The Bird in the Box

CHAPTER VIII
A WOMAN'S CAPRICE—A FATHER'S REPENTANCE—A
LOVER'S SELF-CONQUEST—A GIRL'S PITY

When Simon Hart agreed to his cousin's plan, and Rachel, despite her protests, was conveyed from the hospital to Julia Burgdorf's house, he did not experience the unpleasantness he had anticipated. The personality of his cousin was not agreeable to him. He had never liked her; partly, because he was jealous of a social prestige which he himself had never been able to attain; partly, because he disapproved of her dropping her family name, for Julia, when a child, had adopted the cognomen of a distant relative from whom she had inherited a fortune. But the fundamental reason for his disapprobation lay deeper, concealed in the current of their common blood.

Though diametrically opposed to Julia in character, Simon was able to comprehend in her traits which he especially disliked. They were like two compounds containing different proportions of the same ingredient. In Simon the strain of their common ancestry had been fused with a widely alien current. From his mother, a pale-featured, down-looking woman, much given to keeping her own counsel, he had inherited his air of secrecy, his pallor, as well as his capacity for profound and delicate feeling. But in Julia the original current of the Hart blood retained all its primitive strength; plainly, she was one whose forefathers had loved "wine and women and wild boars," and in every trait she was more closely related to old Nicholas than was Simon. Though Nicholas now quaveringly sought the beauties of a butterfly's wing, time was when he had pursued woman's glances with the same ardour; in fact, he had been in his day a cup of lusty life. It was the very irony of fate that this legacy of the Hart spirit had passed his own son and descended in all its troubled richness on his sister's child. The only difference between uncle and niece was that which is accounted for by sex. Julia, being no fool, accepted the restraints that hamper the existence of a conventional woman. Like Nicholas she had slight sympathy with Simon. The antagonism of the cousins was mutual. In speaking of Julia, Simon habitually employed an ironical tone; while Julia treated Simon with condescension, and, behind his back, with ridicule. But now one subject united them.

Immediately after the death of old David, Rachel, exhausted and ill-nurtured, was conveyed to a private hospital, a victim of typhoid fever. For a time the outcome of the struggle appeared dubious, but three weeks after the fever declared itself, she rallied. Then it was that Simon went to Julia with the general points of her story and a hesitating request.

The girl was absolutely alone, without relatives or friends. Would Julia visit her? The picture was a pathetic one, and marvelling at Simon's newly developed powers of eloquence, she consented. At sight of the invalid, her curiosity, already lively, increased to a point that assured decisive action. Moreover, she conceived for the young girl, with her forlorn face, one of those superficial attachments with which such women sometimes seek to fill their empty lives.

As soon as Rachel was convalescent Julia insisted, nay, commanded, that she be transferred to her own house. A visit of a few days in novel and comfortable surroundings, she argued, would tend to hasten her recovery. The fact was, Julia desired further opportunity to study the girl who had made a conquest of her cousin. Simon's ill-concealed interest in her afforded Julia delicious amusement. She had never deemed him capable of falling in love. When he announced that he hoped sometime to marry Miss Beckett, Julia's amazement was complete. Hoped! She gasped, then shrugged. What did he mean by taking that tone, a man of his position? It was mock humility—hypocrisy more disgusting than any of which she had dreamed him capable. But she soon discovered that his lack of assurance was justified.

At first she doubted. The "young person" (for it was thus Julia in thought designated Rachel) but cherished deep-laid plans, holding Simon the more securely by appearing not to desire to hold him. It was clever acting, and notwithstanding that she felt bound to oppose the ridiculous match, Julia could but admire the fair schemer who used her weakness and illness as additional bait for hooking such a fine fish. Then this theory exploded and she saw the situation in its piquancy:

Rachel was actually indifferent to the entire question of the marriage.

Having made the astonishing discovery, Julia renounced her worldliness for the time. Had the circumstances been other than just what they were, had the stranger been as eager for the marriage as Simon himself, Julia assuredly would have employed every means to frustrate their plans, and would have taken a malicious pleasure in her own manoeuvring because of rooted antipathy to Simon. As matters stood, however, she resolved to do the ignorant and unambitious young thing a service in spite of herself. Instead of a few days, Julia begged to keep the invalid indefinitely, and it was owing to her entreaties, rather than to Simon's arguments, that Rachel finally consented to remain a fortnight.

Then Julia applied herself, with the utmost discretion, to furthering the romance. She attempted to prick the girl to interest by discreetly praising Simon. He was very much looked up to by members of the Jewellers' Association of which he was the president; as a business man, as a member of society at large, he was irreproachable: and she made these statements without a curl of the lip. Rachel listened in silence. Then Julia employed other tactics. She waxed spiteful in her remarks about her cousin; she even laughed at his peculiarities. An oyster was not more secretive, and save for his trick of running his fingers through his hair in moments of agitation or excitement, one would never dream that he knew an emotion. At that, the other raised resentful eyes. She saw nothing ridiculous about Mr. Hart; on the contrary, his manner was unusually dignified. In justice to him she avowed the fact, then would say no more.

As yet Rachel was too weak to consider her situation. Grief had excluded every other emotion; even memory of Emil had flagged. Ill at ease and oppressed by the luxury around her, she strove to conceal every sign of her desperate sorrow and it was only at night that she relaxed command over herself. Then, convulsed with sobs, she lay in the darkness and, stretching out her hands, whispered, "Grandfather, are you there?" Her despair was the deeper because of the fantastic conceit that old David's simple soul was kept away by the richness of her surroundings. Had she remained in the poor rooms of the tenement, his spirit could have found her readily, descending out of that patch of pure sky visible through the dormer windows, even as the souls of saints and angels descend out of the blue in old pictures.

These woful imaginings, incident to physical weakness, for a time oppressed her; but later, as her strength came, she turned from them. She began to look at life with apprehensive eyes, though she still said little.

Simon felt that she was reading him and agonized under her gaze. Vainly he tried to speak the word that honour, pity, decency demanded. Could he have beheld her existing without masculine companionship, he would have released her, but the possibility of an unknown rival in the shrouded future, a rival whose love she would return, sealed his lips. Out of her presence the tension of the situation was relieved. When no longer confronted by her helpless and mutely accusing youth, it was a simple matter for him to convince himself that the step he had contemplated was unnecessary. Girls as young as she were material easily moulded; if she did not love him now, she would later. Meanwhile the situation was ambiguous, and for that reason, if for no other, an early marriage was advisable.

Despite these arguments, he began to show the effect of mental torture. The man was passing through fire. At last even Julia was moved by his look. As Rachel was the cause of the unnatural, strained situation, she proposed that something be done to rouse her spirits.

"Give her a taste of pleasure," Julia advised, "She's a little frozen ghost now, but I've yet to see the girl whose gloom won't yield to amusement and excitement."

With an eagerness almost pathetic, Simon agreed to this proposal. But just what could they do?

The answer came promptly: "Dress her properly and carry her off to some gay resort for the early spring. I will take her in charge, if you say so?"

But before they had developed a plan, the problem was unexpectedly solved. Emily Short was the curative agent.

It was a cold morning in March, and Emily, barring the interruption of the doctor's visit, had been with Rachel for an hour when Simon arrived. As he entered his cousin's hall he met the physician who was just getting into his great-coat. Simon paused to consult him.

"These women are certainly astonishing creatures," the physician remarked, settling his muffler. "The more experience I have in the medical profession, the more I feel that, owing to their nervous vitality, their recuperative power is prodigious. Miss Beckett has just had some news, I gather," he explained, "and it's done more for her than any amount of tonics. I imagine she knows very clearly what she wants to do, and my advice is, don't oppose her. Good morning, Mr. Hart." And the doctor passed out through the door which was opened for him by the obsequious butler.

Simon felt a sense of gnawing irritation.

"Now does that mean that he advises allowing her to return to that unsanitary tenement, if that chances to be her wish," he asked himself, "or has Julia set something on foot without consulting me?"

It was not without a struggle that Simon had brought himself to trust his cousin; and now, in spite of her continued kindness and avowed interest in his plans, he constantly dreaded her interference.

It being the usual hour for his visit, he did not have himself announced, but proceeded directly to Julia's sitting room where Rachel usually spent the morning. As he went toward the door, the thick carpet deadened his footsteps and he heard Rachel speaking in a voice wrought to a high pitch:

"I never imagined things happened this way outside of novels. But is Father alive? What do you say?"

"I should hardly say that he is," replied Emily. "If he were merely sending the money to you by this person, who is so afraid of telling his name, he'd have been apt to write and explain things."

"Yes, of course. But I must do what I can to find this John Smith. Oh, I shall get well now! And isn't it providential, all this money, and from my own Father? I can pay my debts now." The tone was jubilant.

Simon Hart, with a sensation of fear and guilt, did not wait to hear more. Pushing aside the strings of beads, the rattling of which jarred intolerably on his nerves, he entered the coquettish apartment. As he approached Rachel, avoiding collision with the divers chairs, screens, tables with which the place was littered, his face revealed little of what he was feeling.

On perceiving him, she half rose. Her breath grew short—or did he imagine it?—her eyes narrowed, then filled once more with the irradiating light of happiness. As their hands met he observed that her cheeks were glowing. Only her extreme slenderness and her cropped head told the story of recent illness.

"Oh, such news!" she cried, striving to repress her excitement. "Here, sit down," indicating a chair beside her own, "and Emily, you tell him." And as the little toy-maker took up the tale, Rachel looked into his face. But hardly had Emily opened her lips than she was silenced.

"No, no, I'll tell him myself. What do you think! I've heard from my Father! He has never seen me, I have never seen him, but suddenly he sends some money." Here Rachel's eyes shot a question—or again, did he imagine it?

"But you haven't exactly heard from him," Emily Short interrupted; "you don't know anything positively."

At these words, to Simon's relief, Rachel turned from him. "But I tell you I do know something positively, and that's enough," with a gesture of pride, "if I never hear anything more. He sent this money to my mother. Do you suppose that explains nothing to me?"

All at once she was the incarnation of tenderness and defiance. She had retained from childhood a picture of her father limned in the quaint language of old David. Now she in turn presented the portrait to these strangers. In the light of that mystical tribunal, buttressed so strongly by love and imagination, Thomas Beckett stood forth a figure vastly human, passionate and compelling; and she defied them to judge him otherwise.

But all at once she ceased twisting the tassels which adorned her girdle and dropped her chin in the cup of her hand.

"Sometimes I feel that it was all owing to the sea," she continued; "had we lived further inland I believe Father wouldn't have left us. For the land is stationary, even the trees are tied to it by the foot; while the sea—every drop is free. It can dash and gnaw its way through the hardest substances. But man is not like the sea. He may hurl himself upon life, yes—" The sentence concluded in a sigh.

At the beginning of this agitated speech Simon had gazed at her with anxious curiosity; then he grew jealous of this father who drew her thoughts so far afield from all he knew or sympathized with. He began to congratulate her.

She did not heed him.

"So you can see how it came about, can't you?" and she looked first at him and then at Emily. "Restless, dissatisfied, tormented, that's what Father was. He asked something of life which life didn't give him, and when the new ship he had helped to build was finished, he simply sailed away in her."

This defence was painful to Simon, and Rachel all at once felt his attitude.

"See," she said in an altered voice, "all this gold; seven hundred dollars of it," and she indicated a box on the table. "It came from a place in Massachusetts. Read this," thrusting into his hand a card on which were printed the words:

"To Mrs. Lavina Beckett from her husband Thomas Beckett."

"And there was no letter of explanation? Do you mean to say that you have no clue as to who forwarded the money?" Simon asked the question because it seemed to be demanded of him. In reality he was not curious.

"Yes, we have a clue, but there was no letter except one which André Garins, my old school friend, said was written to the postmaster at Old Harbour by a man signing himself John Smith. This man asked if my mother was still living there, but the postmaster is new to the place, and doesn't know much about the people at the Point anyway; so he wrote back that Mother was dead and that André Garins at Pemoquod could probably give him information about the daughter, that is, about me."

"Yes; and just as soon as he gets this letter, that John Smith, or whatever his rightful name is, sends his box of gold post-haste to your friend, and directs on the outside that it be forwarded to you. I tell Rachel that the man, whoever he may be, isn't anxious to have her get in touch with him," added Emily, addressing herself to Simon. "It's my opinion he's keeping back part of the money her father gave him, and I think it's foolish for her to go and get all keyed up."

Simon was saved the necessity of answering.

"But why, if he's dishonest, did he send any money at all? But that's not the point," Rachel went on; "I shan't rest until I've been to that town in Massachusetts to see what I can learn about Father. Why do you both try to discourage me? Oh, you don't understand!" And suddenly the tears were streaming. She was too weak to combat them further.

Simon could not endure the sight of suffering; even the constant and to a degree superficial tragedies of the lower animals and insects tortured him; for that reason he never went near his father's room where flies, still living, impaled on pins, seemed appealing to him for the help he dared not give. Now his face twitched.

"But I assure you I do understand," he protested, "and I will either go myself and make the necessary investigation, or I will accompany you when you are sufficiently strong."

At these words she pressed his fingers warmly, though she shook her head: "No, I should prefer—I should rather go alone."

"Rachel!" he cried, and looked his pain.

"Or I will take Emily."

She rose and pausing beside the table turned over a gold piece; then she passed to a window where she stood.

"Grandfather always said that we should hear from Father sometime," she exulted, "and I've a feeling that he knows now" and she glanced round at them with a bright, almost crafty expression.

Simon drummed fingers on a knee. What effect would this wind-fall have on their relationship? That she intended to free herself from her financial obligation he gathered from the words he had chanced to overhear. But as their interests would soon be identical, why did she not ignore so small a matter? unless— He threw an examining, wretched look toward her and took her decision from the independent bearing of her pretty shoulders.

At this point his reflections were interrupted. Julia had just returned from an early round of the most fashionable shops. She came in, briskly ungloving her hands; then stood still. Rachel sprang toward her. The girl flushed, talked with her hands, laughed. At last she had no unenthusiastic listener. Unaccustomed to the sight of gold, Emily Short, ever since the opening of the box, had been fairly awed. To think that she had left it under the bed the night before, and that morning had conveyed it openly through the streets! Happiness at Rachel's good fortune surged high, none the less her impulse was to temper the other's excitement. Julia was wiser. She smothered Rachel in an embrace. Pushing up her veil she kissed her on both cheeks and even shed a few tears over her. At that moment, despite his dejection, Simon warmed to something like affection for his cousin.

After much argument Rachel was allowed to follow her own course. Accompanied by Emily Short she departed for the mill town from which John Smith had written. She spent a week in a vain search, then giving the matter into the hands of a local detective, she returned to New York.

Simon met the two women at the station. The greetings over, he possessed himself of Rachel's bag and led the way to a cab. She touched his arm.

"Not to Miss Burgdorf's—to Emily's, please."

Each paled. Her eyes as ever read right in.

When she was seated in the cab, she leaned forward: "And you will come this evening?"

He bowed, stiff as a ramrod, strained about the lips.

During the days of Rachel's absence his soul had been a field of conflict. He had written her letters only to destroy them. Why be so certain of her attitude? Women were inexplicable; he might be mistaken. He postponed the decision. Now he must release her; now when the issue was forced, when there was no semblance of generosity in the act. And he despaired of making her believe what he strove to make himself believe, as a last stay to self-respect, that the circumstance of her illness had alone delayed the step. The make-shift engagement had rested on her dire need of money, on his ability to supply it. Why blink the fact?

When the cab containing Rachel and her companion rolled away, he walked toward Fifth Avenue, without realizing what he was doing, stunned as if he had received a blow. For an hour he walked in a sort of stupour. Then he entered a cafe. As the blood circulated sluggishly in his veins, he had fallen into the habit of drinking moderate but constantly repeated quantities of liquor; the stimulant was no more manifest through the pallor of his countenance than wine that is poured into an opaque vessel, but it seemed to quicken his faculties. Summoning an attendant, he gave an order. He remained in the cafe until evening.

When he entered Emily Short's room, Rachel stood near the table well in the light of the lamp. She greeted him with a touch of constraint. More than usual her eyes kept a watch on him. Her whole countenance announced subtly and triumphantly that she had it in her power to redeem her debt: then, perhaps he would release her! This thought seemed to flash even from her hands.

He looked swiftly at her hands. She was fingering a small packet of which his misery divined the nature. She had wrapped it in tissue paper. This girlish device to render the thing she planned to do less distressful, struck a blow at his heart.

"One word—listen to me!" he cried, keeping an agonized gaze on the packet, "I no longer wish—I realize that to unite your life with mine—I know the very thought is painful—"

Lifting his eyes, he saw an expression like a darting of light.

Conscious that he was not speaking as he had intended to speak, he drew his fingers through his hair. "You are free," he stammered, "it was never my intention to hold you to your promise. But it is impossible that you should comprehend my struggle—"

He broke off, striving for his usual calm, and this effort to place a mask over his anguish produced on her much the same effect as the concealing piece of paper had produced on him.

Caught in a tide of emotion, she extended a hand: "But I can—I do understand. Haven't you shown your feeling for me constantly? You have been kind—kind!"

He shook his head. "No, no," he muttered, "not kind; helpless. I tried more than once to release you; I beg you to believe this. But I loved you too much." His face expressed acute suffering; his lower lip trembling so that he could scarcely pronounce the words.

"Can you forgive me?"

No concealment now. A naked, humble, imploring, despairing soul looked from his eyes.

It was not in her to resist such an appeal. Her heart flamed with pity, pity that annihilated all selfish exultation. "There is nothing to forgive."

"But you do forgive me?" he insisted.

"I thank you—I thank you from the bottom of my soul."

Again he shook his head disowning his right to gratitude. His eyes once more watched what she held.

All at once, reading his look, the discrepancy between the nature of her indebtedness and the sordid return she had planned, struck her. She laid the packet on the table.

He looked up, questioningly.

So repugnant did the action she had contemplated now appear to her that she hung her head.

"I no longer wish to give it to you," she said in a stifled voice. "Grandfather's happiness, my own life—can money pay for such things?"

He took her by the hand.

It was some moments before he could regain command of himself. Then he said:

"I am always your friend, Rachel."

She nodded.

For some moments longer they stood, their hands joined. Presently he touched her forehead with his lips. "Good-bye."

She stood as he had left her, her bosom rising and falling softly and heavily, her eyes betraying all that was passing within her. Never did countenance more plainly announce a struggle. By this final act, he had erased from the scroll any charge against him of dishonour and selfishness. Her instinctive trust of him, persisting in the face of his weakness, was vindicated. The flame of her liking leapt higher. Open-lipped, open-eyed, open-eared, she listened to his retreating steps.

Momentarily the consciousness of her debt to him increased. She was allowing him to go—this man who had aided her in the blackest hour of her life; who loved her, who offered her all a man can offer a woman. She placed him high, herself low. She saw him noble, herself craven. To receive so much and to give nothing! It was contrary to her nature. But one return she could make! Above waves of confusion the thought flashed and flashed.

Was she capable of the sacrifice? Deeply she sounded her heart. Her life was empty, irretrievably, permanently empty and desolate, she told herself with the sureness of the tragic young. To what better use put its fruitless days? The idea assumed the brightness of a star above troubled deeps. She sprang to the door, calling.

He did not answer, though his step was still faintly distinguishable in the hall.

Bending over the well of the staircase, she repeated her call.

The footsteps halted: then from the darkness below she heard him ascending.

CHAPTER IX
RACHEL—SIMON

Her heroism was of the youthful, purblind, impetuous order. She had reasoned falsely and acted generously. But she was not one to sink wittingly to a lower level. Later, when she suspected the truth, she did not admit it to her own heart—least of all to her own heart. She was very glad of what she had done.

But she delayed the marriage; there were preparations to make. For no reason that anyone could fathom, she insisted on remaining in the Street of Masts. One concession she made: at Simon's urgent request she consented to retain Nora Gage. The two occupied the old rooms across the hallway from Emily Short.

The money received from her father was sufficient to supply Rachel's needs and even permitted the preparation of a simple wardrobe. Under Emily's supervision she planned and cut out and sewed feverishly for days together. Then abruptly she would abandon her needle. She bought books and endeavoured to teach herself French. She was never idle.

"You are overdoing," Simon remonstrated. "You will make yourself ill with these things."

She shook her head. Activity was good for her.

With the success of his suit, Simon had recovered poise. His manner was dignified and somewhat stiff. He spoke slowly and in a well-modulated voice. To the world he was as he had been formerly; but Rachel read deeper.

She knew that he desired to be gallant, even witty. And this effort to be all that she wished him to be touched her profoundly. Constantly he was bringing gifts. Offering them to her, he would watch her face to see if he had selected wisely. She perfectly understood this desire to offer something that would afford pleasure. Had she not experienced the same impulse? though she had not been able to gratify it. When she met Emil St. Ives in the cemetery at Old Harbour—how long ago it seemed now—instead of gifts she had been able to give him only an earnest, unswerving attention. This listening on the part of a girl to his long, often technical explanations, had he valued it, as she valued Simon's presents? But these reflections were checked by a prompt warning from within. Danger lay that way. Memory would prove a scourge if indulged and she did not want to feel.

Notwithstanding the approaching realization of what he had desired so long, Simon Hart still had moments when he suffered. The Street of Masts had always been an obnoxious quarter in his eyes, though for a short period, the fact that Rachel dwelt in it had somewhat modified its objectionable features. But that was before their engagement. Now the entire section stirred in him a positive repugnance. That she, his future wife, should elect to remain in a sordid setting when she might have been surrounded by every luxury, filled him with a dull sense of anger and chagrin. But he was unequal to the task of remonstrating. Whenever he thought of speaking strongly to her on the matter, timidity overcame him. Knowing what her feeling was for him, he shrank from the appearance of urging any claim. Julia Burgdorf by her attitude increased his discomfort.

Ever since Rachel's refusal to return to her house when she had expected her, Julia, with the childish pique of a woman accustomed to having every whim gratified, had washed her hands of her. Whenever she saw Simon she bantered him on the subject of his prolonged engagement.

"Is the happy day fixed yet?" she would cry, with eye and shoulder play. "No? Is it possible! The headstrong young person hesitates to renounce her freedom? Even the prospect of escaping life in an attic does not influence her? Extraordinary!"

Whenever he went to see Rachel, Simon was beset by the dread that he might meet one of his business acquaintances. What if by chance it became known that he intended to marry a young woman who lived on the lower East side? Things like that easily leaked out. Finally his sensitiveness increased to the point where he shrank even from the frank gaze of the children in the street, a gaze which singled him out because of his clothes, his gait, his strangeness to their world. More than all else he feared the curiosity of members of his own household. The maid who had admitted Rachel and her grandfather when they called at the house had left his service. When Rachel came there as his bride nothing of her history would be known to the servants. None the less he felt that Theresa Walker, his housekeeper, eyed him shrewdly. Not only this, he was convinced that she had communicated her suspicions to Peter, the coachman. Otherwise, why should Peter, who was old and stupid, wear such a significant look because he, Simon, failed to use the horses, as formerly, for a short time every evening?

However, though he suffered for the reasons just related, he was, on the whole, very tranquil. Nor was his engagement his only cause for satisfaction. He was about to bring out his book on gems. It was a voluminous work, weighty, carefully prepared, extensively illustrated. He awaited its appearance with eagerness. When the first copy arrived from the publisher he took it the same evening to Rachel.

She had had a trying day. Her modest preparations could not be indefinitely prolonged. Even Emily Short, who had been a most exacting and untiring assistant, acknowledged that three days would see the completion of the wardrobe. Rachel listened and acquiesced. Emotion, out of the depths of her, still sent up momentary, lurid flashes, but Reason smothered the flashes with impetuous arguments. Finally Reason hurled Honour and Duty, a combined extinguisher, on the flame. Though triumphant in her virtuous decision to give Simon the information he had awaited so patiently, she was in an exasperated mood when he arrived. Her mood demanded a tangible grievance and he found her with anger-crimsoned cheeks inspecting a dress.

"I ought never to have trusted it to that ignorant seamstress," she cried. "I ought to have given it to that woman whose address your cousin sent me. It's my own fault that it's ruined."

"But what's wrong with it?" he asked, taking a fold of the material between a thumb and finger.

She frowned. "Everything's wrong. It doesn't fit for one thing; and it's too long for another. But it doesn't matter. Let us talk no more about it." And seating herself beside the lamp, she took up a bit of hemstitching. She drew the needle through the dainty material, still, however, exhibiting strong signs of annoyance. Everything excited her now.

"Emily and I have accomplished a tremendous amount this week," she said by way of preface to her important announcement. "We're getting ahead finely."

"Ah, that's good," he said. "But remember not to overshoot the mark, Rachel; there'd be no wisdom in that. And now to prove that I've not been idle while you've been slaving with your pretty fingers, I have brought this. You know I told you that before long I hoped to be able to complete the work."

She did not at once comprehend to what he referred, but she saw that he wished to tell her something flattering to himself, and by means of questions she led him on.

With a smile, he drew the book from its wrappings.

Her needle-work slipped to the floor and she received the volume in both hands. "Oh, Simon!"

"Do you like it?"

"How handsome it is! And how fine these coloured plates are! Oh what it must mean to you to see this work at last in definite shape." For she suddenly appreciated all the joy that lay for him, the author, between those stiff new pages. The last vestige of her ill nature vanished and she looked up at him eagerly.

"And the indications are that it is going to be well received," he told her, with an air of satisfaction. "I've seen some of the advance notices. They could scarcely be more complimentary."

Like most women Rachel adored in a man power to achieve distinction. She counted it an additional proof of strength. She had been drawn to Emil partly because of his genius which had compelled her to look up. But thus far, though she appreciated his essential worth, she had not been successful in encouraging her imagination to dwell on Simon and invest him with uncommon attributes. A little shiver of excitement ran through her.

The consciousness of shining had called forth a look on Simon's face.

"The Courier says it's a work which is bound to attract attention, relating as it does all the old legends connected with gems, besides giving solid facts of their history."

She had no reason for thinking the book was not what he believed it to be, a work of merit, possibly of unique value. She nodded, so anxious to see him burnished, that she saw him burnished.

"Even the reviewer of the Messenger, usually cynical, speaks well of it."

"I am very, very glad." Her voice thrilled with gratification.

"I knew you would be," he returned feelingly. "This copy is for you."

She put out her hand.

He grasped it, folding it against his cheek. "You know how you can best thank me, don't you?" he said. He was not a lover to be inconsiderately treated by any woman. At the moment he was singularly handsome.

With her free hand she turned the pages of the book. An involuntary sigh lifted her breast.

"Can't you tell me to-night, Rachel?" he urged. "I've waited so long to know?"

She had let her head drop lower. In reality she was impatient that she still had to struggle with herself. At his last words she lifted her face. "I was going to tell you to-night," she said. "Will two weeks from Wednesday do?"

CHAPTER X
THE BIRD IN THE BOX

It was mid-winter, season of the early-lighted lamp. The mortal part of old David had lain in the grave for a twelvemonth. It was as if Heaven itself sought to do honour to his innocence. Contributing flake after flake of snow with the aid of that great artisan the wind, it had built up a gleaming monument to his memory.

But in the city the office of the angels was performed with greater difficulty. Patiently they flung a mantle of snow over the island. They spread it smoothly in the streets, festooned it over the arches of the bridges, tucked it cunningly away in the bell towers of the churches. They mounted to the tops of the tallest buildings, laying delicate ridges at the window ledges; stooped to the dingiest basement doorways, carpeting them with white. Constantly the mantle was displaced, shovelled aside, melted away; and the city, despite her glitter of lights, was revealed. About every chimney-pot appeared a circle of dampness, along every roof edge hung a row of tears; from end to end of the city was the sound of dull dripping. Manhattan, like a woman of pleasure, wept her sins, and the angels, the angels tried in vain to render her seemly in the eyes of the good God.

The clock on the Grand Central tower was hard on five when the train bearing Simon Hart and his bride drew in at the station. They were returning from their prolonged wedding journey. Rachel adjusted her veil. Though her lips were steady, her eyes were full of tears. Within the hour they had whirled past the cemetery where her grandfather was buried.

Simon assisted her from the train; then, with his heavy and dignified gait, he led the way through the waiting-room.

"I wired my man to meet us. Ah, there he is!" he exclaimed, as they reached the drifted pavement, and he expanded his chest with complacency.

Peter with difficulty brought the horses to the curb and Simon, after Rachel had taken her place in the carriage, climbed in himself. Then he thrust his head through the door and ordered the man to drive home, but Rachel plucked his sleeve.

"No, no," she coaxed, "tell him to drive to the shop first."

Simon, though he altered the direction, when he settled himself at her side, looked at her with a slightly mocking expression.

"I want to get that fiddle from Mr. Mudge," she explained. "In his last letter he said he'd found one and I want Nora to take it to André when she goes. She's starting for Old Harbour at once and will call for the fiddle as soon as I let her know we're here. Then, too," with a side glance, "I'm anxious, if you must know, to learn from Mr. Mudge how that heat-measurer turned out."

"That is, you wish to learn whether he has heard anything from your enterprising inventor?"

"Well yes," she admitted; and they both laughed.

A few days before their marriage, Simon had chanced to remark that an instrument for measuring heat in the furnace in which metals were melted would be an important acquisition to the manufacturing jeweller. Thereupon Rachel had begged him to submit the problem to Emil St. Ives. To please her he had carried out her wish. Bearing a note from her to the inventor (a note in which she incidentally announced her matrimonial plans) Simon had sought out Emil whom he located readily through the lithographing firm of Just and Lawless. Emil without hesitation had promised the instrument within a week. Now three months had elapsed without a word from him and at any mention of the subject, Simon was wont to adopt a tone of raillery.

"Better give up your expectations along that line, my dear," he advised now; "that instrument will never materialize; St. Ives, judging by his look, is no more to be depended upon than the wild man from Borneo. Besides, if we stop at the shop, we'll miss the overture of the opera, and in Faust the overture is a consideration. Can't you restrain your eagerness until morning?"

But Rachel was not to be swayed: "Tell the man to drive faster."

Since her marriage her restlessness had disappeared; she was calmer, happier, and whenever she looked at her husband, whenever she surprised in his eyes an expression of doubt and longing, affection rose in her heart. The fact that he did not seek to interfere with her strange friendships filled her with gratitude.

The carriage stopped before the jewellery establishment and the door was opened to them by a boy in uniform. In the shop the electric bulbs were shedding a soft radiance on the glass cases filled with gems. Rachel had been there several times, but this was her first visit since her marriage. Now she experienced a thrill of pleasure as she gazed about her with the curiosity that animates a woman in such a place. The quiet and subdued elegance of the accessories charmed her, and she cast a glance at her husband. The star sapphires, the black opals, the diamonds, arranged on squares of black velvet, lent him something of their own lustre.

A clerk took the news of their arrival to Victor Mudge and a moment later they were ushered into the workshop in the rear of the elaborate showrooms. Here were machines for drilling holes through pearls, a sink for washing the finished jewellery, a little forge where gold was melted in crucibles. All the workmen had gone home except Victor who often remained until late. Now he hobbled forward with a string of seed pearls and a needle in his hands.

One of Victor's legs was shorter than the other by reason of a fall, and as he walked he swayed like a little dry tree creaking in a breeze; one felt he had no leaves. He was secretly well-pleased by his employer's marriage, but it was a peculiarity of his seldom to address him and to observe toward him a critical manner. Now, after greeting the couple, he looked at Rachel exclusively.

The old goldsmith, besides being something of a musician was an excellent judge of a violin, and at Simon's request he had obtained for Rachel the instrument she wished to give André.

"It's not just what I wanted," he explained, "but neither is it bad." And thereupon he drew the bow across the violin.

"Oh, how well you play!" she murmured, and then fell silent. She regretted that she had withheld from André news of her marriage; she should have told him at once. Now she planned to send him the violin as a sign of her unalterable affection. When Victor handed the instrument to Simon she aroused herself.

"And how is the pyrometer coming on, Mr. Mudge?" she demanded with animation. "Have you heard anything yet from Mr. St. Ives?"

Victor shrugging his shoulders, once more took into his fingers the string of seed pearls and the needle. "He was in here about a week ago and left a drawing; and yesterday I received a letter from him saying he'd be in this evening to test something at the furnace. I'm waiting his pleasure now."

Rachel suddenly laughed.

When she and Simon left the shop, when they were once more in the carriage, she leaned to him impulsively and pressed her lips to his cheek.

That evening she heard her first opera. In order to justify Simon's pride in her and also to gratify her own innate sense of coquetry, she had arrayed herself to great advantage. Whence came this knowledge of the requirements of her new position, whence the pretty dignity of her bearing? Perhaps from her Canadian great-grandfather and his English wife; or this manner of hers may have been a free gift of the gods.

Excited by the strains of music that ascended from the orchestra, she deepened and increased in beauty and in the immediate neighbourhood of her husband's box became the centre of attention. But of this she was only imperfectly aware. If, by chance, she did intercept an admiring glance, she took it as a tribute to her dress of white satin, cunningly embroidered in a design of gold flowers, to her coiffure, her fan, her bouquet, to everything and anything but her own youthful countenance to which the force of her emotions was adding an indefinable attraction. She made a charming picture; her eyes half hidden by their lashes; her face, her shoulders, even her round arms and her hands radiant with a childlike happiness like sunshine.

Julia Burgdorf, who sat beside her, turning her head, looked at the girl with a half-curious, half-wistful smile in her magnificent eyes; while a man who was leaning on the back of her chair, an architect with a pointed beard and ridiculously small hands and feet, watched Rachel far more than he watched the stage. Simon Hart alone of those near her, seemed unaware of her triumph. Holding his opera glass in his gloved hands, he stared straight ahead of him with his weary, unreadable gaze; and whenever his young wife addressed a word to him, he leaned toward her sidewise without turning his head.

On the stage Farrar, as Marguerite, had just appeared at the window of her cottage after her farewell to Faust. Then as the light faded rapidly over the canvas trees, the spinning-wheel, the garden seat,—Faust in doublet and cloak, with a long feather in his cap, approached the casement, and there followed the poetic and sensuous fever of the inimitable duet, in which two voices, a man's and a woman's, sigh together those phrases of adoration, rapture supplication, of surprise, terror, yielding. When finally Marguerite's blond head sank on Faust's shoulder, the breath of their kiss seemed to pass over the entire house.

Rachel's hand, incased in its long glove, closed nervously on the edge of the box. She wore a look of troubled amazement; presently she began plucking at the flowers of her bouquet. After the "garden" scene, however, ashamed of her emotion and desiring to escape it, she ceased following closely what went on upon the stage and gave herself up to inspecting the audience.

The sight of the jewels on the heads and breasts of some ladies near her, chained her shy glances. She remembered Victor Mudge and the scene before the glowing forge. It was his cunning workmanship and the workmanship of others like him that made such marvels possible. And she rejoiced in the thought that her husband had an intimate knowledge of such treasures and had even written a book about them.

A sense of that which is artificial in life was diffused everywhere, and by and by, in that atmosphere of unreality she grew calmer. But when at the conclusion of the performance, she found herself emerging from the crowded auditorium, a part of a variegated stream of jewelled heads, bare shoulders and black coats, she was conscious once more that the irresistible mystery of the music had kindled in her nerves a poetic fever. Suddenly she experienced a fresh impulse of affection for Simon. "I owe all this to him," she thought; and from under the hood of her opera cloak she glanced at his pale profile as he guided her through the richly-dressed crowd.

In the foyer she discovered that she had dropped a little gold pin from her hair and Simon retraced his steps to search for it. They had parted some moments before from Julia Burgdorf and her companion. Now Rachel strove to remain where Simon had left her inside the great doors, but the surge of the crowd rendered this impossible. Jostled and carried forward by the moving throng, she presently found herself outside where the confusion was even greater.

From the sky the snow still drifted imperturbably. It glistened on the shining backs of the horses, on the black tops of the carriages, on the oilskin coats of the drivers, as, with a flourish of whips, they brought their carriages opposite the brilliantly-lighted entrance and received their precious loads.

Constantly the mellow stillness of the snowy night was disturbed by the ringing voices of the porters as they cried out the numbers of the carriages: "Two hundred and thirty-three!" "Three hundred and forty-eight!" (The voices were urgent, brutal, quarrelsome.) "Four hundred and forty-five!" All at once Rachel was startled by the call: "Mr. Hart's carriage!" And simultaneously a tall figure approached her. Lifting a cap from his rough locks the man looked closely into her face.

There was snow in his beard, on his hair, on his shoulders. He was smiling in a questioning fashion, and in his eyes, beneath their overhanging brows, was an inconceivable life and vitality.

A look of joy flashed into Rachel's face and she extended a hand which he took in both his. For a space, overwhelmed as two children, they could do nothing but look each at the other.

Then the harsh cry of a porter broke the spell. "Here, drive on, you," he cried angrily to the Harts' coachman.

But Emil St. Ives raised his voice. "Wait a moment!" he called out; then to Rachel,—"I'll keep a lookout for Mr. Hart;" and offering her his arm he conducted her to the carriage.

When she had taken her place in it, the coachman left the line of waiting vehicles and drove a few paces down the street. Emil followed. As he approached, Rachel succeeded in letting down the glass of the carriage door. She leaned with both arms on the ledge. Her cheeks showed a heightened colour, and her lips, parting in smiles, displayed her little teeth.

"I never expected—" she began unsteadily, "I didn't know that you cared for the opera."

Emil looked at her boldly and joyously, though at the same time with a hint of submission in his eyes. He had waited for her to speak, and at her words he drew a deep breath.

"The opera?" he repeated a little hoarsely. Then he shrugged his shoulders. "That old fellow in your—your husband's establishment, Mr. Mudge, told me that you were to be here to-night, and when I found after testing the heat-measuring device that it worked all right, I thought I'd just stroll round here."

"Then you have been successful?"

He smiled with a touch of the egotism she remembered. "You must see it to judge. You will come and see it?" he demanded quickly.

She looked at him for some time without replying; she could not keep the delight out of her eyes. Suddenly she plucked her gaze away. "There's my husband; he doesn't see us. Signal to him, please," she cried.

When Simon Hart saw Emil St. Ives standing in the snow beside his wife's carriage, he approached, looking straight at Rachel. At Emil he scarcely glanced, though when the inventor opened the carriage door for him, he thanked him with a slight inclination of the head. When he was seated, Rachel put a hand on his arm.

"Simon, you know Mr. St. Ives, I believe?" she said. Her voice was unusually soft and she had gone a little pale. "He has come to tell us that the heat-measurer—the pyrometer, I should say," she corrected herself, "works perfectly."

"Ah it works, does it?" Simon repeated, and he looked coldly at Emil St. Ives. "I'm delighted to hear it," he added after a moment. "But I'll see you to-morrow at the factory and will talk over the matter then."

Rachel leaned in front of her husband impulsively. "I'll come too," she said, "for I'm going to claim half the credit of the invention. And then," she went on, "I want to hear all about your other work—everything. You know I met your wife one day. Please remember me to her," she called as the horses started.

"Well I found your pin," Simon said to her, and he handed her the tiny jewelled ornament.

"I'm glad of that;" then, while she replaced it in her hair, "why didn't you show more interest in that heat-measuring instrument?" she asked, looking at him from under her raised arms.

"Why his coming to notify us of the fact that he has succeeded with the device—if you'll excuse my saying so," with an ironical smile, "struck me as lacking in dignity, as a childish action, in fact."

"Of course it was childish," she cried, "but he's an inventor. And just think how hard he's worked to please you," she continued. "He's been weeks and weeks and rejected ever so many attempts; and when he told you—you were so lukewarm. 'I'll see you at the factory to-morrow'—that's what you said to him, just as if he were a little boy to be pushed aside. It wasn't kind of you," she finished.

A shadow passed over Simon Hart's face. "I think you exaggerate," he began, speaking in the slow distinct manner that was habitual with him. "However," he continued, "I'll endeavour to make up for my lukewarmness to-morrow." He tried to pronounce the word in a jesting tone, but his whole aspect was serious. In a moment he leaned forward and taking one of her reluctant hands, breathing heavily, he held it against his lips.

The principal gift which he had intended for Rachel, he had ordered from Geneva, and it had arrived during their absence on the wedding journey. Now immediately on reaching the house, without giving her time to lay aside her wraps and stopping only to remove his own fur coat, he conducted her through the sombre hallway to the more lugubrious drawing-room.

"There, my dear," he said, pointing to a small object on the table, "that is for you." For he was anxious to bestow the gift as a peace-offering.

Rachel approached the table, which was constructed of solid mahogany in a heavy ugly pattern, and took the leather case in her hands.

"Open it, my love," he urged.

She sank down in a chair and opened the case.

It contained a Swiss watch set in the front of a small onyx box ornamented with garlands of wrought gold. Anything frailer, daintier, more coquettish than this little time-piece, fit property for a princess it would be difficult to imagine. It was a triumph of frivolity, a little bit of elegance in inlaid work and jewels. For wind the charming plaything and immediately, from beneath a gold shell on the cover, up sprang a tiny, buoyant bird, with ruby eyes and mother-of-pearl bill. Turning this way and that with flutterings of its variegated plumage, it trilled forth a song,—silver, clear, crystalline.

Grasping Simon's hand, Rachel dropped her head on his arm. And for some reason she clung to him vehemently and he felt that her whole body was trembling.

Congratulating himself that their reconciliation was complete, he caressed her hair. "It's a Swiss novelty," he explained when she looked up.

He had been leaning over the back of her chair, now he straightened his shoulders and took the morocco case in his hands.

"I used to know this Gellaine of Geneva," he marked. "He is one of the cleverest watchmakers in the world. And now, my dear," he added, "if you'll excuse me, I'll go and prepare myself a toddy; those boxes are such draughty places."

As he moved to the door Rachel followed him with a glance which seemed to beseech him not to leave her. Then, when the door had closed on him, as if she would rid herself of some importunate thought, she examined the little timepiece. The bird had disappeared from view beneath the golden shell. Turning the key twice she replaced the box on the table, and leaning on her elbows, stared at it. But her sight was turned inward.

The unexpected meeting with Emil had plunged her once more into chaos. One glance of his eyes and the curtains of her mind rolled upward. One intense, burning pressure of his hand laid to hers, and she knew life again in its fulness.

Like a lost thing, from out a prison-house, her soul reviewed its past. Across the deep, tragic abyss that yawned between Then and Now, she saw Emil as in the old blissful time at Pemoquod Point. In the effulgence of his courage, his ardour, his genius, he had been the sun and the light of her world. Her heart had called him "Master." And she had matched him for bravery as steel matches steel that has been tempered by the same heat in the forming.

"Together!" her heart had sung, pointing its flight to the farthest star of bliss.

And now.

She leaned forward, her head sunk between her outspread fingers, her gaze riveted on Simon's gift. Intently she watched the wee songster and listened to its tinkling song.

"The—bird—in—the—box!" She said the words slowly. Then repeated them; "The bird in the box!"

She lifted clenched hands to her throat.

Suddenly, as if crushed by something she had tried to evade, she put her head down on her arms.

Outside the snow continued to fall. It fell steadily, monotonously, as if seeking to cover with a white mantle something it were better to hide.

BOOK III

CHAPTER I
THE HOUSE IN WASHINGTON SQUARE

A rainy night was followed by a rainy morning. Between the looped curtains of the alcove window the ground of the square could be seen soggy and wet. The marble of Washington Arch showed dark streaks of moisture. Rachel leaned an arm on the dining room mantel. The housekeeper had been complaining of a litter of kittens in the basement which she could get no one to destroy.

"Bring them in here, Theresa," Rachel ordered peremptorily; then with a sigh she cast herself in a chair.

The woman disappeared but presently returned bearing in her hands a basket containing three white and grey kittens. The mother cat, a handsome sleek animal with a plume-like tail and round golden eyes, followed at her heels, alternately mewing anxiously and purring contentedly.

"I didn't know that you were fond of cats, ma'am," murmured the housekeeper in an ingratiating tone. "I suppose they are all well enough for those who likes 'em."

Before proceeding to study the kittens, Rachel drew a small flask from the pocket of her morning-gown. "If there isn't any more whiskey in the house, Theresa, send out before breakfast and get some at the nearest drugstore. Then refill this and take it up to Mr. Hart," she added without looking at the other.

The housekeeper, a tall angular woman—whose flat bust and prominent shoulder-blades suggested the awful idea that her head was put on the wrong way—paused on the threshold. The bosom of her gown bristled with needles and bits of embroidery cotton clung to her black silk apron. In spite of her unattractive person there was something smart and pretentious about Theresa. She carried her head, covered with its glossy hair, as if it were decorated with an aigrette.

"Shall I take up his breakfast at the same time?" she asked, and lifted eyes of innocence.

"Mr. Hart will come downstairs for breakfast," Rachel answered shortly; then, sinking on the rug, she began fondling the kittens.

She lifted them out of the basket one at a time, and holding them at a distance, looked at their faces, which, three-cornered and mottled light and dark, suggested pansies; at their paws, soft as velvet and harmless as yet; at their short frisky tails and little red mouths which they opened wide as they mewed straight at her. During this pretty play the mother cat sat by the fender and washed her face. But presently, at an especially distressed mew, she crossed the room and laid a remonstrative paw on Rachel's arm. But the girl held the kitten still higher so that the cat was obliged to rear herself on her hind feet in order to reach it. At that instant Simon Hart entered the room.

"Isn't that rather cruel of you?" he asked, stooping to pat the cat that arched its back under his hand.

"Let her reach it then," Rachel answered.

After several trials, the mother cat succeeded in taking the kitten by the nape of its limp neck, and then hopped nimbly with it into the basket. Rachel looked at her gravely as she began rather roughly to lick the kittens with her little scarlet tongue, covered with tiny cones.

Simon extended his hand, but Rachel made no move to rise. Instead, turning her head which she rested on her palm, she looked at him and across her face flitted a variety of emotions. He would have assisted her to her feet, but she would have none of him. Then another glance and her mood changed completely. Self-contained and enigmatic as he was on ordinary occasions, he showed now an embarrassment that struck to her heart. She put up her hands, and with a sudden violence of emotion, he lifted her in his arms.

A moment later, she had forced him to release her, and, pale and thoughtful, she left the room.

"We'll have breakfast in a moment," she said, reappearing. "I gave Theresa your flask; she is sending out," she added in a lower voice.

Already Simon had assumed his usual equivocal and aloof manner. At these words, he lowered his eyes.

"That was kind of you," he said, "I required merely a drop and I found what I needed. My cold," he continued, "is no worse; on the contrary, I shall go to the shop to-day."

Since the night of the opera, three weeks before, Simon had been confined to the house by his dread enemy, the influenza. During this illness he had consumed a great quantity of liquor. If he went without it for any number of hours, he showed the effect. That morning Rachel had been moved by his pale and wretched look.

During the meal he read to her part of a paper he expected to deliver before the Jewellers' Association. But she crumbled her bread, her thoughts wandering. As he was preparing to leave the house, she lingered about in his vicinity.

"Do you know," she ventured, following him to the door, "I'm not half satisfied with what you did about Mr. St. Ives?" and she gave him a direct, almost accusing glance.

"But I sent him a check, certainly liberal in the circumstances, since he is free to go on and manufacture—" Simon began, and he wrinkled his brow.

Rachel shrugged her shoulders in impatience. "You sent him a check; yes, you even advised him to go on and manufacture that instrument. But he isn't capable of making a practical move. Now if you'd shown any real interest—" She stayed her words, silenced by contrition.

After Simon had gone, she established herself with a bit of sewing in the dining room. It was the only room that did not weigh on her spirits. But she had discovered at once that this house, lonely, silent, forbidding, suited Simon as it was; therefore she had confined herself merely to refitting and converting into a sitting room an unused chamber on the second floor; and to making more comfortable the quarters of old Nicholas Hart. There her efforts had ended. An entire remodelling of the mansion would have been necessary to disperse the atmosphere of depression that, tangible as dampness, emanated from its walls.

It had sheltered in its time, apparently, a goodly number of soft-moving, mirthless people. Its inner doors of dark polished wood, never emitted a squeak; and the occasional sounds that penetrated the plaster of its ceilings, suggested a company of rats that went about their business in hushed, apologetic groups, instead of in scampering hordes. The house had never become reconciled to Simon's pianola, and when he seated himself before the instrument, as he did with conscientious regularity every day after dinner, Rachel often fancied that the house lifted shoulders of aversion.

And the legitimate inmates, she decided, were in keeping with the house. Simon and his housekeeper, Theresa Walker, could have desired nothing different in the way of a dwelling. As for old Nicholas and herself, not to mention the various maids who succeeded one another rapidly (for Theresa was difficult to suit in the matter of assistants) they were merely interlopers.

The housekeeper inspired Rachel with a kind of horror. She had somehow gleaned the knowledge that this woman, with her crafty smile but undeniable capacity for work, when well launched in middle life, had seized upon the idea of marrying her cousin, a certain Jeremiah Foggs, when the cousin's wife, a forlorn, feckless, half-witted creature, should die. As the wife was little more than a troublesome charge on Jeremiah's hands and he feared leaving her to herself in their village home, he always brought her with him on the occasions of his visits to Theresa. During the premature courting of the hard-grained pair, the poor daft thing sat by the cheek of the chimney with frightened eyes and a shaking chin. Rachel had a theory that with kind treatment, her wits might have returned. But no kindness was ever shown her; on the contrary, Jeremiah and Theresa waited impatiently for the creeping disease to make way with her. Meanwhile Theresa employed the time of waiting to good advantage.

Packed away in a chest in her room was a great quantity of hemstitched linen, doilies, spreads, embroidered curtains and what not. Indeed, it was a question whether Theresa's means of attraction did not repose solely in her needle; for these products of her skill, which she displayed on every visit of Jeremiah, certainly had a killing effect upon the fellow, with his bullet head. And Theresa, destitute of every feminine grace, gave herself airs on her handiwork as if it had been beauty of person and feature. They were a right curious pair; each with the same air of eager avidity, as if tormented by a keen desire to gain something, each with the same oily and ingratiating manner. Rachel detested Theresa even more than she had detested Nora Gage, and only consented to retain her because Simon seemed to desire it. In truth, Theresa worked in this house as smoothly and briskly as a shuttle in a well-oiled machine.

For a time Rachel pursued her work, but presently her interest flagged and she dressed herself for the street. She was of two minds. Instead of going out immediately she ascended to the top story to take a peep at Nicholas. At her suggestion the old man's workroom was now on the third floor and it was no longer necessary for him to descend a flight of steps to his chamber. Also, his meals were all served to him in his workroom. Without comprehending the cause of his greater comfort, the old fellow cherished a whimsical and flighty affection for Rachel; while Simon was humbly grateful to her for this interest in his erratic parent. Now the only time Nicholas was obliged to attempt the stairs was when he went for an airing. On certain days of the week, if the weather were fine, a man nurse appeared and conveyed him to the street and remained with him in the Square. From these excursions Nicholas never returned without some token for Rachel. Now it was a cornucopia of popcorn which he had bought from a vender; later, as the spring advanced and grass began to show along the paths, it was a cluster of leaves and buds; not infrequently it happened that he treasured up and presented to her particularly handsome specimens of insects mounted on pins.

If truth were told, little and lithe and still spry, this old reprobate, with his eagerness regarding the habits of the house-fly, his raptures and his rages, came nearer than any other person in the house to being keyed to the same pitch as Rachel herself. If rumour could be trusted, a number of discreditable experiences had made up Nicholas's life. He had gamed and drunk, driven fast horses, followed fast women. He had conducted one thriving business after another, and among them, the car shops that had employed old David. He had made fortunes with ease and lost them with equal facility. Now, in his last years, he was penniless and Simon was engaged in patiently paying the debts Nicholas had contracted; but for this, be it understood, he received scorn rather than gratitude.

As a result of his evil ways Nicholas, in the early years of his marriage, had broken his wife's heart. Her patience had annoyed him, and, had she shown more spirit, her fate might have been a happier one. As it was, she had slipped out of life, mown down with grief as grass is mown with the scythe. And Nicholas had made scant pretence of regretting her, just as he made scant pretence of approving his son. Simon had early betrayed a lack of zest for life—a trait his father could ill tolerate. Therefore, with taunts and gibes, he had made Simon's life miserable through boyhood and early manhood. At first, it may be, he thought by this method to kindle some spirit in the lad, but failing to strike a spark—for Simon remained through all pale and silent, a human riddle to the father,—Nicholas had continued his jeers for sheer malicious joy in the practice. Even now his wit kindled at the thought of Simon, and sure of an appreciative listener, he would make clever satirical remarks about him to his niece, Julia Burgdorf, whenever she put in an appearance. And Julia would match these sallies. To this joking Rachel, in a storm of anger, had endeavoured to put a stop. Now when the pair exchanged their witticisms, it was out of her hearing.

Though this old man bore not the slightest resemblance to old David, his age and animation endeared him to Rachel. Then he had once helped her grandfather, a thing she never forgot.

Now his voice, which leaped constantly to a childish treble, reached her before she gained the stair's head. A stuttering of the words of his ditty, decided her to postpone her call. Owing to his excitable heart and his years, liquor was forbidden the old man. Resolving to take the housemaid sharply to task for giving Nicholas whiskey, Rachel descended the stairs. Through delicacy she never spoke to Simon of his own or his father's failing. When moved to disapproval of her husband, as she had been that morning, her only reproach was a look. A childhood passed among fishermen had taught her tolerance for this particular weakness.

When Simon returned at lunch time, she was nowhere about and he was forced to sit down to the table without her. But she entered before he had finished the first course, and taking her place opposite him, began slowly unfastening her jacket. Wishing to please her, he launched into a description of St. Ives's pyrometer.

"We melt up different alloys to get the different colour effects," he concluded, "and the colour and intensity of the light bear certain definite relations—"

Rachel opened her eyes: "Then it's a success, is it?"

Simon avoided her gaze. "Why yes, certainly. In fact," he added, "it's a very ingenious device. A trifling thing, you understand; but it is an instrument for which there is a definite need, and for that reason I should judge he might possibly be able to do something with it."