps of the Teevan house. 
 Ewing felt a slight tingling of relief when he recognized 
 Teevan, but then he saw the other take a key from his 
 pocket, and he knew that this would be Tee van's son. 
 They went in together, and the watcher left his post. 
 He must have Teevan alone in the house. 
 
 He walked on with strange echoes from another time 
 from another world, it seemed, sounding in his ears. 
 The sight of Teevan, the tones of his voice, faintly 
 heard, seemed to awaken him from some dream in 
 which he walked, awaken him to a time when the little 
 man was his good friend. He felt a sudden nausea, 
 but then he raised his eyes to the Bartell house opposite 
 and was himself again. He crossed the street and 
 stood a moment before the door, seeing his lady there, 
 seeing her again as he had seen her that night in Teevan's 
 grasp, striving with Teevan, weakly, but with the 
 killing light in her eyes. The vision convinced him. 
 The other time had been the time of dream. He had 
 not been awake until now. 
 
 31 305
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 Again he slept and again he passed a day of waiting. 
 That night there were no lights in the house, but also 
 no returning master, though he waited until the night 
 was far on. Yet he went to sleep in all patience, know- 
 ing he had only to wait. 
 
 On the fourth night there were lights again, but 
 about ten o'clock he saw Teevan's two servants leave. 
 He walked on, to avoid recognition by them. When 
 he returned a man was leaving the house. He thought 
 this might be Teevan, but when the figure had descended 
 the steps and passed under the street lamp he saw it 
 to be Teevan's son. Still he waited. He must be sure. 
 
 After half an hour the lights in the lower part of the 
 house went out, save one that shone dimly through the 
 fanlight over the door. A moment later two windows 
 on the floor above leaped ruddily into view and he saw 
 a shadow pass across them. This was Teevan's room, 
 and Teevan was doubtless there, alone at last. 
 
 He did not cross the street directly, but walked east 
 to the end of the block and came back on the other side. 
 As he passed the Bartell house he opened and closed 
 his hands tensely, recalling Ben's suggestion about a 
 weapon. His bare hands were sufficing weapons. 
 
 He went up the steps and softly turned his key in 
 the lock. The door yielded noiselessly to his push and 
 he was in the hall. Unconsciously he took off his hat 
 and was about to leave it, but then he smiled and 
 replaced it firmly on his head. He stood listening a 
 moment. There was no sound. Then, very slowly, 
 taking each step with caution, he mounted the thickly 
 carpeted stairs. 
 
 So intent was he on his purpose that he felt no anxiety, 
 no excitement. As he halted at the head of the stairs 
 
 306
 
 The Mission of Ewing 
 
 to listen again, he thrilled only with the need for perfect 
 silence, a thing he would have felt in the same degree 
 if his quarry had been a deer in some green cover of 
 the hills. Still without a sound he felt his way to 
 the door of Teevan's room. The door was open and 
 light from it glowed dimly into the hall. He paused 
 within the shadow and peered into the room. He 
 could see the desk but not the man who sat before it. 
 Of him he could see only an arm and hand writing 
 at the moment. Presently the hand dropped its pen 
 and took up a tall glass that stood near. The glass 
 ascended and passed beyond the watcher's range of 
 vision. The hand brought it back, empty, a moment 
 later, and resumed the pen once more. 
 
 He took a step forward and brought the room into 
 view. Teevan sat at the desk, his head bent and half 
 turned away. Ewing coolly noted his position. He 
 seemed smaller than ever, smaller and older. But 
 now no time must be wasted. 
 
 Ewing stepped through the doorway with noiseless 
 tread and took one long step toward the desk. Teevan 
 turned his head and looked up. His eyes rested on 
 Ewing, at first vacantly, his mind still busied with the 
 matter of his writing. Ewing thrilled with a sudden 
 alertness, his purpose growing in his eyes, his hands 
 tensely closing and unclosing. Teevan started back 
 from the desk, conscious now of the intruder's menace. 
 Yet such was the cool fixedness of Ewing's gaze, the 
 hypnotic tenseness of his crouch, that the little man 
 made no sound; only stared as one under a spell, the 
 pen still held in his poised hand. 
 
 Only when the crouching figure leaped toward him 
 did his lips open. But then, what would have been a 
 
 307
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 cry of terror became a mere gurgling snarl, for Ewing's 
 hands had met about his throat with unerring deftness. 
 Teevan was half-raised from the chair, his head was 
 forced back, and for an instant his eyes met Ewing's 
 in full consciousness. Then his mouth opened wide, 
 but not for speech, and his eyes rolled in the agony of 
 that choking grip. Ewing felt the thing writhe in his 
 clutch, then felt a sudden terrible relaxation, and his 
 pressure ceased in unthinking response to this. He 
 stood a moment, holding the limp form, then dropped 
 it in the chair, feeling himself sicken at the sheer physical 
 horror of what he was doing. There was no pity for 
 Teevan only for the animal that suffered. He had 
 had to kill a dog once and his loathing of that deed was 
 like this. Teevan's head lay over on his shoulder, his 
 face distorted and purple, his eyes upturned and fixed 
 in a hideous stare. The fine little hands hung limply 
 down. 
 
 At the moment Ewing believed his task was done, 
 but then he was dismayed by a gasping, indrawn breath 
 and the convulsive shuddering of Teevan's chest. The 
 little man was breathing again, though still unconscious. 
 The dog had shown this same horrible tenacity. He 
 must do the thing all over again. He bent over the 
 figure, again fixing his grip nicely at the throat. He 
 would make sure this time. Then nerving himself to 
 exert the needed pressure, he turned his eyes away 
 he could not look at the face in its death agony 
 turned his eyes away and found himself staring stupidly 
 at Alden Teevan, who stood inside the door. They gazed 
 at each other a moment until Ewing had appraised the 
 significance of this interruption. It meant only that 
 he would be swiftly apprehended, for he knew that 
 
 308
 
 The Mission of Ewing 
 
 Alden Teevan could not save his father. He had not 
 changed his position, still bending over the little man, still 
 fingering his throat. He was conscious of an increase 
 in his purpose; this hint of opposition would enable 
 him to kill Teevan with a better spirit. He spoke 
 and his voice was only a little hoarse under the strain. 
 
 "I'm killing your father. I don't want to hurt you, 
 but you mustn't try to stop me. If you do, by God! 
 I'll kill both of you. If you keep away I'll go with you 
 after I've done it. I promise that." 
 
 He turned again to the livid face beneath him. But 
 the younger Teevan called sharply to him, though with 
 only irritation in his voice: 
 
 "Stop! Don't be an ass! You're making an ass of 
 yourself!" 
 
 Ewing only stared at him. The other came a step 
 nearer in his eagerness. 
 
 "You'll be sorry if you don't listen to me. You're a 
 fool, I tell you." 
 
 Ewing smiled confidently, bitterly, not relaxing his 
 hold of the little man's throat. 
 
 "I'm not doing it for myself." 
 
 "All the more fool!" 
 
 " For some one who couldn't do it who has reason to 
 do it." 
 
 The other came nearer, clutching Ewing's sleeve with 
 gentle persuasion and speaking with quick intensity. 
 
 "Ah, so that's it she never told you! But you're 
 a fool. She had no reason she was merely trying to 
 save you from the truth about your mother, and she has 
 let you believe his lies about herself. What a rotten 
 fool you were to think that contemptible little mucker 
 could ever have been anything to her. He lied to you, 
 
 309
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 do you hear me? Lied to you about her, and she let 
 you believe it a fool herself for doing that so you 
 wouldn't know the truth about your own mother." 
 
 Slowly Ewing unclasped his hands from the throat of 
 Teevan and stood facing the son. Two phrases rang in 
 his ears: "He lied to you about her the truth about 
 your mother." He put up a hand to loosen his collar. 
 It seemed now as if he himself were being choked. 
 
 "The truth about my mother what truth about my 
 mother?" 
 
 "Sit down there." 
 
 "What truth about my mother?" 
 
 "Come get hold of yourself. The truth that your 
 mother happened to be my mother." 
 
 Ewing passed a hand over his face, as if to awaken 
 himself from some trance in which he had moved. 
 
 "Sit down there." 
 
 He felt for a chair now and sank awkwardly into it, 
 repeating dazedly: 
 
 "My mother was your mother " He could get no 
 meaning from the words. The other answered sharply : 
 
 "Your mother married my father. She left him for 
 your father when I was a baby. Do you understand 
 that? Mrs. Laithe knew it. He knew it " He 
 pointed toward the limp but breathing figure in the chair 
 "and she was afraid he would tell you." 
 
 He tried to take it in. 
 
 "My mother his wife? Ah you you are my 
 brother." 
 
 "That's beside the point; but if it means anything 
 to you, listen to me try to understand." 
 
 Again and again he told the thing point by point, 
 as simply as he could, while his listener stared curiously 
 
 310
 
 The Mission of Ewing 
 
 at him. The figure in the chair stirred, the head rolled, 
 the breathing became quieter and more even, but neither 
 gave any heed to this. 
 
 At last the incredible thing began to shape itself in 
 Ewing's mind, but it was not until the very last, and 
 then it came as a sudden blinding illumination. The 
 man in the chair drew a long, shuddering breath and 
 opened his eyes on them. Ewing at the same moment 
 caught the full force of the little man's deceit. He 
 had felt no anger toward Tee van before, but now rage 
 grew within him as he remembered what the woman had 
 suffered. He sprang toward Teevan, feeling no longer 
 a specific desire to kill, but only a mad impulse to beat 
 down and blindly destroy. 
 
 "You lied about her!" he cried, towering above the 
 little man with clenched, threatening fists. If Teevan 
 had retorted, had raised a hand, or betrayed anything 
 but abject fear, shrinking in his chair, turning eyes of 
 appeal to his son, Ewing would have vented his rage. 
 But this died into mere loathing as he looked. Teevan 
 was near to whimpering, in his fear. Ewing turned 
 away with a gesture of replusion. 
 
 "That's best, after all," remarked the son coolly. 
 
 " Doubtless he deserves kicking more than any 
 unkicked man alive, but you'll be glad you didn't 
 do it." 
 
 Ewing shot another look at Teevan, and then said, 
 almost as if to himself. 
 
 "How wise my mother was!" He turned again to 
 the little man with a sudden blaze of scorn. 
 
 " And you believed I could think less of her for leaving 
 you leaving you for a man!" Teevan merely closed 
 his eyes and cautiously raised a hand to his neck. 
 
 3 11
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "You'll be glad you let him off," repeated the son, 
 "and so will she. She wouldn't have you " 
 
 'Ah she!" It was a cry of remembrance. "Why 
 she's '' He broke off, glowing with a strange illu- 
 mination. "Why, I left her " 
 
 A moment longer he stood, like a sleeper wakened, 
 then rushed from the room. 
 
 312
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 THE TURNING OF COONEY 
 
 T ]f THEN she again felt sure of her strength she 
 V V began to unsaddle Cooney. The cinches 
 bothered her stiffened fingers, but she had 
 them worked loose at last, and lifted the heavy saddle 
 off, smiling grimly at her own strength. When she 
 took off the blanket she warmed her hands a moment 
 in its heat. Then she stripped off the bridle, and the 
 little horse, after a moment's mouthing to rest his jaws 
 from the bit, fell to grazing. As he seemed inclined 
 to stay by her, she broke a switch from one of the near- 
 by bushes and cut him sharply. Even after this he 
 galloped off but a little way, with astonished, resentful 
 shakings of his head. She had wanted him to be on his 
 way back over the miles he had come before the thing 
 was done. 
 
 She glanced shrewdly about her. She was far away 
 from the cabin, a night's ride at Cooney's best trail 
 pace, and in a region rough and untraveled, except as 
 an occasional way to the lower valleys. There were no 
 trails about her, no dead camp fires, no trees rimmed 
 by the axe or scarred by a "blaze." There was life 
 enough of a sort ; jays called harshly, and squirrels barked 
 their alarm; and half a dozen grouse eyed her from a 
 few yards' distance, with a sort of half-timid stupidity. 
 But there was no life to touch hers. She walked about 
 the chosen thicket, admiring its denseness, not notable 
 
 3*3
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 in any way, but casual, improbable to the searching 
 eye. 
 
 "The hardest thing!" It was satire now, and she 
 murmured it as such, done with all fighting. It was 
 good to anticipate the thing, the restfulness of extinc- 
 tion or not, as that might be. That was no matter. 
 She was beaten in this life. It was good to know that 
 in a moment she would feel as little as Randall Teevan 
 or as much. She unconsciously drew herself up at the 
 thought of facing that withered fop. 
 
 She rejoiced in the warming air. She would take a 
 long breath of it, and then the triumphant exit. She 
 stepped a few paces forward to peer about a low-growing 
 spruce that had shaded her. She had a last fancy for 
 following the echo of her shot to the farther valley wall. 
 
 As she lifted the curtain boughs the sun dazzled her. 
 She would see its golden points, she thought, when she 
 shut her eyes in the thicket. She shut them quickly 
 now, to prove this, and saw the myriad dancing lights. 
 
 As she opened her eyes again and turned to draw back 
 into the wood there was imprinted curiously on her 
 recovering vision a silhouette of the lake cabin. She 
 shut them quickly again, dreading memories she was 
 forever done with, and laughing in the certainty that 
 the cabin was miles away. Then she looked again, 
 blinking dazedly in the sunlight, and the cabin loomed 
 before her across the clearing. 
 
 As she stared desperately, her mind roused to frantic 
 denials, her eyes straining to banish this monstrous 
 figment, the door of the cabin opened and Ewing came 
 out. She sprang forward with an impulse to shatter 
 the illusion by some quick movement. But her eyes 
 still beheld him, bareheaded, turning his face up to the 
 
 314
 
 The Turning of Cooney 
 
 sun. He stretched his arms and drew deep breaths. 
 He had never seemed so tall. His look had a kind of 
 triumph in it. 
 
 She swayed under the shock of the thing, feeling her- 
 self grow faint. Cooney had betrayed her. Some time 
 in the night, at one of those confusing bends in the trail, 
 he had turned. He had brought her home. 
 
 Ewing's head had turned as she moved ; his eyes were 
 on her. She saw the rapt gladness in his face and beheld 
 him approach her across the clearing. She managed 
 another step or two and gained the support of a felled 
 tree. As Ewing came up she essayed a little smile of 
 nonchalance. 
 
 "Cooney " she begun. The word came itself, but 
 she felt easier under the sound of her own voice and 
 went on "Cooney came with me. I didn't go at all. 
 I rode but you see " She beamed on him with 
 explanatory embarrassment " I took an early morning 
 ride it was so pleasant and I thought I was lost in- 
 deed I did, and I took off his saddle. I left it right 
 there " She pointed with the literal exactness of a 
 child in its narrative of adventure " right there behind 
 that tree, and then I found I was found I was closer 
 to home than I thought." 
 
 He had not seemed to hear her, but stood looking 
 narrowly, as if she were still far away. Gradually his 
 eyes widened, as if he were drawing her close to him. 
 He took a step toward her, with arms half raised. 
 
 "I'm so ashamed" he muttered; "but you you 
 let me think that." 
 
 His voice brought her to sudden agonized alarm. 
 The blood ebbed from her face and she almost staggered 
 toward him. 
 
 315
 
 Ewing's Lady 
 
 "Did you do it do that?" she whispered, ready to 
 fall. ' 
 
 "No; I found out in time. I found out everything 
 everything you didn't tell me." He was shaken with 
 longing, yet shamed into restraint before her. 
 
 "I'm so ashamed I came as soon as I could to tell 
 you. I rode all night to be here, to tell you as soon as 
 I could." 
 
 "You didn't do it you didn't do it?" she insisted 
 pitifully. 
 
 "I stopped in time." She muttered this over and 
 over, and at last the truth struggled into her chilled 
 brain. 
 
 "You dear, dear fool!" she said with a little sobbing 
 laugh. 
 
 Again his arms were half raised to her, but she turned 
 swiftly and ran to Cooney, who had fallen to grazing a 
 little way off, throwing her arms about his neck and 
 weeping out incoherent words of endearment. 
 
 Ewing gathered his strength, like a wrestler who has 
 been pressed to the ground, but lifts himself with in- 
 finite effort, and went resolutely toward her. Gently he 
 unclasped her arms from Cooney's neck. 
 
 (i) 
 THE END 
 
 316
 
 A STORY OF AMERICAN LIFE. 
 
 David Harum. 
 
 Illustrated Edition. With 70 full-page and 
 text pictures by B. West Clinedinst, and other 
 text designs by C. D. Farrand, and a biography 
 of the author by Forbes Heermans. i2mo. 
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 "What seems to us to be the final judgment of 'David Harum' is 
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 " ' It would not be presumptuous to say,' opines Mrs. Craigie, 'well 
 remembering the magnificent ability of certain English authors of the 
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 American people. Individuals may change, but the point of view 
 remains unalterable. ' "New York Mail and Express. 
 
 " ' David Harum ' is one of those extremely rare and perfectly fresh 
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 words can adequately describe its wholesome, sparkling humor, il 
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 A well-nigh perfect work it is a creation which will take a permanen 
 place among American literary portraits." Literary Review. 
 
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