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TRIXY 
 

 "oh, miss ladbie!" sobbed dan. 
 
TRIXY 
 
 By ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS 
 
 " Cruel is the world. 
 Then be thou kind." 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 flEbe fiitoer?i&e f>tc0, €axnbiibQt 
 
 1904 
 
COPYRIGHT I9C4 BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS WARD 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published October IQ04 
 
TO MY HUSBAND 
 HERBERT D. WARD 
 
 Whose generous sympathy and faithful assistance 
 have made it possible for me to write this book ; 
 who has contributed both to its plan and execution 
 so largely that I cannot claim it as my unshared 
 work ; who is, in fact (though, by his own wish, 
 not in name), my collaborator — i" inscribe this 
 story. 
 
 Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward 
 
 Newton Centre, Massachusetts, July, 1904 
 
 ''J«/^Wv) 
 
NOTE 
 
 This book is a story. Although it verges 
 towards one of the great tragedies of the day, 
 the facts with which the tale is intervolved 
 have been used in subordination so severe 
 that it is due the truth to say : the scien- 
 tific incidents herein related have their coun- 
 terparts in history. To each one could be 
 added its superlative, in some cases often 
 repeated. If Trixy were a polemic, there 
 might be presented a variety of authentic 
 physiological diversions as sad as they would 
 seem to be incredible. Such being the ma- 
 terial of the apostle rather than of the artist, 
 these pages have been closed to scenes too 
 painful for admission to them. 
 
 Yet a novel, which cannot be a homily, may 
 be an illumination. This one approaches re- 
 gions whose very existence is unknown to the 
 
viii NOTE 
 
 majority of readers, and doubted by many 
 intelligent and kind-hearted people. 
 
 I take this opportunity of saying that I am 
 familiar with the map of these dark sections 
 of life and know whereof I write. 
 
 E. S. P. W. 
 
"Mercy and truth are met together.' 
 
TRIXY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The sun struggled to enter the windows of 
 the lecture-room. The tall adjoining build- 
 ing prevented this. The shaft of light stopped 
 on the window sill, and wavered with an un- 
 certain and troubled air. 
 
 It was November, and one bare bough 
 from a neighboring tree pointed straight at 
 the glass. Beyond, the sky was blue and 
 beneficent. The wind was quietly rising, and 
 the bough moved like a finger extended in 
 silent admonition. 
 
 Some such thought as this occurred to the 
 second student in the tenth row. The lecture- 
 room was in the form of an amphitheatre, the 
 seats rising in tiers. Young Steele could see 
 the professor's desk and table quite distinctly, 
 as, in fact, could every man in the room. 
 Our student was twenty-one. He was rather 
 a handsome fellow in his way, with a good 
 head, and forehead well developed over the 
 
2 TRIXY 
 
 ey?s. Tbdse were gray and kindly, but set 
 a little near >;ogethsr. His face was more 
 finished than the faces of the students about 
 him. His mouth was not coarse, and his fea- 
 tures were agreeable. He had the bearing 
 of good birth and breeding. At this time 
 he was not destitute of imagination, and his 
 heart surged with the fervors of youth and 
 of science. He was at the beginning of his 
 professional career. He had graduated at a 
 neighboring college with honors, not five 
 months ago. He had been but a few weeks a 
 member of the medical school. His studies 
 up to this time had been of a rather pleasant, 
 preliminary nature. He had made as yet no 
 friends in the upper classes, and few in his 
 own, so that he knew little of what was going 
 on in other parts of the building. 
 
 Olin Steele had not chosen his profession 
 lightly. He was capable of ideals, and at this 
 period of his life he cherished them. Nor had 
 he abandoned what is known as religious as- 
 piration. By healing men's bodies, he meant 
 to heal their souls. How could human utility 
 rise to finer heights ? By nature gentle and 
 tender, he felt that he loved science for her 
 
TRIXY 3 
 
 nobler possibilities, and would rejoice in all 
 those investigations in which he elected to be 
 led. To this lad, life was not only sacred, it 
 was adorable. The vital spark was the bond 
 between God and man. To preserve this bond 
 he believed to be a holy privilege. Steele con- 
 sidered himself fortunately fitted for the pro- 
 fession which he had chosen. He was like a 
 worshiper between whom and his idol a faint 
 cloud floats. His attitude towards his calling 
 was at once aesthetic and devout. His pro- 
 fessor was his high priest. 
 
 The lecture-room was fdling rapidly. The 
 boys came in laughing and talking. Some had 
 their cigarettes in their mouths, for the pro- 
 fessor had not yet arrived. There was a cer- 
 tain tension in the air that would have been 
 noticeable to a fine observer. Some of the 
 students had a constrained look, and others 
 exhibited a species of nervousness. 
 
 Olin Steele sat very quietly. Now and then 
 he glanced at the door by which the lecturer 
 would enter. Some of the fellows chaffed him 
 for his silence, but he scarcely replied. He 
 was absorbed in the subject of the morning's 
 lecture. 
 
4 TRIXY 
 
 He was aroused from his reverie by a small, 
 sharp pain in his neck. A broadside of laugh- 
 ter from the students brought him to his full 
 senses. He then became aware that he was 
 at once scratched and caressed. A little claw 
 clung to his collar, and something fuzzy and 
 soft nestled under his ear. Putting up his 
 hand with the instinct to protect the small, he 
 clutched a puff of warm life, and was greeted 
 in return by a little purr. 
 
 "What the — " began Steele. "Who's 
 putting kittens down my back ? " 
 
 He turned completely around, and his eyes 
 met those of a classmate who regarded him 
 mockingly. The newcomer was short, ill- 
 favored, and muscular. His hair was red and 
 coarse, and stood up like a broom from his 
 forehead. His eyebrows and lashes were too 
 pale to be visible. His complexion was muddy, 
 his ears prominent, and his mouth low. 
 
 " Oh, it 's you, is it, Bernard ? I might have 
 known it," said Steele without cordiality. At 
 the same moment he drew the kitten from his 
 neck to his lap, and began to stroke it. He 
 was rather fond of cats, and the kitten knew 
 it. It began to purr loudly. It was a beauti- 
 
TRIXY 5 
 
 ful maltese kitten, clean and well-brushed ; a 
 broad pink ribbon was tied around its gray 
 neck. 
 
 " What 's this ? " demanded Steele, " a class 
 mascot ? Where shall we keep it ? Where 
 did you get it, Bernard ? " 
 
 " Oh," said Bernard, " I — it — I picked it 
 up ; that is, it followed me." 
 
 "Couldn't keep away from you?" sug- 
 gested one of the fellows. 
 
 "Where did it matriculate?" asked an- 
 other. 
 
 " Never you mind," retorted Bernard, with 
 an unpleasant wink. " It will matriculater." 
 
 The kitten was now quite at home with 
 Steele, who began to analyze his classmate's 
 pun with vague apprehension. Olin's hand 
 closed over the little creature protectingly. 
 With a sinuous motion it turned on its back, 
 and daintily began to claw. It exhibited all 
 the graceful and exasperating coquetry of its 
 race. It withdrew, it challenged, it kissed, it 
 purred, it scratched, with that bewildering 
 inconsistency which makes a kitten the most 
 fascinating and inconsequent creature in the 
 animal kingdom. 
 
6 TEIXY 
 
 " What are you going to do with it ? " 
 asked Steele abruptly. 
 
 The students had now formed a circle about 
 him, and the kitten looked confidingly from 
 face to face. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," replied Bernard. " I 
 have n't made up my mind." 
 
 " I understand we 're short of material," 
 observed a man carelessly. " The frogs have 
 struck." 
 
 " What ! " cried Steele. 
 
 Several hands had stretched out to caress 
 the kitten, who, pleased with the hospitality 
 of the lecture-room, was now playing from 
 shoulder to shoulder, like a squirrel from 
 bough to bough. 
 
 " Let me have it." Steele got to his feet. 
 
 " No, you don't ! " replied Bernard. " Whose 
 cat is it, anyhow ? " 
 
 " Not yours ! " said Steele quickly. " Tell 
 me where you got it. I '11 take it back. It 
 must live right around here. It is a lady's 
 pet. Look at the ribbon ! — Let me have it ! " 
 urged Steele, appealing from Bernard to the 
 students. 
 
 These glanced from the happy kitten to 
 
TRIXY 7 
 
 their red-headed classmate doubtfully. Over 
 their faces warring expressions chased. Most 
 of them looked troubled and sorry. 
 
 " Oh, come off, Bernard," said one of the 
 fellows. " Let him have the cat ! " 
 
 The speaker held the kitten towards Steele's 
 outstretched hands ; but Bernard's cold fin- 
 gers, interrupting, closed upon the little 
 shrinking creature. 
 
 " I '11 take care of it," he said sullenly. 
 
 The kitten hesitated a moment, and then 
 looked into the young man's mutinous face, 
 and purred insinuatingly. 
 
 " There ! " cried Steele, dropping to his 
 seat. " It trusts you. Now take it back." 
 
 His clouded face cleared as Bernard turned 
 away. When the kitten was taken from the 
 room, some of the students applauded slightly ; 
 others exchanged significant looks, and were 
 silent. 
 
 The room was now full. The lecturer was 
 already overdue. He appeared suddenly in a 
 fresh, white blouse. He began to talk at once, 
 without any preliminaries, upon the subject 
 of the day. 
 
 It was the first time that the class had met 
 
8 TRIXY 
 
 the professor of physiology in the amphi- 
 theatre, and they were singularly attentive. 
 The subject of the lecture was elementary, and 
 one which text-books have always amply illus- 
 trated. 
 
 Steele listened conscientiously. He had 
 been a high-honor man, and his industrious 
 pencil flew over his note-book. He did not 
 find the topic abstruse, and he was rather dis- 
 appointed at its simplicity. He glanced at 
 some of the nearest students to see if the 
 subject seemed as clear to them. Meanwhile 
 Bernard had returned to the room, and had 
 resumed his seat, which was directly behind 
 Steele. The kitten was gone, and Steele drew 
 a breath of relief. His eyes sought the win- 
 dow, and he noticed that the November sun 
 had clouded. The wind had now risen, and 
 the bare bough knocked on the glass. A pair 
 of white pigeons flew across, and one of them, 
 pausing, dropped to the sill of the window, and 
 seemed to peer for a moment into the room. 
 
 " Look at the dove ! " whispered one of the 
 boys. 
 
 " That 's no dove. That 's a pigeon," 
 sneered Bernard, from behind. 
 
TRIXY 9 
 
 The professor, annoyed by the whispering, 
 paused and shot a reproving glance at the 
 class. The white bird flew away. 
 
 " And now, gentlemen," continued the pro- 
 fessor, "we have reached a point in our stud- 
 ies where experimental illustration becomes a 
 clear necessity. I have endeavored up to this 
 time to impress upon your minds the fun- 
 damental nature of the great discovery with 
 which we deal. I have tried to show you 
 how " — he proceeded to explain learnedly 
 what he had tried to do. " But," he pursued, 
 " in our profession, gentlemen, unsupported 
 theory — I might add, unsupported fact — 
 may confuse the mind of the student more 
 than it enlightens. I have now been lecturing 
 to you for half an hour upon this basic princi- 
 ple, yet probably many of you, possibly most 
 of you, have received but an obscure impres- 
 sion of the beautiful workings of this great 
 law. Gentlemen, am I right ? Is this not so ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir ! " came from various parts of the 
 room. 
 
 Steele looked about him with a touch of 
 intellectual scorn on his parted lips. 
 
 " Why, no, sir," he said respectfully. " If 
 
10 TRIXY 
 
 you will excuse me for saying so, I have 
 found your explanation of the subject remark- 
 ably clear. I think I understand it." 
 
 " I should like to see it demonstrated," in- 
 terpolated Bernard, in a strident voice. 
 
 The professor smiled blandly. He paused, 
 laid aside his notes, and beckoned to his as- 
 sistant. This person left the room, and passed 
 into the adjoining laboratory. The professor 
 examined his instruments and apparatus. He 
 touched them with deft and craving fingers. 
 
 " Ah, gentlemen," he announced with an 
 expression of something like pleasure, " here 
 is our subject." 
 
 The laboratory door opened silently. The 
 returning assistant, who held something be- 
 fore him in his outstretched hands, reached 
 the professor's table before young Steele had 
 seen what the man carried. Half a hundred 
 students caught their breaths. It was their 
 first experience of this sort, and most of them 
 were still soft, kind-hearted lads, fresh from 
 their homes, where dogs sprang down the 
 doorsteps to meet them, and kittens played 
 with skeins of yarn held on mother's or on 
 sisters' hands. 
 
TRIXY 11 
 
 But Steele, unconscious that he did so, got 
 to his feet. His face had blanched. His lips, 
 drawn over his teeth, quivered. A vein in his 
 temple throbbed. 
 
 Before him, on the operating board, strapped 
 down, lay a little downy form. Seeing it in 
 its unnatural position, one's sense of its beauty 
 gave way to a sense of its color and size. The 
 kitten was gray and small. It seemed to 
 Steele's horrified eyes the smallest kitten he 
 had ever seen. By some mistake on the part 
 of the assistant, a ribbon, caught under the 
 body of the annual, hung over the edge of 
 the board. This ribbon was pink. 
 
 "No! No!" gasped Steele. "Not that 
 one ! " 
 
 " Oh, shut up, and sit down ! " growled Ber- 
 nard from behind. 
 
 But Steele did not sit down. He swayed 
 slightly on his feet. A sick faintness surged 
 upon him. Every fibre of his body and soid 
 protested. For the medical student had a soul, 
 and it was young and sensitive. 
 
 The professor, who had been regarding his 
 subject critically, now took up his instruments. 
 Steele stood staring. The kitten swam before 
 
12 TRIXY 
 
 his gaze. It seemed to him to turn its eyes 
 (for it could not turn its head) towards him. 
 He felt that it sought protection of him. He 
 wheeled, and scorched Bernard with a look. 
 The room grew dark about him, and he made 
 for the door. 
 
 " Damn you ! " he said. 
 
 Swaying and groping, he tried the handle. 
 The door was locked. The professor laid 
 down his instruments. In taking up this de- 
 partment with his junior classes he was not 
 without experience in the reflex action of un- 
 sullied natures. He was always considerate 
 of this juvenile weakness which he knew that 
 time and himself would train away. 
 
 " Go for the janitor," he whispered to his 
 assistant. " The boy is ill. Let him out." 
 
 When Steele found himself in the outer 
 air, he sat down on the granite steps of the 
 college. He was still faint and giddy. He was 
 so ashamed of himself for his weakness that 
 he could have cried. He put his face in his 
 hands, and ground his teeth. He fancied 
 himself the jest of every student in the amphi- 
 theatre. This intolerable thought drove the 
 
TKIXY 13 
 
 blood to his head ; and his physical weakness, 
 which otherwise might have lasted longer, fled 
 before his keen emotion. He started to his 
 feet, and stood hesitating. Should he return 
 to the lecture-room ? 
 
 Swiftly there seemed to sweep before him 
 that pretty fluff of maltese down — the broad, 
 pink ribbon — the little gymnast, leaping like 
 a squirrel from shoulder to shoulder — its 
 cuddling touch beneath his ear — its happy 
 and confiding purr ; he thought of its pulsat- 
 ing vitality, its spark of divinity. As swiftly, 
 there smote upon his consciousness a vision 
 of that warm, live, small creature — as it was, 
 now. 
 
 " I can't go back ! " he cried ; then in a 
 different tone, " I won't go back ! " 
 
 He ran down the long gray steps and into 
 the street. This he crossed quickly, but with 
 an aimless movement. His mind was in a 
 whirlpool of indecision. He seemed to be 
 swirling nearer and nearer — to what ? A 
 gulf ? or a rescue ? The familiar blue cars of 
 his suburban street passed him without ap- 
 pealing to his attention. He walked because 
 he must walk, and he walked a long time. It 
 
14 TRIXY 
 
 occurred to him at last that he was headed 
 towards home, and, with a clutch at the heart, 
 he felt that it was the only place where he 
 could go. By this time the pallid sun had 
 been gulped by massing clouds, and a dark 
 storm was imminent. Olin bent his head, and 
 pushed his way into it. The surcharged air, 
 like his surcharged emotion, lashed him on. 
 He felt that no tempest could be fierce 
 enough to flush the imagination that tor- 
 mented him. It seemed to him that he would 
 have offered up his soul if he could have been 
 born without sensitiveness — like that big- 
 eared fellow for instance. He was lacerated, 
 and he must be healed. He pushed on me- 
 chanically. The blue cars passed him. Be- 
 fore he was aware of it, he had reached the 
 group of stately elms at the corner of his 
 father's street. He had tramped six miles. 
 As he turned in at the long avenue, his dog 
 — a fine St. Bernard — leaped upon him with 
 boisterous caresses. He was so absorbed that 
 he did not return them, and the dog, droop- 
 ing, followed him wistfully. 
 
 Olin fitted his latch-key with trembling 
 hand, and went into his father's house. The 
 
TRIXY 15 
 
 dog remained on the porch. Afterwards he 
 remembered that he must have shut the door 
 in Barry's face. 
 
 " Why, my son ! " his mother called from 
 somewhere, " I did n't expect you until night." 
 
 Olin murmured something unintelligibly, 
 tossed off his dripping hat, and went upstairs 
 to his own room. Then he locked the door, 
 and there he remained until night. His mo- 
 ther came up and knocked gently. 
 
 " I am sorry, mother," he pleaded, " I 
 can't see you now. Please let me alone." 
 
 His sister, who was a very modern girl, 
 came and whistled like a boy through the key- 
 hole. 
 
 " Go away, Jess," he said, " don't bother 
 me." 
 
 These were women, and easy to manage. 
 The boy reflected that his father and brother 
 were yet to come home, and that with them 
 he must absolutely reckon. 
 
 At dinner time nothing had been heard 
 from him. His troubled mother, with the pa- 
 thetic patience of her sex, had watched for 
 the light in his windows, but these were still 
 dark. She could contain her anxiety no longer, 
 
16 TEIXY 
 
 and he heard the rustle of her skirts at his 
 door. She knocked timidly. 
 
 "Dear Olin," she said, "let me come in." 
 
 He rose at once and admitted her. The 
 room was dark, except for the glow of the 
 open fire. She saw his wet coat sprawled on 
 a chair before him. He had returned to the 
 lounge on which he had evidently been lying 
 all the afternoon. His bright-colored bath- 
 blanket was drawn over him. 
 
 His mother sat down on the edge of the 
 couch, and took one of his hands in both of 
 hers. 
 
 " You 're feverish," she said. " You have 
 taken cold. What is the matter, Olin? Tell 
 me all about it." 
 
 " Mother ! " cried the young man, sitting 
 up sharply against the pillows of the couch, 
 " I can't go back to that medical school. I 
 never can. I am going into business. I hate 
 them both ! " 
 
 His mother was silent for so long that he 
 repeated his phrase mechanically : " I never 
 can!" 
 
 " I am sure, my son, that you must have a 
 good reason for this unexpected decision," re- 
 
TRIXY 17 
 
 plied Mrs. Steele, with an agitation of which 
 she gave no evidence whatever. She had an 
 unobtrusive, well-bred voice, but it was as 
 monotonous as a metronome. 
 
 " Reason ! " Olin exploded, " I should think 
 I had ! " 
 
 He was about to tell the whole story, when 
 there was a tramping in the hall outside his 
 door. His father and brother came into the 
 room, led by the sister to whom he had denied 
 entrance. With a twist of his fingers, Mr. 
 Steele turned up a light. 
 
 " What 's the matter here ? " he cried. 
 "Are you sick, Olin? I thought this was 
 your night for being in ? " 
 
 "I am not going back, sir," replied Olin 
 manfully. He got to his feet and faced the 
 most formidable obstacle that a young man can 
 meet or conquer — the opposition of his entire 
 family. In a few blazing words he told his story. 
 
 His sister interrupted it now and then with 
 girlish outcries (these were ejaculations rather 
 of incredulity than of sympathy) and his 
 mother visibly winced. But the two men 
 exchanged glances, and it was Olin's elder 
 brother who spoke first : 
 
18 TRIXY 
 
 " I assure you, Oily," he said, " you '11 get 
 over that, very soou. You must have beeu a 
 little out of order. I felt so, once." 
 
 " You felt so once, and you don't feel so 
 any longer," persisted Olin, " and that 's my 
 very point. I don't mean to get where you 
 are. Since you've been teaching biology 
 you 're not the same fellow you used to be, 
 Dick. You can do anything and not turn a 
 hair." 
 
 " I am sure," said the girl, with a hard lift- 
 ing of the eyelids that was quite natural to 
 her, " that it can't be as bad as you think." 
 
 " Oh, do be still, Jess," said Olin testily. 
 
 " You can be squeamish in any business 
 you undertake, you know, Olin," observed his 
 father. Mr. Steele spoke gravely and not un- 
 kindly. " I understand," he proceeded, " that 
 the medical profession is the noblest in the 
 world. I should be disappointed if you aban- 
 doned it. How is it, Dick ? " He turned to 
 his oldest son. " Are these things really as 
 bad as Olin thinks ? I don't remember that 
 you ever mentioned it ? " 
 
 " Science to-day is based upon such ex- 
 periments," replied the young professor of 
 
TRIXY 19 
 
 biology firmly. " Modern medical science is 
 founded upon the rock of comparative physi- 
 ology, and it 's no use Olin's beating his head 
 agrainst it." 
 
 " Are you sure, my dear," asked Mrs. Steele 
 feebly, "that Olin is entirely wrong?" 
 
 The young professor flushed. "I should 
 think I ought to know," he said. 
 
 Richard Steele, senior, stood thoughtfully 
 silent. His commercial importance was envi- 
 able, and his social position was that which 
 his wife, whose family was as influential as 
 his fortune, had brought him. But it must 
 be admitted that he felt himself at a loss in a 
 biological or pathological direction. If it had 
 been Assam Pekoe, or Young Hyson — but 
 bacteria and antisepsis were out of his line. 
 The tea merchant looked from one of his 
 highly educated sons to the other in a per- 
 plexity which he would on no account have 
 acknowledged. When he spoke, he did so 
 slowly and seriously. 
 
 " I have told you what I think, now, Olin. 
 But you are old enough to judge for your- 
 self. Take what time you need to decide 
 this matter to your satisfaction. Isn't dinner 
 
20 TRIXY 
 
 ready, my dear ? " He turned to his wife 
 with a courtly smile. 
 
 Oliu stood at bay before the four people 
 whom he loved best in the world. The two 
 gentlemen and the ladies were in dinner dress. 
 Standing there in his shirt-sleeves, with that 
 ridiculous bathrobe over his shoulders, he felt 
 himself at the distinct disadvantage which 
 external trifles may create. His purpose had 
 not wavered, but the power to express it had 
 weakened. 
 
 " I 've told you how I feel," he said des- 
 perately. Instinctively his eyes sought his 
 mother's. Hers answered him with an inef- 
 fectual sympathy. 
 
 " Don't you want me to send Tibbs up with 
 your dinner ? " she asked affectionately. 
 
 " Thank you, Mummy, dear, I am not dry 
 yet. You see it will take so long to dress." 
 
 The girl had already gone downstairs. 
 The two gentlemen followed. The lad's mo- 
 ther lingered for a moment. She put her 
 arm around his neck, and laid her cheek to 
 his. 
 
 " Was it a very pretty kitty, dear ? " she 
 whispered. 
 
TRIXY 21 
 
 The boy put his head upon her shoulder 
 and began to sob. 
 
 " Oh, mother — it was so small. Oh, 
 mother, mother ! It was damnable ! " 
 
 Now they had all gone away — except 
 Tibbs, who brought up the dinner and set the 
 tray down on the little table by the lounge, 
 as if he were serving a sick person. 
 
 Olin tried to eat, but could not. At every 
 effort some disturbing memory of the morn- 
 ing's experience or the afternoon's emotion 
 prevented his healthy young appetite. He 
 flung himself back upon the lounge, and lay 
 there, face down, in the pillows. He was torn 
 by the first great moral conflict of his life. 
 It seemed to him almost like a living thing, 
 some savage thing that had been endowed 
 with intelligence, but not with mercy. It was 
 to this excited and exhausted lad as if he 
 could feel its claws upon his heart. In the 
 actual sense of the word he writhed beneath it. 
 
 "I won't ! " he cried. " I will not go back 
 to that — I never can. I never will ! " 
 
 While he lay there wrestling with his angels, 
 something tried the closed door. A slight 
 
22 TRIXY 
 
 push, a bumping scratch, and a long whine 
 pleaded for admission. Olin opened the door 
 at once, and the St. Bernard came pant- 
 ing in. 
 
 " Why, Barry," he said, " I 'm glad to see 
 you. I'm afraid I was rather uncivil to you, 
 too, when I came home — out there. . . . 
 How it did storm, Barry ! — And how it 
 storms now ! " 
 
 The dog lifted serious ears towards the 
 window, which shook beneath the malignant 
 rain. 
 
 Downstairs Olin's sister was singing at the 
 piano — some foolish thing. The smoke of 
 his father's cigar and his brother's came up 
 through the closed door. 
 
 " We 've got to have it out alone, Barry," 
 said Olin aloud. " They can't understand, 
 Barry, can they ? " 
 
 Olin put his arms about the big dog, and 
 looked rather piteously into his eyes. Barry 
 kissed his master, but with dignity. In the 
 drawing-room the girl had left the piano, but 
 while Olin sat with his arms about Barry's 
 neck another hand brushed the keys, and 
 the low strains of a fine rendering of Ten- 
 
TRIXY 23 
 
 ny son's great prelude breathed through the 
 house. 
 
 " That 's mother, Barry," said Olin. " Jess 
 never plays anything sacred." 
 
 His mother did not sing ; she was not 
 young enough ; but she played delicately and 
 well. The young man's memory fitted the 
 words to the chords by which, he thought, 
 she seemed to be trying to speak to him. 
 
 " Strong Son of God, immortal Love ! " 
 
 Olin respected the religion of his mother, 
 and he listened, not without reverence. 
 
 " There 's something in it, Barry," he said. 
 " Some time I '11 make up my mind how 
 much. Come, Barry ! Say, Barry, what shall 
 we do ? " 
 
 Barry observed him solemnly. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 If there were one thing more than any other 
 to which Miss Lauriat cultivated a rohust ob- 
 jection, it was colored teas ; and this one was 
 yellow. 
 
 " Orange corset covers on the electric bulbs, 
 and lemon petticoats on the lamps," she 
 thought. " Ochre bonnets on the candles, and 
 corn-satin sashes on the tables ! This is no 
 place for me — I am going." 
 
 She had already sacrificed to this occasion 
 an hour of her impatient young life ; she felt 
 that she had better uses for it. So far, she 
 had seen only the too familiar faces of her so- 
 cial system. The astronomy was old, and it 
 had become wearisome. She sought her hostess 
 to take her leave. A gentleman, evidently 
 bent on the same errand, retreated a step or 
 two, to give her precedence. 
 
 " Wait a minute, Miriam," said the lady, 
 "before you go I must present" — She turned 
 to the hesitating man, and introduced him with 
 
TRIXY 25 
 
 that indifference to the personal cognomen 
 which is characteristic of social elocution. 
 
 The two accepted their fate resignedly. 
 
 "Do you like these colored things, Dr. 
 Reel ? " began Miss Lauriat promptly. 
 
 "Candidly," replied the young man, "I 
 don't think pink teas are the final expression 
 of existence." 
 
 " But this one is yellow." 
 
 " Is it ? " He looked at the decorations with 
 the unseeing gaze of a man whose color-blind- 
 ness is not that of the optic nerve. " I thought 
 they were always pink." 
 
 Miss Lauriat laughed merrily. 
 
 " Is the palette of your life couleur de rose? 
 Fortunate man ! " 
 
 A scarcely perceptible change of expression 
 replied to her. 
 
 " Do you know," she said promptly, " I was 
 just going." 
 
 " So was I," he returned, looking straight 
 at her, " but even a man may change his mind." 
 
 Miss Lauriat was a tall girl, so that her 
 eyes were quite on a level with those of the 
 young man. She answered his look with the 
 amused indifference with which she was accus- 
 
26 TRIXY 
 
 tomed to receive admiration. Her air of dis- 
 tinction was enhanced by her clinging black 
 dress (according to the code, she should have 
 ceased to " mourn " for her father some time 
 ago), through whose sleeves and high yoke of 
 lace her throat and arms gleamed faintly. Her 
 hair was black, but her eyes, though dark, were 
 blue. Her expression was at once earnest and 
 playful. She was a woman of twenty-seven ; but 
 she had kept a certain girlish look of which 
 she herself was unconscious. 
 
 The two talked for a little, as people do at 
 such functions, drifting as they did so leisurely 
 towards the door. Beneath the inevitable per- 
 siflage each discerned a certain seriousness in 
 the other. 
 
 " Now, Dr. Peel," she said at last, " I really 
 must go. I have an important engagement." 
 
 "A blue tea, I suppose, this time?" His 
 eyes mocked while his mouth smiled. 
 
 " They make it in an earthen teapot where 
 I am going, and steep it all day, and drink it 
 out of a bowl — with condensed milk." 
 
 " That seems somehow familiar," said the 
 doctor. " Perhaps we are going to the same 
 place." 
 
TRIXY 27 
 
 "Who are you?" asked the young lady 
 outright, " and what do you do ? " 
 
 "For one thing," replied the physician 
 lightly, "I am a member of the Board of 
 Health. This is my last day in that illustrious 
 position — which I have resigned. I go out 
 of office to-morrow. By the way," he added, 
 with the air of a man who wanted to escape 
 the topic, " I think my father used to know 
 yours." 
 
 " Oh, we 're all in the same set, I suppose," 
 replied the young lady indifferently. She did 
 not ask any questions. He flushed slightly at 
 this obvious omission, bowed, and left her. 
 
 Her carriage was waiting, and she made her 
 way to it as quickly as she could. As she 
 gathered up her short train and stepped in, 
 she hesitated. 
 
 "I'll tell you in a minute, Matthew; I 
 have n't quite made up my mind. How late is 
 it?" She glanced at the carriage clock. "I 
 think there 's time. I must see Dan. How is 
 it about taking the horses down that alley ? 
 Do you think they 're equal to it? " 
 
 " They was snowballed into highsterics 
 last time," replied the coachman cautiously. 
 
28 TRIXY 
 
 " But I don't suppose you 're dressed for 
 walkin', Miss?" 
 
 Miss Lauriat glanced at her thin, long dress, 
 over which she had closely folded her carriage 
 cloak. 
 
 " I 'm afraid I 'm not," she said. " If you 
 think you can manage — No ! Drive home 
 first. I can get ready while you 're turning 
 around. It is not dark yet, you see. We 
 can't have Dan evicted for a few dollars' rent 
 — can we, Matthew ? " 
 
 " You 're the only friend the gossoon 's 
 got," said Matthew, with his forefinger at his 
 hat. He drove rapidly ; Miss Lauriat's house 
 was but two blocks removed, in fact, from the 
 yellow tea ; and within five minutes she was 
 running up her own steps with the girlish 
 energy of her perfect health and absorption 
 in subjects outside of herself. In the vesti- 
 bule the parlor-maid offered information : Mr. 
 Surbridge was in the library — him and Mrs. 
 Jeffries. 
 
 " Don't tell them I 've been in, Maggie," 
 said the young lady hurriedly. " It 's a busi- 
 ness call, and they won't need me till I get 
 back. If they ask — say I 've had to go right 
 
TRIXY 29 
 
 out again, and Auntie will please invite Mr. 
 Surbridge to stay to dinner. I '11 be back in 
 twenty — no, in twenty-five minutes." 
 
 She changed her dress with the deft swift- 
 ness of a young lady who is independent of 
 her maid, — making a pretty transformation 
 from chiffon and lace to broadcloth and furs, 
 — ran downstairs quietly, and Matthew 
 whirled her away. 
 
 It was the middle of March, and still light. 
 One of the heavy snowstorms characteristic 
 of the month — swiftly coming and as swiftly 
 flowing — had exasperated the city with a 
 foot of now grimy slush. Miss Lauriat, with 
 the sense of color Avhich was strong in her, 
 thought of country fields and lawns where 
 the deep blue light, never seen on sea or 
 land, answered to the eye that loved it, and 
 knew when to seek it. It could be found only 
 in late snow-falls, or after sundown. In the 
 east side of the town, whither Matthew was 
 driving, the streets were not cleared, and the 
 horses soon began to put their noses down and 
 drag. The man stopped them at the head of 
 a black alley. Driving the wheels upon the 
 sidewalk, he let the young lady out. Matthew 
 
30 TRIXY 
 
 had the resigned expression of a coachman 
 whose mistress is hopelessly given over to 
 philanthropy. He was quite used to this sort 
 of thing. 
 
 " I shall be gone fifteen minutes/' said the 
 young lady. " Wait for me just here." 
 
 She picked her way more quickly than 
 daintily down the filthy street. (It went by the 
 name of Blind Alley.) She did so with the 
 ease of one who was quite accustomed to it. 
 Here and there she was recognized with the 
 sullen respect or the servile flattery of people 
 who have to be benefited against their wills. 
 She stopped before a large wooden building, 
 recently painted, well-ordered, and conspicuous 
 among its neighbors for a front door that shut, 
 light in the entries, unbroken windows, and fire- 
 escapes. As she put her foot upon the lowest 
 step the door opened, there was a penetrating 
 hospital whiff, and a gentleman followed. 
 
 " You can't come in here," said a deep 
 voice gruffly. " Nobody can. I 'm going to 
 station a policeman at the door to keep every 
 one in — and every one out." 
 
 As the speaker stood with his back against 
 the closed door, he suddenly lifted his hat. 
 
TRIXY 31 
 
 " You ! I beg- your pardon ; I did not re- 
 cognize you." 
 
 " What are you doing in my house, Dr. 
 Beal ? " Miss Lauriat let the words out slowly 
 and haughtily. She ascended the steps, and 
 would have brushed by him. But he faced 
 her with his hand upon the latch. 
 
 " There is a case of diphtheria here. I 'm 
 going to have the card up immediately." 
 
 " I can't believe it ! " cried Miss Lauriat 
 hotly. " I know every family in the building. 
 I keep them very clean. The sanitary condi- 
 tions are excellent. It is impossible. I 've got 
 to see one of my tenants immediately. My 
 agent was going to evict him — Please stand 
 aside, sir. I am going in." 
 
 " The Board of Health has taken posses- 
 sion of your tenement, madam, and I am very 
 sorry, but I must insist." 
 
 " So must I," she retorted. " The house is 
 mine." 
 
 " But the responsibility is mine," he 
 flashed, reddening. " You cannot come in." 
 
 It was now a duel between the citizen and 
 the state, and the girl yielded perforce. 
 
 " I am sorry to have to use my authority," 
 
32 TRIXY 
 
 continued the physician in a different tone. 
 " The laws, you know, are strict ; and life," 
 he hesitated, " is precious." 
 
 " Oh, I suppose you can't help yourself," 
 replied Miss Lauriat, not very graciously. 
 She took a sudden step or two backwards and 
 lifted her face towards the windows, most of 
 which were crowded with weeping women and 
 angry men. 
 
 " You poor people ! " she cried, " I can't 
 help it, and you know I can't. I would if I 
 could. I would do anything. Who is it that 's 
 sick ? Where is Dan Badger ? I must speak 
 with Dan." 
 
 Her upturned throat, showing white 
 through the hurrying twilight, rose from her 
 furs like a carving by Canova set upon velvet. 
 Her impassioned face, fired by the beauty of 
 selflessness and pity, swam before the doc- 
 tor's eyes. It puzzled him as much as it 
 thrilled him. 
 
 A woman's voice, shrill and sobbing, came 
 down from above. " It 's Cady's Molly — 
 Dan 's right behind you, Miss. lie 's lucky. 
 He 's outside. I wish 't we was ! " 
 
 " I won't forget you," Miss Lauriat called 
 
TRIXY 33 
 
 up in her rich, generous voice. " I '11 see the 
 doctors. I '11 send a nurse. I '11 do all I can. 
 Perhaps there is n't anything in it after all. 
 It may not he diphtheria at all ! Perhaps it 's 
 only a sore throat." 
 
 The doctor smiled at this unconscious in- 
 sult to his profession and his office ; but the 
 tenants were comforted. 
 
 " Here I be, Miss," said a plaintive voice 
 behind her. 
 
 " Oh, Dan ! " The young lady turned 
 quickly. An undersized, crippled lad, leaning 
 on one crutch, stood in the muddy snow, 
 watching her like a dog. " So Mr. Smithers 
 was going to turn you out, was he ? Why 
 didn't you pay your rent?" 
 
 " Could n't," said Dan patiently. " Trixy 's 
 been sick with a cough." 
 
 "Where is Trixy now?" 
 
 " Gone to market for supper — acrosst the 
 alley. I 'm a watchin'." 
 
 Still with his back to the door, the doctor 
 silently observed the scene. He was waiting 
 for his assistant to come back with an officer. 
 
 " You can't go back there, Dan," said the 
 lady ruefully. " This gentleman won't let 
 
34 TRIXY 
 
 you. Somebody's sick inside. What will you 
 do?" 
 
 "We'll get in somewheres," said Dan 
 sweetly ; " there 's places. Don't you fret, 
 Miss Laurie." 
 
 " Oh, I can't have that sort of thing," said 
 Miss Lauriat decidedly. " You and Trixy 
 come to the coach house this evening. We '11 
 put you up, somehow." 
 
 The officer arrived at this moment, and the 
 physician gave way, escaping from his uncom- 
 fortable position with evident embarrassment. 
 As Miss Lauriat turned to go back through 
 the darkening alley, he joined her timidly. 
 She noticed that he kept as wide a space be- 
 tween them as the narrow and now freezing" 
 sidewalk permitted. 
 
 " I am really very sorry," he observed with 
 a touch of something like humility which sat 
 awkwardly upon his dogmatic manner, " that 
 I was forced to annoy you so." 
 
 " It does not signify," answered Miss Lau- 
 riat, without cordiality. He did not reply, and 
 they had walked in silence and constraint for 
 some twenty paces, when something whirred 
 through the air, and the young lady stopped 
 
TRIXY 35 
 
 and staggered. A big chunk of half-frozen 
 slush, shot from an angry hand in the quar- 
 antined building, and aimed at the retreating 
 Board of Health, had missed, and hit the 
 girl. A tiny trickle of blood stirred over her 
 soft cheek. 
 
 " Oh, damn them ! " cried the doctor be- 
 tween his ground teeth, — "I beg your par- 
 don ! — Where are you hurt ? " 
 
 " Nowhere, I think," replied Miss Lauriat 
 quickly. " Really, it is nothing — just a 
 scratch. It's only my ear — a little. They 
 did n't mean to. You know they did n't. Oh, 
 how sorry they will be ! " 
 
 She put up her soft handkerchief, and 
 brushed away the warm stain on her face. 
 
 " Get out of this as fast as you can ! " 
 commanded the doctor savagely. He hurried 
 her along. " It 's no place for you, anyhow," 
 he persisted. " Why do you come here ? what 
 do you do it for ? " 
 
 They had now come in sight of the car- 
 riage, where Matthew, in his robes, cape, and 
 cap, sat like an Esquimau in a fur bag. 
 Something in this little touch of ease and 
 luxury caused the doctor to draw his breath 
 
36 TRIXY 
 
 with quick relief. At least she was now quite 
 safe, — and really not hurt ; no, plainly not 
 hurt, as she said. Meant to hurl an ugly 
 blow upon the Board of Health, the missile 
 had cost the lady but a scratch. 
 
 "What do I do it for?" repeated Miss 
 Lauriat, without looking at him. " I doubt if 
 I could make you understand why, Dr. Reel." 
 
 She put her gray-gloved hand upon the 
 open carriage door. His eyes, which were 
 not of a warm tint, scrutinized her in chill 
 perplexity. 
 
 " Pardon me, Miss Lauriat," observed the 
 young man, " since you are not hurt — are 
 you quite sure ? " 
 
 " Perfectly." 
 
 " And you do not need any help, profes- 
 sional or any kind ? And you do not wish me 
 to accompany you home ? — I can ride out- 
 side — I would not expose you to the least 
 risk, of course." 
 
 " It is quite unnecessary, thank you, Dr. 
 Deal." 
 
 " Then allow me to say," protested the 
 young man, " that my name is not Deal. 
 Neither is it Beal, nor was it ever Peel. And 
 
TRIXY 37 
 
 I particularly object to being called Dr. Reel. 
 My name, at your service, is Steele." 
 
 " Thank you, Dr. Steele," repeated Miss 
 Lauriat, laughing heartily. "I will try to 
 remember." 
 
 Laughing too, he bowed and left her. As 
 he turned, standing bareheaded before her, 
 she began at once talking to Matthew. 
 
 " Oh, Matthew, before I forget ! I 've in- 
 vited Dan and Trixy to come and stay till we 
 can find a place for them. You can put 
 them up somehow, in the coach house — 
 can't you? " 
 
 Matthew assented to this astounding pro- 
 position with the puzzled patience of a man 
 whom no sociological caprice could stagger. 
 Miss Miriam was capable of so much worse 
 than this, that Matthew counted himself lucky 
 to escape with entertaining Dan and Trixy 
 for a few days. He remembered the fall 
 when she brought home from the shore an 
 old woman who had never seen the city, or 
 been on a railroad before ; installed her in 
 the big guest room that had (Maggie to wit- 
 ness) the best lace spread ; brought the old 
 lady to the table with the family, and required 
 
38 TRIXY 
 
 the servants to wait on her for a week ; which, 
 it must be admitted, they did with attention 
 and amusement, as if they had been partici- 
 pating in a pretty play. 
 
 It was quite dusk when Miriam got home. 
 She lingered only to give a few orders about 
 the comfort of the crippled lad, and went at 
 once to the library, where her aunt and her 
 lawyer were still deeply engaged. 
 
 Surbridge, at the herald of her first footfall, 
 had risen, and stood awaiting her with that 
 perfect command of expression for which his 
 calling equipped him. Yet one could suppose 
 that he was by nature spontaneous and candid, 
 and that, like most men, he had been modeled 
 by his avocation quite as much as he had 
 moulded it. His warm, dark eyes warred with 
 his firm lip, and his quietness of manner was 
 of the sort which may reveal the presence or 
 conceal the absence of ordered strength. 
 
 At this moment, for example, Miriam knew 
 — she had known him all her life — that he 
 was nagged to exasperation by his professional 
 call upon Mrs. Percy B. Jeffries, who was the 
 fussiest investor, and the most unmanageable 
 client on the young attorney's list. 
 
TRIXY 39 
 
 Miss Lauriat extended her hand with an 
 unconscious expression of condolence. 
 
 "Auntie, I hope you 've cultivated the sweet 
 quality of mercy for Mr. Surbridge ? Between 
 the two of us I should think he would regret 
 that he was ever admitted to the bar. Last time 
 we kept him an hour drawing up a lease that 
 could have been written in five minutes. And 
 now — Has she decided yet how to place 
 that two hundred and fifty dollars, Phil?" 
 
 " It is one thousand," replied Mrs. Jeffries 
 severely, pushing her papers about the library 
 table ; she stirred them as if she were making 
 a pudding. 
 
 " Pardon me," suggested Surbridge gently. 
 " You will lose those X. and R. A. coupons. 
 Allow me " — He secured the X. and R. A.'s 
 (these were wafting towards the fireplace) with 
 a motion that seemed in itself a tribute to the 
 business qualities or the personal quality of 
 his client. He had the deference of manner 
 which, while it may be a stimulant to young 
 women, is a cordial to an old one. 
 
 " One would suppose," complained Mrs. Jef- 
 fries, " that I was ever inconsiderate of Mr. 
 Surbridge ! " 
 
40 TRIXY 
 
 Miriam's eyes waltzed. But those of the 
 young lawyer met hers sedately ; neither the 
 music nor the merriment in him responded. 
 She experienced something like a sense of be- 
 ing rebuked. She thought : " Phil i^ a loyal 
 fellow. Poor Phil!" 
 
 Miriam stood between firelight and gaslight, 
 still in her furs and her small black hat. Her 
 long cloak had fallen from her shoulders. Her 
 color was warm and fine. Her young face 
 and high head, touched with a swift humility 
 which sometimes beatified as much as it beau- 
 tified her, drooped a little, and the flare of 
 the fire revealed, when she turned her soft 
 throat, a small crimson stain below the right 
 ear. 
 
 Surbridge uttered an inarticulate exclama- 
 tion. 
 
 " You 're hurt ! " he added audibly. 
 
 But Mrs. Percy B. Jeffries snapped a rubber 
 strap around her X. and R. A. bonds before 
 she put on her glasses to examine her niece's 
 cheek. 
 
 " It is no more than we can expect," she 
 said without agitation. "I live in constant fear, 
 Philip, of that child's life. Such places — such 
 
TRIXY 41 
 
 people — such risks ! If she 's gone two hours 
 beyond her time, I telephone to the hospitals. 
 I am always conscious that I may find her 
 there in some mangled condition. Turn more 
 to the light, Miriam — so." 
 
 " I 'm not hurt in the least ! " cried Miriam 
 angrily. " I told you so ! " 
 
 " Excuse me," said Surbridge, " you did not 
 tell us anything about it." 
 
 " Well, I will," replied Miriam, in a tired 
 voice. " It 's all the same." 
 
 " Maggie will get the Pond's Extract," de- 
 cidedly said Mrs. Jeffries, with her hand on 
 the bell. 
 
 " Oh, Aunt Cornelia ! " pleaded Miriam 
 rather crossly. " I 'm going right upstairs. 
 I '11 take care of myself. All I want is a drop 
 of water. If you don't let me alone, I won't 
 tell you how it happened. I 'm not hurt in 
 the least. Why don't you believe me, when I 
 say so ? " 
 
 She threw off her furs, and, standing with 
 one hand on the knob of the dark door, be- 
 gan, rather reluctantly, to give the story of 
 the afternoon. Surbridge heard it without a 
 word. But Mrs. Jeffries mused : 
 
42 TRIXY 
 
 " Steele ? Steele ? I wonder which Steeles 
 — the Theodores or the Richards?" 
 
 " This must be one of Richard Steele's sons," 
 suggested Surbridge thoughtfully. "He has 
 two. I know them both. One of them is 
 rather a brilliant fellow — the other is slower. 
 Can you describe the man you met ? " He 
 addressed Miriam with more abruptness than 
 was natural to him. 
 
 " No," replied Miriam, after an almost im- 
 perceptible pause. " I don't know why I can't 
 describe him, but I can't. I think he was 
 rather pale — and tall, and stern. It seems to 
 me his eyes were gray, and cold, and perhaps 
 set a little near together. He said he was a 
 member of the Board of Health." 
 
 " That," answered Philip Surbridge, " is 
 the new professor of physiology at Galen. 
 He has held the assistant chair for a year, 
 and now he takes the place left vacant by the 
 old professor's death. He is considered one 
 of the most brilliant young men who ever 
 came back from Berlin and Vienna." 
 
 The lawyer gathered three more X. and 
 R. A. coupons which Mrs. Jeffries had con- 
 trived to whisk into the waste basket, and filed 
 
TRIXY 43 
 
 them neatly in a small envelope, carefully in- 
 scribed with his client's name. 
 
 " That," he added gravely, " is Olin. It is 
 Olin Steele." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 When Miss Lauriat's carriage stumbled 
 through the freezing slush and staggered 
 away from him, Dr. Steele stood for a moment 
 with his lifted hat in his hand. He could 
 not have told why he did so, and recalling 
 himself with a slight change of color, walked 
 rapidly away. He did not go home, but with 
 the impulse which leads a man to delay im- 
 pending thought or feeling by distraction, 
 turned in the direction of his club. There he 
 dressed and dined. He sat at what was known 
 as the doctors' table, by courtesy and custom 
 relegated to members who represented his 
 profession. The usual crowd was there, and 
 fell into the usual talk ; that evening it was 
 something about the new bacillus. Steele 
 took but little part in it; he was taciturn to 
 a marked degree. When a rising young spe- 
 cialist commented on his silence he retorted : 
 "I don't feel like talking shop to-night," 
 and changed the subject to the art school 
 
TRIXY 45 
 
 that had been opened near the medical build- 
 ing. 
 
 The specialist stared a little ; he retreated 
 before the topic, with which he was unfamiliar; 
 he regarded art somewhat as he did Christi- 
 anity, homeopathy, or psychical research ; one 
 of the inevitable delusions of an uninstructed 
 class of minds. 
 
 Dr. Steele left the club as soon as he had 
 smoked, and went directly home. A storm of 
 wind and sleet had come up, and when he 
 plunged into it from his blue street-car, some 
 gad-fly of association stung into his brain the 
 acute remembrance of another evening, ten 
 years ago, when he had come home in a storm, 
 — it seemed to him a storm which had lasted 
 ever since. 
 
 The tense experience at the amphitheatre, 
 the disturbed scenery, the agitated actors at 
 home, returned to him like the impression of 
 an old play, a good deal set with mock thun- 
 der and mechanical weather. He recalled it 
 with a smile as small and as sharp as a scal- 
 pel. A something between disdain and incre- 
 dulity cut into his face. He thought of that 
 young being, afire with aspiration, molten 
 
46 TRIXY 
 
 with sympathy, to whom his profession was a 
 veiled god, and its worship a beautiful cult — 
 that rather noble, altogether pitiable boy. 
 
 " Poor fellow! " he said ; as one says it of a 
 cripple or any defective who is worsted in the 
 scheme of things. And yet so unmanageable 
 are the immaterial laws, he had this perfectly 
 unreasonable and unwelcome idea about the 
 storm, as if, as we say, the tempest that had 
 set in that night, ten years ago, had never 
 been laid. 
 
 To family preference, to professional in- 
 fluence, to the accepted view of things, he had 
 succumbed. The powers and principalities of 
 the reigning science had arrayed themselves 
 against the student's passionate protest, — 
 and what was the outcry of one lad ? He had 
 "no language but the cry; " and that had been 
 stifled almost in the utterance. From the hour 
 when he had said, " Yes, Father, I will go 
 back," he had never lifted his young voice 
 asrain. Yet in brain and heart the winds had 
 gone warring on. In every cavern of his being 
 turmoil had raved. For now a comfortable 
 time, as a man estimates time and comfort, he 
 believed himself to have escaped the whirl- 
 
TRIXY 47 
 
 wind. Was there an undertow in the air, as 
 in the sea? What was this suction which 
 dragged him back? 
 
 In the course of Olin Steele's career he had 
 experienced not a few things which it was 
 more agreeable to forget than to remember. 
 
 One of these was his flight from the lecture- 
 room to his father's home — he reeling under 
 the first great shock, and hitting out blindly 
 anyhow in the first great moral battle of his 
 life. 
 
 "Then," he said aloud, as he splashed 
 through the stiffened snow of his own avenue, 
 " why, then I was a sensitive and devout boy ! " 
 
 He spoke as if that boy had died. Besides 
 that lad, his father too was gone — which of 
 them had met the kinder fate ? Fate hits one 
 man by way of a faulty mitral valve, and an- 
 other through an enfeebled aspiration. Heart 
 failure counts its thousand victims, but con- 
 science failure its tens of thousands. 
 
 Olin had returned from Germany to a 
 changed and colorless home. Since the day 
 when her dead husband was brought to her 
 from the Chamber of Commerce, where he 
 had fallen in the middle of a speech on reci- 
 
48 TRIXY 
 
 procity, Mrs. Steele had lapsed into an uncom- 
 plaining and incurable invalidism. Her mind, 
 always more gentle than strong, had partaken 
 to some extent of her bodily weakness. She 
 had become a sweet dependant, to be spared 
 everything. It was a long time since Olin had 
 shared anything with her. His sister had left 
 home some years ago ; it was his forever unut- 
 tered conviction that the girl married to avoid 
 the care of her invalid mother ; it was difficult 
 to postulate Jess as in love, under any social 
 syllogism ; it amused him that she had mar- 
 ried a retired Arctic explorer. His elder bro- 
 ther was still a member of the household. But 
 Dick was considering a call to the presidency 
 of a technical institution in California. The 
 house, now silent and dull, would grow, as 
 Olin reflected when he had time to think of 
 it, stiller and duller ; yet he found it difficult 
 to cultivate any acute emotion at the prospect 
 of Dick's leaving him ; it did not seem to 
 matter profoundly. What did ? 
 
 Barry did not come out into the snow to 
 meet his master that March night ; for Barry 
 had the reserve of age and rheumatism. But 
 the old dog was waiting in the vestibule. Old 
 
 <L 
 
TRIXY 49 
 
 dogs, like old men, acquire a patience unnat- 
 ural to the species, and Barry, probably be- 
 cause lie had suffered some physical pain and 
 learned how to bear it, had a pathetic gentle- 
 ness and reluctance to give trouble. He got 
 up stiffly, and tried to embrace his master, but 
 failing in the power to do so, lapped the bare 
 hand from which Dr. Steele had removed the 
 glove. It was the right hand. Barry sniffed 
 at it critically, seemed to examine it from some 
 point of view not in his power to elucidate, 
 and turned thoughtfully away. 
 
 Olin went up at once to his mother's room, 
 kissed her, and talked a little, kindly, as he 
 always did. 
 
 " All right, Mummy dear ? " he said, as he 
 used to say when he was a boy. But these 
 filial duties were soon fulfilled, and he went 
 down to his own room. 
 
 He found Barry there upon the tiger skin 
 before the fire. The grate was bright, and the 
 light in the room was soothing and soft. Olin 
 got into his smoking-jacket and flung himself 
 upon his lounge. After a while he rose and 
 turned the key in the door. 
 
 " I may as well have it settled," he thought, 
 
50 TR1XY 
 
 " once for all." He did not smoke again, but 
 lay staring at the fire. " Inexplicable, these 
 phenomena," he mused. " As if I had n't 
 known women enough ! Why one specimen 
 should so differentiate — It 's inconvenient, 
 look at it anyhow." 
 
 Olin Steele was proceeding to apply the sci- 
 entific method to the state of mental ferment 
 in which he unexpectedly found himself, when 
 he was annoyed by a knock upon his door. 
 
 "Well — what is it, Tibbs?" 
 
 " It 's Dr. Bernard, sir. He wants to know 
 if he can come up." 
 
 " No, he can't — that is — yes, he can," re- 
 plied Olin. " I suppose he must. Show him 
 up, Tibbs." 
 
 After all, Olin was not sorry to have his 
 reverie interrupted. It was beginning to be a 
 little too muscular for a reverie, and his second 
 thought welcomed a talk with his assistant. 
 
 There was a time in the plastic period when 
 he did not like Bernard, but now that expert 
 young man, by the imperious process of strat- 
 ification, had become a necessary part of Dr. 
 Steele's official life. Bernard, too, looked older. 
 Ten years had fulfilled the threat of his phy- 
 
TRIXY 51 
 
 siognomy. It was red clay then ; it was brick 
 now. His face was coarser than Steele's, as it 
 always had been, and — as it always had 
 been — brutal. He had the eyes of an in- 
 quisitor, lowering and shifty. To an ordinary 
 citizen his was a face to be dreaded. It was 
 the type that was common in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury. It was broad, flat, and surmounted by a 
 rebellious, fiery mane. But, if his face would 
 inspire dread, his hands gave the layman a 
 nameless apprehension. These were stocky as 
 a blacksmith's and yet the fingers were long 
 and sinuous. The backs of the hands were all 
 muscle, and the palms all grip. These extraor- 
 dinary hands betrayed enormous power, and 
 suggested an ability to clutch and hold. They 
 looked like a marvelously developed vise. 
 
 Dr. Steele rose to meet his visitor. They 
 did not shake hands. As they stood opposite 
 to each other, a close observer who had known 
 them ten years ago would have noticed that 
 a curious, indefinable likeness existed between 
 the two. Bernard had developed into what he 
 was foreordained to be, while Steele had be- 
 come fitted to a mould that was made for 
 another soul. 
 
52 TRIXY 
 
 "Well, Bernard, what 's up now?" Steele 
 asked, with the genial air of a superior. 
 " Barry ! Keep still, sir. Go back and lie 
 down." 
 
 For Barry had limped up and stood midway 
 of the room, growling. The dog obeyed his 
 master, but sullenly, and returned to the tiger 
 skin. From this vantage he scrutinized the 
 visitor with marked disapproval. 
 
 " Frogs ! " said Bernard shortly. " Let 's 
 have a cigar." 
 
 " Anybody else would have waited until it 
 was offered to him," thought Steele as he prof- 
 fered the Havana. Bernard accepted it with- 
 out remark. After a few luxurious puffs he 
 observed : 
 
 " We 're short of them again. A student 
 must have hooked a lot." 
 
 "I have my doubts about this private ex- 
 perimentation," said Steele. 
 
 " Yes, it 's awkward to run out so," ad- 
 mitted the instructor. " You see the frog-man 
 fails to appreciate his opportunity to serve 
 science. He had an order for ten thousand, 
 you remember, from the medical schools of 
 this region. He writes that he never has been 
 
TRIXY 53 
 
 able to fill it, and now the darn things are all 
 frozen up. What are the boys going to do ? 
 We need fifty on nerve experiments right 
 away." 
 
 " Oh, well," said Steele wearily, " it 's always 
 something. One can fall back on guinea pigs 
 or rabbits." 
 
 He made a visible effort to change the sub- 
 ject, but Bernard did not quickly perceive 
 this ; he did so after a while, and rose to go. 
 With his hand on the door he turned his ill- 
 favored smile : 
 
 " Say, Professor," he began, showing his 
 teeth, " do you remember that " — 
 
 " Oh, drop that ! " cried Steele. 
 
 The young men parted without further cere- 
 mony, and Olin started to lock his door again. 
 But Barry stood in the way. The dog pushed 
 out and stiffly followed the departing guest. 
 Suddenly Barry's growl grew into a roar. Ber- 
 nard raised his powerful hand. 
 
 " Be still, both of you ! " cried Steele, greatly 
 annoyed. " Barry, that 's my guest ; Bernard, 
 that 's my dog." 
 
 " Your dog ! " repeated Bernard, as Barry 
 slunk away. 
 
54 TRIXY 
 
 Steele locked his door again, — this time in 
 o-ood earnest. The interruption had disturbed 
 him. He felt as if he could have locked out 
 his life; but it came in through the barred 
 door as apparitions are said to come in haunted 
 homes. He flung his hands behind him, fin- 
 gers shut together, and paced the room. Ques- 
 tions, like arrows, each sharper than the last, 
 shot him through. 
 
 How came he where he was ? How came he 
 what he was ? Is the fate of the soul a matter 
 of choice? If so, what dark election had he 
 made of his ? For ten years he had carved the 
 living animal in the interests of physiology; 
 he was accustomed to say to ladies and clergy- 
 men that he pursued scientific research for the 
 sake of suffering humanity. The tissue, the 
 muscle, the nerve, the vital spark, tortured to 
 a flicker, and resuscitated to a spasm — these 
 had darkened the divine in him, and illumined 
 the material. One of the problems that had 
 been given him was to locate the brain-cells 
 wherein dwelt the sense of maternal affection 
 in the higher animals, and to see whether 
 the mother's instinct could be destroyed or 
 not. This interesting series of experiments in 
 
TRIXY 55 
 
 Berlin led the young doctor, who, as we 
 have said, was not without imagination, to 
 extend the investigation, and he spent two 
 months in trying to demonstrate the source of 
 love. Half a hundred living brains he opened. 
 Half a hundred dogs looked up into his face 
 pathetically questioning what darkened their 
 irritated thoughts. But love was too evasive. 
 It was not to be cut out by a scalpel or 
 grasped by pincers ; and Dr. Steele therefore 
 read a paper, learnedly contending that love 
 was only a Greek hypothesis, a psychic dis- 
 ease, the dream of the past, the illusion of the 
 present, and did not exist. For this invaluable 
 contribution to science he received his degree 
 of Doctor of Philosophy. 
 
 It occurred to Steele, as if he had origi- 
 nated the metaphor, that life is a long stair- 
 way. Where upon it did he stand ? And which 
 way was he turned? It was of no use to try 
 to bewilder himself. He had begun at the top 
 of the broad white marble flight, and the de- 
 scent had been easy, imperceptible ; and as he 
 descended, the stone changed from carrara to 
 sienna. Was the bottom still below, or had he 
 reached it? 
 
56 TRIXY 
 
 Abruptly he stopped pacing the room, and 
 dropped into the easy-chair. His fingers, where 
 he had clenched them, were purple from the 
 knuckles to the tips. The circulation returned 
 slowly ; with it flowed a series o£ reminiscences. 
 He could no more repel them than he could 
 stop at will the current in his aorta. 
 
 He had witnessed many sad sights in the 
 course of his professional life, but the saddest 
 sight he had ever seen was the expression of 
 the dogs as they were brought to the labora- 
 tory from the cellar for sacrifice. 
 
 One of these stood out apart from the rest. 
 Dr. Steele was working out the last of a series 
 of experiments performed by him in Vienna ; 
 this was the brilliant achievement that had 
 given him his professorship. The experiments 
 concerned themselves with the ligation of coro- 
 nary arteries. The series was made on twenty- 
 eight dogs. This one, whose ghost pursued him 
 now, was a beautif id greyhound. He had given 
 it a little morphia. He had carved about its 
 heart for one hundred minutes. 
 
 He thought of this without self-accusation. 
 It was scarcely in justification of the deed 
 that he said, half aloud, " But my results 
 
TKIXY 57 
 
 were opposed to the conclusions of Goltz and 
 Magendie — and here I am." 
 
 His thoughts reverted swiftly to that essay 
 of his on the seat of the affections. His mind 
 was vibrant and clear ; it swung like a pen- 
 dulum between the laboratory and love. 
 
 " I have demonstrated," he thought coldly, 
 " that there is no such thing. If I am going 
 on like this, I might as well surrender my 
 Ph. D." 
 
 Now, abruptly, the red scenery of the sci- 
 entific shambles shifted before him. In its 
 stead a gentle stage gave up a woman's 
 figure — stirring as he looked. She moved in 
 a glimmering, yellow light. Her distinction of 
 form and manner, her filmy black robe, her 
 delicately mocking smile, blurred before him 
 and blended with a setting; of snow and blue 
 twilight. Against this she stood, fair and in- 
 dignant as a priestess disturbed at some altar 
 whose worship was inexplicable to himself — 
 her cheeks aflame, her lifted head expressing 
 against her dark fur the turn of her throat, 
 her whole beautiful being on fire with a divine 
 self-oblivion, — she, pity personified, mercy 
 made magic. 
 
58 TRIXY 
 
 Oh, well, — admit it ! — magic. 
 
 " The world is compact of illusions," thought 
 Olin Steele. " Life is a hallucination. And so 
 is love. I am at present confused by a lantern 
 slide. Will it dissolve or hold ? " 
 
 But now his thoughts passed through the 
 haze, and he began to analyze his sensations 
 just as he would differentiate lines in a spec- 
 troscope. For an element as new, as startling 
 as radium had suddenly entered his life. Ig- 
 nore it he could not ; welcome it he did not. 
 
 What was he that he should absorb this won- 
 drous thing ? At one moment coldly critical 
 of himself, at the next maddened by his con- 
 sciousness of her, he paced the room blindly. 
 He had known many women, as he said : the 
 frivolous, the weak, the severe, the patrician, 
 the subject. Beyond the moment few of these 
 had touched him ; none had inspired. He 
 had always been sufficient to himself, and 
 he had a certain pride in the fact that kept 
 him apart from experiences which deflect a 
 man from his capacity for the noblest feeling. 
 
 On a little hanging shelf across the room 
 were a few books that he had collected when 
 he was a boy — Byron, Moore, and Shake- 
 
TRIXY 59 
 
 speare, and the modern classics. It was years 
 since he had handled any of them. Moved 
 by some impulse that he did not understand, 
 and but half respected, he went over to the 
 bookcase, and with an embarrassed air took 
 down the third volume of the dark blue set 
 of Tennyson that his mother had given him 
 in his sophomore year. 
 
 " Seems to me they 've said a good deal 
 on the subject — these makers of verse," he 
 thought. But he could not have told what or 
 where. 
 
 Quite by accident he opened the book at 
 the prelude to " In Memoriam," and per- 
 plexedly read aloud : 
 
 "Strong Son of God, immortal Love, 
 
 Whom we, that have not seen thy face, 
 By faith, and faith alone, emhrace, 
 Believing where we cannot prove." 
 
 He closed the book, and turned away with 
 a gesture such as a man makes when he 
 stands midway between incredulity and con- 
 viction. 
 
 " It strikes me," he thought, " that I am 
 reversing the process. I am in danger of 
 proving what I do not believe." With a 
 
60 TRIXY 
 
 sudden change of manner, he repeated sol- 
 emnly : 
 
 "'Strong Son of God ! ' — Why, that's 
 what Mother used to sing ! 
 
 "Immortal love," he reiterated. All the 
 militant forces of his training contended with 
 the phrase. He did not believe in immortality. 
 He did not believe in love. 
 
 On the other hand, there was the girl. 
 
 He had not known her a day, but she had 
 invaded his nature. He had not exchanged 
 two hundred words with her, but she had 
 undermined his creed. He saw her — he saw 
 her and could not help it. He was enchanted 
 by her ; he knew it ; and the knowledge 
 wrought in him a bitter contempt for his 
 own weakness. But what could he do? 
 
 He had been told in romance and song — 
 in the clays when they told him anything at 
 all — of a mysterious and beautiful force. It 
 seized the soul and body ; it bewildered the 
 reason ; it transformed the character ; it trans- 
 figured life ; it irradiated death ; it promised 
 immortality. This miracle was love at the first 
 sight of the beloved. 
 
 At this, as at other miracles, he had sneered 
 
TRIXY 61 
 
 for years. Now what was he doing- ? Wor- 
 shiping ? He ? His stern lips yielded, his 
 hands relaxed, his face fell upon them. 
 
 " I shall love her," he said. " I shall love 
 her ! " 
 
 Then he lifted his head, and his fingers 
 locked again. " She is a woman. I am a man. 
 Since I determine, she shall conform." 
 
 More gently then, he spoke aloud : 
 
 " I will win her — anyhow. What the price 
 is, who can say ? " 
 
 It occurred to him suddenly that he was 
 thinking in a quotation — he who had read 
 no poetry for a dozen years. He could not 
 even have told who said it. How had he hap- 
 pened to slip into clouds and ether ? As well 
 be a woman — a Diana — and blunder head- 
 long; into fate. 
 
 " I will win her," he repeated, " so help me 
 God." 
 
 How was a physiologist who in one day had 
 begun with poetry, fallen upon love, and ended 
 with God, to reckon with himself? 
 
 The young professor perceived that the 
 time would come when he must do so. But 
 he did not care. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 " Here, you gossoon, how the devil can I 
 groom that horse with Trixy on her back ? " 
 
 Matthew stepped into the box-stall, while 
 Dan held up his finger with that admonitory 
 gesture which is better obeyed than a whip 
 by an intelligent dog. But the chestnut mare 
 turned her head, neighing gently at a little 
 white poodle who sat like a statuette upon 
 her shoulders. 
 
 " They like each other," said Dan. " Trixy 's 
 saying good-by. We 're going right away." 
 
 " Are ye out o' quirintine ? " asked Mat- 
 thew. 
 
 " There wan't no quirintine," replied Dan. 
 " Them city doctors don't know much. 
 Cady's Molly, — she 's all right. 'T wan't no 
 kind of dipfever, nohow. Come along, 
 Trixy." 
 
 Trixy confidingly walked the length of the 
 chestnut mare's spinal column, and flew like 
 an acrobat to Dan's crooked shoulder. 
 
TRIXY 63 
 
 " I suppose," Dan added, casting a regret- 
 ful look around the warm, exquisitely clean 
 stable, " we must go up and see Her. She 's 
 sent fur us." 
 
 " You 're in luck, gossoon," said Matthew 
 gravely ; " there 's them I know would give 
 their Derby hats to say as much, or do it, 
 either." 
 
 " They ain't crooked, be they ? " asked Dan 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 " No," said Matthew promptly. " They 're 
 straight — and pretty tall, as a general thing. 
 There 's quite a number of 'em." 
 
 "I reckon that 's so," retorted Dan proudly. 
 
 The boy and the poodle made their way 
 quietly up the padded stairs to the library 
 (Trixy was as silent as Dan) where Miriam and 
 her aunt, having never been able to agree 
 upon the same morning paper, sat reading two 
 rival sheets. 
 
 Dan stood, cap in hand. His eyes sought 
 Miss Lauriat's with more of the absolute canine 
 than looked from Trixy's when she glanced at 
 him. For Trixy was something of an elf, and 
 loved moodily, and at times, the lad thought, 
 mockingly. She had feminine caprices, and 
 
64 TRIXY 
 
 little pets and pouts. Dan was not always sure 
 of her ; hence he adored her. 
 
 For instance, at this moment Trixy hesitated 
 a little whether to salute her hostess, then 
 unexpectedly walked over to Mrs. Percy B. 
 Jeffries, and solemnly sat up before her. 
 
 " Shake hands like a lady," said Dan, in an 
 undertone. 
 
 " You mean paws," corrected Aunt Cornelia. 
 
 "No, I don't, marm," persisted Dan. 
 " Trixy don't know she 's got paws." 
 
 " Now that," complained Mrs. Jeffries, " is 
 just an illustration of what I was saying, 
 Miriam, when the boy came in. You can't 
 make the higher races out of the lower races. 
 I maintain that the Creator knew what He 
 was about. When He made paws, He did n't 
 mean hands." 
 
 " Oh, Auntie, don't be so literal ! " said 
 Miriam, laughing. " Shake hands with Trixy, 
 and defer the argument." 
 
 " But I can't see," urged Mrs. Jeffries, " how 
 such a high class of physicians — men of posi- 
 tion, I 'm sure, Miriam — Galen men, too — 
 how they could make a mistake. I always 
 thought " — 
 
TRIXY 65 
 
 " Don't think, Auntie dear. I never do. 
 Cady's Molly had a simple case of pharyn- 
 gitis." 
 
 " That sounds bad enough ! " Mrs. Jeffries 
 dropped the dog's paw quickly. " I am sure 
 I should have quarantined it. How do you 
 know we have n't got it — all of us?" 
 
 Miriam's eyes laughed. 
 
 " Oh, Auntie dear ! Don't you see ? A sore 
 throat unadorned is adorned the most." 
 
 The crippled boy stood looking from one 
 lady to the other ; his silent face made the 
 comments that ignorance and obscurity pass 
 upon intelligence and position — that steady, 
 ominous undertone of criticism to which we 
 seldom pay attention. 
 
 " Noav, Dan," said Miriam, turning brightly 
 to the boy, " we 've enjoyed your visit very 
 much. You 've made no sort of trouble. And 
 everybody in the house loves Trixy. Mr. Sur- 
 bridge thinks she is the most remarkable dog 
 he ever knew. When do you give your next 
 entertainment — I mean your next important 
 entertainment ? " 
 
 "Four weeks come next Chuesday" — Dan 
 blushed with gratification — "at half -past 
 
66 TRIXY 
 
 seven sharp. No postpayment on account of 
 no weather." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I see. And where ? " 
 
 " At the Grand Mooses' Retreat, Miss Lau- 
 rie." Dan raised his bent shoulders. 
 
 "In Heaven's name, who are the Grand 
 Gooses ? " demanded Mrs. Jeffries, pushing 
 Trixy off her lap. Trixy, with a hurt expres- 
 sion, ran to Miriam, who cuddled her heartily. 
 
 " I said Mooses," replied Dan with dignity. 
 
 "Mooses, then," said Aunt Cornelia, 
 "though I can't see what possible difference 
 it can make." 
 
 " Mebbe you would if you was us, marm," 
 replied Dan, without smiling. 
 
 " Oh, I dare say I should," admitted Aunt 
 Cornelia more kindly. 
 
 "Hain't you never heard of the Grand 
 Mooses?" asked Dan in a tone of gentle pat- 
 ronage, not unmixed with pity. " That 's our 
 Lodge. I 'm a charter member. None of us 
 don't drink. But they pay tickets to see Trixy. 
 It costs ten cents to get in." 
 
 " Who gets the money?" asked Aunt Cor- 
 nelia severely. 
 
 " Why, I do," said Dan slowly. " You see 
 
TRIXY 67 
 
 I 'm crooked — and lame — and I ain't very 
 strong. I can't do a great many things for a 
 living. That 's the way me and Trixy make 
 ours." 
 
 " I '11 take ten tickets," said Miss Lauriat 
 quickly. 
 
 " I '11 take five myself," observed Mrs. Jef- 
 fries. 
 
 " I 'd rather shove ye in dead-heads," said 
 Dan pathetically, " an' have ye come." 
 
 " No," said Miriam, " we '11 take the tick- 
 ets, and come too. We '11 bring a party, 
 Dan." 
 
 " You 're in for it now, Miriam," groaned 
 her Aunt Cornelia, when the boy and the dog 
 had left the library. 
 
 " I hope so, Auntie dear," replied Miriam, 
 with that exasperating cheerfulness which is 
 one of the fine arts of domestic life. 
 
 " I suppose you know this is the morn- 
 ing for your pastel lesson ? " continued Mrs. 
 Jeffries plaintively. " Now that, my dear, is 
 quite clearly a proper occupation for a young 
 lady — sheltered and aesthetic. Your mother 
 would have felt just as I do about all this 
 philanthropic fad." 
 
68 TRIXY 
 
 " My father would n't ! " flashed Miriam. 
 
 " You never appreciated your mother," re- 
 torted Mrs. Jeffries. 
 
 Miriam started to return irreverently : 
 " She never gave me a chance ; " for her 
 mother had died when the child was three 
 years old. In fact, she said no such thing. 
 Yet she was so constructed that she felt as if 
 she had, and repented accordingly. 
 
 She went out of the room dry-eyed, for she 
 was not a crying woman ; but once alone, the 
 tears smarted to her lashes. She and Aunt 
 Cornelia had never " got on " together. Mir- 
 iam, who knew that this was partly her fault, 
 sometimes blamed herself for it, dispropor- 
 tionately. She dreaded becoming of those 
 people who are happy with their inferiors, but 
 not with their relatives. 
 
 She was about going back with a sweet 
 magnanimity quite natural to her, to say, 
 " Forgive me, Auntie," when a maltese kit- 
 ten that had been hiding somewhere from 
 Trixy scudded across the hall, and into the 
 library — immediately running back, however, 
 to Miriam, who received it with a dutiful air, 
 plainly lacking in enthusiasm. 
 
TRIXY 69 
 
 " You don't love cats. I don't see why you 
 don't get a dog, Miriam," said Mrs. Jeffries, 
 folding her newspaper with a neat and irritat- 
 ing motion. The penitent words fainted on 
 Miriam's lips. Her face stiffened instantly, and 
 became cast into an expression that no one in 
 the world, least of all her mother's sister, 
 knew her well enough to have understood. 
 She dropped the kitten from her arm, and 
 turned away without a word. 
 
 The Grand Mooses' Retreat was opened 
 and lighted. The kerosene lamps were smok- 
 ing placidly. The men of the audience were 
 not, and seemed to miss their accustomed 
 privilege ; but the word had gone around that 
 swells were coming — and real ladies — to 
 Dan's show. 
 
 Most of the spectators were Miss Lauriat's 
 friends. These were of two kinds : the party 
 she brought with her, and the people to whom 
 she brought it. Her tenants were there in 
 large numbers ; Cady's Molly, in a red dress, 
 pink hair-ribbon, and purple tam-o'-shanter, 
 being conspicuous among them. 
 
 Molly had become somewhat of a heroine 
 
70 TRIXY 
 
 since the incident of the quarantine, and Dan, 
 who cherished a camaraderie for her, had 
 provided her with a prominent place. A 
 big, boisterous mason, who was now known 
 to history by the ambiguous title of Cady's 
 Molly's father, sat beside her. 
 
 The front seats were reserved for Miss 
 Lauriat and her invited guests. Among them 
 Dan claimed a personal acquaintance only 
 with Mrs. Jeffries, Mr. Surbridge, Matthew, 
 and Maggie. The lad was not on speaking 
 terms with Professor Steele, who came in 
 late, and sat by the door, but Dan identified 
 him at once as the "dipfever" doctor. At 
 sight of Dr. Steele, Cady's Molly's father 
 swelled proudly, and remarked audibly to 
 Molly : 
 
 " We fired him, Molly — did n't we ? " 
 
 But the doctor, quite unconscious of his 
 personal unpopularity, changed his seat for 
 one where he could watch Miss Lauriat's warm 
 and beautiful profile. 
 
 The stage was small and murky. It con- 
 tained a table, two chairs, a clothes-horse with 
 a narrow, light board resting upon it, and a 
 waste-paper basket without a bottom ; several 
 
TRIXY 71 
 
 rubber balls, a squeak-chicken, a feather dus- 
 ter, and a little costume. 
 
 Dan and Trixy appeared quietly upon the 
 platform. The boy limped slowly, holding 
 Trixy 's right paw with great gallantry, and 
 both bowed to the audience at the same mo- 
 ment, and with solemnity. 
 
 The crippled lad was undersized and pale. 
 He could not have been over sixteen, and he 
 looked less or more according to the light 
 that was rude to his drawn features, or the 
 shadow that was kind to them. Though he was 
 not strictly a hunch-back, his shoulders were 
 bent, and one leg was so much shorter than 
 the other that he had to walk with a crutch. 
 
 His manner was gentle, and so was his face. 
 He had that refinement which suffering only 
 confers, and that air of cheerfulness and good 
 humor which sometimes springs from a des- 
 perate lot bravely borne. Dan was of the un- 
 complaining type that would have made him 
 a favorite in any society. At the applause 
 which greeted his appearance, he smiled down 
 at his goddess on the front settee. Miss Lau- 
 riat radiantly smiled back. She was as pleased 
 as he. 
 
72 TRIXY 
 
 Trixy was a French poodle, white and fine. 
 More strictly, one might classify her as a 
 Spanish poodle ; but she was of the variety 
 well known in France, where she would be 
 called a lou lou. Although Dan had found 
 the puppy freezing in an ash barrel, she was 
 of high descent. Her hair was tightly curled ; 
 her nose was black. Her black eyes blazed 
 from her white face with a startling intelli- 
 gence that, though other, was never less, and 
 often more than human. She was sinuous, 
 coquettish, cuddling ; then defiant and digni- 
 fied. She was born to be loved ; but she was 
 born to be admired. She could never be long 
 happy off the stage. Indeed, she would have 
 played to empty benches rather than not to 
 play at all. Her ears lifted at the applause 
 which greeted her. She critically measured 
 her audience ; then she curtsied to her master, 
 and, still standing on her hind feet, awaited 
 his orders. 
 
 Many of Trixy's performances were ele- 
 mentary ; but some were worthy of a larger 
 stage. Trixy was better educated than her 
 master, and experienced the disadvantage of 
 the more alert intelligence leashed into a sub- 
 
TRIXY 73 
 
 ject condition. She tripped with enthusiasm 
 through her little repertoire. She was a dead 
 dog ; she rolled over ; she said her prayers ; 
 she played leap-frog ; she teetered on a board 
 across the clothes-horse ; she was blindfolded 
 and found the squeak-chicken in Mr. Sur- 
 bridge's coat pocket. She dove through the 
 waste-paper basket like a ballet dancer through 
 a paper hoop. She did a dozen clever things 
 with the rubber balls ; she turned a back 
 somersault on her master's hand ; she took the 
 feather duster in her arms, walked jauntily 
 down the aisle, and deposited it in Mrs. Percy 
 B. Jeffries's horrified lap. Perceiving that 
 lady's discomfiture, Trixy proceeded by way 
 of consolation to dust her off. 
 
 After this episode, which was received by 
 the audience with marked applause, Dan 
 dressed Trixy up in a little white tulle-covered 
 dress, with a shirt waist and hat. 
 
 " Now, ladies and gentlemen," said Dan, 
 " you will be treated to the only performance 
 of the kind in the world. This alone is worth 
 your money. Miss Trixy is the only trained 
 dog in the United States who can sing soprano 
 to a gent's tenor." 
 
74 TRIXY 
 
 Trixy stood on the table in her fluffy dress, 
 one paw lightly resting on Dan's shoulder. 
 Her eyes sought his eagerly for orders, but 
 they began to have their elfish expression, 
 and Dan felt a little uneasy. He never was 
 sure of her — never, and he hurried the per- 
 formance along. 
 
 The lad now began to sing. He had a 
 sweet voice, untaught and immature, and 
 sang not without real effect, something in 
 this manner : 
 
 In kind or cruel weather, 
 We have traveled on together ; 
 She and I. 
 
 Whate'er the skies above her, 
 She 's my lady, and I love her. 
 Who knows why ? 
 
 She 's my lady, 
 And I '11 love her 
 Till I die. 
 
 As Dan sang this ditty to a pretty tune, 
 Trixy, with a sentimental manner, lifted up 
 her voice and joined in the strain, singing 
 from beginning to end. There was a curious 
 concord between the voices of the boy and 
 the dog. It was that of love rather than that 
 
TRIXY 75 
 
 of music ; one hardly knew whether to laugh 
 or to cry. 
 
 After this Dan put Trixy through a little 
 skirt dance, which he prefaced in the follow- 
 ing: manner : 
 
 "Ladies and gentlemen, you've all heard 
 of Adeline Patty. It costs a thousand dollars 
 to see her dance. None of us have, unless 
 the front row. But Trixy, she '11 dance any- 
 wheres, any time, for ten cents a head. You 
 see her now, ladies and gentlemen, a little dog 
 in child's clothes; but you wouldn't under- 
 stand mebbe as well as I do — that really, 
 Trixy is a child in dog's clothes. She will 
 now proceed to give the last performance of 
 the evening." 
 
 When the little dance was over Dan added 
 an impromptu feature of the entertainment. 
 
 " Trixy," he said, " go down into the au- 
 dience and find the lady you love the best." 
 
 Trixy obeyed with alacrity, but the elf look 
 had come into her eyes again. She tripped 
 down the aisle on her hind feet. Mockingly 
 she paused before Cady's Molly, flinging as 
 she did so a roguish glance at her master. 
 The audience had grown very still. Dan did 
 
76 TRIXY 
 
 not interfere. After a moment's hesitation 
 Trixy turned her back on Molly, walked to 
 Miss Lauriat, sprang into her lap, and put 
 both paws around the young lady's neck. Tu- 
 multuous applause attested the popularity of 
 the dog's choice. 
 
 Cries came from different parts of the 
 room : 
 
 " Speech ! Speech ! The Lady ! The Lady ! " 
 
 Mrs. Percy B. Jeffries bit her lips; but 
 Miss Lauriat graciously responded. It was 
 not the first time she had been on the plat- 
 form of that hall, and had helped the people's 
 entertainments. They all loved her, and she 
 knew it. She was quite at home with them. 
 With the little dog clinging to her neck, 
 white against her black dress, Miriam went 
 up and stood beside the crippled lad. In that 
 dull place she was a radiant being. She illu- 
 mined the dark background of that paltry 
 stage as she had illumined the dark lives 
 which found their best — perhaps their purest 
 — pleasures in amusements such as this. 
 
 For a moment she stood there smiling, the 
 little creature cuddling in her neck — both 
 silent. The face of the dog could not be 
 
TRIXY 77 
 
 seen, and its child's dress and infantile atti- 
 tude gave a strange impression, as if some 
 new Madonna, gently owning her kinship to 
 the subject races, had arisen to protect them. 
 
 At first, Miriam thought she would have 
 said a few words, but the cold eyes of Olin 
 Steele were fixed upon her. Something in 
 their expression deterred her ; she could not 
 have said why. She felt a little chilled, as 
 if he did not approve of her position. She 
 bowed, and gave the dog back to Dan. 
 
 But the audience, rinding that there was to 
 be no speech from Miss Lauriat, and unwill- 
 ing to be cheated out of their rights and 
 privileges in the lady, thronged towards the 
 platform. 
 
 Philip Surbridge, however, was there first. 
 His face was warm with sympathy. The finer 
 meaning of that evening's scene appealed to 
 every fibre in his being. He felt it all with 
 her. He felt it all for her. He grasped her 
 hand with the enthusiasm of a boy and the 
 reverence of a man. 
 
 " You have done a beautiful thing," he 
 said, " and I honor you for it ! " 
 
 He stood beside her for a moment, in a pro- 
 
78 TRIXY 
 
 tecting attitude, like a brother's, between her 
 and the people who were hurrying up the steps. 
 
 " Thank you, Phil," she said in a low voice. 
 " But I Ve got to shake hands with them. It 
 would break their hearts if I didn't. Speak 
 to Dan, please, and then we '11 go." 
 
 " Dan," said Surbridge, " if ever you and 
 Trixy want a friend, count on me." 
 
 He held out his hand heartily, first to Dan, 
 and then to the pretty dog. Then Dan put 
 on Trixy's blue coat (it was embroidered with 
 her name) lest she should take cold after the 
 excitement of the performance, and led the 
 little actress away. 
 
 Professor Steele did not come up with the 
 remainder of Miss Lauriat's party. He stood 
 for a moment watching her, while fifty people 
 grasped her delicate hand. Cady's Molly's 
 father was one of them. The scene was for- 
 eign to Olin's experience. He had experi- 
 mented upon the poor ; he had meant to be 
 kind to them ; sometimes he had cured them ; 
 but he had not been their friend. He was by 
 no means sure that he wanted to be, or 
 wanted her to be. He envied the look of gen- 
 uine appreciation on Surbridge's face — that 
 
TRIXY 79 
 
 spontaneous sympathy with this extraordinary 
 situation. Deterred by a discomfort in him- 
 self which he did not understand, the doctor 
 took his hat and left the hall. 
 
 As he went downstairs, he heard some young 
 people moving out behind him, humming : 
 
 She 's my lady, and I love her. 
 Who knows why ? 
 
 He waited outside, pacing up and down 
 Blind Alley, till the rest of the party should 
 come out. Most of Miriam's guests returned 
 as they had come, by carriage or by trolley. 
 But a few preferred to walk, and among these, 
 Steele, who had rather obviously offered his 
 escort to Mrs. Jeffries, noticed Miss Lauriat 
 and her lawyer. 
 
 Surbridge and Miriam walked on for a few 
 moments without talking. Then Miriam said 
 carelessly : 
 
 "It was nice of Dr. Steele to look after 
 Auntie. She appreciates that kind of thing." 
 
 " Perhaps I ought to have " — Philip spoke 
 in a nettled tone. 
 
 " She would have preferred you, of course," 
 interrupted Miriam. " She reveres Dr. Steele, 
 but she loves you." 
 
80 TRIXY 
 
 " Reveres Olin Steele ? " 
 
 "That was her word," said Miriam, with 
 mischief in her eyes. 
 
 " But I thought you wanted to walk home," 
 protested Surbridge. 
 
 " I did," returned Miriam quietly. " It was 
 so stuffy in there. I wanted the air." 
 
 " Well, then ! " cried Surbridge. 
 
 " Don't be cross, Phil ! " said Miriam. 
 
 Philip received this little sisterly speech as 
 a matter of course. He and Miriam had been 
 on quite comfortable terms since they went to 
 dancing school together. He smothered his 
 flitting pique, and began to talk about Dan 
 and Trixy. " I 'd rather have seen that than 
 grand opera," he said heartily. 
 
 " You do care, don't you ? " said Miriam. 
 " So few people do." 
 
 " He 's a poor little chap," continued Philip, 
 "and he's got a remarkable dog. And as 
 for you " — He broke off. 
 
 "Yes, I know," said Miriam contentedly. 
 " We are apt to like the same things. How 's 
 your practice, Phil ? " 
 
 " Oh, I 've just been retained by the News- 
 boys' Association." 
 
TRIXY 81 
 
 " You take too many charity cases. You 
 are quixotic and — and — splendid, Phil. 
 You '11 never get rich that way." 
 
 " I never expect to get rich." The young 
 lawyer spoke quickly, and a little defiantly. 
 
 " Oh, well, that 's quite immaterial," re- 
 turned Miriam, with the indifference to an 
 income felt by a girl who had never expe- 
 rienced the want of one. " Nobody likes you 
 the less for it." 
 
 "You are very good to say so," replied 
 Surbridge ; he took the tone of a man who 
 does not propose to dip below the surface. 
 " By the way, I wonder why Steele did n't 
 speak to you to-night ? " 
 
 " I did n't feel like it, and I presume he 
 did n't," answered Miriam. " I think he dis- 
 approved of what I did." 
 
 " What business is it of his ? " flashed Sur- 
 bridge. 
 
 "Not any," returned Miriam very slowly. 
 " That is — well, no — not any. All the same, 
 he 's the kind of man who makes you feel as 
 if he thought it loere his business." 
 
 " That doesn't lessen the cheek," persisted 
 Philip. 
 
82 TRIXY 
 
 " He 's always very courteous," observed 
 Miriam coldly. " He is a perfect gentleman. 
 I 'm sure you '11 admit that he 's eminent in his 
 profession. Auntie has taken a fancy to him." 
 
 " And you ? " asked Surbridge. 
 
 In the darkness he could see her lift her 
 chin with a little haughty motion that she 
 rarely made. 
 
 " I have seen something of him," she re- 
 plied evasively. " Auntie invites him a good 
 deal. He is president of one of those ani- 
 mal things that she 's director of. It 's the 
 S. P. D. & C. T. & E." 
 
 " What in the name of — mercy — is the 
 S. P. D. &C. T. &E.?" 
 
 " The Society for the Prevention of Dock- 
 ing and Cropping Tails and Ears," said Miriam 
 demurely. 
 
 " Olin Steele president of a society for — 
 Oh, Lord ! Oh, Lord ! " Surbridge groaned 
 with half -choked laughter. 
 
 " I cannot imagine why you find it so 
 funny," answered Miriam severely. 
 
 Philip sobered instantly. " Shall I beg your 
 pardon ? " 
 
 " Not for the world ! " cried Miriam, re- 
 
TRIXY 83 
 
 gaining her good nature. " I suppose they '11 
 be waiting for us," she added in a different 
 tone. Surbridge made no reply, but he quick- 
 ened his pace. 
 
 When they came into the brightly lighted, 
 laughing house most of Miriam's guests had 
 preceded them. Dr. Steele, without manifest 
 intrusion, seemed subtly to claim her, and 
 Philip quickly gave way to an indefinable 
 something — whether an acquaintance or a 
 friendship he could not determine — which 
 he felt existed between the two. 
 
 They did not seem to talk much ; which to 
 the lawyer's mind was the gravest symptom. 
 Miriam had an absorbed and sweet expres- 
 sion ; this deepened slowly into an exhilarated 
 beauty. As for the man's face, Surbridge could 
 not watch it, and turned away. 
 
 " Tell me what you are thinking," demanded 
 Olin Steele, in the commanding tone which it 
 was his private belief that women liked ; for 
 her happy face had suddenly fallen. 
 
 " I am repenting," replied Miss Lauriat, 
 without a smile. 
 
 " Be all my sins remembered ! " exclaimed 
 the doctor in a deep voice. Miriam glanced 
 
84 TRIXY 
 
 up gravely. Half attracted, half repelled, she 
 seemed to stir and sway upon her steady feet. 
 
 "I am thinking," she sighed, "that I for- 
 got to invite Dan and Trixy to come and get 
 some ice cream." 
 
 But Dan and Trixy were blessedly beyond 
 the need of ice cream, viewed either as a con- 
 scious loss or as a possible possession. In the 
 lad's closet bedroom, across the entry from 
 Cady's Molly's father's, the two were drowned 
 in the blissful sleep of the tired and success- 
 ful wage-earner. They had reached the deeps 
 below the waves. Memory and forecast had 
 passed them by ; trouble was not, nor hunger, 
 nor cold ; homelessness and orphanage, de- 
 formity and helplessness, had overlooked these 
 waifs of fortune. Trixy dreamed of her audi- 
 ence ; but Dan did not dream at all. He was 
 too tired. Trixy lay on the foot of his cot, 
 covered with a ragged coat of her master's — 
 for the little actress was of a delicate race. 
 Twenty times a night Dan's thin hand stole 
 down and covered Trixy up. Dan knew that 
 he loved Trixy better than she loved him, but 
 he loved none the less for that. 
 
TRIXY 85 
 
 Miriam Lauriat was not a new woman. She 
 had no career, and she had never wanted one. 
 By birth and training she inclined to accept 
 the existing, and clung to the traditions of her 
 class. But with these she often found her 
 nature contending. On the map of her being 
 were large, unexplored spaces, arctic and tor- 
 rid. She did not know whether she were more 
 afraid of or more unable to traverse these. 
 
 Most of the affections of life had reached 
 her only by induction. She had felt deeply, 
 but not often, and her tenderness had been 
 touched through her sympathies. She had 
 loved but two beings : her father, and one 
 other. 
 
 She had experienced society. But now she 
 remained on the bank, and the rapids flowed 
 by her. The torrent had really never inter- 
 ested her, and she turned from it to philan- 
 thropy as women of noble and unoccupied 
 hearts are apt to do. 
 
 Miriam had highly developed in herself the 
 passion for humanity. The wants, the woes, 
 the joys of denied and overlooked people, had 
 become the important events in her life. The 
 human element, which demanded everything 
 
86 TRIXY 
 
 and could give nothing, absorbed her leisure 
 vitality. She had given much happiness and 
 had received some. Incidentally she was be- 
 loved by the objects of her bounty, but this 
 fact, which is so often an end in itself to a 
 lonely and tender-hearted woman, had received 
 from her no concentrated attention. 
 
 Indeed, there were times when she was 
 forced to admit to herself that Blind Alley 
 did not satisfy the heights and depths of her 
 nature. This was a confusing admission to a 
 woman who, believing herself a primary color, 
 was in fact a prism. Miriam had that versa- 
 tility of temperament that is so bewildering in 
 youth, and so satisfying in later life. She 
 found in herself a capacity for doing or being 
 a variety of things, which presented itself to 
 her sometimes as a misfortune or even a fault, 
 and at others as a source of strength. 
 
 She vibrated between the extremes of her 
 nature, and wondered that she had neither 
 content nor rest. She allowed herself forays 
 into untried powers. Now and then she wrote 
 verses. Under pen-names, which she changed 
 often for fear of identification, she occa- 
 sionally contributed little stories or essays to a 
 
TRIXY 87 
 
 newspaper or magazine. She had the love of 
 color and form which may make an artist or 
 an amateur. At present she was experiment- 
 ing to learn which of these she was. When 
 the new art school was opened within a few 
 blocks of her house, Miss Lauriat joined a 
 private class. For some months she had been 
 working in pastel. 
 
 It was perhaps a week after the little per- 
 formance which Dan and Trixy gave at the 
 Mooses' Retreat, that Miriam found herself 
 hurrying up the broad steps of the art school, 
 for her morning lesson. She was late, and 
 her master was not a man to accept excuses 
 from the rich. He received her with a frown, 
 and indicated her subject curtly. It was a 
 nocturne by Whistler. 
 
 " I can do nothing with it, Signor," she 
 said. " The sails look like crucified angels. 
 Please give me something suited to my igno- 
 rance." 
 
 " I forgot," retorted the teacher, " the 
 color scheme is above you. Try this, then." 
 Smiling sarcastically he flung on the easel 
 before her a large Arundel print of Fra An- 
 gelico's Christ Transfigured. 
 
88 TRIXY 
 
 Miriam flushed, but went to work silently 
 and solemnly. There were but few pupils 
 in the large room, and the spot was still and 
 inspiring. Near her stood a cast of Rodin's 
 Pity. Beyond were the antiques, powerful 
 and calm. Their strong influence pulsated 
 through the place. But the Christ before her 
 seemed to fill it. 
 
 With a sense of awe, Miriam sketched in the 
 sacred figure. The atmosphere of the room 
 was almost religious. She felt herself pos- 
 sessed by peace, and upheld by aspiration. 
 
 While she sat, her head bent over her sketch, 
 something flitted past the window and cast a 
 light reflection upon her bowed face. Glan- 
 cing up quickly she saw a white pigeon — to 
 her sensitive imagination it looked like a dove. 
 The bird fluttered from window to window, 
 and then drifted away. At this moment there 
 came from the adjoining building a sound 
 which startled Miriam to her feet. It was a 
 long, piercing, piteous cry. It was the cry of 
 a sentient being in mortal agony. It rose 
 and fell, and rose again. 
 
 Miriam dropped her crayon, and stood quiv- 
 ering ; something in that agonized voice drove 
 
TRIXY 89 
 
 the blood from her heart. She went as white 
 as the frightened pigeon. She stood as still as 
 the statue of Pity beside her. Her eyes sought 
 the face of the Christ blindly. The heart-rend- 
 ing sound increased, and died away. What 
 wound did it open in the girl's heart? She 
 looked smitten and ashen. Her sketch fell to 
 the floor. Panting and faint, she fled from the 
 room. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Miriam ran out from the art school and went 
 straight to the neighboring building. Through 
 the inattention with which one treats famil- 
 iar points of interest, she had forgotten that 
 this was the Galen Medical School. The fact 
 occurred to her now with no special signifi- 
 cance. She listened for a few moments for the 
 piercing sounds that she had heard, but there 
 was no repetition of them. With the assur- 
 ance of position, and the impulsiveness of her 
 agitation, she went up the steps and spoke 
 to a man (presumably the janitor) who was 
 sweeping the vestibule. 
 
 " I heard a dog's cries in here," she began 
 hotly ; " he is in suffering somewhere. Go and 
 find him ! " 
 
 The man leaned with his chin on the 
 broom, and regarded the lady with a blank, 
 impassive face. 
 
 " I don't understand you," he replied 
 frostily. 
 
TRIXY 91 
 
 "I am sure of it," insisted Miss Lauriat. 
 " It was a dog's cry of agony. I thought — 
 the voice " — She broke off. 
 
 " Probably, Miss, it was an accident in the 
 street. Those blue cars often run over them." 
 
 The sweeper leisurely resumed his occu- 
 pation as if he had no interest in a subject so 
 remote from his experience. " Excuse me ; it 
 ain't very clean here for you, and the young 
 gentlemen are just coming out." 
 
 A cloud of dust puffed around Miriam as 
 she turned. She felt as if she were being swept 
 down the steps. At the bottom she stopped 
 again, and looked up at the building irreso- 
 lutely. Hovering high in the air she thought 
 she saw the white pigeon that had tapped on 
 the window of the art school. A very young 
 student came out of the door at this moment, 
 and ran whistling down. 
 
 "Pardon me," said Miriam, with the tone 
 and manner which instantly brought the hat 
 from the young man's head, and the cigarette 
 from his mouth. " Won't you tell me before 
 the rest come out — I came here — I'm so 
 disturbed — I heard distressing cries ! I came 
 here to find out what they mean." 
 
92 TKIXY 
 
 The janitor — if he it was — had stopped 
 sweeping and was closely watching the two. 
 But the very young student, who stood with 
 his back to this sub-official, frankly answered 
 the lady's question. 
 
 " Oh, it 's nothing of any consequence, 
 madam. Do not disturb yourself." 
 
 " But it was a dog ! " cried Miriam. " It 
 sounded as if it were a little dog." 
 
 " I know what that was," answered the boy 
 candidly. " We are having some very pretty 
 psychological experiments." 
 
 " Oh," said Miriam, a little relieved, " that 
 means mental experiments, does n't it ? " 
 
 " Certainly," replied the student pompously. 
 " It means experimentation on the intelli- 
 gence, the affections, and the will. One sub- 
 ject is all we need for the purpose, and I 
 assure you, madam, it never suffers." 
 
 " Then I " — began Miriam with her charm- 
 ing manner — " must have been mistaken — 
 but" — 
 
 At this moment a torrent of students poured 
 from the door. Baffled and perplexed, Miss 
 Lauriat turned away. 
 
 She could not forget the incident, however. 
 
TRIXY 93 
 
 It pursued her painfully. She did not return 
 to finish her pastel lesson, but went directly 
 home, and shut herself up alone for the rest of 
 the day. She was glad to have the house to her- 
 self, and once a year this privilege fell to her. 
 
 Mrs. Percy B. Jeffries, who, in common 
 with many of her neighbors, found it conven- 
 ient to change her legal residence on the first 
 of May, had already been some ten days at 
 the shore in Miss Lauriat's summer home. She 
 was accustomed to say that she went in ad- 
 vance to open the house for Miriam, and sus- 
 tained the little pose even with her lawyer, to 
 whom she had said plaintively, when Surbridge 
 accompanied her to the safety vaults to cut her 
 May coupons : " That child can't do such things 
 for herself. She is absorbed. She is unpracti- 
 cal. Those people down there are monopolizing 
 all her youth. I wish you had never allowed 
 her to invest a dollar in the slums." 
 
 " Pardon me," the young attorney had 
 explained, " you forget this was an inherited 
 investment. My father was responsible for 
 that, and I assure you," he added loyally, " it 
 has proved an excellent one. She has nothing 
 better ; and consider the usefulness of it. She 
 
94 TRIXY 
 
 makes a lot of people happy, and clean. Per- 
 mit me, Mrs. Jeffries — these P. and Q. coupons 
 are worth thirty dollars apiece. I would n't put 
 them in the ink bottle, if I were you." 
 
 " You have your father's manner, Philip," 
 said Mrs. Jeffries sentimentally. "It is al- 
 ways a comfort to have you around. There 1 
 I '11 mind my P's and Q's to please you. Be 
 sure and run down this summer as usual. We 
 expect a good many pleasant people. Dr. 
 Steele is coming out every Saturday. The 
 S. P. D. & C. T. & E. is an important society, 
 and we have to confer. I wish Miriam took 
 more interest in it; but she doesn't care 
 about the animal philanthropies. She says 
 the human race is enough for her." 
 
 It so happened that on the evening of the 
 day when the episode at the art school oc- 
 curred, a matter of business took Philip Sur- 
 bridge to Miriam's house. She received him 
 in the drawing-room. The windows were open ; 
 the gas was low. The large room, which 
 had gone into its linen shrouding for the 
 summer, had a dismal, unfamiliar air. When 
 Miriam paused before the gauze-covered mir- 
 ror, it reflected her mistily, as if she had been 
 
TKIXY 95 
 
 a ghost. She seemed somehow unreal to 
 Philip ; her body looked uninhabited like the 
 house. When he explained his errand — it 
 was some mechanic's contract — he saw that 
 she was giving no attention to it. She as- 
 sented indifferently to his suggestions, and 
 sat with listless hands crossed over her black 
 skirt. The evening was warm, and she wore 
 a white silk waist, which Philip noticed be- 
 cause it was so long since he had seen her in 
 anything but mourning. She had an unusual 
 pallor — perhaps a reflection from the ivory- 
 tinted stuff into which her face seemed to 
 melt, or out of which it seemed to grow. She 
 was so unlike herself that Philip refrained 
 from any unnecessary conversation, and with 
 his natural delicacy quickly terminated the 
 interview, and arose to go. 
 
 " So soon ? " asked Miriam languidly. 
 
 " You seem tired ; I think it 's better." 
 
 " Wait a minute." Miriam uncrossed her 
 hands slowly, and, rising, stood tall and still 
 in the dim room beside him. He could feel 
 how constrained she was. 
 
 " Such a strange thing happened to-day," 
 she began. She had not meant to tell him, 
 
96 TRIXY 
 
 nor to tell any one ; in fact, though she could 
 hardly have explained why, she felt a poignant 
 reluctance to repeating the experience of the 
 morning. But she was used to telling things 
 to Philip. She always had ; sometimes she 
 suspected that most people did. He was that 
 kind of a man. His presence in the lonely 
 house (deserted now of the whole family ex- 
 cepting the old seamstress and Maggie) inde- 
 finably soothed her. Suddenly it seemed to 
 her necessary to speak, and she told him the 
 story. 
 
 Surbridge listened in silence. As she 
 talked, he crossed to the open window and 
 stood with his hands in his pockets. 
 
 " Go on," he said when she paused. 
 
 " That is all," said Miriam with a sigh of 
 relief. 
 
 Philip turned away from the window and 
 asked a few quiet questions, naturally enough ; 
 but Miriam quickly detected the professional 
 instinct beneath the personal sympathy. 
 
 " You cross-examine ! " she cried. 
 
 So Philip laughed and left her. Now, as 
 he passed up the street, he came face to face 
 with Dr. Steele. 
 
TRIXY 97 
 
 " By the way," said the lawyer carelessly, 
 " may I walk a few steps with you ? I want 
 to ask you about a certain matter." 
 
 Philip retraced his way, and the two gen- 
 tlemen walked back towards the house. Sur- 
 bridge spoke in a low voice, and could not 
 have been overheard by passers, but as the 
 physiologist listened an expression of cold an- 
 noyance stiffened his face. Before they came 
 to Miss Lauriat's door he halted. 
 
 " Why should I answer these questions ? " 
 His lips sharpened. "I am not on the witness 
 stand. You will excuse me, Surbridge." 
 
 Surbridge laughed again — he had a sin- 
 gularly quiet, pleasant laugh — and walked 
 back. He had not gone a block when he ad- 
 mitted to himself an unpardonable curiosity. 
 He glanced around, and saw Dr. Steele com- 
 ing away from Miss Lauriat's house. Plainly 
 he had not been admitted. 
 
 " Now," thought Philip, " what 's the mean- 
 ing of that t " 
 
 This question Miriam herself could not have 
 answered. 
 
 Dr. Steele plunged his hands deep into the 
 
98 TRIXY 
 
 water. He bathed them with something more 
 than his usual scrupulousness, repeating the 
 act a good many times. As he held his long 
 and slender but strong fingers to the light, a 
 slight shadow fell upon them from the window 
 near which he stood — there was a coo, a whir 
 — and some pigeons flew from the sill ; one, 
 it seemed, was white. He glanced at it idly. 
 The principal thought that it suggested to him 
 couched itself in some such words as these : 
 
 " Those Germans have done remarkably in- 
 teresting work with the brains of doves." 
 
 " Down ! " A raucous voice jarred from 
 the adjoining room. " Down, I say ! " 
 
 There was no mistaking the tone or the 
 accent of his assistant. Somehow, it always 
 grated on Steele, even now, and after all. He 
 turned impatiently, and looked into the labor- 
 atory. There, a picture, something new even 
 to his wide experience, presented itself. 
 
 A black spaniel of the cocker breed stood 
 upon the table before which Bernard was sta- 
 tioned. It must have been originally a very 
 beautiful spaniel ; its scarred forehead was 
 parted with white, and a white ruff like a 
 shirt-frill stood out thickly from its breast. It 
 
TRIXY 99 
 
 had large hazel eyes, perhaps also once beau- 
 tiful, but now, for reasons and by processes 
 known only to these two men, the spaniel's 
 expression had become mysteriously dulled. 
 Yet a flicker of terror lighted it at the touch 
 of Bernard's significant hands. At this mo- 
 ment, when Dr. Steele looked up, the little 
 creature had raised itself with difficulty, and, 
 reaching up, put both arms around the ex- 
 perimenter's neck. Bernard unclasped them 
 roughly. The dog repeated the piteous ges- 
 ture ; he did not cry nor whine, but with the 
 inextinguishable trust and tenderness of his 
 race entreated the man. But Bernard pushed 
 the spaniel off. As he did so he fingered the 
 dog-board greedily. 
 
 Steele stood hesitating. The scene annoyed 
 him — who should say why ? He had wit- 
 nessed a thousand worse. It occurred to him 
 that he had never seen that particular pose 
 before. Perhaps another thought — but again, 
 who could say why there should be any such 
 thought? — at that hour, and in that place? 
 
 " Let the dog be for to-day, if you please," 
 he said with authoritative courtesy. " Give it 
 a rest — for a while." 
 
100 TRIXY 
 
 " What 's the matter with you ? " demanded 
 Bernard roughly. He dropped the spaniel 
 (who, cowering from him, leaped from the 
 table), and turned his sullen face towards his 
 superior. 
 
 " I'm going out of town," replied Dr. Steele. 
 " I can't go on with these experiments to-day." 
 
 " But I can," urged Bernard, with an evil 
 expression. " Vacation 's the time for it — no 
 students around." 
 
 " Oblige me by regarding my wishes," per- 
 sisted the professor. " I prefer to be present 
 when these researches are continued. Send the 
 dog back to its cage." 
 
 "All right," answered Bernard, with his 
 unpleasant smile. " I understand." 
 
 The released spaniel, moved by God knew 
 what impulse, stopped as it passed by the 
 young professor of physiology, and tried to 
 kiss his hand. An expression which could not 
 be interpreted as one of pity, and which was 
 far from indicating a sense of regret, but 
 which might have been called a conscious- 
 ness of discomfort, brushed the face of Olin 
 Steele. 
 
 He went directly out from the medical 
 
TRIXY 101 
 
 school, and hurried to the wharf ;. whence he 
 took the boat for the familiar shore where 
 Miss Lauriat spent her summers. 
 
 The day was hot, — it was July, — and 
 Steele, as the little steamer tossed along the 
 coast, luxuriously turned his face towards the 
 salt wind. He had spent all the morning in 
 his laboratory, and felt that he had earned 
 his holiday. A faint memory that he had seen 
 it spelled another way tapped with muffled 
 fingers at his barred imagination. The word 
 had some time since gone out of evidence in 
 the physiologist's vocabulary ; yet he might 
 have said that this, if any, if ever, was holy 
 day to him. 
 
 White of soul and fair of body, the woman 
 seemed to float through the summer air be- 
 fore him, and without a glance, without a 
 gesture, silent and maidenly, she drew him 
 on. From sounds and sights which would have 
 rent her with recoil had she dreamed of them 
 in her darkest dream, he turned his hurry- 
 ing feet to her, complacently. Red-handed he 
 sought her ; iron-willed he hunted her. 
 
 Yet a man who has ever known and cher- 
 ished the nobler ideals is haunted by their 
 
1C2 TRIXY 
 
 shadows when- he has foresworn their sub- 
 stance ; chat which was left of the high and 
 the fine in Olin Steele was concentrated with 
 a dedication in which there was something 
 to be respected, upon his passion. On all 
 the altars of his soid the sacrifices were con- 
 sumed — only on this one, only for her, the 
 fire burned. 
 
 Halfway up the avenue to her summer home 
 he met her slowly walking down. She was in 
 white from head to foot — a foamy white, with 
 ivory laces that stirred in the strong wind. He 
 had not seen her dressed like this before, and 
 marveled at the sublimation. 
 
 Suddenly contrasting with her mourning 
 black, there was a subtle suggestion in the 
 happy dress at which his head whirled gid- 
 dily. He did not, could not, would not help it. 
 
 " There is something almost bridal about 
 these beautiful white costumes," he said, with- 
 out preface or apology, as he held out his hand. 
 
 " Forgive me ! " he cried, when he saw the 
 expression of her lifted face. It seemed in a 
 moment to have fallen away from him, and 
 the hand which she had extended heartily 
 dropped from his. 
 
TRIXY 103 
 
 A dozen years ago Steele would not have 
 said a thing like that ; it occurred to him as 
 soon as he had spoken that there was a dif- 
 ferent way in which he used to dream that he 
 should woo a woman. His face flushed with 
 mortification at his faux pas ; Miss Lauriat 
 had never seen the doctor blush before, and 
 she who winced from every evidence of pain 
 in other organisms as if it had been her own, 
 melted instantly into a sweet pardon of this 
 man to whom she felt imperiously drawn, or 
 by whom she was mysteriously disenchanted a 
 score of times in every hour that they passed 
 together. 
 
 These, that summer, had been already 
 many. She had treated him graciously, in- 
 deed, with such cordiality that Olin's spirits 
 had risen, and his courage with them. He 
 needed both for a wooing in which the man 
 found himself more at a loss than in any un- 
 dertaking on which he had ever deliberately 
 entered. Deliberate he was, and determined. 
 He meant to win this woman ; and he had 
 always done what he had meant to do. But 
 she daunted him and taunted him. When he 
 advanced, she retreated. When he retraced 
 
104 TEIXY 
 
 a step, she seemed to stand still. She was as 
 elusive as fortune, and as alluring as mystery. 
 When he loved her most, he admitted to him- 
 self that he understood her least. 
 
 " I thank you for forgiving me," he said 
 in a tone so gentle that in another man it 
 might have been called humble. This gave 
 him an advantage which he was not slow to 
 perceive ; adroitly he changed the subject at 
 once, and they passed up the wooded avenue, 
 chatting of little things. 
 
 As they came in sight of the piazza where 
 Mrs. Jeffries, with the expression and manner 
 that she reserved for Docking and Cropping 
 Tails and Ears, was waiting for them, a kitten 
 blew around the corner of the house, head and 
 tail slantwise, steering its way in the brisk sea 
 wind. So running, it dashed against Miriam, 
 and climbed up the lace of her dress. It was 
 a maltese kitten, and around its gray neck 
 was tied a broad pink ribbon. 
 
 " Professor Steele ! " cried Mrs. Jeffries, 
 getting heavily to her feet, " you are faint — 
 you are ill ! What ails you, my dear friend ? 
 What can we do for you ? What can I " — 
 
 On the palette of her sentence the words ran 
 
TRIXY 105 
 
 together like gamboge and Prussian blue, and 
 became a puzzled silence, which was a new color. 
 
 For, at sight of the kitten, Olin Steele had 
 blanched as a man does who is smitten with 
 ill tidings. He stood staring, as if he saw 
 some little animal ghost. When Miss Lauriat 
 caressed the kitten and dropped it gently 
 though not affectionately to the ground, it 
 began to purr loudly. The sound reverberated 
 in Steele's ears. It seemed to him to come 
 from a great distance. 
 
 He recovered himself quickly, made some 
 sort of apology for a passing indisposition, 
 and threw the matter off as lightly as it was 
 now possible to do. 
 
 " You are over- worked ! " said Mrs. Jeffries 
 tenderly. " I revere the consecration of your 
 profession, Dr. Steele. You shall not go back 
 to town to-night. You are not in a fit con- 
 dition to discuss the painful objects of our 
 society. The S. P. D. & C. T. & E. can wait 
 till you are in a less sensitive state. You shall 
 stay and rest until to-morrow." 
 
 With outward languor (as that of the con- 
 secrated who is exhausted by devotion to 
 sacred duties) but with an inward ecstasy so 
 
106 TRIXY 
 
 powerful that he dared allow no sign of its 
 whirlwind to escape his dizzy heart, Dr. 
 Steele accepted the invitation. He had now 
 resumed himself completely. After dinner he 
 hovered over Mrs. Jeffries and the affairs of 
 the S. P. D. & C. T. & E. for a conscientious 
 hour. Mrs. Jeffries was making the usual 
 pudding of her papers, and Miriam occupied 
 herself in suggesting that Mr. Surbridge 
 ought to be made counsel for the society. 
 
 " Nobody else can handle Aunt Cornelia 
 when it comes to papers," she said, looking 
 over her shoulder with that mocking smile 
 which was the more enchanting because it was 
 always unexpected, and clearly at a certain 
 variance with her gentleness and sincerity of 
 manner. 
 
 Dr. Steele studiously concerned himself with 
 what Mrs. Jeffries called " the literature " of 
 the society. He separated the circulars on 
 Docking from the pamphlets on Cropping 
 with a slow and conscientious hand before he 
 observed quietly : 
 
 "I have the highest regard for Mr. Sur- 
 bridge's professional abilities — there can be 
 no two opinions on that. He is a growing 
 
TRIXY 107 
 
 man, and has a future beyond doubt. But I 
 confess I have sometimes wondered how so 
 young a lawyer came to be in the position he 
 occupies in this family ; not that it is in the 
 least any business of mine." 
 
 " His father was Mr. Lauriat's counsel," 
 explained Mrs. Jeffries, warming promptly to 
 the subject of her favorite. " He has inherited 
 the position, and I assure you, Professor 
 Steele, we count it as one of our best and 
 dearest legacies. Mr. Surbridge is a lovely 
 fellow. — Miriam ! there 's that kitten again. 
 Do send it away. I am sure that cats are un- 
 pleasant to our guest. There are people, you 
 know, so constituted. Are n't there, Doctor ? " 
 
 Mrs. Jeffries rose, and herself went out of 
 the room with the maltese. Miriam and Steele 
 could hear her in the hall politely adjuring 
 the kitten : 
 
 " Scat ! scat ! scat ! Why don't you scat ? " 
 
 " You don't like cats," began Steele in his 
 authoritative tone, " any better than I do. 
 Why don't you have a dog ? You need some- 
 thing of that kind. You need something to 
 love. You are so constituted." 
 
 Miriam walked over to the long, low win- 
 
108 TRIXY 
 
 dow, and stood looking out to sea. Her white 
 dress blew straight back around her in the 
 rising wind. 
 
 " I lost one," she said in a very low voice. 
 " It was a good while ago. I don't want 
 another." 
 
 " I have sometimes thought," ventured 
 Steele, " if you would allow me " — 
 
 " Scat ! scat ! " plaintively entreated Aunt 
 Cornelia on the piazza. " Oh, you have scat- 
 ted ! " 
 
 " On no account, whatever." Miriam quick- 
 ly turned around. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Olin Steele. 
 
 " I am going out on the piazza," observed 
 Miss Lauriat coldly. " You can come if you 
 like." 
 
 He followed her, distanced and dejected. 
 Mysteriously, in the lifting of an eyelid, she 
 seemed to have evaded him. Yet in a moment, 
 as mysteriously, she seemed to pause and re- 
 trace a step or two in his direction. When 
 he sat down beside her, silently and unobtru- 
 sively, she gave him her sweet and natural 
 smile. He began anyhow, hardly knowing 
 what he said : 
 
TRIXY 109 
 
 "I have such a fine old dog of my own. 
 He 's a St. Bernard — a dear fellow. I should 
 like to have you see him." 
 
 " And I should like to," replied Miriam 
 heartily. 
 
 " And my mother," ventured Steele, " she 
 is an invalid. My sister is not at home ; she 
 married. Mother is a lonely woman ; a very 
 sweet one. I wish you knew my mother." > 
 
 " I don't know much about mothers," said 
 Miriam in an odd tone. " Mine died. I was 
 three years old — 
 
 " I am sorry for yours," she added gently. 
 " It is hard — to die while you are alive like 
 that." 
 
 Her low, vibrant voice, her gentle attitude, 
 all the womanliness of her, and the magic of 
 her, went to Olin Steele's head like a fine, 
 celestial wine — sometime, somehow, to be 
 quaffed, but now for the first time tasted at 
 the brim. 
 
 " Come down to the shore with me," he 
 said suddenly ; " I wish it very much." 
 
 She might have defied, but she yielded. 
 She might have daunted him — he never 
 knew what she would do — but she gra- 
 
110 TRIXY 
 
 ciously deferred. She might have taunted 
 and tantalized, but she melted and bent. 
 
 The moon was at the full, and so was 
 the tide. The two walked down the road 
 and over the beach silently. Miriam had the 
 strong step of a healthy, happy woman ; he 
 could not remember that any woman had ever 
 kept pace with him before. He looked at her 
 with half-blind eyes. In her white laces, with 
 the thrilling light on her face, she looked 
 remote from him — he could not have ex- 
 plained why — and yet how near ! 
 
 " She shall be nearer," thought the man. 
 
 He brought his lips together ; they made a 
 mouth of iron. The woman's had a gentle, 
 almost a helpless look in contrast. 
 
 The beach, by chance, was quite deserted ; 
 it was not a rowing beach, — there was the 
 wharf for the boats ; and the summer peo- 
 ple were floating dimly on the water, or clus- 
 tered darkly on the rocks. 
 
 The wind was going down, and the surf 
 with it. The long throb of the third roller 
 pulsated regularly, with little agitation and 
 less foam, but with a steady and advancing 
 force which Miriam sensitively felt. 
 
TRIXY 111 
 
 At once she loved the sea and hated it. 
 Sometimes she wished never to look upon its 
 face again ; yet it drew her back as the ebb- 
 tide sucked the seaweed. The complexity in 
 her nature vibrated before inevitable power, 
 whose deficiency of mercy repelled and es- 
 tranged her, even while she yielded to it. 
 
 Oppressed by the silence that had subtly 
 settled down between herself and the man, 
 she broke it, half audibly : 
 
 " It will carry you safely anywhere — and 
 drown you cordially any time — that's the 
 sea." 
 
 Lifted swiftly, her candid eyes snared him 
 unawares, and for one troubled moment it 
 seemed to her that she saw the ocean in his 
 face. 
 
 Most illusions have their spiritual sentries 
 whose subtle guardianship may be felt long 
 before it is perceived by the soul. There is 
 a prefiguration granted to a woman on the ap- 
 proach of fate ; in this solemn prescience she 
 elects or escapes her lot, with a perfect intel- 
 ligence which she can never forget, but which 
 she will ignore to her last hour. After such 
 a moment she has no accusations to hurl in 
 
112 TRIXY 
 
 the face of life. As Lucifer of hell, so she of 
 experience is compelled to answer: "Myself 
 am destiny." 
 
 Miriam stood looking quite steadily into 
 the eyes of Olin Steele. The man was no- 
 thing less than formidable. His passion swept 
 around her as the sea heaved about the little 
 boat, — it seemed to be leagues away at that 
 moment, — crossing the splendor of the daz- 
 zling path set from eternity between the moon 
 and the sea. The sigh of the surf, the calm 
 of the shore, the separateness in which they 
 two stood, rose around her solemnly like a 
 tide in which she must drown. 
 
 Nothing seemed to her quite real — nothing 
 except that she was loved ; she was loved as 
 she had dreamed of being loved, as she had 
 not hoped to be or even always wished to 
 be, — by a man who would scorn denial, and 
 laugh at reluctance ; who would hurl her fem- 
 inine subterfuges into star-dust, and create 
 the planet on which she should be his. Yes, 
 and a man who had loved her without wait- 
 ing to find out that or why he did, and who 
 would love her, whether she yielded or defied, 
 as long as he lived, or she. 
 
TRIXY 113 
 
 Before he had spoken a word Miriam knew 
 what he would say. She made no effort to 
 deter him, but listened gently, when, with a 
 quietness that subdued her and astonished 
 himself, Steele said : 
 
 " Ever since I saw your face — that first 
 day — you have been the only woman in the 
 world for me." 
 
 Miriam, casting about blindly for words, 
 found none. She turned her agitated face to 
 the sea. The surf was rising, and began to 
 rage upon the cliff. In the unreal light the 
 unreal boat had floated on and away. No- 
 thing now obstructed the path between the 
 sea and the moon. 
 
 " I have never seen any other woman whom 
 I wished to make my wife," said Olin Steele. 
 " I did not know that a man could feel like 
 this to any woman. I love you. . . . Do you 
 understand ? . . . I love you." 
 
 "How much do you love me?" asked 
 Miriam in an unsteady voice. She was con- 
 scious of the weakness of her words as soon 
 as she had uttered them. She did not look at 
 him any longer. Steele wished that he could 
 have seen her head droop, or her color change. 
 
114 TRIXY 
 
 " Give me the right to show you ! " he cried. 
 
 But Miriam shrank. 
 
 " I cannot — I do not like to — talk about 
 it. I do not wish to be what you say. I like 
 it better — the way we are." 
 
 Steele laughed. 
 
 " Do you think you can escape me ? . . . 
 Try!" ' 
 
 Her beautiful color came now, wave upon 
 wave, till her face was lost in the flood of it. 
 It was as if she hesitated and swayed towards 
 him. 
 
 "Miriam ! " 
 
 A voice that seemed to come from a great 
 height, and to be freighted with supernal 
 solemnity, dropped like a boulder upon the 
 two. Steele wheeled as if he had been struck 
 and mangled ; but Miriam — she could not 
 help it — laughed. 
 
 " Is it Azrael ? Or Gabriel ? " 
 
 " Atropos, it seems ; " Steele ground his 
 teeth. "And you can laugh." He turned upon 
 her with a certain brutality ; she had never 
 seen anything of the kind in him before. 
 
 " Mir-i-um ? — Look up here. See who has 
 come to spend Sunday." 
 
TRIXY 115 
 
 Miriam lifted her beautiful chin. Mrs. 
 Percy B. Jeffries, affectionately attached to 
 the arm of Philip Surbridge, solidly orna- 
 mented the cliff-top. 
 
 " Let us go back," Surbridge was heard to 
 urge his clinging client. 
 
 " No," said Miriam distinctly. " Do not go 
 away. Come — and bring Atropos with you." 
 
 She dashed at a tear which was creeping 
 into her not very happy smile. How should 
 a man know that a woman laughs lest she 
 should cry, and cries because she has laughed ? 
 
 At that moment Dr. Steele could have 
 cheerfully chloroformed Mrs. Jeffries, or ex- 
 perimented (without anaesthesia) upon Sur- 
 bridge. 
 
 But Olin's face was the finely finished mask 
 of a man who has for years had more in his 
 life to conceal than to reveal. 
 
 He made no effort to address Miriam again 
 that evening, and in the morning took so 
 early a train that she was not down. But he 
 wrote to her as soon as he reached town — 
 madly and powerfully. It was a letter which 
 would have brought almost any other woman 
 whom he knew to his arms. He wrote without 
 
116 TRIXY 
 
 rereading, without pausing, without reflect- 
 ing. He wrote as rivers rush, as fire burns, 
 as torrents fall, as nature would and willed — 
 yet reverently and even delicately ; almost as 
 that sensitive boy might have written, who 
 died that a physiologist should live. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Miriam was moved by Steele's letter. She 
 answered it gently, but, for so young a 
 woman, guardedly. She wrote with a fine, 
 old-fashioned courtesy, and thanked him for 
 the honor that he did her ; begged his tol- 
 erance for a state of feeling which made it 
 difficult for her to reply with the finality that 
 he had a right to expect; expressed her 
 preference for the relation of friendship as 
 opposed to that which he sought, with the 
 naivete given to woman only at such stages 
 of experience, admitted that she should be 
 sorry to lose this friendship out of her life ; 
 distinctly granted nothing more, yet refrained 
 from insisting that nothing more could ever 
 be possible. 
 
 Olin Steele carried the letter against his 
 heart like a boy. When he was alone with it, 
 he scorched it with kisses. His step rang, his 
 eyes assumed the look that a man wears but 
 once in life, and many never. He was like 
 
118 TRIXY 
 
 one who is climbing into a high altitude 
 slowly, but of his power to reach the summit 
 has no troublesome doubt. 
 
 To power, indeed, as a factor in life, he 
 was inclined to give its full mathematical value. 
 Sheer strength, simple advantage, seemed to 
 him the basis of calculation. The solution of 
 most problems he had found to lie in superi- 
 ority, mental or even physical. His profes- 
 sional existence depended upon the doctrine 
 that dominion argued rights rather than obli- 
 gations. Almost every day of the last decade 
 of his life he had sacrificed the weak to the 
 strong, the small to the great. He had become 
 accustomed to such a transposition of the 
 moral claims, and to such a disarrangement 
 of spiritual values, that he had lost the deli- 
 cate micrometer by which he was used to 
 measure the meaning of things. 
 
 Perhaps he had never distinctly reduced 
 his views of the great relation of life to 
 words ; but, if he had, they would have been 
 something like these : The world is divided 
 into the reigning and the subject races ; 
 man, clearly, belongs to one of these ; woman, 
 plainly, to the other. A man who loves a 
 
TRIXY 119 
 
 woman not easily to be won must gain her 
 by some species of force — what, will depend 
 upon the specimen of her race with whom he 
 has to deal. The chief element in the strug- 
 gle will be his personal determination. 
 
 Into this determination Steele now hurled 
 his being, as a child drops the boat he has 
 carved into Niagara. Miriam Lauriat was a 
 woman of intellect ; she deferred to the su- 
 premacy of his. She was capable of a pro- 
 found and passionate love ; she would yield 
 to the torrent of his. She was in so far 
 attracted to him that it rested with him- 
 self — he now believed — to beleaguer her 
 thoroughly, to overcome her absolutely. He 
 perceived, indeed, that he had forced his op- 
 portunity ; that he had spoken too soon. He 
 passed the summer in a confident attempt to 
 retrieve the mistake ; for this delay he was 
 conscious of purposing that she should some- 
 time atone to him. 
 
 Their relation had now become an absorb- 
 ing one. They had entered upon the ancient 
 warfare for which history has never yet re- 
 corded the protocols of peace — that between 
 the loving and pursuing man and the at- 
 
120 TRIXY 
 
 tracted but reluctant woman. Steele seemed 
 to himself to be steadily gaining upon her re- 
 sistance. With hope in his heart and light in 
 his eyes he went to her one August after- 
 noon. 
 
 He was intending to take the boat, as usual, 
 but when he reached the wharf he found it 
 crowded with a class of passengers who were 
 not agreeable to him. He had no mind to join 
 an excursion from the slums, and, suddenly 
 changing his purpose, went out by train. 
 When he left it at the seaside station he was 
 pleased and surprised to see Miss Lauriat's 
 black pair, with Matthew on the box ; in the 
 carriage, however, there seemed to be other 
 guests. Matthew did not stop at the station, 
 and as the carriage whirled by, Steele had a 
 good opportunity to see that it was filled, and 
 filled to overflowing, with women and children 
 of the social species that he had left behind 
 him on the wharf in town. 
 
 When he arrived at the house, tired and 
 dusty from his walk, an unexpected pastel 
 greeted him. Framed by the tall trees of the 
 avenue where the vistas were cut out, a per- 
 spective of sea met a foreground of lawn 
 
TRIXY 121 
 
 party. Rugs were spread, a tent, and tables. 
 The shrill crackle of uneducated voices came 
 to his ear before he had come near enough 
 clearly to see Miss Lauriat's guests. These 
 were twenty or thirty in number, and plainly 
 they represented her tenants and proteges in 
 Blind Alley. Ecstasy was in their voices, and 
 adoration in their eyes. Old women were there, 
 and children of assorted sizes. Cady's Molly 
 was there in her red shirt waist and pink hair- 
 ribbons, tastefully relieved by a yellow hat. 
 Cady's Molly's father was there, and Dan 
 Badger — in fact, the leading social circles 
 of Blind Alley were represented. 
 
 Miss Lauriat, in a plain white linen dress, 
 moved merrily about among this pathetic 
 group. Dr. Steele stood under the trees for a 
 moment before he made his presence known. 
 A consumptive woman, with a baby in her 
 arms, and three little girls rolling over her, 
 was sitting on the grass quite near him. At- 
 tached to this family was a dingy white mon- 
 grel of a melancholy disposition, who regarded 
 Dr. Steele in cynical silence. But the woman 
 looked up with the cheerful smile of her dis- 
 order. 
 
122 TRIXY 
 
 " Nice ! " she said, " ain't it ? Say, did yer 
 ever see anything like it, anywheres else ? " 
 
 Dr. Steele's eyes sought Miss Lauriat's ex- 
 alted face. " No," he said heartily, " no, I 
 never did." 
 
 "Say," repeated the woman, "d'you s'pose 
 heaven's anything like this here?" 
 
 "It is very possible," replied Steele fer- 
 vently. 
 
 " Because," said the woman, " if I thought 
 it was " — 
 
 " What would you do ? " asked Steele indif- 
 ferently, " if you thought it were ? " 
 
 The woman had caught the indefinable ac- 
 cent of patronage in his tone, or perhaps she 
 perceived that her grammar was corrected. 
 (We remember that Patrick Henry talked to 
 the backwoodsmen in their own dialect.) She 
 glanced at Steele sharply, and did not finish 
 her sentence. In fact, she took her children 
 and moved away. 
 
 Now Dr. Steele was more astonished than 
 gratified to see Philip Surbridge, who had 
 been teaching a little boy to ride a bicycle, 
 catch up the three little girls and put them, 
 with his ringing, boyish laugh, in three little 
 
TRIXY 123 
 
 swings which he personally conducted. Per- 
 ceiving the doctor, he called out : 
 
 " Ah, Steele ! We are having a beautiful 
 time. You are just in season to enjoy your- 
 self ! " 
 
 Miriam turned to the doctor with a sweet 
 shyness. 
 
 " I never was so happy in my life ! " she 
 said. " Most of these people have n't got into 
 the country all summer ; some of them have 
 never seen it. I cannot explain to you how it 
 makes me feel. Everybody is here — every- 
 body I asked ! " She spoke with the flattered 
 gratification of a hostess whose salon is filled. 
 " And Dan — and Dan, too," she added, " and 
 Trixy ! " 
 
 The crippled lad was lying in a hammock 
 luxuriously reading a book on trained dogs. 
 His crutch fell to the grass, and Miriam im- 
 pulsively sprang and picked it up for him. 
 Dan's eyes leaped to hers with the worship 
 that deformity gives to beauty, and weakness 
 to sympathetic strength. Dr. Steele watched 
 this little episode with a puzzled expression. 
 
 " I don't see Trixy." His gaze wandered 
 about the lawn. "But then, I should n't know 
 
124 TRIXY 
 
 her if I did see her. Is that she ? " He pointed 
 to the melancholy mongrel who was regarding 
 the scene without enthusiasm. 
 
 " I am ashamed of you ! " cried Miss Lau- 
 riat, laughing, "not to recognize so famous 
 an actress ! Trixy is in the coach house with 
 Matthew. That poor, old, plebeian thing is not 
 very clean, and Dan would n't let her asso- 
 ciate with him. Trixy, you know, is an aristo- 
 crat. The ice cream will be sent in to her on 
 a cut-glass plate." 
 
 "Is that gray dog one of the invited 
 guests ? " 
 
 " Why, of course. He came out on the 
 steamer with the rest. He has a cough — 
 that poor woman's dogs always do — and it 
 was expected to do him good. He belongs to 
 the little girls Mr. Surbridge is swinging. 
 Come, Dr. Steele ! There are two boys who 
 don't seem to be having a very good time. 
 Would you mind playing Bear with them? 
 Or perhaps Puss in the Corner. Or Wolf and 
 Red Riding Hood ; or — something ! " 
 
 "I can try," said Steele grimly. "But I 
 am not sure how far I am to be flattered by 
 your choice of roles." 
 
TRIXY 125 
 
 " You don't care for it," said Miriam under 
 her breath. " You don't care for it at all. 
 And it makes me so happy ! " 
 
 " I care for anything that makes you happy ; 
 you know I do." 
 
 " Go, then," commanded Miriam, " and dis- 
 cuss the tariff with Cady's Molly's father. It 
 needs a man to entertain him. He has views 
 about protection and free trade. The subject 
 is beyond my depth, and I have never been 
 able to keep up with it. It requires a mascu- 
 line intellect." 
 
 Steele laughed and obeyed her, awkwardly 
 enough. His personal comfort was not en- 
 hanced, nor the subject of the tariff advanced, 
 by the reception which he met. 
 
 " Oh, it 's you ! " said Cady's Molly's father. 
 " You are the fellow that quarantined us, ain't 
 you ? We fired you once. I never expected 
 to see you again." 
 
 Thus forced to feel his lack of position in 
 slum society, conscious that he was unjustly 
 made to suffer for a plain performance of 
 duty, and therefore not in the best of hu- 
 mors, Dr. Steele retreated from the lawn 
 party and made his way to the piazza, where 
 
126 TRIXY 
 
 for an hour to come he solemnly discussed 
 with Mrs. Jeffries the first arrest made by the 
 Society for the Prevention of Docking and 
 Cropping. The tail of a two weeks' puppy 
 had been cut off, and the society had appealed 
 to the humane sentiments of the state, and 
 the majesty of the law. Dr. Steele did not 
 return to the lawn party, which broke up 
 directly after supper. 
 
 In the little stir consequent on the de- 
 parture of Miss Lauriat's guests, he stood 
 embarrassed and apart. None of the people 
 addressed him, and he was glad of it. Philip 
 Surbridge went down the avenue with the 
 consumptive woman on his arm ; in his other 
 he carried the baby, and the three little girls 
 clung to his coat-tails. 
 
 " You 're coming back, are n't you ? " 
 pleaded Mrs. Jeffries. " If you don't, there 
 won't be anybody to talk to me." 
 
 " I '11 come out to see you next week," an- 
 swered Surbridge, with his tender smile. He 
 did not meet Miriam's eye. " I will say good- 
 night now. I think I '11 see them all safely 
 back to town. They are a pretty helpless 
 lot." 
 
TRIXY 127 
 
 This was in an undertone, but Miriam heard 
 it, and warmly held out her hand. Dr. Steele 
 watched her with compressed lips. She went 
 part way down the avenue with Surbridge 
 and the children. Dan Badger limped beside 
 her with Trixy on his neck. The sea wind 
 was shrewish, and Trixy wore her little over- 
 coat with its hood. Miss Lauriat's poor people 
 clung to her wistfully ; some of them kissed 
 her, all blessed her, and then the turn in the 
 avenue hid them. 
 
 She came back walking rather fast, breath- 
 less and beautiful. Steele went down to meet 
 her. He had a paper in his hand ; it was a 
 printer's proof-sheet. 
 
 " It fell from your pocket," he began, " as 
 you went down the steps. Will you pardon 
 me? It was print, and I did look at it. I 
 did n't read it, though. I did n't know that 
 you wrote." 
 
 Miriam flushed and held out her hand for 
 the proof-sheet. 
 
 " Let me read it, won't you ? " he entreated. 
 
 " As long as you have seen it — well — 
 yes. I do not know that I mind — that is — 
 not very much." 
 
128 TRIXY 
 
 " I did not know that you were an au- 
 thoress," observed Steele. 
 
 " I am not an authoress/' flashed Miriam, 
 "and no reading man ever uses that word, 
 Dr. Steele. Let me have my proof-sheet, if 
 you please." 
 
 " Oh, forgive me ! " cried Steele. " I am 
 always saying or doing the wrong thing." 
 
 " And I am always forgiving you," she 
 answered in an unsteady voice. 
 
 Steele read the verses. There were but two, 
 and they ran like this : 
 
 SONG 
 
 To the spaces between the stars 
 We went, my love and I, 
 Among the uttermost things. 
 For my love hath wings; 
 With twain he covers his face, 
 With twain his feet, 
 With twain he doth fly. 
 
 To the earth and our rose-red door, 
 
 We came, my love and I. 
 
 Among the dear, daily things, 
 
 He folded his wings. 
 
 But the winged watch their time. 
 
 And when he starts, 
 
 Ah, how shall I fly ? 
 
TRIXY 129 
 
 He returned the proof-sheet to her. " I 
 don't understand it," he said perplexedly. 
 " It is graceful, but I don't think I know 
 what you mean." 
 
 Miriam put the verses back in her pocket. 
 
 " Now your taste for painting," began Dr. 
 Steele, " that appeals to me. I have never 
 lost my interest in art. There are so many 
 things that a man does lose, you know. I 
 hope you have not given up whatever you 
 were doing at the school? I like to think of 
 you in that peaceful and aesthetic place." 
 
 " I have not been there this summer," said 
 Miriam, in a constrained tone. 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 Miriam made no reply. Her attraction for 
 Dr. Steele had now reached a stage where she 
 was conscious of wishing to harmonize with 
 him in everything, and uncomfortable when 
 she might not. She could not have explained 
 to herself why it was that she often found it 
 impossible to give him a confidence which she 
 longed to offer. His presence brought her 
 pleasure, but not peace. He came often ; the 
 summer passed dreamily ; and she slowly be- 
 gan to admit to herself — but not as yet to 
 
130 TRIXY 
 
 him — that he was becoming necessary to her. 
 As the doctor's visits increased in frequency, 
 those of the lawyer diminished. Miriam, who 
 had been often beloved, had never counted 
 Philip Surbridge among her suitors, and when 
 she found that she missed him, felt quite at 
 liberty to tell him so. 
 
 Dear Philip [she wrote one day] : Aunt 
 Cornelia is playing Mariana in the Moated 
 Grange for your sweet sake. I mind it a little 
 myself, that you stay away. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 Miriam Lauriat. 
 
 Surbridge responded to this recall, but lei- 
 surely, and it was the second week in Septem- 
 ber before he came out to dme and spend the 
 evening. Miriam was unaffectedly and heartily 
 glad to see him. He took her out to row, for 
 there was a rowing moon, and she sat in the 
 stern, in her white boating dress, with her 
 hands clasped behind her head, and looked at 
 him affectionately. 
 
 He rowed well, and she thought how square 
 his shoulders were, and how sturdy his arm — 
 for so studious a man. The values of his face 
 
TRIXY 131 
 
 in the strong, soft light were like those of a 
 Reynolds portrait, which had the repose of an 
 earlier, calmer age than ours. His very pre- 
 sence quieted her ; it always had. Did he 
 soothe most people in the same way? She 
 sometimes asked herself the question. She 
 was conscious of that old impulse to tell things 
 to Philip Surbridge. It was not only that he 
 belonged to one of the confessional profes- 
 sions ; but he had the confessor's temperament. 
 
 As he rowed her out from the shore she 
 regarded him wistfully. There were no other 
 boats about them, and they seemed to be quite 
 alone with the sea and the sky. She thought 
 of that other moon-bright night when she and 
 Steele had stood upon the shore. But she and 
 Surbridge were going straight out to sea. 
 
 "It is the same sea, the same sky, the same 
 moon," thought Miriam, " but it 's not the 
 same woman." 
 
 They talked little and lightly, with long 
 silences between their quiet words. She felt 
 a distinct relief from the mental turmoil of 
 the summer. For this one hour it was not per- 
 emptory to decide anything, and she was 
 conscious of a sense of reprieve. 
 
132 TRIXY 
 
 Philip's boyish smile in itself was a comfort 
 to her, as it always was, and his dark, mute 
 eyes seemed to protect her from herself. He 
 did not urge her confidence ; indeed, she was 
 half aware that he fended it off. 
 
 To Miriam, as to all high-minded girls, love 
 had always seemed to be a demonstrable thing ; 
 it never occurred to her that she could have 
 any doubts about it when she should experience 
 it, or that she could cast up the divine sum of 
 her happiness in more than one inevitable way. 
 Love was inexorable, in a sense mathematical ; 
 it was of the celestial sciences ; it would be 
 eternal, like the ordering of the stars, and she 
 should follow its commands — brain and heart, 
 soul and body, will and imagination — as the 
 sea follows the moon. She was bewildered by 
 the perturbation in which she had passed the 
 last six months. If she had obeyed her mad- 
 dest impulse, she would have cried out like a 
 distressed girl to her elder brother : 
 
 "Philip! Philip! What shall I do?" But 
 in point of fact she said no such thing. 
 
 "You are looking tired," Surbridge ob- 
 served quietly ; but that was all. 
 
 "I am tired," Miriam passionately exclaimed 
 
TRIXY 133 
 
 — as if he could help it ; as if she expected 
 him to. 
 
 She held out her hands to him girlishly. 
 
 " If I thought I could really do anything " — 
 began Surb ridge, laying down his oars. His 
 manner had changed, and his tone, which at 
 first was but gently troubled, rose into the 
 ring of acute feeling. " But you must see 
 
 — you cannot help understanding. It 's — 
 hard ! " 
 
 " Look out there ! " interrupted Miriam. 
 " The steamer ! You are getting into her 
 wake ! " 
 
 Surbridge, veering sharply, skillfully escaped 
 the serpent of foam which had begun to coil 
 about their little rocking boat, as the steamer 
 from the city passed them on her last trip 
 out. Both looked up at the crowded deck. 
 An undersized lad, who was leaning over the 
 rail, seemed to be making an effort to attract 
 their attention. 
 
 " Why, there 's Dan Badger ! " cried Miriam 
 quickly. " Look — look at his face. Row me 
 ashore, please. Quick ! As fast as you can ! " 
 
 Surbridge rowed rapidly and powerfully ; 
 he beached the boat on a little cove below 
 
134 TRIXY 
 
 the wharf at which the steamer was somewhat 
 slowly and clumsily making a landing. She 
 was late, and would put about immediately 
 on her return trip. Miriam jumped from the 
 dory and ran up the bank without waiting 
 for Surbridge. As soon as he could secure his 
 boat he hurried after her. 
 
 The crippled lad stood leaning on his crutch. 
 He was trying to speak, but his words came 
 thickly. His face was gray and pinched, like 
 that of a little old man, and he shook from 
 head to foot. Dan had neither eaten nor slept 
 for twenty-four hours. 
 
 " Where 's Trixy ? Where 's Trixy ? " Miriam 
 was saying over and over. 
 
 Dan stared at her stupidly as if he did not 
 understand what she said. 
 
 " Come, Dan," urged Surbridge very gen- 
 tly, " tell us all about it." 
 
 With a gesture never to be forgotten by 
 those who witnessed it, the cripple dropped 
 his crutch and threw both hands above his 
 head, as one does in unendurable physical 
 pain. 
 
 " Trixy 's lost ! " 
 
 " No ! No ! No ! " cried Miriam. 
 
TRIXY 135 
 
 " Not stolen ? " exclaimed Surbridge. 
 
 But Dan repeated dully : " Trixy 's lost. I 
 tell you Trixy 's lost. I 've hunted for her 
 every wheres. Everybody 's hunted. Nobody 
 can't find her." 
 
 " Give me the circumstances," urged Sur- 
 bridge, " if you can. Tell me when it hap- 
 pened, and where. Try, Dan. Think how it 
 was." 
 
 " I can't," muttered Dan, " my — my head 
 won't let me. It was last nig-ht — she had on 
 her little coat you made her, Miss Laurie — 
 it was sort of cold — and we 'd been playing 
 at one of them beaches — I can't think the 
 name — my head is bad. We was jest goin' 
 home — you never see her play so pretty — 
 I put her clown — I — think I put her down, 
 and when I looked she was n't there. I tried 
 to hurry, but I 'm lame, you know. She was n't 
 there. — Sir?" 
 
 For the first time since he had known her, 
 Dan, disregarding his goddess, turned else- 
 where for divine interference ; it was as if 
 he felt that his extremity was a matter be- 
 tween men. 
 
 " Mr. Surbridge, sir," said Dan, " you told 
 
136 TRIXY 
 
 me once if ever me and Trixy needed a friend, 
 to count on you. So here I be." 
 
 " Come with me, Dan." Surbridge caught 
 the boy quickly, for Dan swayed and tot- 
 tered. " Come ! The boat starts right away. 
 I will go back to town with you." 
 
 " And, Dan ! " cried Miriam, " listen to me. 
 I 'm sure Mr. Surbridge will find her. Do you 
 hear me? Sure. Mr. Surbridge always finds 
 everything that he tries to." 
 
 She put her arm around the lad's neck, and 
 kissed him and patted him, thinking no more 
 of the people on the wharf than if they had 
 been starfish on the rocks. 
 
 She and Philip grasped hands. He did not 
 even ask how she was going to find her way 
 home without him, nor did she like him the 
 less for that. 
 
 She stood on the wharf watching the steamer 
 till it reeled out of sight. Once Philip lifted 
 his hat. He was tenderly enfolding the boy, 
 whose face was hidden against the young man's 
 heart. 
 
 " Dan is crying in his arms," thought Miriam. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 Among the worlds of woe allotted to sentient 
 life, there is one which hangs quite apart 
 from the rest of the system, and holds a place 
 unique in the astronomy of pain ; this may 
 be called the world of the lost dog. In this 
 alone the human and the animal can strictly 
 be said to suffer together. In other catastro- 
 phes shared by the higher and the lower races, 
 each endures or perishes thinking of his own 
 pang. When fate separates master and dog, 
 each undergoes the pang of the other. It has 
 been well written that the dog is the only 
 animal who has elected to give himself ut- 
 terly to the worship of man ; and man, to a 
 certain extent, has returned this profound and 
 pathetic attachment. It cannot be claimed that 
 he has done this on even terms. " Dogs," 
 said a student of the species, " have the grand- 
 est of created qualities : love, gratitude, and 
 fidelity." But the man, though he may never 
 love as nobly as his dog, has requited the 
 
138 TEIXY 
 
 touching devotion that he receives with an 
 affection which cannot be duplicated in the 
 range of human feeling. 
 
 Dan haunted the streets, the wharves, the 
 steamers, the stations, the beaches, the ken- 
 nels, the saloons, as a little crippled ghost 
 might shadow the scenes of his former life. 
 His face and figure had acquired such a look 
 that happy people shrank from him, and the 
 careless of heart avoided him. He had s:rown 
 as silent as an insomniac ; he slept little, and 
 ate less. The grasp of Mr. Surbridge's hand, 
 the tears on Miss Lauriat's cheeks were more 
 than he could bear ; the lad crawled away 
 into his anguish as some little blind mole, 
 mortally hurt, crawls into a hole where it 
 cannot be found. All day he searched — and 
 searched. All night he lay pondering where 
 he should search to-morrow. 
 
 More than once Cady's Molly's father tip- 
 toed in and found him with wide eyes, staring 
 at the ceiling of his narrow bedroom. The 
 lad lay far over at one side of the cot, with 
 his feet drawn up, as he was accustomed to 
 do to give the little dog room. His ragged 
 coat with which he used to cover Trixy was 
 
TRIXY 139 
 
 folded in its place. Sometimes lie dreamed 
 that she was there, and his thin hand stole 
 down to pat her. Cady's Molly's father hap- 
 pened once to see this touching action, and the 
 big fellow came away blubbering like a boy. 
 
 Trixy had whirled out of sight as utterly 
 as a feather caught by a cyclone; and into 
 the fate of this little creature the human lives 
 whose story it is ours to tell were inextri- 
 cably drawn. Only this could be said in palli- 
 ation of Dan's misery, that he was not left to 
 bear it alone. The bereaved lad was carried 
 through it with a tenderness and a fidelity 
 finer than that which most men and women 
 offer their own flesh and blood. Nothing that 
 wisdom or power, sweetness or light, could do 
 for him was denied to the afflicted lad. Miss 
 Lauriat poured out money upon the search 
 for Trixy as if she had no other earthly uses 
 for it, and Philip Surbridge threw his profes- 
 sional skill and experience at the feet of Dan's 
 extremity with a large, reckless generosity 
 characteristic of the man. 
 
 At the outset Miriam had made it plain 
 that she wished to retain her attorney in 
 Dan's behalf. With a naive confidence in the 
 
140 TRIXY 
 
 law, born of confidence in the lawyer, she had 
 directed him : 
 
 " Spare nothing, and spare nobody, but 
 find that dog." 
 
 " I '11 find Trixy if she is alive ; but I can- 
 not take your money for it," said Surbridge 
 unexpectedly. 
 
 Miriam, as unexpectedly, flushed. " I can- 
 not see why. The time — the trouble — the 
 skill, and you " — 
 
 But Surbridge took fire. 
 
 " Yes, I know I do for other things ; but 
 for this I can't, and I won't. Dan retained 
 me before you did." 
 
 " Very well," said Miriam, " have it your 
 own way, then. But — Philip " — 
 
 " But what ? " 
 
 " It is not necessary for me to hear every- 
 thing, is it ? I know just how that sounds," 
 she faltered. " I don't expect anybody to 
 understand. But most people don't feel as I 
 do about — you know, since " — 
 
 Philip looked at her compassionately. 
 
 " I wish you could outlive that ! — No, you 
 shall not be worried. Trust me, and leave it 
 all to me." 
 
TRIXY 141 
 
 This was a favorite phrase of Philip's. 
 Miriam had heard it — how many times in how 
 many troubles ! " Leave it all to me." She 
 had always found it natural to leave every- 
 thing to him. Like a sister she had leaned, 
 like a brother he had guarded. She took their 
 unemotional relation as a matter of course. 
 
 In the agitation consequent upon the loss 
 of Trixy, Miriam seemed like a person whose 
 emotion is strained with a tension dispropor- 
 tionate to the disturbing cause. The poise of 
 her perfect nerve shook a little, and she be- 
 came uncertain of movement, and moody of 
 impulse. At the first announcement of Dan's 
 calamity she would have closed her house at 
 the shore and moved back to town. But Mrs. 
 Jeffries, who had no moods, few whims, and 
 inexorable habits, could see no reason why 
 the household should leave the coast four 
 weeks too soon because a boy in the slums 
 had lost his dog. Miriam, therefore, took 
 Maggie and the old seamstress, opened the 
 town house, and vibrated restlessly between 
 the two homes. It seemed to her impossible 
 not to be near the scene of Dan's misery ; yet 
 when she was there, it seemed impossible to 
 
142 TRIXY 
 
 bear it. For days she would leave the lad's 
 affairs entirely to Surbridge, herself falling 
 into a silence that was not broken by a ques- 
 tion. At other times she brooded over the boy 
 more tenderly than his mother would have 
 done, if Dan had known one, and dwelt upon 
 his bereavement as if it had been her own. 
 From this too sensitive sympathy she would 
 wince away like a wounded nerve, and occupy 
 herself with anything and everything except 
 the disappearance of Trixy. She was, in fact, 
 overwrought, and not altogether reasonable. 
 Afterwards — long afterwards — she perceived 
 what at the time she was quite unconscious of, 
 that this unnatural condition gave a subtle 
 deflection to her own lot. It threw her more 
 than usual into the society of Olin Steele ; and 
 the young professor did not talk about lost 
 dogs. He had expressed his regret for Dan's 
 affliction in language that he felt would appeal 
 to the excessive sympathy which he perceived 
 Miss Lauriat to be cherishing. It was a re- 
 lief to him that she evidently preferred not 
 to discuss the matter, and thereafter he tact- 
 fully avoided it. One day he happened to 
 say: 
 
TRIXY 143 
 
 " I lost Barry once. He was gone a week. 
 I had the whole state looking for him." 
 
 Miss Lauriat received this remark in silence 
 so unlike herself that he looked at her shrewdly. 
 He was not naturally patient with inattention 
 to what he chose to say. Some day, he thought, 
 he would ask her what she meant by it. 
 
 Some day — ah, that day ! As God lived, 
 he swore, its sun should rise and set. In the 
 magic of its haze, in the marvel of its splen- 
 dor, she should be his. Oh, and willingly ! 
 Yes, and joyfully. For his love had grown 
 fastidious, epicurean. At the first, as he had 
 told himself, he meant to win her " anyhow." 
 Now, this would not content him. She — no 
 subject that he should seize her against her 
 own heart's will — she, the strongest and ten- 
 derest woman whom he had ever known — 
 she, out of whose strength came her sweetness, 
 and whose capacity for love he knew that no 
 heart had measured — she should come to him 
 like any lesser woman, yielding, and glad to 
 yield. Oh, she should crave him — as he, her. 
 She should hunger and thirst for his love as he 
 had hungered and thirsted — and maddened 
 and waited — for hers. 
 
144 TRIXY 
 
 He pursued his suit with the ardor of an 
 oriental despot, and the tactics of an occiden- 
 tal diplomat. He knew he was gaining upon 
 her defenses ; he made havoc with her reluc- 
 tance ; he antedated his triumphs in a delirium 
 of victory the mightier because it was con- 
 trolled and unexpressed, and already he flaunted 
 banners in his own heart. 
 
 Miriam treated him with a guarded sweet- 
 ness which at times took on the tint of tender- 
 ness, and at others deepened into reserve 
 amounting almost to rebuff. Then she would 
 pause again, and seem to wait and look at him 
 over her shoulder. It could not be said that 
 as yet she experienced either peace or joy ; 
 but she was now conscious of living in a world 
 apart with Olin Steele. 
 
 It has long been one of the psychological 
 mysteries that a delicately reared and finely 
 fibred woman may idealize a man of coarser 
 grain and manifestly lower moral nature. Even 
 an infatuation for brute force may possess an 
 otherwise clear-headed and true-hearted wo- 
 man. Call such emotional defectives; from their 
 lineage Miriam Lauriat's was by the heaven's 
 width removed ; yet was she subtly swept 
 
TRIXY 145 
 
 within the extended shadow of that unhappy 
 fate? Sheer physical perfection did not in- 
 terest her. If she had been thrown solitary 
 upon some planet with a low-browed, dull- 
 minded gladiator, he would not have attracted 
 her in any sense of the word. But to intel- 
 lectual athletics she was very sensitive, and 
 this kind of prowess she felt in Steele. His 
 well-trained mind, his large learning, his pro- 
 fessional preeminence, commanded her. In his 
 department he was a scholar ; in conversation 
 he was stimulating, in manner finished, in 
 character without reproach; and in the diffi- 
 cult art of courtship he was without fear. In 
 love he would take no denial. He surrounded 
 her with a sense of power more dangerous to 
 her because more fine than the kind of domi- 
 nation to which a weaker woman yields. 
 
 Miriam was besieged by his determination. 
 She had begun to feel that she had no escape 
 from the strategy of a love that was all will, 
 and of a will that had become all love. 
 
 "I suppose you know," said Philip Sur- 
 bridge one day, " I suppose you understand — 
 pardon me — what Olin Steele is ? " 
 
 Surbridge turned very pale as he uttered 
 
146 TRIXY 
 
 these words. They seemed to be forced from 
 his lips by a deliberate and solemn purpose, 
 that he would have concealed, if he could, in 
 an incidental manner. 
 
 Miriam lifted her chin with that pretty, 
 haughty motion which Philip so seldom saw. 
 
 " Why, everybody knows. He is professor 
 at Galen. He is at the head of one of the 
 most important departments in the school." 
 
 She brought these sentences out with little 
 dents between as if she had bitten them. 
 
 " But you know," Philip hesitated, " you 
 know what he teaches ? You know what he 
 does ? " 
 
 "He teaches physiology," said Miriam 
 proudly. " It is the basis of all medical edu- 
 cation. I understand he teaches it thoroughly 
 and brilliantly." 
 
 Philip looked at her in silence. There was 
 a certain compassion in his eyes which hers 
 instantly resented. 
 
 " Is there anything new about Trixy ? " 
 she asked abruptly. " Any more clues ? " 
 
 " Yes, a new one. And there may be some- 
 thing in it. I came to say so, but I see you 
 don't wish to hear about it this morning." 
 
TRIXY 147 
 
 "I will hear it to-morrow," answered Miriam 
 nervously. u Tell me all about it to-morrow." 
 
 But to-morrow when he came to tell her, 
 she had gone to the shore ; and Steele had 
 followed her. Maggie handed Surbridge a 
 hurried note which had been left at the town 
 house for him. 
 
 Dear Philip [it said] : I am tired out 
 and nervous, and I am gone to spend a 
 couple of days with Aunt Cornelia. Telephone 
 if I am needed. It occurs to me that if you 
 have a new clue you may need to increase 
 your detective force. I inclose a signed check, 
 which you will please fill out to any extent 
 that the expenses of the search for Trixy may 
 require. I cannot tell you how I feel about 
 what you are doing, and the way in which you 
 are doing it. All I can say is that it 's just 
 like you. I am a good deal worried about 
 some other matters, and I must leave it all 
 to you. How many times in my life I have 
 done that ! 
 
 I am always your grateful and faithful 
 Miriam Lauriat. 
 
148 TRIXY 
 
 There was no moon, and the early Septem- 
 ber dark had shut in softly. The sky was 
 lightly clouded, with only here and there a star. 
 The black gulf of the sea lay sheer below the 
 piazza, and the rising tide reverberated against 
 the cliff which rose straight as the side of a 
 canon. In fact, the broad piazza overlapped 
 the water, and one had the sense of hanging 
 in mid-air above the abyss. The night was 
 warm, the wind southerly, and the surf heavy. 
 
 Miriam and Steele sat side by side in the 
 screened, half-lighted place. The long, un- 
 shaded windows revealed Aunt Cornelia read- 
 ing by a lamp with a blue globe that lent to 
 her face the ghastly effect which it is given 
 only to this particular species of domestic art 
 to offer. In fact, it seemed to color the shaft 
 of light that lay across the piazza ; this had a 
 sickly tint like light blue marble. It made 
 Miriam uncomfortable, and she moved into 
 the shadow. Steele immediately followed, tak- 
 ing a piazza chair directly in front of her. 
 She stirred uneasily, and made as if she would 
 lean over the railing of the piazza, but the 
 galvanized wire netting prevented. She drew 
 back impatiently. 
 
TKIXY 149 
 
 " These screens keep the mosquitoes out — 
 but the comfort, too. What 's the use of a 
 piazza that you can't look over ? I feel as if 
 I were in a cage." 
 
 " And so you are," said Olin Steele. 
 
 When Miriam looked up and saw his face, 
 half black in the shadow, half pale in the cold 
 light, every drop of red blood deserted her own. 
 
 " Why did you come to-night ? " she 
 pleaded. " I did not expect you." 
 
 " Why did you try to escape me ? " he de- 
 manded. " I do not permit you." 
 
 Miriam's chin rose instinctively with its 
 haughty motion. 
 
 " I have given you no right to speak to me 
 like that ! " 
 
 " No," he said firmly, " but you are going 
 to give it to me." 
 
 He was obliged to speak very distinctly, or 
 the roar of the surf would have quenched his 
 voice. Ten feet away nothing they said could 
 have been heard. They were shut apart in 
 the raffe of wind and wave. 
 
 " I have waited till I can wait no more," he 
 said desperately. " You have played with me 
 as long as I can bear it." 
 
150 TRIXY 
 
 " I have never played with you ! " cried 
 Miriam. 
 
 " Well, defied me, then ; it is the same thing. 
 I have resolved to end it. My misery " — 
 
 " Are you miserable ? " asked Miriam, with 
 unexpected tenderness. " I don't want to 
 make you — unhappy." 
 
 "I know you don't," said Steele, "because 
 you love me." 
 
 Miriam flung her hands up against the 
 screen ; he thought how well she had spoken 
 when she called it a cage. Her whole being 
 seemed to beat upon it. She looked like a 
 creature entrapped. 
 
 "You love me," he insisted, "only you won't 
 own it. You won't own it to yourself — or 
 to me." 
 
 Miriam's forehead fell against the metal 
 netting. She felt the spray from the gulf fifty 
 feet below upon her face. " Oh, perhaps I 
 do," she sighed, " perhaps I do." 
 
 The noise of the surf was so great that 
 Steele could not be sure he had distinctly un- 
 derstood her. His heart throbbed in his body 
 as the waves throbbed on the rocks ; his brain 
 hammered on his temples. 
 
TRIXY 151 
 
 " Let me hear it ! " he cried. " Let me hear 
 it again." 
 
 Miriam lifted her head and raised her eyes. 
 In them he might have seen the infinite sad- 
 ness with which a woman yields to a powerful 
 but imperfect love. " Perhaps I do," she re- 
 peated, "lam afraid I do." 
 
 As the waves to the shore Steele turned 
 towards her. Her soft shoulder quivered be- 
 neath his arm. She felt his breath on her 
 cheek. Then Miriam shrank. 
 
 " Oh, no ! Not now ! Not yet ! I can't — 
 Not yet — not yet ! " 
 
 In a moment, without seeming to repel, she 
 had eluded him. So mystery eludes science, 
 so the spirit escapes the body. Trembling and 
 white she leaned against the fine, invisible 
 bars of the narrowing space in which they 
 stood together. She regarded him solemnly. 
 There was that in her eyes before which Steele 
 felt his head grow light ; but he could no 
 more have touched her than he could have 
 torn the sphinx from the desert. 
 
 " Next time ! " she entreated. " Perhaps 
 next time." 
 
 Steele's outstretched arms fell. 
 
152 TRIXY 
 
 " I shall reprieve you/' he said very slowly, 
 " till next time." 
 
 Now, Miriam, wincing from these words, yet 
 leaning to them, hid her face upon her hands, 
 and when she lifted it he had left her. 
 
 " That was merciful," she thought, and the 
 tide of her tenderness for the man rose by 
 one of the abrupt and powerful waves below 
 whose high- water line, if the laws of feeling 
 are not intercepted, a woman's love will not 
 ebb. Sensitively craving solitude, she opened 
 the screen door that led from the piazza to 
 the garden, and, hardly knowing what she 
 did, or why she did it, paced to and fro alone 
 with wild feet among the frosted flowers. The 
 nasturtiums and salvia were still alive, and 
 since she brushed and bruised them, they 
 splashed her white woolen dress with red petals 
 that clung to it. 
 
 But when, an hour later, she went into the 
 house, she found Aunt Cornelia excited and 
 annoyed. Philip Surbridge had been ringing 
 at the telephone ever since Dr. Steele went 
 away. " And I told him you had probably 
 jumped into the ocean, for I could not find 
 you high or low." 
 
TRIXY 153 
 
 "And what," Miriam inquired absently, 
 "did Philip say?" 
 
 " He said : ' When she jumps out again 
 tell her I called her up on a matter of some 
 importance, but she 's not to mind ; she can 
 leave it all to me.' And I must say, Miriam " — 
 
 But Miriam did not stay to hear what Aunt 
 Cornelia must say. 
 
 In the city the September night was sad 
 and sultry, and Surbridge, who had hurried 
 back to his rooms after his ineffectual effort 
 to consult Miriam by telephone, flung open 
 the window and leaned out a little over the 
 sill for a breath of such air as there was. As 
 he did so he heard the thud, thudding of a 
 rubber-tipped crutch upon the sidewalk, and 
 the uneven sound of a crippled foot trailing 
 with it. Both stopped directly beneath his 
 window. 
 
 " Mr. Surbridge, sir ? " 
 
 " Yes, Dan, yes, — anything more ? " 
 
 " Oh, sir, I 've found — Oh, sir ! " Dan 
 stood choking. Terrible sobs tore the words 
 out of the lad's throat. He held up something 
 in his shaking hands. 
 
154 TRIXY 
 
 " I can't see, Dan. Don't try to come up ! 
 It 's two flights — I will come down." 
 
 Surbridge ran down and out upon the side- 
 walk. Dan stood staring at him. 
 
 " I 've come — to count on — you," gasped 
 the boy. With a feeble moan as if his own 
 life were gashed out of him from a severed 
 artery, Dan laid across Surbridge' s arm a little 
 dog's coat of blue flannel, soiled and stained 
 and torn. Part of the embroidered name on 
 the coat had been worn off or cut off ; but 
 some of the stitches were left where the let- 
 tering had been, and by the street lamp Sur- 
 bridge plainly read : 
 
 IXY 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The night, which was warm at the shore, and 
 sultry in the city, was stifling in the labora- 
 tory. The windows were closed. This was 
 found desirable because complaints had arisen 
 in the neighborhood of occasional strange 
 sounds that seemed to come from the school 
 of science. It was rumored that protests from 
 the art school had taken shape ; that the hot- 
 headed old signor had complained of some- 
 thing affecting the nerves of his pupils. In 
 the rear of the medical building was a hospi- 
 tal, and during the hot weather when windows 
 were open, patients had described to their 
 nurses and doctors signs of animal distress 
 which now and then disturbed the human 
 sick. 
 
 The medical school of Galen was an an- 
 cient and independent institution, not affiliated 
 with a university. All that age, endowment, 
 and intellectual prestige could bestow was at 
 the command of this powerful scientific centre. 
 
156 TRIXY 
 
 Its alumni could be found throughout the 
 civilized world, and cherished a remarkably 
 strong attachment to their school. They were 
 ready to defend her as most men defend their 
 country's flag, through evil report and good, 
 were she right or were she wrong. Among 
 the graduates (and especially, let it be noted, 
 among the elder men belonging to an earlier 
 day, before modern physiology had begun to 
 control the curriculum) were to be found many 
 of the noblest representatives of the medical 
 profession — men of aspiration, self-denial, and 
 consecration ; men on whom the sick leaned, 
 and whom the dying trusted; men whom wo- 
 men honored, and children loved, and the 
 poor blessed ; men who hesitated at no sacri- 
 fice, halted at no danger, and who would hurl 
 away their own lives without a thought, to 
 save a patient. These men, too busy in heal- 
 ing the sick to inflict the ingenuities of a de- 
 cadent science upon small, speechless creatures, 
 thought little and knew less about what was 
 going on in the fastnesses of their own medical 
 school. Yet, the moment when her fair fame 
 should be touched, they would spring to her 
 defense like soldiers blindly following the 
 
TRIXY 157 
 
 colors through a fight in a fog. So widely 
 scattered and so deeply united were the alumni 
 of this celebrated school that they carried its 
 powerful influence everywhere, and sustained 
 in the public mind a respect for the institution 
 amounting to idealization. Among the first to 
 recognize and respond to this pervasive influ- 
 ence had been the men of fortune. A multi- 
 millionaire, who had devoted his superfluous 
 thousands for some years to the endowment 
 of societies for the prevention of cruelty to 
 animals, one summer day upon a yachting 
 cruise fell under the beguiling influence of 
 the old professor of physiology at Galen 
 — since gathered to his fate in a world where 
 he may look long for a congenial occupation. 
 The result was that Galen, although, as we 
 say, a very ancient school, had a very modern 
 building. This — a gift outright from the 
 philanthropic capitalist who had devoted him- 
 self hitherto to the interests of animals — was 
 new from roof to cellar. It was not intended 
 necessarily to be a replica of other buildings 
 of its kind. The old professor had full swing, 
 and had carried into execution some ideas of 
 his own. 
 
158 TRIXY 
 
 The first floor of the school was given up 
 to the lecture-rooms, offices, and so on, and 
 to the physiological laboratory. This was sep- 
 arated from the lecture-room which we shall 
 call the amphitheatre by a short passageway, 
 and by double and deadened walls. Every de- 
 vice that the modern building art could offer 
 for the dulling of sound had been employed. 
 Floors and ceilings were tremendously thick, 
 and heavily lined with mineral wool. In the 
 basement of the building the unhappy crea- 
 tures who furnished the material for experi- 
 mental physiology were confined. The room 
 where the dumb prisoners were incarcerated 
 was in a wing ; some of its windows looked upon 
 a yard that separated it from the hospital. 
 
 This lower room could be reached in several 
 ways ; for instance, by two flights of stairs — 
 one running from the physiological labora- 
 tory — and by a corridor that led out to the 
 rear of the building. This corridor, which 
 ramified in more than one direction, led to a 
 low door (one of several exits) somewhat hid- 
 den from observation by a porch or balcony 
 whose purpose seemed to be ornamental only. 
 This door, which opened upon an alle} r , was 
 
TRIXY 159 
 
 used by the janitor and laboratory assistants. 
 Most of the students knew nothing of its ex- 
 istence, and a casual passer would not have 
 noticed it. The corridor of which mention has 
 been made contained two closets ; one was 
 used for the disposal of brooms, mops, snow- 
 shovels, pails, and so on ; another for hanging 
 coats and hats. This latter closet was not far 
 from the low door of which we have spoken. 
 
 It was now eleven o'clock. In the hospital 
 the sick slept, or prayed that they might do 
 so before dawn. In the school of the arts 
 the silent studio, at night given over to the 
 shades and shapes of beautiful things, aroused 
 slowly to the consciousness of itself. The 
 antiques regarded each other solemnly ; the 
 statue of Pity seemed to breathe and turn 
 its face ; but the figure of the Christ did not 
 stir ; it hung at about the height of a cross, 
 upon the wall. In the medical school a few 
 stray students had finished their work in the 
 dissecting room and had gone for the night. 
 With the exception of the janitor and the 
 engineer, the building was deserted now of 
 human presence, and in its upper stories quiet. 
 In the basement it could seldom be called 
 
160 TKIXY 
 
 quiet. In that inferno the circles of misery 
 gave out the inarticulate expression of a doom 
 worse because neither understood, elected, nor 
 deserved. For the most part these signs of 
 anguish were gentle and docile, and at night 
 were much in abeyance. Now and then a dog 
 howled, or, if not badly injured, barked ; and 
 broken moans of pain answered from some 
 awakened or some dreaming creature ; but 
 most of the victims endured with the silence 
 and patience by which the suffering animal 
 shames the human race. 
 
 The room was dark, and the atmosphere 
 heavy, as has been said. Creatures accustomed 
 to freedom and to fresh air gasped the night 
 away. The large place was lined with cages, 
 each occupied by its little prisoner. The in- 
 oculated victims were many — rabbits, guinea 
 pigs, and the like — all vicariously, and for 
 the most part uselessly, enduring for the va- 
 garies of science the maladies of man. Sights 
 which the readers of these pages could not 
 bring their delicate sensibilities to witness, 
 facts which you who follow this narrative 
 would not permit its writer to relate, crowded 
 that den of anguish. 
 
TRIXY 161 
 
 Those four walls, packed with suffering 1 , 
 kept their secrets well. Into this tragic place 
 no curious reporter was admitted ; from it the 
 omnipotence of the press was excluded ; into 
 this pit no sister of mercy stepped ; to these 
 wounded no hospital nurse brought the min- 
 istrations of her gentle art ; into this lair no 
 preacher entered, and, leaving it, challenged 
 Christian civilization with its existence ; into 
 this hell no Christ descended. 
 
 It was well after midnight when a slight 
 disturbance occurred in the animal room. A 
 newcomer, who had not yet been operated 
 upon, and who was not caged, but tied, awoke 
 whining. Restless calls of response echoed 
 throughout the large room. The little white 
 dog that had caused the trouble pulled franti- 
 cally at its rope, and in its most pathetic way 
 called for its master. A low reply came from 
 an adjoining cage, and a black muzzle pressed 
 itself against the netting. The white poodle 
 returned a few sympathetic remarks, and the 
 two carried on a short conversation. The 
 debutante in that sad society, who though 
 sometimes leashed, was not, until her recent 
 
162 TRIXY 
 
 unhappy experience, accustomed to be tied, 
 resented her captivity with intolerable aston- 
 ishment. She pulled and pulled again at the 
 stout rope, and then, yielding to the stifling 
 closeness of the room, stopped, panting and 
 exhausted. Low whines from the black spaniel 
 in the nearest cage greeted this failure. 
 
 Most dogs, even the most intelligent and 
 the best educated, are numbed by despair 
 when they are lost. Their very powers of 
 thought or recognition are affected by the su- 
 preme catastrophe. For two weeks the French 
 poodle had been bewildered by the agony of 
 homesickness. Torn from its master, from its 
 home, from its occupation, it had fallen into 
 a lethargy that had dispossessed it of its nat- 
 ural reason. Now, after the last desperate 
 and futile attempt to break or gnaw the rope, 
 the baffled creature had cast itself upon the 
 floor. In that moment of exhaustion, memory 
 flooded its brain. With a bound the dog 
 leaped to its feet. It uttered a short, piercing 
 bark of triumph. Suddenly Trixy had found 
 herself. 
 
 It now occurred to her for the first time 
 that, no matter what might be the case with 
 
TRIXY 163 
 
 more ignorant dogs, it was quite unnecessary 
 for her to remain a prisoner. She could slip 
 her collar, as she had done scores of times 
 before. She bent her head down, put her 
 paws up to her neck, and with a wriggle or 
 two, deftly drew the collar over her ears. 
 Contemptuously she picked it up and tossed 
 it away. Trixy's intellect, although close on 
 the keenest order known to her race, paused 
 on the hither side of the facts that an attempt 
 had been made to remove the plate from her 
 collar, and that, this having failed, the name 
 of her master had been scratched into partial 
 illegibility. 
 
 The little actress now had the freedom of 
 the room. The first use that she made of it 
 was to examine its occupants, her companions 
 in misfortune. She addressed herself at the 
 outset to her neighbor, the black spaniel ; but 
 he, for some reason which was beyond Trixy's 
 power to fathom, responded only by feeble 
 moans. Hoping to find some more sociable 
 playmate, Trixy made a tour of the room. 
 She was especially interested in a cat, to whom 
 some extraordinary thing had happened, for 
 it neither spit nor scratched, nor, in fact, 
 
164 TRIXY 
 
 made any reply to Trixy's advances. In point 
 of fact, this was considered upstairs a very 
 interesting case. The cat had been subjected 
 for five hours to a treatment of which it is 
 impossible on a page like this to speak in de- 
 tail. The downstairs view of the experiment 
 was another matter, and the cat was as much 
 in the dark as Trixy as to the why and where- 
 fore of her suffering. 
 
 Discouraged by her reception there, Trixy 
 sought the acquaintance of a few guinea pigs 
 and rabbits, one monkey, and a pigeon or 
 two. These were too ill to respond, and, as 
 Trixy had not learned their language, she 
 passed on. 
 
 Dogs, like human beings, make their friends 
 instinctively, and stick to them. In the dark, 
 and in what she half consciously perceived to 
 be danger, Trixy craved companionship. She 
 trotted back to the only place where this could 
 be found. She sat up on her hind legs hi front 
 of the spaniel's cage, and prettily begged him 
 to come out. Grieved at his indifference, Trixy 
 began to whine and scratch at the cage door. 
 Her higher intelligence now grasped the fact 
 that the dog was in suffering of some kind, 
 
TRIXY 165 
 
 for some reason, and she proceeded to inves- 
 tigate both these mysteries ; but it was too 
 dark to make much headway with them, and 
 she lay down in front of the spaniel's cage. 
 Here she remained patiently until the first 
 gray sign of dawn entered the window. 
 
 Trixy had been transferred the evening be- 
 fore from another part of the cellar, which, 
 had she but known it, though more dismal, 
 was to be preferred to her present quarters, 
 and for a sinister reason that fortunately was 
 beyond the scope of her power to forecast, 
 because it was outside the range of her ex- 
 perience. In that other prison she had found 
 no opportunity for society ; she now stood up, 
 and in the fast-growing light began to inspect 
 her new acquaintance closely. 
 
 Through the netting of the cage she saw a 
 cocker spaniel, black, with a white shirt-frill, 
 and what seemed to be a white part in the 
 middle of his forehead, but of this it was dif- 
 ficult to be sure, for the dog's head was bound 
 with a bandage of cloth. This perplexed Trixy, 
 and struck her as a novel circumstance. In- 
 deed, the whole situation of the spaniel mysti- 
 fied and saddened her. One thing only was 
 
166 TRIXY 
 
 c l ear — the clog was in pain, and she, gen- 
 erously sharing his misery, for the moment, 
 as human philanthropists do in similar cases, 
 forgot her own. 
 
 Among animals of the higher class feelings 
 are more contagious than with men. Lacking 
 a system of intricate communication, they 
 catch emotion instinctively. The black spaniel 
 now began to respond to Trixy's advances. It 
 arose, wagged its tail feebly, and came to the 
 door of its cage, looking at its new friend 
 with great, mournful, mystified eyes. This 
 attention Trixy received with little yelps of 
 ecstasy. 
 
 She stood up again on her hind legs and 
 tried to kiss the spaniel, but could not, for 
 the wire forbade the caress ; which, besides, 
 tasted metallic. 
 
 Yet Trixy could not be denied. She made 
 a few desperate scratches, but found the cage 
 too strong for penetration. That it must have 
 an opening she did not doubt. Her black eyes 
 began to snap and glisten. Her hot, black 
 nose dilated with eager sniffs as she investi- 
 gated the front of the cage. Ah ! Here the 
 scent of man ! Here must be the opening of 
 
TRIXY 167 
 
 the door — this wooden, much-worn pin. 
 Trixy began to work furiously on that new 
 thought. She tugged with her teeth, every 
 now and then scratching the side of the cage 
 to see if the entrance yielded. 
 
 All the while the spaniel stood patiently. 
 At each of Trixy's efforts his dulled eyes took 
 on a lighter shade of intelligence. For two 
 years he had never known a free hour — a 
 moment of happiness — a sign of tenderness. 
 If he had ever had a home, the memory of its 
 delight was only a clot on the brain. For 
 misery was his life, and torment his pastime. 
 He had been existing in a black cloud, and 
 the interest of this little white poodle was the 
 only thing his incarceration had offered to 
 show that all breathing creatures were not 
 inquisitors or victims. 
 
 Suddenly with a jerk Trixy fell back. In 
 her mouth was the wooden pin. This she had 
 pulled out like an under tooth from the top. 
 She regarded the round piece of wood with 
 intense hatred. She bit at it, and then, in a 
 moment of inspiration, ran away with it and 
 hid it — where, no man to this day knows. 
 Then she came back triumphant. Now, her 
 
168 TRIXY 
 
 poor friend was free. She pushed at the door, 
 but this diabolical contrivance was made to 
 open out — not in. All the while the black 
 spaniel looked on stolidly. He wanted to re- 
 spond, to help, but he did not know how. 
 
 Then Trixy began a course of instruction. 
 She put her right paw up and patted the door 
 sharply, and looked at the prisoner with a 
 pleading whine. " Do what I do ! " she said, 
 as plainly as articulation could have said it. 
 Her imprisoned friend was a stupid fellow in 
 her critical estimation, and responded to her 
 teaching slowly. But at length he learned the 
 lesson, and pushed the cage door open. 
 
 With the instinct which might or might not 
 be called forethought, Trixy, with a light 
 bound, closed the door of the cage. She did 
 not wish to lose her playmate, and so made 
 sure that he could not return to his cage. It 
 is not impossible that she desired to conceal 
 the fact of his escape. 
 
 The freed spaniel was evidently not relieved 
 from his suffering by this release. Puzzled by 
 the fact, Trixy inspected her new friend care- 
 fully, uttering, as she did so, low cries of sym- 
 pathy. To these the spaniel replied with moans. 
 
TRIXY 169 
 
 Overwhelmed with pity, Trixy conducted him 
 on a tour of the room, seeking an exit. 
 
 She had not yet discovered the door. Her 
 attention, in fact, was diverted from it by the 
 condition of her companion, whose evident 
 pain did not lessen under exercise. Trixy now 
 examined the bandage on the clog's head, and 
 thinking that the trouble must be there, gently 
 tore the cloth off, and licked the wound. This 
 hospital treatment the spaniel received grate- 
 fully, but, as he did not recover his health 
 and spirits under it, Trixy now devoted her- 
 self once more to her search for a means of 
 escape. 
 
 It was now so hVht that she could see the 
 door plainly, and to this she ran, the spaniel 
 following slowly. 
 
 It was one of the boasts of the faculty of 
 Galen that the animals " dedicated " to the 
 rack of science were treated with great con- 
 sideration during their imprisonment, previous 
 to their sacrifice ; and with even more con- 
 sideration and greater tenderness after their 
 wounds had been inflicted. Incidentally, this 
 was good economy, as well as good surgery. 
 
 With a regard for the feelings of the vie- 
 
170 TRIXY 
 
 tims in itself worthy of note, Professor Steele 
 had directed that some air should be admitted 
 into the animal room on nights when the 
 windows were closed. The college carpenter 
 had ingeniously devised a strong wire netting 
 about a couple of feet high, which, hasped 
 both to the door and to the jamb, kept the 
 door ajar, and yet allowed no egress for small 
 creatures. 
 
 Trixy proceeded to study this invention 
 curiously. She had been educated to hasps, 
 but had never seen a door fastened in this 
 manner. She was quite familiar with the 
 nature of a hook and screw-eye, and had 
 been taught to open them. Indeed, to release 
 herself from a little cage that had been 
 hasped tight had been one of the most dra- 
 matic accomplishments of her stage career. 
 
 Stimulated rather than discouraged by this 
 obstacle, the trick dog now concentrated her 
 intelligence upon the carpenter's skillful de- 
 sign. It was by this time quite light, and 
 footsteps were heard stirring in the building. 
 Spurred by the consciousness of danger and 
 the necessity of haste, Trixy thrust up the 
 upper hook from its socket ; the lower one 
 
TRIXY 171 
 
 stuck. She could easily have leaped the whole 
 obstruction, but she knew her friend could 
 not. With a few more tugs, Trixy released 
 the lower hook, and the netting fell back. 
 The performing dog was so pleased with this 
 achievement that she stood up on her hind 
 legs and bowed to the caged audience which 
 the freed prisoners were leaving behind them. 
 Trixy was surprised to notice the absence of 
 applause. 
 
 The two now found themselves in the cor- 
 ridor of which we have spoken, Trixy lead- 
 ing with impatient slowness, and the wounded 
 spaniel following painfully. Trixy made at 
 once for the large outer door. This was 
 latched, locked, and barred. No canine skill 
 could prevail against that inexorable human 
 barrier. 
 
 By this time the spaniel was tired out, and 
 lay down. Trixy stood over the poor crea- 
 ture in despair. Was all her super-canine 
 effort to be in vain ? At this tragic moment 
 the footfalls of the janitor were heard de- 
 scending the stairs. Trixy scampered up and 
 down the corridor in desperation. The door 
 of the closet nearest to the outside entrance 
 
172 TRIXY 
 
 was slightly ajar. With one of those inspira- 
 tions which are given only to hunted crea- 
 tures, Trixy ran back to her companion, and 
 prodded him to his feet. This was done in 
 perfect silence ; as silently, the spaniel obeyed 
 her. Trixy led the way to the closet door. 
 The bewildered and wounded dog followed 
 her. They had scarcely hidden themselves in 
 the darkest corner of the closet behind some 
 rubbish — collars, rubbers, and the like — 
 when the janitor reached the foot of the 
 stairs, and entered the animal room. There 
 he paused with some expression of surprise, 
 and examined the door. Other steps were 
 now heard upon the stairway, and a sleepy 
 and scowling boy appeared in the wake of 
 the janitor, who was plainly an important 
 personage, and carried himself with a lordly 
 air. He gave a few sharp directions, to which 
 the boy responded, grumbling. 
 
 Trixy — she who had always loved and 
 trusted man the friend — now with ears erect, 
 breath held, listened with agonizing appre- 
 hension to each manoeuvre of man the foe. 
 She was perfectly self-possessed. But the 
 spaniel, at every thud of the janitor's heavy 
 
TRIXY 173 
 
 feet, had a fit of nervous shivering, as if its 
 poor body were being disrupted on an elec- 
 tric rack. 
 
 To these two spirits in prison moments be- 
 came eternity, and ignorant hope wrestled 
 with instinctive despair. The terror of the 
 fugitive, strained through canine sensitive- 
 ness, is a doom apart. 
 
 Now the shuffling steps of the boy were 
 heard coming from the animal room. Trixy 
 let her whole weight of seven pounds drop 
 protectingly upon the spaniel's shoulder. The 
 boy had a pail and a mop. He slammed the 
 door of the animal room behind him and went 
 to the low door at the end of the corridor. 
 This door he unlocked and left open. The 
 fresh morning air swept in, penetrating even 
 the dark closet. Trixy sniffed joyously, but 
 the black spaniel beneath her feet breathed 
 hard ; he still had spasms of violent trem- 
 bling. 
 
 The boy began to mop the floor, morosely 
 whistling as he did so. He left the outside 
 door open to air the corridor, and slammed 
 himself again into the animal room. The cor- 
 ridor was quiet. 
 
174 TRIXY 
 
 Now Trixy allowed herself the luxury of a 
 joyful yelp. She tugged at her friend, lead- 
 ing hirn hy the ear to the closet door. Here, 
 on the threshold, these two prisoners of man's 
 misguided convictions stopped and listened, 
 palpitating. 
 
 The white poodle did not hesitate any 
 longer. It was as if she gave the word of 
 command. Beyond that open door were lib- 
 erty, and the hope of love, and home. 
 
 Dazed, the spaniel deferred to her. What 
 was release to that suffering creature ? He 
 had been held too long to grasp its meaning. 
 Almost the last instinct for locality and home 
 had been trephined out of him. But Trixy 
 passionately urged him on. Hers was the 
 saving mission, and it had, as all salvation, 
 whether of the higher or the lower being, 
 must have, its element of potential sacrifice. 
 Perhaps — who can say ? — she knew that she 
 was risking her own chance. But Trixy waited 
 for the weaker dog. She uttered low sounds 
 of encouragement to which the spaniel replied 
 by feeble wags. Trixy, looking out, could see 
 the sunshine, sky, and liberty. Under the low, 
 projecting balcony, what hiding-places ! Be- 
 
TRIXY 175 
 
 yond was the walled yard, but here was an 
 alley or narrow roadway, leading — oh, joy ! 
 — to freedom. Trixy had happened upon the 
 only egress by means of which she could have 
 escaped. She pushed her friend over the sill 
 upon the ground, and herself crouched to 
 spring and follow. 
 
 At the very moment when her courage and 
 resource, worthy of a higher organization, had 
 won her liberty, the catastrophe occurred. A 
 gust of wind took the door and slammed it 
 with a crash in her white face. 
 
 This tragic accident, un dreaded because 
 undreamed of, shut out the sun, and shut 
 her in to a nameless fate. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 Dr. Bernard approached his private operat- 
 ing table. It was a little after ten o'clock, 
 and he was impatiently awaiting some guests 
 of the medical fraternity whom he had invited 
 to witness a novel and interesting experiment. 
 He was clad in a white blouse, and was puff- 
 ing stolidly at a black cigar. His face had 
 coarsened visibly in the last six months. Take 
 the man away from the protection of his posi- 
 tion, and put him in the slums — how would 
 he have been classified ? From his brutal 
 mouth, his muddy complexion, his hard, shift- 
 ing eyes, his spiny red hair, and his massive, 
 prehensile hands, the average police officer 
 would have picked him out as the type of a 
 defective bent towards crime. As it was, some 
 looked upon him through smoked glasses, as 
 one of the saviors of mankind. 
 
 He took up one instrument after another 
 and tested the edge on his broad thumb. By 
 his smile the most careless observer could 
 
TRIXY 177 
 
 have seen that he was satisfied. Bernard con- 
 sulted his watch again and turned to his as- 
 sistant. 
 
 " You might as well bring up the dog. Is 
 it properly shaved ? You need not put it on 
 the board. I will attend to that myself." 
 
 While he waited, smoking vigorously, his 
 guests — three in number — were ushered in ; 
 they fell to talking briskly upon the subject 
 of the experiment. One of the visitors was a 
 middle-aged man ; the others were young ; 
 and all looked absorbed and eager. 
 
 " I suppose we have got to wait for the 
 professor," Bernard explained somewhat ill- 
 naturedly. " I expect him here any minute. 
 He is a good deal out of sorts to-day. There 's 
 been a mishap in the animal room, and he 's 
 lost his favorite material. You know that se- 
 ries of his upon the brain ? " 
 
 " The basis of that essay he 's been at work 
 on for a year ? " interrupted one of the younger 
 men. " What a pity ! " 
 
 " It must overthrow the whole scheme," 
 observed the other. 
 
 " Well, yes," admitted Bernard, without 
 heartiness. " I suppose it does. Anyhow he 's 
 
178 TRIXY 
 
 so put out about it he 's gone himself to or- 
 ganize a search, and he 's got all his fellows at 
 work. He may not turn up at all. I suppose 
 he thought more of that dog than of anything 
 else in the world. You see the value of the 
 continuity of his experiments lies in their be- 
 ing confined to one subject." 
 
 " Such research is as rare as it is priceless," 
 suggested one of the younger men. 
 
 " If the dog had held out," said Bernard, 
 " we should have finished the series in two 
 months." 
 
 The assistant put Trixy down upon the 
 table, and patted her head as he did so. It 
 would be difficult to say when this servant of 
 science had done such a thing before, at least 
 in the presence of his superior officer. 
 
 The four men looked at the little white dog 
 with curiosity. Its smallness, its helplessness, 
 its beauty, its evident intelligence appealed to 
 them in their own despite. The physiologists 
 were attracted towards the pretty sprite who 
 looked from one to the other expectantly. 
 Bernard alone remained unimpressed. 
 
 Trixy walked around the edge of the table, 
 and as a preliminary to further acquaintance 
 
TRIXY 179 
 
 sat up and solemnly shook hands with the 
 gentlemen, each in succession. She paused 
 at Bernard last, and as she offered him her 
 white paw, she looked up into his sinister eyes 
 with an elfish intuition, and then backed away. 
 She had instinctively discerned the enemy ; 
 but she was too much of a lady to snarl at the 
 discovery. 
 
 Then the little actress, feeling the dark 
 menace in Dr. Bernard's countenance, turned 
 her back upon the operator, stood up on her 
 hind legs, and began to perform for her life. 
 It was not as large an audience as she was 
 accustomed to, but none had ever watched 
 her with greater interest. Here were minds 
 trained in the exact tenets of science. Here 
 was another illustration of the possibility of 
 brain development. These men cared much 
 for reflex action, little for personality. They 
 had much admiration for the evidence of 
 muscle control, but little mercy for the indi- 
 vidual. Modern science deifies the experiment, 
 but ignores the subject. 
 
 Trixy was rather spurred than daunted by 
 the terrible circumstances in which she found 
 herself, and went through her little repertoire 
 
180 TRIXY 
 
 brilliantly. She turned several somersaults 
 with neatness and dispatch ; she picked up a 
 long pair of pincers, held it over her shoulder 
 as if it were a gun, and marched through a 
 few military evolutions with a soldierly bear- 
 ing. She waltzed with an imaginary partner, 
 and went through her skirt dance gracefully, 
 although pained by the absence of drapery. 
 She did the best she could without any of the 
 stage accessories to which she was used. 
 
 The middle-aged doctor had been watching 
 her silently. He did not smile as the others 
 did, and a line between his brows deepened. 
 
 He thought : " What a pity ! My little boy 
 would like that dog." But when he glanced 
 at Bernard's cold, repulsive face, he felt that 
 it would be useless as well as embarrassing to 
 make his wishes known ; at any rate, the pro- 
 fessional esprit de corps restrained their ex- 
 pression. The physician could not, however, 
 or did not help asking : 
 
 " Where did you pick that pretty creature 
 up ( 
 
 " Oh, it came in the usual way. We can't 
 keep track of them all," Bernard answered 
 peevishly. 
 
TRIXY 181 
 
 Trixy, with the canine instinct for sympathy 
 which is so much stronger than human reason, 
 had now crossed the table, and approached 
 the middle-aged doctor. She felt that this 
 was the only friend she had in the room. She 
 stood up to her full height, put both her 
 hands on both of his, and looked into his face 
 eloquently. At this moment there was a knock 
 at the door, and the janitor came in. 
 
 " Dr. Steele has telephoned that he cannot 
 come, and not to delay the experiment any 
 longer, sir." 
 
 Bernard, with a relieved expression, turned 
 to his assistant. 
 
 " Well, let 's get to work, John. It's getting 
 late, and what I propose to demonstrate to 
 you, gentlemen, will take some time." 
 
 The assistant took a step forward. Trixy 
 still kept her paws in the gray-haired gentle- 
 man's hands. This representative of modern 
 science experienced within himself an unex- 
 pected civil war. There was a pang at his 
 heart, and a blush on his face ; he did not 
 look at the operator. 
 
 " Why not give the little creature five 
 minutes more ? " he said. " I don't think 
 
182 TRIXY 
 
 she has come to the end of her perform- 
 ance." 
 
 Reprieved for the moment, Trixy looked 
 the doctor steadily in the eyes ; out of her 
 own the elf-look had gone, never from that 
 moment to return. 
 
 She had a strained expression, and her little 
 face seemed to wizen and wrinkle as if she 
 had suddenly aged many years. Now, Trixy 
 lifted her head. There was only one thing 
 left for her to do that she had not done. She 
 was more proud of her musical education than 
 of any other of her accomplishments, and, rent 
 between hope and despair, she began to sing. 
 
 Although her master — the God of little 
 lost dogs knew why — was not there to ac- 
 company her, she kept along with her part of 
 the duet that she had sung with him before a 
 hundred houses — 
 
 She 's my lady, 
 And I '11 love her 
 Till I die. 
 
 By one of those mysterious insights given 
 to all creatures who are doomed to death, did 
 Trixy know that she was singing her swan 
 song? Her little claws grasped at the warm 
 
TRIXY 183 
 
 hands that held them. Tears started to the 
 eyes of the gray-haired doctor, and because 
 he could not brush them off, they trembled 
 down his cheeks. As the last notes of Trixy's 
 song died away, a slight sound at the window 
 (which was lowered from the top) attracted 
 the attention of the little actress's small but 
 thoughtful audience. A white pigeon, that 
 had been sitting on the sill, started up and 
 flew in and whirred about the room. Bernard 
 glanced at the winged thing greedily. 
 
 " Might as well catch it, John," he said. 
 " It may prove useful." 
 
 But the bird, lightly hovering for a mo- 
 ment, swept away, circled about the labor- 
 atory two or three times, darted across the 
 lowered window, and cooing softly, melted into 
 the blue. It became a gleam, became a sparkle, 
 became a speck, and was not. The gray-haired 
 doctor, who was still holding Trixy's trem- 
 bling paws, followed the flight of the bird 
 with a grave glance. 
 
 " Come, John ! Come ! " repeated Bernard 
 impatiently. John, at the word of command, 
 took firm hold of the little dog, and fastened 
 her to the dog-board deftly. When Trixy, 
 
184 TRIXY 
 
 struggling and crying like a human baby, lay 
 stretched and helpless in the straps, the middle- 
 aged doctor winced and turned his face. There 
 was some difficulty about adjusting the bit in 
 Trixy's mouth (she was so small), and Bernard 
 himself took hold and completed the task ; this 
 he did with skill and ease, and without sign 
 of emotion. 
 
 At this moment the door opened without 
 knocking. With an agitated face the janitor 
 hurried in. 
 
 " Beg pardon, sir — there is a gentleman out 
 here says he must come in. I 've done my best, 
 sir, but he says " — 
 
 The janitor whispered a few disturbed words 
 in Bernard's ear. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 "Moving," said Mrs. Percy B. Jeffries, "is 
 a phenomenon, but like other phenomena is 
 amenable to the laws of nature." She said 
 this with the gratification of a conventional 
 mind that has chanced to originate an idea. 
 " But I flatter myself that I move my house- 
 hold with system, energy, and good spirits." 
 
 It was a part of Aunt Cornelia's system 
 and energy to accomplish her flitting from 
 shore to town by relays, and she began by 
 sending the horses a week ahead. 
 
 Miriam, who, under ordinary circumstances, 
 found her aunt's system, energy, and good 
 spirits sufficiently trying, on the late Septem- 
 ber morning of which we speak woke to a 
 consciousness that these domestic virtues were 
 intolerable. She suddenly announced her in- 
 tention of driving into town with Matthew 
 and the chestnut pair. She could not have 
 said whether her restlessness arose from a wish 
 to see Steele or to escape him, or whether, in- 
 deed, it had any relation to Steele at all. 
 
186 TRIXY 
 
 She had waked, while it was still dark, from 
 a troubled sleep, and had aroused to a sense 
 of oppression amounting almost to superstition. 
 For no reason that she could have explained, 
 it seemed to her that she must start. To no 
 end that she could foresee, she felt herself 
 driven. Emotions long held in abeyance, asso- 
 ciations resolutely expelled from her memory 
 crowded upon her. In fact, she had been 
 dreaming half the night — an agitated dream 
 in which pain and joy alternately depressed 
 and elated her. Curiously, in this dream Olin 
 Steele bore no part whatever. It was as if 
 he had never existed, or for her existed no 
 longer. She hurried away, still wearing the 
 white serge dress that she had on the evening 
 before ; she covered this with a long Scotch 
 tweed coat, that came to the hem of her gown. 
 She tossed on a straw hat, and veil, ran out to 
 the stables, and jumped into the victoria just 
 as Matthew was starting away. It was scarcely 
 more than seven o'clock, and the cool morn- 
 ing air calmed her mysterious disturbance. 
 The horses were in good spirits, and the drive 
 took scarcely two hours. 
 
 As Miriam neared the city her mind re- 
 
TRIXY 187 
 
 bounded from her perplexities, and, accord- 
 ing to her sweet habit, the troubles of others 
 came uppermost. Matthew, who had sat in 
 well-trained silence, now shrewdly perceiving 
 her change of mood, suddenly inquired : 
 
 " Hain't the gossoon found poor Trixy yet?" 
 
 " We '11 ask," said Miss Lauriat, arousing 
 herself eagerly. " Drive around to Mr. Sur- 
 bridge's office, and I '11 go in." 
 
 But Philip Surbridge was not in his office, 
 and, moreover, had left word that he was not 
 to be expected for some hours. Miriam's face 
 sank a little, and she came down and out to 
 the carriage slowly. She seemed to be hesi- 
 tating as to her next step, and somewhat 
 dejectedly gave the order to drive home. 
 
 Matthew left her standing upon the side- 
 walk at her own door ; she had a weary and 
 irresolute expression, not at all characteristic 
 of her ; she mounted the steps slowly, with 
 eyes cast down. Near the top she paused for 
 a minute to unbutton her long coat and untie 
 her veil. While thus occupied she fancied 
 that she heard a strange low sound — stopped 
 to listen, but decided that she was mistaken ; 
 and languidly folding her white veil, came up 
 
188 TRIXY 
 
 the remaining steps — these were but two or 
 three. 
 
 The outer door was open ; the inner one 
 locked. Miriam had forgotten her latch key, 
 and delayed to ring the bell. As she did 
 this, the sound that she heard, or thought 
 she heard, was plainly repeated. It was a 
 sad sound, plaintive and low. She went at 
 once into the vestibule, and at its threshold 
 stood, staring. Every fleck of color left her 
 face. Her heart beat so in her throat that it 
 seemed to her she should never draw breath 
 again. 
 
 On the black and white mosaic of the mar- 
 ble floor, crouched in the corner of the vesti- 
 bule, lay a little huddling dog. It was a black 
 cocker spaniel with a white shirt-frill, and a 
 white part in its wounded head. 
 
 " Caro ! " cried Miriam, in a piercing voice. 
 
 The poor creature tried to crawl towards 
 her, but plainly had lost whatever remnant of 
 strength had brought it there. When she 
 stooped to lift him, the spaniel uttered such a 
 cry as would have rent the heart of any man 
 who had not been born a brute, or become 
 one. Only a lost dog can cry like that ; per- 
 
TRIXY 189 
 
 haps only one that has been deeply loved, and 
 exquisitely cherished. 
 
 " Caro, Caro ! " repeated Miriam. 
 
 At first, no other word came to her dry 
 lips ; she reiterated it wildly ; her recognition 
 was hardly less piteous than the dog's. She 
 took the heavy little creature in her arms — 
 its face against her own, its paws around her 
 neck — and, when she saw the dog's condi- 
 tion, she began to cry outright, and aloud like 
 a little girl. She pushed by Maggie at the 
 door, and on into the library, where she sank 
 into the first chair with her sad burden in her 
 lap. There she sat, and stared upon it. The 
 dog continued to wail on in a shrill voice. 
 The old seamstress came in and said : 
 
 " Why, it 's Caro ! It 's our Caro ! " 
 
 And Maggie wept with her mistress, and 
 crossed herself as if she had been in the pre- 
 sence of a miracle. 
 
 But Matthew, when he came back, and one 
 of the women called him upstairs, stood still, 
 and said nothing but " The devil ! " 
 
 Nor did he apologize to Miss Lauriat for 
 the word. It seemed to Matthew a weak word, 
 fit for women ; a man should say something 
 
190 TRIXY 
 
 adequate to the occasion, but nothing else 
 occurred to Matthew. 
 
 Miriam sat among her old servants and 
 sobbed helplessly. It was they who thought 
 and acted ; she was bereft of herself. She 
 clung to the dog, caressing it pitiably, and 
 her tears rained on the wounded thing. Her 
 first definite thought was that she wanted 
 Philip, but she remembered that he was not 
 at his office. 
 
 Confusedly she heard Matthew say that 
 there 'd sure better be a doctor, and that re- 
 called her. 
 
 " Why, yes ! " she said, " send for Dr. 
 Steele ! " 
 
 When Matthew reported that the professor 
 was not at the medical school, Miriam, with 
 the short, sharpened voice of unsharable and 
 all but unbearable suffering, directed that a 
 message be sent at once to Dr. Steele's club 
 (where he was likely to lunch), that it be 
 urgently expressed, and given in her own 
 name. 
 
 She seemed immediately to forget that she 
 had set this order in motion, and herself 
 began to bathe and bandage the wounded 
 
TRIXY 191 
 
 dog. Now the spaniel feebly lifted his poor 
 head and kissed her — it was the first time — 
 and when he did so Miriam began to sob 
 asrain. She was so shaken that the household 
 was at its wit's end with her. She had eaten 
 little breakfast and that very early, and now 
 would take no food ; she was absorbed in a 
 series of efforts to induce the dog to swallow 
 some milk. It was not until she had succeeded 
 in these attempts, and Caro had fallen asleep, 
 that she recovered in some degree her com- 
 posure. 
 
 When Olin Steele, who had passed a dis- 
 turbed and fretful morning, worse than wasted 
 in the fruitless search for his lost material, at 
 noon received Miss Lauriat's message, his face 
 went white with an emotion so deep that the 
 man found himself astonished before it. He 
 had always thought that joy was an integer, or 
 an element, as simple as it was supreme ; this 
 which he experienced was a compound feeling 
 — from very excess of bliss dashed through 
 and through with awe, or with a fear that 
 was almost pain. Now, after all, his victory 
 lay in his iron hand. The battle was to the 
 
192 TRIXY 
 
 strong as it always was, and would be, world 
 without end. Oh, now at last, her beautiful 
 reluctance had yielded ; right womanly as she 
 was, she had surrendered royally. Crossing 
 the little space between them, she had stepped 
 half of the misty way to meet his outstretched 
 arms. 
 
 With ringing feet he hurried to her. With 
 lifted head and shining eyes, he disregarded 
 the shadows of men. But they in the sub- 
 stance looked upon him with the attention 
 that the crowd gives to the superior, to the 
 happy, or to the successful ; most people who 
 noticed Steele that day thought him to be all 
 these thing's. 
 
 He ran up the steps like an impatient boy. 
 Already the hunger of his arms was fed, the 
 thirst of his lips was quenched. Already she 
 had lifted her beautiful willing face to his — 
 
 As he stepped upon the threshold, the door 
 opened and he dashed in. The library por- 
 tieres were parted, and he entered ecstatically. 
 There in the middle of the room, in the dark 
 chair, which she had not left since she first 
 sank into it, in her white dress, with her 
 white face — and the wounded dog in her 
 
TRIXY 193 
 
 arms — she sat, awaiting her lover. She had 
 covered the spaniel with one end of her tweed 
 coat ; her hat and white veil still lay on the 
 floor at her feet. At first, Steele did not see 
 the dog. He strode across the thick carpet and 
 stood over her, bending for his betrothal kiss. 
 
 He stopped. Her appearance startled him. 
 She looked like a woman who has been 
 shocked from youth into middle life. She 
 gave him one wan smile. Impetuous inquiries, 
 passionate protestations surged to his lips ; 
 but these never crossed them. 
 
 For now he looked down. He saw the 
 sleeping dog, whose marred head was not cov- 
 ered. He recognized his own work. Spurred 
 by one of the fatuous impulses which drag 
 out into the open the one thing that above 
 all others a man wishes to conceal, Olin Steele 
 uttered these extraordinary words : 
 
 " Why, that 's my dog ! Where did you get 
 it ? I 've been all the morning hunting for it." 
 
 " I do not understand you," said Miriam, 
 with ominous distinctness. " The dog is mine. 
 This is Caro. I lost him two years ago. I 
 thought he was dead. I never cared for any 
 other dog." 
 
194 TEIXY 
 
 Her eyes widened slowly. She raised them 
 to his face ; it was as ashen as her own. She 
 read — what did she not read in his tortured 
 countenance ? 
 
 Horror and despair confronted each other. 
 The man threw up a hand as if to fend off 
 the shock that paralyzed every thought, every 
 explanation. As he did so, he took a step 
 backwards ; he could not speak ; his lips 
 refused to open. A power greater than any 
 that he had ever acknowledged compelled 
 him. Her stricken eyes pursued him — nay, 
 they forced him out of the room. She had 
 not spoken another word ; but he went. He 
 had come like a god ; he went like a cur. 
 
 Philip Surbridge approached Miss Lauriat's 
 house, happily humming a tune ; he found it 
 was the pretty air that Dan used to sing with 
 Trixy. Miriam heard it before he rang, and 
 her whirling brain seemed to stop spinning. 
 He was shown directly into the room, and 
 found her as Steele had left her. Her white 
 dress, with its black finish of velvet at the 
 throat, had a dark stain over the heart. 
 
 One glance at the burden on her lap ex- 
 
TRIXY 195 
 
 plained everything to Philip, and it was like 
 him to ask no unnecessary questions. His 
 own color changed, but the man seemed to 
 fortify himself for a position in which his 
 heart and his head must race together. 
 
 " Philip," began Miriam brokenly. " Oh, 
 Philip " — 
 
 " You need not try to explain anything," 
 said Philip gently. " I understand. I under- 
 stand it all." 
 
 " But Dr. Steele says — what does Dr. 
 Steele mean ? " 
 
 " So Steele has been here, has he ? " 
 
 " Yes — he came — yes ; he did not — did 
 not stay." 
 
 " Then it is all out. I suppose in that case 
 I may as well speak, now. Shall I? Do you 
 wish me to ? — Or not ? It is for you to 
 say what I shall do in these difficult circum- 
 stances." 
 
 " You must ! " cried Miriam. " I must 
 know the worst." In her vehemence she 
 aroused the dog, who stirred and looked at 
 her drowsily. Philip drew his chair close to 
 hers, and for the first time in his life tenderly 
 patted her hand. 
 
196 TRIXY 
 
 He spoke a few encouraging words ; what, 
 he hardly knew ; what, she scarcely heard. 
 He tried to convince her that the worst was 
 over ; and nothing more to fear. But Miriam 
 interrupted impatiently. 
 
 " Nothing but the whole truth will help 
 me now. And there is nobody but you to 
 give it to me." 
 
 " Very well," said Philip in a changed tone. 
 " You shall have it then. Here it is." He 
 drew out from his pocket a beautiful silver 
 collar, tarnished and bent. The plate had not 
 been removed, and it bore this inscription : 
 
 Cako. Licensed. No. 2001. 
 Miriam Lauriat. 
 
 The town, and the street and number were 
 added, but these were less easy to decipher. 
 
 " I was in the Galen Laboratory this morn- 
 ing," said Philip, with cold, legal precision. 
 "I was there upon a professional errand. I 
 will tell you about that, later. In the course 
 of my investigations, I picked up this. It had 
 been pulled out from among some rubbish in 
 a closet — but recently disturbed, I am sure 
 — and fortunately no one had noticed it." 
 
TRIXY 197 
 
 He laid the collar in Miriam's trembling hand. 
 Her fingers closed over it spasmodically. She 
 uttered an inarticulate sound. 
 
 " Shall I go on ? " asked Philip, choking. 
 
 He did so at command of her streaming 
 eyes. His voice had now become stern and 
 solemn ; it had something of the note which 
 it struck when he was pleading a grave 
 case. 
 
 " Galen College prides itself upon its physi- 
 ological department. The basis of modern 
 physiology is animal experimentation. This 
 means the dissection of living animals. Caro 
 has been in that " — Philip caught his breath 
 — " in that laboratory. What happened to 
 him the first year, I cannot tell you ; there 
 may be some scars that will. He is a special 
 case ; he is their most valuable subject. For 
 the last twelve months he has been reserved 
 for a series of experiments upon the brain. 
 These have probably — you must be prepared 
 for that — affected his intelligence. He es- 
 caped from there this morning ; how I do 
 not know, but I have my guess. The pro- 
 fessor who has charge of that department is 
 writing a prize essay along the line of this 
 
198 TRIXY 
 
 particular research. The prize was offered by 
 the medical society of which he is an officer. 
 It would have made him famous. He is con- 
 sidered the leading physiologist in the state, 
 if not in the country, and this kind of thing 
 has made him so." 
 
 Surbridge paused, and looked at Miriam 
 with a pity which she could not have borne 
 from any other human being. 
 
 " His name," concluded her old friend 
 beneath his breath — " I do not think I need 
 to tell you what it is." 
 
 Miriam, with the collar in her hand, had 
 laid her head back against the tall chair. She 
 had grown very pale, and gasped. Philip 
 sprang for the bell. 
 
 " Don't be afraid," she said feebly. " I 
 shan't faint. You know I never do." 
 
 " Now look here." Philip spoke in a com- 
 fortable, matter-of-fact tone. " Just listen to 
 me. You 've got Caro back, and that 's the 
 main thing. Let me look at him." He bent 
 over her and tenderly examined the dog. She 
 heard his cheerful voice go briskly on. " It 
 seems worse than it is because the bandage 
 was evidently torn off. You '11 feel better to 
 
TRIXY 199 
 
 have him looked after, however. I '11 send a 
 nice fellow I know around to fix him up. He 
 has a good, big heart and loves dogs. — 
 Maggie " — he turned with the smile that 
 made servants respect themselves, and affec- 
 tionately obey him — " Miss Lauriat has had a 
 great shock and strain on account of this poor 
 little fellow." 
 
 Miriam's grateful eyes thanked him for 
 the delicate elision by which he ignored 
 the fact that she was doubly smitten. But 
 her lips said nothing. Surbridge did all the 
 talking, and in his quiet way he covered 
 a great deal of ground with a very few 
 words. 
 
 " Get her some luncheon at once, Maggie. 
 She is going to eat it — Oh, yes, she is. 
 And then we 're going to talk a little more. 
 I 've got lots of things to say." 
 
 Miriam now looked down, and for the first 
 time perceived the crimson stain across her 
 heart. She shuddered, and muttered some- 
 thing about changing her dress. 
 
 " I '11 hold Caro," said Philip easily. " He '11 
 remember me, and when you come down I 've 
 got some news to tell you. You 'd better 
 
200 TEIXY 
 
 hurry — or no, I '11 run over to my rooms a 
 minute, and be back by the time you 've got 
 something to eat." 
 
 When Philip returned he found Miriam 
 quiet, but not yet quite self-possessed. The 
 dog, who had been gently and intelligently 
 treated, was sleeping in his own old basket, 
 which she had drawn up close to her feet 
 upon the hem of her dress. 
 
 " Why, how happy you look," she began in 
 a hurt tone. Miriam was so used to Philip's 
 perennial sympathy that it struck her as 
 contrary to the laws of their nature that he 
 should be in such good spirits, when she was 
 so miserable. 
 
 " Come," demanded Philip. " What are you 
 moping about? You and Dan ought to be 
 the happiest people in the world." 
 
 Now Surbridge, whose keen perception had 
 grasped the fact that nothing would lift 
 Miriam from the pit of suffering into which 
 she had been plunged but the joys or the sor- 
 rows of another soul, leaped at once into his 
 exciting story. 
 
 " Trixy 's found ! " he exploded. " I can't 
 keep it to myself any longer, no matter what 
 
TRIXY 201 
 
 else has happened. I can't and I won't. 
 We 've got her." 
 
 " Trixy found!" Miriam's tears started 
 again. Philip, who had never seen her thus 
 broken, yearned over her for her very weak- 
 ness, and turned his head away with a gulp. 
 But the girl's tears ran into a radiant smile 
 — the first that he had seen that day. He 
 had not misread her. She would lose herself 
 at any time to find another's happiness. That 
 was Miriam Lauriat. 
 
 " You don't tell me how ! You don't say 
 where ! " she repeated in a stronger voice. 
 
 " In the laboratory of Galen Medical 
 School," answered Surbridge in a reverberat- 
 ing tone. 
 
 " Was it like " — Miriam glanced at the 
 dog at her feet. 
 
 " No, thank God ! Not a devil of them had 
 touched her. I was just in time. — Now look 
 here." Philip fell back upon his favorite 
 phrase. " I 've got a good deal to tell, and 
 I 'm groins; to sit down and condense it. Sure 
 you are able to hear it all?" 
 
 Miriam's blazing eyes impetuously bade him 
 go on. She had quite done crying. Her name- 
 
202 TEIXY 
 
 sake, the prophetess of old, might have had 
 something of the look which now confronted 
 the young lawyer ; it was the forecasting, far- 
 seeing look — deep at the iris, and mystical 
 in the pupil — the look that overthrows the 
 past, and shapes the future, and obliterates 
 self in both. 
 
 Mistily it seemed to Miriam that she and 
 they whose lives had been woven into the 
 fabric of her own — yes, and that other, the 
 " gentle fellow-creature " who lay mangled at 
 her feet — were sweeping into the onward 
 movement of strange forces that she did not 
 understand and coidd not measure, but against 
 whose mighty action she might not, if she 
 would, contend. 
 
 For one exalted moment her individual 
 pang, the disorder of her personal story seemed 
 to go out of consequence, or out of sight. She 
 was like one who, for the first time, setting 
 foot into an unknown world of unimagined 
 woe, finds her whole being uplifted by a pas- 
 sion of sympathy before which all passion less 
 divine retreats. 
 
 " Oh, you 've got lots of pluck ! " said Philip. 
 " You 're clear grit. Now let 's have it over." 
 
TRIXY 203 
 
 Philip pushed into his story, which he told 
 in his curt, professional tone. 
 
 " You see I had my theory from the first, 
 but a lawyer has no case till he gets his 
 evidence. There was a lamentable lack of 
 witnesses, until — guess who supplied the 
 deficiency ? — No, I 'm sure you never will. — 
 Cady's Molly." 
 
 " In that red shirt waist and pink hair-rib- 
 bon ? " asked Miriam, laughing in spite of 
 herself, — "and yellow hat ? Or was it the 
 purple tam-o'-shanter ? " 
 
 " There you have me. Both, I think, — 
 but the evidence lapses there. With Cady's 
 Molly went Cady's Molly's father. As luck 
 had it, this gallant widower invited your con- 
 sumptive protegee to accompany him, and with 
 the woman, invited or uninvited, went the 
 melancholy dog who has the cough. That 
 dismal creature was the first to see Trixy. 
 He was after her — the woman after him — 
 the man after the woman — and Cady's Molly, 
 who began in the rear — you know what long 
 legs she has, the grasshopper sort ? — Well, 
 Cady's Molly came out ahead of the lot of 
 them, and then they saw this dog-bandit — 
 
204 TRIXY 
 
 no, we have n't got Mm, more 's the pity, but 
 that's the minor point — leading Trixy by a 
 string. But, you see, she was so dirty and 
 disreputable they were n't sure enough of her 
 to make the claim till it was too late. She 
 must have had on that coat of hers — there 's 
 no other explanation — but they did n't all of 
 them see it ; it was growing pretty dark, they 
 say. Anyhow, they shadowed the bandit." 
 
 "The whole party?" 
 
 " The whole party. That gave me three 
 witnesses — four, if you counted the coughing 
 dog. If dogs could testify and sue — perhaps 
 we may come to that yet. Well, the first 
 they knew, the bandit was dragging Trixy up 
 the alley behind the medical school. They 
 saw her go in — they'll swear they saw her 
 go in — and she never came out until I took 
 her out this morning. 
 
 " You know how it is with those peoj^le ; 
 they can't originate ; they don't dare do 
 anything unusual. They waited imtil they 
 saw Dan ; and Dan waited till he saw me. 
 Then, that night — why, it was only last 
 night ! — poor Dan came to my room with 
 her little blue coat. He had been prowling 
 
TRIXY 205 
 
 around, God knows where ! He found it in 
 an ash barrel under that porch — I don't sup- 
 pose you ever noticed it? — where there is 
 a low door. Anyhow, I 've got the coat, and 
 the chain of evidence was completed. There 
 is n't a missing link. I went to the laboratory 
 this morning, and demanded the dog." 
 
 " Were they willing to let you in ? " asked 
 Miriam uneasily. 
 
 " Oh, I did n't raise that question. I did n't 
 think it was necessary. The case was too 
 complete, and I told them so. I took the pre- 
 caution to swear out a search warrant, but I 
 did n't think it would be necessary to use it ; 
 and it was n't. Well, yes, I think they did 
 their best ; they put up a pretty good bluff. I 
 searched that building from attic to cellar. 
 In the basement there was a coat closet, and 
 the door open — the rubbish all topsy-turvy. 
 That was where I found the collar, — it 
 seemed to have been dragged out. The very 
 last thing I struck was Dr. Bernard's private 
 laboratory. I can't say that my welcome was 
 strictly hospitable. But I was there to go in, 
 and in I went. Trixy was — well, anyhow, 
 I was just in time." 
 
206 TRIXY 
 
 " Where," interrupted Miriam, with her old 
 sweet eagerness, " where was Dan ? " 
 
 " About five feet and a half behind me, I 
 should say," replied Philip, drawling a little, 
 as he did sometimes when he was too much 
 moved to be willing to show it. 
 
 " Oh, how did he take it ? What did Dan 
 do ? How did he look ? What did he say ? 
 Dear Dan ! Poor Dan ! " 
 
 " I thought we had killed him among us," 
 said Surbridge gravely. " He held out till I 
 put Trixy in his arms. Then he toppled over, 
 crash ! All the doctors worked over him. 
 He kept them pretty busy for about half an 
 hour. Trixy kissed him all that while. She 
 kissed him alive, it's my private opinion. I 
 prophesy Trixy won't flirt with her master 
 any more. She 's his forever, and altogether, 
 now — or I 've missed my guess. — You don't 
 want to hear any more of this, now." Philip 
 interrupted himself abruptly. " It 's all over. 
 Do you suppose you 'd feel able to see 
 them?" 
 
 "Can I go?" cried Miriam, rousing with 
 her own fervid look. " Is it very far ? " 
 
 " It might be farther," observed Surbridge 
 
TRIXY 207 
 
 incidentally. " You see I took them right to 
 my rooms, and kept them there till just a 
 little while ago. They 're out in the coach 
 house now with Matthew. We rode over — 
 no, your horses were tired — we came over in 
 a cab. Dan is so used up." 
 
 "Philip," said Miriam very slowly, "you 
 are a good man ; you are a kind man. 
 I don't know what I should do without 
 you. 
 
 " Let 's see the pretty drama played out," 
 said Philip. " I '11 go and bring them up." 
 
 Dan came into the room slowly. His 
 wasted body had shrunken away from his 
 shabby clothes, but upon his face the great 
 angel Joy had cast a blinding look. Trixy, 
 blinking happily, was in his arms. The 
 lad put her down, went straight up to the 
 lady, and kneeled and laid his head upon 
 her lap. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Laurie ! " sobbed Dan. " Miss 
 Laurie, dear ! " 
 
 " Dan," Miss Lauriat choked, " it 's all over. 
 Mr. Surbridge says so. And Mr. Surbridge 
 knows." 
 
208 TRIXY 
 
 But Philip strode to the window, and looked 
 out with wet and happy eyes. 
 
 Now, when the three human souls had some- 
 what recovered themselves, they perceived that 
 a strange little sub-human by-play had been 
 going on unnoticed at their feet. For Trixy, 
 forgetting Surbridge, ignoring " the lady she 
 loved best," disregarding her master, had 
 bounded to the basket where the wounded 
 dog was lying. She crooned over him ; she 
 kissed him ; she leaped about him ; she yelped 
 at him blissfully ; she challenged him with 
 little slaps of her paws to come out and play 
 with her. The spaniel responded with a feeble 
 recognition, and the two nosed each other, 
 conversing mysteriously. What Trixy would 
 have said, who knows? And what the muti- 
 lated victim of physiology might have told, 
 we shall never hear. The true interpreter be- 
 tween the higher and the lower races is yet 
 to be; and Trixy and her poor friend were 
 born in advance of that predestined moral lin- 
 guist. 
 
 The lawyer studied the two dogs with close 
 professional scrutiny. 
 
 " They are my best witnesses," he said in a 
 
TEIXY 209 
 
 disappointed tone, "and there isn't a court 
 in the state where I can subpoena them." 
 
 It was still early in the evening when Dr. 
 Steele called again, peremptorily asking for 
 Miss Lauriat ; but she had already gone up- 
 stairs for the night. Maggie told him that 
 she was too tired to be disturbed, and he 
 went away without a word. In fact, though 
 this the doctor did not know, the agitated 
 household was on picket duty. Reporters had 
 been ringing for three hours. 
 
 Surbridge, whose winning manner made him 
 immediately popular with the newspaper men, 
 had stood between Miriam and these intruders. 
 " Leave them all to me," he said. The next 
 morning's press was busy with the story of 
 Dan and Trixy ; but, although there were 
 vague suggestions of an interplay in which 
 actors from high life were involved, the lady's 
 name was quite kept out of the affair. Sur- 
 bridffe's was not. The unusual character of 
 the case, and the implication of a famous in- 
 stitution, gave publicity to the incident. The 
 press assumed the responsibility of suggesting 
 that an important suit might follow the dra- 
 
210 TRIXY 
 
 matic release of the little dog. The uncom- 
 promising attitude of the young attorney in 
 pitting himself against the tremendous influ- 
 ence of the college for the sake of a poor 
 boy's pet concentrated upon him attention 
 and respect. 
 
 This brought Aunt Cornelia. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 The great crises of a man's life may be of 
 his own making, or may be inflicted upon 
 him by a wayward accident, but the most 
 perplexing are those that combine his fault 
 and his fortune. Olin Steele watched the 
 night out. Raving against fate, he acknow- 
 ledged that he was the Samson of his destruc- 
 tion. With his own hands he had wrenched 
 the pillars of his life, and had brought the 
 structure crashing on his head. 
 
 His first impulse was one of defiance ; such 
 was his nature. His feeling that he was an 
 unjust victim of circumstances blazed until 
 midnight. His consciousness that he believed 
 himself to be the high priest of an august 
 science, his subtle delusion that he had been 
 the servant of humanity, bore him through 
 the first skirmishes of the struggle upon 
 which he had entered. His colleagues re- 
 spected him ; his students deified him ; the 
 woman he loved spurned him — how was he 
 
212 TRIXY 
 
 to coordinate these clashing facts? His char- 
 acter was irreproachable, his position unas- 
 sailable ; he was a good son and a good 
 churchman. The Bishop of his diocese was 
 his personal and admiring friend ; society 
 and religion, as he understood religion, up- 
 held him in his life's work. He was fortified 
 at every point. The only weak spot in the 
 ramparts was the nature of the girl he loved. 
 Other women whom he knew would have for- 
 given him, or so he thought. He ground his 
 teeth and cursed his luck. If he had finished 
 those experiments he would have been famous. 
 His reputation would have leaped beyond the 
 confines of his college — and indeed, of his 
 country. Experimenters and biologists had 
 been expecting brilliant discoveries of him, 
 nor would he have disappointed them. 
 
 And it was only a dog ! 
 
 He paced his room blindly. His heart was 
 hot within him. He resented the infringe- 
 ment of her delicate nature upon his profes- 
 sional rights. Once he had called her mercy 
 made magic. Now, he felt her mercy made 
 tyranny. Her position was sentimental and 
 unscientific ; he flung these unsparing words 
 
TRIXY 213 
 
 at her ; they were the catchwords of his pro- 
 fession, and came easily. How could she 
 measure the value of his great work ? How 
 could she presume to set the life of a dog, 
 or the discomfort (that was his word) of a 
 dog, against the vast research which might 
 overthrow the conclusions of continental phy- 
 siologists ? 
 
 Warring with the medical oligarchy which 
 he represented, this one girl opposed her 
 womanhood, and her humanity. True, her lips 
 had not uttered a word ; hut he knew their 
 speech and language. He knew that he was 
 condemned without a hearing ; he knew that 
 he was foredoomed at the tribunal of her soul. 
 Under this verdict he raged. Yet, with this 
 fever the other rage of his love beat on. 
 
 Strange impulses, born of his arbitrary 
 nature, fostered by his merciless calling, 
 seized him with a force before which he 
 stood aghast. Rather than lose her, he felt 
 as if he could have slain her. If such a thing 
 had been possible, he could have tortured her 
 into loving him. He could have — 
 
 Olin Steele paused. This madness, like 
 some other forms of mania, ran its course 
 
214 TRIXY 
 
 and struck its revulsion of sanity. In the 
 hours which precede dawn the blood runs 
 slowly, courage faints, and truth stares the 
 soul out of countenance. Exhausted, he sank 
 upon his old lounge. A great reaction of 
 tenderness enveloped him. He thought of 
 her sweet, wan face — the horror in her eyes 
 — her quivering lips towards which he had 
 stooped to take the first kiss. Why, they were 
 his, and she was his, — and what was a dog, or 
 a theory, or an experiment, fame, or the world 
 to come between them? By a thousand fold 
 she outweighed them all. 
 
 The subserviency of women had been a 
 matter of course in his philosophy. His ideal 
 woman would have followed a man to hell if 
 he had chosen to lead her there, and would 
 have stood by, adoring, while he did a demon's 
 work. If such indeed had not been the eidolon 
 of his youth, he had forgotten that he had 
 ever admitted any other to the habit of his 
 mind. What was the flaw in the philosophy 
 that it did not hold ? 
 
 Now, for the first time, Steele perceived 
 that there was a theory above a theory, and a 
 law beyond a law. Now he found himself 
 
TRIXY 215 
 
 hurled to the conclusion that a man has his 
 share of the mutual surrender of the loving ; 
 that he must yield himself to the angel in the 
 woman whom he loves. 
 
 He fought until dawn. The battle was not to 
 the swift ; nor was it to the strong. Physically 
 weakened, morally chastened, he would react 
 and recall himself, and strike out powerfully 
 at the invisible forces with which he was con- 
 tending. He passed the remainder of the night 
 in alternations of triumph and defeat. Once 
 his lips moved. " She was mine," they said, 
 " and mine she shall be." 
 
 Everywhere that he turned he came up 
 against finality. To every question that he 
 put he was answered only yea or nay. The 
 conflict took him to the uppermost spaces, 
 and to the nethermost deeps. He swung from 
 star to sod, and back again. The vibrations 
 shook him, soul and body. 
 
 As the light looked gravely in at his win- 
 dow, from profound exhaustion he fell asleep, 
 and slept for perhaps an hour. When he 
 awoke, his thoughts had clarified. "It is 
 between the two," he said, " and I must make 
 my choice." 
 
216 TRIXY 
 
 He bathed and dressed scrupulously ; it was 
 as if he were some novitiate purifying* himself 
 for an unknown life. He breakfasted slowly 
 and rested a while ; he did not smoke, and 
 read no papers ; he did not visit his labora- 
 tory ; for the first time he thought of it with 
 a species of repugnance as of the thing that 
 stood between himself and her. Towards the 
 middle of the morning, pale but confident, he 
 sought her. 
 
 Miriam received him quietly. He was 
 relieved to find that the dog was not in the 
 room, and opened the interview with the more 
 assurance on this account. 
 
 " You seem ill," he began. " You have not 
 slept." 
 
 " It was hardly to be expected." 
 
 Miriam did not look at him. The evasion 
 of her eyes troubled him, and he plunged at 
 once into his exculpation. 
 
 " I have come to say — you must under- 
 stand — it was most unfortunate — I am over- 
 whelmed with the accident. I suffer in conse- 
 quence of it — believe me — as much as you." 
 
 For the first time since he had known her, 
 the swift sympathy on which he had come to 
 
TRIXY 217 
 
 count as he counted on her delicacy or her 
 loyalty, failed to respond to his touch. She 
 was like a violin in which one string was 
 broken. He drew his bow over it in vain 
 Her face, like her nature, hardened before 
 him. He started to make some inquiries about 
 the dog", but saved himself just in time from 
 committing this folly. 
 
 " You don't understand the situation," he 
 resumed ; " you do me an injustice. You don't 
 appreciate the immense value of my work. 
 These experiments have to go on. We must 
 have subjects — if not animal, then human ; 
 it 's a clear choice. There was n't one chance 
 in a million that — I did n't know that it was 
 your dog ! You know I did n't ! " 
 
 " You knew," said Miriam coldly, " that it 
 was somebody's dog — a cherished one. He 
 was gentle. He was high-bred. — And there 
 was this." She drew the tarnished silver collar 
 from her pocket, and with shaking fingers 
 put it into his hand. 
 
 Steele's white face turned a ghastly gray. 
 
 " I give you my word I never saw this 
 before ! " 
 
 " Are you not the head of your depart- 
 
218 TRIXY 
 
 ment? Where does the responsibility lie if 
 not on you? This collar came out of your 
 laboratory yesterday morning. How many 
 other lost dogs have the faculty of Galen 
 College unlawfully taken besides mine ? " 
 
 " Our subordinates have charge of such 
 matters," protested Steele, smarting under her 
 lashing words. " We are busy men. We can- 
 not attend to these details. How should we 
 know where our subjects come from? The 
 experiments must go on. You take a very 
 feminine view of the circumstances." 
 
 " I would n't be a man — such a man — do 
 such a thing — make such an excuse for a deed 
 like this — not for all that you call fame ! " 
 
 He reddened painfully under her scorn. 
 " You set the animal above the human race ! " 
 he cried. 
 
 " What if it had been Barry? "interrupted 
 Miriam quietly. 
 
 Steele's eyelids almost imperceptibly 
 drooped, but his dogmatic voice pushed on : 
 
 " What is one dog — what are ten thou- 
 sand dogs compared with the life of one 
 baby ? " he demanded fiercely. 
 
 Miriam now turned her averted head, and, 
 
TRIXY 219 
 
 for the first time that morning 1 , looked him 
 straight in the eyes. The misery in them held 
 her rising denunciation back. 
 
 " You have tormented many dogs. How 
 many, I do not want to know. Have you ever 
 saved the life of one baby ? Oh, I have seen 
 men do that, down among' my poor people — 
 good plain doctors — kind men, giving their 
 lives for sick children. How many did you 
 say you have saved ? " 
 
 " But I might have ! I should have. I 
 was on the eve of great discoveries. This 
 unfortunate mishap has overthrown them 
 all." 
 
 Miriam's tender lip curled. This was a 
 sight that he had never seen before, and it 
 forced this outcry from him : " Your judgment 
 is distorted ! You set that creature above me. 
 You value him more than you value me. You 
 care for him more ! " 
 
 " Why should I dispute you ? It is quite 
 true that I love my dog more than it is pos- 
 sible for any one who could — treat him — as 
 you have done — to understand." 
 
 " You never loved me ! " Steele vehemently 
 challenged her. 
 
220 TRIXY 
 
 " Oh, I thought I did," she answered 
 drearily. " Don't blame me. I thought I 
 did." * 
 
 The man arose. The muscles of his face 
 were taut. 
 
 " Do you mean to say that you will allow 
 this to come between us ? " 
 
 " How can I help it ? " she cried. " I loved 
 another kind of man." 
 
 Steele strode up and down the room. His 
 strong head, his stern chin, his professional 
 bearing seemed to have no part in the turmoil 
 of his passion. They seemed to stand aloof 
 from it, and to criticise it, as if they mocked 
 his plight. Once he heard her say beneath 
 her quickened breath : 
 
 " You would have known the voice of your 
 own dog. So did I — that day — at the art 
 school." 
 
 Miriam had now arisen. The vivisector and 
 the woman confronted each other. Her a^ita- 
 tion was as great as his. The infinite pity of 
 her nature did not desert her even then. He 
 felt himself compassionated while he read his 
 doom in her eyes. 
 
 " Why should we talk any longer ? " she 
 
TRIXY 221 
 
 said with that finality of manner against which 
 a gentleman does not argue. " It only makes 
 it — hard — for both of us." 
 
 Before she could measure the effect of her 
 words Steele's towering figure seemed to blur 
 before her like a swaying statue. Before she 
 could prevent him he had dropped to his 
 knees ; and this unimagined action had in it 
 a certain dignity, and commanded a kind of 
 respect which the most flippant spirit would 
 not have refused him. 
 
 Olin Steele held up his hands, and so grasp- 
 ing both of hers, he entreated her ; one would 
 have said not that he poured out his love so 
 much as that he lifted it, a worship ennobled 
 by despair, and offered as much in belated 
 justice to himself as in hope of melting her. 
 
 " I '11 be whatever you loved ! " he pleaded. 
 " I will become the man you can love ! Name 
 the price of your forgiveness ! I will pay it to 
 the uttermost ! " 
 
 Miriam, mute and miserable, shook her head. 
 
 "I will abandon it — all," cried Steele. "I 
 will give up experimentation. I will resign my 
 professorship. I will fling away my ambition 
 — everything that I hoped to do. I will begin 
 
222 TRIXY 
 
 all over again. I will become a plain doctor 
 and heal the sick. All I want is you." 
 
 The man stopped. His lips trembled before 
 the miracle of the vows that he had uttered. 
 Reverently he pressed his face into her hands, 
 which he was still holding, and he left upon 
 them the kiss of consecration that a perfect 
 love offers to a woman whether she be won 
 or lost. 
 
 But Miriam was silent. Her wide eyes were 
 as wretched as his. With a gentle, maternal 
 movement she drew him to his feet, and re- 
 leased her hands. 
 
 " You make it so hard — You make it so 
 hard ! " she breathed. 
 
 Her fathomless tenderness, her solemn 
 beauty, all the lost preciousness of her, 
 flooded his being with an anguish like a 
 mortal pain. 
 
 " You torture me ! " he groaned. 
 
 " Oh, no ! Oh, no ! " she gasped. " I do 
 forgive you for this. May God go Avith you — 
 if you do what you say — what you mean 
 — but I cannot." 
 
 Now Dr. Steele uttered these uncontrollable 
 words : 
 
TRIXY 223 
 
 " You are more cruel to me than I was to 
 that dog. You vivisect me." 
 
 Miriam caught her breath. It was as if the 
 recording angel had read from the Book of 
 Life a sentence in an unknown tongue, and 
 challenged her soul to translate it. She felt 
 how easy it would be to make an eternal mis- 
 take in that sacred language. But she did not 
 flinch. Slowly and kindly she stirred from his 
 side. She was blinded with her tears, and 
 groped for the door. He thought she said, 
 " Oh, good-by — good-by ! " 
 
 But he was not sure. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 Mrs. Percy B. Jeffries arrived at the town 
 house the next morning, and Miriam found 
 herself denied that luxury of solitude which, 
 to a nature like hers, is the first craving of 
 acute trouble. Perhaps it is one of the values 
 of misfortune that it shall not seem bearable 
 until it has become so ; and not the least of its 
 veiled advantages, that the superficial relations 
 of life must go on in the teeth of emergency. 
 
 Aunt Cornelia found a disturbed house- 
 hold, nor was she the woman to soothe the 
 nervous tension. She precipitated into the 
 electric atmosphere the cook, the chamber- 
 maid, and the laundress. She was surcharged 
 with the achievements of a forced flitting, as 
 well as with the mortification of the necessity 
 for it. 
 
 Before Mrs. Jeffries had time, or perhaps 
 before Miriam had given opportunity, for re- 
 proaches or inquiries, Maggie brought in a 
 special delivery letter. This ran : 
 
TRIXY 225 
 
 My dear Mrs. Jeffries : Under the pre- 
 sent painful circumstances, of whose nature 
 you will doubtless by this time have been in- 
 formed, I find myself under the necessity of 
 resigning the presidency of the Society for 
 the Prevention of Docking and Cropping 
 Tails and Ears. That this noble and neces- 
 sary work will find under your leadership 
 recognition at the hands of the Legislature, I 
 have no doubt. I am forced to feel that my 
 connection with the cause would be an injury 
 to it now. With thanks to you for your gen- 
 erous hospitality, and with deep appreciation 
 of the many pleasant hours that we have 
 passed together, I am, 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 Olin Steele. 
 
 Mrs. Jeffries was about to ring for Miriam 
 to come and explain this blasting communica- 
 tion when she looked down and perceived a 
 little white statuette on the carpet at her feet. 
 Trixy sat up in the begging attitude, but 
 there was no beggar in her eyes. These re- 
 garded Mrs. Jeffries complacently, and rather 
 patronizingly ; in fact, Trixy had the air of 
 
226 TKIXY 
 
 being the hostess of the occasion. Mrs. Jef- 
 fries put on her eye-glasses and examined this 
 incident. Her courtesy overcame her per- 
 plexity, and she held out her ringed hand to 
 the little dog. At this moment Dan limped 
 apologetically in. 
 
 "She wants to shake hands with you, marm. 
 Trixy 's glad to see you home again." 
 
 " You mean paws," corrected Mrs. Jef- 
 fries. 
 
 " No, I don't," persisted Dan, falling back 
 upon his old phrase. " Trixy don't know 
 she 's got paws." 
 
 Dan picked up his dog, perched her on his 
 crooked shoulder, and left the room. Mrs. 
 Jeffries, going out into the hall to call Miriam, 
 heard the lad's uneven step wearily climbing 
 the back stairs ; a fact which at the time she 
 but half noted. 
 
 "Come up, Auntie," answered Miriam. 
 "I've got something to show you. I can't 
 talk. But if you won't ask any questions, you 
 had better come up and see." 
 
 What new blow awaited ? With apjn-ehen- 
 sion, Mrs. Jeffries mounted the stairs. With 
 weariness in her nerves, and disapprobation on 
 
TRIXY 227 
 
 her lips, the lady entered her niece's room. 
 In his basket before the fireplace lay the weak 
 and mangled spaniel. Miriam, in her white 
 negligee, was kneeling beside him. 
 
 " It 's Caro, Auntie. Speak kindly to him. 
 Don't ask me a question. Philip will tell you. 
 Don't blame me for anything !" 
 
 The painful color burned Aunt Cornelia's 
 cheeks. 
 
 " I did n't know I was as bad as that, my 
 dear." Then she stooped and saw. 
 
 A colder-hearted woman than Mrs. Jeffries 
 might have melted at the sight before her, and 
 Aunt Cornelia's tears fell fast upon the mu- 
 tilated dog. 
 
 Mrs. Jeffries and her dearest lawyer sat to- 
 gether in the library. It was now mid-after- 
 noon, and Surbridge, cheerfully cutting an 
 hour from the busiest portion of his day, had 
 already surrendered himself to the task of 
 soothing the soul of his most adoring and 
 most difficult client. 
 
 "Put yourself in my place," said Aunt 
 Cornelia solemnly. 
 
 " That, my dear madam," returned Philip 
 
228 TKIXY 
 
 with his perfect manner, " I have often done 
 
 — with envy." 
 
 " There you are — your father all over 
 again. You are very graceful, Philip, but 
 you don't help me out as much as usual. If 
 you were I, what, I should like to know, 
 would you do in this extraordinary situa- 
 tion?" 
 
 "Accept it," said Philip quietly, " like the 
 grande dame you are." 
 
 " Yes, but not in a minute — not with a 
 gasp. I have n't even had time for a good cry. 
 Here I find the jDress of the city busied with 
 our affairs — the privacy of this household 
 endangered — that boy and his poodle on 
 everybody's lips — your name in every paper 
 
 — my niece's ostentatiously suppressed. I 
 suppose we have you to thank for that." 
 
 "Well, yes," drawled Philip. "I did my 
 best." 
 
 " I find Dr. Steele pilloried — whether justly 
 or not, how do I know? I find my niece's 
 imminent engagement to him indefinitely post- 
 poned. I find that he has resigned the presi- 
 dency of our noble society. I am overwhelmed 
 with the responsibilities this will bring upon 
 
TRIXY 229 
 
 my poor head. I find upstairs — mysteriously 
 returned to this family — a mangled dog. I 
 find an evidently greater mystery behind him. 
 Nobody tells me how he came to be as he is. 
 Miriam positively refuses to speak about him. 
 I must say, it would have been a great deal 
 better for that child if he had been dead as 
 she thought he was." 
 
 Philip held up his firm and gentle hand, 
 as if he were flagging a train. Mrs. Jeffries 
 slowed up, and in a few quiet words the lawyer 
 told her the whole story. 
 
 Aunt Cornelia received this recital as if she 
 had been struck between the eyes. The con- 
 ventionality of her nature yielded hard, and 
 she was convinced that no lady in her class of 
 society had ever been put in such an embar- 
 rassing position. She found it not quite natu- 
 ral to suppose that Miriam was not, somehow, 
 to blame. 
 
 " If you had been in her place," urged 
 Philip, " with your youth and beauty, and 
 your warm heart " — 
 
 "Well," admitted Aunt Cornelia, "I sup- 
 pose I should have done the same thing." 
 
 " Of course you would ! " insisted Philip, 
 
230 TRIXY 
 
 in his convincing tone. " Knowing you as I 
 do, I should not even raise the question." 
 
 " But, Philip, there is one thing more — 
 and I have left that to the last on purpose. 
 I go up into the attic, and I find that boy from 
 the slums apparently established there with 
 his poodle. I ask him if he is making another 
 visit, and he says, No, he is staying. I have 
 not approached Miriam at all upon this painful 
 subject. I feel it too keenly. I am getting to 
 be an old woman, and I wish I were in my 
 own home. I find this house turned into a 
 dog hospital and an orphan asylum. I was not 
 brought up to such methods of life. Mr. Jef- 
 fries liked to live as other people did ; our 
 tastes were in perfect accord." 
 
 Philip got up and put his hand upon his 
 client's shoulder with that affectionate and 
 protecting sympathy to which age is so much 
 more sensitive than youth. 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Jeffries, don't you see ? How 
 could she do anythmg else? How coidd she 
 send the poor chap away after what has hap- 
 pened ? She never would have known an easy 
 hour. It 's just like her. She 's adopted the 
 lad — and Trixy — into the family." 
 
TRIXY 231 
 
 "Is he going to sit at the table?" de- 
 manded Mrs. Jeffries, weeping. " Or perhaps 
 they '11 both sit at the table ? She might give 
 Trixy a high chair. She 's capable of it." 
 
 Surbridge lausfhed outright. 
 
 " Oh, Matthew and Maggie have bespoken 
 their company. Now, dear Mrs. Jeffries, there 
 is one queer thing about it nobody can ex- 
 plain. Those two dogs have met before — 
 in fact, they are practically inseparable. Any- 
 thing that Caro wants in this house the poor 
 fellow 's likely to have, I fancy, for the rest 
 of his life. And I 'm sure you would be the 
 very last person to wish to have it other- 
 wise." 
 
 Aunt Cornelia looked up, smiling. She had 
 that rare expression which blurs the wrinkles 
 out of an elderly face. No one but Philip 
 ever saw it. 
 
 " You are a dear boy," she said, " and an 
 irresistible pleader. Like your father, you '11 
 be a distinguished lawyer some day. I never 
 could withstand you." 
 
 Philip did not answer, for at that moment 
 Miriam entered the room. She had the injured 
 dog in her arms, and Trixy danced behind 
 
232 TRIXY 
 
 her, like a pretty page, holding the train of 
 her gown, and shaking it daintily. 
 
 Miriam stopped for a moment, irresolute ; 
 then, advancing, she stooped and kissed her 
 Aunt Cornelia, and laid the spaniel in the 
 lady's lustreless black silk lap. Trixy, jealous 
 of this attention, jumped up and cuddled be- 
 side her little friend. 
 
 "Oh, well," sighed Mrs. Jeffries, "Mr. 
 Surbridge says we must make the best of it, 
 Trixy. Give me your hand. What are you 
 laughing at, Philip ? " 
 
 Philip pointed to the door, where Dan, 
 irradiate, stood leaning on his crutch. Dan 
 found it quite beyond the question now to 
 have Trixy out of his sight ; for her, his eyes 
 had become clairvoyant, his ears clairaudient. 
 Trixy had always reserved her private doubts 
 about her master's omnipotence ; his omni- 
 presence was now a fact established beyond 
 reach of skepticism. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 The court-room was stifling, for the unsavory 
 place was full. A strange array packed it to 
 the doors, and beyond. When had the lower 
 courts of the city known such an interplay of 
 human rank? The old images of theology 
 occurred to more than one person that morn- 
 ing — the visions of childhood as they formed 
 fearfully about the Day of the Last Judgment, 
 when "great and small" should stand before 
 the Judge. For, since it had gone abroad that 
 a brilliant and daring young attorney (him- 
 self of a social status from which one would 
 have expected other, not to say better things) 
 had proceeded against a great institution in 
 behalf of a boy from the slums whose dog 
 was mysteriously concerned, the extremes of 
 society had thronged to this unprecedented, 
 to this incredible trial. 
 
 Gentlemen of the clubs and of the drawing- 
 rooms protected clusters of ladies who had 
 never set their delicate feet in such a spot be- 
 
234 TRIXY 
 
 fore. Fans and vinaigrettes agitated and 
 protested against the polluted atmosphere of 
 justice to which judge and lawyers were so 
 used that they were conscious of surprise 
 at the discomfort experienced by the leisure 
 classes. 
 
 Early seated, and crowded to the front, was 
 to be noticed a group so unfamiliar to, and 
 so unfamiliar with the criminal courts that it 
 attracted a curious, something like a sympa- 
 thetic attention. This was an academic group 
 — a few professors, the dean of the involved 
 institution, several men bearing the unmis- 
 takable air of trustees, one of the defend- 
 ants (understood to be an instructor), and, 
 sitting beside him uneasily, the janitor of the 
 medical school. The college counsel, a distin- 
 guished lawyer, had an expression of patient 
 ennui, as one who regarded the occasion 
 small and irritating, and his case, in the 
 nature of things, assured. Physicians and 
 medical students of such types as the modern 
 schools turn out jammed every permissible 
 space. Lawyers were present in considerable 
 numbers. 
 
 Uncomfortably aware that they were but 
 
TRIXY 235 
 
 coldly welcomed by " the other half of the 
 world " in this extraordinary scene, yet stol- 
 idly defiant of the fact, sat the uninfluential, 
 the obscure, the children of the poor — whom 
 we are accustomed to forget until we need 
 them — the plain and powerful people whose 
 voice is apt to be clearer, and sure to be 
 stronger in the moral note than our own. 
 
 These had come up to champion one of them- 
 selves — an orphan lad, at whose instance the 
 great medical school was placed in a position 
 hitherto unimagined, and embarrassing to an 
 obvious decree. 
 
 The day was cold (it was January) and a 
 threatened storm was frowning. The court- 
 room was not quite dark enough to light arti- 
 ficially, but so dull of tint that, when an arrow 
 of sun ran through the army of clouds charg- 
 ing across the sky, and stabbed a window, 
 the effect was followed by every eye in the 
 room. It so chanced that the poignant ray 
 struck the lame lad's attorney, who had at that 
 moment risen, and stood preeminent in the 
 brilliance — his tall height, his strong head, 
 his direct features expressing a certain straight- 
 forwardness and manly sincerity, a certain fear- 
 
236 TRIXY 
 
 lessness in moral matters united to a marked 
 intellectual force, which commanded instinc- 
 tive respect. 
 
 His little client, who sat silent and pale be- 
 low him, stirred sensitively as the sunlight faded 
 slowly from Surbridge's face and figure, and 
 the boy glanced towards the rear of the room 
 where his neighbors and friends from Blind 
 Alley were crowded together. Among them, 
 yet clearly to the most careless eye not of 
 them, a lady, closely veiled, sheltered a small 
 object behind her muff. A tiny white ear, 
 cocked alertly above the dark fur, was fol- 
 lowed by a little struggling white face, rebel- 
 lious and determined. The lame boy held up 
 one finger, and the little face disappeared from 
 sight as the proceedings of the day began. 
 
 The preliminaries were disposed of rather 
 quickly, and with that indifference to social 
 claims or intellectual position characteristic of 
 abstract justice, and of the concrete judge pre- 
 siding — an eccentric man, with an irritable 
 mouth, a kind eye, and an imperious manner. 
 The distinguished scientists (from whose num- 
 ber Professor Steele was conspicuously absent) 
 involved in this extraordinary complication 
 
TRIXY 237 
 
 were conscious of a vexed surprise at their 
 position. The academic world is not a wide 
 one, the scientific portion of it least endowed 
 with imagination, and neither experience nor 
 fancy had prepared these gentlemen for a se- 
 rious legal situation ; where the latest bacillus 
 or the new serum was without palpable sig- 
 nificance, where the standards of the lecture- 
 room, the achievements of the laboratory, or 
 the reputation of a coterie went for nothing. 
 The fact that they might go for less than 
 nothing occurred slowly to Dr. Bernard (all 
 his mental processes were leisurely) when he 
 found himself, like any common, uninstructed 
 fellow, summoned to the bar. 
 
 The complaint was read rather impressively. 
 It was an incredibly vulgar charge — that of 
 receiving stolen property. To this Charles 
 Claudius Bernard, Instructor, and Thomas 
 Sleigh, Janitor of Galen Medical School, sev- 
 erally pleaded not guilty : and the trial pro- 
 gressed as briskly as possible. 
 
 Surbridge, who handled the case from the 
 outset in a manner as unconventional as the 
 most conventional of professions allowed him, 
 made a brief and blazing opening of the sort 
 
238 TRIXY 
 
 which led lawyers who did not know him to 
 whisper : " Effective. But theatricals won't 
 carry this case. It needs a stone-crusher." 
 
 " Wait," answered an elderly member of 
 the bar, "you '11 have both before he gets 
 through. I knew his father." 
 
 The witnesses for the prosecution were put 
 forward rapidly — it seemed to be Surbridge's 
 purpose to avoid tiring the court — and, de- 
 layed only by the inevitable cross-examination, 
 these presented their testimony, on the whole, 
 with a clearness which indicated rather an 
 unusual drill, or unusual harmony between 
 counsel and witness. 
 
 Daniel Badger took his oath solemnly, as 
 if he had been undergoing- initiation vows at 
 the Lodge of the Grand Mooses. He testified 
 distinctly in his plaintive voice. Now and then 
 he gestured a little with his crutch ; he had a 
 pleasing expression of confidence in the judge, 
 not entirely lost upon his Honor, whose sharp 
 lips curved into a withered smile when the lad, 
 suddenly overborne by the pathos of his story, 
 forgetting that he had been directed only to 
 answer questions, leaned heavily upon his 
 crutch, lifted one thin hand high in the air 
 
TRIXY 239 
 
 (apparently under the impression that he was 
 taking another oath), and, before Surbridge 
 could stop him, thus personally addressed the 
 Bench : 
 
 " Ye see, Judge, Trixy she 's all I got. 
 Me V Trixy have n't anybody but her 'n' me. 
 It was tumble to steal Trixy. It ain't so much 
 them shows and her bein' edoocated — you 
 never see a dog know so much as Trixy does — 
 an' folks have to make a livin' — me 'n' Trixy 
 used to make ourn before she was took away 
 from me that time. But that ain't it. I 'd 'a' 
 starved, Judge, and welcome, any day, an' I 
 would n't 'a' minded much — I druther most 
 anything than have anything happen to Trixy." 
 
 Here Surbridge, inwardly delighted, felt 
 bound to interpose. 
 
 "You may go on, my lad," said the judge 
 indulgently. " It may be of help in getting 
 at the facts," he added, leveling a straight 
 glance at the respectful protest in the face 
 of the colWe counsel. " Let us hear what 
 the boy has to say." 
 
 " She played so pretty, too," proceeded 
 Dan with quavering voice. " Did n't ye never 
 see her play, Judge? It warn't only ten 
 
240 TRIXY 
 
 cents a head. She ain't like most dogs, Trixy 
 ain't. She's a little girl in dog's close, Trixy 
 is. An' then ye see she 's so small, Judge. It 
 warn't as if she was a bull-dog, or something 
 big. Trixy could n't help herself — she was a 
 little dog. It warn't right of them fellars. 
 They was grown-up men. They stole my little 
 dog. I seen her. I seen her in that college. 
 They was a goin' to cut her up alive. I hearn 
 a fellar say so. They was goin' — to — cut — 
 Trixy — up — alive. I tell ye, Judge, I seen 
 her in the machine. She had a bit acrosst her 
 mouth — so — she was crying somethin' awful. 
 It was a turrible thing for them fellars to treat 
 Trixy so — now warn't it ? You would n't ha' 
 treated her that way yourself, Judge, would 
 you?" 
 
 Dan sat down trembling. He was very white, 
 and went a trifle faint. He felt that he had 
 disobeyed Mr. Surbridge : he had spoken more 
 than he was spoken to ; and he experienced a 
 sick anxiety. From the rear of the room a little 
 squeal, immediately muffled by something soft, 
 greeted the subsidence of the complainant. 
 
 Very ably cross-examined, Dan stuck to his 
 story like a drowning excursionist to a sound 
 
TRIXY 241 
 
 life preserver. He neither slipped nor sank. 
 In fact, he added so many dangerous touches 
 to the evidence that the eminent college 
 counsel dropped the lad as soon as he decently 
 could. 
 
 Before the emotion aroused by Dan's 
 pathetic personality had wasted, Surbridge 
 put in his witnesses briskly. 
 
 Thomas Cady related the circumstances of 
 the finding of the dog. He knew the dog well ; 
 he was " perpared " to swear that it was the 
 dog ; he saw her taken up to the medical school ; 
 he did not get near enough to release the clog. 
 
 Sarah Jenkinson, plainly a consumptive, 
 ' coughing heavily, offered similar testimony. 
 
 Mary Cady reiterated and added to the 
 same. She had observed the blue blanket on 
 the dog as it was being dragged along. She 
 had lingered behind her party, and had seen 
 the man. When the man " see her watchin'," 
 he ran. Mary Cady had addressed a policeman 
 on the subject of the man and the dog. The 
 policeman had " cussed " at Mary Cady. Mary 
 Cady's testimony was rendered picturesque 
 by her costume. She wore a blue coat, and a 
 green hat surmounted by a blue jay, a cat- 
 
242 TRIXY 
 
 bird, and the remains of a cockatoo. Her 
 brown muff bung from her neck by a pink 
 ribbon. 
 
 Cady's Molly was immediately followed by 
 a witness whose appearance created evident 
 agitation in the professional part of the au- 
 dience. Robert Souther, practicing physician 
 and surgeon, being sworn, reluctantly admitted 
 that he was present in the laboratory of Dr. 
 C. C. Bernard at the time when the dog was 
 withdrawn from the experiment in question 
 by the interference of the attorney for the 
 prosecution. Dr. Souther was a middle-aged 
 man with grayish hair and beard. He bore him- 
 self with an air of distressed protest through- 
 out the melancholy occasion to which he had 
 been subpoenaed : but, being obviously a man 
 who " honored his word as if it were his 
 God," however unwillingly, he told the truth. 
 Shrewdly cross-examined, he did not retract 
 or confuse it. The dog was prepared for an 
 experiment which he was invited to witness. 
 He had inquired of Dr. Bernard where he had 
 picked that pretty creature up. Dr. Bernard 
 had replied that it came in the usual way. 
 The dog was fastened to the dog-board, and 
 
TRIXY 243 
 
 the experiment was about to begin, when the 
 interruption occurred. Closely pressed by the 
 attorney for the prosecution, Dr. Souther 
 admitted that he had regretted the sacrifice of 
 the dog ; but, being a guest of the occasion, he 
 had not felt at liberty to say so ; equally did 
 he regret being obliged to testify against a 
 colleague in this case. Yes ; he was quite sure 
 that he should recognize the dog if he saw 
 it. It was in no sense an ordinary dog. He 
 could not deny that he was gratified that the 
 dog had escaped the experiment. 
 
 After the court had returned from luncheon 
 the defense unmasked its batteries. These 
 were of a resounding variety. The college 
 took the position, hardly material to the issue, 
 but intended to overawe, that this slight 
 matter scarcely needed attention. That the 
 institution could err, was plainly a social 
 heresy. Its honor was not to be questioned, 
 its scientific dogma was not to be barked at 
 by the courts, and its methods were above 
 criticism. To brinor Galen Medical School 
 before the bar of the state was a species of 
 lese-?najeste. 
 
 One of the defendants, taking advantage 
 
244 TEIXY 
 
 of his privilege, was silent. The janitor was 
 not going to run the risk of any possible 
 incrimination of his valuable personality. He 
 had been in office a dozen years, and had 
 never been in an unpleasant position before. 
 He held himself to be as unimpeachable and 
 almost as important as the dean. In fact, was 
 he not more necessary ? At least the " dog 
 banditti " thought so. 
 
 Witnesses were many and fluent. Doctors, 
 laboratory assistants, medical students flocked 
 eagerly to the defense of their school. The 
 college could easily have presented ten wit- 
 nesses to Surbridge's one. The expression of 
 the distinguished attorney was placid and 
 confident. He put forward the chief de- 
 fendant without uneasiness. Dr. Bernard's 
 arrogant brutality, which was not always 
 popular hi professional or private life, made 
 him an excellent witness in his own behalf. 
 He had for so long a time regarded laymen 
 with contempt that he had no fears about the 
 possible outcome. Indeed, his mind was 
 cloudy as to the value of the legal profession ; 
 its skill he did not respect; its force he did 
 not fear. Set against a scientific creed, set 
 
TRIXY 245 
 
 against a scientific fact, what were the claims 
 of any other profession ? The church he de- 
 spised, the state he defied with a narrow com- 
 placency than which none could be more 
 hopeless. 
 
 Charles Claudius Bernard took the stand 
 with insolent ease. His enormous hands 
 played with the rail before him as if he had 
 been stripping it of its muscles. His pro- 
 minent ears seemed to a girl whose wincing 
 eyes followed him behind her veil, to tarn 
 forwards a little like those of a listening 
 animal. He told his story in a loud voice 
 that snapped now and then into the irrita- 
 bility of a red-haired man. He assumed a 
 position which he conjectured to be unassail- 
 able. He maintained (and the judge allowed 
 him the same latitude that had been allowed 
 to Dan ) that it was not an instance, but 
 a principle which was arraigned ; and the 
 principle he defended with a certain brutal 
 belief in it that was not without force. He 
 applauded the practice that he represented, 
 and the institution which chartered it, and 
 himself. He challenged examination of his 
 methods, inspection of his laboratories. To 
 
246 TRIXY 
 
 the animals upon which he experimented, he 
 referred with a cold indifference not skill- 
 fully concealed behind a perfunctory show of 
 sympathy. He swore that he did not know 
 the dog was stolen. He swore that he was 
 about to anaesthetize the dog. He swore that 
 none of his subjects suffered. He swore that 
 beyond a passing discomfort animals did not 
 suffer. 
 
 Philip Surbridge, up to this point, had 
 handled the college witnesses with a courtesy 
 that was almost cordial, cutting swathes in 
 the defense with a nonchalant touch. He had 
 begun pleasantly and lightly as if he were 
 trundling a lawn-mower. Now the stone- 
 crusher bewail to move. In five minutes Dr. 
 Charles Claudius Bernard was uncomfortable. 
 In ten, his cruel, deeply reddened face had 
 taken on purplish shadows about the mouth 
 and eyes. In fifteen, he had admitted half a 
 dozen things which he had begun by denying, 
 and in twenty, if a stone-crusher had been 
 vivisectible material he could have flayed 
 the brain and heart of the counsel for the 
 prosecution. 
 
 The judge, who had been listening to the 
 
TRIXY 247 
 
 cross-examination with an absorbed attention 
 not expected of a police-court magistrate, now 
 interrupted the natural order of the proceed- 
 ings. He expressed a wish to have the 
 plaintiff put upon the stand. Was it a slip 
 of the tongue ? or was his Honor pleased to 
 be facetious? Surbridge paused in evident 
 perplexity, and made a motion towards Dan. 
 
 " I think I fail to understand your Honor's 
 wish?" 
 
 " Produce the real complainant," said the 
 judge peremptorily. " I want to see the dog." 
 
 " Go, Dan," said Philip Surbridge in a low 
 voice — "or — no — stay where you are. I '11 
 do it." 
 
 He went over himself and took the dog from 
 Miss Lauriat so quietly that only a few persons 
 sitting nearest the young lady knew precisely 
 what had occurred. For the instant Miriam 
 lifted the dark veil that was tied about her 
 hat, and her eyes went to Philip's straight. 
 They had a beautiful look, half of wonder, 
 half of pride, and all of trust. They said : 
 " You are making a grand case of it. And 
 yet you are sparing me." 
 
 Trixy obeyed his Honor's summons very 
 
248 TRIXY 
 
 prettily. She was of the race and of the sex 
 that offer the trick dogs, and was prepared 
 to regard the occasion as a professional oppor- 
 tunity. Yet she paid no attention at first to 
 anything but her master ; to whom she flew 
 — more like a bird than a dog — with little 
 squeals of delight and dainty laps of her rose- 
 pink tongue, cuddling and protesting passion- 
 ately against the separation of the day ; she 
 laid her cheek rapturously to the radiance of 
 Dan's face, and, turning her head and neck 
 gracefully, she brought these close beneath 
 his chin, and from this shelter serenely sur- 
 veyed the court. 
 
 It then occurred to her that she was neg- 
 lecting one of the dearest of friends, and she 
 sprang from Dan's arms to Surbridge's at a 
 bound. Philip gently put her down upon the 
 table, where the opposing counsel, whether of 
 accident or of intent, stroked Trixy. The 
 court smiled and said : 
 
 " A point has been raised about the un- 
 usual character or value of the dog. I should 
 like to see one or two of the little creature's 
 accomplishments." 
 
 Dan stepped forward proudly, and, being 
 
TRIXY 249 
 
 something muddled by excitement, hastily 
 began : 
 
 " Trixy, where is the lady you love the best?" 
 
 " No, no ! " whispered Surbridge. " Not 
 that ! Not now ! Trixy should shake hands 
 with the judge." 
 
 So Trixy, being lifted up, shook hands with 
 his Honor — very charmingly indeed. Then 
 she volunteered to kiss Mr. Surbridge, but, 
 being deftly dissuaded, boxed the ears of the 
 opposing counsel instead. Then she danced a 
 two-step on the table, and bowed with dig- 
 nity to the audience. After that, she leaped 
 the bounds of all legal precedent, and, lightly 
 springing to his Honor's lap, put her paws on 
 the bench, her head on her paws, and said 
 her prayers. 
 
 The audience was now laughing heartily, 
 and the judge, finding that Trixy, considered 
 in the form of evidence, was more than he 
 had counted on, handed her back to her 
 counsel, and returned severely to his official 
 duties. Somewhat testily he demanded that 
 the defendant be recalled, and the unexpected 
 question was shot at Bernard : 
 
 " Do you recognize this dog ? " 
 
250 TRIXY 
 
 So Dr. C. C. Bernard put on his distance 
 glasses, carefully examined the little creature, 
 and slowly said : 
 
 " I see so many subjects ! There are so 
 many experiments ! I could hardly be ex- 
 pected to identify any one of them outside 
 the laboratory." 
 
 " Answer Yes or No ! " thundered Sur- 
 bridge. "Do you recognize this dog?" 
 
 Then Charles Claudius Bernard answered : 
 
 " I do not recognize the dog." 
 
 Now as the strident accents of this reply 
 grated upon the silent court-room, a remark- 
 able change fell upon the " real complainant." 
 Trixy, who had run to the end of her leash 
 upon the table, pleasantly regarding the au- 
 dience which she plainly supposed to have 
 assembled in her honor, turned with a motion 
 of unmistakable fear, and looked up into Dr. 
 Bernard's dark, disturbed face. Over that of 
 the dog crept such an expression of horror 
 that his Honor instinctively uttered a click- 
 ing noise, made by hitting the tongue against 
 the roof of the mouth. Several persons sit- 
 ting near enough to see the dog's eyes gave 
 out low exclamations. Whether Dr. Bernard 
 
TKIXY 251 
 
 recognized the subject or not, the subject had 
 recognized Dr. Bernard. Cringing with fright, 
 Trixy fled to her master and buried herself in 
 his arms and in his neck. This shelter not suf- 
 ficing, she burrowed beneath his coat and hid 
 herself from sight. Dan could hear the terri- 
 lied beating of her little heart, and the arm 
 with which he clasped her stirred with the 
 violent trembling of the dog's delicate body. 
 This unusual court episode created an obvious 
 impression, and it began to be suspected that 
 Trixy was likely to win her own case. 
 
 The stone-crusher ground on, more briskly 
 now, with swifter revolutions. 
 
 " Did you ever see this before?" cried Sur- 
 bridge, sharply wheeling upon a scowling wit- 
 ness known to the students as "janitor's boy." 
 The attorney held out in both hands a dog's 
 blue blanket, soiled and spoiled and torn, on 
 which the embroidered letters I X Y were still 
 plainly to be seen. 
 
 The witness, stammering and trembling, 
 said he had seen the blanket before, at the 
 college — on a dog — on this dog, yes, sir. 
 He had put it in the ash barrel. Yes, sir, it 
 was the janitor told him to. 
 
252 TKIXY 
 
 " You were familiar with the appearance of 
 this blanket, of course ? You must have been 
 aware of the existence of the embroidered let- 
 ters I X Y upon it?" 
 
 The witness granted that he was familiar 
 with the appearance of the blanket, and that 
 he had noticed the embroidered letters I X Y. 
 
 " And then this" suggested Surbridge care- 
 lessly. " You must have observed this writing 
 on the inside of the blanket ? " 
 
 He turned the little blanket wrong side 
 out, and, held up in full view of the court, 
 it showed the legend printed in indelible ink 
 upon a piece of linen that was sewed under- 
 neath Trixy's coat: 
 
 This belongs to Trixy Badger. She is a little white 
 dog. She belongs to Daniel E. Badger, 123 Blind Alley. 
 If lost, please return her. 
 
 Under a terrible cross-examination the wit- 
 ness, sweating agony and crying mercy from 
 every pore of body and soul, admitted that 
 he had seen the label — thought he had men- 
 tioned the label to the janitor — thought that 
 Dr. Bernard knew about the coat, but darse n't 
 tell why he thought so. 
 
 The janitor's boy panted and shook so that 
 
TRIXY 253 
 
 Surbridge, in scornful mercy, released him be- 
 fore he meant to. 
 
 " The case is won," said the elderly law- 
 yer who had known Surbridge's father in his 
 prime. "But they will appeal." 
 
 The closing arguments were tense and short ; 
 that of the defense being remarkably able, 
 and as impressive as it could well be made in 
 teeth of developments so dramatic and so un- 
 expected. 
 
 Philip Surbridge occupied less than half an 
 hour. He reviewed the evidence briefly, almost 
 brusquely, as if it were idle to waste the time 
 of the court by dwelling upon such a fortifi- 
 cation of facts. His manner was cheerful and 
 assured, and seemed to intrust the case to the 
 legal sense of the judge, as a matter of course. 
 It was without a trace of " lawyer's worry " 
 that he rose into the impassioned and original 
 plea which was long and well remembered by 
 every attorney in the room. Some applauded 
 it, some criticised it, but no man forgot it. 
 
 Surbridge, having handled the technicali- 
 ties of his case with significant thoroughness 
 and with real power, now gave himself over 
 generously to its moral and even its emotional 
 
254 TRIXY 
 
 aspects. The manner in which he was pleased 
 to do this, though not without a counterpart 
 in the records of the Bar, 1 was unmatched in 
 the courts of our Eastern coast. Without a 
 word of apology for the innovation, the lame 
 lad's counsel launched upon a eulogy of the 
 nature of the dog. 
 
 "A man does not have to live very long," 
 he said, " to discover that in this world friends 
 are hard to gain, and harder to keep. At 
 most they are very few. Not many of them 
 are true. All of them are uncertain. None of 
 them can answer the demands of our clamor- 
 ing hearts. Who comes so near to meeting 
 the conditions of a real friendship as your 
 dog? His devotion surpasses the devotion of 
 most women. His affection outvies the affec- 
 tion of any man. He gives everything ; he 
 asks nothing. He offers all ; he receives little. 
 He comforts your loneliness ; he assuages your 
 distress; he sacrifices his liberty to watch by 
 you in sickness ; when every one else who 
 used to love you has neglected your grave, he 
 will break his heart upon it. Who fails you 
 in faith ? Your dog is loyal. Who deserts 
 
 1 Address of Senator Vest. 
 
TRIXY 255 
 
 you ? Your dog never. Who gashes you with 
 roughness, or bruises you with unkindness ? 
 Your dog offers you the tenderness that time 
 and use cannot destroy. You have from him 
 the expression of the uttermost, the unselfish 
 love. This little citizen of the slums, this 
 wronged and suffering lad possessed a trea- 
 sure which any one of us might envy — the 
 true friendship of an exquisite canine nature. 
 Without excuse in the nature of the deed, 
 without apology in the laws of the land, sci- 
 ence put out her red hand and tore from 
 this afflicted boy his means of livelihood, the 
 joy of his hard life, the comrade of his deso- 
 lation. His tragic experience is one of hun- 
 dreds that never reach the knowledge of the 
 public, or the protection of the courts. The 
 merciful denouement of this dark tale does 
 not often await the bereaved household that 
 has mysteriously lost its dumb and cherished 
 friend. Yours may be such a household. 
 Mine might be such bereavement. We, too, 
 may be elected to share this fate into which 
 the physiology of our day drags the animal 
 and the human too. Y^ou have heard the de- 
 fendant in this case assert that he does not 
 
256 TRIXY 
 
 know, that his institution does not know, 
 where the victims of his laboratory come from. 
 Your Honor ! I claim that his institution 
 ought to know. I say that her faculty and 
 her employees ought to know. I urge that 
 the defendants should be made to know — 
 by the decision of this court — where this 
 material came from, and that they should 
 never be permitted from this hour to forget. 
 I appeal for this wronged boy against the 
 slaughter-houses of science, to the law which 
 is framed to protect the weak, to punish 
 outrage, and to respect the sacredness of 
 property." 
 
 It seemed that Surbridge had intended to 
 say something more, but, checked by his own 
 agitation, and moved by the emotion in the 
 court-room, he ceased abruptly. His pale face 
 turned impulsively towards the girl in the far 
 end of the house. It seemed to him that he 
 could see her wet eyes through her veil. 
 
 Quickly and quietly she rose and went out. 
 It was as though she could not trust herself 
 to witness the end of the scene. 
 
 This came now, in a whirlwind. 
 
 His Honor summed up briefly and sternly. 
 
TRIXY 257 
 
 He referred to the importance of this case to 
 the community — to its unusual character — 
 to the standing- of the defendants — to their 
 evident assumption that their influential posi- 
 tion would afford them immunity. The court, 
 however, proposed to dispense justice impar- 
 tially, regardless of the consequences. Science 
 was not of such paramount importance to so- 
 ciety as the observance of the laws. It was 
 perfectly clear to the judge upon the evidence 
 that both the defendants knew that the dog 
 was stolen, and there was nothing for him to 
 do in the conscientious and fearless discharge 
 of his duty but to find them both guilty of 
 the offense charged. 
 
 His Honor imposed the heaviest fine that 
 the law allowed ; treated the appeal with sar- 
 castic contempt ; and, when he found a chance, 
 said to the young attorney : " You remind me 
 of your father." 
 
 The students and the medical men went 
 out in disturbed and scowling groups. But 
 some of the lawyers lingered to give a hearty 
 hand to Philip Surbridge. Ladies who had 
 dropped their fans to put dainty handker- 
 chiefs to their eyes melted away silently and 
 
258 TRIXY 
 
 thoughtfully. And the plain and powerful 
 people rose to their strong feet, and — not 
 knowing and not caring that it was against 
 court rules to do so — cheered and roared 
 like the lion that they are for Dan and 
 Trixy. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 The vivisector turned painfully upon his bed ; 
 he had lain there now six weeks. He had 
 always been a well man, and by the mystery 
 of physical suffering and disability he was as 
 much astonished as he was infuriated. For 
 the last twelve months he had worked with a 
 concentration never exceeded in his studious 
 life. His laboratory had not listened in vain 
 for his expected feet, and the lights in its win- 
 dows had often burned late into the night. 
 During the year his colleagues had noted 
 that he had shifted his research away from 
 the surgical direction. Whether he had been 
 moved to do this through one of those delu- 
 sions by which we excuse to ourselves our 
 forsworn resolves, he himself could not have 
 told. At all events, the work upon which he 
 was now engaged — that of serum inoculation 
 — was alleged to be the more merciful form 
 of experimentation. 
 
 He had not spoken to Miriam Lauriat since 
 
260 TRIXY 
 
 that morning when he was exiled from the 
 paradise of her presence. He had written to 
 her several times, but had received no replies. 
 Beyond a passing glimpse of her in the street, 
 or in some place of entertainment, he had not 
 seen her face. These instantaneous views, 
 caught on the sensitized plate of his conscious- 
 ness, had caused him so much misery that he 
 had finally withdrawn himself from all but the 
 necessary attrition of life. The vow he had 
 made to her still reverberated through his be- 
 ing, but he excused himself from its fulfillment 
 with the easy sophistry of his avocation. It 
 was a conditional promise. She had not met 
 the condition ; why should he sacrifice himself ? 
 At midsummer, about two months ago, he 
 came home from his laboratory one day with 
 a slight abrasion upon his finger. He thought 
 nothing of it at the time. The guinea pig 
 that he had inoculated sickened and died, as 
 it was intended that it should. On the day 
 when the patient creature drew its last miser- 
 able breath, Dr. Steele was appalled to dis- 
 cover in himself the too familiar symptoms 
 of the malady that he had imposed upon his 
 timid and unimportant victim. 
 
TRIXY 261 
 
 His knowledge of the nature and conse- 
 quences of the disorder constituted its acutest 
 feature. He longed for the happy simplicity 
 of the layman ; he prayed that certain cells of 
 his brain might be dispossessed of their techni- 
 cal training ; he would have bartered twenty 
 years of education for the dull foresight of a 
 man who would know only what his physician 
 chose to tell ; he would have sold his brilliant 
 reputation for a merciful nescience of his ad- 
 vancing fate. 
 
 Steele, as we say, had never been really ill 
 before ; we might add that he had never truly 
 been alone before. The inevitable solitude of 
 sickness — at its best neither tolerated nor un- 
 derstood by the well and the gregarious — was 
 in his instance rather pitiably uncompanioned. 
 His mother was dead ; his brother was in Cali- 
 fornia ; and his sister's infrequent visits came 
 like ice in April. The attendance of the staff of 
 Galen College did not mitigate his desolation, 
 any more than it cured his disorder. He was 
 alone with his nurse, his servants, and his old 
 dog. Tibbs and Barry were about the same 
 age, so to speak, and both had well outgrown 
 the impatience that youth feels with the sick. 
 
262 TRIXY 
 
 Olin's sister came in on the day of which 
 we tell, to make a little duty call. It was with 
 evident reluctance that she crossed the sick- 
 room. She sat down on a chair at some 
 distance from the bed, and prattled her per- 
 functory sympathy. 
 
 Did he en j oy the flowers ? Should she send 
 another tumbler of that jelly ? Could he read 
 some wholesome, cheerful novels? Her hus- 
 band sent his kindest regards. Any more let- 
 ters from Dick ? How well he was doing at 
 the head of that institution ! All her friends 
 were proud of him. He was a credit to the 
 family, he enjoyed the climate, and said he 
 never was so well in his life. 
 
 " I must say, Olin — of course, you know, 
 I am very sorry for you, but I should have 
 thought you had experience enough not to get 
 yourself into such a scrape as this. Still, I sup- 
 pose, it 's very interesting studying your own 
 symptoms, especially when they are so rare. 
 You '11 be writing a pamphlet about it some 
 day." 
 
 " Oh, do be still, Jess! " groaned Olin. He 
 buried his face in his pillow savagely. 
 
 " Well, I 'm sure ! " exclaimed Jess. " It 's 
 
TRIXY 263 
 
 no use trying to sympathize with you." She 
 pouted, and he heard her skirts swishing out 
 of the room. 
 
 Agitated by the disturbance of his sister's 
 call, Olin flung himself into a rise of tempera- 
 ture, and feverishly rang for water and an 
 open window. The nurse was off duty, being 
 out for her two hours' relief, and Tibbs did 
 not hear the bell. Steele called and called 
 again, but no one answered him. The sudden 
 tears of weakness scalded his eyes. He thought 
 of his mother with a boyish, almost a senti- 
 mental longing. 
 
 "Nobody cares," he muttered. "I am a 
 sick — I am a desolate man." 
 
 His reflections ran a bitter race. He who 
 had achieved almost supremely ; he whose 
 value science had rated so highly ; he whose 
 name was pushed to the front in medical 
 journals ; he whose college honored him 
 above the alumni of his time ; he for whose 
 revolutionizing discoveries humanity was said 
 to be waiting — he lay there parched and 
 neglected. He had sown professional fame ; 
 he had reaped a poisoned isolation. He 
 flung himself over in a helpless fury, and his 
 
264 TRIXY 
 
 clenched hand dropped at the side of the bed. 
 It hit something cold, and he drew back with 
 a shiver. 
 
 Slowly and laboriously an old St. Bernard 
 dog raised himself to his feet, and followed 
 his master's witless hand. The huge, stiff crea- 
 ture put his head upon the bed; with dim, 
 faithful eyes begging the caress for which he 
 had waited longer than, it seemed, masters 
 know or care. Feeling rather than perceiving 
 — for Barry was now nearly blind — that 
 the sick man's attention was turned to him at 
 last, the dog struggled up and got one paw, 
 then the other, to the pillow, and so across 
 the dear neck that he pathetically sought to 
 clasp. 
 
 " Why, Barry ! " said Steele faintly. « Why, 
 Barry ! — What do you want, old fellow ? " 
 
 Barry passionately tried to answer, but he 
 had no vocabulary except that of love ; he had 
 only love to render ; and only love to ask. 
 Barry concerned himself with no small mat- 
 ters ; he dealt with nothing less than the 
 greatest thing in the world. He stood quite 
 still and straight — it must have hurt him, but 
 he said nothing about that — and, getting his 
 
TRIXY 265 
 
 head over upon the sick man's shoulder, laid 
 it there with a happy sigh. As long as the 
 rheumatic dog could stand, the two remained 
 so, cheek to cheek. 
 
 " You stay by me, Barry — don't you ? " 
 Stimulated, perhaps, by this momentary con- 
 tact with life and love — it did not matter just 
 then that it was offered by one of the subject 
 races — Steele's thoughts took on a character 
 to which for years his mind had given no hos- 
 pitality. For, now, there marched before his 
 closed and aching eyes the solemn movement 
 of a long processional. Curiously, it seemed 
 to go in pairs, like the animals that went into 
 the ark in the old Bible myth that he used to 
 believe when he was a child. This mute and 
 sentient panorama was all aware of him. As 
 it passed, each martyred creature turned its 
 eyes and looked at him, and looked away ; so 
 he had seen on the stage the murdered man 
 look upon Irving in " The Bells." In this 
 glance was neither threat nor accusation, only 
 an instant's width of awful recognition. It 
 was a gentle company that filed by him : 
 the domestic animals that comfort our homes, 
 soft feline pets, purring as they came, and 
 
266 TRIXY 
 
 noble-headed dogs who had kissed the hand 
 that carved them ; there followed small de- 
 spised things, that sing in our swamps on sum- 
 mer nights, and lull us to sleep with their 
 cheerful serenade; then came simple-minded, 
 docile creatures with long, lifted ears — little 
 spirits, born to be playthings for children. 
 There were winged things, too, pigeons and 
 doves, whose brains he had sliced. These all 
 went with their heads on one side or the 
 other. The circumstance that forbade them 
 to hold themselves straight did not seem to 
 be as interesting now as it was when he 
 sacrificed these gentle beings to a physiologi- 
 cal caprice. 
 
 The vivisector returned the recognition of 
 these solemn ranks. His fevered brain, not 
 altogether able to distinguish between the 
 phantasm and the fact, followed these sad 
 shades eagerly. There was a maledict hyp- 
 nosis in their mournful gaze. They trooped 
 in companies, mute, gentle, uncomplaining, 
 unaccusing. God ! If they had arisen and 
 gnashed at him ! If they had torn him 
 muscle by muscle ; if they had stripped him 
 nerve from nerve as he had lacerated them — 
 
TRIXY 267 
 
 he could have borne it better ! But they 
 flayed him with gentle endurance ; they tor- 
 mented him with phantom forgiveness ; their 
 bitterest revenge was one reiterated question 
 — " Why ? — Why ? — Why ? " Then, from 
 gidfs of distance the voice of a woman invis- 
 ible cried out upon him : " Was it worth the 
 cost ? — Was it worth the cost ? " 
 
 Unable to free himself, if he would, from 
 this spectral society, Steele watched its in- 
 evitable progression. It was as if he were 
 an officer reviewing the ghosts of a scattered 
 army after a defeat. Silent, drooping, by 
 hundreds they passed him by ; they offered 
 him no salute ; it was his false tactics that 
 had lost the fight. 
 
 Here and there in the feeble ranks he 
 identified a sacrifice to his fame — that dog 
 in Vienna — and now, last of all, hers. This 
 one did not raise its scarred head, but dully 
 followed the rest because it had to. 
 
 A throe of physical anguish brought Steele 
 to himself, and dissipated this ghostly army. 
 It now recurred to the physiologist that he 
 was bearing in his own body, nerve by nerve, 
 a reduplication of the sensations which he 
 
268 TRIXY 
 
 had inflicted in some of his recent experi- 
 ments. His educated imagination could easily 
 forecast the climax to the tragedy. He had 
 seen it enacted — how many times ! 
 
 "This is my punishment," he groaned. 
 "This is my punishment for the torments 
 I have allowed the animals to suffer." 
 
 His cry rang through the room, and hurried 
 the nurse whose feet were already on the stairs. 
 
 " You 've been dreaming ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " No," he panted, " it was no dream. I 
 wish it were." 
 
 " I '11 tell Dr. Bernard downstairs that you 
 can't see him. You 're not fit. I can't allow 
 it. It won't do." 
 
 — " Oh, but here I am. I guess he '11 see 
 me all right. " 
 
 Bernard pushed into the sick-room obsti- 
 nately. His patients were not people, and he 
 did not know how to treat the human sick. 
 He came to the bedside, and with the arro- 
 gance of health looked down upon his chief. 
 He put a few searching questions, asked the 
 nurse for the chart, and regarded the sufferer 
 critically. Steele had seen the same expression 
 of satisfaction on that coarse face before. 
 
TRIXY 269 
 
 " It 's a beautiful case, is n't it? " observed 
 Bernard brutally. 
 
 Steele lay watching his visitor through half- 
 closed lashes. To himself he said : " This man 
 would sacrifice me, if he could. He would ex- 
 periment heartily. He has become like that. 
 Or perhaps he always was." Aloud he said : 
 " You remind me of that story about Passerot 
 — do you remember ? Probably not. Hand 
 me that black book under the 'Surgical Re- 
 cord ' on the other table — will you ? Thanks. 
 Oblige me by reading that." 
 
 And Bernard read : 
 
 "There is a story told of ... a French 
 scholar of the last century. Dying, he was 
 brought, unrecognized, into the Charity Hos- 
 pital of Paris. The attending surgeon looked 
 down upon the miserable being, and, speaking 
 to his associates in Latin, — the language used 
 by learned men, — he remarked : ( Fiat expe- 
 rimentum in cor pore vilV At these words 
 the eyes of the dying man opened, and from 
 one they had taken to be a beggar came a 
 scholar's reply : ' Cor]ms non vile est, domini 
 doctissimi, pro quo Christies ipse non dedi- 
 gnatus est morV " 
 
270 TRIXY 
 
 Bernard closed the book with ostentatious 
 indifference ; his muddy cheek did not clarify 
 into color; but he flung one insolent glance 
 at his professor. " Oh, by the way/' he said 
 leisurely, "can't you induce the alleged owner 
 of that spaniel to let us have it back ? Other- 
 wise, all that work is thrown away." 
 
 The stricken man struggled to raise himself 
 upon his elbow, and struggled again, when 
 he fell back. Panting and paling, he cursed 
 his subordinate out of the room. 
 
 Then Barry, limping after, swore hoarsely 
 at the inquisitor ; who, as he closed the door, 
 kicked the old dog. 
 
 The instructor left the house in a bad 
 humor, and went his way sulkily. He had 
 always dully felt that a separateness existed 
 between himself and Olin Steele, such as 
 people not scientifically educated might call 
 a class distinction of the soul ; but this was 
 of the sort which a man does not admit to 
 himself in language. 
 
 " He is even dying differently," thought 
 Bernard. He resented this last infringement 
 upon his estimate of himself. Nothing in his 
 nature responded to the evident moral agita- 
 
TRIXY 271 
 
 tion and readjustment with which Steele was 
 fronting death. 
 
 " What is there to make a fuss about, any- 
 how ? " he asked savagely. 
 
 He walked for a while, looking grimly 
 about. It miffht almost have been said that 
 he was looking for something on which to 
 wreak his discomfort. He paused before a 
 hospital, where it now occurred to him that 
 a curious operation (which, as the event proved, 
 ended in death) was to take place that very day 
 upon the brain of an underwitted house-maid. 
 He went in. 
 
 As he watched with absorption this rare 
 demonstration, he said to himself : " No ex- 
 periment is absolutely satisfactory unless it 
 has been tried on a human being." 
 
 The episode gave him a keen pleasure 
 which forced the unpleasant thought of his 
 professor from his mind. 
 
 The nurse hurried in remorsefully, voluble 
 as the best of nurses may be at the unfortu- 
 nate moment. Steele felt as if he could hurl 
 her after Bernard by an objurgation, and had 
 hard work not to tell her so. But she had a 
 
272 TRIXY 
 
 letter in her hand, and when he saw the super- 
 scription the patient could have kneeled in his 
 bed and worshiped her. 
 
 " I 'm afraid I 'm doing wrong," she par- 
 leyed. " You have been under some severe 
 excitement, and the doctor " — 
 
 But the patient, damning the doctor, tore 
 the envelope from the woman's hand, ordered 
 her out of the room, and fell upon the letter 
 like some starved animal on living food. Steele, 
 staring and shaking, read : 
 
 I have never answered anything you have 
 written because I felt that it would not be 
 merciful to you, nor best, perhaps, for me. 
 But in these poignant days, which are anni- 
 versary of those that I am not yet able to for- 
 get, it has seemed to me that, perhaps, I 
 should be truer to myself if I did so, and that 
 it might be the better way to break, once 
 and for all, the silence that I have put be- 
 tween us; it has grown a high and solid wall, 
 and a wall it must remain. You will not for 
 a moment mistake me about that. But it has 
 come to me lately to wish to tell you this : 
 while to you it has seemed a wall of stone or 
 
TRIXY 273 
 
 marble, to me it has been a wall of glass. It 
 is thick glass ; I cannot break it ; but I have 
 always felt that I could look through it, if I 
 chose, and sometimes I have chosen. I have 
 observed you ; I have watched your life. 
 
 I do not mind telling you that it has added 
 to such sadness as I myself cannot escape, to 
 see that you are — as you were ; and that the 
 words which you said to me that day, that 
 last day, have not taken form in deeds. It 
 has disappointed me. 
 
 Yesterday I heard that you are ill; how 
 ill I do not know, nor from what cause ; there 
 seems to be some mystery or reticence about 
 it on which I have made no effort to intrude. 
 But it came to me plainly last night that I 
 should like to tell you that I am sorry you 
 are sick. I should not like to be as you 
 said. I do not mean to be kind to a dog and 
 cruel to his tormentor, not even that ; and 
 so I am writing as I am. ... If you had 
 been a drunkard I might have tried to save 
 you. If I had married you, and you had done 
 some dreadful thing — some quick, hot-headed 
 thing — I should have forgiven you. I might 
 have stood by you if you had committed some 
 
274 TRIXY 
 
 impulsive murder. I do not know, but I 
 think I should. But, as it was, I should al- 
 ways have thought — there would have been 
 times when — 
 
 Cruelty may be — how do we know ? — the 
 unpardonable sin ; it is a sin against the 
 Spirit of Mercy ; it is such a sin against my 
 spirit that I had, and I have, no choice. I do 
 not wish to add to your suffering, but it 
 may not really do so if I tell you that I have 
 not seen the moment when I have regretted 
 my decision, or felt that any other was or 
 could be possible. I cannot see how any true 
 woman can take a vivisector's hand. 
 
 But something else is possible. I do not 
 want to force my feeling about this upon you, 
 but I should like to respect you again, even 
 to honor you again, before I die. 
 
 It seems to me that there may be something 
 more in such interruptions of human fate than 
 we suppose ; perhaps no man and woman ex- 
 perience a memorable attraction and go quite 
 freed of it, for this life. " I stand forever in 
 thy shadow" — that is the Portuguese Sonnets, 
 is n't it ? It seems to me that we have gained 
 something worth having if the shadow of such 
 
TRIXY 275 
 
 an intercepted feeling shall be a noble one. 
 I cannot help wishing — in a word — that 
 mine may be to you a noble shadow. 
 
 It seems to me the worst thing about the 
 scientific error that has misled you, that it 
 should delude the moral nature of such a man 
 as I thought you were born to be. I have 
 found myself praying that — not because you 
 cared for me, but because you honored some 
 of the things I care for — you should become 
 the man I thought you were. I have written 
 this because I cannot help it ; and I shall not 
 write again. M. L. 
 
 Steele read and reread this letter with 
 solemn, shining eyes. When he heard the 
 footsteps of the nurse and doctor he hid it 
 under his pillow, and kept his hand upon it. 
 The doctor's face assumed a shade of gravity. 
 " Too quiet," he thought ; " too docile." 
 
 Obedient, amenable, Steele lay perfectly 
 still until the nurse in the adjoining room 
 was asleep. Then his own mind and heart 
 awoke. 
 
 It was doubtful if he slept at all. All night 
 his soul arose and looked upon him. In its 
 
276 TRIXY 
 
 naked countenance he saw unappeasable re- 
 gret. Its eyes were like hers ; they did not 
 scorn him now ; they pitied him. Like hers, 
 they seemed to be dismissing him. Curious 
 old words came to him brokenly : What shall 
 it profit if a man gain professional glory 
 (which might be discredited in the next 
 quarter century) and lose his own soul — for 
 how long ? 
 
 His great essay on the non-existence of love 
 he had himself disastrously disproved. Who 
 could say which of his conclusions, arrived at 
 by what sacrifice of tormented life, might not 
 meet a similar fate ? 
 
 His profession had called him great, and he 
 had thought he was, but, in the last analysis, 
 for what would he be longest remembered ? 
 For an iron thong which he had invented to 
 pierce the tongue of a vivisected dog, and 
 hold it in place. He had experienced his full 
 share of the arrogance of physiology. He had 
 tolerated the practical physician. He had 
 patronized the healer. Now, he thought of 
 them with an avid envy — men who had ex- 
 tinguished themselves in the relief of human 
 suffering ; those lovers of life, those coun- 
 
TRIXY 277 
 
 selors of the home, those assuagers of pain, 
 those idols of the sick ! These were the men 
 who counted not their lives their own, who 
 were never sure of their sleep, their rest, their 
 holidays, or the society of their families — they 
 who were the servants of the lowest poor, the 
 slaves of the most disordered whims — men 
 who grew gray before their time, because they 
 carried upon their hearts the suffering of the 
 world ; they who were the physical and often 
 the moral saviors of sick and tempted people 
 — men of whom the world was not worthy. 
 What had he in common with these ? Who de- 
 pended upon him? What happiness had he 
 conferred ? What suffering had he alleviated ? 
 Who blessed his coming feet ? Who regretted 
 his forced departure ? Who remembered him 
 in grateful prayers ? Who loved him f 
 
 The shrieks of his laboratory reechoed 
 throiiffh his ears. He had entered it to tor- 
 ture ; he had left in it inexorable agony. 
 Better to have been one of those plain, over- 
 looked, over-worked men whose epitaph is 
 written in the hearts of his patients. Better 
 to have been the obscurest of them all — some 
 country doctor riding his thirty miles over 
 
278 TRIXY 
 
 impossible roads, carrying his snow-shovel in 
 the sleigh to dig the drifts out from under 
 his horse's feet ; better to be smitten by sun, 
 or parched by dust, or drenched in storms, or 
 starved for sleep, or flinging one's life into 
 the tentacles of contagion. 
 
 If he had been such as this she would have 
 honored, she might have loved him. In try- 
 ing to gain himself he had lost her. So strange, 
 so subtle is the spiritual law ; in losing her 
 had he lost, and thus regained, himself? 
 
 It was now dim dawn. He drew her letter 
 out from under the pillow, and pressed it 
 feebly to his lips. 
 
 He had directed the nurse to leave paper 
 and pencil within his reach. Those he took, 
 and with shaking fingers traced these words : 
 
 I used to think by what names I should 
 call you when I had the right. I shall never 
 have it now, but because I am so sick, will you 
 let me this one time say, Miriam, I bless you 
 for your letter? It is like yourself. If I were 
 strong enough I should say more, but I am 
 saving the little strength I have left to write 
 my resignation to the trustees of Galen Col- 
 
TRIXY 279 
 
 lege. If I get well, I shall go out to California 
 and start again. I shall be one of those plain 
 men of whom you spoke to me, and of whom 
 you may yet be proud. I shall try to live to 
 this end; but it is not quite certain that I can 
 do so. If I do, you shall respect me ; if I do 
 not, I want you to know that you have restored 
 me. However it ends, 
 
 I am forever yours, 
 
 Olin Steele. 
 
 The next night he was not as well. Waves 
 of delirium came and went. The physician 
 remained in the house. He was puzzled, be- 
 came apprehensive, and telephoned for a con- 
 sultant. The patient paid little attention to 
 any person. He noticed no one but Barry, 
 who had taken an immovable position beside 
 his master's bed. Once they saw the professor 
 take his handkerchief and try to bandage 
 Barry's head. The nurse said that he made 
 as if he were handing bowls of water to 
 thirsty dogs. He was heard to say : " Poor 
 things ! Poor things ! " The nurse was per- 
 plexed ; but Barry seemed to understand, for 
 he kissed the transparent hand that hung over 
 
280 TRIXY 
 
 in his reach ; there were real tears in Barry's 
 eyes. 
 
 Towards morning Steele thought he saw be- 
 side him the woman whom a man remembers 
 when all others are forgotten. His mother 
 took his head upon her breast ; she whispered 
 sympathetically : " Was it a very pretty kitty, 
 dear?" 
 
 Then her tone changed abruptly, and she 
 sang with the voice of a young woman : 
 
 " Strong Son of God, immortal Love ! " 
 
 It seemed to' Steele that he took Miriam's 
 letter out from under his pillow and laid it in 
 his mother's hand. His colleagues, bending 
 over him to listen, thinking possibly to catch 
 from his lips some legacy of professional eru- 
 dition, distinctly heard him say : " Domini 
 doctissimi . . . pro quo Christies ipse non 
 dedignatus est mori^ 
 
 These domini doctissimi were not religious 
 men, but they bowed, as if they bared their 
 heads ; and the gentlest of them noticed with 
 surprise the nature of the expression which 
 had descended upon the professor's face. He 
 looked like a sensitive and devout boy with 
 life before him. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 As the little steamer rounded the headland 
 the band, which consisted of a German violin, 
 an Italian flute, and an American harp (the 
 musical product of Blind Alley), struck into 
 one of those popular airs that spur even the 
 saddest child to dance. Cady's Molly was not 
 a sad child, and, laughing, she began to 
 pirouette around the deck. Ripples of ap- 
 plause followed her unpremeditated steps. 
 This was too much for Trixy. With one 
 quick look at her master she hopped from 
 his knee, and danced out into the middle of 
 the party. 
 
 Cady's Molly took Trixy by the hands and 
 tried to adapt herself to her tiny partner. 
 Molly was dressed with an unprecedented 
 attempt at what she had heard Miss Lauriat 
 call s:ood taste. Her frock was white and 
 plain, her long stockings black and neat ; in 
 her shade hat only had Molly allowed her 
 personal views of taste anything like liberty. 
 
282 TRIXY 
 
 Molly wore a soft floppy straw surmounted 
 with a wreath of cranberries and violets, 
 relieved by sweet peas and cherries, and 
 touched off with asparagus. 
 
 The girl had grown, and so had Dan, but 
 not in feet and inches. Dan was as tall as 
 he ever would be, and except for the lines 
 between his brows he might have passed for 
 a lad three years younger than he was. He 
 gave Cady's Molly a quiet glance, but his 
 gaze and his soul were for Trixy. 
 
 The consumptive woman sat in a steamer 
 chair, smiling cheerfully, and her three little 
 girls, like three little brownies, followed Mr. 
 Surbridge about the boat. Cady's Molly's 
 father observed this monopoly with some re- 
 gret. He had anticipated the opportunity of 
 discussing the tariff with an eminent lawyer, 
 but amiably contented himself by offering 
 the children's mother the morning paper. 
 She could not read ; hence she was flattered 
 by the attention. 
 
 " Nice, ain't it ? " said the woman, turning 
 her gaunt face to the sea wind. " Did you 
 ever see anybody like her anywheres else ? " 
 
 " Well," said Cady's Molly's father, argu- 
 
TRIXY 283 
 
 mentatively, " I am not perpared to say that 
 I never did." 
 
 Both watched Miss Lauriat where she stood 
 in the bow, looking gravely out to sea. At 
 her feet, on his silk cushion, lay a feeble dog, 
 with dulled eyes that lighted only for herself 
 and Trixy. 
 
 " She ain't thinkin' of us," complained the 
 consumptive. " There is times she don't." 
 
 " They 're tarnation few in my opinion," 
 replied Cady's Molly's father, chivalrously 
 springing to the lady's defense. " Specially, 
 come to think on 't, these two years back. 
 Take this here, now — charterin' steamboats 
 to take a crowd like us down harbor — Lord ! 
 How many such trips was you ever aboard ? " 
 
 " I never was out to sea in my life," ad- 
 mitted the woman slowly, " except along of 
 her. I used to think the ocean was black, 
 same 's it is along the wharves. I did n't 
 know it was such a pretty color — and clean. 
 I wisht my dog could have come along o' 
 them others. He can't. He died of his cough. 
 Mine most gen'r'lly do. She did n't forget 
 him. She sent him an invitation along of the 
 children." 
 
284 TRIXY 
 
 " She 's a lady," announced Cady's Molly's 
 father solemnly. 
 
 " Miss Laurie," said Dan in an undertone, 
 " Trixy 's got it in her again. Look at her ! 
 It 's a good while since she 's played for any- 
 body but us at home. What shall I do ? " 
 
 Miss Lauriat, turning with the swift mer- 
 riment that Blind Alley knew so well (she 
 never suffered her poor people to find her 
 sad), saw a pretty sight. Everybody on board 
 had seen it by now, and Trixy was the centre 
 of a laughing and applauding crowd. The 
 little actress, too long detained in private life, 
 plunged into this momentary publicity with a 
 mad delight. Who could say what blighted 
 ambition had withered in Trixy's soul ? What 
 ennui with obscurity had she experienced? 
 What longing for the exercise of neglected 
 gifts ? What histrionic passion thwarted ? 
 What innocent vanities denied ? How shall 
 the superior race decide ? How could any one 
 who had never been a little white trick dog 
 presume to answer? 
 
 Trixy, sparkling with joy to find an audi- 
 ence again, spurred herself feverishly to recall 
 her half -forgotten repertoire. 
 
TRIXY 285 
 
 "Run along, Dan," said Miss Lauriat 
 quickly. " Give them all a good time — and 
 Trixy too." 
 
 Dan obeyed with summer in his eyes. 
 Trixy, now supremely blest, performed ecstat- 
 ically. She did everything she knew, and a 
 good deal that she did n't. She waltzed, she 
 begged, she said her prayers, she whirled 
 from somersault to somersault, she found a 
 lemon in Mr. Surbridge's coat pocket, and 
 a pamphlet on the tariff in Cady's Molly's 
 father's hat ; modestly draped in Miss Lau- 
 riat' s liberty silk scarf, she danced her little 
 skirt dance ; she flirted with the orchestra, 
 she bridled at applause, and coquetted for 
 encores like any diva. 
 
 "She used to sing the song," said Cady's 
 Molly. " Give us the song, Dan." 
 
 Dan took Trixy by the right paw gallantly, 
 as he used to do in the Mooses' Retreat, and 
 leading her forward a few steps, began to 
 sing : 
 
 Oh, we 've traveled on together, 
 In kind or cruel weather. 
 
 But Trixy was suddenly still. Dan began 
 again : 
 
286 TRIXY 
 
 She 's my lady and I '11 love her 
 Till I die. 
 
 But Trixy stood drooping and silent. Some 
 one said that the dog had forgotten her part. 
 Dan looked into Trixy' s face ; it had grown 
 pinched, and her eyes fled to her master's for 
 protection. 
 
 "No," he said, " she hasn't forgotten. She 
 does n't want to sing that song." 
 
 He caught her and crooned over her; he 
 kissed her and praised her. Trixy cuddled in 
 his neck quietly. She trembled and put both 
 her hands in his. The little actress lived to 
 pass many a merry hour upon many a little 
 stage, but neither then nor thereafter could she 
 be induced to join her master in that duet. 
 
 Exhausted by her own accomplishments, or 
 frightened by her darkest memories, Trixy 
 played no more that day. Instead she curled 
 into her master's lap and slept through a thun- 
 derstorm. 
 
 Surbridge came over when the shower was 
 diminishing, and stood by Miriam, who seemed 
 to him suddenly thoughtful and quiet. 
 
 "Well? "he asked. 
 
 When he spoke in that tone she always told 
 
TRIXY 287 
 
 him what was the matter ; she did so quite 
 naturally now. 
 
 " Phil, I 've blundered. I meant to be kind, 
 but I 've blundered with those two. How do I 
 know Dan has n't minded it as well as Trixy ? 
 He would be sawn asunder before he 'd let me 
 know." 
 
 " If you 've got so far as that," suggested 
 Surbridge, " suppose you let me have him for 
 an office boy? Trixy could sit on my table. I've 
 thought for some time that doing 1 errands un- 
 der Matthew, and running the furnace, did not 
 entirely satisfy the higher nature of the lad." 
 
 " Why did n't you say so, Phil ? Am I so 
 huffy and stuffy about advice?" 
 
 " You take advice like a philosopher — and 
 the dear girl you are. I really can't say why 
 I didn't. A fellow may have lucid intervals 
 of modesty, I suppose — even a lawyer." 
 
 " It needs a man," sighed Miriam, " to man- 
 age a boy. I 've bungled with Dan. I dare 
 say he's missed those performances as much 
 as Trixy. Probably he has mourned for the 
 Grand Mooses' Retreat — and Cady's Molly." 
 
 " I doubt it," said Philip, " but we can see. 
 My opinion is, the lad has missed nothing — 
 
288 TKIXY 
 
 except the sacred right to be a wage-earner in 
 some obvious, active way — and has gained un- 
 speakably and forever. But, if you choose to 
 turn him over to me — as he grows older — 
 I '11 try my hand at him. It 's too late, in his 
 case, for what is called an education, but I can 
 manage his grammar, and put a few books in 
 his way/' 
 
 " Help me, Phil," said Miriam, in a very 
 low voice. " I need it. ... I need you." 
 
 Across Surbridge's strong, controlled face 
 there passed a sensitiveness that seemed to sink 
 into it, and make it plastic for an expression 
 which still lacked a moulding hand. 
 
 " I thank you," he said quietly, " for that. 
 You've made a lot of poor wretches happy 
 to-day, including me." 
 
 Miriam turned away. " Perhaps so — I hope 
 so. But, oh, Phil, I 'm tired." 
 
 She walked away from him, nodding and 
 smiling at her guests, until she came to the 
 stern of the boat, where she stood looking 
 upon the wake. The little steamer was now 
 heading into the harbor and the sun. The 
 band was brightly playing. The deck glit- 
 tered with drops of rain, and steamed. The 
 
TRIXY 289 
 
 chatter that had been subdued by the shower 
 broke forth after it like birds. It had sud- 
 denly grown very sultry, and Miriam threw 
 off her long coat, and stood in her white flan- 
 nel boating dress, tall and aloof, against the 
 sky. The steamer was now leaving the rain 
 and the clouds behind. 
 
 Slowly, almost imperceptibly, two vast pris- 
 matic pillars arose from the sea. Advancing, 
 receding, pulsating, but ever arising, the col- 
 umns of color approached each other. It was 
 as if invisible hands were building out of beams 
 of light a bridge for a god to cross. The rain- 
 bow, seen the hundredth time, is as much a 
 miracle as it was the first. Miriam's poor peo- 
 ple broke into simple cries of wonder and de- 
 light ; but these hushed into low exclamations, 
 and then into the silence of something that 
 they did not understand well enough to call 
 it awe. 
 
 In the centre of the radiant arc, white and 
 rapt, she stood — at her fc^jt the martyred 
 dog — over her head the symbol of everlasting 
 hope, into whose mighty span her youth, her 
 beauty, her pity, and her sadness seemed all 
 alike to melt. He who was gone had called 
 
290 TRIXY 
 
 her mercy made magic. Mercy made promise, 
 she seemed to yearn out, now, from the heart 
 of the sky to the need of the earth. More 
 than one of those whom she had made happy 
 saw her through tears at that moment, as if 
 she had been transfigured before them. 
 
 It was dusk when the steamer was warped 
 to the wharf. The lungs of the city exhaled 
 fire, and Miriam's tender face saddened as she 
 bade her friends good-night. 
 
 " Poor things ! " she said — " Poor people ! 
 Think of the hot homes they go to ! " She 
 stirred towards Philip remorsefully. " For- 
 give me for forgetting — You too ! You have 
 given up so much of your vacation for them, 
 for us ; you would have been in the country." 
 
 Philip laughed gayly. " If you think for a 
 minute I stayed on your account — I 've got a 
 newsboy in the police court to-morrow morn- 
 ing. I 've got to look after him." 
 
 "Philip," said Miriam timidly, "don't 
 snub me ! Come ! Is there any real reason 
 why you should n't come out with us and 
 stay until to-morrow ? Aunt Cornelia " - — 
 
 " Do you wish it — on the whole ? Are you 
 sure ? " asked Philip gravely. 
 
TRIXY 291 
 
 Miriam hesitated. " I think I do. I 'm sure 
 I do. Yes — I wish it altogether." 
 
 "Very well, then. I'll take Caro. He's 
 too heavy for you." 
 
 In a moment he had assumed all her cares ; 
 and the woman in her was mysteriously glad 
 to cast them upon him. 
 
 The shore train was crowded and seething. 
 Surbridge turned the seat, and the lame boy 
 and the two dogs sat before them. Miriam 
 was very tired. She glanced at Philip. It 
 troubled her a little to find that he was such 
 a comfort to her. She was almost startled 
 at the turn her thoughts were taking. Some- 
 thing within her arose and clung to his pre- 
 sence as if she could not spare it. She laid 
 her head against the side of the window, 
 and tried to elude the images that pursued 
 her. But Philip sat comfortably reading an 
 evening paper at her side ; as if he belonged 
 there. 
 
 "Tired?" he asked. "Try to rest. Leave 
 everything to me. I '11 look out for the dogs, 
 and the boy — and you, too." 
 
 Once or twice she looked enviously at Dan. 
 The lad, who knew none of the discomforts 
 
292 TRIXY 
 
 of unclassified feeling, clasped his idol to his 
 heart, and, worshiping what he protected, 
 entered into peace. Trixy had long since 
 ceased to play with her master's pathetic de- 
 votion ; the elf -look had never returned to 
 her eyes since she and he were reunited after 
 death and science had given up the secrets 
 which were in them. Trixy loved, at last, as 
 she was beloved ; and the lonely lad drank 
 deeper of blessedness than most of us do who 
 quench our thirst at the cup of human loyalty. 
 
 Mrs. Percy B. Jeffries had dined. The be- 
 lated two waited for their broiled chicken and 
 raspberries. Miriam ran upstairs to change 
 her dress, and put Caro to bed. Surbridge 
 strolled in from the piazza, and found Mrs. 
 Jeffries conscientiously reading by an ivory 
 porcelain lamp, softened through a white 
 tulle overskirt. For some unexplained reason 
 Miriam had long ago discarded the blue shade. 
 Aunt Cornelia laid down her book, and re- 
 garded the young man with a tender attention. 
 It somehow seemed to Philip an unusual one, 
 but for what reason he could not have ex- 
 plained. 
 
TRIXY 293 
 
 "I have been reading," said Atint Cornelia, 
 " a most extraordinary scientific work. It 
 treats of the subterranean life of India and 
 Tennessee. I have found it very instructive. 
 I had no idea that caves were so convenient ; 
 they would make excellent summer hotels. I 
 am particularly attracted by a certain kind of 
 creature — I think they call it a polyaphron 
 — is that it ? Well, it does n't signify. Did 
 you ever hear about it? It is considered the 
 blindest of created beings. Listen a minute, 
 and I '11 read you what the author says about 
 it. The book is written by one of those de- 
 lightful swamis who visit the drawing-rooms 
 of this country." 
 
 Mrs. Jeffries put on her glasses, and slowly 
 and impressively read : 
 
 " The polyaphron " — 
 
 " The polyaphron ! " interrupted Philip, 
 " what a delicious name ! I suppose that 
 means all kinds of a fool?" 
 
 "Does it?" said Mrs. Jeffries. "Just 
 listen. * The polyaphron is found only in 
 one cave in the world. It has rudimentary 
 wings, and it is supposed that in prehistoric 
 times it could have flown out if it had de- 
 
294 TRIXY 
 
 sired. It is born nearly blind, and dies 
 wholly so.' " 
 
 Mrs. Jeffries laid down her book and looked 
 over her spectacles at the young attorney — 
 a thing which he had never seen her do 
 before. It made her look suddenly an old 
 woman. 
 
 "My dear boy," she observed, with that 
 half-whimsical affectionateness which ahvays 
 commanded the young man's chivalry, " I 
 was born too early, or you too late. If you 
 had been studying law when I was a young 
 lady, I should have taken you myself — that 
 is, if I had never met Mr. Jeffries, and if you 
 had asked me." 
 
 " Which," said Philip gallantly, " you may 
 rest assured, madam, that I should have done 
 — or else, despairing, envied Mr. Jeffries." 
 
 " Gracefully answered," pursued Mrs. Jef- 
 fries placidly, " like yourself — and like your 
 father, too. Here 's Miriam ! You two run 
 and get your dinner, while I finish my poly- 
 aphron." 
 
 " Is it possible," thought Philip, " that she 
 extemporized that ? I should n't have given 
 her credit for it." He put his hand out for 
 
TRIXY 295 
 
 the book, but Aunt Cornelia laughed, and 
 turned it face down upon her lap. 
 
 She read no more in that remarkable scien- 
 tific volume which had served perhaps a bet- 
 ter purpose than it ever had before, or would 
 again. Her eyes did not follow the young 
 people ; but her mouth had the wistf ulness 
 that age feels for youth, and loneliness for 
 life. 
 
 When Miriam and Philip sat down together 
 opposite each other in the bright dining-room 
 Philip uttered a low exclamation. 
 
 In the soft penumbra of the rose-shaded 
 candles she seemed to arise before him as the 
 spectrum had arisen from the sea, in a sud- 
 den sheen of color — the first that he had 
 seen her wear since her father died. This 
 miracle was nothing more nor less than a 
 prismatic summer silk, but to the young man 
 she seemed to be clothed in a rainbow. 
 
 They talked little and lightly, and by a 
 mutual instinct sought the presence of a third 
 as soon as possible. But when they got back 
 to the lace-covered lamp, Aunt Cornelia was 
 not there. They sat down in the large empty 
 room in something like constraint. Philip 
 
296 TRIXY 
 
 found himself monotonously repeating, — 
 " The polyaphron is born nearly blind, and 
 dies wholly so." 
 
 Miriam was restless, and shimmered over to 
 the long window, where she stood looking out 
 upon the water. 
 
 The dead August night was breathless and 
 soundless. Scarcely a sigh crept up the cliffs. 
 On Miriam's face rested the expression which 
 the man who should win her would never see. 
 Like all women whose thoughts are high, and 
 whose years are young, she had never con- 
 sidered the nature of a second love. It would 
 not be too much to say that she had never 
 thought of it as for her a possible experience. 
 She had reached the inevitable emergency of 
 a fine and ardent soul that has given its first, 
 but not its noblest passion. 
 
 She had reversed the great quotation. She 
 had begun by loving Love. If she loved again, 
 she would love the lover. If she did so, if 
 she could do so, where was the dream of her- 
 self, which is dearer to such a woman than 
 
 j°y ? 
 
 A subtle allegiance, though to a misguided 
 feeling, oppressed her. There were times when 
 
TRIXY 297 
 
 a sense of something almost mystical disturbed 
 her ; winds had speech and tides language ; 
 the sea lifted arms as if it would drag her ; 
 from the spaces between the stars peremptory 
 tones addressed her inarticulately ; the atmos- 
 phere inclosed her as if it clasped; she seemed 
 to be hunted by a thwarted, but still relent- 
 less will. 
 
 " Do you mind my coming, too ? " asked 
 Surbridge. 
 
 Philip had the personality that will elect 
 to lose rather than to win by intrusion. The 
 heart that would not give itself to him hap- 
 pily he would disdain to capture ; he had 
 never spoken a commanding word to Miriam ; 
 he had treated her with the quiet strength 
 which has no need to assert itself ; he had 
 never lacked in consideration, but he had 
 never urged her will. Sometimes Miriam 
 had thought that the woman to whom Philip 
 should offer his chartered affection " for sun 
 and candlelight " would be exceptionally cher- 
 ished. 
 
 Now, when he spoke, she turned a gentle 
 invitation. Her manner was without anima- 
 tion, as her eyes were without hope. She ex- 
 
298 TRIXY 
 
 perienced the profound, unnatural weariness 
 of one who in a baffled struggle for freedom 
 had shattered herself against an imprisoning 
 attraction. To that captivity she had been mis- 
 directed by force ; now, her sensibility looked 
 everywhere for the trodden roads of tender- 
 ness. All she could think of in the world that 
 she wanted was kindness — the daily shelter 
 of a safe character ; she craved common com- 
 fort, she needed simple rest, as though she 
 had been a much older woman than she was. 
 It seemed to her as if her youth had been 
 stunned ; she came back gravely to conscious- 
 ness of it. She found herself inhaling life 
 slowly, and with a certain reluctance foreign 
 to her healthy, joyous temperament. She 
 knew she must breathe the sympathy that 
 she could trust. 
 
 Her old friend's firm but lenient nature 
 seemed to encroach upon hers. Her heart 
 leaned towards his bosom. But was this love ? 
 She felt as if only he could answer, or teach 
 her how to do so. 
 
 " Do you remember," asked Philip quietly, 
 " telling Dan — that night — that I always 
 found everything I wanted ? " 
 
TRIXY 299 
 
 " No," said Miriam, " you have n't got it 
 right. I said you found everything you 
 tried to." 
 
 Then the crimson dismay of a woman un- 
 wooed fled across her face. She remembered 
 that Philip had never spoken a word of love 
 to her, not one. 
 
 " But, dear, I have loved you all my life," 
 he began. 
 
EUctrotyped and printed by H. O. Houghton &* Co. 
 Cambridge , Mass., U. S. A. 
 
912912b 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY