, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 

 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN
 
 WHATMAimEK 
 OF MAN 
 
 BY EDNA KENTON 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1903 
 THE BOWEN-MERRILL COMPANY 
 
 MARCH 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 BRAUNWORTH A CO. 
 
 BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 
 
 BROOKLYN. N. Y.
 
 TO MY FATHER 
 
 2229070
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 It was a clear midsummer day. High noon 
 was making havoc of subdued light and shade 
 in Thayer's studio, and his sitter, who had been 
 there since nine o'clock, was growing momently 
 more impatient. 
 
 "You've always said you wanted me to come 
 at the same time for the sake of the same light," 
 she said at length with more than a touch of 
 lazy impertinence, while by a requested turn of 
 her head she exaggerated to hideousness a lurk- 
 ing shadow in the corner of her mouth. "Too 
 far ? Then give me a photographer's prop, and 
 stick me up against it." She moved her head 
 carefully back, however. "What I was going 
 to say," she went on, "was that early morning 
 light is emphatically not noon glare, and I'm 
 worn to fiddle strings." 
 1
 
 Thayer made no reply unless an annoyed con- 
 traction of the brows could be called one. It 
 seemed to content his sitter, however, for she 
 laughed with a sort of tame satisfaction, and 
 then sighed to herself as the warmth of the day 
 pressed more and more upon her. 
 
 In a few minutes Thayer spoke. "That's 
 all," he said absently. Mrs. Davenport rose 
 languidly to the top notch of her magnificent 
 height and undisguisedly "stretched." She hid 
 a slow, lazy yawn in the curve of her elbow, and 
 moved over to a great shadowy window at one 
 end of the studio that end which overlooked the 
 avenue. Beneath the window was a low couch 
 covered with prayer rugs and heaped high with 
 oriental pillows in whose embroideries lay con- 
 cealed from Western eyes all sorts of quaint 
 Eastern proverbs and petitions. She sank care- 
 lessly down on all the mysticism strewn so lav- 
 ishly over the divan, and for a while looked un- 
 seeingly down on the listless travel of a Lon- 
 don summer noon. 
 
 Behind her Kirk Thayer painted with all the 
 tense eagerness that comes with the nearing to 
 completion of some well loved work. At last he
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 bent and wrote his name In thin vermilion let- 
 ters along the lower left-hand corner. 
 
 "Come, Hilda," he called in that aimlessly 
 pitched tone that shows ignorance of the near- 
 ness or farness of the person addressed. "Come, 
 Hilda. It's done, done !" 
 
 He raised himself, and straightened his shoul- 
 ders with a deep-drawn breath. Then he looked 
 about him for his subject. She was coming to 
 him across the floor, her bronze velvet gown mak- 
 ing a rusty shine wherever the light caught it. 
 He turned back to the easel and gave it a quick 
 twist to the left. 
 
 "That's better," he said. "Ah, isn't sKe a 
 raving darling, my Portrait of a Lady ! That 
 neck line, Hilda ! For a little while after I got 
 that I forgot there was a face to follow. And 
 the baffling eyes, and that darling upper lip. 
 That's a trick pure and simple, a dirty, Irish 
 shenanigan trick! That foreshortening to the 
 left does it; makes you look like one of the 
 Furies compressed like baled hay. Ah, you 
 beauty, you beauty!" 
 
 Hilda Davenport stood before Her portrait in 
 silence, trying to crush down the swift anger 
 3
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 that had leaped to life within her at first sight 
 of the finished likeness. That any man should 
 dare to see her so, and so daring, should go fur- 
 ther in his boldness and paint her hidden soul 
 upon a stretch of canvas! For that she was 
 looking on her naked self she did not try to 
 deny. From day to day she had watched the 
 likeness grow, and had caught Thayer's thought 
 of portrayal, but within the last hour some flash 
 of insight must have guided the artist in his final 
 strokes, some insight that had miraculously 
 vitalized the whole conception. 
 
 In its way the portrait was a simple thing. 
 There was no involved pose, no elaborate back- 
 ground, nothing to lure the eye from the face 
 that looked out from the canvas. And in its 
 very simplicity lay the highest demands of art. 
 There was nothing to hide bad drawing, noth- 
 ing that loud-pedaled, or slurred over faults. 
 There was an almost insistent bareness about the 
 whole thing. 
 
 The color note, if there was a color note in 
 
 the monotony of it, was bronze. There was the 
 
 bronze gown that, after all, because it merely 
 
 draped the shoulders and then blended into the 
 
 4
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 background, hardly counted. There was the 
 wonderful bronze hair that was like no other hair 
 that ever crowned a woman's head. There was 
 the bronzy background, remarkable as all of 
 Thayer's backgrounds were. There were the 
 eyes that when all was told made, with the 
 mouth, the portrait. The eyes were bronze, too, 
 for in real life they were chameleon eyes that 
 took on their color from their surroundings. 
 Under ordinary colorless circumstances they 
 were brilliant blue; now from their environment 
 they had topaz gleams in them. From no point 
 of view could the spectator fasten with his eyes 
 the eyes of this pictured woman. From out 
 the bareness of the canvas they looked through 
 and beyond every gazer into the space of an 
 infinite solitude, into the solitude of an infinite 
 woe. 
 
 And the mouth smiled, resolutely, bravely. 
 Something in the drawing of the upper lip, of 
 the spirited nose, suggested a great contempt 
 for the blind folly of the world, a grim humor 
 that had to come with the far-sightedness of the 
 clear-seeing eyes, a humor that the shallow ones 
 call cynicism; yet it was all only a suggestion, 
 5
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 for the many, no sooner come than gone; and 
 what promised to be a great discovery was for 
 the average spectator quickly lost in the haunt- 
 ing loveliness of the smiling lips, and the mys- 
 tery of the great eyes that persistently shunned 
 the gaze of the curious. 
 
 She turned away from it at last with a little 
 shiver. "No one ever before " She stopped 
 abruptly. Thayer turned to her with a remark- 
 able flash in his eyes. 
 
 "Yes !" he said, an exultant thrill in his voice. 
 "It's your living soul that's caught there. Not 
 another man in all the world knows you well 
 enough, even if he had the power," he added 
 with the daring assurance of genius, "to put 
 that look into your eyes, that haunting sob about 
 your mouth. I thank you, my dear, for this 
 that you have given me. And now " he bent 
 toward her eagerly with a sudden tenseness about 
 his eyes. 
 
 Mrs. Davenport laid her firm hand upon his 
 breast and pushed him back from her. 
 
 "I have told you not to mention that to me 
 again," she said. Her lips were smiling, but 
 there was a look in her eyes that removed her
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 remark from the realm of trivialities. She 
 turned back to the portrait. 
 
 "I don't want to tell you yet what I think of 
 all this," she said with a queer gravity that she 
 could not explain to herself. "When am I to 
 have it?" 
 
 Thayer was screwing up his eyes at the paint- 
 ing. "When are you to have it?" he repeated 
 absently. "Oh, not for a year or two; not be- 
 fore it's exhibited, and that won't be till next 
 spring. It's aching hard to wait." 
 
 Mrs. Davenport stared sadly at her painted 
 presentment. "It's too real," she said at last 
 with almost a tremble in her voice. "I am won- 
 dering if I give you my consent to show it." 
 
 "Most of our contemporaries on this delight- 
 ful earth are muttonheads, Hilda," said Thayer 
 cheerfully. "They will be lost in the 'tone,' 
 the 'symphonic color key,' the 'chiaroscuro'! 
 Scarcely one of them will see beyond the layers 
 of visible paint." Then he took her forcibly 
 away to another part of the room. 
 
 "How do you care for that interior as far as it 
 goes?" he asked briefly. 
 
 They were standing before a large canvas, 
 7
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 unfinished. Hilda looked with great interest at 
 the sketchcd-in plot. Thayer's whole manner 
 underwent a subtile change. His assurance 
 changed to pleading. His hand fairly shook as 
 he struck at one spot on the canvas. 
 
 "There's where my high light comes," he said 
 nervously. "I wake any time in the night and 
 wonder about it, whether I can get her figure 
 vigorous enough against this or that. I put 
 in dark here and light there. I scraped it all 
 out dozens of times and went at it again before 
 a drop of paint went on the real canvas. Three 
 nights ago I got to the point of absolutely clear 
 conception on the whole thing. All I need now 
 is my model, Hilda." Thayer's voice had an 
 eager thrill in it. 
 
 Mrs. Davenport stooped for her length of 
 velvet train. "I really must be going," she said 
 lightly with a conventionality so palpable that 
 the next moment she laughed. "My dear Kirk, 
 don't make me think you are still at that stage 
 where you can cry wildly and unappeasedly for 
 the green cheese of the fickle moon. You aren't 
 ready for your model anyhow. Wait ; perhaps 
 you will run across her when you least expect it. 
 8
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 And by the way," she motioned toward the 
 completed portrait, "since this lady is out of 
 the way, you and I are both at liberty some days 
 sooner than we thought we'd be. If the 
 Frenches and Captain Osbourne and the rest can 
 start just as well day after to-morrow, why can't 
 we be on the high seas then instead of hanging 
 about London a week for nothing?" 
 
 "I presume we can," said Thayer almost sulk- 
 ily as he rolled his canvas back against the wall, 
 and put out of possible harm's way his just fin- 
 ished picture. Mrs. Davenport laughed at his 
 petulance. 
 
 "You make me think of all the children I ever 
 knew rolled into one," she said as she slipped her 
 arm within his and drew him toward the door. 
 "Come now. In just a few days I shall give 
 you views that will turn your brain; color that 
 will make your reason totter on its dainty throne, 
 if all that Mr. Davenport has told me of this 
 strange North Sea be true ; and then, when you 
 see some new wild beauty and a mass of color 
 that is unearthly, let's call it quits." 
 
 "I don't know a crazier scheme in the universe 
 than this one of yours," volunteered Thayer 
 9
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 with somewhat brutal frankness as they went 
 downstairs. "What on earth should you choose 
 to take this trip for when you have the Mediter- 
 ranean, the " 
 
 "The Mediterranean has been sailed over till 
 it's worn smooth," she retorted. "I want new 
 things, and one can't find them by following the 
 bell-wether of the worldly flock. Ever since 
 Harry went on that madcap chase up north 
 I've wanted to go, too ; and now I am going, and 
 if you care to you may come along. If you 
 don't" 
 
 "The crazy part of your scheme is not the 
 North Sea," he answered her half irritably. 
 Thayer was always worn out mentally and phys- 
 ically upon the completion of any important 
 work. "It's that beggarly island, with a lot 
 of beggarly beggars on it. Who ever heard of 
 the place or the man you want to see !" 
 
 "My husband." Mrs. Davenport made an- 
 swer with a tilt to her head and a Hit to her 
 voice. "You are inviting a broil when you 
 speak so of his greatest hero." She stopped 
 near a side corridor on the floor below. "I wish 
 you would have my carriage for me in a quarter 
 10
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 of an hour," she said briefly. "Tell Hughes he 
 may carry down this gown in a few minutes." 
 Then she disappeared. 
 
 Ten minutes later she came down to where 
 Thayer stood waiting for her. She had changed 
 her gown for a street suit of brown cloth, and 
 she was drawing on her gloves as she came up 
 to him. 
 
 "You didn't think I was displeased, Kirk?" 
 she asked with a simple directness that was a 
 part of her complexity. "The likeness is like 
 a search-light." She shivered slightly. "It is 
 only that no one ever before it is uncanny!" 
 She finished with a thrill of emotion in her voice 
 that made Thayer stare at her curiously. Then 
 he laughed. 
 
 "You strange, strange thing," he murmured. 
 "Strange to all the world but me! I know you 
 through and through, and if it is to be a contest 
 of wills between us before you sit for me again, 
 so be it!" He hurled a great red rose at her 
 with startling directness, and stood off laughing 
 at her. All of a sudden his anger and petulance 
 against her had died down. But her mood had 
 changed, too. She did not stoop to take up the 
 11
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 challenge. The softness in her eyes went away, 
 and she only laughed with an indifference that 
 was stirless. 
 
 "You grow melodramatic, Kirk," she said. 
 "You need to brush up on what makes the dif- 
 ference between cheap and real effects. Now if 
 you had handed me that lovely rose, I should 
 have pinned it on my breast and worn it dream- 
 ingly home. But instead you bruise it for 
 what?" 
 
 He took her down to her carriage and put 
 her into it with all the absorbed tenderness that 
 characterized him when with a woman. 
 
 "If it is possible to rush it through we shall 
 sail day after to-morrow," she called to him 
 after the last good by. Thayer nodded hap- 
 pily.
 
 Far out to sea, off the wild, rocky coast of 
 Sutherlandshire, there lies a small storm-beaten 
 island which to itself owns no sway of English 
 kings. Britain's monarchs have come and gone 
 for many centuries, but royal court mournings 
 have meant less than nothing to this handful of 
 peasants who live out their simple lives and die 
 their stoical deaths regardless of events that 
 plunge into mingled joy and sorrow the crowded 
 London marts: "The king is dead, long live 
 the king !" 
 
 Theoretically Rohan Island, Eilean Rohan 
 according to native nomenclature, belongs to the 
 British crown. Practically it lies to itself in 
 the fog of the sea, with its gigantic moat of 
 raging waters ever about it, and by its dreariness 
 and inaccessibility escaping interference from 
 crown or crown officer. Few Englishmen com- 
 paratively have ever heard of Eilean Rohan. 
 Fewer still have ever set foot on its rocky shore ; 
 13
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 for the channel crossing is always dangerous, 
 and Skerra, the nearest point whence a boat can 
 reach the island, is at the extreme north of Scot- 
 land, a drive of ten miles from Tongue. 
 
 There is enough in the preliminaries of 
 travel to discourage the most ardent of tour- 
 ists, and after all is said and done and the 
 treacherous waters are safely crossed, what does 
 the island offer? A few miles of rocky ground ; 
 a tribe of dark-skinned, dark-browed folk, re- 
 sentful of intrusion, simple and primitive in 
 thought and manner, and literally wresting from 
 the air and the earth and the fleeing sea their 
 daily sustenance. No cathedrals, no dwellings 
 built for any purpose other than to afford shel- 
 ter and to withstand the fury of the North Sea 
 winds ; nothing to entice, much to repel. Small 
 wonder that the Rohan folk have lived without 
 interference from and in ignorance of the world 
 beyond tHe stretch of endless sea fog. 
 
 Eilean Rohan lies in a waste of water. On 
 clear days, and they come but seldom, the 
 bleak coast of northern Scotland may be seen to 
 the south of it, but always through a haze of 
 violet or ruddy gold. About it rushes with end- 
 14
 
 WHAT MANNER OP MAN 
 
 less flow and murmuring sob the chameleon sea 
 with its green and its blue and its purple and 
 grays. Moment after moment, day after day, 
 it dashes its smoky spray against the rock girth 
 of the island, and there, baffled and bereft mo- 
 mentarily of the mighty impetus that pushed it 
 thither, it sinks down as the smoke of a passing 
 steamer dies away on the horizon. 
 
 But when storms come, and they are not too 
 seldom, then from one end of the island to the 
 other roars the sea. Like a mighty maddened 
 god it crashes against the natural barricade of 
 cliffs, and hisses and shrieks and bellows in fury. 
 Then are nights of terror ; terror for the women 
 in the low cottages on the island, terror for the 
 men abroad in the sturdy fishing smacks. Too 
 often with the morning's light, swept in from 
 the engulfing sea along with the tiny fish that 
 strew the shores comes the pale, soaked body of 
 many a Rohan man, primitive in life and in 
 death the same. 
 
 But on a sunny day Eilean Rohan is pleasant 
 
 to see, for then the sky is as blue as ever Italy 
 
 can boast, and its sea can be as rippling in its 
 
 calm as the waters that lave the shores of sunny 
 
 15
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 France. Then the color of sea and sky is some- 
 thing to make the eye of a Philistine and the 
 heart of an artist ache. And as the day goes 
 on and the sun at last drops into the welcoming 
 ocean, the whole spread of isle and waters seems 
 one wondrous jewel stirred softly in its setting 
 of space by some mighty hand, so gloriously do 
 the radiant tones melt and fuse above and within 
 the shifting waters. Only a moment of climac- 
 teric beauty, then the intensity of color grows 
 dull and lusterless, and the night comes out with 
 a rush and the vision is gone. But the seeing 
 eye that has looked upon it never forgets the 
 sight, and for it the color never fades. 
 
 The Eilean folk are not artists. But they 
 are not Philistines. Within them is that love 
 for, that sympathy with Nature and her mys- 
 teries that is denied the child of cities and of 
 courts. The beauty of their island home is not 
 wasted on them, notwithstanding the fact that 
 they have no singers to blare forth its praises, no 
 painter to splash on a square foot of canvas their 
 stretch of sea and color. Deep within their 
 souls, too deep for the daylight glare of speech 
 and protestation, lies their appreciation of Na- 
 16
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 ture, her tenderness, her mighty force. Their 
 silent worship is seen only in the uprightness 
 of their lives, in the valor of their sons, the honor 
 of their daughters. And their daughters do 
 not lack valor, nor their sons honor. Their 
 code of morals is brief, hardly based on the 
 Golden Rule of Christianity, for they are not a 
 meek people ; nor do they hold meekness in high 
 repute. They would brand a man a coward and 
 disown him as a son if he turned the other 
 cheek. But without preaching they practise 
 honor from man to man, from man to woman; 
 honor from woman to man, and from woman to 
 woman. This is their complete code, and who 
 shall say that, if carried out in its entirety, it is 
 not enough. In nations that for centuries have 
 had the fostering care of priest and church and 
 king and court and culture, how many have 
 succeeded in raising humanity to the level where 
 they give and demand the last two requirements 
 of these island folk ! 
 
 For centuries The Rohans have ruled Eilean 
 
 Rohan. With the passing of the old chiefs 
 
 breath the oldest son has become the father of 
 
 his father's people, the one whom the Rohanites 
 
 17
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 in unwitting treason call their king. It is the 
 patriarchal rule of prehistoric times. In The 
 Rohan's hands is life and death; to him dis- 
 putes are brought and by him they are settled; 
 to him the lovers of the island come for permis- 
 sion to wed, and in all ways he is the good father 
 of his people. 
 
 Ordinarily The Rohan has come to his rule 
 great with age, but with the last change of 
 rulers the grandson, not the son of the ruling 
 king, had taken the old king's place. He had 
 come to his inheritance a mere youth, but for 
 thirty years he had ruled wisely and well over 
 the few hundreds that survived the hardships 
 and dangers of their forefathers. He was a 
 man fifty years of age. 
 
 Two sons he had, stalwart lads, either one of 
 them worthy to take his place when it should 
 know him no more, and one daughter. The 
 mother had died at the girl's birth, and the 
 three men had, almost unaided, brought up the 
 tender little babe to a beautiful maidenhood. At 
 her fifteenth birthday she had formally assumed 
 control of her father's house, and for a year 
 had been in charge of all the household manage- 
 18
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 ment. Old Marget, the woman who had come 
 to the home with The Rohan's bride, was still 
 there; but the daughter of the house was its 
 mistress. 
 
 The Rohan's house stood a little to one side of 
 the group of cottages in the main village that 
 sheltered most of the island's inhabitants. It 
 differed not at all from the prevailing style of 
 architecture, save that it was perhaps a little 
 larger, and its foundations somewhat more solid 
 and imposing-looking by comparison. Its front 
 faced to the south, and the entrance door 
 opened directly upon a large hall that ran the 
 length of the house. From its center a rude 
 stairway rose to what was hardly more than a 
 loft above. The architectural need for low- 
 ness of structure forbade a two-story dwelling, 
 and in the bed-rooms above it was impossible for 
 a full-grown man to stand erect anywhere other 
 than in the center of the room, so sKarply did 
 the roof slope downward. 
 
 On each side were rooms, three in all. The 
 
 main living room of the house was as large as 
 
 the other two combined, being in fact half the 
 
 lower part of the house. It served not only as 
 
 19
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 a living room, but for cooking and dining pur- 
 poses as well. At its northern end a great fire- 
 place yawned whose light on winter evenings 
 did away with the need for candles. Its fuel 
 came from the brine-soaked driftwood of the 
 North Sea, and many a brave ship's mast sank 
 into embers within The Rohan's fireplace. 
 
 In this room and in the hall there was no at- 
 tempt at plastering. The walls and the ceilings 
 were of sturdy oak, darkened by time and wear 
 to a blackness as rare as it was lovely. The nat- 
 ural grain of the wood was its only adornment ; 
 there were no attempts anywhere at carving. 
 A heavy round table near the center of the 
 room was its most prominent furnishing, though 
 rude-built chairs of scant comfort stood about 
 the walls. On the other side of the hall was 
 the room of state, which had no special times of 
 opening and was therefore seldom entered, and 
 back of it was The Rohan's bed-chamber. Above 
 were the several rooms for the rest of the house- 
 hold. 
 
 It was on one of the beautiful afternoons of 
 their short summer that Clodah Rohan stole off 
 from the cottage where she had been spinning 
 20
 
 all the day to a favorite cliff overlooking the 
 Scottish shore. There for many months she had 
 liked to sit and dream about the great unknown 
 world over beyond the rolling sea. Even the 
 Scotsmen of the mainland, the few she had seen, 
 were mysterious people to her, and she had seen 
 so few of them, and none but men. What their 
 women were like she had no idea. In all her 
 life of sixteen years she had never been off the 
 island, and there was no immediate probability 
 that any such innovation would come into her 
 quiet life. But few of the island women had 
 ever been so far as the mainland; travel for 
 their womankind was not encouraged by the 
 Rohan men. 
 
 Clodah therefore had but little on which 
 to found her fancies of another world than 
 her own, but girls are girls the dear world 
 over, whether they live in castles or clay- 
 caked huts; and despite the fact that the 
 island girls were not supposed to dream much, 
 Clodah had for many months been weaving to 
 herself all sorts of pretty tales about a land of 
 which she had no knowledge and a people for 
 whose conduct she had no standards, 
 21
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 She was at that stage in her life that comes 
 to every woman child when a mounting fever 
 within makes her turn from the commonplace 
 life about her to something that has in it 
 the luring fascination of the unknown. With 
 some girls there comes with the fever, a fever- 
 ish thirst for knowledge that will not be slaked 
 save by personal experience; with others there 
 is only a gentle delirium of fanciful imaginings 
 which passes over and leaves the innocence of 
 girlhood unflecked. Clodah would not have told 
 her fancies to any human being, although she 
 might have shouted them to the world. Not 
 that the world would have been interested in 
 the flatness of them ; the world does not care for 
 pretty fancies with no enticing base of knowl- 
 edge, either of self or others. So Clodah only 
 followed a great natural instinct when she kept 
 close to herself her dreamings and imaginings 
 in which after all she figured but slightly. 
 
 To-day she was sitting on top of the red 
 sandstone cliff that forms the natural southern 
 barricade of the island. The afternoon was 
 clear and sunny, the sky and the sea were a won- 
 derful blue ? and the scanty green of the island
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 showed vivid and joyous against the dull red of 
 its rocks. She had been watching for an hour 
 a great white-winged yacht in the distance that 
 had seemed to sway softly with the flow of the 
 sea. Suddenly it turned, and to her intense 
 excitement she saw it driving swiftly toward the 
 island. She watched it breathlessly while it 
 picked its graceful way among the reefs and 
 shallows, and finally came to port at some dis- 
 tance beyond the pier to her right. 
 
 A number of people were standing on deck, 
 and Clodah bent eagerly forward to see more 
 clearly these wonderful human beings of another 
 world. As she did so a woman standing rather 
 well forward in the group raised her eyes and 
 caught the flicker of the girl's scarlet skirt and 
 cap shining like a redbird's breast against the 
 dull stone background. She beckoned to her, 
 and at first 'Clodah hesitated ; but when the ges- 
 ture was repeated she slipped like a mountain 
 deer from her perch, and by a detour that only 
 her perfect familiarity with the path made safe 
 for her, climbed down the steep stone wall and 
 ran out upon the rude pier. 
 
 The primitive harbor was deserted that after-
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 noon, for a great mackerel shoal had been re- 
 ported early in the morning, and the men, to- 
 gether with many of the women, were on the 
 other side of the island. Only a few old crones 
 and little babies were left in the village proper. 
 
 As Clodah touched the shore the yachting 
 party, who had been watching her perilous de- 
 scent with admiration and fear commingled, 
 gave a united cheer whereat she was mightily 
 puzzled. That it was for her and her light- 
 footedness she never dreamed. The beautiful 
 woman, with hair that shone like ruddy gold in 
 the sunshine, was leaning over the polished rail- 
 ing of the vessel. Her yachting gown of white 
 flannel and gold glistened and glittered in the 
 sea reflection about her. She called to the girl 
 with a wonderful something in her tone that 
 Clodah, accustomed as she was to the plain 
 speech of an uncultivated people, had never 
 heard before in the human voice. 
 
 "Is there anything to see here, my child?" 
 
 "Naethin', ma'm," Clodah answered simply. 
 
 The woman turned to the group about her 
 and said something to them laughing. Then
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 she called again. "May we land even if there 
 is nothing to see?" 
 
 "Oh yes, ma'm !" the girl replied instantly, in 
 confusion lest her first reply had shown inhos- 
 pitality, a crime second to none in the eyes of 
 her and her people. 
 
 There was a little hurry on the yacht, a rush 
 to and fro, and then the lowering of a boat that, 
 to Clodah's eyes, accustomed as they were to the 
 great heavy fishing boats built to resist wind 
 and wave, seemed too frail for a fairy's use. 
 Within a few moments the whole party, number- 
 ing about ten, were landed. Several women 
 were there, but Clodah had eyes only for the tall, 
 goddess-like creature with a voice like bells and 
 a face that transcended in loveliness the most 
 daring flight of the little islander's imagination. 
 She was talking and laughing gaily, and most 
 of the men were vying with each other as to 
 who should help her from the boat and carry 
 the red sunshade that cast such a light over her 
 white and gold gown. They called her Mrs. 
 Davenport, and as Clodah led the way up to 
 her father's house she listened in a fascinated
 
 WHAT MANNER OP MAN 
 
 dream to the ripple of laughter and the ripple 
 of words that came from the lips of this woman. 
 All the others counted as nothing to Clodah 
 beside the magnetic charms of this white-gowned 
 creature. 
 
 Some one after all had conquered in the merry 
 battle and had taken possession of the red sun- 
 shade. Clodah glanced at him shyly once or 
 twice to see what manner of man it was this 
 woman liked. He was tall and finely made. 
 He wore a cap pulled down low over a wealth of 
 brown hair, and he was dressed in a brown 
 corduroy hunting suit, in calm ignoring of the 
 fact that this was a yachting party. His eyes 
 were dark and keen. Once as Clodah looked at 
 him she felt him looking into her own eyes as if 
 he were piercing through them to the thought 
 beyond. She returned his gaze quite simply, 
 quite like the child she was. His eyes were 
 beautiful in themselves, but weary lines, deep- 
 set lines surrounded them. Taken altogether, 
 he was a perfect picture of a healthy, virile 
 Englishman with the added nameless atmos- 
 phere about him of the artist, that is neither
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 English, nor yet French nor Spanish, but is part 
 of a universal type. 
 
 "What did I tell you !" Clodah heard the lady 
 say. "Haven't you enough color now to satisfy 
 you? Isn't the clear coolness of this better than 
 the coppery heat of Africa? Did you ever see 
 anything quite like the intense azure of that 
 sea? Wasn't it worth while?" 
 
 Thayer whistled. His eyes were still on the 
 slender girl in front of them. 
 
 "One of your greatest charms to me has been 
 that you know how to find out what you want to 
 know without asking questions," he said. "That 
 last set of remarks is calculated to smash every 
 fond dream I've cherished concerning you. I 
 don't mind baring my very soul to a woman if 
 she lets me feel I am telling her of my own free 
 will! But when she fires off her questions, I 
 want to get to cover. Where's the rest of your 
 show?" 
 
 "The king?" Mrs. Davenport queried. "The 
 place really has one. What would your dear 
 Edward say to that? I want to see him. Mr. 
 Davenport likes him. He says that of all men
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 he ever met, civilized or savage, The Rohan 
 takes the cake!" She put in her Americanism 
 deliberately. Then she called the girl. 
 
 "Isn't there a king about here, my child?" 
 
 Clodah drew herself up with a resentment that 
 during the last moment had grown to somewhat 
 large proportions 
 
 "There be The Rohan," 'she said proudly. 
 
 "And would he give us an audience?" Mrs. 
 Davenport asked gaily. 
 
 "The mackerel hae come," Clodah answered 
 simply. "He be busy to-day." 
 
 The group broke into sudden merry laughter. 
 
 "The king! He goes a-fishing!" Only 
 Hilda Davenport and her companion noted the 
 trembling lips and heightened color of the 
 girl, and with that delicate intuition of hers 
 that was like a sensitive plant Mrs. Davenport 
 drew nearer to Clodah. 
 
 "What is your name, my dear?" 
 
 "Clodah Rohan." 
 
 "The Rohan's daughter?" 
 
 "Yes," the girl answered with a pride that 
 showed itself in the clear gaze of her eyes as 
 she looked directly at her questioner. 
 28
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 "I wonder if he would let us see him for a lit- 
 tle while," Mrs. Davenport said gravely. "Per- 
 haps if you will tell him that I am the wife of 
 the Mr. Davenport who stayed here several 
 weeks three summers ago " The shine in 
 Clodah's eyes stopped her. 
 
 "Ah," the girl murmured without knowing 
 she had dared to interrupt, "he was the man who 
 saved my brother's life for us all. Ah, you 
 mus' nae go till my feyther see you. He will 
 be grieved if that carries you away." She 
 flung out her hand toward the yacht. Then she 
 spoke with added rapidity. "If you will all 
 come up to yon'er house, I'll greet you there, an 5 
 I'll send for my feyther, an' if he be nae on the 
 sea he'll come to greet you. He cares for Mais- 
 ter Davenport." 
 
 There was more in the inflection of her simple 
 "care" than in many a rhapsody. She stood for 
 a moment looking at Mrs. Davenport with a 
 growing thought crowding into her eyes. Fate 
 was something dumbly accepted but never 
 preached by her people. For the first time in 
 her life she felt the force and meaning of the 
 old Greek doctrine that she would not have 
 29
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 known by name. The coming of Maister Dav- 
 enport had been an event that had meant much 
 to her; the coming to-day of this flute-voiced 
 woman, his wife, was a wonder, a fitting together 
 of detail such as she had never known before. 
 
 Her absorption in the marvel of it made her 
 blind to the fact that she was being generously 
 stared at by the gay group of pleasure-seekers. 
 A princess in any guise, be she the daughter of a 
 king crowned or uncrowned, is interesting. 
 Whatever may be her defects, physical or men- 
 tal, she has at least about her the halo of an 
 ancestry that can be traced. 
 
 But Clodah did not lack physically of admira- 
 ble points. Since she had first appeared to them 
 on that forlorn strip of shore like some change- 
 ling, some living embodiment of legend and folk- 
 lore, Thayer had hardly removed his eyes from 
 her. Her simple garb with all its picturesque- 
 ness had caught him; the blue blouse, the short 
 red skirts, the scarlet cap crowning masses of 
 hair that defied description. It was not red, it 
 was neither gold nor brown, but something of 
 each was there to give it a ruddiness and a 
 shine and a depth that made his color sense 
 30
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 tingle. She wore It In simple plaits down her 
 back, and as she sped before them in the eager- 
 ness of her hospitality he drank in its color 
 thirstily. He noted the grace of her untram- 
 meled walk, the sway of her back, the exquisite 
 though still undeveloped curve of her hip. Her 
 throat rose like a slender stem from her faded 
 blue blouse, and she carried her head with an air 
 that a daughter of the Vere de Veres could 
 hardly have challenged without disaster. 
 
 In the intensity of his study of the girl 
 Thayer forgot for a moment his place by Mrs. 
 Davenport's side, and took some rapid strides 
 to where he had for one delicious moment an 
 unobstructed view of the girl's delicate profile. 
 She was walking freely along, her hands clasped 
 loosely in front of her, her head slightly lifted. 
 A more perfect pose no professional beauty 
 could have attained, and Thayer gave all honor 
 to its added merit of nature and accident. Her 
 eyes that seemed to have caught a depth of color 
 from the sapphire sea were drooped, not enough 
 to hide them, but enough to show the milkiness 
 of the eyelids and the dark curve of her lashes. 
 Her nose was small and slightly upturned, with 
 31
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 two peculiar tiny dents just above the nostrils. 
 Her lips were full and sweet and her chin was 
 firm and decided. Thayer's artistic rapture 
 mounted higher. 
 
 "If only she has the power of expression, the 
 power to show what she feels, for she can feel 
 with the intensity of " He felt a light hand 
 fall on his arm. 
 
 "She is a king's daughter, my friend," Mrs. 
 Davenport whispered with a delicate irony. 
 "Remember, I come here, a dependent on the 
 island's hospitality, not to bring discontent 
 and worse." 
 
 Thayer threw back his shoulders with an an- 
 noyance he tried not to show, but that Mrs. 
 Davenport felt. 
 
 "Your muggy London can not furnish a 
 model half so fair, is that what you are think- 
 ing?" she asked. "Well, I agree with you. 
 But she shall not be tempted, not even with a 
 crayon sketch this afternoon. Why did I bring 
 you with me here? You are like a breath of 
 Roman fever, Kirk. You blight and wither, 
 and why? Not for pleasure; you are never 
 happy. For art? A picture that costs a soul 
 32
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 is a dreadful thing. Sometimes I think you 
 could do what those fearful artists of the Middle 
 Ages did crucify a man and paint him while 
 he was dying, so that all the death strain of the 
 muscles might be absolutely flawless. I think 
 sometimes that you might do what I never heard 
 they did give the wooden frame a little jar to 
 rouse him from a temporary lull. Ugh! 
 sometimes " She stopped short. Her lips 
 were quivering. Thayer was studying her 
 strange emotion. An amused little smile hov- 
 ered about his mouth. 
 
 "My dear Hilda," he said lightly, "it is at 
 such moments as this that I am more than ever 
 convinced that you are the one woman in the 
 world who should give herself to me for the 
 great work of my life. Sometimes when I see 
 you in the world I grow fearful of my reading 
 of you. No mortal there can see in the society 
 woman that you are to others the woman that I 
 see and admire and reverence. I have shown 
 you your soul in your portrait, you yourself 
 confess, as no one else has read it. You under- 
 stand me and my gifts, and you do not condemn 
 me for much that is ruthlessly condemned in me 
 33
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 by others. But after all I am easy to read. I 
 do more in comprehending you than you do in 
 reading me. I interpret you, your gifts, your 
 swift comprehension of art and its ideals, your 
 standards of life and art. You have done me 
 the honor to praise my work, the tangible evi- 
 dences of my talents. You have done me the 
 infinitely greater honor of praising what is bare 
 and poor, my description of my dominant idea 
 for a painting that shall put all my past work 
 in the shade. A woman who can understand 
 without seeing and without question is one in ten 
 thousand, notwithstanding all her sex's vaunted 
 intuition. You have caught at my poor words 
 and have seen the beauty I have been unable to 
 put into them. And then, when I tell you you 
 are the one woman I have ever met who realizes 
 my ideal of the woman I need for my model on 
 that work, your single modicum of convention, 
 hollow and reasonless, asserts itself, and you say 
 no!" 
 
 Mrs. Davenport's lips moved, but Thayer 
 stopped her by a gesture. They were standing 
 alone in a turn of the path. The rest of the 
 
 34)
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 party had gone on up the steep path toward the 
 house. 
 
 "Just a moment," he said. "For this one 
 moment in all our lives, with all this deliri- 
 ous color about us, forget that there is any- 
 thing in the world but art and beauty. If I 
 could not forget that for a space now and then 
 I should go mad. Then tell me why, when I 
 want you, need you, for my Christian maiden, 
 you will not consent to grant my prayer. Sup- 
 pose it is in the altogether. You will be talked 
 about! Pah! the cackle of the virtuous matron 
 is appraised at its true value in these days. I 
 tell you I shall disguise your face somewhat 
 perhaps." He laughed a little. "Never say I am 
 not honest with you even in extremis! If I 
 caught the expression I wanted, like to you or 
 unlike, I should undoubtedly let it remain. My 
 dear Hilda, I could, if you would have permit- 
 ted it or have made it worth my while, felt an 
 overmastering passion for you. But I under- 
 stand you through all your indifference to con- 
 vention and modern standards of morals, and I 
 know that in spite of the fact that you have been
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 married some half-dozen years, you still cling 
 to Darby! In spite of what you said a fort- 
 night ago, I am not so great a child as to cry out 
 continually for the cold, lovely, maddening 
 moon! So it is not the inspiration of passion 
 that urges me to choose you. And it is undoubt- 
 edly true that should I be let love you, and you 
 love me, and you should let that sanctify to your 
 queer conscience the question of posing for me, I 
 should forget my love and you and all things 
 else in the fever of my desire to rush on to my 
 canvas the perfect realization in you of my 
 ideal. I am brutal! Yes, where art is con- 
 cerned." 
 
 Mrs. Davenport listened in serene silence. 
 
 "I long to see that picture," she said calmly. 
 "I know you have it in you to give a wearied 
 world something that will stir it out of its 
 little clevernesses and affectations into an ap- 
 proach to primitive emotions; and I long to 
 help you. You are a wonderful man, Kirk, and 
 I worship your genius. From the time we first 
 met there has been an uncanny sort of sixth 
 sense affinity between us, hasn't there? But my 
 friend, I am afraid you will never gain your 
 36
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 heart's desire through me. I fall short and fail 
 you there. I know all your arguments by heart. 
 I know the miserable horrors that modern con- 
 vention hides, and your contempt for social laws 
 that are observed for themselves and not for their 
 spirit is no deeper than mine. But " she 
 raised her lovely eyes and looked straight into 
 his, "though I fear neither you nor myself, there 
 is something within that tells me I should only 
 make a miserable fiasco if I yielded to your 
 desire. We are neither of us children. We 
 know our age and its many faults. I thought 
 I was a materialist till I met you. Since then 
 I have doubted. I had held that in spite of 
 church and priest we are only poor human be- 
 ings, created not a little lower than the angels, 
 but a little higher than the brutes. You drag 
 poor, shivering mortality down to the brutes' 
 level. And I insist by the very strength of my 
 repugnance to your desire that I am something 
 more than a female animal. I would grant you 
 this if I could, for your gifts are great, but my 
 call it what you will is greater, and you must 
 go elsewhere. Call this final, Kirk." She 
 turned back to the winding path. 
 37
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 "Come," she cried gaily, "we want to see the 
 king and something more of the princess." She 
 furled her red sunshade lightly, and led the way 
 quickly up the rough road. 
 
 38
 
 Within The Rohan's house was subdued ex- 
 citement. Mrs. French and her daughter Hel- 
 en had taken on themselves the self-imposed 
 part of hostesses, and were doing the honors 
 freely to the rest of the party. Clodah had 
 led them into the oak-beamed hall and had left 
 them there while she went out to the kitchen to 
 revive the covered embers in the fireplace and 
 to swing the porridge kettle above the growing 
 flame. Something must be offered to her guests, 
 and in the intensity of her happy hospitality 
 never a thought of the scantiness of her re- 
 sources entered her head. Her cheeks flamed 
 high with excitement and pleasure, and she 
 stopped from time to time in her quick hurrying 
 to and fro to catch some lovely laugh, some pret- 
 ty inflection the like of which she had never 
 heard. Such exquisite women she had not 
 dreamed existed; who rustled when they moved; 
 who shed sweet perfume all about them; whose
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 voices were like the chimes of bells that float 
 over the North Sea on clear Sunday mornings; 
 like the dreamy echoes of Gling-gling cave far 
 across the waves at Strathay Point. 
 
 She threw open the doors of the great oak 
 cupboard. What should be spread for her 
 guests? Porridge and cream, and toast thin and 
 crisp and golden brown. And tea; some of the 
 precious store in the blue-figured jar should 
 come out for this feast! She set her porridge 
 cooking, and went blithely about slicing bread 
 and measuring out the treasured tea care- 
 fully into the brown stone pot. When matters 
 were fairly started she gave the bubbling por- 
 ridge one last careful stir, and then ran out to 
 the cool cave under the hillside where The Ro- 
 hans had kept their butter and milk from the 
 time of the first one down. It was on her re- 
 turn from that errand that Mrs. Davenport and 
 Thayer met her. In the excitement attendant 
 on preparing for so large a company she had 
 rolled up the sleeves of her blouse to her shoul- 
 ders, and in her bare, slender arms she was car- 
 rying a heavy stone jar of yellow cream.
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 Thayer stepped forward to take her burden, but 
 she swerved away. 
 
 "You be my feyther's guest," she said simply. 
 "It's nae fittin'." 
 
 Thayer replaced his cap in its old careless 
 place on his head. 
 
 "Some other things are far less fitting," he 
 laughed, and, bending down, he took the jar 
 with deliberate slowness from the girl's embrace. 
 "In my country," he went on carelessly as he 
 walked beside her, "it does not matter that a 
 man is guest or master. All that matters is that 
 a woman is a woman." 
 
 Clodah looked at him without a trace of the 
 confusion that he had expected to see. 
 
 "Then in your country isna the man the mais- 
 ter?" she asked. 
 
 Mrs. Davenport answered the question, and 
 Thayer noted with a pique that fired him to 
 other things the sensitive flush that spread over 
 the girl's face at the sound of the lovely voice. 
 
 "My dear, the man is the master wherever he 
 is, but in 'our country,' " she mocked Thayer's 
 intonation "he covers it up just as your mother 
 gives you bitter pills in nice red jelly." 
 41
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 Clodah looked uncomprehendingly from one 
 to the other. Suddenly she realized how she 
 had been dallying. She had left the fire hot, 
 with the porridge boiling on it. She looked at 
 her two companions in utter loss. 
 
 "Would " she began and then faltered. To 
 her it seemed an awful thing to leave a guest to 
 bear alone what should have been her burden. 
 Mrs. Davenport came to her rescue. 
 
 "Tell me, child. Ah, yes, the porridge ! You 
 should not have gone to all that trouble for us, 
 but certainly go." As the girl fled Hilda 
 glanced sharply at Thayer, opened her lips as if 
 to speak, and then closed them resolutely. But 
 Thayer's thought could not bear repression. 
 
 "I say, Hilda," he cried excitedly, "have you 
 noticed that girl, how like she is to you ?" The 
 comparison found expression as it dawned on 
 him. Mrs. Davenport took the shock very 
 calmly. 
 
 "Because we both have tawny hair," she said, 
 "you must draw the comparison? Ah, Kirk, 
 sometimes I think it is an awful thing to have the 
 curse of temperament." Then they reached the 
 house, and while Thayer stopped to deposit his 
 42
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 burden Mrs. Davenport joined the group in the 
 hall, all in the high tide of enthusiasm over the 
 strangeness of the little island, and full of pity 
 for the life. 
 
 "What a waste of loveliness!" Mrs. French 
 sighed once as Clodah's little figure glanced for 
 a moment by the open door of the living room. 
 
 "I wonder if we shall see The Rohan after 
 all," murmured her daughter. "Are you sure, 
 Mrs. Davenport, that he is really in existence?" 
 
 Mrs. Davenport had gone out on the little 
 green that surrounded the house. She was 
 standing looking toward the west, with her hand 
 shading her eyes from the sun. 
 
 "So sure that I venture to say he is coming 
 yonder. See, that must be he in the lead. I 
 know he is very tall." She pointed to a group 
 of men and women who were coming over the 
 winding path that leads to the north of the 
 island. Three figures led the group, one of 
 them slightly in advance of the other two. They, 
 were hurrying and in their haste were outstrip- 
 ping the rest of the party. 
 
 "I feel nervous," Helen French sighed, "al- 
 most as if I were where I had no business to be." 
 43
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 Mrs. Davenport smiled. "There are others !" 
 she murmured quite to herself with a silent de- 
 light in the broad American slang in which she 
 indulged with discriminating intelligence. She 
 glanced toward the' kitchen, whence was coming 
 the tantalizing odor of toasting bread. Within 
 its sheltering doors Thayer had sometime since 
 disappeared with his cool, sweet burden. 
 
 "The girl is like me," she reflected with a 
 curious unrest, "a replica on a smaller scale. 
 We are strangely near in coloring ah well, we 
 leave in an hour. What a dear little sight she 
 made as she came scrambling down the cliff ! I 
 was right; it is The Rohan." 
 
 She moved toward the three men who were 
 approaching swiftly and silently, and who met 
 her in the same demanding silence. By common 
 consent she was left to face them alone. 
 
 The oldest of the men stopped a little in ad- 
 vance of the others and looked at her question- 
 ingly. He was a tall man, bronzed with the 
 tan of salt sea spray and sweeping wind. His 
 face was heavily bearded, and at his temples iron 
 gray streaks showed the fullness of his fifty
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 years. His gaze was clear and untroubled by 
 any trace of embarrassment, as he waited quietly 
 for an explanation of the unexpected influx of 
 guests. 
 
 "You are The Rohan?" Mrs. Davenport 
 asked with the grace not one whit abated that 
 she would have shown at any European court. 
 "Perhaps you have not forgotten my husband, 
 Mr. Davenport " She stopped; the faces of 
 all three men had suddenly lighted up. 
 
 The Rohan answered her with a strong Celtic 
 brogue, but in good English. "He was a brave 
 man," he said briefly. "He is here wi' ye?" 
 
 Mrs. Davenport smiled to herself as she felt 
 the tension of the group behind her. No one 
 understood better than she the scarcely veiled 
 curiosity of Londoners concerning her married 
 life, and no woman was more capable of baf- 
 fling all curiosity she did not desire to satisfy. 
 
 "No," she said serenely, "he is not in England 
 now. But he has told me of you, of your hos- 
 pitality to him, of his indebtedness to you, and 
 when we sighted this place I have my yacht 
 down there," she added carelessly "I wanted
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 to stop for a few hours to bear to you his high- 
 est regards, even though he is in ignorance of 
 my being here." 
 
 The Rohan listened gravely; then he drew 
 forward the two young men standing silent by 
 him. 
 
 "This is my son George, my eldest son," 
 he said proudly; "the one who owes his life to 
 yir husband, he who will inherit. This is Don- 
 ald Ross, his friend. Ye hae seen my daughter? 
 Ye an* yirs are welcome guests. Davenport was 
 a brave man." 
 
 Just then Clodah appeared in the doorway. 
 Behind her Thayer loomed in all his magnificent 
 height. The sound of her voice calling them 
 to the simple feast she had prepared for them 
 brought all eyes upon her and her companion. 
 The Rohan stopped and surveyed the artist in 
 silence. Then he turned to Mrs. Davenport. 
 
 "Anither o' yir friends?" he inquired with a 
 subtile something in his tone that made her smile 
 irrepressibly as she glanced at Thayer. She 
 knew that The Rohan had looked and judged, 
 and that as far as island standards went his 
 judgment was not incorrect. 
 46
 
 WHAT MANNER OP MAN 
 
 At her assenting nod The Rohan went for- 
 ward and greeted Thayer as simply as he had 
 done all the rest of the yachting party. But 
 Mrs. Davenport noted what added a touch of 
 keener human interest to the Arcadian scene 
 before her, that Donald Ross had also looked 
 and judged. His eyes flashed and his strong 
 hands twitched nervously as he glanced quickly 
 from Clodah to Thayer and back again to the 
 girl's flushed face. Mrs. Davenport followed 
 his swift glance, and her gaze lingered on Clo- 
 dah. The girl looked up suddenly, and as she 
 caught Hilda's eye her color flamed higher. 
 As they were entering the house Mrs. Daven- 
 port caught her about the waist. 
 
 "Are you afraid of me, Clodah?" she asked 
 softly. The girl shook her head and her eyes 
 filled with tears that she could not force back. 
 
 "I never knew a lady could be so lovely," she 
 faltered, "an* in there" she stopped with lips 
 that were quivering too much for speech. 
 
 "Go on," Mrs. Davenport urged quietly. 
 
 "He said he told me in yon'er that he 
 said I was like to you!" There was a great 
 amazement in the child's voice, an amazement 
 47
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 untempered by any consciousness of the man 
 who had told her what 'she had just repeated. 
 Mrs. Davenport thought with a swift amuse- 
 ment, and inward glee at Thayer, that the emo- 
 tional results would have been undoubtedly the 
 same if Helen French had imparted the won- 
 derful news. 
 
 "Well, you know," she began in a matter-of- 
 fact tone that had nothing in it calculated to 
 bring forth any other tears and yet was full of 
 a comprehending sympathy, "we aren't unlike 
 at all. We both have what do you call your 
 hair red? And our eyes are on the same style, 
 only yours are really more beautiful." She 
 stopped and laughed, for the girl had drawn a 
 deep breath at the last words. Mrs. Daven- 
 port slipped her arm about her with a tender 
 touch. 
 
 "Dear child," she said softly, "are you 
 just learning that you are wonderfully beauti- 
 ful? And then the harder lesson is behind, the 
 learning that beauty brings more pain than 
 pleasure oftentimes. Believe me when I say it 
 does not count." 
 
 As she finished she knew from the girl's eyes 
 48
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 that all the last part of her little speech had 
 fallen on closed ears, for Clodah was looking 
 with almost painful fascination into the face 
 that Hilda herself knew was a most beautiful 
 one. She sighed a little and, moved by an im- 
 pulse that did not often come to her, she bent 
 and kissed Clodah softly. Then she went into 
 the room where all the guests were awaiting their 
 tardy hostesses, and joined them as they gath- 
 ered about the white-spread table. 
 
 The linen was that of Clodah's grandmother's 
 spinning. The scanty silverware was centuries 
 old. Clodah poured the tea, and filled the 
 porridge bowls seemingly with no consciousness 
 that any other place could furnish a luncheon 
 more to be desired. The Rohan unbent from 
 his taciturnity sufficiently to tell his assembled 
 guests of that prolonged fishing trip three sum- 
 mers before when they had taken on the Amer- 
 ican gentleman at Tongue because of his ear- 
 nest solicitations and not because they cared to 
 introduce a foreign element into their fishing 
 body; of how his sturdiness and endurance won 
 their good graces; of how at last in the great 
 storm that broke while they were out at sea 
 49
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 Maister Davenport not only bore himself like an 
 islander and a seaman born, but when The Ro- 
 han's elder son was seized by a mighty wave 
 and swept overboard, it was the American be- 
 fore the islanders who sprang into the lashing 
 gulf of distended waves ; and how through some 
 miracle of strength and fortune both came back 
 alive, rescuer and rescued. "He is a man," The 
 Rohan finished. 
 
 The sun was sinking low in the west before 
 they rose from the table. Soon after the tea 
 was poured Mrs. Davenport pulled Clodah 
 down beside her, and within a few moments 
 Thayer drew his chair over to them. It was 
 only by slow degrees that he succeeded in gain- 
 ing and holding Clodah's attention, but at last 
 he was successful, and for a half-hour talked 
 to her of painting and of pictures in a simple 
 way that after all put him on his mettle; for 
 he knew that the terminology of worldly art 
 culture would not meet the needs of this simple 
 child, and to express what he wanted to say 
 in terms other than those of his world was 
 an effort that spurred him to success. Clo- 
 dah listened spellbound to all he told her 
 50
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 of what painters could do with their brushes 
 and colors, and suddenly, when Mrs. French 
 hinted at the growing lateness of the hour and 
 the advisability of their starting for their boat, 
 Clodah sprang eagerly from her chair and ran 
 to the door. When she turned back to them 
 her eyes were shining. She addressed Thayer 
 directly. 
 
 "Oh," she cried, "if you can wait a little long- 
 er, if you needna start just now, I can show you 
 what looks like all your lovely tales sound. I 
 canna tell it you, I dinna know the words, but 
 come and see." 
 
 She held out her hand to him, and then with 
 a sweet grace she extended the other to Mrs. 
 Davenport. Her father smiled gravely. 
 
 "The lass be daft o'er a sunset," he said. "If 
 ye dinna care to see it tell her so." 
 
 Clodah waited impatiently. "They want to 
 see it, feyther," she said. "They care for lovely 
 things, an' the sun is setting yellow." 
 
 By one consent they all followed her out of the 
 cottage and she hurried them impatiently _lown 
 the road they had come over that afternc /a. 
 
 "I canna always tell," she said breathlessly, 
 51
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 "for the lovely sight comes but seldom, but I 
 think to-night it'll be flyin' o'er the sea to wel- 
 come you. An' the best place to see it is where 
 you caught sight o' me this day, atop o' the 
 Red Rock." 
 
 They had begun to climb upward now. 
 Thayer and Mrs. Davenport followed her lead 
 with a growing expectation. When they finally 
 reached the top of the cliff that from Scotland's 
 shore seems to rise precipitously out of the sea 
 they were far ahead of the rest of the party. 
 Thayer stared at Clodah in a wordless fascina- 
 tion as she stood there in the buttercup glow, 
 her tendrils of hair swayed by the gentle wind, 
 her little hands folded, and her deep blue eyes 
 spangled with a shining expectancy. 
 
 "It's comin' !" she breathed reverently. "The 
 sight that hasna been this whole summer. 
 Look!" She raised her arm and pointed to- 
 ward the golden globe hanging just above the 
 water's edge, the edge that seemed to sway and 
 throb in longing to embrace it. The light had 
 already begun to change. About the western 
 horizon close to the sea the sky was purest gold. 
 'Above where it blended its yellow with the vivid 
 52
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 blue of the sky a blending strip of clearest apple 
 green hung, and above that through a mass of 
 powdered gold the blue emerged again triumph- 
 ant. But over it all as the sun sank lower a rose 
 hue began to creep, making of the heavens an in- 
 describable wonder. Lavender tones stole here 
 and there. Clear violet streaked the gold. Orange 
 stripes banded the horizon. Pure carmine deep- 
 ened from the rose. All the rainbow colors were 
 there, and more modifications of them than a 
 painter's palette holds. And the sea below re- 
 ceived it all and gave it back, gold and green and 
 blue and violet, and over all the rosy flush of the 
 fading day. Then a purple pall began to 
 spread slowly over the sky, blotting in its creep- 
 ing path all the tender color of the opaline west. 
 
 An utter silence held the entire group. At 
 last Thayer drew a long breath. 
 
 "How can we repay you!" he exclaimed with 
 an underlying thrill in his voice that was sin- 
 cere. "You have shown us a hospitality that 
 we had no right to expect and I fear did not de- 
 serve. And in addition you have let us see a 
 glory that is not of earth." He bent and kissed 
 her hand gently. There was a little stir in the, 
 53
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 rear of the group. Clodah felt a heavy hand 
 on her shoulder, and looked up to see her father 
 between her and Thayer. 
 
 "We hae done nothin', sir;" his deep voice 
 made answer for his daughter. "Hospitality is 
 the law o' our land, an' the maid didna create it 
 for yir benefit. Neither did she make the sun 
 set to order. We be simple folk, an* the lass 
 dinna know court customs." 
 
 Mrs. Davenport came quickly to the rescue. 
 "Then if you do not understand our customs 
 you must pardon us the readier for not being 
 aware of yours," she said with a ready wit that 
 pierced the armor of The Rohan's pride. He 
 smiled gravely at her. 
 
 "When ye next come," he said, "ye must 
 bring yir husband with ye. He'll find a welcome 
 that'D please him, for in spirit he is one o' us. 
 He saved my son. He is a man, a man." 
 
 Through the swift falling twilight they de- 
 scended the cliff to the harbor where the yacht 
 stood waiting. As they went down, Clodah be- 
 side her father, the girl felt for the first time 
 in all her innocent life a dull pain that she could
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 not understand gnawing at her heart. What 
 it was that hurt her she did not know. But her 
 first step along the painful path of knowledge 
 had been taken that afternoon. For the first 
 time she had heard of another life, another 
 world than her own; for the first time she had 
 seen the people of that world. 
 
 The hearing and the seeing had brought 
 strange questionings to her mind, new emotions, 
 new desires. Her day of perfect innocence was 
 over, of unconscious life for the joy of living. 
 Up to now she had walked among mysteries and 
 had not known that they were hidden things. 
 In all their darknesses she had played with them 
 as if they were shining sunlight. Now their 
 heavy shadows began to darken about her, and 
 their blackness grew more impenetrable with 
 every shoreward step she took. For her the 
 joy of life had gone, and she could not tell 
 why nor where. Life suddenly became an awful 
 thing. The roar of the sea irritated her; the 
 sea, that had been her closest friend from the 
 time she had rolled, a tiny half-naked child, 
 upon its hard soaked sands ! The glory of her
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 childhood had gone out under the shadow of 
 the evening purple, and she watched the white 
 wraith of the yacht steal away as if it were the 
 ghost of her slain peace. 
 
 56
 
 That summer day marked the beginning of 
 a new life for Clodah Rohan. It was a life filled 
 with new emotions, new desires, strange long- 
 ings ; a life into which her old one did not enter 
 save as a mournful memory of a past happiness. 
 Yet the natural sweetness of her temperament 
 was not affected by the sudden change, and with 
 the blindness of men her father and brothers saw 
 nothing of her hidden inner life. No one noted 
 it; no one saw beyond the fact that she was 
 fonder than ever of solitary wanderings ; no one 
 perceived the subtile change, no one save Don- 
 ald Ross. There is a certain love which poets 
 have united in calling blind, but the love of 
 Donald Ross for Clodah was not of that type. 
 Toward him only, perhaps, there was in her a 
 perceptible change of attitude which he alone 
 was quick to note. Within the space of an hour 
 she seemed to shoot up from careless child- 
 hood into an unexplainable woman. And what 
 57
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 brought woe to Donald's heart was the fact that 
 to all others the spirit change as he saw it was 
 hidden. 
 
 Donald Ross was of the soil. The secret things 
 of a woman's soul he could not understand, but 
 with a refinement of feeling that is too often 
 lacking among his brothers of greater polish, 
 he did not run the risk of tarnishing their 
 delicacy by rough, untender handling. He could 
 only stare at the acts inspired by emotions he 
 could not comprehend, and suffer dumbly within 
 himself. 
 
 "The little lass is a' right," The Rohan said 
 to him one evening when Donald had ventured 
 to say a word regarding Clodah's new silences 
 and lonely wanderings. "Ne'er mind her, lad. 
 She's growin' up, and she has to bide by hersel'. 
 She's nae mither to go to, poor bairn. The 
 women they hae to be let alone a year or so to 
 learn theirsel's. Wait, lad." And Donald, com- 
 forted in his heavy man fashion by the silent 
 sympathy whose spoken word would have been 
 an insult to him, curbed himself into patient 
 waiting. 
 
 As to Clodah, though her happy, unquestion- 
 58
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 ing childhood was gone, and she was struggling 
 unaided in an endless labyrinth of strange long- 
 ings and desires, she was not by any means un- 
 happy. The Red Rock was her refuge, and on 
 its solitary height, with all the vividness of her 
 rich imaginings, she could live over every word, 
 every tone of every voice that had fallen on 
 her ears that wonderful day. Of Hilda Daven- 
 port she thought with a quaint reverence, and a 
 longing that had a hopeless yearning about it. 
 It was her first passion for a woman, her first 
 passionate love for any human thing, and it 
 had struck deep. 
 
 Of Thayer she thought, too, but with more 
 shyness, a little distaste, and without delibera- 
 tion. She would perch in her sea-blown nook 
 and would shut her eyes and fold her hands 
 together with the deliberate intention of calling 
 Mrs. Davenport before her mental eye. Thayer 
 drifted into the picture now and then without 
 conscious volition on her part. She shrank 
 from the feeling that the memory of his words, 
 his glances stirred within her; her cheeks always 
 flamed high when she seemed to feel again the 
 touch of his lips on her hand. But though she 
 59
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 had changed to her silent island lover, and with- 
 in herself, she was still to herself a mystery that 
 she had not yet the skill to probe, even had she 
 had the conscious desire to know herself. In 
 most ways she was the same simple child she 
 had always been, with a few added dreams that 
 had not to do as her former ones had done, with 
 birds and dancing waves and flowers. She was 
 awakening, but not awake. 
 
 60
 
 It was midsummer of the next year. London 
 was almost deserted. The season was well over 
 and the tide of summer travel had already set 
 in. The season had been remarkable for two 
 things, first its unutterable dullness, and then the 
 exhibit in a commonplace display at the Acad- 
 emy that spring of Kirk Thayer's painting, 
 which on its first day had gained recognition 
 as a masterpiece of portraiture. His portrait 
 of Mrs. Davenport, finished for months, had not 
 been shown until then. From every quarter 
 ardent praises sprang to greet him. With the 
 exhibiting of that painting Thayer's stock 
 soared to dizzy heights. He had not been un- 
 recognized before; now he was more than fa- 
 mous; he was idolized. 
 
 Mrs. Davenport had gone through her second 
 London season with even more success than had 
 attended her first one. From her first appear- 
 ance she had been a marked woman, at first be- 
 61
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 cause of her peculiar but undeniable beauty. 
 Later her friendship for Thayer made her the 
 subject of many a whisper. When she began 
 to pose for him, when she went to his studio 
 time and again without observing any of the 
 forms which convention, and above all London 
 convention, demands of its votaries, the hum of 
 talk rose and buzzed vigorously. 
 
 Women began to ask imperiously who she was, 
 where was her husband? It was known that she 
 was not a widow, and her presentation at court 
 satisfied society that she was not a divorced 
 woman. Her affairs from the first were gos- 
 siped to shreds, and the exasperating fact 
 to her enemies, and she had her full share 
 of detractors, was that no amount of mys- 
 tery, real or created, had the slightest effect 
 upon her social position. From the first it had 
 been incontestible. When she had come over to 
 England almost two years before it had been 
 under the most flattering auspices. Her intro- 
 ductions, her social sponsors, her friends, were 
 incontrovertible. So in spite of slur and innuendo 
 she had gone her indifferent way before the 
 world, and from it had reaped what she had 
 62
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 desired from its close hedged fields. She was a 
 New Yorker, but she had not been back for al- 
 most two years. Just now she was on the point 
 of departure for Russia, where she was to be 
 the guest of the American ambassador. 
 
 The afternoon before she left London Mrs. 
 Davenport and Thayer wandered into the Acad- 
 emy and sat down alone before the portrait that 
 each of them knew to the last stroke. Yet Hilda 
 leaned forward in a curious fascination and 
 studied it anew. 
 
 "Do you know," she said at last, "I sometimes 
 wonder how after all I could have let you hang 
 me there. I could not have consented if I hadn't 
 known how mole-eyed people are." 
 
 Thayer was in a moody frame of mind. For 
 a week he had felt the fire of work in him and 
 his material would not come to hand. 
 
 "I have succeeded in reading you?" he asked 
 absently. 
 
 "To the last breath of a thought," she whis- 
 pered. "No one on earth knows me that way. 
 It is the naked ego." 
 
 "Look here, Hilda," Thayer broke out sud- 
 denly. "For God's sake, stay here in London 
 63
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 with me. I've everything drawn in, everything 
 plotted out except that one figure. I've got to 
 have you. Sometimes I think I shall go mad if 
 I can't get started to work. For two weeks 
 I've had models, a string of them. I've posed 
 them God, what horrors nature can produce! 
 Each girl I've told to go. I've paid them for an 
 hour when it took me only half a minute to 
 decide. Something's wrong with every one, hair 
 or eyes or arms or body. Not only that, no 
 one of them has a breath of inspiration about 
 her." 
 
 Mrs. Davenport continued to gaze at her por- 
 trait. "We have gone all over this before," she 
 said, rather wearily. 
 
 He struck the floor with his stick. "Look 
 there ! See what I have done with you ! I know 
 every shine of your eyes, every turn of your 
 mouth, every curve of you. I'm savage. If I 
 don't get to work soon, and fearfully soon, all 
 the inspiration that I've fed on you for a year 
 past will be going." 
 
 Mrs. Davenport turned to him as to a fretful 
 child. "Kirk, you ask an impossibility. You 
 have painted the naked ego there, but the naked 
 64
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 body no, I thank you. Don't favor me with 
 any more of your leveling speeches; they don't 
 carry conviction with them. It is impossible 
 that I should give you what you desire, but it 
 is equally impossible that there should not be in 
 all of London or Paris a model, or two, or three, 
 who can give professionally what you de- 
 mand of my friendship. Frankly, you demand 
 too much." 
 
 Thayer laughed harshly, rudely. "I wouldn't 
 ask your friendship to hand over if I didn't 
 know the body would fill all the laws of propor- 
 tion. There's not a model to be had. I've gone 
 through every studio and artist's quarters, and 
 not a face inspires me. My inspiration is 
 dwindling. Are you going to dare let that idea 
 perish all because you won't drop your clothes 
 and let me put your body up against a pillar 
 and paint it, paint it!" There was despair in 
 his voice. 
 
 "It's just exactly what I won't do," Mrs. 
 Davenport said, soothingly. "My dear Kirk, I 
 am an honest woman. In all ways I sympathize 
 with your artistic passions, and for your genius 
 I have an abiding reverence. But if I should
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 thrust aside some of the few feelings I still 
 cling to and do what you ask, though I have no 
 doubt I should come out of the ordeal an honest 
 woman still, will you kindly count on your long, 
 lovely fingers the names of those great ones 
 whose homes would still be open to me? They 
 need not know? O, yes they need. There are 
 other things besides love and a cough which 
 can not be hidden from modern priers. Then, 
 I have never forgotten something you said to 
 me nearly a year ago, that day we stopped at 
 that queer little island do you remember? 
 that you might change the face somewhat per- 
 haps. Suppose no one need know of the sittings, 
 which is an impossible hypothesis, do you still 
 quite dare to claim that I should not be be- 
 trayed?" 
 
 Thayer was staring fixedly at the portrait. 
 The last words he had barely heard. She leaned 
 back and watched him with a look half im- 
 patience, half amusement. She cared for this 
 young artist very sincerely. As a study in types 
 he interested her intensely. Of moral sense in 
 the orthodox acceptation of the word he had 
 none. His selfishness was absolute, supreme. 
 66
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 That he had his own peculiar code of honor 
 was undoubted, but it was peculiar, and it was 
 his own, and therefore it was subject to swift 
 change. In his private life he was a type of 
 the decadent in emotions and sensation that has 
 flourished like a rank and hybrid growth the 
 last quarter of a century. Yet of all men whom 
 she knew, Mrs. Davenport admired him intel- 
 lectually the most. Despite the decadence of 
 his life his work showed virile and strong, and to 
 it he was all devotion and untiring. 
 
 She possessed the power that is beyond most 
 women of being able to dissociate her personal 
 feelings from all things moral and mental. She 
 had found Thayer interesting intellectually, 
 worthy of study as a type, to be adored as a 
 genius. For the rest she accepted him as he 
 was, and let the tongues of the merry world 
 about her wag as they would. 
 
 There is no doubt but that had she ever so 
 faintly encouraged it, Thayer's unstinted ad- 
 miration of her would have been fanned into a 
 pretty blaze at which gossips would have gaily 
 warmed their stale feasts of reason ; but she was 
 by no means a sensual woman, though her na- 
 67
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 ture was luxuriant in its passions and tropical 
 in its sensuousness. Grossness in any form was 
 beneath her. What she did not have to notice 
 she preferred to let pass, a method of procedure 
 for which she was often censured ; but she had a 
 philosophical disregard of the world and its 
 sayings, and in the end suffered not nearly so 
 much as the woman who neglects to assimilate 
 the scientific fact that, turn as she will and smile 
 as she may in her endeavors to show a smiling 
 face to all the world, her back is turned upon 
 half the world all the time. Mrs. Davenport 
 turned when she pleased and smiled when she 
 cared to, and by and by she succeeded in edu- 
 cating her world, without trying to educate it, 
 into the settled conviction that comment touched 
 her not at all, and rebuke amused her greatly. 
 Thereby was her life made brighter. 
 
 For several moments Thayer sat in the same 
 rigid silence. At last he turned to her swiftly, 
 his eyes glowing like coals. 
 
 "I don't suppose you can realize, even with 
 
 your infinite sympathy," he said slowly, "the 
 
 fearful hold that picture has taken on my mind. 
 
 It is eating into me. It thrills me like desire. 
 
 68
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 I must get to work, and I can't do a stroke on 
 it now in my state of mind till I get my model. 
 I have longed so intensely for you, have so 
 hoped that my common sense would in the end 
 prevail over your prudery, that I confess I have 
 overlooked one other who might serve. I had 
 forgotten her entirely. She might serve even 
 better." He said the last words slowly, de- 
 liberately. 
 
 Mrs. Davenport laughed. She was a woman 
 absolutely devoid of personal vanity and Thayer 
 knew it. 
 
 "Don't try to hurt my feelings," she said. 
 "They aren't near the surface." 
 
 Thayer rose briskly. "O, I'm not trying to 
 hurt your feelings," he replied. "I'm only 
 studying ways and means. It's going to be hard 
 to get her, but the more I think of it the 
 more I " 
 
 "What is she, so guarded or exalted ; a prison- 
 er or a princess?" 
 
 "That's it exactly. What a clever woman you 
 are, Hilda!" 
 
 Mrs. Davenport started ; then she gave a hor- 
 rified little cry and turned positively white. 
 69
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 At last she laughed faintly, even though Thayer 
 nodded at her decisively. 
 
 "Such utter nonsense!" she said at length, 
 with a palpable attempt at lightness. 
 
 Thayer stood before her and smiled down into 
 her eyes; a smile that was not pleasant to look 
 upon. He spoke categorically. 
 
 "She has the eyes, she has the figure, she has 
 your coloring to a shade, she has that is, she 
 had the absolute innocence " 
 
 Hilda rose hastily. Despite her desire to treat 
 the matter lightly and her horror of taking any 
 trivial thing seriously she felt certain words rush 
 irresistibly to her lips. 
 
 "Kirk, you are mad to consider such a thing 
 for a moment. In the first place she wouldn't 
 leave the island; they don't let their girls leave 
 there too easily. In the next place you might 
 as well make it the first one you would be shot 
 down like a dog. Do you forget her father, her 
 brothers, her lover? Do you hear me?" She 
 gave him a little shake. 
 
 Thayer laughed. He had suddenly recovered 
 his gaiety. "Yes, I hear you," he said lightly. 
 
 70
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 "Come, haven't we mooned here long enough? 
 So you really leave to-morrow for Russia?" 
 
 "I have a great impulse to make it Scot- 
 land," she returned soberly. "Kirk, I feel it 
 within me that you are about to do something 
 reckless, abominable. Don't look so bored. This 
 is the first time in all these months I have com- 
 mitted the great blunder of lecturing you. It 
 shan't be repeated. For the first time since I 
 have known you I feel puzzled about you. My 
 common sense tells me you can't by the wildest 
 stretch of folly be in earnest. Something else 
 makes me foolish enough to take you seriously. 
 In any event the girl is safe. But " she paused 
 impressively, "if by some diabolical chance I 
 can not now foresee you succeed in harming that 
 poor child, or even bring one care over her 
 happy life, you shall have cause to remember 
 that Hilda Davenport lives." She broke into a 
 laugh, though her eyes looked anxious. "It 
 sounds like a Drury Lane melodrama, doesn't it ? 
 Well, my dear boy, let me be the only one to 
 contribute any lines or incidents." 
 
 He saw her off the next day, provided her
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 with fruit and flowers, and bade her farewell 
 with genuine regret. Yet she was filled with 
 a nameless dread at the godless light that 
 danced in his beautiful eyes, and a prophetic 
 fear of coming trouble haunted her throughout 
 her journey. In Paris she laughed at herself 
 constantly to drive away a mad, foolish impulse 
 to give up her trip as she had planned it. In 
 the end reason prevailed over intuition, and in 
 a few days' time she was entering Russia.
 
 It was another opal day on Eilean Rohan. All 
 the afternoon Clodah had been perched on the 
 Red Rock, looking with unseeing eyes out 
 over the rolling sea. It was one of those rare 
 days when the fog lifted and showed the shores 
 of Scotland in the violet distance, and for hours 
 she had sat there waiting for the sunset the 
 lovely day had silently promised her. The eyes 
 that stared so widely were sad ones; the mouth 
 had a weary droop. Troubles were gather- 
 ing black along her tiny horizon. First and 
 last and all the time, Donald Ross. She was be- 
 ginning to feel the difference between his love 
 for her and her father's love. It was only an 
 intuition. As yet Clodah had no knowledge of 
 love nor of its demands. But she was disturbed 
 by what she did not understand. She shrank 
 from him, and she mourned much thereat, for she 
 did not think it right to be other than at peace 
 with all the world. When he came to the cottage 
 73
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 in the evenings as he had done from the time 
 they were all children together she had often of 
 late crept away, and in so doing had felt that 
 she was displeasing her father and her brothers, 
 and hurting Donald. 
 
 The Rohan never tried to control her, for 
 never in all her gentle life had Clodah needed 
 control, but her sensitive heart felt the disturb- 
 ing elements in the atmosphere about her, and 
 she blamed herself needlessly as the cause. To- 
 day was her birthday. She was seventeen, and 
 that morning her father had said something 
 about their having sometime to give up their 
 little house-mother to let her go into another 
 home of her own. Clodah had flushed and had 
 not answered, but the words had not left her, 
 and with them the thought of Donald was inex- 
 tricably mingled. 
 
 Finally she thrust all the heavy thoughts to 
 one side; they had become too great a burden 
 for her to bear any longer. She deliberately 
 pushed actualities away, and took delightful and 
 immediate refuge in her favorite dreams. Some- 
 how, the beautiful lady of the summer before
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 was vivid in her thoughts. She seemed to hear 
 the lovely voice again; to feel once more that 
 tender arm about her. How lovely she was, how 
 lovely! Clodah closed her eyes in an aching 
 ecstasy of memory, and sat for a long time with- 
 out stirring in a picturesque huddle against the 
 cold, stern cliff. That man, The Thayer, he 
 had said she was like the beautiful lady; her 
 hair, her eyes, her mouth, her perfect grace! 
 He had told her so many strange things that 
 afternoon, about how he went to work to paint 
 lovely things, about his colors, and he had called 
 that sunset opal. Clodah since then had never 
 called it anything else. And he had told her the 
 island was so delightful and its people were so 
 hospitable that he was coming back some 
 day soon to paint their rocks and sea. That was 
 already long ago, and he had not come. She 
 drew her breath with a sharp little sound. She 
 was tired of just wondering. 
 
 She opened her eyes with a tragic suddenness, 
 and with a rudimentary despair in them she 
 stared out on the sea. What did it all mean, 
 this unrest? Once she had been so happy. On the 
 
 75
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 blue of the sea a tossing black line lay, something 
 that she followed vacantly for many a minute 
 before curiosity concerning it woke within her. 
 
 She leaned forward. It was not the day for 
 the packet boat from Skerra, and none of the 
 men were fishing to-day on the south side of 
 the island. Was it really a boat, or only a great, 
 helpless piece of driftwood lying at the mercy 
 of the waves? With a passive curiosity she 
 watched it drive nearer. It was a boat, so 
 much was sure. Nearer and nearer it came 
 across the miles of water. The wind was blowing 
 toward the island and the tiny craft came danc- 
 ing over the waves. When it was close enough 
 for her to distinguish its occupants she leaned 
 forward with great eagerness and then sank back 
 filled with a disappointment whose vagueness did 
 not make it any the less bitter. Only the plaid of 
 the ordinary Scotsman met her gaze. She paid 
 no more attention to it then, and let it pass 
 beneath her and enter the small harbor. 
 
 The sun was sinking low. Already its ruddy 
 
 edge rested upon the brink of the ocean. The 
 
 sky was aflame with lavish orange hues. In the 
 
 midst of the flare of color the disk of the sun 
 
 76
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 hung, blood red. Its stain passed upward as it 
 sank down, and flooded the heavens with an un- 
 earthly color that mingled with the orange and 
 yellows and struggled for the mastery. The girl 
 sat there in a light strong and brilliant enough 
 to make her seem the focus for the lights of the 
 western sky. Her hair was the color of the 
 dying sun, made glorious with the ruddiness that 
 seemed to pour up from beyond the ocean; her 
 hands were stained in the glow that for one 
 breathless moment wrapped the earth in its em- 
 brace. Her eyes were wide open, her lips were 
 parted. Beauty always hushed her into an awe 
 that ached. She forgot all things but the sight 
 of the dying day. 
 
 Suddenly a stone rolled down from the rocks 
 above her; another followed it, and Clodah 
 stirred; then before her she saw Thayer stand- 
 ing; he had caught both her hands in his, and 
 was looking past her eyes into her innocent heart. 
 Whatever he saw there made him smile with a 
 triumph that thrilled her, and then he dropped 
 her hands and took her in his arms and kissed 
 her on the lips. 
 
 Slow tears were rolling down her cheeks when 
 77
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 he let her go. Her breathing was pitiful, and 
 an unreasoning fright held her. But through 
 the tears and the quick breathing, and rising 
 triumphant above the terror, was something that 
 made Thayer catch her to him again and hold 
 her tenderly. 
 
 "I told you I would come back sometime," 
 he said softly. "Did you forget?" 
 
 Her head moved once against his breast. She 
 was shaking violently. He soothed her quietly. 
 
 "I didn't forget," he murmured. "I couldn't 
 come before, but the time came when I couldn't 
 keep away. Dear, you haven't said a word to 
 me yet." 
 
 He put his hand beneath her face and raised 
 it with gentle force. It was very white and 
 drawn. 
 
 "I hae naught to say," she whispered with 
 closed eyes. 
 
 Thayer bent and laid his lips on them. At 
 his touch they opened, and she looked at him 
 with a tenseness about her mouth that made 
 the gaze a wild one. His eyes glowed and nar- 
 rowed into hers, and suddenly a rush of color 
 that was almost purple swept over the girl, lit- 
 78
 
 erally drenching with a faint moisture her face 
 and throat. She moved her eyes from side to 
 side as if seeking for rescue, and then as they 
 at last came back to him, she turned suddenly 
 and hid them against his heart. There was sur- 
 render in every limb, surrender whose fulness she 
 did not realize. That the moment was his 
 Thayer knew, and he seized it. 
 
 "I want you to go away with me," he mur- 
 mured. "I've come for you, dear. I want to 
 take you away with me just aa Soon as you 
 can go." He paused. Clodah did not raise her 
 head. Thayer felt a sensation of pleasure at 
 the yielding relaxation of her figure. After all, 
 the girl was a wonderfully beautiful creature, 
 how beautiful he had hardly realized. She had 
 stirred in his arms, had flung one rounded arm 
 about his neck. 
 
 "I didna know it before," she whispered with 
 a catch in her voice like that of a child who has 
 sobbed itself to rest. "I didna know it before, 
 an' I dinna know all what it means now ; but, ah, 
 I canna stay here alone an' live !" 
 
 Thayer's arms tightened about her. "When 
 can you go with me?" 
 
 79
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 She glanced at him in doubt. "When do 
 you want me now?" 
 
 "I want you now," he answered in a sudden 
 flame of desire. But Clodah was thinking with 
 wide eyes of this new demand, and remained 
 tranquil before his passionate gaze. In all his 
 wanderings, and they had been many, Thayer 
 had never seen such an absolute rest of the senses 
 in a girl of her age and growth. She was ab- 
 solutely innocent; she was incapable of giving 
 a name to the feeling that he woke within her, 
 but from her low-breathed confession he well 
 knew that the dreams of the past year, devoid 
 as they were of all love in the earthy sense, had 
 reared for him a shrine in her heart before which 
 had been poured out the purest worship of him 
 his life had known. 
 
 Thayer was a man in whom the passions had 
 had so much indulgence that it took more than 
 a passing whim to rouse them to keenness, but 
 before this girl he suddenly felt the fire and 
 longing of his early youth. He smiled slightly 
 as he laid his cheek against her ruddy hair. After 
 all, his passion for art and his love passion 
 might perhaps prove one and the same thing. 
 80
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 He must have this girl at any cost, that he had 
 decided ; but the cost to himself might not after 
 all be so great. She was beautiful, and she 
 loved beauty ; she was quick of perception ; three 
 qualities of the metal of wifehood that render 
 it more malleable in the matrimonial furnace. 
 Even if it must mean marriage, and all along 
 he had been inwardly certain that it would mean 
 that before he could get her away, it might 
 turn out for him the best of fortune. Then no 
 more searches for nymphs, no more models with 
 beautiful faces and heavy hips; no more girls 
 whose arms were perfect and whose ankles made 
 him swear beneath his breath at their thickness. 
 He had seen what Clodah's face could express 
 with only her limited range of feeling and emo- 
 tion. What could it not develop into under his 
 tutelage and molding? 
 
 All this time he had been holding her in the 
 same close embrace. Now he spoke quickly, 
 triumphantly. 
 
 "Come," he said, "take me to your father." 
 She shrank back a little. A sudden change 
 swept over her face. All of the old worry and 
 trouble came into her eyes. 
 81
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 "Feyther he " She stopped short and 
 looked at Thayer in half terror. For some rea- 
 son he was instantly reminded of Mrs. Daven- 
 port's not too subtile hint of a lover. 
 
 "What is it, dear?" he asked with more than 
 an idle curiosity in his voice. 
 
 Clodah hesitated. "I canna tell you," she said 
 at length. "Feyther " She stopped again. 
 
 Thayer laughed. "Come," he repeated, and 
 with his arm flung carelessly about her he led 
 her down the cliff and up the long slanting path 
 to the distant cottage in whose door as they drew 
 nearer they saw The Rohan standing. 
 
 Clodah would have broken away, but Thayer 
 held her close, and under the growing fire in 
 The Rohan's eye they came up the path to- 
 gether. When they were within thirty feet of 
 the cottage The Rohan rose and came down to 
 meet them. His face kindled to a white anger 
 with the flash of recognition that woke within 
 his eyes when he was but a few feet distant from 
 Thayer. He strode swiftly over the intervening 
 space and laid his hand with a rude heaviness 
 on Clodah's shoulder. Thayer's arm was still 
 about her. 
 
 82
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 "I recall ye. Gi' her me !" They faced each 
 other in the gloomy dusk, the slender girl be- 
 tween them. Thayer did not stir. 
 
 "Unloose her, I say! Man, gi* me my 
 daughter !" There was a great cry in his heavy 
 voice. With a swift, harsh movement he 
 wrenched Clodah free. Thayer staggered back, 
 momentarily overcome by the fierce assault. 
 Then he held out his empty arms. 
 
 "Clodah!" he said, his voice no more than a, 
 whisper. She was standing in her father's grip. 
 How cruel it was she did not know until the next 
 morning, when her white arm showed blue and 
 purple. 
 
 "Clodah!" Thayer cried again, a note of 
 despair in his voice. 
 
 "Feyther!" she whispered with pleading un- 
 utterable. The Rohan stood mute. While the 
 soul is in travail there is no cry. 
 
 "Feyther!" she cried again. The silence of 
 the island night was about them. Below them 
 murmured the sobbing sea in its unending woe. 
 Suddenly she threw up her arms. Thayer had 
 turned as if to go down to the wooden pier. 
 
 "Feyther!" she cried again, and then with a 
 83
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 swift little rush she threw off his hand and run- 
 ning to Thayer flung herself into his arms. And 
 again over her bent head the two men looked at 
 each other. But this time there was no measur- 
 ing of power. The older man stood with a de- 
 spairing relaxation in all the length of his 
 mighty frame. The younger man stood erect 
 and victorious, for in his arms by her own free 
 choice he held the island's treasure. 
 
 "Come in my house," The Rohan said at 
 length, after a moment full of bitter renuncia- 
 tion. "Come in my house, an' tell me there what 
 manner o' man ye are. Clodah, 'tis nae for ye 
 to hear, till I learn the man that ye hae cast off 
 feyther for, what he be. But ye can trust 
 feyther, lass?" 
 
 Clodah was sobbing bitterly. One arm was 
 still flung about Thayer's neck, but the other 
 she reached out to her father. 
 
 "I didna know," she sobbed pitifully. "I 
 didna know till he came to-day. I hae na de- 
 ceived thee, feyther. I didna know mysel'." 
 
 The Rohan's eyes were wet. "Go to yir room, 
 lass," he said softly. 
 
 Until she disappeared within the cottage door 
 84
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 the two men stood looking after her. Then The 
 Rohan led the way sternly to his hall, the hall 
 where the primitive justice of the island was 
 meted out. In the center of the room he drew 
 himself up with a dignity that even at that mo- 
 ment Thayer confessed to himself he had never 
 seen surpassed. He fastened on the artist a 
 gaze that seemed striving to pierce the veneer of 
 raiment and flesh to the inner spirit that they 
 clothed. 
 
 "Now, man," he said briefly, "I remember ye, 
 though I know ye not. The name ye bear dinna 
 matter. But in God's name, what manner o' 
 man be ye?" 
 
 85
 
 For one calculating moment the two men faced 
 each other in the dusky room ; The Rohan mas- 
 sive and rugged and directly simple, Thayer 
 polished and alert and many stranded. Human- 
 ly speaking, the victory lay already with the 
 younger man. And yet in the preparatory 
 pause that followed The Rohan's challenge, 
 Thayer, with his peculiar power of surveying 
 from a throbless standpoint all that came to him 
 in life of joy or sorrow, or even threatening 
 tragedy, felt a first cynical doubt thrill him, a 
 doubt of ultimate success. In all his mad jour- 
 ney to the island it had been Clodah, Clodah, 
 Clodah that had filled his brain. It was Clodah's 
 consent he had to gain; that was the task that 
 lay before him. His arrogant self-confidence in 
 that success had been justified. Yet in this mo- 
 ment of amazed, resentful doubt he threw back 
 his shoulders with a sudden tenseness of his whole 
 body. The primal instincts, self-defense, pro- 
 86
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 tection of his own, were tightening every nerve, 
 keying them up to a recklessly high pitch. For 
 the first time, mentally as well as physically, he 
 was facing The Rohan man to man. He had 
 wooed the peasant girl. He had yet to win the 
 daughter, to wring from the father some sort 
 of acquiescence. Spirit had challenged spirit, 
 and to the simple inner royalty of The Rohan 
 Thayer's swift self -guard was an involuntary 
 homage. Then he caught up the glove thrown 
 down. 
 
 "Sir," he said, gently, "that I am a man of 
 note in my own country, a man of some wealth, 
 a little fame, a man who can give your daughter 
 a life of such luxury as she has never known, 
 all this will count as nothing in the face of your 
 demand. Before it I am speechless. How may 
 a man know himself, or knowing, how may 
 he tell it out to others? If you do not know 
 me, what do I know of her? Yet I am filled 
 with a great longing for her. I have come this 
 journey after a weary year that should have 
 served to drive her from my mind. Instead, it 
 has driven me here in spite of myself. Sir, if 
 you will not listen kindly to my pleading for 
 87.
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 myself, let me entreat you for your daughter's 
 joy. I found her down yonder dreaming like 
 a child. All this long year of separation she 
 has held me in memory, and without her 
 knowledge she was ready for me with a love that 
 fills me with rapture and humility. I ask your 
 daughter of you. I ask to bear her away with 
 me from her home and her people to my own 
 land. I shall deal with her tenderly. I do not 
 plead for my own happiness now. It is hers 
 I am seeking at your hands." 
 
 The Rohan had never moved his brooding eyes 
 from Thayer's face. "Ye are takin' more on 
 yirsel' than I asked o' ye," he said with a harsh- 
 ness that made the blunt speech blunter. "Ye 
 are speakin' to the lass's feyther. He has cared 
 for her happiness a' her life. He can be trusted 
 wi' it yet a while. 'Tis nae in keepin' wi' her 
 dignity that ye plead so soon for her joy wi' ye." 
 
 The two men stood before each other poised 
 as for a brute contest of physical power. Their 
 eyes shot defiance and wrath through the gather- 
 ing gloom. Yet it was desperate strength 
 matched against desperate cunning. Thayer's 
 white face turned a little whiter at this direct 
 88
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 rending of his sophistry. His jaw settled into 
 a firmer line. He saw that The Rohan had yet 
 another word to say and he waited. 
 
 "Ye mean me to infer ye hae nae one here 
 to speak for ye an' yir modesty willna let ye 
 tell it out honest what ye be. Ye be a friend o' 
 the Davenports?" It was demand, question, 
 yearning assertion, all in one. 
 
 Thayer hesitated. Why not? Yet never in 
 all his life had he held up a woman's body before 
 his own to ward off a death blow. 
 
 "I don't know Mr. Davenport," he said slowly. 
 "That I was with Mrs. Davenport's party last 
 summer was purely an accident." 
 
 The Rohan clenched his hands. He stepped 
 forward and covered in one stride the narrow 
 space between him and Thayer. 
 
 "Man," he said, a white heat of anger thrill- 
 ing along his voice, "hae ye nae sense o' honor in 
 yir world, nae sense o' what's befittin' the honor 
 o' a little maid? Ye hae crept frae off the di- 
 vidin' sea on to my land. Ye slunk like a thief 
 along my shore. Ye came on my lass sittin' wi' 
 her innocent dreams an' ye stole my lamb awa'. 
 She dinna know hersel', she says. Nae, she dinna 
 89
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 know hersel'. There be a man on this island that 
 loves her true, that dares to say boldly he loves 
 her. 'Tis a word ye haena uttered to me yet. 
 Truly, if it be a man loves a maid he may tell her 
 feyther it for the comfort it may be. I be dis- 
 tressed for my lass, yes, I be distressed; yet she 
 has the blood o' her feythers in her, an* it is 
 strong red blood. But as for ye, go down to 
 yir boat an' sail awa' an' leave my land to the 
 peace that held it before ye blighted it wi' yir 
 courtly presence. Sail awa' an' leave my lass 
 to me an' him that loves her an' isna afraid to 
 tell it out to the man that loves her most o* 
 all. She be simple an' untaught o' the world. 
 Ye know naethin' else. Ye canna mate wi' each 
 ither an' hae joy one in the ither. Not Heaven 
 itsel' can work that miracle. Therefore I bid 
 ye go. I know weel ye hae left misery in yir 
 wake, but it's naethin' to the torment that would 
 follow did I let ye stay. Ye are ower confident 
 too when ye claim the lass's life be bound up in 
 yir own. Ye hae brought a fever wi' ye an' she 
 is fast held now in the delirium o' it, but she will 
 get ower it, O yes, she will recover. She has 
 the blood in her veins that dinna let a bramble 
 90
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 poison it, though the scratch may smart sore. 
 She will hae her feyther's love for a lotion, an' 
 it has never yet failed to heal." 
 
 The Rohan's voice grew more and more stern 
 as he went on. Thayer stood in silence, his face 
 settling into hard, rigid lines. He let a little 
 cold, scintillating smile that had lurked in his 
 eyes come out and play, shadowlike, about his 
 mouth. 
 
 "I think you do not realize,, nor does she, 
 how entirely she is mine," he murmured in a 
 cold, sweet voice that cut like a surgeon's lancet. 
 "And suppose I leave and allow her to stay be- 
 hind? She is a child, yes, and she has scratched 
 herself. And up to now her blood has been fresh 
 and cool and healing. What if the fever in it 
 nurses the bramble poison and carries it through 
 her from head to foot? What if the poison 
 is already coursing its fatal way through her? 
 And if I choose not to let her stay behind, but 
 bid her come, do you dare think the choice is 
 longer yours or hers ? Down yonder when she 
 threw herself here " 
 
 Thayer flung out his arms. The Rohan start- 
 ed. A shiver ran over him. His face was drawn 
 91
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 with the agony that had shot through him when 
 the girl had thrown him off. Thayer stood be- 
 fore him in a cold, almost indifferent triumph. 
 He stared calmly at The Rohan in his convulsive 
 waverings. And as he looked another doubt, 
 born of his own taunting words, stabbed him with 
 a swift pain. It was one thing to bear the girl 
 away in the face of a great wrath that denied. 
 It was another thing to carry her off, leaving 
 behind this bent and tortured figure, broken 
 on the wheel of an outraged fatherhood. There 
 drifted across him like a haunting fragrance a 
 memory of the girl's exquisite surrender. All 
 the unutterable beauty of it appealed to him 
 afresh. It wove a spell about him that caught 
 his heart and stopped its beating. Something 
 broke within him, the settled coldness of a selfish- 
 ness sublime in its absolute disregard of others. 
 It warmed into pulsating life as it rushed 
 through him, finding an outlet at last in short, 
 feverish speech. 
 
 "Let me have her," he cried. "I have won her. 
 I can not be denied. Fairly or foully I have 
 won her. She is mine. She loves me. Loves me
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 with a love I say it in all humility she will 
 never give to another man. I can not go away 
 without her. See, it is the fate of her life. She 
 did not know she loved me till I came. Suppose 
 I had not come; suppose I had followed good 
 advice and stayed away, she might have lived 
 and died here in her island home. This lover 
 she might have wedded him and borne him chil- 
 dren and reared them in the pure ways she has 
 trod all her life. But that is changed forever 
 now. If she does not marry me she will never 
 marry him. It was meant to be through all the 
 ages. Why should I have been led here a year 
 ago? Why should this year have been one of 
 sorrow and despair and vain endeavor? Why 
 should life have baffled me at every turn till I 
 came at last and found her mine, mine, mine?" 
 
 He seized The Rohan by the arm. The older 
 man looked at him with eyes blinded by despair. 
 He saw Thayer's face drawn now and haggard ; 
 he perceived a sincerity in his eyes ; he heard the 
 ring of it in his voice, felt the thrill of it in the 
 close personal contact. He looked and looked 
 into the white, tense face before him. It was as 
 
 93
 
 if he could never rest until he had probed to 
 the soul of the man who faced him. When he 
 spoke despair wavered in his tones. 
 
 "I dinna know ye yet, man, who or what 
 ye be. I dinna know yet what the feelin' be ye 
 bear my bairn nor how ye came to feel it. I 
 am full o' doubt. Yet, somethin' in yir words 
 rings true. Ye yearn after her, ye say. May- 
 hap ye mean love. Man, be honest wi' yirsel' an' 
 me this hour. A* that ye say o' the lass an' 
 her love for ye I know is the truth, howe'er much 
 I resent ye sayin' it. But I know this, if ye 
 dinna know it, that in spite o' yir pleadin' an' 
 her grief I be strong enough to say ye both nay 
 if it be for her good. Better that she die o' 
 sorrow wi'out ye on her island home than that 
 she live in sorrow wi' ye in that grand home o' 
 yir own. I be strong enough to say nay, an' in 
 spite o' yir arrogance, man, I dinna feel yet that 
 yir power could take her awa' wi'out her feyther 
 said for her to go. But nae man has the right 
 to take the power o' God into his own weak hands 
 an' say for ithers that here be joy an' that way 
 sorrow. An' so I hesitate. But ye know the
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 purposes o' yir heart, what ye mean for my 
 bairn. O, be honest this hour wi' her an' me an' 
 yirsel'." 
 
 Thayer felt a faint sickness steal over him 
 as The Rohan spoke, a physical sickness induced 
 by a nerve strain too great for endurance. For 
 one blazing second he saw straight down the 
 days to come. The purposes of his heart ! Then 
 he shut his eyes against the revelation, against 
 the sudden mad impulse to throw up the doing 
 of the deed. What would it not mean for him if 
 he surrendered now ? A wild despair shook him, 
 a despair so blind and frantic that it swayed 
 him helplessly. What if he lost her now ! His 
 brain was one great doubt. His vaunting self- 
 pride had died, shriveled into a withered heap 
 of nothingness. The insolent pride of his bear- 
 ing had dropped away from him as a rotted 
 garment. For the moment he trod Chaos; he 
 walked in Emptiness. It was with the shadow 
 of their wastes and solitudes graying his face 
 that he turned at last to The Rohan. 
 
 "Give her to me," he pleaded thickly. "I shall 
 be tender with her. No man could be other than 
 
 95
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 tender with her. She shall be my treasure as 
 she has been yours. Let me take her, let me take 
 her!" 
 
 When The Rohan raised his head it was the 
 face of an old man that Thayer looked upon. 
 
 "After all," he said, hoarsely, "the lass hersel' 
 has decided it. Down yon'er when she cast me 
 off her feyther off it couldna be a bad thing 
 she loved to cast her feyther off for I said 
 I was strong to say ye nay. The strength 
 has gone frae me. I be bowed an' bent. I would 
 ye were a friend o' Davenport's. He is a man 
 I trust. I canna trust ye yet. I be honest 
 wi' ye. I canna trust ye yet. But I halt in 
 sendin' ye awa'. I dare nae do it. For 'twould 
 be the death o' her, the death! Ye be a great 
 man, ye say, an' ye can gi' my bairn gold an' 
 plenty. Ah, yes, but there be better than gold, 
 an' that be love. She wouldna miss the wealth 
 wi'out ye, for she has never had it. But wi' all yir 
 wealth an' greatness if she go awa' wi' ye an' 
 ye fail to gi' her the greatest thing o' life, I 
 doubt nae but she'll turn in longin' to her 
 feyther an' his love that never failed." 
 
 96
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 Thayer went abruptly over to the window that 
 overlooked the harbor where his boat lay rocking 
 with the sea. His temples were throbbing pain- 
 fully. His throat was dry and contracted. He 
 thought with a strange, aching loneliness of the 
 innocent girl, sent away to her room while two 
 men held her life in their hands and probed 
 with blunt, unpractised fingers into its quiv- 
 ering embryonic possibilities. He could see 
 her lying on her bed shaken with the al- 
 most tearless sobs that had torn through 
 her down there in the path before her 
 father's door. Suddenly a passionate joy shot 
 its stinging way through him. He had not 
 heard The Rohan leave the room. He had not 
 heard the door softly unclose behind him. But 
 the new thrill of delight made him turn. There 
 on his arm lay a small, white hand. By him, 
 only as high as his shoulder, stood The Rohan's 
 daughter, her face so white that she looked like 
 a spirit in the gloom of her father's judgment 
 hall. When she spoke her voice was low and 
 wonderfully controlled. Thayer only stared at 
 her dumbly. For the moment the two seemed to 
 
 97
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 have changed places. It was Thayer who was 
 unstrung. It was the slender girl who held him 
 and herself in wonderful restraint. 
 
 "My feyther bade me come in here," she said 
 clearly. Through the dusk her eyes shone like 
 stars upon him. 
 
 Thayer uttered a low, nerveless cry. The old 
 faintness came back on him. His poise was gone. 
 The victory was his, but it stung like humilia- 
 tion. This girl before him his! He had won, 
 but at what cost, by what dastard deed ? The old 
 throbless standpoint had vanished. He seemed 
 to himself one great aching nerve, one tearing 
 throe of pain. The purposes of his heart ! In 
 the moment of his supreme triumph Thayer 
 tasted the sodden ashes of a mighty self-defeat.
 
 Two 'days later, in the glow of another gor- 
 geous sun-setting, a boat set off from Eilean 
 Rohan, rowed by six lusty islanders. In the cen- 
 ter of the boat Clodah sat within the arms of 
 her husband. On the shore were gathered the 
 men and women and children of Rohan, those 
 who had watched over the delight of The 
 Rohan's heart with as tender a love as they felt 
 for their own. Only Donald Ross was absent. 
 On the evening of Thayer's arrival he had come 
 to The Rohan's home, had seen the artist, and 
 then with an insistence against which his chief 
 could not prevail, had demanded to see Clodah. 
 What had passed between them she did not tell 
 in detail, and what she told was told only to 
 her father in incoherent murmurs, but that night 
 Ross left the island and had not yet returned. 
 
 In the late afternoon of the second day after 
 Thayer's arrival his marriage with Clodah had 
 been celebrated by the aged minister of the 
 99
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 island, and this night they were leaving. How 
 the matter had been accomplished with such 
 swiftness no one who witnessed the simple cere- 
 mony knew, least of all the participants in it. 
 But accomplished it had been. 
 
 Just before Clodah stepped into the boat, 
 while some trifling trouble with the ropes was 
 being righted, her father drew her away from 
 the rest and looked with dumb questioning into 
 her eyes. 
 
 "My heart is sore wi'in me, lass," he said. 
 "It has been a' hasty and nae in keeping wi' the 
 dignity of a maid. But since the ither night I 
 haena known ye for my daughter. Some 
 strange change, swift as the changin' o' the sea, 
 has come o'er ye, and weel I know it is the mighty 
 power o' love. I couldna keep ye wi' me longer. 
 If I kept yir body I should be lonelier than I 
 shall be now, for yir spirit would hae been be- 
 yond yon'er sky. An* so I let ye go. Yir woman- 
 hood has come wi' a rush, lass. I know nae the 
 man ye hae taken. That he longs after ye I 
 see weel, and if he loved ye nae why should he 
 come back this weary way for a simple lass 
 like ye? An' so I let ye go. Wi' a stranger I 
 100
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 let ye go. But remember weel," his voice deep- 
 ened with its effort at control, "remember weel 
 the law o' yir island, that if a maid shall wed a 
 man, and go from her land, and if he die or 
 desert her, she shall come back and spend her 
 days wi' her people. An', lass o' mine, were it 
 nae that 'twould mean yir death o' happiness, 
 I could pray that ye be sent back !" 
 
 His voice rang out hoarsely, all the agony of 
 his great doubt echoing through it. But Clodah 
 lifted her face with a light shining on it that 
 comforted her father in many a weary memory. 
 
 "I shall come back, feyther," she said steadily, 
 "if there be need. But if the need come it 
 will bring a weary day for thee and me. For 
 he is the joy o' my heart, an' though I know 
 not," her voice fell, "though I know not what 
 awaits me, an' though the whole way be in 
 shadow, I must go with him, an' O my feyther, 
 my feyther, I bless thee and thank thee for let- 
 ting me go." 
 
 And so with her father's blessing echoing 
 
 in her ears and the cries of her people ringing 
 
 about her, with her husband's arm holding her 
 
 close, and the crimson shadows of the western 
 
 101
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 sun shining on her face that already shone from 
 the light of joy within, Clodah Rohan passed 
 from her island and people to another shore and 
 race of which she had no faintest knowledge, 
 with her only guide a man whom she had not 
 yet called by his given name, a man of whom 
 the only woman who knew him as he was had said 
 his temperament was his curse. And yet Kirk 
 Thayer, as his keen eye flashed along the stretch 
 of the island's coast line and took in the dramatic 
 beauty of the primitive farewell, vowed to him- 
 self that if the girl beside him would let herself 
 be happy she should be made so. In that mo- 
 ment he almost loved her. 
 
 102
 
 Thayer and his wife started directly for Lon- 
 don, but they stopped midway for a day in order 
 that Clodah's simple wardrobe might be supple- 
 mented to a degree that better became the wife 
 of a great celebrity. With all the delicacy of 
 suggestion at his command Thayer found it im- 
 possible to prevent the look of hurt pride that 
 swept over Clodah's face at the first mention of 
 new clothes. It was followed immediately by a 
 submission that almost irritated him. As they 
 were about to enter a shop she touched his hand 
 timidly. 
 
 "I scarce know what is fittin' for me now," she 
 murmured. "Dinna ask me anything. Buy 
 what you want me to wear an' I will put it on." 
 
 Thayer laughed down into her eyes, and under 
 his look the shadow fled from her face. 
 
 "You couldn't tell me to do anything that 
 would please me more," he said. "Sometimes I 
 think I've a good deal of the feminine in me, for 
 103
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 I like to dress people as little girls dress their 
 dolls, and I have in my mind's eye exactly what 
 you need, if only we can find it here. In a few 
 weeks we'll run over to Paris, and bring trunks 
 full of things back with us. This is just to tide 
 over." 
 
 While he talked Clodah listened in a half con- 
 scious dream. That she was no longer Clodah 
 Rohan, that she was the wife of this man who 
 to her represented all that was good and true 
 and noble she could not believe, had not yet 
 begun to grasp. She was afraid and she adored 
 in one and the same breath. She stood by 
 while he had stuffs brought out; dismissed 
 with contempt materials and garments that to 
 her unaccustomed eyes were rich enough for the 
 garb of kings; and finally out of the whole 
 stock which the shop-mistress placed at his 
 disposal he deigned to take two or three summer 
 gowns, a tailor suit, a deal of lingerie, and one 
 garment which he had seized on from the first 
 moment he saw it as the only thing in the shop 
 that nearly approached his idea of what he 
 wanted. It was a dull rose velvet, whose color- 
 ing had been subjected to acid fumes that gave 
 104
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 it strange and indefinable tones. A faint heral- 
 dic design was sprayed over it, but so dimly that 
 the design seemed but a part of the light and 
 shade. Thayer turned to Clodah and whispered 
 to her. 
 
 "The first night we are in London and that's 
 to-morrow night you are going to put on this 
 gown, and pile your hair up high. O, I'll show 
 you how. Didn't you know you had married a 
 hair-dresser, one who might have made his for- 
 tune were the court happy enough to have en- 
 gaged his services ? Ah, well, he has his princess 
 now, his princess of the ruddy locks, and he is 
 going to get his fill of torturing fair heads !" 
 
 Clodah laughed in happy shyness. "I dinna 
 think I shall know any more about putting on 
 the dress than putting up the hair. 'Tis too 
 lovely for just me." 
 
 Her eyes shone as she looked at the dull 
 shimmer of the velvet, and she smoothed it softly, 
 impulsively. Just then the shop-mistress re- 
 turned with assistants who were to help her in 
 the alterations that Thayer had insisted must 
 be made with all despatch, so he left her in their 
 care for a short time while the fitting of the 
 105
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 gowns was being made, and in the interim 
 he strolled about the town. He struck away 
 from the business streets, and found a quiet 
 thoroughfare leading out to a little park. He 
 stopped when he reached it, and stood with his 
 arms resting on the railing that cut it off from 
 the main road. Never had he felt so full of the 
 inspiration to hard work. Never had his brain 
 been more alert, more quick to receive impres- 
 sions, more open to suggestion. His fingers quiv- 
 ered with the nervous desire of genius. His 
 whole body felt the electric glow of a great 
 thought and a great ability. 
 
 "She is perfect," he thought. "She has pure 
 beauty of face and form, and her soul is full of 
 the fire that gives feeling and emotion. She 
 was too good for that desert spot. And I 
 shall make her happy. I shall make her 
 happy," he repeated defiantly, "Hilda notwith- 
 standing. I'm beginning to think her straight- 
 lacedness on the subject of posing a good thing 
 after all, for Clodah has a something in her face 
 that Hilda lacked ; an utter innocence of life and 
 the sins of life. It must not go till I get it 
 fastened on canvas." 
 
 106
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 He broke off nervously, biting and moistening 
 his lips as if consumed by a raging thirst. In 
 his mind was nothing but the single thought of 
 his painting and his model. If he had done 
 what his desire impelled him to do he would have 
 taken the girl off within the hour, whirled her 
 away to London, and stood her up that night 
 in his studio. 
 
 "These damn conventionalities," he muttered 
 irritably. "I can't hurt her now, she'll be of no 
 use to me if I'm not careful. Why were people 
 created with feelings to be considered? I haven't 
 any, thank God ! And yet I don't call myself a 
 cruel man. I don't torture cats or rabbits, 
 couldn't cut up one to save my soul, even if I 
 could accomplish by it what these old medicine 
 men of modern civilization claim they are doing, 
 finding out how to prolong life. I'd be kinder 
 to cat and Christian, and let the secret die with 
 the natural death of the feline's ninth existence. 
 Hilda claims, though, that I am brutal where 
 humanity is concerned. Well, am I? I hold the 
 question is open for calm discussion at any rate. 
 She says I care not for others' feelings. 
 Granted ! But any suffering resulting from that 
 107
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 lack of care is the fault of the others. Feelings 
 are obsolete. I don't care for my own, and so 
 far I don't break, even if I don't keep, the 
 Golden Rule. She says I would dethrone every- 
 thing for the elevation of my art. Granted 
 again. But I dethrone myself for it, and even 
 so far I demand no more of others than of my- 
 self. And still she says I'm brutal, and she won't 
 stop saying it, and she'll repeat it many times 
 when she hears of this. I'll write her as soon as 
 I get back to London. Wonder if she'll throw 
 me over for a bad lot, or if I can make her 
 understand. I'm not brutal to Clodah. I shan't 
 be. I like the child. At present she is unutter- 
 ably charming. Will a weariness of her descend 
 upon me and blight her charm? Perhaps, and 
 yet I think not. Her beauty is not the sort 
 that fades, and she will train as no girl I ever 
 got hold of before had the possibilities of doing. 
 She will have to learn things of life that she 
 has never dreamed of, but if she takes the train- 
 ing calmly she will be none the worse. If it 
 gives her a fever of primitive emotions well, 
 for her own good I shall have to try to admin- 
 ister antidotes. And then Hilda if she be in 
 108
 
 WHAT MANNER OE MAN 
 
 town and hears Clodah's story will Clodali 
 talk? will call me brutal, brutal, brutal! And 
 then " He shrugged his shoulders and 
 laughed amusedly. 
 
 "Ah, well, all that is in the hidden future. 
 For the present, she is waiting for me, and the 
 anticipation of what she will look and be in the 
 studio at home to-morrow night ought to carry 
 me over the weary wait till I can dare to begin 
 work on her." He pulled out his watch, calcu- 
 lated that the women he left about her ought to 
 have had time enough to make gowns instead of 
 merely remodeling them, and went leisurely back 
 to the shop. 
 
 Despite the time he had given them the women 
 had not yet completed their task, and while he 
 was waiting he went through the show-cases 
 again, and picked out a trinket or two and a 
 russia leather pocketbook in addition to the 
 order he had already placed to be delivered that 
 afternoon. 
 
 When Clodah finally emerged from the fit- 
 ting room the secret of her long delay was 
 explained. She was wearing the soft gray tailor 
 suit. It was her first long skirt, and she showed 
 109
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 consciousness of the fact in her walk, which was 
 not so untrammeled by far as when she ran light- 
 ly down Red Rock in her short red skirt and 
 heavy shoes. For the first time in her life Clodah 
 felt the stricture of modern clothes, but her nat- 
 ural grace aided her in wearing her unaccus- 
 tomed trappings well. Thayer looked his satis- 
 faction, but said nothing till they left the shop. 
 When they were finally started home he bent 
 down and peered into her face. 
 
 "All the trouble over getting new clothes has 
 gone, dear?" he asked. "You don't mind them 
 now?" * 
 
 Clodah hesitated ; then a simple pride that sat 
 very sweetly on her came to her rescue. 
 
 "I was sorry for my feyther. He 
 wouldna've wished that I should be lackin' in 
 gowns. In my island the girls dinna let their 
 husbands buy for them till they've been a whole 
 year wed. It wasna because he would nae " 
 
 Thayer laughed at her so directly that in 
 a moment she laughed too. 
 
 "Your father has given me all that I desire of 
 him. Then you had no time to get clothes, and 
 you remember that I wouldn't let you bring 
 110
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 away even that wonderful carved chest of yours 
 with its linen stores. Never mind, we'll go back 
 some day soon and get it. And anyway, the 
 customs of my island are different. We expect 
 to begin buying for our wives the day after we 
 marry them, and no pence that I've ever spent 
 have afforded me more pleasure than those I 
 deposited with the lady back yonder." 
 
 "Are you so well awa' wi' money?" she asked 
 timidly. 
 
 "My dear child, your husband is an artist; 
 what a fickle world is pleased, for the time being, 
 to call a great artist. Consequently he has much 
 money at one time or another, and his only fault, 
 the one blemish on his otherwise spotless charac- 
 ter, is that he doesn't keep it. It goes this way 
 and that." 
 
 Clodah looked puzzled and a little hurt. 
 Something in his tone rang false. He saw her 
 thought in her eyes and mouth. They were like 
 sensitive instruments. 
 
 "I have enough for you to have everything 
 
 you want," he added, gravely. "Whenever you 
 
 see any pretty gimcrack in a window that you 
 
 want you are to go in and get it, and you are not 
 
 111
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 to feel that you must ask me if you may. You 
 are to have your own purse, and you are to do 
 with it as you choose." 
 
 They had reached their hotel by now, and 
 when they were fairly in their sitting room he 
 plunged into his pockets, and thrust into her 
 hands a nondescript collection of notes, of gold, 
 and of silver. 
 
 "So much for now!" he said. "That is 
 all yours and you can spend it for what you 
 choose." He stopped abruptly as he caught 
 sight of one note she held, and began to rum- 
 mage in his pockets again, only to bring his 
 hands out empty. 
 
 "You'll have to lend me enough to get us to 
 London, Clodah," he said boyishly. "I forgot 
 and gave you my reserve fund !" 
 
 Her laugh rang out, and she put both her 
 hands behind her in a sort of humming-bird de- 
 fiance. It was the first touch of coquetry he had 
 ever seen in her, and it added another point and 
 a valuable one to her increasing list of possi- 
 bilities. He half turned from her, but her new-, 
 found virtue did not stand that test. She threw 
 
 112
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 out her hands impulsively, and the notes and 
 gold fell to the floor in an indiscriminate clutter. 
 
 "I care naught for your gold," she said with 
 a ring of passionate contempt in her voice. "It 
 is mud to me. I care naught but for " 
 
 Thayer drew her into his arms, and rubbed 
 his cheek softly against her shining hair. 
 
 "And you can care for me still!" he mur- 
 mured with something akin to repentance in his 
 voice. "Dear heart, how could you have grown 
 up so unutterably a child !" 
 
 She drew shyly away from him, and in a few 
 moments they were picking up the money to- 
 gether like two children, and he brought out her 
 new purse and showed her its different compart- 
 ments, and in two of them she found the trinkets 
 he had purchased for her while he was waiting 
 in the shop. Later in the afternoon the parcels 
 came, and there was much trying on, and 
 Clodah attempted to play the passive doll and 
 only succeeded in making of herself a bewitch- 
 ingly shy girl. Thayer experimented with her 
 hair, and then gave her a few lessons in its 
 artistic arrangement. Later, after all the new 
 
 113
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 things were put away in the new trunk, and din- 
 ner was over, and the lovely twilight was her- 
 alding the coming of night, they sat down 
 together beside an open window through which 
 the winding river could be seen. Clodah sur- 
 rendered herself to the silence of the closing day, 
 to thoughts at whose wondering trend Thayer 
 guessed with commendable directness. He 
 glanced at her now and then as she sat by him in 
 her childish white gown of soft flowing mull, 
 and suddenly he bent over her. 
 
 "What made you come to me, Clodah?" he 
 murmured. She looked up, startled by the ab- 
 rupt question. 
 
 "Come to you when ?" she asked. 
 
 "When your father held you away from me." 
 
 She looked at him quickly. 
 
 "I could nae keep away," she murmured. 
 "That's all I know. You were going to the 
 boat. I could nae stay." After a timid pause 
 she slipped her hand in his. "Was it right? 
 I could nae do it again. I could nae hae done 
 it then if I had stopped to think. But my heart 
 had gone, and my silly feet followed." There 
 was another silence which Clodah broke rest- 
 114
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 lessly. "We island folk get no letters, not often. 
 I never wrote a letter in all my life. But I 
 promised my feyther I would let him know how 
 it is with me. Would you show me how to 
 send it?" 
 
 "Can you write, Clodah?" Thayer felt an 
 irresistible impulse to laugh at his question. 
 Such a strange question for a man to ask in all 
 seriousness of his lawful wife ! But Clodah an- 
 swered in all seriousness. The comical aspect of 
 the case failed to appeal to her. 
 
 "Ah yes," she said proudly, gladly. "My 
 brother George, he taught me to write. I can 
 read, too," she added shyly. 
 
 "What have you read?" he asked idly, im- 
 pelled thereto not so much from the desire to 
 know as from the charm that her voice and inno- 
 cence wove about the languorous night. 
 
 "I hae read the Bible," Clodah began rever- 
 ently. "The sunsets and the last book are like 
 each other. Don't you like Revelation?" 
 
 "Yes," Thayer murmured, but he spoke from 
 a different vocabulary. 
 
 "An' then a few papers sometimes that my 
 feyther would bring over from the mainland. 
 115
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 And then ah yes," her eyes glowed, "I've 
 read a man that writes beautiful things, that 
 goes like music. I don't know how you say its 
 name, the name of the poem." 
 
 "Don Juan!" Thayer exclaimed in great 
 amaze after her spelling of the title. "Where 
 in the name of your guardian angel did you 
 get hold of Byron?" 
 
 "Isna 't lovely?" Clodah said in great joy at 
 having read something that some one of the 
 great world recognized in common with her. 
 "It was a book Maister Davenport left the sum- 
 mer he came to the island." 
 
 "Do you believe in Fate, Clodah?" Thayer 
 asked gravely. 
 
 "Fate? If Fate be Providence." 
 
 "Well, that's another name for the same 
 thing. People don't call everything by the 
 same word. Call it Providence." He was smil- 
 ing, was thinking how he should tell Hilda that 
 the match was wholly of her making, hers and 
 her husband's. 
 
 "Hae you read the book, too?" Clodah asked 
 excitedly. "Is that the Fate you mean?" 
 
 116
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 "Yes," said Thayer in general answer. "Did 
 you like the Don, Clodah?" 
 
 "Some," said Clodah with hesitation. "He 
 was so unhappy I was sorry for him, and he 
 didna know he was unhappy, either. It wasna 
 right o' him to go away so much and leave the 
 women folk sorry. But he was I wonder if I 
 should 'a loved him like the rest did !" 
 
 "I wonder if you have loved him," Thayer 
 said softly. Clodah threw back her head and 
 looked into his eyes with the only abandon she 
 had ever shown him since the night she had 
 flung off her father's detaining hand to throw 
 herself into his arms. 
 
 "I hae loved you," she breathed. 
 
 The dim twilight was creeping over the earth, 
 and they sat in silence until the distant woods 
 and the gleam of the river were blotted out. 
 Then Thayer gave her a soft little shake. 
 
 "Do you want to write to your father to- 
 night?" he asked. "Because if you do it's time 
 to begin. Then we'll take it down and post it 
 together." 
 
 Clodah got up and went over to the table, 
 
 117
 
 while he lighted the lamps and got some writing 
 materials together. Then she spoke shyly. 
 
 "I told you I never wrote a letter before. 
 Would you mind telling me how to begin?" 
 
 Thayer laughed amusedly. What would he 
 have said two months, two weeks, before at the 
 thought of being writing-master to his own 
 wife? And yet he was forced to confess that 
 the situation was not without a unique and dis- 
 tinctly novel charm. 
 
 "Suppose I write you a letter, and then you 
 can read it and see for yourself how it goes." 
 He sat down and began to scribble rapidly. In 
 a few moments he folded the sheet, put it in an 
 envelope, sealed and addressed it, and then 
 pulled Clodah down on his knee. 
 
 "Now," he began categorically, "I am the 
 postman, and I have just brought you a letter 
 from your husband, who has gone away on a 
 fishing trip. You are opening it with all the 
 delight you should properly feel after not hav- 
 ing seen him for three days." 
 
 Clodah laughed like a child, and pulled 
 out the letter impatiently. He watched her as 
 she read, and smiled in purest fun at the slow 
 118
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 rising flush that spread over her face. She did 
 not get along very rapidly, for Thayer wrote 
 the fearful hand that belongs to genius, and 
 finally he drew the sheet over to him and began 
 to help her out. 
 
 "My dear little flower of a girl," he read, "I 
 thought I should stay a week in the old haunts, 
 but I shan't stay a day. I thought the fish 
 would be the friends they had been, that the 
 trees would welcome me back, that the birds 
 would sing the same old notes, and that I should 
 have a jolly good time. But the fish say, 'You 
 aren't thinking of us ; you let us nibble and you 
 don't pay any attention to signs.' The trees 
 say, 'Once you loved us dearly, but you love 
 some one else better now.' The birds fly heavily 
 and sing not at all ; they only chirp sorrowfully, 
 'Our songs rejoiced you once, but now you are 
 longing to hear another song from another 
 throat, and we can sing you only the songs we 
 know.' And so to-night I'm going to leave the 
 fish in safety, and let the trees murmur to them- 
 selves, and say good by to the silent birds, and 
 come back to you. And when I have heard again 
 119
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 the music of your voice, and felt your tender 
 arms about my neck, and the fragrance of your 
 breath against my cheek, I shall wonder how I 
 ever could have left you for the woodland things ; 
 and I shall vow that when I go back to the woods 
 I shall take the fairest flower with me, and the 
 sweetest song, and the trees shall murmur above 
 us both, and the flowers shall carpet the way for 
 us two, and the birds shall sing their sweetest 
 songs to welcome their lovelier songster. With 
 a heart full of love, Kirk." 
 
 "It's more beautiful than all the poetry," said 
 Clodah in a choked little voice that had in it 
 what she could not put into words. 
 
 "Now then," said Thayer a few moments 
 later, "you begin any way you want to and write 
 to your father just what you would say to him 
 if he were here, as nearly as you can do it. 
 That's the secret of good letter-writing. Talk 
 to people, forget you have a pen in your hand." 
 
 Clodah sat down in quite a flutter, notwith- 
 standing Thayer's rules for polite correspond- 
 ence, and he watched her as she bent herself to 
 her task. Her pen moved very slowly ; her fair 
 120
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 head was bowed low over the page. Many min- 
 utes went by. Finally Thayer, over by the win- 
 dow, heard a deep breath. He turned to find 
 Clodah folding the sheet of paper on which 
 she had been so busily at work. She was look- 
 ing doubtfully at it and the envelope. 
 
 "In trouble ?" he asked, coming over to her. 
 
 "Is it spoiled?" she asked fearfully. 
 
 He took the letter in his hands, folded so 
 many times that it quite failed to mate with the 
 envelope he had provided. 
 
 "It doesn't fit," he smiled, "but if you address 
 the envelope right the folds of the letter won't 
 matter." He smiled again as he saw the super- 
 scription: "The Rohan, Rohan Island, Great 
 Britain." Then he slipped the letter into the 
 envelope. 
 
 "What have you written to your father about 
 us ?" he asked idly. He felt a keen self-reproach 
 as he saw her visible shrinking. 
 
 "I didn't mean that," he protested hastily. 
 "Really, Clodah. Take it back ; take it and seal 
 it up. Of course, what you have written is for 
 him and you. It was a foolish question; one 
 that I didn't mean, dear."
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 But Clodah was closing his fingers over the 
 letter he had returned to her. 
 
 "Read it," she said softly. "I can never tell 
 you what is in my heart. I canna get the words. 
 But it wasna so hard to write to my feyther." 
 
 Thayer took the letter with a feeling that he 
 had been prying and impertinent, but resistance 
 was vain. Clodah would not have understood 
 liis refusal, and would only have blamed herself 
 for her first shrinking from his question. He 
 opened the paper slowly. The girl stood with 
 her back to him, and her head leaning against 
 his arm. . ** 
 
 "My own father," he read, "I am writing you 
 after being away from you these hours to thank 
 you again for letting me go. I think I see more 
 clear how hard it must have been for you to let 
 me go away without your knowing more what 
 manner of man I have gone away with. But 
 you did not do wrong in letting me go. He is 
 my life, and without him I should die. I know 
 you will miss me sore, but you did not do wrong 
 in letting me come, and I did not do wrong in 
 coming. While we were crossing the sea last
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 night I wondered if I was sinning in leaving 
 you when it hurt you so sore to let me go. But 
 I seem to have learned so many things since he 
 came to get me and since I went away, and 
 though there is a duty I owe my father, there is 
 another duty I owe I know not who or what. 
 It is selfish to say it is a duty I owe myself, and 
 it seems strange with all his world he could not 
 live without me even if I had not come with him, 
 so I know not if it is a duty I owe him. Per- 
 haps you know, my father, what I mean. I 
 know not. Many things I have learned, but 
 many more are like shadows that will not be 
 caught. I write to let you know I am content, 
 I can not tell you how content, and I shall love 
 you all the more for the great love I bear him. 
 Sometime I shall come back to you, and tell you 
 all that has happened to me in the great world. 
 This is my first letter, so I fear it is not good. 
 My father, my father! Your Clodah." 
 
 Thayer read the simple letter with a rising 
 
 something in his throat that had been a stranger 
 
 to it for many years. He was too innately the 
 
 artist not to be intensely moved by the utter 
 
 123
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 simplicity of the phrasing, the directness of the 
 unpretending Anglo-Saxon words. Then, too, 
 he felt, as no other could, the hidden tragedies 
 in every sentence, the unwritten confessions. He 
 slipped the childishly folded sheet into its en- 
 velope and sealed it. He put it down on the 
 table, where it lay forgotten till the morning; 
 and then, moved by an emotion that for the 
 first time was all tenderness for her, he stooped 
 down and gathered Clodah into his arms.
 
 The next evening they reached London. 
 Thayer had telegraphed his man, and that 
 most perfect of servants, trained into his 
 perfections through many bitter storms and 
 much love of his master, had all things necessary 
 for the welcoming of his master's bride. How 
 astounded he had been at the terse message which 
 announced so portentous a change in the artist's 
 menage does not concern the progress of this 
 story, but his sole and only comment thereon 
 is worth repeating if only for its brevity: 
 "Poor lady !" Hughes knew his master as none 
 save one knew him, and his opinion on all that 
 concerned Thayer in matters domestic, social, 
 physical and moral, was worth the great trouble 
 necessary to obtain it. 
 
 The beautiful home never looked more beau- 
 tiful than in its gala dress for the bridal pair. 
 Flowers were everywhere, and Hughes' own care- 
 ful hand was apparent in Clodah's room, where 
 125
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 roses nodded and lovely ferns waved in the sum- 
 mer breeze. She looked blindly about her as 
 Thayer led her into the hall of the home that 
 was now hers, and when he left her for a little 
 time at the door of her room she stood in a sort 
 of shame in the midst of the luxurious beauty. 
 All this he had given her, and in return what 
 had she to offer him? Only her love, a love too 
 humble in its self -depreciation i too exalted in 
 its spiritual yearnings. 
 
 At Thayer's desire she was to put on that 
 night the one gown in her hurriedly prepared 
 trousseau of which he unreservedly approved, 
 and, mindful of his parting injunction to hurry, 
 she began to drag it out of its box. She bathed 
 her flushed face with feverish desire for the 
 cooling water, and let down her wealth of shin- 
 ing hair. She tried to put it up in the intricate 
 puffs and coils that Thayer had attempted to 
 teach her the day before, but she tried in vain. 
 She was tired and worn and hurried, and at last 
 in utter despair she gathered it together in its 
 two accustomed plaits and let them Hang. 
 
 Hot tears hurried to her eyes as she got hastily 
 into the wonderful rose velvet gown. It was 
 126
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 made in a quaint Empire style, and the low-cut 
 neck revealed to Clodah all unsuspecting a 
 beauty which up to this time she had not valued 
 at anything like its true worth a white, full, 
 graceful throat set upon perfect shoulders. It 
 failed to comfort her now, for she was strug- 
 gling desperately against the cold splendor of 
 her surroundings and the unnatural girl that 
 the mirror flung back at her. It was all so 
 stately, so cold, so lonely. And then her hair 
 would not go up. It was well that Thayer's 
 knock sounded when it did. She forced back 
 her crowding emotions with a childish bravery, 
 and tried hard to get the tremble out of her 
 voice. 
 
 "What a Gretchen you look with those two 
 pigtails!" he cried gaily. "But aren't you go- 
 ing to be the stately lady to-night?" 
 
 Something in the doubtful way she touched 
 her hair and the tremble of her lips told him the 
 secret of her undeniable dejection, a small part 
 of the secret. 
 
 "You must have a maid to do all the tire- 
 some work for you pretty soon," he went on as 
 he pushed her down on a chair and began to
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 manipulate her braids. "We won't have her 
 till later in the autumn, but she'll save your arms 
 getting tired when she comes." In a few mo- 
 ments he bent over her and kissed her softly. 
 
 "You are so lovely," he said with all the sin- 
 cerity in his voice that any woman could ask. 
 And for the time the strangeness of the luxuri- 
 ous home went away. 
 
 Clodah felt a little undressed when she went 
 into the small but perfect dining-room where 
 Hughes moved about so gravely and respect- 
 fully ; but if there had been anything out of the 
 way surely her husband would have minded, she 
 told herself with reiterating persistency. Her 
 mounting excitement made her appetite small, 
 and when the dinner was over and Thayer took 
 her out of the room she felt relieved. 
 
 Without a word of explanation, they began 
 climbing stairs, and finally on the third floor 
 came to a door before which Thayer stopped and 
 took out his keys. She looked up at him with a 
 sudden flash of comprehension in her eyes, and he 
 smiled down at her. In another moment they 
 were within the great studio. She stood on the 
 threshold while Thayer went in and lighted some 
 128
 
 lamps, and touched a flame to the ready-laid fire 
 in the fireplace. 
 
 Clodah's eyes were widening in the fashion 
 they had when she was greatly moved. Such 
 a room she had never dreamed of, all shadows 
 and strange recesses. Rough easels and rich 
 hangings were mixed with odd discrimina- 
 tion. Several picturesque Spanish chairs stood 
 about with their upholsterings of leather and 
 green velvet. Great columns stood here and 
 there; busts, globes, stuffed beasts, plaster 
 casts and musical instruments took up their full 
 quota of space. The walls were covered with 
 curious things: helmets, weapons, rare rugs. 
 Lion and tiger skins lay on the polished floor. 
 
 Thayer was a thoroughgoing artist, and his 
 could not be called the studio of pure luxury. 
 Yet it did not lack rare and lovely things. He 
 took Clodah all about it, let her turn over can- 
 vases, and rummage in corners, and all unwit- 
 tingly get her hands much soiled with dust and 
 half-dried paints. Such housekeeping she did 
 not in the least approve, she told him after 
 she came back to him with her hands still cold 
 and moist from their recent bath.
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 As time went on she grew more and more 
 quiet; her questions finally ceased, and she stirred 
 restlessly rather than curiously about the studio. 
 At last after she had exhausted for present de- 
 light the wealth of artistic paraphernalia so en- 
 trancing to unaccustomed eyes she came slowly, 
 almost reluctantly, over to where Thayer was 
 standing in the glow of the fire. The spires of 
 light leaped up her throat and turned her hair 
 to a glory that rivaled the flames. Her hands 
 were clasped before her in the quaint childish 
 fashion he remembered from the summer before, 
 and though her body was facing him, her head 
 was turned away till he could see only the in- 
 tensely delicate profile. Her eyes were fastened 
 on a curious pillar standing against the far wall. 
 
 "You asked me yesterday," she began in Eng- 
 lish that was painstakingly slow but otherwise 
 quite pure, "how it was that I was such a child. 
 Last night in all the strangeness of this land of 
 yours I lay awake long hours thinking why. My 
 feyther," it was her only lapse, "kept me all my 
 life from girls and women. Something tells me 
 they say things that men do not ; that they talk 
 about things. And of course my feyther did 
 130
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 not tell me things. You have in your country 
 here an old story my brother told it me when 
 I was a little child of a princess who went to 
 sleep and slept and slept, and finally a prince 
 came and kissed her and then she woke up. 
 When you kissed me that day you came I 
 think I had been sleeping all my life you woke 
 me I am very ignorant ignorant of much I 
 should have known " She stopped ; her throat 
 had swelled with an uncontrollable emotion, and 
 it choked her utterance. Then with a little 
 smile that grew from faintness to loveliness she 
 went on. 
 
 "You told me last night that I must learn 
 to look you straight in the eyes, that all 
 wives should so look at their husbands, that my 
 shyness made you want to shake me. Is that to 
 be one task of mine? Well then " Her fin- 
 gers were twisting nervously, but she turned her 
 face slowly toward him. For a second only she 
 met his eyes ; then she sank forward against his 
 breast. 
 
 "Ah, I canna," she whispered breathlessly. 
 "I canna, I canna!" 
 
 Thayer held her in his arms and laughed 
 131
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 nervously over her shining head. Her mur- 
 mured words, her pure confession touched to 
 pain some hidden chord within him just as her 
 simple letter had moved him the night before. 
 Her nature was unfolding before him so en- 
 tirely in accord with her wonderful type of 
 beauty and the Arcadian simplicity of her life 
 environment that his sense of proportion could 
 not but be gratified, his deepest artistic instincts 
 completely satisfied, and a tender ecstacy filled 
 him with every new revelation of her inner self. 
 Never before had he had a human soul beside 
 him whose stirrings he could see and sway as he 
 could this girl's; and never before in all his sa- 
 tiated life had he come in contact with a girl who, 
 with no arts whatever, for the simple reason that 
 she knew no arts, had been able to pierce through 
 his outer man, and appeal directly to the most 
 dominant feeling within him, the part of his na- 
 ture that stood in him for what in current for- 
 mula is called the spiritual side of man. Thayer 
 would not have denied the existence within him of 
 a spiritual nature ; he would not have gone to the 
 trouble. But in his philosophy of life he was a 
 materialist of materialists, and he had long ago 
 132
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 reached that stage where life had forever lost 
 its joy for him, and had become merely a span 
 of years to live out in as great an oblivion of the 
 world's woe as might well be. He had few emo- 
 tions in the primitive sense of the word. He 
 had deliberately killed them years before, and 
 had done so because he felt thereby he was nearer 
 an earthly Lethe. 
 
 But deep within him, hidden from all his 
 world, lay a worship for the beautiful that ugly 
 modernity had not dulled nor materialism 
 blunted; a worship of the beautiful wherever 
 he found it, in nature or in man, a worship 
 poured out with lavish extravagance when it 
 found a fitting shrine. In society he was 
 called various things cynic, roue, atheist, 
 viveur. He was accepted without question for 
 his personality, his wealth, his genius ; yet moth- 
 ers guarded their daughters well when he was 
 about. Not but that almost any one of the vir- 
 tuous matrons would have given him her choicest 
 bud had he sought it, but they knew so well that 
 he desired no marriage rites read over him ; and 
 his personality and attraction were such that 
 more than one high-bred young maid had gone 
 133
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 a-mourning for a space after an evening or two 
 spent in his dangerous vicinity. 
 
 Hilda Davenport was the only woman who 
 had ever succeeded in reading Thayer correctly, 
 and her success came not from endeavor, but 
 from a sympathy between their natures as satis- 
 fying as it was unexplainable. She saw through 
 his words and acts to his inner motives, and she 
 knew, and truly, that his great weariness of the 
 world, his intolerance of its conventions, sprang 
 from a spirit that longed for beauty such as the 
 world can never know, a beauty that is beyond 
 human realization. 
 
 His ideals were so infinitely in advance of 
 his age that he had early despaired of attain- 
 ing them, and in his despair had plunged 
 into the excesses for which he was noted, and 
 by which he was judged. But though he had 
 succeeded in deadening his emotions and feel- 
 ings, though his philosophy was the extremity of 
 materialism, though every painting he sent out 
 was his despair rather than his glory since in 
 it he had fallen so far short of his yearning, yet 
 the spirit of reverence for beauty incarnate 
 
 134,
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 dwelt within him and at the slightest beckoning 
 leaped up with its old-time flame. 
 
 To-night there was a sob in his laugh as he 
 pressed Clodah closer to him, not of love for the 
 girl, of pride that she was so wholly his, but of 
 unutterable appreciation of her artistic values. 
 His esthetic nature she satisfied completely, and 
 with that strange limitation of the artistic tem- 
 perament he lost sight of the personal equation, 
 nor knew that he ignored it. For the moment 
 he was not holding Clodah Rohan, nor did he 
 stoop at last to kiss his wife, but he was clasping 
 in a passionate embrace an ideal harmony of 
 soul and heart and spirit ; and he pressed his lips 
 on a face whose loveliness was the outer symbol 
 of the inner self. 
 
 At last he pushed her head back against his 
 shoulder. "Have you died and slipped away 
 from me?" he murmured. The color came back 
 to her pale cheeks with a rush. 
 
 "Ah, tell me," she pleaded, "tell me how I can 
 serve you, what I can do for what you have done 
 for me. It shall be anything that you ask, but 
 ah me, you will ask me nothing, or else you will 
 laugh and tell me to fetch you a book." 
 135
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 Thayer's eyes narrowed. "I'll tell you what 
 you can do," he said slowly; "you can stand 
 here on this white fur rug, and you can let me 
 sketch you." 
 
 Clodah's lips parted in delight. "Me am 
 I fit to sketch? Ah, you said once that I looked 
 like that beautiful lady who came that day. 
 Did you mean it then or were you making a joke 
 of me?" 
 
 He was walking around her; a new light was 
 in his eyes. His lids were half closed while he 
 examined her critically. 
 
 "Over there," he said. "Let your hand drop 
 no, clasp it there ! Mrs. Davenport ! you are 
 ten thousand times better!" The last sentence 
 was under his breath. Clodah caught it and 
 looked awed. He had said it as if it were one of 
 the things he meant. She had learned before 
 this that some of Thayer's sayings he did not 
 mean, and she compromised the matter with her 
 truthful conscience by calling them jokes. Cer- 
 tainly this was not a joke ! 
 
 "Is she Mrs. Davenport here in London?" 
 Clodah asked timidly, somewhat impressed by 
 the altogether masterful and impersonal way in 
 ' 136
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 which Thayer pulled her here and there. He 
 did not hear her. He was lighting more lamps 
 and putting them in what seemed to Clodah un- 
 reasonable places. 
 
 "Now stand quite still," he said at last. 
 "We'll take this for a trial. Lower your chin 
 so. Just a moment." 
 
 He began to draw rapidly, and Clodah stood 
 for life. After the manner of the inexperienced 
 model, she was afraid so much as to breathe 
 comfortably, and in a few moments she began to 
 feel tense and strained. Not that she would 
 have owned to discomfort at all; consequently 
 she was much surprised and somewhat disap- 
 pointed when in a surprisingly short time Thay- 
 er put down his crayon and came over to her. It 
 was only for a change of pose, however. 
 
 "Raise your chin a trifle," he said absently. 
 "So no, the line is wrong." He frowned and 
 came back to her. "Where are the hooks and 
 things? You must have some low bodices made 
 immediately." He had torn open the front of 
 her gown and was pushing down the linen and 
 lace beneath it. Then he folded in the velvet 
 bodice to a degree that turned Clodah's cheeks 
 137
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 crimson. She stood resentful and ashamed. He 
 had done it so strangely, not after the manner 
 of a caress, but as if she were a doll, a lay figure, 
 something without feeling. She felt that he was 
 looking at her, but that he was not seeing her at 
 all. 
 
 "There," he said shortly, "don't stir!" He 
 went quickly back to his easel. "You can move 
 your head now," he called out in a few moments. 
 
 But Clodah did not take advantage of his 
 permission. She stood before him in the gra- 
 cious pose he had put her in, with her hands 
 clasped lightly in front of her, the long, dull 
 draperies flowing from her shoulders upon the 
 polished floor, and with her head still in the same 
 position in which he had placed it. A great re- 
 sentment was welling within her, mixed with a 
 heart-hurt that had come too soon. For the 
 first time since her marriage she had been treated 
 roughly, without consideration, with what she 
 felt was an absolute lack of thought for her. 
 For the first time she began to think that Thayer 
 might have a life, a higher life from which she 
 was to be impenetrably shut out. She was be- 
 ginning to realize, still with humility, but with a 
 138
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 new stinging pain, the distance that lay between 
 them and parted them; the weary obstacles of 
 birth, of rearing, of environment. 
 
 She had felt a great awe take possession of her 
 as she entered the studio that evening. She had 
 felt a deeper awe of and reverence for Thayer as 
 she went about the wonderful room that held 
 properties, the tithe of which she did not know 
 by name. But up to now in all the newness and 
 the strangeness of her wedded life she had felt 
 sure of his sympathy and care; now he was far 
 from her drawing her silently, absorbedly. She 
 dimly realized that ever since he had first sug- 
 gested sketching her she herself had not once 
 been in his mind. 
 
 After a little while thick tears gathered slowly 
 in her wide-open eyes. Her lips quivered with 
 the unsubdued force of the sobs she was reso- 
 lutely choking down. She was learning the 
 pains and enduring the pangs of absolute lone- 
 liness. Her first terrifying fear of the new life 
 that lay before her came to her as she stood mo- 
 tionless before the dying fire, with her husband 
 at some little distance from her, working with 
 a rapt look on his face that, had she turned her 
 139
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 head to see it, would only have added to her 
 pitiful solitude. She had thrown off father and 
 people to follow this stranger. For the first 
 time she felt how great a stranger he was to her. 
 
 Half an hour passed. Suddenly Thayer 
 called to her with a ring in his voice that she 
 knew and loved. 
 
 "Come over, my lady, and see yourself, and 
 then ask me if I think you lovely !" 
 
 She brushed the two great tears from her eyes, 
 the only ones that had come. Then she went over 
 to him, the unaccustomed length of her velvet 
 gown trailing richly behind her. Thayer flung 
 his arm about her and together they stood be- 
 fore the drawing. Clodah thought the effect as 
 a whole rather queer. There were so few lines, 
 and over it all there were great blocks of dark 
 and light, but something in the line of the dra- 
 peries caught her eye, and she touched in uncon- 
 scious rapture the lovely gown she wore. She 
 glanced at Thayer. His face was full of an 
 enthusiasm she had never seen before. 
 
 "I know I can get your face," he said not at 
 all to her, "I know your eyes already, and your 
 figure " 
 
 140
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 He stopped and looked down at her. She 
 had slipped one timid arm upward about his 
 throat. 
 
 "You don't love me only because you think 
 I am lovely?" she said anxiously. It was all 
 that she let escape her of that half-hour of 
 suffering. 
 
 It was easy to answer Clodah, and Thayer 
 simply smiled into her eyes till she laughed 
 happily and buried her face in his arm. 
 Then they went about together and put out the 
 lights around the room, all save the flame of the 
 dying fire. Clodah stopped suddenly by the 
 queerly carved pillar with its heavy chains that 
 she had noted before. 
 
 "Isna 't queer," she cried softly with a pret- 
 ty change to her childhood tongue, "how one '11 
 mind things ! That day a year agone you came, 
 I can always see the white wings o' the ship that 
 brought you. An' four days back, I'll ne'er 
 forget a little white flower that lay beneath your 
 feet as you came down the cliff to greet me. An' 
 to-night I think I couldna hae told my lack o' 
 knowledge if I hadna had something to look at 
 an' think about while I was tellin'. I'll ne'er 
 141
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 forget the ship nor the flower. An' I'll ne'er 
 stop rememberin' long as I live, the shape o' the 
 post and the hideous smile o' the head on its top. 
 Isna things queer !" 
 
 Thayer had been staring at her curiously. A 
 cynical little smile had flashed over his face, but 
 it had quickly gone and a frown had come in- 
 stead. Then he laughed harshly. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "things are queer. Come, 
 it's getting late."
 
 Clodah rose early the next morning only to 
 find that Thayer had risen before her. There 
 lacked yet a little time till breakfast, and a sud- 
 den curiosity impelled her to run up to the studio 
 for a new glimpse of the fascinating creature 
 that Thayer had brought into life the night be- 
 fore. To her astonishment she found strewn 
 about the room countless other sketches of her, 
 mostly faces ; faces in every conceivable position, 
 some shoulders that ended abruptly at the throat 
 and leisurely at the fore arm; some figure 
 sketches, figures bare, figures draped, figures 
 bent in every imaginable way. To one who 
 knew Thayer's methods the fact would have been 
 instantly apparent that some dominant idea had 
 possession of his mind to the exclusion of all 
 things else, even rest and sleep. Clodah only 
 stared in mystification, and Thayer, coming in 
 search of her, found her bending over the 
 143
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 sketches with a "mustn't-touch" docility that sat 
 very sweetly on her. 
 
 "You haven't seen my treasure after all," he 
 said when he had turned them all over for her, 
 and had recklessly torn some of them into shreds. 
 He went over to a distant table and returned 
 with a drawing that he held up before her, while 
 he watched with delight the color creep into her 
 face. 
 
 "Did you draw me while I was asleep? Do 
 I look like that?" 
 
 "I felt like working last night, so I came 
 back up here to see what I could do with your 
 face without you standing up before me. This" 
 he touched the drawing with great satisfac- 
 tion "I came down and drew from life, put a 
 candle where it wouldn't fall too much on your 
 face, and for four or five minutes worked for 
 dear life. Isn't it a dear little thing!" He 
 held it off at arm's length and viewed it crit- 
 ically. 
 
 It was certainly that. In some way he had 
 
 caught in a few strokes the unconsciousness of 
 
 sleep, and had put it all in the face of a sleeping 
 
 child. Clodah continued to gaze at it in won- 
 
 144
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 der. Finally she spoke with a little catch of joy 
 in her breath. 
 
 "Why, if I look like that I thought it was 
 because you cared for me that you thought me 
 lovely, but if I look like that " 
 
 "Vain child!" Thayer said gravely, all to see 
 the confusion come that he knew would over- 
 whelm her. In the midst of it he laughed at her 
 comfortably, and, tucking her arm within his, 
 he led her away to a little covered balcony, 
 where their breakfast was waiting for them. 
 
 "Do you find it too tiresome to stand up for 
 me to draw you?" he asked as they were sitting 
 there when the meal was over, from pure laziness 
 to move. 
 
 "I love to," she answered quickly. 
 
 "Then suppose we work a little this morning," 
 he suggested indolently. "And let me try you 
 in something else for a change say that little 
 red skirt and all the trappings that I carried 
 you off in that is, if you still have them. Oh, 
 you brought them along, did you?" as she nod- 
 ded vigorously. "Well then, put your hair 
 down in two tails, and put on the island frock 
 exactly as you were accustomed to wear it, and 
 145
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 then come up to the studio, say in about an hour. 
 You'll be busy till then about getting your 
 things unpacked, won't you? And I have some 
 letters to write that can't be put off any longer." 
 He left Clodah at the door of her room and 
 disappeared within the studio, where he stood 
 looking with satisfaction and dissatisfaction 
 mingled at his work of the night before. 
 Then he lighted a cigar and sat down by a writ- 
 ing table, where he began to write with a smile 
 on his face that his correspondent, had she been 
 by to see it, would have recognized and made 
 haste to destroy. He began his letter abruptly. 
 
 "Your felicitations, dear Madam, on my hap- 
 piness. On the night you left London I left 
 London. On the afternoon (presumably; 'tis 
 more dramatic thus !) that you arrived in Russia 
 I had gone beyond the north of Scotland and 
 was climbing the cliffs of Eilean Rohan. There 
 I found 'a fairy princess sleeping and I woke 
 her with a kiss.' You will not understand the 
 quotation. It is her own confession, and I would 
 add my humble witness that it is a true one. A 
 more delicious awakening it was never man's lot 
 146
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 to assist in. For once in my unworthy life I 
 feel its unworthiness. For once I know regret 
 for a fevered past. For once I am almost 
 steeped in a love that, born of the senses, is fast 
 becoming what our frisky neighbors across the 
 channel call in their delicious nomenclature le 
 spirituel. And the one who has worked all this 
 wonderful change in your world-weary, selfish 
 friend, dear Hilda, is none other than our little 
 redbird princess of a summer ago. Will your 
 respect for my executive ability rise beyond 
 decorous bounds when I tell you that I wooed, 
 won, wedded, and (to continue the pleasing 
 alliteration) wended in the short space of two 
 days? The maid yielded, the father consented, 
 the priest blessed, the island sailors rowed us to 
 the mainland, and oh yes, the quondam lover 
 at whom you so ingeniously hinted, disappeared. 
 Have I been reckless? Perhaps. Abominable? 
 Never ! Clodah is as happy as it is given helpless 
 mortals to be, and I am lost in the sight of her 
 happiness so far as to get a taste of it now and 
 then myself. She worships you, I think, though 
 she is shy on the subject of worship in general 
 even with her lord and master. When you at 
 147
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 last deign to return to the London you have left 
 desolate, Mrs. Thayer will join me in welcoming 
 you, and all the doubt and anger you are doubt- 
 less feeling now will, at the sight of her happy 
 face, melt like frigidity before the tropic sun.. 
 In addition we shall both be delighted to show 
 you our united works of art. Your friend, 
 whose cynicism and worldliness is fast becoming 
 absorbed in uxorious bliss, Kirk Thayer. 
 
 "Honestly, Hilda, she is the loveliest creature 
 physically that ever trod this miserable earth 
 of ours, and her innocence when I took her is 
 beyond belief. When I tell you her knowledge 
 of life and love was empty nothingness I hope 
 you will take the words literally as they are 
 spelled. And somehow through all the fever of 
 quick courtship and early marriage it has lasted. 
 I confess to you I have truly tried to brush away 
 the bloom as lightly as it may be done, and I 
 feel some degree of humble pride in my success. 
 She is delicious, charming; she is even develop- 
 ing an embryo coquetry, and she is the hap- 
 piest child, thanks to her white soul, in the Brit- 
 ish Is}eg, Her father was loath to give her up, 
 
 148
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 and for some reason distrusted me. I confess to 
 you again that the hour he gave me was as 
 mauvais as if it were a court alliance and I a too 
 aspiring cowherd. But I have the strength of 
 mind sufficient to admire even where the senti- 
 ment is not returned, and I freely concur in the 
 opinion expressed by Mr. Davenport, whom I 
 have never had the pleasure of meeting, by the 
 way, that The Rohan takes the cake! I sum 
 him up tersely in 'brick.' Kirk. 
 
 "Some of this sounds as if it isn't in earnest, 
 and some as if it is. Wonder if you can pick 
 out which is which, or if you will take the 
 trouble. Try for the old times' sake. Thank 
 you, dear, for all you've done for me consciously 
 and without knowing it. K." 
 
 Thayer had hardly finished this characteristic 
 epistle when the door was pushed softly open and 
 Clodah's fair head peered through. 
 
 "May I come in?" she called childishly. "I 
 feel like Clodah Rohan now." She stood before 
 him in the simple gown she had worn on the day 
 she left the island, "You asked me if I had it
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 with me still," she went on with a great reproach 
 in her eyes. "Now, did you think that I would 
 leave behind this gown you kissed me in?" 
 
 Thayer threw back his head and laughed in 
 irrepressible mirth. Clodah stood in upright 
 disapproval. 
 
 "Now, why do you laugh at me?" she said 
 plaintively. "I am trying all ways I can to be 
 English, and surely why should I not save this 
 gown? Tell me why you laugh." 
 
 Thayer drew her down with gentle force on his 
 knee. "I am only thinking," he said, "of what 
 some girls I know would do for house-room if 
 they kept all the gowns they had been kissed 
 in." He paused, impelled thereto by Clodah's 
 look of utter horror. 
 
 "Do you mean that more than one man kisses 
 them?" 
 
 "I'm afraid so," he replied gravely. 
 
 "Did you ever " she began quickly, and 
 then, guided by some innate impulse that came 
 just too late for her own good, she stopped. 
 
 "Heavenly Father!" murmured Thayer. He 
 took her flushed face between his palms. "Clo- 
 dah, what would you say if I told you I had 
 150
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 kissed one woman once, and that woman was 
 Mrs. Davenport?" 
 
 Clodah flinched, but she rallied bravely. 
 
 "I should not like it with any one else, but if 
 you wanted to with you and her why I 
 should want to kiss her myself. No, I really 
 should nae mind." 
 
 Thayer set her hurriedly on her feet. 
 
 "Well," he said, "as a reward of merit for 
 bravery under fire I'll tell you this truth, that I 
 never kissed Mrs. Davenport. Ah, you did care 
 after all!" He pinched her cheek as a glad 
 light shot into her eyes. "But you were brave 
 all the same. Now for work." 
 
 For three hours he tried her in various ways 
 and numberless poses, and with each trial his 
 power grew surer and his delight greater. She 
 had the artistic instinct within her to a suf- 
 ficient degree to be able to catch an idea without 
 words, and she seemed to grasp by intuition 
 Thayer's oftentimes entirely incoherent direc- 
 tions. That morning accustomed her too to the 
 fact that artists can not talk when they work, 
 and that they are apt to forget people who 
 are in the same room with them. Nothing of the 
 151
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 loneliness of the night before attacked her, and 
 she laughed at herself, half ashamed for her 
 yielding to such a foolish emotion. Every now 
 and then Thayer would call her over to watch the 
 progress he was making, and she would peer 
 under his arm at the wonderful strokes which 
 were making her live on the canvas. At noon 
 he threw down his brushes. 
 
 "I've worked myself and you too hard this 
 warm morning," he said with some faint re- 
 proach. "Come, we'll rake up some luncheon 
 somewhere, and then we'll start out for an after- 
 noon and night of it. There's nothing in this 
 dirty city worth seeing, but convention demands 
 that we spend good hours of our lives admiring 
 what is not admirable. Don't trouble to change 
 your gown for luncheon. I'm starved, and you 
 ought to be if you're not." 
 
 So he carried her off down to the dining room, 
 and then for an afternoon of sightseeing, and a 
 night at the play. 
 
 152
 
 For a week all the notes of Clodah's marriage 
 symphony were high ones. If there was not 
 harmony she did not miss it in the richness of 
 the melody trilled about her. Already she 
 had expanded in her whole nature under the 
 forcing power of wedded life. Her face had 
 begun to lose its perfect childishness ; her manner 
 had more in it, though still so little, of self- 
 assertion. And yet, as Thayer had written Mrs. 
 Davenport, her lovely innocence had survived. 
 One of the great loves that come into some few 
 lives in the span of a century had taken posses- 
 sion of her, and the purity of her passion had 
 proved greater than the fever of it. 
 
 She had come to Thayer blindly, unreason- 
 ingly, only instinctively. She had married a 
 stranger, and already she had set herself to work 
 to study him a very little, with a yearning desire 
 to learn to know him as well as she knew the 
 heart of her father. She had already learned 
 153
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 that he was different from the silent, reserved 
 men of Eilean Rohan, who lived their silent lives 
 within themselves; different not only in his ap- 
 pearance and way of life, but in the manner of 
 his thought and its resulting deed. He said 
 things whose words she understood, but whose 
 meaning was hidden. Sometimes he spoke light- 
 ly of what she had been taught were life's great- 
 est mysteries, spoke of them as if they were no 
 mysteries at all. She had been trained to regard 
 life as a serious thing. Thayer made a jest of it, 
 a jest that did not ring with true mirth. The 
 religion of the islanders was not a complicated 
 one in the sense that it involved much churchly 
 machinery, but it was of very sturdy Scottish 
 stock, and it did not find its nourishment in 
 the sweetmeats of easy-going consciences. It was 
 simple but severe. So far as she could discover, 
 her husband had no religion, though she had not 
 yet given up her gentle searchings. 
 
 At times, too, he sank into an abstraction 
 which she could not understand. She tried brave- 
 ly not to feel alone, yet her good sense told her 
 that at such times he was as far away from her 
 as if he were in another world. The somber 
 154.
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 reveries were growing more frequent, too, and 
 she wondered dimly what was hurting him, what 
 she could do to help him. The seventh morning 
 after her marriage she crept up to him as he 
 sat moodily at the breakfast table, and laid her 
 troubled little head on his shoulder. He did 
 not repulse her, but his caress was perfunctory, 
 a careless touch such as he might have bestowed 
 on a stray dog; and then, oblivious of her, he 
 sank into a frowning abstraction again. She 
 stayed by him for some moments motionless, and 
 then, feeling that her presence was unnoted and 
 uncared for, she stole softly away. 
 
 The hours that followed made up her first 
 black day. She did not try to seek Thayer 
 again for some time, and when she did at last 
 go in search of him she was met by Hughes, 
 who told her that his master had left the house 
 with no word as to his destination. 
 
 She ate her luncheon alone, that is, she sat 
 down at the table, and Hughes placed dishes be- 
 fore her, and in a few moments removed them. 
 That afternoon she spent in her room. She tried 
 to write to her father, but the crushing sense of 
 loneliness was too great for her to make her letter 
 155
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 cheerful, and she pushed the half-written sheet 
 desperately away. Hughes came up at last to 
 announce dinner, and it was only when she went 
 downstairs into the dining-room that she saw 
 Thayer again. He had come down in his velvet 
 coat, with the odor of paints about him. As she 
 came into the room he went over to her gaily. 
 
 "I feel ashamed of myself," he cried. "I 
 didn't mean to leave you so long this morning, 
 and then when I finally got started home it was 
 in the company of an idea that drove me up- 
 stairs, where I've been working for five hours. 
 Never mind, you can see it for a treat after 
 dinner." 
 
 Clodah smiled at him, and refused to say 
 she had been more than a little lonely, but there 
 had been a mournful droop to her mouth, a puz- 
 zle of the eyes, and a corrugation of the brow 
 that Thayer noted, and because of them had 
 sworn softly to and at himself. He took Clodah 
 and the evening papers up to the studio with 
 him, showed her his work of the afternoon, and 
 then became absorbed in the news sheets. Clodah 
 stood by him for a few moments; then she 
 went away from him over to a wide window 
 156
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 seat, and perched herself forlornly on it, look- 
 ing like a solitary child. Thayer read through 
 one paper and picked up another, but be- 
 tween the two he caught sight of her, and after 
 that the desolate droop of her figure came 
 between him and the printed page. He glanced 
 through the headlines; then he inwardly braced 
 himself for what he detested, a scene with a 
 woman, and throwing the papers down he went 
 over to the dim recess. Clodah looked up at him 
 in timid welcoming, mixed with a deprecation 
 that Thayer found rather irritating for a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 "What a brute I am!" he said to himself, as 
 he felt his ire rise. "Am I already beginning 
 to demand the wiles of a worldly creature from 
 this child whose ignorance of her charms is her 
 grace ?" 
 
 He sat down beside her and gathered her com- 
 fortably into his arms. 
 
 "Tell me the truth," he said with a laugh in 
 his voice that Clodah felt was directed against 
 her, and yet did not resent. "You got up and 
 left me all alone this evening to read my papers, 
 and came over here all alone to this extremely 
 157
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 uncomfortable seat because " he stopped short 
 to laugh at her without any pretense of hiding 
 his amusement ; "because this morning I frankly 
 forgot all about you. And to-night you have 
 been sitting here wondering if I am tired of you, 
 and for fear I am you have withdrawn yourself 
 from my side, and as nearly as you could without 
 sulking, which sin you will never in your very 
 nature be guilty of, from my sight. You have 
 been afraid I am tired of seeing you around, and 
 that I wish you were an old cup or something 
 of the sort that I could break or throw down 
 In the street." 
 
 Clodah nestled back against him. 
 
 "I think you must be the Wizard man o' 
 Gling-gling cave," she breathed in shame and 
 fun commingled. 
 
 "The Wizard man of Gling-gling cave!" he 
 echoed. "That doesn't sound nice, but a little 
 later you shall tell me all about the strange 
 gentleman for a punishment, for I intend to 
 punish you for being naughty to-day." He 
 paused and looked down at her with a short, 
 harsh laugh. 
 
 "I don't know how to talk to you," he 
 158
 
 said abruptly, "and yet I must for your own 
 good. I don't want to make you unhappy, and 
 yet I shall have to do it deliberately to avoid 
 perhaps a greater sorrow for you. Look here, 
 Clodah, I'm a strange man to most people. 
 Don't think I'm trying to pose before you but 
 then you won't. God knows what made you 
 come to me as you did. I never dreamed you 
 would, at least with all this feeling for me that 
 you have. I didn't have to use the charm of 
 the snake, at any rate, thank Heaven, for you 
 came to me like a dear maiden out of some old 
 folk-lore, mine before I had tried to take you. 
 
 "But, look here, by and by you are going to 
 be awfully hurt through me if you let yourself 
 be. We're going to get down out of the clouds 
 sooner or later, and I'm going to get down to 
 work again, and when I'm busy, and sometimes 
 when I'm not, I have very devils of moods, 
 Clodah. Things you don't do and things you 
 do do and every other thing on earth it all 
 seems to irritate me then past endurance. Then 
 I say things, half of them I don't mean when 
 I say them, but it gives me a savage sort of 
 satisfaction to see other people wince. Hughes 
 159
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 down there, he worships me like a dog, and if 
 I broke his head for him he'd come back to 
 me soon as it was mended; but sometimes I get 
 so sunk in the devils that I can't seem to rest 
 content till I make his poor old lips quiver 
 with pain. All this shocks you, even the hearing 
 of it, and if I should ever forget myself and 
 say something cruel to you don't you see, Clo- 
 dah, I'm throwing mud on myself now to warn 
 you against a greater pain. 
 
 "Now this morning when you came up to me 
 I was busy thinking, and the fact that you came 
 up just then bothered me, but I thought I 
 didn't show it. Honestly, I never knew when 
 you went away, for I was trying to work out an 
 idea that worried me then, and does yet for that 
 matter, and I didn't pay any attention to you. 
 Now if you'll try to make yourself understand 
 that one thing about me. Come to me whenever 
 you want to; never hesitate to say or do any- 
 thing to me. But if I frown or say things don't 
 get hurt. That's the thing that aggravates me 
 to the point of cruelty, not the fact that I'm 
 interrupted so much as the feeling that somebody 
 
 160
 
 is creeping about with lacerated feelings. Have 
 I wounded you past redemption now ?" 
 
 Clodah looked at him with clear, shining eyes. 
 
 "Now I feel more your wife than you have 
 ever let me feel," she said softly. "Anything you 
 ever tell me about yourself is a joy to me and not 
 a hurt. I think I understand. When I used to 
 be spinning at home and wanted to get a great 
 deal done, and some one would come in and talk 
 to me, even my feyther, it made me nervous 
 and the thread would break, and I had to stop. 
 I shall not be afraid of you and I shall not 
 get hurt, is that what you want of me ? If only 
 I could almost know that you loved me all 
 through !" 
 
 Thayer had smiled at the spinning experi- 
 ences which had put her so thoroughly en rap- 
 port with the artistic temperament. At her last 
 words he strained her close to him. 
 
 "I think you may almost know," he said, 
 half wonderingly, and Clodah, laughing hap- 
 pily, did not know that his words were not a 
 quotation. 
 
 "Well, that's all settled," he said at last, "and 
 
 161
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 we needn't ever again have to talk over my 
 brutality. Now tell me about the Wizard man." 
 
 "It isn't much of a story," Clodah said shyly. 
 "My feyther used to tell it me when I was a 
 little girl." 
 
 "Never mind," said Thayer comfortably. 
 "Little-girl stories aren't to be despised, and it 
 sounds inviting, the Wizard man of Gling-gling 
 cave. Besides, I want to know how I'm like him. 
 Here, I pull you up like this, and you lie back 
 here like this, and then you put your head like 
 this, and then you tell me the story." 
 
 "Well," she began slowly and shyly, "once on 
 a time there was a man so wonderful that all 
 the people on Eilean Rohan, an' that was years 
 an' years ago, got to calling him the Wizard 
 man. An* then, because he lived all to himself 
 in a cave on the shore over by Strathay Point, 
 they got to calling him the Wizard man o' Gling- 
 gling cave. An' he had a strange gift o' sight, 
 an' he could tell everybody all they ever thought 
 or did, no matter whether he was by or not. An* 
 people grew afraid o' him an' his gift o' sight. 
 Nobody could tell how he came by it, either, 
 for once he'd been just the same as any 
 162
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 man about there except that he had queer fits 
 o' musing, and he'd go off to the Isle o' the De'il 
 that sits away out to sea and has a veil an' 
 wrapping o' mist about it in storm or shine. 
 
 "Ah, many's the Rohan man that's ne'er come 
 back from there when the cruel storms come an' 
 dash the boats on the ragged reefs that hedge 
 in the isle. An' 'tis whispered in our place 
 that the bodies o' all that are lost in the North 
 Sea find theirsel'es at last about the De'il's Isle." 
 All unconsciously Clodah was speaking in the 
 tongue of her people as she told the Rohan 
 legend, and her eyes began to widen in their 
 peculiar fashion as the atmosphere of the strange 
 tale grew on her. 
 
 "Well, this man that wasna a Wizard yet, 
 he'd go and stay on this isle that good men 
 shunned, an' didna hold no priest, an' he longed 
 to hae the power o' knowin' all men an' all things. 
 An' the De'il told him that first he'd hae to know 
 all sin an' do a dreadful deed. An' the man 
 was a good man as men go, an' he didna want 
 to gi' up his soul at first, for that was what he 
 knew it 'ud come to, though the De'il spoke him 
 fair an' said he didna want his soul; all he 
 163
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 wanted was to gi' him great pleasure. An' 
 finally he said he'd know sin; an' he went to 
 far places, an' he did all manner o' things that he 
 didna dare confess, an' by an' by he got so 
 he never went to a priest, an' he began to see 
 the face o' Heaven was turned from him. An' 
 then he got frightened, for he'd been a good man 
 once, an' he hadna wanted to gi' up his soul for 
 good, an' so he went in churches, an' the priests 
 'ud stop their prayers, an' the good people 'ud 
 shrink from him, an' he was in sore despair. 
 Then finally he was mad wi' all he'd done, an' 
 he went back on the fastest ship he could get 
 to the Isle o' the De'il. Then he tried to get 
 rid o' his sin, an' the De'il laughed at him an' 
 said that naebody in Heaven or earth could take 
 away the memory o' sin, an' that was all o' sin 
 that mattered. An' wi' all the taunts and sneers 
 the man grew wild, an' he said as long as he'd 
 gone a part o' the road he'd go it all, an' he 
 made ready to do the great sin the De'il told 
 him he'd hae to do before he could read the 
 secrets o' men's hearts. 
 
 "An' the sin was to get a young maid an* keep 
 her in the cave, an' she must be wi'out sin an' 
 164
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 full o' piety, an' from the beating o' her heart he 
 was to learn all that he longed to know. An' so 
 he found a maid that was such a one, 'twas one 
 he'd known from her childhood, the lass o' his 
 dearest friend, an' he took her away wi' him, 
 an' no man knew where she'd gone. An' as time 
 went on he grew harder an' crueler, an' he put 
 her through strange tortures to get at the secrets 
 he wanted to know, an' sometimes her moans 'ud 
 sound straight across the sea, an' the sailors 'ud 
 cross their breasts at the sad sound, an' 
 no one knew what it meant an' all thought 
 it was a portending wind. For she knew 
 she was being used for sin, an' she was 
 sore hurt, for her heart was wi' the love 
 o' God. But she couldna help hersel'. An* 
 his power grew till all men shrank from him 
 in fear an' terror, for he could read their hearts 
 as if their thoughts were printed out, an' he 
 came to use his knowledge in an evil way. He 
 set feyther against son, an' husband against 
 wife, an' all the land was in great distress for 
 the evil that was being wrought. 
 
 "An' then at last," the girl's eyes darkened 
 and her voice was full of awe, "the people that 
 165
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 lived then, they got wrought up till at last they 
 made an army of them all together, an' they went 
 to the cave where he was dwelling. An' he was in 
 the midst o' one o' his mysteries an' so close 
 held that he didna use the sight he might hae 
 used to tell him that his enemies were coming. 
 An' so they were on him before he was aware. 
 An' they found him wi' the maid. Then they 
 knew it was her moans that had guided them, 
 an' they thought all the time they were coming 
 that it was the sighing o' a dreadful wind. 
 
 "An' when the maid saw her feyther an' 
 brothers she knew the sign o' her release, but 
 'twas the release o' death. For God took the 
 breath out o' her poor body right then and 
 there. Then her feyther rushed on the Wizard 
 to kill him, but the face o' him stopped the up- 
 lifted arm. For he was staring at the dead body 
 o' the girl like a lost soul looks on a saved one. 
 An' the feyther saw it was a greater punishing 
 to let him live on wi' his regret. So they went 
 away. 
 
 "An' some say one way an' some say another, 
 but at any rate the Wizard man o' Gling-gling 
 cave disappeared that night. Some say he went 
 166
 
 to live wi' the De'il, that the De'il came an' 
 dragged him away and said his soul belonged to 
 him ; an' others say that he flung himself into the 
 raging o' the sea that night after he had tor- 
 tured himself in penance for his crime. But 
 never a priest could there be found who 'ud say 
 a prayer for the repose o' his soul, an' ever 
 since that time there's the sound o' moaning an' 
 the cry o' a tortured soul in Gling-gling cave 
 that didna die down in the death o' the maid." 
 
 Thayer had listened in a fever of fascination 
 to the simple story so simply told, that held 
 within it all the folk-wisdom that is beyond that 
 of philosophies and creeds. 
 
 "Do you believe all that, Clodah?" he asked 
 softly. 
 
 She stirred a little restlessly in his arms. 
 
 "I dinna think that I do believe it all," she said 
 at length, "though there's many o' my people 
 that do. But I believe there's a lesson in it like's 
 in the parables o' Christ. My feyther showed it 
 to me, an' I've thought on it many a time sitting 
 on Red Rock when the sea was roaring an' the 
 strange sounds that come across the water were 
 sounding in my ears." 
 
 167
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 "What is the teaching?" Thayer asked. 
 
 "I dinna need to tell you that," she replied 
 simply with an accent that told her adoring 
 thought. 
 
 "Tell me," Thayer persisted gently. 
 
 "My feyther showed it to me, that whether 
 there was truth or legend in the tale, there was 
 a lesson for every one that heard it, that too 
 much thinking on evil things leads one to evil 
 deeds, an' that no man is strong enough to stand 
 before evil to learn it, for he has to take some 
 o' it into his heart. An 5 that evil desire leads 
 him to take others into sin an' shame, an' that 
 there's no thing on earth to be desired good 
 enough to need the sacrifice o' a living soul." 
 
 Her eyes had long since turned from the 
 window embrasure and had fastened themselves 
 on something tall and black and grinning at 
 the far end of the great long room. She sat 
 upright with an excited laugh; then she sprang 
 swiftly out of Thayer's grasp and ran down 
 the length of the studio. When Thayer reached 
 her she was crouching with a half scared look 
 in her eyes at the foot of the black marble pillar. 
 
 "Isna 't queer !" she cried excitedly. "All the 
 168
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 time I was telling the story I was staring into 
 the face o' that thing up there." She pointed 
 to the heavy carving that crowned the top. "It 
 was smiling like the Wizard man o' Gling-gling 
 cave. Some queer way when I come in here, 
 or get to telling you my silly tales I look on 
 it while I'm speaking. Isna things queer !" 
 
 Thayer did not smile the sarcastic smile that 
 had come to his lips a few evenings before when 
 the girl had spoken almost the same words. His 
 hands clenched themselves nervously, and a heavy 
 frown spread over his face. Then he bent down 
 and lifted her up. 
 
 "Yes," he said with a curious regret, "things 
 are queer. Don't talk about it any more." 
 
 169
 
 When Mrs. Davenport received Thayer's 
 singular and unconventional announcement of 
 his marriage she experienced an hour of still, 
 cold rage. That some audacious recklessness 
 had flashed into his mind on that last afternoon 
 of theirs together she had well known; but 
 that the desire would spend itself, or fail- 
 ing that, that the islanders would keep 
 their own, she had not held the faintest doubt. 
 That Thayer's desire was so deep-seated as 
 to induce him to contract a marriage solely 
 for the purpose of obtaining a suitable model 
 she had never dreamed, and would never have 
 believed without the evidence of his madness 
 there before her. In all her premonitions 
 and fears of disaster that she carried with her 
 from England, marriage was something she had 
 not counted upon. 
 
 She blamed herself furiously, needlessly, for 
 170
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 everything that had happened. Her husband 
 had been that people's guest, had lived with 
 them, and had loved them. By his heroic rescue 
 of The Rohan's son he had brought upon the 
 simple people a debt of gratitude and hospitality 
 to him and his that generations would not wipe 
 out. 
 
 Then she had come along, she, the wife of the 
 man they revered, and she had made up her wil- 
 ful mind that, being weary of all that England 
 and the continent had to offer her, she would take 
 a yachting tour on the North Sea, and would in- 
 cidentally touch upon that strange shore con- 
 cerning which she had been more or less curious 
 ever since her husband's return with his tales of 
 its silent people, its uncrowned king. So she 
 had carried out her plans, and she had brought 
 with her, besides a number of insignificant crea- 
 tures, a man whose dangerous personality was 
 sufficient to wreck cities did he so choose to exert 
 it. She had deliberately brought him there, had 
 dared to let him walk and talk with the daughter 
 of the man whom her husband honored above all 
 men he had known. 
 
 And, as if this were not enough to urge on 
 171
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 crime and sorrow surely Fate is more powerful 
 than humanity! that the child should look like 
 her ; that Thayer should have dared to ask of her 
 friendship what he had ; that she should have re- 
 minded him, innocently, to be sure, but none the 
 less clearly, of what had completely slipped his 
 mind, of that island and that summer day ; that 
 he should have been seized with some madness of 
 the gods which resulted in this crime ! 
 
 She flung the letter from her and began 
 to pace up and down her room. What should 
 she do? Everything! What could she do? 
 Nothing ! The English law provided in entirety 
 for matrimonial possession. The child, the in- 
 nocent child! In spite of her anger something 
 at last of the respect he had foretold began to 
 rise within her for his ability, his power of 
 execution. How had he compassed it, not the 
 gaining of the girl's consent, that was only too 
 easily understood, but the winning of the 
 father? She recalled The Rohan as he had ap- 
 peared, standing between Thayer and his daugh- 
 ter at the moment of their departure for their 
 boat, and her amazement grew over the fact that, 
 according to Thayer, it was with her father's 
 172
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 consent Clodah had wedded him and had gone 
 away. 
 
 She did not write to Thayer for a week. When 
 she finally made herself go to her writing desk 
 for that specific purpose, she began her letter as 
 abruptly as the man had done. 
 
 "I send my felicitations to you, my friend. 
 To Mrs. Thayer my sympathy. Pray do not 
 deliver the message, but keep it to yourself and 
 for yourself. Remember it the first time she 
 vexes you, as she surely will, if she has not done 
 so already, by her simplicity. It will not be 
 her fault that she displeases you, and if you let 
 her see she has done so she will not see the reason 
 why for so fearful a sin, and she will sin again. 
 My dear Kirk, you will perceive I am not trying 
 to make the best of this marriage. You need 
 a mondaine to be strictly accurate, you need 
 no one but if marriage has an attraction so 
 great for you that you can not resist it, you need 
 the most finished production of an artificial age, 
 an orchid in rearing and culture. And with the 
 unwisdom of a child you have reached out your 
 hand for a mountain daisy, merely because your 
 173
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 eyes were weary with trying to follow the 
 strangenesses and the hybrid growths of the 
 flower of the air and the hot-house. You will 
 find that the daisy is easily traced out, that there 
 are no complexities in its structure, that its color 
 is white, a color which dazzles, but which one 
 enjoys only so long as its whiteness is perfect. 
 When the first smirch comes, and remember it 
 comes from without, and when the first petal is 
 bent or broken, one grows weary of what is 
 simple to weariness and no longer perfect, and 
 desires to toss it away. And so long as it is a 
 daisy I have no fault to find. I have trodden 
 on the flowers of the field myself. But a human 
 soul I feel tender for, and I confess to you, my 
 dear friend, I am consumed with a great fear 
 for her and for you. Do not soil her whiteness 
 any more than the fearful laws of our world 
 seem to require. Do not I realize this is an un- 
 wise letter. I do not think you will be angry 
 with me for it, but it will not help you, nor will 
 it help you to help her. It is in effect and mean- 
 ing an "I told you so" before the act. After 
 the tragedy occurs I shall never say it. But I 
 shall perish with the regret of my own share 
 174.
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 in this if I do not say it now. Give Clodah all 
 the love from me she wishes and cares for, and 
 say to her I am always her friend. As I am 
 yours." 
 
 It was some two weeks after his marriage that 
 Thayer received this letter whose unwisdom was 
 clear and frankly confessed. He frowned over 
 it and flung it away, and then picked it up and 
 read it again and laughed. And the frown and 
 the laugh alike were unpleasant and unhealthf ul. 
 
 " 'The tragedy,' " he mused with a sneer 
 about his mouth. His eyes grew dark, and he 
 stared unseeingly out of the window. Suddenly 
 he flung up his head. 
 
 "I have her face before me constantly. My 
 fingers tingle to get to work. I have waited 
 patiently all these days. It is the tidal moment. 
 And she has to yield." 
 
 He stood for another moment in silence. 
 Then he shook his shoulders vigorously and went 
 rapidly from the room. 
 
 175
 
 After that one serious talk of theirs in the 
 studio that night, the only serious conversation 
 Thayer had ever had with her, Clodah began 
 to realize as never before what an utter stranger 
 her husband was to her, and to yearn with what 
 was at times almost hopelessness after a greater 
 and more satisfying knowledge of him and all 
 that pertained to him. She began to study his 
 moods. It was a pitiful attempt at first, pitiful 
 in its utter lack of method, but nevertheless pro- 
 ductive of some good. 
 
 Already she had learned to recognize several 
 distinct harbingers of moods whose appearance 
 meant to her a quiet effacing of herself till the 
 spell had worn itself out. She reassured herself 
 with desperate cheerfulness by recalling that he 
 had told her that night always to remember 
 he never meant to hurt her, and she tried to 
 go happily about her self-imposed household 
 tasks during her periods of voluntary banish- 
 176
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 ment. She busied herself about her fast in- 
 creasing wardrobe, a care that had as yet been 
 delegated to no maid. She tried new ways of 
 doing her hair, since she had learned her hair 
 was Thayer's pride, and in this she was aided 
 by a mysterious man with all sorts of ointments 
 and unguents and instruments at his command, 
 under whose fostering care her tresses had begun 
 to take on a sheen and shimmer unknown to 
 them before. She was naturally a busy little 
 body, and by great diligence she managed to 
 thrust aside much of the loneliness she could not 
 help but feel. 
 
 Hughes was a great aid to her. Any men- 
 tion of Thayer was to him as the smell of 
 powder to the nostrils of a war horse, and 
 when he was once for all assured that his new 
 mistress not only permitted it but was delighted 
 to hear any and every detail relating to the 
 master whom he loved, Hughes promptly ab- 
 dicated the footsteps of the single throne he had 
 long since erected to Thayer, and proceeded to 
 put together hastily another royal chair wherein 
 he might in his mind's eye see Clodah sitting. 
 All the details of Thayer's babyhood he knew, 
 177
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 all his boyish pranks. In one quite criminal one 
 he confessed to having assisted. Therefore 
 Hughes, sometimes unconsciously, sometimes 
 with the cunning of a Machiavelli, was of in- 
 finite help in giving her data whereby she might 
 better, though still dimly, understand the inner 
 life of the man they both worshiped. 
 
 During the week that followed the night of 
 the studio talk Thayer's abstraction and moodi- 
 ness grew on him. He treated Clodah with kind- 
 ness, but she felt that for the time being she 
 was put with absent gentleness quite out of his 
 life. 
 
 The morning that Mrs. Davenport's letter 
 came Thayer entered the breakfast room with a 
 heavy shade on his brow. He swallowed his cof- 
 fee mechanically, said no word to any one, and 
 left his remaining letters, and even the morning 
 papers, untouched. Within the shortest time 
 possible for the despatching of a frugal meal he 
 breakfasted, and then made instant escape to the 
 studio. In her loneliness Clodah wandered down 
 through the kitchen and in aimless fashion out 
 to a little back balcony, where she found Hughes 
 busy with some boots of hers and Thayer's. He 
 178
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 rose as he saw her coming, but she motioned him 
 to his work, and perched herself on a window 
 ledge near by. 
 
 "It's a fine mornin', ma'am," ventured Hughes 
 at length. 
 
 "Yes," Clodah assented cheerfully. "That's 
 why I came out here to get some fresh air. I 
 think Mr. Thayer wants to work or something, 
 too." 
 
 "Yes, ma'am," said Hughes promptly. "He 
 looked just that way while he was eatin' nothin' 
 at all." 
 
 "Can you tell that easily, Hughes?" Clodah 
 asked with wistfulness and admiration mingled. 
 
 Hughes' ear was not of Grecian mold, but it 
 had a fine faculty for the hearing of things hid- 
 den, and he caught all that lurked in the young 
 wife's tone, and guessed at much more. 
 
 "Why, Lord bless you, ma'am," he said sym- 
 pathetically, dropping the little walking shoe of 
 hers he was at work on. "You see I've known 
 Master Kirk from the time he could just hold 
 up his head, and before, and if I couldn't tell 
 when his torments come on him, who could?" 
 
 "Torments !" repeated Clodah wonderingly. 
 179
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 Hughes gave up for the time being all pre- 
 tense of going on with his rightful duties. 
 
 "That's the name for what he has," he said 
 firmly. "Most generally I've noted they come 
 on him when he's hard-worked and don't want to 
 be worried, because he's worried enough as it is. 
 Then if things that he does in that room of his 
 come out right he comes out the same way. 
 Sometimes he can't seem to get suited, though, 
 and after he's tried and tried till he's clear wore 
 out, then he seems to get cruel like and don't 
 care what he says or does. I talked with a 
 doctor once about him, ma'am, once when he was 
 awful sick of a fever, and the doctor and me 
 had quite a comfortable talk. He found out I 
 wasn't tryin' to pry, but that I wanted to find 
 out things so as to know what ailed Master Kirk 
 at times. 
 
 "As near as I could make out, ma'am," 
 Hughes leaned forward and spoke in a deprecat- 
 ing way, as if to ward off any ill results of his 
 plain speaking, "though I don't believe it as it 
 sounds myself and told the doctor so, he seemed 
 to hang on to it in quite a positive way that 
 Master Kirk was mad. Now don't look so wilty, 
 180
 
 ma'am, for he went on to say there wasn't no 
 great genius that ever lived that wasn't in a 
 way insane, and that when they was hard at 
 work, under the spur of a great thought, he 
 put it, they wasn't responsible for anything, 
 fire, murder, or sudden death." Hughes rolled 
 his last phrase over with a decided relish. 
 
 "But, Hughes," Clodah cried indignantly, 
 "mad people are dangerous, and " 
 
 "It's this way, ma'am," Hughes explained 
 soothingly. "Maybe you ain't noted it yet, for 
 anybody with half an eye to look with can see 
 how he's that took up with you that he ain't 
 got time for any of his paint-pots now, but it's 
 bound to come sooner or later, for he's that 
 wrapped up in painting, too. And just as he's 
 got all eyes an' ears for you now, he'll have 
 a mind for nothin' on earth but them paints and 
 brushes when he once gets fairly started to goin' 
 again. You see, ma'am," Hughes' voice became 
 quite tender and protecting, "they ain't a doubt 
 but Master Kirk's a wonderful genius, anybody 
 with an eye for paints can see that, and that 
 was what the doctor said, that genius was just 
 off of insanity. He showed it mq this way. 
 181
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 "Everybody's got queer quirks In their brains. 
 Some likes the sea and some don't, and some 
 wants this and some wants that, and if all 
 them different tastes ain't controlled they 
 get to be hobbies, and the folks with 'em 
 is called queer. But with some people, 
 and they ain't many of 'em, their tastes 
 is wonderful, like Master Kirk's for mak- 
 ing pictures. 'Them's the tastes,' the doctor 
 said, 'that ought to be encouraged, the feelin' 
 for poetry an' paintin' an' actin' an' all them 
 sort.' He said that instead of these people bein' 
 cranks they was geniuses, and the reason was 
 because they had given something that was in 
 them out to the world and made it better rather 
 than all their friends unhappy with their fads 
 for nothin'." 
 
 "And that's what he does, Hughes," said 
 Clodah earnestly. 
 
 Hughes took up the neglected shoe. "To be 
 sure he does," he said heartily. "They tell me 
 that all over London people know him, an' all 
 the continent. The biggest men in the kingdom 
 have been here and he with them, and wherever
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 he was or whoever was with him he was the best 
 of 'em all, ma'am." 
 
 Clodah's eyes shone. Then her face grew 
 serious. She bent forward. "Hughes," she 
 murmured, "tell me how you act when he gets 
 to thinking so hard. I never want to bother him, 
 you know, and of course I understand he can't 
 be thinking of me all the time." 
 
 Hughes laid the poor shoe down once more, and 
 stared off into space with a somewhat puzzled 
 face. "I don't know how to tell you to act, 
 ma'am, for he may be different with you in 
 what he says and does. Far as I am concerned 
 I go along and don't pay not a drop of attention 
 to anything about him. That is, I don't let him 
 see I do. When I get his breakfast, if he's in 
 one of them spells, I see to it there's a pile of 
 bread ready cut and waiting. You see if it's 
 dry toast I bring in to him he'll invariably want 
 it wet, and if it's wet toast he can't eat no slop, 
 and whether it's buttered or unbuttered don't 
 make a mite of difference to him, for whichever 
 it isn't that's what he wants. You see, ma'am, 
 I don't try to please him, but I just get things 
 
 183
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 ready to set to work to get him what he wants 
 just as soon as he sees what he don't want. 
 Sometimes that's all there is to it, and he'll just 
 sit there and not eat anything, and stare off 
 with an ache in his eyes and heart that puts a 
 worse one in mine. It's most worse when he's 
 silent than when he rages. 
 
 "Sometimes he does say awful things. Some- 
 times he turns on me and talks against me and 
 laughs at me and my ignorance, and all the 
 time above the sneers and the dreadful laugh 
 I can see the everlastin' ache in his eyes, and I 
 know that he's more miserable than he could ever 
 make me, no matter what he says tryin' to. 
 Sometimes that goes on for days and nights, and 
 all I can do is to watch over him and somehow 
 get him to eat something or other, and take care 
 of him till the evil temper works out. 
 
 "The doctor told me it wasn't a devil in him, 
 ma'am. That had been what I'd thought it was 
 before. He said that people like him could see 
 clear into the wonders o' things that ain't on 
 earth, and that too often when their clearest 
 sight came, and they saw everything that was 
 lovely, and then had to find out that the best they 
 184
 
 could do was so everlastin' short, they got clear 
 maddened with the failure that nobody else could 
 see, and that makes them do what they do." 
 
 "And can you always keep from showing you 
 are hurt, Hughes?" she asked wistfully. 
 
 "Always try to, ma'am," said Hughes cheer- 
 fully, "for I know he doesn't mean it at all. 
 Why, ma'am, after a spell's wore itself out and 
 he's through with the fever for a while, I can al- 
 ways tell it by the way he comes out to me. 'Get 
 me some dinner to-night,' he'll say. 'Dinner for 
 two, Hughes. I'm that hungry I could eat you.' 
 'All right, sir,' I'll say cheerful as I can, and 
 without takin' no notice of anything. And then 
 more often than not he'll come over to me and 
 put his arm round my shoulders, and give me 
 a little shake or something, and he'll say, 'Well, 
 Hughes,' and look at me with his eyes that look 
 hollow and burned out with all their sparkle, and 
 then's the time I'm apt to make a fool of myself, 
 ma'am. He always goes off laughin' then and 
 says somethin' back over his shoulder, and I tend 
 to my work and praise God that it's over and 
 well over for another time. 
 
 "You see," he added softly after a pause that 
 185
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 had lasted well into the minutes, "it takes people 
 that care for him and love him better than their- 
 selves to be about him. There's things that's 
 hard, that is they might be if any one didn't care 
 for him, but there's that about him and it that 
 pays. You see," he broke off, fearful through 
 his knowledge of his hidden thought that he had 
 said too much to the wife of his master, "I knew 
 him when he was a tiny babe, and " 
 
 Clodah had been looking off into the blue of 
 the sky with a rapt look in her eyes that had 
 awed the man before her. His last sentence 
 brought her back to him. She laughed sud- 
 denly, gleefully. 
 
 "Was he a nice little baby, Hughes?" 
 "That he was, ma'am," Hughes replied ear- 
 nestly. "He was that big for his age, and the 
 bonniest eyes and curls, and strong why, 
 ma'am, when he was only four weeks old they'd 
 laid him down on his little stummick and he 
 didn't want to lay there, and instead of cryin' 
 like an ordinary child he raised himself up on 
 his little hands and looked about him with his 
 head and shoulders straight up in the air for 
 all the world like an old mud turtle !" Hughes 
 186
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 bent backward and forward in mirth, and Clo- 
 dah's laugh rang out. 
 
 "It seems too funny, Hughes, to think of liim 
 being a little baby. Tell me some more." 
 
 Hughes had just made ready to take an in- 
 ventory of his stock of reminiscences, when a 
 shadow from the open window fell on them both. 
 
 "Are you here, Clodah?" Thayer asked 
 quickly. "Do you want to help me some this 
 morning?" She scrambled quickly to her feet. 
 
 "Is it a picture you're painting?" she asked. 
 "Is it me standing by the boat?" 
 
 "No," with the same quick imperiousness. 
 "It's another one." 
 
 He lifted her bodily through the window, and 
 Hughes watched them disappear in the darkness 
 of the hallway. A shadow from its gloom seemed 
 to fall on him as he sat in the sunshine and 
 rubbed away at his homely work. 
 
 "It's on him again," he murmured to himself. 
 "I can see it in his eye and hear it in his voice. 
 He's nervous and wore out with the workin' of 
 it in him, and now it's comin' out, and God help 
 the child that's his wife." 
 
 187
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 But Clodah, all unseeing, was running gaily 
 along the corridor. 
 
 "Shall I put on my red frock?" she called as 
 she reached her room. 
 
 Thayer caught up with her. 
 
 "No," he said, softly, "it is another thing 
 entirely, and you will do what I ask, Clodah? 
 On your bed you will find that long cloak that 
 came home the other day. I want you to wrap 
 yourself in that and nothing more and come 
 up to the studio as soon as you can." 
 
 There was a silence, at first of incomprehen- 
 sion, then of slow-dawning intelligence. He 
 looked into her eyes and the flash of superb re- 
 sentment and white-heat anger there made a 
 swift fury leap to life within him. Was the 
 great impulse to work to be denied now after 
 he had waited so long and so patiently, after 
 he had sacrificed so much? The very fire and 
 flame of a creative god was burning fiercely 
 within him and refused to be smothered again 
 and still revive. If it was crushed out now it 
 would go forever. Then his fury died down. 
 He must consider the child before him if he was 
 to gain his end without brutality, and brutality 
 188
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 was not pleasant to Thayer in all its naked ugli- 
 ness. 
 
 "You don't understand me," he said quietly. 
 "That is, you understand at once too little and 
 too much. Come in here with me for a moment, 
 and let me tell you, dear, how you can help me 
 now as never before in all your life. Come, 
 Clodah." 
 
 189
 
 Within half an hour Thayer was back in the 
 studio. He walked restlessly about moving all 
 sorts of properties hither and thither. A large 
 canvas stood in front of a model's platform, 
 which had been pushed up beneath the curious- 
 ly carved pillar that reared itself against 
 a brilliant background of red and gold stuffs. 
 The pillar was of black marble, Corinthian in de- 
 sign, but topped with a hideously real head of 
 a grinning satyr. Thayer had run across the 
 thing on the continent some years before, and 
 had promptly taken the chance of purchase. 
 
 At last he stopped his restless strides with a 
 suddenness that was ominous. He was growing 
 weary, tired of waiting. He took up some 
 brushes and made a few strokes on the canvas 
 that were far from aimless despite the distraught 
 condition of his mind. Then he put them down 
 and looked almost savagely at the door. Surely 
 190
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 she had had time enough. He took a moment 
 or two to wonder to himself at the comparative 
 ease of his victory. He had put off the crucial 
 moment for several days because he feared, above 
 all things, a tumultuous scene, and of all things 
 natural or made by art Thayer loathed hysterics 
 in a woman. He took another moment to con- 
 gratulate himself on holding that vicious temper 
 of his in check at a time when it threatened to 
 rise and swell beyond all lawful bounds. 
 
 It was too exasperating, when he was so 
 strongly in the mood for work, immediate work, 
 that she could not have understood, have com- 
 prehended without the need of explanation. He 
 rather marveled at himself when he remembered 
 how gentle he had been with her. He had ap- 
 pealed to her love for him. He had laid great 
 and sincere stress on the fact that she could give 
 him now for his darling creation a sort of help 
 no other woman who could would bestow. He 
 told her of the thrilling inspiration she was to 
 him, and he merged the seriousness of his first 
 appeal into a half laughing mirth at her strange 
 sensitiveness. He had been surprised beyond the 
 ordinary when she had suddenly and with her 
 191
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 face still hidden from him thrown her arms about 
 his neck. 
 
 "I hae tried to understan' things ever since 
 I came away wi' you," she had murmured breath- 
 lessly, "an* the things I canna understan' I try 
 to be content to leave be till I grow wiser." 
 
 Then she had gone swiftly over to her dressing 
 table, her face very pale and her eyes full of a 
 shrinking terror, and he, well knowing the vic- 
 tory was his, had gone quietly from the room. 
 He felt a sort of passing pity for her evident 
 suffering, but the emotion was only momentary. 
 Beneath all the really tender feeling he had for 
 The Rohan's daughter lay his passionate desire 
 to use the flaming moment regardless of what 
 tender spirit this fierce desire scorched and 
 blackened. 
 
 Suddenly the door behind him clicked sharply. 
 He started and wheeled swiftly about. Clodah 
 had entered and was closing the door behind her. 
 For one long moment she stood still and rigid 
 as if the power to move were no longer in her. 
 A long rose-colored cloak fell in rich folds about 
 her. The wide, drooping sleeves swept almost 
 to the floor. Beneath the lace ruffles her little 
 192
 
 hands gripped the heavy brocade with a wild 
 tension she did not know. 
 
 Suddenly her eyes fell on the platform, on the 
 pillar, on the grinning satyr's head. She closed 
 them involuntarily against the sight of the car- 
 ved figure which from the first had affected her 
 so strangely. Not so quickly but that she real- 
 ized the familiar stand was rolled just beneath 
 it. Her eyes opened again, widening with a hor- 
 ror that was sickening. Then she drew a sharp 
 little breath, and as if it had quickened her, 
 with her face white and set, her bright hair flow- 
 ing free as Thayer had told her to leave it, and 
 the gorgeous brocade making a brightness about 
 her path, she moved quickly and with a distinct 
 dignity down the room and stepped lightly on 
 the platform. 
 
 From the first Thayer had been watching her 
 with an admiration that was almost awe. For 
 the first time there came to him a dawning reali- 
 zation of the love she bore him, a love which 
 might endure death and that which passed the 
 pangs of death. As she turned and faced him 
 he saw her eyes glance quickly from his face to 
 the door beyond him. With an intuitive knowl- 
 193
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 edge of what had brought the hunted look into 
 them, he went over to the door and drew the 
 bolts fast. When he turned to her again the 
 long cloak was lying in rosy ripples on the floor 
 about her feet.
 
 If 
 
 For two weeks Thayer worked dally on his 
 painting. Every morning after breakfast he 
 would go up to the studio, where Clodah 
 would shortly follow him, and he would work 
 feverishly till some latent spirit of humanity 
 that stayed by him in all his excitement made 
 him remember his little model and her exceeding 
 weariness. Then for a few moments she would 
 descend from her place and, wrapped in her 
 cloak, would come over to the canvas and look in 
 puzzled wonder wherein was blended a little pain 
 at the painting which she could fairly see grow 
 from day to day. After the first few days of 
 her new modelship she lost the terror, much of 
 the pain, and a little of the shyness that made 
 her first poses a torture to her. Thayer taught 
 her a few simple exercises whereby she might 
 relieve her muscles from the cramp of their hard, 
 distorted pose, and she would go through with 
 them at her rest periods with an earnestness and 
 195
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 singleness of purpose that mightily amused him, 
 though he carefully concealed it from her. 
 
 Clodah puzzled greatly over the composition of 
 the painting wherein she figured. In the un- 
 finished background was a half-circle of seats 
 filled with a mass of queerly draped people. In 
 the center of the half -circle was a box gorgeously 
 draped in red and gold. It was raised from the 
 arena beneath it by a series of pillars, black, and 
 with carved heads like the one in Thayer's stu- 
 dio. At some distance from the box stood a 
 row of similar pillars. These held the fore- 
 ground, and to one of them she was bound by 
 heavy chains. On her right and left stood a 
 group of soldiers with massive shields and lances. 
 One of them, the only figure that approached 
 completion, held aloft a winning die and was 
 turning with outstretched hand toward the girl. 
 This was all she read in the confusion of sketch 
 and color tests, and she wondered at its mean- 
 ing and the story that it held. 
 
 "Do you like it?" Thayer asked her one morn- 
 ing as she was standing before it during a rest- 
 ing time. 
 
 She looked up at him doubtfully. "I don't 
 196
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 know," she confessed honestly. "I don't under- 
 stand what it means. I think it's awful she 
 should be there so. I don't know what it 
 means." 
 
 Thayer laughed. "Did you never hear of 
 Nero, Clodah?" 
 
 She shook her head sadly. "I've told you I 
 be not learned," she said wistfully. 
 
 He touched her cheek lightly. "Did you ever 
 see a learned woman, Clodah?" 
 
 She shook her head again with a deep regret 
 that sent Thayer off into a fresh laugh. 
 
 "You shouldn't miss the sight," he said teas- 
 ingly. "I'll show you one sometime, and then 
 you'll realize what you've been missing all your 
 life and hate me ever after." 
 
 It was one of his many speeches that she did 
 not understand, and she only shook her head all 
 to herself. At last she allowed herself a ques- 
 tion. 
 
 "Isn't Mrs. Davenport a learned woman?" 
 
 "Oh," returned Thayer carelessly, "she's an 
 altogether different sort, you know. Yes, she's 
 learned ; that is, she knows a lot here and there, 
 but she's not a type of your blue-stocking." 
 197
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 "Blue stocking!" Clodah wrinkled up her 
 forehead in a vain endeavor to catch the mean- 
 ing of that term, but Thayer did not help her, 
 and after giving up the word as another mys- 
 tery she turned again to the painting. 
 
 "Who was Nero?" she ventured. 
 
 Thayer had gone off into a brown study, but 
 her question roused him. 
 
 "Nero?" he repeated. "Oh, he was a bad sort 
 all around. He was a Roman king, you know, 
 and he was on deck when the early Christians 
 began to make themselves known." Thayer 
 stopped to laugh, wholly to himself. A wild 
 caprice swayed him, and he let a whimsical fancy 
 lead him recklessly on. "Their religion was a 
 new one, then, you see one which displeased 
 some Roman gentlemen, and bored others, and 
 made others smile. Now in the course of human 
 events and Nero's actions it became necessary 
 for that gentleman to put the blame for a num- 
 ber of things that had been going wrong on to 
 somebody's shoulders, and when the apprehen- 
 sion that he was going to be the mark for the 
 lightning became a well founded one, he d<r 
 cided to take the essence of some modern pv* 
 198
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 gillstic advice, and made up his mind to hit first 
 and hit hard. In consequence he told all his 
 friends and subjects that the Christians were the 
 ones who had been cutting up the recent didoes, 
 and that if the state of Rome wanted to stay 
 present much longer the disturbing element 
 had better be removed. Then he found he'd 
 have to go further than he'd reckoned on to save 
 his skin, but he was dead grit to the last, so he 
 got up a lot of games and things, and began 
 putting Christians to death. He built this" 
 Thayer swept a brush about the semi-circle in 
 the background "and got a lot of wild animals 
 caged up there, and turned them loose down here, 
 and drove the Christians out here in herds, and 
 let the wild things tear them up." 
 
 Clodah looked horrified. "But what's that?" 
 she breathed. 
 
 Thayer smiled a little grimly. "You want 
 the point, do you? Well, by and by Nero 
 found out the Christians wouldn't fight the ani- 
 mals, and simply because of religious scruples 
 let themselves be chewed up. So he decided 
 that if they didn't mind being slaughtered to 
 make a Roman holiday, he would give some of 
 199
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 them something that they would mind. And 
 this is one thing," he finished abruptly. 
 
 Clodah looked at the pictured scene with great 
 shrinking, while Thayer looked at her with a 
 queer gleam in his eyes. Suddenly she glanced 
 up at him with a warm flush on her face, but a 
 brave question in her eyes. 
 
 "Ask it," he said, large encouragement in his 
 tone. 
 
 "I was just thinking," she said slowly, " of 
 course I can't tell things when they're right or 
 wrong, things like this but it seems so dreadful 
 to paint out things that hurt a body so to look 
 at." She put her hands to her heart with a sim- 
 ple little gesture. "It must 'a been awful for 
 her," she breathed. 
 
 Thayer, watching her closely with all the 
 fascination that all unwitting she was able to 
 throw at times about him, saw that she caught 
 but a small part of the awfulness, and for a mo- 
 ment he was almost impelled to thrust Nero's 
 cruelty before her in all its exquisite refinement. 
 It was an impulse pushed away as soon as it 
 came to him, but he looked at her with the 
 thought in his eyes, imagining how hers would 
 200
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 widen with the horror of a revelation whose 
 faintest breath he well knew had not yet come 
 to her. 
 
 "Well," he said, answering the first part of 
 her question, "it all depends on how I do it up, 
 carry out the idea and all that. If I can make 
 her face express what I want it to express, the 
 end will justify the conception and the 
 means," he added slowly, defiantly. "Come," 
 he went on after an instant of silence, "scamper 
 up there, and get your pose for just a half- 
 hour's work." 
 
 So Clodah stood dreamily for half an hour, 
 her head full of the tale she had just heard, try- 
 ing to imagine a man cruel enough to do what 
 she had caught from Thayer's rendition this 
 Roman king had done. She had to give it 
 up, for her experience did not hold for her any 
 standard whereby she might judge him. But 
 with the thought of the Christian maiden and 
 her sufferings her face grew so full of pain and 
 woe that it paled in sympathy. For that agony 
 of shame, that torture of the spirit, she had a 
 rule whereby to measure, even though her tiny 
 meter must be multiplied exceeding many times. 
 201
 
 Thayer, glancing toward her once with one of 
 his quick looks, caught the expression on her 
 face, and all unseen by her drank it in. 
 
 "If I can but bring that atmosphere about 
 her when I am ready for it," he said to himself, 
 "I can never regret my enforced change of 
 models. Is there anything on earth that could 
 bring such a look to Hilda's face?" And he 
 painted rapidly with a smile on his face and a 
 perfect satisfaction in his heart. When noon 
 came he swung Clodah down and kissed her 
 warmly. 
 
 "You are perfect!" he said gladly as he 
 wound her draperies closely about her. "You 
 are going to make for me what I feel within me 
 is going to be the great success of my life. 
 Without you I could not have accomplished it." 
 
 And as they went downstairs together Clodah 
 was content. 
 
 202
 
 Over in Russia Hilda Davenport was delib- 
 erately worrying. Some shadow hung over her, 
 some prescience of coming trouble. This whole 
 affair of Thayer's marriage was so sudden and 
 swift that she had been unable to plot out cause 
 and effect in her mind with any degree of rea- 
 sonable clearness. She detested making a move 
 in the dark. She had a clear, far-seeing vision, 
 and she wanted an uninterrupted view before ad- 
 vancing a step on any path. 
 
 Some things about this iniquitous marriage 
 she had understood. She knew Thayer as he did 
 not know himself. She knew beyond any further 
 need of seeing it the girl's beautiful simplicity, 
 her utter sincerity. She knew that love to such 
 a nature whose whole enveloping environment 
 had been single-stranded would mean heaven or 
 the blackest hell. When she thought of the tak- 
 ing of that simple soul into all the complexities 
 of Thayer's life, with all the strength of her 
 203
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 brain and heart she revolted at the heartless 
 cruelty of it. What could come of it but dis- 
 aster and woe? 
 
 Thayer and Clodah she could read, and, read- 
 ing, she trembled for the fate of the girl. But 
 The Rohan, there lay the exceeding mystery. 
 How had it come, she asked herself, her walls, 
 her belongings day after day ; how had it come 
 that The Rohan could yield up his daughter 
 in marriage to a man unknown to him, a man 
 whom at first glance he had instinctively dis- 
 liked? If the marriage had but been delayed ; if 
 Thayer had been put on probation; if after a 
 fitting time had elapsed he had returned for the 
 girl Hilda smiled skeptically at that possibil- 
 ity then she would have been able to explain 
 an unwilling consent on The Rohan's part for 
 the sake of the girl's happiness. 
 
 But a courting, a winning, a bearing away, all 
 in the space of forty-eight hours, took her breath 
 away when she tried to imagine such a proceed- 
 ing in connection with the three principals in the 
 present transaction. She could have persuaded 
 herself that she misjudged the old islander, 
 had she not rested her opinion of him on one that 
 204
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 she held higher ; and she fortified herself against 
 injustice to The Rohan by her husband's judg- 
 ment of him. 
 
 Hilda Davenport and her husband and her 
 married life were subjects that through two 
 London seasons had been thoroughly discussed 
 by the people of her world. She was a woman 
 of intense personality, of decided tastes, pos- 
 sessed of the energy and means to gratify them, 
 and she was filled with an indifference that was 
 sublime for all the floating interest and inquisi- 
 tiveness that surrounded her. She cared not a 
 jot nor tittle for any opinion concerning her or 
 her actions other than her own personal one, and 
 wherever she went she left the clear conviction 
 in the minds of all who met her that she was a 
 woman who held herself absolutely untrammeled 
 by the world and its conventions. 
 
 Her social position was incontestible, for her 
 social sponsors were beyond reproach and were 
 unaffected by the hum of comment she aroused. 
 Further than this society knew nothing regard- 
 ing her. 
 
 Nothing was volunteered concerning the ab- 
 sent Mr. Davenport, though the fact that he 
 205
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 lived was established beyond a doubt by his wife's 
 unconcerned manner of referring to him. In- 
 deed, several virtuous matrons of Vanity Fair 
 had felt themselves insulted by her entirely too 
 free and easy references to the absent one. Mrs. 
 Davenport never hesitated to speak of him when- 
 ever she so desired, and she frequently disposed 
 of disputed questions with an air that admitted 
 of no further parley by appointing without vote 
 Mr. Davenport to the position of umpire. It 
 was really interesting to watch her nai've way 
 of quoting her husband. When she chose to 
 end a discussion she always accomplished the 
 matter to perfection by murmuring something 
 about "Mr. Davenport always says " and 
 there was a conscious and hurried change of sub- 
 ject. 
 
 Thayer grew to delight in her skill, and often 
 commented on the perfection of manner with 
 which she was wont to introduce into her prying 
 circle the mention of a man, of whom he, to do 
 her all justice, knew quite as little as the rest 
 of her world. Hilda never discussed her mar- 
 riage with any one, even her devoted friends, 
 
 COO
 
 WHAT MANNER OP MAN 
 
 and Thayer was left uninformed along with the 
 rest. 
 
 "How you do manage to stimulate curiosity 
 about the great unknown!" he said to her one 
 day early in their friendship. "It is too amus- 
 ing to watch these old grannies prick up their 
 ears at the first word relating to the man they 
 would rather see than any prince of the blood. 
 And when you get through, though you have 
 spoken in a manner utterly frank, you have told 
 us nothing." And Hilda did not melt under 
 the half invitation to confidence which he so 
 cleverly held out. 
 
 But despite rumor and innuendo, Mrs. Dav- 
 enport pursued the even tenor of her way. She 
 gained without seeking it the favor of prince 
 and duke. Her friendship with Thayer con- 
 tinued and grew in intimacy, and for two years 
 she had held a high place in the London world. 
 
 The mystery of her marriage was more made 
 than existent. Hilda Davenport was really and 
 honestly in love with her husband, a fact which 
 Thayer discovered early in his acquaintance 
 with her, and which he kept for her locked safe- 
 ly in his breast. 
 
 207
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 Harold Davenport was what in this age might 
 be termed a private scientist. His love for the life 
 sciences had developed at an early age, and he 
 had had every chance for study and extended re- 
 search. He was a New Yorker, graduated from 
 Columbia College, and afterward a student at 
 Munich and Leipsic. He had received several 
 flattering offers of lectureships in prominent uni- 
 versities, but he had been firm in refusing them 
 all. He had the love for constant study, but 
 not under the driving necessity of compulsion. 
 Then he had early made up his mind to keep 
 alive all his vital desires and interests in life, and 
 rightly or wrongly he regarded scholastic life as 
 fatal in its tendencies to the preservation of 
 vitality. He had no desire to be a Wagner delv- 
 ing among the iotas and digammas of inde- 
 cipherable manuscripts in a vain endeavor to 
 establish a system of limited phonetics, nor did 
 he wish to carry into his independent researches 
 any such spirit. 
 
 When he was thirty years of age he met Hilda 
 Willoughby, and the sympathy between them 
 was instantaneous. She was then nearly twenty- 
 five years old, and had in her all the qualities 
 208
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 which her later life ripened so gorgeously. 
 Much to his surprise and much to hers, their 
 marriage was a thing accomplished almost be- 
 fore either one had decided to yield single life 
 with its undeniable blessings. Yet the marriage 
 proved a strangely happy one. Davenport was 
 a man who, perhaps, had never done an uncon- 
 ventional thing in his life. His wife had know- 
 ingly never obeyed a social law. Yet the spirit 
 of tolerance was so generous in them both that 
 their outer actions were but differing expres- 
 sions of the same conviction of personal free- 
 dom. 
 
 Never in the five years of their married life 
 had Davenport raised an ob j ection, nor to do him 
 full justice felt it, to anything his wife might 
 desire to do. Each had had, since their mar- 
 riage rites, a share of personal freedom unfortu- 
 nately too rare between husband and wife. Per- 
 haps the secret of their perfect harmony lay here, 
 that each realized that marriage which is not 
 vitalized by a sense of unhampered liberty is 
 deadened, dragged down to the earth by its own 
 weight of chains. At all events neither had in 
 thought or word ever attempted to restrain the 
 209
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 other, and their union had been an ideally happy 
 one. 
 
 Then after five years of it a great longing 
 came upon Davenport to join a party of French 
 and German savants who were going down into 
 the southern seas to study the marine life of 
 those waters at first hand. The trip was to be 
 from one and one-half to two years in duration, 
 and a woman's presence could not be tolerated. 
 The German frau and the French madame were 
 to remain behind without a question. What 
 then of the American wife? 
 
 Hilda swiftly disposed of the question. That 
 Davenport's heart was bound up in this quest 
 she did not doubt. That her presence was an 
 impossibility she was keen enough to see. That 
 she did not wish to have the qualifying word 
 "uxorious" forced on her husband she was con- 
 vinced. So within five minutes after he had 
 frankly told her of the opportunity for him, 
 and had asked her to consider the question for 
 them both, her quick-moving mind was made up, 
 and her life for two years was planned out. 
 
 "I have always wanted to have a good long 
 try at London life," she said to him. "Don't 
 810
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 ask me why, my dear boy, for it is the acme of 
 outward prudery, but here's my chance. Of 
 course I can't go with you. Frankly I don't 
 know that I should go if I could. Nature in 
 all her stretch of space is delightful for a little 
 while, but, dear me, two years of it ! However, 
 you must go, and I'll write to-night to the Freres 
 and tell them I'm going to be bereaved for two 
 years, and that it is far from my purpose to put 
 on weeds! They are all I need to give me the 
 open sesame to St. James ; and Mrs. Davenport, 
 I promise you, shall be the rage of the coming 
 season." 
 
 So Davenport sailed after a farewell from 
 his wife that never wavered in its smile, and she 
 went back to the home that made her ache 
 through and through with loneliness, and packed 
 up her things, and departed in haste for Eng- 
 land. 
 
 Her prophecy had been fulfilled, and she be- 
 came, without much effort on her part, the 
 London rage. Her remarkable beauty, her won- 
 derful gowns, her superb assurance and her sub- 
 tile charm altogether floated her to the top 
 wave of the season's favorites. That triumph
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 was now past history, but it had not waned with 
 the opening of the next society year. 
 
 She was in Russia now, the guest of the Amer- 
 ican ambassador and his wife. From the mo- 
 ment of her arrival she had resolutely put Thay- 
 er in the background. When his letter announc- 
 ing the mad deed had come, she partially con- 
 soled herself in the extremely unwise letter she 
 sent him. 
 
 For four weeks longer she threw herself 
 with all her might into the gaieties about 
 her. Then suddenly a message was forwarded 
 to her from her London bankers. The savants' 
 ship had returned five months ahead of time. 
 Her husband was in Liverpool. Her visit in 
 Russia was nearing its close. She promptly 
 canceled two engagements immediately ahead, 
 and one day later left for London. 
 
 Once upon the road, she let the lurking ghost 
 of a month past walk freely. A queer telepathic 
 sensation that had come to her often before under 
 widely different circumstances descended upon 
 her with maddening force. A wild impatience 
 to be in London, to see Thayer, to see Clodah, 
 made her chafe at every stop of the eminently 
 212
 
 safe train upon which she traveled. To be 
 there, to be anywhere where there was a chance 
 of doing what might require execution ! 
 
 All through the long, tiresome journey the 
 mad unrest held her. When she reached Lon- 
 don in the middle of one afternoon her tele- 
 pathic impression that something was happening 
 in the Thayer menage had become a monomania. 
 When she stood on the station platform and saw 
 that Davenport had not met her she immediately 
 concluded that he had not reached the city him- 
 self, for she had sent her train and its hour of 
 arrival to his hotel address. Following out the 
 line of action that was the only natural thing for 
 her to do with all her recent perturbation on the 
 all-engrossing subject, she took a cab and gave 
 the man Thayer's address. 
 
 During the swift journey she leaned back with 
 her impatience growing upon her. The horses 
 crawled, their driver was asleep, nothing would 
 bring her quickly, quickly to the two people she 
 most desired to see ! At last the carriage halted 
 before Thayer's home. She was out and up the 
 steps before the driver had descended from his 
 seat, She pulled the bell impatiently. Again
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 and again she rang it. While the last peal was 
 sounding through the house the door swung 
 open, and Hughes stood before her. At the 
 sight of his face her composure, which had been 
 on the verge of a collapse, returned to her with 
 a rush. In the face of any crisis Hilda never 
 failed herself or others.
 
 Toward the last of the fortnight's steady 
 work Thayer grew moody and irritable. He 
 began to feel the inspiration under which he 
 had been so steadily working leaving him, and 
 he was trying to force it to remain. That his 
 growing feeling of lassitude and irritation was 
 due almost solely to physical depression he did 
 not stop to consider. For two weeks he had 
 thrust aside every law of regular living, and he 
 was not yet ready to pay the penalty. For he 
 had not yet reached the place where he was will- 
 ing to make a period in his work and he was 
 beginning to see that he had delayed the greatest 
 thing too long. 
 
 Thayer had found in Clodah all that he could 
 desire in the way of a model. Her physical 
 beauty was as near perfect in entirety as could 
 well be, and there was a nameless something 
 about her, a subtile intuition that inspired him 
 without his being aware of the graciousness of 
 215
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 it. The spirit of commercialism was in her 
 modelship eliminated, and for the special sub- 
 ject for which she was being used just now there 
 was peculiar inspiration in her presence. Her 
 face had in it all the innocence and shrinking 
 purity that could have filled the soul of the 
 Christian maid for whom was reserved a fate 
 beyond that of the crunching teeth of Hibernian 
 dogs or lions' jaws. 
 
 Thayer, with his fashion of looking at things 
 from his own standpoint purely, could never 
 know a tithe of the emotions that filled her face 
 with a pain beyond utterance, though that same 
 standpoint made him thoroughly alive to all the 
 beauty of the soul so perfectly revealing its 
 inner life. But after a few days the sense of 
 utter shame left her. The spirit as well as the 
 tender palm can be hardened by contact with 
 heavy things, and it was only the thing inevita- 
 ble that Clodah should grow accustomed to what 
 at first she felt was beyond endurance. She be- 
 gan to realize that her own personality was for 
 him sunk in that of the useful model which he 
 was standing up against a post and painting. 
 
 216
 
 And so by the time he was ready for the face 
 the expression which had been for him at first 
 so great an inspiration was wanting. When he 
 finally began work on it he was worn out physi- 
 cally and mentally, and for several days he 
 painted in and out with exasperating regularity. 
 What had been to him a pillar of guiding light 
 had vanished and left him in a mist peopled with 
 vague shadows. In all his physical weariness 
 visual memory refused to come to his aid. Some- 
 how his wizard hand had lost its cunning. 
 
 It was then that his evil mood began to settle 
 on him. His directions to Clodah were curt and 
 brief. His face grew heavier and more lower- 
 ing. There was no more merry talk together in 
 the intermissions of work; only grim, dull si- 
 lence. Clodah tried bravely to recall all that 
 Hughes had told her of the strange moods that 
 governed Thayer's spirit, and she tried des- 
 perately hard to understand him, and to fore- 
 stall annoyances. She knew that he was troubled, 
 but how that should incite him to do and say 
 cruel things to her and to the devoted Hughes 
 was beyond her understanding. 
 
 217
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 So far she herself had escaped without much 
 more than the dread atmosphere about her, but 
 the scapegoat Hughes had been lashed up and 
 down many times, and at such times she trem- 
 bled with a pitiful fear. Before her Thayer 
 kept himself pretty well in check, but for nearly 
 a week now she had had not one voluntary 
 caress, not one that meant to her anything more 
 than the mechanical performing of a recently 
 acquired habit. She began to feel irrepressibly 
 lonely, and there was stealing over her her first 
 fit of desperate homesickness. She strove brave- 
 ly to crush it down, but the disease can be con- 
 trolled only up to a certain point, and with poor 
 little Clodah the limit of resistance was almost 
 reached. 
 
 One morning the breakfast hour had been un- 
 bearable. Thayer had passed a sleepless night, 
 and his face was more haggard and his eyes 
 more hollow than ever. Since midnight he 
 had been in the studio before his half-finished 
 picture, sunk in the blue-devil mood of abject 
 discouragement in which he indulged himself 
 before every one of his paintings at just about 
 this stage of its completion. Clodah heard him 
 218
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 go, and blessed the chance his absence gave her 
 for tears so bitter that it was wonder they failed 
 to give her ease. It was only toward dawn that 
 she herself had fallen into an unref reshing slum- 
 ber. Thayer had to be called for breakfast, 
 and Hughes inquired for him. 
 
 "Shall you call him then, ma'am,?" he asked. 
 
 "Oh you, Hughes," Clodah made quick answer, 
 with a sad admission in the swift response that 
 touched her faithful servitor to the quick. 
 When Thayer at last appeared he quickly lost 
 himself in the Times with only a nod to Clodah, 
 and she poured his coffee and watched the steam 
 slowly settle on it as it cooled, and then poured 
 out more only to have it meet with the same 
 neglected fate. 
 
 "I'm going out for a short walk," Thayer 
 volunteered finally after he had sat at the table 
 long enough to constitute a conventional time, 
 and had eaten nothing. "I shan't be back for an 
 hour, but when I come, for heaven's sake, Clo- 
 dah, be ready. Don't keep me waiting. When 
 I want to work I want materials ready." 
 
 She assented quietly, and watched him leave 
 the room with a look in her eyes that brought 
 219
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 an oath against his master to Hughes' heart. 
 Then she went slowly up to her room, all the 
 pretty life gone out of her, and shut herself in. 
 
 "Poor little lady!" Hughes muttered as she 
 went away. "And the mortal pity is, nobody 
 can do a thing. If she nor I didn't care so 
 much it wouldn't make him be so, but he knows 
 we both of us care like agony; we can't hide it 
 from him, and it's the nature of him." 
 
 Upstairs Clodah had dropped on her knees 
 beside her bed. She was almost past enduring 
 her present woe. Her pitiful homesickness for 
 her father, her people, her barren island, was 
 welling up within her in a rising flood. Her 
 sense of mystery before the nature of the man 
 she had married had been ever present with her 
 during these last few days, a mystery that had 
 steadily grown in intensity and gloom. She 
 felt utterly alone in the heart of a heartless city. 
 From her father she had heard but once since she 
 left him. The letter had been a characteristic- 
 ally reserved one, with nothing of the pent-up 
 love expressed in it that Clodah had voiced in her 
 closing cry, "My father, my father !" She had 
 early realized the impotence of written words, 
 220
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 yet now in her darkest hour there came to her 
 an irresistible longing to get nearer to her father 
 by that means if no other. 
 
 In a moment she rose and went over to a little 
 writing table, and sat down before it. With 
 her pretty paper, Thayer's gift, spread out be- 
 fore her she began her second letter home. 
 
 "My father," she wrote. At the sight of the 
 words her father's face rose so suddenly, so vivid- 
 ly before her that it seemed to her she was chok- 
 ing with the longing to see him. She saw his 
 kind face ; she felt the clasp of his arm about her 
 just before she stepped into the boat that was to 
 bear her away into a life whose path was hidden 
 from her; she heard his words as he voiced his 
 fears, his forebodings, his great love for her 
 that had made him forget for her sake those 
 fears and misgivings; had made him recognize 
 her newly-born woman's right to choose for her- 
 self. 
 
 For the first time her definite doubt, the doubt 
 that sooner or later comes to every young wife, 
 stole into her mind. Had she chosen for her 
 good? Those fatherly fears, had they not been 
 right? He had not known nor had she what
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 manner of man this was who had mastered her 
 and filled her with love of him till she was ready 
 at his first word to give up all things else for 
 that love of him. She thought of her first letter 
 to her father, of her perfect joy in the writing 
 of it. She recalled sentence after sentence, 
 every word breathing out absolute confidence in 
 the man she had wedded. She looked down at 
 the page before her : "My father : " Was it 
 possible for her to go on, possible for her now to 
 write him a letter that would not give him pain 
 unutterable? 
 
 She laid her head down on her hands. For 
 the present she was past tears. Suddenly she 
 took up her pen and began to write quickly, nerv- 
 ously. When she folded the sheet together her 
 face was almost peaceful. 
 
 "I hae been foolish to fear his love be gone," 
 she murmured to herself. "Else why, as my 
 f eyther said, should he come the weary way back 
 after a whole year to get me an' take me back 
 wi' him, to be his wife." She threw up her 
 head, so lately bowed under a weight of woe, 
 with a lovely pride, "^or I be his wife, an* no 
 man's else, an* I hae forgot all that Hughes 
 222
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 hae told me about the strange fits that come on 
 him. I hae thought o' myself an' my loneliness, 
 an' not o' him. When next I get lonely I shall 
 say to myself that my husband be a great man, 
 an' that he be too busy all the time to play wi' 
 me like a doll, an' I must get to be a woman 
 quick, an' be able to help him, an' whatever he 
 tells me to do I must do. I must be happy this 
 morning instead o' sad as I hae been to my 
 shame for days past." 
 
 Thus reminded of the passing time, she looked 
 out of the window and caught sight of Thayer 
 just ascending the steps. She began to tear 
 off her clothes hurriedly, and to unbind her hair, 
 and just as Thayer reached her corridor she 
 came out of her room wrapped in her long cloak. 
 Some innate perception which her marriage was 
 developing made her not show him that she had 
 seen his arrival from her window. 
 
 "I was just going up," she said with her first 
 innocent deception. Thayer made no reply, 
 and she flitted before him up the long stairway. 
 
 223
 
 For an hour Thayer painted with a mad per- 
 sistence, an unyielding stubbornness. He was 
 working on the face, and by swift degrees a 
 wild fury seized him because of his inability to 
 catch the lines he wanted. He worked nervous- 
 ly, he painted and painted out, and scraped the 
 canvas afresh, and began again, and all to no 
 avail. At last he flung down his brushes with a 
 very demon raging within him and swore 
 harshly. 
 
 "What are you thinking about this morn- 
 ing?" he demanded. "Can't you take that rapt, 
 saint look off your face, and look some of the 
 shame you used to feel? Do you suppose her 
 mind was full of womanish delights, her last 
 new gown, her next ball? Don't stare at me 
 so, in heaven's name. Come down and rest a 
 little while, and then see if you can't get into 
 some sort of sympathy with her. My God, you 
 ought to!" He laughed harshly.
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 Clodah had been sitting before him with a 
 very glory of peace in her eyes. The strange 
 comfort she had gained from the writing of 
 that tiny sheetful had stayed with her. Some- 
 how out of the bitterness of the night had come 
 a sweetness of rest and calm. She had forgotten 
 in those past days of dread the one great thing 
 in all her swift courtship, the fact that Thayer 
 had held her close in his heart through one long 
 year of absence from her, and had come at last 
 through love of her to take her away. He must 
 have loved her tenderly, and that one thing 
 granted Clodah had no other sorrow. So for 
 nearly an hour she had been thinking thoughts 
 far removed from her surroundings. She was 
 living over again those days of early marriage. 
 Thayer had disturbed her by no directions what- 
 ever and she had been dreaming in peace. Now 
 in a flash all her dreams were rudely, brutally 
 shattered, and she stared at him in shrinking 
 dismay. 
 
 At the dumb distress in her eyes Thayer 
 turned away in ill-concealed irritation. He 
 went over to a distant window and stood in 
 moody silence beside it. Clodah was standing
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 with drooping head where he had left her. For 
 one black moment a wild despair seized her in 
 an icy grip. Then mercifully she recalled 
 Thayer's own words spoken to her that first day 
 he had ever so slightly neglected her: "Some- 
 times I say things, Clodah, and it gives me a 
 sort of devilish satisfaction to see people wince." 
 She recalled Hughes' hesitating counsel. She 
 made herself think again of her father's words, 
 and then she raised her head from its bent low- 
 liness. All that she needed to make her quite 
 happy was the assurance that her husband loved 
 her, and of this she assured herself again and 
 again. She glanced longingly at Thayer, who 
 was still standing at the window, his hands 
 thrust deep in his pockets, and his whole atti- 
 tude full of a great despair and misery. If she 
 had felt free to follow her loving impulse she 
 would have run over to him and slipped her 
 tender arms about his neck with a sympathy 
 whose only fault would be that it could not com- 
 prehend. 
 
 But she had learned among her many les- 
 sons of the last few weeks not to follow all of 
 her impulses, so she crushed back the longing 
 226
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 and desire, and then there came upon her like a 
 withering blight a great realization of her im- 
 potence, her powerlessness to help him. What 
 could she do to aid him? He had not been satis- 
 'fied that she looked happy. How did he want 
 her to look? He had asked her if she sym- 
 pathized with the girl not at all. 
 
 She went softly over to the painting and stood 
 before it, staring at it wistfully. Would it tell 
 her nothing? She looked at the figures in the 
 foreground. Those of the soldiers had been filled 
 in somewhat, and the face of one of them, the one 
 who held the winning die, had been painted in 
 detail. Clodah shivered at the expression of 
 his eyes. Somehow as she stared the bent and 
 tortured figure of the girl took on a new mean- 
 ing to her. For the first time a faint breath 
 of comprehension came to her of the martyrdom 
 meted out for the bound figure. Her eyes 
 widened with a horror that was dim and without 
 foundation. It was just at that moment that 
 Thayer turned from his fruitless window-gazing 
 and came back to her. 
 
 "Get up there," he said abruptly. "We'll 
 try it once more." She did not move instantly
 
 and he looked at her with added impatience. On 
 that instant his eyes lighted up with a blue 
 flame. The dawn of intelligence was in her 
 face. 
 
 "Here," he said quickly, "get up there before 
 you lose your thought." He pushed her half 
 gently, half roughly, across the room. He 
 slipped her arms through the heavy hanging 
 chains with a queer little laugh that was full of 
 subdued excitement. 
 
 "You don't exactly need the chains," he said, 
 more to himself than to her, "but it may give 
 atmosphere." 
 
 Clodah Kad not looked at him ; had looked at 
 nothing. Her eyes were wide and staring. 
 Suddenly she put out one fettered hand. 
 
 "I got an awful thought," she muttered 
 blankly. 
 
 Thayer laughed with soft exultation. "Keep 
 it," he said. All his fire had miraculously re- 
 turned to him. His blood was red again, was 
 coursing swiftly through his veins. After that 
 he worked feverishly. When he looked at her 
 again he smiled, the smile of one whose dearest 
 
 228
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 wish is granted. Her eyes were still open and 
 staring with a blank horror, the horror that 
 had held them ever since Thayer had pushed her 
 away from the painting. 
 
 Suddenly she flung her hands together in 
 appeal. The heavy chains rang as she clashed 
 them together. 
 
 "I canna bear it," she cried hoarsely. " 'Tis 
 too horrible the thoughts I think. Kirk !" 
 
 Her voice rang out. It was the first time she 
 had ever called him by his given name. He 
 glanced at her and then at his work. Never 
 before did he place so many strokes with such 
 precision in so short a time. She cried again, 
 imperiously. 
 
 "It's all come to me wi' the might of a Rohan 
 storm. 'Tis a shame to me to make me play 
 the shame o' the girl! 'Tis a shame to you to 
 paint her shame !" 
 
 Another rapid glance he gave her, then went 
 swiftly on as before. She saw that he had not 
 heard, or, if hearing, had not heeded. She 
 waited another moment; then she sprang swift- 
 ly from her place. The forgotten chains pulled 
 
 229
 
 her back. Thayer called to her sharply. While 
 she still struggled blindly he came and lifted her 
 back bodily. 
 
 Clodah's first instinct toward Thayer was al- 
 ways obedience. In spirit she yielded to that 
 instinct now rather than to her constraining 
 bonds, for her ideas of wifehood were Paulistic 
 in their exceeding primitiveness. But the old 
 corroding shame that had eaten into her very 
 soul came back to her as she stood there bound 
 less by the chains that held her than by her 
 marriage vows. Long had she stood in igno- 
 rance before the canvas of the Supreme Martyr- 
 dom. But she read its story now. 
 
 Thayer had gone quickly back to his work. 
 His fever was at such high tide that the inter- 
 ruption was not a serious one, and its annoy- 
 ance only momentary. He hardly glanced at 
 her now, but was plying his brushes with lips 
 pressed tight together, and a slow, dark flush 
 mounting high on his cheeks. 
 
 Clodah crouched against the pillar. She was 
 
 shivering convulsively. Suddenly she threw 
 
 back her head in a paroxysm of emotion, and 
 
 so doing she saw above her that hateful head 
 
 230
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 of the grinning satyr. The sight of it seemed 
 to act as a mordant to all her shifting ideas and 
 impressions. Flashes of memory ran through 
 her brain like shining swords. Her first night 
 in London ; that face that sneered and j eered at 
 her while she murmured her first daring confi- 
 dence to her husband; her crouching before it; 
 Thayer's answer; his words; his manner; it all 
 came back. He had had her pose for him that 
 first night, had drawn her daily since; finally 
 had asked of her this this! He had wanted 
 nothing of her since their marriage but that she 
 let him draw her, draw her, draw her! It all 
 rushed through her brain in great throbbing 
 waves. Trivialities sprang up and fitted into 
 place as links. Suddenly she staggered to her 
 feet and stood boldly upright against the pillar. 
 
 "Kirk Thayer," she muttered, "I hae got to 
 know somethin'. Hark to me an' tell me. Why 
 did ye wed me?" 
 
 Thayer heard the words as from a great dis- 
 tance. Their import failed to strike him. His 
 brow contracted, and he shook his head in an- 
 noyance. Clodah's voice rose high and shrill. 
 
 231
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 "Why did ye wed me?" The cry was insist- 
 ent. He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Why did I marry you?" he repeated absent- 
 ly. He stared at the canvas. He turned to 
 Clodah with one of those impersonal glances 
 that at first had filled her with infinite loneliness, 
 but that made her thrill now with an anger that 
 was almost divine. He saw her face aflame 
 with new feeling, defiance, challenge, demand, 
 wrath. He frowned. The whole atmosphere 
 was charged with new vibrations, inharmonious 
 and jarring. 
 
 "Don't, Clodah," he said almost gently. It 
 seemed full of pathos to him, that this final mo- 
 ment should be so ill attuned to his own mood. 
 He waited patiently, but something in her eyes 
 riveted on his made him stir restlessly at last, 
 and a little gleam showed between his narrowing 
 lids hardly a cruel light; rather the eager ex- 
 perimentalism that shines in the eyes of the scien- 
 tist as he bends above the animal bound and 
 quivering on the vivisection table. 
 
 "Why?" he repeated. He looked at the 
 painting and then at her. "Why?" he said 
 
 232
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 again. With one hand, white and beautiful and 
 cruel, he pointed to the painting. Instantly he 
 turned to it again. One swift stroke, another 
 
 Thayer stood back. He gave the canvas a 
 twist to the left, and step by step retreating, he 
 drew nearer to the girl behind him. With 
 every passing second a greater rapture thrilled 
 him. With every pulsating throb his brain 
 sang to his spirit and his spirit to his brain that 
 before him was his masterpiece, wrought out. 
 
 So rapt was he in exultation and pride that 
 he knew no other presence. So lost was he in 
 triumph that he never glanced at the girl still 
 upright against the pillar. He did not see the 
 slow death agony that settled over her face. He 
 did not hear the low cry that fled her lips, nor 
 the thud of her body as it dropped without a 
 struggle at the foot of her cross of torment. 
 Above her the black satyr laughed remorselessly. 
 Almost at her side her husband stood, and in 
 front of her, where Thayer had twisted it for 
 another light, gleamed the figure of the Chris- 
 tian maid with the look in her eyes that had 
 widened Clodah's during the moments when her 
 
 233
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 spirit had been blackened with the knowledge 
 of exquisite sin, and her faith in love and honor 
 and sincerity had died the death. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Thayer half stumbled over the platform be- 
 fore he caught sight of Clodah lying in a twist- 
 ed little heap where she had fallen. He bent 
 over mechanically and loosed her wrists and 
 arms from the brass chains that she dragged 
 down with her. Then he lifted her in his arms 
 and carried her over to a low couch. He low- 
 ered her head and dashed a little cold water over 
 her face. In a few moments he saw the flutter 
 that heralds returning consciousness. He stood 
 by her till she opened her eyes, and so lost was 
 he in his own thoughts that he did not notice 
 how she shrank from him nor how the white 
 lids closed against him as if to shut him out. 
 His hands were plunged deep in his pockets 
 and he was biting his under lip nervously. 
 
 "You'd better lie quiet for a few moments," 
 he said with a sort of absent kindliness in his 
 tone. "By and by I'll carry you downstairs 
 if you aren't able to walk." 
 
 Then he left her and went over to the 
 234.
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 painting again to stand before it, lost in 
 its beauty. What he had wanted to express 
 was there, all of it; a rigid tenseness born 
 of the resolve to suffer and to die bravely 
 for the faith; a great shrinking of the deli- 
 cate body from the publicity of its shame; a 
 greater shrinking of the spirit from the shame 
 to come. He could have kissed the color of it; 
 have caught the painted stuff to his heart in the 
 ecstasy of his satisfaction. That all the other 
 figures were more or less unfinished did not enter 
 into his thought. The great stumbling block 
 in the way of success had been removed that 
 day. 
 
 How long he stood before the canvas he never 
 knew. Something suddenly reminded him of a 
 duty undone, and after some moments burdened 
 by that consciousness he set to work to find out 
 what it was. He finally remembered Clodah; 
 that she had fainted; that perhaps she needed 
 attention. He turned at last to the couch where 
 he had borne her. The couch was empty.
 
 It was perhaps half an hour later when Thay- 
 er left the studio. A reaction from his exultant 
 excitement had set in, and nervous quivers ran 
 through every fiber of him. He felt weak and 
 worn. For fifteen days he had been keyed up, 
 at first by inspiration, later through sheer force 
 of will. Now he was feeling the effects of his 
 long nerve dissipation. His limbs trembled as 
 if he had just recovered from a wearing fever. 
 His first impulse was to seek the outer air. He 
 had taken a hat, and his hand was on the outer 
 door when he again remembered Clodah. 
 
 Half absently, half in gratitude for her part 
 in his triumph, he turned and went back upstairs. 
 He tapped lightly at the door of her room. 
 There was no response. He tried the knob. 
 The door was locked. He waited a moment; 
 then, with his mind still on what had filled it 
 for a fortnight past, he went down to the lower 
 236
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 hall. As he was leaving he caught sight of 
 Hughes and called to him. 
 
 "By the way, Hughes, I'm going down to the 
 club. Tell Mrs. Thayer so if I shouldn't be 
 back till late." 
 
 "Yes, sir," said Hughes, "and beggin' your 
 pardon, Master Kirk, but I saw her a few min- 
 utes ago, and it struck me she looked very ill." 
 
 "Is that so?" said Thayer abstractedly. 
 "Nothing serious I think, but perhaps you'd bet- 
 ter send for Doctor James, Hughes." Then he 
 went briskly out and down the avenue. 
 
 Hughes looked after him with grieved in- 
 dignation in his faithful eyes. 
 
 "Her face was that o' death," he muttered 
 with a painful foreboding, "as she came down 
 them stairs. If a dagger had been stuck in her 
 she couldn't have looked in greater agony. It's 
 a shame there ain't any but men in this house 
 to look after her." 
 
 He stood in indecision for a few moments; 
 then he ascended the stairs. When he reached 
 the corridor that led to Clodah's room he again 
 hesitated. Finally he went up to her door and 
 knocked gently. There was no answer; he 
 237
 
 WHAT. MANNER OF MAN 
 
 knocked again; still no answer. A sudden ter- 
 ror seized him and he thundered at the door. 
 
 "Mrs. Thayer," he called. "Ma'am!" 
 
 He heard a faint movement within. "Is that 
 you, Hughes?" Clodah called faintly. Her 
 voice startled him by its thinness, its utter lack 
 of life. 
 
 "Are you quite well, ma'am?" he asked anx- 
 iously. "Because I'm on the point of goin' for 
 the doctor, ma'am." 
 
 There was a pause ; at length Clodah spoke. 
 
 "Perhaps you'd better get him, Hughes. 
 And, Hughes, will you go yourself? I shall 
 feel more certain " her voice faltered. 
 
 "Yes'm," Hughes returned with an unusual 
 gruffness put on to hide his anxiety. "I'll go 
 myself, and be sure to bring him back with me." 
 He turned away, but came back once more. "I 
 can't do anything for you before I go, ma'am? 
 There ain't no one here, ma'am." 
 
 "No," Clodah answered gently. "Just go, 
 Hughes." 
 
 Something like half an hour later Hughes 
 stood again before Clodah's room, and tapped 
 softly. There was no reply, no movement to 
 238
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 break the oppressive silence. He knocked again, 
 a third time, a fourth; then he softly turned 
 the knob. He opened the door gradually, un- 
 til finally a part of the dainty bed came into 
 view. Then he flung the door boldly wide, and 
 stared about him in a bewilderment that had at 
 the bottom no mystery for him. The room was 
 empty. Clodah was gone. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Some intuition that lay like a shining pearl 
 in the depths of the serving man's nature told 
 him, many minutes before he went down to go 
 through the rest of the house, that his search for 
 his master's wife would be utterly vain. Plaus- 
 ible explanations as to her absence passed 
 through his mind mechanically, but in his soul 
 he was convinced that he knew the truth. Clo- 
 dah might have gone for a walk ; she might have 
 gone up to the studio ; she might be in the draw- 
 ing-room, the library. All these possible solu- 
 tions of her absence passed through his brain, 
 but no one of them dimmed for a moment the 
 clearness of his first instantaneous conviction 
 that Clodah Thayer had gone, had left her 
 husband's home. He stared about him with eyes 
 239
 
 that were unseeing. All he noted was a bright 
 splotch of color lying on the bed, a long rosy 
 garment of rich brocade, something that Clodah 
 had worn down to breakfast several times, the 
 garment she had had wrapped around her when 
 he had met her an hour before coming down from 
 the studio. He remembered her face as he had 
 seen it then, pale with a sickening pallor; her 
 great blue eyes wide and staring and unwink- 
 ing. She had passed him as if she were unaware 
 of his nearness to her, though they were so 
 close he could have put out his hand and touched 
 hers. 
 
 When Hughes left the bedchamber it was with 
 a bowed form that all his sixty years had yet 
 failed to bring upon him. He ascended the 
 stairs slowly, painfully. After all, she might 
 have gone up there. He pushed open the door 
 and looked in. He peered eagerly into shadowy 
 corners, but she was nowhere to be seen. Sud- 
 denly the door bell clanged loudly. He went 
 down to intercept the doctor and send him away 
 with the plea of sudden recovery. Then, as in 
 duty bound, he went through all the house. He 
 was standing in the library when another peal
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 rang through the house. It was loud, impera- 
 tive, insistent. Another like it, another, and an- 
 other. When Hughes opened the door Mrs. 
 Davenport stood before him. 
 
 241
 
 Hilda Davenport listened in silence 'to Hughes' 
 hurried and broken tale. Out of all Thayer's 
 friends Hughes had approved in an unqualified 
 degree of Mrs. Davenport, and in his horror and 
 distress and fear of doing anything that might 
 serve to bring the matter confronting him into 
 needless publicity, he was inclined to look on 
 her sudden and unexpected appearance as a 
 piece of the divine Providence that he believed in 
 implicitly. 
 
 "You see, ma'am," he finished with a voice 
 that was thick with a brave effort to control an 
 uncontrollable tremor, "she was such a tender 
 child. At first I thought he might be goin' to 
 remember her all the time and not get them 
 spells on him that you and I know comes on 
 him. He was that lovin' and tender with her. 
 But by and by they began to come. I went 
 so far as to deliberately forget myself, ma'am, 
 and tell her something about what she might 
 
 itt
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 expect when he got under their influence, and 
 she took it that lovely it touched me deep. You 
 see, she worshiped Master Kirk. I never saw 
 anything like the way her life and breathing 
 seemed to be bound up in him. But this mornin' 
 he was devilish, ma'am, beggin' your pardon, 
 like he gets sometimes when he's clear wore out 
 with work, and tryin' to do more than any 
 mortal can do, and he was cruel to her. She's 
 been up there with him every mornin' for two 
 weeks now, and she was up there again this 
 day with him in that mood. What he said 
 or did I don't know, but if there ever was a 
 time, ma'am," Hughes voice grew deep and 
 solemn, "when I could a' thrashed Master Kirk 
 gladly and sound, beggin' his pardon, not carin' 
 whether he was a genius or not and subject to 
 queer streaks, this noon was the time when I 
 met her comin' down the stairs, with her pretty 
 eyes starin' and black with pain, and her face 
 turned whitish yellow. After he'd gone, and I 
 went up to her room and knocked, I wished for 
 the first time in my life, ma'am, that I was a 
 woman. Master Kirk he never had any women 
 servants about the place, and when he brought 
 243
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 Mrs. Thayer here he never changed. There 
 wasn't a woman but her in the house, and she 
 needed one sore. If you'd only come earlier, 
 ma'am." 
 
 "Suppose you take me up to her room," Mrs. 
 Davenport said, after she had turned the situa- 
 tion over rapidly in her mind. "Perhaps after 
 all there may be some word, something to show 
 us where she has gone." 
 
 So Hughes in bitter sorrow took her to his 
 young mistress' room, and stood in silence out- 
 side the bedchamber while Mrs. Davenport went 
 within. Hilda glanced comprehensively about 
 her as she entered. She noted the rose-colored 
 cloak lying across the bed, and a pile of hastily 
 flung-off clothing on the floor of the dressing 
 room. At last she saw the little writing desk, 
 open, with its ink-well unstopped, and on it some 
 folded sheets of paper. She took them up hesi- 
 tatingly. They were not addressed, and for a 
 moment she was tempted to open them. But 
 she laid them gently down. She stood in inde- 
 cision for a few minutes then sat down and 
 scribbled a few words on a loose sheet of paper. 
 
 244
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 "Will you come home as soon as you receive 
 this? Clodah is gone. Hilda." 
 
 She went out into the hall, where she found 
 Hughes waiting patiently. 
 
 "I have written a note to Mr. Thayer," she 
 said. "Have you any idea where you might 
 find him?" 
 
 "He said to tell Mrs. Thayer he was at the 
 club, ma'am." 
 
 "Then try to reach him as quickly as possi- 
 ble. I am going up to the studio. If he re- 
 turns unexpectedly, I am there, Hughes." 
 
 Hilda went slowly, almost reluctantly, to the 
 floor above. When she stood before the studio 
 door she felt a shrinking creep over her that 
 comes to a lingerer without a death chamber. 
 Finally she put out her hand firmly and pushed 
 wide the door. The familiarity of the place 
 rushed back to her sickeningly as she entered, 
 the long mornings she had spent there, the lazy 
 afternoons ! 
 
 The painting which held Thayer's last work 
 stood with its back to the entrance door. In- 
 stinctively she knew what it held, and here she 
 
 245
 
 felt was the explanation of the tragedy that 
 had occurred. She went swiftly over to the 
 easel and stood before it. For moment after 
 moment she gazed, and as she stood there tears 
 gathered thick in her eyes. 
 
 "The tortured soul!" she breathed. "Ah, 
 Kirk, Kirk, you have done more than merely 
 crucify a body. You have put out your wanton 
 hands and crushed to its death a spirit." She 
 bent closer as her eyes caught the gleam of wet 
 paint. "It was the face you did this morning !" 
 she half groaned. 
 
 She flung out her hands in despair and went 
 over to a window that overlooked the street. 
 She leaned heavily against the casement trying 
 to conquer some of the unpleasant, and at this 
 time undesirable, emotion that was shaking her. 
 It was only a short time afterward that she saw 
 a hansom rolling rapidly down the street. It 
 stopped before the house and Thayer sprang 
 out. 
 
 It was in the corridor leading to Clodah's 
 room that they first came face to face. Thayer 
 flushed a dark red as his eyes met Hilda's. 
 
 "I am here solely )by accident," she said with 
 246
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 an icy note in her voice. "There is something 
 in here you should see, though it is undirected. 
 It may be a clue." 
 
 He opened the door for her to pass through. 
 When he entered he closed it behind him. 
 
 "How is it you have so relentlessly made up 
 your mind that she is gone?" he demanded. 
 "Has she taken things? She is probably only 
 gone for a walk." 
 
 "Perhaps you know her wardrobe," Hilda 
 suggested. 
 
 Thayer flung open doors and cabinets with a 
 growing excitement. He strewed the floor reck- 
 lessly with garments of every description. Sud- 
 denly he looked from one drawer he had just 
 flung open. 
 
 "The little peasant dress she had on when I 
 took her," he muttered. "It's gone." 
 
 "Ah!" Hilda breathed softly. She went over 
 to the writing table and took up the note lying 
 there. "I don't know what this is," she said. 
 "It may be a message of some sort." 
 
 Thayer snatched it nervously from her hands. 
 Wliile he was reading it Hilda scribbled another 
 one rapidly, and gave it with some whispered di-
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 rections to the disconsolate Hughes outside. She 
 came back into the room just as Thayer turned 
 toward her with a heavy groan. 
 
 "Here," he said hoarsely, "read it you have 
 a right. I'll tell you the tragedy of contrasts 
 later." He sat down on the bed and put his 
 head down on his arms. 
 
 "My father:" Hilda read, to her surprise, 
 "I am sore distressed. I can not see you. I 
 could not tell you my sorrow if you were here. 
 I am not going to send you this that I am 
 writing. But I can look at the words and think 
 you are here by me, and so it comforts me. 
 There are things about my husband I do not 
 understand. I try very hard, and I get no 
 nearer him. I know so little. If I could tell 
 about his pictures I might help him, but I am 
 so ignorant of his life. I try to do all I can. 
 I have given up to him what if I had known 
 about before I left home I could not have gone 
 away with him. I have done all things he has 
 asked of me because I love him, and because 
 I have believed he knows better than I. But 
 I am weary to see you. The loneliness is more 
 248
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 than I can bear. I think on what you said to 
 me the day I left home, that it were a sudden and 
 hasty thing. I can not write you now such a let- 
 ter as I sent you the day after I left home. My 
 father, my father ! And yet you said to me why 
 should he have come the weary way back for me 
 after a whole year if he did not love me truly. 
 What could have made him come to get the sim- 
 ple maid that I be if it were not the truest love? 
 For I am his wife and I love him to the death, 
 and I will believe. And when I come back to this 
 room, my father, I will write you such a letter 
 as will make you happy ; not like this one which 
 you will never see, but a happy one such as 
 the writing of this foolish thing has made it 
 possible for me to write. Ah, my father, I am 
 happy, for he is a great and wonderful man, 
 and such men, they tell me, talk with creatures 
 of another world, and I should not wonder that 
 he has not always time for me. I will write you 
 again, my father, this afternoon, a happy, 
 happy letter. Your Clodah." 
 
 Hilda laid the letter gently down. She stood 
 249
 
 in silence a moment looking at Thayer's bowed 
 head. Then she went over to him. 
 
 "I think there is no doubt but that she has 
 fled," she said. "I say that with no knowledge 
 of what passed between you this morning. I 
 have just come down from the studio," she 
 added. "I have seen the painting, the wet paint. 
 Now, what can be done? I am thinking of The 
 Rohan when his daughter comes back to him 
 like this. Had she any means of getting home ?" 
 
 Thayer got up and went over to her dressing 
 table. He took up a tiny purse that lay there 
 and opened it. 
 
 "I don't know how much money she had," he 
 said. "She had the heretofore unheard-of igno- 
 rance of not knowing how to spend it. I gave 
 her a good deal at the beginning of the week, 
 and it's all here and more. Confound it!" he 
 added with irritation, "she might have felt free 
 to take a gown or so and a little cash along in her 
 mad career." 
 
 At that moment there came a timid knock at 
 
 the door. Thayer went over and flung it open. 
 
 Hughes stood without. He handed in a note. 
 
 It was merely a sheet of paper, folded several 
 
 250
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 times, and directed hurriedly to Thayer. He 
 unfolded it hastily, and read it. Then he handed 
 it to Hilda with a grim smile. 
 
 "She has your method," he said shortly. "She 
 doesn't reproach me." 
 
 Mrs. Davenport took the sheet with an in- 
 dignation that rose almost beyond control. 
 
 "I had thought to go without a word," it 
 opened abruptly. "I have not words to say what 
 I would, and I dare not try with the poor speech 
 I have. But when I reached the station I 
 thought perhaps it was not dutiful, though I 
 know not your laws. But I am your wife, and 
 perhaps you have the right to know where I 
 am going. It is to my father, to my island I 
 am going, and I care enough for you yet to 
 bid you not to follow. The anger of my people 
 is swift and heavy, and you could not land on 
 my island unharmed. I have taken nothing 
 you gave me. My father put in my hand when 
 I left him a sum of money that will take me back 
 to him. He was right and I was wrong. I have 
 tried to forgive you my shame. I say over and 
 over what Hughes told me, that great men like 
 251
 
 WHAT MANNER OP MAN 
 
 you have not feelings like the rest of us, and do 
 not look on aught but themselves and their work. 
 I have naught to say to you but good by." 
 
 The note was unsigned and undated and sent 
 by a messenger boy. Hilda Davenport read it 
 with every nerve of sympathy alive within her. 
 She put it down and faced Thayer with eyes 
 that blazed. He stood before her, his hands 
 thrust deep in his pockets, his brow drawn in 
 frowns, and with a hard smile about his mouth. 
 
 "Speak it all out, my dear Hilda," he said 
 unpleasantly. "The tragedy you foretold has 
 occurred with all the intensity you could well 
 desire, and with your usual good fortune you 
 chance to be in at the death. You said you 
 would put in your Hold you so' for good and 
 all in your congratulatory letter to me, and 
 you've kept your word marvelously well. But 
 the phrase is on the tip of your tongue. Let 
 it come forth, I pray." 
 
 Mrs. Davenport looked at him, the light of 
 a great wrath in her eyes. She saw the beauti- 
 ful face distorted and twisted by a reckless 
 sneer. His lips were parted with a smile that 
 252
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 was not good to see; his eyes were aglow, too, 
 with a great rage. But beneath the evil smile 
 and the frown and the angry eyes there lay a 
 subtile something that Hilda was quick to pene- 
 trate. The eyes were heavy and full of wrath, 
 but beyond all the evil sparkle there lurked a 
 deep pain and an eating regret that she grasped 
 at. The fury within her own eyes died down 
 like the leap of a flame. She moved over to 
 him swiftly. 
 
 "When I say a thing like that I mean it," 
 she said softly. "My dear Kirk, it was so in- 
 evitable I could not but foresee. I thank God 
 the girl has gone back to her father. She and 
 you will be happier so. I had feared at first 
 so much more fearful a thing for her in her 
 despair. But now for this chapter in your life 
 there can be silence " 
 
 Thayer threw off her detaining hand. A 
 sudden change swept over his face at her last 
 words. He stood almost bewildered for a mo- 
 ment, then turned abruptly aside. He picked 
 up the letter Clodah had written that morn- 
 ing to her father, the letter that she was not 
 to send, the precursor of a happier message. 
 253
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 That was what her dreamy smile of the morn- 
 .ing meant, the smile he had stricken from 
 her lips. Over every detail of the morning 
 and of the month his mind flashed its rapid 
 way. All the revelations of her love for him, 
 a love that was mighty to stand strong in the 
 face of much that was to her innocence a fearful 
 shock and an awful revealing; all her eager de- 
 sires to be of service to him ; all her winsomeness ; 
 this last morning this morning Thayer 
 turned to Mrs. Davenport with a face from 
 which every sign of hardness had gone. It had 
 suddenly become haggard; the pain that had 
 lurked in the cynical eyes came boldly forth and 
 shone down upon her as she stood before him. 
 
 "There can be no silence," he said slowly. 
 "She loved me with a love that was unquestion- 
 ing, that asked for no return, and may her 
 tender spirit forgive me, it met with none. I 
 brought her here with a purpose, and I have 
 fulfilled it. But until I have made expiation 
 I shall have no peace " He had stopped and 
 was calculating rapidly. "Perhaps I can head 
 her off before she gets to the island if I start 
 
 254.
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 to-night. If not " His lips set in a fashion 
 that Hilda recognized. 
 
 She made no comment on his resolve, but she 
 did interpose here. "If she has gone to the 
 island, Kirk, she is right in saying it will not 
 be safe for you to follow her, and she may not 
 come to you." 
 
 He winced a little. "Wherever she has gone 
 I shall go after her," he said briefly. 
 
 "Then," said Hilda swiftly, "you shall not 
 go without Harry. Yes, he is here. Hughes 
 just brought me an answer to a note. I came 
 from Russia to meet him, and in a strange fear 
 and boding premonition I came here first. He 
 shall go with you to-night, for he is the only 
 man who can get you across the water-line of 
 the island if Clodah shall indeed have reached 
 there before you overtake her." 
 
 Thayer hesitated obviously, and Hilda smiled. 
 
 "My dear, you can wrestle with bears and 
 throttle lions, but a bullet from The Rohan's gun 
 you can not stand against. Now I shall leave 
 you. Harry will be at the station at six o'clock 
 to meet you. You will not mind him, he will not 
 weigh upon you at all." She gathered up her 
 255
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 gloves and purse and dainty belongings; then 
 she came over to him with a tenderness and 
 comprehension in her eyes that made him flush 
 again. She laid her hands on his breast. 
 
 "Dear," she said softly, "be sure before you 
 move that this time it is for her. Be sure that 
 there is sincerity of desire before you' run the 
 risk of possessing her again." 
 
 Thayer seized her hands and pressed them 
 savagely in his. His lips parted as if to speak, 
 but they closed resolutely. Hilda moved toward 
 the door and he went over and opened it for 
 her. As she went down the stairs he re-entered 
 Clodah's room and closed the door softly behind 
 him. 
 
 256
 
 On the morning of the third day after Thayer 
 had left London a party of three, two men and 
 a woman, might have been seen standing at 
 the Skerra wharf on the dreary coast of Suther- 
 landshire. Half a dozen sailors down on the 
 shore were busy with a boat and its launching. 
 This last looked to be a serious matter despite 
 the sturdy build of the boat and the skill of 
 the boatmen. The sea was high; the whole 
 coast had been swept by a fearful storm the 
 day before, and the waters were still raging. 
 The regular boat that plied three times a week 
 between Skerra and Rohan Island was out of 
 repair, and the travelers who had so suddenly 
 appeared on the scene had demanded immediate 
 transportation. For hours they had been obliged 
 to lie over, but with the first dawn of day they 
 were on the beach. 
 
 The journey from London to Skerra had been 
 a nightmare of inconveniences and disaster for 
 257
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 Thayer and his companions. There had been 
 one mild wreck and another breakdown. Thayer 
 had at last reached the stage of continued and 
 unappeasable rage at the incessant delays. Dav- 
 enport had been a tower of refuge in every 
 crisis, for Thayer soon found himself beyond 
 the power of exercising a critical judgment in 
 any matter. Hilda had stood everything with 
 her characteristic composure. Thayer's un- 
 bounded amazement when he saw her at the sta- 
 tion with her husband was turned to meekness 
 and submission by her calm statement that she 
 intended to go with them. 
 
 "Ought she to go, really?" he had asked 
 weakly of Davenport. 
 
 Davenport smiled gravely. "I have let her 
 decide that question," he said, "as I have let 
 her decide that my presence here was a necessity. 
 I can only add my conviction to hers, however, 
 Mr. Thayer, that if there is any sort of feeling 
 between you and The Rohan you may be wise 
 in allowing me to accompany you. I may not 
 serve you, but at least I shall not do you harm. 
 As for Mrs. Davenport, she tells me her instinct 
 forces her to go, and she is a woman, Mr. 
 258
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 Thayer, of remarkable instinct. I never stand 
 out against her when she begins to exercise that 
 gift." 
 
 They both laughed, and Hilda slipped her 
 arm fondly within her husband's. Thayer 
 stared at them both for a full minute. Then 
 he smiled. 
 
 "I suppose you know I have adored your 
 wife," he said crisply. "If she had let me 
 I would have made a mad fool of myself 
 and of her. Instead of allowing that she has 
 turned my mad worship of her into an enduring 
 friendship." He paused a moment, and his eyes 
 seemed to pierce through and through the man 
 standing before him. "I don't know how much 
 your wife has told you of the cause and pur- 
 pose of my trip to Rohan Island. Not much, 
 I fancy, it's not her way. I should rather like 
 to have you know about it, and when she begins 
 on it will you please ask her not to spare me?" 
 Then the train had puffed in and they had 
 settled themselves for their long journey to the 
 north of Scotland. 
 
 When at last all the delays were over and 
 they reached Skerra it was to find the storm 
 259
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 raging, and no boats putting out that night. 
 All the way they had inquired persistently for 
 Clodah, but for all trace of her she might have 
 vanished from the face of the earth. When they 
 found no sign of her at Skerra, some of the 
 fishermen suggested that she might have taken 
 the packet boat at Tongue, ten miles below, 
 which would lengthen the sea trip for her, 
 though it would do away with the awful ride 
 they had taken over roads unspeakable to arrive 
 at this tiny fishing village. 
 
 At last, a little after six o'clock, they were 
 off. The sea was rolling high, and the boat 
 was tossed about unmercifully. All of them 
 were good sailors, but the passage, always dan- 
 gerous, was rendered ten times more so by 
 the storm of the previous day, and the pru- 
 dence of the trip was questionable. They had 
 gone but a short distance from land before 
 the Sutherlandshire coast was wrapped in a fog 
 as thick as that which hovered always above 
 the sandstone cliffs of Eilean Rohan. Daven- 
 port was in the bow of the boat, working with 
 the sailors. Hilda was down in the hollow deck 
 wrapped up in all that was available in the 
 260
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 way of coverings. Thayer was sitting opposite 
 her, his head bowed, his face pallid. They had 
 gone more than half the distance that separates 
 the island from the mainland before he moved 
 over and sat down beside her. 
 
 "I never dreamed but that we should overtake 
 her before this," he said hoarsely. "Where is 
 she?" There was desperation in his voice. 
 
 "I can't help but feel she is with her father," 
 Hilda murmured. 
 
 Thayer buried his face in his hands. He 
 began to speak brokenly. 
 
 "How shall I ever make her believe in me 
 enough to know that I have come to take her 
 back with me and make her happy? Did you 
 catch that pitiful little note in her message about 
 Hughes, what he had told her? Poor old 
 Hughes, I left him all cut up because I wouldn't 
 bring him along. He has a blind impression 
 that I practised the black art on her up there, 
 tore her heart out of her body and held it up 
 and watched it quiver, and, my God, I did! 
 Poor little thing, poor little thing !" 
 
 Hilda made no answer and he did not seem 
 to expect one. 
 
 261
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 "The loveliness of her !" he went on dreamily. 
 "Her tender fancies, her bright imaginings ! If 
 you could have heard her tell some of the things 
 she has told me! That Wizard tale of Gling- 
 gling cave! Oh " he broke off with a groan, 
 "the night she told me that, the night she told 
 me!" 
 
 Hilda listened in pitying silence. The boat 
 was ploughing bravely through the rolling sea. 
 At last in a partial lift in the dense fog a dark 
 line stretched across their path. It was the 
 frowning natural barricade of Eilean Rohan, its 
 reach of red sandstone rising straight and sheer 
 from the depth of the sea. 
 
 Hilda's breath began to come a little more 
 quickly. That she was about to undergo a 
 unique experience she was well aware. She knew 
 how promptly a wrong to any woman of the 
 island would be resented, and how a sin against 
 the daughter of the island's king could not be 
 wiped out even by blood atonement. If Clodah 
 were already there she shivered slightly. And 
 if she were not at all turns there was only com- 
 plexity and sorrow and tragedy. 
 
 She turned her head at last and as she looked 
 262
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 she sprang to her feet with a little cry. They 
 were almost upon the island. Above them 
 frowned the great red cliff. Below, along the 
 rugged curve of the shore, stood a group of 
 plaided men, their faces stern and lowering, their 
 weapons ready. Across the roar of the waters 
 rang The Rohan's voice. 
 
 "Turn about an' go back! Ye landed here 
 once too often, man. 'Tis nae safe this day!" 
 His burning eyes were glaring savagely at 
 Thayer, whose white face stood out to him apart 
 from all the rest of the little group the boat 
 held. The sailors looked uncertainly at Thayer 
 and then at Davenport, who all along had given 
 them their orders. The latter now sprang 
 swiftly to his feet. 
 
 "Rohan!" he shouted. 
 
 "'Tis ye yirsel', Davenport?" The Rohan 
 called thickly. "Wi' that!" His long arm 
 flung itself out in fearful scorn straight at 
 Thayer. Then he went down to the edge of 
 the shore. 
 
 " 'Tis nae use, Davenport," he said. "If ye 
 yirsel' hae the mind to step on my shore ye 
 may an' welcome, but that man, the one yir 
 263
 
 shieldin', if ye flung a snake black wi' venom 
 out on the land I'd take it up an' hold it to 
 me sooner than ye'll see me let that on shore 
 alive!" 
 
 Davenport and Thayer felt themselves swiftly 
 thrust aside. Hilda stepped in front of them 
 both. With all her wrappings the men on shore 
 had taken her up to this time to be one of the 
 boat's crew. 
 
 "If Clodah be here let me see her," she 
 pleaded. "I have come with them to do what 
 they can not do, what you will not let them 
 do. I have come to help you to help her, 
 to do for her what you can not do, tenderly as 
 you love her. I love her, too. Let us all come 
 in* peace for the sake of her." She stopped, 
 warned by the trembling of her voice that she 
 could go no further. 
 
 The Rohan had been staring at her as a lost 
 soul might look on its savior. 
 
 " 'Tis the hand o' God, lads," he muttered 
 to the three men with him. " 'Tis the only 
 woman that can help the lass. She has been 
 led o' the Lord. Let 'em come. 'Tis nae matter." 
 
 264
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 In a few moments the three travelers stood 
 on shore. Only The Rohan remained to give 
 them greeting, and he stood in heavy silence. 
 Davenport motioned his wife toward their stern 
 host. She went up to him and touched him 
 softly on the arm. He turned to her and looked 
 into her eyes, wet with unshed tears. 
 
 "Ah, ma'am, the lass!" he groaned. "Last 
 night it was she came frae Tongue in all the 
 storm, wi' the fever on her, eatin' her life awa% 
 an' her eyes so wild an' full o* horror they 
 killed me an' the kindness in me as I looked." 
 
 "In that fearful storm!" Hilda cried. 
 
 "Aye," said The Rohan bitterly, "in all that 
 weather. She made some fisher lads bring her 
 ower, an' they did it for her an' me, though it 
 was takin' their own hands for the preparin' o* 
 their deaths wi' the night it was. Ever since 
 she came stumblin' drippin' wet into the house 
 she has had one name on her lips, there be one 
 woman she has shrieked to see. Can ye wonder 
 when I saw ye standin' yon'er ye looked like an 
 angel sent down frae Heaven to my bairn ? She 
 longs to see ye; the beautiful lady, she calls 
 
 265
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 ye. She's lyin' up there now, dyin'. She's 
 goin' swift an' sure " 
 
 He stopped. Thayer strode forward and 
 grasped his arm. 
 
 "Dying !" he muttered. 
 
 The Rohan shook him off as if he were indeed 
 the venomed snake he had vowed to welcome 
 before him. 
 
 "Aye, dyin'!" he repeated savagely, a white 
 anger in his voice. "An' who shall be bold 
 enough to say it shall nae be a life for a life?" 
 
 Thayer stood before him, bent and humbled. 
 His face had whitened miserably and his eyes 
 were terrible in their despair. The Rohan looked 
 at him as if he could never get his fill. Twice 
 he opened his lips to speak, and twice he closed 
 them. He started at last to lead the way to 
 his low-browed castle, but he suddenly turned 
 back and faced Thayer once more. 
 
 "For the sake o' her," he pointed to Hilda, 
 "who asked it for the sake o' her," he flung his 
 lean arm up toward the cottage where Clodah 
 was lying, "I hae let ye come on this my island 
 wi' the life still in yir miserable body. I be 
 gladder an' gladder that she persuaded me to it, 
 266
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 for if ye hae a speck o' human regret in ye I 
 hae a fearful punishment in store for ye. Al- 
 most I see repentance in yir face. If it be so, 
 a great torment awaits ye up yon'er." He led 
 the way hastily up the slope. 
 
 267
 
 It was Hilda who first went into the little 
 bedroom where the only daughter of The Rohan 
 lay tossing in a fever of brain and body. By 
 the bed sat a woman of the island, whose sor- 
 rowful face told her sorrowful fear. On the 
 bed lay Clodah. Her face was flushed with the 
 raging heat that consumed her. Her eyes were 
 bright and staring, and her lips moved con- 
 stantly and rapidly. Sometimes she broke out 
 into a rush of excited words, but the very sound 
 of them served to recall her to herself, for she 
 would look hurriedly and suspiciously about her, 
 and then, the flash of sanity gone, she would 
 lapse once more into her burning babble. 
 
 As Mrs. Davenport bent above her Clodah 
 stared at her with eyes at first unseeing, but as 
 she gazed a sudden recognition came into them, 
 a soft delight. 
 
 "Ah," she gasped, " 'tis the beautiful lady I 
 268
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 hae longed so deep to see. The bright day that 
 ye come to the island! I loved ye from the 
 moment that first I saw ye." Then the mo- 
 mentary consciousness faded from her eyes and 
 she sank into a confused murmur of talk. 
 
 As Hilda looked up from the pillow on which 
 the restless, sunny head rolled unceasingly, she 
 saw The Rohan and Thayer standing in the 
 doorway. The Rohan was stern with the self- 
 control of a great grief. Thayer, with eyes 
 as bright and shining as the girl's own, stood 
 gazing toward the place where Clodah lay. Sud- 
 denly he took one step forward. On the in- 
 stant his way was barred by The Rohan's arm. 
 Then the elder man caught a glance from 
 Hilda's eyes, a tender, sympathetic, pleading 
 glance. Slowly his arm dropped to his side, 
 and Thayer's way was clear. 
 
 Side by side The Rohan and Mrs. Davenport 
 stood while Thayer crossed the tiny room and 
 bent above the girl's white painted bed. All 
 gleam of saneness was gone from her. She was 
 tossing a little and her fancies were becoming 
 more disturbing. 
 
 "Dinna crush it," she plead. "The little white 
 269
 
 WHAT MANNER OP MAN 
 
 blossom dinna know it got un'er foot. Dinna 
 crush it all to shapelessness." 
 
 Thayer's mind went swiftly back to that night 
 in the studio when she had run away from him 
 over to the black pillar and had crouched be- 
 neath it in half terrified fun. From there she 
 had told him of the tiny flower that lay be- 
 neath his feet as he came down the side of 
 the Red Rock to meet her. His face contracted 
 with pain and shame. Clodah lay murmuring 
 to herself incoherent petitions that he could not 
 catch. Suddenly her voice rose. 
 
 " the blackness o' the face an* the smile 
 o' the mouth! Unloose me frae the chains, un- 
 loose 'tis the shamin' o' me the shame the 
 shame " 
 
 Thayer felt himself gently thrust away. 
 Hilda had come back to the bedside and was bend- 
 ing over the girl, holding her close in her strong, 
 beautiful arms. "There, there," she said, as if 
 to a little child, and under the tender voice and 
 the calm strength of Hilda's body the wild ex- 
 citement into which Clodah had lashed herself 
 was temporarily stilled. 
 
 270
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 Yet she was quieted only temporarily. Again 
 and again the wildest of terrors, the most hor- 
 rible fears, came upon her. And through it all 
 Hilda sat beside her and lulled her back to 
 quiet as no one had been able to do in all the 
 weary hours since she had stumbled into the 
 great living room of The Rohan's home, all wet 
 and shivering and burning, stricken to the floor 
 by the strength of the fever that was upon her. 
 
 Once, when the girl was sunk in the stupor 
 that followed her violent delirium, Hilda left the 
 bedside to superintend the preparation of some 
 soothing draft that was in the process of mak- 
 ing in the kitchen. The Rohan turned aside 
 from his station in the doorway to let her pass, 
 and then followed her out. There was a dumb- 
 ness of suffering in his hollow eyes that made her 
 heart ache. 
 
 "Mrs. Davenport," he began, with a slow heat 
 of anger thrilling his voice, "for the sake o' 
 what ye hae done for my bairn in comin' here 
 I hae let that man in her chamber. I hae let 
 him land here alive. Tell me, in the name o' 
 God, what has he done, an' why I may not take 
 
 271
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 him out like a dog, an' stan' him up an* shoot 
 him down? What has he done? He hae killed 
 my bairn, my only lass!" 
 
 Hilda's lips quivered at the helplessness of his 
 hidden grief. She hesitated only slightly before 
 she spoke. 
 
 "He did her a great wrong that I can not 
 tell you now, but in all honesty he did not 
 mean to do it. He did not stop to think how 
 different his world was from hers, how dif- 
 ferently they must from necessity look at things. 
 He did not stop to make allowances, and be- 
 cause she loved him so she would not let him see 
 that allowances could be made. But when she 
 left his home so unexpectedly, and when he 
 began to see for the first time how without mean- 
 ing it he had made her suffer so, he came just 
 as quickly as he could to ask her to forgive 
 him and let him take her back." 
 
 The Rohan listened gloomily and without con- 
 viction. 
 
 "The chains that she's been cryin' out about," 
 he said abruptly. 
 
 Hilda gave a little, soft cry. 
 
 "You must not think he treated her in that 
 272
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 way, cruelly," she urged. "He could never hurt 
 a woman that way." 
 
 "There be other ways," The Rohan replied 
 sternly, but Hilda could see that a raw wound 
 had been healed by her reply. Then once again 
 he took up his silent stand before his daughter's 
 bedchamber, and Thayer all the while kept his 
 place at the foot of her bed. 
 
 All day and far into the night the delirium 
 held her. Now it was pleased nonsense about 
 flower fancies ; now about summer seas and white- 
 winged vessels; now empty sound and unmean- 
 ing jargon. But now and then the fevered brain 
 would mount higher and higher in its wild 
 imaginings, and she would shriek out horrible 
 things; now she was held fast in Gling-gling 
 cave, with all the fabled tortures of the suffer- 
 ing girl racking her; again she was being cast 
 into a hollow space filled with ravening beasts. 
 But more often she was bound by chains at 
 the foot of a grinning monster. It was when 
 this vision was upon her that her wildness be- 
 came uncontrollable. It was under its influence 
 that she shrieked out broken sentences whose hor- 
 ror and pleading drove The Rohan to shut every- 
 273
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 one away from that part of the house save him- 
 self and the three who had come from beyond the 
 sea that morning. 
 
 Once, in the midst of the delirium, when all 
 of Mrs. Davenport's influence was powerless 
 to combat the strength of the raging fear and 
 torment that held Clodah remorselessly, Thayer, 
 for the first time in all the long hours he had 
 stood and watched the girl, groaned in an utter 
 collapse of his powers of endurance and sank 
 to his knees on the floor. Since then he had 
 not stirred. Hilda bent constantly above the 
 bed, sometimes soothing the sick girl, sometimes 
 helpless before the strength of her tormented 
 brain. So the long night wore away, and as it 
 went it took with it the delirium. But as it went 
 it left behind it a weakness more heart-rending. 
 With the gray of the dawn making more faint 
 and ghastly the candle-light Clodah opened her 
 eyes after a long period of deep stupor, and 
 looked with grave recognition into Mrs. Daven- 
 port's face. 
 
 "All the weary time I hae known you were 
 by me here," she said faintly, "an' I hae known 
 
 274
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 too that he " her voice faltered and fell. But 
 her tired eyes wandered restlessly about the 
 room. 
 
 "Kirk," Hilda breathed softly. Thayer stag- 
 gered to his feet, and came over to where she 
 knelt beside his wife. The Rohan, within the 
 shadow of the doorway, folded his arms across 
 his mighty chest, as if to hold within him his 
 wrath and just anger. As she saw her husband 
 Clodah's eyes wavered for a moment, and she 
 half turned away her head. Then she faced him 
 proudly with a calm that was regal in its sim- 
 plicity. 
 
 "Almost did I cut it to ribbons," she said. 
 "Before I left I went back to see what it was 
 that you had done wi' me, an' almost did I 
 destroy it entire, an' then something in it held 
 me back. It must be great, an' if there be in 
 it what you hoped for perhaps it is right, made 
 right by that. It would hae been all right, all 
 wi' no blame, if only I had been loved as I 
 loved. 'Twas the shame o' that drove me from 
 you." 
 
 Thayer dropped on his knees beside her. He 
 
 275
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 took up one of Her little, bloodless hands and 
 held it with a grip that would have made her 
 cry out had she not been past all pain and fever. 
 "Clodah, Clodah," he groaned. Something in 
 his tone brought a gleam of revelation to her. 
 She lay silent for a moment. 
 
 "Perhaps 'twas all wi' me the shame lay," she 
 murmured. "Perhaps you didna mean to shame 
 me yoursel'. Be it all as it may," she finished 
 wearily, "now is nae longer the time for all the 
 heart-burn I hae felt once " 
 
 With an utter disregard of her condition 
 Thayer put his arms about her, and held her 
 up against his breast. 
 
 "It is true," he whispered hoarsely, "all true, 
 that when I took you away with me I took you 
 away for that. But now, O Clodah, Clodah 
 
 She looked up at him and smiled faintly. 
 " 'Tis too late," she murmured, "an' 'tis better 
 so. I be but a simple lass, an' thou'rt so great 
 an' learned thou couldst nae but weary o' me 
 an' my silly fancies. Yet there be one little 
 thing." She lifted her bright head from its pil- 
 low against his breast. "Feyther," she whis- 
 pered. Her voice was already growing weaker. 
 276
 
 The Rohan strode over from the door where 
 he had been standing with Davenport and his 
 wife. 
 
 "Feyther," she whispered, "I dinna know 
 what I hae raved over in my light-headedness, 
 but this man is my husband, an' I loved him, 
 an' I love him." She moved her head restlessly 
 against Thayer's arm. "All o' marriage was 
 strange to me, an' he was strange to me, an' I 
 was strange to him, an' God will forgive us both 
 for any faults we did. I need nae ask thee, 
 feyther, what I want." 
 
 The Rohan towered above her bed in impassive 
 silence. Once he tried to speak, and his voice 
 would not obey his will. In the silence she grew 
 restless. 
 
 "Put me down," she murmured to Thayer. 
 "Let my feyther hold me so." Simply as a 
 child she held up her face, and Thayer pressed 
 a long kiss on her lips. Then he gave place 
 to The Rohan, who took up Clodah's little body 
 with savage gentleness into his arms. She lay 
 against his breast, her face hidden in the hollow 
 of his neck. She murmured to him from time 
 to time. Still he held her close, both arms 
 277
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 wrapped about her. At last he slowly loosed 
 one hand from its hold of her, and with Clodah's 
 happy eyes on him he reached it out to Kirk 
 Thayer. As the two men clasped hands a lovely 
 smile came over her face. She turned to The 
 Rohan and whispered to him again. After that 
 there was silence. 
 
 The next evening, in the light of an island 
 sunset, the body of The Rohan's daughter was 
 kid reverently away. Through all the simple 
 ceremonies, through all the grief of The Rohan's 
 people, Thayer moved with an agony of spirit 
 that seemed greater to him than he could bear. 
 Every glance from the honest eyes of the sea- 
 faring people was a lash; every word a blow 
 in the face. And the background for every mo- 
 ment of the wearing day was the memory of that 
 simple death scene. 
 
 The Davenports had arranged for themselves 
 and him that they should leave for the mainland 
 immediately after the burial, and late that even- 
 ing, with the words of the bare service still 
 
 278
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 hanging heavily over them all, The Rohan, alone 
 of all his house, went with them down to the 
 shore, where their boat was manned and in readi- 
 ness. Between Thayer and The Rohan there 
 was no farewell. As if in memory of the dead 
 girl and that alone, the two men barely touched 
 hands, and Thayer was the first to step aboard. 
 Davenport and his wife lingered. The Rohan 
 rested both hands on Davenport's shoulders, and 
 spoke to him with a face that worked mightily. 
 When he came to Hilda he took her hands and 
 swung her by them to and fro in the intensity 
 of his farewell. At last he put her gently from 
 him, and stood with bowed head as she and Dav- 
 enport stepped upon the boat. 
 
 As they swayed out on the waters Thayer 
 looked back on the island. Only a month ago 
 he had sailed away from the same lone spot in 
 the rainbow glory of the evening sunshine. All 
 the coast had been lined with peasants in their 
 Sunday garb waving a glad farewell to the bonny 
 bride who sat beside him. To-night the sunset 
 glory shone upon a single figure on the rocky 
 shore, black clad and bowed with sorrow, and the 
 
 279
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 girl he had borne away that night a month be- 
 fore was lying on the other side of the island, 
 her pale body heaped high with the earth to 
 which she had returned. 
 
 280
 
 The station clock was tolling out the hour of 
 nine the evening that they reached London. As 
 they entered a cab Thayer gave the man the or- 
 der. When the carriage stopped before Thayer*s 
 home, the artist, who had perhaps addressed half 
 a dozen sentences to his companions during the 
 whole course of the homeward journey, leaned 
 forward. 
 
 "Come in here, both of you," he said quickly. 
 "Let me put you up for the night. Come." 
 
 He did not wait for their reply. He sprang 
 quickly out and went up the steps where he 
 pulled the bell vigorously. But the response 
 came speedily, before Davenport and Hilda had 
 joined him, for on the first vibration the door 
 swung open, and Hughes' face peered into the 
 darkness. 
 
 "Master Kirk !" he said eagerly, all the pent- 
 up solicitude of the long days and nights since 
 281
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 his master's departure in the old familiar greet- 
 ing. 
 
 Thayer put both his hands on the man's 
 shoulders. 
 
 "We'll go back to the old ways, Hughes," he 
 said unsteadily. 
 
 He disappeared abruptly within the darkness 
 of the unlighted library. Mrs. Davenport lin- 
 gered after her husband had followed Thayer, 
 to still the suspense of the man's faithful heart 
 and to give him a tender little message Clodah 
 had whispered for him. 
 
 When she at last entered the library she 
 looked anxiously at Thayer. A swift change had 
 come over him, more distressing than the dull 
 apathy which had held him ever since they left 
 the island. His eyes were bright and burning. 
 His color was high. Every motion, every quick, 
 impetuous word, betrayed a state of high nerv- 
 ous pressure almost at its climax. She threw her 
 traveling cloak aside with quick resolve and rang 
 the bell. 
 
 "I'm not hungry," she said lightly, "but I do 
 want my tea. Get out the things, Kirk, and 
 move that table up here." 
 282
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 Thayer went quickly and with relief to obey 
 her, and while she was waiting for the hot water 
 she talked lightly, almost gaily, generally to 
 Davenport, now and then a word to Thayer ; her 
 whole manner as free from the ghastly cheeriness 
 that is usually displayed after death as any- 
 thing well could be. With a quick sympathy 
 Davenport aided every sentence, and they were 
 seemingly in full tide of talk and laughter 
 when Hughes came back with the service. He, 
 too, looked at his master with concern. Thayer 
 was at last talking, talking rapidly, and his fre- 
 quent laugh was high, and sharp, and excited. 
 Suddenly, in the midst of a sentence that had 
 almost all of the old disdainful ring about it, he 
 stammered and faltered. For a moment he sat in 
 silence. Then he got up, and his cup dropped 
 to the floor with a crash. 
 
 "Come upstairs with me, both of you," he 
 said with a strained abruptness. "Come up to 
 the studio and let me show you " He stopped 
 as suddenly as he had begun. He did not look 
 at them, did not wait for them. He left the 
 room and they heard him ascending the stair- 
 way with stumbling haste.
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 Davenport and his wife followed him in si- 
 lence. Outside the studio door Thayer had 
 paused as if to gather strength and resolution 
 to enter, and there they caught up with him. As 
 they joined him he fumbled blindly at the knob 
 and then flung the door open and stumbled into 
 the room. Hilda shivered as she crossed the 
 threshold. The great height of the studio tow- 
 ered above her with the loneliness of space itself. 
 Its atmosphere struck a chill through her not 
 purely physical. The very spirit of death seemed 
 to hover over it. She stood huddled against the 
 closed door, drawn together in a shuddering 
 tensity. Everything about her, material things, 
 chairs, tables, the clinging, swaying draperies 
 about the room, seemed to hold in their chemical 
 atoms something of the unseen, of the mysteri- 
 ous aftermath of the human soul. She bit her 
 lip hard. In the dim light of the first lamp 
 which Thayer lighted she saw a pale, dull tapes- 
 try beyond her curve slowly outward as if a 
 breath from its figured princesses had stirred it. 
 Then under the glare of a great globe of light 
 that flared out near her where she stood unno- 
 ticed, she caught herself together with a swift 
 284
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 self-restraint. Another moment of such imag- 
 inings and she would be beyond control. She 
 watched her husband eagerly as he brought into 
 ruddy flame the ready laid fire in the great fire- 
 place; she watched Thayer as he went from ta- 
 ble to table, from side bracketings to swinging 
 globes. With the dawning of the light these 
 shadows of her brain would flee away and be no 
 more. 
 
 Suddenly Thayer motioned to them imperi- 
 ously. She went over to him, fighting down an 
 almost physical repulsion to what she felt await- 
 ed her. He was standing before the illuminated 
 canvas where, just as he had left it almost a 
 week before, the figure of the girl shone out, 
 strong and pure and wonderful. He was star- 
 ing at it with glowing eyes. His voice as he be- 
 gan to speak was low and eager and excited. 
 
 "This is what killed her," he said. "Look at 
 it. See the horror in her eyes. That came when 
 she found out why I had married her. It wasn't 
 enough that I should see the living horror, but I 
 must fix it tKere. Look at it. Look at it." He 
 wheeled about. 
 
 "Over there was where I had her stand, be- 
 285
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 neath that pillar, with her little hands fastened 
 in those dangling chains. She had the lovely 
 courage to pretend to laugh about them, but 
 their cold chilled her, made her feel utterly help- 
 less and alone. She always loathed that satyr's 
 head. The leering thing always had a hateful 
 fascination for her. The first night she was here 
 she noticed it. We were standing by the fireplace 
 yonder and she ran from me over to the hideous 
 thing. Hilda !" His voice rose shrilly. "If you 
 could have heard the lovely little words she said ! 
 *Isna't queer how folks'll mind things! That 
 day a year agone you came I can ever see the 
 white wings o' the ship that brought you. An* 
 four days back I'll ne'er forget a little white 
 flower that lay beneath your feet as you came 
 down the cliff to greet me. An' to-night 
 He stopped suddenly in his quoting of her 
 words. "She had been telling me of her ignor- 
 ance, her innocence, and while she was trying 
 to put it all into words she had her dear eyes 
 fastened on that grinning head and she told me 
 sKe could never forget it. And she never did, 
 she never did ! It racked her to her death !" 
 Thayer's words came more and more rapidly. 
 286
 
 He was laboring under a growing excitement. 
 Once Hilda moved slightly as if to go over 
 to him, but Davenport held her back. She 
 stood within his arms, while Thayer went on al- 
 most without a pause. 
 
 "I recalled all you had told me, and when 
 at last the moment came that I had to have her 
 for this I told her in all gentleness what I want- 
 ed. And even then it was death for her to yield. 
 But after a time, after she grew used to it, she 
 didn't let it hurt her so much; and she was per- 
 fect. She didn't know what that painting 
 meant. When I told her that of it which would 
 have told any other woman the whole story, she 
 could not understand. Her absolute innocence 
 was beyond belief. Before I knew her I have 
 sneered time and again at the thought of any 
 woman on this evil earth so snow-white in 
 thought and deed. Then that last morning the 
 devil entered into me and claimed his own. Time 
 after time I just missed the line I wanted, and I 
 grew savage with disappointment. Then I de- 
 liberately tore away all that innocence, all that 
 purity. Just so truly as ever Gilles de Retz tore 
 out the hearts of his living victims and held 
 287
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 them up and watched them quiver, just so truly 
 did I tear out the soul from that shrinking body 
 and paint it there in all its agony of dying." 
 
 He stopped at last. He was shaking from 
 head to foot. Davenport went up to him. 
 
 "And she died loving you after it all, man," 
 he said. 
 
 Thayer stared at him blankly. 
 
 "After it all," he repeated. "After it all!" 
 
 A soft sound broke at last on the stillness 
 of the great room. Thayer looked beyond Da- 
 venport to where Hilda was standing alone. She 
 was leaning with her palms outspread upon a 
 table, bowed in almost utter physical collapse. 
 It was her sob they had heard, the first Thayer 
 had ever heard from her lips. It brought him 
 back to himself, steadied him with the sudden- 
 ness of a miracle. Something within him that 
 had wavered for hours in a shifting center grew 
 suddenly still, and then swung slowly around 
 and pointed straight again. 
 
 "Don't, Hilda," he said, with a curious shake 
 in his voice. For the moment he could not con- 
 trol that. "Don't, Hilda. Listen to me: I'm 
 not worth it, no man is ; yet they say, all the old 
 288
 
 priests and prophets, that from the beginning 
 innocent ones have been slain for the guilty. 
 Even we of to-day grant it freely. And the 
 purpose of it all, and the use of it I wonder, I 
 wonder ! You've told me I was born out of time ; 
 a Greek soul thrust naked and shivering into 
 this age of machinery and clanging steel; with 
 abstract ideals and unattainable desires; and in 
 spite of all that, a man cursed with the spirit of 
 Denial; an incarnation of the very essence of 
 Negation." 
 
 His hand dropped from Davenport's shoul- 
 der. He began to walk restlessly after his old 
 manner up and down the room. Hilda crept 
 over to Davenport and from that refuge 
 watched the man's face, pale and intent. 
 
 "An incarnation of the essence of Negation," 
 he repeated slowly, "in spite of ideals. One 
 who denied all things, was fain to curse some 
 God and die, yet could not curse Beauty, and so 
 lived on, and had almost denied that one thing 
 he worshiped, and at last sacrificed to it, the 
 sacrifice of a heart's hope, the burnt offering of 
 a soul and by that sacrifice attained by the 
 gods, yes!" 
 
 289
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 He stopped before the painting once 
 again. For many minutes he stared at it proud- 
 ly, triumphantly. Then new lines marked his 
 face, a deepening pain, a growing wonder. 
 Suddenly he raised his head and looked over to 
 where Hilda stood and for a moment his eyes 
 burned into hers. That one moment belonged 
 to them alone out of all time past and to come, 
 and in it no other had a part. For the first time 
 she saw in his eyes the birth of a voluntary, self- 
 amazed self-relinquishment ; a slow dawning 
 spirit of renunciation; the giving up not 
 of himself, but of Attainment. His thought 
 leaped across the material space that divided 
 them, past her bond of wifehood, past sex, and 
 questioned spirit to spirit, questioned amaz- 
 edly, indignantly, with pleading. And she an- 
 swered not at all. Only her eyes exulted. 
 
 Thayer turned back at last with a short, 
 quick breath. Then he put out a steady hand, 
 and slowly, resolutely pushed away from him 
 the painting. Davenport's arm tightened about 
 his wife, and he looked down at her. She smiled 
 up at him, still with those exulting eyes. It 
 was to her, to Thayer, to them all, as if with 
 290
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 his own hands he were laying the dead girl away 
 a second time and finally, from the gaze of all 
 the world ; not the body of her but the outraged 
 spirit, the spirit that had looked across the 
 chasm of unfaith and betrayal, and seeing, could 
 not return. 
 
 When he turned back to them again it was 
 almost as if that hour had not been, as if the 
 past week had dropped like a pebble into the 
 depths of some still, deep sea. His voice had its 
 old, careless note, its ring of indifference, its ab- 
 solute lack of personal emotion. Yet the center 
 of things had shifted again. For the second 
 time in his life defeat seemed victory, and vic- 
 tory, defeat. He had conquered, and had con- 
 quered, and to what end! Surrender! And 
 was that Attainment? 
 
 Yet it did not seem failure. He seemed to have 
 stepped upon a plane where such defeat was not 
 loss ; where greatness, his -greatness, was of lit- 
 tle moment. He wondered at the new view- 
 point, and then he wondered with his old, 
 half cynical self-probing, how long the plane 
 would balance, how long defeat seem victory, 
 and personal greatness, dross. Yet he realized 
 291
 
 WHAT MANNER OF MAN 
 
 too that the old self-inquiry was induced not so 
 much by the old cynicism as by a new, embry- 
 onic self-doubt; a new distrust, not of human 
 failings, but of his own. He smiled a little as 
 he realized all this. Then he slowly turned out 
 the last light and left the studio to the shadows 
 of the dying fire. Outside the door and before 
 he closed it he listened a moment. Hilda and 
 Davenport were going down the stairs together. 
 A great loneliness swept over him, a sudden wave 
 from that waste of solitude into which he had 
 been flung to live his life. He half recrossed the 
 threshold. For the moment he understood the 
 spirit of the Flagellants. Then something 
 seemed to bar the way. 
 
 An old phrase wandered through his mind. 
 Half unconsciously his lips repeated it: "The 
 Flaming Sword !" He remembered The Rohan's 
 arm stretched out across the doorway of his 
 daughter's room. He shut the door softly and 
 locked it, and followed his guests downstairs.
 
 Univ 
 
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 3 1158 01164 8077 
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGW 
 
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