7f
 
 THE TRELOARS
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE JOURNAL OF A RECLUSE 
 
 isrno, Cloth, net $1.35 (postage extra) 
 
 " Has not a page that tires the cultured reader." 
 Brooklyn Eagle. 
 
 " Well worth reading and rereading for its diction 
 alone." Minneapolis Tribune. 
 
 " A most remarkable book. . . . There is scarcely a page 
 that has not some sentence that makes one pause to think." 
 Journal of Education. 
 
 " Has the charm of the unhackneyed." N. Y. Times Re- 
 view. 
 
 " Since ' II Cuore ' neither the English nor any European 
 tongue has laid so important a fictitious journal before the 
 reader." The Living Age. 
 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY, NEW YORK
 
 THE TRELOARS 
 
 BY 
 
 MARY FISHER 
 
 Author of "The Journal of a Recluse," "A General 
 
 Survey of American Literature," "Twenty-five 
 
 Letters on English Authors." 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 Copyright, 1917 
 BY MARY FISHER
 
 The author wishes to acknowledge her indebtedness to 
 German Gomes de la Marta, and to N. Hernandez Lu- 
 quero, for their faithful translation into Spanish of the 
 futuristic manifestoes, under the title of El Futurismo. 
 
 The author picked up the translation from a street book- 
 stall in Barcelona, Spain ; and has made use of a portion 
 of it for the greater part of the speech delivered at the 
 banquet, in the seventeenth chapter of The Treloars, in 
 order to avoid what, if invented, might have seemed either 
 sheer buffoonery, or ridiculous exaggeration. 
 
 2135406
 
 THE TRELOARS
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " WELL, I am mighty glad that you are back again, 
 Max. I've really missed you very much, and I've won- 
 dered many a time why you didn't drop me a line. Five 
 years is a long time, without a word from a fellow." 
 
 " Yes, but it seems a good deal longer than that to me, 
 Dick. I've been growing some, since I saw you last." 
 
 " I should hope so. No one wants to stand still." 
 
 " O, I mean more than that. My precious eyes have 
 been opened to a lot of things, I can tell you." 
 
 " That may be," retorted Dick, laughing ; " but have 
 they ever been opened to a fairer scene than this ? " 
 
 Richard Treloar and Max Gietmann were walking 
 along the Tunnel Road that winds its way from Berkeley, 
 California, to the high rounded hills that make the city's 
 lovely background, and at this question, Dick seized his 
 companion's arm, turned his face toward the west, and 
 pointed to the magnificent view that lay before them. 
 
 The sun was setting. From the height where they 
 stood, they overlooked that sinuous strip of Pacific coast 
 where lies the chain of cities and suburban towns of 
 which the most important are San Francisco, Oakland, 
 and Berkeley. Far out at sea, the Golden Gate melted 
 into the gleaming horizon with the vivid glow that gave 
 it its name; and nearer the foreground, the deep glow 
 softened into a delicate milky haze shot through with 
 purple and rose, blurring the sharp outlines and obliterat- 
 ing the ugly trail of civilization, and touching with beauty 
 what else had been a fault. On either side of the young 
 men, fold upon fold of softly colored rounded hills 
 opened to their view, affording lovely glimpses of wooded 
 and fertile valleys, with here and there a homestead nest- 
 ling in them. The time was June, and the hills had lost 
 the vivid green color of winter, but were not less beauti- 
 
 3 
 
 \
 
 4 THE TRELOARS 
 
 ful in their golden summer garb, purple patched where 
 the shadows lay. Close at hand, on the winding stretch 
 of yellow clay road, a group of eucalyptus trees raised 
 their heavy plumes of dark green foliage against the pale 
 azure of the evening sky, and filled the air with an agree- 
 able, aromatic odor. 
 
 It was a scene to delight any heart unless its capacity 
 for joy in beauty were utterly dead; and Dick's hand- 
 some, clean-cut face expressed in every mobile line of 
 it that his heart was alive; but the heavier face of his 
 companion was quite passive, except for a half con- 
 temptuous smile that flitted across it. He hardly looked 
 at the scene before him ; but suddenly his eye lighted up, 
 and pointing to an automobile that was swiftly approach- 
 ing, he said : 
 
 "There, that is what beauty means to me: the tri- 
 umph of intellect over matter, the multiplication of man's 
 power by machinery, the conquest of time and space." 
 
 "That's all right in its place, too," answered Dick, 
 "but its place is far below the first one. Nature beats 
 us so tremendously that it seems childish to me to boast of 
 what we can do in comparison." 
 
 " Dick, if it were worth while, I'd feel sorry for you, 
 but as it is, I feel sorry for myself. I thought I had 
 rid myself of all silly dependence on others, but I was 
 cherishing an illusion. I had counted on you to help me 
 in the propagation of new ideas; but I find you are as 
 hopelessly rooted in the past as a hardy skunk cabbage 
 in its native swamp." 
 
 Dick threw back his head and laughed heartily. 
 
 " For the sake of ' auld lang syne,' Max, do make it a 
 little milder come up a notch or two in the vegetable 
 line, and liken me to a lily or an iris, or anything less 
 malodorous than a skunk-cabbage. I don't mind the 
 swamp a bit, but the cabbage hurts some." 
 
 " No, I won't. There's nothing fragrant in your 
 moldy, stale opinions. They smell of old age and de- 
 cay."
 
 THE TRELOARS 5 
 
 " They do, do they ? And so you still have some old- 
 fashioned prejudices as to odors! That's encouraging; 
 keep it up. I dare say that, like Dad, you can be beau- 
 tifully inconsistent can roar like a lion, and be as mild 
 as a sucking dove." 
 
 Max flushed. He took himself too seriously to relish 
 raillery; but willing to hide his confusion, he asked: 
 " How is your father, anyway ? " 
 
 " The same fine, old, impractical chap he always was. 
 I don't think you will find him a day older. And he 
 revels in his interminable debates with Dr. Parker just 
 as much as ever." 
 
 " I used to think that the doctor's chief attraction at 
 your home was your sister Margaret." 
 
 " O pshaw ! Max, that's all nonsense. Parker is as 
 old a man as father, or at any rate, not much younger. I 
 think Dolly is about Catherine's age ; not more than two 
 or three years younger, anyway. By the way, Dolly 
 Parker is growing into a beautiful girl." 
 
 " She was a very pretty child when I saw her last, 
 dark hair and eyes, and cheeks like roses." 
 
 " Yes, but she was a chubby little thing then, and she's 
 shot up now into the shapeliest girl you'll see anywhere. 
 If you hadn't set yourself up for invulnerable, I should 
 be warning you that you are running into dangerous 
 quarters. Dolly and her 5 father will be over for dinner, 
 so you'll see her to-night." 
 
 " Well, you needn't worry about me, Dick. I am en- 
 tirely free from the supreme illusion. Woman means 
 no more to me than a passing fancy, or a need of the 
 hour ; a soporific or an excitant, like opium or cham- 
 pagne." 
 
 " Shame on you, Max ! But then I can't believe you, 
 and if I did, I shouldn't envy you your freedom. I'd as 
 lief be a telegraph pole, as a man of flesh and blood that 
 felt no response to the loveliest thing on earth. At any 
 rate, come to life be your old self while you are 
 out home. Ah, here we are! Does the old place look 
 natural to you?"
 
 
 6 THE TRELOARS 
 
 The two young men had reached a turn in the road that 
 descended into a narrow valley, at the bottom of which, 
 and partly ascending the opposite gentle slope, lay a beau- 
 tiful farm with fields of ripening grain, rich pastures on 
 which cattle were grazing, and in the foreground, shel- 
 tered by wide spreading live oaks and tall eucalyptus 
 trees, stood the house with its roof of dull red tile and 
 its walls of gray stone, built after the prevailing style 
 of California homes, in the simplicity and grace of Span- 
 ish architecture in the mission days. 
 
 " Yes, it looks just the same," Max replied, " even to 
 the yellow poppies on the hillside. It is a delightful 
 little retreat from the world. It is all right for your 
 father, but you ought to be tumbled out of the nest to 
 try the speed of your wings." 
 
 " How is it that you happen to remember the poppies ? 
 I should have thought that a pretty little thing like that 
 would have escaped you." 
 
 " I remember that Margaret loved them, and in the 
 summer time always had a big glass bowl filled with 
 them on the drawing-room table." 
 
 " And so she has yet. By the way, Max, whenever 
 you're working off any of your anti-feminine diatribes, 
 I wish you'd make a mental reservation and put Mar- 
 garet into a category of her own. I don't say it because 
 she is my sister, but Margaret Treloar is not an ordinary 
 woman. Nobody ever forgets her who has once seen 
 her. It isn't that she is particularly brilliant in a glittering 
 way, but somehow she shines through and through with 
 light. There is a, sort of delightful warmth and trans- 
 parency about her. You never feel chilly or lone- 
 some where she is. What would Morningside Lodge 
 be without her? Just so much brick and stone. She 
 makes it home. Dear old Dad thinks he runs the farm, 
 but he no more runs it than the birds in the orchard, do. 
 Like them he's just a bit of vocal decoration a lovely 
 singing ornament. Margaret does it all, but somehow 
 contrives not to seem to do it, and so Dad's self-respect
 
 THE TRELOARS 7 
 
 never moults a feather. As for me, whatever good there 
 is in me, I owe to Margaret. I was only three years old 
 when mother died. I can't remember her, and Catherine 
 was a baby ; and Margaret has been mother and sister to 
 both of us, ever since." 
 
 " Yes, I know that. Margaret has simply sacrificed 
 herself to all of you, instead of blooming into the splen- 
 did creature she might have been, if you had not all 
 hung on to her like dead weights. Her unpardonable 
 sin is not having shaken you all off to carve out a career 
 for herself." 
 
 Dick reddened with vexation, and after a short pause 
 said: 
 
 " Margaret Treloar happens to be a woman for whom 
 duty and love exist. Self is not the first consideration 
 with her." 
 
 " And you call that a virtue ? " exclaimed Max. " You 
 mean by love, in her case, the home-making faculty. I 
 hate the word home when it stands for a fixed center, 
 a paralysis of effort and feeling beyond its pitiful four 
 walls. It is the climax of selfishness and egotism. I 
 grant, there is no dust on her floors, no holes in her 
 household linen, no half-cooked food on her table, and 
 for such paltry things, for such a poor little mess of pot- 
 tage, she has bartered her birth-right." 
 
 " No ! " shouted Dick, losing his patience. " Do you 
 mean to say that your incarnate will is to lead to the 
 dissolution of all human ties? That war, not peace; 
 hate, not love, are to rule the world? A fine mess of a 
 world you'll make out of that doctrine! As for Mar- 
 garet, God bless her! she has been more than the cen- 
 ter of her own universe. She has been the center of the 
 household, the center of our universe, father's, Ca- 
 therine's, mine. And I'm not ashamed of getting my 
 light and warmth from her, not a bit of it." 
 
 " Stuff and nonsense second-hand sentiment bor- 
 rowed from Sunday-school books ! What would you do 
 for Margaret?"
 
 f 
 
 8 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " I'd give my life for her." 
 
 " You wouldn't lay aside the dearest wish of your heart 
 for her, let alone your life. The world is lousy with that 
 kind of cant. Neither would your father. Will you let 
 me tell you what I think about him?" 
 
 " You may say what you like ; you can't hurt me any 
 more than you have." 
 
 " Well, if I hurt you, it's for your own good. I 
 haven't come back to the States to be mealy-mouthed. 
 Your father is an interesting man, with a certain 
 versatility, curiosity, and power of assimilation which 
 he mistakes for genius. He showed the right kind of 
 grit when he left the Church and refused to preach what 
 he no longer believed. But his emancipation was never 
 complete. His spirituality is in exactly the same boat 
 with Parker's materialism. It is not the genuine article. 
 He has never entirely sloughed his Christian faiths, but 
 wears still a ragged mantle of them that does not keep 
 him from shivering. That is why he keeps up that in- 
 cessant argument with Parker. At bottom he is a sen- 
 sualist who wants all the good things of this world, but 
 he doesn't want to pay the price for them, if they have 
 to be paid for. That is why he doesn't understand 
 Parker's clean living, to use the conventional phrase, 
 along with the absence of any outside prohibitory check, 
 such as an accepted Christian creed. Your father likes 
 to play the Colossus with one foot in heaven and the 
 other on earth ; but the footing is rather uneasy and in- 
 secure, and I think he leans heavier towards the ground. 
 He baptizes his vices with beautiful names, and then 
 thinks they are virtues " 
 
 " You don't do that, of course," interrupted Dick sar- 
 castically. 
 
 " No, because I stand beyond virtue and vice. The 
 terms mean nothing to me. They are purely relative. 
 But they still mean something to your father, and he has 
 a gift at nomenclature, a sort of linguistic jugglery with 
 words peculiar to his age, by which the unreal becomes
 
 THE TRELOARS 9 
 
 the real, and vice-versa. He has made of Margaret the 
 most comfortable of soft cushions between himself and 
 his responsibilities, but he'd fling it aside for a softer, if 
 he could find one. As for Catherine, she's a thoughtless 
 girl who might perhaps learn to think if she had some 
 responsibility instead of leaning up against the rest of 
 you. Ah ! There is Margaret at the door now, looking 
 for us. By George ! she hasn't changed a bit. You 
 must have some fountain of eternal youth about the 
 place, Dick ; you must show it to me before I leave." 
 
 " I can't do that. It is in our hearts," replied Dick 
 gravely. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE young men were walking now on the flower-bor- 
 dered gravel path that led to the house. A broad, round- 
 arched piazza, stretched across the front of the house 
 against which were massed brilliant-hued geraniums and 
 tall, graceful ferns. A flight of stone steps led to the 
 piazza, and the slender figure clothed in white, which 
 the young men had seen in the doorway, moved quickly 
 forward, and stood with outstretched hands at the top 
 of the steps. 
 
 Such bright, sunny welcome there was in the eloquent 
 gray eyes and in the smile that lighted up the delicate 
 features, that even Gietmann's cynical hardness melted 
 away in it, and he returned the smile, saying with some- 
 thing like a jovial ring in his voice : 
 
 " You look good to me." 
 
 "And you to me," was the quick reply, as the young 
 woman clasped the out-stretched hand. " Yet, I am not 
 quite sure that I would have known you at first sight, 
 if I hadn't been expecting you." 
 
 "What? I am not so changed as that, am I? I 
 should have known you in the dark." 
 
 " Well, you have grown much stouter ; then, the mous- 
 tache and pointed beard alter you. And then, too, there's
 
 io THE TRELOARS 
 
 something about your expression " She hesitated and 
 blushed. 
 
 " Not quite so sheepish, eh ? Not quite so moon- 
 struck as it used it be, is that it ? " he asked with a laugh, 
 and as she turned to enter the house, he said : 
 
 " Do you remember that night you called me a boy ? " 
 
 Margaret's face burned with a deeper flush, but she 
 said nothing, and he continued in a lower voice meant 
 for her ear alone : 
 
 " I went away from you that night, determined not to 
 come back, until I was a man. Well, I've come back a 
 man, Margaret." 
 
 He looked straight into her eyes with a certain self- 
 possession and bold admiration before which her own 
 eyes fell. There was just a little over-confidence in his 
 manner, as if he had made it a point of honor in himself 
 to betray no weakness, and it affected her disagreeably. 
 She preceded the young men into the house, and the 
 cheerful aspect of the tastefully furnished, light and airy 
 rooms was like another welcome. 
 
 Seated at a piano, a dark-haired, dark-eyed beautiful 
 girl, about eighteen years of age, was lightly fingering 
 the keys with one hand, and at the same time chatting 
 with a fair-haired girl, Catherine Treloar, who was stand- 
 ing near her. Seated in comfortable arm-chairs, near a 
 broad, low window looking out on the garden, two elderly 
 gentlemen were earnestly talking together. 
 
 Philip Treloar, the taller and slenderer of the two, 
 was a striking looking man in his sixtieth year, with gray 
 hair growing thin on his shapely head, a bristling gray 
 moustache, a pale complexion, a large aquiline nose, 
 and clear, steel-blue eyes. His companion, Dr. Joseph 
 Parker, was a stout man of medium height who had 
 rather the air of a prosperous merchant and good liver 
 than that of a professional man. His intelligent, full, 
 and florid face was lighted up by prominent dark eyes 
 that had been short-sighted in his youth, but with age 
 had grown into a fullness of vision that made him inde-
 
 THE TRELOARS n 
 
 pendent of spectacles. His iron gray hair was closely 
 cut, and his face smoothly shaven. 
 
 As Margaret entered the room, both men rose from 
 their chairs and advanced to welcome the new-comer. 
 
 " Delighted to see you, Max," said Mr. Treloar, 
 heartily shaking hands with him. " But I would have 
 passed you on the street without knowing you." 
 
 " I hope so, Mr. Treloar," said Max. " It's a poor 
 compliment to a man to tell him he hasn't changed in 
 five years." 
 
 " Or a woman either," challenged Margaret. " Here 
 are some other old friends. Dr. Parker, of course, you 
 know, but here's Dolly who also has changed just as 
 much as you have; and for that matter, Catherine, too. 
 Come here, girls, to get duly presented over again. Now, 
 Max, which is which ? " and Margaret drew the two girls 
 into the circle, her arm about the waist of each. 
 
 " O, it isn't any trouble to tell them apart. I haven't 
 forgotten that the light hair and blue eyes go with the 
 Treloars, and the dark ones with the Parkers. I am 
 very glad to see you again, young ladies I was going 
 to say girls, but " 
 
 " O, do say, girls," entreated Catherine with a laugh. 
 " It is so very dreadful to be grown up ; there's so much 
 more expected of you, and nothing more in you to meet 
 the expectations, and please, don't begin with Miss-'mg us 
 either. Just say Cathie and Dolly as you used to. We 
 shall feel so much more comfortable if you do; won't 
 we, Dolly?" 
 
 " Yes," answered Dolly, blushing brightly, for the 
 young man's eyes were expressing a lively satisfaction 
 in her fresh young beauty. " We don't feel half so 
 grown-up as we look." 
 
 " No," said Dick. " They are both of them just as'~D 
 green as ever they were, and are proud of the fact, as 
 you see. You're the o.nly one who has changed and feels 
 it a distinction." 
 
 " But not so much after all," said Margaret. " I be-
 
 12 THE TRELOARS 
 
 gin to find him again. And, Dick, dear, will you take 
 him to the spare room? I dare say you boys (you will 
 always be boys to me, even when you've grown a beard) 
 will wish to wash up a little before dinner begins, and 
 it is quite ready whenever you are. I am sure the long 
 walk has given you both a good appetite." 
 
 As the young men left the room, she turned to 
 Catherine, saying: 
 
 " Cathie, please bring in a pitcher of fresh water from 
 the well. The boys won't be long." 
 
 " And isn't there anything I can do ? " asked Dolly. 
 
 " Yes, you might help Cathie," answered Margaret 
 with a smile, and she patted the young girl's shoulder in 
 an affectionate and motherly way. She was very fond 
 of Dolly. Then she went into the dining-room to give 
 the last decorative touches to the table, and to see that 
 everything was in order. 
 
 Dolly and Catherine hastened out, arm in arm, very 
 glad of an excuse to be alone for a moment to exchange 
 opinions about the guest. 
 
 " Isn't he original-looking ? " Catherine began, as soon 
 as they were out of the house. " I think he is grand. 
 That fierce moustache and pointed beard make him look 
 awfully interesting, so foreign-looking; don't you think 
 so?" " 
 
 " I don't like a beard," objected Dolly. " It makes a 
 man look so old, and did you notice the back of his 
 hands and his wrists? They're all covered with thick, 
 black hair. Ugh! he reminds me of a bear." 
 
 " I don't mind that. That's a sign of strength they 
 say." Then she paused, bit her lip, looked critically at 
 Dolly, as if she were determining whether or not it would 
 be safe to trust her with a secret, and finally burst out 
 with: 
 
 " I've half a notion to tell you something. I wonder 
 if you could keep a secret." 
 
 "Of course, I could. Do you think I am a silly 
 talker?"
 
 THE TRELOARS 13 
 
 " No, but this particular secret isn't exactly mine ; so 
 I feel some compunction of conscience about telling it." 
 
 " Well, then you oughtn't to tell it especially if you 
 think you can't trust me," answered Dolly with an air 
 of dignified resignation. 
 
 " But I think I can if you promise. Now, Dolly, on 
 your honor you'll never breathe a word of what I am 
 going to tell you, to a living soul ! " 
 
 " Of course, I won't, Catherine, if you don't want me 
 to." 
 
 " Well, I don't want you to ; that's sure. Now I am 
 going to set you to guessing, first. Say, Dolly, did 
 you ever suspect that Max Gietmann was in love with 
 somebody ? " 
 
 Dolly deliberated a moment, and then replied : " No, 
 I don't think I ever did. The truth is, I don't remember 
 much about him, except that he was very fond of Dick 
 and used to come home from college with him and stay 
 over the week-end at your house." 
 
 "Yes, that's so. But, Dolly, it wasn't Dick that was 
 the attraction. It was Margaret." 
 
 " Margaret ? " repeated Dolly in surprise. 
 
 "Yes, Margaret," reiterated Catherine triumphantly. 
 " I never shall forget the day I found it out. I was just 
 as surprised as you are. It was right here, close to this 
 arbor," and Catherine paused before a clump of bushes 
 near an arbor covered over with honeysuckle. " I had 
 been playing around by the well with a big Maltese cat, 
 and had just run up to this clump of bushes, when I sud- 
 denly heard voices in the arbor. I crept up and peeped 
 through the vines; and there were Max and Margaret, 
 both of them crying. Margaret seemed to be saying 
 something to pacify him. She had put her hand on his 
 arm, and he jerked it away angrily, saying: ' I am not 
 a boy ; I am not your brother. I don't want the sort of 
 love you give to him.' He looked so angry and ex- 
 cited and spoke so roughly that I got frightened and 
 ran away to the house, where Margaret was not long in
 
 I 4 THE TRELOARS 
 
 coming. I saw how red her eyes were, but I never asked 
 her any questions, of course. Max had gone, and he 
 never came back again until to-day never even wrote 
 us a line." 
 
 " And did you never know what had become of him ? " 
 
 " Yes, we heard that his father had died, leaving him 
 a considerable amount of money. I think it was in a 
 German paper that somebody gave Dick, that we found 
 it out, but I am not sure, now. You know he had come 
 out to America when he was only about fifteen or sixteen, 
 after a. violent quarrel with his people. His father had 
 struck him, I think. He was a precocious fellow and 
 picked up English in a little while, came out here and 
 worked his way into the university where he met Dick. 
 They took a fancy to each other, and Dick used to bring 
 him out on Friday nights to stay over Sunday. You 
 know Margaret is just as innocent as a baby. She 
 doesn't know men at all, and she used to treat Max just as 
 sweetly as she did Dick. Well, you see what happened. 
 Of course she is a good deal older than he." 
 
 " She doesn't look any older," said Dolly. " Do you 
 suppose that he has come, back for her, and that Mar- 
 garet will marryvhim?" 
 
 " O, no ! no ! There isn't the slightest danger of that. 
 Margaret will never marry as long as father lives, or 
 Dick needs her. She thinks too much of them. I some- 
 times wonder what she would do, if anything happened 
 to either of them. There is something almost touching 
 to me in her devotion. It is such an old-fashioned virtue 
 now, you know." 
 
 " Well, whether it is an old fashion or a new fashion, 
 it seems a good fashion to me, but it doesn't mean that 
 she couldn't love somebody else." 
 
 " In a deeper way ? " 
 
 " In a different way." 
 
 " So that it would be possible for her to leave us ? " 
 
 "Yes, of course." 
 
 " Then you don't know Margaret. Margaret Treloar
 
 THE TRELOARS 15 
 
 could never love anybody so much that she could give 
 up father and Dick for him. Now I love father, you 
 know I do, and I love Dick but " here Catherine 
 hesitated, giggled, tossed her head like a young colt, 
 and finally said " I've no intention of having Miss 
 Treloar carved on my tombstone ; and you ? " but before 
 she could learn what Dolly's intentions with regard to 
 epitaphs might be, Margaret's voice was calling her to 
 make haste with the water, and the two girls hurried to 
 the well, filled the pitcher and went back to the house 
 without further delay. 
 
 In the meantime, Max and Dick had finished their 
 hasty toilet and were waiting to be called to dinner, with 
 an appetite that promised to do ample justice to it. 
 
 Margaret was an excellent cook, and never entrusted 
 her dinners entirely to Betty, the maid of all work, who 
 was remarkable, rather for fidelity, than for originality 
 and skill. It was owing to this fidelity that she shared 
 Margaret's anxiety that the dinner should be particularly 
 savory to-day, and was as pleased as a child, when the 
 roast-beef turned out to be unusually juicy and tender, 
 and the peas had retained their delicate flavor and bright 
 green color. She had shared, too, Margaret's pleasure 
 in the prospect of seeing Max Gietmann, whose former 
 visits she remembered with satisfaction, and she had a 
 strange little sinking at heart when he had not asked after 
 her, nor come into the kitchen to say, as it had been his 
 custom, formerly : " How do you do, Betty ? Got any- 
 thing good to eat ? " Well, no matter, he would say 
 something to her when she went into the dining-room 
 to wait on the table. But she might not have existed at 
 all for any notice he took of her, as he helped himself 
 from the dishes she passed. Her thin, wrinkled hands 
 trembled a little. She would have been so proud and 
 happy, if he had given her only a glance of recognition ; 
 but he was so much absorbed in his conversation, so eager 
 to astonish or charm by the communication of his ideas 
 that he was really unconscious of her presence.
 
 16 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " The trouble with you Americans," he was saying, 
 " is that your real thoughts and your practices are ab- 
 solutely at variance with your pretensions. You are the 
 most materialistic nation in the world; and, mark me, I 
 do not say that to your discredit, but to your credit ; but 
 you are ashamed of the fact, and you try to cover it up 
 with all sorts of ridiculous messes. You have invented 
 a religion that denies the existence of matter and cele- 
 brates the invention in the costliest marble and granite. 
 You have invented another religion of disembodied spir- 
 its that rap and tap and squeak and gibber in the most 
 material way. In short, while you live in matter and 
 think of matter all your waking hours, you won't give up 
 the cant of talking spiritually, as if there were some 
 particularly aristocratic quality in it that could give you 
 distinction." 
 
 Mr. Treloar pounded the table with the handle of his 
 fork crying : " Hear ! Hear ! " and laughing immoder- 
 ately, looked at Dr. Parker in triumph. " That is 
 what I call being perfectly logical," he cried. " The 
 soul is either immortal or it isn't. I happen to think it 
 is ; but if I didn't believe it, I should say that life is a 
 glorious farce and that there is no better use for it than to 
 eat, drink and be merry." 
 
 " That is perfectly childish," exclaimed Dr. Parker. 
 " It is equivalent to saying that because I can't occupy 
 my house forever, it doesn't make any difference what 
 sort of house it is. Its roof may let in the wind and 
 rain, its floors may rot and sink to the ground and its 
 defective sewerage poison the air. What difference does 
 it make? I can't have an eternal hold on it." 
 
 " O, no, you're all wrong there, Joe. Your good house 
 is part of the game of life. You are not going to neglect 
 anything material; for it is the material only that has 
 any reality to you. And if you are a logical materialist 
 you want more houses and better houses and more auto- 
 mobiles and better and faster ones; and more of every- 
 thing that can make you forget what a miserable puny
 
 THE TRELOARS 17 
 
 creature you really are of no more account in the 
 great scheme of things than the fly that buzzes on your 
 window-pane." 
 
 " I don't agree with you, Phil. Nature has a way of 
 her own of refuting these arguments of yours by the 
 instinct of self-preservation which she has implanted in 
 all her creatures ; and whatever you may say about it, it is 
 a part of her scheme of things, as you call it, that 
 along with intelligence shall go as its preservative, an in- 
 stinctive sense of its relation to its kind, formulated in 
 man as a sense of duty, of responsibility, and it is only 
 when you insist upon dissecting and analyzing this sense 
 to find it rooted in egotism that you disturb and destroy 
 it. I have always remembered with peculiar pleasure the 
 Russian peasant's answer to Tolstoi's question : ' What 
 would you do, if you knew you were going to die to- 
 morrow ? ' ' I should keep on plowing.' There's the 
 whole thing in a nut-shell. Of course, you can corrupt 
 that peasant. You can undermine all his simple whole- 
 some instincts (of the earth, earthy if you will,) by all 
 the vices of your cultured intellect, trained to analyze and 
 destroy, but that does not affect the argument. No 
 healthy mind ever found life unendurable, or only fit to 
 be squandered because of its brevity." 
 
 " I agree with you, Doctor," said Max, " but that ques- 
 tion of immortality which troubles the older generation 
 that has received it as a tradition, does not in the least 
 trouble the younger one. What interests us is not yes- 
 terday nor to-morrow, but right now. We have not been 
 fed on the things that nourish you. Your ideals are not 
 ours. We feel the narrowness and insufficiency, as well 
 as the falseness of the ideas that make up your intellectual 
 life. We can't belong to any country. We belong to 
 the world. We are cosmopolitans." 
 
 " You mean mongrels, don't you ? " interrupted Tre- 
 loar with an amused twinkle in his eye. He was enjoy- 
 ing himself hugely assisting at his old friend's discom- 
 fiture. " You mean that your intellectual attitude is
 
 i8 THE TRELOARS 
 
 the result of the mingling of the ideas and emotions of 
 all races and all ages, for there is nothing original in it. 
 You mean that you have lost the distinction of a type 
 of a race, whose blood runs true to the ancestral line." 
 
 "If you like to put it that way yes, for it means 
 that we feel nothing alien to us, that is alive and grow- 
 ing. The only thing we dread is fixity, parasitism. We 
 want to keep on moving: we want to be self-sustaining, 
 to stand on our own feet, instead of leaning on somebody. 
 You feel yourselves rooted in the past. Dick and I were 
 discussing that point coming out here. Then, too, we 
 believe in the domination of the strong, not the weak. 
 The perfection of a machine is that it can't think, can't 
 reason against the man that runs it, but is absolutely 
 passive and obedient to him. The salvation of society 
 means the strong man at the helm and the little man under 
 him as machine. That is why your democracies are fail- 
 ures. The strength of the nation is dissipated in count- 
 less feeble wills. The little man is on top; the big man 
 underneath, in danger of being crushed by the wheels. 
 That is why democracies make for peace and the steady 
 accumulation of material enjoyments which are the little 
 man's hope of heaven to-day, just as they were his hope 
 when he clamored for bread and circuses under the 
 Roman eagle. That is why the strongest government in 
 the world to-day is our Germany. We have the strong 
 man at the helm. Now, please don't confound my idea of 
 strength with your familiar ideas of goodness, benevo- 
 lence, intelligence. As ordinarily accepted, these words 
 are only synonyms for weakness. I mean by strength 
 an obstinate, inflexible will, the unfaltering persuasion 
 that the will of the universe is incarnate in you colossal 
 vanity, if you like I have no quarrel with words. 
 Take, for instance, our Kaiser's God. He is no weak- 
 kneed old man. No, he is the god of battles and storms, 
 and " 
 
 " Made in Germany," laughed Treloar again. 
 
 " Yes, made in Germany, to serve Germany," was
 
 THE TRELOARS 19 
 
 Max's prompt reply. " Where a great many other good 
 things are made, in spite of the slushy socialism that is 
 made there, too, by the under man who aspires in his 
 turn to control the machine. But what I am getting at 
 is this : We of the younger generation mean by strength, 
 non-conformity, absolute personal independence, individ- 
 ual autocracy, the right to be your own standard in every- 
 thing, instead of meekly accepting a ready-made one from 
 somebody else. And that independence applies to every- 
 thing, ethics, art, literature, music. If your classics in 
 art or literature speak to me in a language I can't under- 
 stand, I have the right to say so." 
 
 " Certainly," interposed Dick with a good deal of 
 warmth ; " but you haven't the right to say that nobody 
 else understands them and that they aren't worth under- 
 standing. You have only the right to advertise your 
 limitations and your ignorance, if it is your pleasure to do 
 so." 
 
 Here Catherine, who had been listening with great 
 eagerness to the discussion, felt that a good opportunity 
 had arrived to let Max know that he had, at least, one 
 listener who was not hopelessly behind the times but 
 could appreciate his advanced ideas, so she leaned over 
 the table and said with great earnestness : " I think 
 that was a very unnecessary remark, Dick. I am quite 
 sure that Max is right. I know that / am not ignorant 
 of the classics, in English, at any rate, and they have 
 never appealed to me, nor to the great majority of us 
 young people in college. We all think them an insuffer- 
 able bore, and now that we have struck the course in 
 the modern novel, Maupassant, Shaw, and other grand, 
 thrilling writers, we call it having gone from the drys 
 to the wets. We've struck something full of juice 
 and " a roar of laughter from Mr. Treloar stopped 
 Catherine in her na'ive confession. 
 
 " Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings," he 
 shouted, rising to his feet as dinner was over. " Now, 
 let us adjourn to the living-room, and, Catherine, be kind
 
 20 THE TRELOARS 
 
 enough to reserve your dissertations on juicy literature 
 for another time." 
 
 " There ! You see how it is," muttered Catherine to 
 Max, as she followed him closely into the next room. 
 " That's the way we young folks always get squelched. 
 We are never supposed to have an opinion that hasn't 
 been approved of, and catalogued. I don't care, that 
 doesn't prevent us from having 'em. How I do love 
 originality, don't you ? " 
 
 Max felt the absurdity of her question and said noth- 
 ing, but he smiled in a way which Catherine interpreted 
 as a perfect agreement between them. 
 
 As for Margaret, her delicate face was crimson with 
 shame, and when the little company was seated again, 
 she mustered up courage to say : " Now, please, father, 
 do let us have Max among us for the rest of the evening 
 as Max, and not as a philosopher. You know that at the 
 end of these discussions, we all come out just where we 
 went in ; don't we, Doctor ? " 
 
 Dr. Parker, seeing Margaret's discomfort, rallied to 
 her support and adroitly turned the conversation to sub- 
 jects of general interest, and persistently maintained it in 
 a light and jovial strain for the rest of the evening. But 
 even under these conditions, Margaret did not quite re- 
 gain her wonted calmness, and when at half past ten 
 o'clock, Max rose to take leave, she said eagerly: 
 
 " O, no ! You aren't going back to the city at this late 
 hour. Do stay all night, as you used to do; your room 
 is just as you left it." 
 
 " Thank you," he answered. " You are very kind, but 
 I must really go back. I have an early engagement in 
 the morning." 
 
 "Then Betty will call you early, and give you your 
 breakfast at any time you wish it." 
 
 " Really, you are too good, but I am not going to dis- 
 turb Betty, or anybody else. I really can't stay. I have 
 enjoyed seeing you all immensely, and I am coming out 
 again, Mr. Treloar, to finish that discussion with you."
 
 THE TRELOARS 21 
 
 He extended his hand to his host, who shook it cor- 
 dially, as he answered: 
 
 " That's right, Max, do come out again. I like your 
 courage. I like the way you follow out your arguments 
 to their logical conclusion. I should have settled with 
 the doctor long ago, if he had been half as consequen- 
 tial." 
 
 Treloar had a habit of pulling his nose, as some men 
 have of pulling their moustaches, and he finished this 
 sentence with the familiar gesture and a broad smile, as 
 he turned to his old friend, who replied: 
 
 " That is one of your multifarious illusions, Phil, but 
 you are welcome to it," Then, turning to his daughter, 
 he said : " Come, Dolly, get your hat. We must be 
 going home, too. We can walk as far as the road with 
 Max." 
 
 " Shan't I hitch up and drive you back, Max ? " said 
 Dick. " It won't take me long to get the horses round." 
 
 " No, don't do that, please. I want the walk. I need 
 the exercise." 
 
 " Well, then, I'll walk out to the gate with you, too." 
 
 " Are you intending to settle in America, or are you 
 going back to Germany?" asked the doctor of Max, as 
 they walked up the hill together, Dick and Dolly follow- 
 ing them. 
 
 " I think I shall stay here ; though I am not pinning 
 myself down to any set program. Dick tells me he is 
 going into journalism. I think I'd like that myself, only, 
 of course, I should want to own my own journal, so that 
 I could say what I please, and as much or little as I 
 please." 
 
 " You would like to begin disseminating your ideas, I 
 suppose." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " No reason in the world why not, if you think the 
 world of sufficient importance to be instructed." 
 
 Max was silent a moment. Then he laughed as he 
 answered : " That's rather a neat way of telling me
 
 22 THE TRELOARS 
 
 that I think a good deal of myself and very little of the 
 world. But the world ought to have a few hard knocks 
 don't you think so ? " 
 
 " I am not so sure," answered the doctor. " I think the 
 iconoclast has done about all the work that is necessary, 
 for the present, and that the architect should be stepping 
 to the front now. We want the master builder who will 
 take these wrecked faiths of ours, and broken fragments 
 of noble dreams and build some solid shelter for us when 
 the storms are on." 
 
 " That wouldn't do any good. The building would 
 soon grow shaky again. What we need to do, is to learn 
 to live out doors, and defy the storms." 
 
 " Like the cave-man and the bush man." 
 
 "They were freer than we." 
 
 " That is questionable. Well, we must say good night 
 to you now. Come over and see us when you are out 
 this way again." 
 
 " Father, what did you invite him for ? " asked Dolly 
 when she and her father were alone. " I think he's per- 
 fectly horrid, don't you ? " 
 
 " No, I think he is comical. I think he is very young 
 for his age. He has probably suffered some disappoint- 
 ment to his self love and wants to avenge his hurt on 
 the world in much the same spirit that a child turns and 
 kicks the chair against which it has stubbed its toe. It 
 is the common explanation of many misanthropies." 
 
 Dolly drew closer to her father and took his arm. 
 She felt the greatest temptation to repeat to him what 
 Catherine had told her, but faithful to her promise, she 
 resisted the impulse and contented herself with asking 
 demurely : 
 
 " Do you think it might be a disappointment in love ? " 
 
 " Possibly, or some checked ambition ; but no mat- 
 ter what it is, if he has good stuff in him, he will recover. 
 If he hasn't, he'll turn reformer, agitator, or general 
 tooth-gnasher and wrecker." 
 
 " I wish he had confined his agitations and gnashings
 
 THE TRELOARS 23 
 
 to Germany. I don't think he is good company for Dick, 
 do you ? " 
 
 " That depends upon Dick." 
 
 " In what way, father ? " 
 
 " Well, if a man is in good physical condition, he may 
 expose himself to contagion with little danger, but if he 
 is feeble, with a tendency to catch things, he runs a great 
 risk of being infected. It is the same way with a man's 
 morals. If he has sound instincts, if nature built him 
 clean all the way through, he can keep clean and sound, 
 no matter what evil surrounds him; but if he has a low, 
 itching curiosity and a hankering after what is generally 
 forbidden just because it is forbidden he runs a great 
 risk." 
 
 " Then I think Dick is quite safe, don't you, father?" 
 
 " I think so. I'm very fond of Dick. What makes 
 you worry about him, Dolly ? " 
 
 " I am not worrying about him, but I don't like that 
 Max. I think he's horrid!" and having finished where 
 she began, Dolly challenged her father to a race as far as 
 the next bend in the road, and darted off like a young 
 deer, seeming scarcely to touch the ground with her light 
 feet, and at the goal of the race, she stood laughing and 
 panting till her father came up a good deal blown 
 himself, though he had given up running after a short 
 trial. 
 
 " There ! " she cried, catching hold of his arm again. 
 " I knew I should beat you, Daddy. You make your- 
 self top-heavy with that blundering old philosophy. I 
 think it is so good for you to run some of it out of you. 
 Don't you feel lighter, already? Seriously, you know, I 
 don't mind your discussions with Mr. Treloar. I've 
 heard them so often that I should miss them as I would 
 Prince's barking, or the pigeon's cooing in the back-yard. 
 They've really come to seem home-like, and to belong 
 naturally to a certain stage of life; but to be young and 
 choked up with a philosophy like that Max! Young, 
 young! young!" O the scorn in Dolly's voice as she
 
 24 THE TRELOARS 
 
 repeated this word ! " You said he was young. Why he 
 is a million years older than you. He is as old as mud ! " 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 IN the meantime, the young gentleman, " old as mud," 
 was hastily making his way back to Berkeley in a frame 
 of mind quite as unamiable as Dolly's. A heavy fog 
 had rolled down from the hills, but he felt nothing of 
 its chill dampness, nor would his eyes have served him 
 any better, had it been broad day-light. He was wholly 
 absorbed for the time being with an inner vision that 
 made him unconscious of the outer world. 
 
 Max Gietmann was a native of Strasburg. His 
 father, an irascible and moody man, unhappily married to 
 a woman beneath him in station and intelligence, had 
 never treated him with the affection and consideration of 
 a parent, and in consequence of a violent quarrel between 
 the two, he had run away to America. His experiences 
 in the new country had been painful and humiliating. 
 He had known all the mean shifts and mortifications of 
 poverty. He had served hard task-masters, and had suf- 
 fered in silence the stinging consciousness of his superior- 
 ity to them. He had stolen time from his sleep to satisfy 
 his hungry intellect. He resolved to prepare himself for 
 a university by attendance at night schools and at public 
 lectures, and finally reaching Berkeley, California, found 
 employment sufficiently remunerative to enable him to 
 save enough to pay his expenses for a year at the uni- 
 versity. 
 
 Chance threw him into the same class with Richard 
 Treloar who was struck by the maturity and originality 
 of his opinions, whenever he was called upon to give 
 them in class, and he sought him out. The two young 
 men, attracted to each other by the fascination of utter 
 contrast, became warm friends. Dick began to talk 
 about his brilliant young friend at home, and asked Mar- 
 garet, if he might not invite him to their home.
 
 THE TRELOARS 25 
 
 Margaret Treloar belonged to that type of woman- 
 hood, by no means scantily represented, in whom the 
 mother instinct is predominant in its purest form of 
 tender devotion and vivid impersonal interest. She had 
 a peculiar gift of putting herself in your place, or rather 
 of effacing herself so completely that you felt no sense 
 of strangeness in her presence, but rather that you had 
 doubled yourself, and that whatever deeply interested 
 you, would interest her, for the very reason that it was 
 your interest, not hers ; and so you revealed yourself to 
 her, as you had never done to any one before. You 
 dropped all the little masks and half-truths which society 
 forces you to put on in self-defense. You bared your 
 soul to her, and were neither ashamed nor afraid; for 
 you felt her nature so large and sincere that there was 
 room in it for pardon, if you wounded it, and for charity 
 if you offended it. 
 
 But she had utterly, fatally misunderstood Max. She 
 had never even remotely dreamed that her sweet motherly 
 affection for him had awakened in him a devouring pas- 
 sion; and it would be difficult to say which of the two 
 suffered the keener mortification, in their hour of disillu- 
 sionment. That hour burned itself indelibly into the 
 memory of each of them, and left a wound that, after 
 five years, still throbbed painfully. 
 
 Max recalled it now, as he hastened along the lonely 
 Tunnel Road towards Berkeley. His lips quivered with 
 suppressed emotion, and by the pain he felt, he knew 
 that he had not yet entirely freed himself from the old 
 domination. He hated himself for it, as if he had been 
 guilty of a shameful weakness. He had come back so 
 sure of himself, so strengthened by the hate and scorn of 
 sentimentality, and by all the promptings of a powerful 
 egotism, so sure, too, that he should find her changed, as 
 he himself had changed grown older, made common by 
 the fading of his own bright dreams of her, that he was 
 shocked and stunned to find her as he had left her, and 
 to feel the buried self within him awake and answer to 

 
 26 THE TRELOARS 
 
 her touch, as in the old days when she was all the world 
 to him. His feelings were so strong that he had no con- 
 sciousness of the passing of time, and it seemed to him 
 that he had been but a few minutes striding along the 
 lonely road, when he reached a street car terminus. He 
 boarded the car for Oakland, and arrived at the ferry 
 landing just in time to take the last boat crossing the bay 
 for San Francisco. He hastened to the upper deck and 
 let the fresh sea breeze blow across his hot face. Al- 
 though the hour was late, the boat carried a considerable 
 number of passengers, of whom the most noticeable was a 
 company of actors, returning to the city from a perform- 
 ance in Oakland. They were a tired and yawning set, 
 not at all solicitous about keeping up the illusions of the 
 dramatic world, and Max had passed them by without 
 glancing either to the right or left. He stood now at the 
 prow of the boat, straining his eyes into the darkness, his 
 hat off, the night air blowing through his heavy hair. He 
 was very unhappy. The thought crossed his mind: 
 " How easy it would be to throw one's self into that dark 
 rolling flood, to shiver, to gasp, to struggle involuntarily, 
 and then eternal rest." 
 
 "Mr. Gietmann!" 
 
 He started violently, as if suddenly aroused from a 
 slumber. 
 
 " I beg your pardon. I did not mean to startle you." 
 
 He turned quickly and confronted a slender, well- 
 dressed woman who was smiling at him as if he were a 
 well-remembered friend; but as he made no sign of 
 recognition, and gave no indication of pleasure at the 
 greeting, she went on: 
 
 " You do not know me ? " 
 
 " No. I do not know you," he answered impatiently. 
 
 " Will you do me the favor of carrying your memory 
 back five years to the park at Cherbourg, France ? " 
 
 Her voice was very sweet and insinuating, and she 
 smiled, as she looked steadily at him. 
 
 A puzzled expression passed over his face as he re- 
 peated: "The park? Cherbourg, France?"
 
 THE TRELOARS 27 
 
 "Yes and Sophy Walker." 
 
 His face cleared instantly. 
 
 " O, yes, I remember now. The young woman in 
 trouble, whose husband had left her; but you're not 
 that young woman. I don't remember her looking like 
 you." 
 
 The young woman laughed softly, as she answered : 
 
 " No, I don't think she did. I think I have improved 
 on her; for I am the young woman. Wouldn't you like 
 to hear how the butterfly came out of the chrysalis? " 
 
 " Yes. I think that would be interesting." 
 
 " But we must find a more comfortable place to chat. 
 Don't you think the breeze is a little too stiff here ? " 
 
 " Not for me, but if you feel chilly, we shall go in- 
 side." 
 
 " Yes, do, please, it is a little too chilly for me. I 
 catch cold easily, and I must take care of my voice." 
 
 She put her hand to her throat, as she said this, and 
 coughed slightly. 
 
 " Ah, here is a cozy corner," she said, preceding him 
 into the cabin " let us sit down here. And so you 
 wouldn't have recognized me ? " 
 
 He looked at her curiously. She was a graceful, at- 
 tractive woman, who looked taller than she was, and 
 younger than she was. She had a thin expressive face, 
 with dark eyes and a sweet sensitive mouth. Her hat, 
 with its rolling brim, left unconcealed a great part of her 
 reddish brown hair, escaping the bonds of comb and pins, 
 in graceful waves and ringlets about her forehead and 
 ears. 
 
 " No, I don't see the slightest trace of Sophy Walker." 
 
 She smiled delightedly, and softly clapped her hands. 
 
 " That proves what a good artist I am. Sophy Walker 
 does not exist any more. Sophy Walker, the chrysalis, 
 is now Nita Normand, the butterfly." She paused a 
 moment, and then said with real seriousness : 
 
 " You must forgive my rattling away in nonsense like 
 that, but seeing you suddenly, has sort of gone to my
 
 28 THE TRELOARS 
 
 head. Do you know how glad I am to meet you? How 
 often I have wished I might see you to thank you again 
 for what you did for me, and to show you that it was 
 really worth while doing it ! " 
 
 " I never doubted that." 
 
 " And you might have doubted it, with good reason. 
 I am going to make a clean breast of the whole story. I 
 can't endure to think that I lied to you. I told you that 
 the man who deserted me was my husband. Well, he 
 wasn't that is to say, in the eyes of the law. I had no 
 right to bear his name ; but that was so little a matter to 
 me a mere ceremony and I was as sure of him as 
 I was of myself, and would not have bound him to love 
 me, any more than I would have bound my mother over 
 by law to love me. Isn't it glorious to have had at least 
 once in one's life so gorgeous a faith in one's fellow- 
 man ? " she laughed in a pretty musical way and tossed 
 her head, and then in a lower tone, with a little shiver 
 passing over her " isn't it hideous to discover all at 
 once that there was no reason for such a faith? Seri- 
 ously, I think I should have died in that first hour of 
 discovery, if you hadn't come to save me. I must tell 
 you how I came out of that state in which you left me." 
 
 " You went on the stage, didn't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, do I look like an actress ? " 
 
 " I don't know that you do particularly, but I see that 
 there is a company of actors on board to-night. Are 
 you one of them ? " 
 
 " Yes, the leading lady, if you please." 
 
 " Had you been an actress, before I met you at Cher- 
 bourg?" 
 
 " No, not exactly ; though I had recited in public, and 
 quite successfully, too. But I had not yet developed a 
 real individuality. I wonder if I can make you under- 
 stand what I mean? I mean that I couldn't stand alone 
 without holding hands. I was afraid of life, afraid of 
 myself, afraid of the world, and I needed to be taught 
 that I could stand on my own feet, that I could look at
 
 THE TRELOARS 29 
 
 life steadily without veiling its realities, that I could say 
 ' yes/ and it would mean yes ; and ' no,' and it would 
 mean no. You men have no idea how hard it is for a 
 woman to grow a sort of hard protective shell over all 
 that fatal softness of hers." 
 
 " Yes, we do. There are quite as many soft-shelled 
 men who must roll themselves in gravel and sand to get 
 a tough outside coat that will stand the wear and tear of 
 life. We aren't all born with a shell, more's the pity." 
 
 She looked curiously at him for a moment, as if she 
 suspected that all might not be well with him and then 
 she said: 
 
 " I see that you do know, and if you haven't yet con- 
 structed a hard shell for yourself, let me tell you the 
 secret. I began with thinking that intelligence is a poor 
 sort of thing, if you can't use it for anything but multiply- 
 ing and preserving your wretchedness ; and that the first 
 thing to do was to close the doors to self-pity. But how 
 ridiculous of me to be sermonizing in this way." She 
 paused and smiled. " I assure you that it is something 
 entirely foreign to me. I don't know that I ever did it 
 before ; but when I saw you striding past me, I recognized 
 you in a minute, in spite of your beard; you have a 
 peculiar way of carrying yourself, your face seemed to 
 me to show " 
 
 " That I was miserable, erT? " 
 
 " Yes no, not entirely ; but then not exactly happy, 
 either, and I just want to tell you that nothing lasts not 
 even a great grief, a great love, a great joy, or a great 
 wonder. They all pass away at last into the rag-bag of 
 time, and if you have intelligence, you can begin all 
 things new ; you can face life, as if it were a great play, 
 and if you can't be an actor in it, you can at least be a 
 spectator." 
 
 " Suppose the play bores you ? suppose it is always 
 either a tragedy or a stupid nauseating farce ? " 
 
 " O, but it can't be that all the time. It is a perpetual 
 change of scene, so that even boredom and tragedy can't 
 last. No, the play's the thing." 
 
 I 
 \
 
 30 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " To you who are an actress, of course ; but you 
 haven't told me yet how you became one. That interests 
 me." 
 
 " Thank you I am really glad it does. Well, on 
 board the steamer, coming back to the States, I was cast 
 for a merry part in some improvised farce. A merry 
 part, if you please. I with my broken heart, was to make 
 others laugh ! And I did it. I can't for the life of me, 
 tell how I managed to do it; but I threw my whole soul 
 into it, and made quite a sensation in the little ship world. 
 There happened to be on board the general manager of 
 a stock company in New York, and he was much struck 
 by my talent, engaged me immediately, said I was a born 
 actress, and needed only to learn a few of the formalities 
 of the stage to make a brilliant success. The upshot of 
 the matter was that he fell in love with me, quarreled 
 with me, and dropped me, or I dropped him, I don't re- 
 member now which it was. I changed managers, 
 traveled with various companies, and though I have 
 never exactly made a brilliant success, I have always 
 managed to hold my own, and to be sought after, rather 
 than seek. I am now leading lady in a San Francisco 
 stock company. Still it is slow work. You see, I am 
 waiting for someone to discover me." 
 
 " I believe I have discovered him for you. I have a 
 young friend, a really brilliant fellow, who is going into 
 journalism I believe he could appreciate you, and 
 would know how to say so, if he did." 
 
 " Does he live in San Francisco ? " 
 
 " Not yet, but he intends going there soon. He is liv- 
 ing at home just now, a few miles out of Berkeley. I 
 have just come from there to-night. I must introduce 
 him to you." 
 
 " That's very kind of you, but it is especially so, be- 
 cause it will give me a chance of seeing you again. I 
 don't want to lose sight of you. I must give you my 
 address and a pass to the theater. We are only in Oak- 
 land on Tuesday nights. Ah ! there's the whistle blowing
 
 THE TRELOARS 31 
 
 for the landing. We must say good-night to each other. 
 I wonder if you really know how genuinely glad I am to 
 see you again ? " 
 
 She gave him her hand, as she rose, and he clasped 
 it cordially. He too was glad to see her, and when they 
 had parted, and he was alone again, he recalled, as if it 
 had been yesterday the scene in Cherbourg to which she 
 had alluded. He had just arrived in France from New 
 York, and was lounging about in the park to pass away 
 the time before his train left for Paris. He had reached 
 a retired and beautiful spot in the park in the shadow of 
 a huge overhanging rock, when he was suddenly startled 
 by the sound of sobs and low inarticulate cries of suffer- 
 ing. Drawing nearer to the place whence the sounds 
 came, he saw a young woman sitting upon a bench, her 
 back towards him, her face hidden in her hands, her 
 whole body writhing in an agony of grief. Suddenly she 
 lifted her head and said aloud: "/ will not live. I will 
 not live." Then hardly knowing why, so impulsively 
 had he acted, he stepped forward saying : " Forgive me, 
 if I intrude upon you but I feel that I have a right to 
 speak to you, for I, too, know what suffering is. Tell 
 me how I can help you." 
 
 She stared at him stupidly, her eyes red, the lids 
 swollen, her lips trembling. His heart filled with pity 
 as he looked at her. He sat down beside her, and with 
 tender, sympathetic questioning, he learned her story, the 
 old story of confidence and abandonment. He learned, 
 too, that she had come from the United States and was 
 penniless. He could never recall afterwards just what 
 he had said to her, nor how he was able to give her 
 courage and the will to live but he did succeed in per- 
 suading her to abandon her rash resolve. He gave her 
 money to provide for her necessities, until she could help 
 herself. He bought her a passage back to the States on 
 the vessel upon which he had come to France, and he 
 recommended her to the care of the captain and his 
 officers.
 
 32 THE TRELOARS 
 
 By a singular revulsion of feeling and contagion of 
 effort, the act of saving another had saved himself. Her 
 despair was a vantage ground from which he could more 
 truly regard his own wretchedness, and it began to look 
 pitifully small to him. Life assumed a new value inde- 
 pendent of emotionalism. He despised himself as a 
 weakling for taking a woman's indifference so deeply to 
 heart, and resolved to win back his self-respect by hard- 
 ening his heart, which meant adopting a cynical attitude 
 to life. He had only one fear and that was to be the 
 victim of an illusion; he cultivated suspicion and hatred 
 as virtues ; he made to himself the great reversal of values 
 which calls itself the wisdom of our age. Max Stirner's 
 Der Enizige und sein Eigentum was his breviary. Yet 
 after all, it was/ only a shell that he had made for him- 
 self. _The mollusk within was as soft as ever. He said 
 that to himself as he walked up Market Street towards 
 his hotel, and he flouted himself for the contrast between 
 his boastful tirade about destroying the chains of the 
 past and his consciousness of being bound by them still. 
 
 When he entered his room, he threw the windows wide 
 open and let the chill night fog rush in. He felt as if 
 he were stifling. There was no use in going to bed. 
 Sleep was, impossible. He knew that by some involun- 
 tary obstinacy of his mind, he was to repeat over and 
 over again the scenes of the evening. Far into the night, 
 he brooded and pondered, and it was not till the gray 
 dawn filled his room with a subdued light that he could 
 throw himself upon his couch, too weary to undress him- 
 self. 
 
 The world began to brighten a little with the lifting of 
 the morning fog. A broad flood of sunshine entered' his 
 room. " The Dawn," he said to himself. " I shall call 
 my journal The Dawn. I shall bring it out weekly. Of 
 course, it won't sell at first. I shall have to create an 
 audience for it, and the best way to do that is to shock 
 the public." 
 
 He ordered a steak for his breakfast and while he was
 
 THE TRELOARS 33 
 
 waiting for it, he looked over the morning paper. The 
 front page was hideously marred by gigantic black and 
 red head-lines, announcing a horrible murder; while 
 further down the page, two sensational divorce cases 
 were reported in full, with huge cuts of the heads of 
 the unhappy wretches. He turned over the pages ; every- 
 where, there was the same concern to print the frightful, 
 the surprising, the shocking, except perhaps in the 
 woman's columns where directions for coloring the hair, 
 removing freckles, tan and wrinkles, were mingled with 
 notes on dress, among which was the announcement that 
 if my lady wished to be quite chic, she must see to it that 
 her prayer-book matched her Sunday gown. When he 
 came to the funny page with its driveling puerilities in 
 drawing and subject, Max threw down his paper with a 
 feeling of actual nausea. " If that's the pabulum the 
 public feeds on," he said to himself, " it would take an 
 earthquake to shock it." 
 
 When the waiter brought in his breakfast, he said to 
 him: 
 
 " Is there anybody in San Francisco idiotic enough to 
 laugh at that drivel ? " 
 
 " Sir ? " said the waiter, rather surprised at the wrath- 
 ful countenance turned towards him. 
 
 " Do you think that rot's funny ? " and he thrust the 
 offending paper under the waiter's nose. 
 
 " Well, yes, sir, I think's it's kind 'o funny. The chil- 
 dren's all crazy about it." 
 
 " They are, are they ? Well, you take it out to the 
 kitchen, and give it to the baby to play with." 
 
 The waiter smiled, as he picked up the paper. He 
 thought that the gentleman was as funny as the pictures, 
 though in a somewhat different way. 
 
 The gentleman, left to himself, continued his wrathful 
 musings. His ideas about shocking the public on his 
 own account had received a shock in their turn. It would 
 be an Herculean task to shock a public at once so prurient 
 and so naive that it required both depravity and imbecil-
 
 34 THE TRELOARS 
 
 ity to administer to its tastes. But surely there was an- 
 other public of readers thoughtful men and women to 
 whom gossip and puerilities meant nothing, and ideas 
 everything who read books, not to kill time, but to fill 
 time with food for thought. What new books were they 
 reading? Who was writing for them? His breakfast 
 finished, he went out into the street intending to find an 
 answer to these questions by visiting the book shops and 
 libraries. 
 
 The beautiful city had changed much for the better, 
 since he left it. The ravages of the earthquake and the 
 fire were effaced by broad well-paved streets and hand- 
 some new buildings; and a general air of cheerfulness 
 and prosperity made it almost impossible to believe that 
 the city had so recently suffered a terrible calamity. But 
 it was not the favorable aspect of things that struck him. 
 Like a careful housemaid intent upon her cleaning, it was 
 not the beauty of the picture, but the dust on the frame 
 that attracted his attention. A huge wooden hand with 
 the word palmistry painted in gilt letters across it, swing- 
 ing from the second story of a tall building ; windows on 
 which the words, Clairvoyant, New Thought, Trance 
 Medium, Christian Science Rooms, Mind Healer, were 
 printed in staring white letters, were the things that 
 caught his eye, because he was thinking of the singular 
 renaissance of superstition in an age that calls itself scien- 
 tific; and was marveling at that curious and incurable 
 weakness of the human mind which makes it incapable 
 of ridding itself of one folly or error, without immedi- 
 ately accepting another in its place. 
 
 Holding that every man is a law unto himself and to 
 no one else, it did not occur to him, any more than it does 
 to any other anarchist, that according to his individual- 
 istic doctrines, every man has a perfect right to make a 
 consummate ass of himself if he likes, and to induce 
 other asses to accept his braying for celestial music, if he 
 chooses to call it such; and that instead of feeling dis- 
 gusted at the variety and confusion of thought so char-
 
 THE TRELOARS 35 
 
 acteristic of modern civilization, he ought gladly to ac- 
 cept it as the logical outcome of his teachings. But Max, 
 like other reformers of his type, had not yet risen to the 
 virtue of consistency, or possibly would have scornfully 
 rejected it, on the score of its being a virtue, a word 
 under his especial ban and particularly fatal to his 
 equanimity. 
 
 He sought the public library and looked over the cur- 
 rent periodical literature to catch the trend of public 
 interest. He discovered that there really did exist a 
 serious literature represented by a few thoughtful 
 writers who were for the most part conservative, inclined 
 to look backward with admiration, rather than forward 
 with intrepidity and confidence, because they were men 
 who were not afraid of dates. They knew that the sun- 
 shine was as bright a thousand years ago, as it is to-day, 
 and just as good for cheer and growth; therefore they 
 refused to accept the babyish phrase " up-to-date " as a 
 standard of excellence, and to reject everything as bad 
 that did not smell strong of varnish. They recognized a 
 standard of good and evil, and felt that literature has a 
 nobler mission than that of shortening the idle day of 
 an idle mar or woman. They believed it to be the prod- ' 
 uct of broad experience, large knowledge and deep in- 
 sight instead of the outcome of an incurable itch for 
 notoriety, and a colossal egotism that would project its 
 shadow over heaven and earth, and scrawl a capital / on 
 the universe. They were alive to an awakening in the 
 direction of ethical and philosophical thought; but no- 
 where, so it seemed to Max, was there a complete con- 
 sciousness of the legitimate conclusion of these discover- 
 ies, nowhere a decided break with the past and a frank 
 acceptance of new conditions ; but everywhere an effort 
 at compromise, a mending of old wine skins with new 
 leather. 
 
 He turned his attention to the popular literature of the 
 day, but only to find confusion worse confounded. The 
 readers of this driveling stuff recalled to his memory the
 
 36 THE TRELOARS 
 
 jostling crowds at a country fair, where every fakir who 
 can scream the loudest and utter the most ineffable non- 
 sense draws the largest and most delighted crowds. 
 Everybody who had nothing to say seemed bent upon 
 saying something, and if he had no language, he invented 
 one, and called himself inspired ; or he revived all the 
 obsolete words he could find in the dictionary ; or adopted 
 literal translations from foreign tongues, and plumed 
 himself upon his originality. 
 
 Max turned away with contempt and disgust. To 
 him, it was the old story of the triumph of mediocrity 
 the little man on top his silly and frenzied bawling 
 drowning the voice of the man of genius and the voice 
 of the sage. It was the natural outcome of the fatal 
 error of democracy with its ridiculous ideas of equality 
 among men, its absurd and criminal process of artificial 
 levelings through the voice of the majority, and its senti- 
 mental humanitarianism which preserves the weak at the 
 expense of the strong a scheme absolutely contrary to 
 nature who sets up barriers everywhere, lest the weak 
 should be confounded with the strong, the little with the 
 great. And no one was protesting since the eloquent 
 voice of Nietzsche was silent. Well, The Dawn would 
 protest; The Dawn would speak in the name of true 
 progress which recognizes that " might is right," that the 
 domination of the world belongs to those who have the 
 strength to seize it and the power to keep it. And Max 
 really meant strength and power ; he did not mean the 
 desire of them which so many weaklings confound with 
 their possession, and he was as much disgusted with that 
 confusion as Nietzsche would be, could he see crawling 
 in the sunshine of their self-begotten glory, all the puny 
 breed of egotistical vermin which his Zarathnstra has 
 brought forth. 
 
 Max was not entirely a fool; but he was cursed with 
 that fastidious and irritable self-love which presents a 
 vulnerable side to all points of the horizon, and trebles 
 and quadruples a man's capacity for pain. He had be-
 
 THE TRELOARS 37 
 
 gun life with a host of false romantic ideas, and his 
 disillusionment had been followed by revolt and bitter- 
 ness, instead of that smiling and gentle tolerance which is 
 the essence of true culture. He hated furiously, and 
 wished to destroy what had most humiliated him. A 
 sense of power that had not yet found a worthy outlet 
 struggled in him with an infuriating consciousness of 
 impotence to break the narrow boundaries of his monot- 
 onous life. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 As Dick walked slowly back to the house after bidding 
 Max good-night, he had an uncomfortable feeling of 
 not having rightly fitted into his old friendship with 
 him. He had been very fond of Max in their college 
 days together, having found him at once stimulating and 
 congenial. Stimulating he certainly was, still, in an irri- 
 tating and aggressive way that depressed, rather than 
 inspired, but of congeniality between them, there was 
 little trace. What was the matter with Max? Was he 
 really in earnest, or was he simply in an ill-tempered 
 mood? Dick was familiar with these changeable moods 
 of his, during which he was either all honey or all dirt, 
 according as something went well or ill with him. At 
 any rate, he had been great fun for his father who saw in 
 Max's views an exact fulfillment of his own predictions 
 regarding the logical results of materialistic doctrines; 
 but Margaret how did she feel about him? 
 
 He found her sitting alone in the living-room, a flower 
 in her hand, the petals of which she seemed to be ex- 
 amining curiously, but there was a puzzled painful 
 expression upon her face which indicated that she was 
 not thinking of the flower. 
 
 " Has father gone upstairs ? " Dick asked. 
 
 " Yes, he went up just as soon as you were all gone." 
 
 "And Catherine, too?"
 
 38 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " Yes ; did you want to see her ? " 
 
 " No ; I don't want anybody but you." 
 
 He drew a chair close to her, and asked abruptly: 
 
 "Well, what do you think of him?" 
 
 " I don't know know what to think of him, Dick," 
 answered Margaret, laying her flower on the table near 
 her. " It is all a puzzle to me. He is greatly changed, 
 unless You don't think he was just trying to draw 
 father out, do you ? " 
 
 " No, we had a long serious talk together as we walked 
 out home. According to his present views, civilization's 
 a failure, and savagery isn't any nearer right, and the 
 only hope for the future lies in an entire readjustment 
 of social and individual values. He is particularly bitter 
 against the family. He says every home is a center of 
 selfishness that leads to the destruction of heroism; and 
 he is bitter against the domination of women, in short 
 I don't know anything he isn't bitter against." 
 
 Margaret's face brightened into a smile as she asked: 
 
 " Dick, does that sound a little to you like the sour 
 grapes fable? Have you ever noticed that the men 
 who are the most impressible to a woman's influence are 
 the very ones who denounce it most severely ? " 
 
 " That's so. Max may have been severely burnt, and 
 these ugly opinions of his may be only the scars. I 
 hadn't thought of that. However, if a woman is at the 
 bottom of them, she hasn't been the right sort of woman, 
 or she would have made a different man of him. Max 
 had good stuff in him." 
 
 Margaret moved restlessly on her chair, and then 
 said: 
 
 " I don't know. I wouldn't judge her unseen, Dick. 
 There are certain wayward natures that crosses embit- 
 ter. You remember that Max ran away from home be- 
 cause of a slight, and could neither forget nor forgive 
 it. I wonder why he came back ; did he tell you ? " 
 
 " Yes, he wants me to go into some sort of literary 
 venture with him."
 
 THE TRELOARS 39 
 
 " But you can't of course ; you've made a contract with 
 Mr. Cressy for journalistic work on his paper." 
 
 Margaret looked anxiously at Dick, and as he did not 
 reply, she went on: 
 
 " And then you're entirely at variance with him on 
 the subject of art and literature, if I may judge from 
 what he said at dinner about the ideals of the present 
 generation. I felt quite shoved out of my generation, 
 didn't you?" 
 
 " I didn't really pay much attention to what he said, 
 for I found I couldn't make head nor tail of it. So far 
 as I do understand him, he seems to think that you can 
 make art and literature out of scientific abstractions and 
 theories. We've had a static art and static literature, 
 because we ignorantly suppose everything at rest. Now, 
 we're to have a dynamic art and dynamic literature be- 
 cause we realize the eternal flux of things. It's a scream- 
 ing farce to me, this attempt to visualize the invisible, 
 paint an abstraction or speak to a sense perception of 
 motion that does not at all exist in us. For us, the world 
 does stand still, and if you try to paint a dance of atoms 
 they won't dance to the eye, no matter what you 
 call them. They'll stand as still as ever But Max is 
 for trying to make things hum and move in a huge ' let 
 fly ' as Whitman called it." 
 
 "This isn't Max's invention, is it?" 
 
 " O, no, he says that there are cliques of writers and 
 artists in Europe carrying out these ideas and making a 
 great sensation." 
 
 " Dick, it is nothing but an immense bluff of impotence 
 and ignorance. When a man can really do things well, 
 he does them as clever people always have done them. 
 When he can't, he botches his work because he can't help 
 it, and if he is a bluffer, he says he does it on purpose 
 because he has an original idea. You can't have art 
 and literature without feeling, any more than you can 
 have palatable bread without yeast. It takes the leaven 
 of emotion to raise anything above mediocrity. That's 
 a kitchen metaphor, but it is true all the same."
 
 40 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " Yes, I think you're right, but all this nonsense isn't 
 troubling me. Max has his head a little turned just now, 
 but I think he'll come to himself again out here with us. 
 What does trouble me, Margaret, is something he said 
 about you." 
 
 "About me?" Margaret reddened, and opened her 
 eyes very wide. 
 
 " Yes, about you. He says we have all let you sacri- 
 fice your life for us, without so much as a ' thank you.' 
 Somehow it struck home to me, and I have been think- 
 ing how constantly you are caring for all of us, and how 
 little we do for you." 
 
 " Come now, Dick, no more of that," and Margaret 
 rising, put her small hand playfully over Dick's mouth. 
 " It was horrible of him to say that, for it is not at all 
 true. It is I who am the debtor of the family, not the 
 creditor. The great thing you all do for me, is to let me 
 love you and care for you Why, Dick, I am the 
 richest woman in America. But I am saddened when 
 I think that my present happiness cannot last." 
 
 " And why not ? " queried Dick. 
 
 " Now that I have made a man out of the dear boy to 
 whom I have been mother and sister, I know that some 
 other woman is destined to take my first place in your 
 heart. At times there comes over me a sickly morbid 
 dread of it, a sort of chill fear. It isn't right of me, I 
 know, but I can't help it. It seems to me as if no woman 
 in the world is quite good enough and noble enough for 
 you. There are so many silly babyish women in the world, 
 with the deadly gift of beauty, incapable of really loving 
 anything but themselves: there are so many parasitic 
 vampire women with the deadly gift of charm, incapable 
 of fidelity to any one; and the really good, devoted 
 woman is often so simple, so homely, so devoid of out- 
 ward grace that she can't attract youth and yet " 
 
 Dick interrupted her with a burst of laughter. 
 
 " O Margaret, Margaret, what a funny girl you are ! 
 Do you want me to take an oath that I shall never get 
 married?"
 
 THE TRELOARS 41 
 
 " O, no ! no ! You'd be sure to break it, for there is 
 something irritating about an oath or a promise that never 
 lets you rest till you've broken it." 
 
 " But I think I could take an oath for ten years, and 
 not be troubled about breaking it. I am in no hurry to 
 double my responsibilities. I've my own life problem to 
 solve before thinking of complicating it with somebody 
 else's." 
 
 " That's the way I like to hear you talk, Dick. That's 
 sensible. I don't want you to have your wings clipped, 
 before you've had a long flight. Marrying too early 
 would be just clipping your wings. You would need to 
 turn drudge to keep up an establishment of your own, 
 and you know the fount of the muses is intermittent in 
 its flow. It is not an artesian well, at which you can 
 fill your pitcher whenever it is empty." 
 
 " But Margaret, what in the world ever started you to 
 thinking about my getting married ? " 
 
 " I don't know, Dick. I suppose it is because you are 
 going away from home for the first time. You've al- 
 ways been used to being petted by me and having me 
 tagging about after you, and when a man gets used to 
 a woman about him, he can't get along without one." 
 
 " Ho ! ho ! Miss Wisdom ; and how about a woman's 
 getting used to a man ? What guarantee have I that you 
 won't be looking around for some other young man to 
 pet and tag around after? Really I begin to be quite 
 anxious about you, for I don't relish the thought of your 
 petting somebody else as you do me." 
 
 " Ah, but I've father, you know, and Catherine." 
 
 " Yes, but you will still have a surplus stock of petting 
 on hand that you've been giving to me." 
 
 " I shall save it all up for you when you come home 
 Saturday nights. Isn't it glorious that you are to have 
 every Sunday with us? Really, if it weren't for that, 
 Dick, I don't believe I should be brave enough to let 
 you go. I should be teasing father to move over to San 
 Francisco. Yet I know he wouldn't be happy there. It
 
 42 THE TRELOARS 
 
 is so beautiful and quiet here; and then Doctor Parker 
 and he are such old friends, it wouldn't do to separate 
 them. But listen! There! do you hear that? The 
 clock is striking twelve. We must be off to bed. Turn 
 out the light, Dick. I can find my way upstairs without 
 it. Good-night, dear boy, and sleep well. I am sure that 
 I shall." 
 
 Perhaps she thought she would, but she did not. She 
 lay broad awake for many hours in pained amazement at 
 the revelations of the day. She herself was so tenacious 
 in her feelings and opinions, that all violent changes were 
 inexplicable to her, and shocked and hurt her like a sud- 
 den fall from some high place where one is walking 
 securely. 
 
 Margaret Treloar's life was no scintillating frag- 
 mentary picture life, but a beautiful whole, rich in 
 thought, rich in feeling. Her responsibilities had begun 
 early in life. She was but twelve years old at the time of 
 the death of her mother a delicate, high-bred woman 
 of whose beauty and gentleness, Margaret retained a 
 vivid recollection. She remembered, also, her tastes, her 
 love of books and flowers, her quick musical ear, and 
 certain turns of expression peculiar to her which she 
 related to the little brother and sister left to her care. 
 Neither did she forget the singularly protecting love 
 with which her mother had smoothed over the rough 
 places in her father's life going always before him, 
 gentle, sweet, yet so strong and true, to see that there 
 were no lions in the way ; and if there were, to direct him 
 into another path, or to attract to herself the attention 
 of the lions, while he passed by unharmed. How often 
 her mother had said to her : " Margaret, dear, if anything 
 ever goes wrong or troubles you, don't bother dear papa 
 about it, just come to me. Papa has so much to think 
 of, that we must spare him every annoyance that we 
 can." She had not at first understood just what particu- 
 lar annoyances her father had to endure; but later, she 
 understood it all, and admired her mother's loving loyalty 
 and imitated it as best she could.
 
 THE TRELOARS 43 
 
 Her father, Philip Treloar, was one of that singularly 
 interesting class of men who are of immense promise in 
 their youth, and mediocre performance in their maturity ; 
 but who retain over those who have known them in their 
 bud and blossom time, the charm of this early beauty 
 and promise. They are men whose activity lies chiefly 
 in their range of thought, broadly assimilative, rather 
 than original, incapable of concentrating their energies in 
 any one direction, because of the many interesting paths 
 that open up to their eager curiosity. 
 
 When Philip Treloar and his young bride settled down 
 in a fair-sized town of Southern Illinois, where he had 
 been called to the pastorate of an Episcopal church, he 
 found his congregation chiefly composed of conservatives. 
 He was very successful the first year, and the little church 
 was filled to overflowing Sunday after Sunday with men 
 and women of all denominations who came to hear the 
 brilliant young pastor and went away with nothing but 
 praise for his eloquence. But the young pastor was by 
 no means at the end of his intellectual journey; he had 
 many a mile of dark, solitary travel before him. He fell 
 under the influence of Kant, Hegel, Fichte, and finally of 
 Tolstoi, and he began to feel that the Christianity which 
 he was preaching was as hard and materialistic as the 
 creed of Haeckel; and as far from representing the 
 teachings of Christ as the dim light of a cavern can 
 represent the effulgence of the sun in the heavens. It 
 seemed to him that metaphors had been petrified into 
 creeds ; that glimpses of truths uttered in the poetical 
 language of an inspired seer had been clothed with a 
 definite form which not only did not belong to them, but 
 utterly falsified them; and he rejected the orthodox ideas 
 of heaven and hell with horror. The eternal life seemed 
 to him no peculiar gift of death, but a part of the pres- ' 
 ent ; and hell and heaven were respectively represented on 
 earth by materialism and spirituality. God was the spirit 
 of life in everything. God was in him ; and in the rapture 
 of this thought, he swung himself to dizzy heights, where
 
 44 THE TRELOARS 
 
 all the petty actions of this life its envies, its duplici- 
 ties, its cruelties, its lusts, looked to him like the child's 
 play of a moment; and to see all things after Spinoza's 
 fashion, " under the aspect of eternity," became the rule 
 of his intellectual life. 
 
 It was not surprising, therefore, that the young clergy- 
 man soon wandered into unfamiliar channels of creed that 
 his congregation could not accept and in the end, talked 
 himself out of the pulpit. 
 
 The upshot of it was, that he went out of the church 
 never to enter it as a pastor again. But the truth, as he 
 saw it, burned within him for utterance, and he betook 
 himself to his pen. It was then that his brave gifted wife 
 took upon her shoulders the burden of making a living, 
 while he read, wrote and thought. They moved farther 
 west into a rapidly rising commercial town where they 
 rented a large house, sub-letting the greater part of it; 
 and Mrs. Treloar gave lessons in music and in china 
 painting, until her health gave way under the strain. 
 Mrs. Treloar had the courage to give her daughter the 
 education which she herself had received. She taught 
 her how to cook, to sew, to keep the house in order, but 
 not to let these necessary activities so much absorb her as 
 to neglect her intellectual growth. " Better a little dust 
 on the furniture than on the mind," she used to say. 
 " The house should serve the woman, not the woman the 
 house." 
 
 Before Margaret herself could read, her mother used to 
 read to her out of the fine old books which have been 
 meat and drink to many generations, and required the 
 child to repeat what had been read to her as well as she 
 could, in order to train her in correctly and easily express- 
 ing herself. She set her the task of learning fine poems 
 embodying a noble sentiment or rendering a beautiful 
 description in choice language, thus laying the founda- 
 tions of a correct and cultivated taste. She laid, too, the 
 foundations of a sound morality, teaching her the love of 
 truth, purity, sincerity and the broad charity which
 
 THE TRELOARS 45 
 
 refuses judgment till all the truth is known. In short, 
 Mrs. Treloar believed that real education means resource- 
 fulness, the power to employ one's leisure well, to know 
 what to do with one's self when the reins of duty are re- 
 laxed, and the daily tasks are done. She believed, too, 
 that it meant the capacity for continuous growth, for self- 
 help; not something completed at eighteen and rounded 
 off with a diploma. 
 
 A deep, long, passionate grief the first irreparable 
 loss to the young child's heart a loss so great that it 
 seemed at first that she could not live through it then 
 sweet serenity and boundless faith. One day, a few 
 weeks after her mother's death, her father heard her 
 singing at her work and he thought her grief had been 
 childish and transient, and that she was too young to 
 understand her loss. But it pained him deeply to think 
 so, and the pain showed in his face as he looked at her. 
 But the child was only trying to be courageous for his 
 sake. 
 
 One day, by chance, Mr. Treloar saw an advertisement 
 for some one to take charge of an orange ranch in Cal- 
 ifornia, for half the profits on the sale of the fruit. Here 
 was an open gate to a new life. He penned his answer 
 with the greatest care, stating frankly how little he knew 
 about raising oranges, but how eagerly he would apply 
 himself to learn how to do it. How long the days seemed 
 till the answer came. With what eager fingers he tore 
 open the envelope, his quick eye catching at once the favor- 
 able reply penned by an old college acquaintance, Dr. Jo- 
 seph Parker. He remembered Parker as a somewhat re- 
 served fellow, particularly interested in science, while he 
 himself was interested in literature and philosophy. The 
 diversity of their tastes had separated them, but they had 
 met frequently enough to remember each other distinctly 
 after the lapse of years. Treloar sold the greater part of 
 his household furniture, packed his books and a few 
 things which had a sentimental value to him through asso- 
 ciation, sent them ahead of him, and left with his family 
 for the Pacific Coast.
 
 46 THE TRELOARS 
 
 It had been a wise step to take. Work and responsi- 
 bility are the great salves for the wounds of the heart. 
 Treloar had been in danger of becoming a book worm 
 interested in little but metaphysical speculations; he had 
 been in danger of hardening under the repeated blows of 
 misfortune. He needed more than anything else to be 
 taken out of himself, and to come into harmonious re- 
 lations with his fellowmen. Naturally social and ex- 
 pansive in his temperament, his new life absolutely free 
 from conventions, gave him an opportunity to be himself. 
 He spent the greater part of the day out of doors, mingled 
 with his laborers on an equal footing, laughed at their 
 coarse jests and told coarse jests in return. He touched 
 the earth and felt it good under his feet. 
 
 Five years after Mr. Treloar's removal to California, 
 the same great sorrow came to Dr. Parker. His wife 
 died leaving him a little girl, about three years old, and 
 he invited Treloar to settle upon a beautiful estate of his 
 among the Berkeley Hills, only two or three miles distant 
 from his own home. He asked of Treloar only a nominal 
 rent to save his independence, and begged him to let the 
 rent go towards an ultimate possession of the farm. He 
 himself was rich and was anxious to secure an interesting 
 neighbor. A warm attachment soon sprang up between 
 the two men based upon an ardent love of truth and the 
 need to search it. The frankness and openness of 
 Treloar's character, his incapability of holding a grudge 
 or of prolonging a fit of ill-humor into injustice, char- 
 acteristics which, to the short-sighted, argue instability 
 and softness, were the first things that drew Parker to 
 him, as evidences of a capacity for companionship that 
 would stand the test of time. He was not mistaken. 
 
 Fifteen years of unbroken friendship made the record 
 of their association amidst the Berkeley Hills. In that 
 time Treloar had acquired possession of the farm ; and, 
 thanks to Margaret's excellent management, was in easy 
 circumstances. He had been able to give his son a uni- 
 versity education; and he had spent a year abroad with
 
 THE TRELOARS 47 
 
 his children, visiting the most interesting parts of Europe. 
 Margaret always spoke of this year abroad with her 
 father as her university training; and in directing and 
 confirming her tastes, in broadening her views of life by 
 contact with so many various phases of it, perhaps no 
 mere university course could have quite equalled it. 
 
 Then, too, she saw her father at his best in all the 
 range of his wide culture and the warm contagious en- 
 thusiasm of his quick bright intellect. How proud she 
 was of him ! How easily he was first wherever he went 
 by virtue of that restless, impetuous curiosity which had 
 led him into all domains of intellectual activity science, 
 art, music, literature, languages, ancient and modern. 
 And with all his learning and versatility, so absolutely re- 
 moved from pedantry that the ignorant and the poor in 
 spirit felt as much at home in his presence as any of his 
 peers. The only time that she refused to echo her 
 father's admiration was when they stood in the Louvre 
 before Leonardi's immortal Mono, Lisa. 
 
 " Really, father, I think she's very unattractive. I 
 don't like that sly way in which she smiles out of the 
 corner of her eyes. I shouldn't like to have to look at 
 her long." 
 
 " And I," answered her father, " I should like to look 
 at her forever. It is the lure of the eternal feminine, 
 the mystery of the woman soul, deliciously clothed in 
 flesh." 
 
 He bought a large photograph of the portrait to hang 
 in his study at home. Margaret could never understand 
 why it should fascinate her father, and though it hung 
 now in his study, and she had attentively looked at it 
 many a time, trying to feel its power, she was still of 
 the opinion that it was rather a space-filler than an orna- 
 ment to the room. Perhaps if she could have under- 
 stood, she might better have understood Max Gietmann, 
 when he had indignantly refused the compassionate alms 
 of her friendship; and why there is a germ of hatred in 
 the most passionate love, capable of hideous and terrible
 
 48 THE TRELOARS 
 
 development. Love, to her, was all that the poets and 
 sentimentalists have sung it a perpetual radiance of 
 light and joy. And now Max had come back so altered, 
 so self-sufficient, so full of strange and repulsive ideas. 
 Did he hate her now ? Would he try to exert a pernicious 
 influence over Dick, and so wound her where she was 
 most vulnerable? These were the questions that were 
 keeping Margaret awake. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THERE is hardly any form of human sorrow or anxiety 
 which the sun and the air will not lighten and sweeten in 
 the long run; and Margaret's anxiety dissolved with the 
 night's mists, as the sun rose radiant over the hills. Dick 
 was going into San Francisco with the review of a popu- 
 lar novel which he had written for the newspaper to 
 which he was now to be a regular contributor, at a fixed 
 salary. 
 
 Margaret had carefully read the review and had pro- 
 nounced a favorable judgment upon it and was enthusi- 
 astically repeating her delight, as she accompanied him 
 part way on the Tunnel Road. Not a cloud marred the 
 fathomless blue of the sky and the air had that crisp 
 tonic quality which exhilarates like wine. 
 
 " Isn't it a beautiful day ? " exclaimed Margaret. " I 
 am so glad that you are going away in the sunlight instead 
 of the fog. I try my best not to be superstitious, but 
 there is a taint in my blood which all my reason can't 
 purify. I like to begin things the first part of the week, 
 and not on Friday, and I like all new undertakings to 
 have the baptism of the sun, not the rain. This is good 
 luck, Dick. You are going to make us all very proud of 
 you and you are going to be very happy in this venture." 
 
 He thanked her for her good wishes, and at the bend 
 in the road they parted, each turning more than once 
 to wave a final farewell. They had been good comrades,
 
 THE TRELOARS 49 
 
 this brother and sister, and would miss each other sadly 
 in the days to come. 
 
 It was ten o'clock when Dick reached the office of the 
 newspaper which had promised to give him a trial. He 
 went at once to see the editor, Mr. Roswell Cressy, a 
 stout short man of enormous girth, with a large round 
 head scantily provided with hair, and twinkling gray eyes 
 that had hard work to look over his broad protruding 
 cheeks. He had a livid scar across his forehead. 
 
 " Good morning, Treloar," he said in a suave voice, 
 as he turned in his office chair. " Take a seat. You have 
 your copy ready, I see." 
 
 " Yes, sir, here it is," answered Dick, handing him the 
 manuscript. 
 
 Mr. Cressy began looking it over with an impassive 
 countenance which changed to a questionable one, after he 
 had read several pages. However, he said nothing, but 
 continued steadily reading to the end. Then he laid the 
 manuscript on his desk and looked at Dick with a quizzi- 
 cal expression, his mouth puckered up as if he were about 
 to whistle, his eyes half shut. 
 
 " You don't like it, sir," said Dick, turning very red 
 and moving uneasily in his chair. 
 
 " Well, to be frank with you, Treloar, I don't." 
 
 As he said this, Mr. Cressy looked very intently at, 
 Dick; then, cocking one leg over the other, clasping his 
 hands about his knee and leaning forward in his chair, 
 he said in a confidential sort of way: 
 
 " Are you able to swallow your pills without chewing 
 'em?" 
 
 Dick smiled, and answered : " I think I can take my 
 medicine like a man without sputtering over it." 
 
 " All right ! Then you're worth talking to, otherwise, 
 not. Smoke ? Yes ? Well, here's a good cigar. That'll 
 gild the pill." 
 
 He lighted a cigar for himself, tossed his match on 
 the floor, took two or three long puffs, then, removing 
 it from his mouth and flinging his right leg over the arm 
 of his chair, he continued :
 
 50 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " Now, I am going to talk square from the shoulder. 
 There's good metal in you. It just needs hammering into 
 shape. If I didn't think so, I wouldn't waste my time on 
 you. You know how to express yourself. That is un- 
 common in young writers and women, who go round and 
 round a subject and never hit the center of it. You've 
 got ideas, and that is uncommon, too. People who 
 haven't ideas fall into a round about way of writing 
 flippant and fluffy things that we put into the woman's 
 page. But you are able to write for men. The only 
 trouble with you is that you are altogether too high- 
 brow. You are just out of college, where you have been 
 Platoing and Aristotling with your peers, and you don't 
 know yet that you have got an entirely different public 
 to deal with. You have written for men who own their 
 own libraries, and for the most part only read the head- 
 lines of the daily paper or look at the market reports. 
 We want you to write for the men whose chief literary 
 diet is the newspaper, who let Andy Carnegie build their 
 libraries for them and buy their books for them, except 
 a few they pick up on account of their covers and their 
 pictures on bargain days in the big department stores. 
 
 " These are the men that make the newspaper pay. 
 They don't know what they want in the library line, but 
 they do know what they want their newspaper to give 
 'em, and we give it to 'em. All this talk about educating 
 and elevating the public through the newspaper is all 
 poppycock. They don't want to be educated and ele- 
 vated. It isn't comfortable. Besides, they've got all the 
 education and elevation they can hold. You can't put 
 a two-story education into a one-story brain. What 
 they do want is to be interested, excited, amused, and 
 from time to time electrically shocked by some bully old 
 hair-raising crime or scandal. They think in herds, or 
 rather they think with their instincts which sometimes 
 run in line with civilization and sometimes with savagery. 
 Actors and public speakers will tell you that all audiences 
 laugh and cry in the same places the world over. The
 
 THE TRELOARS 51 
 
 great thing 1 is to know what will make them laugh and 
 cry. Now that's a newspaper man's particular business. 
 There is one thing that he is always dead sure of, 
 and that is a banal curiosity about what's going on in 
 the world in general, and his neighbor's back yard in 
 particular. In fact, journalism, conducted for the dollar, 
 is simply gossip on a colossal scale, spicily dressed up for 
 the popular taste." 
 
 " But " interrupted Dick. 
 
 Mr. Cressy waved his hand with the cigar between his 
 fingers, raised his voice and went on: 
 
 " Yes, I know just what you are going to say. I 
 thought exactly the same at your age, when I had my 
 B.A. degree framed to hang up in mother's old-fashioned 
 country parlor, and like a new Don Quixote went out to 
 redress the wrongs of humanity. See that scar on my 
 forehead ? " 
 
 He tapped his brow with his forefinger, and smiled 
 knowingly at Dick. " I've got that as a perpetual sou- 
 venir of my youthful devotion to principle. A little lower 
 down and I'd have lost my left eye. That gash let a little 
 sense into my cranium. I learned with Saint Paul that 
 there's no use kicking against the pricks. Anyhow, what 
 particular illumination had I received at twenty-three 
 with which to enlighten the world? I was a canting, 
 young milk-sop that had been fed on heroic principles too 
 big for me. I was a green young sucker that thought 
 people really meant what they said when they talked about 
 the glory of the intellectual life, the beauty of the simple 
 life, the joy of the life of devotion to others ; when I came 
 to look into the thing, everybody seemed to take it for 
 granted on the strength of printer's ink, but to be mak- 
 ing a damnably strenuous effort to go in for the contrary, 
 that is, to hold on to all the hard cash they could get and 
 make it minister to their pleasures. Therefore, there 
 was nothing for me to do but either join the Salvation 
 Army, sing ' there ain't no flies on Jesus ' (actually heard 
 that sung here once) and drive a spavined horse around
 
 52 THE TRELOARS 
 
 to pick up cast-off finery for the poor, or admit that I 
 had been mistaken, and must be a journalist for people 
 as they are, and not as I wanted them to be, or thought 
 they really were. I resolved to be a journalist; decidedly 
 preferring an automobile to a spavined horse, and a sea- 
 son ticket to the opera to a Salvationist hymn. I own two 
 automobiles, and a house in town and a house in the coun- 
 try. I had worked my way through college, and when I 
 left, had to start my journalistic career on exactly 
 seventy-five cents. I've passed many a summer night 
 on a bench in the park, because I couldn't pay room rent." 
 
 He paused, relighted his cigar, his eyes twinkling with 
 self-satisfaction. He had the self-made man's pride and 
 delight in recalling the days of his youthful hardships, 
 because they heightened the consciousness of his triumph. 
 He puffed vigorously at his cigar a few minutes and then 
 went on. He was not talking to Dick now, so much as 
 to himself. He was enjoying the reminiscences of his 
 astuteness and his success. 
 
 " Young man," he continued, " I owe all my success 
 in life to the fact that I recognized in time what democ- 
 racy is, and I don't mind telling you, because the sooner 
 you find it out, the better. Democracy is the triumph of 
 mediocrity and bluff in the name of the majority. It is a 
 game of snatch grab in which the man with the strongest 
 lungs, the biggest fists, the broadest shoulders gets the 
 biggest haul." He smiled, coughed slightly, he thought 
 he had said a good thing ; but Dick was too sick at heart 
 to take advantage of the pause, and he went on : " The 
 majority not only thinks that it is the voice of God, but 
 that God never had any other voice ; and that is why it is 
 so enormously superstitious about the miraculous power 
 of legislation and of political parties. It believes that 
 the sunshine and the crops and the salvation or ruin of 
 the country depend upon the presidential election. 
 Hence the ordinary man's devotion to politics when he 
 isn't in it for a job. That's why he needs what he 
 calls an organ, the newspaper, to sound his stops for
 
 THE TRELOARS 53 
 
 him. Now I don't go so far as to require my men to 
 resign their political liberty when they go on the staff, 
 as a great many managers do. I'll never ask you, for 
 example, how you cast your vote. All I ask of you is 
 to avoid writing anything contrary to the policy of the 
 paper. Now to come to the point in question; you've 
 written a scathing criticism, and by the way, a first- 
 rate criticism of a trashy novel; but that book happens 
 to be published by a big firm that throws some two or 
 three thousand dollars' worth of advertising our way 
 every year or two, and we can't afford to throw it back 
 in their faces. It's not only impolitic, it's ungrateful." 
 
 " Then," blurted out Dick, his young face blazing with 
 indignation, " it is not my honest opinions you want, but 
 the repetition of ready-made opinions already on file." 
 
 The manager laughed in a good-natured way and said : 
 
 " No, not exactly. If that is all I wanted, I could go 
 out on the street and pick up the first fellow I met who 
 could read and copy. I want you because, as I told you 
 before, I think there is good stuff in you. I am not ex- 
 actly an ass, and if I hadn't passed through my trans- 
 cendental period when I wanted to shoot at the stars in- 
 stead of at the geese in the pond hard by, I shouldn't be 
 trying to shorten your apprenticeship at the same ethereal 
 archery. The truth is, that out of all that batch of books 
 I sent you to review, you picked out the very weakest one 
 as a text for a mighty fine sermon on good taste. What 
 we do when we get hold of a book like that from a lib- 
 erally advertising firm is this: We repeat the essential 
 parts of the preface, if there is one, or the notice on the 
 cover, written either by the firm or the author of the 
 book, and so we get a safe conservative little puff that 
 is satisfactory all round." 
 
 "And the public?" asked Dick hotly. 
 
 " The public ? Man, haven't I made it plain to you 
 yet, that the trash was exactly what the public wanted? 
 You might as well criticise its babies. Don't you sup- 
 pose the publisher knows his public? If the public
 
 54 THE TRELOARS 
 
 wanted this sort of thing," and he tapped Dick's manu- 
 script energetically, " we'd give it to 'em by the whole- 
 sale. It is not we newspaper men or the publishers that 
 are the molders of public opinion; it is we who are 
 molded by it. We keep our finger on the public pulse. 
 If it runs to a dangerous fever heat, we try to reduce it, 
 if it falls below normal we stimulate it. That's the whole 
 extent of our influence. The ' best seller' exists because 
 of the feverish desire for something new. To-day is 
 never as good as to-morrow will be, to the vast majority; 
 though for the most part it turns out to be pretty much the 
 same old story. So the best seller goes up like a rocket 
 and comes down like a stick, its chief merit being the 
 dampness of its pages just off the press. It is the answer 
 to the girl's question at the telephone, ' Is there anything 
 new?' You and I were taught that reading is an exer- 
 cise of the intelligence; so it is with a few people yet; 
 but remember that popular education, or rather the popu- 
 lar attempt at education has added girls and boys and 
 the average woman to the reading class and they take 
 their reading either as a narcotic or an irritant. Now 
 if you could write that class of readers and that asinine 
 state of mind out of existence, I'd print all the things 
 that you want to write about it, and be glad to do it. 
 But I know that it can't be done, so we must provide for 
 it just as we provide for children's toys. It's just as 
 legitimate a business if you look at it impartially. That 
 is why we have the woman's page with its fashion notes 
 and its beauty secrets, written by the office boys over the 
 name of some popular actress who gets paid for the use 
 of her name. That is why we have two columns of aids 
 to wounded hearts written by the same boys over some 
 well known second-rate novelist's name, who does not 
 get paid for it, because she is usually dead. In short we 
 feed the public with the pap it likes, and this paper of 
 yours is ' caviar to the general.' Have I made it plain 
 to you ? " 
 
 " You certainly have, sir," replied Dick with bitter-
 
 THE TRELOARS 55 
 
 ness, " and if this is all there is to journalism, I have no 
 ambition to excel in it, no skill to put at its service." 
 
 " O come now ! come now ! Don't get excited. Don't 
 get discouraged. We'll let you ride your high horse once 
 in a while, if you'll only get off and walk with us the rest 
 of the time. I'll go over this article, cut out what re- 
 lates to the novel, and run it in as a criticism on popular 
 taste in general, and see how the public takes it. Maybe 
 nobody will read it, but we shall have made our sacrifice 
 to the gods. I know just exactly how you feel. Been 
 all through it myself. And journalism will teach you a 
 lot, too. You'll learn what human nature really is. 
 There's nothing like it for swing and go in the heart of 
 things, and the power to reflect them in words. There's 
 something else I want you to do for me. I want you to 
 write up the stock company playing at the Cort, I think. 
 Here's a pass. I really haven't looked to see what's go- 
 ing on this week, but write a good racy half-column." 
 
 He gave the ticket to Dick, who took it mechanically 
 and rose from the chair. For a half minute he hesitated, 
 as if he were ready to turn his back on the whole busi- 
 ness. Mr. Cressy saw the hesitation on his face and 
 smiled cordially, saying: 
 
 " Well, you've taken your medicine like a man, as you 
 said you would. Some young fellows in your place, with 
 more conceit than brains, would have kicked over the 
 traces and lost the opportunity of their lives. I con- 
 gratulate you on your good sense." 
 
 The praise, quite undeserved as it was for Dick was 
 inwardly protesting as vigorously as he could had the 
 effect desired. Dick put the ticket into his pocket, said 
 " good morning " as cheerfully as he could and strode 
 out of the office to have it out with himself. 
 
 The wind was blowing rather sharply, and as Dick 
 turned a corner, it seized his light straw hat and sent it 
 careering across the street to his extreme irritation 
 and disgust. He was not much given to swearing, but 
 he muttered an oath to himself as he ran after it, feeling
 
 56 THE TRELOARS 
 
 himself particularly abused by this unkind little familiar- 
 ity following so closely upon the heels of a more serious 
 rebuff. Just as he caught his hat, he noticed a car, 
 marked for the Golden Gate Park, approaching, and he 
 got into it with no particular motive in view except to 
 be going somewhere and going as quickly as possible. 
 
 Perhaps there is no keener disappointment to an ardent 
 young mind than to have its generous enthusiasms ex- 
 posed to the brutally cynical contempt of disillusioned age 
 and experience. There is no possible retort, for age is 
 always able to say: "I thought just as you do in my 
 youth. You will come to think as I do when years ripen 
 your judgment." The reply only adds exasperation to 
 the inner revolt. Dick was saying to himself that never, 
 no matter how old he grew, no matter what temptations 
 came to him, would he prostitute his opinions to get on 
 in the world. Better get out of the world than live in 
 it beggared of all that makes life worth living. To sacri- 
 fice one's personality to an ignoble cause, to live as a 
 mouthpiece for other men's breath, to be a mere echo 
 of the voice of the multitude ; no never would he con- 
 sent to that. Emerson's brave lines came into his mind : 
 
 "O noble heart, accept 
 
 With equal thanks the talent and disgrace; 
 
 The marble town unwept 
 
 Nourish thy virtue in a private place, 
 
 Think not that unattended 
 
 By heavenly powers thou steal'st to solitude, 
 
 Nor yet on earth all unbefriended." 
 
 The car sped on rapidly. Dick was conscious of noth- 
 ing but the motion and a vague impression of a wall of 
 houses on either side of him, with sudden steep ascents 
 and declines, so that he seemed to have been riding but 
 a few minutes when the car reached its terminus. En- 
 tering the park, he turned away from the most frequented 
 paths and sought the solitary places. An aged banker 
 had once said to him, " Always count on failure, when 
 you begin a new venture. In that case you know what
 
 THE TRELOARS 57 
 
 to do, and you won't be hopelessly discouraged." But 
 Dick had never for a moment anticipated failure in jour- 
 nalism. He had been writing for newspapers at intervals 
 since he was sixteen, and he never had had an article re- 
 jected, although he had never received a penny for his 
 contributions. His reward came to him in the shape of a 
 local reputation for cleverness, which finally had secured 
 him a position on a popular daily paper. It had never 
 occurred to him that in order to be valuable to the paper 
 he would be expected to merge his personality into that 
 of the manager, echo his tastes and interests, and ser- 
 vilely follow what was called " the policy of the paper." 
 He thought his value to it lay in his own individuality. 
 
 On Dick's return from the park, he felt a strong temp- 
 tation to go home, so strong, in fact, that he actually 
 turned towards the ferry and was a long way down Mar- 
 ket Street before he realized the absurdity of the situa- 
 tion. Was he a baby still, that he must flee to his sister 
 with every hurt, like a child that has stumbled, and runs 
 crying to its mother to have the sting of the bruise taken 
 out with a kiss ? Nonsense ! He was a man, not a child, 
 but he realized that the child does not die in a man with 
 his growth. It still persists in the need to be amused, 
 interested, flattered and loved; and it has a horror of 
 ennui and isolation. He turned round, retracing his 
 steps. The street was filled with crowds hurrying to 
 catch the ferry. Not a familiar face in all that throng. 
 The strange crowd made him feel very lonesome. He 
 had no home to go to, yet, in San Francisco, and he re- 
 membered Mr. Cressy's advice about getting a boarding 
 place among the people who represent the majority. It 
 struck him as rather singular that both Max Gietmann 
 and Cressy should have made the same criticism of de- 
 mocracies in almost the same words; but each had ar- 
 rived at opposite conclusions regarding the proper atti- 
 tude towards the majority. Max was for reducing it to 
 a helpless machine, existing only to serve the purposes of 
 a few supreme egotists; Cressy was for humoring its
 
 58 THE TRELOARS 
 
 weaknesses and vices, in order to profit by them. He 
 hardly knew which attitude was more detestable or more 
 dangerous harsh tyranny or cringing flattery. 
 
 Dick was finally recalled to action by remembering that 
 he was to report a play, and he took his ticket out of his 
 pocket and looked at it. The play was " Fanchon, the 
 Cricket" a popular adaptation of George Sand's attrac- 
 tive little story, La petite Fadette. He remembered hav- 
 ing read the novel in the second semester of his French 
 course at the university. He recalled vividly the im- 
 pression of freshness and wholesomeness which the story 
 had made upon him, and his professor's special interest 
 in the introduction in which George Sand gives her in- 
 terpretation of the artist's task, which is " to extol gentle- 
 ness, confidence, friendship, and thus to recall to hard- 
 ened or discouraged men the fact that pure morals, tender 
 sentiments and primitive justice are still in the world, or 
 may be in it." It seemed to him a remarkable coincidence 
 that the first play given him to report should be one that 
 confirmed the theories which he had been advocating; 
 and his spirits rose considerably, remembering the sup- 
 port he had in the example of the world's greatest 
 geniuses. It gave him a faith in majorities that sent him 
 to hunting a room where he could come closer to the life 
 of the people, and see them at first hand. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PROMPTLY at a quarter past eight, the curtain rose in 
 the pretty comfortable little theater in which the San 
 Francisco Stock Company was playing through the sum- 
 mer season at popular prices. Dick had a good seat well 
 up in front, where he could observe the stage admirably. 
 His heart was beating a little faster than ordinary in a 
 sort of hostile excitement, for he was anticipating that 
 the play might be presented as a coarse burlesque the 
 finer sentiment in it utterly destroyed for the sake of em-
 
 THE TRELOARS 59 
 
 phasizing the grotesque elements which are sure to ex- 
 cite applause and laughter. Let them do that at their 
 peril ! 
 
 " A chield's amang you taking notes, 
 And, faith, he'll prent it." 
 
 That is, if his chief, Mr. Cressy, will let him. He smiled 
 rather sarcastically as he added this amendment, and 
 glanced at the cast in the play-bill. 
 
 " Fanchon, the Cricket Nita Normand." The name 
 was entirely new to him; and woe to her if she played 
 her part badly ! She was the only character about whom 
 he was curious. Ah! There she was; the house was 
 greeting her with loud applause. Dick was watching her 
 eagerly. Amidst the disordered tangle of reddish brown 
 hair, he noted a sweet oval face alive with intelligence. 
 The coarse, grotesque dress partly concealed the grace of 
 the lithe young figure; but enough of its quickness and 
 beauty was revealed to give promise of the transformation 
 that was to follow. Her voice was peculiarly sweet and 
 penetrating, filling the theater without effort. Its tones 
 fell upon Dick's ears like a delicious harmony, putting 
 him in tune with the universe. His face brightened, he 
 leaned forward, his gaze steadily fixed upon her, an in- 
 voluntary smile playing about his lips. With what ex- 
 quisite understanding she was bringing out all the deli- 
 cate suggestiveness of the beautiful little idyll the bit- 
 ter-sweet, wild, natural strength of profound feeling and 
 quick insight, unschooled by conventions the fine sav- 
 age courage of a big heart and brain taunted and tor- 
 tured by the scorn and hatred of the village crowd, far 
 below her in natural gifts. What a queen she was among 
 them, even in her rags and her shaggy wind-blown hair ! 
 What depths of pain and degradation she sounded, only 
 to rise, high above it all. When she came back, at the 
 end of the play, radiantly transformed the latent sweet- 
 ness and gentleness of her nature set free without any 
 loss of the courage and firmness, which made its strength,
 
 60 THE TRELOARS 
 
 Dick felt that he was in the presence of a great actress. 
 What subtle sympathy and deep knowledge of the human 
 heart were necessary for so finished an interpretation. 
 His lips quivered with excitement and his eyes blurred 
 a little in his intense joy in her beautiful work. She had 
 given him completely back his wavering faith in his cen- 
 tury. He was not alone ; she repeopled his world. 
 
 When the curtain went down on the final response to the 
 eager applause of the spectators, Dick rose from his seat, 
 and hurried towards the green-room. He must see Nita 
 Normand. He must tell her that her acting was like a 
 benediction to him, and how grateful he was for it. 
 
 "O Dick!" 
 
 Dick turned his head as he heard his named called and 
 saw Max Gietmann pushing his way towards him. 
 
 " Hello, Max, is that you ? Wasn't it magnificent ! 
 I've got to see her and tell her so. To go away coolly 
 after a treat like that is to prove that you don't know a 
 good thing when you see it, nor how to be thankful for 
 it." 
 
 " Glad to hear you talk like that, Dick. I was just 
 going to propose introducing you." 
 
 " Do you know her ? " asked Dick, very much amazed. 
 
 " Yes, it was she who gave me my pass to the theater, 
 and invited me to see her play." 
 
 " Officially ? I mean as a critic ? " 
 
 " O, no, quite unofficially, as a friend ; but I shall be 
 very glad, if you can do something to boost her, in the 
 shape of a good article. She has been on the stage five 
 years, and she hasn't got the recognition that she de- 
 serves." 
 
 " I'll be glad to do anything in the world that I can for 
 her." 
 
 Dick spoke as confidently as if he had the critical opin- 
 ion of the world at the point of his pen. 
 
 " Look out, Dick, this entrance is rather low. You'll 
 have to stoop, if you don't want to knock the top of your 
 head," called out Max, as he pulled aside a heavy green
 
 THE TRELOARS 61 
 
 curtain that concealed a passage leading to the back of the 
 stage. He preceded Dick into the green-room. Giving 
 his card to one of the actors in the men's dressing room, 
 he asked him to be kind enough to give it to Miss Nor- 
 mand with the request to see her. In a few moments the 
 actor returned, and asked Max and Dick to accompany 
 him to the other side of the green room, occupied by the 
 women. Dick's heart beat faster and faster as he walked 
 through the narrow passage-way and he stumbled awk- 
 wardly over some of the properties as he approached the 
 women's dressing room. Nita came to the door, still in 
 the garb of the last scene, a soft white muslin dress with 
 lace flounces. She had not yet removed the exaggerated 
 coloring of the stage, but Dick was oblivious to it. He was 
 under the spell of her acting. He saw nothing but the in- 
 carnation of a beautiful original character as George Sand 
 had conceived it, and when Nita, with a smile and a bow of 
 acknowledgment of his presence, turned to Max, holding 
 out her two hands in an impulsive gesture of unrestrained 
 gladness, it seemed to him that he had always known her, 
 and that he had no need whatever of the formal introduc- 
 tion that followed, and he said so. 
 
 " It seems so impertinently superfluous to be intro- 
 duced to you," he exclaimed, pressing fervently the small 
 hand which she extended to him. " I think that we ought 
 to be saying to each other : * Don't you remember ? ' of 
 something that we have seen, or read, or enjoyed to- 
 gether." 
 
 " How lovely of you to say that," she replied with that 
 peculiarly captivating quality in her voice that made its 
 intonations fall upon the ear like a caress. " I often have 
 that feeling towards persons whom I meet for the first 
 time." Then she hesitated, contradicting herself with a 
 negative toss of her head, as she added : " No, that is not 
 quite true. I will not say often. I mean that I some- 
 times have that feeling, and it is delightful." 
 
 " Do you have it now ? " Dick asked, his handsome 
 face glowing with the admiration he could not conceal. 
 She looked at him and smiled.
 
 62 THE TRELOARS 
 
 "Yes, I do. Isn't it delightful?" 
 
 " What a delicious voice you have ! " 
 
 " Now, that will do," interrupted Max. " I am not 
 going to let you two waste your time cooing at each other 
 in such unheavenly surroundings when I know where we 
 can find a pleasant place and something to eat." 
 
 " At Boyson's in the next block ? " asked Nita. 
 
 "Yes, it's all right, isn't it?" 
 
 " Charming ! Just wait for me outside the door, will 
 you ? I've only to put on a street dress and a street face. 
 It won't take me fifteen minutes." 
 
 " How did you get acquainted with her, Max ? " asked 
 Dick when they had reached the appointed place. 
 
 " That's a short story, hardly worth the telling. I am 
 really not very well acquainted with her, as this is only 
 the third time that I have seen her. I first met her in 
 France, about five years ago. She was having some little 
 difficulty on account of not understanding the language. 
 I was able to help her out, that's all. I had forgotten all 
 about it till the other night that night I was at your 
 house. The company had been playing in Oakland and 
 we all came over to San Francisco in the same boat. She 
 recognized me in a moment and came up and spoke to me. 
 I should never have known her. She must have a won- 
 derful memory for faces." 
 
 " I think she is wonderful in every way," said Dick. 
 " Why, Max, it takes nothing short of genius to interpret 
 a character like Fanchon's in the way in which she did it 
 to-night. Don't you think so ? " 
 
 " O, I don't know," answered Max carelessly. 
 " Women have a sort of subtle intuitive way of feeling 
 situations and characters; but they can't for the life of 
 them tell the reason why. Now, it is my opinion that 
 genius knows what it is doing. It is reason, as well as 
 intuition and imagination. There are plenty of people 
 entirely reasonable, and plenty who have a good deal of 
 imagination, but the combination of the two is rare, and 
 when we get it we call it genius. But here she comes.
 
 THE TRELOARS 63 
 
 We'll ask her to explain why she plays Fanchon as she 
 does." 
 
 Nita wore a pretty, stylishly cut, silver gray suit and a 
 broad brimmed, gray hat, the crown of which was en- 
 circled by graceful ostrich plumes of the natural color. 
 She had removed the rouge from her cheeks and her face 
 looked sweeter and more delicate for the want of it. 
 There was absolutely no affectation or vulgarity either 
 in her manner or appearance. She smiled prettily as she 
 joined the young men, saying: " I haven't kept you wait- 
 ing long, have I ? " 
 
 " No, you have kept your word in a very business-like, 
 unwomanly way," said Max. " And now, you are going 
 to have a chance to prove yourself a genius. I did not 
 tell you that Mr. Treloar is the dramatic critic of one of 
 the leading dailies in town, and that you are going to be 
 written up for to-morrow's edition. Now get your wits 
 together, and we shall interview you in fine shape." . 
 
 " Before I've had anything to eat? That isn't fair. I 
 can't think of anything just now but a soft-shelled crab 
 and a bowl of salad. Are you fond of salads, Mr. 
 Treloar?" 
 
 " Very ! " answered Dick, determined immediately to 
 be fond of anything she liked. 
 
 " Then you will like the delicious salads they make at 
 Boyson's. They rub your bowl with a clove of garlic, be- 
 fore putting in the lettuce and other things, and it gives 
 you just the suggestion of an appetizing savor without 
 vulgarizing the salad." 
 
 " Vulgarizing the salad ! " repeated Max with a snort. 
 " Did you ever hear of that, Dick ? " 
 
 " Yes, it expresses exactly the difference between 
 smothering your salad in garlic, and subjecting your garlic 
 to the salad the refined on top, the coarse underneath, 
 according to your own ideas of the fitness of things, 
 Max." 
 
 " Madame, your reputation is made," said Max. 
 " You have nothing to fear from the dramatic critic."
 
 64 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " I hope not," answered Nita, looking at Dick with the 
 complacency of a woman conscious of pleasing. " Then 
 you really liked my playing ? " 
 
 " Liked it ! " echoed Dick with enthusiasm. " That is 
 much too mild a word for it. I never saw anything so 
 good. I never expect to see anything better. I can't 
 understand how you can recreate Fanchon on the meagre 
 lines of the play without having gone directly to the 
 original for a masterly study of the character ; and even 
 then, it seems to me that it requires uncommonly good 
 taste to sacrifice the noisy and easy success of low comedy 
 to which the character might readily lend itself, for the 
 quieter and correcter applause of the judicious." 
 
 " I am so glad to hear you say that," said Nita, involun- 
 tarily putting her hand on Dick's arm, an impulsive and 
 familiar gesture peculiar to her. Dick had the hardest 
 work in the world to control his desire to close his own 
 hand over hers and keep it a prisoner. " I had a long 
 argument with the manager over that very point. He 
 wished me to play the part in such a way as to catch the 
 gallery; but I was obstinate, and at last won him over to 
 my way of thinking about it. In my opinion, the whole 
 value and beauty of the play consists in showing the final 
 triumph of a remarkably gifted nature over all the ob- 
 stacles that retard its development. And my problem 
 is to show her unusual intelligence and spirituality, even 
 under the mask of grotesqueness and malice; otherwise 
 the end does not harmonize with the beginning, and there 
 are two Fanchons instead of one." 
 
 " Yes, you brought that out admirably, and then O, 
 is this the place ? " asked Dick, suddenly interrupting him- 
 self, for Max had stepped ahead and was opening the 
 door of a modest looking hotel. 
 
 " Yes," answered Nita. " This is Boyson's. It doesn't 
 look so promising from the outside, and it is not ultra- 
 fashionable, you know; but there's the cosiest little din- 
 ing-room on the third floor. You shall see." 
 
 He did see it a softly lighted, delicately colored,
 
 THE TRELOARS 65 
 
 scrupulously clean room, with green ferns about it, and 
 growing flowers. 
 
 " What I particularly like here along with the excellent 
 salads and sea food," said Nita, leading the way to one 
 of the tables in an alcove, " is that you aren't perpetually 
 intruding upon yourself by being multiplied in a set of 
 wall mirrors. I hope you are both hungry," she went 
 on, seating herself and taking off her gloves. 
 
 Dick, who had eaten heartily late in the afternoon, was 
 not in the least hungry ; but he felt that if it were neces- 
 sary to keep her in countenance by a show of hunger, he 
 was manfully prepared to do it, so he ordered more than 
 he wanted. Max, who was not in so amiably compliant 
 a humor, contented himself with a much smaller order, 
 against which Nita protested in vain. 
 
 " Do you find him a very stubborn person ? " she asked 
 Dick, as she dropped two lumps of sugar into her coffee. 
 
 " He knows how to hang on to his opinions," replied 
 Dick. 
 
 " Which is exactly what you seem to be able to do, 
 also," said Max, addressing Nita, " if one may judge 
 from what you say about your argument with the man- 
 ager. By the way, don't forget that we were to interview 
 you, and here's the first question. What particular rea- 
 son have you for preferring your own interpretation of 
 Fanchon to that of your manager, besides its being your 
 own?" 
 
 " Because it is the true one, as George Sand conceived 
 it, and because the comedian's art is not to raise a mean- 
 ingless laugh, but a laugh that has a meaning behind it. 
 Take Moliere's comedies, for example. There is not 
 one of them that is not a profound criticism of the 
 foibles and vices of humanity, and the laughter they ex- 
 cite is good for the soul. Doesn't Shakespeare put the 
 keenest lashes of his wit into the mouths of his fools 
 and clowns? To reduce good comedy to a farce by 
 merely playing the fool and clown by a grotesque make- 
 up and hiccoughing, staggering, and tumbling about, sim-
 
 66 THE TRELOARS 
 
 ply to raise a loud laugh is to degrade it to the level of 
 the gutter; and, honestly, I'd rather sweep street-cross- 
 ings for a living than do that sort of thing." 
 
 " Bravo ! bravo ! " cried Dick. " Come, Max, isn't 
 that giving a reason ? " 
 
 " Yes, that sounds something like a reason." 
 
 Nita looked at each of them curiously and asked 
 abruptly : 
 
 " Did you think I couldn't give a reason for my play- 
 ing?" 
 
 " I wasn't sure," said Max, bluntly. 
 
 " I was sure you could," said Dick, confidently. 
 
 " Thank you, Mr. Treloar. I see that I am not to ex- 
 pect any compliments from Mr. Gietmann. Evidently 
 he belongs to the school of thinkers who believe that a 
 woman has no right to a head unless there is nothing in 
 it." 
 
 " Your much praised Moliere was not very far from 
 that opinion when he said that if a woman knows how 
 to mend her husband's trousers and cook his dinner, she 
 has all in her head that is necessary," retorted Max. 
 
 " But I never said that Moliere is infallible. However, 
 I am not going to thrash out that old question. It has 
 been pro'd and con'd until there is not a shred of it left 
 untouched. But what I should like to make clear is the 
 essence of what I said to you the other night. I try to 
 put into my playing of Fanchon something encouraging 
 to women who may feel discouraged. What we women 
 need is not political emancipation ; it is emancipation from 
 ourselves, our weakness, our servility, our pitiful de- 
 pendence on public opinion, our incapacity to stand alone, 
 our puerile hunger for admiration of this poor flesh of 
 ours, our deplorable inconsistency. And I know how 
 hard it is to rid ourselves of all these things, because 
 didn't I, myself, stand two or three minutes longer at 
 the mirror to-night just because I was going to dine with 
 you two gentlemen? Now, what do you think of me, 
 Mr. Treloar?"
 
 THE TRELOARS 67 
 
 tl That you are the most charming woman I ever met." 
 
 " Now, don't be proud of that ! " protested Max ; " you 
 forced his hand and now it is your turn to say to me: 
 ' Isn't he a dear ? ' That's the correct epithet, I believe, 
 for everything just now from a poodle dog to an Apollo. 
 Just where you come in between them, Dick, I don't ex- 
 actly know." 
 
 "Is he always so satirical, Mr. Treloar?". 
 
 " I don't know. I haven't seen much of him since 
 he came back from Europe, but before he went away, 
 he himself was a ' dear' I think his satire lies only on 
 the end of his tongue, and that he's all right deeper 
 down." 
 
 " I hope so," said Nita, " for being satirical is not be- 
 ing a ' dear.' But if it isn't being impertinent, I should 
 like to know what particularly bitter experience has gone 
 to the undearing of him, because when I met him abroad, 
 he really was a dear fellow." Here Nita put her hand 
 affectionately upon his arm, and looked up at him from 
 beneath the broad brim of her hat with a warmth of ex- 
 pression that sent a strange little chill to Dick's heart. 
 Could there be any secret romance between these two? 
 But Max looked so unmoved that Dick felt reassured; 
 besides she never would be so tactless as to allude to any 
 bitter experience of his in which she had a part. 
 
 " No, no ! " said Max, straightening himself up in his 
 chair and looking at Nita with feigned pomposity. " It 
 is not I who am to be interviewed. It is you who are to 
 submit to that pleasing experience for the benefit of the 
 dramatic critic. It is, of course, his particular business 
 to interview you, but he has passed into that rosy myopic 
 state of admiration which annihilates criticism, and the 
 duty falls to me. I have some more questions to ask 
 you." He paused a moment, drank his wine, and pushed 
 the empty glass aside. 
 
 " First of all, what I wish to know is this. If you, who 
 play Fanchon with so much understanding, fall into what 
 you call pitiful inconsistencies, how can you expect your
 
 68 THE TRELOARS 
 
 playing to do any earthly good to your weaker sisters? " 
 
 " I do not admit that they are weaker than I ; neither 
 do I admit that we are entirely uninfluenced by recog- 
 nizing the strength which we cannot always imitate. The 
 very recognition of it creates admiration and the desire 
 to imitate it, which under certain conditions may be quite 
 possible. That I am weak to-day, does not argue that I 
 shall be weak to-morrow. As for my own inconsistency, 
 it isn't everybody that I should think it worth while to 
 please." 
 
 Why should you think that you would please us in 
 this particular way ? " went on Max, ruthlessly. 
 
 " Because you are men, and a man's judgment of a 
 woman is made, at least nine-tenths of it, by the eye." 
 V " Well, that's all right," answered Max. " Nature 
 certainly knows what she's about, when she makes us 
 love beauty." 
 
 "Certainly! I am not quarreling with the eye- judg- 
 ments. I am only answering your question by stating a 
 fact. But if you will pardon me the suggestion I think 
 we are straying away from Fanchon, and I have not yet 
 said all that I wished to say about her. Her strength 
 to herself is not her beauty, but her intelligence. Her 
 beauty relates her to her kind, and is the source of much 
 of her emotional happiness ; but her intellect saves her to 
 J herself makes an impregnable fortress for her against 
 all the assaults of fortune. It gives her that wonderful 
 elasticity and power of recovery and self-renewal which 
 George Sand herself possessed to such an extraordinary 
 degree. She recognizes in a regal way, what not one 
 woman in ten thousand knows namely, that no real 
 harm can come to her except through herself. To know 
 that is real emancipation." 
 
 "Of course, but we men are not at all interested in 
 such an emancipation. The fact is, that the more a 
 woman intellectualizes herself, the less attractive and 
 interesting to us she becomes, unless she has the knack 
 of hiding her head in her heart."
 
 THE TRELOARS 69 
 
 " Excuse me, Max, but I can't agree with you there," 
 interrupted Dick. " The woman who has meant more to 
 me than anybody else in the world has been also the most 
 intellectual woman I know* the woman with whom I 
 could share every thought I had, and who could stimu- 
 late me to thinking with a wit far quicker than my own." 
 
 " You mean your sister, Margaret," exclaimed Max, 
 and a dull red flamed into his swarthy cheeks. " She 
 only confirms what I say. She radiates an atmosphere 
 of love, so that you never bother your head about whether 
 she can think or not." 
 
 Dick looked intently at Max and it came over him in a 
 sudden flash that Max loved his sister. But the thought 
 was not pleasing to him. He colored deeply and an- 
 swered : " Perhaps you are right." 
 
 " I know I am," answered Max, taking out his watch 
 and looking at it. " Do you people know that it is 
 nearly two o'clock? If you have that article to write, 
 Dick, you ought to set about it." 
 
 " Is it really as late as that ? " said Nita, rising. 
 " Then it is time for us all to go home ; but we shall meet 
 again soon, shan't we ? " 
 
 " We certainly shall," replied Dick with enthusiasm. 
 
 The two young men accompanied Nita to her lodging, 
 and when they had bidden her good-by, and were alone in 
 the street, Max laid his hand affectionately on Dick's 
 shoulder, saying: 
 
 " Now, look here, old man, I want to tell you some- 
 thing. Nita Normand is a very fascinating woman." 
 
 " That's not to her discredit," interrupted Dick 
 quickly. 
 
 " No, it isn't, and I know nothing about her that dis- 
 credits her in my eyes," answered Max quietly. " But 
 what I want to say to you is this: The man who falls 
 in love with an actress is more apt to make one of a 
 chorus than to take part in a duet, and unless he has a 
 pretty strong voice, he gets drowned out." 
 
 " Who is falling in love with an actress ? " replied Dick
 
 70 THE TRELOARS 
 
 impatiently. " Can't a man look at a pretty woman, and 
 pay her a few compliments without falling in love with 
 her." 
 
 " Yes, he can ; and then again, sometimes, he can't. 
 But never mind, I shan't say anything more about it. 
 Are you stopping near here ? " 
 
 " No, I am a mile or two away." 
 
 " Well, then, we part here. I have a room down town. 
 Good night, Dick." 
 
 " Good night ! O, stop a minute, Max. When am 
 I going to see you again ? " 
 
 " I don't know. What hours have you off ? " 
 
 " I can't tell just yet, but I am going home Saturday 
 night to stay over Sunday. Can't you go out with me ? " 
 
 Dick was going to add, " Margaret will be glad to see 
 you," but something restrained him, and he added, in- 
 stead. 
 
 "If you can go, be down at the ferry by five o'clock, 
 and we'll go over together." 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 DR. PARKER had chosen for the site of his home a most 
 beautiful spot where the broad, low foothills, grassy and 
 wooded and backed by bare, towering hills, overhung a 
 sinuous ravine through which flowed a clear stream, its 
 banks bright with flowering shrubs and tangled thickets. 
 The house faced the west and was built of rough stone, 
 topped by unpainted pine shingles that in the course of 
 time had taken on rich dark weather stains. The level 
 lawn was vividly green except where a few pine trees 
 strewed the ground with brown fragrant needles, or lux- 
 uriant rose beds blazed a rich crimson, or blushed with 
 delicate pink. Across the ravine a rustic bridge led to a 
 path that had its exit on the Tunnel Road. 
 
 Your first impression, as you entered the house was of 
 light, space and air. The broad stairway making an
 
 THE TRELOARS 71 
 
 abrupt turn and getting itself out of sight as quickly as 
 possible, gave place to vistas of several rooms opening 
 one into the other by sliding doors left apart, the space 
 being filled with rich dark portieres. The polished 
 floors were covered with handsome, softly colored ori- 
 ental rugs in harmony with the tinted walls. A deep 
 wide fire place, built for service rather than show, added 
 a hospitable promise of comfort to each room. The 
 promise was kept to-night in a bright fire burning in the 
 library where Dolly and her father spent their evenings. 
 Dolly was very domestic, and although she gladly left to 
 her housekeeper, and her maid, all the heavier and more 
 disagreeable tasks, she liked to look after the dusting her- 
 self. She liked to give that indescribable home-like 
 touch to her rooms, which only one who has the 
 knack of it can give. They were great comrades this 
 father and daughter, neither of them feeling the years 
 which separated them any barrier to their complete com- 
 panionship. During the hours in which Dolly was busy 
 with her lessons, or her household tasks, her father was 
 reading in his library, or looking after the management 
 of his estate. As he had been 'particularly interested in 
 science in his college days, so he continued to be inter- 
 ested in the great discoveries and inventions of his age. 
 Intensely skeptical in his nature, he owed to his associa- 
 tion with Philip Treloar an elasticity and elevation of 
 thought which saved him from scientific dogmatism, and 
 although in his youth he had openly declared himself a 
 disciple of English agnosticism, and had believed his Dar- 
 win, Huxley, and Spencer as implicitly as any bigot be- 
 lieves in his Bible to the exclusion of all rational interpre- 
 tation, he was no longer absolutely sure of the infallibility 
 of science. He had outlived the short-lived reign of 
 too many hypotheses to recognize them any longer as in- 
 disputable facts, or to feel that the riddle of the universe 
 has been solved. But, on the other hand, he could not 
 believe with Treloar that intuition may soar and see, 
 where reason and experience grope in the dark, or that
 
 72 THE TRELOARS 
 
 science, having to do only with what can be weighed and 
 measured, is incapacitated for dealing with the phe- 
 nomenon of mind. Hence their endless disputes, their 
 ceaseless grappling with the vital questions of life its 
 meaning and its destiny. 
 
 From these long discussions, Dr. Parker learned the 
 tenacity of that passionate longing for immortality which 
 makes life look pitiful without an assurance of it. He 
 saw, too, how closely the morality of the Christian world 
 is interwoven with the belief in a future life which is to 
 atone for the pain and injustice of the present, and what 
 havoc it makes of the courage to live in accordance with 
 the precepts of Christianity, when the hope of the reward 
 for so living is destroyed. This seemed to him the fatal 
 weakness not to say the gross materialism of Chris- 
 tian ethics. That this faith must, in the course of time, 
 be destroyed, he firmly believed, and that a basis of 
 morality must be established having no reference what- 
 ever to a future life. By temperament, strongly in- 
 clined to justice and moderation in all things, it had not 
 been difficult for him to live the Christian life without 
 the Christian faith. He felt that he was only doing 
 what the sages of all nations in all times, before as well as 
 after the Christian era, had prescribed as the duty of man. 
 Morality, to him, meant nothing more nor less than wis- 
 dom. It was this belief that exposed him continually to 
 Treloar's withering scorn as being entirely illogical. To- 
 day, Dr. Parker was enjoying himself in his big easy 
 chair, drawn up on one side of the glowing fire place, 
 with Dolly in another chair opposite him, looking the 
 picture of happiness. Arrayed in a delicate pink muslin 
 dress with white lace trimmings, a pink rose in her dark 
 hair, and the glow of the fire on her youthful face, she was 
 a delightful picture to look at. 
 
 " Daddy, I like these chill foggy summer days that 
 keep people at home. They are such a rest after a run 
 of visitors." 
 
 " I thought you liked visitors."
 
 THE TRELOARS 73 
 
 " So I do, but not all the time. I like to lose myself 
 sometimes in a crowd, but then on the other hand, I like 
 to find myself again by being alone." 
 
 "Dolly, how would you like to go to the university? " 
 
 " I wouldn't like it at all." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because I haven't time to go. There is so much I 
 want to learn." 
 
 Her father burst out laughing. 
 
 " Dolly, that's a crazy kind of answer." 
 
 " You think so ? That's because you haven't examined 
 the premises." 
 
 " What ! Are you catching the argumentative fever ? " 
 
 " I don't see how I can escape it, being so frequently 
 exposed to it from you and Mr. Treloar." 
 
 " Escape it if you can, Dolly. I don't want it to break 
 out in the bosom of my family. But state your prem- 
 ises." 
 
 " There they are," said Dolly, indicating by a sweep 
 of her hand, the long rows of book shelves lining the 
 wall, closely packed with masterpieces in all the leading 
 European languages. 
 
 " You have been at a great deal of expense in collect- 
 ing the best books that have been written in the world, 
 haven't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, I have a fairly good library," answered her 
 father looking around at his books with an air of satis- 
 faction. 
 
 " And you took pains to give me an excellent gov- 
 erness, didn't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, I think you have been well taught." 
 
 " But the principal thing which she taught me was that 
 nobody could teach me but myself, and that if I loved 
 reading and knew a good book from a poor one, I had 
 my education in my own hands. Do you think she was 
 right?" 
 
 " Yes, I think she was right." 
 
 " Very well, then. I do love to read. I know that
 
 74 THE TRELOARS 
 
 you haven't collected anything but good books, big books. 
 I have a great deal of curiosity and I want to read from 
 these books within my reach, and so go on with my 
 education, for Miss Allison taught me too, that one's 
 education never stops, but is always going on. Now 
 how could I do all this, if I went to college? Does that 
 seem so crazy to you now, as it did at first ? " 
 
 Her father clasped his hands at the back of his head, 
 leaned back in his chair and looked thoughtfully into the 
 fire, then said rather slowly: 
 
 " No, I don't think it does ; but wouldn't the university 
 introduce a certain method into your reading ? " 
 
 " You mean wouldn't it make me trot in harness along 
 a level road, when I want to run freely over whole 
 pastures? Yes, I think it would, and that's why I don't 
 want it. Father, do you know anything more deadly 
 than to be forced to read what has absolutely no mean- 
 ing to you, or is of no importance to you, when you 
 do know what it means ! That is exactly what Cath- 
 erine is doing. She was telling me yesterday about it. 
 She has to read a lot of antique Anglo Saxon stuff that 
 takes as much time as a foreign language does. In fact 
 it is a foreign language to her, with the disadvantage 
 of being as dead as the people who once spoke it and 
 when she does translate it, it isn't worth the time she 
 puts on it, not to speak of the trouble. I asked her if 
 she were going to keep it up when she left the university, 
 and she fairly hooted at the question, and said she was 
 going to forget it as soon as she could. Now, father, 
 what's the sense of all that? " 
 
 " There doesn't seem to be much, does there ? " 
 
 " No, not a bit of it. Then she has to keep a set of 
 note-books which mean nothing but copying what some- 
 body else has said. She has laboratory work in the sci- 
 ences, which means that she is discovering all over again 
 for herself what she knows by having read her text-books. 
 Then, she has to run from one lecture to another without 
 any intermission to give her the chance to let one thing
 
 THE TRELOARS 75 
 
 soak into her, and so she forgets it all. It is like trying 
 to drive three or four nails all into the same place." 
 
 " Why doesn't she give it up ? " 
 
 " O, she says the social side of the life makes up for 
 the other. She says the studies do not so much inter- 
 fere with the pleasure, as you might think at first. There 
 are always a few students who take themselves seriously 
 and can grind, and they sometimes pass their note-books 
 around to the others." 
 
 " Yes, I know how that goes. We used to have the 
 dearest old professor In geology, who required a col- 
 lection of stones and minerals for class credits, and one 
 fellow's collection did duty for the whole class. We 
 all took turns in presenting it and getting credit for it. 
 I don't think he ever looked at it, and we were immensely 
 grateful for the oversight." 
 
 " It's no new thing, then." 
 
 " No, human nature seems to get us all cut after the 
 same pattern." 
 
 " I think she varies the pattern a little even in the 
 same family. Take the Treloars, for instance. I don't 
 think Margaret and Catherine are a bit alike, do you ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Which would you rather I should be like ? " 
 
 " I don't want you to be like either of them, I want 
 you to be just what you are." 
 
 " But which of them do you admire the more ? " 
 
 " Margaret, of course ; but then Margaret is a good 
 deal older than Catherine." 
 
 " It isn't a question of age at all, Daddy. Catherine 
 will never be like Margaret, and Margaret never had a 
 college education." 
 
 " O, that's what you're driving at, is it ? Well, don't 
 bother your head about the matter any more. I am not 
 going to send you to college, if you don't want to go. 
 I was only thinking of what might be of advantage to 
 you. You know I wouldn't for the world have you miss 
 anything that would be really valuable to you."
 
 ;6 THE TRELOARS 
 
 "Then the college wouldn't do me any good, Daddy. 
 I can show you a foot-note in Kant where he says that 
 the want of judgment is stupidity, and that it is an in- 
 firmity not to be remedied by any amount of learning." 
 
 " What ! Have you been reading Kant ? " said her 
 father, looking very much surprised. 
 
 " Reading Kant ! " Dolly broke into a laugh. " You 
 might just as well ask me if I had been playing leap 
 frog with the moon. No, I can't read Kant, and as Mr. 
 Treloar would say, I am proud of my limitations, but 
 I've been dabbling around in him and finding high and 
 dry standing places in the weltering chaos. Weltering 
 chaos is good, isn't it ? I picked that out of Carlyle." 
 
 " What in the world set you to reading Kant ? " 
 
 " Curiosity. I wondered what sort of man he was 
 who looked so big to you and Mr. Treloar." 
 
 " Don't forget, Dolly, that the size of anything de- 
 pends upon how far you are away from it. I suppose he 
 looked pretty small to you." 
 
 " Nothing but mist and haze ! I really couldn't see 
 him at all; and to think, Daddy, that in your lovely 
 youth, you wanted to be something like that, instead of 
 husband and father and man of action. But I have 
 converted you, now, and you are to stay converted, even 
 after I've gone upstairs. There's the clock striking 
 eleven. Who would have thought it was so late ? What 
 a good time we've had." 
 
 She stooped and kissed him. He watched her as she 
 left the room and his eyes glistened. Was he wholly 
 converted? He loved her entirely. He could not think 
 of his life as having any value without her, and yet 
 if it could have been granted him to roll back the years, 
 and stand again at the threshold of early manhood with 
 all his powers converged upon the object of his ambition, 
 sure to win it, some sharp savage instinct of self-preser- 
 vation in him would have urged him to accept the gift. 
 It was not that his heart was cold, but that it was 
 still shiveringly sensitive to pain, and life had taught
 
 THE TRELOARS 77 
 
 him that no man's happiness is secure when it lies in the 
 keeping of another. How long would it be before Dolly 
 would be flitting away from him to be the joy of another 
 man's home? The thought pained him so deeply that 
 he thrust it away from him, determined not to suffer in 
 anticipation, but to rejoice in his happiness while he 
 had it. 
 
 And Dolly, standing before the mirror braiding her 
 dark heavy hair for the night, leaned towards the beau- 
 tiful image looking back at her, and smiled at it as if 
 it were a sister's face and not the image of herself. It 
 was not empty vanity that thrilled her with pleasure as 
 she looked, but an almost impersonal joy in the beauty 
 which she saw, because it held in it the promise of joy 
 for another. Life throbbed deliciously in all her veins. 
 She felt that she had not been destined to creep gray 
 and nun-like down the solitary years, but was meant to 
 express the affirmation that life is good. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 DICK going to his lodgings that same evening had 
 no future and no past, he was living in a glorified pres- 
 ent a golden hazy state of felicity incapable of defin- 
 ite outline. He only knew that temporarily Mr. Cressy 
 had driven all the prismatic coloring out of his world, 
 and that it had all come back again in gorgeous rainbow 
 tints; and arrived at his room, he sat up the rest of the 
 night, writing a glowing eulogy of Nita Normand. 
 
 When the editor read it over the next day, he had an 
 idea that Dick was trying to efface the mistake which 
 he had made in criticising so severely the novel which he 
 had given him to review, and he said to Dick, as he 
 scratched his head dubiously: 
 
 " Treloar, there is a happy medium in this sort of 
 thing that you haven't struck just yet. You are all 
 black or all white, dazzling white. You don't seem to
 
 78 THE TRELOARS 
 
 be able to strike a neutral tint. You must learn not to 
 take me too literally." 
 
 " Excuse me," said Dick, " do you suppose that I 
 am writing anything but my opinion, now?" 
 
 " Then, you really saw all this in the play ? " 
 
 He gave the offending manuscript a little tap with the 
 back of his hand. 
 
 " I shouldn't have written it, if I hadn't." 
 
 He looked so indignantly sincere that the editor 
 chuckled a little, then cordially remarked: 
 
 " All right, Treloar, we'll run it in, then, only it seems 
 strange that somebody else hasn't discovered this Ameri- 
 can Bernhardt or Duse, for she has been playing here a 
 month or two. Can you cut it down to half a column? " 
 
 It was like asking Dick if he could cut off his fingers, 
 and seeing his discomfiture, Cressy smiled again. 
 
 " You'll get used to it after while. You think now as 
 I used to." (How Dick hated his constant half con- 
 temptuous allusion to his youth). " You think now that 
 ' noblesse oblige ' in literature as well as life. You have 
 forgotten the older commandment not to throw your 
 pearls before swine. Do you recall what I said to you 
 the other day? The newspaper exists for the multitude 
 for the average man, and the average man walks 
 flat on his feet; he does not soar, and we must not fly 
 over his head, if we wish to reach his ears." 
 
 " Excuse me, sir," said Dick, mopping his face with 
 his handkerchief, for he felt very hotly indignant and un- 
 comfortable. " I dare say I am going to say something 
 else that you used to believe, but have got over, along 
 with the measles and the whooping cough, but I must 
 say it, or feel myself a miserable coward. The multitude, 
 so far as I know it, and am one of it, is neither so thick 
 skinned nor thidk headed as not to have a natural in- 
 stinct for what is sane and wholesome. In fact, all the 
 silly fads which the so-called educated man goes into, 
 pass quite over its head. All the superstitions of our day 
 belong to the so-called upper class, not the lower. It is
 
 THE TRELOARS 79 
 
 the man who is a little above the average who is doing 
 the mischief. He is absolutely indifferent to everything 
 but his own success; but he gives a fine name to his 
 indifference and ignorance. He calls it tolerance, breadth 
 of mind, and he boasts of it as our forefathers boasted 
 of their bigotry. They went out of their way to ex- 
 press a deeply felt conviction. We go out of our way to 
 avoid expressing what we feebly think. For if I under- 
 stand you correctly, deeply felt convictions are quite out 
 of date. You doubted that I was sincere when I wrote 
 that last article, and I was never more sincere in my life. 
 In place of convictions, evidently, we are to have brazen 
 lungs and brass bands, and other advertising parapher- 
 nalia to catch the eye and ear, and we are all to meekly 
 follow the procession. Your theory is that if we don't 
 follow it, we shall cut a very lonely figure ; and you would 
 have us feebly prattle to our feeble consciences about 
 there being some truth in it, after all ; and we must look 
 at the good, not the bad, and we must be tolerant, every- 
 body has a right to his own opinion; and let them have 
 their day, the right will prevail in the end; or it doesn't 
 seem quite right to me, but then I don't understand it, 
 and it is none of my business. But it is our business and 
 right will never have its day till we make day for it, 
 and tolerance of that feeble wishy washy type is nothing 
 but downright cowardice, or ignorant indifference a 
 milder way of just saying, ' I don't care a damn/ But I 
 do care, Mr. Cressy. It is life to me to care." 
 
 Dick looked so handsome, so full of the resistless energy 
 and glow of youth, that Cressy felt his pulses stir in 
 sympathy with him, and instead of reminding him that 
 he was echoing the sentiment of his own dead youth, he 
 said: 
 
 " I understand exactly how you feel, Treloar. It is 
 a damn hypocritical babyish age we're living in. The 
 fact is that we are all victims of a plethora of liberty that 
 broke in on us with the French Revolution, and we have 
 carried our hatred of restrictions so far that we even
 
 8o THE TRELOARS 
 
 want to take our clothes off in public, literally and figura- 
 tively, so that nobody, now, is ashamed to expose his in- 
 telligence without the smallest fig-leaf of thought to 
 cover its nakedness ; and we are, also, victims, from the 
 same source, of a mania for equality, and as we can't all 
 grow to a respectable height, we want to trim down all 
 those who over-top the crowd. You think that the news- 
 papers are the chief offenders in this lopping-off process. 
 That isn't so. It has its beginning, higher up, in that 
 mawkish sugar-teat education which the public schools 
 are giving to the young. The educators of the world 
 have found out just what we have discovered, namely, 
 that everybody can't take an education; but instead of 
 courageously admitting the fact, and honestly trying to 
 educate those who really can be educated, and giving to 
 those who can't what they are able to assimilate, they 
 lump them all together, take their difficult subjects and 
 make a kind of pap for the toothless intelligence out 
 of them, and then keep on thinning it down, as they find 
 it necessary, till the original substance is lost in a weak, 
 tasteless, innutritions liquid. I intend to take my boy 
 Jim out of school so that he can learn something, if it 
 is only how damn little he does know. Innocent ignor- 
 ance isn't so bad, it's only when it gives itself airs and 
 gets obtrusive by a superficial smattering of school text- 
 book knowledge that it is so insufferable. That's what 
 I wanted you to run up against by boarding among the 
 real people. Did you take my advice ? " 
 " Yes." 
 
 I" .Good ! " Cressy's eyes brightened and he leaned 
 forward, placing his two fat hands on his knees. " Well, 
 you are beginning to get acquainted with them, now, 
 aren't you? Don't interest you any more than chickens, 
 do they? Mother takes in boarders because the girls 
 want to live in a big showy-looking house from the 
 street. Father comes in at the kitchen door with a clay 
 pipe in his mouth and a kit of tools on his back, and 
 never sees any other part of the house except his bed-
 
 THE TRELOARS 81 
 
 room in the attic, because all the habitable rooms are 
 rented out, except the parlor where the piano is. The 
 piano is always out of tune. The girls are in the high 
 school, when they aren't pounding on the piano, no more 
 conscious of its being out of tune than the stool they sit 
 on. Then begins the awful, the barbarous woe of the 
 boarding house! The pounding, the shrieking and sky- 
 larking and quavering in the name of music Owl 
 wow! Wow! God! I think I can hear it in my ears 
 yet ! It ought to be a capital offense to have a piano in 
 a boarding house. Then cabbage every day in the 
 week " 
 
 " No, only on wash-days," interrupted Dick, with a 
 laugh, " but it has a clinging odor that hangs on to the 
 stairs, and trails in at the door of your room all week 
 long. Yes, I know all that, and I don't like it any better 
 than you do. That is why I was objecting to the re- 
 flection of that tawdry, meaningless life in the novel that 
 I criticised. It is bad enough to live with it in reality, 
 without trying to live with it again on paper. A little 
 of that sort of thing goes a long way." 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Mr. Cressy, quickly, feeling that 
 he was losing ground in maintaining the wisdom and pro- 
 priety of his tolerant attitude to cheap literature. " But 
 with all your fastidiousness, you must not forget the 
 bread and butter side of the question. These people who 
 hang their photographs and graduating certificates on the 
 parlor wall, like to have tjjeir pictures taken for that 
 purpose in family groups, in friendly groups, or posing 
 alone in some striking attitude, either fierce as a pot lion, 
 or insidiously jovial as a Cheshire cat; and the books 
 they like are the books that reproduce them photograph- 
 ically. That is why modern fiction has borrowed the 
 laboratory method. It handles raw materials. Those 
 who want to write about tramps, live among tramps. 
 Women who want to write about shop-girls turn shop- 
 girls themselves and write shop-girl literature. You can't 
 alter that fact any more than you can alter human na-
 
 82 THE TRELOARS 
 
 ture. You remember that Wordsworth wrote an ode 
 to the Daisy in which he addresses the flower in these 
 words: 'Thou unassuming commonplace!' Now that 
 strikes you and me as being the proper attitude for the 
 commonplace; but in our day, the commonplace struts, 
 and is full of assumption. It puts money in its purse, 
 too, and thinks that that makes it uncommon; and we 
 should like to relieve it a little of its agreeable burden; 
 in other words, we should like to put a little of its 
 money into our purse, too, and so we have to recognize 
 it. Don't forget that we aren't running a paper as a 
 charitable institution, nor to reflect ourselves. We are 
 running a paper to reflect the people. For that reason 
 journalism is not the production of literature in its high- 
 est sense. It has no intention of being literature which 
 requires time at its disposal as well as uncommon gifts. 
 It is only a passing reflection of passing opinions. Who 
 reads yesterday's paper, or the morning paper when he 
 can get the evening one, damp from the press? Now, 
 Treloar, the sooner you can get that into your head, the 
 better. You are clever. You've got a good style. You 
 don't fumble. You hit the nail on the head. You have 
 correct and safe ideas on a great many subjects. Pos- 
 sibly you can really produce literature ; but for the pres- 
 ent, for the sake of getting on your feet, you want to 
 go into journalism; and it is a sort of trade like any 
 other, to which a long apprenticeship is necessary. Now, 
 then, I am going to be indulgent for the last time, and 
 ask you what part of this article you wish cut out, to re- 
 duce it to well we'll say a column, this time." 
 
 " Cut out the reflections," said Dick without hesitating, 
 " and spare as much as you can to the actress herself." 
 
 " Fine ! " exclaimed Cressy with a broad unctuous 
 smile of approval. " That's the way to talk. We'll make 
 a journalist of you, yet. I think it may be safely laid 
 down as a rule that the enjoyment of what you call re- 
 flections I mean thought in the abstract, generaliza- 
 tions, etc. is a mark of more than average intelligence.
 
 THE TRELOARS 83 
 
 The great bulk of readers want the facts without any 
 trimmings. They want their stories with something do- 
 ing in them fizz, bang, buss firecrackers in every 
 chapter, and a grand hullabaloo to close with." 
 
 " How do you account for the vogue of Ibsen, Strind- 
 berg, Shaw, and others of that ilk who haven't any noisy 
 fireworks in them ? " 
 
 " Well, that has puzzled me, too. The fact is that 
 the general public doesn't like that sort of thing. It 
 buys it out of curiosity, hearsay, puff, reads it, yawns, 
 forgets all about it. Have you ever thought that 
 modern fiction has not produced a single character that 
 lives in the memory as a real being like those delicious 
 so-called caricatures of Dickens? What a poor little 
 paper doll Hedda Gabler is compared with Thackeray's 
 full-blooded Becky Sharp. No, modern literature at its 
 best is vivisection. The older literature was creation. 
 But vivisection is the order of the day. Curiosity! curi- 
 osity ! that's all, and it takes sympathy and not curiosity 
 to make literature." 
 
 Dick's face lighted up again. It was the first thing 
 that his chief had said to which he could give his hearty 
 assent. He felt so grateful that he said so, adding : " I 
 should like to please you, on condition, of course, of not 
 being a traitor to my convictions." 
 
 Mr. Cressy smiled rather ambiguously. A conviction 
 had long since ceased to mean to him anything more 
 than a matter of interest or convenience, but he forbore 
 saying so, knowing that Dick had not yet arrived at the 
 same degree of tolerance. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 IN pursuance of his plans for launching the Dawn into 
 ,the world, Max Gietmann rented a third floor of a dingy 
 office building in a short irregular side street running off 
 Market Street near the ferry. He fitted it up with a
 
 84 THE TRELOARS 
 
 second hand printing press, a desk, and two or three 
 chairs. It would have been difficult to find surroundings 
 less suggestive of the illuminating character of his enter- 
 prise than these three bare rooms into which the sun- 
 light never shone until late in the afternoon. But Max 
 had not been spoiled by luxury; he had learned to be 
 content with a shelter from rain and storm. Seeing that 
 his rent, his press, his paper, and other necessary equip- 
 ments would use up the greater part of the money he 
 had on hand, he resolved to leave the hotel where he 
 was staying, and furnish one of the rooms for a sleeping 
 room. He bought a cot, mattress, some inexpensive bed- 
 clothes, a washstand, a pitcher and bowl of white enam- 
 eled ware, a second-hand clothes press, and moved into 
 his apartment, with a sense of freedom and satisfaction 
 which he had not felt for a long time. There were plenty 
 of restaurants in the vicinity where he could get a cheap 
 and wholesome meal at all hours. 
 
 The only thing that he needed was an assistant who 
 could make himself generally useful as type-setter, book- 
 keeper, proof-reader, and a writer of articles, at a pinch. 
 He thought it would not be difficult to find such a man 
 in so cosmopolitan a city as San Francisco, for he had 
 met too many university graduates in distress in various 
 parts of America to believe that they were rare any- 
 where. He inserted an advertisement in all the daily 
 papers, appointing Saturday afternoon, at four, and his 
 office, as the time and place for an interview. 
 
 He had not calculated in vain. They began literally 
 pouring in at half-past two a strange, eager crowd of 
 indisputably shabby, and shabby genteel men, young and 
 old, of almost every nationality ; yet bearing, all of them, 
 the same stamp of poverty, the same subtle sign of in- 
 born unfitness to cope with the demands of their environ- 
 ment, and giving the lie, all of them, to that universally 
 cherished conviction, that ignorance is the mother of sin 
 and hardship, and that a good education is a guarantee 
 for success in life. These men were not ignorant. There
 
 THE TRELOARS 85 
 
 were keen sharp faces among them that told of long 
 hours spent over books and study, faces that haunted one 
 with an uneasy sense of responsibility towards them. 
 Yet no external help could have availed them long, for 
 there was no compass within to guide them surely. They 
 were the misfits of civilization who under no circum- 
 stances can find or keep an equilibrium. They were top 
 heavy and always destined to turn over, head foremost, 
 as soon as they were put on their feet. Some of them 
 bore the unmistakable signs of dissipation, or the dom- 
 ination of evil passions; some of them had a hangdog 
 look; others looked at you with the frank innocence of 
 a child. 
 
 Max spoke with several of them, and finally turned to 
 a tall, dark-haired man of sallow complexion, and said 
 to him in German: 
 
 " Unless I am mistaken, you are one of my country- 
 men." 
 
 The man's face brightened as he affirmed that he 
 was, adding that he hoped he was, also, just the man that 
 was wanted. 
 
 " I have brought with me," he continued, opening a 
 huge scrap-book which he had carried under his arm, 
 "some examples of my journalistic work humorous 
 poetry, literary criticisms, idle thoughts, sketches from 
 life, that will show you what I can do in that line." 
 
 " I am afraid," replied Max with a dubious look at 
 the heavy credentials, "that you are a little too high up 
 for the miscellaneous work that I want done. Can you 
 set type ? " 
 
 " I can set type and I can clean out a spittoon. I am 
 not too high for anything that will put a good dinner into 
 my belly." 
 
 " All right," replied Max, " I can promise you a good 
 dinner; and as for the spittoon, there won't be any to 
 clean, unless it's your own. I smoke, but I don't spit. 
 Just go into the next room and wait for me, till I dismiss 
 these other fellows, will you ? "
 
 86 THE TRELOARS 
 
 It was not so easy a task to get rid of the others, as 
 it seemed. They were all hungry, run down at the heel, 
 and though incapable of permanently sticking to any task 
 were anxious to do something for the present. They 
 were also anxious to enlist Max's sympathies by telling 
 him the story of their life. They wished to assure him 
 that society, and not they themselves, was responsible 
 for their present plight. Some needed only a little tem- 
 porary assistance to tide them over while they perfected 
 some scheme or wrote some book that would make them 
 rich and famous, as soon as it was published. There 
 were gray-haired visionaries whose brilliant schemes for 
 the amelioration of society were singularly discounten- 
 anced by the failure of their own lives, finding it in- 
 comparably easier to erect a happy commonwealth on 
 paper, than to bring one rebellious life into harmony with 
 existing facts. Individualists, all of them yet un- 
 ceasingly bent on molding society after their own par- 
 ticular pattern of individualism, and exceedingly hostile 
 towards any other form of it. 
 
 The type was familiar to Max, as has been said before, 
 and he knew what to say to each one of them ; neverthe- 
 less, it was nearly an hour before the office was cleared 
 of the last applicant. He threw open the windows, im- 
 mediately, to purify the vitiated air, then he entered the 
 room into which he had ushered the stranger. 
 
 " Now, sir, let us get acquainted with each other," he 
 began abruptly. " My name is Max Gietmann. What's 
 
 yours 
 
 " My name is Felix Mayer, a striking contrast to my 
 fate, which has been eminently in felix." 
 
 " Where were you educated ? " 
 
 " I have an A.M degree from the University of Ber- 
 lin, and it has done nothing for me but get in my way, 
 like the clumsy train of a woman's ball dress." 
 
 " How do you make that out ? " 
 
 " Well, I was educated to believe that the world could 
 not get along without A.M.'s, B.A.'s, and Pn.D.'s and it
 
 THE TRELOARS 87 
 
 has taken me a number of years to get over the impres- 
 sion, and become convinced that there is nothing in it." 
 
 " Are you quite sure you have got over it, now ? " 
 
 " In practice, yes ; in theory, no. I still believe that 
 an aristocracy of intelligence is worth more than an aris- 
 tocracy of birth or wealth, that the man with a head ought 
 to rule the man who is nothing but belly or pocket-book. 
 Unfortunately, modern society is organized on the con- 
 trary basis; and purse and belly have all the wind in 
 their sails." 
 
 " And that's why you are stranded, eh ? " asked Max 
 with a scornful snort; he was beginning to feel that he 
 had made a mistake in his man, and not waiting for a 
 reply, he blurted out: 
 
 " Would you mind telling me frankly just what is your 
 particular vice or weakness in the eyes of society? I am 
 not looking for perfection, not being a saint myself ; but, 
 if we are going to be associated for any length of time, 
 I want to know just how far I can depend on you, and 
 what allowances I must make when I can't. Do you 
 drink to excess, or gamble, for example ? " 
 
 Now one of Mr. Mayer's particular weaknesses was 
 a flux of speech and instead of answering the question 
 with a plain " yes," or " no," he began : 
 
 " Not frequently. To be quite frank with you. I have 
 always esteemed my liberty too highly to sacrifice it even 
 to the interests of temperance. I have never taken a 
 pledge, therefore I have never broken one. I probably 
 never shall take a pledge and I sometimes indulge my 
 desire for a blessed release from my woes by taking a 
 glass too much." 
 
 " You mean that you go on periodical sprees," said 
 Max with prosaic brevity. 
 
 Mr. Mayer looked at him in reproachful surprise, but 
 not seeing any evidence of particular disgust in his face, 
 answered rather meekly : 
 
 " I believe that they are commonly spoken of in that 
 way."
 
 88 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " Very well ; may I infer that being a man of intelli- 
 gence and often down on your luck, you have some 
 scheme for the amelioration of society?" 
 
 Mr. Mayer glowed, he felt the ground under his feet 
 again. 
 
 " You have made a correct inference, sir. No intelli- 
 gent man who has at heart the interests of humanity can 
 be blind to the immense wrongs under which the pro- 
 letariat groans. Is there no hope of relief ? I have con- 
 secrated my life, sir, to the task of lifting the burden from 
 the shoulders of the weak and shifting it to the back of 
 the strong where it belongs. I believe in the rights of 
 nature, the right to leisure, to happiness, and in the in- 
 fluence of environment." 
 
 " Then, your particular quarrel with civilization is 
 that it makes the great majority of men work, and the 
 great majority of women virtuous against their will? " 
 
 Mr. Mayer was startled into brevity by this crude pres- 
 entation of his views, and replied with a stare : 
 
 "What?" 
 
 Max chuckled a little. He was familiar with the so- 
 cialistic and anarchistic programs, and he liked to prick 
 what he called the bubbles with the sharp point of his 
 irony. 
 
 " Isn't that about what the complaint amounts to, when 
 you simmer it down ? " 
 
 " Mr. Gietmann," replied Mr. Mayer, with a grave as- 
 sumption of dignity, " I don't quite catch the drift of 
 what you mean. Of course, it would be presumption in 
 me to suppose that you are unfamiliar with the teachings 
 of science. If man, as we are taught, is as much under 
 the dominion of natural law as anything else in nature, 
 it follows that he is as much a product of his environ- 
 ment as a tree, a plant, or one of the lower animals, and 
 he has a right to his natural environment. The soil 
 should be as free as the air, no more one man's than an- 
 other's. Society takes it from me and gives it to you 
 because I happen to be born under unfavorable, therefore
 
 THE TRELOARS 89 
 
 unnatural social conditions. Restore my property to me, 
 and you restore dignity and happiness to me. You make 
 a new man of me. You put a roof over my head, and 
 good clothes on my back." 
 
 " It's my opinion that you are attaching entirely too 
 much importance to the tailor and the carpenter. It isn't 
 artificial accessories that make a man." 
 
 " Then you don't believe in the natural equality of 
 man?" 
 
 " No, I don't, neither do you. The lame, the halt, the 
 blind in body as well as in intellect are not the equals of 
 the strong, the prudent, the far-seeing; and no form of 
 social government, or lack of it, is going to make them 
 so." 
 
 " Pardon me ! " exclaimed Mr. Mayer, excitedly. 
 " The lame, the halt, the blind are not nature's products. 
 They are the products of an oppressive and corrupt form 
 of society which we might abolish, and restore to human 
 nature its right to the same equality which you find in 
 the animal world. Look at the birds! Where will you 
 find " 
 
 " O, nonsense ! " interrupted Max impatiently. " Equal 
 opportunities do not guarantee equal power to use 
 them. If you want human equality like that of the 
 brutes you must go back to primitive conditions, when 
 men lived in caves and hollow trees, munched nuts with 
 the squirrels and ate raw meat with wolves and tigers. 
 You don't want to be a man-monkey again, do you ? And 
 just for the sake of having nothing in sight, superior to 
 a man-monkey, eh ? " 
 
 "Well, hardly!" 
 
 " But that's where you'll have to go to find the equality 
 you're aiming at. The trouble with all you socialistic 
 and anarchistic schemers is that you look backward and 
 think you are looking forward ; and you seem to be ob- 
 sessed by the idea of a mythical golden age; you talk 
 like Don Quixote over his handful of acorns. No, Mr. 
 Mayer, you can't make much progress with your back to
 
 90 THE TRELOARS 
 
 the future. What society really needs is not solidarity, 
 but a complete emancipation from the past the spread 
 of a vigorous individualism, an infusion of virility, you 
 want everybody to hold hands. We say hands off. We 
 are suffering more than anything else from a deadly mi- 
 asmatic sentimentality that is always bent on bolstering 
 up the weak, instead of fostering the strong." 
 
 Max did not finish; the door of the adjoining room 
 suddenly opened and closed noisily, and he left the room 
 to see who had entered. It proved to be another indigent 
 seeker for work whom Max dismissed rather curtly; 
 then he returned to Mayer who was looking depressed. 
 Max noticed it and said : 
 
 " But don't suppose that your opinions disqualify you 
 for working with me. Social reform is not exactly my 
 hobby. What I am particularly interested in, just now, 
 is a new art, a new literature, new music; and at that I 
 don't need any assistance, at present, except in a purely 
 mechanical way. I want a type-setter and a proof- 
 reader. I am not going to publish a voluminous maga- 
 zine; but just a few sheets once a week, and I want them 
 to be original enough to draw down on me the con- 
 ventional abuse of being an idiot and an ass. That is 
 always the cheerful way in which the world welcomes 
 its new thinkers. I shall be very much disappointed, if 
 I am not called shocking and brutal. Should I be ap- 
 plauded, I should know that I had fallen hopelessly into 
 the stupid and the commonplace." 
 
 Mayer's face lighted up. How often he had been 
 called an ass and an idiot and had resented it indignantly ; 
 but now the opprobrious terms seemed apotheosized, and 
 shone with a sacred light like the halo about the head of 
 a Madonna. 
 
 " By Jove ! " he exclaimed. " I never thought of that. 
 It's magnificent! Your smooth pretty banal writer who 
 pats society on the back carries off all its prizes; your 
 thinker gets all its kicks and thumps. What particular 
 innovations are you thinking of springing on the pub- 
 lic?"
 
 THE TRELOARS 91 
 
 " In literature, I propose to exalt what has been called 
 by our hypocritical civilization, brute force, energy, dar- 
 ing, I wish to introduce into literature the triumphs of 
 science, of steel, of electricity. No more microscopic, 
 psychological analysis the eye turned in on the navel 
 but the eye turned outward to the vast resources of the 
 world : man's joy no longer the feeble product of enervat- 
 ing fireside sentimentalities, but joy in the elemental 
 forces of nature ! " 
 
 " That is," said Mayer with a suspicious twinkle in his 
 eye, "you propose to revive the joy of barbarous ages 
 plus the automobile, the siege-gun, and the aeroplane." 
 
 " Exactly ! only I don't like your word revive. I don't 
 want to revive anything. I want to create." 
 
 " Yes, but don't you see that you aren't creating, that 
 you are only reviving the past which you say that you 
 hate so much? You aren't getting rid of it. You are 
 only putting a modern spirit into it. It's Beowulf, The 
 Nibelungen Lied, The Massacre of the Innocents with a 
 Zeppelin attachment ! " 
 
 Mayer flushed when he saw an ugly scowl on Max's 
 face, but he could not have resisted the thrust even at 
 the price of losing his job. It seemed to him so glori- 
 ously absurd to be piquing one's self on novelty and 
 originality regarding something so hoary with antiquity 
 as savagery ; but having given his thrust and seeing that 
 it was effective, he was content with applying a salve 
 in the form of an affectation of humility, and went on : 
 
 " O course, I am unable to speak with any judgment 
 on this matter, till I see what you have done. My mother 
 used to say that ' fools should never see half done 
 work.' " 
 
 " Your mother was right," said Max dryly, as he drew 
 out his watch. " Suppose you come around Monday 
 morning about nine o'clock. I'll set you to work, if you 
 are willing to begin on $2.50 a day. The hours won't 
 be long. It's pretty fair pay for the time you'll put in. 
 What do you say to it ? "
 
 92 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " It's not very much." 
 
 " No, but it is all I can give at present. This venture 
 means nothing but expense to me and no profit, for a long 
 time." 
 
 "All right, I'll come around, Monday. Good after- 
 noon, sir." 
 
 " Good afternoon ! " 
 
 Left alone again, Max thrust his hands into his coat 
 pockets, settled himself in his chair, and stretched his 
 legs out. A feeling of irritation and depression came 
 over him, as he recalled the experiences of the afternoon. 
 He began to suspect that he, too, belonged to this vast 
 army of malcontents, men of ticklish and umbrageous 
 sensibility, who attribute their failures to the lack of due 
 appreciation from their fellow men, who nurse their 
 grievances with pity for themselves, and hatred and 
 contempt for the rest of the world. Without an assured 
 income to save him from want, he, too, might have been 
 in as beggarly a situation as any of those who had come 
 to him for help ; then in self-defense, he began to espouse 
 their cause to himself. They were the victims of con- 
 ventions, the individualists who wished to be free to live 
 their life as it seemed good to them, and not as it seemed 
 good to their neighbor. They had entered into no social 
 compact of their own free will, and yet were held re- 
 sponsible for the fulfillment of it. They had been put to 
 school to the art and literature of a past with which they 
 had nothing in common; their will had been weakened, 
 their emotions perverted. They were wholly unfitted for 
 the brutal struggle for existence which goes on in the 
 society into which they were born, and were inevitably 
 pushed to the wall. It was for them and for himself 
 that he was throwing down the gauntlet to society. The 
 Dawn was approaching. Arrived at this point of his 
 meditations, Max rose, yawned, rubbed his eyes, put on 
 his hat, and went out to get something to eat. In spite 
 of his theory that the joy of life is perfect liberty, he 
 was not getting any appreciable amount of joy out of his 
 liberty at present.
 
 THE TRELOARS 93 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 DICK had not failed to return to the theater night after 
 night to witness Nita's playing. No matter how irritat- 
 ing his day's work had been, this charming actress never 
 failed to dissipate his irritation and restore him to his 
 best self. If he left the office feeling that he was ex- 
 pected to stoop to the stature of those with whom he 
 was thrown, no sooner was he in her presence than the 
 chains broke, he stooped no longer, but stood upright 
 with his equals, a free man in the presence of true free- 
 dom. 
 
 He longed to tell her how grateful he was for her in- 
 spiring influence, and how much she meant to him in his 
 struggles with unfamiliar tasks; but he had not been 
 able to see her alone again since the memorable night 
 of their first meeting. She always had a little coterie 
 about her, and he had not mustered sufficient courage 
 to write a request for a special interview, but if the op- 
 portunity to meet her alone did not offer itself soon, he 
 meant to do that. As it was, the second week-end had 
 come around and he was starting to Berkeley to spend 
 Sunday at home. 
 
 At the ferry, he looked over the crowd, searching Max 
 Gietmann's face, knowing that Max would feel his invi- 
 tation to go out home with him a standing one. But he 
 saw no familiar face in the hurrying, jostling throng that 
 pressed through the wicket gates. He felt a little re- 
 lieved at not finding him ; he preferred to spend his Sun- 
 day at home quite alone with the family. The Parkers 
 would be over in the evening, of course, since they had 
 not been over the Sunday of the preceding week. He 
 would be glad to see them, for they seemed a part of 
 the family, but he could not make Max fit in so familiarly, 
 since his return from abroad. However, that did not 
 trouble him. 
 
 How lovely the broad blue expanse of the water, so
 
 94 THE TRELOARS 
 
 tremulously responsive to every change of color in the 
 sky above it! And the long undulating shoreline with 
 its yellow sands and high green sloping background 
 how often he had looked at it, yet never till to-day, had 
 he realized how beautiful it was; and with the realiza- 
 tion and the intuition of its cause, he felt the hot blood 
 surging over his face; and because he was essentially 
 poet and idealist, there mingled with his natural emotion 
 that temperamental excess which carries acute joy to the 
 verge of sadness. His eyes were moist, and he kept his 
 face steadily turned towards the sea. He feared to look 
 round, lest he should meet some one whom he 
 knew and be obliged to try to explain satisfactorily the 
 emotion which he could not conceal. 
 
 He was glad of the long walk that lay between himself 
 and home, at the end of the car line ; for he had es- 
 pecially asked that no one should meet him with the 
 carriage, for he needed the exercise of the walk. To- 
 day he felt that he needed time in which to compose him- 
 self so that he might meet the family as if all his world 
 were still where he had left it. He succeeded so ad- 
 mirably that the brightness of his eyes, the flush on his 
 cheek, the hint of a tremulous break in his fine, strong, 
 young voice, were to Margaret the touching signs of his 
 gladness to be at home again. 
 
 She was coming down the Tunnel Road to meet him, 
 not far from the gate, and they walked back home arm 
 in arm. 
 
 " O, Dick, it has been the longest week, longer than 
 last week. I don't know why; but it seemed to me that 
 Saturday night would never come round, but here it is, 
 and you are with us again. Has it seemed unusually 
 long to you ? " 
 
 " Months ! " exclaimed Dick, emphatically, and he was 
 speaking the truth, for when new sensations and new 
 emotions are crowded into our days, they seem to 
 lengthen them enormously. 
 
 " You darling boy ! " Margaret pressed the arm through
 
 THE TRELOARS 95 
 
 which she had slipped her own, and looked up into his 
 face with pride, and delight ; then she said gently, " Do 
 you know, sometimes I think that such an intense love 
 as that which binds me to you is not altogether wise ; and 
 yet how magnificent it is ! But it makes me too depend- 
 ent on you for my happiness. It is as if I had delivered 
 it all into your keeping and it might be ship-wrecked with 
 you in a moment. I have learned so much about myself 
 this week that I didn't know before, and some of the 
 things are not at all to my credit." 
 
 " Then you've been making some mistakes in your 
 lessons, Margaret. What have you learned about your- 
 self that is not to your credit ? " 
 
 " That I am deceitful that I can say one thing and 
 mean another." 
 
 " Well, that's a woman's privilege, isn't it ? " 
 
 " It's not my privilege. I like to be honest. But you 
 know when you told me last week how busy you were, 
 I made you promise not to write to me this week, because 
 I was afraid to take up any of your time. Well, I stood 
 it nobly till Thursday, and then I got so hungry for a 
 word from you, just a line to tell me you were thinking 
 of me, that I kept wishing with all my heart that you 
 would break your promise and write to me anyway." 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! And what would you have said, if I had 
 done it?" 
 
 " I should have scolded you, of course, but very, very 
 sweetly, just enough to encourage you to do it again. 
 Don't you see what a dastardly double-dealer I am? 
 And that is not all. I began to get nastily suspicious yes- 
 terday. I said to myself, ' Now if he really loved me as 
 much as I love him, he couldn't help writing to me in 
 answer to that letter which I wrote him, Tuesday.' You 
 did get it, didn't you?" 
 
 " Yes, I did, dear ; and it was such a bit of sunshine 
 to me that I was really tempted to sit down and tell you 
 how thankful I was for it; but you know you reminded 
 me in it again of my promise not to write, so I wasn't go- 
 ing to be tempted to break it."
 
 96 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " You should have yielded to the temptation, Dick. In 
 matters of love, it isn't a sin; on the contrary, it was a 
 crime against love not to do it. Now, I am going to 
 give you a bit of advice, for the sake of the future Mrs. 
 Dick, who I hope is still an unweaned infant, but who is 
 sure to turn up some day. If ever the woman whom 
 you are to love, as you love no one else, tells you not to 
 do a thing that you know will give her pleasure, Dick, 
 don't for a minute put off doing that very thing, if it is 
 within the realm of possibility to do it. She may vow 
 that she won't forgive you, if you do; but ten to one, 
 she won't forgive you, if you don't. There! those are 
 the incredible things that I have found out about my- 
 self." 
 
 Dick laughed heartily. 
 
 "They are adorable things, Margaret; they bring you 
 down from the summits of perfection, and set you firmly 
 on the ground where the rest of us walk. After this, 
 you shall have your letter every week." 
 
 " No, Dick, you mustn't think of such a thing ! " she 
 protested, and then they both laughed again at the ab- 
 surdity of her protest in the face of her confession, then 
 Margaret said : 
 
 " Now, you must tell me all about what Mr. Cressy 
 said of your article; you know you didn't say anything 
 about it last week. We had so many other things to 
 talk of. Of course, he liked it immensely." 
 
 " Not in the least." 
 
 " What ! You don't mean to say " 
 
 "Yes, I do; but let's wait till we get to the house. 
 Father will want to hear about that, too, and there's no 
 use telling it over twice. Let me listen to you, now ; 
 that's such a treat to me. What news have you to tell 
 me?" 
 
 " There isn't much to tell. Dolly and her father were 
 over Thursday night. Dolly told me that her father had 
 proposed sending her to college, but that she had per- 
 suaded him that she is her own best teacher. I am not 
 sure that she is wrong, are you ? "
 
 THE TRELOARS 97 
 
 " No. Dolly is really a very exceptional girl. Are 
 they coming over this evening? I haven't seen them for 
 two weeks or more." 
 
 " No, not to-night. I was selfish. I wanted you all 
 to myself the first evening. They'll be over to-morrow 
 to dinner. Have you seen Max, again? " 
 
 " Not this week. He is very busy getting ready to 
 bring out The Dawn." 
 
 " The Dawn! " repeated Margaret with a touch of mel- 
 ancholy irony in her voice. " To you and to me, The 
 Darkness or The Eclipse would be a more suitable name. 
 Poor Max ! I suppose we seem so old-fashioned and ' 
 inanely moral to him, and he seems to us so absurdly 
 bent on being uncommon that he is ridiculous, too, in an 
 ugly and dangerous way. I wonder if it is possible to 
 bring him around to a saner point of view. I always 
 think there is hope, where there is violence, because the 
 violent by nature is short-lived. It is the attitude of in- 
 difference or of persiflage which seems hopeless to me be- 
 cause there is no foundation of real feeling to work on. 
 Max is not a light and careless iconoclast. He is a hater, 
 and he hates, because he is unhappy and because there is 
 a capacity for love in him." 
 
 There flashed through Dick's mind again the suspicion 
 which had troubled him, once before; and the question 
 of Max's relations to Margaret was on his tongue's end, 
 but he could not bring himself to speak of it. 
 
 " I think you are right about Max," he replied, " yet 
 I don't see why he has any particular cause to be un- 
 happy. So far as I know he has good health, and a 
 settled income, and no vexatious ties." 
 
 "Yes," answered Margaret vaguely, "but it is impos- 
 sible to set up the same standard of happiness for every- 
 body. It takes so little to make some people happy, and 
 such a great deal to satisfy others. You and I can be 
 happy if we only have each other. Isn't it good to be to- 
 gether again ? " 
 
 They walked on a few moments in silence and there
 
 98 THE TRELOARS 
 
 was a critical moment in that silence in which Dick's 
 secret rose to his lips, but the inner tumult was still too 
 great to make it possible for him to speak with any 
 degree of serenity, so he said nothing. It was the first 
 time in his life that he had concealed anything of import- 
 ance from Margaret, and that he could do it now, proved 
 the intensity of his emotion. It is not of the deepest 
 secrets of our hearts that we can speak easily. 
 
 Just at the turn of the path where the whole house be- 
 came visible, Dick saw his father walking slowly along 
 the garden path, his head bent forward, his hands behind 
 him, the left hand clasping the wrist of his right hand 
 in which was a book, so held that his forefinger was thrust 
 in at the page where he had been reading. 
 
 " There's father," exclaimed Dick. " What book is he 
 poring over now ? " 
 
 " Tolstoi, again. The Ethical Society has asked him to 
 read a paper on Tolstoi at the next meeting. He has 
 been reading his paper to me as far as he has gone, but I 
 told him that he is writing an apotheosis of Tolstoi in- 
 stead of a criticism." 
 
 " I dare say he is. Dad always forgets that Tolstoi is 
 big enough to have faults without their obscuring his 
 greatness. In spite of all Tolstoi's parade of humility 
 the unalterable core of the man is over-weening pride 
 and ambition. He covers it all over with beautful, soft, 
 exquisite, tender sentiments, but it is there; and he 
 would not be the Titan he is without that hard unalterable 
 core in him. That is what made him dream of being the 
 founder of a new religion. But no religion was ever 
 founded successfully on the ideal of an exaggerated in- 
 dividualism." 
 
 " Why, Dick, I thought you admired Tolstoi ! " 
 
 " So I do, but with my eyes open, not shut. Hello, 
 Daddy ! " he called out cheerily, for the two were now in 
 range of Treloar's hearing. He had not noticed their 
 approach, and turned round suddenly, unclasping his 
 hand to extend it in greeting to his son.
 
 THE TRELOARS 99 
 
 " Hello, my boy ! Glad to see you. We miss you 
 among us, especially at dinner time. Have you brought 
 a good appetite with you ? " 
 
 " First rate ! Margaret has spoiled me for restaurants 
 and boarding houses." 
 
 " And she's done her best to redouble the spoiling 
 to-night. She has remembered all the things that you 
 like best, and the rest of us who don't happen to agree 
 with you are going to come out at the small end of the 
 horn. Go on in, Dick, and get ready. We're a little late. 
 I'm as hungry as a wolf, myself." 
 
 They went into the house. Catherine was putting the 
 last dainty touches to the table, a task which usually fell 
 to Margaret, but Catherine had taken it to-night in order 
 to let Margaret go to meet Dick, and she looked very 
 pretty in her soft white dress, and she kissed Dick 
 heartily. After dinner, the family gathered in the living- 
 room, and then Dick told the story of his experiences as 
 a journalist. 
 
 " I dare say," said Dick, " that I began with a very 
 confident air, and an exasperating cock-sureness, but I 
 finished just as surely with my head under my wings and 
 my tail feathers very much bedraggled. Cressy and I 
 are as different as two men possibly can be. He is a sort 
 of M. Homais, journalist, instead of pharmacist. He has 
 the same utter contempt for idealism in any form, the 
 same asinine conviction that he represents the acme of 
 good sense. He has an insufferably condescending air 
 with me, always telling me that in his youth he was just 
 such a young fellow as I, and insinuates that if I develop 
 normally, some day I shall have the honor of being just 
 like him from which honor may the good Lord deliver 
 me!" 
 
 Margaret listened restlessly, flushed with indignation, 
 wondering how it was possible for any one to treat 
 Dick in that manner. Treloar, on the contrary, listened 
 with an amused smile, interrupting the smoking of his 
 cigar from time to time to laugh heartily. He had so
 
 ioo THE TRELOARS 
 
 long been predicting the disastrous influences of material- 
 ism that he felt the vivid satisfaction of a successful 
 prophet, even at the expense of his own personal disaster 
 in its fulfillment. 
 
 " What else could you expect ? " he asked at the con- 
 clusion of Dick's story. " Haven't I always told you that 
 if you take away from the masses the restraining influ- 
 ence of religion the hope of immortality, the belief in 
 a compensatory justice that will give a meaning to the 
 struggles and sorrows of this life, you take away from 
 them every incentive to endure with manly fortitude 
 the evils of life. They feel that if life is only a conscious 
 moment between two eternities of extinction, then it 
 should be crowded with all possible joys, and they are 
 right. That is the only consistent attitude to life from 
 that point of view. The coarsest Epicurean with his 
 ' Eat, drink, and be merry ! ' is wiser than the ascetic 
 who refuses to live while he is still alive." 
 
 " O, father," protested Margaret. " That is too sweep- 
 ing an assertion. Values are not determinable by dura- 
 tion. The beauty of a perfect rose is not destroyed by 
 the fact that it lasts but a day or two, and the beauty 
 of a life dominated by self-mastery and generous regard 
 for others is just as undeniably beautiful and desirable, 
 as if it were eternal; and it is the very brevity of life 
 that inspired that noble sentiment, ' Work while it is day, 
 for the night cometh when no man can work ! ' I think 
 it a dangerous, a very dangerous doctrine to spread 
 abroad that morality has no other sanction or obligation 
 than the belief in immortality although I firmly believe 
 in immortality, of course, just as you do." 
 
 " What do you know about values in life ? " replied 
 her father with a tingling fervor in his voice that showed 
 how deeply in earnest he was. " You who have lived 
 sheltered from the fierce tempests of passion. The very 
 thing that you have said about values not depending on 
 duration makes a man at a crucial moment feel that he 
 may concentrate years of tame and colorless life in the
 
 THE TRELOARS 101 
 
 ecstasy of a moment, and if no larger thought, no lumin- 
 ous vision of the grandeur of his destiny is to hold him 
 back, why should he lose the glory of an hour for the 
 nauseating insipidity of a few tame crawling years? 
 Nonsense ! speak of life when you know the heights and 
 depths of it. Don't for a moment think that you can put 
 out the blaze of a burning world with a little pitcher of 
 cool spring water, no matter how cool and how clear it 
 may be. I doubt if you ever had a wicked thought in 
 your life. I doubt if you ever had a stronger temptation 
 than the doubt as to whether you should let Dick have 
 one more piece of rich cake, when you knew that he had 
 eaten too much, already." 
 
 Margaret laughed, but the laugh was rather faint. 
 She had heard her father repeatedly thrash out this ques- 
 tion with Dr. Parker, and reflecting over it alone, and re- 
 membering the doubts that often assailed Dick, she had 
 come to feel that the supreme safety in morals lies in the 
 conviction that right is right, no matter what the con- 
 sequences are; and that the Christian code of morals, 
 quite independent of their origin or the beliefs attached 
 to their practice is the best for man in his social relations, 
 so she answered quietly : 
 
 " It is true, father, that I do not know life as you do, 
 but I do not think that it is necessary to put your own 
 hand in the fire to know the result of the action; but 
 leaving that side of the question alone, I have too firm a 
 faith in your own good sense and morality to believe that 
 the decline of your faith would be followed by your 
 abandonment of your principles of right living." 
 
 " Then that's just exactly where you are entirely mis- 
 taken," was the emphatic reply. Treloar would have de- 
 clared himself capable of committing any enormity rather 
 than abandon what he considered as the legitimate conclu- 
 sion of his argument. " I live my life consistently, ac- 
 cording to my convictions. Do I build a house to turn 
 round and tear it to pieces ? Did the architect of the uni- 
 verse create my soul for the purpose of destroying it ? If
 
 102 THE TRELOARS 
 
 I thought so, life would have absolutely no value to me, 
 no meaning, and I should live it in an entirely different 
 manner from what I do now." 
 
 " O, no, you wouldn't, father," persisted Margaret. 
 "You would be like that Russian peasant Dr. Parker 
 spoke of, you would keep on plowing." 
 
 Philip Treloar gave his fine gray head a vigorous shake, 
 and there passed over his keen intellectual face an ex- 
 pression of acute despair and passionate negation. 
 
 " Isn't it strange," he burst out in a sonorous voice, 
 "that a man may live all his life with his family, and 
 yet be a stranger among them. A magnificent reply that 
 was, wasn't it? An asinine reply the reply of a brute 
 beast that had ceased to be a man. It shows that the 
 peasant had become a wooden-headed slave instead of an 
 intelligent human being. If he had had a spark of hu- 
 manity in him, he would have left his plow in the middle 
 of the field and spent his last day gratifying all his desires 
 in so far as he was able." 
 
 " O, bosh ! Daddy," remonstrated Dick. " Now you 
 are like my Homais journalist who will give the masses no 
 credit for moral insight, no ideality, no aim in life except 
 to accumulate wealth, no recreations except sensual pleas- 
 ures." 
 
 "That is where your Homais is right. The masses 
 are in a state of revolt and bewilderment. Science has 
 destroyed their religion, they are without faith in any- 
 thing but the sensation of the moment, they have no con- 
 ception of anything but what they can perceive through 
 their senses. How is it possible for them to value the 
 super-sensual ? " 
 
 " And now that we have got past that second piece of 
 cake," said Margaret, rising and going to the piano, 
 " don't you think it is time for a little music ? Come, 
 father, do play for Dick that exquisite little thing which 
 you improvised yesterday." 
 
 Treloar protested loudly against being turned from his 
 beloved argument, but after restating it in what he
 
 THE TRELOARS 103 
 
 thought was an irrefutable way, he allowed himself to be 
 persuaded to sit down to the piano, and after running 
 his fingers aimlessly over the keys, he found at last a 
 tongue in 'them for the thoughts that melody alone can 
 express. He had loved music all his life, and had found 
 in it an outlet for the deeply emotional side of his nature, 
 unconsciously carrying out Wagner's theory that with 
 fullness of life, art is superfluous, and that art begins 
 where life ceases. 
 
 As Dick listened to the music, watching his father's 
 clean-cut profile in the softened light which filled the 
 room, he marveled again, as he had often done before, at 
 the inextinguishable youthfulness of the man's soul, his 
 eager activity, turning as naturally to light and warmth 
 as the groping plant germinating in the darkness of the 
 soil ; his versatility ; the wide range of his intellectual in- 
 terests; how was it that he had not made his mark 
 upon the thought of his century? Had his intellect been 
 inquisitive rather than creative? Had he been tempted 
 to run here and there, turning over other men's acquisi- 
 tions, and making them his own, instead of delving 
 within himself, and transmuting his own experiences into 
 living thought ? For he had lived, and how he must have 
 loved ! Dick leaned towards his father, his heart beating 
 faster. He felt sure that his father would understand 
 him, were he to tell him all his thoughts and feelings. 
 He began to wish him to see this woman who was mean- 
 ing so much to him. It suddenly occurred to him that he 
 would make up a little family party, invite Dolly and her 
 father to join them, and take a box at the Oakland The- 
 ater for the next Tuesday night. 
 
 " Daddy, that's fine ! " he said, rising and patting his 
 father on the shoulder when he had finished playing. 
 " I'd rather have the memory of your being able to do a 
 thing like that, than be assured you had millions to leave 
 me. So you see after all, I am not so hopelessly sunk in 
 materialism." 
 
 " Perhaps, not yet ; but it's not easy to escape its in- 
 fluence, these days."
 
 104 THE TRELOARS 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 IT was a bright sunny Sabbath morning. Dolly Parker 
 awoke early to the twittering of birds and leaving her 
 bed went to the open window where a climbing rose sent 
 the odor of its fragrant blossoms into the room. She 
 looked up at the blue sky and then at the yellow hills, 
 and suddenly felt so wide awake that going back to bed 
 was impossible, and going out for an early morning walk 
 was the finest thing in the world. 
 
 Her father was entering the dining-room when she 
 came in from a ramble along the ravine, and she greeted 
 him with the jubilant, boastful cry: 
 
 " I was up the first this morning ! " 
 
 "What of it?" was the imperturbable answer. "It 
 doesn't make so much difference when you get up, as 
 what you amount to after you are up. Maybe you would 
 have been just as well off in bed." 
 
 " Do you think pleasure and beauty amount to nothing? 
 I've had such a good time, and aren't these beautiful ? " 
 she asked, holding up her flowers and grasses. She put 
 them into a glass bowl on the table, and then stepping 
 back to get the effect of them, said: 
 
 "Aren't they so fresh and morning-like with the dew 
 still on them ? " 
 
 " Yes, they're pretty, but what got into you that you 
 were up so early this morning? Didn't you know it was 
 Sunday?" 
 
 "Didn't I know it? Of course I did, and that we're 
 going over to the Treloars for dinner to-day. Dick 
 came home last night. I can imagine how Margaret is 
 beaming, can't you ? " 
 
 " If she's beaming any more than you, then she has a 
 monopoly on beaming," answered her father, sitting down 
 to the table, as Dolly touched the bell. 
 
 In a moment Hannah, the maid, appeared with the 
 breakfast, consisting of oatmeal porridge, rich cream, 
 buttered toast, and coffee.
 
 THE TRELOARS 105 
 
 Dolly passed her bowl to her father to be filled, and 
 smiled when she received it. 
 
 " Isn't it funny," she said, " Dick seems to me just like 
 my own brother. I've really missed him, knowing that he 
 was away from home haven't you ? " 
 
 " I can't say that I have, I don't miss people's being 
 away in somebody else's house. That is a stretch of 
 imagination I might have been capable of at your age, 
 but now " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders expressively, and put his 
 cup to his lips. 
 
 " O, Daddy," protested Dolly, " when I am your age 
 I mean to have all my wits about me, and all my feelings 
 fresh as now. Not a bit of the gilt edge is to be rubbed 
 off them." 
 
 " But they will be tarnished, Dolly," said her father, 
 setting down his cup and wiping his lips with his napkin. 
 " Another piece of toast, please." 
 
 " You expect me to believe that ? " 
 
 " No, not now. I am just telling you." 
 
 " So that you can say, ' I told you so,' when I come to 
 the tarnished age?" 
 
 " I guess so." 
 
 Dolly carefully gathered into her spoon the last drop 
 of the rich cream in her bowl, and having disposed of it, 
 pushed away the empty dish with rather unnecessary 
 vigor, as she answered. 
 
 " Honestly, father, if I believed that, I should not want 
 to live past the high pulse beat stage. To grow old out- 
 side is bad enough but inside, too. Ugh ! " 
 
 Dolly shuddered dramatically as if the thermometer 
 had suddenly dropped below zero, and she bit into her 
 toast with a savage little gesture as if crunching an im- 
 aginary foe. Then lifting her cup of coffee as high as 
 her head, she said : 
 
 " Here's to the pulse beats, and may they beat warm 
 and high under the black veil of grief and the white snows 
 of age!"
 
 io6 THE TRELOARS 
 
 As her father went calmly on with his breakfast with- 
 out paying any attention to her affected tirade, she called 
 out in her imperious way: 
 
 " Come, Daddy, come, drink to the toast. You are not 
 going to be let off, you know." 
 
 " Dolly, you are ridiculous." 
 
 " Father, the same to you with all due respect." 
 
 With that she touched her cup against his, spilling a 
 little of her coffee in her eagerness. 
 
 " There, now ! See what you've done with your fool- 
 ishness. Be sure you tell Hannah that it was not I who 
 soiled her clean table-cloth." 
 
 " Certainly ! " answered Dolly, slipping her napkin un- 
 der the cloth. " I bear all my own burdens. But you 
 are very hard to educate. The trouble is that you want 
 to reduce everything to a system, Daddy, an inflexible 
 system, and people can't be systematized, even in an in- 
 sane asylum. The straight jackets are of a different size, 
 aren't they?" 
 
 " O, yes, you won't have any difficulty in finding a fit, 
 Dolly." 
 
 " Well, I call that a poor, tasteless, decrepit, thin, vine- 
 gary old joke and it reflects on you from all points of 
 the compass. Am I not your offspring? Aren't you 
 ashamed ? " 
 
 "Of my offspring?" 
 
 " No ! Of your joke, if such a poor peezy-weezy, 
 asthmatical thing can be called a joke." 
 
 " Not a bit of it. Like my offspring, it's a poor thing, 
 but my own." 
 
 " That's better, even if it is borrowed from Touch- 
 stone. You're improving ! " 
 
 Dolly loved her father with passionate devotion, but 
 she had not escaped the influence of Margaret Treloar's 
 idealism. It spoke to her quick bright mind and im- 
 petuous young heart with a more powerful, more per- 
 suasive voice than her father's calm reason: for youth
 
 THE TRELOARS 107 
 
 is not so much in need of reason, as of a large boundless 
 faith. 
 
 " Hello, Dick ! Mighty glad to see you What do you 
 think this girl of mine asked me, to-day ? " 
 
 " I haven't the slightest idea," said Dick, smiling at 
 Dolly as he shook hands with her father. 
 
 " She has been asking if I didn't miss you." 
 
 " That's lovely of her, and I feel very grateful to her 
 for thinking that I can be missed." 
 
 Dolly's face was crimson, as Dick held out his hand 
 to her, and the nimble tongue that had chattered like a 
 magpie all day long, and could not be quiet even with an 
 effort, was as mute now as the floor beneath her feet. 
 It was Margaret who came to her rescue, by calling at- 
 tention to herself, saying that she did not know just how 
 to explain a feeling which evidently belonged especially 
 to women ; it was a kind of sheltering, protecting instinct 
 like that which the mother hen feels when night comes 
 on. She wants all her chickens under her wings, and she 
 is uneasy and unhappy until they are there. She has no 
 faith in bushes and brambles and tufts of grass; but 
 under her wings, she knows that it is warm and safe. As 
 for herself she never missed Dick so painfully as in the 
 evenings. Then, she was always wondering where he 
 was, if on the street, or in his room, writing, thinking, or 
 wearying (she loved the good old Scotch word, it was so 
 expressive) for all of them at home as they were weary- 
 ing for him. 
 
 Treloar burst into a hearty laugh, exclaiming : 
 
 "Isn't that a woman all over? Always wants the 
 man she loves, to be under her wings! Dick, tell your 
 sister what a good time you were having every evening, 
 and how glad you were to be rid of the tickling of her 
 feathers in your neck." 
 
 At last the chance to speak of what had been absorb- 
 ing him presented itself naturally, and Dick, with a bright
 
 io8 THE TRELOARS 
 
 color mantling over his face and a smile illuminating 
 it, said: 
 
 " I missed Margaret as much as she missed me, and one 
 afternoon last week I had the hardest work in the world 
 to resist the temptation of flying home to get under her 
 wings; but I must confess that my evenings have been 
 very agreeably passed in the theater. It is part of my 
 work to write up the plays, and I've had the good for- 
 tune to hear the best rendition of a popular play that I 
 ever heard. I have discovered an actress who has the 
 subtlest intuition of what is fine and strong in human na- 
 ture, and knows how to reproduce it marvelously. She 
 is really a genius. I wonder if we couldn't make up a 
 family party to hear her. She is going to be in Oakland 
 next Tuesday night. Wouldn't you all like to hear her? 
 Margaret, you haven't been to a play for a long time, 
 nor you, neither, have you, Dolly ? " 
 
 " O, don't make it next Tuesday night," exclaimed 
 Catherine. " That's the night that I have an engagement 
 for the Phi Kappa dance, and I can't get out of it. Do, 
 please, put it off for a week, and I'll see to it that I have 
 no engagement for that night." 
 
 " All right ! " answered Dick. " Now don't you, any 
 of you, forget it. I'll make arrangements for meeting 
 you somewhere, and I'll rent a box." 
 
 After dinner, Dick proposed a little walk up the Tun- 
 nel Road to see the sunset. It was one of his pleasures 
 which he missed in San Francisco. But his father and 
 the doctor had already begun their interminable discus- 
 sion, and refused to stir from their chairs. Catherine 
 was expecting a friend. Margaret excused herself on the 
 score of attending to her duties as hostess, and pro- 
 posed that Dolly accompany Dick, on condition that they 
 were back before night-fall. 
 
 " O, no, we are not going to bind ourselves by any 
 conditions, are we, Dolly ? " cried Dick, seizing his hat. 
 
 " Then you must take Dolly's cloak along with you. 
 It gets chilly after sunset," answered Margaret.
 
 THE TRELOARS 109 
 
 " Where is your cloak, Dolly ? " 
 
 " I'll get it, Dick. It's hanging in the hall." 
 
 But Dick was already there, and shouting: 
 
 " Which is yours, Dolly, the blue one or the brown ? " 
 
 " The blue one." 
 
 "All right! I have it," and he came out with a long 
 navy blue mantle hanging over his arm. " Now, you are 
 not to worry about us, Margaret, no matter how late we 
 are. We'll get home about the time father and the doc- 
 tor are ready to suspend their discussion of the ebb and 
 flow of materialism." 
 
 With that he started off with Dolly, happy as a boy let 
 loose from school. 
 
 " Suspend the discussion is a very happy phrase," said 
 Dolly, adjusting her hat more securely on her head. " I 
 can't imagine its ever ending, and I can't help admiring 
 immensely the freshness and enthusiasm with which it is 
 always renewed." 
 
 " Isn't it funny ? " laughed Dick. " It has got to be 
 an intellectual game with them, a kind of argumentative 
 chess, in which by some new and unexpected move, one 
 intends to check-mate the other. But what would they 
 do, if the game were ended ? I really think father would 
 go into a decline, if he ever succeeded in quite convincing 
 your father that he was right. They act as whetstones 
 on each other, to sharpen each other's wits. It would 
 be an immense pity if they were to grind the blades quite 
 away; but really there isn't any danger of that. When 
 they part, each is only more solidly confirmed in his own 
 opinion." 
 
 " That is what an argument is for, isn't it ? " asked 
 Dolly, looking at him with a roguish smile. " You don't 
 argue about things that you are quite sure of, do you ? " 
 
 " Of course you don't," assented Dick. " You only 
 argue to make yourself surer, and to find out which of 
 your opinions are weak and won't stand a hard thwack. 
 O, well, let them argue, we don't care, do we? You and 
 I know that this sunlight and this air are infinitely bet-
 
 I io THE TRELOARS 
 
 ter than a corner of the house. What do you say to a 
 climb up Grizzly Peak? I know a short cut over the 
 hills. Are you in the humor for a long walk, and some 
 good, stiff climbing? " 
 
 " I shouid love it above all things," was the enthusias- 
 tic reply. " I have been wanting to do something of that 
 sort all day." 
 
 " Have you, really ? That's fine ! Do you know, 
 Dolly, there are times when I'd rather walk than do any- 
 thing else. It rests me, when I am tired ; and it restores 
 my equilibrium when I have a superfluous amount of 
 energy, and don't know what to do with it." 
 
 " Don't know what to do with it ? " repeated Dolly in 
 surprise. " It seems to me that you have the finest out- 
 let in the world for your energy, you who can write and 
 pour out all that you think and feel in fitting phrase. 
 But to feel and to have thoughts struggling in you which 
 can't take a definite shape well, that's another thing, 
 and that is what / know." 
 
 Dolly was flushing brightly as she spoke, for it was 
 the first time that she had ever revealed so much of herself 
 to this companion of her childhood and youth, who always 
 treated her as if she had been a younger sister to whom 
 it had never occurred to him that he might talk seriously 
 and be understood. 
 
 " You, Dolly ? " he exclaimed in surprise. " I thought 
 girls " 
 
 " Had no thoughts ! " interrupted Dolly, quickly. 
 " Well, we do, only we have great trouble in making any 
 one believe that we amount to anything, except just to 
 play with." 
 
 " Well, Dolly, if it will be any consolation to you, I'd 
 like to assure you that you haven't a monopoly of that 
 trouble. We all have it, whose thoughts do not happen 
 to trot in harness with the accepted trotters. But, if that 
 is your step, there's nothing to do but to refuse to trot with 
 them, and go your own pace alone. That is what father 
 has done. I've heard him criticised as not having got
 
 THE TRELOARS in 
 
 much out of life, but he's got character, individuality; 
 and I've come to believe that what the world sometimes 
 calls failure may be infinitely more respectable and more 
 worth while than what it calls success." 
 
 " Yes, I think so, too," said Dolly, gravely. " But I 
 don't think that we should desert the high way, just be- 
 cause it is so well traveled, and we don't like the dust 
 and the crowd. The path we make for ourselves must 
 have some particular beauty and charm to justify our 
 taking it. Your father has found such a path. But take 
 Max Gietmann, for example, he has such a deadly fear 
 of being like anybody else, that he prefers being either 
 grotesque or hideous. I think that's silly, don't you ? " 
 
 " Silly ! Yes ! But I don't think that's exactly the 
 right word for Max. I believe, now, that he is des- 
 perately in earnest, and, at least, he thinks that he thinks 
 right." 
 
 " But that does not make it right." 
 
 " Certainly not ; but it is an extenuating circumstance. 
 Poor Max ! " 
 
 " Poor Max ! " repeated Dolly, her red lip curling in 
 scorn. " What makes you say that, as if you pitied him ? 
 I don't pity him in the least." 
 
 " Don't you, Dolly ? " said Dick, looking down with an 
 amused smile at the lovely flushed face. 
 
 " No, I don't ! " answered Dolly with energy, " and 
 please, Dick, do take me seriously, don't smile. I hate 
 to see a young man act like an old one. It is so stupid to 
 begin life backward and think you're going forward." 
 Dolly was speaking energetically, having long ago deter- 
 mined that at the first opportunity she had, she would 
 speak out her mind quite plainly on this subject. She 
 could not have told exactly why it was that she so in- 
 tensely disapproved of Max, for her disapproval was the 
 instinctive recoil of a healthy nature from a moral mal- 
 ady, but she knew very well what she disliked in him. 
 
 "You are right, Dolly. Youth has no business with 
 the gray tints of age. Its colors are all of the rainbow,
 
 112 THE TRELOARS 
 
 and you and I are young. Let's be true to our colors. 
 Look at them reflected in the sky, yonder. Isn't it splen- 
 did! Doesn't it make you feel richer than Rockefeller, 
 not merely to know that it is beautiful, anybody can know 
 that, but to feel that it is to have it touch some silent 
 chord in your nature and waken it to music ! " 
 
 He was silent a moment, his eyes shining, lip and nos- 
 tril quivering, all the artist in him responding to beauty. 
 Dolly turned her eyes from the glowing sky to the glow- 
 ing face, and it seemed to her that there was no compari- 
 son between the loveliness of his speaking countenance, 
 and the loveliness of the brilliant sky. An exquisite sen- 
 sation thrilled her, and the convulsive little shiver that 
 ran over her, shook the arm that he had within his own, 
 and noticing it, he turned to her quickly: 
 
 "Are you cold, Dolly?" 
 
 She drew her arm quickly away from his, and all 
 the sunset colors were burning in her face. 
 
 " Not in the least," she answered. " It is only that the 
 music sings in me, too, and I can't express it as you do ; 
 so it dances in my blood." 
 
 " Bless your dear little heart, Dolly ! That was beauti- 
 fully said," answered Dick enthusiastically. " You know 
 I am getting rather sensitive about letting myself go ex- 
 cept with Margaret. She always understands; but to 
 stand in the presence of a glory like that in company 
 with one who can't feel it, is like getting a slap in the 
 face." 
 
 The memory of the humiliating experiences with 
 Cressy and Max occurred to him, and he went on ex- 
 pansively : 
 
 " There seems to be growing up with the multiplication 
 of things, an exclusive admiration for the devices of hu- 
 man ingenuity, and I, who prefer a mountain or a glimpse 
 of the ocean to an automobile, begin to feel very old- 
 fashioned at twenty-three. Do you mind my talking 
 about some things that interest me very much, just now? " 
 
 He had taken her arm, and they were walking along 
 a broad ridge on the crest of a grassy hill.
 
 THE TRELOARS 113 
 
 " I should take it as such a favor," said Dolly, feeling 
 as if life were enchantment, and as if she had sloughed 
 her childhood, and had suddenly seen her narrow little 
 valley of girlhood broaden into the wide tableland of 
 womanhood. Then he told her of his secret hopes and 
 ambitions, his ardent desire that America should stand, 
 not for the triumph of mediocrity and materialism, the 
 great weakness and danger of democracies, but for the 
 triumph of principle, the triumph of an enlightened spirit- 
 uality which can recognize the superiority of the ideals of 
 the past, independent of any origin which they may have. 
 
 " What difference does it make," he asked, " whether 
 these principles and inspirations are rooted in supersti- 
 tion or not? Do I quarrel with the whiteness of the lily, I 
 and refuse to acknowledge that it is beautiful and sweet ' 
 and pure because the plant from which it blossoms has 
 its roots in the mud? We are passing through a stupid 
 phase of rationalism which persists in looking at nothing 
 but the roots and the mud, and wants to make a new 
 judgment of the flower based on the analysis of the mud. 
 All our generous and pure instincts are traced back to 
 brute selfishness. What of it? Are they any the less 
 generous and pure ? All the principles of morality in the 
 Christian world are said to be founded upon the irrational 
 visions of a man who called himself God. What of it? 
 Are the moral principles of a great moral genius not as 
 right and true as the poetical intuitions of a Dante or a 
 Shakespeare? I think it is time we were recognizing 
 that. I think it is time to stop dabbling in the mud and j 
 to begin to enjoy the flowers again; only it may need 
 some great national calamity to burn the habit out of us 
 and out of Europe, too, for it is everywhere. We are so 
 infatuated with what we call realities and by that we 
 always mean mud and dirt, as if the flower did not exist 
 that we are in danger of swinging back to savagery, 
 in order to get more of them." 
 
 Dolly, who was as ignorant of the trend of modern 
 thought, as if she had belonged to the eighteenth century,
 
 114 THE TRELOARS 
 
 did not quite understand Dick, and being too frank to 
 pretend to do so, honestly admitted that she had not been 
 able to follow him. 
 
 " Well, I mean simply this," he explained. " We seem 
 to have exhausted our power of being happy in being 
 good, and finding our pleasures in simple and natural 
 ways, so we turn to the extraordinary, the wicked, the 
 curious, the monstrous; and when we aren't quite idiotic 
 enough to make a mess of our own lives, we hunger and 
 thirst to read about other people's messes ; and we dig up 
 all our old virtues by the roots, and smell the roots, and 
 say we don't believe the virtues. Do you understand me 
 now?" 
 
 " I think I do, and that's just what I meant about 
 Max. He is one of your messers, and whatever he 
 should write or paint, if he were a writer or an artist, 
 would be a mess, a botch, a monstrosity, something that 
 might seem true to him, but it would be so exceptional 
 that it would be, or at any rate ought to be, repulsive 
 and abnormal to the rest of us." 
 
 Dick smiled. Evidently Dolly had taken a strong dis- 
 like to Max, and was anxious to make him share it. 
 But, however strongly he might disapprove of Max's 
 opinions, he had that form of loyalty to his friend, per- 
 haps peculiarly masculine, which would not allow him 
 to admit that his friend's idiosyncrasies were an essential 
 part of his character. 
 
 " I think you are a little hard on Max, Dolly. His 
 peculiar views of things are, I think, a passing phase, 
 perhaps the effect of influences abroad. Then again, he 
 may just want to bluff the public into taking notice of 
 him. He's a young fellow of talent, and he knows that 
 the public is a great baby and likes its rattle and likes 
 to play in the dirt. But once he gets the public ear, I 
 think he'll come out of all that. But Dolly, I promise 
 you this, if ever I succeed and I may not, you know ; but 
 if ever I do, it will not be in that way. I won't shake 
 a rattle, and I won't stir up the odor in a sewer. 
 There!"
 
 THE TRELOARS 115 
 
 Dick turned to face her, as he made this declaration. 
 For the time being, he was oblivious of her, except as an 
 ear for what was deeply stirring him, his task, his sense 
 of its importance, his consciousness of its difficulties, 
 and the firm bracing of himself to meet them. But to 
 Dolly, he and his task were one, something wonderful. 
 All the youth in her, all the mute mysterious yearnings 
 of dawning womanhood, were setting in a tide towards 
 him, and unconsciously they spoke in her glowing face 
 and moistening eyes. 
 
 " O, it is glorious ! glorious ! to hear you talk like 
 that," she said. " I am going to confess to you now, 
 that I was so afraid that you might come under Max's 
 influence and feel that you, too, must flout and jeer at 
 things that mean so much to me no, I don't mean me, 
 only," she corrected herself hurriedly, " I mean all that 
 gives distinction to human life and makes it more than 
 the life of a beast. You must not think that because 
 father always argues on the side of things that can be 
 seen and touched, that he denies the unseen and the 
 intangible. You know that your father sometimes calls 
 him an inverted hypocrite, because he lives in the things 
 of the spirit, and upholds a creed contrary to him; but 
 I think he acts in the right way, from what you said 
 of the lily and the roots. He looks at the lily. It seems 
 to me that there ought to be some reconciliation between 
 the extremes of spirituality and materialism, don't you 
 think so?" 
 
 " Indeed I do, and that's the problem of our generation. 
 We have oscillated between the two extremes which are 
 untenable. Puritanism, asceticism, the denial of the 
 claims of the body on one hand, and gross materialism 
 that denies the soul and its hunger for liberation from 
 the tyranny of things on the other. The war on both 
 sides has been intensely bitter, and neither side will con- 
 cede anything to the other; and there is a great army of 
 neutrals to whom the question on either side means noth- 
 ing at all, and life to them is only a question of self-
 
 n6 THE TRELOARS 
 
 assertion, and, so we have a hopeless confusion of all 
 sorts of assertions a kind of intellectual anarchy 
 that " 
 
 Dick started violently, for just at this point, Dolly 
 uttered a piercing scream, and her face which a mo- 
 ment before had been glowing like a crimson poppy, in 
 the sun, was blanched with terror. 
 
 " Why, Dolly ! What's the matter? " 
 
 The warm blood rushed into her face again, and she 
 laughed hysterically. 
 
 " Do forgive me, Dick, for making such a fuss ; a 
 snake ran across my foot. See! there it goes through 
 the grass. No, don't kill it, please! Let it go. I know 
 that it is so silly to be afraid of snakes, so many of 
 them are perfectly harmless but I can't help it. They 
 chill the very blood in my veins, when I see them." 
 
 She was trembling all over like a frightened child, and 
 he put his hand on hers, as it rested on his arm and petted 
 it in a reassuring way. 
 
 " Yes, they are nasty things," he said. " Margaret 
 hates them, too. How cold your hands are, Dolly! I 
 think it's time to throw this cape about you. There! 
 isn't that better? And see, the fog is commencing to 
 creep up. I hadn't noticed it. Well, all good things 
 come to an end. I am afraid we must go back, Dolly 
 dear." 
 
 He said the last words with an involuntary lingering 
 caress in his voice, not meant particularly for her, but 
 born of the overflow of tenderness in him. But she 
 took it to herself, and her young heart was filled with 
 gratitude. She could not speak for a while; and when 
 she did, she cleared her throat, and spoke disparagingly of 
 herself and her fright ; assured him, too, that though she 
 hated snakes, she loved the fog, and was not at all afraid 
 of being lost in it ; that she had wandered so often over 
 the hills, that her feet could find their way in spite of 
 the gray billowy masses, without the aid of her eyes. 
 " And sometimes, I like to feel myself wrapped up in the
 
 THE TRELOARS 117 
 
 fog all the world suddenly vanished, and I know that 
 it will lift like a curtain, and show me my world again. 
 It is a delightful little oscillation between truth and 
 poetry. You don't know how much I get out of it." 
 
 " Which do you like the best, truth or poetry? " 
 
 " I can't tell. That depends upon my mood. I 
 shouldn't like to do without either, would you? " 
 
 " No, but if I were obliged to choose, I should 
 choose " 
 
 " Poetry ! " interrupted Dolly, eagerly. 
 
 " No, not at all. I should choose truth, because I 
 could always make a little poetry out of it if I wanted to." 
 
 " I should, too," said Dolly ; but had he given a dif- 
 ferent reply, it would have been all one to Dolly ; for the 
 old, old spell was upon her the spell which melts in- 
 dividuality like wax, and molds it into the form of an- 
 other the spell which made her say from her heart 
 when they parted that night : 
 
 " I thank you so much for letting me walk with you. 
 It was a pleasure that I shall never, never forget." 
 
 And she never will not even when her dark hair 
 whitens, and her cheeks and lips have lost their brilliant 
 bloom, and other memories have faded away in the mists 
 of the silent years. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 WHILE love was flushing the world with its warm 
 roseate tints for some of his friends, poor Max was 
 clouded in the Cimmerian darkness of disgust and hatred. 
 His Dawn had no sunlight, but in accordance with his 
 principles, the sunlight was not necessary. He meant to 
 protest vigorously against all that the world holds dear; 
 he meant to shock, kick, bite his way into public notice. 
 He had the profoundest contempt for the superficial cult- 
 ure of his age. He knew how easily the public can be 
 hypnotized into accepting anything, accompanied by a
 
 n8 THE TRELOARS 
 
 sufficient amount of flashy rhetoric, prolonged until it 
 reverberates from all sides ; but when a newly discovered 
 illustrator brought him the first draught of the cover 
 design for the Dawn, he recoiled in horror. 
 
 " What the devil do you call that ? Do you take me 
 for a fool ? " he blurted out. 
 
 " No, sir," replied the artist with aplomb, " I take you 
 for one of the most intelligent men I ever met. That 
 is why I have the confidence and the boldness to bring to 
 you probably the first unique specimen exhibited in Amer- 
 ica, of a new and rational form of art, destined to take 
 the place of the old illusions of the senses which disgrace 
 the art galleries of the world." 
 
 " Now, don't begin any of that palaver ! " interrupted 
 Max. 
 
 The artist, not in the least abashed, smiled in a half- 
 patronizing way, as he said: 
 
 " Mr. Gietmann, I only ask of you, now, what you 
 are about to ask of the reading public, in the first issue 
 of your illuminating Dawn, and that is the right to a 
 hearing. Am I wrong in presuming that the right is 
 mine ? " 
 
 Max felt himself caught in his own trap, and as there 
 was no other way out than to submit he threw himself 
 back in his chair, and said curtly : 
 
 " Go on ! What do you call the damn mess ? " 
 
 The artist smiled sweetly and continued volubly: 
 
 " Excuse me, sir, not a ' damn mess,' but the dynamic 
 decomposition of a modern poet." 
 
 " The hell you do ! " roared Max, looking like an angry 
 bull. 
 
 This time, the artist laughed aloud. 
 
 " You will pardon my mirth, sir," he said, " but your 
 delicious emphasis confirms me in the belief that I have 
 really produced a masterpiece, something extraordinary, 
 something that cannot be received with indifference, but 
 must shout its existence from the house-tops, and be read 
 by him who runs. That is exactly what I wished to do.
 
 THE TRELOARS 119 
 
 It is the fate of every new movement in literature, music, 
 art, science, and religion to be received with scorn and 
 ridicule and hatred whose bitterness is precisely in pro- 
 portion to the vitality which it has. If the new move- 
 ment has not the vigorous vitality of genuine novelty, if 
 it cannot create opposition, before it creates disciples, it 
 is a feeble and unnecessary innovation, destined to perish 
 at its birth. I have carefully read every word of your 
 admirable introduction to the Dawn. Every sentiment 
 in it finds an echo in my heart and in my judgment. 
 Now, sir, the great artists on canvas, who represent this 
 new movement, have none of the vestiges of atavism 
 you decry. If the new poet still feels himself jagged a 
 little at the corners of his mouth by the thrashed straw 
 of the past, the artist has spit it all out. He has opened 
 his mouth figuratively speaking, to its full extent 
 and " 
 
 " Slobbered all over his canvas ! " sarcastically re- 
 marked Max, who was listening to the man with curious 
 amazement at his audacity. He had encountered a good 
 deal of bluffing in his time, but he never had seen any- 
 thing quite like this. It began to interest him. 
 
 The artist, still unabashed, smiled, bowed politely, and 
 said: 
 
 " I really must congratulate you on your felicitous 
 phrase. I should have been grievously disappointed had 
 you received my work of art with appreciation and ap- 
 plause. It would have demonstrated infallibly that I was 
 speaking to the atavistic desire for definite form and 
 outline, the childish desire that the representation of 
 a thing should bear some resemblance to the thing rep- 
 resented. Common sense, sir, has been the enemy of 
 progress ever since man emerged from the darkness of 
 the cave. But we have progressed in spite of its bale- 
 ful influence; in spite of it, we have founded a religion 
 denying its existence, and now, we have founded an art, 
 denying and defying its existence. We, too, affirm that 
 spirit is everything, and matter but one of its CQuntless
 
 120 THE TRELOARS 
 
 illusions. Therefore, taking up art, not in the vulgar 
 spirit of common sense which would make it merely an 
 artificial record of the sensuous delight which men nat- 
 urally take in the so-called beauty of the visible world 
 but taking it up in a new intellectual and spiritual con- 
 ception of it, as a record of man's highest scientific de- 
 ductions, we have produced something which brings the 
 theories of science within the scope of vision. We have 
 painted the abstract, we have carved motion, we have 
 made the dynamic perceptible in the static. No longer 
 confined to the limited realm of the beautiful and the 
 good, as the past has conceived it, we have thrown wide 
 open the doors of the intellect and we have said : ' Enter 
 ye poor in spirit and ye who slobber and whine ! Enter, 
 ye whose souls have wandered in darkness, hugging your 
 sins in secret lest they bring shame to you in the day- 
 light ; learn of us the new gospel of good tidings ! There 
 is no shame, there is no evil, there is no good ! ' ' 
 
 Here Max coughed and moved uneasily in his chair. 
 The voluble audacity of the man was so admirable in its 
 way that he had been listening with amazement, but at 
 this point, the ideas which he himself had been pro- 
 mulgating took on such a ludicrous coloring from the lips 
 of the mountebank, that he began to feel very uncom- 
 fortable. The artist, unconscious of any inner protest 
 in his listener went on rapidly, as if he were reciting 
 something he had learned by heart. 
 
 " As for myself, my forte is dynamism. I am trying 
 to put the philosophy of Bergson on canvas. I wish to 
 express to the feeble sense of vision the intellectual re- 
 volt from the static illusion. I am painting the percep- 
 tions of the sixth sense. To the unsensed eye, (excuse 
 this word I mean the eye that has not attained to the 
 perception of the sixth sense), my work may seem a hope- 
 less confusion ; but to the eye aided by the intellectual 
 vision of the sixth sense, it is a marvelous expression of 
 the Bergsonian philosophy. Here, sir, you have the dy- 
 namic decomposition of a modern poet."
 
 THE TRELOARS 121 
 
 At this, the artist produced his picture, and after look- 
 ing at it himself, with a puzzled expression, he said : 
 
 " No, excuse me. I sometimes get the labels mixed. 
 This is not the dynamic decomposition of a modern poet. 
 I have brought you instead the dynamic rhythm of a 
 woman's figure." 
 
 " God, what a picture ! " said Max. 
 
 " Isn't it magnificent ? " said the artist. " There's a 
 great deal more in labeling a picture than is ordinarily 
 imagined. I think this is stunning. We have had the 
 nude ad nauseam. Don't misunderstand me. It is not 
 a question of immorality. Every advanced thinker, now- 
 adays, knows that there is no such thing as immorality or 
 morality there's nothing but convenience and inconveni- 
 ence. But it is the monotony of the thing we object to. 
 Think of the miles of Venuses there are in the world. We 
 do the nude, too, but we don't do it so that you can recog- 
 nize it. Have you seen that colossal thing, The Nude de- 
 scending the Stairway? It is so magnificently done that 
 you can't tell the stairway from the nude, wonderfully 
 subtle effects ! I tell you the soul needs the shock of the 
 unknown, the horrible, even the colossal and unfathom- 
 able depths of the absurd to resuscitate its subtle vibra- 
 tions in this cluttered age of ours. But this is not the 
 particular form of dynamism that I had designed for the 
 Dawn. We can reserve this for a later number." 
 
 He put the design back in his portfolio and drew forth 
 another hopeless confusion of daubs, lines and scrawls, 
 in one corner of which could be seen the semblance of a 
 leering human eye. 
 
 " Here is the picture I want. I am not mistaken this 
 time. These marvelous interpretations of dynamism are 
 so subtly, almost inextricably interwoven, that to the un- 
 trained eye, the same name seems as applicable to one as 
 to another; and to be perfectly frank, they are to a cer- 
 tain extent interchangeable. The old style of art which 
 frankly, flatly, boldly, and without mystery represents 
 something to the eye which the eye can recognize as
 
 122 THE TRELOARS 
 
 familiar, is going to be entirely superseded by the art of 
 reason, the art of the unseen. It illustrates the mind's 
 natural progress from the concrete to the abstract, and 
 it is the glory of our age to " 
 
 " O, well, that'll do ! " said Max sharply. " You can't 
 talk me into believing that the invisible is visible and in- 
 visible at the same time, and that the dynamic is static 
 and dynamic at the same time, because I happen to know 
 the meaning of the words. I also know that damn fool- 
 ishness is damn foolishness, whether you call it dynamic 
 or not; but your impudence and impotence are so in- 
 credibly colossal that I should like to experiment with 
 it a little, just to see how far the public can be bluffed 
 into taking it seriously. But first of all, I want to ask 
 you on your honor, if you happen to feel it convenient 
 to have such a thing, do you really believe all that damn 
 rot you've been talking? " 
 
 The artist burst into a roar of laughter then suddenly 
 straightening his face and wiping his moist eyes with the 
 back of his hand, he said : 
 
 " Mr. Gietmann, when you have rung a bell at a door, 
 or gently rapped at it, and you can't get in, and your 
 three square meals a day depend on your getting in, you 
 throw stones at the door, or break it down with a ham- 
 mer." 
 
 Here he shut one eye tight, and screwed up one corner 
 of his mouth. 
 
 " Now to be absolutely frank with you, I have tried to 
 get public notice in a legitimate way : that is, I have 
 painted things as I thought they ought to be painted to 
 be recognizable; and nobody ever paid any attention to 
 me. I had to dine off the steam that hung around the 
 entrance to basement restaurants. I bummed around in 
 Venice, Munich, Paris and I saw fellows doing the most 
 atrocious things that would set the teeth of a goose on 
 edge, if it had any, or make a monkey go and drown him- 
 self because he looked so much like a man; and they 
 got their names in the paper, and their hands in other
 
 THE TRELOARS 123 
 
 people's pockets, and something solid on their plates 
 for dinner ; so I said to myself, bluff's the game, old boy. 
 Throw your modesty to the sheep and the winds, learn 
 some sort of what you, more expressively than elegantly, 
 call damn-foolishness. But to come to the point ! " 
 
 " Yes, let's come to the point," said Max impatiently. 
 
 " Well, the point is this, that for the general public 
 the word to conjure with is progress, and ' old fogy,' is 
 a word they hate like the devil. With that word you 
 can make 'em all turn and squirm and go in any direction 
 you like. And then the public is so damnably helpless 
 when it comes to a question of art and literature ; it does 
 not know what to say." 
 
 Max looked silently at the man for a while, a peculiar 
 sarcastic smile playing about his lips. At last he said: 
 
 " Well, I have no more reason than you to love the 
 world, and I am no more afraid of its hard shell. You 
 have been frank with me, and so I'll be frank with you. 
 I am inquisitive. I should like to see to what degree of 
 pure idiocy a man may descend with the public, and get 
 credit for genius and originality." 
 
 " To an unfathomable degree, I assure you," was the 
 quick response, " if you only keep your face straight all 
 the way down. Laugh out of the corner of your eye, 
 give yourself away as I have done with you, and it's all 
 up with you; but a grave face and a loose tongue will 
 carry you anywhere. Shout through a megaphone, and 
 shout anything, it doesn't matter what, and they'll take 
 the noise for thought." 
 
 " Do you think you could accompany this ? " Max 
 hesitated, for the life of him he could not resist a con- 
 temptuous toss of his head and jerk of his thumb in the 
 direction of the smeared paper, and when he caught sight 
 of it again, he finished his question with the words, 
 " damn mess with an explanatory article in the style of 
 your address to me ? " 
 
 " Could I ? " replied the man joyfully ! " Why that's 
 my long suit. I should think I could. It's not a new 
 lingo, you know. I've tried it out before. It goes."
 
 124 THE TRELOARS 
 
 "Very well, bring in your essay to-morrow. Call it 
 futuristic art, or the art of the future, or anything that 
 will suggest a revolt from the present ; and we'll dish it up 
 to the public. What time is it getting to be? Six 
 o'clock ! That's my dinner hour. Is it yours ? " 
 
 *' My dinner hour is when I have a quarter to spare, 
 or an invitation to dine." 
 
 " There's a quarter ! " said Max, handing him a piece 
 of silver. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 " O dear ! dear ! What in the world ever made me 
 promise to meet that boy at eleven o'clock ! " 
 
 Nita Normand groaned, as she put her hand under her 
 pillow to take out her watch and look at it. It was half- 
 past nine. Such a ridiculously early hour to get up ! A 
 heavy languor weighed upon her. She felt as if she could 
 sleep uninterruptedly, the whole day through. 
 
 " I won't go ! W r hy should I put myself out for him? " 
 But no sooner had she asked herself that question, than 
 there flashed over her the recollection of the masterly 
 eulogy which " the boy " had written about her, full of 
 delicate appreciation, such as she had never before re- 
 ceived. It had spoken not only to her vanity, but to her 
 ambition. It had been an unanswerable argument to her 
 critical manager whom her wilfulness had often dis- 
 pleased. She had really been very grateful for it, and 
 she had not hesitated a moment when the young journalist 
 had asked her, yesterday, as an especial favor to lunch 
 with him, to-day. She had even added with enthusiasm : 
 " On one condition, that is, that we have an early lunch 
 at half -past eleven, and then go out to the park on the 
 street car. I haven't had my lungs filled with good fresh 
 air for a long time. I want the sun to shine on me." 
 
 How warmly his face had flushed with pleasure at the 
 homely wish; and they were to meet at Union Square,
 
 THE TRELOARS 125 
 
 because, knowing that that would be more convenient 
 for him, she had been considerate enough to insist upon 
 it. How well she knew what to say to please him ! He 
 was so ingenuous, so transparent, so young with the youth 
 that never grows old the youth of idealism ! She felt 
 herself centuries old in comparison with him. To her, 
 he was a child astray in a hostile world in which sooner 
 or later he would perish. She would save him as long 
 as she could she would save him, too, from herself, 
 for she knew very well the power which she had over him. 
 " Yes, I will save him, for he is Max's friend." She 
 found herself uttering the words aloud; and, as there is 
 a breath of exhilaration in every generous thought, she 
 sat upright with sudden energy, and slipped out of bed to 
 make sure of herself, for her impulses were apt to be 
 transitory and effectless. 
 
 She went into her bath-room, turned on the water, 
 and while it was running, seized a hand-mirror and looked 
 at herself. Her hair was in curl-papers, her face had an 
 oily look from the liberal cream bath she had given it to 
 remove the paint and powder of the night before, and 
 there were some tiny creases on her left cheek near the 
 eye. A wrinkle is a tragedy to a woman whose power is 
 beauty. Nita opened a bureau drawer, took out a soft 
 rag and carefully wiped her face. Then she began gently 
 massaging her cheek, until all traces of the lines had 
 left it. 
 
 She was wide awake now. She was fighting the most 
 remorseless enemy of a lovely woman time. Yet, she 
 was not old, only thirty-two, in the very prime and heyday 
 of a woman's power ; but she had lived much in thirty-two 
 years, if life is to be counted by heart-throbs and not by 
 the passing of time. Restless, ambitious, daring she 
 had always been that, quick-willed, too, full of artful co- 
 quetry, dreading nothing in the world so much as to be 
 bored, feeling a sensuous delight in beautiful things in 
 the touch of velvet, the glow of rich colors, the grace of 
 sinuous lines inclined to sentimentality, too, viewing
 
 126 THE TRELOARS 
 
 life through the medium of an intensely self-centered 
 personality, weaving a golden haze about herself at- 
 tributing to herself all the virtues and all the heroisms, 
 had destiny placed her, where she could have exercised 
 them. Then a great blow had shattered her illusions. 
 She had given herself and her love as freely as water 
 to a parvenu, handsome, bold, coarse, using his newly 
 acquired riches to gratify his caprices, incapable of fidel- 
 ity because he had passed his life in exploiting the weak- 
 nesses of others. In the early days of their union, she 
 had felt a keen delight in subjecting her self-will to his 
 tyranny, feeling sure that she could assert it at any time. 
 That was her mistake. He had abandoned her as sud- 
 denly as he had taken her up. Any woman might have 
 been to him what she had been, and the degradation of 
 that thought, and the revulsion of feeling that followed 
 it were horrible. It took years for the throb and the 
 sting of that humiliation to deaden. But when the pain 
 was benumbed, she was another woman. She had de- 
 veloped a personality, fluent, sympathetic, yet at the same 
 time braced by an unalterable resolve never again to 
 wreck her happiness through the weakness of her heart. 
 She made herself a consummate actress, but she had 
 not yet won the recognition which she craved. She had 
 no striking eccentricities; her interpretations were too 
 subtly true to speak to the galleries which demand dash 
 and brilliancy. Then, too, she had been unfortunate in 
 her managers. Associated with men who were following 
 and not directing public taste, she had been obliged to 
 submit to irritating criticism from men who were her 
 superiors in position and her inferiors in good taste and 
 intuitive insight. But she had never lost faith in her- 
 self. Somewhere, some day, some one would discover 
 her. This was the one faith that had survived the ship- 
 wreck of many faiths, and lo! to-day the prophetic 
 insight had proved to be true. To be sure, she was 
 disappointed that her discoverer was a novice himself and 
 could not yet speak with an authoritative voice. But at
 
 THE TRELOARS 127 
 
 any rate, a breach, even though a small one, had been 
 made in the blank wall of apathy which hemmed her in, 
 and that was something decidedly worth while. 
 
 " Yes, it was decidedly worth while ! " she said aloud 
 to herself, erect before the mirror, refreshed by her bath, 
 and applying the last faint touch of rouge to her cheeks. 
 Then she scrutinized herself critically. " The boy " had 
 never seen her in daylight. She did not wish to shock 
 him with any suggestion of artificiality. She meant to 
 put off the actress to-day and put on the woman; she 
 smiled at the thought, half wondering, if that, too, were 
 not a role like the other, and just as difficult to play in 
 the presence of the unconscious freshness of youth. She 
 had the virtue of a well-dressed woman; pleased with 
 herself, she was in the fittest frame of mind to give pleas- 
 ure to others. 
 
 Of course, Dick was waiting for her in Union Square. 
 She saw him at once standing near a group of palms, but 
 she pretended not to see him, in order to find out whether 
 he would recognize her. How could she doubt it! He 
 hastened towards her, his hat in his hand, his whole face 
 seeming nothing but one broad smile! She put out her 
 hand, and he came near crushing it in the clasp of his 
 own. 
 
 " Have you been waiting long ? " 
 
 " Only half an hour." 
 
 " But I am very nearly on time. Look, it is only a 
 quarter of twelve." 
 
 She drew her open-faced watch from her purse, and 
 held it towards him. He looked at it ; he did not tell her 
 that he knew exactly what time it was, for he had been 
 looking at his own watch every five minutes, and that 
 the half-hour had seemed interminable. 
 
 " Are you hungry ? " she continued, and not giving him 
 time to reply went on : " because, if you aren't, suppose 
 we lunch out at the Cliff House, or in some little tavern 
 along the shore, where we can look out on the sea. 
 Wouldn't you like it?"
 
 128 THE TRELOARS 
 
 Dick assured her that nothing would delight him more 
 than that, and added : " I'll get an automobile." 
 
 " O, no, please don't," she cried, putting her hand on 
 his arm to detain him, as he started towards the street. 
 " You remember the bargain was a street car. I was in 
 a very serious automobile accident, a few weeks ago, and 
 my nerves haven't yet recovered from the shock. I am 
 afraid I shall never again feel safe in an auto." 
 
 "What a pity!" 
 
 " Isn't it ? I have a friend who once made herself sick 
 eating too much honey, and the very sight of it now 
 affects her with nausea. I used to think she had a very 
 stupid stomach to keep up a grudge like that ; but I under- 
 stand it, now. Do you know where to take a car ? " 
 
 He did know, and in a very few moments they were 
 sitting side by side on the front seat of an open electric 
 car, drinking in the fresh cool air and finding it delicious. 
 It was one of those rare sunny mornings in the San 
 Francisco summer time, when the gray fog does not hang 
 sullenly over its hills, nor the sharp wind blow keenly 
 from the ocean. With the susceptibility that made her 
 so good an actress, Nita gave herself up fully to the 
 charm of the morning, and to the youthful enthusi- 
 asm of her companion. Once, she put out her hand in 
 a little gesture of expansion, and he, so fully conscious 
 of her every look, and every motion, put out his hand to 
 clasp it, as if she had stretched it out to him, and then 
 quickly withdrew his own hand, as he saw that no such 
 intention had entered her mind. 
 
 " I am not going to talk," she said, " one can't talk 
 when it is necessary to shout to be heard. That is one 
 disadvantage of the street car." 
 
 However, they were not wholly silent during the long 
 ride. They spoke of their pleasure in the beauty of the 
 morning. They pointed out to each other from the sum- 
 mit of hills, lovely glimpses of sea and mountains on the 
 farther shore. They agreed that San Francisco was the 
 most cosmopolitan city in the world in that offhand way
 
 THE TRELOARS 129 
 
 in which we all generalize on insufficient data ; and under- 
 neath their surface chat, vibrated rhythmic melody of 
 joy in each other, a consciousness of harmony that made 
 their silence more eloquent than speech. 
 
 " It was so good of you to give me this immense pleas- 
 ure," said Dick, as he helped Nita off the car, at the end 
 of their journey. 
 
 " Not at all," answered Nita, " I am sorry to tell you 
 that I am very selfish ; and, if there had not been a pros- 
 pect of pleasure in it for me, I shouldn't have come. I 
 should have invented a headache, or a previous engage- 
 ment that had slipped my mind. Like all women, I am 
 very fertile in excuses of that kind." 
 
 Dick protested that he did not believe it, and that 
 he would let no one abuse her, not even herself. 
 
 " But I am not abusing myself. On the contrary, I 
 am showing you how clever a diplomat I am. Isn't 
 diplomacy the art of doing as you please, and making 
 your adversary believe that you are doing as he pleases, 
 or that if you aren't, that you regret it immensely ? " 
 
 Dick laughed. " Yes, I guess that's the essence of 
 diplomacy." 
 
 " Of course it is. And so, if I were a man, I should 
 very much distrust the woman who made me believe in her 
 excuses ; but I should never betray my distrust to her, lest 
 she should resort to another ruse. Ah! that sea air is de- 
 licious, isn't it ? " 
 
 She stopped suddenly, facing the ocean. The surf was 
 rolling in and breaking its foam on the shore. The far 
 sea was dancing and sparkling in the sunlight. The salt 
 air was tonic and life-giving. 
 
 " Delicious ! " she repeated, taking a long deep breath, 
 her eyes glistening, a sweet smile playing about her 
 sensitive mouth. " That is my idea of life, restless, 
 boundless, unfathomable, infinitely free, incorruptible. 
 You may pour all the filth of your city sewers into it, you 
 cannot make it impure. It washes itself clean of it. Do 
 you remember Nietzsche's aphorism in Zarathustra? It
 
 130 THE TRELOARS 
 
 is the finest of them all. ' Man is indeed a dirty stream. 
 One must be the ocean to be able to take into one's self 
 a dirty stream without becoming impure.' I have got 
 more strength and encouragement out of that one sen- 
 tence, than from all the books of the Old and New 
 Testaments put together. Now, how much do I shock 
 you?" 
 
 She turned her bright face to him with a pretty gesture 
 of humility, her voice in the question taking on a gracious 
 intonation that was irresistible to him. 
 
 " Nothing you could say or do, would shock me," he 
 answered quickly. " I am not exactly " he hesitated a 
 moment for the right word, and then added, " an in- 
 flexible Puritan. I belong to the twentieth century. I 
 think that we have loosened many a strangling knot and 
 bond; but I am going to be perfectly frank with you. 
 May I?" 
 
 "May you? If you aren't frank with me, we shall 
 never be friends. We may as well say good-by now, 
 and go back home. By the way, don't you like the look 
 of that little inn down the shore, yonder ? " 
 
 " Yes, it's fine ! Do you begin to feel hungry ? " 
 
 " I really do. We shall have a table facing the sea. 
 Now go on, please, with what you were going to say. 
 Talk exactly as if you were talking out loud to yourself. 
 Let's see how far we agree on essentials." 
 
 " Very well, then ; you thought that you might shock 
 me by what you just said, but it has a very familiar 
 sound. Max and I are fond of discussing all sorts of 
 questions, and he has a way of intoxicating himself with 
 these swashing expressions infinite, boundless, un- 
 fathomable, etc., and I sometimes wonder if he really 
 knows the actual significance of them. Now, you will 
 excuse me if I remind you that we are walking along on 
 the bounds of what you have just called the boundless 
 sea " 
 
 " O dear me ! " interrupted Nita, punctuating her ex- 
 clamation with a deep drawn sigh : " Are you one of those
 
 THE TRELOARS 131 
 
 dreadful people who live by rule and talk by rule? 
 Would you be afraid to say thousands of birds in a 
 great flock unless you had counted them to a bird to make 
 sure of your statement ! How awful! " 
 
 11 There ! you see I am shocking you," said Dick, quite 
 abashed, blushing like a schoolboy, caught in an absurd 
 blunder. 
 
 " No, you are not shocking me, but you are surprising 
 me awfully, at not knowing the difference between prose 
 and poetry. Prose has her collar buttoned up chokingly 
 tight, and poetry wears no collar at all; prose screws 
 up her hair in a tight knot at the back of her head ; poetry 
 has never heard of a hair pin, and her disordered locks 
 fly loose about her shoulders; prose wears uncomfort- 
 ably tight, high-heeled shoes, and poetry goes in her bare 
 feet ; and you, a lover of the beautiful, pay your court to 
 prose." 
 
 She turned radiantly upon him, her bright beautiful 
 face so alive with sense and good feeling that he felt like 
 a child in her presence. 
 
 " I've forgotten," she went on, " what old German hu- 
 morist said this, but I think it's awfully good : ' Meta- 
 physicians are like the mice that reason about the archi- 
 tect of the castle in whose holes they dwell.' I believe 
 with him in the absolute futility of such reasoning. I 
 don't stretch my hands to the sky, and feel that I have 
 touched it, because I have stretched my full length. 
 However, I have a philosophy of my own: 
 
 ' O, come with old Khayyam, and leave the Wise 
 To talk ; one thing is certain that Life flies ; 
 One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies ; 
 The Flower that once has blown forever dies. 
 
 'Ah, fill the cup: What boots it to repeat 
 How Time is slipping underneath our Feet; 
 Unborn To-morrow and dead Yesterday, 
 Why fret about them, if To-day is sweet ! ' * 
 
 " How you traduce yourself ! " burst out Dick pas-
 
 132 THE TRELOARS 
 
 sionately. " You have never lived in that shallow phil- 
 osophy. No one ever lived it who has done anything in 
 the world for which the world is grateful that he lived. 
 The past is not dead. It is alive as we are; and, of all 
 whom I have ever known, you have the most wonderful 
 gift of making it ever present. As I saw you last night 
 re-creating Ophelia as fresh and living as when she 
 sprang from Shakespeare's brain, I thought what a mag- 
 nificent privilege is yours ; and what a constant challenge 
 your creations are to that stupid, impotent jealousy of 
 the past which rages like madness in so many little 
 minds, to-day." 
 
 They had reached the tavern, a long, low, one-story 
 building made of weather-stained pine logs. The room 
 into which they entered, ran the whole length of the 
 building and was lighted by six large deep windows front- 
 ing the ocean. A huge fireplace, formed of large irregu- 
 lar pebbles picked up from the beach, and cemented 
 together, occupied the center of the north side-wall. A 
 low fire was burning in the grate. On the mantel, made 
 of a granite slab, stood two shining brass candlesticks, and 
 a number of polished iridescent abalone shells. Knotted 
 masses of seaweeds and kelp trailed down from both 
 sides of the mantel. The floor was made of polished gray 
 and white pebbles cemented together, and arranged in a 
 simple geometrical pattern. A score or more of round 
 tables in the room were covered with white Japanese linen 
 cloths with flying storks in bright blue silk, embroidered in 
 the corners. On each table, stood a round glass bowl, 
 filled with yellow and vermilion spotted nasturtiums, 
 whose sweet, spicy odor was distinctly perceptible. 
 
 " Ah ! this is what I like ! " said Nita with a quick 
 glance around the room. 
 
 Just then a burst of loud laughter was heard from a 
 group at one of the tables. 
 
 " But I don't like that," she continued hastily. " Let's 
 get as far away from that crowd as possible. Yonder is 
 a corner table."
 
 THE TRELOARS 133 
 
 They sat down at the table and Nita removed her 
 gloves. A short, round-faced waiter with a snowy white 
 apron tied about his waist, and a napkin flung over his 
 arm, approached to take their order. 
 
 " It's a real shore dinner," said Nita, looking over the 
 menu, " and begins with clam soup ; and we may have 
 lobster, crab, or fish. I shall take crab." 
 
 " I, too," said Dick. " Just give your order, please, and 
 let the waiter double it." 
 
 Nita gave the order, adding a caution that the celery 
 should be crisp and cool ; and when their dinner was set 
 before them, they both ate with a hearty appetite, and 
 lingered over their dessert an unnecessarily long time. 
 Dick had been telling her that he was very anxious to 
 have his family and some intimate friends see her play 
 in Oakland the next Tuesday night, and if possible meet 
 her at the close of the performance. He hoped they 
 might see her in something really fine. He had especially 
 liked her Ophelia. Would Hamlet be repeated in Oak- 
 land? 
 
 " No, we were not successful with Hamlet after the 
 first night. The truth is that Shakespeare does not be- 
 long to the modern stage. All efforts to revive him owe 
 their success to costly and spectacular setting. If it 
 could have been advertised that Ophelia would wear a 
 gown costing six or seven thousand dollars, or that the 
 queen was to wear real jewels worth a fortune, we could 
 have packed the house, as a fashion show. Of course, 
 we couldn't do that." 
 
 " Isn't that ridiculous," said Dick, throwing himself 
 back in his chair with an expression of disgust. " As if 
 the seventeenth century could think and feel, and we could 
 only stare ! " 
 
 " That's all ! " answered Nita, keenly enjoying Dick's 
 protest, " but after all, don't you really think that Shakes- 
 peare is very much greater and very much more satis- 
 factory in one's solitary reading of him than on the 
 stage? He gives you meat that needs chewing, not pap
 
 134 THE TRELOARS 
 
 that can be swallowed at once. So I don't feel hope- 
 less about the stage, because Shakespeare is not really 
 popular. He is safe among the immortals. There al- 
 ways will be a few people big enough to read and enjoy 
 him, in spite of Tolstoi's deep mouthed barking against 
 him, and the sharp little yelping of Bernard Shaw. But 
 what does discourage me is the growing demand for an 
 appeal to the eyes. We shall all be swallowed up in mov- 
 ing pictures soon." 
 
 Dick's eyes glistened. He had not forgotten their 
 argument by the sea-shore ; he had not forgotten her as- 
 sumed indifference to the dead yesterdays, so, clasping his 
 hands, and leaning over the table towards her, he looked 
 steadily into her eyes and said : 
 
 " What difference does that make to you if there is no 
 to-morrow and no yesterday, and all there is, is just you 
 and I and the empty crab shells ? " 
 
 And she, leaning over, too, her dark eyes sparkling, 
 answered gaily : 
 
 "Do allow me the privilege of being inconsistent. To 
 be consistent is the peculiar property of a straight line. 
 To be a human being is to be inconsistent and sinuous 
 it's Hogarth's line of beauty and grace. And I am alive, 
 aren't you glad?" 
 
 She asked that question with that delicious irresistible 
 inflection which was one of her .greatest charms, and 
 Dick's heart leaped in response to it. Hardly knowing 
 what he was doing, his hand reached out for her small 
 hand on the table and pressed it fervently, forgetting 
 where he was, forgetting everything, except that she was 
 there before him, the only woman in the world to him 
 just now. 
 
 " Glad? " he repeated, " not only glad, but so grateful, 
 and so made over, that it seems to me that I have only 
 begun to live, since I knew you." 
 
 She drew her hand gently away whispering cautiously : 
 " I am afraid the waiter is looking." 
 
 Dick started, blushed vividly, and said : " I don't care. 
 I am sure he's used to that."
 
 THE TRELOARS 135 
 
 He had revealed his great secret, and she had not re- 
 pulsed him. There was no disapproval in her lovely face. 
 It is true that its serenity was untroubled, but he did not 
 expect her to love him all at once, as he loved her. That 
 was impossible. Who was he that he could hope for 
 such a miracle as that? All he could hope was that he 
 should not offend her by his brusqueness, his crudeness, 
 his impetuous inexperienced youth. 
 
 " You see," continued Nita, " dramatic art is the central 
 interest of my life, as literature is of yours. I think we 
 actors are really as Shakespeare says, ' the abstract, and 
 brief chronicles of the time.' Now to decline from that 
 high office to pander to a love of glare and the shows of 
 things, and the puerile love of impossible adventures and 
 hairbreadth escapes seems to me like going back to in- 
 fancy and creeping around on the floor after bright red 
 balls. You will excuse my emphasis. You see I can be 
 emphatic in my own line." 
 
 " Thank God for that ! " exclaimed Dick fervently. 
 " I don't think we can be too emphatic about the integrity 
 of the arts, any more than on a question of the integrity of 
 foods adulteration in either case is a violation of our 
 right to have what is pure and wholesome." 
 
 " Undoubtedly ; but you forget that old adage that 
 what is one man's meat is another man's poison. That 
 is especially true in the arts, and it doesn't seem possible 
 to set up a fixed standard, there. On the other hand, it 
 isn't right that every man should make his own standard 
 or if 'he does he should keep it strictly for his own 
 private use, unless he has the gift of judgment." 
 
 Out in the open air again, they made their way to the 
 park, continuing their conversation, until it drifted again 
 to the question of the next week's play. 
 
 " And so, as we didn't succeed with Shakespeare," 
 Nita was saying, " we are going to try a more modern 
 play, Sapho or Ibsen's Doll's House." 
 
 "Why Sapho?" said Dick hastily, instinctively recoil- 
 ing from seeing her in that role. " There is no action 
 in it."
 
 136 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " No action? Isn't powerful emotion action? In fact, 
 it is the only action that is an essential part of literature. 
 Action is not adventure. Action is whatever brings into 
 play the strength or weakness of a character. In that 
 sense, Sapho is full of action. It is the struggle of a 
 woman to right herself in the current of a powerful emo- 
 tion. It's a question of keeping her head above water, a 
 moment's weakness or lassitude and she goes down. It 
 is intensely interesting to see how she recovers herself 
 and abandons her ungrateful lover to accept devotion 
 from another, and give gratitude in return." 
 
 "You call that beautiful?" said Dick. "To me it is 
 horrible." 
 
 " I didn't say that it was beautiful. I said it was in- 
 teresting, but I don't know why I should not have said 
 beautiful, if by beautiful we mean the triumph of strength 
 over weakness." 
 
 " You mean the triumph of egotism over generosity 
 the triumph of the good swimmer who lets his companion 
 drown, while he makes for the shore." 
 
 " If you like to call it that, yes. And I don't see why 
 you should think your companion's life of more import- 
 ance than your own. Why should you risk your life 
 for his ? Take his importance for a model and kill power 
 in yourself? Does not nature say no to that, when she 
 means that the fittest shall survive ? " 
 
 " I know that text in the new gospel of science ; but 
 it is not true for human nature. How shall we judge 
 who is fittest to survive? Love is the holiest relation be- 
 tween human beings, and there are times when love de- 
 mands a supreme sacrifice." 
 
 " And always demands it of the woman, never of the 
 man," said Nita, her face flushing, and her voice taking 
 on a sharp note of sarcasm. " Always the primrose path 
 of dalliance for him, and the steep and thorny way for 
 her. Forgiveness for all his excesses, contempt and os- 
 tracism for her, if she but once overstep her bounds ! 
 Absurd ! no, not absurd, but infamous ! O your beautiful
 
 THE TRELOARS 137 
 
 theories of life that stand between you and real life, as 
 it is ! You ought to be ashamed of them, as you are of 
 any other ignorance. I have an immense respect for a 
 woman who can take her life in her own hands, as a free 
 man does, and mold it as she wills, defying conventions, 
 living according to the dictates of her reason and her 
 heart, keeping her faith in herself and her respect for 
 herself in the teeth of a world that refuses them to her, 
 unless she has genius. Of course, when she has that, 
 she brings the world to her feet, as Aspasia did, as George 
 Eliot did and George Sand did. And when she can't do 
 that, she can wear her scarlet letter on her breast before 
 the world as Hester Prynne did and make it her orna- 
 ment and the symbol of the most exquisite courage that a 
 woman has ever shown ; the scarlet flower in the snow- 
 white purity of an otherwise blameless life." 
 
 Nita was speaking in a rapid, animated way, her face 
 flushed with an unusual glow, while Dick had turned al- 
 ternately white and red. Never had she seemed so fas- 
 cinating to him as at this moment when every word she 
 said was a wound to him. 
 
 " But the family, the home," he faltered : " You can 
 build nothing permanent on the shifty foundations of 
 free love. Somewhere a man must feel the solid rock 
 under his feet, if his life is to have any value at all." 
 
 " But the love between man and woman is no such 
 rock; it is quicksand. Nothing in the world is so shift- 
 ing, so uncertain, so entirely beyond the control of the 
 will or of reason. Shall we sit down on this bench in 
 the shade? Lovely here, isn't it? So quiet, so cool. 
 No there is nothing permanent in love, and it is a 
 good thing there is not. It is a moment of intense self- 
 absorption, the egotism of two made one, for whom the 
 rest of the world does not exist. But I am shocking 
 you ! " and she looked curiously at Dick's excited face. 
 
 " Worse than that. I feel as if I had been reading 
 Ouida and Bernard Shaw. They both give me the same 
 sort of "
 
 138 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " Nausea ! " she finished for him. They were both si- 
 lent for a while, then she said softly, " I know it." 
 
 All her aggressiveness gave way now. She was anx- 
 ious not to spoil their beautiful day together by leaving so 
 disagreeable an impression with him. She had said quite 
 enough to give him a clue to her real feelings. There 
 was no use in emphasizing them and making herself out 
 coarser and harder than she really was ; so she resumed 
 her talk in a calm, sweet, conciliatory way that was like 
 a healing balm to the wounds she had made. 
 
 " I am very sorry to have given you that sickish feel- 
 ing ; but it is better to be quite frank with each other ; and 
 I wish you to know that I think that the same fault 
 which in a man is called a venial slip should not be ir- 
 reparable in a woman; and that there is nothing sacred 
 in a human law which deeper human insight and larger 
 human knowledge may not set aside without sacrilege 
 or sin. I see that you can't think of Sapho as I do, yet, 
 and I don't mean to pain you unnecessarily by playing it. 
 The manager prefers trying Ibsen, and I shall make no 
 objection. Besides, I am not sure but the public needs 
 a good course in Ibsen to give it something to think about. 
 But it's getting late, and we must be going back home. 
 Let's fall back to where we agree again. We both agree 
 that it has been a perfect day, don't we ? " 
 
 She rose from the bench as she said this and looked 
 about her. 
 
 " Yes," answered Dick, " it has been a perfect day, 
 and let us agree that it isn't the last perfect one that 
 we shall have together. Will you ? " 
 
 She smiled indulgently at him, and said nothing. 
 
 " I need you," he said impulsively, like the great boy 
 he was. " I need to know that in this big cosmopolitan 
 city, with its thousand interests foreign to my own, 
 there is some one with whom I can talk freely about what 
 means most to me." 
 
 She told him how highly complimented she felt by 
 this request, and how gladly she would listen to whatever
 
 THE TRELOARS 139 
 
 he wished to say, but that she was not always mistress of 
 her time as she had been to-day, and that it might be 
 weeks before she would be free again; however, the 
 day had been so very delightful that she certainly wished 
 to repeat it. They passed a photographer taking snap- 
 shots and finishing photographs in ten minutes. 
 
 " Shall we be taken together ? " asked Dick. 
 
 " O, no," answered Nita, taking his arm and drawing 
 him away, " you don't know how dreadfully silly we shall 
 feel in looking at a picture like that after we have 
 quarreled." 
 
 "After we have quarreled? What nonsense! We 
 shall never quarrel. At any rate, / shan't and it takes 
 two to make a quarrel." 
 
 " O, we shall quarrel some day!" 
 
 " Never ! never ! To me that would be like quarreling 
 with life." 
 
 It was no exaggeration. He meant it literally. She 
 was to him something as necessary and vivifying as the air 
 he breathed. When they separated in the city, he felt as 
 if he were saying good-by to much the greater part of 
 himself, and as if all his past life had been but a prep- 
 aration for knowing her. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 "DON'T you really want to go with us, father? Dick 
 will be so disappointed if you don't." 
 
 Margaret Treloar looked up from her sewing. She 
 was basting some lace in the sleeves of Catherine's even- 
 ing gown, and her father was reading, tranquilly smok- 
 ing a cigarette of his own making for the preparation 
 of which, he always carried about with him a little 
 leather pouch of good tobacco and a small case filled 
 with leaves of white tissue paper. He put down his 
 book, removed his cigarette from his mouth, and ex- 
 haled a puff of smoke into the air.
 
 140 THE TRELOARS 
 
 "No, I don't, Margaret, but I suppose that when it 
 comes to a question of disappointments, you'd rather dis- 
 appoint me than Dick, wouldn't you ? " 
 
 " Why, no, I wouldn't, father ; on the contrary ; but 
 Dick is so enthusiastic about this actress, that if she is 
 really as fine as he thinks she is, you're going to miss 
 a treat by not seeing her." 
 
 " But I have already got a treat in my hand here," and 
 he held up his book. " Besides, I am very well aware of 
 what a young man's enthusiasm about a pretty actress 
 means. Do you remember young Pendennis and Miss 
 Fotheringay ? " 
 
 " How ridiculous, father ! Our Dick has more sense 
 than to fall in love with an actress." 
 
 Her father looked at her with an amused expression. 
 He loved to tease her and the occasion to do so, effect- 
 ively, offered itself rarely, for there were few subjects 
 concerning which her serenity could be ruffled. Dick was 
 one of them. 
 
 " Our Dick is like every young man, and you must 
 never trust the good sense of any man under sev- 
 enty when a pretty woman is concerned." 
 
 " According to that, you yourself wouldn't be quite safe 
 with Miss Fotheringay." 
 
 " O, as to that, I think it would take more than a Foth- 
 eringay to throw me off my balance." 
 
 " Well, I should hope so, father." 
 
 Treloar took another puff at his cigarette and added: 
 " I don't know, though. There is the great Goethe as 
 proof that a man never can be quite sure of himself, even 
 after seventy." 
 
 " Yes. I never could understand how a man so su- 
 perbly intellectual as Goethe, could forget himself for 
 a chit of a girl." 
 
 " That's because love isn't a question of the intellect at 
 all. It is a question of the health and activity of the 
 senses, and sometimes of a pathological condition of 
 them."
 
 THE TRELOARS 141 
 
 " O father, what an ugly thing to say ! " 
 
 " What has its ugliness to do with it, if it is the truth ? 
 But that's the way with you women, you can't stand any 
 truth that isn't pretty. You want all your truths 
 wrapped up in tissue paper and smelling of attar of 
 roses. You are proud of your defects and deficiencies, 
 and think they are evidences of your superior delicacy 
 and fineness. You call yourself a sensible woman. 
 Don't you think it's about time you were learning to 
 face disagreeable truths without putting a veil on ? " 
 
 Treloar coughed slightly, and looked at Margaret with 
 a kindly twinkle in his eyes that belied the tone of his 
 flouting, and Margaret, reaching for her scissors to cut 
 a thread, answered the look with a smile, as she re- 
 plied : 
 
 " I am no more afraid of disagreeable truths than you 
 are, father, once I know that they are truths. By the 
 way, I had to face a rather disagreeable one last night, 
 when Catherine told me that she and young Raymond are 
 engaged, and expect to marry after his graduation next 
 summer." 
 
 " Why should that be disagreeable to you ? " 
 
 " Because Catherine will not have finished her univer- 
 sity course, and I think she's rather young to take up the 
 serious duties of a household." 
 
 " She will be twenty, and you were a great deal 
 younger than that, when a much heavier task fell to your 
 shoulders." 
 
 " Yes, but I think I had a broader back than Ca- 
 therine's." 
 
 " Well, Catherine's back will have a chance to develop. 
 But she won't find many serious duties. She's modern. 
 She'll do everything on the push the button plan. As for 
 her university course, she's getting a fine case of mental 
 indigestion with it. I think it will be better for her to 
 stop. What's funny to me is that with all her pro- 
 nounced admiration for originality, she should have 
 chosen Raymond who is about as original as a hen's egg. 
 What's he going to do ? "
 
 142 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " He has an appointment to a vacancy in some college 
 of the Middle West, in the mathematical department." 
 
 " Mathematics ? O, I see, now, what is original in him 
 to Catherine: he's logical, and that is always original to 
 a woman." 
 
 " He isn't a bad sort of fellow, father, and then he's 
 fond of Catherine and that is the main thing." 
 
 " No, it isn't. The main thing is whether he has any 
 lime in his backbone. He strikes me as being rather a 
 soft young sapling. There's not much go in him, or he 
 wouldn't want to be a school ma'am, if he had muscle 
 enough to saw wood or break stones." 
 
 " Didn't you say the other day that the trouble with 
 popular education in America is that it is almost en- 
 in the hands of women? " 
 
 effeminate men you've forgotten that part of 
 it. The enormous competition with women keeps a 
 teacher's work and his salary on a low plane, so that no 
 man with any capacity for business, or for independent 
 exertion is willing to go into it. Is Raymond aiming at 
 anything else ? " 
 
 " No, I think not." 
 
 " Wants a soft but very close little nest to curl up in 
 for the rest of his life, eh ? Well, that's his business, not 
 ours." 
 
 " But it is somewhat ours, when he wishes Catherine 
 to curl up with him." 
 
 " No, that's her business." 
 
 " But marriage is a family question and not merely the 
 concern of two people in love." 
 
 " You are very old-fashioned in your ideas, Margaret." 
 
 " I don't know that I am. There are some things that 
 fashion has nothing to do with. Motherhood, father- 
 hood, family life with its filial and parental responsibili- 
 ties, what have these to with fashion ? " 
 
 " Everything, because they are based on unstable 
 points of view, unless you admit a morality with a sane-
 
 THE TRELOARS 143 
 
 tion and obligation such as the Christian religion gives 
 us." 
 
 " But I admit that, as you very well know." 
 
 " That's your idiosyncrasy. Science shows its fallacy. 
 Dr. Parker can't admit it, if he is logical." 
 
 " Then thank God that he is illogical. There never 
 was a more devoted father, nor an honester man. I be- 
 lieve you would really delight in seeing him beat Dolly 
 just to prove that a materialistic creed necessarily ends in 
 cruelty." 
 
 Mr. Treloar chuckled. He was goading Margaret out 
 of her serenity and enjoying himself very much. An ar- 
 gument was his daily bread. 
 
 " Margaret, you're pretty nearly a hopeless case. Ac- 
 tion is everything with you, the motive behind it is noth- 
 ing. Only some great calamity can save you as a rational 
 being, some prodigious fact that will knock you off your 
 pins, and force you to get on a firmer footing with regard 
 to the profound realities of life. Dick is a good deal like 
 you. Both of you face the world like two babes in the 
 wood, for whom all the rest of the world is just as inno- 
 cent. Some day, you'll both get a good jog, and then 
 you'll recall a few things that your old Dad used to tell 
 you." 
 
 "Will our new wisdom be worth the jog, father?" 
 
 " That depends on whether you prefer waking to sleep- 
 ing. I do." 
 
 "But you are not to prefer it to-night, father. If 
 you won't go into Oakland with us, you are not to sit up 
 till we come back, do you hear ? " 
 
 " That will depend on whether I am sleepy or wakeful. 
 Is Dick coming out for you ? " 
 
 " No, we are going with the Parkers. Dick is to meet 
 us at five minutes of eight in the lobby of the theater." 
 
 But Dick had been standing in the lobby of the theater 
 a quarter of an hour before the appointed time, trying
 
 144 THE TRELOARS 
 
 with all his might to subdue the inner tumult which, in 
 spite of all his efforts, announced itself in his excited 
 face and manner. One might have thought that he was 
 on trial for his life, by his restless pacing up and down, 
 his frequent sallies into the street and back again. In the 
 last of them, he got sight of his little party, so anxiously 
 expected, and he hastened to meet them. 
 
 " So glad to see you all," he cried, shaking hands with 
 each one of them. "But where's father?" 
 
 " I couldn't persuade him to come," answered Mar- 
 garet, leading the group into the theater with Dick. 
 
 "Isn't he feeling well? but you wouldn't have left 
 him if he weren't." 
 
 " Yes, he is perfectly well, but he prefers his Bergson 
 and his own meditations, to-night, to any other amuse- 
 ment." 
 
 " But I did so want him to come." 
 
 " I told him you would be disappointed." 
 
 "So I am awfully! Our box is the second to the 
 right." 
 
 " O, Dick, what did you get a box for ? We shall be 
 so conspicuous." 
 
 " You won't be conspicuous as soon as the play com- 
 mences. Nobody will notice you. There! isn't this 
 cosy ? " he asked, after seeing his little party comfortably 
 seated. 
 
 " Awfully kind of you, Doctor, to come," he went on. 
 " I have an idea that when father decided to stay at home, 
 he thought you'd keep him company, didn't he ? " 
 
 " Yes, I think he did. He seemed a little piqued that 
 I should prefer Miss Fotheringay to him." 
 
 "Miss who?" 
 
 " Only one of father's nicknames," said Margaret 
 quickly, blushing vividly at the repetition of the name. 
 
 " Isn't that the name of the leading actress ? " asked 
 Dr. Parker, looking at his program. " No, it isn't. It is 
 Nita Normand as Nora." 
 
 At this moment the orchestra commenced playing, and
 
 THE TRELOARS 145 
 
 when the music ceased, the lights were turned off, and the 
 curtain rolled up, revealing the brilliantly lighted stage- 
 setting of a comfortable living-room. The ringing of a 
 door bell was heard, then the voice of a woman cheerily 
 humming a melodious air, and Nora entered enveloped in 
 winter wraps, her arms laden with Christmas packages. 
 The bright face under the small round hat was so ra- 
 diant with good will that the audience burst into applause. 
 
 Margaret turned to look at Dick. His face was as ra- 
 diant as that on the stage, and he was involuntarily lean- 
 ing forward as if he were hungrily drinking in every ges- 
 ture, every glance of the beautiful woman before him. 
 No, she was not a Miss Fotheringay; she would not be 
 stupid off the stage any more than on it ; there was noth- 
 ing dull or blundering in her rendition of the spoiled, 
 petted, charming woman in revolt against conventions 
 and illusions. Margaret followed the action of the play 
 in a tension of feeling hardly less acute than that which 
 absorbed Dick ; but it was a feeling, not like his, made of 
 pure admiration and delight; it was a conflict of emo- 
 tions that disturbed and excited her disagreeably. 
 
 " Isn't she wonderful ? " asked Dick all aglow, as the 
 curtain fell on the last act. 
 
 " The actress ? " answered Margaret, rising, " yes, but 
 as for Nora, I don't believe in her." 
 
 " You don't ? Well, come and say that to the actress 
 herself. I want you all to meet her, you know ; so don't 
 put on your wraps yet, girls." 
 
 " O, no, Dick," pleaded Margaret, looking very un- 
 happy. " What would she care about meeting us ! It 
 would only bore her. Then we have a long ride before 
 us, and it is late." 
 
 " And you have an auto, and can get over the ground 
 in half an hour ; and it won't bore her at all, because she 
 knows all about it, and is waiting now behind the scenes 
 to meet you. Come, Margaret, please don't refuse me 
 this. Wouldn't you like to see her, Dolly ? " and he 
 turned his excited face to Dolly, searching an approval 
 of his invitation.
 
 146 THE TRELOARS 
 
 It was the first time during the evening that he had 
 taken any particular notice of her ; and Dolly could only 
 say tremulously: 
 
 " Why yes, if you would like us to." 
 
 She would have made the same reply, if he had asked 
 her to go to the stake. Indeed it was hardly a less pain- 
 ful martyrdom to consent to meet this brilliant, beautiful 
 woman. The whole evening had been an exquisite tor- 
 ture to her. She had been seated where not a movement, 
 not an expression of Dick's could escape her, and she 
 read his heart by the beatings of her own, as if it had been 
 an open book. She followed her father closely, as they 
 all went to the back of the stage, where the actress was 
 waiting for them. Dolly thought her even more beauti- 
 ful than she had appeared in the play. Margaret recog- 
 nized that, too, but it did not efface in her the first real 
 antipathy which she had ever felt for anyone. This an- 
 tipathy was the intuitive recognition that they stood for 
 types of womanhood directly opposed to each other, in 
 sentiment and feeling, and therefore, when Margaret tried 
 to greet Nita, she felt all the agreeable conventionalities 
 of social intercourse freezing on her lips. However, she 
 managed to say: 
 
 " You have made a very living and real interpretation 
 of Nora." 
 
 Dick, entirely unconscious of any hostile under-current 
 of feeling between the two women, added delightedly : 
 
 " My sister says that she believes in you, but she does 
 not at all believe in Nora. 
 
 " But that ought not to be. I should have made her be- 
 lieve in Nora. That was my task. How was it that I 
 made you skeptical, Miss Treloar ? I am sure you can tell 
 me. You have no idea how few people can really state 
 their criticisms definitely, but I am sure that you can." 
 
 Poor Margaret challenged unawares, protested that she 
 really had no criticism to make except that of inconsist- 
 ency in Ibsen's delineation of the character. So charm-
 
 THE TRELOARS 147 
 
 ing and intelligent a woman could not at the same time be 
 so utterly ignorant and shallow, and so utterly wanting in 
 true maternal sentiment. So far as her experience went, 
 it was a combination of opposite qualities which she found 
 it difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile. 
 
 Nita remarked that these inconsistencies were very 
 common in human nature ; and that in fact, the impossi- 
 bility of reducing a living character to a system, was 
 what made a man or woman more interesting than an 
 automaton. You were never so sure of any one that you 
 could infallibly predict how he would act under certain 
 conditions. Ibsen was unable to put The Doll's House in 
 its original form on the stage in the northern part of 
 Germany. He had to change the conclusion into a rec- 
 onciliation instead of a separation. Nora's husband 
 leads her to the door of the children's room and the 
 curtain falls. Of course, that was a forced concession to 
 family traditions, which he retracted wherever the idea 
 of personal liberty is at all developed and recognized. 
 
 " But personal liberty ends where duty begins," ex- 
 claimed Margaret. 
 
 " Not with Ibsen," replied Nita. " According to him, 
 there is no duty that precedes that of personal liberty; 
 and duty ceases where it infringes upon personal liberty." 
 
 " A very comfortable code of ethics for shirkers," said 
 Margaret with heightened color and an unwonted sharp- 
 ness in her voice. 
 
 Dick saw at once that Margaret and Nita were ap- 
 proaching dangerous ground, and with a nervous laugh, 
 he said to Nita: 
 
 " You will find it a hopeless task to convince my sister 
 that Nora is to be justified in running away from her 
 babies; for she has had the peculiar experience of being 
 mother and sister to myself and Catherine. She knows 
 all the delight of tucking little children into their beds 
 at night and giving them a bath in the morning. She 
 would not have resigned her tasks for anything in the
 
 148 THE TRELOARS 
 
 world. Illusions might have burst about her, thick as 
 shooting stars on an August night, and she would have 
 stuck her task out, wouldn't you, Margaret ? " 
 
 He put his hand affectionately upon her arm and looked 
 at her so tenderly that her lip quivered and her eyes mois- 
 tened. She was so intensely grateful to him, and for the 
 moment so reassured of his devotion to her, that it was 
 with difficulty, she refrained from throwing her arms 
 about his neck and weeping on his shoulder. Nita, see- 
 ing her emotion, felt touched and said gently : 
 
 " I quite understand it, and really I must congratulate 
 you, Miss Treloar, on the success of your training." 
 
 Dick playfully bowed his thanks to Nita, and the con- 
 versation becoming general, soon finished with the cus- 
 tomary leave-taking. 
 
 " Can't you come home with us ? " said Margaret, as 
 Dick accompanied the little party to their automobile. 
 
 " No, thank you, Margaret, dear, I really can't. I have 
 an article to finish before I go to bed to-night, but I'll 
 be out Sunday, sure. You and Dolly will be over, won't 
 you, Doctor ? " 
 
 " Certainly, unless the unexpected happens." 
 
 " Did you really enjoy the evening, Dolly? " Dick asked, 
 tucking the lap robe close about her; and Dolly's brave 
 lips belied her heart, and gave him the answer he expected 
 to hear, then she asked : 
 
 "Where can I get Ibsen's plays? We haven't them, 
 and I should like so much to read them, now." 
 
 " I have most of them at home. They are on the top 
 shelf of the little book-case in my room. Margaret, let 
 Dolly have them, and I'll bring out the latest plays when 
 I come home, Sunday. My ! but the fog is thick to-night, 
 isn't it? You'll need all your lights on, Doctor. Well, 
 good night to you all, I wish I was going out with you ! " 
 
 Did he really wish it? He watched them drive away 
 with a vague involuntary smile upon his face, and in a 
 few minutes another thought had as utterly effaced them 
 from his mind, as the fog effaced them from his sight.
 
 THE TRELOARS 149 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 PROUD and chaste women who feel deeply, have a won- 
 derful power of concealing the wounds of the heart, and 
 the more deeply they suffer, the more instinctively they 
 recoil from any parade of it. Like Hamlet they are able 
 to jest and flout with death in their hearts, and they would 
 endure a thousand tortures rather than bare their grief to 
 the public. 
 
 Dolly, waking up after a fitful sleep in the early morn- 
 ing, for she had lain awake all night, looked at herself in 
 the mirror, expecting to see her eyes sunken, her cheeks 
 pale, her dark hair threaded with white ; she felt so old ! so 
 old ! But seeing nothing of the kind, only the same bright 
 rosy face in the frame of luxuriant dark hair, took heart 
 and resolved that nothing of the inner tragedy should ever 
 appear in her behavior. She even attempted a little 
 comedy by trying to sing, but the song died so pitifully 
 away in choking tears that wished to have their way with 
 her that she gave it up, thinking it useless to pretend to 
 herself that life was just the same as it had been yester- 
 day morning. She really had not cried yet, beyond this 
 stubborn swelling in her throat, and she meant not to 
 cry outwardly though her whole soul was dissolved in 
 tears. She had a great deal of pride, our Dolly, and like 
 all proud women, she felt humbled to the dust by this gift 
 of her love unasked, unwanted. 
 
 The morning was gray and dull, the heavy fog of the 
 night before not having lifted, blurred the near landscape 
 and quite obliterated the distant one. The roses at her 
 window hung their heavy heads dripping with moisture. 
 Dolly was grateful for this grayness and dullness. The 
 sunshine would have seemed impertinent, unsympathetic, 
 intruding upon her a world in which she no longer had 
 any part. 
 
 While she busied herself with dressing, she planned all 
 sorts of ways to avoid seeing Dick any more, without
 
 150 THE TRELOARS 
 
 seeming to avoid him; not that he would notice it, she 
 said bitterly to herself, remembering how little notice he 
 had taken of her the night before. She would go over 
 to the Treloars after breakfast and borrow Dick's copies 
 of Ibsen's plays. She would force herself to be so 
 deeply interested in them that she would beg to stay at 
 home next Sunday to read them, instead of accompany- 
 ing her father in his Sunday afternoon visit. At this 
 point, that dreadful lump came up into her throat again, 
 but she swallowed it bravely and winked her eyes, and 
 said fiercely to herself : " If you cry, Dorothy Parker, 
 I'll kill you ! " She was so indignant with herself that 
 she couldn't even say Dolly. 
 
 "Are you coming down to breakfast, Dolly?" shouted 
 her father at the foot of the stairs. 
 
 " In a minute, Daddy, darling ! " she answered in the 
 brightest little voice that ever was. " It is such a lovely 
 dark morning for sleeping; and I've been lazy, but don't 
 wait for me, if you are hungry." 
 
 She took a handkerchief from a box on her bureau and 
 quickly wiped her eyes with it, then she pinched her 
 cheeks to make them look redder than they were, and 
 hurried downstairs, entering the dining-room with the 
 light, quick step that was only another expression of her 
 youth and health. 
 
 " You've waited for me," she said, lifting her face to 
 her father's for the morning kiss. " I'm glad you did ; 
 if you hadn't, I should have thought you didn't love me, 
 and then I should have been obliged to run away from 
 you like Nora. Wasn't she charming, Daddy ? " 
 
 " Charming ! Nonsense ! Paint and powder and pre- 
 tense an inch thick ! She can't hold a candle either to you 
 or Margaret." 
 
 " Why, father ! " exclaimed Dolly, leaning back in her 
 chair with a genuine expression of astonishment. " How 
 can you be so unjust? That is not like you at all." 
 
 " I am not unjust. I am only stating a preference."
 
 THE TRELOARS 151 
 
 " But questions of appearance aside, didn't you think 
 her a very good actress ? " 
 
 " O, yes, she's pretty fair. But, like Margaret, I didn't 
 at all care for the play. Nora seems artificial to me, too. 
 In this age of the daily paper, how can any intelligent 
 woman be so ignorant of the law that she does not know 
 that forgery is an offense against it? And especially 
 when her husband is a banker ; and especially, too, when 
 she is rather more than ordinarily intelligent. She has 
 mastered a foreign language; she has translated a book, 
 and, most wonderful of all, she can keep the fact a secret. 
 Dolly, don't you think that's utterly impossible ? " 
 
 There was a mocking twinkle in his eye which made 
 Dolly fear that he was not going to talk seriously to her, 
 so she frowned in disapproval at this time-worn allusion 
 to feminine garrulity, and said hastily : 
 
 " But you see she couldn't keep it, when it was a ques- 
 tion of vanity. She told her secret to Christine. I 
 thought that very natural, and as for keeping it from her 
 husband, she had a purpose in that. She was holding it 
 as a sort of reserve power." 
 
 " Which only shows how little a so-called intelligent 
 woman knows human nature. Of all human sentiments, 
 perhaps gratitude is the frailest and most uncertain.' 
 
 " I don't think so, father." 
 
 " Which shows that you are no wiser than Nora." 
 
 " Perhaps I am not; but I am just as eager to learn as 
 she was. Nora just lived in a play-world of pretty illu- 
 sions, and when they burst like bubbles ," here Dolly 
 
 stopped. That queer, choking sensation came into her 
 throat again. 
 
 " She left home to hunt for a new set of them," added 
 her father, unconscious of Dolly's emotion. " Ibsen 
 ought to have given us a sequel to the play. The real 
 Nora would have come back in three or four weeks like 
 runaway boys who go off in a pet and come back very 
 hungry and humble, having found out that the world has
 
 152 THE TRELOARS 
 
 no place for the weak, but exacts a full day's labor for its 
 pay." 
 
 " You think she would come back ? I think she would 
 rather die than go "back." 
 
 " Doesn't care a rap for the children, eh ? " 
 
 " I had forgotten about the children." 
 
 " Margaret thought of them, first." 
 
 " Well, Margaret is used to thinking about everybody 
 but herself. I am afraid I'm not. Father, I am going to 
 read Ibsen. He stirs me up." 
 
 " Well, Dolly, of all people in the world, I should say 
 that you didn't need stirring up by anybody. Just look 
 at your face in the glass, now. It is as red as a beet." 
 
 " Is it ? Well, the room's too warm. Hannah has put 
 as roaring a fire in the grate as if it were fall or winter, 
 instead of summer time. Don't you feel too warm ? " 
 
 " Not a bit. It is a raw foggy morning. The fire feels 
 good to me." 
 
 Dolly rose and walked towards the north window, 
 which she opened, and stood before it, looking out into 
 the misty morning with eyes that were growing misty, too. 
 O, how hard it was to play a part ! Presently, she turned 
 to her father, and said : 
 
 " Just as soon as the fog clears up a bit I'm going over 
 to the Treloars to get Ibsen's plays. Do you want to go 
 with me ? " 
 
 She hoped he would say no; she wanted to go alone, 
 and it relieved her, when he said : 
 
 " No, I can't go this morning, but if you'll wait till this 
 afternoon, I'll go with you." 
 
 " But I can't wait, Daddy, dear. What would I be do- 
 ing all morning long, while you are writing your letters? 
 I'll just run down and back. I won't stay." 
 
 With that, she went to get her hat and cloak, and in 
 a few minutes she was hurrying along the Tunnel Road, 
 feeling the physical exercise some slight relief from the 
 weight of the immense unhappiness which was her bur- 
 den. How beautiful the valley had seemed to her only
 
 THE TRELOARS 153 
 
 yesterday. To-day, it shut her in like prison walls. She 
 longed to leave it all behind her; to flee to other lands 
 that had no painful memories for her; to be free from 
 this obsession that was yet so great a part of herself that 
 would she be herself without it? She had not before 
 fully realized how much her thoughts and opinions had 
 been colored by this illusion ; for Dolly was one to whom 
 life is love, not as coarsely interpreted by so much of mod- 
 ern fiction, a fierce mad hunger of the flesh that turns a 
 human being into a vampire, but as the love that loses it- 
 self in the multiplication of self. To live the center of a 
 lovely, healthy, happy, little family, that to Dolly was the 
 meaning of life for a woman; and so strong was this 
 latent maternal love in her that she never saw a little 
 child without feeling a warm glow of affection surge all 
 over her. She spoke to every child in her walks abroad, 
 and her father had long since ceased asking her if she 
 knew the child, for he had learned that she knew all chil- 
 dren, being akin to them. 
 
 As she approached the home of the Treloars, Dolly 
 slackened her pace, not wishing to show any signs of per- 
 turbation before Margaret and her father. But the fire 
 burned as brightly in her cheeks for all her slackened 
 pace, and catching sight of Margaret in the garden, she 
 ran down the slope from the road and was quite out of 
 breath when she reached her. She burst out laughing as 
 Margaret turned towards her, a pair of large shears in one 
 hand, and a basket of roses in the other. 
 
 " I haven't run all the way from home, Margaret, 
 but I've hurried. You know that I haven't learned to 
 wait when I want anything, and I want a little more 
 Ibsen, if you please. What lovely roses ! No, don't give 
 me any, Margaret. We have them at home, you know. 
 By the way, father asked me what you thought about 
 Ibsen for a girl's reading." 
 
 " Did he ? I suppose I ought to be ashamed to say that 
 I never read him. I've glanced over some of the plays, 
 but the snatches of conversation I fell upon were so
 
 154 THE TRELOARS 
 
 trivial that I wasn't induced to go on. Perhaps the Eng- 
 lish translations are poor. I see that the plays Dick has 
 are in German. You read German, don't you, Dolly ? " 
 
 " Yes, with a dictionary. That is, I don't have to look 
 up so many words that it makes the reading tiresome." 
 
 " Well, we'll go up to Dick's room and get the books." 
 
 "Where is Mr. Treloar?" 
 
 " He is in the library, still reading Bergson's Creative 
 Evolution. Dick sent him the French original a few days 
 ago. You must tell your father to expect an unusually 
 heavy attack next Sunday." 
 
 " Yes, I will." 
 
 Margaret and Dolly went into the house, and having 
 put her roses temporarily into a basin of water, Margaret 
 took Dolly up to Dick's room. A small open book-case 
 stood near his bed, and five book shelves were built into 
 the northern portion of the western wall. A large bay 
 window took up a great part of the remaining wall, and 
 looked out through a gap in the hills, at the farther end 
 of which gleamed the broad ocean. Dolly went at once 
 to the window. " I always love this view. I wish we 
 had a glimpse of the ocean from our house. We have 
 glorious mountain views, but nothing like this. Does it 
 make you want to be sailing away, away into new lands, 
 when you look out on it? " 
 
 " No, I am satisfied with letting my fancy sail out on it, 
 while I stay right here." 
 
 " Ah, I see ! " Dolly's voice had a touch of pathos in 
 it. " That is because you are one of the persons who 
 make a great difference in other people's lives, and you 
 couldn't be spared from here. But I what difference 
 do I make to anybody? I might sail away and never 
 come back, and nobody would miss me." 
 
 Margaret, standing beside her, looking out of the win- 
 dow, put her arm about the young girl's waist, and drew 
 her affectionately towards her, saying tenderly: 
 
 " Why, Dolly dear, what are you thinking about ? I 
 never heard you talk like that before. I am sure that
 
 THE TRELOARS 155 
 
 that there is nobody who would be more missed than 
 you by all who know you. I was just thinking of you, 
 when you came this morning." 
 
 " Were you really, Margaret ? " Dolly looked up grate- 
 fully, her mouth twitching a little. 
 
 " Yes, I was. I was thinking how fresh and sweet 
 and unspoiled you are, and " 
 
 " O, no, Margaret. I am nothing of that ! nothing ! 
 Nothing at all ! I am just a silly, green girl ; I want to be 
 wiser, like Nora. Where is this Ibsen ? " 
 
 She turned hastily to the book-case, running her eyes 
 over the titles of the books, making hasty comments as 
 she read. 
 
 " Bo swell's Johnson. Dear old Dr. Johnson! How I 
 should have liked making his twelve cups of tea for him. 
 I have always envied Mrs. Thrale and Fanny Burney their 
 knowing him " 
 
 " Here's Ibsen, Dolly. Dick was wrong. It wasn't 
 in the little book-case." 
 
 Dolly took the volumes from Margaret's hand, thank- 
 ing her, and glanced around the pretty room with its 
 gray tinted walls, polished floor and rugs, its bright brass 
 bedstead with its snowy counterpane and the plain oaken 
 writing desk at which Dick worked, when he was at 
 home. 
 
 "Pretty room, isn't it?" said Margaret. "I wish 
 Dick could do his work here, instead of in the city. I 
 miss him so much." 
 
 " Yes, you must." There was a little catch in Dolly's 
 voice. " I must be going now, Margaret. I promised 
 father I should be back to lunch." 
 
 " What did you do that for, Dolly ? I am so sorry. 
 We are going to have spaghetti a I'italienne, father's 
 favorite dish. I think, however, that he would find any- 
 thing good to which you tacked a I'italienne. You must 
 say good morning to father, before you go. He would 
 feel hurt, if you went away without seeing him, for he 
 is really very fond of you, as we all are."
 
 156 THE TRELOARS 
 
 Descending the stairs and approaching the library, 
 Margaret called out: 
 
 " Father, here's Dolly." 
 
 Mr. Treloar appeared in the hall, his spectacles shoved 
 up over his forehead, a cheerful expression on his face. 
 
 " Hello ! little girl ! " he said, stretching his hand out, 
 cordially. "What are you going away for? Where's 
 your father ? " 
 
 " He couldn't come with me this morning ; he is busy 
 writing letters, and I promised to go back to lunch with 
 him." 
 
 " Promises are sometimes better broken than kept. 
 Did you get a whiff from the kitchen? If you didn't just 
 try it and see if you can resist staying. Give your 
 father a sample of the practical effects of his philosophy 
 of self-interest." 
 
 " My self-interest doesn't happen to be gastronomical, 
 just now. See my books ? I want to get at them." 
 
 Mr. Treloar took one of the volumes. 
 
 " Ibsen. Yes, he was a stirrer of dry bones in his 
 day, but his day is passing. By the way, I haven't heard 
 anything about this famous actress, you all heard last 
 night. Margaret is so cautiously non-committal that I 
 can't get anything satisfactory out of her. Was she 
 any good ? " 
 
 " O, I think she was remarkably good. There isn't 
 any question about that, is there, Margaret ? " 
 
 Appealed to so directly, Margaret was obliged to de- 
 clare herself. 
 
 " Really, I have been so few times to the theater that I 
 am not much of a judge; but I am like Mr. Partridge, 
 and identified the actress with her part, so that must 
 be a proof that she did it well. But I don't like the 
 part. Nora is not my kind of woman." 
 
 Treloar laughed. 
 
 " No, Margaret's idea of a woman is like her idea of 
 a good old hen: one that sits patiently on her eggs, till 
 she hatches them out, then scratches up the best worms
 
 THE TRELOARS 157 
 
 for them, and gathers them under her wings at night." 
 Margaret colored. She thought her father unkind to 
 
 speak in this light way of a woman's devotion to her 
 
 duties, but she contented herself with saying: 
 
 " It would be a poor look-out for the chickens, if she 
 
 took to gadding about the fields, looking after herself 
 
 alone." 
 
 On the road homeward, Dolly's mask of cheerfulness 
 was entirely dropped ; a feeling of weariness and despair 
 followed the tension in her mind. She recognized in 
 Margaret's reticence, the fears which, after all, she had 
 not entirely admitted to herself. Dick was utterly lost 
 to her, that was clear; and how could she go on living 
 this hideous pretense of life? 
 
 " I am going away. I am going to do something. I 
 shan't live here, any more," she said to herself. 
 
 She opened one of her books, mechanically, at a page 
 in the play, The Emperor and The Galilean, and her eyes 
 fell on the following lines, heavily underscored with a 
 blue pencil. 
 
 "Is not happiness the aim of all the teachers of wis- 
 dom? and what is happiness but being in harmony with 
 one's self? Does the eagle demand golden feathers? 
 Does the lion wish for silver claws? Or does the pome- 
 granate long to have fruits of sparkling stones? I tell 
 you that no man has the right to enjoy, before he is hard- 
 ened enough to bear the lack of enjoyment. Nay, he 
 dare not even touch joy with his finger tips, until he is 
 in a condition to tread it under his feet." 
 
 Dolly stopped short on the road, and it was as if a 
 flash of light had suddenly pierced her darkness. Was 
 intellectual vision higher than love, or was it only a 
 purer form of love that could do without love for 
 itself? Were the emotions to be subordinated to this 
 bright intelligence? Did feeling lead up to seeing, that 
 seeing might reign; and did perfect seeing mean a trans- 
 figured resignation that was calmness and rapture in 
 one?
 
 158 THE TRELOARS 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 MEANWHILE, the young man whom Dolly's torturing 
 imagination was picturing as oblivious to everybody else 
 in the rapture of his new love, was at this very time 
 perhaps more miserable than she. Dick had just had his 
 first quarrel with Nita. He could hardly tell how it 
 happened, or whether it had been his fault or her fault, 
 or whether both had been to blame. He remembered 
 nothing distinctly but her biting retort which had cut 
 him to the heart. 
 
 " What am I to you, or you to me, that you presume 
 to dictate to me what I should or should not do? We 
 have been good friends and may continue to be so, as 
 long as you accept me just as I am without presuming 
 to make me over according to your puritanic ideas. If 
 you are not satisfied with that, let us say good-by for 
 good." 
 
 At this, she had held out her hand and he had refused 
 to take it; she had quickly turned her back on him and 
 walked away, out of his sight, out of his life, leaving 
 it so hideously bare that it was unendurable. That had 
 happened Saturday night in the corridor of the hotel 
 where she lodged. He had accompanied her home from 
 the theater, as was his custom of late, and he had been 
 remonstrating with her about a proposed production of 
 a sensational melodramatic success of the day turning on 
 the so-called White Slavery question. According to his 
 opinion, there was more that was insidiously provoca- 
 tive in it, than purifying. He hated the play for its 
 cheap rhetoric, its cheap sentimentality, and its no less 
 cheap falsification of life, on the pretense of being true, 
 and its open pandering to prurient curiosity in the name 
 of an expose of social evil. He had counted so surely 
 on her good taste, of which he had repeated proofs that 
 he had taken no pains to modify his expressions, but 
 had blurted out his disapproval in a way that had deeply
 
 THE TRELOARS 159 
 
 offended her. She saw nothing in his objections, but 
 the crude harsh judgment of a narrow puritanism un- 
 acquainted with life, and she had said to him : 
 
 " You belong to the century of Cotton Mather. Your 
 brain is filled with the shavings of other men's minds. 
 You've never touched life itself. You've only seen it 
 through the medium of books. Go and live, before you 
 talk to me of life." 
 
 " What did she mean by living ? " 
 
 He walked rapidly down the street towards his lodging 
 house, and reaching it, made his way up the dimly lighted, 
 steep and narrow stairway, entirely conscious, for the 
 first time of the bareness and ugliness of his surround- 
 ings. A sickly, fetid odor of mixed foods filled the 
 house, penetrating his room on the first landing. Enter- 
 ing it, he threw open the two windows looking out on 
 the back yard. The stars were shining. A brisk wind 
 was blowing, and he could hear the rustle of the tattered 
 leaves of a stunted banana plant, that grew beneath his 
 window. All his senses, to-night, were preternaturally 
 acute, and when he turned on the gas, and in its broad 
 hissing flare saw revealed the ugliness of the room; its 
 smoke-blackened ceiling ; the wall paper with its sprawling 
 faded red roses, a sensation of physical nausea passed over 
 him. How rich his emotional life had been to have made 
 this hideousness endurable! Cressy had sent him here, 
 to know life from his point of view that is, life in all 
 its sordid under current at home, aping to the street, the 
 smug appearance of prosperity. Well, he knew that life 
 now, to his heart's content. Was it worth the knowing? 
 And would she, the woman whom he had been idealizing, 
 would she have called that life? A bitter despair seized 
 him. He sat down by his table burying his hot head in 
 his cold hands, and all the dreams of his youth passed in 
 review before him. Why should she mock at him ? Was 
 it because her own life could not match his own? He 
 had said to her that the past was living, that the yester- 
 days prolonged themselves into to-day and to-morrow;
 
 160 THE TRELOARS 
 
 that all life was a living chain with no broken, or perished 
 links in it. He held his breath, he lifted his head. A 
 shuddering hope dawned in his darkness. He could for- 
 give her! The great tide of love in him could wash her 
 free of all stain to him. The past could die! The 
 past was dead. But the joy of this decision was short- 
 lived. He recalled what Max had said to him the first 
 night that he had met her, and a hideous suspicion darted 
 into his mind. A past that was dead yes, he could 
 forgive and forget that; but suppose that it still lived? 
 Could he forget and forgive that, and preserve his 
 honor? No, that was impossible. 
 
 He must see Max to-morrow. He must probe this 
 question to the bottom. He must find out just how much 
 Max knew about this woman who had entered so deeply, 
 so fatally into his heart of hearts. He must either make 
 her his own, or cut himself wholly loose from her. He 
 rose from the table, and paced up and down the room, 
 like some caged wild creature that never ceases hoping 
 to find some way of escape. The night wind blew sharply 
 into the room; the gas jet fluttered fitfully. He looked 
 at his watch. It was half-past three, but it was useless 
 to go to bed. He could not sleep. His head was on fire, 
 and the veins in his neck were throbbing so violently that 
 the rush of blood in them gave him a strange sense of full- 
 ness in his ears. His feet and hands were icy cold. 
 
 That morning, he saw the sun rise, a round red ball in 
 the soft purplish sky, mounting higher and higher till 
 the bright light streamed full into his windows ; then, he 
 left the house to get himself a cup of coffee. He had 
 not seen Max for two or three weeks, and knowing that 
 he must make allowance for a longer sleep on Sunday 
 morning, he did not go to his room until eleven o'clock. 
 He found Max writing at a table. 
 
 " Hello, Dick ! " he said heartily. " By George ! that's 
 queer. I was just commencing a note to you, see here," 
 and he held out a sheet of paper on which was written : 
 Dear Dick " I was just sending you an invitation to
 
 THE TRELOARS 161 
 
 be present at a banquet I am going to give next Wednes- 
 day night, in honor of the breaking of the Dawn. You 
 will be there, won't you? It will be a good chance for 
 you to test the mental caliber of my Bohemians. Dick, 
 you would be surprised if you knew how much real J 
 ingenuity and mental acuteness go to waste for want / 
 of a little common sense. We have had the beloved vag- 
 abond in literature as a gentle idealist, voluntarily aban- 
 doning the flesh-pots of Egypt, to smoke his pipe in 
 peace, lying on his back in green fields, or on the banks 
 of purling streams; but we haven't yet had the real 
 vagabond soured on his luck, down at the heel, and out 
 at the toe from too vigorous kicking against the pricks. 
 He is an interesting phenomenon of modern civilization, 
 and I am going to give him a voice, or rather a record 
 of it, for his voice is a natural gift from heaven. I 
 started out thinking I was about the only courageous 
 revolutionist in the country, but it is swarming with them 
 like grass-hoppers in a Kansas corn-field. I'll tell you 
 what conclusion I've come to." Max hitched his chair 
 closer to Dick's in a burst of confidence unusual to him. 
 " Modern civilization is suffering from the suppression of 
 youth. We are fathered and mothered, and Sunday- 
 schooled and public-schooled and state-ridden and shirt- 
 collared, until every individual and original color is 
 washed out of us, and we are reduced to the state of a 
 dirty rag. But there are some of us who have fast 
 colors, and all the rubbing and scraping and washing, 
 only bring the colors out the brighter, as a colored pebble 
 put into the water comes out brighter for the dipping." 
 
 " Well, you have nothing to complain of in that, have 
 you? That's what discipline's for, isn't it? You want 
 your colors brought out and made the brighter." 
 
 " Yes, I know, but we are the exceptions, we fellows 
 with the fast colors, and it is the other fellow we are 
 thinking of the immense waste in color the pitiful 
 spirit of submission instilled into them. We want to 
 destroy the prestige of law and order, and so restore the
 
 162 THE TRELOARS 
 
 youth of the world. We want to make the words good, 
 bad, decent, and indecent, sacred and holy, obsolete." 
 
 " There's nothing new in that, Max ; it came in with 
 Cain, and v/as very popular in Sodom and Gomorrah. 
 As for the suppression of youth, I think we are suffering 
 from an eruption of youth, more than anything else. Get 
 Ferrero's Between the Two Worlds. There are jolly good 
 things in it. He speaks somewhere about everybody's 
 wanting to think with his own head, nowadays, even 
 . when he hasn't any. By the way, are you going to 
 have any women at your banquet ? Have you thought of 
 asking Nita Normand ? " 
 
 " No, I hadn't thought of that. I wonder if she would 
 care to come. She is the only woman I know who would 
 feel at home among us." 
 
 Dick moved uneasily in his chair, and felt himself 
 getting very red. The fateful question was burning on 
 his lips, and yet he did not know how to utter it, so 
 he asked: 
 
 " What do you mean by that ? " 
 
 "By what?" 
 
 " By saying that she would be at home among you 
 Bohemians ? " 
 
 " I mean just what I said. I can't say it any plainer. 
 I mean that she would be hospitable and receptive to any- 
 thing original, no matter how bizarre it might seem. 
 She would not be afraid of losing her way, if she got into 
 a new path." 
 
 " Have you seen her lately ? " 
 
 " No, I haven't seen her for a long time. Say, Dick, 
 what are you driving at ? You want me to tell you all I 
 know about her, don't you ? " 
 
 He asked the question rather compassionately, for he 
 saw through Dick, as if he had been a transparent veil; 
 and Dick knowing that he did, said with impulsive 
 gratitude : 
 
 " Yes, I do." 
 
 And so Max told the whole story, and when he had 
 finished it, Dick looked pale and said:
 
 THE TRELOARS 163 
 
 "This husband who had deserted her? " 
 
 " To be frank with you, Dick, that word is a euphemism. 
 They weren't married. Dick ! " 
 
 He looked at Dick with a sharp glance, and was silent 
 a moment. 
 
 " Do you remember the caution I gave you, the first 
 night you met her ? It holds good to-day. Don't you tie 
 yourself up to any woman, least of all to Nita Normand. 
 She's too smart for you." 
 
 " What are you always talking like that for? I've no 
 intention of getting married." 
 
 " Look here, Dick. What's the use in lying to me ? 
 I know you like a book. You are too maidenly ingenu- 
 ous to be a success at subterfuge. You have got marry- 
 ing written all over you in capital letters, from head to 
 foot. I don't know that anything will do you any good. 
 You might take a course in Burton's Anatomy of Melan- 
 choly. It's the finest mental tonic I know of, in such 
 a case. I've tried it. Do you do the same thing, and 
 God be with you! You'll come to my banquet, of 
 course? " 
 
 " Yes, I'll be there," said Dick, mopping his flushed 
 face with his handkerchief. 
 
 " On second thought, I won't ask Nita, so you needn't 
 expect to find her there. She'd be the only woman; 
 would cut too brilliant a figure, and introduce an artificial 
 tone into the crowd; for no man is exactly the same in 
 the presence of a beautiful woman that he is when he is 
 with men, and I want my guests to be entirely themselves. 
 Well, besides lally-gagging, what have you been doing 
 with yourself, since I saw you?" 
 
 Dick felt horribly uncomfortable ; he hated the way in 
 which Max was talking to him; but all wit, sense, and 
 presence of mind had deserted him. He was passing 
 through the terrible isolation of an unhappy passion, and 
 nothing existed for him that did not concern it. Max 
 might as well have talked to the wind as to Dick, for all 
 the influence he had upon him. The only thing that Dick
 
 164 THE TRELOARS 
 
 had really cared for, was the removal of the hideous 
 suspicion of a liaison between Max and Nita. He knew, 
 now, that nothing of the kind existed; but he was hardly 
 less unhappy to know of the stain upon her life. There- 
 fore, not feeling inclined to discuss his work or his am- 
 bitions, he arose from his chair saying : 
 
 " O, it's just the same old story. Wherever I turn my 
 head, I seem to run it into a dead wall." 
 
 Max laughed. 
 
 " That's good for your head, Dick. We all leave col- 
 lege with a good deal of cerebral inflation that has to be 
 removed, before we are fit to live in the world. Getting 
 knocked on the head is one way of reducing it. God! 
 what a fool's paradise to live in, shut in behind academic 
 walls, living with the hosts of the past till we forget the 
 language of the present! You are not going, are you? 
 Stop, I want to show you some of the page proofs of the 
 Dawn." 
 
 Dick was in such a fever of impatience to be off, 
 that the thought of being forced to put his mind on some- 
 thing entirely foreign to his interests, actually turned him 
 faint. He excused himself with the first idea that came 
 into his head. He took out his watch, saying : 
 
 " Excuse me, Max. You know this is Sunday, and I 
 ought to be home; I couldn't go out last night, and I've 
 just time to catch that 1 130 boat. I'll see you later. 
 Good-by, old man ! " 
 
 He put out his hand, the ghost of a smile flickered 
 over his face, and he was gone. Out in the open air, 
 again, he expanded his lungs with a deep breath. He 
 started for the ferry, but he had no intention of going 
 home. How could he meet anybody and chat and smile 
 indifferently with this heavy burden on his heart! Ar- 
 rived at the other side of the bay, he took the first 
 street car he could find for North Berkeley ; and leaving 
 it at the terminus, he struck out for a solitary ramble 
 along the shore, where he had often idly wandered in 
 his boyhood.
 
 THE TRELOARS 165 
 
 It is a rugged sinuous shore strewn with huge gray rocks 
 among which clumps of hoary live oak spread their 
 gnarled and twisted branches. Across the bay, narrow- 
 ing here, until it seems only a broad river, a low chain 
 of hills culminates in the majestic dome of Mount Tamal- 
 pais, clad almost to its summit with magnificent forests 
 of ancient pines. The unusual clearness of the summer 
 atmosphere brought out the undulating outline of the 
 mountain chain against the blue sky; and, if Dick had 
 been in a mood to yield to the charm of his surround- 
 ings, he would have felt the influence of their quiet and 
 noble strength. But the tumult of his thoughts and 
 feelings made him indifferent to anything but the wish 
 for solitude, where, undisturbed, he could fight out this 
 terrific battle with himself. He threw himself on the 
 ground near a huge lichen-covered rock, facing the bay, 
 and gave himself up to a searching enquiry. He was in 
 no humor to deceive himself. He wished to stand face 
 to face with his real self, to probe the depths of his heart, 
 in order to see in what direction he was facing. 
 
 The afternoon wore away; evening came on, and still 
 he sat there, motionless as the stone against which he 
 leaned. The white drenching mist, rolling in from the 
 bay, aroused him at last from his intense thought; and 
 he rose from the ground feeling dizzy and weak, and 
 aged by a score of years, yet clearly conscious of the 
 direction in which duty lay, and honor pointed. A hard, 
 long path it was, all uphill, strewn with sharp stones, and 
 tangled with thorny branches ; and he must brace himself 
 and struggle hard for every step in advance. Something 
 fine and manly within his soul tingled and vibrated at the 
 thought, and that strange spiritual exaltation which al- 
 ways accompanies the victory of conscience, filled him with 
 its solemn joy, so closely bordering pain that there is but 
 one expression for the two emotions the moistened 
 eye and swelling throat ! 
 
 He walked on rapidly, in order to catch an evening 
 train for San Francisco. He could hardly have gone
 
 166 THE TRELOARS 
 
 home, if his life had depended on it; for there is no 
 isolation like that of a mighty passion, be it of grief, or 
 joy, or frenzied love. It is the colossal egotism which 
 effaces the rest of the world, and were it as common as 
 romancers feign that it is, society could hardly exist. The 
 great lovers are as rare as the great geniuses ; there go to 
 the making of both of them, that subtle gift of the imagin- 
 ation which paints with colors that no other eye can see, 
 and that peculiar tremulous susceptibility which shrinks at 
 a touch, like the leaves of a sensitive plant. The joy of 
 such natures is the joy of giving themselves, wholly, un- 
 compromisingly, and of feeling themselves no longer soli- 
 tary as one, but solitary as two, " the world forgetting by 
 the world forgot." But nature, whose interests are en- 
 tirely general, and who leaves the individual as such, en- 
 tirely out of her calculation, very rarely grants so peculiar 
 a privilege. A great love is as rarely a happy one, as it 
 is rare itself. Human nature as a whole, is inclined to 
 be polygamous in its loves; and, desires succeed desires, 
 with such bewildering rapidity, that it is farcical to call 
 them love. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 IT was in a chastened, humble, yet exalted frame of 
 mind, that Dick went to the banquet in honor of the rising 
 Dawn. It was not exactly the mood to predispose him 
 favorably to what he was to see and hear. 
 
 In a long, narrow, low-walled room, brilliantly lighted, 
 a number of tables had been joined together to form one 
 long banqueting-table, at which some twenty-five or thirty 
 persons could be comfortably seated. Huge bouquets of 
 roses and smilax ornamented the table, and over the door- 
 way was grouped a collection of the flags of all nations. 
 Across this collection, was drawn a white linen band, in- 
 tended to be symbolic of the negation of nationality in 
 universal brotherhood. It was not so easy a matter to
 
 THE TRELOARS 167 
 
 abolish the evidences of nationality from the faces of 
 the guests. Nature had stamped them with her inefface- 
 able marks of racial and geographical distribution. There 
 were swarthy, low-browed faces with short black bristling 
 hair. There were gaunt, hollow-eyed faces that recalled 
 the lugubrious countenance of Don Quixote. There were 
 round bullet-headed, blonde-bearded men, phlegmatic in 
 speech and gesture ; and there were quick, spider-like, 
 thin, dark-eyed darting men, never quiet for a moment, 
 bursting out into sharp laughter, showing their flashing 
 teeth under their scanty bristling moustaches, and always 
 the center of a little group, leading the conversation, or 
 interrupting it. There were no old men among them, 
 the oldest being probably not more than thirty-five. But 
 there was one common characteristic which like the strip 
 of ^white linen across the flags, held them together as a 
 unit, a brotherhood ; and that was an air of general shab- 
 biness. There were no dress suits. It had been ex- 
 pressly stated that there would reign neither formality 
 nor convention in this reunion of men who were to mold 
 the thought of their generation into a new formlessness. 
 As a natural consequence, the linen was frequently far 
 from showing spotlessness and precision; and in one 
 particular case, it had been replaced by a red flannel shirt 
 with an open rolling collar. There were few trousers 
 guilty of their original creases, or wanting in a superfluous 
 glossiness in the rear, convicting their owners of prefer- 
 ring a sedentary life to a pedestrian one. This motley 
 crew gathered in a warm room, exhaled an unpleasant 
 odor, testifying another rebellion against the conventional- 
 ities, in the form of a revolt against soap and water. 
 
 " Don't you think we need a little fresh air ? " was 
 Dick's first question to Max, after the usual greeting. 
 
 " Too strong a scent of the wild, eh ? " 
 
 " Yes. I think that's it. After the neutral atmosphere 
 outside, it's rather aggressive," and Dick moved towards 
 a window, throwing it wide open with an unnecessary 
 display of energy which drew attention to himself, as he
 
 168 THE TRELOARS 
 
 perceived on turning around. He perceived, also, or 
 thought he did, an instinctive hostility in the glance of the 
 restless eyes confronting him, and he repaid it with a 
 look equally hostile. He felt antagonized immediately, 
 and expected an acrid, disagreeable note in the mentality 
 of these men, corresponding to that which affected his 
 physical senses. His expectations were not disappointed. 
 
 After the general lull which followed the seating of the 
 guests at the table, Max arose and made a short speech 
 of welcome, after which, he reminded them of the cause 
 that had brought them together, namely a most praise- 
 worthy determination among the living to shake off the 
 yoke of the dead, to fight for liberty in the truest and 
 largest sense, the liberty to express one's individuality 
 without the childish admonition that because nobody else 
 ever expressed that peculiar outlook on life, from that 
 peculiar standpoint, nobody had any right to do it. This 
 is virtually the meaning of standards and conventions. 
 They set up narrow bounds or limits to human thought, 
 saying to the aspiring mind, athirst for the infinite : 
 ' Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther.' Here Max grew 
 very eloquent over the consequent stunting and deforma- 
 tion of human intellect, comparing it to the deforma- 
 tion of the Chinese woman's foot, or the slanting forehead 
 of the Flat-head Indians. Away with the bandages and 
 straps, and shackles for the human intellect! He con- 
 cluded by reminding them that this movement for larger 
 individual freedom was by no means confined to this 
 effort on the western coast; but had its origin else- 
 where; and was now universal. In fact, they had with 
 them to-night a representative from a foreign shore, 
 who, at the conclusion of the feast, would read to them 
 some inspiring passages from the manifestoes of Italian 
 artists and litterateurs. 
 
 Then, the dinner proceeded in a silence remarkable 
 enough to prove that with regard to gastronomic con- 
 ventionalities, there was not one dissenting voice. Even 
 Dick, who had been eating hardly anything for the past
 
 THE TRELOARS 169 
 
 few days, and on entering the room, had not felt his ap- 
 petite returning, began, now, to eat with hearty enjoy- 
 ment; and with an increasing sense of physical comfort, 
 felt his harshness softening towards this long line of 
 hungry faces, intently bent over their plates. " Poor 
 devils ! " he thought, " an empty belly and an empty purse 
 make more rebels than an intellectual conviction." Yet 
 that was not the explanation of Max's rebellion, and he 
 began to feel a little curious, as to just what his program 
 was; therefore, combating his first instinct of hostility, 
 he turned, at the end of the feast, to listen attentively 
 to the dark-skinned, wiry, little Italian who rose to tell 
 what the youth of his country were thinking and doing. 
 He spoke rapidly, with a very strong foreign accent, 
 and he was so familiar with the contents of the paper 
 which he held in his hands that he rarely had to look 
 at it. He began by saying that he had recently had 
 the honor to be present at the first battles of this por- 
 tentous futuristic movement, and from the vigorous lungs 
 of Italian youths had heard the first raucous cry of re- 
 bellion against academic art and literature, the museums, 
 the reign of archeologists, college professors and dealers 
 in old clothes and antiquities in general. It was the battle 
 of life against death. It was the cry of the free man 
 who shakes off his chains and runs his race with un- 
 fettered ankles. He had seen the valiant leader of these 
 valiant youths, pelted with potatoes and rotten fruit in 
 the vast crowded Mercantile Theater of Naples. He had 
 seen him in the midst of this dangerous riot, catch an 
 orange that was thrown at him, and eat it with a coolness 
 and imperturbability so sublime, that it paralyzed the 
 vast crowd with admiration, and instantly changed its 
 yells and hoots of derision into tumultuous applause. " I 
 take this," he continued, " as a happy augury of our suc- 
 cess. We scorn as unworthy of our mighty upheaval of 
 thought, the cheap applause which belongs to mediocrity, 
 recognized by mediocrity. We welcome hisses, hoots 
 and yells of scorn. They are the sign that the arrows 
 
 I
 
 170 THE TRELOARS 
 
 of our wit draw blood. We are not giving tops and 
 marbles to children to play with, but iron and steel to 
 men to work with. Literature has, too long, been in the 
 hands of the idle and the feeble. It has smiled and 
 capered and pirouetted and amouretted its way into 
 boudoirs and parlors. It is impregnated with the odor of 
 petticoats." 
 
 " Well, God knows the odor of trousers isn't any im- 
 provement on it," muttered Dick, with an angry scowl. 
 
 "And it crawls and wallows," went on the little man 
 in a high, shrill voice, " where it should walk with up- 
 right strides. We proclaim the emancipation of man 
 from the dominion of petticoats. Down with the base 
 tyranny of feminism! the romantic gabbling and cooing 
 in the moonlight! It is the disgrace of modern litera- 
 ture to-day that it has centered its interest in what we 
 have in common with the beast, and has ignored that 
 which allies us to the gods ! " 
 
 " Good ! " growled Dick, again, " only the word gods 
 is an anachronism." 
 
 " This literature of neurasthenia and hysteria has been 
 a veritable plague to our race. It has sapped our virility. 
 It has clouded our intelligence ; therefore, in the language 
 of our great futuristic leader from whom I shall now 
 
 F quote literally : ' We despise woman as an instrument of 
 pleasure! We despise this horrible and perplexing pas- 
 sion of love which shackles man, preventing him from 
 getting out of himself, doubling his power, and rising su- 
 perior to himself and into what we call the multiplied 
 man.' 
 
 " Love, lust, and the family have made cowards of 
 men for generation after generation. We welcome any- 
 thing that will break the power of woman. For that 
 reason we welcome the suffragettes as our best collabora- 
 tors ; because the more rights and political powers woman 
 has, the less time she has to preoccupy herself with love 
 and to make herself the receptacle of sentimental passion, 
 and the machine of pleasure. But we are assured that
 
 THE TRELOARS 171 
 
 a government composed of women, or sustained by them, 
 will fatally direct us into pacifism, Tolstoyan cowardice 
 and a definitive triumph of hypocrisy and the priesthood. 
 That might come to pass ; but it would be followed by a 
 war of the sexes, and humorous misogynists possibly 
 dream of a Saint Bartholomew of women. 
 
 " Let it come. We futurists are too progressive to be 
 bound by family life. We love nothing but the heroic 
 instinct. We who desire that the masterpiece shall be 
 burned with the corpse of its author ; we, who feel hor- 
 ror at the idea of working for immortality, because that 
 is nothing more nor less than the dream of intellectual 
 usurists, we shall not create sons of flesh and blood. 
 We have dreamed of creating, some day, our Mechanical 
 Son fruit of the free will, synthesis of all the laws 
 which science is discovering. Admitting the transform- 
 ist theory of Lamarck, we aspire to the formation of an 
 inhuman type, in which will be effaced all moral pain, 
 kindness, tenderness, and love, which are the only poison- 
 ous corrosive of our inexhaustible vital energy, the only 
 destroyers of our potent physiological electricity. We ad- 
 mit the possibility of an incalculable number of human 
 transformations; and we venture to declare that a pair 
 of wings slumbers in the ribs of man. The day on 
 which it will be possible for man to exteriorize his will in 
 such a way that it will be projected outside of him, like 
 an immense invisible arm, on that day, dream and de- 
 sire, which are vain words, at present, will reign su- 
 premely over space and time, for space and time will be 
 abolished. 
 
 " Romantic love will be reduced to a simple corporeal 
 function like eating or drinking. But there is much to 
 be done before our masculine contemporaries, satiated 
 with erotic novels and enervating alcohol, become finally 
 immune to the infirmity of love, and capable of destroying 
 in themselves all the griefs of the heart, and the dis- 
 tractions of the affections. Our frank misogynistic 
 optimism is diametrically opposed to the pessimism of that
 
 172 THE TRELOARS 
 
 bitter thinker Schopenhauer who offered the suggestive 
 pistol of his philosophy in order to kill in ourselves the 
 profound nausea of woman and love. We have turned 
 the tragic pistol and cheerfully aimed it at the romantic 
 moonlight. We have said: Down with all consecrated 
 conventionalities, the foci of dreams and cowardice ! We 
 no longer love anything but this immense movable and 
 passionate scaffolding which we can consolidate at any 
 moment and adjust to any squalls with the red cement of 
 our bodies, forged by the will. 
 
 " Let the worm-eaten past fear, and the future hope ! 
 Trust in progress which is always right, even when it is 
 unjust; because there is life, movement, struggle and 
 hope in it. Take care not to criticise progress ! Even 
 when it is an impostor, a traitor, an assassin, a robber, an 
 incendiary, progress is right! 
 
 " Up then with the futuristic banner ! Higher yet, to 
 exalt the aggressive and destructive will of man and to 
 affirm once more the absurdity of the nostalgic memory 
 of myopic history and the rotting past! You think us 
 too brutal. That is because we have bathed in the light 
 of a new sun, resembling in no way the sun that caressed 
 the placid shoulders of our ancestors whose slow pace 
 was in harmony with the idle hours of their provincial 
 cities and the breadth of the flag-stones of their streets, 
 blossoming in verdure and silence. We breathe an at- 
 mosphere irrespirable to them. We have no time to 
 pray before tombs. In the next inevitable conflict of na- 
 tions, that nation will conquer which has most completely 
 forgotten its past, which is most futuristic, most scientific, 
 most industrious, and, consequently, the richest. 
 
 " The victorious science of our day denies its past, that 
 it may better respond to the intellectual necessities which 
 disturb us. Our renewed consciousness prevents us from 
 regarding man as the center of universal life. Man's 
 agony is no more interesting to us than the agony of an 
 electric lamp which suffers with spasmodic leaps, and 
 shrieks with the boldest expressions of color. The har-
 
 THE TRELOARS 173 
 
 mony of lines and folds in contemporary dress, exercises 
 on our sensibilities the same emotional and symbolic in- 
 fluence which the nude exercised on the sensibility of the 
 ancients. To conceive of, and to understand the new 
 beauties of a futuristic picture, the soul must be purified, 
 the sight freed from its veil of atavism and of culture, and 
 must consider nature, and not the museums, as the aim 
 of its orientation. When this result is obtained we shall 
 destroy the black tints which have never slept in our epi- 
 dermis ; we shall let the yellow blaze forth, the red and the 
 green shine again, the blue and the violet shall dance on 
 our flesh with their voluptuous and caressing grace. 
 
 " Our increasing desire for truth can no longer be 
 satisfied with form and color, as they have been hitherto 
 conceived. The appearance, the attitude which we desire 
 to reproduce upon the canvas, will not be a fixed instant 
 of universal dynamism. It will be simply a dynamic sen- 
 sation. Everything, in reality, is changing ; is undergoing 
 a vertiginous transformation. A profile is never immov- 
 able before us; it ceaselessly appears and disappears. 
 Even during the persistence of the image in the retina, 
 moving objects are successively multiplied and deformed, 
 like the recurring vibrations precipitated in space. There- 
 fore a running horse has twenty legs, not four; and his 
 movements are triangular. Everything in art is conven- 
 tional; nothing in painting is absolute. What yesterday 
 was truth for the painter, is nothing to-day, but an enorm- 
 ous lie. For example, we maintain that a portrait ought 
 not to resemble the model; and that the painter carries 
 within himself the landscape which he wishes to fix upon 
 the canvas. To paint a human face, all that is necessary 
 is to reproduce its environment. Space does not exist; 
 and who, to-day, believes in the opacity of bodies since our 
 acute and multiplied sensibility has foreseen the obscure 
 manifestations of spiritualism? 
 
 " All the feverish life of our day ; the shriek of the lo- 
 comotive; the loud clang of the automobile trump; the 
 crashing, grinding of buildings in process of erection;
 
 174 THE TRELOARS 
 
 the hissing and crackling of electric currents, will find a 
 voice for the first time in the music of the future; poetry 
 will leap unshackled from the chains of rhyme and 
 rhythm; and scorning in its new freedom all the stupid 
 conventionalities of sense and decency, will bare its naked 
 limbs in free verse. Nothing shall be sacred to it. The 
 graves shall open as it passes, and the sheeted dead shall 
 squeak and gibber and fling their stench into the morning 
 breeze. 
 
 " The education of the young shall no longer be en- 
 trusted to the care of those who have been trained in 
 the culture of the past. We wish our sons to follow 
 joyously their own inclinations, to finish once for all with 
 antiquities to scoff at all that time has consecrated! 
 What do you think, for example, of the futuristic project 
 which consists in introducing into all schools a regular 
 course in risks and dangers? The children will be sub- 
 jected, either willingly or by force, to the necessity of 
 facing at all times, a series of dangers each time more 
 and more frightful, arranged by the instructors, but al- 
 ways unforeseen to the children; such as fire, inunda- 
 tion, the falling in of roofs and other appalling disasters ! 
 Our idea appears to you preposterous? Know, then, 
 that, fortunately, we are very numerous, we who be- 
 lieve that talent and virtue abound, and that valor is 
 scarce, concealed, almost impossible to be found " 
 
 Scarcely had the orator finished uttering this phrase, 
 when he suddenly felt himself seized by the seat of his 
 trousers and the scruff of the neck, and hurled across 
 the table with a violence which proved that the futuristic 
 education might be a very serious thing, and that valor 
 and strength had been neither so scarce nor so concealed, 
 as the orator supposed, but had been quite close beside 
 him, in the person of Dick, who was now shouting in a 
 towering rage : 
 
 " It's a poor doctor that won't take his own medicine ! 
 How do you like your futuristic education? Any more 
 of you that would like to take a lesson in it? If you do, 
 there's my card ! "
 
 THE TRELOARS 175 
 
 Dick flung his card on the table and looked savagely 
 at the surprised and scowling faces about him. He was 
 white to the very lips, his eyes blazing, and every muscle 
 in him quivering like that of a tiger crouching for his 
 prey. He felt the strength of a hundred men in his lithe 
 young body, and looked as if he had it. Turning to Max, 
 he said : 
 
 "As for you. I have loved you as if you were my 
 brother. But there are things dearer to me even than 
 the ties of blood and friendship; they are the sane and 
 beautiful instincts which bind me to the human race 
 and that puny wretch has outraged and insulted them in 
 borrowed language, and I should be the white-livered 
 coward he finds everywhere, if I could listen to his blas- 
 phemous rot, and give no sign of protest or resentment ! 
 So I don't ask your pardon for what I've done. I'd do it 
 over again in a minute ! I guess my room is better than 
 my company. Do any of you want anything more of me, 
 before I go ? " 
 
 As no one uttered a word, he started for the door, tak- 
 ing his hat from the rack as he passed it; and he 
 turned once more to glare at the astonished crowd, be- 
 fore he disappeared. Never in his life had he felt such 
 a tempest of anger and indignation possess him. His vi- 
 olence was not only an expression of unfathomable dis- 
 gust, but it was the climax of all the unhappiness, and 
 repression that had been brooding in him for weeks ; and 
 once more in the open air, he had a glorious feeling of re- 
 lief, as he hastened to catch the midnight ferry for the 
 other side of the bay. At last he could go home. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 "Is that you, Dick?" 
 
 The voice was tremulous and eager. Dick had entered 
 the house as quietly as possible, knowing that Margaret's 
 quick ears would catch the slightest sound ; but the stairs
 
 176 THE TRELOARS 
 
 had creaked under his step, although he had taken off his 
 shoes to mount them, and there she stood at the head of 
 the stairs, the moonlight streaming over her, as it entered 
 the window behind her. She had a cape thrown over her 
 / white night-dress, and her bare feet were thrust into bed- 
 room slippers. She had heard him open the door. In 
 a moment her arms were about his neck, and she was 
 softly crying with joy, as she said: 
 
 " Dear, dear Dick. I knew you were coming. I had 
 such a strange restless feeling about you. I couldn't 
 sleep. I kept saying to myself : ' Come, Dick ! O, come, 
 come to me! ' And here you are. It is wonderful ! " 
 
 " Hush, Margaret ! " whispered Dick, " you'll wake the 
 others." 
 
 " I think there's no danger. Nobody else has been 
 worrying about you. Come into your room, and let me 
 turn on the light to have a good look at you. It seems 
 ages and ages, since I saw you." 
 
 She preceded him into his room and flooded it with 
 light. 
 
 " Why, Dick, what have you been doing with yourself ? 
 You look so haggard! There are great black circles 
 under your eyes." 
 
 " Are there ? Well, come here, and see if you can't 
 match them." 
 
 He led her to the mirror, and though her face was 
 flushed with joy, and her eyes were shining brightly, 
 there were dark rings under them, telling of anxious 
 thoughts and sleepless nights. 
 
 " What have you been doing, Margaret ? " 
 
 Margaret turned away from her image in the glass, and 
 nestling her head on Dick's shoulder, she whispered 
 earnestly : 
 
 " Dick, it is that other woman that is doing it." 
 
 "Margaret!" 
 
 " I can't help it, Dick. I have been suffering agonies 
 on account of her." 
 
 She felt his heart quicken its beats, as she spoke. He
 
 THE TRELOARS 177 
 
 did not try to deceive her by feigning amazement, or ask- 
 ing what woman. They sat down on the edge of the bed 
 near each other, and taking her hand in his and caressing 
 it, he said very quietly: 
 
 " Margaret, I was a fool ! I took a bit of bright tinsel 
 for gold ; but I see, now, what it was. You need fear for 
 me no more. I am through with it all. I promise you 
 faithfully." 
 
 She put her arms about his neck; she kissed him 
 fervently. 
 
 " O Dick, you don't know how happy you make me ! 
 See, it is all gone now all the worry and grief ; and 
 we'll never speak of it again! It's all forgotten! O, I 
 am so glad! so glad!" 
 
 " Did you get the letter I sent you ? " 
 
 " Yes. You said you were going to Max's banquet. 
 Didn't you go ? " 
 
 Dick burst out laughing, and it was Margaret's turn 
 to remind him that he might wake the sleepers. 
 
 " I have just come from there, and what do you think I 
 did, as guest of honor? " 
 
 " I have no idea ; but I know it wasn't anything to be 
 ashamed of." 
 
 " No, it wasn't. I just caught hold of the chief speaker 
 by the seat of his breeches and his coat collar, and I 
 hurled him over the table, as if he had been a little 
 poodle dog." 
 
 " Dick, you are joking! " 
 
 " No, I am not. Upon my honor ! " 
 
 "Why, Richard Treloar!" 
 
 " I know it. Incomprehensible, isn't it ? I'll tell you 
 how it happened. The chief speaker was a little Italian 
 runt, chock-full of some futuristic manifestoes which he 
 was grinding out like a sausage mill, and when he came 
 to the point where he was telling how the young are to 
 be trained to meet all sorts of disasters, floods, fires, col- 
 lapses of buildings, etc., I couldn't for the life of me help 
 giving him a taste of an unexpected disaster. I don't 

 
 1/8 THE TRELOARS 
 
 know how he liked it. He got a fine bloody nose, and a 
 welt on his forehead, but there wasn't a peep out of him 
 or anybody else when I left; although I offered to lick 
 the whole bunch." 
 
 "Dick!" 
 
 Margaret was almost speechless with astonishment. 
 
 " Don't you think I did right ? You should have heard 
 how he despised women and their cowardly affections, 
 and hated the family, and thought the hope of the world 
 was in war, and would blot out all memory of the past, 
 burn down colleges, libraries, museums, art galleries ; and 
 people the world with machine-men with steel wings 
 growing out of their ribs! Do you think I was going 
 to sit there and listen to all that idiotic drivel and not 
 enter a protest? I am not a knocker on general princi- 
 ples, and you know it ; but when I see a low-browed wretch 
 sneak up with a torch to burn down my house, I am go- 
 ing to knock him down, if I can : and when I hear him re- 
 vile my sister and vomit the infamy of his black heart on 
 the memory of my mother I am going to kick him 
 into kingdom come, if I can. Now you see what a nice 
 little brother Dick you have ! " 
 
 Dick rammed his hands into the pockets of his trousers 
 and looked at Margaret with a curious smile. His face 
 was flushed, his eyes glistening, his dark hair was falling 
 in disorder about his forehead; and there was something 
 so forceful and defiant in his bearing that Margaret felt 
 herself in the presence of some new trait in her brother's 
 character that half-frightened her, so she said sooth- 
 ingly : 
 
 " Don't take it so seriously, Dick. These people are just 
 like silly, forward children bent upon attracting attention 
 to themselves ; and the more attention you give them, 
 even in reprimanding them, the better they like it. The 
 only thing which they can't stand at all, is to be absolutely 
 ignored. That is how I should treat them; pay abso- 
 lutely no attention to them. They'll get tired of posing 
 their impotence and ignorance before each other. The 
 audience isn't important enough to flatter them."
 
 THE TRELOARS 179 
 
 "That's your idea, is it? but suppose other people 
 aren't of your opinion? Suppose that there are millions 
 of people incapable of an original thought who are led 
 like sheep by the tinkling of a bell? Suppose you can't 
 insult this intelligence with drivel and indecency, be- 
 cause they haven't any intelligence to insult? and sup- 
 pose that instead of intelligence they've just got vanity 
 enough to wish to be at the head of the procession; how 
 are you going to keep them from thinking that noise is 
 thought, and nastiness, wit; and that where the noise 
 and the nastiness are, there's the head of the procession? 
 You'll have to set up some kind of a counter noise to 
 keep them from going to the devil. They really don't 
 want to go there ; they want to go to the fat land, where 
 the grass grows green and high, and all they need is an 
 honest shepherd. Now are you going to be an honest 
 shepherd, or are you just going to turn your back on 'em 
 and laugh in your sleeve? Are you afraid of being 
 laughed at, yourself, if you don't do that? I'd rather 
 be true to the little wit God gave me, and be counted 
 witless, than be called wise for praising a new folly 
 which imbeciles and unscrupulous men were making the 
 fashion. So I don't agree with you in turning my back 
 on your forward children. I'd rather plant my foot in 
 their rear, which is a good deal solider and more sensi- 
 tive than their heads. Probably that is the reason why 
 they prefer to exhibit it. More in it." 
 
 As Margaret couldn't find anything to say to this, she 
 rose and bade Dick good-night, telling him that he must 
 lie as long as he liked in the morning, as he must be very 
 tired. 
 
 To Margaret, all this futuristic gibberish was not even 
 a mote to trouble her mind's eye; and if it troubled Dick 
 enough to give his mind a new activity, and drive out 
 of it the obsession of a fatal passion, it must be confessed, 
 that down in her heart of hearts, not believing that any 
 one could possibly take it seriously, Margaret would have 
 pronounced it a good thing. She had no inkling of the
 
 i8o THE TRELOARS 
 
 latent widespread intellectual disorder of which it was 
 the outward sign. She had that dangerous weakness of 
 the pure in heart to see all things pure, from sheer in- 
 capacity to conceive of the depths of wickedness. Her 
 vision of evil had the narrow range of a brooding bird. 
 It extended little beyond the nest, but there it had the 
 infallible keenness of instinct, and if it were well with 
 the nestlings, the world was safe. 
 
 Dick took advantage of Margaret's indulgence, and 
 did not go down to breakfast until half-past ten, at which 
 hour, Dr. Parker, having dropped in on the way to 
 town, had the pleasure of listening to a lively account of 
 Dick's experience at the banquet. He joined Treloar in 
 a hearty laugh. 
 
 " By George ! I wish I had been there ! " roared Treloar, 
 falling back in his chair, and lifting his feet from the 
 floor in an expression of huge delight. 
 
 " But what an innocent you are, Dick, if you can't 
 look a bit of perversity in the face without going all to 
 pieces! You can't upset the universe, as you upset the 
 little Italian. Your sample lesson was futile. There is a 
 cause for every phenomenon, and until you have dis- 
 covered it, there is no use in applying a remedy." 
 
 "That's true," said Parker, "but the trouble is that 
 you reformers are not going to agree as to causes. You, 
 for example, are going to lay it all to materialism and 
 the spread of scientific theories." 
 
 "Of course I am, because that is just exactly where 
 the cause does lie. Just as soon as you reverse the 
 relative importance of mind and matter, making the 
 greater proceed from the less, instead of the less from 
 the greater, you are going to end in a triumph of brute 
 force and brutish dullness over refinement and intelli- 
 gence. Even your Spencer saw it coming years ago, only 
 he hadn't the wit to realize that he and Darwin and 
 Huxley had contributed to bringing it about. In one 
 of his articles entitled Re-barb arization, he comments on 
 the growing love of barbaric display revived in civil and
 
 THE TRELOARS 181 
 
 clerical ceremonies ; the increasing attention given to ath- 
 letics; the reappearance of brutal sports, forbidden by 
 law; the growth of a militant spirit conspicuous even in 
 so-called religious movements, like that of the Salvation 
 Army, with its official gazette entitled the War Cry, and 
 its motto, Blood and Fire! You can't deny the facts ! " 
 
 "Of course not. I don't deny them. I only deny that 
 a coincidence is a cause. I deny, too, that scientific the- 
 ories are any more justly to be blamed for the present de- 
 cline in moral and aesthetic values, than the teachings of 
 Christ are to be blamed for the horrors of the Inquisi- 
 tion, and the Saint Bartholomew massacre. In both cases 
 wrong and ignorant interpretations of teachings and doc- 
 trines are to be blamed for the errors and cruelty that 
 followed the spread of them. Take for example, the ex- 
 aggerated ideas of the importance of personal liberty, 
 everywhere prevalent to-day leading to anarchy and ultra- 
 individualism. There is absolutely no authority for this 
 in the teachings of science. If science emphasizes 
 one thing more than another, it is the fact that law, not 
 liberty, reigns everywhere. In a like manner, Christ's 
 religion of love would make war and injustice impossible, 
 if it were really accepted. As for the truth of your as- 
 sertion that it makes a great difference in a man's moral 
 outlook, whether he believes that the great precedes from 
 the little, or vice versa, I am not so sure; but 1 am 
 as reasonably sure as I can be of anything, that all our 
 experience confirms us in the belief that there is a steady 
 upward development from the simple to the complex, 
 from the egg to the bird, and the acorn to the oak." 
 
 " No definite eternal force back of the urge to life ? 
 No difference in the attitude of him who feels that the 
 chain of intelligence culminates in man, and that of 
 him who believes that it has its beginning and its 
 end in an eternal omniscience which he calls God? 
 No difference between him who believes in nothing 
 greater than himself, and that he is the product of blind 
 aimless forces, therefore not responsible to any higher
 
 182 THE TRELOARS 
 
 being for his actions in fact, incapable of being held 
 responsible for anything? You can't deny, Joe, that sci- 
 ence has become a cloak for all the indecencies." 
 
 " But I protest that that is not science, and that you 
 can't justly make it responsible for the harm done in its 
 name." 
 
 " But it's done ! and how are you going to help your- 
 self ? I say that it kills the imagination, and it does. I 
 don't know any more terrible example in literature of 
 the stunting effects of scientific studies than the example 
 of Zola. Zola had naturally an extraordinarily good 
 mind, and he meant in his youth to use it in the service 
 of whatever was good and ennobling. Later, the great 
 temptation came to him that comes to every man 
 typified gloriously by Christ's temptation in the wilder- 
 ness the power and the glory of the world for the 
 worship of Satan Zola abandoned the dream of his 
 youth; he accepted the glory of the world. Did you 
 ever read his youthful correspondence ? There are some 
 really fine things in it. Dick, hand me that volume of 
 Zola's, if you please. No, not there, third shelf to the 
 right. That's it. Thank you. Now listen to this. He 
 is writing to Bailie under date of August 10, 1860. He 
 is twenty years old. I shan't translate the whole letter. 
 It is rather long. This is the gist of what he says, up 
 to the passage I am going to read to you. He says that 
 the poet has two instruments with which to reform man 
 for he believes at this time that poetry has a mission, 
 namely, the elevation of man. One of these instruments 
 is satire, the other is the hymn : Satan's burst of laugh- 
 ter, and God's smile. One method bares the perversi- 
 ties of man to put him to the blush, combating vice by 
 shame. The other, depicts the ideal man to arouse ad- 
 miration and a desire to be like him. On one side 
 you have a stirring up of filth, and exhalation of all 
 its miasmatic vapors: on the other side you have the 
 heavens opened up to show them full of sweetness and 
 light. Here is a good sentence on the effect of the two
 
 THE TRELOARS , 183 
 
 methods on the poet himself. ' When you stir up filth, 
 you soil your fingers ; when you linger in the fields in early 
 morning, you come home with the fragrance of the dew 
 and the flowers about you.' " 
 
 " Does Zola say that, father ? " 
 
 " Yes, Dick, Zola, before the light of scientific studies, 
 has led him astray, which light, as you will see later, is 
 a woeful darkness." 
 
 Treloar held his book out to Dick, pointing to the sen- 
 tence he had just translated, then turning the page, and 
 finding a paragraph which he had underscored, he read: 
 
 " ' Reading Lamartine is much more fertile in virtues 
 for me than reading Juvenal. The former with a flash 
 of his wings carries you to the throne of God ; the latter 
 like Dante makes you pass through hell with him. 
 After that, it is not necessary for me to tell you that I 
 have chosen the hymn.' " 
 
 An ironical smile played about Treloar's mouth, as he 
 read, and he looked up at Parker with a twinkle in his 
 eye. 
 
 ' To sharpen my pen, in order to blacken man de- 
 signedly; to take from him his rare qualities, and bring 
 out in relief his numerous defects, is repugnant to me. 
 I have only too frequently told you that society is cer- 
 tainly not what it ought to be; but since there are two' 
 ways of leading it back to the good, let us use the most 
 effectual and the most harmless one. There are still 
 higher considerations which induce me to prefer the 
 hymn. They have their origin in my conception of the 
 modern poet. Let us not be deceived. The artist is a 
 soldier. He is fighting in the name of God for all that is 
 great. He is not a vain, useless creature drifting with 
 his fancy, singing merely to sing, wholly indifferent to 
 the echoes which his lyre awakens. In our century, in this 
 materialistic age, when commercial interests absorb every 
 one, when science, so wonderful and so skilful, is filling 
 man with pride in his achievements, and leading him to 
 forget the supreme Savant, the poet has a sacred mission.
 
 184 THE TRELOARS 
 
 His duty, always and everywhere, is to show the soul to 
 those who think only of the body, and God to those 
 whose faith has been destroyed by science. Art is noth- 
 ing else but that. It is a splendid torch illuminating the 
 path of humanity, and not a miserable tallow-candle in 
 the dog-hole of a rhymster. The question is not simply 
 one of making beautiful verses; these verses must be a 
 sublime lesson in virtue. In both cases, the poet may be 
 a great artist, but when he uses his gift as a torch, he is 
 a disciple, an apostle of divinity; when he uses it badly, 
 he quenches the sacred fire, the gift of God. For what 
 is art, if it is not perfection, divine sublimity, divinity 
 itself ? God and poetry are synonymous for me.' What 
 do you think of that, Joe ? " 
 
 " I suppose that the real Zola is the muckraker the 
 aspiring, poetic youthful Zola is an unconscious imitator 
 of classic traditions. He had probably been reading 
 George Sand's preface to La Mare au Diable, and repro- 
 duced her idea of the mission of art, which is identical 
 with what he has been saying." 
 
 " I dare say, for he speaks approvingly of it some- 
 where; but what reduced him to the lower level? You 
 don't want to answer that, I see ; so, I'll tell you. It was 
 the study of science. Six years later, he has not only 
 abandoned his youthful ideals, but repudiates them with 
 hatred in a series of essays entitled Mes Haincs." 
 
 Treloar rose, and, going to his book shelves, took down 
 the volume in question, and turning to the review of 
 Goncourt's Germinie Lacerteux, he read : 
 
 " ' I must declare from the start that all my being, my 
 senses, my intelligence lead me to admire the feverish 
 and exaggerated work which I am going to analyze. I 
 find in it the defects and qualities which move me in- 
 tensely, namely: an indomitable energy; a sovereign 
 contempt for fools and cowards; a large and superb au- 
 dacity; extreme vigor of color and thought; artistic 
 solicitude, and conscientious effort, rare in these days of 
 hasty and bad workmanship. My taste, if you like, is
 
 THE TRELOARS 185 
 
 depraved. I love strongly spiced literary stews the 
 works of decadence in which a sort of sickly sensibility 
 replaces the vigorous health of classic epochs. I am of 
 my age. I like to consider a work of art as an isolated 
 fact; I study it as I would a curious case which has just 
 manifested itself in human intelligence. A work of art 
 is simply a free and high manifestation of a personality, 
 and I have no other task than to affirm that personality. 
 What does the crowd matter? I have here in my hands 
 an individual. I study him for himself, out of scientific 
 curiosity. The perfection I aim at is to give to my read- 
 ers the rigorously exact anatomy of the subject given 
 to me. It was my task to penetrate an organism, to re- 
 construct an artistic temperament, to analyze a heart and 
 an intelligence, according to my nature : the readers have 
 a right to admire or blame, according to theirs. 
 
 " There you have it, Joe, the spirit of science abso- 
 lutely destructive to art, as it is to religion. It is the 
 spirit of impartiality, of absolute indifference to the 
 subject; and art is the spirit of love, the spirit of selec- 
 tion, the power of distinction. One is all curiosity, the 
 other is all sympathy: one dissects, the other creates: 
 the one is not possible without weights and measures ; 
 and the other concerns itself with soul whose thoughts 
 and feelings can neither be measured nor weighed. Sci- 
 ence is impersonal ; art is deeply personal, or it is not art 
 at all, it is only cataloguing and photographing. Sci- 
 ence has discovered the cave-man and the low instincts 
 that linked him with the brute ; and literature for the last 
 half century has been sedulously bent on re-discovering 
 the cave-man under the polished surface of modern so- 
 ciety, and inventing him, when he can't be found in every- 
 body." 
 
 Mr. Treloar paused to wipe his face with his handker- 
 chief and Dr. Parker took advantage of the pause to 
 say: 
 
 " You've made out a pretty good case against science 
 as a promoter of art without quoting Darwin's confession
 
 186 THE TRELOARS 
 
 in later life that his faculty for aesthetic enjoyment had 
 atrophied for want of use, and he was unable to read 
 any poetry with pleasure. I can't say that I've come to 
 that pass, having followed Goethe's maxim rather lit- 
 erally to read a little poetry, hear a little music, and speak 
 a few sensible words, every day. But I should like to 
 say that what I know of real science so disgusts me with 
 the pseudo-science of novelists, artists, and poets as well 
 as that of the public in general, that I should be willing 
 to have it made a capital offense for any of them to 
 meddle with it. Science, rightly understood, emphasizes 
 standards and forms, and all this formlessness in art, of 
 which Dick speaks, is as far from science as the antipodes, 
 no matter what name it gives to the masks it puts on. 
 A braying ass on a dunghill might call himself Pegasus 
 on Mount Olympus, but that would not shorten his ears, 
 nor give solidity and height to his footing. But all these 
 questions do not trouble me much, to-day. I have got 
 a more intimate problem of my own. I'd like to know 
 what the deuce is the matter with young people, nowa- 
 days, that they are absolutely insensible to the charms of 
 home ! " 
 
 " Not guilty ! " shouted Dick. " For me, there is no 
 place like home." 
 
 " You wouldn't exchange it for a hospital roof, then ? " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " I mean that that is what Dolly wants to do." 
 
 "Is Dolly sick?" 
 
 " Sick ? No ! She's as well as you are. Sick of 
 home, that's all. She wants to be a nurse ! " 
 
 The doctor's face expressed extreme disgust. 
 
 " Well, why shouldn't she be a nurse, if she wants to? " 
 inquired Treloar, lighting a cigar. 
 
 " You wouldn't say that if Margaret got the same 
 idea into her head." 
 
 "Wouldn't I? That's just where you're mistaken. I 
 believe in the absolute liberty of the individual to choose 
 his own life work, his environment, adHKs companions. 
 But I believe in liberty, you don't."
 
 THE TRELOARS 187 
 
 " Then you would cheerfully give your consent to any 
 mad scheme that scampered through your children's 
 heads?" 
 
 " Certainly, all I feel responsible for, are the schemes 
 of my own." 
 
 " I haven't got to that stage of personal abnegation 
 where I can be indifferent, when my daughter's real happi- 
 ness is at stake." 
 
 " What do you know about your daughter's real happi- 
 ness? You interpret her happiness in your terms not 
 hers. It's my opinion that people ought to be happy in 
 their own way. If Dolly wants to be a nurse, let her be 
 a nurse." 
 
 " That's what I'm going to do ; but it is because I can't 
 help myself. I am going into Oakland now, to make 
 arrangements in a hospital for having her commence a 
 training course. I think I can have her spared some of 
 the preliminary drudgery." 
 
 " What ! You who believe that the great fault in 
 public school education is that it wants to smooth out all 
 the child's difficulties and turn his work into play, you 
 want to spare your girl all the common drudgery of her 
 work? Let her do it. Let her know what it is to mop 
 floors and clean out spittoons. It won't look such fun 
 to her in reality, as it does now." 
 
 " You may be right." 
 
 " I know I'm right." 
 
 Thinking the matter over, as he left the house, Dr. 
 Parker came to the same conclusion, but he was not any 
 happier for it. He was not given to indulging himself in 
 melancholy moods, but he could not shake off the dull 
 depression which had clouded his spirits ever since Dolly 
 had assured him of her resolve to go into training as 
 a nurse. He had reasoned with her about it, to no pur- 
 pose. She had a ready answer to all his objections, and 
 he had been too proud to do more than hint at the chief 
 one namely, that he felt himself abandoned, that her 
 love and companionship made the entire pleasure of his
 
 188 THE TRELOARS 
 
 life, and he would be desolate without her. She should 
 have known that; had she loved him with but half the 
 affection which he lavished upon her s she would have 
 felt the same impossibility for happiness apart from him. 
 So he said to himself, and a dreary bitterness filled him 
 at the thought. 
 
 Dr. Parker was making a manly effort to throw off 
 his pain and disappointment, but was not succeeding very 
 well. The hurt was too new, to begin healing yet and 
 its pain colored his atmosphere. The fairness of the 
 morning was a mockery to him. The twittering of the 
 birds struck his ear as a discordant note, and the old 
 question asked so insistently by his old friend, as an echo 
 of his century's question : Is life worth living? appeared 
 to him to have no answer but the negative one. Yet, any 
 one would have been gifted with unusual intuition, who, 
 two hours later, would have recognized under his calm ex- 
 terior all this dull, insipid despair : dull and insipid, be- 
 cause it was the despair of advancing age, and not the 
 poignant, torturing anguish of youth the very sharp- 
 ness of which predicts its transient character. He walked 
 along the bare, clean corridors of the hospital with a 
 firm and confident step, for he felt at home there. He 
 questioned the doctors and nurses about some interest- 
 ing cases under their care; then revealed the object of his 
 visit, with as much coolness, as if it had been a question 
 of ordering supplies. And what is more, he carried his 
 calmness home with him, and talked to Dolly of her new 
 plans in such an indifferent, matter of fact way that 
 Dolly was piqued into saying : 
 
 " Daddy, I believe you are glad to get rid of me." 
 
 To which he coolly replied : 
 
 " Well, Dolly, if it makes you any happier to think so, 
 you are welcome to the delusion." 
 
 Looking at him intently, her bright, young face clouded 
 over, for she divined the pain which he was so well con- 
 cealing, and with a halting voice, she said : 
 
 " Daddy, dear, I know I seem an ungrateful girl, but
 
 THE TRELOARS 189 
 
 I really am not. I only want to broaden out a little. I 
 want to see the world at another angle. What do I know 
 of it, sheltered so warm and cosily here? In one way, 
 I feel quite grown up ; in another way, I am just a baby, 
 and I want to balance myself. I have been turning 
 round and round myself and you, till I am dizzy. I can't 
 stop and stagnate. I must walk on ahead, and take my 
 mind off myself. Don't you understand, Daddy?" 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 DICK'S return to San Francisco was accompanied by a 
 plentiful harvest of second thoughts. In talking the 
 whole matter of his violent behavior at the banquet, 
 frankly over with his father, he had rid himself of his 
 mental bile, and, in consequence, the hue of the world 
 had a livelier tint to him. He felt as if he had made a 
 fool of himself by his unseemly attack on the Italian ; and, 
 having that sort of mentality which cannot be reconciled 
 to itself, until it has repaired its mistakes, he determined, 
 after deliberating a week over the matter, to seek Max 
 and humbly beg his pardon for what he had done, with- 
 out in the least receding from his convictions. 
 
 He found Max in his office engaged in getting ready 
 for the mail a large number of sample copies of the Dawn. 
 The windows were open, and the street noises prevented 
 him from hearing Dick enter, and he was not aware of 
 Dick's presence, until he was at his elbow. Max looked 
 at him for a moment in great surprise, then a broad smile 
 spread over his face, and he cordially pressed Dick's ex- 
 tended hand. 
 
 " Max," said Dick hurriedly, " I was a fool that night 
 at the banquet. Will you forgive me ? " 
 
 " Certainly, old man," replied Max, cheerfully. " You 
 were decidedly off your base, weren't you? It's a good 
 thing you didn't break any of that little fellow's bones, 
 or you would have had a hospital bill on your hands, let
 
 190 THE TRELOARS 
 
 alone an assault and battery charge. In fact, I saved you 
 from the latter by arguing that as the speaker had been 
 advocating that sort of thing in futuristic education, he 
 couldn't logically object to an illustration of it. I don't 
 think he liked it, though ; for he had a futuristic picture 
 of a countenance that was no improvement to his beauty. 
 I guess he's got it yet. The upshot of the whole thing 
 was, that as we said we were eager to make a sensation, 
 we could congratulate ourselves on having done it. By 
 the way, if you are really penitent, you might give us a 
 damn good roasting in your paper. We are not looking 
 just yet for acquiescence or even toleration. We just 
 want our place in the sun. Whether we stand on it with 
 bloody heads or whole ones, doesn't matter so long as 
 we are out of the shade. What do you say ? " 
 
 Dick made a wry face and recalled Margaret's advice. 
 In the light of Max's speech, it took on a new value, so he 
 extricated himself by the miserable subterfuge of equivo- 
 cation, so difficult is honest criticism in the presence of 
 friendship. 
 
 " But don't you see, Max, that I am here because I am 
 repentant? That means that I am in no mood to repeat 
 my attack in any form." 
 
 Max looked disappointed, and then said eagerly : 
 
 " Well then, Dick, I ask it as a personal favor. Give 
 us hell, the hotter the better ! so that your article will 
 be copied by other papers and make the tour of the con- 
 tinent. We might spend a small fortune in advertising 
 ourselves, and not get the returns that a good denuncia- 
 tion, full of ' pep ' and ginger would give us. Do you 
 remember Bobby Burns's gay defiance of the ' unco guid ' ? 
 ' The mair they talk, I'm kent the better.' He was 
 right. Publication in any form is a good deal nearer 
 recognition than nothing at all. Think of the slimy tur- 
 bid flux of speech that's getting recognized nowadays, as 
 purest water from the Pierian Springs. Our stuff's no 
 worse than that." 
 
 Dick looked actually sick; but he had not come to 
 quarrel with Max, so he said weakly :
 
 THE TRELOARS 191 
 
 " I'll see about it." 
 
 "Do! that's a good fellow! See, here's a copy of the 
 Dawn. 1 had just finished addressing it to you, when you 
 came in. You can take it with you." 
 
 He handed Dick a copy, which the latter took mechanic- 
 ally, and then he went on : 
 
 " I'm sending Nita Normand a copy, too. By the way, 
 have you seen her lately? I went round to the theater 
 the other night and found an understudy in her role. 
 They said she was sick. I sent her some flowers; but 
 I've been too busy to call. Have you seen her ? " 
 
 Dick's heart leaped. His face which had been scarlet, 
 turned white. Max saw his embarrassment, and tactfully 
 turning away his head and pretending to look among his 
 papers for something, he said carelessly: 
 
 " O, it isn't anything serious ; a bad cold, I think they 
 said; voice gone temporarily, or something of that sort. 
 I dare say she's on the mend now. That was several days 
 ago. The company's going to take to the road again 
 next week, I hear; so she'll be leaving us." 
 
 Max took up his pen again, as if to resume his work, 
 and Dick, catching at the chance to escape, said with an 
 heroic effort at calmness : 
 
 " No, I hadn't heard anything about it. But I mustn't 
 interrupt you any longer. Good-by. I'll see you again, 
 shortly." 
 
 " All right ! Don't forget that article." 
 
 He rose from his chair as he spoke, and giving his 
 hand amicably to Dick, continued: 
 
 " I don't think I'll send your sister a copy. There's 
 no use shocking her, unnecessarily, is there ? " 
 
 " No, although I doubt if she would take it seriously 
 enough to be shocked. I told her what I did at the ban- 
 quet. She was shocked enough at that, I assure you." 
 
 " Was she ? " Max laughed heartily. " Well, it was 
 a little unconventional; not exactly in accordance with 
 the table manners she taught you; but to tell you the 
 honest truth, Dick, I rather enjoyed the scene. I was
 
 192 THE TRELOARS 
 
 beginning to feel bored. There is such a thing as having 
 too much of a good thing." 
 
 " You're very kind to say that. It was really horrible 
 of me, Max Good-by." 
 
 He hastened down the steps and into the noisy street, 
 unconscious of its bustling crowds coming to and going 
 from the ferry, unconscious of the floods of sunshine, and 
 the unclouded sky, unconscious of everything but that 
 Nita was ill. Nita was going to leave San Francisco, and 
 he might never see her again. The reaction of tenderness 
 which had prompted him to seek Max concentrated itself 
 now upon Nita. Arrived at the hotel where she was, he 
 sat down in the reception room and wrote three or four 
 little notes to be sent to her room, tearing them up and 
 thrusting the scraps into his pockets, before he succeeded 
 in simply saying : 
 
 " I implore you to let me see you, a moment. I was 
 wrong; you were right, and I am inexpressibly unhappy 
 to be wrong without saying so to your face, and begging 
 your forgiveness. 
 
 " RICHARD TRELOAR." 
 
 When his note came to her she was sitting in a low, 
 cushioned arm chair, drawn up before a window looking 
 out upon a grassy public square ornamented with flower 
 beds and palms. She had on a loose blue robe trimmed 
 with ecru lace. Her wavy hair was loosely knotted at the 
 back of her head. A slight fever lent a flush to her face 
 and brightened her dark eyes that were looking longingly 
 out at the open window. The enforced idleness and dis- 
 comfort of a week's illness was telling on her in a fit of 
 depression, such as she had not felt in many years. She 
 had quarreled again with her manager. The necessity of 
 renewing her contract with him was hateful to her. 
 Then she thought of Dick. What a fool she had been 
 to quarrel with him ! He had recognized what was best 
 in her. He had regilded her tarnished life with the 
 bright gold of his poetic fancy, and she had deliber-
 
 THE TRELOARS 193 
 
 ately chosen to brush it off, and to show herself to him 
 in such a way as to destroy his respect and affection for 
 her. How could she ever have been impatient with his 
 youthful reserves ! If she could only see him once more ! 
 Should she write to him? At this moment, there was a 
 knock at the door, and at her reply, an office boy entered 
 with Dick's note. She opened it hastily and the bright 
 hue deepened in her face, as she read. It had been a 
 long time since her heart had quickened so spontaneously 
 at the touch of another. She turned to the boy after 
 reading the note, saying: 
 
 " Tell him to wait ten minutes, and then he is to come 
 up, and I will see him." 
 
 When the messenger was gone, she put her lips to the 
 paper, murmuring : " Dear, dear boy ! How good, how 
 lovely of you! " 
 
 She hastened to the mirror, arranged her hair a little 
 more loosely about her temples, letting here and there a 
 short ringlet fall negligently over her forehead. She 
 softened the flush on her face with a touch of powder, 
 and pinned a knot of lace at her neck where the low-cut 
 gown revealed to perfection its round white fullness. She 
 slipped off her woolen bed-room slippers, and put on a 
 pair of dainty white kid ones. Then she glanced about 
 the room to correct any disorder, any hint of illness that 
 might be discovered. A white blanket was trailing over 
 the couch and she hastily folded it and carried it into the 
 adjoining bed-room. She had the sure instinct of the 
 healthy woman who knows that health is power. She 
 herself had a horror of the sick room, and an extravagant 
 admiration for health and strength. She would no more 
 have dreamed of playing upon Dick's sympathies by a 
 show of physical weakness than a stricken deer would 
 seek the herd for sympathy with its pain. She was 
 proud to match his youth and vigor by a youth and vigor 
 as beautiful as his own; for nature had given her that 
 vigor and elasticity of intellect which are ever the truest
 
 194 THE TRELOARS 
 
 youth, compared with which, mere bodily youth is stupid 
 and powerless. 
 
 She answered his knock at the door, by opening it her- 
 self ; and when she stood before him, smiling, beautiful, 
 a great rapture swept over him. 
 
 " O, how happy I am ! " he cried. " I thought you were 
 ill." 
 
 He stepped into the room and she drew up a chair for 
 him, opposite hers, near the window ; but he did not take 
 it. He stood before her, his soul in his eyes. He 
 longed to take her into his arms, to tell her how inex- 
 pressibly dear she was to him. She still smiled at him, as 
 she answered: 
 
 " It was nothing serious, only a cold in my throat which 
 made me very hoarse, and as my voice, not my face, is 
 my fortune, I had to be silent and take care of it. You 
 see there is still a blur in it." 
 
 A blur in it ? No, it was more sweetly, clearly resonant 
 to his ear than ever. 
 
 " But how beautiful it was of you," she continued, put- 
 ting out her hand and taking his, " to forgive my shame- 
 ful petulance. I think my illness was coming on. I am 
 sure I wasn't myself. Can you forgive me ? I can't for- 
 give myself." 
 
 " Forgive you? " he cried. " It is I who need to be for- 
 given, not you. I who dare set my narrow vision against 
 your broad one and insist that you should see as I do." 
 
 " No," she said hastily, still letting her hand rest in his. 
 " Do not say that. It is not a question of breadth and 
 narrowness between us. It is a question of individuality. 
 You have yours, I have mine. Life hasn't been exactly 
 kind to me, and I have had to adjust myself to its unex- 
 pected demands. These adjustments are my peculiarities. 
 They make life possible to me, and I love life, love it now, 
 to its very dregs, although, of course, I have my brief 
 hours of nausea when I am not sure that to be is infinitely 
 better than not to be, but I always recover from them. I 
 am going to tell you a secret. You won't tell anybody, 
 will you ? "
 
 THE TRELOARS 195 
 
 She put her forefinger to her lips, her eyes sparkled 
 merrily and her voice took on its most persuasive tones. 
 
 " I was just having one of them before you came 
 My sky was indigo you brought the sunshine, and 
 now it is as blue as an Italian sky, and I have a whole 
 nest of singing birds in my heart." 
 
 She extended her other hand to him, and he pressed it 
 to his lips. His heart was too full to speak : tears were 
 in his eyes. They looked at each other a moment and 
 then he said in a low, broken voice: 
 
 " Nita, my darling, I cannot live without you any longer. 
 That is why I am here. You are my sunshine without 
 which I starve with cold. Let me love you; let me live 
 for you ; let me be always to you the sunshine that you 
 are to me, the source of all my life, light, joy ! " 
 
 The glowing, passionate young face, so near her own, 
 drew her like a magnet. She lifted her head and kissed 
 the moist, trembling lips, and he shuddered with ecstasy 
 at the touch. She drew her slender, white fingers through 
 the masses of his dark hair, murmuring: 
 
 " My poor boy, my dear boy, I have come into your 
 life for harm, not for good, I fear. Listen to me," her 
 voice sank almost to a whisper. " Love me as men love 
 the rose for its fresh, sweet beauty of an hour, then they 
 fling it from them. I am not worth more than that. Love 
 me like that, and then forget me." 
 
 She sat down on the couch and covered her face with 
 her hands. He sat down beside her, and took her hands 
 from her face, exclaiming passionately: 
 
 " Never ! never ! I cannot forget you. You have 
 burned yourself into my life, so that it can never bear 
 any other image but yours. I have tried to forget you. 
 I made a solemn pledge to my sister that you should be 
 nothing more to me. It was the pledge of a thirsty man 
 who vowed he would not drink when there was no water 
 in sight, but whose parched lips sought the fountain as 
 soon as it bubbled before him. You are mine, mine, 
 mine! "
 
 196 THE TRELOARS 
 
 He encircled her in his arms, he pressed her head close 
 to his breast. 
 
 " I shall never give you up ! Never ! What is your 
 past to me. You were born anew the day I first saw you. 
 You have no faults in my eyes. I am not worthy of you, 
 but you make my life lovely by the reflection of your own 
 loveliness in it. You love me a little, don't you? or you 
 wouldn't let me hold you in this way close to my heart 
 where I shall hold you as long as it beats. Say you love 
 me, sweetheart say it to me, dear." 
 
 He bent his head over hers, he kissed her hair. The 
 wild generosity of his love and the contagion of his pas- 
 sion touched her deeply, and she answered : 
 
 " I do love you, my dear boy. I do love you unselfishly 
 enough to save you from myself. Nature never meant 
 we should mate, or she would have sent you to me in my 
 innocent girlhood. I must teach you to escape me." 
 
 "Escape me? 
 
 Never 
 
 Beloved! 
 
 While I am I, and you are you } 
 
 So long as the world contains us both 
 
 Me the loving, and you the loth 
 
 While the one eludes must the other pursue" 
 
 The poet's words sprang to his eager lip, as if they had 
 been coined fresh in his own brain ; and he only drew his 
 arm more closely about her. 
 
 " You love me, that is enough for me and I mean 
 that you shall never leave me. Do you know that I only 
 learned, a little while ago, that your company is to leave 
 town next week; and it was as if somebody had said to 
 me, ' The world is in ruins.' It was hideous ! I couldn't 
 endure it, and I hurried here, bent upon seeing you, bent 
 upon winning my life from you, who were going to carry 
 it away with you." 
 
 She lifted her head from his breast, and disengaging 
 herself from his arms, said in unfeigned astonishment: 
 
 " Who told you that the company is to leave town ? " 

 
 THE TRELOARS 197 
 
 " Max Gietmann." 
 
 " But it can't be true ! At any rate, nothing has been 
 said to me about it. I wonder if no, that can't be so ; 
 they wouldn't do anything so dishonorable. Where did 
 Max learn that ? " 
 
 " I don't know. But what difference does it make ? 
 You are not going with them, sweetheart. You are go- 
 ing to be my wife. You are going to have no care but 
 that of making a home for us." 
 
 " Dear Dick, don't be absurd ! " 
 
 Her face clouded over. A sudden deadly fear tugged 
 at her heart. Was it possible that her manager meant 
 to give her the slip ? He was vexed with her for refusing 
 to play the past week, attributing her refusal to caprice, 
 rather than illness; and she had been too proud to take 
 the pains to disabuse him. He reminded her that her 
 contract required another fortnight's service and that she 
 need not expect to receive full salary without a complete 
 fulfillment of the contract. He had sent her what he 
 owed her, but had not asked for a renewal of her contract 
 with him; but conscious of her real ability, and perhaps 
 overrating her importance to him, she had felt no anxiety 
 on that score, until Dick's sudden revelation made her 
 feel at once that he meant to let her go her own way, 
 while he went his. She was wretchedly unhappy at the 
 assurance. Dick was not the least perturbed at her al- 
 tered manner. Had she not called him " Dear Dick " ? 
 Had she not told him that she loved him? If that were 
 absurdity, what had he to do with sense? 
 
 " You see, Dick," she went on, " if it is really true 
 that the company is going away, or has gone without me, 
 I shall be for a time in rather a bad situation." 
 
 " With me near you, beloved ? " 
 
 His arm went about her waist again, and his hot lips 
 touched her cool, white neck. 
 
 " Dick, you are very generous ; you are very kind. I 
 have not the slightest doubt in the world that you love 
 me now."
 
 198 THE TRELOARS 
 
 "Love you? I adore you." 
 
 " But don't you see what a foolish, what an impossible 
 thing it is for me to become your wife ? " 
 
 " No. I see that it is impossible for you to be anything 
 else." 
 
 His strong arm tightened about her until she cried out : 
 
 " Dick, you are hurting me. There, that's better. Do 
 you know that I am a great deal older than you ? " 
 
 " What a stupid thing for so wise and beautiful a 
 woman to say ! Love has no age. He is only a perpetual 
 now. I would not have you a day younger than you are, 
 if I could ; for then you wouldn't be you." 
 
 " But I am not fit for domestic life. I have tasted 
 public applause. It is an infection. One never gets over 
 it. I should tire of the monotony of the fireside," a 
 shiver ran over her. " No, Dick, I can't bind myself by 
 an inviolable oath. As soon as it was made I should 
 want to break it. There is something wild, untamable in 
 my blood that makes liberty a necessity of my life. I 
 love you to-day, but I can't swear that I shall love you 
 to-morrow or next week, or next year. Take me as I am ; 
 love me while I love you, and let us guard our liberty, 
 Dick." 
 
 He dropped his face in his hands and trembled like a 
 leaf. She put her hand upon his bent head and stroked 
 it tenderly, as a mother strokes the head of a child in 
 grief. After a few moments of tense silence, he lifted his 
 head. His face was distorted with passion, his eyes 
 blazed with a concentrated fire that fascinated her. 
 
 " No, by Heaven ! " he cried. " I will not make you a 
 thing for the world to point its finger at. You shall be 
 my wife before all the world; but you shall be as free 
 as air. At the first call of that wild untamable blood of 
 yours, you shall leave me, and I shall not whimper. That 
 is in the contract. What ! You call yourself free, and 
 you are afraid of a conventional ceremony? What oath 
 could bind you when your heart had slipped the bond? 
 What power on earth could make you mine, when your
 
 THE TRELOARS 199 
 
 will revolted? You are free! free as air in my love. 
 Bid me go now, and I leave you instantly." 
 
 " Go ! " she said with a mocking smile on her lips, and 
 he rose instantly, as if he had felt the cut of a whip across 
 his cheek. Without a word he put his hand on his hat, 
 and moved towards the door. 
 
 " Come ! " she said, and he turned towards her, his 
 face white, his cheeks twitching nervously. 
 
 " No, don't play with me," he said huskily. " Tell me 
 frankly, what is your will with me." 
 
 She moved quickly towards him, all her doubts and hesi- 
 tation melting in the fire of his passion. 
 
 " Dick, you are glorious ! " she said, putting her arms 
 about his neck. " I did not know you had so strong a 
 will, so clean and warm a heart! Save me from my 
 worse self ; take me to you as your wife, if you will ; but 
 if the day should ever come when you regret 
 it " 
 
 She was weeping softly she could say no more, and 
 he whispered, as he folded her in his arms : 
 
 " I shall never regret it. I would rather be made un- 
 happy by you, than be happy with any other woman in 
 the world ! " 
 
 O, the glory and the rapture of that day! The 
 strange, hushed, sacred light of it, as the evening shadows 
 fell when the sun's red rim dipped below the waters of 
 the Golden Gate! Dick had left the city when he had 
 left her, his affianced bride. What had he in common 
 with the care-worn crowd? He wanted infinite space 
 for the great tides of feeling that swelled within him. 
 He could not understand, now, the vicious anger which 
 had filled him at the banquet, for the surface glow of the 
 consuming fire within him diffused its soft, warm color 
 over all life. He felt exquisitely tender to the humblest 
 manifestations of it and, literally, could not have set foot 
 upon a worm. He was capable of the sublimest courage 
 and the most laughable absurdity, for the white light 
 of reason was burning low in him just now, and the red 
 light of passion blurred his vision.
 
 200 THE TRELOARS 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 "THE only thing which makes me unhappy about it 
 is this I know that it makes father unhappy. It isn't 
 that he says anything you know, Margaret." Dolly 
 shifted her bundle from her right arm to her left, as she 
 started to unlatch the gate which opened upon the Tunnel 
 Road. The bundle contained her neat, pretty nurse's 
 dress of blue and white striped gingham. She had come 
 over to the Treloars to show it to Margaret and to try it 
 on. Margaret had pronounced it a perfect fit, and had 
 told Dolly that she looked so cheerful in it, that she 
 thought it would be hard work for anybody to be sick in 
 her presence. Then she had gone on to the gate with 
 Dolly, because the postman would be due in a few min- 
 utes, and she was expecting a letter from Dick. 
 
 "If he would say something," continued Dolly, " I 
 should have a chance to talk it out with him. Then I 
 should make him understand that I am not unloving and 
 ungrateful. But he won't let me say a word about it. 
 He changes the subject immediately or he leaves the 
 house. But, sometime, Margaret, when you have a 
 chance, I wish you would talk to him and tell him how 
 impossible it is for me to shut myself out of the larger 
 life of work and duty that is calling me. You under- 
 stand me, don't you, Margaret ? " 
 
 " Yes, I do, Dolly, and I think your father does, too ; 
 and, if he doesn't choose to talk about it, it is because he 
 can't do it without showing emotion and he is too proud 
 to do that. Many a man has the trick of playing the 
 stoic when he feels the deepest. I remember when a 
 child overhearing a neighbor of ours, the dearest little 
 woman, telling mother that every ornament she had, even 
 to her wedding-ring meant a quarrel with her husband. 
 He had never learned to say, ' Forgive me' and it was 
 easier for him to buy his reconciliation than to ask for 
 it. She said that she had learned to accept his repentance
 
 THE TRELOARS 201 
 
 in this form, but that it made her jewels hateful to her, 
 and that one gentle, affectionate word would have touched 
 her heart more than all the lovely things in the world. I 
 pity enormously these reserved natures whose tongues 
 can't do the service of their hearts. They are always 
 misunderstood, always being called cold and heartless, 
 when they feel the warmest." 
 
 " I don't think father cold and heartless. He is far, 
 far from that, I know. I know that he adores me; I 
 know that he suffers because I am going away, but what 
 troubles me is that I can't make him see that I suffer, too. 
 I can't justify myself to him. He doesn't understand 
 my motives." 
 
 " Yes, he does, Dolly ; only, as I said before, he can't 
 speak of it. Trust your father's penetration and his 
 sense of justice. He knows just as well as I do and as 
 you do, that no one can live for another, no one can 
 choose happiness for another." 
 
 " Ah, how true that is, Margaret ! Doesn't it seem 
 strange that we can live so solitary away down in the 
 depths of us, and no one suspect how it goes with us there, 
 even those who stand nearest to us? There comes the 
 postman. He's smiling and holding up a letter for you. 
 I'll go now, so that you can read your letter in peace. 
 Thank you very much for your wise talk, Margaret. 
 You always do me good." 
 
 " No, Dolly, dear, don't go yet. The letter is from 
 Dick. He is my only correspondent. He may have a 
 message for you. He was very much interested in your 
 going into hospital work, when your father told him 
 about it. He said to me afterwards that you were a 
 trump." 
 
 " Did he ? " said Dolly quietly. 
 
 The postman touched his hat to Dolly and handed the 
 letter to Margaret, with the words : 
 
 " This is the time that I know I am always welcome." 
 
 " You certainly are," replied Margaret, and when he 
 turned away, she opened the envelope, still smiling, and
 
 202 THE TRELOARS 
 
 before removing the letter, said in fond anticipating 
 praise of its contents : 
 
 " Dick is such a good letter writer. Most people's let- 
 ters are just- duplicates, or rather multiplicates, of one 
 another with no change but the date. But Dick's are as 
 various as his moods, and he never writes when he has 
 nothing to say." 
 
 She took out the letter and opened it. In a moment the 
 loving, smiling face was white and horror stricken, and a 
 low cry escaped her, as she bowed her head. 
 
 "Margaret! What's the matter? He is not dead? 
 No?" 
 
 " No, no, Dolly," groaned Margaret ; " but I think that 
 I could better bear knowing that he was at rest, than 
 that this should have happened to him ! " 
 
 Dolly took the letter from the trembling hand extended 
 to her, and read Dick's announcement of his passionate 
 love for Nita Normand, and his resolve to marry her. 
 He added that he knew how hard it would be for her to 
 accept this resolution at first, but that he trusted unfal- 
 teringly in the great love she bore him to forgive him any 
 pain he might temporarily cause her, in consideration of 
 the fact that all his happiness was at stake. He would 
 bring his fiancee with him on the next visit home, and 
 it would depend on Margaret's wish, how soon that would 
 be. He hoped it might be some day, in the following 
 week. 
 
 Dolly was trembling, too, and her flushed face betrayed 
 her emotion, but she put her arms about Margaret's neck 
 and, kissing her cheek, said bravely : 
 
 " Dear Margaret, that isn't so dreadful. Remember 
 what you have just said to me. We can't choose happi- 
 ness for other people. We must let them be happy in 
 their own way, not ours. This is Dick's way of being 
 happy." 
 
 " O, Dolly, what foolish things we say to others in pain, 
 not knowing their folly till the pain comes to us! This 
 is not a question of Dick's happiness. It is a question of
 
 THE TRELOARS 203 
 
 Dick's ruin, soul and body. This woman is vile: I 
 know she is, and he is blind to it all, in this delirous mad- 
 ness that he calls love. O, Dolly, Dolly, my heart is 
 broken!" 
 
 " Dear Margaret, don't say that. Think for a moment 
 of all that Dick is. He couldn't love a vile woman. You 
 don't mean to be unjust. I know you too well for that. 
 You will think it all over to yourself ; you will see it, dif- 
 ferently. You can't see it in the right way, now." 
 
 " No, Dolly," sobbed Margaret. " You don't know it 
 all. You don't know how persistently he has deceived 
 me. His whole character is changed since he knew this 
 woman. Home doesn't mean anything to him, any more ; 
 nor do any of us; but I can't talk about it any more. I 
 must go to father. Perhaps he can do something about 
 it." 
 
 Dolly turned away, and then Margaret called after her : 
 
 "Wait, Dolly!" 
 
 Dolly went back to the gate. Margaret's lips were 
 quivering and tears were streaming down her cheeks : 
 
 " Don't love anything or anybody too much, Dolly. 
 It won't turn out right." 
 
 She turned away, giving Dolly no chance to reply, and 
 starting homeward, Dolly summoned all her courage to 
 the rallying point. She felt Margaret's pain in addition 
 to her own, and Dick's danger, if danger there were in 
 his love for this strange woman, and because she would 
 not sink under the weight of this new misery, but would 
 carry it out with an air of bravado, even to herself, she 
 said half aloud, all alone in the road, trudging along 
 with the bundle under her arm, and a curious little twist 
 in her face to keep the tears from mastering her : 
 
 " I don't think life's a very good thing, sometimes ! It's 
 just a howling farce ! Very well, I'll play out my farcical 
 part till it turns to down-right tragedy, comedy, melo- 
 drama, or just plain old common sense. 
 
 " What a ridiculous little fool I am," she cried emphatic- 
 ally ; " but there's one thing I shall never do. I won't
 
 204 THE TRELOARS 
 
 wear my heart on my sleeve for daws to peck at ; and I 
 won't peck at it myself. I'll just take no notice of it and 
 let it heal up. Work! Work! Work! That way 
 growth and salvation lie." 
 
 She was apparently so merry when she reached home, 
 that her father thought how light a thing a girl's heart is 
 to be moved by so small a trifle as the prettiness of a 
 new dress ; but she did not give him much time to ponder 
 over it, for she challenged him to a game of croquet, and 
 in that wholesome out-door sport, they wiled away the 
 morning, and had to be called three or four times to 
 lunch before they were willing to relinquish it. 
 
 As for Margaret, she seemed to herself to have passed 
 in a moment from youth to old age. She repeated over 
 and over to herself, " How could he lie to me in this way ! 
 How could he deceive me so grossly ! Is it possible that 
 I mean so little to him, I who have given my life to him 
 and counted it my crown of glory ! " Then with the piti- 
 ful and foolish exaggeration of wounded love and de- 
 spair, she accused him of never having loved her at all, 
 of caring for her only as he cared for a comfortable gar- 
 ment that use had made easy to wear ; and she fell back 
 into the bitter refrain : " And he could be so base and 
 cowardly as to lie to me, to tell me that he would never 
 have anything to do with her again ! " 
 
 She leaned her head against the trunk of a tree, crying 
 bitterly, emptying her sore, bruised heart of all the sor- 
 row and anxiety which had been accumulating in it for 
 weeks ; and when the first storm was over she prayed 
 fervently for help and strength to drink this bitter cup 
 of humility and anguish that had been offered to her. 
 She asked to be shown wherein she had failed in her 
 duty. She accused herself of having loved too foolishly 
 and fondly those who had been confided to her care, and 
 of having forgotten her God in these earthly loves, until 
 He had receded from her heart, becoming but a vague ex- 
 pression for the sum of life and energy in the universe. 
 She divined that this wretchedness might have been mer-
 
 THE TRELOARS 205 
 
 cifully sent to her to recall Him again to her as the great 
 Father of us all, who sees not unmoved the sparrow fall 
 to the ground, and in whose boundless, all embracing 
 love, our poor human love can rest unshaken from such 
 storms as this. Then she prayed that if it were His will, 
 He would deal mercifully with her erring brother, open 
 his eyes to the light, and restore in him the love of home 
 and the sweet affections that held him true to duty; and 
 such power is there in ardent faith, springing from the 
 deep desire and need of the soul, that the peace she 
 prayed for, did, in some measure, descend upon her, 
 calming the troubled surface of the waters, so that when 
 she entered the house, she could give the letter to her 
 father without any stormy outbreak. But her eyes were 
 red. He saw that she had been weeping, and he lifted 
 his brows in surprise, as he took the letter, asking : 
 
 "What's this?" 
 
 " You will see, when you read it." 
 
 She watched him as he read it, and saw the color rise 
 to the roots of his white hair, and her heart yearned to- 
 wards him; she would fain have spared him this pain. 
 But having read it, he looked at her quizzically. 
 
 "Funny, isn't it?" 
 
 " Funny ! " echoed Margaret. " You mean tragic." 
 
 " No, I don't mean anything of the sort. There's noth- 
 ing at all tragic in it. What is there tragic in a young 
 man's wanting a wife and a home of his own? I called 
 it funny, because of the remarkably serious tone in it, as if 
 he were drawing hard breath, and bracing himself against 
 our displeasure ; and then it came upon me so suddenly. 
 I hadn't any inkling of it, had you?" 
 
 " Yes, father, I had ; and I taxed Dick with my fears 
 the last time he was here, but he solemnly assured me that 
 there was nothing in it. Then you don't know the sort 
 of woman he has chosen. She is an actress. She is a 
 great deal older than he. They haven't a thing in com- 
 mon, except this mad infatuation of the moment, of 
 which she is taking advantage, I dare say, for her own 
 private interests."
 
 206 THE TRELOARS 
 
 "Nonsense! Margaret; don't let your jealousy obscure 
 your judgment. An actress who would marry Dick, an 
 obscure young journalist, isn't thinking very seriously of 
 her own pri^te interests, if she has any talent. Is this 
 the Miss Fotheringay we were joking about?" 
 
 " Yes, it's that actress we went to see at Dick's request 
 in Ibsen's Nora, and I saw quite enough of her to be able 
 to judge coolly, without any jealousy whatever; and she 
 is by no means the sort of woman that I should choose 
 for Dick's wife and my sister." 
 
 " What kind of woman would you choose for Dick's 
 wife and your sister ? " 
 
 " Well, first of all, she should be a pure woman, a 
 chaste woman." 
 
 Mr. Treloar shut his eyes and drew his lips together 
 before replying: 
 
 " Well, Margaret, like good narrow women in general, 
 you overstress a matter of temperament at the expense of 
 a score of other qualities. But I see that you are in no 
 mood to listen to reason, to-day, beclouded as you are 
 with jealousies and fears. This letter must be answered. 
 Shall I do it? Shall I tell him that we shall expect him 
 and his fiancee on Saturday ? Of course, you know that 
 there is nothing else to do." 
 
 " No, there is nothing else to do," moaned Margaret in 
 despair. " Nothing else to do ! I had hoped you might 
 wish to reason with Dick against the folly and madness of 
 this step, but you yourself do not even see that it is mad- 
 ness and folly." 
 
 " Of course I don't. I am not perched on so lofty a 
 vantage ground that I think I get the circumference of 
 the earth from it. I see my own horizon line, and what 
 concerns me in it. I give to others the same privilege." 
 
 " That was better said, father, by him who first asked 
 * Am I my brother's keeper ? ' I think we are his 
 keeper in so far that what we know to be his harm, we 
 shall not conceal from him." 
 
 "And what do you know?" was the sharp retort.
 
 THE TRELOARS 207 
 
 " Now answer me squarely. Don't answer by low sus- 
 picions, innuendoes, and guesses. What do you actually 
 know of a woman whom you have seen but once in the 
 exercise of her profession, and who, measured by the 
 enormous risks she runs, may be, even if she has fallen, 
 a far better woman than you are, sheltered from tempta- 
 tion in a quiet little valley, or it may be still more ef- 
 fectually sheltered from temptation by a matter of tem- 
 perament? It is no virtue in the lamb that it does not 
 devour chickens like the wolf. It can't eat them. It lives 
 on grass." 
 
 " Certainly not, father. I agree wholly with your 
 metaphor, but you will also permit me to carry it out far- 
 ther. We will admit from your favorite standpoint of 
 the absolute, and the eternal, that the wolf is as good as 
 the lamb ; but from the standpoint of relativity that is, 
 the standpoint of human life, if you were going to choose 
 a family pet, the lamb would be a much safer one around 
 the house than the wolf. Father, the trouble with you 
 is, that while you are knocking your head against the 
 stars, you are always stumbling over and trampling on 
 things on earth that mean life to the earth dwellers. The 
 human eye is not so constructed that it can look con- 
 tinually upward and downward at the same time. You 
 get a frightful squint when you try it. You have to 
 mind your feet as well as your head. If purity of life 
 does not mean self-mastery, thoughtfulness of others, 
 and at the same time a lofty independence of others, and 
 freedom in the largest, most beautiful sense, I don't think 
 there would be much to say for it. But it does mean just 
 that; it means exquisite freedom, the unclouded vision, 
 not the self -centered look, but the outward look." 
 
 " Pish ! " exclaimed Treloar. " You speak as a blind 
 man does of colors." 
 
 " No, father, I speak like one who has been temporarily 
 blind, but to whom vision is restored. In my foolish 
 youth, I thought that love was sacred, that the unreason- 
 ing attraction which draws men and women together was
 
 208 THE TRELOARS 
 
 an instinctive expression of mutual fitness, of unchanging, 
 unselfish love which found its highest development in the 
 family. I know, now, that it is nothing of the sort. That 
 it is often a mere appetite of the body, quickly satisfied 
 and quickly reawakened, and that a life-union ought to be 
 based on something more stable. It ought to be based on 
 a harmony of feeling and disposition, on the consciousness 
 that the two souls are moving in the same direction, that 
 one does not lag behind the other, nor go off at a tangent ; 
 and what harmony can there possibly be between this 
 woman whose public life has fixed her mind on applause, 
 on vain show, and numberless things which have nothing 
 in common with the humble duties of family life and 
 our Dick, young in soul and body, soft and green in the 
 ways of the world, but strong and ripe in ideality, hating 
 as you do the confusion and anarchy of thought which 
 lead to all these hopeless, wretched hermaphroditic things 
 which the world is now accepting for poetry, and art 
 and now, poor fellow ! he is caught in the same confusion 
 of ethical standards just as you are, father! Always 
 up there in the clouds, priding yourself on your high 
 altitude and your broad tolerance, you have lost the power 
 of distinguishing black and white, on the earth beneath 
 you. But, I, down here, where my vision is not obscured, 
 I see distinctly the difference between black and white. 
 I see that it is wrong for Dick to unite himself with this 
 woman. At whatever cost of pain or anguish, it is right 
 for him to break off with her, to turn himself resolutely 
 away from this burning temptation and fix his eyes stead- 
 ily again on his task. He can't serve his life-work and 
 serve this woman at the same time. There is where I 
 firmly stand." 
 
 " Yes, with your feet in the mud, your eyes fixed on it, 
 and your ears set back like a mule ! Well, that's all right. 
 It is an attitude commensurate with your vision. Now, 
 let's see if we can't improve on it. I grant that so far as 
 your intention goes, you are sincerely thinking of Dick's 
 welfare."
 
 THE TRELOARS 209 
 
 " Father ! As if there could be any doubt of that ! " 
 
 " No, I am not doubting it ; but as to whether you 
 know what Dick's welfare is, that's another question. 
 Now, I am just as much interested in Dick's welfare as 
 you are, and when I think he is endangering it, I am go- 
 ing to warn him; and if a warning isn't effectual, I am 
 going to do all in my power to prevent him from hurting 
 himself." 
 
 " O, father, I knew you would do that ! " 
 
 " But I am not going to be foolishly rash about this 
 thing. It isn't in the interests of Dick's welfare that he 
 should grow up a Miss Nancy. You have seen this 
 woman, I haven't. Let her come to us, Saturday, and 
 I shall do all in my power to judge her impartially. If 
 she is one of the vampire type that shift the center of the 
 world to themselves and suck the mental and moral 
 strength out of a man, I shall be just as much against her 
 as you are, but if " 
 
 " Father, there is no if she is that type." 
 
 Treloar laughed again, 
 
 " O, you women ! you women ! How you hate one an- 
 other when a man comes between you ! " 
 
 " No ! no ! " protested Margaret. " You have no con- 
 ception of the feeling that I have, because you have no 
 fear. I could pass out of Dick's life, not without pain, 
 of course, because I am human, but at least with a resigna- 
 tion that might finally vanquish pain, if I thought that the 
 woman who was to take my place could keep him true 
 to the level of what is best in him. But to stand by 
 helpless, hopeless; to see the fresh dews of his spirit 
 dried in the hot wind of passion ; to watch the withering 
 of every sweet bud of promise in him that, is to me, an 
 agony so far above and beyond mere hatred and jealousy 
 that to confuse them with it, seems to me not so much 
 unjust as absurd. I can't talk it over with you any more, 
 father. I must bear it alone." 
 
 Margaret left the room, and wandered out into the 
 garden overwhelmed with a suffocating consciousness of
 
 210 THE TRELOARS 
 
 isolation in her grief. Nothing that her father had said 
 had weighed an iota against her intuitive conviction that 
 Dick was rushing to his ruin ; and her father's blindness to 
 the fact seemed to her a horrible complicity in the cause 
 of it, that filled her with terror and repulsion. 
 
 To win and to hold the mastery of self, that must 
 ever remain the highest achievement of human activity, 
 and Dick was losing it ; he was no longer the captain of 
 his soul ; he was drifting on a wide waste of waters, care- 
 less whither he was going; for the voice of the siren was 
 in his ears. " No, he didn't mean to lie to me," continued 
 poor Margaret, thinking half aloud to herself, for her 
 lips were moving as she thought. " I was unjust to him 
 at first. He isn't a sneak ; he isn't a coward. He might 
 have married her secretly, and we none the wiser ; but he 
 couldn't do that. He must have meant to break off with 
 her, when he said so to me ; but he has fallen again under 
 her power; yet he is frank with us, and there is still a 
 chance to save him; and father fails me in this crisis; 
 He fails me for want of solid convictions ! " 
 
 Margaret felt herself bereft at one blow of the two be- 
 ings who were the center of her life; then, with the deep 
 humility and searching introspection of the truly religious 
 temperament, she arraigned herself, again, before the God 
 of her conscience, and found herself guilty of treason to 
 her own highest convictions. How complacently she had 
 drifted with her father on the shoreless sea of doubt and 
 speculation, exhilarated with the abundance of movement, 
 light, air, and freedom. 
 
 How she had loved him, idealized him, shielded him 
 as her mother had done, so that he should not be disturbed 
 by grosser cares in his life of contemplation and reverie ! 
 She had classed him among the singing birds whose 
 domain is the air, but alas! it was not out of the blue, 
 but from very close to the earth, that his voice had pierced 
 her ears to-day. 
 
 " Margaret ! " 
 
 " Yes, father."
 
 THE TRELOARS 211 
 
 " Where are you ? " 
 
 " Out here in the garden." 
 
 " Will you come in, and hear my letter, or shall I go 
 out there to you ? " 
 
 " I'll be with you in a minute, father." 
 
 She hurried in to the kitchen, bathed her eyes with 
 cold water, glanced hastily at herself in the square mir- 
 ror above the kitchen sink, then went into the library 
 where her father was seated in an arm-chair by the 
 table. He glanced at her kindly and said quietly, as if 
 wholly unconscious of the emotion which betrayed itself 
 in her face and manner: 
 
 " I don't know whether you'll approve of what I have 
 said or not, but this is what it seems to me best to say. 
 I think I've done it rather neatly : 
 
 "Dear Dick: 
 
 " The wise man of the Proverbs has told us that ' whoso 
 findeth a wife, findeth a good thing and obtaineth favor of 
 the Lord,' in view of which, it would be foolish and in- 
 consistent in us to withhold our favor. Therefore, we 
 extend to you and yours the heartiest congratulations and 
 the most cordial welcome, trusting to your good sense not 
 to have been hoodwinked by Cupid into mistaking a poor 
 thing for a good thing. If you can come out next Sat- 
 urday, we shall be ready with the fatted calf. 
 " Affectionately yours, 
 
 " PHILIP TRELOAR." 
 
 " I thought you could add your signature to mine and 
 that would save you the necessity of writing anything, if 
 you don't feel like it. It's rather short, to be sure, but 
 we can't go into the merits of the case with him, till we 
 have seen the woman." 
 
 " I've seen her," was Margaret's laconic answer, as she 
 pushed the proffered letter away. " The letter is yours, 
 I have nothing to add to it." 
 
 Treloar colored, and knitted his brows in perplexity.
 
 212 THE TRELOARS 
 
 Margaret in a rebellious mood was such an astounding 
 thing to him that he could scarcely believe his eyes and 
 ears. 
 
 " Well, Margaret," was the gentle reply, " perhaps 
 when you come to my age, you'll know that you only 
 hurt yourself when you kick against the pricks, and you'll 
 learn to go round them. You're only sowing thorns in 
 a bed you'll probably have to lie on. You'd better pull 
 'em out, and sow rose petals. They'll lie softer and smell 
 sweeter. Do you think for a minute that if I saw Dick 
 about to make a stupendous blunder, I shouldn't try to 
 hold him back with all the might I had? If you do, you 
 don't know your father, although you've lived all your 
 life with him." 
 
 " Father, would you really do that ? Would you really 
 object to Dick's marriage, if you saw that it wasn't going 
 to mean his happiness ? " 
 
 "I certainly should!" 
 
 " O, thank you ! thank you, father ! " 
 
 Margaret caught her father's hand with an hysterical 
 sob and kissed it passionately. He stroked her head, say- 
 ing gently : 
 
 " My poor child, how unhappy you are making your- 
 self over a mere uncertainty. The wise soldier doesn't 
 exhaust his strength before the battle is on." 
 
 " But the battle is on," was the quick reply. " It has 
 been on for a long time and the enemy has beaten us, so 
 far. But, thank God ! it isn't over yet." 
 
 " Will you sign the letter, Margaret ? " 
 
 " No, I can't put my hand where my heart does not 
 go." 
 
 "But Dick will notice it. His letter was written to 
 you. He will see that you do not approve of his mar- 
 riage." 
 
 " Must I tell you again that I do not approve of it, 
 father? I wish Dick to notice that."
 
 THE TRELOARS 213 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 DICK did notice it very quickly, and would rather have 
 had one reassuring word from Margaret than a volume 
 from his father, dear as his father was to him. However, 
 the obsession of his love was so great that it acted as a 
 powerful anaesthetic to the pain that her tacit disapproval 
 would otherwise have given him. Besides, he was so sure 
 of her goodness, her genuine unwearying self-sacrificing 
 love that he was confident that her displeasure was only 
 temporary, and that he would be able to persuade her that 
 he was acting in the best interests of his happiness and his 
 welfare. As far as he himself was concerned he never 
 doubted it for a moment. He felt like one who had been 
 reprieved from a death sentence, and to whom life had as- 
 sumed a new value and significance. 
 
 There was certainly no necessity for shutting one's eyes 
 or turning them away to preserve the idea of external 
 charm which radiated from Nita on the day that she was 
 to accompany Dick home, in order to be formally pre- 
 sented to his family. She had put on a perfectly-fitting, 
 dark-brown broadcloth suit, with a rolling hat to match. 
 She wore no rouge, but her red-lipped sensitive mouth 
 and sparkling dark eyes gave color enough to her face.. 
 
 " Do I look like an actress ? " she asked Dick, as they 
 left the hotel together to go down to the ferry. It was a 
 bright, lovely October morning. The air was crisp and 
 invigorating. Big, round masses of clouds of dazzling 
 whiteness were lazily floating over the deep blue sky. 
 
 " Like an actress ? No, you look like the portrait of a 
 lady." 
 
 " Do I really, Dick ? No, let's not take a car. Let's 
 walk. It seems so good to be out in the air again. I feel 
 fifteen years old to-day. That's the lovely thing about 
 an illness, when it's over. It heightens all the cheap 
 pleasures that we scorn when we're well, like walking, 
 eating, doing things for one's self. Look at those clouds,
 
 214 THE TRELOARS 
 
 Dick, aren't they lovely? When I was a child, I used to 
 fancy myself curled up in them, as in a bed of soft 
 feathers, floating away, away into strange new worlds. 
 And next to clouds, I loved shadows. There was an old 
 oak tree at home, under which I used to dance with the 
 wind-driven, leafy shadows. I don't know what it was 
 that charmed me in them ; perhaps their fluttering, change- 
 ful intangibility. Sometimes I think I have been play- 
 ing with clouds and shadows all my life ; and then I won- 
 der if you, too, dear Dick, aren't one of the elusive 
 shadows floating into my life and out of it again." 
 
 She stopped suddenly, and bit her lip. She was about 
 to say, " like all the others," but Dick, with no inkling of 
 that ominous resurrection of the past in her memory, an- 
 swered gaily : 
 
 " Do I look like a shadow ? Like a cloud ? " 
 
 " No, you look like the portrait of a gentleman ; and 
 I am not going to float with the clouds, nor dance with 
 the shadows any more. Ah, Dick, it is so good to feel 
 myself at rest, now, in that big warm heart of yours ! " 
 
 She was speaking quite sincerely. In a momentous 
 crisis of her life when the future looked dark and hope- 
 less, Dick seemed to her to have been sent like a good 
 angel to lead her into paths of peace and pleasantness. 
 She had been entirely frank with him, not foisting her- 
 self upon him for what she was not, but insisting that he 
 must know her exactly as she was, excusing herself in 
 nothing, exaggerating rather than minimizing her faults 
 and follies. The warm, generous devotion which Dick 
 lavished upon her had not failed her a moment, and she 
 felt herself born anew to him, as he had said the past 
 dead and buried, the future all her own. 
 
 " I adore you ! " was all Dick's answer to her confes- 
 sions. He repeated the fond expression, now, and she 
 said: 
 
 " Now, if I can only make the family look at me 
 through your eyes. I am just a wee bit afraid of your 
 father, you know."
 
 THE TRELOARS 215 
 
 " You needn't be." 
 
 " I wouldn't be, if he weren't a philosopher." 
 
 " That has not prevented him from remaining exceed- 
 ingly human. You'll see." 
 
 They climbed the broad stairway, entered the waiting 
 room, passed through the open gates, and traversed the 
 long, inclined covered passage-way that led to the boat. 
 They seemed to be moving in a dream, unconscious of 
 anything but themselves; and when they were seated to- 
 gether on the upper deck in the prow of the boat, Dick 
 leaned close to Nita, saying in a low voice : 
 
 " I can't believe it, I have to touch you to know that 
 you are a reality and not a phantom; for since knowing 
 you, I have never crossed the bay without having you be- 
 side me in fancy, as you are now." 
 
 " Then you have always felt quite sure of me? " 
 
 " O, no ! no ! I didn't mean that. I never really 
 formed to myself the definite idea that you were to be 
 my wife. That seemed to be one of those impossible 
 things that never happen to a man outside fairyland. I 
 only meant that since I first met you, you have never been 
 out of my thoughts." 
 
 " By the way, Dick, what is the name of that beautiful 
 girl you introduced to me, that night I played Nora, in 
 Oakland?" 
 
 " Dolly Parker." 
 
 " O, yes, Dolly Parker. She struck me as being quite 
 unusual, not at all the crude, common street type one sees 
 so often." 
 
 " She isn't of that type. She is a very sweet girl, not 
 one of your over-knowing kind." 
 
 " Dick, I wonder you never fell in love with her." 
 
 " With Dolly Parker ? I should as soon have thought 
 of falling in love with one of my sisters. Indeed, I never 
 think of Dolly except in that way. I have known her 
 since she was a little child. She is an exquisite girl, but 
 there is only one woman who can speak to my whole heart, 
 and her name is Nita Normand."
 
 2i6 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " Dick, dear, there is one thing I want to tell you. My 
 name is not Nita Normand. It is " 
 
 " No, my love, don't tell me, please" hastily interrupted 
 Dick, flushing as he spoke, " the old name, the old life, 
 that is dead. You have no other name for me but Nita 
 Normand, until you change it into Nita Treloar and that 
 is not to be far off now. Here we are." 
 
 The passengers had risen ten minutes before the land- 
 ing of the boat, and were huddled about the stairway 
 and its entrance, ready to be the first to step on the gang- 
 plank. When the boat landed they pushed and jostled 
 their way to the waiting cars. Dick found a seat for 
 Nita and stood beside her in the aisle, hanging on to a 
 strap as they hurried over the long railway that connects 
 the mainland with the pier. On either side of them, ex- 
 tended the blue waters of the bay, and white sea-gulls 
 were circling in the air above them. 
 
 " This always reminds me of the approach to Venice," 
 said Nita; then she could have bitten her tongue for 
 saying it, because her memories of that city of the sea 
 were not pleasant nor creditable ones, and she had prom- 
 ised herself that the past was to lie dead and buried. 
 How was it that it was rising to-day, and confronting her 
 at every minute, refusing to lie buried, linking itself, 
 even with Dick's devotion, to memories that were treach- 
 ery to him? If she could really blot it out! 
 
 " I have never seen Berkeley," she hastened to add. 
 " Berkeley the Beautiful, they call it, don't they ? I have 
 always been planning to see the Greek Theater." 
 
 " Haven't you seen the Greek Theater yet ? " asked Dick 
 in astonishment. " That is one of our show places. I 
 must get father to drive us out there, before we go 
 home. He is coming to meet us, you know." 
 
 " O, do, Dick, I should so much like to see it first with 
 you." 
 
 He looked down at her with loving pride, thrilled with 
 tender gratitude for every expression of hers that united 
 him with her, in her thoughts. How she broadened his
 
 THE TRELOARS 217 
 
 horizon; and his thoughts expanding with it filled him 
 with the hope of a rich fertility which would yield fruits 
 not for himself alone, but for all mankind. Poet! 
 Prophet ! an exquisite line of Guyau's flashed through 
 his mind : " L'art, c'est de la tendresse." Art is tender- 
 ness. He knew it indubitably. Love only is creative ; all 
 the rest is but make-work, base imitation, surface with- 
 out soul hollow, wind-filled. The very motion and 
 roar of the cars, usually disagreeable to him, changed into 
 rhythm and music. The long stretch of low frame 
 houses, the stunted palms, dust-covered and languid; the 
 eucalyptus trees, sloughing their ragged bark and strew- 
 ing the ground with their long, narrow, slightly curved, 
 scimitar-pointed leaves all these familiar sights were no 
 longer common and ugly, but infinitely precious and beau- 
 tiful to him. 
 
 " What a perfect day ! " he said softly, and then louder, 
 as the car stopped at one of the stations. " There's 
 father waiting for us ! " 
 
 " Which is he ? " asked Nita, as they stepped from the 
 car. 
 
 " The man in gray. See, he is lifting his hat. He has 
 seen us." 
 
 The man in gray was looking particularly neat and at- 
 tractive as he descended from his carriage with the agility 
 of a much younger man and held out his hand to Nita, 
 whom Dick introduced to him. His clean-shaven cheeks 
 glowed with a healthy pink hue, and his gray moustache 
 was carefully waxed and twisted into a sharp tight line 
 at the ends. His linen was irreproachable, and his white 
 cravat was carefully knotted. In spite of his philo- 
 sophical indifference to dress and his decided preference 
 at home for a slouched collar and baggy trousers, Philip 
 Treloar was not above a fastidious deference to the con- 
 ventionalities in public. To-day, he was particularly 
 anxious to make a good impression upon his prospective 
 daughter-in-law, from various motives, which, perhaps, 
 he himself could not have analyzed, had he tried. It
 
 218 THE TRELOARS 
 
 may be that the most irresistible one had been simply the 
 banal instinctive masculine wish not to appear unattrac- 
 tive to an attractive woman. That she was attractive he 
 had no doubt. Dick was not a young man to fall in love 
 with a woman destitute of charm, no matter how much 
 imagination he had wherewith to beautify the woman of 
 his choice. He was right in his conjecture. No sooner 
 had he spoken to Nita than he felt the subtle inexpressible 
 witchery of her voice and manner. 
 
 " It was so kind of you, Mr. Treloar, to come to meet 
 us. I am sure I am very grateful." Common enough 
 words, but she said them with such heartiness and such 
 rich inflections that they seemed very uncommon, and 
 the expression of a large responsive nature in the presence 
 of which one felt instantly at home. And Treloar felt 
 at home with her at once ; he, too, had always known her. 
 She was das Ewig-Weibliche. 
 
 " You're a lucky dog, sir ! " he said, shaking his son's 
 hand. It was his way of bestowing the paternal blessing. 
 
 " You'll sit with the driver, Dick, and I'll take the back 
 seat with the young lady." 
 
 He helped Nita into her place, seated himself beside 
 her, carefully spreading a lap-robe over her dress and 
 tucking it in at the side. 
 
 " Straight home, sir?" asked the driver of Dick. 
 
 " No, to the Greek Theater, first. Father, Nita has 
 never seen the Greek Theater, and I promised her that 
 we should show it to her, before we went home." 
 
 " Certainly, Dick ; we'll drive right over there. So you 
 haven't seen the Greek Theater? I am glad that we have 
 something so lovely to show you." 
 
 Arrived at the foot of the wooded hill on the summit 
 of which is the great stone amphitheater and stage known 
 as the Greek Theater, Nita was unaffectedly enthusiastic 
 about the beauty of the situation. 
 
 " How lovely it is, this great forest of pines and 
 eucalyptus trees! I am so glad you didn't describe it 
 to me, Dick. It comes to me so fresh and new."
 
 THE TRELOARS 219 
 
 " It's a tough climb up the hill, though," said Treloar, 
 helping her out of the carriage. 
 
 " But I'm a good walker," she answered gaily. " Ask 
 Dick if I'm not." 
 
 When they reached the theater and stood in the arena 
 with the vast circles of stone seats, tier upon tier, around 
 them, inclosed by the dark green summits of tall eucalyp- 
 tus trees, and roofed by the blue sky, Nita turned to the 
 stage with an irresistible awakening of the instincts of the 
 actress. A vivid color mounted to her cheeks, and she 
 cried out : 
 
 " I must try my voice on that stage. Will you wait 
 here, please, and see if you can hear me ? " 
 
 As she started off, Treloar turned to his son saying: 
 
 " Isn't that natural ? The sight of the stage stirs her 
 as the trumpet, the war-horse. How are you going to 
 tame that out of her and make her trot quietly in do- 
 mestic harness ? Have you thought about that, Dick ? " 
 
 " No, because that does not in the least trouble me. I 
 don't want her turned into a drudge. I want her just as 
 she is with all her quick impulses and her rare gifts. She 
 wouldn't be Nita without them." 
 
 Dick set himself squarely upon his feet and looked up 
 at the stage where she faced them. Was it the actress 
 trying her voice in the passionate lines of the well known 
 sonnet, or was it the woman conscious of her need of 
 indulgence, trust, and hope that spoke in the clear voice 
 ringing out to them? 
 
 "/ lift my heavy heart up solemnly, 
 
 As once Electro her sepulchral urn, 
 
 And looking in thine eyes, I overturn 
 
 The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see 
 
 What a great heap of grief lay hid in me 
 
 And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn 
 
 Through the ashen grayness. If thy foot in scorn 
 
 Could tread them out to darkness utterly, 
 
 It might be well perhaps. But if instead 
 
 Thou wait beside me for the wind to blow 
 
 The gray dust up, . , . those laurels on thine head
 
 220 THE TRELOARS 
 
 O my beloved, will not shield thee so, 
 
 That none of all the fires will scorch and shred 
 
 The hair beneath. Stand farther off then! Go!" 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 MEANWHILE, Margaret, waiting at home, was school- 
 ing herself to meet with dignity, this bold intruder into 
 the family, as she persisted in thinking that Nita was. 
 Her father just as persistently refused to take any no- 
 tice of the change in her behavior, but Catherine was not 
 so indulgent, and on this day of Nita's expected arrival, 
 having asked the same question of Margaret several 
 times without receiving a reply, she burst out impa- 
 tiently ! 
 
 " You get on my nerves ! What's the matter with 
 you, anyway ? Why don't you say something ? " 
 
 Margaret, who was arranging some flowers in a glass 
 bowl, stopped her work and looked calmly at her sister 
 before replying : 
 
 "What shall I say?" 
 
 " Well, in the first place, you might answer my ques- 
 tion. Is Dolly coming out, to-day ? " 
 
 " No. Her father says that she doesn't like to ask a 
 favor yet, as she has been so short a time at the hos- 
 pital." 
 
 " I don't see why. She isn't getting paid for her 
 work." 
 
 " So much the more reason for doing it conscientiously. 
 Will you please take hold of the other end of the table? 
 I want to move it a little farther this way. There ! that's 
 enough, thank you." 
 
 " Are you going to be like that all day, Margaret ? " 
 
 "Like what?" 
 
 *' Like this." 
 
 Catherine stiffened herself in the primmest of atti- 
 tudes, folded her hands, and drew down the corners of 
 her mouth in a droll expression of prudery.
 
 THE TRELOARS 221 
 
 Margaret flushed and faintly smiled. 
 
 "Do I look like that?" 
 
 " Yes, only a good deal worse, for your face is nat- 
 urally longer than mine, so that it can look prunier and 
 prismier, and now that you have got that new sag on 
 it at the corners of your mouth, you are really funny. 
 Why don't you say right out all you feel and be done 
 with it? You'll be in a much more amiable humor to 
 meet our new sister, if you once let yourself go. You 
 hate her, don't you ? " 
 
 The harsh crude phrase fell painfully on Margaret's 
 ear ; her lips trembled, but she said nothing, and Catherine 
 went on: 
 
 "Of course, you won't admit it, I don't expect you 
 to. It's against your principles to hate anybody, so you'll 
 give your feeling some other fine name, like solicitude 
 about Dick, or something of the kind, but you can't 
 fool me. You hate this woman, because she isn't like 
 us. I like her the better for it. She has had the courage 
 to be an individual. You hate her because you have 
 no longer the first place in Dick's heart. Are you so 
 green as to expect always to keep it ? " 
 
 The cruel taunt struck Margaret like the lash of a 
 whip. She sank into a chair, and covered her face with 
 her hands. In a moment, Catherine was kneeling on the 
 floor beside her. 
 
 " Don't cry ! dear Margaret, and do forgive me. That 
 was so nasty of me. I didn't mean to hurt you. I 
 only meant to steel you against this frightful disappoint- 
 ment to you. I know how it pains you ; but you mustn't 
 let it do so. You must be brave; you must look at the 
 thing sensibly. It isn't so dreadful as you think, and it 
 isn't irrevocable, even if Dick marries her. Nobody 
 thinks of love any more as an unchangeable emotion. 
 You catch it as you do a fever, and then you get over it, 
 and you catch it again, if you're exposed. Why, Clarence 
 Raymond and I have made a promise to each other, that 
 we are not going to swear unalterable fidelity to one an-
 
 222 THE TRELOARS 
 
 other. That would be ridiculous. How can we swear 
 that, and be sure of ourselves? We have promised each 
 other that the very moment we begin to bore each other, 
 and to care for somebody else, we're going to quit, be- 
 cause love is the holiest thing in the world, and we must 
 obey its call, and not " 
 
 There was something so deliciously, absurdly naive 
 in Catherine's assumption of superior worldly wisdom 
 and knowledge of life, that Margaret dropped her hands 
 and broke into an hysterical laugh. 
 
 " That's right, Margaret ! " exclaimed Catherine, cheer- 
 fully. "Do laugh, like a good girl, and don't cry any 
 more. It really isn't worth while. See, they'll be here 
 in an hour, and we mustn't have tear-stained faces. 
 What are you going to wear? You look so lovely in 
 that cream serge of yours; and let me do your hair and 
 fluff it a little at the sides, so it won't look prim." 
 
 She ran her fingers caressingly through Margaret's soft 
 hair; she was really feeling very remorseful, in spite of 
 the fact that her ethical system did not admit of re- 
 morse. 
 
 " You believe I love you, don't you, Margaret ? " 
 
 " Perhaps, when the fever's on, Catherine." 
 
 " No, this isn't a fever. This is another kind of love. 
 Margaret, do you read Ellen Key's books ? " 
 
 " I don't need to read books to find out what I should 
 put into my heart, or what is already in it. I read 
 my own heart, and perhaps it is as big a book as Ellen 
 Key's, though it shouldn't speak the same language." 
 
 Catherine saw that Margaret was in no mood, now, to 
 be converted to advanced views on life. She was lagging 
 far behind on the road to progress, and Catherine must 
 abandon her and go on alone in her enlightenment. Poor 
 Margaret ! 
 
 " I think I shall wear my serge, too. O, no I forgot, 
 there is an ugly three-cornered tear in the skirt where I 
 caught it in the auto door, the other day." 
 
 " I have mended that tear so that you can't notice it."
 
 THE TRELOARS 223 
 
 "Did you, Margaret? You darling! Thanks ever 
 so much ! " 
 
 She bent over Margaret and kissed her heartily. 
 
 " Now remember, dear," she went on, " if you want 
 me to feel that your Christian philosophy is as good as 
 my pagan one, you'll have to cheer up a bit. I'm not 
 going to be convinced by long faces. How sweet the 
 house looks, doesn't it? And we want it to look pretty 
 for the newcomer." 
 
 Catherine had at last touched Margaret in the right 
 spot. 
 
 When Catherine left the room, she knelt beside her 
 bed and prayed for strength and courage to sustain her 
 through the day. Her heart beat fast; her face burned, 
 her eyes sparkled when she descended to the reception 
 room; but her thoughts were in such disorder, that she 
 felt as if she were an automaton, and that the words 
 which fell from her lips had no echo in her heart and 
 brain. 
 
 Dick put his arms about her and kissed her affection- 
 ately, but she gave him no kiss in return. She turned 
 away from him at once to say to the lovely woman 
 who was removing her gloves and hat to give them to 
 Catherine : 
 
 " Did you find the ride tiresome ? " 
 
 " On the contrary. It was delightful. I had no idea 
 how beautiful it is about here. Those lovely villas with 
 their terraced gardens all along the road made me think 
 of Italy. And every turn in the road opened up some 
 new unexpected view that enchanted me. How happy you 
 must be to wake up every morning to so much beauty." 
 
 The words were said with such gracious enthusiasm 
 that Margaret would have been a woman of obstinate 
 perversity not to have been in some measure responsive 
 to them. She replied that they did enjoy it very much, 
 but she feared that to any one accustomed to the stir 
 and variety of city life, the unchanging quiet might seem 
 a little dull. Then after seeing that Nita was comfort-
 
 224 THE TRELOARS 
 
 ably seated and taken up by the attentions of the others, 
 she excused herself on the pretext that she must look 
 after the dinner, and slipped away into the kitchen. 
 
 Long afterwards, when she voluntarily recalled this 
 day, she had a confused recollection of having passed it 
 like a hunted hare, with frightened alert pauses and 
 quick darts into concealment, and that when its long 
 hours were over and night had at last closed in, she 
 felt as if some spring which had sustained her through 
 the day had broken, and that she was incapable of 
 further action, or further thought. 
 
 As for Nita, the last adieux over, when she was alone 
 again with Dick going back to San Francisco, she, too, 
 felt that she had passed the day under an unusual strain. 
 
 " Ah ! " she said, drawing a long sigh, " do take me 
 to some wicked place where I can hear people swear! 
 I have been so outrageously good, to-day ! But do tell 
 me first, how in the world you ever managed to preserve 
 your youth, in that highly intellectual family of yours ? " 
 
 "Don't you like them?" 
 
 There was something so pathetically appealing in poor 
 Dick's tone and something in the consternation of 
 his face which betrayed how she had wounded him, that 
 Nita repented heartily of her jocular rudeness, and said 
 quickly : 
 
 "Of course I do ! I mean to like everybody and every- 
 thing that belongs to you. But the free and easy gait I 
 have acquired in Bohemia makes it a little hard for me 
 to keep step with a non-Bohemian one. But I'll man- 
 age it little by little. You really are a very interesting 
 family, you Treloars very clever, all of you." 
 
 " Yes, but I think each of us has a gait of his own, 
 and that you will not be required to keep step with any- 
 body. You can just be yourself, Nita, with each one of 
 us, and the more you are yourself, the better we shall 
 like you." 
 
 "I think your father likes me." 
 
 " I am sure he does. He told me that you were the 
 most charming and brilliant woman he ever met."
 
 THE TRELOARS 225 
 
 "Did he really? Please tell him for me that I think 
 he has an extraordinary amount of uncommon sense." 
 
 " And a limited quantity of the other kind? " 
 
 " I did not say that. I really don't think it. He seems 
 very versatile. He is one of those delightful people to 
 whom you always want to go with any intellectual in- 
 terest you have a fine poem, a haunting strain of 
 melody, a lovely picture, a witty saying. I like such 
 people immensely. They double your pleasure in beau- 
 tiful things by letting you share it with them. But if 
 one had a great sorrow " 
 
 " You would not find him unsympathetic. He is really 
 very kind hearted; but if you needed the most healing 
 balm of human sympathy, you would go to my sister Mar- 
 garet." 
 
 " O Dick, she is the last person in the world to whom I 
 would ever go." 
 
 " No, no, Nita, dear ! you are mistaken. She was not 
 herself to-day. I know it. She did not let you get 
 acquainted with her. She was even distant and elusive 
 with me; but I am as sure of her love, as I am that 
 the stars are shining yonder. The truth is, she loves 
 me so much that she can't bear to share me with you. 
 But she'll get over it. She does not know yet that I can 
 love you both without in the least ceasing to love her, as 
 I have always done." 
 
 " My dear boy." Nita put her hand on Dick's and 
 smiled enigmatically. " That is exactly where your sister 
 is a great deal wiser than you are. She knows that it can 
 never again be quite the same between you, since I came 
 into your life. I feel sorry for her, really I do; be- 
 cause she is going to make herself so very wretched ; but 
 nothing in the world that I could ever do would make 
 her love me nothing! I want you to know that right 
 at the first, Dick, so that you can look the situation 
 squarely in the face, and give me up, if you care more 
 for your sister's happiness than mine." 
 
 Dick drew closer to her and tightened his grasp on
 
 226 THE TRELOARS 
 
 her hand till it pained her. One of the cruel fascina- 
 tions which she had for him was that he was never quite 
 sure of her. 
 
 " You are hurting me, Dick. You see you love me 
 best. No! your sister and I face different ways. We 
 never can meet. We might do each other good if we 
 could. She might teach me repose rest in duty, and 
 I might teach her that you may lace yourself so tightly 
 in your virtues that you can't breathe freely, and so 
 grow anaemic and sickly. As for your sister, Catherine, 
 she is in no need of such teaching. I should like to put 
 a pair of moral stays on her to keep her from slopping 
 over." 
 
 " Catherine is a fool ! " said Dick sharply. 
 
 " No, she's not a fool ; she's only silly. There's a 
 difference. A fool is hopeless; a fool he was born, and 
 a fool he will die; but a silly person may have a sub- 
 stratum of sense temporarily obscured by some illusion 
 or obsession. Your sister is a victim of higher edu- 
 cation." 
 
 " How wonderful you are, Nita, just as wise as you 
 are beautiful." 
 
 " No, I'm not, Dick. I am only wise intermittently, 
 and unfortunately, not always at the right time. I have 
 lived by impulse all my life. I wonder if I can learn 
 now, to live by rule. You will have to be very patient 
 with me. I have a thousand faults where you have 
 one ; and I am not patient under restrictions and censure, 
 spoken or concealed. That is why I must not see too 
 much of your sister Margaret. We should goad each 
 other beyond endurance. I felt the greatest temptation, 
 to-day, to prick her by little covert, innocent-appearing 
 attacks into a display of open hostility ; but I forbore for 
 your sake and your father's. That is why we must be 
 married in our own home and not under her roof. Don't 
 you think we'd better decide upon the house we were 
 looking at yesterday? The one with the view of the bay 
 and the mountains ? "
 
 THE TRELOARS 227 
 
 Dick assented eagerly, although he had thought, yes- 
 terday, that the rent was high, in fact quite beyond 
 what his income warranted him in paying. But he had 
 several thousand dollars in the bank and there was no 
 immediate necessity for economy. Besides, he shrank 
 painfully from any worldly-wise dictates of prudence 
 in money matters, where her wishes were concerned. He 
 was young and strong; he was in no danger yet of brain 
 fagging. He could double his work, were it necessaryT 
 He was responsible for her abandonment of a career in 
 which fame and wealth undoubtedly awaited her, and 
 he would be a sordid ingrate to deny her that beauty 
 in her surroundings which her nature craved, and which 
 she might have procured by her genius, had he not come 
 into her life. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 "Now, therefore, keep thy sorrow to thyself, and 
 bear with a good courage that which hath befallen thee." 
 
 MARGARET had lighted on these lines in II Esdras one 
 morning, two weeks after Nita's visit, and it seemed to 
 her as if Providence had spoken directly to her in 
 this wise admonition. Who was she that she should ex- 
 pect to pass through life without sharing the common 
 lot of sorrow? Was not sorrow the passage to greater 
 perfection? Of what use are fine aspirations and beau- 
 tiful faiths if they fail us when we need them most? 
 Up ! up ! my heart, " keep thy sorrow to thyself, and 
 bear with a good courage that which hath befallen thee." 
 Margaret repeated the lines till the strength of them 
 penetrated her, and her burden lightened. She went di- 
 rectly to the kitchen and said to Betty: 
 
 " Betty, can you get an early lunch for father and 
 me? I want to go over to San Francisco. Don't put 
 yourself to much trouble. Make a little fresh coffee ; fry 
 us an egg and a slice of ham, and open a fresh pot of 
 marmalade. That will be enough."
 
 228 THE TRELOARS 
 
 Having given her orders, she went in search of her 
 father. She found him walking in the garden, and called 
 out: 
 
 " Father, don't you want to go into the city with me 
 to select Dick's wedding present ? " 
 
 It was the first time that she had, of her own accord, 
 mentioned Dick's name since his letter announcing his 
 engagement. Treloar had been thinking of a wedding 
 present, too, only he had called it Nita's instead of Dick's. 
 He had been very sorry to notice that Margaret continued 
 her disapproval of Nita, therefore, he assented with 
 particular pleasure to Margaret's invitation. He had 
 begun to fear that she was wanting in that flexibility 
 which in persons as well as in steel makes a superior 
 quality the power to bend without breaking. How- 
 ever, he had too much tact to speak of his pleasure at 
 her return to her old self, but chatted of indifferent 
 things, of the necessity of cutting the grass again; of 
 making another rose bed on the south side of the house ; 
 of putting a geranium hedge on each side of the gravel 
 path which led to the chicken yard; of his preference 
 for the bright crimson variety, in which Margaret agreed 
 with him. 
 
 In the city, he stood with her before the artistically 
 draped show windows and looked at all the feminine 
 finery with a docility that admirably covered his unspeak- 
 able contempt for it. It was his way of rewarding her 
 for being a good girl and coming to her senses. When 
 it came to selecting the present, however, and Mar- 
 garet expressed the wish to buy a handsome writing desk, 
 he demurred on the score of its being too exclusively 
 Dick's present, and they finally compromised on a very 
 handsome solid oak library table which Margaret was 
 to furnish with sundry accessories, necessary to the com- 
 fort of a writer. For that purpose they went into a 
 book shop, and after making their purchases Margaret's 
 attention was attracted by a modest little volume in a 
 brown cover, entitled Comfort Found in Good Old Books.
 
 THE TRELOARS 229 
 
 It was beautifully illustrated with soft-toned reproduc- 
 tions of old book-pages and portraits of famous old 
 authors, harmonizing in color with the paper of the text 
 which had a touch of brown in it. Margaret looked over 
 the introduction, which concluded with the following sen- 
 tence : 
 
 " Even the sphinx is not so enduring as a great book 
 written in the heart's blood of a man or woman who 
 has sounded the deeps of sorrow, only to rise up full 
 of courage and faith in human nature." 
 
 For the second time to-day, an unknown writer had 
 spoken to her out of the depths of human experience, 
 and had held out a hand with a warm human grip 
 in it. 
 
 " I will take this book," she said. 
 
 " What are you buying ? " asked her father, putting 
 down some volumes which he had been looking over. 
 Margaret showed him the book. 
 
 " Ah yes. Fitch of the Chronicle. He does very good 
 work. I wonder if Dick knows him. He lost a son, a 
 brilliant young fellow, some time ago. All his friends 
 thought he would go to pieces under it, but he pulled 
 himself together, finding consolation in the wisdom of 
 the ages, as it is spoken in the great books. I wonder 
 from how many books of the present day he could have 
 drawn comfort. Well, are you ready to go? " 
 
 " Yes, I am ready." 
 
 " Wouldn't you like to call on Nita, while we are 
 over here ? I think you ought to." 
 
 Margaret flushed. She had not courage enough for 
 that. 
 
 " I can't go to-day, father. I must get home, and 
 help Betty with the dinner. The doctor is coming over 
 to-night, you know." 
 
 He did not tell her that he knew very well her assist- 
 ance was not at all necessary, and he did not urge her 
 to go against her will; but he did some very energetic 
 thinking about the cursed narrowness of women, and their
 
 230 THE TRELOARS 
 
 petty hostility to one another. Neither did he tell her that 
 he himself had called on Nita the last time he was in the 
 city. 
 
 
 
 Dick and Nita were married at high noon, one bright 
 day towards the end of October. They were married in 
 their new home, the picturesque cottage fronting the 
 bay on the outskirts of San Francisco. Dick was es- 
 pecially jubilant, because it was a sunny day, and the 
 season was approaching when rainy days. are frequent. 
 
 " Happy the bride that the sun shines on ! " was his 
 first greeting to Nita on that memorable day, " the bride- 
 groom can be happy in any kind of weather." 
 
 " The bride, too, if she's the right sort," answered Nita, 
 seating herself beside him in the carriage which was 
 to drive them to their cottage. All the wedding guests 
 were to be there waiting for them. Margaret, at the 
 last moment, had sent word to Dick that she was too ill 
 and weak to be present, but that she was sending Betty 
 over with a basket of the loveliest flowers she could get, 
 and he was to take them as emblematic of the good wishes 
 accompanying them. He would find at the house her 
 wedding present which she hoped would be a constant 
 reminder to him that she trusted he would yet do good 
 work with his pen. Nita who had anticipated this ill- 
 ness of Margaret's and did not believe in it, wisely made 
 no comment on it; but to do Margaret justice, she had 
 really felt physically unable to support the excitement 
 of the day. She had put all her strength into the mes- 
 sage to Dick, and he gratefully received it, incapable of 
 feeling anything but gratitude on this day of days. 
 
 After his first greeting to Nita and her answer, Dick 
 settled back in the seat beside her, his hand upon hers 
 unable to speak further. He had a singular feeling 
 of the unreality of it all, as if he were but half awake, 
 and the lovely dream would vanish if he were to think 
 vigorously or much bestir himself. He wished they 
 might go on and on forever, just as they were, with this
 
 THE TRELOARS 231 
 
 gentle motion of the carriage, the sweet play of light and 
 air about them, the hum of the crowd entirely softened 
 to his senses, as if it came from afar. 
 
 He did not like to think of the little company as- 
 sembled at the house, the dinner that would be ready for 
 them after the ceremony, and their two hours' drive in 
 Golden Gate Park, hard by, which was to be their wed- 
 ding journey. It all seemed child's play, not at all re- 
 lated to the exquisite seriousness of the hour. But the 
 ordeal had to be endured. Arrived at the home, he had 
 to listen with a forced attention to Catherine's vivacious 
 account of Betty's experience with the two Japanese boys 
 who were to help her with getting the dinner ready, and 
 with the service at the table; how she persistently judged 
 their capacity by their mistake in addressing her as " Sir," 
 and believed that she could get along much better with- 
 out them. He had to use his wits to keep Max and his 
 father from entering into an interminable discussion ; for 
 at Nita's urgent request, Max was one of the wedding 
 guests, and found occasion during the course of the day 
 to ask her to use her influence with Dick to review the 
 Dawn. 
 
 He had to thank Dolly and her father for their hand- 
 some gifts and for their presence at his wedding, assur- 
 ing them that if they had not come, he would have missed 
 their friendly faces more than he could tell. He kindly 
 enquired of Dolly how she liked her hospital experiences, 
 and told her that if he were ever ill, he would want no 
 other nurse. He had to listen to his prospective brother- 
 in-law, the colorless, mild-eyed, blonde Clarence Ray- 
 mond, when he broke into a subdued admiration for 
 the site of his new home, and the home itself which was 
 unusually beautiful. He wished he could duplicate it for 
 himself and Catherine. 
 
 He had to introduce the clergyman to everybody and 
 see that he felt at home. He had to make a pretense 
 at eating and enjoying the rich dinner prepared for his 
 guests.
 
 232 THE TRELOARS 
 
 There was only one thing that he did not have to do. 
 He did not have to sustain the courage of a timorous and 
 shrinking bride, nor attempt to bring out to public view 
 those charms of mind and manner which had seduced 
 him in private. Nita was admirable. She was not only 
 beautiful in her simple, clinging gown of soft, white, 
 lusterless silk, but she was beautiful in the easy and 
 charming way in which she made every one feel himself 
 at his best, which is not entirely the same thing as mak- 
 ing him feel himself at home. No one parted from her 
 that day, regretting anything he had said or done, or 
 feeling that he had left anything unsaid or undone that 
 would have contributed to the general delight. 
 
 When the day had ended at last, and they were alone 
 with their happiness, Dick turned to her, holding out his 
 two hands and drawing her close to him, while he kissed 
 her and fondly stroked her hair, he said : 
 
 " How proud I was of you, to-day ! " 
 
 " Were you really, Dick ? Yet it was a very trying 
 day to me. I felt as if I were on the stage, going through 
 a new part which I had not rehearsed, and might blunder 
 at any moment." 
 
 " You could not blunder, if you tried. What might be 
 a blunder in the rest of us would only be a new charm in 
 you. ' Thou mak'st faults graces that to thee resort.' " 
 
 " Ah, my young poet, if you can only keep on trans- 
 lating all my faults into graces, what a charming thing 
 it will be." 
 
 " I shall not fail in my translations, and, you, my love, 
 will you keep on trying to people this quiet place with 
 sweet thoughts of me, so that it won't weary you ? " 
 
 "Weary me, Dick? If you only knew how glad I 
 am to rest ! If you only knew how tired I was of having 
 no settled place to call my very own, of having always to 
 live in strange hotels and railway compartments, saying 
 always the same flat things to the same flat people if 
 you knew how inexpressibly tired I was of the petty 
 meannesses of the human heart, its ignoble jealousies, its
 
 THE TRELOARS 233 
 
 cold egotisms, its impossible ambitions you would know 
 what a heaven this lovely place seems to me. Why, Dick, 
 I have never had time to get acquainted with myself. 
 My life has been like a cinematograph, a perpetual change 
 of scene and faces. I really don't know what sort of 
 woman I am, any more. I am taking myself on trust 
 just now, I want to see if I can live up to your heart's 
 ideal of me. It is a new and tonic experience. I like it 
 immensely. It makes me very happy, happier than I have 
 ever been in all my life." 
 
 She really believed what she said, and Dick believed 
 her, too. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 DOLLY PARKER and her father, having separated from 
 the rest of the little wedding party at the ferry, were 
 leisurely making their way to the hospital in Oakland 
 where Dolly was receiving her training. Now, to tell 
 the literal truth, Dolly was not returning to her duties 
 with the cheerfulness that implies a delight in them. The 
 massive red brick hospital with its many windows flash- 
 ing a bright light into the darkness had never looked so 
 comfortless and repellent to her as it did to-night. Her 
 father accompanied her to the door, but would not go in, 
 and Dolly lingering beside him was wishing with all her 
 heart that he would set his foot down peremptorily, and 
 say: 
 
 " Now, Dolly, we've had enough of this. I want you 
 to quit this fooling and come home with me." 
 
 Dolly's frame of mind was something akin to that of 
 the naughty boy who, having in a pet left his good 
 home and indulgent father and mother to make his own 
 way in the world, suddenly discovers that the world does 
 not owe him a living. 
 
 " Daddy," she began, twisting the button of his over- 
 coat as she spoke, " I am getting the awful habit of
 
 
 234 THE TRELOARS 
 
 viewing humanity in a bony light a la Mr. Venus. I 
 am getting all the fluffy nonsense rubbed off. You would 
 not like me entirely destitute of fluffiness, would you? " 
 
 She hoped that he would reply that he liked her 
 just as she was, but he very wisely did nothing of the 
 sort though he was secretly delighted to know that he 
 was in no danger of losing her entirely. So he answered 
 very deliberately: 
 
 " The first month or two are very hard, Dolly, I know 
 it. You must expect that. You are soft, like a young 
 colt that has been running in pasture all its life, and 
 has just been put into harness. The harness galls it 
 everywhere it touches the skin; but in a little while, 
 the newness wears off and it is not conscious any longer 
 of a buckle or a strap." 
 
 " It is not the harness that bothers me, now. It did 
 at first, of course. I never told you that the first week, 
 I lay one night with my blistered hands in a basin of water 
 to take out the burning sting." 
 
 " That was not the best thing to do." 
 
 " No, I know it wasn't, now ; but, then I did not know 
 what else to do, and I wasn't going to whine and com- 
 plain and ask what to do for a blister, when people 
 under the same roof with me had hideous ulcers and 
 gaping wounds that refused to heal: Ugh! I don't 
 say I didn't cry on account of the smart, and because I 
 was so tired, but nobody saw me cry." 
 
 " That's right, Dolly, nobody should see you cry." 
 
 " Now, you see that I am not complaining of the 
 harness. The blisters on my hands have changed to 
 callous places. I don't tire so easily any more. I can 
 rise at half-past five and wake myself entirely up while 
 dressing, and I can dress in a quarter of the time it 
 used to take me. And I can take a bath in a bowl." 
 
 " You're getting a fine training for making a comfort- 
 able traveling companion, Dolly." 
 
 " Yes, I have learned the perfect idiocy of f ussiness. 
 We have a patient that never stops ringing her bell, and
 
 THE TRELOARS 235 
 
 when you go in, she is always wanting what she can't 
 have, and objecting to what she can have; but I've just 
 got so that that doesn't bother me any more than the 
 sweeping, and dusting, and slop-emptying. But " 
 
 Dolly stopped, and heaved a long-drawn sigh. 
 
 "Well, what does trouble you, my child?" 
 
 " Daddy, I can't bear to see pain, pain, pain, nothing 
 but pain. A little child very ill of a fever, cried all day 
 long yesterday, ' mamma! mamma! mamma! ' till its poor 
 little voice hoarsened to a thread. It broke my heart. 
 I can't bear it. I can still hear the sound of its voice in 
 my ears." 
 
 Dolly involuntarily put her hands to her ears, as if she 
 were shutting out the sound. 
 
 " Yes, but you'll get used to all that, too, Dolly. 
 Your heart will grow a little callous like your hands, and 
 still remain very soft underneath the surface, I hope. We 
 all have to get just hard enough to bear the touch of 
 pain without weakening under it. The most skillful op- 
 erator I know, the coolest, clearest head, fainted at his 
 first sight of the dissection table; but his wish to be of 
 service to those who suffer, led him to persist until he 
 conquered his weakness. I should like you to stick it 
 out a year, anyway, Dolly. You know I wasn't much in 
 favor of your coming here, at first. I had selfishly got 
 used to having you around me at home. But I see, now, 
 that you were wiser than I. Every woman ought to 
 have some training of this kind. It will rid her, not only 
 of a lot of fluffy nonsense, as you call it, but of a lot of 
 dense ignorance of human nature which leads so many 
 idle yawning women into silly sentimentalisms and hope- 
 less quixotisms of social reform. And, Dolly, there's an- 
 other thing I'd like to speak to you about. You are 
 young, good-looking, attractive." 
 
 " Somebody told me the other day that I was called 
 the belle of the hospital. Do you like that, Daddy?" 
 
 " No, I don't like it," he answered severely. " I think 
 it's silly, and if I thought such a thing as that would turn 
 your head "
 
 \ 
 
 236 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " You'd take me right home, to-night, with you wouldn't 
 you Daddy?" 
 
 " No, I wouldn't. I'd be too much ashamed of you 
 to get any comfort out of having you around me." 
 
 Dolly burst out laughing. 
 
 " No, I am serious, Dolly. I want you to listen to 
 me. I've lived. I know life. I know men. I am one 
 of them. All men are as normally attracted to pretty 
 young women as iron filings to a magnet." 
 
 " As the moth to the candle, Daddy. That is the 
 simile which time has sanctified." 
 
 " Yes, but it does not suit the case ; because the moth 
 dies in the flame and the candle burns on. It would 
 be entirely correct if the candle went out, and the moth 
 flew away unsinged, which is what really happens with 
 the male moth and the female candle, nine times out of 
 ten. The tragedy of these emotional affairs is that a 
 woman mistakes a two-penny form of excitement for a 
 valuable, permanent affection, and her vanity makes her 
 believe that she is one chosen out of many, because of 
 her superior charms, instead of being only one of many 
 whom chance makes it convenient for him to prefer tem- 
 porarily." 
 
 "No more but so?" said Dolly with mock Ophelian 
 insistence. 
 
 " No more but so ! " repeated her father, not relishing 
 the mockery. " I wish you could hear the light, banter- 
 ing, silly, conceited way in which men, young and old, 
 speak to each other of these affairs. It would heartily 
 disgust you, and make you resolve never to lend your- 
 self to be a low jest to any of them. A young woman in 
 your position must be doubly careful, surrounded as she 
 is by so many subtle appeals to her sympathy and her 
 vanity. You will hear serious things spoken of lightly. 
 It is a sort of fad among would-be smart people, now- 
 adays, to mock at what used to be reverenced, and to 
 boast of their vices and vulgarity as a sort of superior 
 knowingness. It is a poor, cheap, vulgar sort of knowl-
 
 THE TRELOARS 237 
 
 edge, that can be found in a much completer form in 
 every prison and penitentiary in the country. Never for- 
 get this, Dolly: Civilization is only the blossoming of 
 human experience, into the finest morality ; and purity is 
 one of the blossoms. There is one woman whose mem- 
 ory I want you to keep near you. Never listen to any- 
 thing or do anything that you would not listen to or do 
 in the presence of Margaret Treloar." 
 
 " Dear Margaret ! " exclaimed Dolly. " She is a good 
 woman. Why wasn't she at the wedding to-day? Is 
 she really sick? I know she is heart-broken over Dick's 
 marriage. But don't you think she'll ever get over it ? " 
 
 " I don't know, Dolly. She is not one of the April 
 women who can smile and cry in an hour. She is 
 deeply hurt. Time will answer that question." 
 
 "What do you really think of Dick's wife, father?" 
 
 " That she is a fascinating woman who needs an audi- 
 ence before whom she can exercise her gifts. For that 
 reason, she is about as dangerous a domestic pet as a 
 half-tamed tiger. However, Dick may succeed in tam- 
 ing her wholly. We'll have to leave that to time, too." 
 
 " Dick's father seems to think she's perfect." 
 
 " Humph ! Poor old Phil is hopelessly romantic. He 
 is a spiritual adventurer, capable of descending into hell 
 with a brand-new argument to induce the devil to put 
 out his fires, and believing that he succeeded if he came 
 back with his wings only slightly singed. Phil doesn't 
 recognize any spurious forms of love. It's all the genu- 
 ine article with him, and sacred because ' God is love ! ' 
 As for me, I am inclined to think that the devil has a 
 very flourishing monopoly of most kinds of it. Now, my 
 girl, it's getting late. Kiss me good-night. Don't forget 
 that your old Daddy loves you better than anybody else 
 in the world." 
 
 He kissed her affectionately, waited on the steps, till 
 he had seen the large entrance door close behind her, then 
 hunted up a taxicab and was driven home. It had been a 
 long time since he entered the house, made desolate to
 
 238 THE TRELOARS 
 
 him by Dolly's absence, with so much satisfaction as he 
 felt to-night. He had acquitted himself well. He had 
 been resolute, where he had been sorely tempted to be 
 weak. He had said plainly to Dolly what it had been in 
 his heart to say for a long time ; and he had seen clearly 
 that he was in no danger of losing his daughter, but that 
 she would return to him the happier for their separ- 
 ation. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 DICK and Nita had just risen from their late breakfast, 
 served by their Japanese boy, Kurita, who came early 
 every morning and stayed till nightfall to do the heavy 
 work of the new household. They had been married 
 a week, and not a cloud as big as a man's hand had ap- 
 peared in their sky. Dick still felt himself adrift on an 
 ocean of bliss, not yet alertly awake to any sharp re- 
 alities about him. Life was literally a dream. We have 
 made such flat and common use of the word dream, 
 applying it to everything from a strawberry ice to the 
 most finished work of art, that it has grown trivial and 
 vulgar; yet there is no other word that so perfectly ex- 
 presses a pure joy distilled and freed from all the im- 
 pertinent intrusions of reality. There was no grit nor 
 flaw in Dick's happiness ; as for Nita, she, too, was happy, 
 not in the same exalted youthful way as Dick, who 
 seemed always to have just finished a bottle of cham- 
 pagne but in a restful, grateful way like that of one 
 who has been out on a dangerous sea and comes safely 
 into port. She was enjoying for the first time in her 
 life the love and companionship of an intelligence equal 
 to her own, and a superior moral nature unconscious 
 of itself, never obtrusive, now, but making itself felt in 
 a variety of delicate and subtle ways. She noticed it 
 first in his gentleness towards his inferiors, to all who 
 rendered him any service; and she contrasted it with 
 the rough and brutal, or coarse, jesting and familiar
 
 THE TRELOARS 239 
 
 manner which betrays the parvenu in many a man who 
 hopes to conceal the fact by showing his contempt for 
 the condition from which he himself has so recently 
 sprung. No man or woman ever felt degraded in serving 
 Dick, but rather that it was a privilege to do so. And 
 he required so little waiting on, always preferring to 
 put himself out, instead of anybody else. 
 
 How simple, frank and buoyant he was, extraordinarily 
 youthful, in an age when it is the ambition of the young 
 to have a wrinkled mind at twenty, and to die of senility 
 at forty. In his moments of fresh enthusiasm, Nita 
 felt herself his senior by half a century, and wondered 
 if she would always be able to conceal so admirably this 
 enormous disparity. Perhaps not, in that case, the con- 
 sciousness of it must either bore or sadden them inex- 
 pressibly. At present, it was her secret alone, and to 
 him she was as fresh and bright as the morning dew. 
 
 She looked particularly bright this morning, in her 
 soft white cashmere gown, with a knot of blue rib- 
 bon at her neck. She had resolved to permit herself 
 no morning slovenliness, to guard jealously the secrets 
 of her toilet, and always to appear before Dick at her 
 best. They had been obliged to compromise on a break- 
 fast hour. Nita, whose habits had made an eleven o'clock 
 breakfast an early one for her, made her first sacrifice 
 to Dick in consenting to breakfast at half-past nine, 
 which was a late hour for him, especially as he had a 
 long car ride before him to reach the down-town 
 office, where he had his work to do. He had tried stay- 
 ing at home one morning to see if he could do his work 
 there, as Nita suggested, but it was impossible. He could 
 not rid himself of the consciousness of her presence long 
 enough to finish a sentence. In fact, it was difficult to 
 write anywhere. Life was a prolonged holiday; and 
 these days of perfect happiness when he seemed to live 
 a year in a week, were absolutely sterile, for the time 
 being, so far as intellectual work is concerned. He could 
 not think; he could only feel.
 
 240 THE TRELOARS 
 
 Then the little cottage was so charming; nothing crude 
 nor glaring in its newness ; for Nita's taste had directed 
 the furnishings and he was always discovering some 
 new perfection. The site, too, was a magnificent one, 
 on the green slope of a hill which fronted the bay, where 
 it deepens and narrows, so that the low mountains on the 
 opposite shore with their deep shadowy ravines seemed 
 within a stone's throw; and the mountains and the bay 
 were as expressive as a human face and just as change- 
 able. Sometimes, they were wrapped in a soft gray 
 mist; sometimes they stood out bold and clear in the 
 sunlight against the blue sky, every shrub and boulder 
 and sinuous ravine sharply outlined. Again they draped 
 themselves in the richest colors, deep purple and vivid 
 green, and patches of golden light. And all about them 
 was that rarest, priceless luxury of a great city space 
 and silence. They were in the city but not of it its 
 harsh roar not reaching them even in a murmur its 
 existence evident to them only at night in its myriad 
 lights scintillating from detached points in space. 
 
 " What shall we call our cottage ? " asked Dick when 
 breakfast was over and they were standing on the 
 veranda facing the bay. " Rose Bower ? but the roses are 
 only just started, we must wait a year or two before we 
 are embowered with them. Morning Side? That 
 sounds good to me. It is always dawn with us here." 
 
 " O Dick, that reminds me of Max and his Dawn. 
 You know that he wants you to review it, don't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, but I'm not going to do anything of the sort." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " Because the less publicity one gives to a disreputable 
 thing, the less attention the public will give to it. Have 
 you seen his precious paper, Nita ? " 
 
 " I've just glanced over one or two copies." 
 
 " What do you think of it? " 
 
 " I think it's very silly. Of course, you couldn't praise 
 it, and he doesn't want you to." 
 
 " Then he has been talking to you about it? "
 
 THE TRELOARS 241 
 
 Dick frowned. He felt nettled. To say the least, 
 Max's persistence was in very bad taste. 
 
 " Yes, he spoke to me about it, the day he was here." 
 
 " Our wedding day ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Well, I call that impudence ! I suppose he asked 
 you to use your influence with me to make me do it, 
 didn't he?" 
 
 A subtle wish to try her power with Dick tempted Nita, 
 immediately. She felt challenged to prove that she could 
 do with this handsome boy what she chose to do ; so she 
 flashed on him a radiant smile that warmed him like 
 wine. 
 
 " Yes, dear Clairvoyant, that is just what he did, and 
 I told him that I hadn't the slightest influence over you 
 to make you do what you didn't wish to do." 
 
 " You're a darling ! " Dick's arm went about her waist 
 and he kissed her repeatedly. " You were altogether too 
 modest, though, about the power of your influence. You 
 could make me do anything, I think, except to be cowardly 
 where my honor is gripped. But you wouldn't tempt me 
 there, for my honor is your honor. We stand or fall to- 
 gether, now, don't we, sweetheart ? " 
 
 He bent his head over hers, and his lips touched her 
 hair. 
 
 " Certainly, Dick, dear ; we stand or fall, together. I 
 hope I should never tempt you to do anything to your 
 dishonor or mine ; but on the other hand, I should never 
 wish you to be obstinately or stupidly over-punctilious 
 about a mere matter of taste. Max was kind to me at a 
 time when kindness meant life to me, and I should find 
 it very hard to refuse him a trifling service in return." 
 
 She had touched Dick in his weakest point. She had 
 made it a most powerful temptation to break his inner 
 resolve. He turned very red, and taking his arm from 
 her waist, he moved slightly away from her, so that he 
 could look squarely into her face. He hated himself 
 for what he was going to say, but a high instinct of self-
 
 242 THE TRELOARS 
 
 preservation was stirring within him, warning him that 
 if he hesitated now, he was lost. He tried to speak 
 calmly, but his heart was beating so fast that he thought 
 she must hear its throbs in his voice. 
 
 " Nita, this is not a matter of taste ; it is a matter of 
 principle. As to the question of serving Max, the high- 
 est service we can render him, now, is to save him from 
 himself. I am very fond of Max; I don't forget what 
 he was to me some six or seven years ago when I was 
 a raw young fellow in college. But he was a very differ- 
 ent fellow then; at any rate, so far as his theories of 
 art and literature are concerned. Of course, he had even, 
 then, that racial arrogance which led him to feel himself 
 superior to Americans, and he had no real sympathy with 
 his fellow men, though he thought he had, and admired 
 Shelley very much for his atheism and sentimental hu- 
 manitarianism. There was always a false romantic 
 streak in him. He lived in a kind of mental isolation 
 which he dignified by the name of independence; but he 
 liked us Treolars, and we liked him. We soon discovered 
 that he had an irritable sensitiveness which we had to be 
 very careful about offending. He could pet and nourish 
 a slight grievance till he made crime and treachery out 
 of it. He was moody, unreliable. He would give away 
 everything he had in a moment of expansion and haggle 
 over a penny, if he thought anybody wanted it, when he 
 didn't want to give it. A strange compound, proud as 
 Lucifer, and with it all, flashes of real genius just 
 enough to make a man hope to do something too big for 
 him. What we have to do with Max and his artistic 
 temperament, is to save him if possible from the folly 
 into which it has hurried him." 
 
 " How are you going to do it ? " 
 
 " By ignoring the folly. That is the way to pardon it, 
 isn't it?" 
 
 " But you can't go on ignoring what another persists 
 in flaunting in your face. Until Max himself is ready to 
 acknowledge his folly and abandon it, our ignoring it is 
 only an offense to him, it is not a pardon."
 
 THE TRELOARS 243 
 
 . 
 
 " Then we must offend him," said Dick, taking a cigar 
 from his pocket and lighting it. 
 
 " Excuse me, Dick, but one doesn't offend one's 
 friends." 
 
 " One doesn't pat their follies on the back, Nita, and 
 encourage them to go on with them. That is not being a 
 friend; it is being an enemy. That is the one great 
 trouble with literature in America. We have no criticism 
 on contemporary writers, because every author knows 
 every other author and dares not for the life of him 
 express his real opinion for fear of giving offense. So 
 they all get into a little pool of sugared water and splash 
 each other in a friendly manner with it, and all taste and 
 smell good to each other. God ! it's sickening." 
 
 Dick shook his head and an expression of nausea passed 
 over his face. 
 
 " Yes, but my dear boy," Nita put an unnecessary em- 
 phasis into the word, dear, because she was going to be 
 disagreeably insistent, " Max isn't asking you to splash 
 him with sugared water, he is asking you to throw mud 
 at him. I should think you would really enjoy doing 
 that. It would give you a chance to criticise severely what 
 seems nauseous and vulgar to you, and at the same time 
 to bring out clearly the real values in literature." 
 
 " But don't you see, Nita dear," Dick threw away 
 his cigar, and took her two hands in his, " don't you see 
 that just because Max wants that, I mustn't do it. He 
 knows that absolute silence is death to his enterprise. He 
 knows that if he can only arouse a clamor he will have 
 all eyes turned his way, and once turned his way, he 
 knows that there is just enough perversity and prurient 
 ignorance in the reading world to secure him paying 
 followers. You can put all sorts of silly and vicious 
 ideas into people's heads that never would have entered 
 them, if you hadn't suggested them, on the pretext of 
 warning them. The public is like this. Tell it that a 
 book is indecent, a menace to good morals, and it can't 
 buy it fast enough. I stood beside a woman at a public
 
 244 THE TRELOARS 
 
 library not long ago. She said, ' I want a thriller. I 
 want a book that will raise the hair on my head/ As 
 half of her hair wasn't her own, I don't know how she 
 expected that to be done emotionally, but expect it, she 
 did. I don't know what they gave her. I heard an- 
 other woman say of a book, ' This looks by the pictures, 
 as if it was good.' When your public's like that, what 
 can you expect of it ? Sometimes, I think it's a pity that 
 everybody knows how to read. Now, Nita, have I made 
 it plain to you that I don't propose to advertise thrillers; 
 and that it is really a matter of principle with me ? " 
 
 " Yes, only your silence won't prevent them from be- 
 ing written and read, because your silence can't change 
 human nature. It just goes on being made after the same 
 old formula; and I have so little respect for it, that I 
 don't care whether its hair rises or lies as flat as a pan- 
 cake. The hair-raising neither raises nor lowers its intel- 
 ligence, for it hasn't any. It just crisps the epidermis. 
 Then, somebody else will speak, if you don't; and per- 
 haps not in so vigorous and critical a way. Would you 
 mind, Dick, if I tried it?" 
 
 Dick looked at her in unfeigned astonishment. He 
 could not understand how it was possible for her to be 
 so persistent, in the face of his displeasure ; but he checked 
 the impatient words that were rising to his lips, and said 
 generously : 
 
 " You are as much your own mistress, as much a law 
 to yourself, as you ever were. I would not put so much 
 as a cobweb between your will and mine. You know 
 how I feel about this matter, but I do not wish to impose 
 my conviction on you. I shall love you none the less, 
 whatever you do. I did not marry you to make you 
 my echo. One of me is enough." 
 
 He took out his watch, glanced at it, then put it hastily 
 into his pocket with an exclamation of wonder at the way 
 in which the hours simply flew when he was with her, and 
 dragged while he was away. He got his hat, and kissed 
 her good-by with unusual tenderness; perhaps, because
 
 THE TRELOARS 245 
 
 deep in his heart, in spite of his brave words, she had 
 hurt him. Twice in the road, on his way to the car, he 
 turned to wave his hand at her and smile. She stood 
 and watched him till he was out of sight. Then, be- 
 cause he loved her so much that her very faults were 
 dear to him, he made all sorts of excuses to himself for 
 her persistency. 
 
 In associating his life with hers, had the doubt ever 
 intruded itself that she would be one with him in this 
 aim? No, she was to be to him all that Margaret had 
 been and more. Margaret ! It came upon him suddenly, 
 that Margaret's image had been blurred and feeble in 
 his memory for many a day, that she had not been at his 
 wedding, that he knew she was not well, that he had 
 expressed no concern about her, and had not yet thanked 
 her for her share in the gift of the beautiful library table. 
 What a brute happiness had made of him! He would 
 write to her as soon as he got to the office. He would 
 tell her that his marriage made no difference whatever 
 in his love for her, that she would still be to him, what 
 she had always been, his true and faithful guide. It 
 did not trouble him nor appear inconsistent that in the 
 weightiest action of his life, he had not sought her guid- 
 ance, but had wandered far astray from the path which 
 she pointed out to him. His union with Nita still seemed 
 to him a beautiful necessity, admitting neither counsel nor 
 possibility of avoidance. 
 
 Dick was quite right in congratulating himself 
 upon his answer to Nita; for though she had seemingly 
 half -deferred to his judgment, she had inwardly con- 
 demned it, and had resolved to do as she pleased, no 
 matter what the consequences might be. In becoming 
 Mrs. Treloar, she had never had the slightest intention 
 of becoming her husband's passive reflection. There 
 were always to be two of them. She would be quite 
 fair. She would not trammel Dick's personality any 
 more than she would allow him to trammel or efface 
 hers. Both were to be entirely free. But this resolu-
 
 246 s THE TRELOARS 
 
 tion did not absolve her from the privilege of being crit- 
 ical, and in this question of Dick's refusal to review the 
 Dawn, she saw nothing but obstinacy and unfriendliness. 
 Her knowledge of human nature had not been acquired 
 in a select school for it, therefore, she did Dick the 
 injustice of believing that he was jealous of Max and 
 that that was all his much-boasted principle amounted to. 
 Viewed in that light, it looked rather contemptible to 
 her. He was just a man, like the rest of them. Well, 
 had she ever supposed he was anything else ? No, he was 
 just a little younger, all his illusions yet intact beau- 
 tiful bubbles floating around him how many was she 
 destined to break? She was just at this point of her 
 soliloquy, when a voice called out : 
 
 " Ah, there you are ! " 
 
 Turning around, she saw Philip Treloar at the foot of 
 the flight of steps leading to the veranda. She hastened 
 towards him, saying : 
 
 " Why, Father Treloar, how glad I am to see you ! 
 What are you doing with that big basket on your arm ? " 
 
 " Betty churned last night, and we had fresh butter, 
 and fresh buttermilk, and fresh eggs this morning, and 
 Margaret wanted to share all this freshness with you, and 
 was going to send Frank over with them, and I volun- 
 teered to deliver them myself, so here I am." 
 
 " O, thank you so very much, That was lovely of 
 you and lovely of her to think of us. We are both fond 
 of fresh buttermilk. Kurita ! " 
 
 She opened the kitchen door, and the Japanese boy ap- 
 peared at her call. 
 
 " Take these things, please, Kurita, and put them into 
 the cooler. And, father, come right into the house, will 
 you? I am so glad you have come. Is Margaret feel- 
 ing better ? " 
 
 " She hasn't been ill, that I know of." 
 
 "Hasn't she? I thought " Nita didn't tell what 
 
 she thought, but changed her sentence quickly to the 
 question :
 
 THE TRELOARS 247 
 
 "Didn't you meet Dick?" 
 
 " No, I didn't see him. You are not such early risers as 
 we country people, I see." 
 
 " No, we are not. I'm afraid I'm spoiling Dick ; but 
 the days are so long without him. He can't come home 
 for lunch. We're too far away from the city. But 
 isn't it lovely here ? " 
 
 She had taken his hat and hung it on the rack in 
 the vestibule and ushered him into the pretty reception 
 room with its wide low windows looking out on the moun- 
 tains and the water. A handsome oriental rug in 
 softened rose tints mingled with dark blue lay on the 
 polished floor, and the grayish blue tinted walls har- 
 monized with it. A few fine landscapes adorned the 
 walls, picturesque bits of the English lake regions, and 
 the Italian coast, but they seemed almost impertinent and 
 superfluous, when one turned to the windows and caught 
 the sparkle of the living blue, and the changing hues of 
 the real mountains. 
 
 " I think I shall never tire of this glorious view and 
 this glorious quiet," continued Nita, drawing a chair to 
 the window for Mr. Treloar and seating herself opposite 
 to him. 
 
 " O, yes you will," he replied, glancing out of the 
 window and turning again to her. " Just wait till the 
 rains begin, they're due this month; when you can't go 
 out without slopping yourself all over; and you'll be 
 glad to trade your mountains for a house next door and 
 a good neighbor in it. Mountains can't talk ; and what's 
 the use of a day, if you can't get some good talk into it." 
 
 " Well, you can do some good thinking." 
 
 " Yes, but that's like the rise and fall of water in 
 a fountain. It doesn't get anywhere. You need a chan- 
 nel for the water to flow in." 
 
 " Then there's Dick coming home to me at night, you 
 know." 
 
 Mr. Treloar laughed. 
 
 " My dear child, Dick will be like all the rest of the
 
 248 THE TRELOARS 
 
 husbands, when the gilt edge of matrimony wears off. 
 He won't want to talk, when he comes home. He's been 
 talking all day long, and his treat will be to sit quietly in 
 his shirt sleeves with his collar off, and smoke his pipe 
 behind his newspaper. Of course, he hasn't come to that, 
 yet." 
 
 " I should think not ! I still mean more than his news- 
 paper to him." 
 
 " Well, don't think that you've stopped meaning any- 
 thing to him, when he takes to reading his paper in your 
 presence. My wife had a good cry the first time that I 
 did that with her, and I had to assure her that I loved 
 her more than ever, for I was feeling so perfectly at home 
 with her that I wasn't conscious of there being two of us. 
 We were just one." 
 
 " But that is just what Dick and I don't want to hap- 
 pen. I should be sorry to lose my identity in him, or 
 have him lose his, in me." 
 
 " That's all right for the honeymoon ; but the honey 
 is apt to grow scarce for the rest of the long life together, 
 if people don't find themselves gradually growing one." 
 
 " Dick and I had our first difference to-day, Father 
 Treloar ; what do you think of that ? " 
 
 " That it wasn't very serious, or you wouldn't be smil- 
 ing." 
 
 " No, it was not very serious, but it was a real differ- 
 ence. I must tell you about it. You know Max Giet- 
 mann, of course." 
 
 " Very well. He used to be out at the house a good 
 deal, five or six years ago. I have only seen him twice 
 since his return from Europe." 
 
 " You know that he is publishing a journal called the 
 Dawn, don't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, there's not much light in it, though, is there ? " 
 
 " No ! It's perfect rot from my point of view. I don't 
 know what he means by this performance. I always had 
 rather a high idea of his intelligence, but Well, to 
 come to the point, he wants Dick to write a harsh review
 
 THE TRELOARS 249 
 
 of it to excite the curiosity of the public. Now Max and 
 I are old friends, and since he wants that done, I asked 
 Dick to do it. He hates the stuff, you know, and could 
 run his pen through it beautifully. What do you sup- 
 pose he said ? " 
 
 " That he wouldn't do it." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "What's his reason?" 
 
 " That it would be advertising it, and that he doesn't 
 intend to do it, as a matter of principle." 
 
 " Well, there's something in that." 
 
 " Not very much. You know very well, Father Tre- 
 loar that if Max intends bringing it before the public, all 
 that Dick can say or not say amounts to a row of pins. 
 And then by really showing the absurdity of it, Dick 
 could influence a few people who are really anxious to 
 think right, but don't know how. Then, Max is my 
 friend, and I should like to oblige him in this matter, so 
 I told Dick or, rather, I asked him, if he would 
 mind my doing it." 
 
 "What did he say?" 
 
 " He said I might do as I pleased, which of course was 
 very lovely of him, and yet what else could he have 
 said?" 
 
 "You are going to write this review yourself, then?" 
 
 " I don't know. I can talk readily enough, but I am so 
 stupid with my pen that as soon as I try to write I am as 
 empty of thought as a stagnant pool ; and there is never an 
 angel will come down to stir the waters for me." 
 
 " Have you got a copy of this Dawn." 
 
 " Yes, there's one in the library. I'll get it for you." 
 
 She came back with the copy, and as she handed it to 
 him, she asked : 
 
 " Has Dick ever thanked Margaret for the beautiful 
 library table? If he hasn't, will you tell her for me, 
 how much he admires it and how grateful he is ? " 
 
 " Yes, I will." 
 
 Mr. Treloar turned over the pages of the Dawn with 
 keen interest, and then burst out laughing.
 
 250 THE TRELOARS 
 
 "This is great! I've been telling Parker for years 
 that materialism was going to end in just this hideous 
 mess, and he has laughed at me. When you destroy all 
 standards, and each man sets up his own little stinking 
 penny candle to revolve about, and turns away from the 
 central sun, you're going to get just such a chaos as this. 
 Max is fulfilling Nietzsche's prophecy concerning his na- 
 tion : ' When a German ceases to be Faust, his greatest 
 danger is of becoming a Philistine and going straight to 
 the devil. Nothing but the heavenly powers can save him 
 from ruin.' But I am afraid poor Max is beyond even the 
 heavenly powers." 
 
 " I think he'd love to have you say that," said Nita, 
 watching Mr. Treloar's growing excitement with amused 
 interest. " Don't you think you could write a stunning 
 attack on that ? And don't you think you ought to ? A 
 tolerant or indifferent attitude isn't going to set people 
 right. Didn't Christ overturn the money changers' tables 
 in the temple and drive them out with bitter reproaches ? " 
 
 " Certainly ! I think this Dawn is a lovely text for a lot 
 of harsh truths that need saying. I'll write a review of 
 it. I think I could go Dick one better on it." 
 
 " I am sure you could," exclaimed Nita, clapping her 
 hands, " and I am so grateful to you for doing it, but of 
 course, I should not wish you to do it, if like Dick, it 
 would offend any of your principles." 
 
 Perhaps she uttered the last word with the slightest 
 tinge of irony, for Mr. Treloar answered : 
 
 " My principles have done nursing and can walk alone. 
 They wouldn't be injured by anything I could do; and 
 they never interfere with my inspirations." 
 
 " Singular old man ! " thought Nita, when he had gone. 
 " One might think that he was glad to see Max go wrong 
 in order to save his theories. He has a great deal of 
 sincerity in his way, which is a little peculiar, and a great 
 deal of penetration, yet he doesn't know that I could do 
 anything I liked with him. But it wouldn't be worth
 
 THE TRELOARS 251 
 
 while, except to tease his precious daughter, Margaret. 
 I knew she wasn't sick. She means to cut me, and cover 
 the cut to the rest of the family with butter and eggs. 
 Well, I don't much care, since I have cut her most de- 
 liciously in turn, by taking Dick away from her. And 
 do I want him, now that I have him? I wonder why I 
 did it? My world was standing still, and I thought it 
 was never going to move again. I was sick. I begin to 
 feel well. If Dick comes home to-night silent or 
 uppish " she pressed her lips together instead of finish- 
 ing the thought, and went to her room to dress herself. 
 
 Dick brought home with him that night a box of beau- 
 tiful fragrant hot-house flowers, and a box of delicious 
 chocolates. He gave them to her with the same warm, 
 affectionate impulsive wish to please that he had always 
 shown her; and the better woman in her was deeply 
 ashamed of the ugly treacherous thoughts which she 
 had nursed in his absence. She was as sweet and gentle 
 with him, as if her heart had never for a moment failed 
 in its allegiance to him. But she said not a word to him 
 about asking his father to criticise the Dawn, though she 
 spoke prettily of his visit, and mentioned her message to 
 Margaret. It was as if both had silently resolved not to 
 speak of the Dawn again. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 THE rainy season was on not a day or two of cloudy 
 weather, a heavy downpour of rain followed by a burst 
 of sunshine, but a steady persistent rain that blotted 
 the sun out of the sky, that fell drearily day after day, 
 and night after night, till the soaked earth refused to re- 
 ceive it, and water lay on the surface in muddy pools, 
 wherever there was a hollow place, and spread in flat 
 shallows over low grassy spots, and gathered in furrows 
 about the roots of trees, and ran in little streams along 
 the edges of gravel paths, and fell with an incessant drip
 
 252 THE TRELOARS 
 
 and splash on roofs and against window panes. Some- 
 times, the wind added its movement to the dismal scene, 
 and tall trees writhed in it, or bent their leafy summits 
 and showed the white side of their twisted leaves; and 
 slender vines were torn and washed from their fasten- 
 ings, and sprawled along the drenched earth, beaten and 
 lashed beyond all possibility of rising again. Sometimes 
 when the fury of wind and rain were abated, the wet earth 
 steamed with a low, heavy fog that blotted out the land- 
 scape. 
 
 It might not have been depressing for one who had a 
 genius for solitude to look out on the sullen sky, to hear 
 all day the dreary moan of the wind and the monotonous 
 splash of the rain. He might recreate his own sunlight 
 from the memory of sunny hours; he might enliven his 
 solitude with the creations of his brain, or with the com- 
 panionship of living books. He might dull the edge of 
 an over-sharpened, obtrusive self-consciousness by plan- 
 ning or executing some loving service for others. There 
 are multitudes of obscure, devoted mothers and patient 
 housewives who brighten their solitude in this golden 
 way; but Nita had neither a genius for solitude, nor the 
 stuff of which devoted mothers and good housewives are 
 made ; and though she had voluntarily accepted this yoke 
 of marriage, she had overrated her power to find con- 
 tentment and happiness in the quiet, uneventful routine of 
 family life. She had wholly misunderstood the mysteri- 
 ous laws of life, when she had supposed it possible by 
 an act of the will to obliterate the past, to destroy all the 
 subtle effects of habit, and peculiar turns of thought 
 formed by long years of willfulness and self-indulgence. 
 
 She did not know that public applause, approving 
 smiles, the side-long glances of envy that were unwilling 
 tributes to her power, had become a necessity to her. 
 She missed the stimulus of excitement which was wont to 
 occupy the restless energy that filled her. Had she mar- 
 ried a man of wealth and distinction, who could have 
 given her the excitement of social triumphs and incessant
 
 THE TRELOARS 253 
 
 change of scene, all might have gone well with her, so 
 far as the world calls well. But she had married an 
 obscure young journalist. She had wedded solitude and 
 retirement ; and nothing in her life, her tastes, her talents, 
 fitted her for this new role, actress though she was. Its 
 novelty had seduced her in a moment of illness and weari- 
 ness. The novelty was gone the situation remained. 
 At first, she did not see that the fault of the disenchant- 
 ment lay in herself. She thought it the effect of the 
 dismal weather, of the incessant drip and splash of the 
 rain, of the leaden sky that hung over the earth like a pall. 
 
 " O, Dick, I am so tired of it ! " she said one morning. 
 "Rain! rain! rain! Nothing but rain all day long! I 
 am not going to get up. I don't feel well. Tell Kurita 
 to bring me a cup of fresh coffee and an egg on toast 
 about half past ten, will you? You don't mind my not 
 breakfasting with you, this morning, do you?" 
 
 The dining-room would be empty without her, and the 
 breakfast without savor; he did mind it very much, but 
 he would not have said so for the world, if that would 
 have caused her to make an unwilling exertion, so he 
 bent over the bed and kissed her and stroked the loose 
 hair away from her forehead, saying : 
 
 " Of course not. I should mind it very much, if you 
 got up when you didn't feel like it. Does your head 
 ache, love ? " 
 
 " No, I just feel tired! infinitely tired! as if it were an 
 effort to lift my hand. I should like to lie here forever, 
 and doze away into eternity." 
 
 She spoke with a lifeless drawl, and moved her head 
 away from his caressing hand, and closed her eyes. Dick 
 looked at her intently, and noticed dark blue circles about 
 her eyes, and a drawn white look in her face. It alarmed 
 him. 
 
 " Nita, dear, I am going to telephone for a doctor, you 
 are not well." 
 
 She opened her eyes quickly. 
 
 " No, you are not, Dick ! There is nothing the matter
 
 254 THE TRELOARS 
 
 with me, I assure you ; so please don't be silly about me. 
 Just let me alone. I'll be all right when you come home 
 this evening. Now run away and get your breakfast, like 
 a good boy." 
 
 " But I can't bear to leave you alone when you aren't 
 well." 
 
 " But I am well. I am just tired and you are tiring 
 me more by arguing about it. Come home early, if you 
 like. But go now, please." 
 
 She shut her eyes again and sighed wearily. Dick 
 bent over her and softly kissed her again; then, turning 
 to the windows, drew the shades entirely down, and 
 started to tiptoe out of the room. Just as he passed the 
 night-table near the bed, he brushed awkwardly against 
 it, and knocked off a drinking glass that fell with a crash 
 to the floor. Nita trembled all over with a nervous start. 
 
 She put her finger on the electric bell at the head of her 
 bed, and Kurita appeared, while Dick pulled up the shades 
 to take full account of the mischief he had done. 
 
 " Bring in a dust pan and broom, and sweep up the 
 broken glass ; and at half past ten, bring me some coffee 
 and a poached egg on toast. Do you understand, 
 Kurita?" 
 
 " Yes, sar ! " answered Kurita, disappearing and re- 
 appearing with quick, cat-like movements which made 
 poor Dick feel what an awkward brute he himself was. 
 Nita refused to help him recover his self-esteem by an 
 indulgent word, although he lingered until all the mess 
 was cleared away. She could so easily have done it with 
 a smile, a light joke, a caress, a touch, a word one of 
 those little indescribable marks of good humor and ten- 
 derness which transform the little crosses of daily life 
 into food for mirth and laughter. 
 
 " I am so sorry, Nita. I beg your pardon a thousand 
 times ! I am such a brute ! " he said, humbly. She kept 
 her eyes closed, sighed and said nothing, and Dick walked 
 out of the room. 
 
 As for Nita, left alone, the nervous tension relaxed,
 
 THE TRELOARS 255 
 
 she burst out crying. She felt as if she wanted to scream 
 at the top of her lungs, to jump up and down with rage 
 like an angry child, to break the windows, or tear some- 
 thing to tatters. Dick had carelessly left open the closet 
 door, opposite the foot of her bed, and from where she 
 lay, she could see his coat and trousers suspended from a 
 hanger. By virtue of some hysterical caprice the sight was 
 indescribably hateful to her. She rose and slammed shut 
 the closet door with all the violence she could command. 
 O, could she only so effectually shut out from her sight, 
 her mind, her life, this hateful connexion with Dick this 
 stupid nightmare blunder of a marriage which seemed to 
 her now the very climax of folly; a screaming farce! 
 What had she to do with marriage who knew the glories 
 and dangers of freedom, the excitement of the unex- 
 pected, the adventurous launching of life in all directions ? 
 How was it possible to be so blind as not to foresee the 
 dreary, insufferable weariness of a life in which every 
 day was but a repetition of the day before; a life in which 
 further growth was impossible a life of hateful stag- 
 nation! By what illusion had she been deceived into 
 thinking that she could love truly again, she who had 
 loved so often, who knew all the phases of love's exalta- 
 tion, illusion, indifference, aversion ! Pictures of the past 
 arose in her mind ; she recalled with a bitter smile a 
 conversation she had once had with an Italian, a stout, 
 rubicund father of a family, who said, looking at her with 
 that bold admiration which was so familiar to her in men's 
 eyes: 
 
 " Marriage is founded on the false assumption that you 
 can legalize an emotion, dominate an instinct by law, 
 set two hearts to beating in unison by a prescribed man- V 
 ner of living. I won't call an instinct a holy thing, any 
 more than I would call the law of gravitation a holy thing ; 
 I only say that it has the same inviolable necessity about 
 it, so what are you going to do? Marriage is probably 
 as good a way to tether a man to duty as any other; 
 but let him enter into the bargain, wide awake. Let him
 
 256 THE TRELOARS 
 
 take note whether he is cut out for a racer or a draught 
 horse; whether he can bear routine, or has the spirit of 
 an adventurer. In any case, let him be very sure that it 
 is not going to be all strawberries and cream and no 
 grit; and that even if it were, he'd get tired of the steady 
 diet. I am myself rather fond of rice, but rice three 
 times a day, year in and year out, would put a finish to 
 my enjoyment of rice." 
 
 " Rice three times a day, ah ! that's what's the matter 
 with me," groaned Nita, " rice and rain ! I want the sun- 
 shine; I want a change from this awful monotony." 
 
 Coming home, full of solicitude and tenderness for her, 
 Dick was not at all prepared to find her powdered and 
 rouged and brilliant, and quite bent upon persuading him 
 to shut up the house for a month or six weeks, till the 
 rainy season was over, and go to New York. They were 
 both in need of the change, Dick quite as much as she. 
 How nervous they had both been this morning. Their 
 first duty to themselves was to escape the monotony of 
 this depressing season. They would come back with 
 the sunshine, refreshed and heartened. 
 
 Dick looked at Nita in perfect amazement. Was this 
 bright-eyed voluble woman the same woman he had left 
 in bed this morning, white and exhausted, so tired that 
 she wished she could sleep forever? Had she forgotten 
 that he was a bread-winner, whose hand must be at his 
 task, and that his task was a peculiar one, requiring re- 
 pose and solitude? For the first time in his life, he felt 
 poor and helpless and ashamed of the fact. He blushed, 
 he stammered, finally he found courage enough to say : 
 
 " You know, Nita, dear, I never concealed from you the 
 fact that I am not a rich man, that with the exception of 
 a few thousand dollars, all my wealth is in my youth, 
 my health, and my brains. I have my work here which I 
 cannot leave just now." 
 
 " But, Dick, it is head work. You can do it just as well 
 in one place as another. And New York, I should think, 
 would offer you exceptional advantages in extra work,
 
 THE TRELOARS 257 
 
 such as interviewing, that would more than pay all our 
 expenses. I have been thinking it all over this afternoon. 
 I am not unreasonable nor impractical. A woman who 
 has had my experience in earning her own living knows 
 very well that money does not fall into her purse out of 
 the sky." 
 
 Dick's heart sank within him. Was this the large sym- 
 pathy; the sweet, serious, strong thought which he was 
 looking for in the companion of his life, and believed 
 he had found in her? Of all forms of newspaper work, 
 the most objectionable and repellent to him, was inter- 
 viewing. He thought it an impertinent intrusion upon 
 a man's personality, a sort of mental hold-up and purse 
 picking that no honest man would engage in, if he could 
 help it. His embarrassment was so evident that Nita, in 
 her turn, looked surprised, and asked: 
 
 " Have I said something stupid ? " 
 
 He cleared his throat ; he felt something choking him. 
 
 " No," he answered slowly. " But I don't believe you 
 quite understand what my work means to me. I don't 
 know that I ever talked to you about it, have I ? " 
 
 " I think you have. Something about principles and 
 standards, isn't it ? " 
 
 She was speaking with cold indifference, but her quick 
 eyes noticed the deepening of the expression of pain on 
 Dick's face, and with the subtle intuition that warns a 
 woman when she is treading on dangerous ground, she 
 hastened to add with a show of interest and sympathy: 
 
 " And I know, too, dear Dick, that it is not a question 
 of mere bread-winning with you. You feel about litera- 
 ture as I do about the stage, that it has a message to de- 
 liver in addition to its function of entertaining, and that its 
 beauty and strength are increased by the reach and no- 
 bility of the message." 
 
 The pain in Dick's face vanished in a moment, and with 
 it the mute intolerable despair which accompanies the 
 consciousness of high aims ignored or misunderstood by 
 those we love. She stood level again with him on his
 
 258 THE TRELOARS 
 
 highest plane, and he felt so grateful that he could have 
 fallen at her feet and kissed the hem of her gown. 
 
 " Nita, my love, you have made me so happy. You 
 can understand without telling, and that is the finest 
 test of comradeship. That one indispensable thing in 
 love and friendship, I divined in you when I first met 
 you, and I should be the unhappiest man in the world, 
 if you failed me there." 
 
 " I am not going to fail you in anything, dear." 
 
 She stroked the hand which he had slipped about her 
 waist and smiled at him in the way that melted all his 
 will into wax in her hands. " I am going to help you. 
 That is the one grace I can find in the hateful years that 
 make me your senior. I can speak to you out of an ex- 
 perience which you have not had. I can say of some 
 enticing path: I've wandered there; it ends in a green- 
 scummed pond. There is no broad outlook of sky and 
 road to be found that way. May I speak to you of one of 
 these enticing little false roads which you feel inclined to 
 strike into ? " 
 
 " You know you may." 
 
 The sweet, subtle flattery of her solicitude warmed him 
 like sunshine, and he needed the warmth. He needed the 
 full, generous, sympathetic understanding of what was 
 best in him which his sister, Margaret, had given him in 
 such rich abundance, the absence of which in his daily 
 life, he had not yet missed, engrossed as he was by his 
 passion. 
 
 " Well, then, Dick, you know that there is such a 
 thing as mistaking one's own little particular unit of 
 truth for something much more important and general 
 than it is. In short, we may mistake it for the ztfiole 
 truth, and the only way to clear up one's mind about that 
 is to see life from as many angles as possible, to rid one's 
 self of provincialism, to lose the personal in the general. 
 Now, you are inclined to do exactly the contrary; you 
 want to strike into a little by-path away from the noise 
 of the world to listen, like another Joan of Arc, to celes-
 
 THE TRELOARS 259 
 
 tial voices inaudible to any ear but your own; and you 
 can't translate them to others, because you can't at the 
 same time lend them your ears. Wouldn't it be a wise 
 thing to acquaint yourself with the public ear and learn 
 what sort of music pleases it ? " 
 
 " I know the public ear very well," said Dick, impa- 
 tiently. " It's the ear of an ass, and the music which 
 pleases it is braying." 
 
 " There you are ! " said Nita, coloring, " calling names 
 because you can't answer a civil question." 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Nita ; but your advice is exactly 
 like Mr. Cressy's. He told me when I first went to him 
 last spring that I wasn't in touch with the common peo- 
 ple, that I ought to select a boarding house where I could 
 meet them daily, live with them shoulder to shoulder, 
 learn their thoughts, their ambitions, their way of looking 
 at life ; in short, turn a camera on them, because mod- 
 ern literature is using the laboratory method. Well, the 
 less said about that, the better. We had drunks and dis- 
 orderlies picked up in Black Marias on our street, and 
 all I got out of my experience was disgust and a feeling 
 of being immensely bored; so that having lived in that 
 sort of thing actually, I shall not reproduce it and label 
 it literature, nor waste my time over anybody else's maud- 
 lin reproduction of it. 
 
 " I brought home with me to-day a very encouraging 
 piece of literary criticism. It is called The New 
 Laokoon. The writer says that ' if all the arts are rest- 
 less and impressionistic in our day, it is because the peo- 
 ple who practise these arts, and for whom they are prac- 
 tised, are themselves living in an impressionistic flutter. 
 If the arts lack dignity, centrality, repose, it is because 
 the men of the present have no center, no sense of any- 
 thing fixed or permanent, either within or without them-^ 
 selves, that they may oppose to the flux of phenomenon 
 and the torrent of impression.' That's exactly my view 
 of the case, Nita. Instead of running around to ask how 
 it stands with other men, a man should stay at home
 
 260 THE TRELOARS 
 
 with his own mind once in a while. So I don't think that 
 
 ' I can get anything out of New York that I can't get here. 
 
 I don't need to know any more of the baseness, poverty, 
 
 ; and cynical brutality of life. What I do need is to pre- 
 
 [ serve, as sacredly as I can, my faith in humanity. I need 
 
 , leisure, tranquillity, and you by my side full of happiness 
 
 and confidence in me." 
 
 Nita rose from her chair with a burst of hysterical 
 laughter that set Dick to staring at her with astonishment 
 and pain. 
 
 " What do you mean by that, Nita? " 
 
 She continued to laugh till the tears streamed down her 
 cheeks, then wiping her eyes, she said: 
 
 " O, I think it is the funniest thing in the world that 
 you and I are married! perfectly ridiculous! No, no, 
 don't try to stop me. I shall cry in earnest, if I don't 
 laugh, and it is much pleasanter to laugh. Perfectly 
 ridiculous!" she repeated again with a new burst of 
 laughter, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. Then 
 she suddenly straightened her face, and said: 
 
 " Now, Dick, I am going to be serious again, this time 
 very serious. We're going to discuss New York from 
 another point of view. Granted that you don't need the 
 change, suppose that / do, what then ? " 
 
 She caught him in that moment of acutely painful be- 
 wilderment and despair, when a man in love has only 
 one wish in the presence of the woman he loves, and that 
 is to please her, so he said: 
 
 " Then, we shall go to New York, of course." 
 
 They went to New York. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 FOR a time Nita was all sweetness once more, and full 
 of the bright, sparkling humor which made her so ad- 
 mirable a companion, when she chose to be; and Dick, 
 who reflected her moods, as the sea does the sky, was
 
 THE TRELOARS 261 
 
 bright and happy, too, and forgot that he was no longer 
 his own master, forgot that he had entrusted his happi- 
 ness to caprice, forgot that the work which he had to do 
 required, first of all, tranquillity of mind and large leis- 
 ure. 
 
 He was not long allowed to forget all these things when 
 he got home. At first, Nita felt, again, the charm of the 
 lovely home and its lovely surroundings, and two or three 
 days of delightful comradeship followed. Then, her 
 mood changed; restlessness, irritability, dissatisfaction 
 returned, manifesting themselves in a variety of unex- 
 pected ways that drove Dick to his wits' ends to please 
 her. She wanted a piano ; it would be something to 
 amuse her while he was away. He bought her a piano, 
 and hired a music-master to give her lessons. In a short 
 time, she quarreled with him; he was really growing in- 
 solently familiar with her, she said, and when he was dis- 
 missed, she abandoned her music. Then she took to 
 sketching and water-colors, tiring herself out with long 
 walks in search of picturesque views, so long as Dick 
 implored her to be careful of herself. She kept them up 
 until Dick concealed his anxiety, and ceased to speak of 
 them to her. Dick had inadvertently discovered that she 
 enjoyed alarming him, but he was still very far from 
 guessing her real state of mind until one Sunday after- 
 noon in late spring. 
 
 They were taking a little walk along the bay. Dick was 
 enjoying it and pointing out a pretty wooded ravine in 
 the mountains across the water, when Nita suddenly 
 slipped on a flat wet stone. Dick caught her, preventing 
 her from falling, but she persisted in declaring that she 
 had wrenched her ankle and was in great pain. It was 
 impossible for her to walk. Dick was very much dis- 
 tressed, as they were at some distance from the house. 
 It was a beautiful April day, the air clear as crystal, warm 
 and sunny. The low mountains on the opposite shore 
 were green to their summits and perfectly reflected in the 
 quiet blue waters at their base. The rocky, sinuous shore,
 
 262 THE TRELOARS 
 
 with its stretches of gleaming white sand between the 
 rocks, afforded many sheltered places for resting, and 
 choosing one of them, Dick spread a shawl over the rock, 
 and helped Nita to reach it. She was limping very badly, 
 her face expressing a brave effort to control an outcry 
 of pain. As soon as she was seated, Dick knelt at her 
 feet, took off her shoe and stocking, and making a com- 
 press of his handkerchief, bound it tightly around her 
 ankle, put on her stocking over it, and left her shoe un- 
 buttoned on her foot. 
 
 " I am going to get myself a stock of medical books 
 and directions for first aid to the wounded," he said, 
 rising from his kneeling posture, " then I'll be ready for 
 all emergency cases. Does it feel a little better, love?" 
 
 " It pains very much, Dick," said Nita, biting her lip 
 and stooping over to rub her ankle. 
 
 " I am so sorry, sweetheart. Now you must just stay 
 here, while I run home and come back again with Kurita 
 and a chair. We'll carry you back to the house on that, 
 so you won't have to touch your foot to the ground, till 
 you can do it without pain. Lean back against the rock, 
 dear. Here, I am going to make you a cushion with my 
 coat." He took off his coat and deftly folding it, placed 
 it at her back. 
 
 " Does that feel comfortable ? " 
 
 " Yes, thank you, it's just right, but you'll be cold with- 
 out your coat, won't you ? " 
 
 " No, not a bit of it. Now, you won't be lonesome 
 while I am gone, with that lovely view before you, will 
 you? I wish you had your sketch book and colors." 
 
 He stooped and kissed her, he never left her without 
 kissing her, then hurried away in the direction of the 
 house, his heart filled with tender pity and regret. 
 
 He was no sooner out of sight, concealed by a bend in 
 the hilly road, than she removed the shoe and stocking 
 from the lame foot, took the bandage from the ankle, put 
 on her stocking and shoe again, buttoning the latter with 
 a wire hairpin. A peculiar brightness gleamed in her
 
 THE TRELOARS 263 
 
 eye, as she rose from her rocky seat and looked about 
 her with the air of a prisoner escaped from a guard. 
 She had not in the least hurt herself, and she walked 
 briskly about from stone to stone, stopping now and 
 then to watch a crab, or to examine the bright orange- 
 colored lichen stains on the gray rocks. It would have 
 been impossible for her to say, herself, why she had 
 feigned this sprained ankle. She had acted as impul- 
 sively as a spoiled child that throws himself on the floor, 
 because he is denied some indulgence. She had not 
 wished to take this walk. It was Dick who had insisted 
 upon it against her will, because he had thought that the 
 fresh air would do her good. She must take a walk 
 regularly, every day. He had been consulting physicians 
 and reading medical books and was in possession of quite 
 a number of rules concerning diet and exercise to which 
 he was trying to induce her to conform. But by an un- 
 happy incapacity to live according to anything but cap- 
 rice, Nita was in a chronic state of revolt. If ever she 
 desired to take a walk, it was always just when Dick sat 
 down to some work among his books; and when Dick 
 was ready, she was intensely interested in something else, 
 and not inclined to go anywhere. 
 
 Dick's patience and unalterable good humor prevented 
 this incompatibility from breaking out into open quarrel- 
 ing, so that there was generally an outer show of smooth 
 agreement, no matter in what contrary directions the un- 
 der currents were roughly flowing. Now, nothing more 
 delighted Nita than to discover Dick at fault somewhere, 
 and when the little stumble gave her a chance to show 
 him that he ought not to have insisted upon her taking 
 this walk, she had involuntarily reacted to it, as being 
 the most unanswerable way of saying, " I told you so ! " 
 
 She quietly laughed to herself, reflecting on Dick's cha- 
 grin and solicitude, saying to herself : " It serves him 
 right. He knew I didn't want to come. Perhaps he will 
 learn after a while that I have a will of my own that has as 
 much a reason for being as his." For, with that obstinate
 
 264 THE TRELOARS 
 
 blindness of a sick soul which is perhaps more pitiable 
 than the blindness of the eyes, Nita could not see beyond 
 the limits of the self-interest which dominated her own 
 feelings. To her, Dick's patience was obstinacy; his 
 solicitude about her his determination to have his own 
 way; his steady persistent attention to his work a 
 selfish inordinate ambition to which he was willing to 
 sacrifice her comfort and pleasure. Well, there would 
 come a day when he would regret it. At present, she 
 was forced to submit to these hateful bonds, but once her 
 child was born, she would know how to regain her free- 
 dom. Freedom! How beautiful it sounded, it was one 
 of the unconscious joys and privileges like the absence of 
 pain. 
 
 Dick hurried home with long, half-running strides, 
 vexed with that singular turn in his affairs which always 
 seemed to put him in the wrong, when he most wished 
 to be right. He had really given up his own plans of 
 work for the afternoon, to take this walk with Nita, 
 feeling that she needed this exercise in the wholesome air, 
 and he had argued away her objections with a persist- 
 ency which he never would have shown, had he been 
 prompted by purely selfish motives. Now, he wished 
 with all his heart that they had stayed at home; for a 
 sprain, if it were serious, meant three or four weeks of in- 
 activity. On reaching home, he telephoned at once for a 
 surgeon, and having selected a chair for Kurita to carry 
 back with him, he was just closing the door, when he 
 heard his name called, and turning round, he saw Max 
 Gietmann before him. He held out his hand cordially, he 
 had not seen Max for several months." 
 
 " Mighty glad to see you, Max," he said. " You've 
 come in the nick of time. I am just leaving the house to 
 go down to the shore to carry my wife home. I've left 
 her there with a sprained ankle. Will you go along with 
 us, or will you stay here till we come back? We won't 
 be long." 
 
 " I'll go with you. I'm awfully sorry about the acci-
 
 THE TRELOARS 265 
 
 dent. I hope it isn't serious, but a sprain is a tedious 
 thing to get over. How did it happen ? " 
 
 " She slipped on a wet stone, and trying to save herself 
 a fall, gave her ankle a twist." 
 
 " Have you a surgeon or a physician in the neighbor- 
 hood ? " Max asked, as they started on a brisk walk 
 back toward Nita. 
 
 " No, but I've 'phoned to the city for one." 
 
 " That's right. If it is serious, you know that she's 
 having proper attention ; and if it isn't, you have the satis- 
 faction of knowing it, and being free from worry. Well, 
 how are you getting on, otherwise ? " 
 
 "Matrimonially, or professionally?" 
 
 " Professionally, of course ; matrimonially, the honey- 
 moon isn't on the wane yet or ought not to be; so you 
 may spare me, if you please, any post-nuptial rhap- 
 sodies." 
 
 " Well, as to journalism, I have about come to the con- 
 clusion that it is not my forte. I am not taking kindly 
 to advice of which Cressy continues to be very liberal. 
 Journalism is a trade it seems ; there is no room in it for 
 a man with individuality. If he wants to say what he 
 thinks, he must do it independently, and speak to the 
 few who can hear. How's the Dawn coming on ? " 
 
 Max lifted his hat and ran his hand through his hair. 
 
 " Well, Dick, to tell you the truth, the Darwn is near- 
 ing its sunset. Not that it has failed, for it hasn't. It 
 was started as a faithful experiment in free expression, 
 and, as such, is absolutely successful. You'd be sur- 
 prised at the number of letters I get from all over the 
 country expressing delight in it. Of course, I don't deny 
 that I get condemnatory letters, too ; but I expected that. 
 America isn't quite ripe enough to put so original an ex- 
 periment on a paying basis, at once. Your people are too 
 well fed and too well dressed to think; too comfortable 
 to have much curiosity about ideas. Any silly or ex- 
 travagant childishness will pass with them, if it just blus- 
 ters a little and swears. A thought is too big for you.
 
 266 THE TRELOARS 
 
 You are all running at a high pressure speed with well- 
 oiled wheels on a smooth road, and you don't care for 
 anything but going. You call that progress. It would 
 do you goo<i to run against a snag and get a good jolt. 
 It would make you sit up and rub your heads and think. 
 And the jolt's coming, Dick. Mark my words. There 
 is a seething unrest, a deep distrust among the nations 
 everywhere. The sky is heavy with clouds. A storm is 
 coming up. I want to be at home, Dick, when it comes." 
 
 " Max, you're an alarmist." 
 
 " That's right, Dick ; but don't be mealy-mouthed. Call 
 me a damn fool, outright. I am quite used to that now. 
 Tell me that I don't know that two and two make four, 
 that I don't know the color of a storm cloud when I see 
 it." 
 
 "You've been reading von Bernhardi. I glanced 
 through his book. It is an anachronism we've gone be- 
 yond thinking of war as something highly desirable, virile 
 and noble. I believe that a general European war is ab- 
 solutely impossible. We're too civilized for that." 
 
 " O, you do, do you ? " said Max with sharp, hard 
 bluntness. " You don't think, then, that a nation in self- 
 defense might be seized by the same desire which you 
 felt when you threw the little Italian over the table? 
 You weren't too civilized to express your disapproval in a 
 highly uncivilized manner. What right have you to ex- 
 pect more refinement from a nation, not on a question of 
 morals and taste, but on a question of life and death? " 
 
 It was Dick's turn to color, and he did it very 
 perceptibly, as he answered frankly: 
 
 " I guess you've got me there, Max, but I have too 
 great a respect for the philosophical dignity of the land of 
 Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and the calm, wise Goethe, to sup- 
 pose that you should all go stark mad at once; for 
 war after all is nothing but madness. What!" Dick 
 stopped short, and his face expressed a happy surprise. 
 " Why, there's Nita climbing around on the rocks. She 
 hasn't hurt herself after all," and he started forward im-
 
 THE TRELOARS 267 
 
 pulsively, leaving Max and Kurita, quite in the rear. 
 
 " You haven't hurt yourself ? " he shouted, as he ap- 
 proached her. " But take care, or you will do it. Here, 
 give me your hand." 
 
 He held out his hand, and she took it, smiling at him, 
 and carefully descended from the irregular masses of 
 rock among which she had been climbing. 
 
 " You haven't been gone long," she said. " Who is 
 that man with Kurita? Why, it is Max Gietmann. I 
 am so glad to see you," she continued, holding out her 
 hand to Max. " You are getting to be almost a stranger, 
 and there is no place where you ought to feel so much 
 at home as with us." 
 
 " Thank you," said Max. " That's very kind of you. 
 I assure you that there is no place where I do feel so 
 much at home. But will you kindly explain to me how 
 it is that I find you climbing around here like a goat, when 
 I expected to see you sitting forlorn and helpless with a 
 sprained ankle ? " 
 
 Nita laughed merrily. 
 
 " Well, I'll just frankly tell you how that happened. 
 Dick is so superlatively careful of me, that to go out 
 walking with him is like being three years old, under 
 the care of a highly recommended nurse-maid. I mustn't 
 do this, and I mustn't do that, for fear it will hurt me. 
 I am allowed to breathe naturally, but if there were any 
 other way to breathe, I should have to do it that way. I 
 am allowed to walk staidly along hand in hand with my 
 nurse. Now look at those lovely tempting rocks, 
 wouldn't anybody want to climb them? I knew Dick 
 wouldn't let me, so I sprained my ankle on purpose to get 
 rid of him, and took the sprain off as soon as he was out 
 of sight. Dick, you'll find your handkerchief carefully 
 folded and put back into your coat pocket, there." 
 
 She pointed to a rock on which she had left his coat, 
 and Dick, without a word, but with a scarlet face and 
 an ominous gravity, picked it up and handing the shawl 
 to Kurita said:
 
 268 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " You will take this and the chair, and go back home 
 with me." 
 
 Then, without looking at Nita, he turned to Max, say- 
 ing, " Max, will you be kind enough to see that Mrs. 
 Treloar gets home all right. Take your time to it, you 
 needn't hurry ; I must go back to pay the doctor for the 
 unnecessary trouble that I've put him to." 
 
 "You didn't send for a doctor! How silly!" ex- 
 claimed Nita. 
 
 Dick made no reply, but flinging his coat over his 
 shoulder, he hurried homeward as rapidly as he had 
 walked the distance once before, but with far different 
 emotions. 
 
 As soon as he was out of hearing, Nita said to Max, as 
 they started homeward : " See ? He's angry because I 
 haven't hurt myself. Marriage is an appalling thing, 
 Max. You don't mind my calling you Max, do you? 
 It slipped out involuntarily, because I am so used to 
 hearing Dick call you Max." 
 
 " O, no. Call me Max, if you like. / like it." 
 
 " Then, I shall do so after this ; and please call me 
 Nita. What I was going to say is this. I am very sure 
 that there would be fewer divorces if there were a law 
 forbidding husbands and wives to live continuously to- 
 gether. They should be obliged to separate temporarily 
 several times a year; not too long at a time, of course; 
 for, in that case, they would forget each other, but just 
 long enough to restore their shattered nerves, and en- 
 able them to endure their being shattered again." 
 
 "Wouldn't it be better if there were no marriages at 
 all?" 
 
 " Undoubtedly ! at any rate, for such people as I am, 
 and as I fancy you are. I am no more fit to be married 
 than yonder sea-gull. I am very fond of Dick. I really 
 am. I never would have married him if I hadn't been; 
 but I am fonder of him, when he is away from me than 
 when he is with me. That is why I never should have
 
 THE TRELOARS 269 
 
 married him, in spite of my fondness. His goodness 
 irritates me, for he is good; but it is not my kind of 
 goodness. I am a born anarchist. He is a born con- 
 formist. When I see a sign up saying : ' Keep off the 
 grass,' I have an irresistible desire to get on it. Dick 
 would go half a mile round it, out of his way, rather 
 than trample on it. Metaphorically, then, I am always 
 wanting to get on Dick's grass and roll all over it, pull 
 up his signs and throw them on to the kindling pile. 
 When I do it he patiently puts 'em up again, and sows 
 some more grass-seed. It is as much a part of his na- 
 ture to build as it is mine to pull down so we are mu-. 
 tually destructive. I was always like that, even as a 
 child. As soon as a task was called a duty, I hated it, 
 and refused to do it. Duty and don't are absolutely 
 nauseating words to me, and ' do ' it, too, when it is 
 put in the form of a command; but really I am not at 
 all bad at heart. I can't bear the sight of suffering or 
 pain. Kurita cut his finger the other day and when I 
 started to put a rag around it I fainted. Fortunately my 
 maid was near at hand, or I should really have had a bad 
 fall." 
 
 "And yet you don't in the least mind paining Dick 
 by an assumed fall." 
 
 " O, there is no blood shed or bones broken in that, 
 and if Dick is vexed with me, it will do him good to get 
 a little acid poured into his disposition. He is entirely 
 too sweet and good for human nature's daily food. A 
 monotony of sunshine is as trying as a monotony of 
 clouds and rain. Who was it that said it was difficult 
 for him to live, if he could not do it in the greatest man- 
 ner?" 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 "Well, I find, too, that life is worthless as a mo- 
 notonous routine. The stir and go of modern life are in 
 my blood. I cannot stagnate. I need a great aim or 
 wanting that, the sting and lash of pain, adventure, won- 
 der, an ever new horizon to make life worth while."
 
 270 THE TRELOARS 
 
 Nita was feeling very heroic and superior as she said this, 
 and the bright color tinged her cheeks, and her eyes 
 sparkled. " Dick can't understand that. He would be 
 willing to stay here for the rest of his life, and count it 
 a privilege to watch his garden grow, with me beside him 
 to hold out my apron to catch the peas and beans, when 
 he picks them. He should have married a little country 
 girl who could lose herself in him and think it a gain. 
 I can't. There is too much of me to lose myself in any- 
 body. I am versatile and great enough for others to 
 lose themselves in me." 
 
 Nita turned her flushed face towards Max with a de- 
 fiant flash in her bright eyes. Consistently, Max ought 
 to have entirely approved of her attitude; but his in- 
 stincts were stronger than his acquired opinions, and 
 he contented himself with saying: 
 
 " You are a complete antithesis to Dick's sister, Mar- 
 garet, aren't you ? " 
 
 " Dick's sister, Margaret ! " repeated Nita, with an 
 accent of bitter contempt. " I should hope so ! She 
 is a woman so shadow-like in her personality that she 
 seems to have withdrawn herself to make room for 
 others, until she occupies no space at all." 
 
 " Excuse me ! She doesn't in the least strike me 
 that way. Of all the people I have ever known, she is 
 the one whom I find it most difficult to forget. It is 
 not so much the impression of personality that she gives 
 me, as the impression of an atmosphere, something like 
 that of a spring day such as this is, fresh, vivifying, 
 youthful. She is one of those tranquil, luminous women 
 who will never have anything of age about them but their 
 years." 
 
 Nita opened her eyes in astonishment, 
 
 " Why, Max Gietmann ! You are in love with Mar- 
 garet Treloar ! " 
 
 Max reddened, stooped to pick up a pebble, and turn- 
 ing, threw it into the water, then he faced her with a 
 peculiar smile.
 
 THE TRELOARS 271 
 
 " No, I am not in love with her. I may have been 
 once. I don't know ; but your experience with Dick 
 proves to me that it was a wise chance which separated 
 us. In the long run I should never have been able to 
 live up to the requirements any more than you. There 
 are men and women who were never designed by nature 
 for the calmness of domestic life, whether from a super- 
 abundance of energy, a hatred of routine, or a simple de- 
 ficiency in the power of loving I can't tell. You and 
 I belong to that class." 
 
 " I know it," was the emphatic reply. " Now you can 
 understand how I was capable of lowering myself to 
 play such a mean little trick as I did. It is the in- 
 stinctive prick of my conscience that makes me do a 
 thing like that. In marrying Dick, I feel that I have 
 committed a crime against myself, a crime against my 
 genius, and that feeling makes me unkind to my ac- 
 complice in the crime. I should never forgive him if he 
 treated me, as I have sometimes treated him; and that 
 he can forgive me, makes me despise him at times. 
 There are things which we have no right to forgive in 
 others, because it makes them cruel and insolent towards 
 us. But of course, I can't live in a state of perpetual 
 rage, so I have intermittent periods of surface calm, 
 when I make life tolerable to him, poor fellow," she 
 laughed lightly, and then went on. " I don't know how 
 it will all end. Just now I am most unfortunately tied 
 to my stake ; but I shan't always be tied. I may need in 
 my life to turn to you, once more, and you'll help me, 
 won't you ? " 
 
 Max shrugged his shoulders enigmatically and re- 
 plied : 
 
 " Perhaps you'd better not count on me. Of course, 
 if I am where you can reach me, I am always at your 
 service; but I am on the point of leaving America." 
 
 " Leaving America ! " 
 
 " Yes, European affairs are approaching a crisis, and 
 I shouldn't be satisfied with being a neutral spectator 
 over here."
 
 272 THE TRELOARS 
 
 "What sort of crisis?" 
 
 " A crisis in which Germany will no longer submit 
 to being a passive spectator of the plots of her jealous 
 enemies." 
 
 " Plots of enemies ? Who are her enemies ? I 
 thought we were all either openly or tacitly acknowl- 
 edging Germany's intellectual supremacy. Aren't we 
 following her leading speculations in philosophy and 
 science? Aren't we admiringly working out her educa- 
 tional theories, and kindergartening everything?" 
 
 " But the world isn't viewing with the same com- 
 placency her rapid strides toward commercial su- 
 premacy, and it will not be long before she will be forced 
 to prove that she can also boast of military supremacy." 
 
 " You don't mean that there is going to be a war? " 
 
 " I mean that very thing." 
 
 " Really ? Have you spoken to Dick about it ? " 
 
 "Yes, but of course he is incredulous, as all people 
 are who haven't been closely following international poli- 
 tics." 
 
 " And do you leave us soon ? " 
 
 "Yes, I think I shall be able to start in two or three 
 weeks." 
 
 "And your new literary venture, the Dawn?" 
 
 " The Dawn will take care of itself. That is, the lit- 
 erary and artistic revolution for which it stands is well 
 started. It will move rapidly." 
 
 Nita smiled. 
 
 " Of course, there's no use in our talking at all, un- 
 less we speak frankly, is there ? " 
 
 " Certainly not ! " 
 
 " All right ! You know that I am no more a stickler 
 for past forms than you are, and am always ready to 
 accept anything valuable though it should depreciate the 
 value of everything that I had hitherto held precious. 
 But, on the other hand, I am not so thick-headed that I 
 can't see through a hoax, even when it is clever; and 
 yours isn't even clever; for your boasted innovation is
 
 THE TRELOARS 273 
 
 the silliest, most transparent hoax that ever was played 
 on an innocent public. Formlessness, ugliness, geometri- 
 cal art are as primitive as the first rude scratchings and 
 daubings by the cave men. We've grown out of that 
 thousands of years ago. Why, then, do you start it 
 again in the name of the future, when it's hoary with an- 
 tiquity? What are you doing this for, Max? Now be 
 honest with me. That's the bargain." 
 
 He looked at her and smiled in his turn. 
 
 " What am I doing it for ? Just to show my colossal 
 contempt for the world; just to prove to my satisfaction 
 that there is no idiocy, no indecency, no blasphemy that 
 you can't make it swallow with its eyes shut, if you only 
 take the trouble to hypnotize it. You can be an hysteri- 
 cal, mindless old woman with an essentially evil nature 
 and found a new religion and revive witchcraft in the 
 face of nineteenth century science; you can be as desti- 
 tute of learning, wit and sense as an empty broken egg 
 shell and dribble your feeble rhythmless prose, and be 
 called the greatest poet of your age: you can invent 
 a language and babble, and snivel and slabber and be called 
 a genius; you can paint with a broom stick and a pair 
 of tongs and stir up the mess with a poker and be called 
 a wonderful artist; you can run your feet over the 
 piano and pound the keys with your heels, and be called 
 a marvelous musician. There is only one thing you 
 can't do ; you can't do anything with real sense and real 
 power. Nobody wants it; so I started the Dawn as a 
 colossal jeer at the world, and if I had continued it, 
 I should have had the world at my feet. I don't care 
 enough for it. There are volcanic fires ready to leap 
 forth in Europe. I want to be there and see the erup- 
 tion." 
 
 " You really think it's coming ? " 
 
 " I do." 
 
 "Well, now, that we have you with us to-day, I am 
 not going to let you go, before you have made us a 
 long visit. You are to stay to dinner. We have our
 
 274 THE TRELOARS 
 
 dinners at half past one on Sundays, because Dick is at 
 home, but I'm sure that we can find something appe- 
 tizing. Your war news is quite exhilarating. I am 
 sure you'll want to discuss it more fully with Dick." 
 
 Max did not need a second invitation. He had many 
 things yet to say to Dick, and he was not certain that 
 he would have another opportunity to see him at leisure. 
 A new interest possessed him. The rebellious discontent 
 which had found an outlet in his literary venture was 
 no longer satisfied with so ineffectual an expression of 
 itself, and was crying out for a wider field and a more 
 violent form of activity; and the man who had volun- 
 tarily denied the claims of patriotism felt the blood of his 
 country stir within him and make a partisan of him in 
 spite of himself. He tried again to enlist Dick's sym- 
 pathies. He believed that it would be to his advantage 
 to keep up his friendly relations with Dick, on whom he 
 relied for trustworthy communications from America, 
 in case he needed any information. But poor Dick, en- 
 tirely obsessed by his own personal wretchedness, lent 
 him but the semblance of interested attention. The crisis 
 in his domestic life obscured for him the crisis of civiliza- 
 tion. When Max was gone, he could hardly have told 
 what he had been talking about. He accompanied him 
 to the street-car. 
 
 " Please say good-by for me to your father and your 
 sisters, Dick, and to the Parkers, too. Tell them I was 
 sorry not to be able to say it to them myself. I don't 
 know whether we shall ever meet again. I hope so. At 
 any rate, I shall write you from the other side." 
 
 " Yes, do," answered Dick, " and remember that none 
 of us will ever forget you." 
 
 He shook hands cordially with him, and watched him, 
 as he stood smoking a cigar on the rear platform of the 
 car, till he was out of sight. He wished with all his heart 
 that he was going with him, far, far away, anywhere, 
 except back to the house, no longer a home which had 
 been paradise to him, only a few weeks ago.
 
 THE TRELOARS 275 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 WHEN Dick entered the house, Nita was lying on a 
 couch in the drawing-room. He passed through the 
 room without speaking to her and went into the library. 
 As long as Max had been with them, Nita had forced him 
 to keep up a show of friendliness by answering questions 
 which she took pains to ask him ; but he had avoided look- 
 ing at her, and she was as conscious of his hostility, as if 
 it had been entirely outspoken. It piqued and amused 
 her, but did not at all alarm her. She believed that she 
 could dispel it in a moment, if she chose. She did not 
 choose to do so. She was curious to see how long he 
 could hold resentment against her. She herself was in- 
 capable of any long and sullen rancor ; the changeful mo- 
 bility of her moods, leading her rapidly from one emotion 
 to another made her capable of being gay, sad, irritable, 
 angry, in an hour. This mobility made Dick despair of 
 ever having any tranquil assurance that when he left her 
 bright and sunny in the morning he would find the sun- 
 shine and the brightness on his return in the evening. 
 He could have learned to adjust himself to these change- 
 ful moods, had he been certain that beneath their shifting 
 surface there was a strong and permanent affection in- 
 capable of disloyalty. The deliberate malice of her 
 caprice to-day, aggravated by the humiliating revelation 
 of it, in the presence of Max and their servant, destroyed 
 all his faith in her, in a moment. He sat alone in the 
 library while the dusk of evening deepened into night; 
 his elbows on the table, his head buried in his hands. 
 
 " Are you coming to bed, Dick ? " 
 
 Dick started violently and turned quickly around. 
 Nita stood in the doorway in a loose, white dressing 
 gown ; her hair, arranged for the night, hung down her 
 back in a long heavy braid ; her bare feet were thrust into 
 knitted slippers of soft, white wool. 
 
 Dick looked at her in utter amazement. How could
 
 276 THE TRELOARS 
 
 she speak to him as if nothing at all had happened be- 
 tween them ? Was she acting, again ; or was she simply in- 
 capable of understanding how she had offended him? 
 As he did not reply, she said to him with a touch of im- 
 patience in her voice: 
 
 "Well, why don't you say something?" 
 
 " Because, I have nothing to say," answered Dick, ris- 
 ing from his chair, and turning towards the window. 
 
 " O, yes you have," she replied, stepping into the room 
 and turning on the light so that they might see each other 
 distinctly. He turned his face to her, and she went on: 
 " You wish to tell me that you are very angry, because 
 I really did not hurt myself this afternoon. Say it out 
 frankly; you'll feel better for it." 
 
 Dick thought that he had steeled himself to any fur- 
 ther sensitiveness with regard to her, but every word she 
 uttered found a vulnerable spot. His color came and 
 went, but his voice was cold and calm as he answered 
 her. 
 
 " I think that it would have been better for both of us, 
 if you really had hurt yourself. In that case my faith 
 in you would not be utterly destroyed. But what's the 
 use in arguing about it. We can't change it." 
 
 He looked at his watch and continued : 
 
 " It is getting late. I am going into the south bed- 
 room. Is there anything that I can do for you before 
 I go to bed ? " 
 
 He spoke to her and looked at her as if she had been 
 a perfect stranger; and she returned his look, and imi- 
 tated his cold reserve, as she replied : 
 
 " No, thank you, Nelly is in the next room. I shall 
 leave my door open and call her, if it is necessary. I am 
 really glad that you are going to sulk it out alone. Good- 
 night." 
 
 " Good-night." He bowed his head gently, as if ac- 
 knowledging a courtesy; but a feeling of sickening de- 
 spair sank into his heart. He felt that destiny had pro- 
 nounced a decree of divorce between them the silent
 
 THE TRELOARS 277 
 
 divorce of two wills which refuse to be one, of two tem- 
 peraments which refuse to harmonize, that henceforth 
 their life together must be a sham a mock union look- 
 ing fair to the eyes of the world, but hideous to them- 
 selves. 
 
 But Nita did not yet feel any necessity for reconcilia- 
 tion, and Dick's attitude at present was not at all disagree- 
 able to her ; on the contrary, it heightened her respect for 
 him, because he was showing that he was not mere putty 
 in her hands, to be molded as she wished, but had a 
 manly power of resistance. However, she intended to 
 make no advances towards him for a renewal of their 
 friendly relations. He should come to her first when he 
 was tired of the coolness between them. But as day after 
 day passed in this pitiful estrangement, and as her physi- 
 cal discomfort increased, the need of sympathy, always 
 strong in her, asserted itself. Both had unconsciously 
 fallen into the habit of expressing themselves freely be- 
 fore strangers, laying aside for the time being, the pri- 
 vate mask which concealed each from the other, and re- 
 suming it immediately, as soon as they were alone. In 
 this way Nita found it possible to vent opinions for 
 Dick's benefit, in the form of twitting generalities that 
 stung him keenly ; but he was sufficiently master of him- 
 self to conceal the sting, and to join heartily in the gen- 
 eral approval which followed their expression. 
 
 One Sunday afternoon in July, before some new ac- 
 quaintances who had called, Nita adroitly turned the con- 
 versation to the subject of temperament and character. 
 She said that no trait of character seemed to her so child- 
 ish and contemptible as sulkiness or sullenness. She 
 much preferred violent outbursts of anger followed by 
 serenity and clear skies to this drizzling implacable 
 sullen resentment that never knew how to forget and 
 forgive. When they were alone, and Dick, as usual, was 
 about to leave the room, she detained him saying: 
 
 " I want to have a serious word with you." 
 
 He turned at the door to look at her and said:
 
 278 THE TRELOARS 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " Come in and sit down, please. I won't keep you 
 long." 
 
 Dick sat down on the edge of a chair and looked at her 
 without the trace of an emotion on his face. 
 
 " You realize, don't you, that it is now three months 
 that we have kept up this insufferable farce of a happy 
 marriage, and that we are both as wretched as it is 
 possible to be?" 
 
 Dick smiled sarcastically, 
 
 " I am quite as much aware of it as you." 
 
 " You know, too, that I was alluding to your behavior 
 when I spoke about sulkiness a little while ago." 
 
 " Perfectly. I am not quite a fool, I know that you 
 never lose an opportunity to humiliate and to pain me." 
 
 Nita opened her eyes wide in unfeigned surprise. 
 
 " How can you say that," she retorted, " when it is you 
 who have been systematically showing your indifference 
 to my comfort and your aversion to me in every possible 
 way except actual abuse; and I should a million times 
 have preferred your beating me, or spurning me with 
 your foot, or killing me outright, to the daily insult of 
 your cold and sullen hatred. You know that I am a 
 woman of spirit, and that, not for the fraction of a 
 moment, would I have submitted to your contempt, had 
 it not been for the pitiable condition in which I am. You 
 have taken a base advantage of my helplessness. At a 
 time, when a woman needs all the sympathy and tender- 
 ness that are due her, you have added to the natural pain 
 and discomfort of my situation, the additional burden of 
 intolerable mental anguish." 
 
 Nita's lips quivered, her eyes filled with tears, then all 
 the concentrated rage and revolt that had been fermenting 
 in her for many a day burst forth fiercely in the terrible 
 words : 
 
 " I hate you ! O, how I hate you ! I hate you ! " 
 
 Dick turned white; he rose from his chair, approached 
 her quickly, and was about to put his hand on her, when 
 she recoiled as if he had been a viper.
 
 THE TRELOARS 279 
 
 " No, don't touch me, don't touch me ! I beg of you 
 to spare me that last insult ! " 
 
 Dick turned and shut the door, saying gently: 
 
 " Please don't speak so loud. The servants will hear." 
 
 " I don't care if all the world hears," she shouted. 
 " I should like it to hear what an idiot I have made of 
 myself, what an incomparable idiot I have been ! " 
 
 She burst into a fit of violent weeping, and Dick, not 
 knowing what to do to appease her, stood helpless and be- 
 wildered before her. He forgot his own resentment in 
 sympathy with hers, and when she lifted her tear-stained 
 face, he noticed its sickly hue, the hunted look in her 
 hollow eyes and the blue circles about them, and his 
 sympathy increased as he looked; she was no longer his 
 wife, no longer the woman he loved, but she was a human 
 creature who was suffering, and his heart ached for her, 
 and however much she had failed him, he must not fail 
 her, now. 
 
 " Nita," he said tenderly, " will you forgive me ? God 
 alone knows how you have made me suffer, but if I have 
 pained you in any like degree, I hate myself as much as 
 you hate me, and I cannot forgive myself, though I ask 
 you to forgive me." 
 
 She said nothing, but she sobbed less violently. 
 
 " Nita," he pleaded, and he knelt beside her, holding 
 out his hand to her. " Forgive me, and if there is any 
 restitution in the world that I can make to you, ask it, 
 and it is yours." 
 
 She looked at him through her streaming eyes. His 
 face was twitching with emotion, and his eyes, too, were 
 wet. There was no mistaking the genuineness of his feel- 
 ing, and his tenderness was like dew to her parched soul. 
 She put her hand into his, saying: 
 
 " Do you think you can bear with me just a little 
 longer? That is all I ask. It won't be long, Dick," 
 her voice was tremulous and hoarse, her whole bear- 
 ing like that of one who has been stricken and appeals 
 for mercy; and just as in all their differences and dis-
 
 280 THE TRELOARS 
 
 putes, she had the art of turning them so that all the 
 wrong seemed to come from him, so now he felt him- 
 self the guilty one. He had acted like a brute ; he had 
 forgotten that she was a sick woman, and that in the 
 temporarily altered state of her highly nervous organi- 
 zation, her whims and caprices were no more to be taken 
 seriously than those of a spoiled sick child. In his keen 
 remorse and impulsive sympathy, he caught her in his 
 arms, and she did not resist him ; he petted her tenderly, 
 he kissed her again and again, feeling that she was given 
 back to him, and that in the ashes of his own burnt-out 
 love, there had leaped up a sudden flame which needed 
 only to be carefully tended to bring back the warmth and 
 brightness to their dull, shivering lives. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 IT was the end of August, and a veiled day with the 
 rich, subdued golden light of approaching autumn, the sun 
 burning round and red like a flushed moon in the western 
 sky. It was a restful tranquil day to one whose heart 
 was full of eager life; but to those whose hearts were 
 heavy with grief, or torn by the agony of long suspense, 
 its beautiful calm seemed to intensify the cruel indiffer- 
 ence of nature. 
 
 All day long, Dick had felt this anguish, as he sat by 
 Nita's bedside and watched the wavering tide of life ebb 
 and flow gentler and gentler, as the day wore on, until 
 the red sun sank behind the mountains ; and when the 
 last red rim had vanished, the restless tide had ceased for- 
 ever. The mother had paid with her life for the birth of 
 her man-child. The babe lay sleeping tranquilly, ruddy, 
 and warm in its soft-cushioned cradle. The mother lay 
 white and cold beyond the reach of pain forevermore. 
 Never for her would the soft caress of a dimpled hand, 
 nor the smile of a baby's face blot out the memory of 
 the pangs of the primal curse, and change them into the
 
 THE TRELOARS 281 
 
 richest blessing of human life. Never to her ears would 
 the sweetest word on human lips vibrate like music and 
 thrill her heart with pride and joy. Of motherhood, 
 she had known but the sorrow and the pain; she had 
 passed far beyond the hope of its rare reward or the 
 fear of its cruel disappointment. 
 
 How beautiful she was ! As if carved out of the soft- 
 est, whitest marble, not a line blurred in the perfect fea- 
 tures ! 
 
 " O Nita, Nita, come back to me ! " moaned Dick, in 
 a delirium of grief as he knelt alone at her side. " O 
 God, forgive me my crime, and send her back to me." 
 
 All the shadows of their married life had vanished 
 from his consciousness, and it was white and luminous 
 before the marble image of this woman, who had taught 
 him to the fullest degree what life's joys and sorrows 
 are. 
 
 " Dick ! dear, dear Dick ! " 
 
 It was Margaret's soft voice that was speaking to 
 him, Margaret's soft hand that was touching his shoulder, 
 as she bent over him. It was the first time she had 
 entered his home. The news of Nita's death had come 
 to her with a great shock; but it was the shock of a 
 swift deliverance from the long oppression of a calam- 
 ity, and not the shock of grief which she had felt. Her 
 conscience was pricking her for her insensibility. How 
 hard and wicked she had grown by nursing resentment. 
 Instead of trying to find some common ground of 
 sympathy between Dick's wife and herself, she had held 
 herself coldly aloof. She had built an impenetrable wall 
 of icy reserve about herself. She had not uttered an un- 
 kind word of Nita since Dick's marriage, she had com- 
 mitted no tangible act of hostility ; but all her being was 
 unkindness and hostility in its negative aloofness ; and 
 the result of it was that she who had been all feeling 
 could not feel, and she felt degraded and punished by 
 this loss of sensibility. But when she witnessed Dick's 
 grief, when she looked at the sleeping babe, the mother-
 
 282 THE TRELOARS 
 
 heart in her throbbed again. Her coldness and reserve 
 melted away, and she felt herself human. 
 
 " Dear Dick, try to be brave ! " 
 
 He lifted his tear-stained face to hers. 
 
 " What have I to live for?" 
 
 The question pierced Margaret's heart. 
 
 " For the little one, Dick, for the beautiful child she 
 has left to us your son, her son." 
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 "FATHER, I want to ask a favor of you, the greatest 
 favor that I have ever asked; the one favor that if you 
 don't grant me, will break my heart. Yes, it will ; please 
 don't smile, Daddy, I was never so serious in my life, 
 never, never!" 
 
 Dolly's face was flushed with excitement, her dark eyes 
 were glistening. She was tremulous as a bird on a twig, 
 preparing for a long flight over the summits of trees and 
 into the blue. It was her free afternoon at the hospital, 
 and she had telephoned her father, to be sure to stay at 
 home, for she was coming out in a taxi, as quick as she 
 could, and had something very important to tell him. 
 Now, she stood before him in the dear, familiar library 
 with its deep broad windows looking out on the green 
 lawn, flecked with sunshine and shade. 
 
 Dr. Parker took his cigar from his mouth, cleared his 
 throat and said with an accent of unusual firmness in 
 his voice: 
 
 " Now, Dolly, if the favor you want is my consent to 
 your going to Europe as a war nurse, you can't have it ; 
 that's all there is about it." 
 
 A peculiar little twinkle came into Dolly's eyes. She 
 drew a chair up close to her father, who was sitting by 
 the window, and leaning towards him, said coaxingly : 
 
 " Now, Daddy, will you please give me your reasons, 
 and let me see if I can't demolish them one by one."
 
 THE TRELOARS 283 
 
 " Now look here, Dolly, none of your wheedling ! I 
 don't intend to confess that my reasons are demolished, 
 no matter how entirely you may think they are. You 
 can't go, Dolly." 
 
 He spoke very emphatically, and Dolly knew by the 
 way that he set his lips firmly together and looked at her 
 steadily, that his mind was fully made up, and that noth- 
 ing she could say or do would change it, but she went on 
 with her accustomed persistency : 
 
 " But you will tell me why, won't you, dear ? " 
 
 " Yes, I'll tell you why. I don't want you to go. It's 
 no place for a young girl ; no place for you, sensitive and 
 impulsive as you are. It's all right to take a course in 
 nursing. I've no objection to your keeping on, if you 
 want to, though your year is up. But I am not going 
 to have you sacrifice your youth to the horrors and suffer- 
 ings of war." 
 
 " Sacrifice my youth! You talk as if the war was go- 
 ing to last years. It'll soon be over. I heard one of the 
 surgeons say so, the other day. He's going to offer his 
 services to the French." 
 
 " And persuaded you to do the same thing," exclaimed 
 her father with a very decided note of irritation in his 
 voice. 
 
 " O, no, Daddy. Now do be calm. He didn't do any- 
 thing of the sort. What I was going to say is that he 
 said the war would be all over in six months. Scientific 
 inventions had made possible such terrific slaughter, 
 that " 
 
 " Scientific inventions have not destroyed the rancor 
 and jealousy of the human heart, nor the lust of cruelty 
 and the lust of power. These things have made the war, 
 and they will prolong the war. It may last years, Dolly, 
 you can't tell anything about it, any more than you can 
 tell when an insane man is going to recover his senses, 
 or when a woman knows what she wants." 
 
 " Daddy is that a nasty little hit at your beloved 
 daughter ? "
 
 284 THE TRELOARS 
 
 "If my beloved daughter doesn't know what she wants, 
 it's a fair and square hit at my beloved daughter." 
 
 " Well, your beloved daughter isn't hit, for she does 
 know what she wants. She does not at all want to go 
 to the war. It never entered her wildest dreams to go 
 to the war, but when she saw that her father was jump- 
 ing at conclusions, she wanted to know how he liked 
 them, and having found out that he doesn't, she is will- 
 ing to tell him that he needn't jump that way any more, 
 but he may try it again." 
 
 " Do you want to get married ? " 
 
 Dolly threw up her hands and shrieked with laughter. 
 
 " Cold, cold, cold, you're at the North Pole in your 
 guessing, Daddy." 
 
 " Well then, what in the name of heaven, do you 
 want?" 
 
 The doctor moved impatiently in his chair, Dolly looked 
 at him with the serenest smile and said quietly : 
 
 " Daddy, I want to adopt a baby." 
 
 " Good God ! what do you want to adopt a baby for ? " 
 
 " To take care of it. Now don't get excited, please, 
 father," cried Dolly, getting excited herself in her eager- 
 ness to win his consent. " Just listen quietly while I ex- 
 plain. It's no strange baby, I want. It's Dick's baby. 
 Dick came to the hospital day before yesterday, to say 
 good-by to me. He didn't think he'd get a chance to 
 see me at home. His paper is sending him to Europe 
 as a war correspondent; and he's eager to go. Of 
 course, Margaret is heart-broken over it, and on the verge 
 of a nervous breakdown, and I thought of the extra care 
 she had with the baby, and Catherine married and gone, 
 so I said, ' Dick, would you trust the baby with me, if 
 I went home and gave up all my time to it? I've had 
 good training in that work. I should know what to do.' 
 Father, the tears came into his eyes, he took both my 
 hands in his, and said, ' Dolly, would you do that for 
 me? anyway, until Margaret gets strong again? It is 
 the only anxiety I have in leaving the country, and I
 
 THE TRELOARS 285 
 
 know you would care for him as if he were your own.' 
 ' O, Dick yes, as if he were my very own,' I said. ' Of 
 course/ Dick went on, ' Margaret won't want to give 
 him up at first, but I think I can persuade her to do 
 so ; then you must ask your father, if he is willing,' and 
 I know you so well, that I said you would be willing, 
 and he told me he'd write me, if he got Margaret's con- 
 sent, and the letter came this morning. Here it is." 
 
 Dolly put her hand into her loose white blouse, and 
 drew out the precious letter. Her hand trembled as she 
 opened it, and her voice was unsteady as she read it 
 aloud : 
 " Dear Dolly : 
 
 " I cannot tell you how intensely grateful I am to you 
 for this immense kindness. I know that it means a 
 burden. I know, too, that you will do it so lovingly 
 that it will seem no burden. But be sure to have your 
 father's full consent. Margaret wishes to add a few 
 lines, very gratefully and faithfully yours 
 
 " DICK " 
 
 " Here's what Margaret says : 
 
 " My very dear Dolly: 
 
 " It was like your big warm heart to wish to do this 
 beautiful thing. The dear little baby has already grown 
 into my heart, and to part with it would be impossible 
 if I felt strong and young as I did a year ago. But I 
 am at present only the ghost of myself. I can't seem 
 to think, I go about in a sort of stupor ; forgetting what 
 I've started to do, and having to go back where I com- 
 menced, to have it flash over me again. I shall be myself 
 again, I know, but when? I don't know that. In the 
 meantime, I am not fit to take care of a baby that has 
 its right to sunshine and smiles, and if your father is 
 willing that you should take charge of him for a while, 
 I add my love and gratitude to Dick's and thank you a 
 thousand times from the bottom of my heart. 
 
 " Lovingly yours, 
 
 " MARGARET."
 
 286 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " Poor Margaret ! " Dolly folded her letter, her cheeks 
 like a rose, her eyes bright and dewy. 
 
 Dr. Parker rose from his chair with the alacrity of 
 a youth. His face was beaming, and Dolly knew that 
 she had not only won his consent, but that he was thor- 
 oughly pleased. 
 
 " Come, get your hat, Dolly. We'll go right over for 
 that baby ! " 
 
 Dolly threw her arms about her father's neck, and 
 kissed him so heartily that he had to beg to be spared 
 any further demonstrations. 
 
 " O, I am so happy ! so happy ! No more broken bones 
 and bruises; a dear, soft, little rosy baby to live with; 
 for I've given up the hospital. I knew you would con- 
 sent. Isn't life jolly?" 
 
 She went away to get her hat, and passing the open 
 piano, ran her fingers swiftly over the keys eliciting a 
 melodious paean, and was back in a moment with her 
 white straw hat on her head, her bright lovely face under 
 it full of joy. 
 
 "You know, Daddy," she said, getting into the auto- 
 mobile beside her father, " the baby is always to be mine. 
 That must be understood from the very first. I am not 
 to have all my heart strings wound round and round that 
 little thing and then have them suddenly wrenched away, 
 to be left widowed and childless, like Niobe all tears. 
 That wouldn't be fair, would it ? " 
 
 " No, that wouldn't be fair. I think if we are tactful, 
 we can get their consent to the adoption, only I want to 
 make one condition with you, Miss. When he gets to 
 the drum and trumpet stage of the game, he is to be 
 kept in blissful ignorance that there are such hideous 
 disturbers of domestic peace." 
 
 " All right, father. He shall be brought up to respect 
 your peace and quiet. O, I am so deliriously happy! 
 It seems to me as if we were just poking along. Can't 
 we speed up a little ? Ah, that's better ! Isn't it strange 
 how all things seem to fit into the scheme of one's life?
 
 THE TRELOARS 287 
 
 It almost seems as if my year's training had been in- 
 tended to fit me for this task. How grateful I am you 
 made me stick out my year. Do you remember that night 
 of Dick's wedding, when you wouldn't let me go home 
 with you ? " 
 
 " I don't remember not letting you go home with me." 
 
 " Not in so many words, Daddy, but you were obtusely 
 impervious to a hint that was anything but delicate, and 
 I felt for a moment, just the fleetingest moment, that 
 you were a mean old thing. But I wouldn't "be with- 
 out the year's experience for anything in the world." 
 
 " It's been a great thing for you, Dolly. I hardly 
 think I should consent to your taking the baby if you 
 hadn't been through the mill, and didn't know what re- 
 sponsibility means." 
 
 Dolly's sweet face grew thoughtful, as she answered: 
 
 " But I do, father. I never dreamed how much pain 
 and suffering there is in the world, and how insignificant 
 in comparison, are our little disappointments and vex- 
 ations. You know, father, sometimes I think it's a 
 good thing for Dick to be going where he can lose the 
 keen sense of his own wretchedness by matching it with 
 the horrors of war." She paused a moment then laughed 
 merrily as she asked, " So you thought I wanted to go, 
 too, did you ? I must have looked particularly belligerent. 
 Weren't you relieved when you found that it was only 
 Dick's baby I wanted ? " 
 
 " Yes, I like that better." 
 
 " So do I. By the way, I wonder if Dick has ever 
 heard from Max Gietmann, since he went away last 
 spring? " 
 
 " I think not." 
 
 " He needs his lesson, too. I never liked that man ; 
 because, of all the wicked persons, I think the wickedest 
 are those who take their own private resentments, hatreds 
 and frustrated ambitions for a universal calamity and 
 infect the world with their discontent. And I know, now, 
 how easily it is infected. My hospital experience has
 
 288 THE TRELOARS 
 
 taught me that. There are beautifully healthy sane na- 
 tures that are always immune; you may expose them to 
 all sorts of diseases, and they never catch them. Then 
 there are weak, sickly, wabbling natures, holding within 
 themselves the right nesting place for all sorts of in- 
 fectious germs. You can only keep them in a sort of 
 negative state of health by complete isolation. For their 
 sakes we have to fight the germs, otherwise, it wouldn't 
 make any difference whether lurking infections existed 
 or not. They could do little harm; for they could not 
 spread and would just burst at last with their own 
 venom. I hope Max no, I can't hope anything evil 
 on this lovely day, when I am so happy; but I hope he 
 will be converted." 
 
 " The trouble is that you can't permanently convert a 
 temperament or a constitution. It is always subject to 
 vicious relapses. Well, here we are. Now, Dolly, just 
 leave this matter about the adoption of the baby to me. 
 I'll talk it over first with Dick and his father, before any- 
 thing is said about it to Margaret. Very likely, she 
 wouldn't favor the idea, unless it came authoritatively 
 from Dick, and it may be just as well not to give her a 
 chance to influence him against it." 
 
 " O Daddy, dear, I don't like doing anything under- 
 hand. Margaret is so sweet and good, I always want 
 to be able to look straight into her eyes and feel that I 
 have nothing to conceal from her. While you are talk- 
 ing to Dick, I'll talk to her. I really must. I can't do 
 anything else." 
 
 "Very well, do as you like; but if you shouldn't suc- 
 ceed " 
 
 " But I shall succeed. I am full of success to-day. 
 Just see how I succeeded with you." 
 
 Dolly did not boast in vain. When she rode home 
 with her father with the precious burden in her arms, 
 it was with the clear understanding that the child was 
 hers, and that no one should ever have the right to
 
 THE TRELOARS 289 
 
 take it from her, except with her free consent. The 
 tears were in Margaret's eyes when she put the child 
 into Dolly's arms, but they were tears of gratitude, not 
 of renunciation. " You are so much better fitted for the 
 task than I, Dolly. Some day I may be strong enough 
 for it; but it would be fair neither to the child nor to 
 you to break the sweet tie that will grow strong between 
 you. I shall be near enough for him to learn to love 
 me, too; but I wish you to be first in his heart. I do, 
 indeed, Dolly, dear." 
 
 Margaret kissed her tenderly, and Dolly bent her fresh 
 young face over the child with all the delightfully fool- 
 ish fondness of a mother beaming in her eyes and playing 
 about her lips. 
 
 " Have you named him yet ? " she asked, looking up 
 half shyly, conscious that her heart was repeating all its 
 fondness in her face. 
 
 " Yes. Dick said that once before the birth of the 
 child, the mother said that if it were a boy, she wished 
 to call him Max Eugene; so we have given him that 
 name." 
 
 Dolly colored and said quickly : 
 
 " Eugene is a pretty name, it can be so nicely shortened 
 into Gene, or you can make a pet name of it and say 
 Geney; but Maxy sounds silly, doesn't it? and Max 
 is such a grown-up word for a baby. You won't mind 
 if I call him by his middle name, will you ? " 
 
 " O no ; he is your boy now. You may call him what 
 you like." 
 
 Her boy now! How her young heart swelled with 
 happy pride at the thought ! It was more than mother- 
 hood by proxy with Dolly; it was almost the real thing, 
 such need there was in her overflowing heart to give of 
 its abundant love. Nature had richly endowed her with 
 the mother-instinct, the warm quick sympathy with all 
 young and growing things; the intuitive understanding 
 of their needs; the large elastic patience which knows
 
 2QO THE TRELOARS 
 
 how to make allowance for the unconscious slips of in- 
 experience, and is not easily fretted by the faults which 
 time will cure. Added to all that, she had the gift of 
 a resourceful intelligence, the power of ready responsive- 
 ness, and a sunny humor, so that no dawning intellect 
 could ever be dwarfed or warped under her influence, but 
 might grow as straight and tall, as nature had given it the 
 power to grow. 
 
 Dick felt this with a new recognition of Dolly's sweet 
 womanhood that came to him like a revelation on the 
 day on which he went to say good-by to her and to her 
 father, and to take a farewell look at his son, before de- 
 parting for France. 
 
 It was a lovely afternoon towards the end of Novem- 
 ber. A faint breeze lightly stirred through the trees 
 and bent the tangled grasses by the roadside. The air 
 was exhilarating, making it a delight to walk and though 
 Dick's heart was still heavy with grief, there mingled 
 with his sorrow an exaltation and excitement born of the 
 uncertainty of his future. It might be the last time that 
 he would ever take this walk. Only a short year ago, he 
 seemed to be treading the summit of happiness, and all 
 his future lay before him steeped in sunlight. Now it 
 was dark and murky, shot through with flames of vivid 
 stinging regret and pain. His consciousness was still ab- 
 sorbed by his loss. He searched and groped with all his 
 being after Nita, yearning with passionate pain for some 
 sign, some hint that she had not passed into nothing- 
 ness ; that somewhere, somehow, the bright quick intellect, 
 purged of the flesh, lived in immortal glory and could find 
 some subtle way to assure him of its existence. To- 
 day, the immortal essence of her seemed to be inter- 
 fused with all that he saw and heard, and softly, slowly, 
 he repeated aloud those exquisite lines from In Mem- 
 oriam; whose beauty and power no one knows who has 
 not read it under the shadow of a great personal loss 
 and grief:
 
 THE TRELOARS 291 
 
 " Thy voice is on the rolling air; 
 I hear thee where the waters run: 
 Thou standest in the rising sun, 
 And in the setting thou art fair. 
 
 What art thou then? I cannot guess: 
 But tho' I seem in star and Rower, 
 To feel thee some diffusive power, 
 I do not therefore love thee less: 
 
 My love involves the love before; 
 My love is vaster passion now; 
 Tho' mixed with God and nature 
 I seem to love thee more and more 
 
 Far off thou art, but ever nigh; 
 I have thee still and I rejoice; 
 I prosper circled with thy voice; 
 I shall not lose thee, tho' I die." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 WHAT an unfailing source of comfort and strength 
 the baby was to Dolly! The wonder of this tiny help- 
 less creature slowly unfolding itself into consciousness, 
 as the tight little bud slowly unfolds itself into the color 
 and perfume of the rose was an unceasing delight to 
 her. She caught herself falling into the familiar ma- 
 ternal habit of relating with vivid interest all the little 
 signs of dawning intelligence in the child. Then re- 
 membering that she had been frequently bored by similar 
 relations from various mothers, she said to her father: 
 
 " Daddy, we mustn't get into that silly habit of repeat- 
 ing to others outside of the family all baby's funny little 
 tricks, and when he is older all his funny sayings. They 
 are like family photographs meant for the bed-room, not 
 the parlor." 
 
 " You are quite right. Millions of babies do the same 
 thing millions of times a day. There's nothing new in 
 all their tricks."
 
 292 THE TRELOARS 
 
 Dolly demurred ; she was quite sure that each baby had 
 its individuality quite as pronounced as each grown per- 
 son, and she called in question the acuteness and accuracy 
 of his powers of observation. It was not long before her 
 father had an opportunity of retaliation by challenging 
 her ability to follow her own advice. He had overheard 
 her relating to a visitor with great satisfaction some un- 
 usual proof of the baby's intelligence. 
 
 " You know, Dolly, it isn't any convincing evidence 
 of intellectual precocity to have teeth and hair. Every- 
 body has them sooner or later, and may lose them without 
 any corresponding mental deficiency." 
 
 Dolly laughed. 
 
 " I wasn't boasting about his teeth and hair, though I 
 think his hair is wonderfully thick for his age and that 
 he's getting his teeth early ; but what I do think remark- 
 able, is the sense of humor that he has. You should have 
 heard him laugh the other day when I purposely pro- 
 nounced some words wrong. He opened his little mouth 
 and laughed so heartily that I was perfectly astonished." 
 
 " You are sure you weren't tickling him ? " 
 
 "With my fingers? No. With my silly pronuncia- 
 tion, yes." 
 
 " You will allow me to be a little incredulous, and to 
 suggest that you keep this display of humor for a family 
 photograph." 
 
 Dolly looked teased. 
 
 " Don't be afraid of my indiscretion. I always choose 
 the proper audience for these confidences about the baby. 
 Mrs. Wyman is the mother of six children, and she'd 
 rather talk about babies than anything else. In fact, 
 that's the one thing that she can talk best about, and I've 
 learned a lot of things about the care of children from 
 her. She thinks it is a great deal easier to raise a large 
 family than just one child. She says each child helps to 
 amuse and take care of the other, and that a family senti- 
 ment is awakened which an only child never can have. 
 I think that must be true. How I wish the baby had a 
 little brother or sister ! "
 
 THE TRELOARS 293 
 
 " Now look here, Dolly. We're not going to start an 
 orphan asylum." 
 
 " Darling Daddy, I am not going to start an orphan 
 asylum. It isn't everybody's baby I should like to take 
 the responsibility of raising, but I think it would have 
 been lovely if baby had been born a twin or a trip- 
 let." 
 
 " Why not a quartette, while you're at it ? " 
 
 " Well, that would be better, still," laughed Dolly ; then 
 growing serious, she continued : 
 
 " I don't want Eugene to grow selfish, and an only 
 child is almost inevitably selfish. He has never had to 
 share anything with anybody and he is the center of in- 
 terest in the household ; that's what puts him out of nat- 
 ural relation with the rest of the world. I know it 
 by my own experience. I have never, until now, realized 
 how much I owe to you, father, and how ungrateful and 
 selfish I have been." 
 
 " Now, don't exaggerate, Dolly. You have been a very 
 good girl ; you have never caused me a moment's anxiety, 
 barring that little hospital escapade, but that turned out 
 all right." 
 
 " Yes, because I first learned there what responsibility 
 means." 
 
 " Well, we'll give the boy a training in that from the 
 start, so that he won't have to go to a hospital to get it. 
 He must have some little task, no matter how trifling, the 
 performance of which is left wholly to him; getting the 
 kindling ready for the morning fire, filling up tea-kettles, 
 sweeping the walks, cultivating a little garden. The 
 whole trouble with bringing up children lies in that fool- 
 ish fondling of them, and perpetually feeding and dress- 
 ing and washing them long after they are able to do all 
 those things for themselves. Another thing, Dolly, for 
 heaven's sake let your ' yes ' mean ' yes ' and your ' no, ' 
 'no.' Don't teach him to argue with you. I believe it 
 is called reasoning with a child. You can't reason with 
 a child; from the simple fact that he has no experience
 
 294 THE TRELOARS 
 
 from which to make deductions. He can only persis- 
 tently and plausibly assert what he wants and he ends 
 by getting it, because he has simply tired out his op- 
 ponent, and then he despises your judgment, because 
 he has walked over it. I don't believe either that you 
 can bring him up without a good spanking once in a 
 while. Children haven't changed any since Solomon's 
 warning : ' The rod and reproof give wisdom ; but a child 
 left to itself bringeth his mother to shame'." 
 
 " It seems so cruel and shameful to strike a little child 
 that can't strike back. I don't want ever to touch Eugene 
 harshly." 
 
 " You prefer that he should strike you some day in 
 disobedience, and ingratitude, and contempt for all that 
 you've done for him ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Well, it'll end that way, unless he is one child out 
 of a hundred. There's a popular craze about natural 
 methods in everything nowadays. It is the one stock 
 phrase that is never questioned ; but nobody seems to be 
 aware of the fact that nature is inexorable when her 
 laws are violated. She sends her punishment swift and 
 sure. She has only one method of training into obedi- 
 ence. She does not argue, pet, or coddle, or persuade. 
 She raps the offender sharply over the knuckles and 
 brings him into line, or she takes him by the nape of 
 the neck and knocks his head against something hard; 
 and if he doesn't take the hint she doesn't bother about 
 him, she lets him go straight to the devil. Nature, then, 
 as her means of discipline, has chosen the language of 
 pain, because it is the only universal language. There's 
 no misunderstanding what speaks to the senses. Do you 
 know, Dolly, I've been thinking of late, that all the brutal- 
 ities and obscenities in the shallow-minded, shallow- 
 hearted literature of the day, are only an involuntary re- 
 action from that soft, sentimental molly-coddling of the 
 young for which you women are, for the most part, re- 
 sponsible."
 
 THE TRELOARS 295 
 
 " Why, father ! you don't " 
 
 " No, now wait a minute. I've brought you up on the 
 argumentative plan, and you always want to cut in, be- 
 fore I've finished what I have to say." 
 
 " Excuse me ! " said Dolly demurely. 
 
 " You've set yourself the task of bringing up a man- 
 child, and if you rob him of the attributes of his man- 
 hood, by putting into his body a cheap second-hand 
 woman's soul, you will be a criminal ! " 
 
 " Why,, father ! " 
 
 " Yes, you will, because you will have destroyed the 
 very bark and steel of character the power to endure 
 hardship and disappointment the elasticity which 
 makes a man rise every time he falls and go on again, 
 instead of lying whining on his back, waiting for some- 
 body to pull him up. You women do that with boys out 
 of superfluous kindness. You never reason with your 
 heads, but with your hearts. Of course, that's lovely at 
 times, for indulgence isn't always harmful ; but as a steady 
 dose it is deadly. You can drown a man in molasses 
 as well as in cold water, and it is a nastier, stickier death. 
 A woman never seems to be able to look over her own 
 head. She literally puts herself into another man's place ; 
 that is, she transfers to him her own mentality all her 
 own idiosyncrasies, her likes, her dislikes, her fears, the 
 torments of her conscience, and she is overwhelmed with 
 pity for herself in his condition and acts accordingly. 
 That is why she sends hot-house bouquets to the hard- 
 ened criminal who knows no more about a conscience 
 prick than a rhinoceros, and would rather have a hunk 
 of sausage and a slice of limburger than all the delica- 
 cies and refinements of civilization." 
 
 " But, we aren't all that way, and there are a great 
 many men, too, whose humanity is only a weak-kneed 
 indulgence." 
 
 " Yes, I grant it ; maudlin sentimentality isn't a monop- 
 oly of your sex, but it is more frequent among you 
 and more often it is the result of your influence; and
 
 296 THE TRELOARS 
 
 wherever you find it, it spoils the game of life. It up- 
 sets all nature's drastic methods of improving the race. 
 Then you women exaggerate the social instinct. You 
 can't walk Without holding hands. Man's happiness and 
 welfare was never intended to be dependent on others to 
 such an extent as it is in present society. You can't 
 think except in crowds. You can only feel the contagion 
 of the mob instinct. You heat your minds as sheep 
 warm themselves by huddling together ; and that's a poor 
 substitute for thought. You have reduced a solid educa- 
 tion into a tasteless pap and you administer it in troughs, 
 instead of separate dishes suited to a child's consump- 
 tion; and you are so afraid that it won't please his pal- 
 ate, that you turn his attention from it, by providing for 
 his amusement, turning your schools into dance halls, 
 banquet halls, theaters, and concert halls; and I see by 
 the last idiotic proposal at one of your great educational 
 meetings that you want now to start courtship classes. 
 Great God ! and think of your silly, untimely discussion 
 of things that ought to be kept out of children's heads in- 
 stead of forced into them before maturity brings them 
 naturally." 
 
 " Now Daddy, don't get excited," said Dolly with a 
 twinkle in her eye. " You are getting quite red in the 
 face, so this discussion is unconstitutional. Besides you 
 are abusing the second personal pronoun, after the fashion 
 of the old-time editorial we. What have / got to do with 
 all this? I who am as innocent as the lamb that didn't 
 muddy the wolf's stream? / haven't been carrying any 
 flowers to criminals, nor starting courtship classes." 
 " But there's no telling what you might do." 
 " But there's telling what I might not do, and these 
 floral vagaries and educational amorosities, (is there such 
 a word?) I am not equal to. So there! But seriously, 
 I do think there is much truth in what you say. A 
 teacher of a private girls' school at the hospital told me 
 that the pity for poor children was entirely misplaced 
 and belonged to the children of rich families, brought up
 
 THE TRELOARS 297 
 
 in habits of luxury and indulgence until they were abso- 
 lutely incapable of doing anything for themselves. A 
 nurse in the children's ward told me that convalescent 
 children were much less fretful, and got well quicker 
 when they were left to themselves for their amusement 
 and could use their eyes and their imagination instead of 
 being loaded down with toys. She said that rich families 
 after Christmas-time, when their own children were tired 
 of their toys would bring them to the hospital and that 
 they were a real pest sometimes instead of a help. I've 
 remembered that, and I don't intend to spoil Eugene's im- 
 agination till all his world lies outside of him, instead of 
 within him. Don't you think, father, that this education 
 by facts, facts, facts, has something of the same re- 
 sult?" 
 
 " Yes, Dolly," answered the Doctor with a sigh. " I 
 am afraid it has. Yet I've been in my time a great lover 
 of facts. But there are facts and facts; and this gen- 
 eration has been principally fed on husks instead of grain ; 
 and I can echo Lamb's discouragement, ' My whole heart 
 is faint and my whole head is sick with this damn'd cant- 
 ing unmasculine age ' ! " 
 
 " Isn't the war masculine enough for you ? " 
 
 " No ! It isn't a war of men, it's a war of machines 
 and money and bestial instincts ; a war in which men bur- 
 row in the ground like rats and moles and let their can- 
 nons fight for them, instead of meeting the enemy face 
 to face on an open field like the men of old; a war in 
 which a treaty is a scrap of paper, and honor a rag; but 
 I can't talk these things over with you, Dolly, you can't 
 understand the rage and disgust I feel. No young per- 
 son can I am going out for a walk." 
 
 Dr. Parker jumped from his chair with the nimbleness 
 of a boy and seizing his hat rammed it down over his 
 head, and strode out of the house. 
 
 Like the majority of the men of his age whose birth 
 year coincides with the publication of Darwin's Origin 
 of Species, he had passed through all the stages of in-
 
 298 THE TRELOARS 
 
 herited religious belief in his childhood very hard and 
 narrow to renunciation of his belief in his teens and 
 acceptance of a rigid uncompromising belief in the in- 
 fallibility of science, just as bigoted as his former re- 
 ligious belief had been, followed by the gradual modi- 
 fication of this bigotry, as experience brought knowledge 
 of successive abandonments of theories which he had ac- 
 cepted as facts. His long association with Treloar had 
 further modified his beliefs into the final relinquishment 
 of the idea of the infallibility of science and a com- 
 plete recognition of the part which imagination and in- 
 tuition play in human decisions. He had seen a man 
 like Lombroso, one of the most pronounced material- 
 ists of his age, publicly acknowledge that though he had 
 been hostile to spiritualism all his life, believing that en- 
 ergy is a property of matter, and thought, a function of 
 the brain, the passion for truth had carried the day with 
 him over his scientific faith, and he felt obliged to write 
 in defense of spiritualism. He had died unconscious 
 of the frauds perpetrated on him by a clever and notori- 
 ous medium; and left a book entitled Hypnotism and 
 Spiritualism which is a monument of human weakness, 
 and an indisputable proof of the fact that " man," as 
 Gustave LeBon says, " sometimes changes the names of 
 his gods, but his religious mentality remains indestruct- 
 ible." 
 
 Yet Dr. Parker was by no means converted to Tre- 
 loar's point of view; but he had grown indulgent to it, 
 feeling that though it arrogated to itself airs of intel- 
 lectual superiority, it did not, on the whole, exhibit its 
 arrogance so offensively as the anarchist's attitude with a 
 shameless abandonment of all standards of morality. His 
 own atheism (for his own agnosticism decidedly leaned 
 that way) took into account the weakness of human na- 
 ture and its need of moral guidance by a wise selection 
 of the experience of human life. Therefore, he had ar- 
 rived at that age when a man's convictions are settled 
 and his judgment the surest. Ignorance seemed beau-
 
 THE TRELOARS 299 
 
 tiful to him in comparison with the nauseating, perverted 
 knowledge which prepared death for the soul. He re- 
 called his quiet country boyhood home on a rolling prairie ; 
 his sane healthy childhood; the early mornings in the 
 dewy fields, the songs of birds; the low of cattle in the 
 meadows ; his mother's cheerful humor ; his father's sense, 
 and all the homely pleasures of his leisure; wading the 
 brooks, catching crawfish, sliding down haystacks, riding 
 the horses bare-backed to the pasture or the water-trough, 
 hunting hens' nests the length of green hedges, the long 
 winter evenings with a few good books, well thumbed, 
 read and re-read till the language and the thought were 
 his own what better preparation for manhood could 
 he have had than that? Could he be grateful enough 
 that he had escaped the hot-house system of education 
 which ends in too early ripeness and decay? 
 
 No, knowledge is not a good thing for everybody. 
 That was the one lesson he was getting from Germany 
 now. It was not a return to primitive faiths that the 
 world needed. That seemed to him forever impossible; 
 but more wholesome ignorance ; that was what the world 
 needed; only just so much knowledge as it could easily 
 digest; more attention to simple questions of right and 
 wrong, and less mathematics and physics. Education 
 not made easier and easier by continual dilution, but by 
 elimination, for the many ; and made more and more dif- 
 ficult in higher education, and restricted to the educable : 
 not more and more tolerance of weakness that ends in 
 indifference, but more decision and distinction : not the 
 rule of the mob nor the rule of the sword, but the rule 
 of the just and intelligent. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 THERE were very few passengers on board the ship on 
 which Dick sailed from New York, and all of them were 
 agents for importers and merchants whose chief, perhaps
 
 300 THE TRELOARS 
 
 only, regret concerning the European war was that it 
 would either interfere with business or put a stop to it. 
 Nor were the sympathies of their agents dictated by any- 
 thing more rational than inherited instincts and preju- 
 dices. If they were of German extraction, there was no 
 question whatever about the justice of the German 
 cause, nor of the ultimate victory of Germany in the 
 course of a few months. If, on the contrary, they traced 
 their descent from England, France, or Italy, they were 
 just as positive that justice and ultimate victory were on 
 the side of the allies. One Frenchman quoted with great 
 satisfaction the prediction of the Japanese, General Nogi, 
 made to an Italian military correspondent at the time of 
 the siege of Port Arthur. Those who wished to verify 
 the correctness of the quotation would find it in a recent 
 number of Les Annales, The prediction was as follows: 
 " I believe that the world will witness two more great 
 wars, one on the European continent in which the Franco- 
 Prussian conflict will be decided; and the other on the 
 sea which will decide the question of naval supremacy 
 between England and Germany. France and Germany 
 will play their part on the field of Belgium, perhaps in 
 the neighborhood of Waterloo, for it is the only free 
 passage which permits great display of military forces. 
 The actual Franco-German frontier bristles too thickly 
 with fortifications, so that perhaps, on both sides, the 
 opponents will give up trying to force them. The French 
 will be victorious over the Germans, and the latter will 
 be beaten on sea by the English." 
 
 The pro-Germans seized upon this prophecy as an un- 
 deniable proof of French and English hostility to Ger- 
 many before the breaking out of the war. How could 
 a Japanese venture to make such a statement if he had 
 not received a hint from French or English authorities? 
 This is not the only prophecy in which the enmity of 
 France is betrayed, along with her avowed determina- 
 tion to retake Alsace and Lorraine. Had anybody ever 
 heard of a certain Mme. de Thebes who has been pre-
 
 THE TRELOARS 301 
 
 dieting for a long time a war between France and Ger- 
 many and the consequent fall of the House of Hohen- 
 zollern? No, Germany had done exactly the right thing 
 to strike first instead of waiting to be struck. And so 
 the discussion went on, day after day, there being only 
 two points upon which all were agreed; namely, that 
 the war could not possibly last more than a few months, 
 owing to the vast commercial interests involved, and the 
 swift and deadly character of modern engines of de- 
 struction ; and that it behooved the United States to main- 
 tain a strict neutrality, not for reasons of humanity and 
 justice, but because it would be a bad thing for business, 
 if she did not. This decision was arrived at without the 
 least difficulty in conceiving a collective neutrality, result- 
 ing from individual partisanship. 
 
 From all these futile repetitions of the same charges 
 and counter charges, so familiar to the newspaper reader 
 of the day, Dick was glad to escape and take refuge in 
 the reading of Jean Christophe which he had brought 
 with him from San Francisco. Above the roar of all tem- 
 poral conflicts, remain the eternal verities, and Dick was 
 searching them with the avidity of a famished man for 
 food. He had come near ruining his own life. He saw 
 that now. The sharp agony at Nita's death which had 
 restored her image to him in the colors of his first pas- 
 sion was passing away, and the truth emerged, when the 
 emotional haze was dissipated. He shuddered at his 
 blindness. He had loved passionately everything which 
 in his heart of hearts he recoiled from, and he had not 
 recognized it. But he was young and inexperienced. He 
 could not yet distinguish seeming from being; but his 
 father how did it come that he had been so blind, too, 
 and had approved his choice? Was it because he really 
 knew very little of human nature, and always saw it in 
 the light of his own gentle and aspiring moods, as Dr. 
 Parker maintained women do ? Had he, like them, some 
 youthful romantic ideal of love which made it always 
 beautiful and right to follow its impulses, no matter what 
 they dictated, or where they led ?
 
 302 THE TRELOARS 
 
 He had never told his father of the cruel disillusion- 
 ments of his marriage. He had never spoken to any one 
 about them. Perhaps, some day, still far distant, he 
 might speak of them to Dolly, but to no one else. They 
 lay in his memory like the burden of some frightful night- 
 mare which daylight lifts, but which comes back in 
 the solitude of night. He tried to reconstruct the image 
 of Nita, as she was in reality, and as he had never per- 
 ceived her. He recognized the keenness of her intelli- 
 gence fed by an ardent curiosity; her freedom from illu- 
 sion combined incongruously with her susceptibility of 
 it; her want of character, combined with her power of 
 assuming all characters. Brilliant and unsteady as a 
 will of the wisp, and like it, the phosphorescent glow of 
 marshy exhalations, she had no place in the world as 
 daughter, sister, wife, or mother, but only as a beautiful 
 simulachre of a woman, a stimulus, a warning, an inter- 
 pretation. 
 
 Quitting these painful reflections, Dick plunged into 
 his book, and soon lost himself in it, so steeped in life 
 was it from the first page to the last life in all its 
 phases; its glory, its infamy; its grandeur, its puerility; 
 its tragedy, its farce. It threw open the windows of his 
 soul, and let the fresh air of genius blow through it. 
 What quantities of dust, dry rot, and moldy smells 
 it swept away! What a tonic it was, more invigorating 
 than the salt sea breeze or the air of mountain slopes! 
 Dick saw, too, how Jean Christophe's fall into the abyss 
 might well succeed his triumphant sense of strength, as- 
 surance, and self-mastery expressed in the magnificently 
 daring cry : " Life is a tragedy, Hurrah ! " the tragedy 
 itself being for him no more than a trial of strength 
 from which the strong emerge stronger than ever. And 
 fate overwhelms him, stretches him upon her wheel of 
 torture. He feels himself only the plaything of mysteri- 
 ous forces, a bit of broken straw in a mighty wind, blown 
 into the mud and slime of sin. Then, with all his pride 
 broken, in an agony of horror, repentance, humility, he
 
 THE TRELOARS 303 
 
 bows before the unknown force, and sees God in the 
 burning bush, sees God in the torrent of life that rolls 
 from leaf to flower, from soul to soul ; feels in that cease- 
 less current the miraculous power of resurrection and is 
 born into real strength and calm, and self-mastery, and 
 the inspiring solitude of the artist filled with the creations 
 of his brain. 
 
 Dick rose from his reading strengthened, encouraged, 
 inspired. It seemed to him as if a warm human hand 
 had been stretched out to him in the darkness, and as if 
 a beautiful human voice had spoken words of cheer and 
 sympathy. But alas ! what irony it seemed in the face 
 of this awful war, to repeat the appreciative statement 
 of an Austrian writer that Jean Christ ophe is the great- 
 est thing that has ever been done since the Franco-Prus- 
 sian war to bring the two nations France and Germany 
 closer together in a mutual understanding. Dick had 
 lived so intimately with the characters of the book that 
 he resented the war almost as much because it gave the 
 lie to the optimistic conclusion of the book, and reduced 
 to the level of fiction what was so warm and flush with 
 life, as he was that it gave the lie to the optimistic be- 
 lief of his age that moral progress necessarily accom- 
 panies scientific and economic progress. 
 
 Was European civilization passing through the same 
 crisis which Jean Christophe had passed? Had science 
 and philosophy not declared in their pride that civiliza- 
 tion owes no debt to the recognition of God, and that 
 knowledge and science are sufficient of themselves to 
 produce a morality nobler and higher than that which 
 has its sanction and obligation in religion? Was the 
 lesson of the French Revolution useless now; so thor- 
 oughly forgotten that it must be taught over again at 
 the same fearful price of agony and bloodshed ? 
 
 Dick pondered long over this problem, and it pained 
 him excessively that he could find no satisfactory answer 
 to it. The skepticism of his age had dyed him deeply, 
 and he could no longer mistake the emotionalism of an
 
 304 THE TRELOARS 
 
 hour of pain or sadness for a religious conviction. He 
 knew too well from his own experiences that such hours 
 are critical and misleading, because the yearning of the 
 heart makes mute the voice of reason. He distrusted 
 profundly all rainy day conversions, and he said now to 
 himself that his convictions must belong to the sunshine, 
 before he could trust them. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 MARGARET TRELOAR and her father were spending the 
 day at the Parkers; and staying rather late. Margaret 
 was present when Dolly was putting little Eugene to 
 bed. He was now a year and a half old, a beautiful 
 and playful child, precocious in learning to talk, and full 
 of promise. 
 
 " Dolly," said Margaret, flushing brightly and speak- 
 ing very gently, " have you begun teaching Eugene to 
 say his prayers when he goes to bed, and rises in the 
 morning ? " 
 
 Dolly reddened at the question, and answered frankly : 
 
 " No, I haven't." 
 
 " Don't you think that we ought to teach him ? " 
 
 "I hadn't thought about it at all," Dolly faltered; 
 " you know, Margaret, I haven't been taught as you were 
 to believe in prayer." 
 
 " I know it, Dolly ; and thanks to your own beautiful 
 character, which I think no training could spoil, you are 
 a much better woman than I." 
 
 "O, Margaret!" 
 
 " Yes, you are, Dolly." 
 
 Margaret took Dolly's hands from her face and kissed 
 her affectionately. She was very fond of her. 
 
 " The truth is, that you are a real Christian, Dolly, 
 without calling yourself that; and I who would be so 
 glad to call myself a Christian feel often the rebellious
 
 THE TRELOARS 305 
 
 pagan in me; but I won't talk of that just now; see how 
 the child is listening. Come here, darling! Come to 
 Aunt Margaret ! " 
 
 She turned to the child who was looking curiously 
 and attentively at them. His white night gown covered 
 his feet, and in starting to walk towards her, his little 
 hands outstretched, he stumbled and fell. Margaret 
 picked him up, and seating herself in a chair, she put him 
 on the floor and taught him to kneel at her lap. He 
 thought she was teaching him a new game, and he laughed 
 and clapped his hands, when she wished to fold them. 
 Dolly looked on with beating heart and a feeling of 
 strangeness and discomfort, as if a barrier were being 
 raised between herself and the child. Margaret repeated 
 the child's prayer: "Now I lay me down to sleep" and 
 he lisped it after her in a sweet childish treble. It ex- 
 cited him as a novelty, and Margaret had to take him 
 in her arms and gently rock him, and sing to him, before 
 he fell asleep. Then having laid him in his bed, she 
 went softly out of the room with Dolly, saying: 
 
 " Now, I want to tell you what I meant by saying I 
 wasn't a Christian. Can't we go into the spare room 
 here, for a while ? I want to talk to you alone." 
 
 " Certainly." Dolly opened the bed-room door, and 
 followed Margaret into the room with a half -guilty feel- 
 ing of embarrassment, entirely new to her. 
 
 " Take this chair, Margaret ; it is so comfortable." 
 
 Dolly laid her hand on the back of a cane rocking 
 chair, then drew up a smaller one for herself. Mar- 
 garet looked at Dolly in silence for a moment, admir- 
 ing the rich beauty of the young face so near her. Mar- 
 garet herself had grown thinner and paler, but there 
 was nothing fretful or ascetic in her appearance; on 
 the contrary, it spoke of an inner calm and poise, not 
 attained, perhaps, without a great struggle, and not to 
 be lost again. This struggle carried on in silence and 
 solitude had resulted in certain convictions which Mar-
 
 3o6 THE TRELOARS 
 
 garet felt impelled to reveal to Dolly, not for Dolly's 
 sake, but for the sake of the child confided to her care. 
 So she began at once, without any preamble: 
 
 " Dolly, I am going to tell you to-night what I thought 
 I should never reveal to anybody, but I feel now that you 
 ought to know it. You know that Dick's marriage was 
 more than a grief to me ; it was a torture which I some- 
 times wonder how I ever lived through. You were with 
 me when the news first came to me and you saw what a 
 blow it was to me. But after that first shock, you never 
 heard me complain. I was too proud to show my sor- 
 row; it was sullen, rebellious, irreconcilable. I could 
 see no reason for it; but now I know what unspeakable 
 dross there was in my heart that had to be burnt out by 
 this fire; and, now, I would not have it otherwise if I 
 could. It was all right, Dolly, O so right." Margaret 
 leaned forward, her delicate face transfigured by the glow 
 of her emotion. " I needed to learn what a sophist I 
 was, what a poor limping, blind creature, groping here, 
 falling there, and quite content with my halting gait and 
 my darkness. I thought it possible to make all sorts of 
 happy compromises with God's truths, interpreting 
 them in my own way to suit my convenience. For ex- 
 ample, I thought that the needs of the disciples were 
 different from ours, that there could be a more enlight- 
 ened form of Christianity in correspondence with man's 
 intellectual progress. Now I know what foolish vanity, 
 what ridiculous arrogance, what unpardonable ignorance 
 that was ! I mistook all the trappings of creeds and the 
 modern forms of expediency for the genuine teachings 
 of Christ, as if there could be a Christ up-to-date quite 
 as good as, but quite different from, the Christ who 
 walked the shores of Galilee. I prided myself on my 
 breadth and my tolerance, as if there were some partic- 
 ular virtue in beating out my Christianity so thin that it 
 would cover a vast surface. But what pit-falls I was 
 preparing for myself ! I thought God did not need my 
 love, but my family did; but my pride corrupted all
 
 THE TRELOARS 307 
 
 my feelings. My love for my family was only a dis- 
 guised love for myself. I wished to be all in all to 
 them, as they were all in all to me, and when I learned 
 that I meant nothing to Dick " 
 
 " O, Margaret ! " exclaimed Dolly, deeply pained by 
 Margaret's confession, " there never was a time that you 
 meant nothing to Dick. There never could be a time that 
 you meant nothing to him ; his heart is big enough to hold 
 more than one image." 
 
 " I know it, now," answered Margaret, reassuringly. 
 " I am speaking as I felt then, when it was all one to me 
 whether he loved me not at all, or loved another more 
 than me. I could not bear to have the second place with 
 him. I wanted all or nothing; so I broke that beautiful 
 commandment : ' Judge not, that ye be not judged.' I 
 judged Dick's wife, my sister. You see I can say sister, 
 now. I concealed my hatred of her by all sorts of de- 
 vices, such as solicitude for Dick; I even feigned an out- 
 ward kindness to her that had no place in my heart. She 
 had Dick, and after that I would have given her any- 
 thing but myself. I was miserably unhappy; but I did 
 not realize the barren hideousness of my soul until I 
 stood beside her coffin and looked on her dead face with- 
 out the least emotion, the least throb of pity for her, 
 stricken in her youth. O, that awful chill and darkness, 
 that inner petrifaction of my once living soul! I could 
 not feel! I knew it was horrible, and that knowledge 
 was the one thing that saved me. Because I knew it, I 
 struggled for life in the chill of death. I prayed and 
 struggled till life came back to my dying soul and I could 
 feel, and I could love again, and all hatred had vanished 
 from my heart. Then I knew that, although God does 
 not need our love, we need to love Him, for in that love 
 alone, can we find rest and strength, and I understood 
 the wisdom of Him, who said : ' Give not thy son and 
 wife, thy brother and friend power over thee while thou 
 live st. .... As long as thou livest and hast breath in 
 thee, give not thyself over to any' It is only to God that
 
 
 308 THE TRELOARS 
 
 we may give ourselves over and reap no shame from the 
 gift. And, Do^y, I am telling you this, that you may 
 put into the young heart of our dear child that feeling of 
 love an<j reverence for the Highest, which is the only 
 safeguard m trial, the only prop when everything else 
 gives way under us. Begin by having him say his even- 
 ing and morning prayer. It isn't necessary to teach 
 him anything else at present. He wouldn't understand, 
 but gradually he will be penetrated by a vague conscious- 
 ness of an unknown power without and within him; then 
 he will begin to ask questions." 
 
 "And what shall I answer him, I, who am as ignorant 
 as he?" 
 
 " You will know what to answer him, Dolly ; it will 
 come to you, too." 
 
 " No, it won't, Margaret," replied Dolly, pushing back 
 the masses of her dark hair and looking at Margaret with 
 a pained and puzzled expression. " I shall not know 
 what to answer. I have been taught that we come from 
 the unknown and pass into the unknown, and that this 
 moment of consciousness which we call life may be made 
 beautiful or hideous in accordance with the manner in 
 which we accept our relations with others ; one way, re- 
 sulting in that hardening which you have just called death 
 of the soul, and the other, through the recognition of duty 
 and love, ending in more life and richer life. 
 
 " Ah, Dolly, dear," cried Margaret triumphantly, her 
 face beaming with joy. " Don't you see that we are only 
 disputing about a question of names ? Call the unknown, 
 God; and the dutiful, loving relation to others and to 
 Him, religion, and we both view life in exactly the same 
 way." 
 
 " No, Margaret," said Dolly, shaking her head em- 
 phatically. " There is a great difference, and if you can't 
 see it, you are falling again into that error, you deplored, 
 of making your own interpretations of religion. I cannot 
 pray to my unknown, or think of it as a conscious en- 
 tity, so that if I should say : ' Our Father who art in
 
 THE TRELOARS 309 
 
 heaven' it would be hypocrisy in me. Don't you see ? " 
 
 " Yes, I see," said Margaret sadly ; " but, Dolly, it 
 isn't hypocrisy in me, and it cannot be hypocrisy in the 
 innocent baby, and faith may be bread to him some day, 
 when his soul is starving." 
 
 Just then Mr. Treloar's voice was heard at the foot of 
 the stairs, shouting: 
 
 " Come on, Margaret ; it is getting late, we must be 
 going home." 
 
 " Yes, father, I'm coming." 
 
 Margaret rose, and taking Dolly's hands, said : " You 
 will do this for our boy, won't you, Dolly ? " 
 
 Dolly felt forced to say that she would ; but when Mar- 
 garet was gone, it troubled her exceedingly to have prom- 
 ised anything so alien to her mind. She had that rare 
 quality in a woman perfect straight-forwardness, an 
 inexpressible hatred for all forms of untruth, from the 
 downright lie to the cowardly, sneaking form of am- 
 biguity and double-dealing. Had the circumstances of 
 her life not protected her from the consequences of this 
 truthfulness, she would undoubtedly have suffered from 
 it ; for the world does not let pass unchallenged any viola- 
 tion of its formalities, although it may sometimes confine 
 its disapproval to a mere criticism of what it calls eccen- 
 tricity or a love of singularity. But Dolly was neither 
 eccentric nor a lover of singularity, but only a very 
 healthy, perfectly normal young woman, who loved the 
 light. 
 
 Now, she was confronted by what, to her, was the 
 most ignoble of dilemmas, either to teach the child en- 
 trusted to her care what she herself did not believe, or 
 allow Margaret to teach it. She brooded over the prob- 
 lem through the night, unable to sleep for the distress 
 it caused her; and, for the first time, she felt vexed 
 with Margaret for her interference. " The child is 
 mine" thought Dolly wrathf ully, " and I have a right to 
 do with my own what I will ; " but Dolly was too just 
 to persist long in this error. Tossing the matter in her
 
 i 
 
 310 THE TRELOARS 
 
 thoughts, she soon realized that she was nearing the 
 very fault which Margaret had so humbly confessed 
 an absorbing, selfish love, which would mold its object in 
 its own image. She saw, too, that this was not her little 
 personal problem alone, but the problem of every mother, 
 and of every person whose task it is, to rear a child in a 
 Christian land. Shall I teach him that the essence of re- 
 ligion is the consciousness of the tie which binds me to my 
 fellow man in the form of a responsibility to do to him 
 as I would be done by ; and that faith is the especial form 
 which that consciousness takes from the great moral 
 genius of each race who first promulgated it? Or shall 
 I teach him that faith and religion are one, and that there 
 can be but one true faith and one true religion, and that 
 is the prevailing faith and religion of the country under 
 whose flag he chanced to be born; and the great moral 
 genius who taught it was not man, but God incarnate? 
 For her own part, Dolly would not have hesitated a 
 moment. She herself had been taught that faith is a 
 question of geography, and religion a question of hu- 
 manity. She had read the Bible as she had read ancient 
 history and ancient mythology with this difference, that 
 she recognized the incalculable superiority of the Bible 
 in its passion, power, poetry, wealth of imagery, under- 
 standing of the human heart and its needs, and in the 
 New Testament, its high morality. She had never ex- 
 perienced the reaction from passionate faith to skepti- 
 cism, therefore, had never known the nausea and hatred 
 of the deceived, who discover their error ; and once, when 
 a volume of Ingersoll's lectures was put into her hands, 
 she was shocked by the jests and sneers, and felt so 
 strongly repelled by the low vulgarity which could de- 
 grade the highest instincts of the human heart, that it was 
 difficult for her to reconcile the buffoonery of the iconoclast 
 with the fact that the iconoclast himself had the warm 
 impulsive heart of a child. Her father had known him 
 and loved him dearly. Renan's Life of Jesus affected 
 her much in the same way. This modern fictitious treat-
 
 THE TRELOARS 311 
 
 ment of the exquisite spirituality of Christ; the cool ef- 
 frontery of this attempt to fill out the original narrative 
 by setting down mere conjectures as accepted facts; this 
 substitution of a heated and sensuous imagination for the 
 beautiful simplicity of the narrative of the apostles who 
 gave us the essence of heart and brain, instead of the cut 
 of the sandals and the appearance of the landscape, were 
 exceedingly repulsive to her. Surely, he who gives a 
 great hope or a great moral uplift to the human heart 
 is entitled even from the unbeliever to as much re- 
 spect and gratitude as the secular poet or artist. 
 
 She knew that Margaret would never be satisfied with 
 any teaching that did not recognize a deity incarnate ; yet 
 how could she teach what she felt was not true? Then 
 the dangerous thought flashed through her mind : " How 
 do I know it isn't true ? It isn't true for me, but if it is 
 true for Margaret, what right have I to say that my truth 
 is the truth, and hers is not? How can we know truth 
 anyway, we who are but atoms in an infinite universe? 
 We can only have a little two-inch rule by which to meas- 
 ure each other in this tiny corner of the universe, and 
 this fragment of time. What difference does it make 
 which fractional part of the whole truth we get hold of, 
 if it only works out well in our lives? Ah, baby boy, 
 baby boy ! " she leaned over and touched the child's 
 crib by her bed, " you don't know what a philosopher 
 your poor old mamma is trying to make of herself for 
 your sake. She'll teach you to say ' Our Father' but 
 when you are old enough to understand, she'll tell you 
 what she thinks is true. I must talk with father about 
 that, to-morrow." 
 
 She rose bright and early to talk with him about it, 
 leaving the baby in charge of the maid and going out 
 for a walk with him after breakfast. She told him of 
 her promise to Margaret and her sleepless night with 
 its tormenting questions. Then she ended: 
 
 " If a moral truth works out better than another one 
 in making life beautiful for everybody, why shouldn't we
 
 312 THE TRELOARS 
 
 accept it as a truth and stop bothering our heads about 
 just how big a truth it is? It is big enough for us ; that's 
 all that concerns us, isn't it ? " 
 
 " Why, Dolly, you're a pragmatist ! " 
 
 " A what, Daddy ? I knew I was getting to be some- 
 thing over night, but I didn't know it was as bad as that. 
 A pragmatist! What's a pragmatist? " 
 
 " Pragmatism, my child, is intellectual laziness. It's 
 the acceptance of a half-truth for a whole one, on the 
 principle that half a loaf is better than no loaf at all. 
 The pragmatist is the man who sets out to get the pot 
 of gold at the end of the rainbow, and stops short on the 
 way to pick up a brass farthing that will buy him a pot 
 of beer." 
 
 "Well, isn't he sensible? Isn't his thirst the first 
 pressing need ? " 
 
 " Certainly, but he shouldn't call his brass farthing, or 
 his pot of beer, the pot of gold." 
 
 "Does he do that?" 
 
 " Yes, the pragmatist calls the half-truth which fits his 
 needs, the whole truth, so far as he is concerned, and is 
 content. The real philosopher is incapable of that easy 
 satisfaction. He may be forced to pick up the brass 
 farthing for his use, but he never, for a moment, dreams 
 that it has more than its face value. He knows clearly 
 the difference between the true and the expedient; and, 
 because of that, he wants no half truths, he wants the 
 whole truth. He seeks the absolute, not the relative. To 
 a certain extent, we are all of us pragmatists. Take Kant, 
 for example ; he was a philosopher in the Critique of Pure 
 Reason; and he was a pragmatist in the Critique of Prac- 
 tical Reason. The logic of pure reason ended in the de- 
 nial of any indubitable proof of God, freedom, and im- 
 mortality. The logic of practical reason assumes them 
 all as conditions of morality, and reasons for being." 
 
 " Well, if a great philosopher like Kant is permitted to 
 wabble about like that, I think that a poor young woman 
 with a problem on her hand might be allowed to wabble a
 
 THE TRELOARS 313 
 
 little, too, without being called hard names, don't you 
 think so ? " 
 
 " Yes, so long as she really knows that she is wabbling 
 and not walking straight." 
 
 " O, I should know that, father. I begin to feel so 
 frightfully ignorant, and it never troubled me in the least, 
 until now. I do love the truth, I do really hunger for it ; 
 but I see that I am not big enough to reach it and the 
 half truth within my grasp must do the service of the 
 whole, and perhaps, father," her face brightened as she 
 spoke, " the whole truth would crush me with its im- 
 mensity, and after all there are lovely, nourishing illu- 
 sions that are as good for hungry souls as truths, perhaps 
 better. I am glad you never killed the love of fairy 
 stories in me, nor destroyed the pretty little myth of 
 Santa Claus that just naturally dried up and fell off me 
 like the seed leaves of a plant, when they are no longer 
 of any use to it. And I have loved the Bible, Apocrypha, 
 and all. It is strewn all over with nuggets of gold, wise 
 precepts of life, prudent counsel, and its language is full 
 of music and color. I shall read from it a great deal to 
 Eugene, when he is a little older. No one should grow 
 up ignorant of the Christian story, whether he believes it 
 or not, should he ? " 
 
 "Of course not, Dolly, especially in a Christian land 
 that spends millions on heathens in foreign countries ; 
 and, again, no so-called free-thinkers ought to put Christ 
 on a lower level than Plato and Socrates; for his phi- 
 losophy of life, if really lived and not mouthed, though 
 it may be incompatible with what the world calls com- 
 mercial progress, is the straightest road to moral progress 
 that has ever been pointed out ; and if the nations of Eu- 
 rope were on it to-day, we shouldn't be witnesses of the 
 horrible wholesale murder that is going on there. O 
 Dolly, it shames me to the heart to witness this second 
 fall of man from eating too freely of the fruit of knowl- 
 edge and all my life I have thought that knowledge 
 is power in the highest as well as the lowest sense. What
 
 3H THE TRELOARS 
 
 is the use of building laboratories to search the secrets 
 of nature, if we are to employ our knowledge in self- 
 destruction. That's the one thing Phil and I agreed on 
 last night. He says the war is the logical conclusion 
 of the slogan of our age which is no longer: 'Be a 
 Christian ! Be a good man ! Be a gentleman ! ' but ' Be 
 a sport ! ' I guess he's right." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV 
 
 DICK'S lively imagination had recommended him to 
 Cressy, when he had selected him for a war correspond- 
 ent, and his chief had said to him in parting: 
 
 " Now remember, Treloar, that a good reporter's first 
 business is to supply copy, and to invent a scene when 
 he can't see it.' War is damnable butchery. You can't 
 be off color in the carnage-line, no matter how bloody 
 you paint it; but be as dispassionate as possible. Stand 
 above the conflict. Be an eye that sees and a tongue 
 that reports, but don't let the pulsations of your heart be 
 felt in the reports. Don't forget that our role is a neu- 
 tral one. We have readers of all nations to please, and 
 we don't want the subscription list to grow smaller. Our 
 readers want facts and pictures ; they don't want opin- 
 ions. They have their own opinions ready made from 
 their birth, and nothing you can say or do can change 
 them. The cruelties of their ancestral nations will be 
 virtues in their eyes, and they will strike medals to com- 
 memorate their atrocities ; brute ferocity will be courage ; 
 lying, plundering, breaking of treaties will be astute- 
 ness. In the enemy, the same things will be barbarism." 
 
 Dick had received his directions without a comment ; 
 but though his lively imagination had pictured the horrors 
 of war vividly enough in a general way, he found the 
 reality of its details far more horrible than it had been in 
 his power to conceive. As for standing above the con- 
 flict that might be a possible attitude for the solitary
 
 THE TRELOARS 315 
 
 philosopher shut in among his books in his library, or for 
 the business man locked in his office, quietly smoking his 
 cigar and casting up his profits ; but to the man who was a 
 witness of the conflict, who heard the roar of the flames as 
 they destroyed towns and villages and devoured the 
 beautiful monuments of the past, enshrined in the mem- 
 ory of man ; who saw the bent and shivering forms of 
 women and children, widowed and orphaned, and the 
 silent futile despair of the old, and the blood-stained 
 ground strewn with the flower of manhood, lifeless and 
 mangled beyond recognition; who saw the air rain mis- 
 siles of death, and felt the solid earth rock beneath his 
 feet to one who saw these things, there was something 
 shudderingly repulsive in the calm, impartial attitude of 
 neutrality. What was there to say that could lessen or 
 magnify the odium and hideousness of it, or shorten by a 
 step this frenzied race into the arms of death? But 
 there was still a world of good to be done; innumerable 
 acts of kindness and mercy to be shown in relieving the 
 distress of the hungry and the homeless, and in this di- 
 rection, his own country was alert and generous, and 
 he had not to blush for her coldness. There were count- 
 less things to be done for the wounded and dying, and 
 after trying himself out in various directions, Dick finally 
 severed his connection with his newspaper, and entered 
 the field service of France as a driver in an ambulance 
 corps. 
 
 It was a work requiring courage, coolness, endurance. 
 Courage and endurance he had in full measure, but he 
 had to school himself to calmness in the presence of an- 
 guish. He felt from the beginning that peculiar, inexpli- 
 cable conviction of exemption from danger which is not 
 so much courage as the natural accompaniment of youth 
 and vigor. Shrapnel and ball, and asphyxiating gas 
 might kill his comrades, but he himself felt secure, as if 
 nature had some particular design in sheltering him from 
 harm. He learned to hear without wincing the hideous 
 clamor of bursting shells and hissing balls ; but he never
 
 316 THE TRELOARS 
 
 visited the fields of the slain, the dying and the wounded, 
 without experiencing the same intensity of horror, the 
 same nausea, and revulsion at this awful spectacle of 
 human agony and human wickedness, this blind ferocity, 
 which made the senselessness of the beast beautiful in 
 comparison with the intelligence of man. He had wor- 
 shiped the intelligence, feeling it the crowning gift of 
 life ; and now it seemed an accursed thing. Of what use 
 the long arduous struggle from the cave-man to the man 
 in the palace, if the struggle must end in a creature with 
 a cunning brain and a seared heart more odious with 
 all his poor, glittering trappings of wealth and power 
 than the naked, gibbering creature from whom he de- 
 scended ? 
 
 "Savage patriotism and ferocity" how admirably the 
 words written by Tolstoi twenty years before, fitted the 
 scenes among which Dick lived ; and how admirably they 
 foreshadowed that fatal paranoia in a monarch which 
 gives him the power of infecting a whole nation with his 
 hallucinations of danger; for Dick saw clearly that this 
 ferocity burned in the hearts of the rulers rather than in 
 the hearts of the fighters, who were but the passive in- 
 struments of their hatreds, mere pawns pushed from the 
 chessboard of life by inexorable, white, jeweled fingers 
 that had nothing to do but to push well out of dan- 
 ger themselves, in comfort and luxury. But he real- 
 ized, also, that the game, once begun, must be played 
 through to the bitter end, played till the challenging 
 king should be checkmated forever. 
 
 It was the third winter of Dick's service at the front. 
 He had grown gaunt and hollow-eyed, and his once clear 
 and fresh complexion was tanned and ruddied by the 
 wind and sun, but his health was good, and he had not 
 lost a day at his task. The. great siege of Verdun was 
 going on. Backwards and forwards surged the oppos- 
 ing forces among the succession of heights, ravines, and 
 woods which surround the fortress. "Hold on, cost 
 what it may! Don't recoil at any price! Be killed to the
 
 THE TRELOARS 317 
 
 last man rather than yield an inch of ground!" were the 
 orders of the French commanders, and the fortress, week 
 after week, month after month, held on in biting winter 
 winds and shriveling summer heat, under a crushing, 
 roaring, hissing rain of steel and iron that demolished 
 village after village, uprooted forests and scattered their 
 trees in splinters over the shivering earth, and strewed 
 with the dead the patient soil which year after year had 
 borne its rich harvests for the living. 
 
 It was after one of the terrific assaults and repulses, 
 in early March, that Dick went out with the ambulance 
 corps on its errand of mercy. It was a chill, raw day, 
 the air damp and heavy with a threatening storm; and 
 the sky grew thicker and darker, as they approached the 
 fields of death over which the black smoke of the 
 battle still hovered, rent from time to time by sinister 
 flashes of fire. Silently, quickly the men went about 
 their task, searching among mangled bodies for those 
 in whom life was not yet extinct. Tenderly, gently, they 
 gave them all possible care, lifting them on to stretchers 
 and carrying them to the ambulance wagons. Many 
 begged to be killed outright, to put an end to their suf- 
 ferings. Some cursed the hands that touched them, and 
 others blessed them, and some, unconscious of any touch, 
 murmured in their delirium the one sweet word which in 
 all languages is the symbol of the tenderest, most un- 
 wearied compassion, " Mother! Mother I" Dick's heart 
 beat fast; he set his lips tight together to suppress the 
 anguish and horror which he felt. Swiftly he moved 
 among these helpless wrecks of men who, but yesterday 
 nay only an hour or two ago had moved among the 
 living, strong and fearless as himself. He murmured 
 tender words of affectionate sympathy to friend or foe, 
 alike, where all feelings of partisanship were effaced 
 before an agony that lifted them all above the conflict. 
 
 The snow began to fall, the air to darken; the short 
 winter day was nearing to its close, and one by one, the 
 long train of ambulances with their freight of human
 
 3i8 THE TRELOARS 
 
 wretchedness had started for the field hospital. Dick, 
 glancing eagerly about in the fading light, discerned a 
 dark, shapeless form at some distance from where he 
 was working, and shouted to a young American, who like 
 himself, had enlisted in the French service: 
 
 " Wait a minute, Dan, till I see if anybody needs us 
 yonder." 
 
 He hurried to the spot, stumbling over the broken 
 ground, and bent over the prostrate form lying on its 
 face. He turned the body over, looked intently at the 
 blood-stained face, and then recoiled with a cry. 
 
 " What's the matter, Dick ? " called his companion, 
 hurrying towards him. 
 
 Dick could just manage to say, with a pitiful break in 
 his voice : " I knew him, Dan. It's an old friend of 
 mine, Max Gietmann." 
 
 " Is he dead ? " asked Dick's companion, bending over 
 the body in his turn and noticing that it was clothed in 
 the uniform of a German officer. " On the wrong side," 
 he thought, but he did not say it; for he knew that just 
 now, to Dick, there was no side. So he said quietly: 
 
 " Cheer up, old chap. It can't be helped. His troubles 
 are all over now, and we must go back to camp with the 
 wounded." 
 
 " No, Dan, I'm not going back yet. I can't leave him 
 here to lie on the ground all night. I'm going to bury 
 him." 
 
 " But we can't wait for that, now, you know," and Dan 
 put his hand affectionately on Dick's shoulder. " We 
 have to go back with this load now. The ground is 
 frozen, it'll take an hour or two to dig a grave." 
 
 " I know it, but I am not going back with you. I can 
 walk. Just go on. I'll get the pick and spade." 
 
 " Well, I'll tell you, Dick, what I'll do," replied Dan, 
 seeing that it was useless to argue. " When you're 
 through, strike into the main road back to the camp, and 
 I'll come back to meet you in an auto just as soon as I've 
 unloaded."
 
 THE TRELOARS 319 
 
 " All right, Dan, thank you." 
 
 Dick took the pick and spade and went back to the 
 little clump of jagged, broken stumps, where once had 
 stood a leafy grove, and near which now lay the dead body 
 of his youthful friend. His heart was heavy as lead, and 
 his throat swelled painful. 
 
 Poor Max! Dick forgot all his faults, his arrogance, 
 his egotism, his stubborn will to dominate, right or wrong. 
 He remembered only their sunny hours of friendship, the 
 proud intellect that called no man master, but preferred 
 to search, to inquire, to doubt, till it found its own solu- 
 tion to its problems. It is true that in later years, the 
 two friends had drifted far apart intellectually, but deep 
 in the heart of each had persisted a strong affection which 
 no difference in opinion had destroyed. Only yesterday, 
 in a quiet pause in his work, Dick had been thinking of 
 Max, wondering what he was doing, where he was, and if 
 he were beginning to realize the awful results of the will 
 to power, which he had adopted as the guide to his life ; 
 and the no less terrible results of anarchy in thought, 
 morals, and conduct; and that the law of brotherly love 
 is as imperative in the world of soul, as the law of gravi- 
 tation in the physical world, without which there would 
 be nothing but chaos. 
 
 " O, Max ! " he cried ; his chest heaved convulsively, 
 and he buried his face in his hands. 
 
 When he rose from his kneeling posture, he noticed 
 that it had grown very much darker, and he knew that 
 he must hurry his task if he wished to complete it before 
 night-fall. He threw off his long overcoat, with its cir- 
 cular cape, and with feverish haste, he began to dig close 
 to the body, so that he could lower it into the grave with- 
 out difficulty. The frozen soil made his task a difficult 
 one, so that by the time he had completed it, he was drip- 
 ping with sweat, and pausing for a moment, before at- 
 tempting to lower the body into the grave, he felt a sud- 
 den chill run over him. He had dug the grave, but not 
 so deep that standing within it, he would have any diffi-
 
 320 THE TRELOARS 
 
 culty in reaching the body, at the edge of it. As he lifted 
 the body, a small notebook fell from one of the pockets, 
 and after carefully adjusting the body in the grave, Dick 
 picked up the notebook, wiped the snow from it, and 
 was about to put it into his own pocket as a precious sou- 
 venir of his friend, when the thought occurred to him 
 that to do this, was to violate the privacy of the dead, and 
 stooping once more, he put the book back into the pocket 
 from which it had fallen. Then feeling a shudder of re- 
 pugnance at the thought of throwing the heavy clods of 
 frozen earth into the bruised, stained face and staring 
 eyes, Dick took his outer coat and spread it carefully over 
 the body, then, climbing out of the grave, filled it up with 
 nervous haste and laid his tools and a pile of brushwood 
 over it as a mark by which to recognize it when he should 
 return in the daylight. 
 
 By the time he had finished it was quite dark and the 
 snow was falling faster. The roaring of artillery was still 
 heard from time to time, and sudden gleams of red light 
 flashed through the snow-filled air illuminating the 
 dreary landscape for a moment. By one of these flashes 
 Dick perceived that he was nowhere near the main road, 
 leading back to the camp, and that in the reaction of ex- 
 haustion and weariness increased by depressing emo- 
 tion he had lost his sense of direction. For a moment, 
 the cowardly wish to yield to the drowsy weariness came 
 over him. It would be so easy to sink to the ground and 
 let the exhaustion, the cold, and the snow have their will 
 with him. What was life but a succession of disillu- 
 sions and pain? Why should he mourn for Max? He 
 was at rest ; it was he himself whose fate was pitiable, for 
 he had still to carry about with him the heavy burden of 
 a painful consciousness. 
 
 But deep within him, the strong instinct of life was 
 urging him forward, stumbling, panting, straining his 
 eyes through the darkness, feeling the wet snow on his 
 face and hands, feeling it cling about his feet, collecting 
 in balls under his boot-heels and impeding his progress.
 
 THE TRELOARS 321 
 
 Once his coat caught on a jagged piece of projecting wire 
 and in tearing himself loose, he scratched his hands badly 
 and the keen cold air gave a stinging sharpness to the 
 wounds. He had left his gloves in his overcoat pocket, 
 and he tried now to protect his hands from the cold, and 
 from the burning pain of the deep scratches by putting 
 them under his arm-pits and pressing them against his 
 body. But the position was unfavorable for walking, 
 the ground was rough and uneven plowed in places by 
 iron missiles. He began to suspect that he was wander- 
 ing far from the main road. Then he suddenly recol- 
 lected Dan's promise. He stood still and listened in- 
 tently for the sound of an approaching machine, and 
 looked for the gleaming of its lamps, but no sound broke 
 the stillness except the rush of the wind and the fall of 
 the snow on his garments, and nothing was visible. He 
 felt dizzy, slightly nauseated, and trembled with ex- 
 haustion. He knew he would never be able to make his 
 way back to the camp, but he felt neither fear nor re- 
 gret, only confusion and lethargy, a troubled sense of life 
 flickering low and shadowy, like a dying flame. In one 
 of the upward flashes of the flame, he tried with all his 
 might to collect himself for a supreme effort, and put- 
 ting his fingers to his lips, he blew a loud shrill whistle. 
 The wind blew sharper, the snow fell thicker and faster, 
 he staggered forward, involuntarily groaning; suddenly 
 his feet struck a treacherous bit of ice, he slipped and 
 fell backward, his head striking a stone. A sensation of 
 keen, cutting pain and of an explosion of a thousand 
 bright, sparkling lights about him, and he knew nothing 
 more. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV 
 
 IT was a lovely April morning, and through the field 
 hospital, covered with tents like the shores of a summer 
 watering place, the breath of spring was blowing, carry- 
 ing with it the fresh sweet odors of the fruitful earth
 
 322 THE TRELOARS 
 
 and the melodious whistling of birds. In one of these 
 white tents, facing the east, a stalwart fellow was seated 
 by a narrow cot on which lay a white and wasted figure, 
 profoundly sleeping. 
 
 The young man was reading, and from time to time, 
 put down his book to look intently at his charge, or to 
 lay his hand lightly on the sick man's cheeks, to assure 
 himself that he had no fever or ta draw the coverlet up 
 more closely about his shoulders, lest a draught from the 
 open entrance might chill him. A small, round clock on 
 the table near the bed, pointed to ten. A glass, covered 
 with a saucer, in which lay a teaspoon, stood near the 
 clock. The young man looked at his charge, then at the 
 clock, shook his head and resumed his reading. At that 
 moment, a surgeon, who was making his morning round, 
 entered the tent and nodding to the young man, who had 
 risen with a polite salutation, he said, taking the patient's 
 hand and counting his pulse beats: 
 
 " No fever this morning. That's good. How did he 
 pass the night ? " 
 
 " Very restless the greater part of the night, and still 
 delirious. About two o'clock, he fell into this deep sleep, 
 and I thought it best not to wake him to give him his 
 medicine." 
 
 " That's right ; but if he doesn't wake before noon, 
 you'd better rouse him, and give him something light and 
 nourishing. He needs food now, in very small quantities 
 at first, and at intervals of two or three hours. I'll drop 
 in again before night." 
 
 "You think he's coming out all right, Doctor?" 
 
 " O, yes, no doubt about it, but he's had a narrow es- 
 cape." 
 
 " I should think so ! Another hour on that damp field, 
 and we should have had to lay him beside his friend." 
 
 The doctor nodded in assent and went on his way. The 
 young man put his book down on the table and sauntered 
 out into the open space before the tent, and watched the 
 doctor as he passed quickly on from tent to tent. Then
 
 THE TRELOARS 323 
 
 he looked up at the bright blue sky over which white 
 masses of clouds were seething up from the horizon and 
 breaking into shreds and into rounded masses and drift- 
 ing away, and his thoughts drifted with them far beyond 
 the horizon and the ocean barrier, to the land that had 
 given him birth. His thoughts had an unwonted seri- 
 ousness that produced in him the sense of a fullness of 
 life which he had not known there. The son of an 
 American millionaire, he had never had a wish long un- 
 gratified. He was a Harvard graduate, not because he 
 had any particular inclination for learning, but because 
 it is the proper thing for a rich man's son to be a univer- 
 sity graduate. He left Cambridge with a magnificent rec- 
 ord in athletics and a sturdy contempt for a college pro- 
 fessor which might have been a reflection on his college 
 and his professors, if the standard by which he measured 
 them had not been more appropriate for a prize-fighter 
 than for a professor. To Dan Holman, a man was a man 
 by virtue of his muscle and his grit, by which he always 
 found himself right side up no matter what buffets for- 
 tune might give him. It is true that fortune had not 
 buffeted him in the least, but he felt that he had that 
 within him which could have stood the test. He was 
 only six or seven years Dick's senior, but he was twice his 
 age in what is called knowledge of the world, and very 
 much his junior in the rare knowledge that is the fruit of 
 reflection. 
 
 He had traveled all over the world, looked vice and 
 misery frankly in the face, and having exhausted his 
 curiosity, passed on to some new experience under the im- 
 pression that life means fullness and variety of sensa- 
 tion, until at last he found himself bankrupt in sensation : 
 nothing could greatly shock, surprise or please him any 
 more, and he might have truly exclaimed with Hamlet: 
 " Man delights not me, no, nor woman neither." He 
 was a great favorite with women, but too thoroughly 
 virile to be their slave or to fall into a whining, sickly 
 eroticism. When the war broke out in Europe, he hailed
 
 324 THE TRELOARS 
 
 it as a godsend, a relief from boredom, and hurried to 
 France to enlist in the aviation service. Chance threw 
 him in the way of Dick Treloar, who rendered him an 
 important service by interpreting his bad French at a 
 critical moment and the two young men became fast 
 friends. When Dick entered the ambulance service, Dan 
 entered it also, in order not to be separated from him. 
 A warm, pure, spontaneous attraction drew him and held 
 him to Dick, awakening in him a multitude of delightful 
 emotions. Before his friendship with Dick, he had 
 though it a proof of effeminacy to feel deeply about any- 
 thing. He had no real conception of suffering, for he 
 had never suffered. He had not even known what it was 
 to be really thirsty or hungry, and his splendid physique 
 had spared him the knowledge of physical pain. His 
 wealth and health had, to a certain extent, exempted him 
 from many of the common experiences of his fellow men 
 and he was little more than a magnificent animal, await- 
 ing its soul birth ; but the soul was born now and enter- 
 ing into its inheritance of human sympathy and human 
 thought. Dick and the war were his mentors. In 
 short, in the vigorous New Testament phrasd, he had 
 come to himself. 
 
 Yes, Dan had learned his lesson; he had walked along 
 the heights of life and bowed his head in the depths. He 
 had watched unweariedly by Dick's bedside since he 
 picked him up unconscious from the frozen ground in 
 the stormy, wintry night of March. His lips unused to 
 prayer had offered up a trembling petition to the Great 
 Unknown that Dick's life might be spared. This morn- 
 ing as he paced before the tent in the sweet sunlight, 
 he renewed the petition, and felt assured that it had been 
 heard. 
 
 After smoking a cigar, he threw away the stub and 
 tiptoed into the tent, again. Dick was still sleeping, but 
 as Dan leaned over him, Dick moved his head uneasily 
 several times, then slowly opened his eyes. He stared 
 at Dan in astonishment, lifted his head, and looked about 
 him in bewilderment ; then said feebly :
 
 THE TRELOARS 325 
 
 "Have I been sick?" 
 
 Trying to lift himself and falling back exhausted, he 
 answered his own question with the words: 
 
 " I guess I have, for I haven't any strength. How long 
 have I been lying here ? " 
 
 " Nearly a month, old boy. You went down when 
 the snow was on the ground. Do you remember ? " 
 
 Dick put his hand to his forehead and knitted his brow, 
 then he drew his hand down over his eyes, and his lips 
 quivered as he answered:, 
 
 " Yes, I remember. I buried him ; but I left the pick 
 on the grave to mark it." 
 
 " I found it, Dick, there's a white, wooden cross there 
 now, with the date on it, and the words, A German 
 Officer. But we won't think about that any more. 
 There's a whole drawer full of letters here for you." 
 
 Dan pulled out the drawer of the little table by the 
 bedside, then he hastily shut it again, adding: 
 
 " But you're not to have a look at them yet till you're 
 a bit stronger. The doctor says you're to have some- 
 thing light and nourishing. Do you feel hungry?" 
 
 " Hungry ? Empty as a collapsed balloon. Are you 
 sure he said light, Dan ? " 
 
 Dan scratched his head and raised his eyebrows. 
 
 "Yes. I'm awfully sorry, but he said light, and I 
 guess we'd better stick to that, at first. I'll get you some- 
 thing right away. We are not far from the big hospital. 
 I'll be back in a jiffy." 
 
 He stopped at the open door to add warningly: 
 
 " Now, don't you be trying anything rash, till I come 
 back. Do you hear ? You won't get at the letters ? " 
 
 Dick smiled faintly again, answered no, and closed his 
 eyes. He had caught sight of the green fields outside, 
 and it caused a sudden sensation of nausea. Slowly, the 
 past was coming back to him, recreating his identity out 
 of the confusion of delirium, which had temporarily de- 
 stroyed it. He felt literally as if he had died, and had 
 come to life again. For a time he pondered over this
 
 326 THE TRELOARS 
 
 strange fact then he made an effort to rise into a sit- 
 ting posture, but he fell back exhausted, just as Dan 
 entered the tent with a tray covered by a white cloth. 
 
 " None of that, old man," Dan called out cheerily. 
 " What did you promise me when I left ? That you 
 wouldn't be trying anything rash, wasn't it? Fine at 
 keeping a promise, aren't you ? " 
 
 Dick's voice had a weary drawl in it, as he replied : 
 
 " I was just trying to see if I could sit up, but I don't 
 think I can yet." 
 
 " No, of course you can't. Who expects you to? Just 
 wait till you get outside of some of this good chicken 
 broth, and then we'll see what you can do. Does it 
 smell good ? " 
 
 Dan put the cloth on the table and removed the cover 
 from the steaming bowl. 
 
 " You bet it does ! I think I could eat it bowl and 
 all." 
 
 " Just wait till I prop you up a bit, and put this napkin 
 under your chin. There you are, fine as a feather ! 
 Your hand's a bit trembling, isn't it ? Look here, let me 
 feed you; we don't want to lose any of this good broth. 
 There! that's better! Does it hit the right spot?" 
 
 Dick nodded his head affirmatively and opened his 
 mouth for a fresh spoonful of the savory broth, and hav- 
 ing finished it, he asked: 
 
 "Dan, did you ever take care of the sick, before?" 
 
 " Never! This is my 'prentice job." 
 
 " You're a master hand at it, anyway, Dan. I can't be- 
 gin to tell you how grateful " 
 
 " Then don't you try it," interrupted Dan imperatively. 
 " Say, you don't know what a peach of a beard you've 
 raised. Your mother wouldn't know you." 
 
 " I haven't any mother, Dan, but I've a sister who has 
 been mother to me since I was a child. By the way, 
 there must be some letters there from her. Will you 
 let me have a look at them now ? " 
 
 Dan's heart beat faster, and he mentally called himself
 
 THE TRELOARS 327 
 
 a chump for suggesting the letters. He feared that read- 
 ing them might excite Dick, and bring on his fever again, 
 so he said, resolutely : 
 
 " Now, look here, Dick, I'll let you look at the en- 
 velopes, but I don't want you to get excited to-day. 
 You're on the up-grade now, and we don't want any slip- 
 ping backwards. Do you understand ? " 
 
 " Yes, but you don't understand what a lot of good 
 a kind, cheery word from home would do me. It would 
 excite me unfavorably to lie here and think about the 
 letters and wonder what is in them." 
 
 He put out his thin, white hand, and Dan's big brown 
 one closed over it heartily. 
 
 " I can't read the letters, myself, Dan," he went on, 
 " my eyes are tired. I'm weak, that's all. Now if you'd 
 just read me a few letters from home while I listen with 
 my eyes shut, it will do me more good than medicine." 
 
 " All right, old man, we'll try it," said Dan, seating 
 himself at the table and opening the drawer, determined 
 to read slowly, and glance on ahead. If there were any- 
 thing sad or depressing in the letter, he would skip these 
 lines or trust to his power of cheerful improvisation. 
 The first letter he pulled out was a bulging one with 
 double postage on it, and feeling it carefully, he said: 
 
 " I think this one has kodak pictures In it." 
 
 Sure enough, it had. It was one of Dolly's letters, 
 containing three kodak pictures of a beautiful, laughing 
 child in various positions. In one of them, she herself 
 was standing near a clump of bushes, and the child was 
 playing near her. 
 
 " I don't think this will hurt your eyes, Dick." 
 
 Dan handed the pictures to him and he looked at them 
 eagerly, pressing to his lips the one containing Dolly's 
 picture. 
 
 " That's my boy, Dan." 
 
 " Your boy ? Why I didn't know you were married." 
 
 Dan felt a sudden, nasty twinge of jealousy. Why had 
 not Dick told him that he was married?
 
 328 THE TRELOARS 
 
 " And that's your wife," he continued. " She's a beau- 
 tiful woman." 
 
 " No, that's not my wife, Dan. My wife is dead. 
 That's a young girl I have known all my life, and she is 
 just as good as she is beautiful. She's bringing up my 
 boy." 
 
 Dan suppressed a sigh, and began reading Dolly's let- 
 ter. There was nothing in it to be left out. It was 
 as bright and cheering as a sunny day in spring, full of 
 home atmosphere, household chatter, quaint turns of ex- 
 pression, and pretty quotations from the child ; but when 
 he had finished reading, Dan noticed a bright flush on 
 Dick's face, and said suspiciously, as he put his cool hand 
 on Dick's forehead: 
 
 " Now, if this means more fever, we come to a dead 
 stop." 
 
 Dick laughed and looked at him mischievously. 
 
 " Dan, did you ever surreptitiously open the oven- 
 door, when the Christmas baking was going on, and get 
 the warm sweet heat of the cakes and cookies full in 
 your face? It wasn't a fever you had when you shut 
 the door again. You were just warmed and delighted." 
 
 " Hum ! Do you think you can stand some more 
 sweetening and warming? " 
 
 " Yes, go on." 
 
 " Well, here's a letter that is not from Dolly. Dolly's 
 handwriting has a little kick and flutter in it, entirely 
 wanting in this young lady's, for it is a young lady who is 
 writing, and she minds her p's and q's, and puts the dots 
 on her i's where they ought to be, instead of sowing them 
 rather wildly, anywhere above the word, as Dolly does. 
 Do you know who it is ? " 
 
 " Yes, that's my sister, Margaret." 
 
 " I think this letter has a picture in it, too. Yes, here 
 it is. Why, Dick, she looks just like you ! That's your 
 sister." 
 
 " Yes, that's my sister, God bless her ! " 
 
 The tears started to his eyes, and he fervently kissed
 
 THE TRELOARS 329 
 
 the picture; after looking at it long and lovingly, he 
 handed it back to Dan, saying: 
 
 " You'll have to answer all these letters for me, Dan, 
 and when you write, don't tell Margaret just how sick 
 I've been." 
 
 " No. I'm going to tell her that we're coming home ; 
 for you know, you're ordered home to get well, Dick, 
 just as soon as you're able to travel. The doctor told 
 me that you needed to get out of this hell, for a while ; and 
 I'm going with you. I need a furlough, too. I've had 
 my bellyful of it, and I want a glimpse of paradise, for a 
 change." 
 
 He paused, looked steadily at Margaret's picture for 
 a minute or two. " Yes, she's very much like you. Now 
 let's see what she says." 
 
 It was a letter that reflected the sweetness of the writer 
 and her loving solicitude for her brother. She had had 
 a singular dream, one night, that had made a profound 
 impression upon her. She saw Dick wandering on a 
 dark and storm-swept field; she saw him fall, and par- 
 alyzed with terror, she stood helpless at some distance, 
 when suddenly a light flashed across the field, and a tall 
 dark man, bent over him, took him in his arms and 
 vanished in the darkness. It was all so wonderfully real, 
 so vivid, that she awoke with a firm conviction that some- 
 thing of the sort had really taken place, and that he had 
 been saved from death. She had spoken of it to no one, 
 not even to Dolly, for she disliked to alarm any one 
 unnecessarily, or seem to give undue importance to what 
 might be only a meaningless vision, the result of her 
 fears, and her constant thought of him. Would he an- 
 swer at once and tell her the truth ? And if the tall dark 
 man really existed instead of being a creature of her 
 fancy, would he tell him that no words could express her 
 gratitude for any kindness rendered to her beloved 
 brother? She concluded her letter by saying that she 
 had been impressed also, by the fourth chapter of second 
 Esdras which seemed to her to contain an allegory most
 
 330 THE TRELOARS 
 
 applicable to the present war situation, as well as a re- 
 proof to those who sought to penetrate God's judgments 
 and to seek to unravel mysteries far beyond their ken. 
 She would not fill her letter with quotations from it, but 
 would ask him to read it at his earliest convenience and 
 tell her what he thought of it. 
 
 " Well, what do you think of that ? " asked Dan, look- 
 ing at Dick with wide staring eyes which narrowed sud- 
 denly, when a smile broke over his face. 
 
 " That there are more things in heaven and earth, Ho- 
 ratio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. I don't 
 know what to make of it. Isn't it strange ? " 
 
 " Yes, but you don't know it all, yet, Dick. The tall 
 dark man was reading this very morning, while you 
 slept, that very same chapter in Esdras, and thinking 
 that very same thing. Dick, there's something in this. 
 Here's the book." 
 
 He stooped, and from a lower shelf of the table lifted 
 a Bible. 
 
 "That little French chaplain brought it in the other 
 day and left it with me. He said it was the only English 
 Bible he had, and that he'd come round again in a few 
 days and get it. See here, here's the place she means. 
 The fellow that's talking has been growling about not 
 understanding how the Lord runs things, and this angel, 
 Ariel, answers him. Now listen." 
 
 " Then said I unto hint, It were better that we were 
 not at all than that we should live still in wickedness, 
 and to suffer and not to know wherefore. 
 
 " He answered me, and said, I went into a forest into a 
 plain, and the trees took counsel, 
 
 " And said, Come let us go and make war against the 
 sea, that it may depart away before us, and that we may 
 make us more woods." 
 
 " That's the Germans," interpolated Dan, " now here 
 come the Allies." 
 
 " 'The Hoods of the sea also in like manner took coun- 
 sel and said, Come let us go up and subdue the woods of
 
 THE TRELOARS 331 
 
 the plain, that there also we may make us another country. 
 
 " The thought of the wood was in vain, for the fire 
 came and consumed it. 
 
 " The thought of the floods of the sea came likewise to 
 nought, for the sand stood up and stopped them. 
 
 "If thou wert judge now betwixt these tzvo, whom 
 would' st thou begin to justify ? or whom would' st thou 
 condemn? 
 
 "I answered and said, Verily it is a foolish thought 
 that they both have devised, for the ground is given unto 
 the wood, and the sea also hath his place to bear his 
 floods. 
 
 " Then answered he me and said, Thou hast given 
 a right judgment; but why judgest thou not thyself 
 also? 
 
 "For like as the ground is given unto the wood, and 
 the sea to his Hoods; even so they that dwell upon the 
 earth may understand nothing but that which is upon 
 the earth; and he that dwelleth above the heavens may 
 only understand the things that are above the height of 
 the heavens. 
 
 " And we pass away out of the world as grasshoppers, 
 and our life is astonishment and fear, and we are not 
 worthy to obtain mercy. 
 
 . . . " The evil is sown, but the destruction thereof is 
 not yet come. 
 
 "If therefore that which is sown be not turned up- 
 side down, and if the place where the evil is sown pass 
 not away, then cannot it come that is sown with good." 
 
 " Dick," said Dan, closing his Bible and laying it back 
 on the shelf, " this upside down business that is going 
 on over here, may just be the clearing of the ground for 
 the sowing of the good. I think your sister is right. I 
 am going to tell her so, and I am going to tell her the 
 truth about her wonderful vision, and that the dark-faced 
 man is no dream, but very much alive, and is going out
 
 332 THE TRELOARS 
 
 to California with her brother to see her. Now, I am 
 not going to read you another letter, to-day, Dick. These 
 need answering, and you need quieting down. Is there 
 anything you want before I leave, a glass of fresh water, 
 or another bowl of soup ? " 
 
 " No, thank you, Dan. I'm all right ; but don't be hard 
 on me, if you find I haven't slept when you come 
 back." 
 
 Dan smiled, patted him affectionately on the shoulder, 
 and was gone. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI 
 
 IT would be difficult to describe the rapture of the 
 home-coming, on the first of May, to these two young 
 men fresh from the reeking fields of war and the peril- 
 ous ocean voyage. There were many strange elements 
 commingled in that rapture, so many hopes and fears, so 
 much uncertainty, and so much of pure physical joy in 
 breathing the untainted air, and sympathetic joy in see- 
 ing happy human faces, and freedom from want. Both 
 Dick and Dan wished to forget what they had seen and 
 heard, but the memory persisted in a sentiment of genu- 
 ine amazement at what seemed to them the apathy of their 
 fellow-countrymen in regard to the awful tragedy going 
 on in Europe. It seemed to them that some taint of the 
 pestilence there, some resentful memory of their own 
 losses in the neutral seas, would at least make itself felt 
 in a feverish restlessness and anxiety, and an unequi- 
 vocal outspoken sympathy for those who were fighting 
 the battle of civilization against a relapse into barbarism. 
 But there was nothing of the kind apparent on the sur- 
 face, at any rate. In reply to Dan's remark about the 
 heartlessness of his countrymen in this respect, Dick 
 said: 
 
 " It isn't that they are hard-hearted. There isn't a 
 kinder-hearted nation in the world than the American.
 
 THE TRELOARS 333 
 
 The whole trouble is that the Americans are deficient in 
 imagination. What they can't see and touch doesn't ex- 
 ist for them. If they had seen what we have seen, the 
 whole nation would rise like one man and protest not 
 only in words, but in arms." 
 
 " Well, they've as good as seen the torpedoing of the 
 Lusitania." 
 
 " I know it, but they refused to attribute to the whole 
 nation what seemed to them the barbarity of an excep- 
 tional few. Remember that America has had a long and 
 sincere admiration for Germany, and that a large num- 
 ber of her best citizens are of German descent; much 
 of the tendency of her thought has been determined by 
 German philosophers and pedagogues. She has modeled 
 her school system after theirs. Do you think it is easy 
 to efface that attractive picture, and substitute for the 
 airy kingdom of philosophy, a Zeppelin raid; and, for 
 the tranquil ideal German with his long pipe and his 
 mug of beer, the new German berserker the incarnate 
 bogyman of our terrified infancy? Do you think it is 
 easy for practical horse-sense people like the Americans 
 to imagine so intelligent a nation as Germany, in a child- 
 ish fit of the sulks, bent upon justifying its attitude, and 
 kicking at everything and everybody in its way, and 
 crying out that it hasn't a friend in the world? Well 
 we've seen it, Dan ; we know it, and we believe the child 
 needs a good thrashing to relieve its cerebral blood-pres- 
 sure and bring it to its senses." 
 
 " It's getting it ; but let's forget it, if we can. Now, 
 you are going out home with me, you know, Dick. We 
 don't live very far out of New York. Father hasn't got 
 my message, or he'd be here to meet us. I'll telephone 
 him that We're coming right out in a taxi, and you can 
 send a telegram to Margaret that you've arrived safely, 
 and that in a few days, when you've rested a bit, you'll 
 be starting home and taking me with you. That's all 
 right, isn't it?" 
 
 " Certainly," answered Dick, though in his heart, he
 
 334 THE TRELOARS 
 
 would have much preferred starting home at once. As 
 soon as the messages were sent, and a hearty lunch had 
 been eaten, the two young men started in a taxicab for 
 the Holmar. residence, and were soon rolling rapidly out 
 of New York into the broad, shaded avenues which 
 stretch along the eastern banks of the Hudson. Dick, 
 who had never been in this part of the country before, 
 was delighted with its beauty and surprised to find so 
 much diversity and natural loveliness preserved so near 
 the great metropolis. Commenting upon the many beau- 
 tiful country seats, Dan said : 
 
 " That's one of the uses of wealth, don't you think so, 
 Dick, to preserve as much beauty as possible? It is true 
 that these big estates cover a great deal of ground ; but 
 then, what a rest to the eye it is to see green fields and 
 woods instead of brick yards, tanneries, saw-mills, or 
 row after row of huddled houses. Many a poor devil 
 gets his joy out of them without having the care and 
 cost of keeping them up. My father's estate lies on the 
 other side of the river, beyond the palisades. We shall 
 cross on the ferry, presently. I don't exactly know just 
 how many acres of woodland father has, but he has 
 only cleared up a bit around the house ; a few rods from 
 the door, you can plunge into the primeval forest, and 
 lose yourself in ravines, breast high with ferns and 
 brakes. You'll like it, I think." 
 
 Dick liked it very much, and he liked Dan's family 
 from the very first. He had a good deal of that sensi- 
 tive reserve of thoughtful natures which makes it rather 
 painful to them to meet strangers at first; but the at- 
 mosphere of this house, like that of the forest which 
 surrounded it, was good for the lungs. Dick felt at 
 home immediately. He found here, the same quiet sim- 
 plicity, the same broad freedom without vulgarity, the 
 same serious interest in things of moment, to which he 
 had been accustomed from his childhood. Dan's father 
 was a large, keen-eyed man who reminded Dick not a 
 little of Dr. Parker, except that he had a heavy shock of
 
 THE TRELOARS 335 
 
 iron-gray hair with a stubborn inclination to curl that de- 
 fied any brush or comb to give it an appearance of 
 order. Mrs. Holman was a placid, portly woman with 
 a gentle voice and winning manner; and it required no 
 penetration to discover that it had not been difficult for 
 her to resist the allurements of city life, and to prefer 
 the seclusion of these wooded heights to any elegance 
 or advantage which the city might offer her. Yet se- 
 clusion is hardly the right word to use of a household 
 that was rarely free from visitors; but they came and 
 went with so little excitement or ceremony, that they 
 seemed a natural part of the family life, rather than an 
 intrusion upon it. 
 
 " I don't see why you should ever want to leave 
 home, Dan," said Dick, as the two young men stood on 
 a rocky height, at the rear of the house, overlooking a 
 broad fertile valley, extending to a range of hills on the 
 western horizon line. 
 
 " O, don't you ? " replied Dan, removing his cigar from 
 his mouth and knocking the ashes from it with his little 
 finger. " Have you forgotten Rasselas and the Happy 
 V alley ? I haven't, for I had to cram on it once for a 
 college exam. That is how I happen to remember that 
 Rasselas was miserable because every want and desire 
 was fulfilled, and he had nothing left to wish for: 
 ' Give me something to desire,' he said to the old man 
 to whom he was complaining of the wretched monotony 
 of his happiness. Well, it was something like that with 
 me. I am the youngest son; and father and the other 
 boys represent Jhe intellectual and business faculty of 
 the family. I didn't inherit any activity in that line. 
 That's where I've been a disappointment to him. 
 Mother came in before the new woman grew to be so 
 common. She had an idea that home-making ought 
 to be a big enough occupation to give plenty of in- 
 tellectual activity to a woman; we always had a lot of 
 visitors about the house, brainy and otherwise, and 
 had plenty of good talk; and I think mother developed
 
 336 THE TRELOARS 
 
 into rather an unusual woman. Did you notice the 
 lovely way she received me, eyes moist, cheeks flushed, 
 a warm embrace, but no hysterics, and no reproaches 
 when I told her I was going off with you? She was 
 always like that. She never thought I was making 
 straight for the devil, and she must flag the train 
 every time I went off without telling her about it. I 
 know, now, that I haven't always been exactly on the 
 square with mother; but I'm going to justify her faith 
 in me, by coming out all right, you see if I don't. I 
 wonder if there are any more of that sort left over 
 among the young women. Say do you think Mar- 
 garet would like this place ? " 
 
 The question came so abruptly, that Dick smiled in- 
 voluntarily, as he answered : 
 
 " I am sure she would. Margaret and I are very much 
 alike in our tastes; and as for me, I think this is 
 glorious ! " 
 
 " It is pretty, isn't it ? And somehow it looks unusu- 
 ally so to me, this spring. I don't remember ever no- 
 ticing, before, that pink flush in the leaves, and that 
 delicate yellowish, green and brown tasseling among them. 
 We have gorgeous autumn reds and yellows, you know. 
 You ought to see us in October. But this isn't bad at 
 all. Now let's have a look at the kennels. Father is in 
 a sad way about the names of his hounds. He was a 
 great admirer of Wagner, before the war, and named his 
 hounds after the operatic heroes and heroines; Tann- 
 hauser, Siegfried, Lohengrin, Tristan, Isolde, etc.; but 
 since his sympathies are with the Allies, he thinks he 
 ought to strip them of the Teutonic glory of their names. 
 Mother is trying to persuade him that art has no na- 
 tionality, but he is not entirely convinced yet. Hear 'em 
 yelp? By George! that makes a boy of me again. We 
 used to keep a lot of riding horses, but the automobiles 
 have put an end to that. Hello ! old fellow, hello ! Do 
 you know me ? " 
 
 Did they know him! Such a deep-mouthed chorus in
 
 THE TRELOARS ' 337 
 
 answer; such scrambling one over the other, and such 
 leaping to get at him, against the wire-netting that 
 hemmed them in ! He let two of them out, and they 
 bounded about him in frantic joy, and leaped upon him, 
 and licked his face and hands, till he was forced to be 
 sharp with them to beat them off; then they followed 
 him docilely, or ran ahead of him in the woodland paths, 
 turning to see if he were coming, as he and Dick con- 
 tinued their walk. The air was full of spring odors 
 and spring sounds. Among the last year's withered 
 leaves that strewed the ground, blue violets were show- 
 ing; and the delicate spring-beauty trailed its slender 
 long-leaved stems with their clusters of small, white, pink- 
 striped blossoms. On the moist slopes of deep ravines, 
 clumps of blood-root lifted their snowy flowers above 
 the pale green clasping leaves, not yet unfolded. 
 Through the tall forest-trees just coming into leaf, the 
 sunlight filtered, and fell in mottled patches on the ground. 
 This beauty, this spring freshness, this will to live that 
 flushed the tender leaves and pendent tassels of the trees, 
 and spoke from the dark clod in delicate bloom and 
 opening leaf, thrilled Dick again with that sense of 
 mystery and wonder of life which he had often felt 
 before but with a new intensity, now, and an ardent 
 wish for power to voice the feeling fitly to a world that 
 has forgotten the beauty and value of life in all its 
 forms, high or low, transient or permanent, and con- 
 founded its beauty and value with that of its own life- 
 less creations. Its hoarse and fevered cry is not for 
 more life, deeper and purer life, but for more things 
 to crush out the sense of life; more speed that we may 
 scurry over the land, or in the air, or under the water, 
 to say that we have sped faster than any one ever sped 
 before; more spectacles, showy and adventurous, that 
 we may forget our own life in the show of other lives ; 
 more riches, that we may batten all the chinks by which 
 fresh life can enter our dying souls ; more dancing here, 
 and there, and everywhere, till all serious human action
 
 338 THE TRELOARS 
 
 degenerates into an idiotic tic: more social functions, 
 and herding and crowding together till all clean-cut, 
 vigorous individuality is lost in a composite smear. Life ! 
 This is not life ! It is a convulsion ; it is the very waste 
 and absence of that priceless gift of consciousness and 
 thought which lifts us for a moment above the clod. 
 
 " Dan ! " exclaimed Dick after a pause in their con- 
 versation, and his voice had a suspicious huskiness in 
 it, " I am not going back to France, I've got something 
 here to do." 
 
 " Have you ? That's good. I don't know whether I 
 shall go back or not. Very likely I shall, for I'd like 
 to see the thing through. But if I do, I'm going into the 
 aviation service. I'll have a try-out here, though, be- 
 fore I go over again. Will you go back into journalism, 
 Dick?" 
 
 " No, I am through with that. I mean to be my 
 own master, and write to nobody's dictation but my 
 own. I believe I've got something to say worth while. 
 Dan, did you ever feel as if you weren't living, but just 
 being shoved ? " 
 
 " Well, yes ; but I think shoved is a mild term for it. 
 I've been slung, tossed, hustled about to a pretty lively 
 tune the last two years ; but it's been good for me. I've 
 had a little sense knocked into me." 
 
 " I've had the same experience, Dan, but I don't want 
 to be shoved any more. I want to live. I want to think. 
 I want to get quiet possession of myself, and do the 
 thing that I can do best. Your forest is an inspiration 
 to me this morning. I feel the sap rising in me, too, 
 getting ready to burst into blossom and leaf. We must 
 start home to-morrow, Dan. Play-time is up. I must 
 go to work." 
 
 He turned his glowing face towards his companion, and 
 put his hand on his shoulder. All the doubt and confu- 
 sion of thought and feeling seemed to clear away. His 
 path lay straight before him, with no enticing little by- 
 paths of cowardly compromise and weak intolerance.
 
 THE TRELOARS 339 
 
 " Do you know what went through my mind just now, 
 Dan? It was the answer of a Samoan chief to a mis- 
 sionary who urged him to give his idea of God. He said : 
 ' We know that at night Some One goes by amongst 
 the trees, but we never speak of it.' Doesn't that beau- 
 tifully express the dim consciousness of an unknown 
 power without us? But it is a consciousness mingled 
 with fear. With all our learning and all our ponder- 
 ing, we shall never get any nearer to a definition of 
 God than that, except by adding that Some One goes 
 by in the light as well as the dark; and that we may 
 speak of Him, in love and reverence as well as fear; 
 and we may give that unknown another name; we may 
 call it Life or God, if you like, and we may feel the 
 wonder of it which never can lessen because we can 
 never explain it; and we may cherish it, and love it 
 and preserve it at its best. That is the whole duty of 
 man, and in that duty there is no place for hatred, no 
 place for war." 
 
 " That sounds pretty, Dick, and it wouldn't be hard 
 to make a new faith of it, if reality didn't give it 
 such a tremendous slap in the face. You must excuse 
 my expressions. I can't talk like you; but I'll tell you 
 what I've observed about life. I don't find in it, that 
 oneness of purpose which could justify its being spoken 
 of as a conscious entity, as God, in short. The truth is 
 that all the various manifestations of life are at war 
 with one another: the grass lives at the expense of the 
 soil; the sheep eats the grass, and man eats the sheep. 
 Instead of being an interchange of admirations and mu- 
 tual support, it's an interchange of hostilities, of life and 
 death." 
 
 Dick colored to the roots of his hair. He felt that 
 he had been talking in a foolish, ambiguous way which 
 meant absolutely nothing to the homely practical un- 
 derstanding which he was addressing; so he said with 
 frankness : 
 
 " Dan, I've been talking like a fool, and I am very
 
 340 THE TRELOARS 
 
 grateful to you for knocking me off my pedestal. The 
 truth is that I come from a line of clergymen, though 
 they were free thinkers every one of them; but they 
 passed on to their descendants a certain vicious twist in 
 their language that shows the fatal attempt to reconcile 
 their hearts and their heads which were always on the 
 verge of a divorce. They believed in God every one 
 of them, and loved Him with all their hearts; but they 
 never tried to define him except by such sweeping terms 
 as the omniscient, the eternal, the all powerful. But 
 little by little, the conception grew vaguer and vaguer, 
 till the word God came to mean simply the impersonal 
 unknown source of life and energy; and religion, a rev- 
 erential and admiring attitude towards the unknown. I 
 grant that I used the word God ambiguously to those 
 who are accustomed to associate with it the orthodox 
 Christian interpretation; and it isn't right to increase 
 the confusion of thinking on so vital a matter. I do 
 not know, and no man knows what that power is, of 
 which we are one of the manifestations. We can only 
 make crude guesses, more or less erroneous: but we 
 know that it exists, and that we on this earth are the 
 most developed form of it. In other worlds, there may 
 be still more wonderful manifestations of it, compared 
 with which we are as the ant to us." 
 
 The two young men had been walking in the forest 
 path and had now reached a clearing on a gentle slope 
 covered by an apple orchard in full bloom. The sweet 
 delicate perfume of the blossoms filled the air. Bees 
 were humming about them, and the long grass under 
 the trees was strewn with fallen petals. A low, irregu- 
 lar stone wall ran along the southern limits of the orchard, 
 and wild grasses and low ferns were growing in its 
 chinks and on its ledges. As they approached the wall, 
 a bluebird flew from a branch overhanging it, and the 
 flash of its brilliant wings made the blue of the sky look 
 pale. Dick sat down on the wall and with a troubled 
 thoughtful face looked up at Dan standing before him 
 and said:
 
 THE TRELOARS 341 
 
 " I haven't made myself clear to you, after all, have I, 
 Dan?" 
 
 " Yes, you have, but what do you propose to do about 
 it?" 
 
 " I wish to destroy the tryanny of things, or, at any 
 rate, to see the tryanny destroyed." 
 
 " But how do you mean to attack it, or help in its 
 destruction? It doesn't seem to me possible, nor even 
 desirable that all men should be lovers and poets of 
 the right sort, and so far as I can make out that seems 
 to be the character of your reformation." 
 
 Dick smiled. 
 
 " Not exactly, Dan. I no more expect all men to 
 be right lovers and poets than I expect all the flowers 
 of the orchard, there, to set in fruit. The great ma- 
 jority of them will wither and fall to the ground. It 
 is not of the masses I am thinking just now, but of 
 the leaders of the masses, of the men to whom has 
 been given the power to ripen and who fail in their 
 duty out of indifference, or fear to arouse hostility, or 
 a pitiful spirit of easy tolerance towards what they know 
 to be bad." 
 
 " Or maybe they don't really know," interpolated Dan ; 
 "maybe they are victims of a babyish system of educa- 
 tion that turns a man into a sucker instead of a thinker, \ 
 I know I've suffered from it. The only real educa- 
 tion I have ever had, I got from you and my field ser- 
 vice in France, and I am hoping now that you and 
 maybe your sister will take a hand in it and help to 
 polish me off. Do you think I'm too tough a job, 
 Dick?" 
 
 He asked the question with a shy look at Dick, then 
 drew out a cigar, and lighting it, puffed at it, then 
 coughed vigorously, as if the smoke had got into his 
 throat. The truth is, this big, robust, careless-mannered, 
 boyish-hearted young fellow had been so frightfully in- 
 discreet as to let his imagination run riot over the 
 image of Dick's sister.
 
 342 THE TRELOARS 
 
 Dick looked at him reassuringly, and answered : 
 
 " Dan, you're all right. Any higher polish on you 
 would make you too sleek, and keep us from seeing the 
 metal for the shimmer. My sister Margaret is one of 
 the most sensible women in the world. She knows a 
 good thing when she sees it and is never taken in by 
 surfaces. As soon as you see her, you will feel as 
 if you had always known her. Everybody says that, 
 for she fits in everywhere. She has a range of human 
 sympathies uncommonly large for a woman. The only 
 fault I know in her is that she loves father and me more 
 than herself." 
 
 " Don't call that a fault, Dick. To love too much is 
 the highest virtue in a woman. All that you've said in 
 her praise may make a good comrade of her, but this 
 last touch, this fault, as you call it, makes her ador- 
 able. Yes I think I should like your sister." 
 
 He turned his face away from Dick and looked out 
 over the orchard without seeing a blossom on the blos- 
 som-laden trees ; for his eyes were filled with an inner 
 vision ; then he turned again to Dick, saying : 
 
 " We start to-morrow, do we ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied Dick, rising from his seat on the wall, 
 " I must send a telegram to Margaret to let her know 
 just when to expect us." 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 THE telegram, curt, but to the point, reached Mar- 
 garet the evening of the day it was sent. It put her 
 into a flurry of excitement and joy that rejuvenated her 
 by ten years ; for a pure joy is a great humanizer, and 
 the best tonic in the world for reddening the blood. 
 Margaret had had but a scanty measure of it, in the 
 past two years, and had grown spiritually anaemic for 
 want of it. The outcome of the mental crisis through 
 which she had passed was that spirit of renunciation
 
 THE TRELOARS 343 
 
 which sends women into convents and men to solitary 
 places in woods and deserts; and though the duties of 
 her life forbade her the utter renunciation of the ascetic, 
 nevertheless, in so far as her own personal desires and 
 affections were concerned, she had cultivated the spirit 
 of asceticism, in an ardent longing to expiate the faults 
 and follies of her too loving and jealous heart. But 
 it was impossible for her to kill the spirit of love in 
 her. 
 
 At the time of Dick's entrance into the French ambu- 
 lance service, her anxiety for his safety awoke in her 
 the old tenderness. She kept a diary, and sent it to 
 him every week in the form of a letter. In imagina- 
 tion, she was with him on the hospital field, helping him 
 in his task of mercy, and had it not been for her father, 
 she would have been there, in person. That she could 
 not do this was a cross and a sacrifice which she ac- 
 cepted as a part of her lot, and cheerfully bore in the 
 performance of her nearer duty at home. The strange 
 vision which she had related to Dick, made a profound 
 impression upon her, and her wonder was hardly in- 
 creased after learning the facts in the case. It was then 
 that she spoke of it to her father and to Dolly. Her 
 father interpreted it as one of those incontestable evi- 
 dences of telepathy which prove the immateriality of 
 the soul and its power to act at distances independently 
 of the body, through the universal diffusion of what, 
 for want of a better term, he would call mentiferous ether 
 mind stuff in dispersion. 
 
 Dolly had no explanation, and her perplexity was not 
 cleared up by her father's remark that the evidences re- 
 corded of these remarkable coincidences were not fre- 
 quent enough to warrant Mr. Treloar's conclusions. On 
 the contrary, telepathy could not be a general, natural 
 power or law of mind and at the same time be so ex- 
 'clusively restricted to an exceedingly small number of 
 persons. For his part, he thought it a good thing that 
 it was not. How, otherwise, would it be possible to
 
 344 THE TRELOARS 
 
 preserve the sanctity of one's personality from perpetual 
 intrusion ? How insufferable it would be, if a man could 
 not keep his thoughts to himself, but they must be travel- 
 ing to friend and foe alike, exposing his dearest secrets. 
 No, all human experience was against Treloar. How- 
 ever, it made a fresh subject of discussion between the 
 two old friends, and it introduced a new person of in- 
 terest to all, in the little circle of old acquaintance. 
 There would be a warm welcome for Dan Holman, when 
 he came. 
 
 " O, Margaret, you look lovely to-day, just like your 
 old self," exclaimed Dolly admiringly, as she looked at 
 Margaret on the bright May day that was to bring the 
 wanderers home. Mr. Treloar and Dr. Parker had gone 
 to the station in Oakland to meet them, and Dolly and 
 little Eugene were over at the Treloars, and Hannah 
 had come over with them to help Betty prepare a famous 
 feast to be set on the table smoking hot, at half-past 
 one. 
 
 " You look just like your old self," repeated Dolly. 
 " I am so glad you put on that white dress. You al- 
 ways look so beautiful in pure white. I can't wear it 
 with my black skin. I most always have an ecru, or 
 cream color." 
 
 " Dolly, you haven't a black skin. You have that 
 loveliest of all complexions, the rich olive which 
 wears " 
 
 " Like leather," interrupted Dolly with a laugh. " I 
 don't quarrel with my complexion for its wearing quali- 
 ties. I don't blister in the sun like fair women. I only 
 bronze and redden like a bit of well beaten copper. But 
 I do admire very much your white and pink, like baby 
 Eugene's. Doesn't he look lovely? Come here, sweet- 
 heart, and tell Aunt Margaret who's coming to-day ? " 
 
 Dolly knelt before the child who was immaculate in 
 a new white dress, with a short full-pleated skirt reach- 
 ing to his knees. He was the picture of health, with
 
 THE TRELOARS 345 
 
 his round rose-flushed cheeks, and his bright hazel eyes, 
 changing in color, in different lights, from softest brown 
 to richest black. He had a dimple in his chin, and his 
 soft brown hair curled in loose natural ringlets all over 
 his head. 
 
 " Favver is coming," answered the child, reflecting the 
 smile on Dolly's face. 
 
 " That's right ! " said Dolly, clasping him in her arms, 
 with an approving hug which disarranged his dress, and 
 set her to smoothing the pleats. 
 
 " And what is Eugene going to say when father 
 comes ? " Dolly went on. 
 
 The child's eyes twinkled with mischief, and he drew 
 up his little shoulders with suppressed mirth, as he an- 
 swered : 
 
 " Muvver, I uv you." 
 
 " No, no, no ! " protested Dolly, feigning vexation, lift- 
 ing him from the floor and giving him a little toss in the 
 air that made him shriek with laughter. Setting him 
 down on the floor again, she continued : 
 
 " No, no ! Not, mother, I love you ; but father I 
 love you. Come now, say it for mother and Aunt Mar- 
 garet, like a good, lovely boy." 
 
 But the good lovely boy was too much amused by 
 Dolly's disappointment to be flattered into spoiling the 
 game, too soon; so he repeated the objectionable formula 
 amid other tosses and peals of laughter, until, at last, 
 Dolly quite serious, assumed an air of grief which moved 
 the child to put his arms about her, and nestle his head 
 against her neck, touching it with his moist lips, as he 
 half-whispered : 
 
 " Favver, I uv you." 
 
 " You darling ! " Dolly pressed her lips to his curly 
 head, then set him down on the floor and looked with 
 loving triumph at Margaret. 
 
 " Now, you can run out into the garden, love, and 
 find the prettiest roses, then come back and tell mother 
 where they are : but don't muss your clothes, like a good
 
 346 THE TRELOARS 
 
 boy. We want to be nice and clean for father. I have 
 hardly talked to him about anything else for a week," 
 said Dolly, when the child was gone. " I want him to 
 feel at home with Dick, as soon as he sees him ; so that 
 Dick won't have that chilling sense of estrangement be- 
 tween himself and his own flesh and blood. That must 
 be such a cruel feeling. Don't you think so, Mar- 
 garet?" 
 
 " O yes, there's nothing crueler ; no tie so close as 
 that of blood ; no estrangement so bitter ; but we've kept 
 Dick so closely in touch with the baby by letters and 
 pictures, that he won't be surprised at seeing him running 
 about, though he left him in the cradle : and as for chil- 
 dren, at that age, they so quickly pick up with anybody 
 who is kind to them, that Eugene will soon learn to 
 love his father: so, I haven't been thinking about that 
 so much as how we shall make Dick's friend feel per- 
 fectly at home. We owe it to his great kindness and 
 care that Dick is alive to come home to us, and I am so 
 grateful to him, so deeply, so unutterably grateful to 
 him." 
 
 A warm color spread over Margaret's face, and her 
 eyes dimmed a little. 
 
 " Yes, I know it," said Dolly gently, " but he will feel 
 at home. Nobody ever comes here who doesn't." 
 
 " Yes, but don't you know, Dolly, that sometimes just 
 because you feel so very deeply, you can't show it at 
 all. You seem to be struck dumb, while every drop 
 of blood in your heart is speaking a language of its own 
 that no one but yourself can hear." 
 
 " Yes, I know that, too ; and you are called cold at 
 such times, just because you feel too warmly to express 
 yourself. It is strange, isn't it? But let's not think of 
 that. I want you to have a spray of pink roses at your 
 belt, and I am going to choose some crimson ones for 
 myself. Let's go out and see what our boy has found. 
 Shall I find the garden shears in the kitchen ? " 
 
 " Yes, hanging on a nail near the sink. Betty will 
 give them to you."
 
 THE TRELOARS 347 
 
 Dolly got them herself and followed Margaret into 
 the garden, where the sun was shining bright and warm. 
 The green hills lifted their rounded domes sharply against 
 the blue sky, not an outline blurred and far away to 
 the west, through an opening in the hills, gleamed the 
 sunlit bosom of the ocean. An exquisite serenity seemed 
 to breathe from the landscape, and Margaret tightening 
 her grasp on Dolly's hand, said : 
 
 " What a perfect day ! Dolly, does it seem to you as 
 if there were a sacred quiet in the air, as if nature, like 
 us, felt too deeply for any expression except this per- 
 fect calmness, under which beats so strongly the throb- 
 bing tides of life." 
 
 " O Lady ! We receive but what we give," quoted 
 Dolly. 
 
 " Yes, I know those lines from Coleridge. How beau- 
 tifully they sum up the whole question of the wretched- 
 ness and emptiness of life without love; poor and anxious 
 we are, indeed, when we are loveless; seeking every- 
 where for happiness which cannot exist for us, unless it 
 has its seat in our own breast." 
 
 Then, abruptly changing the subject, as if she dared 
 not continue it without betraying undue emotion, she 
 went on : 
 
 " I had a letter from Catherine, yesterday. She is 
 still living in a perpetual search for something new, and 
 when she finds it, it does not content her long. How ex- 
 hausting such a life would be to me! She is interested 
 just now in dancing; she finds in the perfection of mo- 
 tion the only thing worth talking about or thinking about, 
 and she pities me for not sharing her enthusiasm : and I 
 pity her for not wishing to have little children dancing 
 about her instead. But she does not want children. She 
 says that she can't sacrifice her own development for 
 them; and, that bringing children into the world is a 
 responsibility which no wise person will undertake with- 
 out assurance that they will turn out well. The de- 
 mands of modern life are much more exacting than they
 
 348 THE TRELOARS 
 
 used to be, she says. Dolly, sometimes, I think that 
 thinking is not a good thing for everybody." 
 
 " That is exactly what I think, Margaret. If the 
 world wouM just stop confusing its poor old head for a 
 little while and mind its own business, tend to its knitting 
 and to its garden, we'd get along a good deal better." 
 
 " Perhaps that is what Christ meant when he said that 
 unless we became as little children, we should not enter 
 the kingdom of heaven. Look at our baby, there, filling 
 his lap with roses, bless his little heart! What are you 
 doing, darling ? " 
 
 " Powers for muwer ! " answered the child, turning 
 his head hastily, and in doing so, dropped some roses 
 from his upgathered skirt. 
 
 " Yes, dear, but mother wants stems to them, so we 
 won't pull any more short ones, will we? Here, Dolly, 
 is a lovely cluster of deep red roses." 
 
 "And I've found the sweetest cluster of pink ones 
 for you ; see here ! Let me clip off the thorns, before 
 I slip them through your belt. There you are ; they look 
 so pretty against the white." 
 
 Dolly stepped backwards to look admiringly at Mar- 
 garet, and Margaret looked down at her roses : then 
 suddenly lifted her head with an expression of startled 
 joy. 
 
 "O Dolly! They're coming!" 
 
 Dolly dropped her shears by the rose bush, and her 
 cheeks glowed redder than any rose of them all. She 
 turned to the child, and lifting him in her arms, followed 
 Margaret, who was rapidly advancing towards the car- 
 riage way. 
 
 Yes, there they were in the open carriage, Dick on the 
 front seat with his father, swinging his hat; and a big 
 manly-looking young fellow in the back seat with Dr. 
 Parker took off his hat and swung it, too, as if it 
 were a rapture of home-coming for him as well as for 
 Dick. 
 
 Dick hardly waited for the swift horses to stop at the
 
 THE TRELOARS 349 
 
 house, before he was out on the grass, with his arms 
 about Margaret and his face pressed close to hers. Then 
 he turned to Dolly and encircling her and the child, kissed 
 them both. Dolly trembling like a leaf, with the color 
 in her cheeks ebbing back to her heart, then rushing in 
 a red tide over her face, said not a word; but Dick 
 knew what the tell-tale blood was saying, and he liked it 
 better than speech. He took the child from her arms, 
 saying : 
 
 " Do you know your father, little man ? " 
 
 Dolly would have given anything if the well-learned 
 lesson could have been glibly recited : Father I love you; 
 but the obstinate, rosy mouth puckered into a pitiful ex- 
 pression of strangeness and discomfort, and instead of 
 the pretty speech so well prepared, came the ungracious 
 request : 
 
 " Muvver take me." 
 
 Then Dolly found her tongue again. 
 
 " He doesn't know you yet, Dick ; but he knows all 
 about you, and he loves you; he really does, and he'll 
 soon learn not to feel strange with you." 
 
 She took the child, and he buried his face on her 
 shoulder. Dick seeing Dolly's distress, assured her that 
 it was the most natural thing in the world for the child 
 to feel strange with him. Dolly stroked the child's head 
 fondly and looked towards Margaret who was talking 
 with Dan in the most animated way. Dick's eyes fol- 
 lowed Dolly's with a look of delight. 
 
 " Well, there are two who don't feel strange to each 
 other. Isn't that fine? Come let me introduce him to 
 you. Dan, here is the rest of the family. This is 
 Dolly." 
 
 Dan turned his radiant face from Margaret, and 
 clasped Dolly's extended hand with unfeigned heartiness. 
 
 " You'll let me call you Dolly, too, won't you ? " he 
 asked in the gentle, insinuating way of a boy who is 
 asking a favor which he wishes granted willingly. " I 
 have just been saying that I can't call Dick's sister Miss
 
 350 THE TRELOARS 
 
 Treloar. It sounds a thousand miles away, and I'm 
 here: and I can't say Miss Parker, either, for the same 
 reason. You know it has been Margaret and Dolly when- 
 ever we spoke of you, and that wasn't seldom, was it 
 Dick?" 
 
 " No, we spoke of you very often, and we are not 
 going to spoil our pleasure in being together, by any 
 ridiculous formality. We're all Dick and Dan and Dolly, 
 here." 
 
 " And Margaret ! " added Dan, turning to her with a 
 smile. 
 
 Then he stooped, and lifting the child as high as his 
 arms could reach, looked up at him with so rollicking and 
 jovial an air that the child's reserve broke away like a 
 cloud in the path of the sun, and he laughed back at 
 the kind handsome face, and let Dan cuddle him close to 
 his breast, and kiss his forehead, without any show of 
 reluctance. 
 
 " My ! but he's a handsome boy. How proud you must 
 be of him, Dick." 
 
 " Yes, I am, and I am proud of the girl that raised 
 him." 
 
 Here Mr. Treloar, who had been giving some directions 
 about the young men's luggage to the stable boy who 
 came for the horses, joined the group with the re- 
 mark: 
 
 " Well, don't you think we'd better go into the house 
 and see what kind of dinner these girls have got for us ? " 
 
 " Yes, we must go in," said Margaret, " Dick will 
 you show Dan to his room, the blue one, next yours ? " 
 
 The familiar name slipped as easily from her tongue, 
 as if she had used it from childhood, and Dan in his 
 gratitude said : " Thank you, Margaret." 
 
 He could have sung aloud for joy that this woman of 
 his dreams was even sweeter and more lovable than he 
 had imagined her; and as he followed Dick silently up 
 the broad, polished stairway and into the bright, cheer- 
 ful room assigned him, his heart was swelling with an 
 emotion so intense as to be almost painful.
 
 THE TRELOARS 351 
 
 " Why, Dick, this is heaven ! " he cried. " I feel like 
 a regenerated fallen angel that had somehow sneaked 
 into Paradise when the doors were left open, and meant 
 to be so good that nobody would ever have the heart to 
 turn him out again." 
 
 " Well, it's home, Dan, and it's good to be home." 
 
 " Yes, it's good to be home," repeated Dan, turning to 
 the broad mirror over the toilet table and attempting to 
 reduce a refractory kink in his hair, with a moistened 
 brush. He scorned it as something effeminate and liked 
 to wear his hair cut very short to keep it from showing. 
 After plastering it smoothly down to his satisfaction, he 
 said: 
 
 " I ought to have had my hair cut before we left New 
 York, but we came off in such a hurry that I forgot 
 all about it. That kink in it makes me look like a head 
 waiter." 
 
 The dinner proved to be a great success. The turkey 
 was done to a turn white, juicy, tender beneath the 
 crisp golden-brown outer skin. The vegetables retained 
 their flavor and color. The pie-crust was but a melting 
 hint of resistance to its delicious contents. The fruits 
 and nuts were such as only California can produce; and 
 best of all, the partakers of the feast were united in a 
 single sentiment of affection and good will. No one 
 had the heart to hint at the great tragedy of Europe. 
 Treloar and Parker avoided their perennial discussions 
 of lofty and incommunicable themes, and yielding to the 
 mirthful, gracious influence of their youthful companions 
 cracked jokes and told stories with the best of them. 
 Even Eugene had his part in the general mirth, and sit- 
 ting next to Dan, who could deny him nothing, had more 
 than his share of the good things to eat, in consequence 
 of which he succumbed ignominiously before the dinner 
 was over, and was carried upstairs asleep, to be laid on 
 the bed. 
 
 " What a lovely day we have had ! " was Dolly's com- 
 ment to her father, on returning home late that night.
 
 352 THE TRELOARS 
 
 "There was only one little disappointment in it for me, 
 and that was that Eugene did not seem to take to his 
 father as I hoped he would, and he liked Dan. Isn't it 
 strange? And I have talked so much to him about 
 Dick." 
 
 " No, it is not strange. It is the most natural thing 
 in the world. A child has an almost unfailing instinct 
 with regard to those who love it. In consequence, it 
 has an unfailing instinct of jealousy. Dick paid more 
 attention to you than he did to Eugene, and the child 
 felt obscurely a rival in him. You will have to be very 
 careful both of you, not to make him unhappy. But 
 try to keep your own head cool, Dolly." 
 
 Dolly blushed vividly and said nothing further on the 
 subject, but when she was alone, she revolved it in her 
 mind in all its phases. Was Dick going away again? 
 Dolly's heart rebelled against that easy solution. No 
 he must stay. In that case, she must stand between 
 these two natures so closely related, yet perhaps so widely 
 apart in taste and temperament. She must bridge over 
 that difference between them and teach them to love one 
 another. She would suffer herself, undoubtedly, drawn 
 now to this side, now to that ; but what did her own per- 
 sonal suffering matter? She had served her apprentice- 
 ship at that; it was an old experience now. If she could 
 only make them happy ultimately in each other, and 
 content with herself, that would be joy enough for her. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII 
 
 ALONE in his room that night, at the end of so happy 
 a day, Dick reflected on his own individual problems long 
 and steadily. He did not play hide-and-seek with him- 
 self. He faced the situation squarely; for youth was 
 having its way with him, as it has with all of us, tempt- 
 ing him again with the dream of bright eyes kindling 
 brighter when they met his own, and echoes of a be-
 
 THE TRELOARS 353 
 
 loved voice lingering in the porches of his ears, quicken- 
 ing his pulses with their soft endearing whispers; and 
 though he had not abated one jot of his resolution to go 
 on with his task, it was accompanied with an unquench- 
 able longing for a home of his own, a quiet place where 
 his heart and mind could be at rest, and in that home, 
 Dolly was queen. He loved her dearly he knew it 
 now not with the restless, tumultuous, insane obses- 
 sion of his first passion, that had swept over him like a 
 fierce flame, but with a wide generous beautiful devo- 
 tion, deep-rooted in a confidence that cast out fear. How 
 sweet and wholesome she seemed to him, radiant with 
 health and purity. How sane and clear her outlook on 
 life true to duty, as the compass to the pole, but with- 
 out repellent asceticism and full of a cheerful elasticity / 
 that made her a delightful comrade. There was a fresh- 
 ness about her as of dewy forests in the early dawn. 
 How could he ever have been so indifferent to that as 
 to prefer the hot and artificially perfumed atmosphere of 
 the theater ? " We needs must love the highest when 
 we see it." Alas ! he had not seen it. He saw it now. 
 It had been the fascination of mystery and danger, the 
 foolish indifference to the known and the familiar which 
 had seduced him; and led him to search for happiness 
 abroad when all the while, it lay close at hand. He had 
 chosen like a foolish boy, then. He was a man, now, 
 and he would not longer delay gathering his own to 
 himself. So, thinking and dreaming and conjuring up 
 an image of Dolly in a score of scenes, he fell at last 
 into a broken slumber, and awoke with the dawn. 
 
 The images of the restless night awoke with him, and 
 condensed themselves into the audibly expressed reso- 
 lution : " I'll do it to-day." He threw off the light cov- 
 erlet, sprang out of bed, took his bath, dressed himself 
 carefully, and stole softly down stairs; for no one else 
 was astir in the house. When he closed the door be- 
 hind him, he stopped on the veranda a moment to look 
 at his watch. It would be nearly three hours before
 
 354 THE TRELOARS 
 
 breakfast would be ready. He had time for a long 
 ramble over the hills, and could watch the sun break 
 through the bank of blue-gray cloud that lay along the 
 eastern sky. He walked rapidly up the path that led to 
 the entrance gate opening on the Tunnel Road. He 
 paused under the group of eucalyptus trees near the 
 gate, hesitating as to whether he should strike across 
 the hills or follow the open road to the east; and in that 
 moment of uncertainty there flashed through his mind 
 the memory of Max Gietmann, standing there with him 
 just three years before. How short a space of time, yet 
 how long it seemed, crowded as it was, with so many 
 deep experiences. Poor Max! How bitter and love- 
 less, how solitary and unapproachable his short life had 
 been. Perhaps fate had been merciful in not prolong- 
 ing it. Dick could not think of him without yearning 
 pity and the wish to restore him in his memory as he 
 had first known him, bright, eager, sensitive to beauty 
 in form and color, sensitive to moral beauty in truth 
 and justice, and so, thinking of him tenderly, he gave 
 to him the credit of his virtues, and laid his faults to the 
 age in which he lived. 
 
 The sun was touching the blue-gray opaque cloud with 
 a soft bright edge of silver and gold, and Dick started 
 briskly on towards the east, taking the open road. When 
 he came to a turn in it, where a broad green valley opens 
 up to the right, he stopped again, to watch the light break 
 slowly through the dark heavy cloud, tinging it at first 
 with a warm reddish purple ; then shredding it into bright 
 edged bands, and curdling them into soft, silvery, fleecy 
 masses that floated into the living blue which but a little 
 while before had been a dull lifeless gray. Finally the 
 whole eastern sky was transfused with a golden glow, 
 and the sun burst forth in his splendor, giving a new light 
 and glory to the world. 
 
 Dick's heart beat fast, as he read this great poem 
 which nature writes daily on the broad blue arch of the 
 sky. It seemed to him a symbol of life, heavy, opaque,
 
 THE TRELOARS 355 
 
 dreary, till the light of a great and noble emotion trans- 
 figures it. He thought again of the vain boast of his 
 age that every school-house opened, shuts the door of 
 a prison ; that science, sweeping away the useless clutter 
 of superstitious and idle faiths has built a strong and 
 solid refuge for the intellect and the heart ; because men 
 may grow in virtue and sympathy, as they grow in 
 knowledge. Ay, that may be true, but not on the knowl- 
 edge which is but the accumulation of facts. 
 
 After a long brisk walk he looked at his watch. It 
 was half-past eight. Breakfast was over. He was a 
 long way from home, and only a ten minutes walk from 
 the Parkers. He would go there and telephone Mar- 
 garet where he was, lest she might be uneasy about him. 
 He quickened his pace, looking neither to the right nor 
 to the left. An involuntary smile played about his lips. 
 He was framing his greeting to Dolly, and making some 
 jesting excuse for an unseasonable appearance, and 
 Dolly was answering with a smile and a heightened 
 color in her cheeks. So vivid was his imagination, that 
 Dolly's sudden opening of the door and appearance on 
 the veranda before he had reached it, swept all his fine 
 speeches away and left him in a stupid confusion, which 
 Dolly dissipated by her eager exclamation : 
 
 " O Dick, I am so glad you've come ! I saw you from 
 the window and I couldn't wait till you came into the 
 house." 
 
 There was so much of earnest gratitude in Dolly's 
 face and voice, that Dick knew that something unusual 
 had happened, and a sudden fear seized him. 
 
 "What is it, Dolly?" 
 
 Dolly knew by his anxious face and voice that she 
 had unnecessarily alarmed him, and she smiled reas- 
 suringly. 
 
 " Nothing serious. I think it's all right now. Eugene 
 has been sick all night with a high fever and nausea. 
 Father and I have been up with him; and I have been 
 so wretchedly miserable and anxious; but he's resting
 
 356 THE TRELOARS 
 
 quietly now, and father has gone to lie down for an 
 hour or so. He has never been sick before, and that is 
 why I was so terribly afraid. Father said it was only 
 an acute fit of indigestion. I wasn't careful of him yes- 
 terday, as I should have been; and he ate too heartily 
 of sweet and greasy things. And O Dick, it lay such 
 a weight on my conscience that I had been careless about 
 him. Do you want to see him ? " 
 
 " Indeed I do ! Besides, it is time the little rascal was 
 getting acquainted with his father." 
 
 She turned and preceded him to her bed-room with its 
 rose-bowered window and its outlook on the hills. The 
 child was lying asleep on the bed. The short brown 
 curls about his forehead were moist with sweat, and the 
 flush on the plump round cheek was the flush of health, 
 not fever. 
 
 " You see the fever is quite gone," said Dolly in a low 
 voice, bending over and laying her hand in his forehead. 
 " Isn't he sweet, Dick ? " She was hungry to hear some 
 praise of him, and to see Dick's eye kindle at sight of 
 him; and she was not disappointed. The contagion of 
 her generous affection stirred Dick's heart towards the 
 child as it had not been stirred before; he bent over 
 him and kissed him tenderly, feeling that the little lad 
 was born again to him through Dolly's love. 
 
 He turned from the child, and found himself looking 
 into the depths of Dolly's bright, frank eyes, and looking 
 he could no longer conceal the secret lying on his heart. 
 With simple, unstudied words he told her that he could 
 not endure to see her carry alone a weight that belonged 
 to him, or if she chose, would belong to them both. Yet 
 it was not consideration which led him to speak, it was 
 a more selfish one; it was his own happiness which she 
 held in her two little hands. All night long, while she 
 was watching by his boy, his thoughts had been with 
 her, and he had determined to ask her some time, to-day, 
 if she would consent to share her life with him. 
 
 Dolly, flushing and paling, listened with down-cast
 
 THE TRELOARS 357 
 
 head and tear-filled eyes, and when he waited for her 
 answer, she could not trust herself to speak, but put her 
 hand into his, and lifting her head smiled at him through 
 her tears. He knew that the tears and the smile and 
 the pressure of the hand meant, yes, and that the day 
 had dawned anew for them both. 
 
 When Margaret turned from the telephone after re- 
 ceiving Dick's message, she said with a peculiar smile 
 to Dan who was standing near her : 
 
 " Dick is over at Dolly's." 
 
 " Is he ? May I stay to the wedding, Margaret ? " 
 
 " You may stay as long as you like." 
 
 " Be careful. Suppose I should like never to go ? " 
 
 Margaret did not answer that question, but said rather 
 abruptly : 
 
 " Do you know I should like to see Dolly marry Dick. 
 You don't know what a treasure she is; and then she 
 shouldn't have the care of that child all alone. Dick 
 should share it with her." 
 
 They were married in June at Dr. Parker's, where 
 Dick would henceforth make his home, that Dolly and 
 her father might not be separated. The doctor was very 
 happy over the marriage, feeling at last quite secure 
 against any further prospect of Dolly's leaving him or 
 filling the house with strange waifs, instead of his own 
 grandchildren. In fact, everybody concerned, was 
 equally happy. The only regret that disturbed the gen- 
 eral felicity was the fact that Dan was to leave on the 
 morrow. In the few weeks he had passed with the Tre- 
 loars, he had endeared himself to every one. His cheer- 
 ful humor, his plain common sense, his power of adjust- 
 ing himself admirably to every situation that arose, cre- 
 ated about him an atmosphere of good will which brought 
 out the best traits of his associates and made them 
 feel that it was good to be with him. 
 
 We think that we admire and love powerful original
 
 358 
 
 THE TRELOARS 
 
 characters, and we do in a way, but it is a very cold 
 way. They do not take possession of us and hold us, 
 keep us awake at nights, and trouble us with a thousand 
 delusions of passionate affection. It is those who have 
 all the human weaknesses who do that, who are not too 
 clever to tire us with the pyrotechnic display of their wit, 
 not too sensible ever to excuse a lapse of sense ; not too 
 prudent never to be guilty of a lavish generosity ; not too 
 cold ever to love unwisely. Was Dan loving unwisely 
 now, in loving Margaret? If he were, it was a lack of 
 wisdom that made him very happy. Then why was he 
 going away ? Because- Margaret had very prudently said : 
 " Wait ! " Because Margaret was not at all sure of her- 
 self, yet, nor sure of this frank, impetuous boy, who 
 would be a boy when his hair was white. He had ac- 
 cepted the " Wait," with a glorious hope, and he was 
 going back into the world to win his laurels, to add the 
 unit of his endurance and skill to the great battle of 
 right against might. And if he were destined to fall in 
 that battle, he would only join other men, and far bet- 
 ter men than he, who had fallen before him in the spirit 
 of that noble sacrifice so admirably voiced by Emerson : 
 
 " Though love repine and reason chafe, 
 There came a voice without reply, 
 'Tis man's perdition to be safe. 
 When for the truth he ought to die." 
 
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