294D Joan BLIND WISDOM By AMANDA BENJAMIN HALL PHILADELPHIA GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1920, by GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY All rights reserved PrinttdinU.S.A. WISDOM Men worship knowledge since it has been said That by it they may reach a dizzy goal, Yet knowledge is the hireling of the head While wisdom is the tenant of the soul ! Who listens shall be strong as he is wise Who heeds that counsel, braver than the rest, With vision of the morning in his eyes, And chorale of contentment in his breast. A. B. H. 2136164 Contents I. A JOURNEY .... II. THE MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS III. Two CEREMONIES . . . IV. A RECKONING AND A RELEASE V. LISHABY VI. A FLOWERING FRIENDSHIP . VII. CONCERNING CLAIRE . VIII. INCONVENIENT ORIGINALITY IX. BLIND WISDOM .... X. DEALING WITH SOCIAL SALVATION XI. " THE PLAY'S THE THING " XII. AGNES AND DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES XIII. AN AUDACIOUS PRINCE XIV. JERRY'S DASH FOR FREEDOM XV. INFATUATION .... XVI. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW XVII. THE PINCH o' POVERTY XVIII. A CRISIS AND A COMPROMISE XIX. JOAN STANDS UP TO LIFE . XX. GODFREY ASSISTS FATE XXI. JERRY ASSERTS HIMSELF XXII. A DIFFICULT BEGINNING XXIII. A CONTRACT 9 22 33 44 56 62 69 78 87 94 109 117 130 144 155 165 173 184 194 205 219 228 236 8 CONTENTS XXIV. CLAIRE CONFESSES . XXV. THE RUTHERFORDS PAY A CALL XXVI. JOAN AND JERRY, ALLIES . XXVII. A MIDSUMMER'S NIGHT . XX VI [I. " THE GREAT GIFT " XXIX. AGNES' DEVELOPMENT XXX. THE REVELATION XXXI. DEATH DEMANDS HOSPITALITY XXXII. THE HOUSE OF CALLENDAR XXXIII. THE RIGHT TO HAPPINESS XXXIV. IN WHICH LILY TELLS A LIE . XXXV. THE HARVEST MOON 248 265 274 285 295 35 33 1 335 349 358 370 Blind Wisdom CHAPTER I A JOURNEY IT was characteristic of Joan Wister, at games with her imagination, to affirm that she could remember the day she was born. She remembered quite beautifully being a brown paper parcel and hooked, as one sometimes sees meat in butcher carts, to the top of old Doctor Bromley's buggy. Obviously, this explanation of her origin had come to her in answer to a particular need, the need for some explicit experience to write on the first page of her memory. Even at seventeen one recalls no laborious scroll of years, but a few vivid incidents, picked out in bright colors, and as one advances in years the brighter and more living they become. The first day at school, the first romance of childhood, and thence on through typical episodes of spankings, green apples, bicycles, skates, parties and the like to youngladydom. How truly yet how simply might a life be portrayed by such glimpsings ! So, further along in her career, would Joan Wister mark as momentous the day she left boarding-school to attend her sister Agnes' wedding. The scene was a railway station of the sort that manages to maintain, even in an unbecoming rain-storm, an appear- ance of extreme respectability. The platform, beneath the widespread skirts of the roof, fostered a colony of water- proofs and umbrellas like some curious mushroom growth of io BLIND WISDOM the day, and these in friendly fashion hobnobbed and dripped and awaited trains. All about the oasis of shelter the rain was falling in silver chains, persistently, yet with a certain soft discretion, forming a transparent curtain before the country landscape, emerald with the vividness of wet colors. The feminine waterproofs were for the most part young and clung like magnetized needles about some human lodestone. Their insatiable pink faces, turned upward, were like the earliest spring flowers, tulips and the like, that seem especially thirsty for the sun and rain. The object of their dutiful allegiance proved to be a middle-aged woman with a dis- couraged plume in her hat like some outworn grenadier. For a time she held their collective tickets, but, after an interval, doled them out as one would a pack of cards, appending to each some word of advice. The avidity with which the tiny scraps of cardboard were received held some- thing of the comic, but the manner in which they were relinquished carried a hint of fatality. It was as though she feared with the simple act her authority over them might cease, and upon the principle of perfect control Miss Bangs and Miss Noyes had built up the reputation of their school. Now, in mid-term, certain of the older girls were destined for the signal treat of week-ending with their families or relatives. Beneath the regulation blue raincoats one glimpsed such silk stockings, beruffled blouses and natty travelling costumes, as befitted young ladies in the last stages of " finishing." " Oh, Madame," piped a girlish treble, " isn't Joan Wister lucky, going to her sister's wedding? All the years I have been here not one of my family has married or died. Is it true she's not returning? " " Hush," urged Madame, and turned her dark eyes appre- A JOURNEY ii hensively toward a slim figure, holding aloof from the gaiety, yet rather in a spirit of introspective pleasure than depression. Near by stood a probable dry-goods drummer, occupied with the unprofitable business of waiting. Obeying impulse, he had touched a letter box labelled " fresh paint," and later followed his inquisitive bent outside the shelter of the roof to see if the rain were shamming or not. He was rewarded by a resounding crop on the apex of his nose and drew in abashed. Joan Wister laughed her private enjoyment of the spectacle and in her young eyes was reflected a human perception, of no particular age or period. Her body was still somewhat flat and immature, but the little face was winsome, and in her eyes the fires of intellect were already lighted. By her very capacity for joy and suffering she was fated to know the extremes of both. Never fear, she would pry off the lid of Life to see what made the wheels go round! The French woman's eyes misted suddenly. The engine of the four-thirty, swishing a long tail behind it, materialized like a Frankenstein monster, loose in the domestic greenness, its bowels fierce with fire while it vociferated steam. The faces of those who, year after year, had conjugated in indifferent French the four declensions, had become for Madame one composite face. But this child was simpatica and the Fates were snatching her away. With stoic determination Madame saw to the departure of the others before she revealed herself to the one who lingered in a panic of leave-taking. As Joan reached upward to the older woman it was with a fugitive sadness; her body swayed like a flower. They exchanged some broken, inadequate words. Then she clambered desperately up the steps, handi- capped by an overgrown bag and the behavior of a hat too large in the head. It would insist upon slipping backward 12 BLIND WISDOM or forward or over one ear. But she attained the platforn and sent back a dazzling smile. The sense of emancipatioi came over her, drying the tears. " I'll never forget you, dear Madame, but I mean to forge the Noyes and the Bangs as soon as I can. Tell them, te! them" and, as one of our modern philosophers ex presses it, " with exactly the same happy spirit of gratifies tion with which babies discover light," she discovered in science, " tell them if they teach school in Heaven they' find me in a class below." " Mechanic ! " cried Madame, shaking a finger at her. But her look of reproach may be assumed to have bee one of habit, for as the train started she laughed wit wonderful French vivacity and threw kisses. Alone, upon her own resources, Joan nursed the luckles bag into a parlor car and plumped down in a vacant chaii She had been unable to procure a seat at the station and th necessity for doing so now shouldered sentiment out of th way. Being essentially of chair-car upbringing, she woul appeal to the conductor. . . . Meanwhile the untame engine was gathering speed upon its way, humming an crooning as it ate up the cross-barred fields and unimportar villages. But through the Titanic lullaby came competin sounds of activity and of dissension. " It distinctly says, ' Car thirty-two/ " a woman's voic was arguing with refined acidity. " My dear, I was convinced all the time you were mi; taken. I remarked that the three looked like a five." Sue a tone of sublime superiority could only mean a husban< and such he proved to be. " Porter, are not these on seats?" " Lemme see. Yas-sah, sure 'nough, dem is. How com one dese seats am slightly occupied ? " Joan gave a furtive glance at the procession and then, t A JOURNEY 15 use a broad Scotch phrase of her father's, she " scooched doon and mad' hersel' wee." But a face like the full moon stole over the horizon of the chair-back, and she saw that it was a clergyman who had thus brought her to justice. There loomed full length the owner of the face, a large gentleman of solid proportions, a square edifice, as it were, of the most select materials. Had he not been a clergyman, he might have shown a tendency to apoplexy, but under the circumstances his color knew its place and his flesh was evenly distributed, with no vulgar pushing or crowding at any particular point. "As though he grew up on soda biscuits," she thought, impressed by his smooth surfaces. " Do you hold a ticket for this seat, young lady ? " and as she answered in the negative he reinflated himself to satis- faction. " Then I must ask you to move, as we do hold the ticket and it is included with all these." His gesture was so large that Joan jerked upward to ap- praise his dominion. Without doubt he was a man of property, the owner, in fact, of one wife and some four or five children in graduating sizes, appropriately garbed in rubber, and slinking in the wake of their parents as though to say, " We can never live up to what is expected of us, but in our suppressed way we have considerable bounce and elasticity ! " Bringing up the rear was a superior sort of henchwoman whose fate it was to carry all the odd and inconvenient articles of the party. As Joan rose, each of the cortege found a place and sank into it, something after the manner of a puzzle picture, leaving her, alas, as the odd piece that would fit nowhere. It seemed an interminable time before the usual pageant entered the small end of the telescope and began its trium- phal progress down the train, the Pullman conductor, cal- , 14 BLIND WISDOM culated to inspire awe in a braver heart than hers, the trai conductor, loath to admit inferiority, and the African porte bending the knee to sweep up the bits of paper that tl conductor's punch disgorged. Joan's reverend gentlema awoke and surrendered his tickets. Then came her turn. " Where's your seat? " jerked the gorgeous one, for whe he was not clipping out bits of cardboard he clipped 01 words in the same concise manner. One half expected 1 see them fall on the floor and the porter bend to swet them up. " I have no seat," she began, starry-eyed and anxious reach his conductorly heart, " but I want one." He laughed in derision; he would have laughed on ar excuse, since nearly all his teeth were gold. " I can't mal you a seat, can I ? " '" Can't you ? I thought you could do anything." She was resorting to shameless feminine wiles, but i innocently provocative was the young face before him th he swallowed the monstrous tribute whole, nor braid n< brass buttons could longer disguise him for the man 1 was, an average good sort with a wife and little ones Flatbush. They compromised on an end seat to be he till the next station, and, the controversy ended, it wou have been pleasant to sink into the kind of coma proper travelling. But next her sat the preacher's lady, knittii on a stocking of incredible size and for some reason i: triguing her attention. " Higgins will have to go," she was telling the patie henchwoman. " You know, Sarah, our gardener's cottaj is small and though Higgins is a faithful worker he has i sense of proportion." She leaned forward with a distrustf glance at the children and thrust forth her lips in tl whisper, "Too prolific!" They wagged their heads solemnity over this truth, knitting industriously the whi] A JOURNEY 15 " In most ways he was so obliging, but I warned him a year ago that the cottage was overcrowded, and then, entirely disregarding my wishes, twins ! " " But that," put in the henchwoman timorously, " if you'll pardon my saying so, ma'am, was a great blow to Higgins, himself!" Could either have glimpsed the face behind her at that moment, in its almost comical expression of dismay, it might have proved in the nature of a tonic shock. There are persons whose complacency is so well established that they scarcely ever remember they are but human clay them- selves, and subject to the barbs of criticism. Joan was quivering indignantly. In her own home certain proprietary rights were exercised over the servants, but that one should seek to limit the extent of offspring was something unknown and unheard of. " Poor darlings," she thought hotly, " any one of them might turn out a Lincoln or a Shakespeare." Had not Lishaby, her former nurse, and " ol' Columbus " brought up sixteen children beneath the patronage of the Wister family, and had her sire ever sought to frustrate this splendid program of parenthood? On the contrary, He had made additions to the domicile of " old Columbus," something after the manner of chicken hutches, it is true, but additions, none the less, and Joan was proud to re- member them. And then, precipitately, the next station was reached and she was thrust back into the cradle of democracy, bag and all. The rain still sprayed upon the window-panes and she shared a straw-covered seat in an aroma of banana peels and cinders. Here, sprawling babies were not only tolerated, but their antics were looked upon smirkily and their crying was condoned, here also a sailor might ride with his arm about a tousle-headed girl and both might chew gum with 16 BLIND WISDOM a united rhythm of jaws. The socialistic side of Joan p nounced these conditions right and natural, but her fast ious instincts rebelled and she retired into her own rez to think. Her schoolmates had been right in envying her. It \ indeed a red-letter event to be homeward bound to a wedd and the attendant festivities. The Wister family hav established a precedent in Crannsford, the ceremony wo be consummated with an elegance of detail very gratify to a beauty-loving nature such as Joan's. But when came to the spiritual significance of the occasion she gi uneasy. In truth, one of more mature years than she mi have found this alliance between Agnes Wister and Godf Blunt, son of the Reverend MacAllister Blunt, hard digest. Agnes, as Joan already recognized, was of a rat! cold and limited type, whereas Godfrey, for all his aust upbringing, sported an insidious devil in his eye. It \ like "trying to believe six impossible things before bre fast," thought Joan, remembering her " Alice." Later Ag clarified herself for Joan, but it was long before she co solve the real psychology of Godfrey, a man susceptible frivolous women, but an inherent prude when it came choosing a wife. And, engrossed as she was with such reflections, did not see at once that her chair companion had tun from the window and was regarding her fixedly, with wi tear-rimmed eyes. Then, "Ain't you the Wister girl ain't you Jo-ann Wister demanded a dubious voice, and Joan came brightly to surface. Confronting her was a very shabby and woebegi Cinderella whose tears fell in competition with the r; Tears may mean almost anything, but they are in a meas tyrannical and seldom fail to rouse interest or concern. A JOURNEY 17 parlor cars one did not weep for very pride, but in day coaches one wept as one ate or one slept, with a veritable you-be-damn independence. Having received an answer in the affirmative, " I thought you was Jo-ann, all right," said the girl, in a colorless voice, " though I ain't seen you since we went to school together. I thought mebbe you'd help me." Joan had an excellent memory, which she proceeded to ransack earnestly, and like little Jack Horner's pie it pro- duced a plum. " Oh, yes, of course. You sat across the aisle from me in Adams Street School, and your name's Daisy Green." " No," corrected the other, " Lily Gray." "Well, I knew it was a flower and a color. And that was the way you always looked." Evidently Lily Gray was not accustomed to being paid delicate compliments, for she first stared, then flushed, and the tears* ceased flowing. " My color's black now," she was surprised to hear her own voice answering, for it was perhaps the first imagina- tive thing she had said in her life. " So I see," with a glance at her companion's shoddy mourning, including the inevitable veil with a crepe border so popular with a certain class that one may safely suppose it to be the very emblem of genteel bereavement, the ex- quisite consolation that enables its wearers to bear up at all. " I hope it was no one extremely close." Whereupon she perceived that she had touched the main- spring of Lily Gray's emotions. _ "Close? Well, I rather guess," she cried hysterically, " all I had my father. Mebbe that's not close " and she continued to saturate a crisp handkerchief that obviously belonged to the new mourning outfit, while the other in deep distress patted her f utilely on the shoulder. 1 8 BLIND WISDOM Although Joan did not know it at the time, she was al ready developing a cozy code of her own, something to d< with " helping lame dogs over stiles." Call it conscience o call it instinct and either hammer hits the nail, but call i impulse and you have failed of the mark, for between in stinct and impulse there is a difference as well as a dis tinction. Joan's instinct was a powerful dictator, am though she at times might doubt its integrity she always i the end obeyed. Her intuition in this instance was to offe sympathy, any amount of it, and, should the need arise, aic either moral or financial, but something in the glacial blu of those eyes frightened her. It was as though Life ha dealt the little lady a raw hand and she held humanity t be in league against her. Such cynicism seen for the firs time is bound to be a shock to the gently nurtured. Lily 1 mouth had the rebellious curve of a hurt child's and sh sobbed with a fierce abandon. " You're shaking," exclaimed Joan after an awful fiv minutes of wondering what she should do, " and I believ you are going to be ill. Let me see your tongue." This made Lily laugh again and her laughter was wors than her tears, being made up of what had once been swe sounds, now jangling and off key. She was really ver pretty in her pink and white, half starved youth; as sh matured she would either become plumply passe, or sh would crack like a delicate vase. It did not occur to Joa that she herself might end by determining Lily's future. " No, I ain't sick, just sick of livin', that's all. I s'pos you wonder how I come to be away when he died. Wei I couldn't get work in Crannsford, I'd taken a course i stenography, and Pa had to stay on 'ccount of the shop. She straightened proudly. " He was the best cobbler i town." The best cobbler! Joan looked at her incredulously, ye A JOURNEY 19 admiringly, touched in a new painful way. Though the train was warm she saw goose flesh on Lily Gray's wrist and she sensed keenly the blackness of her dilemma. Joan's was a nature to find the contemplation of suffering intoler- able. She must immediately minister to it, must change the aspect of the bogey's face before she could bear to look upon it. And as she listened to Lily's tale her mind kept flying off at a tangent, trying to plan. Yet all the time she was aware of the rough thread in the girl's voice and the reckless light of her eyes. She re- membered the shop now; she had once taken shoes there to be resoled. She imagined them in eternal procession, straggling in by their own volition, down at the heel, down at the toe, poor, tired old shoes that the honest man would goad into shape again to accomplish more weary miles of pedestrianism. But even Lily's long years of apprenticeship did not make her immune to the pungency of the leather and she always slept, she said, with a damp cloth over her face. That was before she exchanged the reek of leather for the reek of cookery, as a clerk in a cheap restaurant. But her father's was a wasting disease that fed upon his vital organs and the savings of both of them, and she found it hard to eke out an existence in the city. Friends had telegraphed her that he was dead, and had arranged for the funeral. This last would about clean her up. " I guess you'll think I'm daft, but I'm afeered to go back. I can't bear to see that black, awful place again, and him lyin' in it, not hammerin' nor nothin' like he uster, an' whistlin' all the time like a blackbird. Besides, I'm afeered o' dead people; I'd shriek if I was to look at one, an' if I had to stay there over night " " Hush," whispered Joan as Lily's voice rose in a wail, and unconsciously she was stern. " Death isn't like that I know it isn't. It's just graduating, that's what it is, to 20 BLIND WISDOM somewhere far finer than this old world. It's lucky just as lucky as being born. Wouldn't you be proud to think he was making perhaps silver shoes or or gold shoes?' And then, at the incongruity of Heavenly persons so con- ventionally shod, she amended hastily, " making silver san- dals for the angels, that's what ! " But, though Joan rallied her gently, she saw that Lily*! superstitious fears were far from being dispelled. Her eyes caught at Joan's with a desperate and naked urgency. " Don't none o' your men folks need typewriting done ? ' It was a makeshift for the question she dared not ask, an<3 it melted Joan completely. She drew a daring breath and gave Lily a glance of great sweetness. Both were guileless as children making friends in the street. " There's only Father," she sighed impetuously, " and I'm afraid well, I know he wouldn't. I'm going to take yot straight home with me just the same, Lily Gray, and you can stay in my house till after the funeral. I'll explain il all to Mother, and ask her to help you." The decision once made, she gave the poor waif a hug tc make her know how welcome she would be, convincing Lily if not herself. And when a little later the oddly assorted two stepped off the train at Crannsford, " Good gracious," exclaimed Joan, " I forgot to tell you we're having a wedding. There's Agnes, now." And then she saw that her sister Agnes, in a state oi bridely importance, was rushing down the platform to meel not herself, but the reverend gentleman of her parlor cai encounter, his lady and the retinue of slinky children, theii noses sharpening on a scent of new adventure. " As I'm alive," she remarked to the world in general, " they are Agnes's in-laws, the Blunts ! " The unwieldy bag went clattering to her feet, and so complete was her amazement that she made no effort tc A JOURNEY 21 attract her sister's attention, but watched instead the be- stowal of the guests in the family brougham and its sub- sequent departure. She awoke at the touch of the other's hand. " Lily Gray," she exclaimed profoundly, " there is only one expression that describes just how I feel at this minute. I'm jiggered!" CHAPTER II THE MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS THE arrival of Joan and her protegee at the house oi Wister was conspicuously lacking in dignity. She had nol been expected by the afternoon train; the fact was self- evident, yet illogically she allowed herself to be chilled She felt lowly and discredited, and the knowledge that she had become responsible for a nearly unknown human die not add to her peace of mind. The consequence of hei action proved appalling to a child of seventeen with a chequered domestic record behind her. She did not regrel her offer of hospitality. After a peep into the shadowj den of mourning (they had stopped at the cobbler-shop OT\ the way up) it seemed to her the only possible thing she could have done, but she was finding that the milk of humar kindness is a rather chilly bath when one is standing in il alone and up to one's neck. As they neared home her moral courage waned. She could picture her mother welcoming the guests and the pompous Mr. Blunt turning a distrustful eye upon hei should she appear, never forgetting that she had usurped his seat under false pretenses. As to presenting Lily in s sympathetic light, the possibility became increasingly re- mote. " Not at least till I have Mother alone," she procrastinatec weakly. And because she was so utterly ill at ease herself she sought to reassure Lily by whistling. But Lily had noi THE MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS 23 fended for herself these years without acquiring a certain astuteness. " I always do that when I'm scared, too," she commented unexpectedly and gave an eloquent sigh. Resistlessly Joan was turning in at the side door, that seldom-used portal, sacred to tramps, fruit sellers and book agents, and, so far as she was concerned, associated only with sly creepings home after youthful misdemeanors. It was the door of the plebeian, the craven and the coward. " If Mother's in the hall, I'll tell her about you," she temporized with pink cheeks, " and, anyway, neither of us wants to get in that mob." But Mrs. Wister was not in the hall and they gravitated up-stairs to the harbor of Joan's room, without encountering a single member of the family. No concealment was in- tended, yet each breathed a sigh of relief when the door was closed. And at the soft comfort of the room a kind of en- chantment came over Lily. She was like one who is taken from great jeopardy into the arms of dream. In the auster- ity of that New England town, where the older families subsisted principally upon their ancestors and past glory, the Wisters were unique, their prestige supported by tangible comforts, the truth in a nutshell being that Mrs. Wister had supplied the ancestors and her husband the gold with which to refurbish their frames. Joan's room still maintained the character of a little girl's room, but it was gracious with old mahogany, dainty with chintz, overflowing with books and knickknacks. To Lily it was everything beautiful and fairylike. In one of her ambitious times Mrs. Wister had caused to be appended a dressing-room, a kind of canary cage hung above the garden, with opulent windows and a view of " dog kennels, dove-cotes and weather-vanes." It was here that Lily was tacitly installed " until I can find Mother, you know." Joan 24 BLIND WISDOM induced her to abandon her creepy black for a tufted kimonc and lie, as suited a bereaved lady, on the couch, with books at her elbow and a little reading lamp with an adjustabl< curve in its spine. Her guest submitted to these attentions with dumb acquiescence, her eyes as wild and soft as thos( of an untamed animal. It was only when Joan was pre- paring to leave that she spoke uneasily. " Supposin' some one raps at that door ! What'll I do 01 be expected to say ? Shall I unlock it ? " " Oh," said Joan, bustling at the awkward possibility " for the present, till they know you're here, you might jus just meow, like a cat, you know, and they'd think I hac brought home a stray. But they won't come, because the} are all mad, stark, raving mad with matrimania ! " Sh< coined the word with considerable satisfaction. " And nov don't worry, Lily dear, because worry makes wrinkles ii your soul. Good-bye for a little." And she was gone, leaving the cobbler's daughter to he: own concerns. How did Lily occupy her solitude? Nee( one ask? Her spirit had gone hungry till her very lool seemed to scorch and profane. Rising from the couch witl a stealthiness as avid as it was graceful, she took stock o: her surroundings, forgetting for the time the desolation o: her life in sensuous enjoyment of that which the gods, if no provided, had at least loaned. The closet was full of dresses too elaborate to be included in Joan's boarding-school ward robe, and she shook them out in little paroxysms of delight They smelled like field flowers in summer. . . . ******** Joan, emerging into the main body of the house, founc it as murmurous with sounds as a terminal. She playet with the thought that she was a disembodied spirit re turned to earth after protracted wanderings, and both in tangible and invisible to earthlings. But with the suddei THE MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS 25 impact of a body against her own it developed that she was neither, but of the usual corporeal variety. It was Agnes with whom she had collided, Agnes in stiff gray satin, at once elegant and modest, as befitted a candidate for the altar, and Joan saw that her mind was in a gray satin state to match her body. " How you frightened me, dear child, and when did you come ? I am sure no one knows that you are here," and she kissed the younger girl vaguely in the region of her nose. Joan, discounting the impersonal caress, darted back a rather more successful one, and standing at arm's length, re- garded Agnes with some personal awe. " You don't look a bit different, Aggie, even if you are going to be married. Is everything going on all right, and did you get heaps of presents ? " " Innumerable," replied Agnes proudly, " and not a dupli- cate." " And did old Soda Biscuits arrive? " " Who on earth do you mean ? " "Mr. Blunt, of course, with Mrs. Blunt and the little Blunts! I saw them on the train. Of course Godfrey is not to blame," she added fairly. " To blame ? I should think you were being very imperti- nent, young lady." Then, hastily changing tactics, " Oh, Joan dear, for my sake, be on your good behavior ! " and she touched with a symbolic gesture the solitaire of her engage- ment ring, that shone in the dusk as pure and cold as her own character. Agnes was the oldest of the three girls in the family, and a Puritan by nature with no inconvenient touch of originality. The conventions which serve merely to hamper more radical women were the parade ground of Agnes' life. She prospered sweetly in her constricted area with other orthodox flowers of her choosing, and never doubted for a 26 BLIND WISDOM moment that her high calling was simply to exemplify thi best traditions of New England. At times her " sit-tigh goodness," as they dubbed it, was something of a trial t< the younger girls, for, like most persons with active con science for others as well as themselves, she was not alway easy to live with. But Agnes held true to her consecratioi and often with the thought of her own virtues she wa; touched to the point of tears. Some discerning man ha< characterized them as Agnes, the saint, Claire, the materi alist, and Joan, the seeker. As they stood together on this eve of Agnes' wedding they were particularly true to type. Joan writhed an< stubbed at the rug in intolerable embarrassment. " Are you ' honest-and-true, black-and-blue ' happy ? An< what is it like to be in love? Are you marrying Godfre; because you love him, or do you fancy you love him becaus you are going to marry him, which ? " It struck Joan that Agnes' arpeggio of laughter was to< perfunctory to be quite convincing, a frantic clutch at pois of one caught napping. Joan was watching her with sucl terribly bright eyes and an interlude of silence had fallei in the house when she felt herself peculiarly vulnerable. " Darling," she began, still laughing, sparring for time " if you were a little older you would understand sue] matters. Infatuation means little. It is far more importan that I respect Godfrey and feel confidence in his future and that I know the Blunt family has only blue blood." But in each of Joan's eyes was a pin-point of doubt. . " Hmm, Godfrey may be all right, but I am sure his fathe and mother are very wicked people. I heard them talk 01 the train, and actually, Agnes, they won't let their gardene have babies." There was an outburst of amusement, and Qaire Wiste came breezily along the gallery. THE MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS 27 " Who won't let their gardener have babies ? " she de- manded, and before Joan could reply she bent and popped a kiss into her mouth. " Hello, ' J.,' glad you're back for the party. But how thin and peaked you are. They must have been feeding you on pickles and hardtack. I have it, a ' finishing school,' of course ! " Claire was approximately a hundred years younger than Agnes and struck the happy normal note between her sisters, her opinion of them being that Joan was a great dreamer and Agnes a great goose. She linked a jovial arm through Joan's. " My soul, what a pity you've missed the doings ! A car- load of presents, and we dissected 'em all in the cellar with pounding and splitting fit to deafen you. Some one sent a Swiss music box and all the time they were exhuming the thing it played ' The Watch on the Rhine.' Father's almost gone mad with the racket. He's shut up in the library and in such a state that no one dares go near except to feed him. And I believe even that's dangerous. I suggested that they lower the tray over the ventilator." She interrupted herself to turn maliciously on the bride- elect. " You'd better run on for your ' quiet hour,' Agnes, and ' getting yourself into the right state of mind for matri- mony.' " Joan divined that the words were Agnes' own, handed back with the embellishment of sarcasm. " Come, J., and feast your eyes on the presents." But once away from Agnes, and Claire had changed her tone. She was speaking with fine scorn. " Just fancy having to get yourself into ' the right state of mind ' if you were marrying the man you loved." " Oh, Claire, do you feel that, too ? " flashed back Joan. " It is exactly what I have been thinking." They were entering the show-room of the morrow, where, 28 f BLIND WISDOM displayed on shining damask, were Agnes' future Lares and Penates. " Of course I feel it," replied Claire bluntly, turning squarely upon the other. " But see here, you know why she's doing it, don't you ? Aggie's a fearful snob, and she's out and out selling herself for you might say a bottle oi bluing ! " Her smile grew sick anci died. " She's cold, too, without sex consciousness of any kind. Godfrey has a hidden spark, but Agnes will never find it." Dinner-time arrived without Joan having found it con- venient to acquaint her mother with the presence of Lily, She was following the line of least resistance now in not pressing her efforts too far, and Lily, as they say of the afflicted, was " doing as well as could be expected." Let the future take care of itself : it was enough for the present to lie grandly on a sofa in fanatic enjoyment oi smuggled dishes whose ingredients she could not analyze, After a time the lady of the manor would appear with kind patronage, thrusting home the dependency of her position, and she would say, " Yes, ma'am," or " No, ma'am," as the occasion might demand. But for the present she reclined as spinelessly as any grandee in the delicious atmosphere oi make-believe. And for the second time Joan left her with reassurances and promises of undying support. Her child- ish brow puckered with responsibility as she started for the " interview " with her maternal parent, but alas, once caught in the maelstrom of activity outside and her noble resolu- tion went the way of all previous ones. " Later," she thought, " later." It was the eve of the wedding and preparations went forward with a fascinating gusto. Florists were busy with laurel and smilax, with great sheaves of hothouse roses, THE MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS 29 lilies and orchids. Maids, strange and domestic, moved about in mysterious pursuits, ignoring her with splendid arrogance. Everywhere was a fragrance and a waste, a growing evolution. In the double drawing-rooms the piano tuner labored at disadvantage, finding an outlet for his nerves in the harsh, recurrent sounds that he wrung from the key-board. At intervals he would emerge, his rumpled gray hair on end like some ancient and disgruntled bird. "Zilence, if you blease ! " he would entreat, when the uproar would diminish for a period, only to be resumed fortissimo. In yet another room the Reverend Mr. Blunt, " Old Soda Biscuits," as Joan had outrageously dubbed him, held forth with the candidates. " You will repeat after me . . ." his voice might be heard coaching them, " ' I Godfrey, take thee, Agnes . . / Then place the ring on the third hand of the left finger, I would say the left hand on the third ring . . ." He grew violently pink. " Godfrey," to his son, who had not spoken, " I would thank you not to confuse me." Dinner was on the same lavish scale, comprising the family's best silver and its most careful pretensions. The Blunts, the guests of honor, monopolized space, the children lifting alert heads after their sire had said grace and with difficulty holding in check their gastronomical inclinations. Godfrey was there, his handsome face turned this way and that in cordial amusement. Agnes, gracing his side, mouthed tremendous platitudes, the kind of girl who would hence- forth see that he had what he liked for breakfast, and al- ways what was good for his soul, whether he liked it or not. Mrs. Blunt's gown was decorous, yet elaborate, as befitted the wife of a preacher with private means, but she had at- tempted, incongruously enough, a head-dress of silver butterflies. Certainly had the butterflies been bright, living 30 BLIND WISDOM things when she snared them, they would have promptlj become atrophied at finding themselves on so august a head, At table she accomplished the large feat of censoring hei children's conversation and manners by virtue of some silenl code. Once the youngest Blunt, after a psychic warning from her, was frozen to relinquishment of a chicker croquette. Joan had drifted into the arms of her mother befon dinner, only to be cast forth again when Mrs. Wister was recalled to her duties as hostess. She was a rather small nervously-composed woman, her raven hair, her restless eyes and the glimmer of sequins on her gown contributing to the impression that here was an ambitious spirit, noi easily assuaged. But one member of the family was lacking, and, as he seldom appeared at his own board, Jonathan Wister's ab- sence was not felt save as a negative blessing. In truth, the poor paralytic suffered more from his reputation as a do- mestic tyrant than from his disease, and preferred to reigr supreme in his own study where he possessed at least the dignity of inspiring awe. For, look as fierce as he might, ir a gay gathering the faith in " safety in numbers " proved ar immunity against him; when he ceased to be feared, whai was he, after all, but a querulous and uncomfortable olc man? Agnes, the untiring advocate of Dame Grundy, had be- sieged him in vain. " First impressions," she had pleaded " and what will the Blunts think? " But her father, whose nerves had been frazzled throughout the day, discouragec further argument by a burst of profanity in which he con- signed to perdition the florists, the caterers, the piano tunei and the Blunts themselves. In short, he'd be damned if he would! And, still choking anathema, he rang for Sammy his attendant, to put him to bed. THE MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS 31 " Oh, well," sighed Agnes, cringing and paling, but em- ploying her usual formula, " I think you will be sorry." But now that the dinner was progressing " with such an air," she told herself, in the flush of success, perhaps it was as well that he had not joined them, the presence of an invalid seeming almost a confession of weakness. Her critical eye roving about the table was warmly commend- atory. For once her family appeared blameless in her eye, balance sustained on the best foot forward. They were a credit to her and to Godfrey. Even Joan, at other times incalculable, looked as innocent as an angel on a Christmas card. Her mind at peace, she assumed an animated ex- pression and proceeded to take a sprightly interest in what went on. At this juncture the name " Jerry " was being bandied back and forth like a ball between Godfrey and his father, and each who caught it returned it with a crisp word or two. "Jerry could have taken the five-thirty," declared God- frey brightly. " Ah, if he had stepped lively from business, but Jerry never takes time by the forelock," whisked back Mr. Blunt. " Come now," cried Godfrey, catching the ball, " Jerry's never ahead of time, if that's what you mean. He's never behind time either, he's on time. He has the knack more than any chap I've ever known of never hurrying and never being late." " And who is Jerry ? " Joan, divining a personage, sent a whisper to Claire. " Godfrey's partner at law. The best man, you know ! " was all that she could extract from the preoccupied Claire. " If it is still raining," Mrs. Blunt now thrust forward, determined that the absent Jerry should not pose as a paragon, " he will be certain to have forgotten his umbrella." Thereby seconding Robert Louis Stevenson's satirical as- 32 BLIND WISDOM sertion that " not to forget one's umbrella throughout a lo lifetime and to be somewhat circumspect in money matt* is the whole duty of man." It was at that precise moment the one beneath discussi chose to enter, looming in the dim doorway, neither drama nor retiring, but with a casual humor that smiled down 1 commotion. It was as though he observed the essenti of good breeding, but conserved the rarest essence of 1 personality for rare occasions. Immediately he was bombarded with trite pleasantries. " Your shoulders are wet. So you did forget your u brella ! " and the like. Then through the loud waters of family presentation cut like an expert swimmer, leaving in his wake only 1 charm of his persuasive smile. A place was made for h and once more the tide of conversation rose, spread a closed about his head. Joan, teentering on the edge seventeen, dismissed the man of thirty as quite an agreeat middle-aged gentleman. Besides, she was frankly got mande, and after the meagre fare of school each coui that appeared was of vital interest. Thus was she indt triously repairing waste tissue when an ominous shad< stole upon her, the foreboding of trouble in some way cc nected with herself. Even before she lifted her eyes fn her plate she felt the unwonted excitement of a forei presence in their midst. There fell a dead, curious silen while each of the diners regarded the unnerved maid w stood swaying on the threshold, her face white as paper. " Please," she gasped, appealing impartially to manki and the omnipotent, " there is some one something in M Joan's room. It meows like a cat and walks like a m; For the love o' God, go see." Whereupon she cast up her hands and fell fainting to t floor. CHAPTER III TWO CEREMONIES IF the interruption proved unconventional none shall say that it was without a certain pleasing and dramatic quality. For along about the salad course invariably a slight stuffi- ness has set in, and who would not welcome the diversion of a fainting housemaid and a mystery in the bargain? There was a general abandonment of reserved seats while Godfrey Blunt was first to reach the side of the stricken creature and dash a glass of cold water in her face. In such a crisis certainly lace caps and dainty uniforms are of secondary consideration, moreover there is the novelty of knowing that in ordinary circumstances one may not inun- date a fellow human with impunity. The onlookers each secretly felt that a spirited deed had been done ! The afflicted Ellen, flat on the floor like a victim of chloroform in a third-rate melodrama, gasped and gulped through the shower and, possibly anticipating a second sense of the fitness of things. Indeed a fine lady of the deluge, deemed it advisable to open her eyes. If Godfrey was quick in the emergency Ellen manifested an equal Victorian era could scarcely have done greater credit to a swoon. When lifted to a sitting posture she gave a long, floating sigh and demanded dreamily, " Where am I ? " But as they pressed about her in an expectant half circle and became more and more convinced that she was right as a trivet their eyes seemed to question, " After all, is it quite the thing for the parlor maid to be holding court on the dining-room floor with her legs straight out before her like broomsticks, and are we not losing in dignity by 34 BLIND WISDOM countenancing such?" Joan, the guilty rearguard of group, knew that her hour had sounded. Scorn for E curled her lip, Ellen, a poor creature who went off 1 cocked on the slightest provocation. As for Lily Gray was almost as great a fool with her literal mewing meowing behind the door. So she ruminated the w Ellen, redeemed from the floor and conceded a chair, being catechised. " Are you certain that no member of the household cc have been locked in the chamber ? " quizzed Mr. Blunt A his manner of speaking from the pulpit, and his glc sought Mrs. Wister's cooperation, as though to ask, " > you, Madame, are you quite certain that you have y brood correctly counted ? " While that lady, in panic, ing stock of Agnes, Claire and Joan, tried to recall if had ever in an absent-minded moment brought into world yet another offspring who might at this momen causing such unpleasantness! She could only remen Mr. Wister as unaccounted for and he, poor man, paralyzed and perforce unable to navigate in upper regi " Have you remarked any demented person hove about the neighborhood ? " the inquisitor went on and rewarded by the almost visible creep of the flesh and fur glances toward the stairway in anticipation of Hea 1 knew-what horror stalking down. Ellen shivered and gan to weep in a miserable red-nosed fashion. Oh, : that she came to think of it, she had seen a strange api tion crossing the grounds an hour before and and "That was I," interrupted with quiet relish the : called " Jerry." " I walked from the station with my over my head." Another promising theory heartlessly exploded! It to be remarked that no one suggested going up to inv gate. It was becoming a ghastly farce and Joan knew TWO CEREMONIES 35 if she did not end it soon the situation would make an end of her. But how to claim the center of the stage as author of the mischief ? " Isn't it true," her seemingly irrelevant query was at last launched, " that one ought to love one's neighbor as one's self? Or or is that not to be taken literally either like the Jonah and the whale thing? " Their attention veered to her somewhat intolerantly. "Because," she elucidated, now sure of her audience, " if you do believe in it I'll tell you who is up-stairs in my room ! " Here was a bolt from the blue to transfix them; Joan, after all, was incalculable! How small she looked sur- rounded by her mentors and how destined to defeat ! Again it was obviously for the clergyman in their midst to reply but, being a practical, far-sighted preacher he chose his words, he chose them so judiciously in fact that it would have required one of almost superhuman powers to fathom his exact meaning. The gist of it was, " that largely de- pends." " Oh," sighed the poor child and took a step backward, for cordially as she disliked him she had trusted his ortho- doxy and this hedging on his part threw her into dismay, " in special cases, you mean ? " She grasped for the elusive thought. " But this was a special case and I was trying as hard as ever I could to be helpful, to befriend some one, the some one who is up-stairs now . . ." There was a slight shriek from Mrs. Wister. " Joan," she agonized, coming to the fore like the stereo- typed mother whose place is fatally at her offspring's side, " tell us immediately what it is ! " Insisting absurdly upon the neuter gender the while the wildest doubts ravaged her mind. She thought of every type of outrageous charlatan from lion tamers to strolling dentists and recalled the pre- 36 BLIND WISDOM diction of that same male relative who had catalogued ]oz as a " seeker." " She is fated to do magnificent things he had said, " and to have her motives impugned." " It's a ' she/ Mother," Joan hastily assured her, divinir that acute anguish, " and that's about all I can say. SI needed help and a little voice whispered to me, ' You a; the one.' And so I brought her home." She was offerir them her simple philosophy. " But it was lots harder explain than I thought it would be for there was no litt voice that wanted to tell you. I listened and I listened bi I couldn't make my conscience say a thing." The silence had assumed a solid quality and was closir in about her like the walls of those death chambers : popular in the tales of Edgar Allan Poe. No wonder si lost poise. " Oh, some one's got to see to the underdogs," she gre rather shrill, pushing at the silence desperately. " Gir go astray because because " But as her knowledj of why girls go astray was nearly negligible she flush* deeply and could not continue. Her eyes, soft like the darkest petals of a pansy, wei searching hither and yon for the Mecca of a kindred spiri The limpid gaze passed, still searching, beyond her mother passionate reproach, limping on to strike against the met of the Blunt censure, Agnes' blame and Godfrey's teasir ridicule, to find shelter in a pair of eyes that signalle warmly. She entered them like a derelict who bears r credentials. And simply he received her a natural an charming host. The spell was broken and they were que tioning her wildly. " You picked her up on the train? My poor, misguide child, where will your sympathies lead you ! " and " All th; is so apt to be a trumped-up tale, don't you agree, M Blunt?" TWO CEREMONIES 37 " Oh, unquestionably, a great deal of humbug is practised along those lines. One cannot be too guarded," and his pale prominent eyes fastened upon the supposed victim of fraud as though measuring the extent of her gullibility. While Agnes stepped up-stairs to see if the wedding gifts were safe the others directed their united efforts toward making Joan feel how wrong she had been. Not only had she endangered the family property but she had in some way injured the very person whom she meant to succor. She had inadvertently dulled the initiative of " that poor girl whose strength should be in helping herself," substi- tuting her own officiousness for God and the city missions. Confounded as she was, Joan yet heard little of the dis- course for the simple reason that she was spiritually biding with the man called "Jerry" and warming herself at his hearth fire. * * * * * * * * Agnes Wister was married at high noon next day. Joan, in a honey-colored bridesmaid frock and a picture hat with long ribbons, carried beneath it the small, pale face of her sleepless night. " Repenting of your rashness ? " whispered Godfrey slyly when he encountered her on the stair, her arms full of filmy flowers. " I should say you are rather young to be saving other youngsters from the thorny path." But he dropped the bantering tone to take her face suddenly be- tween his hands. " I wonder who you're saving yourself for," and before she was fully aware of his intention he had bent and kissed her closely on the mouth. He laughed to carry off his boldness, though of the two he was the more shaken. " I don't know what made me do that, honestly, but there's something about you I never noticed till now. I'll wager you'll cause no end of mischief later on ! " Joan, too surprised for resentment, stared back at him 38 BLIND WISDOM solemnly with her pansy eyes and seemed to hear Claire 1 words, " There's a hidden spark in Godfrey but Agnes wi never find it." As she saw him now, flushed and lyric i his discovery of her, she realized that here indeed was Godfrey of under currents. In a moment more he woul have resumed his conventional mask to be the exemplar Godfrey they all knew, the zealous young lawyer an brilliant match. Was hypocrisy inherent in his nature, sh wondered, or was he conscientiously striving to fit himsel into the family picture? She wavered doubtfully in he diagnosis, half scorning the elemental man in him, half ir clined to pity. All personal feeling was lost in this analysi: " Godfrey," she breathed involuntarily, " why are yo marrying Agnes ? , Tell me the truth and I swear I'll neve repeat it to a soul." "W-what'sthat?" The color was leaving his face while his smile turne sickly. He tossed up an easy hand to rumple his hair an found it shaking. "Come now, what put that in your head? You're funny little kid the way you dig into things. Well, ' J./ t be perfectly candid I've sometimes asked myself the sam question. Agnes is a fine girl, right enough, but there's n good pretending she's the way you'll be for instance, i great church woman and a good homemaker, but hardl the companion to take on a picnic. However it's generall agreed that she's my best bet ! " His handsome face went bleak for a moment. Then h straightened with his old mask of tradition nicely adjustec " Come along," he bade lightly, before she could brea down his nerve, "and let's see if old Jerry has lost th ring," and he caught her hand. Joan gave it a squeeze of impulsive sympathy. The she sensed his deep consternation. TWO CEREMONIES 39 " Joan, the music is beginning ; it's time for us to get in line!" " Yes," she whispered back, petrified by the fatality of it all, the conviction that Agnes and Godfrey were walking open-eyed into a trap. " Here's Agnes now. Hurry, and remember you're supposed to enter from the study. Good luck, dear Godfrey, and God bless you." Then Joan too sought her place in the procession, the flower-scented suspense was broken by the wedding march and Agnes on the arm of an uncle, owing to her father's disability, trailed down an improvised aisle to an improvised altar, her manner eloquent of, " Behold a highly suitable marriage about to be consummated. None could do better than follow my example ! " Her attendants, very sweet in their formal finery, drooped behind her, and were, all save Joan, duly impressed. As for Godfrey, he might have borne a chastened soul to the altar had it not been for a stout dowager relentlessly leaning against his door of in- gress. Both Godfrey and Jerry Callendar, the best man, had tried the door and found it immovable. " Let me in," hissed Godfrey as loudly as he dared, but the Lohengrin Wedding March dared louder. While Agnes neared the altar they pushed and beat upon it in nervous frenzy till, the lady relaxing her pressure, Godfrey insinuated through, an expression of profanity in his eyes such as no minister's son should wear. The weighty one fixed him with malevolent gaze. " Who are you," she wheezed, " a waiter ? " " Less than that," he whispered back furiously, " the groom ! " ******** It was three o'clock of the same afternoon, cold and sun- less. An hour before, garlanded with confetti, gold slippers tapping the floor, Joan had enjoyed herself festively. Now 40 BLIND WISDOM she sat beside Lily Gray in a hired coupe, very stuffy an narrow, and the two upright as graven images, being drive to a cemetery at the fringe of the town. On the driver 1 seat, visible through the glass partition, hunched an ancier ragamuffin with a very red nose who, periodically, whippe the horse, then apologized with a solemn " whoo " when h bethought him of their mission, though in truth there wei no manifestations of spirit on the part of the forlorn anima The outfit was the best that Joan and Lily could muste setting out in great haste as soon as Joan could slip awa; " All carriages is at the Wister weddin'," they had been ir formed before succumbing to the shabby street cab, derelict among its kind. Lily had spent the morning at her father's shop arrangin the flowers Joan had given her and accepting silently th reproaches of the good neighbor who had taken chargi "An unnat'ral choild," the woman called her. "Afraid to b stayin' along wid him as raised her now he's afther gone t his hivingly reward ! " Like many of the old and ailinj the dead man's chief concern had been for his burial an he had carried a small policy to cover the expenses of i The remainder of his fortune, as Lily knew, was stuffed int an old stocking and thrust beneath a loose board of th floor, and there she came into her pitiful inheritance. As the cab wound dolorously through the country b} ways Lily cried a little for the first time since she had er countered her benefactress 'and Joan, reaching awkwardl for her hand, murmured, " There, dear ! " like a chil mothering its doll. Outside purple-gray clouds were rusl ing up the sky with an effect of great violence and in th fields the weary grass of the winter before bent beneath th insult of the wind. The world had wakened too soon t expectancy of Spring and now stood, shivering and d< ceived, like a naked child. Gradually to Joan, Lily's so] TWO CEREMONIES 41 row became real. She was hurt by the brutal contrast that thrust itself home to her, the glitter of the ceremony she had left and the bleakness of the one toward which they were bent. The local paper that morning had carried a long account of the Wister wedding, with an elaborate anticipation of the gowns to be worn and an accurate list of out-of-town guests. While on another sheet she had found a few muddy words, too brief to be remarked by the casual reader : " Dead. Gray Tobias. In this city. Trade, cobbler. Aged seventy-five years." Was it then more im- portant that Agnes Wister with foolish pomp and com- placency had wedded an indifferent mate than that Tobias Gray, with his lifetime's accumulation of impression and experience, his own peculiar individualism, should set foot upon the great adventure? She was weighted with such perplexities. Meanwhile the cab had turned in at the cemetery, the tired horse walking and cropping out hopefully yet hope- lessly at the unkempt grass. Some distance away beyond the granite stones (and is there any stone in the world so heartless as granite?) she saw the brutal soil of a fresh- turned grave. The black-plumed hearse which had in- dependently preceded them stood a little aloof by itself, the blowing manes and tails of the horses giving them a sculp- tured appearance. They constituted the one warm, com- pelling note in a pastel of gray stones and gray-green turf. As they alighted from the cab the wind caught both girls and plastered their garments to their limbs. From a sec- ond cab emerged the minister and the neighbor who had owned the shop, a pitifully small number. The two men with the undertaker and his assistant brought the cheap coffin and placed it upon the supporting tapes. An unfamiliar sickness seized upon Joan and for the moment earth and sky muddled before her. The situation 42 BLIND WISDOM was strange to her, Lily a person almost unknown, and with death and disaster she had never before been intimate She could not forgive their ugliness and her instinct was to fight free of them, to clamber back into the cab and tel the ragamuffin to drive her home. It was only by th( sternest effort that she controlled her twitching body anc led Lily forward. She never forgot the drabness of thai scene, the faces of the living blue and unwholesome in th( cutting wind, while beyond the little plot the cab driver in his mossy coat huddled asleep, only his red beak visible. Sh( felt herself in a violent gesture of protest, insulted to th< depth of her being. And yet one could not take God tc task for impertinence, as one took the plumber. One coulc not grow shrill at God. . . . The voice of the preacher soothed her turbulent ego. Tc her surprise it was a mellow voice and it grew in beauty ai it deepened with feeling. His words fell on their heart; like manna in the wilderness, dispelling the cold, warming and freeing the tears that lay frozen ; Joan felt them on hei cheeks in a glad rush of thankfulness. Even the poor cat driver, awake now and listening, had removed his hat anc looked harmlessly human. The wind stirred his poor, scan hair. The voice spoke on with almost intolerable sweet ness till the departed cobbler seemed clothed in his appre ciation as Caesar was wrapped in the purple of his mantle Very splendidly he lay him to rest, that humble preacher and very earnestly he prayed for the protection of th< daughter who remained. Joan had both arms about Lil) now and was straining her close and yet in some way i seemed to be not Lily alone that she clasped in her frai protectiveness : her arms were about all suffering humanity her cheek to its cheek. And her heart seemed bursting witl the ache and urge of pity. TWO CEREMONIES 43 As they were reentering their cab the man called "Jerry " materialized from nowhere. In reality he had hastened cross-lots from the Wister's trap that was taking him to the station. He wore an oldish suit of homespun with a soft shirt and in the open one saw that, young as he was, his face was falling into lines of character. There were lines that said, " Life does not cease to be serious when people laugh " and lines that answered, " nor does it cease to be funny when people die." He stood bareheaded and the wind blew his hair straight back from a rather heroic brow. " They told me I should find you here," he announced without preamble. " I'd have come with you if it hadn't seemed slighting to your family. Do you mind my asking you, Miss " " Gray," supplied Lily dully. "Miss Gray, where you are going from here?" In a short time he had the girl's story and her prospect, or lack of prospect. Afterward it seemed to Joan the kind of thing to rub one's eyes over, for Jerry was offering Lily a position in his office and this with an entire lack of con- descension. He further added that if she cared to take the next train to the city he would look after her on the way. But in a radiant moment before their departure he paid Joan his memorable compliment. " I need not tell you how fine I think you've been, Miss Joan," he said boyishly, " but I very much fear you will be resented by the majority of people in this world. You may have heard of a certain family that once came to Bethle- hem. ' There was no room for them at the inn ! ' " A RECKONING AND A RELEASE NEXT morning Ellen, the housemaid, entered Joan's rooi and shook a nest of blankets till a ruffly head appeare somewhat irately. " Ten o'clock, Miss J., an' your breakfast's cold, a your father's wanting you in the study at once," as thouj; any one of which statements were not sufficiently disturl ing! Joan closed her eyes deliberately, reaching for the la poppy in the basket of sleep, a hopeless makeshift, but < personal satisfaction, since it proved that she would tal no dictation from Ellen. A half hour later, sketchily a tired and having partaken of an indifferent breakfast, si made her way through the debris of the dismantled hous staled with yesterday's celebration. She wondered ho Agnes and Godfrey were beginning their honeymoon ar if they too freed themselves thankfully from the feveri: festivities. " Summoned to the royal presence," she called to Clair who was descending for a belated breakfast, and Clai: groaned back, " Oh, how ghastly ! " then yawned and went on. Joan took a deep breath, fixed an ingratiating smile c her face and rapped at her father's door. Ever since 1 had become an invalid he was an early riser, as most sel made persons are, and practised the old-time virtues. I had small resources now, poor man, save in his precisene A RECKONING AND A RELEASE 45 of living, his tenacious hold on his financial affairs, and an almost childlike interest in the geography of the world. Human intercourse was, for the most part, denied him be- cause of the aggressive manner he had been wont to affect until it became habitual. He was a stranger to his children and a greater stranger to his wife. The tragedy of it was that not two years after he mar- ried her he had come bang up against the barrier between Jenny Wister and himself, he had discovered one day that she was still Jenny Morrow and would remain Jenny Morrow till she died, unless she should wed again a man whose family pretensions engulfed her own, which was not likely. In Crannsford she was always called " General Morrow's daughter," and half the time, despite his definite personality, Jonathan Wister was referred to as " Jenny Morrow's husband." And yet he had been a virile Lochinvar out of the west whom many a girl sought and admired. But after a look at Jenny he had returned the others the brusquerie of one whose affections are anchored. He was tremendously breezy and compelling, one of those giants who wooed young San Francisco in the '705 until she yielded to him greatly. He had come to this Mecca of his choice with the hot dust of the Sacramento valley like gold upon him, and a little gold in his pocket, had beheld as in a vision San Francisco on her series of hills between the haze-hung, gloriously colored bay and the Pacific Ocean, and like Stevenson had known her for the city of his soul. A few years later, having established a backing, he was building innumerable middle-class dwelling houses, bow-windowe< and of uncertain architecture, and sowing seeds of enter- prise with a steady hand. But all the time the life of the bay intrigued him and he would sit for hours brooding upon 46 BLIND WISDOM the fishing fleets with their blazoned Neapolitan sail cruisers home from the north seas, tramp windjamme bound upon strange quests, derelict whalers and Chine junks. And, always from his characteristic hilltop, he dreami a dream of stolid freighters, plying to the west. . . Until, with the years, his dream took form, cut the live water with a myriad prows, and followed the sun. When Jonathan Wister came to Crannsford, Connectici he was forty and already rich. He found a maiden au eking out an existence behind closed doors and set her such a glare of affluence that the poor soul fluttered ai died, no doubt from the shock to her retiring nature. B General Morrow's daughter came to the funeral. . . Jonathan was able to understand the General's pride in J daughter since she was delicately lovely, with a throat li the Duchess of Marlborough's, but his pride o' race he fail to comprehend, since the General had built no houses n founded a single freight line. He reasoned logically th he could make Jenny admire him even more than she a mired her father, dying in poverty, and when they we married he set about to do it. He was jealously in lo with her and inordinately proud. At her request he gave up his picturesque life for t! safety of Crannsford and it was Jenny's concession to M that they should buy the largest house in town, of Victori; pretensions and dubious comforts. She would have pr ferred one of the older Colonial type, but Jonathan point out naively that this house had bow-windows to admit i. sun through the fog (he was still thinking like a S; Franciscan) and the high ceilings, turrets and cupolas we the last word in uselessness and therefore to be prized. ' the General died quite happily and Jenny Wister essay* to found life with her husband. But each day she su A RECKONING AND A RELEASE 47 vived a series of aesthetic shocks that sent her drooping to the window with an appealing eye toward the cemetery. There was no bond between them, Jonathan being one of nature's own, while Jenny had been reared in conformity with an exquisite standard that admitted of small tolerance. He tried at first to humor her, blindly convinced that it was the dear girl herself who was out of drawing, until gradually the bitter truth was borne in upon him that all Crannsford conformed to Jenny's type save himself. For a time he tried assiduously to learn the new tricks, but he was " too old a dog " for them. The customs of an effete civilization meant nothing to him and he could not make her care for his more vigorous concerns. When his children grew they likewise regarded him askance. But by then Jonathan had taken what revenge he might upon a heart- less fate. Intolerably hurt by his wife's aloofness, he had organized his imposing reign of terror and reaped the re- ward, if not of making her love him, at least of acknowledg- ing him a force with which to be reckoned. At the gruff " Come ! " Joan opened the door slightly, insinuated herself into the room and stood awaiting orders. Old Jonathan sat figuring accounts at his desk and one conceived, heaped about him, the gewgaws of the family's extravagance. His back was to her and as always Joan found that back, with its heavy stooping shoulders, its shaggy white hair, and choleric neck, a dumb reproach. Here was power, but power bestrode and heavy-ridden, Atlas proud of holding the world on his shoulder, yet de- termined that the world should recognize its obligation. For there was one way in which Mr. Wister had subdued his Crannsford and been avenged for its slights of snobbery, no other of the small-town buds had enjoyed the advantages of his daughters, no home was run on so lavish a scale, and no other matron so grand a lady as his 48 BLIND WISDOM Jenny, who, through their long years together, had steadil; flouted him. It was a matter of principle with him to grumble at ex pense, to seem to give grudgingly. The small, disagreeabl ceremony of obtaining what they wanted was perhaps th< only shadowy spot in the lives of the young Wisters, as 5 was certainly the one perverse pleasure of Jonathan's. Afte five minutes of pen-scratching tedium, during which tim Joan's anxious speculations as to why he had summone< her trailed off into vacuum, her father, without turning said,- "Sit down!" She did so, winding her legs about the rounds of th chair, and otherwise propping and comforting her bore and exceedingly thin young body that seemed likely t disintegrate. Then, as he continued to ignore her, sh counted the figures of the wall-paper, the grooves in th molding, and the panes of the windows, and had jus reached the figures on the carpet when a dynamic interrup tion occurred. Her father, having goaded his figures into order, gav a sudden fillip to the wheels of his chair and, presto, sa facing her! So long had he maneuvered by means o wheels rather than limbs that he had taught them to in terpret his every mood. They gestured more eloquent! than hands. And Joan was familiar with each interpreta tion and its significance, the slow locomotion when he wa depressed, the smooth course he affected before stranger; and the sharpness and speed with which he could mov when aroused. The battery of his eyes bore down upon hei In the helplessness of Jonathan Wister's old age on remembered the untrammeled youth he must have livec Although the years of confinement had inevitably modifie him, he maintained the character of an out-of-door mar A RECKONING AND A RELEASE 49 It would seem that the florid complexion had never cooled from its California suns and winds, and his eyes held the blue of substantial visions. Had it not been overlaid by cares and petty irritabilities, that face would have war- ranted a sympathetic study. Then, " Well, young lady," was his discouraging beginning, " I have a letter here that may interest you. It certainly did me," and he produced a typewritten missive, as correct in form as the ten commandments. The while she perused it her father sat, almost visibly companioned by his gloomy reflections. " Children are not what they were in my day/' his look seemed to say. " They have no stamina, no am- bition, no responsibility ! " Joan read, MR. JONATHAN WISTER, Crannsford, Conn. Dear Sir: It is with the greatest reluctance that I must now inform you of the resolution but lately adopted by Miss Bangs and me, relating to the presence in our school of your daughter, Joan. To elucidate to you her peculiar unfitness for boarding-school life and the undesirable influence which she unwittingly spreads, is indeed a delicate task, but I feel confident that, once in possession of the facts, you will understand the situation and disabuse us of all save the kindest intentions. Of her ability as a scholar there can be not the slightest doubt : since her entry into our school she has learned with an avidity far surpassing the average pupil's. One might almost say, " There comes the rub ! " We have aimed in our program to provide the youthful mind with a thor- oughly broad and modern viewpoint; in short, to fit our young ladies to the times in which they live. But your daughter, in her precocious development, has ruthlessly de- cried the knowledge of our instructors, has declared from time to time the most unorthodox sentiments and evidenced a deplorable lack of reverence for approved doctrines. 50 BLIND WISDOM The insidious influence upon the other scholars has a ready been remarked. Judge for yourself if such a dange is to be tolerated. Our responsibility to other parents di< tates our judgment in the matter, and we are at last cor strained to ask that she be removed. Possibly under a closer regime in the earnest atmosphei of New England such radical tendencies may be checke or diverted into other channels, and we sincerely hope th< such may be the case. Trusting that in the future we may still enjoy the value patronage of Mrs. Wister and yourself, believe me, Faithfully yours, ELIZA NOYES. " The gray-whiskered old tabby ! " exclaimed Joan f roi her indignant heart. " Just because I asked questions nor of them could answer, just because I dropped astronom when I found out how little Miss Tousy knew. Just b< cause I clapped after the minister spoke in chapel . . . " That will do," warned her father testily, and he hitche his chair a thought nearer. " You will now tell me 5 decent order what the woman is driving at. I confess I'i wholly in the dark. If you presume to know more'n yot teachers " She stood, nervously clasping and unclasping her hand her mouth a straight, angry line and little worry wrinkle distracting her brow. A shaft of sunlight stole throug the window and made a nest of gold in her hair and thei was the illusion that it was short and tangled like a child's. " Don't you remember, Father, that as a tot you couldn take facts on faith? You had to touch water before yo could believe that it was wet ; you had to get burned befoi you really comprehended fire. You had to eat them and t sick to your tummy before you knew about green apples. How well he knew and understood such pristine curios ties ; all his life he had been finding out things for himsel A RECKONING AND A RELEASE 51 trusting to his own native sagacity, profiting by his failures. But all he said was, " Hmm, get to the point ! " "After you had had these experiences first hand you were strong and knew how to treat fire and water and and green apples." His muscular hands tapped the chair-arm impatiently, yet she saw that an interest had been kindled. " But in this kind of perfectly proper school," pursued the child reasonably, " all the lessons are predigested, so to speak. They tell us what we must believe about every- thing in the world and then discourage us to investigate for ourselves." "For instance?" She thought a minute, then answered, with a wave of her hand, " In every instance, the viewpoint is everlastingly con- ventional ! All the stuffy philosophers, and poets who kept to the ' straight and narrow,' lauded to the skies, and the unpopular ones treated decently too if they happen to be dead ! They know where they are with a dead man. But let a live one come along with something new to say, and they set the hounds to him." She smiled slyly. " But I like the underdogs, and so I began defending 'em." " I suppose," suggested her father with killing sarcasm, "you were ready to champion the devil himself and show that he has his pleasant side. Faugh, I've no patience with such heresy. Let me tell you this, young lady, the world is old in wisdom while you're a mere chit in ignorance. If you don't profit by its experience you'll come to no good end." She could see that in all his displeasure with her there was a substratum of satisfaction at his discourse. It made him frown the more fiercely as he went on, " The best principles of living were threshed out long before you 52 BLIND WISDOM were born, and if they're handed to you predigested, a you say, it's for efficiency's sake, so you can get straigh down to living." " Oh," she wailed in protest, " I don't want to get straigh down to living with some one else's receipts. I want to liv like the birds, flying north and flying south when I feel i in me to fly, and never bothering with sign-boards. Dl you ever hear of a bird losing its way ? " The tears glim mered in her eyes, but suddenly she held her breath for he parent had grown violently apoplectic. Be it said to his credit that Jonathan Wister seldon used profanity before his children, but it was known that h possessed a colorful talent along that line, including in hi repertoire frightful words of heathen flavor, reminiscen of Kearney Street, San Francisco, that Rialto of adventur ers where in early days he had consorted with the me: who made up his shipping crews. The occasion tore dow: the ramparts of reserve and language sluiced through, sue! language as, outside piratical fiction, Joan had never hearc It set her trembling and thrilling to the depths of her being She was in wholesome awe of her father! Oh, it wa splendid to hear him swear! Then all at once he lost momentum. He saw her, scare more than a child, standing like a slave before an emperoi and it occurred to him that she was his to dispose oi Gradually the purple subsided from his face, leaving i mottled and melancholy. " You will return to school to-morrow. You will bear letter from me in which I shall vouch for your future con formity to the general rule. When I was a youngster th only schooling I had was out of a few old primers an histories in the ranch-house attic, yessir, an' I'd work ove 'em at night, propping my eyes open with my fingers b the Lord an* now that you, with every advantage " A RECKONING AND A RELEASE 53 He choked asthmatically. Joan assumed an expression of superhuman meekness, for the story of his deprivations and industry was painfully familiar, and she hoped he was not about to repeat it. When the second crisis was averted she pronounced sweetly, " Even without education you did wonderful things, didn't you, Father ? " Then, as he was not to be corrupted by flattery, "Anyway, don't you think a boarding-school education is rather superficial ? " He did not deign a reply. Sammy, his negro attendant, slipping into the room on some mission, peeled the sympa- thetic white of one eye at Joan, and received in return the brave pathos of, " I-who-am-about-to-die-salute-you " During the interview she had made up her mind that she would perish before she crept back, a miserable recreant, to the stiff-backed ladies who had denounced her. No, she would be the world's child, flitting hither and yon, and only sipping of such knowledge as was delicious. This voice " as bad as conscience " was singing in her ears. Al- though neither of them suspected it, she was essentially her father's daughter at that moment. " I am so sorry, sir, that I cannot obey you." She spoke as one who, through no fault of his, becomes the .mouth- piece of ill tidings. The brown head simulated modesty, but those bright bird-eyes seemed saying, " ' You are old, Father William/ and you must fall before my pretty weapons." " Oh-ho, I might have you taken there bodily," he wheezed, fingers tapping his chair-arms again, like tiny drums and tom-toms to orchestrate his displeasure. " But I could always cry out and that would create such a scandal," she returned politely. " Or I could keep you here on a starvation diet till you gave in." 54 BLIND WISDOM "You mean 'caved in.' Oh, you'd never, never be sc cruel." He threw himself back with a sardonic laugh. " Egad, there's no scaring you ! But I don'f know wher< you take your ideas from. They ain't mine, nor your mother's. The Morrows worship their ancestors like the Chinese. She'll be mad as a hornet when she gets wind of this, and want to whisk you back like lightnin'." A grimly malevolent idea quivered along his ironic mouth the light of whimsey dawned in his eyes. Jenny would in- sist upon Joan's return, but not for the reason that he in- sisted, not for any possible wisdom accruing to Joan, rathei for the social veneer. Here was a chance to show his superior authority, to hurt that arch enemy whom he loved while seeming to humor the child herself. And since h< knew no way of controlling her, he might as well do the other thing. From the time that she defeated him Jonathar began to feel a sneaking respect for his youngest daughter a personal, even an intimate interest in her development Agnes and Claire were both cut by a regular pattern, with square edges, one had fitted beside the other with compara- tive ease, but here was the odd piece with so many facets that it baffled him to place her. " Run along," he snapped laconically. " Tell youi mother your schoolma'am has called you 'a queer Dick and invited you to stay away. There must be studies yot can take at home. I warn you now, no runnin' wild ! " He growled conscientiously. There is nothing, after all so strenuous as living up to a bad reputation unless it ii trying to live down a good one. " No, indeed, sir, and thank you so much, sir, and shal I call Sammy?" She backed discreetly away, but once outside the lugubri ous room she ran, she skipped, and she turned cart-wheeli A RECKONING AND A RELEASE 55 with sublime insanity. It meant putting her hair on her head, occasionally having a breakfast tray like Claire, and being altogether a person of consequence. And no Miss Bangs or Miss Noyes to frost-nip her inspirations. Only Madame of tender indulgence she would miss, and that night she wrote her a letter of imposing finality. "Adieu, chere Madame," it concluded, " je ne retournerai jamais." CHAPTER V LISHABY THROUGH the vernal maze of her garden Joan's step wa sprightly. She was en route to visit old Lishaby, and stil young enough to account such visits adventurous. " Lish aby," a lisping substitute evolved by the infant Wisters fo the more arbitrary "Elizabeth," lived in a weathered cot tage that rose from foaming lilacs and spicy moss pinks 01 the hillside above the gardens. There was something ac cidental, almost spontaneous in the position of the ram shackle dwelling, as though it had wandered dementedl; along the ridge to find the most dare-devil position for itself It tilted like a gossip toward the intimate domesticity below and its series of crazy terraces, relying upon the suppor of field stones, ran all ways save parallel. But in spring the hillside formed a background of great loveliness clothed as it was in delicate green, the white of dog-woo( and the flush of wild cherry, while, winsome as a bride': bouquet, the shad-blow shook out its feather fineness. In midsummer Lishaby's garden, planted on one of thi precarious terraces, was rank with sweet-william and rose mary, slumberous poppies, Johnny-jump-up, and bachelor'; buttons, veering from blue to pink like an irregularity o rhyme. When Lishaby arranged a bouquet it was of be wildering variety, but invariably held a rose-leaf geraniun or a sprig of lemon verbena as the piece de resistance. Even in autumn the cottage gathered to itself a racie: LISHABY 57 tang of ripeness than its environs could boast. The pump- kins were jolly fat men toasting in the sun, the apples like red cheeks pressed to each window-pane, and the tall sun- flowers stalking about the house looked down upon a chance climber with brown, detached eyes. As she ascended the stony pathway Joan recalled pen- sively the days when old Lishaby had reigned at the big house, first as nurse, then as cook, and finally in a fascinat- ing, undefined capacity that left her free as court jester to them all. And such entertainment as she provided! Hav- ing reared sixteen children and found husbands and wives for them, she would remark that she was at last " free as the air." Certainly she had suffered no diminution of spirits from the years of servitude. A great, ungainly woman, with rough, exuberant ways, she never allowed the household to be dull. One of the many institutions she had inaugurated was the yearly visit of the organ-grinder, who came in spring as surely as did the dandelions, and stayed an entire day, his battered instrument on his back, with a monkey perching, anxious-eyed, atop. From the moment that he entered the drive pandemonium broke loose. Old Lishaby ran to meet him, whooping like a Comanchee, her husband, that colossal loafer, lounged down from the hillside, neighbors peered over the fences and the day began. The maids from the house and the men from the stables thronging the back stoop turned sheepish with delight when Lishaby picked up her skirts and did a turn to the music. But all her moods were not merry. She would sit with two youngsters on her lap playing such dolorous tunes on the Jew's-harp as would have wrung tears from a stone. Her " ol' man " as she called him, made rag dolls for the little girls in the evening and Lishaby patched quilts against the nuptial day of each. 58 BLIND WISDOM It had been the resentment of her life that with the growing dignity of the Wister family she was kindly but inexorably shoved to the wall. True, she subsisted on their bounty, but, save for isolated instances, she no longer put the spice in their lives. Joan was the one who remained closest now to Lishaby, most intimate with her supersti- tions, her devilment, her "spells and charms." All three girls had obtained perspective on her as the wild, un- tutored creature she was, but no doubt Joan recognized in her that touch of the fantastic and faery akin to her own nature. Then, too, she knew days of holding tenaciously to her childhood, and finding Lishaby the only existing link between. She made the last ascent with a bound and hopped over Lishaby's threshold like a pixie. Lishaby was making doughnuts in hot grease and the pungency of them mingled with the heavy fragrance of the lilacs that billowed in through the open door. " Land alive," she exclaimed, her eyes dancing in un- feigned delight at the visit, "but you give me the jumps! A body never knows when you'll pop in an' scare 'em out o' daylights. How be your Ma ? Lookin' to marry off you an' Claire now, I bet my life. Humph ! " She always made a point of disparaging the Wister family to its members, though she would willingly have died for any one of them. Joan came to the stove, smacked her lips, and they hung over the kettle like high priestesses. The doughnuts, of course, were for her consumption. "'Pears like you're plumb starved out for respectable food," Lishaby commiserated. "Your Ma was pretty smart when she got a city cook so's all Crannsford could know she had one. But I guess no one ain't never cooked you the dishes I useter git up, afore nor after. Had any Jerusalem puddin' since she come ? " Joan shook her head and Lishaby's spirits soared. LISHABY 59 " Course you ain't, 'cuz I inventioned it ! Nor you ain't had mock-duck, nor lob-skow, nor apple slump, nothin' fit to eat." " You're right, we haven't had those old-fashioned things/' said Joan mischievously, " but we've had Waldorf salad, an' turtle soup, an' an' " " Truck," screamed Lishaby loudly. Then, in a milder tone, " How's your Pa ? Up on his hind legs 'bout your schoolin' ? If he ain't the beatenest man all the time sour as vinegar at life in general." " I wonder," mused Joan, " what ever made him so ? " Lishaby looked at her hard. If the children did not know, it was none of her business to tell him. But, " I'll tell you what started him actin' like a bear," she volunteered, dropping the dough into the grease and wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. " Along 'bout the first of him ailin* with his legs he got riled up at Doc Fre- mont. The Doc had come till he'd wore a path most to the door. He had whiskers like Father Time, an' he carried a bag o' calomel an' some little p'ison pills he give your Pa, an' allus, jest as he was leavin' he'd say, smooth an' hope- ful-like, ' Continoo with the pellets ! ' But there come a time when he said it once too many. That day your Pa began to bile, an' he up an' hove his slipper at him. It hit Doc Fremont plumb in the small o' his back." Her body underwent violent commotion, in imitation of one meeting with such an indignity, and the doughnut poised on her fork shied across the kitchen and hit the cat. Thence, rubbing the base of her spine with a greasy hand, rolling her eyes and lifting her skirts over her comedy feet, she made a killing exit. Joan shrieked with delight. " That," resumed Lishaby complacently, " was the start- off. He seen right away what a smart thing he'd done. 'Fore night everybody in Crannsford had heerd on't an f 60 BLIND WISDOM was callin' your Pa a terror. An' 'peared to me he enj'yed it so much he kept right on." Later they sat on the sunny step with a large cracked cup between them and Lishaby told Joan's fortune in the tea leaves. A hen walked over the old woman's lap with- out disturbing her pose of a prophetess. Just how much credence Joan, with her keen little mind, placed on the proceeding is open to conjecture, but it was a delectable game of which she never tired. In the cup were, very plausibly, " two gentlemen," one with encumbrances and one without; and both would figure in her fate. Last of all, " Look at your Pa there," she exclaimed so sharply that Joan started. " Not here, child, in the cup. If that ain't St. Peter at his elbow, I'll eat my hat," and notwithstand- ing the child's look of horror she went on with her grim joke. " You tell him for me it's time he quit sassin' the world an' got sweet-humored for the next." Her interest died as abruptly as it had begun. " Here you, Columbus," she called and waved her hand to her "0!' man," who was trudging up the hill with a wheel- barrow. Invariably he was seen in conjunction with one, and it was invariably empty, but he was somehow under the impression that it earned him a reputation for industry. As he came he sang tunefully : " You may talk of your riches of Venus an' Mars, Of sunlight, an' moonlight, an' daylight, an' stars " For as long as she could remember Joan had heard that much of his song and no more. Lishaby's " ol' man " was a happy, shiftless soul that age despaired of marking. As there was presumably little gray matter in his head, his hair had never turned gray, but remained a jaundiced yel- low. People said in Crannsford that nothing in life had for long disturbed his equanimity. LISHABY 61 Now as he approached he favored Joan with a wink, for he was fond of appearing henpecked. " When she calls me ' Columbus ' I know she wants I should fetch the cow," he explained, jerking a thumb toward the wife of his bosom, who hulked like a great sibyl on the doorstep. " ' Ol' man ' means she's a hoppin' 'bout somethin' I ain't done, an' ' Columbie ' means feed the chickens. I don't haf to ask," and he went grumbling to the rear of the house. Joan romped home through the gardens, stimulated as always by a visit to Lishaby's. And just as she had pre- viously met a man of tea-leaves, so she now met one in the flesh. It was Jerry Callendar, bearing a book, a box of bonbons and an expectant smile. " Oh, how do you do," stammered Joan, taking the hand he proffered. " I didn't suppose you'd remember to come again. I'll call Mother, I'll tell Claire, I'll " It seemed thoroughly improbable that Thirty could be interested in the conversation of Seventeen. " Thanks," he acknowledged drily, " but must you ? " CHAPTER VI A FLOWERING FRIENDSHIP THAT whimsical query of Jerry's had put Joan, as the French say, against the wall. And while she was ponder- ing the polite thing to do Thirty and Seventeen drifted resistlessly up and down the garden path in the mellow late afternoon. She was surprised to find how easily con- versation flowered between them ; even friendship became a mushroom growth before one could say " Jack Robinson." But, being too young for feminine wiles, her impressions of him were only vaguely favorable. He was of medium height and well assembled, and there was something care- lessly right in the set of his blue clothes. In contrast to his red-brown face his negligee collar made a note of white. An older woman could have told her that his dark hair held a boyish crispness very appealing to women, that his eyes were fine and his mouth tender. But Joan sensed only that he was an entirely new type of grown-up and one might readily acquire a taste for him. " I suppose you know," he was saying very gaily, " that your shining virtue the time of the wedding made the rest of us appear black by contrast." " You mean Lily ? " She shot an interrogative glance, half inclined to believe that he was ragging her. " Oh, how can you say that, when I made a muddle of the whole thing? It was you who came to the rescue. How is Lily Gray?" She was told that Lily was one of four stenographers in A FLOWERING FRIENDSHIP 63 their law offices, and that he was keeping a fatherly eye upon her. " But there's really nothing so difficult to father as a stenographer," he added with a gleam, " if you don't wish to be suspected of amorous intent." " I'm glad you're looking after her," smiled Joan, catch- ing the gleam, " but honestly I can't let you think I'm good. You wouldn't, if you knew what a dreadful thing I have just done." " Tell me. I'm used to dreadful things. If it wasn't for people doing them how should we lawyers ever turn an honest dollar? Perhaps you'd like some professional ad- vice." And with mock gravity he rummaged for a card. He had the whimsical face and manner that invite con- fidences. Also, Joan thought, he was like a conjurer with a brand new bag of tricks, and she was beginning to enjoy herself very much. " I've gotten myself expelled from school," she an- nounced ruefully, " ' nor all the king's horses nor all the king's men ' " " Could reinstate Joan in the class-room again," he nimbly completed the rhyme. " Exactly," she nodded with an incipient dimple. " Now what do you think of me ? " His eyes were warm with raillery, and from them a line of tiny wrinkles awoke like parentheses down his cheek. " I think that you are an entirely natural young person with a probable taste for chocolates, and that you had better delve into this highly decorated box at once.'" " But, seriously," she begged, " don't you disapprove of such behavior ? " His smile held steady. " You haven't told me your heinous offence." 64 BLIND WISDOM She told him as she had told her father, holding the while in abeyance a candied cherry no brighter than her lips. Jerry Callendar, aware of that tempting harmony of color, found it difficult to follow the thread of her discourse, till, with an interlude of thought, she popped the distracting cherry into her mouth. Then each regarded the other soberly. " What you have said," he mused, " opens up an in- teresting field of thought. And I like that phrase of yours, ' predigested education.' You'd be surprised if you knew how many of our colleges' greatest men got themselves expelled. Awf'ly inconsiderate of them, making it so awkward for their alma mater to claim them in after years. Hmm, Ibsen swore that the minority is always right, though I'd perhaps modify that." And after a moment he added gently, " The world will be your school now, little Joan, and you must welcome any experience it brings you, even the painful kind " He reached above him for a flowering branch and made a little ceremony of shaking the petals over her head. " Because ' from your great sorrows you will make your little songs.' " " That's pretty," she sighed dreamily, " that's like poetry," and was unaware that she herself at that moment presented a figure of fantasy, for the setting sun made luminous the blue of her frock, turned the flowers on her hair to a sprinkling of light, and showed how young and touchingly untouched her face still was. " Only a poet could have said it," returned Jerry, whose aesthetic sense delighted in her, " a certain musician named Robert Franz." " Oh," she cried quickly, " I've always loved experi- ence. Once when I was small I fell out of the swing and broke my arm, so they had to take me to the hospital A FLOWERING FRIENDSHIP 65 And after the doctor had set it he asked me, ' How do you feel now ? ' and I told him I felt like the luckiest little girl in the world, first to ride in an ambulance and then to be in the hospital." They laughed in gay chorus and their laughter rose al- most visibly on the still air, till it was lost in the fogging trees above. " A healthy point of view," declared Jerry stoutly. " It isn't what happens to men and women and children that counts; it's the way they react. That's what I'm trying to demonstrate in my plays; throw your characters against a situation and watch their individual developments. What destroys one may make another, that sort of thing. But it's hard not to write at the top of your lungs ! " " Plays ? Do you write plays ? I never knew." " No ? " He made a little gesture of seeking permission and lighted a cigarette. " Now, that's strange, seeing I'm as discreet about it as a burglar. But it's my real occupa- tion I might say preoccupation, while plugging away in stuffy offices for a living is the necessary evil. Some golden day I fancy I shall close my desk and go sprawl in the sun forever and continue to write plays." "And when they're done?", quizzed Joan curiously. He blew fascinating rings and watched her through the haze. " When one is finished I place it tenderly in a big trunk, uncover my head respectfully and murmur, ' Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.' Then I turn the key and start another." One needed to watch very closely to gauge his gravity: that was the odd fascination of Jerry Callendar. But at length she hazarded a surmise. " You're waiting till one is perfect before you have it produced." "Am I? Well, perhaps you're right. And at present 66 BLIND WISDOM I'm engaged in writing the third act of a particularly im- perfect one, and I've just left it at the word ' and.' And in all the English language," he assured her, " no word is so difficult to go on from as ' and.' I dare say it's like getting married, almost anything may come after " Then he broke off abruptly, feeling her innocent eyes fixed upon him. One could not show cynicism to a child like that, whose mind was a nest of eager birdling thoughts ready to fly in any direction. He was thinking problematically of the marriage of Agnes and Godfrey, which was, of course, the last thing in the world he could have discussed with her. " Love," she soliloquized with a puckered brow, " must be thrilling. Marriage I don't know. I've never thought much about it, at least I am just beginning to think about it. In all the books love sounds so upsetting, but marriage, I suppose, is just being comfortable and ordering meals and getting the children to Sunday School:" "Just that, I dare say," agreed the highly edified Jerry, " unless marriage and love should go hand in hand, and I can't tell you whether that actually ever " But again he broke off conscientiously. " Don't you believe that it does ? " she tripped him up like lightning, and recognized his discomfort. " It's best to believe it," he hastened to be wholesome. " I believe it just to be on the safe side in case it's true, half ideal, half superstition, like looking at the moon over your right shoulder." "And if I fall in love," she pursued, convinced that at last she had reached the fount of all wisdom, " how shall I know it for certain? Shall I feel squeamish?" " With infatuation most assuredly, loss of appetite, loss of sleep, delusions and unbalance. But if I were you and ever found myself with those symptoms, little Joan, I'd test them by thorough logic. I'd ask myself the three questions, A FLOWERING FRIENDSHIP 67 * Do I admire his mind ? Is he physically attractive to me ? Are we comrades ? ' And if the answer to them all were 'yes' I'd be reasonably sure I had stumbled upon the big thing." So engrossed were they both in bright speculation that neither had noticed twilight was deepening and keeping pace with them on the garden path like a woman in dark gar- ments. " I'd like to ask an awfully impertinent question," she stammered under cover of it. " Were you that is, have you ever ?" " Ever experienced the sensation ? " He .smoked hu- morously, emanating a faint fragrance of tobacco and tweed that ever afterward characterized him to Joan. " Once," he confided, " at the mature age of sixteen I worshipped at the shrine of a goddess next door. She was wholly un- known to me, and at least a dozen years my senior, but my imagination made her wear an aura of enchantment. I had a long siege of puppy love-sickness during which I flunked my exams and tried to raise a mustache. And finally I composed a love declaration in the style of Sir Walter Scott, which I determined to present in person. But while I was climbing her steps like the stairway to heaven the beauteous one herself emerged." He coughed drily at the recollection. " She was holding by the hand a very tangible offspring which in my devotion I had somehow overlooked, and escorted by a plump gentleman with pink whiskers, who promptly bawled out, ' What's wanted, my lad? ' " Joan wailed sympathetically, and besought an anti-climax. " Oh," admitted Jerry dubiously, " as the slang goes, ' my game was gummed.' I burned the love ballad at once and took to sulking in the dog kennel under the impression that I would become a monk." 68 BLIND WISDOM Through the intimate dusk came Mrs. Wister's clarion voice, summoning them in. " Is that Mr. Callendar with you? You'll both be taking cold." Possibly she remembered the Blunts' indictment of him as an irresponsible. So thought Jerry as he and Joan came marching obediently through the entrancing but treacherous evening mist to that arbitrary square of light, the open door. As they neared it he felt himself stiffening and aging and deliberately assuming the demeanor his hostess would ex- pect him to wear. He had left his office that day, sick for a taste of life still limpid and refreshing, unpolluted by ordi- nary standards, and at the psychological moment his memory had given him Joan, that engaging little black sheep out in Crannsford. Because she had no idea that she was doing it, he had ingenuously allowed himself to be charmed. This child would bear cultivation. He wanted to sow in her mind the most carefully selected seeds of culture, and in later years pluck, like any delighted gardener, the high-bred blooms. He was stirred by the great impulse, both selfish and altruistic. But as they entered the house to greet her mother, it came upon him as a decided shock that her skirts were above her shoe-tops, and she was marshalled up-stairs to dress for dinner as though she were still a fledgling of the nursery. All during dinner Jerry remained a melancholy thirty. CHAPTER VII CONCERNING CLAIRE " I COULD not ask for a more complete life," Agnes Blunt wrote her mother in the second year of her marriage. " Godfrey is all that a husband shall be. He tries con- scientiously to please both his family and me, and is spoken of as one of the coming young lawyers. It is a pity he should be frequently called out of town, and although I am perfectly willing to accompany him and minister to his comfort in any way I can, the dear boy insists that I remain, fearing that the little journeys may overtax me. " In our own home we entertain a very few of Godfrey's friends (he being properly guarded in whom he invites to share our hearth-side). Mr. Callendar, or 'Jerry/ as I now think it fitting to call him, is a frequent visitor, and though I confess I deplore in him at times a certain levity, he is with- out doubt a man of cultivation and devoted to Godfrey. He (Jerry) tells me that he calls upon you regularly now, so no doubt you will be interested in his antecedents. His father is a rather famous criminal lawyer, a dignified and somewhat forbidding person with an old-fashioned house in Washington Square. It seems that Mrs. Callendar, now dead, was a pretty and emotional woman, and that Judge Callendar, scenting a tincture of her sweetness in Jerry, determined to nip in the bud any impractical tendencies and has consistently kept him to the grindstone since he was a lad. I see no reason at all to discourage his (Jerry's) friendly attentions, unless he is seriously interested in Claire, 70 BLIND WISDOM when it might be well to inform you that he is not known as ' a marrying man.' So wrong-minded and selfish, I always think ! Every man should marry, should he not, Mama, and become a good husband, a good father and a good citizen. " Many thanks for all the little knitted things you sent. I have the bassinet nearly complete. . . . Godfrey seems quite in awe of the coming event." Mrs. Wister folded the page and wiped her eyes, while Claire and Joan, looking unutterably impish, kept demure silence. The whole tenor of the letter was one which made them chafe, Agnes' sobriety always seeming like a reflection upon their own healthy waywardness. Yet it occurred to none of them to read between the lines. " Dear Agnes," murmured Mrs. Wister complacently, "and dear Godfrey! How well it is all turning out. I hope," sentimentally, " that it will be a boy. Claire, dear, I wish that you " " Oh, I know, Mother," cried Claire impatiently, spring- ing up and powdering her nose with great energy, " that you are about to wish me married to some one as nice as God- frey, with my hash all settled. Don't please, it's like wish- ing my young life away. I want" she sighed vapor- ously, " romance, thrills, adventure color ! " Her voice rose upon each word, so that her mother and Joan paid her the tribute of open-mouthed amazement. "You must not speak so flippantly of Agnes' marriage, darling," protested Mrs. Wister, by whom it had been con- ceived and executed, " I only wish " but seeing Claire on the verge of more hysteria she held her peace. Within her prescribed circle of vision Jenny Wister lived for her children, loving them as a fanatic does his god. Upon them she had lavished her all, the great stores of affection that would have been bound to atrophy had they not found this outlet. Her children alone glimpsed the CONCERNING CLAIRE 71 angel in her, the selfless, anxious and intimate watcher hidden behind a barrier of reserve. Outsiders saw only the ambitious woman, focusing upon her own aggrandizement, noted her disregard of others, her social cruelties, admired and feared her as a snob. There were none perhaps in that average community to perceive the mere mechanism of her pride. She was the uncomplaining patrician, duty the heavy crown on her head, and tradition the sceptre in her hand. When her children came into the world delicately fash- ioned, seeming of her own ancestral fibre rather than Jonathan's, her lonely heart of pain gave thanks. " They are mine, all mine," she had thought tenaciously. " I shall live in and for them and each shall be a masterpiece." But, with the inconsistency of woman, she had plotted for each a future as devoid of red corpuscles as had been her own past life, a future arranged with exquisite orderliness, for Mrs. Wister was nothing if not systematic. Long ago driven to frenzied activity by her spiritual loneliness, she had developed a fetish for management. Her housekeeping was admirable and the very luxuries which she gave her children were sagaciously chosen, always the fine and valuable things that would last. Her miniature face with its proud perfection, that had inspired many a sonnet when sonnets were in vogue, was now delicately despoiled. One cannot assume responsibility for so large an order as desti- nies and so minute a one as collar buttons without physical cost. No sooner was Agnes safely accounted for than there had arisen the problem of Joan. After the episode of Lily Gray and Joan's expulsion from school Mrs. Wister had been greatly troubled and felt that steps should be taken to get to the source of the trouble, and have, so to speak, the child's originality removed. To her mind had appeared the chimera of a certain great aunt, admittedly odd throughout 72 BLIND WISDOM her life, and who, as a culminating bit of eccentricity had placed her grandchild in a dripping pan, sprinkled it with cloves and rosemary, and was about to slide it into the oven when a timely interruption occurred. She decided in a flutter of apprehension that she would take Joan to some great doctor specializing in, not insanity exactly, but dis- orders-of-the-nerves. But, once in the sanctum of the great physician, she found it awkward to propound her fears, and Joan, in a perfect delight at the appurtenances of the office, gave no symptoms of mental deficiency. Rather she smiled back winningly at the doctor's questions, and his eyes lost their professional glaze for a human twinkle. However, he thrust a needle through her ear, went through the test of the patella and other reflexes, examined her eyes, and, smiling oddly to himself, asked her all sorts of questions with a view to discovering if she held any delusions. She answered them quickly and clearly, and when they rose to go she said in an apologetic fashion, " Thank you, Doctor, for trying to find out, but I'm afraid there's nothing the matter with me." The doctor's face slipped from his control, but when he had adjusted his professional gravity he tactfully delayed her mother. " I think I understand the cause of your uneasiness. It is because your daughter is so exceptionally normal that she is in a rather limited class. Most of us are not, you know, and when we come across one who is we are immediately aware of the anomaly. Yes, twenty-five. Thanks. Good- afternoon." Ten months had intervened, but it seemed that hardly had Mrs. Wister tasted relief on that score when she was called upon to wrestle with the problem of Claire, a most subtle and difficult one. Claire had matured over night, as it were, CONCERNING CLAIRE 73 had sprung quivering into womanhood. Claire was vital, she possessed a will and a way, such exuberance of health and spirits as would have been considered scarcely nice in the mid- Victorian era. Jenny Wister had sometimes thought (though she brushed the cobweb from her) that Claire was a throw-back to the hardy Wisters of the west. She had even imagined, a yet more repellent suspicion, that if thrown upon her own resources Claire might make a vulgarly successful living. And if such were the truth, to what avail had been her years of careful nurturing? At this stage of family history Claire had developed a taste for spectacular clothes and an alarming appetite for fiction and bon-bons. True, these indoor tendencies were balanced by her outdoor ones ; she was a hard rider and a good walker, but her mother felt that there is moderation in all things, and that Claire, in the phrase of Crannsford, " was getting on too fast." When she walked abroad in her brilliant, modish attire, followed by a sinuous Great Dane, heads were turned to gaze after her. It was known that in Jenny Wister's family conventional conduct was as instinc- tive as good manners, but the fact could not militate against the feeling that Claire was too exotic for a climate where cold prevails eight months of the year. From the first she was " a man's woman " and a belle wherever she went. She liked her young men tailor-made, with square, resolute chins and characters to match. Her suitors were so numerous they wore a track into the lesser drawing-room, termed by Joan " the beau room " since Claire had claimed it as her salon. Quarts, nay, gallons of cold refreshment in summer and warm refreshment in winter were consumed by these tireless Lotharios, and legion were the cigarette stubs cleared away by the protest- ing Ellen after a siege of suitors had convened. There was always the drumming of popular airs on the piano, the 74 BLIND WISDOM tinkle of a mandolin and the incessant accompaniment of laughter, for rarely did they come singly. Claire, for all her coquetry, permitted no monopolies. Joan, still boyishly spare and unawakened, was diverted by the spectacle of Claire entertaining. There was. an un- written law in Crannsford that the oldest unmarried girl in the family should enjoy full sway while her lilac-time lasted; and thus it sometimes happened that the next in line was obliged to stretch her youth indefinitely. But Joan suffered no sense of deprivation; she lived keenly each innocent phase of life as it was offered her, from dancing class to parties where she boxed with gusto the ears of the youth who tried to kiss her playing " post-office." Meanwhile the weeks came and went and Claire was no nearer a choice. She talked prophetically to Joan of one who would come from the unknown to claim her, his cre- dentials in his eyes, and in each word he spoke the high mark of identification. She babbled as do all girls of twenty, nourished on romance, but with the difference that deep in her heart lay a real and uncorrupted faith. Mrs. Wister, dismayed by such undercurrents in Claire and her lack of progress in selecting a suitable mate, decided to entertain. When in doubt she always gave a tea. It showed at least that her head was above water and she was clothed in her right mind. There is nothing in the world so indicative of a deliberate mood. Joan was still a sub- debutante, a minor quantity, but she had reached that posi- tion of " almost " when it was conceded in Crannsford she might be admitted to the background of the occasion. For some time she had been slyly coiling her hair on her head, but that day it was carefully brushed in long curling tendrils down her back and tied with butterfly bows. She was attired in a rather short and entirely ingenuous white frock and admonished not to put herself forward. But the warning CONCERNING CLAIRE 75 was unnecessary Joan was never forward, neither was she retiring, but quite simply herself and altogether natural. Claire was resplendent, but with the restless eye, and the passionate indifference of one who has been put through her paces too often. She wore a pale mauve gown, with a crushed girdle of mauve and blue, and the orchids of her corsage bouquet supplied the word between the two tones. Her hair seemed unusually auburn, and each clear cut feature accentuated in a proud sadness. No doubt she felt that day the first trace of weariness she who had waited for her prince so long! Joan had lucklessly won the favor of a red-haired pro- fessor of scales and freckles, known among his pupils as " Botany Bill," and this gentleman was explaining to her once and for all the difference between a huckleberry and a blueberry when the general wave of excitement touched them. " That young man standing with Sadie Cornwall is an actor," vouchsafed a voice near by. " He's her nephew. Isn't he handsome?" Immediately Joan's attention was distracted and huckleberries were relegated to the limbo of things forgotten. The stranger had become the cynosure of eyes, unconsciously providing the spark which lit the whole occasion. Thereafter they wooed him near to and from afar ; the conversation took on histrionic flavor. Wits were sharpened an<^ intellects pruned ; it became tacitly a point of pride that he should find Crannsford au courant with the best thought of the day concerning the drama. Middle- aged women with beautiful, austere faces asked him such questions as, " Have moving pictures overshadowed the stage ? " and " What is your attitude toward Mr. Belasco's realism?" He was a comely giant of unquestionable attraction, but he was really much younger and more innocent than he 76 BLIND WISDOM appeared. Now and then his obstreperous youth would get under foot and trip him up. He had constantly to be on guard against it. And while he was besieged by the flutter- ing women and toying rather helplessly with a teacup and a sandwich Claire held her distance. She made conversa- tion with a suavity remarkable considering it was purely mechanical, and her greenish-gold eyes, set in a pale face, never wavered from the eyes of the young actor. There was nothing bold in that gaze ; it was as limpid as water, as clear and direct as dawn. And from his attitude it was apparent that the attraction was mutual. He too talked with more or less intelligence, and dutifully ate the little jig^sawed sandwiches which he seemed to find ever beneath his eyes. Then, without perceptible consciousness, he drifted to- ward her, for they had, of course, met at the time of his entry into the house. He spoke to Claire with exaggerated formality, and she answered as stiffly and concisely, but the most commonplace of their remarks was freighted with significance, until, no one knew quite how, they had drifted from the room into a little glass-enclosed conservatory where Mrs. Wister kept her plants in winter. Here were a couple of fat canaries and some geraniums in bloom, slim sug- gestions of Spring, yet sufficient to set them vibrating. And all the time there was the feeling that Fate had lightly taken them up and would drop them as lightly if they did not hurry. Words crowded to be spoken. She learned that his name was Ridgely Rutherford, and he that hers was Claire Wister. " Claire," he mused, touching the name with a thrilling but respectful intimacy, " that's like you, vivid and clear." And Claire, looking more beautiful and spiritual than she had ever looked in her life, took up the name " Ridgely.'' " How strong it sounds. Is it your very own? " CONCERNING CLAIRE 77 The next thing they knew the guests were leaving, and Mrs. Wister was recalling her to her duties as hostess. Later, in an aftermath of general discussion, Joan disclosed some fell information. " Mrs. Cornwall was telling me that her nephew, the actor, has a leading part in a new play they're taking on tour. He's leaving to-night, and she says she doesn't expect to see him again for ages." Whereupon Claire said a strange and irrelevant thing: she said that she did not think she would ever marry. CHAPTER VIII INCONVENIENT ORIGINALITY CONTRARY to fond expectation, Agnes' baby came into the world a girl. At the news Mr. Wister, who had derived pleasure from the hope of a lusty grandson, a potential founder of freight lines, ensconced himself behind his wall of disappointment and for a week remained unapproachable. Mrs. Wister and Claire were inclined to think a little girl a dainty adjunct to the family, but Joan agreed with her father. " She'll be a consumer, not a producer, and she can never go adventuring," she regretted the limitations of the small life, and her father, for once, finding the thing adequately said, nodded like a Mandarin. Nevertheless, Joan was wild to see the baby. She rum- maged among trunks for relics of her own babyhood and held the little garments in her hands and kissed the tiny shoes, feeling them to be not her own nor any other child's exclusively, but the symbol of all infancy. " I shall marry a man who loves 'em," she wrote naively to Jerry, " and I shall ask him beforehand to let me have eleven or twelve." And it is hardly to be doubted that Jerry's mirth welled over. " I have seen her," he wrote back in his usual whimsical fashion, " the heiress of the house of Blunt ! She enjoys ten fingers and toes, each with the usual equipment of nails, and has a high pink forehead that only ends at the base of INCONVENIENT ORIGINALITY 79 her neck. And her air of casual boredom would seem to indicate that she is as wise as the ages while it is we who are floundering in pursuit of our wits." Although perhaps neither of them understood what was happening at that period, it was Jerry Callendar who molded the plastic clay of Joan's life. All his teachings were tacit, and if they were far from being priggish they were equally far from being precarious. His biggest text was from Kipling, "Walk with crowds and keep your virtue, and walk with kings nor lose the common touch . . ." and next to that, Walt Whitman's, " Rest not till you rivet and pub- lish yourself of your own personality. . . ." And of these two precepts, if no others, he practised as well as preached. With all his fineness none could accuse Jerry of lacking " the common touch." He despised charity in the accepted sense, " soothing-sirup to the poor," but he was always getting at the root of some evil and pulling it out. Rubbing elbows with humanity as he did in his profession, he had gained an insight into motives that, with his natural tolerance and love of people, formed a combination danger- ous in a lawyer whose shell should be hard. " Look deep into character," he would tell his young protegee, " see the soul before you see the outer trappings, and never condemn one for a lack of taste. It sets the teeth on edge, I know, but we can't all cultivate the aesthetic sense." Hardly a week passed that he did not send her something, if only a sentence to stimulate thought, and Joan's family took little heed of the friendship, dismissing him as " harm- less." Joan gave color to Jerry's lonely life, and her affec- tion for him was frank and free. Gradually his propa- ganda of truth and fearlessness was being crystallized in her to definite opinion and utterance, the rare garden that Jerry had anticipated was beginning to flower. She became im- 8o BLIND WISDOM mensely analytical; the accepted word about anything was not good enough for her. And yet she went her ordered ways with only an occasional revealment. " I wonder why we never got acquainted with Father," was the high explosive she dropped casually at the feet of her mother and Claire, and then perceived that she had unsealed a sore spot in their lives and questioned the kind- ness of keeping it sore when with a little courage it might be made to heal openly. She deplored with Jerry the con- spiracy for making life obscure. And again she electrified them by the calm declaration that she would never emerge socially in Crannsford or any other place. " To be advertised as marriageable. I'd die of mortifica- tion. And after a few seasons of being appraised and handled, then to be seen still walking the world like a corpse that can't get itself buried, till, in sheer shame, any young man with no chin will do and then oh, worst of all, a lot of children with no chins." " I can't imagine," groaned Mrs. Wister, " who puts such ideas in your head, unless it's Jerry. I shall certainly look into it," whereupon Joan naughtily misconstrued her mean- ing with, " Oh, but you can't look into my head. That's the lovely part of heads, they have no doors nor windows." But for all her advancement she could not escape the usual curriculum of young life. She did the obvious things that girls of her age were doing, with the difference that she saw the action from all sides. The missionary spirit flour- ished in Crannsford and Crannsford was in personal touch with China, for had she not given some dozen of her sons and daughters to the enlightenment of the yellow race? Each week the young girls, under the tutelage of older and wiser spirits, met to sew for the small Manchurians, and Joan was a regular attendant, pricking her fingers with the 'INCONVENIENT ORIGINALITY 81 best of them. She had learned to goad red and white checked gingham into garments of uncompromising cut and to adorn them with china buttons the size of a man's watch. And one day she conceived a hatred of red and white gingham that swept over her like a tidal wave. Suddenly she was on her feet in the littered circle, her head thrown back and a mysticism upon her that precluded fear. " Why," she demanded rather oratorically, " just because they're ' pagans suckled in a creed outworn/ should they be made to wear these? There's nothing in the Bible that makes red gingham seem an emblem of Christianity, and yet we keep on foisting the same thing upon them." And, sensing their antagonism, she laughed hysterically, knowing herself lost and not caring. She jerked aloft the unpropi- tious garment. " Let's give them pretty things or nothing at all. Look at this. It inspires only loathing. I hate to think how I'd feel in my soul if I had to wear it." Whereupon she dropped limply and, to use Claire's ex- pression, " stayed down." But her protest was fluid and everywhere it spread it was condemned. And by nightfall a deputation waited upon her mother. " I don't wish to hurt your feelings," was the final com- ment, and no one had ever before dared so much with the haughty Mrs. Wister, " but I'm afraid your daughter is going to have ideas." " Ideas ? Oh, no, no," cried the wounded mother, " I will talk with Joan. Ideas ? Oh, never ! " This was unfortunately during the period when Joan was most closely allied with the church, pending confirmation. Again, "all the girls were doing it." But Joan sincerely loved the church proper. She delighted in the mellowed walls with their chaste proportions and the great windows of stained glass. Saint Peter, trailing cerulean robes, was the friend of her childhood, and the Mary Mother eloquent 82 BLIND WISDOM of sympathy when the sermons were long. But most of all she loved the gentle Jesus, walking with simplicity beneath the silvery gray olive trees, and carrying a lamb in His arms. Even as a child her eyes would film with tears at the thought of His unconscious serenity beneath the shadow of crucifixion. The passionate urge would come upon her to atone to Him for that ancient crime. Now her affection embraced the subtler appurtenances, the altar with its embroidered cloth, the slim gold candle- sticks with their aspiring flames, and the full volume of sound that stole from the organ. But confirmation was a keen-edged reality and involved more " truth and fearlessness." The holy example of the Master was tangible, but the conception of a Trinity eluded her, nor was she able to embrace in its entirety either the Old Testament or the New. She did not know that her need went direct as an arrow to the essentials of faith, dis- carding the outworn creeds and dogmas. Because she could not accept the whole in the same untroubled manner of her friends, she had grave doubts of her orthodoxy. In joining the church one did not link oneself to the Saviour alone ; one wedded obscurer tenets, one took them for better or for worse and for all time. As the day approached, in a blue funk she visited her rector, an humbler clergyman than Mr. Blunt, but hardly more explicit. " I appreciate your scruples," he told her indulgently, " but I deprecate your fears. It is not necessary to be perfect in your heart nor letter-perfect in your faith of Biblical things before joining the church. That will all come to you later." "Later," she gasped. "How can I be sure?" and left him in no way comforted. Through the homey streets of Crannsford she wandered, INCONVENIENT ORIGINALITY 83 a miserable derelict, her hat pulled low over her little olive- tinted face, her eyes awake and burning like live coals. Jerry was too far away to be consulted and there remained only Lishaby, and hopelessly, mechanically, she turned to- ward that champion of childish days. It was Indian Sum- mer, but all the glory now dulled in a downpour. The sky thickly overlaid by violet-colored clouds sent down its oblique lines of rain to blur heaven and earth together, like the crayon strokes of a pastel. As Joan climbed the hill she was in both mental and physical disorder, and there was something bird-like in her ruffled plumage, her little tilted head turned from the rain. She had the woebegone counte- nance of all wild things that resent the wind and drenching. Lishaby was quilting, but she threw her pieces on the floor and welcomed the wayfarer. " Land e' Goshun, ain't you soppin ' ? You take straight off them wet things an' set to the fire, whilst I make you some camphor tea. My ol' man's gone to the cider mill." Joan, having obeyed and huddled to the open oven in just her camisole and petticoat, smiled a wan smile. "Is that quilt for my wedding, Lishaby? I wish you weren't so previous with it ! It gives me a hurried feeling like the hunting scenes in our dining-room. What kind is it?" " Where's your eyes ? " Lishaby countered good-na- turedly. " It's a risin' sun quilt, o' course. I figgered it was appropriate, 'cuz it allus seems dark till you come roun'." She chuckled at her own witticism. " Now for Agnes I made a Maltese cross, count o' her being so pious, an' Claire nigh onto stumped me till I hit on a crazy-work. Claire's like that, all over the place an' lots o' color. What's on your mind ? " " Worriments," frowned Joan promptly. " Lishaby, I'm going to be confirmed to-morrow, and I've taken out all 84 BLIND WISDOM my religion and looked it over, and I don't believe there's enough." " Enough ? " Lishaby drew sociably nearer with her scraps of calico lying kaleidoscopic about her. " What ain't you got to match up your pattern ? " When she worked it was her custom to wear a pair of store spectacles. These she adjusted on her shapeless nose just below her eyes, and peered above them with ludicrous effect. " On every scrap of religion I have," returned Joan in the same spirit, " the edges are nipped off. When I come to put it all together, you can imagine how it looks." " Uh-huh," agreed the old woman shrewdly. " It don't mitre at the joinings. Well ? " " Lishaby," went on Joan unheeding, " can you imagine a great Almighty who made the world ? " " Yes, I gis I ken. Most everybody's got some idee. As I've pictured Him so many times, He's jest as familiar to me as the fambly photos in my album. He's big, I take it, with a fan-shaped beard, an' His coat's as elegant as an under- taker's. An' don't no one take liberties with Him." Joan's little stockinged feet went dancing up and down in the open oven when she perceived that Lishaby's intention was not to be facetious. " The Son," she continued in mellow gravity, " is like His paintin's, handsome an* sweet-natured, an' favors His mother. He's all the time pleadin' with His Father to be easy on sinners. I'd take my chances with Him any time." Joan nodded brightly, for she thought this a human enough characterization. Outside the rain blew against the panes in feeble, sobbing articulations and within Lishaby's needle clicked in and out complacently. " But, Lishaby," ventured Joan carefully, covertly watch- ing her the while, " surely you know the Almighty wasn't INCONVENIENT ORIGINALITY 85 the earthly parent of Jesus. The Almighty isn't an old gentleman in a frock coat. He's space and power; He's everywhere at once. It's only now the Son is ascended into Heaven that He sits on the right hand of God." Lishaby started up in agitation and put coal on the fire with unnecessary violence. " Sense is sense," she declared stoutly. " You ask me to picture God an' then you tell me He ain't anything a body kin picture, an' if so be that's gospel true, I don't want Him keep Him, sez I. My own's good enough fer me. I'm nigh onto sixty-five year old an' I cain't change." " Oh, but Lishaby," protested Joan and could get no further. It was unthinkable that Lishaby should have lived her life with such a slap-stick conception of the Ruling Power. While Crannsford had been sending missionaries to China it had overlooked Lishaby and yet all her life the old woman had lived with a greatness of heart, and was conscious of no spiritual lack. Joan kissed her very tenderly at parting; it seemed to her for the time that she, Joan, was the elder. Upon reaching home she shut herself in her room and for the first time in her life expressed herself in verse. " I used to think when I was small God was an old man, fearsome-tall, With pious air, aloof and calm, And ten commandments under his arm. He lived in a house with a silver dome, And Sunday was his day at home. But I've discovered to my joy That God's a laughter-loving boy Like other lads till you surprise The ten commandments in his eyes, And nearly ev'ry day we meet In Broadway or in Market Street!" 86 BLIND WISDOM Having relieved herself of which effusion, she presently retired but not to sleep the sleep of the just. For hours she tossed, ruthlessly cross-examining herself, and it was not until dawn was in the sky that she fell into a fitful slumber. Even then there was slight rest, for the sun followed, a searchlight for sinners, and the day was there with which to be reckoned. Across a chair lay the white confirmation dress that had made her feel so bridal at fittings. She put it away renunciatingly. Then she dressed in old clothes and slipped out of the house before the others should waken. Her decision was made. CHAPTER IX BUND WISDOM IT was mid-afternoon when Jerry Callendar came out from town as was his custom. Save for these excursions he agreed with Mark Twain that the " rest of the week was invented to rest up from the weariness of Sunday." Mrs. Wister met him at the door with an agitated face and the news of Joan's shocking recantation. No one knew where she had been all day, and so bitter was sentiment against her that no one seemed greatly to care. Having unburdened herself, she gave Jerry the sudden, searching scrutiny of one who suspects duplicity, but Jerry returned that look openly, for he had never tampered with Joan's religion, and her decision was in no way upon his soul. He would have staked his life that once more her conscience was function- ing, and he was secretly exhilarated by her bravery, but he could not intimate that to her mother. The two spoke different languages ; they would have needed an interpreter to be together five minutes and discuss the weather. Fortunately he was by now so frequent a visitor that neither Mrs. Wister nor Claire felt it incumbent upon her to entertain him, and as he wandered moodily at large, he presently found himself in the dry leaves of the garden with his face toward the wood. The day had proven one of those rarely vivid ones that Nature puts on for her swan- song. After the rain of yesterday the sky was an inverted bowl of jade, dazzling with inter-veils of blue. The hillside 88 BLIND WISDOM languished in precious gold and copper and the whole atmosphere seemed palpitant with radiations of light. In and out across the uneven slope ran the amethyst shadows of the trees and now and then the bright thread of a birch gleamed upward beneath its canopy of leaves. As Jerry climbed he reacted to the poignance of such beauty. And somewhere in all this loveliness Joan was endeavoring to find herself. Her plight reminded him of Alice's plaint to the Red Queen, " I've lost my way," and the Red Queen's retort, " All the ways about here are mine." Lishaby was picking marigolds in her garden, in company with a lazy swarm of bees, and he paused to speak to her. " Be you goin' to fetch her ? " she cried without preamble. " Laws, Mister Jerry, she's makin' a mountain out o' a mole- hill." "How so, Lishaby?" " Takiri' on so 'bout the church. I was riz a good Chris- tian, but spite o' that I hold they's jest two kinds o' people in this worl', the good an' the bad. Take my ol' man, Colum- bus. This mornin' sez he to me, ' Ma, where in tunket's my collar button ? ' An' sez I to him, ' I know what you mean by tunket, Columbus, an' so does the Lord.' An' sez he, ' I don't care, Ma, I ain't no professor o' religion.' " She struck an eloquent attitude. " There you hev it ! Columbus is mighty tryin' at times, an' he's slow as cold molasses, but, bless my stars, Mister Jerry, there ain't no better man in Courtland County ! " She hounded a dormant bee from a flower, broke it smartly at the stem and inserted it in his buttonhole. "Jest foller yer nose, an* ye'll come to her, an', say, young man, if so be ye mean business, ye'd better be up to snuff or one o' these days some young buck that's sprier than you be'll git her away from you." "Joan ? Jerry, who had long ago lost the habit of blush- BLIND WISDOM 89 ing, was red as a schoolboy. " You forget, my dear woman, that I was born too soon for her." " Shucks," Lishaby called after him as he moved away. " No man's born too soon for any woman, or if he is he don't know enough to know it." And in a softer tone to herself she added, " He must think I'm green as green peas not to see he wouldn't be lalygagging aroun' after her with- out intentions o' one kind or t'other." Immediately in the woods Jerry regained his poise in honest amusement. It was ridiculous that a crudity like Lishaby should make him blush. Why, Joan little Joan was but a child. He had never translated their friendship into terms of sex ; that was what had made it possible and the rather delicious thing it was. Jerry at thirty was sick to death of sex. It was motivated by melodrama; in the lighter play its cloying sweetness gave one mental dyspepsia ; in fiction it overshadowed character and plot; in every-day life the men about him made a fetish of pretty women. " Make love to her if she is pretty, and to some one else if she is plain," ran the recipe for treatment of the opposite sex. But Jerry, who had himself been singed by sentiment, as most young men are, was wary of the fire ; women as friends or potential sweethearts had always managed to disappoint him. They took such care to be outwardly appealing and so little to make their minds lovely, and he would have no woman whose mind was not his holy resting place. Besides, Jerry was unconsciously all things to all people. And to Joan it had pleased him to appear hors de combat. She would have been surprised in her Jerry could she have visualized him as the attractive fellow who was forever being buttonholed on the avenue by some woman with an invitation on her tongue. Ruminating in this fashion he presently came upon the 90 BLIND WISDOM object of his search in a clearing of the wood. This clear- ing was famous as a rendezvous for lovers and was pre- sided over by a giant tree called " Morrow's Oak," from the days when Joan's forebears had been land-rich. The trunk was knotted and gnarled and of a wonderful fairy- like gray to match its lively tenants, the squirrels. The long muscular arms of it were corded as from years of labor, and writhed far out above the grass. It was such a setting as Corot would have adorned with dancing nymphs. One imagined that eerie events transpired here by moonlight. At the base of the patriarch Joan was lounging with a book, engagingly disheveled from her day's vagabondage. She wore a white jersey and a rough, abbreviated skirt, and her hair was at that stage of betwixt and between when it comes down easily. " Jerry," she cried, and in that cry were glad intonations, for she already felt estranged from home and friends. Dropping the book, she came running across the uneven ground and flung her arms about his neck. " How happy I am to see you ! How good you smell ! Oh, Jerry ! " It wasf her way of expressing gratitude and never had she seemed so wistful. Jerry patted her shoulder and tried to be hearty and prosaic, wondering the while what in Heaven's name had come over him. She was clasping him with the loving intensity of a small animal, and though, as he told himself, she was only Joan and he was only Jerry, he was finding it delicious to have her so it was rather too de- licious, in fact. It made his head reel. "Ass!" he ejaculated inwardly. "Idiot!" And yet all the time his senses were more than usually acute. He knew, for instance, in some esoteric way, that there was a differ- ence in her, the first delicate rounding of womanhood, a fragrance to her hair. " Who are you? " he took refuge in nonsense, holding her BLIND WISDOM 91 at arm's length and laughing uncertainly. "Are you the spirit of the tree and do you live on acorns ? Let me see if your feet are hoofs." Then, becoming immensely labored and dull, " You must be tired from your long day out here." " People who live in trees are never tired," she answered, frowning, feeling his sagging of gusto and resenting it, " and acorns are a delicious diet, the kind Lishaby cooks. Aren't you glad to see me, Jerry? You must be ever so glad, be- cause I need you so. It's been a wonderful day, of course, but a rather uncanny one, like jumping off the edge of the world with no kindred spirit. Jerry," she lowered her voice appealingly, " I'm not really irreligious. I've been wor- shipping all by myself out here." " Of course, dear," he soothed. She was really dawning and developing in an amazing way, strange he had never noticed till now; her lips, her eyes, each feature becoming vital. She would be charming in a little while, not in the obscure, childish way she had been, but in a way that any one, however blind, might per- ceive. " Of course," he repeated absently. But she was not discouraged. She drew him down to the base of the tree as to a divan, and put her hand simply in his as she added : " The woods have been so beautiful I've had to keep thanking God for them, and I'm sure we're never so close to Him as when we do that." And, after a little pause : " I believe it was the forms and ceremonies of church that appealed to me the emotional me. But, oh, please, don't laugh, things like Mrs. Charlie Smith's hat kept getting between me and the Lord. I realize that now, and I don't want anything to come between us. To-day noth- ing has. Do you ever feel like that, Jerry?' 1 92 BLIND WISDOM He confessed that he had. " Some days," he mused, smiling, " there's so much God out that you draw Him into your lungs every time you take a breath; you find Him in your eyes like star-dust, giving you gifted sight; He even rushes into your ears and you begin to hear all sorts of nice things." This was the way she liked her Jerry to talk, always in a hinterland of the unreal. But when they rose to leave among the long shadows, she reverted to the eternal problems which troubled her. " When I trust myself I always seem to get punished, Jerry. And sometimes I wonder is it safe to go on trust- ing myself ? " They had walked many minutes before he found an an- swer to that. The slant sun was gilding them about like immortals and the leaves still sifting down airily lay under foot in vari-colored mosaics. Once a cloud of yellow butterflies, ghosts of dead summer, brushed them in passing, with gossamer wings. Suddenly Jerry spoke with convic- tion, his voice warm with hidden comfort. Years after- ward Joan was to remember him so, the very color of his tweed suit, his face grave, yet glowing with the quality of his thought, and the texture of his dream that would remain forever glorious. " We search and we search for God," said Jerry. " We make a great ado over what is really very simple. For, while we're rushing about in confusion He's waiting patiently in our hearts, hoping we'll discover Him there, hoping we'll listen. . . . And I'm going to tell you what I believe, the sum and substance of it all, God is our natural instinct for good. Normally, instinct is bigger than reason. Unfortunately through civilization we have become estranged from instinct; we haven't developed it. We've allowed it to remain idle like an unused limb till, in some BLIND WISDOM 93 cases, it almost refuses to function. But if we were to cultivate the habit of relying upon it it would regain its power, it would simplify and perfect our lives. It's sub- lime, this blind wisdom of each of us. Do you know," he lowered his voice in awe, " that when the ice breaks in the north of England the birds leave South Africa? Reason doesn't tell them it's time to go. And when a certain variety of female moth bursts its cocoon, even if it's within a house, immediately the male moths of the same species begin com- ing? Does the brain dictate that move? No, it's God in the wild thing's heart. And that's why," he added com- fortably, " the nearer we live to nature the wiser and cleaner we become ! " She lifted a face of sudden rapture. "Oh, Jerry, why have you never told me that before? It's simply all I need. You you've given me a religion ! " Ellen, the housemaid at the Wisters', was a barometer to register the mental atmosphere of the family. And to Delia, the cook, she presaged stormy weather on that particular Sunday. "They say there's no tellin' where she'll end. She's a reg'lar infidel, Miss Joan is," said Ellen, and added virtu- ously, " Sure, I'd rather be a pore honest girl, meself, an' go' to church proper." But Delia, who nursed a disreputable tom-cat minus one ear and was in general the friend of the friendless, spoke bitterly : " So it's afther callin' her a haythan they are ! Faith, an' not a week ago I'm callin' her a saint ! ' There's a tramp at the door, Miss Joan,' says I. ' Shall I be afther feedin' him ? ' 'An' by all means, Delia/ says she. ' You niver can tell whin wan of thim may be Jesus Hisself ! ' " CHAPTER X DEALING WITH SOCIAL SALVATION AGNES had been married six years and her second child was three years old when her sisters paid her the first sub- stantial visit. Previous to that there had always been some reason why it was not convenient for her to have them for more than a few days at a time. During those years, formative years for the younger girls, the Wisters had lived on in Crannsford, with a slight, if perceptible, diminution of splendor. Mr. Wister, a thought fiercer perhaps, still propelled his wheel chair from room to room and in the stronghold of his seclusion exercised what tyranny he might. His wife came to him only with pleas for the welfare of her children and they signalled to each other across space in a perfunctory manner that became increasingly difficult as the years went by. With an influx of new life into the town the older families entertained less and there was a bona fide excuse for keeping fewer servants. A single expensive touring car now re- placed the vehicles that had been old Jonathan's pride, and a mechanic succeeded the coachman and stable-boy. Colum- bus still pottered about in the garden, trundling his inevi- table wheelbarrow and looking as battered by Fate as was his famous prototype, the explorer. Within the house the old, ordered elegance prevailed Mrs. Wister saw to that but since Claire had tired of Crannsford society and Joan had proven so reluctant a bud it was seldom that she played hostess with her original esprit. DEALING WITH SOCIAL SALVATION 95 If Jonathan Wister kept closer hold on the purse strings, lopping off extra expenses like useless limbs where he found them, pride prevented him from making an outcry. Nor did Jenny Wister, who watched the slow drooping of those heavy shoulders, give sign to her daughters. Her face was smaller and whiter now, like a frost-touched flower, her manner more delicately remote, and as the years gained upon her she wrapped herself in a chrysalis of reserve, her manner seeming to betoken, " I was born a Morrow, and the Morrows speak only to God." Certainly, as standards sagged about her, and bungalows sprang up from the corner- stones of mansions, there was greater need to hold oneself high and unsullied. Elm Street, where stood the Wister home, had hitherto been the show street of Crannsford. Its famous trees, arching suavely above the road, were sentinels to insure peace, and the houses, withdrawn into their lawns and gardens, had each a personality as individual as uncor- rupted. But, alas, the aristocracy of Crannsford now moved in endless pageant toward the cemetery, the younger generation turned toward pastures new, and the fine places were speedily acquired by unknown tradespeople, who took up occupancy with golden oak and equally ornate ambitions. One found them over-cordial when one called to collect for charities, and the varnish of their limousines quite dazzled one's eye along Main Street during the busy hour of the morning. And the outrageous part of it was that these nameless plebeians were in a way to attain their desires. One had either to accept them as competitors or to with- draw from the field, which was unthinkable. But bitterly as their advent was resented by his wife, old Jonathan, for years fed on inactivity, watched with approval the signs of progress. He would chuckle as he wheeled himself to the window to 96 BLIND WISDOM witness some particularly killing display of affluence on the part of the parvenus. Having hitherto suffered from the snobbery of Crannsford, it no doubt eased his rancor that the underdog was coming to the fore. Also he yearned to the New America, pouring a vigorous type from its boil- ing crucible ; his fingers itched toward activity, and he would manceuver his great helpless body back and forth in his chair, as though working up the momentum to participate. But his wife was hurt to her holiest fibre. She was a resourceful woman and her expedients were famous. " What do you want to leave for," demanded her hus- band testily, after she unfolded her plan for the social salvation of the girls, "just when the town's likely to be- come a real place?" Thereby demonstrating for the mil- lionth time their utter incompatibility. In the end she had her way, though Jonathan was no nearer grasping her point of view. He had come to recognize the fact that there was a blind angle between them ! Accordingly, a sister of Jonathan's was summoned from the middle west to look after his welfare, one of those convenient souls who believe in black alpaca and have a natural penchant for running other people's houses. " 'And I'm to be finished by travel whatever's the mean- ing of that?'" Joan quoted to her old friend, Jerry, on the eve of departure for Europe. "And I'm piling up statistics as fast as ever I can the most heterogeneous information about France, Italy and Switzerland. When I get there I hope to sort it out." But when they met Jerry the following spring prowling about Westminster Abbey, Joan overwhelmed him with girlish enthusiasm and inaccuracies, like a perverted Baedeker. While Claire had been daintily dallying with foreign young men, sampling their attractions as one tastes the wine of the country, Joan had been dipping into every DEALING WITH SOCIAL SALVATION 97 sort of artistic enjoyment. From her treasure trove she of- fered Jerry all sorts of polished gems, and the heart of the lonely bachelor, Jerry, leaped in recognition of their kin- ship. Joan, smart in her new French finery, teeming with the romance of the Latin countries, was a poem in woman, and yet one that might easily be exploited. For he saw that like himself she was innately lonely and this loneliness was her danger, her easy confidence in men a quality to be preyed upon. She could not even so much as buy an apple from the Cockney at the corner without bringing a special air to the transaction. During those few days in London he watched her with an engrossed interest that kept him from emitting any sparks himself; he seemed always on guard against some snare lurking for her. " Hang it," he thought, " I'm like a hen with a chick. Oh, the girl's got to work out her own defences. This is the very narrow- ness I've always railed against." It was the news of Mr. Wister's failing health that brought them home, back to the grim house, so banal after their al fresco life in southern Europe. Alas, they were more hopeless misfits than before. When they bore in upon him with their foreign flavor, Jonathan's jaded interest was quickened. He found himself intrigued by the very at- mosphere of decadent culture that he had deplored. But with the poor paralytic's determination to linger longer this side the mysterious river, once again something had to be done about the girls. There was no possible life for them in Crannsford. They found themselves in the predicament of queens without a court. Somehow in their absence their own particular circle had dissolved into by- channels, and in its place stood bright crudity, good looks and bad grammar. This time it was Agnes who solved the situation. 98 BLIND WISDOM " I have two maids now," she wrote her mother, " and can easily have the girls with me for a long stay. At last my household seems organized. There is time for reading and study time also in which to be lonely," a new note for the self-sufficient Agnes to be sounding. Agnes had matured with a phlegmatic acceptance of age as a duty ; she had grown old, so to speak, without putting out a hand to save herself. Joan wondered, when she met them at the train, if becoming a matron and a mother, those natural developments in themselves, could be held account- able for the wrinkles about her eyes and the indifference of her dress. Ordinarily Agnes would have led off with some trite card of conversation that revealed her in type. But to-day, massed with the others behind the gate of ingress, she sim- ply cried, " Oh, girls, how long it's been ! " and drawn by the melting of that habitual reserve, each had thought : " Dear old Agnes, she really is human, after all." They piled into the taxi with the cozy air of adventurers, and Agnes quickened almost to vivaciousness as she sat between the two, plying them with questions and in turn vouchsafing information about her own concerns. Till, with their inquiries for Godfrey, her ball of buoyancy was pricked and spontaneity escaped. " Oh, Godfrey is well," she managed her features to a threadbare smile, "but so very rushed almost a stranger to us even his evenings are usually devoted to business. However, he manages to have an hour with the children. Godfrey is a model father ! " she added with the faintest belligerence, and glanced furtively from one to the other as though anticipating denial. "But isn't it perfectly ducky to be living in town?" Gaire caught at her hand reassuringly. " I don't mind tell- ing you, Agnes, that this is the first minute I've been happy DEALING WITH SOCIAL SALVATION 99 since I left Paris. Crannsford's a dump a perfect dump. It hasn't an ounce of atmosphere of any kind, not even the old, aristocratic one. If I stay there I'll either have to marry Bud MacGregor, hardware and garden seeds, you know, or Billy Nash, the dry-goods king, and I'm spoiled for either. I want Father to buy me a prince ! " She gave a rippling laugh. Agnes played with her umbrella while the eccentric taxi curved and cavorted. It was a rather pessimistic umbrella and its rusty folds flapped against her knee. " I don't think I like New York so much," she spoke guardedly. " It hardly seems to me the environment for growing children. Have you ever thought how artificial it is? Later, when the babes are older, I shall try to per- suade Godfrey to take a house in Berton near his family. I've been agitating the move for some time, but he simply won't hear of it. He says he'd feel as rural as a cab- bage." She smiled ruefully as she fingered a tassel, and Claire saw that her gloves were shabby. Such lack of fastidious- ness caused her almost physical discomfort, and was not to go unprotested. " But Agnes," she began, getting at the matter vicariously, " Godfrey must make a splendid income now ! " Agnes turned gray, dispassionate eyes upon her, eyes that warned half proudly, half pitifully, " Do not come too close ! " Aloud she answered : " He does, but I'd rather save it for the children than spend it on myself." " How like you ! " cried Claire with spirit. " Oh, I don't despise economy, especially where there are kiddies, but I wouldn't think my personal career as a woman was ended just because I happened to be married. I'd be as smartly dressed and attractive as ever I could. I'll wager I'd be a ioo BLIND WISDOM definite somebody while I was young and had the oppor- tunity." "Would you?" murmured Agnes, unimpressed. "You were always so strenuous, Claire. . . . Here we are," and she gathered up her umbrella and utilitarian bag as the taxi halted at a very narrow house in the eighties, on the right side of the park. It proved to be a bit of New England, stiff-elbowed be- tween its more worldly neighbors, and as aloof as a coun- try girl come to town. Agnes had chosen everything for chaste durability, at the sacrifice of considerable beauty. Nevertheless the unvarying green carpets and snowy cur- tains in conjunction with her good Colonial furniture pro- duced an impression of sanity not unrefreshing after the foibles of the city. Agnes was not one to take her domestic duties lightly; she was, in fact, immensely serious about life in general, and at pains to impress her point of view upon all who came beneath her jurisdiction. "After you have been to your room you will want to peep in at the nursery," she suggested with quaint formality and stayed below to remove her wraps, while an elderly housemaid, evidently designed for her by an obliging Provi- dence, ushered them up-stairs with a rustle of starch. But babyhood took small heed of precise programs, and in the upper hallway both little Blunts came frolicking for a look at their aunts, arriving with pomp and circumstance. " Oh, how precious," exclaimed Joan. " See them, Claire, full-fledged offspring! Would you ever know *em?" Priscilla, the elder, was five and an exact replica of Agnes, a sober little maiden whose priggishness was irresist- ible. She advanced with dignity, and in pious martyrdom held up her cheek to be kissed. Joan's sense of humor was touched as, after a little hesitation, she fulfilled expecta- tions. DEALING WITH SOCIAL" SALVATION 101 " Why, Prissy," shq said merrily, " how good of you ! Do you remember Aunt Claire and me ? " The shining head bobbed vehemently. " Yeth, I do. Mama tol' me to thay I remember quite well. Thith ith Godfwey. He's three an' can spell ' cat.' " But Godfrey, as downy with his yellow curls as a new- hatched chicken, after a tentative advance became glori- ously pink with confusion, and finding a footstool con- venient doubled himself over it after the manner of an ostrich, pressing his face to the leather and no doubt be- lieving himself invisible. Thus posed, the fleshy part of his anatomy upreared in pink rompers, he presented a novel and interesting study, demonstrating conclusively that man's lower limbs have elongated since the time when he walked on four feet. Joan, wise in her day, regarded him impersonally. "Ah," she murmured, " a contortionist ! Let us see how long he can remain so," and she started to count. Where- upon Godfrey, with the blood rushing to his head, capitulated and rolled sideways on the floor, still shielding his face with his fists. " Do 'way," he screamed in his humiliation, " do 'way." Claire and Joan passed breezily to their room and feigned to ignore him. They knew that by all the laws of per- versity the small rascal would resent such treatment, and they were not mistaken. Presently there was the sound of toddling feet and a bewitching face arched anxiously about the door frame. Neither girl paid any heed, continuing the intricacies of her toilette, while he insinuated his small self in and edged along the wall. " Me knows oo," came the wooing voice, as music-gush- ing as a bird's. " Godfwey free years ol'. Ver' big," and he proceeded to lay before them the catalogue of his attrac- tions. At first he was quite cheerful in his self-advertise- 102 BLIND WISDOM ment, like an agent with implicit faith in the article fie han- dles, who will not allow himself to feel offended if its merits be not recognized at once. " Ver' big and ver* bad," he added impressively. A disinterested silence prevailed. " Godfwey pull ol* cat's tail. Godfwey never mind nurse." Still no nibbling at his bait. Could it be that they were immune to such a captivating fellow ? Claire was brushing her hair while Joan sat weaving ribbons into whiteness. Hurt beyond endurance, the little chap stamped his foot. A sob rose in his throat and caught him in its paroxysm. " Why," he screamed, " don't some one tiss me ? " Then it was that he won them, for both came tumbling at once, and were lavish with caresses. Hours later, when they had retired, Joan ventured her opinion to Claire : " Priscilla'll be a ' good girl and help her mother,' but Godfrey will be adorably bad and break her heart." That evening Joan heard Godfrey Senior's voice before he was aware of their presence in the house. She had dressed sooner than Claire, who was a shameless prinker, and wan- dered down into the little drawing-room, quiet in the negli- gible hour before dinner. A fire simmered in the old-fash- ioned grate, Agnes' neutral-tinted lamps were lighted, and with such flattering accessories one forgot the uncompromis- ing chairs, that the starched petticoats at the windows might have been softened by over drapery, and that all the books in the low cases were standard works. On a wicker sewing stand by the fire were some small garments that Agnes had been hemstitching, and their influence went a long way toward humanizing the room. Joan had picked up a volume entitled, " The Christian Impulse," when Godfrey's voice arrested her. He was in the small library adjoining, holding a telephonic conversa- DEALING WITH SOCIAL SALVATION 103 tion in a subdued voice. She had no reason for nor wish to play eavesdropper, but the context of " The Christian Im- pulse " proved insufficient to shut out that insidious, soft voice. " Of course I'm coming, Baxter . . . Tell Marjorie . . . Thought I said well, I did say relatives . . . all the more reason . . . wouldn't miss it ... Is she there ? " Still holding the instrument in his hand, he took a step backward within the range of the drawing-room door, discovered its solitary occupant, and without nodding retreated. " Never mind, never mind," Joan heard him say, " I'll have to go now . . . time to dress," and he crammed the receiver unceremoniously onto the hook. Suddenly he was with her, breaking the waves of stillness that receded to the corners of the room. He was manifestly different, this new Godfrey, impeccably groomed, with high color and at high tension. It occurred to Joan that some- where in the past five years he had become discouraged with his role, had ceased to play the minister's son with his original enthusiasm. " Little Joan, well, 'pon my word." He swung towar3 her with great bluster, both hands extended, but they hesi- tated upon her shoulders while he awkwardly acquainted himself with her youngladydom. "Ought I to kiss you? I don't believe I ought any more, and that's just why I will." He kissed her lightly on both cheeks. " How are you, Godfrey?" asked Joan curiously. "We are both different, aren't we?" " You," he gasped, " why, the last time I saw you you were all legs and arms. I beg your pardon, Joan, perhaps it isn't seemly to say, even to one's sister-in-law, but now you're somehow connected up." " Oh," she blushed strangely, " I didn't mean just ex- teriors. I meant we have new interior decorations. Isn't 104 BLIND WISDOM it the chambered nautilus that outgrows its shell eacK year?" Godfrey laughed. " I'm sure I couldn't say. In what way 'do you find me different?" " I haven't had time to decide, but you've changed im- mensely. So has Agnes." She said that with unconscious emphasis. Godf rey, who was lighting a cigarette, reared his head sharply. " So you've noticed it too. Yes, she's waiting as patiently as possible for gray hair. By the way, how do you like the house ? " His voice was ironic. " Isn't it a regular moral lesson?" Joan crinkled up her eyes in a laugh, and they sat down together on the green divan, each almost visibly extending tentacles of curiosity. All during their talk of Crannsford, of Joan's parents and of Godfrey's children, there was a seeking for labels. " I'm sorry I have a dinner engagement," Godfrey said at last with sincerity, but he stumbled into a pit of hypocrisy with the murmured words, " Clients of mine. However, Jerry'll be with you for a time at least. Jerry's no kind of a lawyer. Leaves all the disagreeable work to me. Ah, here are the girls now." Claire and Agnes, arm in arm, and dressed for dinner, presented a cruel contrast. Claire, affecting sophistication, had dared greatly and nothing too black could be said of her gown. Arms and shoulders flowed out of it like warm Parian marble. Her hair held a lively tinge of red, and though her features were somewhat irregular they would have passed as beautiful by their animation. Agnes, beside her, counted only as a foil, yet the advan- tage was unfair. Her straight, mouse-colored hair, brushed back, revealed a white brow, as candid as a child's; her DEALING WITH SOCIAL SALVATION 105 figure was slender, clothes and mannerisms both hiding potential grace. The muslin frock, a bit mussed and dis- colored, was such as a missionary's wife might wear when she served tea to heathen converts. Was there not, after all, something to be said for Godfrey ? Joan held aloof, pondering, watching Agnes' husband re- act to Claire even more strongly than he had reacted to her. Verily, now, he was sorry that he was dining out. But Agnes accepted the fact with equanimity. When he came down in crisp evening togs she stood ready to help him into his coat, her usually pale face quite transparent and glowing with pride. " Yes, you'll do very nicely. Don't stay late, dear. Little Brother wants you to wake him when you come in. He's growing so observing, Godfrey, just think, to-day he said -" The bell was being rung, and conversation ceased while the elderly housemaid pussyfooted through the hall. " Oh," said Joan with quick pleasure, " it's Jerry, of course," and hurried forward. There had been small chance to renew friendship when they met in London, and she was looking forward keenly to it now. Other girls might have sweethearts galore, but hardly one could boast of a knight so old and so wise as Jerry. He must be at least thirty-five and he held the key to all sorts of complex enjoyments. Yet, fond as Joan felt of him, it is to be doubted if she was aware of his real value. She had never been deprived of his devotion for long enough to miss it, and " men do not celebrate in rhyme their daily bread." There he was, already past the stiff Hannah, and, as God- frey expressed it, " bursting an eye " for his protegee. His worn stick eluded the maid and went to roost upon the antlers of a deer, for Jerry had his own way of doing things, io6 BLIND WISDOM But Hannah bore away his coat, and thus divested he was revealed in reluctant Tuxedo, a thinner Jerry, with stern lines and kindly lines feeling their way into his face, and with the unfailing surprise of his good smile. His dark brown hair, brushed back as of old, came to a " widow's peak " in the middle of his forehead, and he still wore the suns of the past summer. He had earnest eyebrows, candid and well-defined, the nose a trace too sensitive, but the mouth broad, laughter-loving and tender. Yet, never to be doubted, there was sufficient stern stuff in him to overweigh those finer qualities of which his father had been bitterly suspicious since Jerry's boyhood. From his very repression one felt at times the more keenly his masculinity. Walt Whitman said: " The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place, He too is all qualities, he is action and power, The flush of the known universe is in him. . . ." With affectionate salutations they came to him, and the room suddenly abounded in good will. He shook hands with Joan last of all, to her mystification, till she received the long sweet draught of his look that stirred in her the memory of their rich association. " Am I changed, Jerry ? " she burst out, linking an arm through his and feeling immensely happy and cared for. " Godfrey says I used to be all leg and now " " Limb, dear," corrected Agnes with a patient smile, "limb!" Joan shot a glance at Jerry, and stood by her guns. " Leg," she repeated stanchly. " Limb sounds lots leggier than leg. I leave it to Jerry ! " Jerry laughed helplessly and Godfrey exploded. " Oh, why do you leave it to him ? He's almost as great a highbrow as Agnes one of those hopeless people you DEALING WITH SOCIAL SALVATION 107 can't corrupt," and he twirled his stick with smiling satis- faction. " How do you mean ? " quizzed Joan. " He thinks he loves humanity, but he only ' watches through a telescope.' I can never persuade him to mingle. He's a budding playwright, you know, and he has to poke around a bit to get his types. But it's superficial observa- tion, take it from me." He gave Jerry an amiable shove. " He despises his own popularity. It's a case of ' Pierrot loves his music but we love Pierrot.' " " Go to," quoted Jerry good-naturedly. " It's the excep- tion that proves the rule, and if you intend leaving me with these three charming girls I'll not be responsible for my conduct." He followed Godfrey to the hall with nonsense floating over his shoulder. The door closed, but a sharp rift of air drove him back to the fire. Joan came promptly to perch on his chair arm. " This is what Lishaby would call ' three shirt weather,' " she reminded him, taking the most direct road to the dear familiar past. And, " Sure enough," he recalled. " How is old Lishaby ? Does she still get up so early mornings that she meets herself going to bed at night? " There were months of accumulated talk between them, and, try as they might to include Claire and Agnes, their conversation inevitably resolved itself into a duet. After dinner Agnes made rompers for the baby, plying her needle bravely through difficult material, little housewifely worries on her brow. But Claire, after periods at the piano, chafed frankly at the dull evening and took up vigil at the window, hungrily speculating upon what the city might hold for her. Eventually both girls broke into yawns and gravitated to io8 BLIND WISDOM their rooms, while below Joan and Jerry continued to talk. It was autumn again and the theatrical season opening, and he and Joan were for the first time to cultivate their tastes in common. " Do you love people?" he asked curiously, certain in his heart what the answer would be. " Close to, or through a telescope ? " she countered mis- chievously. " Both." "Yes, of course I do. I'm in love with life: I could eat it." " Bravo, then. We'll begin to-morrow." It was not strange that excitement kept her awake that night. In the little bed next her sister's she tossed fever- ishly, but could not summon a dream until, well toward morning, she conceived of the idea of slipping down-stairs for a bite to eat, a sedative that should bring her rest. All was quiet and inky as her slippered feet came scuffing down the stair, but she knew where the electric switch was located, and touching it with a cautious finger flooded the hall and drawing-room with light. Next she stood rubbing her eyes in the glare, inclined to believe that she was at last dreaming, for there in an armchair sat Agnes in a heavy dressing-gown, her face gray with fatigue, her hair falling in abandon over her shoulders. In a second she was awake and on her feet, trembling. " Oh," she whimpered, an'd tHen, apologetically, proudly, " I was waiting up. Godfrey hasn't come in." CHAPTER XI "THE PLAY'S THE THING" "WE will start," Jerry had said with particular relish, " at the top of the ladder/' and Joan had arrayed herself accordingly. Her soft gray chiffon frock, with undertones of rose embroidery, paid tribute to the restraint and imagi- nation of its creator. She was only beginning to consider clothes as a factor; enjoying them as she enjoyed flowers, aside from any particular relationship to herself. Jerry knew that she had slid into the dress, clean and youthful, without sensuous calculation. She wore no jewel and needed none. Her eyes with their tawny lights, their chang- ing tones of interest, were enough to rivet attention. Her dark hair looked tremendously well-brushed and its simple coiffure revealed the beautiful, adolescent line of her head. Once or twice, as she turned pensively to study the people in the restaurant, Jerry's look fell upon her drooping lashes and the unspoiled contour of the cheek with a vivid emotion, half pain, half pleasure. He had chosen an exclusively smart place in which to dine, a restaurant in lower Park Avenue whose clientele was made up for the most part of discriminating social leaders. There Joan was ushered into a Louis Quatorze dining- room, gray and cream, with lounge and chairs of Du Barry red. All about were carefully dressed persons who now seemed " sacs merely floating with mouths for food to slip in." The head waiter, who removed the table from the lounge for Joan to be seated, bowed with a wonderful ceremonious I io BLIND WISDOM politeness to her, whereupon, to Jerry's amusement and adoration, she flashed him a smile of charming condescen- sion. " Oh," she told Jerry, " this reminds me of that inner room of Marie Antoinette's at Versailles, where she and Louis waited when the revolutionists were breaking in. All the time I was there I imagined I heard them crashing down door after door." And when Jerry bent to the menu she blushed and whis- pered, " Don't you think we ought to drink cocktails ? Every one else is ! I should like a pink one, with whipped cream on the top at least it looks that way." Jerry was troubled. " How old are you, Joan? " " I'm twenty-three and a quarter, Jerry, and ' Ah allus liquor up when Dad does.' " " Very well," he laughed, " you shall have one. Two Clover Clubs, waiter. And now, what do you suppose you would like to eat ? " She looked as unjaded as a child waiting for the jack to pop out of the box. " Something I've never eaten before and never heard of. What would that be, garc,on ? " A smile trooped over the impassive face. " Zat would be difficult to say, mam'selle. Ici on a tous les choses delicieuses." " I'm afraid, dear," Jerry apologized, " that the chef could have had no warning of an immortal's approach ! " But he ordered with princely choice and settled back to enjoy- ment. After the cocktails were finished a little stringed orchestra sent its refreshing melody to cool them like a breeze. China and glass sounded a silver accompaniment. The sheathed lights made golden explosions in the long French mirrors THE PLAY'S THE THING " 1 1 1 and the head waiter with the beautiful manners was weaving back and forth like a shuttle between the tables, ever draw- ing them aside as newcomers slipped to the lounge, ever bending and arching his body in poetical subservience. Joan experienced a dainty intoxication. " Oh, Jerry," she sighed above a filet of sole with mush- rooms, " why is it, what is it that one wants always in the midst of pleasure ? It's when I'm happiest that I feel most incomplete. Tell me, Jerry, if you know." Such gropings were characteristic of the unformed girl she had been, yet in her eyes, approaching and retreating, was the incipient spark of womanhood that made it impos- sible for him to answer lightly. He dared not misinterpret her to herself. " Perhaps," answered Jerry at considerable cost, " it's the cry of your heart for its mate. We're each of us supposed to have one, you know," he added with a humorous twitch- ing of the mouth. She paid a mushroom serious consideration before an- swering, " I wonder ! It's so often I'm lonely. In Italy, in the most heavenly places, I could never give myself up to enjoyment without reservation; always something, some one I wanted. At times it would almost come to me, like a word you've forgotten; at times there positively seemed to be something at my elbow and my heart beat so fast it was ready to burst. Then again, it would be far, far away. And was it my mate that I wanted, Jerry ? " Jerry laughed at her intensity. He had always the in- stinct of avoiding sex-subjects with her. " Perhaps it was, little dreamer. But you're eating noth- ing." "If I'm expecting some human to be all that to me," she pursued, unheeding, " to fill every chink, you know, I'm cer- tainly doomed to disappointment, don't you think ? " 112 BLIND WISDOM " Not necessarily. It sometimes happens, I believe, that one person may embody all the requisites." Joan watched a thin woman at a neighboring table take a cigarette into her restless mouth. She said, as though the thought pained her : " I'm quite sure that Mother could not have realized the ideal in Father, and that Agnes " She broke off precipitately, flushing. Jerry's hand fell over hers on the edge of the table. " It's all right, Joan. So you've noticed. I was sure you would. It's tough, tough on Agnes, but you've got to re- member this. Godfrey didn't ask to be born into a bishop's family. When he found himself there he tried, as they say of servants, to give satisfaction. He has, unfortunately, a temperament." He paused to light a cigarette. " In the Blunt household during all his circumscribed youth his ego didn't have a chance to develop. If he showed signs of slipping his moorings, Mr. Blunt promptly nailed him to the dock, as he would have any silly, venturesome craft. When Godfrey grew up, the words ' Lawyer and gentleman ' were gold-lettered on his bow." Joan nodded understandingly. Jerry narrowed his eyes like an artist who regards his own picture. " Before he had truly learned to manage himself he was towed out into the harbor and introduced to all the imposing liners with whom it was safe to hobnob. Agnes was ' a liner and a lady.' " He smiled drily. " And so they were married and started over the same route, Agnes' canal-line that she could be trusted to follow forever and ever. But Godfrey " " Yes, go on." " Godfrey, for the first time, began to notice the beguiling little cargo boats that were bound for a different port each "THE PLAY'S THE THING" 113 trip, that travelled so much lighter, with all the zest of ad- venture in them. Whenever he could, he played truant to join them." The waiter had presented his check and in the formality of departure the thread of discourse was cut. But Joan had understood. When they were without in the cold brilliancy of the streets, he slipped a hand beneath her arm and said, with an air of dropping all weighty subjects, " I would have you know that we are going play-hunting to-night a sort of progressive dramatic dinner, beginning with something racy and ending with something sweet. The ideal fare would be Shaw for an appetizer, Oscar Wilde for entree, something heavy, say Ibsen, for the piece de resistance, and so forth through the courses. Unfortunately, New York offers no such judicious repast." He summoned a taxi and with humor handed her magnifi- cently in, elaborating upon his pet hobby as they bounced about on the cushions. " It isn't the business of the general public to concern it- self with the modus operand! or the psychology of play- production ; Thackeray called the public ' a savage child.' It is fierce for fun or the other thing. But the analyst can- not lose himself with like abandon. He unscrews the thing with a monkey-wrench and learns how it functions. There is seldom a consistently good play. In an entire production there may be but a single act, a single scene, or less a single great moment worthy of emulating. I see hundreds of plays, I sometimes see the same scene or the same act a hundred times." " But, Jerry, how dull it must become ! " " Not at all. I'm learning to pull the strings that make the world and his wife laugh or cry. I'm also studying the crowd. Clayton Hamilton says that the crowd is more emo- tional and less intellectual than the individual. That's pre- 114 BLIND WISDOM eminently true. Every great play is motivated by emotion rather than intellect." His face was transfigured by enthusiasm; he was the craftsman speaking his own vernacular, while Joan, feeling his unfamiliar intensity, endeavored to match herself to his mood. "If we are only to see snatches of things, I'm afraid I shall not like it," she protested feebly, " but I'm willing to try." Jerry laughed. " Try my way, this once, dear, and the next time I promise to sit through any play you may choose." He leaned forward and rapped on the glass. " The Criterion, driver." In the garish lights of the lobby Joan felt happier. There was something contagious in the high spirits of the pleasure seekers, arriving by limousine or on foot. The glare ex- ploited the too-perfect complexions of the women and picked out the buckles on their slippers. The men too seemed gaily debonair. Jerry, who had some permanent arrangement with all box-offices, paused to exchange a word with the ticket-taker. Joan heard the phrase " vehicle for the star," and Jerry's terse, "Tell you later." The first act had be- gun, and they were obliged to wait for the'back seats that Jerry preferred. " Will these do, Mr. Callendar ? " whispered a pretty usher who was in the habit of serving him. " You may change later, if you like." Joan and Jerry seated themselves in the twilight and focused upon the stage. There the inevitable society butler and lady's maid were wielding feather dusters and bravely foreshadowing the plot. Appeared later the star, the beau- tiful daughter of bankrupt parents, who dressed with ex- pensive simplicity and wrestled with her colorless dialogue "THE PLAY'S THE THING" 115 as though she would conquer or kill it. The audience was offered the lay figure of the crude rich man whom they in- tended to victimize, a comedy couple, and a bona fide villain. And the curtain descended upon the heaving chest of the heroine, who had grimly brought about and accepted the rich man's proposal. Joan felt a tug at her hand and before the lights had winked on again Jerry was dragging her forth. To the doorkeeper he remarked, chidingly : " Your vehicle is a perambulator ! " and led Joan into the street. Thence they sampled a woman-in-the-case mystery, whose second act proved so strenuous that she was obliged to clutch Jerry for moral support, a couple of scenes from a clever English comedy of delightful characterization, and an entire last act of Barrie's, so exquisitely contrived and of so delicate a pathos that their spirits escaped them into a realm of faery. " Oh, must we go ? " she wailed when once again the merciless lights blotted out the dream, and found her in a luxury of tears. " Let us eschew taxis," Jerry suggested sympathetically, " and ride under the stars down to Washington Square for a bite with the Bohemians." And when the deserted 'bus had swept them smoothly from the region of frivolity down to a simpler, bluer part of the city, they condescended in through frank odors of cookery to a house so tiny you could almost have put your hand down the chimney to open the door. " This is better," she opined. " No waiter to bow and scrape and every one on equal footing." " Yes," mused Jerry gaily. " Here the waiter is a thinker and a revolutionist and translates novels from the Russian. All these people are stark mad and know it, and that is the rather redeeming part of them. At least, they are not ob- n6 BLIND WISDOM sessed by the manJa for owning things. ' Not one is respect- able and unhappy ! ' ' The air was nearly opaque with smoke and there was the illusion that faces floated and heads wagged out of nothing- ness. One watched an impecunious painter, with eyes to take the place of chin, and long-haired, flowing-tied faddists of every variety, the hollow-cheeked, hollow-chested girl with docked hair, consumed by her flair for living, and many others. Joan and Jerry ate their spaghetti and drank red wine out of a straw-clothed flask, revelling in types. When Jerry lft Joan at Agnes' door at midnight, he saw that she had been given "greatly to think." But for the moment she indulged in flippancy. " I have a rule for telling Bohemians now, Jerry. All men with long hair and all women with short." CHAPTER XII AGNES AND DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES INEVITABLY Agnes confided in her sisters. Both had been quick to read Godfrey's indifference, but it had needed an open slight on his part to divest Agnes of pretense. Yet the passage at arms had been of the briefest, confined in fact to a timid question and a brusque rejoinder. " Shall you take me with you, Godfrey ? " and the ironical, double-edged, " I said I was going for pleasure." The phrase " for pleasure " was unmistakably emphasized and had its effect. He could speak in exasperation like that, could somehow say a bitter, bleak thing without becoming coarse. He looked no whit less the gentleman for his cruelty. And yet Joan, raising an eye in Agnes' defense, gesturing her horror of such brutality, was reluctantly swerved to pity for him. She saw the bright-eyed, turbulent Godfrey who had gambled with Fate on the day that he married Agnes, and she saw this mature Godfrey, with all a man's knowledge of his own nature of good and evil, believ- ing himself grossly cheated, rushing this way and that in intolerable boredom, shrill with defeat and disappointment. And yet Agnes had done nothing more than prove herself angelic. It was another evening, several weeks later, and Godfrey, as was his habit of late, had dined at home. Although the fact of Joan's and Claire's relationship precluded the possi- ii8 BLIND WISDOM bility of flirtation, their presence in the house lent an unusual tang of interest. He was assiduous in keeping them sup- plied with flowers and bon-bons, a veritable Santa Claus with his gifts and entertainment. Agnes, ignored, was nev- ertheless relieved to have him there on any score. At first she had been in total eclipse from an ulcerated tooth that left her more dank and pale than ever, and she would sit, matched to the background with her interminable sewing, watching in lethargy the other three who played in a perpetual bright light. But as her physical fitness was restored she endeavored awkwardly to participate. Agnes reasoned simply. Claire was vivacious and Claire was attractive to Godfrey. There- fore she would be vivacious. But Agnes was built to tread a stately measure, not to whirl in the ballet, and showed her- self deplorably miscast. Her heavy sprightliness set God- frey to agitating his brows. Alas, poor Agnes, circling like an anxious moth about a bewitching candle, was singed for her folly. They had been discussing Godfrey's prospective hunting trip to a game preserve in Canada when she received her luckless inspiration. She bit off a difficult thread, girated coquettishly toward Godfrey, and seated herself upon his knee. The act was as incongruous as though a nun so chose to disport herself, and exasperated him. " Shall you take me with you, Godfrey?" was the tragic love-pleading. And then Godfrey heartlessly administering the coup de grace ! For a long time the London bridge of Agnes' world had been falling down; she had been a martyr to his growing neglect and had borne herself like a patient Griselda. But suddenly, inexplicably, here in the quiet evening, with her sisters beside her and her children sleeping above, something in her snapped beneath the strain. The camel's back was AGNES AND DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES 119 broken by a straw. Her features slipped from her control and contorted terribly, and the cords in her neck swelled with the coming paroxysm. Godfrey's shamed look alter- nately bent upon and escaped from that revealment. As her sobs accused him he freed himself frantically, un- graciously, from her weight and left her crumpled in the chair. Then, his face turned above his shoulder like the murderer who hates the helpless dead for its ultimate vic- tory, who hates his own contrition, he moved out into the center of the room. A hand through his hair was enough to offset his otherwise immaculate grooming. He might have been anything now disagreeable to contemplate, a wife- beater, ne'er-do-well, a drunkard ! The scene had degener- ated to mere domestic sordidness, and Joan, susceptible to any change of atmosphere, felt a cold pang of pain. Oh, it was terrible that unhappiness had tricked them into this sort of vulgarity. " I say, don't for Heaven's sake make a mountain out of a molehill," Godfrey threw at his wife while affecting to address the furniture. He waved his hands in plausible gestures that seemed to argue his own case and acquit him. " Don't I do the best I can for you all ? Don't the children have everything they need ? Have I ever denied you ? " Finding the face of the clock on the mantel he stared at it with personal animosity. " I'm m-miserable," sobbed poor Agnes, not deigning to answer the pointless questions. " I wish I might d-d-die." " Oh, Agnes, darling," protested both her sisters and came with hospitable arms and shoulders ready to receive the deluge. " Godfrey didn't mean it. He couldn't have meant it. Whatever made you say it, Godfrey ? " Godfrey, who had been irritably rummaging for tobacco with a furtive eye on the progress toward recovery of his victim, now turned about. There was something naively 120 BLIND WISDOM audacious in his face at that moment which strongly sug- gested his little son's. " How the devil do you suppose I know ? Only Agnes is forever suggesting the wrong thing. If I say, ' I'm off on a stag party/ she looks martyred and moans, ' Won't you take me ? ' and if, on the other hand, I'm in a mood to be sociable and suggest, ' Come on, Agnes, old girl, let's dine out and see a musical show,' she's quite apt to assume her holier-than-thou expression and tell me she neither approves of restaurants nor light opera. The day the Lord made Agnes He had run out of tact," he ended explosively. Agnes let forth a wail of woe that goaded Godfrey to diabolical humor. He sang the chorus of a popular song called " When the Honeymoon Ends," with such perverted genius that he took his listeners unaware, though they de- plored the bad taste of the demonstration. Agnes, not pos- sessing a sense of humor, was immune to what had touched Claire and Joan. She continued to make regular, resigned sounds of lamentation till Godfrey's mood veered abruptly. He saw that she was not to be mollified by his attempts to turn the situation into a farce, and, manlike, he now determined to make himself appear the injured one. " Very well, have your way, pour out all the tears in your reservoir. Maybe the rest of the season will be dry." He laughed bitterly. " But don't expect me to play audience. Not after the kind of day I've had." And, with a few self- righteous thrusts, he left the house, not neglecting the time- honored expedient of slamming the door. Then it was that, the barriers down, Agnes made her con- fession. She jerked suddenly upright as the door closed and ceased sobbing, as though in correlation with it some door had closed within her. And the two younger girls, who had known the truth for days, employed tender art to AGNES AND DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES 121 make her believe that it was revealed to them for the first time. As Joan listened, kneeling at Agnes' feet, and pouring through the hand that she held a torrent of sympathy, she became surprised by her power of clairvoyance. The bur- den of perception was upon her when she saw deep into the natures of both Godfrey and Agnes; the spiritual yearning for happiness and the human limitations that kept them from realizing it, and she yearned to these human limitations just as Rodin, the sculptor, yearned to the grotesque or ugly and glorified it. But how to aid them? Claire, the downright, spoke first. " I understand how it is with Godfrey," she announced sagely, and wiped away Agnes' tears with a sensible hand; " you've been a mother to his children, Aggie, but never a wife to him." " Never his wife ? " almost shrieked poor Agnes. " What do you mean ? I haven't looked at another man." " Of course not, Goose. You've looked at Godfrey, but how have you looked at him ? As dispassionately as a cow ! You've chewed the cud of domesticity till he finds you a perfect bromide. You've never given a thought to captur- ing your husband and keeping him." " But surely," protested Agnes, " one ought not need to use wiles after one is married." Claire gave a dramatic laugh of scorn. " Oh-ho, oughtn't one ? You think that marrying's the end of the game, but that's where you're wrong, my lady. I dare say it's barely the beginning. I look about among my friends and I see that the successful ones are the clever ones, who practice tact and adaptability." " But, granted that I become more tactful, will it suffice to change him ? I know now that he doesn't stand for what I thought he did." 122 BLIND WISDOM She looked appalled by what she had said. Claire laughed in spite of herself. " No, he's as God made him, and I doubt if a woman ever really changes a man. If she cares enough, she is the one who conforms. Now I have a plan." She balanced on her heels and clapped her hands merrily. " What will you give me to make you over? " Claire was an inveterate reader of light fiction, and at that time there was an epidemic of novels wherein the heroine was metamorphosed from an ugly duckling into a beauty, always with the result that love and happiness were hers. And, trite as was the idea she presented, it broke upon them all as inspired genius. " Oh, that would be nice, Agnes ! " seconded Joan lov- ingly, for now that Agnes was an " under dog," she discov- ered in herself a fund of tenderness for her. " And we'll turn the pumpkin into a coach for you and the white mice into horses, and dress you like a princess so you can go to the king's ball and be fallen in love with by Prince Godfrey." As she confided to Claire, she was more concerned with Agnes' mental molding than her exterior development, but Claire pointed out that clothes exert an influence of their own and that once Agnes found herself charmingly turned out she would naturally become more charming and tractable herself. They worked in strictest secret and the days in the shops were such as to delight the feminine heart. Agnes, once conquered, lent herself to Claire's regime and was not averse to learning that she possessed a figure, that her hair, dexterously managed, softened almost to beauty her thin face, that with massage and patience wrinkles may be elimi- nated, and various other heartening facts. There would be no point in presenting her, the astute Claire had said, till, as she expressed it, " the clothes sank in." So they smuggled away the finery and, in order that Godfrey might get no AGNES AND DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES 123 wind of the conspiracy afoot, charged the furbelows to Mr. Wister, ******** The presentation was to occur in conjunction with the premiere of a new play to which Jerry was taking them, and even the piece was judiciously chosen, a sprightly comedy calculated to put Godfrey in a good humor. The three sis- ters were on tiptoe with expectancy, and so great was their anxiety over the toilette of Agnes that neither could do credit to her own. Perhaps neither desired to, perhaps each had deliberately designed herself for a foil, a little sacrifice on the altar of sisterly love. Certainly, when they led their creation forth, they were self-effacing as maids of honor to a queen. Agnes swept into the nursery and little Godfrey drew back into the corner of his crib, paying her homage with his starry eyes. Her step was elastic with power as she descended to where Jerry and her husband were waiting. Joan and Claire lagged at the last minute, giving her the benefit of the graceful setting, a Colonial stairway. Godfrey, hearing the swish of skirts, had anticipated Claire, but instead found himself gazing at a strange woman, a kind of glorified Agnes, an extreme con- ception, as it were, that actually pricked his indifference and set his blood flowing. The modiste Claire had chosen had taken into consideration Agnes' lines and temperament, and executed her dream in ivory satin. It molded itself upon the limbs, clinging and coiling when she moved, yet it was irreproachably straight as a nun's robe. If a suggestion of the cloister lurked in the flowing sleeves, there was a smile behind the prudery. The blue-gray eyes had taken on coquetry below the be- coming coiffure, as simple as the old Agnes could have de- sired, but as knowing as it was naive. The two above, and Jerry beside him, who shared the 124 BLIND WISDOM secret, saw Godfrey wipe a bead of perspiration from his brow, then rub his eyes for a second look at her. Mechan- ically he inserted a finger between his collar and his neck, as though seeking greater latitude. " Good-evening, Jerry. Have I kept you boys waiting? " Her manner was as guileless as a May day. " That was well done," whispered Claire to Joan. " If we can only make her go through with it " Godfrey, as the French say, was " put against the wall." It was contrary to his pride and principle to acknowledge how bowled over he felt, yet it would be absurd to profess no astonishment. " What's going on, anyway ? " he managed a proper mix- ture of amusement and unconcern. " Trying to give me a good time? Claire, I believe I recognize your handi- work." No one answered, and as Agnes sailed by him he caught the least, elusive fragrance of jasmin that set his nerves tingling. " Great God, here's Aggie dressed like a tragedy queen and all of you expecting me to swallow it as though it were the usual thing. I don't understand the idea, but I grant you it's a howling success." "Hush," cooed Agnes, "don't be so boisterous, dear," and so naturally she spoke that he was all but deceived! " Surely I can wear a new gown without creating a riot. You are not very clever to let Jerry know how seldom I have one." " Jerry knows," mumbled Godfrey, " that you're your own economist. I'd say * go ahead ' any time you wanted to look like that." The other two had come into the midst of her triumph and were enjoying the fruits of their labor when Joan suddenly exclaimed, " Here's a letter from home, Claire. Shall we AGNES AND DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES 125 dip in ? " and she tore open the envelope inscribed in her mother's fine, flowing hand. " Not bad news, I hope ? " Agnes presently interrupted, seeing their faces pass beneath a cloud. " Is Father all right?" " Everything's all right," they chimed tunelessly in unison, not wishing to overshadow the evening, but their eyes were anxiously weighing the lines that seemed heavy with omen. " The milliner's and dressmakers' bills came this morn- ing," ran the letter, " and ordinarily they would not have mattered, but for some days past your father has been brooding over mysterious losses the nature of which he does not see fit to disclose. I may as well tell you that he has ordered Thomas to advertise the car for sale, and has an- nounced that he will have to cut down our living allowance as well. Poor darlings, I realize this is hard on you at a time when you need more than you will ever need again. However, let us be patient and believe that these are only temporary privations." There followed a brave attempt at local news and the letter ended with the assurance that they might stay as long as they liked, she hoped that they were happy every day, and she was ever their loving mother. Claire was, as usual, the first to recover. Claire was like those highly satisfactory roly-polys that rebound quickly after they have been tipped to earth. She sounded a little laugh as the key-note for Joan's behavior, and looked bril- liantly about at the members of the group, now donning coats and wraps. " Bring on the sea-going taxis," she said in her pretty managing way. " No, Godfrey, you cannot take your wife." " But, Claire," whispered Agnes, nearly undone by God- frey's unwonted attentions, " why mayn't he ? " " Because he must be made to sit up and beg for days and days and days," whispered back Claire vengefully. Then, 126 BLIND WISDOM aloud, " Jerry, it will be your pleasure and privilege to escort Madame. Come, Godfrey, see to your little in-laws," and in the general laughter they brushed out into the cold. The curtain was rising on the first act when they filed into their box, and in the obscure business of becoming settled several minutes had elapsed before the scene and the actors received due regard. Claire had been given the seat nearest the stage; in fact, as the lower boxes were hung, she was scarcely a yard from the footlights. In the artificial twi- light she remained dimly luminous. Her beauty was more obvious than Joan's, and she was the sort of woman that men very definitely see. One sensed Joan's beauty before the actual discovery, like looking under its leaves for a violet. It is possible that simultaneously with recognition of the young actor usurping the role of hero, Claire was in turn seen, if not actually recognized by him. It may be that with practice one can sit smoking behind the footlights, ostensibly staring into space, yet perfectly cognizant of loveliness at the edge of one's circle of vision. Be that as it may, Claire certainly felt a little shiver of ex- citement that began with her toes and tingled up to her head. " Joan," she whispered excitedly, " isn't he, isn't he very familiar ? Where have we seen him before ? " Joan demurred conscientiously. " Oh, I dare say he's just one of a type ! " " No," persisted Claire doggedly, " he reminds me only of himself." And suddenly a little pulse began beating like a hammer in her throat. " I have it, Joan. He's old Mrs. Cornwall's nephew. Don't you recall the one she brought to our house years ago ? " and she verified the surmise by her program. The information was made general and provoked lively in- terest and satisfaction, especially as young Rutherford di- rected more than one glance at their box. AGNES AND DOMESTIC DIFFICULTIES 127 " He certainly recognizes you," Joan exclaimed between the second and third acts ; " don't you think so, Jerry ? " " Oh, undoubtedly," returned Jerry enigmatically, " he may recognize her without knowing that he has ever seen her before." " That is absurd," returned Claire almost coldly, but be- fore she had finished speaking a flush arose in her cheeks to give the words the lie. Her woman's intuition told her that across the void the man who had held spellbound the dreams of her girlhood was again signalling warmly. " We'll ask him to meet us for supper, and decide this once and for all," suggested Jerry, who was always unex- pected. " He's a friend of mine." " There ! " cried Joan in delight. " I told you Jerry is a wizard, Claire. He carries magic in his pocket. Oh, Jerry, Claire could kiss you for that." " An actor ? " Agnes lifted a faint protest, but it was her discarded self that spoke and her scruples died prematurely. She had the gratification of knowing that Godfrey had been intrigued by her all the evening. Once he had adjusted her wrap across her shoulders and once he had retrieved her glove from the floor. A golden evening, certainly, for after the young actor had received Jerry's note he succeeded in making his recognition evident. By an usher he sent his reply, scrawled in a black, " characteristic " hand. "DEAR CALLENDAR: (he said) " I do remember, and I shall join you with great pleasure as soon as I can remove the marks of my trade. " RUTHERFORD." Just what he said to Claire and just what Claire said to him during that hour in the cafe would no doubt be valueless if reported. Possibly their conversation was as devoid of weight as it had been that day in Mrs. Wister's sun-parlor, 128 BLIND WISDOM years ago. But in the game that they played one conceived of their spirits as poising and retreating, pursuer and pur- sued, like Greek figures on an urn. "A decent sort of chap," was Jerry's resume to Joan, " devilishly attractive to women and naturally a bit spoiled by them, but winning and magnetic in short, an actor. That is what I think. Later you may tell me if I am wrong." It was past midnight when Godfrey took the three girls home, a somewhat chastened and subdued Godfrey. To Jerry he had made a boyish confession that came from his heart. " Darned if I haven't enjoyed myself ! " Agnes was standing before her mirror when Godfrey entered from his rounds of locking up. She was still in her shining gown, and as she lifted her arms to unfasten it she hummed happily the song that had been interwoven in the play. He stood awkwardly watching her, for the first time in his life experiencing toward her a real emotion. A poet speaks of the dawn of love as a time " of astonishment in hand and shoulder." Hitherto Godfrey had never known that sweet dismay and panic in the presence of his lady. The nearest to allegiance he had ever come was by dint of reason. " I ought to admire her," he had insisted to himself time and again. " She is admirable, she is true ! " And in the sufferings of childbirth he had beheld her magnificent and had thought, " I'm not worthy of this woman." Yet, curiously enough, now when reason was dead within him he felt momentarily something akin to love. How was it pos- sible that a mere gown had wrought such miracles? Yet, had he been wise, he would have known that it was not really the gown, it was the something Agnes had put on with it. Whatever disillusion and breakdown was to come after, she had indeed enjoyed her triumph. AGNES AND DOMESTIC DIEFICULTIES 129 "Agnes," he said huskily, "you've been wonderful to- night. By Jove, I didn't know you could be like this. It makes me sorry for the trial I am to you." He was like a boy with his first love, crimson to his ears. He stood behind her and she felt his hot breath on her shoulder, and all her hungry heart longed for him. She was no actress, totally transparent and direct, and her instinct was to capitulate at once. How long she would be able to hold out she did not know. A tremor ran through her. For a moment she looked as if she would burst into tears. Then, through the unfamiliar emotion, she seemed to hear Claire's stern voice dictating its heroic measures. Godfrey was so close now that she sensed his intention. In a moment he would have kissed her, would have kissed her, Agnes Blunt, as though she were his sweetheart, not his wife. In that second she seemed to realize the eternity of her loveless days. She clinched her thin hands to control ! " Don't be ridiculous," she drawled ; " you'll step on my train." CHAPTER AN AUDACIOUS PRINCE THE night had chosen for itself two colors, gray and black, or rather the gradations of the single color black, but it achieved within this scope an infinite variety. Tall, arbi- trary buildings were bitten deep against the faintly luminous sky that was swept and arched from east to west like a huge inverted cup. The streets were built up of a sombre but deli- cate etching, the lights appearing like false gems in a too- fine setting. The closed touring car which was conveying the three sisters and Godfrey out to Berton seemed a flat, sly thing beneath this preponderance of sky and cosmos. With belly to the earth it adhered to the single purpose of its own de- sire. One would have said as it sped north that it was avid for the white lady-star drooping above the horizon. In reality the destination was a prosaic one, the house of a wealthy merchant of Mr. Blunt's parish, with one foot on the social ladder and the other in the pork barrel. The faithful comrade, Jerry, had withdrawn for almost the first time since the younger girls' advent in town, not seeing him- self as a part of the evening's program. Yet, although she missed him, Joan for some reason was tasting a keen excite- ment, not any specific happiness that she could have named just " hunches " that the night loomed large with enjoy- ment. She had " cozy feelings inside," as she confided to Claire on the way out. " I feel as though the air is as full of music as the sky is full of stars." AN AUDACIOUS PRINCE 131 " But the sky isn't full of stars," pointed out Claire liter- ally. " Oh, yes, it is, only you can't see them. And you can't hear the music either. But they are both there." Agnes, beside them, still voguishly attired as a precaution- ary measure, attended fawningly upon her husband, very rarely addressing any conversation to her sisters or listening when they spoke. Godfrey occupied a jump-seat and piv- oted about at intervals to foster the impression that his mood was as agreeably adjustable. Underneath this studied exterior, however, Joan had noted that his exuberance was ebbing. The estate of the pork merchant was an hour's ride from New York, and on a section de luxe of the Sound known as the " gold coast," for obvious reasons. At the moment of their arrival lights already effervesced from windows and doors, warming the November pallor of the park, while the motors curving through the drive darted brilliant glances this way and that, before they halted panting at the porte- cochere. The persuasion of a violin stole out prematurely as the silver and gold slippers twinkled down from the motor, and Joan sighed gustily. At home, in Crannsford, all such af- fairs were consummated at Dill's Dancing Academy, with the minimum of display. She had never, not even abroad, attended a ball of such pretensions, where men-servants in braided livery opened the door and stood like exclamation points through all the lower regions. Her unjaded anticipa- tion made her a lovely and lovable object. In the dressing-room up-stairs a myriad candles were shrouded in amber silk, and the exhalations of the chamber were delicately voluptuous. Here stout dowagers, who would wax serenely charming below, were now in the throes of keen, almost savage anxiety. One of them, who seemed 132 BLIND WISDOM to be a woman with a great many elbows, was jerking her way about and whimpering because the powder on her back failed to disguise a blemish. A couple of very pretty, self- effacing maids were attending upon these ladies with dexter- ous touches and placating words. One remarked that by nature they were themselves eminently fitted to trip the light fantastics, but class distinction, like a traffic policeman, held a large gloved hand in the way. Later, when " their bet- ters " had cascaded to the rooms below, they would chat freely, criticize the guests, and take secret steps to the music. In that feminine bower Joan saw amusing phenomena. Here all the business of make-up was accomplished with delicate glamour, the very appurtenances of the room play- ing " sedulous ape " to Vanity Fair. One curved a lip, an- other set her cheek to blooming, and yet another shaped her eyebrows to the expression of curiosity. And ever through the high chatter ran the silken thread of that unruly violin that would play truant from its fellows. " Come down," it seemed to cry. " The night is young, but each moment aging. Come down and seize the golden hour before it passes ! " Joan, herself, growing at a time of evaporating scruples, had yet escaped the mania for kalsomine, and though the girls among whom she moved eclipsed her at a glance, later she was bound to triumph by her piquancy and truth. She had never held the popular conception of a dance. To her it was a highly mystic affair, compound of music and merri- ment, a weaving of plot and counterplot, tragedy and comedy. Old Mr. Gordon possessed one daughter, the kind who did not scorn to arrange his necktie before a public appear- ance, and it was to this daughter that the evening was dedi- cated. The old financier had fortified himself for the occasion with considerable spiritus fermenti, so that he was AN AUDACIOUS PRINCE 133 now nearly as pink as Marybelle's frock (and Marybelle, by the way, was pink as a peppermint), and he stood in the midst of his objets d'art, happily unhampered by any knowl- edge of their intrinsic value, bland and ruddy, spiced and sweetened with hospitality like one of his own sugar-cured hams. Marybelle, the bud, was, in fact, so full blown that she encouraged one to believe that if she had not been long " out " she had at least grown in a southern exposure. With her familiars, greeting her effusively, she bandied hearty sentiments. Through the drawing-rooms, as more and more guests arrived, the word " Marybelle " accent on the " Belle," was rung with infinite changes. " That's an original name ! " remarked the elderly dancing man who presently took Joan into custody. " Can't remem- ber that I've ever heard it before. Do you care for it ? " " N-no," answered Joan truthfully, as they swung out, " I don't like any name with a bell attachment." And while he was smiling at her precocity her eyes wandered about the beautiful, cream-colored walls with panels high up, depicting nymphs and satyrs at play. " Oh, isn't this Heaven ? " she breathed across his thin shoulder. " I must tell Jerry what a good time my feet had at the party, and, oh, yes, how you couldn't see the musicians ! " And after a little she confided further, " That's what I like, that the violin and guitar should each have its own individuality. Out in Crannsford we have an orchestra of four pieces and the musicians look like four mongrel dogs. The lovely violin is all mixed up in my mind with tufty whiskers and a bald head. But here," and she sighed rapturously, " here it becomes a voice ! " Soon other men cut in and she was bandied from partner to partner till she felt like a brightly colored ball that was being whirled about in a child's game. " How can I remember your names ? " she laughed when 134 BLIND WISDOM she found herself queening it over four young men in a re- cess with the claret bowl. " I'll call you ' Mr. Tall/ ' Mr. Short/ ' Mr. Broad ' and ' Mr. Lean/ " a decision that was hailed with enthusiasm. " And what will you call me ? " asked the pleasant, lei- surely voice of a newcomer who had just been presented. As the music recommenced he drew her out upon the lus- trous floor as the lodestone draws the helpless steel. " You ? " Joan hesitated merrily, a flashing glance up- ward convincing her that here was one to defy classification. " That's hardly fair, perhaps," her partner consoled her for inaptitude. " But at any rate the privilege is not con- fined to you. I too can call names, and I am sure I could think of a very delightful one to give you." " Could you ? " she stammered, feeling that the world was revolving rather fast just then. " I must persuade you to tell me. If it is an especially good one perhaps it will stick, and I've always been hoping for a nickname." Prince Charming laughed musically. " But suppose I should insist, after further acquaintance, upon keeping it for my very own ? Surely I should have a clear title to my own invention, don't you think?" "The monopoly, you mean? Well, perhaps, but do tell me. I'm all curiosity. It's like snatching a gift from a grab-bag." They glided smoothly through the subtle steps of a new dance, scarcely realizing the perfection of their attainment. "I think I'd call you ' Twinkletoes/ " offered the man warmly, and Joan exclaimed in obvious delight: " Because my shoes are silver ! " " N-no, not exactly," he amended, " but because you have truly dancing feet." Jerry would have said, " Because your feet shine," but the stranger, if lacking Jerry's pronounced whimsicality, pos- AN AUDACIOUS PRINCE 135 sessed a more personal voice than Jerry's. It seemed to be made of chiming tones and warm colors, and was of so per- suasive a quality that it made one's head swim. It gradu- ally dawned upon them both that their performance was ex- traordinary, and they danced with greater consciousness. When others came to cut in he eluded them skillfully or held her firm with a protective and chivalrous arm. His quiet devotion seemed to say, " We came into the world dancing together, and we shall go on dancing to the end of our days." Joan lost touch with time in this new poetry of motion and emotion. It seemed that neither their feet nor their bodies were capable of discord; both were flawless. All about them the walls, peopled with faces, blurred indistin- guishably and became part of the atmosphere that they cut in passing. At length without a word her partner flashed them through a glass door into a sun-parlor " far from the madding crowd." Some young decorator had played with the possibilities of the place, his mad genius rampant through black and white and jade. But the wholesome scent of earth was real and redeemed such mechanics. Pierrot faced her squarely, touched either wrist, yet was wisely gentle in his impudence. " Let me look at you, Twinkletoes," he plead softly, and while his boyishly intimate eyes were busy in the process his light touch was still on her wrists. It was as though his right hand scarcely knew what his left hand was doing. Joan, laughing, essayed to gaze back, but could not brave his look even at that early stage. Her color fluctuated ; she was the virgin mirror that is breathed upon for the first time. This boy-man was tall and lithe as Narcissus, with beguiling manners and temperament. He had a gift of becoming wholly absorbed in whatever or whomever interested him, a naive preoccupation with such. Never was he the man for crowds. He unconsciously compelled the personal ele- 136 BLIND WISDOM ment, whenever he felt sufficiently interested to do so, finding himself most at home in it. He must be alone with man, woman or child before his magnetism would func- tion. At length Joan's eyes confirmed what her heart already sensed, that he was outrageously attractive. That first pic- ture of him became indelibly stamped upon her mental retina. His head was of thoroughbred fineness, aristocratic in feature, the mouth frankly sensuous, the chin bearing an impetuous mark. For sheer physical, masculine beauty, she, poor child, had never known his equal. " So," he said with sweetness, " to see is to believe ! I did better than I knew when I applied ' Twinkletoes.' But it might be well to know your real name, which I seem to have forgotten, so that I may flourish it properly when the proper occasion arises " He broke off in comic dismay. " Good Lord, don't, I beg of you, tell me it is Mrs. Some- thing-or-Other. One can never be certain nowadays." She shook her head gaily. " No, I'm still Joan Wister, and I came with the Blunts." " A sort of a relation, I dare say ? " She nodded brightly. " A sort of a sister. Oh, look, there's Mrs. Blunt, Senior, now, the one with dinghoppers in her hair " "I beg pardon?" " Butterflies or bow-knots or birds, I forget which. She always wears them. I remember she did when Godfrey Blunt married my sister Agnes." They had seated themselves by common consent on a mar- ble bench where they could glimpse the dance-hall through the door. " One is almost tempted to wonder," observed he, " why Godfrey did not marry you ! " And under his breath he added, " I should have." AN AUDACIOUS PRINCE 137 Oh, now the world was whirling indeed! She laughed along an uncertain scale, her fingers embracing a satin-clad knee for moral support. " And the answer would be, ' For lots of reasons. He preferred Agnes, and then, of course, I wasn't ripe to be plucked.' I was just a little green apple hanging on the family tree." " While now," he began flippantly, but was warned from taking too great liberties with her delicate sensibilities. In- wardly he was calling her a pink-cheeked, perfect fruit and envying the harvester. Thereupon they went back for another dance, another, and yet another, but ever they returned to the fountain, and when they found others sharing their retreat he discomfited them away like a sullen, love-lorn boy. They sat beside a secret pool and the reflection of her white pearled frock shimmered like moonlight on the water. Against the youth- ful white of her neck and shoulders her hair coiled in dusky mystery. Though he was never obtrusively close, she sensed his nearness through every fibre of her being, the knowledge setting up a quick palpitation. She could not remember ever before having been aware of a man as a man nor of herself as an essentially feminine being. Jerry had stood for wis- dom, for comfort and the blessed harbor of friendship ; she could have gone to him unabashed in any dilemma, certain of his fond faithfulness. But this was different. This was what it meant to be a woman, an instrument exquisitely attuned to mysterious vibrations. Deep in the blue-lined fountain a couple of fishes were cutting this way and that in slow convolutions, revealing now a flash of scarlet, now a cool note of silver, or the opulence of pure gold. Water trickled from the cornu- copia of a bronze cupid whose smile was obliterated by rust. On the bright surface of the water floated exotic lilies, here 138 BLIND WISDOM in the heart of November dreaming themselves beneath' tropic skies. The two reacted like lotus eaters. The man glanced from her knee to her silver toes, demure beside his patent leathers, and remarked irrepressibly : " They are saying that they danced together centuries ago, Twinkletoes. Perhaps they are wiser than we and remem- ber all about it. You can see at a glance that they've met before. Where shall we begin ? " he went on with growing emotion. A brown, exploring hand discovered her interlaced fingers and found them treasures of incalculable worth. There was no gainsaying him, and in truth her desire to do so was not strong. Would one wave away the fairy prince of a lifetime after he had revealed himself as such? Having consolidated that gain, he allowed his inclination to sweep him further. " Didn't you know I was waiting? " Joan threw pebbles at the goldfishes and tried not to look as taken-by-storm as she felt. She wished pathetically that she could cope with such a situation as other girls were able to do, but hers was a fineness of graining bound to protest against anything which savored of promiscuous flirta- tion. " You're altogether absurd, of course," she answered, flushing a deep, lovely color while she endeavored to make her voice sound casual. " Perhaps," she challenged, " this is the modern school of conversation and I'm not educated up to it. I'm afraid I I don't know how to play." The eloquent hand went home to its owner in fine, of- fended pride and the little knee was suddenly quite chill and alone. " It isn't any school of conversation at all, I assure you. It only means that you are winsome and bewitching and all the other distracting things, and, naturally, I like to tell AN AUDACIOUS PRINCE 139 you so. Of course, if you insist upon it," he went on with a rueful laugh, " we can follow the conventional path. I will call and converse with your mother for a dozen after- noons, and you will show me photographs in albums and we will discuss life earnestly. Then, some day, the prelimi- naries over, we will rush out into the sunshine and say the things we've been thinking and feeling all that tiresome time, only they will be a bit frayed from long-keeping. Would that be better than saying them now where only the gold- fishes can hear?" " Oh, you very boy," she remonstrated, laughing in justice to the truth of his picture, the incipient mother in her para- mount. He was such an irresistible that she wanted, for one dangerous moment, to draw that dark head into her lap and run her fingers through the thick hair. In a more in- dulgent tone she said: " You might concede at least one convention. I don't even know your name, and I'm frightened to death that it may be Adolph or Archibald or something that will throw you entirely out of drawing." " No," he cried boastfully, " my name is supposed to match." " Let me hazard a guess, then. David, or Paul. Both names are dark and " " No, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it is neither. It's Bret, the only name my parents gave me, so please try to like it. My other name's Ballou. Bret Ballou, profoundly at your service ! " She clapped her hands. " Oh, that's far beyond my expectations," and she quoted, " ' with a name like that, you might be any shape almost.' And anything might happen to you ! " " You're right. Almost everything has." The voice was at least thought cynical. I 4 o BLIND WISDOM " I dare say something is happening to me at this moment. Can you imagine what it is, Twinkletoes ? " On the daring revealment came the seductive strains of the next waltz, a mingling of truth and trickery. He had caressed her little hard-won hand with just the right ad- mixture of desire and renunciation, he had argued the fingers to submission, but suddenly they rebelled and with- drew utterly. Although neither realized as much, New England looked from her eyes at that moment, the spirit of the Morrow ancestry shaking a stern forefinger at him. She rose precipitately. " Oh, please, Mr. Ballou. I don't think it can be right for you to say such things to me, especially as they aren't true and we've only known each other one evening. And I think I see my sister looking for me now ! " But even as she rebuked him, she experienced the first tiny pain, the birth-pangs of her love. He too rose and bowed to her gravely, darkly red as an Indian and of the same inscrutability. He stood back, very stiff and straight, for her to pass. Seeing him so, she hesi- tated, her hands fluttering out, her heart beating tumultu- ously. " Please I that is, you know, I'm sorry, really, but oh, won't you ? " His face was impassive. He bowed again with tragic stoicism, half lost in the moves of the game. But to Joan Wister he was supremely convincing. She passed him sorrowfully, since there was nothing now left to do, stum- bling from the cool fragrance of the conservatory to the garish materialism of the hall. And there, before she knew it, she had stumbled into the arms of Godfrey's father, Bishop Blunt, lending his presence to the occasion with just that trace of suave benevolence that she had remem- bered of old. But now she was too old to be snubbed, so, AN AUDACIOUS PRINCE 141 instead, he offered her his arm and several yards of con- versation nicely calculated to divert a miss of twenty-three. " Do you indulge in punch, my dear ? Or don't you yet indulge in anything? Ha, ha! Here we have it, as pink as in the days of country circuses. I need hardly say dances are out of my line, but I occasionally lend an eye to the harmless amusement of our young people. I trust your father is as well as usual ? " " No, I'm glad to say, I mean yes, thank you." She took one sip of the drink and choked distressingly. It was difficult to rivet attention on the Bishop's benign pink face when at any moment she might see Ballou. "And what," pursued the Bishop, generously lubricating his .throat, " ever became of that unfortunate girl you had in tow at the time my son was married ? I am fond of tell- ing that story in contention of the fact that youthful gener- osity is er often misguided ! " " Do you mean Lily Gray ? " asked Joan with a feeble smile, her eye still vagrant. " Oh, Jerry took her in, you know." " Jerry took her in ! Dear me, just how do you mean? " " He gave her a position as his secretary, and I suppose, although I haven't seen her, that she is living ' happily ever after.' " But even as she spoke the word " Jerry " it was strange upon her lips. She was riding a meteor now, and she had passed Jerry's world. And after what seemed an interminable time of profitless talk and forced gaiety the Bishop handed her along to a " splendid young man " who pillared his church, and danced as heavily as one would expect a pillar to do. And still no Bret Ballou, to come thundering after. All at once the assembly grew nauseous in her sight, her sight sick for the audacious prince, sulking in obscurity over whiskeys and sodas. As she passed down to supper on the arm of the I 4 2 BLIND WISDOM "pillar" she felt like one worn thin through waiting and anxiety. Oh, what if her golden moment had fled irrev- ocably, what if her prince had abandoned her for always? Her hunted face looked so small to Agnes, who happened to be near, that she bent and whispered: "Are you feeling ill, dear, or have you lost something?" and Joan without hesitation whispered back, " I've lost something," then allowed herself to be placed at table and engulfed in the general uproar. And there at last she saw him, aloof and handsome. And her coffee grew cold and her lobster a la Newburg lost its pristine flavor. How many actual minutes that separation endured is not to be estimated literally. But it inevitably ended as all agonies end, suddenly, thankfully. They filed out of the supper room and Joan brushed close to him, as she did so lifting her eyes so that he saw they were wet. Poor, in- genuous Joan, who could weep for a prince of a night! Used as he was to the finesse of society girls, the revelation was a powerful one. " Dance with me," he bit off savagely, and said not an- other word the while they wound their way to fairyland with intricate feet. - An almost religious contentment brooded in her heart. She felt herself deliciously inferior to his strength and de- cisiveness, enfeebled and glad. When he stopped abruptly and drew her back to their former retreat her racing heart presaged she knew not what. Was it mad physical attrac- tion, the girl's concept of love as applied to a convenient object? What was it that possessed her utterly? Ballou, sensing her vanquishment, was swayed pro- foundly. Heavens, she knew nothing about him, she did not even know that And yet she followed him with humility and abandon. In his own circle he was considered something of a good fellow; he was, in point of fact, not AN AUDACIOUS PRINCE 143 quite so good as the best of them, but considerably better than the worst. If his tolerant friends among the men said anything of his propensity for attracting women, it was in the modern vernacular ; they " admired his work." Beside, there were things in his life, brief as it had been, that warranted in their eyes his efforts at distraction. Also, he was rich and the fact weighed heavily toward condonement. When he drew Joan resistlessly to him, he probably did so without premeditation. It was incredible that she was really so unsophisticated as she seemed; beside, if she were of nunlike prudery, she had no business to look so pro- vocative. " Have you missed me, Twinkletoes ? " he demanded in a whisper, plunging into the way of least resistance, and Joan, with frightened eyes, obeying only what was in her heart, whispered back, " Don't ever leave me again." " Never," vowed he waywardly, and he bent and kissed her full on her sweet, fresh mouth. Later, amazement dawned upon him ; here was one twen- tieth-century girl who deprecated the love-offering which she gave with both hands. For when he had kissed her, her eyes were kindled like stars and she had whispered back, " Thank you, thank you." " I'm mad about you," he declared in extenuation, mor- tally ashamed of himself. Then she did very nearly succeed in unmanning him. " I love you, too," she cried simply. Confound it, he was wishing that half the frosting was not gone from the cake of life ! CHAPTER XIV JERRY'S DASH FOR FREEDOM JERRY CALLENDAR was conning over a case. Beneath his hand on the old desk lay a sheaf of paper, and now and then a rift of November wind would force its cunning way about the edges of the window and stir the sheets im- pudently. Outside the day was graying into night, the subtle, opalescent lights that had shown between the build- ings now lost in a dull, prehensile sky. He had sat a long time in deep absorption that afternoon with the mental picture of the case which he was building up. It had in- terested him unusually ; there was a human element in it, for several weeks it had intrigued his imagination and made him more content with his lot. For Jerry was of those whose business shrine is empty. He never quite lost the bitterness, the sense of futility of one who feels himself misplaced. Godfrey, of no greater ability, was yet a better candidate for the niche he filled ; if he felt no great sense of dedication to his profession, he at least felt no aversion for it. There were times such as in the past few weeks, when Jerry was tricked into a half-way resignation ; when his per- ceptions or enthusiasms overlaid his fundamental distaste for the practice of the law. But the reaction was swift and inevitable. Now as he skimmed the vivid pages, for the first time he did so impersonally. " I'm seeing this from the writer's standpoint, from the student's standpoint," he told himself half scornfully, half amusedly, " and not from the legal standpoint at all." He JERRY'S DASH FOR FREEDOM 145 went deliberately further. " That's because I'm a play- writer and not a lawyer." And behold his enthusiasm was unveiled to a skeleton! Suddenly his thought veered from his own personal prob- lems to the room, traditional in size, shape and arrangement. The building was of the older ones in Rector Street, and from the time he was a lad he could remember his father opening the door with a casual hand that lifted his hat to the peg beside it. Then, with a sober, rather shuffling walk, make straight for the door marked " Private." There were worn places across the wooden floor that testified to that daily pilgrimage. Within, the sanctum of his life was digni- fied though uninviting, the old mahogany, and old book- cases, incredibly black and portentous. The dust had al- most a symbolic value here. As though he had no patience with sunlight, old Judge Callendar had eschewed the win- dow, piling the derelict volumes of his practice, book on book, till naught but a wan crack of day remained un- covered. Gas had given place to electricity in this cavern of judgment, but the effect was the same. Here, day by day, save when he was occupied in court sittings, the brusque, middle-aged man had evolved into the brusque old man, as generally respected and feared as though his powers were supernatural. Jerry could remember as a motherless child of fifteen being dumbly hurt by that Stygian gloom and seeking to alleviate it with a bunch of daffodils which he had placed on his father's desk in a cracked office pitcher. He could see to this day the grimly questioning look which his stern parent had directed at the innocent offering before he reached for the flowers with muscular fingers and flung them into the waste paper basket. " Flowers don't belong in a man's life," he had said to the boy with hard double meaning. No, there had been no daffodils along old Callendar's way. I 4 6 BLIND WISDOM And there would be no daffodils along Jerry's path" unless he somehow cast off the intolerable bonds of this pro- fession and sought his own. He saw himself dragging along the thankless road for a veritable eternity, until his father should die and the groove become too deep for him to lift clear of, and he shuddered violently. The shadows about him assumed grotesque shapes of warning, like waving arms and frantic fingers driving him away. A step broke his reverie. " Oh, you Godfrey," he said, turning and trying to speak lightly, " I thought I felt a face ! Godfrey, old boy, I'm going to spring something that'll surprise you." " Nothing can surprise a man," quoted Godfrey amiably, " after he's fallen asleep in the bath-tub and turned over on his face." " I'm going away," announced Jerry, unheeding. " I'm going to chuck the law game for good and all. This is no premature statement; it's what I've been thinking and feel- ing for years. Great God ! I'm thirty-seven and I haven't had a ' look-in ' at living the kind of life I want. The gov- ernor threw me into this, willy nilly, the way they chuck youngsters into the millpond to make 'em swim. Some swim and some drown, and that's what I'm doing." He rose and wheeled nervously about. " Look here, Godfrey, old fellow, you may like it, but I don't. There's no soul in the thing for me no conscience, either, nine times out of ten. The law's too cut and dried, too arbitrary, too prescribed; it's tight as a straight-jacket, it won't adjust to fit individuals ; between ourselves, it's ab- surd ! What's my father been doing all his life ? Running down criminals, with about as much charity for the erring as a sewing-machine, without any knowledge of human nature, without any tolerance without any love! Oh, I tell you, it's hideous the life he's led, lined up with Satan JERRY'S DASH FOR FREEDOM 147 to give poor devils the devil, instead of directing his energy toward the source of the trouble " " That may be," interrupted Godfrey, scratching his head in discomfort, " but we aren't all idealists like you, Jerry, we can't afford to be idealists. What's to become of the world, what's to become of law and order ? " When Jerry turned his hair was distraught and one end of his tie hung loosely. " Law and order are no relations of mine, and I don't feel under obligation. I haven't time to go into that. It's always the cure and never the prevention that you con- servative chaps think about. Very well, be the policeman, be the game warden, if you want to, if it's necessary for some one to take the dirty jobs. Let me get at it in another way, in my own way. I'm through with your methods." He softened suddenly. " Do you believe in the nobility of your profession ? Come now ! " Godfrey hesitated, then laughed ruefully. " Darned if I know, but it's hard enough to get through the world at best without splitting all the hairs. Jerry, you make me tired. Why do you think yourself an instrument of the Almighty? What makes you think you have a mission to enlighten the public?" "That's right. Why do I?" pondered Jerry, half to himself. There was a moment's silence, then Godfrey said in a dazed voice: "You can't be serious. This is one of the things that aren't done. Men don't walk out in a huff like their office boys and let their interests go to pot," and in high pique he assumed a bantering tone. " Sweet Sapphira, you'd better have a care, little one. The city is hard on poor lone girls like you. What the devil do you think you'd do? It's no joke at your age to be rustling up another job."- I 4 8 BLIND WISDOM Jerry took a tentative step toward the window, staring into the street as though some tangible future were waiting for him. " I can't tell you. You'd laugh, and if you did I'd have to kill you." He smiled grimly, but it was the smile God- frey loved. Perhaps out of the whole world his feeling for Jerry Callendar was strongest. " I don't say I'll close my desk and never open it again, but that's what it virtually amounts to. There's nothing pending now you can't handle without me, and really I'm making you a present of my own personal practice." " But, man, this is madness, and it hits me hard. If you weren't such an obstinate wretch I'd try to talk you out of it." He had a ray of ignoble hope. " Have you told him?" " Him " was Judge Callendar, as great a potentate behind his glazed door as any monarch in his kingdom. " No," answered Jerry, steadily, " but I'm going to before the hand of that clock touches the hour. The way I'm feel- ing now it would take something more than the tower of Pisa falling to iron me flat." " I see." Godfrey bit his lip like a hurt child. " Then you'd better have a drink first, or else take a running jump and go over the partition. The plunge won't be so cold if you take it all at once." Jerry had grown grave. But his eyes were clear and fearless still. " Here goes," he murmured ; " wish me luck." His father was seated before the littered desk when he entered, the electric bulb behind him shedding a rough halo about his white head. When he glanced up the pockets in his face filled with shadows and seemed more than usually cadaverous. His mustache was still stubbornly black and there were black tufts in the beetling brows which hung JERRY'S DASH FOR FREEDOM 149 threateningly over the fine, piercing eyes. Perhaps some- thing in Jerry's face arrested him and warned him here was no mere business interview. Moreover, Jerry's manner, usually a compound of defiance and affection, was now in- explicably changed. The Judge lifted one sinewy hand to remove his glasses and when he had done so he wiped his eyes with great weariness, staring at his son with the touch- ing effort of the near-sighted. " Well," he got out. But Jerry, having journeyed so far along the road of decision, was not to be turned back at the first discouraging sign-post. " Father," he stated, coming closer and towering above the crotchety old man, " I have made up my mind to quit the law. I should always be a poor lawyer, I mean in the spiritual sense but there's a chance I may make good at something else. Would you care to discuss it with me ? " For answer his father ripped out the one interrogative word: "Again?" " First, last and always," answered Jerry doggedly. "The time has come, that's all," then, fearing that he had been a bit too brutal with his announcement, he added conciliat- ingly, " I don't mean that I won't close up what work I have on hand. I simply mean that '' But to his surprise his father had risen ; he had risen to an unimagined height, trembling and towering in rage. " Young man, there's a yellow streak in you. I knew it years ago when you brought those trashy .flowers and ar- ranged 'em here, here where your nose should have been buried in your books. I said to myself then, * He's no Callendar.' I said it then and I say it now. You took from your mother's side, and the Dales were no good died poor, aud every one of 'em had enough theories to fill his grave." ISO BLIND WISDOM He laughed in raw bitterness and the color drained slowly from his face. He seemed to be rallying his forces for one last fling at the son who had failed him. " You needn't trouble about anything more. You git. That's it, you git. An' you can go anywhere you please so long as you don't come back. You can go straight to hell." His voice cracke'd and shrilled on the last word and rang with appalling effect into the outer office where Godfrey Blunt and a couple of secretaries stood rooted to the spot. " Thank you, sir," said Jerry, whiter than his father, " but I have other plans," and turned and marched out. " He doesn't mean quite that," whispered Godfrey, cor- ralling him with an affectionate arm as he made toward the outer door. " He'll come round in a few days and be look- ing you up. I say, where are you going to live, old man ? " " I don't know," said Jerry dully. " Let me go now " and he freed himself resolutely. But in the echoing corridor steps came hurrying after and he turned once more, thinking that it was Godfrey who had followed. Instead, a flaxen-haired girl in a serge skirt and a neat blouse caught timidly at his sleeve. " Oh, Mr. Callendar," sobbed Lily Gray, " please don't leave me behind. I can't a-bear your father; I'm that afraid of him I quake in my shoes when I take down his letters. Oh, please, Mr. Callendar, don't go off like this." " But, Lily," began Jerry, controlling his desire to escape at any cost, " Miss Gray, I mean, Mr. Blunt will keep you on and things will be just as they have been before. Stop crying now. There's a good girl." Whereupon she sobbed all the harder. " Nor I don't like him, neither. If I make mistakes he's crosser*n sticks, an* if I do good work he's all the time getting fresh with me." JERRY'S DASH FOR FREEDOM 151 *' Glory to God," cried the exasperated Jerry, taking off his hat and wiping his brow. " What a world ! " "Ain't it just ! " seconded Lily with comic conviction. Then feminine intuition told her that her idol had reached the end of his rope for one day. " Oh, I suppose it can't be helped, Mr. Callendar, but honest, I'll miss you fierce, an' so'll the other girls. If you get where you can, will you take me back again ? " " Yes, I will," he assured her, really touched. " Here's a secret, Lily. I'm going to write plays. And as soon as I get going you can be my secretary. Should you like that ? " She rolled her eyes and simultaneously a wad of gum from one cheek to another. Her smile flashed through her tears. " The answer's the same as will a duck swim? Good-bye, Mr. Callendar, mind you don't forget, now. An* an' good luck." Then she fled bravely before he could see her smile vanish. ******** It was dark when Jerry let himself in with a latch-key to the house in Washington Square. His intention was to pack as many of his personal things as he could in the half hour before his father came home, but on second thought his pride rebelled. Would it not be better to start fresh and unencumbered? For nearly everything in his rooms, nearly everything in the house, for that matter, was heavy with association, had a coat of moss upon it, so to speak. He and his father had lived as busy men do, rather com- fortlessly in the great, lugubrious house that stayed stub- bornly in the middle of the past century, both as to furniture and tradition. Judge Callendar had long ago selected for his housekeeper a middle class Englishwoman, a certain Mrs. Flint, "with no nonsense about her," and so firmly convinced of her efficiency that she converted her em- I $2 BLIND WISDOM ployer and all but converted the helpless Jerry. The truth, of course, was that she lacked all imagination or ingenuity ; she created no atmosphere. Never did she unconsciously leave a feminine reminder in any, pleasantly conspicuous place, a bit of sewing or knitting, a basket or a scarf. She prided herself on being as shipshape as a man. Her mend- ing was always done in her room and carried later in a coarse bag to the linen closet ; she kept threads and buttons in tight little boxes beneath tight little labels, and she seemed to be forever locking and unlocking closets and doors with one of the interminable keys that dangled at her waist. Jerry through all the years had never lost his shamed dis- taste for her. He sensed vaguely that she lacked some es- sential quality of womanhood; that the house was un- habitable, but always when he tried to lay finger on the cause of the trouble he failed to locate it. Now as he climbed the winding stair to his room, so dark that it did not matter whether the carpet was swept or not, (though Mrs. Flint would have assured him that it was), he passed for the millionth time the niche with the pink gum statuette of Pickwick and Sam Weller. He heard for the millionth time the brush of Mrs. Flint's garments along the upper hall, ghostly-remote as footsteps of the dead, and he seemed to see her black satine apron, her hard, tight waist and forbidding bosom, and the pale, coarse face above, topped by a black false front and abashed gray locks be- hind. If she heard him packing she would come to his room with the expression of polite scandalization that he knew so well, and she would build up difficulties about him, she would hem him in with " buts " and " ifs " and heavy reminders, till departure became nigh impossible. Then all the evening she would whisper to his father about him as she served and cleared away dinner, her mystification spread- ing a fog through the house and even reaching out to JERRY'S DASH FOR FREEDOM 153 dampen Jerry in whatever haven he should have fled to. Oh, it was intolerable ! He closed the door of his room and leaned against it, and told himself that he would take nothing save what he could slip into a small hand-bag. It would be simpler to send for his clothes later, when he would not have to hear Mrs. Flint's expostulations. As he circled down the stair again the sadness of it all smote him afresh. He was sorry for his father, and through his pity he loved him intensely. Never had he understood the barrier between them, but that, according to his philosophy, was not necessary. His heart ached to be leaving him here in this mausoleum of stagnant memories and sterile hopes, but it could not be helped. As he passed the door of the " parlor," shrouded and waiting like a thing asleep, he thought wistfully of Joan. It seemed that her presence in the house, if it were merely for a matter of moments, must instill life and sweetness and charity into its mustiness. But now he believed that she would never enter it. Outside the wind was radical as a tonic and he inhaled it thankfully, saying to himself, " No recriminations now. I'm free free, and I'm going to rejoice in my freedom." The park, with its wind-blown, hurrying figures, was dark beneath the muffled sky, but an electric cross on the old church opposite lifted its symbol of courage, and lights were winking in the houses. Presently a square of warmth fell on the pavement, and as he stepped inadvertently into the glow he remembered that he was hungry. Three steps down men and women were dining with an air of camaraderie, and as Callendar took the table designated he felt himself the recipient, the sharer, of a certain hospitality. He grew quite gay over the jolly bowl of stewed oysters, and even scraped up conversation with the thin little waitress who looked as if hard luck had her in leash. 154 BLIND WISDOM He was in the midst of his solitary enjoyment when he became aware of a couple at the next table, by their cloth- ing conspicuous in the unpretentious little place. But the amazing thing was that he knew them both, and they were affecting very earnestly not to see him. Claire Wister, by the Lord, and that young Ridgely Rutherford, the actor, whom Jerry had presented on the night of the theatre-party. Claire holding a secret rendezvous with a matinee idol! His feeling was absurdly apologetic. Why had a perverse chance sent him stumbling in upon their obscure meeting place, why had Fate chosen him to bear the burden of the secret ? He finished dinner as hastily as he could without giving offense to the little waitress who made excuse to linger near and chat. As he was leaving she said, with the naive bold- ness of the born Bohemian : "If you live near by, won't you please take all your meals here?" He lighted a cigarette and gave her a smile of great charm. " I don't know where I live. That's the worst and the best of it!" CHAPTER XV INFATUATION WHEN Joan wakened the morning after the dance, a voice followed her out of her dreams. " Twinkletoes, is it you ? " She cleared the sleepy hair from her eyes, and hanging above the telephone embraced it as though the impersonal instrument were imbued with life. The world of wide- awake appeared as beautiful then as slumberland had been. " It is I, Bret Ballou," she sang with tender humor, yet even as she made the assertion she was reminded of a story of her childhood, the famous story of the old woman " who fell asleep on the king's highway." And " along came a peddler whose name was ' Stout/ " and who, according to the legend, " cut off her petticoats round about." The re- sult being that when the poor little woman wakened " all in the dark " she doubted her own identity. " That is how I feel," reflected Joan with a sigh. " ' But if it be I as I hope it be, I've a little dog at home and he'll know me.' " Could it be possible that twenty-four hours had brought about this miracle? " Come out into the sunshine an'd play, Twinkletoes," urged her playboy-of-an-evening. " Put on your best hat and humor, and we'll call it a holiday." And, trembling, she bathed and dressed. The little Joan who had ever been direct as an arrow, clear-eyed as a prophet, was now in an exquisite muddle. Love befogged her eyes at every turn. Only one angle of vision had been 156 BLIND WISDOM sharpened by the encounter with Ballou. She looked into the mirror and saw herself with detached perspective; she saw her delicate claims to beauty set forth in poignant plea, she marvelled as only a woman can who has been inter- preted to herself by a man's love. And she felt a great humility at the knowledge. This had been hers in trust for the sudden Ballou, sprung as full-panoplied into her life as Minerva from the head of Zeus. " May I take luncheon and see a matinee with Mr. Ballou?" she asked Agnes some hour or more later, and Agnes, immersed in domestic activity, countered vaguely : " Mr. Ballou ? Was he at the dance ? " " Oh, yes. He was the only person at the dance, I mean the only one you could see. And Bishop Blunt says he is a universal favorite, and Godfrey " " Oh, well, I don't remember, but if Godfrey ap- proves " She demurred for a moment conscientiously, the laundry list in her hand, while Hannah with her angles was bent above a heap of soiled linen, reeling off numbers like the quarterback in a football rush. " Five, eight, ten," repeated Agnes with ambidextrousness, " but you have no chaperone." " I know," admitted Joan, " but the American girl is safe with the American man, as every one knows, and " " Remember to keep out the flannels, Hannah," Agnes in- terspersed the argument with utilitarian remarks. " Yes, I know, Joan, but still I feel that Mother Did you say four, Hannah ? " " Five, six, pick up sticks," laughed Joan. " I'm going, Aggie, I'm going, going, gone!" and the twinkletoes had twinkled swiftly out of Agnes' domain. Ballou waited, with that fresh zest of adventure which was all that made the game worth the candle for him. He had the knack or endowment of appearing perfectly groomed INFATUATION 157 and clean-fibred even after a night of revelry, the jaunty simplicity to be remarked in the sons of society, dressed with " an art that conceals art." No wonder that Joan found him beguiling. " Let us walk a little, ride a little, eat a little, and talk exclusively of ourselves," was his gay formula, once they were abroad in the bright, tingling winter streets. " I must buy you some flowers." " That would be lovely, and flowers always seem to call for hansom cabs, don't you think? I detest taxi-cabs horrid things ! They are so hopelessly commercial with their little clicking meters. The hansom driver robs you much more gracefully," and she laughed drolly. Neither had had time to realize the assets of the other, but when, in the flower shop, Bret extracted a roll of bills from a beautiful limp leather case with gold fittings, she suddenly suspected him of affluence. Everything about him was, so to speak, with gold edges. " No, not orchids, please. They're such fearful snobs. Haven't you any country-bred flowers ? " The dealer glanced at her curiously. " Oh, I don't mean squash blossoms, exactly," she hastened to elucidate, " but, say, nice ladylike sweet peas, or those old-fashioned dwarf chrysanthemums that keep their heads after all the rest get panicky with the frost? " They compromised on a corsage bouquet of violets with a blushing rose in the center, then sallied forth to hail Joan's vaunted hansom. A sense of repetition set curiously upon her; just so she had gone adventuring with Jerry, dear Jerry, who had given her everything save this rushing, throbbing fire of love. She wondered how Jerry would take Bret when the two should meet, yet it scarcely mattered. Nothing now mattered but the delirious present. "What is your occupation, Bret?" she asked as they 158 BLIND WISDOM rocked up the avenue. "I mean, what do you care for most?" He had asked her permission to light a cigarette and now carefully shielded her from the smoke. " In words of one syllable, you mean, what do I do? " " Y-yes, something of the sort." " Nothing," he answered blandly, and looked more charm- ing than ever. " You mean you don't work? " " Doing nothing is awful work and often a bore in the bargain. Why should I work, Twinkletoes? My father did all that in his lifetime. He fixed it so that there was no possible chance of my ever becoming useful." She laughed without condemnation. "Mistaken kindness, wasn't it? You poor boy, what a heritage ! But then, I suppose you are horribly wealthy." "Oh, horribly," he drawled without hesitation. "That makes almost everything valueless, save Well, you know the things that can't be bought, happiness love." He smiled to avoid becoming banal. " What a pretty hand you have, Twinkletoes ! I should like to cover it with dewdrop- diamonds. It is the frailest, tiniest hand in the world." She became feminine. " Oh, no. I've known smaller." " So have I," he came back promptly, " Mrs. Tom Thumb's." And in such guise passed the gossamer hours of that elusive day, to be followed by many such, for, inconsistent as it may seem of Agnes' stern conventionality, she per- mitted them to go about almost entirely unchaperoned. Joan, rejoicing in her leniency, was yet amused by such elastic principles, stretching indefinitely, it would seem, to accommodate one of Bret's social pretensions. No such in- dulgence was accorded Claire, who, it was soon to develop, INFATUATION 159 had looked in another direction at a far less promising can- didate. It may be said, in extenuation of Agnes' irrational regime, that her own personal affairs were in chaotic state. She had lacked entirely the finesse to play successfully with Godfrey: at the first sign of his vanquishment she had be- trayed her hand, she had thrown herself at his head, and from the overdose of cloying affection she had become pro- prietary, nagging, and aggrieved. " What has happened ? " Joan besought him when she found that the circle had completed its course and Godfrey was again leaving Agnes alone in the domestic bastille. " I thought we all thought you were having a relapse of honeymoon ! " This was a purely morose Godfrey, but no longer flippant. " She won't let me breathe," was the terse explanation. " I can't expand, and I'm smothering." Agnes' allies, her sisters, were each whirling toward a vortex of infatuation, and she was left upon her own luck- less resources. When Claire one day presented her ulti- matum, Agnes was sunk in melancholy, yet not too far gone to remember the false standards of her lifetime. " Rutherford ! " she echoed incredulously, " and you say you have been seeing him all along? How could I know you were attracted to him ? " " I think you must have known," answered Gaire, twist- ing her hands. " I think every one must have known." " But then, of all things, for you to have started in such a questionable way, meeting him outside the house. What- ever made you do it, Claire ? " " I suppose instinct made me do it. I suppose I must have felt that we'd never come closer together unless I did. And I'm glad. But now now, Aggie, I want your home for my background. I want it very much, Agnes, and I'm 160 BLIND WISDOM immensely earnest. Can't you won't you " Claire, who was never the least humble, was humbling herself now. As there was no answer from Agnes the color surged up into her face painfully. " Otherwise," she explained, with a tiny sharp edge to her voice, " we'll have to go on in the same compromising way The unpleasant light of understanding dawned slowly in Agnes' face. "And you say if you cannot receive him here you will go elsewhere" " Yes," smiled Claire ironically, her eyes and lips brilliant ; " how clever of you to understand ! We have to see each other, and there's nothing against him but his profession. Naturally, I'd much prefer to do the honest thing, be with him openly. Will you give your consent ? " " Never," retorted Agnes without the slightest hesitation, " never in my house. Why, Claire, you're perfectly regard- less to have gone on like this, to have encouraged him under cover and I've always thought you had balance ! " " That's just it, as I've been trying to explain. I hated it, Ridgely hated it, meeting in hotels or restaurants. I don't want to be under cover. I've lived in the open all my life ! Oh, Aggie, you can put the right interpretation upon it once and for all, if you will. Be human enough to reinstate us with ourselves." " But," reasoned Agnes obtusely, " his family are nobodies in all probability, and your family hasn't given him any sign of approbation. Don't you appreciate my position? " Claire, like most intense natures, could be cruel on occa- sion, and the venom in her flared. "Is it any madder than your marriage with Godfrey? His family were somebodies and yours had given him the sign of approbation, and yet Instantly the tears began to flow, but Agnes' was a one- INFATUATION 161 way mind. It buttoned in the back, as Joan was fond of remarking, so that Agnes could not get outside herself for a moment. " No, I'm sorry, but I can't give in, Claire." Gradually Claire had paled, and now her defiant young lips were drawn back over her teeth. " So then you insist upon a sub rosa." " I shall insist," Agnes caught her up sententiously, " on telling Mother the whole story. My duty " But she broke off in dismay. Claire was dead white and her hair seemed flaming. She bent over Agnes with clenched hands. " Don't do it, Agnes ; that's all I have to say. Don't do it." For a full moment she stood swaying there with her im- plied threat, while Agnes cowered in terror beneath her. Then, still strangely pale and luminous, Claire fastened her furs and marched out into the November wind to meet Rutherford ignominiously on the sly. Joan was gentler in her infatuation, but the experience, colored by her mentality and imagination, was in every way more idealistic than Claire's. She invested Ballou with a nobility he could ill have worn, binding him with delicate threads into the fabric of her life, identifying him with past, present and future circumstance. And yet their playtime was comparatively brief, a score or more of days such as the first had been, packed with personal discoveries, and all her bright-minted love his for the taking. When Ballou paused to think at all, he would say, " Life owes it me. I shall do her no harm," and the like. Since Joan's and Bret's meeting Joan had seen Jerry but once. He had come straight from a stimulating interview with an important producer, had come exuberant, only to find that the " ladies " were out. But Agnes' prim draw- 1 62 BLIND WISDOM ing-room in which he waited was effusive with flowers, and the fact perplexed him. Surely they were striking an un- wonted pace, and though he had no fears for Joan's reaction, he frowned. It must have been an hour of gradually waning warmth for his enthusiasms before the bell sounded and Hannah admitted Joan and Ballou, with stars of snow upon their furs. " Who is it ? " asked Ballou annoyedly in the outer hall. "Any one I know ? " " My dearest friend on earth," whispered back Joan, " Jerry Callendar. I want you to meet him. Oh, Jerry," she blew into the room freshly, " where on earth have you been keeping yourself? I've gone literally to rack and ruin on the wave of pleasure. Why, Jerry, how solemn you look!" Mentally she reached behind her for Ballou. " Bret, this is my old and eternal friend, Jerry Callendar." At the words Jerry's eyes broke from Joan's sensitive face with sharp expectancy to Ballou's. There may have been something of apprehension in that look, though Jerry would scarcely have allowed jealousy to trespass on his soul. " Jerry, please know my new friend, Bret Ballou." She came fearlessly between them and joined their hands with one of her own. "There," she said, giving them a cozy and affectionate pat, " now like one another ! " Instantly Jerry concealed misgivings and set a smile at his door. He was both shorter and stronger in build than Ballou, but his straight-searching and kindling gaze earned the effect of high places. " We can scarcely do otherwise after such a recommenda- tion," opined Ballou smoothly, and the three came to con- vene on the divan before the fire. There, while Hannah served tea, the girl's efforts were directed toward putting INFATUATION 163 the men on the equal ground for which she had hoped. And Jerry, being for the time between an angel and a fool, played his part accordingly, letting her feel that he accepted Ballou at her own estimate. But Ballou, innately arrogant, could not tolerate the easy honors, and must now and then perform some proprietary act that caused Jerry to lift his mental eyebrows. He had come, poor Jerry, to confide in Joan the business crisis of his life, he had come, hungry for her warm o> operation, and yet not one word could he utter of him- self. When he had withdrawn as gracefully as possible and was fumbling with his scarf in the hall, Agnes, who had arrived in the interim, leaned over the balustrade. " That you, Jerry ? Will you come up ? I should like a word with you." And when he had climbed the stairs to the lofty atmosphere of her sitting-room, where Agnes worked and thought and prayed, she asked him abruptly : " What do you know of Rutherford, that young actor? " " Ridgely Rutherford ? " repeated Jerry, seating himself on the edge of a chair draped with sewing, " oh, every- thing." Instantly he was cognizant of the fact that Claire's flirtation had been discovered. " Rutherford's a very decent chap," he answered, bent upon discretion. " Oh, yes, there's nothing against him, so far as I know. He appreciates the emotional element both on the stage and off, naturally that's why he's an actor! He never forgets he's an actor for a moment; he never ceases to act, but that doesn't imply that he's insincere. He simply gives himself in real life as on the stage the best in- terpretation that he's capable of. He has no end of per- sonality and could charm a bird off a bush. Is there any- thing else you would like to know?" " Yes-s," puzzled Agnes, who was not quite certain that i64 BLIND WISDOM" she understood him. " Has he a family I mean of conse- quence ? " Jerry smiled broadly. " I should think it probable that he had a couple of parents at one time. Some one was particular to send him to col- lege, where he distinguished himself in dramatics and re- ceived an offer from a New York manager. That is all I know of his life, though, as Lincoln once said, there may be a rat-hole that needs looking into." Jerry, who hated personal gossip, rose almost immediately. "And what," he startled Agnes by asking, " do you know of Joan's young man ? " Agnes was not always a dullard. She resented even such delicate ridicule and did not care to provoke more of it. " Mr. Ballou ? " she countered, exactly as he had done. " Oh, everything ! Godfrey has known the family for years," and she folded her knitting with an air of finality. When Jerry had left the house he told himself that it was part cf Joan's development that she should learn to play at the eternal game of love; he went further, he said that he was glad she had selected for a first encounter such a well-set-up type as Ballou appeared to be. But he was obliged to try three times before he could swallow the monstrous pill. It may be credited only as a phenomenon that the wild flower of Joan's infatuation was allowed to grow to full fruition with no pruning hand to curb or direct it. It was while she was thus realizing her womanhood that a cold hand descended upon her, turning her, as she had said of the flowers, " panicky with frost." This hand assumed the guise of a telegram sent conjointly to them all. " Come home at once. Father seriously ill. (Signed) " MOTHER." CHAPTER XVI THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW IT was nightfall of a chilly December day when the three sisters alighted from the train at Crannsford. Their jour- ney had been in a sense spiritual, a pilgrimage toward they knew not what destination of sorrow or changed circum- stance. It was interminable, as such journeys usually are, and the gloomy aspect of the day contributed to their deep melancholy. Their mother had written that the touring car had been sold, but it had scarcely occurred to them that Thomas, its adornment, would be gone simultaneously, since the car was his raison d'etre. In place of it stood an ancient vehicle resurrected from the cobwebs of the Wister stable and drawn by a pensioned horse that was finding the perform- ance the event of its old age. And, as a crowning insult, there was Columbus, rusty in an outworn coachman's jacket, and gesticulating wildly. Claire gave an outraged sniff, but Joan burst into laugh- ter; she would have laughed at her own funeral had she glimpsed the ludicrous turn-out. " What can Mother be thinking of ? " cried Claire, look- ing about her for public opinion. " Why couldn't we better have taken a motor from the station?" seconded Agnes, lifting her short nose disdain- fully. " Oh, I call this a shame ! " 166 BLIND WISDOM All had forgotten that in the Morrow family one must eschew hired vehicles. Mrs. Wister had intimated as much to Columbus, who had cocked his head bird-wise at her and assured her it could be managed. " We may as well make the best of it," Joan rallied them, and she started forward with tender amusement, her heart going out to the queer old man who was in his seventh heaven upholding the family pride. " You dear old Columbus," she greeted the ragamuffin tenderly, " how good of you to come ! I haven't ridden in this dog-cart since I was a child. I'll take the place of honor beside you," and as they jerked along she asked with trepidation: " Is is my father very ill, Columbus ? " " My ol' woman 'lows it's the last. She seen it in the leaves." "Leaves?" " Yep, tea." Joan caught the lugubrious inference. " Oh, yes, I forgot. But let's hope tea is not infallible, Columbus." Columbus' jaws worked with a gentle but stubborn rhythm the while the devitalized horse was drawing them slowly up a hill. " It is tea is that, what you said," he affirmed at length. " It ain't never tol' Lishaby no lie." " Oh, Columbus ! " sighed Joan in remonstrance. How still the old town seemed after the loud traffic of the city, how dwarfed and musty the shops where she had traded since childhood! The bare trees stood forlorn as spinsters. The air was cold, yet breathless, and a blue haze hung in the fir trees that fringed the lawns. The earth, with here and there a hard patch of ice upon it, seemed hopeless of rejuvenation. And all the way home she was struggling THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 167 to make the transition from life and love and happiness to the probability of death and desolation. Though she had taken Columbus' advent with the old dog-cart gallantly, it had stood as immensely symbolic in her eyes. Ellen, the housemaid, now married and matronly, opened the door for them and almost at once their mother came running lightly down. Her hair had turned grayer in their absence, a secret stoicism had crept into her face, and she reminded Joan of a snowbird, aloof and still. When she spoke her voice was low with that quality which aims to be cheerful and succeeds in being terribly depressing. It was as though she dreaded to speak louder and waken her dreaming sensibilities. She kissed each as a ghost might kiss, her frail fingers wavered over each face. " Father is better, dears, much better," she breathed. " He is waiting to see you," and, drawing them into the dining-room, she told them the circumstances of his illness. Bad news had precipitated it, competition having crowded Jonathan's freight line to the wall. He was old, he was ill, his methods were obsolete and his mode of management, at long range, had proven impracticable. A son might have saved the day, but all his sons were daughters. "A letter came yesterday and after he had read it the spirit seemed to go out of him. He wouldn't have his supper, and when Sammy went in to undress him he found that he had fallen out of his chair," the tale ran com- prehensively. " We got him to bed and sent for the doctor, but it was a long time before he rallied. The doctor called it a slight stroke." "And now ? " they demanded in unison. " Now, he's sitting in his chair again, perfectly rational. He's more comfortable that way and it's better for his heart. We have a nurse with him. If you go in, speak to him very i68 BLIND WISDOM quietly and try to remember that though he says he feels perfectly well, he's really extremely weak." They did so by turn, and at each appearance the bluff old man, who would never say " die," plucked up the spirit for a little demonstration. "All damned nonsense," he wheezed, with his fierce but suddenly affectionate eyes riveted upon each girl, " never felt fitter ! Have you come home to stay ? " In those words he betrayed his loneliness. And immedi- ately after he made his stock apology. " D'ye miss the car ? Your ma seldom used it. None o' you'll be stayin' in Crannsford long, and what was the use? And that Thomas I don't know for my part what labor is comin' to, a hundred a month and silk shirts and things. Used to have his nails pared by a professional after he'd get through tinkerin' with the engine." His native humor welled feebly in his eyes. " You didn't mind the old trap, did ye ? " " Oh, Father," cried Joan, with a catch in her throat, " don't apologize ! You give us, you always have given us everything." Her voice in terms of intimacy smote un- familiarly on her ears. She was saying to Time, " Wait," to Fate, " Stand back, give us a little longer to atone for our hiding and shirking ! " So urgent was this voice within her, so agonizing her sudden perception of his goodness, that when night came she could not rest. Claire and Agnes, utterly fatigued, had gone to bed to sleep, but Joan was lying abnormally keen and sensitive to each sound. She heard again Columbus' voice, " It's true the tea don't lie," and her own heart con- firmed the prophecy. She longed to clear up difficulties between her father and herself, to lift the barrier, and yet she despaired of doing so because she did not know what the barrier was. Possibly her mother knew, possibly it was THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW 169 her mother who had built the intangible wall and told them without words which side they were to stay on. Yet she had no bitterness toward her mother, whose married life must have been a very strange psychological experience. Every clock in the house was ticking mournfully now and accenting its thought with an occasional boom. A rat scurried across the floor on some dark errand of its own. Outside it had begun to snow and the heavy flakes sobbed softly against the window, like the tears of one who must lament in secret. She would have liked to go to her mother, but she felt that her mother too struggled in a press of con- flicting emotions. All at once she could stand it no longer. Slipping from bed, she wrapped herself in a gown and crept down-stairs. The nurse slept on a cot in her father's room, but her father would be bolt upright in his chair, awake perhaps, awake in the cold blue dusk, and alone as he had been these many, many years, because they had thought him too rough and hard to companion. She opened the door a crack and peered in. It was as she had anticipated, only the room was lighter ; the unearthly radiance of the snow reflected through the long windows. She saw quite plainly the big chair with its trailing blankets and the huge old man motionless there as though carven from marble and nearly as white. She yearned to go to him and impress her warmth upon him, to caress him without reservation, and her heart beat very fast. " Who is it ? " asked the nurse, stirring. " Do you want something?" " It is I, Joan," she answere'd, growing self-conscious and trying to appear casual. " I couldn't sleep and I thought I would find out if my father is all right." The sick man's eyes opened, but he did not speak. He seemed not surprised nor unpleased at her presence there 170 BLIND WISDOM in the dead of night. As she came closer he could catcK the dainty fragrance of her disordered hair and the fresh linen smell of her night-dress. "Are you cold ? " whispered Joan, and began timidly ar- ranging the blankets. " I thought you might be," and then, with a great effort, "Are you lonesome, Daddy ? " It was the one time of her life when she employed that fond name. " Yes," he said unexpectedly, " it's a black business, this getting old but you'd better run along to bed." The hoarse admission seemed to tighten some screw within her. She flushed exquisitely there in the dark, and the brave fingers that had been busied with the blanket came lovingly to his face. Her loosened hair hung over him, and all at once her wet, soft cheek was buried close to his. " I love you," she sobbed. " I want you to know that I love you. Oh, Father ! " And then she fled back to bed, her sobs gradually dimin- ishing till something like a smile rested on her face. She slept as exhausted children do, with both arms flung out on the sheet at either side, lying as straight as a crucifix in bed. For nearly a week it snowed, and in that time Jonathan Wister had sustained a second hemorrhage of the brain. The upper part of his body and a portion of his face were paralyzed by this last stroke, so that now he was little more than a useless bulk. Death crept upon him as clouds im- pinge upon the living blue of the sky, but his spirit remained unconquerable. During that week of white oblivion Joan wandered about the house on tiptoe, seeming in secret communion with the snow. It fell with silver-soft discretion, voiceless, yet all- pervasive, taking the trees to itself, and the outraged earth, fold under fold. When she threw up the window and 171 leaned across the powdery sill, it was snowed under with fantastic curves, and spying upon out-of-doors was like blundering into a holy intimacy, so marvellous was the mechanism of the storm. From the sky the white, pitying hands fluttered down upon objects and persons already cradled to peace; there was no end to its beneficence. She thought of the hillside and the wild wood with its intricate life, of the gentle moaning of the pine trees in the wind, con- stantly shifting and changing beneath their burden of snow. When her father went surely he would take the open trail, scorning all others, and she seemed to see him disappearing into the wood, leaving his disabilities behind, like a boy let out of school. In the uncanny hush of those days she tried to become reconciled to the human process from dust to flesh and from flesh to dust, but the design of the Almighty eluded her. There was a hurt, sore spot at the depth of her being. As to their own failing fortunes, she was not as yet ready to cope with that eventuality. No doubt the big house would have to go, and they would be genteelly poor, but the prospect seemed too remote to be appalling. It was only vaguely distasteful. Her courage would go so far and no farther, reeling back from difficult footing. While she waited she recalled Bret in illuminated vision, advancing their lovering without stint now that she was thrust into this dependency. With youth's cruelty, her thought fled from all the friends whose tenderness would be ready to embrace her in this crisis. She even fled from Jerry, who was telephoning daily and daily sending her por- tions of his strength. Jerry was not particularly real to her just then. It was her potential mate she wanted. Her longing was the more intense in that it was so secret and so proud. But at times she could rise above herself to comprehend keenly what was going on about her. For instance, the 172 BLIND WISDOM amazing evolution of her mother. Mrs. Wister never left her husband now, but whereas she had formerly approached him with trepidation and defiance, now her way seemed smooth, a strange serenity upon her. It was as though she had spoken with the angel that approached and prayed in- dulgence for the sufferer waiting beneath the shadow of the white wings. It was not until he had partially lost the use of speech that he needed no interpreter to speak to her. She heard him now, each word, and she answered all with her eyes, her hands, her ineffable tenderness. For the first time in their lives they were in their hearts mated. The snow said, " Sleep, sleep, sleep," but Jonathan could not sleep quite then for wonder at the blessedness of his lot. All night the three daughters listened to a strange con- versation, a conversation limited to three words. " Jenny." " Yes, Jonathan." That was their communion. Over and over the fumbling voice of his spirit calling upon her, and over and over the reassurance. " Jenny." " Yes, Jonathan." " Jenny." Early in the morning she entered the room where the three had waited without undressing. It had ceased snow- ing at last, and Mrs. Wister stood in a long, sweet shaft of light. She was almost startling in her radiance, " Dear Father has fallen asleep," she said. CHAPTER XVII THE PINCH O' POVERTY IT was certainly the irony of Fate that Jenny Wister, who had married for fortune and borne a sad heart along the road of thirty years, should be left a nearly penniless widow. But the fact, however ironical, was not nearly so surprising as Jenny's manner of receiving the blow. There was good stuff in the Morrows, certainly, yet it is to be doubted that she could have shown such stoicism had she not, prior to Jonathan's death, undergone some psychic change. When her daughters, sitting among the financial ruins, had cried to her, " But this is terrible terrible for you," she had answered, " Why is it terrible ? Noblesse oblige. Nothing can hurt me if I show I am not hurt, and that is the truth. I mind very little for myself. It is only for you that I mind. However, Agnes has a husband, and I dare say Joan and Claire sowed seeds while they were in the city." Both younger girls looked conscious, but divulged nothing. "And of course the first thing will be to sell the house," suggested Agnes with bleak common sense. "You and the girls must find a little place near me." " Must we ? " Jenny Wister smoothed her black dress with a frail but capable hand. " I think not, Agnes. Claire and Joan may live in the city in fact, I should prefer it. I've always held there is no future for them here. But I don't smile I should like to live on in the house your father was so greatly attached to." i;4 BLIND WISDOM " Mother, how can you dream of such a thing? It was Father's folly, his white elephant. You could never af- ford it." " I'll make the house self-supporting," declared Mrs. Wister with energy. "And I'll do it without humbling my- self an iota. What would you say to 'paying guests' de- lightful, discriminating people who would consider them- selves honored to come under my roof ? " " But all alone here " " I shouldn't be alone. I have Lishaby and Columbus, and Ellen, who wouldn't dream of leaving, even if it is a scuttling ship. Beside," she added enigmatically, " I feel less lonely now " Then broke off in despair at ever making them understand. During the jeopardy of the weeks that followed, while creditors flocked and the platter was licked literally clean, it was Jenny's fortitude that saved the day. Some of the choicest of their furniture was obliged to go, but when the avid public came to buy it found her still the great lady, gracious, with reservations, never to be patronized, at the age of fifty-five making it seem her whim to be revolu- tionizing her household. Profoundly moved by the crisis, missing as she had not known she could miss the fierce regime of her father's life- time, Joan wandered about the disordered house, seeking a new road to happiness. She was naturally of a resource- ful and happy disposition, but the circumstances were such as to weigh heavily upon her buoyant nature. When she passed through the gloom of the hall she would fancy again and again that she heard the wheels of her father's chair, sharp on the floor and muffled on the rugs, and would dash into the study with the uncanny expectation of finding him there. There was dust now on the revolving earth-globe which he had been wont to study, an air of finality to his THE PINCH O' POVERTY 175 desk with the pens rusting in the holders, and in a corner stood the heavy wheel-chair with a spider weaving sur- reptitiously across one arm. She would go to it irreso- lutely and stand looking down, wishing that she might see his rugged form again, wishing that he were alive to frighten her, and then, finding the truth intolerable, would dash out into the winter sunlight with the tears heavy in her eyes. Once she consulted old Lishaby over the tea-leaves, pluck- ing up a feeble excitement at the inevitable " dark-com- plected gumpman" in the cup, but it developed that poor Lishaby was half blind and her charlatanism had lost its plausibility. Only one striking incident colored the gray monotony of those weeks. Ridgely Rutherford, who had come out from town with the pressing urge to see his aunt, Sadie Cornwall, was discovered by that lady walking with Claire Wister over a frozen country road. In a flutter of excite- ment she had preceded the oblivious couple into town (her new electric runabout could glide faster than the young people walked), and calling upon Claire's mother had in- formed her gleefully of the situation, only to be snubbed for her pains. Mrs. Wister did not take much stock in Mrs. Cornwall, who was sentimental in an elephantine way and who touched up her front hair. The name " Cornwall " had never been identified with the growth of Crannsford, save in a purely commercial way, Mr. Cornwall being a manufacturer of suspenders. " Never slip " was the Corn- wall trade-mark, but poor Sadie, leaving the Wister house with the tatters of her good intentions, was inclined to think that here was one time when she had not lived up to the family maxim. Seeing them in that way, so engrossed, she hoped she said, that something might come of it. Claire and Ridgely i;6 BLIND WISDOM were both such dears, possibly they had met in the interim, and other incoherencies ! Then Mrs. Wister, with a return of her old-time despotism, had hinted to Sadie Cornwall that, should such prove the case, her nephew " that man," Mrs. Wister was moved to call him, would certainly be con- sidered no acquisition to her family. Oh, but his profession should not make her intolerant, poor Mrs. Cornwall had timidly pointed out. She believed that it was now considered quite an honorable calling, and where love entered in, it was surely the height of parental unselfishness to advance no barrier. " You must let me be the judge," Mrs. Wister had sug- gested with acerbity, " of that," and when Claire arrived with guileless mien, she invited her into the empty sanctum of her father, where the two were closeted for an hour. At the end of that time Claire emerged, very brilliant, and marched straight up to her room, crimson as a danger signal. In fact, her whole person emanated a dangerous calm. She sang clear through two stanzas of a song with- out a break in her voice, like one who has set himself a clear, high task. But Joan, lingering nervously for news of the encounter, was not deceived. She entered quietly and seated herself on Claire's bed amid heaps of garments freshly laundered. And at last, she asked, " Who is he ? " "Ridgely Rutherford," answered Claire as concisely, " you blind little bat ! " " Oh," breathed Joan with growing interest, " o-oh, now I see. Of course that's why you've been so self-contained and clam-like. Oh, Claire, how perfectly thrilling that is! When you go back to New York " " I'm not going back to New York," Claire interrupted, coolly. " You've changed your mind? " " My mind has been changed for me," her sister amended THE PINCH O' POVERTY 177 drily. " No, I'll stay on in Crannsford, since it's Mother's will. I can't very well defy her under the circumstances, but she's simply postponing the day. She's simply fanning the flames by building up difficulties about us, as any one with half an eye could see." " I'm sure," Joan reflected sympathetically, " she can't know how well he takes his part in * For Better or for Worse.' " Claire laughed in spite of herself, and that laugh did much to quiet her overwrought nerves. " Oh, Joan, you are rather a dear youngster ! " But she was hardly prepared for the " dear youngster's " impulsive confession. "If I'm sympathetic, it's because I'm in love, too. I expect I shall be getting married one of these days, with a train ten yards long. No, I don't mean that literally, be- cause I loathe conventional marriages. But in my case it's all quite clear sailing. I didn't premeditate falling in love with ' an eligible young man,' but that seems to be what I've done. I don't have to tell you it's Bret Ballou." She laughed excitedly. " I'm afraid he's even rich, Claire, and he'll probably resuscitate the family fortunes. Only I'm saving it as a surprise for Mother." Claire kissed her dazedly. " You ? You seem such a youngster. However, I sup- pose it's bound to happen, and I do hope it's all right. I saw him, of course, at Agnes'. I mean, I was aware of him, but any man looks like the wall paper after you've seen Ridgely." She did not really mean to be so cruel as she sounded. Joan hesitated between resentment and smiles, and the smiles won out. "As for your 'difficulties, Claire, all true love runs that way, so don't be discouraged. Mine seems to be the ex- i;8 BLIND WISDOM ception. Now I'm going to besiege Mother for permission to go to Agnes'. If I don't see him soon," she added airily, " I shall certainly expire." When Joan reached the city that January evening she felt too impatient even to herald her approach by tele- phone, so that it was a much surprised Agnes who wel- comed her. All the way up-town in the cab she had been saying to herself, " Only an hour or two before I shall see him, at longest, a night ; " and she had opened the window to cool her head that had begun to ache. Oh, life was full " of a number of things," but the greatest of these was love. Agnes and Godfrey were finishing dinner, and though their treatment of her was affectionate and cordial it almost seemed that significant glances passed between them, that their manner was subtly constrained. After Godfrey had inquired for her mother and Claire and they had indulged in the usual post-mortems that follow such cataclysmic hap- penings as death and bankruptcy, he turned to his evening paper. Joan was impatient for him to be off, because she wished to pump Agnes for news of her idol. But Godfrey dallied interminably, trivial over the headings. " The president has gone to bed with a cold. Humph, head or chest not stated ! " Then Agnes, " Let me make you some fresh toast, dear. The marmalade's my own, watermelon rinds, you know." And Godfrey, " Listen to this, Agnes. A woman hanging clothes out her window falls into a rain barrel." " Oh, will he never go ? " thought Joan. " It will soon be too late to get hold of Bret." At last he obliged her, and no sooner was she certain of the closing door than a burden seemed to slip from her. She turned her face to Agnes, who found it rather dazzling with expectancy. THE PINCH O' POVERTY 179 " Tell me quickly, Aggie, have you seen him ? " " Who ? " countered Agnes to gain time. " Why, Bret Mr. Ballou, of course. Don't make me come out flatly and say that I'm dying to hear, that I'm mad as a March hare over that same Bret Ballou." Her eyes darted from Agnes' to her plate. " We're engaged," she offered in a lower voice. "At least, I suppose it amounts to that, and now that I've lost Father I seem to need him more than any one in the world." Agnes rose and went to the serving table, where she poured herself a drink of water. It had been a trying day. Early that morning, seeking change for some domestic bill while Godfrey was bathing, she had inadvertently dis- covered an envelope in his pocket, empty save for a faint, suggestive fragrance. Later on the children had been wor- risome, and here, at the fag-end of the day, was Joan come up from the country to invite disillusionment. Agnes wore one of the negligees that Claire had selected for her two months previous, and from its dull blues and grays her head rose as sombre in modelling as that of a saint, eyes and mouth with the look of weary omniscience. " Yes, I've seen Mr. Ballou. But, please, dear, don't let us talk to-night. I've had quite too much for one day. You must be worn out, yourself. Are you taking a tonic ? " " I need to see Bret," was the answer in a still, small voice. But after a time, with greater spirit: " Yes, I am tired, Aggie, but please tell me all about him. I've counted the weeks and days and hours. Actually, when the train pulled into the station my heart was beating to suffocation." Agnes, who was used to rather extravagant speech from both her sisters, yet wheeled sharply. " Oh, come, Joan, you never saw him over a dozen times, and before that you had never seen any man excepting I8o BLIND WISDOM, Jerry. Do you mean that you are fancying yourself in love with him?" " You speak," cried her little sister proudly, " as though the only fourteen karat love in the world was yours for Godfrey." " Nonsense, I do no such thing. But the way you and Claire jump at life sometimes frightens me." Suddenly it occurred to Joan that Agnes' attitude to- ward Bret had changed. A rebellious spirit surged within her. Why was it that superior people were always able to support their superiority by disagreeable knowledge ? Why did God encourage the kill- joys and keep them everlastingly smug? She lifted her face witK such a look of disquietude that Agnes' heart smote her. "Is anything the matter? Tell me !" begged Joan. It was as though she said, "If you are going to strike me, have the blow over as soon as you can." And yet, she reasoned inwardly, what possible weapon could Agnes hold against him? A minute longer the older woman held out, weighing her fatigue and disinclination against that tragedy-thirsting face. She decided at last that Joan had a right to her knowl- edge, however wearing it might be to give it to her. It was not as though she had known him long, anyway. Agnes came back to the table and sat down beside her, her white arms heavy on the table-cloth. " Joan, I've been an awful goose to let you see that boy whenever and wherever you liked." Instantly Joan paled. "You're going to say something horrid, Aggie. I feel it. If you do, you'll break my heart." " Not exactly horrid, but unfortunate." "Against Bret's character?" THE PINCH O' POVERTY 181 " Hmm, I'd hardly say that, or rather, it depends on the point of view." Such hedging reminded Joan of Bishop Blunt. " Oh, do speak out, in Heaven's name ! " " Joan," apologized Agnes in contrition, for her own suf- fering was teaching her the quality of mercy, " I'm at fault, myself. I supposed that Godfrey knew all about him ; he did in a sense. He had known him when the two were boys out in Berton. Bret was a diverting, but rather spoiled child, Godfrey thinks, which isn't to be wondered at, seeing he was an only son and his father so successful." " Go on." "After Godfrey left Berton for college and business, he lost touch with him, though Mr. Blunt could have told him Bret's story, had he known we were vitally concerned. He did tell him a few days ago. Every one in Berton knows of it." Joan looked rather sick, but she was listening bravely. " He married when he was a mere lad a girl of his own class. I dare say they were happy enough, as she adored Bret and there was a little one. The nurse was wheeling it out one day when a runaway came tearing about a blind corner and toppled the baby, carriage and all, over on the asphalt. The poor wee thing died instantly with concussion of the brain." " Oh," wailed Joan, forgetting herself entirely, " poor, poor Bret ! Poor little mother ! " " Yes," sighed Agnes in evident relief that part of it, at least, was over, " you will say * poor little mother ' when you hear the disastrous effect the accident had upon her. She gradually lost her mind." "Not really?" "Absolutely. There may have been an unsound streak in her family. At any rate, she went on in an abnormal way 182 BLIND WISDOM about the child, even turning against Bret as somehow to blame for the accident. But no one had believed that she was really deranged till one night " Joan saw the goose-flesh creep up Agnes' bare arm. " One night when her husband went to bed he found a knife under the pillow. She was waiting waiting, you know, to kill him." There was a long silence between them. Then Joan asked through tight lips: " What became of her, Aggie ? " " That," said Agnes, in her normal voice, " is the awful part. Nothing happened to her. She is still alive and mad as a hatter." " Then why didn't he tell me ? Oh, how could he have let it go on as though he were free? " " It's just possible," Agnes was grudgingly just, " that he thought you knew. It's the kind of thing, dear, that's known and gradually forgotten. I dare say he even forgets it himself as far as having any bearing on his conduct or life. Out in Berton people have encouraged his forgetting because of their pity for him. According to Father Blunt, he's made no end of a pet. Whatever he does is condoned ! " " Oh, but that's carrying it too far," protested Joan, who was concerned at once for Bret's character, Agnes smiled. " You don't understand wholly. It isn't just that they're sorry for him. It's that they admire him for never trying to free himself." "And does he live ?" Joan's hand passed trem- blingly over her face as though she felt a ghostly cobweb. "Assuredly not with that mad creature. But he main- tains a house for her, nurses, doctors, recreation." The child's wide eyes rested dully on her sister's. She felt no urge toward hysterics or demonstration, though the shock was a powerful one. It seemed to Agnes that some- THE PINCH O' POVERTY 183 thing very bright and delicate died before her s It was a new Joan who rose. " I must see him." "Oh, but Joan " '" There is no ' but ' " The voice was coldly fatalistic. " I mean, dear, certainly not to-night." "Yes, to-night." Agnes' face crumpled forlornly. Of late she was so often confronted by her own futility ! "Your reputation, Joan! How can you seek him at this hour ? " Joan turned at the door, looking every inch a woman, signed and sealed by her first real experience. " I don't recognize that word ' reputation/ Agnes. Char- acter is indestructible and it certainly isn't affected by the position of the sun." Agnes summoned her patience. " Yes, dear," she preached platitudinously, " but on trie other hand we must not only do right we must seem to do right ! Is there need for such extreme action ? You have only to telephone him and ask him to come here.*' Joan wavered. *' I won't have you," she wailed, " browbeating him like a schoolma'am with a stick." " You need not worry," Agnes assured her proudly. " I have no intention of interfering. The time to have done so was in the start." " Very well ! " Joan, moving toward the telephone, sud- denly softened toward her sister, who was in no way to blame. " Don't be nervous, Aggie. I'm as rational as you are, I'm calm as a general. I don't feel in the least melo- dramatic. Only " her face twisted in desolation " I must see Bret." CHAPTER XVIII A CRISIS AND A COMPROMISE A SLEEPY man-servant answered the telephone at Bret's apartment and refused to divulge his master's whereabouts till Joan had given her name. She heard this dragon scuf- fling off to consult the former and returning with greater alacrity to announce that Mr. Ballou would be there in a minute. Perhaps one slipper was off the end of Bret's foot, for Joan heard distinctly a flippity flop across bare floors. Then his voice musical with pleasure. " Twinkletoes, you ! When did you return to town and why was I not informed ? " She pictured him in a smoking- jacket with a long ciga- rette holder in his hand, rousing himself from an evening of ennui, and she was not far wrong. " This evening, Bret. I'm very tired " " Naturally, after what you've been through. I received the letters and you're not to worry about anything. I know I can help your family to straighten matters out. You'll let me smooth the way, won't you, dear ? " There was a long pause, then her voice said rather abruptly : " I want to see you immediately." " To be sure. Shall we lunch together to-morrow ? " " Please come to-night." " But Twinkletoes, good gracious, it's after ten and too late to call at your sister's house." A CRISIS AND A COMPROMISE 185 "I have Agnes' permission for you to come," she fur- ther surprised him by announcing. " I shall be here by the fire. Come as soon as you can," and without waiting for a reply hung up the receiver. While she waited she rehearsed what she should say to him ; she would not be able to refrain from bitterness at his deception. She would never be able to forgive him that. Formed sentences came to her mind, unconsciously plagia- rized from fiction. But when he at last entered the house she felt almost too sad for utterance, futile and faint. Agnes had made good her promise and retreated up-stairs to her sitting-room, sewing spasmodically, and at other times walking up and down the room agitatedly. Joan was seated by the drawing-room fire. Even when she heard the bell ring and Hannah go to answer it she did not stir, thinking : " I must not listen for his step ever again. I must not let myself feel possessive." Bret brought the freshness of the night with him but his anticipation was allayed by the fret of suspicion. As he entered the room Joan rose very quietly, shrinking within herself. She was all in black and her sombre effect intensi- fied his foreboding. Was this new demeanor indicative of sorrow or other complication? He very wisely attempted no demonstration of affection, only held out his hand with winning sympathy. " Poor little Twinkletoes, poor little dancer. I know how lonely you must feel without your father." " Yes, Bret," she said simply, " I do. I never loved him half enough. And the fact that he died a failure makes it more forlorn. I feel that my playtime is over now. But before I could take up anything new I wanted to see you. Something drove me back to you. I was needing you to care for me a little " Her voice broke as though it had 1 86 BLIND WISDOM reached too far. Her loving eyes reproached him poign- antly. "And I heard from Agnes I heard " He cleared his throat hastily, his face beginning to twitch. " Yes, yes," he muttered, " but whatever you heard let us sit and be comfortable before you begin. You must be dreadfully fatigued from your journey." He drew her irresistibly to the broad davenport, arranged the soft cushions skillfully at her back, and took her hand in a helpful, comforting way. The whole situation then seemed to her fabulous. Here they were in the same de- lightful intimacy as before, with the bond of attraction be- tween them, and she had sent for him to deride him. But desperately she stared at the underlying truth. " They told me that you are married ! " The words, born in travail, were uttered jerkily. They sounded harsh and crude, almost profane. She waited, hearing the clock tick against the wall, feeling the pulse of his wrist beating against her hand, her whole being a sick protest against the lie he had lived. The mo- ment was elemental. On his forehead, the most delicately fashioned portion of his face, she saw the tiny beads of perspiration break out like dew. He reached mechanically toward a tabourette and hungrily lit a cigarette, his hand shaking. His manner proclaimed his guilt. " Say ' No,' say ' No,' " she prompted with the instinct of pity, as though the mere words were empowered to clear him. " I'll believe you if you say ' No.' " But he said nothing. Then, perforce accepting his silence for admission, all at once her immature body broke across his knees and she buried her head in his lap, sobbing un- controlledly. " I've loved you so, I've loved you so, and you've been such a wretch to me. How could you, Bret? How could you? 18 A CRISIS AND A COMPROMISE 187 He put a rough hand through her hair. "Are you going to blame me for loving you? Did you think I was going to let heaven slip by when I'd lived in hell so long?" Unconsciously he was revealing himself as something of a Hedonist. " My life was blighted when I was a mere youngster, and I had to sit down under my peculiar kind of burden with no chance of relief. Always that shadow in the background reaching for me. Even now I wake sometimes in the night as I did then, feeling her bending over me, listening to me breathe, before she'd run laughing through the house in a way to make your blood creep. I couldn't describe to you in words what it's like to live with a crazy woman." Joan saw the goose flesh creep up his hand and knew that his horror was real. He shook his head in remembrance. " Remember, I bore it a year before I had her taken away." Joan was only too anxious to suspend judgment. " How could you, Bret? Oh, that must have been cruci- fixion!" " It was worse than that. Believe me, no one knows. But her family begged me to be patient, and they aren't the kind of people I could risk offending." He laughed grimly. " If the boy had lived she might not have lost her mind. On the other hand, he might have inherited the streak of in- sanity himself. Well, you know my story now, in so far as I can give it to you. If I've reached out for a little happi- ness God knows it was coming to me." It was characteristic of Ballou that not once did he see his action as an injustice to Joan. Her arms went round him pityingly, and she nursed him with her longing yet accusing tenderness. " Oh, I can't bear it, Bret. Indeed I can't. It's not only / who am cheated but you as well. I could never sit down under disaster and I can't now," She gathered energy, 1 88 BLIND WISDOM " It's all a mistaken idea of honor, your tying yourself to this poor stricken woman. Bret " Her breath came sharply. " Bret couldn't you ? " He turned and gathered her closely to him, deliberately losing himself in her delicate lovableness. He kissed her mouth and throat and eyes with a fierceness that half con- sumed her, confusing the issues in her mind by this lavish demonstration. But when she leaned back against his shoulder, breathless and tearful, he saw that the question was still in her eyes and must be answered sooner or later. For years, ever since freed of his wife's actual burden, he had been in a measure enjoying his martyrdom. Like that of certain temperamental women, his melancholy story had earned him anything but a melancholy reward. It had con- veniently conditioned his life for the minimum of sacri- fice and the maximum of reward. It had become an im- mensely valuable asset. He would not know how to live without it. With it his way was facile, men indulgent and women devoted. They spoke of " dear Bret Ballou," or " Ballou, poor chap," and whenever his conduct slipped a cog they conveniently resurrected his " tragic story " to ex- plain away any discrepancy in his code. Little Joan, de- sirable though she was, could scarcely have compensated him for such a loss. Yet he had no intention of losing her utterly. At last he said, tritely, jerking out each word as though it hurt him : " It can never be any different. Remember, she was the mother of my son, and the child's death drove her to this terrible state. No, I must live and suffer and stand by my bargain." " I realize all that," whispered Joan sensitively, " and I would not have you desert any one who might suffer by the desertion. But, don't you see, her malady eliminates her to A CRISIS AND A COMPROMISE 189 a certain extent. She is beyond the need of our considera- tion and we love one another." She was arguing timidly against her own annihilation. " Do you mean," asked Bret with great gravity, " that I should not have made you care for me just because the usual consummation isn't possible? Oh, Joan, that is like asking water to run up hill. Such things cannot be ordered by reason." " No," she said nervously, " no, and yet when the truth is known they can't go on. I'll have to leave you, Bret." He dropped his head in his hands. " Leave me, then. Take the safe and conventional way. Perhaps it wasn't love at all you felt for me." He was be- ginning to act his part, but in justice to Bret let it be said that he was guilty of no sordid conspiracy against her. He was a drifter of the most inveterate kind. He never went to meet Fate, preferring to receive it at home with an equable smile on his face. Whatever their relationship was to be time would determine. She yearned to him as he sat in that attitude of tragic resignation. Once or twice her hand gravitated toward him but was compelled home by some inward mentor. His im- plication had hurt her pride. She was neither calculating nor conventional. Fundamentally her love asked only to be allowed to give. " How how could we go on ? " she temporized weakly. Instantly his face was brighter. He lifted her nervous hand to his lips and pressed soft kisses into the pink palm. " Just as we are now, Twinkletoes, making the world sweet to each other. Always I should lavish beautiful things and beautiful times upon you; you would remain my little lady of dreams. Neither marriage nor exclusion from marriage can vitally affect what we feel, can it? Can it?" 190 BLIND WISDOM His method of reasoning was irresistible. "Would there be anything wrong in such innocent love as that?" She shook her head in negation, flushing exquisitely. " No, no, Bret, if we were always careful to keep it innocent ! " Her eyes brimmed. " Well, anyway," he let that particular point slip by, " you don't want any one but me, do you, sweetheart ? " A silent acquiescence. His arm tightened masterfully about her. " Then why this talk of leaving me ? You can't control destiny. By George, it's useless to rebel. Better take what the gods have given without questioning the quality of the gift, better accept with a thankful heart! Kiss me, and promise me that you'll set your mind at rest, that you'll never try not to love me." Obediently she turned and clung to him, yielding her lips ungrudgingly. She wept peacefully, by dint of his per- suasion drugged into a false contentment. ******** For three days Joan kept to her bed in Agnes' house, volunteering no information, save that she was mortally tired, which Agnes could well believe. Three times a day a tray came to her room, but otherwise they left her alone and she was grateful for the consideration. Her scruples, which Bret had succeeded in momentarily overcoming, were again present in a highly magnified state, and as she afterward told Jerry, in those three days she thought herself half crazy. The cold realization was upon her of how flat her dream castle had fallen. There would be no honorable and open life with Bret now, and she was surprised to find how far her innocent imagination had taken her, how exquisite and A CRISIS AND A COMPROMISE 191 rosy were the plans she had built around him. She had meant to stimulate him to some real endeavor, to make that personal magnetism earn for him, if not in the acquisition of more wealth, at least to the end of highly justifying his existence with his fellow-men. But aside from that they would have been essentially exclusive in their love, keeping only to each other. Her scroll of domestic felicity, as she had written it, was as dainty as a fairy tale and about as improbable. She put the bright imaginings from her, and in their stead came a warning of the dread reality. It would be different now, a precarious footing for them both. Already she felt the pained humiliation of one who would henceforth meet the world waveringly. " Stand up to life," Jerry had said in one of their conversations, " and nothing can hurt you. It's only when you face it half-way that it side-swipes you out of your course." And she knew that he had spoken the truth. Unlike Bret's facile philosophy, nothing could hide from her soul its utter responsibility. The square thing would be to end the affair cleanly, leaving the sharp pain that comes from an amputation, or, continuing it, to do so openly, of which Bret would certainly never hear. Lying with her face in the pillow and shadows of fatigue beneath her eyes, she turned in her thoughts more and more often to Jerry, as to a Gibraltar of strength. Strangely enough that long-ago Sunday came to her mind, when they had walked through the little yellow birch leaves out in Crannsford, and Jerry had spoken such words of wisdom and comfort. " We search and we search for God," he had said, " and all the time He's in our hearts, hoping we will find Him there, hoping we will listen. That's the blind wisdom of each of us." The blind wisdom! Already, could she have 192 BLIND WISDOM known, she saw clearly witH her brain, thougH not with her heart. In her gropings for light she picked out book after book from the little white reading stand beside her bed, opening at random for a sentence to point the truth. And indeed it was uncanny how often she stumbled upon something of significance, a phrase or a poem. From Emerson she found, " Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of prin- ciples." And in a volume of verse, the beautiful : " For every man there openeth a way, and ways, and a way, And the high soul climbs the high way and the low soul gropes the low, While in between on the misty flats the rest drift to and fro, But for every man there openeth a high way and a low, And every man decideth the way his soul shall go ..." It was a curious twist to her character that the mere matter of a way to forge for herself did not vitally concern her at that time. Claire was to take up a secretaryship. Joan, too, would want to contribute to the family exchequer, but the real crisis to her was the crisis of her affections. Till she had solved that monstrous problem she was inca- pable of coping with another. The third day she dressed at noon and was making shift to appear cheerful and at ease when Hannah called her to the telephone. It was in the library, next the room where Agnes sat reading, and as Joan bent to take up the receiver she trembled as with palsy. Agnes thought the quick, hesi- tant words uncharacteristic of her, yet nothing was said to indicate that the speaker on the other end was Ballou. In the afternoon Joan announced that she would go out for a bit of air. " I'm taking tea with Marybelle Gordon," she substantiated, then bitterly to herself, " The first lie ! After this I shall be obliged to deceive continuously." A CRISIS AND A COMPROMISE 193 Agnes said nothing, but studied her quietly. Later she saw Joan, looking distinctly ill and unhappy, let herself out, and from her vantage point at the window remarked her take a 'bus at the corner. Then she leaned back in her chair and pressed her fingers to her eyes, seeking solace in prayer, " Oh, God, watch over this, Thy lamb. Deliver her from temptation. Grant it to her to find peace and security with the right man. And to all of us," she was human enough to add, " send strength in the hour of trial, and a happy issue out of all our afflictions." Then, the word " afflictions " touching some spring of domestic association in her mind, she went out to order steak and mushrooms for Godfrey's dinner. CHAPTER XIX JOAN STANDS UP TO UFE ONCE atop the 'bus Joan sat a prey to conflicting emotions. She was bound for her rendezvous with Bret, he had com- manded her to him, and though the proposition was a blame- less one, a mere date for tea, its clandestine nature revolted her. Beside her a fat man who believed in independence and a plaid blanket overlapped with impunity. She did not even know that the air was razor-keen and the few hardy passengers who remained " up-stairs " were like sparrows with heads tucked into their wings. She had the introspective look that is at once remarked as unusual and several people glanced at her, sitting so straight and sad with destiny written on a white face. " If I go this once," she was saying inwardly, " I shall be giving in for all time, I shall be starting that which I can never finish, and my heartache will last for an eternity. Beside, can we do such a thing without injuring ourselves? Are we high-minded enough to set up a barbed wire fence around -our friendship and never want to vault over? " She perceived the irony of such a sterile task as they had set themselves. And once a traitorous thought set her flaming. " He knows I am intense, that I'll be the first to yield." She dug her gloved hands into the straw seat, ashamed of the conflict within her. They were passing Fifty-seventh Street, and her watch told her that her appointment must be JOAN STANDS UP TO LIFE 195 consummated in twenty minutes. Her brain was now speak- ing sternly to her heart, but her heart refused to listen. " Be quiet. I tell you I love him," the heart insisted sullenly. " I'm going to him to-day, I shall see him laugh, I shall hear him speak, and even that little will solace me." " No, no," rebuked the patient brain. " You will never be satisfied with starvation rations. Save yourself while you've still control." Forty-second Street! She moistened her lips which felt strangely dry. The fat man beside her ventured a middle-class " Pardon me ! " accent on the " me." " Would you like part of my blanket ? " No doubt he had remarked her pallor and his motive was one of good fellow- ship. But she might have been in the next world, so long was she in reacting. " No, thank you very much ; I'm getting off soon." There, she'd said it, she'd committed herself ! There was nothing to do now but make good her assertion. With the words spoken, something of her balance returned. She was even able to note that the skirts on the avenue were coming in looser. And here was Thirty-fourth Street, where she ex- pected to meet Bret at the Waldorf. She rang and stag- gered to the steps. As she made the difficult descent, she breathed hard as from a long convalescence. Several were getting off, and now it was her turn. She started forward, purposefully, then stopped. Her blind wisdom was drawing her back. . . . The conductor was staring at her curiously, so she said, " I've changed my mind. Are there seats inside? " How smoothly the omnibus seemed to glide once that dan- ger zone was passed ! But Joan's heart was sore and heavy. She had deliberately crucified her love-longing. Where was she going now ? The easy progress of the 'bus became intolerable, and, ringing, she stumbled out at Madison Square, joining the 196 BLIND WISDOM throng of pedestrians that moved so swiftly the blood tingled to keep pace with them. Without premeditation she took the direction down the avenue, losing herself among the dark-faced garment workers, now at five o'clock pouring down from the lofts. In their midst her scanning showed her faces of all nationalities, but, for the most part, of Eastern Europe, the men short rather than tall, and but- toned into their shabby black coats with hats pulled low over dreaming brows. Out of the gray mist of the abstract drifted the concrete wonder of each human entity. . . . Melancholy, penetrating eyes looked into hers with naive interest, each face stamped with an original label, all sorts of people with all sorts of secrets, missions, hopes, fears and perplexities! How little she knew of them or they of her. But these were the people her father had loved, the seekers ! And ruminating upon them she was driven wist- fully to think of him, as too lightly valued until irrevocably lost. Her sorrow was still fresh, though the trouble about Bret had for the time taken precedence over it, and here, in the boisterous winter dusk, she felt the desolation of the sheltered girl who suddenly finds her defender gone. Essen- tially loving and lovable, she had never craved independence from home ties. . . . She did not want to be inde- pendent (how bleak the word !) now. And at the psycho- logical moment Heaven sent her Jerry. She began to think of him urgently, and her step quickened. Beyond the black seething mass of laborers Washington Arch rose in delicate lavenders and pearl, while above it the smoky evening sky was cut by parallel lines of light. She was going to Jerry, and she thought of him as the very ill think of their doctor, with an almost superstitious faith in his powers of healing. Jerry had given her his new address, and though she had faint hope of finding him there, she felt vaguely that she JOAN STANDS UP TO LIFE 197 might pick up a clue to his workaday whereabouts. Con- sequently, at Eighth Street she veered west, consulting the numbers on the doors as she did so. Just as she was hesi- tating before one it opened precipitately and Jerry stepped out. At the relief of their simple meeting, everything seemed to swim before her eyes. At least one need of her heart was answered, since, though she had been denied love, friendship's door was ajar. " Oh, Jerry," she exclaimed hysterically, " if you care a bit for me, take my arm and prop me up. I've been abed three days, and I'm navigating with difficulty. I'm ' stand- ing up to life,' Jerry, before it has the chance to hurt me worse." He evinced no surprise at her words, only did as she bade him and they walked back to the avenue without speaking. At last he said, " Did you want to talk to me, Joan? " " Yes," she answered, " more than anything in the world. I thought you might let me sit down in your studio and pour out my soul." She smiled wanly. He deprecated the studio with a wave of his hand, and Joan knew that he was in one of his responsible moods. " We might go up to the Hardings'. They have a place near by, but the family has gone South for the season. The housekeeper's there. Should you like that, or shall we find a tea-shop ? " She shook her head. " No, I can't talk to you in a tea-shop, Jerry, with conven- tion sitting at my elbow. Let us go to your friends'." A pleasant-faced woman admitted them to a pretty house near the Square, and seemed all but overcome by the excite- ment of stray callers. She called him " Mister Jerry," and did he not know that Mr. and Mrs. Harding were wintering at Palm Beach ? " We knew," he admitted ruefully, " but we craved a shelter from the cold and publicity, Mrs. Kane. 198 BLIND WISDOM Miss Wister has something important that she wishes to dis- cuss with me, and she's feeling very tired and ill. Would you mind if we appropriated your drawing-room for our conference? " His smile which accompanied the words was enough to have melted an obelisk, and the good woman was far from being that. " Make yourselves at home, and I'm sure you're very welcome, sir, and I'll be busy brewing you a bit of tea." " I beg of you, don't trouble " he began, but she equalled his smile with her own. " It's a pleasure, Mister Jerry." Once in the big, livable room, Joan sank down in an up- holstered chair and beckoned Jerry to move nearer. He did so and the usual questions were asked and answered. Yes, she had left her mother and Claire weary, but well. They had no fears for the future. Her mother was opening an exclusive she could not bring herself to use the odious word " boarding-house " but Jerry understood and nodded. Claire had always possessed a strong business sense, and no doubt would take a course in secretaryship, while she, Joan she looked rather wildly about her, then back to Jerry's face with an expression which moved him by its bewilder- ment. " Jerry," she asked earnestly, " did you think I'd forgotten all your goodness to me ? " " Assuredly not," answered the magnanimous Jerry, who had been plagued by just some such notion. " I knew that you were only occupied in living a little." " Living a little," repeated Joan, with a new sharp thread of cynicism in her voice. " Living a little! Oh, Jerry! " Assimilating the tone, Jerry frowned fiercely, bristling with his fears for her ! Surely he must be mistaken ; it had been too short a time for grave disaster to have befallen his dream-child; why, she had scarcely escaped his vigil a JOAN STANDS UP TO LIFE 199 month, and even in New York, this dynamic place where lives were ruined and lives made with equal celerity, things did not happen without warning. He asked with an attempt at lightness: " What's up, child ? You speak with quite a world-weary air. Or do I imagine it ? " " You don't imagine it, Jerry," confessed Joan with that singular look of truthfulness that her face sometimes wore, and, without in the least realizing that she was hitting him hard, she burst out, naively, " I've fallen in love." But even in perturbation her drollery showed faintly. " Oh, Jerry, it's been like falling down-stairs and landing on a porcupine ! " There was an appalling silence. He had expected it, of course, but he was undone to a degrading extent. She had given him no time to marshal his reserves ; she had downed him ignominiously wkh one dainty blow of her baby hand. He had permitted himself to become engrossed in her to the exclusion of all others, had put his eggs in one basket, and now contemplated the ruinous result. Feeling himself an almost comic spectacle of dismay, he was scarcely able to listen intelligently while she told her story, rushing it along with the instinct of reaching for a verdict. Perhaps she had picked an " undesirable," reasoned Jerry feebly, and she wanted him to convert her mother, or the fellow was finan- cially unfortunate and needed a boost. He worked fever- ishly at theories before he became aware that her story was assuming peculiar proportions and taking an entirely differ- ent trend. Ballou, of course. Yes, he had grasped that! He remembered him, a chap with spectacular manners. No wonder she had fallen ! Oh, Godfrey had known him be- fore. That was, in a way, a recommendation, Godfrey, for all his faults, being sedulous to guard his own. But God- frey did not know. . s . What on earth was she saying? 200 BLIND WISDOM At last he had it for what it was worth. Ballou was mar- ried and his wife a hopeless lunatic. Poor little Joan, what a discovery ! But, after all, it was a case easily dealt with. No man need be expected to re- main tied to a mad woman! Divorces were not pleasant things to contemplate for the most part, but there was no reason in this case why either of them should feel shame or scruple. He was misinterpreting her confession. She was dismayed into silence. Then she commenced laboriously to undeceive him. She wanted to make it plain that it was Bret's sense of honor which stood between them and the coveted union, but that was, of course, a difficult and subtle task when it must also be understood that his sense of honor did not preclude his intention that they should remain sweet- hearts. Jerry's face was growing blacker and blacker as her meaning was borne in upon him much more lucidly than poor Joan could have had any idea of. For he read between the lines with terrible facility. Nevertheless, he was too wise to show her the indignation of his soul. And still the poor child was floundering about in a fog of indetermination and begging him to lead her. " What do you, yourself, think is right ? " he asked, con- scious that he was merely postponing the ultimate. " Oh, Jerry, I ran away from him to-day, not because I didn't wish to see him, but because I did long to so terribly. I felt that it would be flying in the face of Providence." Her voice was elemental now, and Jerry knew that it was costing her greatly to unstrip her pride before him. " I've got to save myself," she panted with a desperate energy, " you've got to help me " " Yes, yes," he hastened to assure her of support, " you must save yourself, and I verily believe you've started just in time. Joan, you must put yourself out of his reach." She nodded quickly. JOAN STANDS UP TO LIFE 201 " Yes, I feel that, too, but I know myself and I know that nothing will do it short of a drastic measure." " Your drastic measure must be your own determination to permit no compromise." Her fingers were twisting and untwisting themselves in the fold of her skirt. " So long as I remain untied I can't avoid compromise, Jerry. Oh, you must hate me for such a confession of weakness." A moment she sat in painful apathy, her wide eyes helpless in his. Then all at once she asked frantically : " Jerry won't you couldn't you put me beyond his reach?" In the warm, untenanted house the ticking clocks came into their own like a chorus of insects. " What do you mean? " asked Jerry in a whisper, bending forward; and he touched her gently on her interlocked hands. His touch was like a healing balm to the unstrung girl and gave her courage to go on. She perceived what an influence he was in her life, how even now she could hold nothing from him, how good and how strong he had always been. She slid from her chair and came timidly to him and knelt on the rug at his knees. " Oh, don't you see ? I ran away from him, Jerry, but it was really my own weakness I was trying to escape, that kind of selfish wanting that isn't the best of me. I want to give myself to your keeping always. Will you take me?" Possibly the words moved Jerry no more profoundly than they did the girl herself. The inspiration had come to her, new-coined from that blind wisdom which was God. He put his arms slowly about her shoulders with a gesture in- finitely protective and renunciating, but she saw his eyes darken and shine. He was holding tenaciously to his prin- 202 BLIND WISDOM ciple. Nevertheless, his voice twisted perversely out of his control. " You're just saying this because you're unhappy and a bit frightened, dearest child Really you know it isn't brave to run away from Life. As easy as it would be for me to give you my shoulder to hide behind, you wouldn't really want it after a little, because you're not that kind. And it would be a hideously unjust thing I should be doing to you." She pressed closer. " Why would it, Jerry, unless there were some one dearer to you? I couldn't by the wildest chance commit myself to him then. Surely you know that, and I'd be so grateful I'd die to make you happy." He shook his head slowly. At his denial the color suf- fused her face with self-consciousness, and she drew back, abashed. " I'm sorry. It was shameful for me to have asked." Instantly his hand tightened on her shoulder. " I don't think you quite realize what you're suggesting, Joan. You're in love with another man, and yet you talk about 'putting yourself in my keeping* as though such a thing were Why, I couldn't take you. It would be the most flagrant kind of advantage. You wouldn't be happy with a luke-warm affection for me. You'd be miss- ing the big, glorious destiny of your womanhood." " No, no," she pleaded, like a child sorrowing for a stick of candy. " I would be happy with you, Jerry. I always have been. And you've always seemed to be happy with me. We'd build up some kind of a good life together, trusting one another as we do ; and it would be all honorable and true. Of course," her eyes left his face miserably, " I can't pretend it would be like that other kind of love, but, oh, Jerry, the other kind is so painful." Jerry, thinking desperately, was patting her shoulder and JOAN STANDS UP TO LIFE 203 trying not to note that faint, provocative fragrance that was all Joan, young and healthy and good. A year ago he might with a free conscience have contemplated marriage, for his income was assured. Now ! Oh, now he was a free lance and doomed to erratic fortune. Beside, was it possible that she had the slightest conception of what marriage meant, the day by day forcing-house ! And suppose in this strange union which she contemplated she should sicken or rebel, or suppose he should come to care too greatly and could not meet her friendly effort on the same plane ! Always he had loved her mind and rejoiced in her personal charm, they had always been affectionate in a big brother and little sister way, and now there was this fragrance of her inseparable body and spirit! " No, no, I can't," he put temptation from him and closed his eyes as though he found it easier so to be strong. " Don't you see ? It isn't a fairy tale, marriage, it isn't exactly a friendship; it's more than either or both. It's wider and deeper. It has a channel like a river. Heavens, dear, you've never even been to the edge and looked in ! " " I'm not afraid," she declared bravely. " Then, too, I'm poor as Job's turkey, or I shall be poor when I've eaten up my savings." " You seem to forget that I'm poor, too," she gave a rueful smile, but a moment later a shadow crept over her face. " Oh, Jerry, you don't think I'm just trying to get in out of the cold ! I'd want to help you ; I should help you." The words gave him a new perspective. Ah, he had for- gotten this gently nurtured child was about to face the struggle for existence, and added to that had come this new battle to keep the bloom on life in a world where men were the arch-conspirators. His resolution was slipping at a dizzy rate, and in his innermost heart he knew that he was glad it was slipping and justifying its surrender. " But, 204 BLIND WISDOM careful, my dear fellow," whispered that interminable con- science, " careful that you don't pretend it's altruism. Isn't it yourself that you're doing this for ? " But Jerry, like all idealists, was not ready to concede that much. " A little for both of us," was as much as he would plead guilty to. " Then, Joan," he heard his own voice speaking, half in humility, half in exultation, " we'll try it, and we'll give each other the very squarest deal we can." Before he was aware of her intent, she had reached up and imprinted a quaint kiss on his cheek. " That's for saving me," she whispered. CHAPTER XX GODFREY ASSISTS FATE ONCE Jerry had accustomed himself to the coming event he became hilarious as a madman. It was to be consum- mated at once, in accordance with Joan's wish, and, realizing as he did what drove her to him, he was the more eager to be made her protector. Circumstance had aided her in avoiding Bret, since he had been called out of town the day following the broken appointment. She stayed on at Agnes' in dazed quietude. Anything was better than uncertainty, and she lived in a kind of religious belief that her wound was soon to be healed. ... In the frank alliance with Jerry she would grow strong and sweet ; she would help him carve his career, and anything in the nature of a struggle stimulated her. The very fact that he needed her, and her woman's intuition told her that he did, would be sufficient to enrich her life. To her mother Joan was more than ever a Chinese puzzle. " Fancy ! " cried Mrs. Wister with the consternation of a hen that has hatched ducklings, " marrying Jerry Callendar with only a few days' engagement, after she has known him for years. Agnes tells me that Jerry and his father have had an open break and Jerry is trying to become a play- wright. Humph ! But Joan always was incalculable, she was that way about church and school and everything else in her life. And now she won't even have a decent wedding, nor interest herself in making a few clothes. She says, 'New clothes for Jerry? How ridiculous! As if he 206 BLIND WISDOM wouldn't like me as well in the old ! ' And she adds that she could never reconcile herself to the vulgarity of weddings." Mrs. Wister suffered a long sigh. " Yes," agreed Claire, who was relieved to have attention diverted from herself, "two weeks ago she was going to marry a Mr. Ballou, with a million, and this week it's Jerry of genteel poverty. Apparently her time to marry has come. I wonder if there's anything under all this." While Agnes, who was hi possession of Joan's actuating motive, was nevertheless inclined to believe that she had adopted heroic and dangerous measures, as if Ballou, like another Svengali, wielded sinister power. " It's going into marriage in such a superficial way," she argued, " a mere makeshift to tide over a bad time. Not- withstanding the fact that Jerry's no end of a dear, she'll wake up some fine morning to discover marriage a perma- nency. What then, I wonder? Joan's always been used to things, and Jerry may slave at his calling for years before he produces a successful play. Well, it's all very strange and modern. Don't you think so, Godfrey ? " Godfrey, enjoying his after-dinner cigar, regarded it quizzically. "What's strange?" " Joan marrying Jerry," and Agnes quoted, " ' The people people marry is the strangest thing of all.' " " You're wrong," spoke Godfrey with conviction. " That marriage is all right, Aggie. Wait and see what I tell you. It's the only promising thing that has happened around here for a long time." "But Joan is not in the least in love with Jerry; she's still in love with Bret, trouble take the man! And I've never thought that Jerry felt that way about Joan." "Haven't you?" Godfrey gave her a look of great amusement. GODFREY ASSISTS FATE 207 At his studio apartment in Eighth Street, Jerry spent the week in the throes of preparation. His dwelling was a con- verted artist's abode, one of those many-windowed affairs with a balcony around three sides of the studio and a couple of cell-like bedrooms leading off. Because of the novelty of the arrangement it would have been attractive on any account, and Jerry's dark, battered furniture accorded well with the spirit of the place. " Don't change anything," Joan had begged, when he so- licited her taste as to redecoration. " I don't mean to seem unappreciative, Jerry, but I simply can't get my mind on such matters now." Jerry, whose ardor was dampened, who understood all too keenly the readjustment through which she was passing, nevertheless decided to do something on his own responsi- bility. It was essentially a bachelor dwelling, and he could not imagine Joan, with her highly luxurious life behind her, taking up occupancy. Accordingly, with much masculine squeamishness, he called in a company of daubers and for five hectic days read the riot act over them. With discre- tion he chose a light gray for the walls of the living-room, and for the small kitchen, with great difficulty, being man- nishly ignorant of such, he bought shining tin and porcelain, any object, in fact, that looked to him either ornamental or useful. When it came to Joan's future bower he felt himself in- deed incompetent. The result was that a woman decorator, at considerable expense, undertook to accomplish the thing for him, subject to criticism, and was coyly amused at his helplessness. But he laughs best who laughs last. " No, no," he soon rebelled at her bizarre and poisonous effects. " She would not like this at all. You don't under- stand. She is no Greenwich Village belle, nor a woman of the world. She's a girl, I tell you, and her thoughts are all aoS BUND WISDOM poetical; she would adore to waken among flowers and bards. Ptease fend me something of the sort!" He planted with gentle obstinacy on the threshold of Joan's "Baids and flowtii are dtfrlinclly banal, done to death," tfoc young lady decorator came bade with some asperity. But ujgethei they bent over the bulky sample books, hover- ing from jMllrin to jyltciu Eke bul In flics in a flower gar- den. Perspiration bedewed Jerrys forehead at the task he ~ i i :c*. 2-.~. f-t. :. ""There!!*' He, at last pounced upon one with his Jean writer's ftm tiagur. It was lilac-color, with a sprinkling of Hvwm* among which birds were soaring on wings of lapis lazuli. The idea of the bine birds pleased him as symbolical. " She wul be happy with this/* he decided and left the house The days sped by wMi gratifying: swiftness, and he could stiH pmrli himself and say, " It is true all true I haven t dreamed it. But an ciqiifsate trouble mingled with his joy. It was damnable that any man should have hurt her, and there was ever a substratum of fear in him that afl was aotoflce. StiH. he told himself hopefully, gauging the depth of her wound by the length of time she had known Ballon, it could not could not have cut so deep as a long infatua- tion might hare done, One day, hurrying home with some domestic purchase Bmrjlfli hb arm, a fjmifijr gmnumr smote his sight, a firm figure in bibck with a strongHnmaded hat riding her head as a jockey ndes a horse. Mrs. Flint, his fathers housekeeper ! Jerry Imlrnrd to overtake her and almost jovially jogged her arm. Now that be was outside her smug despotism the black aJpaca and the sepulchral voice had no terrors for him. " How do yon do, Mis. Flint? I hope yon are enjoying GODFREY ASSISTS FATE She iccogiiiiifd him at once, but A was a cii'Mnre affecta- tion with her ucvci to appear direct. After a great ado of surprise, she replied; " Fm well, thank you 'eartHy, Mr. Jerry," for she could not five down her Cockney accent, "but I should scarcely 'ave known yerself. You've changed a bit, I wffl say!" "Have I really, now?" Jeny was amused. "Would yon see fit to tefl me in just what way? I miss your cook- nig, of course.** She scrutinized him sharply. " I dessay. You got cooskf able thinner, an* your face shows chops. But yon ain't got that 'ang-dog look like you aster.* He laughed helplessly. "That was exactly what I went away to lose.* *" I -miss yon at "ome, sir,** Mrs. Flint went on unemotion- ally, ** but I'm not sayin* it hain't a sight easier to do fer one than fer two." "There's always that side to it," he museddruy. "Every cloud has its surer lining, eh, Mrs. Flint? How is my father?" Her face took on an elaborate look of fbieboding, for she did not bold with Jerry in breaking away. It Deemed indi- rectly to reflect upon her as the goddess of die domestic machine. ** *E's well, an* never speaks your name; nor I neither,, for that matter. Not that I wouldn't, if *e encouraged ft." Jerry winced. "But wot I sez is, let sfeepm' dawgs he. No, sir, 'e seems to 'ave forgot yon ahogether-fike.*' Jerry shifted his cargo with a return of his old i comment toward her, a middle-class soul in a middle-class body. - Mrs. Flint," he asked gravely, " wffl you tell my father this? That I'm living dose by, here in Eighth Street, if he should want me. Yon can see the house from here, the one 210 BLIND WISDOM with green blinds. Also tell him " he hesitated, then went on quickly, " I am to be married to-morrow even- ing at the Church of the Transfiguration, a simple cere- mony with no frills. It is Joan Wister who is honoring me Godfrey Blunt's sister-in-law. That ought to please him. Tell him I should like him to be present, if he is sufficiently interested to do so," and he left her abruptly. That very afternoon he made the same announcement to Lily Gray, who was working for him outside office hours. Lily had come to deliver the second act of his new play, bound professionally between stout blue covers in the way that Jerry had taught her. She wore one of those irrepres- sible little spring turbans that make their appearance along in February, red as the sins of the Borgias, though in reality of a touching innocence. It nestled closely to her blond hair and was only equalled in daring by the red of her rouged lips. Her powdered face with its trite prettiness, her ex- travagant blouse and audacious suit impressed Callendar that day as the cry of youth for beauty. At sight of the changed interior of his dwelling her mouth fell open. " I'd say you're swell here. When'd you do it ? What- ever struck you, Mr. Callendar? " " It's just finished," Jerry answered good-humoredly, ig- noring the last question. " Pails and painters walked out yesterday." Lily moved dazedly from room to room, her lips still slightly apart, her fingers in a broken glove reaching out to try the yet sticky paint. " Don't I just ! " she assented, and, unconscious of any lack of delicacy, " My Gawd, whose room is this?" She had climbed to the gallery and found his altar to Joan, and though still unsuspicious her face was puckering with wist fulness, the sight of such daintiness being almost unbearable. GODFREY ASSISTS FATE 211 " Oh, but I say, Mr. Callendar, you didn't do all this for yourself. You wouldn't be wanting curtains like them jest for " She smothered her rising suspicions till the further fittings of the room substantiated them, the dress- ing-table, for instance. At that discovery she turned and looked up at Jerry, whose face wore an expression of sensi- tiveness and reserve. The impossible had happened, Jerry was bringing home a bride. " Oh," was drawn from her in dismay. " I'm going to be married, Lily," Jerry told her gravely, and for some reason he felt apologetic, compassionate. She must feel that contrast, another girl to be sheltered, while she was still out in the cold. " The reason I haven't men- tioned it before is that it's a brand new engagement I'm hardly sure of her yet." By his smile she saw that he was very happy, and she thought manfully, " Now I am glad, honest and true, if he's got what he wants." But the next second the eternal feminine asserted itself, " I'll bet my hat she ain't good enough for him no dame is." " It's Joan Wister who's taking this tremendous chance," Jerry went on boyishly, when he felt it safe to proceed. "You remember her, of course how it was through her you ever came to me ? " " Sure I remember." Lily was buttoning her jacket tightly about her throat, as though she felt a draught. " Yep, she was a good kid, all right. I suppose she looks older now." Jerry lowered his voice. " She's the loveliest thing on earth," he confided seriously, and somehow Lily knew that he was revealing himself for the first time. " Look, there's her photograph," but when he had placed it in Lily's hand he began apologizing for its inadequacy as one is certain to do where the original is be- loved. " She's thoroughly unaffected and democratic," 212 BLIND WISDOM Jerry continued to sing Joan's praises, " and she has no idea how rare and precious she is. That's the sweet part of her. Can't you tell by her eyes what a dream world she lives in ? " Lily gave one furtive glance at the photograph and hastily returned it. She seemed anxious to be gone. At the door she made a supreme effort, turned and extended the limp hand of a thoroughly good fellow endeavoring to be a lady. " I'm sure I hope you'll be very happy, Mr. Callendar," she reeled off the meaningless words like a phonograph. " Congratoolations ! " But once outside in the street she put her face into her mangy muff and whispered : " Oh, Gawd, oh, Gawd, whyever was I born ? Whyever did I look at him ? " and gave way to the feminine preroga- tive of tears. Thus indifferent to the course she was steer- ing, she came presently into collision with a broad-bosomed lady on a vigorous tack. " Look where you're goin' ! " admonished the stout person in a shrill voice. " Where's your eyes ? " Lily proved beyond question that they were still in her head. " Where's your own lamps ? " she clawed back, and, equilibrium restored by the roused fighting instinct of the city waif, she swallowed the last sob and opening her vanity case armored herself with a thick coating of powder. With- out erasing a particle of it, she turned into the subway. It was evening of the following day, and in her room at the Blunts* Joan was dressing. She and Jerry Callendar had been married an hour before. There was no flaw in the ceremony, she kept reminding herself. If aught else had been lacking, there was the presence of her mother to con- firm its validity. Mrs. Wister would stand till her grave GODFREY ASSISTS FATE 213 for a gilt-edged security. Joan and Jerry were tied with amazing security. Discarding that outworn self, Joan Wister, was like step- ping out of a petticoat, as brief and simple a process. And henceforth she was absurdly to be known as Mrs. Jeremiah Callendar. In the room below her husband awaited her, kind Jerry, who was now almost a stranger in the role he played. She saw again the little chapel of the Rectory in Twenty-ninth Street, holding a luminous quality in its dimness, as a sea- shell holds the sound of the sea. She remembered the be- nign face of the clergyman, who was large and who talked an endless prelude of friendliness and advice. At the most solemn part of it all she had remarked that there were white tufts of hair growing from his ears. In the background her people had stood in nebulous group, her mother fatalistic, Agnes weeping a little, Claire and Godfrey nervous, but re- strained. They were all fond of Jerry, and though Mrs. Wister did not consider him by any means a great financial catch, she knew that, with the loss of their position in Crannsford, fifty per cent, of Joan's social value was gone. With a few profound words the actual knot was tied, as though words alone were empowered to marry them. At the time when she had besought Jerry to save her, Joan had believed in this fallacy, had held that willingness and grati- tude, coupled with the blessing of the church, would be suf- ficient to accomplish the miracle. But now the improbabil- ity of the whole thing was clear to her, though she had admired and trusted Jerry the entire time. Among her bags and boxes she contemplated the gold band on her finger, small, yet heavy as the obligation she had assumed. Once she slipped it off in panic, only to replace it as quickly with an inward apology. It was strange that not 214 BLIND WISDOM once had she recognized Jerry's precarious business future as a factor to affect them. She had scarcely even remarked the absence of his father from the ceremony, though her mother had been bitterly conscious of it, " Do you think," she had whispered to Godfrey, " that he would do anything so radical as disinherit him ? " Godfrey had laughed his ridicule. " I'd sooner say the truth is he's eating his heart out to have him back, but the old man's too all-fired proud to let on. But even if reconciliation were impossible, and granted that Jerry doesn't make a top-notch playwright, even then," Godfrey pointed out brightly, " don't you see he'd still be Jerry Callendar, and you could starve with him and feel yourself an epicure. You could be drawn through a knot- hole and still have the time of your life." Mrs. Wister nodded doubtfully, she being constitutionally unable to appreciate Jerry's superiority. Rousing herself sharply, Joan resumed her packing. Her trunks had been dispatched earlier, but her immediate per- sonal things remained. One stipulation she had made, there was to be no barbaric honeymoon. Their life to- gether was to be undertaken with " prayer and fasting," so to speak, and thanksgiving offered for each successful day that marked the experiment. They wished to be left alone for a time in this delicate and difficult beginning. When the last bag was ready she was still loath to descend and seated herself vaguely on the bed, bidding farewell to the ties of her girlhood. She would not allow herself to think of Ballou that day, with the result that a sense of abstract loss weighed heavily upon her. Forbidding him the door of her heart was the worst loneliness of all. Some one was rapping peremptorily. She threw her reserves hastily about her, and called in a strained voice, " I'm most ready, Jerry." GODFREY ASSISTS FATE 215 But the voice without said shortly: " Let me in, Joan." It was not Jerry, after all. She turned the key to con- front Godfrey, still in wedding finery, but with a new, un- comfortable air of import. " I want to talk to you," he announced obviously, and following her in closed the door with precision. Just so a child might fidget before disclosing some piece of deviltry. He tightened the straps of her bags and performed other offices before her silence became interrogative. " Joan," he turned a half apologetic face at last, " there is just something I wanted to say. Don't look like that. It's nothing that ought to affect you, that can affect you now, if you take it like a real woman. Come over here and sit down where I can lend a brotherly shoulder. Hm, the only reason I mention this thing at all is that some one is certain to before long, and it's only fair to give you a chance to for- tify yourself. I'd rather you had it first from me." Had what from him ? Joan's apprehension was growing. Something in his manner, the trace of self-congratulation, of piety and secret pleasure roused her sharp distrust. Just so Agnes had acted when she made the announcement of Bret's marriage. " What is it ? " she asked guardedly, and as he pulled at her hand, " I don't need a shoulder, thanks, but it's rather horrid of you to keep me in suspense." " Joan " He shrugged his shoulders and cleared his throat. " I've known, of course, about you and Bret Ballou. I -I was more than sorry that Aggie and I hadn't taken the matter in hand sooner. If I'd known at first how you felt toward him, I should have looked up his past few years. Eventually I did. It was tough that you should have gone so far only to get a wallop at the end. But I blame Ballou." " Well, that's over," she said dully. 2i6 BLIND WISDOM ** Yes, thank Heaven. And nothing that happens now can make any difference. You promise me that ? " " You promise me," she countered bitterly, " that you won't be crushed if the roof falls on your head." "Meaning?" " Meaning, how can I say ? " He nerved himself for what now appeared an ordeal. " Here it is, ' J,' Bret's wife died yesterday. She caught pneumonia by running out into the snow in her night-dress, poor lunatic ! That was why Ballou left town so suddenly." In the silence which followed Godfrey pressed her hand anxiously, wishing that she would not do anything so simple as to faint. But she sank suddenly into a chair, staring into space and emitting no sound. After what seemed an eter- nity, she asked in a strange, flat voice : " You've known all day, and yet you let me go through with this marriage ? " Godfrey's chin grew square and tenacious. " Yes, I have, and I'm not ashamed of what I've done. I was bound that Jerry should come into his own. He's al- ways been passed by when it came to any real strokes of luck. A fine chap, but one that needs assistance just the kind Fate put in his hands. I was merely assisting him to keep it. He's lived for and in you ever since you put your hair up, and though he's felt as a man feels he's acted as sexless as your grandmother. Of course he's been a damn fool to think you would appreciate that." She turned upon him accusingly. " Of course it would be your doing and not Jerry's your idea of honor and not his. Forgive me, Godfrey, but I can't forgive you. You've ruined his life as well as mine and Bret's into the bargain. Oh, why did you meddle?" and she wrung her hands. " Do you imagine Jerry will want me when he learns of this and knows I'm wild to break away GODFREY ASSISTS FATE 217 from him ? Oh, I tell you I can't go through with it. Bet- ter for us to separate while our marriage is still only one of form." Godfrey too had paled, and his usually worldly face looked almost ascetic through the serious issues involved, He put out a supplicating hand. "Joan, you wouldn't do that to poor Jerry, my friend, your friend. Think what he's been to all of us. No, you'll have to go through with it as best you can." She was all at once like a fairy child in tempest. " Will I ? Wait and see. It wouldn't be decent, Godfrey, crucifying all three of us." She flung herself on the bed and buried her face in the pillow. Godfrey rose and wheeled miserably about the room, one nervous fist striking the palm of his other hand. " How do you know Ballou wants to marry you ? " he brought out in true lawyer fashion. " I don't believe that fish will ever be caught again." Then, repenting the insult, he bent over and touched her with a tremulous hand. " Joan," he entreated hoarsely, " for God's sake, play up ! In books the heroine turns marriage into mockeries, but in reality it's no light thing to mar a man's life." She lifted her face and her eyes smote him queerly, limpid as they were with pain. " I can't give myself to Jerry now that I know Bret is free." And starting up in desperation she began pushing the bags about on the floor. " Go find Jerry and let us settle it in our own way. He'll understand as no other man would. Thank God it's Jerry and not some one else." She paused in contrition, for Godfrey's attitude was sin- cerely sorrowing. " Godfrey, Godfrey, I know you love Jerry, and I I too 2i 8 BLIND WISDOM love him. I'd do anything for him but that. Will you send him to me ? " Godfrey thrust her roughly away. " Yes, I will, you poor, misguided girl, and when you've messed up his life and your own you can remember that I tried to save you," and he slammed out of the room, angrier than he had ever been in his life. CHAPTER XXI JERRY ASSERTS HIMSELF WHILE Joan awaited Jerry she was careful to reassure herself. Drawing aside the drapery at the window, she appealed to the night for courage, feeding upon the lights to hearten her. If it were any one else in the world but Jerry she might indeed dread being held to the letter of her bar- gain. But Jerry's clasp on things fragile was so sensitive that spun glass would have been safe in his hands. Never- theless, wheeling to find him in the doorway, her heart es- sayed painful tricks with her. He must have been standing there some time; he was watching her levelly but his face showed none of the speculative meanness that will some- times betray a soul off-guard. Now on his wedding day he was more than ordinarily well-groomed. Having come of generations of gentlemen he embodied those finer points of breeding which he theoretically despised as undemocratic. While yearning to the masses he yet remained inevitably the patrician. And to-night Joan saw in him a new sense of solidarity, his forces coordinated, a vagrancy arrested, as though his responsibility toward her had acted as an as- tringent. And yet she had only to pour forth her story to be exonerated of blame, to be free of her bonds. "You sent forme?" The voice was neither apprehensive nor intimidating. She nodded hopefully. Soon it was all happening as she had 220 BLIND WISDOM known it would happen, Jerry beside her with a cigarette and a thoughtful, attentive manner, discounting, if he had observed, her wild demeanor. She reached for his chari- table gaze and drew it down to her. He had known of Ballou through her own confession, so there was not that to need resurrecting. The bitter-sweetness of Bret's liberation was still so fresh that not until she repeated it to Jerry did she realize it entirely. " Oh, Jerry, I've made a mess of life ; I've been an im- petuous little fool, and judgment has come upon me. I tried to escape destiny, I was afraid of losing my middle-class respectability, and so I fled from Bret who loved me. He told me to be patient and trusting and I promised that I would. But the minute I was away from him I was rilled with horror and doubt. Do you realize the ghastly thing I've led us all into?" She passed her hands over her face. Then suddenly her eyes were round-open with a pin-point of light in the centre of each. " Oh, Jerry, the whole thing must be a dream. Pinch me and see if you can wake me up ! No, no, it's real and you have a right to curse and abuse me. But I'm suffering hor- ribly as it is. I'm repaid for my folly for all time. Tell me you understand and will make it right? " But during that young, irrational outpouring Jerry's ex- pression had not changed. His eyes held steadily, sym- pathetically in hers the immobile mouth kept emotion in abeyance. Time and again she assured herself that Jerry was playing true to type, he was sorry for her. Only one discovery swerved her from self-pity to greater remorse for what she had done to him, he was growing a little gray. Perhaps that was because people leaned their elbows on his soul ; there were the pensioners of whom he had once told her, derelicts at some time feeling the pinch of the law, who JERRY ASSERTS HIMSELF 221 made him responsible for their back-slidings and side-step- pings, and a score or more of other leeches, and there were the protegees like Lily who relied on his guidance. Joan told herself that she did not deserve the everlasting goodness of Jerry and she touched him on the wrists, her warm, small hands thrusting themselves up his coat sleeves in almost in- tolerable caresses. " Dear, darling Jerry, I'm the most wretched girl alive, not only for my own mistake but for what I've brought upon you. I'll scrub floors for you, Jerry, I'll make you a pil- grimage each day on my bended knees if you'll only find a way out for both of us ! " At last he spoke. " So he's free now." He laughed shortly and that laugh was stranger to Joan ; it was inscrutable. She went on fearfully stroking his wrists and feeling the veins in high relief along the backs of his hands as though the blood clamored to burst forth. " He's free," she nodded sorrowfully, " and don't you see how that changes the aspect of our marriage ? Before there seemed no prospect that Bret and I could ever honorably belong to one another and I was so wild with pain that I fled to you and asked you to take me into your life. I'm still your very loving Joan, Jerry, but I " She flushed agonizingly. " I cannot be your wife." And then, hating to have hurt him, " It isn't as though we hadn't decided upon a merely sensible marriage, is it, Jerry ? Not as though you really wanted it before I was audacious enough to sug- gest " She was stroking his wrists rather frantically now. " You were only sorry for me. Oh, won't you please say that you did it out of generosity ? I'd hate most awfully to think that you did care." Again Jerry laughed. Here was the quintessence of irony. He must profess to have married her for Quixotic 222 BLIND WISDOM reasons and on his wedding day to promise that the marriage should be annulled. The idea was fantastically original and modern and might well serve as a theme for drama. " I wanted to be accommodating, of course," he was moved to remark drily. Such an assertion whether made in sar- casm or seriousness was out of character and she groped for the gesture behind it " Then you'll just go and leave me here, Jerry, as though it never happened." There was no response and she bent anxiously nearer, waiting for the tender assurance that was somehow delayed in coming. As he continued to stare straight before him her eyes narrowed incredulously, the nostrils dilated like those of some high-bred animal. She bit her lip. Then, scarcely to be convinced, she must peer again beneath his curiously veiled eyes, like a child discovering in a hitherto indulgent and facile parent a stern, inexorable strain. When he answered it was not the voice of the fool and angel at all. After years of paddling in the sunny shallows of his nature she had suddenly dropped to her neck in deep water and all beneath her feet was bed-rock. " I'm sorry, Joan, that I can't consider leaving you here, but it's out of the question. First and foremost, I demand the right to protect you. Then too, I have a man's pride that you cannot disregard utterly." " Not leave me? " her faculties had not obtained beyond that thought "Assuredly not," he answered implacably and his right hand which still held the cigarette had lost its congested ap- pearance. It looked quite cool -and firm now as from ac- complished action. She gathered strength for a feeble at- tack " You can't mean that, Jerry. You must be making some ghastly kind of joke. I don't understand you. We could JERRY ASSERTS HIMSELF 223 explain to Mother and the girls how the horrible mistake came about and the world need hardly know it had ever occurred. And when we were free I'd make you every reparation as I promised before my life should be a living apology ! " But he who professionally dealt in words was not to be beguiled by them now. Her pleading affected him no more than the prattling of a child. He might smile, he might be gentle, but the iron strain was at last apparent. " That's absurd, of course, you owe me nothing of the sort. You have a right to seek happiness, only I intend to make it my business now to see that you are not defrauded. You say, would to God that you were free ; I say, ' Thank God, you have a defender.' You must remember, little Joan, that you took my name voluntarily. I must insist therefore that you remain beneath the protection of it, for a time ostensibly at least. Are you ready to go ? " A wild and ignoble doubt entered her mind like a sneak thief, before she had had time to examine its credentials. Her knowledge of men was negligible. Even such an old friendship as theirs might be no guaranty against an author- ized tyranny! What if what if ? As she drew back from him he saw that she both mentally and physically reeled. Such abject fear was a thing no man could look upon without holy remorse and reassurance. He had had no idea of her panic till she gasped: " I can't go through with it," then sat twisting the stuff of her frock into strings. He had fought shy of women all his life but there was that in his nature which had always helped him to under- stand Joan, and now he shared her jeopardy. The compas- sion, which was the dominant quality of his manhood, pre- vailed. By almost superhuman effort he had dropped his high tone of husbandly dignity; he had performed conjuring 224 BLIND WISDOM tricks with time, setting them both back to their days of comradeship. " Listen, little Joan, and let us be very patient with one another, very human and friendly in our arguments. I shall speak simply and sincerely so that you may say to yourself, ' It's old Jerry haranguing me now just as in the days when we discussed God and the universe. He's never steered me wrong, and even though in this case I may not agree with him, I'll believe that he has no selfish axe to grind.' There now, is it agreed ? Righto ! First of all I am not gross. I am human as other men are but not gross. I should hate to live with myself if I were. I've loved you altogether but it's the soul of you I've toved most, the intrinsic you the you that I want to serve now. Joan, when you say that silly im- pulse drove you from that fellow how do you know it wasn't something higher, intuition f " " Oh, because," she broke in with high sweet voice, " be- cause I regret it already." " But the end is not yet," pointed out Jerry. " Joan, Joan, don't you see that after all these years I've known you I can't let you wreck your life on the first uncharted rock, as you were about to do if you hadn't remembered me? I don't recognize this infatuation as a godlike, enduring pas- sion. I want to know what effect time will have upon it, time and and weather. I'm older than you, I'm some- what dusty and disillusioned while you're radiantly fresh, but it's the dusty ones who know how to value and protect beauty. And I'm not at all sure you could ever be happy with this man you say you love. What is it in him that ap- peals to you, Joan ? Is it his gilded youth? " At the sudden question she looked as if his powers of divination were uncanny, as if he had shown her something she did not know she possessed. " His youth ? Perhaps it is partly that." JERRY ASSERTS HIMSELF 225 She sighed profoundly but Jerry's sigh was inward. He had not known the value of that illumined " to be " till it had retrograded to a "might have been." The truth was that Joan had spun dreams about life without any wide- awake experience. Marriage was a door she had approached with her " open sesame," till now, dismayed by the obscurity within, she was weeping to break forth, seeking the magic word that would swing back the ponderous door. Jerry did not deceive himself ; he did not pretend that he had married her altogether through altruism. No, he might, he probably would be capable of releasing her for such a reason but to have married without strong attraction, with phlegmatic indifference, never ! But, although he was sorry for himself he would not have been Jerry had he not been sorrier for Joan, poor little disappointed princess. Even as he gazed upon her now he felt his bitterness subsiding, cen- sored by justice. She was not to blame; the fault lay at the esoteric heart of things. She sat on a little stool in the centre of Agnes' blue bed- room rug, solitary as a symbolic figure, grounded in lapis lazuli, a composition entitled "Youth, dreaming" perhaps, yet hardly that, since she bore the prophetic look of all ages. Her hands were fastened fatally about her knees, the Ma- donna-like hair wound its soft mystery like a scarf about her head the eyes looked upon a pageant of unknown future days. He thought with a clean heart that the slender boyish limbs, revealed through the slimpsy frock, were such as to be perpetuated in marble. Seeing her as it were on her little island in the blue sea of fate he was struck to the heart. " Put on your coat," he bade suddenly in a kind tone, yet one which admitted of no argument. " We are going home," and as she betrayed no slightest token of having heard him he voyaged across the lupin-blue square and 226 BLIND WISDOM spoke down like a gentled Titan, " It only means playing hostess to me in my diggings for a time, a doll's house ex- istence, as dainty and as gossamer as even you could desire it only means not giving me too rough a dismissal. Surely you can put up with that, and after we have given your infatuation time to prove itself, if you still wish to go you will find the door of your cage open." He had meant to speak cheerfully, but the thing went too deep with him so that his voice sagged. The little figure on the stool simply nodded like a mandarin but a wild-rose pink flowered in. either cheek. In his morbid sensitiveness he in- terpreted that flush as a reproach. " There's 1 one thing I have to know," he lost control, " how, poor child, did you fancy in the first place you could stand for a real alliance? Whatever were you about, Joan?" He was breathing hard as from a long race but an odd sense of unreality brooded over him. Never before had he allowed himself or even felt impelled to drag her to earth with fleshly catechisms, never had he intimated that they were in their natures created man and woman and as such heirs to widely diverse endowments, needs and limitations. And now he felt not so much that he had been guilty of in- delicacy as of dunderheadedness. It was like transfixing a butterfly by either wing and asking it to explain its color pattern, while the poor thing struggled and pulsated. And while he waited hopelessly she began to flutter and palpitate like the creature of his thought. " I don't know what made me think I could do it, Jerry, but I honestly did. You must accept my word for it. Oh, you must at least believe that. After a few days it was as- tonishing how used I became to the idea. I pictured our friendship stretching like an elastic band to almost any length and believing I had lost the other it seemed a fair JERRY ASSERTS HIMSELF 227 compensation. But now be patient with me, Jerry, and don't for mercy's sake allow your feelings to be hurt. If you do don't you see it will mean death to frankness for all time!" He came back vigorously : " You must always speak what is in your mind and my feelings will never be hurt ! " " But you do insist on these conditions ! I'm to go " He rose and gathered her bags into a colony at the door, then holding her wrap waited significantly. Remarkably heavy were the arms that slid into it. When all was ready she bade the room a mute farewell. " No one shall say that I haven't played fair ! " The bleak little challenge spun swiftly past him to lodge in the wall. It was typical of that phenomenon, their relationship, that even as the woman in her set up insurmountable barriers the child in her longed to throw itself on his breast and weep stormily. Possibly he read something of that paradox as they set forth in as strained circumstances as any pair that ever dared the common road. But they went off with cred- itable bravery. Accosting the eager faces below was like going from a darkened room to an overlighted one. They felt themselves peculiarly transparent and were the more guarded for that reason. But, save for Agnes and Godfrey, none conceived a doubt. Afterward Joan remembered the strange feel of the whole situation, Jerry's hand through her arm and the scent of the carnation that he wore, her own lips forming words and all the time Godfrey's eyes that pried at hers. It was only in the taxi that her control gave way and then be- cause of a trivial discovery. Claire had made them, incon- gruously enough, a parting gift. It was a sprinkling of rice J CHAPTER XXII A DIFFICULT BEGINNING DURING her first week in Eighth Street Joan received but one caller. It was Lily Gray, climbing the stair, for there was no elevator, with a portfolio beneath her arm and a con- spicuous drag to her step. What she lacked in buoyancy, however, she compensated for in attire, being arrayed with the glory of Solomon. When she rang the bell on the third floor she shifted from foot to foot with nervous defiance, she arranged her features to cold pleasantry and remarked to herself audibly : "If you ain't if you aren't a chump ! " For Jerry had earnestly warred against the " ain't " which stuck in Lily's vocabulary like a second molar in an adult mouth. When Joan Callendar opened the door she shattered by her lack of pretension Lily's defences. Lily felt her rouge all at once very red and that extra tilt to her hat after all superfluous. "Won't you come in?" asked a gracious voice, and Lily found the pansy-dark eyes in hers, yet there in the dim corridor Joan had failed to recognize her. " You're Mrs. Callendar, o' course," said Lily cheerfully, but the words came hard. " An' I'm Lily Gray. Guess you wouldn't know me now I'm a New Yorker, eh? " " But, of course, how stupid of me ! " Joan's black serge frock had collars and cuffs of snowy organdie and on her feet were the sort of flat-heeled dancing pumps that children are made to effect for parties. Her A DIFFICULT BEGINNING 229 face was rather pale and unaided by artificial coloring. But by her strangely candid eyes and her loving mouth Lily read the secret of her charm. It was a spell to which women as well as men were vulnerable. Joan gave Lily a warm look, and recognizing the freemasonry of their youth, pressed her hand. " Why, of course, Lily Gray ! How it all comes back to me, the wedding and your father's funeral. And here we are meeting again after all these years. Verily truth is stranger than fiction. Don't you find it so ? Sit down, do, and tell me what wonderful things have been happening to you since you set out to make your fortune ? " " Wonderful ? " Lily weighed the word with a shadow of irony. " Wonderful in the sense of epoch-making, vital ! " Joan hastily clarified her meaning, for she shrank from being thought effusive. Lily had seated herself gingerly in that familiar room where she had been accustomed to work with her benefactor. " I guess the only wonderful thing that's happened to me all this time is that I've been under Mr. Callendar's wing. Gee, I often think if you hadn't of took me home that time and he hadn't 'a' been on hand for the rumpus where'd I be now ? " She shrugged her shoulders expressively. " Oh, Jerry is the salt of the earth," Joan concurred heartily. " One of the best ! " Lily nodded, her carmined lips apart. " He's " but she was not quite capable of handling the finest essence of her thought, so she blurted, letting it escape utterly "he's some swell!" Joan smiled. "And I expect that is work of his you have in your case now." Lily proffered it with a holy air and Joan bent her eyes 230 BLIND WISDOM at random upon the pages, saying to herself, " This is all a part of the man I married the unknown man I thought I knew," and she remembered poor Nora Helmer in Ibsen's "A Doll's House," whose plaint was that she had lived for years with a strange man and borne him children. " Thanks," she said, " I'll give it to him. He's told me how indispensable you are to him and I can only say only say that I hope I may be half so intelligently useful." Why such humility, Lily wondered! And why the tone of friendly neutrality in which she spoke of him ! " What's bitin' her ? " was Lily's inward comment. " Mebbe she don't know what the Lord handed her when she got him. Some one'd ought to put her wise." Lily, aching with envy, set a smile to guard her lips. " Oh, I seen how you already done him good," she offered generously. " This room, for instance he'll do better plays now the green dragon wall paper's gone and the janitor's wife can't bully him. A combination like that is enough to make a man pessimistical. Sometimes he uster look so sad I suspected he had indigestion in the bargain. Well, there's some change, ' before an' after ' ! " Joan laughed outright but her underlying thought was one of amazement that a person of Lily's calibre should harbor critical tendencies, any idea at all about the plays aside from the quality of her typing. " What do you think of them the plays he has written ? " " Oh," answered Lily, discounting the foibles of her master, " Nutty but harmless. Give me somethin' excitin' or somethin' with a thrill to it or the sob stuff ! But these characters o* Mr. Callendar's don't do nothin' scarcely 'cept talk. They sure have got the gift o' gab. They're all balled up in trouble but they don't make no effort to get out. They rave an' rant an' cuss things from hell to breakfast, gettin* more an' more wrought up till they croak." A DIFFICULT BEGINNING 231 Joan was reminded of the recipe for acting attributed to Sarah Bernhardt by an eminent critic. He asserted that in her plays she invariably did three things, " cooed, cawed and died." Lily manipulated the gum which was tucked com- fortably into her cheek. " What's the use of it, I say ! But if it makes him happy to write such stuff then I wish the public would swallow it if it choked." Joan was listening seriously now, more than half inclined to believe that Lily's criticism carried sound judgment. " I see what you mean the universal appeal is lacking." And then, because it seemed useless to enter into a dis- cussion of what she herself had never read, she changed the subject. " Would you care to see some other changes we've made here ? " Lily rose with alacrity and the two, with just that touch of shyness between them, were presently embarked on a tour of inspection. Lily did not like to tell her that Jerry had already shown it to her, and praised and commented with tact. But she was quick to see that Jerry's enthusiasm far outshone his wife's and again she wondered mightily. Indeed Joan had done little that first week save soothe her soul. Drooping day by day of nostalgia, she could barely fight through with a brave face. She had not even spirit to recognize the patent possibilities of the small abode where she had taken up reluctant dictatorship. The reaction from her shock was like convalescence following a severe acci- dent ; it could not be forced. As for Jerry, he had overcome temptation to play the potential lover the first morning of their life together. That gray day, rising from his bed he had dosed himself relent- lessly with the realization of what her hours must have been. The room where she lay, with its gay garnishings, would smite upon her with painful significance. She would 232 BLIND WISDOM lie very still with her sunless heart, unable to obey her child- hood's impulse to change the bogey's face before she could look upon it. Too numb to move nor yet strong enough to embrace philosophy, she would ponder upon the appalling truth, wild with pain for her lost love and in her tender way suffering also for Jerry. In his wretchedness he shared something of her inertia, felt life stand still and skip a beat in one of those curious interludes of arrested progress. Then as he had thrown himself down the night before fully clothed he undressed, bathed and donned fresh linen with stoic inevitability. The matutinal ceremony completed he quickened to fresh hope, though still his heart beat peril- ous with sympathy. He invaded the kitchen and urged the janitor's wife to supreme effort but dissatisfied with the unsesthetic bacon and eggs maturing in the pan he rushed forth for fruits out of season and cut flowers. And return- ing at the same high pitch of compassion he penned a note as the context of her breakfast tray : " DEAR : You have really rested, I hope, and the night has given you courage for the day ! Please believe in spite of everything that you could be nowhere so safe nor so tenderly cared for as here. Your happiness is the one con- sideration from now on. Will you help me to succeed in making you so ? As they say in business dealings, ' we wel- come criticism ! ' As it was in the beginning I am now and ever shall be, " Your ' old JERRY.' ' But just when this elaborate offering was about to be presented, the fruit, the flowers and the passionate assurance, Jerry had his second and wiser thought. He was now setting the key-note for their future intercourse; upon his initial interpretation depended her serenity of mind and his own, in so far as he could ever feel reconciled. But by his very assertion that all was as in former days, his very denial A DIFFICULT BEGINNING 233 of new conditions he emphasized the presence of them. In his self-abnegation he set up a poignant love plea. Would she not be in greater dismay at these signs of the unusual, the ingratiating tray with its frantic flowers and two-toned message than as though nothing of the kind had been at- tempted ? He knew her well enough to know that she would suffer acutely through any symptoms of sacrifice on his part. He perceived that the finer delicacy would be to establish her confidence through an absence of all dramatic gesture, a matter-of-fact reversal to the old friendly footing. For all his life of day-dreaming the virility of Jerry staggered belief in that he could conceive and carry through so mighty a task. From that time on indeed his head and shoulders figuratively pierced the clouds, biceps strained and corded with effort! In the kitchen he had insisted against the obdurate Mrs. Flynn in glorifying the tray (" Spoilin' her to begin wid!" that Tartar had remarked sourly), but when later he had attacked her en route to Joan's room to retract the flowers and the note, she was equally difficult to deal with. Then having received, to her mind, some fatuous instruction she slammed through Joan's door with a violence calculated to waken any sleeping beauty and bring her summarily to cope with the day. Outside Jerry spat a raw " Damn ! " " Mr. Callendar is afther havin' skimbled eggs for his breakfast," she announced shortly, setting the tray down with a bang and perversely misconstruing the bridegroom's message, " an' he thought as the same was plenty good enough for yerself." Joan, making allowance for translation, managed a smile and felt a little warmth creep back into her veins. Jerry took " skimbled eggs " for breakfast and thought that she might do the same ! Nothing remotely abnormal in that an- nouncement and she who had dreaded some terribly trying 234 BLIND WISDOM aftermath of last evening's crisis breathed the first sigh of relief. She had pictured a far different beginning, her fevered imagination going to the founts of literature for substantiation. Either he would wring her heart with re- proaches or would waken her with such protective brotherli- ness as would have been unbearable. As she stared at the tray with quick tears Mrs. Flynn added literally : " I'm to say as how he's off on business till the afternoon an' you kin be givin' me anny orders ye loike widin raison," she added on her own inspiration. This time her remark was greeted by the sweetest sound of merriment. " What you've just said," Joan rallied momentarily, " goes both ways. Hitherto you've had only Mr. Callendar to command and now you have us both. The only difference is that I could, on a pinch, cook my meals and therefore I'm independent." Mrs. Flynn expressed herself by shooting up the curtain and letting the inquisitive sun into the girl's sleepy eyes. " Ye don't look," she observed with perspicacity, " loike ye're afther skimblin' an egg in yer loife." " Never you mind," cried her new mistress with asperity. " Should the occasion arise I'll wager I could out-skimble you to nothing ! " But when the woman had withdrawn Joan's flare of hu- mor died. It was but nine o'clock of the first morning of the first year, and from now on hers would be a waiting role. Pushing the tray from her she turned deliberately and put her face in the pillow. There was nothing to do but sleep. Nevertheless when custom became established Joan and Jerry, through well-bred mutual consideration, were doing tolerably well. They came and went bravely together and their efforts at naturalness proved sedative to thought. But A DIFFICULT BEGINNING 235 now and then he would find her terribly questioning eyes upon him as though with her very soul she weighed the sincerity of his attitude, as though should he be proven a sham her own stamina must crumble. The truth startled them both at times and set its imprint on their faces. But not once did she mention Ballou during those first days and Jerry had almost come to believe that she was reaching some kinder plane of submission when, like a bolt from the blue, fell her ultimatum. It was evening and they were spending it at home by common consent when he had warning of some atmospheric disturbance. " Jerry ! " she summoned him to attention and her eyes were alive in her face like twin stars. During the pause which followed he returned her challenging gaze and their spiritual passage-at-arms seemed to stretch the interval into eternity. " Jerry, I have made up my mind, I will stay with you only on one condition that you let me see Bret and tell him the truth ! " CHAPTER XXIII A CONTRACT THERE are times when the plot of life with its discouraging developments, its reiterations and seemingly footless design, impresses one as amazingly bad. What manner of tale is this, asked the outraged mind, the creation of what inscru- table God? Is it worth pursuing farther? Jerry had had a bad day, one of the sort when the rent and other obligations fall due, when the pipes spring a leak, the single servant is stricken with lumbago and boresome cousins from Peoria, Illinois, turn up in town and command entertainment. Dur- ing the afternoon he had sustained that injury of the imagination a lost idea! It had come to him radiantly midway between the telephone message from the cousins and the settlement with the plumber, but immediately he had returned to his desk from the latter it was nowhere to be found and though he searched for it under all his other thoughts it remained elusive. And here in the soft-slipper end of the day was Joan delivering her ultimatum ! Joan, immersed in her own longing, could not know his inner protest. The cherished pipe, sharing his depression, forgot to emit whirls of smoke. At last he spoke con- trolledly : " I can't refuse you. On the other hand I can't let you be the medium for our understanding, his and mine." " But Jerry," she protested quickly, " think how ghastly for all three of us to be closeted together in a triangle effect. I should feel like the heroine of a third-rate play. Must we must we make it so cheap ? H A CONTRACT 237 Jerry stared at the ruddy logs in the chimney place and one little windy flame of blue that was behaving oddly, incidentally at her Cinderella slippers resting on the fender. " What you say may be true. On the other hand, I can- not see myself retiring like a spineless gladiator while you entertain the lion. I've a message for him which I prefer to deliver myself." " You're angry again." " Not angry but in earnest." " But I have a right," she began again feverishly. " I must tell him how it all came about and that we aren't neces- sarily parted forever. You can't deny this right." " I'm not denying that right. I only claim the prologue of the piece." She clutched his arm with eager fingers for all the world like a child imploring a sweetmeat. " But, Jerry, you won't go back on your promise to me that in time if if I shall be free . . ." The firelight exploited their faces, the one so brightly im- patient, the other so weary and controlled. Suddenly she relented, dropping her head with its soft tangle of hair, down on the chair-arm and weeping passionately. " It's God that's to blame," she rebelled. " He's cruel to make me cruel to you." Jerry cast a long glance, half sorrowing, half whimsical upon that ruffled head and shook his own. He quoted un- der his breath: " ' For all His mercies God be thanked, but for His tyrannies be blamed.' " Aloud he said, " Remember, ' there are two tragedies in life, Joan, not getting what you want, and getting it.' I'm trying to save you from the sting of one and the satiety of the other." ******** 238 BLIND WISDOM It was evening when Bret Ballou came in answer to Joan's request. Her note had been of inscrutable brevity : she had told him that she must see him and added that her husband permitted the call, though she did not tell him that Jerry would be on hand for it. Bret, still quivering from the shock of her marriage, had hesitated a long time before making a decision. His pride was intolerably hurt and his acquisitiveness rudely jolted. Also, knowing her to be the legal property of another man, she had at last taken on supreme value in his eyes. " No, I'll be hanged if I will ! " he ruminated with tears of vexation in his eyes. " She'll find I've ceased to be hers to command. A married woman's lap-dog, never ! " For in Bret's prescribed circle that sort of thing was for- ever happening and was all too obvious. Immediately a certain type of girl had married she beckoned back her favorite suitor and with exquisite tyranny caj oiled him into continuing her adorer. The ethics of such a proceeding did not bother Bret but he had a certain contempt for the sort of man who would allow himself to. be " short-changed," so to speak. But the longer he considered the more he became persuaded that in such an interview as Joan suggested he would be certain to come off the victor, and his self-love craved the opportunity of punishing her. The result of this long conflict was that promptly at eight o'clock next evening he stood at the Callendars' door. Great, then, was his surprise and discomfort, when Cal- lendar, in person, opened it! They had met but once be- fore in Agnes Blunt's drawing-room and into the mind of each leapt the remembrance of that single encounter, Joan between them with her sweetly anxious glance weaving from one to the other, beseeching friendship but provoking instead an immediate faint rivalry! What right had Cal- lendar to be meeting him when it was tacitly agreed that this A CONTRACT 239 post-mortem belonged to Joan and Bret ! What deplorable lack of taste ! Ballou stiffened and into his smooth-shaven face flooded the color of embarrassment. Instead of a fawning girl he now faced the respectable vandal who had kidnapped her, a chap in battle-gray with a politeness as smooth and unpliable as steel. It was a pity that they could not have said the primitive things they longed to say, with- out preliminaries, or polish. Instead each was obliged to suffer the handicap that breeding lay upon him, to fight indirectly and with restraint. " Won't you come in ? " asked Jerry Callendar for the second time. Ballou, pink to the ears, stood his ground stoutly. " I wish to see Mrs. Callendar. She is expecting me! " Jerry only inclined his head and there was no course open to Bret save following him into the big, softly-dim room which formed the main bulk of the apartment. It was not a luxurious room but it had a certain indefinable air of charm. A fire communed with itself in the chimney place and two chairs were drawn near, the inference of which did not escape the caller. His overwrought imagination conjured Joan and this quietly conquering husband of hers discussing the prospective arrival, amusing themselves at his expense. ... It was infamous if she did not ap- pear at all. " I too expect you," said the voice behind him with sinister pleasantry. Bret turned sharply, trembling like a boy before an un- deserved chastisement. " But I understood from her note that I was to see Joan " " Please take a chair." " And I have no wish nor intention of being interviewed by any one else." 240 BLIND WISDOM " That is unfortunate," said Jerry Callendar, " because I am very anxious to talk to you." His eyes held gravely in the other's. Bret was annoyed with himself for feeling impressed. "Of myself?" " N-no, I think you must know yourself better than I. Of Mrs. Callendar." Ballou was rubbing his hands before the blaze, striving to collect his wits, to decide upon a proper pose to adopt. He was furious at his own disadvantage. Jerry, studying him covertly, was thinking, " Great Scott, he's a mere young- ster for all his sophistication. He must have gotten an early start at living." " I wouldn't have come," Bret wheeled about in semi- apology, " if she hadn't sent for me. I knew of course that she was married and I'm not in the habit of calling upon brides. I went to the Blunts' house the other evening ex- pecting to receive news of Joan Wister and learned instead that she had changed her name. I'll swear Blunt took malicious pleasure in breaking the news to me, although if he'd done me justice he'd have known I was sincere in lik- ing her." He shrugged his shoulders expressively. " I don't know why Joan took this sudden step and the reason doesn't matter particularly now, but she sent for me and, well, here I am ! What's the big idea ? " As though this summary had exhausted his stock in trade of strength he subsided in one of the chairs and stretched forth his long legs wearily. Seeing him, as it were, frankly hors de combat, Jerry could not restrain a smile. " It appears, Mr. Ballou, that you're not feeling par- ticularly fit this evening. May I offer you some coffee or a liqueur ? " " You're right, I'm not up to form ! " Bret's smile was feeble, " but I don't think a drink could do anything for me. A CONTRACT 241 I may as well warn you now I'm in no mood to be taken to task, even if fortified beforehand. I haven't injured you, you know ! " Jerry ministered to the fire. His face betrayed nothing. " Meaning perhaps that I have injured you! How do you arrive at that interesting conclusion ? " " Joan," explained Bret with the weariness of a logician dealing with idiots, " was engaged to me. And when I turned my back for five minutes you married her. All of which makes me love you," he added with elaborate honesty. He made a wry face. Jerry laughed composedly. " Oh, no, I didn't marry her. We married each other." He sank into the companion chair to Bret's beneath Joan's blue lamp with its benevolent broad shade. This lamp shed an interesting light upon both men, especially upon the in- dividual modelling of their heads, Bret's low-browed and impetuous, shaped by nature with loving exactitude, Jerry's somewhat studentish in character with the mellow force of the thinker's, and the radiance of the man who colors his own dreams. " Dear me," drawled Jerry ironically, " you say that Joan was engaged to you while your wife was yet living. Isn't that a rather remarkable statement? It reminds me of the saying that it's permissible to steal another man's wife but never his sweetheart I use the word in its harmless sense. Under the circumstances the er engagement between you was not very binding. But of course," he conceded mis- chievously, " it's all in the point of view." Bret, scenting sarcasm, flushed again heavily but not find- ing an answer within hand's reach he let it go and contented himself with scratching an angry match on the floor. He half-heartedly offered his cigarette case, but as Jerry re- fused, hunched himself low like an old man and inhaled hungrily. r: : : *t tr So I provided life ".: T T in* :t : v : : * :".~ : i~. ~.'-~. kid all gathered, tint it