"Allen?"
"Possibly. The Bassetts don't seem troubled by Allen's attentions to Marian; but the real fight between Mr. Thatcher and Mr. Bassett hasn't come yet."
"Who says so?"
"Oh, it's in the air; every one says so. Dan says so."
"I've warned Morton to let Edward Thatcher alone. The United States Senate wouldn't be ornamented by having either one of them down there. I met Colonel Ramsay—guess he's got the senatorial bee in his hat, too—coming up on the train from Louisville the other day. There's only one qualification I can think of that the Colonel has for going to the Senate—he would wring tears out of the galleries when he made obituary speeches about the dead members. When my brother Blackford was senator, it seemed to me he spent most of his time acting as pallbearer for the dead ones. But what were we talking about, Sylvia? Oh, yes. I'm going to send those catalogues over to your room, and as you get time I want you to study out a scheme for a little school to teach what you call efficiency to girls that have to earn their living. I don't mean school-teaching, but a whole lot of things women ought to be doing but ain't because they don't know how. Do you get the idea?"
"A school?" asked Sylvia wonderingly.
"A kind of school."
"It's a splendid, a beautiful idea, but you need better advice than I can give you. They talk a good deal now about vocational training, and it's going to mean a great deal to women."
"Well, we must get hold of all the latest ideas, and if there's any good in us old daguerreotypes, we'll keep it, and graft it on to the kodak."
"Oh, I hope there will always be ladies of the daguerreotype! One thing we women have to pray to be saved from is intolerance toward our sisters. You know," continued Sylvia with a dropping of her voice and a tilting of her head that caused Mrs. Owen to laugh,—"you know we are not awfully tolerant. And there's a breadth of view, an ability to brush away trifles and get to the heart of things, that we're just growing up to. And magnanimity—I think we fall short there. I'm just now trying to cultivate a sisterly feeling toward these good women for whom Jane Austen and Sir Roger de Coverley and the knitting of pale-blue tea cosies are all of life—who like mild twilight with the children singing hymns at the piano and the husband coming home to find his slippers set up against the baseburner. That was beautiful, but even they owe something to the million or so women to whom Jane Addams is far more important than Jane Austen. It might be more comfortable if the world never moved, but unfortunately it does seem to turn over occasionally."
"I notice that you can say things like that, Sylvia, without waving your hands, or shouting like an old woman with a shawl on her head swinging a broom at the boys in her cherry tree. We've got to learn to do that. It was some time after I went into business, when Jackson Owen died, before I learned that you couldn't shoo men the way you shoo hens. You got to drop a little corn in a fence corner and then throw your apron over 'em. It strikes me that if you could catch these girls that go to work in stores and offices young enough you might put them in the way of doing something better. There are schools doing this kind of thing, but I'd like to plant one right here in Indiana for the kind of girls we've got at Elizabeth House. They haven't much ambition, most of 'em; they're stuck right where they are. I'd like to see what can be done toward changing that, and see it started in my lifetime. And we must do it right. Think it over as you get time." She glanced at the window. "You'd better stay all night, Sylvia; it's getting dark."
"No, I must run along home. The girls expect me."
"That school idea's just between you and me for the present," Mrs. Owen remarked as she watched Sylvia button her mackintosh. "Look here, Sylvia, don't you need some money? I mean, of course, don't you want to borrow some?"
"Oh, never! By the way, I didn't tell you that I expect to make some? The publisher of one of grandfather's textbooks came to see me about the copyright, and there were some changes in the book that grandfather thought should be made and I'm going to make them. There's a chance of it's being adopted in one or two states. And then, I want to make a geometry of my own. All the textbooks make it so hard—and it really isn't. The same publisher told me he thought well of my scheme, and I'm going ahead with it."
"Well, don't you kill yourself writing geometries: I should think teaching the youngsters would be a full job."
"That's not a job at all, Aunt Sally; that's just fun. And you know I'm not going to do it always. I'm learning things now that I needed to know. I only wish my mind were as sound as my health."
"You ought to wear heavier flannels, though; it's a perfect scandal what girls run around in nowadays."
She rested her hands on Sylvia's shoulders lightly, smiled into her face, and then bent forward and kissed her.
"I don't understand why you won't wear rubbers, but be sure you don't sit around all evening in wet stockings."
A gray mist was hastening nightfall, though the street lamps were not yet lighted. The glow of Mrs. Owen's kindness lingered with Sylvia as she walked toward Elizabeth House. She was constantly surprised by her friend's intensely modern spirit—her social curiosity, and the breadth and sanity of her views. This suggestion of a vocational school for young women had kindled Sylvia's imagination, and her thoughts were upon it as she tramped homeward through the slush. To establish an institution such as Mrs. Owen had indicated would require a large sum of money, and there were always the Bassetts, the heirs apparent of their aunt's fortune. Any feeling of guilt Sylvia may have experienced by reason of her enforced connivance with Mrs. Owen for the expenditure of her money was mitigated by her belief that the Bassetts were quite beyond the need of their aunt's million, the figure at which Mrs. Owen's fortune was commonly appraised.
She was thinking of this when a few blocks from Mrs. Owen's she met Morton Bassett. The electric lamp overhead was just sputtering into light as he moved toward her out of an intersecting street. His folded umbrella was thrust awkwardly under his arm, and he walked slowly with bent head. The hissing of the lamp caused him to lift his eyes. Sylvia paused an instant, and he raised his hat as he recognized her.
"Good evening, Miss Garrison! I've just been out for a walk. It's a dreary evening, isn't it?"
Sylvia explained that she had been to Mrs. Owen's and was on her way home, and he asked if he might go with her.
"Marian usually walked with me at Fraserville, but since we've been here, Sunday seems to be her busy day. I find that I don't know much about the residential district; I can easily lose myself in this part of town."
During these commonplaces she wondered just where their conversation at Marian's ball had left them; the wet street was hardly a more favorable place for serious talk than the crowded Propylæum. The rain began to fall monotonously, and he raised his umbrella.
"Some things have happened since our last talk," he observed presently.
"Yes?" she replied dubiously.
"I want to talk to you of them," he answered. "Dan has left me. You know that?"
"Yes; I know of it."
"And you think he has done quite the fine thing about it—it was what you would have had him do?"
"Yes, certainly. You practically told me you were putting him to the test. You weren't embarrassed by his course in any way; you were able to show him that you didn't care; you didn't need him."
"You saw that? You read that in what followed?"
"It was written so large that no one could miss it. You are the master. You proved it again. I suppose you found a great satisfaction in that. A man must, or he wouldn't do such things."
"You seem to understand," he replied, turning toward her for an instant. "But there may be one thing you don't understand."
There was a moment of silence, in which they splashed on slowly through the slush.
"I liked Dan; I was fond of him. And yet I deliberately planned to make him do that kind of thing for me. I pulled him out of the newspaper office and made it possible for him to study law, just that I might put my hand on him when he could be useful. Please understand that I'm not saying this in the hope that you will intercede to bring him back. Nothing can bring him back. I wouldn't let him come back to me if he would starve without my help."
Sylvia was silent; there was nothing with which she could meet this.
"What I mean is," he continued, "that I'm glad he shook me; I had wondered from the beginning just when it would come, and when I saw his things going out of my office, it satisfied something in me. I wonder whether there's some good in me after all that made me glad in spite of myself that he had the manhood to quit."
Bassett was a complex character; his talk and manner at Marian's ball had given her a sense of this which he was now confirming. Success had not brought him happiness; the loss of Dan had been a blow to him, and she felt the friendlessness and isolation of this man whom men feared. He had spoken doggedly, gruffly, and if she had marveled at their talk at the dance, her wonder was the greater now. It was inconceivable that Morton Bassett should come to her with his difficulties. If his conscience troubled him, or if he was touched with remorse for his conduct toward Dan Harwood, she was unable to see why he should make his confession to her. It seemed that he had read her thoughts, for he spoke roughly, as though defending himself from an attack.
"You like him; you've known him for several years; you know him probably better than you know any other man."
"I suppose I do, Mr. Bassett," said Sylvia; "we are good friends, but—that's all."
He stopped short, and she felt his hand touch her arm for an instant lightly—it was almost like a caress, there in the rain-swept street with the maple boughs swishing overhead in the cold west wind.
He quickened his pace now, as though to mark a new current in his thoughts.
"There's a favor I want to ask of you, Miss Garrison. Dan talked to me once or twice about your grandfather's estate. He owned some shares in a business I had helped to organize, the White River Canneries. The scheme failed for many reasons; the shares are worthless. I want you to let me pay you back the money Professor Kelton paid for them. I should have to do it privately—it would have to be a matter between you and me."
"Oh, no! Dan explained that to me; he didn't hold you responsible. He said the company failed, that was all. You are kind to offer, but I can't think of accepting it."
"Very well," he said quietly. And then added, as though to explain himself more fully: "Your grandfather and Mrs. Owen were old friends. He wasn't a business man. I promoted the canneries scheme and I was responsible for it, no matter what Harwood says about it."
She had experienced sharp alternations of pity and apprehension in this brief walk. He was a prominent man; almost, it might be said, a notorious character. The instinct of self-protection was strong in her; what might lie behind his confidences, his blunt confessions, and his offer of help, she did not know. They had reached Elizabeth House, and she paused on the broad steps under the shelter of the veranda. With her back toward the door she looked down upon him as he stood on the sidewalk, his umbrella deeply shadowing his head and shoulders. She stood before him like a vestal guarding her temple from desecration. She was conscious of a sharp revulsion of feeling, and a sudden fierce anger burned in her heart. She spoke with a quick, passionate utterance.
"There is something you can do for me, Mr. Bassett. I'm going to bring Rose Farrell back to this house. I want you to let her alone!"
He stood dumbly staring at the door as it closed upon her. He lingered a moment, the rain beating down upon him, and then walked slowly homeward.
CHAPTER XXVI
APRIL VISTAS
"Is it possible? Is it possible!"
Colonel Ramsay's entrances were frequently a bit theatrical, and on a particular afternoon in April, as he opened the door of Dan Harwood's new office in the Law Building, the sight of Miss Farrell at the typewriter moved him to characteristic demonstrations. Carefully closing the door and advancing, hat in hand, with every appearance of deepest humility, he gazed upon the young woman with a mockery of astonishment.
"Verily, it is possible," he solemnly ejaculated. "And what is it that our own poet says:—
"'When she comes home again! A thousand ways
I fashion to myself the tenderness
Of my glad welcome: I shall tremble—yes—'"
"Stop trembling, Colonel, and try one of our new office chairs, warranted to hold anybody but Brother Ike Pettit without fading away."
The Colonel bent over Miss Farrell's hand reverently and sat down.
"I've been trying to earn an honest living practicing law down at home and this is the first chance I've had to come up and see what the late lamented legislature left of the proud old Hoosier State. Is Dan locked up inside there with some lucrative client?"
"I regret to say that I don't believe there's a cent in his present caller."
"Hark!" At this moment a roar was heard from the inner room on which "private" was printed in discreet letters. The Colonel was at once alert.
"'Ask me no more; the moon may draw the sea'
But Isaac Pettit's jokes shall shake the land,—
with apologies to the late Laureate. So the boys are finding their way up here, are they? I'll wait an hour or two till that compendium of American humor has talked Dan to sleep. So you and Dan left your Uncle Morton all alone in gloomy splendor in the Boordman Building!"
"Mr. Harwood made me an offer and I accepted it," replied Rose. "This is a free country and a P.W.G. can work where she pleases, can't she?"
"P.W.G.?"
"Certainly, a poor working-girl"—Rose clasped her hands and bowed her head—"if the initials fail to illuminate."
The Colonel inspected the room, and his eyes searched Miss Farrell's desk.
"Let me see, I seem to miss something. It must be the literary offerings that used to cluster about the scene of your labors. Your selections in old times used to delight me. No one else of my acquaintance has quite your feeling for romance. I always liked that one about the square-jawed American engineer who won the Crown Princess of Piffle from her father in a poker game, but decided at the last minute to bestow her upon his old college friend, the Russian heir-apparent, just to preserve the peace of Europe. I remember I found you crying over the great renunciation one day."
"Oh, I've passed that all up, Colonel. I'm strong for the pale high-brow business now. I'm doing time in all the night classes at Elizabeth House where I board, and you'll hardly know your little Rose pretty soon."
"Fitting yourself for one of the learned professions?"
"Scarcely. Just fitting myself to be decent," replied Rose in a tone that shifted the key of the conversation—a change which the Colonel respected.
"That's right, Rose. This is a good place for you, and so is Mrs. Owen's boarding-house. By the way, who's this school-teacher Aunt Sally has taken up—saw her at the party-great chum of the old lady's."
"You must mean Miss Sylvia."
"Sylvia?"
"Miss Sylvia Garrison. Colonel Ramsay," continued Rose earnestly, resting an elbow lightly on her typewriter, "you and I are old pals—you remember that first winter I was over at the State House?"
"Very well, Rose."
"Well, it wasn't a good place for me to be. But I was a kid and hadn't much sense. I've learned a good deal since then. It ain't so easy to walk straight; so many people are careless about leaving banana peelings lying round."
The Colonel nodded.
"You needn't apologize to me, Rose. It's all right now, is it?"
"You can be dead sure of it, Colonel. Miss Garrison caught me by the heel of my shoe, just as I was going down the third time, and yanked me back. There's a good many cheap imitations of human beings loose around this world, but that's a woman, I can tell you!"
"Glad you struck a good friend, Rose. You did well to come along with Harwood."
"Well, she fixed that, too, after I cut loose from him—you understand? I guess Miss Garrison and Mr. Harwood are pretty good friends."
"Oh!" ejaculated Ramsay. "So there's that, is there?"
"I hope so; they're all white and speak the same language. This is on the dead. I'm only talking to you because you're an old friend."
An occasional roar from within testified to Mr. Pettit's continued enjoyment of his own jokes.
"You know," Rose continued, "I learned a good deal those winters I spent at the State House, when I was stenog to certain senate committees. I see where you stand now, all right, Colonel. I always knew you didn't belong in that bunch of lobbyists that was always gum-shoeing through the marble halls of the State House. Thatcher sends somebody around to look me up every little while to see if he can't coax something out of me,—something he can use, you know."
"Thatcher oughtn't to do that. If you want me to, I'll pull him off."
"No; I guess I can take care of myself. He"—Rose indicated the inner office with a slight movement of the head, "he never tries to pump me. He ain't that kind of a fighter. But everybody that's anywhere near the inside knows that Thatcher carries a sharp knife. He's going to shed some pink ink before he gets through. Are you on?"
They exchanged a glance.
"Something that isn't nice?"
Rose nodded.
"I hate to see that sort of thing brought into the game. But they'll never find anything. The gentleman we are referring to works on noiseless rollers." Colonel Ramsay indicated the closed door by an almost imperceptible gesture of interrogation; and Rose replied by compressing her lips and shaking her head.
"He isn't in on that; he's a gentleman, you know; not a mud-slinger."
"He might have to stand for anything Thatcher springs. Thatcher has developed into a shrewd and hard fighter. The other crowd don't laugh at him any more; it was his work that got our legislative ticket through last fall when Bassett passed the word that we should take a licking just to magnify his importance. Is Thatcher in town now?"
"No; that boy of his with the bad lung had to go off to the Adirondacks, and he went with him."
The inner door opened at this moment, disclosing the Honorable Isaac Pettit, who greeted Ramsay effusively.
"What is immortality, gentlemen!" the Honorable Isaac Pettit inquired, clinging to the Colonel's hand. "We had a little social gathering for our new pastor up at Fraser the other night, and I sprung a new game on the old folks. Offered a prize for anybody who could name all the Vice-Presidents of the United States since Lincoln's administration, and they couldn't even get past Grant—and Schuyler Colfax being right off our own Hoosier pastures! Then we tried for the Democratic candidates for President, beginning back at the war, and they couldn't even start. One young chap piped up and said Jeff Davis—oh, Lord!—which reminds me that the teaching of history in the public schools ain't what it ought to be. They hadn't heard of Hancock, and when somebody said Blaine, the teacher of the infant class in our Sunday School said Blaine who? That reminds me of one time when I met Dan Voorhees, than whom God Almighty never made a nobler soul; I met Dan down here in the lobby of the old Bates House, carrying a 'Harper's Weekly' with one of Tom Nast's cartoons spread wide open. You know Dan had—"
Colonel Ramsay had been edging toward the door of Harwood's private room, and he now broke in upon the editor's reminiscences.
"You tell that story to Miss Farrell, Ike. I'm spouting myself to-night, at a Christian Endeavor rally at Tipton, and want to see Dan a minute."
Miss Farrell was inured to Pettit's anecdotes of Dan Voorhees, and the Fraserville editor continued, unmindful of the closing of the door upon Dan and Ramsay.
Ramsay pushed his fedora to the back of his head and inspected Dan's new furniture.
"Well, you did it! You've cut loose from your base and burned your bridges behind you. I would have brought my congratulations sooner, but I've had a long jury case on hand. You did it, my boy, and you did it like a gentleman. You might have killed him if you had wanted to."
"I don't want to kill anybody," smiled Dan. "I want to practice law."
"That's a laudable ambition, but you can't go back on us now. What we've needed for a long time was a young man of about your make-up who wasn't afraid."
"Don't rub it in, Colonel. I was a mighty long time seeing the light, and I don't deserve any praise from anybody. I mean what I say about practicing law. I'm a free man now and any political work I do is going to be along the lines of the simple, childish ideas I brought home from college with me. I had begun to feel that all this political idealism was sheer rubbish, but I put the brakes on before I got too far downhill. If a few of us who have run with the machine and know the tricks will turn and help the bewildered idealists, we can make idealism effective. Most of the people don't want a handful of crooks to govern them, but there's a kind of cheap cynicism abroad that discourages the men who are eager to revolt. There are newspapers that foster that sentiment, and scores of men who won't take time to go to a caucus keep asking what's the use. Now, as for Bassett, I'm not going to bite the hand that fed me; I'm simply going to feed myself. Pettit was just in here to sound me as to my feelings toward Thatcher. Quite frankly, I'm not interested in Thatcher as a senatorial possibility."
"That's all right; but if you had to make a choice between Thatcher and Bassett?"
Dan shrugged his shoulders impatiently.
"You mustn't exaggerate the importance of my influence. I don't carry United States senatorships around in my pocket."
"You're the most influential man of your age in our state. I'm not so sure you wouldn't be able to elect any man you supported if the election were held to-morrow."
"You've mastered the delicate art of flattery, Colonel; when the time comes, I'll be in the fight. It's not so dead certain that our party's going to have a senator to elect—there's always that. But all the walls are covered with handwriting these days that doesn't need interpreting by me or any other Daniel. Many of the younger men all over this state in both parties are getting ready to assert themselves. What we want—what you want, I believe—is to make this state count for something in national affairs. Just changing parties doesn't help anything. I'd rather not shift at all than send some fellow to the Senate just because he can capture a caucus. It's my honest conviction that any man can get a caucus vote if he will play according to the old rules. You and I go out over the state bawling to the people that they are governing this country. We appeal to them for their votes when we know well enough that between Thatcher and Bassett as Democrats, and 'Big' Jordan and Ridgefield in the Republican camp, the people don't stand to win. It may tickle you to know that I've had some flattering invitations lately to join the Republicans—not from the old guard, mind you, but from some of the young fellows who want to score results for policies, not politicians. I suppose, after all, Colonel, I'm only a kind of academic Democrat, with no patience whatever with this eternal hitching of our ancient mule to the saloons and breweries just to win. In the next campaign I'm going to preach my academic Democracy all the way from Lake Michigan to the Ohio River, up and down and back and forth—and I'm going to do it at my own expense and not be responsible to any state committee or anybody else. That's about where I stand."
"Good; mighty good, Dan. All the rest of us want is for you to holler that in your biggest foghorn voice and you'll find the crowd with you."
"But if the crowd isn't with me, it won't make a bit of difference; I shall bark just the same."
"Now that we've got down to brass tacks, I'll tell you what I've thought ever since Bassett got his clamps on the party: that he really hasn't any qualities of leadership; that grim, silent way of his is a good deal of a bluff. If anybody ever has the nerve to set off a firecracker just behind him, he'll run a mile. The newspapers keep flashing him up in big headlines all the time, and that helps to keep the people fooled. The last time I saw him was just after he put through that corporation bill you broke on, and he didn't seem to have got much fun out of his victory; he looked pretty gray and worried. It wasn't so easy pulling through House Bill Ninety-five; it was the hardest job of Mort's life; but he had to do it or take the count. And Lord! he certainly lost his head in defeating those appropriation bills; he let his spite toward the governor get the better of him. It wasn't the Republican governor he put in the hole; it was his own party."
"That's the way with all these men of his type on both sides; they have no real loyalty; they will sacrifice their parties any time just to further personal ends, or in this case it would seem to have been out of sheer bad temper. I didn't use to think Bassett had any temper or any kind of emotional organization. But when he's mad it's the meanest kind of mad, blind and revengeful."
"He's forced an extra session—he's brought that on us. Just chew on that a minute, Dan. A Republican governor has got to reassemble a Democratic legislature merely to correct its own faults. It looks well in print, by George! Speaking of print, how did he come to let go of the 'Courier,' and who owns that sheet anyway? I thought when Thatcher sprung that suit and dragged our Aunt Sally into it, the Wabash River would run hot lava for the next forty years. But that night of the ball she and Mort stood there on the firing-line as though nothing had ever happened."
Harwood grinned and shook his head gravely.
"There are some things, Colonel, that even to a good friend like you I can't give away. Besides, I promised Atwill not to tell."
"All right, Dan. And now, for fear you may think I've got something up my sleeve, I want to say to you with my hand on my heart that I don't want any office now or ever!"
"Now, Colonel, be very careful!" laughed Dan.
"No; I'm not up here on a fishing-trip. But I want you to know where I stand and the friendly feeling of a whole lot of people toward you. You say the younger men are getting tired of the old boss system; I'll tell you that a lot of the old fellows too are beginning to get restless. The absurdity of the whole game on both sides is beginning to get into the inner consciousness of the people. You know if I had stayed regular when the free-silver business came on I might have been in a position now to play for the governorship—which is the only thing I ever wanted; rather nice to be governor of your own state, and have your name scratched on a slab at the State House door; it's even conceivable, Daniel, that a man might do a little good—barely possible," he concluded dryly. "I'm out of it now for good; but anything I can do to help you, don't wait to write, just telephone me. Now—"
"I'm not so sure you can't make it yet; I'd like to see you there."
"Thanks, Daniel; but like you I'm in the ranks of the patriots and not looking for the pie counter. Here's another matter. Do you mind telling me what you're up to in this White River Canneries business? I notice that you've been sticking the can-opener into it."
"Yes; that protest of the original stockholders against the reorganization is still pending. As administrator of the estate of Professor Kelton—you remember him—Madison College—I filed a petition to be let into the case. It's been sleeping along for a couple of years—stockholders too poor to put up a fight. I've undertaken to probe clear into the mire. I've got lots of time and there's lots of mire!"
"Good. They say the succotash and peaches were all cooked in the same pot, and that our Uncle Mort did the skimming."
"So they say; but believe me, I can attack him without doing violence to my professional conscience. White River Canneries was never in the Boordman office to my knowledge. This isn't vengeance on my part; it's my duty to get what I can for the estate."
"Well, some of our farmers down my way got soaked in that deal, but it never seemed worth while to waste their money in litigation. I'll be glad to turn the claims I have in my office over to you; the more you have, the stronger fight you can make."
"Good. I welcome business. I'm going to see if I can't get to the bottom of the can."
As a révolté Dan had attracted more attention than he liked, in all the circumstances. Now that the legislature had adjourned, he was anxious to give his energy to the law, and he did not encourage political pilgrims to visit his office. He felt that he had behaved generously toward his old chief when the end came, and the promptness with which Bassett's old guard sought to impeach his motives in fighting the corporation bill angered him. Threats of retaliation were conveyed to him from certain quarters; and from less violent sources he heard much of his ingratitude toward the man who had "made" him. He had failed in his efforts to secure the passage of several measures whose enactment was urged by the educational and philanthropic interests of the community, and this was plainly attributable to the animosity aroused by his desertion of the corporation bill. He had not finished with this last measure, which had been passed by Bassett's bi-partisan combination over the governor's veto. The labor organizations were in arms against it and had engaged Dan to attack it in the courts.
Sylvia's approval of his course had been as cordial as he could have asked, and as the spring advanced they were much together. They attended concerts, the theatre, and lectures, as often as she had time for relaxation, and they met pretty regularly at Mrs. Owen's dinner table on Sunday—often running out for long tramps in the country afterward, to return for supper, and a renewal of their triangular councils. The Bassetts were to continue at the Bosworth house until June, and when Marian dashed in upon these Sunday symposiums—sometimes with a young cavalier she had taken out for a promenade—she gave Dan to understand that his difficulties with her father made not the slightest difference to her.
"But, mama!" She spoke of her mother as of one whose views must not weigh heavily against the world's general good cheer—"mama says she never trusted you; that there was just that something about you that didn't seem quite—" Marian would shake her head and sigh suggestively, whereupon Mrs. Owen would rebuke her and send her off to find the candy in the sideboard.
Allen, relegated for a time to a sanatorium in the Adirondacks, amused himself by telegraphing to Marian daily; and he usually managed to time a message to reach Mrs. Owen's Sunday dinner table with characteristic remembrances for all who might be in her house. To Dan he wrote a letter commending his course in the legislature.
"I always knew you would get on Dad's side one of these days. The Great Experiment is making headway. Don't worry about me. I'm going to live to be a hundred. There's really nothing the matter with my lungs, you know. Dad just wanted an excuse to come up here himself (mother and the girls used me as an excuse for years, you remember). He's doing big stunts tramping over the hills. You remember that good story Ware told us that night up in the house-boat? You wouldn't think Dad would have so much curiosity, but he's been over there to look at that place Ware told about. He's left me now to go down to New York to see the lights. . . . I'm taking quite a literary turn. You know, besides Emerson and those chaps who camped with him up here, Stevenson was here, too,—good old R.L.S.!"
Several times Sylvia, Marian, and Dan collaborated in a Sunday round robin to Allen, in the key of his own exuberances.
CHAPTER XXVII
HEAT LIGHTNING
"We'll finish the peaches to-night, and call it a day's work," remarked Mrs. Owen. "Sylvia, you'd better give another turn to the covers on those last jars. There's nothing takes the heart out of a woman like opening a can of fruit in January and finding mould on top. There, Annie, that's enough cinnamon. Put in too much and your peaches will taste like a drug store."
Spicy odors floated from the kitchen of Mrs. Owen's house on Waupegan. The August afternoon sun struck goldenly upon battalions of glasses and jars in the broad, screened veranda, an extension of the kitchen itself. The newly affixed labels announced peach, crab-apple, plum, and watermelon preserves (if the mention of this last item gives you no thrill, so much the worse for you!); jellies of many tints and flavors, and tiny cucumber pickles showing dark green amid the gayer colors. Only the most jaded appetite could linger without sharp impingements before these condensations and transformations of the kindly fruits of the earth.
In Mrs. Owen's corps of assistants we recognize six young women from Elizabeth House—for since the first of July Elizabeth House has been constantly represented on Waupegan, girls coming and going in sixes for a fortnight at the farm. Mrs. Owen had not only added bedrooms to the rambling old farmhouse to accommodate these visitors, but she had, when necessary, personally arranged with their employers for their vacations.
On the face of it, the use of her farm as a summer annex to the working girls' boarding-house in town was merely the whim of a kind-hearted old woman with her own peculiar notions of self-indulgence. A cynical member of the summer colony remarked at the Casino that Mrs. Owen, with characteristic thrift, was inveigling shop-girls to her farm and then putting them to work in her kitchen. Mrs. Owen's real purpose was the study of the girls in Elizabeth House with a view to determining their needs and aptitude: she was as interested in the woman of forty permanently planted behind a counter as in the gayest eighteen-year-old stenographer. An expert had built for her that spring a model plant for poultry raising, an industry of which she confessed her own ignorance, and she found in her battery of incubators the greatest delight.
"When a woman has spent twenty years behind a counter, Sylvia, or working a typewriter, she hasn't much ahead of her. What's the matter with ducks?"
They made prodigious calculations of all sorts that summer, and continued their study of catalogues. Mrs. Owen expected to visit the best vocational schools in the country during the fall and winter. The school could not be a large one, but it must be wisely planned. Mrs. Owen had already summarized her ideas on a sheet of paper in the neat, Italian script which the daguerreotype ladies of our old seminaries alone preserve for us. The students of the proposed school were to be girls between fifteen and eighteen, who were driven by necessity into shops, factories, and offices. None should be excluded for lack of the knowledge presupposed in students ready for high school, and the general courses were to be made flexible so that those who entered deficient might be brought to a fixed standard. The vocational branches were the most difficult, and at Sylvia's suggestion several well-known authorities on technical education were called into conference. One of these had visited Waupegan and expressed his enthusiastic approval of Mrs. Owen's plans. She was anxious to avoid paralleling any similar work, public or private. What the city schools did in manual training was well enough, and she did not mean to compete with the state's technical school, or with its reformatory school for erring girls. The young girl about to take her place behind the ribbon counter, or at a sewing-machine in a garment factory, or as a badly equipped, ignorant, and hopeless stenographer, was the student for whom in due course the school should open its doors. Where necessary, the parents of the students were to be paid the wages their daughters sacrificed in attending school during the two-year course proposed. The students were to live in cottages and learn the domestic arts through their own housekeeping, the members of each household performing various duties in rotation. The school was to continue in session the year round, so that flower—and kitchen—gardening might take rank with dressmaking, cooking, fruit culture, poultry raising, and other branches which Mrs. Owen proposed to have taught.
"I can't set 'em all up in business, but I want a girl that goes through the school to feel that she won't have to break her back in an overall factory all her life, or dance around some floor-walker with a waxed mustache. They tell me no American girl who has ever seen a trolley car will go into a kitchen to work—she can't have her beaux going round to the back door. Sylvia, we've got to turn out cooks that are worth going to kitchen doors to see! Now, I've taught you this summer how to make currant jelly that you needn't be ashamed of anywhere on earth, and it didn't hurt you any. A white woman can't learn to cook the way darkies do, just by instinct. That's a miracle, by the way, that I never heard explained—how these colored women cook as the good ones do—those old-fashioned darkies who take the cook book out of your hand and look at it upside down and grin and say, 'Yes, Miss Sally,' when they can't read a word! You catch a clean, wholesome white girl young enough, and make her understand that her kitchen's a laboratory, and her work something to be proud of, and she'll not have any trouble finding places to work where they won't ask her to clean out the furnace and wash the automobile."
The Bassetts had opened their cottage early and Morton Bassett had been at the lake rather more constantly than in previous summers. Marian was off on a round of visits to the new-found friends that were the fruit of her winter at the capital. She was much in demand for house parties, and made her engagements, quite independently of her parents, for weeks and fortnights at widely scattered mid-Western resorts. Mrs. Bassett was indulging in the luxury of a trained nurse this summer, but even with this reinforcement she found it impossible to manage Marian. It need hardly be said that Mrs. Owen's philanthropic enterprises occasioned her the greatest alarm. It was enough that "that girl" should be spending the summer at Waupegan, without bringing with her all her fellow boarders from Elizabeth House.
Mrs. Bassett had now a tangible grievance against her husband. Blackford's course at the military school he had chosen for himself had been so unsatisfactory that his father had been advised that he would not be received for another year. It was now Mrs. Bassett's turn to cavil at her husband for the sad mess he had made of the boy's education. She would never have sent Blackford to a military school if it had been her affair; she arraigned her husband for having encouraged the boy in his dreams of West Point.
Blackford's father continuing indifferent, Mrs. Bassett rose from bed one hot August day filled with determination. Blackford, confident of immunity from books through the long vacation, was enjoying himself thoroughly at the lake. He was a perfectly healthy, good-natured lad, whose faults were much like those of the cheerful, undisciplined Marian. His mother scanned the reports of Blackford's demerits and decided that he required tutoring immediately. She thereupon reasoned that it would score with her aunt if she employed "that girl" to coach the delinquent Blackford. It would at any rate do no harm to manifest a friendly interest in her aunt's protégée, who would doubtless be glad of a chance to earn a little pin-money. She first proposed the matter to her aunt, who declared promptly that it must be for Sylvia to say; that Sylvia was busy writing a book (she was revising her grandfather's textbook), besides helping to entertain the Elizabeth House guests; but when the matter was referred to Sylvia, she cheerfully agreed to give Blackford two hours a day.
Sylvia quickly established herself on terms of good comradeship with her pupil. Blackford was old enough to find the proximity of a pretty girl agreeable, and Sylvia was sympathetic and encouraging. When he confided to her his hopes of a naval career (he had finally renounced the Army) Sylvia sent off to Annapolis for the entrance requirements. She told him of her Grandfather Kelton's service in the Navy and recounted some of the old professor's exploits in the Civil War. The stories Sylvia had heard at her grandfather's knee served admirably as a stimulus. As the appointments to Annapolis had to be won in competitive examinations she soon persuaded him that the quicker he buckled down to hard study the sooner he would attain the goal. This matter arranged, Mrs. Bassett went back to bed, where she received Sylvia occasionally and expressed her sorrow that Mrs. Owen, at her time of life, should be running a boarding-house for a lot of girls who were better off at work. Her aunt was merely making them dissatisfied with their lot. She did not guess the import of the industries in Mrs. Owen's kitchen, as reported through various agencies; they were merely a new idiosyncracy of her aunt's old age, a deplorable manifestation of senility.
Sylvia was a comfortable confessor; Mrs. Bassett said many things to her that she would have liked to say to Mrs. Owen, with an obscure hope that they might in due course be communicated to that inexplicable old woman. And Sylvia certainly was past; the difficult art of brushing hair without tangling and pulling it, thereby tearing one's nerves to shreds—as the nurse did. Mrs. Owen's visits were only occasional, but they usually proved disturbing. She sniffed at the nurse and advised her niece to get up. She knew a woman in Terre Haute who went to bed on her thirtieth birthday and left it only to be buried in her ninetieth year. Sylvia was a far more consoling visitor to this invalid propped up on pillows amid a litter of magazines, with the cool lake at her elbow. Sylvia did not pooh-pooh Christian Science and New Thought and such things with which Mrs. Bassett was disposed to experiment. Sylvia even bestowed upon her a boon in the shape of the word "psychotherapy." Mrs. Bassett liked it, and declared that if she read a paper before the Fraserville Woman's Club the next winter—a service to which she was solemnly pledged—psychotherapy should be her subject. Thus Mrs. Bassett found Sylvia serviceable and comforting. And the girl knew her place, and all.
Morton Bassett found Sylvia tutoring his son one day when he arrived at Waupegan unexpectedly. Mrs. Bassett explained the arrangement privately in her own fashion.
"You seem to take no interest in your children, Morton. I thought Blackford was your particular pride, but the fact that he was practically expelled from school seemed to make not the slightest impression on you. I thought that until you did realize that the boy was wasting his time here, I'd take matters into my own hands. Miss Garrison seems perfectly competent; she tells me Blackford is very quick—all he needs is application."
"I hadn't got around to that yet, Hallie. I'd intended taking it up this week. I'm very busy," murmured Bassett.
His wife's choice of a tutor seemed inconsistent with her earlier animosity toward Sylvia, but he shrank from asking explanations. Mrs. Bassett had grown increasingly difficult and arbitrary.
"That's the American father all over! Well, I've done my duty."
"No doubt it's a good arrangement. We've got to keep Blackford in hand. Where's Marian?"
"She's visiting the Willings at their place at Whitewater. She's been gone a week."
"The Willings? Not those Burton Willings? How did that happen;—I don't believe we care to have her visit the Willings."
"They are perfectly nice people," she replied defensively, "and Marian knew their daughter at school. Allen Thatcher is in the party, and they're all people we know or know about."
"Well, I don't want Marian visiting around promiscuously. I know nothing about the family, but I don't care for Willing. And we've had enough of young Thatcher. Marian's already seen too much of him."
"Allen's a perfectly nice fellow. It isn't fair to dislike him on his father's account. Allen isn't a bit like his father; but even if he were you used to think well enough of Ed Thatcher."
This shot was well aimed, and Bassett blinked, but he felt that he must exercise his parental authority. If he had been culpable in neglecting Blackford he could still take a hand in Marian's affairs.
"So I did," he replied. "But I'm going to telegraph Marian to come home. What's the Willings' address?"
"Oh, you'll find it on a picture postal card somewhere about. I'll write Marian to come home; but I wouldn't telegraph if I were you, Morton. And if you don't like my employing Miss Garrison, you can get rid of her: I merely felt that something had to be done. I turn it all over to you," she ended mournfully.
"Oh, I have no objections to Miss Garrison. We'll see how Blackford gets on with her."
Bassett was troubled by other things that summer than his son's education. Harwood's declaration of war in the White River Canneries matter had proved wholly disagreeable, and Fitch had not been able to promise that the case might not come to trial, to Bassett's discomfiture. It was a hot summer, and Bassett had spent a good deal of time in his office at the Boordman Building, where Harwood's name no longer adorned the door of Room 66. The 'Advertiser' continued to lay on the lash for his defeat of the appropriations necessary to sustain several important state institutions while he carried through his corporation bill. They were saying in some quarters that he had lost his head, and that he was now using his political power for personal warfare upon his enemies. Thatcher loomed formidably as a candidate for the leadership, and many predicted that Bassett's power was at last broken. On the other hand, Bassett's old lieutenants smiled knowingly; the old Bassett machine was still in perfect running order, they said, as Thatcher would learn when he felt the wheels grinding him.
Bassett saw Sylvia daily, and he was wary of her at first. She had dealt him a staggering blow that rainy evening at the door of Elizabeth House—a blow which, from her, had an effect more poignant than she knew. That incident was ended, however, and he felt that he had nothing to fear from her. No one appreciates candor so thoroughly as the man who is habitually given to subterfuge, evasion, and dissimulation. Sylvia's consent to tutor Blackford indicated a kindly feeling toward the family. It was hardly likely that she would report to Mrs. Bassett his indiscretions with Rose Farrell. And his encounters with Sylvia had moreover encouraged the belief that she viewed life broadly and tolerantly.
There was little for a man of Bassett's tastes to do at Waupegan. Most of the loungers at the Casino were elderly men who played bridge, which he despised; and he cared little for fishing or boating. Tennis and golf did not tempt him. His wife had practically ceased to be a figure in the social life of the colony; Marian was away, and Blackford's leisure was spent with boys of his own age. Morton Bassett was lonely.
It thus happened that he looked forward with growing interest to Sylvia's daily visits to his house. He found that he could mark her progress from Mrs. Owen's gate round the lake to his own cottage from the window of a den he maintained in the attic. He remained there under the hot shingles, conscious of her presence in his house throughout her two hours with Blackford. Once or twice he took himself off to escape from her; but on these occasions he was surprised to find that he was back on the veranda when Sylvia emerged from the living-room with her pupil. She was always cheery, and she never failed to say something heartening of Blackford's work.
A number of trifling incidents occurred to bring them together. The cook left abruptly, and Mrs. Bassett was reduced to despair. Bassett, gloomily pacing his veranda, after hearing his wife's arraignment of the world in general and domestic servants in particular, felt the clouds lift when Sylvia came down from a voluntary visit to the invalid. He watched her attack the problem by long-distance telephone. Sensations that were new and strange and sweet assailed him as he sat near in the living-room of his own house, seeing her at the telephone desk by the window, hearing her voice. Her patience in the necessary delays while connection was made with the city, her courtesy to her unseen auditors, the smile, the occasional word she flung at him—as much as to say, of course it's bothersome but all will soon come right!—these things stirred in him a wistfulness and longing such as the hardy oak must feel when the south wind touches its bare boughs with the first faint breath of spring.
"It's all arranged—fixed—accomplished!" Sylvia reported at last. "There's a cook coming by the afternoon train. You'll attend to meeting her? Please tell Mrs. Bassett it's Senator Ridgefield's cook who's available for the rest of the summer, as the family have gone abroad. She's probably good—the agent said Mrs. Ridgefield had brought her from Washington. Let me see! She must have Thursday afternoon off and a chance to go to mass on Sunday. And you of course stand the railroad fare to and from the lake; it's so nominated in the bond!"
She dismissed the whole matter with a quick gesture of her hands.
Their next interview touched again his domestic affairs. He had telegraphed Marian to come home without eliciting a reply, and the next day he found in a Chicago newspaper a spirited and much-beheadlined account of the smashing of the Willings' automobile in a collision. It seemed that they had run into Chicago for a day's shopping and had met with this misadventure on one of the boulevards. The Willings' chauffeur had been seriously injured. Miss Marian Bassett, definitely described as the daughter of Morton Bassett, the well-known Indiana politician, had been of the party. Allen Thatcher was another guest of the Willings, a fact which added to Bassett's anger. He had never visited his hatred of Thatcher upon Allen, whom he had regarded as a harmless boy not to be taken seriously; but the conjunction of his daughter's name with that of his enemy's son in a newspaper of wide circulation in Indiana greatly enraged him. It was bound to occasion talk, and he hated publicity. The Willings were flashy people who had begun to spend noisily the money earned for them by an automobile patent. The indictment he drew against Marian contained many "counts." He could not discuss the matter with his wife; he carefully kept from her the newspaper story of the smash-up. The hotel to which the Willings had retired for repairs was mentioned, and Bassett resolved to go to Chicago and bring Marian home.
The best available train passed Waupegan Station at midnight, and he sat alone on his veranda that evening with anger against Marian still hot in his heart. He had yet to apprise Mrs. Bassett of his intended journey, delaying the moment as long as possible to minimize her inevitable querulous moanings. Blackford was in his room studying, and Bassett had grimly paced the veranda for half an hour when the nurse came down with a request that he desist from his promenade, as it annoyed Mrs. Bassett in her chamber above.
He thereupon subsided and retired to the darkest corner of the veranda. A four-hour vigil lay before him, and he derived no calm from the still stars that faintly shadowed the quiet waters below. He was assailed by torments reserved for those who, having long made others writhe without caring that they suffered, hear the swish of the lash over their own heads. He had only lately been conscious of his growing irritability. He hated men who yield to irritation; it was a sign of weakness, a failure of self-mastery. He had been carried on by a strong tide, imagining that he controlled it and guided it. He had used what he pleased of the apparatus of life, and when any part of the mechanism became unnecessary, he had promptly discarded it. It angered him to find that he had thrown away so much, that the mechanism was no longer as responsive as it had been. The very peace of the night grated upon him.
A light step sounded at the end of the veranda. A figure in white was moving toward the door, and recognizing Sylvia, he rose hastily and advanced to meet her.
"Is that you, Mr. Bassett? I ran over with a new grammar for Blackford that he will like better than the one he's using. I've marked his lesson so he can look it over before I come in the morning. How is Mrs. Bassett?"
"She's very tired and nervous to-night. Won't you sit down?"
"Thank you, no. If it isn't too late I'll run up and see Mrs. Bassett for a moment."
"I think you'd better not. The nurse is trying to get her to sleep."
"Oh, then of course I shan't stop," and Sylvia turned to go. "How soon will Marian be home?"
"To-morrow evening; I'm going up to get her to-night," he answered harshly.
"You are going to the Willings to come home with her?" asked Sylvia, surprised by his gruffness.
He spoke in a lower tone.
"You didn't see to-day's papers? She's been to Chicago with those Willings and their machine was smashed and the chauffeur hurt. I'm going to bring her back. She had no business to be visiting the Willings in the first place, and their taking her to Chicago without our consent was downright impudence. I don't want Mrs. Bassett to know of the accident. I'm going up on the night train."
It satisfied his turbulent spirit to tell her this; he had blurted it out without attempting to conceal the anger that the thought of Marian roused in him.
"She wasn't hurt? We should be glad of that!"
Sylvia lingered, her hand on the veranda rail. She seemed very tall in the mellow starlight. His tone had struck her unpleasantly. There was no doubt of his anger, or that Marian would feel the force of it when he found her.
"Oh, she wasn't hurt," he answered dully.
"It's very unfortunate that she was mixed up in it. I suppose she ought to come home now anyhow."
"The point is that she should never have gone! The Willings are not the kind of people I want her to know. It was a great mistake, her ever going."
"Yes, that may be true," said Sylvia quietly. "I don't believe—"
"Well—" he ejaculated impatiently, as though anxious for her to speak that he might shatter any suggestion she made. Before she came he had sharply vizualized his meeting with Marian and the Willings. He was impatient for the encounter, and if Sylvia projected herself in the path of his righteous anger, she must suffer the consequences.
"If I were you I shouldn't go to Chicago," said Sylvia calmly. "I think your going for Marian would only make a disagreeable situation worse. The Willings may not be desirable companions for her, but she has been their guest, and the motor run to Chicago was only an incident of the visit. We ought to be grateful that Marian wasn't hurt."
"Oh, you think so! You don't know that her mother had written for her to come home, and that I had telegraphed her."
"When did you telegraph her?" asked Sylvia, standing her ground.
"Yesterday; yesterday morning, in care of Willing at his farm address."
"Then of course she didn't get your message; she couldn't have had it if the accident happened in time for this morning's Chicago papers. It must have taken them all day to get from their place to Chicago." "If she had been at the Willings' where we supposed she was she would have, got the message. And her mother had written—twice!"
"I still think it would be a serious mistake in all the circumstances for you to go up there in a spirit of resentment to bring Marian home. It's not exactly my business, Mr. Bassett. But I'm thinking of Marian; and you could hardly keep from Mrs. Bassett the fact that you went for Marian. It would be sure to distress her."
"Marian needs curbing; she's got to understand that she can't go gallivanting over the country with strangers, getting her name in the newspapers. I'm not going to have it; I'm going to stop her nonsense!"
His voice had risen with his anger. Sylvia saw that nothing was to be gained by argument.
"The main thing is to bring Marian home, isn't it, Mr. Bassett?"
"Most certainly. And when I get her here she shall stay; you may be sure of that!"
"I understand of course that you want her back, but I hope you will abandon the idea of going for her yourself. Please give that up! I promise that she shall come home. I can easily take the night train and come back with her. What you do afterward is not my affair, but somehow I think this is. Please agree to my way of doing it! I can manage it very easily. Mrs. Owen's man can take me across to the train in the launch. I shan't even have to explain about it to her, if you'd rather I didn't. It will be enough if I tell her I'm going on business. You will agree, won't you—please?"
It was not in his heart to consent, and yet he consented, wondering that he yielded. The rescue of Marian from the Willings was taken out of his hands without friction, and there remained only himself against whom to vent his anger. He was curiously agitated by the encounter. The ironic phrases he had already coined for Marian's discomfiture clinked into the melting-pot. Sylvia was turning away and he must say something, though he could not express a gratitude he did not feel. His practical sense grasped one idea feebly. He felt its imbecility the moment he had spoken.
"You'll allow me, of course, to pay your expenses. That must be understood."
Sylvia answered over her shoulder.
"Oh, yes; of course, Mr. Bassett. Certainly."
He meant to accompany her to Mrs. Owen's door, but before he could move she was gone, running along the path, a white, ghost-like figure faintly discernible through the trees. He walked on tiptoe to the end of the veranda to catch the last glimpse of her, and waited till he caught across the quiet night the faint click of Mrs. Owen's gate. And he was inexpressibly lonely, now that she had gone.
He opened the door of the living-room and found his wife standing like an accusing angel by the centre table. She loomed tall in her blue tea-gown, with her brown braids falling down her back.
"Whom were you talking to, Morton?" she demanded with ominous severity.
"Miss Garrison came over to bring a book for Blackford. It's a grammar he needed in his work."
He held up the book in proof of his assertion, and as she tossed her head and compressed her lips he flung it on the table with an effort to appear at ease.
"She wanted him to have it before his lesson in the morning."
"She certainly took a strange time to bring it over here."
"It struck me as very kind of her to trouble about it. You'll take cold standing there. I supposed you were asleep."
"I've no doubt you did, Morton Bassett; but how do you suppose I could sleep when you were talking right under my window? I had already sent word about the noise you were making on the veranda."
"We were not talking loudly; I didn't suppose we were disturbing you."
"So you were talking quietly, were you! Will you please tell me what you have to talk to that girl about that you must whisper out there in the dark?"
"Please be reasonable, Hallie. Miss Garrison was only here a few minutes. And as I knew noises on the veranda had disturbed you I tried to speak in a low tone. We were speaking of Blackford."
"Well, I'd like you to know that I employed that girl to remedy your mistakes in trying to educate Blackford, and if she has any report to make she can make it to me."
"Very well, then. It was only a few days ago that you told me you had done all you were going to do about Blackford; you gave me to understand that you washed your hands of him. You're nervous and excited,—very unnecessarily excited,—and I insist that you go back to bed. I'll call Miss Featherstone."
"Miss Featherstone is asleep and you needn't bother her. I'm going to send her away at the end of her week anyhow. She's the worst masseuse I ever had; her clumsiness simply drives me frantic. But I never thought you would treat me like this—entertaining a young woman on the veranda when you thought I was asleep and out of the way. I'm astonished at Miss Garrison; I had a better opinion of her. I thought she knew her place. I thought she understood that I employed her out of kindness; and she's abused my confidence outrageously."
"You can't speak that way of that young woman; she's been very good to you. She's come to see you nearly every day and shown you many kindnesses. It is kind of her to be tutoring Blackford at all when she came to the lake for rest."
"For rest!"
She gulped at the enormity of this; it was beyond belief that any intelligent being could have been deceived in a matter that was as plain as daylight to any understanding. "You think she came here for rest! Don't you know that she's hung herself around Aunt Sally's neck, and that she's filling Aunt Sally's head with all manner of wild ideas? She's been after Aunt Sally's money ever since she saw that she could influence her. Did you ever know of Aunt Sally's taking up any other girl? Has she ever traveled over the country with Marian or shown any such interest in her own flesh and blood?"
"Please quiet yourself. You'll have Blackford and the nurse down here in a minute. You know perfectly well that Aunt Sally started Elizabeth House long before she had ever heard of this girl, and you know that your aunt is a vigorous, independent woman who is not led around by anybody."
Her nostrils quivered and her eyes shone with tears. She leveled her arm at him rigidly.
"I saw you walking with that girl yesterday! When she left here at noon you came down from the den and walked along to Aunt Sally's gate with her. I could see you through the trees from my bed, laughing and talking with her. I suppose it was then you arranged for her to come and sit with you on the veranda when you thought I was asleep!"
He took a step toward her and seized the outstretched hand roughly.
"You are out of your senses or you wouldn't speak in this way of Miss Garrison. She's been a kind friend to you all summer; you've told me yourself self how she's gone up to brush your hair and do little things for you that the nurse couldn't do as well. You've grown morbid from being ill so long, but nothing was ever more infamous than your insinuations against Miss Garrison. She's a noble girl and it's not surprising that Aunt Sally should like her. Everybody likes her!"
Having delivered this blow he settled himself more firmly on his feet and glared.
"Everybody likes her!" she repeated, snatching away her hand. "I'd like to know how you come to know so much about her."
"I know enough about her: I know all about her!"
"Then you know more than anybody else does. Nobody else seems to know anything about her!" she ended triumphantly.
"There you go again with insinuations! It's ungenerous, it's unlike you."
"Morton Bassett," she went on huskily, "if you took some interest in your own children it would be more to your credit. You blamed me for letting Marian go to the Willings' and then telegraphed for her to come home. It's a beautiful relationship you have established with your children! She hasn't even answered your telegram. But I suppose if she had you'd have kept it from me. The newspapers talk about your secretive ways, but they don't know you, Morton Bassett, as I do. I suppose you can't imagine yourself entertaining Marian on the veranda or walking with her, talking and laughing, as I saw you with that girl."
"Well, thank God there's somebody I can talk and laugh with! I'm glad to be able to tell you that Marian will be home to-morrow. You may have the satisfaction of knowing that if you would let her go to the Willings' with Allen Thatcher I can at least bring her back after you failed to do it."
"So you did hear from her, did you! Of course you couldn't have told me: I suppose you confide in Miss Garrison now," she ended drearily.
His wife's fatigue, betrayed in her tired voice, did not mitigate the stab with which he wished to punish her references to Sylvia. And he delivered it with careful calculation.
"You are quite right, Hallie. I did speak to Miss Garrison about Marian. Miss Garrison has gone to bring Marian home. That's all; go to bed."