Uian Dell

 
 THE CONCENTRATIONS OF BEE
 
 The Works of 
 
 Lilian Bell 
 
 rr 
 
 Abroad with the Jimmies $1.50 
 At Home with thejar dines 1.50 
 T7i<? Concentrations of Bee 1.50 
 Hope Lori ng 1.50 
 
 Carolina Lee 1.50 
 
 y/z^ Interference of Patricia 1 .50 
 
 c. /MC.E: s- COMPANY 
 
 New England Building 
 Bos ton ) Mass.
 
 CONCENTRATIONS 
 
 Frontispiece by cAT. *Button 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 L.C. PAGES COMPANY 
 
 1909
 
 Copyright, 
 BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY 
 (INCORPORATED) 
 
 Entered at Stationers Hall, London 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 First Impression, October, 1909 
 
 Eltctrtlyped and Printed by 
 THE COLONIAL PRESS 
 C. H. Simttids (5r- Ct., Boston, U. S. A .
 
 TO 
 
 fcleine 
 
 WHO IS MORE BELOVED BY HER FRIENDS THAN SHE 
 
 CAN BE MADE TO BELIEVE, AND TO WHOM THIS 
 
 LITTLE VOLUME IS DEDICATED BECAUSE 
 
 I LOVE THE FRAGRANCE OE HER 
 
 UNSELFISH DAILY LIFE
 
 (HI)? (Eflttrcntratfottfi of 
 
 SCENE. Bohemia with occasional excursions into 
 
 High Life 
 TIME. The present 
 
 fforaona in thr Unrtk 
 
 BEATRICE LATHROP, a young widow 
 
 FAITH JARDINE, her sister, who tells of the 
 " Concentrations of Bee " and other things 
 
 AUBREY JARDINE, Faith s husband, an "Angel" 
 in her estimation, also a playwright 
 
 MR. JIMMIE, a broker of good heart, with much 
 money but not much manners. Faith s firm ally 
 
 MRS. JIMMIE, another "Angel" 
 
 LAFLIN VAN TASSEL, a young millionaire archi 
 tect "handsome as Apollo" a pleasing com 
 bination 
 
 BOB MYGATT, a graceless scamp " with Irish blue 
 eyes." He is also a writer of comic operas 
 
 EDWARD MUNSON, Bob s cousin, an artist 
 ELEANOR MUNSON, his wife, a portrait painter 
 
 AVA CORLISS, "a nice girl" with a mission, en 
 gaged to Bob 
 
 "OUR DEAR LYDDY," a rich old maid, Bee s 
 sister-in-law, and also engaged to Bob 
 
 AMY LEVERING, another "nice girl" with a 
 different mission 
 
 LAURA CLYDE, another girl, not so " nice " 
 HOPE LORING, a heroine 
 " DUSTY " MILLER, a West Point cadet 
 And several other characters of less import 
 ance, mostly Bohemians
 
 Preface 
 
 To those gentle critics and versatile friends 
 who persist in rinding prototypes in real life 
 for my characters in fiction, I am compelled to 
 issue a statement of facts. 
 
 In spite of complimentary inquiries as to 
 who furnished me with the originals of each 
 of my dear Jimmies, I must say with Mrs. 
 Gummidge : " I don t believe there is no sich 
 a person." If I did, how I would cultivate 
 them both ! 
 
 In like manner, although I possess a sister, 
 she is not the Bee of this story, nor, alas, is 
 there any James or Lyddy or Bob Mygatt or 
 Laflin Van Tassel, or in fact anybody ! 
 
 Nothing in this story is real tears choke 
 me as I say it ! except possibly the automo 
 bile! 
 
 vii
 
 Contents 
 
 :HAPTKR PACK 
 
 I. THE PROBLEM OF LIVING i 
 
 II. IN WHICH BEE TAKES A HAND . 19 
 
 III. FROM A SISTER S POINT OF VIEW . 39 
 
 IV. BEE AND HER CELLARETTE . . 52 
 V. OUR FIRST STUDIO DINNER . . 68 
 
 VI. WHAT HAPPENED AT SHERRY S . 79 
 
 VII. BOB S ENGAGEMENT .... 96 
 
 VIII. NAPOLEONIC STRATEGY . . . 113 
 
 IX. DEVELOPMENTS 138 
 
 X. BEE S VERSION OF THE VENGEANCE 
 
 OF THE EIGHTH . . . . 152 
 XI. THE WIDOW ASSISTS . . . .163 
 XII. THE MARRIAGE OF PEARL MAR 
 GUERITE 196 
 
 XIII. IN SEARCH OF A HUSBAND . . 207 
 
 XIV. IN WHICH BOB MAKES A PROPOSAL 
 
 OF MARRIAGE . . . .222 
 XV. IN WHICH BOB BEGINS His CAREER 
 
 OF MARRYING .... 230 
 
 XVI. DR. BRAGG PLAYS His PART . . 240 
 XVII. IN WHICH BEE APPLIES A COUNTER 
 
 IRRITANT 264
 
 x Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XVIII. ELEANOR S RECEPTION AND WHAT 
 
 CAME OF IT 276 
 
 XIX. IN WHICH BEE SURMOUNTS ANOTHER 
 
 OBSTACLE 282 
 
 XX. PLANS 296 
 
 XXI. LYDDY S FIRST AND BOB S SECOND 
 
 WEDDING . . . . 306 
 
 XXII. Two WIDOWS AND THEIR WORK . 311
 
 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF LIVING 
 
 "TF our Bee," said Jimmie to me one day 
 when we were travelling from Vienna 
 
 Jl to Buda-Pesth, " ever concentrates on a 
 thing, that thing is a goner. If she ever con 
 centrates on a woman, that woman is a goner. 
 And if she ever concentrates her peculiar men 
 tal energies on a man " Jimmie flung up 
 his hands " God help him ! " 
 
 I have never mentioned these remarks be 
 fore, although they come back to me, under 
 the present conditions, with the conviction that 
 Jimmie is not nearly the fool I sometimes 
 think him, and also because I was not then 
 ready to devote myself to a description of 
 Bee s deadly work, but now I am. For an 
 other thing, Jimmie said this just after Bee s 
 flirtations with the Austrian officers for mis 
 sionary purposes and to spread the gospel of 
 the American woman among the heathen of
 
 2 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 ^ ^ . ^ ^- ^^ ^ 
 
 foreign lands, so I simply thought he was re 
 ferring to Bee s admirable target practice in 
 bringing down her victim without half trying. 
 Yet I remember even then wishing vaguely 
 that Bee would concentrate on her husband, 
 our beloved James, who, to speak moderately, 
 was the most exquisitely disagreeable person 
 any of us had ever met, and whose chief de 
 light was to see those around him made 
 wretched by some word or deed of his own 
 coining. Also, while she was about it, I 
 thought it would do no harm for her to con 
 centrate on Lyddy Lathrop, her sister-in-law, 
 our beloved James s acidulous sister. But I 
 said nothing at the time for the reason that 
 we strove to bear our burdens in a silence, 
 which if not dignified, was at least stoical. 
 Also for the reason that the public always be 
 trays a maudlin sympathy with anyone whom 
 we, of the Happy Family take the trouble to 
 dislike, because we are so unnaturally fierce in 
 our fluent denunciations of our victims, yet 
 never bother much to explain what they have 
 done to incur our royal displeasure. 
 
 However, things have changed. Family 
 matters have developed and become so public 
 that everybody knows why we ignored the 
 Lathrops all we could and people now begin to 
 see a reason.
 
 The Problem of Living 3 
 
 In the first place James has had the good 
 taste to die the only considerate thing I 
 ever remember his doing, and knowing how 
 much pleasure this one act would confer on 
 all his relatives, he deferred it as long as pos 
 sible. However he did die after all, but we 
 never dreamed how mean he was going to be 
 about it until after his will was read. Then, 
 nobody ever said to any of us again, " My 
 dear, how can you say such things? " because 
 they were occupied in saying things about him 
 just as bad, or worse. 
 
 There s a good deal in having public sym 
 pathy with you, even if it is unintelligent. It 
 saves many tiresome explanations. 
 
 James died just a few weeks after the Angel 
 and I went abroad, so I had not seen my sister 
 since her liberation, nor did we obtain any 
 clear idea of how the property was left until 
 we came home, for Bee likes to have her sur 
 prises complete and dramatic. 
 
 In one way or another the Jimmies had also 
 been prevented from seeing her, so that we 
 were all on the qui vive, which, knowing Bee, 
 must have suited her exactly. 
 
 I knew that by the fact that she allowed her 
 self to be called out of town the day before we 
 landed, leaving only a letter to greet our re 
 turn.
 
 4 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 As for us we had just come home from a 
 year in Europe, where the Angel had been 
 seeking local colour for a new play. We 
 didn t really go because we wanted local col 
 our. We went because Peach Orchard bored 
 the life out of us after the new wore off. 
 Country life is really more to be admired than 
 enjoyed, especially by such as the Angel and 
 I, who are unhappy unless we can see the lights 
 of Broadway by going on the roof. 
 
 We were, of course, stony broke. I hate 
 people who come home from Europe with 
 money. It shows that they don t know how 
 to enjoy themselves. 
 
 But being impecunious did not worry us at 
 first. We knew that all we had to do was to 
 show the new play to any one of the eager 
 managers, who ought to have been at the pier 
 to meet us and so secure a first chance at the 
 " masterpiece." 
 
 So we went to an hotel where we had suf 
 ficient credit not to be invited to pay a month s 
 rent in advance and the Angel jauntily sub 
 mitted his play to the manager who had made 
 a neat little fortune out of our first play and 
 who almost lost the shoes off his feet on the 
 second. He returned it after some delay in 
 dicating the changes to be made. Indignantly
 
 The Problem of Living 5 
 
 the Angel took it to a second manager and 
 then to a third. 
 
 Finally in the fourth week of our credit at 
 the hotel, the Angel decided to make the 
 changes insisted upon by our first manager. 
 But alas this would take at least a month ! In 
 the meantime where was the money to live on, 
 coming from? 
 
 We decided that we must go to housekeep 
 ing. The tenants of Peach Orchard were hard 
 up and paid their rent whenever they could. 
 We tried them, but it was like tapping a vac 
 uum. We couldn t turn them out because they 
 owed us too much money. Besides we didn t 
 want to stay in the country in the winter any 
 way. 
 
 We looked everywhere for an apartment 
 but the Subway had raised rents appallingly. 
 It was now the twenty-ninth day of our credit. 
 I suggested borrowing money. The Angel 
 shook his head. 
 
 " If we borrow of our personal friends, we 
 should lose them. You can t stay friendly 
 with people you have borrowed money from." 
 
 " It would be a nice comfortable way to end 
 certain friendships," I observed thoughtfully. 
 " Now there s Elkinson. Borrow a hundred 
 of him and then we won t have to know him."
 
 6 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " But I thought you liked his wife," ob 
 jected the Angel. 
 
 " That s so, I do. Men who are good for 
 nothing but to borrow money from, always 
 have wives too nice to be sacrificed." 
 
 We ran over a list of our friends, and put 
 prices on our estimate of them, but finally gave 
 up the idea. There was always the fear that 
 they might refuse and then we should hate 
 them so we d have to give them up anyway. 
 
 " I heard to-day that there was a new artist 
 studio building just finished that Munson and 
 Fanshaw and McElroy and several others had 
 clubbed together and built. Suppose you go 
 and see what s to do," said the Angel. 
 
 Now Munson and his wife, both artists, 
 were jewels in our crown. They were almost 
 as useful to us for literary purposes as the 
 Jimmies, so I rushed around to this building 
 and found it to be the most blissful spot I had 
 ever seen. The top studio was Munson s. 
 Half of his furniture had been moved in and 
 was piled hither and yon with no care for the 
 fine pieces and looking even more topsy-turvy 
 than necessary. 
 
 But alas for the Jardines, there was nothing 
 to sublet. It had been a good year for artists 
 and they were all disgustingly paid up, conse 
 quently haughty.
 
 The Problem of Living 7 
 
 As I came down in the elevator, there stood 
 Munson waiting to go up. 
 
 He was very tall and thin and wore a frock 
 coat and silk hat that ended somewhere among 
 the rafters. 
 
 " Do I smell of mothballs ? " he said with 
 out preface. We had not met for over a year. 
 
 I sniffed delicately. 
 
 " No more than most of us do at this sea 
 son," I said, breaking it to him as gently as I 
 could. 
 
 " I hope it isn t very bad " he began anx 
 iously. 
 
 " Well, in the open air " 
 
 " That s just it ! It will be in a close room. 
 We are going to lunch at the Waldorf with 
 Frau Polisky of the Grand Opera. In her 
 private suite. My wife is going to paint her. 
 It s a fortunate thing that one of us can make 
 money." 
 
 "What s the matter?" 
 
 " My pictures were skied, and the mural 
 paintings I did for McGinnis library are all 
 done, but he went to Egypt for the winter 
 before they were completed and won t pay for 
 them until he has seen them. Result we are 
 broke, stony broke and shall be for three 
 months." 
 
 " Munson," I observed feelingly. " There
 
 8 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 are but three square meals between us and the 
 poorhouse." 
 
 " Is that so ! " exclaimed Munson with in 
 terest. " Let s go up to the studio and organ 
 ize ourselves into a Ways and Means Com 
 mittee." 
 
 " Now," he said, politely standing until I 
 had seated myself upon a cracker box. " How 
 is it with you? " 
 
 When I had told him, Munson smoked 
 thoughtfully for a moment. Then he said: 
 
 " I see no way out of it but for you to sub 
 let this apartment." 
 
 " It would be beautiful," I said, " but what 
 would you do? And what are you going to 
 do with all this furniture?" 
 
 " Our plans are all made. We shall stay 
 where we are and only come to town to paint. 
 Eleanor has the studio next this. As for the 
 furniture, can t you use some of it ? I thought 
 you sold your kitchen utensils and everything 
 that was not worth storing?" 
 
 " We did." 
 
 " Well, use ours. It will save our having 
 to store them or move them to the country 
 where we don t need them." 
 
 " But " I said. 
 
 He waved me to silence.
 
 The Problem of Living 9 
 
 " Now, as I said, Eleanor has this next 
 studio " 
 
 " But you can t both use that," I inter 
 rupted. 
 
 " Wait. You and Aubrey take this apart 
 ment. I have held it at three thousand dollars. 
 I ll let you have it for twenty-four hundred. 
 Two hundred a month, payable in hundred 
 dollar instalments on the first and fifteenth of 
 every month." 
 
 " Nice and easy," I said. " We ll take it." 
 
 " Good. Now then, as you are out every 
 morning anyway, I ll sub-sublet this studio 
 room from you until two o clock every day, 
 for fifty dollars a month. That will let me 
 work all I need to and will give you a drawing 
 room every afternoon and evening and all day 
 Sundays." 
 
 I began to laugh. 
 
 " Let s pay each other in advance," I said 
 gurgling. " I ll send you a cheque to-night." 
 
 " And I you," he answered. A pause. 
 Then he said : 
 
 " Excuse me for asking, but will your 
 cheque be good ? " 
 
 " Certainly not," I replied with spirit. 
 "Will yours?" 
 
 " Alas, I am afraid not."
 
 IO The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " But it will be a nice way to exchange au 
 tographs," I said. " Girls generally want Au 
 brey to add a sentiment when they ask for his. 
 Shall he add a sentiment to your cheque?" 
 
 " It would do no harm ! " 
 
 " Then we can paste these cheques on our 
 mirrors until they are negotiable. The mere 
 possession of them will increase our assets." 
 
 " You are a business woman," observed 
 Munson w r ith admiration. 
 
 " Now, there is but one thing more to do," 
 he said, presently when we had both ruminated 
 upon this pleasant solution of our difficulties, 
 " and that is for one of us to borrow some 
 money." 
 
 " It will have to be you, then," I said rue 
 fully. " We have no securities that are not 
 already punched full of pinholes." 
 
 " I have never borrowed any money on my 
 stock in this building," observed Munson 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 " Then do it this minute," I cried raptu 
 rously. 
 
 The only trouble is," he paused to roll a 
 fresh cigarette, " that I have lost the certifi 
 cate." 
 
 " Won t they give you another ? " 
 
 " Yes, but it will take time and then it would 
 have to be marked duplicate and the bank
 
 The Problem of Living 1 1 
 
 might hesitate to accept it. And all that would 
 cause delay, whereas our necessities are im 
 mediate." 
 
 "Then find the first one! That s the an 
 swer to that!" 
 
 " I have looked everywhere. I think I shall 
 consult a clairvoyant." 
 
 I shrieked with laughter. 
 
 " They do help one to find things," he said 
 solemnly. 
 
 Then seeing that I continued to rock and 
 roar he said reproachfully: 
 
 " If she helps me to find it and I should lend 
 you enough money to make your cheque good, 
 would you stop laughing? " 
 
 My teeth came together with a snap which 
 nearly made me owe the dentist also. 
 
 " What would you do for ten thousand 
 dollars ? I d hate to tell you, " I quoted 
 gravely. 
 
 As the clairvoyant lived near, I promised 
 to wait and while Munson was gone I wan 
 dered over the apartment and placed the furni 
 ture in my mind s eye. 
 
 He soon came back with a grin on his face. 
 
 " She told me everything described me 
 and Eleanor and said we were artists, that I 
 had lost a valuable paper that I wanted to 
 borrow money on, described my desk at home
 
 12 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 where I thought I had put it, the disorder of 
 it, and said the thing was not lost. She told 
 me where to look for it, but, she said, your 
 fellow artists will be much annoyed if you hy 
 pothecate your stock. Don t do it. You can 
 get the money in another way. There is a 
 friend of yours, a slim, boyish looking man 
 who knows you own this stock, who will lend 
 you money on your own note. 
 
 " That describes Aubrey ! " I cried in hor 
 ror. 
 
 " Who will lend me money on my note? " 
 cried Munson. 
 
 " That s so. I forgot that part of the de 
 scription," I said. " Well, who can it be? " 
 
 " Oh, I know who it is. He has offered to 
 buy my stock." 
 
 Then go to him this minute ! " I cried. 
 
 " It s too late to-day. I ll go the first thing 
 in the morning. Now I must go and get some 
 thing to eat. I haven t had any lunch." 
 
 " It s three o clock," I said. " I thought 
 you were to lunch at the Waldorf with your 
 wife and Frau Pol i sky." 
 
 " I forgot all about it," he said simply. 
 " Well, Eleanor won t be surprised. When we 
 are at work Eleanor and I often go without 
 lunches altogether because it s too much 
 trouble to go out."
 
 The Problem of Living 13 
 
 Now, I not being a genius, was shocked, my 
 housewifely instinct being aroused. 
 
 " You might take your lunches with me," I 
 suggested. " Then you would get them regu 
 larly." 
 
 " You are awfully kind, but when Eleanor 
 has a sitter, or I have a model, we couldn t 
 spare the time to go." 
 
 " Then I ll send them in on trays and you 
 can nibble as you work. Just salads and fruit 
 and milk." 
 
 "The very, very thing!" cried Munson, 
 with the first and only enthusiasm I had ever 
 seen in him. " That is the only thing neces 
 sary to complete my happiness." 
 
 " And," I continued, beaming, " when you 
 want to stay in town for the night, I ll lend 
 you those two big couches of mine that you 
 can roll into Eleanor s studio." 
 
 Munson rose. 
 
 " It was Fate that sent you here to-day," 
 he said, " and that made me forget to lunch 
 at the Waldorf. I came down frightfully dis 
 couraged this morning thinking that I d be 
 compelled to rent this apartment to a stranger, 
 and it was like the thought of parting with 
 a friend. Now, I have all the use of it I 
 need and all the comforts of a home thrown 
 in."
 
 14 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " I must go home and tell Aubrey to make 
 out your cheque," I said. 
 
 He shook hands with me and rubbed his 
 silk hat with his sleeve, thereby making it 
 worse. 
 
 " If I get that money, tell the old man I ll 
 lend him five hundred," said Munson. 
 
 We parted, mutually pleased with each 
 other. 
 
 When I told Aubrey, he expanded in a 
 silent grin. 
 
 " There were once two impecunious fami 
 lies," he observed, " who sought to support 
 themselves by taking in each other s washing." 
 
 " That is a vulgar translation of an idyl in 
 high finance," I said. " I feel as if I had sim 
 ply solved the problem of living." 
 
 But I propose and Bee disposes. 
 
 In all this I had carelessly omitted to take 
 into consideration the fact that my sister s 
 year of widowhood was over and that she 
 would soon be at liberty to take the helm of 
 our ship of state, so to speak. 
 
 Jimmie was the first to mention it. When 
 we went, fairly bubbling, to tell them the news, 
 he frowned a little because we had not come 
 to him first, but when he saw our faces begin 
 to go red, he changed his tactics to a more 
 efficacious protest.
 
 The Problem of Living 15 
 
 " When is Bee coming back ? " he asked. 
 
 Unsuspiciously I answered. 
 
 " In about a week ! " 
 
 " Does she know what you have planned ? " 
 
 " No, but " I began blithely. 
 
 Then I remembered Bee s executive ability 
 and my face fell. Whereat Jimmie grinned 
 prodigiously, and felt that he was avenged 
 because we didn t go to him when we needed 
 money. 
 
 But our view of Bee deserves an explana 
 tion. Most persons consider my sister Bee a 
 very exclusive and haughty individual simply 
 because she has some respect for her own per 
 sonality. She does not claim to come under 
 the head of the genus hoi-polloi. She does 
 not go through life clapping her men friends 
 on the back and kissing her women friends 
 simply to show a degree of familiarity which 
 she does not feel nor aspire to. Bee is digni 
 fied, cool, firm, diplomatic and ambitious. She 
 is also worldly and philosophical. 
 
 On the other hand she is tender hearted to 
 her own, with a supreme capacity for love; 
 loyal unto death, as grateful for kindness as 
 an Indian and equally as just in returning it. 
 Her generosity is tempered by a nice study of 
 her own resources. Consequently she never 
 has to lie awake nights vainly lamenting rash
 
 1 6 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 gifts of money poignantly needed for daily 
 bread like some people I could mention. 
 
 But of all her characteristics, two stand out 
 with salient distinctness. One, her diplomatic 
 domination of home, family, friends, acquaint 
 ances and circumstances. The other her iron, 
 unswerving, relentless, soundless determina 
 tion to do to quote Jimmie as she jolly 
 well pleases. Only he does not say " jolly 
 well." 
 
 Again to qualify. By that I do not mean 
 that she defies public opinion by impulsive or 
 unconventional acts. Far from it. Bee would 
 suffer boredom until she ached before she 
 would yawn frankly in a dull man s face. She 
 is conventionality itself to all outward appear 
 ances. Perfectly circumspect, perfectly turned 
 out, perfectly correct in manner, dress and 
 conversation is our Bee. But if she should be 
 invited to spend a month in a friend s house, 
 and the wall paper in her friend s private bou 
 doir did not please Bee s fastidious taste, she 
 would so manipulate her friend s mental per 
 spective that the wall paper would come under 
 derision. Then it would be decided to change 
 it and Bee would be employed to drive down 
 and help her friend select a different sort. 
 But, such is Bee s genius, to the day of her 
 victim s death, she would never suspect that
 
 The Problem of Living 17 
 
 she had been the subject of mental sugges 
 tion. 
 
 What do you call that? 
 
 I call it a genius for administration. Bee 
 never offends nor affronts the most sensitive 
 vanity. Never wounds the most quivering 
 Ego. Things simply go Bee s way. That s 
 all. 
 
 And because Bee refuses to be drawn into 
 the maelstrom of another s life and declines 
 to be a straw on another s whirlpool, undis- 
 criminating persons call her cold and selfish. 
 Bee s selfishness is simply selfpreservation. 
 She protects her own individuality. She de 
 clines to suffer the vicarious wear and tear of 
 those who precipitate themselves into the lives 
 of others. 
 
 Yet she is capable of single, distinguished 
 acts of goodness of following out occasional 
 human clews in a manner highly to her credit. 
 Indeed Bee is a woman of remarkable charac 
 ter and in spite of all the fun we make of her, 
 we never do things without her advice that 
 we are not sorry for it, so that after all, it 
 really is more comfortable to let her run 
 things. We have all the fun we want in regis 
 tering kicks against her authority and then 
 meekly yielding to her administration. 
 
 Aubrey, however, being an in-law, some-
 
 1 8 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 times resents my habit of yielding to her judg 
 ment and therefore, to my intense surprise, 
 for on Jimmie s hint I was perfectly willing 
 to wait and consult, he went the next day and 
 signed the lease with Munson. 
 
 When he told me I gasped. 
 
 " Where did you get the money, dear? " I 
 cried. 
 
 " I always have money," said Aubrey, 
 loftily displaying a large roll of bills. I have 
 always suspected that he got them all in ones 
 just to impress me. 
 
 I smiled at his reply. Then I found out that 
 he had got it by mortgaging his peace of mind 
 for a year and agreeing to change his play to 
 suit a manager, fat of purse but lean of mind. 
 
 Thus did the Angel purchase liberty of one 
 sort by the sale of freedom of another.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IN WHICH BEE TAKES A HAND 
 
 I REPEAT I had not seen my sister since 
 her husband died until she met us in New 
 York. 
 
 Now, as I have said, one of Bee s salient 
 characteristics is that she is always perfectly 
 garbed for the time and place, so that the 
 moment I looked at her clothes, I realized 
 that a year had passed since she went into 
 black. 
 
 When you come to think of it, mourning 
 clothes are supremely vulgar. They are a 
 mental speedometer. By them you can gauge 
 the flight of time and the pace of your grief. 
 
 The first few months your deep bands of 
 crape say : " I am feeling very miserable in 
 deed. My grief is poignant. I suffer." 
 
 Then as your note paper gives you more 
 room to write, it seems to say : " I am feeling 
 better. I do not grieve as much. I am begin 
 ning to forget." 
 
 Then you leave off crape and appear only in 
 dull black with no jewels and your speedome- 
 9
 
 2O The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 ter registers : " Many miles have been tra 
 versed from that open grave. We are nearing 
 the frontier of a new country." 
 
 Then finally you leave off black and blossom 
 forth in pastel shades and lo! You are over 
 the border. You indicate to the world that 
 your dead is forgotten. 
 
 Is this not vulgar as well as cruel and often 
 untrue ? 
 
 Many bands of crape are worn for un- 
 mourned dead and much crape is finally laid 
 aside from wounds which never cease to 
 ache. 
 
 When will this unnatural custom be discon 
 tinued among the civilized? 
 
 Bee never puts on, except to the public and 
 then only to appease the public s own opinion. 
 Her husband had been a nuisance both to him 
 self and to others, so that Bee s mourning 
 merely consisted of a discreet dropping of the 
 eyes whenever his name was mentioned, a fin 
 gering of the black bordered handkerchief and 
 perfectly irreproachable clothes. 
 
 How she managed this last we never knew, 
 because she decried the act of a friend of ours 
 who was so willing to part with her husband 
 that she ordered her mourning tentatively the 
 first day the doctor pronounced his case hope 
 less.
 
 In Which Bee Takes a Hand 21 
 
 Bee disapproved of that. She said it was 
 heartless and unnecessary. 
 
 It was unnecessary for Bee, for all I could 
 ever detect in her irreproachable behaviour 
 during her brief but volcanic married life, 
 were lightning glances shot at every mourn 
 ing bonnet we saw glances so comprehen 
 sive that they served Bee s purpose, yet so 
 swift, that no one saw them but Jimmie and 
 Aubrey. 
 
 But neither blamed Bee. Her husband was 
 also named James, but we are all quite sure 
 that nobody ever liked him well enough to call 
 him Jim. 
 
 James had been tall, thin, transparent, with 
 damp hands, wispy hair and a long, cold, red 
 nose. It was not the convivial cup which had 
 slightly reddened that unamiable member of 
 James features. As Jimmie said, we could 
 have forgiven him if it had been but James 
 nose was the thin, red nose of righteousness 
 and acquisitiveness. He simply loved to be 
 disagreeable, and in addition he was rich and 
 close. Which to the Jimmies, the Jardines, 
 and Bee, were three unpardonable crimes. We 
 all loved good humour. Whenever we had 
 money we strove to part with it as quickly and 
 buoyantly as possible and we never even kept 
 the change.
 
 22 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Therefore we thought it quite handsome of 
 James to leave us to our own devices and go 
 where he would be more appreciated. 
 
 He left but one blood relative, a sister. She 
 was just like James except that his face was 
 yellow and hers was blotched with red. But 
 she was just as acidulous and the only time 
 either of them ever smiled was after a remark 
 or act which had made someone writhe. 
 
 James sister was named Lydia James al 
 ways called her " Lyddy " and she was a 
 hopeful spinster. Knowing that Bee did not 
 care for her, James gave Lydia a home with 
 them, which made my sister more wretched 
 than anything in the world except an ill fitting 
 gown. Thus Bee spent as much time away 
 from her husband and charming sister-in-law 
 as possible, and we profited by her most agree 
 able companionship in consequence. 
 
 The estate had been long in settling and at 
 first it was thought there was no will, but 
 finally one was discovered and it was Bee who 
 told me of its contents by word of mouth. She 
 never wrote to us about it while we were in 
 Europe. Bee writes the funniest letters I ever 
 read in my life. In one that I received in Po 
 land she said : " James lies snoring on the 
 couch in the library as I write. My life is 
 filled with just such poetry and romance."
 
 In Which Bee Takes a Hand 23 
 
 Which was a sample of her courage and sense 
 of humour. She never complained of him. 
 As she said : " I had eyes and ears, and it was 
 all my fault." So then, she was too just to 
 take it out either on him or others. 
 
 In her place, I should have been a widow 
 earlier. 
 
 But Bee is very just. She let him have his 
 chance to live. 
 
 Bee had been called away on business when 
 we arrived, so that we had been back from 
 Europe several weeks before we met. 
 
 She was most impressive, but although she 
 was doubtless as anxious to talk of her own 
 affairs as I was to hear her, she asked all about 
 us and our travels, before she permitted her 
 own plans to obsess her entire being. 
 
 Finally I took the plunge. 
 
 " Where are you going to live, Bee? " 
 
 " Here in New York! " said Bee, with scin- 
 tillant eyes. " Where else in Heaven s name 
 would anyone want to live ? " 
 
 " And we heard that a will was found ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes a most complete will, with every 
 thing arranged just as James wished to leave 
 things after him." 
 
 "Just as he wished them to be!" I cried. 
 " Then " 
 
 " Exactly! " said Bee, evenly. " The evil
 
 24 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 that men do lives after them ! with a ven 
 geance in this case. I don t really don t see 
 how he managed to arrange everything in so 
 complete a manner. He must have planned it 
 for years." 
 
 My heart sank. Too well, knowing our 
 dear James, I knew what that meant. 
 
 " But the house in Charityville," I said. 
 " I thought he wanted you to live there. How 
 do you get around that ? " 
 
 " I got Lyddy s consent to live here instead. 
 Anything that I can get her to do, can be done. 
 She is sole executrix as well as residuary 
 legatee." 
 
 " Oh, Bee ! " I cried impulsively. " I am so 
 sorry for you ! " 
 
 " Thanks, dear," said Bee, smiling bravely. 
 " But I have had a year in which to be not 
 exactly reconciled, but accustomed to the 
 thought. James must have been planning 
 things for years." 
 
 " How are things left ? " 
 
 " It is as pretty a plot as you would ever 
 wish to see " began Bee, smiling. 
 
 " You mean where James is buried ? " 
 
 " No, I mean the way he left things. My 
 good husband must have cherished quite an 
 active grudge against me to have got his own 
 consent to take so long a chance."
 
 In Which Bee Takes a Hand 25 
 
 " But I don t understand," I said impa 
 tiently. " Get along with your story! " 
 
 " You know how how thrifty James was 
 when it came to parting with money ? " in 
 quired Bee. 
 
 " I know it used to take the skin off his palm 
 when anybody could pry his hand loose from 
 a dollar," I said crossly. 
 
 " Well, before his death, he gave actually 
 gave to Lyddy all his interest-bearing income- 
 producing effects, so that " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Exactly ! I had to take my widow s third 
 out of the Kokomo Land Company in other 
 words, I can get practically nothing until that 
 huge, unproductive tract of land is sold, 
 and " 
 
 "And what?" I cried. 
 
 " Lyddy doesn t care to sell ! " 
 
 I sat a moment in silence. 
 
 " Why Bee, where does that leave you?" 
 
 " Practically at Lyddy s mercy. At his 
 death, Lyddy was rich, James land poor. He 
 had given her every valuable thing in his pos 
 session in order to cheat me out of an in 
 come ! " 
 
 This news was so overwhelming that I could 
 think of nothing to say. But Bee, having had, 
 as she remarked, a year in which to accus-
 
 26 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 torn herself to the situation, had found her 
 tongue. 
 
 Therefore she proceeded. 
 
 " I have had the best lawyers in such mat 
 ters at work ever since I discovered the situa 
 tion, and on all sides I find evidences of the 
 far-reachingness of his revenge." 
 
 " But his revenge for what? " I asked. 
 
 " I think," said Bee, slowly, " that he was 
 vexed because I could enjoy myself in spite of 
 him. I believe he was jealous because we 
 all of us could get away from him and have 
 fun out of everything. I think he hated laugh 
 ter and light heartedness and I know he hated 
 people with a sense of humour. You remem 
 ber how particularly he disliked Jimmie?" 
 
 "And me!" I said grimly. "He used to 
 look as though he would enjoy throwing rocks 
 at us when we howled about nothing at all 
 which to me is one of the joys of living." 
 
 " I know it is. And you have largely taught 
 that view to me. Anyhow, if it hadn t been 
 for you and the Jimmies, I couldn t have stood 
 it I d have gone mad." 
 
 " It s too bad James was what he was," I 
 said mournfully. " We d have been so glad to 
 take him on, if he d been a decent sort. But 
 he was he was 
 
 " I know," said Bee evenly. " He was! "
 
 In Which Bee Takes a Hand 27 
 
 " Well, but how are you going to live? " I 
 asked. 
 
 " Oh," said Bee. " I have something a 
 tiny income, a third of the furniture, a third 
 of James personal effects 
 
 " A third of his old clothes ! " I suggested 
 ironically. 
 
 Bee smiled. 
 
 " Quite so ! And " 
 
 " Well, go on ! What are you smiling at ? " 
 
 " Don t be so impatient," said Bee. 
 
 " But you are so slow ! " I cried. 
 
 " Well, Lyddy has aspirations. It s too 
 funny," she went on hurriedly, seeing by my 
 lowering brow that I still did not understand 
 and would not have much more circumlocu 
 tion Bee does love to produce an effect ! - 
 " but Lyddy too, has evidently been jealous 
 all the time, of our fun, for she proposes to 
 temporize she practically offers to put the 
 Kokomo land on the market, if I will, as she 
 puts it, live under the same roof with her/ 
 which I translate to mean " 
 
 " Not that we ll have to take Lyddy on! " 
 I whispered in a horror so actual and so ex 
 cruciating that Bee must have been deeply 
 pleased at the genuineness of my emotion. 
 
 Bee took her lower lip between her teeth 
 and slowly nodded her head.
 
 28 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 I flung myself face downward on the couch. 
 
 " Oh, don t cry ! " said Bee anxiously. 
 " Have you lost all faith in me? Don t you 
 know that I still propose to to manage mat 
 ters somewhat? " 
 
 " I cannot see one thing beyond the fact that 
 Lyddy Lathrop is the most unalterably dis 
 agreeable person I ever knew in my life and 
 that the fact of her wanting to come with us 
 would destroy every vestige of my enjoyment 
 in life. All I ve got left is Aubrey! " 
 
 "True! " said Bee. "You ve got him and 
 she can t get him away from you nor even 
 crowd in between. But Faith " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Listen a minute." 
 
 " I m listening, but I must say that I don t 
 see a way out of it for any of us. What 
 are you going to do first ? " 
 
 " I am supposed to be moving at this very 
 minute," said my sister calmly. 
 
 "Moving!" I cried explosively. "Where 
 to? Why didn t you tell me? Where are you 
 going to live? In a hotel or an apartment? 
 Or a house? Near here? " 
 
 " Don t stop, Faith ! " said Bee. " It s sheer 
 music to hear you reel off your observations 
 like that. One learns so much of life from 
 your fervid conversation."
 
 In Which Bee Takes a Hand 29 
 
 I grinned at her. Her sarcasm sounded like 
 old times. 
 
 " You know those ducky new apartments 
 next to where the Fitzhughs live? Well, 
 Sallie Loring told me that Cedric Hamilton 
 had taken one for himself, so I went to look 
 and what do you think? There is a front one 
 on the third floor just right for me and another 
 just back consisting of three rooms, a bath 
 and kitchennette which Lyddy wants. So we 
 had the landlord cut a door between, and there 
 we shall be, both literally under one roof and 
 living amiably " 
 
 " But with separate latch keys ! " I cried in 
 overpowering admiration of my sister s clever 
 ness. 
 
 " How wonderful that Lyddy should have 
 wanted that apartment ! " I said. 
 
 Bee permitted herself a slow smile at my 
 tribute to her powers of persuasion. 
 
 " It is the best I could do under the circum 
 stances," said Bee modestly. " Lyddy desires 
 to become one of us. She has acute matri 
 monial aspirations. She has unlimited ready 
 money at her command. She can be led to do 
 almost anything if one goes about it properly, 
 but in order to do it properly " 
 
 " To do her properly," I suggested.
 
 30 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " Quite so," agreed Bee. " One must know 
 her peculiarities. / know them." 
 
 " Unhappily you do," I murmured. 
 
 " And I propose to do the best I can. Al 
 though she makes conditions " 
 
 " Conditions ? What sort ? " 
 
 Bee waved her hand. 
 
 " Conditions which you will soon learn for 
 yourself. I propose to circumvent her in 
 every possible manner, because I consider 
 James will outrageous and because it annoys 
 me to discover myself in a cul de sac, whence 
 nobody expects me to emerge. Therefore I 
 choose to interpret her commands one way - 
 she declared that she and I must live together 
 under one roof or she practically threatens 
 never to allow the property to be sold, thus 
 leaving me with an income of less than I ever 
 had before in my life." 
 
 I looked at my sister in pity. Truly for a 
 young woman who was not condemned in 
 some past existence to expiate a life spent in 
 misdeeds, she had about dreed her weird in 
 this. Almost every sort of domestic, mental 
 calamity which could be imagined had been 
 hers. She seemed no sooner to rise from one 
 dizzying blow than she was felled to earth by 
 another. Her friends never knew what sort 
 of burdens she bore, for her indomitable pride
 
 In Which Bee Takes a Hand 31 
 
 bade her bear them in secret, but I always 
 knew and sometimes the Jimmies did. 
 
 Through it all, the thing which made us 
 adore her was her uncrushable, implacable will 
 to stand upright under everything. She never 
 seemed to scramble to her feet x bruised and 
 covered with dust. She rose gracefully and 
 we always found her immaculate and scornful 
 of our pity. 
 
 In fact she never pitied herself. Her sense 
 of justice was so keen, she nearly always saw 
 why these things came and she resolutely set 
 herself to overcome them. She had worked 
 out a philosophy of cause and effect which was 
 rigidly self searching and which constantly 
 dared its adherents to look themselves straight 
 in the eye. You can t flinch much if you do 
 that. 
 
 Bee was always hopeful, superbly patient in 
 regard to ultimate success, though quite hu 
 manly impatient of daily obstacles and imped 
 iments. She seldom asked help of anybody 
 and on the rare occasions when she did, it was 
 always exactly in the line of one s work and 
 therefore not only easy to give but reasonable 
 to be asked to give it. 
 
 Thus when my sister found herself with 
 ample means so tied up that to get even her 
 share she must placate, pacify and cajole an
 
 32 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 unpleasant elderly person, and with the added 
 abomination of being obliged to live without 
 daily fights with the most impossible of old 
 maids I had ever encountered, I should not 
 have been surprised to see Bee s spirits flag. 
 
 Not a bit of it! 
 
 She was capable of attending not only to 
 her own affairs with magnificent courage, but 
 of lending a hand in the administration of 
 ours. And the way she concentrated on us, 
 on Lyddy, on Bob Mygatt and his mix-up, to 
 say nothing of Laflin Van Tassel and our af 
 fair with the Munsons is worthy of being told 
 by one more skilled than I. 
 
 " And how about yourself? " she said, after 
 we had finally left off discussing hers, chiefly 
 because in our fluency, we had left nothing 
 unsaid. 
 
 " Well, we we have rented a studio 
 apartment in the Buckingham studios 
 
 " Not the Munsons ? " said Bee in a muf 
 fled voice, seizing my arm with a grip as if 
 I had said that I had rented a ward in a de 
 tention hospital. 
 
 "Yes, why?" 
 
 Bee leaned back in her chair and looked at 
 me. It was the hopeless look of the finally 
 discouraged. 
 
 " Do you know that there are folding doors
 
 In Which Bee Takes a Hand 33 
 
 between Eleanor s studio and the one you have 
 taken ? " she said. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " You know that? But perhaps you haven t 
 signed the lease? " 
 
 Her tone was distinctly hopeful. 
 
 " Yes, we have." 
 
 " Well, my advice to you if you care for 
 it which perhaps you don t? " 
 
 " Yes, I do. What do you advise ? " 
 
 " I advise you to nail up that door. Brick 
 it up ! And see as little of the Munsons as pos 
 sible!" 
 
 " But Bee ! What are you talking about ? 
 The Munsons are the most charming people 
 we know except the Jimmies ! " 
 
 " That s just why ! I want you to stay 
 friendly. With an open door between you, 
 you might see each other every day." 
 
 " I am going to send them their lunches 
 and " 
 
 " Good Heavens, Faith ! Sometimes I think 
 you are only half witted ! " said Bee slowly. 
 
 Now if her tones had been heated I should 
 have resented her words. But she seemed to 
 speak more in grief than in anger. 
 
 " And when they want to stay in town over 
 night I am going to let them sleep in our 
 studio or roll our big couches into Eleanor s/
 
 34 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 I continued valiantly, thinking- it well for her 
 to know the worst. 
 
 " There remains but one thing more to com 
 plete your utter ruin and that is for you to 
 have money transactions with each other," said 
 Bee. " That would certainly complete the 
 catastrophe. And if you rent from him you d 
 have to! " 
 
 At that I remained ominously silent and Bee 
 saw that she must explain without further 
 questioning. 
 
 " You know the Munsons reputation for, 
 well to put it mildly, eccentricity. / don t 
 call it that. I consider them stark mad. I 
 suppose Aubrey would call it the insanity of 
 genius and that you both actually derive 
 amusement from the history of their career. 
 But to me they are dangerous because they are 
 unknown quantities. They are social dyna 
 mite. Liable to blow themselves and all asso 
 ciated with them into infinitesimal bits with 
 out warning and without excuse. They are 
 governed by no law. They are unaware of 
 conventions. Munson confides their most pri 
 vate affairs to chance acquaintances, and any 
 thing told in confidence to him is current prop 
 erty inside of an hour. Munson simply leaks 
 information into every open ear he passes. 
 
 " Now, you are about as safe with them as
 
 In Which Bee Takes a Hand 35 
 
 a blazing match over a gasoline tank. You 
 will go to mothering them, for they are either 
 forlorn objects, worthy of anybody s pity, or 
 else arrogantly soaring over the heads of even 
 the richest and most successful. Just now, 
 being down, they will appeal to you. You will 
 work to get them orders, you will slave to 
 make them comfortable. You will torment 
 your friends to death trying to serve the Mun- 
 sons, and all of a sudden, when you least ex 
 pect it, somebody he has only known half an 
 hour will tell Munson that you, in your airy, 
 funny way, have said something about him 
 or his work, and without even coming to you 
 decently to discover whether you did or not, 
 Munson will turn on you, talk about you, tell 
 everything he knows about you and insult you 
 in a way you never will forgive. Then inside 
 of two weeks he will come in^ with a smile, 
 ask for a whiskey and soda and begin just 
 where he left off. In other words Munson 
 will have forgiven himself for having insulted 
 you!" 
 
 I listened to Bee with freezing marrow. 
 Although I had never had the pleasure of a 
 quarrel with Munson, I knew by the accuracy 
 of Bee s observations on other phases of life, 
 that she was perfect right on this matter. 
 
 " But he is so charming," I said. However
 
 36 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 I said it as one speaks of a being who has 
 passed out of one s life. 
 
 " Personally I don t find him so. I like 
 Eleanor. There is more foundation to her. 
 But Munson has the same damp, lifeless hand 
 shake that James had," said James widow. 
 
 "Good Heavens!" I cried. "So he has! 
 I never thought of it before." 
 
 " Rest assured," said my sister, " that char 
 acteristics show in trifles like that. I don t say 
 just because they shake hands alike, that 
 James and Munson have similar characteris 
 tics. I only say that something within tells 
 me to shun Munson that is, to shun famil 
 iarity with him." 
 
 " I believe so much in the way a man shakes 
 hands," I faltered. Bee s calling my atten 
 tion to this hitherto unnoticed characteristic 
 had shaken my faith in Munson more than all 
 she had said of her own opinion of him. 
 
 " So do I. Now, the lifelessness of James 
 grasp meant chiefly an unwillingness to give 
 out anything he could keep for himself, 
 whether sympathy, human interest or money. 
 With Munson " 
 
 " With Munson," I interrupted, " it means 
 only a different branch of complete self-ness, 
 for both Munson and Eleanor are an incarna 
 tion of the word Ego. They give yes, you
 
 In Which Bee Takes a Hand 37 
 
 could have their money, or the clothes off their 
 back, because they don t value such things!" 
 I cried, growing more and more excited in 
 my sudden understanding of them, " but as for 
 any interest in me or you or Aubrey, or our 
 work why, Bee ! I told Munson eleven 
 times about Aubrey s new play, and as we 
 parted, he said : By the way, is Aubrey doing 
 any writing these days ? He simply hadn t 
 heard the sound of my voice when it was not 
 discussing his affairs ! 
 
 " Exactly," said Bee, evenly. " Don t get 
 so excited, Faith. You have known all this 
 before." 
 
 " No, I haven t," I said despondently. " I 
 didn t realize it until you called my attention 
 to it." 
 
 " Well, don t go up in the air about it. You 
 are probably planning to cut the Munsons off 
 your list. Why can t you moderate your wor 
 ship of your friends? Why must all your 
 geese be swans? " 
 
 " Well, for one thing, I will take your 
 advice and not let Aubrey borrow money from 
 him," I said. 
 
 " I should think not. And for another 
 thing, don t get behind in the rent even for 
 a day. For he will tell it on you far and near, 
 and he will hide behind the fact that you owe
 
 38 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 him money to stave off every creditor he pos 
 sesses." 
 
 Again I shivered. 
 
 " As an example of how his ignorance of 
 business injures people, a man of means agreed 
 to pay him a certain rent for his old studio 
 quarterly. Yet Munson told me six weeks ago 
 that his tenant had gone to Mexico owing him 
 six hundred dollars, and he gave me the im 
 pression that the man had absconded. Mun 
 son said he might have to bring an action to 
 get his rent. Since then every time I have 
 heard this man s name mentioned I have ex 
 pected to hear of his arrest. Yesterday I 
 heard that he will be back in three weeks and 
 the rent isn t even due until January. I tell 
 you, Faith Jardine, Edward Munson is the 
 most dangerous man a woman like you could 
 interest herself in." 
 
 " What kind of a woman am I, Bee? " 
 
 Bee leaned back and crossed her feet. I 
 could see that she intended to enjoy herself. 
 
 " What kind of a woman are you ? " she 
 repeated, not to gain time, but as a sort of 
 appetizing hors d ceuvre to the mental meal of 
 which she was about to make of me. 
 
 Just then the telephone rang and I flew to 
 answer it. 
 
 "It s the Jimmies!" I announced beam 
 ingly.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 FROM A SISTER S POINT OF VIEW 
 
 YOU are just in time," I said as we 
 greeted them, " to assist at a clinic! " 
 " A what? " said Mrs. Jimmie. 
 
 "A clinic!" I repeated. "At my earnest 
 request Bee was about to give me her unvar 
 nished opinion of me." 
 
 You have been under the knife so often," 
 said Jimmie, " I should think you wouldn t 
 even need chloroform." 
 
 " Indeed she has not," said Bee, warmly. 
 " Faith very seldom hears the truth about her 
 self. Aubrey flatters her to death, and I never 
 express the whole of my opinion unless asked 
 for it." 
 
 " But Bee, dear, don t you admire Faith the 
 way we all do? " asked Mrs. Jimmie uneasily. 
 
 " I admire her good points extravagantly, 
 dear Mrs. Jimmie," said Bee. " But in spite 
 of them, I think I really think that Faith 
 is the most uncomfortable person to live with 
 I ever knew in my life." 
 39
 
 40 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 I drew in my feet a trifle, involuntarily, and 
 Jimmie fumbled in his pockets hurriedly. 
 
 " Wait a minute, Bee," he begged. " Just 
 wait till I find a match." 
 
 He hastily lighted a large, black cigar, 
 leaned back, blew a long, thin line of smoke 
 in the air, grinned and said: 
 
 "Now, Bee!" 
 
 I expected this of him. He was simply 
 delighted at the prospect of seeing me dis 
 sected. 
 
 " First of all," began Bee, " you are never 
 consecutively truthful. You are a creature of 
 moods. You analyze yourself for the amuse 
 ment of others, not intending to deceive, but 
 you do deceive." 
 
 Jimmie laughed until he choked on cigar 
 smoke. 
 
 " But," continued Bee, " your fibs are al 
 ways at your own expense. You never really 
 do the terrible things you declare yourself 
 capable of doing, so that really you are much 
 finer than you believe yourself to be." 
 
 Jimmie looked so astonished nay, so flat 
 and so distinctly disappointed at this that I had 
 to laugh. I was immensely flattered, but to 
 tell the truth, I was as much surprised as he 
 was. Not once in a million years does Bee 
 say anything decent to me, for while we adore
 
 From a Sister s Point of View 41 
 
 each other, we simply loathe each other s ideals 
 in life. I consider mine much higher than 
 Bee s, but she is positive that nobody but a 
 fool would cherish mine and that hers reflect 
 credit on their owner both for wisdom and 
 policy. 
 
 " Then," pursued my sister, with evident 
 pleasure in the sensation she was creating, 
 " you are not to be depended upon. You flat 
 ter yourself that you are, but that is only an 
 other of your mistaken estimates of yourself. 
 Your best friends never know when you will 
 go all to pieces over some trifle. You have no 
 self control. You burst into tears in public 
 and disgrace Aubrey " 
 
 " Aubrey doesn t mind ! " I cried. 
 
 " And me," pursued Bee placidly, " in ways 
 a grown up married woman should scorn to 
 do. One night at a roof garden, the conver 
 sation turned on McKinley s death and you 
 cried. At least two years after he had 
 died." 
 
 " Well, " 
 
 " There is no excuse for such things. They 
 only embarrass the self-possessed. Of course 
 the public is not supposed to know that you 
 enjoy crying that you can cry one minute 
 and burst out laughing while the tears are 
 still pouring down your face."
 
 42 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " I don t enjoy it! " I muttered. 
 
 " Yes, you do ! " cried Jimmie. " By Jove ! 
 I believe you do! " 
 
 " She does not ! " said Mrs. Jimmie, throw 
 ing the bomb of a flat contradiction into our 
 devoted midst. " Faith is only very emotional, 
 far more quick to see the pity of a thing than 
 we. And as for trying to control herself, I 
 have seen her lip bleed from biting it ! " 
 
 At this sweet and unexpected defence of my 
 great weakness, I gave what Jimmie called 
 " an imitation of a lady weeping " with great 
 promptness. 
 
 " You see! " said Bee, calmly. 
 
 " Go on and geyser, Faith, if it does you any 
 good," said Jimmie with a grin. 
 
 " It s it s because what d-dear Mrs. Jim 
 mie said makes me f-feel so sorry for m-my- 
 self ! " I stammered. 
 
 " Spotlight ! " said Jimmie. 
 
 " Exactly! " said Bee. " You are so over 
 come by the dramatic qualities of your onion- 
 like capacity to weep at notice that you at once 
 feel sorry enough for yourself to cry. As I 
 have observed before, it affords exquisite dis 
 comfort to your friends." 
 
 " Go on ! " I said, dabbing my eyes dry. 
 " It is fascinating to hear you tell it."
 
 From a Sister s Point of View 43 
 
 " Again. You pride yourself on your in 
 terest in and your generosity to your friends. 
 But the truth of the matter is that while you 
 do fairly wear yourself out for them, you ex 
 pect the same fervour from them in your own 
 times of need, and when you don t get it, you 
 are furious. You are either working like a 
 slave for your friends or crying out at their 
 rank ingratitude." 
 
 "Ha! ha!" laughed Jimmie, suddenly. 
 
 I glared at him, and even his wife looked a 
 reproof which is the most she ever does. If 
 Jimmie were my husband, I d throw him into 
 the river a dozen times a day. But Mrs. Jim 
 mie only looks at him in dear reproach. 
 
 " And just because your purse hangs open 
 all the time, you think others should be so too. 
 But other people keep their money." 
 
 This remark admitted of so many changes 
 being rung on it, from the point of view of 
 James, Lyddy, the Jimmies, and ourselves, that 
 we all indulged in a silent but sympathetic 
 smile before Bee proceeded. 
 
 " Most people hate the feeling of grati 
 tude " 
 
 " Not one in a million knows what it feels 
 like," I snapped out. 
 
 " They don t want to feel it. Personally
 
 44 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 I d rather never have a favour done for me 
 than suffer the strain of gratitude, so that 
 really you " 
 
 " You are making out that I am a nui 
 sance ! " I cried. 
 
 " Not at all," said Bee smoothly. " I am 
 simply trying to show you that you do not 
 understand yourself as we understand you." 
 
 " That is all very well," I said, hotly. 
 " But " 
 
 " But we don t all agree with dear Bee, 
 clever as she undoubtedly is," said Mrs. Jim- 
 mie quietly. " She doesn t mean what she 
 says. She adores Faith just as we all do, and 
 we wouldn t have her dear funny ways 
 changed any more than than Aubrey would, 
 even if we could. We love her just as she is. 
 Don t we, Jimmie?" 
 
 Jimmie crossed over and took his wife s 
 hand. 
 
 " I d hate to say under oath that I approve 
 of everything that Faith does and is, because 
 I might go to jail if it could be proved on 
 me. But I ll say it of you if you want me 
 to!" 
 
 "But Jimmie!" said his wife with pink 
 cheeks, half pushing him away. " I don t 
 want you to say it of me 
 
 " All right ! " said Jimmie reproachfully.
 
 From a Sister s Point of View 45 
 
 " At least not in public! " she hastily added. 
 
 Jimmie s eye twitches. He doesn t exactly 
 wink. 
 
 " I feel that Bee ought to write novels, she 
 has such an admirable way of sketching our 
 characters," I said. 
 
 " Is that smile of yours intended to be bit 
 ter ? " asked Jimmie of me, with a great show 
 of anxiety. " Because if it is, you should never 
 go on the stage. You are grinning like a 
 chessy cat at Bee s description of you." 
 
 " I have no intention of going on the stage," 
 I remarked. 
 
 " Perhaps not now you haven t," said Jim 
 mie. " It is now only a quarter to six. At 
 six you might decide to star as Othello." 
 
 " If I ever do," I said, " I should ittsist 
 upon your playing Desdemona, Jimmie. It 
 would be unmitigated joy for me to put a 
 pillow over your mouth and then sit on it." 
 
 " Fie, fie ! My dear ! What a temper you 
 have ! " said Jimmie gently. 
 
 At this critical juncture the Angel appeared, 
 and after we had all hailed his advent after 
 our various kinds, he rang for ice and a sy 
 phon, at which Jimmie drew a deep anticipa 
 tory sigh of bliss. 
 
 " Bee, dear, where are you staying? " asked 
 Mrs. Jimmie.
 
 46 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Then Bee told the Jimmies what she had 
 just told me, and I leaned back while Jimmie 
 sat up. 
 
 I enjoy Jimmie when he is angry. He is 
 so sincere. But he finally talked himself into 
 a state of exhaustion, whereupon Bee said 
 abruptly : 
 
 " Hope Loring s wedding cards are out. 
 Did you know it, Faith? " 
 
 " Yes," I said. " Ours came yesterday." 
 
 " So did ours," said Jimmie. " Doesn t it 
 seem good to see John Loring on his feet 
 again! He is one of the finest men I ever 
 knew in all my life." 
 
 " Do you know the family well ? " asked 
 Bee. 
 
 "Fairly so!" 
 
 " Do you? " asked Bee, turning to Aubrey. 
 
 "So so!" 
 
 " All of them ? The cousins ? " 
 
 The Angel nodded. 
 
 We all looked expectantly at Bee, but she 
 said no more. But I knew there was some 
 thing behind her innocent question. I simply 
 waited. 
 
 It was Aubrey who broke the silence. 
 
 " I met one of them, Laflin Van Tassel, you 
 know. And he told me that the famous law 
 suit has finally been settled and his mother
 
 From a Sister s Point of View 47 
 
 won. She sued the administrators of her 
 grandfather s estate for an accounting, and 
 will recover a million or more, so that Laflin at 
 once becomes an interesting figure in society." 
 
 " How nice ! " I said. " But isn t it true 
 that * them as has, gits. For Laflin has al 
 ready made a name for himself as an archi 
 tect and would have got on in his profession 
 without money. Do you know him, Jim- 
 mie?" 
 
 Jimmie nodded. 
 
 " Good looking chap." 
 
 " He s the handsomest thing I ever saw," 
 I said frankly. " And to think of his getting 
 all that money. I never even saw a good 
 looking millionaire before. Most rich men s 
 looks are such that a compensating Providence 
 simply had to give them money to even things 
 up!" 
 
 Jimmie sat up, suddenly intelligent 
 
 :< You want to know, whether it s in cash 
 or not? And what bank it s in, Bee?" he 
 asked. 
 
 Bee looked annoyed. 
 
 " I don t even know him," she said dis 
 tantly. " I only know the Lorings." 
 
 " His uncle, John Loring, is devoted to 
 him," said Mrs. Jimmie, " which means a 
 great deal to me."
 
 48 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Bee looked down. She never lets us see 
 into her eyes when she thinks things. 
 
 " None of you can guess who else has finally 
 made a ten strike not that any of you will 
 particularly care," said Aubrey. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " Bob Mygatt. His opera his magnus 
 opus has finally found a manager." 
 
 " It s only a feather-fingered musical com 
 edy," said Jimmie. " Opera indeed ! Does 
 he call it an opera? " 
 
 " He generally alludes to it as his chuff 
 duff, " I said. " He is so funny." 
 
 " He is a dear," said Bee, beaming. " I 
 am so glad to hear of his good luck." 
 
 " He is charming," said Mrs. Jimmie. 
 
 " Just listen," said Jimmie to Aubrey. 
 " Women always rave about a fellow like 
 that. What do you think of him, old man? " 
 
 " Do you want my private opinion of Bob 
 Mygatt?" asked Aubrey, in his quiet voice. 
 
 " I do." 
 
 " Well," said the Angel, quietly. " I think 
 he is more kinds of a damnfool than any other 
 person, male or female, that I ever have had 
 the pleasure of knowing." 
 
 Aubrey meets with the usual fate of those 
 who seldom use violent language. When he 
 does he prostrates his audience.
 
 From a Sister s Point of View 49 
 
 " Lyddy has met him," said Bee softly. 
 
 "Already?" 
 
 " And she says he has the most delightful 
 manners of any man she ever knew. He 
 kissed her hand at parting." 
 
 Jimmie writhes so when he laughs, I love 
 to watch him. 
 
 " I think," said Bee, " that one reason 
 Lyddy was so willing to take that separate 
 apartment 
 
 " Bee, don t," shrieked Jimmie. " I can t 
 bear it!" 
 
 Even Aubrey grinned at Jimmie s joy. 
 
 " Was because I should not always be there 
 to see him take leave of her." 
 
 "He s engaged!" 
 
 Aubrey s bombshell had the desired effect. 
 
 " Engaged ! " cried Bee. She was so plainly 
 disconcerted that I looked at her in surprise. 
 She instantly recovered herself and added, 
 " How annoying ! The Bob Mygatts of this 
 world should never be engaged. They belong 
 to all of us." 
 
 " Anybody is welcome to my share of em," 
 said Jimmie, cheerfully. 
 
 " Whom is he engaged to? " I demanded. 
 
 " A beautiful girl who is to sing the prin 
 cipal role in his piece," said Aubrey. " I ve 
 never seen her, but I ve heard her voice
 
 50 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 and it is a very fine one a clear, high so 
 prano." 
 
 " You must get to know her, Aubrey," said 
 Bee. "You could, couldn t you?" 
 
 " What for? " asked the Angel. 
 
 "Oh, just because! " 
 
 " Ask Mygatt to bring her to see you, Bee," 
 said Jimmie. " That s the proper caper, isn t 
 it?" 
 
 True," said Bee, rising and shaking out 
 her mourning. It quite brought us to our 
 senses to see Bee in black. Even Jimmie 
 hastily gulped down the last of his drink and 
 choked on a piece of ice as he started to his 
 feet. 
 
 " When may we come to see you, Bee, 
 dear?" I cried almost dancing in my excite 
 ment. " Can t we come to-night? " 
 
 " If you don t mind sitting on boxes, come 
 by all means." 
 
 "Oh, what fun to have you living here! " 
 I cried, flinging my arms around her neck, 
 regardless of her " blacks." 
 
 " We are coming too, Bee," declared Jim 
 mie. 
 
 " Why, of course you are," she answered. 
 " Don t we all belong to the Happy Family? " 
 
 "Have you told her?" demanded Jimmie 
 with dropped jaw.
 
 From a Sister s Point of View 51 
 
 " Certainly not," answered his wife, with a 
 surprised look at Bee. " Didn t I promise 
 not to?" 
 
 " Then," announced Jimmie, beaming with 
 importance, " I shall have something nice to 
 tell you all to-night ! " 
 
 And so saying, and in spite of our agonized 
 questions, Jimmie went out hurriedly, grin 
 ning with cheerful malice at our baffled curi 
 osity.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 BEE AND HER CELLARETTE 
 
 AS usual Bee had got exactly what she 
 wanted. This time it was an apart 
 ment, beautifully suited to her needs, 
 close to her best friend, Sallie Fitzhugh, and 
 with more little conveniences than any apart 
 ment I had ever seen. 
 
 " And I do believe it will be as quiet as one 
 can be in New York," said Aubrey wistfully. 
 
 " Possibly it will," said Bee, " just because 
 I don t care whether it is or not. The boy 
 next me at the hotel where I was, played a 
 drum." 
 
 She smiled at our horrified faces. But be 
 fore we could say more, the door was pushed 
 open and Bee s sister-in-law, Lyddy, made her 
 appearance. 
 
 Poor Lydia Lathrop! We always tried to 
 be pleasant at first, but we are easy going folk 
 and will not strive long to be good in any 
 direction. We follow the line of least resist 
 ance and only strive persistently to amuse 
 ourselves. 
 
 S*
 
 Bee and Her Cellarette 53 
 
 Jimmie sums up the situation neatly when 
 he says : 
 
 " I suppose it really isn t Lyddy s fault that 
 her knuckles are red and shiny." 
 
 " What / object to," said Aubrey, " is the 
 general dampness of her personality. If you 
 shake hands with her, her hands are damp. 
 If you pick up her handkerchief it is always 
 damp. If you touch her gloves they are al 
 ways damp." 
 
 But what worried me was the dampness of 
 her personality. She always regarded our 
 chatter with each other as covert insults di 
 rected specifically at herself, and to be pierced 
 with Lyddy Lathrop s eye just as you were 
 saying something foolish, but which all the 
 others would love, was to feel as if an icicle 
 had dropped down your back. 
 
 " Well, Lyddy," I said nervously. I al 
 ways had to be the first to speak, because the 
 others wouldn t. 
 
 " Well, Faith ! " she retorted, as Jimmie 
 would say, " with rare wit." 
 
 Dear Mrs. Jimmie came to the rescue as 
 usual. 
 
 " I have not seen you since your poor 
 brother s death, to say how sorry I feel for you 
 in your grief," she said in her soft voice. 
 
 " You wrote all that was necessary," said
 
 54 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Lyddy. Then seeing by our sudden silence 
 how enraged we were that the only decent one 
 among us had been so hatefully rebuffed, she 
 added : 
 
 " But I ve no doubt you mean well." 
 
 " Yes, we mean well," said Jimmie. " We 
 are just poor, simple folk who blunder in our 
 speech, that s all." 
 
 " But while we are not clever we can truth 
 fully call ourselves good natured and tidy, can 
 we not?" I added, looking around for en 
 couragement. 
 
 I was recalled to the sale of the Kokomo 
 land by Bee s peaceful rejoinder: 
 
 " Lyddy stayed at home and worked all the 
 time I was with you, so her apartment is 
 nearly settled. Don t you want to show it to 
 them, Lyddy?" 
 
 " I don t know that I want to show them, 
 but if they choose to go in and look at it, I 
 shall not prevent them." 
 
 " Such cordiality shall not go unrewarded," 
 said Jimmie. " We accept your kind invita 
 tion, Miss Lathrop, with pleasure." 
 
 "Jimmie!" murmured his wife reproach 
 fully. 
 
 " I had to, love, or I should have hit her 
 under the ear with a hambone."
 
 Bee and Her Cellarette 55 
 
 As we were all filing through the door, 
 Bee s telephone rang and she turned around 
 with a queer look after answering it. 
 
 "Whom do you think it is?" she said, 
 biting her lip. 
 
 " Who? " we demanded in a breath. 
 
 " Bob Mygatt. He says he went around 
 to see you, Faith, and they told him where 
 you were." 
 
 " That s strange," I said. " The hotel peo 
 ple didn t know where we were." 
 
 " He must have come to see Lyddy ! " said 
 Jimmie, as the broadest joke he could think 
 of at the time. But to our unbounded joy, 
 Lyddy fled for a mirror, where she nervously 
 put herself to rights. 
 
 We nearly suffocated trying not to let her 
 hear us. 
 
 Then, with a bang, the door flew open, and 
 Bob was in our midst. 
 
 Bob was almost good looking and, to most 
 of us, wholly amusing in his impudence; but 
 the Angel and Jimmie disliked him with a 
 wholesome fervour which almost partook of 
 athletics in the violence of its exertion. 
 
 When Lyddy came in, Bob called her his 
 " Dear Lady," and kissed her hand, Jimmie 
 watching him in fascinated silence. Then he
 
 56 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 sat down on the floor at her side, clasped his 
 knees and looked up into her face with the 
 adoring eyes of a faithful dog. 
 
 These two were so absorbed in each other 
 that they did not join our clamour to know 
 what Jimmie s secret was, but when we finally 
 got it out of him and found that he had bought 
 a glorious big touring car, Bobbie s ear was 
 suddenly cocked in our direction, and soon 
 afterward he deserted Lyddy and propelled 
 himself, still in that sitting posture, to my 
 side. 
 
 " Ah, ha ! I though you would remember 
 our existence when you heard the word auto 
 mobile," I said cruelly. But in reality it was 
 because I do not like to see an agreeable man 
 waste himself too long on another woman. 
 I am not jealous. I am only particular. 
 
 Bob looked at me reproachfully. 
 
 " That s mean," he said. " I am not after 
 the crumbs which fall from a rich man s table. 
 I am a rich man myself or at least I am 
 going to be, if the brutes handle my play as 
 they should." 
 
 " That is what we are always thinking 
 that we are going to be rich to-morrow. But 
 to-morrow never comes." 
 
 " It came once, but you blew it all in " 
 
 " Tell me about your " I began hastily.
 
 Bee and Her Cellarette 57 
 
 " About my play?" 
 
 " No. About your engagement. I ve just 
 heard of it." 
 
 " Who told you ? " he said with a cloudy 
 face. 
 
 "Aubrey. Who is the girl?" 
 
 " She is a cousin of Mrs. Winthrop, and 
 her name is Ava Corliss." 
 
 "A cousin of Mrs. Gallup Winthrop!" I 
 cried. " That is a fine family. She must 
 have loads of money." 
 
 " Yes, but she doesn t belong to the rich 
 side of the family worse luck ! " 
 
 " Bob, are you mercenary?" 
 
 " No, but I m jolly well tired of being poor. 
 You can t call me mercenary when I am en 
 gaged to a poor girl." 
 
 " Is she really poor? " 
 
 " As Job s turkey. Has to support herself." 
 
 " Yes, you are mercenary, because you half 
 regret it. It s your Irish sentimentality which 
 made you fall in love with her." 
 
 " I showed good sense in falling in love 
 with her. She s just the girl to keep me 
 straight got a conscience that sticks out so 
 you bark your shins against it every time you 
 get near enough to her to shake hands, but 
 I was a fool to ask her to marry me, because 
 unless my play is 3 . sucess, it will be thirty or
 
 58 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 forty years before we can marry. Besides 
 that, she rakes up a man s past, with a " 
 
 " But everybody says your play is so fool 
 ish it is bound to be a success. Now York is 
 the home of musical silliness," I said cheer 
 fully. But my interruption did not stave off 
 his confidence. It only deferred it. 
 
 He looked up at me and grinned. Then he 
 sighed. 
 
 " I ll tell you all about it, sometime. I m in 
 a lot of trouble, but I can t talk about it here. 
 So long, I must get back to my lady love," he 
 said, as if I had begged him to confide. 
 
 And with that he resumed his place by 
 Lyddy and we heard him beseech her not to 
 send him away again. 
 
 But evidently Bee could stand this no 
 longer, for she rose and said : 
 
 " I didn t ask you all here to-night to spend 
 an evening in sweet idleness. Jimmie, won t 
 you and Aubrey hang pictures for me? " 
 
 Lyddy looked up with acid in her voice, as 
 she said : 
 
 " Why disturb things, Bee? " 
 
 " I have no intention of disturbing you and 
 Bob," began Bee. 
 
 " In fact, I think she suggested it out of 
 courtesy to leave you and Bob alone to 
 gether," I said.*
 
 Bee and Her Cellarette 59 
 
 Lyddy smiled at me, and Bob cut in fer 
 vently : 
 
 " Oh, do leave us alone ! Go away all of 
 you ! I want to have my lady all to myself all 
 the rest of the evening! " 
 
 And he hitched himself nearer to her, and 
 resumed his adoring-dog glances. 
 
 Jimmie marched out without a backward 
 glance. 
 
 When we were all safely out of ear shot, he 
 turned to Bee and exploded : 
 
 " I don t know what your game is, but I tell 
 you right now, don t you ever invite that fool 
 to be one of any party you make up for the 
 automobile, for I won t stand it! Of all 
 the " 
 
 " Certainly not, Jimmie," said Bee sooth 
 ingly. "Have you named it yet? " 
 
 " Why, yes," said Jimmie, his brow smooth 
 ing under Bee s tact. " Didn t I tell you? In 
 honour of us all, I have named it * The 
 Happy Family. 
 
 " How many will it hold, Jimmie," I de 
 manded, visions of taking all my friends to 
 ride in it floating through my brain. 
 
 " Seven. I thought it was of no use to get 
 a smaller one when you and Bee are so hos 
 pitable."
 
 60 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 I giggled. And Mrs. Jimmie beamed with 
 happiness. 
 
 Suddenly Jimmie paused in his inspection 
 of Bee s apartment and exclaimed : 
 
 "What s this, Bee?" 
 
 "Open it and see!" 
 
 I knew from Bee s modest pride that she 
 had done something worthy of praise, and so 
 she had, for the thing was a cellarette and 
 such a cellarette that I was sure it had been 
 made to order. 
 
 As we opened it, a vision of good things 
 met our eye, all appetizingly packed and icy 
 cold. 
 
 Jimmie and the Angel hung over it fas 
 cinated. 
 
 " Lobster! " murmured Aubrey. 
 
 "Who is?" demanded Jimmie. 
 
 " You seem to be alive," I said. " Though 
 I have often felt that you could be spared ! " 
 
 " Beer ! " said the Angel. " And a jar of 
 mayonnaise already made! And Swiss cheese 
 and rye sandwiches! Bee, how did you man 
 age all this on moving day? " 
 
 Bee was satisfied by his tone of respectful 
 admiration. We sat back and watched the 
 Angel set the table. 
 
 " Why don t you help him, Faith ? " de 
 manded Jimmie.
 
 Bee and Her Cellarette 6 1 
 
 I waved my hand. 
 
 " I ve trained him to do it and I don t want 
 to spoil him," I said. " Why don t you help 
 him yourself? I ve never regarded you as at 
 all ornamental, particularly in repose." 
 
 " I d drop things. Say, Bee, do we have 
 to call Lyddy?" 
 
 " Certainly, Jimmie. Our dear Lyddy will 
 be one at all our little gatherings in the fu 
 ture " 
 
 " After that death ! " said Aubrey. But 
 again we forgot how Bee works. 
 
 "Not in the motor?" demanded Jimmie 
 aghast. 
 
 " Certainly ! " said Bee, firmly. 
 
 " I d never have bought the thing if I d 
 known that ! " said Jimmie, fiercely, " I call 
 it a confounded shame, Bee, to make me! " 
 
 " Why, Jimmie," said his wife, deeply 
 shocked. " How can you be so outspoken ? 
 You might hurt dear Bee s feelings. He 
 didn t mean anything, Bee. Lyddy will be 
 always welcome whenever you care to bring 
 her. We know how tried you will be during 
 this coming year, and anything that anyone 
 of us can do to make this easier for you, we 
 will gladly do." 
 
 Bee bent over and kissed her. That was 
 all there was to do most of the time. Her
 
 62 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 heavenly sweetness, as Jimmie said, " always 
 knocked our eye out." 
 
 We made Jimmie call Lyddy and Bob and 
 we all gathered around Bee s tiny dining- 
 room table to partake of our first meal with 
 her. 
 
 We all had it in mind, but of course it was 
 poor old Jimmie who blurted into saying it. 
 
 "By Jove, Bee!" he cried. "This is the 
 first time we ever sat down to your table, isn t 
 it? Ouch!" 
 
 This last registered two swift kicks that he 
 got sub rosa, so to speak. 
 
 Lyddy fixed him with her eye and rose 
 manfully to the occasion. 
 
 "That is right, Mr. Jimmie! Remind me, 
 right to my face of my poor dead brother s 
 peculiarities and his domestic unhappiness! 
 It pleases both his widow and his sister to 
 have his unfortunate disposition remarked 
 upon ! Pray go on ! " 
 
 "Oh, I say!" gasped Jimmie, looking 
 wildly around for a sympathetic eye. But he 
 met Only a circle of flushed faces, partly con 
 cealed by friendly napkins. 
 
 " Don t suppose," pursued Lyddy relent 
 lessly, " that I am unaware of the outrageous 
 manner in which you, all of you, habitually 
 not only regarded my poor brother s eccentrici-
 
 Bee and Her Cellarette 63 
 
 ties, but talked about them among yourselves! 
 /know!" 
 
 She drew in her chin bridling. Our conster 
 nation was so patent that Lyddy was enjoy 
 ing herself rarely. Emboldened by our lack 
 of spirit, she went on. 
 
 " My poor brother was in reality one of the 
 most unfortunately placed (with a glare at 
 Bee), most deliberately misunderstood, (with 
 a glare at me), disagreeably ridiculed (we 
 were all in on this) unkindly treated man who 
 ever lived. At heart he was " 
 
 Here Bobbie, whom we had all forgotten in 
 our fright, took a hand. My single lucid rec 
 ollection of the following speech is the way 
 a morsel of lobster trembled on my fork dur 
 ing the entire time. 
 
 " Dear lady," he said, covering Lyddy s 
 shiny knuckles with his hand. " Why bluff? 
 Why not admit the truth? 7 knew your 
 brother God rest his soul ! and a stin 
 gier, meaner, more warped old misanthrope 
 never breathed! Every time I look at you, I 
 wonder, I actually wonder how so gentle and 
 sweet a soul as yours was ever the twin of his ! 
 Your brother did his best to kill the friendship 
 of everyone who ever felt kindly toward him, 
 and that his widow is alive to-day is largely 
 due to the fact that her family took her away
 
 66 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Then we fell to and partook of Bee s dain 
 ties. But in addition to the usual condiments 
 they were seasoned by agitated thought and 
 mingled emotions. 
 
 " Come to our studio to-morrow night," I 
 commanded. 
 
 " That will be nice," said Mrs. Jimmie. 
 " We can go there after you have dined with 
 us at Claremont after our ride." 
 
 " Have you an automobile large enough to 
 hold all of us," demanded Lyddy, as we rose 
 to go. 
 
 " Yes," said Jimmie. " Three or even four 
 on the back seat, then two single and separate 
 seats in the middle and either one or two on 
 the front seat, depending upon who drives the 
 machine." 
 
 Lyddy pondered the adaptability of that 
 arrangement. Then she turned to Bob. 
 
 " I wonder how much an electric runabout 
 would cost which holds only two ? " 
 
 As we all fell into the tiny hall at once, 
 we failed to hear Bob s reply. 
 
 Jimmie peeked through the crack of the 
 door. 
 
 " He took that hurdle without a smile," he 
 whispered. "They are holding hands!" 
 
 Then Bob joined us with an innocent eye.
 
 Bee and Her Cellarette 67 
 
 Aubrey shook hands with him gravely and 
 Jimmie slapped his shoulder. 
 
 No one said a word. 
 
 " But what does it all mean ? " I said anx 
 iously to the Angel as we got home. " He s 
 engaged and he loves the girl. He told me 
 so to-night. How will this end? " 
 
 " There is but one who knows," said the 
 Angel solemnly. 
 
 " You mean ? " I whispered. 
 
 " Nt>, I mean Bee ! " answered the Angel 
 with a grin. 
 
 "Ohl"
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 OUR FIRST STUDIO DINNER 
 
 ALL the next day, to our bitter disap 
 pointment, it rained torrents, so that 
 to try the new automobile was out 
 of the question. 
 
 Our goods arrived in boxes, however, and 
 by dint of using tarpaulins we got them under 
 cover without serious wetting. 
 
 Something had happened to the steam and 
 we had no heat, so we wandered around our 
 big studio, in whose vastness our great boxes 
 only took up little dabs of space, feeling for 
 lorn and miserable and not half as proud and 
 happy as we had expected to be. 
 
 Two men from the ^olian company had 
 been there all day voicing the Munsons big 
 organ, after Aubrey, with the help of the jan 
 itor, Blackman, had connected the motor with 
 an electric light fixture. I rather grudged the 
 space the thing took up about an eighth of 
 the whole studio but Munson didn t want 
 to move it, and the Angel thought it would be 
 68
 
 Our First Studio Dinner 69 
 
 nice to have it, especially as it could be played 
 by hand as well as by rolls, so we agreed to 
 let it remain. 
 
 About four o clock, in through the open door 
 walked my first neighbour an artist in the 
 building Mrs. Keep. As she was the only 
 one who ever showed herself in the least 
 friendly, or in any way cultivated the delights 
 of our acquaintance, the .others contenting 
 themselves with severe criticisms of us, be 
 cause we were not painters, I recall her sweet 
 friendliness with " a gratitude so fervent as 
 to be almost base," as Bee puts it. 
 
 " Can I do anything to help you? " were her 
 first words. 
 
 I beamed at her. 
 
 " You remind me of Mrs. March in Little 
 Women," I said. " She always came in with 
 just that lovely manner." 
 
 Mrs. Keep laughed. 
 
 " It s too cold for you here. Come down 
 into my studio and have a cup of tea." In 
 half an hour I was back again, bursting in on 
 Aubrey an hysterical but wholly transformed 
 woman. 
 
 " Oh, oh, oh ! " I cried dancing up and down 
 in a frenzy of excitement. " What do you 
 think Mrs. Keep is going to do? Do you 
 know who she is ? She s the one who painted
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 OUR FIRST STUDIO DINNER 
 
 ALL the next day, to our bitter disap 
 pointment, it rained torrents, so that 
 to try the new automobile was out 
 of the question. 
 
 Our goods arrived in boxes, however, and 
 by dint of using tarpaulins we got them under 
 cover without serious wetting. 
 
 Something had happened to the steam and 
 we had no heat, so we wandered around our 
 big studio, in whose vastness our great boxes 
 only took up little dabs of space, feeling for 
 lorn and miserable and not half as proud and 
 happy as we had expected to be. 
 
 Two men from the ^olian company had 
 been there all day voicing the Munsons big 
 organ, after Aubrey, with the help of the jan 
 itor, Blackman, had connected the motor with 
 an electric light fixture. I rather grudged the 
 space the thing took up about an eighth of 
 the whole studio but Munson didn t want 
 to move it, and the Angel thought it would be 
 68
 
 Our First Studio Dinner 69 
 
 nice to have it, especially as it could be played 
 by hand as well as by rolls, so we agreed to 
 let it remain. 
 
 About four o clock, in through the open door 
 walked my first neighbour an artist in the 
 building Mrs. Keep. As she was the only 
 one who ever showed herself in the least 
 friendly, or in any way cultivated the delights 
 of our acquaintance, the others contenting 
 themselves with severe criticisms of us, be 
 cause we were not painters, I recall her sweet 
 friendliness with " a gratitude so fervent as 
 to be almost base," as Bee puts it. 
 
 " Can I do anything to help you? " were her 
 first words. 
 
 I beamed at her. 
 
 " You remind me of Mrs. March in Little 
 Women," I said. " She always came in with 
 just that lovely manner." 
 
 Mrs. Keep laughed. 
 
 " It s too cold for you here. Come down 
 into my studio and have a cup of tea." In 
 half an hour I was back again, bursting in on 
 Aubrey an hysterical but wholly transformed 
 woman. 
 
 " Oh, oh, oh ! " I cried dancing up and down 
 in a frenzy of excitement. " What do you 
 think Mrs. Keep is going to do? Do you 
 know who she is ? She s the one who painted
 
 yo The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 the Mowgli series that you and I had such a 
 fit about in the magazine the what-do- 
 you-call-it don t you remember ? And in 
 colour they re a million times more beauti 
 ful I just wish Kipling could see em! 
 he d go wild. And what do you think she is 
 going to do! She s going to let me have 
 them here hang em, you understand ! On 
 those five gaping wall spaces that have made 
 me sick all day wondering what we would put 
 there! Our pictures would look like postage 
 stamps. When I said that, she howled and 
 offered them. Isn t she dear? Oh, Aubrey, 
 if you could only see the one where Mowgli is 
 leaning against the panther with the little bear 
 what was his name ? coming up in front. 
 And the colours ! The blue black of the pan 
 ther s fur is indicated in the sheen of Mowgli s 
 hair. And he has such a woodland, wild, un 
 tamed little face just as if he never had 
 known any human beings, and to think we are 
 to have those five heavenly mural paintings to 
 look at every day and every night " 
 
 I stopped and began to cry. 
 
 " Now, now," said Aubrey, gently. " Don t 
 get so excited. You are all trembling. And 
 your poor hands are quite cold." 
 
 " It s having seen so much beauty ! " I 
 wailed.
 
 Our First Studio Dinner 71 
 
 " But don t cry about it. What would Bee 
 say?" 
 
 I wiped my eyes. 
 
 " I m glad she didn t see," I said. 
 
 " But I did see," said Bee from the door 
 way, and I whirled around guiltily conscious 
 of dim eyes, to see Bee and the Jimmies. 
 Lyddy, the genial soul, had fortunately been 
 detained. 
 
 " Good Lord in heaven ! " said Jimmie, look 
 ing around. " What a barn of a place ! " 
 
 And he immediately began pacing it off. 
 
 "Thirty-five by thirty!" he announced 
 with pride. 
 
 Jimmie walked around shaking his head. 
 
 " It s the greatest place I ever saw," he said 
 finally. " Mary, have you seen this dining- 
 room? It runs the length of the apartment, 
 except for the width of the kitchen. Having 
 the kitchen in front is bad very bad." 
 
 " No, it isn t. It s nice," I cried, combative 
 as usual. 
 
 " And this little staircase, for all the world 
 like a yacht," said Mrs. Jimmie. 
 
 " And upstairs, three bedrooms, five closets 
 and a bath," called Bee. 
 
 " And the balcony over the door practically 
 gives you another room, doesn t it? " 
 
 " It s simply great ! " commented Jimmie.
 
 72 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Just then against the huge twelve-foot 
 window in the studio came a blast of weather 
 which flung open the two lower doors of the 
 window, flooding the floor with water and 
 blowing down candlesticks and books and all 
 objects which were not nailed to the floor. 
 
 Everybody flew to rescue something break 
 able, while Jimmie and Aubrey succeeded in 
 getting the windows shut at the expense of 
 a serious wetting. 
 
 Then began such a storm as none of us 
 had ever seen before, of rain and wind and 
 hail. 
 
 After half an hour of it, Jimmie pulled me 
 over into a corner and said : 
 
 " Faith, let me telephone for some stuff to 
 be sent in, and let s unpack some of these pack 
 ing boxes and build a fire in that grand old 
 fireplace with em, and have a regular old jag 
 of joy all the evening, will you?" 
 
 " Oh, Jimmie, what a dear you are to think 
 of it! Do let s. The storm makes the idea 
 simply perfect, doesn t it?" 
 
 Jimmie grinned at my praise and forthwith 
 went to the telephone. Then Aubrey called up 
 Blackman, and before long even the elevator 
 boys were in the vein of the thing and were 
 bringing up old boxes and bits of lumber, for 
 several of the apartments were not yet finished,
 
 Our First Studio Dinner 73 
 
 so that in half an hour we had a roaring fire 
 and the apartment was warm for the first time 
 that day. 
 
 " But won t it put you out, Faith ? " asked 
 Mrs. Jimmie. " Have you a cook? " 
 
 " Have I? Wait till you see her! She is a 
 coloured girl, black as the ace of spades and 
 her name is Pearl Marguerite! " 
 
 Just the lady in question appeared in our 
 midst. Her eyes were rolling wildly and she 
 twisted her apron nervously. 
 
 "Mis Jardine," she said. "I d lake to 
 speak to you just one minute." 
 
 I got up from a soap box and left the fire 
 reluctantly. 
 
 " Jes see what done come!" whispered 
 Pearl Marguerite. " Hyah s a dozen squabs 
 and a salad all done mixed in dis yere bowl, 
 en two dozen years ob cawn raw en 
 all dese ayschers awn de half shell awn ice, 
 en " 
 
 " Has the stuff come? " asked Jimmie, stick 
 ing his head through the swinging door. " I 
 thought you d have potatoes and coffee, but I 
 ordered everything else. Let s see. Oysters 
 and squab and claret cup and 
 
 " Jimmie, it s a feast ! " I said reproachful 
 but anticipatory. We had had little to eat all 
 day and were ravenous,
 
 74 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Pearl Marguerite whispered again: 
 
 " Shall I cook our steak too? " 
 
 " Cook everything in sight ! We ll set the 
 table for you. Isn t it a good thing now, that 
 you have spent your day washing the Mun- 
 sons dishes and getting your pantries in 
 order?" 
 
 " Ef you all will set de table foh me, you kin 
 begin awn yo ayschers soon ez you please!" 
 said Pearl Marguerite, rising to the occasion 
 manfully. 
 
 " Let s bring the table in the studio," said 
 Jimmie, in another burst of inspiration, " and 
 eat here by the fire." 
 
 Mrs. Jimmie, Bee and I made short work 
 of setting that table, and soon we heard the 
 clink of ice in glasses, which told us that the 
 Angel was also at his share of the work. 
 
 That first studio dinner of ours, beside a 
 roaring fire made of wooden boxes, was one 
 long to be remembered, not the least of which 
 was our utter ignorance of what the future 
 held for us. I particularly recall putting in a 
 half barrel filled with paper, excelsior and bits 
 of kindling wood it had been, in fact, our 
 waste basket during the day and the glori- 
 bus way that half barrel burned, especially the 
 awful moment in which we thought we had 
 set the chimney on fire, added just the brief
 
 Our First Studio Dinner 75 
 
 scare necessary to our peculiar idea of enjoy 
 ing ourselves. 
 
 Pearl Marguerite warmed up the squabs and 
 served them with bits of bacon frizzling on 
 the breast of each, and seemed to enjoy our 
 enthusiastic comments on the amount of fried 
 potatoes she deemed worthy of giving us with 
 the steak. But when, after we had eaten, until 
 as Jimmie gracefully expressed it, he could feel 
 his necktie bind his throat, Pearl Marguerite 
 added the final touch of elegance to our repast 
 by appearing in the double doorway, twirling 
 her fingers, rolling her eyes and asking if we 
 would have our coffee in large cups or in 
 " demi-chaises," I thought Jimmie would 
 never come to. 
 
 It was upon our peals of laughter that 
 Blackman arrived, entirely concealed behind a 
 large canvass, which proved to be the first of 
 Mrs. Keep s Mowgli murals. And when the 
 others were borne in also, the others shared 
 my raging appreciation, and Blackman, at nine 
 o clock at night, was called upon to fetch the 
 twenty-foot step-ladder which belonged to the 
 house, and forthwith help to hang everyone 
 of the five, while I sat on my soap box and 
 blinked and swallowed but dared not weep out 
 of deference to Bee. 
 
 How shall I tell of the wonderful beauty
 
 76 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 and mystery with which that brush of genius 
 had managed to invest the ever-fascinating 
 portraits of the five phases of Mowgli ! 
 
 Although my pen staggers in the attempt, 
 it is only a stagger of incompetency and not 
 of unappreciativeness. 
 
 We all watched Blackman s skill in handling 
 those large canvasses in a silence which Jim- 
 mie finally broke. 
 
 " Everybody ought to be skilled at some 
 form of manual labour," he said. Whereat, 
 having various and sundry recollections of 
 Jimmie at work, I laughed. 
 
 You needn t laugh, dear," said Mrs. Jim 
 mie reproachfully. " Jimmie papered a room, 
 once when we were first married, all by him 
 self, and did it very nicely too ! " 
 
 This was the first time I had ever heard of 
 Jimmie s being handy at anything but striking 
 matches, and I was naturally skeptical. 
 
 " Was it really well done or is that a bride s 
 recollection?" I demanded. "Were there no 
 mistakes? " 
 
 Jimmie and his wife glanced at each other 
 uneasily. 
 
 " Tell her," said Jimmie. " There s no use 
 in trying to keep anything away from a female 
 ferret ! Air the family skeleton ! " 
 
 I smiled in triumph.
 
 Our First Studio Dinner 77 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Jimmie, reluctantly. 
 " One strip was upside down, but it was behind 
 the door, and really, Faith, it didn t show, ex 
 cept when the door was shut ! " 
 
 " That was the beginning of my open door 
 policy," said Jimmie with a wink. 
 
 I relented and said no more. Jimmie s 
 foolishness always makes a hit with me and 
 he knows it. 
 
 I let a glorious opportunity pass. 
 
 Then, thoroughly weary, (for though I 
 seldom can be induced to perform manual 
 labour myself, my enthusiasm in making 
 others work is quite exhausting), but filled 
 with appreciation and joy, we rested and 
 watched the fire die down and listened to the 
 beat of the rain against the windows until the 
 Angel happened to think of the organ, and 
 forthwith began to play. 
 
 Alas and alack! In spite of our individual 
 troubles and Lyddy Lathrop, we do have good 
 times, and there are sights and sounds stored 
 away in our memories that our own frivolity 
 and nonsense would not dim or blur for 
 worlds. And that last hour in the studio that 
 night with the dancing flames now illuminat 
 ing the story of Mowgli and Shere Khan as if 
 Mowgli indeed were waving the red flower at 
 us, and now sending black shadows over the
 
 78 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 mysterious wild creatures of that wonder for 
 est, while the music from the great organ went 
 thrilling over all, is one which should be 
 marked with a white stone.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 WHAT HAPPENED AT SHERRY S 
 
 BEE S toleration of Lyddy was, to those 
 of us who know her best, something 
 wonderful. 
 
 One evening while things were still in this 
 unsettled state Bee came in and said abruptly : 
 
 " Wherever you and Aubrey are going to 
 night, you ve got to take me. I left Lyddy 
 standing in the doorway of our apartments, 
 hurling remarks after me that if I d stayed to 
 listen to, I would have answered in kind and 
 she would have had me where she wants me." 
 
 " We are going to be very gay to-night," 
 I said. " Aubrey delivered his revised MS. 
 to-day and got the rest of his advance royalty, 
 so we are going to dine down-town and go to 
 the theatre." 
 
 "May I come?" asked Bee. 
 
 " Why certainly, child ! You didn t think I 
 was telling you that in order to excite your 
 envy, did you? " 
 
 " We ll be glad to have you, Bee," said the 
 Angel. And at that Bee looked pleased. 
 79
 
 8o The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " What has the old lady been up to now? " 
 I asked cheerfully. " Come on upstairs while 
 I dress." 
 
 " Doesn t it sound funny to say, come up 
 stairs in a New York apartment? " said Bee, 
 following me and curling herself up on the bed 
 while I mussed my hair going down on all 
 fours on my closet floor to get my best hat box. 
 
 " Here, let me fix your hair for you," she 
 said as I emerged red, hot and vexed. 
 
 " No, nobody can touch my hair without 
 making my hairpins pull. You always stick a 
 hairpin straight in, as though you thought my 
 head was soft." 
 
 " Not soft, exactly," said Bee politely. 
 " Only spongy." 
 
 "Tell about Lyddy and let me alone!" I 
 said. 
 
 " Well, to-day I caught her reading my 
 letters ! " 
 
 " For Heaven s sake ! " 
 
 " And that is why she turned on me and 
 said things ! " continued Bee. 
 
 "Look here, Bee. Why do you stand it? 
 I wouldn t!" 
 
 " Oh, yes, you would for all that I mean 
 to get by it. I ll stand a whole lot more than 
 that. Besides " 
 
 " Well, what? Don t stop in such an irritat-
 
 What Happened at Sherry s 8 1 
 
 ing way just when you ve got to something 
 which sounds interesting," I cried, tumbling 
 up my top drawer for a clean pair of gloves 
 which were mates. 
 
 " Well, Hope Loring told me that Laflin 
 once advised her to cultivate patience with the 
 little things of life, and it struck me at the time 
 that all I ever get wild about are little things. 
 Now like Lyddy s reading my letters. That 
 isn t much after all, is it? " 
 
 I turned and looked at her. 
 
 " Let me feel your pulse, Bee. You ll die 
 if you keep on getting holy at this swift pace. 
 For my part, I consider that the old cat did 
 an awful thing. Think what she might have 
 found!" 
 
 " Not at all," said Bee. " All the important 
 letters are locked up ! " 
 
 At that I fell over on my bureau. Bee 
 didn t care much to see me laugh. She hates 
 to make that kind of a hit with me. 
 
 " I might have known," I said wagging my 
 head, " that such a holy frame of mind re 
 ferred to catching Lyddy reading tailors 
 announcements and fingering samples ! " I 
 said. 
 
 " You are such an idiot ! " observed my 
 sister feelingly. 
 
 Just here the Angel called us, and with a
 
 82 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 final snatch at the powder box, we hurried 
 down. 
 
 It was a clear, starry night and we had the 
 proud consciousness of having left none of 
 our good clothes at home. 
 
 "Whither are we bound?" asked Bee, as 
 Aubrey led the way to our waiting taxi, (a 
 luxury permitted by the advance), which we 
 hadn t been able to afford for nearly a year. 
 
 " Where would you like to go, Bee? " asked 
 the Angel, with a twinkle at me, reminding me 
 of Bee s violet ways. 
 
 " Why," said Bee, pausing as if in uncer 
 tainty, " wouldn t Sherry s be satisfactory to 
 all of us?" 
 
 " Sherry s ! " said Aubrey to the chauffeur. 
 
 " Oh, but," said Bee, politely, as the Angel 
 followed us in, " you didn t ask Faith. Possi 
 bly you would have preferred to go to the 
 Plaza or " 
 
 " Not at all," I said. " I don t care where 
 we go." 
 
 I thought I detected a gleam of subdued 
 excitement in Bee s manner as we entered 
 Sherry s and swept down the room, but as I 
 saw no reason for it, I thought I must have 
 been mistaken. 
 
 Aubrey found a good table reserved and
 
 What Happened at Sherry s 83 
 
 we seated ourselves, extremely well pleased 
 with the world. 
 
 The table next ours had an air of expect 
 ancy which attracted our attention, and as is 
 usual with us, when we are interested, from 
 the time the party entered who were to sit 
 there, we spoke but little to each other, but, 
 within the limits of tolerable breeding not 
 the best, but good enough we listened and 
 observed them, for the women at least were 
 there for that purpose. 
 
 They came in with an air of anticipation 
 which showed that some of them at least were 
 unused to dining in a public restaurant, and 
 it presently transpired that the girl in white 
 had never ordered a dinner and this was to 
 be her chance. 
 
 Our table was next theirs, as I have said, and 
 while Aubrey studied the menu, Bee and I had 
 time to observe our neighbours. 
 
 There were six of them. One Girl in 
 White, one Girl in Blue and a Woman in Pink. 
 One Silly Ass, one Gibson Man and one 
 Family Man, whose wife evidently was out of 
 town and who plainly was invited at the last 
 moment to fill up. 
 
 It was a party incongruous enough to be 
 interesting from the start, and before they had 
 been seated ten minutes, I remarked to Bee
 
 84 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 that I was going to have the time of my life, 
 and she nodded without speaking, she was so 
 afraid she would miss something. 
 
 The Silly Ass at first gave no reason for his 
 existence. I could not find an excuse for his 
 living at all. The Gibson Man exhibited a 
 patience born of long experience with women, 
 while the Family Man bullied the waiter, just 
 to show that he was master of the present 
 situation, from which I deduced the fact that 
 he was henpecked at home. No one stoops 
 to bully a servant, who is not trying to get 
 even for some sort of domestic tyranny which 
 he is unable to remedy. 
 
 The Gibson Man was evidently host, and 
 the Woman in Pink the chaperon. For this 
 reason, and apparently no other, the Family 
 Man exclaimed loudly : 
 
 " Let s have a round of cocktails first ! " 
 
 Aubrey looked at me, and murmured, 
 
 " His wife evidently doesn t allow him to 
 drink!" 
 
 I motioned him to silence and boldly went 
 on observing. 
 
 The Gibson Man looked uncomfortable. 
 
 " I have never had a cocktail," cried the 
 Girl in White. 
 
 " Oh, then you must have one," exclaimed
 
 What Happened at Sherry s 85 
 
 the Girl in Blue. " It makes you feel so nice 
 and wobbly in the elbow joints ! " 
 
 " Well, neither of you girls is going to feel 
 nice and wobbly in the elbow joints while / 
 am above ground ! " said the Woman in Pink, 
 decidedly. Whereat the Gibson Man drew a 
 sigh of relief, and turned to the menu card. 
 
 " What shall we have? " he said to the Girl 
 in White. " As this is your first experience, 
 suppose you order the dinner ? " 
 
 He was evidently not looking for trouble. 
 He seemed simply to want to give her pleasure. 
 
 Aubrey looked at me and grinned. Then 
 he wrote five items silently and swiftly on a 
 little pad and handed it to our waiter, whose 
 face lighted as he read its concise orders, and 
 with a muttered: " Bien, monsieur!" he dis 
 appeared. 
 
 " Oh, I should simply love to ! " squealed 
 the Girl in White. Then turning to the Girl 
 in Blue, she said : " Now, what do you like ? 
 I am going to order to suit everybody ! " 
 
 " I am afraid you will find that rather diffi 
 cult," said the chaperon, who seemed hungry. 
 Then turning to the Gibson Man, she said: 
 " Just because I won t let the girls have cock 
 tails, there is no reason why you three men 
 shouldn t have them ! "
 
 86 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " Good work," said the Silly Ass. " A dry 
 Martini for me, old chap ! " 
 
 The Gibson Man whispered to the Woman 
 in Pink, but she shook her head and motioned 
 toward the girls. 
 
 The Family Man decided on a Manhattan 
 cocktail, and the Gibson Man wrote them 
 down with an order of Scotch and Soda for 
 himself, and let the waiter go. 
 
 " Now," said the Girl in White, " how 
 would it do to begin on oysters?" 
 
 " I hate oysters. Make it little neck clams, 
 for me," said the Girl in Blue. 
 
 " How many want oysters ? " cried the Girl 
 in White. " Hold up your hands. Three for 
 oysters and three for clams! Now that s all 
 right. Will you write it down?" she begged 
 of the Gibson Man. " You write and we ll 
 suggest." 
 
 " Now a soup ! Cream or bouillon ? " 
 
 " I like thick soups best, but they do take 
 away your appetite ! " said the chaperon. 
 " How about a chicken broth in cups?" 
 
 " Or a Petite Marmite? " said the Silly Ass. 
 
 " Or a green turtle? " said the Family Man. 
 
 " I believe I ll change my order of oysters 
 to clams ! " cried the Girl in White, suddenly. 
 The Gibson Man gravely made the change. 
 
 " Now about soup ? " he said tentatively.
 
 What Happened at Sherry s 87 
 
 The waiter reappeared with the cocktails, 
 and the Family Man proposed the health of 
 the ladies. 
 
 " To you ! " murmured the Silly Ass to the 
 Woman in Pink. She looked at the Gibson 
 Man and they both smiled. 
 
 "About the soup?" suggested the Family 
 Man. 
 
 " Would green turtle suit everybody ? " 
 asked the chaperon. It had made her a little 
 nervous to see that we had finished our oys 
 ters and were eating our fish. 
 
 After a little demur, they decided on three 
 for green turtle and three for chicken broth in 
 cups. 
 
 " Now fish ! " cried the Girl in White. " Is 
 anybody going to deny me a broiled lob 
 ster?" 
 
 " A broiled lobster as a fish course ! " cried 
 the chaperon. " My dear, think a moment ! " 
 
 " I do think ! I am thinking ! I never do 
 anything but think what I want to eat in a 
 restaurant, and I never can get anybody to 
 join me in a lobster! Sometimes they won t 
 even let me order one ! " 
 
 " Well, you are going to have one right 
 now," said the Gibson Man, earnestly. " And 
 I ll join you, just to show that I approve your 
 taste ! "
 
 88 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 The girl s face brightened and the chaperon 
 looked appreciatively at the Gibson Man. 
 
 " I think that was lovely of him," I mur 
 mured to Aubrey, but Aubrey only smiled as he 
 handed me the sauce tartare. But Bee, for 
 some inexplicable reason, blushed. 
 
 " How would broiled Spanish mackerel 
 do?" suggested the Family Man. 
 
 " I adore planked shad all but the bones," 
 said the Woman in Pink. " But I ll go in for 
 the mackerel if the girls want it." 
 
 It was finally decided to order bluefish. 
 
 The waiter stood on the other foot. 
 
 "Any wine, sir?" he suggested deferen 
 tially. " I might be ordering it, sir." 
 
 "May they have champagne?" asked the 
 Gibson Man in a low tone. As the Woman 
 in Pink hesitated, he murmured, " Why deny 
 yourself everything, just because you are the 
 chaperon ? " 
 
 At this she weakened and he wrote down a 
 champagne. The waiter took on a new lease 
 of life as he trotted away to fill the order. 
 
 " What do girls like for meat? " asked the 
 Family Man, an eagerness for food beginning 
 to glitter in his eye. Aubrey glanced at him 
 sympathetically as our waiter deftly slipped 
 portions of peas to keep company with the 
 broiled chicken on our plates.
 
 What Happened at Sherry s 89 
 
 " Oh, are rice birds in season ? " exclaimed 
 the Girl in Blue. 
 
 " Rice birds ? " exclaimed the Family Man 
 involuntarily. 
 
 " I am afraid they are not in season," said 
 the Gibson Man evenly. " How would quail 
 do or snipe ? " 
 
 " Could I have roast beef? " demanded the 
 Family Man. 
 
 " We might all have it after the birds," sug 
 gested the Woman in Pink. 
 
 That remark alone showed that she was 
 married. Such tact in catering to a man s ap 
 petite does not go, as a rule, with the spinster 
 estate. 
 
 " Quail, then," decided the Girl in White, 
 " and instead of roast beef for me, chicken in 
 those queer things you know all stewed 
 up with an odd tasting sauce and cooked in a 
 queer sort of bowl what do you call em ? " 
 
 " Chicken en casserole," translated the 
 chaperon. 
 
 The Gibson Man wrote patiently and the 
 waiter suggested serving the champagne. 
 
 The Gibson Man looked up inquiringly, and 
 moved by the thirsty appeal in the eyes of the 
 two men, the Woman in Pink said : 
 
 " Yes, do let him ! " and then bit her lip to 
 keep from laughing. " But first send him
 
 90 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 along with as much of the order as has been 
 decided on, for Heaven s sake ! " she added. 
 The waiter was accordingly dispatched. The 
 lines of anguish smoothed a trifle from his 
 brow, and he started on a trot. 
 
 The Girl in White had been studying her 
 menu. Suddenly she put out her hand. 
 
 " Oh, wait ! Has he gone ? Call him back ! 
 I want to change my order. I see something 
 here that I would like much better than quail 
 I " 
 
 The chaperon reared her crest. 
 
 " It s too late now, dear! " she said evenly. 
 " Keep that for another time. I ll bring you 
 here some day for luncheon and then we ll 
 come early and take simply hours to decide! " 
 
 " Oh, you love ! " cried the Girl in White, 
 reaching out and pressing her hand ecstatic 
 ally. 
 
 The waiter came hurrying back with the 
 oysters and clams. He was plainly nervous. 
 It was already half past eight and we were 
 having our salad. 
 
 Take those clams away ! " cried the Fam 
 ily Man rudely. " I said oysters. Can t you 
 remember a little thing like that ? You ve had 
 time enough to learn the order by heart ! " 
 
 " I beg pardon," said the unfortunate menial 
 humbly.
 
 What Happened at Sherry s 91 
 
 The man fairly gobbled his oysters. 
 
 " How disgusting of him ! " I murmured to 
 Aubrey. 
 
 " Not in the least," he answered me. " The 
 fellow may be uncouth, but he has my sympa 
 thy. He had his cocktail exactly fifty minutes 
 ago and they have been talking food ever 
 since. At present I am wracked with anxiety 
 to know whether they will decide on hot or 
 cold artichokes, or whether it will be aspara 
 gus. Listen ! " 
 
 We listened. We couldn t help it. This 
 was better than a one-act play and we didn t 
 care if we missed the curtain raiser. 
 
 " Would you like cheese with your salad, or 
 after the sweets? " asked the Gibson Man, and 
 his tone was as courteous as it had been when 
 they began to order just an hour before. 
 
 " I d like it after," said the Girl in White. 
 
 " And you? " he asked the men. 
 
 " With ! " snapped the Family Man. " May 
 that fool bring the soup ? " 
 
 At a sign the waiter sprang forward. The 
 girls were still toying with their clams. 
 
 "Oh, wait a minute! Don t hurry us!" 
 cried the Girl in Blue. " Aren t these clams 
 perfect darlings! " 
 
 " I wish I were a clam! " sighed the Silly 
 Ass.
 
 92 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " So do I ! " growled the Family Man. 
 " I d eat one your size with pleasure! " 
 
 " Oh, I hope you aren t as hungry as that ! " 
 cried the Girl in White. " Have I been slow 
 in ordering? You see I have had no experi 
 ence. And it has been such fun ! " 
 
 " You have not been too slow ! " lied the 
 Gibson Man nobly. " Just tell me what sort 
 of an ice you like, and then we are through 
 with this part." 
 
 " Oh, anything very sweet and rich and 
 done up in cute little paper boxes ! " cried the 
 Girl in Blue. 
 
 For the first time the Gibson Man looked 
 helpless. He shot a glance of appeal at 
 the waiter, who bent and murmured in his 
 ear. 
 
 " Nesselrode pudding might please her taste, 
 sir!" 
 
 "Hold your tongue!" cried the Family 
 Man. " Don t suggest a thing until your help 
 is asked. The officiousness of some of these 
 waiters is insufferable f " 
 
 " I wished him to translate," said the Gib 
 son Man coldly. The Woman in Pink sent 
 the Family Man as settling a glance as if she 
 had been his wife. Evidently he understood 
 the quality of it, for he shrank visibly. 
 
 Aubrey carefully took the sugar from his
 
 What Happened at Sherry s 93 
 
 coffee cup before the waiter could pour his 
 coffee. 
 
 " That woman is masterly in her manage 
 ment of men," he observed to me. " I like her 
 generalship." 
 
 " Oh, couldn t I have a Peche Melba instead 
 of a nesselrode pudding?" asked the Girl in 
 White. " My sister had one once and she 
 said it was the best thing she ever tasted. She 
 told me to be sure to try one the very first 
 chance I got. May I ? " 
 
 " Most certainly. And now with coffee that 
 will do!" 
 
 The Gibson Man handed the waiter the pad 
 and leaned back in his chair. He managed to 
 look at his watch. It was ten minutes to nine 
 and the waiter was bringing us our bill. 
 
 The Woman in Pink touched the Gibson 
 Man s arm with her fan. 
 
 " I think it was very nice of you," she said. 
 " It is so difficult to please everybody, but you 
 seem to have achieved it." 
 
 His face lighted s under her words. 
 
 " Thank you," he said. " I hope I have 
 succeeded." 
 
 We rose to go, and the last thing we heard 
 as we passed out was the voice of the Girl in 
 White: 
 
 " Oh, do call the waiter back ! I ve seen
 
 94 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 something here I d so much rather have 
 than " 
 
 As we passed their table, I was rendered 
 speechless by seeing Aubrey bow to the Gibson 
 Man, and as I stepped off of Bee s train, after 
 she had shot me a look such as I hope she used 
 to give James, I saw that it was Laflin Van 
 Tassel. 
 
 Then the secret of Bee s silence and blush 
 was out. 
 
 " Did you know who it was all the time? " 
 I whispered. 
 
 " Of course. Didn t you see Aubrey bow? " 
 
 " No, I didn t. I don t know what I could 
 have been about," I said regretfully. 
 
 You were looking at the menu, dear," 
 said the Angel. " He waited as long as he 
 could to bow to you, but finally gave it up. He 
 sat with his back to you." 
 
 " I never should have known him," I de 
 clared. " He is as handsome as the Hermes ! " 
 
 Bee was walking at my side in an unusua 1 
 silence. Aubrey was smiling. 
 
 " By the way, Bee, how is Hope? " he said 
 suddenly. 
 
 " She is very well and terribly busy with 
 the last of her trousseau." 
 
 Aubrey managed to whisper to me. 
 
 " Bee must have learned from Hope that
 
 What Happened at Sherry s 95 
 
 Laflin was dining here to-night. Don t start! 
 She ll see you! " 
 
 " I wonder who that woman with him is," 
 said Bee. 
 
 I looked at her, but she seemed unaware 
 that her observation was at all illuminating. 
 Suddenly she looked up at me : 
 
 " Do you see now what he means by pa 
 tience with the little things of life? " said Bee. 
 " Weren t those girls enough to drive any 
 sensible man insane?" 
 
 "Do you see him often?" I asked irrele 
 vantly. 
 
 She looked at me in surprise. 
 
 " I don t know him at all," she said with a 
 note of regret in her voice I was not slow to 
 observe. It seemed strange to know that Bee 
 wanted anything she couldn t get. 
 
 " I had only seen his photograph," she 
 added. " They are all very proud of him." 
 
 I at once began to wonder if we couldn t 
 ask him on one of our Happy Family excur 
 sions. If not, I knew what I could do. Ask 
 him to dinner! 
 
 But Bee ! To think of it. 
 
 Well, as usual, she had selected her victim 
 with unerring judgment. 
 
 I looked at her critically and was glad that 
 she had at least got as far as mauve.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 BOB S ENGAGEMENT 
 
 OUR apartment backs up to a theatrical 
 boarding house and from our win 
 dows we can see literally into the 
 lives of that busy hive of people, everyone of 
 whom " does something." 
 
 We can hear certain things also. There is 
 a pathetic little hunchback on the third floor 
 east who plays the cello so that he makes me 
 shiver with joy. Into the low, vibrating tones 
 of that instrument he pours out all his emo 
 tions, all that he longs for, all that he has 
 missed in life through his infirmity, all that 
 he has hoped to achieve. We know more of 
 that man s inner life than he dreams. He loves 
 the sound of our big organ too, for whenever 
 the windows are open on mild evenings, he 
 comes and listens. 
 
 Then there is the Nice Girl on the fourth 
 floor. I call her the nice girl, although she is 
 so pretty she might well be called a beauty, 
 because everything she does is so self-respect 
 ing yet so pathetic. We can look down into 
 96
 
 Bob s Engagement 97 
 
 her room but can only see her when she comes 
 close to the windows. 
 
 She must be bitterly poor, for sometimes she 
 will not go down to her meals for a day or 
 two at a time. She must creep out after dark 
 and buy bread and milk and the like, because 
 we can see her heating things in a tin cup over 
 the gas jet by the window, and her bottle of 
 milk stands out on the ledge every day. 
 
 Then she has regular laundry days when 
 on a line strung across her room she hangs 
 up things to dry, and she irons her handker 
 chiefs by pasting them on the window panes 
 while they are wet. 
 
 I mention these things, not because they are 
 interesting in themselves, but because they 
 become so, when done by a girl so pretty and 
 graceful and dainty as my nice girl seems. 
 She folds everything with such neatness. She 
 brushes her skirts and her long lovely hair 
 with equal regularity and care. She goes 
 down into the tiny backyard with a container 
 of gasoline and washes her white serge things 
 and re-trims her two hats until you would 
 think she had six, and every day she emerges 
 with such an air of freshness that if we 
 couldn t see all these things, we would imag 
 ine her to be in the flower of prosperity. 
 
 Now and then we meet her at the entrance
 
 98 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 to the Subway, and I am always looking for an 
 opportunity to speak to her, because I am anx 
 ious to know her well enough to ask her to 
 dinner. She would never know that our wish 
 for her society was largely augmented by the 
 sight of the wretched little tin cups held over 
 the gas jet. 
 
 " If only I could rig up a little pulley from 
 our window to hers," I said to Aubrey, " how 
 sweet it would be to pack a small basket with 
 tiny dabs of the nice things left over, which 
 are always too good to throw away and send it 
 whizzing down to her window." 
 
 " You ve always regretted that we didn t 
 have a cat to eat up the left overs," said Au 
 brey. " You hate to waste food." 
 
 " It isn t that," I said wistfully. " I do 
 really feel as if it would be so nice to help a 
 sweet, high spirited girl like that. I tell you, 
 Aubrey, New York has thousands of girls in 
 it, who are starving along just as this girl is, 
 yet who never complain. Did you ever think 
 of it?" 
 
 " Many a time. And I respect them for 
 their reticence. They all have hard luck 
 stories, but they never tell them." 
 
 " Hard luck stories are most impressive 
 when they are not told, I have observed," I 
 said, and Aubrey nodded.
 
 Bob s Engagement 99 
 
 " She ought to marry a rich man, if things 
 went right in this world which they never 
 do, except in your stories," I added. 
 
 We had been in our apartment over a 
 month, but as yet Bob Mygatt had not been 
 to see either us or it. We had several times 
 been out with him in Jimmie s motor, but in 
 some way he had been prevented from com 
 ing to us, so that when the Angel said pres 
 ently he had to work on his play to-night, but 
 that Bob had said he was coming up, I was 
 both surprised and pleased, for I was anxious 
 to hear the details of his engagement, and 
 something told me that this was to be my op 
 portunity. 
 
 And so it proved, for no sooner had Aubrey 
 apologized and gone into Munson s empty 
 studio to work, than Bob leaned his elbows on 
 his knees, dropped his face in his hands and 
 said: 
 
 " Well, Highness, I want to tell you the 
 whole thing and get your advice ! " 
 
 " I am at your service, Bob, and very much 
 interested, as you must know," I answered. 
 
 " I do know," he returned gratefully, rais 
 ing his head and looking at me with those 
 eyes of his, in a way that made me obliged in 
 stantly to recall the fact that he always looked
 
 IOO The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 at Lyddy in the same way, as well as that I 
 was married. 
 
 " Well, if you knew her you would un 
 derstand the whole thing without a word. 
 I ve loved her for two years and I believe she 
 loves me, but - 
 
 " Get to the point, Bob ! How can I under 
 stand anything when you wander on like that. 
 Take for granted that I know you are dead in 
 love with each other and get on, do ! " 
 
 Bob grinned. 
 
 " You are a tonic, ladybird," he said. Oh, 
 how wild it does make Aubrey and Jimmie to 
 hear Bob call any of us those names! But 
 you can no more prevent Bob s doing it than 
 you can prevent the wind from blowing. They 
 belong to his Irish tongue as though they had 
 grown there. 
 
 " Well ! Ava, as I told you, is a walking 
 conscience. She has Ideals. She does Right. 
 And she holds no converse with Wrong. As 
 you know, she has a voice like a nightingale, 
 but she can no more act than a milking stool, 
 and it shows how much I love her when I tell 
 you that, knowing she might ruin my piece, I 
 still stipulated that she should sing the part 
 of Allie Gayter, when I signed the contract." 
 
 He paused for my applause and I gave it. 
 
 " That was fine of you, Bob," I said, and he
 
 Bob s Engagement 101 
 
 beamed. " But I really don t see how you 
 could very well have done any less ! " 
 
 He looked surprised and a trifle dashed. 
 
 " Because marriage is a partnership and you 
 have got to do things like that all your life. 
 One can t soar off and leave the other to 
 grovel. The soarer must haul the laggard 
 along." 
 
 " True ! " he said and sighed. It apparently 
 was new to this man, whom women had always 
 spoiled, to do generous and unselfish things, 
 and it was still more disquieting to realize that 
 he must continue to do them and to see them 
 taken as a matter of course. 
 
 " Well, she learned the part and came on to 
 New York last month to rehearse. She lives 
 just back of you in the 
 
 " Is she tall and willowy, with blue eyes 
 and light brown hair, and does she live in a 
 back room on the fourth floor ? " I cried with 
 pardonable excitement. 
 
 Bob looked up in surprise. 
 
 " Why, of course. You can see right down 
 into her windows, can t you? " he said. " Let s 
 look." 
 
 We flew to the big studio window, opened 
 the door of it and leaned out. I felt no fear 
 of catching her in an embarrassing negligee 
 because, from the precautions she always took,
 
 IO2 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 I knew that she was aware of the outlook from 
 the five upper floors of our big building. 
 
 " Listen ! " he said quickly. " She is sing- 
 ing!" 
 
 Then there rose on the still, cool night the 
 sounds of the Intermezzo from the Cavaleria 
 Rusticana played on the cello of the little 
 hunchback, and Ava was singing the Ave 
 Maria to it, in a voice of such sweetness and 
 purity that I caught my breath in delighted 
 surprise. 
 
 We listened until the end came and then 
 hopefully waited for more, but evidently some 
 one else below us was listening also, for a 
 foolish hand clapping arose and then came the 
 sound of a window closing. 
 
 Bob turned away. 
 
 " That ends it. She will sing no more. 
 Wouldn t you think any fool would know bet 
 ter than to applaud music like that, expecting 
 to get more? Now if it had been rag time 
 and they had clapped, they would have had 
 another. But Ava singing that Ave Maria! 
 Who was that playing? " 
 
 " It was a poor, pathetic looking little 
 hunchback, whose room is just under hers," I 
 replied. 
 
 " I know. I ve heard her rave about him.
 
 Bob s Engagement 103 
 
 She says his music gets into her heart. I m 
 glad he is a hunchback ! " 
 
 " Bob ! " I expostulated. 
 
 " You know what I mean ! I mean I m glad 
 she couldn t possibly fall in love with him." 
 
 " She could if she wanted to," I said cruelly. 
 " He is not objectionable to look at and his 
 face is perfectly beautiful." 
 
 " Ava likes tall men," said Bob straighten 
 ing himself. 
 
 "I I wish you would bring her to see 
 me," I said, diffidently, not wishing to tell Bob 
 of the poverty which she evidently had con 
 cealed from him. 
 
 " I don t know whether I have any influence 
 with her now," he said gloomily. 
 
 " Well," I said patiently, " if you would 
 ever get on with your story, I might know 
 what you are talking about." 
 
 " It s not much when all told. Simply that 
 the manager wanted me to introduce more 
 lyrics into my piece you know The Alliga 
 tor Pear Tree is one of these farce comedy 
 things with songs interpolated. Well, I 
 couldn t seem to suit them with anything of 
 my own, so I had some songs sent in from 
 aspiring young authors, and two of them were 
 rotten in themselves, but they gave me just
 
 104 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 the idea I wanted. So I sent the songs back 
 and wrote some new lyrics, with different 
 metre and rhymes and all that, so that it was 
 practically my stuff, and ran them in. The 
 manager liked them and everything went all 
 right till Ava looked them over. Then she 
 refused to sing them. She knew I had sent 
 back the songs and she kicked up a sort of 
 a fuss about that got kind o maudlin over 
 the disappointment it would be to the author 
 to see em come home to roost. But when she 
 found that I had used the same idea, although 
 she realized that it was in a different form, 
 there was simply the devil to pay. You d have 
 thought that she had discovered that I had 
 slain my aged grandmother and walled up her 
 remains. She said things until I got mad and 
 left the rehearsal." 
 
 " Did she ask you to take them out?" 
 
 " No. She asked me to pay the other fel 
 low for the use of his brains ! " 
 
 " Then what did she do when you re 
 fused?" 
 
 " She resigned her part. Actually gave up 
 for a scruple, the thing she has wanted to do all 
 her life!" 
 
 I knew now why she was cooking things 
 over her gas jet. 
 
 " Well, what are you going to do? " I asked.
 
 Bob s Engagement 105 
 
 " I don t know. You tell me ! " 
 
 " I can t advise you until I know which 
 you care most to keep your love or your 
 pride." 
 
 " I want the girl. I want my Ava ! " 
 
 " Then buy those songs and write her that 
 you have paid for them. Can she still have the 
 part if she should want it?" 
 
 " Yes, I think so. The rehearsals have been 
 awfully interrupted and delayed. And they 
 don t find it easy to get anyone with the pecul 
 iar high voice that some of the songs need. 
 You see I wrote them especially to exploit her 
 voice." 
 
 " Then act at once and see what comes of 
 it." 
 
 " Is that your advice? Can t you think of 
 any other way? " 
 
 " No, and it will be good for you, Bobbie, 
 to have to choke down just that unpalatable 
 piece of humble pie. You know you are pretty 
 badly spoiled and you wear a haughty crest." 
 
 "Can t you think of anything else? Any 
 thing quite different? " 
 
 " Yes, one thing radically different," I said. 
 
 " What is it? " he said brightening. 
 
 " Marry Lyddy ! " I cried, laughing. " Why, 
 Bob, you are actually blushing! How 
 funny!"
 
 106 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " I ll think over your advice," he said, ris 
 ing and holding out his hand. 
 
 "My last?" 
 
 " No, your first. Don t disturb the old man. 
 Tell him I said Good luck to him. I hope 
 his play will be a success ! " 
 
 And with that he was gone. 
 
 Two days later I was surprised by a call 
 from the nice girl. 
 
 " You won t think it strange, my coming 
 this way, will you ? " she said. And as I 
 hastily reassured her I saw that she was pret 
 tier than ever at close range. 
 
 " Not at all. I ve often wanted to write 
 you ! " I said smiling. 
 
 " Why, can you see me too? " she said go 
 ing toward the window. 
 
 " Can you see us ? " I cried following her. 
 
 " Oh, I know quite a good deal about you! " 
 she said, laughing. " You won t let your hus 
 band smoke his pipe in your apartment. He 
 smokes out of the Munsons bathroom win 
 dow ! " 
 
 " When he smokes a vile pipe, he does," I 
 said firmly. " Now you will stay to lunch 
 with me so that we can have a good talk, won t 
 you?" 
 
 As we reached the window we both looked 
 put. Her poor little gas-jet was in plain sight
 
 Bob s Engagement 107 
 
 with the tin cup still standing on its little iron 
 ring. Her face flushed crimson and she 
 caught her lip between her teeth. 
 
 " Thank you, but I have just had my lunch," 
 she said proudly. But a quick glance showed 
 a quivering chin. 
 
 I felt the blood go prickly in my veins, for 
 it was barely twelve o clock. But she turned 
 away, and as we sat down I could see that she 
 had conquered her feeling of chagrin and was 
 herself again. 
 
 " I have often wanted to know you, even 
 before I knew who you were," she began. 
 Then when a note came from Bob, saying 
 that you wanted him to bring me to call, I 
 knew that he had been here and consulted you 
 about our affairs and that he was acting under 
 orders." 
 
 " Oh, no! " I cried. " I only suggested." 
 
 " What did you suggest? " 
 
 " I suggested that he marry another 
 woman ! " 
 
 She laughed and flushed a little, delicately. 
 
 " And did that have the desired effect ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " Its flash lighted his pathway for a mo 
 ment showed him where to step, so to 
 speak," I answered. 
 
 She mused a moment in silence.
 
 lo8 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " I knew you could understand," she said. 
 " And as I couldn t I simply couldn t talk 
 to Bob or to you before him, I decided to come 
 and see you alone." 
 
 As she evidently expected no response, I 
 made none, and presently she said abruptly, 
 
 " What do you think of Bob? " 
 
 " Just about what you think, only in a lesser 
 degree. I am not in love with him, but I rec 
 ognize his fascination and his faults." 
 
 " Exactly. And his faults are terrible. But 
 after all, I cannot forget the rest. He fas 
 cinates me with his odd, funny ways and his 
 frank, open love making until I feel as if 
 
 " I know. You feel as if you could almost 
 follow him through the streets like a dog! 
 It s odd how such no-account chaps can be so 
 hypnotic! " I exclaimed. 
 
 She laughed delightedly. 
 
 "You do understand him!" she cried. 
 " Now I have no sense of humour, Bob says, 
 yet I don t agree with him on that point, for 
 when he sits on the floor at my side and looks 
 up at me and and says things, I love him 
 with all my heart, yet I feel the ridiculousness 
 of his calling me lady bird and highness 
 and white princess and words that he saves 
 for me alone. Now isn t that having a sense 
 of humour? "
 
 Bob s Engagement 109 
 
 I simply stared at her a moment. Then I 
 said vaguely : 
 
 "Er what? What did you say ?" 
 
 " I asked you if that didn t prove that I had 
 a sense of humour? Aren t you listening to 
 me?" 
 
 "Have you known Bob Mygatt long?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " Three or four years, off and on," she an 
 swered. 
 
 " In that time have you seen him much in 
 the company of others ? " 
 
 " No, mostly alone. Then I have had 
 well, I think I must have a ton of letters from 
 him. He writes as easily as he talks. Why 
 do you ask ? " 
 
 " Because well, because, he he carries 
 on with others, you know not seriously 
 but " 
 
 " Oh, I know ! You should see him make 
 love to my mother. She is large and fat, yet 
 Bob sits at her feet and traces resemblances 
 to me in her appearance - yet everybody says 
 I look like father s family until she laughs 
 herself red in the face. And, much to her dis 
 comfiture, he propels himself all over the room 
 in a sitting posture, clasping his knees if he 
 moves. And if she says to him with great 
 severity : Mr. Mygatt, did your mother never
 
 HO The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 teach you manners ? he always says earnestly : 
 No, Mrs. Corliss, she left all that to you ! 
 Then of course it s all over and after that 
 she can t do anything. Secretly she adores 
 him." 
 
 I began to wish the Nice Girl hadn t called. 
 
 " Well, about this trouble between you," I 
 said, hastily changing the subject. " How 
 does it stand now ? " 
 
 " Practically just where it stood before. We 
 are still engaged, but his offering to pay poor 
 Mr. Shupe for those lyrics isn t the trouble. 
 It s because after seeing the way he acted 
 about it, how can I be sure that the rest of 
 The Alligator Pear Tree is his? Do you 
 know, I have never put it into words before, 
 and I hate to now, but Bob Mygatt actually 
 has no conscience! " 
 
 " Do you know what / think is the matter 
 with him? " I said. 
 
 "No, what?" 
 
 " I believe that he actually doesn t know 
 right from wrong when he sees them ! " 
 
 Ava Corliss leaned back in her chair and 
 her hands fell at her sides totally relaxed. 
 
 "That is the truth!" she cried. "That 
 explains everything about him that has ever 
 puzzled me. Yes, that is it. It isn t that he 
 is consciously bad. He simply doesn t know."
 
 Bob s Engagement III 
 
 She half way closed her eyes and thought 
 seriously for a moment. Then she said : 
 
 " That point of view alters everything. I 
 think I see my duty now." 
 
 "Do you always do your duty?" I asked 
 with awe. Duty to me was always the one 
 thing I exercised every faculty to get out of 
 doing. 
 
 " Oh, yes," she said, with an exalted look. 
 "Don t you?" 
 
 " Er oh, yes. Yes, of course," I said, 
 hastily. I remembered just in time that Bob 
 said she had no sense of humour. I began to 
 see why he said so. Her manner after she 
 spoke of duty and the peculiar look in her eyes 
 indicated a faint trace of the fanatic. I re 
 membered, too, what Bob said about her scru 
 ples. 
 
 When luncheon was announced, I begged 
 her again to join me, but she refused with 
 lifted head, and hastily said good-bye. I came 
 back after showing her out, pondering over her 
 unusual beauty and the strangeness of her en 
 gagement to Bob Mygatt. 
 
 The next bulletin came from Bob in the 
 shape of a note. 
 
 " Many thanks for your advice, dearest and 
 best of ladybirds," he wrote. " Everything 
 has come out O. K. I told her I had paid for
 
 112 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 those lyrics and the lie went down her pretty 
 white throat like an ice cream soda on a hot 
 day. But God keep her from ever meeting 
 Shupe. Even if we were married, I believe 
 she d leave me if she ever found out. Ava is 
 still to sing the role of Allie Gayter and we 
 open in New Haven on the I2th. Can t you 
 all make up a party and come up for the pre 
 miere? With dearest love, as ever, Bob." 
 
 " P. S. Of course you know, dear heart 
 of ice, that I am not naturally a villain. I 
 am only drawn into sin by my poverty. I am 
 over ears in debt and couldn t spare a sou for 
 Shupe to save my immortal soul from the 
 devil s frying. So keep my sekert! Bobbie." 
 
 I will own that by this time I was thor 
 oughly startled. Bob liked me, I was sure. 
 I was equally sure that he valued my good 
 opinion. Why, then, should he confess to me 
 that he had deliberately lied to the woman he 
 loved, unless he thought it was no harm and 
 was sure I would agree with him? Didn t 
 this prove that Bob didn t know right from 
 wrong?
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 NAPOLEONIC STRATEGY 
 
 IN my fond but foolish intention of giving 1 
 Bee s affairs a lift by arranging for her 
 to meet the man she had decided to marry, 
 I reckoned without my host. I had forgotten 
 how competent my sister was at managing her 
 own affairs. But I soon had my attention 
 called to the fact by a series of events, small 
 in themselves, yet significant when viewed in 
 their proper sequence and perspective. 
 
 The first was the assiduity with which Bee 
 cultivated Hope Loring s friendship, instead 
 of Sallie Fitzhugh s, who was of her own kind, 
 while the tomboy Hope was decidedly out of 
 my sister s orbit. 
 
 Laflin was Hope s favourite cousin, and 
 those two, with Hope s brother Jermyn were 
 all crazy over athletics, speedy motors and all 
 the forms of active sports which Bee secretly 
 disdained. Therefore, I was once more forced 
 to a reluctant admiration when I discovered 
 that Bee had consulted Mr. Loring, Hope s 
 father, about her affairs, for I at once sus- 
 "3
 
 114 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 pected that she intended to reach Laflin 
 through his interest in his profession. Just 
 how I did not see. But I knew that I should 
 soon discover. 
 
 The next thing I knew we were all invited 
 to Coolmeath to a polo match on the borings 
 private polo grounds. 
 
 Coolmeath was on the Hudson in the Po- 
 cantico Hills, and had been repurchased by 
 Mr. Loring very advantageously for Hope, 
 with her own money made so miraculously 
 during her mysterious illness. 
 
 Although it stood in Hope s name, as was 
 usual with this devoted family, they were all 
 there, with Mrs. Loring at the head of the 
 house, just as she used to be when Coolmeath 
 was theirs before their loss of fortune. 
 
 It was vaguely understood that Hope and 
 Cedric Hamilton would take it over when they 
 were married, but nobody who knew Hope, 
 placed much faith in the rumour, for Hope 
 knew as much about housekeeping as a Mal 
 tese kitten, whereas she was an authority on 
 polo and football and all the heroic accom 
 plishments that a gentleman like herself should 
 practise. 
 
 Jimmie took Bee, the Angel, Mrs. Jimmie 
 and myself in his motor. Lyddy had an en 
 gagement with Bob, so miraculously timed as
 
 Napoleonic Strategy 115 
 
 almost to suggest the hand of Providence or 
 Bee, so we did not have to bother with her. 
 
 When we arrived, we found the Fitzhughs, 
 the Lorings, including Jermyn and his present 
 inamorata, Miss Cynthia Willing, Stony Stew 
 art and his wife and a number of young peo 
 ple, who carried themselves with so much 
 importance we felt that we ought to know 
 them, and were quite humiliated at being 
 obliged to be introduced. 
 
 Laflin Van Tassel had not yet arrived, but 
 was expected, and was bringing with him Mrs. 
 Pakenham and Miss Amy Levering. 
 
 These names told me nothing, but I saw by 
 the way Bee lifted her head and allowed the 
 green in her eyes to supplant the gray, that 
 she knew. I managed to ask her : 
 
 " The chaperon at his dinner at Sherry s," 
 she answered cautiously, without moving her 
 lips, and the one we called the Girl in White. 
 
 " The one who did the ordering? " I whis 
 pered. 
 
 She nodded her head invisibly. 
 
 " I must tell Aubrey. He is still wondering 
 what she wanted to change that last order 
 to!" 
 
 Bee smiled. Then reluctantly she allowed 
 herself to be removed to the polo field. 
 
 The game was delightful. Hope played,
 
 116 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 looking like a pretty boy in her linen divided 
 skirt and her smart brown boots, and Cedric 
 Hamilton and Jermyn and Stony Stewart, all 
 the boys in fact, were worshipful as ever, and 
 even more devoted and tender because of her 
 wretched illness and her plucky recovery. 
 
 I saw Laflin when he came, but there was 
 no opportunity to introduce his party to Bee. 
 
 When the game was over and we all went 
 back to the pergola and the marquee for re 
 freshments, Sallie Fitzhugh happened to say 
 that they were thinking of building, and asked 
 Mrs. Jimmie what her idea of a summer cot 
 tage was. 
 
 As Laflin and Miss Levering had not yet 
 arrived from the polo grounds, there was 
 nothing for Bee to do but listen and join in 
 the discussion, which at first sounded decid 
 edly desultory, because Bee was permitting 
 her attention to wander. 
 
 " Yes," I heard my sister say, " I think you 
 are quite right, Sallie. Go by all means to 
 a spot which has neighbours. What do you 
 want to pioneer for? Why wade in mud while 
 roads are being built? Why wait for lights 
 and telephones to be installed, unless you can t 
 afford to go where luxuries of this sort are 
 already put in? You, fortunately, can afford 
 anything ! "
 
 Napoleonic Strategy 117 
 
 " But Greenacre is very conventional my 
 husband calls it smug." 
 
 " But it is also distinctly fashionable," said 
 Bee. You are sure of your neighbours. The 
 keynote of a proper mode of living has already 
 been struck and the others have had the good 
 taste to chime in." 
 
 " I will admit," said Sallie, " that conven 
 tionality pleases me just as well as it does you, 
 Bee. But lately since we 
 
 " Since you have been seeing so much of 
 the Jimmies," said Bee, with faint scorn, " you 
 have felt ambitious along their lines, have you? 
 I know how it feels. It infects me at times. 
 But I always cross my ringers when I feel the 
 first symptoms. Take my advice, Sallie. Don t 
 you try to be original. You d only end in 
 being queer." 
 
 " I believe you are right," said Sallie, smil 
 ing, " but I wish you would convert Laflin 
 to your point of view. He wants me to build 
 in a tree or under ground, with subterranean 
 passages and tunnels and hanging gardens 
 anything in the world to be different from 
 everybody else. The only trouble would be to 
 find a spot original enough for his originality." 
 
 It is not often that my sister, Mrs. Lathrop, 
 sets a trap, baits it, then deliberately walks 
 into it and hears it snap on her own little paw,
 
 Il8 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 but that is exactly what she had been doing 
 in the last quarter of an hour. 
 
 The expression on her face was w*orth look 
 ing at. She made no reply, but I saw by her 
 rapidly changing countenance, that she was 
 where it would require some of her finest men 
 tal work to extricate herself without showing 
 where the trap had nipped her. 
 
 " Here they come," said Sallie. " Laflin 
 and Amy, absorbed as usual." 
 
 She beckoned to the slowly strolling couple, 
 who quickened their pace and joined us in 
 the pergola. 
 
 The pergola to my mind was the loveliest 
 spot in all Coolmeath. It was covered with 
 climbing roses and honeysuckle, and, except 
 for the bees, who evidently were as partial to 
 its cloying sweetness as I was, it was ideal 
 in its loveliness. 
 
 Personally, however, I am on terms of the 
 most distant politeness with bees, and except 
 for the time when Jimmie s bulldog chased 
 my cat and then carelessly sat down on a bee 
 to cool off, I have never been in sympathy 
 with bees method of drawing attention to 
 themselves. 
 
 That one time, however, justified their ex 
 istence. The bee, I remember, did not go with 
 the dog as he set off on his second heat, which
 
 Napoleonic Strategy 119 
 
 was just as well, for at the rate he was trav 
 elling when he disappeared over the hedge, 
 even the weight of a bee would have been a 
 distinct handicap. 
 
 I mention the occurrence at this point, be 
 cause as Laflin and Amy Levering entered the 
 pergola, a bee flew into her hair and there was 
 some little confusion before Laflin got it out, 
 so that their introduction was very informal, 
 for we were all talking at once, and it was 
 some moments before Sallie brought the con 
 versation back to the building of cottages, 
 which she did by saying : 
 
 " I am sorry to say that we are all against 
 you, Laflin, in your suggestion to branch out 
 and build in an unusual way." 
 
 " I am not surprised," said Laflin, with the 
 young architect s usual weariness in encounter 
 ing conventions, " although I did hope " 
 
 " You did hope that our being relatives, you 
 could bamboozle us," said Norman Fitzhugh, 
 " into being into being " 
 
 " The yellow dog for you to try your in 
 cipient architectural madness on," said Jim- 
 mie. " But they won t any more than I 
 would ! Experiments cost money, son ! " 
 
 "I know! I know!" said Laflin. "It s 
 the same old story. I can get all the work I 
 want, on planning hideously commonplace
 
 I2O The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 houses for people with no imagination, on 
 grounds which are flat and uninteresting. All 
 that most of my clients seem to care for is a 
 strip of beach or golf links. They haven t a 
 soul for the artistic or the odd or the surprises 
 which an imaginative mind can create out of 
 even one acre of land full of rocks and " 
 
 " What Laflin would like," said Hope, 
 " would be for someone to let him build a 
 house on top of a telegraph pole, to be reached 
 by an escalator or an airship! " 
 
 "No!" cried Jermyn, "that wouldn t be 
 sufficiently artistic. He wants to build a castle 
 on a rock in mid ocean, to be reached by all 
 sailing craft and ocean liners. It could be 
 rigged out with wireless, and supplies could 
 be fetched by balloons." 
 
 " Nonsense! " said Laflin. " You make me 
 out a crazy fool! I hope Miss Levering does 
 not believe you! " 
 
 The young man, who was handsome beyond 
 most men, turned and looked at the dainty 
 creature at his side, and I heard Bee s invis 
 ible plumage rustle. 
 
 " I wonder," said my sister slowly, " how 
 much of this she paused and looked di 
 rectly at Laflin and Amy Levering, " nonsense 
 I am to believe! I wonder if I have really 
 found at last " (Her delicate emphasis
 
 Napoleonic Strategy 1 21 
 
 would seem to indicate that she had searched 
 with, oh, such weariness ! over half the world 
 and for many a long and tee-jous year!) " an 
 architect with sufficient soul and imagination 
 to appreciate the possibilities of a piece of 
 property so odd and artistic that I have hith 
 erto been actually afraid to spoil things by 
 planning to utilize its odd beauty instead of 
 subduing it by a modern and conventional 
 building!" 
 
 No less than ten pairs of bewildered eyes 
 were fastened upon my sister as she grace 
 fully delivered this amazing speech. Sallie 
 and Norman Fitzhugh in surprise; Jimmie 
 and I in silent delight, but poor Laflin Van 
 Tassel in the fascinated unbelief of one who 
 fears his ears are deceiving him. He knew 
 Bee s reputation for being a widow with 
 abundant means, and in the ardour of his pro 
 fessional zeal, he visibly detached himself 
 from the girl at his side and edged nearer to 
 my sister. 
 
 " The main feature of the property," Bee 
 went on, " is a huge gray rock, which juts 
 out into the Sound. I want the house built 
 on that. There is a sheer drop of two hundred 
 feet to the sea below. On one side, some 
 straight pines grow on the slope below, so that 
 a veranda built there would let those trees up
 
 122 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 through its floor. On the land side, the 
 ground is as flat as my hand, so that I could 
 have a garden full of old fashioned flowers." 
 (I stole a look at Aubrey just here, remem 
 bering Bee s education from Lady Mary and 
 Sir Wemyss Lombard at Peach Orchard, and 
 the Angel winked at me solemnly.) " But, 
 unless, Mr. Van Tassel, you could be in sym 
 pathy with such an idea, I fear my dream will 
 never be realized." 
 
 " My dear Mrs. er " 
 
 " Lathrop," said Bee, gently, but secretly 
 wild because he had not remembered her 
 name. 
 
 "Pardon me! Mrs. Lathrop," stammered 
 the young architect. "If you would honour 
 me by entrusting such a glorious opportunity 
 to me, I would be I would enjoy simply 
 drawing up the plans of such a place, whether 
 you ever accepted them or not." 
 
 " Oh, but," said Bee, smiling at him slowly, 
 " if you drew them up, as I am sure you could, 
 from all I have heard to-day, I would build 
 and count myself fortunate indeed to secure 
 such an architect." 
 
 " You just bet she would," murmured Jim- 
 mie in my ear. " Isn t Bee a wonder ! Good 
 old Bee ! " 
 
 "How large is the place?" asked Laflin,
 
 Napoleonic Strategy 123 
 
 eagerly. In his preoccupation he turned a 
 little more from Amy Levering-. But my sis 
 ter is never rude unless she wishes to put some 
 upstart in his or her place, so she turned grace 
 fully to the girl and said : 
 
 " I m afraid all this is rather a bore to the 
 young people, isn t it, Miss Levering?" 
 
 " Oh, no ! " exclaimed the girl, smiling re- 
 sponsively. " I am always interested in any 
 thing which tends to make my own country 
 as beautiful as the places abroad." 
 
 Bee moved slightly and Amy came and sat 
 beside her, whereat Laflin frankly planted 
 himself in front of the two and plunged into 
 the subject afresh. 
 
 " I m sure Miss Levering means what she 
 says," said Laflin eagerly. " She is very sin 
 cere." He turned and smiled at the girl in 
 a way which was not lost upon Bee. " How 
 many acres are in your property, Mrs. " 
 
 " I am not sure," said Bee vaguely, " nor 
 could I give you its exact location. I only 
 know that it is miles from a single habitation. 
 There one could be absolutely alone with na 
 ture. And such nature! But if you are really 
 interested if you think you would care to 
 investigate and see if I have overestimated its 
 possibilities, why, I will look the matter up and 
 arrange "
 
 124 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " Arrange for me to go with you some day 
 and see it ? Could you do that, Mrs. er " 
 
 " Lathrop! " prompted Bee with an expres 
 sion in her eyes which would have warned 
 anybody but a fool or a man that his interest 
 in the proposition over the subject of the lady 
 was not exactly making a hit with her. 
 
 " We might go in my motor," pursued Laf- 
 lin. " You say the rock juts out into the sea? 
 You could have two distinct effects one by 
 sea and one by land. I think " his eyes 
 took on a faraway look and for a moment we 
 all knew that we were forgotten. 
 
 But Bee was clever enough to be distinctly 
 pleased. It was sufficient triumph for her so 
 to have aroused his professional interest. She 
 felt that the personal would come later. 
 
 As she glanced at me, she gave me a look 
 which meant : 
 
 " Crude material, but capable of being 
 moulded. Decidedly worth while." 
 
 This message was so distinct that I absent- 
 mindedly answered aloud. 
 
 "So it is!" 
 
 At which she frowned in reproof. 
 
 I looked to see if Miss Levering seemed to 
 object to the way things had gone, but she was 
 frankly enjoying a little talk with Hope and 
 Cedric Hamilton, who were sitting just be-
 
 Napoleonic Strategy 125 
 
 yond and feeding her with strawberries, 
 grown on the Coolmeath estate, and too deli 
 cious for mere words to describe. 
 
 I was glad to see by her sincerity that Miss 
 Levering did not resent her cavalier s present 
 defection, nor the possible desertion it por 
 tended. Evidently, thought I, the devotion, as 
 yet, is entirely on his side. 
 
 This idea must also have been in Bee s mind, 
 because I saw her studying the every move 
 and glance of the young people. 
 
 I will say this for my sister. She might 
 condescend to shift emotional scenery or de 
 flect mental currents, but she is no robber 
 " Bee is no body-snatcher " was the way Jim- 
 mie agreed with me, when I tried to get the 
 idea delicately into his ribald mind. She 
 wouldn t have hurt Amy Levering s feelings 
 for the world. Evidently, however, she came 
 to the same conclusion that I did, for she pro 
 ceeded to retire mentally, of course, fur 
 ther and further from the company and more 
 and more into her captivating personality, and 
 for each step she receded, Laflin took one in 
 advance, until, when the company broke up, 
 they seemed to be doing nicely, thanks. 
 
 It was only Sallie Fitzhugh who allowed 
 herself a sly dig at Bee, for her sudden change 
 of front.
 
 126 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " I am a little surprised at you, Bee. I 
 understood you to say that for me to try to 
 be original would only end in my being queer. 
 Doesn t that remark also apply to you ? " 
 
 Bee smiled, but I, who knew her, realized 
 that she was uncomfortable. Still she had 
 counted the cost before she cast her die. She 
 had been suddenly called upon to choose be 
 tween going flatly back on a statement of opin 
 ion which we all knew was sincere, and the 
 unexpected opportunity of nailing Laflin Van 
 Tassel s millionaire attention by one bold 
 stroke, which might sacrifice the good opinion 
 of a dozen friends, but which kept to the main 
 issue and could scarcely fail to make good. 
 
 Trust our Bee to know her way about. She 
 chose, as usual, unerringly. Friends were 
 very well in their way, but one doesn t every 
 day find a young and handsome millionaire 
 of excellent family, roaming over the plains, 
 simply waiting to be roped, tied and branded. 
 So the friends who were sacrificed, were wit 
 ness to the branding, and dispersed, entertain 
 ing high hopes of also seeing the widow " gen 
 tle " her new property in the most approved 
 plains fashion. 
 
 " Perhaps," said Norman Fitzhugh slyly, 
 " Mrs. Lathrop forgot to cross her fingers this 
 time!"
 
 Napoleonic Strategy 127 
 
 There was nothing malicious in these re 
 marks, for both Norman and Sallie were of 
 Bee s kind and played the game according to 
 the same rules, but I know now, that they 
 then and there tacitly accepted Bee as a cousin, 
 and from that moment realized that Laflin 
 Van Tassel s fate was sealed. In fact, Laflin 
 became engaged to my sister in that very hour, 
 although he himself did not know it then. 
 Bee saved the knowledge to surprise him with. 
 
 From Bee s preoccupation on the way home, 
 I knew something was bearing unusually hard 
 upon her mind, so I left her to wrestle with 
 her problem alone, as I knew she wished, cer 
 tain that she would tell me when she got 
 ready or when she had a use for my help. 
 
 And thus it turned out, for the next time 
 I went to see her, I saw by her determined 
 aspect that her plans were formed and I sus 
 pected that I had arrived upon the eve of 
 battle. 
 
 " Will you kindly tell me," I said with a 
 fine sarcasm which was quite wasted upon her, 
 as most family sarcasm is, " where this won 
 derful piece of property is situated ? Likewise 
 where you expect to get the money to build 
 your wonder-house with? Also what under 
 the shining sun you would do with such a 
 place if you had it you, whose idea of a
 
 128 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 suitable site for a country place, sufficiently 
 isolated to suit your social and sociable needs, 
 is a corner similar to those at 42nd Street and 
 Broadway? " 
 
 " Did you know," was Bee s lucid and ir 
 relevant reply to these spirited questions, 
 " that Bob has got a job with Sysonby and 
 Arsenal? " 
 
 " No, I didn t. Who are they? And what s 
 that got to do with my impassioned re 
 marks ? " 
 
 Bee lifted her head and listened. A triple 
 knock sounded at her door. 
 
 "That s Lyddy!" she whispered. "Go in 
 there and don t make a sound, as you value 
 your life! They are building contractors! 
 Don t you see? " 
 
 She pushed me into her bedroom so hastily 
 that I had no choice. I found myself sitting 
 on her bed and forced to listen, whether I 
 wanted to or not, because the door was 
 open. 
 
 I didn t mind listening, I am free to state, for 
 I was desperately curious. 
 
 " Bee," said Lyddy. " I want to ask you 
 what you know about Bob Mygatt s engage 
 ment? In the first place, is he engaged? " 
 
 " Always ! " said Bee smiling. " Either in 
 something questionable or in marriage!"
 
 Napoleonic Strategy 129 
 
 " Humph ! " said Lyddy. " One means the 
 other generally, if you ask my opinion. Is 
 he engaged to that girl, really?" 
 
 " He says he is," said Bee. " Why? " 
 
 " Oh, nothing. I only wanted to know." 
 
 " She is desperately poor, and it is, in my 
 opinion, a most unsuitable match one which 
 if it takes place, will breed constant trouble and 
 end in a smash-up." 
 
 " What makes you think so? " asked Lyddy 
 hopefully. 
 
 " Because Bob is a born rascal a fas 
 cinating, lovable rascal, who needs a rich 
 wife, one who knows the world and who won t 
 be too hard on him, and not a raw young girl 
 with impossible ideals and a Puritan con 
 science. Bob hates poverty. He hates to be 
 good. It looks to me as if he were held only 
 by her beauty." 
 
 "If that is true," said Lyddy slowly, 
 " something might happen to break it off." 
 
 " It might," admitted Bee cautiously, " if 
 he doesn t marry her suddenly, before any 
 thing could be done, and show up some day 
 with a wife hanging on his arm. It would be 
 just like him." 
 
 Lyddy moaned. But Bee took no notice. 
 
 " I like the boy so well," said Bee, " that 
 I ve often thought I d like to take a hand in
 
 130 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 rescuing him from a painful entanglement. 
 I m sure he would be grateful to me." 
 
 Lyddy moved. I could hear her. 
 
 " Bee," she said. " Bob is very fond of 
 you. He would do almost anything you ad 
 vised." 
 
 " Oh," cried Bee, " I wouldn t take the 
 initiative for anything in the world! Sup 
 pose I could break it off and he should be un 
 happy. Think how he could blame me ! " 
 
 " Of course," said Lyddy hastily, " you 
 couldn t show your hand, but - 
 
 " No," said Bee firmly. " I certainly 
 couldn t. And wouldn t." 
 
 There was silence after this. I could hear 
 Bee moving around. It sounded as if she were 
 dusting things on the mantel. 
 
 " Well, what would you advise ? " asked 
 Lyddy with evident difficulty. 
 
 " Advise whom? Bob? " asked Bee. " Or 
 Ava? Why should I advise either of them? 
 They haven t asked my advice and I certainly 
 wouldn t be so officious as to volunteer it." 
 
 " Advise me ! " bellowed Lyddy, in a sud 
 den burst of self-surrender. " You know 
 about these things! I don t! But I want 
 Bob! Help me, Bee, and I ll I ll do any 
 thing for you ! " 
 
 "Will you sell the Kokomo land?" asked
 
 Napoleonic Strategy 131 
 
 Bee, quickly. " You ve promised to, but 
 you ve never done it." 
 
 " Yes, I will ! If you will help me to get 
 him away from her, I ll place that land on the 
 market." 
 
 " When ? " asked Bee, suspicious of Lyddy s 
 crafty pause. 
 
 "The day I marry Bob Mygatt!" said 
 Lyddy. 
 
 Bee s beaten silence was sufficient evidence 
 of her chagrin. Such a tract of land might 
 take ten years to dispose of, and they both 
 knew it. It shows my sister s self-control that 
 she held her tongue, and gave no hint of her 
 set back. 
 
 "Oh, well," said Bee carelessly. "I will 
 think it over. Possibly I couldn t do any 
 thing anyway. Bob is busy rehearsing Ava 
 for her part in his play and he is crazy over 
 her just at present, on account of her voice, 
 which is wonderful. They may be married 
 now for all we know ! " 
 
 Lyddy fairly howled in her middle-aged 
 agony. 
 
 " Don t do that, Lyddy! " said Bee. " I ll 
 think it over and let you know. I must go 
 now. I want to talk to my sister about 
 making up a party to go up to Bob s premiere 
 in New Haven."
 
 132 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 "Who is making it up?" asked Lyddy 
 quickly. 
 
 " I don t believe it has been decided just 
 how we shall go," said Bee slowly. " Faith 
 is sure to see that / am included, no matter 
 whose party she and Aubrey join." 
 
 "She d ask me too, wouldn t she?" de 
 manded Lyddy. 
 
 " I don t know," said my sister. " Are you 
 and Faith on any better terms than you were 
 when you deliberately made noises so that 
 Aubrey couldn t write, when they visited 
 me?" 
 
 " I wish I hadn t now ! " said Lyddy, 
 honestly. " Say, Bee, if there s any danger 
 of my not being asked, why couldn t you and 
 I make up the party and divide expenses ? " 
 
 " Because," said my sister evenly, " I see 
 no particular reason for such an unnecessary 
 outlay on my part." 
 
 " Well, then," said Lyddy, swallowing vio 
 lently. "I will make up the party and invite 
 you all ! " 
 
 " That will be very nice. Do you want me 
 to tell them?" 
 
 : Yes, please do. And Bee please make 
 all the arrangements. I ll foot the bills." 
 
 I nearly choked at the complacent manner 
 in which Bee cleared her throat.
 
 Napoleonic Strategy 133 
 
 " Well, then," said Bee, " I must go. Will 
 you excuse me, Lyddy ? " 
 
 " No, I won t," snapped Lyddy, " till we ve 
 come to some understanding. I ve got to be 
 helped now. I can t wait. Even now it may 
 be too late. I m willing to to do anything 
 you say, if you ll only help me. Will you? 
 I m willing to do anything in the world ! " 
 
 " I am afraid," said my sister, with graceful 
 deliberation, " that your idea and mine as to 
 what that phrase anything in the world 
 means, might differ." 
 
 " I know what you mean," said Lyddy 
 promptly. " You mean that I m stingy. 
 Well, perhaps I am. You always said James 
 was. And I m like him. Still in this case, 
 I ll do what I never did before. I ll pour out 
 money as freely as those foolish Jardines, who 
 always spend their money before they get it 
 and act like the millionaires everybody knows 
 they ain t ! " 
 
 The objectionable accuracy of this descrip 
 tion did not make the hit with me that it did 
 with my sister. I could see Bee s shoulders 
 shake. 
 
 " I ll take you all up to New Haven in 
 limousines and I ll give you a supper after the 
 play," continued Lyddy. " What s the mat 
 ter?"
 
 134 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " Lyddy," said Bee, swiftly, " you invite 
 Ava and Bob both to that supper, do you 
 hear?" 
 
 Lyddy evidently hesitated a little at that, 
 but she recollected herself in time and said : 
 
 " All right. If you say so." 
 
 " Now, Lyddy," said Bee, " suppose things 
 really turned out as you wish. What would 
 you do for me? " 
 
 "What do you want me to do?" asked 
 Lyddy, who was nobody s fool. " You 
 know " 
 
 " Quite so," said Bee. " In twenty years 
 from now, the Kokomo land may still be un 
 sold. I want an allowance now. I also want 
 you to give me fifty acres of land, and money 
 enough to build a handsome house on it. 
 Then I want money enough to run the house 
 after it is built. You can deduct every cent 
 of it from my share of the proceeds of the land 
 when it is sold." 
 
 Lyddy, who had evidently figured on giving 
 Bee a new fan or a few ice cream sodas as 
 a just remuneration for her efforts, nearly 
 swooned at the calmness of my sister s de 
 mands. 
 
 " What ? " she roared. " What ? " 
 
 " Now don t go into one of your awful 
 rages," said Bee quickly, " for unless you do
 
 Napoleonic Strategy 135 
 
 just that, I wash my hands of your entire 
 affair and what you can t do for yourself will 
 go undone." 
 
 " But you ve asked for a fortune," cried 
 Lyddy. 
 
 " I ve asked for less than what would have 
 been my widow s third of my husband s prop 
 erty before you and he plotted to keep me out 
 of it by his giving you all the revenue produc 
 ing bulk of the estate before he died," said 
 Bee quietly. " Now, you will seem to have 
 seen the iniquity of that plan, and will have 
 given me, of your own free will and accord, 
 what was justly mine by right." 
 
 " I won t do it," said Lyddy. 
 
 " Very well," said Bee. " Then I m going. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 " Wait a minute," said Lyddy. " Where 
 where is this fifty acres you want ? " 
 
 " It s the old Van Dam estate on Long 
 Island." 
 
 Lyddy stirred with quick suspicion. 
 
 " Do you propose to sell it to the govern 
 ment for a lighthouse ? Have you heard of an 
 offer?" 
 
 " No ! No ! Is your mind all mercenary, 
 Lyddy? I want to build a house on it ! " 
 
 " On that rock ? Well you can have it. 
 I never wanted it anyway."
 
 136 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " And will you lend me say a hundred 
 thousand dollars ? " 
 
 " A hundred thou " 
 
 "All right! I don t care. Let s drop the 
 subject." 
 
 " No ! no ! Don t let s drop it. I ll lend it 
 to you." 
 
 " Very well," said Bee. " You have the 
 deed made out. You give me the fifty acres. 
 You lend me the money. Do you under 
 stand?" 
 
 " Yes, I understand. But suppose sup 
 pose - 
 
 " Stop," said Bee. " I make no promises 
 as to what I will do. But the first part of my 
 plan is this. I propose to build immediately. 
 Bob has a little hundred-dollar-a-month job 
 with Sysonby & Arsenal, and he stays away 
 from the office so much on account of his 
 play that he is liable to lose his position any 
 day. Now, it would be impossible for them to 
 say anything if he brought them a contract to 
 build my house for me, to say nothing of 
 giving me innumerable opportunities to ask 
 him here on business ! " 
 
 Lyddy seldom makes a demonstration, and 
 when she does it is liable to be unpleasant. 
 
 As in this instance. For she walked over 
 to Bee and kissed her.
 
 Napoleonic Strategy 137 
 
 The money," she said, " will be in your 
 bank before three o clock to-day." 
 
 I had been sitting on the bed, but at that I 
 fell over.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 DEVELOPMENTS 
 
 TIME passed on and, thanks to Mun- 
 son s custom of telling his private 
 affairs to the world at large, every 
 body knew that things were rapidly growing 
 worse with him. Neither he nor Eleanor 
 had got a single commission for over a year; 
 they had no luck at exhibitions; they only 
 took silver medals when they assured us they 
 would have taken gold, had not the pull of 
 other artists with the Committee of Awards 
 been so strong, and the only thing they had 
 to live on was the rent from our apartment. 
 
 Of course that would have been enough, had 
 the Munsons been ordinary people, but being 
 artists and a particularly wild species at that, 
 they had sunk the entire proceeds of their last 
 big commission of two years before in a stock- 
 farm in the most expensive part of Long 
 Island, where they chose, as an innocent 
 pastime, the raising of Arabian horses. 
 
 Why Long Island, when even millionaires 
 138
 
 Developments 139 
 
 put stock-farms over in cheaper Jersey, no 
 one could tell. Even the Munsons themselves 
 had no answer to that question, but then the 
 Munsons had no adequate answer to any ques 
 tion of expediency. 
 
 Arabian horses are doubtless very beautiful, 
 and their breeding interesting, but not to the 
 general run of the public, who prefer auto 
 mobiles, yachts or private cars for luxuries. 
 But it was exquisitely like the Munsons to 
 prefer Arabians, and to stick to them in the 
 face of advice, pleading and acrimonious com 
 ment. Just as it was their habit to look upon 
 a palace in Algiers with an American pianola 
 and no other furniture as a normal investment 
 of their first large batch of money, and against 
 which idea they would listen to no criticism and 
 whose inhabiting for seven years while the 
 world promptly forgot them, they persisted 
 in regarding as natural and rational. 
 
 However, when all their money went for 
 things like these and they were staggering 
 under a burden of debt, and our rent went 
 into the voracious mouths of blooded horses, 
 leaving them with nothing for their rent or 
 food or clothes, it came hard on their friends 
 to be passionately called upon to understand, 
 sympathize and rage Over their self-inflicted 
 predicament.
 
 140 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Such, however, was the state of the case. 
 Munson s tall figure drooped still lower and his 
 short, pointed beard was twisted more tightly 
 than usual by his nervous, agitated fingers. 
 
 Nevertheless, it gave him a sort of sad com 
 fort to talk about it, and talk about it he did 
 to every man, woman and child who would 
 listen. When the interesting season arrived, 
 Munson developed into a sort of agitated, 
 vicarious midwife for Munson never did 
 any real work of a domestic character no mat 
 ter how urgent the need and his conversa 
 tion was embellished with obstetrical efforts 
 which often sent some of his more sensitive 
 listeners from the room, not blushingly, for 
 Munson s conversation never verged on the 
 vulgar or too plainly spoken. Surely no one 
 in the world could converse on indelicate sub 
 jects with the delicacy of Munson. It was 
 only that certain of his listeners objected to 
 his selection of topics. But quite regardless 
 of mental objections, as long as his ears were 
 unaffronted by verbal protests, Munson s 
 charmingly rounded sentences, exquisitely ex 
 pressed, purled from his lips in a stream which 
 there was no checking and no damming ex 
 cept mentally, as Aubrey observed. 
 
 Munson got no sympathy from the Keeps 
 nor the Jimmies nor Bee nor Aubrey. They
 
 Developments 141 
 
 listened politely, that was all. But I, who came 
 wholly under the charm of his delicious verbal 
 isms, was also a believing sympathizer, and 
 when he sat down with me quietly to tell me, 
 confidentially, the worst of it, I was like to get 
 no sleep that night. 
 
 I knew that the real cause of my disquiet 
 would only arouse Aubrey s ire, for he ob 
 jects to either man or woman deliberately 
 preying upon quick sympathies, so I set myself 
 privately to get Munson a commission. 
 
 After many letters and much secret anxiety, 
 I finally got, through a personal friend, the 
 order for a magazine cover. Munson made 
 it, took it down in person, perfectly charmed 
 the editor by an hour s conversation, and came 
 home grinning. He felt that he had struck his 
 gait at last. He at once made six others, very 
 ugly but classic, and peddled them assiduously, 
 meeting with rebuffs, rudeness and verbal in 
 sults from art editors, all of which was grist 
 for his conversational mill and with accounts 
 of whose ignorance he convulsed each of 
 his friends in turn, until he had been the 
 rounds. 
 
 So again I took up the struggle to get him 
 personal interviews with my personal friends. 
 But his indifference by this time was such that 
 he refused even to wrap and cord the pictures
 
 142 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 for the expressman, saying that I could do it 
 if I had faith enough. Yet still he was tor 
 turing me with descriptions of his duns and 
 the rude insistence of his creditors. Then he 
 further worked upon my susceptibilities by de 
 scriptions of the sufferings of his horses 
 especially of the newly made mothers of 
 hunger, because his feed man had cut off his 
 supplies. Eleanor has since repudiated every 
 one of these stories, and has branded them as 
 deliberate fabrications, but I believed them 
 absolutely at the time. 
 
 Then there was trouble about the payment 
 for the one cover design which had been ac 
 cepted. I telephoned two or three times and 
 finally wrote. I got a reply saying that a 
 cheque had been duly sent on such and such a 
 date. I told the Munsons. Neither looked 
 up from his work. 
 
 " Oh," said Munson, looking at his picture 
 in a hand-glass, " that was last Saturday, the 
 day Eleanor tore up all the mail without open 
 ing any of it."- 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Munson, shutting one 
 eye to get a better perspective of a study she 
 was making for a portrait, which she hoped 
 to get, " whenever things look like advertise 
 ments or duns, I never open them. I just 
 destroy them. I tore everything up Satur-
 
 Developments 143 
 
 day. I must have torn the cheque up without 
 opening the envelope." 
 
 Now to me a cheque is a holy thing- to 
 be approached reverently with clean hands and 
 a pure heart, and for these impecunious artists 
 thus to explain the destruction of one capable 
 of a month s keep, was to me something un 
 pleasantly uncanny. 
 
 Any strong emotion always goes to my 
 knees and makes them weak. I stumbled as 
 I made my way to a rocking chair in my own 
 apartment. But the Munsons never even 
 looked up from their work. 
 
 It took me two weeks to get a second cheque 
 without telling the real truth about the first. 
 
 Then came a rare opportunity. Aubrey s 
 manager Einstein was dining with us one 
 night, and greatly admired some small studies 
 Munson was making of " The Idylls of the 
 King," for which he hoped to get an order. 
 The indefatigable way both the Munsons 
 worked on studies for hoped-for commissions 
 aroused Aubrey s wildest enthusiasm Au 
 brey who always worked to order only, and 
 whose only trouble lay in pleasing his man 
 agers ! 
 
 Einstein offered seven hundred and fifty 
 dollars if Munson would fit them to the hall 
 spaces in the new house he was building in
 
 144 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Staten Island. In great glee, I told Munson. 
 He demanded three thousand. I submitted 
 this price to Einstein, who came up to a thou 
 sand, frankly stating that this sum was the 
 limit. 
 
 When I told Munson, he turned and wrote 
 for a few minutes at Eleanor s little desk. 
 
 " There! " he said. " I wanted to put it in 
 writing so that he could get the full force of 
 it. Just send it to him, will you, as my ulti 
 matum?" 
 
 I took the paper and read, 
 
 " DEAR MRS. JARDINE, - 
 The paltry offer of your friend to take 
 three thousand dollars worth of work for one 
 thousand is to me no more than a momentary 
 amusement. Kindly advise him to utilize Lin- 
 crusta Walton as a decoration more in keep 
 ing with his modest purse. 
 
 " Very truly yours, 
 
 " EDWARD MUNSON/ 
 
 Munson is especially proud of his prowess 
 in letter-writing, and, truth to tell, his letters 
 are always pungent and bitter. That is how 
 he makes so many enemies. No one could 
 make as many enemies as Munson, by verbal 
 isms only, but he sits up at night getting his
 
 Developments 145 
 
 waspishness into epigrammatic form, and gen 
 erally has one or two sample letters in his 
 pockets, so that in the ferry or train, if you 
 meet him, you can always count on hearing 
 the latest specimens w r hich, to be fair to Mun- 
 son, are always well worth listening to, if only 
 to know what to avoid, unless you actually 
 crave the hatred of your fellow men. 
 
 I remember vividly my sensation as I stood 
 with that paper in my hand and realized that 
 Munson and Eleanor had not had a single 
 commission in over a year, and that these 
 very pictures he was then painting on would 
 stand in all probability with their faces to the 
 wall for perhaps a year or two more. Yet he 
 had deliberately thrown away a thousand dol 
 lars in cash. 
 
 As I stood there wondering if Eleanor 
 would not interfere with a word of remon 
 strance, Munson rose up with his usual pre 
 cipitancy, which generally upset something in 
 his vicinity, and I thought he had changed 
 his mind. But he had only risen for the pur 
 pose of turning his picture upside down, the 
 better to paint his horse s hoofs. 
 
 Suddenly there came a knock on the door 
 of their studio. 
 
 Munson answered it. I heard voices, and 
 after a few moments he returned, grinning.
 
 146 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " Who was it ? " asked Eleanor. 
 
 Munson looked whimsically at me. 
 
 " Dare I mention such a fact before our 
 friend, Mrs. Jardine, whose ideas on moral 
 ity and finance are so impossibly high ? " he 
 said with a fine mockery. 
 
 " Tell her," said Eleanor indifferently. 
 
 Munson twisted his thin beard into two 
 spirals like Michael Angelo s Moses. 
 
 " It was Bob Mygatt s ex-mistress and her 
 illegitimate child, wishing to pose as Madonna 
 and Child for my Holy Family, " said Mun 
 son with his derisive smile. 
 
 In looking back on that terrible moment of 
 illumination which followed, I think my hor 
 ror was mostly at Munson s evil enjoyment 
 of the shock he had caused me by the whole 
 juxtaposition of ideas. 
 
 It never occurred to me to doubt him. 
 Dreadful though it was, it seemed to fit in 
 with my unconscious knowledge of the irre 
 sponsible life Bob led. 
 
 My first thought was of Ava Corliss. 
 
 " Are you shocked ? " asked Eleanor, smil 
 ing. 
 
 "A a little," I said with some difficulty. 
 
 " Bob is my cousin," said Munson calmly. 
 " I am not proud of it, but the fact remains. 
 So I let this poor creature pose for me when-
 
 Developments 1 47 
 
 ever Bob has no money for her. Which is 
 generally. Bob will marry for money 
 eventually." 
 
 This time they both smiled. 
 
 Lyddy! 
 
 What if this could be true? What of Ava 
 Corliss ? 
 
 " When did it I mean, how old is the 
 child?" I stammered. 
 
 " About four years old, but small for his 
 age," smiled Munson. " I could use him for 
 the infant " 
 
 But before he could get the other word out, 
 I had fled, and even as I ran I could hear them 
 laughing gently over my discomfiture. 
 
 I found Bee just entering, and although I 
 had not meant to tell her, she got it out of 
 me. 
 
 To my surprise, her eyes blazed with tri 
 umph. 
 
 " Of course," she said, " it is very dread 
 ful, but it is very illuminating, don t you 
 think? And very conclusive." 
 
 " Conclusive ? " I said. 
 
 " Very unravelling, I mean," said Bee 
 vaguely. 
 
 " I don t quite see " I faltered. 
 
 " Perhaps not now," said Bee smiling. 
 " But you will."
 
 148 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 She glanced through the open doors into the 
 Munsons studio. 
 
 " Not bricked up yet, I see," she said. 
 
 " Oh don t, Bee," I moaned, " you give me 
 the shivers when you talk like that. I haven t 
 taken a bit of comfort with either of them 
 since you warned me." 
 
 " And a very good thing that is," said Bee 
 firmly. " When you are uncomfortable, you 
 are careful. When you are at your ease, you 
 are suicidally reckless in the way you mother 
 the afflicted. Whereas the Munsons wouldn t 
 lift their finger to save you from being boiled 
 alive in salad oil, for all you do so much for 
 them." 
 
 " Nonsense," I murmured. " I don t do 
 much." 
 
 "Don t you?" said Bee. "I know. Of 
 course, it is not entirely unselfish on your part, 
 for it affords you exquisite pleasure to work 
 to make your friends more comfortable than 
 you found them, so it is a species of selfishness 
 on your part. Still, I can t help wishing that 
 you were at work on people I had more con 
 fidence in." 
 
 " What makes you so suspicious of the Mun 
 sons, Bee?" 
 
 " Well, Monday I came in while you were 
 lunching with them "
 
 Developments 1 49 
 
 " So, you see, they do reciprocate some 
 times, Bee ! " 
 
 " And none of you could find the tea 
 spoons. Munson was drinking milk out of a 
 lemonade glass and he kept picking teaspoons 
 out of his milk every few moments." 
 
 " Oh, I remember ! He had absent-mind 
 edly poured his milk into the spoon-holder ! " 
 And I laughed again at the recollection. 
 
 " Faith," said Bee, " you certainly are an 
 awful fool to make a friend out of a man who 
 can be so oblivious to the realities of life. 
 How about that leak in the wall of your bed 
 room ? Has he attended to it yet ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " So, all through these storms, you have put 
 up with water running down the wall of the 
 room you sleep in " 
 
 " Well, I am trying to get him to ask the 
 building committee to look into it, and " 
 
 "Trying!" cried Bee. "And how about 
 your health in the meantime? How about 
 your catching cold? There is a green mould 
 on your bed-room wall an inch thick." 
 
 " Not now," I interrupted. " I burn a little 
 gas-stove there all day, so by night it has 
 dried off some." 
 
 " And that, to my certain knowledge, has 
 been going on two months," said Bee.
 
 150 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " Well, as I said, I asked him to-day to 
 telephone Mr. Dale, but " 
 
 "But what?" 
 
 " Well, he asked me if I thought it quite 
 fair to interrupt a man in business hours for 
 a trifle like that ! " 
 
 Bee got up and walked around in a cold, 
 ladylike fury. She never sees anything funny 
 in the utter incongruity of the Munsons letting 
 me actually suffer for a dry bed-room when 
 they were eating at my table and sleeping com 
 fortably on my couches and accepting all sorts 
 of favours from Aubrey and me, whereas I 
 obtained an exquisite joy from the whole pic 
 ture. They were unconsciously painting their 
 mental and spiritual portraits for me, with the 
 sure touch of absolute finality. 
 
 Finally, Bee paused. 
 
 " Did it ever occur to you that the Munsons 
 and Bob Mygatt are very much alike? " she 
 said. " They are absolutely similar in their 
 indifference to the ethics of things." 
 
 The ethics of things," I repeated, with 
 dropped jaw. " Where did you get that word, 
 Bee? Somebody has been giving you a few 
 spiritual ideas you were not born with. Last 
 year, you didn t know ethics from a home 
 run."
 
 Developments 151 
 
 Bee bridled and smoothed her dress over her 
 knees. 
 
 " Let me make a prediction," she said, a 
 trifle consciously, I thought, even then. 
 
 " Fire away," I said. Whereat Bee gave 
 the following two-dollar entertainment to me 
 for absolutely no money at all.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 BEE S VERSION OF THE VENGEANCE OF THE 
 EIGHTH 
 
 W AM going to make a prediction which 
 possibly may surprise you," she said. 
 
 -*- " Bob s play will be a failure." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because it is built on a lie. I don t believe 
 he wrote a word of it." 
 
 " But, Bee," I cried, " where did you get 
 such queer ideas? Aren t millions of plays 
 built on lies, and don t they succeed ? " 
 
 " Aren t millions of plays failures for no 
 apparently good reason ? " she retorted. 
 
 "But but " I stammered. "I don t 
 understand how you why do you think that 
 way? I never heard you say anything like 
 that before. I thought you - 
 
 " Listen," said Bee. " You know I ve been 
 through a lot of litigation since I ve been free, 
 and I have had, between lawyers and business 
 men of various types, quite a little experience 
 of the way men some men treat a woman 
 who has any money. My dear 
 152
 
 Vengeance of the Eighth 153 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " Well, it would take weeks to go into it. 
 You never heard of anything like it. And the 
 tales I am told of James meanness ! Why, the 
 whole thing has formulated a theory with me 
 that the unjailable offences, such as stealing 
 ideas or inventions before they are patented, 
 are punished here on earth, with a severity and 
 remorseless certainty that you would hardly 
 deal out to your worst enemy." 
 
 " As how? " I demanded breathlessly. I do 
 adore Bee when she gets started on such sub 
 jects. 
 
 Bee curled herself up on the couch in the 
 studio, regardless of her " blacks," and began: 
 
 " Have you ever had occasion to wonder 
 why disasters of one sort or another, generally 
 of a domestic character, often happen to ap 
 parently exemplary men and why others seem 
 to go scot-free ? " 
 
 " Don t know that I have." 
 
 " Well, think and you ll soon see what I 
 mean. At one time in my life I began to won 
 der at these phenomena. And the more I 
 know of people like Aubrey and Bob and 
 Laflin Van Tassel, the more I am exercised at 
 the inability of people to protect mental prop 
 erty. Your friends men and women you in 
 vite to dinner and play bridge with will sel-
 
 154 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 dom steal your jewels, even if they get a good 
 chance (although I do know some ladies who 
 say they never leave thrust pins on the cush 
 ion or loose change in the drawer of the ladies 
 dressing room when they give afternoon recep 
 tions), but if you have mental property by 
 which you earn your living, it is never safe. 
 Ideas cannot even be copyrighted, as authors, 
 dramatists and brain workers know to their 
 sorrow. 
 
 " Many and many a successful play has been 
 stolen bodily by the man whose name is now 
 attached to it with all the honours of original 
 authorship. Many a novel filched from the 
 manuscript of a short story read to a friend. 
 Many a gentleman s agreement violated by 
 cousins or even brothers. James did this sev 
 eral times, I have discovered ! " 
 
 " I am not surprised," I said. " James was 
 the limit, wasn t he? " 
 
 James widow nodded. 
 
 " Yet how simple a thing it would have been 
 to pay the inventor and stay honest ! " she said. 
 
 " The contemplation of these injustices and 
 crimes used to give me much food for thought. 
 You know me. I felt that such lawlessness 
 deserved a punishment which, on the very face 
 of it, could never be administered. Yet I have 
 seen it proved over and over again that the
 
 Vengeance of the Eighth 155 
 
 Eighth Commandment can take care of itself. 
 I don t need to sit up nights worrying for fear 
 those who break it will get away with the 
 goods and go scot free afterward. My ob 
 servations during the last few years that I have 
 set myself to watch, teach me that to steal a 
 thought or an idea from a helpless owner of 
 it, is about as satisfactory to the thief as steal 
 ing the blanket off a small-pox patient. If I 
 had to choose, I would far, far rather steal 
 money and only go to jail for it, for man- 
 made law is simple and humane compared to 
 the ills which flow toward a thief who is be 
 yond reach of such law and who must depend 
 upon detection and punishment by the eighth 
 commandment itself." 
 
 I was luxuriating on a couch on the opposite 
 side of the room, and at this, I rolled over in 
 delight. 
 
 "Goon, Bee! "I cried. 
 
 Much encouraged by my interest, which was 
 flattering, she proceeded : 
 
 " Thou shalt not steal ! Certainly not ! It 
 would be foolish to steal anything that you 
 would be caught in and punished for. But 
 suppose just suppose a fortune could be 
 made by the appropriating of a small, insignif 
 icant idea! 
 
 "What is an idea? What is a promise?
 
 156 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 What is a verbal agreement? How easy it is 
 to pretend to have misunderstood ! And noth 
 ing can be proved. Nobody can ever catch 
 you. Vengeance will never find you out. Will 
 it not ? Listen ! I know a man with an utterly 
 unmoral nature, who was honest because he 
 never got a perfectly safe chance to be dishon 
 est. He was well-to-do, healthy and appar 
 ently happy." 
 
 "Who is it, Bee?" I cried. "You might 
 as well mention names. I ll never tell." 
 
 She shook her head and continued despite 
 my pleadings : 
 
 " His chance came. He found an oppor 
 tunity to double his moderate fortune. He 
 could become rich simply by repudiating a 
 contract with a friend who trusted him. The 
 temptation was too much for him. He suc 
 cumbed. It impoverished the little family who 
 have never got on their feet since, but as for 
 him his wife and little son have never 
 known a well day since, and their illnesses 
 date from the time of the man s crime ! " 
 
 " Bee," I said, " that s a perfectly awful 
 idea you ve got hold of. It makes me shiver 
 to think of it. I wonder if Aubrey ever 
 unconsciously assimilates other people s 
 ideas?" 
 
 " Never ! " said Bee, fiercely. " Aubrey
 
 Vengeance of the Eighth 157 
 
 and I may not admire each other, but I ll stake 
 my life on his honesty and truthfulness." 
 
 I unrolled myself, walked over, shook hands 
 with my sister and came back. 
 
 " Go on ! " I said. " More ! Scare me 
 again ! " 
 
 " I often wonder as I see this man s little 
 son lifted in the arms of trained nurses and see 
 the ghastly face of his wife, if he thinks of the 
 terrible vengeance of a law made away back 
 in the time of Moses? I also wonder if an 
 open confession of his secret crime, full resti 
 tution to his robbed friends, and a complete 
 reform in his life would have any effect upon 
 the constantly recurring illnesses of his loved 
 ones." 
 
 " But," I cried, " why did vengeance skip 
 the man and land on his innocent family? " 
 
 " Because," said Bee quickly, " the ven 
 geance of the eighth strikes one s weakest spot. 
 This man in order to make money would will 
 ingly have been paralyzed and done business 
 from a wheeled chair. But he worshipped his 
 family. If a woman inordinately loves her 
 brother or father, or a man his mother or wife 
 through that tenderest love the vengeance 
 will come for a crime which human law is 
 powerless to punish." 
 
 " How about a woman who marries a man
 
 158 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 for his money without loving him?" I said. 
 " There s an unpunishable crime for you, if 
 you like ! " 
 
 "Unpunishable, is it?" said Bee. "It 
 strikes me that such a case carries its own hell 
 with it every day and hour and minute of the 
 year. Such women don t have to wait until 
 death to get all that s coming to them. I ought 
 to know ! " 
 
 " Now look here, Bee Lathrop," I said, sit 
 ting up. " These are not your ideas. You 
 got em from somewhere! Maybe you stole 
 them!" 
 
 " No," she said, laughing. " I didn t steal 
 them. They were given to me. But what 
 makes you think they are not mine? " 
 
 " Rubbish ! Haven t I known your mind 
 inside and out ever since we were babies ? You 
 never in the world could have thought out all 
 that high moral stuff you ve been regaling me 
 with ! It is not your style. Explain " 
 
 " Well," said Bee, " Laflin Van Tassel gave 
 me my start but now I really believe all 
 these things." 
 
 " Ah, ha ! I knew they weren t yours orig 
 inally," I said. 
 
 " He writes lovely letters," said Bee, with 
 a conscious smile.
 
 Vengeance of the Eighth 159 
 
 She reached inside of her blouse and drew 
 one forth. 
 
 " Want to have some more in this same 
 vein?" 
 
 " Fire away ! " 
 
 " Here it is. Listen to this. An entirely 
 new philosophy of life cannot fail to open up 
 to those who sit by and observe the world 
 hurry past. People used to believe in a fierce 
 and avenging God, who delighted in dispens 
 ing war, pestilence and disaster to His chil 
 dren, and that a pit of flames burned joyously 
 beyond the grave, tended day and night by a 
 gentleman in red, with cloven hoof and a 
 forked tail. 
 
 " But observation teaches differently, and 
 there are a goodly number of men and women 
 who believe that all the Hell there is and all 
 the Heaven we deserve we get right here and 
 now; who believe that God is a father and 
 who believe that only sin is ever punished. 
 
 " Such beliefs make a difference in the 
 way you translate the eighth commandment, 
 don t they? If you hold these beliefs, to re 
 pudiate a " gentleman s agreement " with a 
 man or woman who has no way of defence or 
 redress, is to bare your head to a vengeance 
 which will make no mistake and accidentally
 
 160 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 light on the man next door, or the woman 
 across the street. It will find your own de 
 fenceless pate and come down with a crack 
 that even the neighbours can hear. 
 
 " I d rather I d actually prefer the 
 small-pox blanket for mine, for I am imbued 
 with such a gloriously healthy fear of what 
 happens to the secret thief that I now actually 
 run after the conductor to give him my fare, 
 whereas I used to steal rides like the rest of 
 the church members with a godly air of piety 
 on my face which shook even the composure 
 of the spotters. 
 
 An infringement of the eighth command 
 ment is a hideous mental boomerang, and to 
 steal even a witticism and palm it off as your 
 own is to violate the strict letter of the law. 
 
 " Since I learned the good, healthy, whole 
 some fear of the neverendingness of its ven 
 geance, maybe you don t think I am generous 
 with quotation marks ! 
 
 " I am not proud. I would rather you 
 would all think from my generosity in quota 
 tion marks that I never had an original idea 
 in my life than to borrow one without giving 
 credit and turn around some dark night to 
 see the avenging Eighth camping on my 
 trail ! 
 
 Take your cleverness you, who origi-
 
 Vengeance of the Eighth 161 
 
 nate it ! Far be it from me to sleep in a small 
 pox blanket if I know it. 
 
 Bee folded up the letter, put it in her blouse 
 and rolled over on her back, with her hands 
 under her head. 
 
 " Well, Bee," I said, " I don t think I ever 
 heard anything much finer than that. Laflin 
 must be awfully nice ! " 
 
 " He is the most wonderful man I ever met 
 in my life," said Bee quietly. 
 
 I coughed gently. Then I laughed. 
 
 " Imagine Bob writing such a letter," I 
 giggled. 
 
 Bee sniffed delicately. 
 
 " Bob ! " she said in a derision which spoke 
 volumes for her opinion of Laflin Van Tassel. 
 But as she volunteered no more concerning 
 him, I forbore to press her, well knowing 
 that I would get it all sooner or later. And 
 I was so well pleased with the straw by which 
 she had shown the wind s direction that I felt 
 able to wait with some degree of patience. 
 
 I suddenly changed the subject. 
 
 " Look here, Bee. You don t mean to tell 
 me that that old woman, Lyddy, is sincerely in 
 love with our Bobbie? " 
 
 " I mean to tell you that she is just that." 
 
 " But she can t have a hope of marrying 
 him, even with your help, can she? "
 
 1 62 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " I think she can," answered Bee. 
 
 "Well, what about Bob s affair with this 
 other girl ? " I said. 
 
 Bee paused and looked down thoughtfully. 
 
 " You say Ava Corliss has a Puritan con 
 science ? " 
 
 " As Bob gracefully puts it It sticks out 
 so you bark your shins on it, " I giggled. 
 
 " Well," said Bee slowly, " of course one 
 doesn t wish to take advantage of the awful- 
 ness of such a situation, but I must say that 
 it gives me the first solid terra firma to stand 
 on that I ve had since I knew that Bob was 
 engaged. Most of the time I ve been swim 
 ming in a sea of glorious plans. Now I can 
 begin intelligent work." 
 
 And with that she left me. 
 
 Agape, of course.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE WIDOW ASSISTS 
 
 WHEN Aubrey s cousin, Col. John 
 Mockridge, who is Commandant 
 of Cadets at West Point, asked us 
 to come up and help stage a play the officers 
 wives were getting up, we went with great 
 joy, because Edith and John were exceedingly 
 agreeable people, and as Aubrey cared for so 
 few of his relatives, or rather, so few of his 
 relatives were worth caring for, we eagerly 
 cultivated those who were. 
 
 Col. Mockridge was a big man, with a big, 
 booming laugh. He dearly loved to tell the 
 story of how his wife once engaged a negro 
 cook from an intelligence office, who had such 
 trouble with the name Mockridge, that Mrs. 
 Mockridge finally said : 
 
 " Well, never mind the name. When you 
 get to West Point just ask anybody to show 
 you where we live. Ask for the Command 
 ant s house. You can remember that, can t 
 you?" 
 
 " Is dat whah you all lives ? " she answered 
 163
 
 164 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 scornfully. " Den you needn t trouble me 
 wid any more instructions, caze I ain t a-com- 
 in ! I wouldn t \vuk for nobody what lived 
 in a common dance house! I se got moh 
 selfrespeck ! " 
 
 We played bridge a good deal in those days, 
 but also, when Bee was with us and we had 
 six, we played six handed euchre and bid for 
 trumps. 
 
 I always claim that card playing in general, 
 but this game in particular, can give a very 
 good idea of the characters of the players, for 
 while some are always daring enough " to go 
 it alone," and risk losing twenty, others there 
 are, who, even on a good hand, will be so 
 cautious that they never play a brilliant game, 
 even when they hold the cards. 
 
 My sister was of this character, but then, 
 Bee was in every walk in life, very politic, 
 very diplomatic and never took the lead openly 
 in anything. Therefore it got to be a joke 
 among us when Bee would say, holding a hand 
 full of trumps, " I assist," whereupon a chorus 
 always rose from the other five, 
 
 " The widow assists! " 
 
 But Bee hadn t come with us this time, al 
 though she had been invited to join us for the 
 week of gaiety, when the play was to be pro 
 duced the week holding all sorts of delights
 
 The Widow Assists 165 
 
 for the young people, including a hop, a ball 
 game between Yale and West Point and sev 
 eral private affairs, to which we were all in 
 vited. 
 
 The second morning after our arrival, I got 
 the following from Bee. 
 
 " DEAR FAITH : Please ask Edith if I may 
 bring with me that pretty Miss Levering. I 
 have got to know her very well and find her 
 charming. She lives in East 65th Street just 
 off Fifth Avenue and has some money of her 
 own something like three thousand a year. 
 Laflin is playing with her, but I don t believe 
 he means anything by his attentions, whereas, 
 with this girl s tact and money, she would 
 make an ideal wife for Dusty Miller. 
 
 " She is crazy about the army and regards 
 it with the awe of people who had relatives in 
 the volunteer service in the Civil war you 
 know what I mean. So see what you can do. 
 
 Ci Wire me if Edith has room for us. If 
 not, I will take her to the Howe s or the hotel. 
 
 " With love to Edith, John and Aubrey, I 
 am, as ever, 
 
 " Devotedly, 
 
 " BEE. 
 
 " P. S. I do hope you will use what little 
 sense God endowed you with in this matter,
 
 1 66 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 which possibly even you can see is a delicate 
 one. 
 
 " BEE." 
 
 As Edith had an extra room she was glad 
 to say yes, and I had just wired Bee to that 
 effect when Dusty called. 
 
 Dusty was the nicest cadet at the Academy, 
 we all thought. He was neither brilliant nor 
 rich nor particularly anything. Only he was 
 sweet and high principled and dear, and in his 
 uniform, he was well, he was enough to 
 make any girl leave all else and cleave only 
 unto him. His dancing was nothing short of 
 divine, and the way he made each one of us 
 feel as if we were the only woman in his mind 
 for the time being, was something rather 
 awful. 
 
 " I say, Mrs. Jardine," Dusty cried out, 
 " I ve just had the jolliest sort of a letter from 
 your sister, Mrs. Lathrop. Will you read it? 
 I want to talk to you a little about it after 
 ward." 
 
 I felt myself go rather cold at this, for Bee 
 thinks I am awfully dull at seconding what 
 she terms perfectly palpable diplomatic oppor 
 tunities, and I knew, if I failed her in this 
 crisis, I should have to answer to her like a 
 person at the bar of justice such being the
 
 The Widow Assists 167 
 
 firm manner in which my sister managed the 
 family into which it had pleased Providence 
 to call her. 
 
 But such was Dusty s compelling charm 
 that when he pulled out Bee s letter I took it 
 and read it. It ran as follows: 
 
 " DEAR DUSTY : I wonder if you will be 
 good enough to help me out of a mess without 
 helping yourself into one? 
 
 " The fact is, I promised in a moment of 
 recklessness to take an awfully pretty girl 
 friend of mine to a West Point hop, intending 
 to put it off if possible until next year, when 
 Loyal Jerome will be a first classman, because 
 I have set my heart on getting him a rich and 
 pretty wife. He, as you know, is a sort of 
 cousin of ours, so it behooves us to have him 
 marry the right sort of a girl. 
 
 " But if you please, the minx decided that 
 she wanted to go to one now, and she boldly 
 asked me if I couldn t take her to this one. 
 
 " I am in despair. I know all the cards are 
 made out I know you probably have asked 
 your girl weeks ago I know you can t get 
 another card filled, but what shall I do? 
 
 " Will you see if there is room for one 
 more? If not, she will simply have to wait. 
 
 "If you find that you can arrange the mat-
 
 1 68 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 ter for me, please remember this. Miss Lever 
 ing is very young she won t be nineteen 
 until next month. She has an income of three 
 thousand dollars a year or thereabouts, in her 
 own right, and her father will doubtless leave 
 her more. She is one of the prettiest girls I 
 ever saw, also the gentlest and sweetest, so I 
 want you to make me a solemn promise that 
 you will not make love to her, nor allow any 
 of the others to do so, unless she should see 
 and take a fancy to Loyal. Try to have them 
 meet, if you can. It would look better if you 
 introduced them, rather than myself. 
 
 " Wire me if you can get her card filled. 
 I look forward to my own dances with you 
 with a great deal of pleasure. 
 
 " With kind regards to Dutch and 
 * Lamps, I am, 
 
 " Very sincerely your friend, 
 
 " BEATRICE LATHROP. 
 
 " P. S. It will not do you the slightest 
 good to get silly over Miss Levering yourself, 
 as I have determined on my course of action, 
 so beware! 
 
 " B. L." 
 
 I looked at him suspiciously to see if the 
 smell of cheese was noticeable on the trap, but
 
 The Widow Assists 169 
 
 evidently it wasn t, for I looked him straight 
 in the eye and I saw there what pleased me so 
 much that I instantly decided that if Amy 
 Levering wanted to settle herself in life with 
 a good husband, she couldn t do better than to 
 let Dusty Miller fall in love with her, were he 
 so minded. 
 
 "What can you do at this late day?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " Do ! " he cried. " Why, do what your sis 
 ter tells me to do, of course. What else is 
 there to do when Mrs. Lathrop expresses a 
 wish ? I hustled around and got her card half 
 filled before I wired." 
 
 " Have you wired already? " I asked in sur 
 prise. 
 
 " Wired before noon to set her mind at 
 rest and give them plenty of time to pack." 
 
 " You are a thoughtful boy, Dusty," I said. 
 
 He beamed. 
 
 " Might just as well make people comfort 
 able when you can," he said. " We only go 
 along the road once, you know." 
 
 " I know, but you are young to have 
 learned it." 
 
 " My mother taught me that," he said, 
 simply. "It was her way!" 
 
 The quiet dignity and sweetness of the boy 
 struck me afresh. I suddenly wondered if this
 
 170 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Amy Levering were good enough for him or 
 if she were but " a rag and a bone and a hank 
 of hair," like some other girls I knew, and 
 would break his heart. 
 
 " Have you ever seen her? " he asked sud 
 denly. 
 
 " Seen who? " I asked, ungrammatically but 
 comfortably. 
 
 " Miss Levering," he answered, a tinge of 
 colour coming into his bronzed face. The 
 poison was already beginning to work. 
 
 " Yes, I have seen her twice. Once at a 
 party at Sherry s when Laflin Van Tassel was 
 allowing her the joy of ordering the dinner. 
 She was awfully slow, but she was so plainly 
 enjoying herself that he was most patient with 
 her. He is a lovely fellow. And the other 
 time was at a polo game at Coolmeath." 
 
 "Beastly rich, this Van Tassel, isn t he?" 
 demanded Dusty jealously. 
 
 "Millionaire!" 
 
 " I wonder if she is the kind to marry for 
 money?" he asked wistfully, being poor as a 
 church mouse himself. 
 
 " Most girls are," I observed cruelly. " It 
 is terribly old fashioned now-a-days to let 
 preference interfere with business interests." 
 
 He looked at me with eyes which gradually 
 grew brighter.
 
 The Widow Assists 
 
 " That s a pretty fair statement of what 
 love and marriage have come to mean in a 
 certain set," he said slowly. " Preference and 
 business interest. You remember what Ste 
 venson says in Virginibus Puerisque ? " 
 
 I nodded. We had discussed it often. 
 
 " / am pretty safe," he said ruefully. 
 " Everybody knows that I sha n t have a cent 
 but my pay, so I don t stand in as dangerous 
 a position as this precious Van Tassel of yours 
 of being married for my money. The girl 
 I marry, can t marry me for anything but that 
 obsolete article love ! " 
 
 " Stop a minute, silly, and let me set your 
 mind right on that delicate point," I said. 
 " Army officers, holding established positions 
 and representing, with our navy, about our 
 only national aristocracy, have as much to 
 offer a poor, ambitious or low-born girl as the 
 veriest millionaire who ever needed a keeper 
 to ward off bombarding females. Don t be 
 quite so modest ! You will be an officer in the 
 United States army, and especially as you will 
 graduate so near the head, you will surely get 
 into the engineers or the Artillery, which 
 means a lot. You go slow, Dusty Miller, and 
 keep your eyes open ! " 
 
 He laughed boyishly. 
 
 " I m too precious to be allowed out of pink
 
 172 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 cotton to hear you tell it ! " he cried. " Oh, 
 Mrs. Jardine ! I hope what you and I have 
 talked about so often isn t all moonshine! I 
 hope there is a sincere, truehearted girl in the 
 world for me somewhere, who won t think 
 that brass buttons and shoulder straps make 
 the man. Don t women care for a heart any 
 more at all? " 
 
 " Yes, dear child, they do heaps of them ! 
 You are looking at a fool right now, who 
 values sentiment and love and truth above 
 above " 
 
 " Above automobiles ! " he finished for me, 
 knowing my weakness. 
 
 " Yes, even above those sacred pieces of 
 bric-a-brac," I said fervently. 
 
 " I believe you. And do you know ? 
 it s a comfort to find even one ! " 
 
 " Go on now, and find Loyal, and tell him 
 I want him," I said. " I suppose a first class 
 man can so condescend when aforesaid second 
 class-man happens to be a relative? " 
 
 " Are you going to tell him about Miss 
 Levering?" he demanded. 
 
 " Certainly not ! " I said with asperity, " and 
 so prejudice him against her? Why, if we 
 had wanted you to fall in love with her, my 
 sister wouldn t have written you like that, 
 would she? "
 
 The Widow Assists 173 
 
 I reared my crest with pride, feeling that 
 this neat touch was worthy of the tortuous 
 Bee herself. But I felt guilty, not being an 
 adept in her art. 
 
 Dusty looked thoughtful, then he shook his 
 head. 
 
 " I never know what a woman will do, or 
 what she means by what she does do ! " he 
 said in desperation. 
 
 " Which shows you are in a very healthful 
 state of mind," I laughed. " When a man 
 frankly confesses his inability to understand 
 even the simplest woman-problem, all the other 
 women stand ready to explain matters and to 
 help him along." 
 
 " I m glad of that," he said, rising to go and 
 bowing over my hand in his inimitable way, 
 " for I feel that I shall need help before long." 
 
 This little talk put me so ardently on 
 Dusty s side, that when Bee arrived with Amy 
 Levering, I met the girl almost antagonistic 
 ally. Not that I should have, of course, for 
 she, like the rest of us, had we only been able 
 to keep the fact constantly in our minds, was 
 only one of Bee s puppets, who danced at her 
 bidding. 
 
 But antagonism could not breathe long in 
 the vicinity of this girl, who reminded me of 
 nothing so much as an old-fashioned moss
 
 174 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 rosebud, so gentle, so modest and so fragrant 
 she was. 
 
 She even had a certain sweet wistfulness in 
 her expression, which I have always associ 
 ated in my mind with moss roses, as if they 
 begged you to treat them with gentleness. 
 
 Bee at once gave me particulars about Amy 
 which further enlisted me. Her father had 
 married a second time, hence Amy s money 
 was her inheritance from her mother. There 
 was a second brood of children, and Amy s 
 position in the family was rather unenviable. 
 Her stepmother was not cruel, but she was in 
 tensely ambitious for her children, therefore 
 the hint for Amy to marry early and take her 
 self out of fifteen-year-old Julia s way was 
 given in a way there could be no mistaking. 
 
 The stepmother was clever, however, and in 
 spite of risking eclipse for herself in not being 
 able to make so brilliant a match for her own 
 daughter, she was in full cry after Laflin Van 
 Tassel for Amy, and was, to all appearances, 
 in a fair way to bag her game, or rather, to 
 run down her quarry, when a benign Provi 
 dence caused the widow Lathrop to observe 
 the chase and deign to take an interest. 
 
 Mrs. Levering did not know Bee s methods 
 of procedure or she would have incarcerated 
 her in some way, in order to keep her out of
 
 The Widow Assists 175 
 
 the affair. But, for some curious reason, Bee 
 is never suspected of being a motive power by 
 anybody. Even after the game has been tri 
 umphantly won, Bee s esoteric part in the vic 
 tory always goes under the modest phrase of 
 " I assisted." 
 
 The first time Dusty and Amy saw each 
 other was at the hop, and owing to Dusty s 
 popularity as a dancer, he had been unable to 
 write his name on her card before the sixth, 
 which was a waltz. 
 
 Before that he had not even been presented, 
 but I saw him when his eyes first rested on her, 
 as she entered the ballroom with our party, 
 and from the way his gray eyes grew black, 
 I knew he was deeply stirred. 
 
 " Who is that? " she said quickly. 
 
 "That? Oh, that is Dusty Miller, the 
 star player on the football team. They count 
 on his not allowing Yale to wipe the ground 
 with the Army boys ! " 
 
 " Dusty ! " she said. " What a funny nick 
 name ! " 
 
 There is another Miller here, whom they 
 call the Moth Miller. And two Bells - 
 one Ding-dong and one Jingle. 
 
 " What is his real name? " asked Amy, ig 
 noring all side issues and still speaking of the 
 man who stood looking at her over the heads
 
 176 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 of the others as if he had never seen a girl 
 before. 
 
 " Willing Miller his mother was a Phila 
 delphia Willing. He is a cousin of Cynthia 
 Willing the girl Jermyn Loring is in love 
 with ! " 
 
 Amy paid no attention to poor Jermyn s as 
 pirations. She simply drew her breath deeply 
 and her colour rose under Dusty s ardent gaze. 
 
 She was a pretty girl at any time, but that 
 night she was enough to turn the head of even 
 the most case-hardened. 
 
 Her dress was white and fluffed out around 
 her feet in multitudinous ruffles, over which 
 hung what looked like seaweed, or green 
 grasses, in the midst of which were clustered 
 here and there bunches of small pink roses. 
 The skirt was looped with these little clusters, 
 her sash was green, and her bodice edged with 
 a narrower band of the same green grasses 
 and pink rosebuds. Her curls were dressed in 
 a loose Psyche knot, tied with a broad soft 
 pink ribbon, and her bouquet was pink roses, 
 with long green ribbons. 
 
 This striking, yet simple costume, marked 
 her at once as possessing individuality and 
 taste, the women critically dissecting it, yet 
 forced to admire it, and the men, enchanted 
 by the picture she made in it, taking it in
 
 The Widow Assists 177 
 
 bodily, bewildered by the effect, without know 
 ing in the least how it was produced, nor car 
 ing one whit. All they knew was that it re 
 minded them of something cool and green and 
 summary, and her wistful beauty tinged the 
 daguerreotype her appearance suggested, with 
 the old fashioned romance which lies deep 
 down in every man s heart, and which springs 
 suddenly to life at such things as a tangled 
 garden of the blooms of his boyhood recol 
 lection, or the sight of a moss-grown well, or 
 the bars of an old song, sung in the twilight. 
 
 Dusty Miller felt all this and more the very 
 first moment he saw Amy Levering. He fell 
 in love with her at sight and fell hard. And 
 I knew from the way Bee drew in her breath 
 and cleared her throat that she, too, had seen 
 and observed his emotion. 
 
 Her management was masterly. She pre 
 vented an introduction, although Dusty s eyes 
 begged her dumbly like a dog s. She sur 
 rounded Amy with other men. She took 
 Dusty for her own property, and when she 
 could no longer manage him, she gave him 
 to me with a fierce sisterly look which meant 
 " Take this away with you and do what you 
 know I want done with it ! " 
 
 I generally obey orders, but I am so soft, 
 Dusty at once took advantage of my easiness
 
 I7& The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 and came out with a request which Bee would 
 have prevented. 
 
 " Introduce me to her ! " he begged. " I 
 believe I have gone crazy ! " 
 
 What use would it have been for me to look 
 bewildered and ask what he meant? I knew 
 and he knew that I knew. So instead of obey 
 ing Bee, inside of five minutes Dusty and I 
 were actually rummaging among the cozy 
 corners between dances trying in the boldest 
 manner to find Amy Levering. 
 
 But Bee was too much for us. She had 
 Amy hemmed in three deep, so that when we 
 found her even Dusty gave it up and turned 
 back to dance sadly with me. 
 
 Ours was the fourth. Dusty danced the 
 fifth with Edith Mockridge, who, in her ca 
 pacity as one of the patronesses, kept him on 
 duty until the music for the sixth was about 
 to begin. 
 
 It happened that Amy s partner for the fifth 
 was a cadet named Atwood, who was just out 
 of the hospital after a sprained ankle, so they 
 went around the room but once, then sat down 
 next to me to rest. Presently I saw the boy 
 go rather pale, and I told him to go out and 
 get some fresh air and that I would keep Miss 
 Levering with me until the next dance. 
 
 The poor fellow was profuse in his apolo-
 
 The Widow Assists 179 
 
 gies, but I could see that he had overtaxed 
 himself, so we urged him to go, which he 
 finally did. 
 
 No sooner were we left alone than Amy 
 turned and looked searchingly in my face for 
 a moment, then with a quick sigh she slipped 
 her little gloved hand into mine. 
 
 I don t know when I have been so touched 
 at the simplicity of her appraisement and the 
 confidence betrayed by that little cuddling 
 move of hers. 
 
 I pressed her hand and said nothing. Pres 
 ently she lifted her flowers to her face and 
 behind that screen murmured, 
 
 " Mrs. Jardine, do you believe that two 
 people ever fall in love at first sight ? " 
 
 " I do indeed, my dear ! " I said fervently. 
 " My husband did worse than that he pro 
 posed to me the first night we ever met and 
 before we had spoken together ten minutes ! " 
 
 Amy turned to me with a face flashing like 
 sunlight on the water. 
 
 " Oh, how lovely! How lovely! " she cried. 
 " And you what did you do ? Was it the 
 same with you? " 
 
 " I regret to say that I laughed in his face 
 and went on with my previous affair with an 
 other man. But why did you ask me that?" 
 
 " Because the first man I saw when we came
 
 180 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 in to-night, has the face I always see when I 
 dream. He seemed to recognize me in just 
 the same way, for I saw, I actually saw him 
 straighten up and look surprised, and his eyes 
 turned black quite black. I haven t met him 
 yet, but all the evening he has kept close to 
 where I was and his eyes look straight into 
 mine always. The next dance is his and 
 and he is coming for me now ! " 
 
 I don t often allow myself to be foolish or 
 overpowered in public, but somehow, both 
 Amy and Dusty struck me as being out of the 
 common and wonderfully sincere and un 
 worldly, so that when I saw Dusty bearing 
 down upon us, and looking straight into 
 Amy s eyes, and Amy, without waiting for 
 me to speak or even introduce them, rose and 
 stood waiting, and then, the band striking up 
 at that moment, Dusty just naturally opened 
 his arms and Amy fluttered into them, it 
 didn t even seem odd to me it seemed to be 
 the only thing in the world for them to do. 
 Nor did I, as a chaperon, find it at all objec 
 tionable when I saw him draw her much 
 closer than the exigencies of the occasion 
 seemed to demand, and I smiled at them joy 
 ously for doing it. 
 
 That s the kind of a chaperon / am! 
 
 But after they were gone and my Angel
 
 The Widow Assists 181 
 
 came to sit out a dance with me, I gasped at 
 my shocking behaviour, and I wondered if 
 they would be married before I saw them 
 again, or only just engaged! 
 
 They have never admitted it, but I believe 
 they knew before that waltz was over that 
 they were destined for each other, for I have 
 never seen such an exalted look on any two 
 peoples faces as I saw on theirs. 
 
 Still they said absolutely nothing, nor could 
 Bee dig a word out of Amy either then or 
 afterward, which accounts for what followed. 
 
 I have never seen an army post which did 
 not possess its married flirt, and West Point at 
 this particular time was no exception to the 
 rule. 
 
 Mrs. Caxton was pretty, vivacious and ut 
 terly untrustworthy. She was a demoraliz 
 ing influence which everyone felt who came 
 near her, but she was of the clinging vine sort, 
 and chivalrous young men, like those at the 
 Academy, were loth to treat her as cavalierly 
 as she deserved. 
 
 It so happened that Dusty Miller was her 
 latest selection, and seeing the sort of devo 
 tion he laid at Amy Levering s feet that night, 
 inflamed her shallow heart with jealous hate. 
 
 I exonerate Bee entirely in this affair. I 
 do not believe that Mrs. Caxton needed to
 
 1 82 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 have anyone point out how Dusty was falling 
 in love, still, I must say that if Bee had 
 thought the affair showed symptoms of not 
 moving to her taste, she was perfectly capable 
 of setting such a woman as Mrs. Caxton to 
 stir things up a bit. 
 
 But be that as it may, the band was playing 
 Home Sweet Home and the last of the most 
 brilliant hop of the season was about over, and 
 the dear gray and white uniforms against the 
 soft ball gowns of the girls were circling 
 slowly and still more slowly until the end was 
 reached, when Mrs. Caxton caught something 
 of hers in Amy s lace, which tore so shock 
 ingly that not one woman in the room believed 
 it was an accident. 
 
 Of course there were exclamations and 
 apologies and introductions, and Amy was 
 the only unsuspicious person in the group, for 
 I saw even some of the cadets exchange 
 glances. 
 
 Mrs. Caxton insisted upon taking Amy to 
 the dressing room and examining into the 
 damage, and they finally went upstairs to 
 gether, Mrs. Caxton s arm around Amy s 
 waist. 
 
 Mrs. Caxton finally wound the matter up 
 by asking Amy to drive with her the next day 
 to prove that Amy did not bear malice, and as
 
 The Widow Assists 183 
 
 Mrs. Caxton had a delicious little basket phae 
 ton, Bee told Amy that she would better go, 
 and they arranged to meet us afterward at 
 dress parade. 
 
 I saw Amy at luncheon and learned that 
 she and Dusty had been down Flirtation Walk 
 together, and that her first view of West Point 
 had been given her by him. I carried the pic 
 ture of that child s face in my memory for 
 many a long day, for I never saw it exactly 
 the same again. 
 
 I don t know what happened during that 
 drive. I only know that when that Caxton 
 woman brought Amy to where our party were 
 standing to watch the parade from, I had to 
 look twice to see if it were Amy, so white, so 
 wan, so piteous was her look. 
 
 Mrs. Caxton s face was full of bright mal 
 ice, and she left us with the wickedest little 
 laugh I ever heard. 
 
 I have only a confused recollection of that 
 superb spectacle, dress parade at West Point. 
 The immaculate uniforms, the clock-like pre 
 cision, the soldierly bearing of those dear boys 
 all were blurred. My whole thought was to 
 shield this white-lipped girl from observation 
 and to get her home. 
 
 As I laughed and talked with others I felt 
 Aubrey press a paper into my hand.
 
 184 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " Don t read it until you get home," he 
 whispered. 
 
 When I was at liberty to look for him, both 
 he and Amy had disappeared. 
 
 I thought the time would never come when 
 I could find the time, in that gay set of chat 
 terers to read that pencilled scrawl. It was 
 from Amy and said simply : 
 
 " I have gone home. Let me go quietly, 
 for I believe I am dying." 
 
 Aubrey came into the room just as I read it. 
 
 "Where is she? In her room? Did you 
 bring her home? What is the matter with 
 her? Did she tell you? Did you see this 
 note? I must go to her at once! " 
 
 He caught at my hand as I rushed by him. 
 
 " I put her on the train on the New York 
 side. She has gone home alone. The child 
 is desperately hurt and the best thing is to let 
 her fight it out alone." 
 
 "Aubrey!" I cried. "Aubrey! You let 
 that girl go alone ! " 
 
 " I telephoned Mrs. Jimmie to meet her at 
 the station. She will know what to do ! " 
 
 " Yes, so she will ! Poor dear ! What was 
 it, do you think? What did Mrs. Caxton tell 
 her?" 
 
 " I don t know, but it must have been pretty 
 bad. That woman is a devil ! "
 
 The Widow Assists 185 
 
 It is a serious thing to be a cadet at West 
 Point when you are in love. Although Col. 
 Mockridge was our cousin and could have 
 given Dusty leave to go to New York ten 
 times over, he wouldn t do it, for he not only 
 ridiculed the idea that these two were in love, 
 but he rather resented our believing it, and 
 our interference irritated his usual placid soul 
 to such an extent that he finally said that he 
 was glad Mrs. Caxton said enough to put a 
 stop to such utter foolishness as a belief among 
 sensible persons that anything serious could 
 come of a twenty-four-hour infatuation. 
 
 In vain we cited " The Brushwood Boy " 
 and told of all the instances we knew, as well 
 as some we made up. He was obdurate, and 
 I was forced to see Dusty suffer during that 
 wretched week, as I never care to see a man 
 suffer again. 
 
 / believed in the love of these two at any rate. 
 
 I know this. Dusty wrote to Amy every 
 day for two months, before she would even 
 open a letter. She returned them to him, 
 everyone. Still, he told me it was a comfort 
 even to see her handwriting on the envelopes, 
 and that he never tore one open without the 
 hope that she had relented and answered. 
 
 In vain did I attempt to find out what sort 
 of a lie Mrs. Caxton had told. Had Dusty
 
 1 86 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 been foolish and written a letter that she could 
 show ? Dusty swore he hadn t. 
 
 There was a frightful row, about something 
 else, ostensibly, but Mrs. Caxton was finally 
 made to see that she was persona non grata, 
 so she left West Point, taking her docile hus 
 band with her to stir up trouble in another 
 post. Officially it read that her husband was 
 " transferred." 
 
 Finally Bee did what only a very brave and 
 a very clever woman would dare to do. 
 
 She set herself to bring Amy Levering and 
 Laflin Van Tassel together. 
 
 To be sure, she knew by this time that Amy 
 was a girl of spirit and courage, and we had 
 all come to realize that she would win, along 
 any lines she chose to lay down for herself. 
 She had a will of iron under that delicate, wist 
 ful beauty of hers. 
 
 And her self-control was wonderful. 
 
 She allowed herself to be paired off with 
 Laflin at dinners, and she seemed to all out 
 ward appearances to be satisfied with the way 
 things were going, but once when she was 
 alone with me she threw herself into my arms 
 weeping bitterly and sobbing out : 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Jardine! My Brushwood 
 Boy ! The hero of all my dreams!" 
 
 She listened to my accounts of how Dusty
 
 The Widow Assists 187 
 
 distinguished himself on the gridiron and how 
 well he acted in the play, but no amount of art 
 could draw from her one word of the trouble 
 between them. 
 
 Finally, on Bee s hint, I wrote Dusty a long 
 letter, in which I artfully mingled Amy s and 
 Laflin s names. In fact, I stirred up his jeal 
 ousy to the best of my poor ability. 
 
 The result of my prowess made me feel 
 that my art was almost too strong for every 
 day use, for the next train brought Dusty to 
 New York. 
 
 " Dusty," I cried when I saw him, " had 
 you leave to come? " 
 
 He shook his head miserably. 
 
 " No, the Superintendent wouldn t give it to 
 me, so I ll have to resign. But I don t mind 
 even that if I can only see Amy. Do you think 
 you could manage it for me." 
 
 " Could I? " I cried valiantly. " I ll bring 
 her dead or alive ! " 
 
 I brought her! 
 
 And I left them alone together in my studio 
 for one whole blissful afternoon. 
 
 And they made it up whatever it was. 
 
 By four o clock they were safely engaged. 
 For I descended upon them with tea and de 
 manded to know. I frankly told them that I 
 could not bear the suspense any longer.
 
 1 88 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 They both kissed me, and Amy would have 
 kissed Aubrey, if she had not seen how queer 
 Aubrey looked when Dusty kissed me, so she 
 considerately forbore. But she looked as 
 though she would like to kiss the whole world 
 and let it know how much beauty there was in 
 life and how much to love. 
 
 Aubrey, who knows his cousin, Col. Mock- 
 ridge, and the Superintendent and army disci 
 pline better than the rest of us do, looked grave 
 when I told him that Dusty was here without 
 leave. 
 
 " Unless we can placate the powers," he 
 said, " it will mean either a court martial or 
 expulsion." 
 
 " He says he means to resign," I said. 
 
 That would be a pity, for Miller is a born 
 soldier and would make a fine officer. I sup 
 pose, though, that with influence brought to 
 bear, we could get him a civilian appointment 
 afterwards." 
 
 " Oh, but that would be horrid," I cried. 
 " He is so near the head of his class that he is 
 eligible for the engineers or the artillery at 
 the worst, and then to miss graduation and 
 enter the army as a civilian ! " 
 
 " He knew all that before he came," said 
 Aubrey.
 
 The Widow Assists 189 
 
 " Well, I should think that would prove to 
 Col. Mockridge that he is in earnest." 
 
 Aubrey shook his head. Then he went and 
 talked with Dusty awhile. Finally he came 
 back with a serious face. 
 
 " I think I ll run up to West Point and talk 
 to John about the matter. You can send 
 Dusty to the Jimmies for the night. I ll be 
 back in the morning." 
 
 The next day a little before noon my studio 
 presented an unusual appearance. Amy and 
 Bee and Dusty were there, and Amy, all ex 
 citement, brought the news that she had 
 spread the whole matter before her father and 
 he had promised to call on me at twelve o clock 
 and look Dusty over. 
 
 " He didn t even tell mother, so that means 
 that he is all on our side," cried Amy. 
 
 When Cyrus Levering entered the room, I 
 knew why he had come to be such a power in 
 the world of finance. He radiated strength, 
 and the iron will Amy had inherited looked 
 out of his keen blue eyes. 
 
 The young man and the old became friends 
 in that first honest hand clasp. 
 
 " So," said Mr. Levering. " My little girl 
 has not been herself since she went to West 
 Point with Mrs. Jardine "
 
 190 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 I looked up in astonishment and Bee 
 smiled. 
 
 " and you are the Reason, are you?" 
 
 " I wish I could think that I had been," said 
 the young man smiling. " But if I had had 
 my way, her knowing me would not have 
 brought that look to her face. The reason for 
 that look wore skirts." 
 
 The old man s face broke into a smile. 
 
 " Do you love my child, young man? " 
 
 " With all my heart," said Dusty solemnly. 
 
 " Then treat her well and I ll treat you well. 
 You won t have to live on just your salary." 
 
 " Haven t you told him, Amy ? " asked 
 Dusty. 
 
 "Told him what?" 
 
 " That I probably won t have any salary to 
 support you on, unless I can get a civilian ap 
 pointment." 
 
 "What s that?" said Mr. Levering, 
 sharply. " I thought you were a cadet at 
 West Point." 
 
 " I am," answered Dusty. " But I shall be 
 expelled for absence without leave. I couldn t 
 get leave, Amy wouldn t come to me, nor even 
 read my letters, so I came to her." 
 
 The old man worked his eyebrows up and 
 down as he sat watching the young man. 
 
 " So ! You risked dismissal and possibly
 
 The Widow Assists 191 
 
 ruined your career just to see my girl. Was 
 that wise?" 
 
 "No, sir!" 
 
 " Well, you re both young. You can wait 
 and prove your mettle." 
 
 "I m willing to!" 
 
 " But I m not," cried Amy. " I don t want 
 to wait ! " 
 
 " You don t," said her father, tilting her 
 face up to his. " What do you want ? " 
 
 " I want to be married the day after he 
 graduates and have a big military wedding ! " 
 
 " When I was a boy in Akron, Ohio," said 
 the old man, " I joined the village band, not 
 because I was musical, but so that I could wear 
 the uniform. I guess Amy inherits my love 
 for brass buttons." 
 
 " It is barely possible," I said, " that my 
 husband has been successful in averting any 
 bad results from Mr. Miller s action. He went 
 to West Point last night to intercede for him." 
 
 " Your husband did that? " asked Mr. Lev 
 ering. " Amy, you seem to have made 
 friends." 
 
 Just then Aubrey let himself in, and I ran to 
 meet him. I knew by his face that his quest 
 had been in vain. 
 
 We introduced him and he told us about it. 
 
 " I never saw such a place as West Point,"
 
 192 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 said the Angel wearily. " Influence, talk, ar 
 guments, threats, anger, rage, sweetness, tears, 
 pleadings all in vain. You are up against 
 it good and hard, young man." 
 
 " Did you see Maj. Faxon, the Superintend 
 ent?" asked Dusty dismally. 
 
 " I did. I don t care for him. He s not an 
 affable acquaintance." 
 
 "What do they propose to do to him?" 
 asked Mr. Levering. 
 
 " Court martial and dismiss him is the 
 program they sketched out for my entertain 
 ment." 
 
 " Well, there s this to be said for Maj. 
 Faxon. He is a sick man. He has asked to 
 be retired and the Retiring Board is to act 
 next week. He doesn t feel like closing his 
 career by making a possible mistake," said 
 Dusty. 
 
 " Who is to succeed him? " I asked. 
 
 " Maj. Featherstone," said Dusty. 
 
 I looked at Bee. So did Aubrey. So did 
 all the others, just because we did. But Bee 
 never blushes. Her eyes change colour. 
 
 Then a faint sound made itself heard, some 
 thing like a snicker. I have since wondered if 
 it came from me, for I was the only one who 
 knew of both facts one, of Maj. Feather- 
 stone s hopeless but none the less interesting
 
 The Widow Assists 193 
 
 passion for my widowed sister, the other of 
 Bee s sub-cutaneous reason for releasing Laflin 
 Van Tassel from any possible interest in 
 Amy Levering by marrying her to another 
 man. 
 
 " Maj. Featherstone is in town," said Bee 
 slowly. " He is at the New Grand Hotel. 
 I " 
 
 "You what?" I demanded impatiently. 
 I forgot that Bee might hesitate at placing 
 herself under obligations to Maj. Feather- 
 stone by asking a favour of him, just at this 
 stage of the game, but I might have known 
 that my sister plays boldly to win. 
 
 " I had a note from him this morning say 
 ing that that he had important news for me. 
 It might mean that he is to report at once. In 
 that case " 
 
 " There s no time to be lost," said Aubrey. 
 
 " I might telephone," said Bee. 
 
 I escorted her to the telephone so promptly 
 that it disturbed her dignity. 
 
 It seemed ages before she finished, for no 
 one who has not tried it, knows the maddening 
 delays of telephoning to any New York hotel. 
 
 Finally, however, she came back. 
 
 " Dusty," she said, " you are in clover. 
 Maj. Featherstone has been appointed Acting 
 Superintendent, and he says for you to ap-
 
 194 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 ply for five days leave beginning yester 
 day." 
 
 Dusty s incredulous face showed how mar 
 vellous must have been Bee s influence to have 
 got such a thing through the frightful red tape 
 of West Point. 
 
 " What ? " he cried. " Mrs. Lathrop, are 
 you sure? " 
 
 " I am sure. Maj. Featherstone will be at 
 West Point to-morrow morning. If I were in 
 your place I d have my letter there to greet 
 him. I told him that we would manage Col. 
 Mockridge." 
 
 " Oh, John is all right," said Aubrey. 
 " When he discovered that Miller was really 
 here, he was on our side in a minute." 
 
 "Hum!" said Cyrus Levering. "Well, 
 Amy, you certainly are blessed with influential 
 friends." Here he looked at Bee. " I m glad 
 you wrote me that letter, Mrs. Lathrop," he 
 added. " I wouldn t have made more trouble 
 for these young people for anything." 
 
 "What letter?" asked Amy. 
 
 " Did you think I fell into your young man s 
 arms without knowing something about him 
 and his family and his record? You owe 
 more of this morning s work to Mrs. Lathrop 
 than you realize, Amy. In fact I may say that
 
 The Widow Assists 195 
 
 without her efforts in your behalf, it wouldn t 
 have been done." 
 
 " Oh, no, Mr. Levering," said Bee mod 
 estly. " You held the cards. I only assisted."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE MARRIAGE OF PEARL MARGUERITE 
 
 JUST then occurred an upheaval in the 
 domestic economy of our home, which 
 deserves a passing mention. 
 
 It was Pearl Marguerite of course. 
 
 Although she was only the black general 
 housework girl, Pearl Marguerite had her 
 social uses. 
 
 I discovered them one evening when I had 
 Patricia Marston and her Englishman to din 
 ner. I happened to call her by name. 
 
 " Pearl Marguerite," I said, " please hand 
 me the red pepper ! " 
 
 Lord Abernethy gave one glance into her 
 black, black face. Then he laughed loud and 
 long and the American joke then being told 
 made quite a hit. 
 
 But I knew what had amused him, so that 
 during all the rest of the dinner, whenever it 
 was time for Abernethy to laugh, I called 
 Pearl Marguerite by name. 
 
 Afterwards everybody said he was the first 
 196
 
 Marriage of Pearl Marguerite 197 
 
 Englishman they ever saw who could appre 
 ciate our kind of jokes. 
 
 Pearl Marguerite was one of the most com 
 petent servants I ever saw. She did all the 
 washing and ironing, the cooking, cleaning, 
 chamber work and waiting, yet she always 
 seemed to have plenty of time. 
 
 I went into the kitchen one day and found 
 her leaning so far out of the window that she 
 was holding on by hooking her toes under the 
 edge of the table across which she was lying. 
 
 " Pearl Marguerite," I cried, making ready 
 to seize her by her ankle in case I startled her. 
 " Do be careful. It is nine stones to the 
 ground ! " 
 
 She humped herself back and stood before 
 me. 
 
 " I wasn t doin nothin , Mis Jardine," she 
 said. 
 
 " I didn t say you were," I answered. 
 
 She gave me a queer look. 
 
 " I came to tell you that I have had a com 
 plaint made against you by the servants whose 
 rooms are next yours," I said. 
 
 The servants quarters in our apartment 
 house were on the top floor. 
 
 " Now Mis Jardine, don you believe all 
 you hear. I wasn t doin nothin cep " 
 
 "Except what?"
 
 198 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " Well, his do was open, en I jes thowed a 
 glass ob water awn him when he was asleep, 
 en in de scuffle what enshued - 
 
 " Did that scuffle take place in his room ? " 
 I demanded sternly. 
 
 "Naw m! In de hall!" 
 
 " Are you sure? " 
 
 " In cose I is sho ! After thowin water 
 awn a sleepin man, wouldn t anybody run? 
 Wouldn t you run ef you done it? " 
 
 Put that way I had to admit that possibly 
 Pearl Marguerite was right. 
 
 " Who is the man? " I asked. 
 
 " He s de butlah awn de firs flo ." 
 
 As I made no answer she added for further 
 identification : 
 
 " He walks out Sundays wid a brindle bull- 
 dawg wid a hob-na.il collah. Yallah com 
 plected wid a big di mon in his shirt front. 
 A real dudish lookin man." 
 
 " I don t think I have ever seen him," I said 
 hastily. "Are you engaged to him?" 
 
 She burst out laughing. Now a laugh with 
 Pearl Marguerite was not a drawing room 
 smile. It began with a squeal like a dog whose 
 tail is stepped OP. She then wrapped her arms 
 around her waist and went into a series of 
 internal boilings, during which time she bent 
 double and writhed as if in the grip of mortal
 
 Marriage of Pearl Marguerite 199 
 
 pain. She was very black and her teeth were 
 of an abnormal whiteness. Seen in a jungle, 
 all that would have been unnatural about Pearl 
 Marguerite would have been her white apron. 
 
 As I carefully said nothing further to incite 
 her to continue laughing, she finally stopped. 
 
 "Well?" I said. "Answer me. Are 
 you?" 
 
 She turned her back on me and reached up 
 to the gas meter for no reason at all. 
 - !" she mumbled. 
 
 " I don t hear a word. Turn around here 
 and take your apron out of your mouth. Now 
 answer me ! " 
 
 "Well, den, I is!" 
 
 " Has he given you a ring? " 
 
 " Naw m. He gives me a manicyohin 
 set," she said tapping her finger tips together 
 coyly. 
 
 " A manicuring set ! What are you going 
 to use it on ? The cat s claws ? " 
 
 Seeing from the contortions she immedi 
 ately went into that I was not likely to obtain 
 any further information from her in the next 
 half hour, I turned and went out. 
 
 As I got into the elevator, I said to the man, 
 a cinnamon-coloured man, whose name was 
 Claude, and who loved adjectives : 
 
 "What s the matter, Claude?"
 
 2OO The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 He was dabbing a handkerchief against his 
 mouth. 
 
 "I I got a slight toothache, Mis Jar- 
 dine." 
 
 " That s too bad," I observed. 
 
 " Yas m," he said, still dabbing. " My fo 
 front teeth are somewhat loose." 
 
 " I m sorry. Have you heard the news 
 about Pearl Marguerite?" 
 
 To my surprise, although a well trained 
 servant, Claude burst into a fit of laughter. 
 
 "What is the matter?" I cried. "Why 
 should everybody laugh at the idea of Pearl s 
 engagement ? " 
 
 "Do she say she s engaged?" he said. 
 "Lawd! Mis Jardine, dat gal s enough to 
 kill a dawg wid her engagement ! Why, 
 Harol is a mah ied man ! " 
 
 " Married ! " I cried. " The poor girl 
 doesn t know it. Why don t some of you tell 
 her?" 
 
 "Yas m. He! He! I reckon she know it." 
 
 " I m sure she doesn t," I said firmly. 
 
 " She knows some gal has a cinch awn him ! 
 Mis Jardine, you member Sunday evenin 
 along bout six o clock, you rang up de reah 
 elevator and axed Lorraine to go to de top flo 
 and get Pearl Marguerite foh yo ? " 
 
 " Yes, I remember ! "
 
 Marriage of Pearl Marguerite 20 1 
 
 " Well, Lorraine, he never went, caze we 
 both know dat Pearl Marguerite was chasm 
 down de middle ob de street wid yo bread 
 knife de one wid de crinkly aidge in huh 
 han atter Harold en a yallah gal she done 
 see outen yo windah ! " 
 
 " Why just now, she "I began hastily. 
 Then I stopped. 
 
 " Yas m. Well, I chased atter huh, caze I 
 know she d been up and lighted de oven en I 
 was afraid yo dinnah would burn up. I cotch 
 huh over awn Columbus Avenue, en I said 
 to huh, Come awn home gal ! Don you 
 know you done lef Mis Jardine s leg in de 
 oven to burn up? You ll lose yo place ef you 
 don watch out. But I couldn t move her. 
 So I went awn home and cooked dat lamb 
 myself en made de mint sauce. Pearl Mar 
 guerite come in jes in time to dish it up en 
 wait awn de table." 
 
 " Was Harold with his wife? " I asked. 
 
 " I don know. I didn t see him. Lorraine 
 tol me." 
 
 I thought over the situation very carefully. 
 Pearl Marguerite was only eighteen and this 
 was her first year in New York. She was 
 alone, her family all living in Maryland. 
 Finally I decided that I must have a talk with 
 her.
 
 2O2 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Several days passed and one morning she 
 broke the news to me that she was going to 
 get married, and on Monday. She only told 
 me on Thursday, so the time was short. 
 
 I began diffidently, because I really knew 
 nothing. It was only hear-say, but the giggles 
 of the elevator men and Pearl Marguerite s 
 spirited defiances were wafted to me through 
 the swinging doors, and I felt sure that some 
 thing was wrong. 
 
 After telling her she ought not to be in such 
 a hurry and asking her what she knew about 
 Harold, I wound up with : 
 
 " Now, I am not saying one word about the 
 man. He is probably all right. Only you 
 ought to ask his friends and find out. Be sure 
 about him. How do you know, for instance, 
 but that there is some girl already claiming 
 him!" 
 
 " Has anybody been talkin to you about 
 Harol ?" demanded the girl. 
 
 " Now, who would be likely to talk to a 
 white lady about a coloured man s private 
 affairs? I m only talking to you like this, 
 because your mother is not here to say the 
 same things. She would talk to you just this 
 way if you could see her. I m only doing it 
 to keep you from being fooled. Now you can 
 go ahead and do as you please. I ve done my
 
 Marriage of Pearl Marguerite 203 
 
 duty by you. Your own mother couldn t 
 give you any better advice." 
 
 " Naw m, she couldn ," said Pearl Margue 
 rite. 
 
 I told her what I would give her for a 
 wedding present and she thanked me, and said 
 she would think over what I had said. 
 
 But on Sunday she said she had decided 
 to go ahead with her plans and get married 
 the next day. We all gave her presents and 
 left her standing waiting for the rear elevator 
 to take her down. 
 
 But I had no sooner closed the door than 
 I remembered something I wanted to ask her. 
 The car was slowly descending as I opened 
 the door and these words came up quite 
 clearly : 
 
 " She said my maw would a said de same 
 tings, but my maw said to me : Pearl, ef you 
 ever gets a chance wid a likely man, don ask 
 no fool questions about his pas , caze I knowed 
 a sassy gal what done dat once an she los de 
 fellah en a yallah woman got him ! 
 
 I decided not to ask Pearl Marguerite what 
 she had done with her key. 
 
 For five days the girl Pearl Marguerite had 
 got to take her place did our work. On the 
 sixth to my surprise I found Pearl getting 
 lunch.
 
 204 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 "Why, Pearl Marguerite!" I exclaimed. 
 
 She turned a beaming face on me. One 
 front tooth was gone and her left eye was 
 swollen nearly shut. 
 
 " I done come back ! " she said. 
 
 "So I . see. Well, tell me about the wed 
 ding. Was it nice?" 
 
 " Yas m. Hit sho was. We went to de 
 preacher s house and got mah ied. Den we 
 come awn up to my sistah s en she give me a 
 fine deception. She gimmie a white cake wid 
 icin awn it, en as de gues come in she stood 
 at de do en sprayed em wid furriery out ob 
 one ob dese yere matanizers you know de 
 kin - - you squeezes de rubber ball and gets a 
 squirt ob cologne en yo face?" 
 
 " I have seen them," I said faintly. " It 
 must have been very nice." 
 
 " Harol say hit took de rag right off de 
 bush," said his wife, rearing her head proudly. 
 
 "Where is Harold?" I asked. 
 
 " He s back in his ol place downstairs awn 
 de firs flo ." 
 
 She put her hand to her swollen eye, which 
 evidently pained her. 
 
 Who knocked your tooth out and gave 
 you that black eye? " 
 
 " Harol ! " she said with another grin. 
 
 " He did! And yet you still like him? "
 
 Marriage of Pearl Marguerite 205 
 
 Although ordinarily quite respectful, Pearl 
 Marguerite, elated by her recent experiences, 
 gave me such a nudge with her elbow that she 
 knocked me against the ice box. 
 
 " Jal- ous ! " she cried in a voice of triumph. 
 
 For a moment I struggled silently with my 
 emotions. Then I said sternly: 
 
 That s a nice way to show jealousy. To 
 half kill a woman." 
 
 " Hit s de white blood in him," declared 
 his wife. " A coal black niggah is all niggah, 
 en you can count awn him. But dese yere 
 yellah people, wid jes enough white blood in 
 em to mek em feel dey s ez good ez white 
 folks en what ack lake white folks den you 
 get de debble ! " 
 
 " I came in," I said hastily, " to tell you to 
 make a mayonnaise ! " 
 
 " Yas m." 
 
 As I turned to go out, Pearl Marguerite 
 said in a voice replete with satisfied ambition : 
 
 " Ise a bride, Mis Jardine! " 
 
 I hastily shut the door and left the bride 
 washing dishes. 
 
 When I told Jimmie about her, he invited 
 himself to dinner three evenings in succession 
 and choked so often that Pearl Marguerite to 
 this day hovers near him whenever he eats,
 
 206 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 expecting to be called upon to slap him on the 
 back to bring him to life. 
 
 She told me she thought the reason he 
 choked so often was because he didn t " know 
 how to swaller good! "
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 IN SEARCH OF A HUSBAND 
 
 ALTHOUGH I said nothing to Aubrey 
 of my philanthropic plans with re 
 gard to helping Bee in her affair with 
 Laflin, my chagrin may be imagined when, a 
 few days later, he looked at me with a twinkle 
 in his eye and said : 
 
 " Well, I am sure we could manage it ! " 
 
 " Manage what ? " I flared out, on the de 
 fensive instantly. 
 
 " To include Van Tassel in our party for 
 New Haven!" 
 
 " How did you know ? I never thought of 
 such a thing! It s mean of you to see through 
 me like that ! " I stormed. 
 
 He came over to me. 
 
 " Don t be vexed at me, little woman ! Who 
 wouldn t know when your eyes fairly devour 
 Bee every time you see her and when the con 
 versation between you two ever since we were 
 at Coolmeath has inevitably led to his name? 
 Don t I know, from past experience, that you 
 have actually built on New Haven, and if that 
 207
 
 208 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 can t be managed, you have thought gratefully 
 of your genius at dinner giving? " 
 
 " I d as soon be married to a Pinkerton de 
 tective as to you ! " I cried. " I wish you 
 wouldn t watch me so ! " 
 
 " I find all my joy in life in observing your 
 slightest action," said the Angel, with such a 
 look that I descended from my high horse in 
 stantly and a description of the next few mo 
 ments would be a bore to any but just us two. 
 
 "Do you want him invited?" asked Au 
 brey. 
 
 " I would like it if you could manage it," 
 I said. 
 
 " 1? " 
 
 " Yes, it would look far less marked coming 
 from you." 
 
 " Why are you taking so much trouble? If 
 a man wants a woman he always finds a way 
 to get her." 
 
 " The ordinary woman, yes. But think how 
 horribly Bee has always been misunderstood. 
 And remember how public sympathy always 
 went with James, because of his godliness 
 and because of the conventions which bid a 
 woman stay at home even if her husband beats 
 her every night. Laflin doesn t know Bee - 
 that s the whole trouble."
 
 In Search of a Husband 209 
 
 " Then he shall get to know her," said Au 
 brey decidedly. " I think he would like to like 
 her that he would fairly enjoy letting him 
 self go." 
 
 " Oh, you darling," I cried. " That s just 
 the way I feel about it. / believe he s afraid 
 of her! He is rather simple and undeveloped 
 and Bee always strikes everyone as being 
 well finished, so to speak! " 
 
 So it was all settled and I gave the matter 
 no further thought. 
 
 How Bee managed to hold her to it, I don t 
 know, but Lyddy actually did invite our whole 
 party to go as her guests. It was too cold for 
 motors, therefore we went on the train, a 
 merry, excited, nervous but happy family. 
 And in addition to the Jimmies, Lyddy, Bee 
 and Bob Mygatt, we had brought Mrs. Keep, 
 the Munsons and Laflin Van Tassel. 
 
 Now the style of conversation of these four 
 new comers into our ranks is worth mention 
 ing. 
 
 Munson is far and away the most fluent 
 as well as the most elegant talker we know. 
 Slang knows him not. He dips deep into the 
 well of perfect English, pure and undefiled, and 
 reels off hours of monologue which holds us 
 entranced, gaping and appreciative, wonder-
 
 2IO The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 ing where he got it all, but satisfied to keep 
 silent and let him hold the floor. 
 
 And it is well that this is the case most of 
 the time, for any attempt on our part to join in 
 his monologue, to vary it by a making of it a 
 duet or a trio, annoys Munson. If we inter 
 rupt he waves us back by his hand. If we per 
 sist, he gets sulky. 
 
 Still, Munson sometimes bore interrup 
 tions, not gracefully, but without positive 
 rudeness. But his eyes would flash interroga 
 tively at the others to see if their impatience 
 to hear him continue matched his own, and 
 one could always tell by the nervous rotary 
 motion of his long and intelligent foot, that he 
 would not brook the interloper long. And the 
 gently forbearing manner in which he took 
 up the thread of his conversation, with a child 
 like faith in our having been bored by the in 
 terruption equally with himself, made an even 
 ing with Munson a succession of emotions, 
 which ran the gamut from delighted admira 
 tion to the compassion one would feel for a 
 confiding child, whose faith in the world has 
 never been shaken. 
 
 Having travelled a great deal and being pos 
 sessed of a rich imagination, a sense of 
 humour and some delicacy of feeling, Mun 
 son had assimilated his material from every
 
 In Search of a Husband 211 
 
 source he had thus encountered, and he was 
 equally gifted with pen as with tongue. 
 
 But he possessed as well the delicate un 
 balance, to put it mildly, which afflicts all 
 genius, and this was particularly apparent 
 when the cup that cheers was pressed to his 
 willing lips. On one drink, Munson expanded. 
 On two he exaggerated. On three he lied. 
 But lied with such fluency, such imagination, 
 such glorious potency of seeming truth, that he 
 never could count on being invited to stop 
 after one. The other two were always click 
 ing at his elbow and his audience was smiling 
 and anticipatory around him. 
 
 Eleanor Munson, his wife, seldom spoke at 
 such times, but sat looking at him with the 
 look a wife reserves for a husband who grows 
 expansive on three. 
 
 Equally interesting, equally persistent but 
 much more modest, was Mrs. Keep s habit of 
 converse. She never took the initiatory as 
 Munson always expressed willingness to do. 
 She never interrupted. She never demanded 
 an exploitation of her views, unless you asked 
 her. Then if you did, you had to listen. Mrs. 
 Keep was exceedingly matter-of-fact. Having 
 been invited to express her opinion, she firmly 
 believed you wanted to hear it, and hear it you 
 must, if it took all day !
 
 212 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Now Mrs. Keep was not quick in speech. 
 To tell the truth she was mortally slow, and 
 in our rapid, telegraphic style, the Happy 
 Family often supplied her hesitating tongue 
 with the word for which she groped, or an 
 ticipated her meaning with an eager reply to 
 her as yet unspoken words. Vain were we to 
 think that we could hurry her. Her conversa 
 tion was like a serial which is paid for by the 
 word. It was longer than the tactics of the 
 story demanded. But you had to take it all. 
 You couldn t get on with the story because the 
 next number wasn t out. If you interrupted 
 her, she simply went back and began over, 
 without any irritation, any hurry or any 
 noise. 
 
 Did you ever try to shut the cat out of the 
 house on a summer evening and have her 
 come in at the back door? Then if you put her 
 out again, the window did very nicely, thanks. 
 Again she is placed on the mat and she comes 
 up from the cellar. Finally you put her out 
 for the night and lock up, and just as you go 
 to turn out the light, you see her stealing down 
 from the attic, whither she had attained no 
 one on earth knows how, but with the ex 
 pression on her face of, " I know you made a 
 mistake to put me out. You really wanted me, 
 so here I am ! "
 
 In Search of a Husband 213 
 
 That is the gentle persistence and tactful 
 pertinacity of Mrs. Keep s conversation when 
 you have asked for her views. 
 
 Ava Corliss, while saying little, always man 
 aged to make us self-conscious. We always 
 felt that it would be better for us if we each 
 had a Mission in Life. But we don t want 
 to have Missions. We jog along, amusing 
 ourselves and doing what good we can, but we 
 hate to talk about our virtues or feel them. 
 The well-clad Christian is the one whose vir 
 tues fit him to such perfection that he is able to 
 forget all about them. The Christian who is 
 forever talking about the set of his halo be 
 longs to the spiritually nouveau riche. 
 
 Ava disapproved of Bob s drinking and 
 smoking and wouldn t go automobiling on 
 Sunday. She also thought a cold supper was 
 the acme of Christian hospitality on the Sab 
 bath, and looked askance at us because we had 
 a hot dinner and dressed for it as on week 
 days. And because of these things, Ava s 
 contributions to our conversations were the 
 reverse of hilarious. 
 
 I pass lightly over the fact that she had no 
 sense of humour, because Mrs. Jimmie had less 
 than none, yet she was a darling and we all 
 adored her. 
 
 No, Ava Corliss appeared to regard herself
 
 214 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 as a Shining Example and it was evident that 
 she had set herself to reform Bob Mygatt. 
 
 It was a good thing she was pretty. 
 
 Laflin Van Tassel was also so good to look 
 at that it really made no difference to me what 
 he thought or said. My scalp was hanging 
 from his belt from the moment he joined our 
 party, as he so plainly showed his appreciation 
 of my Angel, his delicate habit of thought and 
 his work. 
 
 Munson didn t like him. He said : 
 
 " Van Tassel is not my idea of a com 
 panionable man." 
 
 "What?" I said. "Doesn t he sit silent 
 and listen to you by the hour ? What more do 
 you want of a companion ? " 
 
 " Ah," said Munson, eager to set me right 
 on a delicate point like that, " you seem to for 
 get that there are listeners and listeners. 
 Some listen receptively. Others shed the 
 stream of ideas which pours over them, leaving 
 themselves quite dry. Now Van Tassel, while 
 outwardly all that is polite and courteous, de 
 flects all I say. He doesn t " 
 
 " I know what you mean. He doesn t sop 
 it up!" 
 
 " He doesn t absorb it," Munson corrected 
 me delicately. 
 
 " And don t you know why? " I asked curi-
 
 In Search of a Husband 215 
 
 ously, for with all Munson s intelligence I am 
 sometimes so surprised to see him overlook a 
 psychological fact like the one he complained 
 of. 
 
 " No. Is there any reason ? " 
 
 " A very decided one. Your habit of 
 thought and Laflin Van Tassel s are as widely 
 separated as the poles. Your reasoning is al 
 ways materialistic, his is spiritual. You are 
 a pagan, without a God or a religion. He has 
 a code of Christian ethics which beautifies his 
 whole life. You believe in hate and revenge. 
 He is none of your orthodox Christians, who 
 subscribe to worn out creeds and rituals, you 
 understand. He simply, as you say, sheds all 
 false beliefs, false ethics, false reasoning and 
 pantheistic philosophy." 
 
 " That, then, is one reason I don t like him," 
 said Munson. " Another is that he is at all 
 times so hopelessly and, to me, obnoxiously, 
 well dressed. I don t care for perfectly got up 
 men. The contrast between them and myself 
 is too humiliating. And I am a proud 
 man!" 
 
 His big, serious brown eyes twinkled, and I 
 laughed. 
 
 On the night of Bob s play, however, all 
 these differences of opinion were forgotten. 
 
 It is difficult to argue from a try-out in New
 
 216 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Haven, because the boys are so enthusiastic. 
 You feel as if you are in for a two years run 
 in New York. But, to some of us the air that 
 night seemed electric with foreboding. 
 
 I kept looking about through the audience 
 as if trying to find some one who was watch 
 ing me. I couldn t enjoy the play, foolish and 
 therefore successful as it seemed. 
 
 Ava Corliss, as Allie Gayter looked lovely 
 and sang bewitchingly. Bob paced the narrow 
 space behind our box and gnawed his nails 
 with the sick stomach and light head which 
 every first nighter knows. His usually ruddy 
 face was a pale green and he wobbled on his 
 legs. 
 
 Poor fellow! Didn t I just know how he 
 felt! 
 
 We tried to cheer him up between acts, but 
 we couldn t manage it. 
 
 "What is the matter, Bob?" I said. 
 " Can t you smile and make us feel welcome? 
 You act as if the avenging angel were on your 
 track." 
 
 He started and gave me a quick glance 
 which sent the cold shivers down my back. 
 
 " I hate this damned town ! " he cried. " It 
 always gives me the blues to come here! I 
 knew it would be like this! " 
 
 I started in to comfort him, when suddenly
 
 In Search of a Husband 217 
 
 a thought struck me, and I turned my head 
 away for fear that Bob should read my face. 
 
 Yet after the second act, Bob disappeared, 
 and to the vociferous calls for " author," 
 " author," the manager, flushed and annoyed, 
 was obliged to say that the author was not in 
 the house. 
 
 This evidently disappointed the college boys 
 in the audience, for we could imagine just how 
 much a favourite a fellow like Bob would be. 
 Things quieted down after that and they 
 didn t even give the Yale yell. Which did 
 seem queer. 
 
 What was the matter with everybody and 
 everything ? 
 
 After the play was over, we determined to 
 liven things up a little. We got Ava and pre 
 pared to be our dear Lyddy s guests. Which, 
 as Jimmie said, was " something which could 
 not be overcome at once. It must be lived 
 down." 
 
 But nobody could have done anything with 
 the awful incongruities in our party. 
 
 To be sure Bob cheered up a little, but 
 Lyddy was rendered perfectly waspish by see 
 ing Bob s devotion to Ava and his pride in 
 her success. 
 
 Lyddy s manner grew more and more nerv 
 ous, her tongue more and more peppery.
 
 218 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Ava was near-sighted and once in a while, 
 wore glasses. For some reason she had them 
 on at supper that night and it was the first time 
 Lyddy had noticed them. 
 
 She looked the girl over critically and then 
 said: 
 
 " How glasses spoil one s looks ! With lit 
 erary people one doesn t mind them, but on a 
 girl who has nothing to depend on but her 
 face, it really is a pity, isn t it? " 
 
 Ava only smiled and took her glasses off, 
 and because she had failed to annoy Ava, 
 Lyddy said nasty things to each of us in turn 
 until she came to Bob. 
 
 Something had been said about the money 
 to be made out of a good play and Bob 
 said: 
 
 " I care not for the necessities of life. Give 
 me the luxuries. I ll be perfectly satisfied not 
 to have all the bread and butter I need, if my 
 play will only give me an automobile! " 
 
 Then came Lyddy s masterpiece. 
 
 You needn t wait a day for that!" she 
 said. " I will give you an automobile to-mor 
 row on just one condition ! " 
 
 In a flash Bob knew she was in earnest, and 
 being himself an ardent disciple of Graft, he 
 said: 
 
 " Name it, dear lady ! "
 
 In Search of a Husband 219 
 
 " That you will never take any other 
 woman in it, except me! " 
 
 Jimmie said he didn t get the vinegar out 
 of his windpipe for a week. 
 
 We all pretended that we had dropped 
 things, and as we fumbled on the floor, Bob 
 and Lyddy faced each other across the festal 
 board, watched in a tense silence by Ava Cor 
 liss. 
 
 The rest of us drew together at one end of 
 the table, where, as Jimmie said, we were " out 
 of harm s way." 
 
 Then Bob drew Ava s hand under his arm 
 saying : 
 
 " Such a gift would be useless to me, oh, 
 sweetest and most generous of young women, 
 as I am going to marry this dear girl unless 
 she refuses me on account of my poverty." 
 
 To my astonishment, Lyddy smiled a 
 smile of grim determination, which caused 
 Ava to rear her head proudly and Bob to drop 
 his eyes, and switch the conversation. He got 
 up and walked to the window and Ava and 
 Lyddy followed him. 
 
 " Somehow, though anybody can see it 
 isn t Bob s fault, the whole thing is rather 
 sickening," I said, in an undertone to our end 
 of the table. 
 
 "Not Bob s fault?" murmured the Angel.
 
 22O The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 "If ever there was encouragement in a look, 
 it was in the one he gave Lyddy when he told 
 her he was going to marry Ava! " 
 
 " With her hand in his ! " I cried, shocked. 
 
 " Isn t Lyddy a vicious old devil ! " observed 
 Jimmie in a genial tone of general conversa 
 tion. " Did you hear her tell me that no 
 woman who loved jewels as much as my wife 
 does, ever married as rich a man as I am for 
 love? I could smash her map for her! " 
 
 " You needn t take the trouble to utter such 
 words even in fun," said Laflin Van Tassel. 
 " That poor woman, hating, as she seems to 
 do, every living creature, even you, her 
 friends, carries her punishment with her every 
 hour that she lives, and is deserving of your 
 profoundest sympathy. Just think of the 
 misery of her thought ! Never a kind or gen 
 erous word or deed, which has not herself for 
 a beneficiary. And not a tolerant thought 
 going out to her in her loneliness from anyone 
 on earth. It strikes me that with all her 
 money and I ve been poor long enough to 
 know the value of it Miss Lathrop is the 
 most pitiable object I ever have seen." 
 
 " By Jove! " said Jimmie. " You are right! 
 I never thought of the poor old critter in that 
 light before, but it is quite true. Not a living
 
 In Search of a Husband 221 
 
 soul in this world but hates her. Think of 
 it!" 
 
 " I have thought of it often," said Mrs. 
 Jimmie quietly. " What she needs is a little 
 love." 
 
 " Well, you try and offer it to her and you 
 are liable to get your face slapped," said 
 Jimmie. " Love and Lyddy Lathrop, in 
 deed ! " 
 
 He looked at Bee, and added : 
 
 " Do you think you can learn to love our 
 dear Lyddy during the term you are sentenced 
 for?" 
 
 Bee shot him a strange look. 
 
 " It will not be a full sentence," she said. 
 " You know even a convict gets some time 
 off for good behaviour." 
 
 Laflin Van Tassel gave her a plainly ap 
 proving look, and Jimmie was on the verge 
 of understanding that something was going 
 on, when the door opened.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 IN WHICH BOB MAKES A PROPOSAL OF 
 MARRIAGE 
 
 DTD you ever drive a family horse on a 
 lazy summer morning with such list- 
 lessness and loose reins that when he 
 suddenly shied at a tin can and ran away, you 
 were dumped out on the roadside, dazed and 
 speechless and so sat there, just watching his 
 cloud of dust and not even trying to do any 
 thing? 
 
 Well, when the door opened and in walked 
 a man, a woman and a child, it did not need 
 more than one glance into the child s face, 
 which was Bob s in miniature, for us all to 
 know that at last we were in the presence of 
 the Reason for everything. 
 
 Yet strange to say, Bob looked more appre 
 hensively at the man than at the other two, and 
 the first words he uttered were : 
 
 "Well, Shupe!" 
 
 Shupe held out a roll of music MS. and 
 said : 
 
 " Would you like to see the original of
 
 Bob Makes a Proposal 223 
 
 your play to-night, Mr. Mygatt, author and 
 composer of the now famous musical comedy, 
 entitled The Alligator Pear Tree?" 
 
 Bob shook his head, whereat Mr. Shupe 
 handed the MS. to Laflin, who took it, looked 
 at it and flung it open on the table. 
 
 As for Ava, she was staring in a fascinated 
 silence at the child, who clung to his mother s 
 hand and half hid behind her skirts. The 
 woman s face was contemptuous and cynical 
 and she seemed to have been drawn into the 
 affair by Shupe, for she kept her eyes on him 
 and waited for him to speak. 
 
 Only Mrs. Keep, Mrs. Jimmie and I were at 
 all upset by the situation. Munson and 
 Eleanor continued to smoke their cigarettes, 
 elbows on the table, and to smile inscrutably. 
 Jimmie and Aubrey drew together and looked 
 rather white. Laflin and Bee exchanged 
 glances, while Bob turned frankly to 
 
 Lyddy! 
 
 Lyddy s face was, after all, the most worth 
 looking at, for here she was, a homeless, lonely 
 old maid, at the eleventh hour plainly in the 
 running for the hand of a young and agreeable 
 bachelor, fascinating, but so hopelessly dis 
 graced that hereafter decent people must per 
 force shun him, wherefore he would be all 
 the more hers and hers alone.
 
 224 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Her face, as these thoughts struck her, was 
 a study in the passion of cupidity, exultant 
 malice and yes an honest affection 
 love, if you want to call it that, for our 
 poor, graceless, disgraced but still interesting 
 Bobbie ! 
 
 Shupe, noticing that Ava s eyes were round 
 with horror at the sight of Bob s lineaments 
 in the face of the child, spoke out in a voice 
 of anguish : 
 
 "Aval" he said. "Aval" 
 
 Slowly she looked at him. 
 
 " Will you believe me now! Will you be 
 lieve, not only that he stole my play, my poor 
 play that I worked four years on, but that he 
 has stolen your love ? Yes, stolen it ! He be 
 longs to this woman, who, as you all can see, 
 and as the Munsons have known for three 
 years, is the mother of his child ! " 
 
 Jimmie started- so at this announcement 
 that he dropped hot ashes on his hand and 
 said: 
 
 " Ouch! " in a very upsetting way. 
 
 But the Munsons only nodded in corrobora- 
 tion of Shupe s assertion and seemed to feel 
 neither responsibility nor much interest in the 
 affair. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Keep was furtively wiping her
 
 Bob Makes a Proposal 225 
 
 eyes and trying not to look at anybody it 
 was all so very embarrassing! 
 
 " If you had only believed me, Ava, dear," 
 Shupe went on, with such a fine disregard of 
 his audience, that I could not help admiring 
 him, for we are a disconcerting set of listeners 
 even for a series of plain facts, let alone 
 a love story and a heart tragedy like this, but 
 Shupe was so very simple, he did not know, 
 and so he shamed us "I never would have 
 been driven to this. I let him steal my songs 
 without a word, because you were to sing 
 them and because they were originally written 
 to exploit your dear voice " 
 
 " But he paid you for them afterward, 
 Roger," said Ava, very pale, but still just and 
 fair. 
 
 " Not one cent, dearest. If he told you he 
 did, it was just another of his lies." 
 
 " No, no! " I cried. " He did pay you! I 
 I happen to know that he did ! " 
 
 Shupe smiled. 
 
 " Just because your dear husband lent him 
 the money to do it, Mrs. Jardine, do you be 
 lieve that I got it? He probably spent it on 
 some other woman ! " 
 
 Just here Lyddy clutched her belt, " for all 
 the world," as Jimmie said afterward, " as if
 
 226 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 she had been struck with the stomach ache," 
 and we then saw that the Jardines had uncon 
 sciously and accidentally made her a present of 
 an amethyst belt buckle! 
 
 I could not resist giving Bob one wither 
 ing glance, but to my disgust, his blue Irish 
 eyes were actually twinkling with the exquisite 
 humour of the thing. I never saw such a 
 man as Bob Mygatt! You couldn t shame 
 him to save your life. There was no decency 
 in him to shame! 
 
 Then Shupe turned his attention to Bob, 
 who laid down his cigar, folded his hands and 
 prepared to give his whole attention to the 
 speaker. 
 
 " Bob Mygatt," he said, " it is quite useless 
 to say one word to you. You know what you 
 have done better than any of the rest of us. 
 You remember the day I brought this MS. to 
 you and you volunteered to try to get it before 
 some manager for me. You said that my idea 
 of a comedy written on the day of creation, 
 with all the animals talking and the scene the 
 Garden of Eden, was very original and taking. 
 Well, it tt aj taking. You took it, re-wrote 
 parts of it, changed its name to The Alligator 
 Pear Tree and produced it as your own. You 
 thought because I seemed a poor-spirited chap, 
 that you could bluff me out of it, but what
 
 Bob Makes a Proposal 227 
 
 you did not know, was that I was in love with 
 Ava Corliss and that we were engaged until 
 she met you." 
 
 Here Bob turned and looked curiously at 
 Ava, who had the grace to blush hotly. 
 
 " You are right, my dear Mr. Shupe," said 
 Bob politely. " I certainly did not know that. 
 I may go further and state that I was led to 
 believe that I was the first in the young lady s 
 affections." 
 
 At this Jimmie s entire countenance ex 
 panded in a silent but exquisitely appreciative 
 grin. It seemed to do him no end of good to 
 know that the stinger Bob had been so neatly 
 stung by our godly Ava, and with that 
 Puritan conscience of hers too. 
 
 But after all, it was the Puritan conscience 
 which decided things, for Ava, who might 
 have overlooked the theft of the play, because 
 Bob s smooth tongue could argue and con 
 vince anybody that black was only a deep 
 shade of gray and thus but a trifle removed 
 from pure white, had not taken her eyes from 
 the child. 
 
 Knowing this evidently, Mr. Shupe had 
 brought his reinforcements with him. 
 
 " As to whether this man has a right to 
 marry any woman, ask the mother of this 
 child ! " said Shupe impressively.
 
 228 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 But Bob was evidently, as Jimmie said, 
 " tired of being the goat," for he got up, nerv 
 ously clenching and unclenching his hands and 
 turning several colours at once. 
 
 " Don t trouble the lady ! " he said quickly. 
 " The whole story is in my little son s face. 
 This thing has hounded me for five years. 
 I m glad it s out. I m glad you all know it. 
 Now, you be the judges. What shall I do? 
 I don t love the child s mother nor she me, 
 though I adore the child. I do love another 
 woman" (Here Bob kept his eyes neither on 
 Ava nor on Lyddy, but safely riveted to my 
 face!) " What shall I do? Marry her just to 
 give my child a name a name that nobody 
 else wants, and so live out my life in hell, 
 or " 
 
 He stopped short, astonished at the passion 
 expressed in Lyddy s tense face and loud 
 breathing. 
 
 " Wait! " she said. " Wait! You said just 
 now that nobody wanted your name. Ava 
 Corliss may not she s too good ! But I ll 
 take it. And I won t steal you from another 
 woman either, who has the first claim on you. 
 If, as you say, this woman does not love you, 
 nor you her, and if- Here she turned to 
 Bob with a frenzy in her face so naked that 
 we were all ashamed that we saw "if you
 
 Bob Makes a Proposal 229 
 
 will love me me, you understand, as you 
 have loved these other women I will let 
 you marry and divorce her, and I will take 
 care of both the woman and the child for 
 life!" 
 
 In a silence which could have been heard for 
 miles. Bob Mygatt, as Jimmie said, " took the 
 hurdle." 
 
 " And after the divorce, will you marry me, 
 dear lady ? " 
 
 Poor Lyddy! 
 
 We turned away our faces. We just 
 couldn t look!
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 IN WHICH BOB BEGINS HIS CAREER OF 
 MARRYING 
 
 I DIDN T actually swoon, but things got 
 black before my eyes and Aubrey got me 
 some water and Jimmie accidentally 
 dropped some cigarette ashes down my neck 
 as he patted me on the back and implored me 
 to " buck up " and not " spoil the fun." 
 
 Fun! 
 
 It was Laflin Van Tassel who took charge 
 of the woman and her child and who got Bob 
 married to her the next day before any of us 
 went back to town. 
 
 " Why didn t you let us in on the deal ? " 
 demanded Jimmie, who hates to go to sleep 
 at night for fear he will miss a dog fight or a 
 fire or some kind of excitement. 
 
 "Because it wasn t decent!" I cried. 
 " Laflin did quite right to get it done as 
 quietly as possible. I m glad I wasn t asked 
 to witness the thing. I wouldn t have seen it 
 for anything! How did they behave, Laflin? " 
 230
 
 Bob s Career of Marrying 231 
 
 Jimmie bent double with laughter. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! You re glad you weren t there, 
 aren t you? Nevertheless, disgorge the 
 shockin details, Van Tassel. Tell her every 
 thing, or you ll die of her questions. They 
 are small, but there are so many of them, they 
 can sting a defenceless man to death." 
 
 " Not at all," I said, with pardonable heat. 
 (Jimmie does make me so wild.) " But while 
 one might not want to be mixed up in a dis 
 gusting affair like this, there is no harm in 
 wishing to know how Bob bore up under the 
 ordeal." 
 
 And then the same thought struck Jimmie 
 and me at the same time and we shrieked with 
 laughter. 
 
 " Honestly," said Jimmie wiping his eyes, 
 " of course we oughtn t to laugh at the im 
 moral spectacle of a man being obliged to right 
 his youthful follies by marrying the wronged 
 woman and giving his son a name, but honest 
 now ! To think of old Bob doing it to think 
 of Bob Mygatt " 
 
 "Jimmie!" I said imploringly, as the door 
 opened behind Jimmie. 
 
 " Oh, I know this is ribald and indecent," 
 said Jimmie, fairly weeping into his handker 
 chief. " I realize what Laflin calls the ethics 
 of the case. I know matrimony is a holy
 
 232 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 estate and not to be entered into lightly, but 
 soberly, et cetera. But what I want to know 
 is, could Bob keep his face straight? What / 
 want to know is, did Ava Corliss and that 
 undertaker, Shupe, grace the scene? What 
 / want to know is, was our fair Lyddy there 
 to give the bridegroom away, or does she con 
 sider this simply a renting of him for a season ? 
 What / want to know is - what are you 
 flagging me for, Faith Jardine, just when I 
 am beginning to enjoy myself?" 
 
 " Because," I said in quivering tones, 
 " Lyddy and Bob are just behind you ! " 
 
 For a moment Jimmie didn t dare turn 
 around to see. His mouth happened to be open 
 when I spoke and it stayed open so long that 
 I really feared for him. Then he got courage 
 to turn his head and face them. 
 
 I think I have never enjoyed anything in 
 the whole of my iniquitous career so much as 
 the sight of Jimmie s face when he finally 
 caught Bob s and Lyddy s look. 
 
 " We knocked twice," said Bob, to break 
 the ice which had frozen us all where we sat, 
 " but you were so congenially occupied - 
 
 Jimmie flapped his arms at him feebly, and 
 wiped the dampness from his brow. 
 
 I waited hopefully for Lyddy to express her 
 valuable opinion, but she only batted her weak
 
 Bob s Career of Marrying 233 
 
 eyes and seemed to be gathering her scattered 
 faculties together. 
 
 " Well, Lyddy," I said at last, goaded into 
 speech by the frightened silence of the others. 
 
 Then Lyddy rose to the occasion. She was 
 shaking with fury. Her face was red with 
 lighter blotches on it, and before she had said 
 ten words, her voice rose to a shrill scream. 
 
 I can t remember what she said. I have 
 only the hazy recollection that I was preparing 
 to endure her tirade, as Bee and I had endured 
 them hundreds of times before, when suddenly 
 there was silence and we looked in amaze, to 
 see Bob quietly but firmly propelling her to 
 the door, and bowing as gallantly over her 
 hand as if she had been Elaine and he Sir 
 Launcelot. 
 
 As Jimmie said afterward, " He fair kicked 
 her out of the room and she didn t know it! " 
 
 When the door closed behind her, I looked 
 to see Jimmie and Bob clinch in battle. 
 
 But I didn t know Bob. He asked Laflin 
 for a cigarette, Jimmie for a match, Bee for 
 an ash-tray, crossed his long legs, looked 
 around at all of us, winked cheerfully and 
 grinned his usual Irish, Bob Mygatt grin. 
 
 Whereat we all relaxed our tense muscles 
 and breathed such a sigh of relief that it 
 sounded like a draught.
 
 234 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 We waited expectantly for Bob to begin. 
 
 " James," said Bob impressively, " be thank 
 ful that you are married to only one wife. 
 Laflin, think twice before you kiss the next 
 girl you feel foolish over. This mad longing 
 to kiss every pretty thing in female form I see, 
 is what has brought me to the pass you now 
 see me in, with a u>as, an is and a to-be! If I 
 could afford it, I d be a woman-hater! " 
 
 " You could make a fortune as a lion- 
 tamer," I said, my deep admiration of his 
 handling of the redoubtable Lyddy betraying 
 itself in my voice. 
 
 Bob grinned happily. He grinned just that 
 same way, I remembered, when he broke 
 Jimmie s bird dog of being gun-shy, and we 
 complimented him for it. As Jimmie says, 
 " Bob s vanity is the limit." 
 
 But Bob was simply dying to talk things 
 over with us, both to know how we took it 
 and to air his own emotion. 
 
 " Why weren t you there, dear heart of 
 ice?" he said addressing me. "Don t you 
 know that in the future whenever I am mar 
 ried, I want you to behold the obsequies? " 
 
 How could anybody help laughing at such 
 a graceless scamp as Bob Mygatt ? 
 
 " I didn t know where the services were 
 being conducted," I said.
 
 Bob s Career of Marrying 235 
 
 " Services over the dear departed, " cor 
 rected Bob gravely. " You put it neatly as 
 usual. She s gone. I saw her off." 
 
 "Off? Off for where? " demanded Bee and 
 myself in a composite tone of voice. 
 
 "South Dakota!" quoth Bob. "In the 
 presence of witnesses, she asked me to come 
 and live with her and I flunked. Flunked 
 publicly and shamelessly. My dear Lyddy 
 was at my elbow to see that I did ! " 
 
 Now I didn t invite Bob Mygatt into this 
 story. He came in of his own accord and 
 stayed in because he became part of the narra 
 tive. I don t excuse him nor approve of him, 
 and I am just as much ashamed of myself as 
 anybody could possibly be of me, but the truth 
 of the matter is that if all of Bob s audiences 
 were as foolishly responsive to his iniquitous 
 proceedings and ribald comments thereon as 
 Jimmie and I were, it is no wonder that Bob 
 felt encouraged to do worse. 
 
 " Then you are really going to put it 
 through," I said. 
 
 "Am I?" said Bob. "What have / got 
 to do with it? Am I not a mere puppet in 
 Bee s hands, like all the rest of you whether 
 you know it or not ? " 
 
 "Bee s!" I cried. And then again, 
 "Bee s!"
 
 236 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 "Listen to her!" cried Bob derisively. 
 " Yet there are times when she exhibits almost 
 human intelligence ! " 
 
 Bee s smile was a little self-conscious as we 
 all focussed our glances upon her. 
 
 " In this case," she said gently, " I never 
 could have done it alone. I have Laflin to 
 thank, not only for many valuable suggestions 
 but for the entire execution of it." 
 
 " But but " I stuttered. 
 
 Jimmie helped me out. 
 
 " How ju know that Bob was willing? " he 
 demanded, with no tact and less shame. 
 
 " Jimmie," said his wife reprovingly. 
 
 For once he never answered her. He was 
 clenching and unclenching his hands andtheend 
 of his cigar was breathing like a locomotive. 
 
 It was only the second time I had ever seen 
 Bob blush. 
 
 " Tell em, Laflin," he said. 
 
 There is little to tell," said Laflin quietly. 
 " We heard of the Shupe matter and knew 
 that the play was headed for disaster. Then 
 Bee learned through Faith of the existence of 
 the woman and her child. She was growing 
 desperate because Bob could do nothing more 
 for her " 
 
 " I always divided with her when I had 
 anything," muttered Bob. Aubrey and I ex-
 
 Bob s Career of Marrying 237 
 
 changed glances. We thought of Lyddy s 
 amethyst belt buckle. 
 
 " So we consulted Bob and found that 
 that " 
 
 " That things were getting altogether too 
 damned hot for me!" broke in Bob. " Ava 
 and her Scruples were choking the life out of 
 me. Just imagine, if you please, for one mo 
 ment, the spectacle of my being married, 
 hitched for life to that Walking Conscience! 
 Why, on my honour, I do believe all she saw 
 in me was a Soul to be Rescued. If I d mar 
 ried her, she d have held me up to her Ideals 
 with a grip on my hair that would have made 
 Absalom look like a two-spot. But I stood it 
 - that is, I trotted an engagement heat with 
 her, just as a pace-maker. I really never had 
 any intention of going down the home stretch 
 with her, and I don t believe she ever really 
 meant to marry me. I believe, as I look back 
 on it, that she has always preferred Shupe. But 
 how in the world she could, when she had me, 
 I can t see! Can you, lady-bird? She was 
 probably only intent upon Saving my Soul. 
 But she is pretty, you know, and I do did 
 love her ! Don t laugh ! I m trying to re 
 member that I m married ! " 
 
 " And engaged ! " reminded Jimmie. 
 " Don t forget the next on your list, Bob ! "
 
 238 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " So then," pursued Bob, " I looked the 
 matter squarely in the face. On the one hand 
 debts, disgrace, a sweetheart, a Menace and 
 a Past. On the other hand, a dowered bride, 
 money to buy Shupe s interest in the play, 
 Freedom and a Fortune! " 
 
 Bob extended his arms above his head with 
 his hands clenched. 
 
 "Freedom!" jeered Jimmie under his 
 breath. But Bob heard him. 
 
 " Yes, freedom ! " he cried. " You give 
 me all the money that will be settled on me 
 before I take the fatal plunge and see if I don t 
 make good as to the freedom part." 
 
 " He will ! " I cried. " He will ! Remem 
 ber the way he headed her off this morning? " 
 
 " Bob," said Jimmie, " I don t want you to 
 beat her nor kick her not too hard, that is 
 nor to black her eye, so that it will show, 
 but I do want to shake hands with you just 
 on general principles!" 
 
 " Shrewish old vitriol-tongued termagant! " 
 Jimmie murmured in my ear. " Woman who 
 loves jewels as much as my wife not marry 
 for love indeed! Gee! I m glad Bob s going 
 to marry her! He ll fix her for us ! " 
 
 I sat looking at my sister and thinking hard. 
 As I looked back, I could see many things 
 which escaped me at the time.
 
 Bob s Career of Marrying 239 
 
 " And in spite of all these things being 
 brought to Bee unsolicited," said Laflin, " she 
 held her peace. She told no one except me, 
 of course. She bore her cross patiently and 
 worked out her problem in the proper way." 
 
 Bee s face slowly crimsoned under the lively 
 inquiries she saw in Jimmie s and my eyes. 
 
 But we would have died rather than give 
 her away. 
 
 She bent an adoring and an adorable glance 
 of gratitude upon Laflin, which was the first 
 thing Jimmie had seen to arouse his suspicions. 
 
 He turned so suddenly to demand confirma 
 tion of me, that he caught me smiling. 
 
 " You fiend ! " he whispered. " Why didn t 
 you put me on ? " 
 
 " There isn t anything as yet on, " I whis 
 pered back. " Do see now, if you can behave 
 and not spoil things ! " 
 
 " So! " said Jimmie. "So! I begin to see 
 what our dear Bee meant by getting time 
 knocked off her sentence for good behaviour! 
 Six months of South Dakota, Bee, and then 
 you are free ! " 
 
 Bee and Laflin looked at each other. 
 
 "Six months!" growled Bob, biting into 
 his pipe stem. " Well laugh, you idiots ! 
 Laugh!"
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 DR. BRAGG PLAYS HIS PART 
 
 " ~1~ AM beginning to think," said Jimmie 
 to me one day. But I rudely inter- 
 -*- rupted him : 
 
 "What?" I cried. 
 
 " Wait. The worst is yet to come. I am 
 beginning to think that I don t know it all. 
 Now don t swoon. Listen, and you ll learn 
 something even from me, despised though 
 I am!" 
 
 " Whatever you know, tell me," I coun 
 selled. 
 
 " Don t I always ? " said Jimmie, reproach 
 fully, " and isn t that the way I always get into 
 trouble? I saw something that day we had 
 our last illuminating insight into our dear 
 Robert Mygatt s character, and what do you 
 think it was? I saw him wink at Bee while 
 Laflin was explaining the spiritual way she 
 had borne her cross. And worse yet, Bee 
 winked back!" 
 
 240
 
 Dr. Bragg Plays His Part 241 
 
 "Honest?" I cried. 
 
 " Honest and true ! Cross-my-heart-and- 
 hope-to-die-if-they-didn t ! " 
 
 Somehow I always believe a person who 
 will use that school-day formula, because I 
 never use it myself unless I am really telling 
 the truth. I d be afraid to. 
 
 " Now," Jimmie went on, " I believe that 
 our dear Bee is, as usual, managing us all 
 for her own deep-laid plans. I believe that 
 she and Bob have been in the deal from the 
 first. I believe that Bob arranged to have 
 that woman go to the Munsons so that you 
 could hear about it and tell Bee what s the 
 matter ? " 
 
 " Nothing, only I hate to be made a fool 
 of. And I believe you are right on this." 
 
 " Bob has a motto on his wall which says 
 Life is just one damned thing after an 
 other ! " said Jimmie. But I refused to smile. 
 I was too distinctly annoyed. 
 
 And yet, so potent are our Bee s spells that, 
 while we were yet smarting from the last 
 touch of her goad, we became her victims 
 again. 
 
 We had a friend by the name of Dr. Bragg. 
 But there ! He wasn t a friend. Aubrey said 
 he was a necessary evil, like Lyddy and the 
 necessity for sticky flypaper and occasional
 
 242 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 family rows and other things which annoy 
 more than their need is worth. 
 
 But Mrs. Jimmie had been afflicted with 
 rheumatism for a year and had tried baths, 
 doctors, Christian Science (unknown to Jim 
 mie), and now, Dr. Bragg, the osteopath, was 
 her latest venture. 
 
 Dr. Bragg was a bachelor about fifty-odd 
 years old, tall, awkward, raw-boned, large- 
 jointed and clumsy, with the clumsiness of 
 a man who knocks down bric-a-brac every 
 time he enters a room. He was in love with a 
 Mrs. Cox, a widow who was playing with 
 him, publicly and cruelly, as only a woman 
 can. 
 
 Now, little as any of us (who are fastidious 
 beyond our meed) cared for Dr. Bragg, we 
 possess a rugged sense of justice, and we used 
 to allow ourselves to become quite worked up 
 over the hopelessness of the doctor s passion. 
 
 But he, like most men, was confident oh, 
 very confident, not only of himself and his 
 own invaluable deductions on every known 
 subject, but that he understood women per 
 fectly. Besides, he was equally sure that he 
 knew what was what and that he was quite 
 capable, to quote Jimmie, " of trotting in our 
 class." 
 
 Now we are conceited enough to think that
 
 Dr. Bragg Plays His Part 243 
 
 it takes a thoroughbred to do that, and Dr. 
 Bragg was a rank outsider. 
 
 Nevertheless, we tolerated him for Mrs. 
 Jimmie s sake,, being positive that she would 
 soon get through with him and his pretensions 
 and be looking for a new cure. 
 
 Our surprise then may be imagined, when 
 Bee first met him at a dinner at the Jimmies , 
 which included Mrs. Cox, to see her distinctly 
 affable to him. 
 
 Mrs. Cox represented the dernier cri in mil 
 linery, and having had rather a bad time of it 
 with her husband, she had him removed by law 
 and was now in full cry after the good time 
 which she felt, as a young and pretty woman, 
 was her due. She was an idolater of Mam 
 mon, and if she ever achieved that heaven of 
 pearly gates and streets of gold in which she 
 believed, she would be much more exercised 
 as to whether her wings touched in the back, 
 or the* relative sumptuousness of her halo, 
 than concerning her spiritual privileges and 
 the unusual companionship in which she found 
 herself. 
 
 And wasn t it for all the world like a man 
 and it would make a gravestone laugh to 
 remember that men are the choosers in this 
 world ! but wasn t it just like such a man as 
 Dr. Bragg to fall in love with such a woman?
 
 244 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 The night that Jimmie and I began to sit 
 up and take notice was soon after Bob My- 
 gatt s first marriage, when Mrs. Jimmie had 
 us all to dinner, together with our dear Lyddy, 
 Bob, Laflin, Mrs. Cox and Dr. Bragg. 
 
 Now I have never criticized Mrs. Jimmie 
 unfavourably in even the slightest manner, 
 but if there were anything to be said, it would 
 be along the lines of her being too sweet to 
 suspect that she has people to dinner who don t 
 belong. In anybody else, that would be a 
 crime in my eyes. In Mrs. Jimmie, it is an 
 imperfection, which, as everybody will allow, 
 leans to virtue s side. 
 
 I would never forgive anybody else, who 
 said even this much against my adored Mrs. 
 Jimmie, but I am compelled to account, in 
 some manner, for her having Dr. Bragg at 
 her table, on account of w;hat happened after 
 ward. 
 
 Jimmie seldom notices such things. To 
 him, we were a nice little family party, as he 
 observed to me privately. 
 
 " Everybody," he whispered, with his eye 
 on Lyddy and Bob, " in love in neat couples." 
 
 Of course our interest centred in the tenta 
 tive sets of lovers Laflin and Bee, Lyddy 
 and Bob, and the doctor and his grass-widow. 
 
 Mrs. Cox started the ball rolling by saying
 
 Dr. Bragg Plays His Part 245 
 
 that she thought husbands were so selfish. 
 They never made love to their own wives, but 
 expected no other man to dare to. 
 
 As a conversation-starter among reluctant 
 talkers, I know of no subject which is the 
 equal of this. It has been in our family for 
 generations and I expect to hand it down to 
 my children also. 
 
 At first Jimmie fell into the trap every time 
 and told how his wife didn t lack for love mak 
 ing, until I took him aside and explained to 
 him that the trap wasn t set for him and that 
 it grew monotonous for the rest of us to see 
 him catch his paw in it every single time. 
 And Jimmie thanked me for my explanation, 
 with tears of gratitude in his eyes, so to speak. 
 In fact, I think our friendship dated from 
 that moment. 
 
 So now, when that subject is introduced, 
 Jimmie leans back with the rest of the old 
 stagers and watches the youngsters " take 
 their turn," as he gracefully puts it, " in riding 
 the goat." 
 
 The doctor walked into the trap so promptly 
 that Jimmie s wink nearly upset me, and even 
 Mrs. Cox, the sly lady, was forced to drop 
 her eyes to hide their gleam. The fact was 
 that she was about to perform that feat, which 
 to a woman never grows old nor stale of
 
 246 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 compelling a lover unconsciously to display 
 his subjection for other women to see. 
 
 I am frank to say that, since my marriage, 
 to be obliged to observe this process, bores 
 me. I think widows bore most married 
 women for this and kindred reasons. 
 
 " My wife will never have to complain of 
 not having enough love made to her," began 
 the doctor heavily, when Mrs. Cox cut in with, 
 
 " Probably not, for if she is at all pretty 
 and stylish, plenty of other men will make love 
 to her also ! " 
 
 The doctor nearly sobbed at this, because 
 he was so plainly afraid, with Mrs. Cox for 
 his wife, that this would really happen, which 
 it undoubtedly would. 
 
 " But if your own husband filled your whole 
 life," said the doctor eagerly, " what object 
 would you have in permitting other men to 
 surround you ? " 
 
 " Oh, the same reason that every pretty 
 woman has nowadays!" replied Mrs. Cox 
 with a lift of her shoulders. " The desire for 
 admiration! For whom do women dress? To 
 displease the women and please the men ! You 
 can t keep men away from a smartly got up 
 woman! He may deride an ugly fashion, but 
 he follows the woman who follows the 
 fashion ! And for a man to follow a woman
 
 Dr. Bragg Plays His Part 247 
 
 long enough is for him to make love to 
 her!" 
 
 " But what I cannot understand," said the 
 doctor in an agonized tone, " is why women 
 
 good women, nice women, sweet women 
 
 permit themselves to be made love to after 
 they are married! Don t they know that it 
 brings pain to a husband s heart? " 
 
 " It ought to bring a bootjack to the wife s 
 head," was Jimmie s modest contribution to 
 the discussion. 
 
 " It ought to, but it doesn t," murmured 
 Mrs. Cox. " All women do it, Mr. Jimmie. 
 Don t they, Mrs. Lathrop? You know they 
 do." 
 
 Jimmie was spared a disgusted refutation 
 of this remark, to defend our blessed Mrs. 
 Jimmie from being included. (The Angel 
 only looked at me and smiled as he quietly 
 dropped cigarette ashes into his bread-and- 
 butter plate) when, to our open-mouthed as 
 tonishment Bee our coquettish Bee Bee 
 of the Austrian officer episode Bee, the 
 heroine of a score of gallant skirmishes, in 
 which she routed the enemy, man, calmly 
 stepped into the arena, and, abandoning the 
 Juliets, Kates and Beatrices of the world, es 
 poused the cause of the Griseldas in this 
 wise.
 
 248 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " At one time," said Bee, in that tone of 
 honeyed sweetness which, as a relative, I have 
 learned to dread, " I might have agreed with 
 you, Mrs. Cox, but I have recently changed 
 my mind upon a number of things. I think 
 possibly you and I are not good judges of 
 what a happily married woman thinks, feels 
 or permits concerning love and lovers other 
 than her own husband." 
 
 I regret to say that Jimmie, in trying not 
 to look at Laflin or me just at this juncture, 
 got the hiccoughs, and the remainder of Bee s 
 homily, which poor old Laflin was too thor 
 oughly a man to see through, was delivered 
 with the noisiest and most objectionable form 
 of hiccoughs from Jimmie as punctuation 
 marks. 
 
 If the Angel did such things, I d send him 
 from the room. 
 
 Now Bee has an exquisite sense of humour, 
 not as violent as mine, consequently more 
 ladylike, and, I, as her sister, knew that the 
 whole situation was appealing to her like the 
 stage setting of a Belasco play, even to the 
 longing to stretch herself on the attic floor and 
 beat her French heels on the bare boards and 
 scream at Jimmie s hiccoughs, even if, for 
 some of us, they did spoil her effect. 
 
 But the thing which saved her from disaster
 
 Dr. Bragg Plays His Part 249 
 
 (because, of course, Jimmie was as pleased 
 with his hiccoughs as a boy with his first boots, 
 and would have taken his oath that he couldn t 
 have stopped them, although everyone of us 
 believed that he could, and to this day, when 
 ever we have no other subject to worry, we 
 attack that one with bitter accusation and 
 heated denials) was the pathetic manner in 
 which the doctor, from behind Mrs. Cox s 
 shoulder, nodded and winked and grimaced 
 the completeness of his approval. 
 
 " Now at one time," continued Bee, laying 
 one beautifully rounded arm on the table 
 where Laflin could get the best view of it, " I 
 opposed Faith s marriage to Aubrey because 
 he hadn t the money I thought Faith needed 
 and I didn t believe he could make it. I have 
 come to see that they are happier in their 
 affection for each other than millions could 
 make them, and the sight of their utter con 
 tent has done much toward changing my atti 
 tude toward marriage." 
 
 " Hasn t the fact that the old man has writ 
 ten one successful play and made a pot of 
 money out of it had something to do with 
 your tardy approval of him, Bee?" hic 
 coughed Jimmie. 
 
 Dear Mrs. Jimmie s reddening cheeks were 
 more of a reproof to him for this than her
 
 250 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 sweet disclaims of his lovely rudeness. Dear 
 old Jimmie! However, one need seldom pity 
 Bee, for she would scorn to be disconcerted 
 and reproof never gets under her skin. She 
 sheds it like a waterproof tin roof. She feels 
 that she did not deserve it, therefore, why 
 allow it to sink in? 
 
 " Not at all," said the doctor. " I am sure 
 Mrs. Lathrop was convinced by the heart we 
 all know Mr. Jardine possesses, in spite of 
 the cynical brilliancy of his plays! " 
 
 A slight, malicious smile widened Bee s lips 
 at this, and my Angel muttered something not 
 fit to repeat. 
 
 " A woman when she marries should think 
 of nothing but her husband until she can con 
 fidently look forward to motherhood," went 
 on the doctor, turning to beam fatuously upon 
 Mrs. Cox, but if looks could kill, the two Mrs. 
 Cox and Bee shot at him would have stretched 
 him dead at their feet. 
 
 "Nonsense!" said Mrs. Cox quickly. 
 1 There would be no surer way, in my opin 
 ion, for a wife to lose her husband s love and 
 to drive him to making love to the other 
 women who have eyes for the admiration 
 which is their due, than for her to do the 
 deadly domestic act. If I ever am foolish 
 enough to marry again, you will see me profit
 
 Dr. Bragg Plays His Part 251 
 
 by my observations, as well as my disastrous 
 personal experiences." 
 
 " Whoever he is, he will be the most fortu 
 nate man on earth," said the doctor fer 
 vently. 
 
 Bee waited, as delicately poised as a purple 
 butterfly while this interruption proceeded, but 
 she held our interest, as she always could in 
 any assemblage she chose to grace, and when 
 she had indicated by a lifted eyebrow, that if 
 they were quite done, she would go on, she 
 said, 
 
 " Domesticity need not, of necessity, be 
 deadly, if I may differ from Mrs. Cox. The 
 days of the slovenly wife and dowdy young 
 mother have passed. Nowadays wifehood and 
 maternity are smartly and becomingly gowned, 
 and the clever woman is the one who can 
 make even domesticity spicy and perfect con 
 fidence pungent. If a woman can keep her 
 own husband thoroughly interested, she will 
 have little time to coquette with the husbands 
 of other women." 
 
 Here the doctor s nods and winks were so 
 pronounced that even Bee smiled, and our dear 
 Lyddy voiced the general opinion, when she 
 snorted out, 
 
 " Well, my lady, you certainly have 
 changed ! "
 
 252 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " I hope, dear Lydia," said Bee, " that I do 
 change. I should dislike to think that I alone 
 stood still, while all the rest of you are so 
 palpably getting on! " 
 
 At this somewhat pungent reference to 
 Lyddy s state of probationary bliss, Lyddy 
 smiled broadly and glanced with aged coyness 
 at Bob, who slowly turned purple under the 
 lively interest of our composite gaze. 
 
 " Happiness is so rare a possession, that to 
 acquire it, we are all compelled to pay a price 
 commensurate with it," I observed with my 
 eye carefully on Bob s majenta face. 
 
 " But no matter how high the price may 
 seem to others," answered Bob, as if I had 
 addressed him personally (a woman in his 
 place never would have let everybody see that 
 she felt the point of my dart, which shows how 
 even an ordinary woman can often get the 
 best of a clever man). " Men are always to 
 be found who are willing to pay it, and glad 
 of the chance! " 
 
 Yes," hiccoughed Jimmie genially, " they 
 do say there is a fool born every minute! " 
 
 Now, lest the foolish sympathize unintelli- 
 gently, let me pause to remark that this sort 
 of thing was not cruel to Lyddy, for she was 
 so dull withal, she never saw it. And even if 
 she had seen, she was so conceited, it never
 
 Dr. Bragg Plays His Part 253 
 
 would have occurred to her to take the mean 
 ing to herself. 
 
 "Well," said Bob, "tastes differ. There 
 are those who talk fluently of love in a cot 
 tage. They are generally those who haven t 
 tried it. A three-room cottage and a wife who 
 does her own work and whose hands smell of 
 dishwater are not my idea of domestic bliss." 
 
 " Nor mine," spoke up Aubrey, with his 
 slow smile, for when, in our poverty spots, we 
 have had to come down to housework and I 
 have cooked, I have always recklessly, and 
 with Aubrey s connivance, hired the janitor s 
 wife to wash the dishes. 
 
 " But," said Bee, " if you are poor, Bob, 
 you are always sure of being married for love 
 alone, while either the man or the woman with 
 much money is always wondering how much 
 love, if any, is included in the bargain." 
 
 Then it dawned on both Jimmie and me 
 simultaneously that this was what Bee had 
 been leading up to, and that the affair of the 
 doctor and Mrs. Cox were as if they were not, 
 to our Bee. 
 
 We were so struck by the evident impres 
 sion Bee s last remark was making on Laflin s 
 mind, and the delightful fact that he was mod 
 estly taking it only one way, as Bee had con 
 fidently counted upon his doing, and we were
 
 254 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 so awed by the skill with which Bee spurred 
 her slightly tardy wooer into active thought, 
 that we forgot the conceit of Lyddy, which 
 made her consider herself attacked. 
 
 " / see what you mean, Bee Lathrop," she 
 began, and we were so surprised and so taken 
 up with other thoughts that we couldn t at 
 once collect ourselves, so Lyddy got quite a 
 little headway. 
 
 " You mean me, of course ! How dare you 
 say openly as openly as you just did, that 
 I am to be married for my money. I assure 
 you, Bee Lathrop, there is nobody will be glad 
 der than I when you and I can separate for 
 good, and I s pose noiv even this precious set 
 of your friends who think everything the 
 charming Mrs. Lathrop does is so wonderful 
 and so fine, can noiv see what I have to take 
 from you! I hope now 
 
 She stopped abruptly, and at first we gazed 
 about wildly for a reason. But Bob had not 
 moved except to look at her, and for the first 
 time she had met that look. 
 
 " By thunder," Jimmie said to me after 
 ward, " I begin to believe what Bob said about 
 taking his freedom. By thunder, I ll bet he ll 
 take it with both hands. I tell you I didn t 
 think the fool had it in him to look at any 
 human being with such a look it was posi-
 
 Dr. Bragg Plays His Part 255 
 
 lively murderous, wasn t it, Faith ? and you 
 know you were tickled to death that she was 
 getting it, weren t you, now? I tell you, I 
 didn t think it was in the brute! By thunder, 
 I didn t!" 
 
 Jimmie s vocabulary of decent expletives is 
 limited, therefore I excuse in him what would 
 be tautology in others. 
 
 But as I heartily agreed with him in his in 
 coherent but nevertheless sincere admiration of 
 Bob s suppression of the redoubtable Lyddy, I 
 said nothing and thereby lost a valuable op 
 portunity of stirring him up. 
 
 After Lyddy subsided, there was a momen 
 tary silence, and we all sat watching Bob, who 
 was plainly of two minds about something. 
 He knocked invisible ashes from his cigarette 
 with a nervous little finger several times, then 
 he said quietly, 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Bee " 
 
 And again he looked at Lyddy, who stared 
 back at him as if hypnotized and then mut 
 tered, 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Bee. I I didn t 
 mean what I said." 
 
 " I am sure you didn t, Lyddy," said Bee, 
 with a degree of cordiality in her tones that 
 any woman could have thrown, who knew that 
 every man at the table was her secret cham-
 
 256 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 pion and who was upborne by the fact that one 
 had espoused her cause openly. 
 
 But Bee always managed to not to place 
 herself in the right, as I have to do with a 
 loud splash, if ever I happen to get there, 
 but to be in the right, to be there first and be 
 sitting there, waiting for us to enter through 
 the door of Wrong and see her mounted as 
 securely on the throne of Right as if she had 
 grown there! 
 
 However, all this is by the way, and went 
 unobserved except by a few. Laflin, for ex 
 ample, lost the whole of it, for he had never 
 taken his eyes from Bee since her remark 
 about being loved for herself, and that Bee 
 was acutely conscious of his observation, any 
 sister would know, by signs invisible to the 
 naked eye and impossible to describe, but still 
 there ! 
 
 Then, too, she had the pleasing conscious 
 ness that Laflin had been an ear-witness to the 
 sort of thing she had to put up with from her 
 sister-in-law under the condition in which her 
 husband left his estate, and as Bee was much 
 too diplomatic ever to complain, she never had 
 been quite sure that Laflin knew what she had 
 to bear up under in short, that he had ren 
 dered her that full meed of his admiration 
 which she felt that she deserved.
 
 Dr. Bragg Plays His Part 257 
 
 So Bee was just in that exalted frame of 
 mind which too often is followed by a disaster 
 which none of us could foresee and which 
 never would have happened, or rather, which 
 never would have been of just that unbearable 
 degree of vulgarity it proved, if there had not 
 been aliens in our midst. 
 
 (I don t call an " in-law " like Lyddy an 
 alien, for almost everybody is obliged to sub 
 mit to traits and characteristics in " in-laws " 
 which, like barked shins, sprained ankles or 
 black-and-blue spots, are due to our own care 
 lessness in not seeing where we are going. 
 Such things, therefore, people are not espe 
 cially blamed for or sympathized with on ac 
 count of them. We just pass them over in 
 silence, as all in the day s work.) 
 
 Bee seemed to feel that she must change 
 the subject from the foolishness of the doctor s 
 monopoly, so, taking my cue and entirely for 
 getting that there were outsiders present, I 
 launched out on a description of how we had 
 to cook our bedroom by day in order to sleep 
 in it by night, and from that we got to telling 
 jokes on the Munsons, perfectly harmless in 
 themselves, but full of deadly insult if re 
 peated by a stranger, and all would have been 
 well, if Bee had been able to hold herself in. 
 
 But manners, or rather savoir faire, is more
 
 258 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 to Bee than home or husband or child or 
 wealth or religion, and the quality of the aliens 
 in our midst got on her nerves, as you shall 
 hear, not to her undoing! Oh, no! Fate al 
 ways skipped Bee s elaborate coiffure and 
 landed with unerring aim on my unprotected 
 skull. 
 
 The moment the conversation lagged, the 
 doctor harked back to his own case, just as a 
 confiding Newfoundland can never see why 
 he is not just as welcome in the drawing room 
 as the Blenheim, and keeps returning to try 
 his luck again and again. 
 
 " Love in marriage has not gone out of 
 fashion, ladies," he began ponderously. " Men 
 good men the sort of men who make 
 good husbands never marry for anything else. 
 And women should do the same. If you would 
 only fix your mind on the enduring qualities 
 of heart and soul which a man possesses, and 
 marry for those things, there would be less 
 demand on your part for admiration from 
 other men." 
 
 He so plainly was wooing Mrs. Cox under 
 this attempt at generalization that the lady had 
 the grace to blush. 
 
 " I can conceive of no greater bore," ob 
 served Mrs. Cox icily, " than fixing my mind 
 on my husband s enduring qualities of heart
 
 Dr. Bragg Plays His Part 259 
 
 and soul when I wanted a younger and hand 
 somer man to make love to me. Can you, 
 Mrs. Lathrop? " 
 
 The doctor signalled frantically to Bee. 
 
 " Yes, I can," said Bee. " If I should ever 
 marry again, which is not likely - 
 
 Here Lyddy s loud sniff of disbelief voiced 
 the general dissent of our little party so ex 
 quisitely that Jimmie turned a laugh into a 
 sneeze and then cleared his throat noisily to 
 prove that he really had a cold 
 
 " I should never even accept a man, in whom 
 I was not violently in love. Yes, violently. 
 That word may seem rather to belong to 
 Faith than to me, but as I said, my views have 
 been changing, and if I could be sure of being 
 loved for myself alone, I could be satisfied 
 with the companionship of just that one man, 
 and never think of any other." 
 
 The doctor leaned back suddenly and 
 beamed on the company as if fully satisfied. 
 The poor man could not see that every word 
 Bee spoke, which so pleased him, was render 
 ing Mrs. Cox more unruly and defiant, and 
 that her growing irritation boded no good to 
 him on the way home. He felt Bee s influence, 
 and he considered the subject settled. 
 
 When we went into the drawing room for 
 coffee, he planted his feet on Bee s train and
 
 260 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 whispered to her for fully five minutes. We 
 could see Bee s lips widening behind her 
 fan. 
 
 Jimmie said he heard every word. 
 
 " He s telling her how he loves Mrs. Cox 
 and thanking her for championing his cause at 
 dinner. Did you get that ? He thinks she was 
 trying to help him! Oh, Lord! " 
 
 And he hiccoughed loudly. 
 
 Bee evidently had stood all she was going 
 to, for she tires easily. She interrupted the 
 doctor and said something which caused his 
 jaw to drop. 
 
 "Watch im!" urged Jimmie, hitting my 
 elbow and making me spill my coffee. " Oh, 
 I beg your pardon ! " 
 
 As if that did any good. 
 
 " She is probably telling him that he and his 
 affair weren t in her mind at all," I said in 
 Jimmie s ear, " because she wants him to get 
 off her dress and go home, so she can talk to 
 Laflin." 
 
 Which was exactly what she was doing, as 
 it turned out afterward. Only she went 
 further and told him that Mrs. Cox was totally 
 unsuited to him as a wife and she advised him 
 to look where he was going. 
 
 Then when the doctor had departed, indig 
 nant with surprise, and Bee was sure Laflin
 
 Dr. Bragg Plays His Part 261 
 
 was approaching, as indeed he was, Mrs. Cox 
 dropped gracefully down on the sofa beside 
 Bee, shaking her fan at Laflin s discomfiture 
 and blind to the green light in Bee s eyes. 
 
 What she said we could not hear, but Mrs. 
 Cox s face underwent several changes, and 
 things began to look interesting when Laflin 
 again approached the sofa which held the two 
 women, with an American beauty rose in his 
 hand with the longest stem I ever saw. 
 
 Bee gave an involuntary exclamation of 
 pleasure at the beauty of it, and held out her 
 hand to take it as Laflin offered it to her, when 
 the doctor stepped up and took it from Laflin s 
 hand. 
 
 He did not know he was rude. He was 
 simply born that kind of an animal. 
 
 "My, but that has a fine smell!" he ex 
 claimed, burying his nose in its fragrance and 
 crushing the flower against his face in a man 
 ner which made us all wince. " But these 
 thorns are bad. Allow me ! " And with the 
 air of doing Bee a favour and before anyone 
 could cry out, he had whipped out his knife 
 and cut the stem six inches below the rose 
 and proffered the now mutilated flower to 
 Bee. 
 
 Have you ever seen a lady simply furious? 
 A woman with the restraint of civilization
 
 262 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 about her, yet seething with a primitive rage 
 which made her long to bury her teeth and 
 nails in her victim s tenderest part ? 
 
 I felt sorry for Bee, not because of her poor 
 rose or Laflin, but because she was a lady and 
 couldn t say what she looked and felt. 
 
 She gave one look at Mrs. Cox which said 
 as plainly as words, 
 
 "If you marry, you will marry that!" 
 
 And Mrs. Cox s crimson face answered that 
 she didn t blame Bee at all, but for Bee just 
 to wait until she got the doctor alone. 
 
 She took him home without any further 
 pretext and the simple-minded man beamed 
 on us all a beatific beam of fatuous happiness 
 as we, with faces set with apprehension, saw 
 them go. 
 
 " Gee ! " said Jimmie, as the front door 
 slammed. " Was I ever such a blind ass as 
 that, even before I was married ? " 
 
 " Of course you were ! " I said cruelly, " for 
 when a man who dreads ridicule as keenly as 
 you do, is a fool, he is an awful one! " 
 
 Jimmie looked so worried that I was going 
 on, but Bee interrupted me. 
 
 " I hereby serve notice on all of you that I 
 have stood all I am going to from those two. 
 I can bear up under real tribulation," here she 
 looked at Lyddy and Bob grinned cheerfully,
 
 Dr. Bragg Plays His Part 263 
 
 " but I cannot and will not submit to the soci 
 ety of the underbred." 
 
 " Right you are, Bee, me darlin ," said Bob, 
 " only Dr. Bragg isn t underbred, he is under 
 done. He is raw! " 
 
 " He won t be underdone when I am 
 through with him," said Bee quietly. 
 
 Whereat Laflin said simply, 
 
 " I am sorry." 
 
 And instantly we all became aware, as in a 
 flash, that Laflin, too, was an outsider, if not 
 exactly an alien. 
 
 We may not be perfect, we of The Happy 
 Family, but we love ourselves, and our faults 
 are just the sort of faults that we can bear 
 with ease, if you allow us to make rude re 
 marks occasionally. Therefore the hint of re 
 proof from an outsider of one of us of the 
 rank of our beloved Bee, made Jimmie and 
 me lift our heads and look at each other with 
 the same question in the eye of each. 
 
 "Shall we let Bee marry him?" we tele 
 graphed. 
 
 Then we looked at the green inner light in 
 Bee s eye and we smiled foolishly. We 
 wouldn t be called upon to act, if she meant 
 what that look said.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 IN WHICH BEE APPLIES A COUNTER IRRITANT 
 
 WHEN we separated that night we 
 felt that things were brewing, so 
 that when in a few days Bee sum 
 moned Jimmie and me to a star chamber ses 
 sion and left out both Aubrey and Mrs. Jim 
 mie, we knew that something had happened. 
 
 Bee s very attitude seemed different as she 
 met us, and at first I looked at her blacks to 
 see if she had narrowed her. bands of woe or 
 gone into lavender. But her clothes were as 
 immaculate, as self-restrained and as sombre 
 as an English butler. It was her eye which 
 had changed. In a flash, it came to us. 
 
 Bee was returning to her own ! Her newly 
 acquired holiness was dropping from her, as a 
 garment, and we worthless ones welcomed her 
 back to our midst with silent acclaim. It 
 never does to cheer too loudly over Bee s re 
 turns until you know what they mean. 
 
 " Don t take off your things, Faith, because 
 we are going over to your studio. Something 
 has happened, or rather, will happen to-day. 
 264
 
 Bee Applies a Counter Irritant 265 
 
 Oh, don t look so frightened, silly! I only 
 meant that Dr. Bragg got even with me for 
 telling him that Mrs. Cox wasn t interested in 
 his profession and telling her that I should 
 think she would engage a foeman worthy of 
 her steel, by telling the Munsons how you 
 talked about him as a landlord, and " 
 
 " Come on ! " cried Jimmie, putting his 
 stick on the elevator bell and holding it there 
 until it came up with a rush, ignoring all gen 
 tler signals. 
 
 He bundled us into the machine and we flew 
 to my studio. 
 
 The moment we arrived, I saw that we were 
 none too soon. It was in the air. 
 
 Bee, usually so polite, stepped ahead of me 
 and walked to the double doors connecting our 
 studio with Eleanor s. Blackman, the super 
 intendent, was there, tinkering with the lock. 
 
 " Has it come, Mr. Blackman?" asked Bee, 
 sweetly. 
 
 "Has what come, Mrs. Lathrop?" asked 
 Blackman. 
 
 " The load of bricks Mr. Jardine ordered to 
 brick up these doors." 
 
 Blackman laid down his keys and scratched 
 his head. 
 
 " I don t understand it, Mrs. Lathrop," he 
 said, " Has there been any trouble ? Excuse
 
 266 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 me for asking, but Mr. Munson has been some 
 thing awful over the telephone all day. He 
 gave orders to put a padlock on this door 
 
 " I suppose he had heard that my brother- 
 in-law intended to do far more than that," said 
 Bee sweetly. " You needn t mind the padlock. 
 We want it bricked up so that no sound can 
 penetrate the wall. Work will begin on it at 
 once. When Mr. Munson calls up again, 
 please tell him that." 
 
 With a smile of glee which plainly showed 
 the low status the Munsons held with their all- 
 powerful superintendent, Blackman took his 
 leave. 
 
 Then Jimmie and I showed ourselves. 
 
 " Have you really got the bricks, Bee ? " 
 asked Jimmie. 
 
 " No," said Bee, calmly. " I knew you 
 could get them for us." 
 
 Bee s manner of putting the impossible up 
 to a man and confidently expecting him to 
 compass it, is very flattering and always makes 
 a hit with her victim. 
 
 Jimmie frowned a moment, then went to the 
 telephone. 
 
 Bee and I sat on the table and waited. 
 
 " Ju get em ? " I demanded when he re 
 turned. 
 
 They arc coming up on hods now ! " he
 
 Bee Applies a Counter Irritant 267 
 
 said with a grin. " The foreman in charge of 
 the apartment house being built across the 
 street fellow by the name of Rafferty 
 used to work for me. I saw him this morn 
 ing. By good luck I just caught him and he s 
 lending me bricks, mortar and workmen for 
 this job. It ll be done in a couple of hours." 
 
 " Jimmie," I said. " You are a wonder." 
 
 Jimmie beamed with pleasure at my com 
 pliment, whereupon I produced refreshments, 
 and having seen my guests at their ease, I 
 said: 
 
 " Now, please, Bee, may I know how this 
 thing is coming out?" 
 
 " I haven t decided yet," she returned. 
 " But one thing is certain. Now that the black 
 flag has been raised, I propose to compel Mun- 
 son to repair the wall of your bedroom before 
 we consent to make up." 
 
 " Consent to make up ! " I cried. " Do you 
 think he will ever speak to us after seeing 
 this?" 
 
 And I waved my hand at the bricks, which 
 were beginning to arrive. 
 
 " I have calculated," said Bee, " that Black- 
 man did not wait for Munson to telephone 
 again. He called Munson and said we were 
 bricking up the doors. Munson, being more 
 curious than a dozen cats, will catch the first
 
 268 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 train for town. It will take him two hours to 
 get here. Therefore about five o clock we 
 shall see Munson s emotional silk hat and his 
 nervous beard through that aperture which we 
 now sit watching, and he will forget all about 
 the vendetta in his curiosity to know what we 
 got excited about to the extent of cutting off 
 communication with him and his." 
 
 " If he comes, he ll be wild about having the 
 wind taken out of his sails," said Jimmie, who 
 occasionally betrays an astuteness which causes 
 me to love him. " Munson has more vindic- 
 tiveness than any man I know." 
 
 * He has more pride in his ability to hate 
 first and get even first, than anything else," 
 said Bee. " But like all children, he is quick 
 to forget." 
 
 " And especially quick to forgive himself for 
 having insulted you," I put in. " He says 
 things he ought to be shot for, and then for 
 gets all about them." 
 
 Bee smiled. 
 
 " I told you so," she said. " But you 
 wouldn t believe me." 
 
 " Faith was too busy doing things for them 
 to see flaws at first," said Jimmie. But ob 
 serving my open-mouthed amazement at his 
 praise, he hastily turned to Bee and said : 
 
 " However, commander of the faithful, I do
 
 Bee Applies a Counter Irritant 269 
 
 not see exactly how you are coming out on this 
 deal not that our poor feeble brains are 
 capable of understanding such a Mike Mike 
 - What s the fellow s name, Faith ? " 
 
 "Mike? Mike who?" 
 
 " That s just what I am asking you ! You 
 know! The fellow who laid plots. Mike 
 
 " Machiavelli ! " I shrieked. " Mike! Any 
 body would think he was a hod carrier ! " 
 
 " That s the chap. Mikeavelli ! We may not 
 be capable of understanding our young friend 
 here, Mike Lathrop, but we would like a try 
 at it." 
 
 " I think I have it," said Bee slowly. " I 
 know one of Dr. Darlington s assistants. If 
 he is only in ! " 
 
 She went to the telephone and called up the 
 Department of Health, while Jimmie and I 
 still sat on the table and swung our feet and 
 listened hopefully. 
 
 Presently Bee came back. 
 
 " I got him ! " she said. " And he was just 
 on his way up town and will stop here." 
 
 The bricklayers had begun their work. 
 Jimmie directed it, with Rafferty s help, for 
 Rafferty had to come over to see what it was 
 all about. 
 
 " Now," said Bee, " when Dr. Lambertson 
 comes, leave him entirely to me. Don t either
 
 270 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 one of you put an oar in, no matter what you 
 think." 
 
 We promised and Bee managed the young 
 and good looking doctor from the Health De 
 partment as only our Bee could. I think Bee 
 must have taken him in on the joke, for when 
 they came down from inspecting the fungus 
 on my bedroom wall, Dr. Lambertson joined 
 us for a moment and watched the bricklayers 
 with a broad grin on his face, in which was 
 largely writ a great approval of the widow 
 Lathrop and her nimble wit in planning such 
 a coup. 
 
 Bee went to the elevator with him and I 
 heard him say : 
 
 " Well, good-bye till Thursday. And be 
 sure and let me know if I can be of the least 
 further service to you, Mrs. Lathrop," when 
 the elevator arrived and claimed him. 
 
 Bee came back, smiling her little conscious 
 smile of having done a good job, and was in 
 the act of relating to us what the doctor had 
 said, when the return trip of the elevator 
 brought Munson, his hair, beard and the nap 
 of his tall hat all betraying nervous anxiety 
 and an agitated curiosity. 
 
 He glanced in at our open front door as he 
 passed, but hurried on, entered his own door
 
 Bee Applies a Counter Irritant 271 
 
 and appeared behind the bricklayers at the con 
 necting doors of the two studios. 
 
 We looked up pleasantly and waited for him 
 to begin. 
 
 " Pardon my intrusion," he began, in a tone 
 of honeyed sarcasm, " but may I inquire what 
 architectural designs you seem to have planned 
 upon my property ? " 
 
 " It has been done to avoid unpleasantness, 
 Mr. Munson. Please believe that, before we 
 explain," said Bee quickly. 
 
 She needn t have hurried. I didn t know 
 what to say and neither did Jimmie. 
 
 " To avoid unpleasantness ! " repeated Mun 
 son with delicate emphasis. 
 
 " Exactly," said Bee softly. " Knowing, as 
 we all do, upon what friendly terms Mrs. Jar- 
 dine has always been with you, we naturally 
 considered your feelings in the present un 
 happy situation, and closed communication 
 between two families, both endowed with flu 
 ent conversational ability, before a final breach 
 could occur." 
 
 Munson stepped over the bricks in his 
 feminine curiosity. 
 
 " The present unhappy situation ! " he re 
 peated. " May I inquire to what you re 
 fer?"
 
 272 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 My teeth chattered for fear he would ask 
 me. 
 
 Bee looked around vaguely. 
 
 " Is it possible," she murmured, " that even 
 yet he does not know ! " 
 
 This implied slur upon his intelligence 
 brought the vain red into Munson s cheeks. 
 
 " I think I don t quite understand ! " he said 
 tentatively. 
 
 " It seems impossible that you should not," 
 said Bee, " in which case I must explain." 
 
 Jimmie s eagerness to know too, caused him 
 to take a step toward Bee, which brought a 
 twitch to Bee s lips and a twitch to his coat 
 tails from me, at which hint he came to him 
 self and gazed nonchalantly at the ceiling. 
 
 Your continued refusal to have the leak in 
 Mrs. Jardine s bedroom repaired has been 
 brought to the attention of the Board of 
 Health, and I have here an order from the 
 Commissioner " 
 
 Munson s face flamed. 
 
 "I I beg your pardon!" he stammered. 
 " I was not aware I did not know - 
 
 He stopped because of my look. 
 
 " It shall be attended to at once," he said. 
 " I will speak about it at the very next meeting 
 of the Building Committee." 
 
 " And leave my sister to occupy a bedroom
 
 Bee Applies a Counter Irritant 273 
 
 with fungus on. the walls two inches long?" 
 inquired Bee. " Indeed, Mr. Munson, if I may 
 take the liberty of saying so, you take a singu 
 lar view of the length of time Mrs. Jardine 
 intends to suffer in silence. Protests have al 
 ready gone to the chairman of the Building 
 Committee, signed by myself and Jimmie as 
 witnesses and quoting this order from the 
 Board of Health." 
 
 Munson laughed irritatingly. 
 
 " Mrs. Jardine s habit of suffering in si 
 lence is, indeed, well known to her admiring 
 friends," said Munson sarcastically. " I hap 
 pen to know that at a dinner party very re 
 cently, she publicly complained of her distress 
 at having caught cold from sleeping in a damp 
 bedroom and cas^t a slur upon me in my capac 
 ity as landlord." 
 
 " And I happen to know," retorted Jimmie, 
 " that she did nothing of the kind. The slurs 
 were cast by myself and Aubrey Jardine and 
 Dr. Bragg the very tattler who carried the 
 gossip to you, Ed Munson and what Faith 
 said was that the delight of your conversation 
 more than outweighed the dampness of a 
 bedroom wall! But Faith always is the 
 goat!" 
 
 " And I have always been," I burst out bit 
 terly, " ever since I was ten years old ! "
 
 274 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " And what were you before that? " sneered 
 Munson. 
 
 " Before that I was nothing but a kid ! " I 
 answered. 
 
 We are a queer set and no mistake. There 
 we were, " all het up " as Dr. Bragg would 
 say, and fairly spoiling for a fight, literally 
 falling into each other s arms over a foolish 
 joke, which, one half second before it was ut 
 tered had been as far from my mind as the 
 North Pole. 
 
 Munson s conduct, however, was the most 
 amazing. He came up to me and offered his 
 hand. 
 
 " I can never quarrel with a woman capable 
 of that," he said, with a forgiving smile. " I 
 must catch the five-forty back, so I must hurry. 
 Have those bricks taken away and the leak will 
 be attended to at once to-morrow. By the 
 way, may I have just a peg before I go? 
 Thanks, awfully." 
 
 Jimmie attended to his wants and Munson 
 pledged us fluently and gracefully in a little 
 speech. 
 
 Then he sat down his glass, consulted his 
 watch, took up his silk hat, shook hands with 
 us all around regardless of the queer looks on 
 our faces, and said good-bye.
 
 Bee Applies a Counter Irritant 275 
 
 He turned at the door and came back nerv 
 ously rubbing his hat the wrong way. 
 
 " Oh, Eleanor begged me to say, Mrs. 
 Jardine, that if you had no objection we would 
 like to borrow the apartment from you next 
 Friday and give a reception in your studio 
 and a picture exhibit in ours throwing the 
 two together, of course. And and as 
 most of our friends are not aware that we have 
 unfortunately been obliged to sublet our studio, 
 and know nothing of your tenancy, she begs 
 to know if you will wear a hat and come in at 
 the street door like any other guest ! "
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 ELEANOR S RECEPTION AND WHAT CAME OF IT 
 
 I HAVE felt foolish before, but I never 
 felt a completer idiot than I did at Elea 
 nor Munson s reception in my studio, 
 walking around all the afternoon, clad in my 
 best and wearing hat and gloves. 
 
 I sternly refused to come in from the street 
 in the middle of the afternoon, and send in my 
 card as she wanted me to do. I was there 
 when the thing started and to the earliest 
 guest I appeared already placed. 
 
 My sense of humour or my common sense, 
 if you please, simply wouldn t let me go out 
 of my way to make a fool of myself. I am 
 never one to think myself the only person to 
 possess a brain, and on this occasion I give 
 even the wayfaring man credit for the possi 
 bility of putting two and two together and ar 
 riving at the conclusion that they make four, 
 even if the Munsons did continue to ejaculate 
 five and six as the proper answer to the ques 
 tion of the afternoon. 
 
 How did they know how many persons 
 276
 
 Eleanor s Reception 277 
 
 knew the apartment was mine and wondered 
 at the change of hostesses? 
 
 But no. They even bore in silence the com 
 ments of their intimates on the amount of new 
 furniture (ours) they had bought since their 
 last inspection, and thus they carried off, by a 
 superiority or effrontery or fluke of luck, a 
 situation which would have had me grovelling 
 in the dust and choking with eager and unnec 
 essarily fluent explanations to total and indif 
 ferent strangers. 
 
 But the Munsons had no sense of humour. 
 I decided it finally that afternoon. Eleanor 
 had only an intellectual appreciation of it in 
 others, and Munson had an understanding of 
 the ridiculous and a cynical wit which often 
 passed for humour. But Munson s witticisms 
 generally left a fine line of blood behind them, 
 like the scratches of a playful cat. 
 
 Bee was there in a costume of subdued woe 
 which made every woman there willing to go 
 into mourning, if they could only hope to equal 
 her get-up. It represented The Widow Begin 
 ning to Take Notice in a living picture. 
 
 Bob Mygatt was there too, and Laflin Van 
 Tassel and Mrs. Keep and the Jimmies, and 
 our dear Lyddy and Hope Loring and her hus 
 band, Cedric Hamilton, and Sallie and Nor 
 man Fitzhugh and Lord and Lady Abernethy.
 
 278 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 I was in the act of trying to get Patricia to 
 let Eleanor paint her portrait when Jimmie 
 and Aubrey overheard me, and separated us 
 as quickly and quietly as if we had been about 
 to spring at each other s throats. 
 
 But Bee, who generally revelled in recep 
 tions and such like, scarcely spoke, unless ad 
 dressed. She even ignored Laflin s presence 
 almost to the point of avoidance, while as for 
 Laflin, he stood off in a corner and followed 
 her every movement with his eyes. 
 
 I thought to give matters an onward fillip 
 on my own account by stirring Lyddy up to 
 naming the happy day the very moment Bob 
 got his divorce, and my opportunity came at 
 Eleanor s reception and at the supper after 
 ward, which happened in this wise. 
 
 Jimmie came up and whispered in my ear : 
 
 " Come up in the balcony with me quick. 
 Got some great news for you ! " 
 
 When we were alone, we hid behind the 
 palms, where nobody could see us, but where 
 we could see everybody in the studio, and then 
 Jimmie said : 
 
 " Know what s the matter with Bee ? " 
 
 "No, what?" 
 
 " See that girl walking around by herself 
 the one with an Orange County fruit farm on 
 her hat?"
 
 Eleanor s Reception 279 
 
 "Yes, who is it?" 
 
 " Her name is Laura Clyde. She is after 
 Laflin Van Tassel hot foot and she told Sallie 
 Fitzhugh she was engaged to him. I acci 
 dentally overheard Sallie telling Bee honest, 
 it was accidental ! You needn t look at me like 
 that! And how could I have told you if I 
 hadn t overheard ? " 
 
 " Do you suppose she really is, or is that a 
 ruse of hers to touch Bee s pride and induce 
 her to draw off? " 
 
 " Exactly my own conclusions ! " cried Jim- 
 mie. " She isn t the real thing and I don t 
 believe Laflin is taken in. But he is a godly 
 young person and this Miss Laura Clyde is 
 fishing for him with religious angle-worms, 
 so to speak." 
 
 " So," I said, " so that s what s been the 
 matter with Bee for the last few weeks! I 
 wonder how it will turn out ! " 
 
 " You wonder, do you ? Well, I ll tell you 
 how it will turn out. If Bee finds out that it 
 is true and isn t prepared to give up the chase 
 she will manage things so that Laflin will jump 
 his trolley. She won t let him get away, nor 
 she won t turn pious to please him. She tried 
 it for a while, but it bored our charming young 
 widow to the verge of extinction. Didn t you 
 hear her serve notice on us the other night?
 
 280 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Bee simply won t be put upon, as our gentle 
 domestics have it. And if I mistake not the 
 signs, Bee is going to fire her first gun this 
 blessed day." 
 
 "What makes you think so?" 
 
 " Cuz she asked me and Mary and Laflin 
 to stay a few minutes after everybody goes." 
 
 " Tell you what I ll do," I said. " I ll order 
 in a few things and we ll have a little supper 
 instead of dinner." 
 
 " Turn me loose in the kitchen, Faith, and 
 I ll make a cup," said Jimmie, diving for his 
 coat and hat. " And and, Faith ! One min 
 ute! As you can t use either of these tele 
 phones, you d better let me order the sup 
 per!" 
 
 Verily this seemed to be my day to enter 
 tain by proxy ! 
 
 I let Jimmie out at the mezzanine door and 
 sought out Bee. 
 
 " Jimmie has just gone out to order a little 
 supper sent in," I murmured, " and I think I ll 
 ask Bob and Laflin to stay. Do you want any 
 body else ? " 
 
 Bee s face lighted up as if by magic. 
 
 The very thing!" she said, catching my 
 wrist. " Ask Eleanor s friend, Miss Clyde, 
 and Lyddy." 
 
 "Lyddy! Oh, Bee, must I?"
 
 Eleanor s Reception 281 
 
 " You must ! Don t kick ! And the Mun- 
 sons ! Oh, this is almost too good to be true ! " 
 
 "What is?" 
 
 " Faith, don t ask any questions, but help me 
 as only you will know how to, when the time 
 comes ! " 
 
 " You mean Miss Clyde? " 
 
 " How did you know ? " asked Bee. " But 
 I m glad you do, for I rather feel that I am 
 dealing with an unknown quantity in that 
 young woman." 
 
 " If you want my opinion," I said bluntly, 
 " this Miss Clyde is what old Mary would call 
 a little blister ! But I ll help no matter 
 what she is."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 IN WHICH BEE SURMOUNTS ANOTHER 
 OBSTACLE 
 
 JIMMIE S supper on my china in the stu 
 dio, borrowed from me for the day by 
 the Munsons, was a great success. 
 Only Aubrey accidentally spoiled things 
 some by saying: 
 
 " In some ways, my wife is like a man. She 
 always remembers that men want to eat even 
 after a lady s reception. At home, my mother 
 never had dinner on the days she gave lunch 
 eons or teas. She always said she wasn t hun- 
 
 gry." 
 
 I ought to have kept still, but I blurted out : 
 
 " I regret to be obliged to tell you, dear, 
 that this is Jimmie s supper! " 
 
 " It was your idea, wasn t it, you, 
 you " Jimmie hesitates to call me names 
 right out, but his face was red with embar 
 rassment under his wife s approving glances. 
 
 Ever since we had had to borrow money, 
 Jimmie has used every effort to contribute to 
 282
 
 Bee Surmounts Another Obstacle 283 
 
 our support, short of abstracting our bills from 
 the postman and sending them back receipted. 
 
 Mrs. Keep smiled her slow smile under 
 which Jimmie writhed helplessly. Jimmie 
 sickens and droops under public approval and 
 only thrives on abuse. 
 
 Wherefore he always enjoys the best of 
 health in my vicinage. 
 
 I have never seen Bee so well, so alive as 
 she was that night. She seemed like a lumi 
 nous live wire, but I could not understand why 
 she and Bob exchanged glances occasionally, 
 which were replete with secret understanding. 
 Was it because they were both in bondage to 
 circumstance and applying their wits to an ex 
 trication which would seem to the lay mind an 
 impossibility? 
 
 I managed to whisper to Bob during the 
 evening : 
 
 " How is it that you and Bee understand 
 each other so well ? What is this wireless code 
 of signals you have adopted ? " 
 
 Bob laughed. 
 
 " There is no code, Highness. Bee and I 
 understand each other by the same token that 
 you and I do the bond of iniquity sub 
 merged iniquity, which binds criminals of the 
 higher class together. You understand me just 
 in proportion to your own wickedness and you
 
 284 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 love me because of your sense of humour. If 
 it wasn t for that you d hate me. But don t 
 ever hate me, Faith," added the idiot passion 
 ately, "or I ll die!" 
 
 As he carefully raised his voice during this 
 last speech so that Lyddy could not fail to hear 
 him, I could have slapped him. 
 
 And as she reared her head and slowly grew 
 majenta, Bob snickered. 
 
 Fortunately Munson saved the situation just 
 here by asking for another whiskey and soda. 
 As it was his third Eleanor shot him a warning 
 glance, to which he replied aloud, as is the 
 custom of some husbands when in pursuit of 
 their third. 
 
 Bee endeavoured to seat Miss Clyde next to 
 Laflin, but that astute young woman with an 
 ease which baffled my sister s best efforts 
 chose a place opposite to him, whereupon Bee 
 established herself as far away from them both 
 as possible and evidently counted on me as a 
 scout to circle around and make reports. 
 
 Miss Clyde was a remarkable looking girl 
 even in this day of a fashion by which the 
 most ordinary may make themselves conspicu 
 ous. She was very pretty, having loose curl 
 ing strands of her hair hanging down on either 
 side of her face and blowing across her fore 
 head.
 
 Bee Surmounts Another Obstacle 285 
 
 It sounds horrid to describe it, but it was 
 artistic and effective on her. Her empire 
 gown hung loosely on her slim figure. Her 
 great hat, which she refused to remove, shad 
 owed her face. Her lace sleeves wrinkled on 
 her slender, rounded arms and came over her 
 thin hands to her heavily ringed fingers. 
 
 She made a striking and effective picture, 
 except that her eyes were queer. They were a 
 clear green and she seldom opened them wide. 
 She kept them narrowed and she peered at 
 people out of these green slits like a sleepy cat. 
 
 They were not pretty, but no one who ever 
 looked at them, failed to look again and yet 
 again, and sometimes people seemed able to 
 look nowhere else when she was around. 
 
 She fastened these compelling eyes of hers 
 on Laflin the moment we were seated, and al 
 though he vainly endeavoured to refuse to re 
 spond, he found himself yielding more and 
 more to their spell. 
 
 It was Jimmie who blurted out at one end 
 of the table : 
 
 " I do believe she s trying to hypnotize 
 him!" 
 
 It shocked most of us who heard. Only 
 Eleanor Munson showed her utter unconcern 
 and lack of responsibility to anybody, by re 
 marking indifferently:
 
 286 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 "I ve been told she can do it as completely 
 as a professional. It would be rather amusing 
 to see it demonstrated on some one we know, 
 wouldn t it ? " 
 
 " I think it would be horrid! " I answered. 
 
 Eleanor smiled her slow, superior, irritating 
 smile which the self-conscious artist bestows 
 on the rest of the world. 
 
 " You know I do not believe in the ethics 
 of things as vehemently as you do," she said 
 quietly. 
 
 " What do you believe in? " I asked. 
 
 " I believe in reaching out and taking what 
 ever one wants in this world, which could pos 
 sibly add to one s happiness," she replied. 
 
 "Regardless of the rights of others?" 
 asked Bee. 
 
 " Rights of others is a relative term," she 
 answered. " Everything has been stolen from 
 somebody else first. What I regard as my 
 rights to-day, possibly I appropriated from an 
 other a week ago. No man ever married and 
 became the legal property of one woman who 
 did not belong, in the eyes of some other 
 woman, to her, morally or ethically or what 
 ever you choose to call it. Therefore the 
 words my rights depend upon who speaks 
 them. Which brings me back to my original 
 statement."
 
 Bee Surmounts Another Obstacle 287 
 
 Laura Clyde was evidently a companion 
 spirit of Eleanor Munson s, as well as her 
 guest, for she overheard the latter part of 
 these remarks and looked at us. 
 
 Bob, who always scented mischief a mile 
 away, asked deferentially: 
 
 " Did you hear that, Miss Clyde, and do 
 you agree ? " 
 
 " Oh, no," purred the girl, narrowing her 
 eyes at Laflin. " I have no desire to appropri 
 ate the property of another woman. I 
 might " here she looked squarely at Bee 
 " I might dispute her rights. I might lay 
 plans to circumvent a rival, but I would never 
 fight a losing game." 
 
 My sister regarded this extraordinary girl 
 attentively. She showed no vexation nor ap 
 prehension, but like a good general she was 
 learning the enemy s tactics. 
 
 " Oh," moaned Bob, " how I wish you girls 
 would squabble about me. I hate to have such 
 divinely interesting possibilities even men 
 tioned regarding another fellow, when I am 
 so near at hand and so worthy of your obser 
 vation, your attentions I may say, of your 
 love!" 
 
 " I should think," said Lyddy acidly, " that 
 you had had about enough of women squab 
 bling over you ! "
 
 288 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 This was a bomb sure enough, for Lyddy 
 had never before dared to bait Bob. 
 
 He did not even turn his head in her direc 
 tion, but his very ears grew hot as the blood 
 rose. 
 
 Then began poor Lyddy s punishment, for 
 Bob drew his chair close to Miss Clyde s and 
 for half an hour he murmured idiotic love to 
 her, carefully raising his voice whenever there 
 was a chance of Lyddy s hearing. 
 
 The girl answered in kind, but every ardent 
 word she spoke, she directed not at Bob, but 
 at Laflin Van Tassel, nor for one moment did 
 she remove the green, sleepy gleam of her 
 compelling eyes from his face. 
 
 This double game seemed to fascinate Bob, 
 for he flung himself more and more ardently 
 into it, until I decided that it was time to re 
 lieve the tension. 
 
 I have said before that I hate to hear open 
 love-making, and for a few moments, I cast 
 vainly about for a way to punish Bob for his 
 evening s work. 
 
 Suddenly I thought of Lyddy, and when no 
 one was observing me, I slipped into a vacant 
 chair beside her. 
 
 " Lyddy," I whispered, " I hate to hear 
 Bob talking like this, for after all, you know he 
 is engaged to you he is really your prop-
 
 Bee Surmounts Another Obstacle 289 
 
 erty. Yet you heard Miss Clyde say she 
 would go after any man she wanted and get 
 him away from her rival " 
 
 I really did not look for so much success. 
 At my half expressed idea Lyddy clutched my 
 arm and turned purple in the face. 
 
 " Faith," she gasped. " Faith ! Help me to 
 get him out of it, and I ll do anything in the 
 world you want me to ! I ll I ll make you 
 a present a handsome present ! I ll even go 
 so far " 
 
 " You ve gone far enough, Lyddy! " I said 
 severely. " I ll help you for nothing, if you ll 
 only keep quiet. Let me think! How long 
 is it before Bob s wife can get her divorce?" 
 
 " The six months will be up on the 2Oth of 
 April, and it is now the 29th of March." 
 
 "Three weeks," I said. "Well, get Bob 
 to consent to be married about the first of May 
 and then promise to take him abroad if he will 
 give up this promiscuous love-making. It is 
 dangerous, Lyddy." 
 
 Again she gasped. 
 
 "I will," she whispered. "I will! I ll 
 have it out with him to-night. I ll never for 
 get that you suggested helping me, Faith Jar- 
 dine! I don t believe I ever understood you 
 before. Perhaps I have done you an injustice 
 in my thoughts."
 
 290 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 I did a little gasping on my own account 
 just here. 
 
 To think of stiff-necked old Lyddy acknowl 
 edging that she might be in the wrong! Per 
 haps I had not always done her justice, and 
 not to be outdone in courtesy, I hastened to 
 say so. 
 
 But she scarcely heard me. She was watch 
 ing Bob, who had twitched his chair closer to 
 Miss Clyde s and was now whispering to her. 
 
 Laflin watched her in fascinated silence, un 
 til suddenly she leaned slightly forward and 
 said : 
 
 " I am very tired. I must go." 
 
 Instantly he replied to her as if she had 
 commanded him: 
 
 " May I take you home? " 
 
 The girl smiled and turning her head side 
 ways, she shot a look of bright malice at Bee. 
 
 Again my sister controlled herself. 
 
 People got up and the Munsons prepared 
 to go. They were to spend the night with 
 friends in town. 
 
 Miss Clyde came to say good-night. She 
 spoke first to me, then she turned to Bee. 
 
 " Good-night," she said. " We can never 
 be friends, because we both want the same 
 man and I expect to get him, even if I have 
 to propose to him myself."
 
 Bee Surmounts Another Obstacle 291 
 
 Although Miss Qyde lowered her voice so 
 that the men could not hear, Bee, Eleanor 
 Munson and I heard distinctly. I looked in 
 stinctively to see Eleanor repudiate such vul 
 garity, but she only smiled her aloof smile and 
 said: 
 
 " She is a direct little pagan, isn t she? " 
 
 And with a careless glance around the 
 studio, she remarked that it had been rather 
 a nice afternoon and went. 
 
 As the door closed behind her party, Bee 
 murmured fiercely in my ear: 
 
 " Not one pitying look from you ! I am a 
 match for her. Burst out laughing, stupid! 
 I m going to! " 
 
 And she laughed so close to my ear that I 
 jumped and bit my tongue. 
 
 But Bee was able to control not only others 
 but herself a far more difficult task, from 
 my point of view. And she was the life of 
 the party until everybody left, whereupon she 
 kissed me in a tired way and the Jimmies took 
 her home, together with Lyddy and Bob. 
 
 It must have been two weeks later when 
 Bee next spoke to me of Laura Clyde. 
 
 In the meantime Bee had never once sent 
 for Laflin even when she needed to see him 
 on business about the new house, which was 
 now being built. When she needed him, she
 
 292 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 wrote what she wanted and sent him out 
 alone. All the opportunities for being in his 
 society she pointedly neglected. 
 
 Finally one morning she showed me the fol 
 lowing extraordinary letter. 
 
 " Read this," she said. " It is from Miss 
 Clyde, and tell me what you think of it." 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Lathrop," it ran. " You will 
 not be in the least surprised to receive this 
 letter, because, after what I said to you the 
 last time we met, you will have been waiting 
 to hear from me. 
 
 " I did just what I said I would. I asked 
 him to marry me, and I ve never heard any 
 thing quite so awkward and painful and ab 
 surd as he was in the way he refused me. 
 
 " For refuse me he did, and I feel that you 
 have a right to know it for the game way you 
 have left the field clear to me. 
 
 " Perhaps it was your very gameness which 
 hurried me into precipitancy. I was getting 
 on, and perhaps, if I had waited, I could have 
 got him. But I don t know. 
 
 " It may interest you to know how I man 
 aged to get him out of your toils with such 
 apparent ease and celerity. I was in the per 
 gola at Coolmeath when you made your 
 famous volte face on the subject of architec 
 ture and I told him about it.
 
 Bee Surmounts Another Obstacle 293 
 
 " It will give you some work to get around 
 his suspicion of your sincerity, but as my en 
 gagement to another man will be announced 
 Sunday, this will help you if you need help, 
 which I doubt. 
 
 " Only one word more, which believe me, 
 I offer in the friendliest spirit. 
 
 " You are going to have trouble in making 
 him propose, because he is simply a mass of 
 putty, with only an imitation spine. 
 
 " Good-bye and good luck. The bank-roll 
 of the man I got is not so wide as a church 
 door, nor so deep as a well, but twill serve. 
 " Very sincerely yours, 
 
 " LAURA CLYDE." 
 
 I dropped my hands helplessly at my side 
 when I finished, and Bee took the letter from 
 my nerveless fingers and held it carefully with 
 the tongs over the gas log. 
 
 " Well," she said tentatively. 
 
 " Well," I repeated, " that s the most curi 
 ous thing I ever read. It s a human document, 
 but somehow, in spite of its frankness, it seems 
 not as revolting as it should, because it s so 
 sportsman like! " 
 
 " She didn t care for him at all," said Bee. 
 " I was afraid, at first, she did." 
 
 " Do you? " I exclaimed suddenly.
 
 294 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Then, for the first time in my life, I saw 
 my sister s face flush with honest feeling. 
 
 " Why, Bee! " I cried. " I didn t know ! I 
 rather thought 
 
 " It was, at first," answered Bee. " Then I 
 got to know him and I found that it would have 
 been the same even if he hadn t had a cent." 
 
 " But don t you think part of what this girl 
 said is true? He is vacillating and / think he 
 is soft." 
 
 Bee leaned forward. 
 
 " Do you remember James? " she said. " I 
 have had one husband of firm will, unbending 
 purpose and strong determination. I think 
 now I will take my chance with one where in 
 fluence counts for something. Poor James! 
 I think one reason for my great unhappiness 
 with him was because my one characteristic 
 the one you and Jimmie make such a fuss 
 about my ability to handle people and circum 
 stances, was entirely lost on such material as 
 James. It wore me out to try to influence him, 
 so I gave it up. With Laflin, it will be easy." 
 
 Then you think "I began dubiously. 
 
 Bee smiled. 
 
 " I think that in the year this poor man 
 has been a millionaire, he has been more run 
 after than anyone I ever knew in my life. I 
 shall be obliged to go carefully, but "
 
 Bee Surmounts Another Obstacle 295 
 
 I smiled at the triumphant note in her voice. 
 What if, after all, her plans should miscarry? 
 
 " How about his suspicions of your sincerity 
 about the house ? You told me he thought you 
 were going to live there, but that you meant 
 to rent it." 
 
 " I know," said Bee. "But I have fully 
 decided to furnish and live in it." 
 
 " But won t you hate that? Its divine 
 beauty never did appeal to you." 
 
 " He loves it so, that if when we are mar 
 ried, I mean, he would probably have insisted 
 on living there anyway, so I ll simply begin to 
 order decorations and furniture, which will 
 refute his suspicions without a word from me." 
 
 " But Bee, that s, of course, terribly clever, 
 but how you will hate living in that isolated 
 place!" 
 
 Bee smiled. 
 
 " I sha n t mind it for a while! " 
 
 " But suppose he wants to stay ! " 
 
 "He won t," smiled Bee. "Things will 
 happen. They always do. He will suggest 
 moving! " 
 
 Yea, verily! 
 
 " Well," I said. " I can only repeat Laura 
 Clyde s words, Good-bye and good luck to 
 you! "
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 PLANS 
 
 I CAN never understand why I am to 
 blame for everything which is, as Bob 
 says, " moral but distasteful," but the 
 fact remains that Bob blames me for his hav 
 ing at last been driven to bay and having to 
 marry Lyddy. 
 
 1 think he had rather hoped to go for a year, 
 or possibly more, in a state of engaged free 
 dom, pensioned and happy, but I, who never 
 look in more than one direction, before I leap 
 (which accounts for an occasional landing in 
 mud puddles, up to my knees), had, in order 
 to punish him, urged Lyddy to get Bob out of 
 his shocking probation. 
 
 Nor can I yet see that I did wrong. Bob 
 had no business to be left free to make love 
 to every woman he saw. 
 
 And I said so, when he accused me. 
 
 " I was a free man when I entered into that 
 ill-starred flirtation, queen of my heart, and 
 296
 
 Plans 297 
 
 although I have seldom enjoyed anything 
 more than the sight of Lyddy s angel face 
 while I was making love to that little Miss 
 Clyde of Laflin s, yet, owing to your inter 
 ference, Lyddy nailed me for the role of Bene 
 dict on May first. Just think of it! I m to 
 be queen of the May, mother, I m to be queen 
 of the May! If you are awake, will you call 
 me early ? " 
 
 He made a wry face, got up, dropped his 
 cigar into the rose- jar, lighted a cigarette and 
 then continued : 
 
 " I don t like it, Ladybird ! I tell you, I 
 don t want to marry. I didn t even want to 
 marry Ava. I just like to be engaged. An 
 engagement has privileges and no responsibili 
 ties!" 
 
 " Bob Mygatt ! " I began explosively. 
 
 But Bob hurriedly interrupted me. 
 
 " Did you know that Ava and Shupe are 
 married ? " he asked hastily. 
 
 "No! Are they?" 
 
 " Married ! And Shupe has re-written 
 our play, The Alligator Pear Tree/ 
 ruining it, to my mind, -but still he has got an 
 angel to produce it, and I suppose it will 
 make a hit ! " 
 
 "Did you give the play back to him?" I 
 asked.
 
 298 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Bob nodded. 
 
 "Without any string to it?" I demanded 
 suspiciously. 
 
 Bob looked at me reproachfully. 
 
 " How you do suspect one ! " he murmured. 
 
 "But did you?" 
 
 " Don t stamp your foot at me like that, 
 White Princess ! You scare me so I can t talk. 
 Well then, I did retain a ten per cent, interest 
 in it, on account of all my work on it. The 
 thing was rotten when I took it! " 
 
 " Took it is good ! " I said scathingly. 
 " When you stole it ! " 
 
 Bob s face flushed such an agonized red that 
 I immediately repented my brutality. It s 
 funny how sensitive dishonourable people are. 
 Now if I had been able to get my own consent 
 to steal that play, you could have called me a 
 thief quite openly, and the verbal statement of 
 my deliberately dishonourable act would not 
 have added one whit to my discomfort. 
 
 Not so Bob. He was deeply sensitive 
 over having been caught and my mention of 
 it pained him in his tenderest conceit. 
 
 " Oh, well," he said finally, " it s all in a 
 life time, and the only reason you get blamed 
 for everything is because you are always so 
 ready and eager to jump into any fight going 
 on no matter what it s all about and so
 
 Plans 299 
 
 gloriously willing to take sides. I think it is 
 bully myself." 
 
 " It may be bully," I said, smiling to think 
 what a lot of fun I have had fighting with 
 Jimmie, " but I get into heaps of trouble by 
 it." 
 
 " I am always in trouble," said Bob cheer 
 fully. " Just now I am worried to death won 
 dering what my fair Lyddy will wear the day 
 she leads me to the altar handcuffed to a 
 couple of deputy sheriffs. She does lean to 
 such courageous colours! I wonder if you 
 or " 
 
 " I am no good at a thing of that kind. Bee 
 is your party. Tell your troubles to her. If 
 I attempted it, it would get into the papers ! " 
 
 "Right you are!" he said, throwing his 
 cigarette stub into the fern dish, whence I care 
 fully took it and threw it not into his face, 
 as I felt like doing and said so but into an 
 ash tray. " I ll ask Bee." 
 
 He stood up to go and started to kiss my 
 hand, when he happened to think of something 
 else. 
 
 " Get on your things and come with me," he 
 suggested. " Then if my darling financier is 
 there too and I can t get a word with Bee, you 
 can tell her." 
 
 It isn t far to Bee s, and when we got there,
 
 300 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 Bee was making faces into the telephone trans 
 mitter and talking spasmodically with her eyes 
 closed. 
 
 Then we heard her say : 
 
 " Well, come on over. I m all alone. That 
 is to say, only Bob and Faith are here." 
 
 " Well, of all the nerve ! " murmured Bob. 
 " Evidently we don t count as much as a two- 
 spot. We only take up room, we do ! " 
 
 Bee laughed as she hung up the receiver. 
 
 " Who was it ? " I demanded. 
 
 " Hope Loring in a fit over a flirtation Mrs. 
 Cox is having with Jermyn. She says Cedric 
 only laughs at her fears, but she wants it put 
 a stop to, and I think I am just the one who 
 can help her out." 
 
 Bee s eyes are gray when she is at peace with 
 the world. They were green on this occasion, 
 and I could see that she had some neat plan in 
 mind to settle the affair of the slain rose on the 
 one hand and to spike the guns of a sister- 
 widow on the other. 
 
 I didn t particularly envy Mrs. Cox or Dr. 
 Bragg at that moment. 
 
 " Hope may make her mind easy," said Bob, 
 " Mrs. Cox has no intention of marrying Jer 
 myn. He s too poor. By the same token Dr. 
 Bragg is also safe safer than he wants to 
 be the old ninny ! "
 
 Plans 301 
 
 Presently Hope came in, radiant in the 
 smart clothes brides find one of the perquisites 
 of marriage, and looking quite lovely. 
 
 Her sister, Sallie Fitzhugh, was with her, 
 and Bob at once began to reproach both sisters 
 with having married before they had fully 
 considered his attractions, and causing Hope 
 to flush gloriously with the way he called her 
 Mrs. Hamilton. 
 
 But he was not allowed to distract their at 
 tention from their main anxiety, for Hope, in 
 her straightforward, boyish way, plunged into 
 the heart of the matter, sweeping all conven 
 tional lukewarmness aside as if positive of our 
 sympathy and interest. 
 
 " Jermyn is so inexperienced and widows 
 are so clever," groaned Hope, entirely for 
 getting that Bee, into whose face she was gaz 
 ing, was also one of the class she condemned 
 so sweepingly. 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon, Mrs. Lathrop ! " 
 she cried realizing her mistake. " I forgot you 
 were one! Now, if I am not careful, I ll go 
 on and say but you are not clever like Mrs. 
 Cox, and so I ll simply make a bad matter 
 worse! But you know what I mean, don t 
 you?" 
 
 Hope s tone contained an agonized appeal 
 which Bee could not resist.
 
 302 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 "I do ! " she said with conviction. 
 
 "And you know this Mrs. Cox?" asked 
 Hope. 
 
 Bee s tone was fervent and replete with 
 feeling as she admitted that she knew the other 
 widow. 
 
 Bob leaned back in the window seat and 
 nursed his knee with an expression of enjoy 
 ment on his face which only appeared when 
 two or more human beings were about to fly 
 at each other s throats. At such times, Bob s 
 eagerness to help either combatant along was 
 truly touching. 
 
 " What makes you think Jermyn is inter 
 ested in Mrs. Cox? " I asked. 
 
 " Because he won t let me say a word 
 against her. He says she is innocent and 
 sincere and never encourages men to make love 
 to her like most wid 
 
 Hope stopped abruptly and clapped her 
 hands over her mouth. 
 
 "Oh, what is the matter with me?" she 
 moaned. " I am here in your house, asking 
 you to help me and insulting you in every sec 
 ond word ! " 
 
 " Don t mind ! " I said. " Bee isn t like 
 other widows. Her methods are entirely her 
 own. You could never mix her work with that
 
 Plans 303 
 
 of any other unattached female. It s so dif 
 ferent." 
 
 Bob writhed and Bee bit her lip. 
 
 " Do you know a Dr. Bragg? " she asked. 
 
 " I ve met him," said Hope. " Beastly old 
 party! " she added frankly. 
 
 You must give a dinner and bring Jermyn 
 face to face with Mrs. Cox and Dr. Bragg," 
 said Bee. 
 
 "Must I?" said Hope, doubtfully. "I 
 don t like Dr. Bragg and Cedric says he is a 
 bounder." 
 
 Th that s just what he is ! " stammered 
 Bob. " But I want to be there to see the fun. 
 Invite me, Mrs. Hamilton! Please do! " 
 
 " I ll see about it," said Hope, wrinkling 
 her pretty nose, as she thought of Lyddy. 
 " I ll make up a party for can you all come 
 two weeks from to-night?" 
 
 Bob s face fell. 
 
 That s the day of my funeral," he said. 
 " It s May first ! Have you all forgotten ? " 
 
 " Well, why not? " said Bee, eagerly. " It 
 would be all the more of an excuse. Give 
 them a bridal dinner, Hope. They can be 
 married at five o clock and sail the next 
 day." 
 
 " Suit yourselves ! " said Bob carelessly.
 
 304 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " As long as it s got to be done, I don t care 
 how it s handled." 
 
 "Can you make Miss Lathrop agree?" 
 asked Sallie Fitzhugh. 
 
 " Can he? " I cried. " She s so tame, she ll 
 eat out of his hand." 
 
 " Bark, roll over and play dead," added Bob 
 gravely. " I ve trained her myself." 
 
 Hope jumped up and shook out her chiffons. 
 
 Then it s all settled. I can only have 
 twelve, because I only got my wedding silver 
 in dozens." 
 
 " You needn t invite us," said Sallie, " be 
 cause we are going to Lakewood Sunday to be 
 gone a week." 
 
 " I want the Jimmies " 
 
 " And us? Can t we come? " I begged. I 
 wouldn t have missed it for worlds. 
 
 " You bet you can," said Hope. " I ll need 
 you. Tell Mrs. Jimmie not to make any other 
 engagement until I can get my cards out." 
 
 " Don t you worry," I said. " Jimmie 
 would break an engagement to die and go to 
 heaven for a chance to see Bee lock horns 
 with Mrs. Cox." 
 
 " I ll ask Laflin," said Hope suddenly, 
 whereat Bee crimsoned and Bob stuffed a 
 pliable sofa pillow into his mouth. 
 
 I came away with Hope and Sallie, leaving
 
 Plans 305 
 
 Bob to talk to Bee about Lyddy s choice of a 
 bridal gown. 
 
 " Hope," I said, as our ways parted, " make 
 up your mind for warm work at your dinner. 
 You are going to see two widows at their 
 best!"
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 LYDDY S FIRST AND BOB S SECOND WEDDING 
 
 MUCH to Lyddy s horror, Bob in 
 sisted upon being married on Fri 
 day, and as they were to sail on 
 Saturday, he had a reasonable excuse. 
 
 " The worse the day, the worse the deed," 
 he observed gloomily. " I only wish I had 
 thought of it and I d have been married on 
 Good Friday. Last year three murderers were 
 put to death on that day." 
 
 Nevertheless, under Jimmie s cheering re 
 minders that Lyddy was going to take him to 
 London for the season, then for a yachting 
 cruise, then for a motoring trip, winding up 
 with Monte Carlo, where she had agreed to 
 stake Bob for the high play he had always 
 longed to indulge in, Bob revived. 
 
 I noticed that Jimmie s manner was peculiar, 
 as he was painting the delights which lay before 
 the bride and groom of European travel with 
 almost unlimited means. 
 
 We all knew that Jimmie had been particu 
 larly fortunate in business of late, for Mrs. 
 306
 
 Lyddy and Bob s Wedding 307 
 
 Jimmie was fairly radiant over a pearl neck 
 lace which Jimmie had managed to get into an 
 eggshell and served to her on Easter morning 
 as if it were a soft boiled egg. 
 
 Aubrey s play had been produced in Plain- 
 field and had scored a success, but as no theatre 
 was available on Broadway, the managers de 
 cided to hold its New York production over 
 until September, so we had an empty summer 
 on our hands and no fixed plans. 
 
 This, however, did not disturb us, as plans 
 only annoy us and hamper our freedom. 
 
 Jimmie, on the contrary, likes to plan, even 
 if he changes his mind every day. 
 
 For another thing, he had come to like Bob 
 more and more and to make allowances for 
 his obvious faults. I think he felt that Bob 
 was getting all that was coming to him in 
 marrying Lyddy, and that it ill behooved us to 
 play the part of avenging angels and rub it in 
 any more. So that on Friday, May first, Bob s 
 wedding day and the day of Hope Hamilton s 
 farewell dinner to the bridal pair, Jimmie and 
 Bob were on the most amicable terms. 
 
 Although Lyddy wanted a white satin wed 
 ding, Bob and Bee finally chloroformed her 
 into a lavender crepe, heavily embroidered 
 with silver bullion, which looked better on her 
 than anything she had ever worn.
 
 308 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 She also wanted bridesmaids and flower 
 girls, but Bob put his foot down. 
 
 " Tis not decent," he told Aubrey and me, 
 " here I am a newly made grass-widower, with 
 the sod still sticking to me. I haven t been a 
 free man more than twenty minutes by the 
 clock, and for Lyddy to want to take the fu 
 neral baked meats to furnish forth the wedding 
 table is not in good form. Besides, I don t 
 choose to have you four gibbering idiots snick 
 ering at my misery from the pews. I wish we 
 could be married by a registrar and put the 
 announcement in that I once read in a western 
 paper So and So was married yesterday 
 afternoon to So and So. No cards. No cake. 
 No pie. Nobody s damned business ! 
 
 We cheered him as best we could. 
 
 They were married from Bee s apartment 
 by the same clergyman who had buried James. 
 
 This was Lyddy s contribution to the gen 
 eral cheerfulness of the occasion. But Bee, 
 whose gleaming eyes could not help betray 
 ing the joy she felt at being for ever rid 
 of her incubus, would not refuse Lyddy any 
 thing, on this, her supreme day, so there was 
 not even a remonstrance from poor Bee, whose 
 patience under Lyddy s final tortures was most 
 beautiful. 
 
 Lyddy had been a fiend for the last few
 
 Lyddy and Bob s Wedding 309 
 
 weeks. Instead of being softened by her new 
 joy, she seemed alive to the incongruity of the 
 whole affair, and, as if suspecting all that we 
 were thinking, she took it out on all of us, as 
 if we had voiced our every thought. 
 
 But for Bee s sake we abstained from an 
 open break, consoling ourselves with the 
 thought that this was the end. 
 
 It was in such a temper that we gathered in 
 Bee s tiny drawing-room to see them married. 
 
 I was so nervous that I was shaking like a 
 leaf, and Aubrey actually had to hold one of 
 my hands to enable me to bear up under it. 
 
 " Be calm," he whispered to me whimsically, 
 " you needn t take it so hard. Remember it s 
 not you who are marrying Bob." 
 
 I smiled faintly, but I was not enjoying my 
 self. 
 
 Bob kept his eye nervously on the rug dur 
 ing the first part of the ceremony, and every 
 thing was going all right, until they came to 
 the part where Bob had to say : 
 
 " And with all my worldly goods I thee en 
 dow," whereupon the graceless scamp looked 
 directly at Jimmie and me and winked. 
 
 " Ah-gah ! " observed Jimmie in a loud tone. 
 It was not a sneeze, not a cough, but a cross 
 between the two, and instantly the blight of 
 grippe seemed to descend upon the entire com-
 
 310 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 pany, for such a session of sneezing and cough 
 ing seldom graces any occasion where snuff 
 is not also present. Or hay fever. 
 
 Bob was delighted. He straightened up 
 and made the final responses in a firm, com 
 posed tone. He saluted his bride bravely. He 
 accepted our congratulations with fortitude. 
 It made him master of the occasion. 
 
 We toasted the bridal couple in champagne, 
 then hurried home to dress for dinner, and at 
 eight o clock we gathered at the Cedric Hamil- 
 tons for one of the most amazing spectacles 
 of modern drawing-room warfare.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 TWO WIDOWS AND THEIR WORK 
 
 IF the great game of life were simply a 
 husband-hunt, it could not have been bet 
 ter illustrated than at Hope s dinner, 
 where sat Lyddy and Bob, representing the 
 woman who boldly outbid another woman 
 for a husband and got what she paid for; Mrs. 
 Cox, who represented the Anne Whitefields of 
 this world women who reach out and grab 
 the man they want; and Bee, the artist, Bee 
 the dainty angler, Bee, the Perfect Widow! 
 
 When I said to Jimmie that Bee was in my 
 opinion the Perfect Widow, Jimmie said that 
 was going some, for widows are perforce the 
 most kittle of female cattle. 
 
 Nevertheless, besides her art, the work of 
 Mrs. Cox was coarse and crude. Mrs. Cox 
 evidently accepted the fact that Jermyn Lor- 
 ing s sister had invited her to dine in this inti 
 mate fashion and had sent her in on Jermyn s 
 arm, to indicate that she was a satisfactory 
 candidate in the eyes of a family notoriously 
 fastidious. 
 
 3"
 
 312 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 I may be conceited Jimmie says I am 
 but in Mrs. Cox s place I never could have 
 made such a crass mistake. 
 
 I would have asked myself a few common- 
 sense questions before my mirror, as, for ex 
 ample, what there was to recommend a forty- 
 year-old widow of small means and few at 
 tractions to a handsome, athletic, college grad 
 uate, in business for himself, and with his 
 father and mother and two beautiful sisters, 
 unmistakably in the best society which New 
 York can boast. 
 
 But some women seem strangely over-confi 
 dent. They are able to look themselves 
 squarely in the face and then bet on them 
 selves in a way to make an honest gambler 
 turn pale. 
 
 Sallie Fitzhugh would have been invaluable 
 that evening, for Sallie is a born diplomat and 
 can face down a most complicated situation, 
 while poor Hope, who is still only a bewitch 
 ing, grown-up child, more boy than girl, only 
 kept her agonized eyes on Jermyn and Mrs. 
 Cox until Bob, who sat at her right, merci 
 fully took her mind off her misery and made 
 a fool of himself in a noble cause. 
 
 Lyddy was gorgeously clad. Bee s artist 
 hand was visible in her every costume. She 
 had changed her wedding gown for a black
 
 Two Widows and Their Work 313 
 
 gauze dinner dress, trimmed in Persian em 
 broidery with much colour and iridescence in 
 it. It had butterflies which stood out and 
 trembled and flashed their wings in the light. 
 Her fan and slippers were made to match and 
 a jewelled butterfly on a spiral was in her 
 hair, so that old Lyddy really looked wonder 
 fully well and Bob looked as if he could have 
 kissed Bee for making her so. 
 
 The dinner went along as usual for the first 
 half hour, Bob and Cedric Hamilton discuss 
 ing the relative merits of French and Italian 
 automobiles. 
 
 Dr. Bragg having been carefully placed, at 
 Bee s suggestion, directly opposite Mrs. Cox 
 and Jermyn, much to that widow s obvious 
 annoyance, gobbled his food with his custom 
 ary robust appetite and then, having satisfied 
 the first evident pangs of hunger, he had lei 
 sure to observe the methods of his lady love, 
 which he proceeded to do in a manner fairly 
 primitive in its barbarism. 
 
 Jermyn s head was close to the widow s, and 
 she was whispering to him behind her fan. 
 
 Dr. Bragg is large of bone, large of body, 
 clumsy of finger and thick of ankle. There 
 fore when he writhes in his chair, the joints 
 of said chair groan. When he fidgets with his 
 hands, he drops things.
 
 314 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 The butler had already picked up two forks 
 and given him another salt cellar for the one 
 he had upset, when Mrs. Cox came another 
 inch out of her low cut dinner gown and de 
 liberately pressed Jermyn s hand as he restored 
 her dropped handkerchief. 
 
 We all saw it, but nobody groaned aloud 
 except the doctor. He fairly bellowed in his 
 pain. 
 
 It was a sound no one could pass over in 
 silence, so we all looked at him. His forehead 
 was red and beaded with drops of sheer agony. 
 
 " What is the matter, doctor ? Are you 
 ill ? " asked Mrs. Cox in icy accents. 
 
 "No no, dear! I am not ill!" stam 
 mered the wretched man. 
 
 Jermyn turned and looked at Mrs. Cox. 
 
 " Why does that man call you dear ? " he 
 asked quietly. 
 
 "I I don t know! " murmured Mrs. Cox. 
 Then recovering herself, she said : " I didn t 
 notice that he did. But it is a little way of 
 his to call women he likes such names! Isn t 
 it, doctor?" 
 
 " It is not! " he roared. " And you know 
 it!" 
 
 If Mrs. Jimmie had kept still, the thing 
 would not have ended there, but in her dear, 
 gentle way, she restored a harmony which
 
 Two Widows and Their Work 315 
 
 none of us wanted to see restored, by saying 
 in her kindest manner : 
 
 " Doctors do so much good in this world, 
 it is no wonder that they are sometimes over 
 wrought and nervous. You have been work 
 ing very continuously, haven t you, doc 
 tor?" 
 
 Everybody avoided looking at everybody 
 else. Jimmie stared hard at the end of his 
 cigarette, but his smile slowly widened and 
 finally he met my eye. 
 
 We never think of taking Mrs. Jimmie into 
 any of our little plots first, because she 
 wouldn t understand them; secondly, because 
 she would disapprove of them, and thirdly, 
 because she so seldom upsets them that it is an 
 unnecessary precaution. 
 
 This was one of the exceptions which 
 proved the rule. 
 
 But Jermyn was clever. And he was a 
 Loring, one of a family noted for their loyalty 
 to each other. He had been annoyed by the 
 remarks of his sisters about Mrs. Cox, never 
 theless he had been cautioned by them more 
 than he had been willing to admit. He knew 
 that both Sallie and Hope adored him and 
 had no thought in mind but his own welfare 
 and happiness. Furthermore, he had what 
 many a brother would be better off if he cul-
 
 316 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 tivated, and that is, a belief that a clever 
 woman s estimate of another woman is sure to 
 come true in the long run. 
 
 He had been sadly upset by his sisters at 
 tacks on Mrs. Cox, but he was under the spell 
 of her fascinations, and there comes a time in 
 every boy s life when an older woman fills his 
 imagination in a way no pretty girl can hope 
 to rival. 
 
 Jermyn was in this stage when his sister s 
 famous Rescue Dinner began, but I could see 
 that Dr. Bragg s evident agony Over Mrs. 
 Cox s flirtatious manner and the widow s 
 secret annoyance, which became every moment 
 more obvious, were not unobserved by the 
 young man. Consequently my opinion of him 
 rose in leaps and bounds. I have so long cher 
 ished a rooted conviction that men in love 
 were hopeless fools that this evidence on Jer- 
 myn s part to look before he leaped, gave me 
 much joy. 
 
 This time the tables seemed to be turned. 
 Ordinarily it is the woman who observes the 
 small signs and goes cautiously, and the man 
 who loses his head and rushes to his doom. 
 But the more Jermyn observed Dr. Bragg s 
 nervous and troubled mien ; the more he lis 
 tened to the doctor s endeavours to attract Mrs. 
 Cox s attention ; the more pronounced grew
 
 Two Widows and Their Work 317 
 
 that lady s snubs to the long-suffering man, 
 the more Jermyn withdrew into his shell and 
 the more ardently the widow went after 
 him. 
 
 Hope s eyes were sparkling in triumph along 
 about the salad, but as for me, I had so many 
 other distractions that I lost track of that 
 affair every once in a while, in my acute inter 
 est in the others. 
 
 Laflin had never been so pronounced in his 
 attentions to Bee as he was that night. Hope 
 had sent him in with Bee, and the manner of 
 both Hope and Cedric indicated that Laflin s 
 choice met with their entire approval. 
 
 But, whether from Mrs. Cox s open hunt, 
 or from some secret reason, Bee s manner to 
 Laflin was cool and distant, while she was 
 more than charming to Cedric Hamilton, on 
 whose left she was seated Lyddy, the bride, 
 having the seat of honour on his right. 
 
 And it made Laflin nervous. Bee looked 
 simply stunning in white chiffon and no jewels, 
 and, to Lyddy s fury, younger than we had 
 ever seen her. I think it was a coup de theatre 
 of Bee s to come out in a gown emphasizing 
 her own youth fulness, on the day that Lyddy 
 would have given a fortune for Bee s lack of 
 years. 
 
 Bee s hair was done low in her neck and tied
 
 31 8 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 with a big white bow, such as young girls 
 wear, and while it was as mean a thing as only 
 a woman can think up, nobody could blame 
 her for this final stab at the redoubtable sister- 
 in-law, who had helped to make her life un 
 comfortable for years and years. 
 
 Nor was the final triumph of displaying the 
 devotion of the handsomest young millionaire 
 in town lacking to complete her triumph, and 
 the more indifferent Bee became, as Jermyn 
 whispered to me, " the more Laflin humped 
 himself." 
 
 Finally Jimmie fired the bomb he had been 
 considering, as I could see, for weeks. 
 
 " What sort of a machine are you getting, 
 Bob?" he asked. 
 
 Think we ll get an Isotta," answered Bob, 
 carelessly. " We want to hit her up, rather. 
 So I propose to get a machine warranted to 
 pass anything on the road." 
 
 Jimmie s cigar began to breathe and blink. 
 
 " Don t believe you ll be able to do that," he 
 said. 
 
 " Why not? " demanded Bob. 
 
 " Because I am going to take an American 
 machine over, and I ll bet that you never can 
 catch us." 
 
 I gasped, but Jimmie heard me. He turned 
 and grinned in my direction.
 
 Two Widows and Their Work 319 
 
 " Think you and Aubrey could join us for 
 the summer?" he said. 
 
 I gave an ecstatic bounce in my chair, then 
 looked at Bee. But the widow s eyes were 
 discreetly cast down, so that she was also miss 
 ing the look of entreaty from Laflin. 
 
 " I don t like that arrangement at all," said 
 the bride, excitedly. " I want to get away 
 from people we know, and I don t propose to 
 go chasing at breakneck speed after the Jim 
 mies automobile, or to have them always chas 
 ing us. So let that end the matter before it 
 begins ! " 
 
 Everybody looked anxiously at Bob, but his 
 glance never wavered. 
 
 " I may buy just a racer with only room 
 for myself and the chauffeur for my own 
 sport," he said quietly. " But I rather think 
 it will be an Isotta. However, I shall leave 
 the final decision to Mrs. Mygatt. What shall 
 it be, Lydia?" 
 
 Lyddy s fan snapped. She glared at us, 
 like an animal at bay. Then she spoke, albeit 
 with a dry mouth. 
 
 " I will be satisfied with anything you de 
 cide, Bob, only I would like to go with 
 you!" 
 
 " Thank you," said Bob. Then turning to 
 Jirnmie, he said, " An Isotta touring car! "
 
 320 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " How jolly it would be," said Jermyn, lean 
 ing forward, " if \ve could all meet over there 
 somewhere this summer! " 
 
 " Why, are you thinking of going? " asked 
 Hope, so eagerly that she clasped her hands on 
 the table in front of her. 
 
 " I had thought of it," said Jermyn. " The 
 Willings have ordered a new Mercedes, and 
 Cynthia rather wants me to join them at Aix 
 for a month s tour of France." 
 
 Hope nearly chanted the Te Deum in her 
 joy, for it had been a quarrel with Cynthia 
 Willing which had precipitated Mrs. Cox into 
 the arena. 
 
 Jermyn took this way of letting Hope know 
 of his change of heart. 
 
 For reply, Hope only held out her hand and 
 Jermyn wrung it without a word. 
 
 Bee looked up and smiled. Mrs. Cox saw 
 this and evidently was capable of putting two 
 and two together, for she murmured her apolo 
 gies for leaving early, and made as if to rise. 
 
 At that moment Hope rose from the table 
 and ordered coffee served in the drawing- 
 room. Jimmie and I were the last to leave the 
 dining-room, except Bee, whom Laflin openly 
 detained by taking her hand in his, regardless 
 of the English butler. 
 
 The ceiling to Hope s dining-room is a
 
 Two Widows and Their Work 321 
 
 dome and has a curious echo, which accounts 
 for my halting Jimmie at the door with a gasp 
 of astonishment, for these words sounded 
 from the side wall in front of us : 
 
 " Take me, Bee ! I ve done everything you 
 wanted me to. I ve given up everything I 
 knew you couldn t stand, and I ve at last come 
 to the conclusion that I can t live without 
 you!" 
 
 Jimmie forgot to smoke in his excitement. 
 Of course we ought to have gone on or stopped 
 our ears or done something honourable. But 
 we didn t. We stood still and listened. 
 
 " Well," said Bee, with a little laugh, " when 
 I come to the same conclusion, after similar 
 deliberation and caution, I will let you know. 
 At present it is my intention to join the Jim 
 mies for a summer of motoring abroad ! " 
 
 Jimmie kicked at my skirts and we went 
 through the doorway in an ecstasy of silent 
 laughter. 
 
 " In that case," said Laflin in a troubled 
 voice, which held a new note of manliness in 
 it, " I shall buy a motor and follow you, even 
 if it is to the ends of the earth." 
 
 Bee cleared her throat as she always does 
 when she is pleased. 
 
 Jimmie wrenched my little finger and stam 
 mered :
 
 322 The Concentrations of Bee 
 
 " For good work work with a fine, do 
 mestic finish work which will bear the clos 
 est inspection and compare favourably with 
 that of any other artist in her line give me, 
 - oh, give me, I say, the work of the widdy 
 Lathrop!" 
 
 THE END.
 
 From 
 
 L. C. Page & Company s 
 
 Announcement List 
 
 of New Fiction 
 
 DAVID BRAN 
 
 By MORLEY ROBERTS, author of " Rachel Marr," " The 
 
 Idlers," etc. 
 
 Cloth decorative, with frontispiece in color by Frank T. 
 
 Merrill $1.50 
 
 In " David Bran " Mr. Roberts presents in a new light the old 
 story of a man and two women. Characterized as this book 
 is by the skilful achievement which distinguished " Rachel 
 Marr," its interest is strengthened by a remarkable defence of 
 heterodox doctrines and the surprising and courageous conclusion 
 to which the author draws his novel. 
 
 " Among living novelists Morley Roberts holds a high place; 
 but David Bran will enormously strengthen his reputation." 
 Rochester Post-Express. 
 
 " Few writers of the day so thoroughly comprehend the 
 educational and fictional value of suffering, and few books 
 present so fine a problem. It is, in fact, so fine that any statement 
 of it sounds crude, almost coarse, and the book must be read to 
 be comprehended." Chicago Daily News. 
 
 " As to the hearts of men and of some women, he is cynical. 
 But he draws capital pictures of the gossiping old men of Tres- 
 cas and when he is sounding for us the deeps in the natures of 
 Lou Trevarris, Kate Poldrew and even David Bran, the name of 
 his writer s gift is Wonderful." N. Y. World. 
 
 THE QUEST FOR THE ROSE OF SHARON 
 
 By BURTON E. STEVENSON, author of " The Marathon Mys 
 tery," " The Holladay Case," etc. 
 
 Illustrated, cloth decorative $1.25 
 
 This tale of mystery and its solution contains all the elements 
 which go to make a fascinating story, in which one s sympathies 
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 the methods employed to bring to a successful termination a 
 quest which is not accomplished until the very last chapter is 
 reached. 
 
 The author s style is quaint and charming and the characters 
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 L. C. PAGE & COMPANY S 
 
 ANNE OF AVONLEA 
 
 By L. M. MONTGOMERY, author of " Anne of Green Gables." 
 
 Illustrated, cloth decorative $1.50 
 
 Anne Shirley (Anne of Green Gables) is beyond question the 
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 Mark Twain in a letter to Francis Wilson. 
 
 " I see that she has become one of the popular young ladies of 
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 love her, I should still be her most devoted admirer. . . . And 
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 the head of the family has carried her off to read on his way to 
 town." Bliss Carman. 
 An English opinion: 
 
 " At long intervals there is sent across the Atlantic a book 
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 A GENTLEMAN OF QUALITY 
 
 By FREDERIC VAN RENSSELAER DEY, author of " The Magic 
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 With frontispiece in color by Frank P. Fairbanks. Cloth 
 
 decorative $1.50 
 
 A thrilling tale of mistaken identity, the scene of which 
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 shore and through the mazes of English aristocratic life, till he 
 rests at last where no man can foresee who has not been with 
 Love ft Pioneer.
 
 LIST OF NEW FICTION 
 
 THE MYSTERY OF MISS MOTTE 
 
 By CAROLINE ATWATER MASON, author of " The Binding of 
 
 the Strong," " A Lily of France," etc. 
 
 With frontispiece in color by Albert R. Thayer. 
 
 Cloth decorative $1.25 
 
 Mrs. Mason s story is a delightful combination of mystery and 
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 herself aloof, which but adds zest to the pursuit of her several 
 admirers. The unravelling of the truth concerning her birth, and 
 its effect on the mother, solves the mystery to the reader and 
 brings the romance to a happy termination in a dramatic climax. 
 
 The other characters in the book, the worldly clergyman; his 
 asnistant, a young man of his ideals; the society woman of 
 wealth and her invalid husband with scientific proclivities, as 
 well as the morbid mother, are all splendidly drawn. 
 
 THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF QUINCY ADAMS 
 SAWYER AND MASON CORNER FOLKS 
 
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 With six full-page illustrations by Henry Roth. 
 
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 " best sellers in recent years. Hundreds of letters have come 
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 asking if they are not going to hear more about " Quincy " and 
 the other characters in the book. The present story has all the 
 popular appeal of the earlier book and should repeat its success. 
 
 MASTERS OF CIRCUMSTANCE 
 
 By THEODORE ROBERTS, author of " Hemming, the Adven 
 turer," " Captain Love," etc. 
 
 Illustrated, cloth decorative $1.50 
 
 The scene of Mr. Roberts new story is laid in early Colonial 
 times in Virginia, although part of the action takes place upon 
 the high seas. The story is easily the best that Mr. Roberts 
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 early days in Virginia, the chivalry of its men and the beauty 
 of its women, have never been surpassed.
 
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 TAG: YOU RE IT; OR THE CHIEN BOULE DOG 
 
 By VALANCE J. PATRIARCHE. 
 
 Illustrated. Cloth decorative $1.00 
 
 An amusing story of a newly married couple, whose honey 
 moon is interrupted by the appearance of a lost child, and a dog, 
 decidedly a dog. The young wife, whose kindly interest in the 
 forlorn little fellow traveller, " Bateese " and his " Chien Boule 
 Dog," results in all sorts of complications, the young husband, 
 and last, though not least, the boy, " Bateese," who is sublimely 
 unconscious of being the central figure in what proves almost a 
 tragedy (at least from the point of view of a man cheated out of 
 his noneymoon) are all drawn with a fine humor. 
 
 The story is an exquisite bit of humor which will be read again 
 and again.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 A 000130552 3