*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1098 ***

THE TURMOIL

A NOVEL

By Booth Tarkington

1915.


To Laurel.



CHAPTER I

There is a midland city in the heart of fair, open country, a dirty and
wonderful city nesting dingily in the fog of its own smoke. The stranger
must feel the dirt before he feels the wonder, for the dirt will be upon
him instantly. It will be upon him and within him, since he must breathe
it, and he may care for no further proof that wealth is here better
loved than cleanliness; but whether he cares or not, the negligently
tended streets incessantly press home the point, and so do the flecked
and grimy citizens. At a breeze he must smother in the whirlpools of
dust, and if he should decline at any time to inhale the smoke he has
the meager alternative of suicide.

The smoke is like the bad breath of a giant panting for more and more
riches. He gets them and pants the fiercer, smelling and swelling
prodigiously. He has a voice, a hoarse voice, hot and rapacious trained
to one tune: “Wealth! I will get Wealth! I will make Wealth! I will sell
Wealth for more Wealth! My house shall be dirty, my garment shall be
dirty, and I will foul my neighbor so that he cannot be clean--but I
will get Wealth! There shall be no clean thing about me: my wife shall
be dirty and my child shall be dirty, but I will get Wealth!” And yet it
is not wealth that he is so greedy for: what the giant really wants is
hasty riches. To get these he squanders wealth upon the four winds, for
wealth is in the smoke.

Not so long ago as a generation, there was no panting giant here, no
heaving, grimy city; there was but a pleasant big town of neighborly
people who had understanding of one another, being, on the whole, much
of the same type. It was a leisurely and kindly place--“homelike,” it
was called--and when the visitor had been taken through the State Asylum
for the Insane and made to appreciate the view of the cemetery from a
little hill, his host's duty as Baedeker was done. The good burghers
were given to jogging comfortably about in phaetons or in surreys for
a family drive on Sunday. No one was very rich; few were very poor; the
air was clean, and there was time to live.

But there was a spirit abroad in the land, and it was strong here as
elsewhere--a spirit that had moved in the depths of the American soil
and labored there, sweating, till it stirred the surface, rove the
mountains, and emerged, tangible and monstrous, the god of all good
American hearts--Bigness. And that god wrought the panting giant.

In the souls of the burghers there had always been the profound
longing for size. Year by year the longing increased until it became
an accumulated force: We must Grow! We must be Big! We must be Bigger!
Bigness means Money! And the thing began to happen; their longing became
a mighty Will. We must be Bigger! Bigger! Bigger! Get people here! Coax
them here! Bribe them! Swindle them into coming, if you must, but get
them! Shout them into coming! Deafen them into coming! Any kind of
people; all kinds of people! We must be Bigger! Blow! Boost! Brag!
Kill the fault-finder! Scream and bellow to the Most High: Bigness is
patriotism and honor! Bigness is love and life and happiness! Bigness is
Money! We want Bigness!

They got it. From all the states the people came; thinly at first, and
slowly, but faster and faster in thicker and thicker swarms as the quick
years went by. White people came, and black people and brown people
and yellow people; the negroes came from the South by the thousands and
thousands, multiplying by other thousands and thousands faster than
they could die. From the four quarters of the earth the people came,
the broken and the unbroken, the tame and the wild--Germans, Irish,
Italians, Hungarians, Scotch, Welsh, English, French, Swiss, Swedes,
Norwegians, Greeks, Poles, Russian Jews, Dalmatians, Armenians,
Rumanians, Servians, Persians, Syrians, Japanese, Chinese, Turks, and
every hybrid that these could propagate. And if there were no Eskimos
nor Patagonians, what other human strain that earth might furnish failed
to swim and bubble in this crucible?

With Bigness came the new machinery and the rush; the streets began to
roar and rattle, the houses to tremble; the pavements were worn under
the tread of hurrying multitudes. The old, leisurely, quizzical look of
the faces was lost in something harder and warier; and a cockney
type began to emerge discernibly--a cynical young mongrel barbaric
of feature, muscular and cunning; dressed in good fabrics fashioned
apparently in imitation of the sketches drawn by newspaper comedians.
The female of his kind came with him--a pale girl, shoddy and a little
rouged; and they communicated in a nasal argot, mainly insolences and
elisions. Nay, the common speech of the people showed change: in
place of the old midland vernacular, irregular but clean, and not
unwholesomely drawling, a jerky dialect of coined metaphors began to
be heard, held together by GUNNAS and GOTTAS and much fostered by the
public journals.

The city piled itself high in the center, tower on tower for a nucleus,
and spread itself out over the plain, mile after mile; and in its
vitals, like benevolent bacilli contending with malevolent in the body
of a man, missions and refuges offered what resistance they might to the
saloons and all the hells that cities house and shelter. Temptation
and ruin were ready commodities on the market for purchase by the
venturesome; highwaymen walked the streets at night and sometimes
killed; snatching thieves were busy everywhere in the dusk; while
house-breakers were a common apprehension and frequent reality. Life
itself was somewhat safer from intentional destruction than it was in
medieval Rome during a faction war--though the Roman murderer was more
like to pay for his deed--but death or mutilation beneath the wheels lay
in ambush at every crossing.

The politicians let the people make all the laws they liked; it did
not matter much, and the taxes went up, which is good for politicians.
Law-making was a pastime of the people; nothing pleased them more.
Singular fermentation of their humor, they even had laws forbidding
dangerous speed. More marvelous still, they had a law forbidding smoke!
They forbade chimneys to smoke and they forbade cigarettes to smoke.
They made laws for all things and forgot them immediately; though
sometimes they would remember after a while, and hurry to make new laws
that the old laws should be enforced--and then forget both new and old.
Wherever enforcement threatened Money or Votes--or wherever it was too
much to bother--it became a joke. Influence was the law.

So the place grew. And it grew strong.

Straightway when he came, each man fell to the same worship:

  Give me of thyself, O Bigness:
  Power to get more power!
  Riches to get more riches!
  Give me of thy sweat that I may sweat more!
  Give me Bigness to get more Bigness to myself,
  O Bigness, for Thine is the Power and the Glory! And
       there is no end but Bigness, ever and for ever!



CHAPTER II

The Sheridan Building was the biggest skyscraper; the Sheridan Trust
Company was the biggest of its kind, and Sheridan himself had been the
biggest builder and breaker and truster and buster under the smoke. He
had come from a country cross-roads, at the beginning of the growth, and
he had gone up and down in the booms and relapses of that period; but
each time he went down he rebounded a little higher, until finally,
after a year of overwork and anxiety--the latter not decreased by a
chance, remote but possible, of recuperation from the former in the
penitentiary--he found himself on top, with solid substance under
his feet; and thereafter “played it safe.” But his hunger to get was
unabated, for it was in the very bones of him and grew fiercer.

He was the city incarnate. He loved it, calling it God's country, as he
called the smoke Prosperity, breathing the dingy cloud with relish. And
when soot fell upon his cuff he chuckled; he could have kissed it. “It's
good! It's good!” he said, and smacked his lips in gusto. “Good, clean
soot; it's our life-blood, God bless it!” The smoke was one of his
great enthusiasms; he laughed at a committee of plaintive housewives who
called to beg his aid against it. “Smoke's what brings your husbands'
money home on Saturday night,” he told them, jovially. “Smoke may hurt
your little shrubberies in the front yard some, but it's the catarrhal
climate and the adenoids that starts your chuldern coughing. Smoke makes
the climate better. Smoke means good health: it makes the people wash
more. They have to wash so much they wash off the microbes. You go
home and ask your husbands what smoke puts in their pockets out o' the
pay-roll--and you'll come around next time to get me to turn out more
smoke instead o' chokin' it off!”

It was Narcissism in him to love the city so well; he saw his reflection
in it; and, like it, he was grimy, big, careless, rich, strong, and
unquenchably optimistic. From the deepest of his inside all the way out
he believed it was the finest city in the world. “Finest” was his word.
He thought of it as his city as he thought of his family as his family;
and just as profoundly believed his city to be the finest city in
the world, so did he believe his family to be--in spite of his son
Bibbs--the finest family in the world. As a matter of fact, he knew
nothing worth knowing about either.

Bibbs Sheridan was a musing sort of boy, poor in health, and considered
the failure--the “odd one”--of the family. Born during that most
dangerous and anxious of the early years, when the mother fretted and
the father took his chance, he was an ill-nourished baby, and
grew meagerly, only lengthwise, through a feeble childhood. At his
christening he was committed for life to “Bibbs” mainly through lack of
imagination on his mother's part, for though it was her maiden name, she
had no strong affection for it; but it was “her turn” to name the baby,
and, as she explained later, she “couldn't think of anything else she
liked AT ALL!” She offered this explanation one day when the sickly boy
was nine and after a long fit of brooding had demanded some reason for
his name's being Bibbs. He requested then with unwonted vehemence to
be allowed to exchange names with his older brother, Roscoe Conkling
Sheridan, or with the oldest, James Sheridan, Junior, and upon being
refused went down into the cellar and remained there the rest of
that day. And the cook, descending toward dusk, reported that he had
vanished; but a search revealed that he was in the coal-pile, completely
covered and still burrowing. Removed by force and carried upstairs,
he maintained a cryptic demeanor, refusing to utter a syllable of
explanation, even under the lash. This obvious thing was wholly a
mystery to both parents; the mother was nonplussed, failed to trace and
connect; and the father regarded his son as a stubborn and mysterious
fool, an impression not effaced as the years went by.

At twenty-two, Bibbs was physically no more than the outer scaffolding
of a man, waiting for the building to begin inside--a long-shanked,
long-faced, rickety youth, sallow and hollow and haggard, dark-haired
and dark-eyed, with a peculiar expression of countenance; indeed, at
first sight of Bibbs Sheridan a stranger might well be solicitous, for
he seemed upon the point of tears. But to a slightly longer gaze, not
grief, but mirth, was revealed as his emotion; while a more searching
scrutiny was proportionately more puzzling--he seemed about to burst out
crying or to burst out laughing, one or the other, inevitably, but it
was impossible to decide which. And Bibbs never, on any occasion of his
life, either laughed aloud or wept.

He was a “disappointment” to his father. At least that was the parent's
word--a confirmed and established word after his first attempt to make
a “business man” of the boy. He sent Bibbs to “begin at the bottom and
learn from the ground up” in the machine-shop of the Sheridan Automatic
Pump Works, and at the end of six months the family physician sent Bibbs
to begin at the bottom and learn from the ground up in a sanitarium.

“You needn't worry, mamma,” Sheridan told his wife. “There's nothin' the
matter with Bibbs except he hates work so much it makes him sick. I put
him in the machine-shop, and I guess I know what I'm doin' about as well
as the next man. Ole Doc Gurney always was one o' them nutty alarmists.
Does he think I'd do anything 'd be bad for my own flesh and blood? He
makes me tired!”

Anything except perfectly definite health or perfectly definite disease
was incomprehensible to Sheridan. He had a genuine conviction that lack
of physical persistence in any task involving money must be due to some
subtle weakness of character itself, to some profound shiftlessness or
slyness. He understood typhoid fever, pneumonia, and appendicitis--one
had them, and either died or got over them and went back to work--but
when the word “nervous” appeared in a diagnosis he became honestly
suspicious: he had the feeling that there was something contemptible
about it, that there was a nigger in the wood-pile somewhere.

“Look at me,” he said. “Look at what I did at his age! Why, when I was
twenty years old, wasn't I up every morning at four o'clock choppin'
wood--yes! and out in the dark and the snow--to build a fire in a
country grocery store? And here Bibbs has to go and have a DOCTOR
because he can't--Pho! it makes me tired! If he'd gone at it like a man
he wouldn't be sick.”

He paced the bedroom--the usual setting for such parental
discussions--in his nightgown, shaking his big, grizzled head and
gesticulating to his bedded spouse. “My Lord!” he said. “If a little,
teeny bit o' work like this is too much for him, why, he ain't fit for
anything! It's nine-tenths imagination, and the rest of it--well, I
won't say it's deliberate, but I WOULD like to know just how much of
it's put on!”

“Bibbs didn't want the doctor,” said Mrs. Sheridan. “It was when he was
here to dinner that night, and noticed how he couldn't eat anything.
Honey, you better come to bed.”

“Eat!” he snorted. “Eat! It's work that makes men eat! And it's
imagination that keeps people from eatin'. Busy men don't get time for
that kind of imagination; and there's another thing you'll notice
about good health, if you'll take the trouble to look around you Mrs.
Sheridan: busy men haven't got time to be sick and they don't GET sick.
You just think it over and you'll find that ninety-nine per cent. of the
sick people you know are either women or loafers. Yes, ma'am!”

“Honey,” she said again, drowsily, “you better come to bed.”

“Look at the other boys,” her husband bade her. “Look at Jim and Roscoe.
Look at how THEY work! There isn't a shiftless bone in their bodies.
Work never made Jim or Roscoe sick. Jim takes half the load off my
shoulders already. Right now there isn't a harder-workin', brighter
business man in this city than Jim. I've pushed him, but he give me
something to push AGAINST. You can't push 'nervous dyspepsia'! And look
at Roscoe; just LOOK at what that boy's done for himself, and barely
twenty-seven years old--married, got a fine wife, and ready to build
for himself with his own money, when I put up the New House for you and
Edie.”

“Papa, you'll catch cold in your bare feet,” she murmured. “You better
come to bed.”

“And I'm just as proud of Edie, for a girl,” he continued, emphatically,
“as I am of Jim and Roscoe for boys. She'll make some man a mighty good
wife when the time comes. She's the prettiest and talentedest girl in
the United States! Look at that poem she wrote when she was in school
and took the prize with; it's the best poem I ever read in my life, and
she'd never even tried to write one before. It's the finest thing I
ever read, and R. T. Bloss said so, too; and I guess he's a good enough
literary judge for me--turns out more advertisin' liter'cher than any
man in the city. I tell you she's smart! Look at the way she worked me
to get me to promise the New House--and I guess you had your finger
in that, too, mamma! This old shack's good enough for me, but you and
little Edie 'll have to have your way. I'll get behind her and push her
the same as I will Jim and Roscoe. I tell you I'm mighty proud o' them
three chuldern! But Bibbs--” He paused, shaking his head. “Honest,
mamma, when I talk to men that got ALL their boys doin' well and worth
their salt, why, I have to keep my mind on Jim and Roscoe and forget
about Bibbs.”

Mrs. Sheridan tossed her head fretfully upon the pillow. “You did the
best you could, papa,” she said, impatiently, “so come to bed and quit
reproachin' yourself for it.”

He glared at her indignantly. “Reproachin' myself!” he snorted. “I ain't
doin' anything of the kind! What in the name o' goodness would I want
to reproach myself for? And it wasn't the 'best I could,' either. It was
the best ANYBODY could! I was givin' him a chance to show what was
in him and make a man of himself--and here he goes and gets 'nervous
dyspepsia' on me!”

He went to the old-fashioned gas-fixture, turned out the light, and
muttered his way morosely into bed.

“What?” said his wife, crossly, bothered by a subsequent mumbling.

“More like hook-worm, I said,” he explained, speaking louder. “I don't
know what to do with him!”



CHAPTER III

Beginning at the beginning and learning from the ground up was a long
course for Bibbs at the sanitarium, with milk and “zwieback” as the
basis of instruction; and the months were many and tiresome before he
was considered near enough graduation to go for a walk leaning on a
nurse and a cane. These and subsequent months saw the planning, the
building, and the completion of the New House; and it was to that abode
of Bigness that Bibbs was brought when the cane, without the nurse, was
found sufficient to his support.

Edith met him at the station. “Well, well, Bibbs!” she said, as he came
slowly through the gates, the last of all the travelers from that train.
She gave his hand a brisk little shake, averting her eyes after a quick
glance at him, and turning at once toward the passage to the street. “Do
you think they ought to've let you come? You certainly don't look well!”

“But I certainly do look better,” he returned, in a voice as slow as
his gait; a drawl that was a necessity, for when Bibbs tried to speak
quickly he stammered. “Up to about a month ago it took two people to see
me. They had to get me in a line between 'em!”

Edith did not turn her eyes directly toward him again, after her first
quick glance; and her expression, in spite of her, showed a faint,
troubled distaste, the look of a healthy person pressed by some
obligation of business to visit a “bad” ward in a hospital. She was
nineteen, fair and slim, with small, unequal features, but a prettiness
of color and a brilliancy of eyes that created a total impression close
upon beauty. Her movements were eager and restless: there was something
about her, as kind old ladies say, that was very sweet; and there was
something that was hurried and breathless. This was new to Bibbs; it was
a perceptible change since he had last seen her, and he bent upon her
a steady, whimsical scrutiny as they stood at the curb, waiting for an
automobile across the street to disengage itself from the traffic.

“That's the new car,” she said. “Everything's new. We've got four now,
besides Jim's. Roscoe's got two.”

“Edith, you look--” he began, and paused.

“Oh, WE're all well,” she said, briskly; and then, as if something in
his tone had caught her as significant, “Well, HOW do I look, Bibbs?”

“You look--” He paused again, taking in the full length of her--her trim
brown shoes, her scant, tapering, rough skirt, and her coat of brown
and green, her long green tippet and her mad little rough hat in the mad
mode--all suited to the October day.

“How do I look?” she insisted.

“You look,” he answered, as his examination ended upon an incrusted
watch of platinum and enamel at her wrist, “you look--expensive!” That
was a substitute for what he intended to say, for her constraint and
preoccupation, manifested particularly in her keeping her direct
glance away from him, did not seem to grant the privilege of impulsive
intimacies.

“I expect I am!” she laughed, and sidelong caught the direction of his
glance. “Of course I oughtn't to wear it in the daytime--it's an evening
thing, for the theater--but my day wrist-watch is out of gear. Bobby
Lamhorn broke it yesterday; he's a regular rowdy sometimes. Do you want
Claus to help you in?”

“Oh no,” said Bibbs. “I'm alive.” And after a fit of panting subsequent
to his climbing into the car unaided, he added, “Of course, I have to
TELL people!”

“We only got your telegram this morning,” she said, as they began to
move rapidly through the “wholesale district” neighboring the station.
“Mother said she'd hardly expected you this month.”

“They seemed to be through with me up there in the country,” he
explained, gently. “At least they said they were, and they wouldn't keep
me any longer, because so many really sick people wanted to get in. They
told me to go home--and I didn't have any place else to go. It'll be all
right, Edith; I'll sit in the woodshed until after dark every day.”

“Pshaw!” She laughed nervously. “Of course we're all of us glad to have
you back.”

“Yes?” he said. “Father?”

“Of course! Didn't he write and tell you to come home?” She did not turn
to him with the question. All the while she rode with her face directly
forward.

“No,” he said; “father hasn't written.”

She flushed a little. “I expect I ought to've written sometime, or one
of the boys--”

“Oh no; that was all right.”

“You can't think how busy we've all been this year, Bibbs. I often
planned to write--and then, just as I was going to, something would turn
up. And I'm sure it's been just the same way with Jim and Roscoe. Of
course we knew mamma was writing often and--”

“Of course!” he said, readily. “There's a chunk of coal fallen on your
glove, Edith. Better flick it off before it smears. My word! I'd almost
forgotten how sooty it is here.”

“We've been having very bright weather this month--for us.” She blew the
flake of soot into the air, seeming relieved.

He looked up at the dingy sky, wherein hung the disconsolate sun like
a cold tin pan nailed up in a smoke-house by some lunatic, for a
decoration. “Yes,” said Bibbs. “It's very gay.” A few moments later, as
they passed a corner, “Aren't we going home?” he asked.

“Why, yes! Did you want to go somewhere else first?”

“No. Your new driver's taking us out of the way, isn't he?”

“No. This is right. We're going straight home.”

“But we've passed the corner. We always turned--”

“Good gracious!” she cried. “Didn't you know we'd moved? Didn't you know
we were in the New House?”

“Why, no!” said Bibbs. “Are you?”

“We've been there a month! Good gracious! Didn't you know--” She broke
off, flushing again, and then went on hastily: “Of course, mamma's never
been so busy in her life; we ALL haven't had time to do anything but
keep on the hop. Mamma couldn't even come to the station to-day. Papa's
got some of his business friends and people from around the
OLD-house neighborhood coming to-night for a big dinner and
'house-warming'--dreadful kind of people--but mamma's got it all on her
hands. She's never sat down a MINUTE; and if she did, papa would have
her up again before--”

“Of course,” said Bibbs. “Do you like the new place, Edith?”

“I don't like some of the things father WOULD have in it, but it's the
finest house in town, and that ought to be good enough for me! Papa
bought one thing I like--a view of the Bay of Naples in oil that's
perfectly beautiful; it's the first thing you see as you come in the
front hall, and it's eleven feet long. But he would have that old
fruit picture we had in the Murphy Street house hung up in the new
dining-room. You remember it--a table and a watermelon sliced open,
and a lot of rouged-looking apples and some shiny lemons, with two dead
prairie-chickens on a chair? He bought it at a furniture-store years and
years ago, and he claims it's a finer picture than any they saw in the
museums, that time he took mamma to Europe. But it's horribly out of
date to have those things in dining-rooms, and I caught Bobby Lamhorn
giggling at it; and Sibyl made fun of it, too, with Bobby, and then told
papa she agreed with him about its being such a fine thing, and said he
did just right to insist on having it where he wanted it. She makes me
tired! Sibyl!”

Edith's first constraint with her brother, amounting almost to
awkwardness, vanished with this theme, though she still kept her full
gaze always to the front, even in the extreme ardor of her denunciation
of her sister-in-law.

“SIBYL!” she repeated, with such heat and vigor that the name seemed
to strike fire on her lips. “I'd like to know why Roscoe couldn't have
married somebody from HERE that would have done us some good! He could
have got in with Bobby Lamhorn years ago just as well as now, and
Bobby'd have introduced him to the nicest girls in town, but instead of
that he had to go and pick up this Sibyl Rink! I met some awfully
nice people from her town when mamma and I were at Atlantic City, last
spring, and not one had ever heard of the Rinks! Not even HEARD of 'em!”

“I thought you were great friends with Sibyl,” Bibbs said.

“Up to the time I found her out!” the sister returned, with continuing
vehemence. “I've found out some things about Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan
lately--”

“It's only lately?”

“Well--” Edith hesitated, her lips setting primly. “Of course, I
always did see that she never cared the snap of her little finger about
ROSCOE!”

“It seems,” said Bibbs, in laconic protest, “that she married him.”

The sister emitted a shrill cry, to be interpreted as contemptuous
laughter, and, in her emotion, spoke too impulsively: “Why, she'd have
married YOU!”

“No, no,” he said; “she couldn't be that bad!”

“I didn't mean--” she began, distressed. “I only meant--I didn't mean--”

“Never mind, Edith,” he consoled her. “You see, she couldn't have
married me, because I didn't know her; and besides, if she's as
mercenary as all that she'd have been too clever. The head doctor even
had to lend me the money for my ticket home.”

“I didn't mean anything unpleasant about YOU,” Edith babbled. “I only
meant I thought she was the kind of girl who was so simply crazy to
marry somebody she'd have married anybody that asked her.”

“Yes, yes,” said Bibbs, “it's all straight.” And, perceiving that
his sister's expression was that of a person whose adroitness has set
matters perfectly to rights, he chuckled silently.

“Roscoe's perfectly lovely to her,” she continued, a moment later. “Too
lovely! If he'd wake up a little and lay down the law, some day, like a
MAN, I guess she'd respect him more and learn to behave herself!”

“'Behave'?”

“Oh, well, I mean she's so insincere,” said Edith, characteristically
evasive when it came to stating the very point to which she had led, and
in this not unique of her sex.

Bibbs contented himself with a non-committal gesture. “Business
is crawling up the old streets,” he said, his long, tremulous hand
indicating a vasty structure in course of erection. “The boarding-houses
come first and then the--”

“That isn't for shops,” she informed him. “That's a new investment of
papa's--the 'Sheridan Apartments.'”

“Well, well,” he murmured. “I supposed 'Sheridan' was almost well enough
known here already.”

“Oh, we're well enough known ABOUT!” she said, impatiently. “I guess
there isn't a man, woman, child, or nigger baby in town that doesn't
know who we are. But we aren't in with the right people.”

“No!” he exclaimed. “Who's all that?”

“Who's all what?”

“The 'right people.'”

“You know what I mean: the best people, the old families--the people
that have the real social position in this town and that know they've
got it.”

Bibbs indulged in his silent chuckle again; he seemed greatly amused. “I
thought that the people who actually had the real what-you-may-call-it
didn't know it,” he said. “I've always understood that it was very
unsatisfactory, because if you thought about it you didn't have it, and
if you had it you didn't know it.”

“That's just bosh,” she retorted. “They know it in this town, all right!
I found out a lot of things, long before we began to think of building
out in this direction. The right people in this town aren't always the
society-column ones, and they mix around with outsiders, and they don't
all belong to any one club--they're taken in all sorts into all their
clubs--but they're a clan, just the same; and they have the clan feeling
and they're just as much We, Us and Company as any crowd you read about
anywhere in the world. Most of 'em were here long before papa came, and
the grandfathers of the girls of my age knew each other, and--”

“I see,” Bibbs interrupted, gravely. “Their ancestors fled together
from many a stricken field, and Crusaders' blood flows in their veins. I
always understood the first house was built by an old party of the name
of Vertrees who couldn't get along with Dan'l Boone, and hurried away to
these parts because Dan'l wanted him to give back a gun he'd lent him.”

Edith gave a little ejaculation of alarm. “You mustn't repeat that
story, Bibbs, even if it's true. The Vertreeses are THE best family, and
of course the very oldest here; they were an old family even before
Mary Vertrees's great-great-grandfather came west and founded this
settlement. He came from Lynn, Massachusetts, and they have relatives
there YET--some of the best people in Lynn!”

“No!” exclaimed Bibbs, incredulously.

“And there are other old families like the Vertreeses,” she went on,
not heeding him; “the Lamhorns and the Kittersbys and the J. Palmerston
Smiths--”

“Strange names to me,” he interrupted. “Poor things! None of them have
my acquaintance.”

“No, that's just it!” she cried. “And papa had never even heard the name
of Vertrees! Mrs. Vertrees went with some anti-smoke committee to see
him, and he told her that smoke was what made her husband bring home his
wages from the pay-roll on Saturday night! HE told us about it, and I
thought I just couldn't live through the night, I was so ashamed! Mr.
Vertrees has always lived on his income, and papa didn't know him, of
course. They're the stiffist, most elegant people in the whole town. And
to crown it all, papa went and bought the next lot to the old Vertrees
country mansion--it's in the very heart of the best new residence
district now, and that's where the New House is, right next door to
them--and I must say it makes their place look rather shabby! I met Mary
Vertrees when I joined the Mission Service Helpers, but she never did
any more than just barely bow to me, and since papa's break I doubt if
she'll do that! They haven't called.”

“And you think if I spread this gossip about Vertrees the First stealing
Dan'l Boone's gun, the chances that they WILL call--”

“Papa knows what a break he made with Mrs. Vertrees. I made him
understand that,” said Edith, demurely, “and he's promised to try and
meet Mr. Vertrees and be nice to him. It's just this way: if we don't
know THEM, it's practically no use in our having built the New House;
and if we DO know them and they're decent to us, we're right with the
right people. They can do the whole thing for us. Bobby Lamhorn told
Sibyl he was going to bring his mother to call on her and on mamma, but
it was weeks ago, and I notice he hasn't done it; and if Mrs. Vertrees
decides not to know us, I'm darn sure Mrs Lamhorn'll never come. That's
ONE thing Sibyl didn't manage! She SAID Bobby offered to bring his
mother--”

“You say he is a friend of Roscoe's?” Bibbs asked.

“Oh, he's a friend of the whole family,” she returned, with a petulance
which she made an effort to disguise. “Roscoe and he got acquainted
somewhere, and they take him to the theater about every other night.
Sibyl has him to lunch, too, and keeps--” She broke off with an angry
little jerk of the head. “We can see the New House from the second
corner ahead. Roscoe has built straight across the street from us, you
know. Honestly, Sibyl makes me think of a snake, sometimes--the way
she pulls the wool over people's eyes! She honeys up to papa and gets
anything in the world she wants out of him, and then makes fun of him
behind his back--yes, and to his face, but HE can't see it! She got
him to give her a twelve-thousand-dollar porch for their house after it
was--”

“Good heavens!” said Bibbs, staring ahead as they reached the corner and
the car swung to the right, following a bend in the street. “Is that the
New House?”

“Yes. What do you think of it?”

“Well,” he drawled, “I'm pretty sure the sanitarium's about half a size
bigger; I can't be certain till I measure.”

And a moment later, as they entered the driveway, he added, seriously:
“But it's beautiful!”



CHAPTER IV

It was gray stone, with long roofs of thick green slate. An architect
who loved the milder “Gothic motives” had built what he liked: it was to
be seen at once that he had been left unhampered, and he had wrought a
picture out of his head into a noble and exultant reality. At the same
time a landscape-designer had played so good a second, with ready-made
accessories of screen, approach and vista, that already whatever look
of newness remained upon the place was to its advantage, as showing at
least one thing yet clean under the grimy sky. For, though the smoke was
thinner in this direction, and at this long distance from the heart
of the town, it was not absent, and under tutelage of wind and weather
could be malignant even here, where cows had wandered in the meadows and
corn had been growing not ten years gone.

Altogether, the New House was a success. It was one of those architects'
successes which leave the owners veiled in privacy; it revealed nothing
of the people who lived in it save that they were rich. There are houses
that cannot be detached from their own people without protesting: every
inch of mortar seems to mourn the separation, and such a house--no
matter what be done to it--is ever murmurous with regret, whispering the
old name sadly to itself unceasingly. But the New House was of a kind
to change hands without emotion. In our swelling cities, great places
of its type are useful as financial gauges of the business tides;
rich families, one after another, take title and occupy such houses as
fortunes rise and fall--they mark the high tide. It was impossible to
imagine a child's toy wagon left upon a walk or driveway of the New
House, and yet it was--as Bibbs rightly called it--“beautiful.”

What the architect thought of the “Golfo di Napoli,” which hung in its
vast gold revel of rococo frame against the gray wood of the hall, is to
be conjectured--perhaps he had not seen it.

“Edith, did you say only eleven feet?” Bibbs panted, staring at it, as
the white-jacketed twin of a Pullman porter helped him to get out of his
overcoat.

“Eleven without the frame,” she explained. “It's splendid, don't you
think? It lightens things up so. The hall was kind of gloomy before.”

“No gloom now!” said Bibbs.

“This statue in the corner is pretty, too,” she remarked. “Mamma and I
bought that.” And Bibbs turned at her direction to behold, amid a
grove of tubbed palms, a “life-size,” black-bearded Moor, of a plastic
composition painted with unappeasable gloss and brilliancy. Upon his
chocolate head he wore a gold turban; in his hand he held a gold-tipped
spear; and for the rest, he was red and yellow and black and silver.

“Hallelujah!” was the sole comment of the returned wanderer, and Edith,
saying she would “find mamma,” left him blinking at the Moor. Presently,
after she had disappeared, he turned to the colored man who stood
waiting, Bibbs's traveling-bag in his hand. “What do YOU think of it?”
 Bibbs asked, solemnly.

“Gran'!” replied the servitor. “She mighty hard to dus'. Dus' git in all
'em wrinkles. Yessuh, she mighty hard to dus'.”

“I expect she must be,” said Bibbs, his glance returning reflectively
to the black bull beard for a moment. “Is there a place anywhere I could
lie down?”

“Yessuh. We got one nem spare rooms all fix up fo' you, suh. Right up
staihs, suh. Nice room.”

He led the way, and Bibbs followed slowly, stopping at intervals to
rest, and noting a heavy increase in the staff of service since the
exodus from the “old” house. Maids and scrubwomen were at work under the
patently nominal direction of another Pullman porter, who was profoundly
enjoying his own affectation of being harassed with care.

“Ev'ything got look spick an' span fo' the big doin's to-night,” Bibbs's
guide explained, chuckling. “Yessuh, we got big doin's to-night! Big
doin's!”

The room to which he conducted his lagging charge was furnished in
every particular like a room in a new hotel; and Bibbs found it
pleasant--though, indeed, any room with a good bed would have
seemed pleasant to him after his journey. He stretched himself flat
immediately, and having replied “Not now” to the attendant's offer to
unpack the bag, closed his eyes wearily.

White-jacket, racially sympathetic, lowered the window-shades and made
an exit on tiptoe, encountering the other white-jacket--the harassed
overseer--in the hall without. Said the emerging one: “He mighty shaky,
Mist' Jackson. Drop right down an' shet his eyes. Eyelids all black.
Rich folks gotta go same as anybody else. Anybody ast me if I change
'ith 'at ole boy--No, suh! Le'm keep 'is money; I keep my black skin an'
keep out the ground!”

Mr. Jackson expressed the same preference. “Yessuh, he look tuh me like
somebody awready laid out,” he concluded. And upon the stairway landing,
near by, two old women, on all-fours at their work, were likewise
pessimistic.

“Hech!” said one, lamenting in a whisper. “It give me a turn to see him
go by--white as wax an' bony as a dead fish! Mrs. Cronin, tell me: d'it
make ye kind o' sick to look at um?”

“Sick? No more than the face of a blessed angel already in heaven!”

“Well,” said the other, “I'd a b'y o' me own come home t' die once--”
 She fell silent at a rustling of skirts in the corridor above them.

It was Mrs. Sheridan hurrying to greet her son.

She was one of those fat, pink people who fade and contract with age
like drying fruit; and her outside was a true portrait of her. Her
husband and her daughter had long ago absorbed her. What intelligence
she had was given almost wholly to comprehending and serving those
two, and except in the presence of one of them she was nearly always
absent-minded. Edith lived all day with her mother, as daughters do; and
Sheridan so held his wife to her unity with him that she had long ago
become unconscious of her existence as a thing separate from his. She
invariably perceived his moods, and nursed him through them when she
did not share them; and she gave him a profound sympathy with the inmost
spirit and purpose of his being, even though she did not comprehend it
and partook of it only as a spectator. They had known but one actual
altercation in their lives, and that was thirty years past, in the early
days of Sheridan's struggle, when, in order to enhance the favorable
impression he believed himself to be making upon some capitalists, he
had thought it necessary to accompany them to a performance of “The
Black Crook.” But she had not once referred to this during the last ten
years.

Mrs. Sheridan's manner was hurried and inconsequent; her clothes rustled
more than other women's clothes; she seemed to wear too many at a time
and to be vaguely troubled by them, and she was patting a skirt down
over some unruly internal dissension at the moment she opened Bibbs's
door.

At sight of the recumbent figure she began to close the door softly,
withdrawing, but the young man had heard the turning of the knob and the
rustling of skirts, and he opened his eyes.

“Don't go, mother,” he said. “I'm not asleep.” He swung his long legs
over the side of the bed to rise, but she set a hand on his shoulder,
restraining him; and he lay flat again.

“No,” she said, bending over to kiss his cheek, “I just come for a
minute, but I want to see how you seem. Edith said--”

“Poor Edith!” he murmured. “She couldn't look at me. She--”

“Nonsense!” Mrs. Sheridan, having let in the light at a window, came
back to the bedside. “You look a great deal better than what you did
before you went to the sanitarium, anyway. It's done you good; a body
can see that right away. You need fatting up, of course, and you haven't
got much color--”

“No,” he said, “I haven't much color.”

“But you will have when you get your strength back.”

“Oh yes!” he responded, cheerfully. “THEN I will.”

“You look a great deal better than what I expected.”

“Edith must have a great vocabulary!” he chuckled.

“She's too sensitive,” said Mrs. Sheridan, “and it makes her exaggerate
a little. What about your diet?”

“That's all right. They told me to eat anything.”

“Anything at all?”

“Well--anything I could.”

“That's good,” she said, nodding. “They mean for you just to build up
your strength. That's what they told me the last time I went to see you
at the sanitarium. You look better than what you did then, and that's
only a little time ago. How long was it?”

“Eight months, I think.”

“No, it couldn't be. I know it ain't THAT long, but maybe it was
longer'n I thought. And this last month or so I haven't had scarcely
even time to write more than just a line to ask how you were gettin'
along, but I told Edith to write, the weeks I couldn't, and I asked
Jim to, too, and they both said they would, so I suppose you've kept up
pretty well on the home news.”

“Oh yes.”

“What I think you need,” said the mother, gravely, “is to liven up a
little and take an interest in things. That's what papa was sayin' this
morning, after we got your telegram; and that's what'll stimilate your
appetite, too. He was talkin' over his plans for you--”

“Plans?” Bibbs, turning on his side, shielded his eyes from the light
with his hand, so that he might see her better. “What--” He paused.
“What plans is he making for me, mother?”

She turned away, going back to the window to draw down the shade.
“Well, you better talk it over with HIM,” she said, with perceptible
nervousness. “He better tell you himself. I don't feel as if I had any
call, exactly, to go into it; and you better get to sleep now, anyway.”
 She came and stood by the bedside once more. “But you must remember,
Bibbs, whatever papa does is for the best. He loves his chuldern and
wants to do what's right by ALL of 'em--and you'll always find he's
right in the end.”

He made a little gesture of assent, which seemed to content her; and
she rustled to the door, turning to speak again after she had opened it.
“You get a good nap, now, so as to be all rested up for to-night.”

“You--you mean--he--” Bibbs stammered, having begun to speak too
quickly. Checking himself, he drew a long breath, then asked, quietly,
“Does father expect me to come down-stairs this evening?”

“Well, I think he does,” she answered. “You see, it's the
'house-warming,' as he calls it, and he said he thinks all our chuldern
ought to be around us, as well as the old friends and other folks. It's
just what he thinks you need--to take an interest and liven up. You
don't feel too bad to come down, do you?”

“Mother?”

“Well?”

“Take a good look at me,” he said.

“Oh, see here!” she cried, with brusque cheerfulness. “You're not so bad
off as you think you are, Bibbs. You're on the mend; and it won't do you
any harm to please your--”

“It isn't that,” he interrupted. “Honestly, I'm only afraid it might
spoil somebody's appetite. Edith--”

“I told you the child was too sensitive,” she interrupted, in turn.
“You're a plenty good-lookin' enough young man for anybody! You look
like you been through a long spell and begun to get well, and that's all
there is to it.”

“All right. I'll come to the party. If the rest of you can stand it, I
can!”

“It 'll do you good,” she returned, rustling into the hall. “Now take
a nap, and I'll send one o' the help to wake you in time for you to get
dressed up before dinner. You go to sleep right away, now, Bibbs!”

Bibbs was unable to obey, though he kept his eyes closed. Something
she had said kept running in his mind, repeating itself over and over
interminably. “His plans for you--his plans for you--his plans for
you--his plans for you--” And then, taking the place of “his plans for
you,” after what seemed a long, long while, her flurried voice came
back to him insistently, seeming to whisper in his ear: “He loves his
chuldern--he loves his chuldern--he loves his chuldern”--“you'll find
he's always right--you'll find he's always right--” Until at last, as he
drifted into the state of half-dreams and distorted realities, the voice
seemed to murmur from beyond a great black wing that came out of the
wall and stretched over his bed--it was a black wing within the room,
and at the same time it was a black cloud crossing the sky, bridging the
whole earth from pole to pole. It was a cloud of black smoke, and out
of the heart of it came a flurried voice whispering over and over, “His
plans for you--his plans for you--his plans for you--” And then there
was nothing.

He woke refreshed, stretched himself gingerly--as one might have a care
against too quick or too long a pull upon a frayed elastic--and, getting
to his feet, went blinking to the window and touched the shade so that
it flew up, letting in a pale sunset.

He looked out into the lemon-colored light and smiled wanly at the
next house, as Edith's grandiose phrase came to mind, “the old Vertrees
country mansion.” It stood in a broad lawn which was separated from the
Sheridans' by a young hedge; and it was a big, square, plain old box
of a house with a giant salt-cellar atop for a cupola. Paint had been
spared for a long time, and no one could have put a name to the color of
it, but in spite of that the place had no look of being out at heel, and
the sward was as neatly trimmed as the Sheridans' own.

The separating hedge ran almost beneath Bibbs's window--for this wing of
the New House extended here almost to the edge of the lot--and, directly
opposite the window, the Vertreeses' lawn had been graded so as to make
a little knoll upon which stood a small rustic “summer-house.” It was
almost on a level with Bibbs's window and not thirty feet away; and
it was easy for him to imagine the present dynasty of Vertreeses
in grievous outcry when they had found this retreat ruined by the
juxtaposition of the parvenu intruder. Probably the “summer-house” was
pleasant and pretty in summer. It had the look of a place wherein little
girls had played for a generation or so with dolls and “housekeeping,”
 or where a lovely old lady might come to read something dull on warm
afternoons; but now in the thin light it was desolate, the color of
dust, and hung with haggard vines which had lost their leaves.

Bibbs looked at it with grave sympathy, probably feeling some kinship
with anything so dismantled; then he turned to a cheval-glass beside the
window and paid himself the dubious tribute of a thorough inspection. He
looked the mirror up and down, slowly, repeatedly, but came in the end
to a long and earnest scrutiny of the face. Throughout this cryptic
seance his manner was profoundly impersonal; he had the air of an
entomologist intent upon classifying a specimen, but finally he appeared
to become pessimistic. He shook his head solemnly; then gazed again
and shook his head again, and continued to shake it slowly, in complete
disapproval.

“You certainly are one horrible sight!” he said, aloud.

And at that he was instantly aware of an observer. Turning quickly,
he was vouchsafed the picture of a charming lady, framed in a
rustic aperture of the “summer-house” and staring full into his
window--straight into his eyes, too, for the infinitesimal fraction of
a second before the flashingly censorious withdrawal of her own.
Composedly, she pulled several dead twigs from a vine, the manner of her
action conveying a message or proclamation to the effect that she was in
the summer-house for the sole purpose of such-like pruning and tending,
and that no gentleman could suppose her presence there to be due to any
other purpose whatsoever, or that, being there on that account, she
had allowed her attention to wander for one instant in the direction of
things of which she was in reality unconscious.

Having pulled enough twigs to emphasize her unconsciousness--and at the
same time her disapproval--of everything in the nature of a Sheridan
or belonging to a Sheridan, she descended the knoll with maintained
composure, and sauntered toward a side-door of the country mansion of
the Vertreeses. An elderly lady, bonneted and cloaked, opened the door
and came to meet her.

“Are you ready, Mary? I've been looking for you. What were you doing?”

“Nothing. Just looking into one of Sheridans' windows,” said Mary
Vertrees. “I got caught at it.”

“Mary!” cried her mother. “Just as we were going to call! Good heavens!”

“We'll go, just the same,” the daughter returned. “I suppose those women
would be glad to have us if we'd burned their house to the ground.”

“But WHO saw you?” insisted Mrs. Vertrees.

“One of the sons, I suppose he was. I believe he's insane, or something.
At least I hear they keep him in a sanitarium somewhere, and never talk
about him. He was staring at himself in a mirror and talking to himself.
Then he looked out and caught me.”

“What did he--”

“Nothing, of course.”

“How did he look?”

“Like a ghost in a blue suit,” said Miss Vertrees, moving toward the
street and waving a white-gloved hand in farewell to her father, who
was observing them from the window of his library. “Rather tragic and
altogether impossible. Do come on, mother, and let's get it over!”

And Mrs. Vertrees, with many misgivings, set forth with her daughter for
their gracious assault upon the New House next door.



CHAPTER V

Mr. Vertrees, having watched their departure with the air of a man who
had something at hazard upon the expedition, turned from the window and
began to pace the library thoughtfully, pending their return. He was
about sixty; a small man, withered and dry and fine, a trim little
sketch of an elderly dandy. His lambrequin mustache--relic of a
forgotten Anglomania--had been profoundly black, but now, like his
smooth hair, it was approaching an equally sheer whiteness; and though
his clothes were old, they had shapeliness and a flavor of mode. And for
greater spruceness there were some jaunty touches; gray spats, a narrow
black ribbon across the gray waistcoat to the eye-glasses in a pocket,
a fleck of color from a button in the lapel of the black coat, labeling
him the descendant of patriot warriors.

The room was not like him, being cheerful and hideous, whereas Mr.
Vertrees was anxious and decorative. Under a mantel of imitation black
marble a merry little coal-fire beamed forth upon high and narrow
“Eastlake” bookcases with long glass doors, and upon comfortable,
incongruous furniture, and upon meaningless “woodwork” everywhere,
and upon half a dozen Landseer engravings which Mr. and Mrs. Vertrees
sometimes mentioned to each other, after thirty years of possession, as
“very fine things.” They had been the first people in town to possess
Landseer engravings, and there, in art, they had rested, but they still
had a feeling that in all such matters they were in the van; and when
Mr. Vertrees discovered Landseers upon the walls of other people's
houses he thawed, as a chieftain to a trusted follower; and if he
found an edition of Bulwer Lytton accompanying the Landseers as a final
corroboration of culture, he would say, inevitably, “Those people know
good pictures and they know good books.”

The growth of the city, which might easily have made him a millionaire,
had ruined him because he had failed to understand it. When towns begin
to grow they have whims, and the whims of a town always ruin somebody.
Mr. Vertrees had been most strikingly the somebody in this case. At
about the time he bought the Landseers, he owned, through inheritance,
an office-building and a large house not far from it, where he spent the
winter; and he had a country place--a farm of four hundred acres--where
he went for the summers to the comfortable, ugly old house that was his
home now, perforce, all the year round. If he had known how to sit
still and let things happen he would have prospered miraculously; but,
strangely enough, the dainty little man was one of the first to fall
down and worship Bigness, the which proceeded straightway to enact the
role of Juggernaut for his better education. He was a true prophet of
the prodigious growth, but he had a fatal gift for selling good and
buying bad. He should have stayed at home and looked at his Landseers
and read his Bulwer, but he took his cow to market, and the trained
milkers milked her dry and then ate her. He sold the office-building and
the house in town to buy a great tract of lots in a new suburb; then
he sold the farm, except the house and the ground about it, to pay the
taxes on the suburban lots and to “keep them up.” The lots refused to
stay up; but he had to do something to keep himself and his family up,
so in despair he sold the lots (which went up beautifully the next year)
for “traction stock” that was paying dividends; and thereafter he ceased
to buy and sell. Thus he disappeared altogether from the commercial
surface at about the time James Sheridan came out securely on top; and
Sheridan, until Mrs. Vertrees called upon him with her “anti-smoke”
 committee, had never heard the name.

Mr. Vertrees, pinched, retired to his Landseers, and Mrs. Vertrees
“managed somehow” on the dividends, though “managing” became more and
more difficult as the years went by and money bought less and less. But
there came a day when three servitors of Bigness in Philadelphia took
greedy counsel with four fellow-worshipers from New York, and not long
after that there were no more dividends for Mr. Vertrees. In fact, there
was nothing for Mr. Vertrees, because the “traction stock” henceforth
was no stock at all, and he had mortgaged his house long ago to help
“manage somehow” according to his conception of his “position in
life”--one of his own old-fashioned phrases. Six months before the
completion of the New House next door, Mr. Vertrees had sold his horses
and the worn Victoria and “station-wagon,” to pay the arrears of his two
servants and re-establish credit at the grocer's and butcher's--and a
pair of elderly carriage-horses with such accoutrements are not very
ample barter, in these days, for six months' food and fuel and service.
Mr. Vertrees had discovered, too, that there was no salary for him in
all the buzzing city--he could do nothing.

It may be said that he was at the end of his string. Such times do come
in all their bitterness, finally, to the man with no trade or craft, if
his feeble clutch on that slippery ghost, Property, shall fail.

The windows grew black while he paced the room, and smoky twilight
closed round about the house, yet not more darkly than what closed round
about the heart of the anxious little man patrolling the fan-shaped zone
of firelight. But as the mantel clock struck wheezily six there was the
rattle of an outer door, and a rich and beautiful peal of laughter went
ringing through the house. Thus cheerfully did Mary Vertrees herald her
return with her mother from their expedition among the barbarians.

She came rushing into the library and threw herself into a deep chair by
the hearth, laughing so uncontrollably that tears were in her eyes. Mrs.
Vertrees followed decorously, no mirth about her; on the contrary,
she looked vaguely disturbed, as if she had eaten something not quite
certain to agree with her, and regretted it.

“Papa! Oh, oh!” And Miss Vertrees was fain to apply a handkerchief upon
her eyes. “I'm SO glad you made us go! I wouldn't have missed it--”

Mrs. Vertrees shook her head. “I suppose I'm very dull,” she said,
gently. “I didn't see anything amusing. They're most ordinary, and the
house is altogether in bad taste, but we anticipated that, and--”

“Papa!” Mary cried, breaking in. “They asked us to DINNER!”

“What!”

“And I'm GOING!” she shouted, and was seized with fresh paroxysms.
“Think of it! Never in their house before; never met any of them but the
daughter--and just BARELY met her--”

“What about you?” interrupted Mr. Vertrees, turning sharply upon his
wife.

She made a little face as if positive now that what she had eaten would
not agree with her. “I couldn't!” she said. “I--”

“Yes, that's just--just the way she--she looked when they asked her!”
 cried Mary, choking. “And then she--she realized it, and tried to turn
it into a cough, and she didn't know how, and it sounded like--like a
squeal!”

“I suppose,” said Mrs. Vertrees, much injured, “that Mary will have an
uproarious time at my funeral. She makes fun of--”

Mary jumped up instantly and kissed her; then she went to the mantel
and, leaning an elbow upon it, gazed thoughtfully at the buckle of her
shoe, twinkling in the firelight.

“THEY didn't notice anything,” she said. “So far as they were concerned,
mamma, it was one of the finest coughs you ever coughed.”

“Who were 'they'?” asked her father. “Whom did you see?”

“Only the mother and daughter,” Mary answered. “Mrs. Sheridan is dumpy
and rustly; and Miss Sheridan is pretty and pushing--dresses by the
fashion magazines and talks about New York people that have
their pictures in 'em. She tutors the mother, but not very
successfully--partly because her own foundation is too flimsy and partly
because she began too late. They've got an enormous Moor of painted
plaster or something in the hall, and the girl evidently thought it was
to her credit that she selected it!”

“They have oil-paintings, too,” added Mrs. Vertrees, with a glance of
gentle pride at the Landseers. “I've always thought oil-paintings in a
private house the worst of taste.”

“Oh, if one owned a Raphael or a Titian!” said Mr. Vertrees, finishing
the implication, not in words, but with a wave of his hand. “Go on,
Mary. None of the rest of them came in? You didn't meet Mr. Sheridan
or--” He paused and adjusted a lump of coal in the fire delicately with
the poker. “Or one of the sons?”

Mary's glance crossed his, at that, with a flash of utter comprehension.
He turned instantly away, but she had begun to laugh again.

“No,” she said, “no one except the women, but mamma inquired about the
sons thoroughly!”

“Mary!” Mrs. Vertrees protested.

“Oh, most adroitly, too!” laughed the girl. “Only she couldn't help
unconsciously turning to look at me--when she did it!”

“Mary Vertrees!”

“Never mind, mamma! Mrs. Sheridan and Miss Sheridan neither of THEM
could help unconsciously turning to look at me--speculatively--at the
same time! They all three kept looking at me and talking about the
oldest son, Mr. James Sheridan, Junior. Mrs. Sheridan said his father is
very anxious 'to get Jim to marry and settle down,' and she assured me
that 'Jim is right cultivated.' Another of the sons, the youngest one,
caught me looking in the window this afternoon; but they didn't seem
to consider him quite one of themselves, somehow, though Mrs. Sheridan
mentioned that a couple of years or so ago he had been 'right sick,'
and had been to some cure or other. They seemed relieved to bring the
subject back to 'Jim' and his virtues--and to look at me! The other
brother is the middle one, Roscoe; he's the one that owns the new house
across the street, where that young black-sheep of the Lamhorns, Robert,
goes so often. I saw a short, dark young man standing on the porch with
Robert Lamhorn there the other day, so I suppose that was Roscoe. 'Jim'
still lurks in the mists, but I shall meet him to-night. Papa--” She
stepped nearer to him so that he had to face her, and his eyes were
troubled as he did. There may have been a trouble deep within her own,
but she kept their surface merry with laughter. “Papa, Bibbs is the
youngest one's name, and Bibbs--to the best of our information--is a
lunatic. Roscoe is married. Papa, does it have to be Jim?”

“Mary!” Mrs. Vertrees cried, sharply. “You're outrageous! That's a
perfectly horrible way of talking!”

“Well, I'm close to twenty-four,” said Mary, turning to her. “I haven't
been able to like anybody yet that's asked me to marry him, and maybe I
never shall. Until a year or so ago I've had everything I ever wanted in
my life--you and papa gave it all to me--and it's about time I began
to pay back. Unfortunately, I don't know how to do anything--but
something's got to be done.”

“But you needn't talk of it like THAT!” insisted the mother,
plaintively. “It's not--it's not--”

“No, it's not,” said Mary. “I know that!”

“How did they happen to ask you to dinner?” Mr. Vertrees inquired,
uneasily. “'Stextrawdn'ry thing!”

“Climbers' hospitality,” Mary defined it. “We were so very cordial and
easy! I think Mrs. Sheridan herself might have done it just as any kind
old woman on a farm might ask a neighbor, but it was Miss Sheridan who
did it. She played around it awhile; you could see she wanted to--she's
in a dreadful hurry to get into things--and I fancied she had an idea it
might impress that Lamhorn boy to find us there to-night. It's a sort of
house-warming dinner, and they talked about it and talked about it--and
then the girl got her courage up and blurted out the invitation. And
mamma--” Here Mary was once more a victim to incorrigible merriment.
“Mamma tried to say yes, and COULDN'T! She swallowed and squealed--I
mean you coughed, dear! And then, papa, she said that you and she had
promised to go to a lecture at the Emerson Club to-night, but that her
daughter would be delighted to come to the Big Show! So there I am,
and there's Mr. Jim Sheridan--and there's the clock. Dinner's at
seven-thirty!”

And she ran out of the room, scooping up her fallen furs with a gesture
of flying grace as she sped.

When she came down, at twenty minutes after seven, her father stood in
the hall, at the foot of the stairs, waiting to be her escort through
the dark. He looked up and watched her as she descended, and his gaze
was fond and proud--and profoundly disturbed. But she smiled and nodded
gaily, and, when she reached the floor, put a hand on his shoulder.

“At least no one could suspect me to-night,” she said. “I LOOK rich,
don't I, papa?”

She did. She had a look that worshipful girl friends bravely called
“regal.” A head taller than her father, she was as straight and jauntily
poised as a boy athlete; and her brown hair and her brown eyes were
like her mother's, but for the rest she went back to some stronger and
livelier ancestor than either of her parents.

“Don't I look too rich to be suspected?” she insisted.

“You look everything beautiful, Mary,” he said, huskily.

“And my dress?” She threw open her dark velvet cloak, showing a splendor
of white and silver. “Anything better at Nice next winter, do you
think?” She laughed, shrouding her glittering figure in the cloak again.
“Two years old, and no one would dream it! I did it over.”

“You can do anything, Mary.”

There was a curious humility in his tone, and something more--a
significance not veiled and yet abysmally apologetic. It was as if
he suggested something to her and begged her forgiveness in the same
breath.

And upon that, for the moment, she became as serious as he. She lifted
her hand from his shoulder and then set it back more firmly, so that he
should feel the reassurance of its pressure.

“Don't worry,” she said, in a low voice and gravely. “I know exactly
what you want me to do.”



CHAPTER VI

It was a brave and lustrous banquet; and a noisy one, too, because there
was an orchestra among some plants at one end of the long dining-room,
and after a preliminary stiffness the guests were impelled to
converse--necessarily at the tops of their voices. The whole company
of fifty sat at a great oblong table, improvised for the occasion by
carpenters; but, not betraying itself as an improvisation, it seemed
a permanent continent of damask and lace, with shores of crystal and
silver running up to spreading groves of orchids and lilies and
white roses--an inhabited continent, evidently, for there were three
marvelous, gleaming buildings: one in the center and one at each end,
white miracles wrought by some inspired craftsman in sculptural icing.
They were models in miniature, and they represented the Sheridan
Building, the Sheridan Apartments, and the Pump Works. Nearly all the
guests recognized them without having to be told what they were, and
pronounced the likenesses superb.

The arrangement of the table was visibly baronial. At the head sat the
great Thane, with the flower of his family and of the guests about him;
then on each side came the neighbors of the “old” house, grading down to
vassals and retainers--superintendents, cashiers, heads of departments,
and the like--at the foot, where the Thane's lady took her place as a
consolation for the less important. Here, too, among the thralls and
bondmen, sat Bibbs Sheridan, a meek Banquo, wondering how anybody could
look at him and eat.

Nevertheless, there was a vast, continuous eating, for these were
wholesome folk who understood that dinner meant something intended
for introduction into the system by means of an aperture in the face,
devised by nature for that express purpose. And besides, nobody looked
at Bibbs.

He was better content to be left to himself; his voice was not strong
enough to make itself heard over the hubbub without an exhausting
effort, and the talk that went on about him was too fast and too
fragmentary for his drawl to keep pace with it. So he felt relieved when
each of his neighbors in turn, after a polite inquiry about his health,
turned to seek livelier responses in other directions. For the talk
went on with the eating, incessantly. It rose over the throbbing of the
orchestra and the clatter and clinking of silver and china and glass,
and there was a mighty babble.

“Yes, sir! Started without a dollar.”... “Yellow flounces on the
overskirt--“... “I says, 'Wilkie, your department's got to go bigger
this year,' I says.”... “Fifteen per cent. turnover in thirty-one
weeks.”... “One of the biggest men in the biggest--“... “The wife says
she'll have to let out my pants if my appetite--“... “Say, did you see
that statue of a Turk in the hall? One of the finest things I ever--“...
“Not a dollar, not a nickel, not one red cent do you get out o' me,' I
says, and so he ups and--“... “Yes, the baby makes four, they've lost
now.”... “Well, they got their raise, and they went in big.”... “Yes,
sir! Not a dollar to his name, and look at what--“... “You wait! The
population of this town's goin' to hit the million mark before she
stops.”... “Well, if you can show me a bigger deal than--”

And through the interstices of this clamoring Bibbs could hear the
continual booming of his father's heavy voice, and once he caught the
sentence, “Yes, young lady, that's just what did it for me, and that's
just what'll do it for my boys--they got to make two blades o' grass
grow where one grew before!” It was his familiar flourish, an old
story to Bibbs, and now jovially declaimed for the edification of Mary
Vertrees.

It was a great night for Sheridan--the very crest of his wave. He sat
there knowing himself Thane and master by his own endeavor; and his big,
smooth, red face grew more and more radiant with good will and with the
simplest, happiest, most boy-like vanity. He was the picture of health,
of good cheer, and of power on a holiday. He had thirty teeth, none
bought, and showed most of them when he laughed; his grizzled hair was
thick, and as unruly as a farm laborer's; his chest was deep and big
beneath its vast facade of starched white linen, where little diamonds
twinkled, circling three large pearls; his hands were stubby and strong,
and he used them freely in gestures of marked picturesqueness; and,
though he had grown fat at chin and waist and wrist, he had not lost the
look of readiness and activity.

He dominated the table, shouting jocular questions and railleries at
every one. His idea was that when people were having a good time they
were noisy; and his own additions to the hubbub increased his pleasure,
and, of course, met the warmest encouragement from his guests. Edith had
discovered that he had very foggy notions of the difference between a
band and an orchestra, and when it was made clear to him he had held out
for a band until Edith threatened tears; but the size of the orchestra
they hired consoled him, and he had now no regrets in the matter.

He kept time to the music continually--with his feet, or pounding on the
table with his fist, and sometimes with spoon or knife upon his plate
or a glass, without permitting these side-products to interfere with the
real business of eating and shouting.

“Tell 'em to play 'Nancy Lee'!” he would bellow down the length of
the table to his wife, while the musicians were in the midst of the
“Toreador” song, perhaps. “Ask that fellow if they don't know 'Nancy
Lee'!” And when the leader would shake his head apologetically in answer
to an obedient shriek from Mrs. Sheridan, the “Toreador” continuing
vehemently, Sheridan would roar half-remembered fragments of “Nancy
Lee,” naturally mingling some Bizet with the air of that uxorious
tribute.

“Oh, there she stands and waves her hands while I'm away! A sail-er's
wife a sail-er's star should be! Yo ho, oh, oh! Oh, Nancy, Nancy, Nancy
Lee! Oh, Na-hancy Lee!”

“HAY, there, old lady!” he would bellow. “Tell 'em to play 'In the
Gloaming.' In the gloaming, oh, my darling, la-la-lum-tee--Well, if they
don't know that, what's the matter with 'Larboard Watch, Ahoy'? THAT'S
good music! That's the kind o' music I like! Come on, now! Mrs. Callin,
get 'em singin' down in your part o' the table. What's the matter you
folks down there, anyway? Larboard watch, ahoy!”

“What joy he feels, as--ta-tum-dum-tee-dee-dum steals. La-a-r-board
watch, ahoy!”

No external bubbling contributed to this effervescence; the Sheridans'
table had never borne wine, and, more because of timidity about it than
conviction, it bore none now; though “mineral waters” were copiously
poured from bottles wrapped, for some reason, in napkins, and proved
wholly satisfactory to almost all of the guests. And certainly no wine
could have inspired more turbulent good spirits in the host. Not even
Bibbs was an alloy in this night's happiness, for, as Mrs. Sheridan had
said, he had “plans for Bibbs”--plans which were going to straighten out
some things that had gone wrong.

So he pounded the table and boomed his echoes of old songs, and then,
forgetting these, would renew his friendly railleries, or perhaps,
turning to Mary Vertrees, who sat near him, round the corner of the
table at his right, he would become autobiographical. Gentlemen less
naive than he had paid her that tribute, for she was a girl who inspired
the autobiographical impulse in every man who met her--it needed but the
sight of her.

The dinner seemed, somehow, to center about Mary Vertrees and the
jocund host as a play centers about its hero and heroine; they were the
rubicund king and the starry princess of this spectacle--they paid court
to each other, and everybody paid court to them. Down near the
sugar Pump Works, where Bibbs sat, there was audible speculation and
admiration. “Wonder who that lady is--makin' such a hit with the old
man.” “Must be some heiress.” “Heiress? Golly, I guess I could stand it
to marry rich, then!”

Edith and Sibyl were radiant: at first they had watched Miss Vertrees
with an almost haggard anxiety, wondering what disasterous effect
Sheridan's pastoral gaieties--and other things--would have upon her,
but she seemed delighted with everything, and with him most of all.
She treated him as if he were some delicious, foolish old joke that
she understood perfectly, laughing at him almost violently when he
bragged--probably his first experience of that kind in his life. It
enchanted him.

As he proclaimed to the table, she had “a way with her.” She had,
indeed, as Roscoe Sheridan, upon her right, discovered just after the
feast began. Since his marriage three years before, no lady had bestowed
upon him so protracted a full view of brilliant eyes; and, with the
look, his lovely neighbor said--and it was her first speech to him--

“I hope you're very susceptible, Mr. Sheridan!”

Honest Roscoe was taken aback, and “Why?” was all he managed to say.

She repeated the look deliberately, which was noted, with a
mystification equal to his own, by his sister across the table. No one,
reflected Edith, could image Mary Vertrees the sort of girl who would
“really flirt” with married men--she was obviously the “opposite of all
that.” Edith defined her as a “thoroughbred,” a “nice girl”; and the
look given to Roscoe was astounding. Roscoe's wife saw it, too, and
she was another whom it puzzled--though not because its recipient was
married.

“Because!” said Mary Vertrees, replying to Roscoe's monosyllable. “And
also because we're next-door neighbors at table, and it's dull times
ahead for both of us if we don't get along.”

Roscoe was a literal young man, all stocks and bonds, and he had been
brought up to believe that when a man married he “married and settled
down.” It was “all right,” he felt, for a man as old as his father to
pay florid compliments to as pretty a girl as this Miss Vertrees, but
for himself--“a young married man”--it wouldn't do; and it wouldn't
even be quite moral. He knew that young married people might have
friendships, like his wife's for Lamhorn; but Sibyl and Lamhorn never
“flirted”--they were always very matter-of-fact with each other. Roscoe
would have been troubled if Sibyl had ever told Lamhorn she hoped he was
susceptible.

“Yes--we're neighbors,” he said, awkwardly.

“Next-door neighbors in houses, too,” she added.

“No, not exactly. I live across the street.”

“Why, no!” she exclaimed, and seemed startled. “Your mother told me this
afternoon that you lived at home.”

“Yes, of course I live at home. I built that new house across the
street.”

“But you--” she paused, confused, and then slowly a deep color came into
her cheek. “But I understood--”

“No,” he said; “my wife and I lived with the old folks the first year,
but that's all. Edith and Jim live with them, of course.”

“I--I see,” she said, the deep color still deepening as she turned from
him and saw, written upon a card before the gentleman at her left the
name, “Mr. James Sheridan, Jr.” And from that moment Roscoe had little
enough cause for wondering what he ought to reply to her disturbing
coquetries.

Mr. James Sheridan had been anxiously waiting for the dazzling visitor
to “get through with old Roscoe,” as he thought of it, and give a
bachelor a chance. “Old Roscoe” was the younger, but he had always been
the steady wheel-horse of the family. Jim was “steady” enough, but was
considered livelier than Roscoe, which in truth is not saying much for
Jim's liveliness. As their father habitually boasted, both brothers were
“capable, hard-working young business men,” and the principal difference
between them was merely that which resulted from Jim's being still a
bachelor. Physically they were of the same type: dark of eyes and of
hair, fresh-colored and thick-set, and though Roscoe was several inches
taller than Jim, neither was of the height, breadth, or depth of the
father. Both wore young business men's mustaches, and either could have
sat for the tailor-shop lithographs of young business men wearing “rich
suitings in dark mixtures.”

Jim, approving warmly of his neighbor's profile, perceived her access of
color, which increased his approbation. “What's that old Roscoe saying
to you, Miss Vertrees?” he asked. “These young married men are mighty
forward nowadays, but you mustn't let 'em make you blush.”

“Am I blushing?” she said. “Are you sure?” And with that she gave him
ample opportunity to make sure, repeating with interest the look wasted
upon Roscoe. “I think you must be mistaken,” she continued. “I think
it's your brother who is blushing. I've thrown him into confusion.”

“How?”

She laughed, and then, leaning to him a little, said in a tone as
confidential as she could make it, under cover of the uproar. “By trying
to begin with him a courtship I meant for YOU!”

This might well be a style new to Jim; and it was. He supposed it a
nonsensical form of badinage, and yet it took his breath. He realized
that he wished what she said to be the literal truth, and he was
instantly snared by that realization.

“By George!” he said. “I guess you're the kind of girl that can say
anything--yes, and get away with it, too!”

She laughed again--in her way, so that he could not tell whether she was
laughing at him or at herself or at the nonsense she was talking; and
she said: “But you see I don't care whether I get away with it or not.
I wish you'd tell me frankly if you think I've got a chance to get away
with YOU?”

“More like if you've got a chance to get away FROM me!” Jim was inspired
to reply. “Not one in the world, especially after beginning by making
fun of me like that.”

“I mightn't be so much in fun as you think,” she said, regarding him
with sudden gravity.

“Well,” said Jim, in simple honesty, “you're a funny girl!”

Her gravity continued an instant longer. “I may not turn out to be funny
for YOU.”

“So long as you turn out to be anything at all for me, I expect I can
manage to be satisfied.” And with that, to his own surprise, it was his
turn to blush, whereupon she laughed again.

“Yes,” he said, plaintively, not wholly lacking intuition, “I can see
you're the sort of girl that would laugh the minute you see a man really
means anything!”

“'Laugh'!” she cried, gaily. “Why, it might be a matter of life and
death! But if you want tragedy, I'd better put the question at once,
considering the mistake I made with your brother.”

Jim was dazed. She seemed to be playing a little game of mockery and
nonsense with him, but he had glimpses of a flashing danger in it;
he was but too sensible of being outclassed, and had somewhere a
consciousness that he could never quite know this giddy and alluring
lady, no matter how long it pleased her to play with him. But he
mightily wanted her to keep on playing with him.

“Put what question?” he said, breathlessly.

“As you are a new neighbor of mine and of my family,” she returned,
speaking slowly and with a cross-examiner's severity, “I think it would
be well for me to know at once whether you are already walking out with
any young lady or not. Mr. Sheridan, think well! Are you spoken for?”

“Not yet,” he gasped. “Are you?”

“NO!” she cried, and with that they both laughed again; and the pastime
proceeded, increasing both in its gaiety and in its gravity.

Observing its continuance, Mr. Robert Lamhorn, opposite, turned from a
lively conversation with Edith and remarked covertly to Sibyl that Miss
Vertrees was “starting rather picturesquely with Jim.” And he added,
languidly, “Do you suppose she WOULD?”

For the moment Sibyl gave no sign of having heard him, but seemed
interested in the clasp of a long “rope” of pearls, a loop of which she
was allowing to swing from her fingers, resting her elbow upon the table
and following with her eyes the twinkle of diamonds and platinum in the
clasp at the end of the loop. She wore many jewels. She was pretty,
but hers was not the kind of prettiness to be loaded with too sumptuous
accessories, and jeweled head-dresses are dangerous--they may emphasize
the wrongness of the wearer.

“I said Miss Vertrees seems to be starting pretty strong with Jim,”
 repeated Mr. Lamhorn.

“I heard you.” There was a latent discontent always somewhere in her
eyes, no matter what she threw upon the surface of cover it, and just
now she did not care to cover it; she looked sullen. “Starting any
stronger than you did with Edith?” she inquired.

“Oh, keep the peace!” he said, crossly. “That's off, of course.”

“You haven't been making her see it this evening--precisely,” said
Sibyl, looking at him steadily. “You've talked to her for--”

“For Heaven's sake,” he begged, “keep the peace!”

“Well, what have you just been doing?”

“SH!” he said. “Listen to your father-in-law.”

Sheridan was booming and braying louder than ever, the orchestra having
begun to play “The Rosary,” to his vast content.

“I COUNT THEM OVER, LA-LA-TUM-TEE-DUM,” he roared, beating the measures
with his fork. “EACH HOUR A PEARL, EACH PEARL TEE-DUM-TUM-DUM--What's
the matter with all you folks? Why'n't you SING? Miss Vertrees, I bet a
thousand dollars YOU sing! Why'n't--”

“Mr. Sheridan,” she said, turning cheerfully from the ardent Jim, “you
don't know what you interrupted! Your son isn't used to my rough ways,
and my soldier's wooing frightens him, but I think he was about to say
something important.”

“I'll say something important to him if he doesn't!” the father
threatened, more delighted with her than ever. “By gosh! if I was his
age--or a widower right NOW--”

“Oh, wait!” cried Mary. “If they'd only make less noise! I want Mrs.
Sheridan to hear.”

“She'd say the same,” he shouted. “She'd tell me I was mighty slow if I
couldn't get ahead o' Jim. Why, when I was his age--”

“You must listen to your father,” Mary interrupted, turning to Jim, who
had grown red again. “He's going to tell us how, when he was your age,
he made those two blades of grass grow out of a teacup--and you could
see for yourself he didn't get them out of his sleeve!”

At that Sheridan pounded the table till it jumped. “Look here, young
lady!” he roared. “Some o' these days I'm either goin' to slap you--or
I'm goin' to kiss you!”

Edith looked aghast; she was afraid this was indeed “too awful,” but
Mary Vertrees burst into ringing laughter.

“Both!” she cried. “Both! The one to make me forget the other!”

“But which--” he began, and then suddenly gave forth such stentorian
trumpetings of mirth that for once the whole table stopped to listen.
“Jim,” he roared, “if you don't propose to that girl to-night I'll send
you back to the machine-shop with Bibbs!”

And Bibbs--down among the retainers by the sugar Pump Works, and
watching Mary Vertrees as a ragged boy in the street might watch a rich
little girl in a garden--Bibbs heard. He heard--and he knew what his
father's plans were now.



CHAPTER VII

Mrs. Vertrees “sat up” for her daughter, Mr. Vertrees having retired
after a restless evening, not much soothed by the society of his
Landseers. Mary had taken a key, insisting that he should not come for
her and seeming confident that she would not lack for escort; nor did
the sequel prove her confidence unwarranted. But Mrs. Vertrees had a
long vigil of it.

She was not the woman to make herself easy--no servant had ever seen her
in a wrapper--and with her hair and dress and her shoes just what they
had been when she returned from the afternoon's call, she sat through
the slow night hours in a stiff little chair under the gaslight in her
own room, which was directly over the “front hall.” There, book in hand,
she employed the time in her own reminiscences, though it was her belief
that she was reading Madame de Remusat's.

Her thoughts went backward into her life and into her husband's; and the
deeper into the past they went, the brighter the pictures they brought
her--and there is tragedy. Like her husband, she thought backward
because she did not dare think forward definitely. What thinking forward
this troubled couple ventured took the form of a slender hope which
neither of them could have borne to hear put in words, and yet they
had talked it over, day after day, from the very hour when they heard
Sheridan was to build his New House next door. For--so quickly does
any ideal of human behavior become an antique--their youth was of the
innocent old days, so dead! of “breeding” and “gentility,” and no craft
had been more straitly trained upon them than that of talking about
things without mentioning them. Herein was marked the most vital
difference between Mr. and Mrs. Vertrees and their big new neighbor.
Sheridan, though his youth was of the same epoch, knew nothing of such
matters. He had been chopping wood for the morning fire in the country
grocery while they were still dancing.

It was after one o'clock when Mrs. Vertrees heard steps and the delicate
clinking of the key in the lock, and then, with the opening of the door,
Mary's laugh, and “Yes--if you aren't afraid--to-morrow!”

The door closed, and she rushed up-stairs, bringing with her a breath
of cold and bracing air into her mother's room. “Yes,” she said, before
Mrs. Vertrees could speak, “he brought me home!”

She let her cloak fall upon the bed, and, drawing an old red-velvet
rocking-chair forward, sat beside her mother after giving her a light
pat upon the shoulder and a hearty kiss upon the cheek.

“Mamma!” Mary exclaimed, when Mrs. Vertrees had expressed a hope that
she had enjoyed the evening and had not caught cold. “Why don't you ask
me?”

This inquiry obviously made her mother uncomfortable. “I don't--” she
faltered. “Ask you what, Mary?”

“How I got along and what he's like.”

“Mary!”

“Oh, it isn't distressing!” said Mary. “And I got along so fast--” She
broke off to laugh; continuing then, “But that's the way I went at it,
of course. We ARE in a hurry, aren't we?”

“I don't know what you mean,” Mrs. Vertrees insisted, shaking her head
plaintively.

“Yes,” said Mary, “I'm going out in his car with him to-morrow
afternoon, and to the theater the next night--but I stopped it there.
You see, after you give the first push, you must leave it to them while
YOU pretend to run away!”

“My dear, I don't know what to--”

“What to make of anything!” Mary finished for her. “So that's all
right! Now I'll tell you all about it. It was gorgeous and deafening and
tee-total. We could have lived a year on it. I'm not good at figures,
but I calculated that if we lived six months on poor old Charlie and Ned
and the station-wagon and the Victoria, we could manage at least twice
as long on the cost of the 'house-warming.' I think the orchids alone
would have lasted us a couple of months. There they were, before me, but
I couldn't steal 'em and sell 'em, and so--well, so I did what I could!”

She leaned back and laughed reassuringly to her troubled mother. “It
seemed to be a success--what I could,” she said, clasping her hands
behind her neck and stirring the rocker to motion as a rhythmic
accompaniment to her narrative. “The girl Edith and her sister-in-law,
Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan, were too anxious about the effect of things on me.
The father's worth a bushel of both of them, if they knew it. He's
what he is. I like him.” She paused reflectively, continuing, “Edith's
'interested' in that Lamhorn boy; he's good-looking and not stupid, but
I think he's--” She interrupted herself with a cheery outcry: “Oh! I
mustn't be calling him names! If he's trying to make Edith like him, I
ought to respect him as a colleague.”

“I don't understand a thing you're talking about,” Mrs. Vertrees
complained.

“All the better! Well, he's a bad lot, that Lamhorn boy; everybody's
always known that, but the Sheridans don't know the everybodies that
know. He sat between Edith and Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan. SHE'S like those
people you wondered about at the theater, the last time we went--dressed
in ball-gowns; bound to show their clothes and jewels SOMEwhere! She
flatters the father, and so did I, for that matter--but not that way. I
treated him outrageously!”

“Mary!”

“That's what flattered him. After dinner he made the whole regiment of
us follow him all over the house, while he lectured like a guide on the
Palatine. He gave dimensions and costs, and the whole b'ilin' of 'em
listened as if they thought he intended to make them a present of the
house. What he was proudest of was the plumbing and that Bay of Naples
panorama in the hall. He made us look at all the plumbing--bath-rooms
and everywhere else--and then he made us look at the Bay of Naples. He
said it was a hundred and eleven feet long, but I think it's more. And
he led us all into the ready-made library to see a poem Edith had taken
a prize with at school. They'd had it printed in gold letters and framed
in mother-of-pearl. But the poem itself was rather simple and wistful
and nice--he read it to us, though Edith tried to stop him. She was
modest about it, and said she'd never written anything else. And then,
after a while, Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan asked me to come across the street
to her house with them--her husband and Edith and Mr. Lamhorn and Jim
Sheridan--”

Mrs. Vertrees was shocked. “'Jim'!” she exclaimed. “Mary, PLEASE--”

“Of course,” said Mary. “I'll make it as easy for you as I can,
mamma. Mr. James Sheridan, Junior. We went over there, and Mrs. Roscoe
explained that 'the men were all dying for a drink,' though I noticed
that Mr. Lamhorn was the only one near death's door on that account.
Edith and Mrs. Roscoe said they knew I'd been bored at the dinner. They
were objectionably apologetic about it, and they seemed to think NOW we
were going to have a 'good time' to make up for it. But I hadn't been
bored at the dinner, I'd been amused; and the 'good time' at Mrs.
Roscoe's was horribly, horribly stupid.”

“But, Mary,” her mother began, “is--is--” And she seemed unable to
complete the question.

“Never mind, mamma. I'll say it. Is Mr. James Sheridan, Junior, stupid?
I'm sure he's not at all stupid about business. Otherwise--Oh, what
right have I to be calling people 'stupid' because they're not exactly
my kind? On the big dinner-table they had enormous icing models of the
Sheridan Building--”

“Oh, no!” Mrs. Vertrees cried. “Surely not!”

“Yes, and two other things of that kind--I don't know what. But, after
all, I wondered if they were so bad. If I'd been at a dinner at a palace
in Italy, and a relief or inscription on one of the old silver pieces
had referred to some great deed or achievement of the family, I
shouldn't have felt superior; I'd have thought it picturesque and
stately--I'd have been impressed. And what's the real difference? The
icing is temporary, and that's much more modest, isn't it? And why is
it vulgar to feel important more on account of something you've done
yourself than because of something one of your ancestors did? Besides,
if we go back a few generations, we've all got such hundreds of
ancestors it seems idiotic to go picking out one or two to be proud of
ourselves about. Well, then, mamma, I managed not to feel superior to
Mr. James Sheridan, Junior, because he didn't see anything out of place
in the Sheridan Building in sugar.”

Mrs. Vertrees's expression had lost none of its anxiety pending the
conclusion of this lively bit of analysis, and she shook her head
gravely. “My dear, dear child,” she said, “it seems to me--It looks--I'm
afraid--”

“Say as much of it as you can, mamma,” said Mary, encouragingly. “I can
get it, if you'll just give me one key-word.”

“Everything you say,” Mrs. Vertrees began, timidly, “seems to have the
air of--it is as if you were seeking to--to make yourself--”

“Oh, I see! You mean I sound as if I were trying to force myself to like
him.”

“Not exactly, Mary. That wasn't quite what I meant,” said Mrs. Vertrees,
speaking direct untruth with perfect unconsciousness. “But you said
that--that you found the latter part of the evening at young Mrs.
Sheridan's unentertaining--”

“And as Mr. James Sheridan was there, and I saw more of him than at
dinner, and had a horribly stupid time in spite of that, you think I--”
 And then it was Mary who left the deduction unfinished.

Mrs. Vertrees nodded; and though both the mother and the daughter
understood, Mary felt it better to make the understanding definite.

“Well,” she asked, gravely, “is there anything else I can do? You and
papa don't want me to do anything that distresses me, and so, as this is
the only thing to be done, it seems it's up to me not to let it distress
me. That's all there is about it, isn't it?”

“But nothing MUST distress you!” the mother cried.

“That's what I say!” said Mary, cheerfully. “And so it doesn't. It's all
right.” She rose and took her cloak over her arm, as if to go to her own
room. But on the way to the door she stopped, and stood leaning against
the foot of the bed, contemplating a threadbare rug at her feet.
“Mother, you've told me a thousand times that it doesn't really matter
whom a girl marries.”

“No, no!” Mrs. Vertrees protested. “I never said such a--”

“No, not in words; I mean what you MEANT. It's true, isn't it, that
marriage really is 'not a bed of roses, but a field of battle'? To get
right down to it, a girl could fight it out with anybody, couldn't she?
One man as well as another?”

“Oh, my dear! I'm sure your father and I--”

“Yes, yes,” said Mary, indulgently. “I don't mean you and papa. But
isn't it propinquity that makes marriages? So many people say so, there
must be something in it.”

“Mary, I can't bear for you to talk like that.” And Mrs. Vertrees
lifted pleading eyes to her daughter--eyes that begged to be spared. “It
sounds--almost reckless!”

Mary caught the appeal, came to her, and kissed her gaily. “Never fret,
dear! I'm not likely to do anything I don't want to do--I've always been
too thorough-going a little pig! And if it IS propinquity that does our
choosing for us, well, at least no girl in the world could ask for more
than THAT! How could there be any more propinquity than the very house
next door?”

She gave her mother a final kiss and went gaily all the way to the door
this time, pausing for her postscript with her hand on the knob. “Oh,
the one that caught me looking in the window, mamma, the youngest one--”

“Did he speak of it?” Mrs. Vertrees asked, apprehensively.

“No. He didn't speak at all, that I saw, to any one. I didn't meet him.
But he isn't insane, I'm sure; or if he is, he has long intervals when
he's not. Mr. James Sheridan mentioned that he lived at home when he was
'well enough'; and it may be he's only an invalid. He looks dreadfully
ill, but he has pleasant eyes, and it struck me that if--if one were
in the Sheridan family”--she laughed a little ruefully--“he might be
interesting to talk to sometimes, when there was too much stocks and
bonds. I didn't see him after dinner.”

“There must be something wrong with him,” said Mrs. Vertrees. “They'd
have introduced him if there wasn't.”

“I don't know. He's been ill so much and away so much--sometimes people
like that just don't seem to 'count' in a family. His father spoke of
sending him back to a machine-shop of some sort; I suppose he meant
when the poor thing gets better. I glanced at him just then, when Mr.
Sheridan mentioned him, and he happened to be looking straight at me;
and he was pathetic-looking enough before that, but the most tragic
change came over him. He seemed just to die, right there at the table!”

“You mean when his father spoke of sending him to the shop place?”

“Yes.”

“Mr. Sheridan must be very unfeeling.”

“No,” said Mary, thoughtfully, “I don't think he is; but he might be
uncomprehending, and certainly he's the kind of man to do anything he
once sets out to do. But I wish I hadn't been looking at that poor boy
just then! I'm afraid I'll keep remembering--”

“I wouldn't.” Mrs. Vertrees smiled faintly, and in her smile there
was the remotest ghost of a genteel roguishness. “I'd keep my mind on
pleasanter things, Mary.”

Mary laughed and nodded. “Yes, indeed! Plenty pleasant enough, and
probably, if all were known, too good--even for me!”

And when she had gone Mrs. Vertrees drew a long breath, as if a burden
were off her mind, and, smiling, began to undress in a gentle reverie.



CHAPTER VIII

Edith, glancing casually into the “ready-made” library, stopped
abruptly, seeing Bibbs there alone. He was standing before the
pearl-framed and golden-lettered poem, musingly inspecting it. He read
it:

                  FUGITIVE

  I will forget the things that sting:
    The lashing look, the barbed word.
  I know the very hands that fling
    The stones at me had never stirred
  To anger but for their own scars.
    They've suffered so, that's why they strike.
  I'll keep my heart among the stars
    Where none shall hunt it out.  Oh, like
  These wounded ones I must not be,
    For, wounded, I might strike in turn!
  So, none shall hurt me.  Far and free
    Where my heart flies no one shall learn.

“Bibbs!” Edith's voice was angry, and her color deepened suddenly as she
came into the room, preceded by a scent of violets much more powerful
than that warranted by the actual bunch of them upon the lapel of her
coat.

Bibbs did not turn his head, but wagged it solemnly, seeming depressed
by the poem. “Pretty young, isn't it?” he said. “There must have been
something about your looks that got the prize, Edith; I can't believe
the poem did it.”

She glanced hurriedly over her shoulder and spoke sharply, but in a
low voice: “I don't think it's very nice of you to bring it up at all,
Bibbs. I'd like a chance to forget the whole silly business. I didn't
want them to frame it, and I wish to goodness papa'd quit talking about
it; but here, that night, after the dinner, didn't he go and read it
aloud to the whole crowd of 'em! And then they all wanted to know what
other poems I'd written and why I didn't keep it up and write some more,
and if I didn't, why didn't I, and why this and why that, till I thought
I'd die of shame!”

“You could tell 'em you had writer's cramp,” Bibbs suggested.

“I couldn't tell 'em anything! I just choke with mortification every
time anybody speaks of the thing.”

Bibbs looked grieved. “The poem isn't THAT bad, Edith. You see, you were
only seventeen when you wrote it.”

“Oh, hush up!” she snapped. “I wish it had burnt my fingers the first
time I touched it. Then I might have had sense enough to leave it where
it was. I had no business to take it, and I've been ashamed--”

“No, no,” he said, comfortingly. “It was the very most flattering thing
ever happened to me. It was almost my last flight before I went to the
machine-shop, and it's pleasant to think somebody liked it enough to--”

“But I DON'T like it!” she exclaimed. “I don't even understand it--and
papa made so much fuss over its getting the prize, I just hate it! The
truth is I never dreamed it'd get the prize.”

“Maybe they expected father to endow the school,” Bibbs murmured.

“Well, I had to have something to turn in, and I couldn't write a LINE!
I hate poetry, anyhow; and Bobby Lamhorn's always teasing me about how
I 'keep my heart among the stars.' He makes it seem such a mushy kind of
thing, the way he says it. I hate it!”

“You'll have to live it down, Edith. Perhaps abroad and under another
name you might find--”

“Oh, hush up! I'll hire some one to steal it and burn it the first
chance I get.” She turned away petulantly, moving to the door. “I'd like
to think I could hope to hear the last of it before I die!”

“Edith!” he called, as she went into the hall.

“What's the matter?”

“I want to ask you: Do I really look better, or have you just got used
to me?”

“What on earth do you mean?” she said, coming back as far as the
threshold.

“When I first came you couldn't look at me,” Bibbs explained, in his
impersonal way. “But I've noticed you look at me lately. I wondered if
I'd--”

“It's because you look so much better,” she told him, cheerfully. “This
month you've been here's done you no end of good. It's the change.”

“Yes, that's what they said at the sanitarium--the change.”

“You look worse than 'most anybody I ever saw,” said Edith, with supreme
candor. “But I don't know much about it. I've never seen a corpse in my
life, and I've never even seen anybody that was terribly sick, so you
mustn't judge by me. I only know you do look better, I'm glad to say.
But you're right about my not being able to look at you at first. You
had a kind of whiteness that--Well, you're almost as thin, I suppose,
but you've got more just ordinarily pale; not that ghastly look. Anybody
could look at you now, Bibbs, and no--not get--”

“Sick?”

“Well--almost that!” she laughed. “And you're getting a better color
every day, Bibbs; you really are. You're getting along splendidly.”

“I--I'm afraid so,” he said, ruefully.

“'Afraid so'! Well, if you aren't the queerest! I suppose you mean
father might send you back to the machine-shop if you get well enough.
I heard him say something about it the night of the--” The jingle of
a distant bell interrupted her, and she glanced at her watch. “Bobby
Lamhorn! I'm going to motor him out to look at a place in the country.
Afternoon, Bibbs!”

When she had gone, Bibbs mooned pessimistically from shelf to shelf,
his eye wandering among the titles of the books. The library consisted
almost entirely of handsome “uniform editions”: Irving, Poe, Cooper,
Goldsmith, Scott, Byron, Burns, Longfellow, Tennyson, Hume, Gibbon,
Prescott, Thackeray, Dickens, De Musset, Balzac, Gautier, Flaubert,
Goethe, Schiller, Dante, and Tasso. There were shelves and shelves
of encyclopedias, of anthologies, of “famous classics,” of “Oriental
masterpieces,” of “masterpieces of oratory,” and more shelves of
“selected libraries” of “literature,” of “the drama,” and of “modern
science.” They made an effective decoration for the room, all these
big, expensive books, with a glossy binding here and there twinkling a
reflection of the flames that crackled in the splendid Gothic fireplace;
but Bibbs had an impression that the bookseller who selected them
considered them a relief, and that white-jacket considered them a
burden of dust, and that nobody else considered them at all. Himself, he
disturbed not one.

There came a chime of bells from a clock in another part of the house,
and white-jacket appeared beamingly in the doorway, bearing furs.
“Awready, Mist' Bibbs,” he announced. “You' ma say wrap up wawm f' you'
ride, an' she cain' go with you to-day, an' not f'git go see you' pa at
fo' 'clock. Aw ready, suh.”

He equipped Bibbs for the daily drive Dr. Gurney had commanded; and in
the manner of a master of ceremonies unctuously led the way. In the
hall they passed the Moor, and Bibbs paused before it while white-jacket
opened the door with a flourish and waved condescendingly to the
chauffeur in the car which stood waiting in the driveway.

“It seems to me I asked you what you thought about this 'statue' when I
first came home, George,” said Bibbs, thoughtfully. “What did you tell
me?”

“Yessuh!” George chuckled, perfectly understanding that for some unknown
reason Bibbs enjoyed hearing him repeat his opinion of the Moor. “You
ast me when you firs' come home, an' you ast me nex' day, an' mighty
near ev'y day all time you been here; an' las' Sunday you ast me
twicet.” He shook his head solemnly. “Look to me mus' be somep'm might
lamiDAL 'bout 'at statue!”

“Mighty what?”

“Mighty lamiDAL!” George, burst out laughing. “What DO 'at word mean,
Mist' Bibbs?”

“It's new to me, George. Where did you hear it?”

“I nev' DID hear it!” said George. “I uz dess sittin' thinkum to myse'f
an' she pop in my head--'lamiDAL,' dess like 'at! An' she soun' so good,
seem like she GOTTA mean somep'm!”

“Come to think of it, I believe she does mean something. Why, yes--”

“Do she?” cried George. “WHAT she mean?”

“It's exactly the word for the statue,” said Bibbs, with conviction, as
he climbed into the car. “It's a lamiDAL statue.”

“Hiyi!” George exulted. “Man! Man! Listen! Well, suh, she mighty lamiDAL
statue, but lamiDAL statue heap o' trouble to dus'!”

“I expect she is!” said Bibbs, as the engine began to churn; and a moment later he was swept from sight.

George turned to Mist' Jackson, who had been listening benevolently in
the hallway. “Same he aw-ways say, Mist' Jackson--'I expec' she is!'
Ev'y day he try t' git me talk 'bout 'at lamiDAL statue, an' aw-ways,
las' thing HE say, 'I expec' she is!' You know, Mist' Jackson, if he git
well, 'at young man go' be pride o' the family, Mist' Jackson. Yes-suh,
right now I pick 'im fo' firs' money!”

“Look out with all 'at money, George!” Jackson warned the enthusiast.
“White folks 'n 'is house know 'im heap longer'n you. You the on'y man
bettin' on 'im!”

“I risk it!” cried George, merrily. “I put her all on now--ev'y cent!
'At boy's go' be flower o' the flock!”

This singular prophecy, founded somewhat recklessly upon gratitude for
the meaning of “lamiDAL,” differed radically from another prediction
concerning Bibbs, set forth for the benefit of a fair auditor some
twenty minutes later.

Jim Sheridan, skirting the edges of the town with Mary Vertrees
beside him, in his own swift machine, encountered the invalid upon
the highroad. The two cars were going in opposite directions, and the
occupants of Jim's had only a swaying glimpse of Bibbs sitting alone on
the back seat--his white face startlingly white against cap and collar
of black fur--but he flashed into recognition as Mary bowed to him.

Jim waved his left hand carelessly. “It's Bibbs, taking his
constitutional,” he explained.

“Yes, I know,” said Mary. “I bowed to him, too, though I've never met
him. In fact, I've only seen him once--no, twice. I hope he won't think
I'm very bold, bowing to him.”

“I doubt if he noticed it,” said honest Jim.

“Oh, no!” she cried.

“What's the trouble?”

“I'm almost sure people notice it when I bow to them.”

“Oh, I see!” said Jim. “Of course they would ordinarily, but Bibbs is
funny.”

“Is he? How?” she asked. “He strikes me as anything but funny.”

“Well, I'm his brother,” Jim said, deprecatingly, “but I don't know what
he's like, and, to tell the truth, I've never felt exactly like I WAS
his brother, the way I do Roscoe. Bibbs never did seem more than half
alive to me. Of course Roscoe and I are older, and when we were boys we
were too big to play with him, but he never played anyway, with boys his
own age. He'd rather just sit in the house and mope around by himself.
Nobody could ever get him to DO anything; you can't get him to do
anything now. He never had any LIFE in him; and honestly, if he is my
brother, I must say I believe Bibbs Sheridan is the laziest man God ever
made! Father put him in the machine-shop over at the Pump Works--best
thing in the world for him--and he was just plain no account. It made
him sick! If he'd had the right kind of energy--the kind father's got,
for instance, or Roscoe, either--why, it wouldn't have made him sick.
And suppose it was either of them--yes, or me, either--do you think any
of us would have stopped if we WERE sick? Not much! I hate to say it,
but Bibbs Sheridan'll never amount to anything as long as he lives.”

Mary looked thoughtful. “Is there any particular reason why he should?”
 she asked.

“Good gracious!” he exclaimed. “You don't mean that, do you? Don't you
believe in a man's knowing how to earn his salt, no matter how much
money his father's got? Hasn't the business of this world got to be
carried on by everybody in it? Are we going to lay back on what we've
got and see other fellows get ahead of us? If we've got big things
already, isn't it every man's business to go ahead and make 'em bigger?
Isn't it his duty? Don't we always want to get bigger and bigger?”

“Ye-es--I don't know. But I feel rather sorry for your brother. He
looked so lonely--and sick.”

“He's gettin' better every day,” Jim said. “Dr. Gurney says so. There's
nothing much the matter with him, really--it's nine-tenths imaginary.
'Nerves'! People that are willing to be busy don't have nervous
diseases, because they don't have time to imagine 'em.”

“You mean his trouble is really mental?”

“Oh, he's not a lunatic,” said Jim. “He's just queer. Sometimes he'll
say something right bright, but half the time what he says is 'way off
the subject, or else there isn't any sense to it at all. For instance,
the other day I heard him talkin' to one of the darkies in the hall. The
darky asked him what time he wanted the car for his drive, and anybody
else in the world would have just said what time they DID want it, and
that would have been all there was to it; but here's what Bibbs says,
and I heard him with my own ears. 'What time do I want the car?' he
says. 'Well, now, that depends--that depends,' he says. He talks slow
like that, you know. 'I'll tell you what time I want the car, George,'
he says, 'if you'll tell ME what you think of this statue!' That's
exactly his words! Asked the darky what he thought of that Arab Edith
and mother bought for the hall!”

Mary pondered upon this. “He might have been in fun, perhaps,” she
suggested.

“Askin' a darky what he thought of a piece of statuary--of a work
of art! Where on earth would be the fun of that? No, you're just
kind-hearted--and that's the way you OUGHT to be, of course--”

“Thank you, Mr. Sheridan!” she laughed.

“See here!” he cried. “Isn't there any way for us to get over this
Mister and Miss thing? A month's got thirty-one days in it; I've managed
to be with you a part of pretty near all the thirty-one, and I think you
know how I feel by this time--”

She looked panic-stricken immediately. “Oh, no,” she protested, quickly.
“No, I don't, and--”

“Yes, you do,” he said, and his voice shook a little. “You couldn't help
knowing.”

“But I do!” she denied, hurriedly. “I do help knowing. I mean--Oh,
wait!”

“What for? You do know how I feel, and you--well, you've certainly
WANTED me to feel that way--or else pretended--”

“Now, now!” she lamented. “You're spoiling such a cheerful afternoon!”

“'Spoilin' it!'” He slowed down the car and turned his face to her
squarely. “See here, Miss Vertrees, haven't you--”

“Stop! Stop the car a minute.” And when he had complied she faced him as
squarely as he evidently desired her to face him. “Listen. I don't want
you to go on, to-day.”

“Why not?” he asked, sharply.

“I don't know.”

“You mean it's just a whim?”

“I don't know,” she repeated. Her voice was low and troubled and honest,
and she kept her clear eyes upon his.

“Will you tell me something?”

“Almost anything.”

“Have you ever told any man you loved him?”

And at that, though she laughed, she looked a little contemptuous. “No,”
 she said. “And I don't think I ever shall tell any man that--or ever
know what it means. I'm in earnest, Mr. Sheridan.”

“Then you--you've just been flirting with me!” Poor Jim looked both
furious and crestfallen.

“Not one bit!” she cried. “Not one word! Not one syllable! I've meant
every single thing!”

“I don't--”

“Of course you don't!” she said. “Now, Mr. Sheridan, I want you to start
the car. Now! Thank you. Slowly, till I finish what I have to say. I
have not flirted with you. I have deliberately courted you. One thing
more, and then I want you to take me straight home, talking about the
weather all the way. I said that I do not believe I shall ever 'care'
for any man, and that is true. I doubt the existence of the kind of
'caring' we hear about in poems and plays and novels. I think it must be
just a kind of emotional TALK--most of it. At all events, I don't feel
it. Now, we can go faster, please.”

“Just where does that let me out?” he demanded. “How does that excuse
you for--”

“It isn't an excuse,” she said, gently, and gave him one final look,
wholly desolate. “I haven't said I should never marry.”

“What?” Jim gasped.

She inclined her head in a broken sort of acquiescence, very humble,
unfathomably sorrowful.

“I promise nothing,” she said, faintly.

“You needn't!” shouted Jim, radiant and exultant. “You needn't! By
George! I know you're square; that's enough for me! You wait and promise
whenever you're ready!”

“Don't forget what I asked,” she begged him.

“Talk about the weather? I will! God bless the old weather!” cried the
happy Jim.



CHAPTER IX

Through the open country Bibbs was borne flying between brown fields
and sun-flecked groves of gray trees, to breathe the rushing, clean
air beneath a glorious sky--that sky so despised in the city, and so
maltreated there, that from early October to mid-May it was impossible
for men to remember that blue is the rightful color overhead.

Upon each of Bibbs's cheeks there was a hint of something almost
resembling a pinkishness; not actual color, but undeniably its phantom.
How largely this apparition may have been the work of the wind upon his
face it is difficult to calculate, for beyond a doubt it was partly the
result of a lady's bowing to him upon no more formal introduction than
the circumstance of his having caught her looking into his window a
month before. She had bowed definitely; she had bowed charmingly. And it
seemed to Bibbs that she must have meant to convey her forgiveness.

There had been something in her recognition of him unfamiliar to
his experience, and he rode the warmer for it. Nor did he lack the
impression that he would long remember her as he had just seen her: her
veil tumultuously blowing back, her face glowing in the wind--and that
look of gay friendliness tossed to him like a fresh rose in carnival.

By and by, upon a rising ground, the driver halted the car, then backed
and tacked, and sent it forward again with its nose to the south and the
smoke. Far before him Bibbs saw the great smudge upon the horizon,
that nest of cloud in which the city strove and panted like an engine
shrouded in its own steam. But to Bibbs, who had now to go to the very
heart of it, for a commanded interview with his father, the distant
cloud was like an implacable genius issuing thunderously in smoke from
his enchanted bottle, and irresistibly drawing Bibbs nearer and nearer.

They passed from the farm lands, and came, in the amber light of
November late afternoon, to the farthermost outskirts of the city; and
here the sky shimmered upon the verge of change from blue to gray;
the smoke did not visibly permeate the air, but it was there,
nevertheless--impalpable, thin, no more than the dust of smoke. And
then, as the car drove on, the chimneys and stacks of factories came
swimming up into view like miles of steamers advancing abreast, every
funnel with its vast plume, savage and black, sweeping to the horizon,
dripping wealth and dirt and suffocation over league on league already
rich and vile with grime.

The sky had become only a dingy thickening of the soiled air; and a roar
and clangor of metals beat deafeningly on Bibbs's ears. And now the car
passed two great blocks of long brick buildings, hideous in all ways
possible to make them hideous; doorways showing dark one moment and
lurid the next with the leap of some virulent interior flame, revealing
blackened giants, half naked, in passionate action, struggling with
formless things in the hot illumination. And big as these shops were,
they were growing bigger, spreading over a third block, where two new
structures were mushrooming to completion in some hasty cement process
of a stability not over-reassuring. Bibbs pulled the rug closer about
him, and not even the phantom of color was left upon his cheeks as he
passed this place, for he knew it too well. Across the face of one of
the buildings there was an enormous sign: “Sheridan Automatic Pump Co.,
Inc.”

Thence they went through streets of wooden houses, all grimed, and
adding their own grime from many a sooty chimney; flimsey wooden houses
of a thousand flimsy whimsies in the fashioning, built on narrow lots
and nudging one another crossly, shutting out the stingy sunlight from
one another; bad neighbors who would destroy one another root and branch
some night when the right wind blew. They were only waiting for that
wind and a cigarette, and then they would all be gone together--a pinch
of incense burned upon the tripod of the god.

Along these streets there were skinny shade-trees, and here and there
a forest elm or walnut had been left; but these were dying. Some people
said it was the scale; some said it was the smoke; and some were sure
that asphalt and “improving” the streets did it; but Bigness was in
too Big a hurry to bother much about trees. He had telegraph-poles
and telephone-poles and electric-light-poles and trolley-poles by the
thousand to take their places. So he let the trees die and put up his
poles. They were hideous, but nobody minded that; and sometimes the
wires fell and killed people--but not often enough to matter at all.

Thence onward the car bore Bibbs through the older parts of the
town where the few solid old houses not already demolished were in
transition: some, with their fronts torn away, were being made into
segments of apartment-buildings; others had gone uproariously into
trade, brazenly putting forth “show-windows” on their first floors,
seeming to mean it for a joke; one or two with unaltered facades peeped
humorously over the tops of temporary office buildings of one story
erected in the old front yards. Altogether, the town here was like a
boarding-house hash the Sunday after Thanksgiving; the old ingredients
were discernible.

This was the fringe of Bigness's own sanctuary, and now Bibbs reached
the roaring holy of holies itself. The car must stop at every crossing
while the dark-garbed crowds, enveloped in maelstroms of dust, hurried
before it. Magnificent new buildings, already dingy, loomed hundreds of
feet above him; newer ones, more magnificent, were rising beside them,
rising higher; old buildings were coming down; middle-aged buildings
were coming down; the streets were laid open to their entrails and men
worked underground between palisades, and overhead in metal cobwebs
like spiders in the sky. Trolley-cars and long interurban cars, built to
split the wind like torpedo-boats, clanged and shrieked their way
round swarming corners; motor-cars of every kind and shape known to
man babbled frightful warnings and frantic demands; hospital ambulances
clamored wildly for passage; steam-whistles signaled the swinging of
titanic tentacle and claw; riveters rattled like machine-guns; the
ground shook to the thunder of gigantic trucks; and the conglomerate
sound of it all was the sound of earthquake playing accompaniments for
battle and sudden death. On one of the new steel buildings no work
was being done that afternoon. The building had killed a man in the
morning--and the steel-workers always stop for the day when that
“happens.”

And in the hurrying crowds, swirling and sifting through the
brobdingnagian camp of iron and steel, one saw the camp-followers and
the pagan women--there would be work to-day and dancing to-night. For
the Puritan's dry voice is but the crackling of a leaf underfoot in the
rush and roar of the coming of the new Egypt.

Bibbs was on time. He knew it must be “to the minute” or his father
would consider it an outrage; and the big chronometer in Sheridan's
office marked four precisely when Bibbs walked in. Coincidentally with
his entrance five people who had been at work in the office, under
Sheridan's direction, walked out. They departed upon no visible or
audible suggestion, and with a promptness that seemed ominous to
the new-comer. As the massive door clicked softly behind the elderly
stenographer, the last of the procession, Bibbs had a feeling that
they all understood that he was a failure as a great man's son, a
disappointment, the “queer one” of the family, and that he had been
summoned to judgment--a well-founded impression, for that was exactly
what they understood.

“Sit down,” said Sheridan.

It is frequently an advantage for deans, school-masters, and worried
fathers to place delinquents in the sitting-posture. Bibbs sat.

Sheridan, standing, gazed enigmatically upon his son for a period of
silence, then walked slowly to a window and stood looking out of it, his
big hands, loosely hooked together by the thumbs, behind his back. They
were soiled, as were all other hands down-town, except such as might be
still damp from a basin.

“Well, Bibbs,” he said at last, not altering his attitude, “do you know
what I'm goin' to do with you?”

Bibbs, leaning back in his chair, fixed his eyes contemplatively upon
the ceiling. “I heard you tell Jim,” he began, in his slow way. “You
said you'd send him to the machine-shop with me if he didn't propose to
Miss Vertrees. So I suppose that must be your plan for me. But--”

“But what?” said Sheridan, irritably, as the son paused.

“Isn't there somebody you'd let ME propose to?”

That brought his father sharply round to face him. “You beat the devil!
Bibbs, what IS the matter with you? Why can't you be like anybody else?”

“Liver, maybe,” said Bibbs, gently.

“Boh! Even ole Doc Gurney says there's nothin' wrong with you
organically. No. You're a dreamer, Bibbs; that's what's the matter,
and that's ALL the matter. Oh, not one o' these BIG dreamers that put
through the big deals! No, sir! You're the kind o' dreamer that just
sets out on the back fence and thinks about how much trouble there must
be in the world! That ain't the kind that builds the bridges, Bibbs;
it's the kind that borrows fifteen cents from his wife's uncle's
brother-in-law to get ten cent's worth o' plug tobacco and a nickel's
worth o' quinine!”

He put the finishing touch on this etching with a snort, and turned
again to the window.

“Look out there!” he bade his son. “Look out o' that window! Look at the
life and energy down there! I should think ANY young man's blood would
tingle to get into it and be part of it. Look at the big things young
men are doin' in this town!” He swung about, coming to the mahogany desk
in the middle of the room. “Look at what I was doin' at your age! Look
at what your own brothers are doin'! Look at Roscoe! Yes, and look
at Jim! I made Jim president o' the Sheridan Realty Company last
New-Year's, with charge of every inch o' ground and every brick and
every shingle and stick o' wood we own; and it's an example to any young
man--or ole man, either--the way he took ahold of it. Last July we found
out we wanted two more big warehouses at the Pump Works--wanted 'em
quick. Contractors said it couldn't be done; said nine or ten months
at the soonest; couldn't see it any other way. What'd Jim do? Took the
contract himself; found a fellow with a new cement and concrete process;
kept men on the job night and day, and stayed on it night and day
himself--and, by George! we begin to USE them warehouses next week! Four
months and a half, and every inch fireproof! I tell you Jim's one o'
these fellers that make miracles happen! Now, I don't say every young
man can be like Jim, because there's mighty few got his ability, but
every young man can go in and do his share. This town is God's own
country, and there's opportunity for anybody with a pound of energy and
an ounce o' gumption. I tell you these young business men I watch just
do my heart good! THEY don't set around on the back fence--no, sir! They
take enough exercise to keep their health; and they go to a baseball
game once or twice a week in summer, maybe, and they're raisin' nice
families, with sons to take their places sometime and carry on the
work--because the work's got to go ON! They're puttin' their life-blood
into it, I tell you, and that's why we're gettin' bigger every minute,
and why THEY'RE gettin' bigger, and why it's all goin' to keep ON
gettin' bigger!”

He slapped the desk resoundingly with his open palm, and then, observing
that Bibbs remained in the same impassive attitude, with his eyes still
fixed upon the ceiling in a contemplation somewhat plaintive, Sheridan
was impelled to groan. “Oh, Lord!” he said. “This is the way you always
were. I don't believe you understood a darn word I been sayin'! You
don't LOOK as if you did. By George! it's discouraging!”

“I don't understand about getting--about getting bigger,” said Bibbs,
bringing his gaze down to look at his father placatively. “I don't see
just why--”

“WHAT?” Sheridan leaned forward, resting his hands upon the desk and
staring across it incredulously at his son.

“I don't understand--exactly--what you want it all bigger for?”

“Great God!” shouted Sheridan, and struck the desk a blow with his
clenched fist. “A son of mine asks me that! You go out and ask the
poorest day-laborer you can find! Ask him that question--”

“I did once,” Bibbs interrupted; “when I was in the machine-shop. I--”

“Wha'd he say?”

“He said, 'Oh, hell!'” answered Bibbs, mildly.

“Yes, I reckon he would!” Sheridan swung away from the desk. “I reckon
he certainly would! And I got plenty sympathy with him right now,
myself!”

“It's the same answer, then?” Bibbs's voice was serious, almost
tremulous.

“Damnation!” Sheridan roared. “Did you ever hear the word Prosperity,
you ninny? Did you ever hear the word Ambition? Did you ever hear the
word PROGRESS?”

He flung himself into a chair after the outburst, his big chest surging,
his throat tumultuous with gutteral incoherences. “Now then,” he said,
huskily, when the anguish had somewhat abated, “what do you want to do?”

“Sir?”

“What do you WANT to do, I said.”

Taken by surprise, Bibbs stammered. “What--what do--I--what--”

“If I'd let you do exactly what you had the whim for, what would you
do?”

Bibbs looked startled; then timidity overwhelmed him--a profound
shyness. He bent his head and fixed his lowered eyes upon the toe of his
shoe, which he moved to and fro upon the rug, like a culprit called to
the desk in school.

“What would you do? Loaf?”

“No, sir.” Bibbs's voice was almost inaudible, and what little sound it
made was unquestionably a guilty sound. “I suppose I'd--I'd--”

“Well?”

“I suppose I'd try to--to write.”

“Write what?”

“Nothing important--just poems and essays, perhaps.”

“That all?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I see,” said his father, breathing quickly with the restraint he was
putting upon himself. “That is, you want to write, but you don't want to
write anything of any account.”

“You think--”

Sheridan got up again. “I take my hat off to the man that can write
a good ad,” he said, emphatically. “The best writin' talent in this
country is right spang in the ad business to-day. You buy a magazine for
good writin'--look on the back of it! Let me tell you I pay money for
that kind o' writin'. Maybe you think it's easy. Just try it! I've tried
it, and I can't do it. I tell you an ad's got to be written so it makes
people do the hardest thing in this world to GET 'em to do: it's got to
make 'em give up their MONEY! You talk about 'poems and essays.' I tell
you when it comes to the actual skill o' puttin' words together so as to
make things HAPPEN, R. T. Bloss, right here in this city, knows more in
a minute than George Waldo Emerson ever knew in his whole life!”

“You--you may be--” Bibbs said, indistinctly, the last word smothered in
a cough.

“Of COURSE I'm right! And if it ain't just like you to want to take up
with the most out-o'-date kind o' writin' there is! 'Poems and essays'!
My Lord, Bibbs, that's WOMEN'S work! You can't pick up a newspaper
without havin' to see where Mrs. Rumskididle read a paper on 'Jane
Eyre,' or 'East Lynne,' at the God-Knows-What Club. And 'poetry'! Why,
look at Edith! I expect that poem o' hers would set a pretty high-water
mark for you, young man, and it's the only one she's ever managed to
write in her whole LIFE! When I wanted her to go on and write some more
she said it took too much time. Said it took months and months. And
Edith's a smart girl; she's got more energy in her little finger than
you ever give me a chance to see in your whole body, Bibbs. Now look
at the facts: say she could turn out four or five poems a year and you
could turn out maybe two. That medal she got was worth about fifteen
dollars, so there's your income--thirty dollars a year! That's a fine
success to make of your life! I'm not sayin' a word against poetry. I
wouldn't take ten thousand dollars right now for that poem of Edith's;
and poetry's all right enough in its place--but you leave it to the
girls. A man's got to do a man's work in this world!”

He seated himself in a chair at his son's side and, leaning over, tapped
Bibbs confidentially on the knee. “This city's got the greatest future
in America, and if my sons behave right by me and by themselves they're
goin' to have a mighty fair share of it--a mighty fair share. I love
this town. It's God's own footstool, and it's made money for me every
day right along, I don't know how many years. I love it like I do my own
business, and I'd fight for it as quick as I'd fight for my own family.
It's a beautiful town. Look at our wholesale district; look at any
district you want to; look at the park system we're puttin' through,
and the boulevards and the public statuary. And she grows. God! how she
grows!” He had become intensely grave; he spoke with solemnity. “Now,
Bibbs, I can't take any of it--nor any gold or silver nor buildings nor
bonds--away with me in my shroud when I have to go. But I want to leave
my share in it to my boys. I've worked for it; I've been a builder and
a maker; and two blades of grass have grown where one grew before,
whenever I laid my hand on the ground and willed 'em to grow. I've built
big, and I want the buildin' to go on. And when my last hour comes I
want to know that my boys are ready to take charge; that they're fit
to take charge and go ON with it. Bibbs, when that hour comes I want
to know that my boys are big men, ready and fit to take hold of big things.
Bibbs, when I'm up above I want to know that the big share I've made
mine, here below, is growin' bigger and bigger in the charge of my
boys.”

He leaned back, deeply moved. “There!” he said, huskily. “I've never
spoken more what was in my heart in my life. I do it because I want you
to understand--and not think me a mean father. I never had to talk that
way to Jim and Roscoe. They understood without any talk, Bibbs.”

“I see,” said Bibbs. “At least I think I do. But--”

“Wait a minute!” Sheridan raised his hand. “If you see the least bit
in the world, then you understand how it feels to me to have my son set
here and talk about 'poems and essays' and such-like fooleries. And you
must understand, too, what it meant to start one o' my boys and have
him come back on me the way you did, and have to be sent to a sanitarium
because he couldn't stand work. Now, let's get right down to it, Bibbs.
I've had a whole lot o' talk with ole Doc Gurney about you, one time
another, and I reckon I understand your case just about as well as he
does, anyway! Now here, I'll be frank with you. I started you in harder
than what I did the other boys, and that was for your own good, because
I saw you needed to be shook up more'n they did. You were always kind of
moody and mopish--and you needed work that'd keep you on the jump. Now,
why did it make you sick instead of brace you up and make a man of you
the way it ought of done? I pinned ole Gurney down to it. I says, 'Look
here, ain't it really because he just plain hated it?' 'Yes,' he says,
'that's it. If he'd enjoyed it, it wouldn't 'a' hurt him. He loathes it,
and that affects his nervous system. The more he tries it, the more he
hates it; and the more he hates it, the more injury it does him.' That
ain't quite his words, but it's what he meant. And that's about the way
it is.”

“Yes,” said Bibbs, “that's about the way it is.”

“Well, then, I reckon it's up to me not only to make you do it, but to
make you like it!”

Bibbs shivered. And he turned upon his father a look that was almost
ghostly. “I can't,” he said, in a low voice. “I can't.”

“Can't go back to the shop?”

“No. Can't like it. I can't.”

Sheridan jumped up, his patience gone. To his own view, he had reasoned
exhaustively, had explained fully and had pleaded more than a father
should, only to be met in the end with the unreasoning and mysterious
stubbornness which had been Bibbs's baffling characteristic from
childhood. “By George, you will!” he cried. “You'll go back there and
you'll like it! Gurney says it won't hurt you if you like it, and he
says it'll kill you if you go back and hate it; so it looks as if it
was about up to you not to hate it. Well, Gurney's a fool! Hatin' work
doesn't kill anybody; and this isn't goin' to kill you, whether you hate
it or not. I've never made a mistake in a serious matter in my life,
and it wasn't a mistake my sendin' you there in the first place. And
I'm goin' to prove it--I'm goin' to send you back there and vindicate my
judgment. Gurney says it's all 'mental attitude.' Well, you're goin'
to learn the right one! He says in a couple more months this fool thing
that's been the matter with you'll be disappeared completely and you'll
be back in as good or better condition than you were before you ever
went into the shop. And right then is when you begin over--right in that
same shop! Nobody can call me a hard man or a mean father. I do the best
I can for my chuldern, and I take full responsibility for bringin' my
sons up to be men. Now, so far, I've failed with you. But I'm not goin'
to keep ON failin'. I never tackled a job YET I didn't put through, and
I'm not goin' to begin with my own son. I'm goin' to make a MAN of you.
By God! I am!”

Bibbs rose and went slowly to the door, where he turned. “You say you
give me a couple of months?” he said.

Sheridan pushed a bell-button on his desk. “Gurney said two months more
would put you back where you were. You go home and begin to get yourself
in the right 'mental attitude' before those two months are up! Good-by!”

“Good-by, sir,” said Bibbs, meekly.



CHAPTER X

Bibbs's room, that neat apartment for transients to which the “lamidal”
 George had shown him upon his return, still bore the appearance of
temporary quarters, possibly because Bibbs had no clear conception
of himself as a permanent incumbent. However, he had set upon the
mantelpiece the two photographs that he owned: one, a “group” twenty
years old--his father and mother, with Jim and Roscoe as boys--and the
other a “cabinet” of Edith at sixteen. And upon a table were the books
he had taken from his trunk: Sartor Resartus, Virginibus Puerisque,
Huckleberry Finn, and Afterwhiles. There were some other books in the
trunk--a large one, which remained unremoved at the foot of the bed,
adding to the general impression of transiency. It contained nearly all
the possessions as well as the secret life of Bibbs Sheridan, and Bibbs
sat beside it, the day after his interview with his father, raking over
a small collection of manuscripts in the top tray. Some of these he
glanced through dubiously, finding little comfort in them; but one made
him smile. Then he shook his head ruefully indeed, and ruefully began to
read it. It was written on paper stamped “Hood Sanitarium,” and bore the
title, “Leisure.”

  A man may keep a quiet heart at seventy miles an hour, but not if
  he is running the train.  Nor is the habit of contemplation a useful
  quality in the stoker of a foundry furnace; it will not be found to
  recommend him to the approbation of his superiors.  For a profession
  adapted solely to the pursuit of happiness in thinking, I would
  choose that of an invalid:  his money is time and he may spend it on
  Olympus.  It will not suffice to be an amateur invalid.  To my way
  of thinking, the perfect practitioner must be to all outward
  purposes already dead if he is to begin the perfect enjoyment of
  life.  His serenity must not be disturbed by rumors of recovery; he
  must lie serene in his long chair in the sunshine.  The world must
  be on the other side of the wall, and the wall must be so thick and
  so high that he cannot hear the roaring of the furnace fires and the
  screaming of the whistles.  Peace--

Having read so far as the word “peace,” Bibbs suffered an interruption
interesting as a coincidence of contrast. High voices sounded in the
hall just outside his door; and it became evident that a woman's quarrel
was in progress, the parties to it having begun it in Edith's room, and
continuing it vehemently as they came out into the hall.

“Yes, you BETTER go home!” Bibbs heard his sister vociferating, shrilly.
“You better go home and keep your mind a little more on your HUSBAND!”

“Edie, Edie!” he heard his mother remonstrating, as peacemaker.

“You see here!” This was Sibyl, and her voice was both acrid and
tremulous. “Don't you talk to me that way! I came here to tell Mother
Sheridan what I'd heard, and to let her tell Father Sheridan if she
thought she ought to, and I did it for your own good.”

“Yes, you did!” And Edith's gibing laughter tooted loudly. “Yes, you
did! YOU didn't have any other reason! OH no! YOU don't want to break it
up between Bobby Lamhorn and me because--”

“Edie, Edie! Now, now!”

“Oh, hush up, mamma! I'd like to know, then, if she says her new friends
tell her he's got such a reputation that he oughtn't to come here, what
about his not going to HER house. How--”

“I've explained that to Mother Sheridan.” Sibyl's voice indicated that
she was descending the stairs. “Married people are not the same. Some
things that should be shielded from a young girl--”

This seemed to have no very soothing effect upon Edith. “'Shielded from
a young girl'!” she shrilled. “You seem pretty willing to be the shield!
You look out Roscoe doesn't notice what kind of a shield you are!”

Sibyl's answer was inaudible, but Mrs. Sheridan's flurried attempts at
pacification were renewed. “Now, Edie, Edie, she means it for your good,
and you'd oughtn't to--”

“Oh, hush up, mamma, and let me alone! If you dare tell papa--”

“Now, now! I'm not going to tell him to-day, and maybe--”

“You've got to promise NEVER to tell him!” the girl cried, passionately.

“Well, we'll see. You just come back in your own room, and we'll--”

“No! I WON'T 'talk it over'! Stop pulling me! Let me ALONE!” And Edith,
flinging herself violently upon Bibbs's door, jerked it open, swung
round it into the room, slammed the door behind her, and threw herself,
face down, upon the bed in such a riot of emotion that she had no
perception of Bibbs's presence in the room. Gasping and sobbing in a
passion of tears, she beat the coverlet and pillows with her clenched
fists. “Sneak!” she babbled aloud. “Sneak! Snake-in-the-grass! Cat!”

Bibbs saw that she did not know he was there, and he went softly toward
the door, hoping to get away before she became aware of him; but some
sound of his movement reached her, and she sat up, startled, facing him.

“Bibbs! I thought I saw you go out awhile ago.”

“Yes. I came back, though. I'm sorry--”

“Did you hear me quarreling with Sibyl?”

“Only what you said in the hall. You lie down again, Edith. I'm going
out.”

“No; don't go.” She applied a handkerchief to her eyes, emitted a sob,
and repeated her request. “Don't go. I don't mind you; you're quiet,
anyhow. Mamma's so fussy, and never gets anywhere. I don't mind you at
all, but I wish you'd sit down.”

“All right.” And he returned to his chair beside the trunk. “Go ahead
and cry all you want, Edith,” he said. “No harm in that!”

“Sibyl told mamma--OH!” she began, choking. “Mary Vertrees had mamma and
Sibyl and I to tea, one afternoon two weeks or so ago, and she had some
women there that Sibyl's been crazy to get in with, and she just laid
herself out to make a hit with 'em, and she's been running after 'em
ever since, and now she comes over here and says THEY say Bobby Lamhorn
is so bad that, even though they like his family, none of the nice
people in town would let him in their houses. In the first place, it's
a falsehood, and I don't believe a word of it; and in the second place
I know the reason she did it, and, what's more, she KNOWS I know it! I
won't SAY what it is--not yet--because papa and all of you would think
I'm as crazy as she is snaky; and Roscoe's such a fool he'd probably
quit speaking to me. But it's true! Just you watch her; that's all I
ask. Just you watch that woman. You'll see!”

As it happened, Bibbs was literally watching “that woman.” Glancing from
the window, he saw Sibyl pause upon the pavement in front of the old
house next door. She stood a moment, in deep thought, then walked
quickly up the path to the door, undoubtedly with the intention
of calling. But he did not mention this to his sister, who, after
delivering herself of a rather vague jeremiad upon the subject of her
sister-in-law's treacheries, departed to her own chamber, leaving him to
his speculations. The chief of these concerned the social elasticities
of women. Sibyl had just been a participant in a violent scene; she had
suffered hot insult of a kind that could not fail to set her quivering
with resentment; and yet she elected to betake herself to the presence
of people whom she knew no more than “formally.” Bibbs marveled. Surely,
he reflected, some traces of emotion must linger upon Sibyl's face or in
her manner; she could not have ironed it all quite out in the three or
four minutes it took her to reach the Vertreeses' door.

And in this he was not mistaken, for Mary Vertrees was at that moment
wondering what internal excitement Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan was striving to
master. But Sibyl had no idea that she was allowing herself to exhibit
anything except the gaiety which she conceived proper to the manner of a
casual caller. She was wholly intent upon fulfilling the sudden purpose
that brought her, and she was no more self-conscious than she was finely
intelligent. For Sibyl Sheridan belonged to a type Scriptural in its
antiquity. She was merely the idle and half-educated intriguer who may
and does delude men, of course, and the best and dullest of her own sex
as well, finding invariably strong supporters among these latter. It is
a type that has wrought some damage in the world and would have wrought
greater, save for the check put upon its power by intelligent women
and by its own “lack of perspective,” for it is a type that never sees
itself. Sibyl followed her impulses with no reflection or question--it
was like a hound on the gallop after a master on horseback. She had not
even the instinct to stop and consider her effect. If she wished to make
a certain impression she believed that she made it. She believed that
she was believed.

“My mother asked me to say that she was sorry she couldn't come down,”
 Mary said, when they were seated.

Sibyl ran the scale of a cooing simulance of laughter, which she had
been brought up to consider the polite thing to do after a remark
addressed to her by any person with whom she was not on familiar terms.
It was intended partly as a courtesy and partly as the foundation for an
impression of sweetness.

“Just thought I'd fly in a minute,” she said, continuing the cooing to
relieve the last doubt of her gentiality. “I thought I'd just behave
like REAL country neighbors. We are almost out in the country, so far
from down-town, aren't we? And it seemed such a LOVELY day! I wanted
to tell you how much I enjoyed meeting those nice people at tea that
afternoon. You see, coming here a bride and never having lived here
before, I've had to depend on my husband's friends almost entirely, and
I really've known scarcely anybody. Mr. Sheridan has been so engrossed
in business ever since he was a mere boy, why, of course--”

She paused, with the air of having completed an explanation.

“Of course,” said Mary, sympathetically accepting it.

“Yes. I've been seeing quite a lot of the Kittersbys since that
afternoon,” Sibyl went on. “They're really delightful people. Indeed
they are! Yes--”

She stopped with unconscious abruptness, her mind plainly wandering to
another matter; and Mary perceived that she had come upon a definite
errand. Moreover, a tensing of Sibyl's eyelids, in that moment of
abstraction as she looked aside from her hostess, indicated that the
errand was a serious one for the caller and easily to be connected
with the slight but perceptible agitation underlying her assumption of
cheerful ease. There was a restlessness of breathing, a restlessness of
hands.

“Mrs. Kittersby and her daughter were chatting about some of the people
here in town the other day,” said Sibyl, repeating the cooing and
protracting it. “They said something that took ME by surprise! We were
talking about our mutual friend, Mr. Robert Lamhorn--”

Mary interrupted her promptly. “Do you mean 'mutual' to include my
mother and me?” she asked.

“Why, yes; the Kittersbys and you and all of us Sheridans, I mean.”

“No,” said Mary. “We shouldn't consider Mr. Robert Lamhorn a friend of
ours.”

To her surprise, Sibyl nodded eagerly, as if greatly pleased. “That's
just the way Mrs. Kittersby talked!” she cried, with a vehemence that
made Mary stare. “Yes, and I hear that's the way ALL you old families
here speak of him!”

Mary looked aside, but otherwise she was able to maintain her composure.
“I had the impression he was a friend of yours,” she said; adding,
hastily, “and your husband's.”

“Oh yes,” said the caller, absently. “He is, certainly. A man's
reputation for a little gaiety oughtn't to make a great difference to
married people, of course. It's where young girls are in question. THEN
it may be very, very dangerous. There are a great many things safe and
proper for married people that might be awf'ly imprudent for a young
girl. Don't you agree, Miss Vertrees?”

“I don't know,” returned the frank Mary. “Do you mean that you intend
to remain a friend of Mr. Lamhorn's, but disapprove of Miss Sheridan's
doing so?”

“That's it exactly!” was the naive and ardent response of Sibyl. “What
I feel about it is that a man with his reputation isn't at all suitable
for Edith, and the family ought to be made to understand it. I tell
you,” she cried, with a sudden access of vehemence, “her father ought to
put his foot down!”

Her eyes flashed with a green spark; something seemed to leap out and
then retreat, but not before Mary had caught a glimpse of it, as one
might catch a glimpse of a thing darting forth and then scuttling back
into hiding under a bush.

“Of course,” said Sibyl, much more composedly, “I hardly need say that
it's entirely on Edith's account that I'm worried about this. I'm as
fond of Edith as if she was really my sister, and I can't help fretting
about it. It would break my heart to have Edith's life spoiled.”

This tune was off the key, to Mary's ear. Sibyl tried to sing with
pathos, but she flatted.

And when a lady receives a call from another who suffers under the
stress of some feeling which she wishes to conceal, there is not
uncommonly developed a phenomenon of duality comparable to the effect
obtained by placing two mirrors opposite each other, one clear and
the other flawed. In this case, particularly, Sibyl had an imperfect
consciousness of Mary. The Mary Vertrees that she saw was merely
something to be cozened to her own frantic purpose--a Mary Vertrees who
was incapable of penetrating that purpose. Sibyl sat there believing
that she was projecting the image of herself that she desired to
project, never dreaming that with every word, every look, and every
gesture she was more and more fully disclosing the pitiable truth to
the clear eyes of Mary. And the Sibyl that Mary saw was an overdressed
woman, in manner half rustic, and in mind as shallow as a pan, but
possessed by emotions that appeared to be strong--perhaps even violent.
What those emotions were Mary had not guessed, but she began to suspect.

“And Edith's life WOULD be spoiled,” Sibyl continued. “It would be a
dreadful thing for the whole family. She's the very apple of Father
Sheridan's eye, and he's as proud of her as he is of Jim and Roscoe. It
would be a horrible thing for him to have her marry a man like Robert
Lamhorn; but he doesn't KNOW anything about him, and if somebody doesn't
tell him, what I'm most afraid of is that Edith might get his consent
and hurry on the wedding before he finds out, and then it would be too
late. You see, Miss Vertrees, it's very difficult for me to decide just
what it's my duty to do.”

“I see,” said Mary, looking at her thoughtfully, “Does Miss Sheridan
seem to--to care very much about him?”

“He's deliberately fascinated her,” returned the visitor, beginning to
breathe quickly and heavily. “Oh, she wasn't difficult! She knew she
wasn't in right in this town, and she was crazy to meet the people that
were, and she thought he was one of 'em. But that was only the start
that made it easy for him--and he didn't need it. He could have done
it, anyway!” Sibyl was launched now; her eyes were furious and her voice
shook. “He went after her deliberately, the way he does everything; he's
as cold-blooded as a fish. All he cares about is his own pleasure, and
lately he's decided it would be pleasant to get hold of a piece of real
money--and there was Edith! And he'll marry her! Nothing on earth can
stop him unless he finds out she won't HAVE any money if she marries
him, and the only person that could make him understand that is Father
Sheridan. Somehow, that's got to be managed, because Lamhorn is going to
hurry it on as fast as he can. He told me so last night. He said he was
going to marry her the first minute he could persuade her to it--and
little Edith's all ready to be persuaded!” Sibyl's eyes flashed green
again. “And he swore he'd do it,” she panted. “He swore he'd marry Edith
Sheridan, and nothing on earth could stop him!”

And then Mary understood. Her lips parted and she stared at the babbling
creature incredulously, a sudden vivid picture in her mind, a canvas of
unconscious Sibyl's painting. Mary beheld it with pity and horror: she
saw Sibyl clinging to Robert Lamhorn, raging, in a whisper, perhaps--for
Roscoe might have been in the house, or servants might have heard.
She saw Sibyl entreating, beseeching, threatening despairingly, and
Lamhorn--tired of her--first evasive, then brutally letting her have the
truth; and at last, infuriated, “swearing” to marry her rival. If Sibyl
had not babbled out the word “swore” it might have been less plain.

The poor woman blundered on, wholly unaware of what she had confessed.
“You see,” she said, more quietly, “whatever's going to be done ought to
be done right away. I went over and told Mother Sheridan what I'd heard
about Lamhorn--oh, I was open and aboveboard! I told her right before
Edith. I think it ought all to be done with perfect frankness, because
nobody can say it isn't for the girl's own good and what her best friend
would do. But Mother Sheridan's under Edith's thumb, and she's afraid
to ever come right out with anything. Father Sheridan's different. Edith
can get anything she wants out of him in the way of money or ordinary
indulgence, but when it comes to a matter like this he'd be a steel
rock. If it's a question of his will against anybody else's he'd make
his will rule if it killed 'em both! Now, he'd never in the world let
Lamhorn come near the house again if he knew his reputation. So, you
see, somebody's got to tell him. It isn't a very easy position for me,
is it, Miss Vertrees?”

“No,” said Mary, gravely.

“Well, to be frank,” said Sibyl, smiling, “that's why I've come to you.”

“To ME!” Mary frowned.

Sibyl rippled and cooed again. “There isn't ANYBODY ever made such a hit
with Father Sheridan in his life as you have. And of course we ALL
hope you're not going to be exactly an outsider in the affairs of the
family!” (This sally with another and louder effect of laughter). “And
if it's MY duty, why, in a way, I think it might be thought yours, too.”

“No, no!” exclaimed Mary, sharply.

“Listen,” said Sibyl. “Now suppose I go to Father Sheridan with this
story, and Edith says it's not true; suppose she says Lamhorn has a
good reputation and that I'm repeating irresponsible gossip, or suppose
(what's most likely) she loses her temper and says I invented it, then
what am I going to do? Father Sheridan doesn't know Mrs. Kittersby and
her daughter, and they're out of the question, anyway. But suppose I
could say: 'All right, if you want proof, ask Miss Vertrees. She came
with me, and she's waiting in the next room right now, to--”

“No, no,” said Mary, quickly. “You mustn't--”

“Listen just a minute more,” Sibyl urged, confidingly. She was on easy
ground now, to her own mind, and had no doubt of her success. “You
naturally don't want to begin by taking part in a family quarrel, but
if YOU take part in it, it won't be one. You don't know yourself what
weight you carry over there, and no one would have the right to say you
did it except out of the purest kindness. Don't you see that Jim and
his father would admire you all the more for it? Miss Vertrees, listen!
Don't you see we OUGHT to do it, you and I? Do you suppose Robert
Lamhorn cares a snap of his finger for her? Do you suppose a man like
him would LOOK at Edith Sheridan if it wasn't for the money?” And again
Sibyl's emotion rose to the surface. “I tell you he's after nothing on
earth but to get his finger in that old man's money-pile, over there,
next door! He'd marry ANYBODY to do it. Marry Edith?” she cried. “I tell
you he'd marry their nigger cook for THAT!”

She stopped, afraid--at the wrong time--that she had been too vehement,
but a glance at Mary reassured her, and Sibyl decided that she had
produced the effect she wished. Mary was not looking at her; she was
staring straight before her at the wall, her eyes wide and shining. She
became visibly a little paler as Sibyl looked at her.

“After nothing on earth but to get his finger in that old man's
money-pile, over there, next door!” The voice was vulgar, the words were
vulgar--and the plain truth was vulgar! How it rang in Mary Vertrees's
ears! The clear mirror had caught its own image clearly in the flawed
one at last.

Sibyl put forth her best bid to clench the matter. She offered her
bargain. “Now don't you worry,” she said, sunnily, “about this setting
Edith against you. She'll get over it after a while, anyway, but if she
tried to be spiteful and make it uncomfortable for you when you drop in
over there, or managed so as to sort of leave you out, why, I've got a
house, and Jim likes to come there. I don't THINK Edith WOULD be that
way; she's too crazy to have you take her around with the smart crowd,
but if she DID, you needn't worry. And another thing--I guess you won't
mind Jim's own sister-in-law speaking of it. Of course, I don't know
just how matters stand between you and Jim, but Jim and Roscoe are about
as much alike as two brothers can be, and Roscoe was very slow making up
his mind; sometimes I used to think he actually never WOULD. Now, what
I mean is, sisters-in-law can do lots of things to help matters on like
that. There's lots of little things can be said, and lots--”

She stopped, puzzled. Mary Vertrees had gone from pale to scarlet, and
now, still scarlet indeed, she rose, without a word of explanation, or
any other kind of word, and walked slowly to the open door and out of
the room.

Sibyl was a little taken aback. She supposed Mary had remembered
something neglected and necessary for the instruction of a servant, and
that she would return in a moment; but it was rather a rude excess of
absent-mindedness not to have excused herself, especially as her guest
was talking. And, Mary's return being delayed, Sibyl found time to think
this unprefaced exit odder and ruder than she had first considered it.
There might have been more excuse for it, she thought, had she been
speaking of matters less important--offering to do the girl all the
kindness in her power, too!

Sibyl yawned and swung her muff impatiently; she examined the sole of
her shoe; she decided on a new shape of heel; she made an inventory
of the furniture of the room, of the rugs, of the wall-paper and
engravings. Then she looked at her watch and frowned; went to a window
and stood looking out upon the brown lawn, then came back to the chair
she had abandoned, and sat again. There was no sound in the house.

A strange expression began imperceptibly to alter the planes of her
face, and slowly she grew as scarlet as Mary--scarlet to the ears. She
looked at her watch again--and twenty-five minutes had elapsed since she
had looked at it before.

She went into the hall, glanced over her shoulder oddly; then she let
herself softly out of the front door, and went across the street to her
own house.

Roscoe met her upon the threshold, gloomily. “Saw you from the window,”
 he explained. “You must find a lot to say to that old lady.”

“What old lady?”

“Mrs. Vertrees. I been waiting for you a long time, and I saw the
daughter come out, fifteen minutes ago, and post a letter, and then walk
on up the street. Don't stand out on the porch,” he said, crossly.
“Come in here. There's something it's come time I'll have to talk to you
about. Come in!”

But as she was moving to obey he glanced across at his father's house
and started. He lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the setting sun,
staring fixedly. “Something's the matter over there,” he muttered, and
then, more loudly, as alarm came into his voice, he said, “What's the
matter over there?”

Bibbs dashed out of the gate in an automobile set at its highest speed,
and as he saw Roscoe he made a gesture singularly eloquent of calamity,
and was lost at once in a cloud of dust down the street. Edith had
followed part of the way down the drive, and it could be seen that she
was crying bitterly. She lifted both arms to Roscoe, summoning him.

“By George!” gasped Roscoe. “I believe somebody's dead!”

And he started for the New House at a run.



CHAPTER XI

Sheridan had decided to conclude his day's work early that afternoon,
and at about two o'clock he left his office with a man of affairs from
foreign parts, who had traveled far for a business conference with
Sheridan and his colleagues. Herr Favre, in spite of his French name,
was a gentleman of Bavaria. It was his first visit to our country, and
Sheridan took pleasure in showing him the sights of the country's finest
city. They got into an open car at the main entrance of the Sheridan
Building, and were driven first, slowly and momentously, through the
wholesale district and the retail district; then more rapidly they
inspected the packing-houses and the stock-yards; then skirmished over
the “park system” and “boulevards”; and after that whizzed through the
“residence section” on their way to the factories and foundries.

“All cray,” observed Herr Favre, smilingly.

“'Cray'?” echoed Sheridan. “I don't know what you mean. 'Cray'?”

“No white,” said Herr Favre, with a wave of his hand toward the
long rows of houses on both sides of the street. “No white lace
window-curtains; all cray lace window-curtains.”

“Oh. I see!” Sheridan laughed indulgently. “You mean 'GRAY.' No, they
ain't, they're white. I never saw any gray ones.”

Herr Favre shook his head, much amused. “There are NO white ones,”
 he said. “There is no white ANYTHING in your city; no white
window-curtains, no white house, no white peeble!” He pointed upward.
“Smoke!” Then he sniffed the air and clasped his nose between forefinger
and thumb. “Smoke! Smoke ef'rywhere. Smoke in your insites.” He tapped
his chest. “Smoke in your lunks!”

“Oh! SMOKE!” Sheridan cried with gusto, drawing in a deep breath and
patently finding it delicious. “You BET we got smoke!”

“Exbensif!” said Herr Favre. “Ruins foliage; ruins fabrics. Maybe in
summer it iss not so bad, but I wonder your wifes will bear it.”

Sheridan laughed uproariously. “They know it means new spring hats for
'em!”

“They must need many, too!” said the visitor. “New hats, new all things,
but nothing white. In Munchen we could not do it; we are a safing
peeble.”

“Where's that?”

“In Munchen. You say 'Munich.'”

“Well, I never been to Munich, but I took in the Mediterranean trip,
and I tell you, outside o' some right good scenery, all I saw was mighty
dirty and mighty shiftless and mighty run-down at the heel. Now comin'
right down TO it, Mr. Farver, wouldn't you rather live here in this town
than in Munich? I know you got more enterprise up there than the part of
the old country I saw, and I know YOU'RE a live business man and you're
associated with others like you, but when it comes to LIVIN' in a place,
wouldn't you heap rather be here than over there?”

“For me,” said Herr Favre, “no. Here I should not think I was living. It
would be like the miner who goes into the mine to work; nothing else.”

“We got a good many good citizens here from your part o' the world. THEY
like it.”

“Oh yes.” And Herr Favre laughed deprecatingly. “The first generation,
they bring their Germany with them; then, after that, they are
Americans, like you.” He tapped his host's big knee genially. “You are
patriot; so are they.”

“Well, I reckon you must be a pretty hot little patriot yourself, Mr.
Farver!” Sheridan exclaimed, gaily. “You certainly stand up for your
own town, if you stick to sayin' you'd rather live there than you would
here. Yes, SIR! You sure are some patriot to say THAT--after you've seen
our city! It ain't reasonable in you, but I must say I kind of admire
you for it; every man ought to stick up for his own, even when he sees
the other fellow's got the goods on him. Yet I expect way down deep in
your heart, Mr. Farver, you'd rather live right here than any place else
in the world, if you had your choice. Man alive! this is God's country,
Mr. Farver, and a blind man couldn't help seein' it! You couldn't stand
where you do in a business way and NOT see it. Soho, boy! Here we are.
This is the big works, and I'll show you something now that'll make your
eyes stick out!”

They had arrived at the Pump Works; and for an hour Mr. Favre was
personally conducted and personally instructed by the founder and
president, the buzzing queen bee of those buzzing hives.

“Now I'll take you for a spin in the country,” said Sheridan, when at
last they came out to the car again. “We'll take a breezer.” But, with
his foot on the step, he paused to hail a neat young man who came out
of the office smiling a greeting. “Hello, young fellow!” Sheridan said,
heartily. “On the job, are you, Jimmie? Ha! They don't catch you OFF of
it very often, I guess, though I do hear you go automobile-ridin' in
the country sometimes with a mighty fine-lookin' girl settin' up beside
you!” He roared with laughter, clapping his son upon the shoulder.
“That's all right with me--if it is with HER! So, Jimmie? Well, when we
goin' to move into your new warehouses? Monday?”

“Sunday, if you want to,” said Jim.

“No!” cried his father, delighted. “Don't tell me you're goin' to keep
your word about dates! That's no way to do contractin'! Never heard of a
contractor yet didn't want more time.”

“They'll be all ready for you on the minute,” said Jim. “I'm going over
both of 'em now, with Links and Sherman, from foundation to roof. I
guess they'll pass inspection, too!”

“Well, then, when you get through with that,” said his father, “you go
and take your girl out ridin'. By George! you've earned it! You tell
her you stand high with ME!” He stepped into the car, waving a waggish
farewell, and when the wheels were in motion again, he turned upon his
companion a broad face literally shining with pride. “That's my boy
Jimmie!” he said.

“Fine young man, yes,” said Herr Favre.

“I got two o' the finest boys,” said Sheridan, “I got two o' the finest
boys God ever made, and that's a fact, Mr. Farver! Jim's the oldest, and
I tell you they got to get up the day before if they expect to catch HIM
in bed! My other boy, Roscoe, he's always to the good, too, but Jim's
a wizard. You saw them two new-process warehouses, just about finished?
Well, JIM built 'em. I'll tell you about that, Mr. Farver.” And he
recited this history, describing the new process at length; in fact, he
had such pride in Jim's achievement that he told Herr Favre all about it
more than once.

“Fine young man, yes,” repeated the good Munchner, three-quarters of an
hour later. They were many miles out in the open country by this time.

“He is that!” said Sheridan, adding, as if confidentially: “I got a fine
family, Mr. Farver--fine chuldern. I got a daughter now; you take her
and put her anywhere you please, and she'll shine up with ANY of 'em.
There's culture and refinement and society in this town by the car-load,
and here lately she's been gettin' right in the thick of it--her and my
daughter-in-law, both. I got a mighty fine daughter-in-law, Mr. Farver.
I'm goin' to get you up for a meal with us before you leave town, and
you'll see--and, well, sir, from all I hear the two of 'em been holdin'
their own with the best. Myself, I and the wife never had time for much
o' that kind o' doin's, but it's all right and good for the chuldern;
and my daughter she's always kind of taken to it. I'll read you a poem
she wrote when I get you up at the house. She wrote it in school and
took the first prize for poetry with it. I tell you they don't make 'em
any smarter'n that girl, Mr. Farver. Yes, sir; take us all round, we're
a pretty happy family; yes, sir. Roscoe hasn't got any chuldern yet,
and I haven't ever spoke to him and his wife about it--it's kind of
a delicate matter--but it's about time the wife and I saw some
gran'-chuldern growin' up around us. I certainly do hanker for about
four or five little curly-headed rascals to take on my knee. Boys, I
hope, o' course; that's only natural. Jim's got his eye on a mighty
splendid-lookin' girl; lives right next door to us. I expect you heard
me joshin' him about it back yonder. She's one of the ole blue-bloods
here, and I guess it was a mighty good stock--to raise HER! She's one
these girls that stand right up and look at you! And pretty? She's
the prettiest thing you ever saw! Good size, too; good health and good
sense. Jim'll be just right if he gets her. I must say it tickles ME
to think o' the way that boy took ahold o' that job back yonder. Four
months and a half! Yes, sir--”

He expanded this theme once more; and thus he continued to entertain
the stranger throughout the long drive. Darkness had fallen before they
reached the city on their return, and it was after five when Sheridan
allowed Herr Favre to descend at the door of his hotel, where boys were
shrieking extra editions of the evening paper.

“Now, good night, Mr. Farver,” said Sheridan, leaning from the car to
shake hands with his guest. “Don't forget I'm goin' to come around and
take you up to--Go on away, boy!”

A newsboy had thrust himself almost between them, yelling, “Extry!
Secon' Extry. Extry, all about the horrable acciDENT. Extry!”

“Get out!” laughed Sheridan. “Who wants to read about accidents? Get
out!”

The boy moved away philosophically. “Extry! Extry!” he shrilled. “Three
men killed! Extry! Millionaire killed! Two other men killed! Extry!
Extry!”

“Don't forget, Mr. Farver,” Sheridan completed his interrupted
farewells. “I'll come by to take you up to our house for dinner. I'll be
here for you about half-past five to-morrow afternoon. Hope you 'njoyed
the drive much as I have. Good night--good night!” He leaned back,
speaking to the chauffer. “Now you can take me around to the Central
City barber-shop, boy. I want to get a shave 'fore I go up home.”

“Extry! Extry!” screamed the newsboys, zig-zagging among the crowds like
bats in the dusk. “Extry! All about the horrable acciDENT! Extry!” It
struck Sheridan that the papers sent out too many “Extras”; they printed
“Extras” for all sorts of petty crimes and casualties. It was a mistake,
he decided, critically. Crying “Wolf!” too often wouldn't sell the
goods; it was bad business. The papers would “make more in the long
run,” he was sure, if they published an “Extra” only when something of
real importance happened.

“Extry! All about the hor'ble AX'nt! Extry!” a boy squawked under his
nose, as he descended from the car.

“Go on away!” said Sheridan, gruffly, though he smiled. He liked to see
the youngsters working so noisily to get on in the world.

But as he crossed the pavement to the brilliant glass doors of the
barber-shop, a second newsboy grasped the arm of the one who had thus
cried his wares.

“Say, Yallern,” said this second, hoarse with awe, “'n't chew know who
that IS?”

“Who?”

“It's SHERIDAN!”

“Jeest!” cried the first, staring insanely.

At about the same hour, four times a week--Monday, Wednesday, Friday,
and Saturday--Sheridan stopped at this shop to be shaved by the head
barber. The barbers were negroes, he was their great man, and it was
their habit to give him a “reception,” his entrance being always the
signal for a flurry of jocular hospitality, followed by general excesses
of briskness and gaiety. But it was not so this evening.

The shop was crowded. Copies of the “Extra” were being read by men
waiting, and by men in the latter stages of treatment. “Extras” lay upon
vacant seats and showed from the pockets of hanging coats.

There was a loud chatter between the practitioners and their recumbent
patients, a vocal charivari which stopped abruptly as Sheridan opened
the door. His name seemed to fizz in the air like the last sputtering
of a firework; the barbers stopped shaving and clipping; lathered men
turned their prostrate heads to stare, and there was a moment of amazing
silence in the shop.

The head barber, nearest the door, stood like a barber in a tableau. His
left hand held stretched between thumb and forefinger an elastic section
of his helpless customer's cheek, while his right hand hung poised above
it, the razor motionless. And then, roused from trance by the door's
closing, he accepted the fact of Sheridan's presence. The barber
remembered that there are no circumstances in life--or just after
it--under which a man does not need to be shaved.

He stepped forward, profoundly grave. “I be through with this man in the
chair one minute, Mist' Sheridan,” he said, in a hushed tone. “Yessuh.”
 And of a solemn negro youth who stood by, gazing stupidly, “You goin'
RESIGN?” he demanded in a fierce undertone. “You goin' take Mist'
Sheridan's coat?” He sent an angry look round the shop, and the barbers,
taking his meaning, averted their eyes and fell to work, the murmur of
subdued conversation buzzing from chair to chair.

“You sit down ONE minute, Mist' Sheridan,” said the head barber, gently.
“I fix nice chair fo' you to wait in.”

“Never mind,” said Sheridan. “Go on get through with your man.”

“Yessuh.” And he went quickly back to his chair on tiptoe, followed by
Sheridan's puzzled gaze.

Something had gone wrong in the shop, evidently. Sheridan did not know
what to make of it. Ordinarily he would have shouted a hilarious demand
for the meaning of the mystery, but an inexplicable silence had been
imposed upon him by the hush that fell upon his entrance and by the odd
look every man in the shop had bent upon him.

Vaguely disquieted, he walked to one of the seats in the rear of the
shop, and looked up and down the two lines of barbers, catching quickly
shifted, furtive glances here and there. He made this brief survey after
wondering if one of the barbers had died suddenly, that day, or the
night before; but there was no vacancy in either line.

The seat next to his was unoccupied, but some one had left a copy of
the “Extra” there, and, frowning, he picked it up and glanced at it. The
first of the swollen display lines had little meaning to him:

  Fatally Faulty.  New Process Roof Collapses Hurling Capitalist to
  Death with Inventor.  Seven Escape When Crash Comes.  Death Claims--

Thus far had he read when a thin hand fell upon the paper, covering the
print from his eyes; and, looking up, he saw Bibbs standing before him,
pale and gentle, immeasurably compassionate.

“I've come for you, father,” said Bibbs. “Here's the boy with your coat
and hat. Put them on and come home.”

And even then Sheridan did not understand. So secure was he in the
strength and bigness of everything that was his, he did not know what
calamity had befallen him. But he was frightened.

Without a word, he followed Bibbs heavily out throught the still shop,
but as they reached the pavement he stopped short and, grasping his
son's sleeve with shaking fingers, swung him round so that they stood
face to face.

“What--what--” His mouth could not do him the service he asked of it, he
was so frightened.

“Extry!” screamed a newsboy straight in his face. “Young North Side
millionaire insuntly killed! Extry!”

“Not--JIM!” said Sheridan.

Bibbs caught his father's hand in his own.

“And YOU come to tell me that?”

Sheridan did not know what he said. But in those first words and in the
first anguish of the big, stricken face Bibbs understood the unuttered
cry of accusation:

“Why wasn't it you?”



CHAPTER XII

Standing in the black group under gaunt trees at the cemetery, three
days later, Bibbs unwillingly let an old, old thought become definite
in his mind: the sickly brother had buried the strong brother, and Bibbs
wondered how many million times that had happened since men first made a
word to name the sons of one mother. Almost literally he had buried his
strong brother, for Sheridan had gone to pieces when he saw his dead
son. He had nothing to help him meet the shock, neither definite
religion nor “philosophy” definite or indefinite. He could only beat his
forehead and beg, over and over, to be killed with an ax, while his wife
was helpless except to entreat him not to “take on,” herself adding a
continuous lamentation. Edith, weeping, made truce with Sibyl and saw to
it that the mourning garments were beyond criticism. Roscoe was dazed,
and he shirked, justifying himself curiously by saying he “never had
any experience in such matters.” So it was Bibbs, the shy outsider, who
became, during this dreadful little time, the master of the house; for
as strange a thing as that, sometimes, may be the result of a death. He
met the relatives from out of town at the station; he set the time
for the funeral and the time for meals; he selected the flowers and
he selected Jim's coffin; he did all the grim things and all the other
things. Jim had belonged to an order of Knights, who lengthened the
rites with a picturesque ceremony of their own, and at first Bibbs
wished to avoid this, but upon reflection he offered no objection--he
divined that the Knights and their service would be not precisely a
consolation, but a satisfaction to his father. So the Knights led the
procession, with their band playing a dirge part of the long way to the
cemetery; and then turned back, after forming in two lines, plumed
hats sympathetically in hand, to let the hearse and the carriages pass
between.

“Mighty fine-lookin' men,” said Sheridan, brokenly. “They all--all liked
him. He was--” His breath caught in a sob and choked him. “He was--a
Grand Supreme Herald.”

Bibbs had divined aright.

“Dust to dust,” said the minister, under the gaunt trees; and at that
Sheridan shook convulsively from head to foot. All of the black group
shivered, except Bibbs, when it came to “Dust to dust.” Bibbs stood
passive, for he was the only one of them who had known that thought as a
familiar neighbor; he had been close upon dust himself for a long, long
time, and even now he could prophesy no protracted separation between
himself and dust. The machine-shop had brought him very close, and if
he had to go back it would probably bring him closer still; so close--as
Dr. Gurney predicted--that no one would be able to tell the difference
between dust and himself. And Sheridan, if Bibbs read him truly, would
be all the more determined to “make a man” of him, now that there was
a man less in the family. To Bibbs's knowledge, no one and nothing had
ever prevented his father from carrying through his plans, once he had
determined upon them; and Sheridan was incapable of believing that any
plan of his would not work out according to his calculations. His nature
unfitted him to accept failure. He had the gift of terrible persistence,
and with unflecked confidence that his way was the only way he would
hold to that way of “making a man” of Bibbs, who understood very well,
in his passive and impersonal fashion, that it was a way which might
make, not a man, but dust of him. But he had no shudder for the thought.

He had no shudder for that thought or for any other thought. The
truth about Bibbs was in the poem which Edith had adopted: he had so
thoroughly formed the over-sensitive habit of hiding his feelings that
no doubt he had forgotten--by this time--where he had put some of them,
especially those which concerned himself. But he had not hidden his
feelings about his father where they could not be found. He was strange
to his father, but his father was not strange to him. He knew that
Sheridan's plans were conceived in the stubborn belief that they would
bring about a good thing for Bibbs himself; and whatever the result was
to be, the son had no bitterness. Far otherwise, for as he looked at the
big, woeful figure, shaking and tortured, an almost unbearable pity laid
hands upon Bibbs's throat. Roscoe stood blinking, his lip quivering;
Edith wept audibly; Mrs. Sheridan leaned in half collapse against her
husband; but Bibbs knew that his father was the one who cared.

It was over. Men in overalls stepped forward with their shovels, and
Bibbs nodded quickly to Roscoe, making a slight gesture toward the line
of waiting carriages. Roscoe understood--Bibbs would stay and see the
grave filled; the rest were to go. The groups began to move away over
the turf; wheels creaked on the graveled drive; and one by one the
carriages filled and departed, the horses setting off at a walk. Bibbs
gazed steadfastly at the workmen; he knew that his father kept looking
back as he went toward the carriage, and that was a thing he did not
want to see. But after a little while there were no sounds of wheels
or hoofs on the gravel, and Bibbs, glancing up, saw that every one had
gone. A coupe had been left for him, the driver dozing patiently.

The workmen placed the flowers and wreaths upon the mound and about
it, and Bibbs altered the position of one or two of these, then stood
looking thoughtfully at the grotesque brilliancy of that festal-seeming
hillock beneath the darkening November sky. “It's too bad!” he half
whispered, his lips forming the words--and his meaning was that it was
too bad that the strong brother had been the one to go. For this was
his last thought before he walked to the coupe and saw Mary Vertrees
standing, all alone, on the other side of the drive.

She had just emerged from a grove of leafless trees that grew on a
slope where the tombs were many; and behind her rose a multitude of the
barbaric and classic shapes we so strangely strew about our graveyards:
urn-crowned columns and stone-draped obelisks, shop-carved angels and
shop-carved children poising on pillars and shafts, all lifting--in
unthought pathos--their blind stoniness toward the sky. Against such
a background, Bibbs was not incongruous, with his figure, in black, so
long and slender, and his face so long and thin and white; nor was the
undertaker's coupe out of keeping, with the shabby driver dozing on the
box and the shaggy horses standing patiently in attitudes without
hope and without regret. But for Mary Vertrees, here was a grotesque
setting--she was a vivid, living creature of a beautiful world. And a
graveyard is not the place for people to look charming.

She also looked startled and confused, but not more startled and
confused than Bibbs. In “Edith's” poem he had declared his intention of
hiding his heart “among the stars”; and in his boyhood one day he had
successfully hidden his body in the coal-pile. He had been no comrade
of other boys or of girls, and his acquaintances of a recent period were
only a few fellow-invalids and the nurses at the Hood Sanitarium. All
his life Bibbs had kept himself to himself--he was but a shy onlooker in
the world. Nevertheless, the startled gaze he bent upon the
unexpected lady before him had causes other than his shyness and her
unexpectedness. For Mary Vertrees had been a shining figure in the
little world of late given to the view of this humble and elusive
outsider, and spectators sometimes find their hearts beating faster than
those of the actors in the spectacle. Thus with Bibbs now. He started
and stared; he lifted his hat with incredible awkwardness, his fingers
fumbling at his forehead before they found the brim.

“Mr. Sheridan,” said Mary, “I'm afraid you'll have to take me home with
you. I--” She stopped, not lacking a momentary awkwardness of her own.

“Why--why--yes,” Bibbs stammered. “I'll--I'll be de--Won't you get in?”

In that manner and in that place they exchanged their first words. Then
Mary without more ado got into the coupe, and Bibbs followed, closing
the door.

“You're very kind,” she said, somewhat breathlessly. “I should have had
to walk, and it's beginning to get dark. It's three miles, I think.”

“Yes,” said Bibbs. “It--it is beginning to get dark. I--I noticed that.”

“I ought to tell you--I--” Mary began, confusedly. She bit her lip, sat
silent a moment, then spoke with composure. “It must seem odd, my--”

“No, no!” Bibbs protested, earnestly. “Not in the--in the least.”

“It does, though,” said Mary. “I had not intended to come to the
cemetery, Mr. Sheridan, but one of the men in charge at the house came
and whispered to me that 'the family wished me to'--I think your sister
sent him. So I came. But when we reached here I--oh, I felt that perhaps
I--”

Bibbs nodded gravely. “Yes, yes,” he murmured.

“I got out on the opposite side of the carriage,” she continued. “I mean
opposite from--from where all of you were. And I wandered off over in
the other direction; and I didn't realize how little time it takes.
From where I was I couldn't see the carriages leaving--at least I didn't
notice them. So when I got back, just now, you were the only one here.
I didn't know the other people in the carriage I came in, and of course
they didn't think to wait for me. That's why--”

“Yes,” said Bibbs, “I--” And that seemed all he had to say just then.

Mary looked out through the dusty window. “I think we'd better be going
home, if you please,” she said.

“Yes,” Bibbs agreed, not moving. “It will be dark before we get there.”

She gave him a quick little glance. “I think you must be very tired,
Mr. Sheridan; and I know you have reason to be,” she said, gently. “If
you'll let me, I'll--” And without explaining her purpose she opened the
door on her side of the coupe and leaned out.

Bibbs started in blank perplexity, not knowing what she meant to do.

“Driver!” she called, in her clear voice, loudly. “Driver! We'd like to
start, please! Driver! Stop at the house just north of Mr. Sheridan's,
please.” The wheels began to move, and she leaned back beside Bibbs
once more. “I noticed that he was asleep when we got in,” she said. “I
suppose they have a great deal of night work.”

Bibbs drew a long breath and waited till he could command his voice.
“I've never been able to apologize quickly,” he said, with his
accustomed slowness, “because if I try to I stammer. My brother Roscoe
whipped me once, when we were boys, for stepping on his slate-pencil.
It took me so long to tell him it was an accident, he finished before I
did.”

Mary Vertrees had never heard anything quite like the drawling, gentle
voice or the odd implication that his not noticing the motionless state
of their vehicle was an “accident.” She had formed a casual impression
of him, not without sympathy, but at once she discovered that he was
unlike any of her cursory and vague imaginings of him. And suddenly she
saw a picture he had not intended to paint for sympathy: a sturdy boy
hammering a smaller, sickly boy, and the sickly boy unresentful. Not
that picture alone; others flashed before her. Instantaneously she had a
glimpse of Bibbs's life and into his life. She had a queer feeling, new
to her experience, of knowing him instantly. It startled her a little;
and then, with some surprise, she realized that she was glad he had sat
so long, after getting into the coupe, before he noticed that it had
not started. What she did not realize, however, was that she had made
no response to his apology, and they passed out of the cemetery gates,
neither having spoken again.

Bibbs was so content with the silence he did not know that it was
silence. The dusk, gathering in their small inclosure, was filled with a
rich presence for him; and presently it was so dark that neither of the
two could see the other, nor did even their garments touch. But neither
had any sense of being alone. The wheels creaked steadily, rumbling
presently on paved streets; there were the sounds, as from a distance,
of the plod-plod of the horses; and sometimes the driver became audible,
coughing asthmatically, or saying, “You, JOE!” with a spiritless flap of
the whip upon an unresponsive back. Oblongs of light from the lamps
at street-corners came swimming into the interior of the coupe and,
thinning rapidly to lances, passed utterly, leaving greater darkness.
And yet neither of these two last attendants at Jim Sheridan's funeral
broke the silence.

It was Mary who preceived the strangeness of it--too late. Abruptly she
realized that for an indefinite interval she had been thinking of her
companion and not talking to him. “Mr. Sheridan,” she began, not knowing
what she was going to say, but impelled to say anything, as she realized
the queerness of this drive--“Mr. Sheridan, I--”

The coupe stopped. “You, JOE!” said the driver, reproachfully, and
climbed down and opened the door.

“What's the trouble?” Bibbs inquired.

“Lady said stop at the first house north of Mr. Sheridan's, sir.”

Mary was incredulous; she felt that it couldn't be true and that it
mustn't be true that they had driven all the way without speaking.

“What?” Bibbs demanded.

“We're there, sir,” said the driver, sympathetically. “Next house north
of Mr. Sheridan's.”

Bibbs descended to the curb. “Why, yes,” he said. “Yes, you seem to
be right.” And while he stood staring at the dimly illuminated front
windows of Mr. Vertrees's house Mary got out, unassisted.

“Let me help you,” said Bibbs, stepping toward her mechanically; and she
was several feet from the coupe when he spoke.

“Oh no,” she murmured. “I think I can--” She meant that she could get
out of the coupe without help, but, perceiving that she had already
accomplished this feat, she decided not to complete the sentence.

“You, JOE!” cried the driver, angrily, climbing to his box. And he
rumbled away at his team's best pace--a snail's.

“Thank you for bringing me home, Mr. Sheridan,” said Mary, stiffly. She
did not offer her hand. “Good night.”

“Good night,” Bibbs said in response, and, turning with her, walked
beside her to the door. Mary made that a short walk; she almost ran.
Realization of the queerness of their drive was growing upon her,
beginning to shock her; she stepped aside from the light that fell
through the glass panels of the door and withheld her hand as it touched
the old-fashioned bell-handle.

“I'm quite safe, thank you,” she said, with a little emphasis. “Good
night.”

“Good night,” said Bibbs, and went obediently. When he reached the
street he looked back, but she had vanished within the house.

Moving slowly away, he caromed against two people who were turning out
from the pavement to cross the street. They were Roscoe and his wife.

“Where are your eyes, Bibbs?” demanded Roscoe. “Sleep-walking, as
usual?”

But Sibyl took the wanderer by the arm. “Come over to our house for a
little while, Bibbs,” she urged. “I want to--”

“No, I'd better--”

“Yes. I want you to. Your father's gone to bed, and they're all quiet
over there--all worn out. Just come for a minute.”

He yielded, and when they were in the house she repeated herself with
real feeling: “'All worn out!' Well, if anybody is, YOU are, Bibbs! And
I don't wonder; you've done every bit of the work of it. You mustn't get
down sick again. I'm going to make you take a little brandy.”

He let her have her own way, following her into the dining-room, and
was grateful when she brought him a tiny glass filled from one of the
decanters on the sideboard. Roscoe gloomily poured for himself a much
heavier libation in a larger glass; and the two men sat, while Sibyl
leaned against the sideboard, reviewing the episodes of the day and
recalling the names of the donors of flowers and wreaths. She pressed
Bibbs to remain longer when he rose to go, and then, as he persisted,
she went with him to the front door. He opened it, and she said:

“Bibbs, you were coming out of the Vertreeses' house when we met you.
How did you happen to be there?”

“I had only been to the door,” he said. “Good night, Sibyl.”

“Wait,” she insisted. “We saw you coming out.”

“I wasn't,” he explained, moving to depart. “I'd just brought Miss
Vertrees home.”

“What?” she cried.

“Yes,” he said, and stepped out upon the porch, “that was it. Good
night, Sibyl.”

“Wait!” she said, following him across the threshold. “How did that
happen? I thought you were going to wait while those men filled
the--the--” She paused, but moved nearer him insistently.

“I did wait. Miss Vertrees was there,” he said, reluctantly. “She
had walked away for a while and didn't notice that the carriages were
leaving. When she came back the coupe waiting for me was the only one
left.”

Sibyl regarded him with dilating eyes. She spoke with a slow
breathlessness. “And she drove home from Jim's funeral--with you!”

Without warning she burst into laughter, clapped her hand ineffectually
over her mouth, and ran back uproariously into the house, hurling the
door shut behind her.



CHAPTER XIII

Bibbs went home pondering. He did not understand why Sibyl had laughed.
The laughter itself had been spontaneous and beyond suspicion, but it
seemed to him that she had only affected the effort to suppress it and
that she wished it to be significant. Significant of what? And why had
she wished to impress upon him the fact of her overwhelming amusement?
He found no answer, but she had succeeded in disturbing him, and he
wished that he had not encountered her.

At home, uncles, aunts, and cousins from out of town were wandering
about the house, several mournfully admiring the “Bay of Naples,” and
others occupied with the Moor and the plumbing, while they waited for
trains. Edith and her mother had retired to some upper fastness, but
Bibbs interviewed Jackson and had the various groups of relatives
summoned to the dining-room for food. One great-uncle, old Gideon
Sheridan from Boonville, could not be found, and Bibbs went in search of
him. He ransacked the house, discovering the missing antique at last
by accident. Passing his father's closed door on tiptoe, Bibbs heard
a murmurous sound, and paused to listen. The sound proved to be a
quavering and rickety voice, monotonously bleating:

“The Lo-ord givuth and the Lo-ord takuth away! We got to remember that;
we got to remember that! I'm a-gittin' along, James; I'm a-gittin'
along, and I've seen a-many of 'em go--two daughters and a son the Lord
give me, and He has taken all away. For the Lo-ord givuth and the Lo-ord
takuth away! Remember the words of Bildad the Shuhite, James. Bildad the
Shuhite says, 'He shall have neither son nor nephew among his people,
nor any remaining in his dwellings.' Bildad the Shuhite--”

Bibbs opened the door softly. His father was lying upon the bed, in
his underclothes, face downward, and Uncle Gideon sat near by, swinging
backward and forward in a rocking-chair, stroking his long white beard
and gazing at the ceiling as he talked. Bibbs beckoned him urgently, but
Uncle Gideon paid no attention.

“Bildad the Shuhite spake and he says, 'If thy children have sinned
against Him and He have cast them away--'”

There was a muffled explosion beneath the floor, and the windows
rattled. The figure lying face downward on the bed did not move, but
Uncle Gideon leaped from his chair. “My God!” he cried. “What's that?”

There came a second explosion, and Uncle Gideon ran out into the hall.
Bibbs went to the head of the great staircase, and, looking down,
discovered the source of the disturbance. Gideon's grandson, a boy
of fourteen, had brought his camera to the funeral and was taking
“flash-lights” of the Moor. Uncle Gideon, reassured by Bibbs's
explanation, would have returned to finish his quotation from Bildad the
Shuhite, but Bibbs detained him, and after a little argument persuaded
him to descend to the dining-room whither Bibbs followed, after closing
the door of his father's room.

He kept his eye on Gideon after dinner, diplomatically preventing
several attempts on the part of that comforter to reascend the stairs;
and it was a relief to Bibbs when George announced that an automobile
was waiting to convey the ancient man and his grandson to their train.
They were the last to leave, and when they had gone Bibbs went sighing
to his own room.

He stretched himself wearily upon the bed, but presently rose, went to
the window, and looked for a long time at the darkened house where
Mary Vertrees lived. Then he opened his trunk, took therefrom a small
note-book half filled with fragmentary scribblings, and began to write:

  Laughter after a funeral.  In this reaction people will laugh at
  anything and at nothing.  The band plays a dirge on the way to the
  cemetery, but when it turns back, and the mourning carriages are
  out of hearing, it strikes up, “Darktown is Out To-night.”  That
  is natural--but there are women whose laughter is like the whirring
  of whips.  Why is it that certain kinds of laughter seem to spoil
  something hidden away from the laughers?  If they do not know of
  it, and have never seen it, how can their laughter hurt it?  Yet it
  does.  Beauty is not out of place among grave-stones.  It is not
  out of place anywhere.  But a woman who has been betrothed to a
  man would not look beautiful at his funeral.  A woman might look
  beautiful, though, at the funeral of a man whom she had known and
  liked.  And in that case, too, she would probably not want to talk
  if she drove home from the cemetery with his brother:  nor would
  she want the brother to talk.  Silence is usually either stupid or
  timid.  But for a man who stammers if he tries to talk fast, and
  drawls so slowly, when he doesn't stammer, that nobody has time to
  listen to him, silence is advisable.  Nevertheless, too much silence
  is open to suspicion.  It may be reticence, or it may be a vacuum.
  It may be dignity, or it may be false teeth.

  Sometimes an imperceptible odor will become perceptible in a small
  inclosure, such as a closed carriage.  The ghost of gasoline rising
  from a lady's glove might be sweeter to the man riding beside her
  than all the scents of Arcady in spring.  It depends on the lady--
  but there ARE!  Three miles may be three hundred miles, or it may
  be three feet.  When it is three feet you have not time to say a
  great deal before you reach the end of it.  Still, it may be that
  one should begin to speak.

  No one could help wishing to stay in a world that holds some of
  the people that are in this world.  There are some so wonderful
  you do not understand how the dead COULD die.  How could they let
  themselves?  A falling building does not care who falls with it.
  It does not choose who shall be upon its roof and who shall not.
  Silence CAN be golden?  Yes.  But perhaps if a woman of the world
  should find herself by accident sitting beside a man for the length
  of time it must necessarily take two slow old horses to jog three
  miles, she might expect that man to say something of some sort!
  Even if she thought him a feeble hypochondriac, even if she had
  heard from others that he was a disappointment to his own people,
  even if she had seen for herself that he was a useless and
  irritating encumbrance everywhere, she might expect him at least
  to speak--she might expect him to open his mouth and try to make
  sounds, if he only barked.  If he did not even try, but sat every
  step of the way as dumb as a frozen fish, she might THINK him a
  frozen fish.  And she might be right.  She might be right if she
  thought him about as pleasant a companion as--as Bildad the Shuhite!

Bibbs closed his note-book, replacing it in his trunk. Then, after a
period of melancholy contemplation, he undressed, put on a dressing-gown
and slippers, and went softly out into the hall--to his father's door.
Upon the floor was a tray which Bibbs had sent George, earlier in the
evening, to place upon a table in Sheridan's room--but the food was
untouched. Bibbs stood listening outside the door for several minutes.
There came no sound from within, and he went back to his own room and to
bed.

In the morning he woke to a state of being hitherto unknown in his
experience. Sometimes in the process of waking there is a little
pause--sleep has gone, but coherent thought has not begun. It is
a curious half-void, a glimpse of aphasia; and although the person
experiencing it may not know for that instant his own name or age or
sex, he may be acutely conscious of depression or elation. It is the
moment, as we say, before we “remember”; and for the first time in
Bibbs's life it came to him bringing a vague happiness. He woke to a
sense of new riches; he had the feeling of a boy waking to a birthday.
But when the next moment brought him his memory, he found nothing that
could explain his exhilaration. On the contrary, under the circumstances
it seemed grotesquely unwarranted. However, it was a brief visitation
and was gone before he had finished dressing. It left a little trail,
the pleased recollection of it and the puzzle of it, which remained
unsolved. And, in fact, waking happily in the morning is not usually
the result of a drive home from a funeral. No wonder the sequence evaded
Bibbs Sheridan!

His father had gone when he came down-stairs. “Went on down to 's
office, jes' same,” Jackson informed him. “Came sat breakfas'-table, all
by 'mself; eat nothin'. George bring nice breakfas', but he di'n' eat
a thing. Yessuh, went on down-town, jes' same he yoosta do. Yessuh, I
reckon putty much ev'y-thing goin' go on same as it yoosta do.”

It struck Bibbs that Jackson was right. The day passed as other days had
passed. Mrs. Sheridan and Edith were in black, and Mrs. Sheridan cried
a little, now and then, but no other external difference was to be
seen. Edith was quiet, but not noticeably depressed, and at lunch proved
herself able to argue with her mother upon the propriety of receiving
calls in the earliest stages of “mourning.” Lunch was as usual--for Jim
and his father had always lunched down-town--and the afternoon was as
usual. Bibbs went for his drive, and his mother went with him, as she
sometimes did when the weather was pleasant. Altogether, the usualness
of things was rather startling to Bibbs.

During the drive Mrs. Sheridan talked fragmentarily of Jim's childhood.
“But you wouldn't remember about that,” she said, after narrating an
episode. “You were too little. He was always a good boy, just like that.
And he'd save whatever papa gave him, and put it in the bank. I reckon
it'll just about kill your father to put somebody in his place as
president of the Realty Company, Bibbs. I know he can't move Roscoe
over; he told me last week he'd already put as much on Roscoe as any
one man could handle and not go crazy. Oh, it's a pity--” She stopped
to wipe her eyes. “It's a pity you didn't run more with Jim, Bibbs, and
kind o' pick up his ways. Think what it'd meant to papa now! You never
did run with either Roscoe or Jim any, even before you got sick. Of
course, you were younger; but it always DID seem queer--and you three
bein' brothers like that. I don't believe I ever saw you and Jim sit
down together for a good talk in my life.”

“Mother, I've been away so long,” Bibbs returned, gently. “And since I
came home I--”

“Oh, I ain't reproachin' you, Bibbs,” she said. “Jim ain't been home
much of an evening since you got back--what with his work and callin'
and goin' to the theater and places, and often not even at the house for
dinner. Right the evening before he got hurt he had his dinner at some
miser'ble rest'rant down by the Pump Works, he was so set on overseein'
the night work and gettin' everything finished up right to the minute he
told papa he would. I reckon you might 'a' put in more time with Jim if
there'd been more opportunity, Bibbs. I expect you feel almost as if you
scarcely really knew him right well.”

“I suppose I really didn't, mother. He was busy, you see, and I hadn't
much to say about the things that interested him, because I don't know
much about them.”

“It's a pity! Oh, it's a pity!” she moaned. “And you'll have to learn to
know about 'em NOW, Bibbs! I haven't said much to you, because I felt it
was all between your father and you, but I honestly do believe it will
just kill him if he has to have any more trouble on top of all this!
You mustn't LET him, Bibbs--you mustn't! You don't know how he's grieved
over you, and now he can't stand any more--he just can't! Whatever he
says for you to do, you DO it, Bibbs, you DO it! I want you to promise
me you will.”

“I would if I could,” he said, sorrowfully.

“No, no! Why can't you?” she cried, clutching his arm. “He wants you to
go back to the machine-shop and--”

“And--'like it'!” said Bibbs.

“Yes, that's it--to go in a cheerful spirit. Dr. Gurney said it wouldn't
hurt you if you went in a cheerful spirit--the doctor said that himself,
Bibbs. So why can't you do it? Can't you do that much for your father?
You ought to think what he's done for YOU. You got a beautiful house
to live in; you got automobiles to ride in; you got fur coats and warm
clothes; you been taken care of all your life. And you don't KNOW how
he worked for the money to give all these things to you! You don't DREAM
what he had to go through and what he risked when we were startin' out
in life; and you never WILL know! And now this blow has fallen on him
out of a clear sky, and you make it out to be a hardship to do like he
wants you to! And all on earth he asks is for you to go back to the work
in a cheerful spirit, so it won't hurt you! That's all he asks. Look,
Bibbs, we're gettin' back near home, but before we get there I want you
to promise me that you'll do what he asks you to. Promise me!”

In her earnestness she cleared away her black veil that she might see
him better, and it blew out on the smoky wind. He readjusted it for her
before he spoke.

“I'll go back in as cheerful a spirit as I can, mother,” he said.

“There!” she exclaimed, satisfied. “That's a good boy! That's all I
wanted you to say.”

“Don't give me any credit,” he said, ruefully. “There isn't anything
else for me to do.”

“Now, don't begin talkin' THAT way!”

“No, no,” he soothed her. “We'll have to begin to make the spirit a
cheerful one. We may--” They were turning into their own driveway as
he spoke, and he glanced at the old house next door. Mary Vertrees was
visible in the twilight, standing upon the front steps, bareheaded, the
door open behind her. She bowed gravely.

“'We may'--what?” asked Mrs. Sheridan, with a slight impatience.

“What is it, mother?”

“You said, 'We may,' and didn't finish what you were sayin'.”

“Did I?” said Bibbs, blankly. “Well, what WERE we saying?”

“Of all the queer boys!” she cried. “You always were. Always! You
haven't forgot what you just promised me, have you?”

“No,” he answered, as the car stopped. “No, the spirit will be as
cheerful as the flesh will let it, mother. It won't do to behave like--”

His voice was low, and in her movement to descend from the car she
failed to hear his final words.

“Behave like who, Bibbs?”

“Nothing.”

But she was fretful in her grief. “You said it wouldn't do to behave
like SOMEBODY. Behave like WHO?”

“It was just nonsense,” he explained, turning to go in. “An obscure
person I don't think much of lately.”

“Behave like WHO?” she repeated, and upon his yielding to her petulant
insistence, she made up her mind that the only thing to do was to tell
Dr. Gurney about it.

“Like Bildad the Shuhite!” was what Bibbs said.



CHAPTER XIV

The outward usualness of things continued after dinner. It was
Sheridan's custom to read the evening paper beside the fire in the
library, while his wife, sitting near by, either sewed (from old habit)
or allowed herself to be repeatedly baffled by one of the simpler forms
of solitaire. To-night she did neither, but sat in her customary chair,
gazing at the fire, while Sheridan let the unfolded paper rest upon his
lap, though now and then he lifted it, as if to read, and let it fall
back upon his knees again. Bibbs came in noiselessly and sat in a
corner, doing nothing; and from a “reception-room” across the hall an
indistinct vocal murmur became just audible at intervals. Once, when
this murmur grew louder, under stress of some irrepressible merriment,
Edith's voice could be heard--“Bobby, aren't you awful!” and Sheridan
glanced across at his wife appealingly.

She rose at once and went into the “reception-room”; there was a flurry
of whispering, and the sound of tiptoeing in the hall--Edith and her
suitor changing quarters to a more distant room. Mrs. Sheridan returned
to her chair in the library.

“They won't bother you any more, papa,” she said, in a comforting voice.
“She told me at lunch he'd 'phoned he wanted to come up this evening,
and I said I thought he'd better wait a few days, but she said she'd
already told him he could.” She paused, then added, rather guiltily: “I
got kind of a notion maybe Roscoe don't like him as much as he used
to. Maybe--maybe you better ask Roscoe, papa.” And as Sheridan nodded
solemnly, she concluded, in haste: “Don't say I said to. I might be
wrong about it, anyway.”

He nodded again, and they sat for some time in a silence which Mrs.
Sheridan broke with a little sniff, having fallen into a reverie that
brought tears. “That Miss Vertrees was a good girl,” she said. “SHE was
all right.”

Her husband evidently had no difficulty in following her train of
thought, for he nodded once more, affirmatively.

“Did you--How did you fix it about the--the Realty Company?” she
faltered. “Did you--”

He rose heavily, helping himself to his feet by the arms of his chair.
“I fixed it,” he said, in a husky voice. “I moved Cantwell up, and put
Johnston in Cantwell's place, and split up Johnston's work among the
four men with salaries high enough to take it.” He went to her, put
his hand upon her shoulder, and drew a long, audible, tremulous breath.
“It's my bedtime, mamma; I'm goin' up.” He dropped the hand from her
shoulder and moved slowly away, but when he reached the door he stopped
and spoke again, without turning to look at her. “The Realty Company'll
go right on just the same,” he said. “It's like--it's like sand, mamma.
It puts me in mind of chuldern playin' in a sand-pile. One of 'em sticks
his finger in the sand and makes a hole, and another of 'em'll pat the
place with his hand, and all the little grains of sand run in and fill
it up and settle against one another; and then, right away it's flat on
top again, and you can't tell there ever was a hole there. The Realty
Company'll go on all right, mamma. There ain't anything anywhere, I
reckon, that wouldn't go right on--just the same.”

And he passed out slowly into the hall; then they heard his heavy tread
upon the stairs.

Mrs. Sheridan, rising to follow him, turned a piteous face to her son.
“It's so forlone,” she said, chokingly. “That's the first time he spoke
since he came in the house this evening. I know it must 'a' hurt him to
hear Edith laughin' with that Lamhorn. She'd oughtn't to let him come,
right the very first evening this way; she'd oughtn't to done it! She
just seems to lose her head over him, and it scares me. You heard what
Sibyl said the other day, and--and you heard what--what--”

“What Edith said to Sibyl?” Bibbs finished the sentence for her.

“We CAN'T have any trouble o' THAT kind!” she wailed. “Oh, it looks as
if movin' up to this New House had brought us awful bad luck! It scares
me!” She put both her hands over her face. “Oh, Bibbs, Bibbs! if you
only wasn't so QUEER! If you could only been a kind of dependable son!
I don't know what we're all comin' to!” And, weeping, she followed her
husband.

Bibbs gazed for a while at the fire; then he rose abruptly, like a man
who has come to a decision, and briskly sought the room--it was called
“the smoking-room”--where Edith sat with Mr. Lamhorn. They looked up in
no welcoming manner, at Bibbs's entrance, and moved their chairs to a
less conspicuous adjacency.

“Good evening,” said Bibbs, pleasantly; and he seated himself in a
leather easy-chair near them.

“What is it?” asked Edith, plainly astonished.

“Nothing,” he returned, smiling.

She frowned. “Did you want something?” she asked.

“Nothing in the world. Father and mother have gone up-stairs; I sha'n't
be going up for several hours, and there didn't seem to be anybody left
for me to chat with except you and Mr. Lamhorn.”

“'CHAT with'!” she echoed, incredulously.

“I can talk about almost anything,” said Bibbs with an air of
genial politeness. “It doesn't matter to ME. I don't know much about
business--if that's what you happened to be talking about. But you
aren't in business, are you, Mr. Lamhorn?”

“Not now,” returned Lamhorn, shortly.

“I'm not, either,” said Bibbs. “It was getting cloudier than usual, I
noticed, just before dark, and there was wind from the southwest. Rain
to-morrow, I shouldn't be surprised.”

He seemed to feel that he had begun a conversation the support of
which had now become the pleasurable duty of other parties; and he
sat expectantly, looking first at his sister, then at Lamhorn, as if
implying that it was their turn to speak. Edith returned his gaze with
a mixture of astonishment and increasing anger, while Mr. Lamhorn was
obviously disturbed, though Bibbs had been as considerate as possible in
presenting the weather as a topic. Bibbs had perceived that Lamhorn had
nothing in his mind at any time except “personalities”--he could talk
about people and he could make love. Bibbs, wishing to be courteous,
offered the weather.

Lamhorn refused it, and concluded from Bibbs's luxurious attitude in the
leather chair that this half-crazy brother was a permanent fixture for
the rest of the evening. There was not reason to hope that he would
move, and Lamhorn found himself in danger of looking silly.

“I was just going,” he said, rising.

“Oh NO!” Edith cried, sharply.

“Yes. Good night! I think I--”

“Too bad,” said Bibbs, genially, walking to the door with the visitor,
while Edith stood staring as the two disappeared in the hall. She heard
Bibbs offering to “help” Lamhorn with his overcoat and the latter rather
curtly declining assistance, these episodes of departure being followed
by the closing of the outer door. She ran into the hall.

“What's the matter with you?” she cried, furiously. “What do you MEAN?
How did you dare come in there when you knew--”

Her voice broke; she made a gesture of rage and despair, and ran up the
stairs, sobbing. She fled to her mother's room, and when Bibbs came up,
a few minutes later, Mrs. Sheridan met him at his door.

“Oh, Bibbs,” she said, shaking her head woefully, “you'd oughtn't to
distress your sister! She says you drove that young man right out of the
house. You'd ought to been more considerate.”

Bibbs smiled faintly, noting that Edith's door was open, with Edith's
naive shadow motionless across its threshold. “Yes,” he said. “He
doesn't appear to be much of a 'man's man.' He ran at just a glimpse of
one.”

Edith's shadow moved; her voice came quavering: “You call yourself one?”

“No, no,” he answered. “I said, 'just a glimpse of one.' I didn't
claim--” But her door slammed angrily; and he turned to his mother.

“There,” he said, sighing. “That's almost the first time in my life I
ever tried to be a man of action, mother, and I succeeded perfectly in
what I tried to do. As a consequence I feel like a horse-thief!”

“You hurt her feelin's,” she groaned. “You must 'a' gone at it too
rough, Bibbs.”

He looked upon her wanly. “That's my trouble, mother,” he murmured. “I'm
a plain, blunt fellow. I have rough ways, and I'm a rough man.”

For once she perceived some meaning in his queerness. “Hush your
nonsense!” she said, good-naturedly, the astral of a troubled smile
appearing. “You go to bed.”

He kissed her and obeyed.


Edith gave him a cold greeting the next morning at the breakfast-table.

“You mustn't do that under a misapprehension,” he warned her, when they
were alone in the dining-room.

“Do what under a what?” she asked.

“Speak to me. I came into the smoking-room last night 'on purpose,'” he
told her, gravely. “I have a prejudice against that young man.”

She laughed. “I guess you think it means a great deal who you have
prejudices against!” In mockery she adopted the manner of one who
implores. “Bibbs, for pity's sake PROMISE me, DON'T use YOUR influence
with papa against him!” And she laughed louder.

“Listen,” he said, with peculiar earnestness. “I'll tell you now,
because--because I've decided I'm one of the family.” And then, as
if the earnestness were too heavy for him to carry it further, he
continued, in his usual tone, “I'm drunk with power, Edith.”

“What do you want to tell me?” she demanded, brusquely.

“Lamhorn made love to Sibyl,” he said.

Edith hooted. “SHE did to HIM! And because you overheard that spat
between us the other day when I the same as accused her of it, and said
something like that to you afterward--”

“No,” he said, gravely. “I KNOW.”

“How?”

“I was there, one day a week ago, with Roscoe, and I heard Sibyl and
Lamhorn--”

Edith screamed with laughter. “You were with ROSCOE--and you heard
Lamhorn making love to Sibyl!”

“No. I heard them quarreling.”

“You're funnier than ever, Bibbs!” she cried. “You say he made love to
her because you heard them quarreling!”

“That's it. If you want to know what's 'between' people, you can--by the
way they quarrel.”

“You'll kill me, Bibbs! What were they quarreling about?”

“Nothing. That's how I knew. People who quarrel over nothing!--it's
always certain--”

Edith stopped laughing abruptly, but continued her mockery. “You ought
to know. You've had so much experience, yourself!”

“I haven't any, Edith,” he said. “My life has been about as exciting as
an incubator chicken's. But I look out through the glass at things.”

“Well, then,” she said, “if you look out through the glass you must know
what effect such stuff would have upon ME!” She rose, visibly agitated.
“What if it WAS true?” she demanded, bitterly. “What if it was true a
hundred times over? You sit there with your silly face half ready to
giggle and half ready to sniffle, and tell me stories like that, about
Sibyl picking on Bobby Lamhorn and worrying him to death, and you think
it matters to ME? What if I already KNEW all about their 'quarreling'?
What if I understood WHY she--” She broke off with a violent gesture, a
sweep of her arm extended at full length, as if she hurled something to
the ground. “Do you think a girl that really cared for a man would pay
any attention to THAT? Or to YOU, Bibbs Sheridan!”

He looked at her steadily, and his gaze was as keen as it was steady.
She met it with unwavering pride. Finally he nodded slowly, as if she
had spoken and he meant to agree with what she said.

“Ah, yes,” he said. “I won't come into the smoking-room again. I'm
sorry, Edith. Nobody can make you see anything now. You'll never see
until you see for yourself. The rest of us will do better to keep out of
it--especially me!”

“That's sensible,” she responded, curtly. “You're most surprising of all
when you're sensible, Bibbs.”

“Yes,” he sighed. “I'm a dull dog. Shake hands and forgive me, Edith.”

Thawing so far as to smile, she underwent this brief ceremony, and
George appeared, summoning Bibbs to the library; Dr. Gurney was waiting
there, he announced. And Bibbs gave his sister a shy but friendly touch
upon the shoulder as a complement to the handshaking, and left her.

Dr. Gurney was sitting by the log fire, alone in the room, and he merely
glanced over his shoulder when his patient came in. He was not over
fifty, in spite of Sheridan's habitual “ole Doc Gurney.” He was gray,
however, almost as thin as Bibbs, and nearly always he looked drowsy.

“Your father telephoned me yesterday afternoon, Bibbs,” he said, not
rising. “Wants me to 'look you over' again. Come around here in front of
me--between me and the fire. I want to see if I can see through you.”

“You mean you're too sleepy to move,” returned Bibbs, complying. “I
think you'll notice that I'm getting worse.”

“Taken on about twelve pounds,” said Gurney. “Thirteen, maybe.”

“Twelve.”

“Well, it won't do.” The doctor rubbed his eyelids. “You're so much
better I'll have to use some machinery on you before we can know just
where you are. You come down to my place this afternoon. Walk down--all
the way. I suppose you know why your father wants to know.”

Bibbs nodded. “Machine-shop.”

“Still hate it?”

Bibbs nodded again.

“Don't blame you!” the doctor grunted. “Yes, I expect it'll make a lump
in your gizzard again. Well, what do you say? Shall I tell him you've
got the old lump there yet? You still want to write, do you?”

“What's the use?” Bibbs said, smiling ruefully. “My kind of writing!”

“Yes,” the doctor agreed. “I suppose if you broke away and lived on
roots and berries until you began to 'attract the favorable attention of
editors' you might be able to hope for an income of four or five hundred
dollars a year by the time you're fifty.”

“That's about it,” Bibbs murmured.

“Of course I know what you want to do,” said Gurney, drowsily. “You
don't hate the machine-shop only; you hate the whole show--the noise and
jar and dirt, the scramble--the whole bloomin' craze to 'get on.' You'd
like to go somewhere in Algiers, or to Taormina, perhaps, and bask on a
balcony, smelling flowers and writing sonnets. You'd grow fat on it and
have a delicate little life all to yourself. Well, what do you say? I
can lie like sixty, Bibbs! Shall I tell your father he'll lose another
of his boys if you don't go to Sicily?”

“I don't want to go to Sicily,” said Bibbs. “I want to stay right here.”

The doctor's drowsiness disappeared for a moment, and he gave his
patient a sharp glance. “It's a risk,” he said. “I think we'll find
you're so much better he'll send you back to the shop pretty quick.
Something's got hold of you lately; you're not quite so lackadaisical as
you used to be. But I warn you: I think the shop will knock you just as
it did before, and perhaps even harder, Bibbs.”

He rose, shook himself, and rubbed his eyelids. “Well, when we go over
you this afternoon what are we going to say about it?”

“Tell him I'm ready,” said Bibbs, looking at the floor.

“Oh no,” Gurney laughed. “Not quite yet; but you may be almost. We'll
see. Don't forget I said to walk down.”

And when the examination was concluded, that afternoon, the doctor
informed Bibbs that the result was much too satisfactory to be pleasing.
“Here's a new 'situation' for a one-act farce,” he said, gloomily, to
his next patient when Bibbs had gone. “Doctor tells a man he's well, and
that's his death sentence, likely. Dam' funny world!”

Bibbs decided to walk home, though Gurney had not instructed him upon
this point. In fact, Gurney seemed to have no more instructions on any
point, so discouraging was the young man's improvement. It was a dingy
afternoon, and the smoke was evident not only to Bibbs's sight, but to
his nostrils, though most of the pedestrians were so saturated with
the smell they could no longer detect it. Nearly all of them walked
hurriedly, too intent upon their destinations to be more than half aware
of the wayside; they wore the expressions of people under a vague yet
constant strain. They were all lightly powdered, inside and out, with
fine dust and grit from the hard-paved streets, and they were unaware of
that also. They did not even notice that they saw the smoke, though the
thickened air was like a shrouding mist. And when Bibbs passed the new
“Sheridan Apartments,” now almost completed, he observed that the marble
of the vestibule was already streaky with soot, like his gloves, which
were new.

That recalled to him the faint odor of gasolene in the coupe on the way
from his brother's funeral, and this incited a train of thought which
continued till he reached the vicinity of his home. His route was by
a street parallel to that on which the New House fronted, and in his
preoccupation he walked a block farther than he intended, so that,
having crossed to his own street, he approached the New House from the
north, and as he came to the corner of Mr. Vertrees's lot Mr. Vertrees's
daughter emerged from the front door and walked thoughtfully down the
path to the old picket gate. She was unconscious of the approach of the
pedestrian from the north, and did not see him until she had opened the
gate and he was almost beside her. Then she looked up, and as she
saw him she started visibly. And if this thing had happened to
Robert Lamhorn, he would have had a thought far beyond the horizon of
faint-hearted Bibbs's thoughts. Lamhorn, indeed, would have spoken his
thought. He would have said: “You jumped because you were thinking of
me!”



CHAPTER XV

Mary was the picture of a lady flustered. She stood with one hand
closing the gate behind her, and she had turned to go in the direction
Bibbs was walking. There appeared to be nothing for it but that they
should walk together, at least as far as the New House. But Bibbs had
paused in his slow stride, and there elapsed an instant before either
spoke or moved--it was no longer than that, and yet it sufficed for each
to seem to say, by look and attitude, “Why, it's YOU!”

Then they both spoke at once, each hurriedly pronouncing the other's
name as if about to deliver a message of importance. Then both came to
a stop simultaneously, but Bibbs made a heroic effort, and as they began
to walk on together he contrived to find his voice.

“I--I--hate a frozen fish myself,” he said. “I think three miles was too
long for you to put up with one.”

“Good gracious!” she cried, turning to him a glowing face from which
restraint and embarrassment had suddenly fled. “Mr. Sheridan, you're
lovely to put it that way. But it's always the girl's place to say it's
turning cooler! I ought to have been the one to show that we didn't know
each other well enough not to say SOMETHING! It was an imposition for
me to have made you bring me home, and after I went into the house I
decided I should have walked. Besides, it wasn't three miles to the
car-line. I never thought of it!”

“No,” said Bibbs, earnestly. “I didn't, either. I might have said
something if I'd thought of anything. I'm talking now, though; I must
remember that, and not worry about it later. I think I'm talking, though
it doesn't sound intelligent even to me. I made up my mind that if I
ever met you again I'd turn on my voice and keep it going, no mater what
it said. I--”

She interrupted him with laughter, and Mary Vertrees's laugh was one
which Bibbs's father had declared, after the house-warming, “a cripple
would crawl five miles to hear.” And at the merry lilting of it Bibbs's
father's son took heart to forget some of his trepidation. “I'll be any
kind of idiot,” he said, “if you'll laugh at me some more. It won't be
difficult for me.”

She did; and Bibbs's cheeks showed a little actual color, which Mary
perceived. It recalled to her, by contrast, her careless and irritated
description of him to her mother just after she had seen him for the
first time. “Rather tragic and altogether impossible.” It seemed to her
now that she must have been blind.

They had passed the New House without either of them showing--or
possessing--any consciousness that it had been the destination of one of
them.

“I'll keep on talking,” Bibbs continued, cheerfully, “and you keep on
laughing. I'm amounting to something in the world this afternoon. I'm
making a noise, and that makes you make music. Don't be bothered by my
bleating out such things as that. I'm really frightened, and that makes
me bleat anything. I'm frightened about two things: I'm afraid of what
I'll think of myself later if I don't keep talking--talking now, I
mean--and I'm afraid of what I'll think of myself if I do. And besides
these two things, I'm frightened, anyhow. I don't remember talking as
much as this more than once or twice in my life. I suppose it was always
in me to do it, though, the first time I met any one who didn't know me
well enough not to listen.”

“But you're not really talking to me,” said Mary. “You're just thinking
aloud.”

“No,” he returned, gravely. “I'm not thinking at all; I'm only making
vocal sounds because I believe it's more mannerly. I seem to be the
subject of what little meaning they possess, and I'd like to change it,
but I don't know how. I haven't any experience in talking, and I don't
know how to manage it.”

“You needn't change the subject on my account, Mr. Sheridan,” she said.
“Not even if you really talked about yourself.” She turned her
face toward him as she spoke, and Bibbs caught his breath; he was
pathetically amazed by the look she gave him. It was a glowing look,
warmly friendly and understanding, and, what almost shocked him, it was
an eagerly interested look. Bibbs was not accustomed to anything like
that.

“I--you--I--I'm--” he stammered, and the faint color in his cheeks grew
almost vivid.

She was still looking at him, and she saw the strange radiance that came
into his face. There was something about him, too, that explained how
“queer” many people might think him; but he did not seem “queer” to Mary
Vertrees; he seemed the most quaintly natural person she had ever met.

He waited, and became coherent. “YOU say something now,” he said. “I
don't even belong in the chorus, and here I am, trying to sing the funny
man's solo! You--”

“No,” she interrupted. “I'd rather play your accompaniment.”

“I'll stop and listen to it, then.”

“Perhaps--” she began, but after pausing thoughtfully she made a
gesture with her muff, indicating a large brick church which they were
approaching. “Do you see that church, Mr. Sheridan?”

“I suppose I could,” he answered in simple truthfulness, looking at her.
“But I don't want to. Once, when I was ill, the nurse told me I'd better
say anything that was on my mind, and I got the habit. The other reason
I don't want to see the church is that I have a feeling it's where
you're going, and where I'll be sent back.”

She shook her head in cheery negation. “Not unless you want to be. Would
you like to come with me?”

“Why--why--yes,” he said. “Anywhere!” And again it was apparent that he
spoke in simple truthfulness.

“Then come--if you care for organ music. The organist is an old friend
of mine, and sometimes he plays for me. He's a dear old man. He had
a degree from Bonn, and was a professor afterward, but he gave up
everything for music. That's he, waiting in the doorway. He looks like
Beethoven, doesn't he? I think he knows that, perhaps and enjoys it a
little. I hope so.”

“Yes,” said Bibbs, as they reached the church steps. “I think Beethoven
would like it, too. It must be pleasant to look like other people.”

“I haven't kept you?” Mary said to the organist.

“No, no,” he answered, heartily. “I would not mind so only you should
shooer come!”

“This is Mr. Sheridan, Dr. Kraft. He has come to listen with me.”

The organist looked bluntly surprised. “Iss that SO?” he exclaimed.
“Well, I am glad if you wish him, and if he can stant my liddle playink.
He iss musician himself, then, of course.”

“No,” said Bibbs, as the three entered the church together. “I--I played
the--I tried to play--” Fortunately he checked himself; he had been
about to offer the information that he had failed to master the
jews'-harp in his boyhood. “No, I'm not a musician,” he contented
himself with saying.

“What?” Dr. Kraft's surprise increased. “Young man, you are fortunate!
I play for Miss Vertrees; she comes always alone. You are the first. You
are the first one EVER!”

They had reached the head of the central aisle, and as the organist
finished speaking Bibbs stopped short, turning to look at Mary Vertrees
in a dazed way that was not of her perceiving; for, though she stopped
as he did, her gaze followed the organist, who was walking away from
them toward the front of the church, shaking his white Beethovian mane
roguishly.

“It's false pretenses on my part,” Bibbs said. “You mean to be kind to
the sick, but I'm not an invalid any more. I'm so well I'm going back
to work in a few days. I'd better leave before he begins to play, hadn't
I?”

“No,” said Mary, beginning to walk forward. “Not unless you don't like
great music.”

He followed her to a seat about half-way up the aisle while Dr. Kraft
ascended to the organ. It was an enormous one, the procession of pipes
ranging from long, starveling whistles to thundering fat guns; they
covered all the rear wall of the church, and the organist's figure,
reaching its high perch, looked like that of some Lilliputian magician
ludicrously daring the attempt to control a monster certain to overwhelm
him.

“This afternoon some Handel!” he turned to shout.

Mary nodded. “Will you like that?” she asked Bibbs.

“I don't know. I never heard any except 'Largo.' I don't know anything
about music. I don't even know how to pretend I do. If I knew enough to
pretend, I would.”

“No,” said Mary, looking at him and smiling faintly, “you wouldn't.”

She turned away as a great sound began to swim and tremble in the air;
the huge empty space of the church filled with it, and the two people
listening filled with it; the universe seemed to fill and thrill with
it. The two sat intensely still, the great sound all round about them,
while the church grew dusky, and only the organist's lamp made a
tiny star of light. His white head moved from side to side beneath it
rhythmically, or lunged and recovered with the fierceness of a duelist
thrusting, but he was magnificently the master of his giant, and it sang
to his magic as he bade it.

Bibbs was swept away upon that mighty singing. Such a thing was wholly
unknown to him; there had been no music in his meager life. Unlike
the tale, it was the Princess Bedrulbudour who had brought him to the
enchanted cave, and that--for Bibbs--was what made its magic dazing. It
seemed to him a long, long time since he had been walking home drearily
from Dr. Gurney's office; it seemed to him that he had set out upon a
happy journey since then, and that he had reached another planet, where
Mary Vertrees and he sat alone together listening to a vast choiring of
invisible soldiers and holy angels. There were armies of voices about
them singing praise and thanksgiving; and yet they were alone. It was
incredible that the walls of the church were not the boundaries of
the universe, to remain so for ever; incredible that there was a smoky
street just yonder, where housemaids were bringing in evening papers
from front steps and where children were taking their last spins on
roller-skates before being haled indoors for dinner.

He had a curious sense of communication with his new friend. He knew
it could not be so, and yet he felt as if all the time he spoke to her,
saying: “You hear this strain? You hear that strain? You know the dream
that these sounds bring to me?” And it seemed to him as though she
answered continually: “I hear! I hear that strain, and I hear the new
one that you are hearing now. I know the dream that these sounds bring
to you. Yes, yes, I hear it all! We hear--together!”

And though the church grew so dim that all was mysterious shadow except
the vague planes of the windows and the organist's light, with the white
head moving beneath it, Bibbs had no consciousness that the girl sitting
beside him had grown shadowy; he seemed to see her as plainly as ever in
the darkness, though he did not look at her. And all the mighty chanting
of the organ's multitudinous voices that afternoon seemed to Bibbs to be
chorusing of her and interpreting her, singing her thoughts and singing
for him the world of humble gratitude that was in his heart because she
was so kind to him. It all meant Mary.



CHAPTER XVI

But when she asked him what it meant, on their homeward way, he was
silent. They had come a few paces from the church without speaking,
walking slowly.

“I'll tell you what it meant to me,” she said, as he did not immediately
reply. “Almost any music of Handel's always means one thing above all
others to me: courage! That's it. It makes cowardice of whining seem so
infinitesimal--it makes MOST things in our hustling little lives seem
infinitesimal.”

“Yes,” he said. “It seems odd, doesn't it, that people down-town are
hurrying to trains and hanging to straps in trolley-cars, weltering
every way to get home and feed and sleep so they can get down-town
to-morrow. And yet there isn't anything down there worth getting to.
They're like servants drudging to keep the house going, and believing
the drudgery itself is the great thing. They make so much noise and fuss
and dirt they forget that the house was meant to live in. The housework
has to be done, but the people who do it have been so overpaid that
they're confused and worship the housework. They're overpaid, and yet,
poor things! they haven't anything that a chicken can't have. Of
course, when the world gets to paying its wages sensibly that will be
different.”

“Do you mean 'communism'?” she asked, and she made their slow pace a
little slower--they had only three blocks to go.

“Whatever the word is, I only mean that things don't look very sensible
now--especially to a man that wants to keep out of 'em and can't!
'Communism'? Well, at least any 'decent sport' would say it's fair for
all the strong runners to start from the same mark and give the weak
ones a fair distance ahead, so that all can run something like even
on the stretch. And wouldn't it be pleasant, really, if they could all
cross the winning-line together? Who really enjoys beating anybody--if
he sees the beaten man's face? The only way we can enjoy getting ahead
of other people nowadays is by forgetting what the other people feel.
And that,” he added, “is nothing of what the music meant to me. You see,
if I keep talking about what it didn't mean I can keep from telling you
what it did mean.”

“Didn't it mean courage to you, too--a little?” she asked. “Triumph and
praise were in it, and somehow those things mean courage to me.”

“Yes, they were all there,” Bibbs said. “I don't know the name of what
he played, but I shouldn't think it would matter much. The man that
makes the music must leave it to you what it can mean to you, and the
name he puts to it can't make much difference--except to himself and
people very much like him, I suppose.”

“I suppose that's true, though I'd never thought of it like that.”

“I imagine music must make feelings and paint pictures in the minds of
the people who hear it,” Bibbs went on, musingly, “according to their
own natures as much as according to the music itself. The musician might
compose something and play it, wanting you to think of the Holy Grail,
and some people who heard it would think of a prayer-meeting, and some
would think of how good they were themselves, and a boy might think of
himself at the head of a solemn procession, carrying a banner and riding
a white horse. And then, if there were some jubilant passages in the
music, he'd think of a circus.”

They had reached her gate, and she set her hand upon it, but did
not open it. Bibbs felt that this was almost the kindest of her
kindnesses--not to be prompt in leaving him.

“After all,” she said, “you didn't tell me whether you liked it.”

“No. I didn't need to.”

“No, that's true, and I didn't need to ask. I knew. But you said you
were trying to keep from telling me what it did mean.”

“I can't keep from telling it any longer,” he said. “The music meant to
me--it meant the kindness of--of you.”

“Kindness? How?”

“You thought I was a sort of lonely tramp--and sick--”

“No,” she said, decidedly. “I thought perhaps you'd like to hear Dr.
Kraft play. And you did.”

“It's curious; sometimes it seemed to me that it was you who were
playing.”

Mary laughed. “I? I strum! Piano. A little Chopin--Grieg--Chaminade. You
wouldn't listen!”

Bibbs drew a deep breath. “I'm frightened again,” he said, in an
unsteady voice. “I'm afraid you'll think I'm pushing, but--” He paused,
and the words sank to a murmur.

“Oh, if you want ME to play for you!” she said. “Yes, gladly. It will be
merely absurd after what you heard this afternoon. I play like a hundred
thousand other girls, and I like it. I'm glad when any one's willing to
listen, and if you--” She stopped, checked by a sudden recollection,
and laughed ruefully. “But my piano won't be here after to-night. I--I'm
sending it away to-morrow. I'm afraid that if you'd like me to play to
you you'd have to come this evening.”

“You'll let me?” he cried.

“Certainly, if you care to.”

“If I could play--” he said, wistfully, “if I could play like that old
man in the church I could thank you.”

“Ah, but you haven't heard me play. I KNOW you liked this afternoon,
but--”

“Yes,” said Bibbs. “It was the greatest happiness I've ever known.”

It was too dark to see his face, but his voice held such plain honesty,
and he spoke with such complete unconsciousness of saying anything
especially significant, that she knew it was the truth. For a moment she
was nonplussed, then she opened the gate and went in. “You'll come after
dinner, then?”

“Yes,” he said, not moving. “Would you mind if I stood here until time
to come in?”

She had reached the steps, and at that she turned, offering him the
response of laughter and a gay gesture of her muff toward the lighted
windows of the New House, as though bidding him to run home to his
dinner.

That night, Bibbs sat writing in his note-book.

  Music can come into a blank life, and fill it.  Everything that
  is beautiful is music, if you can listen.

  There is no gracefulness like that of a graceful woman at a grand
  piano.  There is a swimming loveliness of line that seems to merge
  with the running of the sound, and you seem, as you watch her, to
  see what you are hearing and to hear what you are seeing.

  There are women who make you think of pine woods coming down to
  a sparkling sea.  The air about such a woman is bracing, and when
  she is near you, you feel strong and ambitious; you forget that
  the world doesn't like you.  You think that perhaps you are a great
  fellow, after all.  Then you come away and feel like a boy who has
  fallen in love with his Sunday-school teacher.  You'll be whipped
  for it--and ought to be.

  There are women who make you think of Diana, crowned with the moon.
  But they do not have the “Greek profile.”  I do not believe Helen
  of Troy had a “Greek profile”; they would not have fought about her
  if her nose had been quite that long.  The Greek nose is not the
  adorable nose.  The adorable nose is about an eighth of an inch
  shorter.

  Much of the music of Wagner, it appears, is not suitable to the
  piano.  Wagner was a composer who could interpret into music such
  things as the primitive impulses of humanity--he could have made a
  machine-shop into music.  But not if he had to work in it.  Wagner
  was always dealing in immensities--a machine-shop would have put a
  majestic lump in so grand a gizzard as that.

  There is a mystery about pianos, it seems.  Sometimes they have to
  be “sent away.”  That is how some people speak of the penitentiary.
  “Sent away” is a euphuism for “sent to prison.”  But pianos are not
  sent to prison, and they are not sent to the tuner--the tuner is
  sent to them.  Why are pianos “sent away”--and where?

  Sometimes a glorious day shines into the most ordinary and useless
  life.  Happiness and beauty come caroling out of the air into the
  gloomy house of that life as if some stray angel just happened to
  perch on the roof-tree, resting and singing.  And the night after
  such a day is lustrous and splendid with the memory of it.  Music
  and beauty and kindness--those are the three greatest things God
  can give us.  To bring them all in one day to one who expected
  nothing--ah! the heart  that received them should be as humble as
  it is thankful.  But it is hard  to be humble when one is so rich
  with new memories.  It is impossible to be humble after a day of
  glory.

  Yes--the adorable nose is more than an eighth of an inch shorter
  than the Greek nose.  It is a full quarter of an inch shorter.

  There are women who will be kinder to a sick tramp than to a
  conquering hero.  But the sick tramp had better remember that's
  what he is.  Take care, take care!  Humble's the word!



CHAPTER XVII

That “mystery about pianos” which troubled Bibbs had been a mystery to
Mr. Vertrees, and it was being explained to him at about the time Bibbs
scribbled the reference to it in his notes. Mary had gone up-stairs upon
Bibbs's departure at ten o'clock, and Mr. and Mrs. Vertrees sat until
after midnight in the library, talking. And in all that time they found
not one cheerful topic, but became more depressed with everything and
with every phase of everything that they discussed--no extraordinary
state of affairs in a family which has always “held up its head,”
 only to arrive in the end at a point where all it can do is to look on
helplessly at the processes of its own financial dissolution. For that
was the point which this despairing couple had reached--they could do
nothing except look on and talk about it. They were only vaporing, and
they knew it.

“She needn't to have done that about her piano,” vapored Mr. Vertrees.
“We could have managed somehow without it. At least she ought to have
consulted me, and if she insisted I could have arranged the details with
the--the dealer.”

“She thought that it might be--annoying for you,” Mrs. Vertrees
explained. “Really, she planned for you not to know about it until
they had removed--until after to-morrow, that is, but I decided to--to
mention it. You see, she didn't even tell me about it until this
morning. She has another idea, too, I'm afraid. It's--it's--”

“Well?” he urged, as she found it difficult to go on.

“Her other idea is--that is, it was--I think it can be avoided, of
course--it was about her furs.”

“No!” he exclaimed, quickly. “I won't have it! You must see to that. I'd
rather not talk to her about it, but you mustn't let her.”

“I'll try not,” his wife promised. “Of course, they're very handsome.”

“All the more reason for her to keep them!” he returned, irritably.
“We're not THAT far gone, I think!”

“Perhaps not yet,” Mrs. Vertrees said. “She seems to be troubled about
the--the coal matter and--about Tilly. Of course the piano will take
care of some things like those for a while and--”

“I don't like it. I gave her the piano to play on, not to--”

“You mustn't be distressed about it in ONE way,” she said, comfortingly.
“She arranged with the--with the purchaser that the men will come for it
about half after five in the afternoon. The days are so short now it's
really quite winter.”

“Oh, yes,” he agreed, moodily. “So far as that goes people have a
right to move a piece of furniture without stirring up the neighbors, I
suppose, even by daylight. I don't suppose OUR neighbors are paying much
attention just now, though I hear Sheridan was back in his office early
the morning after the funeral.”

Mrs. Vertrees made a little sound of commiseration. “I don't believe
that was because he wasn't suffering, though. I'm sure it was only
because he felt his business was so important. Mary told me he seemed
wrapped up in his son's succeeding; and that was what he bragged about
most. He isn't vulgar in his boasting, I understand; he doesn't talk a
great deal about his--his actual money--though there was something about
blades of grass that I didn't comprehend. I think he meant something
about his energy--but perhaps not. No, his bragging usually seemed to be
not so much a personal vainglory as about his family and the greatness
of this city.”

“'Greatness of this city'!” Mr. Vertrees echoed, with dull bitterness.
“It's nothing but a coal-hole! I suppose it looks 'great' to the man who
has the luck to make it work for him. I suppose it looks 'great' to any
YOUNG man, too, starting out to make his fortune out of it. The fellows
that get what they want out of it say it's 'great,' and everybody else
gets the habit. But you have a different point of view if it's the
city that got what it wanted out of you! Of course Sheridan says it's
'great'.”

Mrs. Vertrees seemed unaware of this unusual outburst. “I believe,” she
began, timidly, “he doesn't boast of--that is, I understand he has never
seemed so interested in the--the other one.”

Her husband's face was dark, but at that a heavier shadow fell upon
it; he looked more haggard than before. “'The other one',” he repeated,
averting his eyes. “You mean--you mean the third son--the one that was
here this evening?”

“Yes, the--the youngest,” she returned, her voice so feeble it was
almost a whisper.

And then neither of them spoke for several long minutes. Nor did either
look at the other during that silence.

At last Mr. Vertrees contrived to cough, but not convincingly.
“What--ah--what was it Mary said about him out in the hall, when she
came in this afternoon? I heard you asking her something about him, but
she answered in such a low voice I didn't--ah--happen to catch it.”

“She--she didn't say much. All she said was this: I asked her if she had
enjoyed her walk with him, and she said, 'He's the most wistful creature
I've ever known.'”

“Well?”

“That was all. He IS wistful-looking; and so fragile--though he doesn't
seem quite so much so lately. I was watching Mary from the window when
she went out to-day, and he joined her, and if I hadn't known about him
I'd have thought he had quite an interesting face.”

“If you 'hadn't known about him'? Known what?”

“Oh, nothing, of course,” she said, hurriedly. “Nothing definite, that
is. Mary said decidely, long ago, that he's not at all insane, as we
thought at first. It's only--well, of course it IS odd, their attitude
about him. I suppose it's some nervous trouble that makes him--perhaps
a little queer at times, so that he can't apply himself to anything--or
perhaps does odd things. But, after all, of course, we only have an
impression about it. We don't know--that is, positively. I--” She
paused, then went on: “I didn't know just how to ask--that is--I didn't
mention it to Mary. I didn't--I--” The poor lady floundered pitifully,
concluding with a mumble. “So soon after--after the--the shock.”

“I don't think I've caught more than a glimpse of him,” said Mr.
Vertrees. “I wouldn't know him if I saw him, but your impression of
him is--” He broke off suddenly, springing to his feet in agitation. “I
can't imagine her--oh, NO!” he gasped. And he began to pace the floor.
“A half-witted epileptic!”

“No, no!” she cried. “He may be all right. We--”

“Oh, it's horrible! I can't--” He threw himself back into his chair
again, sweeping his hands across his face, then letting them fall limply
at his sides.

Mrs. Vertrees was tremulous. “You mustn't give way so,” she said,
inspired for once almost to direct discourse. “Whatever Mary might think
of doing, it wouldn't be on her own account; it would be on ours. But if
WE should--should consider it, that wouldn't be on OUR own account. It
isn't because we think of ourselves.”

“Oh God, no!” he groaned. “Not for us! We can go to the poorhouse, but
Mary can't be a stenographer!”

Sighing, Mrs. Vertrees resumed her obliqueness. “Of course,” she
murmured, “it all seems very premature, speculating about such things,
but I had a queer sort of feeling that she seemed quite interested in
this--” She had almost said “in this one,” but checked herself. “In this
young man. It's natural, of course; she is always so strong and well,
and he is--he seems to be, that is--rather appealing to the--the
sympathies.”

“Yes!” he agreed, bitterly. “Precisely. The sympathies!”

“Perhaps,” she faltered, “perhaps you might feel easier if I could have
a little talk with some one?”

“With whom?”

“I had thought of--not going about it too brusquely, of course, but
perhaps just waiting for his name to be mentioned, if I happened to
be talking with somebody that knew the family--and then I might find
a chance to say that I was sorry to hear he'd been ill so much,
and--Something of that kind perhaps?”

“You don't know anybody that knows the family.”

“Yes. That is--well, in a way, of course, one OF the family. That Mrs.
Roscoe Sheridan is not a--that is, she's rather a pleasant-faced little
woman, I think, and of course rather ordinary. I think she is interested
about--that is, of course, she'd be anxious to be more intimate with
Mary, naturally. She's always looking over here from her house; she
was looking out the window this afternoon when Mary went out, I
noticed--though I don't think Mary saw her. I'm sure she wouldn't think
it out of place to--to be frank about matters. She called the other day,
and Mary must rather like her--she said that evening that the call had
done her good. Don't you think it might be wise?”

“Wise? I don't know. I feel the whole matter is impossible.”

“Yes, so do I,” she returned, promptly. “It isn't really a thing we
should be considering seriously, of course. Still--”

“I should say not! But possibly--”

Thus they skirmished up and down the field, but before they turned the
lights out and went up-stairs it was thoroughly understood between
them that Mrs. Vertrees should seek the earliest opportunity to obtain
definite information from Sibyl Sheridan concerning the mental and
physical status of Bibbs. And if he were subject to attacks of lunacy,
the unhappy pair decided to prevent the sacrifice they supposed their
daughter intended to make of herself. Altogether, if there were spiteful
ghosts in the old house that night, eavesdropping upon the woeful
comedy, they must have died anew of laughter!

Mrs. Vertrees's opportunity occurred the very next afternoon. Darkness
had fallen, and the piano-movers had come. They were carrying the piano
down the front steps, and Mrs. Vertrees was standing in the open doorway
behind them, preparing to withdraw, when she heard a sharp exclamation;
and Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan, bareheaded, emerged from the shadow into the
light of the doorway.

“Good gracious!” she cried. “It did give me a fright!”

“It's Mrs. Sheridan, isn't it?” Mrs. Vertrees was perplexed by this
informal appearance, but she reflected that it might be providential.
“Won't you come in?”

“No. Oh no, thank you!” Sibyl panted, pressing her hand to her side.
“You don't know what a fright you've given me! And it was nothing but
your piano!” She laughed shrilly. “You know, since our tragedy coming
so suddenly the other day, you have no idea how upset I've been--almost
hysterical! And I just glanced out of the window, a minute or so ago,
and saw your door wide open and black figures of men against the light,
carrying something heavy, and I almost fainted. You see, it was just the
way it looked when I saw them bringing my poor brother-in-law in,
next door, only such a few short days ago. And I thought I'd seen your
daughter start for a drive with Bibbs Sheridan in a car about three
o'clock--and-- They aren't back yet, are they?”

“No. Good heavens!”

“And the only thing I could think of was that something must have
happened to them, and I just dashed over--and it was only your PIANO!”
 She broke into laughter again. “I suppose you're just sending it
somewhere to be repaired, aren't you?”

“It's--it's being taken down-town,” said Mrs. Vertrees. “Won't you come
in and make me a little visit. I was SO sorry, the other day, that I
was--ah--” She stopped inconsequently, then repeated her invitation.
“Won't you come in? I'd really--”

“Thank you, but I must be running back. My husband usually gets home
about this time, and I make a little point of it always to be there.”

“That's very sweet.” Mrs. Vertrees descended the steps and walked toward
the street with Sibyl. “It's quite balmy for so late in November, isn't
it? Almost like a May evening.”

“I'm afraid Miss Vertrees will miss her piano,” said Sibyl, watching
the instrument disappear into the big van at the curb. “She plays
wonderfully, Mrs. Kittersby tells me.”

“Yes, she plays very well. One of your relatives came to hear her
yesterday, after dinner, and I think she played all evening for him.”

“You mean Bibbs?” asked Sibyl.

“The--the youngest Mr. Sheridan. Yes. He's very musical, isn't he?”

“I never heard of it. But I shouldn't think it would matter much whether
he was or not, if he could get Miss Vertrees to play to him. Does your
daughter expect the piano back soon?”

“I--I believe not immediately. Mr. Sheridan came last evening to hear
her play because she had arranged with the--that is, it was to be
removed this afternoon. He seems almost well again.”

“Yes.” Sibyl nodded. “His father's going to try to start him to work.”

“He seems very delicate,” said Mrs. Vertrees. “I shouldn't think he
would be able to stand a great deal, either physically or--” She paused
and then added, glowing with the sense of her own adroitness--“or
mentally.”

“Oh, mentally Bibbs is all right,” said Sibyl, in an odd voice.

“Entirely?” Mrs. Vertrees asked, breathlessly.

“Yes, entirely.”

“But has he ALWAYS been?” This question came with the same anxious
eagerness.

“Certainly. He had a long siege of nervous dyspepsia, but he's over it.”

“And you think--”

“Bibbs is all right. You needn't wor--” Sibyl choked, and pressed
her handkerchief to her mouth. “Good night, Mrs. Vertrees,” she said,
hurriedly, as the head-lights of an automobile swung round the corner
above, sending a brightening glare toward the edge of the pavement where
the two ladies were standing.

“Won't you come in?” urged Mrs. Vertrees, cordially, hearing the sound
of a cheerful voice out of the darkness beyond the approaching glare.
“Do! There's Mary now, and she--”

But Sibyl was half-way across the street. “No, thanks,” she called.
“I hope she won't miss her piano!” And she ran into her own house
and plunged headlong upon a leather divan in the hall, holding her
handkerchief over her mouth.

The noise of her tumultuous entrance was evidently startling in the
quiet house, for upon the bang of the door there followed the crash of
a decanter, dropped upon the floor of the dining-room at the end of the
hall; and, after a rumble of indistinct profanity, Roscoe came forth,
holding a dripping napkin in his hand.

“What's your excitement?” he demanded. “What do you find to go into
hysterics over? Another death in the family?”

“Oh, it's funny!” she gasped. “Those old frost-bitten people! I guess
THEY'RE getting their come-uppance!” Lying prone, she elevated her feet
in the air, clapped her heels together repeatedly, in an ecstasy.

“Come through, come through!” said her husband, crossly. “What you been
up to?”

“Me?” she cried, dropping her feet and swinging around to face him.
“Nothing. It's them! Those Vertreeses!” She wiped her eyes. “They've had
to sell their piano!”

“Well, what of it?”

“That Mrs. Kittersby told me all about 'em a week ago,” said Sibyl.
“They've been hard up for a long time, and she says as long ago as
last winter she knew that girl got a pair of walking-shoes re-soled and
patched, because she got it done the same place Mrs. Kittersby's cook
had HERS! And the night of the house-warming I kind of got suspicious,
myself. She didn't have one single piece of any kind of real jewelry,
and you could see her dress was an old one done over. Men can't tell
those things, and you all made a big fuss over her, but I thought she
looked a sight, myself! Of course, EDITH was crazy to have her, and--”

“Well, well?” he urged, impatiently.

“Well, I'm TELLING you! Mrs. Kittersby says they haven't got a THING!
Just absolutely NOTHING--and they don't know anywhere to turn! The
family's all died out but them, and all the relatives they got are very
distant, and live East and scarcely know 'em. She says the whole town's
been wondering what WOULD become of 'em. The girl had plenty chances to
marry up to a year or so ago, but she was so indifferent she scared the
men off, and the ones that had wanted to went and married other girls.
Gracious! they were lucky! Marry HER? The man that found himself tied up
to THAT girl--”

“Terrible funny, terrible funny!” said Roscoe, with sarcasm. “It's so
funny I broke a cut-glass decanter and spilled a quart of--”

“Wait!” she begged. “You'll see. I was sitting by the window a little
while ago, and I saw a big wagon drive up across the street and some men
go into the house. It was too dark to make out much, and for a minute
I got the idea they were moving out--the house has been foreclosed on,
Mrs. Kittersby says. It seemed funny, too, because I knew that girl was
out riding with Bibbs. Well, I thought I'd see, so I slipped over--and
it was their PIANO! They'd sold it and were trying to sneak it out after
dark, so nobody'd catch on!” Again she gave way to her enjoyment, but
resumed, as her husband seemed about to interrupt the narrative. “Wait a
minute, can't you? The old lady was superintending, and she gave it all
away. I sized her up for one of those old churchy people that tell
all kinds of lies except when it comes to so many words, and then they
can't. She might just as well told me outright! Yes, they'd sold it;
and I hope they'll pay some of their debts. They owe everybody, and last
week a coal-dealer made an awful fuss at the door with Mr. Vertrees.
Their cook told our upstairs girl, and she said she didn't know WHEN
she'd seen any money, herself! Did you ever hear of such a case as that
girl in your LIFE?”

“What girl? Their cook?”

“That Vertrees girl! Don't you see they looked on our coming up into
this neighborhood as their last chance? They were just going down and
out, and here bobs up the green, rich Sheridan family! So they doll
the girl up in her old things, made over, and send her out to get a
Sheridan--she's GOT to get one! And she just goes in blind; and she
tries it on first with YOU. You remember, she just plain TOLD you she
was going to mash you, and then she found out you were the married one,
and turned right square around to Jim and carried him off his feet.
Oh, Jim was landed--there's no doubt about THAT! But Jim was lucky;
he didn't live to STAY landed, and it's a good thing for him!” Sibyl's
mirth had vanished, and she spoke with virulent rapidity. “Well, she
couldn't get you, because you were married, and she couldn't get Jim,
because Jim died. And there they were, dead broke! Do you know what she
did? Do you know what she's DOING?”

“No, I don't,” said Roscoe, gruffly.

Sibyl's voice rose and culminated in a scream of renewed hilarity.
“BIBBS! She waited in the grave-yard, and drove home with him from JIM'S
FUNERAL! Never spoke to him before! Jim wasn't COLD!”

She rocked herself back and forth upon the divan. “Bibbs!” she shrieked.
“Bibbs! Roscoe, THINK of it! BIBBS!”

He stared unsympathetically, but her mirth was unabated for all that.
“And yesterday,” she continued, between paroxysms--“yesterday she came
out of the house--just as he was passing. She must have been looking
out--waiting for the chance; I saw the old lady watching at the window!
And she got him there last night--to 'PLAY' to him; the old lady gave
that away! And to-day she made him take her out in a machine! And the
cream of it is that they didn't even know whether he was INSANE or
not--they thought maybe he was, but she went after him just the same!
The old lady set herself to pump me about it to-day. BIBBS! Oh, my Lord!
BIBBS!”

But Roscoe looked grim. “So it's funny to you, is it? It sounds kind of
pitiful to me. I should think it would to a woman, too.”

“Oh, it might,” she returned, sobering. “It might, if those people
weren't such frozen-faced smart Alecks. If they'd had the decency to
come down off the perch a little I probably wouldn't think it was funny,
but to see 'em sit up on their pedestal all the time they're eating
dirt--well, I think it's funny! That girl sits up as if she was Queen
Elizabeth, and expects people to wallow on the ground before her until
they get near enough for her to give 'em a good kick with her old
patched shoes--oh, she'd do THAT, all right!--and then she powders up
and goes out to mash--BIBBS SHERIDAN!”

“Look here,” said Roscoe, heavily; “I don't care about that one way or
another. If you're through, I got something I want to talk to you about.
I was going to, that day just before we heard about Jim.”

At this Sibyl stiffened quickly; her eyes became intensely bright. “What
is it?”

“Well,” he began, frowning, “what I was going to say then--” He broke
off, and, becoming conscious that he was still holding the wet napkin in
his hand, threw it pettishly into a corner. “I never expected I'd have
to say anything like this to anybody I MARRIED; but I was going to ask
you what was the matter between you and Lamhorn.”

Sibyl uttered a sharp monosyllable. “Well?”

“I felt the time had come for me to know about it,” he went on. “You
never told me anything--”

“You never asked,” she interposed, curtly.

“Well, we'd got in a way of not talking much,” said Roscoe. “It looks to
me now as if we'd pretty much lost the run of each other the way a good
many people do. I don't say it wasn't my fault. I was up early and down
to work all day, and I'd come home tired at night, and want to go to bed
soon as I'd got the paper read--unless there was some good musical show
in town. Well, you seemed all right until here lately, the last month or
so, I began to see something was wrong. I couldn't help seeing it.”

“Wrong?” she said. “What like?”

“You changed; you didn't look the same. You were all strung up and
excited and fidgety; you got to looking peakid and run down. Now then,
Lamhorn had been going with us a good while, but I noticed that not long
ago you got to picking on him about every little thing he did; you got
to quarreling with him when I was there and when I wasn't. I could see
you'd been quarreling whenever I came in and he was here.”

“Do you object to that?” asked Sibyl, breathing quickly.

“Yes--when it injures my wife's health!” he returned, with a quick lift
of his eyes to hers. “You began to run down just about the time you
began falling out with him.” He stepped close to her. “See here, Sibyl,
I'm going to know what it means.”

“Oh, you ARE?” she snapped.

“You're trembling,” he said, gravely.

“Yes. I'm angry enough to do more than tremble, you'll find. Go on!”

“That was all I was going to say the other day,” he said. “I was going
to ask you--”

“Yes, that was all you were going to say THE OTHER DAY. Yes. What else
have you to say to-night?”

“To-night,” he replied, with grim swiftness, “I want to know why you
keep telephoning him you want to see him since he stopped coming here.”

She made a long, low sound of comprehension before she said, “And what
else did Edith want you to ask me?”

“I want to know what you say over the telephone to Lamhorn,” he said,
fiercely.

“Is that all Edith told you to ask me? You saw her when you stopped in
there on your way home this evening, didn't you? Didn't she tell you
then what I said over the telephone to Mr. Lamhorn?”

“No, she didn't!” he vociferated, his voice growing louder. “She said,
'You tell your wife to stop telephoning Robert Lamhorn to come and see
her, because he isn't going to do it!' That's what she said! And I want
to know what it means. I intend--”

A maid appeared at the lower end of the hall. “Dinner is ready,” she
said, and, giving the troubled pair one glance, went demurely into the
dining-room. Roscoe disregarded the interruption.

“I intend to know exactly what has been going on,” he declared. “I mean
to know just what--”

Sibyl jumped up, almost touching him, standing face to face with him.

“Oh, you DO!” she cried, shrilly. “You mean to know just what's what, do
you? You listen to your sister insinuating ugly things about your
wife, and then you come home making a scene before the servants and
humiliating me in their presence! Do you suppose that Irish girl didn't
hear every word you said? You go in there and eat your dinner alone! Go
on! Go and eat your dinner alone--because I won't eat with you!”

And she broke away from the detaining grasp he sought to fasten upon
her, and dashed up the stairway, panting. He heard the door of her room
slam overhead, and the sharp click of the key in the lock.



CHAPTER XVIII

At seven o'clock on the last morning of that month, Sheridan, passing
through the upper hall on his way to descend the stairs for breakfast,
found a couple of scribbled sheets of note-paper lying on the floor. A
window had been open in Bibbs's room the evening before; he had left his
note-book on the sill--and the sheets were loose. The door was open, and
when Bibbs came in and closed it, he did not notice that the two sheets
had blown out into the hall. Sheridan recognized the handwriting and
put the sheets in his coat pocket, intending to give them to George
or Jackson for return to the owner, but he forgot and carried them
down-town with him. At noon he found himself alone in his office, and,
having a little leisure, remembered the bits of manuscript, took them
out, and glanced at them. A glance was enough to reveal that they were
not epistolary. Sheridan would not have read a “private letter” that
came into his possession in that way, though in a “matter of business”
 he might have felt it his duty to take advantage of an opportunity
afforded in any manner whatsoever. Having satisfied himself that Bibbs's
scribblings were only a sample of the kind of writing his son preferred
to the machine-shop, he decided, innocently enough, that he would be
justified in reading them.

  It appears that a lady will nod pleasantly upon some windy
  generalization of a companion, and will wear the most agreeable
  expression of accepting it as the law, and then--days afterward,
  when the thing is a mummy to its promulgator--she will inquire out
  of a clear sky:  “WHY did you say that the people down-town have
  nothing in life that a chicken hasn't?  What did you mean?”  And she
  may say it in a manner that makes a sensible reply very difficult
  --you will be so full of wonder that she remembered so seriously.

  Yet, what does the rooster lack?  He has food and shelter; he is
  warm in winter; his wives raise not one fine family for him, but
  dozens.  He has a clear sky over him; he breathes sweet air; he
  walks in his April orchard under a roof of flowers.  He must die,
  violently perhaps, but quickly.  Is Midas's cancer a better way?
  The rooster's wives and children must die.  Are those of Midas
  immortal?  His life is shorter than the life of Midas, but Midas's
  life is only a sixth as long as that of the Galapagos tortoise.

  The worthy money-worker takes his vacation so that he may refresh
  himself anew for the hard work of getting nothing that the rooster
  doesn't get.  The office-building has an elevator, the rooster
  flies up to the bough.  Midas has a machine to take him to his work;
  the rooster finds his worm underfoot.  The “business man” feels
  a pressure sometimes, without knowing why, and sits late at wine
  after the day's labor; next morning he curses his head because it
  interferes with the work--he swears never to relieve that pressure
  again.  The rooster has no pressure and no wine; this difference is
  in his favor.

  The rooster is a dependent; he depends upon the farmer and the
  weather.  Midas is a dependent; he depends upon the farmer and the
  weather.  The rooster thinks only of the moment; Midas provides for
  to-morrow.  What does he provide for to-morrow?  Nothing that the
  rooster will not have without providing.

  The rooster and the prosperous worker:  they are born, they grub,
  they love; they grub and love grubbing; they grub and they die.
  Neither knows beauty; neither knows knowledge.  And after all, when
  Midas dies and the rooster dies, there is one thing Midas has had
  and rooster has not.  Midas has had the excitement of accumulating
  what he has grubbed, and that has been his life and his love and
  his god.  He cannot take that god with him when he dies.  I wonder
  if the worthy gods are those we can take with us.

  Midas must teach all to be as Midas; the young must be raised in
  his religion--

The manuscript ended there, and Sheridan was not anxious for more.
He crumpled the sheets into a ball, depositing it (with vigor) in a
waste-basket beside him; then, rising, he consulted a Cyclopedia of
Names, which a book-agent had somehow sold to him years before; a
volume now first put to use for the location of “Midas.” Having read the
legend, Sheridan walked up and down the spacious office, exhaling
the breath of contempt. “Dam' fool!” he mumbled. But this was no new
thought, nor was the contrariness of Bibbs's notes a surpise to him; and
presently he dismissed the matter from his mind.

He felt very lonely, and this was, daily, his hardest hour. For a long
time he and Jim had lunched together habitually. Roscoe preferred a
club luncheon, but Jim and his father almost always went to a small
restaurant near the Sheridan Building, where they spent twenty minutes
in the consumption of food, and twenty in talk, with cigars. Jim came
for his father every day, at five minutes after twelve, and Sheridan
was again in his office at five minutes before one. But now that Jim no
longer came, Sheridan remained alone in his office; he had not gone out
to lunch since Jim's death, nor did he have anything sent to him--he
fasted until evening.

It was the time he missed Jim personally the most--the voice and eyes
and handshake, all brisk and alert, all business-like. But these things
were not the keenest in Sheridan's grief; his sense of loss went far
deeper. Roscoe was dependable, a steady old wheel-horse, and that was
a great comfort; but it was in Jim that Sheridan had most happily
perceived his own likeness. Jim was the one who would have been surest
to keep the great property growing greater, year by year. Sheridan had
fallen asleep, night after night, picturing what the growth would be
under Jim. He had believed that Jim was absolutely certain to be one of
the biggest men in the country. Well, it was all up to Roscoe now!

That reminded him of a question he had in mind to ask Roscoe. It was a
question Sheridan considered of no present importance, but his wife had
suggested it--though vaguely--and he had meant to speak to Roscoe about
it. However, Roscoe had not come into his father's office for several
days, and when Sheridan had seen his son at home there had been no
opportunity.

He waited until the greater part of his day's work was over, toward four
o'clock, and then went down to Roscoe's office, which was on a lower
floor. He found several men waiting for business interviews in an outer
room of the series Roscoe occupied; and he supposed that he would
find his son busy with others, and that his question would have to
be postponed, but when he entered the door marked “R. C. Sheridan.
Private,” Roscoe was there alone.

He was sitting with his back to the door, his feet on a window-sill, and
he did not turn as his father opened the door.

“Some pretty good men out there waitin' to see you, my boy,” said
Sheridan. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing,” Roscoe answered indistinctly, not moving.

“Well, I guess that's all right, too. I let 'em wait sometimes myself!
I just wanted to ask you a question, but I expect it'll keep, if you're
workin' something out in your mind!”

Roscoe made no reply; and his father, who had turned to the door, paused
with his hand on the knob, staring curiously at the motionless figure in
the chair. Usually the son seemed pleased and eager when he came to the
office. “You're all right, ain't you?” said Sheridan. “Not sick, are
you?”

“No.”

Sheridan was puzzled; then, abruptly, he decided to ask his question. “I
wanted to talk to you about that young Lamhorn,” he said. “I guess your
mother thinks he's comin' to see Edith pretty often, and you known him
longer'n any of us, so--”

“I won't,” said Roscoe, thickly--“I won't say a dam' thing about him!”

Sheridan uttered an exclamation and walked quickly to a position
near the window where he could see his son's face. Roscoe's eyes were
bloodshot and vacuous; his hair was disordered, his mouth was distorted,
and he was deathly pale. The father stood aghast.

“By George!” he muttered. “ROSCOE!”

“My name,” said Roscoe. “Can' help that.”

“ROSCOE!” Blank astonishment was Sheridan's first sensation. Probably
nothing in the world could have more amazed his than to find Roscoe--the
steady old wheel-horse--in this condition. “How'd you GET this way?” he
demanded. “You caught cold and took too much for it?”

For reply Roscoe laughed hoarsely. “Yeuh! Cold! I been drinkun all time,
lately. Firs' you notice it?”

“By George!” cried Sheridan. “I THOUGHT I'd smelt it on you a good deal
lately, but I wouldn't 'a' believed you'd take more'n was good for you.
Boh! To see you like a common hog!”

Roscoe chuckled and threw out his right arm in a meaningless gesture.
“Hog!” he repeated, chuckling.

“Yes, a hog!” said Sheridan, angrily. “In business hours! I don't object
to anybody's takin' a drink if you wants to, out o' business hours; nor,
if a man keeps his work right up to the scratch, I wouldn't be the one
to baste him if he got good an' drunk once in two, three years, maybe.
It ain't MY way. I let it alone, but I never believed in forcin' my way
on a grown-up son in moral matters. I guess I was wrong! You think them
men out there are waitin' to talk business with a drunkard? You think
you can come to your office and do business drunk? By George! I wonder
how often this has been happening and me not on to it! I'll have a look
over your books to-morrow, and I'll--”

Roscoe stumbled to his feet, laughing wildly, and stood swaying,
contriving to hold himself in position by clutching the back of the
heavy chair in which he had been sitting.

“Hoo--hoorah!” he cried. “'S my principles, too. Be drunkard all you
want to--outside business hours. Don' for Gossake le'n'thing innerfere
business hours! Business! Thassit! You're right, father. Drink! Die!
L'everything go to hell, but DON' let innerfere business!”

Sheridan had seized the telephone upon Roscoe's desk, and was calling
his own office, overhead. “Abercrombie? Come down to my son Roscoe's
suite and get rid of some gentlemen that are waitin' there to see him in
room two-fourteen. There's Maples and Schirmer and a couple o' fellows
on the Kinsey business. Tell 'em something's come up I have to go over
with Roscoe, and tell 'em to come back day after to-morrow at two.
You needn't come in to let me know they're gone; we don't want to be
disturbed. Tell Pauly to call my house and send Claus down here with a
closed car. We may have to go out. Tell him to hustle, and call me at
Roscoe's room as soon as the car gets here. 'T's all!”

Roscoe had laughed bitterly throughout this monologue. “Drunk in
business hours! Thass awf'l! Mus'n' do such thing! Mus'n' get drunk,
mus'n' gamble, mus'n' kill 'nybody--not in business hours! All right any
other time. Kill 'nybody you want to--'s long 'tain't in business
hours! Fine! Mus'n' have any trouble 't'll innerfere business. Keep your
trouble 't home. Don' bring it to th' office. Might innerfere business!
Have funerals on Sunday--might innerfere business! Don' let your wife
innerfere business! Keep all, all, ALL your trouble an' your meanness,
an' your trad--your tradegy--keep 'em ALL for home use! If you got die,
go on die 't home--don' die round th' office! Might innerfere business!”

Sheridan picked up a newspaper from Roscoe's desk, and sat down with his
back to his son, affecting to read. Roscoe seemed to be unaware of his
father's significant posture.

“You know wh' I think?” he went on. “I think Bibbs only one the fam'ly
any 'telligence at all. Won' work, an' di'n' get married. Jim worked,
an' he got killed. I worked, an' I got married. Look at me! Jus' look at
me, I ask you. Fine 'dustriss young business man. Look whass happen' to
me! Fine!” He lifted his hand from the sustaining chair in a deplorable
gesture, and, immediately losing his balance, fell across the chair
and caromed to the floor with a crash, remaining prostrate for several
minutes, during which Sheridan did not relax his apparent attention to
the newspaper. He did not even look round at the sound of Roscoe's fall.

Roscoe slowly climbed to an upright position, pulling himself up
by holding to the chair. He was slightly sobered outwardly, having
progressed in the prostrate interval to a state of befuddlement less
volatile. He rubbed his dazed eyes with the back of his left hand.

“What--what you ask me while ago?” he said.

“Nothin'.”

“Yes, you did. What--what was it?”

“Nothin'. You better sit down.”

“You ask' me what I thought about Lamhorn. You did ask me that. Well, I
won't tell you. I won't say dam' word 'bout him!”

The telephone-bell tinkled. Sheridan placed the receiver to his ear and
said, “Right down.” Then he got Roscoe's coat and hat from a closet and
brought them to his son. “Get into this coat,” he said. “You're goin'
home.”

“All ri',” Roscoe murmured, obediently.

They went out into the main hall by a side door, not passing through the
outer office; and Sheridan waited for an empty elevator, stopped it, and
told the operator to take on no more passengers until they reached
the ground floor. Roscoe walked out of the building and got into the
automobile without lurching, and twenty minutes later walked into his
own house in the same manner, neither he nor his father having spoken a
word in the interval.

Sheridan did not go in with him; he went home, and to his own room
without meeting any of his family. But as he passed Bibbs's door he
heard from within the sound of a cheerful young voice humming jubilant
fragments of song:

  WHO looks a mustang in the eye?...
  With a leap from the ground
  To the saddle in a bound.
      And away--and away!
      Hi-yay!

It was the first time in Sheridan's life that he had ever detected
any musical symptom whatever in Bibbs--he had never even heard him
whistle--and it seemed the last touch of irony that the useless fool
should be merry to-day.

To Sheridan it was Tom o' Bedlam singing while the house burned; and he
did not tarry to enjoy the melody, but went into his own room and locked
the door.



CHAPTER XIX

He emerged only upon a second summons to dinner, two hours later, and
came to the table so white and silent that his wife made her anxiety
manifest and was but partially reassured by his explanation that his
lunch had “disagreed” with him a little.

Presently, however, he spoke effectively. Bibbs, whose appetite had
become hearty, was helping himself to a second breast of capon from
white-jacket's salver. “Here's another difference between Midas and
chicken,” Sheridan remarked, grimly. “Midas can eat rooster, but rooster
can't eat Midas. I reckon you overlooked that. Midas looks to me like he
had the advantage there.”

Bibbs retained enough presence of mind to transfer the capon breast to
his plate without dropping it and to respond, “Yes--he crows over it.”

Having returned his antagonists's fire in this fashion, he blushed--for
he could blush distinctly now--and his mother looked upon him with
pleasure, though the reference to Midas and roosters was of course
jargon to her. “Did you ever see anybody improve the way that child
has!” she exclaimed. “I declare, Bibbs, sometimes lately you look right
handsome!”

“He's got to be such a gadabout,” Edith giggled.

“I found something of his on the floor up-stairs this morning, before
anybody was up,” said Sheridan. “I reckon if people lose things in this
house and expect to get 'em back, they better get up as soon as I do.”

“What was it he lost?” asked Edith.

“He knows!” her father returned. “Seems to me like I forgot to bring it
home with me. I looked it over--thought probably it was something pretty
important, belongin' to a busy man like him.” He affected to search
his pockets. “What DID I do with it, now? Oh yes! Seems to me like I
remember leavin' it down at the office--in the waste-basket.”

“Good place for it,” Bibbs murmured, still red.

Sheridan gave him a grin. “Perhaps pretty soon you'll be gettin' up
early enough to find things before I do!”

It was a threat, and Bibbs repeated the substance of it, later in the
evening, to Mary Vertrees--they had come to know each other that well.

“My time's here at last,” he said, as they sat together in the
melancholy gas-light of the room which had been denuded of its piano.
That removal had left an emptiness so distressing to Mr. and Mrs.
Vertrees that neither of them had crossed the threshold since the dark
day; but the gas-light, though from a single jet, shed no melancholy
upon Bibbs, nor could any room seem bare that knew the glowing presence
of Mary. He spoke lightly, not sadly.

“Yes, it's come. I've shirked and put off, but I can't shirk and put off
any longer. It's really my part to go to him--at least it would save my
face. He means what he says, and the time's come to serve my sentence.
Hard labor for life, I think.”

Mary shook her head. “I don't think so. He's too kind.”

“You think my father's KIND?” And Bibbs stared at her.

“Yes. I'm sure of it. I've felt that he has a great, brave heart. It's
only that he has to be kind in his own way--because he can't understand
any other way.”

“Ah yes,” said Bibbs. “If that's what you mean by 'kind'!”

She looked at him gravely, earnest concern in her friendly eyes. “It's
going to be pretty hard for you, isn't it?”

“Oh--self-pity!” he returned, smiling. “This has been just the last
flicker of revolt. Nobody minds work if he likes the kind of work.
There'd be no loafers in the world if each man found the thing that he
could do best; but the only work I happen to want to do is useless--so I
have to give it up. To-morrow I'll be a day-laborer.”

“What is it like--exactly?”

“I get up at six,” he said. “I have a lunch-basket to carry with me,
which is aristocratic and no advantage. The other workmen have tin
buckets, and tin buckets are better. I leave the house at six-thirty,
and I'm at work in my overalls at seven. I have an hour off at noon, and
work again from one till five.”

“But the work itself?”

“It wasn't muscularly exhausting--not at all. They couldn't give me a
heavier job because I wasn't good enough.”

“But what will you do? I want to know.”

“When I left,” said Bibbs, “I was 'on' what they call over there a
'clipping-machine,' in one of the 'by-products' departments, and that's
what I'll be sent back to.”

“But what is it?” she insisted.

Bibbs explained. “It's very simple and very easy. I feed long strips of
zinc into a pair of steel jaws, and the jaws bite the zinc into little
circles. All I have to do is to see that the strip goes into the jaws at
a certain angle--and yet I was a very bad hand at it.”

He had kept his voice cheerful as he spoke, but he had grown a shade
paler, and there was a latent anguish deep in his eyes. He may have
known it and wished her not to see it, for he turned away.

“You do that all day long?” she asked, and as he nodded, “It seems
incredible!” she exclaimed. “YOU feeding a strip of zinc into a machine
nine hours a day! No wonder--” She broke off, and then, after a keen
glance at his face, she said: “I should think you WOULD have been a 'bad
hand at it'!”

He laughed ruefully. “I think it's the noise, though I'm ashamed to
say it. You see, it's a very powerful machine, and there's a sort of
rhythmical crashing--a crash every time the jaws bite off a circle.”

“How often is that?”

“The thing should make about sixty-eight disks a minute--a little more
than one a second.”

“And you're close to it?”

“Oh, the workman has to sit in its lap,” he said, turning to her more
gaily. “The others don't mind. You see, it's something wrong with me. I
have an idiotic way of flinching from the confounded thing--I flinch and
duck a little every time the crash comes, and I couldn't get over it. I
was a treat to the other workmen in that room; they'll be glad to see me
back. They used to laugh at me all day long.”

Mary's gaze was averted from Bibbs now; she sat with her elbow resting
on the arm of the chair, her lifted hand pressed against her cheek. She
was staring at the wall, and her eyes had a burning brightness in them.

“It doesn't seem possible any one could do that to you,” she said, in a
low voice. “No. He's not kind. He ought to be proud to help you to the
leisure to write books; it should be his greatest privilege to have them
published for you--”

“Can't you SEE him?” Bibbs interrupted, a faint ripple of hilarity in
his voice. “If he could understand what you're saying--and if you can
imagine his taking such a notion, he'd have had R. T. Bloss put up
posters all over the country: 'Read B. Sheridan. Read the Poet with a
Punch!' No. It's just as well he never got the--But what's the use? I've
never written anything worth printing, and I never shall.”

“You could!” she said.

“That's because you've never seen the poor little things I've tried to
do.”

“You wouldn't let me, but I KNOW you could! Ah, it's a pity!”

“It isn't,” said BIBBS, honestly. “I never could--but you're the kindest
lady in this world, Miss Vertrees.”

She gave him a flashing glance, and it was as kind as he said she was.
“That sounds wrong,” she said, impulsively. “I mean 'Miss Vertrees.'
I've thought of you by your first name ever since I met you. Wouldn't
you rather call me 'Mary'?”

Bibbs was dazzled; he drew a long, deep breath and did not speak.

“Wouldn't you?” she asked, without a trace of coquetry.

“If I CAN!” he said, in a low voice.

“Ah, that's very pretty!” she laughed. “You're such an honest person,
it's pleasant to have you gallant sometimes, by way of variety.” She
became grave again immediately. “I hear myself laughing as if it were
some one else. It sounds like laughter on the eve of a great calamity.”
 She got up restlessly, crossed the room and leaned against the wall,
facing him. “You've GOT to go back to that place?”

He nodded.

“And the other time you did it--”

“Just over it,” said Bibbs. “Two years. But I don't mind the prospect of
a repetition so much as--”

“So much as what?” she prompted, as he stopped.

Bibbs looked up at her shyly. “I want to say it, but--but I come to a
dead balk when I try. I--”

“Go on. Say it, whatever it is,” she bade him. “You wouldn't know how to
say anything I shouldn't like.”

“I doubt if you'd either like or dislike what I want to say,” he
returned, moving uncomfortably in his chair and looking at his feet--he
seemed to feel awkward, thoroughly. “You see, all my life--until I met
you--if I ever felt like saying anything, I wrote it instead. Saying
things is a new trick for me, and this--well, it's just this: I used to
feel as if I hadn't ever had any sort of a life at all. I'd never been
of use to anything or anybody, and I'd never had anything, myself,
except a kind of haphazard thinking. But now it's different--I'm still
of no use to anybody, and I don't see any prospect of being useful,
but I have had something for myself. I've had a beautiful and happy
experience, and it makes my life seem to be--I mean I'm glad I've lived
it! That's all; it's your letting me be near you sometimes, as you have,
this strange, beautiful, happy little while!”

He did not once look up, and reached silence, at the end of what he had
to say, with his eyes still awkwardly regarding his feet. She did not
speak, but a soft rustling of her garments let him know that she had
gone back to her chair again. The house was still; the shabby old room
was so quiet that the sound of a creaking in the wall seemed sharp and
loud.

And yet, when Mary spoke at last, her voice was barely audible. “If you
think it has been--happy--to be friends with me--you'd want to--to make
it last.”

“Yes,” said Bibbs, as faintly.

“You'd want to go on being my friend as long as we live, wouldn't you?”

“Yes,” he gulped.

“But you make that kind of speech to me because you think it's over.”

He tried to evade her. “Oh, a day-laborer can't come in his overalls--”

“No,” she interrupted, with a sudden sharpness. “You said what you did
because you think the shop's going to kill you.”

“No, no!”

“Yes, you do think that!” She rose to her feet again and came and stood
before him. “Or you think it's going to send you back to the sanitarium.
Don't deny it, Bibbs. There! See how easily I call you that! You see I'm
a friend, or I couldn't do it. Well, if you meant what you said--and you
did mean it, I know it!--you're not going to go back to the sanitarium.
The shop sha'n't hurt you. It sha'n't!”

And now Bibbs looked up. She stood before him, straight and tall,
splendid in generous strength, her eyes shining and wet.

“If I mean THAT much to you,” she cried, “they can't harm you! Go
back to the shop--but come to me when your day's work is done. Let the
machines crash their sixty-eight times a minute, but remember each crash
that deafens you is that much nearer the evening and me!”

He stumbled to his feet. “You say--” he gasped.

“Every evening, dear Bibbs!”

He could only stare, bewildered.

“EVERY evening. I want you. They sha'n't hurt you again!” And she held
out her hand to him; it was strong and warm in his tremulous clasp. “If
I could, I'd go and feed the strips of zinc to the machine with you,”
 she said. “But all day long I'll send my thoughts to you. You must keep
remembering that your friend stands beside you. And when the work is
done--won't the night make up for the day?”

Light seemed to glow from her; he was blinded by that radiance
of kindness. But all he could say was, huskily, “To think you're
there--with me--standing beside the old zinc-eater--”

And they laughed and looked at each other, and at last Bibbs found what
it meant not to be alone in the world. He had a friend.



CHAPTER XX

When he came into the New House, a few minutes later, he found his
father sitting alone by the library fire. Bibbs went in and stood before
him. “I'm cured, father,” he said. “When do I go back to the shop? I'm
ready.”

The desolate and grim old man did not relax. “I was sittin' up to give
you a last chance to say something like that. I reckon it's about time!
I just wanted to see if you'd have manhood enough not to make me take
you over there by the collar. Last night I made up my mind I'd give you
just one more day. Well, you got to it before I did--pretty close to
the eleventh hour! All right. Start in to-morrow. It's the first o' the
month. Think you can get up in time?”

“Six o'clock,” Bibbs responded, briskly. “And I want to tell you--I'm
going in a 'cheerful spirit.' As you said, I'll go and I'll 'like it'!”

“That's YOUR lookout!” his father grunted. “They'll put you back on the
clippin'-machine. You get nine dollars a week.”

“More than I'm worth, too,” said Bibbs, cheerily. “That reminds me, I
didn't mean YOU by 'Midas' in that nonsense I'd been writing. I meant--”

“Makes a hell of a lot o' difference what you meant!”

“I just wanted you to know. Good night, father.”

“G'night!”

The sound of the young man's footsteps ascending the stairs became
inaudible, and the house was quiet. But presently, as Sheridan sat
staring angrily at the fire, the shuffling of a pair of slippers could
be heard descending, and Mrs. Sheridan made her appearance, her oblique
expression and the state of her toilette being those of a person who,
after trying unsuccessfully to sleep on one side, has got up to look for
burglars.

“Papa!” she exclaimed, drowsily. “Why'n't you go to bed? It must be
goin' on 'leven o'clock!”

She yawned, and seated herself near him, stretching out her hands to
the fire. “What's the matter?” she asked, sleep and anxiety striving
sluggishly with each other in her voice. “I knew you were worried all
dinner-time. You got something new on your mind besides Jim's bein'
taken away like he was. What's worryin' you now, papa?”

“Nothin'.”

She jeered feebly. “N' tell ME that! You sat up to see Bibbs, didn't
you?”

“He starts in at the shop again to-morrow morning,” said Sheridan.

“Just the same as he did before?”

“Just pre-CISELY!”

“How--how long you goin' to keep him at it, papa?” she asked, timidly.

“Until he KNOWS something!” The unhappy man struck his palms together,
then got to his feet and began to pace the room, as was his wont when he
talked. “He'll go back to the machine he couldn't learn to tend properly
in the six months he was there, and he'll stick to it till he DOES learn
it! Do you suppose that lummix ever asked himself WHY I want him to
learn it? No! And I ain't a-goin' to tell him, either! When he went
there I had 'em set him on the simplest machine we got--and he stuck
there! How much prospect would there be of his learnin' to run the whole
business if he can't run the easiest machine in it? I sent him there
to make him THOROUGH. And what happened? He didn't LIKE it! That boy's
whole life, there's been a settin' up o' something mulish that's against
everything I want him to do. I don't know what it is, but it's got to be
worked out of him. Now, labor ain't any more a simple question than what
it was when we were young. My idea is that, outside o' union troubles,
the man that can manage workin'-men is the man that's been one himself.
Well, I set Bibbs to learn the men and to learn the business, and HE
set himself to balk on the first job! That's what he did, and the balk's
lasted close on to three years. If he balks again I'm just done with
him! Sometimes I feel like I was pretty near done with everything,
anyhow!”

“I knew there was something else,” said Mrs. Sheridan, blinking over
a yawn. “You better let it go till to-morrow and get to bed now--'less
you'll tell me?”

“Suppose something happened to Roscoe,” he said. “THEN what'd I have to
look forward to? THEN what could I depend on to hold things together? A
lummix! A lummix that hasn't learned how to push a strip o' zinc along a
groove!”

“Roscoe?” she yawned. “You needn't worry about Roscoe, papa. He's the
strongest child we had. I never did know anybody keep better health than
he does. I don't believe he's even had a cold in five years. You better
go up to bed, papa.”

“Suppose something DID happen to him, though. You don't know what it
means, keepin' property together these days--just keepin' it ALIVE, let
alone makin' it grow the way I do. I've seen too many estates hacked
away in chunks, big and little. I tell you when a man dies the wolves
come out o' the woods, pack after pack, to see what they can tear off
for themselves; and if that dead man's chuldern ain't on the job, night
and day, everything he built'll get carried off. Carried off? I've seen
a big fortune behave like an ash-barrel in a cyclone--there wasn't even
a dust-heap left to tell where it stood! I've seen it, time and again.
My Lord! when I think o' such things comin' to ME! It don't seem like
I deserved it--no man ever tried harder to raise his boys right than I
have. I planned and planned and planned how to bring 'em up to be guards
to drive the wolves off, and how to be builders to build, and build
bigger. I tell you this business life is no fool's job nowadays--a man's
got to have eyes in the back of his head. You hear talk, sometimes, 'd
make you think the millennium had come--but right the next breath you'll
hear somebody hollerin' about 'the great unrest.' You BET there's a
'great unrest'! There ain't any man alive smart enough to see what it's
goin' to do to us in the end, nor what day it's got set to bust loose,
but it's frothin' and bubblin' in the boiler. This country's been
fillin' up with it from all over the world for a good many years, and
the old camp-meetin' days are dead and done with. Church ain't what it
used to be. Nothin's what it used to be--everything's turned up from the
bottom, and the growth is so big the roots stick out in the air. There's
an awful ruction goin' on, and you got to keep hoppin' if you're goin'
to keep your balance on the top of it. And the schemers! They run like
bugs on the bottom of a board--after any piece o' money they hear is
loose. Fool schemes and crooked schemes; the fool ones are the most and
the worst! You got to FIGHT to keep your money after you've made it. And
the woods are full o' mighty industrious men that's got only one motto:
'Get the other fellow's money before he gets yours!' And when a man's
built as I have, when he's built good and strong, and made good things
grow and prosper--THOSE are the fellows that lay for the chance to slide
in and sneak the benefit of it and put their names to it! And what's
the use of my havin' ever been born, if such a thing as that is goin'
to happen? What's the use of my havin' worked my life and soul into my
business, if it's all goin' to be dispersed and scattered soon as I'm in
the ground?”

He strode up and down the long room, gesticulating--little regarding
the troubled and drowsy figure by the fireside. His throat rumbled
thunderously; the words came with stormy bitterness. “You think this is
a time for young men to be lyin' on beds of ease? I tell you there never
was such a time before; there never was such opportunity. The sluggard
is despoiled while he sleeps--yes, by George! if a man lays down they'll
eat him before he wakes!--but the live man can build straight up till
he touches the sky! This is the business man's day; it used to be the
soldier's day and the statesman's day, but this is OURS! And it ain't a
Sunday to go fishin'--it's turmoil! turmoil!--and you got to go out and
live it and breathe it and MAKE it yourself, or you'll only be a dead
man walkin' around dreamin' you're alive. And that's what my son Bibbs
has been doin' all his life, and what he'd rather do now than go out and
do his part by me. And if anything happens to Roscoe--”

“Oh, do stop worryin' over such nonsense,” Mrs. Sheridan interrupted,
irritated into sharp wakefulness for the moment. “There isn't anything
goin' to happen to Roscoe, and you're just tormentin' yourself about
nothin'. Aren't you EVER goin' to bed?”

Sheridan halted. “All right, mamma,” he said, with a vast sigh. “Let's
go up.” And he snapped off the electric light, leaving only the rosy
glow of the fire.

“Did you speak to Roscoe?” she yawned, rising lopsidedly in her
drowsiness. “Did you mention about what I told you the other evening?”

“No. I will to-morrow.”


But Roscoe did not come down-town the next day, nor the next; nor did
Sheridan see fit to enter his son's house. He waited. Then, on the
fourth day of the month, Roscoe walked into his father's office at nine
in the morning, when Sheridan happened to be alone.

“They told me down-stairs you'd left word you wanted to see me.”

“Sit down,” said Sheridan, rising.

Roscoe sat. His father walked close to him, sniffed suspiciously, and
then walked away, smiling bitterly. “Boh!” he exclaimed. “Still at it!”

“Yes,” said Roscoe. “I've had a couple of drinks this morning. What
about it?”

“I reckon I better adopt some decent young man,” his father returned.
“I'd bring Bibbs up here and put him in your place if he was fit. I
would!”

“Better do it,” Roscoe assented, sullenly.

“When'd you begin this thing?”

“I always did drink a little. Ever since I grew up, that is.”

“Leave that talk out! You know what I mean.”

“Well, I don't know as I ever had too much in office hours--until the
other day.”

Sheridan began cutting. “It's a lie. I've had Ray Wills up from your
office. He didn't want to give you away, but I put the hooks into him,
and he came through. You were drunk twice before and couldn't work. You
been leavin' your office for drinks every few hours for the last three
weeks. I been over your books. Your office is way behind. You haven't
done any work, to count, in a month.”

“All right,” said Roscoe, drooping under the torture. “It's all true.”

“What you goin' to do about it?”

Roscoe's head was sunk between his shoulders. “I can't stand very much
talk about it, father,” he said, pleadingly.

“No!” Sheridan cried. “Neither can I! What do you think it means to ME?”
 He dropped into the chair at his big desk, groaning. “I can't stand to
talk about it any more'n you can to listen, but I'm goin' to find out
what's the matter with you, and I'm goin' to straighten you out!”

Roscoe shook his head helplessly.

“You can't straighten me out.”

“See here!” said Sheridan. “Can you go back to your office and stay
sober to-day, while I get my work done, or will I have to hire a couple
o' huskies to follow you around and knock the whiskey out o' your hand
if they see you tryin' to take it?”

“You needn't worry about that,” said Roscoe, looking up with a faint
resentment. “I'm not drinking because I've got a thirst.”

“Well, what have you got?”

“Nothing. Nothing you can do anything about. Nothing, I tell you.”

“We'll see about that!” said Sheridan, harshly. “Now I can't fool with
you to-day, and you get up out o' that chair and get out o' my
office. You bring your wife to dinner to-morrow. You didn't come last
Sunday--but you come to-morrow. I'll talk this out with you when the
women-folks are workin' the phonograph, after dinner. Can you keep sober
till then? You better be sure, because I'm going to send Abercrombie
down to your office every little while, and he'll let me know.”

Roscoe paused at the door. “You told Abercrombie about it?” he asked.

“TOLD him!” And Sheridan laughed hideously. “Do you suppose there's an
elevator-boy in the whole dam' building that ain't on to you?”

Roscoe settled his hat down over his eyes and went out.



CHAPTER XXI

  “WHO looks a mustang in the eye?
  Changety, chang, chang!  Bash! Crash! BANG!”

So sang Bibbs, his musical gaieties inaudible to his fellow-workmen
because of the noise of the machinery. He had discovered long ago that
the uproar was rhythmical, and it had been intolerable; but now, on the
afternoon of the fourth day of his return, he was accompanying the
swing and clash of the metals with jubilant vaquero fragments, mingling
improvisations of his own among them, and mocking the zinc-eater's crash
with vocal imitations:

  Fearless and bold,
  Chang!  Bash!  Behold!
  With a leap from the ground
  To the saddle in a bound,
      And away--and away!
      Hi-YAY!
  WHO looks a chang, chang, bash, crash, bang!
  WHO cares a dash how you bash and you crash?
      NIGHT'S on the way
      EACH time I say,
      Hi-YAY!
  Crash, chang!  Bash, chang!  Chang, bang, BANG!

The long room was ceaselessly thundering with metallic sound; the
air was thick with the smell of oil; the floor trembled perpetually;
everything was implacably in motion--nowhere was there a rest for the
dizzied eye. The first time he had entered the place Bibbs had become
dizzy instantly, and six months of it had only added increasing nausea
to faintness. But he felt neither now. “ALL DAY LONG I'LL SEND MY
THOUGHTS TO YOU. YOU MUST KEEP REMEMBERING THAT YOUR FRIEND STANDS
BESIDE YOU.” He saw her there beside him, and the greasy, roaring place
became suffused with radiance. The poet was happy in his machine-shop;
he was still a poet there. And he fed his old zinc-eater, and sang:

      Away--and away!
      Hi-YAY!
  Crash, bash, crash, bash, CHANG!
    Wild are his eyes,
    Fiercely he dies!
      Hi-YAH!
  Crash, bash, bang!  Bash, CHANG!
    Ready to fling
    Our gloves in the ring--

He was unaware of a sensation that passed along the lines of workmen.
Their great master had come among them, and they grinned to see him
standing with Dr. Gurney behind the unconscious Bibbs. Sheridan nodded
to those nearest him--he had personal acquaintance with nearly all of
them--but he kept his attention upon his son. Bibbs worked steadily,
never turning from his machine. Now and then he varied his musical
programme with remarks addressed to the zinc-eater.

“Go on, you old crash-basher! Chew it up! It's good for you, if
you don't try to bolt your vittles. Fletcherize, you pig! That's
right--YOU'LL never get a lump in your gizzard. Want some more? Here's a
nice, shiny one.”

The words were indistinguishable, but Sheridan inclined his head to
Gurney's ear and shouted fiercely: “Talkin' to himself! By George!”

Gurney laughed reassuringly, and shook his head.

Bibbs returned to song:

  Chang!  Chang, bash, chang!  It's I!
  WHO looks a mustang in the eye?
    Fearless and bo--

His father grasped him by the arm. “Here!” he shouted. “Let ME show you
how to run a strip through there. The foreman says you're some better'n
you used to be, but that's no way to handle--Get out the way and let me
show you once.”

“Better be careful,” Bibbs warned him, stepping to one side.

“Careful? Boh!” Sheridan seized a strip of zinc from the box. “What
you talkin' to yourself about? Tryin' to make yourself think you're so
abused you're goin' wrong in the head?”

“'Abused'? No!” shouted Bibbs. “I was SINGING--because I 'like it'! I
told you I'd come back and 'like it.'”

Sheridan may not have understood. At all events, he made no reply,
but began to run the strip of zinc through the machine. He did it
awkwardly--and with bad results.

“Here!” he shouted. “This is the way. Watch how I do it. There's nothin'
to it, if you put your mind on it.” By his own showing then his mind was
not upon it. He continued to talk. “All you got to look out for is to
keep it pressed over to--”

“Don't run your hand up with it,” Bibbs vociferated, leaning toward him.

“Run nothin'! You GOT to--”

“Look out!” shouted Bibbs and Gurney together, and they both sprang
forward. But Sheridan's right hand had followed the strip too far, and
the zinc-eater had bitten off the tips of the first and second fingers.
He swore vehemently, and wrung his hand, sending a shower of red drops
over himself and Bibbs, but Gurney grasped his wrist, and said, sharply:

“Come out of here. Come over to the lavatory in the office. Bibbs, fetch
my bag. It's in my machine, outside.”

And when Bibbs brought the bag to the washroom he found the doctor
still grasping Sheridan's wrist, holding the injured hand over a basin.
Sheridan had lost color, and temper, too. He glared over his shoulder at
his son as the latter handed the bag to Gurney.

“You go on back to your work,” he said. “I've had worse snips than that
from a pencil-sharpener.”

“Oh no, you haven't!” said Gurney.

“I have, too!” Sheridan retorted, angrily. “Bibbs, you go on back to
your work. There's no reason to stand around here watchin' ole Doc
Gurney tryin' to keep himself awake workin' on a scratch that only needs
a little court-plaster. I slipped, or it wouldn't happened. You get back
on your job.”

“All right,” said Bibbs.

“HERE!” Sheridan bellowed, as his son was passing out of the door.
“You watch out when you're runnin' that machine! You hear what I say? I
slipped, or I wouldn't got scratched, but you--YOU'RE liable to get your
whole hand cut off! You keep your eyes open!”

“Yes, sir.” And Bibbs returned to the zinc-eater thoughtfully.

Half an hour later, Gurney touched him on the shoulder and beckoned him
outside, where conversation was possible. “I sent him home, Bibbs. He'll
have to be careful of that hand. Go get your overalls off. I'll take you
for a drive and leave you at home.”

“Can't,” said Bibbs. “Got to stick to my job till the whistle blows.”

“No, you don't,” the doctor returned, smothering a yawn. “He wants me to
take you down to my office and give you an overhauling to see how much
harm these four days on the machine have done you. I guess you folks
have got that old man pretty thoroughly upset, between you, up at your
house! But I don't need to go over you. I can see with my eyes half
shut--”

“Yes,” Bibbs interrupted, “that's what they are.”

“I say I can see you're starting out, at least, in good shape. What's
made the difference?”

“I like the machine,” said Bibbs. “I've made a friend of it. I serenade
it and talk to it, and then it talks back to me.”

“Indeed, indeed? What does it say?”

“What I want to hear.”

“Well, well!” The doctor stretched himself and stamped his foot
repeatedly. “Better come along and take a drive with me. You can take
the time off that he allowed for the examination, and--”

“Not at all,” said Bibbs. “I'm going to stand by my old zinc-eater till
five o'clock. I tell you I LIKE it!”

“Then I suppose that's the end of your wanting to write.”

“I don't know about that,” Bibbs said, thoughtfully; “but the zinc-eater
doesn't interfere with my thinking, at least. It's better than being
in business; I'm sure of that. I don't want anything to change. I'd be
content to lead just the life I'm leading now to the end of my days.”

“You do beat the devil!” exclaimed Gurney. “Your father's right when he
tells me you're a mystery. Perhaps the Almighty knew what He was doing
when He made you, but it takes a lot of faith to believe it! Well, I'm
off. Go on back to your murdering old machine.” He climbed into his car,
which he operated himself, but he refrained from setting it immediately
in motion. “Well, I rubbed it in on the old man that you had warned him
not to slide his hand along too far, and that he got hurt because he
didn't pay attention to your warning, and because he was trying to show
you how to do something you were already doing a great deal better
than he could. You tell him I'll be around to look at it and change the
dressing to-morrow morning. Good-by.”

But when he paid the promised visit, the next morning, he did more than
change the dressing upon the damaged hand. The injury was severe of
its kind, and Gurney spent a long time over it, though Sheridan was
rebellious and scornful, being brought to a degree of tractability
only by means of horrible threats and talk of amputation. However, he
appeared at the dinner-table with his hand supported in a sling, which
he seemed to regard as an indignity, while the natural inquiries upon
the subject evidently struck him as deliberate insults. Mrs. Sheridan,
having been unable to contain her solicitude several times during the
day, and having been checked each time in a manner that blanched her
cheek, hastened to warn Roscoe and Sibyl, upon their arrival at five, to
omit any reference to the injury and to avoid even looking at the sling
if they possibly could.

The Sheridans dined on Sundays at five. Sibyl had taken pains not to
arrive either before or after the hand was precisely on the hour;
and the members of the family were all seated at the table within two
minutes after she and Roscoe had entered the house.

It was a glum gathering, overhung with portents. The air seemed charged,
awaiting any tiny ignition to explode; and Mrs. Sheridan's expression,
as she sat with her eyes fixed almost continually upon her husband, was
that of a person engaged in prayer. Edith was pale and intent.
Roscoe looked ill; Sibyl looked ill; and Sheridan looked both ill and
explosive. Bibbs had more color than any of these, and there was a
strange brightness, like a light, upon his face. It was curious to see
anything so happy in the tense gloom of that household.

Edith ate little, but gazed nearly all the time at her plate. She never
once looked at Sibyl, though Sibyl now and then gave her a quick glance,
heavily charged, and then looked away. Roscoe ate nothing, and, like
Edith, kept his eyes upon his plate and made believe to occupy himself
with the viands thereon, loading his fork frequently, but not lifting
it to his mouth. He did not once look at his father, though his father
gazed heavily at him most of the time. And between Edith and Sibyl, and
between Roscoe and his father, some bitter wireless communication seemed
continually to be taking place throughout the long silences prevailing
during this enlivening ceremony of Sabbath refection.

“Didn't you go to church this morning, Bibbs?” his mother asked, in the
effort to break up one of those ghastly intervals.

“What did you say, mother?”

“Didn't you go to church this morning?”

“I think so,” he answered, as from a roseate trance.

“You THINK so! Don't you know?”

“Oh yes. Yes, I went to church!”

“Which one?”

“Just down the street. It's brick.”

“What was the sermon about?”

“What, mother?”

“Can't you hear me?” she cried. “I asked you what the sermon was about?”

He roused himself. “I think it was about--” He frowned, seeming to
concentrate his will to recollect. “I think it was about something in
the Bible.”

White-jacket George was glad of an opportunity to leave the room and
lean upon Mist' Jackson's shoulder in the pantry. “He don't know they
WAS any suhmon!” he concluded, having narrated the dining-room dialogue.
“All he know is he was with 'at lady lives nex' do'!” George was right.

“Did you go to church all by yourself, Bibbs?” Sibyl asked.

“No,” he answered. “No, I didn't go alone.”

“Oh?” Sibyl gave the ejaculation an upward twist, as of mocking inquiry,
and followed it by another, expressive of hilarious comprehension. “OH!”

Bibbs looked at her studiously, but she spoke no further. And that
completed the conversation at the lugubrious feast.

Coffee came finally, was disposed of quickly, and the party dispersed to
other parts of the house. Bibbs followed his father and Roscoe into the
library, but was not well received.

“YOU go and listen to the phonograph with the women-folks,” Sheridan
commanded.

Bibbs retreated. “Sometimes you do seem to be a hard sort of man!” he
said.

However, he went obediently to the gilt-and-brocade room in which his
mother and his sister and his sister-in-law had helplessly withdrawn,
according to their Sabbatical custom. Edith sat in a corner, tapping her
feet together and looking at them; Sibyl sat in the center of the room,
examining a brooch which she had detached from her throat; and Mrs.
Sheridan was looking over a collection of records consisting exclusively
of Caruso and rag-time. She selected one of the latter, remarking that
she thought it “right pretty,” and followed it with one of the former
and the same remark.

As the second reached its conclusion, George appeared in the broad
doorway, seeming to have an errand there, but he did not speak. Instead,
he favored Edith with a benevolent smile, and she immediately left
the room, George stepping aside for her to precede him, and then
disappearing after her in the hall with an air of successful diplomacy.
He made it perfectly clear that Edith had given him secret instructions
and that it had been his pride and pleasure to fulfil them to the
letter.

Sibyl stiffened in her chair; her lips parted, and she watched with
curious eyes the vanishing back of the white jacket.

“What's that?” she asked, in a low voice, but sharply.

“Here's another right pretty record,” said Mrs. Sheridan,
affecting--with patent nervousness--not to hear. And she unloosed the
music.

Sibyl bit her lip and began to tap her chin with the brooch. After a
little while she turned to Bibbs, who reposed at half-length in a gold
chair, with his eyes closed.

“Where did Edith go?” she asked, curiously.

“Edith?” he repeated, opening his eyes blankly. “Is she gone?”

Sibyl got up and stood in the doorway. She leaned against the casing,
still tapping her chin with the brooch. Her eyes were dilating; she was
suddenly at high tension, and her expression had become one of sharp
excitement. She listened intently.

When the record was spun out she could hear Sheridan rumbling in the
library, during the ensuing silence, and Roscoe's voice, querulous and
husky: “I won't say anything at all. I tell you, you might just as well
let me alone!”

But there were other sounds: a rustling and murmur, whispering, low
protesting cadences in a male voice. And as Mrs. Sheridan started
another record, a sudden, vital resolve leaped like fire in the eyes of
Sibyl. She walked down the hall and straight into the smoking-room.

Lamhorn and Edith both sprang to their feet, separating. Edith became
instantly deathly white with a rage that set her shaking from head to
foot, and Lamhorn stuttered as he tried to speak.

But Edith's shaking was not so violent as Sibyl's, nor was her face so
white. At sight of them and of their embrace, all possible consequences
became nothing to Sibyl. She courtesied, holding up her skirts and
contorting her lips to the semblance of a smile.

“Sit just as you were--both of you!” she said. And then to Edith: “Did
you tell my husband I had been telephoning to Lamhorn?”

“You march out of here!” said Edith, fiercely. “March straight out of
here!”

Sibyl leveled a forefinger at Lamhorn.

“Did you tell her I'd been telephoning you I wanted you to come?”

“Oh, good God!” Lamhorn said. “Hush!”

“You knew she'd tell my husband, DIDN'T you?” she cried. “You knew
that!”

“HUSH!” he begged, panic-stricken.

“That was a MANLY thing to do! Oh, it was like a gentleman! You wouldn't
come--you wouldn't even come for five minutes to hear what I had to say!
You were TIRED of what I had to say! You'd heard it all a thousand times
before, and you wouldn't come! No! No! NO!” she stormed. “You wouldn't
even come for five minutes, but you could tell that little cat! And SHE
told my husband! You're a MAN!”

Edith saw in a flash that the consequences of battle would be ruinous to
Sibyl, and the furious girl needed no further temptation to give way
to her feelings. “Get out of this house!” she shrieked. “This is my
father's house. Don't you dare speak to Robert like that!”

“No! No! I mustn't SPEAK--”

“Don't you DARE!”

Edith and Sibyl began to scream insults at each other simultaneously,
fronting each other, their furious faces close. Their voices shrilled
and rose and cracked--they screeched. They could be heard over the noise
of the phonograph, which was playing a brass-band selection. They could
be heard all over the house. They were heard in the kitchen; they could
have been heard in the cellar. Neither of them cared for that.

“You told my husband!” screamed Sibyl, bringing her face still closer to
Edith's. “You told my husband! This man put THAT in your hands to strike
me with! HE did!”

“I'll tell your husband again! I'll tell him everything I know! It's
TIME your husband--”

They were swept asunder by a bandaged hand. “Do you want the neighbors
in?” Sheridan thundered.

There fell a shocking silence. Frenzied Sibyl saw her husband and his
mother in the doorway, and she understood what she had done. She moved
slowly toward the door; then suddenly she began to run. She ran into the
hall, and through it, and out of the house. Roscoe followed her heavily,
his eyes on the ground.

“NOW THEN!” said Sheridan to Lamhorn.

The words were indefinite, but the voice was not. Neither was the
vicious gesture of the bandaged hand, which concluded its orbit in the
direction of the door in a manner sufficient for the swift dispersal of
George and Jackson and several female servants who hovered behind Mrs.
Sheridan. They fled lightly.

“Papa, papa!” wailed Mrs. Sheridan. “Look at your hand! You'd oughtn't
to been so rough with Edie; you hurt your hand on her shoulder. Look!”

There was, in fact, a spreading red stain upon the bandages at the tips
of the fingers, and Sheridan put his hand back in the sling. “Now then!”
 he repeated. “You goin' to leave my house?”

“He will NOT!” sobbed Edith. “Don't you DARE order him out!”

“Don't you bother, dear,” said Lamhorn, quietly. “He doesn't understand.
YOU mustn't be troubled.” Pallor was becoming to him; he looked very
handsome, and as he left the room he seemed in the girl's distraught
eyes a persecuted noble, indifferent to the rabble yawping insult at his
heels--the rabble being enacted by her father.

“Don't come back, either!” said, Sheridan, realistic in this
impersonation. “Keep off the premises!” he called savagely into the
hall. “This family's through with you!”

“It is NOT!” Edith cried, breaking from her mother. “You'll SEE about
that! You'll find out! You'll find out what'll happen! What's HE done?
I guess if I can stand it, it's none of YOUR business, is it? What's
HE done, I'd like to know? You don't know anything about it. Don't you
s'pose he told ME? She was crazy about him soon as he began going there,
and he flirted with her a little. That's everything he did, and it
was before he met ME! After that he wouldn't, and it wasn't anything,
anyway--he never was serious a minute about it. SHE wanted it to be
serious, and she was bound she wouldn't give him up. He told her long
ago he cared about me, but she kept persecuting him and--”

“Yes,” said Sheridan, sternly; “that's HIS side of it! That'll do! He
doesn't come in this house again!”

“You look out!” Edith cried.

“Yes, I'll look out! I'd 'a' told you to-day he wasn't to be allowed on
the premises, but I had other things on my mind. I had Abercrombie
look up this young man privately, and he's no 'count. He's no 'count
on earth! He's no good! He's NOTHIN'! But it wouldn't matter if he was
George Washington, after what's happened and what I've heard to-night!”

“But, papa,” Mrs. Sheridan began, “if Edie says it was all Sibyl's
fault, makin' up to him, and he never encouraged her much, nor--”

“'S enough!” he roared. “He keeps off these premises! And if any of you
so much as ever speak his name to me again--”

But Edith screamed, clapping her hands over her ears to shut out the
sound of his voice, and ran up-stairs, sobbing loudly, followed by her
mother. However, Mrs. Sheridan descended a few minutes later and joined
her husband in the library. Bibbs, still sitting in his gold chair, saw
her pass, roused himself from reverie, and strolled in after her.

“She locked her door,” said Mrs. Sheridan, shaking her head woefully.
“She wouldn't even answer me. They wasn't a sound from her room.”

“Well,” said her husband, “she can settle her mind to it. She
never speaks to that fellow again, and if he tries to telephone her
to-morrow--Here! You tell the help if he calls up to ring off and say
it's my orders. No, you needn't. I'll tell 'em myself.”

“Better not,” said Bibbs, gently.

His father glared at him.

“It's no good,” said Bibbs. “Mother, when you were in love with
father--”

“My goodness!” she cried. “You ain't a-goin' to compare your father to
that--”

“Edith feels about him just what you did about father,” said Bibbs. “And
if YOUR father had told you--”

“I won't LISTEN to such silly talk!” she declared, angrily.

“So you're handin' out your advice, are you, Bibbs?” said Sheridan.
“What is it?”

“Let her see him all she wants.”

“You're a--” Sheridan gave it up. “I don't know what to call you!”

“Let her see him all she wants,” Bibbs repeated, thoughtfully. “You're
up against something too strong for you. If Edith were a weakling
you'd have a chance this way, but she isn't. She's got a lot of your
determination, father, and with what's going on inside of her she'll
beat you. You can't keep her from seeing him, as long as she feels about
him the way she does now. You can't make her think less of him, either.
Nobody can. Your only chance is that she'll do it for herself, and if
you give her time and go easy she probably will. Marriage would do it
for her quickest, but that's just what you don't want, and as you DON'T
want it, you'd better--”

“I can't stand any more!” Sheridan burst out. “If it's come to BIBBS
advisin' me how to run this house I better resign. Mamma, where's that
nigger George? Maybe HE'S got some plan how I better manage my family.
Bibbs, for God's sake go and lay down! 'Let her see him all she wants'!
Oh, Lord! here's wisdom; here's--”

“Bibbs,” said Mrs. Sheridan, “if you haven't got anything to do, you
might step over and take Sibyl's wraps home--she left 'em in the hall. I
don't think you seem to quiet your poor father very much just now.”

“All right.” And Bibbs bore Sibyl's wraps across the street and
delivered them to Roscoe, who met him at the door. Bibbs said only,
“Forgot these,” and, “Good night, Roscoe,” cordially and cheerfully, and
returned to the New House. His mother and father were still talking in
the library, but with discretion he passed rapidly on and upward to his
own room, and there he proceeded to write in his note-book.



CHAPTER XXII

   There seems to be another curious thing about Love [Bibbs wrote].
   Love is blind while it lives and only opens its eyes and becomes
   very wide awake when it dies.  Let it alone until then.

   You cannot reason with love or with any other passion.  The wise
   will not wish for love--nor for ambition.  These are passions
   and bring others in their train--hatreds and jealousies--all
   blind.  Friendship and a quiet heart for the wise.

   What a turbulence is love!  It is dangerous for a blind thing to
   be turbulent; there are precipices in life.  One would not cross
   a mountain-pass with a thick cloth over his eyes.  Lovers do.
   Friendship walks gently and with open eyes.

   To walk to church with a friend!  To sit beside her there!  To rise
   when she rises, and to touch with one's thumb and fingers the other
   half of the hymn-book that she holds!  What lover, with his fierce
   ways, could know this transcendent happiness?

   Friendship brings everything that heaven could bring.  There is no
   labor that cannot become a living rapture if you know that a friend
   is thinking of you as you labor.  So you sing at your work.  For
   the work is part of the thoughts of your friend; so you love it!

   Love is demanding and claiming and insistent.  Friendship is all
   kindness--it makes the world glorious with kindness.  What color
   you see when you walk with a friend!  You see that the gray sky
   is brilliant and shimmering; you see that the smoke has warm
   browns and is marvelously sculptured--the air becomes iridescent.
   You see the gold in brown hair.  Light floods everything.

   When you walk to church with a friend you know that life can give
   you nothing richer.  You pray that there will be no change in
   anything for ever.

   What an adorable thing it is to discover a little foible in your
   friend, a bit of vanity that gives you one thing more about her to
   adore!  On a cold morning she will perhaps walk to church with you
   without her furs, and she will blush and return an evasive answer
   when you ask her why she does not wear them.  You will say no
   more, because you understand.  She looks beautiful in her furs;
   you love their darkness against her cheek; but you comprehend that
   they conceal the loveliness of her throat and the fine line of her
   chin, and that she also has comprehended this, and, wishing to
   look still more bewitching, discards her furs at the risk of
   taking cold.  So you hold your peace, and try to look as if you
   had not thought it out.

   This theory is satisfactory except that it does not account for
   the absence of the muff.  Ah, well, there must always be a mystery
   somewhere!  Mystery is a part of enchantment.

   Manual labor is best.  Your heart can sing and your mind can dream
   while your hands are working.  You could not have a singing heart
   and a dreaming mind all day if you had to scheme out dollars,
   or if you had to add columns of figures.  Those things take your
   attention.  You cannot be thinking of your friend while you write
   letters beginning “Yours of the 17th inst. rec'd and contents
   duly noted.”  But to work with your hands all day, thinking and
   singing, and then, after nightfall, to hear the ineffable kindness
   of your friend's greeting--always there--for you!  Who would wake
   from such a dream as this?

   Dawn and the sea--music in moonlit gardens--nightingales
   serenading through almond-groves in bloom--what could bring such
   things into the city's turmoil?  Yet they are here, and roses
   blossom in the soot.  That is what it means not to be alone!
   That is what a friend gives you!

Having thus demonstrated that he was about twenty-five and had formed a
somewhat indefinite definition of friendship, but one entirely his own
(and perhaps Mary's) Bibbs went to bed, and was the only Sheridan to
sleep soundly through the night and to wake at dawn with a light heart.

His cheerfulness was vaguely diminished by the troublous state of
affairs of his family. He had recognized his condition when he wrote,
“Who would wake from such a dream as this?” Bibbs was a sympathetic
person, easily touched, but he was indeed living in a dream, and all
things outside of it were veiled and remote--for that is the way of
youth in a dream. And Bibbs, who had never before been of any age,
either old or young, had come to his youth at last.

He went whistling from the house before even his father had come
down-stairs. There was a fog outdoors, saturated with a fine powder of
soot, and though Bibbs noticed absently the dim shape of an automobile
at the curb before Roscoe's house, he did not recognize it as Dr.
Gurney's, but went cheerily on his way through the dingy mist. And when
he was once more installed beside his faithful zinc-eater he whistled
and sang to it, as other workmen did to their own machines sometimes,
when things went well. His comrades in the shop glanced at him amusedly
now and then. They liked him, and he ate his lunch at noon with a group
of Socialists who approved of his ideas and talked of electing him to
their association.

The short days of the year had come, and it was dark before the whistles
blew. When the signal came, Bibbs went to the office, where he divested
himself of his overalls--his single divergence from the routine of his
fellow-workmen--and after that he used soap and water copiously. This
was his transformation scene: he passed into the office a rather frail
young working-man noticeably begrimed, and passed out of it to the
pavement a cheerfully pre-occupied sample of gentry, fastidious to the
point of elegance.

The sidewalk was crowded with the bearers of dinner-pails, men and
boys and women and girls from the work-rooms that closed at five. Many
hurried and some loitered; they went both east and west, jostling one
another, and Bibbs, turning his face homeward, was forced to go slowly.

Coming toward him, as slowly, through the crowd, a tall girl caught
sight of his long, thin figure and stood still until he had almost
passed her, for in the thick crowd and the thicker gloom he did not
recognize her, though his shoulder actually touched hers. He would have
gone by, but she laughed delightedly; and he stopped short, startled.
Two boys, one chasing the other, swept between them, and Bibbs stood
still, peering about him in deep perplexity. She leaned toward him.

“I knew YOU!” she said.

“Good heavens!” cried Bibbs. “I thought it was your voice coming out of
a star!”

“There's only smoke overhead,” said Mary, and laughed again. “There
aren't any stars.”

“Oh yes, there were--when you laughed!”

She took his arm, and they went on. “I've come to walk home with you,
Bibbs. I wanted to.”

“But were you here in the--”

“In the dark? Yes! Waiting? Yes!”

Bibbs was radiant; he felt suffocated with happiness. He began to scold
her.

“But it's not safe, and I'm not worth it. You shouldn't have--you ought
to know better. What did--”

“I only waited about twelve seconds,” she laughed. “I'd just got here.”

“But to come all this way and to this part of town in the dark, you--”

“I was in this part of town already,” she said. “At least, I was only
seven or eight blocks away, and it was dark when I came out, and I'd
have had to go home alone--and I preferred going home with you.”

“It's pretty beautiful for me,” said Bibbs, with a deep breath. “You'll
never know what it was to hear your laugh in the darkness--and then
to--to see you standing there! Oh, it was like--it was like--how can I
TELL you what it was like?” They had passed beyond the crowd now, and
a crossing-lamp shone upon them, which revealed the fact that again she
was without her furs. Here was a puzzle. Why did that adorable little
vanity of hers bring her out without them in the DARK? But of course she
had gone out long before dark. For undefinable reasons this explanation
was not quite satisfactory; however, allowing it to stand, his
solicitude for her took another turn. “I think you ought to have a car,”
 he said, “especially when you want to be out after dark. You need one in
winter, anyhow. Have you ever asked your father for one?”

“No,” said Mary. “I don't think I'd care for one particularly.”

“I wish you would.” Bibbs's tone was earnest and troubled. “I think in
winter you--”

“No, no,” she interrupted, lightly. “I don't need--”

“But my mother tried to insist on sending one over here every afternoon
for me. I wouldn't let her, because I like the walk, but a girl--”

“A girl likes to walk, too,” said Mary. “Let me tell you where I've been
this afternoon and how I happened to be near enough to make you take me
home. I've been to see a little old man who makes pictures of the smoke.
He has a sort of warehouse for a studio, and he lives there with his
mother and his wife and their seven children, and he's gloriously happy.
I'd seen one of his pictures at an exhibition, and I wanted to see
more of them, so he showed them to me. He has almost everthing he ever
painted; I don't suppose he's sold more than four or five pictures in
his life. He gives drawing-lessons to keep alive.”

“How do you mean he paints the smoke?” Bibbs asked.

“Literally. He paints from his studio window and from the
street--anywhere. He just paints what's around him--and it's beautiful.”

“The smoke?”

“Wonderful! He sees the sky through it, somehow. He does the ugly roofs
of cheap houses through a haze of smoke, and he does smoky sunsets and
smoky sunrises, and he has other things with the heavy, solid, slow
columns of smoke going far out and growing more ethereal and mixing
with the hazy light in the distance; and he has others with the broken
sky-line of down-town, all misted with the smoke and puffs and jets of
vapor that have colors like an orchard in mid-April. I'm going to take
you there some Sunday afternoon, Bibbs.”

“You're showing me the town,” he said. “I didn't know what was in it at
all.”

“There are workers in beauty here,” she told him, gently. “There are
other painters more prosperous than my friend. There are all sorts of
things.”

“I didn't know.”

“No. Since the town began growing so great that it called itself
'greater,' one could live here all one's life and know only the side of
it that shows.”

“The beauty-workers seem buried very deep,” said Bibbs. “And I imagine
that your friend who makes the smoke beautiful must be buried deepest
of all. My father loves the smoke, but I can't imagine his buying one
of your friend's pictures. He'd buy the 'Bay of Naples,' but he wouldn't
get one of those. He'd think smoke in a picture was horrible--unless he
could use it for an advertisement.”

“Yes,” she said, thoughtfully. “And really he's the town. They ARE
buried pretty deep, it seems, sometimes, Bibbs.”

“And yet it's all wonderful,” he said. “It's wonderful to me.”

“You mean the town is wonderful to you?”

“Yes, because everything is, since you called me your friend. The city
is only a rumble on the horizon for me. It can't come any closer than
the horizon so long as you let me see you standing by my old zinc-eater
all day long, helping me. Mary--” He stopped with a gasp. “That's the
first time I've called you 'Mary'!”

“Yes.” She laughed, a little tremuously. “Though I wanted you to!”

“I said it without thinking. It must be because you came there to walk
home with me. That must be it.”

“Women like to have things said,” Mary informed him, her tremulous
laughter continuing. “Were you glad I came for you?”

“No--not 'glad.' I felt as if I were being carried straight up and up
and up--over the clouds. I feel like that still. I think I'm that way
most of the time. I wonder what I was like before I knew you. The person
I was then seems to have been somebody else, not Bibbs Sheridan at
all. It seems long, long ago. I was gloomy and sickly--somebody
else--somebody I don't understand now, a coward afraid of
shadows--afraid of things that didn't exist--afraid of my old
zinc-eater! And now I'm only afraid of what might change anything.”

She was silent a moment, and then, “You're happy, Bibbs?” she asked.

“Ah, don't you see?” he cried. “I want it to last for a thousand,
thousand years, just as it is! You've made me so rich, I'm a miser. I
wouldn't have one thing different--nothing, nothing!”

“Dear Bibbs!” she said, and laughed happily.



CHAPTER XXIII

Bibbs continued to live in the shelter of his dream. He had told Edith,
after his ineffective effort to be useful in her affairs, that he had
decided that he was “a member of the family”; but he appeared to have
relapsed to the retired list after that one attempt at participancy--he
was far enough detached from membership now. These were turbulent days
in the New House, but Bibbs had no part whatever in the turbulence--he
seemed an absent-minded stranger, present by accident and not wholly
aware that he was present. He would sit, faintly smiling over pleasant
imaginings and dear reminiscences of his own, while battle raged between
Edith and her father, or while Sheridan unloosed jeremiads upon the
sullen Roscoe, who drank heavily to endure them. The happy dreamer
wandered into storm-areas like a somnambulist, and wandered out again
unawakened. He was sorry for his father and for Roscoe, and for Edith
and for Sibyl, but their sufferings and outcries seemed far away.

Sibyl was under Gurney's care. Roscoe had sent for him on Sunday night,
not long after Bibbs returned the abandoned wraps; and during the first
days of Sibyl's illness the doctor found it necessary to be with her
frequently, and to install a muscular nurse. And whether he would or
no, Gurney received from his hysterical patient a variety of pungent
information which would have staggered anybody but a family physician.
Among other things he was given to comprehend the change in Bibbs, and
why the zinc-eater was not putting a lump in the operator's gizzard as
of yore.

Sibyl was not delirious--she was a thin little ego writhing and
shrieking in pain. Life had hurt her, and had driven her into hurting
herself; her condition was only the adult's terrible exaggeration of
that of a child after a bad bruise--there must be screaming and telling
mother all about the hurt and how it happened. Sibyl babbled herself
hoarse when Gurney withheld morphine. She went from the beginning to the
end in a breath. No protest stopped her; nothing stopped her.

“You ought to let me die!” she wailed. “It's cruel not to let me die!
What harm have I ever done to anybody that you want to keep me alive?
Just look at my life! I only married Roscoe to get away from home, and
look what that got me into!--look where I am now! He brought me to this
town, and what did I have in my life but his FAMILY? And they didn't
even know the right crowd! If they had, it might have been SOMETHING!
I had nothing--nothing--nothing in the world! I wanted to have a good
time--and how could I? Where's any good time among these Sheridans? They
never even had wine on the table! I thought I was marrying into a rich
family where I'd meet attractive people I'd read about, and travel, and
go to dances--and, oh, my Lord! all I got was these Sheridans! I did
the best I could; I did, indeed! Oh, I DID! I just tried to live. Every
woman's got a right to live, some time in her life, I guess! Things were
just beginning to look brighter--we'd moved up here, and that frozen
crowd across the street were after Jim for their daughter, and they'd
have started us with the right people--and then I saw how Edith was
getting him away from me. She did it, too! She got him! A girl with
money can do that to a married woman--yes, she can, every time! And what
could I do? What can any woman do in my fix? I couldn't do ANYTHING but
try to stand it--and I couldn't stand it! I went to that icicle--that
Vertrees girl--and she could have helped me a little, and it wouldn't
have hurt her. It wouldn't have done her any harm to help me THAT
little! She treated me as if I'd been dirt that she wouldn't even take
the trouble to sweep out of her house! Let her WAIT!”

Sibyl's voice, hoarse from babbling, became no more than a husky
whisper, though she strove to make it louder. She struggled half
upright, and the nurse restrained her. “I'd get up out of this bed to
show her she can't do such things to me! I was absolutely ladylike, and
she walked out and left me there alone! She'll SEE! She started after
Bibbs before Jim's casket was fairly underground, and she thinks she's
landed that poor loon--but she'll see! She'll see! If I'm ever able
to walk across the street again I'll show her how to treat a woman in
trouble that comes to her for help! It wouldn't have hurt her any--it
wouldn't--it wouldn't. And Edith needn't have told what she told
Roscoe--it wouldn't have hurt her to let me alone. And HE told her I
bored him--telephoning him I wanted to see him. He needn't have done
it! He needn't--needn't--” Her voice grew fainter, for that while,
with exhaustion, though she would go over it all again as soon as her
strength returned. She lay panting. Then, seeing her husband standing
disheveled in the doorway, “Don't come in, Roscoe,” she murmured. “I
don't want to see you.” And as he turned away she added, “I'm kind of
sorry for you, Roscoe.”

Her antagonist, Edith, was not more coherent in her own wailings,
and she had the advantage of a mother for listener. She had also the
disadvantage of a mother for duenna, and Mrs. Sheridan, under her
husband's sharp tutelage, proved an effective one. Edith was reduced to
telephoning Lamhorn from shops whenever she could juggle her mother into
a momentary distraction over a counter.

Edith was incomparably more in love than before Lamhorn's expulsion. Her
whole being was nothing but the determination to hurdle everything that
separated her from him. She was in a state that could be altered by only
the lightest and most delicate diplomacy of suggestion, but Sheridan,
like legions of other parents, intensified her passion and fed it hourly
fuel by opposing to it an intolerable force. He swore she should cool,
and thus set her on fire.

Edith planned neatly. She fought hard, every other evening, with her
father, and kept her bed betweentimes to let him see what his violence
had done to her. Then, when the mere sight of her set him to breathing
fast, she said pitiably that she might bear her trouble better if she
went away; it was impossible to be in the same town with Lamhorn and not
think always of him. Perhaps in New York she might forget a little.
She had written to a school friend, established quietly with an aunt in
apartments--and a month or so of theaters and restaurants might bring
peace. Sheridan shouted with relief; he gave her a copious cheque, and
she left upon a Monday morning wearing violets with her mourning and
having kissed everybody good-by except Sibyl and Bibbs. She might have
kissed Bibbs, but he failed to realize that the day of her departure
had arrived, and was surprised, on returning from his zinc-eater, that
evening, to find her gone. “I suppose they'll be maried there,” he said,
casually.

Sheridan, seated, warming his stockinged feet at the fire, jumped up,
fuming. “Either you go out o' here, or I will, Bibbs!” he snorted. “I
don't want to be in the same room with the particular kind of idiot you
are! She's through with that riff-raff; all she needed was to be kept
away from him a few weeks, and I KEPT her away, and it did the business.
For Heaven's sake, go on out o' here!”

Bibbs obeyed the gesture of a hand still bandaged. And the black silk
sling was still round Sheridan's neck, but no word of Gurney's and no
excruciating twinge of pain could keep Sheridan's hand in the sling. The
wounds, slight enough originally, had become infected the first time he
had dislodged the bandages, and healing was long delayed. Sheridan had
the habit of gesture; he could not “take time to remember,” he said,
that he must be careful, and he had also a curious indignation with his
hurt; he refused to pay it the compliment of admitting its existence.

The Saturday following Edith's departure Gurney came to the Sheridan
Building to dress the wounds and to have a talk with Sheridan which
the doctor felt had become necessary. But he was a little before
the appointed time and was obliged to wait a few minutes in an
anteroom--there was a directors' meeting of some sort in Sheridan's
office. The door was slightly ajar, leaking cigar-smoke and oratory, the
latter all Sheridan's, and Gurney listened.

“No, sir; no, sir; no, sir!” he heard the big voice rumbling, and then,
breaking into thunder, “I tell you NO! Some o' you men make me sick!
You'd lose your confidence in Almighty God if a doodle-bug flipped his
hind leg at you! You say money's tight all over the country. Well, what
if it is? There's no reason for it to be tight, and it's not goin' to
keep OUR money tight! You're always runnin' to the woodshed to hide
your nickels in a crack because some fool newspaper says the market's a
little skeery! You listen to every street-corner croaker and then
come and set here and try to scare ME out of a big thing! We're IN on
this--understand? I tell you there never WAS better times. These are
good times and big times, and I won't stand for any other kind o' talk.
This country's on its feet as it never was before, and this city's on
its feet and goin' to stay there!” And Gurney heard a series of whacks
and thumps upon the desk. “'Bad times'!” Sheridan vociferated, with
accompanying thumps. “Rabbit talk! These times are glorious, I tell you!
We're in the promised land, and we're goin' to STAY there! That's all,
gentlemen. The loan goes!”

The directors came forth, flushed and murmurous, and Gurney hastened
in. His guess was correct: Sheridan had been thumping the desk with his
right hand. The physician scolded wearily, making good the fresh damage
as best he might; and then he said what he had to say on the subject of
Roscoe and Sibyl, his opinion meeting, as he expected, a warmly hostile
reception. But the result of this conversation was that by telephonic
command Roscoe awaited his father, an hour later, in the library at the
New House.

“Gurney says your wife's able to travel,” Sheridan said brusquely, as he
came in.

“Yes.” Roscoe occupied a deep chair and sat in the dejected attitude
which had become his habit. “Yes, she is.”

“Edith had to leave town, and so Sibyl thinks she'll have to, too!”

“Oh, I wouldn't put it that way,” Roscoe protested, drearily.

“No, I hear YOU wouldn't!” There was a bitter gibe in the father's
voice, and he added: “It's a good thing she's goin' abroad--if she'll
stay there. I shouldn't think any of us want her here any more--you
least of all!”

“It's no use your talking that way,” said Roscoe. “You won't do any
good.”

“Well, when are you comin' back to your office?” Sheridan used a
brisker, kinder tone. “Three weeks since you showed up there at all.
When you goin' to be ready to cut out whiskey and all the rest o' the
foolishness and start in again? You ought to be able to make up for a
lot o' lost time and a lot o' spilt milk when that woman takes herself
out o' the way and lets you and all the rest of us alone.”

“It's no use, father, I tell you. I know what Gurney was going to say to
you. I'm not going back to the office. I'm DONE!”

“Wait a minute before you talk that way!” Sheridan began his sentry-go
up and down the room. “I suppose you know it's taken two pretty good
men about sixteen hours a day to set things straight and get 'em runnin'
right again, down in your office?”

“They must be good men.” Roscoe nodded indifferently. “I thought I was
doing about eight men's work. I'm glad you found two that could handle
it.”

“Look here! If I worked you it was for your own good. There are plenty
men drive harder'n I do, and--”

“Yes. There are some that break down all the other men that work with
'em. They either die, or go crazy, or have to quit, and are no use
the rest of their lives. The last's my case, I guess--'complicated by
domestic difficulties'!”

“You set there and tell me you give up?” Sheridan's voice shook, and
so did the gesticulating hand which he extended appealingly toward the
despondent figure. “Don't do it, Roscoe! Don't say it! Say you'll come
down there again and be a man! This woman ain't goin' to trouble you any
more. The work ain't goin' to hurt you if you haven't got her to worry
you, and you can get shut o' this nasty whiskey-guzzlin'; it ain't
fastened on you yet. Don't say--”

“It's no use on earth,” Roscoe mumbled. “No use on earth.”

“Look here! If you want another month's vacation--”

“I know Gurney told you, so what's the use talking about 'vacations'?”

“Gurney!” Sheridan vociferated the name savagely. “It's Gurney, Gurney,
Gurney! Always Gurney! I don't know what the world's comin' to with
everybody runnin' around squealin', 'The doctor says this,' and, 'The
doctor says that'! It makes me sick! How's this country expect to get
its Work done if Gurney and all the other old nanny-goats keep up this
blattin'--'Oh, oh! Don't lift that stick o' wood; you'll ruin your
NERVES!' So he says you got 'nervous exhaustion induced by overwork and
emotional strain.' They always got to stick the Work in if they see a
chance! I reckon you did have the 'emotional strain,' and that's all's
the matter with you. You'll be over it soon's this woman's gone, and
Work's the very thing to make you quit frettin' about her.”

“Did Gurney tell you I was fit to work?”

“Shut up!” Sheridan bellowed. “I'm so sick o' that man's name I feel
like shootin' anybody that says it to me!” He fumed and chafed, swearing
indistinctly, then came and stood before his son. “Look here; do you
think you're doin' the square thing by me? Do you? How much you worth?”

“I've got between seven and eight thousand a year clear, of my own,
outside the salary. That much is mine whether I work or not.”

“It is? You could'a pulled it out without me, I suppose you think, at
your age?”

“No. But it's mine, and it's enough.”

“My Lord! It's about what a Congressman gets, and you want to quit
there! I suppose you think you'll get the rest when I kick the bucket,
and all you have to do is lay back and wait! You let me tell you right
here, you'll never see one cent of it. You go out o' business now, and
what would you know about handlin' it five or ten or twenty years from
now? Because I intend to STAY here a little while yet, my boy! They'd
either get it away from you or you'd sell for a nickel and let it be
split up and--” He whirled about, marched to the other end of the room,
and stood silent a moment. Then he said, solemnly: “Listen. If you go
out now, you leave me in the lurch, with nothin' on God's green earth
to depend on but your brother--and you know what he is. I've depended on
you for it ALL since Jim died. Now you've listened to that dam' doctor,
and he says maybe you won't ever be as good a man as you were, and that
certainly you won't be for a year or so--probably more. Now, that's all
a lie. Men don't break down that way at your age. Look at ME! And I tell
you, you can shake this thing off. All you need is a little GET-up and
a little gumption. Men don't go away for YEARS and then come back into
MOVING businesses like ours--they lose the strings. And if you could, I
won't let you--if you lay down on me now, I won't--and that's because if
you lay down you prove you ain't the man I thought you were.” He cleared
his throat and finished quietly: “Roscoe, will you take a month's
vacation and come back and go to it?”

“No,” said Roscoe, listlessly. “I'm through.”

“All right,” said Sheridan. He picked up the evening paper from a
table, went to a chair by the fire and sat down, his back to his son.
“Good-by.”

Roscoe rose, his head hanging, but there was a dull relief in his eyes.
“Best I can do,” he muttered, seeming about to depart, yet lingering. “I
figure it out a good deal like this,” he said. “I didn't KNOW my job
was any strain, and I managed all right, but from what Gur--from what
I hear, I was just up to the limit of my nerves from overwork, and
the--the trouble at home was the extra strain that's fixed me the way I
am. I tried to brace, so I could stand the work and the trouble too, on
whiskey--and that put the finish to me! I--I'm not hitting it as hard as
I was for a while, and I reckon pretty soon, if I can get to feeling a
little more energy, I better try to quit entirely--I don't know. I'm all
in--and the doctor says so. I thought I was running along fine up to a
few months ago, but all the time I was ready to bust, and didn't know
it. Now, then, I don't want you to blame Sibyl, and if I were you
I wouldn't speak of her as 'that woman,' because she's your
daughter-in-law and going to stay that way. She didn't do anything
wicked. It was a shock to me, and I don't deny it, to find what she had
done--encouraging that fellow to hang around her after he began trying
to flirt with her, and losing her head over him the way she did. I don't
deny it was a shock and that it'll always be a hurt inside of me I'll
never get over. But it was my fault; I didn't understand a woman's
nature.” Poor Roscoe spoke in the most profound and desolate earnest.
“A woman craves society, and gaiety, and meeting attractive people, and
traveling. Well, I can't give her the other things, but I can give her
the traveling--real traveling, not just going to Atlantic City or
New Orleans, the way she has, two, three times. A woman has to have
something in her life besides a business man. And that's ALL I was. I
never understood till I heard her talking when she was so sick, and I
believe if you'd heard her then you wouldn't speak so hard-heartedly
about her; I believe you might have forgiven her like I have. That's
all. I never cared anything for any girl but her in my life, but I was
so busy with business I put it ahead of her. I never THOUGHT about her,
I was so busy thinking business. Well, this is where it's brought us
to--and now when you talk about 'business' to me I feel the way you do
when anybody talks about Gurney to you. The word 'business' makes me
dizzy--it makes me honestly sick at the stomach. I believe if I had
to go down-town and step inside that office door I'd fall down on the
floor, deathly sick. You talk about a 'month's vacation'--and I get just
as sick. I'm rattled--I can't plan--I haven't got any plans--can't make
any, except to take my girl and get just as far away from that office as
I can--and stay. We're going to Japan first, and if we--”

His father rustled the paper. “I said good-by, Roscoe.”

“Good-by,” said Roscoe, listlessly.



CHAPTER XXIV

Sheridan waited until he heard the sound of the outer door closing; then
he rose and pushed a tiny disk set in the wall. Jackson appeared.

“Has Bibbs got home from work?”

“Mist' Bibbs? No, suh.”

“Tell him I want to see him, soon as he comes.”

“Yessuh.”

Sheridan returned to his chair and fixed his attention fiercely upon
the newspaper. He found it difficult to pursue the items beyond
their explanatory rubrics--there was nothing unusual or startling to
concentrate his attention:

  “Motorman Puts Blame on Brakes.  Three Killed when Car Slides.”
   “Burglars Make Big Haul.”
   “Board Works Approve Big Car-line Extension.”
   “Hold-up Men Injure Two.  Man Found in Alley, Skull Fractured.”
   “Sickening Story Told in Divorce Court.”
   “Plan New Eighteen-story Structure.”
   “School-girl Meets Death under Automobile.”
   “Negro Cuts Three.  One Dead.”
   “Life Crushed Out.  Third Elevator Accident in Same Building Causes
    Action by Coroner.”
   “Declare Militia will be Menace.  Polish Societies Protest to
    Governor in Church Rioting Case.”
   “Short $3,500 in Accounts, Trusted Man Kills Self with Drug.”
   “Found Frozen.  Family Without Food or Fuel.  Baby Dead when
    Parents Return Home from Seeking Work.”
   “Minister Returned from Trip Abroad Lectures on Big Future of Our
    City.  Sees Big Improvement during Short Absence.  Says No
    European City Holds Candle.” (Sheridan nodded approvingly here.)

Bibbs came through the hall whistling, and entered the room briskly.
“Well, father, did you want me?”

“Yes. Sit down.” Sheridan got up, and Bibbs took a seat by the fire,
holding out his hands to the crackling blaze, for it was cold outdoors.

“I came within seven of the shop record to-day,” he said. “I handled
more strips than any other workman has any day this month. The nearest
to me is sixteen behind.”

“There!” exclaimed his father, greatly pleased. “What'd I tell you?
I'd like to hear Gurney hint again that I wasn't right in sending you
there--I would just like to hear him! And you--ain't you ashamed of
makin' such a fuss about it? Ain't you?”

“I didn't go at it in the right spirit the other time,” Bibbs said,
smiling brightly, his face ruddy in the cheerful firelight. “I didn't
know the difference it meant to like a thing.”

“Well, I guess I've pretty thoroughly vindicated my judgement. I guess I
HAVE! I said the shop'd be good for you, and it was. I said it wouldn't
hurt you, and it hasn't. It's been just exactly what I said it would be.
Ain't that so?”

“Looks like it!” Bibbs agreed, gaily.

“Well, I'd like to know any place I been wrong, first and last! Instead
o' hurting you, it's been the makin' of you--physically. You're a good
inch taller'n what I am, and you'd be a bigger man than what I am
if you'd get some flesh on your bones; and you ARE gettin' a little.
Physically, it's started you out to be the huskiest one o' the whole
family. Now, then, mentally--that's different. I don't say it unkindly,
Bibbs, but you got to do something for yourself mentally, just like
what's begun physically. And I'm goin' to help you.”

Sheridan decided to sit down again. He brought his chair close to his
son's, and, leaning over, tapped Bibbs's knee confidentially. “I got
plans for you, Bibbs,” he said.

Bibbs instantly looked thoroughly alarmed. He drew back. “I--I'm all
right now, father.”

“Listen.” Sheridan settled himself in his chair, and spoke in the tone
of a reasonable man reasoning. “Listen here, Bibbs. I had another blow
to-day, and it was a hard one and right in the face, though I HAVE been
expectin' it some little time back. Well, it's got to be met. Now I'll
be frank with you. As I said a minute ago, mentally I couldn't ever
called you exactly strong. You been a little weak both ways, most of
your life. Not but what I think you GOT a mentality, if you'd learn to
use it. You got will-power, I'll say that for you. I never knew boy or
man that could be stubborner--never one in my life! Now, then, you've
showed you could learn to run that machine best of any man in the shop,
in no time at all. That looks to me like you could learn to do other
things. I don't deny but what it's an encouragin' sign. I don't deny
that, at all. Well, that helps me to think the case ain't so hopeless as
it looks. You're all I got to meet this blow with, but maybe you ain't
as poor material as I thought. Your tellin' me about comin' within
seven strips of the shop's record to-day looks to me like encouragin'
information brought in at just about the right time. Now, then, I'm
goin' to give you a raise. I wanted to send you straight on up through
the shops--a year or two, maybe--but I can't do it. I lost Jim, and now
I've lost Roscoe. He's quit. He's laid down on me. If he ever comes back
at all, he'll be a long time pickin' up the strings, and, anyway, he
ain't the man I thought he was. I can't count on him. I got to have
SOMEBODY I KNOW I can count on. And I'm down to this: you're my last
chance. Bibbs, I got to learn you to use what brains you got and see if
we can't develop 'em a little. Who knows? And I'm goin' to put my time
in on it. I'm goin' to take you right down-town with ME, and I won't be
hard on you if you're a little slow at first. And I'm goin' to do the
big thing for you. I'm goin' to make you feel you got to do the big
thing for me, in return. I've vindicated my policy with you about the
shop, and now I'm goin' to turn right around and swing you 'way over
ahead of where the other boys started, and I'm goin' to make an appeal
to your ambition that'll make you dizzy!” He tapped his son on the knee
again. “Bibbs, I'm goin' to start you off this way: I'm goin' to
make you a director in the Pump Works Company; I'm goin' to make you
vice-president of the Realty Company and a vice-president of the Trust
Company!”

Bibbs jumped to his feet, blanched. “Oh no!” he cried.

Sheridan took his dismay to be the excitement of sudden joy. “Yes,
sir! And there's some pretty fat little salaries goes with those
vice-presidencies, and a pinch o' stock in the Pump Company with the
directorship. You thought I was pretty mean about the shop--oh, I know
you did!--but you see the old man can play it both ways. And so right
now, the minute you've begun to make good the way I wanted you to,
I deal from the new deck. And I'll keep on handin' it out bigger and
bigger every time you show me you're big enough to play the hand I deal
you. I'm startin' you with a pretty big one, my boy!”

“But I don't--I don't--I don't want it!” Bibbs stammered.

“What'd you say?” Sheridan thought he had not heard aright.

“I don't want it, father. I thank you--I do thank you--”

Sheridan looked perplexed. “What's the matter with you? Didn't you
understand what I was tellin' you?”

“Yes.”

“You sure? I reckon you didn't. I offered--”

“I know, I know! But I can't take it.”

“What's the matter with you?” Sheridan was half amazed, half suspicious.
“Your head feel funny?”

“I've never been quite so sane in my life,” said Bibbs, “as I have
lately. And I've got just what I want. I'm living exactly the right
life. I'm earning my daily bread, and I'm happy in doing it. My wages
are enough. I don't want any more money, and I don't deserve any--”

“Damnation!” Sheridan sprang up. “You've turned Socialist! You been
listening to those fellows down there, and you--”

“No, sir. I think there's a great deal in what they say, but that isn't
it.”

Sheridan tried to restrain his growing fury, and succeeded partially.
“Then what is it? What's the matter?”

“Nothing,” his son returned, nervously. “Nothing--except that I'm
content. I don't want to change anything.”

“Why not?”

Bibbs had the incredible folly to try to explain. “I'll tell you,
father, if I can. I know it may be hard to understand--”

“Yes, I think it may be,” said Sheridan, grimly. “What you say usually
is a LITTLE that way. Go on!”

Perturbed and distressed, Bibbs rose instinctively; he felt himself at
every possible disadvantage. He was a sleeper clinging to a dream--a
rough hand stretched to shake him and waken him. He went to a table and
made vague drawings upon it with a finger, and as he spoke he kept his
eyes lowered. “You weren't altogether right about the shop--that is,
in one way you weren't, father.” He glanced up apprehensively. Sheridan
stood facing him, expressionless, and made no attempt to interrupt.
“That's difficult to explain,” Bibbs continued, lowering his eyes again,
to follow the tracings of his finger. “I--I believe the shop might have
done for me this time if I hadn't--if something hadn't helped me to--oh,
not only to bear it, but to be happy in it. Well, I AM happy in it.
I want to go on just as I am. And of all things on earth that I don't
want, I don't want to live a business life--I don't want to be drawn
into it. I don't think it IS living--and now I AM living. I have the
healthful toil--and I can think. In business as important as yours I
couldn't think anything but business. I don't--I don't think making
money is worth while.”

“Go on,” said Sheridan, curtly, as Bibbs paused timidly.

“It hasn't seemed to get anywhere, that I can see,” said Bibbs. “You
think this city is rich and powerful--but what's the use of its being
rich and powerful? They don't teach the children any more in the schools
because the city is rich and powerful. They teach them more than they
used to because some people--not rich and powerful people--have thought
the thoughts to teach the children. And yet when you've been reading
the paper I've heard you objecting to the children being taught anything
except what would help them to make money. You said it was wasting the
taxes. You want them taught to make a living, but not to live. When I
was a little boy this wasn't an ugly town; now it's hideous. What's the
use of being big just to be hideous? I mean I don't think all this has
meant really going ahead--it's just been getting bigger and dirtier and
noisier. Wasn't the whole country happier and in many ways wiser when it
was smaller and cleaner and quieter and kinder? I know you think I'm an
utter fool, father, but, after all, though, aren't business and politics
just the housekeeping part of life? And wouldn't you despise a woman
that not only made her housekeeping her ambition, but did it so noisily
and dirtily that the whole neighborhood was in a continual turmoil over
it? And suppose she talked and thought about her housekeeping all
the time, and was always having additions built to her house when she
couldn't keep clean what she already had; and suppose, with it all, she
made the house altogether unpeaceful and unlivable--”

“Just one minute!” Sheridan interrupted, adding, with terrible courtesy,
“If you will permit me? Have you ever been right about anything?”

“I don't quite--”

“I ask the simple question: Have you ever been right about anything
whatever in the course of your life? Have you ever been right upon
any subject or question you've thought about and talked about? Can you
mention one single time when you were proved to be right?”

He was flourishing the bandaged hand as he spoke, but Bibbs said only,
“If I've always been wrong before, surely there's more chance that I'm
right about this. It seems reasonable to suppose something would be due
to bring up my average.”

“Yes, I thought you wouldn't see the point. And there's another you
probably couldn't see, but I'll take the liberty to mention it. You been
balkin' all your life. Pretty much everything I ever wanted you to do,
you'd let out SOME kind of a holler, like you are now--and yet I can't
seem to remember once when you didn't have to lay down and do what I
said. But go on with your remarks about our city and the business of
this country. Go on!”

“I don't want to be a part of it,” said Bibbs, with unwonted decision.
“I want to keep to myself, and I'm doing it now. I couldn't, if I went
down there with you. I'd be swallowed into it. I don't care for money
enough to--”

“No,” his father interrupted, still dangerously quiet. “You've never had
to earn a living. Anybody could tell that by what you say. Now, let me
remind you: you're sleepin' in a pretty good bed; you're eatin' pretty
fair food; you're wearin' pretty fine clothes. Just suppose one o' these
noisy housekeepers--me, for instance--decided to let you do your own
housekeepin'. May I ask what your proposition would be?”

“I'm earning nine dollars a week,” said Bibbs, sturdily. “It's enough. I
shouldn't mind at all.”

“Who's payin' you that nine dollars a week?”

“My work!” Bibbs answered. “And I've done so well on that
clipping-machine I believe I could work up to fifteen or even twenty
a week at another job. I could be a fair plumber in a few months,
I'm sure. I'd rather have a trade than be in business--I should,
infinitely!”

“You better set about learnin' one pretty dam' quick!” But Sheridan
struggled with his temper and again was partially successful in
controlling it. “You better learn a trade over Sunday, because you're
either goin' down with me to my office Monday morning--or--you can go to
plumbing!”

“All right,” said Bibbs, gently. “I can get along.”

Sheridan raised his hands sardonically, as in prayer. “O God,” he said,
“this boy was crazy enough before he began to earn his nine dollars a
week, and now his money's gone to his head! Can't You do nothin' for
him?” Then he flung his hands apart, palms outward, in a furious gesture
of dismissal. “Get out o' this room! You got a skull that's thicker'n a
whale's thigh-bone, but it's cracked spang all the way across! You hated
the machine-shop so bad when I sent you there, you went and stayed sick
for over two years--and now, when I offer to take you out of it and give
you the mint, you holler for the shop like a calf for its mammy! You're
cracked! Oh, but I got a fine layout here! One son died, one quit, and
one's a loon! The loon's all I got left! H. P. Ellersly's wife had
a crazy brother, and they undertook to keep him at the house. First
morning he was there he walked straight though a ten-dollar plate-glass
window out into the yard. He says, 'Oh, look at the pretty dandelion!'
That's what you're doin'! You want to spend your life sayin', 'Oh, look
at the pretty dandelion!' and you don't care a tinker's dam' what you
bust! Well, mister, loon or no loon, cracked and crazy or whatever you
are, I'll take you with me Monday morning, and I'll work you and learn
you--yes, and I'll lam you, if I got to--until I've made something out
of you that's fit to be called a business man! I'll keep at you while
I'm able to stand, and if I have to lay down to die I'll be whisperin'
at you till they get the embalmin'-fluid into me! Now go on, and don't
let me hear from you again till you can come and tell me you've waked
up, you poor, pitiful, dandelion-pickin' SLEEP-WALKER!”

Bibbs gave him a queer look. There was something like reproach in it,
for once; but there was more than that--he seemed to be startled by his
father's last word.



CHAPTER XXV

There was sleet that evening, with a whopping wind, but neither this
storm nor that other which so imminently threatened him held place
in the consciousness of Bibbs Sheridan when he came once more to the
presence of Mary. All was right in his world as he sat with her, reading
Maurice Maeterlinck's Alladine and Palomides. The sorrowful light of
the gas-jet might have been May morning sunshine flashing amber and rose
through the glowing windows of the Sainte-Chapelle, it was so bright for
Bibbs. And while the zinc-eater held out to bring him such golden nights
as these, all the king's horses and all the king's men might not serve
to break the spell.

Bibbs read slowly, but in a reasonable manner, as if he were talking;
and Mary, looking at him steadily from beneath her curved fingers,
appeared to discover no fault. It had grown to be her habit to look at
him whenever there was an opportunity. It may be said, in truth, that
while they were together, and it was light, she looked at him all the
time.

When he came to the end of Alladine and Palomides they were silent a
little while, considering together; then he turned back the pages and
said: “There's something I want to read over. This:”

   You would think I threw a window open on the dawn....  She has a
   soul that can be seen around her--that takes you in its arms like
   an ailing child and without saying anything to you consoles you
   for everything....  I shall never understand it all.  I do not know
   how it can all be, but my knees bend in spite of me when I speak
   of it....

He stopped and looked at her.

“You boy!” said Mary, not very clearly.

“Oh yes,” he returned. “But it's true--especially my knees!”

“You boy!” she murmured again, blushing charmingly. “You might read
another line over. The first time I ever saw you, Bibbs, you were
looking into a mirror. Do it again. But you needn't read it--I can give
it to you: 'A little Greek slave that came from the heart of Arcady!'”

“I! I'm one of the hands at the Pump Works--and going to stay one,
unless I have to decide to study plumbing.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You love and want what's beautiful and
delicate and serene; it's really art that you want in your life, and
have always wanted. You seemed to me, from the first, the most wistful
person I had ever known, and that's what you were wistful for.”

Bibbs looked doubtful and more wistful than ever; but after a moment or
two the matter seemed to clarify itself to him. “Why, no,” he said; “I
wanted something else more than that. I wanted you.”

“And here I am!” she laughed, completely understanding. “I think we're
like those two in The Cloister and the Hearth. I'm just the rough
Burgundian cross-bow man, Denys, who followed that gentle Gerard and
told everybody that the devil was dead.”

“He isn't, though,” said Bibbs, as a hoarse little bell in the next room
began a series of snappings which proved to be ten, upon count. “He gets
into the clock whenever I'm with you.” And, sighing deeply he rose to
go.

“You're always very prompt about leaving me.”

“I--I try to be,” he said. “It isn't easy to be careful not to risk
everything by giving myself a little more at a time. If I ever saw you
look tired--”

“Have you ever?”

“Not yet. You always look--you always look--”

“How?”

“Care-free. That's it. Except when you feel sorry for me about
something, you always have that splendid look. It puts courage into
people to see it. If I had a struggle to face I'd keep remembering that
look--and I'd never give up! It's a brave look, too, as though gaiety
might be a kind of gallantry on your part, and yet I don't quite
understand why it should be, either.” He smiled quizzically, looking
down upon her. “Mary, you haven't a 'secret sorrow,' have you?”

For answer she only laughed.

“No,” he said; “I can't imagine you with a care in the world. I think
that's why you were so kind to me--you have nothing but happiness in
your own life, and so you could spare time to make my troubles turn to
happiness, too. But there's one little time in the twenty-four hours
when I'm not happy. It's now, when I have to say good night. I feel
dismal every time it comes--and then, when I've left the house, there's
a bad little blankness, a black void, as though I were temporarily
dead; and it lasts until I get it established in my mind that I'm really
beginning another day that's to end with YOU again. Then I cheer up. But
now's the bad time--and I must go through it, and so--good night.” And
he added with a pungent vehemence of which he was little aware, “I hate
it!”

“Do you?” she said, rising to go to the door with him. But he stood
motionless, gazing at her wonderingly.

“Mary! Your eyes are so--” He stopped.

“Yes?” But she looked quickly away.

“I don't know,” he said. “I thought just then--”

“What did you think?”

“I don't know--it seemed to me that there was something I ought to
understand--and didn't.”

She laughed and met his wondering gaze again frankly. “My eyes are
pleased,” she said. “I'm glad that you miss me a little after you go.”

“But to-morrow's coming faster than other days if you'll let it,” he
said.

She inclined her head. “Yes. I'll--'let it'!”

“Going to church,” said Bibbs. “It IS going to church when I go with
you!”

She went to the front door with him; she always went that far. They had
formed a little code of leave-taking, by habit, neither of them ever
speaking of it; but it was always the same. She always stood in the
doorway until he reached the sidewalk, and there he always turned and
looked back, and she waved her hand to him. Then he went on, halfway to
the New House, and looked back again, and Mary was not in the doorway,
but the door was open and the light shone. It was as if she meant to
tell him that she would never shut him out; he could always see that
friendly light of the open doorway--as if it were open for him to come
back, if he would. He could see it until a wing of the New House came
between, when he went up the path. The open doorway seemed to him the
beautiful symbol of her friendship--of her thought of him; a symbol of
herself and of her ineffable kindness.

And she kept the door open--even to-night, though the sleet and fine
snow swept in upon her bare throat and arms, and her brown hair was
strewn with tiny white stars. His heart leaped as he turned and saw that
she was there, waving her hand to him, as if she did not know that the
storm touched her. When he had gone on, Mary did as she always did--she
went into an unlit room across the hall from that in which they had
spent the evening, and, looking from the window, watched him until he
was out of sight. The storm made that difficult to-night, but she
caught a glimpse of him under the street-lamp that stood between the two
houses, and saw that he turned to look back again. Then, and not before,
she looked at the upper windows of Roscoe's house across the street.
They were dark. Mary waited, but after a little while she closed the
front door and returned to her window. A moment later two of the upper
windows of Roscoe's house flashed into light and a hand lowered the
shade of one of them. Mary felt the cold then--it was the third night
she had seen those windows lighted and the shade lowered, just after
Bibbs had gone.

But Bibbs had no glance to spare for Roscoe's windows. He stopped for
his last look back at the open door, and, with a thin mantle of white
already upon his shoulders, made his way, gasping in the wind, to the
lee of the sheltering wing of the New House.

A stricken George, muttering hoarsely, admitted him, and Bibbs became
aware of a paroxysm within the house. Terrible sounds came from the
library: Sheridan cursing as never before; his wife sobbing, her voice
rising to an agonized squeal of protest upon each of a series of muffled
detonations--the outrageous thumping of a bandaged hand upon wood; then
Gurney, sharply imperious, “Keep your hand in that sling! Keep your hand
in that sling, I say!”

“LOOK!” George gasped, delighted to play herald for so important a
tragedy; and he renewed upon his face the ghastly expression with which
he had first beheld the ruins his calamitous gesture laid before the
eyes of Bibbs. “Look at 'at lamidal statue!”

Gazing down the hall, Bibbs saw heroic wreckage, seemingly
Byzantine--painted colossal fragments of the shattered torso,
appallingly human; and gilded and silvered heaps of magnificence strewn
among ruinous palms like the spoil of a barbarians' battle. There had
been a massacre in the oasis--the Moor had been hurled headlong from his
pedestal.

“He hit 'at ole lamidal statue,” said George. “POW!”

“My father?”

“YESsuh! POW! he hit 'er! An' you' ma run tell me git doctuh quick 's
I kin telefoam--she sho' you' pa goin' bus' a blood-vessel. He ain't
takin' on 'tall NOW. He ain't nothin' 'tall to what he was 'while ago.
You done miss' it, Mist' Bibbs. Doctuh got him all quiet' down, to what
he was. POW! he hit'er! Yessuh!” He took Bibbs's coat and proffered a
crumpled telegraph form. “Here what come,” he said. “I pick 'er up when
he done stompin' on 'er. You read 'er, Mist' Bibbs--you' ma tell me tuhn
'er ovuh to you soon's you come in.”

Bibbs read the telegram quickly. It was from New York and addressed to
Mrs. Sheridan.

   Sure you will all approve step have taken as was so wretched my
   health would probably suffered severely Robert and I were married
   this afternoon thought best have quiet wedding absolutely sure
   you will understand wisdom of step when you know Robert better am
   happiest woman in world are leaving for Florida will wire address
   when settled will remain till spring love to all father will like
   him too when knows him like I do he is just ideal.
                                                     Edith Lamhorn.



CHAPTER XXVI

George departed, and Bibbs was left gazing upon chaos and listening to
thunder. He could not reach the stairway without passing the open doors
of the library, and he was convinced that the mere glimpse of him, just
then, would prove nothing less than insufferable for his father. For
that reason he was about to make his escape into the gold-and-brocade
room, intending to keep out of sight, when he heard Sheridan
vociferously demanding his presence.

“Tell him to come in here! He's out there. I heard George just let him
in. Now you'll SEE!” And tear-stained Mrs. Sheridan, looking out into
the hall, beckoned to her son.

Bibbs went as far as the doorway. Gurney sat winding a strip of white
cotton, his black bag open upon a chair near by; and Sheridan was
striding up and down, his hand so heavily wrapped in fresh bandages that
he seemed to be wearing a small boxing-glove. His eyes were bloodshot;
his forehead was heavily bedewed; one side of his collar had broken
loose, and there were blood-stains upon his right cuff.

“THERE'S our little sunshine!” he cried, as Bibbs appeared. “THERE'S the
hope o' the family--my lifelong pride and joy! I want--”

“Keep you hand in that sling,” said Gurney, sharply.

Sheridan turned upon him, uttering a sound like a howl. “For God's sake,
sing another tune!” he cried. “You said you 'came as a doctor but stay
as a friend,' and in that capacity you undertake to sit up and criticize
ME--”

“Oh, talk sense,” said the doctor, and yawned intentionally. “What do
you want Bibbs to say?”

“You were sittin' up there tellin' me I got 'hysterical'--'hysterical,'
oh Lord! You sat up there and told me I got 'hysterical' over nothin'!
You sat up there tellin' me I didn't have as heavy burdens as many
another man you knew. I just want you to hear THIS. Now listen!” He
swung toward the quiet figure waiting in the doorway. “Bibbs, will you
come down-town with me Monday morning and let me start you with two
vice-presidencies, a directorship, stock, and salaries? I ask you.”

“No, father,” said Bibbs, gently.

Sheridan looked at Gurney and then faced his son once more.

“Bibbs, you want to stay in the shop, do you, at nine dollars a week,
instead of takin' up my offer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And I'd like the doctor to hear: What'll you do if I decide you're
too high-priced a workin'-man either to live in my house or work in my
shop?”

“Find other work,” said Bibbs.

“There! You hear him for yourself!” Sheridan cried. “You hear what--”

“Keep you hand in that sling! Yes, I hear him.”

Sheridan leaned over Gurney and shouted, in a voice that cracked and
broke, piping into falsetto: “He thinks of bein' a PLUMBER! He wants to
be a PLUMBER! He told me he couldn't THINK if he went into business--he
wants to be a plumber so he can THINK!”

He fell back a step, wiping his forhead with the back of his left hand.
“There! That's my son! That's the only son I got now! That's my chance
to live,” he cried, with a bitterness that seemed to leave ashes in his
throat. “That's my one chance to live--that thing you see in the doorway
yonder!”

Dr. Gurney thoughtfully regarded the bandage strip he had been winding,
and tossed it into the open bag. “What's the matter with giving Bibbs a
chance to live?” he said, coolly. “I would if I were you. You've had TWO
that went into business.”

Sheridan's mouth moved grotesquely before he could speak. “Joe Gurney,”
 he said, when he could command himself so far, “are you accusin' me of
the responsibility for the death of my son James?”

“I accuse you of nothing,” said the doctor. “But just once I'd like
to have it out with you on the question of Bibbs--and while he's here,
too.” He got up, walked to the fire, and stood warming his hands behind
his back and smiling. “Look here, old fellow, let's be reasonable,” he
said. “You were bound Bibbs should go to the shop again, and I gave you
and him, both, to understand pretty plainly that if he went it was at
the risk of his life. Well, what did he do? He said he wanted to go. And
he did go, and he's made good there. Now, see: Isn't that enough? Can't
you let him off now? He wants to write, and how do you know that he
couldn't do it if you gave him a chance? How do you know he hasn't some
message--something to say that might make the world just a little
bit happier or wiser? He MIGHT--in time--it's a possibility not to be
denied. Now he can't deliver any message if he goes down there with you,
and he won't HAVE any to deliver. I don't say going down with you is
likely to injure his health, as I thought the shop would, and as the
shop did, the first time. I'm not speaking as doctor now, anyhow. But
I tell you one thing I know: if you take him down there you'll kill
something that I feel is in him, and it's finer, I think, than his
physical body, and you'll kill it deader than a door-nail! And so
why not let it live? You've about come to the end of your string, old
fellow. Why not stop this perpetual devilish fighting and give Bibbs his
chance?”

Sheridan stood looking at him fixedly. “What 'fighting?'”

“Yours--with nature.” Gurney sustained the daunting gaze of his fierce
antagonist equably. “You don't seem to understand that you've been
struggling against actual law.”

“What law?”

“Natural law,” said Gurney. “What do you think beat you with Edith? Did
Edith, herself, beat you? Didn't she obey without question something
powerful that was against you? EDITH wasn't against you, and you weren't
against HER, but you set yourself against the power that had her in its
grip, and it shot out a spurt of flame--and won in a walk! What's taken
Roscoe from you? Timbers bear just so much strain, old man; but YOU
wanted to send the load across the broken bridge, and you thought you
could bully or coax the cracked thing into standing. Well, you couldn't!
Now here's Bibbs. There are thousands of men fit for the life you want
him to lead--and so is he. It wouldn't take half of Bibbs's brains to be
twice as good a business man as Jim and Roscoe put together.”

“WHAT!” Sheridan goggled at him like a zany.

“Your son Bibbs,” said the doctor, composedly, “Bibbs Sheridan has
the kind and quantity of 'gray matter' that will make him a success in
anything--if he ever wakes up! Personally I should prefer him to remain
asleep. I like him that way. But the thousands of men fit for the life
you want him to lead aren't fit to do much with the life he OUGHT
to lead. Blindly, he's been fighting for the chance to lead it--he's
obeying something that begs to stay alive within him; and, blindly, he
knows you'll crush it out. You've set your will to do it. Let me tell
you something more. You don't know what you've become since Jim's going
thwarted you--and that's what was uppermost, a bafflement stronger than
your normal grief. You're half mad with a consuming fury against the
very self of the law--for it was the very self of the law that took Jim
from you. That was a law concerning the cohesion of molecules. The very
self of the law took Roscoe from you and gave Edith the certainty of
beating you; and the very self of the law makes Bibbs deny you to-night.
The LAW beats you. Haven't you been whipped enough? But you want to whip
the law--you've set yourself against it, to bend it to your own ends, to
wield it and twist it--”

The voice broke from Sheridan's heaving chest in a shout. “Yes! And by
God, I will!”

“So Ajax defied the lightning,” said Gurney.

“I've heard that dam'-fool story, too,” Sheridan retorted, fiercely.
“That's for chuldern and niggers. It ain't twentieth century, let me
tell you! 'Defied the lightning,' did he, the jackass! If he'd been half
a man he'd 'a' got away with it. WE don't go showin' off defyin' the
lightning--we hitch it up and make it work for us like a black-steer! A
man nowadays would just as soon think o' defyin' a wood-shed!”

“Well, what about Bibbs?” said Gurney. “Will you be a really big man now
and--”

“Gurney, you know a lot about bigness!” Sheridan began to walk to and
fro again, and the doctor returned gloomily to his chair. He had shot
his bolt the moment he judged its chance to strike center was best, but
the target seemed unaware of the marksman.

“I'm tryin' to make a big man out o' that poor truck yonder,” Sheridan
went on, “and you step in, beggin' me to let him be Lord knows what--I
don't! I suppose you figure it out that now I got a SON-IN-LAW, I
mightn't need a son! Yes, I got a son-in-law now--a spender!”

“Oh, put your hand back!” said Gurney, wearily.

There was a bronze inkstand upon the table. Sheridan put his right hand
in the sling, but with his left he swept the inkstand from the table
and half-way across the room--a comet with a destroying black tail. Mrs.
Sheridan shrieked and sprang toward it.

“Let it lay!” he shouted, fiercely. “Let it lay!” And, weeping, she
obeyed. “Yes, sir,” he went on, in a voice the more ominous for the
sudden hush he put upon it. “I got a spender for a son-in-law! It's
wonderful where property goes, sometimes. There was ole man Tracy--you
remember him, Doc--J. R. Tracy, solid banker. He went into the bank as
messenger, seventeen years old; he was president at forty-three, and he
built that bank with his life for forty years more. He was down there
from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon the day before he
died--over eighty! Gilt edge, that bank? It was diamond edge! He used
to eat a bag o' peanuts and an apple for lunch; but he wasn't
stingy--he was just livin' in his business. He didn't care for pie or
automobiles--he had his bank. It was an institution, and it come pretty
near bein' the beatin' heart o' this town in its time. Well, that ole
man used to pass one o' these here turned-up-nose and turned-up-pants
cigarette boys on the streets. Never spoke to him, Tracy didn't. Speak
to him? God! he wouldn't 'a' coughed on him! He wouldn't 'a' let him
clean the cuspidors at the bank! Why, if he'd 'a' just seen him standin'
in FRONT the bank he'd 'a' had him run off the street. And yet all Tracy
was doin' every day of his life was workin' for that cigarette boy!
Tracy thought it was for the bank; he thought he was givin' his life and
his life-blood and the blood of his brain for the bank, but he wasn't.
It was every bit--from the time he went in at seventeen till he died in
harness at eighty-three--it was every last lick of it just slavin' for
that turned-up-nose, turned-up-pants cigarette boy. AND TRACY DIDN'T
EVEN KNOW HIS NAME! He died, not ever havin' heard it, though he chased
him off the front steps of his house once. The day after Tracy died his
old-maid daughter married the cigarette--and there AIN'T any Tracy bank
any more! And now”--his voice rose again--“and now I got a cigarette
son-in-law!”

Gurney pointed to the flourishing right hand without speaking, and
Sheridan once more returned it to the sling.

“My son-in-law likes Florida this winter,” Sheridan went on. “That's
good, and my son-in-law better enjoy it, because I don't think he'll be
there next winter. They got twelve-thousand dollars to spend, and I hear
it can be done in Florida by rich sons-in-law. When Roscoe's woman got
me to spend that much on a porch for their new house, Edith wouldn't
give me a minute's rest till I turned over the same to her. And she's
got it, besides what I gave her to go East on. It'll be gone long before
this time next year, and when she comes home and leaves the cigarette
behind--for good--she'll get some more. MY name ain't Tracy, and there
ain't goin' to be any Tracy business in the Sheridan family. And there
ain't goin' to be any college foundin' and endowin' and trusteein',
nor God-knows-what to keep my property alive when I'm gone! Edith'll
be back, and she'll get a girl's share when she's through with that
cigarette, but--”

“By the way,” interposed Gurney, “didn't Mrs. Sheridan tell me that
Bibbs warned you Edith would marry Lamhorn in New York?”

Sheridan went completely to pieces: he swore, while his wife screamed
and stopped her ears. And as he swore he pounded the table with his
wounded hand, and when the doctor, after storming at him ineffectively,
sprang to catch and protect that hand, Sheridan wrenched it away,
tearing the bandage. He hammered the table till it leaped.

“Fool!” he panted, choking. “If he's shown gumption enough to guess
right the first time in his life, it's enough for me to begin learnin'
him on!” And, struggling with the doctor, he leaned toward Bibbs,
thrusting forward his convulsed face, which was deathly pale. “My name
ain't Tracy, I tell you!” he screamed, hoarsely. “You give in, you
stubborn fool! I've had my way with you before, and I'll have my way
with you now!”

Bibbs's face was as white as his father's, but he kept remembering that
“splendid look” of Mary's which he had told her would give him courage
in a struggle, so that he would “never give up.”

“No. You can't have your way,” he said. And then, obeying a significant
motion of Gurney's head, he went out quickly, leaving them struggling.



CHAPTER XXVII

Mrs. Sheridan, in a wrapper, noiselessly opened the door of her
husband's room at daybreak the next morning, and peered within the
darkened chamber. At the “old” house they had shared a room, but the
architect had chosen to separate them at the New, and they had not known
how to formulate an objection, although to both of them something seemed
vaguely reprehensible in the new arrangement.

Sheridan did not stir, and she was withdrawing her head from the
aperture when he spoke.

“Oh, I'm AWAKE! Come in, if you want to, and shut the door.”

She came and sat by the bed. “I woke up thinkin' about it,” she
explained. “And the more I thought about it the surer I got I must
be right, and I knew you'd be tormentin' yourself if you was awake,
so--well, you got plenty other troubles, but I'm just sure you ain't
goin' to have the worry with Bibbs it looks like.”

“You BET I ain't!” he grunted.

“Look how biddable he was about goin' back to the Works,” she continued.
“He's a right good-hearted boy, really, and sometimes I honestly have to
say he seems right smart, too. Now and then he'll say something sounds
right bright. 'Course, most always it doesn't, and a good deal of the
time, when he says things, why, I have to feel glad we haven't got
company, because they'd think he didn't have any gumption at all. Yet,
look at the way he did when Jim--when Jim got hurt. He took right hold
o' things. 'Course he'd been sick himself so much and all--and the rest
of us never had, much, and we were kind o' green about what to do in
that kind o' trouble--still, he did take hold, and everything went off
all right; you'll have to say that much, papa. And Dr. Gurney says he's
got brains, and you can't deny but what the doctor's right considerable
of a man. He acts sleepy, but that's only because he's got such a large
practice--he's a pretty wide-awake kind of a man some ways. Well, what
he says last night about Bibbs himself bein' asleep, and how much he'd
amount to if he ever woke up--that's what I got to thinkin' about. You
heard him, papa; he says, 'Bibbs'll be a bigger business man than what
Jim and Roscoe was put together--if he ever wakes up,' he says. Wasn't
that exactly what he says?”

“I suppose so,” said Sheridan, without exhibiting any interest.
“Gurney's crazier'n Bibbs, but if he wasn't--if what he says was
true--what of it?”

“Listen, papa. Just suppose Bibbs took it into his mind to get married.
You know where he goes all the time--”

“Oh, Lord, yes!” Sheridan turned over in the bed, his face to the wall,
leaving visible of himself only the thick grizzle of his hair. “You
better go back to sleep. He runs over there--every minute she'll let
him, I suppose. Go back to bed. There's nothin' in it.”

“WHY ain't there?” she urged. “I know better--there is, too! You wait
and see. There's just one thing in the world that'll wake the sleepiest
young man alive up--yes, and make him JUMP up--and I don't care who he
is or how sound asleep it looks like he is. That's when he takes it
into his head to pick out some girl and settle down and have a home and
chuldern of his own. THEN, I guess, he'll go out after the money! You'll
see. I've known dozens o' cases, and so've you--moony, no-'count young
men, all notions and talk, goin' to be ministers, maybe or something;
and there's just this one thing takes it out of 'em and brings 'em right
down to business. Well, I never could make out just what it is
Bibbs wants to be, really; doesn't seem he wants to be a minister
exactly--he's so far-away you can't tell, and he never SAYS--but I know
this is goin' to get him right down to common sense. Now, I don't say
that Bibbs has got the idea in his head yet--'r else he wouldn't be
talkin' that fool-talk about nine dollars a week bein' good enough for
him to live on. But it's COMIN', papa, and he'll JUMP for whatever you
want to hand him out. He will! And I can tell you this much, too: he'll
want all the salary and stock he can get hold of, and he'll hustle to
keep gettin' more. That girl's the kind that a young husband just goes
crazy to give things to! She's pretty and fine-lookin', and things look
nice on her, and I guess she'd like to have 'em about as well as the
next. And I guess she isn't gettin' many these days, either, and she'll
be pretty ready for the change. I saw her with her sleeves rolled up at
the kitchen window the other day, and Jackson told me yesterday their
cook left two weeks ago, and they haven't tried to hire another one. He
says her and her mother been doin' the housework a good while, and now
they're doin' the cookin,' too. 'Course Bibbs wouldn't know that
unless she's told him, and I reckon she wouldn't; she's kind o'
stiffish-lookin', and Bibbs is too up in the clouds to notice anything
like that for himself. They've never asked him to a meal in the house,
but he wouldn't notice that, either--he's kind of innocent. Now I was
thinkin'--you know, I don't suppose we've hardly mentioned the girl's
name at table since Jim went, but it seems to me maybe if--”

Sheridan flung out his arms, uttering a sound half-groan, half-yawn.
“You're barkin' up the wrong tree! Go on back to bed, mamma!”

“Why am I?” she demanded, crossly. “Why am I barkin' up the wrong tree?”

“Because you are. There's nothin' in it.”

“I'll bet you,” she said, rising--“I'll bet you he goes to church with
her this morning. What you want to bet?”

“Go back to bed,” he commanded. “I KNOW what I'm talkin' about; there's
nothin' in it, I tell you.”

She shook her head perplexedly. “You think because--because Jim was
runnin' so much with her it wouldn't look right?”

“No. Nothin' to do with it.”

“Then--do you know something about it that you ain't told me?”

“Yes, I do,” he grunted. “Now go on. Maybe I can get a little sleep. I
ain't had any yet!”

“Well--” She went to the door, her expression downcast. “I thought
maybe--but--” She coughed prefatorily. “Oh, papa, something else I
wanted to tell you. I was talkin' to Roscoe over the 'phone last night
when the telegram came, so I forgot to tell you, but--well, Sibyl wants
to come over this afternoon. Roscoe says she has something she wants to
say to us. It'll be the first time she's been out since she was able to
sit up--and I reckon she wants to tell us she's sorry for what happened.
They expect to get off by the end o' the week, and I reckon she wants to
feel she's done what she could to kind o' make up. Anyway, that's
what he said. I 'phoned him again about Edith, and he said it wouldn't
disturb Sibyl, because she'd been expectin' it; she was sure all
along it was goin' to happen; and, besides, I guess she's got all that
foolishness pretty much out of her, bein' so sick. But what I thought
was, no use bein' rough with her, papa--I expect she's suffered a
good deal--and I don't think we'd ought to be, on Roscoe's account.
You'll--you'll be kind o' polite to her, won't you, papa?”

He mumbled something which was smothered under the coverlet he had
pulled over his head.

“What?” she said, timidly. “I was just sayin' I hoped you'd treat Sibyl
all right when she comes, this afternoon. You will, won't you, papa?”

He threw the coverlet off furiously. “I presume so!” he roared.

She departed guiltily.

But if he had accepted her proffered wager that Bibbs would go to
church with Mary Vertrees that morning, Mrs. Sheridan would have lost.
Nevertheless, Bibbs and Mary did certainly set out from Mr. Vertrees's
house with the purpose of going to church. That was their intention, and
they had no other. They meant to go to church.

But it happened that they were attentively preoccupied in a conversation
as they came to the church; and though Mary was looking to the right and
Bibbs was looking to the left, Bibbs's leftward glance converged with
Mary's rightward glance, and neither was looking far beyond the other
at this time. It also happened that, though they were a little jostled
among groups of people in the vicinity of the church, they passed this
somewhat prominent edifice without being aware of their proximity to it,
and they had gone an incredible number of blocks beyond it before
they discovered their error. However, feeling that they might be
embarrassingly late if they returned, they decided that a walk would
make them as good. It was a windless winter morning, with an inch of
crisp snow over the ground. So they walked, and for the most part they
were silent, but on their way home, after they had turned back at noon,
they began to be talkative again.

“Mary,” said Bibbs, after a time, “am I a sleep-walker?”

She laughed a little, then looked grave. “Does your father say you are?”

“Yes--when he's in a mood to flatter me. Other times, other names. He
has quite a list.”

“You mustn't mind,” she said, gently. “He's been getting some pretty
severe shocks. What you've told me makes me pretty sorry for him, Bibbs.
I've always been sure he's very big.”

“Yes. Big and--blind. He's like a Hercules without eyes and without any
consciousness except that of his strength and of his purpose to grow
stronger. Stronger for what? For nothing.”

“Are you sure, Bibbs? It CAN'T be for nothing; it must be stronger for
something, even though he doesn't know what it is. Perhaps what he and
his kind are struggling for is something so great they COULDN'T see
it--so great none of us could see it.”

“No, he's just like some blind, unconscious thing heaving underground--”

“Till he breaks through and leaps out into the daylight,” she finished
for him, cheerily.

“Into the smoke,” said Bibbs. “Look at the powder of coal-dust already
dirtying the decent snow, even though it's Sunday. That's from the
little pigs; the big ones aren't so bad, on Sunday! There's a fleck of
soot on your cheek. Some pig sent it out into the air; he might as well
have thrown it on you. It would have been braver, for then he'd have
taken his chance of my whipping him for it if I could.”

“IS there soot on my cheek, Bibbs, or were you only saying so
rhetorically? IS there?”

“Is there? There ARE soot on your cheeks, Mary--a fleck on each. One
landed since I mentioned the first.”

She halted immediately, giving him her handkerchief, and he succeeded in
transferring most of the black from her face to the cambric. They were
entirely matter-of-course about it.

An elderly couple, it chanced, had been walking behind Bibbs and Mary
for the last block or so, and passed ahead during the removal of the
soot. “There!” said the elderly wife. “You're always wrong when
you begin guessing about strangers. Those two young people aren't
honeymooners at all--they've been married for years. A blind man could
see that.”


“I wish I did know who threw that soot on you,” said Bibbs, looking up
at the neighboring chimneys, as they went on. “They arrest children for
throwing snowballs at the street-cars, but--”

“But they don't arrest the street-cars for shaking all the pictures in
the houses crooked every time they go by. Nor for the uproar they make.
I wonder what's the cost in nerves for the noise of the city each year.
Yes, we pay the price for living in a 'growing town,' whether we have
money to pay or none.”

“Who is it gets the pay?” said Bibbs.

“Not I!” she laughed.

“Nobody gets it. There isn't any pay; there's only money. And only some
of the men down-town get much of that. That's what my father wants me to
get.”

“Yes,” she said, smiling to him, and nodding. “And you don't want it,
and you don't need it.”

“But you don't think I'm a sleep-walker, Mary?” He had told her of his
father's new plans for him, though he had not described the vigor and
picturesqueness of their setting forth. “You think I'm right?”

“A thousand times!” she cried. “There aren't so many happy people in
this world, I think--and you say you've found what makes you happy. If
it's a dream--keep it!”

“The thought of going down there--into the money shuffle--I hate it as
I never hated the shop!” he said. “I hate it! And the city itself, the
city that the money shuffle has made--just look at it! Look at it in
winter. The snow's tried hard to make the ugliness bearable, but the
ugliness is winning; it's making the snow hideous; the snow's getting
dirty on top, and it's foul underneath with the dirt and disease of the
unclean street. And the dirt and the ugliness and the rush and the noise
aren't the worst of it; it's what the dirt and ugliness and rush and
noise MEAN--that's the worst! The outward things are insufferable, but
they're only the expression of a spirit--a blind embryo of a spirit, not
yet a soul--oh, just greed! And this 'go ahead' nonsense! Oughtn't it
all to be a fellowship? I shouldn't want to get ahead if I could--I'd
want to help the other fellow to keep up with me.”

“I read something the other day and remembered it for you,” said Mary.
“It was something Burne-Jones said of a picture he was going to paint:
'In the first picture I shall make a man walking in the street of
a great city, full of all kinds of happy life: children, and lovers
walking, and ladies leaning from the windows all down great lengths of
a street leading to the city walls; and there the gates are wide open,
letting in a space of green field and cornfield in harvest; and all
round his head a great rain of swirling autumn leaves blowing from a
little walled graveyard.”

“And if I painted,” Bibbs returned, “I'd paint a lady walking in the
street of a great city, full of all kinds of uproarious and futile
life--children being taught only how to make money, and lovers hurrying
to get richer, and ladies who'd given up trying to wash their windows
clean, and the gates of the city wide open, letting in slums and
slaughter-houses and freight-yards, and all round this lady's head a
great rain of swirling soot--” He paused, adding, thoughtfully: “And yet
I believe I'm glad that soot got on your cheek. It was just as if I were
your brother--the way you gave me your handkerchief to rub it off for
you. Still, Edith never--”

“Didn't she?” said Mary, as he paused again.

“No. And I--” He contented himself with shaking his head instead of
offering more definite information. Then he realized that they were
passing the New House, and he sighed profoundly. “Mary, our walk's
almost over.”

She looked as blank. “So it is, Bibbs.”

They said no more until they came to her gate. As they drifted slowly
to a stop, the door of Roscoe's house opened, and Roscoe came out with
Sibyl, who was startlingly pale. She seemed little enfeebled by her
illness, however, walking rather quickly at her husband's side and not
taking his arm. The two crossed the street without appearing to see Mary
and her companion, and entering the New House, were lost to sight. Mary
gazed after them gravely, but Bibbs, looking at Mary, did not see them.

“Mary,” he said, “you seem very serious. Is anything bothering you?”

“No, Bibbs.” And she gave him a bright, quick look that made him
instantly unreasonably happy.

“I know you want to go in--” he began.

“No. I don't want to.”

“I mustn't keep you standing here, and I mustn't go in with you--but--I
just wanted to say--I've seemed very stupid to myself this morning,
grumbling about soot and all that--while all the time I--Mary, I think
it's been the very happiest of all the hours you've given me. I do.
And--I don't know just why--but it's seemed to me that it was one I'd
always remember. And you,” he added, falteringly, “you look so--so
beautiful to-day!”

“It must have been the soot on my cheek, Bibbs.”

“Mary, will you tell me something?” he asked.

“I think I will.”

“It's something I've had a lot of theories about, but none of them
ever just fits. You used to wear furs in the fall, but now it's so much
colder, you don't--you never wear them at all any more. Why don't you?”

Her eyes fell for a moment, and she grew red. Then she looked up gaily.
“Bibbs, if I tell you the answer will you promise not to ask any more
questions?”

“Yes. Why did you stop wearing them?”

“Because I found I'd be warmer without them!” She caught his hand
quickly in her own for an instant, laughed into his eyes, and ran into
the house.



CHAPTER XXVIII

It is the consoling attribute of unused books that their decorative
warmth will so often make even a ready-made library the actual
“living-room” of a family to whom the shelved volumes are indeed sealed.
Thus it was with Sheridan, who read nothing except newspapers,
business letters, and figures; who looked upon books as he looked upon
bric-a-brac or crocheting--when he was at home, and not abed or eating,
he was in the library.

He stood in the many-colored light of the stained-glass window at the
far end of the long room, when Roscoe and his wife came in, and he
exhaled a solemnity. His deference to the Sabbath was manifest,
as always, in the length of his coat and the closeness of his
Saturday-night shave; and his expression, to match this religious pomp,
was more than Sabbatical, but the most dismaying of his demonstrations
was his keeping his hand in his sling.

Sibyl advanced to the middle of the room and halted there, not looking
at him, but down at her muff, in which, it could be seen, her hands were
nervously moving. Roscoe went to a chair in another part of the room.
There was a deadly silence.

But Sibyl found a shaky voice, after an interval of gulping, though she
was unable to lift her eyes, and the darkling lids continued to veil
them. She spoke hurriedly, like an ungifted child reciting something
committed to memory, but her sincerity was none the less evident for
that.

“Father Sheridan, you and mother Sheridan have always been so kind to
me, and I would hate to have you think I don't appreciate it, from the
way I acted. I've come to tell you I am sorry for the way I did that
night, and to say I know as well as anybody the way I behaved, and it
will never happen again, because it's been a pretty hard lesson;
and when we come back, some day, I hope you'll see that you've got a
daughter-in-law you never need to be ashamed of again. I want to ask
you to excuse me for the way I did, and I can say I haven't any feelings
toward Edith now, but only wish her happiness and good in her new life.
I thank you for all your kindness to me, and I know I made a poor return
for it, but if you can overlook the way I behaved I know I would feel a
good deal happier--and I know Roscoe would, too. I wish to promise not
to be as foolish in the future, and the same error would never occur
again to make us all so unhappy, if you can be charitable enough to
excuse it this time.”

He looked steadily at her without replying, and she stood before him,
never lifting her eyes; motionless, save where the moving fur proved the
agitation of her hands within the muff.

“All right,” he said at last.

She looked up then with vast relief, though there was a revelation of
heavy tears when the eyelids lifted.

“Thank you,” she said. “There's something else--about something
different--I want to say to you, but I want mother Sheridan to hear it,
too.”

“She's up-stairs in her room,” said Sheridan. “Roscoe--”

Sibyl interrupted. She had just seen Bibbs pass through the hall and
begin to ascend the stairs; and in a flash she instinctively perceived
the chance for precisely the effect she wanted.

“No, let me go,” she said. “I want to speak to her a minute first,
anyway.”

And she went away quickly, gaining the top of the stairs in time to see
Bibbs enter his room and close the door. Sibyl knew that Bibbs, in his
room, had overheard her quarrel with Edith in the hall outside; for
bitter Edith, thinking the more to shame her, had subsequently informed
her of the circumstance. Sibyl had just remembered this, and with
the recollection there had flashed the thought--out of her own
experience--that people are often much more deeply impressed by words
they overhear than by words directly addressed to them. Sibyl
intended to make it impossible for Bibbs not to overhear. She did not
hesitate--her heart was hot with the old sore, and she believed wholly
in the justice of her cause and in the truth of what she was going to
say. Fate was virtuous at times; it had delivered into her hands the
girl who had affronted her.

Mrs. Sheridan was in her own room. The approach of Sibyl and Roscoe had
driven her from the library, for she had miscalculated her husband's
mood, and she felt that if he used his injured hand as a mark of
emphasis again, in her presence, she would (as she thought of it) “have
a fit right there.” She heard Sibyl's step, and pretended to be putting
a touch to her hair before a mirror.

“I was just coming down,” she said, as the door opened.

“Yes, he wants you to,” said Sibyl. “It's all right, mother Sheridan.
He's forgiven me.”

Mrs. Sheridan sniffed instantly; tears appeared. She kissed her
daughter-in-law's cheek; then, in silence, regarded the mirror afresh,
wiped her eyes, and applied powder.

“And I hope Edith will be happy,” Sibyl added, inciting more
applications of Mrs. Sheridan's handkerchief and powder.

“Yes, yes,” murmured the good woman. “We mustn't make the worst of
things.”

“Well, there was something else I had to say, and he wants you to hear
it, too,” said Sibyl. “We better go down, mother Sheridan.”

She led the way, Mrs. Sheridan following obediently, but when they came
to a spot close by Bibbs's door, Sibyl stopped. “I want to tell you
about it first,” she said, abruptly. “It isn't a secret, of course, in
any way; it's something the whole family has to know, and the sooner the
whole family knows it the better. It's something it wouldn't be RIGHT
for us ALL not to understand, and of course father Sheridan most of all.
But I want to just kind of go over it first with you; it'll kind of help
me to see I got it all straight. I haven't got any reason for saying it
except the good of the family, and it's nothing to me, one way or the
other, of course, except for that. I oughtn't to've behaved the way I
did that night, and it seems to me if there's anything I can do to help
the family, I ought to, because it would help show I felt the right way.
Well, what I want to do is to tell this so's to keep the family from
being made a fool of. I don't want to see the family just made use of
and twisted around her finger by somebody that's got no more heart than
so much ice, and just as sure to bring troubles in the long run as--as
Edith's mistake is. Well, then, this is the way it is. I'll just tell
you how it looks to me and see if it don't strike you the same way.”

Within the room, Bibbs, much annoyed, tapped his ear with his pencil. He
wished they wouldn't stand talking near his door when he was trying to
write. He had just taken from his trunk the manuscript of a poem begun
the preceding Sunday afternoon, and he had some ideas he wanted to
fix upon paper before they maliciously seized the first opportunity
to vanish, for they were but gossamer. Bibbs was pleased with the
beginnings of his poem, and if he could carry it through he meant to
dare greatly with it--he would venture it upon an editor. For he had
his plan of life now: his day would be of manual labor and thinking--he
could think of his friend and he could think in cadences for poems, to
the crashing of the strong machine--and if his father turned him out of
home and out of the Works, he would work elsewhere and live elsewhere.
His father had the right, and it mattered very little to Bibbs--he faced
the prospect of a working-man's lodging-house without trepidation. He
could find a washstand to write upon, he thought; and every evening when
he left Mary he would write a little; and he would write on holidays and
on Sundays--on Sundays in the afternoon. In a lodging-house, at least
he wouldn't be interrupted by his sister-in-law's choosing the immediate
vicinity of his door for conversations evidently important to herself,
but merely disturbing to him. He frowned plaintively, wishing he could
think of some polite way of asking her to go away. But, as she went on,
he started violently, dropping manuscript and pencil upon the floor.

“I don't know whether you heard it, mother Sheridan,” she said, “but
this old Vertrees house, next door, had been sold on foreclosure, and
all THEY got out of it was an agreement that let's 'em live there a
little longer. Roscoe told me, and he says he heard Mr. Vertrees has
been up and down the streets more'n two years, tryin' to get a job he
could call a 'position,' and couldn't land it. You heard anything about
it, mother Sheridan?”

“Well, I DID know they been doin' their own house-work a good while
back,” said Mrs. Sheridan. “And now they're doin' the cookin', too.”

Sibyl sent forth a little titter with a sharp edge. “I hope they find
something to cook! She sold her piano mighty quick after Jim died!”

Bibbs jumped up. He was trembling from head to foot and he was dizzy--of
all the real things he could never have dreamed in his dream the last
would have been what he heard now. He felt that something incredible was
happening, and that he was powerless to stop it. It seemed to him that
heavy blows were falling on his head and upon Mary's; it seemed to
him that he and Mary were being struck and beaten physically--and that
something hideous impended. He wanted to shout to Sibyl to be silent,
but he could not; he could only stand, swallowing and trembling.

“What I think the whole family ought to understand is just this,” said
Sibyl, sharply. “Those people were so hard up that this Miss Vertrees
started after Bibbs before they knew whether he was INSANE or not!
They'd got a notion he might be, from his being in a sanitarium, and
Mrs. Vertrees ASKED me if he was insane, the very first day Bibbs took
the daughter out auto-riding!” She paused a moment, looking at Mrs.
Sheridan, but listening intently. There was no sound from within the
room.

“No!” exclaimed Mrs. Sheridan.

“It's the truth,” Sibyl declared, loudly. “Oh, of course we were all
crazy about that girl at first. We were pretty green when we moved up
here, and we thought she'd get us IN--but it didn't take ME long to read
her! Her family were down and out when it came to money--and they had to
go after it, one way or another, SOMEHOW! So she started for Roscoe; but
she found out pretty quick he was married, and she turned right around
to Jim--and she landed him! There's no doubt about it, she had Jim, and
if he'd lived you'd had another daughter-in-law before this, as sure as
I stand here telling you the God's truth about it! Well--when Jim was
left in the cemetery she was waiting out there to drive home with Bibbs!
Jim wasn't COLD--and she didn't know whether Bibbs was insane or not,
but he was the only one of the rich Sheridan boys left. She had to get
him.”

The texture of what was the truth made an even fabric with what was not,
in Sibyl's mind; she believed every word that she uttered, and she spoke
with the rapidity and vehemence of fierce conviction.

“What I feel about it is,” she said, “it oughtn't to be allowed to go
on. It's too mean! I like poor Bibbs, and I don't want to see him made
such a fool of, and I don't want to see the family made such a fool of!
I like poor Bibbs, but if he'd only stop to think a minute himself he'd
have to realize he isn't the kind of man ANY girl would be apt to fall
in love with. He's better-looking lately, maybe, but you know how he
WAS--just kind of a long white rag in good clothes. And girls like
men with some GO to 'em--SOME sort of dashingness, anyhow! Nobody ever
looked at poor Bibbs before, and neither'd she--no, SIR! not till she'd
tried both Roscoe and Jim first! It was only when her and her family got
desperate that she--”

Bibbs--whiter than when he came from the sanitarium--opened the door.
He stepped across its threshold and stook looking at her. Both women
screamed.

“Oh, good heavens!” cried Sibyl. “Were you in THERE? Oh, I wouldn't--”
 She seized Mrs. Sheridan's arm, pulling her toward the stairway. “Come
on, mother Sheridan!” she urged, and as the befuddled and confused lady
obeyed, Sibyl left a trail of noisy exclamations: “Good gracious! Oh,
I wouldn't--too bad! I didn't DREAM he was there! I wouldn't hurt his
feelings! Not for the world! Of course he had to know SOME time! But,
good heavens--”

She heard his door close as she and Mrs. Sheridan reached the top of
the stairs, and she glanced over her shoulder quickly, but Bibbs was not
following; he had gone back into his room.

“He--he looked--oh, terrible bad!” stammered Mrs. Sheridan. “I--I
wish--”

“Still, it's a good deal better he knows about it,” said Sibyl. “I
shouldn't wonder it might turn out the very best thing could happened.
Come on!”

And completing their descent to the library, the two made their
appearance to Roscoe and his father. Sibyl at once gave a full and
truthful account of what had taken place, repeating her own remarks,
and omitting only the fact that it was through her design that Bibbs had
overheard them.

“But as I told mother Sheridan,” she said, in conclusion, “it might turn
out for the very best that he did hear--just that way. Don't you think
so, father Sheridan?”

He merely grunted in reply, and sat rubbing the thick hair on the top
of his head with his left hand and looking at the fire. He had given no
sign of being impressed in any manner by her exposure of Mary Vertrees's
character; but his impassivity did not dismay Sibyl--it was Bibbs whom
she desired to impress, and she was content in that matter.

“I'm sure it was all for the best,” she said. “It's over now, and
he knows what she is. In one way I think it was lucky, because, just
hearing a thing that way, a person can tell it's SO--and he knows I
haven't got any ax to grind except his own good and the good of the
family.”

Mrs. Sheridan went nervously to the door and stood there, looking toward
the stairway. “I wish--I wish I knew what he was doin',” she said. “He
did look terrible bad. It was like something had been done to him
that was--I don't know what. I never saw anybody look like he did.
He looked--so queer. It was like you'd--” She called down the hall,
“George!”

“Yes'm?”

“Were you up in Mr. Bibbs's room just now?”

“Yes'm. He ring bell; tole me make him fiah in his grate. I done buil'
him nice fiah. I reckon he ain' feelin' so well. Yes'm.” He departed.

“What do you expect he wants a fire for?” she asked, turning toward her
husband. “The house is warm as can be, I do wish I--”

“Oh, quit frettin'!” said Sheridan.

“Well, I--I kind o' wish you hadn't said anything, Sibyl. I know you
meant it for the best and all, but I don't believe it would been so much
harm if--”

“Mother Sheridan, you don't mean you WANT that kind of a girl in the
family? Why, she--”

“I don't know, I don't know,” the troubled woman quavered. “If he liked
her it seems kind of a pity to spoil it. He's so queer, and he hasn't
ever taken much enjoyment. And besides, I believe the way it was, there
was more chance of him bein' willin' to do what papa wants him to. If
she wants to marry him--”

Sheridan interrupted her with a hooting laugh. “She don't!” he said.
“You're barkin' up the wrong tree, Sibyl. She ain't that kind of a
girl.”

“But, father Sheridan, didn't she--”

He cut her short. “That's enough. You may mean all right, but you guess
wrong. So do you, mamma.”

Sibyl cried out, “Oh! But just LOOK how she ran after Jim--”

“She did not,” he said, curtly. “She wouldn't take Jim. She turned him
down cold.”

“But that's impossi--”

“It's not. I KNOW she did.”

Sibyl looked flatly incredulous.

“And YOU needn't worry,” he said, turning to his wife. “This won't have
any effect on your idea, because there wasn't any sense to it, anyhow.
D'you think she'd be very likely to take Bibbs--after she wouldn't take
JIM? She's a good-hearted girl, and she lets Bibbs come to see her,
but if she'd ever given him one sign of encouragement the way you women
think, he wouldn't of acted the stubborn fool he has--he'd 'a' been at
me long ago, beggin' me for some kind of a job he could support a wife
on. There's nothin' in it--and I've got the same old fight with him on
my hands I've had all his life--and the Lord knows what he won't do
to balk me! What's happened now'll probably only make him twice as
stubborn, but--”

“SH!” Mrs. Sheridan, still in the doorway, lifted her hand. “That's his
step--he's comin' down-stairs.” She shrank away from the door as if
she feared to have Bibbs see her. “I--I wonder--” she said, almost in a
whisper--“I wonder what he's goin'--to do.”

Her timorousness had its effect upon the others. Sheridan rose,
frowning, but remained standing beside his chair; and Roscoe moved
toward Sibyl, who stared uneasily at the open doorway. They listened as
the slow steps descended the stairs and came toward the library.

Bibbs stopped upon the threshold, and with sick and haggard eyes looked
slowly from one to the other until at last his gaze rested upon his
father. Then he came and stood before him.

“I'm sorry you've had so much trouble with me,” he said, gently. “You
won't, any more. I'll take the job you offered me.”

Sheridan did not speak--he stared, astounded and incredulous; and Bibbs
had left the room before any of its occupants uttered a sound, though he
went as slowly as he came. Mrs. Sheridan was the first to move. She went
nervously back to the doorway, and then out into the hall. Bibbs had
gone from the house.

Bibbs's mother had a feeling about him then that she had never known
before; it was indefinite and vague, but very poignant--something in her
mourned for him uncomprehendingly. She felt that an awful thing had been
done to him, though she did not know what it was. She went up to his
room.

The fire George had built for him was almost smothered under thick,
charred ashes of paper. The lid of his trunk stood open, and the
large upper tray, which she remembered to have seen full of papers and
note-books, was empty. And somehow she understood that Bibbs had given
up the mysterious vocation he had hoped to follow--and that he had
given it up for ever. She thought it was the wisest thing he could have
done--and yet, for an unknown reason, she sat upon the bed and wept a
little before she went down-stairs.

So Sheridan had his way with Bibbs, all through.



CHAPTER XXIX

As Bibbs came out of the New House, a Sunday trio was in course of
passage upon the sidewalk: an ample young woman, placid of face;
a black-clad, thin young man, whose expression was one of habitual
anxiety, habitual wariness and habitual eagerness. He propelled a
perambulator containing the third--and all three were newly cleaned,
Sundayfied, and made fit to dine with the wife's relatives.

“How'd you like for me to be THAT young fella, mamma?” the husband
whispered. “He's one of the sons, and there ain't but two left now.”

The wife stared curiously at Bibbs. “Well, I don't know,” she returned.
“He looks to me like he had his own troubles.”

“I expect he has, like anybody else,” said the young husband, “but I
guess we could stand a good deal if we had his money.”

“Well, maybe, if you keep on the way you been, baby'll be as well fixed
as the Sheridans. You can't tell.” She glanced back at Bibbs, who had
turned north. “He walks kind of slow and stooped over, like.”

“So much money in his pockets it makes him sag, I guess,” said the young
husband, with bitter admiration.

Mary, happening to glance from a window, saw Bibbs coming, and she
started, clasping her hands together in a sudden alarm. She met him at
the door.

“Bibbs!” she cried. “What is the matter? I saw something was terribly
wrong when I--You look--” She paused, and he came in, not lifting his
eyes to hers. Always when he crossed that threshold he had come with
his head up and his wistful gaze seeking hers. “Ah, poor boy!” she said,
with a gesture of understanding and pity. “I know what it is!”

He followed her into the room where they always sat, and sank into a
chair.

“You needn't tell me,” she said. “They've made you give up. Your
father's won--you're going to do what he wants. You've given up.”

Still without looking at her, he inclined his head in affirmation.

She gave a little cry of compassion, and came and sat near him. “Bibbs,”
 she said. “I can be glad of one thing, though it's selfish. I can be
glad you came straight to me. It's more to me than even if you'd come
because you were happy.” She did not speak again for a little while;
then she said: “Bibbs--dear--could you tell me about it? Do you want
to?”

Still he did not look up, but in a voice, shaken and husky he asked her
a question so grotesque that at first she thought she had misunderstood
his words.

“Mary,” he said, “could you marry me?”

“What did you say, Bibbs?” she asked, quietly.

His tone and attitude did not change. “Will you marry me?”

Both of her hands leaped to her cheeks--she grew red and then white.
She rose slowly and moved backward from him, staring at him, at first
incredulously, then with an intense perplexity more and more luminous
in her wide eyes; it was like a spoken question. The room filled with
strangeness in the long silence--the two were so strange to each other.
At last she said:

“What made you say that?”

He did not answer.

“Bibbs, look at me!” Her voice was loud and clear. “What made you say
that? Look at me!”

He could not look at her, and he could not speak.

“What was it that made you?” she said. “I want you to tell me.”

She went closer to him, her eyes ever brighter and wider with that
intensity of wonder. “You've given up--to your father,” she said,
slowly, “and then you came to ask me--” She broke off. “Bibbs, do you
want me to marry you?”

“Yes,” he said, just audibly.

“No!” she cried. “You do not. Then what made you ask me? What is it
that's happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Wait,” she said. “Let me think. It's something that happened since our
walk this morning--yes, since you left me at noon. Something happened
that--” She stopped abruptly, with a tremulous murmur of amazement and
dawning comprehension. She remembered that Sibyl had gone to the New
House.

Bibbs swallowed painfully and contrived to say, “I do--I do want you
to--marry me, if--if--you could.”

She looked at him, and slowly shook her head. “Bibbs, do you--” Her
voice was as unsteady as his--little more than a whisper. “Do you think
I'm--in love with you?”

“No,” he said.

Somewhere in the still air of the room there was a whispered word; it
did not seem to come from Mary's parted lips, but he was aware of it.
“Why?”

“I've had nothing but dreams,” Bibbs said, desolately, “but they weren't
like that. Sibyl said no girl could care about me.” He smiled faintly,
though still he did not look at Mary. “And when I first came home Edith
told me Sibyl was so anxious to marry that she'd have married ME. She
meant it to express Sibyl's extremity, you see. But I hardly needed
either of them to tell me. I hadn't thought of myself as--well, not as
particularly captivating!”

Oddly enough, Mary's pallor changed to an angry flush. “Those two!” she
exclaimed, sharply; and then, with thoroughgoing contempt: “Lamhorn!
That's like them!” She turned away, went to the bare little black
mantel, and stood leaning upon it. Presently she asked: “WHEN did Mrs.
Roscoe Sheridan say that 'no girl' could care about you?”

“To-day.”

Mary drew a deep breath. “I think I'm beginning to understand--a
little.” She bit her lip; there was anger in good truth in her eyes and
in her voice. “Answer me once more,” she said. “Bibbs, do you know now
why I stopped wearing my furs?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so! Your sister-in-law told you, didn't she?”

“I--I heard her say--”

“I think I know what happened, now.” Mary's breath came fast and her
voice shook, but she spoke rapidly. “You 'heard her say' more than that.
You 'heard her say' that we were bitterly poor, and on that account I
tried first to marry your brother--and then--” But now she faltered, and
it was only after a convulsive effort that she was able to go on. “And
then--that I tried to marry--you! You 'heard her say' that--and you
believe that I don't care for you and that 'no girl' could care for
you--but you think I am in such an 'extremity,' as Sibyl was--that you--
And so, not wanting me, and believing that I could not want you--except
for my 'extremity'--you took your father's offer and then came to ask
me--to marry you! What had I shown you of myself that could make you--”

Suddenly she sank down, kneeling, with her face buried in her arms upon
the lap of a chair, tears overwhelming her.

“Mary, Mary!” he cried, helplessly. “Oh NO--you--you don't understand.”

“I do, though!” she sobbed. “I do!”

He came and stood beside her. “You kill me!” he said. “I can't make it
plain. From the first of your loveliness to me, I was all self. It was
always you that gave and I that took. I was the dependent--I did nothing
but lean on you. We always talked of me, not of you. It was all about my
idiotic distresses and troubles. I thought of you as a kind of wonderful
being that had no mortal or human suffering except by sympathy. You
seemed to lean down--out of a rosy cloud--to be kind to me. I never
dreamed I could do anything for YOU! I never dreamed you could need
anything to be done for you by anybody. And to-day I heard that--that
you--”

“You heard that I needed to marry--some one--anybody--with money,” she
sobbed. “And you thought we were so--so desperate--you believed that I
had--”

“No!” he said, quickly. “I didn't believe you'd done one kind thing
for me--for that. No, no, no! I knew you'd NEVER thought of me except
generously--to give. I said I couldn't make it plain!” he cried,
despairingly.

“Wait!” She lifted her head and extended her hands to him unconsciously,
like a child. “Help me up, Bibbs.” Then, when she was once more upon her
feet, she wiped her eyes and smiled upon him ruefully and faintly, but
reassuringly, as if to tell him, in that way, that she knew he had
not meant to hurt her. And that smile of hers, so lamentable, but so
faithfully friendly, misted his own eyes, for his shamefacedness lowered
them no more.

“Let me tell you what you want to tell me,” she said. “You can't,
because you can't put it into words--they are too humiliating for me
and you're too gentle to say them. Tell me, though, isn't it true? You
didn't believe that I'd tried to make you fall in love with me--”

“Never! Never for an instant!”

“You didn't believe I'd tried to make you want to marry me--”

“No, no, no!”

“I believe it, Bibbs. You thought that I was fond of you; you knew I
cared for you--but you didn't think I might be--in love with you.
But you thought that I might marry you without being in love with you
because you did believe I had tried to marry your brother, and--”

“Mary, I only knew--for the first time--that you--that you were--”

“Were desperately poor,” she said. “You can't even say that! Bibbs, it
was true: I did try to make Jim want to marry me. I did!” And she sank
down into the chair, weeping bitterly again. Bibbs was agonized.

“Mary,” he groaned, “I didn't know you COULD cry!”

“Listen,” she said. “Listen till I get through--I want you to
understand. We were poor, and we weren't fitted to be. We never had
been, and we didn't know what to do. We'd been almost rich; there was
plenty, but my father wanted to take advantage of the growth of the
town; he wanted to be richer, but instead--well, just about the time
your father finished building next door we found we hadn't anything.
People say that, sometimes, meaning that they haven't anything in
comparison with other people of their own kind, but we really hadn't
anything--we hadn't anything at all, Bibbs! And we couldn't DO anything.
You might wonder why I didn't 'try to be a stenographer'--and I wonder
myself why, when a family loses its money, people always say the
daughters 'ought to go and be stenographers.' It's curious!--as if a
wave of the hand made you into a stenographer. No, I'd been raised to be
either married comfortably or a well-to-do old maid, if I chose not
to marry. The poverty came on slowly, Bibbs, but at last it was all
there--and I didn't know how to be a stenographer. I didn't know how
to be anything except a well-to-do old maid or somebody's wife--and
I couldn't be a well-to-do old maid. Then, Bibbs, I did what I'd been
raised to know how to do. I went out to be fascinating and be married. I
did it openly, at least, and with a kind of decent honesty. I told your
brother I had meant to fascinate him and that I was not in love with
him, but I let him think that perhaps I meant to marry him. I think I
did mean to marry him. I had never cared for anybody, and I thought
it might be there really WASN'T anything more than a kind of excited
fondness. I can't be sure, but I think that though I did mean to
marry him I never should have done it, because that sort of a marriage
is--it's sacrilege--something would have stopped me. Something did stop
me; it was your sister-in-law, Sibyl. She meant no harm--but she was
horrible, and she put what I was doing into such horrible words--and
they were the truth--oh! I SAW myself! She was proposing a miserable
compact with me--and I couldn't breathe the air of the same room with
her, though I'd so cheapened myself she had a right to assume that I
WOULD. But I couldn't! I left her, and I wrote to your brother--just a
quick scrawl. I told him just what I'd done; I asked his pardon, and I
said I would not marry him. I posted the letter, but he never got it.
That was the afternoon he was killed. That's all, Bibbs. Now you know
what I did--and you know--ME!” She pressed her clenched hands tightly
against her eyes, leaning far forward, her head bowed before him.

Bibbs had forgotten himself long ago; his heart broke for her. “Couldn't
you--Isn't there--Won't you--” he stammered. “Mary, I'm going with
father. Isn't there some way you could use the money without--without--”

She gave a choked little laugh.

“You gave me something to live for,” he said. “You kept me alive, I
think--and I've hurt you like this!”

“Not you--oh no!”

“You could forgive me, Mary?”

“Oh, a thousand times!” Her right hand went out in a faltering gesture,
and just touched his own for an instant. “But there's nothing to
forgive.”

“And you can't--you can't--”

“Can't what, Bibbs?”

“You couldn't--”

“Marry you?” she said for him.

“Yes.”

“No, no, no!” She sprang up, facing him, and, without knowing what she
did, she set her hands upon his breast, pushing him back from her a
little. “I can't, I can't! Don't you SEE?”

“Mary--”

“No, no! And you must go now, Bibbs; I can't bear any more--please--”

“MARY--”

“Never, never, never!” she cried, in a passion of tears. “You mustn't
come any more. I can't see you, dear! Never, never, never!”

Somehow, in helpless, stumbling obedience to her beseeching gesture, he
got himself to the door and out of the house.



CHAPTER XXX

Sibyl and Roscoe were upon the point of leaving when Bibbs returned to
the New House. He went straight to Sibyl and spoke to her quietly, but
so that the others might hear.

“When you said that if I'd stop to think, I'd realize that no one would
be apt to care enough about me to marry me, you were right,” he said. “I
thought perhaps you weren't, and so I asked Miss Vertrees to marry me.
It proved what you said of me, and disproved what you said of her. She
refused.”

And, having thus spoken, he quitted the room as straightforwardly as he
had entered it.

“He's SO queer!” Mrs. Sheridan gasped. “Who on earth would thought of
his doin' THAT?”

“I told you,” said her husband, grimly.

“You didn't tell us he'd go over there and--”

“I told you she wouldn't have him. I told you she wouldn't have JIM,
didn't I?”

Sibyl was altogether taken aback. “Do you supose it's true? Do you
suppose she WOULDN'T?”

“He didn't look exactly like a young man that had just got things fixed
up fine with his girl,” said Sheridan. “Not to me, he didn't!”

“But why would--”

“I told you,” he interrupted, angrily, “she ain't that kind of a girl!
If you got to have proof, well, I'll tell you and get it over with,
though I'd pretty near just as soon not have to talk a whole lot about
my dead boy's private affairs. She wrote to Jim she couldn't take him,
and it was a good, straight letter, too. It came to Jim's office; he
never saw it. She wrote it the afternoon he was hurt.”

“I remember I saw her put a letter in the mail-box that afternoon,” said
Roscoe. “Don't you remember, Sibyl? I told you about it--I was waiting
for you while you were in there so long talking to her mother. It was
just before we saw that something was wrong over here, and Edith came
and called me.”

Sibyl shook her head, but she remembered. And she was not cast down,
for, although some remnants of perplexity were left in her eyes, they
were dimmed by an increasing glow of triumph; and she departed--after
some further fragmentary discourse--visibly elated. After all, the
guilty had not been exalted; and she perceived vaguely, but none the
less surely, that her injury had been copiously avenged. She bestowed a
contented glance upon the old house with the cupola, as she and Roscoe
crossed the street.

When they had gone, Mrs. Sheridan indulged in reverie, but after a while
she said, uneasily, “Papa, you think it would be any use to tell Bibbs
about that letter?”

“I don't know,” he answered, walking moodily to the window. “I been
thinkin' about it.” He came to a decision. “I reckon I will.” And he
went up to Bibbs's room.

“Well, you goin' back on what you said?” he inquired, brusquely, as he
opened the door. “You goin' to take it back and lay down on me again?”

“No,” said Bibbs.

“Well, perhaps I didn't have any call to accuse you of that. I don't
know as you ever did go back on anything you said, exactly, though the
Lord knows you've laid down on me enough. You certainly have!” Sheridan
was baffled. This was not what he wished to say, but his words were
unmanageable; he found himself unable to control them, and his querulous
abuse went on in spite of him. “I can't say I expect much of you--not
from the way you always been, up to now--unless you turn over a new
leaf, and I don't see any encouragement to think you're goin' to do
THAT! If you go down there and show a spark o' real GIT-up, I reckon the
whole office'll fall in a faint. But if you're ever goin' to show any,
you better begin right at the beginning and begin to show it to-morrow.”

“Yes--I'll try.”

“You better, if it's in you!” Sheridan was sheerly nonplussed. He had
always been able to say whatever he wished to say, but his tongue seemed
bewitched. He had come to tell Bibbs about Mary's letter, and to his own
angry astonishment he found it impossible to do anything except to scold
like a drudge-driver. “You better come down there with your mind made
up to hustle harder than the hardest workin'-man that's under you,
or you'll not get on very good with me, I tell you! The way to get
ahead--and you better set it down in your books--the way to get ahead is
to do ten times the work of the hardest worker that works FOR you. But
you don't know what work is, yet. All you've ever done was just stand
around and feed a machine a child could handle, and then come home
and take a bath and go callin'. I tell you you're up against a mighty
different proposition now, and if you're worth your salt--and you never
showed any signs of it yet--not any signs that stuck out enough to bang
somebody on the head and make 'em sit up and take notice--well, I want
to say, right here and now--and you better listen, because I want to say
just what I DO say. I say--”

He meandered to a full stop. His mouth hung open, and his mind was a
hopeless blank.

Bibbs looked up patiently--an old, old look. “Yes, father; I'm
listening.”

“That's all,” said Sheridan, frowning heavily. “That's all I came to
say, and you better see't you remember it!”

He shook his head warningly, and went out, closing the door behind him
with a crash. However, no sound of footsteps indicated his departure.
He stopped just outside the door, and stood there a minute or more.
Then abruptly he turned the knob and exhibited to his son a forehead
liberally covered with perspiration.

“Look here,” he said, crossly. “That girl over yonder wrote Jim a
letter--”

“I know,” said Bibbs. “She told me.”

“Well, I thought you needn't feel so much upset about it--” The door
closed on his voice as he withdrew, but the conclusion of the sentence
was nevertheless audible--“if you knew she wouldn't have Jim, either.”

And he stamped his way down-stairs to tell his wife to quit her frettin'
and not bother him with any more fool's errands. She was about to
inquire what Bibbs “said,” but after a second thought she decided not
to speak at all. She merely murmured a wordless assent, and verbal
communication was given over between them for the rest of that
afternoon.

Bibbs and his father were gone when Mrs. Sheridan woke, the next
morning, and she had a dreary day. She missed Edith woefully, and she
worried about what might be taking place in the Sheridan Building. She
felt that everything depended on how Bibbs “took hold,” and upon her
husband's return in the evening she seized upon the first opportunity
to ask him how things had gone. He was non-committal. What could anybody
tell by the first day? He'd seen plenty go at things well enough right
at the start and then blow up. Pretty near anybody could show up fair
the first day or so. There was a big job ahead. This material, such as
it was--Bibbs, in fact--had to be broken in to handling the work Roscoe
had done; and then, at least as an overseer, he must take Jim's position
in the Realty Company as well. He told her to ask him again in a month.

But during the course of dinner she gathered from some disjointed
remarks of his that he and Bibbs had lunched together at the small
restaurant where it had been Sheridan's custom to lunch with Jim, and
she took this to be an encouraging sign. Bibbs went to his room as soon
as they left the table, and her husband was not communicative after
reading his paper.

She became an anxious spectator of Bibbs's progress as a man of
business, although it was a progress she could glimpse but dimly and
only in the evening, through his remarks and his father's at dinner.
Usually Bibbs was silent, except when directly addressed, but on the
first evening of the third week of his new career he offered an opinion
which had apparently been the subject of previous argument.

“I'd like you to understand just what I meant about those storage-rooms,
father,” he said, as Jackson placed his coffee before him. “Abercrombie
agreed with me, but you wouldn't listen to him.”

“You can talk, if you want to, and I'll listen,” Sheridan returned, “but
you can't show me that Jim ever took up with a bad thing. The roof
fell because it hadn't had time to settle and on account of weather
conditions. I want that building put just the way Jim planned it.”

“You can't have it,” said Bibbs. “You can't, because Jim planned for the
building to stand up, and it won't do it. The other one--the one that
didn't fall--is so shot with cracks we haven't dared use it for storage.
It won't stand weight. There's only one thing to do: get both buildings
down as quickly as we can, and build over. Brick's the best and cheapest
in the long run for that type.”

Sheridan looked sarcastic. “Fine! What we goin' to do for storage-rooms
while we're waitin' for those few bricks to be laid?”

“Rent,” Bibbs returned, promptly. “We'll lose money if we don't rent,
anyhow--they were waiting so long for you to give the warehouse matter
your attention after the roof fell. You don't know what an amount of
stuff they've got piled up on us over there. We'd have to rent until
we could patch up those process perils--and the Krivitch Manufacturing
Company's plant is empty, right across the street. I took an option on
it for us this morning.”

Sheridan's expression was queer. “Look here!” he said, sharply. “Did you
go and do that without consulting me?”

“It didn't cost anything,” said Bibbs. “It's only until to-morrow
afternoon at two o'clock. I undertook to convince you before then.”

“Oh, you did?” Sheridan's tone was sardonic. “Well, just suppose you
couldn't convince me.”

“I can, though--and I intend to,” said Bibbs, quietly. “I don't think
you understand the condition of those buildings you want patched up.”

“Now, see here,” said Sheridan, with slow emphasis; “suppose I had my
mind set about this. JIM thought they'd stand, and suppose it was--well,
kind of a matter of sentiment with me to prove he was right.”

Bibbs looked at him compassionately. “I'm sorry if you have a sentiment
about it, father,” he said. “But whether you have or not can't make a
difference. You'll get other people hurt if you trust that process, and
that won't do. And if you want a monument to Jim, at least you want
one that will stand. Besides, I don't think you can reasonably defend
sentiment in this particular kind of affair.”

“Oh, you don't?”

“No, but I'm sorry you didn't tell me you felt it.”

Sheridan was puzzled by his son's tone. “Why are you 'sorry'?” he asked,
curiously.

“Because I had the building inspector up there, this noon,” said Bibbs,
“and I had him condemn both those buildings.”

“What?”

“He'd been afraid to do it before, until he heard from us--afraid you'd
see he lost his job. But he can't un-condemn them--they've got to come
down now.”

Sheridan gave him a long and piercing stare from beneath lowered brows.
Finally he said, “How long did they give you on that option to convince
me?”

“Until two o'clock to-morrow afternoon.”

“All right,” said Sheridan, not relaxing. “I'm convinced.”

Bibbs jumped up. “I thought you would be. I'll telephone the Krivitch
agent. He gave me the option until to-morrow, but I told him I'd settle
it this evening.”

Sheridan gazed after him as he left the room, and then, though his
expression did not alter in the slightest, a sound came from him that
startled his wife. It had been a long time since she had heard anything
resembling a chuckle from him, and this sound--although it was grim and
dry--bore that resemblance.

She brightened eagerly. “Looks like he was startin' right well don't it,
papa?”

“Startin'? Lord! He got me on the hip! Why, HE knew what I
wanted--that's why he had the inspector up there, so't he'd have me beat
before we even started to talk about it. And did you hear him? 'Can't
reasonably defend SENTIMENT!' And the way he says 'Us': 'Took an option
for Us'! 'Stuff piled up on Us'!”

There was always an alloy for Mrs. Sheridan. “I don't just like the way
he looks, though, papa.”

“Oh, there's got to be something! Only one chick left at home, so you
start to frettin' about IT!”

“No. He's changed. There's kind of a settish look to his face, and--”

“I guess that's the common sense comin' out on him, then,” said
Sheridan. “You'll see symptoms like that in a good many business men, I
expect.”

“Well, and he don't have as good color as he was gettin' before. And
he'd begun to fill out some, but--”

Sheridan gave forth another dry chuckle, and, going round the table to
her, patted her upon the shoulder with his left hand, his right being
still heavily bandaged, though he no longer wore a sling. “That's the
way it is with you, mamma--got to take your frettin' out one way if you
don't another!”

“No. He don't look well. It ain't exactly the way he looked when he
begun to get sick that time, but he kind o' seems to be losin', some
way.”

“Yes, he may 'a' lost something,” said Sheridan. “I expect he's lost a
whole lot o' foolishness besides his God-forsaken notions about writin'
poetry and--”

“No,” his wife persisted. “I mean he looks right peakid. And yesterday,
when he was settin' with us, he kept lookin' out the window. He wasn't
readin'.”

“Well, why shouldn't he look out the window?”

“He was lookin' over there. He never read a word all afternoon, I don't
believe.”

“Look, here!” said Sheridan. “Bibbs might 'a' kept goin' on over there
the rest of his life, moonin' on and on, but what he heard Sibyl say did
one big thing, anyway. It woke him up out of his trance. Well, he had
to go and bust clean out with a bang; and that stopped his goin' over
there, and it stopped his poetry, but I reckon he's begun to get pretty
fair pay for what he lost. I guess a good many young men have had to get
over worries like his; they got to lose SOMETHING if they're goin'
to keep ahead o' the procession nowadays--and it kind o' looks to me,
mamma, like Bibbs might keep quite a considerable long way ahead. Why, a
year from now I'll bet you he won't know there ever WAS such a thing as
poetry! And ain't he funny? He wanted to stick to the shop so's he could
'think'! What he meant was, think about something useless. Well, I guess
he's keepin' his mind pretty occupied the other way these days. Yes,
sir, it took a pretty fair-sized shock to get him out of his trance, but
it certainly did the business.” He patted his wife's shoulder again, and
then, without any prefatory symptoms, broke into a boisterous laugh.

“Honest, mamma, he works like a gorilla!”



CHAPTER XXI

And so Bibbs sat in the porch of the temple with the money-changers. But
no one came to scourge him forth, for this was the temple of Bigness,
and the changing of money was holy worship and true religion. The
priests wore that “settish” look Bibbs's mother had seen beginning
to develop about his mouth and eyes--a wary look which she could not
define, but it comes with service at the temple; and it was the more
marked upon Bibbs for his sharp awakening to the necessities of that
service.

He did as little “useless” thinking as possible, giving himself no time
for it. He worked continuously, keeping his thoughts still on his work
when he came home at night; and he talked of nothing whatever except his
work. But he did not sing at it. He was often in the streets, and people
were not allowed to sing in the streets. They might make any manner of
hideous uproar--they could shake buildings; they could out-thunder the
thunder, deafen the deaf, and kill the sick with noise; or they
could walk the streets or drive through them bawling, squawking, or
screeching, as they chose, if the noise was traceably connected with
business; though street musicians were not tolerated, being considered
a nuisance and an interference. A man or woman who went singing for
pleasure through the streets--like a crazy Neopolitan--would have been
stopped, and belike locked up; for Freedom does not mean that a citizen
is allowed to do every outrageous thing that comes into his head. The
streets were dangerous enough, in all conscience, without any singing!
and the Motor Federation issued public warnings declaring that the
pedestrian's life was in his own hands, and giving directions how to
proceed with the least peril. However, Bibbs Sheridan had no desire to
sing in the streets, or anywhere. He had gone to his work with an energy
that, for the start, at least, was bitter, and there was no song left in
him.

He began to know his active fellow-citizens. Here and there among
them he found a leisurely, kind soul, a relic of the old period
of neighborliness, “pioneer stock,” usually; and there were
men--particularly among the merchants and manufacturers--“so honest they
leaned backward”; reputations sometimes attested by stories of heroic
sacrifices to honor; nor were there lacking some instances of generosity
even nobler. Here and there, too, were book-men, in their little
leisure; and, among the Germans, music-men. And these, with the others,
worshiped Bigness and the growth, each man serving for his own sake and
for what he could get out of it, but all united in their faith in the
beneficence and glory of their god.

To almost all alike that service stood as the most important thing in
life, except on occasion of some such vital, brief interregnum as the
dangerous illness of a wife or child. In the way of “relaxation” some of
the servers took golf; some took fishing; some took “shows”--a mixture
of infantile and negroid humor, stockings, and tin music; some took
an occasional debauch; some took trips; some took cards; and some took
nothing. The high priests were vigilant to watch that no “relaxation”
 should affect the service. When a man attended to anything outside his
business, eyes were upon him; his credit was in danger--that is, his
life was in danger. And the old priests were as ardent as the young
ones; the million was as eager to be bigger as the thousand; seventy was
as busy as seventeen. They strove mightily against one another, and
the old priests were the most wary, the most plausible, and the most
dangerous. Bibbs learned he must walk charily among these--he must wear
a thousand eyes and beware of spiders indeed!

And outside the temple itself were the pretenders, the swarming thieves
and sharpers and fleecers, the sly rascals and the open rascals; but
these were feeble folk, not dangerous once he knew them, and he had
a good guide to point them out to him. They were useful sometimes,
he learned, and many of them served as go-betweens in matters where
business must touch politics. He learned also how breweries and
“traction” companies and banks and other institutions fought one another
for the political control of the city. The newspapers, he discovered,
had lost their ancient political influence, especially with the knowing,
who looked upon them with a skeptical humor, believing the journals
either to be retained partisans, like lawyers, or else striving to
forward the personal ambitions of their owners. The control of the city
lay not with them, but was usually obtained by giving the hordes of
negroes gin-money, and by other largesses. The revenues of the people
were then distributed as fairly as possible among a great number of men
who had assisted the winning side. Names and titles of offices went with
many of the prizes, and most of these title-holders were expected to
present a busy appearance at times; and, indeed, some among them did
work honestly and faithfully.

Bibbs had been very ignorant. All these simple things, so well known
and customary, astonished him at first, and once--in a brief moment
of forgetting that he was done with writing--he thought that if he had
known them and written of them, how like a satire the plainest relation
of them must have seemed! Strangest of all to him was the vehement and
sincere patriotism. On every side he heard it--it was a permeation; the
newest school-child caught it, though just from Hungary and learning to
stammer a few words of the local language. Everywhere the people shouted
of the power, the size, the riches, and the growth of their city. Not
only that, they said that the people of their city were the greatest,
the “finest,” the strongest, the Biggest people on earth. They cited no
authorities, and felt the need of none, being themselves the people thus
celebrated. And if the thing was questioned, or if it was hinted that
there might be one small virtue in which they were not perfect and
supreme, they wasted no time examining themselves to see if what the
critic said was true, but fell upon him and hooted him and cursed him,
for they were sensitive. So Bibbs, learning their ways and walking with
them, harkened to the voice of the people and served Bigness with them.
For the voice of the people is the voice of their god.


Sheridan had made the room next to his own into an office for Bibbs,
and the door between the two rooms usually stood open--the father had
established that intimacy. One morning in February, when Bibbs was
alone, Sheridan came in, some sheets of typewritten memoranda in his
hand.

“Bibbs,” he said, “I don't like to butt in very often this way, and when
I do I usually wish I hadn't--but for Heaven's sake what have you been
buying that ole busted inter-traction stock for?”

Bibbs leaned back from his desk. “For eleven hundred and fifty-five
dollars. That's all it cost.”

“Well, it ain't worth eleven hundred and fifty-five cents. You ought to
know that. I don't get your idea. That stuff's deader'n Adam's cat!”

“It might be worth something--some day.”

“How?”

“It mightn't be so dead--not if we went into it,” said Bibbs, coolly.

“Oh!” Sheridan considered this musingly; then he said, “Who'd you buy it
from?”

“A broker--Fansmith.”

“Well, he must 'a' got it from one o' the crowd o' poor ninnies that was
soaked with it. Don't you know who owned it?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Ain't sayin', though? That it? What's the matter?”

“It belonged to Mr. Vertrees,” said Bibbs, shortly, applying himself to
his desk.

“So!” Sheridan gazed down at his son's thin face. “Excuse me,” he said.
“Your business.” And he went back to his own room. But presently he
looked in again.

“I reckon you won't mind lunchin' alone to-day”--he was shuffling
himself into his overcoat--“because I just thought I'd go up to the
house and get THIS over with mamma.” He glanced apologetically toward
his right hand as it emerged from the sleeve of the overcoat. The
bandages had been removed, finally, that morning, revealing but three
fingers--the forefinger and the finger next to it had been amputated.
“She's bound to make an awful fuss, and better to spoil her lunch than
her dinner. I'll be back about two.”

But he calculated the time of his arrival at the New House so accurately
that Mrs. Sheridan's lunch was not disturbed, and she was rising from
the lonely table when he came into the dining-room. He had left his
overcoat in the hall, but he kept his hands in his trousers pockets.

“What's the matter, papa?” she asked, quickly. “Has anything gone wrong?
You ain't sick?”

“Me!” He laughed loudly. “Me SICK?”

“You had lunch?”

“Didn't want any to-day. You can give me a cup o' coffee, though.”

She rang, and told George to have coffee made, and when he had withdrawn
she said querulously, “I just know there's something wrong.”

“Nothin' in the world,” he responded, heartily, taking a seat at the
head of the table. “I thought I'd talk over a notion o' mine with you,
that's all. It's more women-folks' business than what it is man's,
anyhow.”

“What about?”

“Why, ole Doc Gurney was up at the office this morning awhile--”

“To look at your hand? How's he say it's doin'?”

“Fine! Well, he went in and sat around with Bibbs awhile--”

Mrs. Sheridan nodded pessimistically. “I guess it's time you had him,
too. I KNEW Bibbs--”

“Now, mamma, hold your horses! I wanted him to look Bibbs over BEFORE
anything's the matter. You don't suppose I'm goin' to take any chances
with BIBBS, do you? Well, afterwards, I shut the door, and I an' ole
Gurney had a talk. He's a mighty disagreeable man; he rubbed it in on
me what he said about Bibbs havin' brains if he ever woke up. Then
I thought he must want to get something out o' me, he got so
flattering--for a minute! 'Bibbs couldn't help havin' business brains,'
he says, 'bein' YOUR son. Don't be surprised,' he says--'don't be
surprised at his makin' a success,' he says. 'He couldn't get over his
heredity; he couldn't HELP bein' a business success--once you got him
into it. It's in his blood. Yes, sir' he says, 'it doesn't need MUCH
brains,' he says, 'an only third-rate brains, at that,' he says, 'but
it does need a special KIND o' brains,' he says, 'to be a millionaire.
I mean,' he says, 'when a man's given a start. If nobody gives him a
start, why, course he's got to have luck AND the right kind o' brains.
The only miracle about Bibbs,' he says, 'is where he got the OTHER kind
o' brains--the brains you made him quit usin' and throw away.'”

“But what'd he say about his health?” Mrs. Sheridan demanded,
impatiently, as George placed a cup of coffee before her husband.
Sheridan helped himself to cream and sugar, and began to sip the coffee.

“I'm comin' to that,” he returned, placidly. “See how easy I manage this
cup with my left hand, mamma?”

“You been doin' that all winter. What did--”

“It's wonderful,” he interrupted, admiringly, “what a fellow can do with
his left hand. I can sign my name with mine now, well's I ever could
with my right. It came a little hard at first, but now, honest, I
believe I RATHER sign with my left. That's all I ever have to write,
anyway--just the signature. Rest's all dictatin'.” He blew across the
top of the cup unctuously. “Good coffee, mamma! Well, about Bibbs. Ole
Gurney says he believes if Bibbs could somehow get back to the state o'
mind he was in about the machine-shop--that is, if he could some way get
to feelin' about business the way he felt about the shop--not the poetry
and writin' part, but--” He paused, supplementing his remarks with a
motion of his head toward the old house next door. “He says Bibbs
is older and harder'n what he was when he broke down that time, and
besides, he ain't the kind o' dreamy way he was then--and I should
say he AIN'T! I'd like 'em to show ME anybody his age that's any wider
awake! But he says Bibbs's health never need bother us again if--”

Mrs. Sheridan shook her head. “I don't see any help THAT way. You know
yourself she wouldn't have Jim.”

“Who's talkin' about her havin' anybody? But, my Lord! she might let him
LOOK at her! She needn't 'a' got so mad, just because he asked her, that
she won't let him come in the house any more. He's a mighty funny boy,
and some ways I reckon he's pretty near as hard to understand as the
Bible, but Gurney kind o' got me in the way o' thinkin' that if
she'd let him come back and set around with her an evening or two
sometimes--not reg'lar, I don't mean--why--Well, I just thought I'd see
what YOU'D think of it. There ain't any way to talk about it to Bibbs
himself--I don't suppose he'd let you, anyhow--but I thought maybe you
could kind o' slip over there some day, and sort o' fix up to have a
little talk with her, and kind o' hint around till you see how the land
lays, and ask her--”

“ME!” Mrs. Sheridan looked both helpless and frightened. “No.” She shook
her head decidedly. “It wouldn't do any good.”

“You won't try it?”

“I won't risk her turnin' me out o' the house. Some way, that's what I
believe she did to Sibyl, from what Roscoe said once. No, I CAN'T--and,
what's more, it'd only make things worse. If people find out you're
runnin' after 'em they think you're cheap, and then they won't do as
much for you as if you let 'em alone. I don't believe it's any use, and
I couldn't do it if it was.”

He sighed with resignation. “All right, mamma. That's all.” Then, in a
livelier tone, he said: “Ole Gurney took the bandages off my hand this
morning. All healed up. Says I don't need 'em any more.”

“Why, that's splendid, papa!” she cried, beaming. “I was afraid--Let's
see.”

She came toward him, but he rose, still keeping his hand in his pocket.
“Wait a minute,” he said, smiling. “Now it may give you just a teeny bit
of a shock, but the fact is--well, you remember that Sunday when Sibyl
came over here and made all that fuss about nothin'--it was the day
after I got tired o' that statue when Edith's telegram came--”

“Let me see your hand!” she cried.

“Now wait!” he said, laughing and pushing her away with his left hand.
“The truth is, mamma, that I kind o' slipped out on you that morning,
when you wasn't lookin', and went down to ole Gurney's office--he'd told
me to, you see--and, well, it doesn't AMOUNT to anything.” And he held
out, for her inspection, the mutilated hand. “You see, these days when
it's all dictatin', anyhow, nobody'd mind just a couple o'--”

He had to jump for her--she went over backward. For the second time in
her life Mrs. Sheridan fainted.



CHAPTER XXXII

It was a full hour later when he left her lying upon a couch in her own
room, still lamenting intermittently, though he assured her with heat
that the “fuss” she was making irked him far more than his physical
loss. He permitted her to think that he meant to return directly to his
office, but when he came out to the open air he told the chauffeur in
attendance to await him in front of Mr. Vertrees's house, whither he
himself proceeded on foot.

Mr. Vertrees had taken the sale of half of his worthless stock as
manna in the wilderness; it came from heaven--by what agency he did
not particularly question. The broker informed him that “parties were
interested in getting hold of the stock,” and that later there might
be a possible increase in the value of the large amount retained by his
client. It might go “quite a ways up” within a year or so, he said, and
he advised “sitting tight” with it. Mr. Vertrees went home and prayed.

He rose from his knees feeling that he was surely coming into his own
again. It was more than a mere gasp of temporary relief with him, and
his wife shared his optimism; but Mary would not let him buy back her
piano, and as for furs--spring was on the way, she said. But they paid
the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick-maker, and hired a cook
once more. It was this servitress who opened the door for Sheridan and
presently assured him that Miss Vertrees would “be down.”

He was not the man to conceal admiration when he felt it, and he flushed
and beamed as Mary made her appearance, almost upon the heels of the
cook. She had a look of apprehension for the first fraction of a second,
but it vanished at the sight of him, and its place was taken in her eyes
by a soft brilliance, while color rushed in her cheeks.

“Don't be surprised,” he said. “Truth is, in a way it's sort of on
business I looked in here. It'll only take a minute, I expect.”

“I'm sorry,” said Mary. “I hoped you'd come because we're neighbors.”

He chuckled. “Neighbors! Sometimes people don't see so much o' their
neighbors as they used to. That is, I hear so--lately.”

“You'll stay long enough to sit down, won't you?”

“I guess I could manage that much.” And they sat down, facing each other
and not far apart.

“Of course, it couldn't be called business, exactly,” he said, more
gravely. “Not at all, I expect. But there's something o' yours it seemed
to me I ought to give you, and I just thought it was better to bring it
myself and explain how I happened to have it. It's this--this letter you
wrote my boy.” He extended the letter to her solemnly, in his left hand,
and she took it gently from him. “It was in his mail, after he was hurt.
You knew he never got it, I expect.”

“Yes,” she said, in a low voice.

He sighed. “I'm glad he didn't. Not,” he added, quickly--“not but what
you did just right to send it. You did. You couldn't acted any other way
when it came right down TO it. There ain't any blame comin' to you--you
were above-board all through.”

Mary said, “Thank you,” almost in a whisper, and with her head bowed
low.

“You'll have to excuse me for readin' it. I had to take charge of all
his mail and everything; I didn't know the handwritin', and I read it
all--once I got started.”

“I'm glad you did.”

“Well”--he leaned forward as if to rise--“I guess that's about all. I
just thought you ought to have it.”

“Thank you for bringing it.”

He looked at her hopefully, as if he thought and wished that she might
have something more to say. But she seemed not to be aware of this
glance, and sat with her eyes fixed sorrowfully upon the floor.

“Well, I expect I better be gettin' back to the office,” he said, rising
desperately. “I told--I told my partner I'd be back at two o'clock,
and I guess he'll think I'm a poor business man if he catches me behind
time. I got to walk the chalk a mighty straight line these days--with
THAT fellow keepin' tabs on me!”

Mary rose with him. “I've always heard YOU were the hard driver.”

He guffawed derisively. “Me? I'm nothin' to that partner o' mine. You
couldn't guess to save your life how he keeps after me to hold up my end
o' the job. I shouldn't be surprised he'd give me the grand bounce some
day, and run the whole circus by himself. You know how he is--once he
goes AT a thing!”

“No,” she smiled. “I didn't know you had a partner. I'd always heard--”

He laughed, looking away from her. “It's just my way o' speakin' o' that
boy o' mine, Bibbs.”

He stood then, expectant, staring out into the hall with an air of
careless geniality. He felt that she certainly must at least say, “How
IS Bibbs?” but she said nothing at all, though he waited until the
silence became embarrassing.

“Well, I guess I better be gettin' down there,” he said, at last. “He
might worry.”

“Good-by--and thank you,” said Mary.

“For what?”

“For the letter.”

“Oh,” he said, blankly. “You're welcome. Good-by.”

Mary put out her hand. “Good-by.”

“You'll have to excuse my left hand,” he said. “I had a little accident
to the other one.”

She gave a pitying cry as she saw. “Oh, poor Mr. Sheridan!”

“Nothin' at all! Dictate everything nowadays, anyhow.” He laughed
jovially. “Did anybody tell you how it happened?”

“I heard you hurt your hand, but no--not just how.”

“It was this way,” he began, and both, as if unconsciously, sat down
again. “You may not know it, but I used to worry a good deal about the
youngest o' my boys--the one that used to come to see you sometimes,
after Jim--that is, I mean Bibbs. He's the one I spoke of as my partner;
and the truth is that's what it's just about goin' to amount to, one o'
these days--if his health holds out. Well, you remember, I expect, I
had him on a machine over at a plant o' mine; and sometimes I'd kind o'
sneak in there and see how he was gettin' along. Take a doctor with me
sometimes, because Bibbs never WAS so robust, you might say. Ole Doc
Gurney--I guess maybe you know him? Tall, thin man; acts sleepy--”

“Yes.”

“Well, one day I an' ole Doc Gurney, we were in there, and I undertook
to show Bibbs how to run his machine. He told me to look out, but I
wouldn't listen, and I didn't look out--and that's how I got my hand
hurt, tryin' to show Bibbs how to do something he knew how to do and
I didn't. Made me so mad I just wouldn't even admit to myself it WAS
hurt--and so, by and by, ole Doc Gurney had to take kind o' radical
measures with me. He's a right good doctor, too. Don't you think so,
Miss Vertrees?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, he is so!” Sheridan now had the air of a rambling talker and
gossip with all day on his hands. “Take him on Bibbs's case. I was
talkin' about Bibbs's case with him this morning. Well, you'd laugh to
hear the way ole Gurney talks about THAT! 'Course he IS just as much a
friend as he is doctor--and he takes as much interest in Bibbs as if
he was in the family. He says Bibbs isn't anyways bad off YET; and
he thinks he could stand the pace and get fat on it if--well, this is
what'd made YOU laugh if you'd been there, Miss Vertrees--honest it
would!” He paused to chuckle, and stole a glance at her. She was gazing
straight before her at the wall; her lips were parted, and--visibly--she
was breathing heavily and quickly. He feared that she was growing
furiously angry; but he had led to what he wanted to say, and he went
on, determined now to say it all. He leaned forward and altered his
voice to one of confidential friendliness, though in it he still
maintained a tone which indicated that ole Doc Gurney's opinion was only
a joke he shared with her. “Yes, sir, you certainly would 'a' laughed!
Why, that ole man thinks YOU got something to do with it. You'll have to
blame it on him, young lady, if it makes you feel like startin' out
to whip somebody! He's actually got THIS theory: he says Bibbs got to
gettin' better while he worked over there at the shop because you kept
him cheered up and feelin' good. And he says if you could manage to
just stand him hangin' around a little--maybe not much, but just
SOMEtimes--again, he believed it'd do Bibbs a mighty lot o' good.
'Course, that's only what the doctor said. Me, I don't know anything
about that; but I can say this much--I never saw any such a MENTAL
improvement in anybody in my life as I have lately in Bibbs. I expect
you'd find him a good deal more entertaining than what he used to
be--and I know it's a kind of embarrassing thing to suggest after the
way he piled in over here that day to ask you to stand up before the
preacher with him, but accordin' to ole Doc GURNEY, he's got you on his
brain so bad--”

Mary jumped. “Mr. Sheridan!” she exclaimed.

He sighed profoundly. “There! I noticed you were gettin' mad. I
didn't--”

“No, no, no!” she cried. “But I don't understand--and I think you don't.
What is it you want me to do?”

He sighed again, but this time with relief. “Well, well!” he said.
“You're right. It'll be easier to talk plain. I ought to known I could
with you, all the time. I just hoped you'd let that boy come and see you
sometimes, once more. Could you?”

“You don't understand.” She clasped her hands together in a sorrowful
gesture. “Yes, we must talk plain. Bibbs heard that I'd tried to make
your oldest son care for me because I was poor, and so Bibbs came and
asked me to marry him--because he was sorry for me. And I CAN'T see him
any more,” she cried in distress. “I CAN'T!”

Sheridan cleared his throat uncomfortably. “You mean because he thought
that about you?”

“No, no! What he thought was TRUE!”

“Well--you mean he was so much in--you mean he thought so much of you--”
 The words were inconceivably awkward upon Sheridan's tongue; he seemed
to be in doubt even about pronouncing them, but after a ghastly pause he
bravely repeated them. “You mean he thought so much of you that you just
couldn't stand him around?”

“NO! He was sorry for me. He cared for me; he was fond of me; and he'd
respected me--too much! In the finest way he loved me, if you like, and
he'd have done anything on earth for me, as I would for him, and as he
knew I would. It was beautiful, Mr. Sheridan,” she said. “But the cheap,
bad things one has done seem always to come back--they wait, and pull
you down when you're happiest. Bibbs found me out, you see; and he
wasn't 'in love' with me at all.”

“He wasn't? Well, it seems to me he gave up everything he wanted to
do--it was fool stuff, but he certainly wanted it mighty bad--he just
threw it away and walked right up and took the job he swore he never
would--just for you. And it looks to me as if a man that'd do that
must think quite a heap o' the girl he does it for! You say it was only
because he was sorry, but let me tell you there's only ONE girl he could
feel THAT sorry for! Yes, sir!”

“No, no,” she said. “Bibbs isn't like other men--he would do anything
for anybody.”

Sheridan grinned. “Perhaps not so much as you think, nowadays,” he
said. “For instance, I got kind of a suspicion he doesn't believe in
'sentiment in business.' But that's neither here nor there. What he
wanted was, just plain and simple, for you to marry him. Well, I was
afraid his thinkin' so much OF you had kind o' sickened you of him--the
way it does sometimes. But from the way you talk, I understand that
ain't the trouble.” He coughed, and his voice trembled a little. “Now
here, Miss Vertrees, I don't have to tell you--because you see things
easy--I know I got no business comin' to you like this, but I had to
make Bibbs go my way instead of his own--I had to do it for the sake o'
my business and on his own account, too--and I expect you got some idea
how it hurt him to give up. Well, he's made good. He didn't come in
half-hearted or mean; he came in--all the way! But there isn't anything
in it to him; you can see he's just shut his teeth on it and goin' ahead
with dust in his mouth. You see, one way of lookin' at it, he's
got nothin' to work FOR. And it seems to me like it cost him your
friendship, and I believe--honest--that's what hurt him the worst. Now
you said we'd talk plain. Why can't you let him come back?”

She covered her face desperately with her hands. “I can't!”

He rose, defeated, and looking it.

“Well, I mustn't press you,” he said, gently.

At that she cried out, and dropped her hands and let him see her face.
“Ah! He was only sorry for me!”

He gazed at her intently. Mary was proud, but she had a fatal honesty,
and it confessed the truth of her now; she was helpless. It was so clear
that even Sheridan, marveling and amazed, was able to see it. Then a
change came over him; gloom fell from him, and he grew radiant.

“Don't! Don't” she cried. “You mustn't--”

“I won't tell him,” said Sheridan, from the doorway. “I won't tell
anybody anything!”



CHAPTER XXXIII

There was a heavy town-fog that afternoon, a smoke-mist, densest in the
sanctuary of the temple. The people went about in it, busy and dirty,
thickening their outside and inside linings of coal-tar, asphalt,
sulphurous acid, oil of vitriol, and the other familiar things the men
liked to breathe and to have upon their skins and garments and upon
their wives and babies and sweethearts. The growth of the city was
visible in the smoke and the noise and the rush. There was more smoke
than there had been this day of February a year earlier; there was more
noise; and the crowds were thicker--yet quicker in spite of that. The
traffic policeman had a hard time, for the people were independent--they
retained some habits of the old market-town period, and would cross
the street anywhere and anyhow, which not only got them killed more
frequently than if they clung to the legal crossings, but kept the
motormen, the chauffeurs, and the truck-drivers in a stew of profane
nervousness. So the traffic policemen led harried lives; they themselves
were killed, of course, with a certain periodicity, but their main
trouble was that they could not make the citizens realize that it was
actually and mortally perilous to go about their city. It was strange,
for there were probably no citizens of any length of residence who had
not personally known either some one who had been killed or injured in
an accident, or some one who had accidentally killed or injured others.
And yet, perhaps it was not strange, seeing the sharp preoccupation of
the faces--the people had something on their minds; they could not stop
to bother about dirt and danger.

Mary Vertrees was not often down-town; she had never seen an accident
until this afternoon. She had come upon errands for her mother connected
with a timorous refurbishment; and as she did these, in and out of the
department stores, she had an insistent consciousness of the Sheridan
Building. From the street, anywhere, it was almost always in sight, like
some monstrous geometrical shadow, murk-colored and rising limitlessly
into the swimming heights of the smoke-mist. It was gaunt and grimy
and repellent; it had nothing but strength and size--but in that
consciousness of Mary's the great structure may have partaken of beauty.
Sheridan had made some of the things he said emphatic enough to remain
with her. She went over and over them--and they began to seem true:
“Only ONE girl he could feel THAT sorry for!” “Gurney says he's got you
on his brain so bad--” The man's clumsy talk began to sing in her heart.
The song was begun there when she saw the accident.

She was directly opposite the Sheridan Building then, waiting for the
traffic to thin before she crossed, though other people were risking the
passage, darting and halting and dodging parlously. Two men came from
the crowd behind her, talking earnestly, and started across. Both wore
black; one was tall and broad and thick, and the other was taller, but
noticeably slender. And Mary caught her breath, for they were Bibbs and
his father. They did not see her, and she caught a phrase in Bibbs's
mellow voice, which had taken a crisper ring: “Sixty-eight thousand
dollars? Not sixty-eight thousand buttons!” It startled her queerly,
and as there was a glimpse of his profile she saw for the first time a
resemblance to his father.

She watched them. In the middle of the street Bibbs had to step ahead
of his father, and the two were separated. But the reckless passing of
a truck, beyond the second line of rails, frightened a group of country
women who were in course of passage; they were just in front of Bibbs,
and shoved backward upon him violently. To extricate himself from them
he stepped back, directly in front of a moving trolley-car--no place for
absent-mindedness, but Bibbs was still absorbed in thoughts concerned
with what he had been saying to his father. There were shrieks and
yells; Bibbs looked the wrong way--and then Mary saw the heavy figure
of Sheridan plunge straight forward in front of the car. With
absolute disregard of his own life, he hurled himself at Bibbs like a
football-player shunting off an opponent, and to Mary it seemed
that they both went down together. But that was all she could
see--automobiles, trucks, and wagons closed in between. She made out
that the trolley-car stopped jerkily, and she saw a policeman breaking
his way through the instantly condensing crowd, while the traffic came
to a standstill, and people stood up in automobiles or climbed upon
the hubs and tires of wheels, not to miss a chance of seeing anything
horrible.

Mary tried to get through; it was impossible. Other policemen came to
help the first, and in a minute or two the traffic was in motion again.
The crowd became pliant, dispersing--there was no figure upon the
ground, and no ambulance came. But one of the policemen was detained by
the clinging and beseeching of a gloved hand.

“What IS the matter, lady?”

“Where are they?” Mary cried.

“Who? Ole man Sheridan? I reckon HE wasn't much hurt!”

“His SON--”

“Was that who the other one was? I seen him knock him--oh, he's not bad
off, I guess, lady. The ole man got him out of the way all right. The
fender shoved the ole man around some, but I reckon he only got shook
up. They both went on in the Sheridan Building without any help. Excuse
me, lady.”

Sheridan and Bibbs, in fact, were at that moment in the elevator,
ascending. “Whisk-broom up in the office,” Sheridan was saying. “You got
to look out on those corners nowadays, I tell you. I don't know I got
any call to blow, though--because I tried to cross after you did. That's
how I happened to run into you. Well, you want to remember to look out
after this. We were talkin' about Murtrie's askin' sixty-eight thousand
flat for that ninety-nine-year lease. It's his lookout if he'd rather
take it that way, and I don't know but--”

“No,” said Bibbs, emphatically, as the elevator stopped; “he won't get
it. Not from us, he won't, and I'll show you why. I can convince you
in five minutes.” He followed his father into the office anteroom--and
convinced him. Then, having been diligently brushed by a youth of color,
Bibbs went into his own room and closed the door.

He was more shaken than he had allowed his father to perceive, and his
side was sore where Sheridan had struck him. He desired to be alone; he
wanted to rub himself and, for once, to do some useless thinking again.
He knew that his father had not “happened” to run into him; he knew that
Sheridan had instantly--and instinctively--proved that he held his own
life of no account whatever compared to that of his son and heir. Bibbs
had been unable to speak of that, or to seem to know it; for Sheridan,
just as instinctively, had swept the matter aside--as of no importance,
since all was well--reverting immediately to business.

Bibbs began to think intently of his father. He perceived, as he
had never perceived before, the shadowing of something enormous and
indomitable--and lawless; not to be daunted by the will of nature's
very self; laughing at the lightning and at wounds and mutilation;
conquering, irresistible--and blindly noble. For the first time in his
life Bibbs began to understand the meaning of being truly this man's
son.

He would be the more truly his son henceforth, though, as Sheridan said,
Bibbs had not come down-town with him meanly or half-heartedly. He
had given his word because he had wanted the money, simply, for Mary
Vertrees in her need. And he shivered with horror of himself, thinking
how he had gone to her to offer it, asking her to marry him--with his
head on his breast in shameful fear that she would accept him! He had
not known her; the knowing had lost her to him, and this had been his
real awakening; for he knew now how deep had been that slumber wherein
he dreamily celebrated the superiority of “friendship”! The sleep-walker
had wakened to bitter knowledge of love and life, finding himself a
failure in both. He had made a burnt offering of his dreams, and the
sacrifice had been an unforgivable hurt to Mary. All that was left for
him was the work he had not chosen, but at least he would not fail in
that, though it was indeed no more than “dust in his mouth.” If there
had been anything “to work for--”

He went to the window, raised it, and let in the uproar of the streets
below. He looked down at the blurred, hurrying swarms and he looked
across, over the roofs with their panting jets of vapor, into the vast,
foggy heart of the smoke. Dizzy traceries of steel were rising dimly
against it, chattering with steel on steel, and screeching in steam,
while tiny figures of men walked on threads in the dull sky. Buildings
would overtop the Sheridan. Bigness was being served.

But what for? The old question came to Bibbs with a new despair. Here,
where his eyes fell, had once been green fields and running brooks, and
how had the kind earth been despoiled and disfigured! The pioneers had
begun the work, but in their old age their orators had said for them
that they had toiled and risked and sacrificed that their posterity
might live in peace and wisdom, enjoying the fruits of the earth. Well,
their posterity was here--and there was only turmoil. Where was the
promised land? It had been promised by the soldiers of all the wars; it
had been promised to this generation by the pioneers; but here was the
very posterity to whom it had been promised, toiling and risking and
sacrificing in turn--for what?

The harsh roar of the city came in through the open window, continuously
beating upon Bibbs's ear until he began to distinguish a pulsation in
it--a broken and irregular cadence. It seemed to him that it was like
a titanic voice, discordant, hoarse, rustily metallic--the voice of
the god, Bigness. And the voice summoned Bibbs as it summoned all its
servants.

“Come and work!” it seemed to yell. “Come and work for Me, all men! By
your youth and your hope I summon you! By your age and your despair I
summon you to work for Me yet a little, with what strength you have. By
your love of home I summon you! By your love of woman I summon you! By
your hope of children I summon you!

“You shall be blind slaves of Mine, blind to everything but Me, your
Master and Driver! For your reward you shall gaze only upon my ugliness.
You shall give your toil and your lives, you shall go mad for love and
worship of my ugliness! You shall perish still worshipping Me, and your
children shall perish knowing no other god!”

And then, as Bibbs closed the window down tight, he heard his father's
voice booming in the next room; he could not distinguish the words but
the tone was exultant--and there came the THUMP! THUMP! of the maimed
hand. Bibbs guessed that Sheridan was bragging of the city and of
Bigness to some visitor from out-of-town.

And he thought how truly Sheridan was the high priest of Bigness. But
with the old, old thought again, “What for?” Bibbs caught a glimmer of
far, faint light. He saw that Sheridan had all his life struggled
and conquered, and must all his life go on struggling and inevitably
conquering, as part of a vast impulse not his own. Sheridan served
blindly--but was the impulse blind? Bibbs asked himself if it was not
he who had been in the greater hurry, after all. The kiln must be fired
before the vase is glazed, and the Acropolis was not crowned with marble
in a day.

Then the voice came to him again, but there was a strain in it as of
some high music struggling to be born of the turmoil. “Ugly I am,” it
seemed to say to him, “but never forget that I AM a god!” And the voice
grew in sonorousness and in dignity. “The highest should serve, but so
long as you worship me for my own sake I will not serve you. It is man
who makes me ugly, by his worship of me. If man would let me serve him,
I should be beautiful!”

Looking once more from the window, Bibbs sculptured for himself--in
the vague contortions of the smoke and fog above the roofs--a gigantic
figure with feet pedestaled upon the great buildings and shoulders
disappearing in the clouds, a colossus of steel and wholly blackened
with soot. But Bibbs carried his fancy further--for there was still a
little poet lingering in the back of his head--and he thought that up
over the clouds, unseen from below, the giant labored with his hands
in the clean sunshine; and Bibbs had a glimpse of what he made
there--perhaps for a fellowship of the children of the children that
were children now--a noble and joyous city, unbelievably white--

It was the telephone that called him from his vision. It rang fiercely.

He lifted the thing from his desk and answered--and as the small voice
inside it spoke he dropped the receiver with a crash. He trembled
violently as he picked it up, but he told himself he was wrong--he had
been mistaken--yet it was a startlingly beautiful voice; startlingly
kind, too, and ineffably like the one he hungered most to hear.

“Who?” he said, his own voice shaking--like his hand.

“Mary.”

He responded with two hushed and incredulous words: “IS IT?”

There was a little thrill of pathetic half-laughter in the instrument.
“Bibbs--I wanted to--just to see if you--”

“Yes--Mary?”

“I was looking when you were so nearly run over. I saw it, Bibbs.
They said you hadn't been hurt, they thought, but I wanted to know for
myself.”

“No, no, I wasn't hurt at all--Mary. It was father who came nearer it.
He saved me.”

“Yes, I saw; but you had fallen. I couldn't get through the crowd until
you had gone. And I wanted to KNOW.”

“Mary--would you--have minded?” he said.

There was a long interval before she answered.

“Yes.”

“Then why--”

“Yes, Bibbs?”

“I don't know what to say,” he cried. “It's so wonderful to hear your
voice again--I'm shaking, Mary--I--I don't know--I don't know anything
except that I AM talking to you! It IS you--Mary?”

“Yes, Bibbs!”

“Mary--I've seen you from my window at home--only five times since
I--since then. You looked--oh, how can I tell you? It was like a man
chained in a cave catching a glimpse of the blue sky, Mary. Mary, won't
you--let me see you again--near? I think I could make you really forgive
me--you'd have to--”

“I DID--then.”

“No--not really--or you wouldn't have said you couldn't see me any
more.”

“That wasn't the reason.” The voice was very low.

“Mary,” he said, even more tremulously than before, “I can't--you
COULDN'T mean it was because--you can't mean it was because you--care?”

There was no answer.

“Mary?” he called, huskily. “If you mean THAT--you'd let me see
you--wouldn't you?”

And now the voice was so low he could not be sure it spoke at all, but
if it did, the words were, “Yes, Bibbs--dear.”

But the voice was not in the instrument--it was so gentle and so light,
so almost nothing, it seemed to be made of air--and it came from the
air.

Slowly and incredulously he turned--and glory fell upon his shining
eyes. The door of his father's room had opened.

Mary stood upon the threshold.

THE END





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Turmoil, by Booth Tarkington

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