LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 DAVIS 
 
 SERTRANC 
 14O P: 
 
 
V 
 
 
 , 
 ' V. 
 
 
H 1Ro\>d 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNIE ELIOT 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 1893 
 
Copyright, 1893, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
TO 
 
 S. R. T. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " Speak, I am bound to hear." 
 
 1 ' We stand in the heart of things. 
 
 The woods are round us, heaped and dim ; 
 From slab to slab how it slips and springs 
 The thread of water." 
 
 THE clump of aspens across the field quivered in the 
 breeze, their dancing leaves, turning now this way and now 
 that, reminding him more than ever of the advertisements of 
 Ivory Soap in the shop-windows. Dreamily he watched 
 them, half expecting to read "It floats" as they twinkled 
 hither and thither. Where was it there was one of those 
 signs ? At the corner store in the village. It was an ex 
 traordinarily metropolitan acquisition for the corner store, 
 and the "Ivory Soap" winked itself into " It floats " just as 
 you reached the church-gate, and imparted a slightly super 
 natural charm to the dress-braid and lemon candy in the 
 window under it. It was a curious thing that effect of 
 changing the angle of observation he wondered if he 
 changed his angle of observation of those aspen-trees and 
 with a slight groan of pain he sank back again on the 
 deep moss. He must have been getting a bit sleepy, his 
 i 
 
2 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 mind wandered off so easily into all sorts of absurd direc 
 tions. It was partly the plashing of the waterfall that 
 soothed him ; that unlucky waterfall that he had come up 
 to see. It was worth seeing, to be sure, and, crossing his 
 arms under his head, he turned away from the aspens and 
 looked back at it where it pitched forward over the cliff and 
 fell uncertainly downward forty or fifty feet, catching here 
 and there on projecting rocks, laughing meanwhile at its 
 own temerity. Worth seeing, to be sure, but hardly at 
 the cost of twisting his confounded leg. He wondered 
 what the deuce he had done to his leg anyhow. He had 
 passed the period of thinking he could make his way back 
 unaided, which had been his first impulse after his fall, 
 and the following one of cursing his own stupidity and his 
 luck had also gone over his head in the hour or two since 
 it happened. Now he was reduced to a state of calm 
 wonder as to how and why he had done it, and how he was 
 going to get out of it. That a climber of his pretensions 
 should have slipped on a rolling stone, saved himself by 
 springing to another coated with wet, green moss, and gone 
 down between two uneven rocks, was bad enough in itself, 
 but that this not altogether unheard-of performance should 
 have ended in giving his leg an ugly wrench that made it 
 impossible for him to do more than crawl a few steps to the 
 soft moss this was without precedent. Why couldn't he 
 have had a little of that flimsy waterfall's imperviousness ? 
 It was a fragile, evasive, foolish sort of thing, but it fell its 
 fifty feet and ran on without stopping, while he, in the full 
 possession of athletic manhood, slipped a few paltry steps 
 and found himself helpless ! How long would he have to 
 remain there that was an interesting question too. Not 
 all night, of course, but, as it was yet early afternoon, this 
 was not in itself immediate consolation. By nightfall the 
 people at the Clocks' would begin to wonder where he was, 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 3 
 
 for he left word that he would be home to supper ; but 
 it would be some time before they concluded that any 
 accident had happened to the best climber in the valley, 
 and felt authorized to go after him. He reflected with 
 grim amusement on the spectacle of his own towering rage 
 if nothing had happened, and he, simply taking his own time 
 to return, had been met upon the road by a posse provided 
 with lanterns and anxiety. It would be just like that atro 
 cious little Mrs. Needham to suggest it. There was noth 
 ing she liked better than going about after presentable men, 
 with or without a lantern, and she had already shown a well- 
 defined inclination to watch over him, just now the only 
 thoroughly presentable man at hand. She was no fool 
 either, that same little Mrs. Needham, which made it the 
 more difficult to avoid her and at the same time increased 
 his anxiety to do so for this man had all his sex's tolera 
 tion for a pretty woman, who is also a fool. Well, she was 
 safe to see that he didn't stay out all night, as he'd made 
 some idiotic promise to sit on the stile with her, at the end 
 of the garden, and see the moon rise. She had drawn from 
 him the object of his walk that day too, so she might follow 
 if she could find anybody to drive her to the bars he re 
 membered hoping they would all be busy haying. So she 
 might make her appearance before lantern-time. Austin 
 Medcott uttered a groan of deeper impatience than physical 
 suffering had drawn from him, as he realized that he was 
 unconsciously placing his most vital hopes upon Florence 
 Needham. 
 
 But meanwhile it was early afternoon, and even Florence 
 Needham wouldn't come for two or three hours, and, in all 
 human probability, no one else would come at all. The 
 hush of noon still lay over the valley. Through the length 
 and breadth of it not a sound was stirring. Away over 
 there, too far for any shout to attract attention, lay the ugly 
 
4 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 little buildings that constituted the village ; ugly, but not 
 destitute of a certain picturesque dignity, since in them peo 
 ple lived and worked and died, and these great facts must 
 leave an impress that is never all commonplace. On all 
 sides rose the mountains, strong, still, and protecting, but 
 unassailable. From the forests that covered their sides 
 came the sound of distant brooks, audible in the sunny 
 quiet, and now and then broke in the flute-like sweetness 
 of the wood-thrush, while nearer at hand, but illusive and 
 uncompanionable, was the restless tinkle of a cowbell ; but 
 no sound of human presence came from mountain or forest. 
 Austin made up his mind to the inevitable, and looking up 
 into the blue sky just visible over his head through the tall 
 trees, he waited quietly. Nearer and nearer drew the sound 
 of the cowbell mysteriously near, for no animal came in 
 sight, and there was no accompanying rustle of four-footed 
 existence and motion. It was as if a lonely bell were mak 
 ing its solitary way in curiously persistent fashion through 
 the woody glades. How could anybody speak of a peace 
 ful cowbell ! It was irritating in the extreme, and yet when, 
 irrelevantly and purposelessly it died away and he heard 
 only the faintest tinkle now and then, he felt an unreason 
 able increase of the sense of desolation. For half an hour 
 the waterfall plashed, the brook purled, the shadows grew 
 and the aspens fluttered, and then a sound which was 
 neither plash nor purl nor flutter came to Medcott's ears. 
 Faint at first, somewhat broken by distance, and by the 
 singer's evidently uneven steps the notes of a song drifted 
 from the direction of the rocks above the waterfall. Med- 
 cott raised his head and listened intently, resolved, if the 
 voice showed signs of straying off to either side, to shout 
 for assistance. But instead, without any of the evasive 
 quality of the cowbell, it came straight on, and he now dis 
 tinguished the words of the Eton boat song 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 5 
 
 " ' Twenty years hence, such weather,' " 
 
 sang a girl's voice quite near at hand and then ceased, as 
 its owner evidently needed all her available breath to climb 
 some sharp ascent. Then she began again, 
 
 "'We may be long on the feather,'" 
 
 and to Medcott's eyes, steadily fixed on the opening in the 
 trees through which she must come, appeared a beautiful 
 girl, whose flushed cheeks told of a hard pull through the 
 ill-cleared path, and whose brown hands, and clothes of or 
 dinary material and country make, hinted that she was not 
 unused to such effort. She paused, looking about for the 
 easiest way down the slippery and jagged rocks, covered 
 here and there by the quick sweep of the stream itself and 
 everywhere moist with spray. 
 
 The afternoon sun, penetrating the foliage here and there, 
 threw flickering bits of light over her face and figure. By 
 her side clustered three or four slender white birches, like 
 her in their suggestions of freedom and girlishness, and she 
 laid her hand on the graceful branch of one of them, bend 
 ing it towards her, as she waited. Medcott feared to startle 
 her, and yet it seemed better to speak now than to wait un 
 til she came quite near, when the surprise of seeing a man 
 lying on the ground might be more of a shock, especially if 
 it should happen as she was crossing the ungovernable 
 brook on that slippery tree-trunk. He raised himself on 
 his elbow and then hesitated. What should he say ? And 
 he ran over in his mind the different salutations proffered 
 to strange young maidens according to the best authors. 
 "Fair Lady" and "Beautiful Being" both seemed a little 
 strained. " Look here, my girl " a trifle Early English in 
 its tone. If he were a seafaring man he could say, " Heave 
 ho, my hearty," or something like that. " My hearty," now 
 that wasn't a bad idea rather a pretty, old-fashioned 
 
6 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 sort of name for that sweet, strong, beautiful girl. The 
 branch of the white birch swung back from the detaining 
 hand, she made a step down. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Medcott. 
 
 The girl stopped and looked about her. 
 
 "Here I am," said Medcott again, leaning forward and 
 pushing aside some obscuring shrubs. 
 
 Then she looked down and across, and their eyes met, 
 while the swift color leaped into her face. 
 
 "I am afraid I have startled you," he went on, " but I 
 had to speak before you really walked over jne," and he 
 smiled. " You must be coming across to the path I only 
 wish I could get out of your way." 
 
 All this time she had not uttered a sound, neither did she 
 seem frightened, she simply stood still and looked at him. 
 Medcott began to wish she would evince emotion of some 
 sort, if it was only curiosity. Except for that first flush, 
 theirs might have been a most conventional meeting. 
 
 " What is the matter ?" she asked. He knew already that 
 her voice was sweet, and though she spoke shyly, she was 
 evidently not inclined to run away like the chronically 
 startled fawn. 
 
 " That is just what I can't tell you," he replied. " But 
 I've turned my ankle or sprained my knee or some other 
 idiotic thing, and can't walk home, and I shall have to ask 
 you to send me up a man and a cart from the village, if you 
 are going that way." 
 
 She came rapidly down, her feet, clumsily clad, stepping 
 lightly from rock to rock, her short skirt escaping the little 
 wet pools, her coarse straw hat pushed back from her won 
 derful eyes and low, broad forehead. Without a moment's 
 pause of uncertainty, she crossed on the green, mossy tree- 
 trunk, and made her way up the few steps from the brook 
 that Medcott had first traversed with such pain and difficulty. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 7 
 
 " I will send my brother up," said she, standing and look 
 ing down at him. " But " and she hesitated. 
 
 " You can't think how I am abusing my own stupidity, 
 in having to give you all this trouble." 
 
 "It isn't your fault," she said slowly, "and it won't be 
 any trouble anyhow ; but I was thinking it will be some 
 time before Jib can get up here. Don't you think" and 
 then she paused again ; there was something disconcerting 
 in the very respectful gaze of the deep gray eyes and the 
 half-amused, half-exasperated smile of the very firm mouth 
 under a drooping moustache. Her shyness was increasing, 
 but she put it aside. 
 
 " Don't you think that you could walk, leaning on my 
 shoulder, as far as the road ? Then, perhaps, some of the 
 other folks will be going by." 
 
 " I'd like to think anything you thought I'd better," said 
 Medcott with deceptive meekness, "but I really do not 
 think I could do that. I tried it by myself, and it was too 
 many for me, and as for your helping me, I cannot consent 
 to incapacitate you for further action also." 
 
 " I'm very strong," answered the girl. 
 
 " I am sure of that " he had already noted her look 
 of superb health and strength "and I am very grateful 
 for the suggestion, but I really think it would be impossi 
 ble. I shall be as patient as a rubber doll now that I know 
 help is coming and this isn't at all a bad place to wait 
 in." 
 
 " No," she assented, " it's a pretty place." Still, she hesi 
 tated. Her shyness had given place to a feeling of pro 
 nounced friendliness. She did not like to leave him alone 
 and helpless. All the pent-up irritation of the afternoon 
 overflowed Medcott's masculine soul. It was too exasperat 
 ing that he should lie prone before this splendid creature, 
 this beautiful woman, helpless as a log, dependent upon her 
 
8 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 for physical assistance ! He was unused to the pose of 
 weakling. 
 
 " What a fool you must think me !" he broke out. " Ly 
 ing here like a babe in the wood ! And no prospect of 
 getting home unless you send for me ! It's outrageous ! I 
 won't come out again without a keeper." 
 
 This outbreak, instead of dismaying his companion, ren 
 dered her more completely mistress of the situation. She 
 had seen the spectacle of helpless and impatient manhood 
 before. Whether the victim reclines in a not ungraceful at 
 titude on shaded moss, in velveteen jacket and knicker 
 bockers with an impatient frown disfiguring his handsome 
 forehead, and eyes whose appealing quality has an unde 
 niably sulky light in it, or sits about the farm-kitchen in 
 overalls and a flannel shirt, swearing at his pipe because he 
 doesn't enjoy it, and kicking over a three-legged stool be 
 cause it looks so cheerful and comfortable they are each 
 individuals of the same class, and not an unfamiliar one. 
 
 Around the girl's waist was a cord with a tin cup at 
 tached. She went swiftly down to the brook, and filling it 
 with the cold, clear water, brought it back to him. 
 
 " You must be thirsty," she said. 
 
 " Thank you," he said gratefully, " I am very thirsty." 
 
 While he drank she added quietly, 
 
 " Now I'll go as fast as I can, and that's not very slow," 
 and before he could take the cup from his lips to speak, she 
 was speeding away from him over the rough ground. 
 
 " Please don't run," he shouted after her imploringly. 
 
 She looked around and nodded, and was about to run on 
 again in defiance of his entreaty, when a sudden thought 
 seemed to strike her, and she slackened her pace to a swift 
 walk, and soon passed out of sight. 
 
 " Jove ! but she's fair to see," thought Medcott, " and 
 wasn't it nice of her to put on the brake because she knew 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 9 
 
 it would make me uncomfortable to have her run. What 
 eyes and what a figure ! And what a delicious combination 
 of shyness and unconsciousness !" 
 
 He felt again the cool touch of her fingers when he took 
 the cup from her hands, and was glad that not a look had 
 betrayed his inclination to take them in his. Silence fell 
 again, save for the sound of the waterfall, the undertone of 
 brooks, the far-off song of the wood-thrush, and the spas 
 modic tinkle of a cowbell. But it was not an oppressive 
 stillness, and the cowbell no longer irritated him. It was 
 a silence full of suggestions of beauty and movement, and 
 of past memories and future possibilities. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 "For every passion something, and for no passion truly anything." 
 " It would be argument for a week." 
 
 " SHA'N'T I read to you ?" asked Mrs. Needham, laying 
 down her cut work and leaning over towards Austin with 
 her bright, hard little smile and her pretty blue eyes raised 
 to his. 
 
 Medcott turned away with a slightly bored expression 
 from the window, whose splendid outlook embraced a wide 
 semicircle of 'hills rising one beyond the other, in varying 
 shades of green and misty blue, and holding in their midst 
 the beautiful sweep of meadow-land with the clear, narrow 
 river flowing through it. If only she would let him alone 
 for a while, so that he need do nothing but listen to the 
 sound of the river and watch the shadows drift over Monu 
 ment, and wonder where and when he should meet Rhodope 
 Trent again. But she had let him alone for five minutes or 
 so, and he was disgustingly ungrateful to wish to ignore her 
 pitying companionship ! His injured leg was supported in 
 front of him as he lay at ease in the long lounging-chair 
 whose lazy comfort should have checked the restless sighs 
 that now and then rose from its depths. 
 
 " I'm afraid that means that I've been brutally cross, and 
 you don't know what else to do with me," he answered. 
 
 " It certainly doesn't mean that I think you are blissfully 
 happy." 
 
 " I ought to be," he said, looking with such emotion as 
 he was capable of into the challenging eyes so near his. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES II 
 
 Florence Needham was a remarkably pretty woman. Her 
 most intimate enemy could say no worse of her personal 
 appearance than that she was getting too stout. Her face 
 was round and babyishly pretty, her curly hair was wound 
 in many little golden braids at the back of her small, well- 
 shaped head, and charming rings of it escaped here and 
 there after the manner of hair of this description. She was 
 always exquisitely dressed, and her small hands glittered 
 with gems, hard, bright, and sparkling as her own personal 
 ity. After Medcott's last speech, she looked at him a mo 
 ment in silence, and then she laughed a high, bell-like lit 
 tle laugh. 
 
 " Why ?" she asked ; " because you've sprained your knee 
 and the doctors say you are not to stir for a fortnight ? And 
 because you are precisely the kind of man to thoroughly en 
 joy watching beautiful Nature from a steamer-chair when it 
 is just the weather for climbing and fishing ?" 
 
 " No," said Medcott lazily, " I hadn't thought of those 
 advantages. Because I am at present the recipient of Mrs. 
 Needham's exclusive attention." 
 
 "That is why I think you need a change. Since you 
 have been suffering my exclusive attention you have sighed 
 three times, stifled two yawns, looked longingly out of the 
 window four fifths of the time, and generally misconducted 
 yourself. Never mind explaining what shall I read to you ?" 
 
 " Anything you'll be good enough to read to me," he an 
 swered penitently. " ' The volume of thy choice ' except 
 perhaps some * humbler poet ' I don't feel like a humbler 
 poet this afternoon." 
 
 " Mr. Steven says * To-morrow ' is very good," and Mrs. 
 Needham took up a volume from the table that stood near 
 her. 
 
 " It can't be worse than yesterday," said Medcott with 
 lazy petulance. 
 
12 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " Or to-day for that matter ? Never mind, my poor boy, 
 the first week one is shut up is always the worst." Mrs. 
 Needham turned the leaves of " To-morrow," but she did 
 not seriously open it. 
 
 " You are always quoting Mr. Steven," said Medcott with 
 the fault-finding spirit of invalidism. " I'm sure I don't see 
 why." 
 
 She looked up with a sharp, questioning glance in her 
 round, blue eyes. 
 
 " Why," she said, " he is so literary isn't he ? I sup 
 posed he'd know." 
 
 " I can't see that he knows any better than other people," 
 answered Austin, playing impatiently with the curtain cord. 
 " You recommended that ' Story of a Window Seat,' on the 
 strength of his opinion, I believe." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well, it ought to be an infringement of the law of na 
 tions to reprint such stupidity ! I couldn't read it." 
 
 " Neither could I," said Mrs. Needham, seriously and 
 thoughtfully, " but I thought it was good. He said so. I 
 supposed he knew," she added again, and looked absently 
 at the first page of " To-morrow." " Perhaps this isn't 
 good either," she said after a moment. 
 
 Medcott watched her with a slight smile that she did 
 not see and would not have understood if she had. What 
 an artificial creature she was anyway ! And then he turned 
 wearily to the open window again. 
 
 " You are not a bit interested in me," said Mrs. Need- 
 ham, shutting up " To-morrow " and putting it back on the 
 table. 
 
 "Oh, but I am," asserted Austin, "but I am not inter 
 esting that is the matter with me." 
 
 " I wish you weren't," pouted Mrs. Needham. " Then I 
 shouldn't care." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 13 
 
 " I only need the assurance that you care, to be anything 
 you like," said Medcott, resigning for the second time the 
 outside for the inside view, and making an effort to speak 
 less perfunctorily. 
 
 He had had a good deal of this sort of thing for the last 
 three days. Mrs. Needham had frankly expressed her sat 
 isfaction with the fate that had thrown the most interesting 
 man about, upon the tender mercies of indoor companions. 
 " It is more than I had a right to expect," she told him, 
 " that you should be laid at my very door. I hate walking 
 and I hate driving and I hate everything that one generally 
 has to do in the country as means to an end. And here is the 
 end right at my hand without bothering with the means at 
 all. There's nothing left for us to do except to be mutually 
 entertaining." Entertainment and flirtation were practical 
 ly synonymous terms in Mrs. Needham's vocabulary, and 
 Medcott had tamely acquiesced, in a measure, but to Flor 
 ence Needham's practised eye it was acquiescence, not 
 interest, and she speculated somewhat concerning the rea 
 son. 
 
 There were no depths in her eyes as they met his, but 
 they were of a very pretty color and were capable of a touch 
 almost of softness now and then. As Medcott looked into 
 them, by very force of contrast another pair came into his 
 mental vision eyes, penetrating, deep and grave, which, 
 though meeting his fearlessly, were quickly veiled in a 
 pretty sort of shyness if he looked too long. His expres 
 sion, although painstaking, grew indifferent notwithstand 
 ing, and Mrs. Needham's hard little laugh broke out again. 
 
 " Oh, Austin Medcott !" she exclaimed, " how badly you 
 do it. You are almost as unsuccessful as as Charlie 
 Needham himself." 
 
 Conscious of his failure, and yet willing to repay her 
 for her real kindness during his helplessness in the only 
 
14 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 coin which was acceptable, Medcott breathed a sigh, half 
 real, half simulated, 
 
 " There it is a woman's way ! Make victims of us and 
 then laugh at us ! Poor Charlie and most unhappy I !" 
 
 Even as he spoke a swift change passed over his face. 
 The bored look left it, and his sunbrowned cheek flushed a 
 little deeper. Florence Needham saw the change, and as 
 she was about to speak checked herself, and, leaning for 
 ward, looked out of the window in the direction of his gaze. 
 
 " Oh," she said under her breath. A little path wound 
 from the nearer hills through the meadow to the road. It 
 strayed now this way, now that, crossing a tiny brook by 
 an uneven, tilting board, and avoiding the overflow of a 
 hidden spring by a sudden curve. On either side the flat 
 greenness stretched away till it met the duskier green of 
 beech and pine. Along this path came Rhodope Trent. 
 Twenty times had he thought of her as he saw her first in 
 the wood ; and now as she moved, tall and straight, through 
 the meadow, a big bunch of sweet-peas in her hand, her 
 beauty was no less remarkable than it had been then. She 
 was a figure fit to give the human element to this scene of 
 lofty peace and sunny freedom. Suddenly his three days 
 of mingled sentiment and cynicism with Florence Needham 
 seemed singularly pale and empty. Such intercourse bore 
 the stamp of the city's lightness and unnaturalness. It 
 lacked the truth of cool woods and high hills and murmur 
 ing waters. 
 
 But Medcott was accustomed to feminine scrutiny, and 
 it was with the most discreet interest and his usual expres 
 sion of nonchalance that he said to his companion, 
 
 " There is the young woman who found me in the woods 
 the other day, and sent her brother to bring me home. I 
 should like to thank her if she comes near enough to let 
 me." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 15 
 
 Florence's lips curved into a smile. 
 
 " I fancy she will," she observed. " In fact, it would not 
 surprise me if those sweet-peas had been gathered in view 
 of some such contingency." 
 
 Medcott was annoyed, and almost unwise enough to 
 make this plain. 
 
 " I do not believe it would occur to her to think of strew 
 ing the recumbent hero with flowers," he said with a frown. 
 " Such attentions are reserved rather for the criminals in 
 the large cities." 
 
 " Really a village belle !" murmured Mrs. Needham, lean 
 ing farther forward, so that her blonde head was very near 
 Medcott's dark one. " Beauty, badly fitting clothes, and a 
 bunch of posies." 
 
 Nearer, in her rough straw hat, her clumsily made gown, 
 and her fine unconsciousness, came Rhodope. 
 
 " She is not at all my idea of a village belle," answered 
 Medcott quietly. " She is too statuesque." He knew it 
 was most ill-considered on his part to use the one word 
 that could never be applied to Florence Needham's beauty, 
 but he had been goaded into it. 
 
 He longed to go out and, meeting the girl, take her 
 around another way out of reach of these comments, or, at 
 least, give her the protection of his presence. 
 
 " Oh, it is to your artistic soul that she appeals, of 
 course," went on Mrs. Needham, with a furtive touch of 
 sharpness in her incisive little voice. " You artists always 
 rave over those large women. You didn't tell me you were 
 rescued by a rustic beauty." 
 
 " No, I didn't mention it," said Austin dryly. " I knew 
 if you ever saw her you would not need to be told." 
 
 Certainly he was acquitting himself most unwisely. 
 
 Just then at one of the many turns of the wayward path 
 the girl under discussion raised her eyes, and looking straight 
 
l6 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 before her saw the picture framed in the window of the 
 large farm-house whose wide-open doors and piazza, full of 
 easy-chairs suggested such summer ease and hospitality. 
 She made an instant's pause, and the deep flush, that Aus 
 tin recognized with a thrill of pleasure, dyed her face and 
 even her throat. Then, averting her glance, she came 
 straight on her way towards them, the intentness of Med- 
 cott's attitude and gaze, and the pretty, curious face so 
 near him, photographed distinctly on her memory. When 
 she looked at them again she was just before the house, 
 and Austin was leaning over the sill, and on the doorstep 
 stood Mrs. Needham in her exquisitely fitting gray gown 
 and her bright little smile. 
 
 " Won't you please come in," she said, " and let us thank 
 you ? Mr. Medcott tells me if it were not for you he would 
 be up at the Cascade yet." 
 
 The " us " in the sentence produced all the effect she 
 hoped from it. It filled Medcott's soul with impotent wrath, 
 and touched the spirit of the girl whom she addressed with 
 vague and unrecognized discomfort. 
 
 " Do be so good as to grant me this other favor," said 
 Medcott's musical voice. The girl looked at him with her 
 shy smile, hesitated a moment, and then slowly crossed the 
 road and came in at the gate. Mrs. Needham watched her 
 coming with a curious, cold look about the corners of her 
 mouth. 
 
 " I want you to thank your brother for me," added Med 
 cott. 
 
 " Will you tell us who you are ?" asked Florence with an 
 air of good-natured freedom. 
 
 "Miss Trent need not do that," interposed Austin quiet 
 ly, "her brother gave me his name perhaps he told you 
 that mine is Austin Medcott." 
 
 " Yes," she said. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 17 
 
 " Oh," said Mrs. Needham, airily, after one of her quick, 
 surprised glances at Medcott. "Mr. Medcott did not call 
 you by name in the description he favored me with ; Miss 
 Trent is that it ?" 
 
 "Yes," said the girl again, with her grave, direct look 
 which made Mrs. Needham seem unreasonably frivolous 
 and ephemeral, " Rhodope Trent." 
 
 "And I am Mrs. Needham," went on Florence. "Do 
 come in and stay, won't you ? Mr. Medcott and I are bored 
 to death, and we long for something diverting something 
 interesting, he would say," and she glanced at him laugh 
 ingly around the doorpost. " I am usually considered inter 
 esting very by men of taste, but I've sung my best songs 
 and danced my best dances and told my funniest tales this 
 afternoon, and Mr. Medcott is still bored, and naturally I 
 am by such an unappreciative audience. So as the rest of 
 the boarders have all gone on a picnic and " she sank her 
 voice to a transient whisper " and the Clocks are all slow 
 excuse me, but we make that joke regularly once a day 
 there is nothing left unless you come in and amuse us." 
 
 She delivered her analysis of the situation with her usual 
 accompaniment of bright, unmeaning laughter, watching all 
 the while the beautiful face of the girl before her, whose 
 expression of mingled questioning and dismay made Austin 
 long to shake the speaker. 
 
 "I cannot come in to-day, 1 ' Rhodope answered at last, 
 with the dignity of sincerity in which Florence Needham 
 was so notably deficient. 
 
 " Come another time, then," she said in honeyed tones. 
 "We shall always be glad to see you. What beautiful 
 sweet-peas !" she added, before Medcott, who felt angrily 
 helpless, as a man always must between two women, one of 
 whom is bent on putting the other at a disadvantage, could 
 speak. " I am sure you must be taking them to some one 
 
 2 
 
l8 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 those colors would cheer the most disconsolate inva 
 lid." 
 
 " I am not taking them anywhere," said Rhodope frank 
 ly, holding them out, " I picked them because they were so 
 pretty. Won't you have them ?" 
 
 " Mrs. Needham, herself, could not have put in a neater 
 thrust," thought Medcott, with satisfaction, as he noticed 
 the swift change of expression that showed that this devel 
 opment was unexpected. 
 
 " Oh, thank you !" said Florence effusively. " I will 
 gladly take some if you do not want them, but I really 
 think you ought to give half to Mr. Medcott he is the one 
 that needs all the petting and spoiling just now, you know. 
 I persist in considering him your patient too I am sure he 
 is inclined to so consider himself." She had taken a part 
 of the bouquet from Rhodope's hands as she spoke, and now 
 watched her as she stood irresolute, with the same curious 
 interest. 
 
 " She is resolved to make us both uncomfortable if she 
 can," thought Medcott angrily, as he, too, looked at Rhod 
 ope, whose eyes were on her flowers while she hesitated. 
 " If you will give me a few," he said aloud, " you will add 
 to the list of your benefactions to an unworthy, but not an 
 ungrateful object. Do give them to me, Miss Rhodope," 
 he added pleadingly. He felt impelled to use her odd, 
 inappropriate name. 
 
 Still looking down, she drew nearer the window, and as 
 she reached it, lifted her eyes together with the flowers 
 towards him. 
 
 " You are very welcome," she said. There was that in 
 the sweet, glowing beauty of the blossoms like that of her 
 face. Suggestions of the sunlight of the wide, green mead 
 ow and of the depths of the cool mountain shadows were 
 concentrated for him in her eyes and smile. In the fra- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 19 
 
 grance of the sweet-peas, he forgot to be on his guard, for 
 got Florence Needham in the doorway, and looked into her 
 face with a feeling he did not hide. 
 
 "Thank you," he said absently. 
 
 " We will see whose last the longest," laughed Mrs. Need- 
 ham from the doorway, and the spell was broken. 
 
 " Please tell your brother," said Medcott, earnestly but 
 conventionally, "not to think that I did not appreciate his 
 care and strength the other afternoon. I want to see him 
 again to tell him myself." 
 
 " Jib didn't think he did anything," she said, going back 
 to the path. " I guess you didn't make any trouble. I'm 
 glad it's no worse," she added. "Good -by," and with 
 a farewell smile to Mrs. Needham she passed out of the 
 gate and down the unshaded road with the free, easy mo 
 tion that spoke of the absence of fatigue and indolence. 
 Mrs. Needham turned slowly into the house and came back 
 to Austin's chair. 
 
 " What a pretty little idyl !" she said in her light, mock 
 ing tones. " It is so evident, poor child, that she has never 
 seen quite such an interesting invalid before. She fancies 
 you as gentle and helpless as you seem just the person 
 to be reached by the fragrance and innocence of sweet- 
 peas !" and she laughed again. 
 
 Medcott said nothing ; he felt that he might hit upon 
 something rude by way of reply. 
 
 " It is only hardened souls like mine that learn," she 
 went on with a sigh, " that you attractive men are just as 
 exacting and as heartless when you are drawing upon all 
 our womanly sympathies." 
 
 He looked up and recognized the sentimental gleam 
 from under her drooped eyelids. 
 
 "And yet you give them to us all the same," he said 
 with an effort, his fingers playing caressingly with the flow 
 ers on the window-ledge. 
 
20 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " Yes," she answered slowly, her glance wandering to 
 them for a moment. " Oh, yes, we give them to you." 
 
 Medcott said nothing for a moment. He blamed himself 
 for his irresponsiveness. Why not amuse this pretty woman 
 as she wished to be amused ? But he was out of conceit 
 with her and her prettiness, and he did not speak. She did 
 not give him long to make up his mind. The sentimental 
 gleam gave place to a harder one. 
 
 " Now," she asked, " will you put them in your autograph 
 album and press them and date them * Given me August 
 tenth by the fair hands of Rhodope ' ? or will you let them 
 lie and spend their brief existence by your side, while you 
 forget them ?" she was pinning her own to her dress as she 
 spoke" or" 
 
 " I will put them in water and keep them as long as I 
 can to remind me of her," he answered defiantly. " That is," 
 he said, with the smile which she had sought to bring to his 
 lips before, " if you will add to all your many acts of grace 
 and give me that dainty vase in blue, cracked glass, deco 
 rated with red and blue pictures, from the shelf." 
 
 " So I must minister to what I foresee is going to be 
 good for neither of you," she said as she turned away. "At 
 least it is well Rhodope won't see them. She would be so 
 flattered because they were put in what she is sure to con 
 sider an artistic object. She is probably educated up to 
 scrap pictures," with which Parthian suggestion she went 
 into the next room for water. 
 
 Medcott's irritation most ungratefully grew with her ab 
 sence. That meeting in the woods and the subsequent 
 fancies were no longer between him and her alone ; this 
 sharp, hard little woman had made her way into the charmed 
 circle of their acquaintance. He had thought of how, as 
 soon as he could walk, he would find her out and thank 
 her and see again her beauty and her fleeting shyness 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 21 
 
 and her simple, direct glance. He had dreamed a dozen 
 things about this meeting, and now and he bit his lip 
 with vexation as he recalled how she must have seen 
 him through the window, alone with Florence Needham, 
 ler fluffy, blonde head so near, and her ringed fingers 
 jesting on the arm of his chair. And how should her 
 innocence know that it was but the perfectly aimless 
 coquetry of an unmitigated flirt who cared no more for 
 Austin Medcott's attention than for that of any man who 
 should turn up in this quiet place ! An enterprising bee 
 had already discovered the sweet-peas. His buzz in the 
 quiet room was unusually intrusive. Why could not bees 
 and Mrs. Needham leave his flowers alone ! 
 
 Florence returned with the vase of water. It increased 
 his irritation to see the blossoms at her round little waist. 
 In a moment she would begin her odious chaff about 
 "Rhodope." He wished she had not discovered her name. 
 But instead she was quite silent as she took the sweet-peas 
 from his hands and arranged them with quick, skilful fingers 
 in the cheap little vase. Only once she uttered an exclama 
 tion when the bee which Medcott thought had gone flew 
 out from the purple petals. He was seized with remorse. 
 
 " It did not sting me," she said composedly enough, " but 
 it was a narrow escape." 
 
 It was with a remark on an utterly different subject that 
 she placed them near him and took up her work again. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 "She hath a natural, wise sincerity, 
 A simple truthfulness, and these have lent her 
 A dignity as moveless as the centre." 
 
 ' ' ORLANDO. Your accent is something finer than you could purchase 
 in so removed a dwelling. 
 
 " ROSALIND. I have been told so of many ; but indeed an old relig 
 ious uncle of mine taught me to speak." 
 
 " RHODE !" called old Denver Trent from where he sat 
 in the living-room of his small but comfortably furnished 
 house. It was raining, and the fire on the wide hearth 
 conquered the slight chill of the dampness that came in 
 through the open door. The sturdy old man did not seek 
 its warmth, however. Rheumatism had marked him for her 
 own and imparted a decided limp to his left leg, but damp 
 ness was none the less a thing to be ignored, and a fire in 
 August a pitiful concession to weak womanhood. The per 
 sonification of weak womanhood to whom this concession 
 had been ungrudgingly, if somewhat scornfully, made, was 
 at present outside in the cool dampness, her buoyant health 
 untroubled by hints of deleterious influences, while she re 
 joiced in the thought that Uncle Denver was at least in the 
 room with a fire. Such are the mutual forbearances from 
 heights of conscious superiority. 
 
 " Rhode !" called Denver Trent a second time. Jib 
 looked up from the book which he was devouring in an 
 attitude suggestive of indigestion rather than assimilation, 
 his head being some inches lower than his heels, which 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 23 
 
 were waving with temporary irresolution to and fro as he 
 lay, face downward, on a cushioned bench upon which he 
 was too long to find ample accommodation. 
 
 " She's round on the side piazza," he remarked cursorily, 
 and returned to " The Haunts of the Prairie Dog," a work 
 teeming with illustration and adventure. 
 
 " Of all the uses to put a side stoop to," commented Mr. 
 Trent, "about the foolishest is usin' it to set on. It's a 
 good enough place to stand barrels, or shell pease, or hang 
 dish-towels to dry, but as for settin' on it that's a trick 
 she's learned of the summer boarders blessed if they don't 
 come up here more'n a hundred miles from home to see 
 how it feels to set on a stoop ! Wonder they don't buy 
 themselves one where they come from." 
 
 Rhodope had entered in time to hear the conclusion of 
 her uncle's speech, and she now stood before him, looking 
 down and smiling. 
 
 " And I suppose you were not wont to sit on the side 
 stoop and watch the hills long before any summer boarders 
 found out there was such a place as this," she said. In 
 this sentence there was a touch of a certain quality that 
 distinguished Rhodope's speech from that of the ordinary 
 countrywoman. Many people noticed it, but few recog 
 nized the reason of it. Brought up as she had been, and 
 always having lived in this quiet, ignorant valley, she had 
 none the less absorbed a somewhat unusual education. 
 She, like her brother, was fond of reading, but, unlike her 
 brother, her taste was for the best procurable class of lit 
 erature. 
 
 Denver Trent, a remarkable man in more ways than one, 
 had been for these parts a most extensive buyer of books, 
 and odd volumes had a way of drifting to his table and 
 book-shelves. Sometimes they were sent or left by sum 
 mer travellers who knew his tastes ; sometimes bought 
 
24 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 from the train newsboy, who had relatives apparently a 
 most incongruous thing for a train newsboy near by, and 
 who occasionally stopped overnight, varying for a few 
 hours his dizzying round of dropping novels and railway 
 guides into people's laps for future recovery, and his pre 
 sumably exclusive fare of apples, bananas, and fresh cara 
 mels. It was a motley collection, this library of Denver 
 Trent's, of cheap editions, sensational novels, memoirs and 
 classics, but they meant literature, and some of it the best 
 literature, and out of it certain phrases found their way into 
 Rhodope's speech. Hence with % the utmost simplicity of 
 manner and language were blended suggestions of bookish 
 expression which had an odd, half -stilted, half -amusing 
 effect on the ear of the listener. She dimly felt a shade 
 of difference between her own mode of expression and 
 those of the villagers, but of what it consisted she was 
 absolutely unconscious. Her books were as real to her as 
 living companions, and she did not dwell upon their dis 
 similarity. Upon Jib this love of reading had, as has been 
 hinted, a totally opposite influence. Whether or not it was 
 because he habitually read with his head down and his heels 
 up, he seemed to assimilate nothing. His favorite literature 
 was that of fire and flood, sword and pillage, but his man 
 ners and disposition were of an extreme mildness. He held, 
 with the partially domesticated newsboy, long discussions 
 anent the comparative value of the fiction of certain de- 
 picters of life in the Far West, and the tamer but more cos 
 mopolitan merits of the works of Mr. Archibald Clavering 
 Gunter. To Jib this newsboy represented that rung of the 
 literary ladder achieved, to those of wider horizon, by the 
 critics of the large metropolitan journals. He picked up 
 all sorts of news of contemporary literature in the tasks 
 he daily perpetrated, and which seem so like that of the 
 daughters of Danaus always emptying a rack of books 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 25 
 
 and a box of assorted candies, only to fill them up again 
 immediately with the same ones. When a treasure, pro 
 nounced by this authority to be most blood-curdling, fell 
 into Jib's hands, he would rise from its perusal to the 
 performance of any domestic duty with calm and un- 
 heated imagination, and chop wood at his sister's request 
 with as sweet an expression and as lazy a smile as were 
 presumably those of his favorite heroes as they wielded 
 the marline -spike or the battle-axe. Uncle Denver was 
 vastly amused by the literary proclivities of his nephew, 
 and listened not unsympathetically to certain thrilling ex 
 periences detailed at second-hand. When well-meaning 
 people, as occasionally happened, remonstrated with him 
 about some of the undoubted trash that found its way into 
 his family, he would smile and observe that the valley was 
 pretty quiet wasn't much doin' there in the way of scalp- 
 in' and ridin' tournaments, and cuttin' off people's heads 
 with swords, and he guessed he'd just as lief Jib 'd take it 
 out in reading about their happenin' in foreign parts as be 
 lookin' up jobs about home. He might happen to fall on 
 to somethin' worse he knew them as had. 
 
 To which there was little for even well-meaning persons, 
 who have a proverbial fund of disagreeable anecdote and 
 illustration, to reply, for the state of morality in this small, 
 out-of-the-way place was not very encouraging, as is so often 
 the case in these spots favored by Nature above others, but 
 not a word was ever breathed against the good-natured, 
 stalwart character of Jib Trent. When Uncle Denver add 
 ed that, for his part, he'd as lief have second-hand murders 
 around the house as first-hand whiskey, the subject was 
 usually dropped, only to be supplemented, if the well-mean- 
 ingness of the person had not destroyed his judgment, by 
 the arrival of " Treasure Island," or some equally exciting 
 and unobjectionable book of adventure. 
 
26 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 Rhodope stood smiling at her uncle, and he looked up 
 with a half-shamefaced twinkle in his eye. 
 
 " Well," said he, *' I don't say anythin' against looking at 
 the hills. I reckon that's what they're put there for mostly 
 but that ain't what the summer boarders set on the piazza 
 for. They seem most as scared of gettin' too well acquaint 
 ed with them as if they was likely to turn up and worry 'em 
 in the city after they get home. Where's the glue-pot, 
 Rhode ?" 
 
 A long love of Nature, and an extended, though intermit 
 tent, acquaintance with the summer visitor, had taught Den 
 ver Trent a number of things about both. 
 
 Rhodope went after the glue-pot and brought it to the old 
 man, and then, resting her hand on his broad shoulder, stood 
 watching him a moment as his big fingers manipulated the 
 broken chair he was at work on. But her gaze wandered ; 
 she glanced out of the window, went over and put a stick of 
 wood on the fire, and then spoke. 
 
 " What you reading, Jib ?" she asked. 
 
 " ' Haunts of the Prairie Dog,' " he answered. 
 
 "Good?" 
 
 " Fair to middling." 
 
 " Ain't all dead yet, I guess," put in Uncle Denver. "Jib 
 thinks it ain't, so to say, a first-rate book while any on 'em's 
 left alive." 
 
 Rhodope smiled and walked to the doorway, through 
 which one looked across the branches of a whispering 
 poplar straight into the green hillside opposite, which 
 might extend up, up, up interminably, for all one could 
 see. There she stood a moment, glanced back into 
 the room to see if her uncle wanted anything else, then 
 stepped out and went around again to her big chair on the 
 side piazza. But she did not sit down in it immediately. 
 She paced up and down once or twice, leaned against the 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 27 
 
 rough, unpainted support of the roof, looking off to the dis 
 tant peaks, and then came back and threw herself into the 
 weather-beaten chair. This restlessness and this idleness 
 were alike unusual with her. She had less household tasks 
 than most of the village girls, for her uncle was well-to-do, 
 and they had helpers in kitchen and field, but she always 
 found something to be done, especially on rainy days. This 
 morning, however, she could settle upon nothing in the way 
 of employment. She did not even want to take up a book. 
 She was never as easily absorbed in a book as Jib was, and 
 to-day she did not feel in the least inclined to one. She 
 wanted to be out-of-doors ; she sighed for freedom and 
 action ; but it was too wet to walk far, and she had nothing 
 to go for, no errand to do until mail-time anyway, then she 
 would go after the paper. Gray mists floated down the blue 
 sides of Mystery. Now its summit was veiled entirely by 
 the thick, low-lying clouds, and then it pierced through 
 them, and the scraps of mist, torn from the enveloping 
 folds, slipped down into the valley, caught here and there 
 and rent with further fragments which melted quickly into 
 invisible showers. Nearer at hand the straight, fine rain 
 fell softly and persistently on the grass. The house was 
 not on the village street, and there were no unsightly pud 
 dles and no deep, muddy ruts to illustrate the annoyances of 
 a rainy day, and no brick walls and sloppy pavements and 
 wet umbrellas to make it seem aggressive. All about the 
 mountains looked on calmly and not unsmilingly at the 
 pretty downpour. Rhodope watched it without further occu 
 pation, and wondered if the summer boarders Uncle Denver 
 had spoken of were doing the like. She did not believe 
 they were so indifferent to her dear and beautiful hills as 
 he had implied. She thought they spent a great deal of time 
 investigating their beauties. What had he gone up into the 
 woods for, if it were not to see the cascade for no possible 
 
28 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 purpose except that it was beautiful ? Rhodope was igno 
 rant of the significance of the sudden change of personal 
 pronoun. He was an artist, Jib told her when he came 
 home, and Jib had also volunteered the observation that he 
 guessed he had good grit, because between him and the 
 doctor they hurt him like thunder and he didn't let on. 
 Among qualities native and ineradicable of the female 
 character, tutored and untutored alike, is the admiration 
 for the faculty of showing good grit when one is hurt like 
 thunder, and the observation, though not a surprising one, 
 had had its full effect upon Rhodope. It must be weari 
 some for him to stay indoors so long. It was a week now 
 since it happened. To be sure he had many people to pre 
 vent his being lonesome. She saw again the picture framed 
 by the farm-house window certainly, he had not been lonely 
 that day. As Medcott had realized, to Rhodope's simplicity 
 that glimpse had meant more than experience would have 
 seen in it. Mentally she reviewed every line, every detail 
 of Florence Needham's dainty prettiness. It was not yet 
 time for her to contrast it with her own deficiencies of man 
 ner and costume; she did not put herself in juxtaposition 
 with this charming woman at all. Yet, without comprehen 
 sion, without preparation, it flashed across her that it was at 
 her, not at Mrs. Needham, that he had looked, when she 
 first caught that intent gaze in the meadow ; that it was she 
 who had seen that long, eager glance that had said some 
 thing what, she did not know when he had taken the 
 flowers from her hands. This was not a thought, it was a 
 realization and she turned from it with a frightened shy 
 ness, but it had come, not without results. She remembered 
 vaguely that his companion was Mrs. Needham ; she was 
 married then ; but she did not formulate her sense of a cer 
 tain incongruity between the fact and her view of their rela 
 tions. She was too unheeding to do this, and innocently 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 29 
 
 and naturally what she had retained of the little scene she 
 had witnessed was that commonly accepted impression sug 
 gested by the sight of a handsome man with a pretty woman 
 by his side. She was as far from being troubled by the 
 social aspects of the question as from deliberately analyzing 
 the scene at all. Her reverie this morning was a succession 
 of fleeting reminiscences, as vague, intangible, and shifting 
 as the mist wreaths on the sides of Mystery Mountain. 
 Yet with the same sense of relief that he had experienced, 
 her thoughts flew back to the quiet wood where she had 
 first seen Austin Medcott. 
 
 "Miss Rhodope," said Belinda Thompson, coming around 
 from the back door, " will you please come and see about 
 the butter ?" Belinda's given name was Jane, but she shared 
 the literary proclivities of the family whom she helped now 
 and then with the butter sufficiently to confide to Rhodope 
 that she had become dissatisfied with the bald simplicity of 
 Jane, and that even Jenny failed to satisfy her completely, 
 and consequently she begged her to give her a choice of 
 book -names. With this request Rhodope had complied, 
 and it had resulted in the semi-adoption of Belinda, by 
 which name Miss Thompson was known to a limited but 
 increasing circle. 
 
 The butter had been seen to, and had come out in deli 
 cious, creamy balls. It still rained, and Rhodope started 
 down the lane for the daily paper. Jib had offered to go, 
 and Uncle Denver had made a feint of sending him ; but 
 Rhodope would not listen to either of them, and the fact of 
 her going out in the rain did not call for a second thought. 
 It has been frequently observed that the old-fashioned 
 waterproof, worn before these days of mackintoshes that 
 cheat you into believing that they are meant for pleasant 
 weather, lacked artistic charm. It was one of these that 
 hung upon Rhodope's superb figure. It was too short, and 
 
30 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 somewhat too narrow across the shoulders ; moreover, the 
 little slits for her arms to come through had very much the 
 air of being in the wrong place. She wore a cap of Jib's, 
 which was masculine without being jaunty, and, altogether, 
 it was quite fortunate that it was a beautiful woman and 
 not a plain one who had involved herself in these disad 
 vantages. She went to the post-office, which lacked its fair- 
 weather environment of lads in tennis clothes and lasses in 
 imitative flannels, and presented only its normal features of 
 waiting teamsters, patient market-wagons, intermittent loaf 
 ers, and unhurried conversation, all engulfed in an atmos 
 phere of mud, dampness, and general want of enterprise. 
 On her way home, with the paper hidden in the angular re 
 cesses of the old-fashioned waterproof, she looked up and 
 before her with the thought, " It will clear, the clouds are 
 breaking away from Monument " and it had stopped rain 
 ing when she came to the little lane. Towards her was 
 coming a wagon with a single occupant, who waved his 
 hand to her and spoke as she was about to turn off the 
 road, and she waited until he drew up his horse beside her. 
 As he did so his expression grew to one of wonder and sur 
 prise. Jib's cap was pushed back, her brown hair clung to 
 her low forehead, and she had let the waterproof slip away 
 a little from her fine throat. Tom Davenant nearly stam 
 mered as he said, 
 
 " Pardon me for stopping you but I thought you might 
 be able to tell me if I am on the correct way to the abode 
 of one Israel Clock." He spoke slowly, with a detaining 
 drawl, and his face was perfectly serious, unlighted by the 
 glimmer of the smile which would have been the homage 
 paid by most men to Rhodope Trent. As she answered 
 him she felt none of the swift embarrassment, the thrilling 
 consciousness which had surprised her in her first meeting 
 with Austin Medcott. She saw and liked his solemn coun- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 31 
 
 tenance, which bore unmistakable signs of ill-health, and 
 which, in spite of the cynical twist of the mouth and the 
 little frown between the eyebrows, was an attractive one. 
 
 " You follow this road," she answered, " until you come 
 to one that crosses it by a house with a windmill ; then your 
 way lies westward and turns into a field, and leads you 
 where you see the house it's the only one anywhere near." 
 
 " Thank you," he said, " I will proceed to search for 
 windmills with all the ardor of " he felt that he was 
 making a foolish allusion for the circumstances, and paused. 
 
 "Of Don Quixote," said Rhodope simply. "Well, you 
 won't find but one round here." 
 
 Tom Davenant was a man so rarely surprised that the 
 two shocks he had experienced in the last five minutes 
 threatened to overwhelm him, but, with much presence of 
 mind he repeated, 
 
 " Of Don Quixote exactly, thank you again," and, rais 
 ing his hat for the second time, he drove on, and Rhodope 
 turned into the little lane. 
 
 " Bless me !" ejaculated Davenant, as he left the scene of 
 the interview behind him. " Is that the common wayside 
 species about here ? If it is, I don't wonder Medcott fell 
 down and hurt himself. A man has to prostrate himself 
 before such divinities. I'm blessed if she didn't know who 
 Don Quixote was, as well as looking so disgracefully pretty 
 in that old waterproof ! I say it's an outrage." And as his 
 horse, somewhat spent by a twenty-mile drive, jogged slowly 
 on, he pulled a note-book out of his pocket and made an en 
 try or two. "Valley setting sun breaking through moun 
 tain mists regular thing. Wet road golden rod tall, 
 beautiful girl irregular thing Naiad in a waterproof in 
 congruous." He perused this fragmentary description with 
 some satisfaction. " Not a bad idea that last," he con 
 cluded, with some complacency, and picked up the reins. 
 
32 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " So my way lies to the westward, does it ?" he meditated 
 later on, as he reached the house with the windmill. " Now 
 what, in the name of the Yankee dialect, made her say that ! 
 I believe she's a masquerader." 
 
 The second week of Medcott's helplessness found him 
 outwardly resigned, as the object of so much unremitting at 
 tention from all the occupants of the Clock house could not 
 fail to be, but inwardly somewhat inclined to fret against the 
 overrulings of Providence. He was out on the piazza to 
 day, and was turning to the account of one of his fellow- 
 lodgers some of his monotonous moments by criticising the 
 sketches of a young woman who was bent upon reproducing 
 some of the scenes which so deeply impressed her suscepti 
 ble soul. The fact that if she drew a hawk it was as likely 
 as not to look like a handsaw would have discouraged some 
 critics with half Medcott's ability ; but he was very good- 
 tempered and tolerant of harmless pleasure, artistic or other 
 wise. As he raised his eyes and his arm to point out some 
 peculiarity by way of instructive illustration, he disconcerted 
 his pupil by a sudden exclamation, 
 
 " By Jove ! That looks it certainly is old Tom Dave 
 nant!" All the occupants of the piazza-chairs looked up 
 the misty road. 
 
 " Who ?" exclaimed Mrs. Needham incredulously, from 
 the other end of the piazza. 
 
 " Tom Davenant," repeated Medcott, noticing nothing un 
 usual in her voice, his eyes being fixed upon the approach 
 ing wagon from which Davenant was waving his hat. Mrs. 
 Needham rose and went to the edge of the piazza. She 
 flushed deeply and then the color faded, leaving her a little 
 paler than usual. She was in the shadow of the vines, and 
 from there she watched the arrival and Medcott's enthusi 
 astic greeting. 
 
 The ambitious pupil had disappeared, and only two 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 33 
 
 women, one of whom was reading aloud to her companion, 
 remained on the piazza. She stepped quietly forward and 
 held out her hand. 
 
 " How do you do, Mr. Davenant," she said, her blue eyes 
 meeting his with that trick of softness in their shallow 
 brightness. If she had expected any unusual development, 
 she was disappointed. 
 
 " Florence, upon my word ! How do you do, Mrs. Need- 
 ham," drawled Davenant, shaking her hand cordially. 
 
 " Any more old friends concealed about the vines ?" he 
 asked, looking anxiously behind her. "Well, I'm glad to 
 find you so's to sit up and take a cracker, Medcott. 
 Thought as I didn't have anything particular to do never 
 do it now-a-days if I have, you know," and he smiled his 
 brief, melancholy smile " I'd look you up and cheer your 
 hours of suffering. Didn't know you had Mrs. Needham to 
 do it for you," and his eyes rested on her with that tolerant 
 solemnity which was characteristic. 
 
 " I can't cheer him," laughed Florence, a little nervously; 
 " I can only pacify him, and read him things he doesn't 
 want to hear. I need cheering myself." 
 
 "Don't believe it," asserted Davenant calmly. "You 
 were always cheerful. One of the most conscientiously 
 cheerful people I ever saw in my life," he added slowly, as 
 she disappeared in the doorway. When she looked back 
 from the foot of the stairs with some idea of answering 
 him, he had seated himself by Medcott's side, and was giv 
 ing some directions about his horse to the man who had 
 come to take it. 
 
 She went up the stairs biting her lips, and did not come 
 down until supper-time. Then she came, looking charming 
 in a blue gown, which to every end of its watered ribbon 
 was a daintiness and a provocation. 
 
 " I found my way here," said Davenant at the table, 
 3 
 
34 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " thanks to a most exhilaratingly pretty young person whom 
 I met in the road. She had beautiful eyes joined to a lam 
 entable ignorance of that fact, which was a snare in itself. 
 I have reason to think that she lived up a lane, and her 
 clothes were most inappropriate." 
 
 " Oh, Rhodope Trent, of course !" exclaimed Mrs. Need- 
 ham, with her sparkling laugh. " Don't say any more ! So 
 you fell in with her too ! She seems to go about succoring 
 distressed gentlemen something between an ambulance 
 and a sign-post. We are all in love with her." 
 
 " I should know you were," drawled Davenant. " I don't 
 wonder, I'm sure." 
 
 " I'm not such an authority as Mr. Medcott," said Flor 
 ence, her voice harder and brighter than ever. " He knows 
 all about her." 
 
 " Oh, no, not by any means," said Medcott from his sofa, 
 " I only know she is one of the most beautiful women I 
 ever saw in my life." 
 
 " Ah," said Davenant sadly, " my dear fellow, you con 
 firm my gravest apprehensions. I'd begun to fear the same 
 thing about my own experience. Thank you, Mrs. Need- 
 ham, I will have some berries, please." 
 
 It is to be feared that the pronounced hostility Mrs. 
 Needham had begun quite early to feel towards Rhodope 
 was in danger of being increased, rather than lessened, by 
 circumstances. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 "By indirections find directions out." 
 "If she grow suddenly gracious reflect. Is it all for thee?" 
 
 FLORENCE NEEDHAM was a victim of social ambition, and, 
 like the lunatic of Scripture, she was sore vexed by this dis 
 order and ofttimes it cast her into the fire. The most dis 
 astrous example of a catastrophe of this kind, one to which 
 she looked back with a regret, the special bitterness of 
 which is one of the penalties of this form of disease, was 
 her throwing over Tom Davenant when they were both 
 very young. Her subsequent marriage with Charlie Need- 
 ham, though not to be classed as a social failure, lacked 
 that distinctive success that she had hoped from it, and, 
 when contrasted with what might have been the results of 
 that other, acquired the properties of a mistake. But when 
 Florence Evans was eighteen and Tom Davenant was twen 
 ty-four, and her beauty was turning the heads of most of 
 the men of her acquaintance, he, though belonging to an 
 unexceptionable family, and sustaining excellent, though 
 somewhat limited social relations, was only a rather lazy, 
 easy-going young fellow, whom his friends called clever, and 
 who was culpably indifferent to what is ordinarily consid 
 ered success either in life or society. He fell in love with 
 Florence Evans the first evening he saw her, and, somewhat 
 perplexed by the strength of his own emotions, he tried 
 hard to win her. It was the first time he had tried hard to 
 do anything, and he developed a good deal of persistent 
 power ; and as Florence had told herself since, with irritated 
 
36 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 frankness, she had liked him quite well enough to marry 
 him. But he was not rich, and his undoubted talent, the 
 belief in whose existence she took, as she took every other 
 conclusion she had ever come to in her life, from the au 
 thority of some one whom she recognized as competent to 
 pronounce, seemed of the untransmutable kind, and she 
 saw no prospect of achieving any particular position as his 
 wife. He was so incomprehensibly indifferent, too, to the 
 advantages within his grasp, so given over to liking the 
 people who pleased him and associating with those whom 
 he found congenial, without reference to more solid, social 
 grounds, that she felt him to be beyond reformation. Mean 
 while Charlie Needham, the only son of a very rich man, 
 who died just as Charlie reached his majority, a young fel 
 low also of thoroughly respectable social conditions, popu 
 lar, and though somewhat light, not by any means stupid, 
 and unreasonably in love with her, put his name and fort 
 une at her disposal. It was not surprising that without 
 even a temporary mislaying of the calculating faculties of 
 her pretty head, she made her choice between these two 
 suitors, and married Charlie Needham, while Tom Dave- 
 nant went to Europe. For a time her husband's beautiful 
 presents and the honors of her new position completely 
 satisfied her, and she saw her dreams realized ; but those 
 same calculating faculties were by no means sunk in the 
 sloth of a grand passion, and she very soon perceived that 
 her career was not to be from glory to glory, but rather, she 
 must learn to be contented in the unexceptionable, though 
 somewhat commonplace, environment in which she found 
 herself. She had fancied that she could rouse Needham's 
 ambition, of which he had seemed to have enough, and, 
 with his fortune to help her, could make her house a resort 
 for the richest and greatest of the circle of which she formed 
 a part, and herself become a social leader of wide acknowl- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 37 
 
 edgment. She had known that her husband was entirely 
 under her sway, that he admired her beauty and her taste, 
 and was the willing slave of her charm, and she thought 
 that she could do with him as she chose a mistake made 
 often enough, and upon slighter grounds than there were in 
 this case. But she had reckoned without one fatal defect 
 in Needham's character, knowledge of which had been slow 
 ly coining to her, that of his dissatisfaction with whatever 
 he happened to have within his grasp. To be sure, he was 
 still the admirer of her beauty and taste, still her lover, but 
 her influence was no longer paramount. He knew her char 
 acter more thoroughly, of course, and though he did not 
 recognize her shallowness, he had begun to question and to 
 doubt. He wondered if he had been quite wise in marry 
 ing her, even as he looked at her with passionate admira 
 tion. It is only fair to Florence to admit that had she been 
 a creature quite too bright and good, Charlie Needham 
 would have questioned and doubted with equal dissatisfac 
 tion. Now, had he been like some other men, this very 
 quality might have proved a stepping-stone of ambition. It 
 might have roused him to make some sort of advance in 
 life outside of his home, and she might have attained her 
 ends the more quickly. But it was not so with Needham ; 
 he simply lost much of the interest she had awakened in 
 earlier days ; and admitting the misgiving that it was not all 
 he had fancied to have a beautiful wife and a pretty house, 
 he found amusement in speculation and his club, making 
 up, in small, daily excitements, for the lack of one powerful 
 motive of existence. Florence herself had a certain vogue, 
 but, after all, her position was only that of countless other 
 pretty, rich, young married women, and she longed for 
 something more elevated and more distinctive. There were 
 exacting circles into which even Charlie Needham's money 
 and her beauty and aplomb did not take her, where she as- 
 
38 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 pired to shine. Having reached what had once been the 
 acme of her ambition in the way of dinner-service and 
 gowns, she naturally looked higher. In this situation she 
 found herself when Tom Davenant returned from Europe 
 and the irony of fate was manifested. While abroad he had 
 met with divers experiences. He had undergone a bad at 
 tack of Roman fever, which had left him a good deal of an 
 invalid, and he had written certain letters for various peri 
 odicals which had directed towards him the applause of a 
 class whose approval is best worth having. He came to 
 New York and went into journalism with the way made 
 plain before him by popular appreciation. Since then he 
 had written a successful book, and though his ill -health 
 forced him to make his application somewhat desultory, his 
 acknowledged talent obtained for him plenty of well-paid 
 opportunities for such work as he chose to do. He would 
 probably never be rich, and apparently cared not at all to 
 be, while he had money enough to prevent his being cut 
 off from any rational pleasure; but he went where he chose, 
 and was much in demand at all sorts of exclusive entertain 
 ments. Florence Needham read his name as one among 
 the people invited to meet the latest celebrities, and laid 
 down the paper to remember, with pitiable clearness, that 
 this Tom Davenant, the cleverness of whose verses was pro 
 verbial, had once been writing sonnets to her eyebrow, or 
 something very much like it. It was three years ago that he 
 had come home and found the entrance into that charmed 
 circle open to him, and she had never seen him until he 
 stepped down from the wagon in front of Israel Clock's. 
 It had not been her fault that this was so. She had sought 
 in more ways than one to bring about a meeting; she had 
 even invited him to her house ; but he travelled a great 
 deal, he affected no wide social popularity, his work and 
 his health both forbade it and chance, aided by his disin- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 39 
 
 clination, had made her unsuccessful. As she stood in the 
 shade of the vines and saw his meeting with Medcott, she 
 was startled at the change in him. He had not been so 
 thin and so melancholy-looking in the old days, and she 
 felt with a thrill of unmistakable satisfaction that the exile, 
 from which he had returned a different man, had been her 
 doing. If he had avoided her these three years, it must be 
 because he still feared her power, and it was with this 
 thought that she stepped forward and called him by name. 
 His matter-of-course way of receiving her greeting had been 
 a surprise, but, with the obtuseness of a pretty woman, she 
 could not believe that Tom Davenant, with the same odd, 
 bright manner of speech, the same drawling intonation, the 
 same easy naturalness, unspoiled by flattery and success, 
 was not the same Tom Davenant still. This morning she 
 watched him from her window, as in a suit of unimpeacha 
 ble flannels he stood beneath her by the piazza steps talk 
 ing to Medcott. 
 
 " Do you know of any place around here," he was saying 
 as he lit a cigarette he was one of those men who always 
 seem to be lighting a cigarette " where there isn't any water 
 fall, or any brook, or any view of the mountains any ex 
 acting view that is to say or anybody playing tennis within 
 hearing, and where it is shady and cool and nobody else 
 goes, and that isn't more than an easy quarter of a mile 
 off?" 
 
 Medcott pondered a moment, lazily smiling, his arms un 
 der his head. , 
 
 "Well, as it happens, I do," he answered, "but I don't 
 know that you deserve to be told, coming over here into 
 our quiet valley and making your requisitions. What do 
 you want to cut yourself off from human companionship 
 for?" 
 
 " I have a book that must be reviewed before to-morrow. 
 
40 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 It's neither very good nor very bad, so I'll have to put 
 my mind on it to make a readable notice. After it's done, 
 I am at your service." 
 
 "Go through the field to the left," directed Medcott, 
 while Mrs. Needham leaned a little forward and listened 
 intently. " Climb the fence where there is a broken bar, 
 and you'll find a cow-path ; follow it and you'll come to a 
 scrap of pine woods that ought to serve your felonious 
 purpose." 
 
 With a nod Davenant picked up his book and walked off 
 through the field, Florence following him with her eyes. He 
 was not the same Tom Davenant. That one would have 
 never walked carelessly from the house which held her ; but 
 he had not married, at least, and people talked about an 
 unhappy attachment, of course they always did under such 
 circumstances, but no one knew quite as much about that 
 as she did. She looked in her mirror and smiled ; she had 
 grown stout, to be sure, but she hadn't gone off much since 
 Tom Davenant loved her. Half an hour later, avoiding the 
 piazza by a wide circuit, she stood at the fence where one 
 of the rails was broken. 
 
 Davenant had written a few lines of his book -notice 
 where he sat at the foot of a pine-tree, enjoying the still 
 ness of the woods and their fresh fragrance. Suddenly this 
 silence was broken by the swish of a woman's dress, and 
 the sound of quick steps in the direction from which he 
 had come. 
 
 He raised himself from his half -reclining position and 
 looked curiously around. As he saw Mrs. Needham's face 
 and figure and caught her smile of greeting, with the silent 
 ejaculation "Given away, as I'm a sinner!" he rose with 
 all the alacrity of a civil welcome. 
 
 " So you are here !" exclaimed Florence. " To tell the 
 truth, I wondered if I shouldn't come across you. I wanted 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 41 
 
 a walk, and so I half fancied did you. This little path 
 keeps straight on and comes out on the road. Did you 
 start to find it and become discouraged ?" 
 
 She stopped as she spoke and, a little out of breath, 
 leaned against the nearest tree, swinging her parasol idly. 
 
 " I came out to find a book-notice and became discour 
 aged," he replied gravely. 
 
 "Does that mean that I am discouraging you?" she 
 asked saucily, but showing no sign of departure. 
 
 " Oh, no, you came along just as I was sighing for an in 
 spiration," he drawled ; " nothing could be more oppor 
 tune." 
 
 " Then why don't you ask me to stay, now I'm here ?" 
 she said laughing. 
 
 " I was waiting to find out whether you mean to do that, 
 or to have me go on with you to the road," he replied im 
 movably. 
 
 She gave him a quick glance of interrogation. 
 
 " You speak as if you were ready to do what I wanted 
 you to," she said, as she sank down on the carpet of pine- 
 needles. 
 
 " That is a manner of speaking," said Davenant coolly, 
 as he seated himself beside her and put his pen in his 
 pocket. "It saves me a great deal of trouble and gives 
 pleasure to the hearer." 
 
 " And doesn't mean anything, I suppose." 
 
 "Few of us ever mean anything," he asserted. "We all 
 find that out early in life so much the better for some of 
 us Mrs. Needham included, without doubt:" 
 
 The conversation bade fair to take the sentimental tone 
 she longed to give it, but there was an absence of regret in 
 his tone which was not altogether encouraging. On the 
 whole she concluded that to sigh and look a trifle pensive 
 would not be detrimental, which conclusion she carried 
 
42 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 into immediate effect. Davenant watched her, his serious 
 mouth taking on its cynical droop as he studied every item 
 of the beauty he had once found so powerful. With his 
 cigarette between his teeth, and without a shade of the 
 emotion that had once thrilled him, he marked the curve of 
 the cheek, a little fuller than it had been, but still almost 
 faultless, the babyish mouth, the upward tilt of the eye 
 lashes from the lowered lids ; it was so long since he had 
 seen them that it was an idle pleasure to revive his mem 
 ory of each detail. Conscious of his scrutiny, Florence 
 kept her eyes down and her head averted, until the silence 
 grew too long, then lifting her liquid blue eyes to his with 
 all the air of one who, in a few suffering moments, has said 
 good-by to a too sweet past, said softly, 
 
 " You didn't call me Mrs. Needham once I don't like 
 the sound of it." 
 
 Davenant removed his cigarette, while a look of dim 
 amusement came into his eyes and vanished again. 
 
 " No, I didn't," he answered easily, " you know it might 
 have created remark at the time. I never saw you after 
 you were married, so I was obliged to call you Miss Evans 
 to the last." 
 
 She smiled, and then drew her red lips together with an 
 air of affront. 
 
 " You used to call me Florence," she said quickly. 
 
 " In moments of expansion yes," he assented thought 
 fully. " So I did. It wouldn't surprise me if, in moments of 
 expansion, I should call you Florence now. If I do, I trust 
 to your memory to pardon the indiscretion." 
 
 " Why have you avoided me all this time ?" she demand 
 ed boldly. 
 
 "Avoided you!" he exclaimed with lazy injury, "when 
 I've come all the way from Stonewall Pond to put up at the 
 house where you are !" 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 43 
 
 His deliberate evasions irritated her. 
 
 " Did you know I was here ?" she asked heedlessly. 
 
 "That is neither here nor there," he replied with exas 
 perating coolness. " But if I had, I assure you I shouldn't 
 have stayed away. You are most unjust," he added with 
 melancholy gravity. 
 
 " I heard early in the summer that the Swains were com 
 ing here this year," she said. The amused look dawned 
 again in Davenant's eyes. He knew so well the key of this 
 not very complex character. He had wondered what had 
 brought Florence Needham and her likings and her extrav 
 agances to this quiet place when there was so little chance 
 to display either. 
 
 "Yes," he replied. 
 
 "I wonder where they went," she resumed. 
 
 "They are at Stonewall Pond." She glanced at him 
 sharply. 
 
 " Did you see them ?" she asked. 
 
 " Been staying with them," he replied, leaning forward to 
 light another cigarette. She was silent a moment. Here 
 was another adverse turn of the wheel her own hands had 
 set in motion. As Tom Davenant's wife she might have 
 stayed with the rich and artistic Swains. 
 
 "Well," she said at last, "they're nice people." 
 
 He nodded in assent and idly pitched small lumps of 
 loose earth at a caterpillar whose furry existence was there 
 by endangered. 
 
 " Have you known Austin Medcott long ?" she asked. 
 
 "Very long." 
 
 " He's an attractive man," she remarked impersonally. 
 
 "Too attractive by half. He has gone about being attrac 
 tive long enough. He ought to marry and settle down." 
 
 " Do people cease being attractive when they marry and 
 settle down ?" asked Florence with alarmed coquetry. 
 
44 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 "Not if their settling down is of the butterfly order," he 
 replied with a slow smile. " Then it is merely an added 
 opportunity to show off one's advantages." 
 
 Florence was only partially appeased by the flattering 
 implication. 
 
 "But Mr. Medcott is no foolish butterfly, I suppose?" 
 
 " No," he rejoined ; " but you must allow me to point out, 
 by way of avoiding future recrimination, that you, not I, ap 
 plied the adjective. I should never dare call so brilliant a 
 thing as a butterfly, foolish. It sometimes seems to me," he 
 added thoughtfully, " that they have quite as much worldly 
 wisdom as, for example, the chastely adorned bumble-bee." 
 
 It had always been an objection to Tom Davenant, in 
 Florence Needham's eyes, that he had a way of saying 
 things whose meaning one could not be quite sure of. 
 She was by no means a dull woman, and she naturally re 
 sented this. The introduction of worldly wisdom would 
 not have troubled her particularly if she had been quite 
 sure it contained a personal allusion, but she did not wish 
 to make a mistake. Consequently she left the observation 
 unanswered. 
 
 " I've often heard the Mevans speak of him," she said 
 "the Rodman Mevans, you know. Perhaps," and she 
 laughed, "he may find his inspiration in Rhodope Trent." 
 
 "Ah," said Davenant to himself, "so at last we have 
 gotten round to Rhodope Trent ! He may," he assented 
 aloud. " Now that you suggest it, it seems to me not un 
 likely." 
 
 " Oh, I don't suggest it !" disclaimed Florence. " It is 
 already suggested. I am sure that would be settling down 
 very much indeed." 
 
 " I suppose it would be pretty decisive," said Davenant 
 absently. " She strikes me as a woman who would absorb 
 a man's best efforts." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 45 
 
 " I declare," said Florence, rising and shaking the pine- 
 needles from her gown with quick, impatient motions, " I 
 believe I'll ask this " and she hesitated. 
 
 " Juno Hebe I beg pardon ! Sign-post Ambulance," 
 murmured Davenant 
 
 " This paragon to go with us next week to the Pond we 
 are planning a picnic and give you and Mr. Medcott a 
 chance to see how she appears in polite society." 
 
 " How nice of you !" he said admiringly, as he picked up 
 her handkerchief. " I hope it won't rain, because if it does 
 she'll wear that waterproof. Now she's nice in that water 
 proof no one knows that better than I but my diseased 
 fancy longs for something more brilliant, of gayer plumage 
 something less like a chrysalis." 
 
 " Oh, she'll be gay enough, I've no doubt," laughed Mrs. 
 Needham. " She'll probably wear a green and blue plaid 
 skirt and a red jersey beaded with white cotton lace in 
 the sleeves. We dress a good deal for picnics up this 
 way !" 
 
 The pine-trees shot up far above into the hot morning 
 sky. Their spicy fragrance mingled with that of Davenant's 
 cigarette. The rough path wormed itself into a hollow and 
 disappeared. She stood beside him, her cheek flushed with 
 annoyance, but her white teeth gleaming in her ready smile, 
 while he, lying on the warm ground, looked up at her from 
 under the turned-down brim of his felt hat. With that 
 swift association of place, persons, and perfume that we 
 have all experienced, there flashed into his memory a simi 
 lar scene, years ago he had hardly thought of it since. 
 They two had been in a wood together then, and he had 
 lain at her feet and looked up at her, a vision of utter love 
 liness, and she had smiled down into his eyes, reading 
 easily what was written there. And now she was Charlie 
 Needham's wife and a good deal heavier, with a bitter little 
 
46 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 way of her own ; while he pshaw ! he was no emotional 
 boy to be the slave of a pretty face but a more or less suc 
 cessful man of his world. He flung away the end of his 
 cigarette and stood up. 
 
 "Are we going home ?" he asked. 
 
 " You may go to the bars with me," she answered. 
 "Then you may come back and do your writing." 
 
 They made their way slowly along the narrow path, she 
 laughing as he held the branches back for her, as if they 
 had not touched as in truth they barely had on anything 
 as dangerous as reminiscences. He took down the bars 
 for her ; and, when she had passed through, they stood a mo 
 ment on either side, he leaning argumentatively on the top 
 rail, and she playfully forbidding his coming farther. They 
 looked across the field to the house. There, on the piazza, 
 they saw a new figure a man, tall, slight, restless, who now 
 tipped his chair back, now rose and leaned against the house 
 as he spoke. 
 
 Mrs. Needham paused in the middle of her sentence. 
 
 " Who is that ?" she said. 
 
 " I don't know, I'm sure," he answered. " That settles 
 it. I shall come with you and find out." 
 
 " No," she said, turning to him and laying her hand a 
 moment near his on the upper rail. " Don't come with me 
 please. I know who it is. It's Charlie Needham ;" .and 
 picking up her dress she walked swiftly towards the house. 
 Davenant stood looking after her. 
 
 "So!" he said to himself. "She wanted me to think 
 that Needham might resent seeing us together of a summer 
 morning in the seclusion of a forest path ? in view of past 
 events. Well, perhaps he hasn't changed as much as I 
 have. If he had, he'd envy me my position of disinterested 
 spectator." 
 
 Then he made his way back to his retired spot, and took 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 47 
 
 out his pen again. Before he began his review, however, 
 he opened his note-book and wrote as follows : " Summer 
 morning woods woman once madly loved breath of the 
 pines white clouds suggestions of the past man busy 
 wishes she'd go." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 " He may not, as unvalued persons do, carve for himself." 
 
 "She had 
 A heart how shall I say ? too soon made glad. " 
 
 " WOULDN'T you have said you'd go, Uncle Denver ?" 
 said Rhodope in surprised tones, her star-like eyes wide 
 open, her brown cheek flushed as she looked at him, half 
 in question, half in remonstrance. Down the lane from the 
 house a little carefully, on account of round stones and 
 high heels, was disappearing the pleasing figure of Florence 
 Needham. Denver Trent watched her to the high-road be 
 fore he answered. 
 
 "Well, yes," he said slowly, " I guess as likely as not I'd 
 V said I'd go." 
 
 "Well, then," demanded Rhodope. 
 
 " Well," he said, still thoughtfully. 
 
 "Do you think I ought to have said I wouldn't?" she 
 went on quickly. 
 
 " No," he rejoined quietly " no, I don't think you ought 
 to have said you wouldn't." Rhodope went over and stood 
 by his side where he leaned against the door-post looking 
 out. 
 
 " Uncle Denver," she said, " it is borne in upon me that 
 you don't think I'd better go. I'll run after Mrs. Needham 
 and tell her only " and with a girlish petulance unusual 
 with her, added, " only I do want to go !" Denver Trent 
 looked down at his beautiful niece and his keen old eyes 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 49 
 
 softened with the fondness that was never far off from 
 them. 
 
 "Easy," he said, "easy now! There ain't any call for 
 you goin' after that smoothly runnin' little machine. And 
 there ain't any call for you stayin' at home either. Of 
 course you can go on this picnic. Anybody that likes bet 
 ter to eat their vittles off an open lot stead of a wooden ta 
 ble never'll be held back by me. Of course you'll go," he 
 reiterated, and, to dismiss the subject, turned into the house 
 to light his pipe. But Rhodope was not yet entirely satis 
 fied. Her whole heart was glad with the thought of the 
 morrow's pleasure. What might it not be to go with all 
 those gay people to spend a whole, long day ! She knew 
 the place well enough its beauty had no surprises for her 
 but to see it with them, in an atmosphere so different from 
 that of her strolls, alone or with Jib that would be some 
 thing altogether unexperienced. Her thought of the day 
 was permeated with a warm glow of some undefined pleas 
 ure, some satisfying companionship that was waiting for 
 her. It was like looking to the top of one of her unclimbed 
 hills. On those heights of shining distance, what unex 
 plored delights might lie ! Yet her very anticipations made 
 her afraid. This vivid rose color was not like the cool 
 grays of her daily life, and there was something in Uncle 
 Denver's manner that made her hesitate. As she stood 
 where he had left her, with his assurance in her ears, and 
 his doubt in her heart, Jib came up the lane with his fish 
 ing-basket on his arm. She was glad to see him, perhaps 
 his encouragement would be without reservation. He had 
 been off since morning, and as she helped him take out the 
 fish and watched him put up his rod, she asked him some 
 questions about his luck, all the time with this other ques 
 tion near her lips, but withheld. He hadn't had his usual 
 luck, he admitted in a rather shamefaced way, with a side 
 4 
 
50 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 glance at his uncle. Hadn't gone far, anyway. Found it 
 pretty hot. Thought he'd get enough for supper and come 
 home. There was a suspicion of hurry in his arrangements, 
 and signs of an absence of mind in his way of dropping his 
 possessions about the room. As he was making his way 
 out of the door, his uncle removed his pipe from his mouth, 
 while his eyes twinkled quietly as he asked, 
 
 " Been reading any to-day, Jib ?" 
 
 Jib turned back and laughed a little. 
 
 "Well," he said slowly, "I ran across Tim down at the 
 Corners. He was waitin' for the up-train, and he said he 
 had just the book for me to go fishin' with. He said I 
 could bet my life it was pretty lively readin'. So I got it of 
 him, and I've been sort of lookin' it through," and he drew 
 a somewhat rumpled paper copy of " She " out of his pock 
 et and handed it to his uncle. The smallness of Jib's bas 
 ketful was explained as he turned the leaves, and together 
 they discussed the unqualified praise which the newsboy had 
 lavished upon it. 
 
 "Jib," said Rhodope, as she came into the room again, 
 which she had left with the plate of trout, " I'm invited to 
 go on a picnic with the folks from Clock's. Would you 
 go ?" and she looked wistfully down at her big, good-look 
 ing brother, who was considering just then that nightmare 
 situation of the hero who is pulled up from the bottomless 
 abyss, as portrayed in a dizzying frontispiece. 
 
 "Picnic," he repeated vaguely. No wonder it seemed 
 somewhat tame. . 
 
 " Yes, a picnic," repeated Rhodope patiently. " We're to 
 go up to Shadow Pond and stay there all day. Wouldn't 
 you go ?" she repeated. 
 
 " Why, yes, I'd go," said Jib readily. 
 
 Rhodope felt disproportionately glad of his encourage 
 ment. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 51 
 
 " I don't suppose," went on Jib with some of his sister's 
 wistfulness in his eyes, "that those city folks do anything 
 particular on picnics. They won't have any fighting, or 
 anything. If it was the centre of Africa now !" and with a 
 sigh Jib returned to a consideration of the grewsome pleas 
 antries of untamed savage enterprise as set forth in the 
 pages of " She." Rhodope took up a piece of work and 
 seated herself by the window in the afternoon sunlight. In 
 a few minutes she laid it down, and leaned her head against 
 the pane, looking out. They did not either of them under 
 stand. Uncle Denver thought it was foolish to make a 
 time about doing a thing she had done often enough be 
 fore go for a row on Shadow Pond. And Jib Jib thought 
 it was more interesting to read about African merry-mak 
 ings than to join in those of the valley. How should it 
 mean to either of them what it meant to her? a day in 
 another world, with all the possibilities and alluring impos 
 sibilities of another world. Perhaps Uncle Denver, who 
 was leaning back in his chair smoking his pipe, while Jib 
 had sauntered out under the trees, had a clearer conception 
 of what it meant than she thought. He had seen Rhodope, 
 without appearing to see her, when Medcott had come up 
 with Davenant, to make a call of acknowledgment, as soon 
 as he was able to get about. He noticed how quietly she 
 sat and how sweet was her rare smile when Medcott spoke 
 to her, and how long she stood out on the piazza, after they 
 had driven out of sight. He saw this, and Tom Davenant 
 had seen it too. He liked the man, though Davenant, with 
 his droll speech and supernatural gravity, had pleased him 
 more, and he felt there could be no reasonable objection to 
 their acquaintance with his niece. Denver Trent's position 
 was too secure for him to trouble his sensible head about so 
 cial distinctions. Before now, brilliant birds of passage had 
 passed in and out of his doorway, and their migratory pro- 
 
52 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 pensities had left life there quite undisturbed. But there 
 was something in the air this time that directed his watch 
 ful eyes to Rhodope's face more than once, and which had 
 almost led him to deny her the proposed drive. But, after 
 all, it was only the vague uneasiness of deep affection and 
 a keen perception of the problems and conditions of life 
 that lent anxiety to the glance which rested on the girl as 
 she sat with her head against the window-pane in the warm 
 rays of the declining sun. 
 
 "There isn't any use crossin' bridges before you get to 
 'em," he said to himself at last, " and Rhode may as well 
 find out one time as another that to-day's plenty don't mean 
 to-morrow's dinner, and that it takes more'n good looks and 
 a character to take the fancy of a little woman like that one 
 that just went out of here. If I was to tell her so every 
 day it wouldn't be worth as much as one of their picnics 
 likely as not that's what they're for." 
 
 It was after tea at the Clocks' that Mrs. Needham chose 
 to announce the result of her afternoon's expedition. They 
 were all sitting about on the piazza as usual. Old Israel 
 Clock had been milking, and was carrying the brimming 
 pails into the side-door. The quiet household sounds that 
 somehow betoken that work is nearly over for the day were 
 heard about them. The chill that follows the disappear 
 ance of the sun was just beginning to make itself felt. Mr. 
 and Mrs. Needham, Medcott Davenant, and Miss Screed 
 sat in a little group by themselves. 
 
 " Rhodope Trent is going with us to Shadow Pond to 
 morrow," said Florence. 
 
 " Rhodope Trent !" exclaimed Medcott. " What do you 
 mean ?" 
 
 Davenant raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. He had 
 looked upon Mrs. Needham's proposal to ask her as a bit 
 of petulance, and supposed she had forgotten it immediately. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 53 
 
 "And who may Rhodope Trent be?" asked Charlie 
 Needham, as he flicked the leaves of some purple asters 
 with his cane. 
 
 " Oh, how nice !" murmured Miss Screed, who hadn't the 
 remotest idea whether it was nice or not. 
 
 " I mean," answered Florence, looking at Medcott, and 
 ignoring her husband and Miss Screed alike, " that I went 
 up there to-day and asked her to go, and she was only too 
 glad really, if I may not be considered as reflecting upon 
 her statuesque " she paused to accent the word " immo 
 bility, I should say she jumped at the chance." 
 
 " Fancy !" drawled Davenant ; " with what a nice fly Mrs. 
 Needham must have baited the hook which is afterwards 
 to make things so unpleasant for the victim !" 
 
 " I don't know, I'm sure, what you mean by making things 
 unpleasant !" Florence said crossly. That was a nasty way 
 Tom Davenant had of going to the root of the matter ! He 
 looked blandly forth, and answered, " Oh, I don't mean to 
 make it unpleasant for her, you know. I was only follow 
 ing out your simile jumped at it bait hook unpleas 
 antness !" and his voice fell into hesitating silence. 
 
 " And who may Rhodope Trent be ?" repeated Needham. 
 
 " You'll know to-morrow, my dear boy, probably to your 
 sorrow," answered his wife. " She is the village beauty 
 whom Mr. Medcott, assisted by Mr. Davenant, longs to 
 draw from her obscuring retirement, and I am offering 
 my humble aid and getting snubbed for it." 
 
 " I'm very glad she is going," said Miss Screed, honestly. 
 Mrs. Needham had not paid any attention to Edwina Screed 
 since they met. She was a quiet girl, with ineffectual feat 
 ures, well bred, not in the least assertive, and childishly 
 artistic. Florence had decided she would not repay culti 
 vation, so did not feel called upon to make any reply, but 
 listened for what Medcott would say. 
 
54 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " I think it was an unfair thing to do," he broke out. 
 " She'll be thoroughly uncomfortable. What does she know 
 about a picnic ? She probably thinks we all go from a 
 genuine love of nature !" Mrs. Needham's ringing laughter 
 followed his speech. 
 
 " How he resents his goddess being brought down to the 
 haunts of men !" she cried. " She is no associate for the 
 likes of Miss Screed and me !" 
 
 This, together with a covert kick from Davenant, cooled 
 Medcott's unwise remonstrances. 
 
 "Will she wear the beaded jersey?" asked Davenant, 
 with kindly interest. " I'm afraid you forgot to speak about 
 that. I long to have Needham see her with all the adven 
 titious aids of effective costume." 
 
 " I'm not finding fault with you, Mrs. Needham, you un 
 derstand," said Medcott in his usual tone. " It was nice of 
 you to ask her." 
 
 " Yes," put in Davenant, with a heartiness that made 
 Florence long to push him over the railing on which he was 
 balancing himself, " it was indeed." 
 
 " But it is hard on my deliverer to put her in competition 
 with the rest of you accomplished women. My natural 
 gratitude leads me to deplore the circumstance." 
 
 Mrs. Needham was entirely satisfied. She had paved 
 the way for Medcott to be ashamed of his enthusiasm for 
 a country girl, and at the same time had led him into an ill- 
 timed effort at protection. If it had not been for Dave- 
 nanfs comments she would have felt that she had been as 
 skilful as she had been successful. As it was, she looked for 
 ward to the happy consummation of her plans on the morrow. 
 
 " Well," said Davenant, as he sat smoking with Medcott 
 later in the evening, "I've heard of men walking into traps be 
 fore, but I've seldom witnessed the spectacle of a man charg 
 ing for one like a bull of Bashan, as you did this evening. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 55 
 
 Mrs. Needham got just what she wanted in the way of 
 seeing your sensitive anxiety." 
 
 " I know it," said Medcott with some penitence. " I be 
 haved like an idiot." 
 
 " I should say you did," with which frank reflection Dave- 
 nant smoked in silence for a few moments. " What the 
 mischief is it to you, anyway," he began again with slow 
 inquiry, " whether that girl has a good or bad time on that 
 picnic to-morrow as she's foolhardy enough to go ?" 
 
 " I suppose it's not an altogether unheard-of piece of 
 chivalry for a man to dislike seeing a beautiful woman 
 made uncomfortable, particularly when she pulled him out 
 of an awkward hole three weeks ago," replied Medcott 
 gloomily. 
 
 " No," and Davenant tipped back his chair in greater 
 insecurity and deeper comfort, " but there's no use in 
 goading Florence Needham into sticking pins into her, with 
 your chivalrous emotions. She has a large number of pins 
 about her person, warranted every point of 'em." 
 
 " I don't care," broke in Medcott with sudden ardor. 
 "I'm ashamed of myself for being troubled about her! 
 " J'm ashamed of myself for trying to shield her ! But I'm 
 more than all ashamed of myself for temporizing as I did a 
 while ago, and trying to laugh at my own enthusiasm ! 
 Good heavens !" and Medcott's chair came down sharply 
 on four legs, "isn't that girl above any defence of mine and 
 above any of the pin-pricks of an envious woman? and 
 oughtn't I to be proud of knowing that she is and saying 
 so ? I've no right to insult her with my protection, but at 
 least I needn't conceal my admiration !" 
 
 " That's all very well," commented Davenant quietly, 
 " very proper indeed. But there was a man once gifted 
 with somewhat remarkable powers of practical observation, 
 who advises his readers to answer a fool according to his 
 
56 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 folly. You think this over and look at it on all sides 
 as you're apt to do, and you may come round to Solomon 
 and me." 
 
 Ignorant of all the comment that the prospect of her 
 presence had provoked, Rhodope stood, the next morning, 
 waiting for the buckboard. Her attire, though neither 
 waterproof nor beaded jersey, was a different affair from 
 the trim and picturesque walking-dresses of the party she 
 was to join, but was not destitute of the attractiveness 
 which always belongs to what is entirely appropriate. She 
 knew what walking in the woods meant, and she had never 
 in her life aspired to the city styles, an aspiration which 
 leads some women into the unmitigated errors which Mrs. 
 Needham had hoped to see exemplified in her person ; there 
 fore there was a fitness in her appearance which pleased 
 the eyes of at least two occupants of the long buckboard 
 as it drew up at the roadside where she waited. 
 
 As she saw them approach a rush of shyness over 
 powered her. For the first time she realized what she was 
 doing going away from her own associations into a circle 
 where she would be a stranger as thoroughly as if she 
 spoke another tongue ! But as the high, clear treble of 
 Mrs. Needham greeted her, and the sound of laughter 
 reached her with the suggestions of lightheartedness that 
 seem wafted from such a party, no matter what individual 
 annoyances make it up, she looked into the eyes, not of 
 Mrs. Needham, but of Austin Medcott, who was driving, 
 and with a swift thrill which said that the sunny day and 
 the vague delicious anticipations were not in vain, she lost 
 her sense of strangeness with all fear of what it might 
 mean. In an instant Davenant was on the ground to help 
 her in, and Medcott was moving baskets and wraps to 
 make room for her. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 57 
 
 " On the middle seat, please," said Mrs. Needham from 
 her position by Medcott's side, and Rhoclope climbed in 
 and took her place by Miss Screed, surrounded with this 
 atmosphere of attention, welcomed by smiles, feeling as if 
 she were en route for pleasures beside which the imagination 
 of Jib's favorite authors might indeed falter. 
 
 The arrangement of the buckboard was a triumph of 
 Florence's diplomacy. This day was to be at once a bitter 
 lesson to the girl whose head she assumed to be turned by 
 the visible effect of her beauty, and to the two men who had 
 dared so openly to express their admiration. With this end 
 in view she had placed herself in front with Medcott, where 
 he would find it impossible to talk connectedly with anyone 
 else, and where he might nevertheless be the helpless ob 
 server of all the awkwardness and ignorance of this country 
 beauty. Behind them, with Rhodope, was Miss Screed, a 
 nonentity whose very want of character would make her a 
 helpless follower of her lead, while Rhodope should be wit 
 ness of her own intimacy with the man who was undoubt 
 edly deified in her rustic imagination. In the back seat 
 were Davenant and a Mrs. Rois, who, without Mrs. Need- 
 ham's beauty, or her sparkle which passed for wit, was 
 quite capable of monopolizing the attention of any man 
 whom chance threw in her way, and who, to do her justice, 
 had seldom time or inclination for the furtherance of 
 schemes outside this attractive monopoly. It was an ar 
 rangement evincing considerable strategic skill, and ought 
 to have been successful, and for a time it was. In Med 
 cott's breast wrath might burn and sear, but the capacity 
 of looking at a question from all sides, to which Davenant 
 had appealed, assured him that the wisest thing he could 
 do was to fall in with the arrangements. Davenant, from 
 the back seat, might twist his solemn mouth into its most 
 cynical expression, as in three distinct lines of thought he 
 
58 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 listened to Mrs. Rois, admired Rhodope's profile, and con 
 demned Mrs. Needham's sagacity, but he, too, acquiesced. 
 They had a good pair of horses, and the buckboard kept 
 the lead gayly, for there were two or three carriage-loads 
 behind them, and for a short while, with the swift motion, 
 the exhilarating air, the laughing company, Rhodope felt 
 no diminution of her pleasure. 
 
 " I'm so glad we are keeping ahead," laughed Florence. 
 " Don't spare the horses, Mr. Medcott ; Charlie is in the 
 last cart but one. Please pretend that you are running 
 away with me." 
 
 " With these unsympathizing companions behind us ?" 
 asked Medcott, hearing with Rhodope's ears as well as his 
 own. 
 
 " Oh, we won't think about anything but the enraged hus 
 band," rejoined Florence. " Look behind, Laura, please, 
 and tell me if his suspicions are aroused," and she glanced 
 back, taking in Rhodope with the downward sweep of her 
 eyelids. If she was trying to shock her, she failed to elicit 
 striking testimony to her success. Rhodope was looking 
 at her with a perplexed smile, and, still smiling, her look 
 passed on to Medcott, as if to ask him for the key to this 
 conversation. But his eyes and attention were naturally on 
 his horses. 
 
 " The enraged husband," said Mrs. Rois, " is at present 
 lighting a cigarette in the inside of his hat, and his feat 
 ures, doubtless contracted in a spasm of jealousy, are 
 therefore hidden. I have told you four times, Mr. Dave- 
 nant, that it is not customary to put your umbrella into 
 the basket that holds the butter, and you have prodded it 
 harder each time." 
 
 The conversation flew back and forth over Rhodope's head, 
 varied by allusions to people and things of whom she knew 
 nothing, a thread so elusive that she could not grasp it 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 59 
 
 "Just as she seemed about to learn, 
 Off again the old trick." 
 
 All the time, right before her eyes, Florence Needham's 
 piquant, fair face upturned to the handsome man beside 
 her, who was obliged to bend low now and then to catch 
 the words which she interpolated in low tones, when the 
 conversation was supposed to be general. Once or twice 
 Medcott turned squarely about and addressed Rhodope 
 directly. Then, unconscious of Florence Needham's hard 
 scrutiny, the color came to her face and that shy confidence 
 to her eyes which half intoxicated him with its sweetness. 
 But Florence saw it too, and, with an added bitterness, she 
 barbed the arrows of subtle irritation. Now and then she 
 addressed words enough to Rhodope to save her from the 
 charge of the most undisguised ill-breeding; but for the first 
 hour, save for an occasional question from Mrs. Rois, who 
 was really not ill-natured, but only occupied, a straightfor 
 ward remark from Davenant, who carefully refrained from 
 fanning the flame of Mrs. Needham's resentment, and 
 rather timid little conversational offerings from Edwina 
 Screed, Rhodope sat almost in silence. Certainly Florence 
 Needham had reason to congratulate herself. The sunlight 
 was as joyous, the deep green of the hills as satisfying, but 
 strange, perplexing discomforts had taken hold of Rhod- 
 ope's heartstrings and crept into her eyes. Something 
 had gone ; the warmth, the kindliness that had seemed to 
 envelope her like a protecting garment, had vanished some 
 how, and left her only an unnoticed observer of the happi 
 ness of others. 
 
 Not in the least morbid or inclined to fancy herself neg 
 lected, Rhodope, if she had led a somewhat colorless life, 
 had found it the freer from disappointment, and there was 
 something she could not understand in this sudden dying 
 out of the intensity which had seemed to glow through all 
 
60 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 her thoughts of this happy day. With sudden homesick 
 ness she thought of Uncle Denver and Jib up in the dear, 
 quiet, old house, while she was here with these strange, 
 gay people, and her lip trembled. It was then that a 
 strange thing happened. It was a thing that Mrs. Needham 
 never could have anticipated. It was a thing that Mrs. 
 Rois observed with good-natured approval, and that was 
 noticed with large, present encomiums and much future 
 acknowledgment by the two men. It was a thing strange 
 in itself, but not unprecedented in the history of certain 
 kindly but uninteresting people. It was this. Miss Screed 
 rose to the occasion. No one could tell precisely how it 
 occurred. Miss Screed herself said that she only asked 
 Miss Trent the name of a wayside flower. Mrs. Needham 
 was heard to declare the next day that it was only a part of 
 Miss Screed's everlasting artistic pose. Medcott thought 
 that it was her innate kindness of heart and good manners. 
 Davenant secretly expressed his conviction that it was but 
 another instance of the weak things of the earth being chosen 
 to confound the mighty. Be this as it may, in a few min 
 utes Rhodope and Miss Screed were talking like two girls 
 of the same associations and the same interests. Rhodope's 
 eyes were bright, and her low voice was ready with replies. 
 Underneath Miss Screed's ignorance of perspective lay a 
 genuine love of Nature, and she was unaffectedly delighted 
 with Rhodope's knowledge of woodcraft and general ac 
 quaintance with hills and streams. Rhodope, doubly sen 
 sitive to friendliness that was not within the strange shadow 
 that had fallen across that of these other people, responded 
 heartily, and found positive pleasure in the acquaintance. 
 Still, underlying this new pleasure was a new, dim sense of 
 distrust and pain. Was there a disappointment in store 
 for her here, too ? 
 
 Nevertheless, when they left their carriages for the climb 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 6 1 
 
 up to the lake, and again there was a going hither and 
 thither, and a bright commotion, though Rhodope might 
 have experienced defeat, thanks to Miss Screed it had not 
 been an utter rout. 
 
 Here Medcott asserted himself as he had not been able 
 to do before. 
 
 "Miss Trent," said he, coming to her side, "will you 
 show me the way up ?" 
 
 She assented gladly, and felt, as they climbed together 
 the steep path, that the day had but begun, and much might 
 yet be in store what, she never asked herself. But a doubt 
 had shadowed its brightness ; she had felt the chill of the 
 winds that blow on the clearest hill-tops, and it would never 
 be quite the same day again. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 " An honest method, wholesome as sweet." 
 
 ' ' Invite the sunbeam 
 
 And abhor to feign or seem 
 
 go in thine own likeness." 
 
 " SHE gave her a nasty one now and then, I must admit," 
 said Davenant thoughtfully, as he pushed himself back 
 more comfortably into the fragrant haycock and dug his 
 heels into the ground more thoroughly to secure his posi 
 tion. Medcott lay on the ground face downward, leaning 
 on his elbows and looking now off into the distance, now 
 at Davenant, and chewing conscientiously the end of a long 
 wisp of hay. 
 
 "And the peculiarly trying point of the situation," went 
 on Davenant, " was that the poor girl never knew what hit 
 her." 
 
 "It was a confounded shame!" said Medcott hotly; 
 "having asked her to go on the thing, she might at least 
 have let her alone." 
 
 " That wasn't what she asked her to go on the thing for," 
 returned Davenant sapiently. 
 
 " She came out of it well." 
 
 "Yes, she did. If Florence Needham had been in her 
 place she would have cried and gone home. But Miss 
 Trent was grandly unconscious to the end. That is where 
 that sort of woman scores. She is too ignorant to cut herself 
 through laying about her with her adversary's weapons." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 63 
 
 " And every time I tried to make her more comfortable I 
 let her in for more of it," declared Medcott with angry pen 
 itence. 
 
 " To carry my simile over into fire-arms," stated Tom, as 
 one pleased with his own argument, " when a man takes a 
 hand in women's warfare, the recoil of his weapon gener 
 ally knocks him over and insures his missing fire." 
 
 " I'm tired of your theories." 
 
 " I've noticed that more than once lately," admitted Dave- 
 nant, with entire evenness. " It's a bad sign. It shows 
 that you are given over to personalities." 
 
 After which he smoked in silence a moment, and Medcott 
 contemplated the horizon and began on another piece of 
 hay, which he selected with care. 
 
 " Now there's Miss Screed" 
 
 "Is she coming?" 
 
 " No, she isn't yet. I spoke figuratively. There's Miss 
 Screed, I would say. You don't feel called upon to grind 
 your teeth over the fact that she is not entirely happy on a 
 picnic." 
 
 " No." 
 
 "Well, then, I say" 
 
 " Oh, bother your comparisons !" exclaimed Medcott im 
 patiently, which, considering that he had given him no time 
 to make any, was both rude and illogical. Davenant looked 
 at him quietly through his half-shut eyes, as he leaned back 
 in the hay and inhaled the smoke of his cigarette. " You 
 can generally be trusted to make your own comparisons, I 
 know," he said at last. 
 
 " I'd like to paint her," said Medcott, with apparent irrel 
 evance, a moment later. 
 
 " Who ?" drawled Davenant, " Miss Screed ?" 
 
 "Rhodope Trent," returned Medcott defiantly. 
 
 " To be sure, Rhodope Trent. I wouldn't, if I were you." 
 
64 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " I'm not a figure-painter, or I would," asserted Medcott 
 with unnecessary perverseness. 
 
 "That's what I meant," agreed Davenant with perfect 
 amiability. "You're not a figure-painter." 
 
 " I could put her into a landscape, though. Leaning on 
 a stile, or coming down one of these forest paths or stand 
 ing with her hand on a white birch-tree." 
 
 " Or why not try her in another setting ?" suggested Dav 
 enant in his hesitating way. " In a city room, with a tea- 
 table and and a ginger-jar or under a chandelier at a 
 ball, or looking into a shop-window those are the things 
 that please the populace." 
 
 " Hang the populace !" was the impolitic rejoinder, in the 
 spirit, if not the letter, of a great man. 
 
 " By all means," assented Davenant. " Here comes Miss 
 Screed." 
 
 Medcott sprang to his feet and hastened to meet her. 
 She came uncertainly across the field, along the path Rhod- 
 ope had trodden with such free, swinging grace. She car 
 ried her sketching-stool, umbrella, and portfolio, and as she 
 snatched a fearful joy from the prospect of the morning's 
 occupation, and was consequently somewhat agitated, she 
 held them in an irresolute fashion, which caused her to sur 
 render them to Medcott's care with real gratitude. It was 
 in the current of grateful feeling produced by her cordiality 
 to Rhodope that Medcott had offered to take her sketching, 
 in order, as he modestly put it, that he could offer a few sug 
 gestions that she might find useful. The idea of enjoying 
 the advantages of a morning's work with an artist of Med 
 cott's standing made her apprehensive that she might not 
 profit by them to the expected degree. He longed to 
 assure her that his anticipations of results were most mod 
 erate. 
 
 For half an hour longer Davenant lay in the fragrant field 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 65 
 
 enjoying the warm scents and sounds of the late summer, 
 and reviewing his conversation with Austin. It had been 
 no idle suggestion of his, this fancied transporting of Rhod- 
 ope Trent to another atmosphere than that in which she 
 had been until now. He saw that Medcott's imagination, 
 possibly something deeper, was strongly affected by this 
 beautiful girl. But he knew also that, together with the sus 
 ceptibility of his temperament, Austin possessed to an un 
 usual degree that faculty, to which he had already appealed, 
 of looking at a thing upon all its sides. His hint was in 
 tended to call this faculty into action before his emotions 
 had led him any further. Austin Medcott sometimes passed 
 for vacillating, and to a certain point perhaps he was, but, 
 after all, this was not a fair criticism. As is more often the 
 case than is generally admitted, his artistic temperament, 
 emotional, intense, susceptible, was united to that judgment 
 which sees, feels, and recognizes from many standpoints be 
 sides its own. When once he had made up his mind, he 
 was fearless and direct of purpose, but so nrany factors went 
 to his conclusions, so wide an appreciation of disadvantages 
 as well as advantages, that he seemed to swing from one 
 side to the other without due balance. It had been so with 
 his choice of a profession. He had always loved painting, 
 and cultivated his talent for it, but when it came to the time 
 that he must make a choice that should be for life, he felt 
 so clearly the many things in the way of such a career the 
 discouragements, the shortcomings, the inevitable disap 
 pointments that he hesitated. He must be sure that he 
 had the power that alone makes the path of art unmistaka 
 ble, before he would enter it, and this question was not to 
 be decided in a hurry. It was a calm, temperate conviction 
 that overcame this hesitation, rather than the legacy of an 
 uncle to which public opinion assigned the cause of his tak 
 ing up definitely this congenial work. The decision once 
 5 
 
66 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 made, however, there had been no further delay. He had 
 studied in this country and in Paris ; everything else had 
 been subordinated to his profession ; though with the breadth 
 which ought to belong to a true artist, he had led no narrow, 
 one-ideaed life, but had seen, heard, and enjoyed beyond 
 the limits of his special aptitude. It was this man whom 
 Davenant knew well when he brought forward the picture 
 of Rhodope in another world and under other conditions, 
 in order to check possibilities which might be disastrous in 
 their consequences. 
 
 At the end of half an hour Davenant began to find the 
 sun uncomfortably warm, and, picking himself up, he lazily 
 brushed off the clinging wisps of hay from his coat. Then 
 he stood undecidedly a moment, his hands in his pockets, 
 looking about him. Coming to a decision, he pushed his soft 
 felt hat back from his forehead, and walked slowly across 
 the field in the direction opposite that of the Clock domicile. 
 
 On the Clock piazza sat Mrs. Needham, Mrs. Rois, and 
 two or three of the other boarders. 
 
 " I use the heavier gold thread," had said a few moments 
 before a small, sharp-featured woman, who abounded in em 
 broidery designs. 
 
 " Does it really wash ?" asked Mrs. Rois. 
 
 " Oh, some of it does," she replied with the unreliability 
 of an advertisement. 
 
 " I had rather do cut-work than anything else," said Flor 
 ence, looking off and seeing that Davenant was still lying 
 where she had seen Medcott leave him. 
 
 " It takes forever," objected Mrs. Rois. 
 
 " Leila White does the most exquisite cut-work," said the 
 first speaker. 
 
 "Doesn't she?" exclaimed Florence effusively. "You 
 mean the Leila White who was such a belle last winter ?" 
 
 " Yes, I know her very well ?" 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 67 
 
 " So do I," Florence hastened to add. " I met her first 
 at luncheon at the Adells' a small luncheon." 
 
 For a moment she forgot her interest in the distant hay 
 mow. The small, dark needle-woman said, " Oh, did you ?" 
 and was silent for a moment. The shot had told, she had 
 never been to luncheon at the Adells'. 
 
 When Florence looked again, Davenant had risen and was 
 looking undecided. In her anxiety to have him come back 
 to the house she laid down her work. A large, placid wom 
 an in the corner, with the surprising quickness of large wom 
 en, noticed the movement and followed her glance. 
 
 " How our young gentlemen do scatter in the morning," 
 she observed, as Tom walked off across the field. With a 
 flush of vexation Florence took up her scissors. 
 
 " The village has attractions that we cannot hope to ri 
 val," she said with a hard laugh. 
 
 Florence was not altogether contented this morning. 
 Even her undoubted success of the day before was not 
 quite satisfying. She bitterly resented the part that Miss 
 Screed had taken, but circumstances forbade her to declare 
 it. Her irritation against Davenant was increasing, though 
 she did not believe in his indifference ; she was sure that some 
 of the old emotion would yet awaken. This irritation circum 
 stances also prevented her from evincing. Each hour 
 brought new evidences of the social advantages that lay in 
 Davenant's hands. She plied him with questions which 
 bored him greatly, but which he could not refuse to answer, 
 and she felt that no larger piece of luck could have be 
 fallen her than this accidental renewing of an intimacy 
 which years had threatened to annihilate. Whatever hap 
 pened she should not quarrel with Tom Davenant, but 
 peace had begun to be difficult. Together with these 
 sources of annoyance was the feeling that she had for 
 Medcott. Florence Needham was as incapable of startling 
 
68 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 imprudence for the sake of love as for any other indec 
 orous cause ; but whether it was Medcott's fortnight of de 
 pendence, or his preceding most transitory and conven 
 tional tenderness, or his good looks, or his general air of 
 prestige, it is certain that he had for her a deeper interest 
 than any of the observers certainly than Austin himself 
 would have believed possible. It was something that had 
 gone beyond wounded vanity, that made her jealous of 
 Rhodope. It was with something deeper than the insati 
 able desire of conquest that she longed to command Med 
 cott's devotion. And all these emotions that she could 
 not reveal, the expression of which was forbidden her by 
 feeling and prudence alike, concentrated her hostility to 
 Rhodope Trent. She needed an object for her irritation 
 to expend itself upon, and she found it in this girl whose 
 beauty had called forth the homage of these two men which 
 she wished in vain for herself. It made her clever in de 
 vising ways of annoyance ; but as the penalty of ill-temper 
 it rendered her not blind to, but heedless of, the unfortu 
 nate effect it produced upon both Medcott and Davenant. 
 She did not mean, however, to abandon her attentions to 
 Rhodope. 
 
 Davenant left the fields behind him, struck the road, and 
 sauntered down towards the post-office. On the steps 
 leading to that fount of perennial interest sat several na 
 tives of the valley whose occupations were of that desul 
 tory nature that admits of certain intervals to devote to the 
 amenities of social intercourse. Two of them edged an ap 
 preciable distance in opposite directions in a manner heed 
 less of contact with the rough and dirty boards, and Dave 
 nant passed between them to drop his letters in the box. 
 Inside he delayed a few moments to purchase some stamps, 
 and conversation which had been somewhat at a standstill 
 for want of material was resumed with a new impetus. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 69 
 
 " Lazy sort of chap," commented some one. 
 
 "Bet you spruce gum he ain't as lazy as he looks," re 
 marked an older man with the courage of his convictions. 
 
 " Well, I guess he can stand bein' spryed up a little by 
 this here air," hazarded the first speaker. 
 
 " Wai, I d'know but what he can," admitted the second. 
 
 The silence of assent ensued, and Davenant came out of 
 the post-office. 
 
 "There comes Denver Trent," said a tall, slack youth 
 who stood about with that aimlessness of demeanor observ 
 able in villages wanting in business activity. Just then 
 the United States mail, in charge of a small boy and drawn 
 by a horse whose daily trips of two miles to and fro from 
 the station were an exhausting drain upon its resources, ar 
 rived at the door. Davenant waited to see if there was 
 anything for him, and so met Denver Trent as he walked 
 up, his stiff leg imparting almost a seafaring roll to his pro 
 gression. 
 
 " Well, sir," said the new-comer with a smile as he rec 
 ognized Davenant. Denver Trent's smile was something 
 out of the common. It was so sweet and childlike that it 
 made his rugged face a most attractive object; men, 
 women, and children felt its charm, and it was a trait which 
 had manifested itself in another generation. Jib and 
 Rhodope both had it, but with them it was less a surprise 
 than a part of their youth and beauty. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Trent," replied Davenant, "you are just in 
 time for the mail, sir." 
 
 " Mornin', Denver," remarked one and another of the 
 bystanders. 
 
 " Mornin'," he replied. " Seems to be a good deal doin' 
 to-day." Davenant was inclined to suspect a satirical im 
 plication, but as he saw that the circle about the door was 
 rapidly enlarging, and met Denver Trent's honest gaze, he 
 
70 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 felt that it was only the result of intelligent observation. 
 The periphery of the circle was composed of the transient 
 population of the village, to whom calling for the mail was 
 rather a social episode than a daily incident, and their 
 light, quick speech and laughter seemed like the demon- 
 strativeness of foreigners, by the side of the slow, rare 
 words of the nucleus of the group. As soon as the window 
 was opened this periphery closed in and called for its mail 
 with varying expressions of pleasure and disappointment, 
 while the nucleus waited until such time as it could claim 
 the postmaster's undivided attention. 
 
 " You see, they've only got all the time the' is," said 
 Denver Trent with a shrewd twinkle in his eye, as two 
 laughing girls hurried by with the exclamation " I knew 
 he'd send it to-day !" " and then it's with them the respon 
 sibility of the mail mostly lies. There isn't much of any 
 mail when they ain't here. We know that, and so we sort 
 of stand by and give them first chance." 
 
 "I see," said Davenant smiling. "They can have my 
 chance. I'd be obliged to them if they'd take my letters, 
 too." 
 
 In a few moments the two men were walking together up 
 the road. They had contracted a mutual liking, based 
 largely upon taciturnity, and were quite at ease in each 
 other's presence. 
 
 " Might walk up along with me," Denver had suggested, 
 " Jib's fishin' again to-day. Might come up and see if he's 
 had any luck." 
 
 " I'd like to," said Davenant heartily. They both rec 
 ognized this as a mere pretext for further intercourse. 
 
 "Well, now, I'm sort o' surprised that you've got time," 
 said the older man after they had walked a few rods. 
 " Most of you young fellers who come up here hardly have 
 time to turn round, what with walkin' and drivin' and 
 
WHITE BIRCHES Jl 
 
 climbin' seems as if they thought the whole valley'd get 
 away, 'less they sort of run it over." 
 
 " My dear sir," said Davenant, "I assure you on my word 
 of honor I have time to make a perfect teetotum of myself 
 if I feel inclined. I wouldn't detain the valley a minute 
 beyond its appointed time either. It's likely to stay here as 
 long as I do, and meanwhile I intend to enjoy myself." 
 
 Denver Trent laughed softly. He liked Davenant's 
 drawling laziness. 
 
 " I guess," said he a few moments later, " that you're a 
 pretty sensible sort of feller." 
 
 " I guess I am," said Davenant with entire gravity. " I 
 guess that's exactly what I am." 
 
 When they reached the wide, open door of the little, old 
 house, they found no one within. 
 
 "They ain't back yet," said Denver; "I guess Rhode's 
 gone too." 
 
 " Is your niece a fisherwoman ?" asked Davenant. He 
 was disappointed not to see Rhodope. 
 
 " Considerable of one," replied her uncle. " I'll tell 
 you, they're only just down at the foot of that next lot 
 You see where them rocks are? You just foller them 
 around and you come out right over the brook, and I guess 
 they ain't far up it. Perhaps you'd like to go see, while I 
 set here and read the paper. Then you can come along 
 with 'em and have some of the fish for dinner." 
 
 "Thank you very much," said Davenant; "I don't be 
 lieve " then, as he looked at the old man, he saw that he 
 really wanted him to accept his careless invitation, and he 
 altered the close of his sentence "I don't believe it'll 
 make any difference to the Clocks, and I shall be very glad 
 to, indeed." 
 
 Denver Trent watched him as he strolled along in the 
 direction pointed out to him. 
 
72 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " He's the kind of man I'd like to have for company," 
 he meditated. "I'm surer of that than I would be of the 
 one that's got the good looks of the concern." 
 
 It was a rough and overgrown path that Davenant was 
 following, and it led him through an amount of underbrush 
 that made him reflect in mournful Phrygian strain upon the 
 future state of his white flannel trousers. At last he came 
 to a break in the foliage, and, walking to the edge of the as 
 cending bank, he looked over. There, some distance be 
 low him, was a pretty sylvan scene, and he studied it with 
 appreciation. The brook, clear and narrow, babbled of 
 green fields, as it ran on under overhanging branches and 
 over smooth stones. The noon sun made warmth but not 
 glare in the deep shade. Jib's line was in the water, and 
 Rhodope, her lips a. little apart, leaning forward, sat by his 
 side, watching with absorbed interest the floating thread. 
 Beyond them both, almost hidden in the thick grass and 
 shrubs, lay a third person, his eyes also fixed in suspense 
 upon Jib. This third person lacked the beauty of the other 
 two, and introduced an element of worldliness into the rus 
 ticity of the group. One felt instinctively that, though he 
 might mingle freely in the sport of the hour, it was with a 
 certain condescension, as of one to whom busier scenes and 
 more exciting contests were familiar. He was a small, 
 slight youth, with an expression of not unhappily blended 
 astuteness and good-nature, and was a stranger to Dave 
 nant. It was Tim, the train newsboy, taking a day off. As 
 Davenant looked down at them it was like a well - set 
 tableau the immobility of the figures, the intent expres 
 sions, the quietness of the little glade. 
 
 " There !" exclaimed Rhodope, and the spell was broken. 
 The curtain was down, and Davenant was behind the 
 scenes. With a quick motion Jib landed a fair-sized trout, 
 and Tim crawled along to inspect it. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 73 
 
 " Well," said Jib, laying aside his fishing-tackle, " I said 
 I'd only wait to catch one more. We may as well talk 
 awhile." 
 
 "Gorry!" exclaimed Tim, "I'm tireder holding my 
 tongue than you are hauling in those fish !" 
 
 "Yes," said Rhodope, glancing up at the sky, "we 
 needn't go home quite yet we may as well talk." 
 
 "But," said a slow, drawling voice from the distance 
 above their heads, " I'm afraid I can't hear all you say." 
 They started and looked up, and Rhodope's surprised gaze 
 brightened as she saw Davenant, though even with her 
 smile of recognition went an eager glance behind him, as 
 if there might be some one else. Davenant saw it and 
 knew what it meant. Jib and Tim looked at each other 
 and laughed in some embarrassment without replying, after 
 the manner of boys confronted with social problems, but 
 Rhodope said, 
 
 " The path is farther on. I guess you'll see it." 
 
 " He's one of the dudes from Clock's, ain't he ?" asked 
 Tim in a stage-whisper as Davenant went on to find his 
 way down. Tim was often noticeably inelegant in speech. 
 
 " He isn't a dude at all," said Rhodope with decision. 
 " If he talks with us you will like to hear him," which, for 
 one whose ideas were somewhat hazy on the peculiarities 
 of the species referred to, was not demonstrating her point 
 badly. The boys were both accustomed to accept Rhod 
 ope's judgment as infallible upon all subjects not immedi 
 ately connected with either sport or literature, so Davenant 
 found a far from hostile circle open to admit him. 
 
 For an hour the four sat on the border of the babbling 
 brook and talked, Davenant keenly enjoying the unconven 
 tional natures and their differences. The boys at first had 
 been constrained, but Tom possessed in a high degree that 
 enviable faculty of meeting people on their own ground 
 
74 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 without patronage, difficulty, or affectation, and there soon 
 existed that hearing and speaking eagerness which is the 
 touchstone of profitable conversation. Most of all he 
 watched Rhodope, and found her a different person from 
 the Rhodope of the drive. The consciousness that she felt 
 in Medcott's presence was gone, as was also the perplexed 
 shyness produced by unwonted ways and surroundings. 
 
 Here, in her own woods, with all the dear sights and 
 sounds of the forest and the hills about her, her two de 
 voted admirers by her side, and Davenant, with whom 
 from the first she had felt at ease, seeming for the moment 
 her own familiar friend, the full charm of her freedom, her 
 quaintness, and her simplicity, as well as that of her great 
 beauty, was manifest. She had a positive delight in the 
 growing, moving things about them. The birds and the 
 insects acquired the attributes of persons beneath her com 
 ment. An oriole flashed by them and perched upon a not 
 distant branch. 
 
 "See," said Rhodope, "he has a June-bug which does 
 not want to be eaten. Watch him deal with it." 
 
 "Not an unnatural frame of mind, I suppose," com 
 mented Davenant; "few of us would care to be inter 
 cepted for that purpose." 
 
 "And that June -bug never thought that it would be 
 eaten," asserted Rhodope gravely. " It was so safe inside 
 its hard little shell ! But it is just those things that go 
 boom, splash, right into danger remember that, Tim !" 
 She smiled at the boy, as one who knows admonitions are 
 wasted, and therefore harmless. 
 
 The oriole put its head on one side and knocked the 
 recalcitrant bug hard on the branch of the tree. 
 
 " I'll bet on the fire-hanger !" remarked Tim. 
 
 " Poor little stupid June-bug !" exclaimed Rhodope ; " it 
 is having its brains knocked out." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 75 
 
 " It has no brains," consoled Davenant ; " hard-shelled 
 things never have wisdom is sensitive." 
 
 " No, it's only that ignorance doesn't know what hurts 
 it." 
 
 Davenant glanced at her with quick interrogation. Was 
 she thinking of what had made the substance of his and 
 Medcott's talk that morning? Evidently not. She was 
 smiling still, as she watched the bird with a pretty intent- 
 ness. The oriole flicked the branch with the now quiescent 
 bug more decidedly, and then nodded its head with a funny 
 little air of triumph, combined with a final setting aside of 
 all opposition on the part of his victim a nod of negation 
 and of exultation. 
 
 " It is all over," sighed Rhodope. "Why is it we are not 
 more sorry ?" she demanded, turning to Davenant. 
 
 " Well, something will happen to the bird," he answered, 
 trying to rise to the philosophic level of the occasion, " and 
 we'd have to be sorry for that and we can't go on being 
 sorry forever." 
 
 " Do you suppose there are people like that ?" she said 
 softly " people that are sorry forever ?" 
 
 " I am afraid so," he answered seriously. 
 
 Tim was bored by these reflections. 
 
 "Aunt Matilda ain't," he observed. "I don't believe 
 Aunt Matilda was ever, so to say, sorry in her life." 
 
 The seriousness vanished from Rhodope's eyes. 
 
 " Not when you made the sawdust pie and sent it in her 
 name to the sewing society ?" she asked. 
 
 "No," declared Tim, "she wasn't anything but just siz 
 zling mad then." 
 
 " Aunt Matilda ?" repeated Davenant. 
 
 "Matilda Spore," said Tim promptly; "that's my name, 
 too Timothy Spore. Don't you know Miss Matilda Spore, 
 in the village ?" he asked curiously. 
 
7& WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 "Miss Matilda Spore," repeated Davenant slowly "I 
 can't say I have that pleasure. I haven't been here long, 
 you know." 
 
 " It don't take more'n a minute to know her real well !" 
 exclaimed Tim, with the appreciation of peculiar traits one 
 finds within the immediate family circle. " She's my aunt 
 maiden aunt and I tell you, she's a hummer, ain't she, 
 Jib ?" 
 
 "Well, yes, I guess she is considerable of one," as 
 sented Jib, with an evident disposition to be just. 
 
 " She can find more fault inside of five minutes than the 
 best floor-walker ever was made. She's the only relation 
 I've got, and I'm the only one she's got ; so all the fault 
 she'd find with a large family, if she had one, she has to 
 find with me. I tell you, she don't lose a minute." 
 
 Davenant might have found this free analysis of charac 
 ter embarrassing, if the calm assent of Jib and Rhodope 
 had not made it clear that it was merely the statement of 
 accepted facts, rather than the indulgence of private feeling. 
 
 " A most entertaining old lady, I've no doubt," he ob 
 served. 
 
 " Bet your life !" affirmed Tim ; " she'd entertain a graven 
 image and find fault with it for not answering back." 
 
 The alleged performance of this somewhat remarkable 
 feat passed without question, in itself no mean tribute to 
 Matilda Spore. 
 
 " She is fond of you, Tim," said Rhodope. 
 
 " I guess she is !" Tim's conversation was distinctly 
 ejaculatory. " What 'd she do without me, I'd like to know. 
 I tell you I'm all the family she's got to find fault with ! 
 She just treasures me like the apple of her eye, and she'd 
 better." 
 
 There was an entire absence of resentment in Tim's en 
 largements upon this theme which was attractive. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 77 
 
 " Perhaps she would have been fonder still," went on 
 Rhodope, gently, "if it hadn't been for the jumping- jack." 
 
 " The jumping-jack wasn't anything ! 'Twas the toad." 
 
 "I should not pick out a jumping-jack and a toad as 
 natural cementers of affection without further evidence," 
 remarked Davenant. 
 
 "A jumping-jack at the Church Sewing Society! Oh, 
 Tim, it was bad of you !" Rhodope's eyes were glistening 
 with a child's enjoyment of mischief, while she reproved 
 him. 
 
 "I tell you, 'twasn't the jumping-jack 'twas the toad. 
 When they cut the sawdust pie, they touched the spring 
 and it hopped." The cynical malevolence of Tim's smile 
 was irresistible. " They fell over chairs, they were so scart 
 and they thought 'twas Aunt Matilda put up the job on 
 'em. I traded two good books and one without a cover for 
 that wooden toad," he observed with the not unsatisfactory 
 reminiscence of a railroad magnate referring to an advan 
 tageous deal. 
 
 " 'Twas awful good crust," observed Jib ; "Miss Matilda 
 needn't have minded that part." 
 
 "Yes, 'twas good crust," assented Tim. 
 
 " The crust of lots of things is good," remarked Dave 
 nant oracularly, " the insides of which are 'hollow hollow 
 hollow !' I am sure Aunt Matilda, from what I hear of her, 
 is too clever a woman to have been surprised by that." 
 
 " Rhodope made it," remarked Tim. 
 
 " What !" exclaimed Davenant, turning upon her in ex 
 aggerated but actual amazement. 
 
 " Oh, Tim, I did not !" she exclaimed indignantly, but 
 looking like the discovered culprit she felt herself to be. 
 Tim winked at Jib further than this there was no com 
 ment. 
 
 " But," began Rhodope again, after a moment's timid si- 
 
78 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 lence, "I knew Belinda was making it" desperately 
 " and I knew what it was for !" 
 
 Davenant laughed one of his rare laughs, and Rhodope 
 joined him. 
 
 " In spite of her seriousness," thought Tom, " Miss Rhod 
 ope has not outgrown her girlhood yet." 
 
 " Got any new books, Tim," inquired Jib, as he lay on his 
 back, looking up into the sky. 
 
 "Well, no, I haven't, Jib," replied Tim, candidly, "not 
 any that you and me'd care about. There's a few of just 
 the reg'lar thing girls and fellers you know, sittin' round 
 and talkin' and mixin' things up that any fool could 
 straighten out, and gettin' thin over it you know the sort 
 I don't read 'em myself." 
 
 Jib made an indistinct sound of assent and indifference. 
 Davenant was immensely pleased with this open-air crit 
 icism, and Tim's position of intelligent reviewer. 
 
 " Now, I tell you, that last one I brought you was a fine 
 one, wasn't it ?" demanded Tim. 
 
 " Fine," answered Jib with cordiality. 
 
 " ' She ' was a dandy, wasn't she ?" 
 
 "Yes, she was." 
 
 " I bet that ' She ' 'd have gotten the upside of Aunt 
 Matilda," and Tim breathed a sigh over the short-comings 
 of the actual female character as compared with the ideal 
 ities of " She." 
 
 "I like the 'Vicar of Wakefield'," said Rhodope. 
 
 " Oh, I say, Rhode," Tim spoke with patronizing impa 
 tience, " you've got the queerest ideas about books. Pick- 
 in' out that humdrum old story. Why, I ain't sold a copy 
 of that on the cars, I don't know when I don't know as I 
 ever did." 
 
 " Well, now, Tim," said Davenant, in moderate defence, 
 " the ' Vicar of Wakefield ' isn't so bad." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 79 
 
 Tim looked at him a moment doubtfully. 
 
 Davenant's previous conversation inclined him to con 
 sider favorably what he might say. 
 
 " No, it ain't so bad, perhaps," he admitted. " But there 
 ain't much to it. I wouldn't have read it if Rhode hadn't 
 made me." 
 
 "What are you doing, Jib?" asked Rhodope suddenly. 
 
 Whatever his employment, Jib had been completely ab 
 sorbed by it for some minutes, as he lay on the grass in his 
 favorite attitude. 
 
 " Do you see that beetle ?" he asked, pointing to a little 
 spotted lady-bird. " He's trying to get to the top of that 
 blade of grass ; he's fallen back half a dozen times besides 
 the times I poked him down." 
 
 Rhodope's eyes flashed indignation. 
 
 " You shall not poke him !" she exclaimed, going swiftly 
 to his side, where she knelt on the ground. Davenant ap 
 plied himself to looking at the beetle too. 
 
 " This has been for me," he remarked, " a morning of 
 most unusual attention to the habits of the animal king 
 dom." 
 
 Laboriously the tiny thing made its way up the blade of 
 grass, which swayed and bent under its weight. More and 
 more slowly it crawled as it neared the top. Down it 
 slipped twice, though Rhodope held Jib's hand so that he 
 could not touch it. They watched it breathlessly. 
 
 " Wouldn't it be fair to poke it up ?" asked Davenant in 
 a whisper as it fell the second time, and they all laughed. 
 
 "What will the blamed thing do when it gets there?" 
 speculated Tim with that contempt for inadequacy which 
 was born in him. 
 
 " Wait and see," said Rhodope. 
 
 The third time, by hard endeavor and delicate balancing, 
 it crawled on and on till its little body clung fast to the 
 
8o WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 very tip of the green, slender, trembling stalk. There it 
 paused in the perplexity of achievement, and then it 
 opened its wings and flew away. 
 
 " Smart, wasn't it ?" jeered Tim. 
 
 Rhodope looked up at Davenant. "And it had wings 
 all the time," she said, half sadly. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " things might be easier if we knew !" 
 
 She was grateful to him for his quick comprehension. 
 She was yet to learn how distinguishing was this compre 
 hension of his. 
 
 " It will seem so easy when we get to the top," she 
 sighed. " Come, it is noon," she added, " we must go." 
 
 Jib picked up his tackle, Tim took his hat off a neighbor 
 ing bush, and Davenant stood aside to let her pass. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 "A truant disposition, good my lord." 
 
 ' ' What man would read and read the selfsame faces, 
 And, like the marbles which the windmill grinds, 
 Rub smooth forever with the same smooth minds, 
 This year retracing last year's, every year's dull traces, 
 When there are woods and un-man-stifled places ?" 
 
 A TALL, dark woman of between forty and fifty stood at 
 the door of a tent, looking off towards the west, where be 
 yond the smoky haze of a manufacturing town loomed 
 faint shapes, suspected, rather than visible, in the light of 
 a late moon, shapes which meant the neighborhood of moun 
 tains. A flaring torch stuck in the ground near her side 
 threw its fitful light over her striking features, which to 
 night bore a shade of wistfulness somewhat at variance 
 with the general aspect of her good-natured mouth, bright 
 eyes, and brilliant costume. The tent stood on a slight 
 eminence, and just in front of her was a wide, open space 
 filled with an indiscriminate litter, in the midst of which 
 rapidly moving figures were taking down, with shouted words 
 of direction, a mammoth tent, that made the one by which 
 she stood look a very pocket-affair. Here^ and there were 
 other flaring torches throwing their fantastic light on the 
 ground with its scattered peanut-shells, dirty sawdust, torn 
 papers, trodden and dusty spots, and on the faces of the 
 men, tired, laughing, spiritless, and scowling. On the bor 
 ders of the field, unreached by a hurrying, pushing crowd 
 that had but lately left it to this semi-desolation, stood the 
 6 
 
2 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 starry asters and plumy golden-rod, waving in the night 
 breeze, bathing in the pale light of the moon, as heedless 
 and natural as if this atmosphere, permeated by kerosene 
 oil and roasted peanuts, had not made its way to their very 
 roots ; and beyond them, away from this noise, this commo 
 tion, and this splutter, was silence, reaching, it seemed, to 
 the very hills themselves. Perhaps the contrast struck the 
 woman as she stood idly in the tent-opening, for she scarce 
 ly noticed the disappearance of the huge spread of canvas, 
 and the progress of the packing and stowing that went on 
 about her, though usually she was ready enough to order 
 and advise. Not that she was specially susceptible to the 
 incongruities of the scene ; it was much of it too accustomed 
 a one for that. Even the sudden appearance of a painted 
 harlequin figure in white and red, close at her elbow, as it 
 crossed a lighted space under one of the lamps and disap 
 peared in the shadows beyond, did not startle her with its 
 suggestions of sad-hearted mockery. To her it was no pos 
 sible frequenter of a Walpurgis Night of revelry ; it was only 
 Bob Stein who hadn't yet had time to change his clothes. 
 But, nevertheless, more clearly with her mental than her 
 physical vision, she saw that line of high hills on the near 
 horizon, still, calm, and watchful, and above the shouts of 
 the men and the falling of poles and the rattling of metal, 
 she seemed to hear a distant sound as of the purling of in 
 numerable streams, and, shutting her eyes, the kerosene- 
 weighted atmosphere grew heavy and stifling, for she almost 
 caught the woodland fragrance of sweet-fern, pine, and elder. 
 Suddenly she started from her half-dream and smiled. Into 
 the midst of this grim, smoky artificiality there broke a harsh, 
 discordant sound, which seemed for a moment to banish all 
 the puny, human discordance with its pitiless ferocity, a 
 sound which no amount of gaudy show and commonplace 
 trappings can make anything but a natural sound the howl 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 83 
 
 of a wild beast. The woman smiled it was as if for a mo 
 ment she felt the freedom that it recalled. 
 
 A man's figure approached her, stopped, and turned back, 
 while he shouted a word or two, and then came on. The 
 work was almost done. The torches were flickering them 
 selves into oblivion, the moon was regaining her legitimate 
 pre-eminence, silvering, with generous largess, even the dirty 
 sawdust, and the voices had grown quiet. 
 
 "Well, Nick," said the woman in a pleasant voice, as the 
 man paused in front of her. He was a strong, not ill-look 
 ing fellow, with a certain shrewdness tempering the other 
 wise somewhat expressionless good -humor of his blunt 
 features. 
 
 " Pretty good receipts for a small town like that yonder," 
 and she indicated the direction of the smoky cloud. 
 
 " Pretty good," he assented. 
 
 She felt a note of dissatisfaction in his voice, for she 
 asked, " Nothing gone wrong, is there?" 
 
 " Nothing much," he answered, his hands still in his 
 pockets, and a look of somewhat apprehensive perplexity on 
 his face, which his wife saw and could not account for. But 
 she waited, feeling sure that she should know its cause be 
 fore long. 
 
 " It's this, Marcella," he went on in a moment " Geor- 
 giana says she won't ride in the procession to-morrow." 
 
 " Well, Georgiana had better not be giving herself airs !" 
 exclaimed Marcella, who was a stickler for discipline. 
 
 " You see, she did turn her ankle a bit, and she says it 
 tires her to stand up in one of those dratted go-carts those 
 being the words she used and she isn't going to do it if 
 she's expected to go on in the evening. Now, you know 
 we've got to drive Georgiana with kind of a loose rein," 
 and Nicholas looked up into his wife's face, sure of being 
 understood. 
 
84 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " Yes, I suppose so," she answered slowly ; " she's the 
 only rider we've got that the public cares anything about. 
 Why not drop her out of the procession entirely ?" 
 
 " That's just what we can't afford to do," replied Nicho 
 las decidedly. " We haven't got any great shakes of a pro 
 cession anyway. It isn't as if it was the whole regular 
 show," he went on as apologetically as if his wife had 
 been the public to whom he appealed. " But, you see, we 
 wanted to do it cheap up here in the country, and I've 
 dropped a feature here and a feature there, till there ain't 
 much left." 
 
 It was evident that Marcella did not take this lamentable 
 picture of her husband's condition literally, for she did not 
 look at him to mark the hinted-at devastation. 
 
 "Yes, I know," she assented thoughtfully. 
 
 "We haven't but a few wild beasts, and a regular job-lot 
 of camels," went on Nicholas pessimistically, " and it's the 
 floats and the Roman chariots that fetches 'em generally, 
 anyhow, and we're mighty short of them. We can't drop a 
 blamed chariot," he declared again. 
 
 "Well, then, let somebody else drive it," suggested Mar 
 cella. 
 
 " There it is ! There isn't anybody to do it ! There 
 isn't a man or woman about the place that hasn't more than 
 they can do. I've had to take Rip out of the panther's 
 cage and put him in as the Goddess of Liberty, as it is, be 
 cause we can't get along without her and Diany the Hunt 
 ress, and when you've said Diany and the Goddess you've 
 said it all," asserted Nicholas gloomily. 
 
 " Then I don't see what we'll do unless you want me 
 to drive the Roman chariot," and Marcella laughed an in 
 fectious, gurgling laugh. " I ain't much more afraid of those 
 ponies than I am of the lion and the panther put both of 
 'em together." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 85 
 
 Nicholas laughed absent-mindedly, while the apprehen 
 sion deepened on his face. 
 
 " No," he said, hesitatingly, " I don't want you to drive 
 it, but I don't see why Elizabeth " then he paused. 
 
 " Elizabeth !" exclaimed his wife. She had slipped out 
 of the tent-door and walked a few steps with him, so that 
 they should not be overheard ; and as she spoke she glanced 
 back over her shoulder as if in fear that their voices should 
 reach to the dim interior. " Elizabeth !" she repeated. 
 " Why, Nicholas French ! And you promised me, promised 
 me over and over, that our girl should never have the first 
 thing to do with the show ! Are you forgetting every 
 thing?" and she faced him angrily. It seemed as if she 
 would say more if only her surprise had not clogged her 
 tongue. 
 
 " There, there," said the man soothingly, " I promised, 
 and I'll stand by my word, and I don't want Elizabeth a 
 circus girl any more than you do. And she sha'n't go a 
 step unless you say she may." 
 
 " I should think not," interjected Marcella. 
 
 " But one swallow doesn't make a summer, after all. And 
 it's only for this once," he went on coaxingly. " And think 
 how pretty she'd look in Georgian a's train and handling 
 those ribbons. She ain't afraid of anything that walks." 
 
 " No, she ain't," admitted her mother, her swift indigna 
 tion beginning already to evaporate. " But " 
 
 " Bless the woman's heart !" went on Nicholas. " Does 
 she think I want my little Liz to do anything that's going 
 to hurt her any way at all ? If it was a city we were going 
 to, now, I should say right off, ' No, sir, she won't ride 
 through all those streets with people staring at her !' But 
 up here in this little town, why, it'll be an amusement for 
 her." 
 
 He paused to let this argument have all its weight, but 
 
86 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 Marcella still shook her head. " It's a different thing, that's 
 what it is. And who's going to know who she is, and if 
 she helps her old father out, who's going to say as she 
 oughtn't ?" 
 
 " I don't want her mixed up with the circus," repeated 
 Marcella decidedly. 
 
 " No more do I," said Nicholas, honestly. " But once 
 ain't mixin' up. And I tell you what it is," he went on in 
 a lower tone, " if Georgiana once sees Elizabeth dressed up 
 and looking forty times prettier than she ever could, there 
 won't be any more shirkin' processions." 
 
 Marcella smiled and nodded. She knew the force of 
 this, and it appealed to her mother's vanity besides. 
 
 " And such a little quiet country town as we're going to 
 next it isn't anything but a parcel of boys and girls and a 
 few farmers and their wives that'll see her anyway." 
 
 " You're sure you can't drop it out altogether," said 
 Marcella doubtfully. 
 
 " Certain sure." 
 
 Marcella knew that her husband was as unwilling as her 
 self to have their daughter become a part of the circus 
 performances, though he was less sensitive to details, and 
 she began to yield. How pretty the girl would look in the 
 gaudy, golden equipage, and how she would enjoy the ex 
 citement ! and, after all, it was only just for the drive. 
 
 " Where is it we're going next ?" she asked. 
 
 " To North Lanes." 
 
 North Lanes ! It was the very town she had been think 
 ing of. She had not realized they were quite so near. 
 The folks from all about would be coming to town to the 
 circus. How well she remembered one such day. 
 
 " Nick," she said suddenly, " North Lanes that's where 
 I saw you first. Do you remember ?" 
 
 The man started in his turn. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 87 
 
 " So it is, Marcella," he exclaimed. " Dashed if with all 
 the going and coming we've done since, I hadn't clean for 
 gotten the name of the town ! We've been there since then, 
 haven't we ?" 
 
 " Yes," she answered ; " once, when Elizabeth was a 
 little thing. That was when we brought the elephant," she 
 added with professional pride. 
 
 " Yes, and a nice time we had with it, too ! Well, if I'd 
 forgot the place I haven't forgot the luck that came to me 
 there, Marcella," he said with rough tenderness. Marcella 
 looked up at him smiling. The torches had gone out alto 
 gether, and they stood in the light of the waning moon. 
 " No, I guess you haven't, Nick," she replied. " And over 
 there in the valley," she went on after a moment, " is where 
 I used to live. I've been sort of thinking about it to-night. 
 I wonder if I'd know anybody there now. I suppose they'll 
 all be over to see the show." 
 
 " Of course they will," replied Nicholas, who knew, with 
 out exaggerating, his commanding, if isolated position. To 
 Marcella's dramatic instincts there was a strong appeal in 
 the thought of her pretty daughter riding, in all the imperial 
 triumph of a Roman chariot, into the little town from which 
 she had run away twenty years ago with the handsome 
 young ringmaster. She had been a pretty girl herself 
 then, and she had made a genuine love-match in spite of all 
 the arguments advanced against it. The ringmaster had 
 been detained in North Lanes by one of the various acci 
 dents that may befall the members of a travelling circus, and 
 had employed his spare time making love to pretty Marcella 
 Brown. 
 
 The day before he left she slipped away to the next town, 
 where she met him and married him, leaving all the gossips 
 to lift up their hands over the headstrong whims of that 
 Marcella, and her probable future misery. How she had 
 
88 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 revelled in the excitement ! How her romantic soul had 
 admired the elegance of the magnificent ringmaster ! 
 
 " Marcella," said her husband as they turned back to the 
 tent, " when you was thinking about the valley then you 
 wasn't thinking you was sorry you left it, was you ?" There 
 was a diffidence in the tones of the powerful circus man 
 ager that was flattery in itself. 
 
 " No, Nick," said the handsome, dark woman, pausing as 
 another low growl from the cages fell on their ears, and 
 then going on, speaking softly, lest her rich voice should 
 disturb the sleeper near at hand. " No, I haven't never 
 been sorry." She lifted the flap of the tent and went in. 
 On a couch of boughs, beyond the light of the small candle 
 that was burning slowly, down in the farther corner, lay a 
 young girl asleep. 
 
 " I sha'n't take much of a nap myself," said Nicholas 
 from the doorway. " You'd better try and get one, but 
 we'll start before light. I'll sort of look round," and he 
 turned towards his own quarters. 
 
 " I guess I'll let Elizabeth go," whispered Marcella. 
 
 " I guess you will," he answered with a smile. 
 
 Early in the gray morning the strange train wound along 
 the country road. Mademoiselle Georgiana, the celebrated 
 equestrienne, was accommodated with the manager's family 
 in a comfortable enough conveyance in the rear of the line. 
 
 Half asleep, the jockeys and beast-tamers rode, in a hit- 
 or-miss fashion, whatever seemed handy. 
 
 Looking across the dewy fields through the misty air, one 
 might have seen two or three camels patiently poking their 
 way along, probably wondering why they had been brought 
 to a country where the remarkable domestic arrangements 
 of their insides were really of no particular advantage, since 
 water was to be had on every side. An observer would 
 have rubbed his eyes to make sure that it was not a stretch 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 89 
 
 of sandy desert with a pyramid in the distance that made 
 the landscape which bore their moving figures, instead of 
 the pale bloom and dampness of the New England country. 
 
 Huge, misshapen forms draped in disguising folds spoke 
 of uncertain magnificence later to be revealed. 
 
 Everything was vague, mysterious, awful. So, quietly, 
 suggestively, secretly, the circus train stole into the out-; 
 skirts of North Lanes, to make ready for the grand parade 
 at nine o'clock. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 "It is common for the younger sort to lack discretion." 
 
 ' ' She should never have looked at me 
 If she meant I should not love her !" 
 
 " There are fireflames noondays kindle 
 Whereby piled-up honors perish, whereby swollen ambitions dwindle." 
 
 IT is a person of small imagination that finds himself en 
 tirely indifferent to circus performances. Beyond the satis 
 faction of natural curiosity with foreign elements, beyond 
 that of the ear in the stirring strains of a brass band 
 mingled with those of the mysterious calliope, beyond that 
 of the eye in the brilliance of gold and spangles and 
 strange exotic magnificence of chariots and houdahs be 
 yond these is an appeal to the deeper if vaguer instincts of 
 humanity. Perhaps it is the chord of wildness in all of us 
 that vibrates at the sight of those strange, fierce creatures 
 with their associations of pathless jungle and burning 
 desert; perhaps it is the shudder that the sight of any 
 thing lawless and uncontrolled brings to our careful civiliza 
 tion. These emotions have each a force of their own ; but, 
 besides these, there is in the spectacle an undeniable 
 pathos. There in the cage with the wild beasts sit men 
 whose life and limb are at the mercy of a savage impulse, a 
 careless motion ; the cruel little whip in their hands the 
 only bar between them and a tearing asunder, their cool 
 ness the result of a long training in jeopardy every hour. 
 There are the gayly dressed women in golden equipages, 
 whose life, to the open-mouthed looker-on, seems a beauti- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 91 
 
 ful Olympic dream of high carnival on the top of elevations 
 precarious as those of political eminence, and who are 
 doubtless weary of the stupid, laughing, cruel crowd with a 
 weariness that makes their mouths bitter and their eyes 
 hard. Slowly they all pass by for the amusement of a 
 marvelling people, that cares not a whit for them or 
 their fate, but loves the sight because it is human nature 
 to love, it it is almost a Roman holiday. So it looks to 
 the impressible outsider; and though the carping and the 
 worldly-wise laugh and tell him that the wild beasts are 
 gorged with meat and cannot be roused from their stupor, 
 and that the weary women are only men dressed up and 
 probably swearing at the heat nevertheless, to him the 
 underlying pathos remains. 
 
 It was no jaded sight-seer that stood on the little porch 
 of Matilda Spore, in company with her accomplished 
 nephew, waiting for the grand parade. Jib Trent had left 
 the valley early in the morning, that he might be in time. 
 Uncle Denver would drive Rhodope in later to see the cir 
 cus proper, and wagons would be coming in all day from 
 the country round, including a large party from Israel 
 Clock's, but Jib could not afford to wait ; he could not lose 
 one of the many excitements of the day. He had never seen 
 a circus, and he knew not what of strangeness and wonder 
 was in store for him. He awaited it here with Tim 
 Aunt Matilda's porch being a favorable situation under 
 neath his calm exterior a prey to impatient excitement. 
 Even Tim, with all his memories of past circuses and his 
 indisputable vantage-ground of outlived emotions, was not 
 free from a thrill as the first stirring sound of the some 
 what curtailed drums and trumpets of the procession 
 reached his ears. The crowd on the narrow little sidewalk 
 had increased, Aunt Matilda came to the door, there was a 
 hurrying and pushing of expectation, and the train began 
 
92 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 to go by. Tawdry, trite, and disillusionizing enough, the 
 circus keeps its hold because, after all, it is made up of real 
 ities it is not the clever illusion of a stage, however suc 
 cessfully deceptive, and Jib's imagination, fed by long pas 
 turing in the fields of romance, was ready to invest it all 
 with a halo of Oriental brilliancy. 
 
 " Of all days," said Miss Matilda Spore, " for a circus, 
 seems to me Thursday's the worst." 
 
 She was of the tall angularity of the typical New England 
 spinster, and her glasses seemed endued with a peculiar 
 sharpness for detecting motes in her surroundings. Tim's 
 attention was not so absorbed by the approaching proces 
 sion that he could not transfer a portion thereof to Aunt 
 Matilda. 
 
 " What's the matter with Thursday ?" he inquired. 
 
 "Well, you're home for one thing," said Aunt Matilda 
 with perfect readiness. " Seems as though that ought to 
 be rampagin' enough for one day." 
 
 " It's fine weather for it, anyway," said Jib absently. 
 
 Miss Spore looked about her, up into the clear sky, 
 across to the sunny hills. 
 
 " It ain't anythin' but a weather-breeder," she said. 
 
 There never is anything to say to those people who can't 
 rejoice in a fine day without adding that it is a weather- 
 breeder. It is too vague a term to admit of circumstantial 
 disproof and Jib wisely refrained from further comment. 
 Tim indulged in a wink apparently for his own sole enjoy 
 ment, and then gave his undivided attention to the circus. 
 
 " Seems to me," said Aunt Matilda, after a pause, during 
 which even her carping spirit was quelled by the novelty of 
 the scene, " them camels is dretful moth-eaten." 
 
 " Yes, and they've got humps !" said Tim scoffingly ; 
 " and they ain't very pretty anyway. I suppose you'd like 
 'em to be kind of smooth and regular like the parlor andi- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 93 
 
 rons, wouldn't you ? Gorry ! Aunt Matilda, you'd like a 
 giraffe to have his head set right plum down between his 
 shoulders !" 
 
 " There ain't any sech a thing as a giraffe in the hull 
 lot," replied Miss Spore with that dexterity in turning an 
 adversary's argument to her advantage for which she was 
 remarkable. " 'Tain't much of a circus without a giraffe." 
 
 Jib did not make any comments at all. Leaning forward, 
 his arms resting on the low gatepost, his straw hat pushed 
 back from his handsome forehead, the deep, rich brown of 
 his tanned cheeks making his hair lighter and his blue eyes 
 bluer, the strength of his tall figure perceptible in the 
 loose, careless cut of his rough clothes, he was devouring 
 the scene with all the intentness of a child. It was as if 
 there were unrolling before him some of the pageants which 
 until now had but wended their glittering way through the 
 leaves of his books. The camels with their uncouth riders 
 were bearing untold riches in an Arabian caravan ; the 
 horses with their booted and spurred riders might break 
 any moment into a gallop, which should distance the offi 
 cers of the law, and the wild beasts were crouching for the 
 death-spring in the hot, stifling forests of Africa. 
 
 " Them is the tamest wild beasts I ever laid eyes on," 
 said Aunt Matilda. " Guess you could yoke up a couple 
 of 'em and drive 'em to pastur'." 
 
 "Now you'd better let them wild beasts alone," said 
 Tim, whether with liberal or metaphorical significance it 
 was difficult to say. 
 
 " They come awful short in spots when they got to that 
 leopard," went on Aunt Matilda with annoying impartial 
 ity. " There ain't a dozen of 'em altogether small ones." 
 
 " I suppose you thought he'd be laid out like a crazy- 
 quilt, didn't you ?" inquired Tim. " One of them fine ones 
 with fancy stitches between." 
 
94 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 What Aunt Matilda might have replied, strong as she 
 was in the fact of the leopard's spots being, as it were, 
 vouched for by Holy Writ, is uncertain, for just now the 
 trick ponies began to go by, and in the midst of them, on a 
 large horse, with the bearing of a Roman general, cut off 
 from all work-a-day associations by the adoption of a suit 
 of purple corduroy, chastely ornamented with gold lace, 
 rode the owner of the circus himself. 
 
 " I declare to glory !" exclaimed Miss Spore, " if there 
 ain't Nicholas French that Marcella Brown ran away with 
 twenty years ago !" 
 
 "Which of 'em?" demanded Tim sceptically. "Do you 
 mean the Arabian Chieftain or the full-blooded Indian 
 Bravo what's ridin' barebacked ? You're always recogniz 
 ing somebody that's about as much alike as a trout and a 
 tree-toad." 
 
 Miss Spore was too much excited to heed her nephew's 
 impertinence j she only settled her glasses more firmly on 
 her nose. 
 
 "That's him," she said, "the one in the middle with 
 the purple clo'es and the long whip." She nodded franti 
 cally, for even Matilda Spore was not above the natural 
 human pleasure in recognizing and being recognized by 
 those of even temporary high degree. Nicholas* however, 
 perceived in this only a tribute to him in his official capaci 
 ty, and never having known Miss Matilda save by hearsay, 
 he saluted with his whip, without disturbing for a moment 
 the majestic calm of his demeanor. 
 
 Tim and his aunt were both obliged to shout their obser 
 vations at each other, for the noise of the band and the 
 commotion on the little street were quite overpowering. 
 Jib heard them without heeding. He only moved his 
 shoulders a little impatiently to throw off the influence 
 that would seek to introduce anything so belittling as 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 95 
 
 the private position of any individual of this glittering 
 whole. 
 
 "I wonder if she's along," speculated Aunt Matilda ; " but 
 probably he's married half a dozen since then," she added 
 in an undertone of hope and charity " I ain't got any 
 faith in circus men." 
 
 " Here she is !" said Tim, waving his hat with frantic en 
 thusiasm, the ice of reserve that a cold world had engen 
 dered having rapidly melted in the heat of experience. 
 " Here's Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean !" 
 
 " Laws !" said Aunt Matilda contemptuously, " she ain't 
 anything but a stuffed doll." There was a moment's pause ; 
 there was some delay in the line ahead, and the trumpeters 
 had come to the end of their tune. 
 
 " Well, she's a mighty smart stuffed doll," Tim piped up 
 in the comparative silence. " She winks regular, and she 
 just says to the driver, * Go easy, for my helmet's blamed 
 topply,' and the driver says he, ' I will, Rip.' " 
 
 The bystanders in the immediate vicinity laughed, and 
 Aunt Matilda hastened to reply in a tone which freed her 
 from all suspicion of being disconcerted, 
 
 " Well, I should say his helmet was topply." 
 
 The procession began to move on again. Really, it was 
 a very creditable one. There was a .louder clash from the 
 instruments. What was coming now? Jib turned his 
 head and then stood still waiting, his head raised, breath 
 less, his blue eyes deep with some new excitement, as he 
 looked at this feature of the grand parade. In a gild 
 ed cart, upon the adornment of which, it seemed to his 
 thrilled fancy, the riches of no clime had been spared, be 
 hind four fiery little ponies, the reins of which her small 
 hands held with an easy strength, her small head encircled 
 with a shining crown, her straight, slight figure draped in 
 the long folds of some wonderful statuesque garment, stood 
 
96 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 a girl, and, as she held in the prancing ponies behind 
 the drums and the cymbals, she raised her eyes and 
 they looked straight down into Jib's as he waited by the 
 roadside, and he forgot the visionary splendors of the 
 equipage, and only saw the piquant, dark beauty of her 
 oval face, the curls of black hair under the heavy golden 
 crown, and the subdued laughter of her dark eyes. As she 
 met the sudden, startled what, she did not know in the 
 glance of this handsome young countryman so near her, 
 but beyond the staring crowd of boys and girls in the road 
 way, she looked down, her lips quivered as if she would 
 have laughed if she had dared, and she gave her attention 
 to her long whip, while the impatient ponies danced along 
 the dusty road. Jib never turned his eyes away from her 
 until the last sparkle of her golden circlet was lost in the 
 distance. Gone were the barbaric glories of Bedouin, lion, 
 and bear-tamer. It was as if some rare and radiant maiden 
 had come from the distant, and by no means geographically 
 certain, Aiden of his wildest romances. It was as if all the 
 deeds of derring-do performed by his favorite heroes on 
 what, it must be confessed, had seemed to Jib the insuffi 
 cient grounds of love for some perverse, if affectionate, 
 heroine, had suddenly become natural and unexaggerated. 
 It was as if a princess who lived in the Court of the Lions, 
 and walked upon gold and silver, and laughed at the threat- 
 enings of an adversary's triumph, had deigned to wend her 
 way up the village street. These are a few of the things 
 that it seemed to Jib had taken place when Elizabeth 
 French drove the circus ponies through the town of North 
 Lanes, arrayed in the gorgeous raiment of Mademoiselle 
 Georgiana, the celebrated equestrienne. 
 
 "Those ponies ain't very well matched," said Miss Ma 
 tilda Spore. '* I could 'a' told 'em where they could get 
 better ones." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 97 
 
 "And you could have drove 'em better, too, couldn't 
 you ?" asked her irreverent relative. 
 
 " I'd 'a' put my mind on it more than the one that is 
 doin' it," retorted Aunt Matilda. " She see a good deal 
 besides them ponies. She's the very moral of what Mar- 
 cella Brown was twenty years ago," she went on thought 
 fully. " I wouldn't wonder if it was her daughter. Pretty 
 kind of business for Marcella Brown's daughter to be at 
 drivin' them godless ponies !" 
 
 Jib roused himself from the fit of abstraction into which 
 he had fallen since the tail of the procession had disappeared 
 down the street. He had not heard a word of the conver 
 sation. 
 
 " I'll meet you here, Tim," he said lazily, " in time for the 
 show," and, going out of the gate, he joined the pushing and 
 laughing crowd moving down the street. 
 
 Matilda looked after him for a moment ; then she said, in 
 a tone of reminiscence, 
 
 " Denver Trent used to know Marcella consid'ble well. 
 She mittened him the year before Nick French come here." 
 
 " Hum !" commented her astute nephew contemptuous 
 ly ; " mighty sight of a fool a man is to get mittened by a 
 woman." 
 
 " And a mighty sight fooler a man is if he don't ever give 
 a woman the chance !" returned Miss Spore with a prompt 
 ness which seldom failed her, and to which Tim yielded an 
 ungrudging admiration. She darted into the house and 
 shut the door with her last words, leaving Tim with, for a 
 wonder, no reply upon his lips, seated in state upon the 
 gate-post. He smiled and shook his head at the closing 
 door, and then observed to himself, 
 
 " Gorry ! I d'know but the old lady's right," a reflection 
 which showed him to be open to the convictions of a lib 
 eral philosophy. 
 7 
 
98 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 The circus performance was nearing its close, but was 
 still in full swing. Bob Stein was being uproariously funny, 
 as the frequent bursts of applause from within the tent fully 
 testified. Mademoiselle Georgiana was making up for any 
 prestige she might have lost earlier in the day, by marvel 
 lous feats and by unmeasured prodigality in the matter of 
 spangles. The cages of the wild beasts were nearly de 
 serted, not being at present features of the in-door enter 
 tainment. There were not many of them ; a wild-cat or 
 two, the disillusionizing leopard, several of those creatures 
 whose labels present absolutely no suggestion to the untu 
 tored mind, but whose personal oddities are an attraction, 
 and a lion. Nothing can ever belittle a lion, and an exhi 
 bition, however small, always acquires a certain dignity from 
 its presence. In front of its cage stood Jib and Rhodope. 
 She had felt the close, hot air of the tent unpleasantly, and 
 had asked Jib to take her out. He was only too glad to 
 come, for the brilliancy of the spectacle to which he had 
 looked forward for weeks was a dim neutrality, for nowhere 
 about the stage or in the audience was to be had a glimpse 
 of the dark eyes and close-cut curls of the occupant of the 
 Roman chariot. How eagerly he had waited for the appear 
 ance of Mademoiselle Georgiana, and what a sigh of disap 
 pointment had mingled with the easily excited applause. 
 He was restless, though enchained by the novelty of the 
 scene, and gladly seized Rhodope's suggestion that they 
 should wait outside for a while. To-morrow, he felt sure, 
 the broadsides of humor delivered by the clown and the 
 ringmaster would overwhelm his whole being in the recol 
 lection, but to-night and he took a long breath of the cool 
 night air without, as he and Rhodope passed through the 
 opening of the tent. 
 
 Outside there were glaring torches and people passing 
 here and there, and subdued sounds of confusion and creat- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 99 
 
 ure complaint, but the contrast with what they had left was 
 strong enough to make it seem quiet and refreshing. 
 
 Rhodope looked into the other cages with a transient 
 interest, but before the lion's cage she paused fascinated. 
 She had never seen a lion before, and as she watched the 
 steady up and down, up and down pacing of the superb 
 creature, her deep eyes glowed and she held her breath 
 with excitement. Jib moved about restlessly. He had 
 been from cage to cage several times already, and al 
 though it had been a momentous experience, he was not 
 under the spell like his sister possibly a stronger spell 
 had taken hold of his imagination. The small tent be 
 fore which Marcella and Nicholas had talked the night 
 before was pitched, as usual, just outside of the circle 
 belonging to the circus proper. It looked dark and de 
 serted. As Jib moved on, from one object to another, 
 leaving his sister to her preoccupation, he drew near this 
 quieter part of the grounds. Finally he stepped outside 
 of the circle of light, and stood leaning against a tree, 
 nearly facing the tent and its surroundings. He could see 
 Rhodope , she was not far off, and he was going back to her 
 in a moment, but just now a bit of freedom was what he 
 wanted. He scarcely saw the little tent a stone's throw to 
 his right as he stood half turned away from it. The late 
 moon, upon which the valley revellers depended to light 
 their way home, dimly outlined his figure and the tall tree 
 against which he rested his broad shoulders. The flap of 
 the tent was moved cautiously aside. A small, dark, curly 
 head was put out and quickly withdrawn, and the flap fell. 
 Apparently encouraged by the quietness, and possibly by 
 maternal inattention within, a second time the folds parted 
 and Elizabeth stood in the opening. She was another 
 person from the barbaric chief tain ess of the morning. In 
 a plain, dark dress, the crimson flush of excitement replaced 
 
100 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 by a soft glow of color in her brown cheeks, she was quite 
 as pretty if less magnificent ; her short, dark curls still fell 
 about her forehead and the curves of her throat, as they had 
 fallen under the golden crown. The morning's experience 
 had been for her, too, an unsettling one. Besides the natural 
 exhilaration of her young soul in reducing those cavorting 
 ponies to the decorum of a procession, there had been the 
 atmosphere of admiration that no woman, however young 
 and inexperienced, can breathe with entire unconscious 
 ness. As she thought of her triumphal progress, Jib's face 
 came back to her, the startled look of his handsome eyes 
 as they met hers. At first she had not been much struck 
 by it ; she had looked along the way through which she 
 passed for other similar impressions, but she had met none. 
 Looks of admiration she had had in plenty, but nothing 
 like that quick, intense glance, and nobody half as good- 
 looking had she seen at all. To be sure, Mademoiselle 
 Euphemia, who had driven the other chariot, had had any 
 number of such experiences on the way, and had seen 
 scores of attractive people in her time ; but Elizabeth had 
 not, and consequently Jib recurred to her memory with a 
 decidedly particular interest. To-night, when she saw him 
 coming out of the tent with a beautiful girl who must be his 
 sister from the resemblance between them, she could not 
 resist the temptation to give some sign of her presence ; but 
 with feminine consistency she waited until he could not see 
 her without a special effort. Half with a child's love of 
 mischief, half with a woman's impulse towards sentiment, 
 -she drew aside the curtains, stood a moment, and stepped 
 out. Jib stood motionless in the shadow, looking towards 
 his sister. Elizabeth moved a few steps forward into the 
 light of the torches and gazed in an absorbed way at the 
 zebra. 
 
 " Elizabeth !" called Marcella from the tent. " Eliz- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES IOI 
 
 abeth !" Jib started and turned in the direction of the 
 sound. There she stood, the vision he had sighed for ! He 
 recognized her instantly, though her panoply of gorgeous- 
 ness was absent, and with the simple directness of his 
 nature he went towards her. But she had started too, and 
 with a sudden shyness and fear of consequences, now that 
 the attention of this stranger had really fallen upon her, 
 and a little dread of reproof, she sped back to the tent, and 
 the curtains fell together behind her. Quickly Jib's stride 
 brought him to the tent, and there he paused, not near 
 enough to hear what the low voices said that were speaking 
 in the interior, but near enough to make himself heard 
 should he be so minded. A man of more sophisticated 
 impulses might have hesitated in Jib's position, and pos 
 sibly have abandoned the idea of speaking to the girl at 
 all. But he thought of but one thing to do. He glanced 
 about him. Rhodope was still in front of the lion's cage ; 
 there was no one very near, few people were outside at all. 
 He turned again to the tent. 
 
 " Elizabeth !" he called out. " Elizabeth !" 
 
 The voices inside ceased ; there was a moment's pause 
 before the folds were drawn aside and Marcella appeared 
 in the doorway. She looked angry. "Young man," she 
 said peremptorily, " I want none of your impudence. You 
 can stop calling my daughter by her name and you can go 
 away. This isn't part of the show !" 
 
 If Jib was unsophisticated, he had the courage of his 
 calm temperament, and fortunately he hit on what hap 
 pened to be the best thing to say. 
 
 " I didn't know what else to call her," he said simply. 
 " My name is Jib Trent. I want very much to see her." 
 
 "Jib Trent?" said Marcella, her voice, in spite of its 
 righteous indignation, softening a little. She, too, had been 
 watching the crowd this evening; she had seen Denver 
 
102 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 Trent go in with Rhodope. She expected to hunt up some 
 of the valley folks before they left. 
 
 " Are you anything to Denver Trent ?" she asked. 
 
 " He's my uncle ; I live with him." 
 
 " You ought to be a good young man, then," she said 
 impulsively. 
 
 " Well, I guess you needn't be afraid of me," drawled 
 Jib, "you, nor Elizabeth." 
 
 Marcella's good-natured laugh rose to her lips. 
 
 " Well," she said, " if you want to come round after the 
 show and bring your Uncle Denver along, I guess you can 
 see us both." 
 
 Jib looked back again to the lighted tent. The perform 
 ance was over; he heard the crowd moving towards the 
 ways of exit. 
 
 " All right," he said, and went back to Rhodope. He 
 had been away only a few moments, but it seemed a long 
 time. Some of the first people to come out passed near 
 them. Their voices were different in quality from most of 
 those about. 
 
 " It is difficult for me to decide between the claims of 
 Mesdemoiselles Georgiana and Euphemia," hesitated Dave- 
 nant. " Georgiana is the greater artiste, but Euphemia has 
 the esprit. In speaking of professionals of any sort, one 
 falls involuntarily into the French language," he added with 
 some regret. Rhodope did not heed the crowd nor their 
 voices. Human beings were so small and trifling beside 
 the tremendous animal she was watching. How weary he 
 was of this circumscribed pacing this creature who had 
 had miles of wilderness to traverse ! How awful that co 
 lossal head with its tawny mane ! Rhodope shuddered as 
 the restless, impatient eyes of the animal looked, unseeing, 
 unheeding, into hers eyes of a ferocity chained, but all un 
 tamed. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 103 
 
 " Behold !" said the high, thin voice of Florence Need- 
 ham in half-suppressed tones, " the lion is now exhibited 
 with Una in attendance. The faithful beast is, however, 
 submitting to temporary confinement, lest he attack Una's 
 other admirers." 
 
 " And the gentle knight now comes, pricking out of the 
 circus tent," suggested Davenant, as Medcott's tall figure 
 appeared in the midst of the crowd. Austin was compelled 
 to make a detour to rejoin his companions, and in so doing 
 passed close to Rhodope. 
 
 " Have you enjoyed it ?" he asked. " I saw you in the 
 tent." 
 
 Rhodope started and looked up into his face. She for 
 got even the lion, which still paced restlessly so near her. 
 
 " Yes," she said, " it is all so new. I think it is wonder 
 ful." 
 
 Florence Needham's lips drew tightly together as she 
 watched them. She could not catch their words, but she 
 could see their faces. 
 
 " But," went on Rhodope, " it is cruel to keep him shut 
 up," and she turned back to the caged beast " He ought 
 to be free." 
 
 Medcott looked into the cage. " He is no worse off than 
 the rest of us," he answered. " We all ought to be free, and 
 we are all bound and caged." He spoke with sudden vio 
 lence. Rhodope did not comprehend him. She perceived 
 that the others were waiting for him. 
 
 " Come, Jib," she said, " we must go." 
 
 Medcott lifted his hat and made his way to his party. 
 " I'll wager a penny^' said Davenant, as he joined them, 
 " that you've just been getting off something epigrammatic 
 or, say, an aphorism. You have just that look." Med 
 cott did not reply, 
 
 " Perhaps it was only a successfully appropriate quota- 
 
104 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 tion like Mrs. Needham's and mine," Davenant continued 
 to speculate, as he elbowed the crowd away from Edwina 
 Screed, " there's no mistaking the air of that sort of 
 thing." 
 
 " I suppose it does give a man a distinctive look to have 
 spoken the truth," said Medcott grimly. 
 
 " There !" said Davenant calmly in Miss Screed's em 
 barrassed ear, " he has begun to be epigrammatic and he 
 can't stop !" 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 ' ' A crowd is not company ; and faces are but a gallery of pictures ; 
 and talk is but a tinkling cymbal, where there is no love." 
 
 ' ' The forests had done it : there they stood : 
 We caught for a moment the powers at play." 
 
 MEDCOTT paused in his rapid walk up the hard, gravelly 
 road. It was a pleasure to feel like himself again, to be 
 able to go forth with his long, swinging stride, to discover 
 some of the secrets of the hill country, to leave behind him 
 the pettinesses and the worryings, as well as the light jol 
 lity of the farm-house with its circle of high civilization. It 
 seemed to him that the air was freer than ever, and that 
 he could walk on and on for uncounted miles. He had 
 wanted Davenant to go with him, but Davenant had de 
 clined. 
 
 "I'm not a climber," he said; "to me the summit of a 
 hill is very much like the foot, only harder to get to. I 
 know you can see more at the top, but I am pretty well 
 used to seeing things that are out of my reach it's hardly 
 worth using myself up for. I think I'll stay in and about 
 the Hive" this being Davenant's term for the Clock house 
 hold. 
 
 " You mind the stinging as little as anybody," laughed 
 Medcott. 
 
 " Yes," he replied, " it makes very good material some 
 times. That's where we literary fellows have the pull over 
 
I06 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 you artists. We don't have to wait for the picturesque. 
 We can make a page out of nothings." 
 
 The spot where Medcott paused was just before his way 
 turned from the road into the trail that led up the moun 
 tain, and the cool shade, by the river that appeared sud 
 denly under the trees, flowed under a wooden bridge, and 
 disappeared suddenly under the trees on the other side 
 of the road, tempted him to linger a moment and look 
 back on the valley, and then down at the water. Finally 
 he seated himself on the edge of the bridge, his back turned 
 to the road, one foot hanging over, and gave himself up, 
 half to an artist's pleasure in the scene, half to the recol 
 lection and anticipation that were becoming so large a part 
 of his life. 
 
 Every time he saw Rhodope Trent she impressed herself 
 more and more on his imagination; but he felt as if at every 
 interview there had been misunderstanding, misinterpreta 
 tion as if matters would never be set right, so that there 
 could be full comprehension, each of the other. 
 
 Yet he knew that there were nearer, deeper, truer bonds 
 between himself and Rhodope than existed in his careless 
 intimacy with all the other companions of the valley. He 
 knew this instinctively, certainly, and yet ever between 
 them was a shadow, a stumbling-block, an intervention. 
 Was this the result of circumstances only, such as Mrs. 
 Needham's jealousy and Davenant's hints ? or was it his 
 own knowledge of what was best for them both ? 
 
 The river, which, when it burst out from under the close- 
 growing alders and overhanging trees, rejoiced with a little 
 laughing utterance to find itself free, and chattered encour 
 agement to the ripples which were yet behind, tossed up 
 wavelets in pure wantonness of pleasure, and when the 
 branches of brushwood dipped into the stream, broke and 
 climbed over them in teasing spurts of playfulness, as if 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 107 
 
 to mock their superior solidity with its affectation of de 
 fiance. 
 
 He sprang to his feet and looked up and down the road. 
 With a quick surprise, a sudden acceleration of his heart 
 beats, he stood an instant motionless, then with long, even 
 stride he went on, past the point where the well-known 
 trail led up the mountain, past the unfrequented road 
 which turned off a stone's throw beyond, up to a straight 
 figure which moved along lightly, with well-poised head 
 and ill-fitting drapery. 
 
 " Good-morning," he said behind her, lifting his cap. 
 Rhodope turned instantly and smiled up into his face with 
 swift illumination. 
 
 " I did not hear you," she said, " and neither did I see 
 any one on the road as I came into it." 
 
 It was as if she were unconsciously apologizing for not 
 being aware of his presence. 
 
 " So you came down that lonely road," he answered, 
 looking with eager satisfaction at her beautiful face, feel 
 ing as if it made not much difference what he said or what 
 she said, now they were alone together on this sweet coun 
 try highway. It was as if the shadow between them had 
 suddenly melted away in the morning sunlight. " I knew 
 you could not have passed me ; I was on the bridge below 
 there." 
 
 " Are you perhaps going in the same direction with me ?" 
 she asked with an innocent curiosity that almost made him 
 smile, it was so devoid of coquetry. " I am going to Shadow 
 Pond," she added, that there might be no mistake. 
 
 "What luck!" exclaimed Medcottwith unblushing readi 
 ness; "then you will show me the way. I was half afraid I 
 might lose it. That is, if you will let me go with you." 
 He spoke rather anxiously ; perhaps her shyness or some 
 unwritten rule of the valley etiquette might interfere. 
 
I08 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " I shall be glad of your company," she said with perfect 
 simplicity. " Jib was coming with me, but he had a new 
 book, and though I might have prevailed on him to leave 
 it, it would have been just his good-nature," and she looked 
 at him, smiling. " Jib is very good-natured it seemed most 
 too bad to ask him." 
 
 Medcott inwardly called down Heaven's blessing upon 
 the author of the book which had kept Jib at home. 
 
 " That brother of yours is a very fine fellow," he said 
 aloud, by way of compensation. Rhodope's eyes grew 
 shinijig. 
 
 "I think he is," she said; "I think" and then she 
 paused a moment " I think he might have sat at the 
 Round Table." 
 
 Medcott looked at her with the same sensation of sur 
 prise that had attacked Davenant when she understood 
 his allusion to Don Quixote. Moreover, it took a moment 
 to adapt himself to her point of view. At first, he was 
 rather staggered at the thought of exchanging Jib's flannel 
 shirt and brown corduroys for a coat of mail, but as he 
 thought of his handsome face and figure, and the straight 
 forward, serene nobility of his expression, he recognized 
 that it would be hard to find a man who would appear 
 more knightly in the accoutrements of that period. More 
 over, he knew something of the young man's character. 
 
 " So he might," he answered thoughtfully, " and who 
 should he have been ?" 
 
 " I hardly know," she said. 
 
 " You would not have put me there at all, I suppose," 
 he said, with a jealousy that amused him. She looked up 
 at him as he walked beside her, in the strong sunlight and 
 the sweet air, and it seemed for a moment as if this were a 
 world of romance again. Then she reddened swiftly, and 
 her eyes fell, for she thought of no one but the typical lover, 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 109 
 
 handsome, strong, and valiant but he, as he looked down 
 at her, thought neither of Elaine nor of Guinevere. Then 
 she broke into her rare laugh as she answered, still flushing, 
 
 " It is late for seats at the Round Table. Uncle Denver 
 says what between Jib's African queens and Rhode's sto 
 ries, the valley's gettin' to be a mighty unsettled place." 
 Medcott was glad to see that she was not always grave. 
 He joined in her laugh, and King Arthur and his knights, 
 who had led them both back into the unreal past, were lost in 
 the fresh reality of the present. 
 
 " Speaking of unsettlements," said Medcott, " isn't this 
 the landslide ?" 
 
 They stood at a point high above the valley, where be 
 fore them, in the distance, the hills opened, one beyond 
 the other, the long, white streamer of a waterfall waving 
 on the rocky side of one of them. Close by their side the 
 mountain went down in craggy forest to the lower levels, 
 while on the other it went steeply up to its summit, jagged 
 with lofty pines. Between these precipitate slopes wound 
 the road, covered just here with a deep layer of sand per 
 haps fifty feet broad, which extended downwards, and 
 showed by the upturned roots of trees, the rough stones 
 and other cle'bris there half buried, as well as by the hill 
 side above, that it was the result of the breaking-away of 
 masses of earth thereabouts. 
 
 " Yes, this is the landslide," said Rhodope. 
 
 Slowly they moved through the heavy sand. There was 
 a sort of excitement in it. The valley lay so still and peace 
 ful before them, the hills stood so grandly quiet above them, 
 and yet a quaking of the treacherous sand, a crumbling of 
 the unsteady rock, and instead of the quietness would be 
 a sudden turmoil, a rushing and a destruction. When they 
 reached the other side, and stood again on the firm road, 
 it was as if they had been through a bit of peril together, 
 
110 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 though in all probability the path had been absolutely safe 
 as far as they were concerned. 
 
 It was not a long walk to the pond. When they came 
 in sight of its guarded beauty as it lay silently between the 
 silent hills, Medcott uttered a sigh of satisfaction and Rhod- 
 ope smiled as if she had met a friend. 
 
 " How delightful to be here without all those people who 
 were with us the other day !" he exclaimed. She looked at 
 him in surprise. 
 
 " Why," she said, " are you not always glad to be with 
 your friends ?" 
 
 " Friends !" he said contemptuously. Her surprise grew 
 puzzled and a little pained. 
 
 " I thought " she began, and paused to think further. 
 
 "Yes, one friend of mine was with us," he amended, 
 " Davenant." 
 
 " Yes," Rhodope said, " but the others ? Mrs. Needham," 
 she went on with a simple directness" you must know her 
 very well ?" 
 
 Medcott kicked a stone out of the way. He could not 
 express the impatience he felt. 
 
 " I have known her a month," he answered, "nearly." 
 
 Rhodope was silent again. She had thought them such 
 old friends ; it was a sudden pleasure to know that it was 
 but the acquaintance of a summer. Still was this all it 
 meant with these people this whispering intimacy, this 
 warm friendliness of word and manner ? just the careless, 
 irresponsible acquaintance of a month ? With sudden mis 
 giving she realized how short a time it had been that she 
 had known him ; barely four weeks, and she had only seen 
 him half a dozen times. Was this a careless intimacy ? 
 She did not believe it possible ; it was a sensation rather 
 than a thought, and flashed across her consciousness and 
 was gone. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES III 
 
 " Will you let me row you across the lake ?" asked Med- 
 cott, as they passed into the shadow of the woods which 
 grew close to the water's edge. 
 
 "Yes," she answered, "willingly." 
 
 It was new to her, this formal courtesy. Had she been 
 with her usual companions they would have climbed into 
 the boat, and either of them, as the case might be, have 
 taken the oars and pulled out without further words. She 
 accepted it, however, with a pretty, natural dignity, and a 
 silent perception of something new in the familiar scene. 
 
 "You think my friendship not much worth having?" 
 asked Medcott suddenly. They were coming down a steep 
 little path leading to the tiny landing-place where a boat 
 was moored. He was before and below her, and turned as 
 he spoke, to help her over a jagged rock. She gave him 
 her hand mechanically, and paused as he paused, looking 
 down at him. 
 
 His warm, strong grasp of her fingers, the undertone of 
 earnestness in his words, made it difficult for her to answer 
 him. 
 
 "Your friendship ?" she repeated, while the color rose in 
 her cheeks, though she did not take her eyes from his. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, " you think it a poor thing, do you 
 not ?" 
 
 His friendship she tried hard to think what it might 
 mean. Perhaps this was all : a courteous manner, an inter 
 ested glance, low tones, a clasp of the hand and nothing 
 more. She looked away from him, her hand still in his, to 
 the quiet lake, to the stern hills whose bluff precipices no 
 adventurous climber had ever scaled, to the thick woods 
 which kept their secrets safe, and the deep, unbroken peace. 
 It was so different a thing from the scene of which they 
 had spoken, where there had been the trampling of horses, 
 echoing laughter, and loud, careless voices, that the senti- 
 
112 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 ment she had associated with that scene seemed necessarily 
 ephemeral, exaggerated. For a moment she caught an un 
 recognized glimpse of the contrasts that were constantly 
 present to Medcott. 
 
 " Perhaps I do not know what friendship is," she said 
 slowly, " I know little of its mere appearance." 
 
 He felt a reproach in her words, though she had intended 
 none. 
 
 " No," he said, " no one would ever insult you with the 
 offer of the appearance of anything." 
 
 Rhodope moved forward; he let her hand fall as she 
 passed before him, and followed her down to the miniature 
 landing. In a few moments they were on the water, float 
 ing about through its sunninesses and its stillnesses. The 
 first were rarer than the second. The little lake lay so low 
 in the hollow of the hills that they overshadowed it, and 
 rose like cathedral walls on all sides, letting only the light 
 from high above shine down into its deep, religious peace. 
 There were no cross rays and reflections of earth all the 
 light that penetrated to the surface was that coming straight 
 from heaven, and beyond that radiance it was tranquil, cool, 
 and colorless. Only their voices broke the silence that Nat 
 ure keeps within her precincts. Rhodope sat in the stern, 
 her deep eyes softly radiant, a smile, whose presence she 
 would have found it difficult to account for, touching her 
 grave lips. Now and then Medcott pulled a few strokes 
 which sent them closer in the shade of the deep woods, 
 or out into the warmer sunlight, and then, lifting his oars, 
 they drifted back again, while he looked at the hills and 
 at Rhodope. 
 
 " I feel a little as if I were in church," he said. It was 
 not only the effect of the landscape. He felt dimly a sense 
 of having made confession when he had stood and held 
 Rhodope's hand. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 113 
 
 " It always seems like that to me," she answered softly. 
 " It is as if you had come in and shut the door." 
 
 Medcott's thoughts reverted again to their past visit with 
 a sense of exquisite pleasure in the present. 
 
 The foolish, laughing crowd, with their crudities of lunch- 
 baskets, were gone, and there was nothing to encroach upon 
 Nature's solemnity, a solemnity sweetly thrilled and perme 
 ated with a something distinctly warm, human, and personal 
 no one but their two selves and truth and serenity and 
 uprightness. 
 
 " How those people did disturb the service the other 
 day," he remarked lazily. Rhodope hastily glanced towards 
 the shore as if she half expected to see it inhabited. 
 
 "That day was very different," she said; "but I guess," 
 she added thoughtfully, " they liked it better that way. I've 
 noticed that about the people that come here they don't like 
 our places just as they find them, but want to make them 
 over into more like what they are used to." She felt the 
 difference less consciously but not less acutely than he. It 
 was to her only as if all the pleasure and brightness that 
 that day had promised and had somehow missed had gone 
 over from the merriment and confusion and concentrated 
 itself in this beautiful quiet. As for Medcott, he knew well 
 enough that it was because he had his wish to-day which 
 had proved vain then the exclusive companionship of this 
 exceptional woman. 
 
 " Did you ever read ' Pilgrim's Progress ?' " asked Rhod 
 ope. 
 
 " Why er yes, of course certainly," he answered. To 
 be sure he must have read the " Pilgrim's Progress," but 
 for the moment the inquiry puzzled him, because he could 
 not say just when it had been. 
 
 " Don't you like it ?" she asked, with a soft light of pleas 
 ure in her eyes. 
 
f 
 114 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " Oh, very much," he hastened to reply, convinced that 
 of course one liked it, and with uncertain recollection that 
 Macaulay had said it was very fine, and a determination 
 not to disappoint that look of pleasure, anyway; "but you 
 see well, it's some time since I read it." 
 
 He instantly recalled a large copy with colored pictures 
 he had had as a child, and resolved to look it up when he 
 went home. 
 
 "Don't you remember when they saw the mountains 
 Christiana and Mercy and the rest ?" 
 
 " I don't know that I do, exactly," he submitted, adding, 
 with the diplomacy of a school-boy, "you go on and then 
 I'll see." 
 
 "Oh, it is nothing of importance," answered Rhodope ; 
 " only these mountains about here always make me think 
 of those, and I have named them after them, Mount Marvel 
 you know, Mount Innocence, and Mount Chanty." 
 
 " Which is which ?" he asked, lamentably conscious that 
 he could not say anything that would touch the heart of 
 the matter in the way of appropriateness, and meekly con 
 tenting himself with encouragement. 
 
 "That is Mount Marvel," said Rhodope, pointing to the 
 majestic mass of the hill that rose most precipitately from 
 the water. " No one has ever climbed it, you know not 
 even Uncle Denver. And see how dark the woods are 
 and often there are clouds on the top. There is room for 
 many marvels up there," and her eyes searched for a mo 
 ment the gray cliffs and the dusky green of the steep moun 
 tain. Medcott was moved by a vague impulse to make a 
 landing and go up. 
 
 " And there is Mount Innocence," she went on ; " that 
 has more sunlight than the others, and you can trace the 
 course of several streams do you see ? And the woods are 
 not so thick, but they are cool and fresh I have climbed 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 115 
 
 that myself and they are full of birds ; and that long, broad 
 mountain is Mount Charity. Do you see how it sweeps 
 about the others like a mantle, and how it holds the head 
 of the lake, and seems to protect it ?" 
 
 "Yes," answered Medcott, as he followed her glance 
 from one hill to the other, " I see." 
 
 The fancy touched him it seemed so fitting a one for 
 the place and for her, this simple, strong, imaginative wom 
 an, brought up in the shadow of Marvel, Innocence, and 
 Charity these three. 
 
 " Speaking of names," he said a little later, " may I ask 
 how you came to be called Rhodope ? That isn't out of 
 er ' Pilgrim's Progress,' is it ?" 
 
 If she had told him that Rhodope and Apollyon fought 
 with Master Faithful and Master By-ends in the Valley of 
 Humiliation he would have accepted it with a simple faith 
 which had never before seemed a part of his character. 
 
 "It was Uncle Denver's choice," she replied smiling. 
 
 "My father and mother they died when I was very little 
 told him he could name me, for he was very fond of me 
 even then, and he found Rhodope in a book, and liked the 
 sound of it it's the name of some mountain somewhere, 
 isn't it ?" 
 
 "I believe it is," replied Medcott vaguely, who began 
 to feel that, between literature and geography, his attain 
 ments were little less than despicable. 
 
 " And he said that I was going to be brought up among 
 mountains, and he'd like to have me get as much of them 
 as possible," she concluded. 
 
 " Henceforth I shall not hamper myself with derivatives," 
 said Medcott lightly ; " it has but one association for me. It 
 means you" 
 
 His voice took a dangerous intonation with his last 
 words, an intonation he had not quite meant it to have. 
 
Il6 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 If Rhodope had had a morsel of coquetry, she would not 
 have let it escape her. As it was, she felt it as she felt ev 
 ery change, every impression of this man ; she was learning, 
 almost, to take her impressions through him but it only 
 startled her a little. Naturally, she expressed the idea that 
 was farthest from her inclination and nearest to her consci 
 entiousness after the New England fashion. 
 
 " I think I must go back," she said, " I only came for the 
 morning." 
 
 Medcott turned the boat towards the landing. He would 
 have liked to prolong the morning indefinitely, but he did 
 not rebel even silently against her decision. He was wise 
 enough to be content with the satisfaction that had been 
 his. He recalled his angry impatience when he had seen 
 Rhodope at the circus. It had seemed then as if every 
 thing in the way of physical disability, social difficulties, 
 petty enmities, and friendly prudence had conspired to keep 
 them apart. To-day he found, as we all of us have often 
 found, that while one has slept the enemy has not sown 
 tares, but instead some good angel has been at work up 
 rooting and smoothing out, so that the way seems suddenly 
 fair and open. Florence Needham and society, Tom Dave- 
 nant and criticism, were afar off, and he and Rhodope 
 were alone, marking out for themselves the path which they 
 should follow. Rhodope had brought some sandwiches, 
 which in a pretty little way she offered to share with Med 
 cott as they went through the woods. It made her feel as 
 if she knew him well to laugh with him over her bread 
 and butter, and have him praise it as Tim might have done 
 it was as if she had known him always. And to him, too, 
 it brought her nearer, it gave a touch of the sweet familiar 
 ities of ordinary life to the fineness of her nature. 
 
 A heavy wagon with four horses was ahead of them as 
 they drew near the landslide on the road to the village. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES Iiy 
 
 " Isn't it a dangerous crossing for such a heavy load ?" 
 asked Medcott. 
 
 " I should think so," said Rhodope, looking forward close 
 ly at the horses and their driver, "but the man knows all 
 about it I know who he is ; he has preferred to take the 
 risk rather than delay by taking the lower road. Yes I 
 thought he would get down himself." 
 
 The heavy cart was now close to the place in the road 
 covered with the sand and gravel. As the feet of the slowly 
 moving leaders struck it the driver climbed down and walked 
 a little ahead. Evidently the familiarity of the danger made 
 him careless of it, and in fact the ground looked firm and 
 solid enough as the horses made their way over it. Med 
 cott and Rhodope stopped at some little distance and 
 watched their progress. 
 
 " Come on !" shouted the man to his animals, and his 
 voice rang out in the peaceful air as if it were the only hu 
 man element in it. The gravel creaked under the stout 
 wheels, and the horses kicked the pebble and sand before 
 them. 
 
 "He has taken a good deal of a risk," said Medcott, 
 " if what the people about here say is true." 
 
 " Uncle Denver says John Dibson had always rather risk 
 his life than tire his limb by a little extra work," said Rhod 
 ope. " There is danger it is true enough." 
 
 The wagon had reached the farther limit of the slide ; 
 the driver already stood on. firm ground and was cracking 
 his whip at the straining animals. They watched breath 
 lessly as the horses the front wheels the hind wheels 
 passed slowly and safely beyond the line when Rhodope 
 drew a little, quick breath of relief, and they both laughed 
 at their own anxiety. A pebble or two rolled down ; the 
 driver climbed back to his seat, and put on his break for 
 the descent that followed, and the other two went on their 
 
Il8 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 way. As they in turn came to the place of danger, he said, 
 smiling, 
 
 "I fancy our weight will not convulse Nature if she 
 will bear an unruffled brow in the presence of a coach and 
 four." 
 
 " No," answered Rhodope, moving lightly on, " I guess 
 we are safe enough." 
 
 But whether it were that the mass of the de'bris had been 
 loosened, or whether it were that Nature's time had come 
 to push this little handful of rocks and earth over this hill 
 side of hers for one reason or another, just as they reached 
 the farther limit where the deep ruts of the cart-wheels 
 grew less marked on the harder road, there was a slight 
 rattle, an ominous roar, a crashing and breaking, and Med- 
 cott, feeling the ground move beneath his feet, instinctively 
 caught Rhodope in one arm, and, throwing the other about 
 a tree that stood at the edge of the road, swung them both 
 out of the path of the downfall of stones and earth. If he 
 had not been at the very edge of the peril he could not so 
 have escaped it ; but as it was, they were in safety, and stood 
 in silence watching the mass tumble into the valley below. 
 It was not an avalanche, but enough power had suddenly 
 been cast loose to have hurled them both down that rough 
 and craggy hillside, and covered them with stifling stones 
 and dust. Medcott still had his arm around Rhodope as 
 she, unconscious, save of their narrow escape, gazed with 
 startled eyes at the devastation. He looked at the soft 
 lines of her cheek and throat, the turn of the eyelashes up 
 from the lowered lids, the masses of hair, that almost touched 
 his lips, as they clustered about her half-averted head, and 
 he thought of how cut and bruised that beauty might have 
 been, and shuddered. 
 
 " Thank God, you are safe !" he exclaimed. 
 
 "Thank God, we are both safe!" she said. Then the 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 1 19 
 
 swift waves of color breaking over her face, she drew her 
 self away from him, adding softly* 
 
 " And thank you for doing the only thing that could have 
 saved me." 
 
 He did not answer immediately. His gaze had not left 
 her face, raised now to his. It had all taken place so quickly. 
 The dust of the slide was settling again ; the reverberation 
 of its crash had entirely ceased, the valley lay below them 
 as serene as it had ever been, but in that one brief moment 
 these two had been together in danger, and had come out 
 of it still together. 
 
 They could not either of them quite forget. But Med- 
 cott did not care to exaggerate any such element of inten 
 sity. 
 
 " I do not think I did the only thing," he said lightly, 
 " probably there were a dozen other things we could have 
 done. We might have gone part of the way, you know, 
 and clung pale and bruised, but still alive, to a frail tree, and 
 I would have rescued you with pomp and circumstance." 
 
 She looked at him, but did not speak. She could not an 
 swer him in the same tone. She was deficient in the art 
 which turns one's deepest feelings into light appropriate 
 ness, and her feelings, as well as deep, were complex. So 
 they went on together, both conscious that somehow a rush 
 of emotion had come into their lives which had not died 
 away with the rattling of the last pebble and the final echo 
 among the hills. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 " He's gentle, never schooled and yet learned, full of noble device." 
 
 " The West is tender, hardly bright, 
 How gray at once is the evening grown, 
 
 One star its chrysolite ! 
 We two stood there with never a third, 
 But each by each, as each knew well : 
 The sights we saw and the sounds we heard 
 The lights and the shades made up a spell. "^ 
 
 IT was late afternoon, the shadows' were long in the vil 
 lage street, the legend of Ivory Soap which Medcott never 
 saw nowadays without a mental transition to a cool wood 
 and a sensation of pain, twinkled in the window with all 
 its accustomed hilarity. Outside stood General Jim Down 
 ing, a man of thirty odd, and the proprietor of the store, 
 Abijah Stetson. They called Downing the General, not 
 from the love of military title, considered by transatlantic 
 writers to be an integral part of the American character, 
 but from what is a much dearer national characteristic, 
 the love of incongruity. Jim Downing never went any 
 where or did anything, and yet he always spoke as a born 
 leader of men ; so they called him General, with an irony 
 which he appreciated, but consistently ignored. Abijah Stet 
 son was older and much stouter. His flannel shirt pre 
 sented such wide acres of unoccupied space that the sus 
 penders which made their precarious way over it seemed 
 discouraged from the outset. 
 
 " No, we 'ain't got any butter," Abijah was saying to a 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 121 
 
 woman with a shawl over her head. "No, I dunno' as we 
 shall have any, not to sell. Perhaps you can get a pound 
 over to Gapp's ; they churned yesterday." The woman 
 passed on, and Stetson settled his large shoulders more 
 firmly against the doorpost with the fine indifference to the 
 possibilities of trade evinced by merchants whom no dan 
 ger of competition disturbs, and whose social position does 
 not at all depend upon their business success. 
 
 " Yes, that's Marcella French's gal," he went on, taking 
 up the conversation where it had been interrupted, " she 
 that was Marcella Brown. She turned up over here to 
 North Lane the day of the circus, and Marcella she kinder 
 talked with some of the folks and seemed to hanker after 
 staying in the valley a bit, so she and the gal are putting up 
 over to Dust's." 
 
 Jim Downing shifted his quid of tobacco and nodded. 
 
 " I didn't get over to that circus," he observed thoughtfully. 
 
 " I thought you was makin' up a load ?" 
 
 "Wai, so I was; but what with one thing and another 
 we didn't get off," replied Jim with his usual air of mild 
 surprise at the failure of his plans. 
 
 " Wai, General," said Abijah, " I guess you'll get off one 
 time when you've kinder calculated on goin', and that'll be 
 when they come after you with the hearse." 
 
 " Mebbe," replied Jim, not caring to resent any satirical 
 implication that might be in the grim suggestion. 
 
 " There she comes now," said Abijah, looking up the 
 straggling street. 
 
 Both men watched Elizabeth French's slight figure as she 
 came buoyantly along the road. There was this suggestion 
 of buoyancy in all her movements. She was not tall, but 
 she held herself straight as an arrow, and her coronet of 
 short black curls, her laughing dark eyes, and her brilliant 
 color made her a very striking young person. 
 
122 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " Good-afternoon, Mr. Stetson," she said, pausing in front 
 of the store and looking up at the two men with an upward 
 slant of her chin and a downward slant of the eyelashes 
 she lowered to shield her eyes from the level rays of the 
 westward sun. Then she hesitated a moment. She was 
 not quite used to the place yet, and it was not her idea of 
 shopping to question the proprietor of the bazaar while he 
 took his ease on a three-legged stool outside. Her sau- 
 ciness had had its immediate effect on the General. His 
 inefficiency fell an easy prey to the striking in female beauty. 
 He involuntarily straightened himself, immediately aban 
 doning the support of the dusty wall, and adopted something 
 that might be considered as an attitude of respectful atten 
 tion. But Stetson was less impressible. In his line of 
 business he was exposed to so many visits from pretty girls, 
 indigenous and exotic ; and they so seldom knew what they 
 wanted, and when they did, so often showed a disposition 
 to subordinate it to the pleasure of conversation with other 
 customers, that he never allowed his interest to become 
 active. 
 
 " A'ternoon," he replied, as one who would say nothing 
 he might be sorry for. 
 
 " Can I get some dark-green dress-braid here ?" inquired 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 "I guess you can get it here if you can anywheres in the 
 village," answered Stetson immovably. 
 
 " I thought so," said Elizabeth with much tact. There 
 was a pause. In the face of her pretty manner and her 
 charming hesitation, the General felt his companion pro- 
 vokingly unresponsive, and cleared his throat and hit a 
 packing-box with his foot, to imply that he might feel a de 
 sire to say something himself if this went on much longer. 
 
 " Wai," said Stetson, " I dunno' as I've got any dress-braid 
 at all." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 123 
 
 " Oh," said Elizabeth, " never mind, then," and she turned 
 to go, half suspicious that he was chaffing her. 
 
 " I dunno' but I got some dark red," said Stetson. 
 " Dark red won't do you, will it ?" 
 
 " No," she answered, " I don't quite think it will." 
 
 " Wai," said the enterprising Stetson, " I'll go in and see." 
 
 This was a relief to the feelings of the General, who 
 couldn't bear to see even the whims of such a beauty in a 
 way to be disregarded. As Elizabeth followed Stetson in 
 side, he strolled in after them, and took up his station on 
 the edge of an empty barrel with careless but none the less 
 actual interest in the transaction. Inside there was the 
 usual variety of wares : dried peaches, brown calico, and 
 several antique chocolate mice being among the most prom 
 inent. It smelled chiefly of what might be string. Stetson 
 took down a box labelled " Peppermint Lozenges," but that 
 only held several rolls of tape ; then he took down a box 
 labelled " 5 Ibs. Candles," but that only held darning-cot 
 ton ; at last he found a box labelled " Gumdrops," and that 
 held the dress-braid. He set it down before Elizabeth with 
 an air that suggested she might take it or leave it, and went 
 to the other side of the store and measured out two quarts 
 of split peas for some mysterious but unforgotten patron. 
 Having twisted them up in a paper bag, being watched si 
 lently by the General with fascinated eyes which would 
 much prefer to have watched Elizabeth, but were withheld 
 through embarrassment, he returned and stood opposite to 
 her. 
 
 " Got some new mackerel," he said to the General, over 
 her head. 
 
 " Hev ?" said the General, with fictitious interest. There 
 was a moment's silence. 
 
 " I will take these," said Elizabeth. A shadow shut off 
 part of the sunlight from the door just behind her. 
 
124 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " H'are you, Jib ?" said the General. 
 
 " H'are you, Jib ?" said Mr. Stetson, nodding in dignified 
 greeting. 
 
 Elizabeth did not turn, but she dropped one piece of 
 dress-braid and picked up another just like it and looked 
 at it earnestly while Jib returned the salutations. Jib never 
 wasted time in circumlocution. He walked straight up to 
 the counter where she stood. 
 
 " Well, Miss Elizabeth," he said. Elizabeth turned her 
 little curly head sidewise, and glanced up at him with a 
 suppressed smile. 
 
 " Oh, is that you ?" she said. " How do you do ?" 
 
 Jib leaned on the small show-case, beneath the glass of 
 which the, chocolate mice gazed thoughtfully, almost hope 
 fully, at the two sticks of licorice and a bunch of white 
 elastic, and, with an entire indifference to shopping, looked 
 down smiling at Elizabeth. She looked away from him to 
 the dress-braid, and again to Mr. Stetson. 
 
 " I'll take four pieces of this, please." 
 
 Mr. Stetson hesitated, and poked about in the peppermint 
 lozenge-box doubtfully. 
 
 " I guess that's all there is, ain't it ?" 
 
 "Yes," answered Elizabeth, "that's all." 
 
 " Couldn't get along with two, could you ?" 
 
 " I don't believe I could," she replied, in some embarrass 
 ment. 
 
 " Wai," he said, unwillingly, " I suppose I'll have to let 
 you have it. First thing I know somebody else Ml be in after 
 some. It keeps one handlin' it all the time when I hev to 
 get a new lot of such things. I'd ruther you'd 'a' left a 
 piece." 
 
 Elizabeth was unused to these economies of trade, and 
 so smiled with some perplexity. Stetson, seeing that she 
 did not change her mind, wrapped it up and made change 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 125 
 
 for her with an appearance of high-minded protest, while 
 Elizabeth still ignored Jib's glance and gazed interestedly at 
 a highly colored portrait of a child of a truly abnormal health- 
 fulness, produced by the exclusive use of a certain cereal. 
 When he had almost forgotten to expect her to look at him, 
 and was studying her quite at his ease, she flashed her eyes 
 back at him. 
 
 " Did you come to shop, too ?" she asked. 
 
 "No," said Jib, not in the least disconcerted, " I came in 
 because you were here." 
 
 " Ah," said Elizabeth, with a suspicion of a smile at the 
 corners of her mouth, " it's almost a pity you gave yourself 
 the trouble I'm not going to stay very long. Thank you," 
 she said to Mr. Stetson as she picked up her change. 
 
 " You'll be staying just about as long as I calculate to," 
 said Jib easily as they went out together. The General 
 watched them absorbedly. He even nearly upset the bar 
 rel, leaning forward to watch them across the street. 
 Abijah, however, had seen too much of this sort of thing to 
 waste much thought on it. He slowly replaced the pepper 
 mint, candle, and gumdrop boxes, set the bag of split peas 
 in a prominent position on the counter, and sauntered out 
 side again, whither the General immediately followed him 
 with that somewhat slavish adherence which was part of his 
 character. 
 
 Jib Trent, according to Uncle Denver, had signed con 
 siderable of a contract when he fell in love with Elizabeth 
 French. The magnitude of the undertaking, however, im 
 pressed him not at all, for the simple reason that he gave 
 not a thought to its possibilities. Men who are building 
 towers and going into battle sit down and count the cost of 
 it as far as their limitations admit, if they are wise, to be 
 sure ; but, after all, it is only for the sake of making a good 
 start and being unhandicapped by avoidable drawbacks. 
 
126 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 Nobody really thinks that he has counted it all ; and those 
 who build the best towers and fight the best battles are 
 those who grapple best with the unforeseen. Jib Trent was 
 conscious of nothing except a never-failing impulse to seek 
 the society of Elizabeth French. His favorite books were 
 neglected. Tim recommended " That Frenchman " in vain. 
 For the first time in his life Jim found fact more absorbing 
 than fiction. Upon Elizabeth this devotion had a not un 
 common effect. It was something to amuse one even to 
 interest one something of a fashion quite new ; but owing 
 to the fact that it was so readily come at, something not to 
 be superlatively valued. She was one of those women who 
 need no artificial incitements, no cynical experiences, no 
 envious emulations to develop a latent sense of coquetry. 
 She had been sent to a good school, and was by no means 
 ignorant. She did not often travel under the canvas wing of 
 the circus ; it was only on short, out-of-season tours like 
 this last that French was accompanied by his wife and 
 daughter. Nicholas French was an unusual man in some 
 respects. He had associated all his life with horses with 
 out being brutalized thereby ; he had a genuine love for 
 animals which extended even to the vicious and the outcast. 
 He was still in love with the woman who had run away from 
 her home to marry him, twenty years ago, and proud of the 
 daughter who was such a credit to them both. He had 
 made money enough to live in a less precarious style, but 
 as it is hard for a Cromwell to lay aside his sword, so is it 
 hard for a man or woman, much of whose life has been lived 
 within the circus ring, to return to a respectable but monot 
 onous side street. Nicholas French would have been un 
 happy without a horse, would have felt bereft of luxury 
 without a trick pony, and would have experienced a genuine 
 deprivation in the loss of the society of a wild-cat. Mar- 
 cella, though at first her interest had been purely vicarious, 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 127 
 
 had also become fond of the distinctive features of their 
 life. The same impulsive love of the romantic which had 
 led her to throw aside her comfortable country home for 
 the vicissitudes of one with a ringmaster, led her to enjoy 
 the novelties, the excitements, the very makeshifts of the 
 business. So Nicholas, without being any longer the slave 
 of his fortunes, was generally doing something or other in 
 the circus line, and Elizabeth, though carefully shielded, 
 with what might seem unusual discretion, from that which 
 could easily have proved harmful in the life, picked up, to 
 gether with her school duties, a good deal of information 
 and experience which made her more interesting than most 
 girls of eighteen, whose conventional advantages had been 
 greater. In fact, she was exceptional enough in her char 
 acter and training to prevent the veil of romance and mag 
 nificence with which Jib had enveloped her from the first 
 from being drawn aside by the hand of more familiar ac 
 quaintance, and revealing only the dulness of the common 
 place. 
 
 " Where are you going ?" asked Elizabeth, demurely, as 
 they turned up the village street. 
 
 " Let's go up on the mound," replied Jib ; "there is time 
 enough before supper." 
 
 His assumption that wherever he went, she was going 
 too, amused Elizabeth, but did not displease her. 
 
 " I don't know about that," she demurred ; " I expected 
 to take this dress-braid home to mother." 
 
 " I guess your mother isn't in any hurry," said Jib with 
 masculine incredulity concerning the imperative importance 
 of dress-braid ; " please come, Elizabeth." 
 
 Elizabeth had only been waiting for that look of anxiety 
 in those handsome blue eyes, and she went on with him 
 readily enough. The mound was a mild sort of bluff about 
 half a mile long, in the middle of the valley, not high 
 
128 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 enough to be called a hill about here, but reached by a 
 steep little ascent, and forming a pretty place of lookout. 
 
 It was crossed by a fence or two, crossed in their turn by 
 several stiles, and was a favorite walk for those who found 
 the village street too densely populated and who yet did 
 not care to seek greater and more distant seclusion. 
 
 " Mother is ever so much pleased to see your Uncle 
 Denver again," said Elizabeth, as they passed beyond the 
 scattered houses into the solitude of the country road. 
 
 " I don't know when I've seen Uncle Denver so lightened 
 up as since your mother and you came here," replied Jib ; 
 " he talks more about it than he does about most things. 
 Not but what he's always pretty noticing but this seems 
 more like real pleasure to him." 
 
 " Most people like mother," said Elizabeth with satisfac 
 tion. 
 
 " I guess Uncle Denver used to love your mother," went 
 on Jib simply. " He hasn't ever said so, but I've mistrusted 
 he did. He don't seem noways ashamed of it. I wouldn't 
 ever be ashamed of loving a woman like like her," he 
 added, with a shy glance at his companion, who colored a 
 little and smiled, which encouraged him to proceed. 
 
 " All the men that I've ever read of that were worth any 
 thing were in love with somebody." 
 
 " I guess it don't always depend on their being worth 
 anything, though." 
 
 " No," answered Jib, momentarily chilled, " I don't sup 
 pose it does. But then you don't want to read about the 
 other kind, you know " a remark, by the way, showing 
 small literary discrimination " and all those who fight and 
 ride and get into the hands of the enemy they always love 
 somebody." 
 
 " Well, if I loved anybody " she spoke with a charming 
 disregard of any personal application " I should want him 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 1 29 
 
 to do something for me besides fight and ride and get into 
 the hands of the enemy." 
 
 " I guess he wouldn't do that any more than he could 
 help," said Jib lazily ; " he'd rather stay with you." 
 
 " Oh, don't be ridiculous," said Elizabeth, with a shake of 
 her curly head, immediately followed by a smiling salutation 
 to a good-looking young fellow in mountain costume who 
 passed them on the road. 
 
 "Who's that?" asked Jib. 
 
 " Oh, he stays over to Dust's," answered Elizabeth with 
 an air of marked indifference. " He's from New York I've 
 talked with him some." 
 
 Jib was not rendered in the least uneasy by this incident, 
 but it changed the current of their conversation. 
 
 " You've seen a good many people, first and last, haven't 
 you ?" he observed as they reached the first stile. Elizabeth 
 perched herself on the top before she replied, while he stood 
 leaning against the post beside her. 
 
 " Well, yes," she said, " I suppose I have seen a good 
 many people seen them, you know. I haven't known very 
 many. And a good many animals too," she added, without 
 cynical intention. 
 
 " And you've seen cities, too ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, I've seen cities too. Haven't you ever ?" 
 
 " Never," answered Jib unblushingly. It was impossible 
 for her not to feel a little superior, but she answered truth 
 fully enough, 
 
 " The country is a deal prettier though I don't know as 
 I'd rather always live in it. But my ! it's a great deal pret 
 tier. Mother always said it was, too." 
 
 " I don't know as I'd always rather live in the country 
 either," said Jib, gazing up into her pretty face. 
 
 He was leaning forward, his arms on the fence, precisely 
 as he had been when she first met his eyes the day of the 
 9 
 
130 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 circus procession. He did not think of it at all, but she 
 did. 
 
 " I don't know as I will. I mean some time to go where 
 things are done such as we were speaking of along back." 
 
 There was a pause. Elizabeth had taken off her hat, and 
 she gave her head a little turn and smiled, but said nothing. 
 
 " Did you ever see a herald ?" asked Jib. 
 
 " A newspaper, do you mean ?" 
 
 " No, a herald a man." 
 
 Elizabeth's sense of urban superiority vanished suddenly. 
 
 " No," she said. A moment of unconscious cerebration 
 connected heralds with sandwich-men, but she repeated, 
 " No, I never did. Why ?" 
 
 " Oh, nothing. I was only thinking," and he slipped 
 into silence a moment. This silence was so full of her and 
 he was so ignorant of women that it did not occur to him 
 to tell her that he was thinking of her. She grew a little 
 impatient of his abstraction. She had become accustomed 
 to his devotion, and with true femininity felt aggrieved by 
 the least lucid interval. She swung her hat by its string, 
 looked around her, down to the village street, invisible but 
 not entirely inaudible, and finally half rose to go. 
 
 " What would you want your lover to do ?" inquired Jib 
 suddenly, " to show that he loved you ?" 
 
 Elizabeth abandoned temporarily her intention of going 
 home. The seriousness of the question was somewhat dis 
 concerting, backed up as it was by the good looks and im 
 mediate proximity of the questioner. It was difficult for 
 little Elizabeth to maintain the utterly impersonal. The 
 utterly impersonal is a product of the higher civilization. 
 
 " What would I want my lover to do ?" she repeated with 
 red cheeks and a would-be defiance in her eyes. 
 
 " Yes," assented Jib, seriously. " You have said what 
 you didn't want him to do." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 131 
 
 " Oh, yes," she laughed, " fighting and getting into the 
 hands of the enemy. Well, you know that wouldn't be real 
 satisfying." 
 
 " I suppose not," said Jib with imperturbable directness. 
 " What would you want him to do ?" 
 
 A girl's first genuine lover is a disturbing element, even 
 when Nature has provided a disposition quick to adapt 
 itself to such disturbances. Elizabeth had all her sex's 
 aversion for direct questions and direct answers. 
 
 " Oh, so many things," she said lightly, standing up and 
 stepping down the first step of the stile. " It would take 
 too long to tell and it's too late to begin." 
 
 He stood silently where he barred her way down, and she 
 waited. He was not yet experienced lover enough to be 
 tyrannical, or he might have taken advantage of this cir 
 cumstance to make her explain herself. Perhaps Elizabeth 
 half fancied that he would. Instead he moved one side as 
 he pleaded, " Can't you tell me one thing ?" 
 
 His prompt submission emboldened her coquetry it 
 could not throw away such opportunities. 
 
 " Yes," she said, with audacious seriousness, looking down 
 at him, " I can tell you one thing. I would ask him to help 
 me down off. the stile and take me home." 
 
 The two figures disappeared through the tall meadow- 
 grass, the soft, late twilight settled down into the valley 
 and brightened towards the hill-tops. The wood-thrushes 
 called back and forth to each other in the stillness. The 
 distant murmur of the streams assumed an importance it had 
 lacked when human voices were at hand. The world was 
 afar off, the earth with her voices spoke to those who could 
 hear. 
 
 From the other side of the fence came a soft, steady 
 rustle in the dry, feathered grasses and clinging vines of the 
 field. It was too measured a sound to be the stir of the 
 
132 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 wind which was breathing across the valley. It was Rhod- 
 ope's step, who, after the early tea at the cottage, almost 
 always strayed away from its open door, over the warm 
 grass to this particular stile. To-night the air was full of 
 expectancy, the quietness of the hour was thrilled with un 
 quiet possibilities. These were days when things happened 
 much had happened yesterday which things were not to 
 be forgotten and which filled such hours as this with re 
 membering as well as anticipation. She climbed up the 
 stile and sat where Elizabeth had perched an hour before, 
 clasping her hands about her knees and gazing over to the 
 dark hillside whence rang the voices of the thrushes. In 
 the opalescent green of the sky floated pink snatches of 
 cloud, both of which blended into pearl farther away. Rhod- 
 ope thought of Elizabeth and Jib ; she had seen them 
 walking together, from the cottage window, and Jib had 
 come home to tea with a gleaming illumination in his steady 
 gray eyes. She was much interested in what it might mean. 
 She was deeply devoted to her brother, and she was fasci 
 nated by this new, brilliant Elizabeth, whom she could not in 
 the least understand. She speculated about their relations 
 with her eyes on the hills, and was glad and was sorry and 
 was conscious that, absorbing as it was, it was not this that 
 gave its peculiar meaning to the August evening ; that back 
 of all this speculation was something more absorbing still. 
 Up, over the edge of the hill that separated the mound from 
 the plain, came Medcott. She turned her head and saw 
 him, and immediately all the unrest went out of the night 
 and all speculation ceased, and there was nothing to do but 
 to wait quietly while he came straight towards her. 
 
 " I hoped to find you," he said, as he reached the stile. 
 
 " I am glad you came," she answered; " it is so beautiful 
 here." 
 
 " Yes, it is beautiful," he assented, as his glance went 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 133 
 
 over the tinted valley and back again to the girl above him, 
 whose figure and pure profile were outlined clearly against 
 the sky behind her, as she looked away from him. 
 
 " I have been wondering what it is that the thrushes say," 
 she said after a moment. " It is something glad, and yet 
 it is not all glad. It is triumphant, but it is not exulting. 
 I guess you can tell better than I," she concluded. Med- 
 cott leaned his head on his arms on the stile and listened. 
 They were both silent, waiting, and it was after a longer in 
 terval than usual that a hidden bird uttered its few notes. 
 Down in the country road a heavy wagon creaked slowly 
 by, and it seemed as if the tide of travel was importunate. 
 The world seemed to belong to them and not to feverish 
 travellers. But alas ! it did not. The song of the wood- 
 thrush broke forth again. 
 
 " It is ' Why ? why ? why ?' " said Medcott sighing. 
 
 "I think it is 'Yes, yes, yes'," said Rhodope. 
 
 The colors were fading out of the sky ; the distant peaks 
 were faintly blue and shadowy, those near at hand were 
 dark and massive. The sweep of ripened grass about them 
 grew ghostly instead of golden. Over the top of Mystery 
 Mountain appeared a little bit of a moon. It looked so 
 small and far off, and the top of the mountain was so black 
 just under it that they seemed to have a little world of their 
 own up there to illumine and to reflect and all they could 
 do, too without bothering about the lowlands. Medcott 
 banished the questioning and gave himself up to the ac 
 tuality. He talked of what was nearest to him, he brought 
 certain of his feelings and aims to the judgment bar of her 
 intuitions. He let what was best in him speak, and he lis 
 tened to what she said with a certain reverence mingled 
 with his tenderness. He did not tell her that he loved her, 
 though the words were very near his lips more than once, 
 she was so beautiful and so sweet and so single-minded, 
 
134 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 and her simplicity was never folly. It was no doubt of his 
 feeling that withheld him, it was rather an instinctive un 
 willingness to disturb her peace, and a delight in the pres 
 ent which would not be hurried or ignored ; nor did she 
 listen for him to say that he loved her, but she did not need 
 to tell herself that she loved him. Why pause to analyze 
 the varied forces of a current that is sweeping us along ? 
 She knew it for the first time, and doubted it as little as if 
 she had long known it. He seemed to her faith what a 
 man always seems to a faith like hers. He was a tall, well- 
 made man with somewhat more than indispensable regular 
 ity of feature, talking, as he leaned against the fence or 
 straightened himself and walked a few paces up and down, 
 with earnestness and decided picturesqueness of description 
 and allusion, or listening to her with an attention that made 
 her words seem suddenly freighted with something pre 
 cious ; but she would have rejected this description from 
 its baldness. He was a hero. He was she did not stop 
 to think what he was she loved him. It was a strong, 
 deep conviction which she faced and realized and thought 
 upon with the strength and simplicity of the nature that 
 was hers. 
 
 When the little moon with a fine audacity had made 
 good her claim of a broader field for the assertion of 
 her privileges, and had really become an important little 
 factor in the universe, so dim was the sky and so heavy the 
 shadow in the valley, Davenant started across the field in 
 the direction of the village. Neither Rhodope nor Medcott 
 saw him, but he saw their silhouettes by the stile, and rec 
 ognized them. For an instant he paused and then went 
 seriously on his way. Apparently he was thinking earnest 
 ly, and his earnestness was tinged with something that was 
 not pleasant as he made a detour that led him to the Trent 
 cottage without passing the stile. On the piazza sat Den- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 135 
 
 ver Trent and Needham, who was making one of his flying 
 visits to the valley. They were talking with some anima 
 tion as Davenant approached, and apparently changed the 
 subject as they saw the light of his cigarette. He stopped 
 and talked to them a little while, and then strolled down to 
 the Clock's with Needham. 
 
 " All humbug," said Needham as they made their way 
 with some difficulty along the dark country road. " Now, 
 tell me what would you give to be walking along a decent 
 side-walk with an electric light instead of that inefficient 
 moon overhead ?" 
 
 " I mightn't have to give anything," said Davenant pen 
 sively. " A pickpocket or a sandbagger might take it, you 
 know." 
 
 " Oh, come," said Needham, " talk sense. We are neither 
 of us afraid of pickpockets nor sandbaggers in the city, and 
 we don't either of us like a a confounded ditch" and he 
 stepped down with unforeseen suddenness " better than 
 a curbed pavement ! George ! This is worse than Phila 
 delphia." 
 
 " Well, I never said it was New York ; it is almost a pity 
 we can't call a cab." 
 
 " And it's all humbug, Medcott's staying up here on ac 
 count of art. He's staying up here to philander with that 
 handsome woman, old Trent's niece she's out with him 
 somewhere this evening." 
 
 Davenant kicked a quiescent pebble out of his path. 
 "Well, philandering is capable of being developed into 
 Art," he drawled. 
 
 " Well, let 'em call it by its name, that's all I mean," said 
 Needham, not wishing to be disagreeable. " It's the hum 
 bug I object to." 
 
 Charlie Needham was one of those persons who think 
 that every emotion they have not themselves felt is neces- 
 
136 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 sarily a counterfeited emotion, that every enjoyment they 
 have not felt is an unreal enjoyment ; that every taste that 
 is not theirs is an affected taste. Such men pride them 
 selves on their ability to discern sham, and on their own gen 
 uineness, and they are not infrequently genuine in a limited 
 sense. They have penetrated some of the insincerity of the 
 world, and with insufficient logic they fancy that all they 
 have not penetrated is insincerity too. In their anxiety 
 to prove their superiority to certain affectations, they fail 
 to perceive that they are making themselves a heaven- 
 appointed standard for the race. 
 
 When the two men reached the Clocks', Needham went 
 inside to find his wife, and Davenant went to the lamp in a 
 small room off the hall, where he began to write in his note 
 book : 
 
 "Evening pink and gray and green. Loneliness girl 
 at the stile," he wrote. " Suggestions of sentiment in the en 
 vironment." He paused a moment here, and then went on : 
 " Man (more worldly) leans on the fence air of isolation 
 usual thing." Here, with what for Davenant was sudden 
 ness, he drew his pencil thrice across what he had written, 
 put book and pencil back in his pocket, lighted an incom 
 putable cigarette over the lamp, and went out on the piazza 
 and stood gazing into the semi-darkness. 
 
 "Why? why? why?" sang a wood-thrush. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 " The gain of earth must be heaven's gain too : 
 And the whole is well worth thinking o'er 
 When autumn comes." 
 
 "Envy is a gadding passion and walketh the streets, and doth not 
 keep house." 
 
 MEDCOTT looked out upon the silence of the city roofs. 
 In the cold, clear west the sky was reddening in the early 
 sunset. Beyond, and beyond, and beyond stretched the 
 plain of roofs, rising here, falling there, but all inequalities 
 almost lost in the general level. Over, and straight, and 
 obliquely, apparently at cross purposes, or utterly at ran 
 dom, from height to height, concentrating here at some lofty 
 corner in a hopeless tangle, widening there into hundreds 
 of hair-like lines, the telegraph wires cut the clearness of the 
 sky. The flare of the tall chimneys turned slowly, fitfully, 
 now this way, now that, moved mysteriously by draughts of 
 air unfelt in the lower atmosphere. On commodious ledges 
 the cockney sparrows fluttered and lunched and sported. 
 The dull roar of the city was beneath, but above was the 
 silence of an unoccupied world. Unoccupied ! And under 
 all these roofs, stretching away almost to the cool horizon, 
 were human lives and human interests countless and con 
 flicting, with death and sorrow and shame and suffering 
 and disgrace. So many ! So many ! And each to the 
 other but a shadow, but a nonentity, and all alike, in the 
 eyes of an Omniscient and Omnipotent. Trite thought 
 but universal conviction too overpowering for long reflec- 
 
138 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 tion ! Medcott' s eyes fell upon the sparrows, secure, opti 
 mistic, unforeseeing. More value than they ? Why should 
 they be ? 
 
 Upon the easel stood the picture he had been at work 
 upon while the work lasted. The room was filled with the 
 hangings, the bits of embroidery, the odd and curious 
 things that seem to grow up about those who represent the 
 artistic in life, seeming an indigenous growth or a painful 
 exotic according as the representation is of genuine or ar 
 tificial affiliation. There was a smouldering coal-fire in 
 the low grate and an odor of tobacco in the air. On the 
 writing-desk lay a number of recently opened letters, pam 
 phlets, cards, and so on. One epistle on tinted paper, with 
 an unexceptionable cipher, was conspicuous from its length. 
 
 It was almost the first time that Medcott had had time 
 to think uninterruptedly since he left the valley. He had 
 been summoned thence by a telegram from his mother's 
 physician, saying that she was very ill. He had spent sev 
 eral anxious weeks with her and with his sister at their 
 home on the river, had then made a visit or two, and had 
 come back to the city a few days before, oppressed with 
 the fact that winter had come in earnest, and that somehow 
 the weeks of the fall had slipped away in the unaccount 
 able way known to those who have been watching an in 
 valid. Medcott was devoted to his mother, as, too, was 
 his sister, but the son had always been the favorite, for the 
 daughter, with the best intentions, was too apt to succeed in 
 being antipathetic rather than sympathetic. 
 
 " I am glad to see you, Austin," said his mother when she 
 was able to speak, " Bertha is a dear child, but there were 
 times when I knew she thought I ought to prepare for a 
 better world, and it irritated me. You see, with that pain it 
 never occurred to me that another world was in the least 
 likely to be worse." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 139 
 
 Bertha Medcott was not perhaps any more keenly alive 
 to the claims of another world than her mother, but she 
 was always oppressed by the idea that she ought to be do 
 ing something she wasn't, and might live to repent it. In 
 this sensitiveness to what might be future reproach she 
 occasionally disregarded the possibilities of the present re 
 proach of other people. 
 
 Since his hurried departure from the valley Medcott had 
 thought many times of Rhodope, but not in a connected 
 strain, and insensibly she had glided back, as interests 
 which seem to us the most absorbing will, to a secondary 
 place. He admired her none the less. Were she present 
 he would be no more indifferent to her charm, but he had 
 had no time to devote to their possible relations. During 
 these hurried weeks she had become an influence to revert 
 to, instead of one claiming part of his daily life. This af 
 ternoon, however, as he gazed out over the silence of the 
 roofs, towards the clear, green, western sky, the spell of 
 those other, so different, silences, was upon him those of 
 forest, lake, and mountain and with these, as an indwell 
 ing presence, came the vision of Rhodope. He had been 
 so sure that last night, when he stood with her by the stile, 
 that he should tell her soon that he loved her, so sure that 
 without her life would be a poor thing, limited, artificial, 
 and that in spite of the difficulty she would find in adjust 
 ing herself to an existence less serene and simple, he could 
 make her happy. He had been sure of all this. Now 
 these weeks had brought him back within another horizon. 
 He felt that his was in reality another world than hers and 
 was it not best as it was ? He had said not a word of 
 love to her. He was sure her peace was untroubled as yet. 
 They had spoken of friendship had they not been wise to 
 speak of nothing else ? 
 
 There was a knock at the door. " Come," Medcott 
 
140 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 called out, and turned back to the dim room in which the 
 shadows had fallen swiftly the last half-hour. " Hold on 
 a moment, though, whoever you are," he added, as the 
 door opened, "till I get a light, or you'll fall over some 
 thing." 
 
 " So you've come back," observed Davenant from the 
 doorway. 
 
 " Oh, Tom, so it's you ? how are you ? Glad to see you. 
 Perhaps you can find your way. Not a confounded match 
 in the box, of course." 
 
 With the natural impatience of one who, though he has 
 been watching the sun set, finds the room has taken ad 
 vantage of his inattention to grow dark behind him, Med- 
 cott was industriously feeling for a match in an ash-receiver 
 at the wrong end of the mantelpiece. 
 
 " I can see well enough," said Davenant calmly, making 
 his way towards the fireplace. " I didn't come in out of 
 the glare. I had to feel my way along your hall, by the 
 wall." 
 
 " Drunk again," observed Medcott briefly as he lit the 
 gas. 
 
 " Oh, no," began Davenant mildly, " it wasn't for the 
 support." 
 
 " The janitor, I mean. I don't w-ant to be hard on a 
 janitor, but I wish he'd wait till after candle-light." 
 
 " He'll give you all the light you want some time, and 
 burn the building down. When did you get back ?" 
 
 " A week ago," answered Medcott, " though I've been 
 here off and on before." 
 
 " Heard of you now and then at the club. Going to 
 dine anywhere ?" 
 
 " I hope so ; times are hard, but I mean to get a bite." 
 
 " Dine with me, then. I fell in with a clever newspaper 
 man from the West last night. You'd like to hear him 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 141 
 
 talk, and he and Wills are going to meet me for din 
 ner." 
 
 " With pleasure. Who is he ?" 
 
 Their talk drifted from one thing to another as they sat 
 before the fire whose smouldering inaction had been en 
 livened by another lump of coal. 
 
 " Did you stay long at the Hive after I left ?" asked 
 Medcott at last 
 
 " No, not long. About a week. Spent most of it with 
 Denver Trent." Medcott felt a spasm of sudden jealousy. 
 " Charlie Needham was there the last few days, and we 
 used to go up and smoke and talk with the old man." 
 
 " And Miss Trent Rhodope ?" 
 
 " Sometimes she listened, sometimes she didn't," he an 
 swered briefly. 
 
 " I found among the letters that didn't get forwarded to 
 me," said Medcott, leaning forward and taking up the tinted 
 note-paper from the table, " one from Mrs. Needham. It 
 was written soon after I left, and it came to me like a 
 breath from another world." 
 
 " Warm in tone, probably," commented the other. 
 
 " A warmer world than this, anyhow," laughed Medcott. 
 " She was sitting on the piazza when she wrote she says 
 that you have just left" he ran his eyes over the pages 
 as he spoke " that nearly everybody has gone, in fact, but 
 that she and 'dear Edwina Screed'" he paused and looked 
 at Davenant, who smiled his enigmatic smile as he said, 
 
 "Yes, to be sure, that was after you left 'dear Edwina 
 Screed ' didn't come till almost too late. You know when 
 you were there it was ' that little Screed woman !' " 
 
 Medcott nodded as Davenant knocked the ashes off 
 his cigarette. "One day she was talking of Art, and 
 I was trying to listen, and Mrs. Needham was trying to 
 prevent me, when she said of some plate or jug or other 
 
142 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 that it was owned by her cousin, Mrs. Adell. There was a 
 sudden cessation of interruption and sarcasm, but Miss 
 Screed went on placidly you know her placidity ?" 
 
 "Yes," answered Medcott, "I know." 
 
 " ' Your cousin ?' said the other. * My cousin, Mrs. 
 Adell.' ' Which Adell?' 'Why, Mrs. Leavenworth 
 Adell,' " answered Miss Screed, who was somewhat startled 
 by this sudden interest. Then there was a silence. To 
 me it was like the silence of the tomb " and he paused 
 to light another cigarette " because I knew if it was filled 
 with anything, it was with promises of future amendment ; 
 and then Mrs. Needham said, ' What were you saying, Ed- 
 wina dear, about the ancient potters ?' and it's been her 
 ' dear Edwina ' from that time to this." 
 
 Medcott laughed. " You're not at all cynical, are you, 
 Tom ?" he said. 
 
 " No, I try to be, and now and then I make a pretty good 
 showing, but I've a beautiful faith in my fellow-men when 
 you get down to me." 
 
 " I believe you have more than most men," assented Med 
 cott. 
 
 " But we get after a while so that we read words of two 
 syllables at sight," said Davenant slowly. " We can't help 
 it ; it's the natural result of practice, and we can't help the 
 knowledge that comes to us with it. Great Scott ! how I did 
 admire that woman once." 
 
 " She was a great beauty." 
 
 " Yes, she had great beauty she has now and she had 
 other qualities, too, which are going to last her even longer. 
 I tell you," and he clasped his arms behind his head 
 and gazed into the fire thoughtfully, " Cupid is painted 
 blind/because he hasn't any foresight, but he's got an 
 awful lot of hindsight. Go on, did she give you any more 
 news ?" 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 143 
 
 " She says, ' I see the errant Rhodope now and then ; so 
 far, I think she has found no more knights to succor.'" 
 Medcott turned the leaf impatiently. 
 
 "Small-minded women," announced Davenant senten- 
 tiously, "never know when they have had enough r oi their 
 own bon-mots" 
 
 " * I told her the other day that you ' " 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 "It's only some of her maliciousness," said Austin angrily, 
 breaking off the sentence. 
 
 " I can fancy," said Davenant, " just the sort of thing she 
 told her for her good." 
 
 " 'The little circus girl' " 
 
 " Isn't a circus girl, by the way." 
 
 " ' The little circus girl is still the Boadicea, or the Fairy 
 Princess, or the Rosalind, or whatever you like, of the liter 
 ary Jib, and is weaving the fascinations of the ring about 
 young Schumacher, who is still a member of the Dust house 
 hold, and rendering Jib's life and that of young S.'s mother 
 alike an apprehensive one.' That's all the valley news, I 
 guess," and he tossed the letter back on the table. 
 
 " Leaving out the undoubtedly intentional error of the 
 reference to the ring, there must be a good deal of truth in 
 that last. It began before I left. That little Elizabeth is a 
 young person of unlimited coquetry, and she hasn't lived 
 long enough to know what Jib Trent is worth. Get your 
 coat, Medcott, I guess we've exhausted the social situation 
 of the valley." 
 
 The Western newspaper man not only managed a newspa 
 per, he was a bit of an inventor as well. He had knocked 
 about the West in its early days, and had gained a breadth 
 of view which knocking about over such wide areas natu 
 rally imparts. He was constantly entertaining and oc 
 casionally brilliant, and the fact that he must leave on an 
 
144 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 early evening train, on business connected with what he had 
 invented last, was the only drawback to the enjoyment of 
 the occasion. As they came out of the dining-room they 
 passed a small room reserved for private dinners, where evi 
 dently a very gay party was being entertained. The din 
 ner was just over, and there was that indiscriminate sound 
 of moving of chairs, voices, and laughter which follows. A 
 man turned quickly as the four went by the half-open door, 
 and, coming out, followed them. It was Charlie Needham ; 
 his cheeks were flushed with wine, and he was in high spirits, 
 but there was a deep line between his eyebrows, which gay- 
 ety had not smoothed away, and his eyes were more restless 
 than usual. 
 
 " I say, Davenant," he called out, " beg pardon for de 
 taining you. Let me speak to you half a minute." 
 
 The other men went on, and Davenant and Needham 
 stepped one side. 
 
 " I've been trying to make up my mind to speak to you 
 for a week," he said rapidly. " Then, when I saw you 
 through the door, I thought I must do it. Seemed provi 
 dential, you know. That is, if the finger of Providence ever 
 points through a half-shut door after a champagne dinner," 
 and he laughed rather loudly. 
 
 " May be all the more necessary," suggested Davenant 
 quietly. 
 
 " Yes, that's so. I need some one to look after me. Fact 
 is, I'm in a tight place, Davenant ; that's what I want to see 
 you about. Give me half an hour to-morrow, when you are 
 not busy. Any time you like." 
 
 " Say about noon I'll come to your office. Shall be 
 down that way." 
 
 Through the door of the brilliantly-lighted room came the 
 sound of voices, not loud but gay. Men were passing 
 through the hall, nodding to one another, sending messages, 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 145 
 
 lighting cigars. The line on Needham's forehead deepened 
 as he indicated the room he had left with a half-nod. 
 
 " They're going to the theatre," he said ; " I haven't time 
 too many other things to think of. See you to-morrow at 
 noon." 
 
 The colloquy had only lasted two minutes, and Davenant 
 passed on, buttoning his coat, while Needham stepped back 
 to the door then he stopped, turned, and came back and 
 added, laughing, 
 
 " I don't know just why I come to you, Tom, but you've 
 always been a good friend of mine." He paused an instant 
 and then went on, still with the laugh about which there 
 was more than a touch of recklessness. "You ought by 
 rights to hate me, you know." 
 
 " Oh, no," answered Davenant with a slight smile, " I 
 don't hate you, Needham, at all," and he rejoined his com 
 panions at the door of entrance, while Needham returned to 
 the room which the theatre party were just leaving. 
 
 " That's an odd burst of sentiment," thought Davenant, 
 as they walked up towards Forty-second Street. " I haven't 
 ever been anything particular in the way of a friend towards 
 Charlie Needham. Something must be up. He's in that 
 mood when ordinarily decent treatment assumes the propor 
 tions of the relations of Orestes and Pylades it's not an un 
 common thing usually means there's danger of losing even 
 that. I wonder if he doesn't really know the favor he did me." 
 Wills had left them, but Medcott kept on with the other two, 
 and he was talking with the journalist about a recent publi 
 cation they had both been reading, while Davenant consid 
 ered the Needhams. " Can hardly be money, except that 
 Needham has always fancied gambling and when a man 
 does that, it's pretty likely to be money still, I thought he 
 could afford to play with stocks ; wonder why he comes to 
 me there's a lot of richer men in his intimate set." 
 10 
 
146 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 The truth was that men were very apt to go to Davenant 
 if they were in difficulties. He was wont to assure them 
 that he never kept anything by him for those who fell by 
 the wayside, except the oil of " worse things might have 
 happened," and the wine of " any foci might have known 
 it," but perhaps these remedies possessed simple curative 
 properties unknown to priests and Levites. Certainly they 
 were in more or less demand. A pretty wide, and by no 
 means shallow, knowledge of human nature and entire ab 
 sence of conviction regarding the duty of "improving the 
 occasion" are apt to render people esteemed confidants. 
 
 Later, he dropped in at Daly's with Medcott. Ada Re- 
 han's voice was vibrating through a delighted house, and 
 Lewis, the very wrinkles in whose coat are mirth-provoking, 
 was the victim of some delicious anxiety or other. The fra 
 grance of the flowers worn by the pretty women in the audi 
 ence was now and then wafted across by the waving of a 
 fan, and the odor of a cigarette drifted in with the entrance 
 of a dress-coat. In a stage-box sat the party of which 
 Florence Needham was one. In a ravishing costume of 
 green and silver, her charming profile outlined against the 
 hangings, her piquant beauty sparkling like the brilliant 
 lights and the diamonds in her bonnet-strings, she sat listen 
 ing with a smile to the man behind her. When she spoke 
 herself, he laughed, and indeed most of the others did. She 
 was in excellent conversational form to-night. It was nat 
 ural she should be. She was with quite the right sort of 
 people, exquisitely dressed, in the front of the box, and a 
 pretty woman. She saw the two men as they came in and 
 took their seats not far off. Her color changed, for she had 
 not seen Medcott since the summer, and he had not an 
 swered her letter. A short note just after he left the valley 
 being the only word she had heard from him for months. 
 Davenant she had seen now and then. Medcott was very 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 147 
 
 handsome to-night, and through the play itself, and all the 
 laughter and persiflage which apparently occupied her whole 
 soul, she never altogether lost sight of his distinguished face 
 and figure, as he sat before her, his eyes turned towards the 
 stage, save when he exchanged a word or smile with Dave- 
 nant. The evening ought to have been a great success ; it 
 was something of a triumph for Florence. The party was 
 made up of the elect. It was given for a foreigner of note, 
 and he had shown a marked interest in Mrs. Needham. 
 With the nicety of a qualified judge she knew what it was 
 worth and it was worth a good deal. Yet when it was 
 over and the door of her own house had closed behind her, 
 and she had gone upstairs to her room in silence, being in 
 formed that Mr. Needham had not yet come in, it was with 
 the impatience of chagrin that she pulled off her gloves and 
 tossed down her ornaments. "I would rather have had 
 those two men come and speak to me than than all the 
 rest of it !" she exclaimed angrily, "and they they never 
 looked at me ! Austin Medcott might at least have the 
 simple decency to come and call after the summer. I won 
 der how long he has been in the city." Her maid took her 
 heavy evening wrap and put away the things she threw 
 aside. When she had gone for the night, Florence dropped 
 into a chair in front of the mirror, and looked at her own 
 reflection frowning ; then, remembering that frowning pro 
 duced wrinkles, her brow cleared. 
 
 " He never looked at all," she said again. Her thoughts 
 succeeded each other in angry confusion. The sight of 
 Medcott's handsome head and broad shoulders had called 
 up all the sentiment that had been overlain since her re 
 turn by the requirements of daily life. His mingling of def 
 erence and indifference was the very charm to fix her vola 
 tile fancy. She wished passionately to break through that 
 indifference and to inspire that deference with something 
 
148 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 deeper than courtesy. When her beauty had failed to do 
 this, she had exerted all the fascination and it was no tri 
 fling amount of which she was capable, and when this, 
 too, had failed, she had annoyed and irritated him in the 
 bad temper of disappointment. At least she had produced 
 effect by her flings at Rhodope Trent. Rhodope Trent ! 
 There it was, the secret of her failure. How she hated 
 her ! If she had but stayed away, Medcott would have 
 found all the entertainment he wished beneath the Clock 
 roof-tree. Florence knew she was too pretty a woman for 
 a man to feel deeply the necessity of looking further ; but 
 that awkward, ignorant, good-looking girl must needs come 
 across his path with her pose of ingenuousness and air of 
 woodland poesy, and all the rest of it, and appeal to his 
 susceptible artist's soul in a way that she could not, and 
 which was, moreover this at least was a comfort pretty 
 sure to produce a misunderstanding on the girl's part. 
 Florence rose and moved restlessly the silver trifles of her 
 dressing-table, then she walked to the hearth, where the fire 
 was just dying out. Yes, misunderstanding, of course, and 
 that would annoy him, and she, Florence, would always un 
 derstand, and he might find that out in the reaction. What 
 a pleasure to have the distinguished Austin Medcott her 
 devoted attendant ! What excitement in the devotion it 
 self ! What avenues might it not open to her !. But to 
 gain all this she must reach him must have him at hand 
 and how to do this ? Ah ! the lamentable conventions of 
 society ! It is a proof of the unconsciousness of deep emo 
 tion that this heretical exclamation passed through her 
 mind without producing a shudder. Her only hold on him 
 was through Davenant Davenant who once loved her 
 who might love her still. Her meditations were a curious 
 mingling of genuine feeling, prudential foresight, and social 
 mathematics. Almost the last image in her mind that night 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 149 
 
 was the annoying one of Medcott and Davenant at the the 
 atre never once looking in her direction, but to this suc 
 ceeded a glimpse of the distinguished personnel of the din 
 ner, and she sank into a deep and refreshing sleep. 
 
 She was mistaken, they had looked at her several 
 times. 
 
 "The front of the box," had said Davenant pensively, 
 "that -is the place for Florence Needham. You observe I 
 speak enigmatically in a metaphorical sense," he added 
 in kindly explanation, " referring as it were to life as a the 
 atre, and so on." 
 
 " It's a benefit to the rest of the house," replied Med 
 cott ; " she's a marvellously pretty woman." 
 
 " So she is," said Davenant ; " I hope the time may never 
 come when a too exacting socialism will cut out the parts 
 of such ornamental lookers-on." 
 
 " I don't believe it is coming in my time, or in yours." 
 Medcott was a persistent optimist. 
 
 " Such sentiments were rife in the critical time of the 
 late esteemed Noah." 
 
 " Oh, I say ! you don't believe we are dancing on the 
 verge of a crater, or skating on the thin ice over a cataract, 
 and all the rest of it, any more than I do." 
 
 "I don't believe anything about it," replied Davenant 
 calmly. " It is not the business of a humble newspaper 
 man to believe anything, but merely to. hold himself in 
 readiness not to be surprised. The business would go to 
 the dogs if we allowed ourselves to become critical about 
 the truth of a statement, or to be surprised." 
 
 " Do you mean you would not be surprised at a French 
 Revolution breaking out under our feet?" 
 
 " Oh, very much. A progressive newspaper man cannot 
 fail to perceive that New York no longer slavishly gets her 
 fashions from Paris. She sets her own, but a good deal of 
 
150 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 the stock-broking and the starving has got to be stopped 
 some time, you know." 
 
 " Yes, I suppose it has," assented Medcott " undoubted 
 ly it-has." 
 
 "And when a good many people think certain things 
 have got to be done some time, some fools are likely to 
 take it upon themselves to set the clock ahead." 
 
 " There's truth in what you say, Tom," said Medcott. 
 " We all know that ; but from the glittering generalities of 
 your style I should say you were working off one of your 
 half-columns on me." 
 
 " Just the introduction for a metropolitan letter to a pro 
 vincial journal," replied Davenant with perfect fairness. 
 " Glad to see it strikes you favorably." 
 
 They had been talking during an intermission, and as 
 the curtain went up for the next act, the orchestra, which 
 had been playing a medley of popular songs, struck into the 
 air of the boat-song which had been so popular in the sum 
 mer, and which Rhodope had been singing when she found 
 Medcott in the woods. He had not heard it since. From 
 that moment on, he never lost the thought of her. Social 
 ism and politics were forgotten. He joined in the laughter, 
 he noted the brilliancy of stage and audience, but it all 
 seemed only to mark the contrast with another life. She 
 his beautiful, strong, free Rhodope she could never live 
 in this artificial atmosphere. He had done right, he had 
 done the best thing for them both. Suppose he might have 
 made her love him even supposing the worst suppose 
 that he had made her love him, how much better for her a 
 little regret among the mountains, and then peace, than a life 
 long uneasiness' and pain. Yes, he had done the best thing. 
 As usual, Medcott was in danger of losing a fair estimate of 
 the arguments on one side from his disposition to give their 
 full weight to those on the other. The two men came out 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 151 
 
 of the theatre together and turned up-town. They spoke of 
 indifferent matters as they passed through the glare of the 
 brilliant lights, but as they turned into one of the quieter 
 cross-streets, where Davenant lived, a short silence fell be 
 tween them. The moon was shining, and here one might 
 be allowed to perceive it, without manifesting undue rus 
 ticity and an unfashionable familiarity with the almanac. 
 The houses seemed suddenly so tall and dark, it suggest 
 ed the idea that they grew like Jack's bean-stalk in the 
 night. The dash of a cab on the stones was infrequent, 
 and became an event. An elevated train shot across the 
 opening of the street on one of the more distant avenues. 
 
 " Davenant," said Medcott, pausing an instant and lay 
 ing his hand on the other's shoulder, " do you think she 
 could ever be happy here ? Tell me as you hope for hap 
 piness yourself." 
 
 Davenant's lips drooped into his curious, pleasant, cyni 
 cal smile. 
 
 " Can't you think of a better invocation, my dear fellow? 
 Have I ever struck you as a person who pinned much faith 
 to his own hopes of happiness ?" 
 
 " Tell me," said Medcott impatiently, " do you think she 
 would ?" 
 
 " Of whom might you be speaking ?" 
 
 " You know whom I mean Rhodope Trent." 
 
 "Do I think she could be happy here ?" repeated Dave 
 nant as they moved on again. A look, half tenderness, 
 half regret, crossed his face. " I think she could so far 
 as women ever are happy under the right conditions. I 
 don't think she would find her true happiness in always 
 being in the front of the box, but with the man that loved 
 her" 
 
 "Well!" 
 
 "Then I think it would be just the same old risk not 
 
152 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 materially increased," he concluded, glancing at his com 
 panion. 
 
 " I love her," said Medcott in a low tone. 
 
 " Yes ?" observed Davenant quietly. 
 
 " Yes. I don't know whether I have known it before or 
 not. I know it to-night; but rather than bring her here to 
 be unhappy, or to be happy in losing that singular strength 
 and sweetness that distinguishes her " he paused a mo 
 ment. 
 
 " Men are apt to think there is something singular in the 
 women they love, I fancy before they marry them," com 
 mented Davenant. 
 
 " And after, too. This is no case for satire, Davenant, 
 and you know it." 
 
 " Well, then, why should she lose them ? They are part 
 of her." 
 
 "Why do we ever lose what is best in us? Because 
 we are stifled! Rather than that I would never see 
 her again. I would only remember her always," he 
 went on almost passionately. "To have her sensitive 
 ness touched by insinuations and ridicule her ignorance 
 made a discomfort her very truthfulness a disadvan 
 tage to have repeated some of the scenes we saw last 
 summer, Davenant and I I could not protect her; a 
 man cannot always protect a woman ! Heavens ! It 
 would be like bringing one of those delicate ferns from 
 its forest freshness to blacken in the gas-light of a city 
 parlor." 
 
 "A little worse, perhaps." 
 
 " If I only knew, if I could only tell whether I was shut 
 ting away my own best happiness or only saving hers, that 
 is the question." 
 
 " You talk curiously for a man in love. You ought to 
 have no doubts and then vainly repent afterwards." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 153 
 
 " I know I know, but it is love, just the same. I am 
 pretty well acquainted with myself, Davenant. That is the 
 reason. I know the perfect charm of her fitness in the 
 place. I know the glamour that Nature casts over men of 
 my temperament. How much did all that influence not 
 my conception of her not that, Tom but that of my 
 own faith and devotion to the ideal? I distrust myself, I 
 might now and then feel that I must slip back to a lower 
 plane." 
 
 " I think it extremely probable," assented Davenant. 
 " You wouldn't care for the mountains all the year round, 
 but neither do I think it a foregone conclusion that she 
 does. I wish you might see how she would adapt herself 
 to other conditions." 
 
 "I wish I might," said Medcott briefly, "you understand 
 me, Davenant ; it is her happiness I am thinking of." 
 
 "Yes, I understand you, and, what is more, I believe 
 what you say. With most men I should conclude that this 
 hesitation was the reflection of their doubt of their own 
 happiness, but I do you no such injustice." His voice had 
 dropped its tone of half -mockery, which somehow peo 
 ple never found unsympathetic, and he said with earnest 
 ness as he stopped with Medcott at the foot of the stone 
 steps, 
 
 "But tell me this before I go any further have you 
 ever said to her a word of what you have been saying to 
 me?" Medcott shook his head. "Wait a minute, I know 
 that you may have said a dozen things that you had bet 
 ter not have said. One doesn't float around on Shadow 
 Pond or watch the sunset at the stile with an utterly in 
 experienced person without slipping most heedlessly into 
 these things but have you ever said to her that you love 
 her in such terms that she can be saying it over to herself 
 now?" 
 
154 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " It is well that no one but you ask me that question, 
 Davenant," said Medcott, his voice low and tense; "but I 
 will answer you. I never have," he added solemnly, " so 
 help me God !" 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 " Mais savez vous quelle est la difference entre 1'erreur des hommes et 
 1'erreur des femmes ? Non, vous ne le savez pas ! Voila en quoi elle 
 consiste : un homme pourra dire, par exemple, que deux et deux ne 
 font pas quatre, mais cinq : une femme dira que deux et deux font une 
 bougie de cire." 
 
 '* And she I'll tell you calmly would decree 
 That I should roast at a slow fire, 
 If that would compass her desire 
 And make her one whom they invite 
 To the famous ball to-morrow night." 
 
 DAVENANT found Needham alone in his office the next 
 day at noon. The latter was not in the good spirits of the 
 evening before ; certain lines about his mouth and eyes, 
 which had not been evident then, were easily to be seen 
 to-day, and, though his manner was quieter, there was in it 
 a marked restlessness and constraint, the more perceptible 
 that he tried to be unusually cordial and at ease. He 
 pulled up a curtain with a jerk, shoved a chair out of what 
 was not in the least his way, kicked the waste-basket aside, 
 and made other hospitable demonstrations. Meanwhile 
 Davenant took a chair and lighted a cigarette. 
 
 " Been so busy all the morning that I haven't had time 
 to cool off," said Needham, throwing himself down into his 
 revolving chair ; " so busy I haven't had time to do my 
 wife's commissions, by the same token," he added, glancing 
 at a twist of paper on his desk. " She wanted me to leave 
 an order for some flowers doesn't trust me with commis 
 sions often," and he laughed, " but she couldn't see her 
 
156 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 way out of it this morning. I sha'n't earn her lasting in 
 gratitude, however, if I forget 'em she probably expected 
 me to. Wants flowers for that Adell musicale." He seemed 
 to be talking against time. " That's another confounded 
 humbug," he asserted positively, causing Davenant unsmil- 
 ingly to consider whether or not the implied former one 
 was Florence. " Music ! Who in possession of his faculties 
 wants really wants to hear music ?" He waited appa 
 rently for an indignant response, but Davenant only said, 
 
 " It depends a little upon what faculties one possesses, 
 doesn't it ?" 
 
 " All humbug ! All sheer humbug and affectation !" said 
 Needham violently. " It's the fashion that's what it is ! 
 And people are persuading themselves that they'd rather 
 hear it than eat ! Most of 'em would give a dollar to get 
 away from the best musical show going. I'm not musical 
 myself." 
 
 " No ?" interjected Davenant in mild surprise. 
 
 " No, I'm not. And consequently I'm not afraid to say 
 what I think and I think it's all a confounded humbug." 
 
 " I suppose there isn't anybody else in the world, Need- 
 ham, but you and me, who isn't afraid to say what he 
 thinks," observed Davenant lazily. He didn't believe 
 Charlie had summoned him to shed new light on the ques 
 tion of music, but he was quite willing to let him take his 
 own time. 
 
 "Precious few," assented Needham. "I'm not and I 
 believe you're not. But we can't either of us say that about 
 many people we know." 
 
 " I don't believe I'm not," reflected Davenant. " I'm 
 afraid now to say I enjoy music. I thought I did rather 
 just a little now and then, you know." 
 
 "Oh, rather!" and he pushed a paper-weight from one 
 side of the table to another. " That's another thing. But 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 157 
 
 these people that rave, you know, and that are so uplifted 
 by it and find it the great gift of inarticulate expression. 
 Great Scott ! as if they hadn't rather articulately express 
 themselves over a chicken-fight !" 
 
 Davenant suspected that Florence had been indulging in 
 a burst of well-regulated enthusiasm which had proved ir 
 ritating, as her bursts of enthusiasm sometimes were to 
 people who saw the source of the inspiration. 
 
 "The Adells rave over it, you see, and the Adells are 
 pretty honest sort of people as people go," he said, to keep 
 up the conversation. " I never caught them at liking any 
 thing recklessly because it was the fashion." 
 
 11 Oh, the Adells !" repeated Needham, who had not meant 
 to be suddenly confronted by the Adells, who straightfor 
 wardly indulged their own tastes, having no social axes to 
 grind. " They say they do." 
 
 " Oh, well," drawled Davenant, " if it comes to a ques 
 tion of personal veracity, we're all likely to have the other 
 man's word taken, you know." 
 
 There was a tap at the door, and a young broker who 
 occupied the next office came in. 
 
 "You're here, Needham," he said, nodding to Davenant 
 whom he knew slightly ; " I met Slyck outside and he 
 asked me to give you this he was on the way to the station. 
 Good tobacco you're smoking, Mr. Davenant," and with 
 another nod he left the room. 
 
 Needham read hastily the note the man had given him 
 and then pitched it into the waste-basket with the mono 
 syllable that ought to receive a most grateful public rec 
 ognition, so overworked is it by the whole Anglo-Saxon 
 race. 
 
 "Another bit of my cursed luck!" he said. "The truth 
 is, as I told you last night, I am in a tight place, Davenant. 
 I want a few thousand dollars in a Hurry and I don't 
 
158 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 want to borrow it around here," he added significantly. " I 
 know you haven't anybody dependent on you, and after 
 seeing you this summer and reviving old times more or less, 
 it seemed to me easier to go to you for a friendly turn than 
 to anybody else I know. Then, again, you haven't got any 
 of that cursed Pharasaism that's going to make your 
 friendship worse than an enmity to lay hold of!" 
 
 He had poured out his words in the same nervous, restless 
 way in which he had arraigned music-lovers, and now he 
 paused suddenly. 
 
 " Go ahead," said Davenant, taking his cigarette out 
 of his mouth to speak. He would have been surprised, 
 if anything in the way of reverses in fortune surprises 
 an American, for he had believed Needham to be a rich 
 man. 
 
 " I am going to tell you the whole business, and then you 
 can do as you please. I've been gambling, of course, a 
 little in stocks and a good deal at the poker-table naturally 
 the former has been the more expensive. I've had the 
 devil's own luck against me in both, Davenant and I've 
 spent money that I ought to have shot myself before I 
 touched there ! that's the matter in a nutshell." 
 
 His bravado failed to cover his real shame and mortifica 
 tion. As the light smile he had maintained through much 
 of his talk left his lips, he looked thoroughly worn and 
 harassed. He was not of the stuff of which successful 
 sharpers are made, and the perquisites of dishonesty had 
 not been sufficiently large to make them look like the guer 
 don of honest toil. Davenant was sorry for him, and as he 
 thought of Florence and her utter inability to be anything 
 but an added burden under such complications, his former 
 envy of this man seemed as unreal as a shadow. 
 
 " I like your telling me the whole business," he said 
 slowly, " but I don't see how I'm going to help you, Need- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 159 
 
 ham. I haven't money enough in the world, probably, to 
 pull you out of the hole you're in." 
 
 " I don't want much," said Needham eagerly ; " that's 
 the worst of my luck ! If I can get over this place, I'm all 
 right I know I am. I can see my way clear. But just 
 now I'm pinched, and I must pay a debt that not to pay 
 means " he paused, and laughed unmirthfully "well, 
 means the bow-wows and no mistake." 
 
 The brilliant sunshine poured in under the curtain Need- 
 ham had pulled part of the way down. The roar of the 
 street came up to them, and there was the sound of voices, 
 gay or abrupt, hurried always, and the passing and repass- 
 ing of busy feet just outside the door. The whole situa 
 tion was trite as possible, 
 
 " Well, I guess we'll have to throw a stick at them any 
 way," said Davenant. 
 
 " I knew you would give a man a leg up !" said Needham, 
 resting his folded arms on the table, and leaning over tow 
 ards Davenant. For the first time since the interview began, 
 he remained in one position for more than a moment. " It's 
 chiefly on account of Florence I care, of course. It's no easy 
 thing to tell a woman like that that you can't pay her bills." 
 
 Needham did not mean to be cynical, he only thought of 
 this contingency as the most natural one to bring out the 
 unwelcome truth. Davenant saw this, and fancied that he 
 perceived also that Needham meant to call upon his past 
 sentiment for Florence and his unwillingness that she 
 should suffer, as an unmentioned ally whose presence he 
 had felt in his first impulse towards him as a confidant. In 
 Davenant's silence there seemed no lack of sympathy ; he 
 was thinking of his own affairs in the light of this appeal, 
 and apparently so Charlie understood it, for he was the first 
 to speak again. Evidently he found in confession the usual 
 relief. 
 
160 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " Do you remember that old man up in the valley ?" he 
 asked suddenly. 
 
 " What old man ? Denver Trent ?" 
 
 " The same," with an accent of jollity which his voice 
 immediately lost. " Well, I don't know what devil prompted 
 me, but I talked speculation to him." 
 
 Needham paused, for Davenant had risen and looked at 
 him with a certain quiet scorn. 
 
 " Go on." 
 
 " On my honor, it was in all honesty, Davenant these 
 things hadn't happened then." 
 
 " Well ?" 
 
 " And he caught the fever a little the longest-headed 
 will get it, you know ; and more on account of that niece 
 of his than anything else, he gave me a few hundreds to 
 turn into thousands, and and," he concluded defiantly, 
 looking away from the contempt of Davenant's eyes, " I've 
 got to make some payments there, among others, and I 
 haven't the money to make them. There you have it." 
 
 " So that is what you were doing those September even 
 ings that we sat by his fire and smoked his pipes ?" said 
 Davenant slowly. 
 
 " Confound you, Davenant !" said Needham in a burst 
 of humiliated remorse. " I won't let you or any man talk 
 to me as if I lay in wait to beat an old man out of his hard- 
 earned savings if I am down on my luck ! I did it to make 
 him more comfortable that's God's truth." 
 
 " God's truth !" repeated Davenant. He spoke quietly, 
 and the hesitation of his speech was increased rather than 
 lessened, but its force was none the less unmistakable. 
 "This is a crime that you have committed, Needham a 
 crime. I don't object to your playing for high stakes down 
 here in any infernal business where everybody knows the 
 dishonesty of the game " 
 
WHITE BIRCHES l6l 
 
 " Go on," said Needham sulkily, " kick a man when he's 
 down it's the safest time." 
 
 " But that fine old fellow up there ! To take the money 
 that he has won by hard work, of which you men down 
 here know not the first stroke or indication money that he 
 has wrung out of a reluctant earth and kept by actual pri 
 vation and I'm not giving you a fancy sketch of a New 
 England farmer, either, I'm talking of what \know and that 
 you have tossed into your game of taking out of somebody 
 else's pocket" Needham sprang to his feet and struck the 
 table with his fist, but Davenant did not stop and he was 
 not interrupted "the funds to buy what nobody owns 
 when you run a risk of losing this, that he looks on as 
 an assurance of future comfort you commit a crime." 
 
 His indignation had carried him further than he had 
 meant to go. It was true that it was in Denver Trent's 
 person that he felt the wrong and the injustice of it, but the 
 knowledge that it was not he alone that would suffer the 
 thought of Rhodope had stirred him to a degree of emo 
 tion that he rarely permitted himself to reach. " The only 
 excuse for you," he concluded, " is that it is not the crime of 
 an individual, but that of a body of men which ought to 
 make it worse, but doesn't." 
 
 " Why don't you add a few more bits of information and 
 then send for the police?" asked Needham, still sullenly. 
 " Is that all ?" 
 
 " No, it isn't all," answered Davenant in another tone, 
 his oddly attractive smile coming back for an instant to his 
 lips. " How much must you have ?" 
 
 Needham looked up quickly from the chair he had 
 dropped into after his explosion of temper. 
 
 " I believe you're one of the best fellows in the world," 
 he said. 
 
 " If you go on believing things of that sort without look- 
 ii 
 
1 62 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 ing into them you'll never keep out of trouble," observed 
 Davenant coolly. " Now look here." 
 
 It needed but a few minutes more to bring the interview 
 to a close, and Davenant, declining to lunch with Need- 
 ham, whose sense of relief had restored a languishing ap 
 petite, left him with a mild amusement underlying his half- 
 contemptuous interest. He was sorry for him his volatil 
 ity and want of steadfast purpose in any direction drove him 
 from one excitement to another, almost of necessity, but he 
 could not pardon him the unscrupulous thoughtlessness 
 which had threatened to wreck the modest and dearly 
 bought prosperity of a man like Denver Trent, with that of 
 his adopted children. Jib, of course, could make his own 
 way, but Rhodope ! 
 
 " I am several kinds of a fool," he remarked to himself, 
 without bitterness, at this point, as he crossed one of the 
 unfashionable avenues. " I could have knocked Needham 
 down when I heard his blessed statements, and yet I was 
 perfectly conscious that I was rilled with unmitigated grat 
 ification that it was in my power to do something for 
 Rhodope Trent. Something that she will never know 
 about either. Of course," he continued to speculate, with 
 his smallest smile, " I'd rather she would know. If she 
 could find it out in some way utterly unknown to me, and 
 reflecting much credit upon my careful method of conceal 
 ment, and in a burst of gratitude should hail me Benefactor 
 and Friend I should like that better. But I don't know 
 just whom I could depend upon to tell her without letting 
 me suspect Hullo !" 
 
 The interjection was addressed to a small girl carrying a 
 large basket and draped in a shawl folded cornerwise, and 
 which, being intended for a full-grown woman, dragged fore 
 and aft, in spite of her efforts to hold it up. The com 
 plexity of the situation was momentarily relieved by her 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 163 
 
 falling apparently flat on her face so suddenly that Dave- 
 nant nearly fell over her. He picked her up and waited for 
 her to cry ; but though she had barked her wrist and banged 
 her knee, with the patience of a frequently barked and 
 banged childhood she did not weep, the luxury of indis 
 criminate grief being one of the many confined to the 
 wealthy classes. She carried her wrist to her mouth, while 
 she carefully examined the contents of the basket, after 
 which she looked up at Davenant, whose assistance she had 
 received with as thorough inattention as if it had fallen 
 from the skies. 
 
 " Nothing injured, I hope," he said politely. As her large 
 eyes and small face remained quite unintelligent, he repeated 
 the substance of his inquiry, and she shook her head. 
 
 " Does your wrist hurt you ?" 
 
 She looked at her wrist and then at him with a wise little 
 smile. 
 
 " Not as much as a lickin'," she replied. 
 
 " No," he assented, " not nearly as much." 
 
 As he spoke his thoughts flew back with a sudden sense 
 of the drollness of the contrast to the other distress he had 
 just been witness of, and the different manner in which it 
 had been borne. Somehow this seemed the more real. 
 
 " Here," he said, " is a small piece of money which I am 
 going to give you. It comes under the head of indiscrimi 
 nate alms-giving, which has gone by, and, moreover, I rather 
 hope you will spend it foolishly." 
 
 The child's eyes were fixed on the coin, and she did not 
 understand a word he said, but she listened, fascinated by 
 his smile. 
 
 " In order that I may not be too unenlightened," he went 
 on, " I give it for an object, the promotion of stoicism 
 among the poor. I am glad to contribute something tow 
 ards its support. It comes high, but the poor must have it." 
 
164 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 Without a word the child took the money and went 
 rapidly on, the point of the old shawl dipping here and 
 there in wanton irregularity, her swiftness suggesting the 
 presence of a fear that the gentleman might think better 
 of it. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon that a half-formed intention 
 that had been floating about in Davenant's mind ever since 
 the night before took a shape which led him to Needham's 
 house up -town. He must call on Florence, to be barely 
 civil, and as a result of his attention so lately directed to 
 the Needham family, and a sort of curiosity to note the dif 
 ference between the husband and the wife, due to his habits 
 of observation, he was led to go there the same day. 
 
 Mrs. Needham was at home, and in a few minutes he 
 found himself by her daintly appointed tea-table and her 
 still more daintily appointed self. She wore a somewhat 
 daring tea-gown of pale yellow with shaded effects of golden- 
 brown velvet, and here and there, at odd times, a good deal 
 of cream-colored lace. The result with her blonde hair and 
 soft complexion within the light of the many lamps was dis 
 tinctly fetching. Her thoughts were pleasant ones. A 
 visitor of social prominence, who was a great bore, had just 
 left the room, and although Florence was of too lofty a 
 nature ever to be really bored to the annihilating degree 
 suffered by less elevated spirits, even she could not prevent 
 a lulling sense of physical relief from permeating her re 
 lieved frame. She was going to the Adell musicale this 
 evening, and although, to be sure, it was a large one and a 
 lot of people were asked, still it was a pleasant thing to go 
 to the Adell's at all, and she would wear a gown which 
 would go far to make such discriminating people regret not 
 having asked her oftener. The door was opened by the 
 servant, and she looked up and saw Tom Davenant. For 
 the moment she felt that she was really in perigee. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 165 
 
 "Why, Tom," she exclaimed, coming forward with a 
 charming impulsiveness. " I mean, How do you do, Mr. 
 Davenant?" she supplemented with her sparkling laugh. 
 
 "Well, Florence," said Davenant, and then with imme 
 diate imitation of her own manner, " I mean, Very well, I 
 thank you, Mrs. Needham." 
 
 She was prettier even than she had been in the summer. 
 The finish, the luxury of her surroundings, the soft -tinted 
 illuminations, the perfume, the studied and undisturbed 
 perfection of color and outline, suited her better than the 
 freer, plainer, natural surroundings of country life. 
 
 He looked at his chair, then at hers, with a slight anxiety, 
 after they were seated. 
 
 " I was afraid I had taken the most becoming chair," he 
 murmured, " I knew you'd never forgive me if I had. It 
 doesn't matter to me, you know when you've once made 
 up your mind to be good rather than pretty, you don't mind 
 things like that." 
 
 " I thank the Providence that on my birth has smiled," 
 she said gayly, " that I can be pretty in any kind of chair, 
 and as for my being good " 
 
 " That kind of chair hasn't been invented yet," finished 
 Davenant lazily. " The stool of penitence comes first be 
 sides." 
 
 Florence laid down her sugar-tongs and looked at him. 
 She felt a little reckless this afternoon success is apt to 
 make us so. She fancied that even a confession of wasted 
 hopes from Tom Davenant might be impending. 
 
 " Do you really think that I have much to repent ?" she 
 demanded, looking into his eyes. She dwelt slightly on 
 the first pronoun. 
 
 " Oh, my, yes !" answered Davenant easily, as he looked 
 back. " And wouldn't you be sorry if you hadn't ! Show 
 me the woman that wouldn't. Who is it says one of a 
 
1 66 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 woman's sweetest pleasures is to cause regret ? it's the same 
 thing." 
 
 " One certainly need not weep over having caused that 
 sort of regret. It doesn't last long enough for one to get 
 at one's handkerchief." 
 
 " Most beautiful things are evanescent," he admitted. 
 
 Florence was a little provoked, and she shut the lid of 
 her tea-pot with a snap. 
 
 " I believe you come to see me just to laugh at me," she 
 asserted. 
 
 " It is you I come to see, just the same." There was a 
 touch of seriousness in his tone which mollified her. That 
 which he said was true at least. She glanced up in quick 
 recognition, and then went, on pouring tea. Her sparkling 
 fingers, her sparkling eyes, and her sparkling silver pro 
 duced a general effect of gleam and glitter. 
 
 " You ought to keep smoked glass for the benefit of your 
 visitors," he said as he took his cup. " You are a strain 
 on the eyes." 
 
 " That's the sort of thing you have always said to me," 
 she pouted. " Always about the effect I produce, or wish 
 to produce. Just as if that was all there is of me." 
 
 Davenant checked an impulse to say that he guessed it 
 was. 
 
 " Well, you like a successful effect, don't you ?" he sug 
 gested. 
 
 " I don't know that I do. I have a great deal in my life 
 that people don't understand," she averred, with a trans 
 parent little sigh. " Perhaps it would be better if I did." 
 
 " Now you take my advice, Florence," said Davenant 
 honestly, " and don't you go in for being a genuine, candid 
 sort of person it wouldn't do at all. I know it's the fash 
 ion, but one has to have certain natural qualifications." 
 
 It was singular how old habits asserted themselves after 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 167 
 
 all these years. He talked to her with the old ease and 
 familiarity, and she listened with the shrewd half - compre 
 hension with which she had always listened to him. Only 
 in him was wanting that which had once made their talk 
 his lecturing and her speculations but the foam on the 
 current the passionate longing which had thrilled every 
 moment, to touch her hand, her cheek, her hair, and to 
 hear her say she loved him. That deep undercurrent had 
 swept itself away, but on the surface of the quieter pool 
 the bubbles of laughter, admonition, and resentment tossed 
 as lightly as ever. She was not in the least angry at his 
 last remark. Instead, she turned it over in her mind. 
 
 " Do you really think so ?" she mused, looking at him 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 He nodded. Evidently what he had said influenced her, 
 but she changed the subject. 
 
 " Are you going to the musicale to-night ?" she asked. 
 
 " I believe I am. Who is the young woman they have 
 there from the South or something ?" 
 
 She hesitated a moment. 
 
 " I don't know," she replied. She had not known there 
 was to be any one of the sort, which was an occasion for a 
 sudden, sharp regret. She was glad she had found out be 
 fore she went. 
 
 " She's an original young person, I believe. Unconven 
 tional and clever. Never has been anywhere before. It's 
 quite a card to have that sort of person at one's entertain 
 ments nowadays. Rouses the jaded interest." 
 
 Florence stirred her tea, and thought. 
 
 " So it is," she assented. Davenant had spoken idly, 
 with no thought of the effect of his words, but now as he 
 noticed Mrs. Needham's thoughtfulness, and recognized 
 with amusement the fact that she was running hastily 
 over in her mind all the unconventional people she knew, 
 
1 68 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 with the idea of finding somebody to present at her next 
 entertainment, a sudden suggestion came to him. Was not 
 this just the opportunity that Medcott had wished for ? 
 He did not stop to consider all the manifest disadvantages 
 of the scheme. For one of the few times in his life, Dave- 
 nant spoke from impulse. 
 
 " Why don't you get Rhodope Trent down here ?" he 
 asked lazily ; " she'd combine well." 
 
 " Rhodope Trent !" repeated Florence, sitting up straight 
 in her chair. 
 
 " Yes, rather unusual type of beauty would look well 
 in your parlor. Out of place, but that is interesting and 
 would make you the more harmonious, you know." 
 
 Davenant spoke indifferently, but he watched with in 
 terest the effect of what he said. 
 
 " She'd have a pleasant winter. I fancy she'd attract 
 some attention. I admire her uncommonly myself." 
 
 " So does Mr. Medcott." 
 
 " Yes, so does Medcott. He'll probably want to make 
 a study of her." 
 
 It was an unscrupulous proceeding, this of Davenant's, 
 but the idea having once recommended itself to him, he 
 gave the same attention to carrying it out, by playing upon 
 Florence Needham's well-known characteristics, as he would 
 have given to the development of a piece of literary work. 
 It amused him to see the effect of his suggestions. To 
 Florence the idea came also as the solving of a problem. 
 Its fulfilment would insure Tom Davenant's presence ; 
 more than that, it would bring that of Austin Medcott. 
 What had seemed the night before so difficult of attain 
 ment would follow in the natural course of things. Her 
 feeling for Medcott had drowned for the moment her jeal 
 ousy of Rhodope. She must see him of that only was 
 she conscious. And then the social advantage of bring- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 169 
 
 ing forward a country girl, over whom a man of letters like 
 Davenant and an artist like Medcott had lost their heads. 
 Why had she not thought of it before ? 
 
 " I think I shall ask her to come," she said. 
 
 Then their talk fell naturally on the valley and the past 
 summer, and Mrs. Needham guessed why it was that Med 
 cott had not answered her letter when Davenant told her 
 how he had been shut away from the city and all news of 
 it for weeks. She would have liked Davenant to dwell on 
 him and his affairs she liked even to hear his name but 
 he did not. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 " The deep religion of a thankful heart, 
 Which rests instinctively in Heaven's clear law 
 With a full peace, that never can depart 
 From its own steadfastness : a holy awe 
 For holy things." 
 
 " They do best, who if they cannot but admit Love, yet make it 
 keep quarter." 
 
 IT was Sunday noon. Service in the little church was 
 nearly over. Deacon Bunt, who sat in the front seat, and 
 listened to the word of God with kindly tolerance every 
 Sunday, glanced at the hymn-book to see that it was in 
 readiness for the last hymn. Mrs. Roble, a large woman, 
 whose breathing had been audible at intervals during the 
 sermon, discomposed herself into a final effort of atten 
 tion. 
 
 Tom Furwin shifted a morsel of tobacco, which had been 
 administered surreptitiously within the last few minutes, 
 from one cheek to the other, and, meeting Rhodope Trent's 
 eyes at that critical moment, colored violently under what 
 he felt was her disapproval, and moved his heavy boots 
 noisily from a secluded spot under the bench. Denver 
 Trent's fine, gray head was thrown back a little, as his up 
 turned eyes followed the clergyman's gestures, the direct 
 ness of his attention itself an inspiration in such an au 
 dience. With the choir, to which were dedicated those 
 seats, at right angles to the others, immediately about the 
 melodeon, sat Elizabeth French. She had become a little 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 171 
 
 sleepy, but just now she caught Jib Trent's unsmiling eyes, 
 and flushed into a perturbed wakefulness. Against the 
 whitewashed wall, her ears hearing the clergyman's words 
 and her thoughts wandering abroad, leaned Rhodope. She 
 had not even marked the delinquencies of Tom Furwin, 
 when her glance had revealed his shortcomings to his own 
 startled consciousness. She had let her gaze slip from the 
 speaker to Tom, and from him to the uncurtained window 
 against which a pine-tree shook now and then its snow- 
 weighted branches, and, scarcely conscious of this small 
 breach of attention, had returned to the legitimate occu 
 pation of the hour, and fixed her eyes on the preacher's 
 face. The little church was a cheerful, peaceful place in 
 summer, when to the picturesqueness of an utter simplic 
 ity, which is, after all, as symbolical as sumptuous decora 
 tion, were added the sweet scents of the fragrant season of 
 the year, and the lazy hum of the holiday of the insect 
 world, coming in through the open door and the raised 
 window. Then the now snow-weighted pine gently waved 
 green plumes in the sunlight, promising shade and cool 
 ness ; then the squares of free air within the window-frames, 
 towards which the eyes of impatient youth so often turned, 
 throbbed with the promise and exultance of welcoming Nat 
 ure, and the fancy wandered beyond the waving branches 
 and the blue sky, there visible, to unseen delicious freedom 
 and delights. Then the religious feeling that stirred the 
 exhortations of the preacher, and that breathes through the 
 Christian hymns, seemed a natural and simple emotion. 
 The world was a world of peace and pleasantness, Nature 
 was at one with the Christ who so loved it and so studied 
 its beautiful appropriateness ; the universe was God in 
 spired, and thrilled and glowed with the love and the light 
 that is about us, and over us, and beneath us like a gar 
 ment. 
 
172 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 But to-day the glow and the freedom were absent. In 
 winter the doors and windows were shut tight and the out 
 side air, when it entered, was an unwelcome intruder. The 
 heat from the iron stove reddened the cheeks, made the 
 eyes heavy, and benumbed the senses of the hard-working 
 men and women who sat rigidly upright in painful consci 
 entiousness, or drooped in the relaxation of forced inaction. 
 And up there in the pulpit some one was telling them to do 
 certain things that were very hard, and utterly opposed to 
 all naturalness and longings of man whatever. 
 
 " Be not weary in well-doing," exhorted the preacher. 
 
 It was his concluding sentence that he was beginning 
 with this repetition of his text. Rhodope had followed his 
 words, sometimes absently, sometimes attentively, and sud 
 denly it seemed as if her whole being was permeated by a 
 sense of the weariness of this very struggle that all the 
 teachings and interests of her life were holding her to. If 
 there were more to fight, it would not be so difficult but 
 who is able to stand up against weariness ? 
 
 Four or five months ago it had not so come home to her 
 this realization of the effort of trying to do the best that 
 in her lay. It had seemed that her life was opening and 
 developing into what were its best possibilities, in joy and 
 calm. Fulfilment after fulfilment seemed to lie before her 
 the religion which had long been part of her existence had 
 appeared to manifest itself in the assurance of happiness. 
 But of late this inspiration had somehow disappeared. Life 
 seemed weary and yet restless. The apostle knew of what 
 he spoke. It is not the satiety of evil, it is not the fatigue 
 of labor, it is the weight of exhausted enthusiasm that bur 
 dens the hands of those who would lift the world. The 
 clergyman closed his sermon, offered a short prayer, and 
 with much shuffling of feet and the usual air of factitious 
 activity the audience rose for the last hymn. Elizabeth, as 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 173 
 
 she shook out her draperies, cast a furtive look at Jib, but 
 he was stolidly gazing at his hymn-book, and with a little 
 toss of her head, thoroughly to convince herself that she 
 did not in the least care whether he looked or not, she ad 
 dressed herself to song. Every syllable uttered by her 
 fresh young voice reached Jib's ears so acutely that it 
 seemed to fill his brain. It was as if no one else was sing 
 ing, so conscious was he of the clear, sweet soprano that 
 lifted the somewhat depressing words of the hymn into an 
 atmosphere of encouragement, almost of gayety. He knew 
 just how she was holding her book, and just how often 
 she glanced away from the page, and yet he never looked 
 from his own book upon which the printed words met his 
 unseeing eyes, while they came with such swift interpreta 
 tion to his ears. The benediction was pronounced, and 
 the little audience filtered out through the door, beyond 
 which there began to be the sound of sleigh-bells and much 
 stamping off of snow. Rhodope looked anxiously at Jib 
 and then quickly towards Elizabeth, who was exchanging 
 elaborate civilities with Tom Furwin's mother. She laid 
 her hand on her brother's arm. 
 
 " Wait for Elizabeth, Jib," she said. Jib did not reply, 
 but she knew he had heard her. He did not shake off her 
 hand or in the least resent her suggestion, but he went 
 quietly on his way down the aisle. 
 
 "Jib," she repeated, "now you wait for Elizabeth." 
 He looked at her and smiled in tolerant kindliness, and 
 she dropped her hand and shook her head regretfully. She 
 knew this mood of her brother's very well. It was rare and 
 it was one against which beating was in vain. He would 
 not answer her further, and he would not be influenced by 
 her he would take his own way. It was now and then 
 after this fashion that Jib Trent evinced a sternness of pur 
 pose that seemed utterly foreign to his nature, and which, 
 
174 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 while she lamented it, called forth from Rhodope a de 
 votion which would not have been so complete had he 
 been always as yielding as he sometimes seemed. And 
 it was this trait that had caused Denver Trent to observe 
 with a chuckle that " Generally speakin' it was awful 
 easy to tow Jib home, but now and then when you picked 
 up the rope you found he'd got up steam to go t'other 
 way." 
 
 Outside, the white snow stretched itself over the hills, 
 flung the ends of its mantle across the hollows, and swept 
 with its fingers the leafless trees and the stalwart pines. 
 Heavy, awkward sleighs stood about the entrance ; their 
 owners were climbing in and tucking dingy buffalo-robes 
 about their feet. There was a good deal of excitement 
 when Mrs. Roble was being assisted into a quite narrow 
 sleigh. It seemed once or twice as if it wasn't going to be 
 done. Several persons of wide sympathies desisted from 
 their own similar efforts to watch hers. When she was 
 fairly in and had turned about with the genial smile with 
 which people, stout and unashamed, reward such friendly 
 interest, there was a general sense of relief. The rude 
 sleigh-bells jangled, and slowly the group on the wooden 
 steps grew smaller. 
 
 "I never could abide that kind of a stove anyway," said 
 a familiar voice just behind Rhodope. " It's one of them 
 stoves that the more fuel you put into it, the more it just 
 kinder winks, and you'd never know it had had anything at 
 all. You can git it red-hot if you want to, and. then you can 
 sit and freeze." 
 
 " I thought t'was pipin' this mornin'," said a mild voice. 
 
 "Well, 't warn't," was the uncompromising rejoinder. 
 " 'T warn't a mite above sixty-five. I felt cold." 
 
 "Well, I felt hot," said the other with more firmness than 
 would have been anticipated from such a voice. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 175 
 
 /" retorted the first speaker. " 'Tain't any sign 
 how ye feel. If there'd been a thermomety there, I tell 
 ye it wouldn't have riz above sixty-five I 'ain't been so 
 cold this season." 
 
 "How d'ye do, Miss Matilda," said Rhodope, turning 
 around, " I didn't know you were here." 
 
 " I didn't hardly know as I was either. I come over for 
 a little change. Ashur Dust sleighed me over yesterday. 
 He said 'twas dretful good sleighin'. I guess we'd 'a' come 
 better on wheels. We slumped and slumped." 
 
 " How's Tim ?" asked Rhodope ; " I don't see him much 
 in the winter." 
 
 "I guess there ain't anythin' the matter with him. I 
 ain't very well." 
 
 "Why, I'm sorry" 
 
 " Oh, there ain't any use bein' sorry. My food don't set 
 well, that's all. I came over to see how Roxana Dust's 
 would go. It's my belief she raises with yeast-cake. I 
 can smell a yeast-cake as fur as I can see it. She's stopped 
 to speak to the minister, and Ashur he's gone off after the 
 sleigh. I can't hear more'n half that minister says. I 
 ain't deaf either. I guess he ain't got much of a delivery. 
 That's Marcella Brown's girl, ain't it ?" 
 
 Out of the church-door came Elizabeth. She was talk 
 ing with two of the village youths, but her glance scanned 
 swiftly the group outside, and then followed Jib's figure up 
 the road. His pace was leisurely but unloitering. Her 
 voice fell a moment and then rose in its gayest tones as the 
 two boys went forward with her to the old sleigh which 
 Ashur Dust was just bringing up. 
 
 "Yes," said Rhodope, quietly, as she watched the pretty 
 girl, "that's Elizabeth." 
 
 " I didn't see her this mornin' she spent the night over 
 to Clock's," continued Miss Spore. "Well, I never see 
 
176 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 such airs as she puts on. And what ails that hat? You 
 don't suppose her head's made one-sided, do you ?" 
 
 Elizabeth paused just as she was climbing into the sleigh. 
 " Where's Miss Spore ?" she asked. 
 
 " She's comin'," answered Ashur. " You get up here along 
 of me." 
 
 Elizabeth looked back and saw Rhodope and Miss Ma 
 tilda ; they were almost the last people on the steps. She 
 turned away from the somewhat inefficient youths and waited 
 for them. 
 
 While Miss Spore climbed into the sleigh assisted by the 
 even-tempered Roxana, and remarking that she'd rather 
 climb into a cistern, Elizabeth said with an affectation of 
 entire indifference, 
 
 " Seems to me your brother is in a dreadful hurry to get 
 home, Rhodope." 
 
 "I don't believe he is," answered Rhodope, looking 
 straight into Elizabeth's eyes, in which there was a suspi 
 cious mistiness. " I don't believe he's in any hurry at all." 
 
 " Oh, well, it isn't anything to me," and she threw back 
 her head with a trifle more spirit than was called for by 
 complete indifference. 
 
 " Isn't it ?" said Rhodope slowly. " Then I'm very sorry." 
 
 Elizabeth looked at her a moment as if she would speak, 
 but as the inefficient youths called out, " I guess we can 
 h'ist you in now, Miss Elizabeth," she bit her lip, turned 
 away, and climbed lightly up to the place by Ashur's side. 
 From there she nodded a farewell, and they lumbered down 
 the rough road with that apparent gayety that sleigh-bells 
 lend to any sort of locomotion, however impeded. Rhodope 
 looked after them a moment. The glare of the noon sun 
 dazzled her eyes, but up the road she could see Jib's dark 
 figure against the white fields, swinging strongly on. Be 
 fore and behind him were other dark figures, little groups 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 177 
 
 of two and three, but he joined none of them, greeting one 
 and another, but passing by. She wanted to run after him 
 and walk home with him ; it should not be that they should 
 both be lonely while they had each other. But she checked 
 the impulse, and with a farewell glance at the shining peaks 
 that stood about her, she entered the church-door again, 
 her Sunday duties not yet over. 
 
 Meanwhile the Dust sleigh reached and passed the groups 
 which were making their way along the road and narrow 
 footpath. As Jib raised his eyes in response to the greet 
 ing called out by the genial Ashur, his smile faded sudden 
 ly and his eyes grew stern, and yet he caught no spectacle 
 more antagonistic than a pretty, rather pale face, looking 
 back from the front seat with eyes which tried to be cool 
 and defiant, and which succeeded instead in being admira 
 bly pleading and decidedly pathetic. Jib pushed his hands 
 farther into his pockets and walked doggedly on, and pa 
 thos and defiance alike vanished, and nothing remained 
 where they had been, save the back of a little red hat which 
 sped along the whiteness of the way. This change in the 
 relations which had existed between Jib and Elizabeth was 
 not that of a moment. It had begun in the early autumn, 
 when Elizabeth's natural coquetry had made itself evident 
 among her numerous admirers. The young fellow of whom 
 Florence had written to Medcott had been one of several 
 who hastened to declare themselves her victims, and it can 
 not be asserted that she showed any becoming regret at the 
 devastations which followed her footsteps. It was some 
 time before Jib was roused to resentment. His was not a 
 nature to be speedily kindled into petty jealousy, and, as 
 has been said, at first the all-absorbing nature of his love 
 for her left no room for speculations and requirements re 
 garding her feeling for him. Naturally this state of things 
 had not lasted forever, but certain admissions on Elizabeth's 
 
 12 
 
1 78 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 part having satisfied his unsuspecting trust in her, his se 
 curity was not easily shaken by the various irrelevancies of 
 his sweetheart. Elizabeth herself, led into these irrelevan 
 cies by vanity, a most natural love of experiment, and a gen 
 uine liking for amusement and those who provided her with 
 it, watched the effect upon him with a security as great, if 
 not as wise, as his own. Somewhat piqued by his apparent 
 indifference, she had thrown further provocation in his way, 
 and when he was finally roused to remonstrance, she re 
 torted with feminine daring, held out no promise of amend 
 ment, and, when he grew angry, waited confidently for his 
 anger to subside and for renewed terms of amity. A wiser 
 woman would have paused before reaching this point, for it 
 was here that surprise lay in wait for her. It has been fre 
 quently observed that an unsuspecting nature, once awak 
 ened, is more difficult to lull again to slumber than one 
 more easily startled. The outbreak had come just before 
 Elizabeth had left the valley, and frightened and regretful 
 she had gone away without an opportunity to set things 
 right. The fact that she had not dared tell him that the 
 irresponsible Schumacher accompanied her half the way, 
 when he learned it, added confirmation to Jib's distrust, 
 and the summer's idyl was apparently at an end. This had 
 all taken place during the last half of September. What of 
 struggle or regret followed for Jib it was difficult to esti 
 mate. Even Rhodope could not do more than guess that 
 it had made a great difference in his life. He returned to 
 his favorite books, and Denver Trent watched him with 
 quiet interest, after half a day of which observation he 
 remarked to Rhodope, as Jib strolled out of the room, that 
 "there warn't no sort of commentaries on any kind of a 
 book, whether it was Scriptures, or whether it wasn't, like a 
 little enlightenin' experience." 
 
 The conversation went no further, but Rhodope sighed 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 179 
 
 unconsciously as she recognized the truth of the assertion 
 possibly her mental application of it was not confined to 
 Jib alone. 
 
 The long autumn passed with its gorgeous foliage, its 
 biting frosts, and its cold winds, as did the first months of 
 winter, and still, if Jib now and then laid down his book and 
 gazed idly at the glory of the hills, and then returned im 
 patiently to the page, no one but himself knew that it was 
 to gaze at a vision in which the heroine of the novel, were 
 she noble lady, gypsy queen, barbarian enchantress, or vil 
 lage maiden, appeared dressed in bespangled garments, 
 standing in an open chariot, guiding four prancing ponies 
 down a dusty street. 
 
 In January came a letter from Marcella to her old friend, 
 Roxana Dust. Elizabeth had never been as well since she 
 left the valley ; Nicholas was going to hunt up a kangaroo 
 and a few other miscellaneous attractions, and she thought 
 she would go with him. Would Roxana take Elizabeth to 
 board for a couple of months, so that she might be at ease 
 about her and know that she was among friends ? So Eliz 
 abeth came back to the valley, her brilliant beauty a little 
 paled ; and when Jib first met her at the post-office there was 
 a new pleading look in the eyes that met his, which affected 
 the beating of his heart after a manner hitherto associated 
 only with precipices, battles, and concealments under the 
 very feet of the enemy ; but in spite of it he had lifted his 
 cap and gone away with the mail, while Elizabeth had stood 
 looking after him a moment and then climbed into the Dust 
 sleigh, her lip trembling like that of a well-scolded child. 
 That was two weeks ago. For one reason or another, or 
 perhaps with the unreasonableness of one who lets an im 
 portant decision rest on the turn of a card, she had looked 
 to this particular Sunday as a day which should clear away 
 the clouds which lay between them. For one .thing it was 
 
ISO WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 Sunday, and Elizabeth still held that simple faith in the 
 Sabbath as an agent for good which is rapidly becoming 
 eliminated from a less hide-bound generation under the en 
 lightenment of Sunday newspapers and sacred concerts. 
 Then she knew that she should see him at church, and that 
 would be a step she had not been able to go the previous 
 week on account of a storm. Moreover, she knew she should 
 look pretty in that particular bonnet moreover, she didn't 
 care what was the reason, he would come and speak to her 
 and listen to her, because because he must. And now 
 she was driving home, and he had not spoken to her, and 
 the snow was hopelessly glaring, and the hills hopelessly 
 high, and life was hopelessly long ! 
 
 " Those Trents," said Miss Matilda Spore, behind her, 
 " they're the perversest family I ever did see. They'd rath 
 er walk than ride any day, just to show they ken do it. I 
 guess when Jib there's got the rheumatism he'll wish he 
 hadn't kicked the snow 'round so much. There ain't no 
 call for a man to have the rheumatism unless he wants to 
 get it standin' round in puddles." 
 
 " I dono as Jib's hardly responsible for the snow's bein' 
 on the way to church," said tolerant Mrs. Dust. 
 
 "Perhaps he ain't," retorted Miss Spore sharply, "but 
 I suppose he could have rode home with Denver. Look at 
 Denver's left leg." This was evidently mere rhetoric, as 
 Denver's left leg was probably inside his cottage. " That's 
 the way he got it. Fishin' all day, gettin' wet through and 
 trackin' home mud on to the clean floor. I know old Mis' 
 Trent couldn't keep him settin' still noways. Jib'll limp 
 worse than he does." Elizabeth's very ears were scarlet 
 with indignation. Jib never would limp, she was entirely 
 sure of that. He might treat her with positive cruelty, he 
 might be selfish and stupid, and she hated him but he 
 would never limp like Uncle Denver. She wished that the 
 
WHITE BIRCHES l8l 
 
 sleigh would tip over and spill Miss Spore into a good hard 
 place ; and as for herself why, it might kill her for all she 
 cared but she'd just like Miss Spore jounced ! In this tem 
 pest of emotion it is not strange that she did not trust her 
 self to speak. The sleigh turned off the main road and 
 made its way along a less broken lane. In a few moments 
 they drew up at the rambling farm-house, and Elizabeth 
 sprang down, ran up to her own little room, and broke into 
 a passion of tears. 
 
 " There's a party goin' snow-shoein' to-morrow night over 
 to the half-way tavern," said Ashur Dust after the four- 
 o'clock dinner, during which Elizabeth had been unusually 
 quiet. " Ever been, Elizabeth ?" 
 
 " No, never," she answered ; " I wish I could go." 
 
 " Well, I guess you can. Some of 'em are goin' around 
 in the ox-cart, and they can pick you up if you get tired. Just 
 get me my pipe, Elizabeth; I guess I'm gettin' kinder rheu 
 matic, or else it's the chair kinder like to stay settin' after 
 Sunday dinner." 
 
 " That's just the way you get rheumatism," said Miss 
 Spore. " If you'd git up and stir around " 
 
 " You just said that was what gave it to people stirring 
 round !" flashed Elizabeth, wheeling about on Miss Spore. 
 The flame of resentment still burned brightly. There was 
 a moment's silence. Ashur Dust winked with care at his 
 genial wife. 
 
 " You did for a fact, Matilda," he said. 
 
 Miss Spore had never learned that consistency was the 
 hobgoblin of weak minds, but it held no terrors for her. 
 
 " Wai," she remarked to Elizabeth, " I guess you 'ain't 
 got it in your tongue, anyhow." 
 
 Notwithstanding the temperate correction of this reply, 
 she secretly entertained from this hour a higher opinion of 
 Elizabeth French. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ' ' Dearest, 
 
 When the mesmerizer Snow 
 With his hand's first sweep 
 Put the earth to sleep 
 'Twas a time when the heart could show 
 All." 
 
 " I'll wipe away all trivial fond records." 
 
 BEFORE the hour fixed for the snow-shoeing party, the 
 swift flame which had burst out in Elizabeth's indirect de 
 fence of Jib from the aspersions of Miss Spore, and which 
 seemed to scorch her own heart when she was silent, had 
 sunk more than once into the smouldering embers of re 
 sentment, and been fanned again into a fire of passion 
 ate regret. Now her eyes brightened with the satisfaction 
 of conscious power as she dwelt on the thought that the 
 devotion of at least two of the party was sure to be hers, 
 and she would show Jib Trent here her train of thought 
 lost coherency and paused in vague triumph, only to be 
 rendered cruelly definite by the reflection that, alas ! Jib 
 had been "shown" various things of similar import, and 
 had borne the spectacle unscathed. Then the anticipation 
 would terminate in a sweet but fleeting vision of herself and 
 Jib, standing on the Dust threshold exchanging farewells 
 after it was all over, which was banished by a sudden tide 
 which swept across her consciousness, the simple longing 
 for his presence, for the grasp of his hand, for the care, 
 the ever-watchful tenderness of which she had been con- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 183 
 
 scious, whether expressed or not, for a little of that vanished 
 security in which she had rested and with which she had 
 trifled. Elizabeth was a remarkably concrete person ; she 
 had no fancy for abstractions, no taste for self-analysis; 
 almost no thoughtfulness, but she felt the less unmistak 
 ably. Through all these emotional variations ran the antici 
 pation of the coming expedition. She clung to that in 
 moods of retaliation and reconciliation alike that should 
 not pass as had the other opportunities, when she had been 
 less enlightened concerning her own sentiments. 
 
 The crust was hard and gleaming. The moon, a little 
 past the full, shed a light, faint and suggestive, rather than 
 brilliant and revealing. The muffled figures stood in a 
 small group at the foot of the lane. Except for a laugh 
 now and then, noticeably that of Elizabeth, it was quieter 
 than seemed befitting a party of pleasure. There was 
 none of that rippling flow of talk, that restless to and fro 
 of graceful movement and verbal interchange which com 
 monly attends such a delay among people to whom social 
 reunions are less detrimental. By and by the natural mer 
 riment of youth might lift the curtain of gloom and dis 
 cover a scene of hilarity, but at present there were few 
 beside Elizabeth who were able to meet the demands of 
 this first ten minutes with apparent light-heartedness. 
 
 " Come," said Rhodope, " we are all here at last," and 
 swiftly, silently, her tall, straight figure sped before them 
 over the frozen brilliancy of the shining fields. Jib gave 
 one quick glance over the group, saw Elizabeth in strug 
 gling laughter, with an officious instructor on each side of 
 her, and, pushing his thick cap back from his handsome 
 forehead, he followed his sister, and in straggling groups 
 and halting couples the whole company spread itself over 
 the snowy fields. 
 
 For a while Jib and Rhodope kept side by side leading 
 
184 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 the way. They did not speak. Each of them, in different 
 ways, lay under the spell of the time and scene. Night 
 and snow clothe even the best-known ways with strange 
 ness. Moreover, in their mode of progress itself there 
 was an element of unreality. They followed no beaten 
 track of travel, they went about for no windings of brook 
 or fence or marsh; they kept their way, as the crow flies, 
 over hollows and stone walls, hidden by deep drifts, across 
 fields whose sudden treacheries made them in summer-time 
 pick a careful way. - On the smooth, hard crust upon which 
 a light snow had fallen, their snow-shoes slipped along, 
 transformed, from the long, awkward hindrances they ap 
 peared, into light, floating supports, which kept them above 
 the lower earth, with its difficulties and pitfalls. Their 
 course lay across the valley and gradually downwards. 
 Before them the white plain stretched itself until it was 
 indefinitely lost in the mistiness of the pale moonlight. It 
 seemed possible that it stretched on into a land of eternal 
 ice and snow. There was a dim, cold uncertainty waiting 
 for them beyond there, where the gleaming hill cut off part 
 of what in spring was a green meadow, and was now only 
 a vague white level. Suggestions of the ice-palaces and 
 the frozen courts 'of the snow-queen floated through Rhod- 
 ope's mind. Apparently far on the horizon, but in reality 
 near at hand, twinkled an occasional light, but they seemed 
 no indication of human companionship and neighborhood. 
 When now and then the voices behind them ceased alto 
 gether as if muffled suddenly under the veil of mystery, it 
 was very, very still. One strained one's ears unconsciously 
 to catch, if might be, the distant tinkle of reindeer's bells, 
 speeding, speeding northward to the fortresses of continual 
 winter. 
 
 Certainly Medcott had told the truth when he assured 
 Davenant that he had uttered no word to disturb Rhod- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 185 
 
 ope's peace of mind. No thought of falseness or injury 
 mingled with her remembrance of him. Her nature was 
 too sweet and large to be always bringing looks and words 
 and actions to the bar of personal application. Her uncon 
 scious dignity forbade the thought to cross her mind, that 
 he had selfishly sought an idle pleasure for himself and let 
 the cost of it fall upon her heart. In her memory he stood 
 always courteous, strong, and true. But there were days 
 which it seemed to her were all remembrance. There were 
 days whose light seemed only that of earlier mornings and 
 afternoons when the whole world had been warm and sun 
 lit ; days when even this pale reflection seemed dying away 
 into colorlessness. She did not fight against it or ignore it. 
 Neither did she grow peevish and fretful under the strain 
 of the sudden weariness that now and then overcame her, 
 but simply turned, as it were, and faced this shadow which 
 had darkened her world. Regarding it with calm and clear, 
 if a little saddened, eyes, she found that within it life was 
 quite livable, and that though the glory of noon had depart 
 ed, there was still light enough to give their true colors and 
 dimensions to the many dear things that had always been 
 hers. There was something touching in one of her beautiful 
 youth, in this quiet acceptance of what had been laid upon 
 her shoulders. It was the burden of which youth is general 
 ly most impatient and which it strives most wilfully to shake 
 off this of resignation to the loss of the glow and color 
 of life. Possibly it came in part from the absence of the 
 analytical tendency. She never said, If this had been oth 
 erwise Why did I do this ? Why did he say this ? or 
 any why ? or when ? or where ? The experiences of her 
 life came to her naturally and inevitably as winter succeed 
 ed summer. But more than this, it arose from the sweetness 
 and nobility of her spirit. Nevertheless, there were times 
 when an unusual depression seemed to make more clear 
 
l86 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 what had slipped away. To-night the realization of the 
 change was strong. As they skirted the outlying trees 
 of a clump of bare aspens, she remembered that it was 
 within that dreary, dark wood, with its gaunt tree-trunks, 
 snowy earth, and frozen streams, and which had then dozed 
 in midsummer greenness and plashing waters, that she had 
 first seen Medcott, lying on the ferns. Over beyond there 
 had been the landslide they could not have gone so near 
 it if there had been no snow. It was as if all the dear by 
 ways and familiar scenes of her summer wanderings lay 
 with their memories, their warmth and their fragrances, 
 covered up and silent under this cold, crushing, mysterious 
 mantle of white, and henceforth her way lay over them, 
 above them, across them but never again within them. 
 With a quick little sigh she turned and put out her hand. 
 
 " Jib !" she said. Then she paused, almost frightened. 
 Had he failed her, too? He was no longer by her side, 
 apparently she was alone in this waste of snow. In anoth 
 er moment she smiled at her own fear they were all just 
 behind her, hidden for the instant by a wall of rock ; now 
 they appeared, black figures, moving on in all varieties of 
 grace and awkwardness. It was but two or three minutes 
 earlier that Jib had turned back. It had been in obedience 
 to a sudden impulse which, had he paused to consider, he 
 would have disregarded. He had heard Elizabeth's voice 
 raised in distress. It had not been raised very loudly, nor 
 was the distress very poignant, but it came to his ears with 
 entire distinctness. It did not mingle with the other voices 
 in the least. It was as if the two were alone, and she had 
 spoken so he turned back. They were all laughing when 
 he met them. 
 
 " Elizabeth's down," called one girl to another, as she 
 looked over her shoulder. Jib paused and they passed 
 him. A few feet farther were two dark figures clearly de- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 187 
 
 fined like everything else this pallid night. One was that 
 of a good-looking boy of the neighborhood, whose reputa 
 tion had fallen of late somewhat below the easy standard 
 of a country village. 
 
 He stood turned away from Jib, stooping over Elizabeth, 
 and attempting to raise her to her feet. He held both her 
 hands, and they were both laughing Elizabeth uncontrolla 
 bly. The treacherous snow-shoes, which had been such val 
 uable allies, had been transformed into the most malignant 
 of foes. Elizabeth, unused to their vagaries, felt that each 
 was the size of the traditional barn-door and as impossible 
 of dexterous management. Jib stood watching the little 
 episode, while the jealous anger, which had seemed no part 
 of his quietness these last few months, almost choked him. 
 
 What right had that fellow to hold her hands? How 
 could she laugh like that ? Had she no heart, no sense 
 nothing but a spirit of coquetry and a talent for frivolity? 
 Inarticulately these questions surged through his brain. Poor 
 little Elizabeth looked hopelessly pretty as she crouched on 
 the snow, the demoralized snow-shoes turned, twisted, and 
 defiant. Her companion dropped her hands, and, leaning 
 over, his head close to hers, lifted her to her feet. There 
 was a quick exclamation from Elizabeth, a laugh from the 
 young man, and they stood an instant silent, she clinging 
 to his arm, and looking up smiling into his face. That he 
 had kissed her and that he stood unrebuked, Jib was as sure 
 as that there was but one thing for him to do, to turn and 
 go silently and swiftly back to the others, his hot anger 
 changing into a sudden cold, deceptive contempt. But he 
 did not go. 
 
 "Oh, Jib," called out the young man, whose education 
 had been fragmentary in certain directions, though some 
 what too consecutive in others, "come and fix this here 
 snow-shoe. I don't know what's happened to the blamed 
 thing ! " 
 
l88 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 This was an appeal not to be resisted by the authority 
 on all such difficult points. Jib went skimming back 
 to the spot where Elizabeth stood, the laughter all gone 
 from the red lips, which trembled a little as she looked 
 at Jib's eyes, that did not meet hers, and then down at his 
 handsome head and shoulders as he knelt at her feet. The 
 shoe was so loosened and twisted that it must be unstrapped 
 and put on again. 
 
 " Don't wait for me, please," said Elizabeth, with her 
 prettiest smile, to the young man who waited rather use 
 lessly about. " I can stand very well by myself now, and 
 we will come on after you as soon as it is fixed." 
 
 Not for want of a little boldness should this opportunity be 
 lost, though her heart failed her as Jib added no word of assent 
 as he carefully unwound the leather strap. But right down 
 there on the road beyond the next field waited General Jim 
 Downing with the ox-team, and she would be driven the 
 rest of the way, and be as thoroughly separated from Jib 
 as though the mountains divided them. With a laughing 
 " all right," the young fellow accepted the suggestion per 
 haps he knew something of how matters had formerly stood 
 between these two and they were alone. Still Jib knelt 
 in silence, taking off the shoe, untwisting the leather strap. 
 At last her foot was free. 
 
 " Oh !" she said with a sigh of relief, " I thought I should 
 always have to walk backwards." 
 
 He did not answer, and Elizabeth, taking her courage 
 in both hands, placed her disengaged foot which looked 
 ridiculously small by the side of the other firmly on the 
 ground. 
 
 " Jib," she began. He raised his head, and looked at her 
 for the first time. Her foot went down a little into the 
 crust, but she jerked it out and went on. " I will have you 
 speak to me !" she asserted bravely. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 189 
 
 "What should I say?" he asked indifferently. There 
 was a pause. 
 
 " Put your foot here," he said, holding out the shoe. The 
 foot, in its moccason, had gone down a little into the snow 
 again, and she was obliged to put her hand on his shoulder 
 to steady herself while she obeyed him. He was more con 
 scious of that slight pressure than if it had been fifty pounds, 
 but he gave no sign. Elizabeth felt bolder while his eyes 
 were down. 
 
 " You used to have things to say," she said, as he tight 
 ened the strap again. 
 
 " Yes," he answered. " Does that hurt you ?" He wait 
 ed for her to answer before fastening it ; her hand was still 
 on his shoulder. 
 
 " You wouldn't care if it did !" she burst out passionately. 
 Jib started a little. Not care whether he hurt her or not ? 
 The idea of her suffering any physical pain was like a blow. 
 But he was cruel enough to be silent, except to say after a 
 moment, 
 
 " You have not said if it does." 
 
 " No." Her eyes had filled suddenly in the most exas 
 perating fashion just as she needed all her coolness. Jib 
 rose. 
 
 " It's all right, I guess we can go on," he said, without 
 looking at her. 
 
 Side by side they went on, the others, by this time, some 
 distance in advance. All the bitter reproaches and the spe 
 cial pleas which had been on Elizabeth's lips ready for just 
 such an occasion what had become of them ? It seemed 
 to her that she could think of nothing except how not to 
 cry. She was tired, poor child, the unaccustomed exercise 
 was using her up. It was all so new and unfamiliar. She 
 was tired of hearing how easily they went over fences. She 
 didn't believe there were any fences there. They kept tell- 
 
190 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 ing her that she was just over a pond ; she was afraid to go 
 across ponds that way without knowing it. There wasn't 
 much moonlight, and things might happen everything was 
 so queer, anything might happen. She didn't know where 
 she was in this unfamiliar world. Yes, she did oh ! yes, she 
 did ! Just before them was the last field before the road 
 and the ox-cart, and this was the last chance she should 
 have it might be the last time she should ever, ever walk 
 with Jib Trent. Her heart grew very heavy. How desper 
 ately quickly they went ! Now they were in the field. The 
 General was already exchanging humorous greetings with the 
 advance guard. Those long, strange white stretches were 
 really very short. 
 
 " You used to love me, Jib." The words fell from her 
 lips in a breathless, sudden little way which touched on pa 
 thos, it was so destitute of her usual coquetry. Jib turned 
 towards her for the first time since they had started. All 
 the curbed anger, all the jealousy of the last months, of the 
 last hour, all the suffering which had been unuttered and 
 more bitter, thrilled through his slow words. 
 
 "Yes, Elizabeth, I used to love you," he said. "Do 
 you remember my telling you once that I should never be 
 ashamed of loving a woman as Uncle Denver loved your 
 mother ? Well, I never thought the time would come, but, 
 after what I've seen to-night, I'd be ashamed of loving you." 
 
 He did not know how cruel the words were. He saw in 
 Elizabeth's pleading dejection only another phase of the 
 same thoughtless trifling with his deep feeling which, to do 
 him justice, had not been infrequent. He thought only of 
 the kiss that he fancied she had just given before his very 
 eyes to another man. But to her it seemed that she had 
 had hard measure ; that for her small iniquities the punish 
 ment dealt to her was of the cruelest. His casual reference 
 to her mother deepened the pain with a thrust of home- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 19! 
 
 sickness her mother, who loved her and was not ashamed 
 of her. 
 
 But never had she loved Jib as she did then. She would 
 have thrown herself at his feet if that would have done any 
 good. But a single glance at that set mouth, whose firm 
 lines were generally hidden by the sweetness of his smile, 
 at the stern, unfriendly eyes which met hers, was enougjj 
 it would have been worse than folly. 
 
 " Wai, here ye are," said the General. " Chuck her in, 
 Jib ! I declare, I guess she's clean tuckered out." And 
 the slow oxen started up under many instructions and much 
 encouragement, and the one cowbell jangled, and slowly and 
 irregularly Elizabeth's little red head-covering this time it 
 was a hood disappeared again over the hill. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 " If you saw yourself with your eyes, or knew yourself with your judg 
 ment, the fear of your adventure would counsel you to a more equal en 
 terprise." 
 
 "Beloved, in the noisy city here, 
 The thought of thee can make all turmoil cease." 
 
 THE occasional glimpses of blue water had vanished. 
 The uninteresting stretches of flat, sandy country, varied 
 by sudden transits through manufacturing towns, where 
 grimy faces were pressed against the windows as the train 
 flashed past in what seemed dangerous proximity, had been 
 left behind. The delusive rusticity of well-kept lawns and 
 graded roads had given place to the rough and tumble of 
 squalid dwellings, heaps of refuse, and occasional tall brick 
 buildings, the pioneers of the steady upward march of what 
 the nineteenth century has decided to call civilization. The 
 early lights began to appear in straight, if somewhat broken, 
 rows, instead of sporadic twinkles. Rhodope was drawing 
 near to a great city. It was all so new to her, so absorbedly 
 interesting, the country through which she had passed; 
 those towns where it seemed to her people could not have 
 room to breathe, the atmosphere was so heavy with some 
 thing a little less tangible than smoke ; and afterwards pret 
 tier, open, freer places, where the green of trees and grass 
 softened the aspect of brick and granite. The people on 
 the train were not the mere travelling public to Rhodope. 
 They were individuals with most special lives and histories, 
 to whom a railway journey was as a matter of course, more 
 
WHITE BIRCHES. 193 
 
 or less important. There was a girl of about her own age 
 who read persistently, only now and then glancing up indif 
 ferently when they stopped at a station or some one passed 
 down the aisle. How hard it must be for her, thought Rhod- 
 ope, to fix her mind on her book amid all this excitement 
 she must be obliged to prepare a review of it or some 
 thing, within a given time. Across the aisle, some women, 
 with little shopping-bags, talked incessantly, and showed 
 each other samples of dress-goods and discussed shades of 
 trimming; apparently to them the great city was only a 
 well-furnished emporium. Two men, one of whom had read 
 newspapers while the other made figures in a memorandum- 
 book, rose and took down their Gladstones from the rack, 
 and the newspaper reader put up his silk travelling-cap, and 
 put on a stiff hat, all with an air of routine that was im 
 pressive. In a moment they would leave the train for the 
 city street. So men face danger, any stirring possibility 
 whatever, when it is but a matter of routine ! Peril becomes 
 merely a factor in the general whole for which they prepare 
 themselves. A handsome gray-haired woman who had oc 
 cupied the seat with Rhodope from the last station now 
 looked at her, hesitated a moment, and turned away. In 
 a moment she looked again, and half smiled, and Rhodope 
 responded with the charming, frank smile that was an inher 
 itance from Denver Trent. 
 
 " You have some one to meet you, I suppose," said the 
 gray-haired woman. 
 
 " Yes, thank you," said Rhodope, in her sweet voice ; 
 then she added, " You are kind." 
 
 " Not at all," disclaimed the other. " I thought I would 
 ask, it would do no harm," and she said no more. 
 
 Rhodope looked out of the window at the vistas of the 
 long streets which were now flitting by, thrilled by the 
 unwontedness, the mystery of the spectacle. The strange 
 13 
 
194 * WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 roar of the city grew in her ears ; they were slipping into 
 the station. A sense of loneliness, of insecurity, over 
 whelmed her suddenly. Where was she going? What 
 should she do ? Whom should she meet ? There were so 
 many people, and she was but one ! A glance at her com 
 panion reassured her. Amid this hurry and rush there were 
 human sympathy and interest else why had this woman 
 cared to ask about her comfort ? 
 
 It was not strange that the conventional self-absorption 
 had yielded to something unusual in Rhodope's appearance. 
 There was that besides beauty that drew the eyes of several 
 people to the quiet, dignified, yet evidently untravelled girl 
 who sat watching and listening and interested as the train 
 swept on. 
 
 Florence Needham's letter of invitation had come, and, 
 strangely enough, Uncle Denver had taken the matter into 
 his own hands, and said that Rhodope should go. If it had 
 been left to her, perhaps the decision would have been other 
 wise. 
 
 " Wants you to go to see her, does she ?" he had said. 
 "Thinks it may be of pleasure and perhaps of benefit! 
 Wai, I'm not cert'in that that's what she thinks, but neither 
 am I cert'in that it ain't so." 
 
 " I think I will stay at home," Rhodope had said ; " I 
 know what things are so, here." 
 
 " I d'know as you do," said Denver. " Things look differ 
 ent in different places, but one may be as true as t'other. 
 Guess you'd better go along." 
 
 "You don't want me to come home and tell you what 
 you ought to think about the mountains, do you, Uncle 
 Denver'?" she asked with a smile. 
 
 " I guess I can stand it it don't never trouble me. And 
 you ought to see something outside the valley ; 'tain't all 
 of God's earth there is I've been out of it more'n once. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 195 
 
 And when you get tired flaxin' round down there, you can 
 come home." 
 
 Rhodope hesitated. If a new life and new scenes held 
 new pleasures, they might, as she had learned, hold also a 
 new pain. And though she was not wise enough to dis 
 trust Mrs. Needham, as she should have been distrusted, 
 she was not happy with her. 
 
 "But Mrs. Needham does she really want me?" 
 
 "Yes, she does," declared Denver, shrewdly. "I ain't 
 sayin' what she wants you for, but she really wants you. 
 There ain't no call to ask you if she don't. And what she 
 wants you for, she'll get it, don't you worry about that. 
 And her husband's a good feller. He's about as easy in 
 his mind as a katydid, but I like him in the main. I'd 
 ruther you'd go, Rhode." 
 
 Just why he was so decided he might have found it dif 
 ficult to explain. But with the indifference to modifying 
 circumstances and possible complications, which is distinctly 
 a masculine characteristic, he wished her to accept the op 
 portunity that lay before her. Perhaps the Arcadian sim 
 plicity which was united with his native shrewdness saw in 
 the singular beauty of his niece the assurance of her urban 
 triumph. 
 
 " But she may get tired of me we don't get tired of peo 
 ple, you and I, Uncle Denver," and she leaned over his 
 shoulder, the letter in her hand, " but in the city there are 
 so many more people, it is natural they should get tired of 
 each other and of me." 
 
 " Wai, if she does, she'll leave the railroad tracks down, I 
 guess, and you can come back as quick as you went." 
 
 His persistence weakened her own misgivings, and sud 
 denly a flame of longing leaped into her heart. It was his 
 world that he had talked about that evening at the stile. 
 Why should she not see it with her eyes? Perhaps she 
 
196 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 was unwise in her shrinking from Mrs. Needham. It was 
 not hard for her to re-establish a shaken belief in people's 
 disinterestedness. The natural, youthful, warm eagerness 
 for both the certainties and the uncertainties of such an ex 
 perience swept aside her hesitations. She would go, and 
 as Uncle Denver said she could come back. 
 
 Encouragement and discouragement had attended her 
 going forth. General Jim Downing had shaken his head 
 mournfully, and stated with gloomy reiteration that New 
 York was an awful place. " It's an awful place. I went 
 there once," he said. 
 
 " What's the matter with it, General ?" inquired Abijah 
 Stetson. 
 
 " There's such an awful lot of folks," he replied. 
 
 " And they didn't give you a company nor anythin' ?" 
 Mr. Stetson spoke with humorous extravagance, and the 
 General did not answer directly. 
 
 " I didn't know where I was," he went on. "You don't 
 know where you be, Rhode. I didn't hardly know what had 
 happened. It's an awful place." 
 
 On the whole, his prognostications sounded very much 
 barring the hint of personal experience like the somewhat 
 vague speculations of orthodox theology concerning a fut 
 ure state. But Tim's comments were all of an opposite 
 nature. 
 
 " Never you mind, Rhode," he admonished, " what any 
 body does, or about crossing the streets. The p'lice '11 get 
 you across." 
 
 " The police !" exclaimed Rhodope in alarm. 
 
 " And the horse-cars, they'll take you anywheres you 
 want to go you just tell the conductor where you're bound 
 for." 
 
 This gave Rhodope an undefined impression that a 
 horse-car was something to be obligingly tossed about by 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 197 
 
 every wind of personal convenience at a suggestion to the 
 conductor. " And then there's the tunnel but they light 
 the lamps, and you'll get through all right." It must be 
 confessed that Tim's experiences were limited to one out 
 look five minutes long from the Forty-second Street station, 
 and his reassurances were somewhat tinctured by the pecul 
 iar features of that locality. Nevertheless, his assistance 
 was practical, for he took charge of Rhodope to the junc 
 tion where she made her final change of cars, which was as 
 far as his assorted duties took him. The first strangeness 
 wore off within the shelter of his presence ; and when he 
 came and sat with her for a few moments, in the glory of 
 his gilded uniform, it lent her more than a transient distinc 
 tion in the eyes of her companions, most of them of the 
 simpler country sort. 
 
 " New York isn't any great shakes," declared Miss Ma 
 tilda Spore. " No, haven't ever been there, but I know all 
 about it. Seen New-Yorkers enough up here, and precious 
 glad they be too, to get away from their own city. There 
 ain't nothin' particular about 'em either, except the way 
 they walk and their thinkin' the whole American continent's 
 built on Manhattan Island." 
 
 But protection, apprehension, and sarcasm alike, Rhod 
 ope has left far behind. She stands committed to the new 
 thing, as she comes along into the mysterious, thrilling, 
 magical precincts which have hitherto seemed to her more 
 distant than to the modern traveller the wilds of Abyssinia 
 the heart of a great city. Riding backwards, and there 
 fore facing Rhodope, upon one of the seats just beyond her 
 on the other side of the aisle, had been established for an 
 hour a small, small child. She held on gravely to the arm 
 of the seat with one diminutive hand, the other lay in her 
 lap, which was bounded with almost disconcerting sudden 
 ness and finality by a small pair of buttoned shoes, forced by 
 
198 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 the width of the seat into a strictly horizontal position. 
 She looked straight before her, seeming to feel no need of 
 amusement. Her mother sat opposite her, with a man who 
 had just come into the car, and, taking his seat beside her, 
 greeted her like an old friend. They were evidently people 
 from one of the ordinary little towns on the way. The man 
 finally became somewhat ill at ease under the aged steadi 
 ness of the child's small gaze, and proffered a few awkward, 
 if well-meant, attempts at entertainment. He chucked her 
 under the chin with sudden impulsiveness, and it seemed 
 almost disrespectful. She smiled absently, but did not re 
 spond. The older ones laughed and talked with a good 
 deal of rural and innocent intimacy, and the child observed 
 them incidentally, while she thought of other things. 
 There was something irresistibly droll in the baby's calm 
 ness as contrasted with the triviality of her elders' light- 
 heartedness. She never looked out of the window ; she was 
 neither irritated nor amused. At last the man, driven to 
 desperation by this Lilliputian majesty, presented her with a 
 mundane cooky from a paper bag, while the mother looked 
 on smiling. The child received it willingly, but without en 
 thusiasm, and ate it slowly, still grasping the chair-arm 
 with one hand and being very careful not to scatter crumbs. 
 When she had eaten it she returned to her former Buddhistic 
 calm, and sat perfectly erect, her small toes straight out in 
 front of her and her hand in her lap. After this, the man 
 desisted from further attempts to disturb her dignified re 
 pose, and only looked at her now and then askance, in the 
 pauses of the conversation, as at a mysterious divinity, not 
 awful, but impressive. Rhodope had watched her with fasci 
 nated eyes. What sort of a generation was this of which the 
 infants of three gazed forth upon the incidents of a rail 
 way journey as unemotionally as the very old look upon 
 life! 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 199 
 
 When Florence Needham had decided to act upon Dave- 
 nant's suggestion to have Rhodope visit her, it had been 
 with the intention of carrying it into immediate effect ; but 
 as is usual with intentions whose date of fulfilment rests en 
 tirely with ourselves, month after month slipped by before 
 the letter of invitation was written. She had not announced 
 the expected arrival of Rhodope to those who were the 
 most interested in it, although before its time was fixed she 
 had let Davenant perceive, on more than one occasion, 
 that she had not forgotten the delightful if vague results to 
 be expected from her presence, at which he had so skilful 
 ly hinted. Davenant had amused himself with observation 
 of Florence Needham this winter, more than was perfectly 
 consistent with his convictions. He found it often con 
 venient to go to her of an afternoon for a cup of tea, or to 
 listen to her reflections on her neighbors at an evening re 
 ception. How much this weakness was due to the half- 
 conscious hope of seeing Rhodope, how much to an ease 
 and familiarity which was unavoidable after their early 
 relations, and how much to the vanity of his analyti 
 cal inclination, flattered by the readiness with which she 
 responded to his touch upon her mental tendencies, it 
 would be difficult to say. Certainly he did not lose his 
 keen-sightedness where she was concerned. It amused him 
 infinitely to catch the motive of her most careless reflec 
 tions. With reprehensible enjoyment he introduced now 
 and then a flavor of the bitterness of doubt into some cup 
 of social nectar. It was not quite an ill-natured pleasure, 
 because there was no draught, however skilfully prepared, 
 that Florence could accept without a glance at that of her 
 neighbor to see if hers had other superior ingredients; 
 but it was certainly not done in a spirit of missionary en 
 terprise. To Davenant the literary faculty brought its 
 usual danger, that of the loss of all wish to change or up- 
 
200 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 lift, in the amusement derived from the observation of 
 human faults and foibles as well as human virtues. More 
 over, as he asked himself once or twice, who was he that 
 he should resist the always effusive welcome of a pret 
 ty woman ? the less dangerous, he might have added, in 
 that with unsparing rigor he assigned its effusiveness en 
 tirely to what she thought he possessed, not in the least to 
 what he was. 
 
 In the frequency with which he drifted to her side, 
 Florence naturally continued to see a return to his old de 
 votion. She had never really lost him then ! A faint mel 
 ancholy now and again touched her words to him as she 
 thought of his successful grappling with the world's prob 
 lems. She conveyed a half-regretful, half-tender emotion 
 in her glance as he came to her after an interview in which 
 he had basked in the smiles of a recognized social leader. 
 But even Davenant did not know just when Rhodope was 
 coming, for he had been out of town for a fortnight. Per 
 haps this very absence spurred Mrs. Needham's indolence 
 with its suggestion that some time he might stop coming 
 entirely. It was then that she wrote to Rhodope, and it 
 was then that Rhodope came into this atmosphere, all un 
 conscious of the currents and counter-currents that sur 
 rounded her; looking forward into this strange, new life 
 with some bewilderment, and shrinking before so many, 
 many people, but with no fear that the time would come 
 when the confusion should grow to be that of strange 
 tongues. 
 
 She was grateful to Needham for the evident sincerity of 
 his welcome. Where everything was so unknown, the man 
 whom she had seen half a dozen times, and who had known 
 her in her own home, having talked and smoked with Uncle 
 Denver, and fished with Jib, was like an old friend ; and 
 from the moment of that first meeting in the station there 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 2OI 
 
 existed between the two an odd sort of friendliness un 
 disturbed by Rhodope's seriousness or Needham's volatility. 
 Florence had been surprised by the interest her husband 
 had shown in Rhodope's arrival. He had extolled the sug 
 gestion from the very first. He was usually indifferent con 
 cerning her guests with the exception of two or three marked 
 aversions, but evidently the idea of Rhodope's presence 
 was an unusually pleasant one. Of late he had even been 
 urgent that the visit should take place, and had abandoned 
 an important engagement to meet her. He had been 
 rather irritable at home for the last month. His accusa 
 tions of insincerity and humbug were flung more violently 
 and frequently against those whose opinions were not his 
 own. Occasionally he would insist upon her acceptance of 
 an invitation to which Florence herself was indifferent, 
 would accompany her to the entertainment and return, 
 railing against its every detail. Another time he would be 
 filled with a fine scorn of all social functions whatever, and 
 find fault with his wife's taste for them. Altogether, he had 
 been difficult, and Florence would have found in this fact 
 a greater significance if she had not had more important 
 things to think of. 
 
 Austin Medcott stood at the ticket-office on his way by 
 train to keep an evening engagement. As he waited im 
 patiently his turn in the eager crowd, he looked across the 
 confusion of the railway station and caught a sudden glimpse 
 of a woman's face. He stood motionless in amazement. 
 Here, in this turmoil, jostled by the pushing, hurrying men 
 and women, her beautiful eyes wide open in wondering ob 
 servation, a little frightened by the unwonted press and 
 struggle, here in the New York station, was Rhodope Trent ! 
 He made a quick step forward, then, turning to go back, he 
 was hemmed in by the railing and the line of ticket-buyers 
 
202 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 Where was she going ? What was she doing here ? Could 
 he never get to her ? 
 
 " Now, sir," said a voice, impatiently. Somebody's elbow 
 was precipitating matters from behind. Mechanically he 
 bought his ticket and pushed on. But it was the most 
 crowded hour of the day. He fell over bundles and across 
 umbrellas. When he reached the door he was just in time 
 to see her put into a carriage by Charlie Needham and 
 driven away. But this reassured him he could find out, 
 then, where she was. He regretted that he was leaving the 
 city for even a few hours. Now that it held Rhodope, it 
 was strangely attractive. He must see her soon how had 
 he lived without seeing her so long ! Her beautiful face 
 rose before him again, and instead of a cool, dark back 
 ground, with slender, tall, white birches gleaming here and 
 there through its dimness, he saw it against the dusty, grimy, 
 sordid atmosphere of a railway station. It was a revolu 
 tion. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 c< The appurtenance of welcome is fashion and ceremony." 
 "Thou art not for the fashion of these times." 
 
 FLORENCE had long ago laid aside the subject of the pro 
 fundity of her husband's attachment to herself as one upon 
 which speculation was unnecessary, else she might have 
 been piqued by his evident admiration of Rhodope. That 
 the day would ever come when the fancy which she without 
 effort had taken possession of, and which she had taken no 
 step to develop into something deeper, might wander away 
 and refuse to be recalled, she never dreamed. 
 
 Meanwhile, in Rhodope's presence, Needham was more 
 like his old self than he had been for many days restless 
 to be sure, sometimes petulant, but not uncompanionable, 
 and evidently willing to please. He showed her little atten 
 tions to which she was unused, brought her flowers and 
 candy, and saw that, when it was possible, she was with the 
 people whom she liked. This friendliness stood her in good 
 stead in this new sphere where her presence was to lend 
 glory to Florence Needham's position, for he manifested 
 more tact and sympathy than entered into the arrangements 
 from his wife's point of view. Mrs. Needham was not guilty 
 of overt rudeness, but she never forgot that Rhodope had 
 been brought there for a purpose, and in the tenacity with 
 which she clung to this it was most natural that she should 
 disregard the claims of the girl herself. 
 
 The first days of her visit passed, days of observation for 
 both Rhodope and Florence, though after a different man- 
 
204 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 ner. To Rhodope everything was new, and the adjustment 
 of internal to external relations was a perplexing thing. It 
 seemed to her that none of the old cables held good, and 
 that if she could be content to drift, things might be easier ; 
 but she could not drift, she must learn and know, and with 
 a conscientiousness, sometimes ludicrously disproportion 
 ate, she questioned every current and every breeze. Flor 
 ence could not see that any immediate and startling result 
 followed the discriminating informality with which she pre 
 sented Miss Trent to a limited circle. But neither was she 
 convinced of the futility of the arrangement. There was, 
 in the uncertainty concerning the direct object, a certain at 
 tainment of indirect ones distinctly gratifying, although 
 there were even now many loopholes of doubt through 
 which subsequent disappointments and chagrin were to 
 make their way. Rhodope had produced no social sensa 
 tion, but her beauty was indisputable, and a few people 
 found out that she was charming, when the shyness, which 
 was not self-consciousness, vanished, and she talked or lis 
 tened, gravely, with a puzzled little air of half-comprehen 
 sion, arising from her mental comparison of the ideas 
 gleaned from books and her own thoughts with those she 
 found in the new environment. Those who made this dis 
 covery spoke of her to Florence with that inflection of flat 
 tery that implies that only delicate perceptions would have 
 brought such qualities to light, which was satisfactory. As 
 for Medcott's artistic and Davenant's critical appreciation, 
 they had been unmistakable from the first moment. 
 Neither suffered diminution now that Rhodope was in an 
 other place. In the frequent meetings that took place on 
 various pretences, Florence found the assurance that, in 
 part, at least, her tactics were successful. Medcott dis 
 dained to disguise the interest that he found in Rhodope 
 under any veil of general attention, but real feeling ren- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 205 
 
 dered Florence less clear-sighted than usual, and she saw in 
 the ordinary civility he showed her evidences that this feel 
 ing was shared, and found in his companionship the satis 
 faction she had formerly sought in vain. It was Rhodope 
 that brought him, she told herself, but it was she that made 
 him stay. 
 
 It was at an evening reception that Davenant first began 
 to doubt a little the success, possibly the wisdom, of what 
 his conscience made bold to tell him was his experiment. 
 Over the heads of the people he caught a sudden glimpse of 
 Rhodope seated on a sofa, not far from Mrs. Needham, who 
 had temporarily abandoned her. Just before her sat a 
 young and pretty woman, the waist of whose gown sug 
 gested no extraordinary outlay, and by her side a young 
 and beautiful man whose ideas were disproportionate in 
 moral grandeur to that of his shirt-front. Davenant had 
 a sensation of artistic pleasure in the incongruity, touched 
 with sympathetic regret. Rhodope regarded the youth with 
 a smile of compassionate interest as he expressed himself 
 at intervals concerning the latest verities of New York life. 
 She had seen shy boys before, and she knew they needed 
 sympathy. Moreover, she fixed her eyes on him in part to 
 spare the embarrassment of the woman whos.e shoulders 
 were so near. The young man, who was of course not 
 shy, but only weary of life as Mariana, continued his Del 
 phic utterances with the consciousness that for once in 
 her life this good-looking country-girl was learning what 
 society of the best kind was. Davenant nearly laughed 
 aloud. 
 
 " Mrs. Needham is looking very fit this evening," he over 
 heard the oracle say, as he drew near. Rhodope looked 
 slightly alarmed as she glanced across at Florence, wonder 
 ing vaguely if the adjective applied to her yellow brocade 
 or to possible apoplectic danger. While she wondered she 
 
206 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 perceived that Davenant stood by the sofa, and she smiled 
 in unconscious relief. They had already met. He had 
 called with Medcott a day or two after her arrival, found 
 her at home with Mrs. Needham, and the four lingered 
 about the tea-table in more or less satisfied frames of mind. 
 Rhodope had said little, but Medcott had watched her with 
 deep satisfaction in her naturalness and beauty, while Tom 
 and Florence had done most of the talking. Davenant had 
 watched Rhodope too, and inclined to the opinion that it 
 had been a good thing to get her here. But to-night he be 
 gan to have misgivings. 
 
 " I am invited to come and see you again to-morrow after 
 noon," he said, while the young man took the elevation of 
 his intellectual standpoint, with that of his collar, else 
 where. "We are going to have a party, and my advice is 
 to be considered in the matter of certain invitations." 
 
 " Will it be like this ?" asked Rhodope. 
 
 " It will be something like this, only worse, because you 
 will have to stand up and be presented." 
 
 Rhodope considered this fact with becoming gravity. 
 
 " Are you coming ?" she asked. " And is Mr. Medcott 
 coming?" 
 
 " We wouldn't either of us miss it for worlds," he replied 
 confidentially, "but we shall come late and look awfully 
 bored when we do come, and as if we'd rather be anywhere 
 else. I tell you this so that you won't be misled by what 
 are just our city manners." 
 
 "I am learning all the time, Mr. Davenant," she an 
 swered, with a commendable pride in her progress. " I 
 have been listening to the talk of that young lady who plays 
 the piano so beautifully, and I have found out that when 
 you do anything very well, that that isn't the thing you 
 must talk about doing well, or " she hesitated, for it was 
 difficult for her to express contradictions. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 207 
 
 " It's always safer to talk as if you did everything well, 
 only you didn't have to do anything," he suggested vaguely. 
 
 " No, that isn't it but you must talk as if something else 
 was what you really did well something that nobody knows 
 you do at all." She looked at him triumphantly. 
 
 "You have mastered one of the great secrets of social 
 life," he assured her. " What does the piano-playing lady 
 pride herself innocently upon ?" 
 
 "A way she has of shuffling cards and dealing. She says 
 that you ought to see her do it." 
 
 "And you you are a number of things, patently and evi 
 dently," he said, " but what are you going to pride yourself 
 on?" 
 
 " Pop-corn balls," she nodded, " I can make them." 
 
 A large, be-diamonded woman in velvet passed through 
 the room, and all eyes followed her. 
 
 "That," said Davenant, in a tone of hushed respect, "is 
 Mrs. Andrew F. Rimmon." 
 
 " I never heard of her," said Rhodope simply. Davenant 
 looked about him apprehensively. 
 
 " Oh, my dear Miss Trent, how fortunate that you said 
 that to me and to no one else ! If there's any one you must 
 acknowledge not having heard of let it be er Adam, or 
 some one of that class ; never, never Mrs. Andrew F. Rim 
 mon !" 
 
 " What has she done ?" asked Rhodope, looking after the 
 somewhat heavy vision of gorgeousness. 
 
 " Nothing never anything at all that's her claim to 
 consideration though of course there are always ill-nat 
 ured people to assert the contrary. She doesn't even spend 
 her husband's millions gets some one else to do it for her. 
 And here comes the literary woman of the evening. The 
 fashion of her gown is chastened, you observe when you 
 see chastened fashion, it means a vocation of some sort 
 usually literary." 
 
208 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " Does she write books ?" asked Rhodope with some awe. 
 
 " Oh, no, she doesn't write but she knows people that 
 do, you know, and she in short, she is extremely literary. 
 That is a poet with her now ; he writes Fragments princi 
 pally ; you could easily pick up twelve basketf uls at the 
 book-stores." 
 
 " I don't know what Davenant is saying," said a voice 
 just behind them, " but I know from the fatuous amiability 
 of his expression that he is abusing his neighbors." 
 
 Rhodope looked up quickly at Medcott ; Davenant 
 watched her so closely that if she had not been un 
 conscious of it she would have found his scrutiny merci 
 less. 
 
 " The magnanimity of my designs is beyond your limited 
 comprehension, Medcott," he said slowly. "I am seeking 
 to guide Miss Trent's wayward footsteps away from the pit 
 falls that surround her. That my reward will come later 
 I have faith to hope." 
 
 " Everything there but charity," and Mrs. Needham's fre 
 quent, rather loud laugh rippled close beside him. " You 
 never have any of that to spare." 
 
 " No, but I always know where to go to find some," he 
 said with grateful appreciation. Before she had entirely 
 made up her mind what her object had been in approach 
 ing the group, she was pacing the conservatory with Dave 
 nant, leaving Rhodope and Medcott alone. 
 
 Davenant was still doubtful, and the more observant, 
 the next day, as they sat in the Needhams' library and dis 
 cussed Florence's forthcoming entertainment. This room 
 was called the library because it held a low bookcase at 
 one end, decorated with a row of china bowls and contain 
 ing a set of Thackeray, an encyclopaedia, several recently 
 published novels, and Moore's poems ; also a centre-table 
 upon which stood a silver inkstand, two or three pen-handles, 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 209 
 
 a Japanese paper-knife, and an immaculate blotter. A fire 
 burning in the low grate enhanced the literary atmos 
 phere. 
 
 " So you are going to have the Eagers, are you ?" inquired 
 Davenant from where he sat in front of the fire. Rhodope 
 was across the room in a straight-backed wooden chair very 
 much like one in Denver Trent's living-room. Medcott 
 lounged in the deep window-seat, while Florence played 
 with the paper-knife. She laid it down as Davenant asked 
 his question. 
 
 " Yes," she said, " I thought I'd have to ; they go every 
 where. Perhaps they won't all come." 
 
 " Yes, they will," responded Davenant, " and they do 
 litter up a room dreadfully there are so many of 'em." 
 
 " I don't see how I could have helped it " Florence was 
 vaguely troubled by his partial disapproval. Perhaps every 
 body didn't have the Eagers, after all. 
 
 " I guess you couldn't," Tom reassured her. 
 
 "What shall you wear, Miss Rhodope?" asked Medcott. 
 
 Rhodope started and blushed a little. She was begin 
 ning to realize that the question had not hitherto held its 
 proper place in her life. 
 
 "I haven't anything but a white dress," she said "the 
 same one." 
 
 " That's right," commented Medcott, with the freedom 
 of a man whose business it is to study the picturesque. 
 
 Florence looked up sharply. Why hadn't he asked her 
 what she was going to wear ? She did not like the way his 
 eyes dwelt on Rhodope. 
 
 " Did you suppose I should allow the ingenue to wear 
 anything but white ?" she laughed. 
 
 " One is never disappointed in you, Mrs. Needham," he 
 answered. 
 
 " I saw Eric down-town," remarked Davenant. " He 
 14 
 
210 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 spoke of coming. I am glad you asked him. I think that, 
 like the Merchant of Novgorod, when he isn't asked to any 
 thing, he goes and sits on a blue stone and plays the harp." 
 
 " The Merchant of Novgorod ?" repeated Rhodope, with 
 greater interest than she had shown in the Eagers. " Who 
 was he, Mr. Davenant ?" 
 
 " Blessed if I know," answered Davenant frankly, "but he 
 has figured in story, and that's what he did, anyhow, when 
 he didn't get his invitation and a very sensible thing, too." 
 
 " Clara Eric brings that man she is engaged to." 
 
 " Is that girl engaged ? Where's the man from, that's 
 going to marry a girl with such a voice ?" 
 
 " Oh, the West, or Rhode Island or somewhere," re 
 plied Florence, passing under a succession of impressions. 
 
 " She sings, too," went on Davenant, " as well as talks. 
 I'd rather marry a calliope." 
 
 " Aren't any of your friends coming ?" asked Rhodope 
 seriously. She spoke not with suggestion of reproof, but 
 in some mental perplexity. 
 
 " Why, of course " began Florence, and then stopped. 
 
 Medcott threw his head back on the pile of cushions 
 and laughed. 
 
 " I'm beginning to be afraid you won't do," said Tom 
 sadly. The door opened and Needham entered. " What 
 you laughing at, Medcott ?" he asked, in his quick, nervous 
 way; and, not waiting for an answer, he went on, "Thought 
 you'd have some tea, Florence ; I'm tired don't often want 
 tea, but I've a headache. You're always saying it's good 
 for a headache. What are you all talking about ? They're 
 not chaffing you, Miss Rhodope, are they?" and he sat 
 down by her. 
 
 " She's chaffing us," said Davenant. Needham looked 
 at him as he spoke, and then glanced immediately away. 
 
 " She thinks our friendship is fraudulent," Tom added. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 211 
 
 " Fraudulent ?" repeated Needham quickly. " Why is 
 that ? Why do you say that, Miss Rhodope ? You believe 
 in mine, don't you ?" There was a note of earnestness in 
 his voice that no one but Davenant noticed. A servant 
 was bringing in tea, and Medcott had risen to offer some 
 assistance to Mrs. Needham. 
 
 " Yes, I believe in it, certainly," said Rhodope, smiling. 
 " And I have not been saying anything against their friend 
 ship. That is one of your fashions here," she went on, half 
 to him, half to herself, " to accuse people of things you 
 know they have not done." 
 
 " That is true," exclaimed Needham with sudden vio 
 lence ; " they are always making accusations. I must 
 go and dress," he said, starting up. " Don't let me disturb 
 you, but I have an early dinner at the club to-night." 
 
 " Here's the cup of tea that you wanted. I wish you'd 
 wait and take it," said Florence with a touch of not unnat 
 ural exasperation. The servant was going about lighting 
 the lamps. The cold afternoon light was fading swiftly, 
 and the fire-light twinkled distantly on the gilding of 
 Moore's poems with their own delusive warmth. Need- 
 ham hesitated a moment, and then, taking the cup from his 
 wife's hand, sat down again near Rhodope. Davenant 
 watched him curiously. He was more restless than usual. 
 When he joined in the conversation, it was generally a re 
 mark too late, which made Florence look at him with an 
 noyance mingled with surprise, and produced a slight break 
 in the interest. Perceiving this, he reiterated his state 
 ments with nervous emphasis, that they might appear more 
 to the point. Rhodope had not accustomed herself to look 
 upon a cup of tea at this hour as a normal thing. She did 
 not drink tea anyway, but she had learned that it was easier 
 to make a pretence of it, so she took a cup and saucer 
 when the rest did, and sat straight in her high-backed chair, 
 
212 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 holding it in a stiff little way as if she were afraid it would 
 spill. Medcott drew up a chair, and under cover of the 
 general conversation spoke to her in a low tone. Florence 
 saw it and was irritated. She thought it was Rhodope's 
 way of holding her cup that irritated her. Why couldn't 
 she at least play with her teaspoon like anybody else ? 
 
 " We said something about friendship once," Medcott 
 had said; "do you remember?" 
 
 Rhodope looked into his eyes. How long ago it seemed 
 that morning, by Shadow Pond ! She felt as if she had 
 been so much younger then. 
 
 " Yes, I remember." 
 
 "And you thought then that our friendship was not 
 worth much." 
 
 " No," she said slowly, " I guess I didn't think that. I 
 only did not understand. There are a good many things 
 in the city I don't understand. For instance" and she 
 spoke more lightly " I do not understand when I am 
 amusing like that time a little while ago when you laughed. 
 I do not mind it, for you are not ill-natured, but I do not 
 know when it is that I say funny things. I have found out 
 that it is very important to say funny things," she added 
 sagely, "so I am glad that I do." 
 
 " It is only because we have all agreed, we superficial 
 people, that when a thing is so true that it might be dis 
 turbing, we shall laugh at it that is all." 
 
 " And I am I so true that I might be disturbing ?" she 
 asked in all seriousness. 
 
 " You are," he answered emphatically. 
 
 She paused a minute, considering this. 
 
 Florence dropped her sugar-tongs with a little clatter. 
 Davenant stooped and picked them up for her. 
 
 " I think," Rhodope said, " that you do not use words 
 here in the same way we do." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 213 
 
 " Perhaps not and perhaps it is only where there are so 
 many more people we have to spread our feelings thinner 
 such as friendliness, you know." 
 
 While he said it, he was conscious that knowing a num 
 ber of people had done nothing to diminish his feeling for 
 her it was strong and indivisible but he was watching 
 his words and looks lest they should say too much. 
 
 "I think that is it," said Rhodope. Suddenly it had 
 come to her that what he said half in jest was true. Every 
 thing here, of course, must go a great way, and that was 
 why it was all on the surface. She liked her way best. 
 
 " And it is better at home with Mount Marvel and Mount 
 Innocence and Mount Charity, is it not ?" he said. She 
 wished he did not so readily answer her thoughts, that he 
 did not remember so well. It made it more difficult to rec 
 ognize the superficial nature of the friendliness. 
 
 "Yes, I think it is," she answered quietly. Medcott 
 sighed as he rose. God knew she was right better for 
 her, if not for him ! 
 
 " I'm afraid you don't like your tea, Rhodope," said Mrs. 
 Needham from across the room. Rhodope started a little 
 and then put her cup down smiling. " For two reasons," 
 went on Florence with a glance at Medcott, "first, you are 
 not drinking it ; secondly, you look unhappy." 
 
 Rhodope wondered what she had done. Ever since she 
 came she had had this undefinable consciousness of being 
 obliged to parry something that meant attack. 
 
 "It is not unhappiness," said Davenant, regarding her 
 critically, "it is perplexity. She can't see why we don't 
 go, Medcott. I've learned to recognize that look, and my 
 sensitive nature cannot disregard it like yours. Good-by, 
 Mrs. Needham." 
 
 "Are you fellows going?" said Needham, starting up. 
 " I guess I'll go with you." 
 
214 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " I thought you had to dress," said his wife. 
 
 " To be sure that dinner no, I can't go. I must dress 
 well, another time." He spoke hurriedly, almost inco^ 
 herently. " Wish I didn't have to go. I'd enough rather 
 dine with you and Florence, Miss Rhodope." Davenant 
 looked back at him as he followed Medcott out of the 
 room. 
 
 Needham stood looking down at Rhodope, frowning and 
 nervously playing with a cushion on her chair. Then he 
 started, met Davenant's glance, dropped the cushion, and 
 went with his guests to the door. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 " Society seems to have agreed to treat fictions as realities and real 
 ities as fictions." 
 
 " There's no clock in the forest." 
 
 " To meet a few friends," soliloquized Davenant as he 
 stood in the corner of Florence's crowded drawing-room, 
 and watched the new arrivals salute their hostess with that 
 mingling of indifference and courtesy which in its varying 
 proportions marks the social ease of the passing guest. 
 There were those to whom a grasp of their hostess's hand 
 was but the necessary prelude to excitements and delights 
 beyond, indefinite and entrancing ; these were for the most 
 part very young. There were those who clung to her with 
 persistence, and conversed with juvenile animation, con 
 scious that, after they had left her side, the chances were 
 against meeting anybody else who would feel obliged to be 
 stow upon them equal attention. There were those who 
 went through it as a necessary form, the mere initiative of 
 various necessary forms, all to be gone through creditably 
 and without reluctance, and with as little wear and tear as 
 possible. " A few friends," thought Davenant " that's what 
 she told me and, by Jove ! she was right. She's asked 
 all the people whom a self-respecting person ought to ask, 
 and there are not four people in the room whose friendship 
 for her amounts to the value of a brass farthing. She has 
 sown her crop of social seeds, and now she is reaping and 
 gathering into barns. How do you do, Miss Helena !" he 
 added aloud, with a respectful bow to the nuque of a very 
 
2l6 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 young woman who had just placed herself in front of him, 
 and whose apple-green ball-gown was admirable with the 
 white skin and coil of golden hair which were presented to 
 his view. The girl faced about and offered for further in 
 spection a face whose irregular prettiness was very attrac 
 tive. " For a girl who had picked up her features here and 
 there, just as it happened," Davenant had said on a former 
 occasion, "Helena Screed was a most successful -looking 
 girl." 
 
 " Oh, thanks be where they are due !" she exclaimed ; " it's 
 you, Mr. Davenant," and without fruitless timidity she 
 wedged herself backward and stood by his side. " I tell 
 you I'm glad to see you," she went on in lively tones that 
 still were not loud ; " I just cast my eyes helplessly about; 
 the way one does, you know, when you've said good-even 
 ing, and not a soul did I see that I'd waste a minute of this 
 new gown on, and not even anybody that I'd just hang on 
 to a moment till I found something better kind of life-pre 
 server, you know except Henry Waterford, and Edwina's 
 got him; and I'm sure I'm glad of it and welcome, for if 
 Edwina does get anybody and keep him why, it's nothing but 
 a special dispensation they have to drop down out of 
 nowhere 'out of the everywhere into the here,' you know 
 and be left right in front of her, or she doesn't know 
 enough to take notice and I was just thinking it was going 
 to be an awful party, when you spoke, and thank goodness 
 you did. How did you come to be right there, anyway ?" 
 
 " I was waiting for you to come and take care of me." 
 
 " I fancy you didn't know whether it was I that would 
 come and take care of you or not," laughed Miss Screed 
 with the utmost gayety. " You'd better be pretty thankful 
 it is nobody worse." 
 
 " What I want to know now is whether or not I'm a life- 
 preserver or a permanent anchor." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 217 
 
 Helena glanced around the room with apparent indiffer 
 ence and a good deal of actual sharpness. 
 
 " Well, I don't know," she admitted with some frankness, 
 " that depends on you." 
 
 " It does and it doesn't," returned Davenant, with the 
 evenness of his temperament. " You might as well tell me 
 now who it is you want most to have talk to you. Of course 
 I know you'd rather have me than anybody else, but who 
 comes next ?" 
 
 At this point Miss Helena slipped her hand through his 
 arm and imparted a most energetic though dissimulated 
 impetus to his frame, which brought them both nearer the 
 corner and gave them the effect of making their way through 
 the crowd. She looked up into his face with an expression 
 of blinding innocence, but her low tone was impassioned to 
 a positive degree. 
 
 " Whatever you do," she murmured " whatever you do, 
 henceforth and forever, don't you leave me now !" 
 
 A tall, thin, studious-looking young man, whose manner 
 was not that of light-hearted youth, and whose dress-coat 
 appeared to have been assumed for purposes of disguise, 
 wearing eye-glasses, his head slightly bent forward, and his 
 mild gaze wandering over the tops of most of the people, had 
 suddenly discovered in Helena an objective point of evident 
 importance. With fixed attention and flickering smile he 
 had begun to make his way towards them, when her sudden 
 tactics caused him to halt, and then move somewhat aim 
 lessly in another direction, convinced that it was in vain to 
 pursue them. 
 
 " Has it gone ?" inquired Helena feverishly, as she moved 
 her fan with the coolness of restraint. 
 
 " I think it has," said Davenant, glancing about ; " there 
 isn't anything coming." 
 
 " I thought it was all over," she sighed in relief. " He's 
 
2l8 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 the kind you have for the evening, you know/' she ex 
 plained ; " they don't let them for a shorter time. There !" 
 she commented, in a tone of distinct scorn, " he's run up 
 against Edwina. She might have known he would, and 
 she's let Henry Waterford just drift off with that Schemer- 
 horn girl. I never witnessed anything so pitiful. Well, she 
 may just as well sit down and do her sewing now, for he'll 
 stay till she goes home." 
 
 " You don't care much for your sister's methods, do you ?" 
 asked Davenant. He seldom failed to find Miss Screed 
 amusing. 
 
 " Methods !" she repeated with contempt. " She hasn't 
 any ! It's just hit or miss with her. She isn't sure enough 
 when she's having the best kind of a time, anyway, to keep 
 hold of it. I'm the only one that knows what either of us 
 is at." 
 
 " Well, you haven't told me yet, you know, what I'm to 
 do." 
 
 " Haven't I ? I don't want you Gracious !" she broke 
 off as she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror that her 
 change of position had brought her in front of. " Did you 
 ever see such freckles ! Such awful ones and so many ! 
 Just all over my nose ! Can you see anything else ?" 
 
 Davenant surveyed, at his leisure, the bridge of her small, 
 unclassified nose, while she awaited anxiously the result. 
 
 "Yes," he said deliberately, "remains of features still 
 survive and even assert " 
 
 " I never expected to find you two people in a corner !" 
 Florence's light tones were close at hand. "Helena, is it 
 possible you didn't know that there are several recesses 
 across the hall, where discreet seclusion reigns? that I 
 find you here in the garish light of gas-jets ?" 
 
 Florence was very beautiful to-night. She wore glisten 
 ing, gleaming white, with diamond ornaments, and her 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 219 
 
 blonde hair, blue eyes, and charming complexion glistened 
 and gleamed with a sheen of their own. 
 
 Helena's frank eyes dwelt upon her with admiration un- 
 softened by affection. 
 
 " Are there, really, Mrs. Needham ? But I should know 
 that you would provide for all your guests ! But you and I 
 and Mr. Davenant we like bright places best, because 
 we look so nice. And Mr. Davenant has promised to look 
 after me till well, till I want to be secluded and discreet." 
 Florence's eyes grew a little harder ; she did not like Hele 
 na, and she always had an odd sort of jealousy of Dave- 
 nant's companions, though less poignant than her feeling 
 where Medcott was concerned. 
 
 " I don't know," went on Helena with charming candor, 
 " how he'd be after that, do you ?" Her gray eyes rivalled 
 Florence's blue ones in their quiet innocence as her voice 
 fell into the question one would never dream that she had 
 heard any reference to the early or later relations between 
 this man and woman. 
 
 Florence glanced involuntarily from her to Davenant 
 and bit her lip. 
 
 " I should never dare to offer any suggestion to so well- 
 informed a debutante as Helena Screed," she said as she 
 was obliged to turn away to greet some late-comers. 
 
 "After the conclusion of which amenities," said Helena, 
 as if she were finishing a story, "they both returned to 
 their respective duties. What do you suppose she wants 
 you for ? She needn't try to take you away as unblushingly 
 as that again." 
 
 " I don't think she wanted me at all." 
 
 " Yes, she did " time was wasted, always, in arguing 
 with Helena. " I think it was to go after that tall Miss 
 Trent, who has just left the room with Austin Medcott. She 
 didn't like her going I saw that the time I looked in the 
 glass." 
 
220 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 Davenant shrugged his shoulders a little, and then he 
 laughed. 
 
 " You're something of an observer," he said. 
 
 " I don't let much go by me," she assented complacently. 
 " Edwina raves over that Miss Trent, you know. She 
 thinks she's a perfect beauty, and so grand and stately, 
 and so truthful and so oh ! you know Edwina." 
 
 "Yes, and her superiority to you. And I know Miss 
 Trent, too." 
 
 " And so you rave over her ?" 
 
 "Yes," he assented again. "They talk of putting me 
 under personal restraint, but " 
 
 " So far you've escaped ? yes well, I think she's beau 
 tiful too, but I don't care very much for her, because she 
 doesn't know it herself. If there is anything that vexes me 
 it is for a woman like that not to know the value of her 
 own looks, and to go about just as if she were why 
 plain. What's the good of being a beauty if you don't 
 know it ?" She paused for rhetorical effect. " It may be 
 all very well in the woods where Edwina says she came 
 from, but I say it's worse than useless here." 
 
 Davenant smiled at the truth of her observation. This 
 wise young woman had hit upon the very thing that had 
 struck Medcott and himself that Rhodope's advantages 
 were turned, in this environment, to her disadvantage. 
 
 " Then she has such a way of trying to get at your point 
 of view, don't you know. Edwina gave a luncheon for her 
 the other day, and I talked with her a long time. If she 
 only thought her point of view was better, like a Boston 
 girl, you know, then you could resent it and everything be 
 pleasant. But she doesn't think hers is better ; it is only 
 that you know in your soul it is, and she tries to get to 
 yours, and it's awful." 
 
 " I've found that same difficulty myself," said Davenant. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 221 
 
 " Well, if you have, think of the rest of us ! It's your busi 
 ness, as it were, to get at people's points of view, but Flor 
 ence and I, now ! By the way, however, does she get on 
 with Florence Needham ? / can get even with Florence, 
 you know, without any trouble, but Miss Trent ! why, she'd 
 have to come down three flights of stairs to get even with 
 her. Oh, I'm so glad she wore green !" The transit of a 
 dark, colorless young woman in a green gown aided Dave- 
 nant to follow his companion's sudden change of theme. 
 
 " I should know you would be," he remarked as he noted 
 the costume's distinct unbecomingness. " I don't know the 
 circumstances, but I should know you would on general 
 principles." 
 
 "You see," said Helena confidentially, "she thinks she 
 can wear anything that is the fashion, and Walter Mevans" 
 and her fan fluttered almost imperceptibly in the direction 
 of a fine-looking young fellow who had entered the room 
 five minutes earlier " has been inclined, of late, to think 
 her handsome dangerously inclined. He's looking at her 
 now and by and by when he looks at me " an unmistak 
 ably confident glance at the mirror completed her sen 
 tence. 
 
 " So it is he that is the anchor and the port and all the 
 rest of it, in preparation for which I have simply been keep 
 ing your head above water ?" asked Davenant, as one be 
 yond sense of injury. 
 
 " Well, if he should happen to stray over here I wouldn't 
 have you bore yourself with us," she admitted with her 
 usual frankness. " He's young, you see, and crude oh ! 
 very crude and, of course, I know how much you care 
 about talking to me" and she laughed at him over her 
 gauze fan. 
 
 " So the gown won't be wasted on him," he remarked, 
 looking her over. 
 
222 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 "No, I think it won't speaking after the manner of 
 men," she acquiesced. " I don't mean it shall." 
 
 " It hasn't been wasted on me, by the way. It strikes 
 me as an extremely good one." 
 
 "I think it is," she agreed with pleased alacrity. " It's 
 just out of the custom-house, and I've seldom fancied my 
 self more in anything." 
 
 "Good-evening, Miss Helena," said a strong, youthful 
 voice, whose intonation somehow betrayed that the speaker 
 fancied her in it, too. Helena started violently and looked 
 back over her white shoulder with an adorable turn of her 
 eyelashes. He was very tall, and he continued to look 
 down at her smiling. 
 
 "It is not the Fourth of July," she objected; "boys are 
 forbidden to scare the timid public on other days. Why 
 do you come disguised as a torpedo ?" 
 
 " I never frightened you yet," answered the young man 
 with some penetration. 
 
 " But you have me," interposed Davenant. " Good-by," 
 he added to Helena, " and think where you might have 
 been, if it hadn't been for me." 
 
 As he passed Florence, she called him back. 
 
 " Tom," she said, with an insistent inflection that was 
 not unflattering; "please find Charlie for me. I want him 
 to talk to at least three women three perfectly impossible 
 women. He never helps me out of anything." 
 
 There was a plaintiveness in her impatience which im 
 plied that there were times when sympathy was itself an 
 assistance. 
 
 " Am I not fitted to cope with one or two of them single- 
 handed ?" he asked. " Where do they lurk ?" 
 
 " No," she said, " I'm not going to squander you on 
 them. Find Charlie and send him over to that woman on 
 the sofa. She came with Miss Unwin. No matter about 
 her name. I didn't hear it, anyway." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 223 
 
 " The one with the beads about the foot of her neck ? I 
 must have an itemized description." 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Florence, laughing; "make haste do! 
 She has been alone for hours, and I have a dreadful sus 
 picion she is somebody important and, then, please come 
 back." 
 
 It was some time before he found Needham. He looked 
 into the supper-room, but did not see him, and went on to 
 the others. He was in none of them ; but as he passed a 
 second time the door of the supper-room, he caught sight of 
 him with a glass of champagne in his hand. As Davenant 
 entered and came towards him, he flushed and put the wine 
 down untasted. 
 
 " So you were looking for me ?" he said, with not entirely 
 suppressed impatience. 
 
 " How did you know that ?" asked Davenant, surprised. 
 " Did you see me here before ?" 
 
 " Oh, I was looking after the wine. I stepped out for a 
 moment," answered Needham confusedly, " and I saw you 
 go by a moment ago." 
 
 Evidently he had said more than he meant to. He was 
 nervously uneasy, and his hand trembled as he pushed a 
 glass towards Davenant. 
 
 " Not now, thank you," said Tom ; " I was looking for 
 you, as it happens. Your wife sent me to find you. She 
 wants you to talk to some people." He wondered why 
 Needham had attempted to evade him, and he did not un 
 derstand his manner, but it was no time to seek an expla 
 nation ; there were several people in the room ; besides, it 
 didn't matter much, Charlie Needham was always restless 
 and more or less unaccountable. 
 
 " I don't want to talk to people," said Needham, fortu 
 nately in a low voice, but savagely. " Isn't it enough for her 
 to have the house full of a lot of them that wouldn't re- 
 
224 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 member her day after to-morrow, if it wasn't worth their 
 while, without dragging me into it !" He put down his 
 glass, empty this second time. Davenant watched him, 
 wondering how many glasses he had already emptied ; not 
 many, he concluded it was not the result of that sort of 
 excitement. 
 
 " Shall I go and tell her you are not in just the humor 
 for a rout ?" he inquired dryly. " Or that you are slightly 
 indisposed ?" 
 
 " No, hang it ! I'll go with you," he exclaimed. " May 
 as well see it through. You know I don't mean you, Tom," 
 he added as they sauntered out of the room, " or any 
 body else that's a friend but now and then I get sick of 
 the whole cursed business." The frown on his forehead 
 was reduced to its usual indentation as they went on tow 
 ards Florence. Evidently Davenant was the only one of 
 his guests whom he intended to allow to perceive his ill- 
 humor. There was no hesitation in Florence's manner as 
 she laid her hand on Davenant's arm. She knew precisely 
 the direction in which she wished to go, and she took it, al 
 though she paused here and there to speak to her guests, 
 and maintained a certain apparent inattention to any ob 
 ject she might have in view which did not deceive her com 
 panion. As she preceded him in the doorway through 
 which Rhodope and Medcott had disappeared half an hour 
 ago, she turned and looked back at him as if for approval 
 of what she had not even hinted she was about to do. Her 
 hands fell before her, lightly clasped about some flowers 
 she was carrying, her blue eyes, voluntarily softened, and 
 her small mouth gave her beauty a look of extreme youth, 
 which the somewhat too full outlines of her figure failed to 
 efface. Her hand was on the Oriental portiere, which in its 
 mingling of colors made an effective background for the 
 whiteness of her gown, her arms, her throat, and her dia- 
 

 WHITE BIRCHES 225 
 
 monds. There was no one very near them as nearness 
 goes in a crowded parlor. The room was full of the din of 
 many voices, which swept to their ears and ebbed from 
 them like the meaningless sound of inarticulate utterances. 
 As far as eyes and voices went they were alone. Davenant 
 looked down at her with an expression that she did not un 
 derstand. He was a little troubled by Needham's manner; 
 knowing what he knew, he saw trouble ahead for this wom 
 an whom he had once loved, and to whom, in her brilliant, 
 somewhat hard beauty, trouble would come like a stinging 
 blow rather than a stern discipline. Nor was this all. His 
 knowledge of these underlying possibilities, with the in 
 consistencies and the ordinary social insincerities, which 
 usually sat lightly enough upon his shoulders, seemed to 
 make unstable at the best, perhaps impossible, the happi 
 ness of another woman, whose happiness he would gladly 
 have assured. All this lent his expression, as he looked at 
 Florence, something which was not usually to be found 
 there. His glance was less cynical, a slightly troubled look 
 softened the keenness of his eyes, and Florence's con 
 sciousness thrilled with sudden satisfaction. She was con 
 sumed with jealous impatience to find Medcott and take 
 him away from Rhodope, but the emotion she felt for him 
 could not blind her to the brilliancy of this illumination. 
 
 " You are coming with me ?" she said, her hand still on 
 the portiere. It was not a question ; it was only that she 
 wished to speak. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I am going with you," he answered, and she 
 went on. " I'm going with you until it seems to me time 
 to stop," he added. She turned quickly and met his 
 glance. The amusement with which he usually surveyed 
 her had come back, and the softness had vanished under 
 it, but she laughed back at him she was so sure she had 
 not been mistaken ; it had been there a moment before. 
 15 
 
226 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 When Medcott went up to Rhodope where she was 
 standing at Florence's side, with that tendency towards 
 tropical expression characteristic of lovers, he had thought 
 that she seemed a tall, white, fragrant lily, such as grow in 
 old summer gardens, placed in the midst of an artistic but 
 artificial arrangement of beautiful, brilliant exotics. The 
 fact that the suggestion lacked something in novelty did 
 not in the least annoy him ; he was convinced that it could 
 never have been, on former occasions, so entirely appro 
 priate. He had greeted her formally and then gone away, 
 to wait until he could claim her for something more than 
 a moment's interview. As he stood aside he watched her 
 carefully, and briefly put together the conclusions he had 
 drawn during the two or three weeks of her stay. She had 
 changed, he thought. In reality she had changed more 
 than he guessed, more than could be accounted for by the 
 new influences she had been placed under of late. She 
 was paler, and the uncomprehending look that shadowed 
 her eyes when she was faced by problems that she could 
 not solve had grown to be their most usual expression. It 
 had saddened her a little, he thought, this want of harmo 
 ny between her own ideas and those of the people around 
 her; it could not but be unhappiness for her, he sighed, 
 as one who faces conclusions he is not altogether pre 
 pared to abide by. Rhodope saw him enter the room, 
 watched him make his way through the crowd, smiled, and 
 gave him her hand when he reached her, and then was 
 conscious that he moved away as she spoke to the next 
 person whom Mrs. Needham presented. That was all 
 that there had been of their meeting, and it was a disap 
 pointment far removed from that which it would once have 
 been. She was no longer the girl whose vivid color leaped 
 into her face, and whose shy eyes fell in the presence of 
 this man, whose power over her was nevertheless not dis- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 227 
 
 pelled. Lonely months of calm thought and brave recogni 
 tion accomplish with certain characters what social training 
 does with others. Though she had not escaped the shadow 
 of regret that marked the passage of what might have been 
 so much and was so little, she had learned that such regret 
 was no unusual and unbearable thing. After even this short 
 experience of new conditions she instinctively submitted to 
 the unwritten laws that possibilities were ignored in this 
 atmosphere, and that the superficial and the patent alone 
 were recognized. It had all been a disappointment there 
 seemed to be very little else. So she greeted Austin Med- 
 cott with calm evenness, and knew that he went away from 
 her, and thought without rebellion, only with that same re 
 gret, that she should not see him again that evening. She 
 looked down at the sweet-peas she held in her hand; she 
 had not even had the opportunity to thank him for them. 
 It had touched her inexpressibly that he should have sent 
 them to her. Would he think she had forgotten ? As she 
 had opened the box and seen them lying in it in their pink 
 and purple daintiness, how that sunny morning came back 
 to her, when she had given him that bunch of them at the 
 open window ! She almost caught the scent of the meadow- 
 grass as it had mingled with the fragrance of the blossoms. 
 She closed her eyes and caught the clear, grand, peaceful 
 outlines of Mystery. Would he think for a moment that 
 she had forgotten ! Now, she looked about the room, an 
 swered something Mrs. Needham said to her, saw Charlie 
 Needham, laughing, break off a rose from a mass of them 
 near him, and give it to a pretty girl who pinned it in her 
 dress, and then noted, without understanding, the fretful 
 impatience of his face as soon as the smile left his lips. So 
 this was the world the real world. And the cold solitudes 
 of mountain and valley, where were Jib and Elizabeth and 
 General Downing and Abijah Stetson and the store, were 
 
228 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 but wastes, almost unpeopled, where the sounds of real ex 
 istence scarcely penetrated. She smiled, half amused, half 
 sympathetically, as she remembered the General's apprehen 
 sive warnings. There were a lot of folks and it was all 
 brilliant and beautiful enough certainly this real world. 
 The fitful stir of perfumed fans, the sparkle of gold and 
 silver, the superb contours of arms and shoulders, the har 
 monious coloring and graceful drapery of silk and velvet, 
 the misty daintiness of gauzes and laces, the light voices 
 and gay laughter, the studied deference of some men, the 
 cool observation, the pronounced admiration of others 
 this was the world, and she was not of it it was not hers. 
 
 " Miss Rhodope, will you come with me ? The social 
 waters have ceased to break and recede at the base of your 
 and Mrs. Needham's immobility. Really, you need not 
 stay here any longer." 
 
 She looked up quickly into his face she had not seen 
 him approaching. Suddenly this world took on a new 
 aspect; after all, it meant existence too even for her. 
 
 "Yes," she answered, "I will come." 
 
 Medcott led her through the rooms into the potential 
 library, and beyond to a smaller room, whose retirement 
 had been more than once gratefully invaded by the wisdom 
 of men which is sometimes foolishness, but was for the 
 moment undisturbed. It was sweet with a great bowl of 
 flowers, it was far enough removed from the music to have 
 that seem an accompaniment to conversation rather than 
 an audacious defiance. It was lighted by shaded candles 
 in many-branched sconces. Altogether, it was a satisfac 
 tory product of civilization. He seated her in a large arm 
 chair, and then, in the midst of this delicate, almost poetic 
 suggestiveness, 
 
 " I am going to bring you some supper," he baldly an 
 nounced. Rhodope laughed her rare, sweet laugh. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 229 
 
 " Is it to be sandwiches ?" she asked, thinking of their 
 morning at Shadow Pond. Suddenly all that time had 
 drawn nearer. It did not seem only a remembered dream ; 
 instead it was a part of the present. She was again in the 
 freedom of an atmosphere where looks and words and tones 
 were not a shield and a disguise. 
 
 " Sandwiches !" he exclaimed ; " I would not dare to offer 
 them to you. Sandwiches like those of Shadow Pond do 
 not flourish hereabouts they are a different thing alto 
 gether. But we must have a makeshift." 
 
 They were together a long time. 
 
 " I am going to the valley next summer," said Medcott, 
 as if it were a thing of course. " I am thinking of going 
 up earlier to get spring effects in the woods." He almost 
 smiled at his own matter-of-fact way of stating it. Of course 
 he would go, as soon as she would let him. From the mo 
 ment that she had turned with him from the reception- 
 room that evening, he had had no manner of doubt that 
 he should tell her he loved her. All doubts, questionings, 
 fears for her happiness, had vanished and were as if they 
 had never been. What in her absence seemed dark disad 
 vantages looming in the foreground, in her presence sank 
 into their natural place of unimportant accessories. As 
 he looked at her in her low chair under the pink light of 
 the candles, a touch of weariness in her attitude, utterly 
 foreign to the buoyant strength of the woman that had gone 
 with him to Shadow Pond, he wondered that he could ever 
 have hesitated. What had led him to dream that he could 
 restrain at will this headlong sweep of feeling that made it 
 the purpose of his life to be near her, to hear her speak, 
 to watch her eyes, to tell her he loved her ? It had been 
 the thought of her possible unhappiness, to be sure, that 
 had held him back, but if she cared for him she should not 
 be unhappy they would go somewhere where her happi- 
 
230 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 ness should not be tampered with. If she cared for him ! 
 He observed her with a certain diffidence. Notwithstand 
 ing her quietness, she was more like the Rhodope of the 
 hills than she had been before, since he had seen her this 
 second time. She was as quick to respond to an idea that 
 pleased her, as direct, as fearless in her speech, and now 
 and then the odd little turn of language came back, but 
 less frequently, for the more conventional influences had 
 already affected her in this respect But the subtle change 
 was there, that a less observant man might have missed. If 
 she cared for him ! 
 
 " You ask me once in a while if I remember this or that," 
 he said. " Do you suppose I have forgotten anything ?" 
 
 Rhodope weighed the meaning of the inflection. 
 
 " It was different with you," she said, " it was not so new." 
 
 " Yes, it was," he answered boldly, " it was utterly differ 
 ent from anything I had ever known." He did not mean 
 to tell her here in this blaze of light, in Florence Need- 
 ham's presence, as it were, and in the midst of surround 
 ings so foreign to their truest lives ; but he could not keep 
 his voice from tenderness, and his words from straying on 
 the borders of confession. 
 
 " Do you remember the lion, too ?" she asked. 
 
 "Certainly I remember the lion," he answered readily; 
 " one does not easily forget royalty." But what he remem 
 bered was her figure as she stood in front of the cage, and 
 how he had felt himself chained by circumstances, with an 
 impatience equal to that of the brute. What had become 
 of those hampering restrictions ? Had they ever been ? 
 
 " I would like to have had that lion care for me," said 
 Rhodope thoughtfully " really have a regard for me." 
 
 " You women all have a passion for bringing into sub 
 jection. What would you have done with him ? Would 
 you like to lead him about like a spaniel ?" 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 231 
 
 " No !" she said quickly, " never ! Why do you say 'you 
 women '? Do you think all women are alike ?" she ques 
 tioned gravely. 
 
 " Heaven forefend ! But you all like to hold in leash 
 something stronger than you are." Rhodope thought this 
 over with that serious simplicity that perceived no possible 
 personal application, and which Medcott found so charm 
 ing. 
 
 " I do not know whether that is true or not." 
 
 Medcott laughed. " Your disposition to accept my sim 
 ple statements is flattering." 
 
 She laughed a little too, but said, still seriously, 
 
 " I would like to accept everything like that, if I could. 
 But I cannot. It is not safe. One is mistaken." 
 
 Nothing was further from her thoughts than any hint of 
 reproach, but Medcott felt something in her words that was 
 not there. 
 
 " I know now what one should do," she went on with the 
 assured air of discovery that she had had often of late. 
 " One should appear to believe, and laugh at it afterwards, 
 if one does not." 
 
 " Would that Davenant might hear you !" ejaculated 
 Medcott. 
 
 " But I have not learned it yet," she concluded. " It is 
 not easy." 
 
 The confession was very near his lips that truth, and truth 
 only, was possible with her, and that truth meant love. He 
 bent over her, her hand was near his, it was perilously 
 easy to take it when he spoke. Rhodope turned her eyes 
 and looked at him. She colored a little to find him so 
 near, his eyes on her face, something deeper in them than 
 the attention with which he always listened to her. In 
 his simple presence there was an emotion stronger than 
 any other that had stirred her life, but she had learned 
 
232 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 to look upon it as one which should not extend itself. She 
 had met him over and over and had been confirmed in her 
 acquiescence. But what did this mean ? this sudden dis 
 turbance of their calm relations, which yet were just what 
 they had been. She, too, felt that some barrier had been 
 swept away in that moment, and that they were together 
 with nothing to keep them away from each other, as it had 
 been that last evening in the valley when they had watched 
 the sun set and the moon rise. 
 
 ' ' We're sunk enough here, God knows ! 
 
 But not quite so sunk, that moments 
 Sure, though seldom, are denied us, 
 
 When the spirit's true endowments 
 Stand out plainly from its false ones " 
 
 He paused a moment, the words still unsaid ; not that 
 he doubted if he should say them, but not here and now. 
 In the moment Rhodope rose. 
 
 " What are you going to do ?" he asked, dismayed that 
 his hour of happiness was to be cut short. 
 
 " I must go back," she said uncertainly. It was not that 
 she dreaded unfriendly criticism if she stayed with him 
 longer ; it was with no thought of any conventionality what 
 ever. Perhaps it was that conscientiousness which sug 
 gests that entire happiness cannot be dissociated from moral 
 dereliction. Perhaps it was born of a fatalistic desire to go 
 away before this happiness be disturbed as it must be. 
 
 People had been coming into and going from the library 
 while they talked sometimes there were a dozen people 
 in it and sometimes more. Just now that, as well as this 
 smaller room, was empty, save for themselves. She stood 
 before him gravely regarding him, her gray eyes with their 
 moving shadows suggesting the sunlight rather than the 
 shade. 
 
 " Rhodope," he said, coming nearer. Her eyes fell be- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 233 
 
 fore his. There was a sudden exclamation, a flash of light, 
 and he had caught her in his arms, and her head fell on 
 his shoulder, why and how she did not quite know. It was 
 just at this moment that Florence and Davenant appeared 
 at the distant library door. The two figures started into 
 prominence like those of a picture at the end of a skilfully 
 managed vista Rhodope in Medcott's arms. 
 
 "Well!" exclaimed Florence in a curious hushed tone 
 unlike her usual light voice, " I think it is as well that I am 
 looking after my guests." Between unreasoning fury with 
 Medcott and utter disgust with himself for allowing Flor 
 ence to make him a participator in this scene and with her 
 for bringing him, for an instant Davenant was silent. In 
 that instant he saw Medcott put Rhodope aside and tread 
 upon the vivid flame of a burning shade. Rhodope stood 
 white and silent watching him, and as Medcott turned back 
 to her, evidently with some inquiry, the look in her eyes, 
 which Davenant felt rather than saw, was one he would 
 have given all he possessed not to have Florence see, and 
 which, to tell the truth, he would willingly have dispensed 
 with seeing himself. Medcott stooped to look at Rhodope's 
 dress, and in so doing saw Mrs. Needham and Davenant. 
 The latter was already coming towards the little room he 
 had seen it was too late to go back. 
 
 " Oh, I think I will not go in," said Florence in a loud, 
 gay tone meant to reach the ears of the others, and she 
 turned back with an affectation of dismay. 
 
 " You must," said Davenant with an intonation that, quiet 
 as it was, silenced her, and she went on with him. 
 
 " Arson," declared Tom firmly, as they reached the door 
 of the smaller room, " and in the first degree. The defend 
 ant was discovered secreting burning paper in the hangings, 
 while his accomplice undoubtedly supplied the matches. " 
 
 In a swift glance Medcott perceived what impression 
 
234 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 had been made, but before he had time to speak Florence 
 walked up to him, her head thrown back, her voice defiant. 
 
 She ignored Rhodope entirely; it was as if no one but 
 Medcott were in the room. 
 
 "My candle - shades are not sufficiently guarded for 
 such emotional outbreaks, Mr. Medcott," and she laughed. 
 " They should be protected by wire netting but I really 
 hadn't thought them within arm's length before." Her tem 
 per was rapidly getting the command of the situation she 
 hardly knew what she was saying. Medcott, however, did 
 not lose his ; he was as sure as Davenant that it was very 
 important to keep it. 
 
 " Gratitude !" he demanded, laughing. " I refuse to have 
 your improvidence usurp the place of my prowess. That 
 burning candle-shade fell upon Miss Trent's gown, which, if 
 I mistake not, is of the material usually recognized as di 
 aphanous, and consequently inflammable. Had it not been 
 for my promptness I forbear to say my personal bravery 
 what might not have happened !" 
 
 "We saw what happened," said Florence, still defiantly 
 but less confidently. Medcott's carelessness, the apparent 
 absence of any emotion on his part above all, Medcott 
 himself, the man for whom her feeling was so complex and 
 so strong had subdued her into some self-control. 
 
 " And we see it is bad enough as it is !" said Dave 
 nant solemnly. He had been making investigations. "One 
 candle-shade, undoubtedly expensive, done for entirely ; one 
 spot burned on the carpet, but which can be judiciously 
 covered by yonder small table, now acting merely as a pit 
 fall; one hole in Miss Trent's gown, small and easily con 
 cealed by a a gather." 
 
 " Oh, is that all ?" said Florence, with exasperating in- 
 <credulity. 
 
 "And I hope not Miss Trent's arm permanently dislo- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 235 
 
 cated," said Medcott, speaking for the first time to her. " I 
 did not stop to think that I might hurt you." 
 
 " He did not stop to think," said Florence under her 
 breath. 
 
 " I am not hurt," said Rhodope in a low voice. " I might 
 have been but for you this second time." 
 
 " You would have been a crisp," said Davenant with ter 
 rible lightness. He felt something must be done to get 
 Rhodope away. He wondered when the first time had 
 been, but with noble self-abnegation he did not wish his 
 curiosity gratified at the expense of gratifying Mrs. Need- 
 ham's too. " Having thanked your deliverer, you will now 
 come with me where the uneventful gas-lights are predomi 
 nant, and candle-shades are not." 
 
 The whole episode had been barely five minutes long. 
 
 Rhodope and Davenant found the rooms still full ; peo 
 ple were not thinking of going home. 
 
 "How high-minded of him to take her away !" said Flor 
 ence, her voice vibrating harshly, as she stood where Rhod 
 ope had stood just before, facing Medcott. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 " Wormwood ! Wormwood !" 
 
 "Though you fret me you cannot play upon me." 
 
 THERE was the noise of voices raised in sudden, sharp 
 contention, of quick words of entreaty, wild, untrained, 
 pleading, in a woman's tones ; the rough, brutal reply of a 
 man ; the dull, yet startling, sound of what might be a blow ; 
 detached, violent syllables, some of which were curses; 
 " For God's sake, Bill !" in passionate outcry ; the un 
 licensed, uncontrolled savagery of speech, and perhaps 
 action, which comes with such terribly strange, palpitating 
 force to ears unused to its evidences; all this came up 
 from the street below, through Rhodope's open window, 
 waking her from a broken sleep into horrified attention. A 
 distant church-clock struck three the slow, heavy step of 
 a policeman turned down a neighboring street ; the voices 
 ceased, and it was still, save for the approaching signal of 
 municipal watchfulness. Rhodope sprang up and went 
 swiftly in the darkness to the window, and, drawing aside 
 the curtain, looked out. The street was empty to her eyes, 
 though what the black shadows might conceal she knew 
 not. The block of houses opposite rose tall and dark, 
 save that, here and there, a light, probably that of a sick 
 room, gleamed behind the hangings. The more distant 
 towers and steeples were massed against the sky and its 
 already paling stars. All was stately, orderly, civilized. 
 She felt as if a brief whirlwind had swept through the 
 street and left no disastrous trace, as she went back, shiv- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 237 
 
 ering a little, with apprehension as much as with cold, to 
 sleep until daylight. But sleep did not come immediate 
 ly. The commonplace incident had served to emphasize 
 the mood into which she had fallen. What did it mean ? 
 Was there a fellow-creature out there in distress or terror 
 which that slow, heavily -treading guardian would know 
 nothing of ? These things, as well as others, happen in the 
 world and in a world quite as real as that of brilliant recep 
 tion-rooms and well-bred, soft-speaking guests. This truth, 
 which appalls the stoutest hearts, oppressed Rhodope in 
 those early morning hours when the night itself has grown 
 weary waiting for the day. 
 
 It was due in part to the reaction of the evening before. 
 She knew, with the clear-sightedness with which her entire 
 trustfulness endowed her, that the moments before that one 
 in which Medcott had snatched her out of the way of the 
 flame had been moments of as nearly utter sincerity as 
 souls are vouchsafed in one another's presence. She felt 
 it now as clearly as she had then, that underneath the some 
 times light, sometimes serious words that they had said to 
 one another, there had been a current of strong feeling in 
 which they had understood each other, independently of 
 speech. When she had rested an instant in his arms she 
 had been as sure of his love as she had been of her own. 
 It was a moment which she could never put away from her 
 again and how lightly he had put it away ! To Rhodope, 
 with her intensity and directness of feeling, the scene which 
 followed had been jarring in the extreme. She had been 
 stirred to the soul, and so she was sure had he, yet he had 
 met jest with jest, had faced an angry woman with an as 
 surance equal to, though calmer, than her own, and had 
 apologized to her to her ! for grasping her roughly that 
 was all. To her exacting perceptions it had been so mis 
 erably inadequate. Did it need only the presence of Flor- 
 
238 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 ence Needham to destroy the simplicity of her relations 
 with Medcott ? Rhodope was not jealous of Florence ; she 
 would have felt it degrading and disloyal ; but she had 
 learned the larger value <5f much that had once seemed to 
 her of slight importance. She saw her deficiencies by the 
 side of Florence's completeness; the perfection of her 
 dress, the luxury of her environment gave Mrs. Needham, 
 she perceived, something that she lacked. The picture of 
 her first view of Florence flashed before her eyes with a 
 certain insistence her charming blonde head beside Med- 
 cott's in the farm-house window. Did her approach bring 
 suddenly to bear upon him all the tradition, the associa 
 tion, the necessities of his life, outside of which seemed to 
 be Rhodope's place ? Had she a power in what she repre 
 sented, to close his lips and harden his heart ? 
 
 Florence, Rhodope, and Needham were together at the 
 late breakfast a not entirely normal occurrence. 
 
 Breakfast is perhaps as great a strain as civilized peo 
 ple are subjected to with any frequency. There is that 
 subdued air of being under the sway of duty, not inclina 
 tion, about it all. The probabilities are that we did not 
 wish to get up in the first place, and the necessary grip on 
 the natural man has not had time to relax. It is only the 
 most satisfactorily constituted organizations that welcome 
 the idea of food for its own sake, and a decent amount of 
 conversation is an unnatural drain upon the intellectual 
 forces which refuse to be marshalled until later in the day. 
 Any determined cheerfulness on the part of an individual 
 is regarded as arrant Pharisaism, and put down to his or 
 her account accordingly. Now and then a phenomenon 
 like Thoreau turns up to preach early morning, but most of 
 us look upon it, as the worldly look upon heaven, as un 
 doubtedly all that it is represented to be, and endlessly re 
 freshing, but something that we prefer to leave unseen until 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 239 
 
 we have to depart from all that we hold most dear and 
 take an early train. To the actual incapacities of the 
 breakfast-hour were added this morning some special dis 
 advantages. Needham was more out of temper than usual, 
 owing to the gayety of the evening before. Florence's 
 nerves were on edge the result of a variety of causes, and 
 Rhodope's oppressive visions had not been altogether 
 banished by the sunlight. Moreover, the efforts of the 
 servants had not yet entirely reinstated the house in its 
 usual atrnosphere of order and well-being. 
 
 " Len Wright has shot himself," said Needham suddenly, 
 laying down his paper. Florence looked up from the note 
 of invitation she was reading. 
 
 " Those Wrights are always committing suicide," she ob 
 served. " Was it his brother or his cousin last ? And 
 then there was his uncle." 
 
 Rhodope looked from one to the other with shocked 
 eyes. 
 
 " Is it some one you know ?" she asked in a low tone. 
 
 " Dined with him night before last at the club," replied 
 Needham briefly, as he rose and walked to the window, 
 where he stood looking out, his hands in his pockets. 
 
 " Why, you saw him, Rhodope," said Florence. " He 
 was at that musicale Wednesday a tall, good-looking fel 
 low who was talking most of the time with Helena Screed." 
 She was quite interested in helping Rhodope to identify him. 
 
 " Yes I remember. Is is he dead ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, killed instantly," said Charlie from the 
 window. 
 
 It seemed to Rhodope a horrible thing, too horrible a 
 thing to dwell on. 
 
 "What was the matter?" asked Florence. "What did 
 he do it for ?" 
 
 " Financial embarrassment." 
 
240 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 Florence picked up the paper. 
 
 " Oh, yes couldn't pay his debts books found wrong ;" 
 she glanced over the notice. "Well, I suppose it was the 
 best thing he could do. The Wrights' position won't be so 
 much injured as if he'd gone to prison or anything," and 
 she tossed the paper carelessly aside. Needham did not 
 answer. Florence tore open another note. 
 
 " How nice !" she exclaimed an instant later. Her 
 cheeks were flushed with pleasure. The constraint which 
 had marked her manner each time she had spoken to 
 Rhodope that morning had momentarily vanished. 
 
 " Mrs. Rimmon has invited us to dinner," she announced 
 in a tone which almost crossed the line that separates satis 
 faction from triumph " to dinner, Charlie, to meet those 
 English people. She has never asked us to dinner before," 
 she added, that he might not miss the full significance of 
 the fact. 
 
 " Well, I dare say the cook could get us something at 
 home if she hadn't asked us this time," said Charlie disa 
 greeably, without turning around. 
 
 " You can be as rude as you like now," returned Florence, 
 with a contempt which did not, however, shadow the illumi 
 nation of her spirit, " as long as you are civil then." 
 
 She turned to Rhodope with a return of her former cool 
 ness. " Mrs. Rimmon says nothing about you," she said. 
 " She does not know you are here, perhaps." 
 
 " Oh, never mind, never mind," said Rhodope eagerly, 
 " I couldn't bear to go it would give me much greater 
 pleasure to be at home." She rose and pushed back her 
 chair. Life, death they were nothing to these people. 
 What was it to them that the man who had been next to 
 them had shot himself in despair so long as there were 
 dinners to go to. Naturally enough, she underestimated 
 the force of familiarity. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 241 
 
 "It is some days off," said Florence coldly. "We can 
 make other plans for you." 
 
 Rhodope had seated herself by the fire. She cared more 
 to be by a fire here than she had in the cooler climate of 
 her home. It remained warm and friendly, and so appealed 
 to her. 
 
 " I am afraid something terrible happened here last 
 night," she said slowly. 
 
 " What ? For Heaven's sake !" demanded Florence, turn 
 ing a little pale, " was anything the matter in the supper- 
 room ? I didn't go into it once." Even Charlie turned his 
 head to listen. 
 
 " No, oh no, not in the house, " said Rhodope, " but 
 outside. I heard a man's voice and a woman's. I was al 
 most afraid." 
 
 " When do you mean ?" Florence had a dreadful vision 
 of the Adells not being able to get their carriage, and their 
 consequent reflections on her bad management. 
 
 " Early this morning very soon after I fell asleep," said 
 Rhodope. 
 
 "Oh!" breathed Mrs. Needham, relieved. "A street 
 row," and she poured more cream into her coffee. " We 
 are always hearing them here it's a perfect disgrace, too ! 
 Why can't they confine their disturbances to their own 
 neighborhood ?" 
 
 " Yes," sighed Rhodope, " a street row, I suppose." She 
 began to perceive its trifling position in the drama of life. 
 
 " Don't you like to dine out, Miss Rhodope ?" asked 
 Needham, facing around for the first time. 
 
 " I have not done it often," replied Rhodope thought 
 fully. " I have attended but one very formal dinner, I 
 think." 
 
 " The Mevans, you know," interpolated Florence ; " only 
 the best people were there." 
 16 
 
242 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 "I did not enjoy that," went on Rhodope frankly; "they 
 talked altogether about themselves. If I had known them 
 I might have been interested too," she added, with her 
 usual justice. 
 
 " I'll lay you five to one you wouldn't," Needham laughed 
 scornfully. 
 
 " It is very singular you did not enjoy it," said Florence 
 with measured disapproval. " It was given in part for you, 
 and Mrs. Mevans was very kind to ask us." 
 
 " She was very kind," admitted Rhodope simply; " I think 
 perhaps it was only that she did not know how to make 
 people enjoy each other." 
 
 " Not know how Mrs. Rodman Mevans." Mrs. Need- 
 ham's tone was indescribable. 
 
 " No." Rhodope felt the unfriendliness of her hostess, 
 but she was answering Charlie, and she regarded him seri 
 ously while she explained. " You see, she did not tell me 
 who anybody was, and I knew but one person, and when I 
 addressed myself to her, saying that I had seen her at Miss 
 Screed's luncheon, she said, * Indeed, you have a good 
 memory,' and that was all." 
 
 " It was a beastly shame," broke out Charlie indignantly. 
 " She ought to have her ears boxed." 
 
 " Charlie P said Florence, " it was Miss Arne !" 
 
 " Then she ought to have known better !" was the retort. 
 " She considers herself well-bred, I believe. Where was I 
 at this dinner that I couldn't help you out ?" 
 
 " It was a woman's dinner you weren't asked," answered 
 Florence. 
 
 " A woman's dinner !" repeated Charlie, as though he had 
 said " Fire and water." 
 
 Rhodope had not meant to be critical, only to explain, 
 but Needham's encouragement drew her out. She laughed 
 a little now. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 243 
 
 " But one lady spoke to me at the table," she said, " and 
 she asked me, * Who is your favorite photographer ?' and I 
 could not answer." 
 
 Charlie burst out laughing. "Why didn't you ask her 
 what was her favorite trout-fly," he asked, " and she could 
 not have answered you." 
 
 Florence rose and left Charlie and Rhodope to their 
 flash of ill-regulated gayety. Such criticism was to her on 
 the level of the profane jokes in the lower order of comic 
 papers. Perhaps it was to her disapproving presence that 
 the flash was due, for, after she left, the gloom of the winter 
 morning fell again upon the other two. Needham went 
 back to his absent-minded gaze out of the window; then, 
 conscious of his want of civility, fidgeted about the room, 
 beginning a sentence or two which lost themselves in the 
 vagueness lying in wait for absent-minded people, and 
 finally said good-by, and went out of the house. Rhod 
 ope sat silently before the fire while the servant removed 
 the breakfast things and withdrew. A light snow was be 
 ginning to fall the houses opposite looked oppressively 
 high the rumble of a crowded thoroughfare was distantly 
 in her ears the shrill whistle of the postman sounded a few 
 doors off. Now and then she caught glimpses through the 
 window of passing figures, but she did not watch them 
 she had never seen one of them before in her life she 
 should never see one of them again. For the first time she 
 realized that she was wretchedly homesick. 
 
 In another room of the house sat Florence Needham. 
 She had heard her husband go, and she knew that 
 Rhodope was alone, but she had no thought of joining her ; 
 she had been there long enough to know the ways of the 
 house ; she could not be running after her all the time. If 
 there were reasons why she might think any neglect this 
 morning intentional she did not care she was not un- 
 
244 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 willing to have her think so. Florence was in her worst 
 mood. A variety of causes which would have made quite 
 a respectable showing by themselves were all merged in 
 that one great cause, the incident of the previous evening 
 and its result. To be sure, these lesser causes had each 
 fheir detrimental and positive effect, and she dwelt on them 
 that she might not lose herself in the anger that throbbed 
 in her veins when her thoughts reverted to the other. In 
 the first place, Rhodope had not been a remarkable success ; 
 the fact that she was not included in this invitation of Mrs. 
 Rimmon was an evidence of it. Florence owed the satis 
 faction of the day to her own diplomatic charms and not 
 in the least to Rhodope, who had not created the ripple that 
 she had thought possible ; she had been noticed by some 
 people, of course, and she was thought beautiful, but Flor 
 ence Needham was just where she would have been without 
 her. She needed to cast no such bait for discriminating 
 favor anyway had not Mrs. Rimmon asked her to dinner ? 
 To be sure,'there was Austin Medcott. Instead of ignoring 
 her almost entirely, he had dropped into the position of an 
 habitue of her house. Yes, there was Austin Medcott! 
 Florence sat at the library table, upon which there still 
 stood a bowl of magnificent roses. She snatched a handful 
 of them and pulled them rapidly to pieces, scattering the 
 bruised petals over her dress and about her feet; then 
 with a violent gesture she sprang to her feet, shook herself 
 free from them, and paced rapidly up and down the room. 
 She would have liked to break china, to have smashed 
 ornaments. The shallow, violent nature of the woman 
 longed for an outbreak it was only her conventionality 
 that held her in any sort of check. Finally she paused 
 at the door of the smaller room just where she had stood 
 and faced Medcott last night. 
 
 "You fancied yourself still at the farm-house of one 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 245 
 
 Israel Clock, perhaps," she had said, the angry light in her 
 eyes ; " or up at Uncle Denver's or by the cascade or at 
 the stile ?" Her voice grew more contemptuous with each 
 suggestion. "You forget that something besides the eti 
 quette of the valley is in force here. You forget " She 
 stopped because she did not dare go on. There was an ex 
 pression of answering contempt in his eyes which warned 
 her the liking of this man was so much to her ! Medcott 
 watched Rhodope disappear with Davenant. 
 
 "I do not forget that I am in Mrs. Needham's house," 
 he said, with entire civility, paused a moment, and went on 
 smiling " and consequently subject to her interpretation of 
 etiquette. Apparently I have transgressed. If I have kept 
 Miss Trent too long from your other guests at least Dave 
 nant has remedied my mistake for me." 
 
 " I fancy she has not been generally missed," said Flor 
 ence with an angry shrug. 
 
 " Then my present guilt is the greater for I am detain 
 ing you." 
 
 The determined lightness of his tone, the unmeaning flat 
 tery which he offered her, as he would a child sweetmeats, 
 exasperated her. 
 
 " You have been making love to that girl," she said sud 
 denly and sharply. His expression changed and his eyes 
 grew sterner as they looked straight into her unreliable 
 blue ones. 
 
 " You are mistaken, Mrs. Needham," he said briefly. " I 
 have not yet had the opportunity." 
 
 His frankness was a stab to her vanity and through that 
 to her heart. 
 
 " It looked very much like an an opportunity," she said 
 with a disagreeable laugh. 
 
 Medcott had not Davenant's coolness, and he was very 
 angry, but not only his strength of will, but the scene itself 
 
246 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 helped him to be apparently unmoved. The sound of the 
 music which was just beginning again, the hum of the voices, 
 the brilliancy and sparkle, instead of disturbing or bewilder 
 ing him as it had disturbed and bewildered Rhodope, held 
 him in his place and contributed to the maintenance of the 
 proper key of conversation. 
 
 " Then I am slow at recognizing effects," he answered 
 carelessly ; " I brought Miss Trent her supper and protected 
 her incidentally from a burning bit of paper, but neither 
 occasion seemed to me a favorable one." He waited a mo 
 ment while Florence looked up at him with her hard, in 
 credulous smile not in doubt, but to make his next words 
 more unmistakable. 
 
 " But allow me to say, Mrs. Needham, as Miss Trent is 
 at present in your charge, that I shall seek an opportunity 
 to tell her that I am in love with her as soon as may be." 
 
 Florence turned swiftly away in a rush of mingled im 
 pulses that forbade present speech. If Rhodope had been 
 there she could have found words for her ; to Medcott she 
 could say nothing. The kindled insistence of his usually 
 somewhat indifferent manner, the suggestion of haughtiness 
 which indicated his resentment of her impertinence while he 
 yielded to it, the strength and distinction, physical and 
 mental, of the man, made his attraction for her the more 
 absolute. 
 
 As Florence recalled this instant of the interview, she 
 flung aside the portiere near which she stood with a violence 
 which rattled sharply all its many rings, the sudden sound 
 of which was like an angry exclamation. She had gone a 
 few steps away from him under the stress of her dismay. 
 With a second ill-considered caprice she had come back to 
 his side. She stood close to him, her eyes raised with a 
 look of softness, deeper than even Davenant was allowed 
 to perceive in them, her round cheek almost touching his 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 247 
 
 arm, the exquisitely dainty tints of her complexion flushed 
 by the momentary excitement, the diamonds gleaming about 
 her white throat. 
 
 " Why don't you make love to me ?" she said, in tones so 
 low that her voice was almost sweet. 
 
 Her beauty had never had for Medcott even the fascina 
 tion that Davenant cynically allowed himself to perceive in 
 it. In those early days at the Clock farm-house, before he 
 found a stronger interest, it had not swayed him in the 
 least. He looked down at her smiling. 
 
 " I am not of that stern stuff," he said ; " I cannot de 
 clare war upon so many. There is no room for another 
 aspirant. Would you have me prove it in bitterness of 
 soul?" 
 
 The banality of the reply accomplished what it was meant 
 to do. She drew away from him, and, resuming her ordinary 
 gayety, she said a few words of laughing retort and pre 
 ceded him out of the room. 
 
 Medcott knew that he might have done more wisely ac 
 cording to the children of unrighteousness. If he had de 
 tained, instead of following her, had stayed with her there 
 in the half seclusion that an hour before had been so grate 
 ful, and had said some of the things she wanted to hear 
 him say it would not have been a great matter after all, 
 and he might have found his path the smoother for it. 
 It would have been a rational and becoming proceeding, 
 viewed from the standpoint he was accustomed to occupy. 
 But a standpoint is not Gibraltar even for the individual, 
 and his had suffered modifications. Unconsciously a sin 
 gular and stern simplicity had been begotten in the cool, 
 silent shadow of Mount Marvel, Mount Innocence, and 
 Mount Charity. 
 
 Mrs. Needham's gayety, however, had not deceived Dave 
 nant when he went with Medcott to bid her good-night. 
 
248 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " Embers," he remarked, with that sententiousness he 
 liked to treat himself to, as he caught her expression as she 
 spoke to Medcott. " Large embers. The biaze is over, but 
 there must have been a pretty one." 
 
 He even went so far as to make an entry in his note 
 book after he reached home. " Disturbed vanity," he 
 wrote. " Pre-empted lover. General conflagration begun 
 by lamp-shade. Embers not so extinct as to be incapable 
 of bearing a hand at reconstruction. Mixed metaphor, but 
 will do something with it when I have time." 
 
 " I wonder what kind of a mess Medcott made of it," he 
 mused as he replaced his pencil. " He's safe to have ex 
 perimented. But I don't know as he could have helped 
 it," he admitted pensively. " It was a pretty severe situa 
 tion for as old Denver Trent used to say just the ordi 
 nary one-headed man." 
 
 Davenant was quite right. The flame had barely been 
 kept under. This morning all Florence's cruel resentment 
 was directed towards Rhodope. Freed from the elevating 
 restrictions of self-control, she descended to the essentially 
 low level of her ordinary aims, impulses, and inclinations. 
 It indicates with critical clearness the state of her mind to 
 say that she would have liked to have turned Rhodope out 
 of the house and then to have slammed the door. It was 
 while she yielded to this access of irritation that she re 
 membered that a day or two earlier, in unacknowledged 
 consequence of some remarks of Davenant and Edwina 
 Screed, she had urged Rhodope to remain through the 
 month. She felt choked by complications. The knob of 
 the library door turned and she faced Rhodope. 
 
 " Well ?" she said, with an unfriendly intonation she had 
 not hitherto permitted herself. Rhodope was too free from 
 self-consciousness, too physically at ease to appear timid ; 
 but tall, straight, and beautiful as she was, as she caught 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 249 
 
 the chill of Mrs. Needham's manner she felt helpless and 
 alone. It recalled the day of the picnic, when she had felt 
 that an unmeasured distance separated her from her kin 
 dred. Her voice trembled a little under the weight of 
 strangeness. 
 
 " I think I will go out to walk," she said. " The snow 
 has stopped, and I should like to be outside." 
 
 " Oh, very well," said Mrs. Needham, indifferently. 
 
 " You would not care to go ?" 
 
 " I ? No, I never walk if I can help it." 
 
 Rhodope turned to leave the room. Florence came to a 
 sudden resolution. 
 
 " Rhodope." The perceptible hostility of the tone 
 brought the tears almost to Rhodope's eyes, but they did 
 not fall. 
 
 " Yes," she said, coming back into the room. As she did 
 so she saw the scattered rose-leaves. They suggested the 
 sudden extinction of what had seemed beautiful and vital 
 the night before. 
 
 " Last night you were here a long time with Medcott 
 Austin Medcott." 
 
 "Was it a long time?" questioned Rhodope with entire 
 simplicity. 
 
 " Yes ; I think I had better tell you that he is a man who 
 is dangerous, from the very artistic appreciation that makes 
 him so so delightful." 
 
 " He is delightful," she said gravely again. Her calm 
 acquiescence was rather disconcerting to Florence's arti 
 ficial temperament. 
 
 " I thought, perhaps, from your having seen so much of 
 him last summer and all that, you might think it was some 
 thing something special. He admires you as an artist " 
 the implied flattery did not fall from honeyed lips " but 
 he is a man who who goes no further." Florence was 
 
250 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 finding it difficult to say what it was he did not do, with 
 the memory of his last night's deficiency so keenly present. 
 "That is, he talks to every woman as he talks to every 
 other." She was losing the justice of her analysis in her 
 wish to heal her own vanity. 
 
 "I think he does not talk to me as he talks to every 
 other woman," said Rhodope, with the same somewhat sad 
 gravity. Her confidence amazed while it exasperated her 
 companion. 
 
 " I did not think matters had gone so far," she exclaimed 
 angrily. " I see my warning has come too late ! If you 
 already think that he says to no one else what he says to 
 you why, the harm is already done." 
 
 " I think you are not just to him." 
 
 " Don't flatter yourself that you are !" Florence inter 
 rupted angrily. 
 
 " And," concluded the other, with a proud little inflection, 
 " I do not think you are just to me." 
 
 Mrs. Needham could not realize that her sense of the 
 situation was the finer and truer one, but she felt the im 
 perturbable sincerity of the recognition of it, and her irrita 
 tion increased. 
 
 "Justice is not what either of you want," she retorted. 
 " You had better go for your walk now," she added, with 
 the air of concluding the interview, and Rhodope went 
 slowly out of the room. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 "She says she hears there's tricks in the world." 
 
 " This love just puts his hand out in a dream 
 And straight outreaches all things." 
 
 IT was about noon, and, the snow-storm being over, the 
 air had softened into one of those freakish days of late 
 winter, when the sun shines with a freedom that sets the 
 bondage of cold at defiance, and makes us feel that spring 
 is an actual presence that has for the moment drawn nearer, 
 and the flutter of whose garments is almost perceptible as 
 she passes. 
 
 As Rhodope walked through Madison Square her eyes 
 fell upon a group of four two men and two women. They 
 had paused at one of the benches, and were showing one 
 another tintypes. They had so evidently come from the 
 country into the full enjoyment of metropolitan pleasures, 
 that it was impossible not to look upon them with friendly 
 eyes, and some curiosity to see the tintypes. There was 
 something in the manner of all of them that suggested that 
 the acquaintance was not of long standing. Instead of the 
 calm serenity of those who have sat up with each other for 
 successive evenings, there was a conscious, blushing, timid 
 audacity in their giggles, exclamations, and unevasive flat 
 tery that indicated something innocently irregular in the 
 proceedings. A careful observer would have surmised that 
 the two men had been having their pictures taken, when 
 the girls came in, and that there had been mirth in conse- 
 
252 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 quence, which had resulted in this wayside meeting for 
 mutual confidences. It was altogether an innocent, pleas 
 ing spectacle, not unedifying to the jaded observer. Rhod- 
 ope felt for them a throb of sympathy as she drew near 
 them on her way across the square. It was with such 
 simple folk as this that she was happiest. One of the men 
 might have been Tom Furwin himself. She remembered 
 that he had had a tintype taken, and the subsequent satis 
 faction on higher than artistic grounds of his immediate 
 circle. She had come out this morning to fling off this 
 load of homesickness that had oppressed her, and here it 
 faced her again on the city square. Under its influence she 
 put aside the suggestions of a deeper, more exacting, more 
 intoxicating happiness ; yes, it was with people like these, 
 in their own homes, that she belonged, not here in this 
 brilliant, noisy, confusing, heartless city, where people had 
 no time to wonder whether or not women were cruelly in- 
 treated, or what had led their friends to suicide, and where 
 one's deepest feelings were tossed aside with a smile that 
 befitted one's most trivial. It was characteristic of Rhod- 
 ope that nothing that Florence had said, nor her own dis 
 satisfaction with Medcott, had led her to doubt the genuine 
 ness of the feeling he had had for her during those mo 
 ments when they had understood one another. The tin 
 types were replaced, and the four people strolled up one of 
 the wide park walks with the shrinking bravado of couples 
 promenading country lanes, heedless of mocking, cynical, 
 indifferent, busy New York. 
 
 With a certain irresolution, Rhodope turned again up 
 town. Suddenly she felt the hopelessness of going farther 
 after light-heartedness. It was better to be in the house, 
 even with Florence Needham, away from other observation, 
 than here where there was subtle mockery in the very sun 
 and air, and where a little, harmless idyl, like that she had 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 253 
 
 just witnessed, was as distinctly out of place as though it 
 had been a bit of real Arcadia. She recalled the instant 
 that her head had rested on Medcott's shoulder, with sudden 
 half-frightened but unashamed consciousness, and caught 
 again the revelation that that moment held for them both, 
 she had thought nay, she was sure for them both. It 
 was only that for him it was quickly hidden again by the 
 close-pressing illusions of outside things ; for her, it would 
 remain forever unobscured. 
 
 "Good- morning, Miss Trent," said a man behind her. 
 " This is better luck than I dared to hope for." For an 
 instant his voice carried her back to the brief confidence of 
 that moment, and then she met his glance with a gravity 
 which startled him. His thoughts had been dwelling on 
 that last interview, but without her perplexity and misgiv 
 ings. They walked on through the square and turned up 
 Fifth Avenue. The day had become fairly brilliant. The 
 city had already assumed that gala air which it lays aside 
 only under protest, now and then, and which it is always 
 ready to take up again nt a moment's notice. 
 
 " I am coming to see you as soon as I may," said Med- 
 cott. " When shall it be ?" 
 
 " I do not know," answered Rhodope, her eyes straight 
 before her as she walked swiftly, yet without hurrying, up 
 the street. " I do not know, for I do not judge of things 
 right. It is not for me to say when you shall come." 
 
 There was a sense of distance conveyed by her tone. 
 
 " It is for you to say what I shall do always," broke out 
 Medcott, " always, if you will." 
 
 The color surged into Rhodope's cheeks, and she did not 
 meet his eyes. 
 
 " You all have a way of speaking here," she answered 
 gently. 
 
 " But you do not believe that it is only a way of speak- 
 
254 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 ing," he exclaimed. " Oh, Rhodope, you know what I am 
 coming to tell you! You know what was so near my lips 
 last night" 
 
 " Last night ?" she took the sentence up. She made no 
 pretence of not understanding, but the joy, the deep, throb 
 bing emotion she had felt the night before had gone. She 
 seemed conscious only of a sort of impatient sadness. 
 " Yes, I know perhaps. But it was not said, and it was 
 better that it was not." Now she turned and met his pro 
 testing eyes. 
 
 " It shall be said," he interrupted briefly, " even if it is in 
 a city street." 
 
 " It is so easy for you to say another thing," she went on. 
 " It is not such a great matter." 
 
 Medcott's intuition seized the impression that was in her 
 mind. 
 
 " Do you say that because I found it possible to say 
 something else last night ?" he demanded. " Because I 
 thought the feeling I had for you was too sacred a thing 
 to be then revealed or lightly acknowledged ?" 
 
 "It is always easy," she repeated, " to say something that 
 conceals. Why is it not easy to say what is always any 
 time ? Would it not be better ?" 
 
 He knew her utter unreasonableness, and yet its serious 
 ness disconcerted him, as it had done before. This sudden 
 failure of a common ground in the very midst of what 
 seemed extraordinary mutual understanding had been to 
 him a part of Rhodope's exquisite and unusual charm. Be 
 fore he made answer she went on: 
 
 "There is some reason for it all, but I have not found 
 it," she said with a somewhat pathetic earnestness. " Mr. 
 Davenant said once, in the higher civilization it is not half 
 the matter what one does as what one says." Medcott 
 almost laughed in the midst of his perplexity to hear her 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 255 
 
 quote one of Tom's cynical maxims as if it were a simple 
 copy-book rule of good conduct, suitable for the instruction 
 of the young of both sexes. 
 
 " But is it " she paused a moment " is it of so much 
 importance what one says ? Does one even say what one 
 feels ?" There was something a little affecting in her evi' 
 dent wish to adapt her comprehension to new codes, that 
 she might judge fairly, even while she could never wish to 
 make them her own. Medcott could not know that her 
 confusion was the result of increasing bewilderment, her 
 disappointment in him, and her wish to defend him even 
 to herself. He felt constrained to answer her according to 
 her own fashion. 
 
 " It is of every importance," he said gently, but with a 
 strong feeling perceptible through his words that Rhodope 
 could not but be conscious of, "what one says to some 
 people at all times. I told you once no one would ever 
 tell you anything but truth. No word, no look, no slight 
 est action of mine towards you has been meant to convey 
 anything but truth. But I have not told you half of it, that 
 is all. Half-truths we know are dangerous. What I feel 
 for you has a length, a breadth, a depth that you must learn 
 to know, for I cannot tell it to you." He paused. Rhodope 
 was swayed and thrilled, but the conflicting currents of the 
 night's and morning's experience had tried her courage. 
 Unconsciously she had been subjected of late to a nervous 
 strain of which she did not know the meaning or the effect. 
 She dared not let herself trust to what she would once have 
 accepted as utterly trustworthy. 
 
 " It is not that I do not believe you," she said, with a sin 
 cerity that she did not mean to be somewhat cruel. " It is 
 that I do not think you understand. I think that what I 
 have grown up to believe great, deep, sad, and terrible is 
 not that to you who live where there are so many people. 
 
256 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 I have said before, I do not understand your language 
 sometimes. That is what makes it hard for you and me." 
 
 Medcott felt with sudden heaviness that she was saying 
 in her own way what he had said to Davenant, and often to 
 himself. The evident wavering of her faith in him hurt 
 him deeply ; he saw that what had been his natural wish to 
 spare her the evening before had seemed to her simplicity 
 almost a denial. And he knew that she was unjust to him ; 
 he knew that his subsequent interview with Florence had 
 been a test and a witness of his truth to her which she 
 could never understand. But the overbearing, stormy flood 
 of passionate love refuses to be long held within barriers of 
 abstractions and misgivings, or veiled in the mists of mis 
 understanding. 
 
 " Rhodope," he said suddenly, " I love you. I love your 
 eyes, your heart, your doubts, your distrusts, and the sound 
 of your voice ! I love the way you move and speak ! I 
 love you for those things in which you are like others and 
 in which you differ from them ! You may judge me and 
 condemn me, and weigh me and find me wanting, but you 
 shall believe me. I love you !" 
 
 It was a strange place for such a confession. To have 
 walked with this woman in the sweet silences of forest, field, 
 and country roads, to have watched with her the moon rise 
 and listened with her to the song of the wood-thrush, and 
 then to tell her that he loved her in the dimmed brightness 
 of a winter noon on a city street, where they met and passed 
 strangers, and now and then acquaintances, equally observ 
 ing and indifferent, was an incongruity Medcott was one 
 of the first of men to be conscious of. But he had not 
 willed it so and it had come, and even his artistic tempera 
 ment was in abeyance. To be sure, they were now in a 
 quieter part of the avenue, but the rush of carriages and 
 the evidences of crowded, hurrying, swift, and audacious 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 257 
 
 life made it hard for the individual to realize that it was 
 all, after all, but made up of individuals and individual 
 hopes and fears. 
 
 Rhodope did not answer. She found herself in the midst 
 of something that dismayed and inspired her. It was as if 
 she had stepped from a dusky night into the brilliant light 
 of many lamps, and was half blinded by the illumination. 
 They were almost at the corner of the street where the 
 Needhams lived. She longed to be safely there, but she 
 felt that, after all, here was protection ; but, as the moments 
 of " uncertain glory " passed, she was again perplexed, buf 
 feted, and alone. She turned to Medcott, and her eyes 
 were full of tears. For the first time in her life she was 
 thoroughly unnerved. 
 
 " I cannot forget it," she said. " No, I can never forget 
 it. But it is not like anything I have ever known. I want 
 to be alone and to think. Oh !" she exclaimed, with a 
 quick sigh of longing, " I want to be at home, where it is 
 quiet, and where the nights are dark, and the stars shine, 
 and then I shall know what to say." 
 
 She was outwardly calm, strong, serene, save for the un 
 shed tears, but her sweet peace was disturbed. It had felt 
 the shock of something stronger than death. 
 
 " You shall answer me when, how, and where you will," 
 said Medcott quietly, with the generosity of strength. " But 
 I wanted you to know that I can speak the truth." 
 
 The evenness of his tone brought back her usual repose. 
 She felt no longer the wish to hurry away. His presence 
 ceased to be disturbing it held again its old assurance of 
 delight. They walked on up the holiday street, the air 
 always full of the sound and life of wayfaring humanity. 
 Drivers of heavy drays blundered out of the way. The 
 stages followed their serpentine course with an odd sort of 
 regularity. Picturesque children, from the long-trousered 
 
258 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 but diminutive sailor-boy to the faltering confidence of 
 broad-hatted and voluminous-skirted two-year-old girls, 
 enlivened the sidewalk. Carriages, with every variety of 
 occupant, and footmen of British haughtiness, rolled swiftly 
 up and down. All were but the common sights and sounds 
 of a city thoroughfare, but to Rhodope that portion of the 
 avenue, measured by a few blocks, was ever filled with a 
 certain radiance that lifted it above the commonplace. 
 There was a freedom in the wind which blew in little eddy 
 ing whirls at the corners of the cross streets, tossing the 
 feathers and ribbons of the women, that she had missed 
 before. 
 
 He had said she need not answer him ; for the present 
 she would not even think nor reason. A man crossed the 
 street towards them, threading his way with careless alert 
 ness through the stream of carriages. It was Needham. It 
 was an unusual hour for him to be up-town, but he offered 
 no explanation as he greeted them. He had come up as if 
 he had something special to communicate, but as he turned 
 and walked at Rhodope's side he seemed rather to be 
 waiting for them to speak. His manner was at once ab 
 sent and nervously alive to certain impressions, as it had 
 been often of late. It was not easy for any one of them to 
 maintain the conversation. Rhodope was too strongly 
 moved to talk quietly of ordinary things. Medcott was 
 resolved that she should not a second time accuse him of 
 denying the situation, by putting its meaning lightly aside. 
 Needham himself was blind to anything unusual in their at 
 titude, and frowned abstractedly at men and things, save 
 when he roused himself to reply to some half-diffident 
 speech of Rhodope's. But in spite of his abstraction, his 
 influence was potent. He brought Rhodope back to the 
 contradictions and doubts of her disturbed existence, to 
 what she had been fain to believe were not, after all, the 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 259 
 
 eternal verities, and had restored to them their apparent 
 immutability. 
 
 " Good-by for a few hours," said Medcott in a low tone, 
 as he held her hand in a strong grasp at the Needhams' 
 door, which Charlie was opening with a latch-key. 
 
 " Good-by," answered Rhodope a little tremulously and 
 with troubled eyes. 
 
 " She does not understand she has no far-away concep 
 tion of what it means," Medcott said to himself, as he 
 looked back at her as she followed Needham in, " but she 
 knows we have one secret she knows!" It was almost 
 enough for the moment, this sense of understanding, and he 
 was almost untroubled by the half-apprehensive recollection 
 that " by and by is easily said." 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 " A sad tale best for winter." 
 " Those compensations that, like angels of justice, pay every debt." 
 
 ROXANA DUST had led a monotonously cheerful life 
 hitherto. Possibly the good temper that had become 
 identified with her personality was more nearly the result 
 of circumstances than of actual disposition peradventure 
 not nature's work, but fortune's. At least, it had been 
 fostered rather than tested by the various experiences 
 through which she had passed. Child of good-humored 
 parents, she had grown up in the midst of good-humored 
 brothers and sisters, and had married the most good- 
 humored of men. It would seem that having arrived at 
 an age when the trials of life are apt to be looked back 
 upon rather than anticipated, she might feel that she had 
 escaped the danger of deterioration. But the laws of com 
 pensation were not inoperative, and with becoming humil 
 ity she began to distrust her own ability to support their 
 action. 
 
 " Land sakes alive !" she remarked one February noon 
 to Mrs. Clock, an old and valued friend, who had come 
 over to know if she would lend her some saleratus. " They 
 useter say I was easy as 'n old shoe, but as I says to father, 
 take and put pebbles and prickles inter even 'n old shoe, 
 and it ain't a-goin' to be a sight easier 'n a new one. 
 Goodness knows I ain't begrudgin' Matilda anythin', and I 
 wouldn't say as much to anybody else as I'm sayin' to you, 
 but I do say that now and then I'm most put about." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 261 
 
 " Isr'el says," remarked Mrs. Clock, who was by nature 
 a conservative and seldom gave utterance to decided senti 
 ments on her own undivided responsibility, " that Matilda's 
 one of them women as is bound to ketch holt of a kittle 
 spout first and then git mad because she can't pour out o* 
 the handle." 
 
 " Well," answered Roxana, " I dono but what there's con- 
 side'ble truth in that." 
 
 Miss Matilda Spore having come for a week's visit, had 
 been detained by lumbago under the Dust roof for the 
 better part of a month. She had shut up her own house, 
 Tim was away nearly all the time now, and there was really 
 nothing to interfere, practically, with an arrangement so pro 
 ductive of social advantages. 
 
 Notwithstanding Roxana's depression resulting from this 
 particular manifestation of hospitality, it was not precisely 
 even now what the journalistic spirit of our great country 
 has agreed to call a "walk over" for Miss Spore. Eliza 
 beth French was also a member of the Dust household, and 
 from their first encounter Elizabeth had arrayed her forces, 
 regular and irregular, against the encroachments of Matilda 
 Spore. And although Elizabeth French had lost much of 
 the gay, glowing audacity that had distinguished her when 
 she first visited the valley, she was by no means a foe over 
 whom one could afford to triumph without fear of re 
 prisals. 
 
 " You hadn't ought to take it so much to heart," ad 
 monished Tim on his last visit, when he had been invited 
 to take dinner at the Dust's. " You'd ought to take a kind 
 o' interest in what Aunt Matilda'll find to say." 
 
 Elizabeth was mixing a Sally Lunn after one of Mrs. 
 Dust's generous recipes, for the early supper. She gave the 
 spoon a little vicious twist. 
 
 " It isn't interesting any longer," she exclaimed. " She's 
 
262 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 picked flaws ever since she came. I don't take it to heart, 
 but Aunt Roxana" Elizabeth had turned the near friend 
 ship into a relationship " will keep trying to please her. 
 You might as well try to please a " 
 
 " A hornet," supplemented Tim, as Elizabeth hesitated, 
 "just eggzactly. You'd hardly believe it," he went on 
 modestly, "but she ain't pleased with me." Elizabeth 
 laughed. 
 
 " After all, you get along with her better than anybody 
 else," she said. 
 
 " That's because she don't ever faze me," he went on 
 with the conscious power of a Talleyrand. " She gets up 
 early the mornings I'm home, so's to have more time to 
 find fault. Before night comes she's clean tuckered out 
 and I'm fresh as a daisy. I don't let her wear on 
 me." 
 
 " I suppose that's the best way," admitted Elizabeth. 
 " But I wonder what'll be the matter with this Sally Lunn. 
 I s'pose it'll be too brown or not brown enough." 
 
 " I'll bet you a fourth piece" Tim was a born speculator 
 " that there'll be something the matter with it that you 
 never thought of." 
 
 " Well, if it's too many eggs, I've thought of that" 
 
 " All right, check it off." 
 
 " And if there aren't enough eggs, I've thought of 
 that." 
 
 " Go ahead." 
 
 " And if we'd had it yesterday it would 'a' been better." 
 
 " Three of 'em." 
 
 " And if it tastes of baking-powder." 
 
 Yare." 
 
 " And if you can't raise it without baking-powder." 
 
 " I tell you, you know Aunt Matilda," chuckled Tim. 
 " Is that all ?" 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 263 
 
 " And she likes Sally Lunn better for breakfast than tea." 
 
 " That's six. Do you take me up ?" 
 
 " Well, you wait till it comes out of the oven," said Eliz 
 abeth with the wisdom born of experience, " and I'll tell 
 you." 
 
 When the Sally Lunn did come out of the oven it was 
 such a beautiful brown and so irreproachably light that 
 Elizabeth, moved by a not unnatural pride in her own 
 handiwork, was filled with the confidence of a still buoyant 
 nature, and whispered to Tim as supper was ready, 
 
 "I'll bet you my fourth piece." 
 
 Tim waited with an air that would not have disgraced 
 the knowledge of a Mephistopheles concerning the short 
 comings of humanity. Miss Spore, in a chair cushioned to 
 suit her infirmities, was pushed to the table. 
 
 " You was sayin' the other day," said good-natured Rox- 
 ana, " that you liked Sally Lunn, and so I had Elizabeth 
 make one. Give Elizabeth my receipts and she can do 
 every bit as well as I can." This was high praise, and 
 Elizabeth looked gratified. 
 
 " Some uses receipts," said Miss Spore in discriminating 
 criticism, "some cooks just as well without 'em." 
 
 " Wai, I d'ruther have one of mother's receipts," said 
 Ashur, who was fond of Elizabeth, " than King Solomon's 
 guessin' at it." 
 
 The Sally Lunn was cut, and Tim had gotten well into 
 his second piece, but with still unshaken confidence, and 
 the blow had not yet fallen. Elizabeth was beginning to 
 feel triumphant. 
 
 " Well, now this is real good, Elizabeth," said Roxana. 
 
 " This was baked in a shaller pan, warn't it ?" asked Miss 
 Spore. 
 
 " Yes," replied Elizabeth, avoiding Tim's eye with de 
 liberate intention. 
 
264 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " I'd used the deep ones for somethin' else," and Roxana 
 grew somewhat depressed, "and I said to Elizabeth I 
 guessed these was just as good." 
 
 " And I don't see but what they be," said Ashur. 
 
 " I thought 'twas baked in a shatter pan," went on Miss 
 Matilda ruthlessly. " It always has a different taste to me 
 baked in a shaller pan. It ain't as good. I've known a 
 good many folks as made Sally Lunns," she went on 
 thoughtfully, " and I never knew any of the partickler ones 
 to bake in shaller pans." 
 
 " I guess, Elizabeth," said Tim, with studied restraint, 
 " you may as well give me that piece. You've had three." 
 
 It was some weeks since the incident, but Elizabeth was 
 thinking of Tim and his bet this evening, as she brushed 
 up the kitchen after another supper. It had been a more 
 trying meal than usual. The continued presence of Miss 
 Spore was beginning to reconcile Elizabeth to the prospect 
 of her own early departure. What if, in leaving the valley, 
 she left behind her all that could have made her life a 
 happy one still she would be taken away from this con 
 stant heart-wearying querulousness and fault-finding, which 
 she resented more on account of her host and hostess than 
 on her own. Her father and mother were coming after her 
 some time during this week, and she would go away with 
 them and yes, she was glad of it ! Only those who under 
 the pressure of a real sorrow or a deep regret have been 
 obliged also to submit to the petty injustice of little daily 
 unreasoning plaints and innuendos can appreciate Eliza 
 beth's state of mind. Since the night of the snow-shoeing 
 party she had exchanged little more than a word with Jib 
 Trent ; her own dignity, after his final repulse, as well as 
 his attitude, had insured that. But she still loved him. 
 His contemptuous indifference had accomplished what his 
 continued devotion would have failed to do it had fettered 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 265 
 
 her waywardness with the chains of unsatisfied longing. 
 Now that the final sting of his cruel words had passed 
 away she was even ready to pardon them and to assume 
 and bear the chief burden of the blame. If only she might 
 hear him say that he loved her ! With the splendid reck 
 lessness of her youth she thought that were that granted 
 she would demand of life nothing more ! 
 
 And it had been an unusually trying evening meal. Eliz 
 abeth had made another Sally Lunn, which had recalled 
 Tim and his ribaldry. Mindful of its former shortcomings, 
 she had baked it in a deep cake-pan, and had been re 
 warded by the suggestion that if it had been baked in a 
 shaller pan it would have been crustier, and most folks 
 liked 'em crustier. Evidently Miss Matilda wished it 
 understood that she belonged to this class. 
 
 There had been one passage-at-arms which would have 
 gratified Tim with a single-minded gratification impossible 
 to overestimate, and which had brought even to Elizabeth's 
 wounded spirit a slight uplifting. It was anent a certain 
 jam that had graced the board. 
 
 " No, I won't take any more, thank you," Miss Spore had 
 said, with a tinge of reproof. " It's currant, ain't it ? clear 
 currant." 
 
 " Yes," said Mrs. Dust ; " ain't it good ? It ain't tetched 
 anyway, is it ?" 
 
 " Well," replied Miss Spore, with an effort to be indul 
 gent, " it ain't as good as what has rosberries in. I always 
 eat twice of that. Currant jam without rosberries ain't ever 
 just the thing to my taste/' 
 
 Elizabeth held her peace religiously until the fiat had 
 gone forth. 
 
 "Aunt Roxana," she said, with an innocence worthy of 
 better things, " I meant to tell you, when you sent me for a 
 glass of currant, I went in the dark and brought a glass of 
 
266 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 currant and raspberry instead. I didn't see it until it was 
 opened. This, Miss Matilda," she added kindly, " is cur 
 rant and raspberry." 
 
 Ashur laid down his knife and winked at Elizabeth. It 
 was his usual way of expressing his appreciation of a crisis. 
 There was an instant's silence while Miss Spore fell back 
 upon her reserves. 
 
 " Medder rosberries, ain't they, Roxana ?" she inquired, 
 ignoring Elizabeth and her ill-advised supporter Ashur. 
 " Grew in the west medder, didn't they? In that big patch 
 of bushes ?" 
 
 " Well, I dono but what they did," admitted Mrs. Dust. 
 
 " I thought they grew there. Them medder rosberries 
 never had the real rosberry flavor I could 'a' told you 
 that." 
 
 " Wai, Miss Matilda," observed Ashur, without affecta 
 tion, " I guess 'bout the only kind of rosberries that'll suit 
 you is those as grows in kingdom come." 
 
 Miss Matilda had triumphed, to be sure. Elizabeth had 
 found Mr. Dust's reflection appropriate but inadequate, and 
 she was too depressed to retaliate further, though after all 
 she had a certain glow of success in driving her from her 
 first position. But even this had faded as she seated her 
 self at the little kitchen window, and, resting her chin in her 
 hand, looked out with a sudden, passionate longing that the 
 peace of the scene might enter into her soul and make it 
 still. The pangs of unrequited love which are so rapidly 
 losing their early simplicity, and threatening to become ar 
 chaic, were making of ungoverned, capricious Elizabeth a 
 rebellious, heavy-hearted woman. The days were growing 
 longer, and it was not yet quite dark. The sun had set, and 
 left a clear, pale gold above the hills. Against this the trees 
 stood straight, motionless, and dark. They were still far 
 from the full leafage of summer and from, even the delicate 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 267 
 
 tracery of the budding leaves of early spring, but neverthe 
 less there was an undefinable suggestion of something that 
 was not all of winter in their clear outline. A small moon 
 burned palely in the east. Spring was not here ; she was 
 still afar off, but the trees on the luminous mountain-tops 
 could catch a glimpse of her approach. 
 
 But to Elizabeth the spring brought no promise of re 
 newed hopes and blossoming happiness. It meant to her 
 but that absence should be added to despair to what she 
 called despair, for she did not yet know how hard hope is to 
 kill, and that, so long as she was near Jib Trent, she would 
 have an unrecognized hope of reconciliation. Let them 
 come and take her away! Let the new birth of spring 
 come and be but the beginning of a greater weariness ! 
 
 There was the sound of steps upon the snow outside. 
 Elizabeth turned her gaze from the hill -tops to the path 
 that led to the kitchen door, and saw Jib coming towards 
 her. Instinctively she sprang to her feet to hasten to open 
 the door it was as if the golden light behind the moun 
 tains suddenly pulsed with a wave of deeper radiance. 
 Then she paused in sudden dread. Whether it was that 
 something in his face, as he looked up and saw her at the 
 window, warned her ; whether it was that a realization of 
 the strangeness of his coming thus alone, at dusk, when he 
 had not trodden that path in long, long weeks, startled her 
 into a presentiment of evil whether it was one of these 
 things, or something more subtle than either, she was over 
 whelmed for an instant. Recovering herself, she went on 
 and opened the door, standing silently, framed in the low 
 doorway, while he drew nearer, silent too, his eyes on hers. 
 In them was no hesitation, no contempt, no reproof. Neither 
 was there questioning, petition, or forgiveness nothing but 
 an unutterable tenderness. As Elizabeth looked into them, 
 the peace, for which she had looked towards the sunset in 
 
268 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 vain, flooded her soul. All at once she was quiet and at 
 rest ; there was to be no misunderstanding any more, one 
 look at Jib's face had told her that. But there was some 
 thing to come after? Had this sudden joy come to her 
 without explanation, without reckoning a visitation of 
 God ? A visitation of God the quaint phrase stayed in 
 her consciousness. She had heard it on Sunday evening. 
 Did it not mean pestilence, earthquake, and sudden death ? 
 Were not these things for the most part called visitations of 
 God ? Her happier, natural creed reasserted itself against 
 the associations of a gloomy one. No whatever might 
 come after, whatever chastening was before her, this deep, 
 unalterable, enfolding love was the true visitation of God ! 
 
 Jib took both the hands which she had instinctively ex 
 tended to him, and led her inside the door. Then he drew 
 her into his arms. 
 
 " My darling," he said gently. His voice had a strange 
 huskiness, unlike its usual sweet, somewhat hesitating utter 
 ance. Moreover, the term of endearment was foreign to 
 his New England undemonstrativeness. " I am yours, and 
 I am all you have in the world." She raised her head from 
 his shoulder and looked up at him frightened. He forgot 
 even how hard it was to tell her. He thought only of her. 
 
 " There has been an accident," he said, his voice steady, 
 but infinitely gentle. " A bad railroad accident. The news 
 has just come to the valley. Your father and mother, Eliza 
 beth, are among the killed." 
 
 Her head fell again on his breast, as a great darkness en 
 veloped her. There was absolute silence for a moment, 
 and then she stood upright and drew away from him. He 
 let her go instantly, and she steadied herself a moment, her 
 hand on his arm, and then walked back to the window, which 
 looked out to the yellow light, now grown pale, but forth 
 from which stars were shining. Here she sank into a chair. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 269 
 
 Jib watched her head fall on her hands, and then went tow 
 ards the door leading into the sitting-room. Before reach 
 ing it he paused a moment. 
 
 " Elizabeth," said he, " I want you to remember that it 
 was very sudden there was no suffering." She did not 
 answer, and he went on into the next room. The lamp was 
 burning, but Mrs. Dust stood between it and Jib, throwing 
 the doorway into shadow. She was engaged in lighting a 
 candle for Miss Matilda, and Ashur had laid down the 
 weekly journal to watch her success with the paper lamp 
 lighter she held over the lamp-chimney. No one of the 
 three perceived Jib's entrance. 
 
 "Well," Miss Matilda was remarking impartially, "don't 
 seem 's if you'd ever git it lighted." 
 
 " Wai, I calculate even mother can't make paper burn 
 afore it gits hot enough," said Ashur conciliatingly. 
 
 " That candlestick is the awk'ardest thing to hold I ever 
 came across," went on Miss Matilda. 
 
 "It's your own candlestick," commented Roxana, with 
 what threatened to become tartness under further provoca 
 tion. 
 
 "Yes, it is," admitted Miss Spore, who had momentarily 
 overlooked the fact, " and it's all dish." 
 
 " You was savin 1 the other day you couldn't abide one of 
 them narrer candlesticks that let the grease drop all over," 
 said Mrs. Dust. She had lighted the paper twist, and was 
 now struggling with the candle-wick. Jib still stood in 
 the shadow. He dreaded to interrupt them perhaps a 
 more fitting moment might come. 
 
 "No more I can," said Miss Matilda, undisturbed. " Tim 
 brought me that one last time he come home, and says I, 
 ' Wai, it's big enough to set in the tabernacle.' ' Wai, now, 
 Aunt Matilda,' says Tim, ' I thought you'd like this, 'cause 
 it can't drip, and you said the old candlestick was always 
 
270 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 drippin'. That candlestick,' says he, ' couldn't drip, not if 
 it rained spermacity.' * Perhaps not/ says I " Miss Matilda 
 fell easily into narration, and to do her justice it was seldom 
 devoid of a certain interest " ' perhaps not, but I never 
 said that I wanted to carry round a candlestick like John 
 the Baptist's head on a charger.' Them was the last words 
 I said to Tim just as he was goin* off " 
 
 Jib brushed his hand over his forehead and stepped for 
 ward. 
 
 " Miss Matilda," he said. 
 
 Roxana nearly dropped the candlestick. 
 
 " For the land's sake !" she exclaimed, turning around 
 with the deliberation her size demanded, "I didn't hear 
 you comin' in." 
 
 " Nobody heard him comin' in !" asserted Miss Matilda 
 with the spitefulness naturally engendered by being star 
 tled. " It's my belief he didn't want us to." 
 
 "I guess Jib Trent ain't a burglar," said Ashur, with 
 humorous intention. Then he paused. All of them were 
 suddenly struck with the unnaturalness of his being in that 
 house after so long an interval. With the unconscious di 
 rectness of her simplicity, Roxana spoke. 
 
 "Where's Elizabeth?" 
 
 No one answered her. Jib had come forward into the 
 light, and they saw his face. He was pale and his features 
 were contracted. The exaltation of his care for Elizabeth 
 had passed away, and he was confronted by the load he 
 had undertaken to bear. He felt himself a messenger of 
 death. Ashur rose with the slowness of hard-worked age 
 from his wooden chair. 
 
 "For the Lord's sake, Jib," he said, "what has hap 
 pened ?" 
 
 Before he answered Miss Spore spoke. 
 
 " What'r' you lookin' at me that way for, Jib Trent?" she 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 271 
 
 demanded harshly, straightening herself in spite of her 
 rheumatism. 
 
 " Elizabeth's father and mother have been killed on the 
 railroad," he said with difficulty. Roxana gave a sudden 
 cry and ran towards the kitchen. 
 
 " Poor child, poor child !" she sobbed. 
 
 At the door Jib's voice arrested her. 
 
 " And Tim," he said with a further effort. 
 
 "Wai, Tim Tim what?" Matilda's voice was sharper 
 than ever, though it trembled. " Why don't you say what 
 you've got to say ?" 
 
 " Tim was on the same train." 
 
 " And he's with 'em ? With Marcella and that good-for- 
 nothin' Nicholas ?" 
 
 Miss Spore rose to her feet for the first time in weeks 
 unaided. 
 
 "Matilda!" exclaimed Ashur, "don't call him that! 
 he's dead." 
 
 "You keep still, Ashur Dust," said Miss Spore contempt 
 uously. It was as if her great fear brushed aside all the 
 lesser moralities. " He's with 'em, I say Tim is with 'em 
 -helpin' ?" 
 
 "Yes, he's with 'em," said Jib heavily, "but not helping 
 he's with 'em wherever they are." 
 
 The young fellow was almost overborne with his own 
 tidings. He was unused to such a vicarious weight of sor 
 row. Moreover, she was looking at him as though she held 
 him accountable. At last she understood. She sank back 
 into the chair again. Roxana had slipped out into the 
 kitchen to Elizabeth. 
 
 "The last words I says to him," repeated Matilda Spore 
 mechanically, " the last words I says to him " 
 
 Jib, avoiding the room where his love sat hopeless and 
 helpless beyond even his help for the present went tow- 
 
272 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 ards the other outside door, and Ashur Dust, his trembling 
 hand on his shoulder, followed him. They went out, clos 
 ing the door after them, and spoke in low tones. Miss 
 Spore sat there alone, facing her loneliness. It is given to 
 no one of us to alienate our fellow-creatures, one by one, 
 by our own wilfulness, counting, meanwhile, on some one 
 affection as our right, and therefore inalienable. 
 
 The candle burned by her side in Tim's candlestick. It 
 flickered in the draught of the open door, but did not go 
 out When Roxana came back into the room some time 
 after, the little flame was still there, and Matilda Spore was 
 tearlessly gazing at it. It was as if three strong lives had 
 been snuffed out since it was lighted, and its feebleness 
 still burned on unharmed and unresisting. 
 
 The night passed. Roxana spent most of it with Eliza 
 beth. Her passionate, overwhelming grief she could un 
 derstand and try to soothe, but the placidity of Roxana's 
 nature, itself undisturbed by excess, was ill at ease in the 
 presence of Matilda Spore's undemonstrative bitterness. 
 She declined all suggestions of repose. No, she didn't 
 want to go to bed ; she'd set where she was. As Roxana 
 moved about the room in a sorrowful, inconsequent way, pre 
 paring for the night, she was uneasily conscious of Miss 
 Spore's scrutiny. She knew that her clumsiness the clum 
 siness of preoccupation was noticed. Grief seemed to 
 have softened none of the asperity of the glance that fol 
 lowed her from the old arm-chair. At last, with a word or 
 two of final remonstrance, coldly received, she took up her 
 candle and went back to Elizabeth, leaving the lamp burn 
 ing and the stove filled with wood. 
 
 "I guess," said Miss Matilda as Roxana reached the 
 door " I guess if Tim had 'a' held on he would 'a' been 
 saved." Mrs. Dust waited, not knowing what to answer. 
 There was a slight contraction of Miss Spore's throat. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 273 
 
 " He was always a dretful heedless boy," she added. It 
 was the last protest against fate that she uttered. Accord 
 ing to the habit of years, somebody must be found fault 
 with, but it was a feeble flash of the ruling passion, after all, 
 lacking the searing, irritating quality that she excelled in, 
 and as such was not without pathos. 
 
 It was a melancholy vigil, that of this lonely old woman 
 sitting alone in the familiar room, giving to its familiarity 
 an aspect of tragedy, in spite of the friendly lamp and the 
 nearly articulate stove. It is almost always a mistake when 
 it is asserted that an individual who is of a rough and in 
 different behavior is one of a nature of deep tenderness 
 and unusual sensitiveness. " As much virtue as there is, so 
 much appears." Specially unsatisfactory are those people 
 who flatter themselves that for a rude and injurious daily 
 conduct they stand ready to atone at certain crises by un 
 usual steadfastness and devotion. Our neighbor is not al 
 ways lying by the road-side robbed and left for dead, when 
 he is in the greatest want of strengthening ministrations. 
 Moreover, " in times of trial," as Meredith says, "great nat 
 ures alone are not at the mercy of their instincts." Ice 
 does not form in a warm neighborhood. Cold manners are 
 apt to be the manifestation of a cold heart. Therefore 
 Miss Matilda Spore did not in all probability suffer from 
 actual grief at the loss of the only human being that was 
 bound to her by nearer ties than those of a common hu 
 manity, as deeply as might have a more loving woman. 
 But there were added pangs of defeat, rebellion, perhaps 
 remorse ; and, after all, her lonely, unappealing, spare figure 
 represented a suffering of its own, lonelier and more tragic 
 in that it was unlovable. Tim had been all that belonged 
 to her, and though his claims had appeared to be chiefly 
 upon her faculties of rebuke, she had now and then ac 
 knowledged others. If an unusual softness of mood came 
 18 
 
274 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 over her, it was Tim that had the benefit of it in added 
 dainties of the table that he might have now and then 
 suffered from hunger less easily appeased, she had never 
 cared. If she would not admit that he was worthy, she al 
 ways denied that any of his companions were less unwor 
 thy. And there was a stout, robust, New England fibre in 
 her nature that had stood her brother's child in good stead. 
 
 The lamp burned dim, the stove grew silent, she drew 
 her shawl closer around her angular shoulders. She had 
 slept, though she did not know it she looked out towards 
 the grayness of the dawn and remembered that Tim was 
 dead. 
 
 Early in the morning, Jib, in his sleigh, drove up to the 
 door to take Elizabeth over to North Lanes, where her 
 mother and father were lying. There had been no ques 
 tion from the first of Jib's right to take upon himself all of 
 Elizabeth's burden that could be borne by another; the 
 care and direction of most of the details had been left to 
 him. There were no conventionalities to be infringed, no 
 heedless speculation concerning their relations to be dread 
 ed. The whole population of the valley was shocked by 
 the terrible accident, and in its shadow all lesser difficul 
 ties were forgotten, and Jib reassumed his place by Eliza 
 beth's side without comment. Miss Spore, with the for 
 titude of her undemonstrativeness, insisted upon being 
 wrapped up in shawls and buffalo robes and also driven 
 over. That she suffered intense pain weighed not a straw 
 in the balance with her invincible will. Ashur took his seat 
 in the front of the lumbering sleigh and drove the two 
 women down the sharp descent from the farm-house, while 
 Jib and Elizabeth went fleetly on before. Denver Trent 
 had expected to accompany them, but the old man was suf 
 fering from increased lameness, easily contracted in his ex 
 posed life and less easily thrown off each year of his ad- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 275 
 
 vancing years, and Jib had peremptorily forbidden it. Jib 
 was so rarely peremptory that Denver Trent had yielded. 
 The cold, crisp air, the unblinking sunlight, seemed but to 
 increase the sadness of the long drive. Elizabeth and Jib 
 scarcely spoke for mile after mile. There was no room in 
 her heart for anything but passionate sorrow. It was not 
 until long after that she knew what his presence and con 
 stant care had saved her from. If she had been called 
 upon to sustain this terrible blow in the unrelieved loneli 
 ness that she had felt closing about her, as she stood at 
 the window looking towards the darkening hills, if she had 
 not felt unconsciously but keenly the strength of another 
 love close at hand, it seemed to her, later, that she should 
 have died. 
 
 As they drew near the little town of North Lanes, Jib 
 said, 
 
 " Will you go now, Elizabeth, or wait for the others ?" 
 
 " I will go now," she said. 
 
 As they passed swiftly through the crooked streets a 
 wave of remembrance rushed over them both. They were 
 the same streets through which Elizabeth had driven her 
 ponies in the audacity of beauty and skill, and where Jib 
 had first caught sight of the vision that should be to him 
 forever the glory and the dream. Poor little Elizabeth! 
 From so dazzling a pageant to so sad an errand ! One 
 year had held for her what a long life finds enough to com 
 pass triumph, love, and sorrow. 
 
 Jib did not follow her into the house whither she was led 
 with the kindness and sympathy which strangers do not 
 withhold when it is needed. He drove away and learned 
 about the accident. It had not been one of those railroad 
 horrors which fill a column of the daily papers with heart 
 rending descriptions and a terrible list of the killed and 
 wounded. Only five people had been killed and only one 
 
276 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 or two others badly hurt. The car in which had been 
 Nicholas French and his wife was the only one that had 
 suffered. Officials were going quickly hither and thither. 
 The business of the road must go on, the obstruction of the 
 wreck was being removed as quickly as possible, but a 
 heavy curtain of gloom was over all the little community. 
 The accident had occurred a mile or two from the town. 
 It was as if Death had come visibly among them. 
 
 " Where is Tim ?" asked Jib, his voice unsteady. 
 
 " The newsboy ? He is over there," answered a brake- 
 man whom he addressed. " They think he must have been 
 thrown from the platform ; he wasn't in the car. He was a 
 plucky little feller," he added, with the roughness of unac 
 customed sympathy "all hands liked him." To this man 
 it was a serious accident and solemnizing, but it was not the 
 awful catastrophe that it was to the less experienced dwell 
 ers in North Lanes. This sturdy brakeman, who had seen 
 death before, near at hand, and had been in more terrible 
 scenes than this, perhaps would have been satisfied to ex 
 pect some such eulogy himself some time " All hands liked 
 him." At the door Jib met Miss Spore and Roxana, and 
 they entered together. Tim lay in the best room of one of 
 the neighboring houses. Possibly the scene never lost for 
 Miss Matilda an underlying suggestion of satisfaction that 
 the best room of a not unimportant neighbor, and one keen 
 ly alive to the sacredness of a best room, had been freely 
 offered on this occasion. There was nothing distressing in 
 the sight. It was so unusual to see Tim absolutely still 
 that was perhaps the. most startling thing at first. The look 
 of precocious knowledge had vanished from his face, leav 
 ing a childishness that was sweeter. His cap, that gold- 
 laced cap, the source of so much innocent pride, which had 
 marked such official distinction, lay beside him, battered and 
 soiled, upon the floor. Miss Matilda pointed to it, and Jib 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 277 
 
 picked it up and gave it to her, and she stood there hold 
 ing it and looking down at its owner. Some one passed 
 under the window ; the voice, though not the words, pene 
 trated the silence of the room with a touch of sacrilege. A 
 boy who had always envied Tim's position looked in at the 
 door, and, frightened, went quickly away. Roxana, crying 
 quietly, came out with Jib and closed the door, leaving 
 Miss Spore within. In the outer room the wife of the not 
 unimportant neighbor, with sympathy unclouded by any 
 sense of strangeness in the circumstances, gave them some 
 things that had been taken from his pockets. Among the 
 rest the usual preparations for impossible emergencies 
 germane to a boy's pocket was an envelope with a little 
 money in it, addressed to his Aunt Matilda, a book bearing 
 the inscription " For Jib Trent the best yet," written in a 
 round, school-boy hand, evidently for the pleasure of making 
 an inscription an amusement which had no opportunity 
 to grow stale in Tim's life rather than as an actual aid to 
 recollection. There was also a note to a brother official 
 the news agent whose duty it was to conduct the business 
 on alternate days ; it ran as follows : 
 
 "DEAR FRIEND, Miss Rhodope Trent will be coming on the 78 
 along about next week. If I ain't on the 78 you look after her. 
 You've seen her with me at the Stashun. She's the nicest -gwl Lady 
 there is, but she ain't much on the travell. You watch out for her, Sid, 
 and don't you forget it. Yours truly, TIMOTHY SPORE. 
 
 "(News Agent.)" 
 
 Not so many, after all, have gone to their last account 
 with more to the credit side in the way of unselfish thought 
 for others than Timothy Spore, News Agent. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 * But he is not your lover after all it was not you he looked at !" 
 
 "A woman of the world 
 
 if she loves at last, 
 Her love's a readjustment of self-love, 
 No more, a need felt of another's use 
 To her one advantage." 
 
 MEDCOTT rose from his easel with a sigh of impatience. 
 
 " It's no use," he said, " I've been trying to think it's the 
 light, but it isn't ; it is my hand that is the trouble or my 
 brain. I haven't been able to paint for a week past. It is 
 
 * out of me, out of me,' like poor Andrea, this afternoon." 
 
 " Your mind is ill at ease," remarked Davenant senten- 
 tiously. 
 
 " I'm afraid she thinks I'm a dilettante sort of fellow," 
 said Medcott abruptly. "With her admiration for being 
 and doing, that would be fatal." 
 
 " If she thinks so and I don't believe she does it is 
 because of her ignorance. There are enough people to en 
 lighten her." 
 
 " Oh, it isn't that" and he paused. 
 
 " It is only that you think it would seem more like real 
 work to her if you well, followed the plough. Now, I 
 don't believe she has any idea of its being your duty to fol 
 low the plough, or would like you better if you did. Prob 
 ably she has before this ascertained that even those who 
 are habitually engaged in following the plough are not 
 thereby rendered entirely superior to human frailty." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 279 
 
 Davenant was talking on in his lazy fashion, that seemed 
 to have no application other than one of general philosoph 
 ical interest. Perhaps he was getting a little tired of the 
 subject. Medcott laughed. 
 
 " How do you like this thing yourself ?" he asked. 
 
 He had reseated himself at the easel, notwithstanding his 
 dissatisfaction. 
 
 " I like it," answered Davenant. " I don't know any 
 thing about technique, but I know a great deal about sen 
 timent I like it." He did not move from his easy-chair 
 and walk wisely about for different coigns of vantage, but 
 he spoke positively. 
 
 " I have hopes of it myself," said Medcott, and he paint 
 ed in silence for a few moments. It was a small picture, a 
 bit of moonlit landscape a deeply-shadowed lane with a 
 profusion of flowering shrubs near two figures, a man's and 
 a woman's, leaning on a stone wall, all suggestive of youth, 
 summer, emotion and off to the left a little graveyard, 
 one or two of the headstones shining palely in the moon 
 light. He called it " The happier, they." It had been sug 
 gested by Browning's " De Gustibus " : 
 
 " Hark ! those two in the hazel coppice 
 A boy and a girl if the good fates please 
 
 Making love, say 
 
 The happier they ! 
 
 Draw yourself up from the light of the moon, 
 And let them pass, as they will, too soon, 
 
 With the beanflower's boon, 
 
 And the blackbird's tune, 
 
 And May, and June !" 
 
 " I wonder if Charlie Needham is going to the devil," 
 speculated Davenant in a tone of unemotional inquiry. 
 
 " Not faster than a good many other people, I guess by 
 freight, perhaps." 
 
 " I don't know," went on Tom, watching the smoke of 
 
28O WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 his cigarette. " I think it's getting almost too late to whis 
 tle down brakes to carry out your unworthy metaphor." 
 
 " What makes you think so ?" and Medcott paused an in 
 stant to face his companion. 
 
 " Oh, one thing and another," said Tom carelessly. 
 
 " I'm sorry if it's so. Charlie Needham has the makings 
 of a good sort of fellow what he needs is a balance-wheel." 
 
 "What might you consider a balance-wheel?" inquired 
 Davenant. " We all have our little ideas. The student of 
 human nature likes a crack at them all." 
 
 "Enthusiasm for the beautiful," answered Medcott 
 promptly, "whether in character, art,' nature, morals, or 
 purpose. Something besides a critical attitude towards 
 life." 
 
 "Not an altogether original conception," commented 
 Davenant, "but 'twill serve." 
 
 " If a man hasn't that," continued the other, " he's in a 
 fair way not to have anything. I came across a remark of 
 Holmes to that effect the other day. He says wait a min 
 ute " and he rose and picked up a book from the table 
 " he says, ' You remain an idealist I sometimes think it is 
 the only absolute line of division between men that which 
 separates the men who hug the actual from those who 
 stretch their arms to embrace the possible. There is no 
 profit in discussing any living question with men who have 
 no sentiments we don't talk music to those who have no 
 ear.' There it is for you ! I say, Charlie Needham doesn't 
 admire anything he can't do or be himself that is what fs 
 the matter with him and there is no salvation in Kleinig- 
 kciten." 
 
 "That's true enough," assented Davenant. Medcott 
 went back a second time to his painting. " And I never 
 thought you much of an analyst either. You are too fond 
 of the abstract." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 281 
 
 "I suppose there is an occasional point where the ab 
 stract touches human nature," scoffed Medcott. " Don't 
 be an ass." 
 
 This gentle admonition drew a smile of toleration from 
 Davenant and the further concession of silence. 
 
 " I wonder why she won't let me see her," exclaimed 
 Medcott suddenly. 
 
 "Austin," said Davenant gently, "you are getting to be 
 a bore. When you have anything to tell me about Miss 
 Trent, I shall be glad to listen," he went on generously, 
 " but this inanity of speculation, guesswork, and over-state 
 ment is rapidly alienating my affections." 
 
 " I'm sure it is intentional," asserted Medcott without 
 the slightest regard for his guest's remonstrance. "I've* 
 been trying to see her for ten days." 
 
 " Is that all ?" sighed Davenant. 
 
 " I can't get a word with her. I saw Mrs. Needham 
 once, and she told me Miss Trent was out." 
 
 " I wonder if she was." 
 
 " Then I wrote to her, and I haven't heard a word. There 
 is something going on behind the scenes there must be." 
 
 " It is my firm knowledge and belief," declared Dave 
 nant, "that man wants but little here below, but wants 
 that little long before he gets it. Don't consider yourself 
 exempt from the common lot." 
 
 " I don't !" replied Medcott, starting up. " But I mean 
 that I shall learn whether I am to get it at all from the lips 
 of one person only, and that a league of evil spirits, how 
 ever clothed upon in the flesh, is not going to turn me off ! 
 I know why you are smiling you are thinking of my doubts 
 and hesitations. Well, they are over ! I've never prided 
 myself on being consistent." 
 
 " I have always felt that the reason that consistency is 
 termed a jewel," considered Davenant, " is that it is some- 
 
282 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 times useful for ornamental purposes, and costs a good 
 deal more than much more valuable things." 
 
 " I wish you wouldn't be always getting your confounded 
 note-book off on me," objected Medcott. 
 
 " I've pretty nearly given up my note-book," answered 
 Davenant with a touch of seriousness. " Life has grown 
 too interesting I need all my aphorisms for daily use." 
 
 Medcott looked at him in some surprise as he laid aside 
 his palette and brushes. He was not sure that he under 
 stood him. 
 
 " Come out for a walk," he said. " It's too dark to work 
 any longer. It really is the light this time." 
 
 " What you want," said Davenant, as they turned into 
 the street, now darkening, very like the stage, as a prelim 
 inary to a future blaze of electric light "what you want 
 just now is a female relative. It's a great pity that your 
 mother is on the other side ; she would know just what to 
 do. Where's Mrs. Harrow?" 
 
 "Mrs. Harrow would not understand," said Medcott 
 briefly. " The best of women will not sometimes." 
 
 Davenant nodded. Mrs. Harrow was a devoted friend 
 of Medcott, but he suspected her of having views of her 
 own for his future. 
 
 " A man is more or less wax in the hands of a woman 
 like Florence Needham," he said. " A clever woman is a 
 particularly inflexible kind of granite." 
 
 " I shall not be wax in the hands of Mrs. Needham," said 
 Medcott. 
 
 Davenant's smile contained a suggestion of applause. 
 
 " But I wish, too, that my mother were here," went on 
 Medcott. "I'd like her to see Miss Trent. Even Bertha 
 might be of use." 
 
 Davenant shared the misgiving indicated by the form of 
 her brother's reference to Bertha, but, notwithstanding, he 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 283 
 
 thought, too, that Bertha might be of use. He knew Med- 
 cott's family as he knew his own of whom only his father 
 was left for him to know now. 
 
 "Bertha is very apt to come around to doing the right 
 thing," remarked Medcott, smiling. " My mother does the 
 right thing at first, because it's polite, but Bertha has to 
 work up to it by following the path of duty which, ten to 
 one, starts in the opposite direction, but, to her surprise, 
 fetches up at the same place with the conventionally cour 
 teous." 
 
 " Bertha would like Miss Trent." 
 
 " Yes, but Miss Trent would seem to her singular. Peo 
 ple often seem singular to Bertha. What a comment it is 
 on our civilization that she should seem singular to a good 
 woman like my sister!" he exclaimed. "We are so over 
 laid with affectations that we suspect truth of being in 
 masquerade. Because Rhodope is absolutely direct, single- 
 minded, unaffected, and unspoiled, she strikes everybody 
 as unusual." 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Davenant, a little hurriedly. " But most 
 things are comments on our civilization, you know. One 
 runs across them everywhere." 
 
 Medcott laughed. " All right, Tom," he said, " I won't 
 tell you anything more about Miss Trent till I have some 
 thing to say." 
 
 When Davenant left Medcott he had not told him that 
 he was going to dine with Florence Needham that evening, 
 but he resolved that he would then make some effort to 
 discover the cause of the silence that Rhodope seemed de 
 termined to maintain between herself and her lover. Ten 
 days is a short interval in the complex lives of those who 
 dwell in cities, but it is a long time to elapse between such 
 words as Medcott had spoken and a reply. Knowing 
 Florence as he did, Davenant felt that this interval might 
 
284 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 not be entirely due to a natural sequence of events. It 
 was a fact that he had neglected his note-book; that is, 
 that he had ceased to be the philosophic observer, always 
 on the watch for material, and had become involved in the 
 underlying emotions of these three or four lives to an 
 extent he had not anticipated. Scientific research is in 
 danger of losing its quality of dispassionateness when it 
 is devoted to the development of human thought and 
 feeling. 
 
 As Davenant took a car going up-town, he thought of 
 Medcott's apprehensions. He understood perfectly why he 
 feared that, to Rhodope, art would not appear a serious aim 
 in life. 
 
 " He thinks that to her practical and yet ideal concep 
 tions," he said to himself, " he will seem to belong to the 
 category of the decorators of paper-knives, a calling that 
 appeals neither to the practical, nor satisfactorily to the 
 ideal." 
 
 Yet Medcott was an unusually hard worker. He had all 
 the fine contempt of an earnest laborer for those who seek 
 a trifling success in what is but an amusing one's self with 
 art. He believed that nothing but the taking of infinite 
 pains brought assured results, and that a serene and high 
 purpose were inseparable from a worthy devotion to the 
 production of the best. Altogether, he was very far from a 
 dilettante. He would not have been anything but dissatis 
 fied with the reputation of a person of excellent taste, and 
 he had won much more already. Success was within his 
 grasp, and only those who have worked thus realize how 
 rarely such success is the result of accident. Davenant 
 was so interested in reflecting on this that, although the 
 car was crowded, and while he stood, the conductor, on his 
 wedging way through the car whose brute force really 
 should have had its usual accompaniments of half-backs' 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 285 
 
 and rushers planted his elbow firmly in the small of his 
 back, thus steadying himself while he made change, and 
 although, after he had acquired the seventh part of a seat, 
 the large man next him persistently sought for small coins 
 in a rear pocket, thus effectually pinning his face flat against 
 the pane though these things happened, he bestowed upon 
 them an attention even more cursory than they usually re 
 ceive. 
 
 He had been told that there were to be no other guests, 
 but he was surprised that he did not see Rhodope. When 
 dinner was announced, and they went to the table without 
 her, Florence somewhat negligently explained that she had 
 been invited to spend a few days with Edwina Screed, and 
 would remain with her until the day after the next as she 
 was not going to the Rimmon dinner, she would stay until 
 it was over. 
 
 " Great fuss people are making over that Englishman," 
 said Charlie. 
 
 " Oh, well, he is rather a good specimen, after all. For 
 Heaven's sake, if people make a fuss over a reputable Eng 
 lishman, Needham, give 'em your blessing. This man real 
 ly has enlightened instincts, and has shown it in Parlia 
 ment." 
 
 "Yes, that's just it, in Parliament the House of Lords. 
 It isn't on account of his enlightened instincts they ask him 
 to dinner." 
 
 " I'm sure Mrs. Rimmon would never give a dinner for 
 anybody that is not worth knowing," observed Mrs. Need- 
 ham decidedly. We have seen that there were some sub 
 jects that Florence would never admit were not placed out 
 side the realm of legitimate criticism. There was a pause 
 as the fish was removed. 
 
 " Are you going to Mrs. Rimmon's dinner ?" asked Flor 
 ence suddenly. 
 
286 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " Yes," answered Davenant carelessly. " I met some of 
 Lord Ayforth's people abroad, and they let me know he 
 was here, so I've seen something of him." 
 
 Florence crumbled her bread during a moment of absence 
 of mind. This was the sort of thing that Tom Davenant 
 was falling into all the time. She was exceedingly agree 
 able during the rest of the dinner. Needham had an en 
 gagement almost immediately after it, as usual, and Dave 
 nant perceived that the tete-d-ttte that followed had not been 
 unexpected. 
 
 Florence sat in one of the low-cushioned drawing-roorn 
 chairs, beneath a tall lamp, whose shade spiritualized her 
 beauty with its soft coloring. Davenant, not far from her, 
 leaned against the corner of a heavy screen, his thin, almost 
 delicate face, with its frequent rather melancholy smile, 
 turned towards the open fire. With his air of perfect breed 
 ing, and apparent indifference to any effect he might pro 
 duce, his attractive cynicism and his real cleverness, he rep 
 resented a great deal to Florence Needham. She was quick 
 enough herself to admire his talent, but she never dared to 
 dwell on that too much, lest it should not be that, but a 
 certain undefinable something else, that made him so admi 
 rable to the authorities. 
 
 " Have you seen Medcott lately ?" he asked, turning his 
 eyes from the fire to hers. Her face hardened instantly. 
 
 " No," she said ; " he has been here, I believe but we 
 were out. Speaking of Medcott, did you see that little 
 sketch of the Clock piazza. ? He gave it to me a month 
 ago. There it is." 
 
 Davenant glanced in the direction indicated by her eyes. 
 
 "No," she said laughing, "you can't see it unless you 
 stand up. It is on the other end of the shelf." 
 
 " Why should I rise to look at the Clock piazza ?" objected 
 Davenant. " I saw it for the better part of September most 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 287 
 
 of the time. By what right am I turned out on the Clock 
 piazza ?" Nevertheless he rose, and crossed in front of the 
 fire. By the side of the sketch was a letter. It was placed 
 against an ornament of the chimney-piece in such a way 
 that Davenant read the address on the envelope instantly 
 and inevitably " Miss Trent " in Medcott's singular and 
 unmistakable handwriting. Before he could take up the 
 sketch Florence sprang to her feet and snatched the letter 
 out of the way. The whole performance occupied scarcely 
 a minute, but it was a minute that she would gladly have 
 recalled. The next instant she stood with the letter in her 
 hand, her invariable laugh on her lips, but conscious of her 
 mistake, and Davenant, after one glance at her, was quietly 
 examining the sketch. 
 
 " It is very good," he said. " I can almost see the grid 
 dle-cakes through the kitchen door. Dost remember those 
 griddle-cakes ?" 
 
 Florence tossed the letter down on the table. 
 
 " Why don't you say I've behaved like an idiot, Tom ?" 
 she said. 
 
 Davenant put the sketch back in its place. 
 
 " I never allow myself to get beyond implication of that 
 sort," he said indifferently. " How do I know but that you 
 might consider idiot actionable ?" 
 
 Florence laughed again. Laughter was her resource al 
 ways in social difficulties. 
 
 " I don't know why I should have minded your seeing the 
 letter," she said, rather inadequately. 
 
 " That is not the difficulty," he replied composedly. " It 
 is that, if you had minded, you should have put the letter 
 away before. I read the address unavoidably in the critical 
 moment." 
 
 Florence seated herself with an effort to regain her for 
 mer manner. 
 
288 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " But there really is no objection to your knowing that 
 Medcott has written a note to Rhodope." 
 
 " And that you have been keeping it a week undelivered," 
 he added quietly. He had made up his mind to interfere 
 if the opportunity came in his way. He gauged pretty ac 
 curately his influence over Florence, and the fancy for test 
 ing it, not unusual in the philosophic temperament, was an 
 additional reason for using it for the general good. She 
 instantly recognized that evasion would be useless. 
 
 " Well," she said, defiantly. 
 
 " Well, what objection is there to my knowing that too ? 
 And why should you have fancied that there could be one ?" 
 
 She came to a sudden decision, led to it by a variety of 
 causes. In the first place, her flame of resentment towards 
 Medcott sought an outlet ; and her jealous dislike of Rhod 
 ope had become unbearable in silence ; and the vexation of 
 the whole situation was extreme. There is a certain relief 
 in giving utterance to such a complication of feelings to a 
 person thoroughly cognizant of all the circumstances and 
 personalities concerned, even though this very knowledge 
 makes the listener a disapproving one. Moreover, there 
 were other more gratifying influences at work. She felt the 
 intoxication of confidence to-night. She had reached an 
 advantageous eminence in the social range. She was going 
 to-morrow to dine with Mrs. Rimmon. Below her were the 
 smiling but unimportant valleys of undefined but cheerful lo 
 cation ; below her the slopes of precarious but rewarding ef 
 fort; above her, a little nearer than ever before, gleamed the 
 lofty, if somewhat icy and unresponsive, peaks of English so 
 ciety. This consciousness gave her an almost uncalculating 
 recklessness. And in Davenant's presence there was always 
 the stimulus of a sentimental past and an emotional present. 
 She felt sure that she could sway Tom Davenant as it had 
 been given to no other woman to sway him. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 289 
 
 All her cleverness could not save her from this danger of 
 personal vanity that of overestimating the power which 
 her beauty placed in her hands. 
 
 " And suppose all that you suspect is true ?" she de 
 manded, rising again and coming nearer him, her eyes on 
 his. ** Suppose that I have been keeping this letter from 
 Rhodope, hoping that it may lead to misunderstanding? 
 Suppose that I did succeed in preventing him from seeing 
 her when he called ? Suppose I would like to break off 
 all communication between them ? What of that ?" Her 
 voice rang with audacious defiance. She let the storm an 
 nounce itself. 
 
 Davenant looked at her critically a few moments before he 
 answered, contemplating his own attitude with an impulse 
 of curiosity greater than that with which he regarded hers. 
 Passionate, brilliant, confident as she was, suddenly she 
 stood before him divested of the slight charm which, with 
 cynical tolerance, he had yielded to her during these last 
 months. And yet he was conscious, too, of a quick apprecia 
 tion of the added interest that this flash of overmastering 
 feeling lent her. It was the touch needed to lift her beauty 
 above the trivial. 
 
 " If that is true, it will convince me that in moments of 
 some excitement I have not overrated your capacities for 
 evil," he answered at last, with the increased slowness of 
 utterance he was apt to use on occasions which seemed to 
 call for rapid speech. 
 
 u It is true. I would give a great deal," and she clenched 
 her hands with an impulse that was half natural, half theat 
 rical, " to keep them apart to make mischief." 
 
 " You have very respectable gifts in that line," said Dave 
 nant appreciatively. 
 
 " I hate her," said Florence with a little stamp. "I tell 
 you I hate her !" 
 T 9 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " Oh, no, you don't, Florence. Hate is one of the strong 
 emotions. You are not the sort of woman that hates." 
 
 His tone was rendered contemptuous by his feeling for 
 the woman of whom she spoke, but what he said was true. 
 There was lacking in all she said the dignity of a passion 
 ate hatred. Even an unusual stress of feeling scarcely 
 lifted her above the commonplace of a pretty, capricious, 
 jealous woman who resents the praise of a rival. 
 
 "Why shouldn't I hate her? She has come between 
 me and so much. Last summer you were all so foolish 
 about her, do you remember? And this winter what has 
 she done ? She has made no friends. She has attracted 
 no attention. She has been difficult oh, difficult does not 
 express it!" 
 
 Florence did not realize, in the suddenness of this out 
 break, how she was exploiting her own motives. Davenant 
 smiled as he listened. 
 
 " You may laugh, but she has been a burden a positive 
 burden, I tell you ! Even Charlie thinks her superior to 
 me as if I cared for that!" and she laughed "but that 
 is what the people think who have liked her that she is 
 superior ! Do you suppose I asked her here to be my su 
 perior? They have thought her that but she has made 
 no sensation. Unless you consider that Austin Medcott is 
 securely entrapped that " 
 
 " That will do, Florence," said Davenant suddenly, and 
 she paused. " You have a certain vivacity of expression," 
 he went on, " an ease in asserting and in contradicting your 
 self, with a general ardor of frankness that is pleasing " 
 
 " Oh, how I hate you when you talk that way !" and Flor 
 ence flung herself again into her low chair. 
 
 Just how much she was acting, how far she was natural, 
 he hardly knew. Her anger was real, her expression of it, 
 though not studied, was conscious. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 2QI 
 
 " But there is a limit to what is pleasing even in that line, 
 and I think you have reached it. Medcott has certainly 
 fallen in love with Miss Trent" she would have inter 
 rupted him, she was so unwilling to hear him say it, but 
 he would not be interrupted " but you know as well as I 
 do that it has been singularly without provocation beyond 
 that perennial and legitimate provocation of beauty, nobil 
 ity, sweetness, and truth." 
 
 She was silenced in spite of herself, but she was the 
 more angry. She had hoped to carry him with her in the 
 sweep of her indignation, and she had but driven him to 
 array himself on the side of her rival. 
 
 " If he succeeds in winning her he will be fortunate be 
 yond even his deserts." 
 
 " I'd like to have his mother and sister hear you say so !" 
 she exclaimed. 
 
 " It is a pleasure that the future very likely has in store 
 for you. In the meantime I insist that you cease your dis 
 interested efforts to preserve his peace of mind intact." He 
 came close and leaned over her chair. " I insist, Flor 
 ence," he repeated. ' 
 
 She looked up at him defiantly, but her heart misgave 
 her. She realized with a shock that whatever might be her 
 power over him, his was stronger than ever over her. Un 
 consciously what he had grown to represent to her had 
 added its increasing weight to the old domination, and even 
 the strength of her attachment to Medcott dwindled beside 
 her feeling towards this slight, pale, indifferent, half-con 
 temptuous man. 
 
 "And suppose you do insist? 1 ' she said, angrily still. 
 " Suppose that I prefer to win, if not the future gratitude of 
 Austin Medcott himself, at least the present gratitude of 
 his mother, sister, and other friends less blinded by preju 
 dice than you are ?" He did not answer her, but he re- 
 
2 9 2 
 
 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 garded her more seriously than usual, while the lines of his 
 mouth grew more determined. 
 
 " Think of it, Tom, for a moment !" she went on, sitting 
 erect in her chair. " Just think one moment of the folly of 
 it the utter folly of it ! That country-girl and a man like 
 Austin Medcott critical, artistic, oh finished^ everything 
 that she is not !" 
 
 "We won't discuss it on general principles, but I want 
 you to give up your present policy of obstruction." 
 
 "And if I do not?" 
 
 "If you do not, you will not do the least real harm 
 which ought to be a consideration to you but you may 
 cause some unhappiness." 
 
 Davenant felt truly that while Rhodope was here she 
 would feel herself absolutely dependent upon Florence 
 Needham's treatment of her, and that therefore Florence 
 held a certain command of the situation which he and Med 
 cott could neither of them disturb by any direct appeal to 
 Rhodope. She looked him steadily in the face a moment, 
 and then her eyes fell. If Davenant had wanted revenge 
 for the pain she had made him suffer years ago, he might 
 have found it then ; but he had not cared for revenge. 
 Neither was he a vain man, but he was not blind, and he 
 perceived the working of his experiment. 
 
 " She shall have her letter to-morrow," she said with an 
 attempt at sullenness. " I can't send it to her to-night." 
 
 "And she shall see Medcott if he comes?" 
 
 " I shall take no steps to prevent it" 
 
 Then there was silence. He saw that she was still angry, 
 but she had yielded. With all the keenness of his percep 
 tions, however, he could not tell just how much this yield 
 ing promised for the future. He went back and seated 
 himself where he had been before he rose to look at the 
 picture. He would take leave in a few moments, but he 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 293 
 
 did not like to have the air of vanishing on the wave of 
 triumph. Florence turned her head towards him, where it 
 rested on the rich coloring of the chair. Her whole man 
 ner was changed, her voice was softer ; she had laid aside 
 her vexation. 
 
 " I should not think you would so misunderstand me," 
 she said " you, who once loved me." 
 
 Davenant was distinctly conscious of a wish that she 
 had not said it, but he smiled with an entire absence of ap 
 parent disturbance. 
 
 " I don't think I ever thoroughly misunderstood you, 
 Florence I who once loved you." 
 
 Had she been a wiser woman that would have been 
 enough. 
 
 " Yes, you have," she persisted. 
 
 " I wish I misunderstood her now," he thought. " Why 
 will women never believe in a past ?" " What do you want 
 me to say ?" he asked aloud. 
 
 It was a question he was always asking her, and the 
 transparency of its deference usually disconcerted her and 
 made her petulant. To-night, in the new exaltation of her 
 spirit, it stimulated her to a reply. 
 
 " I want you to say that you have forgiven everything, 
 but not forgotten everything." The relationship between 
 a tear and her half-smile could easily be traced. 
 
 " I have forgiven everything long ago," he answered, 
 " and I have forgotten nothing." 
 
 He had obeyed her literally, but she was not satisfied. 
 
 " What have you remembered best ?" she demanded with 
 a pretty childishness. 
 
 " How pretty you were," he answered promptly. " But 
 then I disclaim any credit for that, because I have been 
 constantly reminded of it since." 
 
 As usual she could not withstand a compliment to her 
 
294 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 beauty. Her smile this time was further from the line 
 that divides pleasure from grief. 
 
 "What did you do after you went abroad?" 
 
 " You tempt me to be autobiographical, and I hate it." 
 
 He spoke honestly, but it is a question whether at 
 another time he would have admitted that anybody ever 
 hates to be autobiographical. 
 
 " That is what I want," she said. 
 
 " She will have it and she deserves it, but it seems 
 particularly brutal just now," he said to himself, as he rose 
 and stood by the table on which she leaned her half-bare 
 arms, her chin in her hands, waiting for him to speak. She 
 hardly knew what she expected. She had not recovered 
 from her surprise at the revelation of his new power. 
 
 " I fell in love," he said briefly. 
 
 She let her hands fall one on the other and opened her 
 eyes wide. 
 
 " With some one else !" she exclaimed. 
 
 "Would you have had me go on falling in love with you 
 you who preferred Charlie Needham ?" 
 
 For the time all Florence's pique and disappointment 
 were swallowed up in simple curiosity. 
 
 " And she did she not care for you ?" she asked. 
 
 Davenant's expression changed. 
 
 " Yes. She cared for me and she died," he answered. 
 There was a moment's silence. A lump of coal fell noisily 
 apart in the heart of the fire. 
 
 " It is a long time ago," he went on quietly. " It has 
 become a memory rather than a sorrow, perhaps. Rhodope 
 Trent reminds me of her." 
 
 He was apparently perfectly unmoved. He would tell 
 Florence Needham the fact since she asked for it, but he 
 was not bound to show her anything beyond. With her 
 natural selfishness she saw only its relation to herself. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 295 
 
 Perhaps no more stinging blow could have been devised. 
 Not only had he not been faithful to his first love, 
 his second had resembled not her but Rhodope Trent. 
 With feminine intuition, she caught the realization of just 
 what her subsequent power over Davenant had been, 
 and how trifling it was. Later it would be obscured by 
 jealousy, vanity, self - love just now she saw it in a flash 
 of revealing illumination. All the disappointment, the 
 consciousness of what she had irrevocably lost so long ago, 
 linked itself with one of his last utterances. 
 
 " And I I preferred Charlie Needham," she repeated 
 almost mechanically. This gave Davenant the opportunity 
 he wished for. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " and you were wise enough. And as 
 we have come round to Needham, let me say another thing 
 look out for him. He doesn't seem to be like himself 
 lately." 
 
 "He is cross," she admitted absently. 
 
 " Perhaps he has some reason to be cross he may be ill." 
 
 It was natural that she should follow his lead back again 
 to the level of friendship. She was always quick to adapt 
 her mood to his and find the reason afterwards. Moreover, 
 it was a part of their singular relation. Florence was begin 
 ning to realize that, however he might wound her vanity, she 
 could never be angry with Tom Davenant. She did not 
 think of it, but she was made aware that so far as con 
 cerned these two, this power to wound and not be hated 
 had passed forever from her hands into his. 
 
 " He talks about extravagance fancy ! extravagance 
 to me ! As if I could live without extravagance !" and she 
 laughed. 
 
 " There are people who do, I have understood." Her 
 lightness irritated him into being didactic, for he knew some 
 thing of Needham's state of mind. 
 
296 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " But they have not done what I have done," she said 
 with a little toss of her head. " Charlie ought to be grate 
 ful fo me." 
 
 He knew she was caught up into a vision of the Rimmon 
 dinner. 
 
 " And he is, no doubt. So am I," and he held out his 
 hand" Good-by." 
 
 "Why are you grateful to me?" she asked, giving him 
 hers. 
 
 " For what you have done," he said enigmatically. " And 
 I expect you to do more," he added, smiling. " I expect 
 you to save me from the approach of Mrs. Eunam to-mor 
 row night. She will be there, and she continually spreads 
 a net for my feet, and, having caught me, forces me to listen 
 to recitations. They are from a book she is getting out, 
 which she calls * Extracts from Some of our Neglected Au 
 thors/ I have ascertained that it is made up exclusively 
 from her own works. So is her sorrow turned into joy. 
 Good-night." 
 
 Florence sat where he left her for some time. The 
 evening's conversation, while it had perhaps gained for 
 Rhodope some practical advantages for it had shown 
 Florence that Davenant was on the watch for unfriendli 
 ness, and would resent it, and she dreaded his resentment 
 had but increased the load of her offendings. The whole 
 fabric that she had reared of his long devotion to her and 
 his newly-awakened susceptibilities had fallen, leaving in its 
 place a new image that was in the similitude of Rhodope 
 Trent. 
 
 Davenant reached home late that night, having kept one 
 or two other engagements after leaving Florence. Going 
 to his desk, he picked up his neglected note-book, and 
 wrote half a page : 
 
 "Melancholy Adventures of a Young Man who would 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 297 
 
 fain play Providence. His Assumption of the Role. His 
 various Incapabilities. His dreary Failure." 
 
 Such was the general statement, and he developed it 
 somewhat further : " Who suggests to one woman to bring 
 another woman and a mutual friend into more intimate re 
 lations. Mistake No. i, though maybe all for the best. 
 By judicious management of the circumstances makes one 
 woman the deadly enemy of the only one he cares about. 
 Mistake No. 2. Who eggs on the mutual friend into dan 
 gerous committals, and produces a great deal of misunder 
 standing. Mistake No. 3, but not serious, because it would 
 have happened anyway. Who clinches the situation by di 
 plomatizing, bullying, and instructing the woman he once 
 loved through an assumption of roles varying from that of 
 Mephistopheles to that of the excellent Jane Taylor. Mis 
 take No. 4. Gloomy reflections of the Young Man who 
 would fain play Providence." 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 " No man has learned anything rightly until he knows that every day 
 is Doomsday." 
 
 " ' Faithless and faint of heart,' the voice returned, 
 1 Thou seest no beauty save thou make it first ; 
 Man, Woman, Nature, each is but a glass 
 Where the soul sees the image of herself, 
 Visible echoes, offsprings of herself.' " 
 
 " Hardly know which way to turn. Guess you'd better 
 come along home. UNCLE DENVER." 
 
 Such was the despatch that Rhodope read as she stood 
 by the window in the Screed house, with Edwina and 
 Helena both waiting with the undisguised curiosity per 
 missible regarding other people's telegrams. 
 
 " Uncle Denver wants me at home," she said ; " I hope 
 nothing has happened." 
 
 None of the sad news of the valley had been communi 
 cated to Rhodope. Denver Trent, with his usual common- 
 sense, had insisted that if there was no call for her to come 
 home, and as she couldn't bring the dead to life, she 
 shouldn't be told and kep' awake nights, wonderin' if there 
 was anythin' she could do. " If there was anythin' tryin' 
 to human natur' it was wonderin' if you couldn't do some- 
 thin' when you was far away," thus had he enlarged upon 
 the subject, and he guessed " 'twas more 'n likely Rhode 'd 
 find there was enough things in New York to worry about, 
 without worryin' 'bout the valley too." 
 
 Needham had read a notice of the accident in the daily 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 299 
 
 paper ; but though he saw it was somewhere in that neigh 
 borhood, had not connected it with valley interests at the 
 moment, and the next moment it was forgotten. As for 
 Rhodope, she had not learned to regard the presence of 
 papers whose numerical strength so far exceeded that of 
 the valley supply, and Florence shared the prevalent femi 
 nine conviction that while newspapers were the natural 
 pabulum of man, a fact no more to be questioned than 
 other mysterious dispensations of Providence, and undoubt 
 edly suited to his special needs, they were not worthy the 
 abiding attention of woman, wisely bestowed on more im 
 portant interests. 
 
 "Oh, I don't believe so," said Edwina quickly. "You'll 
 have a letter perhaps to-morrow. That telegram doesn't 
 sound well immediate." 
 
 " That telegram," said Helena impressively " that tele 
 gram settles it ! I shall marry Uncle Denver." 
 
 Rhodope smiled. It had been Helena's custom for some 
 days to express admiration of Uncle Denver. Her profes 
 sions before Walter Mevans and others in a similar situa 
 tion were nothing less than wanton in their indifference to 
 possible misconstruction. 
 
 " No, you needn't look at me like that, Edwina, and I 
 don't care if Rhodope does from this moment devote her 
 self to a serpentine policy of defeating my plans I tell 
 you I shall marry Uncle Denver. Any man that will write 
 such a telegram as that, conveying to the remotest shade 
 of feeling what he means to say without a thought of ex 
 pense that man would be an ideal husband !" 
 
 " Is it very expensive ?" asked Rhodope, somewhat sur 
 prised. 
 
 " Expensive !" exclaimed Helena. " I don't believe the 
 cattle-kings ever send a telegram of more than ten words." 
 
 " Oh, yes, they do," said Edwina, with the fine literamess 
 
300 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 with which she opposed her sister's exaggerations. " There 
 is the Associated Press " 
 
 " The Associated Press is a corporation ! We are taught 
 in our nurseries that * Thou shalt not ' does not apply to 
 corporations, only to individuals. No one," she repeated, 
 "but a cattle -king and Uncle Denver would have sent 
 that. I like a man when he is going to make an outlay to 
 make an outlay. Do you suppose a man that sent that tele 
 gram would ever ask you what you did with the change of 
 a thousand -dollar bill? Rhodope," she went on, having 
 satisfied herself that her extraordinary inconsequence had 
 left room only for a consideration of ways and means, " when 
 will you wish to start ?" 
 
 " Oh, to-morrow to-morrow early." 
 
 " Then you shall be driven round to Mrs. Needham's 
 this afternoon instead of to-morrow. It is too bad about 
 your lonely evening, but it will give you time to pack and be 
 ready to leave in the morning." 
 
 It was growing dark when Rhodope ran up the steps of 
 the Needham house and rang the bell. 
 
 "Good -by," called Helena from the carriage - door. 
 " Don't forget to tell Uncle Denver that I am coming up to 
 marry him. I'm afraid it may slip your mind. Good-by." 
 
 The servant who admitted her said that Mrs. Needham 
 was still out. He was not sure if Mr. Needham was at 
 home, but he thought not. Miss Trent had not been ex 
 pected that afternoon, as no one had known of a telegram 
 except the servant who had received it at the door and sent 
 it around to Miss Screed's on his own responsibility. He 
 hoped he had done right. Quite right and Rhodope went 
 upstairs to her own room. There she began to make her 
 arrangements for leaving, quickly, though not hurriedly, for 
 she had the whole long evening before her. She occupied 
 herself with a certain eagerness that she might not have too 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 301 
 
 much time to think. Notwithstanding Helena's nonsense 
 and Edwina's sensible representations, she could not help 
 being somewhat anxious concerning the motives of the tele 
 gram. 
 
 At last, all the preparations made that could be attended 
 to just then, she seated herself in the dusk before the fire 
 to wait until she should hear that Florence had come in. 
 She was tired, and the open fire made her think of that in 
 the living-room at home. Uncle Denver was probably sit 
 ting by it, thinking of how she would come on the morrow. 
 What was the cloud that perhaps hung over his spirit? 
 Surely Jib was there and a book with a frontispiece of hor 
 rors that but whetted the appetite for further disclosures, 
 and with which he was absorbed at the littered table both 
 elbows amid the rest of the things that covered it in a con 
 fusion fostered by her absence. Now and then the lamp 
 smoked unnoticed, until Uncle Denver, becoming suddenly 
 conscious that something was wrong, roared at Jib, who in 
 attentively, as though it were a thing little worth doing, 
 turned it down. The homeliness of the scene, its familiar 
 ity, its closeness to those who were her very own, whom she 
 loved and who loved her, the dear accustomedness of it, 
 came over her with that strength of longing that threatens 
 to be heartbreak, and she burst into tears. They were over 
 in a few moments, and she sank back in her chair again, 
 quieted by the happy knowledge that she should see it all 
 to-morrow. Her lips still drooped a little ; the heavy masses 
 of her hair had fallen lower in her neck; she had been 
 paler of late, and her fatigue added to her pallor to-night. 
 She was far from the free, brave, strong, unsaddened dwell 
 er in the forest she had seemed to Medcott that day so 
 long ago that spirit of the woods. Instead, she was but a 
 woman whose beauty and strength could not save her from 
 doubt, perplexity, and sadness. As she waited she remem- 
 
302 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 bered a book she wished to take away with her, and that 
 was in the library. As she rose to go and look for it, a 
 maid entered with lights. 
 
 Did Miss Trent know there was a letter for her in the 
 library ? 
 
 " A letter !" exclaimed Rhodope, with a sudden surge of 
 color, invisible in the uncertain light, that showed how near 
 the surface was a supreme delight, in spite of her misgiv 
 ings. Yes, it was in the library, she would fetch it. No, 
 Miss Trent was going there for a book ; she would find 
 it for herself. The last gleams of day made the library 
 window a square of dim and clouded light visible in the 
 semi-darkness. The corners were in deep shadows, and 
 the tables and chairs were vague dangers in otherwise open 
 spaces. As Rhodope opened the door its being closed was 
 a little unusual and stood in the doorway a moment, she 
 was surprised at the darkness and wondered why there were 
 no lamps. Even the fire was out, and the room had a look 
 of desolation in consequence. She could dimly discern a 
 half-burned log in the grate, which was just opposite the 
 unsheltered window. She hesitated in doubt whether she 
 could find her book and her letter or not. Not till she de 
 cided that she could did she turn towards the clouded light 
 of the library window. She then saw against its coldly il 
 luminated panes the outline of a man's figure. Vaguely 
 startled, in an instant she recognized it as Charlie Need- 
 ham's, and perceived that he had not heard her enter. He 
 stood with his back towards her, apparently looking out, as 
 he had stood that morning when they had breakfasted to 
 gether ; she had hardly seen him since, and she had an odd 
 sensation that he had been standing so all that time. His 
 hands were not in his pockets now, however; one rested on 
 the window-sill, in the other he held something that she 
 did not see. She stood still, with a curious, strained sort 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 303 
 
 of attention. She had no impulse to speak ; as far as she 
 was conscious of thinking anything, she wondered what 
 he could be looking at. The window did not open on the 
 street, but on a little -used alleyway, beyond which was 
 a high fence and a new building going up. It was an 
 unfinished - looking place, and there was nothing to see 
 there, now that the workmen had gone home. Suddenly 
 Needham raised his right hand and paused again. Some 
 thing gleamed in the dying light of the day the silver 
 mounting of a pistol. Rhodope no longer hesitated. With 
 a swift, silent movement that seemed to place her at Char 
 lie Needham's side with a single impulse of motion,.she laid 
 her hand on his arm, and with a strength for which he was, 
 of course, entirely unprepared, brought his arm down, and 
 while with a quick curse he turned towards her, before he 
 could recover himself from the startling interruption she 
 took the pistol from his loosened grasp. 
 
 " Rhodope !" he exclaimed in amazement. " I would not 
 have said that to you," he added quickly, ashamed of his 
 outbreak. 
 
 " No," she said, gravely regarding him, " I know that." 
 It was as if the trivial, conventional aspect of the inci 
 dent were the more important ; as if its lamentableness lay 
 not so much in the fact that he was going to shoot himself, 
 as in that he had been guilty of swearing in her presence. 
 But this very triviality marked an important transition. He 
 had returned instantaneously to normal conditions. Had 
 he been still confronting death, not even the shock of 
 this interruption would have led him into such impa 
 tience. There was barely light enough for them to see 
 one another's faces, as each gazed with an intentness that 
 sought to read the thought and purpose in the other's ex 
 pression. He was pale as death, his eyes showing the nerv 
 ous strain that had brought him to the wretchedness of this 
 
304 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 resolve. Rhodope's were like stars in the excitement that 
 kept her quiet instead of agitating her. She looked the 
 very incarnation of purpose, calmness, and strength. 
 
 " Why didn't you let me do it ?" he asked at last. 
 
 " Because God sent me to prevent you," she said quietly. 
 
 Five minutes earlier Needham had been resolved to take 
 the step which should precipitate him into a future which, 
 however far he had slipped from his childhood's teachings, 
 he could not think of as empty of a Power that was God. 
 He had been hurrying to confront this Power, and yet, with 
 the inconsistencies of such natures and such resolves, this 
 calm reference to a God who was present, acting, and om 
 niscient touched him with a fear of which he had been 
 destitute before. 
 
 " I thought that you were away," he said, seeking in the 
 commonplace an evasion of his own feeling. " I did not 
 think that you were coming back. I thought I was alone." 
 
 " I came back for this," she answered. 
 
 He had stepped back into the room, and she, the pistol 
 still in her hand, went close to the light, and let the hammer 
 down softly and steadily with a skill the result of frequent 
 practice with Jib and Uncle Denver. The gravity, the 
 quietness with which she met the situation, had an effect 
 which nothing else could have had upon Needham. Had 
 it been a man who had taken his weapon away from him 
 and made it less dangerous, as if he were a child that might 
 be permitted to look on but not to interfere, it would have 
 irritated him beyond endurance. Had Rhodope become 
 hysterical and sought to alarm the house as Florence might 
 have done, it would in the present state of his brain and 
 nerves have confirmed him in his intentions ; but when it 
 was Rhodope Trent who faced him with this temperate 
 firmness, he yielded with an acquiescence which, though 
 petulant, was entire. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 305 
 
 " Now," she said gently, as she put the pistol down, " will 
 you tell me why you wanted to do it ?" 
 
 Needham threw himself into a chair that stood near, and 
 put his hand over his eyes. 
 
 " Because I am ashamed not to." 
 
 " Is there nothing else that you could find to be ashamed 
 of, that you should think it so poor a thing to go on living ?" 
 
 He looked at her in silence. 
 
 " You are fortunate," she added softly. 
 
 " Fortunate !" he burst out with a short laugh. " How 
 little you know ! Fortunate ! It is a long time since that 
 word could be applied to me !" 
 
 " And is it a wise thing, when fortune slips away from a 
 man, to throw deliberately his life and his courage after 
 it?" 
 
 Whether it was a question or not, he did not answer it. 
 
 " And a man is ashamed not to do it because because 
 it is such a fine thing to do ?" 
 
 Needham was amazed as well as stung. He had never 
 fancied her capable of mercilessness. 
 
 " Rhodope," he said, " you do not understand " 
 
 u No," she said, shaking her head, " I do not understand. 
 It seems such a pitiful thing to me always always to 
 take the easy way." 
 
 " Whatever you believe," said Needham sullenly, " I beg 
 you to believe that my way has not been an easy one. It 
 has been a cursed hard one," he concluded stormily. 
 
 " It is well, perhaps, that you found that out. If it had 
 been an easy one you would have gone on and on no 
 matter what way, if it was only easy. Is that it ?" 
 
 Beneath her calmly questioning eyes, whose glance he 
 felt rather than saw, the glow of intensity and fierce reck 
 lessness faded from the picture of his folly. He grasped 
 at the old excuse, " It was the best thing I could have done 
 20 
 
306 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 you remember young Wright, and what everybody said 
 what Florence said. It was the best thing I could do," he 
 repeated bitterly. " Ask my wife." 
 
 Rhodope lifted the small weapon from the table, looked 
 at it, and laid it down again, and shook her head. 
 
 " Oh, no," she said with a little smile, " the best thing you 
 could do you, a grown man that ? Oh, no." 
 
 Suddenly it appeared to him trivial too. 
 
 " It is the only way out of it," he said. 
 
 " How do you know it is a way out of it ?" objected 
 Rhodope. 
 
 Charlie stared a moment. 
 
 "You mean they would talk. But I should not hear 
 them." 
 
 " How do you know you would not hear them ?" 
 
 Needham paused. Had his carefully considered prem 
 ises been insufficient ? 
 
 " Then it would not be death," he said. 
 
 " How do you know what death is ?" she questioned se 
 renely. 
 
 Needham shuddered he had been so near to finding out. 
 
 " Besides," said Rhodope, with a sweet pitifulness that 
 softened the rebuke, " people who are brave do not just 
 want to get away and not hear." 
 
 " That is what people always say," he said sullenly. 
 " Then I do not claim to be brave." 
 
 " But you admire those that are, do you not ?" 
 
 " No !" he exclaimed savagely. " I don't. If people 
 seem brave it is all the result of accident. There is no 
 such thing as bearing hard things voluntarily. Men do 
 things that are called brave, because they are forced to do 
 them, or because they want to have people praise them 
 that is what your great men amount to a crazy wish to be 
 talked about the rest is all luck." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 307 
 
 Rhodope looked at him as she might have looked at a 
 child who denied the alternation of day and night. 
 
 " And that is worse than being afraid of being talked 
 about ?" she questioned, going back to his own position. 
 
 He did not give her an answer, although he sought for one. 
 
 " Will you tell me about the trouble ?" she said again. 
 
 " Yes," he replied, with sudden apathy, "I will tell you." 
 He paused a moment. " I am sick of life," he said with 
 the triteness of every-day fact. " I have lost my money. 
 What is there to do when you have lost your money ? It 
 is all people care about really how much money you've 
 got. I've lost my money, and, what is worse, I've lost other 
 people's. I can't pay my debts. I can't borrow. Dave- 
 nant pulled me out once. I'd look well asking him to do 
 it again ! I haven't any friends I know men who will drink 
 with me. What is the use of living ? It means disgrace. 
 How is Florence going to bear disgrace ? If I'm out of the 
 way people will be sorry for her and make much of her, and 
 she'll like that. They may forget now and then that she 
 hasn't any money. Anyway, I would not hear her reproach 
 me I'm sure of that, no matter what you say." 
 
 He did not realize how pitiless was his analysis of Flor 
 ence's position, but Rhodope did, and shivered a little, for 
 she recognized its truth, and a harsh truth to be faced is 
 a more terrible thing to some temperaments than any num 
 ber of startling falsities. 
 
 " But it wouldn't be good for her any more than for you," 
 she said with her accustomed acceptance of facts with 
 which most people would be inclined to temporize. 
 
 " I've gotten past what is good for her or for me," he 
 answered bitterly. 
 
 It was quite dark now, and he rose to light the gas. 
 Rhodope watched him as he struck the match and, with 
 the quick illumination, brought the room back from the 
 
308 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 shadows that had come so near deepening into those of the 
 valley of death. Now it was bright, unveiled, common 
 place. 
 
 " I put out the lights after the maid had gone," he said 
 in restless explanation, " and told her I didn't want any fire. 
 I thought it would give the servants something to remember, 
 you know, after the the catastrophe. ' The last thing he 
 says, says he, " I won't have no lights." ' And I should have 
 gone under with the imputation of bad grammar after all 
 * " I won't have no lights," says he ' !" 
 
 The change to the commonplace had had its effect upon 
 him. He became uneasily conscious of the tinge of the 
 ludicrous that is apt to attach itself to the defeated suicide, 
 and his usual egotism was enhanced by the common Amer 
 ican anxiety to be at all hazards the first to perceive a point 
 made against one's self. But Rhodope was not so to be di 
 verted from the solemnities. 
 
 " You do not seem to think what is best for anybody," 
 she said seriously. " Perhaps you don't believe there is a 
 best." 
 
 " Well, and if I don't ?" he said, not roughly, but with an 
 irresistible yielding to the genuineness of her interest. 
 
 " Don't you honor a great man ?" 
 
 " I have told you that I don't believe men are great," he 
 answered moodily. "Why should I honor another man 
 whom nothing but circumstances have made appear greater 
 than I?" 
 
 He had said it. He had struck the key-note of his weak, 
 variable character; one of those characters to which failure 
 is predestined from the beginning, since they will not see 
 that half the load they stagger under is belief in the impos 
 sibility of true success. 
 
 " Have you no enthusiasm for people who do brave things, 
 wise things, true things ?" she asked. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 309 
 
 " Enthusiasm !" he exclaimed scornfully. " There is no 
 room for it." 
 
 It flashed across Rhodope's mind with what a difference 
 Medcott had talked of these same things that night on the 
 hill when he had spoken with such freedom and such con 
 viction. This man was complaining of the complications 
 and the want of simplicity, and yet her creed was too sim 
 ple to meet his difficulties hers and Austin Medcott's. 
 Involuntarily she glanced towards the mantel and saw her 
 letter. Then she turned again to Needham, but she was 
 faced by the very impossibility Medcott had stated to 
 Davenant. There was no way of making this deaf man 
 understand. There are vibrations too high in the scale of 
 sound to reach the human ear, and in the souls of certain 
 men lofty emotions wake no response. And these men say 
 that there are no such emotions. Verily they have ears and 
 hear not. 
 
 " It is a pity," said Rhodope sadly. 
 
 Something in the real sorrow of her tone touched him 
 more nearly than anything she had said. 
 
 " Rhodope," he said, " you do not know what my life for a 
 year has been. You do not know what it is to have cheated 
 others and to go right on cheating them. You do not know 
 what it is to have spent money that does not belong to you 
 but that belongs to men that are poorer than you ever 
 dreamed of being men like " he pulled himself up short, 
 and then burst out, " I will tell you ! Men like Denver 
 Trent ! I say I have ruined your Uncle Denver ! I have 
 ruined you !" 
 
 Rhodope, who had risen to go away before he began to 
 speak, paused startled. Ruin is a terrible word. It was 
 something she had never thought would come near her or 
 hers with its implied destruction. Uncle Denver ruined ! 
 A picture of an old, broken, helpless, hopeless man, who 
 
310 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 should be Uncle Denver stopped her breath for an instant. 
 Was this the shadow that had fallen upon his spirit ? 
 Should she find him thus? Then came the revulsion. 
 Denver Trent could never be like that never ! 
 
 " After all, it is only a matter of money," she said. 
 
 Perhaps none but a person ignorant of many of the im 
 portant facts of life could have said it with the sincerity of 
 her indifference ; one who had never realized that much of 
 the misery, the hopelessness, the cheer, and the peaceful- 
 ness of life is only a matter of money. But illogical as it 
 was, it was, perhaps, the one thing that she could have said 
 that would give Needham a new courage. In imagination 
 he had been facing those whom he had injured for weeks ; 
 he had fancied their reproaches, their accusations, and their 
 despair, and had resolved to turn his back on them. Now 
 he had flung the truth at the feet of one of them, and she 
 had answered him thus. ^He did not stop to remember that 
 she was unusually ignorant ; she seemed to him unusually 
 wise, and she had assured him that he had not bereft her of 
 everything. Perhaps it was not so irreparable as he fancied. 
 Perhaps he had not lost his grip, after all. He looked at her 
 in a wonder that was nearer the admiration of which he pro 
 fessed to be destitute than he knew, as, without further 
 speech, she crossed the room and picked up her letter. At 
 that instant the door opened, and Florence stood on the 
 threshold. She wore a long carriage wrap trimmed with 
 silver fox, her cheeks were reddened by the outside air, her 
 eyes had the hard brightness that belonged to them. 
 
 " They told me you had come, Rhodope," she said. " A 
 telegram ? Is any one ill ?" She came into the room as she 
 spoke, and put her small foot on the fender. " Why is there 
 no fire ?" she exclaimed, without waiting for an answer. She 
 had barely looked at her husband, who, after a single glance 
 at her, let his head fall on his hands again in sullen indif 
 ference. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 311 
 
 " I do not think any one is ill," said Rhodope slowly. 
 " But I must go home to-morrow." 
 
 Something not quite natural in her voice made Florence 
 pause with her hand on the bell she had moved aside to 
 ring, and she scanned her keenly and then turned towards 
 her husband. His attitude and silence deepened the im 
 pression. 
 
 " What is the matter with you two ?" she demanded. 
 "What has happened?" Needham did not answer. 
 
 " It did not happen," said Rhodope hastily. " Nothing 
 has happened." 
 
 " It came deuced near it, though," said Charlie, whose 
 worse nature was apt to come forward at his wife's touch. 
 
 " What came near happening ?" and Florence left the 
 bell and came to the centre of the room. " Will you be 
 good enough to explain yourself with a little more ac 
 curacy ?" 
 
 Rhodope, seeing that an explanation was coming, 
 through Florence's awakened curiosity and Needham's 
 recklessness, went quickly towards the door. 
 
 " Wait, Rhodope !" said Florence imperiously. 
 
 " Miss Trent found me amusing myself with that play 
 thing," and Needham pointed to the table. 
 
 Florence looked down and recoiled with the common in 
 stinct of women. 
 
 " What !" she screamed. She did not need further ex 
 planation. Davenant's warning recurred to her. 
 
 "Yes," he went on rapidly, as if anxious now to get it 
 over, " I had conceived the somewhat played-out project 
 of blowing my brains out." 
 
 With a hysterical cry Florence threw herself down on a 
 sofa. 
 
 " Oh, Charlie, how could you !" she wailed. " How could 
 you ! Oh !" and she caught her breath in long sobs. 
 
312 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " And to-night of all nights ! When we are going to the 
 Rimmon dinner-party." 
 
 Charlie sprang to his feet. 
 
 " The Rimmon dinner-party be " he began savagely. 
 Then he paused, half shamed by the nearness of the crisis 
 through which he had passed, half silenced by the sight 
 of Florence, in her rich dress, her flushed beauty, and her 
 abject distress and Rhodope slipped from the room as he 
 waited. Miserably inadequate as was Florence's grief, it 
 was actual grief, and such as she was in her beauty, her 
 folly, and her shortcomings indeed, for these very things 
 he had loved her ; she was the woman he had promised to 
 make happy. 
 
 " Oh, Lord !" he exclaimed, wearily and not altogether 
 profanely. " Let it be the success it ought to be, and we'll 
 go to it and be happy ever after. Come, Florence, stop 
 crying. I won't shoot myself again before dinner-time, 
 anyhow." 
 
 Florence pulled herself together, and looked at him, still 
 fiercely gripping the sofa pillow in which she had buried 
 her face, and fetching short, gasping breaths. 
 
 " How did you happen not to do it this time ?" she asked 
 nervously. 
 
 " Rhodope Trent stopped me." 
 
 " Rhodope Trent ! " Her accent was little less than 
 furious. 
 
 " You seem grateful," remarked Needham dryly. 
 
 " I owe Rhodope Trent more than I can ever repay," 
 said Florence, with a violence that told its own story. 
 
 " So do I, unfortunately," he rejoined with a short laugh. 
 
 He was more angry at his wife's feeling towards Rhod 
 ope than he had been at her want of it towards himself. 
 
 " A good deal more. Though I mean to pay some of it 
 if I live," he added between his teeth. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 313 
 
 " What do you owe her ?" demanded Florence, feeling 
 there was something still unsaid. 
 
 " Money," he answered laconically. 
 
 " Money !" 
 
 " Yes, or I owe it to Denver Trent it's the same thing. 
 He gave me money to invest and I've spent it that's all." 
 
 It seemed as if Charlie was bound to overwhelm her with 
 a sense of his iniquities, if he could not with that of his 
 unhappiness. 
 
 " I'm going to dress now," he concluded, walking towards 
 the door, " for the Rimmon dinner." 
 
 Florence's cup was running over. The Fates had united 
 to besiege her ears with the name of Rhodope Trent. Was 
 it not enough to have robbed her of Medcott's devotion ? 
 To have fascinated the man who had once been all hers? 
 To have made her the unwilling victim of a lurking sense 
 of inferiority? Must she snatch back her husband from 
 the gate of death, and did she owe it to her presence that 
 she should sit that night among the few who were chosen 
 for the Rimmon dinner ? The money question sank into 
 insignificance save as a weapon. 
 
 Rhodope was sitting in her room with Medcott's letter 
 before her. After the scene through which she had just 
 passed, and which had been more agitating than she had 
 realized, it overpowered her. It was infused with that 
 sense of personality that strong emotion sometimes lends 
 to even written words. It was as if he leaned over her 
 while she read, and took her hand and made her listen to 
 him. She felt, with a thrill of pride, the contrast between 
 his nature and aims and that discontented, pettish, aim 
 less individuality with which she had just been brought in 
 contact, and which even tragedy failed to dignify. Now as 
 ever there was no doubt of her love for him. It had become 
 the strong force of her life, but it had been checked and 
 
314 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 thwarted in what might have been its even flow, by mis 
 understanding and apprehension, until she distrusted its 
 power to carry her on with it to a sea of happiness. While 
 for him what if his letter did read as if there was but one 
 thing that was best for him ? Could she make him happy, 
 not at the cost of suffering she would not have minded 
 that but at the cost of the sacrifice of what was the very 
 warp and woof of her nature, not because he would demand 
 it, but because his life would demand it ? It was a strange, 
 questioning mood for a girl to be in while reading her first 
 love-letter, but it was the not unnatural result of the many 
 forces which had been at work, the vague anxiety concerning 
 Uncle Denver's telegram and the afternoon's discovery of the 
 mockery of what had been outwardly so fair. And yet blind 
 ed by the possibilities of what might be Rhodope threw her 
 head back and closed her eyes. There was a knock at the 
 door, and without waiting for a response Florence came in 
 and walked quickly across the room to where she sat. There 
 was a suggestion, in the swift gracefulness of her approach, 
 of preparation for a hostile spring, which was increased as 
 she paused suddenly, still wearing her long velvet, fur-trim 
 med wrap, before the girl who had raised her head and 
 waited. Florence's face bore the traces of her recent 
 burst of hysterical grief. The elegance of her dress was at 
 variance with the stormy flush of her cheeks and the tear- 
 stains about her eyes. But her voice was unsoftened. 
 
 " You have been treated to melodrama this afternoon, I 
 hear." Rhodope knew that she was hard, but this cynicism 
 shocked her. " But the melodrama seems to have turned 
 out almost, if not quite, a farce." Rhodope remembered 
 Charlie's face as he sat with his head on his hands. Had 
 this woman really no heart at all ? 
 
 " Don't say that !" she exclaimed, " a farce is something 
 we laugh at !" 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 315 
 
 " A farce is something that turns on other people's ab 
 surd mistakes," declared Florence. " Charlie has made 
 several. Possibly even you have not been exempt " she 
 paused to make what she meant to say more effective. 
 
 " I have made a great many," said Rhodope. " Perhaps 
 I made one in coming here," she added unconsciously, in a 
 half-whisper. 
 
 " Possibly that was one," Florence admitted calmly. 
 " Another may have concerned Austin Medcott. This 
 afternoon has at least revealed the secret of his alleged 
 fondness for you !" 
 
 Rhodope shrank from the cruelty of her choice of words. 
 
 " Tom Davenant knows, and of course Mr. Medcott 
 knows, that Charlie spent Denver Trent's money. That 
 means that you may be at any time without support. It puts 
 a different face on a flirtation, for an honorable man." 
 
 The inspiration which seldom fails to come when we are 
 resolved to do our worst was standing Florence in good 
 stead. 
 
 " It is astounding what pity will do with the artistic 
 temperament," she paused to laugh, not quite naturally. " It 
 disposes it to undreamed-of chivalry in the case of a good- 
 looking woman. Has Austin Medcott been asking you 
 to marry him, my dear ?" 
 
 Perhaps only the insolence of the last words would have 
 roused Rhodope to reply. She was so hurt that she had 
 no wish to retaliate, only a longing that her enemy might 
 feel that she had dealt blows enough. Moreover, it is the 
 prerogative of such violence as Mrs. Needham's to silence a 
 gentler nature. But as Florence waited for an answer with 
 what she meant for a smile, but which was a half-hysterical 
 distortion of her lips, Rhodope spoke. The fire-light was 
 dancing across their faces with an air of light-heartedness 
 that contradicted their expression. Rhodope's pure profile 
 
316 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 threw flickering shadows on the opposite wall, where Flor 
 ence's figure lost its daintiness and became grotesque. 
 
 " I cannot answer you," her voice was low and unbroken, 
 "for you do not understand Mr. Medcott or me. We 
 speak the truth." 
 
 " You will wish some time that I had not spoken the 
 truth," Florence said shortly. 
 
 " No," said Rhodope gently, " I shall never wish that." 
 She moved nearer Florence, her hands clasped in front of 
 her. " Would it not have been better," she asked, " to have 
 had more truth from the first? Would it not have been 
 better to have let me have my letter when it came ?" 
 
 Florence shrugged her shoulders without speaking. 
 
 " He spoke to me that day we met in the street the day 
 after your reception," went on Rhodope. 
 
 " What did he say ?" asked Florence contemptuously. 
 " The sort of thing that a man says to a pretty woman 
 when he is sorry for her ?" 
 
 " I shall not tell you what he said," returned Rhodope 
 gravely, " but they were not the things that he says to you." 
 She did not know it was a thrust, but Florence paled under 
 its truth. " Perhaps you are right, perhaps he was sorry 
 for me. But at least he wrote. And I have not known 
 that he had written. I wondered why," she said simply. 
 11 But I soon thought that he was leaving me to think it 
 over." 
 
 " He was thinking it over himself," sneered Florence. 
 " Even an artist may know when he is quixotic." 
 
 " I am telling you about it," said Rhodope calmly, her 
 eyes on Florence, who let hers fall unwillingly before them, 
 " in order that we may have truth now, at least. I have 
 thought it over," she went on, " and I had grown to think 
 that his life was really very far apart from mine, that what 
 seemed to me a great thing his love for me " Florence 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 317 
 
 looked at her, astonished by the fearlessness of her words 
 "was not a great thing to him that like so many other 
 things, I had not understood. But now I have his letter. 
 He had written, and while I was wondering, he was won 
 dering too. I think it would have been better to let me 
 have it." 
 
 Nothing could have silenced Florence like this utter 
 frankness, it was so foreign to her own nature. But she 
 saw her way now to emphasize her suggestion. 
 
 " And do you not see," she exclaimed, ignoring Rhod- 
 ope's question, "that he, too, knows that you are far apart? 
 that you look at things differently ? that you never could 
 make him happy ? You are not a stupid woman, Rhodope, 
 with all your refinements about truth and Heaven knows 
 what all !" and she laughed with the scorn she felt " and 
 you must know that but one thing could bring Austin Med- 
 cott to such a foolish step the knowledge that you loved 
 him and that you have become dependent." 
 
 Rhodope's hands clasped each other more tightly under 
 the lash of the words. She walked over to the fire the 
 fire that made her think of home and looked down into it. 
 Florence stood watching her, playing with an end of her fur 
 trimming, her lips set in harsh lines. 
 
 " Uncle Denver said, Mrs. Needham," Rhodope raised 
 her eyes and met hers as she spoke, " that whatever you 
 wanted from my being here you would certainly gain it." 
 It did not soothe Florence to know that Denver Trent had 
 a not incorrect idea of her character. " I would like to 
 know that you have it. I would like to go away thinking 
 that it has not all been a mistake. Have you gained it, 
 whatever it may be ?" 
 
 In Florence's angry consciousness Rhodope was driving 
 her to a confession of failure. She entirely lost the pathos 
 of the half-indignant, wholly sad, question. 
 
318 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " What could you do for me !" she exclaimed. " I wanted 
 nothing of you. I have not failed in anything. But," and 
 she turned towards the door, " do not be too sure that you 
 have succeeded." 
 
 It was with a certain sense of defeat that she closed the 
 door ; but she might, nevertheless, have revelled in the con 
 sciousness of one who has fought a good fight. Her blows 
 had told. Without shedding a tear, Rhodope sank into her 
 chair and closed her eyes again, utterly weary. As a beau 
 tiful dream suddenly changes into a strange something that 
 frightens and oppresses us, so other doubts, other thoughts, 
 intruded unaccountably, and were imposed upon what had 
 been a dream of love. She opened her eyes after a while 
 and looked about her. Her trunks stood ready for departure, 
 the room looked strange and inhospitable. What had she 
 done to this world, into which she had gladly come, that it 
 treated her so as she was going away from it alone ? What 
 had she done ? 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 "'Tis a kind of good deed to say well." 
 
 "Oh, sing them back, as fresh as ever: 
 The sunshine and the merriment, 
 The unsought, evergreen content, 
 
 Of that never cold time ; 
 The joy that like a clear breeze went 
 
 Through and through the old time." 
 
 " These two shall have their joy." 
 
 THE Rimmon dinner was distinguished, as usual, for that 
 union of the elegant, the stately, the depressing, and the 
 superfluous that makes a Rimmon dinner the Mecca of so 
 cial pilgrims. 
 
 By the wise ordering of an all - comprehending Provi 
 dence, the sense of elation that filled the rightly constituted 
 heart at the realization of its owner's privileges in thus sit 
 ting at meat with a ruler, made up for the lack of less sub 
 jective enjoyment, and established an equilibrium as grati 
 fying to most of the guests as to the imperturbable soul of 
 Mrs. Rimmon herself. But into even this empyrean circle 
 unregenerate impulses made their way, and among its mem 
 bers was at least one exception to the rule of perfect satis 
 faction. It was that of Medcott's mother, who, while he 
 was expressing a wish for her presence, had unexpectedly 
 cut short her visit at the German baths and was on her way 
 home, and made on this occasion her first reappearance in 
 New York society. 
 
 " I am growing Bohemian," she sighed inwardly, as she 
 
320 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 turned her intellectual face to the man on her right, who 
 was giving her a spirited account of something just what, 
 she had not heard after a lapse into actual, if unmarked, 
 inattention. 
 
 "These short and frequent trips to the other side, with 
 their irresponsibility, are the unmaking of me. By all the 
 traditions of my bringing up I ought to be permeated with 
 happiness, and I'm not. Yes," she said aloud, with that 
 attentiveness which made her so charming to even younger 
 men, " no wonder you were interested. As you have said, 
 it is in exhibitions of that kind that the future tastes, and 
 really the safety, of the present generation lie." 
 
 She watched him with feminine readiness to take back or 
 to alter any of her words in case they proved to be sadly 
 inappropriate, for her idea was of the vaguest concerning 
 what seemed to be something in the line of Art, compli 
 cated by technical terms. The stout and sanguine gentle 
 man, who had been telling of a recent athletic exhibition, 
 was confirmed in his impression of her extreme intelligence. 
 
 " So I say, so I say," he responded. Mrs. Medcott was 
 a fine -looking woman, of that distinguished appearance 
 which white hair, a youthful face, and dark eyes go far to 
 establish. She had to perfection that art of being mistress 
 of the situation, without undue insistence on it, which some 
 women never learn even after long experience. She knew her 
 world thoroughly, but that was not all she knew. She had 
 looked over into other people's ; and though, in the long run, 
 she preferred her own, she was not ignorant that there were 
 certain others, inhabited by rational beings. Of decided 
 views, she had the fine tolerance which, in its perfection, is 
 the result only of wide experience and a keen intelligence. 
 
 " I shouldn't be so outrageously absent-minded if it were 
 not for this business of Austin's," she went on in an under 
 current of thought that did not seriously interfere with the 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 321 
 
 duties of the hour. " But to come home to find that one's 
 only son has fallen in love with a milkmaid is enough to 
 call out one's worst traits. If Bertha doesn't get me away 
 early I shall acknowledge to myself that I am bored. Af 
 ter that I might as well give up, of course. To admit that 
 one is bored at a dinner like this is social burial. Of course 
 she isn't a milkmaid, by the way. I never saw a milkmaid 
 in my life, and I don't believe Austin ever did. I know 
 nothing about them except that they get up very early with 
 three-legged stools. But I have an idea Violet Harrow 
 didn't write me the worst, after all. She is something ter 
 rible, of course. And I was so sure of Austin's taste. I've 
 always said that Bertha would be saved by her sense of 
 duty and Austin by his taste. It shows the uncertainties 
 of even religious convictions. Bertha will make up her 
 mind to this because it is her duty, and because earthly ad 
 vantages are really nothing. And I shall never make up 
 my mind to it because Austin gets his taste from me, and I 
 know earthly advantages are a great deal. Oh, indeed it 
 is," she observed to her neighbor on the other side, who 
 had sprung suddenly into prominence in the scientific line, 
 and whose views had not yet been tempered by the chasten 
 ing atmosphere in which he found himself. He had been 
 asked because the Englishman had expressed a wish to 
 meet him, thereby causing Mrs. Rimmon a bad quarter of 
 an hour's speculation concerning his possibilities. " Indeed 
 it is. It develops one mentally, this living in a country 
 where eminence is the direct result of real force. What 
 could America do with artificial standards ?" 
 
 As the scientist, charmed by the insight of one who had at 
 first appeared to him merely the unexceptionable woman of 
 fashion, was led to enlarge upon the benefit Of democratic 
 institutions, Mrs. Medcott went on with her reflections. 
 
 " How easy it is to make nonsense sound like sense," 
 21 
 
322 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 she thought, as she observed the avidity with which her re 
 mark had been seized upon. " Austin would say that wasn't 
 nonsense, after all. I don't see how he keeps that faith in 
 the promises of life when he goes to places like this. I 
 have a fancy he doesn't go any oftener than he can help. 
 I'd like to have him see that pretty piece of completeness 
 talking to the titled Englishman. Her conception of repub 
 lican ideals is that of being sufficiently elevated to look up 
 to a lord. By the way, it just occurs to me that that is a 
 Mrs. Needham, and that Austin mentioned a Mrs. Needham 
 as the person responsible for the social introduction of the 
 milkmaid. I've an idea I've heard who she is, or was, or 
 something. Bertha will know. It might be well to burn a 
 sort of noncommittal incense to the guardian angel. I'll 
 make Bertha find out for me after dinner. Tom Davenant 
 would know, but I can't get hold of him in time." 
 
 Mrs. Rimmon who even in her own house produced 
 something of the solemn effect of Buddha, and who was 
 accustomed to have her proceedings waited upon with the 
 same earnest watchfulness, as possible manifestations of 
 divinity had gathered her guests in the drawing-room. It 
 was just after their entrance that Mrs. Medcott had found 
 an opportunity to say to her daughter, 
 
 " Bertha, find out if that woman is a Mrs. Needham, and 
 if Mrs. Needham isn't the woman " 
 
 " She is, mamma." Bertha spoke with her enlightening 
 manner ; she was accustomed to interrupt her mother when 
 necessary, and at present their interview must be short. 
 She was a girl of a good deal of immobile beauty, which 
 announced its own inability to charm at the same time that 
 it asserted its claim to respect. " She is a Mrs. Needham, 
 and she has a Miss Trent staying with her. She was a Miss 
 Evans, and Tom Davenant was at one time engaged to her. 
 I mean to speak to her about Miss Trent." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 323 
 
 " Your memory for names and your principles are as ad 
 mirable as ever, my dear," said Mrs. Medcott, " and I have 
 fallen into a way of depending upon both instead of my 
 own ; but I think this time you had better let me speak to 
 her rather than do it yourself." 
 
 "Very well, mamma," replied Bertha, who had long ago 
 recognized in her mother a certain felicity which she her 
 self lacked. Bertha's memory for names was undoubtedly 
 excellent, but possibly if it had been a less reliable one she 
 would not have found it difficult to recall the name of the 
 woman to whom Tom Davenant had once been engaged. 
 
 It could not perhaps be asserted that Florence had thor 
 oughly enjoyed the dinner, but then the sense of repose in 
 separable from absolute enjoyment is impossible upon a 
 dizzy pinnacle. But she felt that she ought to be enjoying 
 it, which, though less gratifying to the natural man, is of a 
 loftier and more securely founded order of experience. As 
 Mrs. Medcott had divined, her republican simplicity looked 
 no further into the claims of her English neighbor to distin 
 guished consideration than that of his title. And though 
 to the ordinary observer this one talent seemed, from its 
 barrenness, in danger of being buried in a napkin, she felt 
 that he was in the position of the man to whom had been 
 committed fifty, and who might be expected at any time to 
 bring in fourfold. She did not allow herself to be dis 
 tracted from the matter in hand even by the sight of Dave 
 nant, who, in direct contradiction to the statement that in 
 vain is the net spread in sight of any bird, was listening re 
 signedly to a favorite bit of one of Mrs. Eunam's " Neglected 
 Authors." Only now and then, as she had glanced down 
 the table at Charlie, with his pale face, nervous frame, and 
 irreproachable evening-dress, a slight sense of giddiness op 
 pressed her as she began to realize that the solid earth might 
 "fail beneath her feet." And once or twice her nerves 
 
324 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 thrilled with a sudden rush of hatred of Rhodope. It was 
 not without a sensation of satisfaction that she was pre 
 sented, after dinner, to Mrs. Medcott. She had made all 
 her life that grievous mistake of not recognizing a difference 
 in the point of view ; in this instance it had led her into 
 considering Mrs. Medcott's interest as another tribute to 
 the secure exaltation of her present social position. 
 
 " It is with you, I think, that Miss Trent is staying," said 
 Mrs. Medcott quite naturally, after the exchange of a few 
 preliminaries. " My son wished me to call upon her. I 
 think he was fortunate enough to be under the same roof 
 with you both last summer when I was stupid enough to 
 be ill and break off his holiday was he not?" 
 
 Florence was fanning herself slowly with a superb fan ; 
 the thick plumes quivered a little in her hands as she an 
 swered. 
 
 " Under the same roof with me ?" she laughed. " Under 
 no roof at all, most of the time, with Miss Trent. They 
 were both famous for out-of-door expeditions." 
 
 Mrs. Medcott's ear was too keen to miss the harsh note. 
 
 " Austin has contrived to put her on the other side," she 
 thought. 
 
 " I am an old woman," she said with a smile that threat 
 ened to belie the words, " and Austin ought to think of it. 
 When he talked to me of Mrs. Needham, I did not remem 
 ber that she was once the Miss Evans whom people were 
 not expected to forget." The manner, the smile, seemed 
 to make it in this case a flattering thing to have been for 
 gotten. 
 
 " I am surprised that Mr. Medcott should have mentioned 
 me at all," Florence said with an affectation of indifference. 
 However gratified by his mother's graciousness, she could 
 not help showing her pique at the son's shortcomings. 
 
 " Austin knows my taste for personalities," smiled Mrs. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 325 
 
 Medcott. " He knows that nothing entertains me like hear 
 ing of his friends. Is Miss Trent still with you ?" 
 
 "Yes, she is still with me." Florence recognized that 
 an opportunity to revenge herself might be at hand. " But 
 she goes to-morrow." 
 
 " To-morrow ? I am sorry." 
 
 At this moment the titled Englishman drew near to be 
 presented to Mrs. Medcott, who knew " some of his people 
 at home." It is impossible to exaggerate the importance 
 attached to this latter fact both by the Englishman and 
 Mrs. Needham. 
 
 " I am at home on Thursday," said Mrs. Medcott before 
 she turned away. " Perhaps you will let me make your ac 
 quaintance even if I am cut off from Miss Trent's." 
 
 " If I am not mistaken, there is an infusion of the mam 
 mon of unrighteousness in that young woman whicli it will 
 be well to make a friend of," she remarked to Bertha as 
 they drove home that night. Her mother's forms of expres 
 sion often struck Bertha as exaggerated. 
 
 " She wore a pretty gown," she observed with literalness. 
 
 " It was an irreproachable gown. Another testimony to 
 her being a dangerous woman." 
 
 " Tom Davenant was said to be very much in love with 
 her," said Bertha thoughtfully. She found no difficulty in 
 discussing the subject. Davenant was the only man except 
 her brother and two cousins that Bertha called by his Chris 
 tian name. 
 
 " Tom Davenant is too clever*to have been in love with 
 her," said Mrs. Medcott promptly. " He may have been 
 in love with his idea of her." 
 
 " How did you make a friend of her?" asked Bertha. 
 
 "A friend of her!" exclaimed Mrs. Medcott. "My dear 
 child, I wish you would be more careful of your expres- 
 
326 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " You said it would be well " began poor Bertha. 
 
 " Oh, well Bertha, you have a terrible way of telling 
 people what they said," interrupted her mother impatiently. 
 " I may make myself a friend of the mammon of unright 
 eousness, but I am not yet hardened enough to call it 
 friendship." 
 
 " Are you going to call on her ?" 
 
 " No, the rare bird flies to-morrow. But she is coming 
 to see us on Thursday. Then I shall find out all she can 
 tell me more than she means to." 
 
 " I was thinking" began Bertha, thoughtfully still 
 " then she won't wait for us to call on her ?" To Bertha 
 questions of this sort formed a large and legitimate interest 
 in life. 
 
 "No, my dear," replied Mrs. Medcott with conviction. 
 " She won't think it worth while." 
 
 " May I ask," said Mrs. Needham to her husband that 
 night, " when the world is to know the result of these finan 
 cial operations of yours?" She spoke with a chilling into 
 nation that was the immediate result of her contemplation 
 of her position in Davenant's eyes, on her way home in the 
 carriage. Needham had admitted, during their stormy in 
 terview of the afternoon, that Davenant had helped him. 
 To be a pensioner of Tom Davenant ! It was too much. 
 
 " The world, as you call it, will probably know it in about 
 a week." 
 
 Charlie threw himself down in an easy-chair, lit a cigar 
 ette, and scrutinized with contemptuous irony the luxurious 
 fittings of the room, and finally the exquisite ^costume of 
 Florence herself as she stood before him. She saw what 
 he meant to convey by this silent examination. 
 
 " And they will say your wife ruined you," she said. 
 
 " I don't know perhaps." He was tired out mentally 
 and physically. The dinner had bored him intensely. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 327 
 
 " They will forget what I have done for you," she said 
 angrily. 
 
 " They may." 
 
 " Does it mean that we shall have no more money ?" 
 
 " Not enough to get you gowns like that." 
 
 Florence moved and stood more directly in front of him. 
 It seemed to her that the whole universe was threatened. 
 She heard the solar system, as it were, clattering about her 
 ears. 
 
 " People fail," she said, " or are bankrupt, or whatever 
 you call it, and have money left. They go on. Can't you 
 do that ? Isn't there some money somewhere that you 
 can get can take ?" 
 
 Needham looked at her with a sort of admiration. 
 
 " I've taken it," he said half to himself, " I've done the 
 very thing. But somehow I never had the coolness to say 
 it to myself like that." 
 
 She did not heed his comment. 
 
 " Isn't there ?" she persisted. 
 
 " No," he answered shortly. 
 
 Florence threw her arms wide with a gesture that was 
 nearly tragic. 
 
 " Oh," she exclaimed passionately, " I will not be poor ! 
 It means it means death and burial nothing less. Who 
 will come to see me ? Who will talk about me ? Particu 
 larly if you have cheated somebody." 
 
 Needham winced, but to Florence the deed itself was 
 so trifling beside its consequences that she did not no 
 tice it. 
 
 " Everybody will drop me. What good has it all done ? 
 my efforts and my success !" 
 
 Elements of real tragedy were here, but she had seized 
 upon the ignoble qualities, and threatened to make it a 
 farce. 
 
328 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " I wonder you haven't thought of that before. What is 
 the good of it ?" 
 
 But this was an appeal to a sanity beyond which Florence 
 had passed. The fact that she could have asked such a 
 question was but to announce the blackest despair. 
 
 " Do you think it is I that am to blame ?" she asked, not 
 remorsefully, but with a determination to understand. 
 
 " No, I guess not," he answered wearily. " I've chucked 
 it away as fast as you have." 
 
 " And you haven't as much to show for it." 
 
 " No, I suppose not." 
 
 Florence gathered up her fan and gloves and swept to 
 the door. There she paused. 
 
 " Is there no way out of disgrace ? No chance of escap 
 ing it?" 
 
 " No yes, one chance. No certainty." 
 
 " What is it ?" She was at his side again. 
 
 " Nothing but another speculation foolish enough, the 
 Lord knows but they say it may turn out something. 
 What's the use of telling you ? It won't. It's those chances 
 that I've waited for and staked on, and that have always 
 come up blanks. It is because I didn't want to wait for one 
 more that I tried to cut the whole business." 
 
 " If it succeeds, what will it do ?" 
 
 " Give me enough to tide over a nasty place. Perhaps 
 give me a fresh start." 
 
 "The idea of a man's giving up when he has one 
 chance!" 
 
 Florence spoke in her hard, deliberate little way. " You 
 would have put yourself hopelessly in the wrong ; you would 
 have brought dreadful disgrace upon everybody belonging 
 to you, and all when there may be a way out of it." 
 
 " And I would have kept you home from the Rimmon 
 dinner." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 329 
 
 " It was a cowardly thing to do." She was unmoved by 
 his sarcasm. 
 
 " Well, Florence, I guess I am a coward," he said, tired 
 of the whole subject. It was as if the nervous petu 
 lance of the discontented man had deepened into real 
 sorrow and disappointment. Florence crossed the room 
 again to the door. It would have been better if she had 
 been a little more gentle in her regret. Possibly not even 
 in the days of courtship would Needham have valued a 
 caressing word or gesture more than he would have now. 
 But she gave neither. She had listened so long to the 
 suggestions of one side of her nature that other impulses 
 had become numbed and powerless. For the seventy and 
 seventh time, perhaps, she had stood at a parting of the 
 ways, but she did not even see it such was the pitifulness 
 of her punishment. 
 
 That night left a deep void in their relations that was 
 never bridged over, and which later Florence learned, with 
 a certain discontent, to realize was impassable by her most 
 concentrated effort. 
 
 " I do not think we shall be poor," was all she said as 
 she went away and left him. As it happened she was right. 
 Poetical justice demanded that they should be, that a 
 spoiled child like Florence should be corrected by the 
 rod of privation. But there seems to be a justice beyond 
 even the poetical, and perhaps it was a keener, more scath 
 ing sentence that allowed her to go on in the way she had 
 chosen, without let or hindrance the lesson she might 
 have profited by unlearned. 
 
 When the next morning's paper announced the success 
 of the mining scheme of which Needham had spoken so 
 discouragingly, and later operations relieved him from the 
 most pressing of his engagements, in Florence's eyes the 
 world rolled on as before. There were questions asked, 
 
330 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 suspicions were aroused among men who knew and had 
 watched Needham's career ; but there was no overt failure 
 to meet liabilities, no noisy creditors, nothing that came to 
 the ears of the city at large. On the whole, Needham's 
 conduct, whatever it was, was by common consent of the 
 wise lifted from the sphere governed by the laws of ethics 
 to that higher and less easily attainable one of " smartness." 
 He had been pretty smart, they said ; they didn't know he 
 could do it. But not many weeks later he wrote Denver 
 Trent a letter, accompanying it by certain transferences of 
 property which occasioned some astonishment. 
 
 " Darn it !" said Denver to himself at last, " it was a close 
 call. But what's the use of getting as old as I be if I'm go 
 ing to be s'prised at things ?" With which the matter ended. 
 
 Meanwhile Rhodope was gone, and Florence could give 
 her whole mind to the interview that she was to have with 
 Mrs. Medcott. It was with a delightful sense of abandon 
 ment that she gave herself up to rough mental drafts of 
 the interview, and to the subsequent touching up and ton 
 ing down of light and shade. She resolved to go early, 
 that she might have some consecutive conversation, for 
 naturally she was clever enough to perceive that Mrs. 
 Medcott's object in asking her was to find out about Rhod 
 ope. She hastily reviewed Uncle Denver's limp, and a 
 pair of unregenerate overalls in which he was wont to ap 
 pear upon week-days; the little wooden house, with its 
 living-room adorned with the various stores connected with 
 eating, fishing, hunting, and other domestic economies ; 
 then Jib, with his lazy drawl and high-minded indifference 
 to the conventionalities. 
 
 " Good-looking, of course " she knew just how she would 
 say this "with an uncultivated sort of beauty, like his 
 sister's." The social amenities of the valley and its pecul 
 iarities of speech she could hit off very well. As for Eliza- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 331 
 
 beth, the future sister-in-law, her affinities with the circus 
 would be sure to please the fastidious taste of the Med- 
 cotts. She thought it would be a fair construction of the 
 truth to imply that these affinities had not been confined to 
 private life. Austin Medcott's sister-in-law jumping through 
 a hoop was a spectacle his mother could not fail to dwell 
 on with satisfaction. She was doubting whether to hint 
 darkly at tights pink silk tights as she put on her bonnet 
 to go to a concert which she was to attend on her way to 
 Mrs. Medcott's. To be sure, she could not assert positively 
 that she had ever seen Elizabeth in pink silk tights, but 
 there was a delicious concreteness in the suggestion as an 
 argument in Rhodope's disfavor that she was loath to aban 
 don. She rolled it as a sweet morsel under her tongue as 
 she entered the concert-room. Florence had never been 
 susceptible to music. Perhaps it was that it never appealed 
 to her primarily as music. She went to hear some one sing, 
 because people just then talked about that person's voice. 
 She attended certain orchestral performances because the 
 best people showed there. She conscientiously sat through 
 evening after evening of the fashionable opera, possibly up 
 held by that relic of superstitious belief which so many of 
 us unconsciously cling to the suggestion that it will be 
 made up to her under future discipline in another world ; 
 perhaps only as one of the numerous company whose feel 
 ings, while there, coincide with those of the celebrated 
 Bishop of Rum-Ti-Foo in his arduous struggles to learn the 
 dance of which his instructor assures him, 
 
 " 'The attitude's considered quaint.' 
 The weary bishop, feeling faint, 
 Replied, ' I do not say it ain't, 
 
 But "Time!" my Christian friend!'" 
 
 This afternoon, however, Florence underwent a new ex- 
 
332 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 perience. It was the lightest kind of music to which she 
 listened in company with the fashionable audience that had 
 made this leader the fashionable conductor of the day. The 
 programme consisted of nothing but dance-music, gay, re 
 gretful, swinging, passionate, reminiscent waltzes. It was 
 as if the shallow nature, that was unstirred by the depth and 
 grandeur of the harmony of the great masters, was cast into 
 a strange ferment at the touch of an inspiration that it could 
 understand. As she listened she found herself growing 
 curiously softened. The melodies were full of the spirit of 
 youth, its short-sighted, unheeding gayety, and its bitter, 
 brief regrets. It was the same music to which she had 
 danced night after night, a few years ago, with Charlie 
 Needham, Tom Davenant, and hosts of others. She had 
 danced often enough since, but it had been a different 
 thing. In the balls of to-day she found none of that sweet 
 intoxication that once made the ball-room a world of its 
 own, beyond which there was nothing that need be taken 
 thought of. Unconsciously she found herself thinking of 
 Needham as he had been then, not as the harassed, petu 
 lant man with whom she had hardly exchanged a word at; 
 breakfast. She recalled a particular box of roses he had 
 sent her for a certain ball. A pretty but rather faded 
 woman leaned over and spoke to her. 
 
 "I never hear 'One heart, one soul,' Florence," she 
 said, " without thinking of poor George Ralston. Do you 
 remember when we all went together to that dance ?" 
 
 Florence nodded. " Yes," she said. 
 
 Her limited soul was filled with a passionate regret for 
 those days of youth and ignorance. George Ralston had 
 gone away to the West and had died there. It had not oc 
 curred to her then that anybody of her own age could die. 
 Well, she was glad she had had it all. In this new, strange 
 mood it seemed a more actual benefit to have had those 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 333 
 
 pleasures of youth and beauty than the more diplomatic 
 and valuable ones of later years. 
 
 The leader rose on the tips of his toes, describing a com 
 plete titillating circle, pointing his baton now at one and 
 now at another of the players with a gesture imploring, 
 beseeching, commanding by turns ; now and then he took a 
 violin himself, and as he drew his bow across the strings it 
 was as if he said, " Go as you please now, I am playing." 
 Then he laid it down. " Now I am not ! Look what you 
 are about there you you ! Now you wait till it is your 
 turn," the baton indicated with fury. Was he really silent ? 
 Had these little beseechings, these impatiences, not been 
 spoken aloud ? Were they but the expression of his elastic 
 poses ? 
 
 Florence watched and listened, fascinated. Yes, she had 
 had it ! She had lived and revelled in that ball-room 
 world of delight and intoxication and emulation. Suddenly 
 she thought of Medcott and Rhodope, and with a new soft 
 ness. Perhaps the newly awakened domination of Dave- 
 nant's nature over hers had weakened Medcott's hold on 
 her fancy. She wondered now if it were worth while to in 
 terfere with their happiness ? Had she not done enough ? 
 Could not they, too, have their holiday ? That despairing 
 minor wail that breaks now and then through the gayest 
 music came to her ears like an overwhelmning reproach. 
 George Ralston had gone away and died. After people died, 
 so little mattered. The leader rose on his toes and pointed 
 high in the air, as to the rising star of progress or the first 
 faint flush of dawn. You were spiritually elevated in spite 
 of yourself. Then down again into the orchestra. " Can't 
 you get more ' go ' into it ? Can't you ? So ! So ! So !" 
 It was not music to stir the soul, but it stirred the fancy 
 and those upper strata of emotion which take the place of 
 depths in women like Florence Needham. Tom Davenant 
 
334 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 had loved her then. He had been near her always ; he 
 didn't care for dancing as much as she did, but he always 
 danced with her. Poor Tom ! She had treated him badly. 
 Why should she want him to care for her any longer ? Why 
 not be willing that he should have a relief from what had 
 been the fever of that intense, longing, gay, reckless time 
 of youth ? 
 
 The leader was in the attitude of Hamlet adjuring his 
 father's ghost ; but you knew that this distinguished gentle 
 man had never seen any ghosts save perhaps delicate, 
 dreamy, feminine ones of a deserted ball-room, ghosts with 
 broken fans and bits of torn tarlatan and a pretty, sad, sug 
 gestive, pathetic grace of fleeting smiles, mocking flattery, and 
 passing youth and would not have followed them if he had. 
 
 Florence went straight from the concert-room to Mrs. 
 Medcott's. On the way she was surprised to find the 
 day cold and gray, she had been so long amid the light, 
 the perfume, and the figures of the ball-room. There was 
 almost no one there. Bertha was talking with one or two 
 people at the tea-table. Mrs. Medcott was saying good- 
 by to an old lady who was evidently of importance. She 
 greeted Mrs. Needham with just enough cordiality, and in 
 a moment she was seated by her on a small sofa, the tea- 
 table talk barely reaching their ears. 
 
 "You will want to know about Rhodope Trent," said 
 Florence. Mrs. Medcott was rather shocked at the bare 
 ness of the proposition. 
 
 " I have heard about her already," she smiled. " Helena 
 Screed has just been here." 
 
 " But I knew her at home," said Florence hastily. Her 
 cheeks were flushed, and her eyes had that evanescent 
 softness that sometimes made them dangerous. Mrs. Med 
 cott came to the conclusion that she might be a more at 
 tractive woman than she had been inclined to believe. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 335 
 
 " She is what Mr. Davenant would call tremendously 
 fine." 
 
 It showed Davenant's influence over her, that she chose 
 his expression rather than her own when she was moved. 
 
 " She is not like other people not in the least like me, 
 for instance." 
 
 " I was afraid so." Mrs. Medcott still smiled, but she was 
 more curious. 
 
 "No no, I don't mean like that. But she sees things 
 differently. She dresses queerly sometimes, but after all 
 it it suits her." This attained to positive heroism. " She 
 is very handsome and very good. You will like her." 
 
 " I have no doubt of it." Mrs. Medcott was very curious. 
 
 " At home at her home it is not like this, you know, 
 but it is not bad." 
 
 Bertha rose and came forward. Her guests were taking 
 leave and others were coming. 
 
 "You will not forget," said Florence in a low tone, 
 " you will like her." 
 
 " No, I shall not forget ; thank you for telling me." 
 
 For almost the first time Mrs. Medcott nearly doubted 
 her own impressions. The conversation was diverted and 
 the spell was wearing off as Florence said good-by, but it 
 had done its work. For an hour she had thought and 
 acted without taking thought of the morrow. 
 
 Just before dinner Austin came in. There was a letter 
 for him on the table. He held it a minute in his hand be 
 fore opening it. He had not seen his mother for several 
 days. She watched him as he walked over to the fire to 
 read it. His face flushed and his hand tightened over it as 
 he finished, otherwise he was quiet. 
 
 " Your Miss Trent cannot be a mere wild-flower, Austin," 
 said his mother, going up to him. She had a wonderful fas 
 cination of manner. " She must be a rare and delicate or- 
 
336 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 chid, which, as we all know, is not only a beautiful thing, 
 but a fashionable " 
 
 Medcott sighed impatiently, but she went on, her hand on 
 his arm: "for she has won the discriminating praise of 
 Mrs. Florence Needham." 
 
 "After she has let her go," broke out Austin impa 
 tiently. 
 
 "But did you not know she was going?" asked his 
 mother, surprised. " We heard so a day or two ago." 
 
 " No, I did not know." 
 
 He felt disproportionately overwhelmed. There had 
 been such a succession of things between them, and just 
 as he thought they were brushed away, just as even the 
 spiteful woman who had done such repeated harm had 
 yielded she was gone ! He could not reach her, and the 
 sad little note he held in his hand, while it thought itself an 
 obstacle, but filled him with renewed longing to speak to 
 her face to face. 
 
 "She must be a remarkable woman," repeated Mrs. 
 Medcott later to Bertha. " I have hopes of her," but she 
 sighed. 
 
 " I suppose it would have been our duty any way not to 
 oppose it if she is really interested in Austin," reflected 
 Bertha. 
 
 " It would not have been mine," said her mother sharp 
 ly. " It would have been my duty to break it off, and if I 
 hadn't succeeded, never to become resigned to the ways of 
 Providence. And it will be now, if she is an ordinary per 
 son. Of course she is interested in Austin ! Women al 
 ways have been since he was five ! That is no sign that 
 they were made for each other!" 
 
 Medcott read Rhodope's note over and over again, seek 
 ing to read all that there was between the lines. It was a 
 short note and she had sought to make it absolutely truth- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 337 
 
 ful. Its force was all in what it left unsaid. Altogether it 
 touched Medcott inexpressibly, though he did not know all 
 the circumstances. 
 
 " I do not think it will be best," she had written. "I am going 
 away. Do not think I do not understand. I shall not be miserable. 
 Please do not write to me again. It was good of you to think of it. 
 " Yours truly, 
 
 "RHODOPE TRENT." 
 
 22 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 "Why else was the harmony prolonged but that singing might issue 
 
 thence ? 
 Why rushed the discords in but that harmony should be prized?" 
 
 " Oh, world as God has made it, all is beauty, 
 And knowing this is love, and love is duty. 
 What further may be sought for or declared?" 
 
 " AIN'T it most time for that teaspoonful of medicine ?" 
 asked a feeble, querulous voice from the bed. 
 
 " No, Miss Matilda." The answer came in Rhodope's 
 quiet tones. "It isn't time for half an hour yet." 
 
 "I dono as it does any good anyhow," observed the 
 querulous voice, its flavor of acidity diluted, but not de 
 stroyed, by physical weakness. Rhodope made no reply, 
 and the former silence fell upon the sick-room. It had 
 been a silence of an hour's duration. A small lamp burned 
 dimly on the table with its usual sick-room litter of bottles, 
 glasses, and spoons, causing curious shadows to fall here 
 and there in unexpected places, illustrating, after the fash 
 ion of shadows, undreamed-of possibilities in the forms of 
 well-known and altogether normal objects. But the table 
 and the shadows were the only notes of disorder in the 
 room. The patchwork counterpane was a marvel of well- 
 regulated lights and shades. The virginal simplicity of 
 Miss Spore's chamber was uncorrupted by any hint of lux 
 ury save that of a braided mat at the side of the bed, and 
 a framed canvas representing in colored lithograph certain 
 Masonic emblems of an order to which the father of Matil- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 339 
 
 da had once belonged. The detached but impressive eye, 
 the square and compass, the altar, the visible lightning, all 
 of these symbols had exerted their influence upon Miss Ma 
 tilda's development, and perhaps contributed to the sever 
 ity of her moral nature. A child whose early recollections 
 of parental hours of relaxation are attended by the vision 
 of the altar, the lightning, and the square, could not well 
 grow up to take a light-minded view of social recreations. 
 It seems hardly necessary to say that this masterpiece be 
 longed in the parlor, but since her illness Miss Matilda had 
 craved its presence before her eyes. Since infancy she 
 had gazed upon it with varying emotions of awe, curiosity, 
 mystification, and admiration. Of late years these had 
 yielded a large place to the calmer satisfaction of family 
 pride. In the restless helplessness of illness, amid the lim 
 ited resources of the unimpressive wall-paper and the green 
 window-shades, she found in contemplation of its glories 
 much of the same distinct, if evasive, comfort contained in 
 the pronunciation of Mesopotamia. 
 
 The rest of the room, as has been hinted, appealed less 
 to the aestheticism of the observer. That it was spotlessly 
 neat and somehow suggestive of the tightly drawn back 
 hair and unornamental collar of its occupant, need not be 
 stated to such as have cared to observe Miss Spore's ten 
 dencies. Rhodope glanced at the small but remorseless 
 clock on the top of the chest of drawers, and then rose a 
 little wearily, and, walking to the low window, knelt on the 
 floor, and, drawing away the calico curtain, leaned her head 
 against the pane. It had been stormy, but the wind and 
 the cold rain had ceased. Before her the mountains loomed 
 dark and silent. Above her the stars looked down with 
 clear-sighted solemnity upon the earth beneath. Below her 
 the street in the outskirts of the little town lay hushed and 
 empty, as though it were a street of that other village where 
 
340 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " All the villagers lie asleep ; 
 Never a grain to sow or reap ; 
 Never in dreams to moan or sigh ; 
 Silent and idle and low they lie." 
 
 She was alone with the silences that she loved. Her 
 thoughts could lie at peace or raise themselves reverently 
 to high things under the guardianship of the night She 
 was far from the mocking, thwarting disturbances that had 
 troubled and hampered her. And yet ? Her eyes grew sad 
 as she pressed her forehead more closely against the cold 
 pane. Had she come back to them in vain? Had they 
 for the first time no help for her those everlasting hills ? 
 Her forehead slipped down into her hands as she knelt 
 facing a great unrest, that seemed to widen out before her 
 into a pitiful loneliness without bounds, and over which she 
 could not pass, save wearily and in many years. 
 
 The clock hasted not, nor halted, but ticked on stead 
 ily ; for was not this night as other nights, and why hasten 
 or retard its hours, that led but to a day that should be as 
 other days? 
 
 Miss Matilda had been very ill. The nervous strain, the 
 long, chill watching, the overtaxed strength, had resulted 
 in a sudden sharp attack of fever. She had insisted upon 
 going back alone to her empty house, where she had broken 
 down, and been discovered helpless and unresigned by the 
 child of a neighbor who brought in the morning's pitcher 
 of milk. It is safe to assert that that child, though in no 
 wise shielded from the vicissitudes of mature life, will never 
 forget, in the light of subsequent experiences, the details of 
 that morning. Miss Matilda gave her directions as to what 
 she wanted done, and the child tried to follow them to the 
 best of her not-skilled, and perhaps somewhat slow-witted, 
 ability. Miss Matilda told her to make a fire, and then 
 found fault with the disposition of each stick and bit of 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 341 
 
 paper in a sharp, weak voice, that came with singular vivid 
 ness, from the stiff lounge whither she had dragged herself, 
 to the ears of the frightened child. 
 
 "There ain't any draught," moaned Miss Matilda. 
 "'Ain't your ma ever told you you can't make a fire with 
 out a draught ? Put them sticks crossways 'stid of len'th- 
 ways not them sticks, the little ones ! Open that little slide 
 at the bottom. Land o' grief ! that ain't the slide it's the 
 door ! Do you want to put out all there is ?" 
 
 With panicky fingers the child pushed the wrong way, 
 and the slide refused to open. 
 
 " Did you know there was a nose on your face ?" in 
 quired Miss Spore with irritated inelegance. " Push it the 
 other way ! There ! You do beat all for awk'ardness. Now 
 blow a little. Mercy on us !" And her voice rose in a fee 
 ble shriek. " Don't roll your eyes so, and don't blow the hull 
 stove out o' doors ! You'll give me the apperplexy. Now 
 fetch the kittle. For goodness' sake ! That ain't the kit 
 tle that's the saucepan don't any of your ma's children 
 know a saucepan from a kittle ?" So the directions had pro 
 ceeded till the poor little ignoramus, whose errors had been 
 rather those of alarm than of natural thick-headedness, es 
 caped to send in her mother, who speedily sent, in her turn, 
 for the doctor. 
 
 "I want to see Denver Trent," said Miss Matilda to 
 the doctor, "and you sha'n't stir me a step till I do see 
 him." 
 
 The doctor, like most of her acquaintances, had no wish 
 to push matters with Miss Matilda merely for the pleasure 
 of theoretical demonstration, and he sent for Denver Trent 
 as soon as might be. Jib drove Denver over and waited 
 for him while he limped up the steps of Miss Matilda's lit 
 tle house, which grew right up from the street, with only 
 room for a fence between, probably because, when it was 
 
342 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 built, front-door yards might have been had for the asking. 
 Matilda still lay on the sofa, her cheeks burning with fever, 
 the counterpane looking fairly scandalized at thus being 
 brought into public notice, and a blanket shawl wrapped 
 about her spare form. 
 
 " Wai, Denver," she said hastily, " I guess you're won- 
 derin' what on airth I sent for you for." 
 
 "Well, I was consider'ble," answered Denver frankly. 
 " I'm sorry you're sick, anyhow, Matilda." 
 
 " I dono as I'm sick," she said shortly. 
 
 " I thought you sent for me because you was sick," said 
 Denver, without the slightest heat. 
 
 " Wai, I did," she assented. " You know about Tim ?" 
 
 " Yes," he answered soberly. 
 
 "Wai, I 'ain't got anybody to look after me now." It 
 would have been a triumph for poor Tim if he could have 
 heard his aunt acknowledge by implication that he had 
 looked after her. " And I don't seem to think of anybody 
 but you that's ever been much of any friends with me. Not 
 that you was ever any great shakes of a friend." Miss 
 Spore's eyes had a gleam of something that was not fever. 
 "You allers liked Marcella Brown best." 
 
 Denver Trent's eyes glis'tened. 
 
 " Seems 's if you was goin' back a good ways, ain't you, 
 Matilda?" he asked gently. 
 
 " Mebbe I am. You did, didn't you ?" 
 
 "Well, yes, I guess I allers did," he answered simply. " I 
 liked her better 'n anybody else." 
 
 There was silence for a moment. 
 
 " I knew it," said the forlorn old woman, whose voice 
 was growing weaker from fatigue. " But you've allers been 
 pretty frien'ly to Tim and me, and I want you to git some 
 body over in the valley to come over and take care o' me. 
 I don't want anybody here. 'N' I want you to kind o' keep 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 343 
 
 your eye on things if I'm very sick. I'll feel better if you 
 do. That's all, Denver." 
 
 And Denver Trent came away, having promised, and 
 soon thereafter despatched his reckless telegram. 
 
 It would be hard to say why she had sent for him. 
 Whether it was the old sentiment which suddenly asserted 
 its survival, or the old jealousy seeking an opportunity to 
 observe what wound had been made by the death of her 
 rival, or a sudden realization of her unloved, unliked help 
 lessness and Denver Trent's steadfastness of character 
 whether all or any of these, or but the vagary of feverish- 
 ness, even she herself could not have told, but it was this 
 that she did, 
 
 "Blowin' like Statia, ain't it?" Denver had said as he 
 helped Rhodope, half frozen, out of the sleigh. " I guess 
 it came hard for you to come away. But land ! Rhode, 
 I'm glad to see you back. What with my leg givin' out 
 just when it did, and one thing and another, I felt kinder 
 like a woman with a jack-knife more I try to do things 
 right, more it looks as if I'd never done 'em before, and 
 wasn't ever goin' to do 'em again and yet wantin' to do 
 somethin'." And Rhodope stood in the middle of the little 
 living-room, and looked slowly and lovingly about her at the 
 big open fireplace ; at Jib kicking the snow from his boots 
 into the hissing flame ; at a paper-covered novel on the red 
 table-cover ; at the crocheted mat, and the framed wreath of 
 immortelles that had lain on her mother's grave ; at all the 
 other dear, familiar things ; and lastly at Uncle Denver him 
 self, smiling as he balanced himself against a chair to save 
 his lame leg, and then she went up to him and put her arms 
 around his neck and said, 
 
 " Oh, Uncle Denver, it is never a hard thing to come 
 home !" 
 
 " I guess it's more 'n half an hour, now," said the restless 
 
344 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 voice from the bed. Miss Matilda had not been asleep, but 
 had been lying staring at the counterpane and the Masonic 
 picture, which, though invisible in the shadow, revealed to 
 the eye of familiarity its salient features. Rhodope rose 
 and went to the bedside. 
 
 " In two or three minutes it will be," she said gently. " I 
 had not forgotten." She seated herself and looked down 
 at Miss Matilda. A great pity for her filled her heart. 
 Here was a life as empty, as self-despoiled, as any that were 
 lived amid the manifold hindrances of the city. Was there 
 so much to choose between the stony places, incapable of 
 fostering the good, and those where thorns sprang up and 
 choked it ? She was so unloved that she needed pity. To 
 Rhodope it seemed a terrible thing to be unloved. She 
 wondered if she should ever get to the point where she 
 would not care. 
 
 " You can tell that Elizabeth French," said Miss Spore 
 with sudden sharpness, " that that warn't a bad Sally Lunn 
 she made." 
 
 "Very well," said Rhodope, "I will tell her." She did 
 not understand, but she recognized a wish to make amends. 
 She felt that Miss Matilda must feel that she was going 
 to die. She really was drawing near to convalescence. 
 Rhodope rose, and taking from the table a bottle and 
 spoon, poured out a few drops. 
 
 " Is that the right bottle ?" asked Miss Spore with fretful 
 anxiety. 
 
 " Yes, this is the one." 
 
 " Lemme see it. Lemme take it." 
 
 Rhodope placed it in the thin hand, which was almost too 
 weak to hold it. This was an almost invariable proceeding, 
 Miss Spore never hesitating to show distrust of her nurse's 
 ability. 
 
 " That's it," she allowed. 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 345 
 
 Rhodope gave her the medicine ; as she lay back she 
 looked sharply at the spoon. 
 
 "Is that the spoon you've been using right along?" she 
 asked. 
 
 Rhodope admitted that it was. 
 
 " 'Tain't really a full spoon. It's under-sized. If you've 
 been givin' it to me in that, you 'ain't give me enough." 
 
 " The doctor used this spoon," explained Rhodope. " He 
 showed me how much." 
 
 She was tired and the night had been long, but she spoke 
 with the utmost patience. 
 
 "There never was a man that knew anythin' about tea 
 spoons," murmured Miss Spore as she grew drowsy under 
 the anodyne. 
 
 Rhodope went back to the window and knelt down again. 
 She was not in the least afraid of growing sleepy. She re 
 viewed every episode of her friendship with Medcott. He 
 seemed so far away from her now, and yet so near, so inti 
 mately present, that every word spoken, every sight seen, 
 seemed to come to her touched by his personality. And 
 she herself had turned the page and refused to read to the 
 end of the beautiful story. She saw clearly every word of 
 the note she had written him, which had been meant to 
 close the chapter. And those words had already acquired 
 the obstinacy, almost the incontrovertibility, that the very 
 act of writing down seems to impart to a hitherto perhaps 
 shadowy sentiment or intention. 
 
 What if it had been a mistake ? She had yielded to the 
 cruelty of Florence's suggestion, in the strange contradic 
 tion of things, just because her soul had rebelled against it. 
 But now she was away from the contradictions, and she 
 could think. In the presence of the grand quietness of the 
 mountains and the stars, still one emotion rose stable, 
 strong, and immutable her love for Medcott. The petti- 
 
346 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 ness of jealousy, the confusions of life, the falseness of ap 
 pearances, fell away from her spirit ; but love stood clear and 
 enduring, a mighty fact of existence, no mirage of dazzling 
 foreign skies. Artificial laws of existence could not destroy 
 it, though they might now and then deface its image, and 
 the grandeur of nature could not shut it out. It was in the 
 world, and was the healing of nations. As the faint, pale 
 luminousness of the coming day stole over the hills, Rhod- 
 ope knew that she must always see it and recognize it, 
 though she had chosen to go forth alone to meet it, not in 
 the companionship that might have been hers. 
 
 There was the sound of the click of the outer latch, a soft 
 footstep crossed the hall, and Rhodope raised her head to 
 see, in the early gray of the morning, coming into the room 
 the woman who shared her watch. 
 
 " You go to bed, Rhodope Trent," she whispered, " and 
 get an hour's sleep before they come to fetch you." 
 
 At the door Rhodope paused and looked back at the bed. 
 The loneliness of the figure there touched her inexpressibly, 
 as it had done before. She was unwilling to go away and 
 leave her, so destitute she seemed. Unconscious that with 
 terrible certainty, by the ruthlessness of her selfishness, she 
 had stripped not only the present but the future of what 
 might have made it happy, Matilda Spore was, nevertheless, 
 facing that desolate future, and with returning health it was 
 growing always nearer. The tears came slowly into Rhodope's 
 eyes, so deep was her pity. Her need was but the need of 
 the whole world, though she would never recognize it. What 
 did it matter where one was or what one did ? Everywhere 
 is the need, and those that have let them give. It is the 
 world's want love ! love ! love ! So she slipped out of the 
 room, with its regularly ticking clock and the somewhat fit 
 ful breathing of Miss Spore demonstrating the indisputable 
 advantage of pure mechanism unhampered by the restric- 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 347 
 
 tions of suffering humanity. She tried to follow the advice 
 she had received, but she could not sleep, and after an hour's 
 rest she rose, and wrapping herself up, went quietly out of 
 the door, determined to walk up the road to the valley and 
 meet Jib and the sleigh. On the doorstep she stood still in 
 wondering delight. The day before, that had gone out in 
 wailing and darkness, had been that of an ice storm ; and 
 now, as the sun broke forth, it was into one of those morn 
 ings of enchantment that only Nature can provide for this 
 somewhat blase earth, catching it up into a sort of ecstasy 
 of artificial beauty, that convinces us that there is no hand 
 like hers, and that all our boasted human art is but trifling 
 and infinitesimal when she herself chooses to become spec 
 tacular. The trees were gray, nodding ostrich-plumes 
 tipped with diamonds. The commonplace street, leading 
 farther into the sordid little town, was over-swept and over 
 arched by pendent jewelled sprays and carpeted with brill 
 iants. The road which Rhodope turned into, that led her 
 over towards the valley, was a long vista of drooping laces 
 sparkling with crystals flung in reckless profusion. The 
 hills lay laughing under the jewelled ermine that had been 
 cast upon them. The trees defied the danger that awaited 
 their straining branches, clad in a shining mail that was 
 touched by the wand of enchantment, so that it gleamed 
 and glowed with flames of prismatic glory. As she walked 
 slowly on over the hard ground strewed with the glittering 
 points of broken ice, it was as if she were setting forth to 
 fairy -land on a strange highway that led she knew not 
 whither, save that it was into fantastic beauty without end. 
 It was not cold ; the world was but waiting for the warmer 
 touch of the risen sun to pass out of this fairy-land. The 
 spell of the present enchantment must yield to the dearer 
 and more potent one. It was still so early that she met no 
 one until she was past the last outlying houses of the little 
 
348 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 town and fairly committed to the loneliness of the hills. 
 She looked up and on, and moving towards her swiftly along 
 the road she saw a man's figure. She paused an instant as 
 if the staff of the wizard had been suddenly laid upon her 
 and made her a part of the motionless frozen beauty. She 
 had not doubted that it was Medcott from the first flash of 
 perception. He quickened his steps as he caught sight of 
 her, and she more slowly moved towards him. 
 
 Behind each of them, in the distance, the drooping 
 branches swept so low that they shut off the turns of the 
 road in masses of gray, shining beauty, and the two came 
 towards each other as if they met in a beautiful crystal 
 world that had neither entrance nor exit. 
 
 "Rhodope," he said, taking her hands, "you did not 
 mean what you said in your letter. I know that. I do not 
 know that you love me, but I shall not let you go on any 
 such foolish pretext as that contained." 
 
 She looked at him in delicious surprise. All misgivings, 
 all doubts of the motives of his confession, all thoughts of 
 anything but what she saw in his eyes melted away. And 
 did he treat that letter so lightly ? They had seemed so 
 terribly irrevocable those written words ! It had cost so 
 much to write them ! 
 
 "No," she said gravely; "I have learned better now." 
 
 His heart leaped at her words, but he did not take her 
 in his arms. She should tell him first what the lesson had 
 been. 
 
 " What is it you have learned, Rhodope ?" he asked. She 
 glanced up at the brilliant blue of the sky, at the raintfbw 
 color of the trees, at the shining glory of the hills. It was 
 in such beautiful silences as this that she would have chosen 
 to make her confession. 
 
 " I have learned," she said slowly, " that it is not a thing 
 to be interfered with, or perhaps listened to that love is 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 349 
 
 not. It is a thing that belongs to everybody everywhere 
 there and here. And I love you. I have always loved 
 you " 
 
 She paused a moment, and Medcott, who had at last 
 heard the words he had been waiting for, stayed not for 
 the end. She had said that she loved him. The swift 
 color stained her cheeks under his kisses. This conclusion 
 had not seemed to her the inevitable one, as it had to him. 
 She could not lift her eyes as her head lay upon his shoul 
 der. He kissed her eyelids, which increased their tendency 
 to stay down. 
 
 " There were other things I had to say," she murmured, 
 half frightened, half smiling. 
 
 " And you have all the rest of your life to say them in, 
 and I to listen, love," he said gently. 
 
 The little fur cap she wore was pushed back from her 
 soft hair, her cheeks were brilliant with color, her grave 
 lips had taken tender, happy curves, her eyelashes swept 
 her cheeks. It was the third time that her head had rested 
 there : once for an instant of danger, when he had first 
 known her, again for that intense moment in the Need- 
 hams' library, and now, beside which time the others were 
 pale with uncertainty. It seemed to him that their whole 
 acquaintance had been a steady progression to the flower 
 of this happiness. He looked from her to the beautiful, 
 cold, sparkling world about them ; it was as if he held 
 the warmth, the glow, the heart of all the beauty in his 
 arms. She raised her head and he let her go. 
 
 " It came to me last night," she said, meeting his eyes 
 now that she stood a little away from him, "that there were 
 some things that are the same everywhere." 
 
 " Always." 
 
 " And when one wants those things, one need not be 
 afraid that they will fail." 
 
350 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " Am I one of those things ?" he demanded, half laugh 
 ing, half serious. 
 
 " Love is," she answered " I have told you so. But after 
 all," she went on, " I shall always like it best here. One 
 can be one's self here." 
 
 The reverence that Medcott had always felt for her grew 
 within him. He saw in a flash of illumination how both 
 Davenant, the far-sighted, and he himself, who so loved her, 
 had wronged her. How was this nature to be spoiled or 
 thwarted by any environment? It was strong as well as 
 sweet. They both seemed to have lost sight of this in their 
 caution. 
 
 "And yet, would you have learned this?" he asked. 
 " Would you have learned so well of the verities if you had 
 not seen some of the mutabilities?" He spoke rather to 
 himself than to her. It was a reminiscence of a conversa 
 tion with Davenant. She looked at him a little puzzled. 
 
 " Perhaps not," she answered, " but both are everywhere. 
 I learned that last night." He did not know what she was 
 thinking of, he hardly knew what she said he only read in 
 her eyes the promise and the fulfilment of her happiness 
 and his own. They had stood alone in this fairy-land of 
 glistening enchantment, and now faintly came to them, from 
 the distance, the sound of bells. It was a fitting prelude to 
 the breaking of the spell. A crashing branch, over-weighted 
 with ice, fell not far from them. 
 
 " Oh, my darling," said Medcott passionately, " is this 
 beauty that has come into my life real ? Do you love me ? 
 for to-day, and every day ? Or will all the delight melt 
 away as the beauty about us must melt and vanish ? I do 
 not like the omen." 
 
 "There are no omens in love," said Rhodope simply. 
 " Such things are all outside. Love is for always." 
 
 And Jib's sleigh-bells rang nearer across the morning air. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 " Sunshine and love, 
 Sky blue and spring." 
 
 "Four times Cupid's debtor I 
 Bankrupt in quadruplicate. 
 Yet, despite this evil case, 
 An a maiden showed me grace, 
 Four-and-forty times would I 
 Sing the Lovers' Litany : 
 * Love like ours can never die /' " 
 
 THE sweetness from trays of violets, lilies -of -the -valley, 
 and jonquils drifted across the corner of the street in gusts 
 of perfume. It was one of those bright, sunny days of ear 
 liest spring, when it seems that the flowers might have been 
 plucked by their Arcadian vendors from the door-yards 
 about, and which, with their vagrant sweetness, beguile us 
 into a deceptive pleasure in existence, only that we may 
 be the more cast down by the aggressive hurly-burly of 
 another March day. Davenant had just joined Mrs. Med- 
 cott and Bertha, and was walking with them along Twenty- 
 third Street. 
 
 " I am glad she is all you say she is, Tom," with a smile 
 that her maternal wisdom modified by a sigh. " I had other 
 ideas for Austin, as well as Violet Harrow, but I have not 
 lived to my present age to fondly believe that one's children 
 grow up for the purpose of carrying out one's ideas." 
 
 " I have always meant to invent one of those whoppers 
 what you might call a secular whopper." 
 
352 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 " My dear Tom," expostulated Mrs. Medcott, " I must 
 ask you to speak English." 
 
 " Remember I am a newspaper reporter," said Tom mod 
 estly, " and, moreover, I know of no synonym. I mean one 
 of those things that you hang on the wall and whop every 
 morning as a sort of calendar and guide for the day. Mine 
 should have on it for one day, * Nothing lasts ' ; for the 
 next, ' Nothing is as bad as it seems ' ; for the third, ' Noth 
 ing is as good as it seems ' ; for the fourth, * It all comes 
 to the same thing in the end,' and then back to the begin 
 ning again just those four. I think the moral effect would 
 be infinitely supporting." 
 
 " You are more cynical than usual this morning," ob 
 served Mrs. Medcott. 
 
 "It is the atmosphere of spring and youth and beauty. 
 If it wasn't for me you might be cheered up by it all. One 
 has one's responsibilities." 
 
 " I don't think the moral effect would be good at all," 
 objected Bertha seriously. " It would influence us to neg 
 lect our duties." 
 
 " Would it ?" asked Davenant, looking down at her with 
 an air of respectful attention. It always interested him to 
 hear Bertha Medcott on the subject of duty. She had 
 gained a pretty color in the warm air, too. " Then I won't 
 patent it immediately." 
 
 " I wish you would, and give Bertha one. It is just what 
 she needs." 
 
 " Mamma doesn't mean that," said Bertha anxiously. 
 " She would not really like me to neglect my duties any 
 more than anybody else." 
 
 " My dear child," said Mrs. Medcott with her usual little 
 shrug of tolerant impatience, " Tom Davenant doesn't need 
 the glossary that you usually provide for my conversation 
 he heard me talk almost before you did." 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 353 
 
 As Davenant held open the door of a shop for them, he 
 noticed what a pretty figure Bertha's was, and as she looked 
 back at him, he caught a transient troubling of the serenity 
 of her glance which made him think deeply for a few mo 
 ments. Mrs. Medcott wouldn't let him come in with them ; 
 she said she was only going in to buy hairpins, but she did 
 not know what she might not feel called on to buy before 
 she came out, and she didn't want to be hampered. Just 
 after he left them he met Helena Screed and joined her. 
 
 " I know you've been looking for somebody just like 
 me," she exclaimed, " to talk over Mr. Medcott's engage 
 ment ! It's people like you and me, without partiality and 
 without prejudice, that can be comforts to each other." 
 
 " I'm not without partiality," asserted Davenant. " I'm 
 blinded by an eccentric devotion to Miss Trent." 
 
 " No, you're not," said Helena shrewdly ; " you've never 
 been blinded by anything that's the trouble with you." 
 
 " I object to your adopting the r61e of observer, Helena. 
 Just go on being the simple flower of a high order of civili 
 zation that you are. Don't begin to take notice." 
 
 " Begin to take notice !" she repeated scornfully. " Did 
 you ever know me when I didn't take notice ? But I'm not 
 here to discuss my character, but the engagement. I like 
 it for many reasons. In the first place, because Florence 
 Needham doesn't. Oh, she doesn't like it at all !" 
 
 " How do you know ?" 
 
 " How do I know ? Do we any of us like to see our 
 fondest hopes decay, and to know that the talk of our lips 
 has tended only to penury? Didn't she do her best to 
 break it off ? And now, that she didn't break it off, isn't 
 she trying in vain to get the credit of making the match ?" 
 
 " You are a contentious woman," remarked Davenant. 
 
 " In the second place, I really think they are fitted for 
 each other." Helena was quite undisturbed by his criti- 
 23 
 
354 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 cism. " They are both on a oh, a sort of a plane, you 
 know. I always said she was an uncommon sort of per 
 son, and as for Austin Medcott, he is very uncommon too 
 he never cared for me in the least." 
 
 " He was withheld by a feeling of delicacy," Davenant 
 hastened to say, " because I cared for you so much." 
 
 "Do you think so? I'm glad it was nothing worse. Did 
 you know," she went on, "that Mr. Needhafh is going 
 around telling everybody that Miss Trent saved him from 
 shooting himself ?" 
 
 " Yes, so I've heard." 
 
 "Do you believe it?" Helena's bright eyes scanned 
 Davenant's non-committal face sharply. 
 
 " Oh, I think she'd have stopped him if she'd seen him 
 about it." 
 
 " But do you suppose he wanted to ?" 
 
 "The pistol was loaded, I believe. I don't believe he 
 meant to do himself any real harm." 
 
 " You are putting me off with a newspaper joke ! Never 
 mind. I'll pay you back. I'm going about to say that I 
 have it on your authority, as an intimate friend of all par 
 ties, that she turned the pistol aside so that the ball but 
 slightly grazed the left temple. Good-by," and she sig 
 nalled a car and entered it without further discussion. 
 
 Even if Florence Needham could have listened to Hel 
 ena's diagnosis of the situation, it is doubtful if it could 
 have added much to the discomfiture that she was under 
 going at this very moment. While Davenant was making 
 his somewhat intermittent way across the city, she had been 
 standing a little at one side of the entrance to the elevator 
 in one of the fashionable apartment houses, waiting for it 
 to come up from a lower story. As it drew near and 
 stopped, and in the moment's pause while the door was 
 being opened, she caught certain words uttered in the clear, 
 
WHITE BIRCHES 355 
 
 not unpleasant, but rather loud voices of many of those 
 women who are compelled to be always talking down the 
 noise of a city. 
 
 " Oh, I grant you she has style, beauty brains of a cer 
 tain sort if you like, but she lacks 
 
 "Oh, of course she lacks" interrupted the other, "oh! 
 everything, especially distinction ; but, for that sort of wom 
 an, she has a certain air." 
 
 " How you can tolerate her for just that !" 
 
 " Oh, tolerate! We have to tolerate everybody nowadays 
 that has anything /" 
 
 The door rolled back, Florence stepped forward, and 
 the two speakers swept out. There was a hurried exchange 
 of greetings, startled on the one side. Quickly as the 
 elegant, socially distinguished women recovered their self- 
 possession, it came a second too late. In the slight change 
 of color, the quick glance interchanged, Florence had read 
 immediately that these undeniable members of the class 
 of dictators had been talking of her. As her carriage-door 
 closed in front of her own house, she was still facing the 
 fact, and she was still angry. If the glow of the feeling 
 that had led her to praise Rhodope had not long since 
 passed away, this experience would have restored her to 
 herself. Her eyes sparkled as she threw aside her wrap. 
 She would live to defeat those women on their own ground. 
 That they should talk of distinction ! She reviewed their 
 manners and their connections alike with bitter satisfac 
 tion. They should yet sigh for an invitation to her house. 
 So she took up again the struggle to enter that Eden, 
 guarded by an angel who lays aside his flaming sword at 
 the prospect of a sufficient bribe, but the trees of which 
 garden are heavy with the apples of Sodom. 
 
 Deserted by Helena, Davenant went on to the editorial 
 office, where he had an appointment. As he waited a few 
 
356 WHITE BIRCHES 
 
 moments in an anteroom he remembered what a serene, 
 admirable woman Bertha Medcott was, and how she had 
 looked when she turned back at the shop door. He thought 
 her mother was a little hard on her. Mrs. Medcott had 
 always cared more for Austin. Then he took out his note 
 book and scribbled a few sentences. 
 
 " Cynical man. Specialty of unrequited attachment. 
 Poses always as an homme de trop. Dead failure. Always 
 finding some one to take the last one's place. Finally re 
 quited?" After making a large, black interrogation-point 
 after the last word, he put the book back in his pocket, lit 
 a cigarette, and walked absently about the room. 
 
 A week later he went to meet Medcott at the station. 
 
 " Yes," he said, with a sort of unhurried haste, as the 
 men shook hands, " I know it all, my dear Medcott ! You 
 know I've taken the story in instalments. Don't make me 
 read the bound volume too." 
 
 They turned into the street and walked towards Mrs. 
 Medcott's house. 
 
 " Besides," he went on, " I have my own sentimental 
 confession to make." Medcott looked at him in surprise. 
 "Yes, I've persuaded your sister to look upon me as a 
 duty. In time, I have hopes of making her regard me as 
 a pleasure also." 
 
 THE END 
 
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