THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE OTHER BOOKS BV REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN 9 9 THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE WHAT IS SOCIALISM ? THE GIRL THAT GOES WRONG THE WAY OF PEACE THE THINGS THAT ARE CESAR'S THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN They peradventure err seeking God. ' ' THE BOOK OF THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON, XIII : 6 % JNEW YORK MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 1912 Copyright 1912, by MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY NEW YORK All Rights Reserved Second Printing, April, 1912 TO MY WIFE RUTH KAUFFMAN AND TO ALL OTHER WOMEN * 250622 NOTE IF the purpose of this novel is not clear to the serious reader, then nothing that I might say in a foreword would make it clear. If the characters, to whom I have been merely Chorus, do not of them- selves present their problem and its need of solution, then either I err in the manner of my interpretation or my readers err in their manner of approach. The so-called sex-question is, as at present distorted, an economic question because disproportionate pay pre- vents contented marriages, drives men to the brothel and women to the street, and robs both men and women of their right to happiness. It is an educa- tional question because our modern attitude toward marriage, an economic attitude, has created a conven- tion of silence that fits our children for disaster. It is a moral question because its economic origin sets one value upon continence in man and another value upon continence in woman. Not until we have faced the subject with opened eyes can we hope for even an approximate realization of that which now stares at us, in its abstract as well as its concrete form, on city pavements and in country lanes. REGINALD WRIGHT KAUFFMAN. NEW YORK CITY, z 8th February, igia. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE "T'M sure," said Mrs. Thomas Barnes, "I don't know what's come over the young folks nowa- days." She sighed wistfully and, as one that fears the expression of opinion, ventured a timid glance across the table at her husband. " Seems to me," she added, " people didn't behave so when I was a girl." She spoke with that air of assumed age which she conceived to be fitting in a married woman, albeit a newly-married one ; and yet those citizens of the little town of Americus who remember Sarah Barnes as she was in 1871, say that, at twenty-eight, she looked no more than twenty. In one of the many drawers of the brass-bound desk that his grandfather made with his own hands, Daniel Barnes has still, somewhere, an ambrotype of his mother and father, taken toward the end of their long engagement, and this certainly corroborates the memory of their fellow-townsmen. It shows a wasp-waisted girl, seated rather stiffly, her large hands, the legacy of pioneer stock, clasped in her lap. Her face, in spite of its prominent cheekbones, which the forgotten pho.fcographer has touched with a now fading pink, is a delicate face. The hair, accurately parted in the center and curling in painfully contrived OF SILENCE ringlets about her neck, covers a head well shaped. The mouth, though large, is not too strong for the taste of that day; the nose is of the sort that the " an- nuals " loved to describe as " regular "; and the eyes are round and diffident. Men say that her eyes were blue; that her coloring was beautiful; that she was much admired for these things and more admired because she was modest and docile, because she was quiet and unassuming, because she was a womanly woman. Judged by the same standard, the man that, in the picture, towers erect beside her, would certainly be accounted a manly ipan. His knotted hand grips the back of the chair in a pose bespeaking a protec- tion in which ownership is as inherent as chivalry. Tom Barnes's figure, even under its loose clothes, is seen to be rawboned. The only hair upon his face is the beard that just covers his chin. His forehead is low and broad; his eyes are keen; his nose is large and rugged; and his long upper lip lends to his whole bearing that appearance of determination and pride which, to the end of his days, the citizens of Americus considered intellectuality and strength. 2. It was an appearance that, at all events, rarely forsook him. He carried it into his private life and perhaps accentuated it there. Seated now in a high- backed rocker, not even his fatigue uniform of shirt- sleeves and carpet-slippers could subtract from it. His gestureless conversation, conducted from a face that did not alter its expression, and in a voice that was a rasping monotone, never descended from that eminence. (THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 3 " You're thinkin'," he said, " about that girl o' Calvin Green's." Tom Barnes was not in the habit of asking his wife what was in her mind : he told her. She now, there- fore, in what she might delicately term sympathy, and others would call by a more honest name, straight- way began dutifully to think of that wrongdoer. She nodded. She addressed herself to her husband as to one that knows the hearts and futures of men. "Will that Fry boy marry her?" Mrs. Barnes inquired. "Yes," said Barnes; "he'll marry her, an' most likely they'll starve to death." Husband and wife were seated in the back-parlor of their square, uncompromising house on Front Street, in the room that, because it contained one cumbersome bookcase, they spoke of as the library. Barnes's deep-set eyes unseeingly regarded the ordered leather-bound books upon their shelves : " The Pil- grim's Progress," " The Christian Miscellany," some pious memoirs, several volumes of sermons on doc- trinal subjects, and a work on ecclesiastical polity. " Starve right to death," repeated Barnes. He had been reading the Weekly Spy the Spy was still a weekly in those days and, having thus disposed of the destinies of Master Fry and the criminally inclined daughter of Calvin Green, he now returned to his perusal of the local newspaper. Mrs. Barnes, who was making baby-clothes, sighed again as she resumed her task. " Well, I don't know what's come over the young folks," she said. 4 iTHE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 3. Save for the labored ticking of the clock on the slate mantelpiece, there was silence in the room for a quarter of an hour. Then Barnes finished reading the paper and held it out to his wife across the center-table that separated them. "There ain't a thing in this," he said. "Want to see it?" Mrs. Barnes shook her head. " No, thanks," she answered. Barnes folded the paper carefully and laid it be- side the flower-shaded lamp. " / know," said he. His wife looked up inquiringly. She had no doubt of her husband's knowledge upon any subject; the only thing that she was now in doubt about con- cerning him was what particular subject he at present referred to. Her fingers fumbled with the still sleeveless little linen dress that lay upon her lap. "What?" she asked. " I know what's come over the young folks," said Barnes, " an' when we have our boy, I mean to see it never comes over him." His wife bowed above her work. Her cheek was warmed, but, though something seemed to struggle to her lips, she did not at once reply. Barnes, however, required no invitation to express his views. He poked still farther from him the has- sock that was always provided for his long-extended feet. " The trouble with children," he said, " is they haven't got enough respect nowadays. They don't respect any thin'. They're all brought up to be [THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 5 rebels and to think too much for themselves. Chil- dren have got to be taught to respect their elders. They've got to be taught to respect their parents: there mustn't be none o' this sassin' back; they must understand their parents naturally know more'n them." Then Mrs. Barnes replied. Not to express the thought that had come to her a moment before; she spoke from the impulse that prompts most speech: because this seemed the proper moment to say some- thing. " I guess that's right," she murmured. Barnes grunted. " Then, there's respect for success," he resumed " for them as have made their own way in the world. We all seem to be gettin' away from that. Just because them Trinkers up in Carlisle made their money sellin' the Gover'ment the same horse three times over, an' just because them New England peo- ple got rich givin' the soldiers shoddy blankets or paper shoes, that ain't no reason for believin' a man can't get wealthy an' keep honest. The next fifty year there's goin' to be the biggest chances to make fortunes in this country the world's ever seen. The War's opened things up, an* our boy, when he comes, has got to remember there ain't nothin' bigger'n a self-made man nor nothin' more American." Tom's eyes Ranged about the walls of the room. The walls were adorned with scriptural texts, em- broidered on netting and framed. There was a colored certificate of membership in the Grand Army of the Republic, and there were three steel-engrav- ings: one an allegorical picture of Abraham Lincoln 6 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE striking the shackles from a chattel-slave, another of the infant Moses among the bulrushes of the Nile, and a third, somewhat yellowed, representing the members of William Henry Harrison's cabinet, all in constrained positions and all with faces that de- clared their unanimous resolve to bear that constraint in becoming stoicism. Perhaps these decorations influenced Barnes's next words. ^ " Patriotic, that what he's goin' to be," said the man. " He's got to have respect for our great peo- ple. He's got to remember this is the splendidest country in the world, that it's God's country; an' it's better to be a successful plain American citizen, who's carved out his own' road an' made his own money, than to be a duke or a earl. If he'll just do that, an' if he'll remember the commandment ' Honor thy father an' thy mother,' an' if he'll keep his eyes open an'll work hard an' not grumble or shirk, he can why, he can be worth hundreds of thousands of dol- lars before he's forty! " Mrs. Barnes's head was still lowered. " An' be honest," she submitted, though merely by way of supplement. "Honest? Yes, of course, be honest." Tom Barnes thought about this for a moment. " Yes," he went on, " be honest first, last, an' all the time. That's the biggest thing of all. You can't get no- where if you ain't. Honesty's the best policy. We got to teach him that." ' Teach him?" Mrs. Barnes's face expressed a mild degree of surprise. " Won't he just know that?" " Not him," said Barnes. " All men are born THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 7 liars. ' In sin hath my mother begotten me.' Good- ness is somethin' that's got to be got. Honest. Not to lie. That's the thing. To never lie about nothin'. We must teach him that, an' then teach him to look out for opportunities, an' to make them, an' there's nowhere he can't get to." " Nowhere," softly echoed the woman that was soon to be a mother. The word was a statement; it was made merelj to cover that unspoken thought which had been sug- gested by Barnes's first mention of the child; but Tom mistook it for a question. " O' course not," he said. " A self-made, suc- cessful American's good as anybody in the world an' better." He paused and settled himself again in his chair. His eye was still upon the future. "An' another thing," he presently went on: " we got to remember the company he keeps. We got to know the best people. I'm goin' to be the richest man in Americus some day, Sallie, an' I'd rather be that than a bank-president over there in that dandy, low-down Doncaster. Meantime, for the boy's sake, it's just as well for you to keep in with people like the Kents. They give a person standin'. Some day our boy will be marryin', an' he must marry a girl that's that's a good girl." The wife bowed assent. " An' me I can help him with his lessons, can't I?" she asked. " O' course you .-can at first. Later he'll just naturally be takin' studies you ain't never learned." She looked away. 8 [THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " If we can afford it," she said, " you'll send him to the private school, won't you, Tom ? " But Tom regarded such a suggestion as savoring of insubordination. "The private school?" he repeated. "No, sir! What do I pay school-tax for? Public school's the place for an American public school." " But aren't our public schools kind of rough? " % " What of it? He's got to learn to fight his own battles an' take care of himself. That's the thing in this country: to learn to look out for yourself. I did." "Well," Mrs. Barnes's needle began to flash again " maybe he won't get into any quarrels. I don't believe he would. I never got into quarrels." Tom emitted a superior chuckle. " O' course you didn't: you were a girl. Women are different from men. A few fights are a good thing for a boy." Mrs. Barnes was silent, thinking, perhaps, how soft and how like unfolding rosebuds are a baby's hands. "An' college?" she at last quietly inquired " will you send him to college, Tom? " " Yes," said Barnes, " I will. There was Cap'n Richardson Edward Richardson, that Philadelphia man. I was near thirty an' 'ad been in the Home Guards, an' he was only twenty-two an' hadn't had no practical experience at all: but just because he'd been to college an' knew influential people, he was on Potter's staff, an' I was only his orderly. Yes, sir, our boy'll go to college; but not to none o' these places in the big towns. He'll go to Madison-an'- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 9 Adams over to Doncaster, so's he can drive home every afternoon, an' we'll know where he is nights." Mrs. Barnes glanced modestly at her husband and modestly away again. "But you do want him to be smart," she said; "don't you, Tom?" " I want him to be good." " Like you, Tom." * Barnes turned his head. The clock on the mantel- piece^ it was flanked by two large artificial sea- shells ticked noisily. " Better'n me," said Barnes. "Why, Tom!" " I mean," explained the prospective father, " I want to keep him away from temptation." The center-table was covered with a fringed and figured cloth. Tom toyed awkwardly with the fringe. " .There's things in this world you don't know nothin' about," he resumed " things I wouldn't never tell you an' that I wouldn't say even this much about if we wasn't married, an' if it wasn't necessary on ac- count o' the little one. O' course, it ain T t right a good woman should know about them you oughtn't to." Mrs. Barnes's face was scarlet. " Of course not! " she whispered. " You can't understand," pursued her husband, " what a young fellow has got to go through with, with all the bad women there is. Not knowin', an' it not bein' right ^ou should know, vatio/i. ' An m- understand. ' amething else, of the " Oh ! " said Sarah Banker at the beginning of this 12 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE talk. But again she repressed the idea, and it re- mained unspoken. Her glance was once more beyond her husband, once more soft and tender. " An* him," she inquired" what will he be? " Tom smiled. " Well," said he, " I don't count on makin' him a President." But his wife could see no limitations for the child yet unborn. " Why not? " she asked, and her tone was as near to resentment as ever Tom had heard it. Instantly the smile passed from the husband's lips. The face retook its habitual expression of determina- tion, but retook it with a difference. The old pride was there, but it was somehow, for the moment, a different sort of pride. There, was love a new and strange kind of love softening the usually keen eyes. Tom spoke with the utmost seriousness. " I'm goin' to make him somethin' better'n a President," said Barnes: " I'm goin' to make our son able to make himself. I'm goin' to put him in my store it'll be a big store by then, Sallie an' I'm goin' to learn him the business; an' then, knowin' how to make money honestly, he's goin' to make it." "Just that, Tom?" " No, not just that. I don't want him to be just rich. I want him to be good an 1 useful. But it stands to reason the man with means can be more useful'n the man without. The time's comin' when Presidents an' Senators ain't goin' to be the big figures in this country. The time's comin' when the big business men'll make Presidents an' Senators - [THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 13 an' unmake 'em an' I want our son to be one o' them big business men ; an' I want him to be good so's he can use his power an' his influence to serve his na- tion, to keep the United States the richest an' best country in the world, to keep America for the Ameri- cans, an' to leave it better'n he found it because of his money an' his work." Tom paused. His eyes were moist. " That's what I want," he said in a lowered voice; " that's what I want him to be, an' an' you've got to help me " He hesitated, and then for the first time addressed her by the title that he thereafter used until the day of their parting: " You've got to help me mother." She looked at him with her face full of an awed joy. " I will help you," she said. A critical outsider, had it been possible for any outsider to overhear their conversation, might have remembered that, in all their detailed plans, the Barneses had made small provision for the coming youngster's amusements; but to this pair approach- ing the dark tower of parenthood the question of amusement did not present itself. All that now did present itself was the tenderness before which they found themselves awkward and almost ashamed. Tom came around the table and, bending above his wife, timidly touched, with his great thumb and forefinger, the dress that she was preparing against their expected child. " You sew nicer Sallie," he said. " I knowed you sewed well, but I never thought before you could sew so so nice" 14 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Their eyes met, and suddenly her mouth twitched. " Oh, Tom," she said, " I'm I'm a little afraid! " He raised his hand to her shoulder and patted it, heavily. " Afraid ? " he asked. " What of ? " " I suppose he'd " she could scarcely frame the word " suppose he'd die, Tom! " But Tom, being a man, only laughed. " Not your boy an' mine, Sallie ! No danger o' that. Thank God, we come from hardy stock." " I know, but even then She waj not yet to be comforted. " Even then I'm I'm afraid." '* Tut, tut," said her husband. " You ain't afraid. You're just tired." " No. I'm afraid. There's so many things, so very many things, to be afraid of, Tom. What if we brought him up wrong?" "Bring him up? Why, we'll bring him up like other people bring up their sons nice people; then we can't bring him up wrong. You're not afraid of that, Sallie. What are you afraid of? " " I don't know. Everything. I'm just afraid." He tried, clumsily, to divert her mind. He picked up the work-basket at her elbow and drew forth a pair of tiny knitted socks. He laid them in the hol- low of his big hand. " Ain't they little ! " he said in a kind of reverence. "My, ain't they little!" Obvious as his ruse was, it succeeded. Mrs. Barnes smiled. * You men! " she said. " You're just as ignorant as can be about such things." L THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 15 " Well," replied Tom, " I guess you know best, mother. Let him wear 'em for a while if he can ever get into them; but no short stockin's an' half bare legs when he gets older." His tone was serious again. " None o' that sort o' softness for my boy." Mrs. Barnes was hurt. She accepted the possessive pronoun as tradition bade her accept it, but the socks surely they were within her own province. " Think of his pretty little legs," she ventured. Tom's brow clouded. " It ain't decent," he declared. " Why not? He's sure to go barefoot, Tom." "That's different," said Tom. And then, at a single cast, he unconsciously plumbed the very depths of ethics. " It ain't what you cover that counts," he said; " an' it ain't what you uncover: it's what you half-an'-half."^ Mrs. Barnes sighed softly; but Tom heard her and feared a return of her recent agitation. He picked up the lamp from the table. " Come on," he said kindly. " It's time to go to bed. I'll shut up the house." 4. Yet late that night, in the darkness of their bed, the thought that had come to her earlier in the evening, with Tom's first mention of their child, re- turned and would not again depart. It thrived in the shadow, and it held her eyelids wide. The husband felt his wife stirring beside him. He was instantly broad awake. "What's the matter, mother?" he asked. She made a little sound in her throat; but whether it was tears or laughter he could not determine. 14 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Their eyes met, and suddenly her mouth twitched. " Oh, Tom," she said, " I'm I'm a little afraid ! " He raised his hand to her shoulder and patted it, heavily. " Afraid ? " he asked. " What of ? " " I suppose he'd ' she could scarcely frame the word " suppose he'd die, Tom ! " But Tom, being a man, only laughed. " Not your boy an' mine, Sallie ! No danger o' that. Thank God, we come from hardy stock." " I know, but even then She waj not yet to be comforted. " Even then I'm I'm afraid." ' Tut, tut," said her husband. " You ain't afraid. You're just tired." " No. I'm afraid. There's so many things, so very many things, to be afraid of, Tom. What if we brought him up wrong? " " Bring him up? Why, we'll bring him up like other people bring up their sons nice people; then we can't bring him up wrong. You're not afraid of that, Sallie. What are you afraid of? " u I don't know. Everything. I'm just afraid." He tried, clumsily, to divert her mind. He picked up the work-basket at her elbow and drew forth a pair of tiny knitted socks. He laid them in the hol- low of his big hand. " Ain't they little ! " he said in a kind of reverence. "My, ain't they little!" Obvious as his ruse was, it succeeded. Mrs. Barnes smiled. * You men ! " she said. " You're just as ignorant as can be about such things." L THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 15 " Well," replied Tom, " I guess you know best, mother. Let him wear 'em for a while if he can ever get into them; but no short stockin's an' half bare legs when he gets older." His tone was serious again. " None o' that sort o' softness for my boy." Mrs. Barnes was hurt. She accepted the possessive pronoun as tradition bade her accept it, but the socks surely they were within her own province. " Think of his pretty little legs," she ventured. Tom's brow clouded. " It ain't decent," he declared. " Why not? He's sure to go barefoot, Tom." "That's different," said Tom. And then, at a single cast, he unconsciously plumbed the very depths of ethics. " It ain't what you cover that counts," he said; " an' it ain't what you uncover: it's what you half-an'-half."^ Mrs. Barnes sighed softly; but Tom heard her and feared a return of her recent agitation. He picked up the lamp from the table. " Come on," he said kindly. " It's time to go to bed. I'll shut up the house." 4. Yet late that night, in the darkness of their bed, the thought that had come to her earlier in the evening, with Tom's first mention of their child, re- turned and would not again depart. It thrived in the shadow, and it held her eyelids wide. The husband felt his wife stirring beside him. He was instantly broad awake. "What's the matter, mother?" he asked. She made a little sound in her throat; but whether it was tears or laughter he could not determine. 1 6 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE :< Tom," she whispered, her arm stealing about his neck, " Oh, Tom, suppose suppose it's a girl!" At such an awful suggestion Tom Barnes nearly leaped from bed. " Nonsense ! " he replied. " Go to sleep. Non- sense. It can't be a girl." II AJD a boy it was. There was a tremendous howdydo about It, even more of a howdydo than the baby him- self though no baby ever born underestimates his own importance seemed to think either wise or fit- ting. On the eve of his arrival, which was some months after the night when Mrs. Barnes evinced her terrifying and wholly unwarranted misgiving, Dr. Ireland was sent for, by a breathless messenger, on three futile occasions, until even the doctor's good nature he was one of the old sort of physicians, who died with one-third of their bills outlawed and an- other third uncollected and uncollectable until even Dr. Ireland's temper was severely strained. So it happened that when, at dawn, the fourth messenger panted the summons, the physician rose leisurely and took time to remember his rheumatism before he drew on the high boots that he always wore under his trousers, and came upon the tumultuous household in Front Street not a moment before he was really needed. And then he joked with Tom Barnes and creaked up the stairs and calmed Mrs. Barnes with a word or two of quiet assurance and scolded Mrs. Fanny Fanistock, who was always " called in to help " on birthdays in Americus, and, after what seemed to be time without end, creaked down the stairs to Barnes who had been tramping the parlor and hold- 17 1 8 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE ing his long breaths at the sound of the footsteps overhead and commanded : " Tom, you rascal, get up there and see how much better a son God's given you than you deserve." It was then that there began the howdydo to which this son objected. Mrs. Fanny bathed him, which process he hated immediately. His pale-faced mother, weakly smiling, held out hef arms and raised her tired head just an inch from the pillow to kiss him which he resented as a too sudden familiarity. Mrs. Kent and Mrs. Fry, because they were friends and neighbors, came in to scrutinize and praise him, to declare that his eyes, which were opaque, exactly matched his mother's, and that, though he had no nose worthy of notice, it was the image of his fa- ther's; to say what ought to be done that had not been done, and to point out how wrong was every- thing that had been essayed. Mrs. Fry, who was al- ready the mother of a boy several months old, com- pared her sturdy Lysander with this small " new- born," and, from her long experience, advised Mrs. Barnes to wean her child " before seven months." Against all these remarks as to his appearance and counsels as to his bathing and nourishment, the baby lustily protested; and when, finally, his big father, after much hovering in the background, where the women had left him to a fine sense of his masculine inutility, and after many awkward approaches and considerable sheepish grinning when, finally, his big father drew near and tried not really to fondle him, you know, but just to heft him then, with the four women for chorus, the baby screamed and kicked and denounced the universe louder than ever. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 19 2. Thus it was that, on a certain raw Novem- ber morning in the year of grace 1871, after many more difficulties and dangers than Tom had antici- pated, and before what the dramatic critics damn as " a small but appreciative audience," Daniel Webster Barnes made his entrance upon the stage of a busy and only limitedly commending world. That century of darkness which we call the nineteenth had, you observe, spent scarcely two-thirds of its strength. The baby's immature country still bled from the wounds of the war that freed, for a time, the negro slaves, and still groaned in the agonies of that period of reconstruction which freed a goodly number of other things. The first air that the little lungs breathed was an air of uncertainty and muddle and transition. When the land was but awakening to a new existence ; when the eyes of the cunning were be- ginning to see; when competition still stood upright in the prize-ring of commerce; when the town of Americus still believed in the future entered Daniel Webster Barnes. For Daniel Webster was the name that Tom Barnes had chosen. " I believe in the good influence o' good names," said Tom. " Yes, sir. It teaches respect an' imita- tion, an' it keeps the lesson always right there before 'em." Mrs. Barnes, who had not read " Ichabod," had nevertheless harbored a fearful fondness for Cyril or Percival ; but she said nothing. " Dani-el Webster Barnes," repeated Tom. " Sounds good, don't it? Well, Dan'l, you've got to make Americus sit up an' take notice." 20 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 3. Americus was neither then nor later a town to notice anything, save with a jeer, that was in any wise different from the few things to which Americus was used. Babies, however, were well enough within the boundaries of its experience, if not its understand- ing, to be received as a matter for questionable jokes among the men and for indiscriminate kissing by the women; and so the town expected to receive Master Barnes. The forty-odd years that have passed since then have changed Americus in every respect except in its customs and its intelligence. The place has grown old and has retained intact the liberalism of yesterday that is the conservatism of to-day. The lumber- looters have cut away the timber of the Alleghanies until the rafts that once blackened the river-front and crowded the shops of the town with spike-shod, money-spending men are remembered only by the mid- dle-aged. The canal, fallen in, has dried up. The railroad, accustomed to getting all that it asked for, has been offended at an amazing refusal by the voters to give it yet another " right " that it had no right to, and has removed its roundhouse and five hundred citizens. The main line h^s been laid four miles be- yond the hills " back in the country," and, with the coming of the Steel Trust, the furnaces have been deserted, and the rolling-mills, after crawling along on half-time for a dozen years, have shut down for- ever. The only forces that keep Americus from death are a few brave little independent industries, and the only forces that keep the people from admitting this dissolution are the twin local superstitions that to speak the truth would be to display disloyalty to the THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 21 town and that to talk about the certainty of better times will bring them. In the early seventies, however, when the land be- gan to react from the stagnation of the previous de- cade, those appearances which we call realities vastly differed in Americus. All spring long the town was full of logmen ; all summer a slow procession of canal- boats drew up at the chutes, received their cargoes of coal, and were towed across the broad Susque- hanna to the other arm of the canal on the York County side. The Three Mounts House and the Adams Hotel had almost as many persons in their bedrooms as they had at their bars; the banks thrived; the shops flourished; the insurance agents laid aside cozy " futures "; and from January to De- cember the flour-mills ground the wheat that the shovel-hatted Mennonite farmers had driven into town ; the furnaces and the rolling-mills were a cloud of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night, and the railway trains were stopped and broken and made and remade and dispatched; and they hauled away what Americus produced, and brought back gold in return. But at heart, Americus A^as then just what it is in 1912. Every citizen was sure that this was the best possible world, that the United States composed the best nation in the world, that Pennsylvania was the best state in the nation, that Doncaster County was the best county in Pennsylvania, and that Amer- icus was the best town in Doncaster County. Yet mark the paradox ^Americus hated Doncaster, which was the county-seat; Doncaster County as a whole ridiculed all the other counties of the state; the state 22 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE as a whole scoffed at all the other states of the Union, and the Union as we all know looks upon any foreigners-born with a blending of amusement and apprehension. The result was those sister virtues which we call Patriotism, State-Loyalty, and Local- Pride not Progress. The town was so used to itself that it could never tolerate anything different. Let an Englishman at- tempt its streets in walking-costume, and he might be permited to escape with a few verbal insults as an obvious alien and therefore inevitably insane. But let a citizen try the same feat, and he would simply have to leave the town. How bicycles ever became possible in Americus is still a mystery ; how they have again become impossible is inexplicable. Not that the citizens ever were consciously, as a class, either evil or malicious. Not that they are at present any more to blame for remaining contented with what they are: Americus was what hundreds of other American towns were : it is what they are now. But all that is economics and not narra- tive. . . . , Every person in Americus knew every other per- son. Every person in Americus went to day-school and Sunday school, or to work and to church, with meritorious regularity. It was then, and is to-day, quite too terrible for any of the " old families " (ear- liest date, A.D. 1700) to do anything or be anything characteristic of the " newer crowd "; and the newer crowd were just as careful not to do anything or be anything that was characteristic of the newest; and as for the newest, there being nothing lower, they were free to do and be what they pleased and for THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 23 the most part they pleased to imitate the old fam- ilies and climb back toward them. With a few shin- ing exceptions, such people as read books at all read the novels of Well, you probably would not so much as know the authors' names, but the legitimate descendants of those authors are Miss Marie Corelli and Mr. Hall Caine. And so, finally, everyone was solemnly satisfied with his ready-made opinions, po- litical, economic, and religious. There is no mistake impossible to any of us and no mistake not worth the pains of correcting. The great mass of mankind can give no reasons for their moral standards; right is right because it is right; they let it go at that : consequently, the great mass of mankind are bitterly faithful to an inherited moral code and possess absolutely no apprehension of moral values the people of Americus were but a part of the mass. Parenthood in particular, moved there, as elsewhere, with its finger perpetually on its lips, its eyes perpetually commanding silence. The average citizen there was the average citizen of that period everywhere : a mental coward whose intellectual land- scape was plentifully dotted with those Cities of Refuge, the platitudinous generalities of past genera- tions; a contemporary of Gladstone, but an anachron- ism in that time when man will be sufficiently edu- cated to think less of the past and more of the future. 4. So Danny Barnes came to Americus and in Americus passed through the croup and the perambu- lator, the measles and the mothering, the scarlet fever and the first spanning; ran all that gauntlet of dis- eases and dispensations then considered requisite and 24 THE SENTENCE OF SILENC i necessary as well for the childish body as for the childish soul and came at last to the age when memory gains tenacity. He has always, of course, been rather uncertain about the start of this. What he recalls as experi- encing -mingles imperceptibly, at the farther end, with what he recalls merely as having been told that he experienced. But he is almost sure that he remem- bers gripping his father's big index finger and being led to his first circus, where he was frightened by a caged lion and enchanted by a spangled lady on the horizontal-bar: and he is quite certain that he recollects his mother's ill-concealed grief on the joy- ous occasion when he took his blond curls to the bar- ber's and returned without them. For Danny's hair, though it grew brown enough as Danny grew older, was tow-colored at first, and Danny, according to the enduring maternal creed, was a child good to look upon. His mother has told him that he was beautiful, but of that he has his mis- givings. Indeed, there is a much-rubbed cabinet- photograph of Daniel, made at this time, which shows a pug-nosed little fellow in kilts, large-footed, broad- faced, with eyes abashed by the pointing camera and head held stiff by the photographer's frame behind. But this picture is not a fair criterion. In it the sub- ject's unruly hair is " slicked," his cheeks shine from a rigorous application of home-boiled soap, and his whole natural being has plainly been washed away by a preparatory bath. The fact is that Danny, though in no sense extraordinary, was a bright-eyed child that, if not beautiful, was pretty, and that re- tained, so long as his conditionsthe average condi- THE SENTENCE OI SILENCE 25 tions made it possible, the charm and wonder of a pure heart. Dan does not remember going to the photog- rapher's, unpleasant as that ordeal must have been, but he does remember, though probably only because it was repeated throughout his childhood and became the foundation of his whole education, the sort of teaching that he at this time received. He would hear from Thomas Barnes of Thomas' youth of that Golden Age when father was a boy of his par- ent's own happinesses and struggles, and of the War and how splendid it was to be a soldier and to be brave and fight. Tom would tell the child of the great men that he had read of, or seen, or even, some- times, spoken to. And when the little fellow's eyes glowed with envy and the passion for emulation, Tom would point out how the chief virtue of the soldier was the chief virtue of the child obedience and how it is the duty of us all to respect unques- tioningly those whom it is a virtue to obey. Respect that was cardinal: respect for the ac- cepted, for success as Americus counted success, for greatness as Americus esteemed greatness, for the glorious company of the things that are. The self- made man was the national hero ; political power was the token of personal ability (that is, if it was power in Tom's party; in a member of the other party it was a sign of sin) ; wealth (Tom called it " means ") possessed an inherent rectitude, and all these things commanded deference. Therefrom, indeed, Tom re- ceived a reflected .glory, for did he not know Mr. Richardson, the rich merchant in Philadelphia, and had he not, but recently, eaten a meal with Simon 26 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Cameron? Not that this second-hand greatness was needed : the parents soon assumed, in the child's eyes, Olympian proportions. The father was a Jove, the mother a Minerva. It went without saying, but with much more force than specific mention, that age knew all and youth nothing, and that therefore fresh ideas are bound to be wrong ideas, except as they were not really fresh at all, but only the old ideas adapted to new opportunities. " So you see," said Tom, " when you're a man, Danny, you must make your own way, an' then folks'll respect you." Danny was playing with his tin soldiers on the floor. The handful of blue-coats had just conquered five times their number in red with tremendous slaughter. 'You're a self-made man, ain't you, pop?" he proudly inquired. Thomas caught a blush in time to stop it. " So far as I've gone," he admitted. " An' you're rich, ain't you? " persisted Danny. "Not yet," said Tom; " but if honesty an' hard work an' no grumblin' bring what they had ought to bring, I guess I'll be fairly well-to-do one o' these days." For honesty also these parents insisted upon. Danny remembers his stern-lipped father's long and rather dry talks to him on honesty; and he remem- bers his mother's briefer, but more impressive, cau- tions to the same end, these latter made embarrass- edly and only when mother and son were alone together; when he had just said " Now I lay me " at her knee or prevailed upon her to lie down on the THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 27 bed for a while and keep the bears away: cautions that, though they were based on the assumption that no offense had been committed, always somehow made him want to weep. Danny would as soon have thought of the sun dropping from the heavens or the apple falling skyward as of either of his parents tell- ing a lie. 5. One of his earliest recollections is connected with an anecdote of his father's bravery, but it was not until long afterward that Danny appreciated the full meaning of the comment that ended the narra- tive so abruptly. The family sat at its six o'clock supper, and Danny was so busy trying to secure more molasses than his slice of bread would hold that he did not note the beginning of the conversation. The first thing that he realized was that his father was in the midst of a story of some adventure of the day. ' Yes, sir," Tom was saying, u that Freddie Fry come right in the store, an' he was fightin' drunk fightin' drunk. I told him to get out, an' he wouldn't go. Then I went to the door an' seen Constable Kautz over by the Adams Hotel, an' I called him in. " * Come on, Fred,' says he; * you git out o' here an* go home peaceable.' " An' what do ypu think, mother? " Tom's voice lowered as he approached his first climax. * That fellow Fry picked up one o' them stools alongside o' the counters an' waved it over his head an' hit Kautz an' knocked him flat down so's I thought he'd knocked his brains out." He paused. Mrs. Barnes was pale with the sense 28 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE of her husband's escaped danger; Danny, arrested by the story, sat with the piece of bread, the mo- lasses from which trickled disregarded over his fingers and down to his tucked-in napkin, suspended halfway to his open mouth. " What on earth did you do, Tom? " asked Mrs. Barnes. " Do? I just walked up to him," said Barnes, " an' took him by the collar. 'Git out!' I says. An' just as I come at him, he ups with that stool ag'in an' waves it over his head, an' I thought he was goin' to knock my brains out, too." Once more he paused for a climax. But Danny, his eyes big with admiration for his father, could endure no longer the suspense. " He he couldn't knock any brains out'n you, pop, could he? " asked the child. 6. And Danny remembers one or two glimpses of a tea-party that his mother gave to the members of the Dorcas Society. It is among his first memories, so that the party must have occurred at about the time of his father's heroic casting-out of Lysander Fry's parent; but whether it occurred before or after that battle, he has never been able precisely to deter- mine. Also, the child must have been permitted to be present during the whole of the decorous festivi- ties, yet he can recall only that pair of pictures. Of these the former is merely the entrance of Mrs. Kent, whom Danny immediately considered as, next of course to his mother, the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen. He recalls ihe sense of dis- loyalty with which her appearance forced him to THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 29 admit her as, if not quite so beautiful as Mrs. Barnes, at any rate more radiant. She had splendid black hair and great brown eyes, and the carriage of a person accustomed to deference, so that the child knew instantly that she must have " means." He had heard, too, his father insist that she be invited because of something that the elder Barnes called her " position," and the child learned that she was not a member of the Dorcas Society, but an Epis- copalian; and he wondered what an Episcopalian might be and whether all Episcopalians were radiant. For a long time thereafter that word Episcopalian suggested to him a superior order of being. Then it must have been half an hour afterwards while Danny was sitting on the floor in a corner, his young nostrils first inhaled the smoke of gossip, which is the incense that the respectable burn to vice. Two of the guests were discussing some mem- ber of the Society that was not present, and Danny listened. u Of course Martha's not here," said one of the gossips Dan remembers the speaker as a hatchet- faced woman of enormous age, perhaps quite forty years " of course she's not here. Sallie Barnes is the kind that's always on the safe side, and she knows there's bound to be trouble about Martha some day soon." The other woman, whom Dan's recollection, here confused, pictures as the twin sister of the first speaker and whose rapid sibilant voice he associates still with the voice of the Gossipmonger as a class, nodded. " The way Martha throws herself at the pastor's 30 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE head," said this one, " is a scandal. At least that's what / say." " Me, too," rejoined the first gossip. " I always did say there was somethin' very queer about Mar- tha's first baby. You know they was married in May " " Wasn't it June, dear?" " Mighty early in June, then an' next thing we know, along about Christmas " The second woman's sharp eyes detected Danny glancing in her direction. " I'd be a little careful, dear," she said to her companion, without lowering her tone. " Little pitchers have big ears. Are you goin' to Martha's party next Tuesday? " The first woman accepted the warning. " Oh, yes," she said; " aren't you? " "Certainly; I wouldn't hurt her feelin's for the world." Danny moved away. He knew that he had over- heard something that he was not intended to over- hear; but he did not understand it or why he should not listen to whatever was said by his mother's guests in his father's house. He wondered why they had called him a pitcher, and the next time that he was alone with a looking-glass he measured his ears. Ill PERHAPS a year lies between this event and the next just here in order. Dan thinks it does. At any rate, he had in the meantime been taught to address his parents as " Father " and " Mother," always with capitals, so that it must have been after Tom Barnes's store was moved north of Second Street and the family were talking of that dignified process known as " building." The event now in question is his discovery of the genus Girl. He had known, of course, in a general way, that girls existed; he had seen some and talked to a few; but he had never yet realized that there was an essential difference between his own kind and theirs. Now he met a little girl on the front pave- ment and challenged her to a foot race, which he won in a mere canter, whereupon the little girl cried and Danny found himself, even in the glow of his victory, moved almost to tears at the sight of her unmanly grief. " Mother," he announced, snuggling into Mrs. Barnes's arms when, that night, his mother lay down beside him in his little bed, " I don't like girls." Mrs. Barnes smiled magnanimously. " I was a girl once," she said. " Oh ! " said Danny. He had not thought of that. He saw instantly 'the necessity of a synthesis between his detestation of girls and the fact that his mother 31 32 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE had been one. He studied the problem and presently solved it. " But that was a long time ago," he said. * Yes " and Mrs. Barnes sighed " it seems a long time ago, Danny." / " I guess they're not the same now, mother." " I don't know, Danny. Perhaps they aren't. I sometimes think they aren't. But you oughtn't to not like anybody." " Well, I do. I don't like girls." The moment was not guarded. She asked him why he did not like girls. " They cry," said Danny. " They wear dresses like me when I was a baby. They're babies just got big." Then, after a pause, he added: " They are different, ain't they?" " From what they were when I was little, Danny? I say I don't know. I sometimes think they are." " I mean different from boys. Ain't they different, mother? " * Yes, Danny, I dare say. But you must go to sleep now." " Mother, why are they different? " Mrs. Barnes saw that she had let this cross-exam- ination go too far. " Go to sleep, dear," she commanded. It was not for nothing that Danny had been in- structed in obedience. He flung his tiny arms about his mother's neck and kissed her. " All right," he said " good-night. I know you wasn't ever no girly girl, mother." But the last question on his lips that evening was the first there on the morning following, and, with THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 33 a realization that his mother would tell him no more, Danny bore it to his father. Tom Barnes was struggling into his last winter's overcoat to start for the store. The lining of the overcoat sleeve was torn, and Tom's day therefore began*%ith a physical effort. " Father," said Danny, watching his parent's con- test with admiration for its masculinity, " what is Girls?" Barnes stood there with one extended arm half in the sleeve and half out of it. " What's what? " he demanded. ''Girls," repeated Danny. " You're too young to think about such fool things," replied Barnes. " Wait till you're growed up. Don't ask questions you've no business to ask an' tell your mother to not forget to sew up this here linin' when I come home for dinner." 2. It seems quite a long time after this that another important puzzle presented itself to Danny. The former " Philadelphia Notion Store " on Elm Avenue had so far grown in size and grace as to bear the simple sign : THOS. L. BARNES DRY GOODS The mighty process of " building " had been accom- plished, and the Barneses lived in a new, large, gray house on Oak Street in the rarified atmosphere of most of the newer Old Families. 34 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " Won't you please lay down with me for a little while, mother? " pleaded Danny, when Mrs. Barnes kissed him and tucked the covers about his neck up to his curly head. " Not ' lay/ Danny," Mrs. Barnes corrected. " Only chickens lay. You mean ' lie.' " 14 Well, you used to say it, didn't you?" pouted Danny and: "Won't you lie down with me a little while, mother? " " Why, Danny," she told him, " your father thinks he he thinks you're getting to be too big a boy to be afraid to go to bed nowadays." " Ain't afraid! " declared Danny. " Then why do you want me? " " I dunno, only I guess I'm just afraid I'll be afraid." " That's the quickest way to be afraid, my boy. No, I guess I'd better go downstairs now." " But, mother " "Yes, dear?" " I wanted to ask you somepin'." "Will it take long, boy?" " I dunno. That's what you'll know, mother." "Well, what is it, Danny?" " Oh lots o' things. Please lay lie down, mother." " No, I mustn't. Just tell me what it is you want to ask me, Danny." "Sit down, anyhow; won't you please, mother?" The room was in nearly complete darkness. For some months she had been lowering the light farther and farther every evening. Now she could not see her little boy's face. Nevertheless, she felt the plead- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 35 ing that strained there, and it was hard for her not to grant him his wish. " Tell me what you want to ask, Danny," she said. " It's Oh, I can't talk to you 'way off there, mother! Honest Injun, I can't." Mrs. Barnes sat upon the side of the narrow bed. She had promised her husband not to lie there, so she compromised with her conscience by sitting on the extreme edge and making herself uncomfortable. "Now, then," she said. " Just a minute, you know." There was a flash of silence. " Well," said Danny at last, " it's about that lady 'cross the street." The mother had a chill of premonition. 44 What lady?" she asked. 44 Oh, you know," said Danny. 44 That lady what used to be so thin an' ain't. Mother, what's the matter with her? " Mrs. Barnes drew a long breath. She wished that she had not sat down. How under the sun could children come to think of such things? She wished that she knew how to execute some retreat that would forbid pursuit; but she was seated and did not know how, in the circumstances, properly to rise; she had advanced so far that she had been hopelessly am- bushed. For the first time, she began to feel toward Danny something of the deference that she felt to- ward his father. For the first time she effectively realized that, thoygh this was a child, it was a man- child. Even in her little son she was confronting the might and mystery of the Other Sex. 36 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " I don't know," she stammered. " I I suppose she's sick I guess " "She ain't sick," said Danny. "She's got red cheeks. People as is sick ain't got red cheeks." " Sometimes they have, Danny." "Then, how's she sick, mother?" Mrs. Barnes again drew a deep breath. Some- thing, she clearly saw, must be said and said quickly. She felt her boy's hand reaching for her own in the darkness, and she seized his and held it tight. 41 1 don't know how she is sick," lied the mother; " but she is quite sick, Danny." " Will she die, mother? " asked Danny hopefully. " No, she won't die. I heard to-night that she's going to get well. But she's really been very sick, and so she has been sent something something to comfort her." " What's she been sent, mother? " " Something that " Mrs. Barnes' hand quiv- ered. " Wouldn't you like a little playmate, Danny? " she broke off. " I dunno," said Danny, impatient of this evasion. " What's she been sent, mother? " " Wait a minute, Danny. Answer my question first. Wouldn't you like a new playmate, my boy?" " What kind? " asked Danny, warily. " A new one," said his mother. " Not a girl, I wouldn't," said Danny. " I am sorry to hear that, Danny, for I am afraid this is a girl." The child tossed petulantly under the covers. "A girl? What's a girl, mother? " he asked. "I THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 37 do wish you'd tell me. Do you mean this new one you're talking about's a girl? " " Yes, Danny. Now I must really go, my boy." " An 1 is that what they've given this lady to com- fort her?" " Yes. Good-night, Danny." " But, mother " " Yes? " " I shouldn't think babies'd comfort anybody." " You just don't understand, my dear." Danny thought that over and gave it up. But he did not let go his mother's hand, and presently he asked : " So they brought this lady one? " " Yes." Danny sat straight up in bed. " Mother," he demanded, " how do babies come? " It was the question that, for the last two minutes, she had been expecting, the question that she should have been expecting since the first that he had ever asked. Yet she had no answer ready. " I I don't know," she quavered. " But I must go downstairs, dear." "You don't know? Why, mother, how did I come?" If he could have seen her face, he would have seen it hot with a curious shame. " I I mean," she stammered, " it's the doctor. The doctor brings them." She rose hurriedly. " It is late. You've got to go to sleep." " Brings 'em in ,with him? " asked Danny. " Yes, yes. Now go to sleep I " " All right, I'm goin', mother. In a basket? " 38 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " Yes." " But, mother " She had gained the door. " If you don't go straight to sleep," she said, " I'll tell your father." The habit of obedience momentarily triumphed. " All right," he said again, as he turned over and drew up his knees. " But I wish you'd kiss me good- night." " I did kiss you," said Mrs. Barnes, almost sharply. " You ain't cross? " " No." '* Then do kiss me again, mother. Please." She came to him and hugged him close. " Good-night," she whispered. "Good-night," said Danny. " Snagsie Fry says his mother toF him they come down the rainspout." Mrs. Barnes started. * You mustn't believe all you hear," she said. " Go to sleep now." " Yes, mother. It ain't the rainspout, is it?" She felt herself hopelessly committed to the other theory. " No," she said. " I'm sorry about that," said Danny. " I'm sorry Snagsie'd tell a story." Snagsie was the youthful alias of Lysander Fry. " I don't think he told a story. I think he just forgot." " No, he didn't, neither. He come right straight from his mother to me, mother." " Very well. Good-night, now, Danny." He returned her embrace. T 6. Don't forget him as he stands there. Don't 42 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE forget him and don't laugh at him too much. A little later and you will not want to laugh at him at all ; and when that time comes, try to stop a moment and look backward at him as you see him now: a clean little soul in a clean little body, a shivering figure in canton-flannel nightdrawers, standing in his bare feet by the window, with the silver moonlight bathing him from his tumbled curly hair to his pink heels, and his wide blue eyes looking up at the indigo sky, as if he sought there the answer^to the riddle. . V- ONCE upon a time a traveling salesman, new to the " territory," came to Americus and, in his quest for information concerning the mer- chants upon whom he was to call, fell in with Freddie Fry. Now, Freddie Fry it was that, some years before, had espoused the daughter of Calvin Green. When the match was made, or enforced, neither party to it understood the nature of such an alliance, and so Mrs. Fry had become a thin, suffering woman, and her husband the town drunkard. Life had been no kinder to Freddie than Freddie was to his wife, and he retaliated upon life by growing into a disciple of the unhappy St. Thomas. In his sober moments he worked little and read a great deal, but he was a weakling and he knew it; it was, therefore, only hu- man of him to doubt the appearance of righteous- ness in his fellow-men. Though his convictions were determined in regard to predestination, his actions were erratic in regard to drink; and though even through the muddy surface of Mr. Fry one caught equivocal glimpses of the angel imprisoned in the man, something perhaps it was the occasion when he did not knock any brains out of Mr. Barnes' head prevented him from holding too high an opinion of Danny's father. "What sort df" a fellow is this Barnes? " asked the salesman. 43 44 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE They ^erp^seated in comfortably tilted chairs on the street bide of the gutter that ran its open course in front of the AcMms Hotel, the flashily dressed drummer with a long cigar in his mouth, and Freddie, unshaven and coatless, also with a cigar from the drummer's case his bleared eyes meditatively fas- ened upon the barroom door. " Parnes," said Freddie, in the tone of one that admits a grudged truth, " is among the most re- spected persons in this here town still. " He was one of those little men, was Freddie Fry, who seem to try to make up for their small physique by their large talk, as if they feel that society owes every individual a certain space, and that words are the miniature person's only means of filling the space that is his. So Freddie talked long and determinedly, and with a strong Pennsylvania-German accent. " Not as I take the town's opinion," Freddie went on to explain, singing the accented syllables. " I don't still. The trouble of this here town is they ogcept all the prowerbs with no more question as they ogcept greenpacks. They're all afraid of Friday an' keep away of sirteen; they git a chill still if you raise a umbreller indoors a'ready, or a lookin'-glass like is broke : they all suffer from that there mania as we're polite enough to call superstition. Yes," he added, " an' their worst superstition is money. They've got spasms of anthusiasm for justice, but a gronic disease of reference for wealth." The philosopher kept his red eyes on the barroom door opposite. Every now and then the door would open for some fortunate customer and let out a smell of sour hops. Freddie sniffed appreciatively. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 45 "Then Barnes has money?" asked th* drum- mer. A judicial answer was weighed in the balance. " Some. But he'll have more yet. Not that he's rich like the Kents, but the Kents is more stuck up as he is. The Kents got their money one spring an' was a old fambly by the next Christmas." " But about Barnes " said the drummer. " I mind," pursued the imperturbable philosopher, spitting thoughtfully into the distance, " how I asked old man Kent that's the pop o' this here one if they was a old fambly in the old country, where was their old chiny, an' he says the woyage ofer the ocean was so rough it all got broke. He reads in the paper where it says claw-feet furniture's the fashion, so old Kent sends for Henery Schmutzer Henery's the garpenter an' says: 'Henery,' he says, 'here's twenty dollars still. You git your turnin'-lathe an' make me some nice claw feets an' put a set on efery stick of furniture in this here house,' he says." " If Barnes is well-to-do," inquired the drummer, "why don't he dress better? They say he dresses mighty common." Freddie smiled. "What?" he asked. "Put on his best Sunday glothes on week-days? That'd make Parnes sink he was to a funeral." " Well, but what I'm trying to get at is: what sort of a fellow is he?" Mr. Fry removed his cigar from his mouth, but still watched the .barroom door. There was no hur- rying him. "He's highly plessed," said Freddie; " an so he 46 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE sinks wejl of himself. Oh, I guess he's just like the rest of us ogceptin' the mortar." "The mortar?" " Um. He's a few good qualities mixed with a lot of bad ones, an' all held togesser by the mortar of conceit. Not but what he has wirtue. He has, has Parnes, an' not the sort of general wirtue as won't stoop to particularities, either. But then that makes him so often right, an' Parnes is one o' them wiolent men as is always at their worst when they're right a'ready. No one as is below him kin stand ag'in him: he's stupid an' upright that's my opinion of him an' it's a irresistable compination." " Sharp at a bargain? " asked the drummer. " Razor," answered Freddie. " Only he won't cheat you. He don't cheat nopody put his customers, an' he's got to try to cheat them still, because they goes to his store prepared to pid less as any price Parnes might ask." The drummer chuckled. " Then I'll get along with him all right," said he. u I ain't so sure," slowly commented Freddie. 'You ain't a foreigner, ain't?" "Me? Not much. I'm from Chicago." " Um. Well, somesing is besser as nossing. But Chicago's pretty near a foreigner, an' Parnes he don't like people as was unlucky enough to be born some- where he don't know about." Freddie paused. " An' then there's his relitchen," he added. "His what?" asked the drummer. " What he beliefs: heaven an' hell like." "I don't think I'll let that interfere," said the drummer. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 47 " You can't neffcr tell yet," replied Mr. Fry, his contemplative eyes seeming to see through that bar- room door. " I ain't kickin' with Fames' relitchen, though myself I'm a Prespeterian just now. When I look at my friends, I see as all kinds of churches kin make lots of men of splendid character an' just as many as ain't got no character at all. It's like I says to our minister when I was a Conkregation'ist. I says : ' Fames' relitchen must be good for him,' I says, ' because in prayer-meetin's over to his church it makes him say such wise things still.' The minister he sniffs like, an' he says : ' I'm told it makes him use a deal o' words as he don't know what they mean.' But I says to our minister, I says : * Do you want a man to say wise things an' understand them, too? ' I says. ' No,' I says- " Oh, I wasn't worried about Barnes' religion," the drummer interrupted. " Well," said Freddie, " you can't sometimes tell. Relitchen's a slippery sing: you sink you've got it, an' then, first sing you know, you ain't; an' you sink it's locked up where it won't interfere with you, an* then, first sing you know, it's broke loose and's in the way. If they only keeps tight hold on themselfs, there ain't nossing two men can't agree on still except what's real relitchen an' what's a real joke. Faith's somesing as can't be had for the askin' an' can't be lost for conwenience." " You're a righteous man yourself, aren't you, Mr. Fry? " smiled the drummer. " Yes," admitted Freddie; " but not always church- righteous. Relitcheous talk's terrible dryin' to the throat," he added; " but if you want to know " 48 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " I want to know about Barnes." " Well," Freddie sighed, " Parnes he knows more about what's in God's mind as he knows what's in his own son's a lot besser. He's sometimes too fa- miliar with God, Parnes is but he's somesing grand at prayer-meetin's ; of course he prays to God, but you pet he don't forget the conkregation's got ears. He's so sorry for us sinners, I often says Parnes don't know it, but he's soured by the sings he neffer done. He's kep' himself down. It's like makin' krout : he's put the stone on the cabbage, an' the cabbage's just stayed there an' fermented like. He's proud because he's done right, but now and again he guesses he might 'a' had a awful good time of it if he'd wunst in a way done wrong." These were not precisely the details that the sales- man desired to learn; but he was a good-natured sales- man and rather lazy, so he let Freddie run on as merrily as the gentle gutter water at their feet. " I thought you said the man was pleased with himself? " he remarked. The cigar had been burned to the point where it endangered Freddie's ragged mustache. He osten- tatiously dropped the butt and set his heavy boot upon it. "Who? Parnes? "said Freddie. " You pet he is. Look at the kind of a pop he is just like the rest of us: can't see anysing finer as bringing up our children just like we was brought up: propogate your kind, you know, not a besser kind, but your own kind still." "You have your own theories of parenthood?" asked the drummer. " I got a little poy, too," said Freddie, " an' more THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 49 comin'; but I don't pretend to practice all I preach a'ready." "But Barnes does?" "Oh, Parnes ain't perfect; but the world ain't neither, an' Parnes is like most of the ozzer people in it." The drummer thought it time to get down to busi- ness. " I want you to tell me about his store," he said. Then two things happened to bring to birth what was largest in Freddie's mind. Out of the corner of one eye he saw his father-in-law approaching from the direction of Second Street, and with the full gaze of the other he saw the barroom door swing wide to permit the entrance of his closest crony. Fear joined hands with inclination. " The real elixir of life is pottled in pond," said Freddie. He got to his feet. " You take me to some of that there. The open street ain't no fit place to talk business." 2. In spite, however, of Freddie's endeavor to be fair, his ancient difference with Tom Barnes and his native inclination to think too much about other people probably prevented him from doing full jus- tice to that merchant. What Mr. Fry had said was as far from the truth on one side as it was far from the town's opinion on the other, for the town es- teemed Barnes highly, and in reality Barnes was no more than typical of his generation. The merchant pf Americus had prospered, but by no means that either he or any other business man would Lave considered ambiguous. In all his com- 5Q THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE mercial dealings, in all his dealings, he was scrupu- lously honest as commercial men esteem honesty. Not all the kingdoms of this world would have in- duced him to steal a cent and court eternal damna- tion; for though one had risen from the dead to testify against it, Barnes would never have doubted the existence of a material hell. He expected his business to grow ; he knew that, since a warning from Dr. Ireland following upon the unforeseen difficulties that attended Dan's birth, his family must not in- crease. Yet, if he loved the dissipation of prayer- meeting oratory, in his own home he was no wielder of the heavenly shafts, no preacher and no threatener ; and in his shop, if he believed in profits as sincerely as he believed in Abaddon, that was because he be- lieved also that the duty of the merchant is to buy for as little as possible and sell for as much, and to get as much work for as small wages as may be. All of which, and his pride in which, did not prevent him from loving his quiet wife and his son with a love that was deeper than his pride: perhaps so much deeper that, to outsiders, it was not always observ- able. Nor, in parental affection, was Mrs. Barnes want- ing. She said little. Sometimes it seemed as if she was given small opportunity to speak, and that, when the chance did come, long reflection upon what she had thought to say proved the intended words un- worthy of utterance ; but more often her silences were the silences of devotion. This mother's was that goodness of heart which is inarticulate. So Danny's home education was a simple matter. It comprised five commandments: to be honest and THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 51 open in word and deed, and to esteem those who were honest; to " succeed," and to honor those who suc- ceeded; to acquire "means," and to defer to those who had acquired them; to become an employer and commander, and to obey those who employed and commanded; and finally to respect his parents, be- cause his mother embodied goodness and because his father was an exemplar of the preceding four great laws. At Sunday school he learned the same lesson, and, if he acquired there a bowing acquaintance with sundry other virtues, he came, through his prelimi- nary traifrkig, naturally to attribute those virtues to his parents, too. It is the inevitable result of this process of instruction that the pupil soon confuses the teacher with the thing taught, and so Danny personi- fied the qualities in Thomas Barnes and Sarah his wife. The events of the little boy's earliest years at day school are not very legibly engraved upon Dan's mem- ory. He knows that the first thing taught him was deference to established authority: he must accept his instructor's dicta as final; he must "keep" something that was called "order"; he must keep silence, too; and he must obey. After that, he could learn his letters; learn whole words with pictures to help him; learn at last he will never, at any rate, forget the joy of that! to read entire sen- tences : " Dog. This is a dog. The dog runs. " After. " Cat. This is a cat. " St^e the dog. See the cat. " The clog runs after the cat." * 52 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Yes, there it was a whole sentence that made sense ! And, still more wonderful, there was the picture of a Newfoundland dog that anybody could see was really running after a cat. Danny's first love-affair resulted: he fell in love with his teacher. He used to gather great bunches of phlox or sweet william in the back yard at home and smuggle them to school under his coat, where the boys would not see them. Before school opened, he would surrepti- tiously place these bunches in the glass of water that stood, unsuspiciously waiting, on the altar which, to common minds, appeared to be no more than the teacher's desk. But he never told the teacher who it was that made this offering. It was enough for him to see her put her pretty nose among the flowers ; and when, one day, she asked him if he were the boy that had been making her these floral gifts, he blushed so hard that his heart got into his aching throat, and he ran away. Only his parents' example of truth- fulness withheld at his lips the lying denial that clamored there. This tender association did not, however, last. The teacher married and moved to Doncaster and was replaced by a plainer and more competent woman, whom Danny immediately detested. And then the lad passed into the Second Reader and the care of a narrow man in a broad coat, a man with a high forehead and fair hair and near-sighted eyes, who looked like an owl and talked like a parrot and re- enforced a native sort of lamblike virtue by an ac- quired proficiency with a rattan cane. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 53 3. Chronologically considered, Dan's recollec- tions of his childhood are, of course, in desperate confusion. In all our minds so much is set down undated, so much that we have been told is written among the things seen, that always order and often authenticity become impossible. The page of mem- ory is only so big: as you live along, you must rub out a great deal that is trivial if you would retain a little that is worth while. Nevertheless, when we come to middle age, we find, now and then, that many of the larger records have somehow disappeared, leaving clear this or that broken line of an earlier inscription, as antiquarians, having rubbed the sur- face of a scrawled parchment, can decipher passages of a younger chronicle beneath. Among these trifling memories of childhood which are written so heavily as to last when later blots have been erased, there stands, in Dan's case, the unvary- ing menu of the Sunday mid-afternoon dinner of roast beef and mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, onions boiled in cream; a general mingling of aromas that preceded the sounding of the dinner-bell; the heavy gorging that followed, and the subsequent dis- appearance of the overfed elders for their weekly nap. He recalls his first fight when he " gave " Lester Froenfield a black eye, and when Lester brought the blood from Dan's nose, and each proclaimed himself the victor. There are glimpses of mumble-peg and tops, of kites and hare-and-hounds, of wading in the forest creeks and, later, of swimming about the rafts in the river. Each amusement had its proper time, all were apportioned to seasons with limits as pre- cisely defin *d as these of the hunting-seasons for elder 54 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE folk, or the social season for persons in the big towns. What those limits are Dan could not now tell you; nor could he even tell you whether he first flew a kite before he was instructed in mumble-peg, or whether he knew a " glassy " from an " aggie " be- fore he acquired the u dog-stroke " in the river. But he knows that these things were, that they were even the important realities of his younger existence, and that, somewhere very early among them, appeared the Vision of the City. The City, to a small-town boy, always means that city nearest to hand, and always typifies Romance. In Danny's instance it was Philadelphia, and even while he was dreaming of killing Indians in that never-never land which boys' books used vaguely to describe as The Frontier, he was also desiring Phila- delphia. He knew, of course, that he was to grow up to a share of his father's business; but he wished, somewhere between the end of school and the delecta- ble time when he should be a man, to go to the City. It might even be New York. He did not know New York; he did not know Philadelphia; but what he wanted was The City, however named, with its crowds of people on the streets, as if every day were circus- day, and its great stores, bigger even thaA his fa- ther's, and its rows and rows of houses that covered fifty times as much ground as the admired and hated Doncaster. Small as he then was, he felt that in The City was at once the real school and the real battle- field; that he must somehow win there the spurs with which he should later goad his charger to victory in Americus; that The City was the place for the mak- ing of " success " and the cultivation of " means." THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 55 4. Every day when he came home from school Danny would pass a little girl going home from a lower school. She was a very little girl indeed, with a funny dark pigtail down her back and rosy cheeks and big, inquiring brown eyes. For ever and ever so long she was altogether beneath his notice; but one afternoon, when he was uncompanioned, though he passed her as gayly and regardlessly as usual, some- thing made him turn his head to look back at her and there she was looking back at him. He was himself, at this period, not an attractive object. His hair, in its transitional stage, was of no particular color and extremely disorderly. Somehow, it refused to " stay brushed." He was freckled and snub-nosed. His sleeves could never keep pace with the growth of his wrists; his black stockings sagged, and, his shoes being chronically run down at the heels, , his walk was like the uncertain roll of a water-logged and deserted dory. Yet, for several days after that first glance back- ward, he always turned his head when he passed the girl, and she always turned hers. This is a dangerous thing to do, as the Bible informs us, and if it has resulted in many of Lot's daughters changing into something less useful than pillars of salt, it has gone equally hard with the patriarch's male progeny. One day, when Danny looked back, he smiled. The girl smiled, too. " Hello," said Danny. " Hello," said the girl. The next afternoon Danny shamefacedly resolved to stop and speak 'to her ; and, though he did not ex- actly do it on the day determined, he did at last ac- 56 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE complish this. The day was a Saturday, the time morning, and the meeting not wholly due to chance. " Where you goin' ? " asked Danny. " Home/' said the girl, twisting a foot on the pave- ment. " I know where you live," said Danny. " So do I know where you live," said the girl. " Betchew don't." " Betchew I do." "Whatchewbet?" " I dunno. I know where you live, jus' the same. My mother knows your mother. You're Danny Barnes." " Oh, well," said the boy, " girls don't know much, anyhow. I don't like girls." " Then," said the brown-eyed girl, " you better go home." Danny was in no hurry. " Girls can't fight," said he. He wormed the toe of his boot under a loose brick. " I kin," he added. " I kin lick Snagsie Fry." "Ugh!" sniffed the girl. " I kin so," said Danny. " Least, I bet I kin. I licked Lester Froenfield. I kin lick any fellow my own size. Girls can't do that. They can't do nothin'." " I kin run," the girl protested, shaking her brown pigtail. Danny recalled the other little girl that he had once conquered in a race, and how unpleasant she had made his victory. He reflected, however, that he was older now and made of sterner stuff. Also, he did not like THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 57 the high-headed disdain of his small companion, and he sneakingly wished her admiration. " I kin give you a start to that there tree an* beat you to the corner," said Danny. The girl consented to test this boast ; and there were several false starts, she protesting that he got under way before she reached the tree, and he being sure that she exceeded the agreed handicap. Yet at last the race was begun in a fashion to which neither con- testant conscientiously could object, and then won- der of wonders the girl distanced him by a full yard ! Sing, goddess, the wrath of Danny, son of Thomas ! " I stubbed my foot," he panted; and he told the truth as he saw it. "I stubbed my foot, or you wouldn't never V won, you bet." The little girl laughed. "G'on! " she said. " I gotta run a errand, or I'd run it all over." " Traid cat! " taunted Danny. 44 I ain't. I'll do it some time." " Yes, you will!" 44 1 will so." 4 ' When? "asked Danny. 44 This safter," said the girl, by which she meant that afternoon. And that afternoon Danny had his revenge and restored masculinity to its pedestal. He could then afford to be magnanimous. 44 Say I I like you," he stammered. 44 You're not girly." After that they^often played together. The girl with the inquiring eyes was named Judith Kent. 58 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 5. For a long time Danny did not communicate to Snagsie Fry, son of the Adams Hotel philosopher, his difficulties about the problem of the rainspout. At first he was too much troubled by the discrepancies between what his mother had said and what the cook in the house opposite let fall, and between both these theories and the explanation that Mrs. Fry had adopted. Then he realized, from his mother's un- mistakable manner, that the subject was, for some reason that nobody could define, taboo; and finally there were, of course, long periods during which he would forget the matter altogether. A boy's life is an extremely busy one, and he has not always time to devote to wondering how it began. Yet there were other periods when Danny did wonder deeply, not whether his mother could be mistaken, but whether the cook did not err, and, with tragic despondency, whether Snagsie had not knowingly lied. For Snagsie, being several months his senior, was Danny's hero. In the first place, because Snagsie was older he must know more ; in the second, because he was the son of a disreputable person, he bore inno- cently and safely and at second hand some of the glamor of disrepute ; and lastly, because he came from a careless home, he could do, without fear of repri- mand, much that other lads were forbidden. Snagsie was unrebuked when he not only failed to be first but managed to be " tail " in his class at school; he could go swimming without asking permission, and could u swim sailor " while his friends still struggled with " side stroke "; he was allowed to stay away from school when he felt like it or, at any rate, he did so and he frequently made forays into that sec- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 59 tlon of Americus called Kitchentown (because there it was the custom for a man to build his kitchen first and the rest of his house as he could afford it) and here play marbles u for keeps." Snagsie's parents were not cultivated by Danny's parents; but Danny's parents, after some debate, had charitably decided that Snagsie was not responsible for the scandal of his birth, and that, being unconscious of it and likely to remain so since marriage had rendered it at least semi-respectable, and being more or less firmly estab- lished as Danny's classmate, he would probably do no harm as one of Danny's companions in a community and at a stage of life where social distinctions and their explanation are delicate and difficult. In natural accord with their training, if at this time Danny and his hero thought of sex at all, it was as of something with which life has only an acci- dental concern. Certainly, mention of sentimental affection was avoided. The little boys at school, emu- lating their elders, learned, as early as the Second Grade, to jeer at sentiment. There were moments, of course, when Danny wished to hint that the world might contain a certain lady in whose defense against Indians or robbers it would be an exquisite pleasure for a certain young gentleman to die; but to this weakness he never quite succumbed. The boys never employed the verb " to love "; they knew there was such a word, but studiously they edged around it, ashamed of their ignorance and afraid of the ex- posure of it. 6. Yet if sex did not obsess Danny more than it obsesses other boyish intellects, its perpetual riddle 60 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE owned for him, as for all boys, the faculty to return and to annoy. He was acquiring, as he was bound to acquire, curiosity; and curiosity is the mightiest pas- sion of the human mind. Americus, for instance, had, of course, its scarlet woman, a rather handsome scar- let woman by the name of Mildred Maynard. Danny did not understand her; but he wanted to. " Father," he said one afternoon as, on his way to school, he walked a block along Tom Barnes's route toward the store, " Judith Kent's Uncle Billy isn't married, is he? " The father shook his chin beard. " Well, is he goin' to marry that Mildred May- nard?" Tom Barnes's hazel eyes narrowed. "Certainly not!" he snapped before his keener senses could warn him to nip the bud of this con- versation. " They're sweethearts, anyhow," said Danny. " I seen saw them walkin' way out Oak Street last night when us boys was playin' hare-an'-hounds." Tom's upper lip drew down so tightly that it pulled his rugged nose after it. " You mustn't never talk about Mildred May- nard," he ordered. " She's bad a bad woman. People don't marry bad women. Now, don't ask foolish questions. You're not old enough to under- stand. Wait till you're grown up, Danny. Nice folks don't talk about her no, sir! " "But isn't Judith's Uncle Billy nice?" asked Danny. " 1 tell you," said his father, " that you mustn't ask questions. Now, run along to school." . < THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 61 7. Danny loved his parents, loved thern so pas- sionately and devotedly that he was resolved to see no wrong in them; surely resolved that there could be no wrong to see ; yet he seemed constantly to be com- ing to these ways of their own travel that were barred to him. " Wait " was never a word that explained; postponement never justified anything. Dimly, his mind was grappling with the angels of doubt. Danny had the observing eye of youth. That spring he awakened to the notice of the many per- sons that wandered through the scented night, far out Oak Street, where the houses were fewer, where the wheat fields met the building-line, and town merged with country. He noticed that these persons always walked in pairs, a man and a woman. He noticed that they walked close together, bending to- ward each other, and that when he boisterously ran by them, they were silenced. At first he noticed these things without curiosity. As the thought of inquiring their cause came to him, he suddenly knew that if he asked of his parents, he would not be answered. . . . 8. About this time, when the battle between the truth-telling that he had been taught and the lying that seemed inescapable was at its sharpest, Danny played truant from school for the first time in his life and smoked his first cigarette. He does not remem- ber how it all began. Perhaps the rebel power that fills the seductive air of spring called too strongly for him. Perhaps it was merely Snagsie Fry. In any case, Dan recalls distinctly the nausea following that cigarette of dried sunflower leaves, which Snagsie 62 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE had saved from the summer previous, and will never forget the horrid sinking of his heart when, at sunset, he turned his slow steps homeward. His father had gone to Philadelphia to make pur- chases for the distant autumnal " Opening " ; but his calm-browed mother was there to receive him, and though he already considered his recent sickness an adequate punishment for his narcotic indulgence, he felt that no power could ever cleanse the stain of his truantage. " How did the lessons go? " inquired his mother in the hallway. Danny had not counted on this ; he had not counted on anything. The boy is like the primitive savage that in August never takes account of December. Danny gasped, " Oh, all right, mother " and hur- ried by her up the grateful darkness of the stairs. J He went to his own room, with the cross of his books persistently bumping against his side, and flung his miserable body upon the narrow bed. He had lied ! To the soul of truth and its ^acher, he had lied. While he writhed there in a mental agony, he seemed to see that he could often lie now : he that had been trained by his truthful parents to see the high worth of truth ! A liar ! Danny Barnes ! And how easy it had been ! It had been easy to tell, and, more, his mother, whom he had thought omnis- cient, had not recognized the falsehood. Sup- pose . But there a new terror obtruded itself : suppose he should be found out, after all ! The fierce bravery that is born of utter fear pos- sessed him; yet it was not this alone which forced THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 63 him to his next action. It was something finer and, one prefers to think, something more inherent in the little children of men. He simply could not bear the thought of lying to his honest mother. All through the tasteless supper, where the original deception seemed to breed its kind with the rapidity with which the dragon's teeth bred soldiers in the Greek story, he bore it; but when bedtime came and his mother bent for her good-night kiss, he could bear it no longer. " Mother," he sobbed, bowing his disordered head upon her knees " mother, I I told a story. I wasn't to school this safter an' I smoked! " And the mother, who had guessed the truth half an hour before, only took him gently into her arms and said that she would not tell his father this time a promise that, comforting as it was, even then struck 'him as peculiar and cried over him and bade him be good in the future, and lay down with him as in the old days. And Danny swore never, never. to do such a thing again. 9. He was constantly overhearing things: a few that his parents did not wish overheard and a great many that they did not imagine it would matter whether he overheard or not. Life with its conven- tions they accepted now as matter of fact, and forgot that they, too, may once have questioned each new phase of it; as for their Danny, it did not occur to them that daily his lack of age and experience forced him to puzzle >ver the etiquette of living. Once, when he was playing on the lawn with " Flower," the spaniel bitch, and his father and mother sat oh the 6 4 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE porch, he heard Tom talking to Mrs. Barnes of an incident at the store. Tom never gave his wife details concerning the essentials of his business: such matters were beyond the feminine ken ; but he had a fondness that he rather regarded as a weakness for furnishing her with a host of non-essentials. " A man always knows what he wants and is willin' to pay for it, 1 ' he was on this occasion saying; " but that ain't the way with a woman. No, sir. Take Mrs. Kent. She come in to-day an' was pawin' over the things on the bargain-counter. She tired the clerk right out, an' seein' he was likely to miss a sale, I come up to wait on her myself. " ' Good-afternoon,' I says. " ' Oh, good-afternoon, Mr. Barnes,' says she. " ' Was there anythin' in particular you might be lookin' for? ' I asks. " Now, I'd noticed her eyein' that pile o' gilt-feet footstools, so I picks one up an' tells her how fine it was an' what a bargain. " * A bargain,' says I. " ' What's the price, Mr. Barnes? ' says she. " * One-twenty-five,' says I. " ' Dear me,' she says, * I couldn't think o' payin* that. I didn't really need one, anyhow.' " Now, that's where it comes in : good business. I'd seen her eyein' the stools an' so I knowed knew I could git her if I worked it right. " ' Oh, well,' says I, ' seein' it's you, Mrs. Kent, we'll call it square at one-fifteen.' " ' Make it ninety cents,' says she. " I kn-knew she wouldn't bid at all if she didn't THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 65 want it, so I stuck to her an' made her see she did want it, an' at last I got her to take it for a dollar. Yes, sir : a dollar, an' the lot cost me twenty-five cents apiece, an' I was only chargin' seventy-five cents be- fore I put 'em on the bargain-counter. " Now, mother, a poor salesman'd never made any sale to her at all, because he'd never 'a' made her see she wanted it, an' there, just by usin' a little sense, I made a three-hundred-per-cent. profit and pleased her into the bargain." That was the way that Tom looked at it. How his wi^e looked at it nobody ever knew, since it was not her custom to offer comment and seldom her custom to have any to offer in business matters ; but to Danny there came a new phase of his great doubt. 10. So sex was only a portion of Danny's per- plexity. His perplexity embraced the entire ques- tion of honesty ; but just then sex predominated, and so at last there came a time when he and Snagsie began to talk of it. Snagsie liked his role of hero. He had always liked it and now he had grown accustomed to it. He had, as an incident thereunto appertaining, always known everything about anything concerning which Danny inquired; and now it really appeared, when the son of Tom Barnes made his first furtive in- quiries, that Snagsie had long ago deserted the rain- spout school of anthropology and had come upon a low perversion of fact. Youth is never a miser with its knowledge ; a boy no sooner acquires than he must give forth to all comers; and Snagsie gave forth to Danny Barnes. 66 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE They were in the " library " of the Barnes house at the time, and the conversation had been suggested by some pictures of Hellenic statuary in an old General History. Snagsie used the pictures to illustrate his theory. This was the beginning. Afterwards, when nobody was about, Danny would open the book and look at those figures, not as at something beautiful, but as at something attractive only because of what they suggested to him. Followed the whispered story that was told with a leer and received with a giggle; fol- lowed the rainy days when the lads played in the Froenfields' barn or lay in couples under the eaves of the chicken-house in the Frys' backyard ; followed the cowardly lifting, upon a half-seen dark corner, of the curtain that hid from them the meaning of life. 11. Nowadays, when Dan looks upon this period of his boyhood, he thinks the patent facts sufficiently evil in themselves ; but there are those who look beyond the patent facts and see a greater evil. They would say that the fault lay with the natural guardians, who should have warned him and enlight- ened him. They would say that those guardians had begun by teaching him to regard them as at least demigods and had ended by first making him secretive and by then warping his whole moral fiber when he discovered that his teachers of honesty and truth were themselves neither truthful nor honest. They would say that, bad as was what he had been made to do, what he had been made to be was worse. There was no shock, because the thing came slowly, as all the greatest evils come. Nothing snapped, but THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 67 something was worn. There was only erosion, vitia- tion, decay. Th quiet lad that obeyed his father by day and kissed his silent mother each evening when the lessons were learned was one individual; when his bedroom door closed upon him he was another. And so, once and for all, we must bid good-by to the little curly-headed boy that stood in the moonlight and asked of the stars the answer that his parents did not give him. For neither would the stars answer. MRS. BARNES'S large hands paused in their sewing. She was always sewing. Now her usually placid face was puzzled. " Why didn't you get over to the Dorcas yester- day? " she asked. She was addressing her husband's sister and senior, Louisa Barnes, known to the family as " Aunt Lou " : a thin, diminutive, gray-haired spinster, with a mouth like her brother's and a mind of her own. " I kin stand the Dorcas wunst a month," said Louisa. " Rest o' the time I've jest got to eat my turkey 'thout the gravy o' gossip." Aunt Lou had not risen with the other members of the family, and was proud of it. She displayed her pride partly in her persistently plain clothes, partly in the provision of a continuous sanctuary to which Danny flew whenever trouble brewed for him at home, and especially in the flaunting flag of an un- improved habit of speech. " Why, Aunt Lou ! " said Mrs. Barnes. " I don't think you could call the Dorcas real gossips." " I kin call 'em worse'n that," retorted Louisa. Then the faint shadow of a smile played over her tight lips. " But I sometimes like to git my sin vicariously," she added. " What did they have to lick their chops over yesterday?" Mrs. Barnes flushed. 68 A THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 69 " Nothing," she stammered: "really nothing at all." " That must 'a' been tiresome," said Louisa. " Tell me the nothin'." " It really wasn't much," murmured Mrs. Barnes, " and I don't quite know whether I want to bother to repeat it." " You're dyin' to," said Louisa. Mrs. Barnes's fingers twined and intertwined. " It was something," she said, " about Mrs. Kel- ler's little Abel. Mrs. Trauman told me." " Well," remarked Louisa with considerable satis- faction, " if you heard it at the Dorcas, an' it was about that boy o' the Kellers, an' Mrs Trauman tol' it, then it must be pretty bad. Please don't keep me waitin' no longer." Mrs. Barnes repeated the gossip with many a twinge of pain. " There couldn't be any mistake about it," she concluded. " Mrs. Trauman walked right into them before they knew it Abel Keller and Mrs. Trau- man's own boy, who's three years younger an' as innocent as a lamb." " Hump! " said Louisa. " I s'pose "she give her lamb a good whalin' an' tol' Mrs. Keller to do the same? " Mrs. Barnes bowed assent. " Well, then? " said Louisa. She leaned forward, her sharp eyes peering into those of her sister-in- law until her sister-in-law's fell. " Well, then? " she repeated. "Nothing," faltered Mrs. Barnes. Louisa's eyes did not retreat. 70 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " Sarah," she said, " you don't mean to sit there an' try an' tell me you beqn suspectin' our Danny?" Mrs. Barnes's head drooped. " No, no, no! " she sobbed. " I couldn't do that, only only " Only you done it! " " I did not. Only I was worried. Mrs. Trau- man's Bertie's a good boy, too, and yet I don't know., I just don't know, Lou. It'd be so awful; and I 'was wondering if maybe Danny couldn't be shielded, or warned, or 'Warned?" Louisa's face became a mask of horror. " Do you want to put ideas into his head? " she demanded. " It's your an' Tom's business to shield him yes an' you do shield him. So do I. diften as not I got to take his side ag'in you two. But warn him ! Why, Sallie, you take the wind right out o' me. Danny! This is a good deal o' foolishness even fer you. Other boys maybe do such things, but our Danny the very idea ! " " I know," sobbed Mrs. Barnes; " but sometimes I get afraid he might get into bad company." " Bad company? At his age?" " Well, there's that Fry boy and such peo- ple." Louisa's face grew grave. " I'm sure," she said, " I'm right down ashamed o' you, forgettin' your Christian charity an' blamin' the Fry boy for what his parents done. Lysander's a smart little boy an' very fond o' Danny." " Of course you're right," sobbed Mrs. Barnes. "I know; I know!" THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 71 " Then I do hope you ain't said nothin' about this to Tom? He wouldn't take it the right way. Men oughtn't to be told about such things." " I haven't." "Ner won't?" " I won't." " Then try these here smellin' salts," advised Aunt Lou; " an' let me make you a cup p' tea." 2. So the chance went by, and, like most chances that go by, did not return. The education of Tom Barnes's son continued along the lines that Tom had planned. When the parents wavered, there was al- ways, until her death a few years later, the loyal Aunt Lou to rebuke their weakness and to counter- act, with her own brand of kindness, their occa- sional lapses toward the severities of any other course. Yet nothing happened of a sudden. To appeal again to the sage of Americus, if ever there arises a scribe to play Plato to the Socrates of Freddie Fry, this remark will find a place of prominence among the dicta therein set down : * There's only one sure sing about what's goin' to happen to a man: eversing's goin' to happen, but nussing ever happens all to wunst." Even so was it, and no more, with Danny Barnes, now soon significantly to grow into Dan. He remembers that night when the stars failed him. He remembers the gradual failing of those hereditary guardians who had seemed, until then, as stable as the stars. But he recalls, when he sets his mind to recollection, much between these two events 72 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE and more that was contemporaneous with the prog- ress of the second. He remembers particularly his long tramps among the woods of summertime : the dusty roads fluttering with white and yellow butterflies, the mossy lanes and leaf-carpeted by-paths, the pungent odor of arch- ing pine-trees, the sudden laughter of brown creeks, and the conquest of some unexpected eminence with its view of curving river and distant town. He re- members all that countryside, when the miles were longer than they now are and the hilltops ever so much higher. He remembers how, along with his sexual growth, he passed, normally, through all the other ordained life of every other normal boy, and he knows at this day how then he came unconsciously to love that life and the scene of it. Once his father took him to Philadelphia, and that was something that nobody ever could forget. Not the Philadelphia of even the last decade. Not the overgrown village with its smug hypocrisy, its feudal despotism, and its mind as muddy as its streets and as narrow as its government. Not that, but a won- derful city with noisy horse-cars and a city hall where the Declaration of Independence had been signed and whence the affairs of a great municipality were still administered; where Danny saw his father in familiar converse with a world-famous merchant, and where the boy himself was given a chance to shake hands with a real politician, who had grown rich by controlling the gas-works of the town : a place of crowds and struggle and achievement; the home of the Larger Life; a symbol, not a thing in a word, the City of his dreams. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 73 That glimpse of the real city was not only some- thing to brag about to the other boys at home, even to Snagsie Fry; it was something to think of when Danny was alone; something to plan to see again; something to become an important part of his de- veloping life-scheme. Danny decided definitely that he must some day know the City well and that, from what he would learn there, he could draw new strength to make him all that his father planned he should be in the Barnes store in Americus. And yet the time had ome when sex was be- setting. Danny knew that it was hidden, and because it was hidden it tickled his curiosity. Hidden he had been implicitly taught that the things to be concealed are the things that one ought to be ashamed of, like playing truant from school and smoking cigarettes before you are " grown up." His parents had con- cealed from him the phenomena of sex; and the child concluded that the phenomena of sex must, therefore, be something of which mankind was so rightly ashamed as to justify a lie told even to those one loved. For his father and mother had lied to him he knew that now and, though he was not aware of his deduction, he no less certainly deduced that a lie was of no harm in a difficult place. 3. One morning, as he had often done before, he came into his mother's room while she was dress- ing. This time he noticed that she hastily gathered a bathrobe about her. " Go back, Danny," said Mrs. Barnes. "Why?" asked Danny. " Because I want to dress." 74 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " But, mother " " Go back, dear." " I didn't use to have to go out when you dressed." His mother's color deepened. She looked away. " You are older now," she said. Her heart ached for him, yet that was all that she could say. And Danny did not press for a further explanation. He had found that, gradually, secretly, a wall, an in- surmountable wall, had arisen between him and his parents. It was a wall that would never come down. He went into his own room. 4. It was that night that his mother entered his bedroom suddenly, just as he had climbed into bed. She had long since ceased seeing him safely asleep, and she had lately begun the practice of knocking at his door before opening it; but this time she did not knock. "You have the light out," she said; and to Danny's guilty ears her voice sounded suspicious. He pretended to be asleep. " Why have you the light out? " she persisted. " Huh? " said Danny in a voice that he meant to be thick with sleep. " Oh, 'cause." His mother came over to his bed and hugged him. She hugged him very close. "What's the matter, mother?" he asked. "Why'd you come up?" " I don't know," she answered. " That is, I came up to see to see if you were all right, Danny. Good good-night, my boy good-night." But in his heart, Dan Barnes felt that he was THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 75 being spied upon ; and the lad that is spied upon does not, by consequence, develop a prejudice for frank- ness in his own conduct. Dan saw to it that no espionage, either then or later, availed. 5. Downstairs, his father and mother were talking of him. The latter had told the former that her mission to the second floor was to see whether Dan was properly covered. " You still treat that boy as if he was a baby," said Tom. His tone was as rasping as usual, but there was a tender light in his sharp, hazel eyes. " He wasn't takin' a bit of cold, now, was he? " Mrs. Barnes sat down and glanced at the news- paper that her husband had just discarded. " I think he was all right, father," she said. " 'Course he was," said Tom. " He's growin' so fast, he'll be a partner in the store now 'most before we know it. Yes, sir." " I suppose he will," sighed Mrs. Barnes. Her husband chuckled. " That's the trouble with you women," he re- flected. " If you had your way, children 'd never grow up ; they'd just always stay in socks an' bibs." Mrs. Barnes's glance was busy with the paper. " He'll soon be so old, he'll be thinking about girls, I guess," she said. " Well, that's natural," said Tom. "Will you will you tell him then, father?" "Tell him?" Tom's broad forehead wrinkled. "Tell him what?" Still Mrs. Barnes did not look up. \ " Things," said she. 76 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE "I_what things ?" " You always said, father, that you'd tell him." " Oh," said Tom. His upper lip tightened. " That. Yes. I see. I said I'd tell him what he'd have to look out for when he was along about nine- teen if they was if there was any need. But, growin' as fast as he is, he's a long ways from nineteen yet yes, sir! an' how d' we know he'll need a warnin' when he gets there? Besides, I always said nature'd most likely take care o' all that. They just naturally learn." " I was reading in the paper the other day," said Mrs. Barnes, looking at the sheet that she now held in her hands as if she might discover the para- graph there, " a piece where it said that some west- ern professor was talking about a school to teach about marriage. I wonder if he meant Only of course he didn't." The Barneses were respectable people, which is||Q say that they were so respectable that nobody was respectable that did not agree with them. "It's downright indecent," said Barnes: "that sort o' thing is. I guess that if we needed such things we'd have had 'em long ago." ' Yes," agreed his wife, " it does seem as if the world had got along without them all right, so far." " Our boy," explained Tom, "is bein' brought up in a Christian home. He has the best influences. He has our care all the time, an' he'll have it even when he goes to college. What does he need of such crazy notions? I'm bringin' him up to be a good man an' a good merchant, an' I guess I know some- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 77 thin* about how to bring up my own son to run my own store.' 5 They were silent for a minute. " Do you notice," asked Mrs. Barnes, presently, " that he seems sort of taken with little Judith Kent?" Again Tom chuckled. He forgot that he had shown a disposition to consider such matters long be- fore his wife had revealed a consideration of them. " You women do beat all! " he said. " You be- gin makin' matches for 'em while they're in their cradles. Old man Kent's daughter! Well, he might do worse, mother; he might do a sight worse. He must marry some time; he must marry a girl that's good, an' it's just as well her people should have means. It's better they should." 6. What the father had not seen, the mother had correctly discerned. There were many Dans, all separate. There was the Dan that his parents were accustomed to, the Dan of the school, the Dan of his playmates, the Dan that peeped and peered and pried into the secrets of life; but there was also a Dan that began now to develop the sentimental side of experi- ence. The thing persistently forced itself upon the almost all-important business of being what is con- sidered a boys' boy; and Dan would again and again, and with increasing frequency, sneak away from his companions, just as for sentimental reasons his com- panions would sneak away from one another, to meet (oh, by the merest accidents!) Judith Kent. He can recall her now as she once, during that 78 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE time, sat beside him on the lowest rail of a meadow- fence. He can still see the long brown pigtail, the tanned face, the dark, questioning eyes. . . . " I got some peanuts," said Dan. " Have you? " asked Judith. "Ugh-huh. Want some ?" * Yes. Here, I'll show you sompin', Dan. You take one o' these nuts, an' I take one. Then we cross arms. This way. Then we each eat, and then the one that says * Yes ' first has to has to " She stopped. "Has to what?" Dan inquired. " Oh, I dunno. Has to give the other a present or somepin'. It's a game. Will you do it?" " No," said Dan. " I think you're mean," retorted the girl. "Why?" " 'Cause you know I'll catch you. I'm smarter'n you are." " You are, like fun." " I am, too." "You ain't." " Then try it," challenged Judith, tossing her brown head. Dan tore a bit of bark from the fence-rail. "What sort of a present?" he asked. "Anythin' you like." " Make it a " Dan regarded the fence-rail. "Make it a kiss?" "Silly! "said Judith. 'Who's afraid o' bein' caught now?" taunted Dan. " I am not! " THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 79 " You are so. If you wasn't, you'd try it." Judith reflected. "Against what?" she haggled. " Five cents," said Dan. " Five cents ! " Judith's big eyes blazed re- sentment. * You must think I am cheap ! " " T's all I got." " Stingy!" " I got a couple o' more pennies. I'll say eight cents." "Got a dime?" asked Judith. " Maybe." " Fer a dime, then," said the girl. They ate the peanuts. It was pleasant to curve his arm about hers and to know that her bronzed face was close to his freckled cheek. "Are you goin' to win?" he next instant asked. Judith, however, was not so easily to be trapped into uttering the losing affirmative. 1 You don't catch me that way ! " she said. Dan laughed. He reached out and timidly touched her little sunburnt hand; there were warts on his own. She looked at him. "Do do you like me, Dan?" she asked; and Dan, who has since then lived a busy life, crowded with things so much more important, can to this day remember the queer little break in her voice as the child put that question all those years and years ago. But just thpn he was looking for lures. He did not want to lose that ten-cent piece, and he almost as much wanted to win the kiss. 8o THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " No you don't! " he grinned. And the oddest part about it all is that he can- not now for the life of him recall who did win that contest. He is sure only that, whoever won it, he did not then kiss Judith Kent. 7. He began, also, to be very religious and so continued until he had entered college. Later, at college, much of his faith fell away from him; not suddenly, but bit by unnoted bit, the slow mists that arose from practice gradually obscuring the clear vision of theory; yet in those earlier days he accepted Scripture and doctrine with the sweeping material- ism of boyhood. At his parents' desire and his own he became a member of the church. He did not merely believe; he accepted as fact. Skepticism never so much as occurred to him as a possibility. As it lay over the monks of Jocelin of Brakelond's St. Edmundsbury, so religion lay over him " like an all- embracing heavenly canopy, like an atmosphere and life-element." He was sure that God's eye saw all that he did; that if Dan did well he would some day go to heaven and, winged, play a golden harp before a crystal sea, and that if he did ill, he would end in a burning lake of everlasting fire. Yet he did ill. There were hours of desperate repentance; long night-hours of reaction when his bare knees pressed the carpet by his bed and his hands were clenched in prayer, and the sweat streamed into his upturned eyes. There were moments of splendid exaltation when he was sure of forgive- ness and redemption, when he walked upright and happy, reconciled to God. And then there were THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 81 times when all these things passed away: were tossed away as a swollen stream bursts its dams and over- flows its quiet banks. And so Dan's life, like all our lives, was the battle-ground of Duality. Strangely, however, though in reality simply be- cause of this duality, he kept his visions clear. His visions, still unexpressed, were two: he wanted to go to the City; to be at the heart of things; to do his work there and learn his lesson ; to look, to fail, to dis- cover, to succeed; to face the mighty forces of the world and to bend them to his will ; to be rich. This and another. From somewhere in his being, sprung from some seed perhaps sown many a generation before, there was already coming to full flower in his heart the tree of love. At any moment, a little frost might blight it, but the ruin was not yet. His secrecies did not touch this secret; the actions that he considered foul even while he committed them, did not soil it served, if they affected it at all, then and for that time, to make it but the purer and more delectable. It was something so fine and unreal that Judith herself was but the token of it: it was perfec- tion, completion ; it stood above the dust and noise of life in the pure air and clean silence, born of sex, yet, from his wrong view of sex, beyond it. Twin ideals, these, that he was to seek by many a devious way. The great forces express themselves through small media as often as through large, and Dan's worked forward and fell backward in the familiar manner. Through the years that followed, he went to the local public school that stood still, because to teach new things in the schools was to make the sons superior 82 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE to their fathers, and that was unpatriotic. He was taught by masters who worked on the hard assump- tion that boys will be boys, and who never guessed that all boys want to be men. He was taught mathematics, which he always liked and took to easily, from its beginnings through solid geometry; physics; a little Latin and some bad German; the geography of maps and the history not of Man, but of men. Of politics, of industry, of finance, and, most important of all, of how these three things are one, he was taught nothing. And at last they gave him, to study, a little book that they called a " physiol- ogy"; and Dan and his companions, being aware that the " physiology " lied by the suppressio veri, so came to doubt not only the little that this volume did say, but all their other text-books, too, and all the teachers that taught them. Yet, though time passed, Judith, or what she rep- resented, remained something aloof, something to thank God for. His reverence for her, his idealiza- tion of her, were the direct and natural reaction from the habits to which that reverence and idealization were seemingly opposed. Then and always, desires that he considered extremely base, created by being extremely base, longings that he considered ex- tremely noble. Into Dan's relations with Judith no consciousness of sex entered. It was the amusing, often pathetic, attachment of youth to youth. Those other things were of the hot day or the secret night; but Judith was twilight to him; twilight and dawn; romance, music, tenderness. And he needed all of these. " Who was that I saw you with on Oak Street THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 83 yesterday?" laughed his father, knowing well the answer. " Judith Kent, I guess," said the blushing Dan, who found that he was blushing much and uncon- trollably of late. " Ah, well," said old Tom, " the Kents are some of the best people in the town. Yes, sir! There's no harm in takin' a walk with their Judith, that's certain. She's a nice girl an' a good one." And Mrs. Barnes, though she did not say so, agreed. 8. Clothes, as the years went by, began to oc- cupy a theretofore unprecedented portion of Dan's mind. For the first time in his life he grew painfully aware that he had hands, and that coat-sleeves so short as to display his prominent red wristbones were a horror. He developed a dread of every step in his always-creaking shoes. He plastered his hair close to his round skull, and he spent twenty-five cents from his penny-bank upon a red-and-yellow necktie that, having acquired, he was too fearful of his com- panions' comments to wear. If Judith noticed these things, she did not betray her observation. When his voice had begun to break and to assume a personality of its own and fly off at all sorts of unguessed tangents in all sorts of unin- tended keys, she did not remark the agony that it caused him; and now, with their little jealousies and great tendernesses, the jealousies outspoken and the tendernesses never expressed, they had more to put their thoughts upon than abberations sartorial or physical. 84 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Once only did sex invade this first relation. The boy was fond of country walks ; the girl was blessed with that free stride which can be acquired by none that has not known long the joys of going bare- foot; and so they passed together many a free after- noon, tramping the trunpikes or climbing the river- hills. On one of these walks they were passing a field where cows were grazing and into which a bull had found its way. Judith turned her head quickly and tried to divert Dan's attention; but the boy saw the color rush to her cheek and felt as if some- how something fine in their relationship had been dulled and coarsened. 9. Even a boy and girl cannot, however, hold affection forever in leash, and there came a time at last when that of Dan and Judith tugged almost too fiercely at the thong. It was an evening in the late spring. School had but recently closed upon Dan's proud gradua- tion, and he and Judith had rowed out on the Susque- hanna and landed on one of the shady islands that, even for some years thereafter, survived the annual grinding of the winter's ice. Far up stream, near the tall precipice on the Doncaster County side, one of the furnaces there were then still furnaces about Americus had been " blasting," and the cinder-car had dumped its burden of liquid fire down the long hill of " waste " into the hissing river. In the west the sky was faintly pink, but eastward the moon had risen and was turning the black water to dancing silver. The breeze was tool, the waves washed THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 85 lazily against the off-shore rocks, and Dan and Judith were alone. " I wish I wish it was always like this/' said Dan. His voice was harsh, and his words inherently meaningless; but she understood him. " It would be nice," she answered. They walked to the water's edge at the eastern end of the island and looked at the moonlight on the waves. 44 It's kind of like like heaven," gasped the boy. " Don't you think this is kind of like heaven, Judith?" She raised her eyes to him. The moonlight touched her face. " I think that this could be heaven," she said; and it was a long time thereafter before Dan could see moonlight upon water without hearing her voice. They stood silent. He wanted to break the silence ; perhaps she wanted it to be broken; but the pause escaped him, got beyond him, grew, while he hesi- tated, to dominant proportions. " I guess we better be getting home," said Judith. " My folks'll be wondering where I am." So they climbed into the boat again, and Dan rowed her back to shore. He saw her to the door of her house, and all the way there, though they talked much, they did not talk of the subject that was upper- most in their minds. 10. After that he felt strangely ashamed to see her, and the longer he remained away from her 86 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE the harder it became to seek her out A week fol- lowed; two weeks; a month; and then, one moonless evening, he passed her in Oak Street talking with a lad that looked like Snagsie Fry. Dan never mentioned the matter to Snagsie, but the next time that he passed Judith he passed her with eyes averted and head in air. He didn't care, he said, anyhow. His father had just announced that the faculty of Madison-and-Adams College at Doncaster had decided to admit to the college, without examina- tion, candidates bearing a proper certificate from the high-schools of the county; that Dan's teacher had provided the proper certificate for Dan, and that Dan was, within a few weeks, to begin his course as a real student in a real college. To be sure, the boy was to come home every night, but that as yet mattered little to Dan. What was a mere public- school girl to him ? She would soon be sorry enough : for was not he about to breathe the ratified atmos- phere of the Larger Life? VI SO, now that kissing-games had passed though the reason for their passing nobody whispered and the pimples that once burned Dan's chin and seared Dan's soul had faded into the same limbo; now that even the glory of the first shave was well- nigh forgotten, Dan was to be sent to college. " Ag'in my will an' warnin'," said his Aunt Lou; " I tell you that, Thomas: ag'in my will an' warnin'. College is a place where boys fergit what their parents learnt 'em an' learn what they don't need. Just you remember that-there." Tom's hazel eyes regarded her grim face with a not unkindly twinkle. " I pay the bills with my own money," he mildly reminded her. " Then," she retorted, " you jest look out he don't pay 'em with his own soul." " I will," said Tom. " Yes, sir! That's why I'm havin' him home nights instead of boardin' him in one of those dormitories. You leave it to me, Lou. You don't know all about bringin' up a child, even if you did never have one of your own." And Dan really began to learn a good deal. iHe acquired some of that prescribed and useless knowl- edge which is the dust of the brain} but he acquired much besides. Trie played a little football and ob- served thus the workings of the mysterious law that 87 88 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE makes the otherwise inferior mind superior in games and sports and allies most physical courage to moral cowardice. He traveled through black caffons of religious doubt and emerged upon the broad valley where tacit acceptance passes for faith, and where faith does not interfere with conduct. He completed a theory of practical ethics based, though he did not know it, upon the great commandment: "Thou shalt not be found out." He was initiated into a fraternity he- called it a " frat " and scorned factory-tied neckties; got drunk once; discovered, though he continued to honor and fear them, that his parents were old-fashioned, and was justifiably proud because, at the age of eighteen, he had solved all the riddles of the universe. It was in itself a happy, harmless, ignorant period, and, if he hated having to come home every night, Dan made up for this by appearing on the startled streets of Americus for his Christmas holidays as a rollicking young blade sup- ported by yellow shoes, with arabesque designs and far-extended soles, and supporting a hat that veritably shouted its acquaintance with the Seven Deadly Sins. He had not much time to think about Judith. Both boys and girls, he had long ago noticed, wore curls and dresses for a certain number of years; then the little boys were tearfully taken to a barber's and tearfully put into trousers; but the little girls never changed. Now he was quite certain that a woman was merely a baby girl grown physically larger and more attractive, whereas a man well, a man progressed. Therein lay the difference: a woman could never go ahead. Besides, Judith seemed so THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 89 much more his junior than she used to be; she was still a schoolgirl, and he seldom saw much of her; and with loVe absence is like liquor: a little stimulates, but a long course kills. Dan began to be thoroughly ashamed of his early affection. Finally, at about the close of his Freshman year, whatever difficulty the affair might have contained was settled for Dan by the swift sword of finance. At just this time, when the god of Social Distinctions was taking his place in the boy's life, the Kents lost their little fortune and became, quite naturally, an impossibility. It was the opinion of Americus in general that if you were not well-to-do it was some- how your own fault, the half-expression of some otherwise hidden vice, and that, if you had once had money and lost it, you were rather worse than if you had all your life been poor. The Kents suffered accordingly. " I'm mighty sorry about it, mother," remarked Tom Barnes, when he had conveyed to his wife and child the news of the Kents' catastrophe " mighty; an' I wouldn't think of bein' unkind to 'em; but if there was ever anythin' in that early match-makin' idea of yours, why, it's jest as well that Dan here long ago got over his bein' sweet on their Judith." Dan heatedly denied the implication that he had ever been " sweet," but he thought about it more than once in the fortnight that followed, and he was a little relieved when he heard that Mr. Kent had " accepted a position " (",And that means hooked a job," said Dan) in Philadelphia and was at once to remove there with his family. 90 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 2. Summer came the summer of the typhoid- fever epidemic and the death of Aunt Lou, who would not believe in germs and refused to boil the water that she intended for drinking, for the excel- lent reason that her mother had never done such a thing and had been killed by a railroad-train and Tom Barnes (they were now beginning to call him "Old Tom" and even "Rich Tom" Barnes) an- nounced his intention of -extending Dan's education by giving the son, during vacation-time, a small place and a nominal salary in the store. " I want you to learn early," said the father, as he unfolded his plan, " for I don't count on your always stopping at the point I'll have to stop at. No, sir! I guess you'll get there quick and* go ahead a long ways." They were seated in Old Tom's narrow office at the back of the big new store-building on Elm Ave- nue, the main business thoroughfare of Americus, which Americus always called " Elam." Only a high partition shut the rest of the emporium from their sight, because Old Tom liked to be poised at a place from which he could dart forth to the destruction of suspected clerks and the detention of such towns- people as came to buy, but were about to depart with- out making a purchase. The opening and closing of the front door, the constant shuffle of feet, the clatter of the u cash-balls " carrying money to and from the cashier's desk along the overhead wires, all the hum of a busy shop, came to the father's ears like so much music; and the father sat there, amid garish calendars issued by wholesale houses and be- fore a roll-top desk covered with letters, bills, and THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 91 invoices neatly arranged: the tall, rawboned maker and monarch of it all. " I guess I'll do the best I can," said Dan, with the shrug of his right shoulder that had lately be- come characteristic of him and that clung to him his whole life long. He was still dressed in the absurdities of the Freshman, which his parents silently tolerated; still ungainly and unformed; but there was fire in his blue eyes, and the old dreams, though they had developed, had never entirely left him. Trade and the fight for it in the City, even love as something raised above his own warped ideas of sex: these were still the hidden springs of action in his heart. Barnes stretched his long legs. " You bet you will, Dan," he declared. " The time's comin' when there's a big thing to be done in this business by a man with brains, an' if you're on the spot an' understand the trade, you ought to be the man. Beginnin' right here in this town, you've got the chance to be one of the men who are makin' America a great nation, who are givin' employment an' a livin' to thousands an' thousands an' are carryin' the American flag an' American-made goods into every port of the world." He went on, gestureless, but speaking rapidly, for Tom Barnes also had his dream. And his dream was not small. He saw, in a word, the advance of combination into the already devastated field of competition. He saw the coming of the chain-of-stores in many towns to oust the independent stores that preceded it. He believed that this chain .would be developed into a 92 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE sort of retail " drygoods " trust controlling the re- tail " drygoods " business of the United States and perhaps extending at last over seas. That these things would not come in his day he was well aware ; but he was sure that Dan would see them, and he hoped that his son would be one of those to suggest and make and keep the tremendous combination. Nevertheless, he spoke at no great length of these changes: he had, in common with most Americans and Britons, a shame of anything that was either emo- tional or remote, and so he turned soon to the prac- tical and immediate and began to speak, with a heavy pride wrapped in a rough eloquence, of his present shop and the methods whereby it had been established and was now conducted. He was the firm and he, therefore, talked in the plural: it was " We want," " We charge," " We collect"; but it was also the hardest sort of common sense that could be made by the economic conditions that produced it. The man was, in his own affairs, an autocrat and governed his court with a powerful hand. It was the merchant's business to be servile to his customers, but it was, and he saw to it, the clerks' business to be servile to the customers and to the merchant, too. Yet Tom's tyranny was beneficent. He was not of those who believe that the employer's duty is done when he has supervised the conduct of his working- people during working-hours. He insisted that his clerks go to bed betimes and not, as he put it, " run the streets " ; that they attend church, preferably Tom's own church, at least once of a Sunday: of all of which, in so small a town, it was easy to exact the accomplishment. In return, Tom, secure in the be- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 93 lief that he was helping them as well as himself, paid his employes each from a dollar-and-a-half to seven dollars a week and allowed them each, on half-pay, from seven to ten days' holiday every year. As for legal holidays, when the Fourth of July, Thanks- giving, Christmas, or New Year's Day fell upon a Sunday, Tom won. It was into this atmosphere into an atmosphere of the clean, close odor of " drygoods," of systematized scurry, of unguessing oppression resented by un- formed scoffing, and truckled to by uncondemned ob- sequiousness ; an atmosphere of shop-gossip and wheedling salesmanship that Dan now came. The father, not because he was democratic and wanted his son to become democratic, but because he was an autocrat and wanted his heir to learn how best to be autocratic, put him behind the linen-counter, under instructions from a blond young man of forty with the airs of a schoolgirl; and there Dan spent his days measuring cloth and tearing it and saying "Good-morning," " Yes, ma'am," " No, ma'am," and "Anything more to-day?" Out of hours, he had the conventional friends approved by his family on whom to call, but for the most part his evenings, because he was full of his dreams, he passed, until the striking of ten o'clock, when he was always home, wandering about the quiet, warm, shaded streets, thinking of the time when he was to conquer the City and become a " power; " or, as he passed the couples that also strolled, and as he observed the twilight front-gate confidences of lovers, thinking of the time when he also' should achieve Love. In Doncaster, even in Americus, he had suf- 94 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE fered random flutterings of the heart since he out- grew Judith, but these flutterings were as brief as they were innocent. They stopped short of expres- sion. They were only the quivering of the wings before the bird learns to fly; and Dan, as he looked back on them, knew that this was so. Yet, on his third or fourth day in the shop, where he had begun by taking all things as easily as a young god, Adventure walked down the aisle and was en- sconsed behind the barrier opposite his own. In brief, on that day Pauline Riggs was trans- ferred from the dress-goods counter to " the no- tions." She was an ample girl, some two or three years Dan's senior, and she topped' Dan by several inches. She had very white skin, with pink cheeks, a set of even teeth much in evidence, and a mar- velous mass of black hair that she wore heaped high on her head. Her eyes, which were also black, were knowing eyes, and she had a molar smile that Dan at once thought entrancing and that certain other people likened to the smile of a child-eating tiger. Her enemies to the contrary, she was in reality only a comely person, poor, but a simple soul merely rather frankly desirous of bettering herself in the world. At first she did not look at Dan and she contrived so not to look at him that any critic of elder growth would have considered her negligence pointed; but Dan watched her with overt admiration. He thought her beautiful and he was sure that her clothes were the height of fashion. Perhaps the critic of elder growth, or more readily any other girl in the shop, THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 95 would have been less certain about these points; but even such a critic would at any rate have granted to Miss Riggs the Order of Prettiness. When Dan watched her deft white hands assisting a tight glove across the tough knuckles of a customer for the gloves were on the " notions " counter in those early times he decided that she was the most splendid creature that he had ever seen. " Who's that girl? " he asked of the blond young man of forty that worked beside him. The blond young man of forty, whose name was Hostetter, giggled. " That's that there Riggs girl," said he. "Riggs?" repeated Dan. "I don't know any Riggses." " Likely not. They just come to town from Lemon Place. Her old man's a freight-brakeman on the road. Drinks like a fish." "Oh!" said Dan. He was disappointed. He would have likecj Pauline to be the daughter of a physician or a bank- president; but he reflected that, in such a case, she would not be behind the counter opposite. He looked at her again, and his heart beat faster. That evening, at the closing hour, he slipped out ahead of his father and held the door open for Miss Riggs. " Good-evening," he said, but his voice trembled. Her dark eyes raised, she looked at his. "It's young Mr. Barnes, isn't it?" she inquired. " I don't thinly I've had the pleasure of being intro- duced to you." And she turned away and walked up the street alone. 96 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Dan looked after her, sobered and ashamed. Ac- cording to his standards, she had behaved " like a real lady." 3. It appeared, however, that the statement that there had been no introduction passed, with Miss Riggs, as itself introductory. The next morn- ing, with a brilliant show of teeth, she smiled care- lessly across the aisle at Dan, who blushed with de- light at this recognition and was immediately plunged into discontent because the recognition ended there and he was given no further glance that day. When evening came, Pauline managed somehow to out- distance him to the door, and it was not until the end of the week that, again at the doorway, he had a word with her. Then his striding boldly beside her was the result of many resolutions, all of which had theretofore weakened at the moment for accomplish- ment. " May may I walk a little way with you? " he asked. Pauline was looking straight ahead. "Is it on your ways home, Mr. Barnes?" she countered. " No," he admitted; " it isn't, exactly," (It lay, as a matter of fact, and she knew it, in the precisely opposite direction.) " But I'd like to, just the same." He paused, yet she said nothing. " That is, if you don't mind," he humbly added. Then, as they had drawn away from the other shop-folk, she looked at him : one flash of her black eyes. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 97 "I wouldn't mind," she said; " only people are horrid, Mr. Barnes: they talk." "What about?" asked Dan. " I mean I'm afraid they'd talk if you did this often. You see, your father is the boss of the store, an' I only work there." Dan flushed. "Let 'em talk!" he said. Pauline shrugged her shoulders. She always wore a shirtwaist so cut as to make her shoulders seem broad and square, and she carried herself and pouted in a manner that distinguished her as an admirer of the novels of Mr. R. H. Davis and the pictures of Mr. C. D. Gibson. "Humph! " she said: " You can." Which at once put Dan into an apologetic con- fusion and made him still more desirous of walking home with her. Walk home with her he at any rate then certainly did, and several times thereafter. The two-story frame house in which the Riggses lived was one of several such owned by Thomas Barnes; and Dan at the end of these walks, generally stopped at the two steps that led to the front door, which was also the door to the parlor. Once he went inside with Pauline (he nearly missed his supper that night, and explana- tions were difficult), and there, though his one glimpse of her bleary-eyed and unshaven father was a shock to him, he accounted to himself for her fat, aproned mother as " a motherly woman " and looked at the shabby, room that received him only through the golden glow that belonged to any place inhabited by Pauline. 98 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 4. Their romance went the way that all such romances go. The walk home from the store was discontinued lest the clerks should " talk," for Pauline was too much a " lady " not to remind Dan of what she called " the position " in which she placed herself by their friendship; and so, naturally enough, evening walks followed: walks under the low-branching trees of the quieter streets, always rigorously decorous, always brief, and always with an accompaniment of conversation that was fre- quently fragmentary and never brilliant. It was a commonplace comedy that to neither of its chief characters seemed commonplace at all. Pauline had acquired, through her newspaper, an appetite for the more intimate domestic incidents in the lives of millionaires' wives and daughters ; she had a truly amazing memory for the marriages and divorces of persons in that state of life to which it had not pleased God to call her; and frequently she talked of these things with a familiarity that Dan found both entertaining and instructive. More often, when they talked at all consecutively, they talked of themselves, as the young will, and, because, like most young people, they never thought of growing old, they concerned themselves with happiness. It was good to sit close on the stone-coping of the broad front yard far back on which stood the old Chouse where the Doreamus family lived so far that the trespassers felt almost masters and there to watch, themselves hidden by the shadows, other lov- ers, often clerks from their own shop, pass un- noting. It was good to feel her warm breath when she whispered to him sentences that, innocent as they THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 99 were, she did not want the passersby to hear; and it was better still to take her firm hand and help her up the coping or down from it : the more so because each knew that this assistance was unneeded, and knew that each knew it. But Dan was not satisfied. He began to feel that in this relationship there was still something lack- ing, something vital lacking, and that he had yet to find the salt of life. What was it? He had his guess and shuddered and tried to put it away from him, knowing that it would return and delight him by its return. Was love, real love, closer to the things of sex, as he knew them, than he had ever imagined? He would think of this at night when he had gone to bed, and then he would resolve not to think of it. He would shut it from him and fall to constructing his next con- versation with Pauline : a conversation all romance and purity. He was forever preparing speeches for her and forever ashamed to utter them; but insidi- ously, steadily, the great under-current of his^ life was swinging toward this new possible channel. In- capable of seeing the fault of his training, and in- capable of seeing how that training was the result of a convention that was itself the effect of an economic state, he did not abandon his secret habits: he was only made the more miserable by them. One evening after he had left Pauline, he resolved that on the next evening he would lend her his fra- ternity-pin. SJie had, indeed, been admiring it openly with exactly the expectation that he would present it to her; but he had not had the hardihood to make ioo THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE the offer. On the evening following, his courage again retreated, but at their meeting twenty-four hours after this failure he took the plunge. " That certainly is a pretty pin," she said. They were seated on the coping as before, and it was really too dark for her to see the object of her admiration. " Ye-yes," assented Dan. " What's those letters on it? " she demanded. "They're Greek," said Dan, proudly: "Omega, Beta, Phi." "What do they mean?" " Oh, wouldn't you like to know? " " That's why I asked." " Well, I won't tell." "Why?" " 'Cause I daresn't." " I know ! " Pauline laughed. " You swear a oath an' all that, don't you?" " Maybe I do." "An' nobody can wear it 'cept you?" " Oh, some other people." "But only members?" asked Pauline. "No girls?" " One girl can," said Dan. "Which one?" He was near it now, palpitatingly near it. He felt a lump in his throat and hated it because he knew it would make his voice sound queer. (( You know," he whispered, hoarsely. She shook her head. She was still bending over his waistcoat to peer at the pin. Her eyes also assured her that the street was empty. Dan could THE SENTENCE OF feel her cheek brush the cloth just over his thump- ing heart. " I don't know," she pouted. And then suddenly: " Tell me," she urged. " Don't you wish I would? " asked Dan. It was not at all what he had meant to say. He had prepared a solemn and tender speech, and here he was bantering with her ! He despised himself for his impulsive stupidity, but he could not for the life of him recall the words that he had prepared by way of stating his offer. " I bet I can guess which girl can wear it," she replied. She sat swiftly erect and turned her head away. Dan felt that he had somehow hurt her, and he cursed himself soundly; but all that he could say was: "Who?" " Some girl you like," said Pauline. "What girl?" " You know lots, I bet." That flattered him. He simply had to admit the soft impeachment. " A few," he said, with transparent modesty. "Well," said Pauline, "one of them." "Of course it's one of them, Pauline; but which?" " I don't know the one, but I know the kind." " I bet you don't know the one I mean." " I don't mean what you mean, anyhow," said Pauline. .' " Then, I mean you're mean," retorted Dan. They both laughed at this masterstroke; but OF SILENCE Pauline was soon again serious. Her head lowered, she plucked at her dress. " I mean some girl whose father's rich," she said: " like yours." Dan's fingers trembled, but he unhooked the pin from his waistcoat and held it out to her in the palm of his hand. " I'd like you to wear it," he said. He had wanted to pin it on her dress, but he did not dare to do this; and he found, at all events, in the quick touch of her fingers as she plucked the pin from him, a thrill that was almost sufficient reward for his offering. He tried to say more, but he was utterly at a loss now, and, when she would not break the ensuing silence, he only remarked throatily: " We're getting in some new striped muslins to- morrow. I saw the samples. They're fine." When Dan climbed into bed that night he went over the entire interview and thought of all the bril- liant things that he might have said, and ached with regret. Then he thought of the stupid things that he had said and was sure that she would torture from them slurs that he had not meant to put there; and then he burned with shame and anger. 5. Pauline wore the pin in the store, where it attracted attention, and where Dan was as proud as Pauline of the attention that it attracted. That evening, in his best and most outspoken clothes, he called at her home. Pauline, with a smile that showed her white teeth, entered the room wearing a new shirtwaist and a THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 103 general radiance that glorified her shoddy surround- ings. " Like this waist? " she asked; and she turned so that he could see not only the fullness of her bust, but also her broad shoulders and straight back. " Cert," responded Dan in the slang of the day. "It's- a daisy." " How does it fit?" asked Pauline, just then turning in the opposite direction. She knew that it did something more than fit: that it accentuated the better and charitably concealed the worse. " It fits splendidly in the back," said Dan, who wanted to see the pin on her breast. " Yes," she answered, facing him, " but I face forward." She gave him the delight of her flashing smile. Her eyes shone with youth and the consciousness of looking her best. "It's fine," said Dan; "and the pin's just great there." She touched the pin caressingly. " Do you mind if we don't go for a walk this evening? " she asked. " Why, no," said Dan, looking about in a dis- appointment that directly contradicted his words. " I don't mind, only " " Oh, we'll be alone. My father's down the road, and mom's well trained. I'd walk all right, but corn- in' home from the store I tripped over somethin' an' hurt my limb." In Americus, where husbands keep their wives in all possible ignorance,' and where men and women are expected to acquire their modicum of sex-knowl- 104 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE edge some time in their later teens by a kind of inspirational and spontaneous ignition of the divine flame of comprehension from within in that town, as in its hundreds of fellows, there are no legs: there are but " limbs," and these hesitantly. " I hope you weren't badly hurt," said Dan in real anxiety. " Oh, no. Nothin' but a twist. Won't you sit down?" Dan put out his hand for the nearest chair. " Don't take that one," Pauline warned him : " it'll tumble; it's busted. You better sit here by me." She ensconced herself on a lumpy sofa of which one leg was missing, its place being supplied by a pile of books. The boy sat beside her, and they talked much as they were in the habit of talking, yet somewhat con- strainedly because of Dan's unfamiliarity with his new environment. " That light's kind of glarin'," said Pauline at last, glancing at an ancient chandelier suspended from the ceiling. "Yes," agreed Dan; "it is kind of." There were a few seconds during which neither spoke. The girl raised her hand to shade her eyes and then, as Dan still hesitated, she said: " Couldn't you lower it jest a little? " She was not a bad girl. As the world counts such things, she was pure, and she proposed to remain pure until she was safely married. She wanted com- fort and hated poverty too much to risk anything ; but she was in a hurry to reach the altar, and when she wanted to catch a man she insisted on low lights, THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 105 as the ready-made-clothing merchant when he wants to trap a customer. In most small towns the natives never ask what man a girl accepted; they ask what fellow she caught; and Pauline had been reared in a town that was even smaller than Americus. Dan rose, stumbling over his own feet as he did so, and reached for the key of the only burning gas-jet. "Low?" he inquired and blushed and grinned as he looked for her answer. " Not too low," said Pauline, and giggled. Dan turned the key smartly: the light faded to a mere spark. "Oh!" cried Pauline. She sprang to her feet and somehow collided with her suitor. Dan, in a panic of amazement, felt his left arm en- circle her copious waist. "Dan!" She barely breathed the name. She had an awkwardly yielding manner that brought her half-seen head upon his shoulder. " I I like you, Pauline," he whispered. His right hand held hers, but, glorious as this was, and mature as he said to himself that it must be, it served only to make him want to kiss her. "I I " he stammered. He was trying to say that he loved her, but what he did say was mere repetition: " I do like you, Pauline." He wanted to kiss her. He kissed her. It was wonderful. It was what he had dreamed of and trembled to dream of, and yet, now that the dream had become a reality, it appeared to be some- 106 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE thing essentially unfinished. It left him, as indeed it left her, with a puzzled sense of incomplete- ness. " Do you like me? " gasped Dan. She cuddled her face between his neck and shoul- der. She had to bend to do it, but she was none the less sincere in the implication contained in her reply. " Can't you guess? " she asked. " But do you? " persisted Dan; because such of his imaginings as were solely romantic had always stopped at the first kiss, and he did not know what on earth to say next. " Do you? " " Yes, Dan," she said; and, after a moment, she added: "An* I trust you." " Trust me? " said Dan. " How do you mean? " " Don't you know?" ;i Well, of course, we can't be be married for a long while not till I've got on in business and of course I can't right away tell my father; but we'll be married some day, all right." She had thought of that, and she did not approve of delays. In Americus, engagements meant mar- riage. To be engaged and then to be married was a respectable thing for the man, and the best of all good fortune for the girl; but for a girl to be en- gaged and not to marry was to provide subject- matter for corner-loafers' whispers, and discussion at the sessions of the Dorcas Society. Still, she had decided that a long engagement to the son of Rich Tom Barnes was better than a short one to Mr. Hostetter, for instance, the blond young clerk of forty. (Hostetter had, in fact, lately given gentle THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 107 premonitions of promise), and she was, moreover, a good deal in love with Dan. " I know," she therefore said, " that we can't get right away married. But it wasn't that I meant." "Then," asked Dan, " what did you mean?" " I meant I was sure," whispered the girl, " you wouldn't do anythin' that 'd make you lose your respect for me." ' It was the old statement: all the world over the most pathetic and the most certain speech for a woman that fears the results of the thing that she wants and protests against. Yet it had, this time, its effect. Though they parted that night with pas- sion that was slow to awake, but strong to sway, they parted without offense against the conventional code. During the evenings that succeeded, though they advanced and retreated, strained and fought free, wracked nerves with denial and inflicted unguessed wounds with scrupulous compromises, they managed in some way to maintain their standard to the end. 6. But the end was not long in arriving. One morning in midsummer, Hostetter came into Old Tom's office with a piece of news. He told, with much evident hesitation, about the fraternity- phi that -Pauline Riggs was wearing. 4 You don't mean to say that my boy give it to her ! " thundered Tom. " Oh, no," mumbled the clerk. " I only thought she might V* picked it up, an' I didn't like to say nothin' to her about it 'less she'd think I thought .she stole it; an' I didn't like to say nothin' to, your: 108 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE son about it 'less he'd think I thought he give it to her." " All right," said Tom. " Good-day to you." He finished some letter-reading that the clerk had interrupted and then put on his hat and walked to the Riggses' home. Bill Riggs was just back from a " run " with his crew to Perth Amboy, and was in bed when Tom called; but, clad in shirt and trousers, his bare feet thrust into a pair of carpet-slippers, he came down- stairs immediately. He listened with amazement and anger to what Barnes had to tell him. He had been no party to his daughter's matrimonial schemes, and he keenly suspected that his wife had fostered them and kept him in ignorance. Such deception was of it- self enough to enlist his sympathies upon the other side, the more so since he saw that his daughter's side was helpless; and he had, in addition, the disquieting consciousness that the elder Barnes was a forbearing landlord, whereas Riggs himself was not always a promptly-paying tenant. " Do you mean to fire my girl outen your store, Mr. Barnes?" he asked. Old Tom chewed his under lip until his chin- whiskers stood at a right-angle to his face. " That depends on what you mean to do with her," he answered. " Well," said Riggs, " she's pretty big fer it; but she's big enough to know better'n this here, too, so I guess the least I kin do is to beat her an' send her to bed." He thought it over and concluded: " An' the old woman." Barnes nodded. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 109 " Your wife's your own business," he said; "but your daughter's kind of meddled with my business, an' I guess you're right about her. Yes, sir: I guess you're right about her. Well, if you think that'll stop her nonsense I dunno. She's a good sales- lady. You get the foolishness out of her head, an' I'll keep her job for her." 7. That evening he went through supper in much his usual manner, but he took his time with the meal, and, when his son, after evincing many signs of restlessness, rose to leave the table, Old Tom inquired in even tones : " Where you goin', Dan'l?" Dan did not like that attempt upon his full bap- tismal name. He stopped short. " Out," he replied. " I guessed that," said Tom. " Seems to me you go out a good deal lately." " I'm in the store all day," Dan answered, un- easily. He was certain now that something had been discovered. " Well," said Tom, " I want to have a little talk with you first, Dan'l. Come upstairs." He rose, heavily. Mrs. Barnes looked at him with fear in her eyes. "What is it, father?" she faltered. " Nothin' much," said Tom, his stiff upper lip twisting into a smile. " Caff-love; that's all. Come on, Dan'l." He went out of the room, and Dan, his mother reaching to press his hand as he left her, slowly followed. no THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE When they had come to the boy's room and Tom closed the door, the father turned upon his son. " Now, then," he demanded, " what's this crazi- ness about drunken Bill Riggs's daughter?" Dan winced. All the romance in him was wounded by the words and tone, desperately wounded. " Nothing wrong, anyhow," he answered, hotly. " I don't care what her father is. She's a nice girl, an d I I " " Well," said his father, "you what?" " I like her," Dan lamely ended. " Like her !" echoed Tom in his rasping mono- tone. " Coin' to marry her, I guess, ain't you? At your age, an' her old enough, near, to be my wife an' her family railroaders! A clerk in my place! Coin' to marry that big, fat girl that makes you look like a dwarf an' has a head full of cheap store- teeth ! " " Store-teeth! " cried Dan. " They're not! " " That shows how much you know about things," Tom retorted. The acquired grammar of his later life now fell completely away from him. " Any fool with a cross-eye'd see they was false, the whole mouthful of 'em an' a poor job, too ! If you think I ain't tellin' you right, go ast Doc Bigler : he made 'em for her. Like as not, she takes 'em out every night an' puts 'em in water." In his clumsy way, he jeered for half an hour. He held the doll before Dan's unwilling gaze and stripped her bare, and when he left the lad it was with a certainty that he had ended this affair forever. He went away with a final sneer; but when he came into the library where his wife, with troubled THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE in face, was awaiting him, the scorn had gone from his lips, and his hazel eyes were softer. "What was it, father?" she asked. Tom laid his knotted hand on her fast-graying hair. "NothinV he said quietly; " nothin' but what I told you : caff-love. Just a foolish notion in his little head, that's all." " But, father, it wasn't " She paused in awe before the possibility. " No, no," he answered; " not that, mother. Not with our boy. Please don't ask no questions please don't ask any questions of me; but for a couple of days, be kind to Danny." Her gaze had a wide reproach. "Have I ever been anything else to him?" she replied. ' Then be extra kind," he said, and patted her head again : " be extra kind for a while. It won't do for me to be ; I can't dare seem to change my mind, but but he's a real good boy, mother; I know he's a real good boy." Sarah Barnes was sensitive, which is to say a legatee of unhappiness ; but she was obedient, too, and so she would openly press no further for specific de- tails when she saw that, upon the subject of their son, her husband also was sensitive. " I guess," she said reflectively, " that all young people want their own way. It belongs to their young years." " Yes," a&ented Tom, " an' most of the people that have gone to hell have found that the way that leads there is their own." ii2 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " But you don't " Mrs. Barnes was knitting, and her large hands trembled over their task so that the needles clicked needlessly together. " You don't think our Dan's in danger? " Tom shook his rugged head. " Not him. I told you no. Not a bit of it." " Still," said Mrs. Barnes, bending far over her work, " you know you're going to tell him things sometime." " Hum," said Tom. He walked to the window and looked out : he did not like to face his wife when he spoke of such matters. " I guess he's picked up all he needs by this time. It'd be kind of hard to tell him now: he's so growd grown up. Besides " he found an excellent reason and seized on it avidly " the boy's just been makin' caff-love an' not got into trouble of that sort. If a boy can make caff- love an' keep away from from the other, he's standin' a pretty good test mighty good. No, no; he's all right, Dan is." " I hope so," said Mrs. Barnes. " Do you think he'll be thinking of getting married soon, father?" Tom snorted. His mind reverted curtly to the talking-to that he had just given his son. " I do not," he emphatically answered. He paused. " But when he does think of it," he pres- ently resumed, " it must be a nice girl an' a girl whose people have means an' position." " There aren't many nice girls in town," the mother persisted. " There ain't any," corrected Tom, with suspicious inclusiveness. " Well, I wouldn't say that," replied Mrs. Barnes, THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 113 her quiet eyes on her husband's face. " There is that Miss Doreamus. She's an old family and nice, too; but then the Weiperts have about got her for their Jerre. They grab everything. " Old Tom was between laughter at what she said and anger at the recalled designs of Pauline Riggs. " Mother," he declared, " you beat all; you do so! How old do you think our boy is, anyhow? Still, you can be sure of one thing," he added sternly: " my son ain't going to fall in love with a store clerk, not if I can stop it. Store girls know too much." Mrs. Barnes said nothing, because she had suc- ceeded, without appearing to try, in learning all that she had wanted to learn. She was in many ways a wise woman, so she knew when to stop a line of in- quiry; but, although she never mentioned the matter to Dan, the boy chanced that night to overhear his mother praying for him to that God in whom he now only formally believed. VII TOM BARNES, as one has recently said, was sure that he had ended the calf-love in his son's heart. He had ended it; but he had come near to ending something else. In prevent- ing, by the best means known to him, the further progress of a foolhardy attachment, he had sorely stricken romance; he had dealt a heavy blow at the dream that is as fine as it is fond; he had unsettled the attitude that youth instinctively assumes toward woman. Would the wounds heal and the thing that was broken be mended? Dan suffered. There were moments when he hated his father, moments when he hated Pauline for de- ceiving him and trapping him, moments when he hated himself, when he hated womankind, when he hated and feared the whole world that must mark and mock him. Yet he had to face his world and all the people that were in it. He had to slink into the store and be at once ashamed to look at Pauline and compelled to steal glances at her accused teeth. He was sure, at first, that the other clerks knew and whispered; but, since not the least hurt from which he writhed was the hurt to his pride and his boyish pretense at maturity, so, unreasonably, his pride was still more, deeply wounded when he observed, to his stupefaction, that Pauline, unruffled, was unmistakably beginning to " make up to " the blond Mr. Hostetter. 114 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 115 Dan smiled bitterly. He became aware that to smile bitterly was the proper action for a broken- hearted lover; but, deep in his soul, he was meditating another metaphor: he was tired of wading; he wanted to swim. 2. Snagsie Fry helped him: Snagsie, who sidled again across Dan's life, his long, awkward body grown longer and more awkward, but with his bulg- ing forehead and retreating chin, his hook-nose, and his sapient smile unchanged. Snagsie had " quit school " long ago. He had secured some sort of obscure employment at Harris- burg under a firm of promoters that needed favor* from the Pennsylvania legislature; but that employ- ment, for reasons undisclosed, had now ended, and Snagsie was back in Americus for a time with a greater knowledge of life and a greater disdain for mankind than he had ever yet possessed. His wisdom was no longer theoretical and he had, by as- suming that his old friends were equally experienced, a way with him that exalted him in their opinion and abashed them for their secret consciousness that their experience was really at the zero-mark. " There's never anything to do in this old hole," complained Dan, who was just then naturally thinking that he detested Americus. They were walking along a dark street up which Pauline and Dan had lately walked. Snagsie caressed, between thumb and forefinger, the lobe of one of his outstanding ears, a lifelong habit, and smiled astutely. " Ain't so sure of that," he answered. " Course n6 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE it ain't like Harrisburg: that's a city, that is. But you fellows can't be so dead slow that you can't pick nothin' up here. I never starved to death in this place." Curiosity was a passion that Snagsie had a talent for exciting. Nevertheless, Dan had learned that, in his character of college student, it ill became him to be less of a roue than somebody that had never had the advantages of the higher education; so he bethought himself to receive his friend's words with a smile and an answer that implied a lie. " Well," he said, with elaborate untruth, " when a man gets into Doncaster every day, winters, the way I'm doing, he sees the girls once in a while; but in Americus people catch on to you too soon, and the women all talk too much." " Aw," responded Snagsie, " that's because you fel- lows don't go at it right. You want to learn how to manage women, you do. I ain't been back here a week yet, and I've got hold of a nice little chippy." " Who is she? " Dan enviously inquired. " Irma Smith. She works for the Doreamuses." " Irma Smith? " said Dan. His ideals were above servants. " Put you next, if you want to," said Snagsie, as one so bountifully dowered that he can afford to be generous. Dan found himself suddenly hesitating. He could not understand his hesitation and he resolved to con-, quer it, ideals or no, before it could be so much as detected by the enlightened Snagsie. " I don't mind," he said carelessly. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 117 3. So, in the alley behind the Doreamus house, Dan met Irma. She was a soft and pliant girl, with a soft and pliant mind and a large face. Her lips were full and her eyes bovine; her hands rough from much im- mersion in dish-water, and the apron that she wore on that first evening was spotted from the kitchen. But she had a docile, clinging quality not without its charm to the untrained and the unexacting. More- over, she was round and warm and had reached, too early, the point of highest physical development, the delicate moment between that when the eternal sculptor lays down his mallet from the completed statue and that when his eternal enemy begins the insidious process of decay. She spoke little, and Dan spoke less. On the next evening, Snagsie left them early. When, a few days later, he went away from Americus for another position with his former employers, this time in Trenton, the Doreamus maid-of-all-work and the son of Sarah Barnes found themselves not well acquainted, for they could never be that but as nearly well acquainted as they could be. The thing was at last upon Dan ; the thing that he had never been instructed about and had, therefore, so much considered and now both wanted and dreaded. He had a hundred terrors, not the least of which was the possible betrayal of his ignorance, and a hundred desires of which the greatest was the one desire tha,t had been fed by the silences of his education and fattened on the neglects of his natural teachers. There was none to tell him now, none so much as to explain that these faults of training were n8 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE the faults of a system based upon property and upon woman as the insurance of property's descent from father to son; none to point out that he and the kitchen-slave, who was but groping for some oasis of pleasure in a desert of drudgery, were, along with all their kind, the puppets of the system that their kind had fashioned. Dan had his flashes of revolt, but he felt that he stood committed. He was ashamed of shame. The girl's employers were not at home on the first portentous evening when Dan and Irma sat alone under a wide-limbed black oak in the backyard. He took her passive hand and wished that it were not passive. " Irma ! " he whispered. " Irma ! " He put his arms about her and raised his lips to kiss hers. Irma bent her head to his. She purred. 4. As he walked home that night under the stars, the boy's first feeling was one of pride. He said that he had at last wrested the Secret, achieved maturity, become a man among men. But beneath this there was a growing sense of loss. That sense he never wholly comprehended, yet years passed be- fore it wholly left him. The hurts that had come * with the termination of the affair with Pauline were not healed. An ideal, always shadowy, but once compellingly potential, had died within him. 5. Yet the thing went on. It went on until one evening when Irma met him with tears in her big, frightened eyes and spoke a sentence that it had never THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 119 occurred to him she might some day have to utter. "It's not so! "he cried. His head swam. "I ain't certain," she sobbed; "but it looks like it." He seized her wrists. ' You must be mistaken ! " he declared. " You must be ! " He felt physically sick. " I don't believe I am," she wailed. " An', oh, I don't know what to do ! I don't know what to do ! " He was sure it could not be. He felt that, be- cause it was so unjust, it could not be. " Think ! " he commanded. " Count ! " " I have," said Irma. " I have an' I don't know what to do! I don't know what to do ! " , That horrid iteration stung him. Why did she not know what to do? Why had she ever allowed this to occur? He hated her. How he hated her! He did not know what to do. He did not know where to inquire. Snagsie was in Trenton, and Dan dared not write. There was nobody else. He dared not appeal to the friends authorized by his family. He and this weak girl to whom he now found him- self unendurably chained: they were as much alone as if they were both clinging to a dancing spar in a tempest of mid-ocean. They hesitated; they procrastinated; they let the days pass in fevered hopes and the nights in chilly doubt. Time is the bondman of the happy, but the slaver of the unfortunate. It whipped them for- ward. We wrll wait till such a day, they said, and then They did not know what they would do then. But they waited for the day. It came and 120 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE passed and neither then nor in the days of hope de- layed that hung upon its heels did what they prayed for happen. Nothing happened. And all the while, out of the months ahead of them, their veiled destiny, to meet their faltering approach, implacably ad- vanced. At last, on the eve of the reopening of college, even Dan knew that, whatever was to happen, his father, terrible as the ordeal would prove, must be told. He would throw himself upon the mercy of the court. Then came the sense of his duty. It came to him so strangely that it amounted to a blow. For a time it stunned him, so that he could not do what he now realized he must do. On a morning in the store, where he went through his work as a frightened child lives through a bad dream, he understood that this was more than an appeal for mercy; more than the performance of duty; that it was something which would, sooner or later and in defiance of his will, certainly occur. Several times he started toward his father's office, and several times turned back. There struck him, as if to reenforce his terrors for himself, a sharp appre- ciation of the ruthless extent to which retribution was carried in this world. He, Dan, had offended against the conventional code, and here, at the very start of the evil, not only was he to suffer, and Irma, but an- other wholly innocent soul. Then, quickly, he found himself in the little, litho- graph-hung office and heard his stiffened tongue tell- ing, in a few crude sentences, the truth. He saw the man's rugged face grow old as the words were ut- tered. He saw anger flash and disappear. He saw THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 121 his father's hopes for him, the pride and the plans, totter. He saw the stiff upper lip loosen and the jaw move as if in prayer. He saw tears come into the hazel eyes: the difficult tears of the middle-aged. And he saw Love there, writhing like a bruised worm, but alive. Somehow Tom Barnes was speaking: " . . . ' mustn't know this. We must keep it from her. I won't tell your mother, Dan," said Old Tom. VIII DAN was to go to New York. He was to be given work there and to live entirely upon his own earnings. This decision, emerging from the cloud that then enveloped him, as it were the decree of a deity gov- erning his universe from beyond the universal limits, is all that Dan now recalls of the three or four days following his confession to his father. And the de- cision came at the end of those .three or four days. During the period immediately preceding, the boy seemed to himself to be in a state of suspended ani- mation. He seemed to be holding his breath, await- ing the judgment that was to restore him to life or condemn him to death. He was conscious of no sen- sation save the sensation of dread. He neither re- membered nor reasoned, neither thought nor rebelled. He had staggered too long alone under the weight of his guilt. At last, overcome, he had fallen before his father; had placed his burden upon his father's knees. Dan forgot that he had once considered his father old-fashioned: he now thought of him as the one power existent. Exhausted, the lad was waiting what- ever disposal should be made of his sin and himself by the parent that had resumed omnipotence. And that disposal took the form of a commanded flight. 122 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 123 Somewhere, out of the gray mist about Dan, came Old Tom, a trembling sheet of letter-paper in his crooked fingers. " I've written to Richardson," said Old Tom. " He's in New York now. He's retired. But he says he can get you a job with his brokers." The man's voice was dull and dry. " I'll take you over. Perhaps it's a good thing a good thing. Perhaps you can learn finance there. That's what I'm telling your mother, anyhow. Perhaps, then, after a while If this blows over, perhaps you can come back then an' help in the store." He did not say : " You have broken the laws of God and man; you have disgraced your family ; you are a living reproach to your parents, your church, your town" He did not say: " You have ruined a young girl and wrecked an- other soul while casting away your own." He did not say: " I have worked and schemed and planned for you by day and by night; I have hoped and prayed for you; and you, after thrusting your hand into the fire that I have Always hated and avoided, have set a torch to the structure that I have given all my life to build." He did not weep or upbraid. He did not even explain. Dan wished with his whole heart that his father would say and do these things. Darkly he under- stood that the man's restraint was governed by love, that the man's silence was the silence of a great pride broken. Keenly he felt that such restraint and i2 4 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE silence were almost too much to be borne by either father or son. 2. Once more alone, however, something of all that Dan had been trained to be reasserted it- self. He was to leave home. Not as he had designed. Not as he had been taught to expect. But stealthily, hurriedly, disgracefully. Under his father's direc- tion, he was to play a lie. He did not want to leave home. He had hoped for the City; but now he was horrified by it. His dream had become an apprehension. He realized that all his bringing-up, which had shaped him to regard Americus as the best place in the world, had made him love his home ; that the very fields and hills sur- rounding it were his friends and familiars. Here he was known; he was the son of a known and consid- ered man. But Out There, in the city, he would be alone, unknown and unconsidered, even inconsider- able. The bed in which he had slept for so many years; the kindly, homely house of which each corner held its dear associations; the fond, commonplace streets, the unfinished college course at Doncaster; the accustomed faces, with not one stranger in their company; his mother: he was to leave these to go among alien things that belonged to other people's lives and memories. And Irma? At the recurring thought of her, he shuddered. In her embodied he saw the evil force, in her he saw the wicked angel that was driving him from his Gar- den. She represented that which he had been for- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 125 bidden to do and had done. More concretely, she represented discovery, exposure. Had he not been caught, all had been well ; but for her, what had hap- pened would not have happened. He had been trained to seek her fervently and secretly; but he thought that he had been trained to shun her. Ac- tion and reaction are opposite and equal. Because, though unsuspecting, his parents had with such covert force propelled him toward Irma, Dan now recoiled from her as from the independent, free-willed agent of his destruction. What people would say and what was to be done with the girl : this his revealed inex- perience and weakness, restoring confidence in the pa- ternal knowledge and might, left to his father, who thought so heavily of it. Dan's education had not been such as to impose upon him, in these circum- stances, a sense of duty to the girl: he hated her. But he also feared her. He did not want to run away from home; he wanted to run away from Irma. 3. So the mother that was not told " went over " her son's clothes and sewed and darned and cleaned them and packed them, with a few tears that nobody saw, into the old Saratoga trunk that had gone on her wedding-journey to Niagara Falls. She thought of a hot-water bottle and many other things that he might need, and secretly provided them. So, too, un- known and unknowing, she watched Dan when none was aware that she was watching and questioned him with her eyes when he did not guess that she was ques- tioning. And so, finally, the father holding his tongue as men will and the mother keeping silence 126 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE as women must, the gray morning of departure ar- rived. All three pretended to eat of the hurried break- fast that was like the breakfast in the condemned cells before the heavy feet of the chaplain and the sheriff shuffle on the iron floor outside. The wagon from the Adams Hotel rattled up to the door, and the negro porter with the brass label on his cap, having managed to shoulder the trunk that would not be strapped until Tom and Dan sat upon the lid, stag- gered out with it. " Check through to New York, Mr. Dan?" in- quired the porter. And Dan nodded. " Dan has been offered an excellent position in New York," Old Tom explained to the porter. " I'm going over with him for the day. Yes, sir: an ex- cellent position." " I done hear that jes' las' night," said the negro. " Cert'nly is right fine fo' the young man, Mr. Barnes. Hope he'll like it." The porter dumped the trunk into his wagon with a mighty crash. He slammed the back-board and secured it with a noisy chain, and he drove away, leaving Dan and Dan's mother in the dark hall, while Old Tom became vastly interested in meteorological investigations conducted from the curb. " Ten minutes before train-time! " he called over his shoulder, without turning his broad head. Dan took his hat from the tall rack. " I guess I'd better be starting," he said. His mother was standing at the foot of the stairs, one large hand resting on the newel-post. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 127 " Yes," she answered; " I guess you'd better start, Dan." Dan twirled his hat between his fingers. He looked at the hat. " You have your overshoes? " asked his mother. "Yes'm. Have them on." There was a pause. " Where's your umbrella?" asked Mrs. Barnes. She was looking out of the open doorway. " Father's got that," said Dan. " Don't lose it." " No, mother." " And don't forget to put on your flannels the first of October, no matter if it is warm." " No, mother." Old Tom's voice sounded from the pavement. " Better hurry! " he warned. " All right ! " called Dan. " I'm coming! " The son raised his eyes from his hat. He saw that his mother's eyes, though still blue, were fading. He seemed to see that her figure was slighter than it used to be and that her hair was grayer. He could not trust himself to try to see more. " Maybe I'll be back for Thanksgiving," he said. He put his arms about her awkwardly and lowered his face, the eyes closed. " Good good-by, mother," he added. Her frail arms wrapped tight around his neck. She whispered in his ear: " Good-by. Don't forget to write once a week. Good-by. Be be good, Danny. Good-by my little boy." 128 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE She had meant to say so much, and now she could say no more than this! S~\ 4.- Dan did not look back. He knew that she was watching and trying to smile, and upon that brave attempt he felt that he must not look. He set his own lips. At the station he grinned stiffly as the porter produced the trunk-check and again wished him luck. He grinned as he shook hands with several of the townspeople that were there to meet friends for- tunate enough to be coming to Americus. And once seated in the smoking-car, he accepted without com- ment the newspaper that his father, out of half a dozen just purchased, offered him. The station slipped from view. The car glided past the foot of Elm Avenue on which, several blocks away, the Barnes store stood. The back fences of house-yards that Danny knew by heart danced across the pane. The river in which he had learned to swim ; the island from which he had, with Judith, watched the moonlight on the water; the hills that he had climbed: all these whirled by, each faster than the last. The train swung into the railway " yard," turned abruptly into strange country, and began to race eastward as if it were glad to hurry him from home. It was a silent ride. Old Tom, older than ever now,^sat, for the most part, trying to appear en- grossed in the reading of his newspapers. Young Dan tried, for the most part, to present a similar appearance. Each knew a little of what was in the other's mind, but only at long intervals did either venture a remark, and then speech dealt with indif- ferent matters. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 129 When they left their train in the tunnel-like mouth of the Jersey City car-shed, they joined a crowding stream of intent and hastening persons. Dan had difficulty in keeping close to his father, who now seemed the sole living thing to connect the boy with all that he cared for in the world. " We'll go for'ard on the ferryboat," said Old Tom. '* Then you can get a good view of the city." No view in all his life thereafter quite so ap- palled Dan. The ferry was not a river, but a sea, tossing, greedy, malign. He had never before real- ized that water could be crowded : this water was as full of jostling craft as the market-house of Americus was full of people on market-day. Tugs snorted ; flat- boats unnaturally bore railroad coal-cars with the greasy waves breaking about the iron wheels; huge- funneled ocean steamships crawled up stream and down; and under their bows, across their course, lurched other ferryboats so black with passengers that Dan was sure the weight must soon sink them. The air was strangely salt and, even at that time of year, chill. The boy raised his eyes and shuddered. Ahead was a tangle of shipping, restlessly busy, hopelessly involved, and above this rose, black and white, peaks and domes and great cliffs spotted with windows. Dan felt the oppressive presence there of countless lives that did not reck of his, the muddle of innumera- ble activities among which his own activities must soon be lost even from himself. He thought of those jagged cliffs as the spotted teeth in the lower jaw of some enormous monster whose upper jaw was beyond the reach of vision, and down whose throat this 130 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE stream of human beings was drawn, day and night, night and day without end. The boat that bore Old Tom and Dan came into its slip with a great creaking and splashing, the cry- ing of many ropes and the clank of much metal. The intent passengers crowded ahead; the prow-gates col- lapsed; there was a tremendous rush forward. Dan felt his feet hurried over the level deck and then impeded by sudden contact with a rising platform. He gained the noisy street and, wanting to cling to his father's arm, but ashamed to do so, turned abruptly to the left. 5. They were first to call at Mr. Richardson's, and to do this they had to cross the ferry at another angle and take another train. They rode for three- quarters of an hour through ugly lowlands made more ugly by the encroachments of factories and mills, passed several sooty manufacturing suburbs, came into a region of porches and stucco, and at length, after leaving the train and suffering a drive in a ramshackle cab, turned into a curving gravel road among well-kept lawns, and dismounted before the home of the retired merchant. The Richardson house was large and respectable and gloomy, like the man that lived in it. Indeed, nobody could well be said to live in it at all; and the most truthful praise that could be bestowed upon it was that it would be an imposing place from which to be buried. It was built of some somber stone; it was square and solid, with a stunted mansard. In a word, it was of the 1880 to 1890 decade. Dan caught sight of an erect, angular woman, j THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 131 who, going out, passed him and his father as they ascended the steps after a quarrel over the cabman's charges. She gave them a piercing glance from be- hind her brown veil and then, as they returned the glance, seemed quickly to remember that an interest in strangers was beneath her position and looked as quickly away, pointed chin in air. " That must be Mrs. Richardson," whispered Old Tom reverently (he had become subdued immedi- ately upon issuing from his battle with the cabman), and put out a knotted hand to ring the bell. 6. Mr. Edward Quimby Richardson, the junior of Tom Barnes, was a large man with a protruding white waistcoat and a red carnation in the lapel of his black frock-coat. His wide face, at once pompous and serene, was clean-shaven except for little tufts of hair descending to the corners of his jawbone between either ear and eye and giving his prominent features a general resemblance to those of Louis Phillipe. He had immaculate hands, a round and solemn eye, and a voice carefully cultivated to convey the tone of one accustomed to command. "Glad to see you, Barnes," he said as he entered the stiff and shady parlor. u And this is your son? Glad to know you. Only sorry I cannot welcome you in Philadelphia instead of here; but an old man must have his leisure, you know, and I tell Mrs. Richardson that this is a good place to take it." He had had the misfortune to be born in Phila- delphia and he continued the fault of being proud of it. All his ancestors had been born in Philadelphia, and, simply because they had all been born there, - 132 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Philadelphia was proud of them. In that city, Mr. Richardson had increased his fortune, where his an- cestors had spent most of theirs. While there, like his ancestors, he would not vote at all, because he considered voting to be " playing politics," and all politics to be vulgar. He had contented himself, for his part, to allow Philadelphia to be conducted by persons whom it would not do to know; had been content, in return, to take without question the ques- tionable business-favors of these persons, as the lord of a Sussex manor receives, through an agent, the tribute-money of his hereditary tenants. The secret sorrow of Mr. Richardson's life was that, when his fortune was complete, his New England wife, unable to secure his migration to Boston, had refused to com- promise on any terms save a residence in the neighbor- hood of New York. For the rest, his foibles were of the sort that tickled him and hurt nobody. He collected stock phrases and spoke in little else, and, being a man with a good opinion of his intellect, al- ways talked as if his hearers had no intellect at all. Tom Barnes murmured his admiration of the place in which Mr. Richardson had elected to enjoy his leisure. Dan, both sick at heart and embarrassed, shuffled his feet on a Persian rug and said nothing. The talk laboriously wriggled through the advan- tages of trade in the progressive city of Philadelphia, back to the days of the War of the Rebellion ; and so, since a direct advance upon any matter in hand is un- dignified and un-Philadelphian, reached at last, by the correct route, the question of Old Tom's visit. " Having retired,'* said Mr. Richardson largely, " your letter fell upon me with a dull thud." THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 133 " Yes, yes," said Old Tom, not knowing what else to say. " However," pursued Mr. Richardson, " I have done my best, and angels can do no more, can they? " He smiled at Tom out of his round eyes. " I'm sure we're very much obliged to you," replied Old Tom : " very." He gave his son a glance that commanded the lad to evince gratitude. " Aren't we, Dan'l? " he demanded. Dan started and cleared his throat. " Very," he lugubriously assented. " Not at all," replied Mr. Richardson, with uncon- vincing deprecation. " I am still a man of affairs, I hope. I got your letter. I said to myself: ' I must do what I can to favor an old comrade.' Very well. No sooner said than done. I went to my brokers and I secured this position for our young friend here." " An' good it was of you good," said Old Tom. He appealed to Dan for further support, but Dan had already exhausted his capacity for approval. " I don't know," said Mr. Richardson. " All is not gold that glitters, is it? I have found in my long career that all is not gold that glitters. Any position is what the incumbent chooses to make it. Neverthe- less, I must say that I have of course selected my own brokers with exceeding care " Mr. Richardson was one of those who always manage to praise them- selves when they praise others " and I am sure that they are the sterling type of men: rough diamonds from whom an employee may gather a true knowl- edge of finance. I may even add that, when my own son (Harold is only a lad now) has finished college, I propose to place him, for a time, in their offices." i 3 4 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE By a slight inclination of his head, Mr. Richard- son indicated one of the parlor's French windows through which a bow-legged, tow-headed boy could be seen on the lawn engaged in amusing himself by pulling the tail of a yelping King Charles spaniel. The boy had a good-natured, ruddy face and ap- peared unconscious of the fact that he was inflicting pain. , While the placid flow of Mr. Richardson's con- versation continued along its obvious course, Dan continued to look at the boy. Mr. Richardson, Dan was aware, was recommending a boarding-house " kept by a most estimable person." He was, Dan knew, dignifiedly approaching the point where he would offer to accompany Tom to the brokers' offices. He had, Dan at last apprehended, reached that point, made the offer, and was about to rise. Just then there came a sound of uncertain footsteps from the hall. " Papa ! " cried a baby voice. 1 Yes, my dear," answered Mr. Richardson. " In here, my dear." Dan withdrew his gaze from the red-cheeked lad on the lawn and saw, clutching the curtains and sway- ing in the doorway, a little girl not more than two years old. She had pink cheeks, like those of the boy with the spaniel, and hair the color of wheat in July, and blue eyes. "Well, well, my dear," asked Mr. Richardson; " and where did you come from? " The little girl hung her head. She put her right forefinger between her lips. " Your daughter? " inquired Old Tom. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 135 Mr. Richardson inclined his head. " The child of my old age," he said, though he was not old. " A very pretty child," said Old Tom. Dan said nothing, but, though he did not like chil- dren at that time, he agreed with his father. " She is pretty," Mr. Richardson readily admitted, " but it has always seemed to me that beauty is only skin-deep. My dear," he continued to the child, " I asked you a question." The little girl looked up. "I asked you where you had come from?" in- sisted Mr. Richardson. The child appealed vigorously to her memory. " Nursery," she at length replied. ' The nursery? " said her father, who, in common with many of his kind, felt the necessity of trans- lating or repeating the clearest of his child's words for the benefit of strangers. " That is where you should be at this time of day; but since you are here, come in like a little lady and say how-d'-do to Mr. Barnes and Mr. Daniel Barnes." Reluctant, but obedient, the child toddled slowly forward. She placed her chubby hand in Old Tom's big palm and looked up at him with expectant eyes. " Mr. Barnes," said Mr. Richardson, " this is my daughter, Lucile." Tom nodded. " Proud to know you, Miss Lucile," he said. Lucile, warmed by this reception, turned unsteadily to Dan. She qffered him her hand of her own accord. " Up ! " she commanded, and tried to clamber into his lap. . .'.-; 136 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 7. On the lawn, when Mr. Richardson and his guests started for the New York offices of O'Neill & Silverstone, Harold was still playing with the spaniel. As Dan passed, the boy called : "Hi, you!" Dan turned, blushing. "Yes?" he said. " Can you stand on your head? " asked Harold. " I don't know," said Dan. " I used to. It's a long time since I tried." " Well, / can," said Harold. " That's good," Dan answered. " You bet it is," said Harold. " I bet you a nickel I can do it longer'n you." 8. When they reentered the city and plunged again into the terrible and wonderful streets, Dan's depression deepened. The clang and clamor became a personal horror. Above towered buildings so high that they cast over the thoroughfares a damp and con- tinuous twilight. Pushcarts, vans, delivery wagons, carriages filled the narrow channel from shore to shore. Between these dodged pedestrians in immedi- ate bodily peril; and up and down each pavement, at such a speed and at such cross-purposes that col- lisions seemed momentarily imminent, thronged in- terminable armies of more pedestrians, each individual different from the rest, each swathed like a mummy from the others in the cerements of his own pressing concerns, yet all alike in the rapid pace of their feet and the tense expression of their faces. Mr. Richardson led his followers into a steep street, narrower and more crowded than any they had yet THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 137 stemmed. He opened a ground-glass swing-door and passed through a noisy room full of anxious people looking at blackboards on which pale young men were scribbling white figures. He came to an inner office that was all deep red and dark mahogany, and he sent a fat boy in a blue uniform for Mr. O'Neill. Mr. O'Neill responded with a promptitude that was a tribute to Mr. Richardson's importance. He was small, had close-cropped sandy hair, sharp eyes, a smooth face, and a protruding under jaw. u Good-morning, good-morning, good-morning," he said; and Dan reflected that it was already one o'clock in the afternoon. " Good-morning, Mr. O'Neill," said Mr. Rich- ardson. " This is my old army-comrade, Mr. Barnes, and his son, about whom I spoke to you the other day." O'Neill came forward. Still a young man, he did not walk, but hopped; he cocked his little head as a bird does and seemed eternally whistling, to him- self, the tunes to which he was eternally dancing. " Yes, yes, yes," said O'Neill, and shook hands all around. " Sit down, gentlemen, do." " Thank you," replied Mr. Richardson, abandon- ing, in the presence of Finance, something of his habitual Fabian methods, " We are aware that you are a busy man. We merely wanted you to meet Master Daniel and to say when you were ready to have him start work." Mr. O'Neill smiled, cocked his head, and whistled to himself. -, " Eight o'clock to-morrow morning," he answered. " Office opens for customers at nine." i 3 8 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " Good," agreed Mr. Richardson; " very good in- deed. I have found, in the long course of my career, that there is no time like the present." O'Neill's eyes twinkled. " Excellent," he chirped. " About the boy's job," began Old Tom, " I guess you can tell him " " Best way to learn a job is to tackle it," inter- rupted O'Neill. " He'll get on in no time." " What'll you start him at? " asked Tom. " Seven dollars. In six months, ten." Mr. Richardson bowed. Everybody bowed, and Mr. Richardson laid his immaculate hand on Dan's shrinking shoulder. " One piece of advice, my dear young, man," he said: "Don't play the market." He spoke as if seven dollars a week would leave a wide margin for " margins." " When you do buy, buy for investment. It is generally certain that if you put your fingers in the fire, you will burn them." " True," remarked O'Neill, visibly impressed by this oracular utterance. " If you put your fingers in the fire, you will burn them. I believe that is true, sir." Dan did not understand all this, but he saw his father assenting, and so, swallowing the lump that was in his throat, he assented, too. Then O'Neill took them into another room, the precise counterpart of that in which he had met them. There he introduced them to his partner, Mr. Clar- ence Silverstone, a man of about O'NeilPs age, who had a dark, handsome, regular face, who spoke, with a multiplicity of little nervous gestures, a slow but THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 139 unaccented English and against whom Dan at once conceived an unreasoned dislike. With him father and son left Mr. Richardson in business conference. Tom and Dan went into the narrow street, the boy reflecting how lost even his big father seemed in this great town and how unimportant before its important citizens. They lunched at a corner lunch-room with long, uncovered tables, banging dishes, and chattering waitresses, and, after a far ride in the street cars, for Dan noticed that Tom avoided the rushing elevated roads, they came to a part of the city where all the houses were exactly alike and all had an air of having seen more prosperous days and of sulking over their fallen estate. Old Tom had some trouble in finding the par- ticular street and the particular boarding-house that Mr. Richardson had recommended. When he did find the house, the door opened upon a lean woman and the smell of fried lard. " I want to rent a room for my boy," said Tom. " Yes, sir," said the landlady, who was sallow and looked tired and unhappy. " How much? " " What have you got? " asked Tom. 9. In the end, they secured a hall bedroom in the rear of the house, three flights from the ground floor. The room was eight feet broad and ten long and, being the thinly partitioned fraction of a large apartment, possessed at least the virtue of a ceiling high out of all proportion to the other dimensions. The window looked upon the rear of more boarding- houses. The gas-bracket, which Dan was to find burned a blue flame of about one candle-power, 140 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE sprouted from the wall beside an unsteady pine bu- reau. The bed was narrow and its mattress hilly. The landlady said that she would send for pan's trunk, and left to give the necessary directions. There was no more to be done, and Tom must hurry ferrywards. Man and boy wanted to pace the room, but, that being impossible, they faced each other uncertainly. The father looked at his watch and cleared his throat. " Well," he said. Dan turned half away. " Well," he answered. " I guess I'd best start," said Tom, in much the words that Dan had used, that morning, in Americus. " I guess so," said Dan. The father coughed again. * You don't think I'd better go to Jersey City with you? " Dan, his eyes still averted, at length inquired. " No," said his father. " It's gettin' along toward evenin', an' you mightn't know the way back. No." " I could ask. Shouldn't I go as far as the ferry? " "No: 'tain't safe." Old Tom stood there awkwardly and aware of his awkwardness. His tall, raw-boned figure was not so upright as of old : during the past few days a slight stoop had come upon the shoulders, as if life were growing heavier; but the hazel eyes were still clear and the long upper lip, if it trembled now and then above the chin-beard, was generally firm. The father was conscious that his boy had, in a sense but half understood, become mature, and this embarrassed Tom and made him uncertain what he should say. He ached with love, and with longing to express his THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 141 love, and his fears and his sorrows for his son; and yet he was still in the grip of that grotesque Amer- ican convention which bids one hide and be ashamed of one's natural emotions. " You'll work hard," he said at last, and then added: " Won't you?" " Yes, sir," said Dan. " About other things I guess I needn't say nothin': you've had your lesson." " Yes, sir." u But laziness, that's just what they call pessimism about the arrival of the future. An' you'd better always be obedient an' respectful to your boss. Re- member, he knows more'n you do." " Yes, sir." " There's there's still a chance, Dan'l. Many a boy's made your mistake. He has so, an' got over it. I ain't sayin' it wasn't a great sin. It was. But you you can get over it. Just leave all the trouble at home to me, an' an' try to keep away from all such things from now on." The father hesitated. " You remember all I said to you that day I took you into the store? " he then pursued. Dan assented, silently. " Well that's it," said Tom. " Remember that. Yes, sir. Try to remember all I've tried to teach you, an' an', good-by." He put out his hand quickly. " Don't bother comin' down to the front, door," he said. Dan gripped the outstretched hand. " Good-by, father," he answered. H2 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Then, suddenly, without stopping to think, Dan embraced the elder man; and his eyes were so clouded that he did not see him go. He only felt the kiss returned, only felt his arms freed, only heard the ballroom door close and the sound of his father's steps descending the stairs. Dan ran down the stairs and reached the front door before his father had turned the corner of the street The boy watched the lank, stooping man and saw him finally swallowed by the alien crowd that streamed along the crossing. io. And the crowd proceeded next, with no re- gard even with no consciousness of its action, to swal- low Dan. He passed his first homesick days between his boardrng-house and his office. At the boarding-house he was surrounded by sharp-voiced girls and sharp- faced men all, like himself, fighting bitterly the bread-and-butter war, each alone, each a unit striving with mankind. At the office, where the whistling Mr ONe.ll seemed quite to have forgotten him, and where the watchful Mr. Silverstone appeared ever lying in wait for mistakes, Dan did the routine work of registenng on the blackboard fractional rises and falls of stocks that were no more than unmeaning n,t,a s and abbreviations to him, surrounded by fel low-clerks all brought up as he had been in the ig- norance that creates vicious ideals; all boasting of niltlvl I VeS ' m Sdy imagina ^' and *eir nightly drunkenness, mostly veracious; all hurrying " THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 143 For a long time Dan felt that his punishment was just, but more than he could bear. For a long time he felt that he wanted nothing but to go home. For a long time his body, accustomed to the better fare of Americus, and his mind, used to the once unre- garded attention of his home, withdrew from every expression of the new existence into which they had been cast. There came a letter from Old Tom. Irma, who was mentioned not by name, but by a painful locu- tion, had left town, married, gossip said, to Snagsie Fry, thus proving that she was the bad woman that Tom had suspected her to be and relieving both Tom and Dan of responsibility in a matter in which, after all, Dan might not be the responsible party. Never- theless, business was just now poor and change was always unwise. Dan had better remain where he was, learn, work hard, deserve a raise of wages, save, prepare himself for a successful career. There was a great deal of good advice, escaped from a strong constraint. The mother wrote regularly, giving the local news. Sometimes she inclosed a five-dollar note, and Dan was glad. Always there underlay her written word something that seemed to the boy to imply a fear for him in the big city, and this Dan at first received with a careless eye and at last with guilty dis- taste. For Dart's environment slowly did for him what environment is certain sooner or later to do for nearly all. Environment is the sum of one's own training plus the training of those who make one's surround- ings the thing that they are ; and Dan's training and 144 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE the scene in which he now found himself were just what you know them to be. During the next year, Old Tom's business, far from improving, at first stood still and then began slowly to decline; so that his son's return home was now postponed and again took the form of hurried vaca- tional visits. Dan's early upbringing, supplemented by his present condition, a supplementary supereroga- tion, was at last ready to resume its work upon his character. The time came when he began to like his companions. The time came when he began to be like them. IX TIME is so much in the passing and so little in the retrospect that the earlier years of Dan Barnes's life in New York seem now to him that lived them as a dream in which the dreamer has passed through many days in as many minutes, and the order of their events is as uncertain as that of the events in a recollected dream. As in the case of his childhood, Dan remembers them, when he remembers them at all, rather in an arbitrary sequence imposed by some unknown power within himself, than in the sequence of their importance or their actual hap- pening. There is, for instance, an evening at dinner with Gideon Giddey and Giddey's daughter Madge, of which at the time he thought but little. There is the reappearance of Snagsie Fry and a night with Snagsie at a music-hall. There are certain always rarer visits home; and there is a talk with Harold Richardson, who seems to have come into the broker's office changed in a day from the child that tortured a dog into a lad of premature and abnormal profundity. All of these things are still fresh in Dan's memory when he chooses to look at them. Whole sentences, gestures, even the tones of the past voices are pre- served, apparently by no effort of his own. And yet the momentous, though slow, process by which he lost his terror of sex and was open again to the sex-lure, 145 146 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE the entire course 'that led him back to the attitude that his training impelled him once more to assume, is lost almost completely. Even the first overt act, the incident of the nr\ street girl, is less distinct than are certain words of Snagsie Fry or certain phrases of Harold Richardson. 2. In the beginning there is no doubt that Dan long retained an abject fear of womankind. The calamity in which he continued to regard Irma as an active agent bred in him a mistrust that often amounted to hatred. The woman, he was sure, had tempted him, and he had eaten : the loss of the para- dise of Americus was the consequence. Not content with seducing him, Irma, he felt, had lied to him about the result of his seduction. He accordingly began life in New York with the conviction that he had both sinned and been sinned against, and with the assumption that, even when legitimatized, the physical relation between the sexes was ob- scene. The time came, later, when some of his former ideals returned, when he had poignant, albeit transi- tory, glimpses of his boyish vision : mighty, though for some years fleeting, yearnings for a love that was at once pure and perfect with a woman that would be at once perfect and pure. Still impelled by the forces that had guided his childhood, he was, little as he guessed it, being shaped for complete allegiance to the old concept. His mood of antipathy was inevita- bly swinging him about the circle. The more violent his present rebellion, the more intense was his future loyalty certain to be. But just now he could have THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 147 gone forth, if at all, only to destroy. Rather, he shut himself within his own heart. He had his moments of strong desire to seek comfort in confession to some sympathetic brain wiser than his own, but he did not now have sufficient faith in his fellow human beings. He could imagine no reconciliation between his condition and his sense of justice, no logical ex- planation of life's realities. Having been taught to lie in matters of sex, he now, lying in most matters, lied most in sex-matters. He wore a mask. He lis- tened, but he did not speak. This, of course, was a condition that could not in all its details long endure, and in so far as it con- cerned itself with the question of the merely casual relation between men and women it was soon altered. The clerks in the offices of O'Neill & Silyerstone were not of Dan's mind. All these young men had, it seemed, pasts pasts that were as recent as last summer, as last night; and they liked to talk about them. They talked to Dan, and Dan heard them at first with the ears of distrust, but at last with the potent awakening of his forsworn impulses. He learned much. He learned that, dangerous as serving girls might be, there was another sort of girl that passed, in those years, nightly up and down Forty-second Street, and that, from this sort, there was, in the terms of his fellow-workers, " no come- back." He learned, too, that, whatever women may think of Joseph, among men his name is generally greeted with a sneer. Dan's life in the boarding- house whetted the appetites, the indulgence of which his timidity at first forbade; and thus, in the end, he was to know that the emotions stimulated by his 148 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE past home-training and his present economic con- dition were stronger than his courage was weak. Meanwhile, as he had been started, so he was con- tinuing: the sense of his shame was no greater than the habits of his boyhood. He passed his life between the indulgence of both. It is at this point that Dan remembers Gideon Giddey. 3. Giddey was the confidential clerk of the members of the firm. He worked in mystery and in a little cubby-hole that opened upon their private of- fices, whence he seldom emerged to the general room and to the vision of the general clerks. The young men respected him, because, they said, he knew .more about the business than either O'Neill or Silverstone, and they disliked him because he seemed so old and because he had never been known to utter more than a hundred words a day. When he did thrust his thin neck through the door that led from the private of- fices, it was for the most part to call some c'erk to an unpleasant interview with his employers, or to survey the entire corps with a narrow, near-sighted glance that appeared to be determining whom he should next summon to such an interview. Giddey was a stoop-shouldered man that resembled a moulting ostrich. He had thin shanks and wore thick spectacles ; and his old black suit hung upon him with all the nicety of fit enjoyed by the clothes on a Bowery clothes dummy. His glistening pate was as bare as a billiard-ball, but just above his faunlike ears twin wisps of iron-gray hair were brushed ag- gressively forward. His long nose was as sharp as THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 149 a pointer's, and his chin sharp with the point of a man that needs false teeth and scorns them. His eyes, when his spectacles revealed them, appeared to be a pale blue; and his mouth was a long, tight line. He was somewhat deaf, but not so deaf as he seemed, and this gave him the advantage of answering a ques- tion or not, as he chose. Dan had always shared the common opinion of Giddey, so that he was somewhat surprised when, one afternoon, the little man popped his bald head through the door, blinked, peered, and then suddenly bounced to Dan's side. " Boarding-house? " demanded Giddey. His voice was high and his enunciation rapid. "What? "asked Dan. " Thought so," responded Giddey, patently mis- taking the younger clerk's interrogation for an as- sent. " Dinner with me to-night." The same words from Mr. Silverstone would have surprised Dan no more. " I Thank you," he stammered, " but I'm not sure " " Right," said Giddey. " Meet you here soon as work's finished." And the inner office had swallowed him before Dan could reframe his reply. 4. The Giddeys lived in one of the four flats on the top floor of a house in Harlem. A dark hall led to their parlor; the parlor opened upon the dining- room, and tkese two were the only rooms that faced the street. Back of the dining-room was the kitchen, and between the kitchen and the hall was a bathroom, 150 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE the sole ventilation of which came through a small opening in the roof. Gideon's bedroom had a door to the hall and one window on a light-shaft. So had his daughter's. All, however, that Dan at first observed was the clutter of books in the parlor. There were book- shelves three feet high about three of the walls; but there were great gaps in them, and before them, on the floor, piles of books, heaped as fallen stones are heaped before the walls of a ruined fortress. Some of the books were open; from many protruded bits of paper to mark a reader's " place "; the covers of all were battered. Books crowded so much of the table, in the center of the room, that they left small space for the green-shaded lamp upon it. " Come in," said Gideon. " Look out. Don't step on Petty. That's his * Taxes and Constitutions.' Here. This is the best chair. I'll lift this Seligman and Bax from it. So." He took from the seat of a Morris-chair two vol- umes that he placed on the top of a pile on the floor beside it. " Sit down," he said. Dan gathered up the skirts of his sack coat. He was a little scornful and more embarrassed. "Dinner's ready!" called a pleasant voice from somewhere. " You were late, father." The door from the dining-room opened, and Dan, arrested in the act of seating himself, saw the figure of a slim girl, silhouetted there. From behind her streamed light and the odors of cooking. " Right," said Giddey. He led the way into a small but comfortable apartment, with an ash side- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 151 board oak-veneered and an extension-table set for three. " Madge," he continued, " this is the Mr. Barnes I said, this morning, I'd bring back with me. My daughter, Barnes." Dan found himself blushing and shaking hands with the girl. He had put out his own hand with the arm high and the fingers bent in the manner that young clerks just then thought " correct " in greeting young ladies; but the girl met him with a firm, level, full-hand clasp precisely like a man's. Dan looked at her and proclaimed her so handsome that he looked hurriedly away. His impression was of curling black hair parted over the center of her forehead, of an oval face and clear gray eyes that looked into his with a frank revelation and equally frank inquiry to which he was unaccustomed from women. But Gideon speedily proceeded to control the center of the domestic stage. The silent man of the broker's office began to speak upon a dozen subjects at one time and at interminable length. It was as if his mouth secreted words as the liver secrets bile, and as if this secretion, going on all day long under official repression, must vent itself through the scant hours of leisure. The little old man opened his lips not so much to introduce food as to cast forth phrases. His pale eyes gleamed, his pointed chin wagged in- cessantly. He was as loquacious as a phonograph. Though Dan now and then managed to interject a few embarrassed words, apparently addressed to his soup or to the beefsteak that followed it, Gideon rattled constantly on ,in a monologue that was like one of those railway maps, which are so full of spurs and branch lines and side-tracks that the eye of the 152 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE prospective traveler can never remain long upon the main road. " Waste, waste ! " Dan was aware of Gideon say- ing, apropos of something long since shunted down a branch-line. ; ' That's what's the matter with our civilization." His own scant money always somehow "paid itself out"; but upon national economics, he spoke not as the scribes. " Waste everywhere : in the ruined businesses, in the suicides of small retailers, in the bankruptcy of little mills, in the breaking of good workingmen, in the casting away of women's bodies and the toil-twisting of childish muscles and brains. The whole thing is just the wanton wastefulness of half-baked, lazy, short-sighted intellectual processes on the part of government that thinks it can direct mankind." Dan sat up with a gasp. What was that which his host had said about women's bodies? The young man shot a glance at Madge, but Madge, offering him a dish full of fried potatoes, met him with a direct, gray-blue gaze. He sought cover under some reply that would not betray the point that had at- tracted him. " But," he volunteered, " men make their own governments. In this country, anyhow, they do." What he would have wished to say, was that the logic of majorities is this: though the individuals composing the majority are fools, they are just so many different sorts of fools; their follies contend; and therefore, when they come together, the one thing that they can agree upon must be something rather sane. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 153 Gideon, however, understood. He shook his gleaming poll. " That argument,'* said he, " is as cheap as the hand-shake of a candidate. It would apply in a democracy, but there is no democracy in our day; there are only monarchies and republics. For my part, I can't make out which is worse." It was a night of surprises for Dan. " You don't mean you don't believe in a republic? " he panted. " Emphatically I do mean that," snapped Gideon. "Then what are you?" " Nothing. A contradiction in terms. Those who don't call me Socialist call me Anarchist." Socialist! Anarchist! Dan recalled the crude newspaper stories of the Haymarket riot in Chicago. Why, these people believed in assassination and free love ! They believed in " dividing up " ! " I don't think it's right," he said stoutly, " to make people get to depend on charity." That was enough to set Gideon's train of thought whirring along a new track. Nobody wanted char- ity; nobody, he said, wanted anything but justice. He began with surplus value. He showed, to his own complete satisfaction, that the employee created that value. He proved that the employee was not recompensed for his creation. He demonstrated that, therefore, Profit was nothing but the employer's seiz- ure of what belonged of right to the employee. He gesticulated; he forgot to eat. And this was the withered, confidential clerk of a brokerage firm, who had achieved a reputation for silence! Politely Dan tried to follow, but was too lost in 154 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE wonder. When Gideon caught his breath he never paused long enough to draw a fresh one his guest could only mutter something about its being necessary in this world to take all that one can get. " If you want to live truly, you mustn't merely take: you mast give; you must want to give." It was the clear voice of Madge that made this response. She drew Dan's eyes. He saw her fully now. He saw her seated oppo- site him, the white silk shirt of a boy draped to the uncorseted curves of her childish bust, the shortened sleeves, ceasing at the elbow and leaving free the firm arms, wrists on the table, hands clasped before her. His glance rose from her sturdy throat disclosed by the low collar, to the pure, red mouth; to the clear cheeks, faintly tinged with pink; to the delicately aquiline nose. " I wonder," it flashed upon him, " if old Giddey can be a Jew." He was altogether puzzled. He had never been among people whose general conversation was com- posed of sociological discussion. He had not known that, outside of the class-room and off the political platform, there were such people. . . . And this girl : there was something like a boy's in all her move- ments; something He wanted to change the direction of the talk. He found himself, with af- fected lightness, saying: " Well, I wish someone could afford to give me " . "Order? Law and order?" Gideon's perverse deafness had caught a word unuttered. " Of course, I'm not for order in the present state of things. Or- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE der never got anywhere. Order is something that stands still. You have to meet disorder with dis- order. The times are disordered; they're diseased. The only healthy sign of the times is in the increase of the birth-rate among the workers and its decrease among their exploiters." Dan choked over the glass of water that he had raised to his lips. Was there no turning the man from subjects that ought not to be discussed in the presence of girls? Apparently there was none. Apparently the old man was bent upon further horrors, for he was con- tinuing: " Here we are, a nation that won't understand the fundamental facts of life. Well, if we won't under- stand the foundations, how can we understand all that rests on 'em? We lie to our children in every- thing; or, if we don't, we just refuse to explain. We teach 'em to accept without question the anger of their parents and teachers. What's the logical re- sult ? They tolerate oppression ; they grow up to ac- cept injustice. As for sex " Dan's head whirled. He was shocked for his traditions; he was shocked on Madge's account. He stole another look at her and was more shocked to find her face serene, frank, unmoved. He lost much of what Gideon was saying. Not until they had re- turned to the parlor and found seats among the tur- bulent books there, with the girl on the floor at her father's knee, did the host's words again reach Dan's comprehension : " The social evil can't be cured by making a law or enforcing one. It's an economic, an educational 156 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE question. . . . You can scatter the wrong by a law, but you can't end it. ... You can stop us from writing about such things, and you can stop your children from reading about them ; but you can't stop your children from thinking about them. You can't stop passion. All that you can do, you are doing: you are perverting it. ... And the economics! Because of poverty, we can't any longer breed up- ward ; we must have no children, or else we must face the fact, and that's what we do do, that our children can't be so well off in life as their parents were. ... You'd think that we might at least prepare them by telling them the truth about sex. But no, not we! Parents still go about pretending that the world is the same to-day as it was yesterday; while all the while, the change is here. We go about pretending that nobody knows what everybody practices. We educate, or we make a more or less cloudy attempt to educate, our daughters and sons to face life; and yet we never say one word to them about the very fact of life itself. We send them out, our loved and cher- ished, the souls and bodies that we've tied our hopes to send 'em out to meet the greatest, the strongest force in human nature, utterly ignorant, ut- terly unprepared." He ran on and on, speaking in the shrill voice of the deaf, punctuating his speech with the stiff gestures of the aged. He was secure in the most efficacious of mental delights: the sense of one's intellectual su- periority to one's hearers. How could the old man dare to talk thus before this girl? Dan could not look at her openly; and all the while he knew that she was receiving the flood THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 157 of words as if they were matter of course. She was very young, he reflected; far younger than was he, and yet somehow, far more grown up. She was cer- tainly like no woman he had ever met. She seemed never to have known that some things are for men and others for women, that some things are to be mentioned to none but persons of one's own sex. She was so thoroughly feminine in her beauty; in her man- ners, even in the free play of her arms, so amazingly boyish. "... and that's why I asked you up here," Gid- eon was now saying. " Without a word from some- body, I didn't- like to see you going the way of those other whipper-snappers at the office." What had the word been? Dan did not know, could not guess. It had floated over his head while he was submerged by the billows of confusion. " Because," concluded Gideon, " in the matter of sex-education, naked savages are two thousand years in advance of us. From puberty to the time when he earns enough money to marry, a man is com- manded to let woman alone. Well, he rarely makes enough money to marry before he is thirty-five, if he does then. The intervening years are the years of his greatest sex-development. How many of such men obey the commands of society, and how many are fitly trained to 'break them with safety? ..." 5. Dan had begun by not understanding and had ended by not listening. He reached the street at last with burning cheeks. Plunging into that busy, lighted, sensible thoroughfare was like coming from a dim, cold church, where they preached damnation, 158 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE into the reassuring warmth of noon. He remembered then only a gesticulating man and a grave-eyed girl. Giddey must be mad. He must be mad because he was not bringing up Madge in the way in which Tom Barnes had brought up Dan. Yes, to be sure; what a queer old fool the fellow was and what a fine-looking daughter he had ! 6. After that, at the office, he avoided Giddey. The man was disturbing, and Dan did not like to be disturbed. The younger clerk had been brought up to believe in the obtaining order of things. The obtaining order was his standard of sanity. He knew that he ought to pay a dinner-call at the Harlem flat, but he knew that there was no hurry for ten days or twelve. After twelve days, he postponed the call. He postponed again. Then he resolutely forgot. Nor did Gideon make more than one attempt at reminder. On an afternoon, as the day's final lull was settling upon the office, he shot into the general room. He found an undersized clerk with a daring waistcoat, who was picking his teeth with a pen and describing in a tremendous effort at nonchalant verac- ity, how a woman of fashion, whom he would not name, condescended to him in secret. Dan stood in an attitude of sheepishly appreciative attention; and Gideon put his hand on Dan's sleeve. Dan turned quickly and blushed. " Haven't seen much of you, lately," said Gideon, in his high tones. " No," said Dan. " I I've been meaning to to I've been so busy that ..." The words trailed off into silence, but Gideon, with THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 159 one look from behind his thick spectacles, turned sharply away. Dan laughed awkwardly and renewed his atten- tion to the amiable youth in the daring waistcoat. Young Barnes was leading a cramped and narrow life. He hated his boarding-house, but he could af- ford no better, and Old Tom's letters did not en- courage. Anybody that was not Old Tom's son would, in- deed, have surmised that something had happened to that merchant, not entirely something from without. Such an onlooker would have suggested that Old Tom was losing his grip. But not Dan. Thomas Barnes was the type of parent that seeks to personify strength to his children. Thus Dan fretted the more because his condition seemed the result of an arbitrary decision upon his father's part. At first he had thought the decision that he must support himself was a just punishment; but now his father seemed stingy, seemed at least absurdly over-cautious. Dan wanted many amuse- ments that he could not often have, and was again beginning consciously to want others that he still thought he must never have. THE reappearance of Snagsie was no less im- pressive than the revelation of Gideon, though in a vastly different manner. Essentially but an argument that, had it not come from one source would infallibly have arrived from another, it long seemed to Dan the full cause of the incident that fol- lowed it. Materially, Snagsie Fry did not reappear at all. What reappeared was Lysander G. Fry. The barelegged boy of those rainy afternoons in the Froenfields' barn was gone forever; gone forever, too, was the rustic roue that had come back from Harrisburg to dazzle, for a brief but awful visit, the quiet streets of Americus. The brain that had di- rected these two other personalities now directed their logical third. Dan, homeward bound after a hard day's work, had descended from a Broadway car at the corner nearest his boarding-house. He was facing the swinging-doors of a large hotel, when the doors swung open and emitted a tall, broad-shouldered young man in a tan-colored paddock overcoat with facings of brown velvet, and a broad black band ^bout the left sleeve. " Well," bawled the young man. " Dimned if it ain't Dan Barnes ! " Dan looked. His eyes, running by the brown 160 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 161 lapels, passed a patch of striped, stiff shirt adorned by a crimson tie in which sparkled a stone. They passed a high collar open to a ruddy throat, and they rested upon the face of an old companion. Yet changed. The bulging forehead of Snagsie Fry was there, the hooked nose, the prominent ears, and the retreating chin; but the eyes, though as pis- catory as of old, were more knowing. The skin once pasty had begun to glow a perpetual pink; the figure was fuller and more assured; the man's manner easier; his whole air to Dan's observation that of one acquainted with large cities and large interests. There were already a few faint lines in his face, and he flaunted the glory of a waxed mustache. The horrid specter of Irma leaped into Dan's mind. He wanted to run away; but Fry had gripped his hand and was squeezing the knuckles until they tingled with exquisite pain. " Heard you were in N'York somewhere," Fry was saying. u Certainly glad to see you. It's just like old times. Come in and have a drink." " Thanks," said Dan. "I am not thirsty." Would the fellow never free his hand? Fry laughed loudly. " You certainly talk like home," he answered. " Nobody in N'York drinks because he's thirsty." " I mean," corrected Dan, " I just had one." He lied, of course. Except for a few reckless oc- casions when he had sipped at a glass of beer and disliked it, he had drunk almost nothing since his one evening ef drunkenness at college, now seem- ingly so long ago. He thought it brave to drink, and he thought it wrong. Fry, as Dan would have known 1 62 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE instinctively, thought it merely customary. So, trained against debate, Dan lied. " Just had one? " repeated Fry. " Then it's time for another. Come on." He released Dan's hand only to grip Dan's arm. He led his victim into the hotel's barroom. "What'll you have?" Dan called upon his courage. " Beer," he said. " Beer? " Fry's mustache twisted upward over a broad grin. " Seems to me I've heard that word be- fore, but not since I left the country. All right. Have it your own way, son." He produced a coin from a jingling pocket and rapped loudly with it on the shining surface of the bar. " Eddie ! " he called to the nearest barkeeper. "A little attention, please. A beer and one high- ballBourbon." While they waited for the drink, he talked much but vaguely of his own prosperity. It appeared that he was still with the firm that had sent him first to Harrisburg and then to Trenton, but that the firm had considerably enlarged its operations ; though just what those operations were and just what was his part in them, Fry neglected to mention. " It's a big thing. Dealing with nothing less than seven figures," he said. " No small games any more for yours truly." Dan did not reply. He did not dare to ask ques- tions: he was afraid of the specter of Irma now pain- fully vivid. " Well," remarked Fry, when his glass had come and he had gripped it in his fist, " here we are. This THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 163 is what killed father: here's my revenge." And he took a long pull at the drink, made a wry face, and shivered. " I didn't know your father was dead," Dan ven- tured, his eyes reverting to the black band on the sleeve of Fry's overcoat; " I am sorry." Again Fry laughed. "Dead? My old man? Don't you believe it. Too well preserved in alcohol: the germ that bites him dies." " But I thought you said -" " Oh," explained Fry; " that's just a gag. Where do you keep yourself, anyhow? Nobody's dead but my wife." Dan felt his lips draw tight against his teeth. Was he sorry for Irma? He knew that he ought to be sorry; but he knew that he was immensely relieved on his own account. He could find only one word. " When? "he asked. " Oh " Fry pursed his lips; with the old familiar gesture, he tugged at the lobe of an ear " about six months ago. I didn't go into full mourning, you see. I don't believe in going into mourning. Be- sides, I didn't hear of it for weeks. Of course we weren't living together." Dan wanted to ask why, but Fry's narrow eyes were regarding him fixedly. " Drink up," said Fry, " and have another." " No, thanks," said Dan; " I don't take much." " Aw, come on." " I don't take much." " Nor me ; still, you don't meet an old friend every day. Have a fresh one, anyhow." i6 4 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE So Dan allowed his scarcely tasted beer to be whisked away by the barkeeper. " Do it again, Eddie," commanded Fry, " and pass out some real liquor this time. You people are han- dling cheap stuff here." They had their second drink, and then, though Dan evaded another, he had to stand by while Fry took a cocktail preparatory to the dinner insisted upon. They dined amid waiters dutifully bulldozed by Fry at one of the Broadway restaurants that Dan had long wanted to enter and had feared because of his unfamiliarity and his narrow purse. They dined well. Most of the food was too strange to Dan for his enjoyment, and the least strange he could scarcely appreciate because of his appreciative wonder at their surroundings. But he made an effort to pose as one accustomed to all these things, and he retained his outward calm when his curious eye revealed to him the appalling size of the bill that was at last de- posited beside Fry's finger-bowl. Dan believed in money. He could not help be- lieving in money; its making and its spending: money was success, and success was the test of worth. He admired Fry. The fellow's features seemed to have expended all their powers of growth before they reached the task of making a chin; the bulging fore- head, the high cheek-bones, and the beak-nose had ex- hausted the assigned material, but Dan forgot these things before the evidences of accomplishment that accompanied them. Fry was loud, too, and over- dressed, but Dan did not estimate these attributes at their true valuation; for the former probably com- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 165 manded success, and the latter was success' outward expression in one of the few forms that the metropolitan comprehension is capable of under- standing. Even when they strolled toward the theater that Fry had casually suggested, that young man was strengthening these impressions. "Get the money! Get the money! Get the money ! " he advised. " That's the trick. Make peo- ple believe in you. It's dead easy: talk. You've got to put up a front, Dan, my son ; nothing else goes. If you'd only put up a good front, how long do you suppose you'd be clerking for that gang of yours at less than nothing a week? Not three days, you wouldn't." Dan remembered the revolutionary counsel of Gideon. He referred to it. "Poof!" said Fry. "Bunch of cabbage-heads, those fellows. They want to upset the whole founda- tions of business. How could we get along without business? If you want to get good and sick of re- form, join the City Club." They went to Koster & Rial's music-hall, which was then a favorite resort; and Dan looked fur- tively, yet with brightening eyes, at its bespangled women. He had known the stage from the peaks of the gallery, but never so close as this. All the while Fry kept up a running commentary upon life. Did Dan think that when we are young we demand, as our right, a great many things, most of which would be bad for us, but most of which we never get? How did he know, since he had never got them ? The world moved ; opinions changed in these 1 66 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE days, and only the man that believes in hell de- serves it. Dan listened and watched the women on the stage. " Business and a good time," said Fry, " those are the things that count. Only don't let them get to- gether. They don't mix." Dan had managed to drink almost nothing, and Fry showed none of the results of drinking: he was his normal self, cautious even with what he loved best, and his boisterous geniality was his best caution. " Now," said Fry, as they left the music-hall, " we'll have one nightcap apiece, and then I'll leave you. Got to get up to Albany early to-morrow." They went into a brightly lighted barroom. " Two red-eyes," said Fry. With one hand the white-coated barkeeper sent a bottle sliding down the bar to them; with the otherf he sent two glasses following. " I think I'll stick to beer," said Dan. Fry became fatherly. " Don't do it," he advised. " Don't you do it. Not before you go to bed. It's the worst thing you can do." Dan hesitated. The music of the theater and the memory of the dancing women were fresh in his brain. Besides, Fry must know much; his accom- plishment was proof sufficient. " All right," said Dan. He took the whisky that Fry poured for him ; and almost as soon as he had managed to curtail the im- pulse to choke that came over him, he felt, under the ensuing warmth, a great change. He straightened his shoulders. He looked at Fry squarely. He THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 167 found his tongue loosened to wonderful thoughts and his spirit high. " Have another on me," he suggested. They had it, and life became sublimely simple to Dan. He knew that he, too, could succeed. He could do all that Fry had done. ' Just one more? " Dan suggested. " No, thanks," said Fry. " Got to be going. I'm glad I saw you, though." He put out his hand as they reached the barroom door. " I'll look you up one of these days. So long." His grip was as tight as it had been when they met, but Dan proudly noticed that it no longer hurt him. 2. Then, as he walked along under the lamps of Broadway, Dan remembered that Fry had made no further reference to Irma. Well, why should he ? The girl had probably told to Fry the lie that she had told to Dan. It was a lie; it must have been a lie. Anyway, it had availed with Fry, and Fry had grown wiser and resented and left her. And she was dead. So far as she was concerned, Dan now felt sorry that she was dead, but he was relieved on his own account. To be sure, she could probably never again have troubled him, but now the probability was cer- tainty. After all, women were made for men's amusement. It was not their fault. Men were men and women were women. It was the way things were ordered in this world. A girl was walking slowly toward him. As she passed, she brushed his sleeve. He could not see 1 68 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE her face because of the shadow of her leghorn hat, but under the hat he heard her humming. He hesitated, but he hesitated too late: the girl moved on. Dan condemned his tardiness. Powerful men were not tardy; next time he would be prompt. The next time occurred quickly. Another girl a few paces ahead was looking into the lighted window of a men's furnishing-shop. She glanced at Dan and smiled. Dan was sure that she was not so pretty as her predecessor. Her face was thin and her clothes rather shabby. He was beginning to notice that the night had grown cold. Still, the second girl had bright cheeks and bright eyes. Dan smiled, too. He had passed .the girl before he knew what he should next have done, and he was so annoyed at this that he did not observe that she had followed him until she strode ahead of him and was turning the nearest corner. He bit his lip vexatiously and then released the lip to smile again, for, as she turned the corner, the girl looked significantly in his direction and smiled a second time. Dan followed into the darkened cross-streets. At first he was afraid that the girl had disappeared, but an instant later he saw her walking slowly ahead of him. Unaccountably, he slackened his own pace. It was very chilly. He realized that he did not know what to say. ... The girl stopped. Dan felt that he must not turn and flee. That would be a treason to his sex. He came reluctantly forward. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 169 " Hello, dear," said the girl. She spoke as if she had a cold. Dan raised his hat. " Hello," he said, and could find no other word. " Where you goin'? " asked the girl. " Home," said Dan. " Don't you want to take a little walk? " Dan shook his head. Why did he shake his head? He hated himself for his cowardice, and yet he heard himself saying: " It's too late at night." " Aren't you out for a good time? " asked the girl. " It's too late," repeated Dan. " Won't cost you much," the girl pleaded. Dan compromised. " Are you around here every night? " he inquired. " Sure," said the girl. " Well," said Dan, " to-morrow night " The girl laughed mirthlessly. " I've heard that before," she said. " So long." She had gone before he well knew it. He was angry with himself and he was angry with her. He wanted to follow, but he saw another man crossing the street toward her already distant figure. It was very cold, indeed. He hurried back to Broadway and jumped on an approaching car. 3. Passed, tossing on the pad that served for a cot-mattress in his close hall bedroom, that night was one which Dan does not often care to recall. It began with an, upbraiding of his cowardice; it pro- ceeded to a hatred of women; it developed into a religious ecstasy in which he thanked God for his 170 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE deliverance from sin; it continued thence, through thoughts of the words he might have said and did not say, to the thoughts of the thing he might have done and did not do. It ended in the habitual im- mundicity that led to prostrate penance and despair. Yet he had not been in the office for an hour next day before he was mentally where he had been when he left the girl of the street. He heard one clerk saying to another: " Maybe I didn't pick up a peach last night." And he heard the other answer: " Oh, I don't know. I didn't do so bad myself." Dan cursed his own timidity. He wanted to be alone, but, at the moment he most coveted solitude, the clerk that affected desperate waistcoats took him aside to tell of an amazing debauchery. The process was too rapid for analysis. Dan for- got, for the time, that feeling of loss which had come to him after he mated with Irma. His sense of deliverance had given place to the knowledge that what had rescued him had been his timidity, and that knowledge assured him that he regretted his rescue. He was ashamed of his rescue. The only thing of which he was more ashamed was the shame in which his solitary reflections of the night before had ended. He wanted to be manly. He burned with the sense of how his fellow-employees would sneer at him if they knew the truth about him. He swore that he would be manly at any price. 4. All the way home from work, he held the door upon his fears, whether they presented them- selves in their own guise or under the cloak of con- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 171 ventional morality. He even thgught of getting from the car as he passed the corner on which the girl had paused to smile at him. He would have stopped there, but he remembered that the hour was far too early. In the lamp-lighted basement of his boarding-house he ate sullenly. He looked at the aenemic faces of his table companions and disliked them. He specu- lated to himself about the men's relations with women, and he wondered which one of the three stenographers opposite would that night yield to her employer. Then, in the chills of fear and the fever of reso- lution, he walked the streets until ten o'clock. At ten o'clock he was tired from this unwonted exercise, but he drank two glasses of whisky and turned to- ward the corner of adventure. As he left the saloon, he was triumphant in the realization that desire was actually alight; but he walked fast lest there should return the cold, the sinking, that had before betrayed him. At the window of the men's furnishing-shop a girl was standing. It was not the girl of his previous en- counter. This girl was plump; she was almost fat, and Dan, like most young men, disliked fat women. Besides, this one somehow reminded him of Pauline He halted, but he ended by saying to himself that he halted not because the girl was fat, but because his cowardice had used his prejudice against fat as a convenient avenue of attack. He went forward and * raised his hat' " Hello, dear," he said. 172 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE The girl turned slightly. She did not look away from the window ; but Dan saw that she had an agree- able face and a full figure. " Hello," said she. She seemed in no hurry. " Where are you going? " Dan inquired. " Nowhere." Dan had been applauding his glibness. Now he realized that he was repeating to this girl just the words that the girl of last night had used to him. Nevertheless, he doggedly proceeded: " Don't you want to take a little walk? " " Sure," said the girl. " Come on." She seized his arm in a tight grasp, pressing it close against her. She assumed something of an air of possession. Dan looked nervously up the street and down; he was afraid that some acquaintance would observe him. Nobody, however, in the hurrying street, appeared at all to regard this meeting as unusual. Then he looked again at the girl and pronounced her comely and wished that some of his fellow-clerks might pass. But now that they were together, the girl put aside all the slow indifference with which she had begun their interview. She was very much in a hurry. He asked himself why she was in a hurry, but he had to be babbling in inanities the while, an3 he found no reply when they paused in a darkened side-street before a dim doorway. " This is the house," said the girl. " Here? " asked Dan, stupidly. " Yes." XI HE had, of course, in looking back at it, his moments of reaction, and these were ugly. She had asked him for " the money first " : what a terrible woman ! She had made a coarse jest, and Dan had tried to smile at it in order to hide the tokens of the shock that it gave him to hear a woman speak in this way. But, as he remembered that she had not noticed his smile, so he soon came to under- stand that she would probably not have noticed its absence. The girl had no doubt really tried to be amusing: she had hired herself for a purpose, and she considered it her duty to do her work and make no comment. Brains discount conventionality; emotions merely ignore it. Dan argued little. He was no more in- trospective than another average man. He had first met the sex-problem furtively and so had never had a chance to face it squarely. He held his head somewhat higher among the brokers' clerks and re- served his fits of religious penitence for the privacy of his own hall-bedroom. Then repetition increased the assurance arid temporarily reduced the contrition. His early habits had stimulated his appetite : he be- came entirely manly. Notwithstanding his small pay and mean sur- roundings, the spell of New York had now fastened upon him. He loved the city. He loved the rush 173 174 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE of Wall Street by day and the sweep of Broadway by night. At one time, Manhattan had impressed him like a tiger-cage in some enormous menagerie, and its greatest thoroughfare had seemed to be the track along which the caged beasts walked up and down, back and forth, in the untiring restlessness of captive brutes. But now he began to glory in his captivity. If New York were the cage, the rest of the world was the jungle. A New Yorker was above all the beasts of the field. Dan felt his superiority. He felt a part of the great forces that originated so near to him and gov- erned the earth. He did not know that he had been carefully prepared to become a victim to just such a change. He knew only that rustic codes had not been made for metropolitan conditions. A man's course through life is marked by the dry husks of his cast-off opinions: Dan developed logically. Physically, he was growing into a presentable fig- ure. His eyes, blue and set wide apart, by no means betrayed him ; his hands, large like his mother's, were well formed and, since he had come to the city, well looked after. His lips were sensitive and, under emo- tion, more likely to change color than his cheeks. His shoulders were broad, and he was beginning to acquire what he considered the New York manner. 2. It was not until some time after the Chicago World's Fair year that Dan made his first long visit home, and that visit was a failure. The townspeople, as sensitive as are all the people of small towns, resented the swagger with which Dan, in his very stride, announced himself a New Yorker; and the THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 175 young man, on his part, discovered that Americus, far from being the paradise that he had once re- gretted, was little and dirty, was full of uninteresting and uninterested people, was shabby and dying of dry-rot. Even his parents But, no, them he still loved and feared. Of course they could not understand a city product, and so, of course, the city product told them no more than it was good for them to know. Yet respect remained. They were not much changed. He assured him- self of that. Save for the slight frosting of his fa- ther's beard, he would see no change in them at all. His mother stroked his hand furtively and, accepting his explanation of New York being such a busy place, forebore to rebuke him for not more often writing home. His father seemed rather to admire Dan's distant connection with the large enterprises of the large city; inquired of him before the evening crowd in the post-office what Watt Street thought of the new Scotch steel magnate from Pittsburg, and, at home, continued to administer the advice on which Dan had been reared. Dan pronounced that advice sound. Its spiritual phases he had, of course, long since negatived. Its ethical phases, having early observed wherein Tom's precept diverged from his preaching, the son had de- cided upon tempering by judicious compromise with the order of things as they really were. But the rest, the hard business sense, the dicta concerning obedience to authority and reverence for the men that were mak- ing his country the greatest industrial nation of the world, these he had always accepted and acted upon. 176 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " I tell you, Dan," said Tom, one evening, " these are wonderful times we're livin' in, an' they're goin' to be more wonderful." Father and son were in the " library " of the care- fully ordered gray house in Oak Street, its walls hung with the stiff pictures that Tom had brought from his former home. Mrs. Barnes was sewing silently beside a lamp upon a corner table. " More wonderful," repeated Tom. " Yes, sir," agreed Dan, leaning forward, chin in hand. " I think so, too." " I've just been readin' one of those magazines," continued Tom, " where there's a long piece praisin' our Captains of Industry. Nobody that reads that can take much stock in these fellows out West (regu- lar Anarchists, they are) that are attackin' the great minds of America." " Yes, sir," said Dan again. " Mother," cautioned Tom, " won't you just- straighten that chair beside you there? It's crooked. Thank you. No," he went on, stretching his long legs comfortably as his wife obeyed the command of his passion for orderliness, " this isn't any time for criticism of our great minds. No, sir. We got over that sort o' thing when we got through the Recon- struction Period, an' I'm glad of it. There's no harm in bein' smart, is there? An' if you're smart, you naturally get rich from it. The Bible approves o' that. Yes, sir. Look at Solomon. He ' exceeded all the kings o' the earth for riches and for wis- dom.' " Dan raised his right shoulder. He was always jjlad to keep his father on these topics, for, though THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 177 Tom had never directly recurred to the Irma episode, .Dan feared constantly that a recurrence was possible. " It's mostly the. foreigners that make trouble," said he. " They're a low-down lot." "They are," Tom assented; " an' that's the only objection I've got to these people you're workin' for." "O'Neill's all right," said Dan; "but then," he added, " O'Neill was young when he came here." " Hum," coughed Tom. " I guess Silverstone was, too. But don't you put too much confidence on him. You keep your eyes open. Make friends with the big customers, the men of affairs. Work hard an' be steady. Be steady." His hazel eyes shot a sidelong glance at his son. " An' if you know any any peo- ple, be sure they're nice ones: nice." " Yes, sir," said Dan for the third time. He knew that his father was approaching the subject of mar- riage, but he also knew that his father would ap- proach no closer. On the whole, this conversation, typical of their intercourse, left Dan relieved. He was relieved to find that Tom, whose finances suffered from the com- mercial depression that followed the year 1893, did not mention his own business or broach the question of Dan's entrance thereon. The son had just received an advance in. salary; he was hopeful of progress and dreaded the thought of returning to Americus to live. Doubtless the old man had seen that New York was the best place for the young one. So Dan, though he often thought that his father might be more generous with the occasional remittances that had lately been sent, let well enough alone. 1 7 8 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE /iTjX The next ^ me ^ went home was when he was ill. Then he developed a mild case of typhoid fever, and there was small opportunity for business- conversation. It was on this visit, during his first slow walk out of doors alone, that he one day passed Pauline Riggs. Her figure had grown stout and baggy. Dan did not pause to look at her face or to speculate about her teeth. He crossed the street to avoid her. He wondered how she could once have attracted him. He heard that she had married Mr. Hostetter, the blond clerk in the Barnes store, and that she had already borne him three children. That night he asked his mother something that he would not have asked his father. " Mother," he inquired, " do you ever hear any- thing of the Rents? " Sarah Barnes did not raise her head from her sewing. " No," she answered. " The last we heard was two years ago. Somebody said Mr. Kent had lost his position, and the family had left Phila- delphia." " Hum," Dan responded. " Somehow I just hap- pened to think of them to-day for the first time in ever so long." He spoke truthfully. He was, just at this period, scarcely thinking at all of his earlier days. When he returned to New York a week later, the city had never seemed more seductive. 4. It was in 1896 that Harold Richardson came to work in the offices of O'Neill & Silverstone. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 179 The elder Richardson was a frequent visitor there, carrying a large and active account that was chiefly in Giddey's care. The retired merchant used often to stop by Dan's side and patronize him. One day, looking more than ever like Louis Philippe, Richard- son announced that he had taken his son, now twenty years old, from college and was placing him with the brokers. " He proposes to read law in his leisure time," said Richardson, fixing Dan with his round and sol- emn eyes, " and I am well satisfied that he should come here. College is a splendid place, Daniel, but a little learning is a dangerous thing. It requires to be supplemented by a knowledge of life. The dean of my son's college himself writes me that my son would profit by an opportunity to rub elbows with the real world." Dan murmured assent. " Yes," pursued Mr. Richardson. He grasped the left lapel of his frock-coat between a thumb and fore- finger, bent his head above it, and, with drawn-down lips, looked over his round cheeks to make certain that his carnation was as it should be. " Yes, a man is known by the company he keeps. I have learned that in this world if I have learned nothing else. I have had my son brought up in innocence. As a boy he associated with his tutors. As a student I in- structed him to associate with his instructors. Now that he is soon to go into the world of practicalities, I believe that it is time for him to associate with prac- tical men." Dan was glad to hear of the new clerk's advent. He had always thought that it would be wise for him 180 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE to cultivate the Richardsons, but he retained enough of his rustic diffidence to make such cultivation ardu- ous. Now he thought that he saw his chance. And indeed he straightway liked Harold for Har- old's own sake. The younger Richardson was a round-faced, dimpled American, not so tall as Dan, with a healthy color, faultless clothes, tremendous and sophisticated cheerfulness, and an easy manner that Dan immediately envied him. Moreover, he took at once to Dan. " Erin Go Bragh in there says you're to put me on to this job," he remarked as, on his introduction, he stood, short and plump, before Dan, hands deep in his pockets, curly head tilted back. " Well, put away! " " Who says it? " asked Dan. " Old Wearin' of the Green. What's his name? " Harold nodded over his shoulder toward the private office of the firm. "Daniel O'Connell? Brian Boru?" His irreverence appalled and charmed. u You mean Mr. O'Neill?" asked Dan with a grin. " That's the cog," said Harold. Dan began explaining the not intricate duties of a broker's clerk. "Margins?" Harold presently interrupted. " Now, do tell me what margins are. I've always wanted to know. I'll bet you a ten-spot you can't make me understand." It was pleasant thus to be appealed to by a student from one of the larger colleges. Dan entered upon an operose explanation, in the midst of which it oc- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 181 curred to him that perhaps this newcomer was merely guying him. " But you must know this/' he broke off. " You must have got it all in college." " Not me," responded Harold, airily. " I was jugged too quick." It was as if this fellow spoke an alien language. " What's jugged? " asked Dan. "Fired; thrown out; requested to leave my alma mater for my alma mater's good. Not that I loved my college less, but myself more." " But your father said " " Oh, don't you mind the governor! " "Mind who?" Dan had heard the term thus employed on the stage, but never in real life. 4 The governor, my governor; father, you know. He's all right, but he's just a figure of speech. Now don't you ask me what a figure of speech is. A figure of speech is a man's wife when he gets home at 2 A.M." 5. They cemented one of those close and rapid friendships to which the male human being is liable from the time he loses his susceptibility to croup until the time he gains a susceptibility to apoplexy. Dan's charm for Harold in part lay probably in the elder's still remaining rawness to New York; in part lay certainly in the younger's natural love of an ad- miring audience. For Dan, on the other hand, Har- old's attraction was manifold: Harold was his fa- ther's son; he was an avenue of advancement; he was the ready pattern of a gentleman; he had Ly- sander Fry's attitude toward life without certain of 1 82 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Fry's qualities that Dan now perceived were super- erogatory. Moreover, Harold possessed the wit and the looks that pass among men as suitable substitutes for truth and purity, and that most women accept from such men at the masculine valuation. The pair were one Saturday afternoon walking up Broadway. When Harold studied law was something of a mystery: he manifestly did not study it in the evenings or on Saturday afternoons. " I suppose I'll learn it in the way I learn most things," Harold was saying: " by a sort of miracle." "Perhaps," Dan assented; " only," he added, "I don't believe in miracles." " I do," declared Harold. " This day's a mira- cle. Every clear autumn day in New York is. And look at those telegraph wires. The telegraph's a miracle. Some time they'll be sending telegrams through the air without wires, and that will be a bigger miracle still." " I'll believe that when I see it," said Dan. " But you won't see it when it happens," his com- panion objected. " You can't see a telegraphic mes- sage when it goes over the wires now. Nobody be- lieved in telegraphy before it happened, yet here it is, a miracle: it can circle the earth as quickly as I can circle a big girl's waist." His round eyes were caught by a slim advancing figure. " And speaking of waists " he began. Dan found that they were face to face with Gideon Giddey's daughter. She had grown; but her manner had no taint of the awkward age. Her jacket was open, showing her firm throat rising from the collar of such a shirt as THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 183 she had been wearing on the evening of Dan's visit to her father's flat. The curling black hair parted in the center of a low forehead, the clear cheeks tinged with a faint pink, the oval outline of the face: these things were the same. The same, too, yet even more compellingly certain of life were the pure mouth and the clear gray eyes. She stopped before them and took Dan's waver- ing hand in her strong clasp. " You have never come back," she said. Dan was fumbling with the hat that he held in his free hand. " No," he said; " you see I " Harold nudged him. "What?" " You might introduce me," said Harold, and then, smiling at the girl : " He's probably ashamed of me, but I'm not at all ashamed of myself: my name is Richardson." Madge shook hands. " I am Madge Giddey," said she. At once they fell to talking. " Giddey? Giddey? " repeated Harold. " Why, in our office there's a splendid old gentleman " " My father." " What? And Barnes never told me! " " I dare say,- Mr. Richardson. I'm afraid Mr. Barnes found us dull." Dan made a frantic effort : " I did not!" " But then-. " began Madge. And the chance conversation ran on. Madge spoke with the simple directness that made Dan 1 84 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE gasp. As for Harold, his manner of talk was always the manner 'of the highwayman: he was continually lying in ambush ; he never came out of it save for an assault upon such passersby as unconsciously laid themselves open to easy attack. Dan heard Madge say: " I think that what bored Mr. Barnes was fa- ther's talking of his hobby." " How narrow of Mr. Barnes! " Harold rejoined. " What is a hobby for if not to be talked of? " " But you see Mr. Barnes believes in things as they are." " And your father doesn't? " " Not at all." Harold laughed his careless, dimpling laugh. " No more do I," he declared; " nof one of them." Her eyes were serious. "You mean that?" " As much as it is polite to mean anything." Madge turned slightly toward Dan in order to include him in her invitation. " Then perhaps," she suggested, " you two would enjoy our club. It is too frivolous for father, but not frivolous enough for most people. Will you come? " " Even if it's west of the Hudson," vowed Harold. "It isn't west; it's far east." She gave him the address of a cafe on lower Third Avenue. " We have a room," she explained : " some men and women, on the second floor. There is always somebody there for dinner and talk. If I am away, just tell them that I sent you." " But you must be there! " said Dan. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 185 " I often am." " To-night?" asked Harold. She shook her head: " I shall be busy." " To-morrow night? " " Nor to-morrow night. I can't tell. I am never sure beforehand, but I am generally there on Wednes- days and Fridays." ' You must be a frightfully engaged person." " At any rate," said Madge, " I have an engage- ment now." She put out her hand. " Good-by," she said. 6. The young men stood looking after her as she walked away. Harold's lips puckered to a whistle. " A regular free-stone peach," he declared. He slapped Dan smartly on the back. " And you never tipped me off ! " " She's only a kid," said Dan, characteristically raising his right shoulder. " She's only a wonder! Do you mean to say that such a girl can be the daughter of that old relic of the Stone Age down at O'Neill & Silverstone's ? " " Yes," nodded Dan, with a smile. " Why, the man's a fossil ! " " He's worse than that: he's a Socialist." Again Harold whistled. "Honest?" " Yes." " Believes in-it?" " He says he does, and at home he talks fast enough to make you think so." 1 86 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " I'll bet he wouldn't bet on it," said Harold. This was conclusive. Why should anyone refuse to make a wager save for the dread of losing it? " And he's teaching it to his daughter," persisted Dan: "Socialism and Anarchy and all that sort of rot." He was sullen because he thought that he had shown to small advantage in the conversation with Madge; but Harold mistook the cause of this sullen- ness. As the pair turned into a barroom, the younger asked : " She's not been turning you down, has she? " " What about? " Dan inquired, and his wide blue eyes searched Harold's. " Well," said Harold, grinning cynically, " of course it might be about marriage ; bu** I don't think it was." Still Dan failed to follow him. " Marriage? That child? What do you think I am? And, anyhow, I haven't the money to marry." Harold, with a careless laugh, swung down this verbal line of least resistance. " There ought to be two versions of the same proverb about that," he said: " One would be that some men are born to be married, some achieve mar- riage, and more than you suppose have marriage thrust upon them. And the other? Dead easy! Some men are born rich, some achieve riches, and some marry the girl with the tin." They were standing at the bar. " Madge Giddey hasn't a cent," said Dan, " and never will have. Besides, she isn't brought up right. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 187 Even when she's old enough for marriage, no fellow will want to marry her. n " Why not?" " She's not safe to marry; she knows too much." ' Too much? Of course, I've never been married to any great extent, but I should think that marriage was a profession in which you couldn't know too much." " Oh, you understand what I mean," said Dan. " A little rapid? " Harold suggested. Dan twisted his long body nervously. " No-o," he explained, with a flashing memory of his old dreams and his old ideals of what marriage ought to be. " Only somehow a decent girl's mind ought to be like her body." So they fell to talking of what two men at a bar are sure sooner or later to talk of. 7. Harold, however, was not a young person to allow the offer of new experiences to go long unac- cepted. He said little more, just then, to Dan about Madge; he even declined Dan's suggestion that they visit the club of which Madge had spoken; but he quietly made friends with Gideon, and before long was a not infrequent caller at the Giddey flat. Dan's hints of what was to be discovered there had inter- ested Richardson, and what he did discover there interested him more. XII HAROLD had been brought up much as his father indicated and not at all as his father supposed. Tutors had first kept him from association with boys of his own age and forced his brain as a simple plant is often forced by floral en- thusiasts into abnormal maturity. Then, at a large private boarding-school, there had followed a close association with elder lads, for which he was wholly unprepared and from which he contracted much the same habits as had Dan. Finally, at college the granting of a freedom that Harold had been elabo- rately unfitted for mounted to his head, and he had, in an amazingly brief time, obtained an acquaintance with the vexed subject of life just as mistaken as Dan's, and far wider. Younger than Barnes in years, but older In sophis- tication, Harold's was not the sort of soul that finds this a dull world. " On our imperfect earth," he was wont to reflect, " the fool at least has plenty of company." So he used often to sit in Giddey's book-crowded parlor, listening to the bald-headed, sharp-faced father, and gazing at the clear-eyed daughter, saying little to the latter, egging the former with exaggerated objections derived from the more moderate phases of his own creed, and with the offers of impossible wagers that were never accepted. " The trouble with you philosophers," he one evening observed, " is that you're not practical." 188 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 189 "Hey?" said Giddey. "Practical!" shouted Harold. "I'll bet you a thousand dollars none of you are practical." " Not patriotic? " piped the deaf man. " Not practical," corrected Harold. But Giddey, finally hearing well enough, had al- ready prepared an answer to the objection that he had at first supposed to be offered. " Don't talk to me about patriotism," he snapped shrilly. "Loyalty to country, indeed! Loyalty to the accident of birth ! Fidelity to the accidentals of existence is treason to its essentials. Patriotism is only selfishness raised to the nth power and extended to the limits set by imaginary lines." " All right," said Harold, for whom one subject was as good as another; "but you radicals don't go far enough. The real radical is the true conserva- tive." Giddey blinked behind his gleaming spectacles. He seemed to be peculiarly deaf to-night. " Not constructive? " " Too conservative." "Well, what is constructive?" persisted Giddey. " Surely not the class that is now in power. It has done all the construction necessary for itself; it wants merely to sit tight on the top of the thing it has built, and the thing 'it has built is wrong. So, if neither side is constructive, you have to choose between the force that would tear down the wrong and the force that would maintain it. That is why I am for de- struction." " I tell you you're a conservative," repeated Harold. 1 90 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Madge, seated on a pile of books at Giddey's side, laughingly interpreted. " He calls you a conservative, father," she said in a tone that, without any appreciable raising of the voice, always reached Gideon's ears. " Poof! " snorted Giddey, who had not wanted to hear. " He doesn't know the meaning of the term." " Don't I? " Harold retorted. " I'll bet you five hundred I do. My father's a conservative of a different sort. All parents are conservative. I'll tell you what conservatism is : conservatism is parent- hood." He was maliciously leading Giddey to another of his hobbies. Consequently, Harold was not surprised that the old man should this time hear clearly. " Conservatism is not parenthood," said Gideon^, "because conservatism begets nothing; but every modern parent is a conservative. Lies, misdirection, ignorance ! There is the life of the average father and mother for you. Bah ! That sort of thing isn't parenthood: it is simply moral dyspepsia. It brings up children to be husbands that are either blunderers or roues, and wives that are either prostitutes or slaves. What is it that is taught the husband as his first duty? That he must keep his wife." " Sure," said Harold, puffing a cigarette; "pos- session is nine points of the law : when you've got her you've got to keep her." " Whereas," interpolated Madge from her strangely mature calm, " if marriage is anything it is a partnership." Harold shot her another swift glance. He thought her uncommonly beautiful. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 191 " I don't know about that," he submitted, " but, except for such girls as you, Miss Giddey, if mar- riage really is a partnership, it isn't the woman that is the silent partner." Of course this family misunderstood him; of course he had no clear understanding of himself. The Giddeys were in the habit of using speech to convey something that they believed; but to Harold conversation was nothing more than a method of be- ing pleasant. He wanted to be especially pleasant to Madge. He so much liked to know her that he wanted to know her better and to make her like him. He liked her oval face and serious eyes, her low forehead and parted hair; he liked her ease of manner that was neither flippant nor shrinking, and he liked her bowed mouth and the low voice that came from it. With her mind he did not especially concern himself, the opinion of his world being one that failed to attribute intelligence to women; but concerning the effects of her father's frankness upon her character, Harold could not but occasionally speculate toward the con- clusion that, in the circumstances, was natural to one of his class. Definite he was not, because definite in those days he rarely was about anything; yet, if the conclusion remained ahead, it bulked large enough to rise high above the horizon of that mental landscape across which he was proceeding. 2. " I notice you and old Giddey seem to be getting pretty friendly at the office," Dan one day remarked to Harold. In his endeavor to obtain desired information, 192 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Barnes adopted a teasing tone for a subject that might prove delicate. Harold laughed unquietly. " Oh, I don't know," he said. " Gideon's a Mar- tini Cocktail." Some hint from his discomfort illuminated Dan. " And his daughter? " asked Barnes. "Madge?" Harold blushed warmly. "She's champagne." " So you see her? " Dan pursued. " Once or twice I've seen her." "And like her?" " I said she was champagne. I like champagne." " I see," said Dan, sagely, recalling what Harold had formerly said to him. " Well, I don't suppose the old man saves anything; but he's an honest fel- low. He has personal charge of your father's ac- count now, and I've heard your father say that Giddey's word is as good as his bond." Harold regarded his companion narrowly. " What are you getting at? " he asked. " Do you think I'm thinking about marriage? You have an- other guess coming to you. It's all very well to choose a girl whose father's word is as good as his bond ; but you've got to be sure that he has the bonds. Old Giddey hasn't one to his name." Dan became confusedly apologetic. His wide eyes turned quickly from their former frank scrutiny. " Never mind that," interrupted Harold, " but don't talk to me about marriage. Nobody buys a hen when he can steal eggs." 3. He was getting on at the Giddeys', though THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 193 as to just to what point he was tending he did not inquire of himself. There was one day in the office when he asked if he might take Madge to the theater. " You won't mind, will you? " he said to Giddey. "Mind?" repeated Gideon, though he was no more deaf that day than he usually was when he forgot himself. " Of course if you'd care to go along " began Harold. " I never go to the theater," said Giddey. " I can't hear, and I have too much reading to do and too little time to do it in." " Then we may go alone? " " Of course you may." "You really don't mind?" "Why should I?" Harold, to his surprise, found it somewhat difficult to supply the reason that, a few moments earlier, had seemed to him so obvious. " I was simply thinking of the great chaperon myth," he explained. " If my daughter can't behave herself without a keeper," said Giddey, " she had better be honest and misbehave. There is no virtue in compulsion." " I see. Oh, yes; I see. Of course you're right." " Of course I am. Where are you going? " " Well, Lknow you wouldn't want her to go to a musical comedy, Mr. Giddey." " I wouldn't merely because musical comedy is not musical and not comedy." " So I thought that something more serious " Giddey smiled grimly. " All right," he said; " don't be afraid to mention i 9 4 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE it. To see you, one would think that there was a theater in New York that had at last found the courage to produce the real Ibsen." " Oh, no, not Ibsen," protested Harold. " Then what?" " Well, there's Sothern in * An Enemy to the King.' " Giddey flung up his thin hands. " Get out! " he cried. " Go back to your work! " " But, Mr. Giddey " " Go back to your work! " " But I have seen the play, and I assure you that there is nothing in it that ' " There is nothing in it at all," said Giddey. " I know so much from reading the reviews. " Noth- ing but dainties for debutantes and bon-bons for boarding schools. It's immoral. How dare you suggest taking my daughter to such a thing? " He glared at Harold through his thick spectacles, and then suddenly began to smile again. ' There's a performance of ' Therese Raquin ' over at the Yiddish Theater," he concluded. " You take Madge there. It may profit your ignorant sophistication." 4. At last, however, the point toward which Harold and Madge were tending was reached. Only a few evenings after Dan had inquired of Harold concerning the Giddeys, the younger Richardson, having heard his father say that Gideon was to come to the Richardson house that night to go over some accounts, found himself ringing at the door of the Giddey flat. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 195 Madge appeared clad in a long kimona of dark blue figured with pawing dragons in green. " Father's not at home," she said before it was necessary for Harold to insinuate a lie by inquiring for Gideon. Even then it was on. Harold's lips to pretend igno- rance; but he always found it hard to lie to Madge. " I know it," he said. u He's out at our place, isn't he?" " Yes. You did know, didn't you? " " I knew, but I thought perhaps you might let me come to see you anyhow." She smiled frankly. " Of course," she said, " if you care to. It never occurred to me that you would care just to talk to me." "Miss Giddey!" " No, it didn't. That is why I wasn't more hos- pitable." She flung the door wide. " Come in," she said. He followed her down the narrow hall where the draft from beyond blew the folds of her kimona against him, into the lamp-lighted parlor with its rows of books upon the shelves and its piles of books upon the floor. The green-shaded lamp on the lit- tered table cast only a narrow circle of light. Har- old, digging a place for himself in the shadow, breathed deeply as he saw the girl curl up in the Morris-chair well within the sphere of illumina- tion. " You're Jiot afraid to be up here at the top of the house all alone? " he asked. " I have not had to try it very often," she an- 196 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE swered, raising her even brows " but afraid? Why should I be afraid?" Harold waved his hand. " Burglars, sneak-thieves, all that sort of thing." " No," she said. " There is nothing here to at- tract them." 14 They would have to come first," he amended, " to find that out." " I suppose they would; and I suppose I should be afraid if I ever thought about them, but," she added, smiling, " you see I never do." There was no mistaking her sincerity. u By George ! " applauded Harold. " You're all right. A girl and not afraid ! But I think you miss something." " Why should a girl be more of a coward than a man?" " Oh, she's not," Harold hastened to explain. " It's only that she has more to be afraid of." " What? " asked Madge, clasping her hands across a raised knee. Harold looked at her, startled; but he lowered his gaze from her honest eyes, and saw only how white and graceful were her half-bared arms against the dark silk of the kimono. " Lots of things," he answered, nervously. " But I say you miss something: the luxury of fear, you know. I assure you, the human soul's education is not complete without it." " Perhaps that is true," said Madge. Her gray eyes were reflective ; she had a startling way of taking him at his word. " At any rate, I suppose fear THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 197 comes to us all at some time. I suppose I shall be afraid when I have a child." Harold jumped in his chair. "Eh?" he ejaculated. " But that is the result of civilization," the girl pursued, her gaze still reflectively fixed on a remote corner of the room behind him. " There are times when I wonder whether civilization is really pro- gression, at least so far as our bodies are con- cerned." Harold coughed. He knew that he was awkward, and he was unused to being awkward. To speak openly of these things with a laugh to all men, and to speak of them to some women in veiled and smiling allusions, was his habit. He had even grown used to mentioning them to Giddey before Madge, but to have the girl speak of them to him, and when she was alone with him, quite took his breath away. He was relieved when she changed the subject by asking : " So men really are afraid, are they? " " Every man is always afraid of something," he eagerly responded. " Fright is the motive for all things. You know the French proverb that it is love that makes the world go round ? Well, there's noth- ing in that. What makes the world go round is fear." He was smiling so broadly in his relief that even she could not accept his words at their face value. Her own smile answered his and showed her teeth, even and firm and bright. " Are you afraid? " she inquired. " All the time," he assured her. i 9 8 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE "Of what?" " Ah, that's just it : of the things I'm afraid my friends may learn about me." "And Mr. Barnes, too?" " Oh, Barnes ! " Harold tossed his curly head in a manner to indicate that Dan's sins held Barnes in complete bondage, a subject to which Harold had theretofore devoted no thought whatever. " Barnes is precisely like the rest of us: not black and not white, but a decided gray." He stopped. " You'll think us rather wicked," he said. She was serious enough again. She turned to- ward him her full face, pink and oval and earnest. " No," she said, " only rather foolish." " I know," said Harold. " Mind if I smoke? " "Why should I?" " Eh? No, of course not." He got up, lighted a cigarette, and began to wander aimlessly about the room, stooping now and then before the shelves, and pretending to read the title of some book that he could not see. " It's such a waste," Madge continued, but as if discussing a question in which she had no personal interest, " not only of the girls " "What?" said Harold. The exclamation, for it was really an exclamation, burst from him invol- untarily. " A waste not only of the girls," Madge repeated, " but of you." His circuit of the room had brought him near to her chair. Out of the surrounding shadow he looked at her. He thought that he had never seen anything quite so lovely. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 199 "Isn't that rather a light word?" he suggested. " It is a very severe word," she replied. " I know, but for a girl of your sort, you know, about that sort of girl? " " You mean you wonder that, instead of a great waste, I don't call it a great wrong? " Insensibly he was drawing slowly nearer. It was as if she drew him. " Why, yes," he said. Her voice was still calmly speculative. " Of course," she explained, " it is a great wrong that any woman should be forced by necessity to give herself against her will." Harold quickly put his cigarette on the table, leaned against the table-edge close beside her, and looked down at her. Embarrassed he still was, but his embarrassment was now of a new kind. His cheeks burned, and his voice stuck in his throat. " I say," he gasped, " you don't believe in free love, do you ? " She looked up at him. " Is there any other kind?" she asked. She was still curled in the Morris-chair, her heels at the edge of the seat, her hands clasped about her raised knees. To meet his hot eyes, she had leaned her head - far back on the top cushion : the dark kimono fell away from her throat, which was stretched, firm and white, by her upturned chin. The black hair parted over her forehead and gathered in a low knot behind, did for her face what the kimono did for her throat. Under the clinging folds of the latter, her maturing figure was clearly 200 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE outlined; against the cloud of her hair her face shone like a star. " Is there any other kind ? " she repeated. Harold's heart hammered. He leaned forward. * You look at me so quickly and so steadily/' he answered, " that you almost startle me into telling the truth." She was about to answer, but he did not wait for the answer. He stooped suddenly lower, gripped her shoulders with his straining hands, and pressed his mouth to hers. There was an unexpected struggle and a loud crash. The Morris-chair fell on its side, and Madge, re- leased, leaped from the wreck. As Harold stag- gered to his feet beside her, she struck him smartly across the mouth with her open palm. His hand flew to his face. He reeled. His throat was bursting with amazement, anger, shame. " What are you doing? " she cried. His hand fell. From eyes nearly blinded he saw her facing him, flushed to a greater beauty by her indignation. Her gray eyes pierced him like shafts of light. He sought refuge in the attitude of mind to which he had been reared. " I was trying," he said with a smile that crooked and stiffened on his smarting face, " to kiss you. It seems that I didn't succeed. I never was good at kissing-games." "Kissing me? And like that!" Her hands were clenched at her sides. " I am ashamed oh, I am ashamed for you ! " Like every man defeated in an amorous quest, he was hitter. He sought cheap refuge in a sneer. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 201 "Why shouldn't I kiss you?" he demanded. " You know," she answered, eyeing him clearly, " what that, sort of kiss means." " I do, and I might have known what all your fine talk amounted to. Free love ! You're a great believer in it, I don't think ! " She was still panting from the struggle. The silk kimono rose and fell above her breast. " I should have seen that you didn't that you couldn't understand," she said. " There is no love but free love. When love isn't free it isn't love. Free love? Yes. But not free lust! " Her words, and still more the fact of the maturity that triumphed over her years, struck home. The reaction began. He hung his head. " I'm sorry," he said. " I was a fool. I was worse. I thought " She made a generous gesture of denial. " I was to blame," she interrupted. " I was to blame, too. Perhaps more. I should have known. Maybe I haven't had enough experience. But I should have known that you couldn't be brought to look at things as I do, that you can't speak my lan- guage and can't learn to speak it. Instead Well, I always knew you were light, but I didn't think you were shallow. I thought you could meet an intellectual question intellectually. That's the worst of it: the disappointment." His head hung lower. " I'm sorry," he said again. "No," she corrected, her grave face lighting; " that is for me. I should have known that you didn't know. It was all so quick that I used my first 202 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE weapon without thinking: I struck you. Forgive me." He looked up. He could not suppress a rueful smile at her attitude : she was offering her hand, ask- ing his pardon! He touched her cool fingers. His own fingers tightened. He caught her extended wrist in his other hand. His face was once more tense. Something in him was changing, not suddenly, but fundamentally and finally. He almost guessed that it was changing. " Listen," he said, as she tried to draw away. " Don't be afraid. I've been a beast, but I'll not be that again. I see that I've always been a beast. But now now I see you splendid, radiant, true I know now what I did not know. I look at you and I know that that I " She had freed herself. She was looking at him quietly. " Not that," she said. But Harold was not to be retarded. The gift of words he had always had; he felt at this moment that, absent as was his familiar trick of epigram and swiftly as the words came, all speech was desperately inadequate. 11 I've spent my life looking for you and mistaking shadows for you," he vowed, with all the certainty of youth, and with all youth's readiness to regard itself as age. " I was so brought up that I mistook the shadows for the reality, and so, when I found you, I was stunned, I was mad. I think the shadows were the shadows of you twisted by the dirty earth they fell on. But you're real. I'm sure of that now. You're real and I " THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 203 Her face was half turned from him. " No, no ! " she said. " I love you I " he ended. " I love you ! " .* He stopped for sheer lack of breath. She faced him squarely again, her lips firm. " How can you say that? " she asked. He thought he scented victory. He was all sin- cerity; but the apparent approach of triumph re- gained for him something of his old manner. " IVe no right to say it," he confessed, " but it takes courage for a chap who's done what I've done to say anything, and when he's in love even a coward is heroic." " You are very silly, anyhow." " Why not? Reason flies out at the window when love comes in at the door." She would not trifle. " And I am only a girl," she continued. " You are the most wonderful woman in the world," he answered. " Try me. I know I'm not much. But I shall expect only a little of you only a very little." ." It's not that, but you want nothing but happiness in life; and when you come to think about it, there are few baser desires than the desire for happiness." His victory seemed not so certain, after all. " You judge me by my talk," he pleaded. " Don't do that. I know my talk is just whipped cream: nothing to set your intellectual teeth in." "It is something deeper than your talk. You are " " Anything you please," he acknowledged; " but I Jove you." 204 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE She shook her head. The victory receded. " It won't do? " he asked in an altered voice. " No," she said, " it won't do." Her eyes met his. " Don't you see?" " I see that of course you care nothing for me." " Of course I don't." She spoke simply. " Not in the way you mean." " I mean the best way, Madge." " Not in the best way, then. There can't even, for a long time, be trust." Harold, as he accounted for it to himself, took his medicine. " But I may come here sometimes?" " I think you had better not come here for a little while." " Not even if your father is here? " " Not even then. When he knows he will feel as I do." The surprises of the evening were not yet ended for Harold. " You mean to say you'll tell him? " " Why not? Now that I see it clearly, I see that I am the one that has been to blame. I should have understood you better." "O Lord!" said Harold. It was unromantic, as he afterwards reflected; but it was, from him, adequate. He found his hat. "This is final?" he inquired. She nodded. From that nod there was just then no appeal. " You won't believe you won't let me apologize? You jyon't let me " THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 205 "/have apologized," she cut in. "I hope you will forgive me. Good-night." " Good-night," said Harold. 5. He stumbled down the long stairs and into the street. Once on the pavement, he filled his lungs with a deep draught of his normal city air. He looked up at the apartment-house, a puzzle of emo- tions stirring him. " O Lord! " he said for the second time. XIII IN the current use of the term, Dan was grown up. He was tall and large-framed, and already evinced a tendency toward heaviness. His tow- colored hair had long since turned to brown, and his snub-nose had matured into a likeness of his father's : it was the strongest feature in his face. His eyes and skin were not so clear as they had been in his Ameri- cus days, and his mouth was not so firm as an exact- ing connoisseur might have wished it to be. Yet, in spite of an awkwardness and uncertainty that still clung to him, the result of the self-consciousness en- gendered by his up-bringing, he seemed a sturdy enough young man, typical of his economic class. He was, in fact, good looking and had the virtue of rarely being aware of it. His clothes, as most men's do, particularly mir- rored his mental attitude. They were the sum of two wishes: the wish to appear prosperous and the wish to look like the persons among whom he worked. He took care to study the habiliments of the patrons of O'Neill & Silverstone, and to learn, from a study of the windows of the best tailors' shops, what was " correct." Even if his purse drove him to Four- teenth Street to procure this, Dan was extremely punctilious about what was " correct." What the better world decreed, even to the tying of a neck- cloth and the number of buttons on a waistcoat, was 206 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 207 proper, and anything else was improper. Dan erred neither on the side of the extremely fashionable nor on that of the ignorantly unfashionable. Meanwhile, his clandestine life continued inevita- bly the war between the differing emotions that had been bred in him, between the mandates of desire and the dictates of conscience. The casual women became more frequent, but the reaction of repentance continued proportionately severe. In the shabby sol- itude of his boarding-house, he tried his case over and over again, and over and over again condemned the defendant with no further argument of the vexed puzzle of ethics than the statement that what the world publicly pronounced wrong must be what the world publicly pronounced it. In the electric lights and shadows of the dizzy night outside, he as often gave way, without any argument at all, to the tempta- tion that silence and suppression had, years before, placed for him in the exaggerated curves of the girls that now accosted him, in the swish of their lifted skirts, the thrill of their sibilant whispers, and the invitation of their half-closed eyes. And amid the noisy hurry of the office, where it was his duty to aid men in buying nothing at a loss and selling less at a profit, he justified himself and boasted, for no greater reason than that it was splendid to be what the world 'secretly admired. His social life remained, on the other hand, cramped and brief. Sometimes he sat in the board- ing-house parlor talking politics to his male fellow- lodgers, who* agreed with him. Sometimes he took one of the stenographers that were his table com- panions to Central Park or the Aquarium, or, if the 208 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE season suited, to Coney Island, only to return dis- contented because he could find so little of which to speak to them, and because a merely friendly relation with a conventional woman, and he found these women conventional, speedily lacked piquancy. On several nights in each week he went to the theater and liked the musical comedies; and his Sundays he spent sleeping and reading the Sunday papers. For his brief vacations he went to Atlantic City, where, in effect, he took New York with him. There was much that he wanted to do and did not do. He thought that it would be a privilege to meet a chorus girl, but he never had the chance, or the courage to make a chance. He wanted to visit the Richardsons; but Harold, though he spoke often of his family, and seemed the best of friends, appeared loath to ask Dan to call, and Dan could never bring himself to ask to be asked. Occasion- ally he went home with some other of his fellow- clerks and met a sister or a cousin, but these girls always either tired him for the same reason that the stenographers tired him, or else displayed a glitter that startled him into irreparable retreat. He was, as yet, rather abstemious in the use of alcohol. There was an office rule against the taking of liquor during the business-day, and, whereas it was Dan's custom to drink a cocktail with the clerk that chanced to leave the brokers' when Dan did, he rarely drank a second. Even when he went out for the evening with such a companion, he was relatively temperate. This was as truly due to his inculcated ideals as were all his other acts. He reverenced suc- cess. By success he meant the acquisition of money, THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 209 and, however short-sighted he was in other directions, he saw clearly that money-getting and the undue con- sumption of alcohol were, until the money-getting was well under way, incompatible. Yet he was not of a saving character, and, with his small income, it was hard to save. He wanted to make money, but he wanted to make it quickly, as nearly all successful men seemed to make it. A few times he went stealthily to a bucket-shop and bought stocks on a margin. He lost and won and then lost all that he had originally invested. On one Satur- day morning, when his bank-book was returned to him balanced, he looked, scornfully and hopelessly, at the red-inked figures at the foot of the page. "A hundred and ten dollars !" he said. "Gee, Harold's father gives that much in tips in a month, and O'Neill spends it in a night. I could spend that much in a night, too. I've a good mind to try it." He did try it, and he nearly succeeded. He passed the following day in bed, companioned by remorse, and then, on Monday, began his uphill way again. Nevertheless, he loved his work. Its common- place details grew wearisome; its endless routine pre- sented no variety save in the various degrees of its boredom; but he liked it. He liked to know, out of office-hours, that, during those hours, he was part of a vast machine; and he liked to think that he might some day become a larger part of it. He liked to know that, though the great work of this machine went on about him without his comprehending its secret processes and intentions, and could go on heed- less of his absence should he absent himself, he was at least clc>se to its movements and a sharer in them. 210 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Small as his imagination was, he could not but realize the wonder of The Street, could not but feel the towering majesty of Lower Broadway, sending through the silent air its momentary manifestoes that make men rich or poor in Paris or St. Petersburg, that starve a state in India or start a war in Afghan- istan. 2. " Anyhow/' remarked Harold, with whom Dan was discussing business in a Broadway cafe, " it's me to beat it." The evening was that of Harold's illuminating call upon Madge Giddey, the time eleven' o'clock. The younger Richardson had hurried, as fast as an elevated train would take him, to that part of the city with which he was most familiar, much as the wounded beast retreats to its lair. Here, as he had every reason to expect, he chanced upon Dan, whom he kept in ignorance of his recent adventure, but whom he perplexed by a flow of spirits that seemed abnormally high, and a thirst that seemed abnormally large. " Beat the market? " inquired Dan, who yearned for the time when his savings were to justify the first great plunge that must convince the handsome, slow-spoken Silverstone of his clerk's financial genius. " You mean you are going to try to beat the market? " Harold shook his curly head. " Not yet," he replied. " Acdpere quam facere iniuriam praestat. That means that discretion is the better part of valor, Daniel. No, not beat the market: beat it out of the market; quit the job. Drink up." THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 211 Dan's heart contracted; he did not want to lose this companion. "What are you going to do?" he inquired, his blue eyes wide. " Keep on with the study of the law. The study of the law is the root of all evil." " Your father said " " How often do I have to tell you not to count the governor? The governor is what the mathe- maticians call a negligible quantity: he is all there, but not much." " But why are you quitting the office before you've given it a fair trial? " Harold buried his nose in his glass. " I have given the office a fair trial," he said when his nose emerged again. u I've tried it, condemned it, and sentenced it. Now, I'm going to execute it." " Where will you study? " asked Dan. " Out home." 14 Will you practice out there, too? " " I rather think I will," said Harold, with the air of one that has but to choose, and with no indication of the fact that his determination was not an hour old. " There is a good field at Lawnhurst and a chance to get into politics." , Dan felt, however, that there was something back of this. * His voice assumed its bantering tone. "Will you be leaving soon? " he persevered. " To-morrow morning," said Harold, with mock seriousness, " 'you will meet, but you will miss me; there will be a vacant chair.' ' Dan sighed. He grasped his cheeks between a thumb and forefinger. 212 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " I don't see why you quit right away," he kept it up. " For a thousand reasons. It's all very well for the governor to drop into the office, for instance, and lose a few hundred a week; but I wasn't cut out for business. Besides, I don't like the crowd." " Silverstone's rotten," said Dan. " And O'Neill," Harold heartily supplemented " and that double-barreled ass, Giddey." " Giddey ? " began Dan. " Why, I thought " " I never want to set eyes on him again ! " Harold declared. He called a waiter. u Drink to my luck at the law," he added. He had, nevertheless, been too heavy in his stress upon Giddey's name. Dan saw a light. As the waiter brought fresh glasses, Dan slowly asked : II Have you had a scrap with the old man? " " What old man ? " asked Harold. " The world's full of old men, and they're all nutty." II 1 mean our friend Gideon." " I have not," said Harold, " and what's more, I don't mean to have." "Oh!" said Dan. He said it meaningly, said it in the tone in which a clerk at O'Neill & Silverstone's always referred to the romances of a fellow clerk. He was sure that he was on the track now, and he meant to follow it. The significance of that tone was not lost on Harold. " What do you mean? " he demanded. Dan's was the wise voice of him who has been bred in the country and whose education has been continued by employment in the large city. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 213 " You must have found her a nice little armful," said he. It was precisely the sort of remark that he heard daily in the office. He had heard Harold employ it in regard to assignations with street-girls, and he had never heard it resented. Yet now he was sur- prised to see his companion's round face darken. ;< What are you talking about? "asked Harold. The table was between them, but Dan drew back. " It doesn't matter," he said. " I didn't mean to " Harold leaned across the table and thumped it with his fist. The glasses hummed. " Yes, it does matter," he insisted. " I want to know what person you were referring to." This was nonsense. Dan had, in those days, no wish in the world to speak ill of any woman; but it was, he reflected, absurd of Harold to take such a pose. He gripped his courage and unleashed his annoyance. " I was referring," he explained, " to the girl that you once called ' a free-stone peach.' ' The reminder had its effect. " I ought to be kicked," said Harold. But he re- turned to the attack, his eyes again narrowing. " And you thought " Dan shrugged his right shoulder. "You know well enough what I thought," he said. What he was just then thinking was this: " There is going to, be a fight here in a minute now. I can whip the fellow that I am fond of, and I'll have to whip him, much as I hate to do it. Then there'll 2i 4 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE be a scene, and we'll be thrown out of this cafe, and there will be what I most fear in the world publicity and jeers and disgrace." But nothing of this sort happened. Harold sud- denly leaned back in his chair, and his face went white. " I ought to be kicked," he said again. He poured down his throat the contents of the glass that had been standing at his elbow. " Madge Giddey is not that kind of girl. People like you and me can't understand her for the simple reason that she's good. As a matter of fact, she's too good. Her innocence plays about her like lightning : you never know where it will strike next." Dan heard him with wonder. Here was some- thing new. Here was something not of the clerk clerky. Here, apparently, was the way in which a gentleman treated his affairs when his affairs were with someone that, if not quite a lady, was at least not quite at the opposite extreme of the social ladder. Clearly, in such cases, the " correct " course was to defend the woman, even to perjure one's self in her behalf. Because he had been ready to believe his fellow clerks' boastful lies of their nocturnal con- quests, Dan was now ready to doubt Harold's honest denial of conquest. The power to determine be- tween truth and falsehood by mere instinct had been early withered in him. Still, he saw that, if it were right for a gentleman to overturn fact in the cause of a woman, it was equally " correct " for a gentleman's friend to pre- tend to accept the lie without any sign of recognition. He acted accordingly. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 215 " I guess you're right," he said. " I guess we're too anxious to think a girl's crooked." Harold, at all events, was now secure upon the eminence that he had once before that night attained. " We're too greedy after mere happiness," he said; " and when you come to think about it, there are few baser desires than the desire for happiness." He was conscious of having heard the phrase be- fore, but, occasionally, like a more celebrated wit, he took his own where he found it. " Anyway," said Dan, as anxious now to change the subject as he had formerly been to hold it fast, " I'm sorry you're going to leave the office." Harold seemed equally ready. " I'm not sorry," he replied. " A broker's office is no place for a poor man." " You don't call yourself poor? " " There's nothing so poor in this world as a rich man's son. Let's have one more drink and then all go home." 3. Lysander Fry came into the cafe as they were giving their order. He saw the two clerks and came to their table. Dan introduced him to Harold, and Fry sat down. The comparison of his old friend with his newer was interesting to Dan. He admired the manner of the latter, but the patent success of the former did not fail to make its impression. Accepting Harold's utterance concerning happiness as merely a by-product of a lying defense of Madge, Dan concluded that, for all their superficial differences, Fry and Harold had attitudes toward life that were essentially alike. 216 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE The one, his recent utterance to the contrary notwith- standing, wanted, to be sure, nothing but pleasure, whereas the other wanted pleasure and power too. Dan wondered whether Harold's manner was at dis- cord with the attainment of Fry's success. He de- cided that the two things were not essentially antag- onistic, and he thought that he might in time be able to join them in his own person. All this, however, went on in Dan's mind while his lips were busy, for most of the talk was still left to him and Harold. In the presence of a man with whom he was not well acquainted, talk was not Fry's forte. For a while he met Harold's sly ironies with a vulgar geniality that had in it something of the heroic; but, after a few monosyllabic references to his still mysterious employment at Albany, he di- rected the conversation into a channel where he knew Dan could navigate, and then he relapsed into comparative quiet. " How'd you like the brokerage business by this time? " he asked of Dan. " Fine," said Dan. " I'll never get tired of it, but Richardson here says it's no place for a poor man." " So that's your opinion? " Fry inquired, fingering an obtrusive ear and turning to Harold. "Opinion?" Harold emptied his glass. "My dear man, one doesn't have opinions nowadays. You might as well ask me for my snuff-box or my flint- lock. You haven't any opinions yourself: you're too clever. I'll bet on that." But Fry was not to be so easily entrapped. He speedily had his two acquaintances arguing about THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 217 their own business and informing him concerning it the while. Within five minutes the little cafe table presented the spectacle of a pair of men of oppos- ing views on the subject under discussion, and, be- tween them, a third that, merely by holding his tongue, made each of the two believe that the third agreed with him. " You mustn't dislike him," said Dan, when Har- old, finally remembering the last suburban train and looking at his watch, had hurried away. " He and I agree on most things." " He thinks he knows it all," said Fry. " He does know most of it," Dan protested, " even if he is so young, and he has a right to talk so. No- body succeeds unless he's assertive, and Richardson's an assertive fellow." Fry sniffed. " Well," he said, " there's nothing noisier than a drum and nothing emptier. This fellow's a mark. Who's his father? " "E. Q. Richardson," said Dan, and added proudly: " I know him." " Edward Quimby? " Fry took it up. " An old fellow with side-whiskers? Lives at Lawnhurst? " " Yes." " I thought that'd be it. Do you go there often ? " "Not often," Dan compromised. Fry puffed at the much chewed cigar that he was smoking. " I want to meet him some time," he said, reflec- tively. "Pretty much of a stuffed shirt, ain't he?" Dan was shocked, but thrilled. 218 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " He's mighty respectable," said Dan. " Hum," said Fry. " I wonder why so many people that are respectable are never anything else." " I don't know," Dan smiled; " but his son don't take after him, anyhow." XIV THE next year, the year 1897, was not one of the happiest years of Dan's life. With Harold out of the broker's office and a less and less frequent visitor to those places with which he had been familiar, Dan found himself lonely. Lysander Fry reappeared from time to time, a wan- dering star to whom was reserved not darkness, but only the pleasant haze of business mystery; Dan's easy acquaintanceships with the other employees of O'Neill & Silverstone continued, and his youth helped, as youth will, to build bridges across the social canons formed by the eroding of the streams of circumstance. Yet his heart was hungry, and the long twelve months were a dreary stretch. He was expected home for Christmas, but he liked the glitter of New York's Christmas eve, and so he compromised with his father and mother, and went to Americus for Thanksgiving instead, only to find the town more oppressive than when he had last seen it and his parents apparently unchanged. The place was narrow and suspicious, the people wearisome. Not, of course, Old Tom and his wife. For them Dan retained the respect that had been early taught him. They remained superior. What they had failed to say of morality convinced him that they had a standard of purity higher than the ordinary world's; what they had concealed and the fact that they had 9 220 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE concealed it showed him that, at least for moments, all mankind stooped to lusts and curtained its stoop- ing; and what they had taught him of reverence for success and obedience to the authority of the success- ful stood firm as an active principle in his manual of conduct. For the rest, Mrs. Barnes said little, but looked a tremulous love; and her gnarled hus- band asked concerning his affairs, remarked that the store was hurt by the extension of a trolley-line to Doncaster, but that he was holding his own, and that, if the railroad would only make Americus the freight line terminus that rumor said was contemplated, the town would revive with it and the time yet come when Dan could return to inherit a business worthy of his education. Dan wished his father well, but did not want to leave New York. What he wanted was to sit as his own agent in the great game of the metropolis; but, back in the office, his personal progress was slow. He received another raise of the wages that he al- ways described as " salary " ; Giddey was ageing and to Dan had fallen the direct care of several of the firm's larger accounts, the elder Richardson's among them; but the office did not show any active disposition to give its clerk the financial chance that he wanted. In spite of Fry's adverse criticism, Dan looked up to Mr. Richardson and felt honored by the retired merchant's passing attention. Mr. Richardson was not like the men of the world in which he transacted his stock-gambling, but he had succeeded. Harold's father led. in fact, the life of the average individual, the rule fur which is to do as little harm THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 221 as possible and as little good as may be. His men- tal gait had the monotony of the hobby-horse. Yet he considered himself philanthropic, and he believed himself a reformer. He possessed a peaceable heart and a controversial brain. As a Philadelphian, Mr. Richardson always felt it his duty to live in his native city; he even achieved the thrill of delightful wicked- ness in those rare moments when, forgetting that his exodus had been made at his wife's wish and not his own, he so far ceased to regret his exile as to condescend to Philadelphia from a distance. All this, however, assisted Dan little. Mr. Rich- ardson patronized, platitudinized, and praised, but he did not invite Dan to call at Lawnhurst. " I am glad to see you remaining with your first patrons," he would say, his side-whiskers nodding. " I have found that in this life labor conquers all things." " Thank you," Dan would answer, though just what he was grateful for he never paused to con- sider. " How is Harold getting on? " Mr. Richardson failed to see that this question might refer to the fact that Harold had not been so constant to his first patrons as Dan had been. " He is progressing," Mr. Richardson replied. " He is just about to be admitted to the bar, and, I am proud to say, he is showing, politically, an un- selfish interest in our local movement for a reform within the party. I hope, Daniel, that you are in- terested in Good Government." Dan, who always voted the straight Republican ticket because he had never happened to think about any other, assented. 222 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " Yes, sir," he said; but he added: " Only I don't have much time for active politics." "Naturally," Mr. Richardson agreed; "natu- rally. But don't be dissatisfied. Contentment is the greatest of blessings: contentment and industry." He pursed his lips over an important thought. " A half a loaf is better than no bread." He nodded impressively. " Far better," he said. 2. Dan's intimate life had not altered. The boyish dream of an ideal relationship was dim with distance; he was only uncertainly dissatisfied by the nocturnal counterfeiters of love. Indulgence had be- come habitual, and repentance was at last diminish- ing. His only dread was now of the physical ills that he might contract. He would go through long mental tortures over suspicious symptoms, for he had no instruction concerning the facts of such things save the utterly wrong gossip of his associates. His fears had, however, thus far proved groundless. One evening he went to see a performance of " Camille." He scarcely ever read a book, and so depended, as most of the males of his class do, upon the theater for his fiction. Ordinarily, too, he avoided the serious drama; but somebody had told him that " Camille " was immoral, and so he bought an upstairs seat for this production in which the cast was headed by Olga Nethersole. He sat through the play spellbound, and came out to the street still wrapped in the illusion of the stage. " It's wonderful ! " he thought. " And there must be women like that character right here in New York to-night! " THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 223 The saccharine sentimentality of the younger Dumas suited Dan's palate as nothing else that he had ever tasted could suit it. To young men shaped as Dan had been shaped hydromel is the most danger- ous and seductive of liquors, and Dan drank deep. He realized something of the sordidness that had distinguished his dissipations; he wanted at once to clothe them with the robes of romance; he wanted the perfume of protestations and the tinsel of vows; he wanted passion. From that night he began the quest of a Marguerite Gautier. 3. Harold he met occasionally, but by no means frequently. The younger Richardson seemed a little changed. There was still the old flow of talk, but Harold's visits to town were obviously fewer than of old, and, when he did appear, he drank less than had been his custom. " I saw Olga Nethersole the other night," re- marked Dan when, one evening, Harold had called him from his boarding-house to a promenade of Broadway. He had an idea that to witness a per- formance by Olga Nethersole was an intellectual act of which to be proud befo t re Harold. " She's great, isn't she?" " I have heard people say so," Harold an- swered. They were picking their way, arm in arm, through the crowd. " Why, haven't you seen her? " Dan inquired. " I have," said Harold. " And don't you think " " What did you see her in? " Harold asked. 224 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " In ' Camille.' " " But, my dear boy," expostulated Harold, " you mustn't go to see ' Camille.' Nobody goes to see that now. It's like loving the same woman twice: it's just not done, you know." On most such matters Dan would have accepted Harold's word as final; but this play had been too directly what he wanted. He uttered the pleased sigh of him who has done a pleasurable wrong and has convinced himself that it is not his fault. " I like it anyhow," he doggedly contested. "But it's so rural: it's like being on time for a dinner engagement." " It's true to life." " True to life? There aren't a dozen Dames aux Camelias in the world and never were. I'll bet you what you like on that." Well, of course, the junior though he was, Harold knew a great deal more of life than Dan knew; but Dan was far from being convinced in this particular detail. He shrank from revealing what was in his heart; his boyhood had taught him to hide the things that were in his heart ; but, with his blue eyes bright- ening, he replied: "There ought to be." Harold clapped him vigorously on the back. "That's splendid!" he announced. "To think that this afternoon I might have been with a fellow who can say such a thing, instead of wasting my time on one of those teas that are so stupid you can hear yourself drink ! " Dan detected ridicule, and, as always, resented it. This was what came from revealing one's feelings. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 225 " The tea wasn't at Miss Giddey's?" he mali- ciously inquired. At once Harold's tone altered. His round face became anxious. " No," he said. " I haven't seen her since I introduced you to her," said Dan, reflectively. He waited, and then, as Har- old remained silent, he added: " not once." " Indeed," said Harold. " Queer, isn't it? " Dan persevered. " By Jove ! " said Harold, thrusting his gaze into the hurrying traffic of the street. " I thought that cab would run over that messenger-boy! " " I mean," continued Dan, perversely, " that you'd think two people knowing each other couldn't live so long in New York without meeting." Harold's attention seemed still to be attracted by the street. " Oh, I don't know," he said, " I'm working on a divorce for a Lawnhurst woman that's been sepa- rated from her husband for two years. She's been living at the Waldorf ever since she left him. When we went to serve the papers, we found that the hus- band had been living there too for six months, and they'd never once seen each other." " Then you don't see Miss Giddey? " asked Dan. He was still a little hurt, and Harold's evasion had the usual effect of evasions : they stimulated curiosity. Harold stopped short. " Look here," said he; " you haven't any right to an answer, but I'm aware that the only interesting questions are the ones that we've no right to ask, and so I'll tell you what you want to know. I do see 226 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Miss Giddey occasionally. I did not see her for a time because of a matter that concerns only ourselves. But she now permits me to call on her as a friend. We are friends. Mark that: simply friends." His words revived in Dan the impression produced by his previous defense of Madge. " Oh, that's all right," said Dan, shrugging his shoulder. " Of course it was none of my business. I only thought you might sometimes go to that club she told us about." "I do go," Harold admitted; " but not often." "Where is the place, anyhow?" asked Dan. Harold gave him the address that Barnes had for- gotten. 4. What the younger Richardson said was a fair measure of the truth. He had tried to put Madge from his mind, and failed. Then, one even- ing, he had returned to the Giddey flat. Madge opened the door wide, but she started when she recognized her caller. " Yes," said Harold, humbly; " it's I." He spoke hurriedly lest she close the door before he could make his plea. " I know you're alone again. I took the trouble to find that out. But I'm thoroughly ashamed of myself and quite harmless. Mayn't I please come in? " His boyish face was so uncommonly serious, the glib trick of his tongue was so conspicuously absent, that he altogether disarmed her. She smiled; but she caught herself in time. u Why?" she asked. " Because because I want so to see you." THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 227 " Just now particularly? " " Always." u But this evening?" She tried hard to be severe. " About anything especial?" " Yes, right away, and about something decidedly important." Without further comment, she preceded him to the book-filled parlor. " Just a moment," she said, drawing her kimono about her, and left him there. Harold glanced around the room. It was so precisely as it had been when last he saw it that he now had a strange sense of never having left it. He wandered gingerly about, stepping over the books that lay on the floor, and gazing at some of the volumes that filled the shelves. " Now," said Madge, presently. She had returned clad in a soft shirtwaist and a walking-skirt. " Now," said Harold. He was too busy realizing the significance of this change of costume to say more. She sat calmly in the Morris-chair that he had once wrecked. She nodded to a chair on the other side of the center-table. " You sit there," she commanded. He obeyed meekly. He was no longer himself. He neither felt nor spoke as that Harold whom he had thought he knew so well was accustomed to speak and feel. " I think it is going to rain," he began, and cursed himself for a fool. u Yes ? " Her clear eyes were steady upon him. 228 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " Yes," said Harold. " It felt very much like it" " Indeed? I didn't know. I haven't been out." He waited, trying to think of another subject. He could think of none, and, as the pause grew un- endurable, he presently continued: " I'm quite sure it will rain before morning." 1 You are something of a weather-prophet?" asked Madge. She did not take her eyes from him. " Oh, yes," said Harold. It was as if a spider could become entangled in a web of its own weaving. He could not break through the strands that he had thoughtlessly wrapped about him. " But you don't mind rain, do you? " he inquired. Then she tore the web. " You said you wanted to see me about something decidedly important," she smilingly reminded him. " Was it to learn whether I minded the rain? " He was free. But did he want to be free? His fair face colored. " No," he said, " it wasn't." " Then perhaps there's no hurry, but I'm curi- ous." She rested a cheek upon a hand. " Perhaps you will tell me what it was." There was no help for him now. He had to go ahead. " I wanted to ask you," he bluntly put it to her, " whether you won't let me renew our old friend- ship." Madge's eyes fell. "Was it ever broken?" she asked. " Oh, don't let's fence about it," he pleaded, being tired, for his part, of fencing. " It was broken, and I broke it" THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 229 She looked up, smiling again. " You broke the chair," she said. " I was a fool." " But father mended the chair." " Then let me " he clasped his hands tight in his lap " let me mend the friendship. I've been think- ing it all over. I believe I've thought of almost nothing else. I'm ashamed of myself. I'm ashamed of what I did when I was here last. I don't know why I did it. It wasn't the real me." " But I told you then," she objected, " that I didn't blame you." " I know you did. You blamed yourself. As if you could possibly be to blame ! " " I was." " You weren't. I I oh "he opened his hands " don't think me a brute, will you? " She took his glance calmly. " No," she said. " I won't. I never did really." " But I was. I know that. Only I'm not any more. I'm not. I have been. All my life I have been. I must have somehow started all wrong. But I'm changed indeed, I am. YouVe changed me. And I'll never be again. I couldn't be. You'll forgive me? Please say you'll forgive me! " " If there is anything to forgive, yes." He continued his appeal. " There is so much," he said. " No." Madge was too true to herself to follow him there/ " The real question isn't whether I for- give you. The real question is whether we can ever really understand each other." 230 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " Understand each other? But if you'll only take my word for myself, you can't help understanding me." "And you?" she asked. " Can you understand me?" 4 You you're the best girl in the world ! I un- derstand that all right." " Not quite the best," she smiled. " You are. You " " Please don't talk that way." He gripped his emotions. " Very well," he said, his blue eyes meeting her squarely. " May I ask you one question? " " As many as you like." " One will do. I'm getting along. I'm shifting for myself. I'm a full-fledged lawyer now; I've just er crossed the bar. Some day I'll have a little money left me, but if I didn't I'd still be fairly all right. So what I want to ask you is this : Will you marry me? " Madge's glance did not falter now. Her eyes and voice were both fearless. " No," she said. " But look here " he began. " Wait," said Madge. " Don't think I blame you for that for what happened the last time that you were here. I don't. When I remember it at all, I blame myself. But I don't love you. How could I? We don't honestly know each other." " We can learn," protested Harold. His face was very earnest. " I don't want to hurry you. I don't deserve you and never can. I know that. I only ask you to give me a chance." THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 231 " I am not so sure," said the girl, " that we can ever know each other. I am going to test you; in fact, I'm going to shock you: I don't altogether believe in weddings." Harold laughed. " Oh, weddings ! " he protested. " Nobody en- joys a wedding, but the mother of the bride: she likes a good cry. We shouldn't have any fuss and feathers." Madge's voice was steady. " I was sure," she said, " that we didn't under- stand each other. I was speaking of any sort of wedding-ceremony." 'You mean you'd want a magistrate?" inquired Harold. " I mean," she answered, " that I am not sure that I believe in any sort of wedding at all. I mean that I don't believe much in marriage as you under- stand the word." Harold sat upright. " You what? " he demanded. " There you are," said Madge, almost cheerfully. " I mean that I believe in real marriage, but that I don't believe in the imitation that most people ac- cept. I don't believe that the wife should be the husband's property " But, my dear girl, nobody does! " " It is there in your marriage-service. In effect, it is there in your laws. In black and white." u Oh, well; but nobody accepts those things liter- ally." ' Then they shouldn't exist." Harold moved uncomfortably. 232 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " A magistrate could cut out all that nonsense," he said. " From the law?" asked Madge. The lawyer got to his feet. " Do you think," he inquired, " that I'm so low down as ever to take advantage of the law? " 41 No. I only think that perhaps we shouldn't consider ourselves; that perhaps, feeling as I do, I ought never to marry in the conventional way, if only as a matter of personal protest against a system." He advanced a step. Then he stopped. "O, Lord!" he said. That phrase seemed al- ways hanging on his lips, the only ever-ready com- ment for her constant surprises. She looked up at him. " But that doesn't matter," she said: " for you see, I don't love you, Harold not that way. I like you ; I Oh ! " her voice softened u I've hurt you and I don't want to hurt you! Forgive me. I " She too rose. "Why must we spoil things?" she asked. " Why can't we be good friends? " For a long minute they stood facing each other. " I'm a selfish fool," said Harold at last. "No, no!" she objected. " Yes, I am, Madge : a selfish fool. I thought you might maybe care enough to give me a chance, and I I " He stopped, because, as he looked at her, he saw in her steady eyes the miracle of tears. " I've been a brute again ! " he declared. But she was smiling through her tears- " I've been a foolish child," she said. " There's nothing that we need be unhappy about, is there, Harold?" THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 233 He shook his curly head. " And so," she pursued, " we're not going to be unhappy, are we? " " No," said Harold. " I couldn't be unhappy, if you wanted me not to be." He sighed a little. " Then you're not? " she brightened. " I won't be if you'll let me be a friend." She put out her hand. " A good friend," she said. He took the hand. It was cool and steady, like her eyes. " For you see," he persisted, " you do like me." " Indeed I do." " Even if it isn't in just the way I hoped, Madge." " It is in one of the best ways," she answered. " Perhaps," he granted, his humility departing. " Anyhow I'm going to make the most of it and, without bothering you, I'm going to keep on hoping." " You mustn't do that," Madge cautioned. " I can't help it." " Then we shall quarrel." " I won't obtrude it." " But it will be there." " Always." " Then we shall be sure to quarrel over all sorts of minor differences just because this is in the back- ground. "And then," said Harold, the last ray of his humility vanishing, "because this is in the back- ground, we shall make up again." She drew her hand away and bent her head. " Good-night," said Harold. " I'm coming again soon." 234 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " Good-night," she answered. " Do." 5. Dan had thought that he would . look up Madge ; she promised to be interesting. He did not at all believe in the innocence of her relation with Harold; he admired Harold's protests, but he did not accept them, and he thought, as most of his sort think, that the girl that has an affair with one man to whom she is not legally married will of course be ready to have the same sort of affair with another man. So he decided to meet Madge again, and, as he did not want to meet her under her father's chaperonage, he elected to go to her club. On the evening after he had secured the address, he dined alone and early, and reached the club at eight o'clock. He was, however, doubly disappointed when he entered the little room of which Giddey's daughter had once spoken to him. The place pre- sented nothing of the fervent Bohemian atmosphere that he had expected, and Madge was not there. The club was, in fact, one of those loose organiza- tions not uncommon to the East Side of New York, which spring up in a night under the intoxication bred by a small group of young persons whom chance throws together, and each of whom amazedly finds that there are other people in the world that think as he does. Clubbishness is a primary quality of the human animal: when two or three people find that they have one thing in common, their instinct demands that they found a club upon it. In conse- quence, some such association as this to which Madge belonged, is thrown together, runs for three years or five, and then, if it has not for its foundation that THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 235 love of liquor which is the only firm groundwork for any club, jealousies, or the economic ascent or de- scent of its individual members, begin their subtle work, and the organization disintegrates. Madge's club had not even a name. It owed its being to the fact that a pair of " workers " from a college-settlement had one evening happened into a political meeting, had lingered to dispute with some argumentative Socialists there, had gone with their ' adversaries to a nearby lunch-counter, and had agreed to foregather and end the argument a week later. A week later they met, but parted without either side being convinced and with a third gathering arranged for. At the third gathering it became evident, even to these young minds, that " He that complies against his will Is of his own opinion still "; and so, when somebody suggested that the entire com- pany was at least actuated by a desire for the world's betterment, somebody else expressed an opinion which, when analyzed, meant that there was no way so certain to better the world as to form a dining-club for that purpose. Accordingly an organization was immediately effected, the room secured, and there, nightly, any number from one to twenty-five of the increased membership could be found eating at the single long table and waited upon by an employee of the small cafe to which the clubroom properly be- longed. It was 'a rather bare room, cheaply papered in pink and pale green. In each of two of the walls were two windows that, when their chintz curtains 236 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE were not drawn, looked upon the noisy streets. The other walls were adorned by some lithographs of no meaning whatever, by the door of entrance and by the door to the dumb-waiter that sent food from the cafe below. Dan found himself, after somebody had said " Come in " to his hesitant knock, facing a room^that was empty save for one woman, a young woman, who was seated facing him from the end of the table and directly under one of the three gas-fixtures. The woman, he saw, was engaged in finishing a solitary meal. " Good-evening," said the woman, her spoon in mid-air. " Won't you sit down ? " Dan saw that she had strong shoulders and that she carried her head proudly. Her hair, as far as he could observe it then, was brown and plentiful; but what most impressed him were her large eyes, brown, steady, inquiring. Back in his mind there flashed the memory of a richly colored window of stained-glass that, as a boy, he had once seen as he passed the Episcopal Church in Americus, when the evening service was in progress there. All that he could now recall of the window were the deep red tones of the drapery about its central figure, and, as this woman was clad in a tailor-made suit, he won- dered at the connotation. u I was looking for Miss Giddey," he said. " For Madge? " The woman's voice was a con- tralto, full and with a pleasant assurance about it. " I didn't know she was to be here to-night; but do sit down and wait." Dan chose a chair at a safe distance, and gathered THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 237 his long legs close. The woman's hair, he could now see, was unlike Madge's ; it was silken and chest- nut. Her features were delicate and regular; the mouth generous and firm; the nostrils sensitive. '" Yes," he said. He was a little uncomfortable, wondering what excuse he should make to Madge should she appear. " She gets here rather often, doesn't she?" The woman put aside her emptied coffee-cup. " Every little while," she answered. " And Harold Richardson? " " You mean a little plump man who talks so con- vincingly that he can believe in himself even when he is alone? " Dan smiled. He acknowledged that this descrip- tion was not wholly unjust. " That might be Harold," said Dan. "Well, he is not a member, but Madge brings him sometimes. You know him well?" " Yes," said Dan, " very well." After a moment he added proudly: "And his father, E. Q." " Is that his father? " asked his companion. " Yes." " I didn't know. I had to interview E. Q. the other day on some reform-movement. I am a news- paper woman," she explained. " Then you had no trouble in making him talk," laughed Dan. "Talk? Yes, as if somebody had left him a legacy of words, and he was trying to run through it. I don't like him. He has an immaculate outside, but he makes you feel that if you ever got under his skin you would find him sticky. Besides, he is 238 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE so loud about the use of his handkerchief: it's posi- tively ostentatious." " I know. I've often noticed that." Dan began to feel at home; he liked this woman's sharp way of stating things that he had observed without being conscious of his observation. " And E. Q. has an- other funny habit," he went on: "I mean the way he says phrases you've heard everybody say before and yet he gets a new meaning into them all the time." " I don't think he gets a new meaning into any- thing," declared the reporter. " After I'd got him to say the sort of gush that I was paid to get, I tried to point out to him that reform was all nonsense ; that the workers were in the majority, and that the major- ity ought to rule. He just gasped at me and said: 4 But that would be chaos chaos ! ' " Dan was of those who assume the natural in- feriority of the feminine brain. Such men always smile when they argue with a woman: Dan smiled now. "Wouldn't it be chaos?" he asked as one might ask a child. His wide blue eyes twinkled. " Was there ever a worth while thing," the re- porter countered, " made from anything but chaos? I'm afraid you are a reactionary." " You wouldn't hate me for that? " chaffed Dan, who felt uncertain as to just what a reactionary was. " Not at all," declared his hostess. " A reac- tionary? By all means. He does something. But a conservative why, that's a mere peace-at-any-price manikin ! " " Oh, well," said Dan, sure that she was wrong, THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 239 but sure that he could not prove it; " you can't upset the business of the country without making everybody suffer, rich and poor. You talk like Madge's father." The woman's fine, brown eyes had been fixed on him. " And you," she said, " talk as if you had been brought up in a small town. I hope you don't mind that, for I was brought up in a small town too." " You're right," admitted Dan, blushing. " I was." " I thought so," said the reporter, coolly. " I escaped in time. My town was one of those where the girls' dancing days are ended at eighteen, because by that time there aren't enough boys left to go 'round: they've all run away to the city. I went away too, but far earlier. The place was very re- fined. It had never been so vulgar as to know a boom ; if one had come its way, my town would have snubbed it immediately. I think its conventions would have driven me crazy." Dan did not like to hear a respectable woman de- ride the conventions. He wondered if this woman were respectable. It seemed, from her appearance, impossible that she should not be, and yet he rather hoped that she was not. "You don't believe in conventions?" he asked. She drew in her lower lip, doubtingly. " At all events," she said, " I am not one of those who believe that the conventions are excellent things for other people." " Madge's father again! " said Dan. "And Mr. Richardson again!" said the woman. " I don't care," said Dan, delighting in a new- 2 4 o THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE found ability to lose his self-consciousness; " I think women ought to do what's right." " And men?" suggested this woman, still looking at him. " Oh, men " " Yes, I know : are different. But they are not. No convention is right that forces women one way and men another. Don't you see that, if the race is to have any salvation in this or any other world, we must marry as splendidly as we dream? " Dan was truthful in spite of himself. " I don't know what you mean," he said. " Then," said the woman, " I should like the chance to teach you, Danny Barnes." * Teach me? " began Dan; and then his jaw fell. ' That's my name," he said; " but how did you know it?" Her brown eyes softened; her mouth relaxed. u Dear me," she sighed; " you aren't very flatter- ing. You haven't much changed; I knew you the moment you came in. I suppose I have dreadfully altered, and yet I am younger than you are." While she was speaking, he had a sudden memory of moonlight upon moving water and of distant hills leaping darkly out of darkness as a stream of molten metal hissed into a river. " I am Judith Kent," she concluded. Judith Kent! The little girl with the pig tail, the school-girl in the lower class with whom he had watched the moon rise on the Susquehanna. He re- called her splendid mother, who had first been de- scribed to him as an Episcopalian, and thus he ac- counted for his recent recollection of the church win- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 241 dow. Judith Kent ! He was not embarrassed by any thought of his boyish romance for her. There was not time for that just now. He was only glad to see her again, and, if he were at all embarrassed, it was by his tardiness in recognizing her. "Oh I" he cried. " Judith! Of course you are!" " At least," she said, " until you didn't know me, I thought I was." He got up, his long legs stumbling over a chair, took her hand, arid wrung it. His good-natured face glowed. *' I'm sorry " he stammered. " Thank you," said she. " I mean I'm sorry not to have known you. I mean it's so good to see you again. How long have you been in town ? What's become of your people ? What paper are you working for? " He sat beside her; and, while the waiter came in and cleared away the remnants of her dinner, she told him what little there seemed to be to tell. " We left Americus," she said, " because well, because we were poor. You know that." " I know," said Dan, lowering his eyes. " And then in Philadelphia papa didn't do very well. He couldn't take hold again and he lost one position after another, and each position was harder to get than the last. It worried mother. In the end, I think it killed her. My brother you remember Billy, don't you?" " No," Said Dan; "if I ever knew you had a brother, I've forgotten it." " Of course you would. He left Americus when 242 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE we were both very small. He ran away and went into the army enlisted. He's there now, at Fort Worth. Well, of course he couldn't help, so I went into newspaper work and, when father died, I came here." It hurt Dan to hear this; it always hurt him to hear of human suffering, and this hurt him the more because he remembered the former condition of the Rents. " But you're getting on all right now? " he hope- fully inquired. Judith again drew in her under lip. " A woman always somehow has the price of her whims," she said; " it is only the necessities that balk her. I make out quite as well as most working women; far better than a great many." She gave Dan the address of her boarding-house in the wilder- ness of tjie West Forties. u You must come to see me sometimes," she said. " I get desperately lonely." "You have Madge, haven't you?" he asked. " Of course I want to see you often; but I was won- dering about how it has been with you till now." " Yes," Judith told him, " I have Madge. I met her when I first came over, at a meeting that I was assigned to. I have her, and, as you guessed, her father. We're very good friends. He's not her real father, you know; he adopted her." " Oh! " said Dan. That explained how the par- ent could look so much unlike a Jew and the child could be so Hebraic. " But think of that hard old nut adopting anybody ! " " I don't know," she replied; " maybe the nut isn't so hard under his shell. He was at some sort of THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 243 open-air labor demonstration once in Union Square ; and it was raided, and he was arrested with a lot of others. While he was at the station-house, a patrol- man brought in a baby in a basket that he had found on his beat. It's a common thing enough ; but Giddey somehow got them to let him take the baby home with him when he was discharged next day. Oh," she went on, " I have plenty of friends, but I should like to meet someone from Americus sometimes. You see," she added, " I was happy there." ;( There aren't many people from Americus in New York," said Dan, largely. " Philadelphia is about as big a town as people from Americus can stand. Still, I see Lysander Fry every once in a while." Judith's brow contracted. "Who?" she asked. " Lysander Fry. You must remember him. We used to call him Snagsie, you know." u Yes," said Judith, " I do remember him as Snagsie but I don't think " " Oh, he's all right now," Dan interrupted. " I know his people weren't much, but Fry's got on. He's got a good thing of it." " Have you a good thing of it? " Judith ques- tioned. " Fair," lied Dan; " but I'm going to have a better. I'll tell you about it." He had forgotten all his plans concerning Madge. He never afterward definitely remembered them. XV NOBODY else came in until after nine o'clock, and then it was only Madge and Harold that appeared. By this time, Judith and Dan were once more such good friends that both forgot that Dan had come there to seek Madge, and Harold, with his usual ease of manner, appeared to accept Dan's presence as in every way natural. " Hello," he said, unwinding a large muffler from about his short neck. " Not breaking up anything, are we? " " Not in the least," replied Judith. She rose and went forward to meet them, walking with a fine, free stride. Dan saw that she was tall, nearly as tall as he was, and that she had the grace of carriage that he remembered in her mother. " We have just re- discovered each other, that is all. We come from the same town." "What?" asked Harold, with all the New Yorker's scorn of anything not between the East River and the Hudson, and all the New Yorker's ig- norance thereof. "Columbus? Balboa? Cabot? What's its name? You don't both hail from there? Dan I could think it of, but not you, Miss Kent." " I'm afraid he doesn't know such towns," sug- gested Madge. "Don't I?" said Harold, whose knowledge was based mostly on heresay evidence. " Indeed, yes. 244 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 245 The train staggers up to the station, stops reluctantly, and runs away glad. There's nothing to do all day. There's nothing to do at any time but get drunk, and if you get drunk to kill time during the unendurable morning, you've wasted the only means of making the afternoon bearable." Madge tried to divert him. " It's not too late to eat?" she asked of Judith, and when Judith said that she supposed it was not, Madge inquired of Harold: "Aren't you hungry?" "Rather," he said; "I've a whole suite to let. But none of your stupid small-town meals with noth- ing indigestible in the menu. Eh, Miss Kent? " Judith was feeling kindly toward Americus. " I am sure it won't be that," she said. " In my old home, we dined at noon on week-days." " Don't be stupid, Harold," Madge warned him. " 1 will be stupid," Harold remonstrated. " The only way to be original is to be stupid. All the clever things have been said so long ago." "All your clever things have," remarked Judith. But Harold was not stupid. He sat down and ate heartily and, being one of those rare personalities which know the sort of conversation that best accom- panies food, he kept his companions interested by taking sides with all against himself and by defending himself against all. He agreed with Judith that con- struction never built anything enduring until destruc- tion had first cleared the way; he told Madge that she was a rebel only because her father was, that she was a radical because of her conservatism ; he in- sisted to Dan that Society in a town like Americus resembled a pensive poem by Locker-Lampson, and 246 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE he narrated his one experience of life in such a place, where his laundress told the neighbors just what he had in the wash and how " hard " he was on his clothes. Dan listened and speculated a little as to what it was that, beneath this surface, was changing in Har- old; but he kept his eyes for Judith, saying that it was good to see her again. He remembered his early romance. Of course, he persuaded himself, he was not in love with her now. Of course, he reasoned, he never had been really in love with her. The old desire was a dream ; the present quest for a Dame aux Camelias was a quest of reality. But it was pleasant to meet Judith. He acknowledged that her perpetual talk was as refreshing as were most women's less frequent silences. What he did not acknowledge, but what he no less deeply felt, was that she stood for something that he did not want wholly to lose. He went home that night feeling better for this meeting and a little ashamed of what, he was begin- ning to realize, he had become. He had not hinted to her at the inmost facts about himself. They were far more important than were any other facts to the formation of a true understanding concerning him; but then they were not of the few sorts that it was right to discuss with a respectable woman. Dan won- dered whether this was one of the reasons for the charm of women that are not respectable. He won- dered, too, what Judith would have said if he had told her of these facts. Not that he would tell her. Still, he resolved that he would soon see her again. As, half asleep, he lay in bed that night, his drowsy brain languidly revolved about the thought of Judith. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 247 There was something in her womanhood that at- tracted him more powerfully than anything which her girlhood had offered something that he could not understand, but that was not the mere growth pro- produced by passing time. Yet he remembered, just then, much of their old romance : the unvoiced affec- tion, the illusive and shimmering joy, the glow of dawn. Suppose that he and Judith had never left Americus; suppose that the Kents had never become poor; suppose that he, growing up by Judith's side, had never lost whatever it was that he had lost to Irma ; suppose . . . 2. Nevertheless, the space that intervened be- tween this meeting of Dan and Judith and their next was longer than he had at first anticipated, for his search after a new type of woman was of considerably more consequence than his renewal of acquaintance with an old friend. When he did next encounter Ju- dith, he had on his arm a thin, loud, highly rouged person whose profession no one could mistake. Dan was annoyed. There were some other " good " girls of his acquaintance, the sisters of fel- low-clerks, before whom, when they saw him in such company, he would have felt proud ; but the approach of Judith revived all his old sense of the iniquity of his course. He tried to slink by her unobserved, was angry when he failed and was relieved only when she passed him with a conventional and unperturbed bow. This inopportune meeting and the events that im- mediately fallowed long postponed his intended calls upon her. For, a week later, his fears reawakened. He de- 24 8 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE layed; he tried to convince himself that these fears were as groundless as their predecessors, as if he could cure an illness by argument; but the trouble pro- gressed, and, by the time that Dan acknowledged the truth, it had obtained a firm grip upon his system. His chief sensation was that of sheer fright. He might have contracted this plague from one of sev- eral sources. He dared not speak of his condition to any of his friends; he dared not consult a reputable physician. The only information that he had ever received had come from the jokes of brokers' clerks and the advertisements of quacks. He turned first to these advertisements, read many, and chose one that offered treatment by mail " in a plain envelope," and that promised to regard all com- munications as confidential. 'Dan sent the dollar re- quested and received in return a small phial of pink liquid and a printed letter advising him to call at the company's local office. The fact that the letter was a printed form almost convinced him of the worthless- ness of the medicine, and the use of the medicine quickly completed this conviction. He did not call at the office, but the secrecy that had been guaranteed was scarcely observed. The manufacturers probably sold to other firms the list of their correspondents, for Dan continued to receive by post advertisements of similar " cures " from various sources for several years thereafter. He summoned all his courage, and one day stopped at an office on the door of which he had often no- ticed a brass plate announcing that its owner was a " specialist in the diseases of men." By the presence of that statement the plate also announced that its THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 249 owner was a charlatan, but that was a sign that Dan was unable to read. He entered, was told that his trouble was one of the least and most common of the great diseases that spread from the economic waste- heap, was informed that it was really no worse than a cold in the head, and was immediately subjected to a course of treatment that caused him excruciating agony. Gradually he learned that the ill which was " no worse than a cold in the head " was at all events enduring. He returned daily and suffered daily. He had ugly packages concealed in his clothes and about his bedroom. He could not sleep ; he grew thin and pale and nervous. He paid bills that constantly mounted higher, and, late in December, at the end of three months, the " specialist " presented him with another and still more staggering bill on the same day that his book came back from the savings-bank with the sum of only seven dollars and fifty cents on the credit side. When he was leaving the office of the " specialist " next day, he gasped out an appeal. " You won't mind if I put off payment for a little while, will you? " he asked. But the bearded " specialist " shook his head. The nature of his practice was such that he usually demanded cash payments; he had already been un- commonly lenient with Dan. Would he accept the pay in installments? He really could not do that while the continued treatment was costing more each week than the sum that Dan suggested toward the satisfaction*' of the bill for services already rendered. If there was not payment, the treatment must cease, 250 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE and this was too bad, since the trouble was now on the point of yielding. Why didn't Dan borrow against his salary? There were many money-lenders in New York who made advances of that nature; Dan ought to consult one of them. 3. Dan telephoned to Harold to meet him that evening, but when Harold appeared it seemed im- possible to broach the all-important subject. "What'll you have to drink?" asked Harold, as they entered a barroom. * This is on me," said Dan, " and if you don't mind, I'll take nothing but some seltzer." Harold's round face looked grave. " What's wrong? " he demanded. " You do look run down, you know." " I'm just dieting," said Dan. " I haven't been feeling well lately." " Cutting out alcohol looks suspicious," Harold rallied him. " I think I know what's the matter with you." " It's not that," Dan protested, flushing. " I've just had a lot of indigestion, and the doctor made me swear off for a while." He knew that he must get away from this dangerous topic. " Have you been around to that club lately? " " Not very lately. I was there two or three weeks ago." "Did you see Miss Kent?" " No. Fact is, I'm not wild about Miss Kent. She has oh, not the air of a girl always expecting to be made love to, but the air of always expecting you to kiss her, and of not expecting to like it." THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 251 The talk drifted on until the hour of the departure of Harold's train approached. Only then did Dan mention what had all evening been uppermost in his mind. He said that he had been betting on the races and had lost money that was due for board, lodging, and clothes. " Hard luck! " said Harold; " but I'm just about where you are. We free Americans are all con- strained to wear better clothes than our purses war- rant; we are liars in our hats and coats; and I'm not exempt. If I wasn't in debt and busted, I'd lend you a little." "Oh, I didn't want that! " said Dan. " I only wanted you to tell me of a place where I could bor- row. I heard there were a lot of firms that didn't ask securities, and I thought you might know of one." Harold appeared relieved. u I know just the man you want," he said. " He's a fellow named Asche, and he lives out our way, though his office is in town. I'm the only one near Lawnhurst that doesn't cut him. I can't, because I've borrowed from him. Still, he seems to like me. . I'll give you a note to him. You really don't need one, but perhaps, if I give you one, you can deal with Asche direct. Here you are." He tore a leaf from his note-book, scribbled on it, and handed it to Dan, who looked at the address. " Van Voorne & Co.? Is Asche the silent part- ner?" " He's silent, all right," said Harold, " but he's the whole .firm, you bet. He's * Van Voorne ' and 1 And ' and 'Co.,' too. There isn't any Van Voorne and never was. Asche merely thought, I suppose, 252 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE that some sort of Knickerbocker-Dutch name would sound well." 4. Dan found the loan-offices next day. They were in a fairly respectable office building on Broad- way, and the counting-room was fitted with new fur- niture. On the expensive long benches and comforta- ble chairs were seated a number of people that looked neither expensive nor comfortable; but they faced a highly polished counter surmounted by a wire-netting at a small window in which sat a neat and pretty, though rather hard-faced girl chewing gum. " I want to see Mr. Asche," said Dan. " What about? " asked the girl. She had a com- petent air and a pleasant smile. Dan presented Harold's letter of introduction, which the girl calmly proceeded to read. " I'm afraid Mr. Asche is not in," said the girl, when she had finished her reading. " What do you want?" " I want," repeated Dan, taking a tight hold upon his dignity, " to see Mr. Asche." The girl lowered her voice and smiled again. "Isn't there anything I can do for you?" she asked. Dan shook his head. " I don't think " ** If it was about borrowing money " suggested the girl. Dan swallowed his pride. " Yes," he said, " that's it." ' Then it won't be necessary for you to see Mr. Asche," said the girl. " I think I can attend to it for you. Mr. Asche hardly ever sees anybody. Won't THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 253 you please sit down for a minute and wait your turn? " She was very polite. Dan found a seat between a street-car conductor and a young woman that looked as if she might be a bookkeeper in some wholesale establishment. One by one, the people about him rose, went to the win- dow, spoke to the girl in whispers, were answered in a low tone, and then slouched out. " Now," said the girl at last, and nodded to Dan. He came forward. 44 What's the name?" " Daniel W. Barnes," he answered, and found his voice dropping to the key of those that had preceded him. " And your home address, please? " He gave it. "You live there, Mr. Barnes? I mean really live," she smiled, " or just board? " Dan smiled, too. " I just board," he said. She was swiftly writing his answers on a blank form that was before her. There was a pile of forms, all filled out, at her elbow. " You are employed? " " Yes." "Where, please?" " At O'Neill's & Silverstone's." "What are they, Mr. Barnes?" " Brokers." At her request, he told her his age, length of service, and salary. " And," she asked, with raised eyebrows, " how much did you want to borrow? " 254 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Dan hesitated. " I'd like to have a hundred and fifty dollars," he said. To him it seemed a good deal to ask, but the girl treated the request as if it were a commonplace. She transcribed the figure. " All right," she said. " Come in day after to- morrow." " Oh," sighed Dan, " you can't let me have it to- day?" The girl remonstrated sweetly. "Now really, Mr. Barnes, don't you see?" she inquired, shifting the gum in her mouth. " So many people have such ideas ! But of course we don't know who our clients are. We've got to look them up first." He did see. It was an absurd mistake to be made by a broker's clerk. As if a money-lender were the Charity Organization Society! " I hope, though," he uneasily protested, " that you won't let my employers know about this this transaction. It might cost me my position." u Don't worry about that," she brightly reassured him. " We never let the employers know; that's our business. You come 'round day after to-morrow. Good-day, Mr. Barnes." 5. In forty-eight hours Dan returned. When he left, he had put his signature to several papers. One was a ninety-days' note apparently issued not by Van Voorne & Co., but by a Mr. Henry Brown, with whom Van Voorne & Co. were supposed to have ne- gotiated the loan. Another was an assignment of THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 255 Dan's salary with an order on O'Neill & Silverstone to pay it to " Henry Brown " should the borrower fail to make reimbursement. Dan even had a vague idea that an acknowledgment which he made was at- tached to a power-of-attorney authorizing the shad- owy Mr. Brown to confess judgment. Finally, for the notary that affixed his seal, for some attorney or other that drew the instruments, and for Van Voorne & Co. that had investigated Dan's resources and ne- gotiated the loan with Mr. Brown, there were so many heavy fees, commissions, and " expenses " en- tailed that the client was really paying a rate of inter- est at least thrice as high as the law allowed. " I suppose," thought Dan, "when these loans be- come due, the average borrower can pay only the interest, or a little on account of the principal, and that then the whole process is gone over again." And Dan was correct. XVI DAN paid his quack, but was not cured. In- stead, certain complications manifested them- selves, and he began to suspect that the man who was treating him either could not cure him or did not want to. So he changed to another " spe- cialist " of similar qualifications and, later, to still an- other. He found that, to all of them, fees seemed more important than treatment. He grew no better and, being unable to pay the principal of his Van Voorne & Co. loan, he was forced to a renewal. This was in 1898, the year of the Spanish War; and the war was on all men's tongues. Battle had long been in the air, and from the moment that the destruction of the Maine in Havana harbor was an- nounced, the whole world knew that an armed con- flict was inevitable. Some men said that there were senators in Washington who held bonds of the newly declared Cuban Republic; others asserted that the great capitalists of New York were interested for their own reasons in having Spain driven from her Caribbean and Pacific possessions, and, all about him in the Street, Dan saw the gamblers playing upon the patriotic and humanitarian emotions of their fellow- countrymen in order to lower stocks and insure the " Insiders " an easy chance to buy at a low figure what was sure soon to sell at a high one. Yet the politicians waved the flag, the newspapers sounded 256 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 257 a daily call to arms, and the widespread conscience of the nation, reasoning that, whatever private for- tune was to be increased, the public cause was worthy, roused itself to end the atrocities of Bourbon rule in Cuba and avenge the killing of American seamen upon the country supposed to be guilty. Dan felt proud of his nationality. He believed in republicanism and hated monarchy. More than that, he was an ardent pupil in the My-country-right-or- wrong school of patriotism. We would conquer be- cause we could ; we would teach these foreign peoples to respect us ; we would show them that ours was not only the greatest commercial nation, but also the greatest fighting nation; and we were sadly lenient when we did not arrest and try all native opponents of the war on a charge of treason. Dan wanted to go to the war. He would not have hesitated about it ; but his doctors persuaded him that he could never pass the physical examination ; and so all that he could do was to stand in the crowds on Broadway and watch the troops march by, cheering until he was hoarse for the mere boys that filled the ranks, and watching the flying colors and listening to the stirring bands with his mouth tight and tears in his eyes. Harold counted himself more lucky. He had a quarrel with Madge, who insisted upon condemning the Cuban uprising as a merely bourgeois revolution and upon branding American interference as a piece of capitalistic selfishness; and then he inveigled his father into securing him a commission as lieutenant in a volunteer regiment. For several days he showed himself at the cafes that used to know him, splendid in his blue uniform. Madge, upon whom he called 258 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE repeatedly, refused to see him ; but he contented him- self with composing and dispatching to her a dignified and patriotic note of farewell, carefully modeled upon Lovelace's adieu to Lucasta, and was ordered to Chicamauga, where the ignorance of officers and the thefts of contractors were as deadly as they usually are known to be, killed more men all about him than were shot in Cuba and provided enough fatalities to satisfy even a young lieutenant that wanted to be at the front. Finally, he contracted the fever him- self; was brought home to Lawnhurst; escaped death; was received by his parents as a hero; appeared on the streets a yellow skeleton, and straightway pro- ceeded to grow fatter than he had ever yet been. 2. He was, however, still worn and hollow-eyed when, one evening, he ran away from his doctor and rang the bell at the door of the Giddey flat. Old Gideon himself appeared and stared hard at the caller. " Well, well," he said, in his high voice, as Har- old stood silent. " What is it? What is it? " Harold was dressed in a uniform that now hung as loosely upon him as Giddey's suit hung upon Gideon. " Don't you know me? " he wailed. " I'm Harold Richardson." " Harold " Gideon took another look. " Bless my soul ! So it is. Come in. My eyes are getting worse every day." " Oh," said the caller, miserably, " it's not that. It's the bad food and the fever. They've about done for me." " Come in," insisted Giddey. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 259 But Harold hesitated. " Where's Madge? " he asked. u She went out. I think she went to her club. Come " " Then I guess I'll go there, too," Harold inter- rupted. He had plunged down the stairs before Gideon could remonstrate. 3. The members of Madge's club entered the building in which that club had a room by a narrow door on a side street. It was while she was fumbling with the lock of this door that Harold overtook the girl whom he sought. " Madge! "he cried. The electric light at the corner shed its ghastly blue rays upon him. "You!" She started. Her eyes were wide. She hesitated, came forward, one hand outstretched. " What's left of me," said the hero, magnificently. She was dressed in her usual outdoor costume of soft shirt and walking-skirt; and Harold, as he looked at her, slowly felt that she was so unchanged as to make all the more keenly evident those changes which his abortive attempt at soldiering had wrought in him. " I'm glad you got back safely," she said. She released his hand. "Safely!" he bitterly echoed. "I never had a chance at any fighting! " "I know," she returned; "and I am gladder of that than" of anything else." He thought that he tasted consolation. 260 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " So you worried for fear I'd be shot?" he in- quired, with what he took to be military superiority. " A little," she admitted; " but I worried more for fear you would shoot somebody else." Harold gaped. "What?" he demanded. " Of course," she serenely pursued, " I knew that you were an officer of some sort " I wrote you that. I told you before I started." " Yes. Well, I knew that. I knew that officers didn't personally do much shooting, and I imagined that you were a poor shot anyhow, and probably couldn't hit anybody if you had the chance. Still, I suppose that, if one only shoots often enough, one is bound to hit something sooner or later, and I am too fond of you to want you to be a murderer." She spoke hurriedly in the nervous excitement of this unexpected meeting; but Harold attended to no more than her mere words. This greeting was by no means what he had ex- pected. He knew that she disapproved of all mili- tarism; he had not forgotten the unflinching disap- proval that she had shown him upon his departure; but he had satisfied himself that her disapproval was largely a cloak to hide her grief at his personal dan- ger, and when, on his return, he had everywhere else been greeted as a hero, he came to expect that Madge would be glad enough to see him to accept the general attitude. Now the reaction was severe. " You seem to forget," he said stiffly, " that I might very well have been murdered, as you call it, myself." She smiled a little. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 261 " I read," she answered, " that most of their car- tridges were filled with sawdust; and then, besides, you didn't have to go, you know: you volunteered." He could only look at her reproachfully. " Madge!" he said. " I'm sorry," she returned, her eyes softening; " but that's the way I have been brought up to feel. Better insurrection than war. Won't you come in?" " I want to see you." " Well, I shall be there." " But so will other people, most likely." " Most certainly. I have an engagement to dine with three friends." " But I want to see you alone ! " ' Then come in and walk home with me after- wards." " Madge," he protested, " you can't ask me to do this. You can't. Think. We haven't seen each other since " She opened the door. " Come in," she said. 4. The three friends with whom Madge dined were all women and, what was worse, all of her opinion regarding the war. Harold had rarely passed a more unpleasant two hours. Nobody seemed greatly to notice his uniform; nobody asked him about the campaign; nobody paid much attention to him at all. It even struck Harold that, by their avoid- ance of th.e subject nearest his heart, they felt them- selves commendable: that they refrained from speech about his recent career because they considered that 262 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE it would be unkind to mention something of which they believed he should be ashamed. By the time that Madge tardily rose to leave, he was in a state of fury. " Well," he growled, when he and Madge were again alone upon the street, " what does all this mean? " She did not pretend to misunderstand. Her voice was very gentle. " You ought to know," she said. "I know this," he retorted: "I know that you are heartless." " Not that. Oh, please ! " She raised her hand. " Please not that. I am sorry for you. You have been ill, and I am so sorry for that, and so glad that you are getting well again." He was not to be so easily mollified. He at once felt physically worse. " I am not yet well, by any manner of means," said he. " You have only to look at me to see that. I don't believe I ever shall be quite well again." She believed him. "Oh!" she said. " Never," he repeated. " And they did that to you? " "Who?" ' The men that wanted this war. How awful it all is ! " " It was my country that wanted this war," said Harold, stoutly. 'Yes," she answered, "your country: the people that make money out of it and out of you who feel that you ought to do what they want because you THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 263 happened to be born between the same oceans and the same imaginary lines that they were born be- tween. I am so sorry," she went on; "so very sorry." " I wasn't fighting for any individual," Harold declared. "I know that," said Madge; "I know that no person is to blame. But that doesn't influence me to acquit the system." " You don't understand. Women don't under- stand these things." " I understand what these things have done to you, and so I can imagine what they have done to hundreds and hundreds of others here and in Cuba and in Spain." The fact that she was sorry for him was beginning to have its effect. Nevertheless, he for a while clung to his grievance. " Don't you count Cuba's freedom? " he asked. " I think," she replied, u that, inside of twenty- five years, you will find Cuba has done no more than change masters." " Well, she'll have a republican master." " Will that much help her, Harold? " " Help her? Of course it will help her. And then, just think of how it will help us ! " " I am thinking of how it will help the system that exploits us." " What? Why, Madge, this war has made us a world-power! " " It has made the American portion of the big wrong system a world-power," she argued. " We have always been a world-power we workers. I am 264 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE wondering what will happen when we workers all realize that." He gave it up. " Madge," he said, " you think you're right and I think I am. But need that keep us from being friends?" " Scarcely." She met him there with her frank 'eyes. ; ' We are friends, Harold, aren't we? " He was still weak from the fever: a sob shook him. " And no more? " he asked. Madge quivered. "Don't, don't! " she whispered. " Not now. It isn't fair of you. Have you forgotten all we agreed on? Have you forgotten that? " He felt the justice of her position. " You're right there, anyhow," he generously granted. " I said I'd be decent about about things, and here I am being selfish again. Please don't think me a cad, will you?" " I think," she said, " that you are a dear boy and a good friend." " I know you are a good friend," declared Harold. Her face cleared. " And a worthy enemy," she smiled. " Well," said Harold, " as to that we'll see. Suf- ficient unto the day are the reconciliations thereof." 5. Some time after this, one evening late in the summer, Dan made a confession to Lysander Fry and begged that experienced man's advice. Fry had called at the broker's office close upon closing-time. He entered with his usual breezy de- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 265 cisiveness and in a costume that was to summer fash- ions what his paddock overcoat had once been to those of winter. He asked Dan to dinner, and would not listen to the abashed refusal that came so readily to the sufferer's lips. " No use," said Fry, as they walked toward the elevated railway station. " You look as if you needed cheering up. What's the matter with you, anyway? " " I don't know," Dan listlessly replied. " Well, we'll just have a little feed together and talk over old times." Dan forced himself to ask whether his companion had revisited Americus lately. " Not me," said Fry. " Americus is too thin for my blood these days. You're the only person from that hole I've run across since I don't know when." Dan felt the necessity of making talk. " I saw one last winter," he said. "That so? Who?" " Judith Kent." Fry looked at him in surprise. "Judith Kent?" he repeated. " Yes; you remember her? " " I do that. Her people put on a lot of airs, but she didn't. I always liked her. She was decent to me ; but I hadn't heard a word about her for years. What's become of her? " " She was here in New York, working on a paper." " A reporter?" " Yes." "What paper ?" " I forget. I haven't seen her since." 266 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " Um," said Fry, pulling reflectively at the lobe of one ear. " That's funny." "What is?" asked Dan. " That you didn't see her again. I thought you used to be stuck on her." Dan flushed. Memories assailed him. " I was," he said. " You are now," Fry accused, his piscatory eyes fixing Dan's tired face. " Oh, well," he continued, slipping his arm through his companion's and unheed- ing that companion's denial; " it'll all come out in the wash. You tell me what's bothering you now, my son." And there, in the street glowing a dusty red under the rays of the sunset, Dan, worn out by his illness, in ten words made his physical condition plain. " Why didn't you tell me about this at its start? " asked Fry. " It don't pay to let these things run so long." " I don't know why I didn't tell you," said Dan, as he looked at the monument of vigor beside him, " I've only seen you twice since." Fry demanded details, and was given them. " Oh, well," he at last cheerfully remarked. " I guess we can fix it. Don't worry, anyhow. A fellow don't become a man till he's been through that sort of thing, you know. I'll put you next to a real doctor, a friend of mine." This was the manner of Dan's introduction to Cuthbert Twigg. 6. Dr. J. Cuthbert Twigg was a man of per- haps thirty years, with a narrow, pale face, consid- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 267 erably spotted, and pink eyelids that continually blinked over weak, neutral-tinted eyes. What Dan first noticed about the physician was that his very white hands, though bony, gave an impression of deft- ness combined with cruelty. What Dan did not know and did not learn until long afterward was that Twigg had fallen in love with and, after marrying her, had remained in love with a large, handsome woman, who had accepted him because she believed in the decep- tion of his prosperous appearance and who now de- spised him for his poverty, neglected him for her overt affairs with other men, and kept him perpetu- ally in debt by long accounts at the department-stores, Not five years out of the medical school, Twigg, a slave to his devotion, had already taken to drink, and had committed, for financial reasons, indiscretions that brought upon him the censures of the city med- ical organization. Nevertheless, he appeared to be competent to treat the case now before him. He asked, jocularly, a few serious questions; made the requisite examination; condemned the methods previously employed, and began a new scheme of treatment. Within a week, Dan felt and was better. 7. One hot Saturday afternoon, as Dan de- scended the steps from the door of the Lexington Avenue boarding-house in which Twigg had offices, he met Judith, walking northward. Her head was high, and her cheeks colored by the heat. She wore a white blouse trimly belted at the waist, and she car- ried several folded sheets of reporter's copy-paper in her hand. 268 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Instantly Dan was stricken with the confusion and sense of guilt that had assailed him when he passed her with the blonde girl of that night during the pre- ceding winter. He drew back, but Judith had already seen him. " Hello," she said, in her full contralto, and stopped so that he was forced to come forward and take her outstretched hand. " I think I am very angry with you." Dan's thoughts circled about that last encounter. " I know," he said; " I didn't mean you should see me that evening." ' That evening? " She swept him with the artil- lery of her brown, inquiring eyes. " I was thinking of the fact that you hadn't been ner.r me after you had promised to call." She glanced at the professional sign in the window behind him. " You look fagged. Perhaps you haven't been well? " " Yes," said Dan, awkwardly; " that's it: I haven't been well." " I hope it is nothing serious? " There was real concern in her rich tones. "No, no; nothing serious. Besides, I'm all right now." " Then you can walk with me as far as the Grand Central," she said masterfully. " I know your office must have closed at'noon." She set out again, and Dan, his heart still aching with misgivings, kept pace with her free stride. Pres- ently, and in a perfectly natural tone, she resumed : " So you were ashamed to have me see you that evening? " Dan looked away. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 269 " Yes, I was," he said. " Ashamed of being seen, but not ashamed of the doing," said Judith. He was still looking away. He asked himself what right this woman had to set herself up as his moral judge. He asked himself how women like Judith and Madge could speak so plainly of topics generally forbidden. Women were merely grown-up babies. He re- sented inquiry into his more intimate life, which, he believed, was his own only. The privacy of the male should be sacred. " Don't you think," he inquired, " that .this is something we'd better not talk about? " "You are no Horace Traubel," she answered: " you are as averse to truth as the average American biographer. You do it: why shouldn't I talk of it? " "I don't know," said Dan; " only it's not con- ventional." " The one thing that we can honestly say in favor of convention is that we are used to it," she assured him. Dan did not reply ; but Judith's was one of those impatient minds that accept the refusal to argue as a confession of defeat. " If you had said that the affair was none of my business," she continued, supplying an objection for the delight of demolishing it, " I might have told you that I had a friendly interest in you." " I hope you have that," said Dan. " And that's why I didn^t want to talk about all this." ^ ; But she "could not so regard it. " I have the interest," she said, " and that's why 270 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE I do want to talk about all this. You see, I want to be friendly with you and not with what you want me to think is you. I know how you feel about it. It's so easy to be occult and intense, and 'so hard to be simple and sincere." Her large eyes met him. " But don't think that I don't understand your life," she concluded. Dan felt a strange beating of his heart. u And you like me, anyhow? " " I like you, anyhow," she smiled. " I'm not on your side, of course. My work makes me see too much of the other. The man like you has an easy time of it among respectable people. All he need do is to be * liberal ' and that only means financially liberal to his victim; then the wronged woman ceases to be wronged, but remains wrong." " Oh," said Dan, with his half shrug, " don't talk about 'victims'! " " I sha'n't talk even about morals," she agreed, her o\vn eyes now lowered; " but I know well enough why you didn't come to see me, and I want you to come to see me ; so I do want you to understand how I feel about these things. Well, I'm worried about you only because I know that if you fling open your doors too wide to love, it will start a run on your bank and ruin your resources of emotion." Dan sought to end the one-sided controversy. " I'm just like other fellows," said he. "I dare say you are," she reflectively answered; " and you think it's a sin to be like others. Shall I tell you why you think it's a sin? It's because you enjoy it. You don't go deeper than that, and that's the effect of your education, of your life here: when- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 271 ever a thing is pleasant it must somehow be wrong." "What?" asked Dan. He was dumfounded now. " You're not trying to tell me that you don't think it's wrong? " " I am not trying to tell you my opinion," said Judith. She put up a gracile hand and pushed awjiy a strand of chestnut hair that had fallen over her hot face. "I don't mind good men: there is only one sort. of virtue that is unpleasant and that is what- ever virtue has not known temptation. The thing that has hurt you is the way you were brought up." " I was as well brought up as any other child in Americus! " flashed Dan. " Meaning me? " she asked. ; ' I agree with you; but then we were all brought up wrong. If ever I have a child, he will be told all that I know about the world long before he goes out into it." " That's horrible!" " Why? " asked Judith. " Were you told? " u I certainly was not." " And do you thirk you would be where you are now if you had been told? " She was speaking, of course, only of what she had seen and of what he had hinted; but her words turned Dan's mind to the house that he had just left. He writhed. "I don't care," he said, stubbornly; "if parents do that s'ort of thing, some of their sons will go wrong and some of their daughters." " Nowadays," Judith replied, " with the veil kept in its place, some of our daughters ' go wrong ' and all of our sons." 272 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE It was a dangerous topic to pursue with him. His health was all but restored; his once indulged body was crying against continued abstinence. He looked at the splendid figure beside him, his warm glance traveling from her knees to her face. He forgot their past romance and their present friendship. "Judith " he began. But then his eyes encountered hers. " Not that," she said. Her voice was low and kindly, but it was also steady: she understood. u I didn't mean " he stammered. They had turned into Forty-second Street. She put a hand upon his trembling arm. * You don't want to spoil things, do you, Dan? " " Oh," he broke out petulantly, " it's your own fault ! You understand all about such matters. You you even talk about them, and yet " "Well?" asked Judith. "Confound it! Can't you see? Only bad women know about them bad women and married ones." ' You class the bad and the married together," she said. She was smiling now, and yet her breath came and went quickly. " And you throw me in for good measure ! " " I didn't mean that, only " He hesitated, his wide eyes softened. " I do like you, Judith." " Then," she said, " you mustn't try to make me stop liking you. Here's the station, and I must run. I have an assignment at Stamford. You will come to see me soon, won't you? " He promised, and, as he watched her tall, well- proportioned figure pass into the station, he reflected THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 273 that she had confessed to liking him. The merely physical passion of a moment ended. He thought that she might some day come to like him better. 8. But he did not keep his promise. September approached; the after-math of the war held him busy at the office and left his body, already worn, too tired at the day's end to permit of anything but a hurried supper and an early bed. Then, at last, Twigg pronounced him well, and, in the elation that followed this announcement, there rose clamoring the demand that had been so long subdued. He went seeking again for his Dame aux Cornelias. He found her. One humid evening as he passed the entrance of a restaurant, he saw a woman in a long lace wrap standing by the curb and speaking to the driver of a hansom, who was bending from his box and replying in a loud and angry voice. " I don't know anything about that," said the driver, " I drove you here, and I want my fare." " But I tell you," said the woman, " that I dropped my purse." The light from the restaurant doorway fell upon her face. Dan saw that she was slim and lithe, that the harr beneath her hat was corn-colored, and that her eyes, the shade, of his own, were round and cloudy and distant. " Purse I " shouted the driver. " I don't believe you had no purse! " "I did! I " The remainder of the sentence was lost. A crowd was gathering, such a crowd as a street- dispute always magically summons on an evening in 274 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE New York. There was a seller of newspapers who gaped; one or two elderly men smiling cynically; and a young wife on the arm of her husband, holding her husband back so that she might see and hear and envy and scorn. The liveried doorkeeper of the restaurant began to shoulder his way toward the dis- putants. Dan found himself pushed close to the woman. He saw that there were tears in her eyes. Then he remembered that he had with him his salary, paid that day, most of which he had intended to deposit in the bank next morning against the interest on the Van Voorne loan. He heard himself address- ing the driver: " How much does this lady owe you? " His voice surprised him; it sounded, in his ears, the note of power. " One-fifty/' said the driver. Dan produced a two-dollar 'bill. He was about to wait for change, but he heard somebody in the crowd chuckle. " Keep the change," he said. The woman turned upon him a face grown radiant. " Oh ! " she whispered. " You're good ! " Somehow her hand slipped through his arm. " Come out of this," said Dan, and led her into the restaurant. " I just got back from Atlantic City to-day," she was saying, as she found a corner table with which she appeared to be familiar. " I hate the city in the summer, but I had a fight with my friend, so I had to come back. I was coming here to eat all alone. I had my purse in my hand and my arm over the THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 275 front of the hansom. Just as we turned into Broad- way, the hansom jolted and the purse fell out. I told the driver to stop then, but he wouldn't."" " She called the waiter by name. She said that she was not hungry, but she ordered a dinner that startled Dan. However, she was wonderful to look at. He did not think her regular features hard. He could not keep his eyes from the vividly red lips that gave glimpses of little white teeth behind them, from the melting eyes and the corn-colored hair. He knew just enough of women's clothes to be sure that her dress was expensive; and he thought that any one of her several rings must have cost more than he could pay with three months' pay. He was aware that other diners in the restaurant were admiring her too, and admiring him for the company that he was able to keep. He could not keep more dazzling company if he were one of the " successful " men that he had been taught to reverence. It behooved him, he felt, to play the role of a successful man. She talked a great deal, in a resonant soprano and with an accent that, Dan gathered from the examples of it which he had heard on the stage, must be fashionable. Her name, she said, was Mrs. Morton, but he must call her Cora. She was not married. Her husband had been a rich cattle-man from Kansas City, but she had divorced him in Reno because of his affection for other women. Left alone in New York, she had been compelled to fend for herself. Luckily she had several friends. Dan gathered that these friends were all wealthy and all men. By degrees it was made quite plain 276 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE to him that one of them had been regularly sup- porting her, that she had been his mistress. It was with this man that she had quarreled in Atlantic City. He would come back ; Dan found her serenely assured of that; but she saved nothing, and there would be, in the meantime, a lean interval. With the air of one accustomed to such dinners as this, she called at last for the bill, and nodded to the waiter to deliver it to Dan. When Dan, hav- ing nonchalantly refrained from verifying its addi- tion, paid it without showing how greatly it appalled him, and was leaving twenty-five cents for a tip be- side his plate, she reached across the table, and, from his change nimbly separated four more quarters from the money, and placed these with the sum intended for the waiter. " Now," she said, " come around to my flat and talk to me a little." Dan was torn between desire and the impulse for economy. " Thank you," he said, " I'd like to, but " " We can walk," she interrupted. " It isn't far, and a walk will do me good. We needn't waste money on a cab. Don't you want to ? " Her elbows were on the table, and her hands clasped beneath her chin. Her eyes were wide, but heavy. Dan breathed deeply. " I want to more than anything else in the world," he said. His voice was thick. '* Then don't worry. I understand some things. I've been your guest. Now you'll be mine." They rose. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 277 " Give me a quarter for the cloak-boy," she whis- pered. On the walk to her apartments they were accosted by a lad selling violets. He was such a pretty lad that Cora had Dan buy her a large bunch of the flowers. They cost two dollars. Dan spent the night at her rooms. XVII T IHE next morning there was awaiting him at the office a note from Dr. Twigg: "DEAR MR. BARNES: I did not mean to send you my bill till the first of the month, but I have some heavy bills of my own to meet, and I will be glad if you can give me a prompt settlement. " Yours truly, " J. CUTHBERT TWIGG." The bill was inclosed. It was for one hundred and seventy-five dollars. Dan let the paper fall to the floor. His lips were pale. " What's wrong, Barnes? " asked one of the clerks. 4 Your girl gone back on you, or your tailor going to sue? " " I haven't any girl and I haven't any tailor," said Dan. A hundred and seventy-five dollars ! The creditor might as well have asked for a thousand. Dan could no more raise the former sum than the latter. Twigg was crazy : he must be. The charge was out- rageous. Dan swore that he would that evening call on the doctor and refuse to be gouged. Nevertheless, by evening his resolution weakened. He did not want a personal interview. He decided to telephone, but he hesitated even about that; and, while he was hesitating, Cora called him up and asked 278 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 279 him to take her somewhere for a very light dinner. He decided to refuse Twigg by mail. This at least he did without delay. He wrote his full and fervent opinion of the bill. "I won't pay that amount," he concluded. "I wouldn't pay it if I could, and I can't. You will have to make your charge reasonable, or you won't get a cent from me." To this Twigg's response, received the next after- noon, was brief. He said that his bill was really moderate and must be paid. He would extend the time to a fortnight, but, if the money was not then promptly handed over, he would call on Dan's em- ployers and tell them that the money was owing and why. Dan was in despair. He tried to find Fry, in the hope of persuading him to pacify this creditor; but Fry was out of the city and would not return for three weeks. He called Twigg by telephone, but Twigg's wife was threatening to leave him if he did not give her more money. The doctor was obdurate ; and all the while, from the brief future, there was advancing the day of reckoning with Van Voorne. Dan sought forgetfulness in a wild pursuit of Cora. In her company he would seem to be the successful man that he wanted to become. She was a part of Jthe wonder of New York, the charm of its vitality and power, the intimate of its captains of industry of whom Dan was resolved some day to be one. She personified the marvel and mystery of the city; its large and swift living, brilliantly revealing much, temptingly concealing more. Why shut his 280 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE eyes to her beauty? Love can enter by any of a hundred doors. His entire training and his whole economic condition had perfectly fitted him to lose his head about this woman, and he lost it. For her part, Cora appeared quietly satisfied. She said no more of the man that had been her keeper; no more of her other friends. She received him on many an evening. Our passions are stronger than our sense of humor; if they were not, few pas- sions would endure. Consequently, the evenings that she refused him did no more than whet Dan's appe- tite; the evenings when she let him take her to some public place brought him no moment that suggested the incongruity of his appearance in her company. She would sit in a restaurant looking, as all beautiful women do and only beautiful women can, in every direction at the same time; and yet she would see to it that Dan saw her looking only at him. She permitted him to gather up the crumbs fallen from that white table of her charms which, though he never guessed it, was still spread for others. Dan borrowed from his fellow clerks. He ac- quired credit at a florist's. He pawned his watch, his cuff-buttons, and his scarf-pins. He established an account at the restaurant that Cora preferred. She never directly asked him to give her money; it was understood that she liked him too well for that; but she frequently asked him to lend her ten or twenty dollars, and thus she frequently received five or ten dollar bills. Had he not found his Dame aux Camelias? 2. One night, just as Dan's days of financial THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 281 respite approached an end, he passed Harold Rich- ardson, already completely recovered from the fever, and entering the fattening stage of reaction. Cora on his arm, Dan drew himself up mightily and bowed with a grand air. The next evening happening to be one of those which Dan had to himself, Harold found him, and they dined together at that restaurant where Dan could sign the checks. "Who's your friend?" asked Harold. His cheeks were round and pink again and his eyes bright now that he had re-established amicable relations with Madge. 'What friend?" Dan inquired with tremendous innocence. " The one I saw you with last night; the one that smiled at me." Dan stiffened. " She didn't smile at you" he corrected. "All right," conceded Harold. "I think that constant laughter is no sure sign of a happy nature; more often than not it is only a sign of good teeth. Have it your own way, though. Who is she?" " Her name," said Dan, " is Morton: Mrs. Mor- ton." He emphasized the marital title. Harold whistled. " Have you heard of her? " asked Dan. " I've heard cf a man that heard of her ten years ago," said Harold, flippantly. "She's a former beauty; flat champagne." " Don't talk that way," said Dan, sharply. " She is a friend of mine." He remembered what Harold had once said of Madge, and he was the more angry 282 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE because, for the first time, he felt that Harold might now be speaking the truth.. But Harold, the regenerated, had grown solemn. " Drop it, Dan," he warned. " I know the game; I have played it, and I know there is nothing in it. Lust for a woman leads to distrust of her; and lust and distrust are the history of modern love in two chapters." Dan gathered his legs tight under his chair. He resented Harold's attitude, but he did not want to quarrel, and there had just occurred to him the idea that his companion might be useful to him in a plan which had suggested itself. Until the salad was served, he talked of indifferent matters. " How are your own affairs getting on? " he then asked. " Are you engaged to Madge? " "No." Harold shook his fair head. "She won't have me. She thinks I'm not serious enough. I know how it generally is: if you want to punish properly the woman that offers to be your sister, you must make her your sister-in-law; but then you see," he added, " Madge is an only child, and an adopted one at that." " Do you think she cares about you? " " She loves me. I know it: she is rude to me." " I don't believe," said Dan, with a burst of un- exampled frankness, " that she ever thinks about any- body once he's out of her sight." Harold, however, was thoroughly enmeshed. "True," he hopefully granted; "but then she so perfectly remembers you when you come in again. No, no! She's wonderful; she has about her the stimulus of fresh air and of life. I shall try again. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 283 Few women fall at the first attack, but few survive the second." " Why does she turn you down?" asked Dan, teasingly. " Truth and the excuses of a woman are stranger than fiction. In the first place, as I've said, my dear Daniel, she thinks I'm not serious enough, and, in the second, she says that she doesn't greatly believe in the institution of marriage, anyhow." " Not with anybody? " " Not with the most marrying man in the world. Not even with Brigham Young. However, I think I can bring her around, once I convince her I'm serious, and I'm really no end serious, you know. I'm getting on with my practice, and I'm going to make a big stab at politics. Then I'll put the matter of Madge up to the governor. Of course, the gov. will raise Cain at first; but then he really likes to raise Cain, and after he has calmed down he'll eat out of my hand. Mixed metaphor, eh? " Dan wanted to know if Harold had told Madge about his political ambitions. " No," said Harold. " Never confess too much to the girl you love; she'll remember it after she has married you. I might fail. I prefer to do some- thing first and then go to her and brag about it. Now, there's a strong reform element getting to- gether out in our county. We're run by a rotten gang of grafters and bar-room bums, and I believe we can frame up a real force for honest government. Lawnhurst has just been taken into the city limits of the county-seat, and I've got myself nominated for councils on the reform ticket." 284 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " Who are with you?" asked Dan. Harold named several business men of his neigh- borhood: men whose business was in New York and who had, therefore, nothing to fear from suburban gangsters. " And how about Van Voorne? " Dan inquired. "Who?" "What's his real name? The money-lender." "Peter Asche? I think he'll come in all right. By the way, I paid the sucker my old note, but lately I've had to take out another for political purposes. How did you get on with him? " It was precisely the question for which Dan had been angling. " Not so well," he said. " I never met him. They wouldn't send your letter in to him, you know. Now I'm carrying an extended loan there, and I want more. I wish you'd take me round to-morrow and introduce me to Asche, will you? " Harold was willing. It appeared that he, too, had business with the money-lender. The political gang that controlled the councils of Medford, which was the county-town that had just reached out to include Lawnhurst, were inclined to sell for a song a street-railway franchise to a firm of New York promoters, doubtless on the understanding that the individual politicians were to receive stock in the new trolley-company. To prevent this unjust squander- ing of a right that belonged to the citizens as a whole, certain public-spirited men had organized a local reform-party in the endeavor to elect their can- didates to councils at the approaching election, not until after which the franchise ordinance was to be THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 285 considered. Harold was named as the reform candi- date from his ward. To secure his nomination con- siderable money had been needed; more would now be required to secure his election, and, as Mr. Rich- ardson, hard hit by the war's effect upon the stock- market, had shown a growing disinclination to make further advances to his son, the son was negotiating another loan from Peter Asche. " Of course, he's carrying on what is really an illegal business," said Harold, " but we've got to put up with that. He's mighty handy to have around the town, illegal or not, and I'll bet you a ten spot we can fix him." Dan was sitting, only partially hopeful, with his shoulders half way down the back of his chair, his long legs now sprawling before him under the table. He held a freshly lighted cigar between his teeth. * You want to have things so that they can't bring this up against you in the campaign," he said list- lessly. " I'll fix it so that they won't bring it up either then or later," said Harold. " I don't want to count my chickens before they are out of cold-storage; but just you watch your uncle! What says Mr. Gibbon? * It is the first care of the reformer to prevent any future reformation.' I'm in this thing to win. I know that gang's methods are crooked, and, besides, I have a few personal grudges against some of the gangsters. Zeal for a cause often comes after hatred of its enemies." 3. It took far longer to find Peter Asche than it did to secure a favor from him when found. A 286 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE vast amount of telephoning was necessary to com- municate with him next day at the lunch-hour, and then the pleasant gum-chewer at the counter-window of Van Voorne & Co. showed a disposition to die at her post rather than open the gate that was concealed in the counter beside her. However, these difficul- ties were at last overcome, and the two young men were shown into the offices of the money-lender. Asche was fat and florid. Somewhere in those days of his early career from which he never drew the curtain of reserve, his nose had been broken and improperly set. Consequently, it now began where most noses begin, but, halfway through its course, it hesitated, wavered, thickened, and then shot off toward the right-hand corner of his mouth. His lips were broad; there were heavy bags under his eyes, and his oiled hair was scanty. Notwithstanding his sinister appearance, he was extremely affable. Harold's request he granted with scarcely a word of question; and Dan, as soon as Harold had announced himself as sponsor, was per- mitted a renewal of his old notes and allowed to make the further negotiations that gave him the hundred and seventy-five dollars required for Twigg, payment for the whole to be made on the first of November. It was all so easy that Dan parted first from Asche and then from Harold with a regret that he had not asked for more. " Mr. Henry Brown " had been scarcely mentioned. Asche, once personally known, was clearly not the man to press pay- ment. A decent economy would take care of the interest; frequent renewals were obviously possible; Christmas, though distant, would bring Dan a present THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 287 from home, and meantime there was soon sure to be another raise of salary and a chance for a redeeming plunge in margins that would end by wiping out the entire debt. There was not time to go to Twigg's. Dan must return to work. He would stop at the physician's office on his way down town next day. 4. At O'Neill & Silverstone's a letter awaited him. It was from Mrs. Barnes, written in her thin, nervous hand, and it brought the news that Old Tom was ill. " I think he has been working too hard," wrote Dan's mother, " and he hasn't been eating well this long time, looking kind of worn down. Even after suppers he has been going back to the store nights. Last week he caught a cold. It was hot weather, but he must have sat in a draught, or else the night air coming home from the store late. He wouldn't go to bed or have in that young doctor that has Dr. Ireland's practice, and now he is laid up in bed be- cause he is too weak to get out of it, and I am afraid he's very sick. I had the doctor anyhow. He says maybe pneumonia. I asked if I ought to write to you, and the doctor said no and your father said no too, but I thought I would do it just the same. I am worried. I wish you could come down home for a little visit, but I know you are very busy, and will keep you informed of any change, which I hope and pray will .-come soon and for the better." Dan put the letter into his pocket. He was sorry and he was frightened. His father had always seemed so like a rock in the desert: could it be pos- sible that the rock was to fall? His imagination 288 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE could not compass that; but all the rest of the work- ing-day he went about depressed. He wrote at once, asking for a later report of Old Tom's condition; and he resolved that, if this report announced no improvement, he would go to Mr. Silverstone, the partner in charge of the routine work of the firm, tell him the news, and ask for a vacation and an advance toward the expenses of the journey to Americus. In the hour of relief there had come this new trouble. Dan, as the car carried him up Broadway that evening, felt that he needed comfort, and, dis- mounting, turned toward the house in which Cora lived. A motor-car stood at the curb. He climbed the stairs. He was wrapped in his own thoughts and so heard no sound to forewarn him of the sight that met him when his head came above the level of the landing on which Mrs. Morton's sitting-room opened. Cora stood there, apparently saying good-by to a gray-haired man in a motor-coat. The man handed her a yellow-backed bill, and Cora put her arms about his seamed neck and kissed him gratefully. Dan drew back against the wall. That this sort of thing must happen for the sake of rents and gowns he had obscurely understood; but he had never opened his mind to the definite fact of another man treated with the same show of affection as was given to him. Cora raised her yellow head, and, over her lover's shoulder, saw Dan. " Good-by," she said to the gray-haired man. " You must come again soon, won't you? " THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 289 ;< To-morrow afternoon?" asked the man. " At two," said Cora. The man turned and almost stumbled against Dan. " I beg your pardon," said Dan. The departing man muttered a reply and hurried on. Dan walked into the gilt-and-white sitting-room, and, when Cora had followed him, closed the door. 5. " Now then," he demanded, " what in the hell does this mean? " There was a mist before his eyes. The French clock on the mantelpiece, the mirror behind it, the frail chairs, and the deep sofa revolved slowly about him. His lips trembled. She looked at him with her satiated eyes full of a scornful amazement. " What," she asked with tilted chin, " do you mean?" " Oh ! " He made a gesture with his heavy hand that brought it into sharp contact with the back of a chair. " Don't try to tell me I didn't see anything. You were kissing that old man." Cora's eyes were cool. " Of course I was," she said. "You admit it?" " You just told me not to deny it." " And yjDu made a date with him." " Of course I did. It is for to-morrow afternoon at two." He wanted to strike her, but a sob shook him. " Look here," said Cora, eyeing him serenely: ' "how do you think I live, anyhow?" 2 9 o THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE He did not answer. He knew now that he had not thought enough about that. " Well, I'll tell you how I don't live," the woman continued: "I don't live on the scraps I get from you. They don't pay for my cigarettes." The sob recurred. He did not want to show his grief. He walked to the window and tried to look down at the hot street; but the street. was blurred. Money! It was always the lack of money that de- defrauded him. You could have anything with money; without it you could not hold fast even to that which you had. His shoulders rose and fell spasmodically. Then Cora, having sufficiently cowed him, came forward and took his hands and laid her cool cheek against his. She was growing too old to attract other young men, and from this young man she ob- tained something that she wanted. Money she must seek elsewhere, but just now she needed Dan. She told him that she loved him and hated all her other admirers. She said that she was poor and had to make a living, but she loved him. She whispered these things in his ear and wept. Suddenly Dan turned and took her fiercely in his arms. When he left next morning he had spent fifteen dollars for their dinner at a new restaurant and had given Cora sixty. XVIII THE reply that Mrs. Barnes sent to her son's inquiry was reassuring. Old Tom had had a turn for the better. He still kept his bed, but the attack was a light one, and the doctor did not consider it at all necessary for Dan to come to Americus. Dan breathed easier. He called on Twigg and paid him the hundred dollars remaining from the second Asche loan. " All right," grumbled Twigg, as his bony fingers closed upon the bills. "I'll hold off a while; but when do I get the rest? " Dan squared his jaw. " You oughtn't to get it at all," he said, with the real sense of his injury. " Why not ? Didn't I cure you ? " * You overcharged me." " I guess," said Twigg, blinking his pink eyelids, " it was worth all I charged and more." He smiled malignly. " Your boss would think so, too," he added; " and if I don't get the rest I may have to ask his opinion." Dan's anger collapsed. He pleaded for a delay and at last got it. " I don't want to be hard on you," said Twigg, who had received more than he had expected, but who could not afford to let pass this opportunity to 291 292 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE recover the entire amount of his bill. " It isn't pro- fessional. Only I've got a lot of heavy expenses to meet, and I must have the rest sometime. I'll give you till the first of November. That's fair, isn't it? It's just as if this was a promissory note." Dan left the office considerably relieved; but his relief was of short life. He reflected that, on November first, his Van Voorne loans would again fall due; and he read in a chance magazine an ac- count of the loan-shark business, wherein it was asserted that the sharks refused renewals when their watched clients' positions became uncertain. He let the days slip by, however, until the middle of October, hoping for some fortunate chance that never ap- peared. 2. What appeared was Lysander Fry, splendid now in a fur-lined overcoat, worn unbuttoned to show the fur. " Come out to lunch," said Fry; " I've got a good thing for you." When they faced each other across the white table of a down-town restaurant, Fry began, with his sanguine air of one conferring a favor: " Did you ever hear of Suburban Traction? " " Yes," said Dan. " What about it? " "What did you hear?" Fry parried, smiling sapiently. " I don't know. We used to do a little business in it at our place." Fry tapped his plate with a thick forefinger. " Well, let me tell you one thing at the start, my son: you're going to do a lot more." THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 293 Dan did not much care. This could mean no gain for him. For the sake of saying something he asked : "It's a Jersey corporation, isn't it?" Fry nodded. " And it's got a big thing up its sleeve," he added. " Now then: can you keep this dark? " Dan thought he could. " Well," said Fry, caressing an ear, " here's the situation." It appeared that the Suburban Traction Company was one of the many public-service corporations organized by the firm of promoters by which Fry was employed. Its ostensible purpose was to con- nect with their county-seat the small communities of which Lawnhurst was one; its real purpose, thus far carefully concealed, was to connect both these com- munities and the county-seat with the ferries to New York. Fry was enthusiastic in his outline of the plan and sincere in his enthusiasm. All successful humbugs have a modicum of faith in themselves, and in pro- portion as they have that faith they are able to de- ceive others. Fry was so certain of the money to be made that he did not at all consider the means of the making. His own efforts had secured all the necessary franchises but one. That was the one that would give Suburban Traction the right to lay its tracks through the county-seat. The way was clear up to the city-limits and beyond them. There re- mained only this one link to forge. Then the chain would be complete and, the purpose becoming clear, the stock was sure to rise. Meantime, it was to be obtained for a song. 294 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE "The county-seat is Medford, isn't it?" asked Dan. " Yes." " I thought so. Harold Richardson told me some- thing about a company wanting a franchise there." Fry's hooked nose thrust itself forward. " Harold Richardson? What'd he say? " " Not much." Dan reflected that what Harold had told him was a matter of common knowledge. " He's against it. He said they were getting up a reform movement and would elect enough men to the Medford councils to prevent you people from getting the franchise for a cent less than it is worth." "Pff!" sneered Fry. "I know all about Rich- ardson and his crowd, and I've no use for these kid- glove politicians. Fact is, they want to sell to an- other company something or other that old E. Q. Richardson's in. That'd smash our stock. They won't do it, though." " I don't know about that," said Dan. " Harold seemed to think they could get an easy majority. And if the majority want the other company " Oh," interrupted Fry, like a disgusted elder brother, " you make me tired, Dan. Honest, you do. Majorities? The rule of dunces! What difference does it make to the majority which company gets the franchise? Ours'll give just as good service as theirs." " I suppose theirs will pay more for the right." " Maybe they would, if they had the chance. But who'd get the money? " " The city would." " Well, would that help your blessed majority? THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 295 They'd have to pay five cents apiece for a car-ride just the same. Now, what I wanted to tell you is this : I always meant to let you in on the ground floor of a good thing if I could, and here's a fine buy. Nobody knows about the New York end of the scheme outside of the insiders, and nobody will know till just before election. Now's your chance. You'd better come in : it's a sure thing." " Thank you, no," said Dan, dryly. " I've been waiting all my life for the sure things to happen. They never do." What he was thinking was vastly different. He was thinking: "Here is the opportunity I have so long waited for; here is perhaps the chance to become a successful man, and just because of a few women I haven't the little capital necessary to the taking of it!" " Don't be a fool," said Fry. " This stock's par at a hundred. Some of it got into the hands of a crowd we didn't like, so we knocked it and put up a bluff of doing nothing with the scheme, and now you can pick up all you want at five a share. We've bided our time. We've just let the thing seem to rot. But the day before election, when our candi- dates come out with the truth and tell the people they're running against the reformers to join Medford to New York, the stock'll jump to two hundred. Two hundred? Why, once we get our men in councils, those shares'll more than triple their par value ! " " Are you sure your candidates will stand by you if they are elected? " asked Dan. " I ought to be," grinned Fry. " I bought 'em." 296 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " And are you sure they'll be elected? " 41 Leave that to me. That's part of my regular job, electing is. But don't you see?" Fry's fore- finger again came into play. " Even if they're licked, they're coming out with the news of the New York connection a day or two before election ; that's where they make their appeal to the voters, for the re- formers won't dare to give away their own scheme to sell; and anybody that has cold feet can buy now and sell then. Look here," he broke off, " I'm tell- ing you this as a favor. What do I get out of just telling you ? All I want is to see you in on a melon- cutting." Dan groaned. "A melon-cutting?" he repeated. "You talk as if I was a magnate." " No, I don't," said Fry; " I talk as if you knew a good thing when you saw it and as if you had a couple of hundred dollars." " Well, I haven't twenty," Dan sighed. He burst into sudden confession. He told, in a few hur- ried words, the story of his financial straits. " You know Twigg," he concluded; " can't you get him to ease up on me?" Fry listened with a calm face, the fingers of one hand still pulling at an ear. " Hum," he said. " I wish I could, but I know I can't." " He's as hard as all that? " asked Dan. " He's hard up," Fry answered. " I happen to know he needs all he can get and more. I'd lend you myself if I could; only " " Oh, that's all right." Dan smiled miserably. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 297 " But you see," he added, " that this is the wrong time to advise me to buy stocks." " You'd be all clear if you bought S. T." " Brokers don't advance credit to other brokers' clerks." " But just think ! There must be some way." Dan rose. He was ashamed of himself because of his revelation. " Perhaps there is," he said, though his heart was hopeless. " I'll see. Anyhow, I'm ever so much obliged to you. Now I've got to get back to work." 3. He returned to the office sick at heart. He heard daily of wonderful " buys " ; but he had learned to distrust those which were within his own means, for he did not forget his previous ventures. Yet here was something that carried conviction; here was the opportunity of a life-time. For five hundred dol- lars he could buy one hundred shares and might win even nearly twenty thousand dollars. The possibili- ties staggered him. But five hundred? If he had only one hundred ! He sought Silverstone and asked for an increase of salary. The dark-browed partner listened without any change of expression on his handsome face. " No," he said, when Dan had finished. " This cannot be." He spoke in his slow, unaccented Eng- lish, with no feeling, but with perfect firmness. " This war upset everything. We are not yet doing our old quantity of business." " There isn't any chance at all? " asked Dan. 298 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Silverstone made a quick gesture of dissent. " None," said he. " I am sorry." " The work is just as hard as it ever was," Dan protested. " And the pay is no lower," replied Silverstone. " But " began Dan. " You force me," his employer slowly interrupted, " to say that I am not altogether pleased with the way you do your work, Mr. Barnes. You are often late arriving here. You are always heavy in the mornings. You show lately no sign of getting ahead; I see no reason for raising your pay." Dan boiled with rage, the more so because he felt that what Silverstone said was the truth. " Silverstone ! " called O'Neill. His chirping voice came from behind the thin partition of the neighboring office. " I shall be there right away," answered the junior partner. He turned to Dan. " Good-afternoon, Mr. Barnes," he said and passed into the room from which O'Neill had called. Dan was about to return to the general room. He had started toward it when he heard two words from the office into which Silverstone had just disappeared. Those words were: "Suburban Traction." The clerk's eyes gleamed. He saw that Silverstone had left the door slightly ajar. Dan had only the com- monest sort of conscience: a retro-active one; at all events, it rarely evinced itself before the commission of the wrong, and just now he was hot with ani- mosity. He remembered that his own father was a shrewd merchant and a sharp trader. Business was a game of wits in which the craftier player won: I THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 299 Dan deliberately bent his ear to the crack and listened. O'Neill's mincing tones were distinctly audible. " best ' buy ' on the market/' he was saying. " I'm going in deep, and I thought I'd tip you off, Clarence." " Is it safe? " asked Silverstone. Dan's breath came short. " The stingy Jew!" he thought. " Silverstone won't touch it if it isn't a cinch." O'Neill's voice replied. He had inside informa- tion. Dan caught the first words of an exposition similar to that which Fry had delivered. But of that exposition he heard no more. He heard instead the abrupt opening of the other door. He straightened suddenly and confronted the round- shouldered figure of Gideon Giddey. The old man, who still pottered about the offices among the remnants of his previous duties, was standing with a ledger held in both his thin arms; his scanty neck and angular chin thrust forward; the nostrils of his long nose dilating like those of a scent- ing pointer; his toothless mouth tight as a sprung trap, and the twin wisps of gray hair, brushed for- ward over his ears on each side of his shining pate, leveled at Dan like threatening weapons. " Come out of that," said Giddey. Dan's surprise was so great that his anger tri- umphed aver his fear. " Oh, shut up ! " he retorted. "The door? Yes, I'll shut it," replied the deaf man. He deposited the ledger on a table and, crossing to the spot to which Dan appeared rooted, closed I 300 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE the door that had given the eavesdropper his oppor- tunity. " Listen to me," said Giddey. His eyes, peering through their thick glasses, still seemed antagonistic, but his voice was low and not unkind. He put his frail arm about Dan's broad shoulders. " Listen to me," he repeated. " I notice more than people think, and I have lived a long time. The world isn't bad; it's only blind. If we could cure its blindness, it would be a changed place ; if we could once make it see right, it would do Right Well, that is the way with you, too. I have kept my eye on you; I know. Go away now. I shan't say anything." " Say anything? " echoed Dan, still on the defen- sive. " I wasn't doing anything! " Giddey smiled grimly. " I'll return the Scotch verdict," he replied: " Not guilty, but don't repeat the offense." He nodded to the door through which Dan had entered. 4. But Dan was unrepentant. As when he was a child, he felt that the crime lay solely in being de- tected. Beyond that his mind refused to go: it had place for the consideration of only this chance of success that was slipping through his fingers. Re- gardless of Fry's command to secrecy, he that even- ing telephoned to Harold, exacted a promise of silence, and repeated the news concerning Suburban Traction. " We both need money," he concluded, " and I thought that perhaps you would know of some way so we could get enough to buy this stock and make a regular killing." THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 301 Harold's reply was not consoling. His need was desperate. He was heart and soul in the reform movement, but found that money was required, and a great deal of it, at every step. Unless he could get some, he would certainly lose the election, and how to get even enough thus to make more he could not guess. " Your father " suggested Dan. l< Won't cough up another copper," Harold re- plied. " Can't you think of any scheme?" " I've got a headache trying." " You understand that we could sell at a big profit just before election if your ticket was going to win ? 11 1 know that, but knowing it doesn't help any." They racked their brains, but to no purpose, and at last rang off with an agreement to meet on the following evening. 5. During the intervening day, however, events conspired against Dan. The only note of relief was a letter from Mrs. Barnes announcing her husband's slow and slight but steady improvement. With it came two other letters : one from Twigg, reminding Dan of the approach of November first and recalling the doctor's threat to speak to Dan's employers; the other from Van Voorne & Co., curtly announcing the fact that the clerk's note would fall due upon the same date* and as briefly adding that the firm re- gretted its inability to accept a renewal. An hour later Cora telephoned to say that the proprietor of the restaurant to which Dan was in the habit of taking her had, when she dined alone there the night before, 302 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE expressed some anxiety about the size of the young man's bill. She would like, she added, to borrow twenty dollars, and, when Dan perforce refused the money, she told him angrily not to come to see her again until he was able to do something for her. Dan came from the telephone-booth with a pale face. He saw that his whole life had been torn between two passions: the passion of sex and the passion for success. The former, in the bottom of his heart he believed to be wrong, though he knew it held him fast and did not know why ; the latter he was equally sure was right, and the satisfaction of both he saw growing momentarily less and less pos- sible. Halfway across the room he icountered the whis- kered Mr. Richardson in all his customary dignity of a frock-coat and white waistcoat. " Ah, Daniel," said Harold's father, seizing Dan's hand, " I was just looking for you. I am in a hurry to-day. I have to attend a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Home for the Widows of Non-Union Workingmen." Dan bowed. He scarcely heard what was said, but he knew that Mr. Richardson practiced the sketchy patronage of Projects that he considered Worthy. Thinking of how much he himself had to hide, it flashed through the clerk's brain, as he vacantly regarded Mr. Richardson, that dignity is a valuable mask and that most of the men who wear it conceal behind it all the desires of which they are ashamed. * Yes, sir," he was saying. " Is there anything I can do for you? " THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 303 " There is. As I say, I am in a hurry. I seldom hurry. The more haste, the less speed: in my wide experience I have always found that true. But time and tide wait for no man, Daniel; remember that. The Board must be in session at this minute. How is Pennsylvania selling? " Dan glanced at the figured blackboard that ran the length of the office. " Fifty-three and three-eighths," he answered. " Oh, no; that's Erie First Preferred. Pennsylvania is a hundred and twenty-three. It's par at fifty, but New York reckons on the hundred basis " 1 Yes, yes, I know. Of course I know that." Mr. Richardson produced a check-book. " I want you to buy me a do?m shares. My little daughter's birthday is on the fifteenth, and then I always buy a safe investment for her, you know. You can deliver it any time before then. How much will that be?" Dan seized a pad and figured. " Seven hundred and thirty-eight and eight thirty- one: that's seven forty-six thirty-one." Mr. Richardson's immaculate hands began hur- riedly making out the check. " How is my old friend, your father?" he in- quired. " He seems to be getting along very well now," replied Dan, who had told his inquirer of Tom Barnes's illness when the first news arrived, and who resented the absent-minded manner in which this ques- tion was asked. " Ah," continued Mr. Richardson, writing rapidly. " I am glad to hear that. Poor old Daniel Barnes! 304 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Let me see: you were named for him, of course, weren't you? " "No," said Dan, rather sharply; " my father's name is Thomas L. Barnes and I am Daniel W." " Oh, yes, yes. To be sure." Richardson com- pleted his writing and handed the check to Dan. " Well, here you are. I must be going." He went out, and Dan started to register the order. By the merest chance, however, he looked first at the check: Mr. Richardson's absent-mindedness had served the investor ill; the check, instead of being made out to O'Neill & Silverstone, was made out to the name that Dan had uttered while Mr. Richard- son was writing: the name of Daniel W. Barnes. " See here ! " called Dan. He looked up, but Mr. Richardson had gone, and nobody heard the summons. Dan's mouth remained open for fully half a min- ute. The check dangled from his limp fingers. Then, slowly, he folded it and placed it in his waist- coat pocket. What did he mean to do with it? He did not know. He thought of telephoning to Mr. Richard- son at the board-meeting, but Mr. Richardson had not told him where the board met. He thought of taking the horrid bit of pink paper to Silverstone, but he hated Silverstone and did not want to see him. There was O'Neill, to be sure, but, before Dan could decide upon O'Neill, that member of the firm hopped rapidly through the office and left it for the day. The routine work swirled by the clerk and claimed his attention. Other customers appeared. There was a flurry in Rock Island. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 305 And all the while, like some blind monster in the tideless depths of the sea, there lurked in the depths of Dan's consciousness a thought that he dared not rouse. 6. " I've given up highballs," said Harold that evening. " Since I've gone into politics, I like my whiskey, like my women: straight." He drank, at all events, a great deal of whiskey; they both drank a great deal. " I've got to have more money " : that was Har- old's constant complaint. " I haven't the ghost of a show at election if I don't get it, and yet this is my Big Chance." He said that it was his chance to convince Madge that he really amounted to something; that it was his chance to " make good " and to do good. He dilated on the benefits to Medford of a clean business administration by clean business men. He denied Fry's story that the Reformers would unduly favor another corporation. He stood for honest govern- ment. He had bet a little on his own election; he had to do that; it was customary; it inspired confidence. But he knew that, unless he had more money to spend, he would be defeated. Money was imperative. The bad traditions of the corrupt politicians had made it so. When-the corrupt politicians were overthrown, things would be different, but meantime one must meet a machine with a machine; one must employ under- lings that knew the game ; one must grease the under- lings' palms and not ask too many questions about their methods. The only way to beat the devil was 3o6 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE to fight him with flame. If Harold could but get the money. . . . ! With trembling fingers Dan produced the elder Richardson's check and laid it on the bar-room table that was between them. Harold took it up. ' Where did you get this? " he demanded. Dan told him. " Seven hundred dollars ! " breathed Harold. They looked at each other, both faces white. ;t Why why with seven hundred " began Harold. Their glances fell. " It's a lot of money," said Dan. " If we only had it and bought Suburban ! It was offered at five to-day and no demand." He repeated what he had heard O'Neill tell Silverstone. " If we bought at five outright " " Outright? " said Harold. " If we bought on a margin How how long does it take for checks to get back to the man that draws them? " Dan choked. " How often does your father have his book bal- anced?" " On the fifteenth of every month, regularly. He's as precise as a New England housewife. By that ti me " And we would sell as soon as the stock rose before election. It wouldn't matter how the vote went." " It wouldn't matter a straw. Then we could buy Pennsylvania for the governor, and " Their voices dropped to whispers, fell into silence ; THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 307 but both were thinking the same thing. The money would be borrowed, nothing more. That was some- thing that was being done every day by the men that were making America the greatest country in the world. They organized companies and invested the surplus of the stockholders' money in other compa- nies. Everybody did it. It was something under- stood. Here was the chance and here too was that ancient sophistry: " Just this once," the constant ex- cuse of the oldest offender. Harold gulped another drink and rose unsteadily. " An aristocrat suavely takes what he can; a gen- tleman gracefully gives what he may," said Harold. " I'm not a gentleman; I'm an aristocrat. Giddey calls me that; so does Madge. They're neither, so they ought to know." He put his hand on Dan's shoulder. " This," he concluded, " is our real start in life." The next morning, Dan telephoned to the elder Richardson. The clerk said that he had just mailed the receipt and memorandum of the transaction in Pennsylvania stock, but that he had no sooner sent the letter than he realized that he had forgotten to address the envelope. It was no matter, Mr. Richardson answered, so long as the stock was at the office. He would call for it on the fourteenth. Then Dan. went out to a bucket-shop and invested all but a scant reserve of the money, buying Suburban Traction on a margin. 7. The agony of the next few days was too intense to leave thought for anything else. Dan 308 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE pored over the Medford newspapers daily sent him by Harold. He performed his duties in the office automatically. He sat often with his eyes on vacancy and, when anyone spoke to him without warning, he jumped. On the Saturday before the election, Fry tele- phoned. " Did you manage to raise that dough? " he asked. " Yes," said Dan, the receiver shaking against his ear. "Why?" " Because it's going to be the best thing ever. I'm talking from Medford now. Wait till you see to-morrow's papers. We got it all fixed. Don't sell. Hold on till after election. That'll triple your winnings. We'll win. It's a dead sure thing." As he had been doing ever since the night when the bargain was struck, Dan watched the reports of Suburban Traction. They did not vary. The stock was inactive, supine. He called up Twigg and, with more difficulty, Peter Asche. He begged them to wait until the even- ing of the Wednesday following Tuesday's election. He hurriedly, almost incoherently, explained that then he would be in a position to pay their claims. When he offered them a bonus for delay, they consented. Even the New York papers on Sunday contained the news at which Lysander Fry had hinted. The promoters' candidates for the Medford councils had made public Suburban Traction's plan to connect Medford and its country directly with the city-ferries. The people were reported as enthusiastically on the side of " progress " : reform would lose. With the opening of the market on Monday, the THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 309 gamblers showed that they had become aware of the existence of S. T. The stock was galvanized. It stirred. It rose. It leaped to twenty-five, to fifty. Thence it began to climb steadily toward a hun- dred. Dan flew to the telephone and clung to it. For an hour he could not get Harold, who was away from his law-office, campaigning. " Have you seen it? " gasped Dan, when the oper- ator had at last tracked Harold. " This is Barnes. Have you seen it? " There was no need for him to be more specific. " Of course I've seen it," answered Harold. His voice was hoarse. " I'm just waiting for your agreement to sell," said Dan. " Sell? " Harold shrieked the word. " Don't be such a double-barreled fool ! I won't consent ! Do you hear? I won't consent! " " But there's an election here, too. The market won't be doing business to-morrow." " What difference does that make? Listen. I've just got the inside figures, and Damn this 'phone! Get off the wire there, whoever you are! Hello, Central : quit cutting in ! Can you hear me, Dan? Hello, Dan; can you hear? " " Yes, yes," said Dan. " It's all right. Go ahead." " Well, we're whipped, I tell you the reformers are whipped. I've got the complete inside informa- tion. Our own people give up the fight. Of course they're not telling it outside, but it's straight. The reformers are licked. You hold on to that stock. 3 io THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE On Wednesday morning it'll be worth two hundred. Don't dare to sell a minute sooner ! " Dan protested, but his protests were vain. Harold was sure of his information, and at last conquered by a sheer preponderance of energy. " All right," said Dan, still half-doubtful, " I hope you're right." He hung up the receiver and went trembling back to his work. 8. Before midnight on Tuesday he had learned his lesson in the uncertainties of the ballot. The un- expected had happened: Harold and one or two of his fellows were defeated, but the majority of his party's candiates were chosen; that " rule of the dunces " at which Fry sneered had elected the reform ticket in the Medford councils. Suburban Traction was a dead issue. XIX WHY had he done it? Why had he been such a fool? Why had he listened to Fry in the first place ? Why had he not sold be- fore election day ? Striding through the city streets, his head bent, his hands deep in his overcoat pockets, Dan lashed himself with all those futile questions, with all those hopeless glances backward, which the conscience and the formerly dormant sagacity find so ready to hand when error has become apparently irretrievable. He hated the men that he had been brought up to admire, the men of success, because they could do these things and win. He hated woman-kind, be- cause he thought that women had brought him to this pass. He hated Fry for the first temptation and Harold for the last mistake. What was to be done now? Dan shuddered. How could he return to the office to-morrow and await the inevitable approach of discovery? Dis- missal, disgrace, even prison, attended there, and he had not money enough to run away. His father and his mother He stopped at one saloon after another and drank heavily. He had meant no wrong. His desire had been only toward those things which he had been taught were the most desirable and those things which the silences of his parents had early unfitted him to 311 3 i2 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE resist. He suspected Fry and Harold of plotting his ruin as readily as a drunken wife will charge her husband with immorality. He drank again and again, and with the mounting of the liquor to his head, fear mounted to his heart. He passed the house in which Cora lived. Seeing a light from her sitting-room window, he entered. He knocked at her door. " Come in," said Cora. She had evidently just returned. Her cloak was lying across one chair. A silk skirt was tossed upon another. Cora, in a pink and gold kimona, was stretched upon the sofa, a cigarette between her fingers, her corn-colored hair framing her hard face against a dark velvet pillow. She appeared to have forgotten her order to Dan that he was not to come to her empty-handed. " What in the world's the matter with you? " she asked. She might well ask it. The light fell full on Dan's crumpled figure. His cheeks were pale and puffed, his mouth, though not firm, was contracted, his wide eyes bloodshot. The hand with which he removed his hat trembled. " Cora," he said thickly, " I'm done for." She got up and kissed him lightly on his cold cheek. " You're just drunk," she said. " Have a drink." She went to a little buffet and poured him some whiskey. " No water," said Dan, as he saw her reach for a syphon. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 313 He gulped the drink and began to walk up and down the room. " Cut it out," said Cora, returning comfortably to her sofa. " Come over here and tell me all about it." Her air of content annoyed him. " Don't talk like an idiot," he said through white lips. " I tell you I'm all in. I'm down and out. I'm ruined!" ' In a hundred words he sketched rapidly what had happened. She listened with that interest in the dramatic which is so highly developed in women of her profession. But her interest, as with all such women, was purely intellectual. Except where her own material needs were touched, her sympathies, too long drained by her exploiters, had become niggardly. " Oh, cheer up ! " she said, when he had finished. " You'll be all right again soon." " How can I be? " Dan demanded. " I can never replace that money, and, if I could, I couldn't pay those bills." Cora puffed her cigarette, and refastened several invisible wire hair-pins in her yellow hair. He could see the muscles of her long throat working as the smoke was drawn into her lungs. ".Try another plunge in the market," she sug- gested. "The luck can't go against you forever. You'll win next time." "Plunge?" Dan extended his empty hands. "My God! What with?" She was beginning to weary of Dan. While he had been only devoted and adoring, she delighted 3 14 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE in the needed sense of renewal that he awakened in her, the revival of emotions and sensations that she had thought lost to her. But lately his devotion was divided, his adoration scamped. Perhaps these busi- ness difficulties were to blame. But what of that? The quality that had moved her was deteriorated, and now his words showed her clearly that there was small likelihood that his financial circumstances would ever permit its perfect repair. She did not want to be hard on him, but, since he had given her his best, it was absurd of him, it was even rather insulting of him, to offer her his second-best. " Well," she said, " what do you want me to do? " " I I " Dan felt about in his brain. " I want to get some money to make the plunge, or else I want to get enough money to get out of the country." She uncoiled herself, rose, put down her cigarette, and came forward. " It's you that's talking like an idiot now," she said. "Money? What makes you think I have any money? Perhaps I saved a million out of what you gave me ! " He swallowed the taunt. His mouth was already bitter with the shame of what he was now about to propose. 'You can get some," he said: "you know a lot of men that have money to burn." She did not seem to consider the hint nauseous. She only smiled and shook her head. " Nothing doing," she said. " Men don't pay unless they get something for it, and there isn't time for me to give that." THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 315 " Then," replied Dan, " I guess I've got to go to jail." He sat down and rested his head in his large hands. Cora's expression changed. "Are they after you now? " she asked. "Who?" Dan stupidly inquired. " The cops, of course." " Oh, no; they can't find it out for a day or two." " Well, you mustn't be found here when they do get you. I can't have that sort of thing." She stood by him, running her fingers through his disordered hair. " Brace up," she said. " A lot can happen in two days. Now, I'll tell you what I'll do. If you don't feel like going home, you can stay here to- night; but if they do get you, you mustn't bring my name into it, and you mustn't come back here till the whole thing's blown over. Come on. Make up your mind. Do you want to stay here to-night? I'm tired out; I can't keep on talking till morning; I must get some sleep." Dan got to his feet. " I won't stay," he said. " Good-night" 2. Again he walked the streets. In the face of danger, even Cora did not want him. He nursed this new fox in his bosom. Toward daylight, he returned to his boarding- house, and bathed and shaved with a shaking hand. The long e-ffect of routine was ordering him to the office and commanding him to present there a re- spectable appearance. Once Dan was at his daily tasks, his punishment began. The lightest phrase was translated by his 316 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE now morbidly sensitive brain into a veiled threat; the most casual glance became a gaze of suspicion. It seemed impossible that the other clerks should not know what he had been doing, could not read his guilt in his face. O'Neill, hopping through the main room and whistling to himself, seemed to be trying to conceal accusation beneath a mask of cheerfulness. Silverstone's quiet eyes must certainly hold a knowl- edge of the facts. Dan remembered a jumble of de- tails from various newspaper accounts of men arrested for crimes such as he had committed. He saw the detective in every stranger that entered. The palms of his hands were damp and cold, and, when spoken to, he started violently. He went to the telephone and called up the offices of the Suburban Traction Company with some idea of an appeal to Fry; but he was informed that Fry had gone to Trenton on business. As Dan came from the telephone-booth, he ran into Harold. The young men looked at each other. Each saw in his friend the havoc that he knew his own face must betray. " My God," said Harold, " we're in for it now, aren't we?" A sudden rage flamed in Dan's heart. " Yes," he said, " and it's all thanks to you! " "I know; I know." Harold's voice broke. He offered no explanation, no apology. All his assur- ance had been torn from him. " It was my fault. It's rotten. Just rotten. What a fool I've been ! " "You've ruined us," said Dan; "that's what you've done." Harold nodded. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 317 "What a fool," he whispered. " It's I don't know what to do. What would Madge say? And the governor? " Dan fearing the attention of the other clerks, led him to the doorway and thence to the curb. They talked there, Dan bare-headed, in the passing crowd. His heart was infuriated against his friend. " I'd like to wring your neck," he said. "You ought to," Harold admitted. "Where's Fry?" " I don't know. I telephoned. They said he was in Trenton." " Of course. The Irish Embassy again. What does he care for us? " Harold hung his head and swallowed hard. " If I had this to do over again, I'll bet you ten to one I'd never do it. Nowadays we're agnostics in the cradle; it's doubt and diapers; but, by God, I'd like to pray." Disgust seized Dan. Then, as suddenly, the sight of this weakness in one whom he had always thought strong, gave him a sudden strength. He gripped Harold's shoulder. "Shut up!" he said sharply. "Repent? Of course you repent. But won't you soon be in a posi- tion to repent again? Listen to me. You wrecked this scheme. It's up to you to save it, and you've got to save it. Do you hear? " Harold ^looked at his companion with dazed eyes. " How? " he asked blankly. " We're wiped out. I'll do anything in the world. But how? " " You've got to get money." "I can't!" 3 i8 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " Don't tell me you can't. YouVe got to. You've got to get money to-day now right away. I don't know how you'll get it, and I don't care. That's your business. But you've got to get it, and you've got to go to that bucket-shop that we played in, or else to a roulette-table, and you've got to play all day. And you've got to win ! " " But Dan " " Shut up, I tell you! " Dan's face was purple; his eyes blazed. " This is our last chance. Get the money. Beg it. Borrow it. Steal it. Go home and pinch your father's check-book and forge a check. Go home and pawn your mother's jewels. I don't care what you do ; but I won't let what you have done send me to jail! I won't go to jail: do you under- stand?" His other hand descended on Harold's other shoulder. He shook the younger Richardson as a dog shakes a cat. " Get the money," he almost yelled; " and win win win! " With a final push, he sent Harold spinning over the curb. Dan plunged into the office. 3. How he got through the day he did not know and did not greatly care. He had small hope of any help from Harold; he had merely followed one mad action by another. Each minute he expected the sword to fall, and each minute was prolonged to infinity. Then, just as the market closed, a messenger-boy hurried into the office. " Mr. Daniel Barnes ! " he called. " Mr. Daniel W. Barnes!" Dan started as the guilty prisoner starts when the THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 319 clerk of the court shouts his name and calls him to the bar to plead. Somebody pointed out Dan to the messenger. " Don't you know your own name, Barnes? " asked this somebody. The messenger-boy handed Dan a long envelope. It had been addressed by a blunt pencil in Harold's hurried hand. Dan tore it open and drew out a scribbled note. He read : U DEAR DAN: I've done it. Never again; but I've done it this once and I've won. What I stooped to I can't bear to tell. I've played like the original man that broke the bank at Monte. Don't ask me how. I don't know. I'm dizzy. All I know is that I'm in enough to pay all my debts contracted for buying votes that didn't elect, and to buy enough more to elect me next time. " Yrs, " H. RICHARDSON." " Don't forget to buy Penna. I'll cop both your phoney checks when it comes back to the gov. from the bank." Inclosed was Dan's share : its size sufficient not only to cover Dan's defalcation and pay his debts, but to leave him with a comfortable surplus. He could not at once realize it. He sat for a full minut staring at the paper that meant liberty. Finally he staggered to the telephone. He called Van Voorne & Co. " I will be at your office at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning with the money," he said. 320 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE He called Twigg. " Send around here at noon to-morrow and have your bill paid," he ordered. He called Cora. " It's all right," he told her. " I've made good, and I have a wad on the safe side." And Cora answered: " I'm glad. I knew you would be all right. Didn't I tell you so? Come up and see me to-morrow evening, sure. I'm busy to-night." Then Dan wrote a letter ordering the Pennsylvania stock through another broker. This done, he re- read Harold's note. He was about to destroy it, but that seemed almost sacrilege, and so he filed it carefully among his most sacred effects. He went into the street, when the office had closed, singing to himself. "O, my God," he whispered, "I thank thee; I thank thee; I thank thee! " He believed again in God. He believed also in himself. He had come out all right. He and Harold would never have failed had he sold Suburban Traction when he wanted to sell it, and they would never have been saved had Dan not assumed command and issued his orders. Now he had won. He had played the game that was played by successful men. He would go ahead. He would go far. He would become one of those who were building the Greater America. The roar of New York was like organ-music in his ears. He strode up Broadway full of people surging home from work, and saw in them the great material out of which the kind of men that he was THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 321 to be were shaping their dream into a reality. He looked at the towering buildings and read them as symbols of the master-minds that ruled the industries of the nation. He loved New York. He loved Broadway. He loved life and power. That night he slept as he used to sleep when he was a child in Americus. The sleep of the just may indeed be sweet, but none sleeps so soundly as the unjust man that has won. XX WITHIN the week, Dan had acquired the habit of prosperity. He paid his debts, made sure that he had concealed his de- falcation, bought new clothes. Cora he saw as formerly, but he did not waste his money; and he began what grew into a long series of calls upon Judith. Often, for she worked by day, he took her to the theater; and once, when with her, they passed Cora, who bowed, but who did not mention the meet- ing when she next saw him, and whom Judith did not appear to observe. He was growing steadily fonder of Judith, the more, perhaps, because he did not wholly understand her. Whither her theories of life led he did not know; he knew, in fact, only that they might lead to something or other of which he would thoroughly dis- approve; but he did not believe that Judith or any other woman could follow theories to a logical con- clusion. Meantime, he rather liked the little shocks that her frank conversation gave him; decidedly en- joyed their intellectual stimulus, and began dimly to feel that he might find in some turn of her mental attitude an excuse for his own conduct of life. Early on the bright Sunday morning following election the two were walking out Broadway. The twisting street had assumed its sabbatic quiet, inno- cent seeming, sunning itself, after its Saturday night 322 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 323 of revel, like a gorged snake in the morning glow; and Judith, straight, with her dusky cheek touched by the keen air from the Sound, was again, apropos of some casual remark by Dan, flaying those conventions which were devised in the belief that a world of dif- ferent individuals could act as some few of them thought it ought to. " And so," she said, " our system shapes even our morals; and so many of us that could be of use to the rest are wasted, and the best of us are only at their second-best." " At any rate," Dan threw in, " there's nothing halfway about you." " At any rate," she took him up, " I am not that abomination of desolation, a compromising radical." She went on with her attack. The most impor- tant asset of the State, she said, is its citizens, and yet the State breeds its citizens in ignorance through economic oppression. We boast that we are all ad- vancing, yet we resolutely shut the door upon all proposals to change our moral attitude. " Still," said Dan, " children can't be innocent if they know too much too soon." Judith's dark eyes sparkled. " Ignorance," she affirmed, " has about as much relation to innocence as the cold moon has to the red sun. Ignorance is negative, and the only real inno- cence is intensely positive. Don't you think there is really a difference between a saint and a prig? " " But there's such a thing as a middle course," pro- tested Dan. " We've got to protect women. All women aren't like you, you know. We've got to keep them away from the world." 3 2 4 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " Nonsense/' she answered. " That ideal of vir- tue isn't an ideal of virtue at all: it is just senility. In effect you say: * If we men weren't to demand that our women be pure, they would be impure.' You haven't much faith in your mother's sex, have you?" Dan's cheeks became dully red. 1 You don't understand the world," he said dog- gedly. " I understand that there is nothing right for man that isn't right for woman," said Judith. " If one is free, why shouldn't the other be free too? " " But all that would do away with marriage ! " " I don't believe it would do away with any mar- riages except false and blasphemous marriages. But what if it does? Haven't we done away with feudal- ism, with the masks of the Greek drama, with negro slavery, and wandering minstrels and epic poetry with a thousand other beautiful and ugly and good and evil things ? " Her head was thrown back de- fiantly. " The world's coming of age," she added. " It won't do much longer to be merely dull, and it won't do to be merely witty. Art for art's sake and virtue for the sake of one's own soul are both fashions of the past." Failing to follow her, he made, man-like, personal application. " Come now," he said; " take your own case. If you were in love with a man, wouldn't you want him to think you were better than he was? Tell the truth and shame the devil." " You mean: tell the truth and shame the respect- able," said Judith, calmly. " If I married a man, I THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 325 should want him to know that I had every liberty that he had and not one liberty more." Dan looked at her with a sidelong glance. He thought that he had rarely seen her more beautiful. " Theoretically," he said, " you're right, you know; and still- " Still," she took him up, " you wonder how it happens that I am. I dare say." 2. He passed the entire morning with her and the evening with Cora. Then, just as he was becoming satisfied with life, he found that he was once more in the clutches of that illness which had handed him over to Twigg. Again he waited to be sure, but this time he waited for only a day. His anger went out against Cora. It never occurred to him that what he suffered might be but a recurrence. He hurried from his office to her flat. u Well," he said, " you're a nice woman, aren't you?" She had come out from the bedroom into her little parlor. She was dressing for the evening, but had got no farther than her corset and petticoat. Her yellow hair was still tumbled from her day of sleep, and the pencil had not yet been applied to her pale eyebrows. " What's the matter with you?" she asked, her hands behind her back, busy with corset-strings. Dan eyed her with repulsion. " You know well enough what's the matter with me," he said. " You'd keep me too busy, Danny, if I tried to 326 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE guess all your troubles. Been tapping the till again? " He gripped the back of one of the gilt chairs. He had to grip it to keep his hands from her throat. " No," he said; ''that's not necessary. I'm not letting you bleed me the way you used to. You ought to know what's wrong; you gave it to me." Instantly her head came forward. Her brows drew togitfher. Her hard eyes narrowed, and her mouth tightened to a drooping semi-circle. " Oh, it was you ! " she said. " I never guessed it. I never guessed it! Yes, I've got it, and you gave it to me, and now you've got the nerve to come here and say I gave it to you ! Me ! It was that skirt I saw you taking to the theater the other night ! " Her voice rose to a shriek. She advanced, her hands clenched at her sides. She loosed all the vile thoughts that her life had bred in her, all the filthy epithets that her trade had taught. She spat them at him. She poured out oaths and accusations until Dan staggered before them. It was as if a sewer- pipe had burst and deluged him. " You get out of here ! " she ordered, her bare arm pointing to the door. Her face was hideous. Dan opened the door. To himself he still accused her, but, as she revealed herself, he no longer cared enough about her to attempt further recrimination. Her outburst and what it revealed made him almost calm. " All right," he said, " I'm going." " And never dare come back! " she shouted. She followed him upon the landing. As he de- scended, she leaned over the baluster and continued to gush corruption. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 327 " Do you know what you've been to me? I'll tell you! I'll tell you! ..." 3. It all came and went like a lightning-flash in a midnight storm. He seemed scarcely to have entered Cora's flat before he was again on the street, this time with burning face. He hurried as if he were pursued. Yet he knew that one chapter of his life was closed forever; and of that he was glad. His mistakes had taught him something. He put himself in the hands of a reputable physician that promised a cure and did at last effect one; but in the meantime the patient suffered all the mental reaction symptomatic of his illness. He hated Cora and feared her, much as he had once feared and hated Irma. From this he came to the point where the conscience inculcated in his youth revived to tor- ture him, and thence he passed to the need of some theory of self-justification. He must give it up, this life of dirtiness. He passionately wanted to give it up. There was no romance about it. You could in no wise approach it without, sooner or later, being soiled. Dan wanted romance. He had gone his predestined way into the depths of life; his predestined way now headed toward life's summits. He needed woman, but he wanted that type of woman which he con- sidered the true woman, and he needed exculpation in her eyes and his own. He wanted the clean, and he wanted to know that he was not irretrievably smirched. Limited as was his imagination, with all his heart he wanted to find something that would explain his conduct; that would forgive it as, if not 328 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE right, at least not viciously wrong; that would lift him to a mental attitude from which he might, with- out shame, love and be loved by a woman pure in body and in mind. This needed justification he found in a further misunderstanding of Judith's point of view and a hasty advocacy of the spurious version. It was simple enough. It was, indeed, nothing but the ancient statement that boys will be boys, that young men have to sow a certain quantity of wild oats, and that, therefore, what becomes wrong with matur- ity is at least natural to youth. He thus stated it to Judith when, one evening, they were dining at the restaurant to which he used to take Cora. " Scarcely that," said Judith. " I mean that under the present form of society, with low wages making a regular relation more and more of a luxury, irregu- lar relations, casual relations, are necessarily becom- ing more and more of a commonplace." To Dan, however, this sounded like assent. He did not discern between the statement of a truth and an argument for its vindication. " People," said he, " just make a mountain out of a molehill." " People," said Judith, " as certainly exaggerate the importance of the relation as they underestimate the importance of the duties that often spring from it." She found herself liking Dan better every time she saw him. She came, of course, no closer to an understanding of him than he came to an understand- ing of her; but he was easy to talk to and good to look at. She remembered much of their childhood THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 329 acquaintance that he seemed to her to have forgotten, and she was lonely. " I don't know," Dan was saying, with a shake of his round head; "about the hardest thing in the world to do is your duty." But Judith would not quite agree to that. '' There is nothing hard about doing your duty," said she. "Anybody can do his duty, once it's plain to him; but the supreme riddle of life is that duty never is plain. If you do right to A, you do wrong to B ; and if you raise up B, you tread down A. The man that talks of Right and Wrong as he talks of black and white is a man that simply has a blunted ethical sense." Leaving the restaurant, they passed Dr. Twigg and Lysander Fry in the act of entering. The former brushed by with a brief nod; but Fry hesi- tated for a moment before proceeding, much as if he wanted to stop and talk. "Who was that?" said Judith, when she had reached the pavement. ." I mean the man in the fur coat." "Don't you know?" replied Dan. "That's an Americus boy." " I thought I had seen him before, but I wasn't sure. Who is he? " " Lysander Fry * Snagsie,' you know. I told you about him when I met you at the club that night." Judith hesitated a moment, frowning; then she seemed to recollect. " Oh, yes! You said that he had * a good thing of it.' He looks as if that were true. How does he make a living? " 330 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " I don't know how," said Dan, " and I certainly don't know why." He had not yet forgiven his friend for that bad advice in the matter of Suburban Traction. " Still," he continued, with a flash of jus- tice, " Fry seems to understand what he wants an3 gets it." They had turned into a cross-street. The night was clear, not cold, and, in the rift of sky between the roofs, there shone a handful of white stars. " Do you understand what you want?" asked Judith. For the first time in his life, Dan found himself uncertain as to what he wanted. His theft, his danger, his bare escape, the brief period of content- ment that had followed, the illness, and Cora's dread- ful revelation of the true character of those condi- tions that he had, unguessing, touched in his relations with her: all these things had left him wavering and perplexed; and to-night the woman beside him, beauti- ful and calm, offering as it seemed a means of vin- dication, had turned his thoughts in a direction in which they had not moved for years. " I don't know," he said. " Sometimes I think I do, and then sometimes I think I'm all wrong." They were passing beneath an electric lamp. Dan looked at Judith and saw that her eyes were lowered, and noticed how the soft, chestnut hair curled about her temples. To his own amazement he found him- self going on: "I used to think a little about even getting married; but I guess I was a fool." Her reply amazed him even more. " I suppose you were," she said. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 331 "Eh?" said Dan. She laughed a little. " I mean that," she went on, " you want to be powerful ; and so far as those in power are concerned, love has gone out of the world." He was annoyed by this, and yet, under his annoyance, there struggled a desire for the comfort and peace that, he thought suddenly, this woman might give him. He wondered whether he could not reconcile his life with his ideals, and whether such a heart as Judith's could not help him to accomplish such a reconciliation. But his mood would not yet betray itself. " People still get married," he teased. " Yes," said she, " people still marry; but I wasn't talking about marriage: I was talking about love. If they love at all, most married people don't pass their time loving each other; they pass it loving the thing that each thinks the other is in that and in holding the pose that each knows the other wants to believe in." This struck Dan as a revelation. " That's right," he assented. " And that sort of thing's not real love, is it? " She was still looking down. " No," she said. " It'd be wonderful," pursued Dan, his voice grow- ing tender, " to have a fine woman understand you and yet cafe for you; it would make you sure you were worth something. Real love must be knowing all about a fellow and liking him anyhow." His words were unconsciously pathetic ; they were, like so much that Judith had just said, but echoes 332 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE from one or other of their previous talks. Judith confined her reply to the matter-of-fact. " That is the whole trouble with modern mar- riage,' 7 she said; "the man thinks that the woman must have been his property from her birth and must stay so till her death; and the woman thinks that the man must at least tell her every detail of all that he has ever done, that he must give her his memories as well as his heart. Well, that can't be done. A perfect understanding is necessary to a real marriage, but all the details aren't necessary to a perfect under- standing. Simply because they mean to live together is no excuse for a man and woman to invade each other's personality." They walked on in silence until they had reached the door of the house in which Judith lodged, and there Dan turned to leave her. He raised his hat and put out his hand. " Good-night," he said. Her hand descended upon his like a snow-flake. " Good-night," said she. " I don't see," thought Dan as he walked away, ' Why two people can't be in love, why two people can't even be married, and just be themselves to each other." 4. He was still thinking this, was still among the clouds, when, next morning, one of the clerks came to him. " Boss wants to see you," said the clerk. " Which boss?" asked D'an. "O'Neill?" " No, Silverstone. He wants to see you in his office." THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 333 " What about?" " How do I know? Old Giddey's still sick. They say he never will be back. Perhaps you're going to get his job." " Not from Silverstone," said Dan, with his half shrug. " Not from that dirty Jew. He's got a piece of flint for a heart. He'd never do anything decent for anybody." "'Well, someone'll have to get the job if Giddey makes a die of it," said the clerk, smiling. Dan's dislike for the junior partner had not abated since Silverstone last refused his employee's request for an increased wage. It was impossible that Silverstone should have chosen Dan to succeed Giddey. What did the fellow want, anyhow? Dan entered the private office with his sullen prejudice smoldering. 5. Silverstone was seated at his roll-top desk, his legs crossed, and some papers in his hand. A cigar that he had been smoking lay in a brass tray before him, sending up a spiral of gray smoke. " Good-morning," said Silverstone, impassively. Dan noticed that the dark face bore no smile. " Good-morning," said Dan. " Sit down," Silverstone continued. He indicated a chair beside the desk, and Dan took it and faced the man that had sent for him. " Some time ago," said Silverstone, speaking in his slow, unaccented manner, " you asked me to raise your salary." "Yes, sir," said Dan, his wide eyes lifted hope- 334 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE fully. Could it be that the Jew was relenting to- ward him? " I told you," pursued Silverstone, " that I was dissatisfied with your work." " Yes, sir." " I have seen nothing since then, Mr. Barnes, to change my opinion." So that was it ! There was to be a dismissal ! Dan knew that he could get a similar position in some neighboring office at the same wage. That knowl- edge robbed him of fear. He bridled accordingly. " It doesn't make any difference to me whether you have or not," he lied: " I can get a better salary from Haviland & Tansey this afternoon if I want it." " No," Silverstone shook his handsome head. " You couldn't do that." " At just as much then," declared Dan, his voice assuming the teasing timbre that always controlled it when he was anxious or excited. " How do you know, Mr. Silverstone ? Have you asked them ? " "I have not," said Silverstone; u but I could not let you go there. My duty to them would prevent me from letting you go there." His duty to a rival firm ! Dan could have laughed. " How could you stop me? " he inquired, embold- ened by his recent prosperity. " I should have to stop you," said Silverstone, quietly. " They would ask me about you, and I should have to tell them what I have discovered." Dan had been leaning forward with a defensive glow of anger in his face, but as his employer ended, the employee sank back in his chair. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 335 "How what do you mean?" he asked, his lips quivering. " I mean that you have embezzled money," said Silverstone. Dan sprang to his feet. "It's a lie !" he cried. " It is the truth," said Silverstone. Sweat came out upon Dan's forehead. " I won't stand for this ! " he declared. He made for the door. ' Where are you going? " asked his employer. " Away I'm going to clear out. I won't stay here and hear you call me a thief! " " I should not advise you to go just yet," said Silverstone, calmly. " Mr. O'Neill is in the outer office by this time, and he wants to have you arrested." Dan came to a quick stop. He faced about. It was all over, then ! Fear of the verdict, and hatred of the accuser made him physically weak. He leaned for support against the table that stood in the center of the room, his eyes fixed on the gray spiral of smoke from Silverstone's neglected cigar. "Where did you hear that?" he gasped. "I don't owe anybody a dollar! " Silverstone compressed his lips. "It was that spy Giddey!" Dan continued, the last rags of discretion dropping from him. " He guessed it! " "It was- not Mr. Giddey," said Silverstone, who was a marvelous diagnostician of moral maladies. " You know that he has been ill. I found it out because no man in his senses could help but find it .out. Mr. Richardson came to see me on other 336 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE business. He happened to mention a transaction, through us, in P. R. R. He said he had got the stock from you the other day, and quite unsus- piciously added that the canceled check for it was missing from those returned to him from the bank. I asked the date. Later I saw that the transaction did not appear on our books. I surmised the rest, and now you have confirmed my surmise." Dan bit his lip. He realized that he had been trapped; and dislike was fanned into a flame that was quenched only by terror for the result of the offense. " I I I " he stammered. " So you see/' said Silverstone, " that I could not let you go into a position of trust with Haviland & Tansey." Terror triumphed: Dan put his wet palms to his wet face. " You must know it was paid back," he said. " I only borrowed it." " Borrowed it? I never knew an embezzler that did anything else," said Silverstone. A cry burst from Dan. It was not articulate; it was only the anguish of the trapped and wounded animal made vocal. " Wait a moment," said Silverstone. " Sit down again." " I can't ! " Dan uncovered his face, bloated with tears. " Don't you see I can't? What are you go- ing to do?" He put his clenched hands together. " Oh, what are you going to do with me? " " Wait a moment," said Silverstone again. His voice was still even. But, though he spoke THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 337 quietly he now spoke with his habitual play of gesture. " Years ago," he began, " I knew a little Jewish boy that came over to this country from the ghetto of Mayence. He was very poor. His old father and mother were so poor that they had to stay in Mayence, and every week the boy sent them half of his wages. He worked in a kosher butcher-shop near Houston Street. Once he did a big piece of work outside and was promised money for it, and every two weeks the man that he did that work for paid him five dollars." Silverstone bent forward. ' Then one day," he continued, " the boy got word that his father was very ill and needed treatment that he could not pay for. The boy had saved all but a few dollars of the sum named, but he knew that his father would not have asked for one cent more than was absolutely necessary. The boy tried to borrow from his friends, but his friends were as poor as he was. He tried to borrow from his employer, but his employer would not lend the money. So the boy said to himself : ' I will take this money from the store. Nobody will know. Besides, the other money that is owed me will surely soon be paid, and then I will pay back the butcher that I work for.' So he took the money. But the other man did not pay him as he expected, and then the boy saw that he was really a thief." Silverstone stood up. He advanced to Dan. " The employer detected the theft," said Silver- stone, " and had the boy arrested and sent to jail. By just a miracle, the boy did not come out of jail worse than he went in. He came out safe, and, in 338 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE spite of the jail, he had learned a lesson that he has never forgotten. From that day to this he has never touched a cent that was not his own. But he has always remembered one thing : he has always remem- bered how easy it is to go wrong and how hard it is afterwards to make anybody believe that you will never go wrong again." The employer's hands took hold of Dan's. " Daniel," he concluded, " that little boy's name was Clarence Silverstone." A great sob tore Dan's breast: "the flint-hearted Jew " had forgiven him. XXI THE bourgeois passes his days in overlooking dramatic possibilities and in avoiding them when they obtrude themselves. Dan, robbed for the time of all intelligence, felt nothing but grati- tude and. relief; all that he could say was a choking fragment of thanks; all that he could think was: "I wanted money for gambling: Silverstone wanted it for his father; yet he never once asked me what I wanted money for, and he has forgiven me 1 " Silverstone, on the other hand, had a straight brain though a narrow one, and went directly to his point: O'Neill's desire for a prosecution should be overcome; nobody, not even Mr. Richardson, should be told of the embezzlement; the guarantee of trustworthiness necessary to Dan if he were to secure employment with the neighboring brokers Silverstone could not conscientiously supply; but he was willing to take a risk that he was loath to ask of his rivals, and so he would persuade O'Neill to give Dan another chance in his former position. There Dan, however, gained control of his feelings and achieved a new degree of growth. It was not only that he wished to avoid daily acquaintance with the scene of his fault; it was even not only that he knew that his fault, being discovered, must there fatally retard advancement; it was also that he was certain that he should ask no more of Silverstone 339 340 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE than forgiveness and mercy. He would leave the office at once and shift for himself. That was the arrangement finally effected. Within half an hour after he faced the junior partner, Dan had ceased to be an employee of the firm of O'Neill & Silverstone. 2. Chastened by this experience, but still, at bottom, encouraged by the success of Harold's plunge in the market, and sustained by the memory that his own wisdom would have prevented the need of that plunge, Dan resolved to go into business for himself. A former fellow-employee of O'Neill & Silverstone's, the clerk indeed with the loud waistcoats, had recently approached him with a proposed partnership in curb- operations, and of this Dan began now seriously to think. More capital was, however, required for his share than he possessed, so he composed a letter to his father, setting forth in Dan's most brilliant terms the opportunity offered, and asking a heavy loan. The recent news from Americus had not been of a character further to frighten Dan. The last letter that Mrs. Barnes had sent him reported that Old Tom was thin and weak, but again at work. Conse- quently, the son was ready with condemnation when he received from his father a brief note that brusquely refused the advance. " MY DEAR SON [wrote Tom] : Yours to hand and am sorry to say that business has not been very good with me here and so cannot let you have sum mentioned. I am thinking anyhow that it might be a good thing now if you took hold with me in the old store. You mind I used always to say sometime THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 341 you should. I am thinking you would better come home over next Sunday and talk over it. " Your aff. father, " THOMAS L. BARNES." Go home ! Return to live in that Sleepy Hollow, Americus! Dan shrugged his right shoulder dis- dainfully. " I'll not do it! " he vowed. " He's just holding back the money so's he can force me to bury myself in that crossroads shop; but I won't let him work that game on me. I won't do it! " The letter had reached him at his boarding-house, forwarded from O'Neill & Silverstone's office. He tore into small" pieces the sheet covered with uncer- tain writing, and went forth on a fruitless errand to find Fry, in the hope of interesting that business-man in the new venture. He did not find Fry, and when he returned to the boarding-house for dinner, Dan was handed a telegram: " Father very sick. Come at once. MOTHER." Dan took a night train home. At Doncaster he changed far a trolley-car, and at one o'clock in the morning was approaching the familiar house in Oak Street. 3. The place loomed bulky and gray under a late moon. ,- Its shutters were closed, but Dan no- ticed one dim light at the transom over the front door and another about the edges of the drawn blinds in a pair of the second-story front windows, the win- dows to his parents' bedroom. He closed the gate 342 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE softly and went up the brick-paved walk to the porch. He was strangely moved. Our parents have been, from our beginning, something stable in our exist- ence. They are always there. It never concretely occurs to our imaginations to picture their change or passage. If they live, we carry this feeling into ma- turity; we cannot understand, except theoretically, the possibility of their death. And now Dan found him- self looking at the door of his home to see if there were crepe upon its bell-knob. His mother met him in the hall and turned up the gas-jet that was suspended there. Dan noticed then the first tokens of the great transmutation. Mrs. Barnes had g/own old. Her hair, still neatly parted, was much thinner and more silvery than when he had last seen it; her hands were heavily veined, and the skin, drawn tightly over her prominent cheek-bones, was delicately aciculated. But more subtle, yet more potent, than these things, was an inner change that disclosed itself no less clearly; it shone through the wide blue eyes, faded, but lacking in their former diffidence; it drew the large mouth into a firm line, and it spoke in the accents of her low voice. It was the result of sick-room authority; it was the once timid forced to become a ruler; it was efficiency. "How is he?" asked Dan as he kissed the soft cheek presented to him. " Very low," said his mother. She stood before him with her hands folded at her waist. " It's in- flammation of the lungs, double pneumonia; an' the doctor says something about complications." She had relapsed, under stress, into the vernacular.. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 343 " But I thought he was so much better." Dan's tone had the note of protest. His father had im- proved; had been stronger. The thing was unjust, it was absonant to reason. " I know," said Mrs. Barnes, " but he must have gone back to work too soon. He would do it. You know your father." " And then? " Dan prompted. ' Then he got kind of bronchitis, but kep' right on at the store, till here last night, after he'd been coughing some, we had hot-cakes for supper, an* he enjoyed 'em, too; but he took a terrible chill. He shook all over, an' said he had pains in his breast. I put him right to bed, but he got feverish an' began to breathe quick an' queer, so I sent right off for the doctor." She was far more self-possessed than Dan. "What does the doctor think?" asked Dan. " Oh, these young doctors ! This one wanted I should have in a nurse, but I said no I guessed I could nurse my own husband." "Yes; but what does he think about the case?" " Who ever knows what a doctor thinks? " Mrs. Barnes tightened her thin fingers. " I thought maybe he might be cupped; but this new doctor says no, that it isn't done any more. I can't help wishing Dr. Ireland wasn't dead," she sighed. " Well, but," Dan again prodded her, " he must say something about the chances." Mrs. Barnes looked hard at the worn hall-carpet. " He says they aren't much," she whispered. It was what Dan had expected; he felt that it was what he should have expected since he received 344 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE the first news of the first attack; but youth was still strong in him. " Don't take his word for it," urged Dan. " Have you sent to Philadelphia? You ought to send to Philadelphia. You ought to have a consulta- tion." The mother raised her eyes, and her eyes told Dan that she had suggested this, and that the doctor said it would not avail. She seemed to fear that a pause for sympathy would impair her usefulness. When Dan took her hand, she drew it away. " Come up an' see him," she said. " I is he well enough? " asked Dan. " It can't hurt him now." " Does he expect me? " " He wanted I should send for you." " And he's conscious? " " Yes, he's conscious. We'd better go. I don't like to be away so long." 4. The big bedroom was heavy with the odors of illness. The gas overhead was shaded by a paper screen, so that what light there was should not annoy the patient. Dan made out a little table on which stood several labeled bottles with spoons beside them. He did not want to look at the bed. He felt that he could not look there; that what he would see was something that a son should not see. The silence oppressed him, and then, as his mother noiselessly tiptoed in the direction in which he would not look, he was aware that the silence was being regularly broken by a labored sound. It was a terrifying sound. It THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 345 made him shiver, because it was the sound of a breath agonizingly drawn into choked lungs. " Tom," said Mrs. Barnes. " Father, dear." Dan heard no answer, but answer of some sort there must have been, for she went on : " Here's Danny come all the way from New York to see you." The first thought that flashed into Dan's head was a wonder at the habit of well persons to address ill adults as if they were sick children. The next was rather a realization of the imperative: a realization that now, at last, he must turn round. He turned. He advanced. Old Tom had been his son's tower of strength. He had been erect and tall. He had been assertive, determined, proud. He had been a masterful figure in his town and the master in his house. He had been the protector of his wife, and the tyrant, though latterly the beneficent and distant tyrant, of his son. And all that was only a few days since. Now, in spite of the dimmed gas-flame, Dan saw that these things were past. Tom Barnes lay on the big black walnut bed in which Dan had been brought into the world. The figure was rigid; the face upturned; the knotted hands outstretched, empty, and strangely unoccupied, upon a coverlet that clung with frightful fidelity to that which was beneath it. " Father! "-said Dan, and came closer. Tom's cheeks were warmed by a dusky flush. His chin-beard, grown white, rose and fell grotesquely with each shallow gasp. His lips were livid, and above the upper lip a gray stubble was sprouting. 346 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE His nose jutted from the emaciated flesh, abnormally large. Beneath matted hair, touched, as if by frost, his hazel eyes were dull and staring, fixed upon the full shape of that thought which neither Dan nor Mrs. Barnes had dared fully to utter. The young man remembered many things. He remembered awkward tendernesses given him in his childhood; he remembered long forgotten benefits; he remembered his recent anger at the refusal of a loan. " Pop ! " he sobbed; " O Pop ! " and sat upon the edge of the bed. Tom's hand trembled on the coverlet. He tried to speak, but was interrupted by a low cough seem- ingly unable to accomplish its purpose. Mrs. Barnes leaned, from one side of the bed, Dan from the other. " Yes, yes," they said. Tom made another effort. " Mother," he gasped in a voice that was un- familiar, '" those bottles One finger was raised just enough to indicate the table with its burden of medicines. " It isn't time for a dose yet," said Mrs. Barnes. " I know but " the lifelong passion for orderli- ness was strong upon him " they ain't straight. Fix 'em straight please." For the moment, but for the moment only, some- thing of the old situation was re-established. The husband had ordered; the wife obeyed. Tom's eyes turned slowly to his son. " Well, Dan," he said. Dan scarcely dared to look up. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 347 " I'm I'm sorry you're so sick," said Dan. " Don't bother about that," the father gasped. " I want to say somethin' to you to say somethin'." " Now? " Dan fell under that spell of the sick- room which commands the living to guard the agoniz- ing spark against extinction. " Perhaps to-morrow when you're better " I won't be better to-morrow. No, sir." " But you're so sick just now, pop." " I ain't sick," whispered Tom, gnawing his under lip. " I'm dyin'. Just wore out, that's all. The machine's wore out." His voice was slow and difficult, but his breath was a little easier, and, when Dan would have deprecated, he went doggedly on: " Don't interrupt. I been proud o' you, Dan. I want you to get on. You haven't written none about how you're gettin' on, 'cept that loan. How are you gettin' on, Danny? " The son turned his face away and swallowed. " Fine," said he. There was a brief pause in which Tom collected his feeble energy. " That's good," he at last resumed. " Good. I want you to think over about takin' charge o' the store. Will you ?" There was wistfulness in his voice. " I'll think it over," said Dan. " That's all I want, Dan: I want that you should think over it. It's a good business. I built it, an' I know. If they was some young blood in It You mind what I said to you once about chance of a big combination? " Dan nodded. 348 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " Well, if you could interest some New York capital " But Mrs. Barnes had returned as if from re- arranging the medicine bottles. She wiped the pa- tient's forehead with a firm hand. " You mustn't talk so much," she commanded. In either her touch or her tone, there was a sug- gestion to which her master succumbed. " But, mother " he pleaded. " Not now," she said. 5. Although Tom remained broad awake, Mrs. Barnes and her son sat still, or, when they rose, walked on tiptoe. Dan looked at the bottles. He tried to decipher their labels, but the light was poor and his eyes un- certain. He gave it up. He crossed to his mother. He urged her to go to bed, but she would not. He told her that he could do all that was to be done, but she refused. He said that the maid could be wakened to share the watch with him; but Sarah Barnes elected to remain with her husband. So Dan took a chair beside his mother, his elbows on his thighs and his hands hanging loosely between his long legs. He was not thinking; he was waiting. He realized how horrible it was that he should be waiting. After a time he wished to whisper a ques- tion, but his voice, from disuse, he felt to be un- trustworthy. He cleared his throat. He whispered to Mrs. Barnes. " Has he eaten anything? " " I tried some soup and then some milk," she whispered in reply; " but he couldn't keep 'em down." THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 349 " And poultices? Don't they use poultices?" " I did that, too, at first, for his chest; but the doctor said not to-night." The mention of the physician gave Dan something to attack. " I don't believe he knows much," said Dan. "When will he be back?" " He said at six; sooner, if I telephoned." They fell silent again, listening to the patient's rapid breaths, each one of which was dull and audible. Every now and then Sarah Barnes would walk to the bed and wipe her husband's gray lips with a handkerchief that the spittle stained a rusty brown. For hours this continued, old Tom's sunken eyes now fixed on Dan and now on the approaching figure of Death. Once, at about half-past five o'clock, the sick man spoke again. His pulse was lighter, and his voice more broken. His mind had gone back to his early instruction of Dan; and his fragmentary sen- tences again admonished his son to love of coun- try, to reverence for those who were making that country industrially great, and to imitation of these industrial chieftains. " You can be worth a hundred thousand dollars," he said. " An' the Lord will give thee ' that which thou hast not asked, both riches an' honor : so that so that ' *' His voice quavered. " What's the rest of it? " he asked. " I forget how it goes then. I forget." " Now, that's enough, father," Mrs. Barnes in- terposed. 350 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Had he heard her, Tom would have obeyed, but he was too rapt to hear. " An' you must be good," he continued. " Re- member that Danny." Dan was once more seated on the bed. " Yes, sir," said he. " How are you feeling now, pop?" " The same," his father answered. His voice steadied itself. " I'm all right, son. I'm goin' to Jesus. Yes, sir. I'm not afraid. I'm goin' home." But his under lip must have trembled, for his chin- beard moved spasmodically. Dan, on a quick impulse, bent and kissed the dusky cheeks. Then the custom that bids us hide our emo- tions from the sick asserted itself. " That doctor's late," he said huskily. " I'll just go downstairs and telephone." 6. He did telephone. The telephone, a more or less recent concession to the times, was in the " library," and Dan went there and lit the gas, cast- ing its yellow light over the mural decorations that had, so long ago, been brought from the Front Street house : the embroidered scriptural texts, the certificate of Tom's Grand Army membership, the steel en- gravings of the little Moses in the Nile, Lincoln and the chattel-slave, and William Henry Harrison's Cabinet. Dan called the doctor, brought him from his bed to the other end of the wire, and plied him with questions. The doctor replied indefinitely. Perhaps he had better come at once. He could speak more fully THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 351 then. Yes, from the start there had been a good deal of pleurisy present. When he had first been called in, the patient's temperature was a hundred and five. Oxygen treatment? There were no facilities in Americus. Cause? Well, that was hard to de- termine; there were always many causes. The doc- tor spoke wisely of fatigue and mental depression, and rang off. Dan went upstairs by way of his old room, the room at the window of which there had once shivered a little boy in canton-flannel night-drawers, bathed in moonlight, and asking of the sky a riddle that the sky would not answer. He paused at the window now, and looked out at the gray mist enveloping the earth. He thought how strong and splendid his father had always been: his father, now no longer the master. . . . When Dan returned to the sick-room, it had ceased to be a sick-room : Tom Barnes was dead. XXII THEY buried him in the Barnes plot of the Americus cemetery; the best division of the local burying-ground, which Old Tom, with an earnest eye to the future, had acquired twenty years before. The shop on Elm Avenue was closed, and the clerks attended the services in what The Spy called " a body." They sent a number of white roses tortured, by sundry cruel wires, into a distant likeness to an anchor and labelled: "Our Dear Employer." The Merchants 1 Association sent a broken pillar of violets and two closed carriages full of members that laughed, behind drawn curtains, and, over their ci- gars, told stories of the dead man's shrewdness. There were thirty carriages in all. " An' it was a gran' spectacle," said Freddie Fry, the town loafer and the father of Snagsie, when he came to think it over. "Only I do sometimes wonder yet fer why is it at a funeral, conwention says it ain't quite respectable of a attendant not to try to look like the feller inside the hearse." Freddie had become a little more grizzled, a little more stoop-shouldered than of old. He had ceased to be a Presbyterian and had passed successively through the Reformed and United Brethren faiths until he reached the local sect known by the modest title of the Church of God. Otherwise, he was one of the least unchanged inhabitants that Dan ree'n- countered in Americus. 352 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 353 Dan, however, when Freddie buttonholed him on the street in front of the now shabby Adams Hotel on the day after the funeral, thought that there was no good reason why a man's drunkenness should be his armor against the consequences of insult. " Shut up," said Dan, trying to brush by; "you're drunk, Fry." But Freddie held fast to the lapel of Dan's black coat and blinked his red eyes indignantly. " Course I'm drunk," said Freddie. "What else should I be? But it was a gran' spectacle, anyhow. An', Danny, your pop was a good man still." " Thank you," said Dan. " Now go along, will you please? " " And he'd be a good man yet if he wasn't dead like," persisted Freddie, maintaining as firm a hold on Dan's coat as he kept on the conversation. " Oh, well, that's the way sings go, ain't? Nature wastes nussing, man efferysing: we're more use dead as alive, an' luck's the god o' doctors." " Yes, yes," agreed Dan, ashamed that he should be compelled to listen to a drunkard's opinion of Thomas Barnes. " Now let me get along. I'm busy, Fry." " Not," pursued Fry, swaying rhythmically, " not as I'd say nussing against relitchen still. Relitchen's a good sing, 'specially fer women. Only what most effery feller calls his relitchen is made up o' one sing the feller wants to believe an' the fifty he just has to pretend to. You listen to me, Danny. I got a son o' my own an' I know about relitchen; I've tried all the brands of it, so I ought to. Most men could be Christians if it wasn't fer that there gommandment 354 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE about lovin' their fellers, an' most get what they call Christianity without that." Dan shook himself free. " Oh, go to the devil! " he exclaimed. " No," said Freddie, shaking his touselled head, " I don't belief in worryin' 'bout him. The dread o' damnation is a strong motive fer righteousness, but it's mercenary, an' mercenary's what's wrong with you still." So that was what Americus thought of him, Dan reflected as he swung up the street; and that type of mind represented Americus. He clung to his high memories of the city. How could he ever return to live in the small town? 2. The effect upon him of Tom's death was as strong as the effects of such events always are. That it would also be as brief as the effects of such events usually are upon young manhood he could not, of course, then perceive. He could at first feel nothing but the shock itself. Since the funeral, he had passed most of the time with his silent and now helpless mother. He wanted to console her, and he reflected long upon what a terrible thing his father's death had been for her. He appreciated her years-long dependence and her resulting loneliness. He honestly understood her feel- ings: a part of her life had gone out with her hus- band's, perhaps the most important part; she might well think, so Dan reflected, that she had small rea- son to live. Then it struck him that the really important por- tion of his thoughts about this death had been thus THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 355 far almost wholly in connection with his mother. What of himself? Was the loss less to him? With- out any decrease of grief or of love for his father, he could not but admit that Tom's release necessarily must be a greater bereavement to the wife than to the son. To Dan the loss was tremendous, but it was a loss rather from his past than from his present; it was a loss from his childhood. He recalled that, in the midst of those terrible hours by his father's bed- side he had, for a time, been merely waiting, had been wishing that the fight would end, and that, since recovery was obviously impossible, the sufferer might die quickly. Was it right for a son to wish that? He would not have revealed this wish by questioning an adviser concerning its ethics, but he hoped that he had not been wrong. In anyone else he could have borne to see such suffering, but that his master should so fall that was too much. Always thereafter, when Dan thought of his father, it was either of the father that had been when Dan was a little boy, or else of the father during those last hours in the big black- walnut bed. Indeed, Dan never felt his manhood so decidedly as now. There was no longer in his mind a question of whether or not he had won maturity. Rather he was certain that maturity had been bestowed upon him from without. Thus he came to his decision. He well remem- bered that bis father had wanted him to take over the management of the shop, and his sense of obedi- ence to such a command potently survived from ear- lier days. Nevertheless, his every other instinct re- belled against a return to life and work in Americus. 356 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE His business instinct was able even to argue logic- ally against such a course and, at last, to win the argument. Dan determined to remain faithful to New York. 3. Tom had appointed his lawyer as executor, leaving Dan the interest on one-third of the estate and the rest to the widow, whose portion was to pass to her son upon her death ; but what the estate would amount to there was as yet no telling. In the meantime, Mrs. Barnes, the illness and the funeral over, had relapsed into her lifelong habit of subserviency and leaned nat- urally upon Dan as the nearest male relative of her husband. She therefore readily agreed that the shop should be sold to a firm of Doncaster merchants anx- ious to extend their trade by an Americus branch, but she said that she would not accept his invitation to live with him in New York. " I'm too used to Americus," she explained, " an* I'm kind of afraid of cities, anyhow." "But what will you do?" asked Dan. " This house is too big for you, all alone." " Well, there's your father's second cousin, Cousin Elva, you know. They've just moved here from Five Mile Level. I think I might take a room with them. Besides, Cousin Elva's an invalid. She needs nurs- ing, so I can be kept busy there." "Haven't you had enough of nursing?" Dan in- quired. "No," said his mother; "I think I'd like to be kept busy, an' right here in Americus where I've al- ways been and where I can see people I know." So she offered for rent the large gray house in THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 357 Oak Street, and went to live with the cousin, and, when the time came for Dan's departure, she stroked his hand in a furtive manner; told him, with a low- ered glance, to be a good boy, and bade him good-by. And Dan went back to New York and was without work. 4. "I don't know what I'm going to do," he said to the first acquaintance that he met there. " I'm out of a job." " Get one," said the acquaintance. Obviously, to follow this advice was necessary. Dan could not go into business with the young man of the brilliant waistcoats until the requisite capital was forthcoming, and Dan would have no capital until his father's estate was settled. He reviewed his predicament, decided at last that Harold Richardson was the only person upon whom he could lay any part of the blame, and insisted that Harold supply the remedy. " You got me into this," he said when, in Harold's law-office in the suburban country-town, he had stated his case; " if it hadn't been for you, I'd never have had that trouble with Silverstone. Now I think it's up to you to help me out." Harold good-naturedly admitted his sense of ob- ligation. " I see," said he: " I've permitted the lamb to be shorn and nt)w I'll have to get busy and temper the wind. Is that it?" " That's it," Dan agreed. " Hum. I wonder Wait a minute. Give me twenty-four hours. There's the Immutable Life 358 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE Insurance Company. The governor once had a nar- row escape from being elected a director there. Would you mind trying your hand at insurance, just for a fill-in?" Dan did not mind, and in a short time he was trying his hand. Anybody, he found, could get a place in the business of soliciting insurance, but the anybodies worked on a commission basis only, ^whereas, Mr. Richardson at Harold's request having vouched for Dan's energy, efficiency, and impecca- bility, Dan was granted an agent's contract with a small assured salary for six months' time and all such commissions as he could earn over the amount of his wage. In a tall building on Broadway, he had what was called desk-room, which consisted of a few feet of space in a bare apartment, where there were rows and rows of roll-topped desks and swivel-chairs, all so close together that you could not pull out the arm of your desk without moving your chair and could not move your chair without hitting the desk of the man behind you. Here you appeared in the morning, if you so wished, and hither you returned as occasion required. The rest of the day you called on " pros- pects " and explained, to people that did not want to listen, the sort of policy that you thought it would be best for you for them to buy. Thus Dan. He began well. Once more clean in body and alert of mind, he gave his whole heart to the work. Fig- ures had always been easy to him, and he mastered readily the lessons that, in his Saturday classes for instruction, this General Agent of the Immutable had elected to expound. Dan unraveled the mystery of THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 359 "futures"; he mastered long actuaries' tables; he came to understand the nature of " good risks " and " bad " and the horrid certainty of the mortality- calculations ; he fixed clearly in mind all the details and data of a wide variety of policies and the advan- tages of his own company over all competitors. Moreover, he had made, while with O'Neill & Silver- stone, acquaintances that it was now no great matter to approach. His difficulty was his slowness of speech, but that did not stand in his way wiui per- sons that already knew him ; and it was not until after he had exhausted the acquaintanceship of his broker- age days that he began to feel this impedi- ment. For some time he was almost happy. He saw a distant chance of laying aside enough money to start in some business for himself, though not before the settlement of his father's estate. He called often on Judith, and their friendship deepened. 5. One day he was surprised to see the thin figure of Twigg leaving the room into which appli- cants were taken for a physical examination much as candidates are prepared for initiation into a fra- ternity, " applicants " being the term used to describe those who have been wheedled into signing their names to an application for insurance. Dan walked up to the man that had so outrageously overcharged him for medical service. " Hello," he said threateningly, " are you taking out a policy? " Twigg shrank away. His granular eyelids blinked rapidly. 360 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " No," he answered. " I'm working here. I've just been made one of the company's physicians." u What?" Dan could scarcely believe this. " How did they ever come to take you on? " There was a distinct change in the fellow's manner: his old bravado was not there. " Mr. Fry, Mr. Lysander G. Fry, your friend, you know he got me the place." "Fry? How?" " I believe he has some interests with some of the officers." Dan ran a cold eye over this intruder. " I don't know what the company's coming to," he said, precisely as if he were himself an officer, and one of long service. Thereat Twigg surrendered unconditionally. He led the way to the nearest barroom and, while he drank from a glass that shook in his bony hand, told the miserable story of his present condition. The wife that he adored had at last succeeded in ruining him. That accomplished, she secured a di- vorce and an order for heavy alimony. The abject man had lost his practice through the publicity given his domestic troubles; he needed every cent that he could contrive to procure, and the position with the Immutable was his last chance. He begged Dan not to speak ill of him in the office. It was evident that the doctor still loved his wife, and this love touched the younger man even while he despised its victim. Dan had one of those bursts of boyish enthusiasm that were becoming more and more rare in him. " Don't say another word about it," he com- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 361 manded. " I understand. I understand why you gouged me. It's all right. And I'll send some of my applications to you. I'll throw everything I can your way." The only manner in which to learn to like a man is to help him. That way Dan now followed, and Twigg was almost grovelingly grateful. Within a fortnight, the pair had formed a casual friend- ship. 6. It was this friendship that provoked, though indirectly, Dan's first real quarrel with Judith. She had seen him and Twigg together. She asked the former about the latter and received a reply that was sufficiently frank to reveal the facts of Twigg's career and sufficiently restrained to withhold Dan's part therein. " I don't like him," said Judith. She was seated, that evening, on the decrepit sofa in the parlor of her lodging-house, with Dan facing her from a degenerate chair. " You don't know him," said Dan. " I know what you tell me about him," Judith countered, " and I know that if you make asso- ciates of meaner souls and smaller minds than your own, you can expect nothing in return except an influ- ence that will degrade your own soul and narrow your own mind." " Oh, I don't pretend Twigg is anything very fine " began Dan. " I should hope not," she interjected. " If he were a school-teacher, he would whip only the smaller boys." 362 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " But he's doing the decent thing by his wife," Dan concluded. " How do you know that? " asked Judith. " He told me so himself." "He did?" Judith gave rein to laughter. She said, just then, no other word, but her mirth, the something close to scorn in her brown eyes, said a great deal for her. It seemed to say: " You accept his testimony for that. You take the word of the most prejudiced witness, and you call no other wit- nesses. The wife is always right and the husband always wrong. You are making a fool of yourself by your romantic devotion to a man that values you only because of the business that you can bring him." It was a little thing. Even if Dan's interpretation of her manner were the correct one, it was scarcely worthy a serious disagreement; but it touched him on what was at that time his tenderest point. He had long thought that Judith's newspaper work had given her a more intimate knowledge of the world than that he gained from his own experience. For months this had been to him one of her great charms. But now he was changed. Now his father's death had enforced upon him the secure sense of his maturity and worldly wisdom. Jrle was proud of these acquisitions; he had displayed them grandly in her presence; and here she was mocking him for a lack of precisely those qualities which he had thought he so supremely possessed. " Don't laugh that way," he said, sharply. "Why not? "she asked. " Because I don't like it." Judith laughed again. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 363 " Stop it, I say ! " commanded Dan. He rose. " You treat me as if I was a child." " That's just it : you are a child." Her words were not meant to be unkind, but they were barbed arrows in his heart. " I am three years older than you are," he said. " In years, yes; but in everything else I have a handicap that equals a decade." He turned on her. " Then you oughtn't to have," he declared. " No woman ought to have the point of view that you have." " And no man," said Judith, calmly, " ought to grow to your age and be so ignorant of the world." " I'm not so ignorant as you think I am." " Yes, you are. As a matter of fact, you are pro- foundly ignorant. You're altogether unable to take care of yourself." " At any rate, I haven't asked you to take care of me. I can choose my friends for myself." He spoke the more bitterly because he had just realized that, until a few minutes before, he was al- most ready to ask this woman to share his life and, implicitly, to protect him. Judith, however, took him with a seriousness that was as strong as his anger. " If you will think that over," she said, " you will see that 'it's a mistake. You aren't able properly to choose your friends." " Then perhaps I made a mistake when I chose you!" " Perhaps you did. Don't be foolish, Dan. A 364 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE man can need a guardian and still be delightful. Your ignorance is not altogether your own fault; it is the fault of your bringing up. You're not to blame; your parents are." That, in the circumstances, was the last word needed. Still feeling keenly his father's death, Dan detected in her words a slur upon Old Tom's mem- ory. He walked across the room to her, his hands deep in his trousers' pockets, his lips twitching. " Do you know," he inquired, u that I was just be- ginning to think I was in love with you? " She sat quite still upon the sofa, looking up at him. Her arms were outspread, and her fingers traced fig- ures in the cloth. A wiser man than Dan would have understood the quick alteration in her manner, the message of her wide-eyed silence. But Dan read none of these signs. " Well, I was beginning to think it," he resumed; " and now you've shown me how near I came to being bossed for all the rest of my life." He intended that this should annoy her, and it did. Judith laughed. " I told you that you were ignorant," she said. " Here you have been going about assuming that I would take charge of you. All you would have had to do was to ask me, I suppose? " Dan bit his lip and turned away. " Good-by," he said. " Really," continued Judith, disregarding his adieu, " if I did marry, Dan, it would be to some- body at least my own age." " Good-by," repeated Dan. He did not look back. He essayed a dignified THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 365 exit, and nearly struck his head on the edge of the open door. 7. We are apt to condone our sins by an appeal to the theory that temptation is sent us only in our moments of weakness: the Devil is a consolatory in- vention. The truth, however, is that the tempta- tion is always at hand, but that we will not take it up until we feel so inclined or persuade our- selves that we are forced to it. There is, therefore, no satanic strategy by which to account for what im- mediately happened to Dan. He left Judith's boarding-house in a rage of re- bellion against her. In that rage he passed the two days following : a child ; a child ; that she should think him a child! It was in the same rage that, on the third evening, he fell in with Harold at a restau- rant. Young Richardson was seated at a table set for three persons. He looked bored. " Hello," said Dan. " How are you ? " " Feeling like the typical Britisher," Harold an- swered. " You know: 'Lovely day, ain't it? Let's go out and kill something.' " " Well," Dan said, " I'm not a grouse. Don't kill me." " I won't. I don't want to. I want to kill the people that I've asked here to dine. You know the man. It's your old college chum, Peter Asche." " And you asked him here? " " I had to ask him somewhere: I owe him more money. The only thing that softens him is his wife. She wants to get into Society out our way, where they 366 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE live. I'm supposed to be a pillar of Society. And so you see? " " No, I don't. How is it going to get her into Society to have her here? " " It's not. But I couldn't have her at home: that would give my people what mother's New England cousins call conniption-fits. So I have her here. Be- sides, since she thinks it will help, nobody's harmed." " I didn't know Asche had a wife." " He has more wife than anything else. She's really not bad in a knock-you-down sort of way. Wait till you see her. And, say, I wish you'd dine with us. They're late now and they're sure to stay till all hours, and perhaps if you were here you could break up the party before ten o'clock and give me a chance to get 'round to Madge's club." Dan had nothing worse to do, so he accepted. He sat at a place that the waiter laid for him and was presently given a chance to see the money-lender's wife. She entered the door alone; but she was the sort of woman whose entrance immediately attracts the fluttering ministrations of surrounding attendants. By the time that Harold had hurried up to her, with Dan following, she was being conducted by the head- waiter, flanked by two of his lieutenants in the char- acter of outriders and followed by two or three pri- vates from the ranks. A large woman, full of sweeping curves, Nina Asche had long since acquired exactly the air of grandeur to which she had aspired. Her ermine cloak hung open over an evening gown of black with , splashes of red and a corsage cut so low upon her THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 367 swelling white breast that Dan was at first afraid to look at it. Her face, under auburn hair, was pink and white, but at once passionate and determined; her lips were damp and vividly red, and in her blue eyes little lamps seemed to be burning. She pos- sessed, above all, the air of having regally rid herself of that modesty which Balzac calls " the modesty of the body." She did not walk, she glided, and yet she successfully concealed the fact that her apparent languor was real activity. 1 This is awfully jolly," averred Harold, as he pressed the jeweled hand that she extended to him. " Have you run away and left Mr. Asche at home? " To his amazement, she placidly replied in the af- firmative. " Yes," she said, " I have. Just at the last minute, Peter got one of those attacks of his and so of course he couldn't come. I knew that, if I telephoned you, you would call the dinner off " " Never, if I thought there was a chance of getting you here alone, Mrs. Asche." " That's nice of you. Anyhow, I just let Peter persuade me to come by myself." Harold was not the host to show amazement. " I'm no end glad," he said, and presented Dan. Nina put out her hand, and Dan, overcome by her radiance, thought that he had never yet felt a pres- sure half so sweet as that which followed. All through the dinner, he sat looking at her with honest admiration in his eyes. He could not, for a long time, speak. He could not, for a long time, take his glance from the turn of her cheek, the delicate arch of her brows, 368 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE and the damp redness of her bow-shaped lips; and then, as the champagne tingled in his veins, he could not cease looking at her graceful neck, her shoulders, her moving breasts. The wine that tingled in his veins brightened his cheeks and tipped his tongue and made him some- thing pleasant to this woman's regard. She assumed that he was a member of Harold's particular set and that it would serve her as well to bewitch him as to charm Harold. She felt, besides, a hint of the scorn that lurked in the younger Richardson's too ornate politeness, but Dan's sincere adoration she did not once doubt. He was, besides, a broad-shouldered, upright, deep-chested example of humanity, and he made thereby a direct appeal. She talked to him, she smiled at him; she leaned toward him until the edge of her corsage touched the edge of her wineglass. She let him plainly understand that she liked him. And she did like him. Harold, anxious to get away, soon saw the current of events. Being a person of resource, he slipped, unobserved, a note to the waiter who, in obedience to its orders, soon approached with a mes- sage to the effect that Harold's family physician wanted him at the telephone. " I'm so sorry," complained Harold, when he re- turned to the table. " My little sister Lucile has had a rather serious seizure of some sort, and that was a message calling me home." They expressed their regret and made as if to rise. " But don't do that," Harold protested. " I feel badly enough about all this; don't add to it by making me feel that I've quite spoiled the end of your even- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 369 ing. Mrs. Asche, won't you tell Mr. Barnes that he must play the host in my absence? " Nina turned her head toward Dan; her eyes met his. For just an instant her lids drooped softly over the lighted pupils. " She scarcely has to urge me to do that," said Dan, and, a few minutes later, found himself, with Harold gone, filling the role that his companion had resigned to him. At Nina's invitation, he moved his chair closer to hers. " I'm sorry Richardson's sister is sick," said Dan, blushing at his own audacity; " but I'm not sorry he has gone." He raised his glass. ' Touch," said Nina, raising hers. They touched glasses. " I'm sorry," she said, holding her glass against his, " that my husband is sick, but I'm not sorry that he is not here." They drank. Dan was thinking: "I have never seen so wonderful a creature. She is like what the wives of captains of industry must be, and yet she is only the wife of a money- lender! I wish I had money. I could fall in love with her and get her away from her husband then the thief! Ignorant girls like Irma aren't safe. Street-girls like Cora aren't safe. I "wonder how about married women? I'm not so bad; I'm just like other men, and I know it. This woman likes me. She must be ten years older than I am. That's thir- teen older than Judith. This woman knows more 370 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE about the world than Judith'll ever know and yet this woman likes me." They drank a great deal. Nina frowned and puck- ered her red lips and intimated that she was un- happy with her husband because he was too old for her. Dan explained that he was not in Harold's set, but soon would be, and added that he, too, was not altogether happy. They decided to take a motor- ride through Central Park. .They got into the motor. Dan sat close to his exuberant companion, who did not retreat. The roomy, smooth-rolling motor brought them into the darkness of the Park. The great emotions are democratic. An angry lady is an angry fishwife, and a passionate gentleman is a passionate stevedore. Dan's hand fell upon Nina's. She clutched it. His free arm surrounded her. Their lips met. XXIII IT was one of those affairs which, on the part of the man concerned, are foredoomed to brevity. Nina Asche, an ambitious woman and an unsat- isfied wife, had gone into it without premeditation; she pursued it because she found in it some few of the many things that she did not have at home: she was fired by Dan's adoration and made drunk by the virile devotion that, like a spendthrift, he lavished upon a woman bound to a busy husband greatly her senior. But Dan had been impelled by his training and by the pain of that wound which Judith had in- flicted upon his pride : when the novelty of the situa- tion wore away, it was certain that the wound would heal. This consummation came about within a fort- night. On a Thursday, when Asche had gone to Chicago, Nina came into New York and passed three nights with Dan at the Henri Quatre, one of the many hotels designed for such excursionists, where this pair regis- tered as " Mr. and Mrs. Jabez Wilson." Peter having arranged to return home on the following Sunday evening, Nina planned to precede him by half a day. When, at noon, the breakfast dishes had been takerf from the bedroom, she spent some time in making a careful toilette and then put her arms about Dan's neck and kissed him feverishly. " Good-by," she said. " You won't forget me, will you? " 372 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE The midday sun poured through the unshaded window and beat upon her. It was an unfair test for a woman of her age after three such nights as she had passed in that room. She looked a little hag- gard; she showed more years than she had known. Her lips were dry. The lines from her nose to the corners of her mouth shone through the powder that had just been placed above them. So did the purple marks beneath her now dulled eyes, and the crows'- feet at the corners. Dan had just been struggling with a collar that, for the sake of appearances, he had turned inside out and that evinced a tendency to spring free of its button every time he buttoned it. Her caress once more set the collar flying. " Look out! " he said brusquely. " Do you want me to go downstairs barenecked? " Her eyes filled : he had long since conquered her. " Excuse me," she said. u I didn't mean " She ended in a sob. " Oh, there you go ! " he said. " I wasn't trying to hurt your feelings." He put his hand under her chin and kissed her. " Why won't you be sensible? I just didn't want to give you away by coming down- stairs looking like a man that's slept all night in a barroom." " Then why why didn't you bring enough col- lars? " she moaned. " I did; but when you knocked over the cham- pagne on the bureau last night you spoiled the last good one. Now, don't worry any more, dear. Be- sides, we'll meet again inside of a month or so. Come on, or you'll miss your train." THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 373 2. The streets, when he left her, were full of sunshine and full of people coming home from church. The sunshine made the streets seem very clean and the people in their Sunday clothes ap- peared immaculate in body and soul. Dan felt soiled and miserable. He was unshaven ; his clothes needed pressing, and he was sure that his collar betrayed the trick that he had played with it. He had drunk a little more than he needed last even- ing. His hands were parched and his head ached. All his senses had their memories, and his eyes kept recalling Nina as she appeared when he awoke, that morning and found her sleeping beside him. He went to his boarding-house and lay on the bed in the second-floor room that he was now occupying. When he had opened the door, the Sunday paper greeted him, and he read in it the story of a husband who had, with an ax, split open the head of his wife and his wife's lover. Dan endured unpleasant thoughts. Suppose Peter Asche should learn of this affair? He might easily learn of it. Indeed, if Dan tried to break with Nina, she might, for sheer revenge, herself inform her hus- band. Asche might be one of the shooting sort. Or he might begin a suit for divorce. He would at least have Dan dismissed from the Immutable. Dan reflected that for years he had been skating on ice that was dangerously thin. There had been Irma : she had come close to ending him. There had been the girl, whoever she was, that drove him to the quacks. There was Cora, who might yet return to plague him. And now, here was this dissipated wife of a money-lender, this woman ten years his senior 1 374 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE What was it that impelled him toward these gins? His parents had been clean-lived, God-fearing people. He convinced himself that he was possessed of a devil. He got up at last and bathed and shaved. He realized that he had not been to church since the day of his father's funeral. He put on the frock- coat and silk hat in which he had recently invested. He took that symbol of the Sabbatical pose, a Sun- day walking-stick, and at once felt more righteous. He would go to church. He dined at a restaurant where he surprised the waiter that habitually served him by refusing all drink save an aerated water. Without sonic alcohol he could scarcely choke the dinner down his throat, but choke it he did, and when he had left the place he entered the first church that lay in his random course. It was an evangelical church, and the preacher, who was a sallow man with lanthorn-jaws and yellow teeth, was already in the midst of his sermon. He spoke from a text that recurred frequently in the course of his address : " I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons which need no re- pentance." The sermon, it appeared, was an appeal for funds for a mission that this church was conducting on the Bowery, and it depicted, with a crude poignancy, the condition of the wretches for whose spiritual welfare this mission had been established. It showed their poverty, the ignorance that resulted from their pov- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 375 erty, and the crime that was born of their empty bellies and their darkened minds. Dan listened to it all with much sympathy, but, sorry as he was for the Bowery's human scrap-heap, he reflected that its component parts had never, after all, been used to much better conditions than those in which they now found themselves. He was still so young and his life so narrow that it seemed to him that these Ishmaelites of the distant Bowery, being born to suffering, could not be so sensitive to hardship as men more gently reared. His own trouble filled his mental foreground, and only once, when the preacher made a more general application of the parable of the lost sheep, did he feel a twinge. The sermon ended, there was a brief prayer, dur- ing which the men in the congregation leaned their elbows on their knees, their heads in their hands, and the women carefully rested their foreheads on the backs of the pews in front of them in order not to disarrange their hats. Then followed the collection, while a soprano voice from the choir sang a plaintive hymn. The words of that hymn did not at once impress Dan; he was moved only by its emotional minor chords; but before the first stanza had ended, the import of the text was clear to him: " My mother's hand is on my brow; Her gentle voice is pleading now. . . ,-.i O mother, when I think of thee, 'Tis but a step to Calvary." Words and music awoke in Dan precisely the bitter-sweet feeling that he had come to the church 376 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE at once wanting and dreading. He sat through the last hymn, unable to determine whether he liked it or not. " And now," said the minister, before the bene- diction, " we are going to have a short after-meeting; just a short after-meeting for those who are interested in bringing souls to Christ and such of you here as have not yet come to Christ, but take an interest in the eternal welfare of your souls. I know that it is impossible for some of you to stay, but I will ask those who can't stay to move out as quietly as may be." When the benediction had been delivered a great many persons rose and walked down the aisle beside the pew in which Dan was sitting. Dan wanted to join them, but he felt a delicacy about leaving in what seemed really the middle of the service, so he hesitated until it was too late to go without attract- ing especial attention. Then the minister, in a quiet voice, began to follow another line of attack. " This is a goodly gathering," he said. " I wonder if it is also a Godly one. I can see we are all in bodily comfort, but I wonder if we are all spiritually sound. After all, the body lasts but a short time, remember, and the soul lives or dies forever. Are there any here that know not Jesus? " He paused and looked thoughtfully over his audi- ence. There was no breath of reply. " I know how hard ft is to answer that question," he presently resumed; " and I know that most of us consider ourselves Christians. But are we really Christians?^ Have we always stood up for Jesus? THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 377 Have we never forgotten the Saviour or been ashamed to own Him? " There was still no response. " It takes courage to be a Christian," the minister continued; " sometimes it takes great courage. Have we all had that at all times? I will begin more broadly and put another question : will all who are not Christians please rise? " Another pause. A slight rustling. The awkward rising of one or two persons and the furtive turning of the eyes of all the other persons upon those who had risen. Dan looked and saw standing a well-dressed man, another man in a shabby coat, and a bedraggled woman. He had a strong impulse to rise, but he scolded his folly and remained seated. ;< Thank you," the minister went on. " I thank you. That will do." The persons that had risen sat down. " And now," said the minister, " about the rest of us. These people who are not Christians have not been afraid to rise. Shall we be less brave? What about those of us who have been Christians, but who have forgotten it ? Have none of us, brought up in righteous homes, ever failed to follow in our parents 7 footsteps? Have we never been trapped by the useless and unprofitable pleasures of life; by ex- cessive card-playing and dancing^and such tfnngs? Have none of us? Remember the brightly-lighted cafes and the wine and the worse faults that grow out of patronizing places of that sort. I ask those who have been Christians and have stumbled and fallen by the wayside to remember that Jesus can cleanse 378 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE them and keep firm their feet if they will but repent. I ask them to be as brave as these who were not Christians have been, and to stand up in acknowledg- ment of the fact and in request for prayers for them- selves." Again the pause, the glances, and the rising of several persons, each loath to be the first. Dan felt his legs move as if they would raise him. He held the back of the pew. " Is that all?" asked the minister. "Are there in this church to-night no wandering sons? I ask you all to bow your heads in silent prayer and then, while none will look at them, those who want our fellowship and help will walk forward und take these front seats. Come now : nobody will look and no- body will criticise." His voice rose. " You have only to acknowledge Christ and Him crucified! " he declared. " Are there no young men here to-night who have wandered from the faith they learned at their mothers' knees? " The voice stopped. A silence followed: the tense silence of mute prayer. Dan felt that the minister's eyes had singled him out. Then a woman's voice, thin and quavering, be- gan the refrain: " Where is my wandering boy to-night? Where is my wandering boy? " Dan heard feet going up the aisle: one pair, two pairs, half a dozen. The hypnotism of the moment seized him. He seemed to see his father's coffin; he seemed to see his mother as she used to be THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 379 when she tucked him into bed at night; even as she must be now, at Cousin Elva's in Americus. His face was wet with sweat. He stood up, strode to the aisle, hesitated, and then bolted toward the door. A sleek-haired usher tried, well-meaningly, to stop him and head him back. " Let me go," said Dan; " I'm sick." He reached the street. " I might have gone up there! " he panted. " If I had waited a minute longer, I would have gone up there." He did not turn back when he remembered that he had left his Sabbatical cane in the church. 3. He did little work during the next day. He was thinking over what had happened to him. How largely the change in him was due merely to a passing physical reaction he did not at all com- prehend; painfully aware only of the effect, he as- sumed that the cause was spiritual. Had he thor- oughly believed in the creed of his father, he would have called this change a conviction of sin. Did he not believe? He was uncertain. At Mad- ison-and-Adams College he had fancied that he did not. Since that time, he had simply not thought much about the matter. Of a few things he was, however, sure. He re- membered ^that he had become a Christian when he was still a boy; but he could not now submit to the ordeal of a confession of his backsliding. His pride of a man who was one day to be a financial success was too great to bear the public avowal of guilt, the open expression of deep personal emotion; and the 380 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE secretiveness into which he had been forced in child- hood would not permit him ever to answer those piercingly intimate questions which, he was aware, a minister privately directed at those who came to him for spiritual encouragement. Yet, in his present state, Dan knew that something was wrong with him. What was it? The answer was obvious: his stumbling block was Woman. It was useless for him, in this period of reaction, to argue that he had but done what most men do. If there was to be consolation in that thought, he must convince himself that what most men do is at least not wrong, and to this mental attitude he dared not yet return. Nor could he, on the other hand, assure himself that he would resist temptation. There appeared to be only one safe course : he must legiti- matize his inclinations. At that, the thought of Judith came to him, and no sooner had it come than the lust of the flesh, as he understood the term, vanished, and left in its place what he took to be pure romance. The thought of her, he immediately declared, had never really de- serted him. Here was not only purity that would purify him; here was his old ideal. He remembered their boy and girl companionship, inextricably interwoven with a time when he was so Fhiuch less soiled than he now was that he appeared, in the retrospect, spotless. He remembered her on her way from school. He remembered her, bare- foot, tramping the dusty country roads beside him. He remembered again their evening on the Susque- hanna when the moonlight danced above the water THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 381 and the liquid waste from the furnace shone red against the distant hills. How could he then have let her go? How could he now have failed to see how good and yet how broad she was, and how sym- pathetically understanding and forgiving. His mind's eye saw her fine face. It saw her full figure as she now was; her eager lips; the color that, with argu- ment, came into her dusky cheek. It recalled little details : how the hair curled upon her neck and how the long lashes touched her cheek. She had been twilight and dawn and youth to him; she had been romance, music, tenderness. She was again ; and these things he needed now more than he had once needed them. Dan was in love. He had been foolish to quarrel with her, but he felt certain of her pardon. That was much. Yet did she care enough for him to marry him? He doubted it, and he knew that, if he was ever to go into busi- ness for himself, he must not marry until he should know how much he might count on from his father's estate. 4. Still, the next best thing to finding is seek- ing, and Dan, in the few days following, saw much of Judith. What did he say to her? There is none so stupid as the man that wants to woo and dares not: after she had fojgiven him for his quarrel with her, Dan's conversation was compact of .sly advances and head- long retreats. He was lured by the chasm of avowal. He would crawl up to it, a step at a time; he would gingerly stretch his neck over the edge; and then he would draw back in dismay. 382 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " Do you remember the time we ran a race? " he ; one evening asked her. They were in the parlor of her lodging-house and she was adjusting her hat and gloves before they started for the theater. " I remember that I won it," she said. " Only because I hurt my foot," said Dan. " I won on a fair trial. That was the first time we ever spoke to each other, wasn't it, Judith? " " I think so; but you had been staring at me for days and days." " Oh, yes; but you had been staring at me, too." " Had I? Then it was not because I thought you handsome; be sure of that." "What did you think of me?" She smiled. She seemed very happy during this period of their association. " I suppose you thought me spindle-legged, and I was," she said. " I didn't think it, and you weren't ! " " Indeed I was; and as for you Shall I tell you what most impressed me about you? " " Do." " You're sure you want to hear? " " Please." " The thing that most forcibly struck me about you was the fascinating hole that had been left by the exit of one of your milk-teeth." "Not at all," said iDan. "That's impossible. You've got me mixed with a younger rival. I had all of my second teeth ever and ever so long before that time." THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 383 " Have you got your wisdom-teeth now? " she in- quired. Dan was approaching the edge of the chasm. " I must have had them that evening when we rowed out to the island," said he. " I mean the evening just after I'd graduated from the high-school. You know the one I mean." " Yes," said Judith. "Why?" " Because because I wanted to tell you that I loved you." She was pulling down the fingers of a glove. She gave him a quick brown glance; then returned her attention to her glove. " You had a narrow escape," she said. " What from? " asked Dan. She was still busy with the glove. " From being accepted, I suppose, and drawn into a runaway marriage." " Well," said Dan, his eyes on her lowered head and on the mounting color in the bit of her cheek that was revealed to him, " would that have been so bad?" " For two children? " she took him up. " For a boy and girl?" Having secured the glove, she re, garded the result. " Besides," she said, " even among grown people, nobody marries that has a sense of humor." By which speech Dan was again made aware of his danger and ran away from the chasm. XXIV SPEECH intoxicates, but thought sobers, and Dan soon had occasion for some sobering thought: his father's estate was at last settled, and the settlement displayed a woeful shrinkage of values. What, as Dan reflected, had once happened to the Kents, had now happened to the Barneses. It was shown that the shop in Elm Avenue had for several years been running at a loss, which ate much of its owner's capital, and the Doncaster firm bought it for an insignificant sum. Indeed, that the father could have hoped that Dan might reestablish the business disclosed how Tom's mind had weakened with his body. Mr. Barnes had owned several houses in Americus, but in Americus houses stood empty by the score, and many of Tom's were occupied by noth- ing but mortgages secured during the declining days of the shop. There remained some bonds of a fixed value, some mildly fluctuating stock, and the rent from the place in Oak Street. These, together with the money received for the shop, were enough to as- sure Mrs. Barnes a comfortable living in a town like Americus; but Dan felt that he must help her from his share and there was nothing left on which he could afford to marry. This opposition seemed unsurmountable. It could, at all events, be surmounted only by the changing fortunes of time, and because it was so great Dan rebelled the more strongly against it. 384 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 385 2. On an evening in June he was walking w'ith Judith in Central Park. He spoEe in wide circles, yet in circles that slowly narrowed toward the center about which his mind now constantly revolved. He spoke of everything but the thing of which she prob- ably wanted him to speak; too long and too much of insurance and its statistics, of their acquaintances, of nothing. They had dined at Madge's club, the guests of Madge and Harold, where the two men were, as usual, the butts of their companions. For some time after Judith and Dan entered the Park, they con- tinued the conversation of the hosts that they had left behind them. " I don't see why you so object to all my opin- ions," said Dan. Judith sighed the sigh of the baffled apostle. " In that case," she rejoined, " every word that I have uttered for the past half-hour has been thrown away." "It's not that," said Dan; " it's that you make me feel we can never get along together." " But we do get along," said Judith. " I thought that we got along quite splendidly. Differing opin- ions are the firmest foundation for real friendship." She was dressed in a suit of golden brown, the jacket open to the fresh evening breeze. The color set off to their best advantage her tinged cheeks, her brilliant eyes, and the luxury of her wonderful hair. " Friendship ! " cried Dan, scornfully. " Why," Judith supplemented, " if we hadn't dif- fering opinions to quarrel over, you and I, what should we find to talk about? " 386 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE " Oh," said Dan, in whom her beauty wrought a divine impatience, " you know what I mean." Apparently, however, she did not. " What do you mean? " she challenged. " I mean " Dan saw the wraith of his slim pocketbook and brought up short. Then he looked at her again, and again approached the great sub- ject. " Are you happy the way you're living now? " " How could I be? I am living in a boarding- house. I like privacy, and in a boarding-house everyone's avocation is the effort to discover all about one's house-mates. You ought to know by this time how thoroughly I believe in everyone's right to guard his individuality against trespass." He did know. So far as his own case was con- cerned, he approved. Yet he recollected something that he had, at dinner, observed in the relation be- tween Madge and Harold. " Madge and Harold don't seem to agree with you," said Dan. " They seem to keep nothing from each other." " Dan," Judith answered, " those two are bound to be happy because they so well understand each other that they can keep everything from each other." " Oh, come now," protested Dan, " Madge keeps nothing from anybody! " " For the good reason that she has nothing to keep; and Harold understands it." " But Harold doesn't tell her anything about him- self that he thinks would worry her." " For the good reason that she has guessed it all already; and Harold understands that. His truth- fulness is an attribute ; hers was acquired." THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 387 They walked on in silence, while the night deep- ened and the lamps came out. Dan trembled from the current of that impulse which was shooting through his veins. He loved her, and yet he felt hopelessly unworthy of her. He wanted her to know all the wrong that he had done before he should tell her that he loved her. More than once she had prevented him from confessing his errors, but he was not sure that the sweeping assump- tions with which she used to stop him really implied the knowledge of his misdeeds that he desired her to have. She must know the worst of him, partly that he might be protected against any evil gossip of his earlier life that might later arise, and partly, that he might be sure that what she loved was not some image of her own making, but his real self. She must know the worst of him and then, from her holy, clear- seeing purity, forgive him all. " Listen, Judith," he presently said: " I don't know what's the right and wrong of your ideas of a per- son's individuality, but I want you to understand all about me. I want you to understand that I've been pretty free." There was a touch of impatience in her voice as she answered : " But I do understand that. I have understood it ever since we met again here in New York." " In a general way, perhaps you have; but do you know exactly what it all means? " " Of course I know; I know life." " You wouldn't think the less of me if you ever heard heard things? " N " The only new things that I could hear would be 3 88 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE names and dates. Good and evil aren't a question of names and dates." " But I've been evil, Judith." They had reached a bench on a little knoll over- looking a clearing. Through the treetops beyond the clearing the moon was rising. They sat on the bench. " No," said Judith, " I don't think that you have been evil." " I have ! " he miserably insisted. " Foolish, perhaps," said Judith; " ignorant. But your foolishness and your ignorance were the fault of those who started you wrong. Most of us were started wrong: once we learn better, we don't have to keep on in our folly." " Do you mean," he asked, " that you don't think these things I've done are wrong wrong in them- selves?" She crossed a knee and clasped her hands about it. She spoke as one speaks that instructs a child. " I mean," she answered, " that we all make too much of the thing that you are talking about. It wasn't always considered a wrong. It was not con- sidered a wrong until individuals began to have in- dividual property, and each individual wanted to leave his property to his own child. Then it became wrong for a man's wife to run the risk of having a child the identity of whose father she couldn't be certain of. In the same way, it became wrong for her husband to put another man's wife in the position where she would be uncertain. This set a value on what we now call fidelity, and fidelity gradually put a value on virginity in unmarried women. Now, by a natural growth, the tendency is to set the same THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 389 value on virginity in unmarried men. I don't say that those values are mistaken; I say only that they are exaggerated. " It was precisely such a theory as he had for so long wanted to hear set forth. It was exactly the argument to which the entire training of his child- hood, opposed to this, had, by the silence of its op- position, shaped him and made him amenable. Here was no spiritual abjectness such as would be required by the church. Here was no need for the shamed baring of his inmost recollections. Here were logic and free salvation ; here were at once the saving of his pride and the salving of his conscience; here was the door of escape. " But suppose," he said, bringing forward his last doubt " suppose a fellow wanted to marry? " " People's pasts," said Judith, " belong to the peo- ple themselves. All our time is ours to give, so that, at most, the only persons that can share our pasts are the persons that actually did share them. If you divided your past with other persons, you have no right to take back your gift; you have no right to hand the past over to the person you mean to marry." " But the future? " asked Dan. "That must be like all the rest of our time: it belongs to whatever person we give it to. If a man and woman marry, they agree to share their futures so long as they are married. If they agree on what is called fidelity, they must be faithful. They have a claim on each other's present and future, but they can't have a claim on each other's pasts." To steady. himself, Dan tried to light a cigarette, 390 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE but his hand shook and the match was extinguished. He threw both match and cigarette away. " Then if a man wanted to marry you," he said. " you wouldn't want to know " I should have no right to know." " But wouldn't you want to? " " I should know in a general way, because I know the world; but the details I shouldn't want to know." He wet his lips and, in the pause that ensued, beheld again the wraith of his small means. Mar- riage would impose poverty; it would mean failure. There was something in Judith that he could not account for, but that drew him to her as the magnet draws the steel. There was in her a quality that was the inevitable complement of the quality long since made most dominant in him. What it was he did not know and, because he did not know, he struggled against it a little longer. For a time he tried to talk of other things; but always the talk turned toward the thing that was as plain as if spread on the clearing at their feet. He advanced and retreated. He came toward it from one direction, fell back, and then came toward it from another. At last, and apropos of nothing, he rushed upon it. " Judith," he asked, " what just what do you think of me? " " I think," she smiled, " that you are a young man of whom something better than a mere business suc- cess might still be made." "Not that," said Dan; "I mean, what do you think of me for what I've done? " " I have told you. Such things are partly the fault THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 391 of our nature, if you consider it a fault; partly the fault of our finances, and partly the fault of our up- bringing. Nowadays it is the custom to bring up children wrongly. I'm sure I was brought up wrongly." He looked into her splendidly sympathetic eyes. " You ? " he laughed. " Well, scarcely ! " ' Yes, I was. I am quite in earnest about that." " At any rate," said Dan, " you have the goodness not to want to know all about all the women that I have had to do with." She put her hand upon his quivering arm. "Listen," she said; "I have been made love " Of course you have," he interrupted, as he drank her beauty. " But is there any reason," she persisted, " why I should tell any other man, even the man that I married, all about that? " " Oh, but," he objected, " that's different! " " It is not," she insisted. " If it is right for the wife to know all about her husband, it is right for the husband to know all about his wife. What sort of affairs the man's were, or what sort the woman's were, wouldn't matter: if one should know, so should the other. Only, you see, I am quite certain that, be- yond a general knowledge, neither has any rights." It was more of that logic which most appealed to him. He' was certain that she was right, that the difference between being loved as she had been and seeking women as he had sought them was, when it came to confessions between a pair that were to marry, of equal unimportance. But that she, who was 392 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE so pure, should see this, filled him with a sacred won- der, a tender awe, of her. " Well," he gulped, " if you wouldn't want a full confession from the man you were to marry, what would you want of him? " She looked up, her brown eyes calm. The moon had cleared the treetops; its light lay on the grass like snow, and Dan could see every quiver of her wist- ful face. " I should want/' she said slowly, " to know only that the man I married would, from the day he mar- ried me, be my man." His arm had slipped along the back of the bench behind her, but he dared not yet touch her. He dared only to lean closer and lower his face toward hers. " Judith," he said, " that's what I'll be and that's what I brought you out here to say, I guess : only, until now, I hadn't got up my nerve to say it." She turned her face away from him, but in her throat a single pulse visibly rose and fell. " I I love you, Judith," he whispered hoarsely, and waited for an infinite minute. At last she spoke, her face still turned away. " We are very much alike, after all, you and I," she said. But Dan thought of his sins. " Don't pretend that you are like me! " he pleaded. " I am," she answered. She turned and gave him the full glory of her face. " You see, I love you, too." His arm closed about her, and their lips touched. " We'll be poor," he said presently. THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 393 " As if that mattered," said Judith. " And you said that nobody with a sense of humor ever married, Judith." " You never had one, dear, and I lost mine when you kissed me. Kiss me again." She put her face to his, and then : " I think I am a strong woman now," she said, " though I have sometimes been lonely, and yet, strong or weak, a man needs a woman and a woman a man. Will will you be good to me, Dan? " And Dan seized her in his arms and lightly and gratefully took the vow. They were certainly in love, for they were silent and did not know that they were silent, while all the while, shut from them by only a frail barrier of trees, throbbed the City: death and birth, success and fail- ure, struggle upon struggle; electric hurry on the street, over the street, under the street; rushing men and women straining from somewhere to somewhere ; jostling people, crying venders; rattling carts, rattling wagons; cabs and motors; motion and unrest forever and endless. XXV THERE was to be no delay. Dan, deeply in love, anxious. for the complete attainment of^ his old ideals and urged by his new realization of the direction in which his moral safety lay, was turned from his usual observance of convention: he would not hear of a long engagement, and Judith at last agreed to his plans. They would marry as soon as they could prepare for marriage, and they could prepare within a month. This they decided upon after what seemed to them a properly lengthy con- sideration : they considered the question for fully half an hour. Dan, though in no mind for postponement, did not forget economics. He would be by no means well- to-do, but, even taking into account the cessation of his salary, there remained the facts, demonstrable to himself, that he was becoming a good insurance-so- licitor, and that immediate commissions and already secured " futures " should adequately suffice for their present everyday support. Then trouble arose from a quarter from which Dan had expected none : Judith insisted that she would, of course, continue her newspaper-work. " Of course you won't ! " flashed Dan. " But I will," she protested. " It never occurred to me that you would object to that." " And it never occurred to me," said her lover, " that you'd want to do it" 394 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 395 " I must do it." Dan's face darkened. " I know," he sullenly began, " that I'm not offer- ing you much of a home " " Oh, that's not it!" She put an interrupting hand upon his. " That's not it at all. If you were rich, I would still expect to earn my own living." '* That's nonsense," said Dan. " It's right," said Judith. He had, from his many talks with her, a dim vision of her point of view, but he brought out his great argument: " What would people think? " She looked at him, her face upturned, her eyes wistful. " Do you care about that? " she asked. " We have to." " No, dear, it's what we think that matters. We must be doing what we think is right." " Well, I don't think this is, Judith." " But I do think so. You wouldn't try to force me to act against my convictions, would you? " " Would you force me to act against mine?" They fought it out. He told her that a woman's place is in the home, and she told him that, in any event, her place was not in the home until the home developed enough duties to keep her busy there. He argued that his friends would think ill of him, and she replied that friends who would think ill of him for such a cause were not worth having. He ap- pealed to her love for him, and she appealed to his love for her. And in the end, Judith won. " All right," Dan reluctantly conceded, for he was 396 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE very much in love, " we'll try it for a while anyhow." In his heart he was saying: " With all her wisdom, this dear girl is just like other girls about whatever is a hobby. Other girls' hobbies would be directly opposed to Judith's, but every girl holds tight to one hobby or another. They've never really outgrown their dolls. They're just babies grown big. Judith shall have her way for a while. I can grant that, because, soon enough, she'll of course have a real baby of our own to take care of, and even she won't have any doubts about where her duty lies then." 2. When he had left her that night at her boarding-house door, and was walking to his lodgings through the lights and crowd of Broadway, he thought of her with a joyful pride; and he thought without regret of his now necessarily discarded plans for a great financial triumph. He remembered how he had felt about the City. He remembered how he had wanted to be a part of it and to conquer it. He remembered how he had regarded it as the real school of life, the battle-field on which he must somehow win his spurs ; the market- place wherein he would achieve success and acquire " means." Well, all that was over. Fortune might still some day be as favorable to him in the matter of money as it now was in the matter of love; but he knew that he was assuming responsibilities certain heavily to handicap him in any struggle in which luck should be against him. Allowing for Judith's ability to support herself for a short while, he knew that her self-sup- THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 397 port must end when children began, and he wanted children. Nothing but the unexpected would ever make him a rich man. He had been taught to win his own way, to deserve commercial respect, to choke all grumbling in his throat, to be obedient to author- ity and to reverence it; and he now saw that, though he might obey all these teachings, he could scarcely hope to reach the destination to which he had been assured that they would infalliby lead. Yet he was able to put aside all his old ideals of gaining wealth. A woman had made this possible. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror that stood at the back of a lighted shop-window. " This," he thought, " is the man that Judith Kent \s going to marry." He had seen a large-framed, upstanding, broad- shouldered man, dressed in a manner scrupulously " correct," with a good-natured face that gave no hint of the degraded soul that its owner had some- times thought directed him. His eyes were blue and his hair brown. His manner was the manner of his age and his environment. Dan was like any one of hundreds of the men about him. Once more he comforted himself with the thought that, if he had been through much, he had, after all, been through no more than most of his fel- lows. During his long bondage to Cora and his brief infatuation for Nina Asche, he had felt himself ex- alted above the common experience of mankind, be- lieved his sensations different, considered them worthy of exceptions to the hard and fast rules. An average man, who would live his life and die his death as unnoticed as another, it had nevertheless not occurred 398 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE to him that any of the young fellows whom he knew could then feel as he felt, that Peter Asche, or Gideon Giddey, or Mr. O'Neill could ever in the past have been what he then was. But now love gave him a clearer vision, albeit still imperfect. Horrid as were his early habits, sordid as were his intimacies with Irma, with the girls of the street, even absurd as had seemed his attachment to Pauline Riggs, he saw them all as but the experiences common to his sex. He recalled that it was Judith's calm wisdom that had confirmed him in this belief; he loved her the more because of this wisdom, and he decided that, whatever his past had been, it was at last ended. He had done with it. If he had been wrong, he had also been punished, the debt was paid. It was as if there were dawning for him a wonderful new life, un- troubled, secure. He had won his heart's clean de- sire and he was about to " settle down." That sense of loss which he had suffered after the long-ago evening with Irma in the yard behind the Doreamus house in Americus had never been alto- gether absent; but now it left him. His earlier dreams were all returned. He saw that, throughout his life, he had wanted a " good " woman. He did not understand the double tyranny of his training that had made his mind want purity and his body want purity's antithesis : that key to the entire secret of his existence was neither now nor later vouch- safed him. But he recalled his boyish ideals; he recalled how, throughout his schoolboy-lusts in Amer- icus, the thought of Judith had remained aloof from his lower desires and above them; he recalled how he had, years later, felt Judith's almost occult appeal THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 399 to him before his silly quarrel with her about Twigg, and, in a flash which told him that her appeal lay in her combined goodness and broad-mindedness, he now again thanked God for her. 3. Certain mental states are as readily trans- mitted as the most readily transmissible physical dis- eases, and this condition of Dan's mind affected Harold, long predisposed, even before Dan had thor- oughly awakened to his own state. On the very even- ing when Dan and Judith, after the dinner at the club, were having their portentous conversation in Central Park, Harold, walking slowly home with Madge, was dangerously approaching a similar con- versation with his companion. "Those two," said he, thus lucidly referring to the pair that had just been his guests, " are going to conclude the world-without-end bargain." " You mean," asked Madge, " that they will marry? " " Quick," said Harold. He looked thoughtfully at the sky. " And plenty," he presently added. "Well?" said Madge. Harold did not reply. " Do you approve? " she inquired. " Of course." " I thought you never cared much about Judith." " Oh," Harold laughed, " that was because she never cared much about me." " Does she care much about you now?" Madge pressed. " Now," said Harold, " doesn't much matter. You see, you've done a lot for me, and among other 400 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE things you've made it possible for me to discern that a woman can be fine even if she fails to appreciate a rising young lawyer of Lawnhurst." For the instant Madge caught his mood: "Any woman?" " Almost any woman," Harold rapidly amended. Then he doubled on his track. " Do you approve of the match, Madge? " "I? It's not my affair." " Nor mine; and yet you asked my opinion." " Well, then yes. But with all his good nature and sincerity, Dan is terribly fixed in his fundamental ideas. I don't see how he is ever to change them. Still, Judith sees him with such glowing eyes and she can forgive so much." "That's all well enough; but what about Judith's fixed opinions? " " Judith is splendid." " Right. So you do approve of the marriage? " " Yes. Why do you persist about it? " " Because," smiled Harold, snapping the trap that he had set for her, "you once intimated to me that you didn't approve of any marriage at all." Madge's bow-shaped mouth trembled with amuse- ment. " I was speaking generally," she said. " You were speaking," said Harold, " of yourself." He looked at her squarely. " You were speaking of us." She met him with her direct gray gaze. " We should never agree on any subject in the world." But he refused that. [ v THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 401 " We would/' he declared. " I'd agree to any- thing. The fact that you believed in a thing would be proof enough for me of its truth and value." " Do you think that an agreement based on such grounds could be worth while?" she asked. " You must agree because the thing is right and not because I think it is right." " Even " he put it to her frankly " about the formality of a wedding? " She took the hand that hung at his side. " Listen," she said: " we are still both very young; we are still both a good deal younger than Judith and the man she loves. We must grow and we must know each other better. Wait. We must wait for a few years; and then, if each turns out to be what the other wants " " And then," asked Harold, tremendously insistent for a man that, a moment since, was promising mental obedience, " about that formality? " " Well, then," sighed Madge, " it wouldn't be fair of me not to make some concession to your opinions, would it? " 4. And the disease called Love continued in the air. Judith sought out Madge and told of the ap- proaching wedding, and Madge replied by her account of Harold's suit and how they had decided to wait with the firm hope of such an ending as Judith and Dan had found. Madge told about Harold's first ad- vances, of their struggle of hearts through the en- suing time, of the clash of their differing training, and of the attempt that they were now to make to remedy the mistakes of the past. Judith described 402 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE her childhood romance with Dan, her later loneliness, her joy at meeting again her former playmate; and she told how Dan and she had finally found, under the incrustations that the years had left, the old sym- pathy, the old understanding, and, broadened, deep- ened, and glorified, the old love. 5. It was decided that Judith's wedding should take place, quietly, in the Giddey flat to which, pen- sioned now by his former employers, Gideon was al- most wholly confined. Judith's uncle Billy that uncle with whom Dan had once seen the scarlet Mildred Maynard had died within the year, and her brother, this uncle's namesake, was her only surviving immedi- ate relative ; but the brother was with his regiment in the Philippines, so that none of her near kin could be present when she should cease to be Judith Kent and become Mrs. Daniel Webster Barnes. Dan, for his part, wanted nobody there from Americus, save his mother, and he wrote of his engagement as none can write except an engaged son describing his sweet- heart to a mother whom he loves. Mrs. Barnes replied by two letters and a wedding present. The wedding present was a set of soft woollen blankets and the silver knives, forks, and spoons that the employees of the Elm Avenue shop had presented to Tom Barnes when he celebrated his silver wedding anniversary. The letter to Judith was careful, restrained, affectionate, and that to Dan was restrained and sweet. So at last Dan took a two weeks' leave of absence from the Immutable Insurance Company, and went at once to Americus, and brought his timid mother back THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 403 with him within twenty-four hours, her luggage con- sisting of an old valise and a sewing-bag, and finally presented himself at the Giddey flat ready for the ceremony, with Mrs. Barnes upon his arm and pride and happiness in his heart. If the conventional man can at times rise above his unconventional brother in unconventionality, so can that brother, when he gives his heart to it, be more conventional than convention. Thus Giddey, who disapproved of weddings, wheedled into making an exception in favor of this one, bolted, for one day, the entire conventional code. The little parlor was hung with smilax, arranged under his personal super- vision; white roses were strewn over the tops of the bookcases; a green canopy had been built for the ceremony before those shelves that held their owner's best loved and most radical volumes, including the " Immoralite du Manage " and all of Havelock El- lis' great work that had then been published. Gid- eon, having long ago forgiven Dan's desertion of him, had presented Judith and Dan with a cherished copy of Kropotkin's " Conquest of Bread," with pen- cil annotations in his own hand, and, having passed the night in getting his books back into their places, he had, that morning, not paused to consult and leave scattered more than a dozen or fifteen. Now, in a flicker of returned vigor, but deafer than ever, he pottered ceaselessly about the suite. His bald head gleamed; his sharp eyes peered; the pointed wisps of gray hair above his ears seemed to quiver with benevolent excitement. He wore a white waist- coat, which he had forgotten to finish buttoning; it seemed possible for him completely to revolve inside 4 o 4 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE his clothes without moving those garments, and he dodged almost nimbly, making voluble comments in a shrill voice, from the small room in which Madge was dressing Judith, to that in which the wedding- breakfast was being prepared, and thence to the front door to welcome the guests. Of these there were not many. First, if guest he may be called, came a clergyman, to whose offices Judith had been persuaded to consent out of deference to the prejudices of Mrs. Barnes. Then, portly and platitudinous, Mr. Edward Quimby Richardson, pre- ceded the day before by a silver fish-set, accompanied now by his Louis Philippe whiskers and his unvary- ing carnation, but not followed by his wife, who could scarcely have been expected. On the heels of these came two or three men from O'Neill & Silver- stone's and the Immutable Insurance Company, all stiff in their manner and loose in their allusions; sev- eral reporters, easy men and women, from Judith's paper, and some of the members of Madge's club, who were doing their best to appear reconciled to the occasion. Since his venture in Suburban Traction, Dan had not renewed his friendship with Lysander Fry, and so Snagsie's presence ha^l not been so much as suggested. Twigg, it had been decided, should not be asked. Harold, in a frock-coat that he seemed to have been born in, his cheeks flushed and his eyes bright, hurried down the hall, knocked at Madge's door, and called that dark and grave young person from her attentions to Jduith. " I say," he whispered, " I've got the greatest scheme ! Nobody's ever done it before not once ! " THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 405 " What," asked Madge, " are you talking about? " He explained. Dan and Judith were to leave the house in a cab, and Harold had devised an ingenious contrivance that, attached to the rear axle of the cab, would ring a bar from the Mendelssohn Wedding March with every revolution of the wheels. But the announcement of Harold's plan made it Madge's turn to flush, and she flushed with anger. " Don't dare to attach that to the carriage," she ordered. " Eh? " gasped Harold. His face fell. " Oh, all right," he reluctantly granted, " if you feel that way about it. I suppose you think it foolish." " I think it immoral," Madge retorted, and re- tired again to Judith. 6. Mrs. Barnes, the thin fingers of her large hands intertwining nervously, hovered in the library, now replying, in tones so low that he never heard her, to salutations flung her by the ever-passing Giddey, and between whiles trying to keep up a frightened conversation with the patronizing Mr. Richardson. She looked frail, but almost beautiful, in a rustling black silk dress and a bit of old lace at her thin throat, her gray hair brushed smooth, patient submission fill- ing her faded blue eyes. She was speaking when she fancied that she had to speak, and she was thinking of another wedding, long ago. Presently Madge, her olive cheeks still flushed, came into the parlor, and led Mrs. Barnes thence to the room where Judith, in a quiet traveling suit, waited with her face a little pale and her brown eyes serious. 4 o6 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE They had met on the arrival of Dan's mother in New York, but now, as then, the older woman ad- vanced and put her hesitant arms about the girl that was to marry Danny Barnes. They kissed. " I was just remembering my own wedding," said Mrs. Barnes, " an' then I come to think of your mother's, Judith. ... It was close after mine . . . an' they both seem a long time ago. Your mother was a beautiful bride, dear." Judith's eyes dimmed. " You are very kind," she answered. " An' you were always a nice little girl," said Sarah Barnes. " An' now you look like such a good woman. You'll you will " She blushed and hesitated like a schoolgirl. " Yes," said Judith, understandingly. " I will be good to him. I will." The old lady bent her head. " Thank you," she said. " That was what He he's all I got left. An' he always was such a well-behaved boy, an' we tried to bring him up right." 7. In Gideon's bedroom, Harold was pulling at Dan's arm. "Come on! Come on, now!" he said. "The seconds are all in the ring, and the referee is wait- ing." Dan, dressed with scrupulous correctness, stood before the miniature mirror, bestowing, for the tenth time, the last touches to his tie. " Yes, yes," he said ; " that's all right. I'm ready." " Then come on." " I will, in a second. Is this tie all right? " THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 407 " It's perfect. Come on, now." " And you're sure that tailor hasn't made this corn- founded frock-coat too tight between the shoulders? " " Sure I'm sure." " I gave you that return ticket for mother? " 4 Yes. I'll go with her as far as Philadelphia and see her safe on the Doncaster train." " All right. You have the ring? " ' You've asked me that before ! It's here in my waistcoat pocket. Come along to the sacrifice and good luck! " Harold dragged Dan forth, brought him into the library, and planted him before the minister, under the improvised bower, facing the radical volumes and between the rows of smiling guests. Then this best- man drew to one side, and the entire company waited, Dan white with expectancy, Harold pink from his exertions. 8. It seemed to Dan that he waited for hours. He saw the smirking clerks, the whispering news- paper people. He saw the face of his mother with her anxious eyes. . . . Then, suddenly, Judith stood beside him: Judith straight, gracious, her chin high, the chestnut hair lightly drawn away from her pure forehead, and her big brown eyes sober and sincere. The service had begun. . . . His own responses Dan did not hear; but he heard Judith's firm and true. Only once was there a break in her voice, and that impelled Dan to recollection. He recalled the far-off day when he had sat on a meadow fence-rail with a barefoot girl, and they made 4 o8 THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE a wager of ten coppers against a kiss, and there was that same queer break in her voice when, with wart- marked fingers, he touched her sunburnt hand, and she asked him : " Do do you like me, Dan? " He felt ashamed of his inability to remember who had won the bet. . . . And then, quite suddenly, the service was over. People, grinning people, crowded forward, making inane jokes and offering commonplace congratula- tions. He was standing beside his handsome com- panion, a new air of protection on his broad shoulders, receiving the jokes and the congratulations as neither inane nor commonplace, with a bright light in his blue eyes and a confident smile. Dan was mar- ried. Pressing Judith's hand openly and unashamed it was the first time in his life that he had the right publicly to own to love he took her to the dining- room where the wedding breakfast was served. They sat down. There was champagne. There were even speeches. Mr. Richardson spoke at free length, referring to the wedding as " nuptials," to Dan as " a Benedick," to Judith as " this fair young bride," and concluding with advice to " the happy pair " to remember that a penny saved is a penny earned, and that, as his long and not unsuccessful career had revealed to his satis- faction, the best physicians are Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merryman. Harold followed his father by proposing the health of Mr. and Mrs. Dan Barnes in epigram and drinking it in champagne. And Gid- eon, tottering to his legs, shocked everybody save his THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 409 daughter and Judith, by a general tirade against the whole institution of marriage. Came the moment of departure. Thanks to Madge's efforts, Dan got the luggage safely down- stairs and on the waiting cab. He returned and, clasping Judith's hand, led her to his mother. " Well, mother," he said. " Well, Danny," said his mother. " I guess we'd better be starting." " I guess you had, Danny." He bent and kissed her soft cheek. Judith kissed her. " What," he asked proudly, " do you think of My Wife?" The little old lady, remembering her husband's plans for his son, trembling from the hurry of this event, from the bustle of the city, and from the mem- ories of her own marriage, was thinking: " I'm sure I don't know what's come over the young folks nowadays. He ought to Ve made a better match in a money way. Still, she's a nice girl, an' Dan's a good man. How could he help bein' ? We certainly brought him up right, Tom an' me. We trained him clean in the way he should go. We did our best. . . . She's a nice girl. But she's not just what I expected. . . . Seems to me people are different from when I was young." But then, realizing the import of her son's ques- tion, Sarafi Barnes looked up at her son's wife. " I'm glad you've married a good woman, Dan," she said. " Your father always wanted you should." 9. They ran down the stairs, Dan and Judith, X 4 io THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE pursued by the shouting clerks and reporters. They got into the cab, under a Niagara of rice and confetti, and Dan banged the door, and they drove away. As the cab bounced through the city streets, he looked at her beside him, tall, brown, and radiant. He remembered again how he had resolved to fight the City and wring gold from its throat. That was over, but he did not care, for he remembered some- thing better: he remembered his first visions of real Love. His secrecies had not touched that secret; the actions that he had considered foul even while he committed them had not soiled it; served, if they af- fected it at all, to make it but the purer and more desirable. Always it had been something so fine and unreal that Judith herself was but the token of it: it was perfection, completion; it stood above the dust and noise of life in the pure air and clean silence. He could not take his eyes from Judith, from the splendid form beside him. Did he deserve her? Yes, somehow he must deserve her. He felt again the something more than he could understand that drew him to her. Yet he was sure of the justice of life. Somehow it must be that he deserved her. " Judith ! " he whispered. She raised her face to his, her eyes wide. " You will be good to me? " she asked, as she had asked it on that night when he first told her that he loved her. " Forever and forever," he swore. 10. That was in the four-wheeler in New York at two o'clock in the afternoon. At ten o'clock that evening in their hotel-room in Boston, Dan was facing THE SENTENCE OF SILENCE 411 his wife with horror on his white lips and hatred in his voice. "What have you been?" he was demanding. " Tell me the truth. By God, don't you dare to lie to me! What have you been?" And Judith, his wife, his mate, was looking up at him with puzzled wonderment and fear. " I thought you knew," she was saying; " I told you; I thought you understood. What have I been? Nothing that you've not been. What right have you to ask?" THE END RETURN CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT TO ^ 202 Main Library LOAN PERIOD 1 HOME USE 2 3 4 5 6 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. 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