t THE 
 
 MILLIONAIRESS 
 
 * 
 
 JULIAN RALPH
 
 * The ** 
 Millionairess
 
 TTHE MILLIONAIRESS
 
 * The ** 
 Millionairess 
 
 BY JULIAN RALPH 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 BY C. F. UNDERWOOD 
 
 t 
 
 LOTHROP PUBLISHING 
 COMPANY BOSTON
 
 COPYRIGHT, 
 
 1902, 
 BY 
 
 L O T H R O P 
 PUB L I SH I NG 
 COMPANY. 
 
 ENTERED AT 
 STATIONERS' HALL 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published, Sept., 1902
 
 TO MY MO TH E R 
 
 2137843

 
 Contents 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 /. Ordering an Ad-venture for One . . n 
 
 II. The Rendezvous on the Roof . . .21 
 
 ///. At the Sill of the Boozer's Door . . 28 
 
 IV. In Which Some Characters Take Their 
 
 Places ....... 45 
 
 V. Beautiful, Rich, Lovable Yet Almost 
 
 Alone . . . . . . .55 
 
 VI. The Maid and Her Money ... 68 
 
 VII. The New Gospel of Smoke . . .77 
 
 VIII. Her Views upon Society .... 89 
 
 IX. "You Are Also Guilty" . . . .106 
 
 X. Testing a Crusader's Sword . . .120 
 
 XI. A Faint Sound of Cupid's Wings . . 132 
 
 XII. Bryan Cross's Exposure of " Society" . 146 
 
 XIII. Like a Lily on an Altar . . . .166 
 
 XIV. The Hunger of a Lonesome Heart . . 1 76 
 
 XV. Cupid Bungles a Little . . . .187 
 
 XVI. Laura Meets the Van Ness Sisters . . 208 
 
 XVII. Bryan Cross Appeals for Rescue . .221 
 
 XVIII. Transforming a Fair Barbarian . .237 
 
 XIX. Miss Tony's Confession . . . .251 
 
 XX. A Glimpse of the Upper Ten . . .264 
 
 XXI. The Fringe of Society . . . .276 
 
 XXII. The Skeleton at the Feast . . . .287 
 
 XXIII. Enter : One of Unsavoury Repute . . 309
 
 Contents 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XXIV. 
 XXV. 
 XXVI. 
 XXVII. 
 XXVIII. 
 XXIX. 
 XXX. 
 
 The Wrecking of Bryan Cross 
 Love and a Robber Both Break in . 
 Beekman Scores a Failure 
 The Mysterious Burglar Caught 
 Diluting a Sensation 
 A Message for Bryan Cross 
 Happy Captives of Love . . . 
 
 PAGE 
 . 322 
 342 
 358 
 370 
 . 382 
 . 4OO 
 . 410
 
 ** Illustrations ** 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Millionairess ..... Frontispiece 
 
 " ' I am to know you better than I know, or ever knew, 
 
 man or woman on earth "' . . . -53 
 
 " ' You have made a great stir, have 1 nt you f'' . 121 
 
 " Here she lifted a foot and slowly moved it far for- 
 ward" , . . . . . . .219 
 
 " She sat swinging her feet and looking down at Mr. 
 
 Stone" 353 
 
 " He kissed her lightly, and the touch of his lips on 
 
 her brow lifted her soul" 421
 
 The 
 
 * 
 
 Millionairess 
 i. 
 
 ORDERING AN 
 ADVENTURE FOR ONE 
 
 " Why, I, in this weak, piping time of peace, 
 Have no delight to pass away the time." Richard III. 
 
 rHERE is a queer little German restaurant 
 in William Street, near the Brooklyn 
 Bridge in New York which is a per- 
 fect reproduction of the typical tavern of a 
 small Fatherland village. In it, not long ago, 
 sat two noted writers for the newspapers. The 
 one was Colin Chester, round, rosy, double- 
 chinned, all and always in black, suggesting the 
 well-fed priest by face and form and frock, and 
 tidy, almost soapily, clean. The other was 
 Courtlandt Beekman, who was slender, tall, and 
 commanding in both face and build. Further 
 distinguishing a face whose shape was the product 
 
 ii
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 of generations of refinement, were steady, grey 
 eyes between a lofty brow and a square chin. He 
 dressed like an Englishman, which is to say al- 
 ways comfortably, and was now wearing a loung- 
 ing suit of loose reddish tweed. Both men would 
 have denied what I have said of their position as 
 writers, but, to begin again with Chester, every 
 newspaper man and thousands of others so 
 insisted ; and they knew and were right. He 
 was both a political writer and a considerable 
 force in politics, not unused to being asked by 
 statesmen for advice, and not beneath command- 
 ing, and even disciplining, them when he thought 
 best. 
 
 Beekman was of another sort. He was great 
 in newspaperdom only because he had performed 
 two or three notable feats in that profession 
 reporting a revolution in South America, an inter- 
 view with the Czar, a study of the Armenian ques- 
 tion, and another of the plague in the Far East. 
 In fact, he was a rich young bachelor of thirty- 
 two, given to amusing himself with serious under- 
 takings in exploration, big game shooting, and, as 
 he would say, " spying upon his neighbours," by 
 which he meant travelling and observing his fel- 
 
 12
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 low men in the largest sense. If he was a jour- 
 nalist it was only because the others were proud 
 to reckon him such. Journalists do not keep a 
 town house in New York, a ranch in California, 
 chambers in London, a yacht, and a broker. 
 Beekman did. Other journalists are not in the 
 " Four Hundred," at home in the Carlton Club in 
 London, asked to put up at " Government House " 
 whenever they stop in their travels, and on the 
 friendliest terms with the Whistlers, Sardous, 
 Roseberys, Ibsens, Rostands, Lenbachs, Kip- 
 lings, and men of cultivation and renown every- 
 where. Beekman was. Yet he and Chester were 
 great friends, touching each other at a dozen sym- 
 pathetic points, and frank as boys with one an- 
 other. 
 
 " Do you want an adventure? " It was Chester 
 who spoke. 
 
 " There is none to be had not this side of 
 Fez," Beekman replied. 
 
 " Some friends of mine," continued Chester, 
 " the nicest people I know, have a dining-club. 
 which is a mere expression of, or sort of charging 
 battery for, a camaraderie unlike any other which 
 I know in America. The men are all distin- 
 
 13
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 guished and successful in various professional 
 walks of life, are all well-informed and broad and 
 interesting. Well-to-do and refined Bohemians 
 that is what they are. And their wives match 
 them. They are as much in the thing as the men. 
 We number nine or ten couples, and only two 
 unmarried members." 
 
 " It sounds " 
 
 " Never mind how it sounds. A very great 
 lawyer is one. An architect of note is another, 
 a sculptor known all over the world is a third. 
 I can name no names, but you will know of them 
 if you do not know them. They are the very 
 best, I tell you. Well, their peculiarity is that 
 they take their rest and fun and pleasure together. 
 They all go to the theatre in a party. They take 
 their holidays together in the woods, by some 
 lonely lake in Minnesota, in some little village in 
 Maine anywhere to be by themselves, for they 
 are as much as a cityful when they are in force, 
 so far as fun goes. No woman is any man's wife 
 when she is with the club ; that is to say, she and 
 her husband are finable if seen together. So we 
 pair off in new couples, twice a day perhaps, all 
 trusting one another so much that our trustfulness 
 
 14
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 never occurs to us. We know books, pictures, 
 music whatever is worth while. There is not 
 a fool in the club. I want you to join." 
 
 " As the missing fool? " 
 
 " Don't try to be one. Listen. I ask you to 
 join. The others desire it, but, not knowing you, 
 cannot invite you." 
 
 " It sounds " Beekman began. 
 
 " Damn how it sounds. Will you join, if only 
 as a favour to me? " 
 
 " It sounds interesting/' said Beekman, " but 
 I am only here an occasional week or two in an 
 occasional year." 
 
 " I know, but you want to keep up with what's 
 going on, and to be in whatever's the best. This 
 costs you nothing when you are away. Each of 
 us pays only for what he actually gets. I tell 
 you, these people are the very best. Perhaps you 
 will be in New York more often if you make one 
 of us." 
 
 " Never mind more argument," said Beekman. 
 " I will join your club. Do you know, I felt that 
 this was coming? I ran down here to see you 
 because something pulled me to you. I knew you 
 would propose something. I knew that I must 
 
 IS
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 do it, whatever it was, and I felt that it was to 
 influence the rest of my life." 
 
 " What a fakir you are, Beekman, with your 
 pretended Oriental second set of senses ! " 
 
 " I am not faking, Chester, believe me. I have 
 never yet been deceived by such premonitions. 
 You can learn to will them to come, as I 
 learnt how in Japan, and I will tell you how to 
 do it if you like, though it is not a thing one can 
 tell to everybody. It certainly is not faking." 
 
 " But you got my urgent letter asking you to 
 come here? " 
 
 " I beg your pardon. I got no letter. You sent 
 it to my house? But I have not been there; I 
 came in from Lakewood only an hour ago. How- 
 ever, never mind all that. I will go with you to 
 your club. It's to-night, is it not? Very well. 
 I will dress and be ready whenever you say." 
 
 " In two hours, then at seven," said Chester. 
 " I will call for you in a cab, and you must sub- 
 mit to be blindfolded ; also, when you arrive you 
 will be cross-examined, and you must answer 
 fully and truthfully, with the knowledge that 
 every word you say is being taken down in short- 
 hand, for these examinations form the archives 
 of the club its only records," 16
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 " It sounds very " but again Beekman was 
 forbidden to say more. 
 
 " Never mind how it sounds ; you would better 
 consider the soundness of what I have offered 
 you. Be ready at seven. I'll call for you. Now, 
 then, toss off your beer and begone." 
 
 " Beer? " Beekman exclaimed. " Beer! in the 
 face of such an adventure ? And where ladies are 
 concerned? Ah, the beer is here, is it? Well, 
 let us present it to the waiter, and let us drink, 
 in the clear, cold, liquefied amber of Rudes or 
 Deides or some other hcimcr of the Rhineland, 
 to the pure, the sweet artd simple, the ideal 
 what is the other name of your club, by the 
 way?" 
 
 Thus with the apparent ease of plucking a 
 peach from a tree was it arranged that Beekman 
 was to become a member of the Beaux Arts Club. 
 Though lightly described in another novel, the 
 club was at this time assuming such confidence in 
 its unique position among the artists and the 
 fraternities of the country that it was taking upon 
 itself to knock at the doors of the Capital. Its 
 effort there was to stir the nation with an appeal
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 for that which all Americans who love their 
 country and take pride in its progress are begin- 
 ning to demand: an order of National Merit, 
 carrying with it a medal, at the President's dis- 
 posal, for that person who, in each year, produces 
 some work of art or of practical use which reflects 
 credit upon us all as a people. Whether the mem- 
 bers of the Beaux Arts Club secretly hoped that 
 they might themselves be chosen as the nucleus or 
 chrysalis of the new order we can only guess. 
 Being Americans, who set no limit upon their 
 aspirations, and each of whom considers the best 
 of everything none too good for him or her, it is 
 more than probable that this superb stroke of 
 fortune or, as they would have said, " splen- 
 did demonstration of wisdom on the part of the 
 Government " was one of the things for which 
 they hung up Christmas stockings. 
 
 It may have seemed to Courtlandt Beekman, 
 on being urged to join the club, that the pluck- 
 ing of i ripe peach was a just simile of the ease 
 with which he was to be. launched into this 
 coterie. He was to discover, later, that no other 
 man had ever been asked for his company in that 
 circle, and that even in his case the slow ripening 
 
 18
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 of a peach served but poorly to compare with the 
 process of cautious delay and deliberation which 
 had prefaced the final step of extending this in- 
 vitation. Not as a man who had wrested honours 
 from four great nations by his work as an ex- 
 plorer, but as one known to all students and en- 
 lightened sensualists as the translator of a hun- 
 dred of the most precious poems of Persia, he 
 could plead for a place in the Beaux Arts Club. 
 But these merits were merely considered as proofs 
 of the nature of his talents and the direction of 
 his tastes. He was really taken in because he 
 added to these gifts the powerful possessions of 
 wealth, youth, and ambition, which gave ground 
 for the hope that he might, under the spurring of 
 his comrades, become a light to their feet and a 
 strong hand to the right arm of the society. 
 
 Only the governors and leading spirits of the 
 club were in its little offshoot, known to them 
 as " the Boozers," from a play upon the words 
 " beaux arts." Only these, their wives, and the 
 rich Miss Laura Lament, the necessary excep- 
 tion to every hard and fast rule, met once a 
 month to dine and make merry together. Beek- 
 man was taken into the more serious circle by 
 
 19
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 means of this side door, because it was felt that, 
 as a brilliant member of high cosmopolitan soci- 
 ety, he would bring to the rest as much as he 
 received, and thus enrich their common treasury 
 of the delights of good fellowship. 
 
 20
 
 II. 
 
 THE RENDEZVOUS 
 ON THE ROOF 
 
 " What things have we seen done at the Mermaid ! " Beaumont. 
 
 CHESTER whispered to the driver, 
 when Beekman had stepped into the coupe, 
 that he was to drive down Fifth Avenue 
 to Eleventh Street, straight across Eleventh 
 Street to Greenwich Avenue, up that and Seventh 
 Avenue to Twenty-third Street, and thence 
 to the Rhinelander Flats, that towering pile 
 of stylish apartments capped by artists' studios 
 and bedrooms, which rises like a boar's tusk 
 above the otherwise nearly even dentations 
 of the neighbourhood sky-line. As the coupe 
 turned for the first time Beekman, who had been 
 heavily blindfolded by a white silk muffler, tied 
 across his eyes, remarked " Eleventh Street, go- 
 ing west." 
 
 " Oh, damn it, old chap," Chester exclaimed, 
 petulantly ; " if you are going to practise that 
 
 21
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 second sight business of yours, and always know 
 where you are, there is no use going." 
 
 " All right, old fellow," Beekman answered. 
 " ' I will be good,' as the girlish Victoria an- 
 swered, when they woke her, to tell her she was 
 queen. But you had better talk to me and in 
 the most absorbing manner if you wish me to 
 walk into your trap with none of my wits about 
 me." 
 
 The rendezvous of the club on this night was 
 at a studio which J. Delafield Wright, the cele- 
 brated painter, had built upon the roof of the 
 Rhinelander Flats. He had gone up there at first 
 to study the roofs of New York, and especially 
 the smoke and steam effects, which were multi- 
 tudinous and peculiar. These he caught in a 
 painting, which, while wholly impressionistic and 
 very beautiful, nevertheless suggested, better than 
 any thousand views or descriptions, the true idea 
 of New York's foremost place as a city of manu- 
 factures. Pleased by the light, the absence of all 
 obstruction to the view, and by the freedom from 
 intrusion, he built there a studio of bamboo and 
 canvas which blew over to New Jersey, or into 
 the North River, a fortnight later, in a little thun- 
 
 22
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 der-squall. Then he put up the present large 
 structure of steel and glass, and found that, by 
 letting none except his closest friends into the 
 secret of the studio's existence, he could work 
 there in peace, while keeping his former studio 
 below-stairs, from which bores and beggars could 
 be turned away as fast as they came which he 
 used to say was at the rate of three an hour, for 
 ten hours each day. It was his custom to deco- 
 rate this roof studio differently for each meeting 
 of the Beaux Arts Club, when these were held 
 there. Travel and long residences in Holland, 
 France, Japan, Italy, Spain, and Mexico, where he 
 had spent money lavishly for what he considered 
 most beautiful in each land, made it possible for 
 him to produce a very complete effect as well as 
 a new background on each occasion. On this 
 night of Beekman's visit, the theme of the decora- 
 tions was Japanese Art that beautiful fruition 
 of centuries of cultivated taste which has been 
 discarded and abandoned in a day, as it were, by 
 that misguided race ; that art which our pioneers 
 in taste discovered a quarter of a century ago, 
 and which the dull and ignorant world still leaves 
 them to enjoy. Wright had gone to Japan late, 
 
 23
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 but, by perseverance and a great outlay of money, 
 had managed to do better in collecting the debris 
 of Japan's golden age than any one in all the 
 world except one or two early collectors. He col- 
 lected with the fever of one who comes upon a 
 palace ahead of a devastating army. 
 
 " I felt as one does who rushes into a burning 
 museum," he said. " I knew that whatever I 
 could save had few or no mates or replicas, and 
 that none could or would ever be made in the 
 future." 
 
 Thus does the enlightened traveller feel who 
 finds himself in Japan. Its art life is dead, and 
 what remains of its living reminders is a mockery. 
 All has been exchanged for an unsuitable form of 
 civilisation which is but imitated and may never 
 be attained. But the effects of our own artists in 
 line, in colour-combination, and in composition 
 will continue the richer for these relics of an art 
 which was. 
 
 Sketches which Wright had made in Japan 
 were mingled with original paintings by Hokusai, 
 Kunisada, Hokubai, Toyokuni I., Utamaro, and 
 Korin. Of original masterpieces by Hokusai, he 
 exhibited more than are to be seen in both the 
 
 24
 
 The Millionairess Hf 
 
 British Museum and the great collections of 
 Paris. Porcelain from all the famous places of 
 manufacture were shown in groups, and, often, 
 Wright had put among them the Chinese work 
 of the same sort (the Corean going with the old 
 Satsuma ware, of course), to show at once the 
 course of Japanese art from its sources which, 
 in the case of China, still holds the mastery in 
 many lines. Carvings in ivory, bamboo, and 
 jade-stone, painted and carved wood from many 
 temples, as well as gorgeous costumes sufficient 
 for a theatrical spectacle, all contributed to make 
 a splendid as well as princely display. 
 
 The splendour of the studio was not permitted 
 to burst upon Beekman immediately upon his ar- 
 rival. Led, still blinded, from the cab, he was 
 made to mount the seemingly unending stairs 
 lest the swift elevator should betray the identity 
 of the building. Arrived upon the roof, which 
 was as hard and solid as the street, he was asked 
 to be seated in order that he might be catechised 
 according to the formula of initiation. 
 
 All the men and women of the club stood 
 about him, to listen and to interrupt when they 
 were so inclined. They were a distinguished- 
 
 25
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 looking company. The men in their evening 
 dress betrayed their nationality by the strenuous 
 lines in their frank and upraised faces, lines 
 that told of the almost ferocious earnestness each 
 put into his life-work. The ladies, attired with 
 elegance in full evening dress, carried in their 
 countenances the courage and confidence of all 
 our women, modulated by the dignity with which 
 an American wife, and especially a matron of our 
 race, supports her unexampled liberty. And even 
 in that company, where every man's face exhib- 
 ited the exalted beauty of high intelligence and 
 assured mastery of his calling, the lion of the 
 group was Courtlandt Beekman. He sat before 
 them like Apollo blindfold and in modern dress. 
 
 The company made a pleasing tableau, whose 
 accessories were the clear blue sky, lightly touched 
 by the reflection of the city's lamps, the stars shin- 
 ing in myriads amid the deeper blue beyond, the 
 moon pouring its soft light on the jewelled necks 
 and bare shoulders of the lovely women, and 
 around and beneath them the ceaseless, dull tone 
 of the busy city's life. 
 
 Behind the members, at the door of the studio 
 of steel and crystal, were gathered the servants 
 
 26
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 brought by several of the members, according to 
 the usage of the club, four black men in full 
 waiters' costumes and two women, one of 
 whom was the ever familiar, talkative, and highly 
 privileged Hannah, ready to die for her master, 
 provided she be allowed to laugh and to crack a 
 more or less personal jest or two during the 
 process. 
 
 Delafield Wright, acting as master of cere- 
 monies for the evening, raised to his lips a comic- 
 ally huge, funnel-shaped trumpet of pasteboard, 
 in order to put the questions in a roaring yet 
 muffled voice which could not afterward be identi- 
 fied by the candidate, who had been expected to 
 behave as a victim of the coterie should, but who 
 was as calm and imperturbable as an effigy of a 
 man in marble.
 
 III. 
 
 AT THE SILL OF 
 THE BOOZER'S DOOR 
 
 " Was ever woman in this humour wooed ? " Shakespeare. 
 
 rOUR name? " was the first question the 
 master of ceremonies put, with a roar 
 that sent the sound into the windows of a 
 block of dwellings in the next street. 
 
 " Courtlandt Beekman." 
 
 " Your profession ? " 
 
 " I have none," said Beekman, " I am always 
 looking for a job." 
 
 'You are sober?" This in a tone which 
 seemed to address itself to a cook who was hang- 
 ing out of a top-story window a block distant. 
 
 " I admit it," said Beekman. 
 
 " Are you sane ? " 
 
 " In a world where no one is so," said Beek- 
 man, " the question seems barely polite." 
 
 "You think well of yourself?" was the next 
 explosion. It was loud enough to startle a maiden 
 
 28
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 in a house just below, who was prinking before 
 her mirror, and who started as if she fancied 
 herself spoken to. 
 
 " It must be because I don't know anything, 
 and I know I don't," Beekman made answer. 
 
 " Are you married ? " 
 
 " Beyond repair to a whole sex." 
 
 "Do you respect women?" the interlocutor 
 asked. 
 
 "I er I " Beekman stammered. There 
 was a chorus of " Oh ! oh ! " and " He hesitates," 
 by the ladies. 
 
 " No ; I am only trying to be careful in my 
 answers. I respect the commonplace, which is 
 the masculine, but I revere the mysterious, which 
 is woman." 
 
 " Which women do you most admire ? " broke 
 in Mrs. Chester ; " plain, homelike women, or 
 learned ones or advanced women, with mis- 
 sions? " 
 
 " Those are merely different frocks which 
 women put on. When they are made complete 
 personalities by marriage, their husbands find 
 them all alike women and womanly." 
 
 " Are you always honest ? " 
 
 29
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " If I were not I would say I was." 
 
 " Will you remain honest all your life? " 
 
 " So long as it pays." 
 
 " Is it paying now ? " 
 
 " I am not sure." 
 
 " Oh, this is going to be the best chapter in 
 our book of characters," Miss Laura Lament 
 whispered to the lady beside her. 
 
 " Hs s s h," from the lady in question. 
 
 " I fancy I shall not know until after I am 
 dead," Beekman went on. " Different persons 
 hold different views. My friend, Mike Bailey, 
 the silver-tongued Tammany chief, steals, takes 
 bribes, corrupts judges, and protects the vicious 
 for money. He tells me frankly that his con- 
 science is a molten hell of remorse, yet he is able 
 to encrust with diamonds the whole body of the 
 woman he loves, and who left her husband be- 
 cause Mike promised she should have jewels to 
 eat if she wished. He says that the Gehenna of a 
 decent man who turns wicked is preferable to the 
 Hades of a man who hears a sweetheart cry for 
 what he cannot give her. Dishonesty pays, is the 
 moral he draws from his own case. I have two 
 other acquaintances : ' Flo-flo/ the human tennis- 
 
 30
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 ball, and Pierre Daubigny ' the late Pierre 
 Daubigny,' his friends call him. Flo-flo, as a 
 dancer in the first row at the Alhambra in Lon- 
 don, was able to do well by her mother. She put 
 the old lady up in Bloomsbury lodgings, where 
 piano-music floats freely out of a window on 
 every floor of each house, and one always has the 
 British Museum close by for whirling away a 
 hilarious hour. But Flo-flo gave up this enviable 
 state to have herself shot from a huge racquet 
 into a net for three times her dancing salary. 
 Now she is away from her mother most of the 
 time, and is fearful she will be killed each night 
 of her life and two afternoons in the week. In 
 truth, she is certain to do worse than be killed, 
 because she is about to marry a loafer. She will 
 marry him for two reasons : first because he has 
 asked her, and second because she thinks she 
 needs a protector. Flo-flo is honest, and believes 
 that anything honest must pay. Others don't. I ? 
 I do not judge her it is enough for me to look 
 after my own morals." 
 
 " You spoke of another case," the cross-exam- 
 iner roared through the megaphone. 
 
 " Oh, yes, Daubigny. You know him. He
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 used to lead Knickerbocker heiresses to private 
 dinners in rooms strewn knee-deep with roses; 
 hired an opera troupe, and gave ' Faust ' in the 
 streets of Nuremberg one night after every one 
 but the watch had gone to bed ; used to rent the 
 newest Atlantic flyer and give a concert for a 
 very select few of his acquaintances out at sea on 
 sultry summer nights. At last he has had to 
 decide whether to take a clerkship at one thou- 
 sand, five hundred dollars a year, or to be a tout 
 for a patent medicine at five thousand dollars a 
 year and expenses paid. He has chosen the 
 touting. He tells me that six drops of his medi- 
 cine let fall in a ship's hold will eat as many 
 holes in the iron plates, and sink the ship. He is 
 selling his family honour and social position, and 
 cheating both his friends and the public. He does 
 not think that dishonest, and he does think it 
 pays. It is not for me to say." 
 
 Laura Lament now took the great funnel 
 of cardboard and spoke, but she held her lips 
 too far from the mouth of it, and something of 
 her own voice was distinguishable. 
 
 " I cannot tell by your answers, sir," she said,
 
 The Millionairess Hf 
 
 " whether you do or do not respect women. As 
 one of the sex, I would like to know." 
 
 At the third word she spoke, Beekman gripped 
 the arm of his chair, and pulled himself up in it, 
 more erectly, while it seemed to those who hap- 
 pened to be looking at him that he must be strain- 
 ing to see through the folds of silk which lay 
 across his eyes. 
 
 " Please repeat your question, madam," he 
 said, as a look of pleasurable anticipation took his 
 face captive. 
 
 Miss Lamont, thrown out of ease by his man- 
 ner, and by the sudden and peculiar attention that 
 was concentrated upon her, repeated the precise 
 words she had spoken before, as if they had been 
 learned by rote. 
 
 " I cannot tell whether you do or do not re- 
 spect women. As one of the sex, I would like to 
 know." 
 
 " I am sure that you do know," Beekman re- 
 plied. He spoke with a gravity and gentleness 
 which had not been in his previous speech. " I 
 beg your pardon. What I mean to say is that, 
 if my voice tells you what yours tells me, you 
 are sure of the true answer to your question." 
 
 33
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " What a queer jest," said Mrs. Percy Russell, 
 not bothering to use the megaphone. 
 
 " It is no jest at all," Beekman retorted, ear- 
 nestly, and then, collecting himself, he added, to 
 dismiss the topic, " but please continue your 
 torture." 
 
 With this unlooked for episode there came a 
 hush at first, and a general movement of uneasi- 
 ness and surprise. Then the consciousness that 
 Beekman was blindfold and a stranger to every 
 woman in the room broke the suspense, which 
 was finally dispelled by the interlocutor continu- 
 ing the examination. In the moment before he 
 spoke, however, Laura Lamont, her beautiful 
 face rose red with blushing, first wished herself 
 at home, and then made a secret vow that she 
 would not speak aloud again that night, in order 
 that Beekman might go away without knowing to 
 whom he had addressed himself so strangely. 
 She was vexed and ashamed. These first emo- 
 tions delayed, for a moment, the suggestion of 
 romance that lay in the situation thus suddenly 
 produced between herself and Beekman both 
 so young, so wealthy, so brilliant, and so dis- 
 tinguished by their beauty. Be sure this was not 
 
 34
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 lost upon the other women in the room who 
 felt themselves trembling on the sill of a mental 
 palace of delight. 
 
 " You lead a very dangerous life," said the 
 interlocutor. And at the thought which these 
 words suggested Laura softened a little, and, I 
 fancy, felt a slight shudder at the realisation that 
 his life was ever hanging by a slight thread. 
 
 "Dangerous life?" Beekman repeated, as if 
 the idea were new to him. " The life of a bird in 
 the air must seem so to a caged bird. I remem- 
 ber that the Hackensack meadows were more 
 vast and awesome to me, the first time I escaped 
 from New York, as a child, than ever the steppes 
 of Russia appeared, later, after a lifetime of 
 travel. At first I could not have slept in the open 
 not even in my father's back yard but now 
 that I have slept beneath twenty skies, I know 
 that the greatest joy and health and safety are in 
 the roofless bedrooms of nature. As to the men, 
 women, and animals one meets, if one takes 
 proper precautions, the dangers prove least from 
 them where you at home fancy them the great- 
 est. There are more violent deaths in New York 
 than in Canton, and the wild animals are now 
 
 35
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 nearly all in the ' Zoos.' If you are properly 
 presented to the Sioux Indians or the Matabeles, 
 you are more safe in their camps than anything 
 could render you in certain parts of Paris. I will 
 make a bargain to travel Patagonia all over with a 
 native, and will ride and sleep beside him, know- 
 ing that he will neither hurt me nor allow harm 
 to come to me if he can prevent it. That cannot 
 be said of a Bowery ' tough/ and yet you can 
 even take the fangs from such a man if you go 
 to him with credentials he respects, and a manner 
 that discourages trickery. I do not think I lead 
 a dangerous life. You have houses and parks 
 well, I call New York my home, and the world 
 my park. The difference is only in degree, except 
 that, with much roaming in my park, there has 
 come a development of caution which is like a 
 coat of mail." 
 
 Here came a pause. 
 
 " Lord ! " said Beekman. " How much talky- 
 talky there is to this durbar of yours." 
 " You are doing the talking." 
 " But you are pushing the buttons." 
 " You seem to have queer friends," the spokes- 
 man for the club resumed. 
 
 36
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Do you think so? " 
 
 " You speak of crooked politicians and human 
 tennis-balls and " 
 
 " Those are not friends not really," Beekman 
 replied. " Friendships are seldom formed except 
 between infancy and leaving college. After that 
 there is only camaraderie. The best that can hap- 
 pen after college is to gradually find one's self a 
 member of what I call my Fraternite sympa- 
 thique du monde the order (which really exists) 
 of cosmopolitans, scattered everywhere, in whose 
 circle each nature finds its fellow." 
 
 " For example ? Speak personally, of yourself, 
 please. It is our rule to require it." 
 
 " I suppose my circle must be rather wide, be- 
 cause I like people as mere beings, as living 
 books to be read. Let me see, in Russia I have 
 for a comrade a second-hand bookseller a Nihil- 
 ist, I suspect. Some of the shelves in his shop 
 are secret doors which roll away from the wall, 
 and let us into a room known only to his wife 
 and daughter. There he and I sit and talk of 
 everybody and everything which about sums 
 up the limit of his extraordinary knowledge. He 
 talks, I should say, and I listen. In London I 
 
 37
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 have two genuine comrades, a lord who is as 
 fond as I of yachting, and a typewriter girl whose 
 whole mind is given up to the study of what the 
 New Woman is doing, and can do. She has 
 learned five foreign languages in order to post her- 
 self upon the women of as many lands. She 
 thinks herself a prophetess, and really is most 
 informing. She is likewise amusing, as when, 
 for instance, she tells me that the most progressive 
 of all women are the American ones, that they 
 plan the railways, design the cathedrals, sit on 
 the bench, are the leading preachers, and are dis- 
 tancing the men at the making of millions. She 
 gets this news, I gather, from assiduous reading 
 of the Women's Home Bugle. 
 
 " What other comrades have I ? In Italy there 
 is a statesman, a duke, who but we only fish 
 together, and he only fishes to get away from 
 statecraft and care. Oh, one good comrade of 
 mine is a Blackfoot chief, with whom I sit and 
 smoke whenever I can get to see him. He likes 
 me grunts when I come, and grunts when I 
 go. If ever gentleman was born he is one. I am 
 also comrades with a Chinese gentleman in Che- 
 foo, who takes me to the most disreputable places 
 
 38
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 for the most innocent ends. He hires a bagnio 
 as is the custom in which to give me luscious 
 dinners, and brings in talented musicians, lovely 
 singing girls, and waiting maidens or girls, I 
 should say. He is one of my very few funny 
 comrades. When we are together we roar with 
 laughter over simple games like 'guess-finger;' 
 we romp and frolic like schoolboys let loose. I 
 do not know twenty words of his language, and 
 he does not know one word of any tongue but his 
 own, yet we are chums. We are such chums, that 
 he has even let me see his wife. That is a compli- 
 ment I value because I can measure it. To have 
 a Chinaman introduce you to his wife is as rare 
 a thing as humility in a grizzly bear." 
 
 " You have other comrades ? We must know 
 of them to comprehend your character." 
 
 " In Benares my friends keep a shop where I 
 sit on the floor, and chew betel leaves while they 
 tell me of the nobler life which admits of no 
 w r orry or care or concern, either for present ills 
 
 % 
 
 or future dreads. There, again, I listen while 
 their hearts and mine twine together. In Bom- 
 bay, when I go there, I instantly seek a Parsi 
 maiden of supreme beauty and distinguished fam- 
 
 39
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 ily, who never talks at all beyond a greeting and 
 a parting word. We simply sit and think of 
 friendship. When sitting grows tiresome, we 
 walk through the European streets to the noisy 
 native city, and think on. At last, for a change, 
 we go down to the sands of the bay, where the 
 faithful of her sect gather to pray at the setting 
 of the sun, and we sit on the steps and think 
 farther. Sometimes each holds a hand of the 
 other, as we walk side by side. I have known 
 her for years, and seen her more than a score of 
 times, and yet, at the most, we have not conversed, 
 as you would call it, by speech, above three times." 
 "What did you talk about then?" 
 " I asked her once, whether she knew that we 
 could not marry; that it would never do; it 
 would spoil everything for both of us. She 
 laughed and clapped her hands for her philoso- 
 phy renders her frank and artless as a child 
 and she cried, ' Oh, I am so glad you are wise. 
 I had many doubts, but now I know that we shall 
 always be friends for thousands and thousands 
 of years.' ' 
 
 " What did you say at another time? " inquired 
 Mrs. Percy Russell, who had obtained the mega- 
 
 40
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 phone; indeed, now, all the ladies, except Miss 
 Lamont, were in a cluster around that instru- 
 ment, and questions eager and numerous flashed 
 from each pair of eyes and strained for flight 
 from each pair of lips. 
 
 " I had been away five years and a half, and 
 I half feared she was married. For the very 
 reason she "gave me I felt that I should not nec- 
 essarily know if she were. It was not necessary 
 to put my thoughts into words, for she knew 
 them, and I knew her answers while yet both were 
 unspoken. Oh, I wish she belonged to your club 
 - for your sakes, I mean. You would like her. 
 She has sufficient calm and repose to quiet even 
 this part of Twenty-third Street." 
 
 " How do you know this is Twenty-third 
 Street?" Archibald Paton, the novelist, inquired, 
 not caring to use the great pasteboard funnel. 
 
 " I think so, that's all," Beekman replied. 
 " One likes at least to think he knows where he 
 is; otherwise one is not at perfect ease." 
 
 The flashing eyes of the ladies had clouded at 
 this interruption and, at its ending, from a dozen 
 lips came this whispered question to be put by 
 Mrs. Russell, who still held the trumpet.
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " What did the Parsi lady say when you asked 
 her if she was married ? " 
 
 "I did not ask her I felt that she had told 
 me, by a communicating wave of thought, that 
 she was still unmarried. Involuntarily, I ex- 
 claimed, ' Thank God ! I thought ' and she 
 finished the sentence : ' Thought I was married. 
 It would not matter, marrow of my mind and 
 blood of my heart,' she said. ' I would tell my 
 husband, and he would understand.' I said hope- 
 fully, ' Perhaps he would be " a friend " like our- 
 selves.' She shook her head. ' You are mind 
 of my mind, essence of that of which I am 
 essence, but a husband would only be part of our 
 dust his and mine completing an earthly body, 
 as your essence and mine complete an eternal 
 soul.' I considered a moment and would not 
 admit the chance of a catastrophe. ' Why might 
 he not be mind of our minds and soul of our 
 souls? There have been such marriages.' ' Not 
 often ; n India,' she replied, without perceiving 
 the humour of localising the fault. And then she 
 added, ' But I shall marry because it is every one's 
 duty, and I shall only marry one who understands 
 
 42
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 that you and I have a sublime mating which pro- 
 ceeds from higher than earthly sources, and must 
 not be broken by such.' ' 
 
 One or two wholly unimportant questions were 
 put by the interlocutor, in order that the other 
 members of the club might slip noiselessly away, 
 into the studio. This accomplished, Colin 
 Chester removed the bandage from Beekman's 
 eyes, which showed him only a company of six 
 negro servants instead of the ladies and gentle- 
 men he might have supposed were around him, 
 and might have expected to see. Colin Chester 
 had remained outside, in order to further deceive 
 him. 
 
 " Your examination is concluded," Chester 
 said. " A committee is now passing judgment 
 upon you. The rest of our members you see 
 before you." 
 
 " I have always enjoyed what I have read of 
 the Sullivan Street Poker Club," said Beekman. 
 " I didn't know it had grown stylish, and moved 
 up-town." 
 
 " H'm," a waiter whispered to Hannah, " de 
 gentleman ain't showin' off 's much as he thinks 
 he is calling us Sullivan Street trash." 
 
 43
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Mebbe he don't understand Affero- Ameri- 
 cans," Hannah replied, " but he knows de game 
 ob poker fo' he done got a raise out o' you, 
 maghty easy." 
 
 44
 
 IV. 
 
 IN WHICH SOME CHARACTERS 
 TAKE THEIR PLACES 
 
 " Who ever loved that loved not at first sight? " Shakespeare. 
 
 HESTER vanished, saying that he would 
 be gone but an instant. It was fully three 
 or four minutes before he returned, and then 
 his face was clouded. With an effort which 
 Beekman could not miss seeing, Chester smiled 
 as he said : "I congratulate you upon being one 
 of us." 
 
 "And what was the trouble?" Beekman in- 
 quired. " Come, you should play the game. In 
 such a case I should be left to judge whether I 
 ought to accept membership. A doubtful com- 
 pliment is not to my taste." 
 
 " There is no doubt about it," Chester replied. 
 " One member out of nineteen voted against you. 
 I suppose you saw my disgust written on my face. 
 It was because such an incident has never oc- 
 curred with us before, and especially because who- 
 
 45
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 ever voted so has not revealed himself or her- 
 self and we cannot find out what prompted the 
 vote. I am sorry you guessed that something was 
 up, but it's nothing, as you see." 
 
 " I think it merely amusing," said Beekman. 
 " Let's go in." 
 
 The setting of the scenes in w r hich our charac- 
 ters are to move has caused so much delay in 
 the action of the piece that \ve cannot add, as 
 we would have preferred to do, a detailed descrip- 
 tion of the club meeting which now followed. It 
 was only a dinner-party, after all, if you choose 
 to call it so, but it was as family-like and uncon- 
 ventional as if it had taken place in Germany, and 
 yet as brilliant with wit and anecdote, song and 
 fun, as it could only be in America. Out on the 
 roof, at just the right distance to produce a light 
 caress of softest melody, a piano, violin, and man- 
 dolin were exquisitely played while the dinner 
 lasted. After the dinner, Delafield Wright told 
 of a partly comical, partly weird experience of his 
 own in Cuba. Laura Lament sang two dainty 
 Italian serenades, and for, perhaps, the chief bit 
 of the entertaining Archie Paton read his latest 
 short story. It told of a sweet and simple country 
 
 46
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 girl, rich in Christian faith, who came to New 
 York, and began to dabble in the mysteries, phi- 
 losophies, and mental eccentricities with which the 
 American women of the moment coquet, usually 
 with merely affected seriousness, but which the 
 girl took so gravely that in two years she was 
 left stripped of everything which had made her 
 happy, and which had caused her to be beloved. 
 She was as one turned to marble and unclothed. 
 She threw away God, she laughed at the bare idea 
 of love, she shuddered at the barbaric indelicacy of 
 marriage, children became to her mere symbols 
 of animalism. At last she became a tippler and 
 a gambler and took too much chloral, and went 
 where she could shock sensible and decent people 
 no longer. The story was, in places, too ser- 
 monish and, in other places, too bold and strong 
 in its tone, but the members were never openly 
 critical of one another's best, and only Laura 
 Lament knew that it was written (and read on 
 this occasion) solely as an attack upon her a 
 lecture upon her behaviour as well as with the 
 foreknowledge that she would take it as such. 
 
 She had grown accustomed to Paton's assump- 
 tion of the right to endeavour to school her in 
 
 47
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 his ways of thought, but no amount of practice 
 could harden her to bear unjust and grave as- 
 persions upon her character even from Archie 
 Paton without feeling the smart. Yet of late 
 he seemed not to know or care where to stop in 
 the excesses of his fault-finding with her innocent 
 pleasures. Had he taken the trouble to ask her, or 
 to study her life, he would have seen that she had 
 not only quickly tired of the silly crazes of the idle 
 ones of her sex, but had fathomed the reason why 
 American women, unlike all others on earth, flit 
 ceaselessly from one " ism " or " osophy " to an- 
 other, like birds that hop from perch to perch. 
 But he acted upon his knowledge of her amuse- 
 ments of full eighteen months before, and she 
 could have afforded to smile in spite of the 
 wounds he gave to her pride. 
 
 She had read the new literature of the New 
 Woman or, rather, had dipped into it, for she 
 was too cleanly by nature to read farther than 
 was needed to betray its morbidness and she 
 had resolved that she could share none of the 
 aspirations of its heroines. She felt that the so- 
 lution of woman's difficulties reached by the 
 chief women in such unwholesome books as " The 
 
 48
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 Woman Who Did " and " The Story of a South 
 African Farm," to mention two out of a thou- 
 sand, required no original genius. To adopt their 
 lives, she saw, was merely to let go of all which 
 healthy women value. Theirs was, in plain 
 phrasing, merely a descent to animal nature, and 
 such lives are not novel, but have been pursued 
 since the earliest centuries by a class of unfor- 
 tunates which has never before celebrated its 
 defiance of respectability in verse or prose. 
 
 She determined that, since men grant full free- 
 dom to her sex, she would utilise it in an added 
 womanliness, an emphasised femininity. She 
 would be as brave, strong, resourceful, and inde- 
 pendent as possible, but ever gentle and womanly, 
 foreseeing a blessed dependence, later, when love 
 should rule and when she and some beloved " he " 
 should both joy in Love's sovereignty. 
 
 " Any sort of a man except a manly man is 
 contemptible. It should be the same with any 
 woman who is not ultra womanly. I will be a 
 woman and proud of it ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 In saying this, she meant a woman of the type 
 hall-marked by all the centuries, a woman pre- 
 ferring the solid treasure of a pure, sweet life 
 
 49
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 to the imitation culture of a Browning guild, ele- 
 vating the exemplary career of refined and gentle 
 womanhood above the presidency of a Woman's 
 Bulldog Club, and prizing the colour, rustle, and 
 frou-frou of womanly dress above the absurdities 
 of mannish overcoats, waistcoats, and broad-soled 
 shoes. 
 
 Archie Paton and she were considered to be 
 lovers by all in the club, and these others wondered 
 what was delaying the frank announcement of 
 their relationship. For Laura's part, she had be- 
 gun two years ago to take it for granted that he 
 would ask, and that she must yield. She was very 
 romantic, you must understand, and he had cer- 
 tainly played a heroic part, when first she met 
 him, in rescuing her from a shocking plight, in 
 which her desperate and unprincipled cousin, Jack 
 Lament, had placed her in order to force her to 
 marry him and give him the command of her 
 wealth. Some who read this will recognise her 
 as the heroine of another tale, who had since 
 taken her uncle's name of Lament in obedience 
 to his will. 
 
 She was wholly girlish in those days, and her
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 gratitude and admiration for Mr. Paton's fame 
 as a novelist put it out of her mind to question 
 his right to her hand. Now, a long time had 
 passed, and he had shown less and less of the 
 lover's qualities, while still assuming the right 
 to criticise and guide her. He said nothing of 
 marriage, and she was glad to be free. But for 
 his peculiar claim upon her life, she would never 
 yet have given marriage a serious thought. 
 
 At the conclusion of the club meeting she hoped 
 to escape the leave-taking of the stranger who had 
 awakened in her heart a timid but delicious flut- 
 tering, the nature of which she could not yet 
 define. During the whole evening she endeav- 
 oured never once to let Beekman hear her voice, 
 to which he had so strangely called attention. 
 She avoided him, though she longed to do dif- 
 ferently. We marvel at the patience of the 
 Church of Rome, which plans for centuries ahead. 
 We can scarcely comprehend even the political 
 methods of the huge tortoise called Russia, which 
 decides upon a thing, and calmly waits one hun- 
 dred years to bring about either it or the chance 
 that permits it. But women have this subtlest 
 form of tact. When they are most eager, they can 
 
 51
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 hold back and parley and deny. Nature wills 
 that it should be so in order that the directness, 
 the explosive force, and the impatience of the 
 passions of men may be balanced, else only God 
 knows what mistakes and violence and misery 
 might mark the relations of the sexes. When a 
 thing did not matter as whether Miss Lament 
 should have ice-cream now, or wait until it was 
 easier to get she could be as impatient and 
 eager as a fly. But when she was stirred to her 
 soul's depths, and made ten times more eager, she 
 could wait a year, as if she forgot that we live 
 but seventy years, and of them twenty at one end 
 have no real interest, while fifteen at the other are 
 mainly good for reminiscence. 
 
 Under great urging, she sang at the piano, but 
 she reasoned that her singing voice was nothing 
 like her speaking voice. And she was right. 
 
 At last, when the company was breaking up, 
 and hats and canes, capes and bonnets, were de- 
 manded, Beekman searched the studio and its 
 anterooms for the proudest, most beautiful, 
 purest face they held, for the most girlish figure, 
 made imposing by the utmost dignity of pose. 
 He found the possessor of these charms standing 
 apart from the others. 5 2
 
 "' r AM TO KNOW YOU BETTER THAN I KNOW, OR 
 * EVER KNEW, MAN OR WOMAN ON EARTH'"
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Miss Lament," said he, " I am obliged to 
 say ' good-night.' I may not ask you what my 
 voice said to you when our two lives touched one 
 another for the first time." 
 
 " Oh, I " she stammered. Perhaps she was 
 about to deny that something within her had 
 translated his voice into a speech of soul to soul 
 too subtle to be put into language. That would 
 have been a lie, yet one of a sort that is sanctioned 
 in maidens by centuries of usage for in more 
 than one respect is there one standard of morals 
 for men, and a different standard for women. 
 
 " I would not presume to ask you that," he 
 went on, purposely interrupting her; " but I may 
 tell you that your voice announced to me that I 
 am to know you better than I know, or ever knew, 
 man or woman on earth." 
 
 " I hope we shall all know you as well," she 
 answered. " We are like so many brothers and 
 sisters here. I am very glad you have joined our 
 club, Mr. Beekman." 
 
 " I wonder why Mr. Paton does not share 
 your kind feeling the gentleman who read the 
 novelette? " 
 
 " Mr. Beekman, you are uncanny," Miss La- 
 mont replied. 53
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 "Oh, no; merely observant," said he. " I bear 
 him no ill-will. Life would be no good if we 
 stored it full of resentments and fits of temper. 
 I only wonder, because such opposition, if one's 
 opponent is clean and honest, is a rebuke for 
 some fault, and I want to know all my faults, 
 else how can I correct them? Miss Lament, you 
 and I will always say ' au revoir ' never 
 ' good-bye/ " 
 
 When he had gone, Miss Lament made her 
 way out by a devious course, to avoid her cousin. 
 She felt that she knew why he had voted against 
 Mr. Beekman, and that he might even blame her 
 for attracting the peculiar and especial interest of 
 the newcomer innocent as she felt herself to be. 
 
 54
 
 V. 
 
 BEAUTIFUL, RICH, LOVABLE 
 YET ALMOST ALONE 
 
 " Is she not passing fair? " Two Gentlemen of Verona. 
 
 FORTNIGHT after the meeting of 
 the Beaux Arts Club, we are minded 
 to follow Miss Lament to her home in Powell- 
 ton, some distance inland from the Hudson 
 River, in the region of which Newburg 
 and Poughkeepsie may be said to play the parts 
 of two capitals. The estate and great fortune of 
 Colonel Lament had been begging for an heir 
 until, at last, Laura was discovered. She was 
 a niece of the old gentleman, yet a very poor 
 indeed, a homeless girl, whose only companion, 
 her mother, had been removed to an institution 
 for the treatment of a malady of the brain at 
 the time when the girl's kindly fates brought her 
 to the ownership of her uncle's great fortune and 
 his stately colonial mansion the homestead of 
 the Lamonts. Now, we find her more than two 
 
 55
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 years older, ending a summer's rest after a lively 
 season divided between the cares she had im- 
 posed upon herself in the near-by village, which 
 was a part of her estate, and the strain of many 
 experiences in I had almost said fashionable 
 life, but social pleasure is the truer term. 
 
 Rich as she was, and beautiful in the extreme, 
 she had not the entree to fashionable society, and 
 her pleasures and dissipations were enjoyed with 
 the well-to-do circle of refined men and women 
 of the Beaux Arts set and its connections. It 
 would be untrue to say that she was obliged to 
 be content with this the most intellectual and 
 satisfying coterie in New York. Rather was it 
 true that she hungered for admittance to the in- 
 nermost circle of the professional fashionables, the 
 exclusive " Four Hundred." With sense enough 
 to foresee that they might disappoint her, and 
 that she might eagerly return to her earlier 
 friends, never again to be drawn away from them, 
 she, none the less, desired the fullest experience, 
 to make the highest flight, to know the utmost 
 joy of social success and, after that, to settle 
 where she chose. To declare this is but to say 
 that she was a woman, heart-free, idle or busy as 
 
 56
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 she chose, and with sufficient worldly means to 
 pay her footing anywhere. 
 
 This book is the story of her ambition in this 
 wise, and of her dumb, unconscious gravitation 
 tow'ard matrimony. There are whole chapters in 
 which the reader may seem- to lose touch with 
 each of these impulses, and in which Laura La- 
 mont was truly forgetful of both, yet the forces 
 that were weaving her destiny worked on and 
 on, and never paused. 
 
 Though Laura's mother was again with her, the 
 beautiful heiress was little better than alone in 
 the world, in so far as any ability to command 
 motherly, or any other form of intimate, counsel 
 and guidance \vas concerned. Her father for 
 many years had kept apart from his wife and 
 daughter, and thus had rid himself of the last 
 impulse toward unselfishness, the sole elevating 
 force left to what are called " men of the world.'* 
 Thenceforth he wallowed in a mainly animal 
 existence. On hearing of Laura's good fortune, 
 he wrote from Europe to his New York lawyers, 
 to notify his wife that he wished her to consider 
 him dead. Now that remittances of money, the 
 only form his communications had taken in 
 
 57
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 years, were no longer needed by the two women, 
 he said he should feel no further concern about 
 them. Since that time it had been to them as if 
 he was dead. They never heard of or from him 
 again. 
 
 Alone she guided the heavily freighted bark 
 of her life's duties and responsibilities, and yet 
 with a confident hand she sailed it over deep 
 waters, and even through uncharted straits. 
 Alone she presided over the house which she had 
 transformed into one of the most luxurious and 
 splendid of all the country-seats in the valley 
 of the Hudson. She had beautified it in obedience 
 to a principle which ruled her life, for the pleasure 
 and profit of the public. It was a notable museum 
 of the choice ceramics of Europe and Asia and 
 of the most artistic furniture of France and Eng- 
 land of from a century to three centuries ago. 
 Very few other homes in America contained such 
 treasures in tapestry, hangings, and rugs, or a 
 greater or finer display of old clocks, bronzes 
 and ancient fashionings in pewter and brass. 
 Her silver and Sheffield plate with which a 
 large van might have been filled was mainly 
 stored in New York, only a small amount of it 
 
 58
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 being kept at the manor-house, under lock and 
 key except upon the most extraordinary occasions. 
 Her servants were instructed in the nature and 
 history of the beautiful appointments of the draw- 
 ing-room, dining-room, library, hall, and recep- 
 tion-room, and these men and women understood 
 that to the very humblest who came must be ex- 
 tended the utmost courtesy, as if they were the 
 owners of her wealth, and she was but its cus- 
 todian. During half of each day the ground 
 floor of the mansion was at the command of who- 
 soever cared to inspect it. And during the same 
 hours the ornamental grounds around the mansion 
 were the rendezvous of such of her tenants as 
 cared to bring their sewing, their books, or their 
 children under the shade of her trees, or upon the 
 heavy carpeting of her lawn. 
 
 " It was long our good fortune," she used to 
 say, speaking for her mother as well as herself, 
 " to live in Southern France and in Northern 
 Italy, surrounded by many of the noblest, most 
 admirable of the mansions of the wealthy. 
 Nearly all were more or less open for our pleasure 
 and profit, either as friends of the proprietors or 
 as mere members of the public. When cruel 
 
 59
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 poverty came to be our lot I, for the first time, 
 correctly valued what I had before that so blindly 
 enjoyed, and I learned what the rich owe to the 
 poor what they can and should do to justify 
 their possession of wealth. I am aware that this 
 is a socialistic view of the case, but I knew noth- 
 ing of what others held when, by simple logic, 
 I came to this opinion. And to-day I claim dis- 
 cipleship with no philosopher, and relationship 
 with no party in holding as I do that if the 
 rich desire, even out of pure selfishness, merely 
 to serve their own interests, they must at the 
 same time serve the masses by sharing with them 
 not only their wealth, but their time and their 
 wisdom, in a brotherly effort to improve their con- 
 dition. This they must do if they would remain 
 safe, in comfort and in command." 
 
 " The Clock House " is the simple and unpoetic 
 name by which Miss Lament's home is generally 
 known, and it is so called because, in a tower 
 high above the roof, there is a large round clock 
 with a ground glass dial that is like a dead staring 
 face by day, and a brilliant little moon by night. 
 It had been as purely colonial in most of its fit- 
 tings as in its architectural designing, but Miss 
 
 60
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 Lament, eager to see Italy once again, had gone 
 there eighteen months before, and from that coun- 
 try and England had brought back as much of 
 art and ornament as could be utilised in enriching 
 the principal rooms in the great old mansion. She 
 threw out nothing that was rare and beautiful 
 of the old family belongings, but so altered even 
 the ceilings, doors, and windows of the rooms, 
 that it was as if the old jewels had gone into new 
 caskets. A glance at the drawing-room will pro- 
 vide for the reader at least a suggestion of the 
 appointments and ornamentation of all that lower 
 part of the house, which was gradually becoming 
 one of the " sights " of tourists and places of 
 rendezvous of those who love the imperishable 
 beauty of the best art of distant lands and cen- 
 turies. 
 
 The word " baronial " presents, at a stroke, an 
 idea of the size and loftiness of the drawing-room. 
 Its long doorlike windows in their heavily carved 
 frames were thrown open upon the broad grav- 
 elled drive which separated the mansion from the 
 spacious lawn that reached far away to the wall 
 beside the Fishkill road. The rich carved oak of 
 the walls was broken in a broad central space be- 
 
 6r
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 tween a low wainscot and a narrow frieze. This 
 space wore a covering of the hue of old gold pat- 
 terned with large but faint flowers and leaves, 
 making a showy background for the group of 
 old engravings in ebon frames, and the family 
 portraits in oil, whose gold frames time was turn- 
 ing copper-hued. All the furniture was lustrous 
 mahogany of the graceful fashioning of Chippen- 
 dale, except a central table of black oak, whose 
 elaborate carving betrayed its false pretence of 
 age; a Sheraton table slightly inlaid, a kidney 
 table, and a half-table against one wall all of 
 eighteenth century mahogany. These were littered 
 with bric-a-brac: powder-blue porcelain from 
 Nankin, its clumsy reflections from Delft, the del- 
 icate picture-china of Saxony, and dainty clocks, 
 statuettes, candlesticks, and caskets of French gilt, 
 of Oriental and French bronze, and of faintly 
 blushing Sheffield plate. Against one wall an or- 
 nate Dutch stove of pictured porcelain carried a 
 precious load of willow china, old Worcester and 
 old Staffordshire. These treasures were in large 
 and uncommon forms, and held palms and ferns 
 upon which the sunblaze of out-of-doors fell 
 softened through yellow sash curtains of China 
 silk. 62
 
 The Millionairess & 
 
 Each door was a massive picture-design in 
 basso-relievo, and each one swung in a deep re- 
 cess whose sides and top were rich with massive 
 carving. Nowhere did the ceiling meet its sus- 
 taining walls at right angles, for the walls curved 
 and merged into the ceiling. The upholstering 
 of the furniture was " old gold " in tone, and this 
 same colour-note, caught from the broad panel 
 along the walls, was carried to its termination by 
 the heavy Asiatic rugs upon the polished floor. 
 The room was at once rich and quiet trium- 
 phant and sober echoing, it was thought, the 
 reflected refinement of a strong yet gentle woman 
 of Miss Lamont herself, in fact. This fancy 
 enhanced every one's appreciation of its beauties, 
 yet not all the credit was Miss Laura's. Her 
 main contribution had been the frame the box, 
 as it were, but fully half the ornaments had been 
 selected and placed there by Editha Lamont, the 
 last mistress of the mansion, and these had been 
 gathered and stored away in boxes and cases by 
 other Lamonts a century before even Editha was 
 born. 
 
 The season at which we are visiting this home 
 was that when the marigolds, geraniums, chrys- 
 
 63
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 anthemums, and roses, in the noble garden, still 
 bravely exhibited rich blossoms, though the first 
 chilled winds were biting some of their leaves. 
 
 A visitor is taking leave of her in the library 
 a young, ravenlike man, all in black, and buttoned 
 to the chin a parson, obviously, but with the 
 bright eyes and nervous quickness of a man on 
 'Change. 
 
 " We'll show them what a dominie and a 
 woman can do," he is saying, with boyish enthu- 
 siasm. " It's cassock and petticoat against the 
 world, but, as the wicked say, ' it's safe to back 
 the drapery against all the odds.' ' 
 
 A singular reverend, this York Stone; per- 
 haps a startling one, but only to those who did not 
 know him. Laura might easily have first met 
 him at a baseball game or a football match, but 
 as a matter of fact, it was in a humble cottage, out 
 toward where she herself had lived in poverty 
 not long before, that she first crossed his path 
 in the very early days of her sudden prosperity. 
 The smooth-faced man in black only twenty- 
 eight, and looking five years younger had no 
 sooner come into the cottage where she had 
 stopped, than he called her out upon the road. 
 
 64
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " You are the rich Miss Lament?" he inquired. 
 
 " I am Miss Lament." 
 
 " Offering money to these poor people? " 
 
 " I wish to help them," she replied. 
 
 " Well, helping them is one thing, but giving 
 them money is not helping them. Giving money 
 to the poor without exacting something in return, 
 or without seeing to it that their self-respect and 
 pride are not impaired, is merely demoralising 
 them pauperising them. I beg you not to do 
 that. You all mean kindly, you people with money 
 and nothing to do, but you poison your victims, 
 you widen the breach between the brothers Rich 
 and Poor, already being pushed apart by injustice, 
 greed, and lack of sympathy, though God had 
 joined them, and meant them to work together. 
 Don't begin it here, Miss Lamont. Let me come 
 to you when I need a little change for medicines 
 or delicacies for the sick, or work for the un- 
 employed then no mischief will be done." 
 
 The young man's earnestness and the kindly 
 tone of his voice softened his plain speech, and 
 carried conviction with them, as well. 
 
 " I only wished to be useful," Laura ventured,
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 half apologising for the impulse, as if she feared 
 that also might be declared mischievous. 
 
 "Useful? Good gracious!" exclaimed the 
 boyish-looking but masterful parson, " there are 
 more ways to be useful than you have time or 
 money for. My name is Stone York Stone 
 of the Episcopal church at Wapata. By pure 
 assurance I have reached over into this hamlet, as 
 you see. Let me call on you, and if you wish to 
 do good, let us work together." 
 
 This occurred two years earlier than when this 
 story begins, and already he was paying his fifti- 
 eth visit. He and Miss Lamont had been 
 alternately laughing light-heartedly and sagely 
 studying note-books and sheets of names and 
 figures, as if they formed a committee of the local 
 board of supervisors, preparing a report of the 
 county revenue. 
 
 When he had taken his leave, Laura went to 
 the drawing-room with her mother who had 
 been present during the parson's visit and 
 there they ordered their afternoon tea. Mrs. La- 
 mont, as she had come to be called since her 
 daughter's change of name, looked a splendid 
 woman; almost a grand dame. She retained 
 
 66
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 the good figure which had been part of her earlier 
 beauty, and still carried it as proudly as ever. 
 Her face had great distinction, being that of a 
 finely born and bred woman of clear intellect, 
 strong will, and little cause or inclination toward 
 self-disparagement. As she sat, at this time, 
 looking at her daughter, you would have said 
 that the beautiful young girl was fortunate to 
 retain this strong companionship and guidance. 
 But, alas! the mother's appearance was only a 
 seeming. She suggested what I have read of 
 the exquisite body of a maiden which was found 
 not long ago in a buried city of Italy, encased 
 in lava. Its discoverers had scarcely time to 
 exclaim at its beauty, when the body resolved into 
 dust, and there remained only the mould which 
 it had made in the molten stone. So, in Mrs. 
 Lamont's case, only the form remained the 
 temple from which the god had been taken. 
 Mother and daughter had exchanged places. 
 Laura was now the guardian, and Mrs. Lament 
 the child. 
 
 67
 
 VI. 
 
 THE MAID AND HER MONEY 
 
 " A mother is a mother still, 
 The holiest thing alive." Coleridge. 
 
 -H-H ! " Laura exclaimed in such a 
 sigh as we utter when we would attract 
 attention without demanding it. She had 
 been idly moving some ornaments about on 
 the mantelpiece, but now she rested an elbow 
 there, and laid her head within the bend of 
 her arm. 
 
 " Oh-h-h ! " again, and this time Mrs. Lamont 
 looked up and saw an expression of perplexity 
 and impatience upon her daughter's face. 
 
 "What is it, Laura?" 
 
 " I'm wishing for something I cannot buy." 
 
 " You mean some one not something. I 
 know, I know, dearie ; is it Mr. Stone, or do you 
 mean Lawyer Borrowes ? " 
 
 " Not either, mother, yet it is some one, as you 
 think." 
 
 68
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " You mean your cousin Archie," Mrs. Lament 
 persisted, adding with a pitiful pretence of mental 
 alertness : " Oh, I know more than you have 
 believed since I recovered. Cousin Archie, eh ? 
 Only to speak truly, dear, I had been thinking 
 Mr. Stone was crowding your cousin out. Eh? 
 Be frank with mother. Hasn't Mr. Stone been 
 in our minds a great deal lately ? " 
 
 " Oh, you dear, dear mother," Laura said, trip- 
 ping across the room to fall upon her knees beside 
 her mother's chair and throw an arm about her 
 neck and kiss her. " Don't go and get ideas out 
 of your knitting, or the wall-paper, or the sun- 
 beams. Mr. Stone's nice and kind, old Lawyer 
 Borrowes is nice, and Cousin Archie is nice. 
 Everybody and everything, everywhere, is nice 
 to me and I am simply wishing for the moon, 
 like a little child." 
 
 " Mr. Borrowes is married," said the inapt 
 elder. " Oh, I'm not to be hoodwinked so easily, 
 Laura." 
 
 " No, she sha'n't be hoodwinked the dear, 
 dear, little mudder. And Mr. Borrowes is mar- 
 ried forty years deep in marriage with five 
 formidable proofs of it in his quiverful of fat 
 
 69
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 boys and fatter girls. As for Cousin Archie, it 
 is not he who fills my thoughts, though I do 
 wonder about him why he does not come to 
 visit us. The ladies of our club the Beaux 
 Arts, you know ' 
 
 "Made mischief, did they, dearie?" 
 
 "No, why should you think that?" Laura 
 went on. " They said when the situation was 
 new, last autumn, that Cousin Archie was was 
 greatly interested in me that he thought I 
 was that is, he considered himself very fortu- 
 nate and all that, you know." 
 
 " I understand perfectly, the dear boy," said 
 Mrs. Lamont. 
 
 " Only," Laura continued, " Mrs. Kellogg, who 
 knows him very well, said he was too proud even 
 to have it thought he would marry a woman with 
 money I'm sure I don't know why people al- 
 ways bring in marriage and that he is a 
 ' crank ' about believing that women should be 
 useful, and earn their own way like men, unless 
 they have young children." 
 
 " Most women earn all they get," said Mrs. 
 Lamont, with a flash of something like her brain 
 returning. 
 
 70
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " And Mrs. Russell," Laura continued; " Mrs. 
 Russell, who is sensibler than all the women I 
 have ever met I mean except my dearest, clear- 
 est mother she says Cousin Archie only talks 
 such things by way of practice, for writing them 
 in his novels, and that I hope she's wrong, 
 though he is what she calls a man in ' club 
 pickle.' She calls clubs the tombs of morally 
 dead men it's perfectly awful to hear the way 
 she goes on about them, and she's generally so 
 liberal, you know. She says Cousin Archie has 
 gone into his vault, and is gradually shutting the 
 door on the many fine traits for which he was 
 once so beloved. We won't believe that, shall 
 we, mother? " 
 
 u Do have a formal church marriage, dear," 
 said Mrs. Lamont. 
 
 " Now, mother, don't begin on that." 
 
 " As formal a ceremony, in as big a church as 
 possible; if not Trinity, then nothing less than 
 St. Thomas's. Oh, I know; you are set on a 
 private house ceremony. It's your one violent 
 opposition to my wishes and I think it's so un- 
 kind of you." 
 
 " Dearest mother, I am not at all opposed to
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 you. I only said not to talk of it because you 
 so often do discuss it, though I tell you I do not 
 even wish to think of marriage. You are for ever 
 having me all but married, mother, to this man 
 and that man and the other, but, truly, since it 
 seems I must keep on telling you, nothing that I 
 can think of is further from me. I want to enjoy 
 the blessings I have, and they are too great and 
 too rich for me to want for others. I want to 
 realise the opportunities of my youth and wealth 
 the pleasures, yes, why not the pleasures as 
 well as the chances God has given me to do 
 good?" 
 
 " I know, Laura; I know. I was the same as 
 you denying it always denying it, even to 
 myself. But do have it all organist, choir, 
 maids, trainbearers, grooms, house reception, 
 honeymoon journey every bit of a formal mar- 
 riage. I cannot think why you oppose me so." 
 
 " Mother, please don't ; " for the feeble lady 
 was beginning to weep silently. " Please, please 
 don't." 
 
 " Marrying privately is putting a slight on a 
 sacrament. I was married privately in a hotel, 
 and in a year I was an old shoe ; in two 
 years, cast off " 72
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 The first soft rain of grief was now swollen 
 into a strong gust of hysterical crying. 
 
 " Oh, mother, why will you work yourself up 
 so, and bring back those cruel memories? Feel 
 me, mother, with my arms around you. See 
 this great house and all this comfort it and 
 I, and all we both hold, are yours, dearest. Do 
 let the dead past lie buried." 
 
 Thus closing another of her frequently sad 
 interviews with her infirm mother, Laura Lament 
 went back to the books and papers which had 
 engaged her and the clergyman a half-hour 
 earlier. And what had these two partners ac- 
 complished? More, upon the surface, than the 
 reader would have believed was possible ; more 
 yet, beneath the surface, in the hearts and minds 
 of the poor. 
 
 To work upon, they had found a slovenly vil- 
 lage of workmen's cottages, with a shabby yard 
 in front of each, and a shabbier yard behind. A 
 few small, starved-looking shops, and a low grade 
 tavern but no school or church edifice com- 
 pleted the village. What Powellton lacked was 
 to be found in Wapata, with which a slowly 
 lengthening line of houses was forming a Siamese 
 
 73
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 joint. The poison of the drinking saloon was 
 at work all through the village, and had rendered 
 it almost wholly disreputable. To-day, Powellton 
 wore a neat and flourishing air. The worst 
 weeds among the inhabitants had been rooted out, 
 new houses had been constructed, and the old 
 ones had been overhauled and renewed. In an 
 attractive park-like square stood a large town hall, 
 containing a lecture-room, library, lodge-room, 
 gymnasium, and Baptist, Roman Catholic, and 
 Episcopal chapels, each church having a large 
 room of its own for its uses. All the yards were 
 now tidy, shady and blooming gardens, new shops 
 were added to the settlement, and new cottages 
 were building. All this had been effected with 
 Miss Lament's money, and the practical sympa- 
 thetic planning of the Rev. York Stone. 
 
 Of all that had marred the village when its 
 new owner came into her property, only the now 
 languishing tavern remained. Every lease of a 
 cottage carried with it a lease of a portion of 
 a large commercial garden, in which practical 
 gardeners taught the people how to raise vege- 
 tables and flowers. This was but one way by 
 which the women earned money while the men 
 
 74
 
 7 *he Millionairess #& 
 
 worked in the near-by quarry and carpet factory, 
 and almost every family was prosperous. 
 
 Miss Lament expended one-tenth of her income 
 in aiding the village folk and improving their 
 surroundings. To every one she gave practical 
 assistance toward self-help; to no one did she 
 misspend a dollar in those forms of charity 
 which tend to weaken the pride and independence 
 of the recipients. 
 
 From their first meeting, a mutual respect, 
 quickly developing into intimacy, had sprung up 
 between the wealthy maiden and the clergyman. 
 To this time their relations had never grown 
 beyond a mere intimacy of their intellects. Yet 
 she was impressionable, she was inclined to salve 
 the wound dealt her by the widening breach be- 
 tween her and her cousin; she admired York 
 Stone, and leaned upon his counsel and support 
 in her philanthropic work. 
 
 Clearly it might have been advantageous to 
 him to gradually break down the barrier of re- 
 serve which repulsed the warmer inclination of 
 her nature. He made no such effort. When he 
 was not her agent, he was her pastor. He had 
 never yet faltered in moving from one relation 
 to the other. 75
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 She often sighed when he left her house after 
 a business interview. She was but barely con- 
 scious that she did so, and he was as blind of 
 heart as is a mole of seeing.
 
 VII. 
 
 THE NEW GOSPEL OF SMOKE 
 
 " ' . . . still, Slavery,' said I, ' still thou art a bitter draught.' " Sentimen- 
 tal Journey. 
 
 RCHIBALD PATON, novelist, dandy, 
 " without fear and without reproach " 
 (on the score of clothes), and known in the 
 Beaux Arts Club of rich New York Bohem- 
 ians as " the Brute," because he was the 
 only bachelor among them, was scudding along 
 toward Laura as fast as a Pullman coach in 
 an express train could send him. Beside him 
 sat Mrs. Percy Russell, " sensibler," as we have 
 heard, than most women. She was the wife 
 of "the Babe" of the Club, who, in the 
 work-a-day world, was known as a celebrated 
 architect. She was then a woman at woman's 
 best age thirty-three of splendid physique; 
 tall, large, matronly, comfortable-looking, and 
 comforting to look at. She was dressed all in 
 blue, from the top of the tallest plume in her 
 
 77
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 large hat down to the hem of her tailor-made 
 blue cloth suit ; all in blue except her rosy cheeks, 
 rosier lips, and the kindly brown eyes under the 
 black eyebrows that matched her hair. In spite 
 of her stature and build, she was feminine to the 
 tips of her fingers and toes. A quality which is 
 only suggested by the word " nice " was her most 
 marked attribute. She was " nice " in the fine- 
 ness and grace of every movement of her limbs. 
 She was " nice " in the choice and fit and wrin- 
 kleless keeping of her clothes. She was " nice " 
 in the expression of her wholesome face, in her 
 choice of language, in her thoughts, her impulses. 
 
 " Archie," said she to her companion, with 
 his upturned mustachios, his pince-nez, gold- 
 rimmed glasses, his fashion-plate Tweed suit, new 
 born of a bandbox, his irreproachable and un- 
 commonly evident linen, and his neatly gloved 
 hands ; " Archie, I thought I should have trouble 
 in getting you to come with me." 
 
 " I was going, anyway, before you sent me 
 word." 
 
 " Better yet. Not flattering to me, exactly, but 
 very much so to your sweet cousin. She will 
 be delighted to see you I'm sure of it, though 
 T have not heard from her." 78
 
 The Millionairess NT 
 
 " Yes, I fancy she will," said Paton, stifling 
 a groan. 
 
 "Well, I declare! What a delightfully calm 
 confidence you have in your own magnetic qual- 
 ity. The repose of an Alp, as the morning mist 
 disperses and it greets the sun, partakes of stage- 
 nervousness compared to your perfect poise." 
 
 " I meant nothing more than that my lady 
 friends insist that Laura likes me likes me 
 more than I wish was the case more than I 
 think I should be held responsible for, though at 
 first I was a little to blame, perhaps." 
 
 " Do you know," Mrs. Russell inquired, " that 
 she worshipped you whether she does now or 
 not and that out of gratitude for your aid 
 when she was in great trouble, she meant to give 
 her wealth to you ? The lawyers, whom she con- 
 sulted on other matters, forced her to change 
 her plan." 
 
 "I know it," Paton said; "was there ever a 
 project so foolish? " 
 
 " Archie, there was a time, not long ago, when 
 you could have married that dear girl." 
 
 " Do you regard it as impossible now ? " 
 
 " My patience, but men are frank ! " 
 
 79
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Some men are to some women." 
 
 "Why haven't you proposed to her? You 
 have seen how she felt toward you, and you can- 
 not say you ever saw a lovelier or more lovable 
 woman." 
 
 " I despise poor men who marry rich women, 
 for one thing," Archibald answered. 
 
 " Archie Paton, you honour me with frank- 
 ness one minute, and disparage me with nonsense 
 the next. I heard that you said to others that 
 you would propose to Laura but for her wealth, 
 but you do not mean that. Manly men take no 
 account of a sweetheart's worldly condition. If 
 she is poor they endeavour to make her rich. If 
 she is rich they take her, and leave her money 
 alone. I did not think you would give me such 
 a reason." 
 
 " Well, leaving that aside, I was engaged to 
 a girl when I met her or as good as engaged 
 and and " 
 
 " Are >ou going to pretend to me that your 
 heart was torn in that affair ? " 
 
 " No," Archie argued, " but think how it 
 would look to go from one girl straight to an- 
 other, with the mitten of rejection still in one's 
 hand." 80
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 " How long have you been so sensitive to the 
 idle opinion of outsiders that it could turn you 
 from a good undertaking ? " 
 
 " Oh, you may doubt whatever I tell you, of 
 course," Archie replied. " I really was and 
 am greatly taken with Laura, but now, you 
 will doubt this along with the rest still I tell 
 you that I did not think it would be fair to her 
 to court her. I was thirty and experienced, and 
 she eighteen and simple. I should have felt it 
 was like sharp practice to take advantage of such 
 an opportunity. I made up my mind to keep 
 away from her as much as possible, not alone 
 for reasons of honour, either, but for the well- 
 being of both of us. There, now, that's honest; 
 and it's explanation enough." 
 
 " I am glad that in the number of your reasons 
 you include one in which she is considered. The 
 others concerned only yourself." 
 
 " Don't you think, yourself, that she ought to 
 see life and men of many sorts ? " he asked ; " and 
 make her own choice not of a husband, merely, 
 but of a path in life? " 
 
 " What mischoice of a path do you think Laura 
 could possibly make which need give a lover 
 reason to delay his suit? " 81
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " All women are responsible for the influence 
 they exert in their time, and rich women have an 
 added obligation," Archie ventured. " Laura 
 might turn out to be one of many kinds of women 
 that a man of intelligence does not admire, a 
 fad mare, for instance : with saddle-bags full of 
 Browning this year, packed with ' slumming ' 
 next year, or laden, the year after, with ritualistic 
 embroidery, or palmistry, or theosophy. Or she 
 might prove utterly frivolous a society belle." 
 
 " Do you not know how wholly different are 
 Laura's pursuits from any of the things you have 
 suggested but, no, you do not, will not know. 
 You will not come out of yourself long enough 
 to see what she is doing she, a priceless gift, 
 that would be yours for the mere asking. But 
 let us drop the subject. I am never more im- 
 pressed," Mrs. Russell continued, a quirk at her 
 mouth's corners and a twinkle in her eyes, " than 
 when a clubman rails at women for taking up 
 with trifling things. How much time do club- 
 bable men give up to the cultivation of the finer 
 and unselfish sides of their natures which such 
 women shut out of their lives ? " 
 
 " I, who do a day's work six days a week, and 
 
 82
 
 The Millionairess * 
 
 three hundred and thirteen days a year," Archie 
 replied, " am not to be called on to defend club- 
 life, but, for myself and all men like me, I can 
 say that we yield to idle pleasures only the time 
 in which we are resting from labour. We do not 
 make a business of either pleasure or loafing, and 
 if a young girl like my cousin, with youth and 
 beauty, and a world full of action before her, 
 continues as she has started, to frivol her life 
 away in chatter and calls and teas, dinners and 
 dances and slavery to dress, then I shall be 
 glad I stood aside, for I want no such companion 
 as that." 
 
 "Archie Paton, can I talk to you frankly?" 
 Mrs. Russell inquired, with impressive gravity; 
 " just as I have always done? " 
 
 " Helen, I'm wedged in here, with no chance 
 of escape except by the window. I can only re- 
 mind you that he who has the strength of a 
 giant should use it like a child." 
 
 " But listen, Archie. This is something that 
 has been troubling other old friends; but, no, 
 I will speak only for myself. Correct me if I 
 am wrong. You proposed to that Southern girl. 
 You suspected she cared more for the property 
 
 83
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 she hoped you would fall heir to than for your- 
 self. You told me so, you know. You did not 
 demand uncommon wisdom, in her case ; you did 
 not wait to study her tendencies. Without any 
 study, you must have known she was vain and 
 frivolous yet you proposed to her. Why ? 
 You risked your future happiness in that case, 
 Archie, because your conscience told you that you 
 were drifting away from from many things 
 which, from your mother's knee, you had learned 
 to respect. Oh, I only mean that you were be- 
 coming wholly a man's man, a club-man, a 
 confirmed bachelor with all which the term 
 implies. I have seen it growing, fixing itself upon 
 you. I noticed it when you began to find fault 
 with one woman after another, whose society you 
 used to like; and, now, you find little to praise 
 in any woman, or any things women do, or any 
 ways they have. All drawing-rooms bore you 
 now, Archie. Your club sees more and more of 
 you; the homes of your married friends see less 
 and less. You are shutting up one whole great 
 side of your nature, and expanding the other 
 not the masculine side, but do you mind my 
 saying what I think ? " 
 
 84
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Would you ask a frog, when you had half 
 his skin off, whether he minded the process?" 
 Archibald asked. 
 
 " It is the selfish side you are expanding. You 
 are restive under all discipline, and you shy at 
 the least restraint. The club, where you can 
 smoke at all times, even in the middle of a meal, 
 the liberty to choose precisely the diversions and 
 companions that suit each mood, the freedom at 
 all hours and of speech and companions " 
 
 " Come, come ! Helen, I say ! " 
 
 " Yes, Archie ; don't think I could go too far. 
 I don't insinuate that you are not still, and will 
 not always be, a man above the reproach of men, 
 above rudeness in any form. But you are culti- 
 vating yourself more and more, to the exclusion 
 of all that does not concern your whims and com- 
 fort. And now I come to the point: you pro- 
 posed haphazard to that girl from the South 
 because you felt all this, because your conscience 
 reproached you, because you feared that if you 
 did not use that girl to bring you back to your 
 complete broad duty to society, you soon would 
 lose the courage to make such an effort." 
 
 A pause. A silence elastic stretching to the 
 breaking point. 85
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 "Isn't it so, Archie?" 
 
 A faint smile of amusement creeps over Paton's 
 face, but there comes no answer in words. 
 
 " She threw you over bless her for that - 
 and then came your cousin Laura. Had she 
 come before the Southern girl you would be mar- 
 ried to-day, and on the way to being the best of 
 husbands, and a far happier man than you are. 
 But the other one came, with characteristic vanity 
 and folly, at the wrong time and threw you 
 over. And you sank back in the leather-cushioned 
 chairs of the Madison Club, from which you no 
 longer care to struggle to free yourself." 
 
 " Is it not so, Archie? " (Another long pause.) 
 "Archie!" 
 
 " If you don't mind, Helen," said he, " I'll go 
 forward and smoke a cigar." 
 
 " Leaving me to think I should not have spoken 
 so frankly to you, relying on our old friendship 
 and my regard for you? " 
 
 " No," he rejoined, " I am not going to be so 
 rude as not to answer you. Nor will I let you 
 think you may not always talk to me as you 
 wrongly or rightly think I deserve. But this 
 is a very serious indictment, and I must take coun- 
 
 86
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 sel how to reply. I'll get it out of a cigar. In 
 the meantime, Helen, you are one woman with 
 whom I never will find fault with whom no 
 self-respecting and just man ever could find fault. 
 Tell Percy I said so, if he ever dares to grumble 
 at you. As to your dissection of my insignificant 
 character, pray observe that I am but a creature 
 of the times. I read very bad things of the times 
 in the reports of the Sunday sermons. Some- 
 times I hear that this is the age of enlightened 
 sensuality, then that it is the age of materialism 
 and godless pleasure, again that it is the epoch 
 of dollar-worship, and still farther that it is 
 the era of the individual, in which every man aims 
 at success for himself, regardless of the rights of 
 others. Oh, I, too, could preach, you see, but I 
 will rest content with saying that whatever the 
 times may be, I am not responsible for being 
 their child." 
 
 " Since you know the truth, Archie, you must 
 know that you cannot shift your responsibility. 
 To pretend ignorance of that would be to claim 
 idiocy as one's portion." 
 
 " Thanks, Helen. I do know one thing. You 
 would learn it, too, if you would smoke, as I am 
 
 87
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 going to do. It is that nothing is of very great 
 consequence. Everything is sure to end in smoke 
 or less. Cigars, men, the dear ladies, philoso- 
 phy, morals, cares, responsibilities all resolve 
 themselves sooner or later into smoke." 
 
 88
 
 VIII. 
 
 HER VIEWS UPON SOCIETY 
 
 " And the greatest of these is woman." Wiseacre. 
 
 "71 ^URDER ! Murder ! All about the hor- 
 JL rj[ rurble murder ! " a newsboy shouted, 
 as he dashed toward Archie, while he and Mrs. 
 Russell were looking for Miss Lamont's carriage 
 at the Fishkill Station. " Evening Star! All 
 'bout the terrible murder ! " another boy shouted, 
 as he flung himself between Archie and the car- 
 riage step, as if to prevent the inconceivable error 
 of a man's existence without the harrowing 
 particulars of the only sensation since breakfast. 
 " Hi, mister ! Paper ! All about the murder ! " 
 a third ragamuffin kept calling as he ran beside 
 the moving coupe. 
 
 " What is it all do you know ? " Mrs. Russell 
 asked. 
 
 " There has been a suicide by a young girl. 
 I read it in the New York papers," Archie 
 
 89
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 answered. " There's no suspicion of murder, 
 as the newspaper people well know, but in dis- 
 crediting themselves and making their profession 
 ridiculous, a certain class of papers never misses 
 the minutest chance at perversion, distortion, or 
 even naked lying." 
 
 As the carriage rolled into usually quiet 
 little Powellton, the place was seen to be very 
 much disturbed. The principal corners held knots 
 of idlers, and before the hotel a crowd of men 
 lounged, with half -expectant, half-wearied faces, 
 as if they were tired of waiting for a new wrench 
 of their tautened nerves, and had not quite given 
 up hoping for it. Two or three loafer-looking 
 men of the roughest city type, in a knot by them- 
 selves, Paton at once distinguished as detectives. 
 A group of well-dressed, almost boyish fellows, 
 nervous in the extreme, some of whom darted out 
 to peer in the carriage door at our travellers, he 
 knew to be New York reporters. 
 
 "Murder! Extry Standard!" shouted a 
 printer's devil from the village newspaper office, 
 with his face against the carriage pane. 
 
 " Riches, women, and babies * you can't 
 print too much about those three topics,' a great 
 
 90
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 editor once said to me and the greatest of these 
 is woman," Archie remarked. " Woman mur- 
 dering, or woman murdered no matter which ; 
 but woman always." 
 
 With an impatience which was at odds with 
 her formal and elaborate evening dress, Laura 
 awaited the coming of her cousin and her friend. 
 A year of the activities of serious womanhood 
 had greatly changed her. No longer chubby- 
 cheeked and limpid-eyed, with ungoverned girlish 
 lower lip, she was now new-modelled by the grace 
 of confident self-possession and radiant with in- 
 telligence that spark which alone gives quality 
 to beauty. She was nothing hardened by occa- 
 sional ventures into fashionable society, because 
 that of her circle had not been of the most fashion- 
 able, therefore most trying order. She had only 
 entered the alcove of the throne-room, where the 
 brilliance of the court is merely reflected. There- 
 fore she had simply been matured and polished, 
 instead of becoming petrified or btass-plated. A 
 prettier girl than ever, now; not tall enough to 
 suit those who could judge her coldly, but to 
 the greater number, who loved and admired her, 
 an exquisite blond beauty. Her thoughtful, sym-
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 pathetic eyes beneath her fine forehead, and above 
 her ripe mouth of goodly size, were the external 
 tokens of her breadth of judgment, her kindliness 
 and her capacity for everything worth any one's 
 pride, loving included. Her habitual expression 
 as important a feature as any that is modelled 
 in flesh was alert, bright, sanguine, kindly. 
 Her taste, as seen in her dress and home sur- 
 roundings, was unfalteringly simple and re- 
 strained. Above all else was her refinement. She 
 was like a lily even among the gentlest women 
 delicate, exquisite, chaste all in the simplest, 
 purest way. 
 
 We have seen that her house was a casket fit 
 for the jewel. If we looked at the jewel itself 
 we saw that its more immediate setting was 
 equally tasteful. We could not help noting the 
 perfect fit of whatever she wore, which gave her 
 the triumphant appearance of having been melted 
 and poured into her frocks. At the moment of 
 which I write, the subtle revelations of dress 
 those betrayals for which the Orientals condemn 
 us as immodest and barbaric showed that her 
 form was maidenly rather than ripe and buxom, 
 though, truly, it was buxom in the original 
 
 92
 
 The At il lion air ess H 
 
 sense of the word ; lithe, flexible, and well fitted 
 for quick, graceful motion. 
 
 " Oh, Cousin Archibald ! I am so glad to see 
 you." 
 
 She threw the lovely burden of herself toward 
 him almost as if it was for him to take up within 
 his arms. 
 
 " How d' do? " he asked, with the tone that an 
 iceberg would use could it speak. A stiff arm in 
 readiness for a stiff shake went with the tone, and 
 one cooled while the other restrained the ardent 
 and demonstrative maiden. 
 
 " Hope you're well," added the talking berg. 
 
 " I am so glad you have come. But it was 
 Mrs. Russell who brought you, wasn't it? " 
 
 " In a way." 
 
 " Oh, Mrs. Russell ! How glad I am to see 
 you ! " 
 
 " How sweet of you to say so, Laura." 
 
 The ramrod-like butler in livery felt scandal- 
 ised by the disparagement of the footman's ser- 
 vices as doorkeeper, and by a mistress who ran 
 out in the garden to greet her friends, instead of 
 sitting within and appearing surprised when they 
 came a la Anglais. He felt that if his mistress 
 
 93
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 should now send off the footman, and insist upon 
 bringing in the bags and wraps from the carriage 
 his resignation must follow in defence of his self- 
 respect. But much as he felt, he still remained a 
 human ramrod, and the footman brought in the 
 bags and wraps without interference. 
 
 Renewed salutations and volleys of questions, 
 flying to and from each of the women, consumed 
 the time the servants took for the belongings of 
 the visitors to be unpacked and distributed - 
 night-dresses on the beds and slippers beside them, 
 brushes, combs, and toilet things in their places, 
 clothing laid out, and the final jug of hot water 
 in each room. Then all went up-stairs, and Laura 
 pointed out each room, following Mrs. Russell 
 into hers to give her " a private real hug " and 
 to whisper a little over Archie's coldness. 
 
 " Don't like him too much, dear," Mrs. Russell 
 whispered, in the quick finish of that hug. 
 
 " Why ? Don't you admire Archie as much as 
 ever?" 
 
 " Yes,, yes, of course," said Mrs. Russell, " but 
 don't like any man too much not even a para- 
 gon like Archie until you are sure he will re- 
 turn the feeling. Love is like that other mystic 
 
 94
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 force, which requires a positive and negative pole 
 and an unbroken circuit between them before it 
 has much usefulness or value." 
 
 "I thought you meant that," said Laura, with a 
 gayer tone, "but I am really in no need of a warn- 
 
 r 
 
 ing. I'm very grateful to him, and very proud 
 of him, and I like him very much, as you know. 
 But I don't a year ago, you see, I was in much 
 more danger ; that is, I mean, it was different, for 
 then, if he hadn't avoided me all the time, I 
 might have easily that is I almost wanted 
 you understand." 
 
 " It was natural, too," said her companion of 
 the mind-reading sex ; " it was so fresh, then, 
 and all so romantic, wasn't it? " 
 
 " Yes, you know," from Laura, " I really 
 thought it was my duty, and how could any one 
 help admiring him? " 
 
 Helen Russell's face cleared, and a little sigh 
 of relief escaped her. She wrongly fancied that 
 she knew how each of these cousins felt toward 
 the other. Thought she : " Laura is all gunpow- 
 der, waiting for a spark from Archie, but he has 
 left his flint and steel at the club in the same 
 locker with his heart, I fear." 
 
 95
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 The butler came to the drawing-room door to 
 announce the meal, and then Laura asked Archie 
 to escort Mrs. Russell, saying that she would 
 take in her mother. They found the splendid oak- 
 wainscoted dining-room apparently untouched, 
 yet strangely altered in this, that it glowed 
 with light which proceeded from no lamp or jet 
 or carbon loop which eye could discover. Laura 
 had caused manifold electric lights to be hidden 
 behind the top of the oaken panelling, and, above 
 that, she had covered the wall, to the ceiling, with 
 gold foil. Upon this the light of the hidden 
 lamps fell, to be thrown all over the room, as 
 sunlight permeates the outer atmosphere. The 
 four great portraits of dead-and-gone Lamonts 
 stood out clearly upon the light-absorbing walls 
 of deeply carved dark oak, and, in the middle of 
 the great room, the table shone in a red glow of 
 the soft light of electric candles canopied by red 
 silk shades. In the centre of the table was a 
 mound of choice flowers, and, beyond the edge of 
 this gorgeous bed, wayward creepers of smilax 
 reached almost out to each plate. Spoons of great 
 size and quaint shapes from Holland, Russia, 
 France, and England were thrown here and there 
 
 96
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 upon the damask cloth. The cellars and pepper- 
 casters were quite as curious, and all the glass 
 was the finest, sparkling like colossal gems. 
 Every course was served by the liveried men- 
 servants from old English silver upon dainty 
 modern china. 
 
 At the first glance around the room and over 
 the table, Archie frowned an unspoken criticism 
 of his cousin's extravagance. Then his artistic 
 instinct awoke and bade him make note of all 
 that he saw, for the arrangement was faultless. 
 The soft, modulated light around the walls, whose 
 deep carvings shed black shadows, the table stand- 
 ing forth in its own rosy glow, the gleam of 
 silver and glint of crystal, and the blaze of soft 
 colour, these combined the splendour and bal- 
 ance of poetry. 
 
 " Well," said Paton, always keenly sensitive to 
 
 
 
 such effects, and feeling sufficiently at home to 
 refer to them, " I must say you have renewed 
 the youth of this ancient dining-hall, and with- 
 out any violence or profanation." 
 
 " And the table, dear. Archie can only see 
 the room," said Mrs. Russell, " but the table is 
 too lovely for English words." 
 
 97
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " The wines are those of which you are fond- 
 est, Cousin Archie," Laura broke in. " This is 
 the sherry your uncle had from his grandfather. 
 You are to have the Pontet-Canet you liked so 
 much when you were here last time, ages ago, 
 I am sorry to say, and after that the '89 
 champagne." 
 
 " You are very kind," Archie replied. " If 
 good wines need no bush, perhaps it is as fair 
 to say that such a bush as this needs no wine 
 at all. But I will accept it on the ground which 
 I once heard an English labourer take about his 
 beer. Said he : 'A labouring man has a right 
 to his beer if he can get it.' You have given 
 thought to table decoration, Cousin Laura; what 
 place in the social order does dining occupy, do 
 you think ? " 
 
 " Absolutely the first, I should say," Laura re- 
 plied, seeing that he meant to quiz her, and ap- 
 pearing to humour him ; " that is, the ladies I 
 know who go in for entertaining all rank it first. 
 I remember that Mrs. Egerton-Wood once said 
 that ' in the family circle novel dishes, well 
 cooked and appetisingly served, bring and keep 
 the men at home. In formal life/ she said, ' the 
 
 98
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 character of your dinners stamps your standing 
 in society/ And Mrs. Mowbray-Stanton, who is 
 very sarcastic, once said to me, ' By giving elab- 
 orate dinners any one may get into the best cir- 
 cles, and, if you study men's tastes at table, you 
 may command any man in fashionable life to 
 your house, or any number of men.' ' 
 
 ' You are going to be a mistress of the art ? " 
 
 " Oh, I am not expressing my views ; I was 
 quoting others," Laura answered. " For myself, 
 I'm afraid I most enjoy the pleasure dining gives 
 to others, but I meant only to answer your ques- 
 tion as to the place dining holds in fashionable 
 life." 
 
 " And who has a better right to speak for 
 fashionable life than you, Cousin Laura? You 
 have adopted it as your own field, have you 
 not?" 
 
 " Archie, do you think what you are doing is 
 quite fair? " Mrs. Russell asked. 
 
 " I am merely getting Cousin Laura's views 
 about society," Archie rejoined. " I did not 
 think she would object." 
 
 " I do not understand why you ask if it is fair," 
 Laura said, turning to Mrs. Russell. " Cousin 
 
 99
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 Archie knows he may ask me anything about my- 
 self, and I will answer frankly. I thought we 
 were just talking to pass the time, but if you want 
 my views about society why, really, I have 
 never thought about it." 
 
 She paused a moment to collect her ideas. 
 
 " During two years I have spent a few days 
 off and on, in the gay season, in town," she con- 
 tinued ; " I have come to know two sorts of peo- 
 ple. One sort was nice enough true friends 
 with deep feeling and aims and all that, but 
 I had dull evenings with them. I'm not at all 
 sure I shall think them so dull if I turn 'round and 
 interest myself in the sewing and the courses of 
 reading and the games of whist and the lectures 
 and things which they like. But that takes time, 
 you know, and while I was drifting into ever so 
 many new acquaintances in my first winter, 
 I suddenly, through your friends in the Beaux 
 Arts Club, found a door flung open before 
 me upon the most brilliant, gayest, what you 
 call ' smartest ' life you understand that I 
 had ever seen. It's nothing to you, who have 
 been in it, or were at liberty to go in it, all your 
 life, Cousin Archie, but it was new to me, and 
 
 100
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 I suppose I was a little flattered, and one grand 
 event led to another you understand, Mrs. Rus- 
 sell and, without letting go my more serious 
 friends with one hand, I reached out with the 
 other, and so divided my time. But, dear me, 
 truly I never thought or talked as much about it 
 in the whole time as I have to-night." 
 
 " And it was ' all through Archie's friends ' 
 that you saw the thing he's been used to all his 
 life," Mrs. Russell repeated, with mischievous en- 
 joyment. " Oh, Laura, you can take care of 
 yourself." 
 
 " I am sure I don't want to, then or even 
 to be on my guard, against Cousin Archie," 
 Laura answered. 
 
 Paton was about to continue the subject when 
 the footman offered a card to him upon a salver. 
 
 "What's that?" the novelist exclaimed. 
 "Wants to see me?" He adjusted his glasses 
 to read the card. " Bryan Cross ? The deuce ! 
 What's he doing here, and how did he know I 
 was in Powellton? " 
 
 " Bryan Cross! " Laura exclaimed, in her turn. 
 " Why, that is the name of the man who, the 
 
 101
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 papers say, discovered the murderer of the poor 
 girl whose body was found in the creek." 
 
 " Just so," Archie answered ; " I mean that 
 would be just like him. Anything extraordinary 
 is just what one expects of him. Will you ex- 
 cuse me? May I ask him to wait, and I'll have 
 him in here for a cigar while I take my coffee. 
 Afterward, if you like, I'll bring him into the 
 drawing-room." 
 
 It would have been better for Laura's future 
 peace of mind had she said she did not care to 
 meet Mr. Cross. But what she did say was, " Oh, 
 do! I should so like to see him." 
 
 Archie went* out, and presently returned. 
 
 " He cannot stay," he said, as he spread his 
 napkin over his knee, and began to cut in small 
 pieces the anchovy savoury, with which he had 
 been served. " Now, tell me about this murder, 
 at which Powellton is all agog." 
 
 " Which shall come first the murder, or an 
 account of Bryan Cross ? " was Laura's query. 
 
 " The . murder has introduced him here, it 
 seems." 
 
 " That shall be first, then. Well, just beyond 
 here is a village called Wapata, of quarry and 
 
 1 02
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 mill hands almost a part of Powellton, you 
 know. In that place lived a girl named Chrys- 
 tenah Muller, a daughter of a poor widow, and 
 about seventeen or eighteen years old. I noticed 
 her some r time ago, on account of her pretty face 
 and neat dress, and I saw her again on the day of 
 her death. She was walking past the gate as I 
 went out of it, with her hands up to her face, 
 crying. I turned toward her to speak to her, to 
 get her to tell me what her trouble was, and, 
 to the longest day I live, I shall be sorry I did 
 not do so, for it may be that I could have saved 
 her life. But two noisy boys, driving very slowly 
 in a grocer's cart, came along, ana I thought that 
 if I stopped her they might stop, too, and then she 
 would be ashamed to talk to me. That night she 
 was either murdered or drowned herself in the 
 creek. She had disgraced herself, and it was sup- 
 posed, until this Bryan Cross said he had found 
 her murderer, that she had taken her own life. 
 Mr. Cross appears to know much more than he 
 has said. Do you know him well, Cousin 
 Archie?" 
 
 " I never knew him what you would call 
 ' well,' " said Archie. " We were at Princeton 
 
 103
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 together, where he was the handsome man of my 
 class the best speaker and, in a way, the most 
 diligent student. He is the son of a Baptist min- 
 ister who owned the Clarion, a religious weekly. 
 Cross was expected to become a minister, but we 
 afterward heard that he could not fit his beliefs 
 to any creed, so he travelled abroad. Then his 
 father died, and he took charge of the Clarion. 
 Of late years I have not seen or heard much of 
 him." 
 
 He paused, and then added, " But it is a mis- 
 take to say that he discovered the murderer, he 
 tells me, or, indeed, that there was any actual 
 murder. ' A moral murder ' is what he calls the 
 crime. And he says that not he, but some one 
 we all know, a member of the Boozers, is the 
 discoverer of the ' moral murderer.' ' 
 
 " A member of the Boozers," Mrs. Russell ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 " Why, who? " Laura asked. 
 
 " Courtlandt Beekman," was Archie's reply. 
 " But that, I believe, is not to be publicly known. 
 Beekman came up with Cross to pass the time, 
 and studied and mastered the case. I do not 
 suppose it took any genius or exceptional amount 
 
 104
 
 The Millionairess && 
 
 of brains, but it is the fashion to think that every- 
 thing the fellow does is wonderful, and I do not 
 doubt you ladies will follow the fashion. A man 
 who can make such revelations of affairs, which 
 other men would feel that they could not keep suf- 
 ficiently private as he did in his examination 
 for admission to the Boozers' Club, the other day, 
 and still keep the esteem of nice people is really 
 a wonderful person, I must say." 
 
 "Archie, why do you dislike him so?" Mrs. 
 Russell asked. 
 
 " I don't ; I see through him, that's all." 
 
 " Oh, then, Mr. Beekman is here," Laura ex- 
 claimed, with an eagerness which betrayed itself. 
 
 " No, he went back to New York this morn- 
 ing," Paton replied, with a satisfaction he took 
 no pains to conceal. 
 
 Thereafter Laura was silent, feeling so much 
 more than she cared to risk saying. 
 
 105
 
 IX. 
 
 YOU ARE ALSO GUILTY" 
 
 " Oh, wearisome condition of humanity ! " Lord Brooke. 
 
 rHE inquest into the cause of Teenah 
 Muller's death was held in the lodge-room 
 of the Wapata Hotel, the largest apartment 
 in the village. The hour set for the beginning 
 of the inquiry was ten, but the crowd came 
 much earlier. By ten o'clock the younger bump- 
 kins, a juror or two, and even the coroner, were 
 over supplied with that elixir which is contrarily 
 declared to be such a preservative that one always 
 finds the " oldest inhabitant " beside each village 
 bar, and such a poison that the only uncertain 
 thing about any bottle of it is the exact number of 
 rods at which it will destroy life. The sheds in 
 the rear had proven so insufficient for all the arriv- 
 ing teams that the stable yard itself was filled 
 with buggies and carryalls. For two hours be- 
 fore ten o'clock the barroom had been packed 
 
 1 06
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 with enlightened American citizens, in soft hats 
 and misfitting clothes of weird design, who 
 walked about as if the floor was made of frozen 
 ploughshares, and kept falling over each other's 
 boots in the process. They slipperied the floor 
 with toba'cco juice, and handled their cigars as 
 if their hands were seals' flippers, fumbling them 
 about on the bar, and dropping them once or 
 twice before they finally got their pursed-out lips 
 around the middle of each weed. They swore 
 a great deal, without either reason or skill, and 
 laughed like horses. However, they were happy, 
 and were breaking no law of which they knew. 
 Every jar which country monotony gets has to 
 be celebrated in this way even a suicide and 
 already Teenah Muller dead was worth more to 
 Parker, the publican, than all the live women in 
 Wapata had ever been to any man in his line. 
 
 The local squire, the sheriff in his silk hat, the 
 old and the young lawyer of the village, the con- 
 stable, and two of the younger merchants were all 
 in a row,, on the broad front porch of the hotel. 
 Those nearest the six heavy supports of the 
 porch roof had their feet well up on them, on a 
 line with their breasts, and were tilting back in 
 
 107
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 their chairs. The two merchants who had no 
 posts, and therefore no place to put their feet, in 
 order to feel at ease, hung one or both legs over 
 their chair arms. Presently the coroner came 
 from the hotel parlour, and looked about him to 
 note the stir his appearance was certain to make. 
 Being a coroner only once or twice a year, and 
 a saddle-maker the rest of the time, his official 
 importance kept its full freshness. He was with 
 Bryan Cross, with whom he seemed mightily 
 taken. 
 
 " You kin hint pretty close to who you're givin' 
 it to," he said, with a whiskey-thickened tongue, 
 " but you mushn't speak out nary a name, nohow, 
 er you'll be had up for libill. An' now, ez I told 
 ye afore, fly high, even if you light low, but don't 
 tackle no bird that you can't git away with. ' Be 
 sure yer right,' 's Davy Crockett used ter say, 
 ' then let her go, Gallagher.' ' 
 
 At the first glance, you might have thought 
 Bryan Cross was an actor. Even at the second 
 and third look, you could not feel certain that he 
 was not. He had all the earmarks of the player, 
 the mobile features, the suggestion of effeminacy, 
 the peculiar prettiness, the apparently studied 
 
 1 08
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 mannerisms in every pose and movement. He 
 was of the age (twenty-nine) and the graceful 
 form to play Melnotte or D'Artagnan, and needed 
 no make-up to impersonate the love-lorn Italian, 
 Romeo, so r jet black was the longish hair that 
 was thrown back from his thin but finely chiselled 
 face. Its every feature was highly sensitive. His 
 large black eyes were full of feeling, the wide 
 nostrils that terminated his Grecian nose quivered 
 when he was excited; his mouth was the instru- 
 ment of an orator, large, thick-lipped, but also 
 very shapely. 
 
 " Come along, Mr. Cross," said the coroner, 
 dissatisfied with the stir, after all, since nine- 
 tenths of it was obviously made by the appearance 
 of the striking youth beside him. " H'are ye, 
 counsellor? H'are ye, sheriff? H're ye, gentle- 
 men ? Good-morning. Comin' in to see the fun ? 
 Coin' to be a leetle, I reckon." 
 
 As they passed through the crowd in the bar- 
 room, the coroner paused again, and whispered 
 to Bryan : " Now, fly high, young feller, but you 
 want to be dam sure and not tackle no bird that 
 you can't git away with." 
 
 The crowd broke, and hurried to the lodge- 
 
 109
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 room ahead of the coroner, so that Bryan and he 
 and the reporters had difficulty in getting to the 
 raised platform at the far end of the room. When 
 the witnesses were called, the constable was 
 obliged to sift them through the crowd by push- 
 ing two or three men out of the door, and then 
 pulling back each man ahead of him as he led the 
 way to the desk. The evidence taken was wholly 
 unsensational. Chrystenah Muller, called " Tee- 
 nah " by friends and strangers alike, was found 
 lying in Dockstader's creek, apparently drowned, 
 on a certain day. She was eighteen years old, 
 and had lived in Wapata with her mother, a 
 widow, who asked the coroner, " How cood I 
 look all der vhile afder von girl, vhen I got nine 
 more children, und make, der same dime, a liffing, 
 alretty ? " She said her daughter had been a 
 steady girl until a year ago. Then she ceased 
 to work, and began to be disobedient and im- 
 pudent, leading a stormy life at home, with snubs 
 and chilly glances from her neighbours. The 
 mother did not know who " kept company " with 
 Teenah. None of the neighbourhood youths were 
 good enough for her, she said. 
 
 There was the usual formal evidence as to the 
 
 no
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 finding of the body, and the doctor's evidence, 
 which showed that there was an incentive for 
 suicide. 
 
 Then the coroner, pulling Bryan over to him, 
 and whispering his injunction regarding high 
 flying and ^caution with other birds, announced 
 that Mr. Bryan Cross would state what he knew 
 of the case. 
 
 " Gentlemen," Bryan began, his thin earnest 
 face in sight of every one, " I came here out of 
 curiosity, with a distinguished friend, who, be- 
 coming interested in this sad affair, investigated 
 it. He found it a case of murder, gentlemen 
 wait, do not interrupt me. My friend led me, 
 step by step, from the finding of the body to the 
 discovery of the murderer, and satisfied me that 
 there could be no mistake. I know who the 
 murderer is, how he committed the crime every 
 important detail of the shocking story; and the 
 main points I am going to make known to you. 
 But there is one here who could tell the facts even 
 better than I. The murderer himself is here, in 
 this room, listening, looking at me. He is here 
 because he is not afraid. He knows that I will 
 not name him; that you, Mr. Coroner, the most 
 
 in
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 powerful official in the county, cannot lay a hand 
 upon him." 
 
 When the speaker said that the murderer was 
 in the room the effect was impressive. There was 
 a second's silence, and then a stir made by nearly 
 every man, turning to look at his neighbours. 
 Two men, marked apart from the crowd by their 
 faces and clothing, became the butts of the threat- 
 ening glances of all who were close to them. One 
 was Archibald Paton, and the other a rich young 
 man of the neighbourhood, a Mr. Harold Kim- 
 ball. 
 
 " The murderer who feels so safe that he can 
 venture in this place to hear me depict his scoun- 
 drelism, in what strength of language I can com- 
 mand, knew her, yet he never visited her home, 
 never wrote to her, never showed himself by 
 her side in her own village, as an honest friend 
 would, in the many months of their companion- 
 ship. He met her along the roads beyond the 
 town, in his carriage, and only showed himself 
 beside her in other villages, where they were 
 known together as you honest citizens are known 
 with your wives. He was generous with her in 
 little things in the meanest, smallest way. I 
 
 !T2
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 mean that he gave her brooches and rings and 
 a watch and the price of a railway ticket, with 
 which she took herself off when he tired of her. 
 These things she did not ask for, but when she 
 came back, in dire need, really requiring some- 
 thing of kim at last, he refused her. And for 
 what did she ask, do you think ? I am not invent- 
 ing. I have had repeated to me by one of her 
 companions Teenah's own account of what led 
 up to the murder. She asked to be married. 
 Poor little toy, who did not know she was a toy 
 
 who thought that the man who said he loved 
 her possessed a nature above that of a dumb ani- 
 mal. He refused her this return for her trust 
 this bit of justice. He was not even like a dumb 
 animal to her. Alas! few dumb animals are as 
 base as man can prove himself. 
 
 " He offered to give her money, which was a 
 further insult, but she only begged him to undo 
 the wrong they both had done, and reestablish 
 her in the good opinion of her neighbours. 
 After scorching her with his passion in one 
 form, he struck her down with it in another 
 
 that of anger. Angrily, with scorn which 
 seared her, and with bitter, cutting words, he
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 pushed her from his carriage on last Monday 
 evening, saying that he had had enough of her. 
 In twenty-four hours she was found dead in 
 Dockstader's creek. That was how her life was 
 taken. These were the weapons which destroyed 
 it. Do I do wrong to call the case a murder ? " 
 Some one in the crowd of listeners whispered 
 that he had seen the girl in another village with 
 Harold Kimball. Mysteriously, like a flash, the 
 word ran all over the room. When the orator 
 paused, all turned and faced Kimball. He was 
 in the middle of the throng, and the angry, venge- 
 ful looks of all the others flew to that common 
 centre, like the spokes of a swift-whirling wheel. 
 The strain upon every one was fearful. It seemed 
 that the breath of every man stopped, and all their 
 hearts pounded heavily in their breasts. A tem- 
 pest of passion, strong enough to carry such a 
 crowd to any lengths, was at its bursting point. 
 Paton, realising that he, as a well-dressed 
 stranger, might easily be pitched upon as the 
 murderer, admitted, afterward, that he wished 
 himself away. He could not see the real sus- 
 pect, and did not know that the suppressed vio- 
 lence had already marked other prey. 
 
 114
 
 The Millionairess HS- 
 
 " It's Kimball ! Out with the damned scoun- 
 drel! Lynch him! " a man near the door called 
 out. 
 
 " Lynch him ! Out with him ! " cried several 
 others. 
 
 A half-tipsy man, close to Kimball, seized his 
 
 arm, and called out : " I've got the dog. 
 
 Some one get the rope." 
 
 Though Kimball was as white as his shirt- 
 front, his nerve stayed by him. " Tajce your 
 hand off me ! " he commanded, and in a tone 
 which might have cowed a rioter less tipsy and 
 less influenced by the passion of the crowd. The 
 man gripped Kimball's arm the tighter, and 
 pulled him along, as the crowd began to sway in 
 a solid mass toward the door. 
 
 " Leave that man alone. You are as guilty as 
 he ! " Bryan Cross shouted. His voice when 
 raised had a trumpet tone, and now it rang loud 
 and clear. 
 
 The mass of men swayed back, and then stood 
 still, 
 
 " You are as guilty as he if he is the mur- 
 derer," said Cross; "but I have named no man, 
 and will name none. Constable, see that man
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 safely out of the door. Whoever wants to dis- 
 grace this town further by doing him harm can 
 find him later in the day, but when you have 
 heard me out, you will not lay a. hand on him." 
 
 " Now, gentlemen," said Cross, when Kimball 
 was got safely out, " be sure that the murderer, 
 whoever he is, has heard my words, and, in his 
 soul, is punished by this exposure. But how 
 foolish you were to indulge in violence and threats 
 
 thus taking into your own use the very weapon 
 with which I told you Teenah Muller was mur- 
 dered. Is it possible you did not understand 
 me? She was killed by the very thing that just 
 possessed you all by passion. What matters it 
 that the murderer's passion was lust, and yours 
 was hate, or anger ? Ungovernment of ourselves, 
 self-indulgence, self-surrender, loss of self-control 
 
 these are the weapons we all are constantly 
 carrying to make every one of us unfit to pass 
 judgment on a crime of violence. These are the 
 crying evils of our age, the mockers of American 
 civilisation. The murderer of Teenah Muller sent 
 her to her death by simply letting go of himself. 
 Tens of thousands most of us even you and 
 I are as guilty as he, in other ways, by the 
 
 116
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 same fault. All alike, we avoid self-discipline. 
 We lose control of our judgment and our tem- 
 pers, as he did of his desires. He ran unbridled, 
 rough-shod, over a young girl. But what of us? 
 We strike our fellow men or curse them things 
 this murderer did not stoop to do. We are all 
 possessed by devils that W T C could cast out with 
 very little effort, yet that little we refuse to exert. 
 We quarrel with our faithful wives, we exhaust 
 the high pressure of our impatient humours upon 
 our servants and workhands, we lash our dumb 
 animals (that are so much better than most of 
 us), and punish our children in anger, when pun- 
 ishment is wasted, and often reacts on ourselves. 
 The fiend Anger is the great red American Devil. 
 It is in nearly all of us. It fills our land with 
 murders, lynchings, negro-burnings, riots, strikes, 
 stabbings, shootings God alone knows what all! 
 Nearly all of us, I say, are possessed of the devil 
 Anger, and his cousin, Self-will. The most of 
 us have other devils as well rum-thirst, lust for 
 power or for women, or love of pleasure, or malice 
 or envy all the imps which stir those passions 
 that we must control if we wish to be believed 
 when we boast that we are better than our brutes. 
 
 117
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Take these things home, and think them over, 
 you who kill your own happiness, as Teenah 
 Muller killed hers, before she took her own life. 
 When you damn an importunate beggar, think 
 how much meaner than he you have made your- 
 self. When you push a too persistent newsboy 
 out of your way, take your hat off to the 
 devil who is riding you. When you slap your 
 child, in a moment of petulance, it must be that he 
 is only a devil's brat, or you couldn't do it. Think 
 of that! And when you strike a man in a fit 
 of choler, think of Teenah Muller, found face 
 down, in a mud-hole, and remember that her 
 murderer was not so great a brute as you. 
 
 " I should have liked to find that Teenah 
 Muller died by a stab of steel instead of 
 from mere uncontrolled passion. I should have 
 gloried in naming her slayer, and handing him 
 over to punishment which only your scorn can 
 impose in this case. But she was slain by no 
 weapon or drug that your honoured coroner can 
 recognise as murderous. Still, I did learn the 
 cause of her death, and I would have been selfish 
 and cowardly if I had not come here to make 
 it public. Put it in your verdict, gentlemen, that 
 
 118
 
 The Millionairess HS- 
 
 Teenah Muller, through failure to govern her- 
 self, strayed in the path of Passion, and was de- 
 voured by it. Add a rider saying that the same 
 lack of self-control (or call it a dementia of 
 Egoism if you can understand what that means), 
 is poisoning" a myriad lives with anger, worry, 
 lust, surrender to pleasure, envy, malice. Add 
 that this is a dead load we are carrying, yet that 
 each of us can easily lift off his own portion; 
 that it is a fearful epidemic, and yet that every 
 afflicted man can easily doctor himself; that the 
 only effort needed is will-power, the only neces- 
 sary drug is resolution. Accomplish the general 
 use of these, and we shall all be happier and 
 richer, and America will indeed be the greatest 
 country in the world." 
 
 119
 
 X. 
 
 TESTING A CRUSADER'S SWORD 
 
 " Who made the yawning gulf 'twixt thee and others? 
 
 Know know thyself live with the world in peace." Goethe. 
 
 HILE all were at breakfast, on the 
 morning after the inquest, Bryan 
 Cross was announced, and bustled in with an 
 armful of newspapers, a boyish, impetuous fel- 
 low in spite of his twenty-nine or thirty years. 
 It was with an evident effort that he paused to 
 be introduced to the ladies, before he flung him- 
 self on a sofa, declaring that he had already 
 broken his fast, and exclaimed : " There are fif- 
 teen columns about the inquest in these six papers ! 
 My ! It has made a sensation ! Look at the 
 Herald, a picture of me that has been made over 
 from an old woodcut of Lincoln, to judge by its 
 looks. And here's the World, with a cut of what 
 it calls ' the attempted lynching,' showing me 
 with a fist like a ham, about to pulverise half a 
 dozen men at once." 
 
 1 20
 
 rOU HAVE MADE A GREAT 
 STIR, HAVEN'T YOU?'"
 
 The Millionairess Hfr 
 
 " Oh, do let me see, Mr. Cross," Laura said. 
 ' You have made a great stir, haven't you? " 
 
 " Stir? Why, I wouldn't have dreamed of 
 such good fortune," said Bryan. " It gives me 
 the opening I've prayed for all in a day. I did 
 
 p 
 
 not know it was coming; I only knew it had to 
 be and here it is." 
 
 " How astonishing ! See, Cousin Archie ; 
 here's a whole broadside about him," Laura ex- 
 claimed, catching fire from Cross. " ' Hands off ! 
 You are as guilty as he ! ' in letters across four 
 columns. Oh, I must read every word of it." 
 
 " I never read anything about murders, but 
 I will have to break the rule for this occasion," 
 Mrs. Russell said. 
 
 " How do you mean that this does what you 
 want, Cross ? " Paton inquired ; " what sort of 
 opening has it given you ? " 
 
 " A chance to talk, man," Cross exclaimed 
 " to talk to say what's in me. To rip and 
 smash at the wrong tendencies of the time, and 
 set the people thinking set them to seeing 
 what terrible agencies are at work among us." 
 
 He spoke with intense excitement, his eyes 
 sparkling and his voice rising as he talked. 
 
 121
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " What's so wrong about things ? " 
 
 " What? " Bryan echoed with spirit. " What's 
 wrong? Oh, don't start me on what's wrong. 
 Everything all the things that are separating 
 poor and rich, setting up Brother Leisure and 
 Brother Labour as enemies, in opposing camps. 
 All the things that are creating classes in America 
 and these appear to be most things, once you 
 begin to look into them. Individualism which 
 ignores common interests, the idolatry of the 
 dollar, commercial immorality, the misuse of 
 capital by monopolies, their pressure upon legisla- 
 tures, and the spread of shoddy notions of aris- 
 tocracy. Did you ever think of it? Rightly, the 
 blight of fashionable life begins at the flower 
 and seed of spent families, but, with us, it is 
 reaching down to the ranks of the clerks in the 
 very shoe stores, down among those who should 
 be the robust stalk of society, just above the roots 
 which are the toilers, who must be the strength 
 and hope of every nation that can boast of hope." 
 
 Laura turned in her chair, astonished and 
 thrilled. Earnestness like that was new and won- 
 derful to her. 
 
 " You've got an army contract, apparently," 
 
 122
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 Archie commented, over his egg and steaming 
 roll. 
 
 " Not when one feels his mission and his 
 power; its size only spurs one to give it harder 
 battle," said Cross. 
 
 " I know but ' what's the use ? ' ' Archie 
 said, echoing the motto of his Bohemian guild ; 
 "what's the use? I've seen something of all 
 that you speak of, and have thought of writing it 
 into my books, but the world would roll along in 
 its old way over my books, as it will over your 
 speeches as it does over even its Himalayas 
 and Alps, by the way." 
 
 " Perfect! Splendid! " Cross shouted, and, in 
 his nervous way, whipped out of his pocket a 
 small notebook and pencil. Then he began to 
 write hastily. " Excuse me a moment," said he; 
 " I just wanted to put down what you said 
 every word of it. It exactly reflects the conditions 
 I mean to sail into. ' What's the use? ' that's a 
 text for a scorching lecture on the apathy and 
 indifference which are all* around us, even where 
 we should look, as in the case of intelligent men 
 like you, for hearty, stiff-backed opposition to 
 the evils that are sapping our virtues and strength 
 as a nation." 123
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Humph/' Archie said, drily, " I don't doubt 
 I could give you many such points. Stick to me, 
 Cross, and I'll equip you for a whole campaign." 
 
 " I am sure," Laura interposed, " it's very 
 noble of Mr. Cross though I don't understand 
 these things that are so terrible." 
 
 " My campaign, as you term it, begins at once," 
 Cross continued. " I am to speak at the funeral 
 of the poor girl at her grave, to-morrow 
 and all the reporters are to be there, so that my 
 chance to rivet public attention to what I talked of 
 at the inquest will be as good as it could possibly 
 be, and it will depend only on myself whether I 
 am to begin a useful career at last. I tried to do 
 it in The Clarion, but its readers are the narrow- 
 est, and as I am very liberal, I simply killed it 
 or all but that." 
 
 " You are going to remain in the village, 
 then? " Laura inquired. " Won't you do us the 
 honour to stay here? Let me send to the hotel 
 for your things." 
 
 " Thank you ; I should like that very much," 
 Bryan answered. " I am rather tangled up with 
 the crowd at the hotel. I move in a regiment, as 
 it were of reporters and idlers and cranks. I 
 
 124
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 had seven men in my room when I began to un- 
 dress for bed, last night. It's novel, I'll admit, 
 to feel as if you were a large part of the public, 
 but it begins to wear on you in time. I'd rather 
 get my things myself, if I may, and drive away 
 as if to Fishkill, so as to come here without be- 
 traying my destination; otherwise your garden 
 would soon be as full of my tormentors as it now 
 is of blades of grass and flowers." 
 
 " You shall be perfectly safe and quiet here," 
 Laura said. " We'll instruct the servants that 
 you are not to be disturbed. Well, gentlemen, 
 we will leave you to your cigars and newspapers." 
 
 After the three ladies retired, with a stiff bit 
 of human timber in livery holding the door open 
 for them, the men disposed of themselves in pos- 
 tures more comfortable than elegant, and fell 
 upon their newspapers. 
 
 " Well, Cross, you certainly have made a sen- 
 sation," said Archie. " In our days everybody 
 gets newspaper distinction. Shop-girls enjoy 
 their portraits in the Sunday papers, and even 
 my ' guinney ' bootblack carries a half-column 
 clipping about himself in his pocket-book, but 
 three-column spreads with scare head-lines are 
 
 125
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 the rewards of few, and the hope of still less. I 
 must say you deserve it even better than the 
 average reader will think, for what you said 
 does not read a hundredth part as it sounded. 
 You are a born orator. You made me tingle, I 
 confess." 
 
 " I believe that what I said had never been 
 spoken before, though I got my cue from a well- 
 known little book of American philosophy. But 
 I will do better at the cemetery, for I have leave 
 to talk an hour." 
 
 They continued to read the papers, and pres- 
 ently the eye of Bryan Cross fell upon something 
 that sent the blood rushing to his face. It was 
 a small paragraph which he read again and again. 
 As he did so his chin fell lower and lower, the 
 muscles which had held his body so rigidly and 
 proudly erect relaxed, and he sat limp and bent 
 upon the sofa, a dejected caricature of the man 
 who had come into the room like a crowned hero. 
 
 " See here, old man," he said to Archie. " I 
 must ask you to let me bore you a minute." 
 
 " Go ahead," Archie replied. 
 
 " Well, you know when The Clarion began to 
 run down, and it was evident that it would soon 
 
 126
 
 The Millionairess HS- 
 
 cease to pay, I put it in the market, and began 
 to look around for something else to do. I 
 thought of reporting as a makeshift which might 
 lead to something better, and I went to Sam 
 Woodruff, our old classmate, you know, who is 
 city editor of the Evening Star. He offered to 
 let me start a religious column in the Saturday 
 paper, and I did it, and it has gone well. Now, 
 here is a letter in The Chronicle, saying that I 
 wrote that column, but that it was only done to 
 hide my real work, which was the exposure of 
 church scandals in the paper. My Heavens! It 
 is terrible! Just as I have made myself the op- 
 portunity of my life to see the door dashed in 
 my face like that ! " 
 
 " Why? Do you mean that the charge is true? 
 Let me see what it says," Archie replied, taking 
 the paper and reading the paragraph. " Did you 
 ' pry into the differences between pastors and 
 their flocks, and magnify the peccadilloes of the 
 clergy into crimes as well as distort worthless 
 rumours into nauseous sensations ' ? " 
 
 " Never. On my word that is a lie, but it has 
 just basis enough to damage me as if it were true. 
 I wrote news of the churches whatever it was, 
 
 127
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 as it came along. And if there was trouble in 
 a church, or a quarrel between a minister and his 
 vestrymen or elders, or whoever, I wrote the 
 bare facts just as I wrote the news that was 
 good, or that which was of an indifferent tenor. 
 In six months I only reported five or six scandals. 
 It was the city editor who took these paragraphs, 
 and worked them up into sensations." 
 
 " Well, then, what do you care? " 
 
 " But, don't you see ? if I say so in a letter 
 to The Chronicle, the man who wrote this may be 
 probably is some reporter who knows that 
 the city editor sometimes sent to me for further 
 facts, which I had not written, and which I freely 
 told, though not for pay. I never could be so 
 base as that. But it will appear so; give a lie 
 twenty-four hours' start, and you never can over- 
 take it, you know. I shall be oh, Paton, I 
 am the most unfortunate beggar on earth. All 
 my life some little mistake, some impulsive word 
 or thoughtless act, has always come up to over- 
 cloud my prospects." 
 
 " Well, you're not going to be such an ass as 
 to stir this up by writing letters about it, are you ? 
 There's nothing to worry about. It's merely a 
 
 128
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 question of good taste how, being connected 
 with the cloth and yourself on the edge of the 
 ministry " 
 
 Bryan groaned. 
 
 " You could expose its weaknesses for pay or 
 friendship, or under any circumstances." 
 
 " Oh," Bryan moaned, " this will kill my sis- 
 ter, who is at death's door, and whose regard I 
 value more than life itself. What shall I do? 
 Can you advise me? What way shall I turn?" 
 
 " Now that this new field is open to you, are 
 you going into the pulpit, or are you going to 
 lecture?" 
 
 " I was going to lecture," Bryan said. 
 
 " Well, it doesn't matter," replied Archie ; " I 
 was about to say that if you were going to preach, 
 you might some day have to explain this trifling 
 matter to the officials of your church in private, 
 but whatever you mean to do, don't let it bother 
 you." 
 
 " It will wreck me, and kill my sister." 
 
 " You are the same Bryan Cross you were in 
 college," Paton said, crossing the room, and put- 
 ting a friendly hand on the wretched man's shoul- 
 der. " You were always imagining yourself in 
 
 129
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 trouble then ; always doing or saying some indis- 
 creet thing, and then magnifying it into a moun- 
 tain. Come, cure yourself of this, if you mean to 
 get on. It's all damned nonsense. You are 
 worrying over nothing, preparatory to inveighing 
 against worry to-morrow. Can't you see how 
 absurd it is? Chuck that newspaper in the fire, 
 and its contents out of your head, and, mark my 
 words, you will never hear of the subject again. 
 If you do, what of it? You didn't do what the 
 man charges. Our friend, Sam Woodruff, on the 
 Evening Star, would deny it in a moment if it 
 were worth while. Now brace up and face the 
 splendid prospect ahead. Hang the past; the 
 future's unclouded for you, old man." 
 
 " I value what you say, Paton," said Cross, 
 straightening his figure a little and lifting his 
 head a trifle under this encouragement, " be- 
 cause you are not concerned and can see the thing 
 clearly. Thank you very much. I'll try and not 
 let it worry me." 
 
 "No, don't try," Archie added, with a little 
 irritability, " I don't take any stock in trying ; it's 
 a copybook virtue. Do it doing's better than 
 trying. There, now it's done. You've forgotten 
 
 130
 
 The Millionairess ^ 
 
 it for ever. Read your papers and come out 
 among the trees and flowers and take a bath in 
 the beauty of nature and the good spirits of my 
 fair cousin. Remember, you are starting a clean 
 page without a blot upon it."
 
 XL 
 
 A FAINT SOUND OF 
 CUPID'S WINGS 
 
 " The young day opened in exulting splendour." Goetht. 
 
 rHE most important fact about Laura at 
 this time was that she was but opening 
 the door upon her real life. She was just 
 beginning. Up to a year ago she was rather 
 going to be than being, for the years of man's 
 reckoning in such a case are no criterion of a 
 person's status in character formation. The flesh 
 and blood medium or vehicle had been there 
 sunny-haired, sky-blue-eyed, radiant, vigorous, 
 lovely. And her amiability and goodness 
 rock foundations for coming character had 
 been very apparent, like her love of life. But the 
 force and purpose of her intellect and soul, the 
 will she was to possess, the directions in which 
 it was to be exerted, the impress her influence 
 was to make upon her circle, were all more or 
 less undefined. 
 
 132
 
 The Millionairess Hf 
 
 Throughout her occasional evenings of modish 
 amusement in New York she had never spent an 
 hour without the protection of some experienced 
 woman on whom she relied for guidance. And 
 in her short career as a philanthropist in Powell- 
 ton she had profited by the sturdy influence 
 of the Rev. York Stone. His strong hand 
 led her far outside her house, as we have seen, 
 but fell limp and idle the moment her home duties 
 or her pleasures came to the fore. Thus Laura 
 Lament was coming into existence, was develop- 
 ing within the mere pretty temple which we call 
 by her name. What she was to do, hold to or let 
 go, not even she had any means of predicting. 
 
 Cousin Archibald Paton second cousin, 
 really was in the garden, out of the sun's 
 glare, under the trees where they were thickest, 
 near the high front wall. He was to catch a train 
 just after lunch, and was wondering who would 
 be at the club as early as he would get there 
 because the day was broken and there was no use 
 of thinking of settling down to work. Laura 
 had asked him to stay till Monday, but Mrs. 
 Russell had whispered to him that he would be 
 bored to death with another evening there. That 
 
 133
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 was nonsense, he said to himself. He could stay 
 very comfortably; in fact, he would ask Laura 
 to let him come down, presently, for a long visit. 
 The quiet would be just what he needed for work 
 upon his new book. He would have to talk to 
 Laura a great deal, and talking to young un- 
 married women unless they were actresses or 
 dancers was growing more and more irksome 
 to him of late. But if he was to settle down 
 anywhere with any one it had better be here with 
 Laura than anywhere or with any one else. Just 
 now, however, a college friend from Chicago and 
 another from St. Paul were in town, and he must 
 run up and take them the round of the theatres, 
 and dine them every night at the club and the 
 new restaurants in a way in which he excelled 
 and that they would not soon forget. 
 
 He would wire both of them to meet him in 
 the evening, and some friends would be at the club 
 in the afternoon, so that he could play " bridge " 
 to kill the hours until it was time to dress. 
 " Damn it," he thought, " if I had fallen heir to 
 this place instead of Laura, and if there were a 
 few congenial men in the village and a billiard- 
 table here and New York only ninety minutes 
 
 134
 
 The Millionairess ^ 
 
 away I could still it would be infernally 
 dull." 
 
 At this stage of his thoughts he heard a light 
 sound of the gravel behind him, and, turning 
 quickly, saw his fair cousin, with both hands 
 held out a little way toward him, hesitatingly 
 and a trifle dejectedly. She put her hands back 
 when he turned, dropped them by her sides, and 
 blushed. 
 
 "Why, Cousin Laura! What's up?" 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," in a low wailing tone. 
 " Nothing. Only you're going away that's it." 
 
 " But then, I'm not here so often and haven't 
 been here so long as to make my going disturb 
 you." 
 
 Laura gave hjm one hand, and she left it in 
 his grasp in a way that was eloquent of trust and 
 of deep emotion besides for she did not speak. 
 The truth was that she had been longing for this 
 cousin to come this man who had so heroically 
 seen her step into his uncle's property without 
 uttering a sound of resentment and now he 
 had visited her and was going away, and she was 
 disappointed without exactly knowing why. 
 
 " What is it, cousin? " Archie asked again, ten- 
 
 135
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 derly. " I thought you were always so happy and 
 cheerful. What is it? Do tell me." 
 
 He spoke tenderly, I say, for the situation 
 was one to rouse all the tenderness in any man. 
 Fancy the combination made by the retired place, 
 the beauty and youth of the girl, his imaginative 
 nature, that first sight of her with her hands 
 stretched toward him, and now her evident sad- 
 ness. He would not have believed he could do 
 such a thing, for he had never more than touched 
 her hand before, but there it was done ; his 
 arm was around her waist! My! what a dainty, 
 soft, silken creature she was, and how exquisite 
 was the sweet odour of her golden hair as she 
 let her head fall upon his breast. What an arm- 
 ful for a man to find himself holding and even 
 pressing a little and it not resisting, but, 
 rather, nestling against him as if it yielded to 
 a right of his. Who thought of actresses and 
 dancers a moment ago? Faugh! Ye gods! 
 fancy possessing the right to hold so beautiful, 
 pure, and lovely a creature in one's arms. Con- 
 found it not " damn it " now, for the best of 
 his better nature was in control confound it ! 
 No man who ever lived was worthy of such a 
 prize, or fit to aspire to such. 136
 
 The Millionairess H5- 
 
 ' Tell me what has made you unhappy, little 
 cousin ? " 
 
 " You have Cousin Archie." 
 
 " I? " 
 
 " You are displeased with me." 
 
 " Displeased with you ? " The selfish crust 
 had cracked, the pretence of objection to marry- 
 ing an unformed wife was forgotten. Even the 
 solid marble palace of the Madison Club was 
 beginning to look shadowy. 
 
 " You think I am not serious, and that I only 
 wish to live for dinners and frivolity." 
 
 " I think you are my dear little cousin, of 
 whom not even you shall say such harsh things." 
 
 "See? You call them harsh," said Laura, 
 catching at the word. " You want to be kind 
 now, because I I am unhappy. But you set 
 a trap to make me condemn myself last night. 
 I know what Mrs. Russell meant by asking you 
 if it was fair, though I would not let her think 
 I understood her. And it was fair. You are 
 my only relative who is friendly, and I will 
 always thank you to criticise me." 
 
 " I hope I never shall even seem to again." 
 Still with an arm around her, deep under the 
 
 137
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 trees, out of sight and sound of house and road; 
 his bachelor quarters looking cramped and tire- 
 some, and the club-house a hateful place. 
 
 " But I'd rather you would, Cousin Archie," 
 said she, still whimpering a little, partly from 
 concern over his past behaviour, partly to en- 
 courage his present course. " I'd much rather 
 you would counsel me, and let me show you how 
 much I should value your advice than than to 
 keep on displeasing you, and and have you 
 stay away- and think ill of me." 
 
 " Oh, come," said he ; " is the cousin who 
 says I stay away not at all related to a certain 
 little witch whom I am visiting even at the 
 moment that she chides me for my absence ? " 
 
 " Yes, but " sighs all going now, and a pout 
 separating them ; " I cannot be satisfied with so 
 little as that. It may be that I am selfish or 
 that I feel so all alone in life. You have come 
 only twice, and then only when I thought a little 
 more of such neglect must mean that you dis- 
 liked me." 
 
 An image of stone would, almost, have real- 
 ised what that speech implied, and Archie had 
 been only ice, not stone. What he realised most 
 
 138
 
 The Millionairess $& 
 
 was that he was melting, and that the sensation 
 was more pleasant than that of his long bachelor 
 refrigeration had been. Laura cooed and pouted, 
 and he kept silent and thought, merely drawing 
 her closer now and then, and brushing his mous- 
 tache across her hair. He was beginning to 
 recall the same feelings that came with his first 
 love adventure, when he was very callow, and 
 had a pious reverence for a girl who, in that 
 case, proved extremely mortal and flirtatious. 
 Now he was again thinking of a w6man as a 
 goddess, and disparaging himself. And he was 
 saying to himself how clearly right Helen Rus- 
 sell was about the hardening selfishness of club- 
 life. He saw himself entering the club-house on 
 Fifth Avenue, the stewards bowing, the head 
 porter handing him some letters. He turned out 
 of the hall and walked through a series of rooms, 
 comfortable and luxurious beyond any that the 
 average bachelor could possess were he to marry, 
 and consequently tempting such not to marry. 
 He fancied the usual loungers here and there. 
 " Hello, Dan," he dreamed himself saying; " tired 
 of your prison? Well, I should think so." 
 " Hello, Robbins, you here in your daylight state 
 
 139
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 of trance, waiting for night and the theatres 
 and drinks and soubrettes and the rest of your 
 suicidal programme?" "Ah, there, Thompson 
 man of idiot mind who can do nothing under 
 heaven but play cards. Have to get up a game 
 without me." " Good afternoon, colonel how 
 purple your face is, and how strange that I never 
 saw before how porcine you look what's keep- 
 ing you alive ? Hope of another gorge to-night ? 
 That will make fifty in succession ; you'll have to 
 hurry faster than apoplexy if you want much 
 more of your gluttonish life." " How d'do, Mr. 
 Rickham and Mr. Colt? Still at the window? 
 Has young Mrs. Dash gone by with the riding 
 master at Pegasus' Academy? Yes? And old 
 Dash saw them and you saw him see them ? 
 As a matter of fact, there is nothing about it 
 that he did not know and does not approve of, but 
 you enjoy your imaginings better than the truth, 
 and fancy yourselves repaid for keeping your 
 chalky faces six months at that window." " No, 
 no, Billy ; no billiards. I'm going out to get 
 the air." 
 
 Out in the air Laura was purring and his 
 moustache was still brushing her perfumed hair. 
 
 140
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 "Have you any news of Cousin Jack?" she 
 asked, referring to the relative who had attempted 
 to secure her by a crime as a means of winning 
 her fortune. 
 
 " Oh, let us not soil our lips or minds with 
 thoughts of that brute," Archie rudely replied. 
 " Let us talk of ourselves of yourself most of 
 all." 
 
 His rudeness wounded her, but she forgave 
 him. 
 
 " I'm going to write a novel about a girl in 
 your position," said Archie. " Not in criticism of 
 you; but showing what another girl, older, of a 
 different temperament, might do. As for you, 
 cousin, I would not have you different if you 
 are happy." 
 
 " I am not altogether frivolous," she said. 
 " If you knew what bold ideas I am trying to 
 carry out in the village. But you have never 
 inquired. You are not interested. The Rev. Mr. 
 Stone is helping me to be useful in a small way 
 but tell me what you suggest." 
 
 " Oh, parsons ! Parsons and women ! Dear 
 cousin, do you think parsons embody all wis- 
 dom ? " Archie inquired, lacking the modesty and 
 
 141
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 breadth to ask what it was that the parson and 
 the woman were doing, in this case. " They can- 
 not know the needs of men. Priests and actors 
 are half women or half children, where practical 
 things are concerned. I cannot say, offhand, 
 what my heroine will do; improved tenements, 
 or sports for the poor, or the establishment of 
 coffee clubs made as attractive as the barrooms; 
 not hung with placards that insult people's pride 
 and intelligence or full of the usual chilling at- 
 mosphere of such places." 
 
 " I cannot wait for your novel," Laura replied, 
 a great deal hurt by his contempt for the man 
 whose cheerful and useful service demanded that 
 she should be his champion. She had been hurt 
 by Archie twice in ten minutes but her dream 
 state was proof against both blow r s. 
 
 " I'll come and write it here, and read over to 
 you each night what I've written during the day." 
 
 "Will you?" Laura cried, surprised out of 
 her momentary pain. " Then you are my good 
 cousin, after all; almost as good as I have ever 
 believed you to be." 
 
 She turned her sky-blue eyes and fruity cheeks 
 and rosy lips up toward his face. He put both 
 
 142
 
 The Millionairess & 
 
 arms around her and drew her against himself 
 and kissed her. A last frozen muscle of his 
 heart must have thawed. 
 
 It was not a lover's kiss; she who knew noth- 
 ing of kisses beyond those of her own sex real- 
 ised that on the instant. Much less was it the 
 kiss of the lady novelists of the day, which sets 
 the skies aflame and causes the earth to rock. 
 It was a chaste, paternal-like kiss, expressing 
 a kindly interest which hesitates on the edge of 
 committing itself to anything not well considered. 
 As he raised his head after this chaste and frugal 
 dispensation, he saw Mrs. Russell before him 
 at the junction of two paths, on one toe, flutter- 
 ing between flight and bold acknowledgment of 
 her presence. Archie released Laura so suddenly 
 that the maiden suspected discovery, and flushed 
 crimson at the proof of it. 
 
 " Dear friends," said Mrs. Russell, advancing 
 radiant ; "I would rather it were I than any one 
 else who saw you." (Here a pause.) "And I 
 wouldn't have missed it for anything." 
 
 " Are con grat ula tions in or- 
 der?" she went on, accentuating her uncertainty 
 by uncommon pauses between syllables. 
 
 143
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 "Don't be silly, Helen," Archie said. "By 
 the way, I'm going to ask Cousin Laura, before 
 we go to the house, if I may come here to do a 
 bit of writing a little later, when my book is 
 under way." 
 
 " And we are to be like real cousins for as long 
 as I can make him happy," Laura added. 
 
 " Well, I never ! " Mrs. Russell remarked to 
 her, when they were safe in the confidential or 
 bedroom story of the house. " When I saw er 
 
 what I could not help seeing, I was ready to 
 shout for joy. But the tone and manner you 
 both put on immediately afterward well, it 
 did dash my castles to the earth. I don't under- 
 stand it at all." 
 
 " You were silly," said Laura. " It was only a 
 
 I mean it was not anything, not in the least." 
 Already analysis of that first kiss brought a 
 
 realisation of her disappointment. She felt that 
 her cousin would never offer her a second kiss. 
 And she knew that, if he ever should do so, her 
 self-respect would not permit her to receive it. 
 
 Her first kiss had been like a dagger in a 
 tragedy. It had slain the first-born and oldest of 
 her day-dreams of love, 
 
 144
 
 The Millionairess HS- 
 
 Archie, for his part, stamped his own opinion 
 of his tenderness with the muttered words, 
 " What an ass I made of myself ! " 
 
 He was entering the great tiled hall of the 
 mansion when Mrs. Lamont slipped out of a side 
 door and ran to him, somewhat stealthily, with a 
 mixture of shrewdness and pleading in her look, 
 and, pressing his hand, whispered, " Be kind to 
 her always, won't you ? " 
 
 145
 
 XII. 
 
 BRYAN CROSS'S 
 EXPOSURE OF "SOCIETY" 
 
 " Yet deemst thyself so far above thy brothers, 
 That them hast won the right to scorn them." Goethe. 
 
 rHE lunch party was only saved from 
 being too constrained by the attempts 
 of Mrs. Russell to arouse the others. Laura 
 was still wondering how to regard that some- 
 what gelid first kiss, feeling that it lacked some- 
 thing, perhaps a great deal, but having no pre- 
 vious experience to serve as a standard of 
 comparison. And, too, she marvelled at the sud- 
 den charging of her atmosphere with opposition 
 to society and opposition to her, also, for going 
 in for its pleasures; to society, above all things; 
 society, which she had supposed to be the aim and 
 sum of genteel existence. Archie, for his part, 
 was withdrawing into his refrigerator, and pulling 
 the door shut, gradually. He was annoyed at 
 the free hand he had given to his feelings in 
 bestowing any kiss at all until he had seen more 
 
 146
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 of Laura's purpose in life and of his friends 
 at the club. He would have flattered himself 
 that it was not a kiss which committed him to 
 anything, if he only were sure that Laura thought 
 as little of it. Bryan Cross was prostrated by the 
 terror inspired by the paragraph in the Chronicle. 
 He did not look any more like his former self 
 than he felt ; indeed, he seemed to grow haggard 
 while the others regarded him ; to become heavily 
 lined in the face, worried, with the flash gone 
 from his eyes, the spinal column out of his back, 
 the stiffening out of whatever had kept his chin 
 in air when he had faced the angry villagers at 
 the inquest. 
 
 A stupid lunch party. The sooner it was 
 over the better, since everybody's mind was 
 busied with its own affairs. Even Mrs. Lament 
 was affected by the discordant mental influences 
 around her. She could only ascribe them to 
 jealousy of Mr. Paton on the part of Mr. Cross, 
 for the poor lady thought of little else than her 
 daughter's marrying, and considered each new 
 masculine visitor as another suitor. In spite of 
 the flowers and crystal and silver, the dainty 
 dishes and sparkling wines, and the decorous 
 
 147
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 waiters in livery how that midday meal did 
 drag! 
 
 " Good-bye," said Bryan to Archie, when they 
 were by themselves in the smoking-room for a 
 moment ; " I'm sorry I put a damper on the 
 lunch, though it seemed to me every one else was 
 pulling sidewise. I can't get that Chronicle let- 
 ter out of my mind, and I'm blue as an Italian 
 lake." 
 
 " Well, all I can say," said Paton, " is that you 
 remind me of the grizzly that reared up on the 
 track ahead of an express train to fight the loco- 
 motive. As the locomotive remarked to that 
 bear, ' You must love trouble. ' My dear Cross, 
 if you did furnish church scandals to a paper, 
 what of it? And since you didn't, there's even 
 less of it. Why don't you worry about real 
 things, if you must worry? For instance, about 
 what that girl's betrayer, Kimball, will do if he 
 meets you." 
 
 " I don't care a fig for what he does," Cross 
 replied. " I am never afraid when I'm right, 
 and I'm never afraid of any man except myself. 
 It's my own weaknesses that give me all my 
 worries." 
 
 148
 
 The Millionairess ^ 
 
 " You contradict the proverb that ' a watched 
 pot never boils,' " Archie persisted, " for you 
 are always watching yourself and yet you're 
 always stewing. Believe me, you can whip up a 
 little trouble like the white of an egg, till it 
 will fill a washbowl, but it's all froth when 
 you've done it." 
 
 When the crunching of the carriage wheels 
 died out of his hearing, Bryan once again picked 
 up the Chronicle to nourish his misery with new 
 force, but to his astonishment he discovered that 
 the leading editorial was a ringing endorsement 
 of his remarks at the inquest, and predicted that 
 a young man of such eloquence, earnestness, and 
 self-control, coupled with the power to master an 
 angry audience, must yet make himself felt in 
 the world. " He perceives a common weakness 
 and evil," said the editor. " He has shown not 
 merely the courage to attack it, but a command 
 of vision over its full extent, and a skill that 
 cuts into its heart. The people in every walk 
 of life will pause this morning to read his words 
 as the few paused yesterday, even in a paroxysm 
 of passion. Bryan Cross holds a nation in waiting 
 to hear more of what he has to say. His suc- 
 
 149
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 cess as a reformer, a leader, or even as a mere 
 lecturer, is limited only by his own capacity." 
 
 Sensitive, as, happily, few men are; now 
 plunged into black despair by an imagining and, 
 anon, lifted to serene heights by success, or to 
 superhuman effort by a mere chance made roseate 
 by his optimism, Bryan began to feel himself 
 raised up by this comment of one who, he argued, 
 must have seen the mosquitoish paragraph in 
 the same paper, yet gave it no concern. His face 
 regained colour, the haggard lines softened, his 
 eyes sparkled, and he lifted his shoulders and 
 head, and threw off the trouble that had been 
 astride of him. Miss Lamont came in and found 
 him in this new mood. 
 
 " Won't you come and visit me ? " she asked 
 him. " Don't throw away your cigar. This is 
 Liberty Hall as far as smoking is concerned. 
 Gentlemen may smoke anywhere in it. Will you 
 come? I am burning to have you clear my mind 
 about something." 
 
 "Now, what is it about society?" she asked, 
 when Mr. Cross and she were comfortably seated 
 on either side of Mrs. Lamont in the sewing-room. 
 " What is there wrong about what we call ' gen- 
 
 150
 
 The Millionairess m 
 
 teel life,' the current which flows through the 
 drawing-rooms and ballrooms and dining-rooms 
 of those who endeavour to observe the nicer ways 
 of life? My cousin, Mr. Paton 
 
 " Really, only her second cousin," Mrs. Lamont 
 interposed. 
 
 - is displeased with me or I imagine he 
 is, for having spent my visits to town rather idly, 
 in a social way, and though I am not aware of 
 having done anything amiss, I suspect that you, 
 too, hold a grievance against what is called a 
 fashionable or ' society ' existence, and I want to 
 ask you why." 
 
 " I sometimes think I have a mission in the 
 world," said Bryan, " and so I bid you tremble. 
 A man with a mission is a devouring lion who 
 pays no heed to time or place or feelings or indi- 
 viduals. You will rouse the lion if you persist 
 in your questions, for the exposure of ' society ' 
 is part of my mission." 
 
 " I am not a bit afraid," Laura replied, with 
 guilty reservations that belied her tone of courage. 
 
 " Well, society the highest form of organ- 
 ised social intercourse has no place in this 
 country, because its headquarters is the ante-
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 chamber (just as it is itself the shadow) of a 
 royal court. Any exclusive set not connected with 
 a throne is a Brummagen society, a fraud and 
 sham, an imitation. A monarch, his family and 
 his highest nobles, must have entertainment 
 and companionships, a world in which to move 
 however small so they set up a haut monde, 
 composed of persons of rank and means in order 
 that they may live and yet be differentiated from 
 the common herd. Mark that: the very raison 
 d'etre, the essence, the first aim, of so-called 
 ' society ' is separation from the people. To main- 
 tain such an institution here is un-American, 
 undemocratic, poisonous to the republic, wicked, 
 dangerous. We have always had here a sham 
 aristocracy the laughing-stock of Europe and 
 the disgust of our own good citizens. It began 
 with a few un-American families with real or 
 pretended high origin or connection abroad, and 
 these were abetted and encouraged by others 
 who had merely money and leisure. I am speak- 
 ing of the Northern States, where the possession 
 of money has long since become the first essential 
 with this set, the wealthy having so far out- 
 numbered the original elite that birth is a second- 
 
 152 

 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 ary and non-essential qualification. It is an 
 Anglo-Saxon peculiarity, this ; in England Jews, 
 company promoters, and, in fact, any one who has 
 money, enters society, but this is a perversion of 
 the true character of the institution and only 
 obtains there and here. 
 
 "But, to return to America," he continued; 
 " I will admit that this class had to exist, even 
 here, for it was the last expression of energy on 
 the part of expiring families the flower the 
 thing that comes at the end of a plant's existence. 
 Mark that, too, please : genuine high society con- 
 nected with a court may have vigour, constantly 
 recruited by wise marriages; but mock society 
 is the rendezvous of the effete and played-out 
 families which are making their final blaze of 
 efflorescence. It is the natural process that the 
 top shall wither and die and be constantly replaced 
 from the bottom. When that process had been 
 too long and too completely arrested we had the 
 French Revolution. To-day we see by the con- 
 dition of the masses in England that a new bal- 
 ance must be struck there by revolution within 
 or by some catastrophe from outside. The same 
 conditions are all observable here, though in an 
 earlier stage. 153
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Here in the United States we find that the 
 dollar, which admitted the few cads of a quarter 
 of a century ago to the companionship of our 
 select set, has become an idol. The dollar is the 
 national god. To accumulate dollars is the single 
 aim of almost every man of force and brain, so 
 that government and public leadership are left 
 to the mob, while talent confines itself to money- 
 making. Our men having made the money, our 
 women have found out what to do with it. They 
 have invested it in ' society ; ' in founding an 
 exclusive set if they had not one at hand, or if 
 they could not enter the one they had. Hence 
 the gradual broadening of the institution or 
 imitation until it poisons every class above the 
 toilers. I have watched this growth everywhere 
 from New York to San Francisco, and have 
 scarcely known any variation of the process. 
 First, a man by force of brain or opportunity 
 makes money, and becomes wrapped up in the 
 making of it, as heedless of further purpose as 
 the squirrel that will continue to hoard nuts in 
 the same tree trunk, though you carry them off 
 as fast as he brings them. Then comes the wife 
 or daughter, bitten by the national serpent, and 
 
 154
 
 The Millionairess HS- 
 
 lays out part of that money to lift herself from the 
 level of the people of whom she is by birth and 
 training a part, into some pretentious, snobbish 
 circle where the talk is of ' my man ' or of * my 
 maids,' where every day's and evening's pleas- 
 ure is measured by its cost in dollars and every 
 man's and woman's standing by the amounts they 
 spend. 
 
 " These are cads, Miss Lament, and the ways 
 of cads," Bryan went on. " Cads the mean- 
 est of all the species of the vulgar. But we have 
 not noticed the worst evil yet. The worship of 
 the dollar has extended the application of the 
 banker's scales to the weighing of all merit and 
 worth has gravitated downwards until to-day 
 only those who work with their hands are healthy 
 and despised. The chasm between the rich 
 and poor is widened as it is nowhere else except 
 in England, so that the middle class and lower 
 middle class, as they say over there, are now on 
 the side of the rich. All ties between the bottom 
 and top are broken, the middle folk who were the 
 friends of the poor have pushed the poor aside, 
 and only live to ape the rich. Dear Miss Lamont, 
 the wife of a reporter whom I know, a man on 
 
 155
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 sixty dollars a week, has ' Thursdays ' on her 
 cards. Have you thought what that means? It 
 is a formal declaration that she is living for 
 herself, for purely sensual, selfish pleasure, and 
 to the neglect of husband, home, children, and 
 all the duties of her proper and natural place in 
 the world. It means that, or else it means that 
 this is what she aims at and cherishes and wishes 
 she could do. Well, this sixty dollars a week 
 ' society ' woman has ' Thursdays ' on her cards, 
 and talks about whom ' she can meet ' and whom 
 she cannot meet. She moves out of a decent 
 street, where the rents are within her means, into 
 a flat (which is to say a place too small to permit 
 of proper privacy and the pride and self-respect 
 which home ownership engenders) because the 
 other neighbourhood was ' too poor,' and there 
 were ' dirty people ' there. She lives up to the 
 last cent of every dollar, with doctor, dentist, and 
 grocer in arrears, while her husband admits that 
 his most sacred aim is, not to save anything, but 
 to keep his insurance premiums paid up. What 
 makes up her ' set ' of the people * she can meet ' ? 
 The wives of a school principal, of a clerk in a 
 railroad office, of the manager of a branch tele- 
 
 156
 
 The Millionairess HS- 
 
 graph office, and of a few reporters. Are you 
 astonished? You cannot be, because you cannot 
 have been to any town or city where the same 
 is not the case. Everywhere, nowadays, each 
 country weekly has its ' society column/ which 
 chronicles the reception by Miss Jessamine Brown, 
 ' the queenly daughter of our popular boot and 
 shoe dealer,' and the dance given by Mrs. Marie 
 Perkins Hogg, wife of the well-known grocer, 
 ' to which was invited a select company.' The 
 disease is not merely dollar worship it is self- 
 worship. This is the age of individualism, of 
 selfishness, and its motto is * To the devil with 
 the others so long as I'm on top.' ' 
 
 " Be more personal, please," Laura said ; 
 " bring the situation home to me. I am neither 
 a grocer nor a telegraph clerk. I have a visiting 
 day, but have no children or husband, so that 
 I am not neglecting them. I have been taken 
 into a set led by Mrs. Beverley Russell and Mrs. 
 Charles Kellogg, you know the architect and 
 the great lawyer. And I have seen a great deal 
 of the circle in which are the Egerton- Woods 
 and Mrs. Mowbray-Stanton the bankers' wives. 
 What about them?" 
 
 157
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Think for yourself," Bryan replied. " Think 
 whether the wives you meet are denying them- 
 selves children so as to be free from that care. 
 Think, if they have children, whether they are 
 being brought up by servants toward the same 
 end. Think whether the aims, principles, and 
 general topics discussed in those houses are high, 
 serious, elevating. What are their manners and 
 feelings toward their servants? Try to recollect 
 what poor families they visit continually, what 
 poor children they are educating, what concern 
 and sympathy for the unfortunate, the sick and 
 the helpless are shadowed in their conversation. 
 Recall whether, when you dine with them, you 
 ever meet the managers and chief clerks of their 
 banks and the wives of these assistants of the 
 bankers, on terms of brotherhood at their table? " 
 
 " You know none of these things are custom- 
 ary," Laura answered. " They are things I never 
 thought of." 
 
 "But why? What do you find 'unnatural 
 about them? Miss Lamont, the unnatural and 
 wrong things are what you do find and find 
 most exaggerated among the two most artificial 
 peoples on earth, the English and the Americans. 
 
 158
 
 The Millionairess $& 
 
 But if, as you say, the things I ask about are 
 not customary, then let me ask you what is 
 customary ? Is it a life of pretence of superiority 
 to the masses? Is it an exclusiveness which 
 confines itself to those who have the power and 
 the inclination to spend money on entertainments 
 and pleasure? Is it a hardening of the heart to 
 every consideration, every plea, every condition 
 which disturbs their sense of ease and comfort 
 and pleasure for which things alone they live? 
 Carlyle, surrounded by similar conditions in 
 England, called it the Age of Barabbas and, 
 again, the Age of the Belly, but though a chief 
 stone in the arch of evil may be the dining-table, 
 I assure you that all the other senses are receiv- 
 ing far more than a healthy consideration. Your 
 set may confine its ministrations to the nourish- 
 ment of false pride, the ossification of the human 
 heart, and the titillation of the palate. God 
 knows I hope it is so. That is the case with 
 ' society ' in Chillicothe and Plainfield and 
 Watertown, Wisconsin. But these are appren- 
 tices to the scheme as even New York is, in a 
 way; for it has not yet come to the Roman 
 plan of serving a course of hot water after a 
 
 159
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 choice dish in order that a second serving may 
 be newly enjoyed." 
 
 Laura put up a hand in protest. 
 
 " You may be of the apprentices," Cross con- 
 tinued; "but the natural consequences of a sen- 
 sualist's which is to say a ' society ' existence 
 not based on genuine worth or pride of pedigree 
 are such as even you must have seen the signs 
 of: in the eccentricities of women's dress in- 
 vented by men modists in the sensual capital of 
 the world; in the familiarising and popularising 
 of paintings and statues of the nude ; in the char- 
 acter of the performances now given in the thea- 
 tres and the invasion of the music halls by ladies, 
 who have only lately been willing to witness all 
 that is shown in them; in the topics discussed 
 by the writers whose works attract the most atten- 
 tion in high life; in the evident purpose of the 
 so-called * music of the future.' I scarcely think 
 you can know, Miss Lament, how servile a 
 handmaiden of all the senses the more advanced 
 in high society have become." 
 
 " No," said Laura, made uneasy by the drift 
 of the talk ; " I know nothing of all this, and 
 I think, if you don't mind, I'd rather not know. 
 
 1 60
 
 The Millionairess Mf 
 
 So far as we have been able to follow you, 
 mamma and I, we have gained a great deal to 
 think about a great deal we did not know, 
 haven't we, mother? " 
 
 " Mr. Cross reminds me of Mr. Thynne, 
 whom we knew in Paris," Mrs. Lament said. 
 " \ heard you mention Paris, Mr. Cross. My 
 daughter and I lived there: she was mainly 
 educated there." 
 
 " I also know Paris," Cross replied. " There 
 are two Parises, though one is but little known 
 the one that is made up of homes and is as 
 wholesome as Philadelphia." 
 
 " Are you married, Mr. Cross? " Mrs. Lamont 
 asked. 
 
 " No, ma'am," said he ; and then, after a 
 pause, during which it was evident that his mind 
 flew to other scenes, he added : " Not married, 
 yet very much wedded." 
 
 Out in the garden, in the cool of the evening, 
 when Laura and he were lounging among the 
 flowers and solidifying their acquaintance, as 
 each brought out from the other the points on 
 which both could base a friendship, she reminded 
 him of this subject. 
 
 161
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " That was a strange answer you made to 
 mother when she asked if you were married," 
 said she. 
 
 " I only meant," said Cross, " that though I 
 am not married, I am wedded to the care of the 
 best woman present company always excepted 
 upon whom to-day's sun has shone ; but she 
 is an invalid sister instead of a wife." 
 
 Then, in a few graphic sentences, he described 
 to his companion the woman for whose trust and 
 esteem he cared more than for all else that the 
 world could offer him, a wasted wreck, impris- 
 oned at home by a lingering illness, hung as it 
 were above the grave by threads as delicate as 
 cobwebbery, yet still a beautiful woman to look 
 upon, ever serene, unvaryingly hopeful, amiable 
 as an angel, and with an intellect and intuition so 
 clear and keen as to cause her at times to appear 
 gifted beyond the compass of men's minds. 
 
 " Dear lady," said he, addressing her in a 
 fashion most singular, which yet did not sound 
 as it might from a person less intense ; " dear 
 lady, when I try to measure the love I bear for 
 one woman who is not only a sister but a shadow, 
 I grow aghast at the thought that I might one 
 
 162
 
 The Millionairess H3- 
 
 day love, as most men come to do, some woman 
 of solid flesh, of equal charm of mind and person. 
 The thought terrifies me. I pray that if it must 
 be, she prove to have the strength and wisdom 
 to restrain me, otherwise I should abandon all 
 else, and give up my life to an idolatry of her." 
 
 '' You cannot mean that," L^aura replied, catch- 
 ing only a glimmering idea of the life he out- 
 lined as of something madly romantic; "what 
 woman would value a love like that ? " 
 
 " How then do you picture love? " he inquired. 
 
 " Oh, I ? I cannot tell. I don't suppose I 
 have ever thought about it not really. How 
 would a woman think of it except as a consecra- 
 tion of her life to her husband? Would she not 
 enter into her new life with awe, trembling before 
 its mysteries, humbled by thoughts of her own 
 unworthiness, and yet clinging desperately to 
 the rock of her husband's love? I cannot express 
 the sense I have either of the majesty of love 
 or of its exquisite tenderness. Do you know 
 Schumann's songs of a woman's love and life? 
 In them the words and music picture a woman's 
 feelings more truly than anything I can imagine 
 or have ever read." 
 
 163
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " I owe you an apology," said Bryan. 
 " When you asked me to bring home to you what 
 I had to say against fashionable life, I tried to 
 do it. I was a fool. I had no idea I could be 
 such a fool. Society is not likely to do you any 
 harm. It may try but it can't hurt you." 
 
 " But what should I do, Mr. Cross ? I am not 
 a ' society woman/ I have merely coquetted with 
 society and a very plain and unpretentious 
 part of it at that. But, wait! Do not speak 
 yet, please. Let me frankly confess, first, that 
 though I do not think myself better than my 
 humblest neighbours, I do love the luxurious and 
 brilliant side of life, and the company of all who 
 are both honest and clever among those who orna- 
 ment it. I love the beautiful, the ornamental, the 
 luxurious, and I admire grace and charm and style 
 in both the intellects and personal bearing of re- 
 fined men and women. Is that wicked ? And if I 
 feel this inclination what must I do ? I have never 
 felt any hardening consequences. I am not blase 
 and those who affect to be so always repel me. 
 Tell me what I am to do but, first, believe me 
 when I say that I am not conscious of any false 
 pride or sin or shame in doing as I have done." 
 
 164
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 " My God ! " Cross broke out with startling 
 emphasis. " Do you ask me to bid you decide 
 between inclination and duty ? Me ? I who 
 live a lie, whose life has become hell for the lack 
 of a little courage? Spare me, Miss Lament. 
 Seek counsel of the vagrant winds, of the wanton 
 waves of yonder river yes, seek it of the 
 criminals in the jails rather than of such as I." 
 
 " Why, Mr. Cross ! " Miss Lament exclaimed, 
 her eyes wide with astonishment, her attitude one 
 of amazement and a little, too, of alarm. 
 
 " Oh, forgive me, Miss Lament," Cross replied. 
 " I am rude to disturb you with my misery. But 
 I take nothing back. Seek no advice of me." 
 
 165
 
 XIII. 
 
 LIKE A LILY ON AN ALTAR 
 
 " Roses, oh, how fair ye be ! 
 
 Ye are fading, dying 1 
 Ye should with my lady be, 
 On her bosom lying." Goethe, 
 
 HEN Bryan Cross pushed his way 
 through the great crowd at the ceme- 
 tery after his address over Teenah Muller's 
 grave, he was like a giant in conscious strength 
 and power. It was evident to all who had 
 witnessed his complete mastery of the people, 
 and had shrunk from the burning rain of his 
 attacks upon the selfishness of the age, that what- 
 ever chance he commanded the world to give him 
 would be proffered instantly and with full meas- 
 ure. The wonder was where such a light had 
 been hidden; how such a wizard had so long 
 restrained his powers. The foremost lecture 
 manager and his chief competitor were both at 
 the Clock House early on Monday morning with 
 offers which might have addled some men's heads, 
 
 1 66
 
 The Millionairess & 
 
 and when Bryan left the house he had the refusal 
 of a tour which embraced all the cities of the 
 first, second, and third rank on terms represent- 
 ing a modest fortune in a season. 
 
 We may as well pursue his career with a sweep- 
 ing glance forward and say at once that what was 
 promised was more than fulfilled. He prepared 
 two lectures. The title of the leading one was 
 " American Devils." " Mrs. John Smith's Thurs- 
 days " he prepared for second nights in large 
 cities or return visits to smaller ones. Surrender 
 to Self is a phrase which exactly describes the 
 source of the evils he called " American Devils." 
 From the text of " Mrs. Smith's Thursdays " he 
 inveighed against those pretensions to superior 
 rank which are made by an ever-widening mass 
 and which turn from pretence to reality in their 
 effect of ignoring the claims of the poor upon the 
 sympathy of all whose common badge is the 
 visiting card. 
 
 Before signing the agreement with the lyceum 
 manager, he proceeded characteristically by laying 
 the case before his sister. It would be profana- 
 tion to visit her sick-chamber with him in any but 
 a reverent spirit. It will be like seeing an Easter 
 
 167
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 lily upon a snow-white altar to pause for a mo- 
 ment in her room. Everything there was snow- 
 white the walls, the enamelled furniture, the 
 toilet and dressing stands, the shades and cur- 
 tains, even the wasted face upon the snowy pillow 
 above the immaculate counterpane. There was 
 just the lily tone the hint of ivory or cream 
 to set off her face against all else. Of white, also, 
 but touched with gold, were a dainty desk and an 
 upright piano, for within these walls Mabel Cross 
 lived her whole life. So little of the sick-chamber 
 was there about the room that its atmosphere held 
 in suspense the faint pure odour of wood violets. 
 A young Episcopal sister had been reading from 
 the Bible when Bryan came. Instantly Mabel's 
 face lighted up, a blush and a smile spread upon 
 it. She threw out her arms, hid under dainty 
 lawn and lace, and Bryan flew into them. She 
 was slightly older than he, yet looked somewhat 
 younger. To see her was to realise how it can 
 be that the angels are never of any age and yet 
 enjoy perpetual youth. 
 
 " I am just the same, dear Bryan," she said, 
 in reply to his first question ; " that is, I am very 
 happy." 
 
 1 68
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " But you," she added, holding him away at 
 arm's length, to regard him the better, " you are 
 so handsome, Bryan! What is the reason that 
 every pretty girl does not fling herself at you? 
 I would if I were one and were not already too 
 vain of being merely your sister. And what are 
 you trying to hide from me to-day? You look 
 as Joshua must when he heard the Lord say 
 that no man should be able to stand before him 
 all the days of his life. I know what the world 
 is talking about. Miss Jowett, here, has read 
 to me columns upon columns about your addresses 
 in the country. What a wonderful use God is 
 making of you, Bryan! Oh, do thank Him 
 enough and do not ever, for an instant, fancy 
 the power is your own and not His exerted 
 through you." 
 
 Bryan told her of the offer of the lecture 
 agent, and that he had come to consult her before 
 giving his answer. 
 
 " Splendid ! splendid ! " she cried, her pleasure 
 dancing in her brilliant eyes as well as charging 
 her voice. " You see now that your sister is 
 something more than a mere bundle on a shelf. 
 Oh, yes, I know that is what so big and strong 
 
 169
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 a brother must have often thought of such a 
 sister. Bundle, indeed! all the same, for years 
 I have been prophesying this would come. And 
 in your impatience you've been saying I was too 
 hopeful and too fond of you. Now, see, it's all 
 about to come true. Let us thank God, dear 
 Bryan, for His goodness to you and to me, 
 for is not your success my happiness? Then you 
 must promise never again to disparage my powers. 
 Though I'm only a shopworn old bundle, I have 
 sometimes an idea that I'm better fitted for 
 prophecy than if I had more flesh and blood to 
 think about. Joking apart, Bryan, I was think- 
 ing the other day I'd make a very good witch - 
 in a picture." 
 
 " If there are good witches, I'm sure of it, 
 Mabel." 
 
 " Bryan," she said, " I could not help regret- 
 ting that there was not a word of religion in 
 either of your addresses at Powellton. Were they 
 well reported in the newspapers?" 
 
 " Verbatim, Mabel," said he, while his brow 
 clouded. 
 
 " They teach only morality," said she. " Con- 
 fucius did that, but what does it avail, without 
 religion for its foundation?" 170
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 " I know, Mabel ; but " he was stammering 
 over what he had to say ; " you see " 
 
 " Yes, I know that they were fearfully mixed 
 crowds and one was an official occasion, but 
 now that you are free to utter whatever is in 
 your heart, you will not fail to emphasise the need 
 of the Christian faith as a basis of the reforms 
 you seek. There! How silly of me to criticise 
 such a brilliant and courageous beginning. You 
 will know how to turn it all to God's account. 
 Let us thank Him, now, for the opportunity, dear 
 brother, and then you shall tell me all your 
 plans." 
 
 So we will leave them, she praying aloud in a 
 voice like music melted by fervour, and he on 
 his knees by her snowy bed. 
 
 Can it be that, as we turn away, we catch a 
 glimpse of a guilty, shamefaced expression which 
 he hides as he puts up his hands to cover his 
 eyes? 
 
 With this invocation of a blessing on his tour, 
 Bryan started upon the experiences of a lecturer, 
 so varied and interesting at first, so wearying and 
 monotonous in time. At first it was his wont to 
 read the preliminary notices of the newspapers in 
 
 171
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 each town, to look about for his lithographed 
 portraits even to walk past the lecture hall, 
 soon after the doors opened, to see whether any 
 one or what number of persons was going 
 to hear him. But the mill-made notices soon 
 palled, the portraits took on a deadly familiarity, 
 and he became so certain of having to push his 
 way through crowds at each hall entrance, when 
 it came time for him to appear, that at last nothing 
 of the first sensations endured. In their place 
 came the fatigue of never-ending train catching, 
 of unpleasant journeying and of broken nights 
 abbreviated at both ends. 
 
 A joy that compensated him to the end was 
 that of mastering his audiences, establishing a 
 circuit between them and himself, and then, as it 
 were, ordering them to laugh, to weep, or to 
 thrill, or else to gasp when he sent home some 
 unexpected, fearless, conscience-stabbing exposure 
 of their folly. 
 
 He was everywhere successful beyond the hopes 
 of his manager, and what is called " Society," 
 which took him <up as a new " sensation " when 
 he attacked self-surrender, went the wilder over 
 him for what he had to say in condemnation of 
 
 172
 
 The Millionairess Hr 
 
 those who pursue pleasure in dress and dining, 
 in erotic fiction or in immodesty gilt- framed or 
 palpitating beneath pink silk upon the stage. 
 
 There is a class of persons in each community, 
 he found, whose aim is to hunt down every indi- 
 vidual whose name has appeared in print half a 
 dozen times, to entrap such in their homes, and 
 to exhibit them to their friends. The tricks to 
 which the autograph collectors descend are hardly 
 more ingenious or more shameless than the wiles 
 of these Lion Trappers whose successes entail a 
 cruelty of which the Autograph Demons are guilt- 
 less. Self-respecting men and women who pos- 
 sessed this instinct of the showman often frankly 
 invited Bryan to their houses " to meet the best 
 people in the place," and he accepted or not, as 
 he felt disposed. But when he tired of the unfair, 
 one-sided game, and resolved, as 'he said, " to ex- 
 hibit only in his cage," then the other, conscience- 
 less folk ensnared him. They asked him to an 
 " informal family dinner " here, or " a snug 
 corner and a pipe " there, or else to " a quiet chat 
 with a great admirer " somewhere else always 
 letting in the entire neighbourhood upon him when 
 he was cornered, and forcing him to go through 
 
 173
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 the familiar routine so sickening to him and 
 degrading to the others. Along came the woman 
 loaded with " a thought " or a " burning ques- 
 tion," the milk-eyed maidens with their effrontery 
 materialised in the form of albums, the dress- 
 makers' models who said they had " so longed to 
 have the honour," but in reality were only desir- 
 ous of getting their names into print as being " in 
 it " once again. Sometimes Bryan also met the 
 Enthusiast in Side Curls who had got a circle or 
 a club (or would instantly get up one) for him 
 to lecture to for nothing ; and, always, there were 
 a very few men present. One was paying the 
 bills and looked puzzled. The others wondered 
 how many dollars Bryan made and sometimes 
 asked him. 
 
 " They have actually taken up me and my 
 lectures as a fad," he wailed in a letter to Laura. 
 " Think how desperate the idlers must be for a 
 fillip to their jaded senses when they run after 
 one whose only purpose is to put them to shame. 
 But only think how it belittles me how they 
 insult me ! Before I resolved to make no appear- 
 ance anywhere except in the lecture halls I was 
 actually trapped into a ' Bryan Cross Lilac Tea ' 
 
 174
 
 The Millionairess Hf 
 
 at the house of the wife of a college professor 
 who, you may be sure, kept her plan from me, 
 and made me believe I was only to meet her 
 husband. After that, I absolutely withheld myself 
 from everybody, and determined to at least ap- 
 pear too serious to be used as a fashionable play- 
 thing. I made my climaxes religious (deistically 
 and eclectically, so as not to narrow my influence 
 to any creed) and I added some very plain speech 
 almost too plain about the tendencies of 
 Fashionable Sensualism. This has set my later 
 audiences quivering, but I fear that even this may 
 be regarded simply as a ' sensation.' It seems 
 of no use. The invitations roll in as plentifully as 
 ever, and now I am besieged at each hotel and 
 overwhelmed by fluttering frocks at the close of 
 each lecture." 
 
 175
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE HUNGER OF A 
 LONESOME HEART 
 
 " It is not good that the woman should be alone." Old Testament, altered. 
 
 /F, without each other's knowledge, we could 
 enclose our souls or even a little of our 
 sight and hearing, in our letters to our friends, 
 what experiences we would have! The private 
 scenes upon which our letters often intrude, the 
 comments and conversations over the reading of 
 them, all the phases of the intimacy of our mis- 
 sives in places where we must, at the most, con- 
 tent ourselves with a formal footing what a 
 broad new world these would create! True, our 
 letters then might be as well considered and as 
 infrequent as those of the old Japanese in their 
 artistic heyday, who employed an artist to deco- 
 rate a scroll, another to write the message upon 
 it, and then another to fabricate a beautiful box 
 of lacquer for its envelope the same exquisite 
 casket to which our ladies of the OccH^nt have 
 
 176
 
 The Millionairess $& 
 
 fallen heirs and now use for a glove box. But 
 costly and important as letter writing would then 
 become, perhaps we should say as the Irish sailor 
 did when he was being sewn up in a shotted sack 
 for having scaled the walls of a Turkish harem : 
 " It's a bother but 'twas worth it." 
 
 This written wail of Bryan's, for instance, 
 condemning Fashion upon new counts, came to 
 Laura in the heat of preparation for the greatest 
 social triumph of her life. She was, indeed, so 
 busy with Pleasure that she did not notice the 
 irony of the coincidence. Mechanics were setting 
 up two ornamental fountains in the flower-beds 
 that flanked the ends of the Clock House. Elec- 
 tricians were hanging glass bulbs, as fruit would 
 grow, upon the largest trees that skirted the 
 further side of the main lawn before the mansion. 
 Carpenters were girdling the giant elm at the 
 lawn's end with a music gallery to cover which 
 with gay cloth other workmen were in waiting. 
 At the edge of the broad gravelled drive others 
 were setting up a mast upon which was to be 
 hung an arc-light. And in an opening among the 
 trees a red and white marquee, for use as a per- 
 formers' retiring room, was already up and lend- 
 
 177
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 ing its colour to the scene. Two great cases of 
 china, glass, and plate from a caterer's had been 
 set down by the servants' door in the back, and 
 the caterer's agent was standing by them, watch 
 in hand, despairing of the coming of his cooks 
 and waiters, but determined that, at least, the 
 heavy cases which had arrived should not now 
 escape. 
 
 Still other workmen were covering the stairs 
 and passages with crash, and Laura's own serv- 
 ants, under her eye as she stood on the lawn, were 
 decorating the monotonous brick wall of the 
 mansion by hanging from each window a Persian 
 rug patterned in red, yellow, and black. Her 
 plan was that three of the four sides of the 
 garden, already illuminated on two sides by the 
 marquee and the band gallery, should vie with one 
 another in colour. 
 
 ' You're showing too much of the rugs, Miss 
 Johnson," Laura called to the housekeeper, who 
 was at one of the windows. " Measure the 
 height of half the window, from the sill to the 
 upper sash, and then hang exactly that length 
 of each rug from each window. I am certain 
 that will look well, but be sure to call me when 
 one line is finished." 178
 
 The Millionairess HS- 
 
 " Vanity, vanity and vexation of spirit," said 
 some one behind her back. " A tithe of this 
 expense a tiny fraction of the time and energy 
 thus wasted on frivolity think what it would 
 mean if expended in charity and good works." 
 
 It was York Stone who had come unheeded 
 upon the lawn. Laura turned upon him swiftly, 
 and, tossing her head with a gesture of spirited 
 defiance, prepared to defend herself. He met 
 her eyes with a grave expression. 
 
 " Good-morning, Mr. Stone," said she. " If 
 you are going to find fault, too, then I know I 
 must be doing wrong, but I can't feel it, I cannot 
 believe it ; and I sometimes think if every serious 
 friend turns upon me and pursues me with re- 
 proaches for what I still feel innocent in doing, 
 I shall I shall persist in my fault and and 
 I sha'n't care any more." 
 
 ' Tinsel, bunting, music, wine, the short-lived 
 sparkle of bright eyes, the froth of human wit; 
 oh-h-h " here a long groan ; " oh-h-h, Miss 
 Lamont, what things are these for thee to live 
 for?" 
 
 " Are you in earnest or are you teasing me? " 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! " the young rector roared, 
 
 179
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 and then again, " ha ! ha ! ha ! " in a fit of loud 
 laughter. " In earnest," said he, " ay, Miss 
 Lament, these are tears which you mistake for 
 laughter. Excuse my grief. Would any man 
 laugh to see a young lady misspend her life? 
 Would Mr. Paton laugh? Would Mr. Cross? 
 The hanging gardens of Babylon, suggested by 
 that fiddlers' gallery; the gaudy drapery at each 
 window recalling the Oriental splendour of By- 
 zantium; this pole, reminiscent of the favourite 
 ornaments of the cruel doges ; the fountains, sym- 
 bolising the waste of every era since Solomon; 
 the loops of light suggesting Nero's fearful means 
 of turning night into day; oh-h-h-h, Sister La- 
 mont ha ! ha ! ha ! " And off his spirits went 
 in a fit of laughter. 
 
 "You don't think it's wickedness, then?" 
 " Well," said the man of piety and of high 
 spirits, " to tell the truth, I've a considerable doubt 
 whether you have any original sin left in you, and, 
 where there is so much wickedness without doubt, 
 I think we ought to be too busy to bother with 
 that of which we are not at all certain." 
 
 " I received attentions and courtesies from a 
 great many persons in town last winter," Laura 
 
 1 80
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 remarked ; " and I was not able to return them 
 there, so I thought I would give a rather elaborate 
 entertainment to all my best friends and acquaint- 
 ances before the weather grows too cool for me 
 to utilise my garden as well as my house." 
 
 " You've hired the whole hotel for your over- 
 flow, they say, and refurnished the bedrooms." 
 
 " Do people say that? " Laura inquired. " It 
 isn't true. I have taken the bedrooms for to- 
 morrow night there are only eight and in 
 two that were very shabby I have put some cot- 
 tage furniture which I mean to give afterwards 
 to a servant who is to be married next month. 
 I'm going to send the bachelors to the hotel and 
 entertain the ladies and married people here in the 
 house. It all looks very pretentious, but I hoped 
 it only seemed so to me because I am managing 
 it. My guests cannot be aware of half the 
 trouble I've been to. And as a mere polite effort 
 to meet my obligations it seems as little as I 
 can do." 
 
 " I only wish they could know how far from 
 frivolous you are," the clergyman said. " Oh, 
 I know that you do not wish your work known, 
 and I honour you for the feeling, but, all the same, 
 
 181
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 it is a pity that such an example to others should 
 be lost. I have come in answer to your letter; 
 can we talk of your work out here ? " 
 
 " Better go in the library, I think," she an- 
 swered, and led the way into the house. "I'll 
 call mother. She does not know that you are 
 here." 
 
 When Mrs. Lament came down to join Mr. 
 Stone and her daughter in the library, she gave 
 him a look which (had he known as much as 
 we) he would have interpreted to mean " be kind 
 to her." That was the elder lady's spoken or 
 signalled injunction to every gentleman caller, 
 among all of whom, she could foresee, there must 
 eventually be one to prove himself the man of 
 destiny. 
 
 " I have done as you suggested," said Mr. 
 Stone. " The second year is ending and we can 
 look forwards and backwards backwards upon 
 a promising growth in values and returns, I am 
 happy to say, and forwards with good hopes. 
 The five-acre lot at Wapata has " 
 
 But there is no intention here to enter with 
 them upon their discussion of the profits and 
 losses mainly the latter and the hopes and 
 
 182
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 plans of this warm-hearted, open-handed fair 
 philanthropist and her man of affairs, so singu- 
 larly chosen (or elected by himself) from among 
 the clergy. 
 
 Rather let us merely catch at the end of the 
 dialogue, since that does not tend to lead us from 
 the main theme the heart wanderings and the 
 social adventures of this maiden millionaire. 
 
 " I shall deserve your praise," Miss Lament 
 was saying, " when I can feel that I am doing 
 all that I am conscious is demanded of me, and 
 that will only be when I buy out the tavern in 
 the village, and manage it or have it managed 
 in concert with our plans. Its barroom is the 
 greatest obstacle to the complete happiness of 
 my tenants and neighbours, and to our entire 
 success in helping them. Properly managed, for 
 the sale of only wines and beer, of the purest 
 make, and by some one who will not sell to 
 drunkards or children, or keep the place open 
 beyond the legal hours, it would not harm my 
 people or hinder my work." 
 
 " You must never dream of managing a bar- 
 room," Mr. Stone replied. " The idea of a young 
 lady in such a relation to the public is too start- 
 
 183
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 ling for people to view it correctly. I could do 
 it that is, I should hope to be able to obtain 
 permission from my bishop " 
 
 :< You a clergyman ! " Laura exclaimed ; 
 " you must not even speak of it." 
 
 " And yet a dozen or more clergymen, aware 
 that prohibition has proven worse than a failure, 
 already manage such resorts in England. To do 
 good to lessen the sum of evil in the world - 
 that is a clergyman's duty." 
 
 " Oh, I know," she replied showing by her 
 tone that she did not know ; " but you have to 
 consider your church and brothers of the clergy, 
 while I am alone; I have no one, nothing to 
 hinder. Clearly, I am the one to do it. How 
 often we talk about it in just this way. We 
 always talk 'round in a circle and come to no 
 conclusion. I do not want to do it, but it must 
 be done, and I am the one to undertake it." 
 
 " My dear Miss Lamont," said the handsome 
 young rector, pausing to take both her hands in 
 his own. " My dear Miss Lamont, you have your 
 sex, your position, your maidenhood to regard." 
 
 " Then I wish I were a man, a" worker, and 
 the head of a family," said she. But she was not 
 
 184
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 thinking of what she said. On the contrary, she 
 was leaving her hands in his another second or 
 two on purpose to discover whether by any chance 
 he would invest his grasp with even the slightest 
 sign of what she would have called " a human 
 feeling." She waited and watched for a betrayal 
 of personal feeling, a tiny liberty, or even a slight 
 relaxing and tightening of his hold upon her. 
 She was disappointed. She drew her hands away, 
 almost with a sigh. 
 
 " It's becoming rather a hackneyed saying with 
 me," Mr. Stone remarked, " but I'll repeat it 
 I think you are a very wonderful woman." 
 
 " And you are a singular man," she said to 
 herself, as she heard the door close behind him. 
 Having merely recorded this thought, she was 
 ashamed and blushed as if some one might have 
 heard it and divined the impulse which prompted 
 it. 
 
 She walked to the table and collected her 
 books and papers, but her mind clung to its 
 sensation so unmaidenlike, so almost im- 
 modest. 
 
 " I don't care," she said to herself, " he is 
 singular. And so is Cousin Archie; and I am 
 
 185
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 sure that it is just as well they are; though, as 
 for Mr. Stone, I really do think him strong and 
 manly. I lean upon him. And so is Mr. Beek- 
 man singular " but at the mere mention of the 
 name of this cavalier, who was more distant than 
 either of the others in his manner, her blushes 
 came again. And this time they felt scorching 
 hot upon her cheeks. 
 
 1 86
 
 XV. 
 
 CUPID BUNGLES A LITTLE 
 
 " Then the fiddling and fifing and strumming begin 
 Such whirling and twirling and skirling and din." 
 
 Goethe. 
 
 ON her night of nights when Miss 
 Lament gave her grand party, the great 
 dial in the tower, from which the " Clock 
 House " got its name, looked down upon a 
 score of women in faultless costume and with 
 such grace and colours as vied with the most 
 brilliant charms of the garden; upon another 
 score of men full of the strong calm dignity of its 
 trees. At times all glided with the music as 
 lightly as it floated through the air, and, for an 
 hour, a dozen guests recited the mirthful lines of 
 a comedietta by Archie Paton, not too suggest- 
 ive of Boccaccio yet full of the charm and 
 colour of his scene-settings and blending with 
 the surroundings of verdure, sky, luxury, false 
 lights, and the merry spirit of a holiday. 
 
 Later, the scene was shifted to the great dining- 
 
 187
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 hall, where the women's eyes flashed back the bril- 
 liant banquet-jets and their lips and cheeks and 
 showy dresses echoed the glory of the flowers up- 
 on the walls and table ; where the men expressed 
 by easy attitudes and witty speech the confidence 
 which marks men as the gods of earth. After the 
 supper and its bubbling cheer, a half a dozen of 
 the ladies and a gentleman or two appeared in 
 a semi-ballet and semi-operetta called " The Loves 
 of the Flowers," written and put into music by 
 two members of the Boozers. There were 
 ballads by the ladies, Miss Lament herself singing 
 two or three Italian love-songs. Mr. Courtlandt 
 Beekman told the beautiful story of a Chinese 
 drama. Hours were spent in these ways between 
 dinner and midnight-supper, but no one heeded 
 them at the time or ever ceased to wish for their 
 return afterward. 
 
 York Stone had promised to attend, but was 
 kept away by the serious illness of the wife of 
 a labourer, " a Romanist," he waggishly wrote, 
 " yet as human, apparently, as if she were of the 
 Episcopalian elect." Archie Paton was among 
 the guests, though he fell into disfavour with 
 the other ladies by decoying the men into the 
 
 1 88
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 library where the strong waters and cigars were 
 set out for them. Two or three times deputations 
 of pretty women went to the library to complain 
 that they were abandoned by their cavaliers, and 
 each time they reported that Archie was the 
 Yorick who was " setting the table in a roar " 
 and proving a stronger magnet than their fair 
 selves. But Archie was very attentive to Mrs. 
 Lament at times, and eventually regained in part 
 the ground he had lost with his young cousin 
 by saying that he would stay a week if he might, 
 as his new r book was " flowing like a bursted 
 reservoir " and he felt that he could perform 
 wonders away from the distractions of town. 
 
 This was before she had enjoyed a delightful 
 half -hour of marked attention from Courtlandt 
 Beekman. It is doubtful whether after that great 
 joy she would have beamed such warm thanks and 
 evident delight upon her cousin as she vouchsafed 
 to him when he intruded himself in the midst of 
 her concern over what seemed the studied neglect 
 of Mr. Beekman. 
 
 Courtlandt had been polite to her, yet no more 
 so than to every other woman at the party. And 
 as she watched him and weighed his manner 
 
 189
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 toward her she grew wretchedly jealous and 
 envious of the others. For again, he was the 
 king among the men, the master among the 
 women. No man there compared with him in 
 looks or build or in the proud yet easy habit 
 of command that was his as if by birth. Not one 
 other in that company, of either sex, possessed 
 such grace of movement or such genius in tact and 
 in a form of wit that was always brilliant and 
 never unkind. 
 
 Suddenly he came to her side, and said that 
 he had been waiting a long while to see her by 
 herself and to thank her for remembering him. 
 
 " For though you made a deep impression 
 upon me at the club in New York," he said, " I 
 had no reason to suppose that I would be remem- 
 bered by you." 
 
 " You forget," Laura replied, " that you pre- 
 dicted that you were some day to know me very 
 well." 
 
 " Better than I know, or ever knew, man or 
 woman on earth ! " Courtlandt answered, repeat- 
 ing his very words at the interview she had re- 
 called to mind. " I feel that to be so true that 
 I am impatient at this meeting and shall be I 
 
 190
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 fear at any that does not fulfil the alluring 
 prospect I saw before my mental sight when 
 I first spoke those words to you. Do not think 
 me presumptuous the prospect was only of a 
 chance more than one chance to be of 
 slight service to you. Naturally, I inferred that 
 if I ever were so fortunate as to serve you we 
 must by that means come to know one another." 
 
 " And do you remember that I said you were 
 uncanny ? " Laura asked. She meant only to avoid 
 replying to his peculiar promise of future inti- 
 macy, but, the moment she had thus spoken, the 
 rudeness of such a slighting reply to so manly 
 a promise of service struck her, and she burned 
 with shame. 
 
 " Oh, forgive me, Mr. Beekman," said she, " I 
 did not mean that in the way it sounded. I only 
 meant I really only " 
 
 " But I see no reason for an apology," he 
 answered. " That reminds me, by the way, that, 
 if I should not apologise for airing a trifling 
 power I possess, I should at least explain it. I 
 do not want to appear either uncanny or vain." 
 
 He then told her that his occasional ability to 
 foresee events which were about to happen, and 
 
 191
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 his seeming divination of the thoughts and im- 
 pulses of others, was very limited in its scope, 
 and was in some degree possessed by millions of 
 men and women. It came, he thought, of school- 
 ing one's mind to thinking away from one's self, 
 of reflection, and of being much in solitude or 
 with men whose language he could not speak. 
 He had seen the power developed in a Buddhist 
 priest in Japan to such proportions as to be really 
 awesome. On the day that the Empress Eliza- 
 beth of Austria was murdered, this priest, in his 
 cottage in Japan, told him that " a Western 
 queen had been shot." 
 
 " Could I project my mind as far as that," 
 Beekman said, " or could I develop a mentality 
 so sensitive to the most distant influences, I might 
 seriously vaunt my powers. As it is, I only 
 stumble a little more frequently than most other 
 persons upon revelations which might very gen- 
 erally, I think, have been gained by mere intense 
 observation of the Sherlock Holmes order. In- 
 deed, my solitary journeys and long experiences 
 among peoples of strange speech and more 
 strange customs have so developed my powers 
 of observation that perhaps all my apparently 
 
 192
 
 The Millionairess HS- 
 
 mysterious inklings may be only feats of watch- 
 fulness and study of my surroundings." 
 
 " That would not account for your saying 
 what you did to me," she suggested. 
 
 He looked into her eyes for a second, was 
 about to speak, then checked himself and laughed 
 merrily. 
 
 " No," said he, " what I said of my one day 
 knowing you was of your doing rather than mine. 
 You said it to me first or hinted it though 
 you may not have been conscious of it." 
 
 "I? Why, what do you mean?" she asked. 
 
 " I mean a very trite, ordinary thing indeed," 
 he said, again looking inquiringly into her face. 
 " It is something I cannot tell you if you do 
 not know it, yet it is as commonplace and as old 
 as old as the human race itself." 
 
 "I wish you would tell me. It is not nice to 
 laugh and not explain." 
 
 " You are right," he said ; " quite right. I 
 mean, then, that when I first saw you I read in 
 your eyes that we might be friends if we would; 
 that we were not repellent forces perhaps that 
 is all I read ; or, perhaps, it meant more than that. 
 You must know how much I read." 
 
 193
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " But you said it when you were blindfolded 
 and only heard me speak." 
 
 " Did I? Why, yes,"'he added, loving to tease 
 her and to play close to the edge of an unwar- 
 ranted delicate declaration, " then it must have 
 been your voice which made me dare presume 
 that, in years to come, we shall know one an- 
 other better as friends, you know and so 
 think of each other, I hope, to the end of our 
 days." 
 
 Thus they parted. That he teased her is cer- 
 tain, but that she missed the true import of his 
 carefully chosen words is by no means so posi- 
 tive. If it was impossible for him to declare 
 his true feeling, it was no less impossible for 
 her to pretend to divine it. As she thought of 
 the conversation afterward, it seemed to her that 
 his voice imparted more than his words. How 
 long and fondly did she recall the tender tones 
 with which he had clothed his guarded words. 
 
 In the morning, after all but her cousin had 
 gone, the happy girl opened her eyes amid her 
 dainty laces, upon the many exquisite appoint- 
 ments of her beautiful bedchamber, and felt her 
 heart swell and her breath quicken as she recalled 
 
 194
 
 Tlie Millionairess H 
 
 this interview, with the hero of her gathering. In 
 time she recalled that her cousin, Archie Paton, 
 was now her guest, and she began to plan such 
 loving hospitality for him as she would have liked 
 to bestow upon Beekman. Thus it is with affec- 
 tionate women. They will often heap the kind- 
 ness they feel for an absent one upon the first 
 object at hand, loving to do their utmost for the 
 mere relief of expending the kindliness begotten 
 in their joy. Thus it came about that Laura be- 
 stowed her gigantic all upon Archie. 
 
 She arose early to make sure of being about 
 when he got up. She breakfasted quickly, and 
 then waited for the first sign of his stirring, 
 which being given, she .fluttered to the kitchen 
 door to discuss with the cook what could be 
 done to make his breakfast notable. The fruit 
 for the table was carefully selected, the news- 
 dealer was prodded to deliver the papers half an 
 hour earlier, all the principal dailies were taken 
 and spread out upon a side table, and when, at 
 last, the pampered guest appeared, Miss Laura 
 lurked in the passage and inspected everything 
 that went to him. Thus she made certain that 
 the toast was crisp and properly buttered, that 
 
 195
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 the cream was sweet, the coffee was correctly 
 made, and that every dish was perfect. While 
 he sat in solemn grandeur she waited, now in 
 the drawing-room, now in the garden, seeing to 
 it in the meantime, that the library, which was set 
 apart as his workroom, was made as fit as she 
 would have had it for a king, with flowers on 
 the side table and mantelpiece, a fire in the grate, 
 and everything in excellent order. Her mother 
 and the servants were positive that marriage was 
 in the air. We, who know more, are equally 
 certain that the young lady was demonstrating, 
 in the way in which she gave up these days to 
 him, just how, when the time came, she would 
 surrender the remainder of her life to the man 
 of her ultimate choice. 
 
 When Archie emerged, surfeited with good 
 fare and screwed up to the proper nervous ten- 
 sion by the faked or exaggerated horrors of the 
 morning press, Laura was nowhere to be found. 
 Every servant said he or she had just seen her, 
 but none could find her without a great deal of 
 going up and down stairs and in and out of side 
 doors. Such was her I had almost said art, 
 but I mean such was her sex. 
 
 196
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 Being found, she came eagerly, wreathed in 
 smiles and as filled with solicitude as to how he 
 felt and had slept and breakfasted as a sea-shell 
 is of sound. But when he proposed a drive or a 
 tour of the garden or a chat, she found many 
 seeming obstacles arising from her morning 
 duties, all of which vanished at the point at which 
 they were likely to appear serious. Therefore 
 she always did what he suggested, and, at first, 
 he linked a hand or a little finger with hers, and 
 was very attentive and happy and loud of pre- 
 tence that she was putting his work out of mind 
 further than all the distractions of town could 
 have driven it. 
 
 This phase lasted two days, and on each night 
 he read the opening chapters of his novel to her, 
 disclosing a heroine in high life with no parents, 
 but possessing a Madison Avenue house, another 
 at Cos Cob, and millions upon millions of dollars. 
 He had not yet considered how he should set 
 about it, but he was going to compel her to be 
 actively useful; in maintaining a rendezvous for 
 the poor, he thought. There they could obtain 
 advice, medicines, and afternoon tea, or leave 
 their children with nurses and toys, hear lectures 
 
 197
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 and enjoy the elevating company of a sisterhood 
 of shabby-genteel ladies that she would found. 
 There, also, they could obtain work and sell 
 worsted stockings, " or whatever poor folks 
 make," he said, " to while away their leisure 
 hours." 
 
 Laura was greatly disappointed. She had been 
 prepared to have this novel revolutionise her life. 
 Reluctantly she admitted to herself that Archie 
 had not advanced beyond the commonest errors 
 of his time in his views of the needs of the poor. 
 She abandoned hope of guidance from him, and 
 began to realise more than she ever had before 
 how practical and sagacious were her own endeav- 
 ours. She determined to ask Mr. Stone to think 
 out with her some entirely new scheme for 
 Archie's heroine. Her modesty forbade her to 
 make her own work known to him. But, in the 
 meantime, Archie had tired of reading his novel, 
 had ceased to twine fingers with her on long 
 walks, and was too evidently becoming bored. 
 On the fourth day occurred the momentous meet- 
 ing with Mr. Stone. Alas! Archie treated him 
 coldly. To all intents and purposes, he declined 
 to discuss practical matters with him because he 
 
 198
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 was a clergyman and therefore could not com- 
 prehend worldly affairs in any but a visionary 
 and sentimental light. Laura afterward chided 
 him with having been rude to her friend, but he 
 was unrepentant. 
 
 " My dear cousin," he said, " parsons are an- 
 achronisms. They come in somewhere between 
 the ichthyosaurus and the dodo. They have sur- 
 vived because your sex perceives their helpless- 
 ness, and they work your sex's sentimentality 
 as if it were a piano. Of this particular man's 
 church it is said that it interferes less with busi- 
 ness and religion than any other, and he will 
 probably tell you that most of the other churches 
 are societies for the holding of religious mass 
 meetings. Once upon a time I had, simultane- 
 ously, a coloured valet and a pair of lavender 
 trousers. It was a foregone conclusion that they 
 would gravitate together with violence in time, 
 and they did so at the end of a year. When I 
 chided Sam for unblushingly wearing the gar- 
 ment in my presence, he replied : ' Marse Archie, 
 I done been 'shamed for to see you wearing dose 
 pants. 'Pears like you dunno dat ev'yboddy's 
 sayin' dat dey don't fit you nowheres.' Well, 
 
 199
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 cousin, those lavender trousers and I are like the 
 poor and the priests. The world has left one 
 to manage the other for centuries, and, as it is 
 evident that the priests don't fit the problem 
 ' nowheres/ it is time that practical men stepped 
 in and took the problem out of their hands." 
 
 Laura felt it on the tip of her tongue to say 
 that Mr. Stone was sufficiently practical to have 
 been in the winning crew and the football team 
 in Yale only five or six years ago, and that, since 
 then, he had in all probability been intimate with 
 the daily concerns of more hard-working folk 
 than most men. But she was so hurt by her 
 cousin's egotism, rudeness, and irreverent atti- 
 tude toward religion that she merely responded 
 with a forced smile. At breakfast next morning, 
 he got a round-robin from his friends in the Madi- 
 son Club, saying that he must come and play one 
 or two games in a billiard tourney which he had 
 too hastily concluded that he had won, or be 
 prepared to see the palm go to a rival. He 
 sped to town and returned the next morning, but 
 on the following night he went again to the city, 
 and this time wired to his cousin to send on his 
 things as " pressing business unexpectedly de- 
 tained him." 200
 
 The Millionairess HS- 
 
 At the club that night he said to his nearest 
 friend : " I am like the Irishman who came out 
 of the hospital saying that he had lost four weeks 
 of his life saving the rest of it. I only lost four 
 days to keep a promise to a charming cousin. 
 If I had promised a month's visit, I'd have set 
 fire to the house to get out of it." 
 
 Before the huge octopus of marble fastened 
 its last heart-chilling tentacle around him, and 
 drew him in to sink supinely on the soft leather 
 cushions in its maw, he wrote a sugar-and-water 
 (the first ingredient was indubitably sugar) note 
 to Laura and fancied that it would satisfy her. 
 
 Her incessant energy gave her plenty of 
 thoughts to dull the edge of her disappointment 
 with Archie. For one thing, the gay season was 
 opening in New York, and she was being invited 
 here and there, to this dance, that theatre party, 
 this musicale, or other gay affairs. During the 
 previous winter she had spent her nights in town, 
 part of the time in a hotel and part of the time 
 in a flat, but this winter she had an opportunity 
 to achieve the ideal thing in the way of temporary 
 quarters in town, by obtaining excellent accom- 
 modations, and paying for them with money 
 
 20 1
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 which would help a young girl to support herself. 
 This was a beautiful Canadienne who had come 
 to town with her mother to seek her fortune, and 
 had been driven as a last resort to try posing for 
 artists. In a fortunate hour she had applied to 
 Delafield Wright, Laura's friend, and the cele- 
 brated painter. He utilised her as a draped model 
 in his best work of the year, and paid her as a 
 prince might have done, but earnestly advised her 
 to allow him and his friends to establish her 
 as mistress of a boarding-house. All the men 
 and women of the Beaux Arts Club worked 
 with a will to start the two ladies in a fashion- 
 able neighbourhood, not because there was any- 
 thing degrading in the life of a model espe- 
 cially as such a woman would follow it but 
 because she and her mother were manifestly of 
 a quality to make it pitiful for the younger 
 woman to seek work of the sort. 
 
 So the weeks wore on and established Laura 
 in her place in the pleasure life of the capital. 
 They settled her in her more than occasional 
 quarters at the Canadiennes'. They busied her at 
 times in her new venture in supplying a large com- 
 munal greenhouse to her poor associates in the 
 
 202
 
 The Millionairess HS- 
 
 flower industry, and her older one of entertaining 
 these humble partners at the Clock House, now 
 and then, and visiting them in their own homes 
 between whiles. 
 
 Her serious occupations threw her more fre- 
 quently than ever in the company of Mr. Stone. 
 She became aware of how much she relied upon 
 his assistance, and acknowledged to herself that 
 he was the healthiest and most evenly balanced, 
 most unselfish character in her narrow ken. After 
 discovering that she leaned upon him, she began 
 to study him as she had never done before. She 
 tried to discover what was unsatisfactory in their 
 relations, for she was conscious that there was 
 something about him which disappointed her. 
 His nice sense of honour, his robust adherence 
 to principle, his way of ranking his duties to 
 the poor above his appointments with her did 
 these irritate as well as awe her? She used to 
 hear with interest of his part in the sports of 
 the village youths, rich and poor, and now why 
 should she now have to struggle to regard them 
 w r ith the same degree of approval ? It had always 
 been a matter of pride with her that York Stone 
 treated her with marked and formal respect. Was 
 
 203
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 she piqued because he did not venture farther? 
 Gould this be the case, now that she suspected 
 Courtlandt Beekman of a love for her that gave 
 her a pride beyond all her earlier dreaming? 
 Remember how affectionate was her nature. 
 Remember how wholly without a true, close 
 friend the poor girl was. Remember, too, how 
 most of us, of both sexes, love to feel ourselves 
 admired. Admired ? Why is not " beloved " the 
 better word? 
 
 " You were glad of an excuse not to come to 
 the party I gave to my city friends," she said 
 to the rector one day. 
 
 " I fully intended to come," he replied, " but a 
 serious case of sickness kept me away." 
 
 " You have taken the utmost interest in my 
 work among the people," she continued, " but the 
 other side of my life, the lighter side, you 
 never show even friendly interest in that." 
 
 " You have adopted my plans in your philan- 
 thropic work," he replied, " and I am very anx- 
 ious to see them given a fair trial. When you 
 first came here and I heard of your giving away 
 money, right and .left, I was alarmed. I thought 
 you might undo all my work. I'll confess to 
 
 204
 
 The Millionairess Hf 
 
 you that I lay in wait for you and followed you 
 several days until at last I cornered you at Bar- 
 bara Wildey's. You don't mind my telling 
 you, now? I'm thankful I spoke as I did to 
 you, frankly and under the strain of my fears, 
 because I startled you into thinking for yourself, 
 and from that day it has been you who have 
 taken the lead, and I have been only a left hand 
 to you in our way of inciting the poor to rise 
 by their own efforts." 
 
 " But my pleasures, which expose me to so 
 much criticism; you never speak of them." 
 " I do not know your friends, Miss Lamont." 
 " Oh/' she exclaimed, in her impatience, " how 
 guarded you are. I believe if you saw me 
 doing wrong you would not reprove me." 
 
 " I hope I should not forget myself to that 
 extent," Stone said, in a manner maddeningly 
 calm. 
 
 " Suppose I asked you to do so, what then? " 
 " Even then," he said, " it would be presump- 
 tuous of me to advise one who is so naturally 
 good. Even you might have unworthy friends, 
 but you would not keep them longer than it took 
 to find out their unworthiness." 
 
 205
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " But as to ' society ' in general; is it an evil? 
 what we call 'society,' fashionable life, I mean? 
 Is its influence widening so as to harden the 
 hearts of most of those who should and could 
 help the poor? Are all who use visiting cards, 
 and all who do not, being arrayed against each 
 other in hostile camps?" 
 
 " I don't know," Stone replied. " The spirit 
 of the age is one of idolatry of money, and such 
 minor phases as Bryan Cross is attacking may 
 be offshoots of the prime evil, but, as I say, I 
 don't know. I am a stranger to fashionable life, 
 and it has hardly a footing in my parish. I give 
 up my whole life to my work, but I am not so 
 narrow as to condemn others who set apart some 
 of their time for pleasure. It seems to me that 
 the pleasures of well-bred people of leisure can 
 all be bad if they give up their whole lives to them. 
 A very little wicked pleasure is bad, and too much 
 innocent pleasure crowds out its own innocence 
 if it is carried so far as to require the most of 
 our time and thought. But, there this does 
 not apply to you. If I were to presume upon 
 my acquaintance with you, Miss Lamont, it 
 could only be to tell you how good and noble 
 
 206
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 I think you, and how I have been strengthened 
 and inspired by knowing you." 
 
 He was taking up his hat when he said this, 
 and preparing to go. 
 
 " Oh, by the way," he added, " just before 
 you came in, a servant laid down those two 
 cards. Now, there are two young ladies who 
 move on the edge and occasionally over the bor- 
 ders of the richest and most exclusive society in 
 America the Misses Van Ness. When you 
 have known them well you will be able to judge 
 whether the tendencies of a professionally fash- 
 ionable life are such as Mr. Cross depicts them 
 or not. Remember, though, that you may need to 
 tone down the picture these young ladies present, 
 for it is gossiped that few others paint the lily, 
 Fashion, with as high colours as these distin- 
 guished sisters." 
 
 Laura took the cards, and, once by herself, sank 
 upon a sofa and read them over and over again. 
 
 " The Misses Van Ness ! " she exclaimed ; 
 " the aristocratic Van Ness girls ! Henrietta, 
 who was engaged to Cornelius Kip and then to 
 young Herbert Lounsbury; Lily, the younger 
 sister. Well, of all the unexpecteds, this is the 
 unexpectedest ! " 207
 
 XVI. 
 
 LAURA MEETS THE 
 VAN NESS SISTERS 
 
 " But your face 
 
 Hath honour in it and what have I to do, 
 What should I do with honour ? " Goetkt. 
 
 rHE Misses Van Ness were at home when 
 Laura repaid their call. It surprised her 
 to find that their house in Fishkill was one 
 that she had often seen and imagined to be 
 deserted. It was a large frame dwelling of the 
 " Mansard " period in our country the early 
 seventies when an epidemic of frame houses 
 with bow windows and gingerbread fronts, each 
 capped by a top story of slate, disfigured the 
 prettiest of our Eastern towns. This particular 
 house had come down in the world by change 
 of condition as well as of fashion. It was begin- 
 ning to whimper for a new suit of paint, and its 
 grounds almost cried for the care of a gardener. 
 Few New Yorkers would have been surprised to 
 find the Van Nesses in such a house, because all 
 the gossip about these noted sisters who " painted 
 
 208
 
 The Millionairess V& 
 
 * 
 
 the lily Fashion in high colours " suggested that 
 they had been able to make both ends meet some- 
 what at the cost of their pride. Gossip, par- 
 ticularly such as victimises unmarried ladies, has 
 not a nice flavour in genteel nostrils, but here 
 was a case where gossip was all but public and 
 gave two young women a continental notoriety. 
 Thousands who never saw the Van Nesses had 
 heard that the father, " Larry " Van Ness, spent 
 upon himself nearly all of the little he had not 
 squandered, that Cornelius Kip supported the 
 family by loans to the mother while he was 
 engaged to Henrietta, and that Henrietta delayed 
 the wedding for years in the hope of making a 
 better match. The same public believed that 
 Henrietta lost a second suitor, young Herbert 
 Lounsbury, by boldly defending her course with 
 the first. There may have been very little truth 
 in all this, yet it was common gossip about town. 
 " The little fool," people reported Henrietta as 
 saying, when Lounsbury questioned her about her 
 earlier flame ; " he calls himself ' Cornelius Kip 
 the Tenth,' but his only real distinction is the 
 outcry he has made about his loans to mother. 
 Everybody guyed him till I took him up and 
 
 209
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 assured my friends that he wasn't such a fool as 
 he seemed. He paid for what he got, but why 
 shouldn't he? He had money and nothing else, 
 and we had everything else and no money." 
 
 The " everything else " which these sisters 
 boasted was whatever came of their sister being 
 the Princesse de Grilliac of non-aromatic repute, 
 but a rampant figure in fashionable sporting life 
 in England. Her legitimate resources would 
 have seemed to require her to live as the ravens 
 do, yet she cut a brilliant figure, and gossip rang 
 around her. However, of all this, as of most 
 of such things, Laura knew very little. Of the 
 Van Nesses she only knew that they figured some- 
 where near the top of the gilded social pinnacle, 
 and she innocently supposed that this fact re- 
 flected credit upon the ultra-fashionables, since 
 the Van Nesses were not rich. She did not 
 realise that the most exclusive fashionable circle 
 has a fringe, frayed in places and soiled in spots, 
 yet suffered to cling to it by the force of old or 
 high connections or the ability to amuse or serve 
 it in manifold ways. 
 
 " So glad," said Henrietta, as she strode into 
 the faded drawing-room to meet Laura. 
 
 210
 
 The Millionairess *& 
 
 The odour of cigarettes clung to her clothing. 
 
 " Charmed, I'm sure," said Lily, pronouncing 
 the first word as if it were spelled " chawmed." 
 
 With her the aroma of smoking was even 
 stronger. 
 
 " Maddening to have missed you the other 
 day," Henrietta declared. 
 
 " Especially as we had to borrow Harry Kim- 
 ball's carriage to drive over. It's beastly to be 
 so rotten poor, but it has its compensations 
 for our friends," Lily continued ; " when one 
 has to borrow a carriage in order to make a call, 
 it's more of a compliment than it used to be 
 when we were obliged to go out if only to keep 
 the horses fit." 
 
 Very affectedly mannish in dress and more so 
 in speech were both these sisters. Henrietta 
 showed, at thirty-five, that she had been fine 
 looking, and so she was still, except that what 
 was left of her beauty had become rather a work 
 of art than of nature. Her complexion had little 
 other merit than that it was the best she could 
 buy, while underneath it were seen the tautened 
 skin and pulling lines which come of burning 
 life's candle at both ends. The light in her 
 
 211
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 eyes was cold, and those women who disliked her 
 said that she looked fast and hard. She was 
 tall and vigorous, with a proud carriage, and 
 many persons thought her style of dress a very 
 attractive imitation of masculine attire. Plain 
 tight skirts, fancy waistcoats and loose jackets, 
 an Alpine hat in winter and a straw sailor hat 
 in summer, with masculine ties, studs, cuff but- 
 tons, and a fob, this was the costume she affected. 
 Her favourite colours were dark blue or pearl 
 grey, and the material cloth, always. As for my 
 opinion of her looks : sixteen years of the strain 
 of gay life will leave some marks, especially when 
 it is doubled by insufficient means and the hostility 
 of an entire sex; for it was a little circle of 
 mesmerised male admirers that clung to Henri- 
 etta, as she did to them. She had their tastes 
 and expressed herself in their vernacular when 
 she was with them, on their yachts, in their 
 after-dinner relaxations, among their horses and 
 dogs, or wherever she found herself. 
 
 Wherever we find a woman too careless in her 
 speech we will discover that her male associates 
 are even more careless in her presence. Too much 
 of the sudden new fault of impropriety of speech 
 
 212
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 in woman reflects upon the men. And yef on the 
 other hand it is true that men are what women 
 permit them to be. 
 
 Lily, the younger sister, was what the other 
 women called " baby pretty," a short, round- 
 bodied, plump-faced woman of thirty-two, who 
 was at war with her surroundings, and would not 
 cover their nudities with even a polite pretence 
 of concealment. 
 
 " We were most disappointed at not seeing 
 your house," Lily said to Laura. " We tried to 
 get your man to say that you would soon return, 
 so that we could go in and have a look around. 
 It wasn't mere curiosity not on Henrietta's 
 part, for she has designs on you. When you 
 know us better, you'll run up against that little 
 trait of ours, of never doing anything without 
 a card up our sleeves. I'm not a match for Henri- 
 etta at it, because hang it! I'm rather tired 
 of the whole game. You'll find that out, too." 
 
 " What a fearfully smart thing your garden 
 party must have been," Henrietta remarked. 
 " How awfully clever to think of giving it at 
 night. It must have cost a lot. We read yards 
 about it in the Herald!' 
 
 213
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " And heard miles about it in the village shops," 
 said kittenish Lily. " You un jointed the nose 
 of every woman who worships a black silk gown, 
 kept in her wardrobe like a god in its niche 
 and of every maiden who sports a diary for the 
 sake of writing ' George called,' ' George didn't 
 come ; I wonder why/ over and over again. They 
 are slanging you for snubbing them." 
 
 "Oh, I hope not," Laura exclaimed; "I- 
 
 " Don't pay the slightest attention to Lily," the 
 elder sister remonstrated. " We're the only jeal- 
 ous ones. I'm burning to know the people you do, 
 Miss Lamont. -They must be ravishingly inter- 
 esting all those authors and painters and archi- 
 tects you had down here; but it's just as it was 
 when Lord Coleridge made that delicious break 
 at Mrs. Lenox-Hill's about the same sort of 
 people. Don't you know? It ought to have a 
 pension for old age by this time, but I'll tell it." 
 
 " It was Joseph's telling it that enraged Poti- 
 phar's wife," said Lily. 
 
 " At any rate," Henrietta went on, " Lord 
 Coleridge was over here, and was being dined 
 and danced and danced and dined till his noble 
 digestion went wrong and his head reeled with 
 
 214
 
 The Millionairess & 
 
 seeing so much waltzing. ' It seems to be all 
 dining and dancing in your smart set over here/ 
 said he to Mrs. Lenox Hill ; ' tell me, when am 
 I going to get a chance to see your famous poets 
 and historians and explorers and generals ? ' 
 ' Oh, really, your lordship,' she had to say, 
 ' none of those people are in our set.' ' 
 
 " Don't you think that was her ' break,' as 
 you call it more than his? " Laura asked. 
 
 "Oh, la la!" Lily screamed; "Henrietta, I 
 ' heard the bell ring,' as Harry says, when that 
 shot struck." 
 
 " Whosever break it was," the elder sister said, 
 " I'd like to know the people Miss Lament had 
 down here. They're not in it over here, as they 
 are everywhere abroad and it makes our best 
 set rather stupid, I must say." 
 
 " Rotten stupid," Lily remarked ; " if I knew 
 you better, Miss Lamont, I'd say * damned 
 stupid.' 
 
 " If you're going to tell tales out of school," 
 Lily continued, " why don't you tell about old 
 Wetherlee and that Madame Castella who came 
 up in Corneil Stuyvesant's wake with his Creole 
 bride; her grandmother, I mean." 
 
 215
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Why, Lily ! " Henrietta exclaimed. " You 
 know something that I don't. I did not think 
 so meanly of you." 
 
 " Pitch into Harry, not me, Henrietta. He 
 told me this at the Stuyvesants' the other night. 
 Madame, the Creole grandmamma, was holding 
 forth about the great departed Beauregard 
 who was a little tin god in Creoledom, you know 
 
 and she used the expression that ' 'e was a man 
 of 'onah, sah, and of ze 'ighest principle and 
 piety, sah,' and all that. Old Tom Wetherlee 
 
 the father, you know ; who owns whatever 
 Trinity Church and the Astors don't own sud- 
 denly broke in on her. ' God bless me, madame ! ' 
 he roared (you know that sax-horn voice of 
 his) ' you New Orleans people are very uncon- 
 ventional. I've been a listener in the drawing- 
 rooms of New York since I was a boy, and not 
 for thirty years have I heard the words " honour 
 and principle and piety " spoken in one of them.' 
 There, Henrietta, Harry told me that. If you 
 can't absorb the little he knows in all the time 
 you have him to yourself, you mustn't blame me." 
 
 " Oh, he's a good boy," said Henrietta ; " there 
 was nothing risque in it or he would have told it 
 to me long ago." 216
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 " Harry, of whom we speak," Lily continued, 
 addressing Laura, " is Harry Kimball, who was 
 almost lynched " 
 
 " Lily ! Look out," her elder sister com- 
 manded. " That Bryan Cross was stopping with 
 Miss Lamont, you know." 
 
 " Well, of course, I know," Lily replied, " but 
 I believe in clearing things up if we're going to 
 know one another. Harry Kimball is Henrietta's 
 Number Three, Miss Lamont her lucky num- 
 ber, she thinks." 
 
 "Really!" Laura exclaimed. "Well, of 
 course, I cannot blame you for thinking what 
 you must of Mr. Cross, if you are satisfied that 
 he made so terrible a mistake in that case." 
 
 " Oh, I don't care anything about it," Hen- 
 rietta replied. " I've had to row with Harry 
 to keep him from airing it when he's with me. 
 I told him he might survive the loss of his 
 morals, but that I couldn't stand a man with no 
 tact. To seek adventures among vulgar people 
 was bound to lead to a public row, and he's 
 learned his lesson, I think, but I draw the line at 
 his digging up the thing in my presence. Men 
 will be men, Miss Lamont. They are divided into 
 
 217
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 two classes the found-out and the not-found- 
 out." 
 
 " I'm sorry to hear you say that," Laura re- 
 marked. " I cannot believe you really think it. 
 If it were true that men were all wicked, then 
 our sex would have only itself to defend it. 
 Were a man of my acquaintance under such 
 suspicion, I, too, should want to hear very little 
 about it, yet that little I should demand." 
 
 " Repentance, I suppose you mean," said Hen- 
 rietta, with contempt in her tone. 
 
 " No," Laura said, " but a positive denial of 
 the charge." 
 
 " I'm quite sure you must be right, but " 
 
 " But," purred Lily, with the expectant look 
 of a cat that watches a canary. 
 
 " You live in a different atmosphere, Miss 
 Lament," Henrietta remarked. " Perhaps it's 
 merely idle men, such as are the only kind I 
 have ever had much to do with, who deserve my 
 opinion of them." 
 
 " Why put it all on the men? " Lily broke in. 
 " Whatever they do in those ways requires the 
 help of the women. It is all cant and rot to 
 say that a woman has to be sacrificed every time 
 
 218
 
 RE SHE LIFTED A FOOT AXD 
 SLOWLY MOVED IT FAR FORWARD'
 
 The Millionairess HS- 
 
 a man cuts up. I have noticed that the women 
 who make such a deuce of a row when they are 
 caught are often open to a suspicion of having 
 an ulterior purpose. What I mean is that when 
 the man and woman are on an equal footing the 
 woman makes no fuss, and no one cries out in 
 her behalf. If both parties are poor, or both 
 parties are rich, there's no commotion. They 
 and everybody else recognise nature's work, and 
 let it go. It is only when the man is well off and 
 the girl is poor that the girl makes a scene and 
 the man gets called bad- names. Deuce take it, 
 I say that what men are women are." 
 
 Miss Lily was standing before the fireplace. 
 At this point she began to gather the material of 
 her dress in both hands and to slowly raise her 
 skirt to illustrate what she next remarked. 
 
 " Do you know, Miss Lament, I once came 
 near " here she lifted a foot and slowly moved 
 it far forward, as one would do to cross a muddy 
 rill or flowing gutter "I once came near mak- 
 ing a step over the conventional bound- 
 ary and putting myself out of the pale of 
 correct society till it blew over ? " 
 
 " Lily ! " from Miss Henrietta. 
 
 219
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Yes, and the man backed out, or I'd have 
 done it." 
 
 " Oh-h-h ! " Laura exclaimed, in unfeigned 
 amazement. " Of course you are joking. But 
 how can you jest like that? " 
 
 " She's a great tease, Miss Lament. Lily, you 
 go too far. You forget that Miss Lamont does 
 not know your style of joking," Henrietta said. 
 
 " That's all right," Lily replied, a trifle bitterly, 
 it seemed. " I am most serious when I joke. 
 You see, I aint' trying to pull any one's limb, 
 I suppose I must say. You are, and I'm not to 
 spoil your game. I'm on, my dear." 
 
 220
 
 XVII. 
 
 BRYAN^ CROSS 
 APPEALS FOR RESCUE 
 
 " And then I told her all my troubles, 
 Her eyelids dropp'd, she held her breath ; 
 And, now my thoughts don't run on death." Goethe. 
 
 Laura drove back to her home she did 
 not delude herself as to the taste this 
 visit left upon her dainty moral palate. She 
 hoped that she had seen the worst side of 
 the Van Nesses, and that at other times they 
 were far different. Miss Lily's manner seemed 
 defiant and cross. Perhaps they had been quar- 
 relling. At all events, Laura looked far ahead 
 beyond the sisters and their ways, into the bril- 
 liant, famous world, where Courtlandt Beekman 
 figured. She knew that the " Four Hundred " 
 could not all hold such views, or (even occa- 
 sionally, and in jest) indulge such license in 
 thought and speech. And she was right. She 
 remembered to have read and been told that 
 there is in the smart set a clique whose members 
 
 221
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 love to seem unconventional and to startle their 
 neighbours. They are of the hunting and yacht- 
 ing coteries, and spend much of their time with 
 the unconventional men who are most given to 
 those sports. She argued to herself that these 
 sisters were what are called " men's women," to 
 distinguish them from womanish, or women's 
 women, and again she was right. But in hoping 
 to know the superior many through the means 
 of this acquaintance with the Van Nesses, was she 
 right? It could be managed with money, diplo- 
 macy and patience, perhaps and with a tough 
 cuticle. But, even then, the front door would 
 have been preferable as an entrance way. 
 
 All of which shows how much she had to learn. 
 
 From her gate she descried the silken skirt 
 of her mother at the front door, and, from a 
 movement of it which we would not have dis- 
 cerned, she surmised that something was amiss. 
 
 " Oh, Laura ! " her mother exclaimed, grasp- 
 ing her hand and clinging to it. " I am so glad 
 you have come. There's such news in the paper ! 
 Bridget showed it to me, and I haven't known 
 whether to grieve for you or not. Did you 
 was there anything between you and Mr. Cross ? " 
 
 222
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Nothing but friendship, mother. Is he mar- 
 ried, then?" 
 
 " I'm so relieved," said the shadow of mother- 
 hood. " I don't know what it says. I was too 
 flustered. I read the words ' Bryan Cross's 
 Love/ and tried to see if it was about you, 
 Laura, dear, but I couldn't. My mind went all 
 sixes and sevens. I'll get you the paper, dear, 
 and you shall tell me what it's all about." 
 
 Laura did not wait to remove her jacket and 
 hat, but sat down in a hall chair, and in a moment 
 was absorbed in what she was reading. Ab- 
 sorbed and shocked, besides, for this was an 
 account of what purported to be a grave scandal. 
 A man named Buck Darbley, it appeared, had 
 come to New York avowedly to kill Mr. Cross 
 for having induced his only daughter, Tonette, 
 to leave her home in Northern Montana and join 
 him in New York. The man kept a sportsman's 
 hotel in the Rocky Mountains, and there Bryan 
 Cross had spent a month nearly two years be- 
 fore, since which time the daughter had ' acted as 
 if she was bewitched ' by Cross. She carried 
 his photograph about with her, sat staring at it 
 for hours every day in the forest, talked about 
 
 223
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 him continually, and threatened to go to him 
 whenever she was reprimanded. At last, she had 
 run away from home, and her father was pur- 
 suing her. He had not found her at Mr. Cross's 
 home, and Mr. Cross, who faced the father 
 bravely and calmly, denied all knowledge of the 
 girl since he had last seen her in her mountain 
 home. Nevertheless, there were found policemen 
 and neighbours of the Crosses who declared that 
 a strangely spoken, queerly dressed girl had 
 been seen idling near Mr. Cross's home only a 
 few days before the father's arrival in town. Mr. 
 Cross, the reporter wrote, was to lecture in New 
 Haven that night and in Albany on the next 
 night. 
 
 " He had a narrow escape from a violent 
 death," the report concluded, " and if he is inno- 
 cent he is to be commiserated, but if he is guilty 
 his manner can only be described as brazen in 
 the extreme." 
 
 Laura read the article again after an interval 
 of an hour, and then assured herself that beyond 
 the great headlines and perfervid language with 
 which its facts were ornamented, it contained 
 very little to disturb Mr. Cross's admirers. The 
 
 224
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 father's rage was not justified by any facts he 
 had to offer concerning Bryan's behaviour while 
 at his hotel, and his failure to find his daughter 
 where he sought her made his public outcry and 
 his threat to kill Bryan take on the character of 
 an unjustifiable blow at his own daughter's fair 
 name. With great impatience Laura awaited the 
 next day's disclosures, which proved very puz- 
 zling to her and disappointing to those who are 
 always eager for the worst in every such case. 
 Shelled and stripped of all its word-wrappings, 
 the kernel of it was that the girl had not been 
 found and the father had gone back to Montana 
 with his lips so tightly sealed that not all the 
 reporters in town could get a word out of him. 
 On that afternoon, as Laura sat over her 
 sewing, Bryan Cross was announced. She ran 
 down to meet him, framing congratulatory ex- 
 clamations as she went. She did manage to give 
 him a warm and cheery greeting, but it was only 
 because the impulse had been too strong to be 
 overcome by the shock his appearance gave her. 
 Again he was as we saw him when he found 
 himself accused of wrong-doing in the heat of 
 his first success as an orator. 
 
 225
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Oh, Miss Lament," he said, in an almost 
 sepulchral voice, " unless you save me I am a 
 ruined man." 
 
 " Why but do sit down, Mr. Cross," she 
 said. " What has happened to make you look 
 as you do? I was shocked by the first accounts 
 of that Montana man's story, though really 
 every one must have seen that it was a tissue of 
 suspicion, or else the wildest raving. But that's 
 over ; now what 
 
 " It is not over, Miss Lamont," Bryan groaned. 
 " It has only just begun. The father was right. 
 His daughter did come to me. She is at my 
 house this minute. Was ever man so cursed 
 as I am? Since I was a boy, Miss Lamont, I 
 have never reached out for any prize, large or 
 small, that some terrible disgrace did not throw 
 its shadow over the object. And the worst of 
 all is that in every case I have deserved it. I 
 have always been guilty as I am to-day. Oh, 
 this will kill my sister. I think of her first. It 
 comes just as a rich congregation of my own 
 faith has offered me its pulpit, but I don't care 
 for that or the ruin of my position in every 
 
 226
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 other relation I bear to the world. I only think 
 of the death-blow it will deal to Mabel." 
 
 " True ? You guilty, Mr. Cross ? Have you 
 come to me a woman, also, like that Western 
 girl, to ask in pity's name, what can you ask 
 in such a case ? " 
 
 Cross sprang from his chair and wrung his 
 hands. He tried to find the words he wished to 
 speak but failed, and began pacing the floor. 
 
 " Listen," he said at last. " It may be impos- 
 sible or you may judge me more severely, even, 
 than I deserve. It may be that in any case I 
 am unutterably selfish to come to you, a single 
 young woman, in my distress, but in the whole 
 world I can see no other who has the power 
 to help me. What I ask is that you take the 
 girl in here, into this home, until the scandal 
 blows over. She will not go back to her people. 
 She has turned against me with scorn. She is 
 sinned against by me, and but for me would have 
 been beyond the reach of reproach. O heaven! 
 T shall go mad; my sister will not survive the 
 blow a day if you cannot see your way to what 
 I ask." 
 
 "Take her in my home? Shield her? a dis- 
 
 227
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 graced woman? And shield you? Mr. Cross, 
 ask yourself if you have not lost your senses 
 already?" Indignation rang in her words. 
 
 " Disgraced? " Bryan exclaimed, turning in his 
 walk and facing Laura with a searching glance. 
 " In God's name, do you think that ? She's not 
 disgraced, and will not be if you will help her. 
 I will stake my life upon it that she is as pure as 
 any woman alive. She has come to no harm - 
 and never will if you or some one of your sex 
 will stand by her in this moment of doubt. If 
 she only would go home no one could point a 
 finger at her, but she she is a woman and re- 
 fuses. I offered to marry her and make the only 
 amends in my power for what has happened, 
 but, again, she proved a woman, and tortured 
 my offer into an insult. She challenged me to 
 stand aside and witness how she would make her 
 own way alone in the East. She told her father 
 the same thing. He has a second wife with 
 whom she does not get along happily, and she 
 will never go back. Father and daughter were 
 locked in one another's arms in my house this 
 noon, and he was crying over her like a child. 
 Oh, Miss Lament, you had a right to refuse to 
 
 228
 
 The Millionairess % 
 
 help her, but I did not think you would justify 
 the old saying that a woman has no pity for her 
 kind." 
 
 " I'm sorry you think I could/' Laura inter- 
 posed, " but you used very strong words, Mr. 
 Cross, and then left me to infer that you meant 
 what they implied. We would get along ever so 
 smoothly if you would take the case from the 
 beginning, and let me understand it." 
 
 " You are right. I am quite distracted ; please 
 let that be my apology," Bryan said. " Well, 
 from the beginning, the miserable story is that 
 I went out to Darbley's when I was in very 
 poor health two years ago. He was away with 
 an army officer, on an exploring expedition, and 
 there was no hunting. The stepmother ran the 
 hotel. I was the only visitor, and the girl and 
 I were thrown together. To amuse myself, 
 never dreaming of any serious consequences, I 
 yielded to the girl's extraordinary desire for 
 knowledge of modern city life. I told her no 
 stories that were not true, but purposely made 
 the most of the luxuries and brilliancy of the 
 homes, streets, theatres, and shops of a great 
 city. I enjoyed her relish of what I told her, 
 
 229
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 and for a month she kept begging for more and 
 more of my descriptions. If I may use the ex- 
 pression, which is more against myself than her, 
 it turned her head. She ran away to see New 
 York, not me she told me so with the utmost 
 scorn." 
 
 " And she's a nice girl ? " Laura asked, a 
 trifle tenderly. 
 
 " She is a diamond, though in the rough, as 
 you may imagine/' Bryan replied. " She's of 
 French stock; d'Arblay was the original name 
 of the family. Her given name, Tonette, is the 
 ignorant perpetuation of ' Antoinette,' the name 
 of a daughter in each generation. She is about 
 your age an honest, wholesome, fearless crea- 
 ture, beautiful in face, form, movement, and in 
 every posture, when she is in her native woods, 
 though it may shock you to see how she looks in 
 the realms of civilisation." 
 
 ' Yet you offered to marry her, Mr. Cross. 
 That was too generous. There seems no reason 
 why you should have risked your happiness 
 and hers, too, by such an offer." 
 
 " I cannot tell you a falsehood though it 
 may be only an omission or even allow you 
 
 230
 
 The Millionairess Hr 
 
 to think a merely partial truth," said he. " I was 
 not generous. I intended only to be just and 
 honourable. There is something I have not told 
 you. I I it is very difficult, Miss Lament, 
 but I must tell you. You see, it came about like 
 this : an accident happened to her when we were 
 deep in the wilderness, and oh, I must first 
 tell you that, though I never deceived her, or 
 made love to her, or anything of the sort, we 
 used to walk hand-in-hand, and romp and carry 
 on, you know, like a boy and girl truly, we 
 might have been brother and sister. And she 
 is a madcap, I assure you. Well, an accident 
 happened, and I thought she was killed. When 
 she revived she called my name, and and I 
 was very much affected. I was so overjoyed 
 to hear her speak at all that I I kissed her. 
 Only on that occasion, Miss Lament and not 
 above two or three times." 
 
 "Must I have the details?" Laura inquired, 
 for the confession threatened to become embar- 
 rassing. 
 
 " But you must know it all to know her. I'm 
 sure I'd rather not tell you, but if you are to 
 know her, I must. In a way it bears out, or 
 
 231
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 easily might have exemplified, all I have said to 
 you about the perils of an idle, pleasure-ruled 
 existence. The conditions were all there, only, 
 thank God But as I was saying, she had been 
 in great danger and was unconscious, and we 
 had been much together, and were alone ; it seems 
 a flimsy excuse, maybe, to those of stronger will 
 or calmer nature than I, but it's all I have. I 
 knew I had done wrong, and for a week, until 
 I came away, I gave her no cause to think other- 
 wise of me than as an acquaintance. When she 
 came to New York and straight to me, I imag- 
 ined it was due to this advantage I had taken 
 of her. I reasoned that if she had magnified 
 what I had done I had only myself to blame, 
 and I thought the fairest, manliest course was to 
 offer her marriage." 
 
 " It seems she was less impressed by her ad- 
 venture," Laura ventured, laughing as if at her 
 own light words, but in fact to relieve her amuse- 
 ment at his naive recital. 
 
 " I might not have thought so much of it my- 
 self, though I hope I am not a trifler, if it were 
 not that her conduct became so extraordinary 
 after that er episode. From that moment 
 
 232
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 she became gentled, softened, very unlike the 
 hoyden she had been. She followed instead of 
 leading me, and seemed to cling to my presence. 
 It was a revelation to me of more than I can 
 express." 
 
 Laura thought of the kiss Archie had once 
 so chastely bestowed. In that case the girl was 
 not so strangely affected. Then she recalled a 
 line of a German song wherein a young girl is 
 said to have been changed into a woman in a 
 second by a lover's kiss. She thought once more 
 of her own single experience, and was newly 
 disappointed. Amid all her thoughts she kept 
 silence, so Bryan went on: 
 
 " Miss Lament," he said, with solemnity, 
 " on my word of honour, Miss Darbley told me 
 to-day that I never had done what I have told 
 you I did. She said that if I had dared to kiss her 
 she would have shot me, rather than that such 
 a man should live to boast of it. Oh, her scorn 
 of me passes belief." 
 
 " She shall come here if she will," she said, 
 unable to evade a chance to do a kindness. " Shall 
 I go and fetch her to-morrow ? " 
 
 " Do you see your way to do it and will you, 
 
 233
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 really? " Bryan all but shouted. " For nearly a 
 week she has been concealed in my home by my 
 sister's housekeeper. If Mabel knew if she 
 even suspected that, for my fault, a poor girl was 
 likely to be cast adrift in the streets of New York, 
 as she must have been if you had refused my 
 request, poor Mabel would die of shame. I could 
 have faced her with the girl as my betrothed, 
 but the other thing, the scandal, would have 
 killed her and would have ended my career." 
 
 Again and again he thanked Laura, and called 
 down blessings on her head. There could have 
 been no more doubt of the sincerity of his grat- 
 itude than there had been of the misery of heart 
 from which she had now lifted him. It was 
 astonishing how quickly he grew calmer, how 
 suddenly the colour returned to his striking face, 
 the sparkle to his commanding eyes. Such was 
 his extraordinary nature, to which his soul was 
 tied as to a battered buoy in mid-sea, and he must 
 sink or Svvim with it; sink and swim, in fact, 
 alternately. 
 
 He had to hurry away to meet his lecture en- 
 gagement in Albany, and he strode along the 
 path to the gate, his load of anguish vanished, 
 
 234
 
 The Millionairess ^ 
 
 leaving only the soreness where it had chafed 
 him. He heard the applause of the audience of 
 the night before new-sounding in his ears, and he 
 straightened his figure as he anticipated the tri- 
 umphs of the night to come. 
 
 To-night! ah, to-night! Why, he had almost 
 forgotten that, because of that which was set 
 down for to-night his anguish over Tonette's 
 escapade had been so keen, so like a lightning 
 stroke, as unescapable as it was warningless. 
 For to-night a deputation from a wealthy Bap- 
 tist church of New York was to receive his an- 
 swer to a call to that pulpit. And now nothing 
 interfered. He had qualified for the pulpit, and 
 though he had thus far avoided its responsi- 
 bilities, what other end was so becoming to the 
 career on which he had embarked? He would 
 accept the call, and from a fixed height hurl 
 down his warnings to the heedless devotees of 
 caste and pleasure who were creating in Amer- 
 ica, as he thought, the same conditions that are 
 proving a blight upon England, where the people 
 are divided into a hard, unbrotherly camp of the 
 rich and of those who admire and abet them, and 
 a horde of helpless, sodden, alms-cursed toilers 
 
 235
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 and parasites. He had kept from the pulpit be- 
 cause of an impediment in his belief, but, now, he 
 would summon full faith and it would come. 
 Now, his seat in life's saddle was firm. He was 
 no longer timid. He dared ride, or even break 
 a lance with anybody. Yes, he would accept the 
 call, and preach his first sermon in a week. 
 
 Poor Bryan Cross! forced to be his own 
 keeper, as every one of us is, to be sure, though 
 few, perhaps, are so little fitted for the respon- 
 sibility as he. 
 
 236
 
 XVIII. 
 
 TRANSFORMING A 
 FAIR BARBARIAN 
 
 " A creature not too bright or good 
 For transient sorrows, simple wiles 
 
 Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears and smiles." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 LA MONT and Tonette Darbley sat 
 stiffly apart in the coupe that carried 
 them from Bryan's sister's home to the Canadi- 
 enne's boarding-house. The wealthy maiden 
 looked steadily out of the window on her 
 side, yet, from the corner of one eye, she 
 studied the round dark face, the dancing black 
 eyes, the untrained body (like a bag of flour with 
 a string round the middle) of the poor girl who 
 had flown across the plains and prairies and 
 Alleghenies, as do those wild ducks which 
 annually course from California's lakes to the 
 Chesapeake. Most particularly she noted the 
 short, broad, muscular hand of Tonette strange 
 
 237
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 to a needle and familiar with a gun and the 
 stripe of red wrist and arm between that hand 
 and a sleeve of the jacket she had long ago out- 
 grown. Laura raised her eyes to the sky and 
 sighed. In her time she had dressed fifty dolls, 
 but how to dress this live creature mercy 
 sakes ! 
 
 Tonette, on her side, sat frankly studying her 
 rescuer. She was very nervous, as one could see 
 by the way she bit her lips and kept wetting them 
 with her tongue, and fumbling and fussing with 
 her broad red hands. Judging by what one 
 knows of refined and softened girls, one would 
 suspect that Tonette was wishing herself out of 
 her scrape and back again with a rough, easily 
 cozened father for a champion, and a shrewish 
 stepmother thrown in for burdensome good 
 measure. But it does not do to judge one set 
 of women by another set so widely different. 
 Tonette, in fact, was looking Laura over her 
 hair, like ripe wheat in a strong sun, her peachy 
 skin, her eyes of turquoise, her graceful form, 
 so deftly fitted by her stylish dress was looking 
 all this over and saying, " If I don't sail right 
 in and hug and bite her I shall scream; only 
 
 238
 
 The Millionairess && 
 
 I daresn't, 'cause she isn't human; she ain't the 
 same as me, anyhow." 
 
 "First of all, stays," Laura was thinking; 
 " and a shirt-waist and a skirt. Then she'll pass 
 muster for a day in the boarding-house. But 
 after that, oh, what an undertaking it will be 
 to make a young panther, or a deer, or whatever 
 sort of wild animal she is, look like a human 
 creature." 
 
 " It will be awful," Tonette was cogitating. 
 " She'll rear and buck like a colt, but I've got 
 to bite or hug her or scream." 
 
 Laura rapped on the front window of the 
 coupe, and called to the driver to stop. " Please 
 wait," she said to Tonette; " I'll only be a few 
 minutes." Then she stepped out of the carriage 
 and passed through the door of a great shopping 
 store. Five minutes later she returned, and 
 bidding the cabman drive around the corner into 
 the side street and wait there for further orders, 
 she followed the vehicle on foot. When it stood 
 still, she got in and produced from her pocket 
 a long yellow tape measure. 
 
 " I'm going to ask you to let me take a great 
 liberty with you, Miss Darbley," she said ; " I'm 
 going to " 239
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Tonette's my name," said the girl. " I 
 wisht you'd let me call you by your first name. 
 Seems to me first names is only for servants and 
 children here in the East, but out my way we 
 ain't got no use for stiffness of no kind, and we 
 just Tom and Beck and Bill and Sary every one 
 we know. Out our way last names is for putting 
 on the outside of letters, that's all. If you don't 
 mind, what is your name ? " 
 
 " Laura, and if it will make you feel more at 
 ease, you may call me so. Now, let me take 
 your bust measure thirty- four and round 
 your waist why, it's thirty, but when we make 
 you over into an Eastern shape it will be, well, 
 it will be for you to say about that. Now, please 
 stand right up, quick, before people see us. Bend 
 your head and body, but be sure and stand up 
 straight so that I can get the length for a skirt. 
 Thirty-six ; there thirty-four, thirty, thirty-six 
 thank you, dear. Now, I'm going to get you 
 a nice waist and a skirt pink or cerise or a red 
 plaid for the shirt-waist, I think will be nice, 
 and what about the skirt ? " 
 
 " If I was a-going to get me anything to wear," 
 said the girl, with a faltering voice, and her eyes 
 
 240
 
 The Millionairess & 
 
 already afloat with tears, " I'd just get every- 
 thing the same's you've got on; you do look so 
 sweet. But but ' and now she burst out 
 crying, heartily. 
 
 "What is it, Tonette?" Laura asked, sitting 
 down and slipping an arm around her, regardless 
 of the chance that passing pedestrians might look 
 in ; " what makes you cry ? " 
 
 " I'm so darn miser'ble," said the girl. " I 
 ought to known it would be this way, but I hain't 
 never been away from home, 'n' I dunno no more 
 'n a shoat 't breaks loose from a sty." 
 
 " But what's the matter ? If you're homesick 
 you shall go home ; whatever you want you shall 
 do, dear. Only we must get you some clothes, 
 first, whatever you do, because you will be stared 
 at and made very uncomfortable if you aren't 
 dressed like other people." 
 
 Tonette continued to cry, to try to speak, and 
 to cry the more. Laura drew her to herself and 
 kissed her. 
 
 "Go 'way," cried Tonette; "you shouldn't 
 kiss me. I'm only rubbage 'longside of you. 
 Gi'mme one more kiss, won't you?" 
 
 " There," said Laura, laughingly, bestowing 
 
 241
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 another kiss on the pouting lips of the sobbing 
 girl ; " now, tell me what makes you feel so 
 miserable." 
 
 " 'Cause I ain't got money for no clothes. 'T 
 least, I've only got four dollars and eighty cents 
 paw gave me when he went away." 
 
 " But I've all the money that's needed," 
 JLaura said. " You can pay me afterward if 
 you want to." 
 
 "If I want to? Well, I guess I want to," 
 Tonette replied. " Paw says no Darbley never 
 owed a man a cent longer'n it took to git the 
 money to pay him, 'n' I guess I ain't built no 
 different from the rest of the family." 
 
 By soothing words and coaxing arguments it 
 was soon brought about that Laura should buy, 
 and Tonette should get work and pay back a 
 ridiculous arrangement, though Tonette could 
 not know it was so, and Laura was satisfied. 
 Presently, the carriage started on with the two 
 women holding a huge pasteboard box upon their 
 knees. Only Pandora's box when it was full 
 could be compared to this magic receptacle. Pan- 
 dora would discover it more immediately service- 
 able than her own were she to find herself in 
 
 242
 
 The Millionairess Hf 
 
 Madison Square at this minute, for it contained 
 everything she would be likely to need except a 
 hat and shoes. The new waist was there and the 
 promised skirt, and many things about which 
 a masculine author can know only as he knows 
 the garments of the trees in summer. 
 
 " There are pins," said Laura, " and this is 
 my own dressing-room, so no one will disturb 
 you. I'll wait in my bedroom, right through 
 this door till you come, all Easternified, to let 
 me see you." 
 
 " Say," was presently heard through the door, 
 " I can't make head or tail of these here what- 
 d'-ye-call-'ems." Therefore Laura went into the 
 dressing-room and elucidated the mysteries of 
 the one rigid, obdurate, and ultra-artificial gar- 
 ment with which the mountain girl had had no 
 previous acquaintance. 
 
 Perhaps the exquisite, scrupulously groomed 
 city woman had not been certain that the uncouth 
 stranger was safely to be admitted to intimate 
 relationship. Such a doubt might easily have 
 come of reflection upon Tonette's rude past. 
 Perhaps but for this, Laura would have gone, 
 without being called, into the dressing-room at 
 
 243
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 a forward stage of the change from chrysalis to 
 butterfly. At any rate, when she did go in, all 
 doubt fled. It was Aphrodite and not Bridget 
 whose arms glistened like well-scrubbed marble 
 before Laura's exacting eyes. Indeed, the doubt 
 went with such startling suddenness that when the 
 woman with a dress and she who lacked one 
 stood face to face, Laura embraced the robust 
 girl and looked into her merry brown eyes, and 
 saw Love's handmaiden, Affection, in them as 
 Tonette did in Laura's. 'The fastidious had 
 found nothing about the uncouth that was not as 
 sweet as a field daisy and a hundredfold more 
 lovable. That was when Love came to make a trio 
 which was never broken while the mortal members 
 of it drew breath. 
 
 " We're going to be good friends," Laura 
 said, still looking into the laughter-lighted brown 
 eyes. 
 
 " I'm only a stick of driftwood," Tonette 
 replied, giggling. " There ain't nothing to like 
 about me." 
 
 " I see lots," said Laura. 
 
 " And I like you so I could e'enamost holler," 
 Tonette made joyous answer. 
 
 244
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 For three days clothing kept coming to Tonette, 
 until at last two Saratoga trunks would not hold 
 all the new things Laura bought for her. Laura 
 had found her to be like a new doll, in need of 
 everything but a head, body, and limbs to fit her 
 for the life that lay ahead of her. 
 
 " You've come into this part of the world like 
 a baby born eighteen years old," she said to her. 
 
 " I've certainly got everything to git, haven't 
 I?" Tonette answered, with her bubbling laugh. 
 
 Laura flew about in cabs and cars, ordering 
 boots of many sizes, hats of many shapes, and 
 dresses of many colours, all to be sent to the 
 boarding-house. There selections for Tonette 
 were made from them under her eye and that 
 of a dressmaker who came every day and stayed 
 till night. Underwear, hosiery, gloves, scarfs, 
 collars, studs, sleeve-buttons, handkerchiefs, 
 jackets truly a stream such as one might see 
 if a mountain torrent swept through the largest 
 department store in Denver, flowed into the 
 boarding-house and whirled into Laura's bed- 
 room, there to eddy and deepen until it over- 
 flowed all the furniture. Laura sighed and told 
 the dressmaker that it was the most trying and 
 
 245
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 wearing task (the puns were unconscious) she 
 had ever undertaken. And the dressmaker sighed 
 and threw up her head and rolled her eyes in 
 sympathetic assent. Of course, they were not 
 taking each other seriously. The fact was that 
 few women have ever had the chance to be so 
 happy, according to the most cherished feminine 
 ideals, as was Laura during this experience. The 
 joy of a child who transforms a toggle- jointed 
 sawdust-loaded toy into a beautifully dressed 
 miniature woman is feeble compared to the intelli- 
 gent artistic delight Laura felt in changing Miss 
 Rocky Mountains into Miss d'Arblay of Powell- 
 ton, New York. She wished that the " sleuth 
 hounds " who were aimlessly searching for the 
 girl could be ignored, so that she might tell her 
 lady friends what she was doing and turn them 
 green with envy. 
 
 "Have you got a head for business?" she 
 inquired of Tonette one day. 
 
 "I dunno; guess if I haven't I've mebbe got 
 one to learn it with." 
 
 " I'm going to ask you to help me look after 
 a sort of business I have at my place in the 
 country," Laura said. She had seen that if she 
 
 246
 
 The Millionairess Hs- 
 
 transferred her market to Newburgh and opened 
 a shop or two there, her new companion could 
 visit them daily, and make the rounds of the 
 country gardens which fed them, being, perhaps, 
 of great service in smoothing the management of 
 the entire industry. " You ride horseback, don't 
 you ? " she asked. 
 
 " I'm part horse, myself," Tonette said. " I'm 
 upper half girl and lower half horse. I was near 
 about born on a horse, I reckon. But I'd be 
 like a baby again if I rode here in the East, 
 because I've always rode a-straddle." 
 
 " Astride is how we say that," Laura volun- 
 teered ; " though we never do the thing itself. 
 I'm going to get you to buy a horse to suit your- 
 self." 
 
 " Don't tell me any more," said the brown bar- 
 barian, " or I'll turn loose and holler like a 
 Flathead at a sun dance." 
 
 On one afternoon, while Laura was taking tea 
 with Mrs. Chester, Courtlandt Beekman called 
 and met both the ladies. Mrs. Chester was puz- 
 zled by the attention, as he had never before pre- 
 sumed upon his slight acquaintance to strengthen 
 it by a visit. She whispered to her compan- 
 
 247
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 ion before he was shown into the drawing- 
 room that " she could not understand it at all," 
 though she was visibly flattered by the attention. 
 Laura sought the explanation in her own rapidly 
 beating heart, and found it there. The gallant 
 and handsome descendant of the Knickerbockers 
 had divined her presence there, she was certain, 
 and it was his heart so well controlled and 
 masked to all but her that had prompted the 
 visit. She blushed scarlet from a delightful guilti- 
 ness, as she told herself that the visit was to her 
 and not to her companion. 
 
 The result of the visit was a call upon Laura 
 later in the evening, a drive to Mrs. Chester's 
 house to take her also to a small dinner at the 
 Waldorf, and then an evening at the theatre, 
 and a supper at Sherry's afterward. So studied 
 was Beekman's equal division of his attention 
 to his fair companions that Mrs. Chester was the 
 more deeply puzzled the longer the evening wore 
 on. Not a speaking glance did he throw to 
 Laura, not an instant did he linger over the ad- 
 justment of her coat on leaving the theatre; he did 
 not even take her hand on meeting or on parting 
 with her. He did, however, so arrange the home- 
 
 248
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 ward journey that Mrs. Chester was first set 
 down at her door and he and Laura rode by them- 
 selves to the Canadiennes'. When thus alone 
 with her, his wit and his spirits rose high, and 
 it might have seemed to an onlooker that he was 
 doing his utmost to make a good impression, 
 or, at least, that he was very much pleased 
 with the company in which he found himself. 
 
 At the Canadiennes' door he handed Laura out 
 of the carriage and mounted the stoop with her 
 to wait until the door was opened. Then he 
 said, " Good-night, I am so glad you enjoyed the 
 evening," and nothing more ! 
 
 How " unconscionably long " like the merry 
 Charles of England she was in shuffling off her 
 (silken) coil that night! How often she won- 
 dered if she had appeared at her best and copy- 
 ing Dandy Jim of Caroline " looked in the 
 glass and found it so." How prettily decked with 
 maidenly smiles she kept her sweet young face, 
 the telltale of her soul's communings. And 
 how long she lay awake upon her pillow. A 
 hundred times she pouted while recalling that 
 he had not been tender or akin to wooing in 
 his manner. But as many times smiles chased 
 
 249
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 away the pouting, and she whispered to her 
 pillow, "It was I that he came to see! How 
 handsome and noble and brilliant he is. It was 
 not Mrs. Chester but me that he came to see." 
 
 250
 
 XIX. 
 
 MISS TONY'S CONFESSION 
 
 " Not so sick, my lord, 
 As she is troubled with thick-coming fancies." Macbeth. 
 
 TpROM Fishkill to her house in Powell- 
 J_ ton, the whole way broke into a smile 
 when Miss Lament returned, even after a short 
 absence. The poor ran out of their doors, the 
 tradesmen lounged to the front of their shops, 
 men of every station raised their hats, and the 
 most heedless of the gamins by the roadside 
 grinned their welcome as she drove by. " Here's 
 Miss Lamont," " Miss Lament's come back," 
 were the notices that flew ahead of her. But, 
 when she returned on this occasion, one imag- 
 ined one could hear the whole vicinage say : " God 
 bless you, Miss Lamont, we thought you'd never 
 come back. But who's the pretty roly-poly by 
 your side? Isn't she rollicking, though, and full 
 of mischief? And isn't she a swell? If you've 
 got her for a foil, to set off your golden blond- 
 
 251
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 ness with her black hair and almost swart com- 
 plexion, you could not have made a better choice, 
 Miss Lament." 
 
 This is what one read in the emphasised smiles 
 of the people after her long absence, and in the 
 extra sweep of their hats and the sustained stare 
 at the companion by her side. Village life is 
 familiar and inquisitive the world around; which 
 is why the vulnerable abuse it so, and the vir- 
 tuous who move to great cities miss it and long 
 for it all their lives. 
 
 Those phrases, " pretty roly-poly " and " isn't 
 she swell ? " did our imagination catch them cor- 
 rectly? Could they have been called forth by 
 the little rough chip of the Rockies, Tonette 
 Darbley? Yes, indeed, but Antoinette d'Arblay, 
 after this, if you please. Laura insisted that it 
 should be so, and we must exhibit her weaknesses 
 as well as her triumphs, if we expect to succeed 
 in the hand-glass and mirror trade. Tonette 
 would have liked Laura to call her Snip, Pig, 
 or Rag, as Louis the Well-beloved used to call 
 his daughters, if Laura had preferred to do so, 
 but she signed herself Tonette, and was best 
 pleased when her friends addressed her as Tony. 
 
 252
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 She was indeed pretty. Hers was a round berry- 
 brown face, with jet hair half framing it, with 
 laughing brown eyes under coal-black crescents, 
 and with very hearty, thick red lips, which spoke 
 to her love of life. It was rustic beauty, red- 
 blooded, not blue, for the colour always re- 
 sults from ancestral training; in this case inter- 
 rupted, but almost certain to be caught up again 
 in her children. As to the other seven heads of 
 her it being laid down by the highest French 
 authority that the perfect human being is eight 
 heads tall they were so becomingly draped, 
 and so suffocatingly, unclassically but fashion- 
 ably squeezed in at the middle that, to be done 
 with the analysis once and for all, she was at once 
 " swell " and a " pretty roly-poly." 
 
 Mrs. Lamont, who saw in her a radiant work 
 of art, and had not understood her history, made 
 her a courtly bow, and addressed her in keeping 
 with it, hoping she was not " ennuied by her 
 journey." Tonette drew herself up two or three 
 inches taller and imitated the old lady's salute, 
 saying, " Thank you, ma'am, you can't phase 
 me," which she prided herself was a very choice 
 selection from the mother tongue. When she 
 
 2$3
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 was taken to her room that was to be, she burst 
 into choking laughter. 
 
 "Oh, dear!" she gasped; "your mother 
 wasn't it funny ? " 
 
 Very delicate ice that was for Tonette to skate 
 on, and Laura's face gave warning. " You are 
 cruel to laugh at my poor mother," she said. 
 
 " Well, I wasn't," Tonette replied, herself 
 wounded at the suspicion. " I was really laugh- 
 ing at myself dressed up in clothes that's all 
 out of place on me, like them that monkey had 
 on that we saw in the street, so that your maw 
 thought I was a sure-enough lady. Lor-zee ! how 
 surprised she will be when I open my mouth 
 and the sawdust rolls out." 
 
 At dinner that evening Tonette was shown into 
 the splendid dining-room, combining the best 
 taste of the last century and the choicest art of 
 this. She had learned a great deal with her quick, 
 sensitive mind and eye, and no one who saw her 
 take her place at table and rearrange her finger- 
 bowl, doiley, and napkin utensils undreamed of 
 by her a few weeks before could have criticised 
 the performance. But the beauty of her sur- 
 roundings overwhelmed her. She could scarcely 
 
 254
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 eat, and to talk was out of the question, unless 
 it were possible, as she would have said, " to 
 holler." Between mouthfuls and between courses 
 she rolled her eyes at the electric-lighted dado of 
 gold above the ancient panelling of oak, at the 
 portraits sunken in the oak, at the flowers, the 
 banquet lamps, the jewel-like crystal, the shin- 
 ing silver for Laura's table was set in much 
 the same way every night, whether there was 
 company or not. Never had Tonette seen the 
 like or read a description of its equal, or imag- 
 ined that a repast could be so bravely and beau- 
 tifully set forth. 
 
 " Oh," said she, when she was alone with her 
 benefactress, " if Bryan Cross described such 
 luxury (the author is putting her ideas into his 
 own words) I never realised his full meaning. 
 This is what I ran away from home to see; this 
 is what I tried to imagine as the sort of home 
 that all Bryan's beautiful ornaments must have 
 been made to consort with. But, now, I am 
 frightened. Now that I have known you and 
 your magnificent surroundings, I dread what is 
 coming to me. I am not such a fool as to think 
 I can live in a place like this except as a servant 
 
 255
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 a thing that I would sooner die than be. If 
 there's any kind of hard work that can be done 
 by a girl who feels herself equal to the highest in 
 the land, I will do it to be with you and to enjoy 
 these things for which I was born with a longing. 
 But I know that nothing that I can do would pay 
 for such comfort and luxury. I am frightened. I 
 see that I shall have to go home, though I shall 
 pine away and die there." 
 
 " Silly child," Laura called down from the 
 great height of a slight seniority ; " I brought 
 you here at Mr. Cross's request to silence a 
 scandal. Since then I have been more than repaid, 
 for I have learned to like you, therefore I shall 
 be glad to help you long after keeping you with 
 me has ceased to be of service to him. You can 
 do nothing, now. You forget you are hiding 
 from the reporters. When they have forgotten 
 you which will be very soon and when you 
 have become more like the people around us in 
 speech and manner, you shall be my assistant, 
 perhaps my wise little adviser we shall see." 
 
 " You spoke about Mr. Cross," she added. 
 " Do you know you have never told me why 
 you came to his house when you ran away. Tell 
 
 256
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 me now the whole story of your acquaintance 
 with him." 
 
 " Oh, that ain't nothing," Tonette said. 
 " Seems like that was so long ago and things 
 was so different; it's just as if I was a child, 
 and 's if I'd growed up since I got here. Bryan 
 came mooning out where I was, sick and miser- 
 'ble, wantin' to hunt grizzlies with paw. Him 
 a-huntin' grizzlies ! Why, the bears would laugh 
 if they heard of it and had any fun in 'em, which 
 grizzlies ain't. Anyhow, he come, and paw was 
 away with them sojers, and maw was that mad 
 at me we didn't speak, all 'cause I went to Gulch- 
 ville with paw and charmed a little locket out 
 of him to wear with my Sunday dress which 
 maw didn't have no locket didn't have ary a 
 locket how do you starch and iron it when 
 you want to say ' didn't have no locket ' here 
 in the East?" 
 
 " Did not have any," Laura said ; " but do not 
 try to change your speech except as your ear 
 tells you. You will soon speak as we do." 
 
 " Um," said Tonette, pursing up her mouth 
 as if to kiss Laura a dozen feet away, " I do 
 like you, an' you're a-goin' to let me, ain't you? 
 
 257
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 Well, so Bryan and me was throwed thrown 
 together, and oh, but I forgot the most impor- 
 tant part of all. You see, if there ever was a 
 dude it was Bryan in them those days. 
 Mysakes! he was a walking jewelry store. He's 
 give it all up since he got home, but at that time 
 he was just over from Germany and Paris and 
 Berlin and France and them parts. And he had 
 diamond rings and gold chains and silver hair 
 brushes and solid silver things to fuss up your 
 finger nails with, and scarf-pins and scarf-rings 
 and a solid silver penknife and a shoe horn 't 
 must have been worth a hundred dollars, and 
 his sister's tintype sot in set in solid silver, 
 and silver all around his kerlone bottles and a 
 diamond stud which he said was vulgar and 
 always kep' hid under his necktie, or else didn't 
 wear it and, oh, I can't never begin even in 
 the middle of the bee-yutiful things he had and 
 which he used to leave scattered around his room 
 to home at paw's, I mean. Ejven I sensed that 
 them was things for a woman more'n for a man. 
 Um, how I did used to tiptoe into his room and 
 glue my eyes onto all them things o' his! 
 " Well, now, Miss Laura, I want to make a. 
 
 258
 
 The Millionairess Hf 
 
 confession. I'm wicked. Oh, yes, I am. But 
 I'm wicked outside where everybody sees it. I 
 ain't wicked inside or wicked in my home, and 
 all honey on the outside. I couldn't sleep if I 
 was that away. I'd rather be bad and have 
 everybody know it than let on I was good and 
 have me and God know it was a lie. So, anyway, 
 when he \vas off moonin' I slipped into his room 
 and I put on his pants right over my dress 
 had to turn 'em up a yard at the bottom, you 
 know and a shirt of his and his vest, so's I 
 could wear his rings and a scarf-pin an' his 
 watch and chain. And there I stood a-looking at 
 myself in a glass about as big's my face; had 
 to stand it in different places to see different parts 
 of myself oh, you don't know what living's like 
 till you've camped out with paw awhile. Funny ? 
 I reckon a kitten with doll's shoes on its feet 
 don't feel no funnier than I looked. And I heard 
 a laugh and I turned around and there stood 
 Bryan, rounding me up. Well, he laughed and 
 I laughed. We stood up and laughed, and then 
 we sat down to it. After that me and him was 
 the best of friends and spent every clay together, 
 round the pond 'r else out in the woods. 
 
 259
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 "He kep' wantin' to talk about God; don't 
 know what ailed him, but he was all the time 
 wantin' to talk about how we knew for sure about 
 God, 'n' such things as that. I shut him up 
 'cause it makes me creepy that kind of talk. 
 I talk to God nights, Miss Laura, and tell him 
 everything, but I'm scared to talk about him, 
 behind His back, like. So I shut Bryan up, and 
 we was pardners. For four weeks steady I 
 made him tell me about New York and Chicago 
 and rich women and their dresses and joolry and 
 marble baths and the theatres. I was set clean 
 crazy thinking of where all such pretty things 
 as his must belong; and I stayed crazy and 
 I'm crazy yet. So when I couldn't stand it no 
 longer, breaking ice in my washbowl and wearing 
 the same old cotton dresses, and having nothing 
 but the roughest folks around me, I lit out, and 
 here I am. There! the ladle's bended, and my 
 story's ended." 
 
 " Did you like Mr. Cross very much, Tonette ? 
 No, no honour between friends," Laura 
 coaxed. " He told me he asked you to marry 
 him, dear why do you make wry faces ? " 
 
 Tonette seized a knee in her clasped hands and 
 rocked to and fro reflectively. 260
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 " I'm glad 1 didn't like him," she said. " I 
 mean in that real serious way, 'cause he talks 's 
 much 's a woman. Told you that, did he? I 
 suppose he knows you right well of course. 
 Did he tell you what I had to say about it ? Yes ? 
 Well, 1 reckon he would. I didn't like him like 
 you, 'cause there's only one of you comes in a box. 
 You could beat me and I'd kiss your hand like 
 a dog, Miss Laura. That ain't how I liked Bryan. 
 He's brave; I'll say that. I slipped and rolled 
 into the river when it was all rushing snow-water, 
 rippin' its way through the rocks. And he run 
 along on the bank and got even with where I 
 was in the water and jumped in and pulled me 
 out. I was stunned by hittin' a rock, and was 
 heavy as a deer's carcase; and he havin' to fight 
 for his own life, all the time; but he saved me. 
 After that, when I come to, lyin' in his arms 
 oh, whatever's the use, Miss Laura? It's all so 
 useless like a shot that don't hit nothin' ; gone 
 quick and best forgot, 'cept between me and him." 
 
 " No, go on, please. I am very much inter- 
 ested." 
 
 " Well, after he saved me and after some- 
 thing else he done if you must know, he kissed 
 
 261
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 me; there! After that, I thought I maybe be- 
 longed to him; he maybe liked me a lot, I 
 thought. So that was why I always reckoned 
 if I did come East and he should have kep' on 
 likin' me, and should, maybe, ask me why then 
 it would be my duty. You can see how it was, 
 can't you ? " 
 
 Laura nodded. 
 
 " But when I did come on, it got in the papers, 
 and he said my character was gone, and his sister 
 would die, and he'd "be ruined, same as I was 
 a'ready. And then he turned and I'll give him 
 credit where it's due and he says, ' Never 
 mind me or my sister; first thing's you.' That's 
 where he was brave again. Then he spoiled the 
 whole of it. 'I've done this thing,' he says; 
 * I kissed you as I didn't ought to,' he says, ' and 
 you've followed me here on account of it. I 
 seen I was a fool, but I done it, and it turned your 
 head, and now all I can do is to marry you. I 
 must pay for my folly,' says he, ' rather 'n harm 
 you worse.' Miss Laura, that was how he in- 
 sulted me! He flung himself at me like a bone 
 thrown to a wolf in a cage. I was so hot I 
 exploded. ' I don't need savin' 's bad 's you do/ 
 
 262
 
 The Millionairess . H 
 
 I says. ' I've took care of my character eighteen 
 years all right, and I ain't so afraid of its spoiling 
 on my hands as you are of yours. You kissed 
 me ? ' I says. ' You never. You hain't seen the 
 day you darst kiss me/ I says and God's got 
 to forgive me for that, 'cause I was only lyin' to 
 protect myself. ' I'd have shot you/ I says, ' if 
 you'd even brushed me with your face.' There 
 now, Miss Laura, that's all, only I'm all hot again 
 over it. To think of me comin' three thousand 
 miles, beggin' rides most of the way, to have a 
 man tell me he'd throw himself away and end 
 all his bright hopes by marrying me, 'cause he 
 was afraid for my character. I've got to go 
 in another room and be by myself, Miss Laura, 
 till I can see straight again." 
 
 263
 
 XX. 
 
 A GLIMPSE OF 
 THE UPPER TEN 
 
 " Why dost them lure me to this garish pleasure, 
 This pomp of light ? " Goethe, 
 
 Y AURA had another cousin than Archibald 
 M j Paton, one " Jack " Lamont, an own 
 cousin, who had tried to do her inexpressible 
 harm when she was poor and friendless. By 
 his evil courses he had, still earlier, alienated 
 the regard of his uncle, to whom he stood as near 
 in blood as Laura. Finding that by no other 
 process could he possibly inherit this uncle's 
 fortune, to squander as he did his patrimony, 
 he set out to marry her, but only when he learned 
 that she was to become the heir to the Lamont 
 estate. And, even then, the course he chose for 
 carrying forward his despicable ends was the 
 method of a scoundrel deaf to conscience and 
 calloused against pity. In its proper place we 
 will tell again to those who have not read it 
 elsewhere, the story of his villainy. At the 
 
 264
 
 The Millionairess HS- 
 
 moment now dealt with, this redoubtable hero 
 of a hundred disgraces and gallant par excel- 
 lence of the gutter, was but the shell of himself, 
 penniless a wreck in body at last and but it 
 is needless to anticipate. 
 
 The chapter is best opened with Laura in her 
 library looking surprised over two letters. The 
 first was from Henrietta Van Ness, asking " could 
 you possibly send over a check for two hundred 
 dollars? I'm in an awful strait. Only for a little 
 while, there's a dear little Miss Crcesus, and you 
 shall have it back. P.S. I have such news to tell 
 when I see you." The second was from Jack 
 Lament, the only being to whom she felt un- 
 kindly, whose mere name had only lately ceased 
 to make her shudder. It was written shakily, 
 hesitatingly, almost hopelessly. " I am very ill," 
 it ran. " Am ordered to go in the country. I 
 suppose you hate me I know you have good 
 cause yet I will never give offence again, if 
 you will be magnanimous. There is nowhere 
 else that I can go. I am so ill and want to be 
 with friends, in a home; though it must be now 
 or very likely not at all. I may not be alive a 
 little later." 
 
 265
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 Very long Laura pondered those two missives, 
 as a very much older girl might weigh two pro- 
 posals of marriage which she fancied might be 
 the last she would receive. 
 
 " I do not see how Miss Van Ness can stoop 
 to borrow money," she thought, " and the word- 
 ing of her note is very well, it certainly reveals 
 no qualms. That must be her way of trying to 
 hide her sensitiveness." 
 
 " Tonette," she called from the foot of the 
 staircase. "Don't you feel like a sleigh-ride? 
 There's snow enough and I've heard some sleighs 
 go by. Ask my mother if she wouldn't like to 
 come, too. I'm going to the bank and telegraph 
 office. Your hat and jacket ? They're down here 
 again, you untidy girl." Then, as she waited, 
 she communed -with herself again : " I wonder 
 if he is really ill. He merely asks for a room 
 and a bed in a house that was once a home to 
 him. If he is ill, I simply cannot refuse him." 
 
 At the bank she inquired whether the Van 
 Nesses kept an account there, and was told that 
 they did not. Nevertheless, she wrote out a 
 check for two hundred dollars, and, enclosing it 
 with a note, drove with it to the telegraph office. 
 
 266
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 There she found a messenger by whom to send 
 it to Miss Van Ness, and then she telegraphed to 
 her lawyers in the city : " Please find out to-day, 
 if possible, whether John Lament ill. This very 
 urgent." 
 
 " Now, Tonette," she said, " we have tried to 
 do a good turn to two persons, and yet, instead 
 of being happier, we are, at least I am, full of 
 doubt whether I have done right in either case. 
 It's funny; if I could do so I would not alter 
 what I've done, yet I can't shake off the fear that 
 I've made a mistake in each case." 
 
 " I don't know what you're talking about," 
 Tonette made answer. 
 
 " Oh, yes, you do, my dear," Laura insisted ; 
 " you know that I am saying that if a woman has 
 no man to rule her she gets along with impulse 
 in his place. What you don't know and I 
 don't say I'm any wiser is which is the 
 better master." 
 
 " Oh, yes, you do," came from Tonette in 
 mockery of Laura's tone and words, " 'n' I know 
 too, or rather Nature knows and don't give us 
 a chance to argify argi now, there's a word 
 I know's pure Montana. Argue, eh? Sounds 
 
 267
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 short, that does. Most words here in the East 
 sells by the yard, and that one ain't more than 
 an inch, is it? " 
 
 " I can't imagine a man with the nerve to 
 ask to be your husband," she said, after a pause. 
 " And, then again, I can't imagine a man seein' 
 you an' not askin', neither." 
 
 Laura's mother plucked Tonette's sleeve and 
 bent over toward her. 
 
 " Sh-h-h," she whispered. " Has some one 
 asked her ? " 
 
 Tonette shook her head vigorously, with some- 
 thing of scorn for whoever might exhibit such 
 presumption. 
 
 " My daughter's set against a formal wedding," 
 said the old lady. " Do try to convince her that 
 it is the only proper way. I know. Mine was a 
 private marriage. I never want to hear of an- 
 other. My child, why won't you take mother's 
 word for it " and so the inevitable came, and 
 was not done with till all three ladies were back 
 at the Clock House door. 
 
 More than a fortnight passed before Jack La- 
 mont came to Powellton. Laura wrote him an 
 invitation such as not every man's pride v:ould 
 
 268
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 permit him to accept, for she laid down condi- 
 tions : that he had yet to prove his right to for- 
 giveness, and that if the visit came to be regretted 
 on either side he would promise to end it 
 summarily. 
 
 But much that was exciting and of great 
 importance to Laura took place before his visit. 
 The " such news " to which Henrietta Van Ness 
 referred in her note was that she had obtained for 
 her an invitation to a very grand wedding at 
 Rhinebeck, to take place in a few days. The 
 names of the contracting parties and the guests, 
 embracing many of the leaders of fashion in New 
 York, whetted in her a keen longing to witness 
 the affair and the company, so that without hesi- 
 tation she promised to go; without hesitation, 
 I say, but of course the usual difficulty of not 
 having " a single thing to wear " intervened, and 
 was overcome at great expense and trouble. 
 
 The wedding came, as all things in the future 
 have their way of doing, and was very brilliant 
 and exclusive; quite beyond any country wed- 
 ding in recent history. At the reception at the 
 bride's house Laura for the first time mingled 
 shoulder to shoulder and face to face with a 
 
 269
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 few of the famous " Four Hundred " conservers 
 of New York's pretensions as a capital of Fashion. 
 She saw these notables, too, in the way that is 
 most becoming to them, through an opalescent 
 girlish haze which rendered them all different 
 from the rest of us in a score of ways that were 
 to their advantage. She was introduced to 
 several, and found them " gracious " and " so 
 easy in their manners " qualities which one 
 hears attributed to the same class wherever one 
 travels, though why those whose position is as- 
 sured and who have the means to ensure their 
 comfort should ever be anything but easy and 
 gracious no one anywhere ventures to explain. 
 In particular she met Courtlandt Beekman the 
 hope of seeing whom had outweighed all com- 
 punctions when she was weighing the argu- 
 ments for and against intruding in that brilliant 
 society. She was a trifle self-conscious in his pres- 
 ence, for never had any man impressed her and 
 filled her thoughts as he had done. When his 
 eyes met hers she felt as if his were charged with 
 Rontgen rays and were looking straight through 
 her. It did not seem possible that she could 
 interest a man so travelled and distinguished, 
 
 270
 
 The Millionairess Hf 
 
 and yet there they were: she prattling volubly, 
 he spurring her with questions and comment 
 and, mercy on her! everybody remarking them. 
 He drifted away in time, with a hearty word at 
 parting. He was so used to touching and going 
 like that, she thought, with his real feelings left 
 at home, perhaps. Would she ever be " fash- 
 ionable " to that degree, to the extent of hiding 
 her feelings ? She would rather not, she reflected, 
 as she saw his broad straight back and shoul- 
 ders looming over two ladies, and tried to con- 
 vince herself that in the nature of the circum- 
 stances lay the probability that she would never 
 realise his prophecy that he should know her 
 better than he had ever known any woman. 
 Others took his place in turn and made them- 
 selves agreeable, but through their dull voices 
 she heard the echo of the sterling ring of his 
 a voice rich with honesty like his face. She felt 
 as must a valley among the hills when the sun 
 droops and sends chill shadows where its beams 
 had been. The high light and the warmth had 
 gone from the scene, and she, too, would be 
 satisfied to leave it. But, among the others came 
 Henrietta and Lily Van Ness, both a-tremble 
 
 271
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 with a subject of great importance or pretending 
 to be so, for one was never sure about them in 
 such a matter. 
 
 If the snow lasted, Henrietta said, she and 
 her friends were going to get up a grand sleigh- 
 ing party, to be followed by a dinner in honour of 
 the Russian minister, " who was the dearest old 
 bear alive, and a lot of the nicest people would 
 come and oh, la, la ! " Words failed of coher- 
 ence, and gave place to a hash of superlatives, 
 supported by wriggles and translated by panto- 
 mimic gestures and gasps. Laura caught the 
 spirit of the incident and, in her sympathy, " oh- 
 my'd " with the sisters. 
 
 " But," and here was evidently a great obstacle 
 nothing short of an iceberg in the way, to judge 
 by the freezing tone of that " but." " But," said 
 Henrietta, " though it means everything to 
 whoever does the honours puts you in the swim 
 and makes you the vogue, don't you know 
 I'm downright ashamed to dine them at our rotten 
 old barracks, and, as for sleeping them there 
 people used to every comfort and luxury, don't 
 you know well, the day was, but isn't with 
 us. That's frank, don't you know? " 
 
 272
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 " Oh, Henrietta, that'll do for the curtain 
 raiser," Lily interrupted ; " now, for heaven's 
 sake, say what you are coming to. She wants to 
 know, you see, Miss Lamont, if she can give the 
 dinner at your house and she can swim through 
 in that way on the tail of your frock. For my 
 part, I don't see why it wouldn't be all right, 
 if you're agreeable." 
 
 " I mean it's often done, you know," Henri- 
 etta said; "when one's house is too small or 
 one is in a flat or a hotel, why, in the city one 
 takes a regular hall, but in the country one looks 
 about for a friend with a house, doesn't one ? " 
 
 Laura looked troubled and in need of a 
 "modern instance," as the poet has said. 
 
 Foolish girl! to have doubt was well, but 
 to have doubt of the wrong thing was not so 
 well. Lend your house every day. What harm? 
 But be sure you lend it to the right persons, 
 always. 
 
 Modern instances a-plenty were cited to 
 quell her misplaced anxiety. Still she appeared 
 uneasy. Then men were dragooned to where she 
 stood and put through their paces. Wasn't it 
 quite proper really quite the thing to give a 
 
 2/3
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 party and let a friend invite the people when 
 there was a good reason like living in a flat 
 or a hotel or being a newcomer in the place, or 
 whatever ? " Oh, quite, we assure you. Really, 
 it would be jolly, don't you know? We'll all go 
 in for it," said the men. 
 
 Thus Laura was convinced, and not very reluc- 
 tantly, for were not these people in the same 
 set with Courtlandt Beekman? That was one 
 reason that she liked that afternoon's taste of 
 the Upper Ten as what woman would not who 
 knows that to be in and of them is to be on the 
 crest of things worldly, hall-marked, a legal (that 
 is to say, a social) tender everywhere. 
 
 On the cars homeward bound she somehow 
 found herself beside a gentleman who had been 
 introduced to her at the reception and had paid 
 her only slight attention, yet who now evinced 
 an anxiety to make himself most agreeable. 
 
 " You don't know Harry Kimball ? " he asked. 
 " I'm a great chum of Harry's, in fact, of all 
 the er the Catamarans." 
 
 " And who are the Catamarans ? " she inquired, 
 not that she cared to know so much as that she 
 desired to be polite. 
 
 " Who are the oh, come ; who are the Sand- 
 
 274
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 wich Islanders, you might as well ask or the 
 Monarchs of Europe," her companion replied. 
 " Don't you know, really ? I say ! the Cata- 
 marans wouldn't feel complimented. Well, Harry 
 is one, and I well, I ain't exactly one but I 
 know them on the ' side,' as we say. Oh, it's 
 nothing but a by-word, one of those things 
 which catch on and stick like a burr, and won't 
 be rubbed off. Leonard Woodlawn, who wasn't 
 always so witty, got it off about one wing of 
 New York society, and it has been passed along 
 ever since, sticking here and there, till now it has 
 stuck to this newest lot. It isn't altogether nice 
 - you mustn't mind, you know, because you 
 asked me. ' They're Catamarans/ said Leonard, 
 ' because they are very fast, carry a lot of sail, 
 get along with very little wind and nothing else, 
 sail in couples that are fixed as far apart as pos- 
 sible, and generally finish up with a header.' ' 
 
 She comprehended the phrase about their being 
 very fast, but, in general, the definition was so 
 much Greek to her. It were well if she were 
 never to know the Catamarans any better than she 
 understood their description. It was a case 
 where ignorance was bliss and knowledge almost 
 a catastrophe. 
 
 275
 
 XXI. 
 
 THE FRINGE OF SOCIETY 
 
 " ' A happy day indeed ! ' I cried ; 
 ' But tell me, which may be the bride? ' 
 The bumpkin answered with a stare 
 ' Lord, sir ! I neither know nor care." " Goethe. 
 
 rROUBLED and pestered about the evils 
 of pleasure life, Laura foresaw that a 
 maidenly desire to " happen " in the orbit of 
 the man she most admired was likely to change 
 her course from amid people of occasional gaiety 
 after work, to a circle of perpetual pleasure 
 seekers. As long as she was conscious of no evil 
 she would persist in this drifting, but she was 
 young, unsophisticated, and very conscientious; 
 therefore grey Doubt came and perched upon her 
 bed canopy, her carriage front, her dining-table ; 
 the hideous bird would never away. She had 
 the greatest doubts about the Van Ness sisters, 
 and about the coming party; but, on the other 
 hand, almost every day she read the name of 
 Courtlandt Beekman in the newspapers; of his 
 
 276
 
 The Millionairess H5- 
 
 presence at the opera, of his leading a cotillion, of 
 his participation in whatever was found in high 
 life ; and every time she read his name her desire 
 to meet him drove away her doubts about her 
 present course. 
 
 York Stone, her mother, Tonette and her 
 bank account, perhaps were almost the only 
 possessions in which she found unvarying com- 
 fort. She came back from the wedding with a 
 heavier dependence on York Stone. It was 
 natural. He was the only one of his entire sex 
 who had aroused hope of help, and had not more 
 or less disappointed her. Perhaps now he would 
 not be so formal with her perhaps he would 
 show an interest in matters more personal than 
 her charities. With his counsel, she could defy 
 grey Doubt. She did not know why she expected 
 him to change his behaviour. Certainly, she 
 would never again throw herself at him with 
 confidences about her private affairs after his 
 pointed refusals to interest himself in them. But 
 if he would not extend the needed hand, Heaven 
 knew there seemed no man who would. 
 
 When she next met him he was overwhelmed 
 with the work of improving the village and the 
 
 277
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 condition of its people. For the present, at all 
 events, it was idle to expect him to assume a new 
 relationship, yet when, in all her life, was it 
 likely that she would need his counsel more than 
 at this moment? There was nothing better than 
 to confide in her mother and Tonette for the 
 mere relief of crystallising her thoughts and 
 apprehensions. 
 
 " Perhaps a certain mysterious knight will be 
 at the party who knows, eh, Laura ? " her 
 doting mother ventured. 
 
 " Don't talk to me about those Van Ness 
 sisters," Tonette exclaimed ; " if they ain't bad 
 medicine there ain't no such a thing. I'll bet 
 if I hit that Henrietta on her cheek or anywheres 
 with a stone, she'd strike fire. I'd like to try it, 
 I would. And as for her sister well, all I 
 can say is, that even the angels must hate her." 
 
 Henrietta came several times to the Clock 
 House, and proved herself a past mistress at 
 arranging for such a party as this was to be. The 
 brands of champagne which were most certain 
 to give satisfaction, the kind and quantity of 
 whiskey to be offered in the library, with cigars 
 and cigarettes and cocktail ingredients; the 
 
 278
 
 The Millionairess ^ 
 
 number of packs of cards for the men always 
 played " a little " after a party ; the band, which 
 if not the Hungarian must at least be in Hun- 
 garian dress; the menu to be left to the chef 
 of a friend who would lend him for that night; 
 these were the things Miss Van Ness considered 
 most important, and which she lifted, unmindful 
 of their weight, from Laura's shoulders. 
 
 When it came to arranging the putting up of 
 certain of the visitors for the night, Henrietta 
 allotted a Mrs. Williger, among others, to Laura's 
 house. This young matron's behaviour at the 
 recent wedding in Rhinebeck had attracted 
 Laura's attention, and she had asked Lily Van 
 Ness about her. 
 
 "Oh," Lily said, "that's a Mrs. Williger - 
 and that's Mr. Bewick who's with her. His wife 
 is an invalid and her husband's an old fool 
 so there you are." 
 
 " I'm sorry Mrs. Williger is to come," Laura 
 said to Henrietta. " I did not like what I saw 
 of her at the wedding." 
 
 " But you must remember that she was among 
 old friends there," Henrietta replied; "she'd be 
 
 279
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 more what-do-you-call-it here. Oh, much more, 
 I assure you; circumspect, I mean, you know." 
 
 " Well, I'd rather it would be only men who 
 stop here on that night," Laura replied in a tone 
 that was final. 
 
 In the rearrangement this brought about she 
 found that one of her rooms was allotted to 
 Courtlandt Beekman. 
 
 "Oh, he's coming, is he?" Laura asked, as 
 if merely to say something. 
 
 " Yes. He wants to meet the Russian minister. 
 Mr. Beekman's not to my taste, I may as well 
 tell you. He's all very well for polo and hunting 
 and splurging with his yacht and drag 
 when a splurge is what you're in for he's 
 awfully rich, you know; but he's too ramroddy; 
 leans over backwards, don't you know? Very 
 good men never seem quite human to me." 
 
 " But where is the Russian minister going to 
 sleep? " Laura asked. 
 
 "Oh, he? Why er " Henrietta knew 
 that the minister was not able to come, but to 
 publish the fact would be to raise bothersome 
 questions as to the advisability of going ahead 
 with the party, which, from the first, had been 
 
 280
 
 The Millionairess fc 
 
 planned solely for her own aggrandisement. 
 " Why, where is he to go ? Oh, yes, Harry 
 Kimball is going to put him up." 
 
 Laura scented no lie in this, but in the fulness 
 of time even before the night of the party 
 she was aghast at the appearances of double-deal- 
 ing on Henrietta's part which came up. For 
 instance, though Laura had been led to believe 
 she was to be under no other expenses than for 
 the bare dinner, the wines, liquors, cigars, play- 
 ing cards, ivory counters or chips, and half a 
 dozen other purchases were all sent to her with 
 bills for immediate collection. At eight o'clock 
 on the fateful night, Laura having stayed in 
 from the sleigh-ride to supervise the final prepa- 
 rations, the leader of the small orchestra which 
 had been engaged, presented a bill for payment in 
 advance, and demanded instant settlement. The 
 money consideration was trifling compared to 
 the mortification Laura felt at having been so 
 coarsely deceived. The shame that she bore vica- 
 riously for the Van Ness sisters actually burned 
 her cheeks.. 
 
 Poor tender cheeks! If they took flame so 
 early and so easily, what was likely to result 
 when the greater trials came? 281
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 It was after nine o'clock when the sleigh-loads 
 of fair faces above the mounds of fur and of great- 
 coated gallants with a politeness that missed no 
 chance to serve a woman, were emptied upon the 
 Clock House porch. In ten minutes the spacious 
 rooms on the ground floor and the stairs and dress- 
 ing-rooms above were gay with bright colours and 
 noisy with unfettered mirth. Twenty couples had 
 come, with no Russian minister at their head, and 
 the high pressure of the night's pleasure seemed 
 reached at once. Never could less constraint have 
 been shown by persons so new to their surround- 
 ings. Scarcely in a hotel could even such a party 
 so confident of the hospitality at their call 
 have made themselves thus instantly and thor- 
 oughly at home. Before the servants could grasp 
 the situation, they found themselves trying to 
 obey more commands than twice their number 
 could have executed satisfactorily. In the wake 
 of the Misses Van Ness the men found the library 
 where those accomplished women mixed cocktails 
 with a skill and knowledge beyond praise. Some 
 of these went into the drawing-room to moisten 
 feminine lips, cigarettes glowed in the library and 
 halls, decorous laughter rolled to and fro. The 
 
 282
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 old house was indeed in new hands, and yet it 
 had come about as naturally as the capture of 
 Holland by the Dutch. It did not appear to 
 the company of bright and showy women and 
 elegant, easy-mannered gallants as if an inhar- 
 monious chord could jar their content. Yet there 
 was one among them who moved about helplessly 
 at first, then distractedly ; then stood ashamed and 
 trembling with indignation. 
 
 As the reader surmises, this was the young 
 proprietress of the mansion. 
 
 Many wondered with a propriety-chilled curios- 
 ity who she was and what she was doing there. 
 Some of them, perhaps, imagined that she had 
 come to sing or play. She first appeared hovering 
 about the drawing-room door, hesitating, wonder- 
 ing whether she ought to welcome the guests. 
 She discovered that no one afforded her a chance ; 
 that all stared at and then ignored her. Next 
 she volunteered information to a lady who was 
 inquiring the way to the dressing-room, and never 
 will she forget the freezing look she got. After 
 that, she resolved to depend upon some other 
 means than her own for gaining a footing of ease 
 with her guests some other means which never 
 
 283
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 materialised. Where all were supposed to be old 
 friends and where so many considered the Misses 
 Van Ness their hostesses, no one wasted a second 
 thought upon her. In the course of fifteen min- 
 utes, which Laura afterward described as " an 
 age," Henrietta came down from the upper floor 
 and flew at her and bestowed a pecking, bird-like 
 kiss upon her, saying with the ring of hard metal 
 which distinguished her voice : " Splendid ! splen- 
 did, you dear thing! You've managed it all so 
 well everybody's delighted." At that she was 
 for winging away again, but Laura plucked her 
 sleeve to detain her. 
 
 "I don't know what to do," she said. "I 
 don't know any one." 
 
 " Why, yes, you do, dear," Henrietta replied. 
 " There's Lily and Miss Martin and Macy Folger. 
 Macy, you remember Miss Lamont, whom you 
 met at Rhinebeck ? " 
 
 " Oh. really," that young man stuttered, " quite 
 well, of course. Awful bedlam, isn't it? Hate 
 this sort of thing, till it gets on the track and 
 runs smoothly, don't you? Nice old house this 
 of Miss Van Ness's, I must say. Can I get 
 you a cocktail, or anything ? " 
 
 284
 
 The Millionairess %& 
 
 Then he went away, and Miss Lily came merely 
 to say that Laura must be having a stupid time, 
 but after the champagne had gone around a few 
 times at dinner " then's when things get comfy, 
 don't they ? " 
 
 Courtlandt Beekman was late in arriving. He 
 knew every man and woman in the room, though 
 his standing among them was formal, judging 
 by the manner in which he greeted them as he 
 passed from one to the other. A man who is 
 at home in the wilderness sees more of what goes 
 on around him, without appearing to look, than 
 others can see by staring, therefore by the time 
 he had reached Laura's side he comprehended her 
 situation as well as if he had watched her for 
 half an hour. 
 
 " You came to see the Russian minister," she 
 said ; " but he is not to be here. He could not 
 leave his duties in Washington." 
 
 " I am not sure he ever thought of coming," 
 Beekman replied. " I did not come on his ac- 
 count, Miss Lamont. You could not easily guess 
 why I did come especially since parties like 
 this are quite out of my line, and I am hurrying 
 - rather, I was hurrying off upon a two years' 
 tour of Central Asia." 285
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 "You are really going?" she inquired and 
 noticed a slight sinking of her heart as she awaited 
 his reply. 
 
 " I did expect to start at once," said he; " but 
 now I'm not certain." 
 
 He took Laura in to dinner, and sat next to 
 her at table. Slowly he calmed her by his self- 
 command that was so strong as to become a 
 command of herself as well. Steadily, too, he 
 raised her spirits with his flow of cheerful, 
 bright speech. 
 
 " I was so uncomfortable," she confided to 
 him. " I have been introduced to no one." 
 
 " Perhaps all do not understand that you are 
 the hostess," he suggested. " As a guest, you 
 would not be introduced. It is a monarchical 
 trick which has struck root in this cranny of the 
 republic one of our imitations of the English. 
 You are supposed to know every one; if not, 
 there is thought to be a chance that the others 
 might not care to know you. In this case this 
 has its compensations, because, if you will excuse 
 what is a rude thing to say, there is a strong 
 chance that you are better off for not knowing 
 the others." 
 
 286
 
 XXII. 
 
 THE SKELETON 
 AT THE FEAST 
 
 " They dealt out meat and they dealt out wine." Old Norse Song. 
 
 rHE dinner, which I am not going to 
 describe, lagged a little at first, as doubt- 
 less Lily Van Ness would say might be ex- 
 pected, " until the wine went around a few 
 times." During the repast, her sister produced 
 from her pocket a half-sheet of note paper, much 
 written on and rumpled, and conveying it deftly 
 around the corner of the table to Mrs. Williger, 
 whispered to her briefly. Mrs. Williger beamed 
 with pleasure, consulted the paper surreptitiously 
 for a moment, and beamed the more. Then she 
 handed it to Mr. Bewick by her side and com- 
 manded him, aloud, " Read it and pass it along 
 only to the men." The men got it by turns, 
 and each laughed aloud, or smothered a laugh as 
 he passed it on, the women affecting no interest in 
 it, except as it came the turn of each to hand it 
 
 287
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 to her escort. One or two of the women turned 
 scarlet, but nearly all were case-hardened against 
 blushing. When it reached Courtlandt Beekman, 
 he did not detain it. 
 
 " Mr. Beekman hasn't read it," purred the 
 younger Miss Van Ness. 
 
 " I haven't my glasses with me," said he. 
 
 " He'd know it, anyway," said Henrietta, with 
 a touch of malice. " Who knows but he wrote 
 it? These quiet men are all so deep." 
 
 Beekman laughed, and, raising his glass, re- 
 plied, " Your very good health, Miss Van Ness." 
 Thus he ended that incident. 
 
 One other episode was a story by one of the 
 ladies, for where all knew one another so well, 
 the women exhibited the confidence and practice 
 which raconteurs value. 
 
 " I was telling about the canny Scotchman at 
 the club at St. Andrews," said the fair story- 
 teller ; " one we met there last summer. He 
 told Myndert one day that he believed the 
 awful ' heads ' men get in the mornings, after 
 nights like this, you know, are caused by tobacco, 
 and not by spirits. ' Sperrets, mon,' he said, 
 * have the faculty in a milder degree d'ye se 
 
 288
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 of absorrbing essences and vapours, as ye well 
 ken. 'Tis in that way parfumerry's mannifac- 
 thered.' Well, to drop the Scotch, he got Myndert 
 to test this deep scientific question one night's 
 bout without cigars or pipes and the next night 
 with them. Myndert's always wanting to know 
 everything new, and he did have two awful nights. 
 They each finished a bottle the first night, and, 
 sure enough, though it was the best liqueur 
 whiskey, Myndert came down to breakfast as 
 good-natured as a lamb. He said he was as right 
 as rain. Next night, he and the Scotchman 
 drank only a little over a bottle between them, but 
 smoked a lot, and in the morning after that, on 
 my word, Myndert was an awful wreck; in the 
 clutches of R. E. Morse, if ever a man was." 
 
 Nobody laughed but all waited, while the fair 
 raconteur returned to her exercise with her knife 
 and fork, in wonderment at the silence. 
 
 " Well, what's the point ? Don't leave us sus- 
 pended like that, Miss Daniels," some one called 
 to her. 
 
 "Oh, I didn't tell you, did I?" she said. 
 " Why, the point is that next day Myndert heard 
 the Scotchman proposing the same experiment 
 
 289
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 to another man. And it turned out that he was 
 always getting some one to try the thing, so 
 as to make sure of a rousing time every night 
 of his life." 
 
 The climax was well received, and the story 
 may stand as an example of what the company 
 considered amusing. 
 
 Hardly had the laughter subsided when one 
 of the men attracted general attention by ex- 
 claiming: "You don't say? My word! Well, 
 that is a sensation ! " 
 
 "What is it? Let us all in, please! What's 
 the news ? " several voices called. 
 
 " Why," the first speaker replied, " Bewick's 
 been telling Margie Barclay that Clyde and 
 Laura Stuyvesant and Dick and Mildred Mow- 
 bray are to get divorces and change partners. 
 Clyde Stuyvesant is to marry Mildred Mowbray 
 and Dick Mowbray is to marry Laura Stuyvesant. 
 That is news, isn't it? Well, I will say it's only 
 decent ot them, anyway." 
 
 " Oh, we cling to civilised ways," Miss Daniels 
 returned. " We still go through the form of 
 marriage." 
 
 " Another double couple arranging to retire 
 
 290
 
 The Millionairess $& 
 
 for three years, to purge themselves for merely 
 carrying on a natural course on the hilltops, in- 
 stead of hiding their ways under a bushel bas- 
 ket," one of the men commented. 
 
 " Three years ! " a lady exclaimed. " How 
 very out of date you are. The sentence has not 
 been so long since 'way back when the Van Rips 
 defied Mrs. Grundy. Nowadays, a year puts 
 things straight." 
 
 " We are the true Latter Day Saints," Mr. 
 Bewick soliloquised. " But I don't know ; the 
 Mormons achieve the same ends in better ways. 
 They legalise and sanctify the very things for 
 which we are damned by a moss-grown public 
 opinion." 
 
 " Pshaw ! " Miss Daniels exclaimed, " the 
 Mormons have moral laws of some sort, how- 
 ever elastic, but we, very properly, consider our- 
 selves above all laws. The moral law is for the 
 poor and unfashionable. The rich and swagger 
 are above the vulgarity of being damned." 
 
 " Still, we certainly are producing funny con- 
 ditions," Mrs. Williger remarked, " if you look 
 at them from the old-fashioned point of view. 
 Now that Jacob Van Gilder has set up his new 
 
 291
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 home with Lily Vesey, his daughters, who stay 
 with the mother, call him Mr. Van Gilder, and 
 speak of him as a person they were introduced 
 to at Lady Curzon's while they were abroad. 
 And then you've heard the story of the little boy 
 with the new father, haven't you? No? It's 
 simply too awfully clever ! ' I've got a new 
 father,' says a little boy to his playmate, proudly. 
 ' Humph ! ' the other boy replies, ' you needn't 
 be so big about it. It's only old De Vrees; he 
 was my father first, I guess.' ' 
 
 " Did you select the performers for to-night. 
 Miss Lamont?" Beekman asked, in a lowered 
 voice. 
 
 She did not understand him. She was not 
 aware there were to be any performers. 
 
 "Oh, yes; I hear so," he said. "That Mile. 
 Saint d'Or, who created such a sensation while 
 at one of the music halls, is one, and La Cachuca, 
 the Spanish dancer, is to be the other. Have 
 you seen them, or either of them?" 
 
 " I have never been to any of the variety thea- 
 tres," she replied. " I'm practically alone, and 
 my amusements are somewhat limited by neces- 
 sity. Some of my married friends in town were 
 
 292
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 going to get up a party to go to Weber and 
 Fields's last winter, but it fell through somehow." 
 
 " Perhaps you won't care to see these perform- 
 ers. We " 
 
 Had she waited for him to finish his remark 
 with a proposal that they both enjoy a quiet talk, 
 instead of witnessing the vaudeville performance, 
 she would have replied differently, and spared 
 herself the greatest of the mortifications of the 
 evening. But she spoke quickly. 
 
 " Oh, yes, I should enjoy seeing them," she 
 said. 
 
 After dinner, he left her to her own resources, 
 being anxious that his attentions to her should 
 not become marked. She fled to the sewing-room 
 to relieve her complex feelings in the company 
 of her mother and Tonette. There she told of 
 the celebrated performers whom Miss Van Ness 
 had engaged, and urged the old and the young 
 lady to reconsider their determination not to par- 
 ticipate in the festivities. All three presently de- 
 scended to the noisy lower floor, where Laura 
 again fell to superintending the servants. 
 
 While she moved about, Harold Kimball, who 
 figured so unhappily in an earlier chapter in this 
 
 293
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 history, attached himself to her side. He did 
 so without encouragement from her, we may 
 be sure. With an ardour spurred by too gen- 
 erous dining, he sang in her ear maudlin praises 
 of her beauty. She tried to escape, but he, con- 
 scious of her design, determined not to lose this 
 chance to pursue the acquaintance. Finally, cor- 
 nered and fearful of a more trying scene, she 
 stood and listened to what he had to say. Let it 
 suffice that she found it torture to submit to his 
 company under the circumstances. Though not 
 every one present might have thought the case 
 so serious, she was very much frightened. She 
 had not known, and would not have believed, 
 that a man would address himself to a lady as 
 he did, with innuendoes so abhorrent to a pure 
 woman, with a tone and glances which added 
 insult to his disrespect. 
 
 " I was only telling her I would cut my dresses 
 lower if I were so beautiful a woman," he ex- 
 plained to his affianced, when that wide-awake 
 young woman saw Laura's face and pulled him 
 away. 
 
 Laura went into the conservatory to compose 
 her too-easily legible face. Kimball quickly dis- 
 
 294
 
 The Millionairess H$- 
 
 engaged himself from Henrietta and followed 
 her with a face that was also too scrutable. 
 Beekman, who had seen the first part of the 
 adventure and been unable to leave his com- 
 panion of the moment, read Laura's face and 
 then Kimball's, and he also went to the con- 
 servatory. 
 
 As he entered the long arcade, curtained again 
 and again by palms, giant ferns, and delicate 
 pendants of greenery, he heard the sound of 
 KimbalFs voice, a sudden rustle of Laura's skirts 
 suggesting a note of alarm, and then her voice 
 commanding Kimball to leave her at once. 
 
 " Miss Lament ! Oh, Miss Lament ! are you 
 here?" Beekman called, advancing down one 
 side of the conservatory, while Kimball passed 
 out with uncertain step and sheepish look on the 
 other side. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Beekman," Laura cried, " I was so 
 frightened!" 
 
 " Was," he replied, " but are not now. I was 
 going to suggest that these performers are about 
 to go on if you really intend to see them. 
 But before we go in, may I ask you about this 
 vine ? You may be surprised, but I have to inter- 
 
 295
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 est myself in all things that have life, as well 
 as many which do not, in order to travel intelli- 
 gently. From men to mice, and from the trees 
 to the mosses on their trunks, they are all the 
 prey of the professional Ishmaelite who calls him- 
 self an explorer." 
 
 What was his magic, by which he could, as 
 by a wave of the hand, restore a mind distracted 
 as hers had been ? Did it hide in the honest ring 
 of his voice, or was it bred of that confidence 
 which even his slightest movement disclosed? 
 Laura asked herself these questions, and then 
 admitted that she did not need to know the 
 answer. Enough that she was certain of the 
 magic, and was made calm while its spell lasted. 
 
 The performances of the dancer and singer 
 took place in the dining-room, which had been 
 cleared for the purpose. To Laura, whose inno- 
 cence blinded her to its nature and purpose, 
 both traceable back to the ceremonies of forgotten 
 heathen ages, the dance seemed merely a move- 
 ment in which rampant ardour displaced poetry 
 and grace. The performance of Mile. Saint d'Or 
 
 or what little she suffered herself to see of it 
 
 affected her differently. In a much less offen- 
 
 296
 
 
 The Millionairess & 
 
 sive form, pruned for the general eye and ear, 
 it had served to startle the variety-hall habitues 
 for a season. Here she sang and acted it as she 
 would have done in Paris. It was a song in 
 French, illustrated by pantomime. French was 
 the language in which Laura thought and even 
 dreamed, for she had lived her most impression- 
 able years upon the Riviera. Therefore, only the 
 newest slang and the unspoken suggestions es- 
 caped her comprehension. 
 
 "Ain't she horrid?" Tonette whispered to 
 Mrs. Lament. 
 
 " So like her father's taste," the old lady re- 
 plied, loud enough for others to hear. " But I 
 sha'n't interfere. I got nothing by opposing 
 him." 
 
 " I fear I must be very old-fashioned," Laura 
 said to Mr. Beekman, under her breath. " I 
 must ask you to excuse me for really I 
 cannot remain." 
 
 " I tried to hint to you that this would 
 be the case," said he; " but, of course, you could 
 not understand." 
 
 Then she rose and slipped out with her too 
 combustible cheeks aflame again. 
 
 297
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 On this night of pleasure to nearly all in that 
 company, and of acute pain to her, the only 
 other notable occurrence from Laura's point of 
 view happened while she was again in the con- 
 servatory, this time with Henrietta Van Ness. 
 At the same moment, Tonette and Mr. Beekman 
 met in the passage leading to it, and the " Why, 
 Mr. Beekman," followed by "What? little 
 Tony? " told their own story of former meetings 
 in a happy hunting-ground where Beekman and 
 the Darbleys had often fared under one roof. 
 
 " So this is where you disappeared to," he 
 exclaimed; "how did it all happen?" 
 
 " I met an angel and she took me with her," 
 Tony said ; " for Miss Laura is an angel ; no 
 better one ever grew wings ; and this was heaven 
 till it came to be the other place, just for to- 
 night. I'll tell you what this all reminds me 
 of of that salt lick where you got the elk 
 with the fifteen prongs. 'Twan't fair you 
 said so yourself and this ain't no fairer. 
 There was you and paw and Big Dan, up in 
 the trees and on the rocks around the lick, and 
 there come the elk and got paw's bullet in his 
 lungs and wouldn't die; and then got yours in 
 
 298
 
 The Millionairess ^ 
 
 the lungs and wouldn't die ; and then got his hide 
 all tore along the back, by Big Dan's whole 
 magazine full of lead. Well, Miss Laura's at 
 the lick, sure enough, and getting it in the lungs, 
 and maybe in the heart, and all over. I tell you 
 it ain't fair. I don't care if I am nothing but 
 Rocky Mountain bred, we folks wouldn't take 
 a woman's house and refuse to speak to her or 
 'sociate with her, and set up a hurdy-gurdy in 
 her dining-room, and let men chase her, say, 
 here's more trouble. Don't go 'way, for heaven's 
 sake." 
 
 " Pshaw ! " Henrietta Van Ness was saying to 
 Laura, " I was inclined to be vexed at Harry 
 Kimball at first, though, after all, he's simply 
 taken too much wine, and would have been sorry 
 for it in the morning, but if you are going 
 to exaggerate a pebble into a mountain and make 
 a scandal, you will simply expose your manners, 
 and we I fancy we shall survive it." 
 
 Her tone was contemptuous. The words she 
 employed were such as no man or woman could 
 use in friendliness. Looking back at her, now, 
 we can see that she had from the first intended 
 only to make use of Laura, her purse, and her 
 
 299
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 house, and then repudiate her obligation. She 
 knew by experience that she could keep no friend 
 of Laura's quality after her own was discovered. 
 
 :< You are not just," Laura said, in her gentle 
 way. " I should not have spoken of it even to 
 you, had you not asked me. To you alone, I 
 will say, also, that I would not have used you so 
 ill as to expose you to such treatment." 
 
 " Humph ! " from Henrietta. 
 
 " Nor should I have taken such a liberty as to 
 bring into another woman's house such persons 
 as those theatrical women." 
 
 " Oh, Lord ! " Henrietta groaned, quite as if 
 she had not expected to hear this fault found. 
 " Your house is not so easily hurt. You loaned 
 it to my friends, and their names are a sufficient 
 guarantee of as good behaviour as any one's house 
 calls for. But, really, I can see no use in your 
 trying to quarrel, Miss Lamont." 
 
 " I am not quarrelling," she answered, truth- 
 fully. ''' You had something to say to me ; will 
 you please tell me what it is ? " 
 
 " Tonette," said Beekman, "I do 'not like to 
 stand here under the circumstances." 
 
 300
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 "No; please don't go," Tonette replied. 
 " They're both loaded for bear, I tell you." 
 
 " Then we must go in, Tony," Beekman in- 
 sisted. " I will not stand here." 
 
 " I merely meant to say that Cachuca and 
 Saint d'Or want their money two hundred and 
 fifty dollars, I believe it is." 
 
 " I pay those women ? Is it just to ask me 
 to pay them, Miss Van Ness ? " 
 
 " Oh, hello ! " Henrietta said, as Beekman and 
 Tonette turned into the conservatory. " You are 
 very opportune, to-night, Mr. Beekman. Mr. 
 Kimball has his own opinion, you may find, but 
 Miss Lament will be doubly grateful, I don't 
 doubt." 
 
 " I hope for your approval, also, Miss Van 
 Ness," Beekman remarked, as he turned to lead 
 Tonette past the agitated girl and her assailant. 
 
 " Well, then," said Henrietta, " explain to 
 Miss Lament that when two theatrical people are 
 engaged in her name and play in her house, they 
 expect to be paid by her. If they are not paid, 
 the private performance they are likely to give 
 will cast their public one in the shade you might 
 suggest. You won't earn my approval if you 
 
 301
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 succeed, Mr. Beekman, because it's nothing to 
 me one way or the other, but you will end a 
 very vulgar dispute, of which I am more than 
 sick already." 
 
 She turned and left the conservatory with a 
 sweep and stride which emphasised her eagerness 
 to end the unpleasant work she had so elab- 
 orately planned. 
 
 " I hope, Mr. Beekman, that I have not been 
 the cause of any misunderstanding between you 
 and your friends," Laura ventured, apologetically. 
 
 " Oh, I don't think so," he replied, amused at 
 the idea. " But, Miss d'Arblay suggested that I 
 might be of service to you, and I shall be delighted 
 if I can." 
 
 " To think of my being asked to pay those 
 actresses ! " Laura exclaimed. " I simply cannot 
 do it." 
 
 " It is too bad," said he, " but I think Miss 
 Van Ness spoke truly. Though you have been 
 placed in a false position, you cannot expect them 
 to consider any interests but their own, and the 
 noise and scandal that will ensue, if they are 
 not paid, will be even less endurable than the 
 pain it will cause you to pay them." 
 
 302
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 "I do not care anything about the money," 
 Laura said. " I have paid bill after bill of debts 
 which have been incurred in my name without 
 my authority but this affects my self-respect." 
 
 " Oh, no ; I don't think that," said Beekman ; 
 " it is an imposition an advantage taken of 
 your position. The real trouble, Miss Lamont, 
 is that you have had no one to advise you as to 
 the acquaintances you were making. I would 
 have liked to do so, but it would have seemed 
 presumptuous." 
 
 " I thank you, sincerely. But the end of it 
 must come at some time, and now is the time. 
 I have been disgraced by having those creatures 
 in my house, and my right to protest against 
 their having been brought here is lost if I pay 
 them." 
 
 She was more angry and farther beyond self- 
 control than ever before in her life. 
 
 " But, Miss Lamont, I doubt if there is any one 
 else here except myself who would pay them if 
 you did not." 
 
 " I cannot help it. Then they shall not be 
 paid," said she, and turned her back, as if she 
 had finally disposed of the matter. 
 
 303
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 Without betraying the impatience he must have 
 felt, Beekman went to her side and argued with 
 her. He told her that he had heard that she had 
 become acquainted with the Van Nesses, then 
 had met her in their company at the Rhinebeck 
 wedding, and finally had seen that she was blindly 
 entangling herself with them. Only through 
 some lady, a mutual friend, could he convey a 
 warning to her, but he knew no lady who was a 
 friend to both, and was therefore helpless. As a 
 last effort to aid her, he had, in a way, forced him- 
 self upon this party at her house with the full con- 
 viction that she would need a friend before the 
 night was over. 
 
 " You call it friendly to advise me to pay and 
 swallow this indignity?" she interrupted, almost 
 hysterically. 
 
 " I am nothing but friendly in advising you to 
 end this whole miserable business as quietly and 
 quickly as possible, swallowing a lesser indignity 
 to avoid a greater, paying all the bills, and seeing 
 the last guest out of your house with the bearing 
 of gentleness and of immeasurable superiority 
 which they must all have seen that you possess 
 up to this point." 
 
 304
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 " I would rather die," Laura replied. " I did 
 not believe you could offer such advice." 
 
 " Oh, Miss Lamont, do not say that," Beekman 
 answered. 
 
 " I do say it. You would have me degrade 
 myself," said she, passing the boundaries of 
 reason into recklessness. " My mind is made 
 up. I cannot with self-respect pay those women 
 and I will not." 
 
 She was so wrought upon as to be forgetful 
 of herself, of her admiration for him, even to such 
 an extent as to quarrel with him, or, for that 
 matter, with every one. 
 
 As he searched his mind for new arguments, 
 there was a bustle at the door, and a woman in 
 the colours of a tiger-lily, followed by a foreign- 
 looking young man, walked into the conservatory. 
 
 " I vant Mees Lamond," said she. " I vait and 
 vait for zat money. For vhy I am no pay t ? " 
 
 " You shall have your money at once," Beek- 
 man replied. 
 
 " I forbid you to pay it," Laura insisted, almost 
 tragically. " It must not be paid in my name." 
 
 " Please bring in the other performer," said 
 Beekman, to the foreign-looking man, " and I 
 
 305
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 will pay both at once. Miss Lament, you are 
 worn out with the trials of the day, and 
 I strongly advise you to rest. The others who 
 are staying here will sit out the night in the 
 library. Do me the honour to let me act as your 
 factotum in caring for their comfort." 
 
 " Mr. Beekman, you are presuming too far," 
 Laura said, in a voice quivering with excitement. 
 " Once again I forbid you to pay them. You 
 have no right to manage my affairs and dis- 
 grace me." 
 
 Scalding tears coursed from her eyes, and, out 
 of shame for her weakness, she yielded to To- 
 nette's pressure upon her arm, and went from the 
 room, leaving Beekman to decide between risking 
 her displeasure, or abandoning his course. He 
 did not hesitate a second. 
 
 On the next morning, when the dust-bin was 
 falling heir to the last vestiges of the entertain- 
 ment, she gave orders that she was not to be 
 called until her guests had gone from the house. 
 Her servants made her acquainted with what 
 went on meanwhile. Courtlandt Beekman re- 
 mained until the last. He had an amusing inter- 
 view with Mrs. Lamont, to whom he felt obliged 
 
 306
 
 The Millionairess HS- 
 
 to pledge his word that if he ever married it 
 should be in the most complete and public manner. 
 Laura, waiting up-stairs, was tortured between 
 the impulse to beg his pardon before he departed, 
 and the silly inclination to maintain her position 
 of the previous night. The knowledge that she 
 could not justify her behaviour at that time was 
 at the bottom of the unworthy impulse, of course. 
 Shame and nervousness were still controlling her, 
 yet she knew that when calm judgment returned 
 she must admit her fault and apologise for it. 
 While she debated with herself, a servant an- 
 nounced that Beekman had gone, leaving the fol- 
 lowing written message. 
 
 " MY DEAR Miss LAMONT : I relinquish the 
 authority I so unwarrantably usurped. One minor 
 reason for my insisting upon paying those per- 
 formers was that there was in the company one 
 whom I suspect of being a furnisher of society 
 scandals to the paper called Society Talk. Had 
 those music-hall women made a scene, the result 
 would have been a very unpleasant parading of 
 your affairs in print. As it is, I do not see that 
 anything worthy the attention of any scandal- 
 
 307
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 mongers has occurred. May I suggest that if you 
 are hurt by anything which is published, you do 
 not pay any public attention to it? Silence robs 
 the sensational papers of the food by which they 
 live. 
 
 " If I decide to go to Asia, I fear this must 
 serve as my adieu. Very faithfully, 
 
 " COURTLANDT BEEKMAN." 
 
 308
 
 XXIII. 
 
 ENTER: ONE OF 
 UNSAVOURY REPUTE 
 
 "... Thou wretch, 
 Thou hast within thee undivulged crimes." Lear. 
 
 ZAURA quickly came to her senses. She 
 had seen that Beekman was not to be 
 judged with the Van Ness coterie, and that 
 only a thin veil of politeness concealed his 
 lack of respect for its members. She recalled 
 that he had told her when excitement had de- 
 stroyed her correct perspective that he had 
 forced himself upon that company solely to serve 
 her. Thus he had betrayed a peculiar interest in 
 her one w r hich would flatter almost any 
 reasoning woman who knew what rank he held 
 among men. To say the least, he had offered her 
 what she needed above all else in the world 
 strong, wise, masculine counsel. And she had 
 parted with him in a tantrum, like a child. Over 
 and over again, Henrietta Van Ness's sneering 
 words rang in her ears : " You will simply expose 
 
 309
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 your manners." The fear that she had done this 
 developed into a conviction. Being good and 
 honourable, she sorrowed over her injustice, her 
 ingratitude, and the possible loss of Beekman's 
 friendship, but I should not like to say how much 
 more than all else this suspected " exposure of 
 her manners " troubled her. I might be doing her 
 an injustice. 
 
 " York says " said Tonette. 
 
 "Oh, Tonette! How can you be so rude?" 
 Laura exclaimed. " We who have known Mr. 
 Stone a long while, almost intimately, never speak 
 of him so." 
 
 " I asked him if he minded," Tonette replied, 
 " and he said I could call him ' York ' if it made 
 me any easier. You sent me to him every day, to 
 learn the flower business, and we could not help 
 getting acquainted. And, anyhow, he called me 
 ' Tonette ' to-day. Well, he says, the only bad 
 thing about this party is that you was obliged to 
 quarrel with those Van Nesses, because you-all 
 live so close together and they-all are as malicious 
 as Satan. As for the rest of it, York or Mr. 
 Stone says you've got to trust yourself and 
 paddle your own canoe, and such a mess as that'll 
 
 310
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 give you experience that's worth more than a year 
 of preaching. I told him he would come near 
 upsetting our apple-cart if I thought he was going 
 back on you, but he don't act as if he meant to 
 be ornery, and I just had to believe it was all 
 for the best, though I'm so hot I lump Courtlandt 
 Beekman and the Van Nesses, and the whole 
 b'iling, all in together and don't never want to 
 hear of any of 'em again." 
 
 The revelation of this intimacy between 'York 
 Stone and Tonette would only a few months 
 before this have been a severe blow to Laura. 
 And even as it was, many another woman, hoping 
 as she had hoped for a similar standing with her 
 lieutenant, would have been hurt and angry with 
 the buoyant-spirited girl. But the more Laura 
 thought of the fact that Stone discussed her pri- 
 vate affairs with Tonette while refusing to hear 
 of them from her, the more she reproached her- 
 self. Her loss of self-control in Mr. Beekman's 
 presence her " blind and wicked pride " she 
 called it had greatly humbled her. Since that 
 time she had taken to analysing her conduct, to 
 prosecuting herself before the court of her con- 
 science, and sitting in stern judgment upon her
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 littlest weaknesses. Instead of finding fault with 
 Tonette, she charged herself with possessing 
 some serious fault or lacking some noble virtue, 
 else so just and kindly a man as York Stone could 
 not for two years have withheld from her what 
 he so readily granted to a new acquaintance. She 
 applied herself to a strict self-searching, in order 
 to discover her fault. The task was hopeless, 
 since the reason for Stone's conduct, only to 
 be found in the laws governing the sexes, was 
 as mysterious to mortals as the cunning of those 
 flowers which reach down and press their pollen 
 upon a bee's back in order that it may be carried 
 to some distant mother. 
 
 There did appear in Society Talk a report of 
 the Clock House party ; one that made Laura and 
 every friend of hers wince. Its purpose was to 
 make an excuse for describing the dance of 
 " Cachuca " and the acting of the Frenchwoman 
 in a manner calculated to please the peculiar taste 
 of that journal's readers. In order to bring out 
 the more strongly the fact that both women gave 
 performances free of most of the restraint they 
 had shown before the general public, it was set 
 forth that Miss Lament and several of her friends 
 
 312
 
 The Millionairess && 
 
 retired from the room, one or two of them in 
 tears, and all with scorched faces. However, the 
 reporter honestly and perhaps mischievously, 
 as well credited the party and the engagement 
 of the performers to Henrietta Van Ness, and 
 explained that the gathering took place at the 
 Clock House because it had been borrowed for 
 the purpose by Miss Van Ness. 
 
 The anger of the Misses Van Ness at this 
 truthful presentation of the facts it is not our 
 intention to describe. Their detestation of Laura 
 Lament, bred of their own shabby treatment of 
 her, was not lessened, we may be sure, by this, 
 which they considered a point gained over them. 
 
 How keenly Laura felt the hurt of the exposure 
 we can only imagine, when we think how the 
 occurrences thus made public wounded her when 
 they took place. At times she felt like hiding her- 
 self from all who knew her, and at times like 
 going to every friend she valued, with her own 
 version of the case. While she debated what 
 line of action to pursue, she found cause to admit 
 that the ill wind blew her some good. This was 
 because of the condolences which came to her by 
 every post. As she read them she felt able to 
 
 313
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 measure the value of most of the friendships she 
 had formed. 
 
 I will not quote from the letters of her fel- 
 low members of the Beaux Arts Brotherhood, 
 because all expressed deep regret at her having 
 been so scandalously used by the Van Nesses, 
 and her "ill-fortune in having her name appear 
 in the notorious chronicle of society scandals. 
 Friendlier, more sympathetic letters she could not 
 wish for. Eagerly she opened a letter whose 
 envelope revealed Archie Paton's handwriting. 
 Even more quickly she flung it aside, for it re- 
 ferred to her misfortune as something to have 
 been expected, mentioned the Van Nesses as per- 
 sons whom " other ladies had shown the good 
 judgment to shun," and stated that he blamed 
 himself for not having warned her that " her 
 infatuation for the lacework of life must lead 
 to just such catastrophes as this." Bryan Cross 
 wrote to her on his new parsonage note-paper, 
 a kindly letter, yet one through which she could 
 see that he restrained a strong inclination to re- 
 buke her for making light of his life-work. That 
 was his characteristic way of putting it : not that 
 her course contravened the moral law, so much 
 
 314
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 as that it ignored his warning, as if he had copy- 
 righted the moral law. 
 
 " You wrote me that my lectures made you 
 uneasy, but that you could not honestly convict 
 yourself of doing wrong. Dear Miss Lamont," 
 he closed, " if you do not yet see, by what hap- 
 pened at your house, how surely and invariably 
 the dedication of our lives to pleasure leads farther 
 and farther toward excess, you even yet will 
 grant that no such tendency can follow a life given 
 over to healthy exercise, study, and a constant 
 effort to bring the poor and rich back into 
 brotherhood, failing which, disaster will invaria- 
 bly come upon us worst of all offenders, the 
 Anglo-Saxon race." 
 
 To her surprise, even Courtlandt Beekman 
 wrote to her a short letter, yet one she thought 
 worth keeping after many others had been thrown 
 away : " It was," he wrote, " when I put myself 
 in your place that I saw how cruel you must find 
 that scurrilous publication. I sympathise with 
 you sincerely. But there is another point of 
 view for the responsibility is rightly placed 
 and you are made to appear in such a light that 
 no one can read it without feeling for you the 
 
 315
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 respect you deserve. Then, again, there is now 
 such a Niagara of personal gossip and such exag- 
 geration of whatever the more popular and the 
 scandalous journals discuss, that, instead of any 
 items of news being seven-day wonders, they are 
 long-lived if they survive the time it takes to read 
 them. Believe me, this will prove no more 
 enduring." 
 
 The last of many more letters left her as the 
 first had found her, unable to decide whether to 
 put her face or her back to the world. She kept 
 to the house while in this state of indecision, until 
 the mere length of the seclusion rendered that her 
 policy. 
 
 A sorely wounded creature it was who extended 
 a scant welcome to her cousin Jack Lamont, when 
 he was able to make the journey from New York. 
 He had not seen her during her two years of 
 unbroken enjoyment of her wealth and ease, and 
 was forced to compare her with the credulous 
 girl upon whom he had so cruelly tried to prey. 
 Now that experience had developed her face, and 
 care was, for a time, straining at it, he could 
 scarcely believe she was the same person as that 
 childish rustic of his memory whom, perhaps,
 
 The Millionairess Hf 
 
 he had dreamed of pursuing again with other 
 adventures, should he regain his strength. 
 
 In another book has been told the story of how 
 this black sheep of the Lamonts had dealt with 
 Laura when he discovered both her and the fact 
 that she was heir to the great wealth of the head 
 of the family then dying in the Clock House, and 
 leaving no others so nearly related to him as 
 Laura, her mother, and Jack, whom he had 
 disowned. Laura was completely ignorant of her 
 good fortune, and, worse yet, was in what seemed 
 to her a desperate plight. Her mother had been 
 taken to a hospital, and she was as good as alone 
 in the world. Her one desire was to see the 
 lawyers through whom her father sent fort- 
 nightly remittances to her mother. Learning this, 
 Jack Lament undertook to guide her to their 
 offices in New York, where she was wholly a 
 stranger. He decoyed her to a loft in a business 
 building in Twenty-third Street, and, by an ar- 
 rangement with a friend of his own moral quality, 
 locked her in there, vowing that he would confine 
 and starve her until she consented to marry him. 
 It was her only other relative, Archibald Paton, 
 who rescued her. 
 
 317
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 Jack Lament was of that contingent which we 
 used to call the unprincipled or immoral, but which 
 we now designate as decadents. By the time he 
 was of marriageable age he had riveted himself 
 to a course of living which made marriage seem 
 bondage and full citizenship (for marriage and 
 paternity are essential to that state, as well as 
 to self-respect and manly pride) appear insuffer- 
 able boredom. Few men in New York knew as 
 many women as Lament knew, or had known, 
 when he was thirty-two. He spent half his life 
 with the other sex, and seven-tenths of his fortune 
 went out to them; yet the less said about them 
 the better, except perhaps to remark that his af- 
 fairs with them were the talk of the other morally 
 dead bachelors in town for years. 
 
 He had moved for a dozen years in what may 
 be called the underground life of New York, 
 where all the people with few exceptions 
 are mated, where not a woman among all of that 
 sex is married, and where not a man is legally 
 or formally bound to his mate. Nowhere, in an 
 American book, has this underworld been de- 
 scribed, and we have been led to believe it 
 peculiar to Paris, Berlin, and Vienna, yet it is 
 
 313
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 peopled by as many persons in New York as in 
 any other one of the world's capitals. We see its 
 members at the theatres, at the great restaurants, 
 and on the uptown drives, and very many of us 
 are sufficiently skilled to be able to detect the 
 brand or hall-mark which they bear. No men 
 or women are more stylishly or expensively clad, 
 and they are a fairly well-appearing and well- 
 behaving fraction; indeed, their comfort de- 
 pends upon the closeness with which they imitate 
 the decorum of the virtuous. 
 
 In this sub-cellar of society, among these ro- 
 dents and rabbits of our species, the pervert Jack 
 Lamont had been a dashing figure until drink and 
 bad courses generally rotted his moral fibre and 
 undermined his health. 
 
 At the time of his vicious adventure wit^ Laura 
 he was the subject of a very rare bit of gossip, 
 for a companion, who had enjoyed his bounty 
 when he was prosperous, had failed to cast him 
 off, after the usual manner of her kind, when his 
 money had gone. He was living upon the gen- 
 erosity of this weak, rather than wholly wicked, 
 woman when he came as a guest to the Clock 
 House. 
 
 319
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 In his turn he startled his cousin Laura. 
 His cheeks were hollow, a feverish light was in 
 his wandering eyes, his clothes hung loosely upon 
 his frame. He was obliged to rest upon a sofa, 
 after taking twenty steps from her carriage, and 
 before he could be shown to his room. With her 
 first glance all fear of him fled, with most of 
 her former repugnance. Sympathy welled in their 
 places. She was glad she had allowed him to 
 come. His arrival, when she was so anxious for 
 an excuse to stay within doors, seemed like an 
 answer to prayer, and she was in a mood to be- 
 stow a wealth of care upon his restoration to 
 health. She had prepared a spacious, well-ap- 
 pointed room for him, but the first pity-rousing 
 sight of him changed her plans, and she hur- 
 riedly made ready her choicest bedchamber. 
 Even that did not now seem good enough. 
 In this best chamber, with a canopied bed on 
 which he might shield his burning eyes, with 
 heavier shades at the windows to keep the day- 
 light in subjection, with a padded armchair 
 brought from another room, and all the serv- 
 ants impressed by her concern, she surrounded 
 the feeble man about town with a setting for 
 
 320
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 a maiden as exquisite as Watteau ever painted. 
 And then she pampered him with the choicest 
 delicacies procurable by money, skill, and solici- 
 tude. 
 
 He had expressed his repentance for his past 
 wickedness in a second letter, and she had sent 
 back her forgiveness. That may have been with 
 reservations and conditions : now it was uncondi- 
 tional and complete. Again, then, she was off her 
 guard, trusting, wholly unsuspicious, and at ease, 
 believing him unable as well as disinclined to do 
 her injury. And he ! debris of shattered principles, 
 wreck of honour, outcast of virtue, worn in body 
 and distempered in mind, surely, now, he appeared 
 as incapable of mischief as his grateful and polite 
 speeches to his benefactress betokened. 
 
 " I am so ashamed," he said to her ; " I do not 
 know how you can bear even to look at me." 
 
 " But I have forgotten everything," she said, 
 bending over him and laying a gentle hand upon 
 his shoulder. " We have only the future to think 
 of now, your health and your comfort." 
 
 " I shall hope and try to make you really forget 
 the past as truly as you are good enough to 
 make believe that you already do forget it." 
 
 321
 
 XXIV. 
 
 THE WRECKING OF 
 BRYAN CROSS 
 
 " Oh William, the dismal cell, the mournful sackcloth, the girdle with sharp 
 points of iron, would be nectar and ambrosia compared to what I suffer." 
 Sorrows of Werther. 
 
 CROSS deserved credit for more 
 than appeared in his sermonish letter to 
 Laura, because he kept out of it all signs of 
 the mental distress he suffered when he wrote 
 it. He had broken down in his pulpit, and his 
 congregation had insisted upon his resting from 
 his labours while they supplied another preacher 
 in his place. Twice we have referred more or less 
 vaguely to the doubts which had so long delayed 
 his entrance into the ministry after he had other- 
 wise fitted himself to labour in that field. Now 
 that what was to be the climax of this phase of 
 his character has begun its fell work, it is neces- 
 sary to explain that his scruples concerned the 
 very foundation of the Christian faith. In a word, 
 he did not believe or, at the least, he felt his 
 faith to be insecure. Face to face with the 
 
 322
 
 The Millionairess Hf 
 
 moment when he should have suffered his father 
 to put him in the list for preferment to a pulpit, 
 his misgivings overwhelmed him, and he 
 pleaded ill health, and a desire for rest in travel. 
 Rest he never found, because wherever he jour- 
 neyed he perplexed himself with the mental 
 struggle which shifted him from faith to down- 
 right religious nihilism. His nature was too 
 sentimental for him to rest satisfied with this 
 last extreme. 
 
 In Germany, where men approach the ancient 
 Greek attitude toward religion, where he found 
 philosophy influencing every phase and crisis 
 of life, where the Church holidays no longer bear 
 an ecclesiastical stamp, and where love of Nature 
 and of the Beautiful satisfies the higher cravings, 
 Bryan fancied himself content for a time. But 
 he discovered that this satisfaction came only in 
 regarding these views as offering a compromise 
 ground upon which one might revive religious 
 interest where shopworn Churchianity had lost 
 its hold upon his fellow Americans. He soon 
 realised that if this were recommended as a means, 
 he must yet look forward to the end full faith 
 at last. To preach that as a final resource for 
 
 323
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 others, he knew he must begin with it in his own 
 heart, and so he went adrift again. 
 
 The boast of the Japanese, who claim to have 
 risen superior to every form of superstition, as 
 they call religion, so startled and shocked him, 
 especially when he realised the small, often super- 
 ficial and largely imitative attainments of that 
 midget people, that he derived hope from the mere 
 strength of the revulsion. It was only when his 
 father died and he was obliged to hasten back 
 to take charge of the Clarion and of his invalid 
 sister that he found comparative rest in new occu- 
 pations and responsibilities. For a time he was 
 able to abandon the struggle and busy himself 
 with these other matters. 
 
 He accepted the call to the pulpit of the Knick- 
 erbocker Baptist Church when it seemed to him 
 that the magic of his oratory and the zeal he had 
 flung into his crusade against " dollar-worship " 
 were sufficient for enduring success in any pulpit. 
 He thought that to preach morality would answer. 
 It did for a time, but one day a deputation of the 
 officers of the church came to him to say that 
 they had enjoyed " a wondrous feast of logic 
 and a purging of latter-day humours, but they 
 
 324
 
 The Millionairess ^ 
 
 were hungering for news of God and His scheme 
 of salvation." 
 
 " Give us a homely old-fashioned sermon on 
 Calvary," they demanded. 
 
 He managed to conceal his disturbance and to 
 reply briskly that he had been taking his own new 
 ideas too seriously. They should have a ringing 
 sermon, he promised, on the very next Sunday. 
 The good men of the church went away delighted, 
 unmindful how much of Bryan's instant acquies- 
 cence was due to his temperament and his readi- 
 ness with speech or how difficult it was to weigh 
 the words that he could charge so easily with 
 his magnetism. But he knew himself, and crept 
 away from them as Beekman's elk had gone, in 
 Tonette's story, riddled and torn with shot. He 
 went to the bedside of his saintlike sister to bathe 
 in the calm of the chamber where Death had so 
 long lingered, deliberate and in no haste. She 
 was very weak, now, gliding out of her human 
 state visibly at last. Yet, on the very edge of the 
 gulf, she was the same Mabel whose eerie penetra- 
 tion had startled him a thousand times, and was 
 now to shock him as never before. 
 
 " I knew you were coming," she said for greet- 
 
 325
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 ing. " I seem to have been with you in your office 
 at the church; were you not there with some 
 men? I came with you all the way here to my 
 bedside. Sit down, Bryan. Nurse, please leave 
 us alone. Brother, I am dying at last. I shall 
 be with you only a few days, and I have some- 
 thing of the utmost importance to say to you. 
 I have dreaded it. I have hoped not to have to 
 say it to see a reason for doubting my own 
 clear belief. Brother, I must say it at last." 
 
 His heart cried out within him. His guilt ap- 
 prised him of what was to come. 
 
 " We have never held anything back from one 
 another, Mabel," he said. 
 
 " Oh, Bryan," she moaned, fixing her search- 
 ing gaze upon his face and struggling to rise to 
 a sitting posture, " how can I say the words you 
 have forced me to utter?" 
 
 As she continued to exert herself by pressing 
 her elbows upon the bed he rose to assist her. 
 He was too late. By a marvellous summons of 
 her slight strength she lifted her body and sat up. 
 Then she raised one dainty, lace-edged sleeve of 
 lawn and pointed a pink finger at him with the 
 gesture of a Fate, while a stern look that he had 
 
 326
 
 The Millionairess H5- 
 
 never seen there before came into her usually 
 gentle eyes. 
 
 " You are a living lie ! " she said. " You are 
 a minister of a Christ whom you disown; oh, 
 my brother, of a Saviour you despise! O God, 
 when, in a few days, or it may be after the 
 moment's space of oblivion which divides the dead 
 from Doomsday, I stand beside our parents and 
 tell them that their son and they are never to 
 meet because he was an unbeliever oh-h-h ! 
 Bryan, Bryan, what will they say?" 
 
 " Mabel, have mercy on me and on yourself, 
 too. You must not excite yourself like this. 
 I- 
 
 " Bryan," she insisted, " the hurt is in the 
 agony I have suffered so long. Nothing but 
 relief can come of my exciting myself to bring 
 you back to the God of your fathers. You do 
 not believe in God, Bryan." 
 
 " I do ; I do, Mabel. On my honour, I have 
 never doubted God. It is the hereafter the 
 future state, about which I have been so miserably 
 tortured with misgivings. Even of that, dear 
 sister, I only admit that I have misgivings; I 
 will not say I deny. Oh, sister, pity, but do 
 not condemn me." 327
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Bryan," she said, with an uncontrollable look 
 of horror in her eyes, " what is belief in God 
 without belief in His fatherhood, His eternal care 
 and keeping, the salvation of the faithful which 
 He charged upon His Son? I would have killed 
 myself years ago, when I had such health as yours, 
 had I not believed in these things, for what would 
 have been the good of living? To have lost 
 the faith you had as a child must have come by 
 some effort, probably by the study of doubt. 
 And yet I tell you from the grave's edge that the 
 proof of Christianity is the ' ineffectually and 
 absurdity of disbelief ' which ' begins at nothing, 
 leads nowhere, and cannot satisfy a good man or 
 a reasoning mind.' Bryan Cross, put away your 
 sophistry and come to the altar with me. Let me 
 save you. Let that be the one great good of my 
 poor life." 
 
 " I cannot, Mabel. I will not deceive you ; I 
 cannot. For years I have striven for it, but faith 
 has eluded me." 
 
 The dying woman, saintly looking in any eyes 
 and holy in his, clasped one of his hands and 
 spoke to him as one inspired. From secular as 
 well as sacred books, by proverb, by illustration 
 
 328
 
 The Millionairess &6 
 
 drawn from great and little events in history and 
 in their own experiences, by comparisons that 
 missed neither the rotation of planets nor the 
 growth of the humblest flowers, by fervid flights 
 into the boundless enthusiasm of her own belief, 
 she poured upon him a store of argument, ex- 
 ample, ay, of what seemed proof, such as he 
 had never heard and had never believed a human 
 being could amass. Never preacher spoke like 
 her not Savonarola or St. Francis Xavier or 
 Whitefield because not one of them could have 
 had the personality of one refined by Death yet 
 still among the living ; because none of these was 
 a tender, loving, crystal-souled woman pleading 
 with another self as Bryan had always been to 
 her. 
 
 " I want to I long to believe," he wailed, 
 sinking upon his knees at her bidding while she 
 pleaded with the Almighty in his behalf as with 
 the authority of a prophet. 
 
 The fevered interview ended as it began except 
 that it left the invalid almost unconscious from 
 exhaustion. It sent Bryan into the streets to 
 walk like one pursued, blindly, at hot pace along 
 the pavements, now muttering to himself, and at 
 
 329
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 times lost even to his own consciousness, like one 
 entranced. 
 
 Sunday found him with a ringing sermon pre- 
 pared out of the echoes of the impassioned utter- 
 ances of his sister during her assault upon his 
 doubts. When he awoke and read the sermon 
 over he was cheered by the conviction that every 
 sentence vibrated with the spirit of unquestioning 
 belief. It must prove all that was demanded by 
 the congregation; it must thrill every believing 
 heart, he thought. But on the way to church the 
 notion that his sister's words would be but bor- 
 rowed plumage began to worry him. The realisa- 
 tion that after living a lie he was about to empha- 
 sise his falseness, began to prey upon him. It 
 was too late and he was too much disturbed to 
 prepare another discourse, so he pushed on, dazed 
 by the perplexities of his situation. He reached 
 his private room in the church edifice, heard with 
 dulled senses many exclamations of concern over 
 his haggard appearance, and, at last, mounted 
 the pulpit steps and sat down. The church swayed 
 before his eyes and the people made a dull blur in 
 front of him. 
 
 He delivered a prayer and gave out a hymn, 
 
 330
 
 The Millionairess %& 
 
 then read another hymn altogether mechan- 
 ically. He was far less conscious of what he did 
 than of the roaring confusion in his soul which 
 said : " Preach it and find faith afterward." 
 " Don't dare to preach it liar ! coward ! " 
 
 At last came the time for the sermon. He 
 thought he had put an end to his trepidation, and, 
 summoning the temper which so well-trained an 
 orator can always command in greater or less 
 degree, he plunged into the discourse. His words 
 rang, whether with true feeling or in mere obedi- 
 ence to his art we know best, and the spellbound 
 audience deemed itself the most fortunate body of 
 worshippers in the land that morning. But this 
 was only during the beginning, the first third of 
 the sermon. Finally, it was his part to command 
 the people to shout the words: " I believe; I be- 
 lieve ! " and for him to repeat the declaration 
 after them, on his own behalf. This his sister 
 had done, or had asked him to join with her in 
 doing, and he had foreseen the dramatic effect 
 this would have in the pulpit. 
 
 " Shout it! " he cried, " as the people shouted 
 before Jericho."
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " I believe," they shouted twice. Then every 
 eye met his, and all awaited his response. 
 
 It was thought that he staggered as the dis- 
 turbance of the air rolled like a billow against 
 the pulpit. There was a long pause. The people 
 saw him close his eyes and open and close them 
 again. They saw him moisten his lips with his 
 tongue. But they could not see or even suspect 
 his agony. A voice was roaring in his ears: 
 " Do not dare to say it." 
 
 " Now, hear me," said he but in how strange 
 a voice, that began huskily, then broke, then ended 
 in a treble. 
 
 He never made the declaration. He saw his 
 sister's face appear between him and the people, 
 shadowy, wavering, with horror depicted upon 
 it. He clutched the pulpit-rail and swung back- 
 ward, then caught himself and, lurching forward 
 this time, fell like a half-emptied sack across the 
 pulpit. 
 
 The deputation that visited him at his home 
 on that night announced that the congregation 
 had voted him a long holiday. They found 
 themselves obliged to deliver their message briefly, 
 for Mabel Cross was dying and their pastor had 
 
 332
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 to be led from the death-chamber to see them. 
 The long-suffering woman died in such a stress 
 of gentle grief at parting with him in the midst 
 of his doubts that he was inclined to charge him- 
 self with having killed her. The final scene in 
 her short life, which had been one unbroken calm, 
 was almost violent, so intense was his grief and 
 so deeply agitated were her last moments. 
 
 Bryan was confined to his bed when the fu- 
 neral took place and for days afterward. As a 
 long sea-voyage was recommended, he decided to 
 set out upon a trip to England and thence to Aus- 
 tralia. Among the many who came to bid him 
 farewell when he was about to start was Laura 
 Lamont, to whom he was so effusive in his greet- 
 ing and complimentary in all that he found to say 
 that she marvelled why she had never suspected 
 the depth of his regard for her. Twice, when she 
 rose to go, he begged her not to hurry, and when, 
 at last, she felt obliged to leave him, he held her 
 hand and kept his hold upon it until she reached 
 the door. Stranger still, he refused to say " good- 
 bye." 
 
 " I have a feeling that I shall see you again 
 before I get away," he explained. 
 
 333
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 His appearance and manner left the impression 
 of impending death, and she could not resist the 
 thought that his behaviour strengthened this un- 
 welcome foreboding. 
 
 She had not been at home in Powellton two 
 hours when his card was sent up to her. She 
 went to him in the drawing-room with wonder in 
 her face and surprise in her greeting, but he re- 
 plied to her quite as if it was customary to begin 
 a subject in one part of the State and finish its 
 discussion in another. In truth, the matters he 
 at once began to broach were those which had 
 filled his mind in New York, yet had not there 
 been touched upon. 
 
 "My heart is not dead, Miss Lament," said 
 he. " It is only stunned. It will be as warm and 
 sensitive and will respond as eagerly as before to 
 whatever appeals to it when I am stronger and the 
 shock of all that has happened wears off." 
 
 " I am sure you will soon be yourself again," 
 she replied ; " but why have you come so far in 
 your weak condition? It is not wise." 
 
 "Do you believe in the Christian faith?" he 
 inquired. " Wait, please ; I mean have you com- 
 plete, unquestioning faith in all of it in every 
 
 334
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 declaration of the creed as you repeat it in church 
 every Sunday ? " 
 
 " Why, yes ; surely I have ; of course. How 
 can you ask it ? " 
 
 " Did you never feel the slightest doubt 
 about 
 
 " I never knew a doubt of any iota of it, Mr. 
 Cross," Laura answered. " I do not think I 
 could be brought to doubt a word of it. More 
 than that, do you know that I never can believe 
 any man or woman sincere who says he or she 
 is an unbeliever." 
 
 Bryan heard her to the last word and then sat, 
 for an instant, staring at her. His mouth twitched 
 nervously and an unusual, unnatural light shone 
 in his fevered eyes. 
 
 He sprang forward and grasped Laura by both 
 her wrists, towering over her as she sat, startled 
 and alarmed, in her chair. 
 
 "Then give me the secret, do you hear?" 
 he thundered, in the tone that had set a hundred 
 great audiences quivering. " Tell it to me the 
 secret of your faith. Tell it to me quickly, or 
 I shall go mad. How dare you mock me with 
 your boasting, and deny me the right to share 
 your faith?" 335
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Mr. Cross, release me," Laura bade him, as 
 she struggled up from the chair, and, finding 
 that he did not oppose her, moved toward the 
 door. " You are ill and yet you should have 
 known that you could not govern yourself." 
 
 He seized one of her hands, stayed her depar- 
 ture gently, and flung himself upon his knees at 
 her side. 
 
 " No, no," he cried, with a broken, a pitiful 
 voice, " for God's sake, do not go. Do not leave 
 me. Have mercy on me. My unbelief has goaded 
 me for years; it is driving me mad, it killed 
 my sainted sister. Give me the key to your faith, 
 tell me, oh, as you hope for mercy in the 
 hereafter tell me how to believe how you 
 believe. I do not command you. Forgive me 
 my rudeness. I want to be gentle. See, now, 
 how humbly I beg you for only just a little light. 
 You can save my soul, Miss Lamont. If there 
 is a hell you can pluck me from it. Won't you? 
 Won't you, dear Miss Lamont ? Oh, as you love 
 your God, have pity on me." 
 
 " Please rise, Mr. Cross," she said. She now 
 had no fear of him; instead, his misery roused 
 all her sympathy, " Please rise. I will do my 
 
 336
 
 The Millionairess && 
 
 best to answer you. I also have known moments 
 not of disbelief or downright doubt but of 
 questioning and confusion. Always, I have gone 
 upon my knees and bared my soul in prayer, and 
 God has manifested Himself, filling my being 
 with an unutterable calm, with a certainty in His 
 glory, with full confidence in His littlest promise." 
 
 " But how? How did you pray? What state 
 of mind, what form of words, what method 
 brought this peace? Tell me! Keep nothing 
 back. You say you found God, but so do millions 
 like you. How found you Him? tell me or I 
 must die like a dog a mad dog, a mad dog, I 
 say." 
 
 He still held her hand. He still riveted his 
 burning gaze upon her eyes. He gripped her 
 flesh to punctuate his speech. 
 
 " How ? " Laura replied. " Why, I approached 
 Him as my mind saw Him, walking tall and fair 
 as a god among the lowly, or hanging on the cross 
 and looking with sad and pardoning eyes upon 
 the cruel world f h at tore and mocked Him yes, 
 even as a babe in the arms of His mother I in- 
 voked His " 
 
 " You fool ! " Bryan thundered, flinging- her 
 
 337
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 hand from his ; " you can tell me nothing for 
 you know nothing. You mock me with your 
 parrot talk. Ah, God! I might have known it. 
 Your faith is ignorance, your belief is in words 
 and familiar pictures. God is because a book says 
 so. Christ was a saviour because Murillo painted 
 Him as a babe. Do you think I am to be satisfied 
 with mere empty words? You neither think nor 
 know. To have faith, according to you, is to be 
 a baby or a fool. Great heaven, what shall I do ? 
 To whom shall I go ? Does any one know God ? 
 Does any one anywhere possess intelligent belief ? 
 Can any man say where or how I shall find an 
 Almighty?" 
 
 Even while he was speaking, he was moving 
 swiftly toward the door. Once there he dashed 
 out of the room. 
 
 Laura sank into a chair nerveless, almost ex- 
 hausted, and needing time to recover both men- 
 tally and physically from her amazing experience. 
 Never before had she witnessed pure passion in 
 any form. It left her as a terrible clap of thun- 
 der leaves any one of us. 
 
 In five minutes or ten at the most the 
 door opened and Bryan Cross came slowly and 
 feebly back to her side. 338
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 "I was mad," he said. "Was I brutal? Is 
 any apology sufficient to gain your forgiveness? 
 Oh, Miss Lament, I am beside myself; and I 
 am, oh, so miserable." 
 
 " You should govern yourself, Mr. Cross," she 
 answered, gently. " I would rather see you calm 
 and reasonable than hear you apologise. What 
 do my feelings amount to beside such excitement 
 as you allowed yourself to suffer?" 
 
 Bryan Cross uttered a groan. 
 
 " My heart is like a leaden thing in my breast," 
 he said ; " and my head seems half wooden or 
 half gone. That is natural when one has suffered 
 so, isn't it?" 
 
 " I am sure it is," she replied, quite ingenu- 
 ously ; " you have a constitution that will re-assert 
 itself. Your loss seems terrible, now, but you 
 must recollect that your sister's sufferings are 
 over." 
 
 " Miss Lamont, I am so afraid," he said. " I 
 am like a little nervous child in a dark wood. I 
 am full of alarm. I hardly dare go abroad by 
 myself. In the thickest crowd, in the brightest 
 light, even when I should feel safe, in my bedroom 
 at home, I am afraid." 
 
 339
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Afraid of what, Mr. Cross? " 
 
 " Oh, you do not know I cannot tell you," 
 he said. " I'm just afraid to be with myself 
 to be so helpless and alone. I clung to Mabel as 
 to the better part of my life. And she has gone 
 gone denying me her love before she went." 
 
 " Oh, I know better than that," she replied, 
 cheerily, " she loved you with her whole heart, 
 for she told me so." 
 
 " There were things between us of which she 
 couldn't tell you," he said, plaintively ; " but, 
 anyway, I am alone now and so afraid. Miss 
 Lamont, I want to ask you to be what she was to 
 me; to love me, to let me lean on you in my 
 misery and be buoyed up by your goodness when 
 I'm strong again. I ridiculed your faith, yet I 
 know you are wholly good and very close to God. 
 Won't you let me live my life beside you ? From 
 you I would gain faith. Won't you ? Oh, please 
 don't deny me." 
 
 " But I I respect you very much, Mr. Cross. 
 I admire you and wish to be your true friend, 
 always, but you must not ask for more. It 
 cannot be, and why should you grieve me and 
 cause yourself more suffering ? " 
 
 340
 
 The Millionairess & 
 
 " You do not pity me? " 
 
 "Oh, I do; really, I do. But " 
 
 " You will not marry me? " 
 
 " I cannot, Mr. Cross. You are not well 
 not yourself. You scarcely know what you are 
 saying." 
 
 He regarded her somewhat blankly, as one who 
 looked through her far into the distance. Then 
 he drew himself together, and rose to his feet. 
 
 " I might have known it," he said. " I may 
 have been too clumsy to succeed, but I knew you 
 would not be my wife. And yet, oh, God, what 
 that a man has, or can do, or get, would I not 
 promise if I could have you, with your pure faith, 
 by my side, to give me courage through life? " 
 
 He would not stay even to rest, but was off 
 almost as quickly as before.
 
 XXV. 
 
 LOVE AND A ROBBER 
 BOTH BREAK IN 
 
 " So they grew together 
 Like to a double cherry." Shakespeare. 
 
 rHE blandishments of town in winter were 
 again proving irresistible to Laura, but 
 her own greatest society effort had left her 
 too sore to stray beyond the small and early, 
 family-like meetings of the Beaux Arts Brother- 
 hood. She was seeing, besides, a great deal more 
 of the pleasures of a staid set led by lawyer Ship- 
 ton's wife, a set that went in for courses of lec- 
 tures and readings, for whist, and for afternoon 
 chats over tea and cake. The Egerton- Woods, 
 at whose dinner parties the walls were hid under 
 roses; the Mowbray-Stantons, who had Pade- 
 rewski in to entertain them, unless there was some 
 greater artist-lion obtainable, saw no more of her 
 than the etiquette of afternoon calls demanded; 
 for, if she was not convinced that those who as- 
 sailed Pleasure Living were right, she was, at 
 
 342
 
 The Millionairess H5- 
 
 least, not certain that they were wrong. A great 
 deal of her time was spent at home, planning 
 the spring and summer campaign for the advan- 
 tage of the poor of Powellton and Wapata, and 
 in riding from house to house and village to town 
 upon this business, with Tonette on horseback 
 beside her carriage. 
 
 On one bright, sunny day there sounded the 
 report of a pistol beneath her bedroom window. 
 Before she could reach the window, another loud 
 explosion shook the air. She saw the servants 
 running out of the kitchen door, and in a moment 
 Tonette and Jack Lamont appeared walking 
 toward the house, Tonette with a large revolver 
 in one hand, smiling and talking, and Lamont 
 looking rather more than usually grave. 
 
 " So you see, it won't do to get funny with 
 me," Laura heard Tonette say to him; "a girl 
 who can get along without any man's help can 
 manage to do without any man hurting her." 
 
 Laura drew back from the window, so as not 
 to be seen, and presently sent for Tonette. She 
 proved to have little to say. 
 
 " Well," she said, " you know he got so funny, 
 once before, that Miss Johnson had to make a 
 
 343
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 fuss. I didn't mean to make any. I meant to 
 teach him something quietly. Oh, it wasn't much. 
 I didn't slap his face or scream or anything; 
 only got my gun, and asked him out to take a 
 walk in the garden ; nice as pie, I guess he thought 
 I was. ' We can talk more quiet there,' I says. 
 He took the bait like a trout under the ice. When 
 I got as far from the house as I thought I could, 
 I took put my gun and showed it to him. I 
 merely says, ' This is what I carry for any one 
 that thinks I don't know my way about. For 
 fear you may think I ain't used to a gun,' I says, 
 ' I'll show you.' With that, I asked him to no- 
 tice a twig on a bush about thirty feet ahead, and 
 I shot it off and handed it to him. Then I took 
 a cent and threw it up and shot it somewheres 
 into the next county. ' Now/ I says, ' we can 
 be good friends, because we've seen that each of 
 us can bite, and you know whose bite is the 
 worst.' Oh, he's all right, Miss Laura. I'm 
 very sorry the gun made such a noise." 
 
 By this we see that Jack Lament was mend- 
 ing, and coming rapidly to feel like himself again. 
 Laura got very little of his society, for he still 
 ate his meals in his room, and seldom entered 
 
 344
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 any other part of the house except to reach his 
 own quarters. He had been able to enjoy short 
 daily walks for ten days or more, and, though 
 York Stone said nothing of it to Laura, that 
 shrewd observer knew that the invalid had vis- 
 ited the village hotel several times, had made some 
 barroom acquaintances, and had enjoyed more 
 than one game of billiards. 
 
 It was unfortunate that, though Laura had 
 reason to plume herself upon having the protec- 
 tion of a man who was nearer at hand than those 
 in the servants' wing of the house, her cousin 
 failed to be of service when a robber broke in 
 and gave her a dreadful fright. 
 
 It was the second of a remarkable series of 
 burglaries. They proved, in time, to be so uni- 
 form in their very unusual characteristics that, at 
 first the neighbourhood, and finally the New 
 York press, pitched upon them as a theme of the 
 greatest interest of the moment. In time the per- 
 petrator of these crimes became nationally notori- 
 ous under the nickname of " the Flash-Light 
 Fiend." 
 
 His first visit was paid to the house of the man- 
 ager of the carpet-works at Wapata. He selected 
 
 345
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 a night when that person, who was a widower, 
 had gone to New York, leaving the house and 
 servants in charge of his daughter, famed in that 
 countryside for her great beauty. The so-called 
 " fiend " woke the young lady, and, after taking 
 a finger-ring and brooch of trifling value, pro- 
 duced a blinding light and declared that, by its 
 means, he had taken a photograph which he 
 should treasure with his other keepsakes as long 
 as he lived. His politeness and pretence of con- 
 sideration for his frightened victim were ex- 
 ploiteti in the press in heroising reports of what 
 he said and did during his nefarious visit. The 
 same evidences of his misused good-breeding were 
 never missing from any of his subsequent ex- 
 ploits, which were invariably carried on in the 
 apartments of young unmarried ladies for petty 
 gains to which, with mock gallantry, he ascribed 
 a sentimental value. 
 
 Laura Lamont, as I have said, was his second 
 victim. She was awakened toward daylight one 
 morning by the light pressure of a man's hand 
 upon her mouth. 
 
 "Do not cry out," he whispered. "On the word 
 of a man of honour, I will not hurt you unless 
 
 346
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 you scream. Attempt that and I must kill you, 
 for murder is less to me than the danger of ex- 
 posure. If you promise to be perfectly quiet, 
 press my hand." 
 
 The terrified woman gave him the required 
 signal of obedience. He at once freed her mouth, 
 and sat down by her bedside. 
 
 " I will take your photograph in a moment," 
 said he, " that I may always be able to recall the 
 most exquisite of beauties, as I have seen her, 
 like a queen in the old days of France, holding a 
 morning levee in her chamber." 
 
 A blinding flash came with the last word he 
 spoke, and when she opened her eyes she was 
 alone. She was fearless to the point of folly, and 
 her courage had never failed her as it did in this 
 instance when she promised not to cry out. This 
 was not to be wondered at by those who consider 
 that she awoke, suffocating, to realise a plight suf- 
 ficiently terrible to make imagination swell alarm. 
 The instant she reopened her eyes after the flash, 
 she leaped from her bed, with her courage full 
 upon her again, and lighted the gas. After satis- 
 fying herself that the burglar was not hidden in 
 her bedchamber, she ran out into the passage, and 
 
 347
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 into Tonette's room. It took time to rouse the 
 young girl, and Laura rang the chambermaid's 
 bell violently while waiting for Tonelte to come 
 to her senses. 
 
 " Wake Mr. Lamont," said Tonette. 
 
 " Why, of course," Laura exclaimed, and ran 
 to her cousin's room, turning on the electric lights 
 in the passage as she went. So much time was 
 lost in rousing him that Tonette, clinging to her 
 revolver as the last relic of her Rocky Mountain 
 experience, was searching the ground floor rooms 
 before he could be made to understand what had 
 happened. At last he was heard to leap out of 
 bed, calling out that he would dress as quickly as 
 possible, and Laura ran back to slip on a wrapper, 
 and catch up with Tonette. Before Lamont 
 joined the others, the butler and the chambermaid 
 had swelled the searching party. When he did 
 appear, Lamont almost angered Laura by what 
 she took to be cowardice. He held back, wasted 
 time in arguing that the burglar must be miles 
 away, begged the women not to risk their lives, 
 lamented the likelihood that he was taking cold, 
 and, in a sentence, behaved like an arrant pol- 
 troon. A back window, wide open, in the serv- 
 
 348
 
 The Millionairess HS- 
 
 ants' wing, appeared to explain the burglar's mode 
 of entrance and of exit, but no other sign of him 
 or of his work was discoverable. 
 
 Strict orders were given to the servants not 
 to mention the occurrence in the village, but it 
 got into the newspapers in twenty-four hours. 
 One who had not already suffered an exposure of 
 her private affairs would have been loth to see her- 
 self once pilloried before the impertinent public, 
 whereas Laura's horror of newspaper gossip had 
 become almost morbid since the " Society Talk " 
 paragraph appeared. We are told by the press 
 how grand a bulwark of freedom we gain by its 
 liberty, we read that the new force, publicity, is 
 the terror of the wicked and the tower of the 
 virtuous, but when our most intimate affairs are 
 noised upon the winds, to be blown into every 
 stranger's house and to litter every empty mind, 
 we form our own opinion of the new force. 
 Vainly we try, as Diana did before the reporter 
 Actaeon, to recover our privacy's vesture or to 
 plunge into some screening thicket but the new 
 rays penetrate apparel, verdant fastnesses, even 
 the rock walls of our home castles which the law 
 itself may not enter without written order of 
 court. 349
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 In this case, the news of Laura's adventure 
 leaked or, rather, flowed into the New Yotk news- 
 papers in exaggerated articles capped by scream- 
 ing headlines. Her friends traced the betrayal 
 to Lamont, and he admitted having talked of it at 
 the hotel, never dreaming, he said, that his cousin 
 would object, or that the reporters would hear 
 of it. The gossip concerning the Van Ness party 
 was revamped, and one newspaper illustrated its 
 broadside with a picture of the bedroom, drawn 
 from imagination, and showing the flashlight 
 fiend seated by the bed's head conversing with his 
 victim. Of this triumph of enterprise Laura could 
 only say, from the depths of her gentle nature, 
 that she prayed Heaven to spare every journalist 
 concerned in its production from ever feeling or 
 appreciating the moral agony, the shame, and the 
 torture to which it subjected her. She avoided 
 the newspapers as if she had come to imagine the 
 press an engine devoted to her destruction. She 
 wept bitter tears and clenched her teeth in desper- 
 ate resistance to her helplessness. 
 
 The Rev. York Stone came handsomely from 
 the shell of his reserve at this juncture, to yield 
 sympathy and shrewd observation. In homely 
 
 350
 
 The Millionairess & 
 
 gossiping comment upon her private affairs he 
 proved as clear and vigorous as in his business 
 counsel. Though quite as sturdy and confident 
 as before, there was now a new note of gentleness 
 in his tone and views, one that found warm re- 
 sponse in her sensitive nature. Moreover, he 
 gave her his attention so unreservedly that no 
 topic was too trifling or too close to her private 
 concern to engage his interest. As if spurred 
 from the depths of his broadened sympathy, he 
 came more frequently to the Clock House to sit 
 in pleasant converse with her and her mother and 
 Tonette. Laura was indeed proud to abandon the 
 idea that it had been through some fault in her 
 own nature that he had behaved so differently in 
 earlier days. 
 
 She was quite alone on one bright afternoon. 
 Her mother was asleep in her own room. To- 
 nette was somewhere she did not trouble to 
 ask or wonder where, and she was hoping that 
 Mr. Stone might happen in, as indeed, his habit 
 justified her in fancying that he would. It had not 
 often been the case that both Tonette and her 
 mother were absent when he called. This, per- 
 haps, caused her to be a trifle impatient, and, to
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 speed the passage of time, she put on a knitted 
 tam-o' shanter cap, drew it snugly down over 
 her ears, and went out into her park to walk 
 always with the front gate in sight, as it hap- 
 pened. At a moment when she had turned a 
 corner of the curving drive and had put a mass of 
 evergreen bushes between herself and the snow- 
 clad lawn, she heard a burst of girlish laughter 
 and the crunching flight of more than one pair of 
 feet. Through the bush she saw Tonette in full 
 flight, skirts lashing, arms bent up from the el- 
 bow, eyes gleaming, mouth open and cleaving the 
 air with shouts. 
 
 After her came the Rev. Mr. Stone, one foot 
 far before the other, sliding, clerical coat-tails 
 skimming the air, one arm reaching far out 
 toward the hoyden, lips parted in an extensive 
 grin and eyes flashing like the girl's. He caught 
 Tonette and both fell upon the snow. With the 
 quickness of a wild animal, she wrenched herself 
 free and rolled over and over out of his reach. 
 Was Laura dreaming, or did she actually see the 
 young rector rolling, in similar defiance of all 
 dignity and decorum, after Tonette? Alas! there 
 was no doubt of it. And now Tonette was on 
 
 352
 
 E SAT SlflNGING HER FEET AND 
 LOOKING DOWN AT MR. STONE"
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 her feet, shaking the snow off her skirts, dancing 
 tantalisingly beyond Stone's reach and crying out : 
 
 " I'll never never never ! Shame on you ; 
 a clergyman, too! A high old clergyman, you! 
 Why don't you chase your own sheep? You're 
 not my shepherd yet." 
 
 " Tonette ! Everybody'll hear you. Come to 
 me, I say," commanded the rector. 
 
 "Will you behave?" 
 
 " What I want to do is behaving," he replied. 
 " Anyhow, I sha'n't give up." 
 
 " Got to catch me, then," said Tonette, and ran 
 again straight toward Laura. Beside the ever- 
 greens, behind which Laura stood riveted with 
 astonishment, was a tree with low branches. To- 
 nette seized one of these and lifted herself upon 
 another, on which she sat swinging her feet and 
 looking down at Mr. Stone with her back toward 
 Laura, who crept guiltily and swiftly along the 
 drive and out of hearing, with what mixed emo- 
 tions we may imagine. 
 
 " There ! " Tonette exclaimed, " I've torn my 
 dress. Oh, dammit ty, dammitty, dammitty, 
 dam " 
 
 353
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Tonette ! Tonette ! " cried the young clergy- 
 man. " Why do you talk like that ? " 
 
 " I want to be deuced smart, and all that sort 
 of thing, don't you know ? " she replied, mocking 
 the speech of our Anglomaniacs. 
 
 " You only do it to hurt me," said he. 
 
 " No, not at all. Fancy your thinking that ! I 
 was only giving a rotten imitation, in a beastly 
 sort of a way, of your very swaggah friends, the 
 Van Ness sisters." 
 
 " They're not my friends. I scarcely know 
 them," Mr. Stone replied. ' They happen to be 
 my parishioners, but I am bound to say I never 
 heard them use bad language." 
 
 " Oh, well, I have, then," said Tonette; " I've 
 heard them twice out of the only three times I 
 ever saw them. The other day when I was in 
 Bontecou's drug store, Henrietta was there, tak- 
 ing a good big nip out of a bottle, which she called 
 for by saying, ' I want some er you know/ 
 and her sister came in and said, ' I ain't ready, yet. 
 I've had a lower regions of a time trying to get the 
 hairpins I want ' only she did not say ' lower 
 regions.' She said the same thing in one short 
 
 354
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 word. Shall I tell you what it was ? I do so 
 want to talk like your 'ristocratic parishioners." 
 
 " Won't you, please, stop, Tonette? " the love- 
 smitten clergyman pleaded. " Just to oblige me, 
 won't you be your dear, sweet little self? " 
 
 " Oh, but York, really, I ain't good enough as 
 1 am; I've got to act like I was some one else; 
 drink and swear " 
 
 " Tonette, what has come over you ? " 
 
 " Nothing hain't," said she, allowing the light 
 of love to kindle in her eyes and set ablaze the 
 same spark in his tender heart, we may be sure. 
 " I'm only teasing you, and you know it ; you - 
 you well, I won't say what you are. At least, 
 I can't holler it, but I'll whisper what I think of 
 you when I get down." 
 
 Laura now slammed the gate, and came boldly 
 down the path to give double warning. 
 
 " Come down ; here's Miss Lament," she heard 
 Mr. Stone command in a sepulchral whisper. 
 
 " I'm not afraid," Tonette replied, in a ghostly 
 voice, to mock him. " My conscience is clear. 
 You better skeedaddle." 
 
 So Laura was obliged to keep on in her course 
 and to openly discover the reckless girl in the 
 
 355
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 tree, swinging her feet dangerously near Mr. 
 Stone's breast, while he stood, snow-splotched 
 from shoulders to toes, staring foolishly up at her. 
 
 " Why, Tonette ! " Laura exclaimed. 
 
 " Please make York go 'way," Tonette called 
 back. 
 
 " Do come down, Tonette please," he urged ; 
 " do get down." 
 
 " Go 'way, you goose," she whispered ; " don't 
 you see I never can get down while you're there? " 
 
 Stone therefore advanced and, with his back to 
 Tonette, broke what he called the news : 
 
 " Miss Lamont, I have asked Tonette to be my 
 wife." 
 
 " Why! I am - Laura stopped there, with- 
 out saying what she was while Tonette slid 
 down and came and hid her face on Laura's 
 breast. 
 
 " It's true, Miss Laura," she said, " but it is to 
 be as you say." 
 
 " You love one another? " Laura asked. 
 
 " I love her," said Mr. Stone. 
 
 " I'm tired er bein' pestered so," said Tonette. 
 
 " Well, this is a great surprise to me," Laura 
 said, taking one of each of their hands ; " I can 
 
 356
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 have nothing more to say than to give you my 
 congratulations my two best friends." 
 
 She led the way into the house and ran into the 
 library, where she left them while she went to 
 her room and sat and looked into the grate fire 
 with fixed eyes, as if the leaping flames and shift- 
 ings of the glow of the coals were flashing a 
 sobering message to her. A moving message, too, 
 for, after a few minutes, tears came to her, and 
 she rose and flung herself across her bed and cried 
 ?way the shock of this new revelation which so 
 accentuated her own loneliness. 
 
 357
 
 XXVI. 
 
 BEE KM AN SCORES A FAILURE 
 
 " How absolute the knave is." Hamlet. 
 
 ZATER in the afternoon the love-stricken 
 clergyman called, and in a manly, straight- 
 forward manner told her of his love for Miss 
 Tonette, and how long he had fought against it, 
 because to have yielded seemed certain to inter- 
 fere with his usefulness as a clergyman devoted 
 to the poor. But, he said, he could not silence the 
 pleadings of his heart, and when about to confess 
 his love to the maiden he saw that she loved him 
 in return. They had discussed the future soberly, 
 and Tonette had disabused his mind of the fear 
 that marriage would interfere with his life-work. 
 Both she and he had written to her father for his 
 approval, and there would not be a single cloud 
 on their horizon if only Miss Lamont would give 
 them her consent. It was a simple and a very 
 naive story, and when it was finished Laura said : 
 
 358
 
 The Millionairess H5- 
 
 " I know you both, and admire you both so 
 very thoroughly that I can truly say I envy each 
 of you the other's love and the happiness you 
 will bring to one another." 
 
 Their conversation led to a renewal of the dis- 
 cussion over the purchase and new management 
 of the village tavern, Laura having opened the 
 endless dispute by saying that, as a married man, 
 York could not possibly connect himself w r ith the 
 enterprise lest his wife should suffer along with 
 him the mistaken opposition of the narrower- 
 minded ones among his parishioners. The cler- 
 gyman held the contrary view that the dignity 
 of wedlock would make him wholly secure 
 against all scandal. 
 
 In the course of the argument Courtlandt Beek- 
 man was announced. He had read of the opera- 
 tion of " the Flashlight Fiend," and believed that 
 if he visited Miss Lamont he could, in some un- 
 foreseen way, be of great service to her in connec- 
 tion with that scoundrel. 
 
 Laura dismissed Mr. Stone, and went to the 
 drawing-room to receive Mr. Beekman. 
 
 "Oh, I am so glad you came! You are the 
 very man to advise me," Laura exclaimed, as she 
 returned the grasp of his hand. 359
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 It was on the tip of his tongue to say, " That 
 was what impelled me to come," but he restrained 
 the impulse. 
 
 " We are discussing my prospect of buying the 
 village tavern, and managing it in the interests 
 of order and decency," she said, " but though the 
 subject has come up between the Rev. Mr. Stone, 
 our rector, and myself at least a score of times, 
 he always insists that he should manage the re- 
 formed saloon, whereas I persist that he cannot 
 with propriety do so and there we come to a 
 block, every time." 
 
 " Tell me all about it, please," Beekman said, 
 concealing his disappointment that the matter in 
 dispute was not what he had imagined. 
 
 She told her story in detail, giving the tavern 
 its true colouring in her picture, and explaining 
 how seriously and persistently it interfered with 
 the complete reformation of the village. 
 
 ' There are two courses open to you," said 
 Beekman, when her recital ended. " You can 
 tear down the present tavern and build elsewhere 
 in a shady grove, by preference, a first-class 
 road-house. The place will then tempt a responsi- 
 ble man, skilled as a caterer, to take charge of it. 
 
 360
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 To it (if it has attractive dining-rooms, a bowling- 
 alley, a billiard-room, and a good chef) will come 
 a constantly increasing number of persons who 
 live within a radius of ten or a dozen miles to 
 end their drives with a supper or dinner, and to 
 relieve the monotony of country cottage life with 
 a change of fare and scene. You could arrange 
 that the man in charge be paid a salary for manag- 
 ing the bar and that he earn a commission on 
 every sale of tea, coffee, cocoa, and temperance 
 drinks of every sort which he might sell, giving 
 him also all that he took in from the restaurant 
 he providing and cooking the food." 
 
 " Why, that is very attractive. I wonder what 
 the alternative course will be," Laura remarked. 
 
 " The first plan is open to this objection," Beek- 
 man went on, " that it will cause the rich patrons 
 of the place to serve as bad examples to the people 
 of your village, who will know that the others 
 drink what they please and sometimes too freely. 
 Another bad thing about the plan is that your 
 villagers will know that the wealthy visitors are 
 not urged to take temperance drinks, as they are. 
 That will offend them, and even stir them to drink 
 more alcohol than they would take were all the 
 customers treated alike." 361
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " I can see that, of course," Laura broke in. 
 
 " The alternative plan is the better one, I 
 think," said Beekman. " That is why, who is 
 the I beg your pardon, I did not mean to be 
 so rude." 
 
 While he was speaking he saw a shadow fall 
 across the window, and, looking out, perceived 
 Jack Lamont standing on the front porch, pre- 
 paratory to stepping down into the garden. 
 
 " How you startled me ! " Laura exclaimed. 
 " Do you know him ? That is my cousin John 
 Lamont an invalid, who is here in an effort to 
 regain his strength." 
 
 " No, again I beg your pardon. I do not know 
 him. I think he must have startled me, also," 
 Beekman replied. 
 
 To himself he said : " That is the man who has 
 brought me here." 
 
 " The other plan," he continued, " is to put the 
 present tavern in the charge of a man on a salary, 
 with a commission, in addition, upon all non-in- 
 toxicating beverages he is able to sell. That is 
 the plan of the English reformers, and it works 
 excellently well. He should be warned that he 
 will be dismissed if he sells liquor to a drunkard 
 
 362
 
 The Millionairess H$- 
 
 or a minor or keeps his place open after hours. 
 He should be obliged to provide food in simple 
 forms in the barroom, and he should be in sympa- 
 thy with the purposes of his employers." 
 
 " Excellent ! Excellent ! " Laura cried. 
 
 " Yes, but not wholly so," Beekman answered. 
 *' Whatever else you do, if you buy out the present 
 saloon-keeper, he will start another place as near 
 by as possible. You cannot buy the whole town- 
 ship to keep him out, you know. He will have the 
 politicians behind him, and he and they may make 
 a great deal of trouble. It is far better to avoid 
 all chance of that. For my part, I would hope 
 to decrease his business by my own efforts, and 
 then to win him over to accepting a salary and 
 doing as I desired. Whenever you think the time 
 is ripe, if you will let me know, I will see and 
 talk with him, and I believe for I have seen 
 the man, and do not think his sins have any deeper 
 source than a hard struggle to live that I can 
 convert him to becoming a valuable lieutenant of 
 yours, especially if you will be courteous and 
 friendly in your manner toward him." 
 
 " Thank you. Thank you ever so much," 
 Laura said, warmly. " Mr. Stone and I have 
 
 363
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 been dreaming and planning dreams. I will cer- 
 tainly ask you to help me, since you are so kind 
 as to make the offer." 
 
 " Miss Lampnt," said Beekman, rising to take 
 his departure, " no, I must go. I have important 
 business in Fishkill, which I may as well transact 
 now that I am so near. Miss Lamont, it is not 
 in any such trifling way as this that I would be 
 of service to you, if I could, if if you would 
 encourage me ; but in every way, always, if I 
 might have the good fortune to earn your con- 
 fidence." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Beekman," Laura said, feeling the 
 depth of meaning which his tone, more than his 
 words, disclosed. " How can you- be so kind to 
 me? How can you have forgiven my wicked 
 rudeness and ingratitude on the night of the 
 party ? I am so ashamed so very, very much 
 ashamed of myself." 
 
 " You exaggerate a very natural protest against 
 a gross injustice when you say you were rude, 
 Miss Lamont. Do you know, you courageous 
 and heroic fighter of life's great battle single- 
 handed, that in my belief you and I could never 
 quarrel or fall out of sympathy? And as for 
 
 364
 
 The Millionairess && 
 
 rudeness, you never could be rude to any one, if 
 you tried." 
 
 He was gone, and where he left her she spent a 
 full hour the very happiest hour of her life. He 
 had come to call upon her. He! all the way from 
 New York, to call upon her! And what had he 
 said and intended her to understand ? Under 
 no construction could his words be called merely 
 polite. Under the narrowest construction they 
 were when taken in conjunction with his tone 
 of voice unquestionably friendly. And almost 
 anybody would say they were loverlike ! Thus 
 hugging to her soul the fresh bright memory of 
 that short interview, Laura sat alone in the draw- 
 ing-room an hour, blushing, trembling, smiling, 
 dreaming the realities that were certain in due 
 time to chase from her maiden eyes the whispering 
 mysteries that throne themselves in virgin faces. 
 
 And he ? Before half an hour had gone, he had 
 caught up with Jack Lament, and halted him in 
 the road with a request for a light for his cigar. 
 In returning the man's match-box, he delayed its 
 delivery, purposely, for a few seconds, during 
 which he scanned the man's face narrowly. 
 
 " Thank you," said he. " Your name's John 
 Lament?" 365
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 11 Yes." 
 
 " Tell me, why don't you go back to New York 
 to-day?" 
 
 " Well, upon my word ! " Lament answered, 
 " and will you condescend to mention why I 
 should go to New York ? " 
 
 " Because you are the ' Flashlight Fiend/ " said 
 Beekman, calmly, but with impressive confidence. 
 
 " You mean that I am your grandmother, do 
 you not?" -Lament asked. "My poor friend. 
 when did you escape and where from? " 
 
 He tried to carry a nonchalant air, but his face 
 flushed and his eyes fell before the honest man's 
 searching gaze. He realised that his manner was 
 betraying him, and he turned quickly to resume 
 his way toward Fishkill. 
 
 " Will you go to New York, to-day ; before I 
 expose you?" Beekman inquired. To save his 
 own right arm he would not have exposed the 
 wretch. But he reasoned that Lamont would not 
 suspect the truth. 
 
 " Seriously, sir," Lamont replied, " if you are 
 not insane, you certainly are mistaken. Every one 
 around here knows me. I am a Lamont, sir 
 of the manor-house above here, and I am a sick 
 man, barely able to move about." 366
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Will you take five hundred dollars, and start 
 at once not to return ? " 
 
 Lamont was sorely tempted, yet to accept the 
 money was to admit his guilt. He wanted the 
 money so badly that it angered him to have to 
 refuse it. 
 
 " Mind your business," he snarled, " and let 
 me alone. You are mistaken, I tell you." 
 
 " Will you take a thousand dollars, and go at 
 once?" and Beekman produced his pocket-book 
 to further tempt the scoundrel. 
 
 Lamont began to walk away. 
 
 " A thousand dollars ! " Beekman called after 
 him. " Will you go away for a thousand dollars 
 down?" 
 
 " Go to " Lamont snarled, and kept on his 
 
 way. 
 
 Courtlandt Beekman bit his lip with vexation. 
 He was positive that he had made no mistake, he 
 was equally certain that he could not prove his as- 
 sertion, and he dared not risk a step which might 
 bring annoyance to Laura Lamont, and thus per- 
 petrate the very injury he was trying to prevent. 
 
 Before a week passed the " Flashlight Fiend " 
 was at his work again, and for several weeks his 
 
 367
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 depredations continued always being confined 
 to the same limited sphere. From one young lady 
 in Powellton he took only a silver-buckled garter, 
 from another a necklace, from a third a plain gold 
 pin. Always and everywhere his thefts were 
 trifling and of the sort that might be called the 
 intimate ornaments of his victims except in the 
 case of Laura Lamont, whose pocket-book he 
 emptied of its contents in silver and bank-notes. 
 The press roared with sensational stories of his 
 polite speeches, his gallant manners, and the mys- 
 tery of his identity. 
 
 On one afternoon, Tonette noticed the glint of 
 something at the edge of the hall carpet, by Jack 
 Lament's bedroom door. She picked up the ob- 
 ject, which proved to be a gold pin, very plain but 
 of such fashioning that she suspected it to be 
 the one that the " Fiend " had contented himself 
 with taking from the room of a Miss Viola Sedg- 
 vale, one of the most attractive of the belles of 
 Fishkill, and the last victim of the man's opera- 
 tions. She took it to her room and examined it 
 carefully, then found a copy of a newspaper con- 
 taining a description of the stolen article. As- 
 sured by this that there was ground for her sus- 
 
 368
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 picion, she was for confiding it to Laura, but, on 
 second thoughts, she determined first to tell York 
 Stone, and take his advice. 
 
 That night the " Fiend " was caught. 
 
 369
 
 XXVII. 
 
 THE MYSTERIOUS 
 BURGLAR CAUGHT 
 
 ' And tell me what is crueller 
 Than a wicked woman's will." Goethe. 
 
 rHERE had been a small gathering of 
 friends at Harold Kimball's house in 
 Fishkill, and two of the visitors remained after 
 midnight, when the party broke up. These two 
 were Henrietta Van Ness, who yielded to Harold's 
 sister's invitation to stay the night, and a Mr. 
 Blakeley, of New York, who remained to give 
 Mr. Kimball what satisfaction he might for hav- 
 ing beaten him at poker in town, a few nights be- 
 fore. At a little after midnight, therefore, we 
 find the occupants of the house distributed as 
 follows : Kimball and Blakeley at cards in a 
 middle room on the ground floor a room with 
 only one window, and that completely darkened 
 by outside shutters and heavy inner hangings; 
 Miss Van Ness dressed and gossiping with Miss 
 Kimball, who had gone to bed in the large room 
 
 370
 
 The Millionairess ne- 
 
 on the first floor; and, at the top of the house, the 
 butler, three maids, and a boy servant, all asleep. 
 When the low tones of the women's talk ceased, 
 as it did presently, the only sounds in the house 
 were the occasional monosyllabic utterances of 
 the men at cards : " Raise you five," " ten better," 
 " aces high," and the like. And this was also 
 softened speech, for these men were businesslike 
 at poker, which was the most serious business they 
 ever transacted. The best card-players in our 
 country, who are of a race and religion by them- 
 selves, play hilariously because, with them, gam- 
 ing is dissipation for the commercial instinct 
 which rules them. With Caucasians it keeps its 
 commercial side, and is therefore apt to be taken 
 seriously, as all business is with a people primarily 
 agricultural. When the Caucasians are idle men 
 of pleasure, card-playing brings the utmost mental 
 strain to which they are subjected. That is one 
 reason why there are no quieter places in Cau- 
 casia than its gambling hells. 
 
 " You'll find that's a nice bed in there," said 
 Miss Kimball ; " it's warm as toast." 
 
 ' Then I'll brown myself on both sides," said 
 Henrietta. " Bon soir, ma chere."
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 Henrietta passed into the adjoining room and, 
 as a brilliant moon shone upon the immaculate 
 blanket of snow in the garden, she decided to go 
 to bed without a light. Nevertheless, an instinct 
 which women do most to keep in force in the 
 world led her to go to the window to close the 
 lower shutters. As she approached the window, 
 her eye caught a movement in the garden, and 
 pausing to study it, she saw a man advance from 
 a clump of bushes to cross the snow upon the 
 lawn. As he walked, he turned to scan the win- 
 dows of the house with a foxy glance which con- 
 sorted with his swift but careful steps. It was the 
 face of Jack Lamont, and she recognised it, for she 
 had often seen him, though they were not more 
 nearly acquainted. When he reached the farther 
 side of the garden and the ladder which he had 
 seen leaning against a tree there, he stopped and 
 studied the house carefully. He did not see Hen- 
 rietta. 
 
 She ran swiftly back to Miss Kimball's bed- 
 room. 
 
 " Sh-h-h-h ! Pauline, dear ; don't cry out or 
 anything," she whispered. " There's a man in 
 the garden, getting a ladder to climb into one of 
 
 372
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 these windows. It is that Lament who used to 
 come so often to the Clock House, in the old 
 colonel's time. He is stopping there now with 
 that little cat. I will wager that he is the notori- 
 ous 'Flashlight Fiend.' If he is, we will have more 
 fun with Miss Lament than she has had with 
 me." 
 
 " For heaven's sake, Henrietta! " Miss Kimball 
 exclaimed, leaping from the bed as she spoke, 
 " and you so cool. Oh, I'm going to Harry " 
 
 Henrietta lightly covered the frightened 
 woman's mouth with her hand. 
 
 " There's nothing to be frightened at," she said. 
 " We've three men in the house. I'm dressed. I'll 
 go and get Harry and Mr. Blakeley. You tip- 
 toe up and wake your butler." 
 
 " I like that," Miss Kimball replied, speaking 
 almost out loud. " I'll scream with all my might, 
 if you leave me. Do let me slip this on, and keep 
 by you. I don't care I'm awfully frightened 
 and I think you're perfectly heartless." 
 
 " Oh, do stop talking," Henrietta urged. 
 " Come quickly. Put on your wrapper, and 
 button it as you go." 
 
 " If I scream, he'll go away, Henrietta. He 
 
 373
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 will, dear. What makes you care about that 
 Lamont girl ? Do let me scream." 
 
 Henrietta, by way of answer, stooped and took 
 her agitated friend in her arms and carried her 
 out, whispering, " Please be reasonable. We 
 don't want him to get away. We want to catch 
 him." She deposited her trembling burden in 
 the passage, and ran back to snatch the counter- 
 pane from the bed. " There," she said, " wrap 
 up in that. Come along." 
 
 She dashed down the stairs, and her terrified 
 companion flung herself after her, tripping upon 
 a dragging end of the counterpane, and crashing 
 down several steps with a racket that must have 
 all but reached the ears of the burglar. Henrietta 
 was at the door of the room where the men were 
 at cards when Miss Kimball called to her to stop. 
 
 " Heaven's sake! " Henrietta moaned; " what 
 is it?" 
 
 " Please tell me how I look before the men " 
 
 " You look like Sitting Bull," Henrietta said, 
 in a whisper, and shot into the card-room. 
 
 The men followed her the instant that they 
 grasped the news. When all were in the bed- 
 room, she bade them stand behind the heavy 
 drapery of the windows and wait. 374
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " When I turn on the electric light," she whis- 
 pered, " the one who is nearest the man must 
 jump on him. Pauline, I'll get into your bed." 
 
 The instant she did so, Miss Kimball flung her- 
 self upon and around her, and pleaded to be 
 allowed to scream. 
 
 "Hark!" from Henrietta; "there goes the 
 ladder against the wall. Oh, what luck! What 
 luck!" 
 
 " I think you're a devil," came from between 
 Miss Kimball's chattering teeth. 
 
 " You ought to know, being a woman, also," 
 Henrietta replied ; " we are all half woman, half 
 devil, and the devil-half is always on top when 
 one of us scents revenge." 
 
 Presently the bending of the ladder was partly 
 felt, partly heard, and then Lament's head ap- 
 peared above the outer sill with a visor, pierced, 
 before his eyes, and covering the upper half of 
 his face. He was now unrecognisable. Pushing 
 up the lower sash, he let himself into the room 
 as softly as if he had been a cat. 
 
 " What's that? Who's there?" Henrietta called 
 out, rising upon one elbow in bed. 
 
 " A friend," Lament whispered ; " please do 
 not be alarmed." 375
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Who are you? " she commanded; " leave at 
 once. I shall scream." 
 
 " Why ! it is Miss Van Ness I am addressing," 
 said the burglar, with hushed voice. " This is an 
 unexpected pleasure. I had meant to call upon 
 you next week. I am the gentleman who is col- 
 lecting souvenirs and portraits of the fair ladies 
 of this neighbourhood. I give you my word, you 
 need not be frightened. I have never done any 
 violence, and hope never to have to, yet if you 
 attempt to raise an alarm, I must kill you." 
 
 " What do you want here ? Oh, have pity on 
 me, and go away," Henrietta wailed, like a skilled 
 actress. 
 
 The man began to approach the bed, taking a 
 chair with him, from its place by the window. 
 
 "What? Miss Kimball also?" he continued. 
 " I have never had the good fortune to be enter- 
 tained by two belles at once. I want very little, 
 ladies, only a trifling keepsake ; a pin or a bit 
 of ribbon." 
 
 Henrietta saw that he meant to put his chair 
 down by the head of the bed, and that if he did 
 so she could not reach the electric button which 
 was in the wall beside the bed. Therefore she 
 
 376
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 determined to end the farce and act earnestly at 
 once. 
 
 " Take another step at your peril, Mr. Lament," 
 she called aloud, and, turning, wrenched at the 
 button and flooded the room with light. Lament 
 flung himself toward the window, but was pin- 
 ioned at the same instant in the arms of Mr. 
 Blakeley, a man of such physical strength that he 
 knew resistance to be useless. 
 
 " Stick to him, Arthur," Kimball called out. 
 " Can you hold him while I wake the servants 
 and send for the police? " 
 
 " Take your time," was the calm answer; " I 
 can hold him till next week." 
 
 " And I can help you, Mr. Blakeley, if it is 
 necessary," said Henrietta, slipping out of bed 
 and revealing herself, to Lament's astonishment, 
 in complete attire. 
 
 "Well done," said Lament, bitterly. "I'm 
 trapped like a rabbit. What an ass I was ! " 
 
 " You should have kept your pranks for that 
 little cat at the Clock House, Mr. John Lament," 
 Henrietta ventured, malignantly. " Is she so very 
 fond of you ? I've got a good mind to send and 
 have her come and weep over you." 
 
 377
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 "Is this Arthur Blakeley holding me?" Lament 
 inquired. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Arthur,- old man, let me go, will you ? " 
 
 "Can't do it, old fellow; awfully sorry." 
 
 " I'll leave the country if you will ; on my 
 word of honour." 
 
 " Sorry, old chap, but really you've brought 
 this on yourself, you know; it's your own fault." 
 
 " So help me God, I will not go to prison. 
 I'll kill myself." 
 
 " Afraid you'll have to go," said Blakeley. 
 " You must have known what all this would lead 
 to." 
 
 Then Harry Kimball was heard returning and 
 urging the sleepy butler, whose heavy steps made 
 the stairs groan. Kimball stood at the door while 
 Blakeley led Lamont out of the bedroom and 
 down-stairs to the library, where the men had 
 been playing cards. There all three sat down to 
 await the coming of the police. Lament's quick, 
 ingenious mind was busied with planning a way 
 of escape, and, as his captors were disinclined to 
 talk, all three sat silently, Lamont staring at the 
 floor and the others watching him. The prisoner's 
 
 378
 
 The Millionairess & 
 
 first idea was to ask to be left alone with Blakeley 
 on the ground that they were old acquaintances 
 and that he wished to confide a secret to him. 
 Then he meant to bolt from the room and up 
 the stairs in order to regain freedom by the win- 
 dow at which he entered. But then, he thought, 
 Kimball will stand outside the door why not 
 make the dash while both men were behind him ; 
 or kill them both, for he was armed and they 
 were not? Almost at the moment when he 
 thought of murder, Mr. Blakeley asked him for 
 his pistol, and, to disarm suspicion, he handed it 
 over at once. 
 
 " I guess I'll have no more use for it," he said, 
 resolving then that to bolt was the only promising 
 plan. " Give me a cigarette, Blakeley, will you ? 
 I see you have some there." 
 
 " Certainly, old chap," Blakeley replied. " You 
 pour him out a bracer of Scotch, Kimball, will 
 you? No intention to treat you any worse than 
 we have to." 
 
 Both turned their backs, and as they did so 
 Lamont sprang to the door and out of it, then up 
 the stairs. He slammed the library door behind 
 him, but he heard Kimball opening it before he 
 
 379
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 reached the head of the stairs. He flung himself 
 against Miss Kimball's door and thanked 
 heaven that she had not locked it. He crossed her 
 room to the shrill sound of a blood-curdling 
 shriek, and, without stopping to walk down the 
 ladder, spread his legs and arms and slid down 
 its sides, thirteen feet to the ground. He fell 
 forward on his hands and knees at the bottom, 
 and his mind searched his body for sign of 
 break or strain. There was none, and he in- 
 stantly gathered himself to regain his feet, but, 
 in that mere flash of a second Arthur Blakeley, 
 who had run around the house from the library 
 window, leaped on his back and flattened him, 
 face down, in the snow. 
 
 " The reporter saw the prisoner in his cell." 
 Thus began the concluding paragraph in the New 
 York Times of the next day. " He has adopted 
 a Cockney accent, and pretends to be a London 
 cracksman, but this is futile for several reasons. 
 He never spoke like a cockney while engaged in 
 his burglaries; moreover, the writer of this re- 
 port, the police, and many others, are able to 
 swear that he is the well-known man about town, 
 
 380
 
 Millionairess 
 
 Jack Lamont. Besides, he betrayed himself by 
 claiming acquaintance with Mr. Blakeley. He is 
 thought never to have taken any photographs after 
 all. When captured he carried only a piece of 
 sheet iron encrusted with burnt powder, and a 
 little gun-powder to burn upon it. He had no 
 camera. He is said to have told Arthur Blakeley 
 that his unquestionable aberration is a natural re- 
 sult of the life he has led. 
 
 " ' It's degeneration, old fellow,' he said. ' If 
 you had not caught me, paresis would.' "
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 DILUTING A SENSATION 
 
 " Boldly dared is won already." Goeth*. 
 
 ZAURA LAMONT complained of poor 
 health on the night that Jack Lament 
 was captured. By morning a fiery fever had 
 developed, and this, with an excruciating head- 
 ache, proved the beginning of a severe attack of 
 influenza, which was to keep her invalided for 
 several weeks to come. The news of Lament's 
 arrest reached her, in brutal fashion, while she 
 was racked with pain. A note marked " urgent 
 and confidential " was brought to her bedside, and 
 she opened and read it : 
 
 " DEAR Miss LAMONT : I think when you 
 read this you will admit that more than one per- 
 son can play at most games. You used the 
 papers very adroitly to scandalise me in connec- 
 tion with the party at your house last month. 
 Now I am using them to make public the fact 
 
 382
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 that a member of your most interesting house- 
 hold was caught at Mr. Kimball's during the 
 night, while I was visiting my friend, Miss Kim- 
 ball. That he proved to be the notorious ' Flash- 
 light Fiend ' of this locality may not be news to 
 one person, but the press will esteem it a matter 
 of the first importance. I have already seen some 
 of the reporters; others are coming. 
 " I am, my dear Miss Lament, 
 
 :< Your always faithful friend, 
 
 "H. V-N." 
 
 The extreme depression of spirits which ac- 
 companies severe influenza was strong upon 
 Laura, and she threw down the cruel letter with 
 a feeling of despondency as great as if it were 
 she, instead of her ne'er-do-well cousin, who had 
 been publicly disgraced. Those who have suf- 
 fered a visit from that subtle foe whom the 
 French have named La Grippe will not need 
 to be told how quickly and completely she surren- 
 dered hope of ever outliving the disgrace that, 
 in her fevered mind, already crushed her. Her 
 mother and Tonette tried in vain to cheer her. 
 
 " Coming so close upon the scandal of the 
 
 383
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 party," she insisted, " every one will believe the 
 worst that Miss Van Ness will insinuate. I can 
 never hold up my head in either Powellton or 
 New York. The instant I am well enough I 
 shall shut this unlucky house and leave it for 
 ever." 
 
 I repeat this hysterical speech, well knowing 
 that, in itself, it has no more value than the 
 soughing of wind in a forest's tops. I have dwelt 
 a moment, also, upon the other phases of her con- 
 dition, understanding clearly that even to a med- 
 ical man they have only commonplace value. And 
 yet they are worth our attention, because it was 
 in this state that she faced the second climax of 
 her life, managing for the moment to thrust aside 
 her illness, as women often can and only women 
 are able to do, with a force of will at which the 
 bravest men in all ages have marvelled. 
 
 On the afternoon of the day after the event, 
 New York settled itself in its street-cars, homes, 
 hotels, and clubs, to read the accounts of Lament's 
 capture. Of all the emotions it caused, and the 
 myriad comments it provoked, two alone are of 
 moment to the reader. These were on the part of 
 Mrs. Percy Russell and of Courtlandt Beekman. 
 
 384
 
 The Millionairess * 
 
 Mr. Russell telephoned from his office to his home 
 for his wife to send out for an evening paper and 
 read the report. She hastened to do so, and, 
 after a few moments of reflection, called her hus- 
 band to the telephone and told him she thought 
 it her duty to go to Laura and be of what service 
 she could. She reminded him of how keenly 
 Laura had felt the previous invasion of her pri- 
 vacy by the newspapers, and prophesied that this 
 new violence would leave her ill unless some true 
 friend stood by her. In half an hour she was 
 on her way to Powellton. 
 
 Beekman read the news while on his way down- 
 town on the elevated railway. He left the train 
 at the first station, crossed the avenue and took 
 an up train back again, in order to call upon 
 his sister, Mrs. Parmly-Fessenden. At that time 
 the most select inner circle of the fashionable 
 world contained no member more courted or 
 admired than she. To the average newspaper 
 reader her name was familiar as that of the most 
 beautiful woman of the " Four Hundred," but 
 there were members of that set who thought this 
 verdict did her injustice. They knew that such 
 beauty, blended with her impressive dignity and 
 
 385
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 keen intelligence, had not been too highly praised 
 by Millais when he said " the Greeks would have 
 made her a goddess," nor by Daudet, whom she 
 had known very well, and who had written, " In 
 her presence I feel the awe which queens too 
 seldom inspire." In her high-bred air of repose, 
 her pride of mien and manner, in her taste and 
 tact, she was so equipped that what it was de- 
 clared that the Greeks would have done already 
 suggested the estimate at which she was valued 
 by those who knew her best. To her went her 
 brother, in trepidation lest she should be away 
 from home, and found her finishing her lunch. 
 
 " Courtlandt ! " exclaimed his sister. " I was 
 not expecting this pleasure." 
 
 " No, Clara," he said, kissing her cheek as 
 she held her face up for the salutation ; "I 
 came upon a sudden resolution. I hope I am not 
 de trop." 
 
 "Never, Courtlandt; how could you be?" 
 " You were not going out or expecting any 
 one?" 
 
 " No; I am wholly at your service." 
 " I have spoken to you about Miss Lamont, 
 Clara." 
 
 386
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 " Yes," she said, " though I have learned more 
 from what you have not said than from the little 
 you have. Have you met her again ? No ? But 
 she interests you as much as ever; and that is a 
 very great deal, I know. I wish I had regarded 
 her more closely when I saw her that day in 
 Rhinebeck. I only remember how very blond 
 she was, and that I admired her girlish figure and 
 frank and intelligent face. Don't grudge me the 
 whole truth, Courtlandt, because I am sure that 
 when you take such a fancy it is apt to be 
 serious, as we say. I shall be out to whoever 
 calls, and you shall have the whole afternoon. 
 You know that any such case is of the first in- 
 terest to every woman, so you may imagine what 
 this is to me from a brother who has so long 
 avoided his fate." 
 
 " Thank you, Clara," he said; " I am going to 
 impose on your kindness by asking you to go 
 with me to pay a visit to Miss Lament, simply to 
 make her acquaintance. She and I are in pre- 
 cisely that status, by the way, so that I have no 
 romantic revelations to make." . 
 
 " I will go," Mrs. Fessenden said, " and with 
 pleasure, if it is to oblige you." 
 
 387
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " But she is at her home near Fishkill, and I 
 am very much in hopes you can go directly and 
 stay over night." 
 
 " Oh ! I do not see how I can," she exclaimed, 
 but a great change of the expression of his face 
 caused her to alter her mind. " Yes, what I 
 thought of doesn't matter. I will go." 
 
 She rose and went over to him to stoop and 
 kiss his brow. 
 
 " You are very anxious, aren't you, Court- 
 landt ? " she asked. " Come, tell me what makes 
 you so. I would not presume to advise you, nor 
 will I criticise whatever you tell me you are bent 
 upon doing. I will simply help you to the extent 
 of my power." 
 
 " You are as good as gold, Clara. I will tell 
 you all the details on the cars. Can you get 
 ready in half an hour, and drive to the Grand 
 Central Depot? I will be there. I must first 
 telegraph that we are coming. Miss Lament has 
 had an invalid cousin staying with her a well- 
 known man about town. He proves to be the sen- 
 sational burglar -who photographs his victims 
 about whom so much has been published; you 
 know." 
 
 388
 
 The Millionairess H$- 
 
 " I have heard some one speak of the case," 
 she replied. " How very extraordinary ! He is 
 insane, of course." 
 
 " He has been caught in the house of that 
 Kimball who is engaged to Henrietta Van Ness 
 in her room, while she was visiting Kimball's 
 sister." 
 
 " How very shocking ! " said Mrs. Fessenden. 
 " And how very dreadful for poor Miss Lament. 
 But isn't this rather an odd moment to choose for 
 my visit? Will she see either of us? Will she 
 be able to, indeed? " 
 
 " That is immaterial. I will tell you every- 
 thing on the train, and I'm sure you will agree 
 with me. In a word, this is my idea : You remem- 
 ber that I told you of those music hall people 
 at Henrietta Van Ness's party given at Miss 
 Lament's house? I showed you that paragraph 
 about it in Society Talk. Well, Clara, I assure 
 you that whole affair was such a blow to her 
 pride and her sensitive nature that it was cruel 
 merely to witness her suffering. This will affect 
 her ten times as much. The first affair will be 
 raked over and exaggerated, unless we prevent it, 
 and she will experience an ordeal to which no 
 innocent girl should be subjected." 389
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " We prevent it ? You and I? How?" 
 
 " By simply being at the house when the re- 
 porters call there this afternoon." 
 
 " But, my dear Courtlandt," Mrs. Fessenden 
 exclaimed, in genuine alarm. " I cannot see the 
 reporters. I shouldn't know really 
 
 " Good gracious, Clara ! I am not insane. I 
 merely want you to be there, and them to know 
 that you are there with me. Miss Lament and 
 I, if she is able, will see the reporters; if not, I 
 will. And when they leave that house they will 
 take away the impression that that household 
 knows less and is less concerned about their 
 ' huge sensation ' than any other people in the 
 country. They will believe that the routine of 
 life is undisturbed there, and that the matter of 
 chief moment to Miss Lamont is the entertain- 
 ment of her friends." 
 
 " Really, Courtlandt, your going will be suffi- 
 cient, then, and I would rather see Miss Lamont 
 under more agreeable circumstances." 
 
 " You don't understand, Clara," said Beek- 
 man. " I promise to make it clear when there is 
 time, on the cars. Don't you see, the Van Ness 
 girls have been bitter enemies of the poor girl 
 
 390
 
 The Millionairess *fr 
 
 ever since Society Talk presented her side of the 
 affair of the party? They will defame her if 
 it is in their power. The meagre reports in the 
 afternoon papers warn me what to expect to- 
 morrow and it will be diabolical. It is you 
 who can prevent this, because if you are her 
 guest every effort to harm her reputation must fall 
 flat. Don't you see ? I'm of no consequence ; it's 
 you whose presence will save her." 
 
 " I understand," Mrs. Fessenden replied. 
 " Well, if such a little thing will curb the sensa- 
 tional papers it will be wonderful, but that ren- 
 ders it all the better worth trying. In half an 
 hour, then, I will be on the way to the station." 
 
 Laura received the announcement of the in- 
 tended visit while she was feebly welcoming Helen 
 Russell. 
 
 " We can but wire them not to come," said 
 that well-meaning lady ; " only fancy sending the 
 peerless Mrs. Fessenden about her business ! But 
 that is precisely what I shall have to do." 
 
 " He cannot know what has happened or he 
 would not come. He will never think of me when 
 he knows," Laura moaned from her bed. 
 
 " Well," continued Mrs. Russell, in ignorance 
 
 391
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 of the sentimental light in which her companion 
 had viewed Mr. Beekman ever since the first of the 
 few occasions on which she had seen him, " it is 
 going to be a testing of all your friends, and if 
 he is one who cannot stand the trial, the sooner 
 you know it the better." 
 
 " I cannot see his sister," Laura said. " My 
 head is fairly splitting. I hope the doctor will 
 arrive before he comes. I may only be able to 
 sit up a few minutes, scarcely long enough to 
 be barely polite, I fear." 
 
 "Is he nice, dear?" Mrs. Russell asked, for 
 Laura's decision to leave a sick-bed to receive a 
 caller aroused a suspicion of the truth in her 
 mind. With a clever woman's skill she shot 
 forth the one question most likely to produce a 
 betrayal if anything were being hidden. " I 
 thought him very handsome that night at the 
 ' Boozers.' " 
 
 " Oh, yes," Laura groaned. " He's the hand- 
 somest man in all the world. It kills me to talk, 
 Helen. As handsome as Apollo but that's 
 nothing, because he is so much nicer than he 
 looks; so kind and gentle, and yet, you know, 
 so commanding-." 
 
 392
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 " Oho ! So sits the wind ! " thought Helen 
 Russell. " Don't try to talk, dear. Hark! there's 
 the doctor's carriage." 
 
 The doctor prescribed for the allaying of the 
 fever and headache, and ordered a tonic for her 
 system, leaving also a command that she have 
 perfect rest and quiet. 
 
 Beekman and his sister were met in the draw- 
 ing-room by Mrs. Russell, looking grave, regret- 
 ful, but very firm. Soberly, reluctantly, yet very 
 tenaciously, she endeavoured to turn the distin- 
 guished couple back from their purpose by assur- 
 ing them that Miss Lament was seriously ill. 
 She might as well have asked Gibraltar to .declare 
 itself a Spanish rock. Brother and sister both 
 utterly failed to catch the ulterior suggestion in 
 everything she said. They replied that they were 
 not surprised, they had feared they might find 
 her indisposed, they would be impatient until they 
 heard the doctor's report after his next call in 
 the evening. Mrs. Russell was puzzled and dis- 
 tressed. She had all but put it in so many words 
 that they could not stay ; still .they did not catch 
 her meaning. There was nothing left but to in- 
 troduce Tonette, who might shock so conventional 
 
 393
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 a person as Mrs. Parmly-Fessenden, yet who 
 could be relied upon to state the case with the 
 force and directness which characterises a bullet's 
 course. 
 
 " May I inquire to whom we are speaking ? " 
 Beekman inquired. 
 
 " I am Mrs. Russell, a friend of Miss La- 
 mont's." 
 
 " Are you the wife of my friend, Mr. Percy 
 Russell?" 
 
 " My husband is the architect," Helen ex- 
 plained. 
 
 " Then, as he and I are old friends," said Beek- 
 man, " and as you and I are both members of the 
 Boozers' Club, I am going to be frank with you, 
 and explain why we are here and why I hope we 
 may stay." 
 
 He set the case forth to her in a few sentences, 
 yet so clearly that her face grew brighter for 
 each link of his argument. She put herself in 
 Laura's place as she listened, and when he had 
 finished she thanked him from the bottom of her 
 heart and thanked his sister, also, though much 
 less effusively because she was of her own sex. 
 She gave orders to have their things taken up 
 
 394
 
 The Millionairess *6 
 
 at once, and she accompanied Mrs. Fessenden to 
 the best chamber, from which the miscreant 
 Lament's belongings had already been removed. 
 When a chance offered, she flew to Laura's bed- 
 side and told her that Mr. Beekman was " too 
 nice for anything," and that his sister possessed 
 in her one heart all the humanity and kindness 
 needed to equip the entire Four Hundred,, with 
 more of the same effervescent and geyser-like 
 nature. As a peroration, she explained why the 
 brother and sister were there. " To silence scan- 
 dal, darling, and thwart that detestable Van Ness 
 tiger-cat," she said. " I declare the man is 
 Napoleonic." 
 
 The first few reporters who called were asked 
 to return with all the others who were " working 
 up the case " at six o'clock in the evening. Laura 
 came down dressed as for an evening party, and 
 looking her best; perhaps better than she had 
 ever appeared, so rosy had the scorch of fever 
 turned her cheeks, so brilliant was the cruel light 
 it shot through her eyes. Mrs. Russell begged 
 her to go back to her bed, and Beekman, though 
 he found it hard to believe she was ill until he 
 took her burning hand in his. also pleaded with 
 
 395
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 her not to risk a more serious sickness. She was 
 introduced to Mrs. Fessenden, whose good-will 
 she quickly won by her bright manner and art- 
 less nature. The reporters were even more easily 
 captivated. She told them she had seen very 
 little of her cousin, and could not offer much to 
 gratify their curiosity. They read to her, with 
 their own ends in view, their interviews with 
 Henrietta Van Ness full of insinuations and 
 innuendoes unworthy even such a source but 
 they apologised as they did so, and assured Laura 
 that her statement rendered it unlikely that any 
 reputable newspaper would devote much space to 
 gossip so evidently malicious. 
 
 The presence of the celebrated hunter, explorer, 
 and author deeply impressed these young men, 
 whose entire guild held him in high esteem, 
 valuing him for the frequent good " copy " his 
 life provided, and esteeming him for his romantic 
 adventures, which they exaggerated, and with the 
 halo of which he was wholly enveloped in their 
 mind. Eagerly they took note of his presence, and 
 of that of his sister, and after the ladies had left 
 the room they lingered to talk with him. When he 
 bade good-night to the last one, he felt no anxiety 
 
 396
 
 The Millionairess %& 
 
 with regard to the form the news would take in 
 the morning papers. He knew that the reports 
 would all agree in declaring Jack Lament par- 
 tially insane, and to that extent irresponsible for 
 his actions. Of the culprit's infirmity of mind 
 Beekman felt himself safe in assuring the re- 
 porters that ample proof would be forthcoming. 
 
 Laura presided at that night's dinner in her 
 home and never appeared to greater advantage. 
 This was her heroism. To be so ill, in such 
 exquisite pain, to feel such utter despondency 
 through the knowledge that her cousin had 
 brought public disgrace upon her to feel all 
 this, and yet to thrust it aside and preside at her 
 table (before him whom she ranked first among 
 men) as if in perfect poise, what man lives who 
 could have done this ? Even among women, how 
 few could have done it so well. 
 
 Toward the end of the dinner the doctor re- 
 turned and, with alarm and indignation, com- 
 manded her to return to her bed. Her guests took 
 side against her and, when Beekman and his sis- 
 ter threatened to go back to New York unless she 
 obeyed her physician, she reluctantly yielded. 
 Beekman offered his arm with courtly formality 
 
 397
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 to escort her from the dining-room. Once in the 
 hall, she tremblingly asked him to allow her to 
 keep his arm until they had mounted the stairs. 
 In the upper hall, where they were alone for a 
 moment, she confessed that she was very ill and 
 so low-spirited as to fancy she had not long to 
 live, or, indeed, much to live for. 
 
 " Try to remember for one year what you are 
 saying now," said he. " Shall I write it down 
 and save it, to show to you in twelve months? 
 How we will laugh over it, then." 
 
 " No, no ; I cannot joke about it. I am in 
 earnest. I know that I shall never be strong or 
 of much use again." 
 
 " And yet I would try to recover if I were you," 
 Beekman said, still making light of her despond- 
 ency. " There are a few little trifles that need 
 your care; your villagers, you know; and that 
 wicked tavern which will work havoc if you neg- 
 lect to watch it. And, then again, there is another 
 trifle in which I am deeply interested that needs 
 your interest. I would plead for it if I dared." 
 
 "Why, what is it?" 
 
 " Myself, Miss Lamont." 
 
 " I do not understand," she said. 
 
 398
 
 The Millionairess t* 
 
 " I would plead that you might take an interest 
 ever so much or ever so little, as you will, in 
 me and in my life." 
 
 " Oh, I do, I do," said Laura. " How rude I 
 have been not to tell you before this how deeply 
 I appreciate the great kindness you have done me 
 to-day. I am sincere. I want to call you to 
 your face my friend. No other in all the world 
 has been so kind to me." 
 
 " Miss Lament," said he, gravely, " in that I 
 am only selfish. I have tried to win your grati- 
 tude because I love you. Am I wrong to 
 tell you now ? I love you. I came to your party 
 solely to be near you. I have come to-night for 
 the same reason ; to be with you and to show you 
 that I love you." 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Beekman! You are cruel! Don't" 
 she almost gasped, out of her surprise and her 
 distorted view of the honour he paid her. 
 
 " I have never loved any other woman and 
 never shall," he whispered. " May I hope to win 
 your love? " 
 
 " I am not worthy of so much," she said, and, 
 staggering against him, hid her face on his breast. 
 He put an arm about her and kissed her. 
 
 And to him this was a covenant. 399
 
 XXIX. 
 
 A MESSAGE FOR 
 BRYAN CROSS 
 
 " A thousand fantasies . . . 
 Of calling, shapes and beckoning shadows dire." " Comus." 
 
 rO the surprise of Laura, who fancied that 
 Mrs. Fessenden's pride and dignity be- 
 tokened a shell-clad heart, that lady spent an 
 hour or more of the next morning by the 
 invalid's bedside, soothing her with hopeful, sym- 
 pathetic talk, administering her medicine, fre- 
 quently altering the position of her pillows to 
 maintain her comfort, and, in manifold ways, ex- 
 hibiting the genius of an instinctive nurse. 
 
 " Courtlandt has whispered to me that he hopes 
 we are to become sisters; I am so glad, dear! " 
 she whispered. 
 
 " No, no ! " Laura cried from the depths of 
 the melancholia that possessed her; "it is only 
 sympathy, not love, that he feels for me. I will 
 tell him when I am better. I can bring him 
 nothing but misfortune." 
 
 400
 
 The Millionairess HS- 
 
 " That is not kind," said Mrs. Fessenden. " I 
 know that he has loved you since the moment he 
 first saw you. It was your low spirits that spoke 
 then, not the brave, high-spirited girl whom he 
 loves so very deeply. Be sure he will never 
 change, dear Laura. I am so glad. You are a 
 little witch, dear. You exact love from all who 
 ever see you. Will you not try to love me, also, 
 and let us be like sisters? " 
 
 A hysterical attack of crying was all the answer 
 Laura could give. 
 
 Mr. Beekman took his sister back to the city 
 that afternoon, leaving Mrs. Russell to wait upon 
 Laura, with Tonette's help, until he could send a 
 trained nurse. With infinite trouble that nurse 
 was selected by his going to house after house, 
 and calling up physician after physician on the 
 telephone, until he had learned the names of three 
 or four nurses who were declared to be amiable 
 and ladylike as well as skilful. Having found 
 such an one who was disengaged, he went with 
 her to Powellton. He installed himself at the 
 village hotel, and remained there a month, going 
 to the Clock House three times a day during the 
 fortnight of Laura's confinement to her room, 
 
 401
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 and spending every afternoon with her afterward 
 when she was able, first, to come down to the 
 common rooms of the house, and afterwards, to 
 drive out with him. 
 
 Sensational recitals of the nocturnal exploits 
 of the pervert, Jack Lament, filled broadsides of 
 the newspapers for several days, and during that 
 time it was a labour of love to Beekman to make 
 certain that neither printed word nor gossip 
 about the case reached the invalid's room. Her 
 miserable, morally wrecked cousin was declared 
 insane, and removed to an asylum. And there, 
 at last, the curtain fell upon that repellent scene 
 in the outskirts of our heroine's life, never to be 
 raised again. 
 
 On one afternoon, while Laura was still very 
 weak and confined to her bed, Tonette ran down 
 the garden path to meet Beekman among the trees 
 and speak to him before he entered the house. 
 She had been at an upper window watching for 
 him. 
 
 " You've heard of the Rev. Bryan Cross? " she 
 called. 
 
 " Good-afternoon, Tony ; yes, I've heard of 
 him." 
 
 402
 
 The Millionairess H* 
 
 " He's a friend of Miss Laura's, you know. 
 Well, he's in there. I've got him corralled in the 
 library, with the butler at the door and the groom 
 on the first landing, to throw him if he tries to 
 stampede. He allows he's got to see Miss Laura. 
 He says it's a matter of life and death, and that 
 sort of foolish talk. I've told him he can go up 
 when the doctor comes, and he's waiting. I'm 
 a-scared of him he's so queer. Mr. Beekman, 
 he's got wheels; the real kind that belongs in 
 an 'sylum. Any minute, he's liable to break a 
 trace and bust right into Miss Laura's room, 
 and that'll kill her." 
 
 " I declare, Tony, I'm glad you found me," 
 Beekman said. " We'll give him the wrong 
 scent, somehow, as your father would say." 
 
 " Like paw would say ? Like he does, I reckon 
 you mean, whenever a tenderfoot blows in the 
 hotel. Wouldn't you like to see paw, though? 
 Bet I would. I don't reckon you care, though, 
 'cause you're trailing something better than elk 
 just now, ain't you, Mr. Beekman?" And To- 
 nette bounded out of his reach, with a laugh at 
 her own impudence. 
 
 When Beekman went into the library he almost 
 
 403
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 fancied it an optical illusion that the man who 
 rose and advanced with a hesitating, questioning 
 air should be so startlingly like the Hamlet of 
 the greatest American tragedian of a recent day. 
 Cross had the same height and thinness, the same 
 facial pallor and long black hair; and, in the half 
 darkness, his black clothing appeared in keeping 
 with the weird suggestion. It was as if he was 
 Hamlet leaving Horatio's side and advancing 
 cautiously to question his father's ghost. 
 
 " Mr. Cross, I think. I am Courtlandt Beek- 
 man, at your service. I am asked to see you on 
 behalf of Miss Lamont." f 
 
 " Why do I see everybody else ? I want to see 
 her," Cross said, peevishly. His voice trembled 
 like that of a very sick man, and his utterance 
 was thick. A lean yellow hand went trembling, 
 first to his chin and then to push back his jet 
 hair where it had fallen over one of his ears. 
 
 " It's too bad," Beekman replied, " but you 
 cannot see her. She is ordered to be kept per- 
 fectly quiet." 
 
 "When will she die?" Cross inquired, with 
 a gleam of cunning in his eyes and a confidential 
 tone of voice. He was repellently eager. " Is 
 it to be to-day ? " 404
 
 The Millionairess && 
 
 " She's not going to die," Beekman answered. 
 " She's only ill of influenza." 
 
 " Don't trifle," said Cross, petulant again; " I 
 know she is going to die. That is why I have 
 come. I must see her first. It is the chance of 
 my life. Life, did I say ? It's the only hope for 
 my soul." 
 
 " Please sit down, sir," said Beekman. " Now, 
 then, tell me quite calmly, why you want to see 
 her." 
 
 " Don't you know ? " Cross inquired. " Every 
 one knows. You see, when my sister died, I did 
 not ask her to send me word from the other shore. 
 I meant to, but I didn't didn't dare. I thought, 
 too, that as we had always known each other's 
 thoughts, she must divine my wish. As she had 
 been my best friend, another self to me, I felt 
 certain she would know my peril without being 
 told. And if she is in heaven she must know 
 now; why doesn't she speak to me? What do 
 you think? Isn't that alone sufficient to raise 
 doubts? She has been dead for months and 
 sends me no word. I tried to travel, but " here 
 the cunning look crept back into his eyes, as he 
 put a limp finger up to his trembling lips " but 
 
 405
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 I saw I had better be back in her bedroom. There 
 is where she will come to tell me; that is, she 
 will, if there is a hereafter. Oh, why doesn't she 
 come? I am so worn with waiting." 
 
 " You want a proof that there is a hereafter? " 
 Beekman replied, inquiringly. 
 
 "How else can I preach?" Cross pleaded. 
 "My God, how else can I live? She almost 
 cursed me for my doubts, which I tried so hard 
 to conceal. After she died, she came to me in 
 the pulpit, and charged me with being a coward 
 a quack. Every night I pray for tidings of 
 her when three months shall have gone. That 
 will be on this coming Friday, you see." 
 
 " Then you're all right as rain, aren't you ? " 
 
 : ' Yes, if there is another life I can hear from 
 her and I can return to my pulpit," said the 
 wretched man, talking on, as if mechanically. 
 " But suppose she does not communicate can 
 not, for some reason. That will prove nothing. 
 I've been -thinking of that. I must have other 
 friends where she has gone; so, lately, I've been 
 among the poor and have found three who were 
 dying, two women and a man. I got them to 
 promise to tell me quickly, after they died, but 
 
 406
 
 The Millionairess #k 
 
 they have not spoken or made a sign, though two 
 have been dead a fortnight. They were not my 
 friends, after all, and other things may be dis- 
 tracting them from thoughts of me. It will not 
 be so with Miss Lamont. She is my friend. On 
 her and my sister I must put my chief reliance; 
 don't you think so? For pity's sake, let me 
 see her; she is too good to leave a soul in such 
 a hell of doubt." 
 
 Beekman managed the unhappy man adroitly, 
 so as to arouse neither his suspicion nor combat- 
 iveness. He pretended to carry Cross's message 
 to the invalid's bedside, from which he affected 
 to return with the word that Miss Lamont re- 
 gretted the necessity for disappointing her old 
 friend, yet was obliged to insist that she was not 
 in a way to die ; a gravely funny message whose 
 humour wholly escaped the excited visitor. 
 
 This assurance had to be strengthened by many 
 repetitions and variations before the distracted 
 clergyman would accept it. At last, he was 
 spurred to abandon his design, upon Beekman's 
 suggestion that he should be away looking about 
 New York for some other, more expeditious 
 messengers. 
 
 407
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Well, it looks as though I had deceived my- 
 self," Cross said, with infinite weariness in his 
 voice. "I do not want her to die; that would 
 be cruel but if she should change for the worse, 
 do get her promise for me. The notices of her 
 life in the papers put it in my head that the 
 editors had secret word that she was dying, and 
 I fancied God meant her to be His messenger to 
 me. I have lived under this strain ever since I 
 left college ; I can wait till Friday for my sister's 
 message, but not much longer." 
 
 Beekman walked with him to the Fishkill sta- 
 tion, and did not bid him good-bye until he had 
 seen him seated in a moving train for New York. 
 
 On the morning of the following Sunday, the 
 papers contained the news of his release from 
 suffering. He was found upon his back on the 
 floor of the bedroom in which his sister died. 
 It was evident that he had been writing in his 
 diary and had fallen from a chair, which was 
 found overturned in front of the little white desk. 
 What he had written was published in all the 
 newspapers, and commented upon as mysterious. 
 The madness it betrayed was evident, but its 
 source was, happily for his memory, far less 
 apparent. 48
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 " The time has come, and my sensations ap- 
 prise me that the message will soon be delivered. 
 At times, I think it will, in some way, be spoken 
 within me, for my head feels bursting, swollen, 
 under awful internal pressure. 
 
 " The air is full of murmuring voices and pul- 
 sates with waves of soft light which strengthen 
 and quicken as the minutes speed. 
 
 " These signs are in themselves the thing I 
 seek. They tell me that He rules, that life sur- 
 vives the earth. 
 
 " An hour has gone. The murmur is a tumult. 
 The once luminous breathings are now terrible 
 bolts of lightning. I am not afraid though each 
 shock threatens destruction. Is it the world's 
 ending? No, for all is calm out-of-doors. 
 
 " The convulsion is close about me. It is awful 
 beyond words. 
 
 " It is the message at last. I cannot write " 
 
 409
 
 XXX. 
 
 HAPPY CAPTIVES OF LOVE 
 
 " Will ye wed with one another ? 
 And we smiled and we answered ' Yea ! ' " Goethe. 
 
 7i.fRS. FESSENDEN, Laura Lamont, and 
 A. r-M. Courtlandt Beekman were resting in 
 camp chairs in front of the cottage they had 
 hired at Biloxi, in the sunniest and most 
 characteristic if not the most beautiful spot in 
 our Sunny South. The lethargic population of 
 the village kept within doors, sleeping in all 
 probability, as it spends most of its time in doing, 
 and the whole external prospect was theirs. The 
 tawny road beside the gulf, the stony beach, the 
 wide blue expanse of sea, with Mr. Beekman's 
 shiplike steam yacht nestling on its smooth sur- 
 face, the -cedar-scented air, the calm, the inex- 
 pressible restfulness that becomes torpor to those 
 who spend their lives there all this was theirs, 
 prized for its curative effect upon Miss Lamont. 
 Mr. Beekman was showing Laura a scrapbook 
 
 410
 
 The Millionairess Hf 
 
 which he had filled with the notices of her phil- 
 anthropic work, that had appeared in the news- 
 papers of the Hudson River Valley and New York 
 during her illness. Pieced together they made a 
 printed ribbon fifty feet long. Otherwise ar- 
 ranged they had covered the top of his single bed 
 in the Powellton hotel. With joy and pride he 
 exhibited the volume they made when pasted in 
 scrapbook formation. Politely she glanced at 
 the first few pages, and then closed the book and 
 handed it back to him. 
 
 " Honestly," she said, " I do not like it. I 
 would rather you would keep the collection, since 
 I know you feel differently about it. Above all 
 else, I hoped that the little 1 was able to do in 
 Powellton and Wapata might be carried on 
 quietly, without attracting public attention. The 
 notoriety it has now got, and even the praise of 
 the newspapers, distress me as much as the 
 slander with which they visited me at first. Be- 
 lieve me, Courtlandt, if I should read all those 
 articles I could never again feel the same interest 
 in the experiment I was trying among my neigh- 
 bours." 
 
 " Why, Laura, you are most unreasonable," 
 
 411
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 Mrs. Fessenden remarked. " You can never 
 have seriously imagined that you could carry on 
 very quietly a scheme so extensive and novel. 
 Besides, you have no right to deny to the world 
 the example and incentive of such an undertak- 
 ing." 
 
 " I loathe notoriety," Laura replied, a trifle 
 testily, for she was still far from being her old 
 self again; " I am a private individual, and I 
 hold my privacy sacred. I cannot help it if I am 
 unreasonable; it is in my blood to wish to live 
 apart from newspaper meddling and popular gos- 
 sip. The trespass of the public upon my personal 
 affairs hurts me every time it occurs as much as 
 if the people walked with hob-nailed shoes over 
 my bared heart." 
 
 " But in this case the editors are true to their 
 best aims in exploiting what you have done," 
 Beekman insisted. " I am sure that when you are 
 stronger you will see this. To me, every word 
 of this that you call ' notoriety ' is precious, and 
 yet I resent mistaken newspaper enterprise as 
 much as any man alive. I had been proud of 
 you for your goodness without realising a hun- 
 dredth part of its depth and breadth. While I 
 
 412
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 waited for you to mend, I gradually discovered 
 that you were the idol of all the people where 
 you have your home. They all but revere you. 
 They were so angered at the malicious insinua- 
 tions of the Van Ness sisters to the reporters that 
 any irresponsible man could easily have led them 
 to drive those women out of Fishkill even to 
 pull down their house upon their heads. But it 
 was not until I read the papers upon the subject 
 that I knew the extraordinary grounds for your 
 popularity. 
 
 " See here," he continued, " allow me to read 
 the summing up in The Sun, of what its reporter 
 learned about your work : ' It is the unanimous 
 testimony in the two villages that both communi- 
 ties have been raised in prosperity and comfort to 
 such an extent that all the shops now keep entirely 
 different stocks of goods from those they used to 
 carry more varied and of higher quality, and 
 vastly better graded than the goods on sale in 
 other similar villages. Their business has 
 changed from a credit to a spot-cash basis. 
 Eighty-five new accounts have been opened in the 
 Fishkill bank by Miss Lamont's associates or 
 partners, as she calls them and a bank is about 
 
 413
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 to be started in Powellton. Two drinking 
 saloons have failed and closed up ; the Powellton 
 hotel being now the only drinking and loafing 
 place for the two villages. A small " slum " which 
 existed in Wapata has been bought by specula- 
 tors, who have razed the buildings, and are erect- 
 ing a block of tidy two-story dwellings. As to 
 Wapata, it may be said that a third of it was un- 
 kempt, more or less filthy, and inhabited by sloth- 
 ful, dissolute, and disorderly persons. To-day 
 the drones are reforming or moving off, and the 
 little quarrying and carpet-making community is 
 rapidly getting started on the way to become a 
 tree-lined, flower-decked garden spot like Powell- 
 ton.' " 
 
 " Do you wonder/' Beekman inquired, " that 
 such miracles, performed within a little more than 
 three years, got publicity in the press? The real 
 wrong, it seems to me, would have been to keep 
 this from the public." 
 
 " Really, it sounds to me as if it were about 
 some one else," Laura remarked, while her friends 
 noted the colour flow to her face, as if her sensa- 
 tions were not wholly unpleasant. " I do wish 
 they had waited till we got beyond the experi- 
 
 414
 
 The Millionairess Hf 
 
 mental stage, and had made large profits and in- 
 vested them in parks or playgrounds and a kinder- 
 garten and library, as we are hoping to do. Such 
 things, done by the plain people with their own 
 money as they will be done would be better 
 worth writing about than the very little the papers 
 have found to make so much out of." 
 
 " I told the landlady and her daughters at the 
 hotel that I was coming there to see their orange- 
 trees," said Mrs. Fessenden, rising from her 
 chair ; " I think I will go now. I will be with you 
 again in a few minutes." 
 
 " Don't be late for lunch, Clara," Beekman 
 called after her. 
 
 " Courtlandt," said Laura, " I am glad of a 
 chance to speak to you alone. I think I feel over- 
 sensitive about the newspapers, because before 
 this they have described me as if I were a frivo- 
 lous, idle, mere society woman. I have been 
 disturbed by criticisms of what is called ' fash- 
 ionable life,' until I have a guilty feeling about 
 even my most informal social relaxations." 
 
 " That is, Bryan Cross has talked to you, or 
 you have read his diatribes," Beekman suggested. 
 
 " Not he alone, poor man, by any means," 
 
 415
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 Laura answered. " But you have read what he 
 had to say; what do you think of his argu- 
 ments ? " 
 
 " He was unbalanced," Beekman replied. " He 
 saw the evils of the overvaluing of both money 
 and commercial success, and he may have been 
 right in his diagnosis of the situation as it affects 
 the ' new rich ' and the mass of the poor. It 
 would be natural, where success in money-making 
 is held too high, that unconcern for the laggards 
 in the race for wealth should follow. I only say 
 it seems logical; really, I have no means of test- 
 ing that point. But his fault was in ascribing 
 all these things to ' Society,' and in condemning 
 all polite circles for the faults of a few of their 
 members. A large number of those who imitate 
 the polite world may be, as he said, living beyond 
 the limits of prudence, and that also may be the 
 direct result of what he called ' dollar-worship,' 
 but surely a very general cultivation of pride of 
 family and of dignity of position or of the 
 ambition to acquire good manners cannot be 
 harmful in itself." 
 
 "You speak of the 'polite world,'" was Laura's 
 retort, aimed straight at the mark; "you admit 
 
 416
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 its existence, but is it not itself an imitation of a 
 monarchical product? " 
 
 " Well, you might as well say it is an imitation 
 of what existed earlier among our Indians, and 
 of conditions found in every one of those Russian 
 villages, which are among the purest types of 
 democratic institutions. But to speak more seri- 
 ously, ' Society ' seems to me the inevitable ex- 
 pression of the natural ambition of mankind. In 
 civilisation certainly, and perhaps in barbarism, 
 ' Society ' is the organised influence of the women 
 upon the social body. It is the best and most 
 powerful expression of their refining and gentling 
 influence unless their zeal in religion comes first. 
 Our best society in New York was once proud to 
 honour and entertain men like Washington Irving, 
 N. P. Willis, Bayard Taylor, George William 
 Curtis, and Thackeray, when he came over. It 
 does not do so now because it is temporarily in- 
 fluenced by those who share the national tendency 
 to exaggerate the importance of material success. 
 But that is only a phase. It does not alter the 
 bottom fact that where there are different grades 
 of intelligence, of cultivation, and of ambition 
 .some must be higher than others, and one of each 
 
 417
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 must cap its class. My great-grandmother enter- 
 tained Washington, her daughter was once hostess 
 to Lafayette; my mother also brought me up in 
 pride of our standing among the leaders of social 
 life and the defenders of the public welfare in 
 New York. I hope, Laura, that my wife will 
 shine there as a hostess, as a champion of the 
 dignity of social position and as a patriotic Amer- 
 ican. I am very sure that she will never allow her 
 sympathies for the unsuccessful to be weakened, 
 and it may be that the other so-called fashionable 
 folk will copy a few pages out of her book." 
 
 " I cannot imagine myself your wife, dear," she 
 said. " I am not worthy, Courtlandt. You shall 
 not ever say I deceived you in that respect." 
 
 ' You think yourself unworthy of such a mere 
 Arab as I," he said, " while I know I am not fit 
 to share your beautiful life. I'll tell you what : 
 we will leave it to Clara, and do as she says." 
 
 " No, no ! " she cried, in pretended terror, 
 clinging to his coat as if to hold him near her. 
 " She is a woman, and can see through and 
 through me. She would decide against me, and 
 I should lose you and have nothing left but to 
 die." 
 
 418
 
 The Millionairess H 
 
 At Laura's suggestion both rose and walked 
 along the beach. 
 
 " I had a letter from Mrs. Percy Russell this 
 morning," said she. " She reports my mother 
 very happy with her, and I am sure she is so, 
 for she is very fond of Mrs. Russell, who, in her 
 turn, is all patience and goodness with poor 
 mamma." 
 
 " What other news is in her letter ? " 
 
 " Oh, only that my cousin Archie is feeling the 
 arms of his chair at the Madison Club develop 
 muscles and enclose him in a more than human 
 grasp, against which he is not disposed to strug- 
 gle, since he has himself grown to be little better 
 than another bit of the club furniture. Oh, yes, 
 and she says that a grand ' Boozers' night ' is 
 being arranged to welcome us back to town." 
 
 "Have you heard from Tonette?" Beekman 
 asked. 
 
 " Not since I told you that she wrote to say 
 that I need not fear she would not make a good 
 wife to a clergyman. I still have my doubts, 
 just the same. They will set the day for their 
 wedding whenever they are certain I will be at 
 home to attend it." 
 
 419
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 " Here comes my sister," Beekman said. 
 
 " I am going to ask her to let me call her Clara," 
 Laura answered. 
 
 " Bless you," Courtlandt said, " that means 
 that you have at last put aside your doubts, and 
 will acknowledge yourself my own, my precious. 
 Why will you not tell me so, and let us both make 
 Clara as happy as we shall then become ? " 
 
 " When I think of being anything else, it is 
 like death. I know I am not worthy, yet I know, 
 too, that I am yours, Courtlandt. If I have not 
 said the words ' I love you/ it is because I love 
 you too much and have been frightened by it. 
 Oh, you cannot know how much I love you." 
 
 The place where they stood was sheltered from 
 the road, and only the waters of the gulf, glaring 
 in the sun like a huge deadeye, commanded a 
 view of them. Laura hesitated, looked about her 
 with a quick sweep of her eyes, and flung herself 
 in his arms. 
 
 " Oh, I have been so lonely so all alone," 
 said she, and he drew her closer to him. 
 
 Her exclamation was the feminine summary of 
 a quick retrospect of her maiden career. She was 
 on the point of confessing the whole of her heart's 
 
 420
 
 " TTE KfSSKD HER LIGHTLY, AND THE TOUCH OF 
 ** HIS LIPS LIFTED HER SOUL"
 
 The Millionairess Hr 
 
 little story, and yet, as she thought it over 
 thought of Archie Paton and York Stone she 
 saw that she must not risk his misunderstanding 
 her. Fortunately, her conscience fully cleared her. 
 She felt so drawn to Courtlandt that she believed 
 herself in love. She had no doubt of it, though 
 others might reason that her feelings were wholly 
 a blending of admiration and respect. " No," she 
 told herself, " I will not throw a cloud over our 
 bliss. I did not love Archie or Mr. Stone. They 
 cannot have imagined such a thing. I never 
 could have given myself to any one but Courtlandt 
 my lover and my beloved." Thus she contra- 
 dicted the first promptings of her conscience and, 
 to end the confusion, threw herself in Court- 
 landt's arms, crying: 
 
 " Oh, I have been so lonely ! so all alone ! " 
 And as he drew her close to him, he bent his 
 head and kissed her not with a passionate kiss 
 which would have taken advantage of her sur- 
 render and would have wounded her like a red 
 quivering mark of a lash across her soul. He 
 kissed her lightly, and the touch of his lips on 
 her brow lifted her soul, like her reverential 
 thoughts of marriage, until it trembled with 
 
 421
 
 The Millionairess 
 
 misgivings as well as with delight. With such 
 love, after having yielded to it as she had now 
 done, there was no more fear for the future in her 
 heart than there was in his. 
 
 " You shall never be lonely again," he said. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 422