H. R.

As the first coupon-holder entered H. R. rose and took from his pocket a huge roll of bills, all yellow-backs. He carelessly peeled off one of them and with a bow handed it to the Mayor.

Everybody sat up straight. His Honor looked at it. It was for ten thousand dollars. He nodded and then silently passed it to a bank president, who in turn examined it, nodded, and passed it on to a colleague. The reporters pressed forward.

"Experts in all kinds of small change," smiled H. R., pointing to the bankers.

The reporters' eyes followed the return of the ten-thousand-dollar bill to the Mayor. They also decided that H. R.'s roll was the most impressive demonstration of brute strength ever seen in New York.

Then H. R. asked his question, slowly, distinctly, enunciating carefully and smiling the while:

"What is it we have all heard about from earliest childhood and that we acknowledge exists; that is neither a person nor a beast, neither a thing nor an object, but something that no man can kill, though it is dead to-day; that all men need and most New-Yorkers neglect; that should be present everywhere and is found in no trade? The answer is a word of five letters and begins with A—the first letter of the alphabet, the first of the five vowels. There is another word, a synonym, which is now obsolescent, though it is at times used in poetry. But while either word will win the ten thousand dollars in cash now in the custody of the Mayor of New York, the word I particularly have in mind has five letters, of which the first is appropriately A, the Alpha of the Greeks, the Aleph of the Hebrews, and now the first of all the alphabets of European languages. It is logically the first letter because it is the first sound that man naturally makes—'A' or 'Ah!' The first letter! What is the word of five letters beginning with A that will give you ten thousand dollars? With 'A'! Now!"

Stop-watch in hand, H. R. began to move his left arm up and down like a referee at a prize-fight. He had astutely emphasized the fact that the word had five letters, of which the first was A. The mind of the coupon-holder was thus made to study the dictionary instead of thinking about the question itself.

It was inevitable as fate itself. The first man could not guess. Neither could the second nor any of the thousands. But before the applicant's indignation at the unfairness of the question and the shortness of the time could grow into fury H. R. exclaimed, "Time's up." Approaching the non-guesser, he whispered: "The name of the unsuccessful will not be given to the newspapers. Not by us! I thank you in the name of the poor starving people whose lives you have prolonged. That way to the seats. You can have your pick of the very best!"

In that simple way was bloodshed and the cry of fraud averted at one and the same time.

H. R. then delegated the task of propounding the aureate question to a dozen lieutenants. Without varying one word the lieutenants asked the men whose charity would feed the starving.

Not one won the ten thousand dollars.

One of the reporters with the air of a man whose life depends upon the bulletin-board asked H. R.:

"What's the answer?"

The others heard H. R. reply:

"Ten thousand dollars in cash!"

"Yes; but the word?"

"It is worth ten thousand of my dollars. You can make them yours."

"I guess it's a fake."

"That begins with an 'F.' Mine begins with an 'A.' The Mayor has the cash."

The reporter looked at the Mayor. His Honor's lips were moving inaudibly. He was going over all the words of five letters that began with an "A."

Among them was Agony.

Lubin again looked at the ten-thousand-dollar yellow-back and at H. R. and suddenly rushed out. On the way he collected nine erudite friends. They went to the nearest branch of the public library. Each got a dictionary and divided all the definitions under "A" into nine parts.

Nothing doing!

"I knew it was a fraud!" yelled the Onward man. "It isn't in the dictionary."

He fairly flew back to the Garden.

H. R. was just about to go into the arena. Lubin yelled:

"There is no such word in the dictionary. I protest against this—"

"You talk like an old-school Republican," said H. R., coldly, to Lubin.

It killed speech in the young man.

The Mayor clenched his right fist tightly. The ten-thousand-dollar treasury note lay crumpled within.

"Sir," said H. R. to him, with real dignity, "you have my word that the word is in the dictionary."

The Mayor, naturally thinking of political consequences, spoke, "Of course, Mr. Rutgers, I expect you to prove it."

"Sir, I shall see to it that you are re-elected!" H. R. said this so positively that his Honor blushed guiltily. "I am not stupid enough to endeavor to perpetrate so transparent a fraud as this young man charges me with. But it would be even greater stupidity to be unfair to honest guessers by telling Mr. Lubin or anybody else what the word is. It is of five letters and begins with an 'A' and it is in the dictionary. But I will tell you, your Honor, and you, Mr. Lubin, what I will do. I shall ask the question and give the answer to a man who will say whether it is a fair question and whether the word is a fair answer. His decision will be final. He will not, I am sure, send for the ten thousand dollars after he hears the answer."

The Mayor shook his head dubiously.

"Who is the man?"

Mr. Lubin, being young, went much further.

"There is no man in New York whose word—"

"Silence, sir! I know the man. If he says that the word answers the question, everybody in New York will be convinced—Socialists, Democrats, Republicans, Progressives, Suffragists, newspaper editors, and all."

"There can't be such a man," said Lubin, decisively.

H. R. smiled and turned to the Mayor.

"Your Honor, the man whom I will ask to vouch for my honesty and intelligence after I have confidentially disclosed the word to him, is the Cardinal Archbishop of New York. His word will be enough, I take it."

The Mayor beamed and said, "Certainly, Mr. Rutgers." He made up his mind then and there that H. R. must conduct his campaign for re-election.

"Even young Mr. Lubin, I take it, will not doubt the word of his Eminence."

Lubin was no fool. "Mr. Rutgers," he said, earnestly, "we hate our enemies, the capitalists. But we respect the only foes who are fighting us as we are fighting capitalism with honest convictions and real ardor. Of course, we think the Catholics—"

"Hold on, Lubin," said H. R., "that policeman's name is Flannery."

Lubin explained: "I was afraid you were going to give us a banker, Mr. Rutgers."

"Never!" said H. R. so emphatically that Lubin extended his right hand. They shook warmly.

A sound of applause came to their ears. The Mayor flushed with vexation. It was premature, he thought. He was wrong. It was Grace Goodchild.

Andrew Barrett ran in excitedly.

"Did you hear it?" he asked his chief. "Say, she is smiling to beat the band and the crowd is going crazy. Hear that?" And he began to dance a jig.

H. R. seized him by the arm and said:

"In exactly two minutes I shall enter."

Andrew Barrett rushed away to tip on the vox populi.

"Gentlemen," said H. R. to the reporters, "you had better go in."

They obeyed him. They were escorted to their table on the stage. They found there seven military bands that had volunteered their services and also their own weapons.

In the background of the stage was a huge placard:

S. A. S. A., Dept. T.
O. K.
H. R.,
Sec.

At each reporter's place was a typewritten sheet containing intelligent statistics of this stupendous charity.

The reporters saw in the arena long strings of tables, each six hundred and eighteen feet long, and benches to match. Each guest was allowed nineteen and one-half inches. The dishes were of water-proofed paper stamped S. A. S. A. Above each table were aluminum-painted pipes with faucets every ten seats for soup, milk, tea, and coffee.

"By keeping the tea, coffee, and soup in circulation wholesome warm drinks are secured," read the official statement, "besides obviating the assistance of eight hundred and sixteen waiters, who would have had to walk an aggregate of six hundred and seventy-seven miles from tables to kitchen."

The solid food was brought to the scores of small serving-tables by means of overhead conveyors and traveling-cranes, a sort of gigantic cash-carrier system operated by electricity. The food came in individual covered dishes, also of water-proofed paper. Everything was automatic. The S. A. S. A. system prevented spilling, waste, delay, inefficient waiters, and the dissatisfaction of the guests.

"You will observe," went on the official statement, "that for the first time in history the beneficiaries of the bounty of their fellow-men are treated as honored cash guests and not compelled to wait. The bread of charity is hard, but not when served by the S. A. S. A."

Leaflets containing much the same information had been placed in each of the thousands of seats in the Garden in lieu of programs. As each man entered he saw the pipes and the traveling-cranes and the mechanical waiters, and read the placard on the stage.

"Ain't it great?" inquired every charitable ticket-buyer. "In six and three-quarter minutes! No regiments of waiters. Everything automatic. Say, that H. R. is a wonder!"

It naturally took some time before they remembered to look at the starving people who were sitting at the long tables waiting to be fed.

They saw haggard faces, sunken-eyed, pale-lipped men and women and children. They saw trembling hands that fidgeted with knives and forks that were obviously unnecessary. They saw women at the tables trying to still whining children. They saw gray-haired heads fallen on soup-plates utterly exhausted from inanition.

They saw starving and penniless human beings by the thousand.

And the spectators, hosts of these guests, ran over the faces and the forms of the men and women and children—all alike in that all were hungry and all were penniless. And the same thought struck them all, and they expressed it audibly, with gusto, as though they were original thinkers, with the modesty of professional epigrammatists. All the spectators said:

"Say, it will be great to see them eat!"

New York's great big heart had spoken in no uncertain accents!

"And the greatest of these is charity."

XXIV

No beers; not even knowledge; merely insistence upon political equality!

In front of the Goodchild box H. R., whose progress resembled Buffalo Bill's minus the curls, paused. He looked intently at Grace Goodchild.

She knew something was expected of her—something spectacular, thrilling, befitting the imperial consort. She stared back at H. R. agonizedly. Couldn't he prompt her? What was she to do, and how and when?

"Grace! Grace! Grace!" shouted the free sandwiches.

Instantly as well as instinctively the other ninety-nine beautiful perfections rose in their boxes and waved their handkerchiefs.

The crowd, drawn thither by one of the noblest charities of the age, went wild. Grace was rich! She was theirs! They cheered what belonged to them!

Grace Goodchild, actually urged by her aristocratic friends, rose and bowed to H. R. with a queenly air.

H. R. bowed low to her and walked on.

When he reached the stage all the bands began to play the national anthem almost together.

A huge American flag was dropped from the middle of the roof to remind New York what its nationality was.

When the bands finished playing there flashed a dazzling electric sign over the stage.

In huge letters of light the people read:

WELL DONE, NEW YORK!

H. R.

The great building rocked under the applause.

New York can always be trusted to applaud itself.

The lights of the sign went out. H. R. motioned to his stage-manager.

In the back of the stage the curtain that told of the wonderful feeding system—50,000 people, 6¾ minutes!—fell.

A hush also fell on the audience, for back of it was another white sheet on which everybody read:

WATCH YOUR GUESTS EAT

YOU ARE FEEDING THEM!

H. R.

The audience, metamorphosed against its will into charitable hosts, now remembered the starving fellow-beings who were there to eat.

H. R. motioned. A bugler advanced to the front of the stage and sounded, Charge!

The soup began to pour out of the faucets. In fourteen seconds 12,137 cups of steaming soup à la Piccolini were before the guests.

The audience applauded madly. It was perfectly wonderful what charity could do—in fourteen seconds!

The guests were very hungry. The soup, however, was very hot. This made the drinking audible to the remotest recesses of the Garden.

Again the bugle blew. The charitable crowd instantly ceased to look at their guests and gazed at the electric traveling-cranes carrying laden trays. Over six thousand well-fed spectators pulled out their watches and timed the entrée.

It took twenty-nine seconds to place the entrée before the guests.

"Quick work!" said the watch-holders, approvingly. It took the guests much less than twenty-nine seconds to eat the entrée.

The bugle blew for the third time.

The roast appeared. The rear curtain dropped. Behind it was another on which could be read, without the aid of binoculars:

WATCH THEM EAT!

YOUR TICKET DID IT!

H. R.

It happened exactly as H. R. had told Bishop Phillipson. Each charitable person thought of his particular ticket and looked for his individual guest among the 12,137.

Each charitable person felt that his twenty-five cents had made possible the entire feast. At that moment H. R. could have been elected to any office within the gift of a free and sturdy people.

The guests began to eat more slowly.

The hosts, filled with kindliness and the desire to help their fellow-men by getting their money's worth, began to shout:

"Keep it up!"

"Go on!"

"Eat away!"

"Fill up! Fill up!"

"It's free! It's free!"

Charity is not dead, but sleepeth. When it awakens, it is ruthless.

Presently men and women at the tables, who had thought they were in paradise surrounded by angels, began to throw up their hands and shake their heads helplessly.

A storm of hisses greeted the ingratitude. Fat hosts began to shout:

"Fakes!"

"Fraud!"

"Take 'em out!"

In self-defense some of the guests began to rub their paunches. Here and there those who remembered close experiences with Christian mobs rose in their benches ostentatiously, let out their belts, and sat down again determinedly.

The hosts clapped madly. They understood, and therefore forgave. Then the hosts began to think that fifteen cents would have been enough.

The bugle blew. Dessert was served. It was determinedly put away.

Having convicted themselves of both charity and extravagance, each host felt that he was not only a philanthropist but a New-Yorker.

The bugle blew again. The paper dishes were gathered up, and also such of the knives and forks as the guests had not put in their pockets. The trays were whisked away by the traveling-cranes.

Suddenly all the lights went out. With the utter darkness a hush fell upon the vast audience. Then from all the bands came a mighty crashing chord. Instantly there blazed an electric sign that stretched from one side of the Garden to the other above the stage.

And both hosts and guests saw an American flag in red, white, and blue lights, and below it, in letters ten feet high, they read:

AND THE GREATEST OF THESE

IS CHARITY

H. R.

Everybody cheered, for everybody agreed with the sentiment. Some even thought it was original.

Then all the lights were turned on again. The tables were carried away by the cranes. The guests, directed by H. R.'s lieutenants, formed in line and paraded around the Garden. The lame, the old, the young, the hopeless, the wicked, the maimed—all who had hungered—marched jauntily round the vast arena that their benefactors might see who it was that really had made the Mammoth Hunger Feast a success. They carried their heads erect, proudly, conscious of their importance in the world. The benefactors thereupon cheered the beneficiaries. By so doing they showed what they thought of the benefactors. It was none the less noble!

The reporters looked at their watches. A full page on Saturday night is no laughing matter to the make-up man. One of them rose and asked H. R.:

"Is this all? We've got to write—"

"It is not all!" answered H. R., and motioned to the trumpeter, who instantly blew the Siegfried motif. The crowd looked stageward. The rear drop-curtain showed in high letters:

DANCING!

The guests hesitated.

The curtain was lowered a few feet. Above "Dancing!" the crowd now read:

FREE OF CHARGE!

Everybody started for the floor.

H. R. left the stage and walked into the Goodchild box. Grace had been receiving congratulations all the evening until she had convinced herself that this was her dinner. It was all H. R. could do to force his way through the plutocracy in the Imperial Box. Talking to Grace at the same time were three young men who never before had accepted Mrs. Goodchild's invitations to marry Grace. But Grace was now the most-talked-of girl in all New York. And she was officially very beautiful and Goodchild père was not enough. And Grace was very kind to all of them. All empresses are kindly when they haven't Dyspepsia or Dynamite Dreams. All unpleasant things seem to begin with a "D." There is Death and Damnation; also Duty.

Mr. Goodchild frowned when he saw H. R. in the box. But when he saw that H. R. never even looked at him he became really angry.

Mrs. Goodchild looked alarmed and hissed, "Don't you talk to him, Grace!"

Grace, knowing herself desired by the most eligible young men in her set, decided to squelch H. R. in public. H. R., however, walked past everybody, looking neither to left nor right. Feeling themselves treated as so many chairs or hat-racks, the élite of New York began to feel like intruders.

Then, as an imperial mandate is given, H. R. said to Miss Goodchild:

"We're needed!"

He offered her his arm. The young men rose and made room for him. Duty called, and they never interfered with duty.

Grace hypnotically obeyed, for H. R. was frowning. Together they walked down to the floor of the Garden.

The Public Sentiment Corps did their duty. They had not yet received the beer. They shouted, frenziedly:

"H. R.! H. R.! H. R.!"

The public took up the cheering. Thousands of outstretched hands reached out for his. But H. R. merely bowed, right and left, and walked to the middle of the floor.

"Smile at them!" he whispered, fiercely, to Grace.

She did. She knew then what it was to be a Queen. She felt an overpowering kindliness toward all these delightful, simple people. Reggie was not brilliant, but that wasn't expected of a Van Duzen. She did not love Reggie, but she liked him. As Mrs. Van Duzen she would always have what she liked. She would never marry H. R.! It was preposterous.

The band began to play. The crowd, instead of dancing, moved toward the sides—to give H. R. room to dance.

Never before on Manhattan Island had such a triumph of personality fallen to the lot of any man.

H. R. put his arm about Grace Goodchild. She shrank from the symbolism of bondage.

"The world is looking on!" he admonished her.

Knowing that she danced very well, she now had but one fear—that her partner might make her ridiculous.

But H. R. was the best dancer she had ever honored.

She felt her resolution not to marry him slipping away. He led divinely. She felt that she herself had never danced so well in her life. He brought out the best that was in her.

"Ever try the Rutgers Roll?" he whispered, tensely.

"N-no! she gasped.

"Let yourself go!"

When a woman lets herself go, all is over except the terms of the capitulation. She let herself go desperately, because she was forced to do it; fearfully, because of the appalling possibility of a fiasco.

She did not know how it was done. She had looped the loop and was still dancing away—a new but unutterably graceful undulation of torso and rhythmical leg work and exquisite sinuous motions of the arms and hands.

A storm of applause came to her ears, a hurricane steeped in saccharine. A man who could dance like that was fit to be any girl's husband!

The élite flocked on the floor and began to indulge in old-fashioned specialties, some of which were nearly a fortnight old. You heard delighted remarks:

"That's Mrs. Vandergilt!"

"There goes Reggie Van Duzen!"

"Look at Katherine Van Schaick!"

Then the New York that Americans call ruffianly, impolite, vulgar, selfish, spendthrift, money-loving, self-satisfied, and stupid, also began to dance decorously! The veteran reporters did not believe their eyes, but they made a note of the fact, nevertheless.

Grace was nearly out of breath. She said, "I'm—I'm—I'm—"

"Certainly, dear girl." And H. R. deftly piloted her out of the crush. They stopped dancing, and he gave her his arm. She took it.

"Grace," he said, "when will you marry me?"

"Never!" she answered, determinedly. "And you must not call me Grace."

"Right-O!" he said, gratefully. "I'll call to-morrow afternoon. Shall I speak to Bishop Phillipson, or will father—"

"I said never!" she frowned.

"I heard you," he smiled, reassuringly. "I—"

Andrew Barrett and the reporters came up to him.

"What about the men that fell for the beer?"

"Oh, give 'em the left-over grub, if you boys think it's right. But don't print it. The W. C. T. U. would howl at the thought of giving food to people who had first wanted booze."

Grace looked on, marveling at the way he ordered things done and at the way men listened to his words.

"But what about that ten-thousand-dollar cash to the coupon-holders?" asked young Mr. Lubin, finally taking his eyes off the beautiful capitalist. Feeling that he was beginning to condone with capitalistic crimes, he spoke sternly to H. R. in self-defense.

"Oh yes!" said H. R. and turned to Grace. "My dear, I'll have to leave you. Shall I take you to mother?"

Reggie Van Duzen saved him the trip.

"Say, Mr. Rutgers, could I have—"

"Yes, my boy!" gratefully smiled H. R. He shook hands with Reggie and said, very seriously, "I leave her in your care!"

Reggie, who was very young and careless, flushed proudly. Here was a man who understood men! He would protect Grace with his life. And it gave him a new respect for other women.

"I don't blame you, Grace," he said, with his twelve-year-old's smile that clung to him through life and made even poor people like him. "He is a wonder! Beekman Rutgers had the nerve to tell me that all the Rutgerses are like H. R. What do you think of that?"

Grace answered, "Certainly not!"

She was not going to marry H. R., but if you intend to have it known that you have refused to marry a man who is crazy to marry you, the greater the man the greater the refusal. She added, with conviction:

"There is only one Rutgers like that and his first name is Hendrik."

Reggie nodded, looked at her, sighed, and began to dance.

He didn't touch H. R. as a dancer.

"Can you do the Rutgers Roll?" she asked.

"No!" he confessed.

She could never marry Reggie. She knew it now. But of course she would not marry H. R.

In the mean time H. R., accompanied by the reporters, drove to the Cardinal's residence. They explained their mission to a pleasant-faced young priest and sent in their cards.

The young priest began to make excuses and spoke of the lateness of the hour.

H. R. said to him, deferentially: "Monsignor, we have come to the Cardinal because he is the supreme authority in this case. The Mayor of New York and the representative of the Socialist press, Mr. Lubin, here, have agreed to leave it to the decision of his Eminence."

The Cardinal sent back word that he would see Mr. Rutgers.

H. R. went in alone. He saw not the head of the Catholic hierarchy, but a man in whose eyes was that light which comes from believing in God and from hearing the truth from fellow-men who told him their sins. H. R. bowed respectfully before the aged priest.

"How may I help you? asked the Cardinal. He was an old man and this was a young man. No more; no less; both of them children.

"Your Eminence, I am the unfortunate American who in his misguided way has tried to feed the hungry in order that New York's grown children may realize that charity is not dead. If I have used the methods of a mountebank it is because I have labored where God had been forgotten, almost."

"Generalities are not always verities, though they may come close to them. I know about your work. I shall be glad to do what I can for you."

"Thank you, sir. I promised to give ten thousand dollars in cash to any New-Yorker who could answer this question: What is it we have all heard about from earnest childhood and that we acknowledge exists; that is neither a person nor a beast, neither a thing nor an object, but something that no man can kill, though it is dead to-day; that all men need and most New-Yorkers neglect; that should be present everywhere and is found in no trade? The answer is a word of five letters and begins with 'A.' There is a synonym that, though not exactly obsolete, is at least obsolescent."

"Five letters? Is it in English?" smiled the Cardinal.

"It is in every good English dictionary. I think the dictionary is the only place in which I can find it nowadays."

"Oh no, my son." And the Cardinal shook his head in kindly dissent.

"Reverend sir, I said anybody with brains could guess it."

"It was not an ingenuous question, Mr. Rutgers."

"It was a coupon that entitled anybody who held it to answer the question and get ten thousand dollars. It was part of a ticket for which the holder paid twenty-five cents to feed a starving fellow-being. But what I wish you to do is to assure the reporters that it was a legitimate question. The word is Anima."

"I knew it."

"Because you use it every day."

"But your condition—"

"New York's condition, your Eminence," corrected H. R., politely. "I said the synonym, soul, would answer. Nobody won the ten thousand dollars. New York will cudgel its brains because it did not win the ten thousand dollars. In searching for the missing word it may find something more precious—the missing soul."

"Your way is not our way, but perhaps—" The Cardinal was silent, his kindly eyes meditatively bent on H. R.

"The reporters, your Eminence—" began H. R., apologetically.

"Ah yes!" And the white-haired prelate accompanied H. R. to the room where the reporters were waiting.

"I have heard Mr. Rutgers's question. The word of five letters beginning with an 'A' I think answers it, from his point of view, which is not unreasonable. I cannot say that the inability to guess proves the non-possession of brains—"

"The Cardinal knew at once," put in H. R.

"But that nobody should have guessed is astonishing."

"They were not all Christians," explained H. R.

"What is the answer?" asked a reporter.

"A word of five letters beginning with 'A,'" said H. R.

"Can't we publish it?"

"It is our secret now. New York is very rich. When it discovers that one word—or its synonym of four letters—it will be infinitely richer in every way."

The reporters brightened up. They saw columns and columns of guesses. But the Cardinal looked thoughtful. Then he said to H. R.:

"Come and see me again."

"Thank you. I will, your Eminence."

The Cardinal bowed his head gravely and H. R. and the newspaper men left.

"Are you a Catholic?" the World man asked.

"No," answered H. R., doubtfully.

"All roads lead to Rome," interrupted Lubin, with a sneer.

"Excepting one, Lubin," said H. R., pleasantly. "Keep on going, my boy. It's nice and warm there."

XXV

But H. R.'s work was not done. Before he retired for the night, knowing that his position in society and in the world of affairs was established on an adamant base, he nevertheless composed thirty-eight communications for the Public Sentiment Corps to send out the next day to the newspapers. A sample will suffice:

Other specimens emphasized the non-sectarian phase of such charities as that conceived and carried to success by one of the most remarkable men in a city where the best brains of the country admittedly resided. Intelligent charity, wisely discriminating, truly helpful, had been placed for all time among the possibilities. Systematized charities were delusions, chimeras, thin air. There was a demand for the opportunity to be decent and kind. Let the newspapers supply it. "If your readers want lurid accounts of murder trials and divorce cases, let them have them. If they want expert advice on how to help their fellow-men give it to them, also. It remains to be seen whether there is one newspaper in New York that knows real news when it sees it!"

There were thirty-eight epistolary models in all.

In the afternoon of the day following the Mammoth Hunger Feast H. R. called at the Goodchild house.

"Frederick, tell Miss Grace—"

"She 'as gone, sir!" said Frederick, tragically.

"Did she leave word when she would return?"

"She 'as gone, sir!" persisted Frederick, in abysmal distress at the news and at his inability to convey it in letters of molten meteors. He added, "To Philadelphia."

It sounded to him like Singapore. He did not think there was much difference, anyhow.

"Philadelphia?" echoed H. R., blankly.

"Yes, sir!" said Frederick, with sad triumph.

"Whatever in the world can she—" H. R. caught himself in time. He nearly had reduced himself to the level of humanity—well called dead level—by confessing ignorance aloud.

"Mrs. Goodchild is at 'ome, sir!" suggested Frederick, ingratiatingly.

"Damned good place for her!" muttered H. R., savagely, and gave Frederick a five-dollar gold piece. In some respects, Frederick admitted, America was ahead of the old country.

H. R. walked away frowning fiercely. He went nearly a block before he smiled. Love always interferes with the chemistry of the stomach and hits the brain through the toxins. What an ass he was not to have realized the truth on the instant:

Grace had run away from him!

He returned to his office and told Andrew Barrett to set the Public Sentiment Corps at work on the thirty-eight models he had prepared. Then he wrote forty-two more. The consciousness of Grace's confessed weakness gave him an eloquence he himself had never before known. They were masterpieces.

The newspapers always know they have made a bull's-eye when they get letters from their readers. It is an obvious fact that a man who writes is a steady customer—at least, until his communication is printed.

The Public Sentiment Corps merely started the ball rolling. An avalanche of letters from all sorts and conditions of men, women, and merchants descended upon the editorial offices.

It became clear, even to the newspapers, that people in New York were willing to give, but they didn't know how. The papers, therefore, announced that they would thereafter run Charity as a regular department. It would be strictly non-sectarian. The world's greatest authorities and most eminent philanthropists had been asked to contribute—not money; articles. The World printed a full-page biography of St. Vincent de Paul and satanically invited some of its pet aversions to send in their autobiographies.

All the papers informed the charitable men and women of New York that checks, clothing, supplies, etc., could be sent to the Charity editor.

All the papers, also, invited H. R. to accept the editorship of the page. His duties would consist of allowing his name to be printed at the top of the page.

He declined their offers with profound regret, but promised to give interviews to the reporters whenever they wished. Personal matters precluded his acceptance of their kind invitations.

The personal matters consisted of the boom in sandwich advertising. It was not uncommon to see "Sandwich-board Maker, approved by the S. A. S. A.," in signs in various parts of the city. A new industry!

XXVI

They decided to adjourn to the Fairview-Hartford for luncheon. Before so doing they talked.

Ruth asked a thousand excited questions about the Hunger Feast, fame, and the Rutgers Roll. Grace answered, and then confided to Ruth her iron resolve never to marry H. R. She admitted that he was as great as the papers said, even greater, and, besides, good-looking. But her determination was inflexible.

Ruth, to show she approved, told Grace that Monty—the writer—was her fiancé's chum and African hunting-companion. Monty himself told Miss Goodchild that there was a good story in the whole affair. In fact, two stories. In both of them the heroine—he looked at her and nodded his head convincingly. "Drawn from life," he added. "Of course I'll have to know you—I mean, the heroine—better. But don't you think she'd make a great one?"

She wasn't thrilled a bit. She was not even politely interested. What was such talk, Grace impartially asked herself, to one who had been madly cheered by thousands?

Still, he was a nice boy, not so consciously clever as New-Yorkers who chose to regard themselves as vaudeville wits.

Finally they got into the waiting motor and went to the Fairview-Hartford, where the eating is better than in any New York hotel.

As they were about to enter the dining-room Grace Goodchild put on her restaurant look of utter unconsciousness and stone deafness and blindness, which had grown into a habit since she became famous.

She entered the dining-room ahead of the others, as usual. She took nine steps before she stopped short. Her face went pale.

Nobody had stopped eating!

Nobody had turned around to stare!

Nobody had stage-whispered, "There she is!"

No woman had said, "Do you think she is as beautiful as the newspapers try to make out?"

Not one imbecile male look; not one feminine sneer! Nothing! No fame!

"What's the matter?" asked Monty in alarm.

Grace felt an overwhelming desire to stand there until the people looked, even if it took a year.

As the century-long seconds passed she barely could resist the impulse to shout, "Fire!"

"Anything wrong?" whispered Monty, with real concern.

"N-no-nothing!" she stammered, and followed Ruth, who had passed her, unnoticing.

Her color returned as wrath dispelled amazement.

For the first time since H. R. began to woo her in public places with sandwiches Grace Goodchild actually had to eat food in a restaurant. In New York famous people don't go to restaurants to eat.

She was distraite throughout the luncheon. She thought Monty was an ass.

And the other feeding beasts must have read the New York papers! There was absolutely no excuse.

In the evening the same thing happened. That is, nothing happened. The Fiddles' friends tried to be particularly nice to her by talking of the opera, novels, the dancing-craze, the resurgence of the Republican party, and cubism. It only made it worse. And not one knew the Rutgers Roll!

The next day Ruth and the young men took her to the Philadelphia Country Club. Same thing! And later to a dance at the Fitz-Marlton. Ditto!

Her good looks, her gowns, and her nice manners made a very favorable impression on all of Ruth's friends, male and female, young and old. Hang 'em, that's all it did!

It was like Lucullus being asked to eat sanitary biscuits.

She had wanted peace. But not in a burial crypt. On the fourth day of extinction she said to Ruth after breakfast:

"My dear, I must return to New York!"

"Oh no! Grace, darling, I've accepted seventeen—"

"I must, Ruth. I simply must!"

"But Monty is coming at one to take us to his father's—"

Grace felt like saying that Monty could take himself to Hades or to Atlantic City. But she merely shook her head. She dared not trust herself to speak. Ruth appealed to her mother. But Mrs. Fiddle shrugged her shoulders and said: "No use! New York!" She herself was a Van Duzen.

And so Grace Goodchild returned home, five days before she was expected.

"I couldn't stand it, mother," she explained, almost tearfully.

"Very well," said Mrs. Goodchild.

What else can a mother say in New York? And isn't it right to stand by your own flesh and blood?

Grace hesitated, full of perplexities and unformulated doubts and an exasperating sense of indecision. She felt like opening the book of her soul to other eyes. To hear advice or, at least, opinions.

"I want to have a heart-to-heart talk with you, mother," said Grace, hesitatingly. Then she apologized, self-defensively. "It concerns my future, dear."

"Yes, darling," said Mrs. Goodchild, absently. "I don't think. I'd like it quite like Celestine's— Grace, love, will you run over to Raquin's spring exhibition at the Fitz-Marlton and look at it? It is next to the black that Mrs. Vandergilt liked. I have an appointment with Celestine—"

Grace knew that the selection of a husband could wait, for fashions in that line do not change so quickly as in skirts. She dutifully said, "I will!" She also had her eye on one.

Before going to Raquin's display she stopped at Oldman's.

The store flunky opened the door of her motor and smiled happily when he saw who it was. She was made subtly conscious that he was dying to announce her name to the world at the top of his enthusiastic voice. Life in New York had its compensations, after all.

She entered. The shop-girls whispered to the customers on whom they were waiting. The customers turned quickly and stared at Grace Goodchild.

"She often comes here!" she heard the pretty little thing in charge of seventy-two glove-boxes say proudly to a client.

The girl who waited on Grace was a stranger. Nevertheless, when Grace told her "I'll take these!" the girl said, "Very well, Miss Goodchild."

"Oh!" gasped Grace. "You know me?"

"What d'ye t'ink I am?" said the girl, indignantly. "Say, it was great, Miss Goodchild!"

The worship in the girl's eyes kept the language from being offensive.

"Thank you!"

"I hope you'll be very happy, Miss Goodchild," said the girl, and blushed. "Oh, I didn't mean to be—I—I couldn't help wishing it, Miss Goodchild!"

"I'm sure I'm very grateful for your good wishes," Grace told her, graciously.

The child's—age twenty-four—eyes filled with tears. As Grace walked away, Mayme's lips moved raptly. She was memorizing dem woids.

On her way out Grace went through the same craning of necks, the same vivid curiosity, the same half-audible murmurs, the same spitefulness in the eyes of the women who, though rich, were not famous. Everybody is so disgustingly rich nowadays that society had begun to applaud such remarks as, "I've had to give up one of my motors," or, "Jim says he won't put the Mermaid in commission this year; simply can't afford it."

At Raquin's wonderful exhibition of models Grace saw exactly what she wished to see. It would be worthy of her and of her throat. One who is photographed many times a week has to have gowns; not to have them is almost immoral. Grace was so concerned with doing her duty toward the public that she forgot that she had come to see the third one, next to Mrs. Vandergilt's black. She was nearly half-way home before she remembered what her mother had asked her to do.

Grace went back to the Fitz-Marlton. Dress was a public service. Mrs. Goodchild's clothes must tell the public whose mother she was.

She told the chauffeur "Home," and began to think.

Pleasure could be made a duty. Blessed indeed is she in whose mind, as in a vast cathedral, pleasure and duty solemnly contract nuptials.

This beautiful figure of speech in turn made her think of marriage. If she married Reggie or Mr. Watson or Percival or one of the others, what would her married life be? What?

One long visit to Philadelphia!

"I could kill him!" she said to the flower-holder, frowning fiercely. Happening to catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror for that purpose provided in an town cars, Grace smoothed her brow and smiled. A man would have required slathers of flattery to dispel ill-humor. With a woman, the truth is enough. A mirror does not lie. Providence is more than kind to them; even automatic.

If she wouldn't marry Reggie or the others and did marry H. R.— But how could she?

She was an imaginative American girl with a sunshiny soul and much vitality who lived in New York. She thought of her marriage to H. R. She thought of the newspapers! The mound of clippings that instantly loomed before her made her gasp.

What wouldn't the newspapers do when she married H. R., especially if H. R., prompted by love, really made an effort?

She was forced to admit that he was a remarkable man!

"Papa," she said aloud, "will never consent!"

Papa's life had been made miserable by H. R. Indeed, the only thing that reconciled him to the ungrateful task of living was the steady growth of the bank's deposits. It was due, Mr. Goodchild often declared, to his management. But he couldn't speak about H. R. without profanity.

Parental opposition was not everything. Marriage was a serious thing.

XXVII

"Grace," he said, gently, "for twenty-nine days I've been the unhappiest man in all New York. For five, the unhappiest in the entire world!"

"Will you kindly release my hand?" she asked. No sooner had the words left her lips than she realized they were piffle. Then she began to laugh. It was the first official acknowledgment that no social barriers divided them.

"Suppose," she asked, with a humorously intended demureness, "that I wished to use my handkerchief?"

H. R. with his disengaged hand took his own out of his pocket and held it to her nose.

"Blow!" he said, tenderly.

"I don't want to," she retorted and tried to pull away her hand.

He replaced his handkerchief in his pocket.

"All over but the mailing-list," he said to her. "Sit down here; by me!"

Something within her stirred to revolt. Unfortunately, he did not release her hand, but led her to the historic divan—part of the suite for which Mr. Goodchild had paid eighteen thousand five hundred dollars in the Sunday supplement. Marie Antoinette had been seated in that very place when de Rohan brought the famous diamond necklace to show her. (Same issue; third column, fourth page.)

"I think that for sheer, unadulterated impudence—" she began, without any anger, because she was too busy trying to decide what she must do to him to put an end to a situation that had become intolerable—at least in its present shape.

"Grace, don't talk nonsense. Just let me look at you."

He held her at arm's-length and looked into her eyes. He saw that they were blue and clear and steady and looked fearlessly at him—the stare of a child who doesn't know why she should be afraid.

If they don't watch out that fearlessness becomes anything but childish in New York.

He continued to stare steadily, unblinkingly, into them.

"I can't stand it! I can't stand it!" he said, hoarsely, and blinked his eyes. Then he closed them—tight. Coward!

She had felt his keen eyes bore through her garments, through her flesh, into her very soul of souls—a look that frightened until it warmed; and after it warmed, it again frightened—in another way.

She saw a wonderfully well-shaped head and very clean-looking hair and a very healthy-looking, clear-cut face and very strong shoulders and very masterful hands. And from all of him came waves that thrilled—the mysterious effluvia that compels and dominates the woman to whom Life means this life.

At length he spoke with an effort. "We shall be married in Grace Chapel." He grew calmer, and added, "People will think it was named for you!"

"I am not going to marry you," she declared, vehemently.

"No. I am going to marry you. After you are my wife we naturally will talk about it. That will enable us to learn whether we shall stay married or not. Grace," he said, earnestly, "I'll do anything you wish."

"Leave this house, then."

"It's your house, dear," he reminded her, gently, "and I am your guest. That puts it out of your power to enforce your desire. Don't you see?"

She tacitly admitted that there was an etiquette of hospitality by asking, coldly, "Why should I marry you?"

"I can't give you as many reasons as I might if you asked why I should marry you. The principal two are that I love you and that I am the only man whom Grace Goodchild can marry and still remain Grace Goodchild."

It seemed to her impossible that he could be sitting beside her talking about marriage seriously, and more than impossible that she could be sitting there listening.

"People know you as Grace Goodchild. After the marriage they will know you as the Grace Goodchild that H. R. has married. What would become of you if you cease to be Grace Goodchild?"

She thought of Philadelphia, and shuddered. But he thought he had not convinced her. He rose and said to her:

"Oh, my love! You are so utterly and completely beautiful that if I have a man's work to do I shall succeed only because the reward is you! I have come to the turning-point in my career and I must have the light of your eyes to guide me."

She did not love him and therefore she heard his words very distinctly. But she was a woman, and she was thrilled by his look and his voice and by his manner. He was no longer a mountebank to her, but an unusual man. And when she thought of not marrying him her mind reverted in some curious way to Philadelphia and its subtle suggestions of sarcophagi and the contents thereof. But this man must not think that he could win her by stage speeches even though they might be real. She said to him, determinedly:

"We might as well understand each other—"

"I am the creature; you are the creator," he quickly interjected. "You are very beautiful, very! but you have much more than beauty. You have brains, and I think your heart is a marvelous lute—"

"A what?" she asked, curiously. No woman will allow the catalogue to be skimped or obscured.

"A lute, a wonderful musical instrument that some day will be played by a master hand. When you cease to be merely a girl and become a woman, with your capacity for loving when you let yourself go! Ah!" He closed his eyes and trembled.

All women, at heart, love to be accused of being psychic pyromaniacs.

"There will I give thee my loves!" he muttered, quoting from the "Song of Songs."

She knew it wasn't original because he said it so solemnly. She dared not ask from whom the quotation was. It sounded like Swinburne.

"Come!" He was not quoting this time. He stood before her, his face tense, his eyes aflame, his arms stretched imploringly toward her.

She met his gaze—and then she could not look away. She saw the wonderful man of whom the papers had printed miles of columns, who had made all New York talk of him for weeks, who was young and strong and comely and masterful, who had an old name and a fighting jaw, whose words stirred the pulses like a quickstep on the piccolo.

And his eyes made her understand what was meant by actinic rays. They were looking at her, piercing through her garments until she felt herself subtly divested of all concealments.

And then she trembled as if his eyes physically touched her! She thrilled, she blushed, she frowned—for she felt herself desired. And her thoughts became the thoughts of a woman who is wooed by life, by love, by a man's red blood and her own. Her New York inhibitions turned to ashes. Life-long mental habits withered and shriveled and vanished in microscopic flakes until into her self-hypnotized consciousness there came the eternal query of the female who has stopped running, "What can I give to this man?"

And Hendrik, seeing her face, held his shaking hands before her, impatiently beckoning to her to come. Some unseen spirit took her slim hands and, without consulting her, placed them in his.

And then he kissed her.

The heavens flamed. She pushed him from her and sank back trembling upon the divan on which Marie Antoinette was not sitting on the day when de Rohan did not bring the diamond necklace that did not cause the French Revolution, though Mr. Goodchild had paid eighteen thousand five hundred dollars for the historic suite, in the Sunday supplement.